Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ The most powerful empire that has ever existed, which is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and continuously works to destroy any nation who challenges its global dominion, claims that it is in a global power struggle against "authoritarianism".
According to Albert Speer's memoirs, one can conclude that the most dangerous individual in the Third Reich was Josef Goebbels, the propaganda minister. Sinister to a fault, Goebbels was an effective manipulator of Hitler, responsible for promoting numerous insane policies. Such history warns of the immense danger of propagandists in driving policy decisions that are assumed to be semi-rationally made by political leaders. But we never learn: humans are willingly irrational creatures whose history of continual brainwashing can be readily utilized to manufacture consent for the most vile actions. In the pantheon of war criminals, never forget that this group of liars occupies a preeminent position.
War is a propaganda Disneyland, where anything goes, as long as it stirs emotions.
The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 is a giant piece of legislation of which the general public has no idea that it knows it exists.
1947 saw the enactment of The Smith-Mundt Act, an anti propaganda law for Americans and their information sources. Post WWll, the people just wanted the wartime lies to stop, and they sorta did with Smith-Mundt, until O'bomber had the foresight to "modernize" journalistic input and pull the plug on open propaganda. They were lying before, but it was illegal for them to do that, until 2012.
US government pursues its reckless 'empire' goals and media-deepstate manufactures consent with bullshit about freedom while tech platforms play hypocrites and censor dissent. Etc. As it has been, so it continues to be. Marginalized journalists like Caitlin hammer away, pointing out the hypocrisy, exposing the lies, but...
... The protests over George Floyd brought MILLIONS out onto the streets. Demand for reform was made across America (and much of the neoliberal world). Then... The police got a little tougher, and everyone went home. Sleepy Joe Biden, the most egregious tough on crime lock-em-up candidate, gets elected. Year plus later, almost zero policy change over police brutality and militarized law enforcement funding across the country increased at record levels 2020/2021.
The whole kleptocracy scam is as plain as a Bulgarian pin-up. Quality of life for 99% is deteriorating year on year. Yet if anything there's less pushback from the public. Nobody's on the streets. Nobody's occupying anything. Nobody seems to remember what's happened long enough for it to impact their voting. X for Biden, X for Trump. Or across the Atlantic, X for Boris Johnson, X for Keir Starmer. It's the same duopoly fakeout. What's going to change this dynamic?
(In part, the problem is public disconnection [manufactured] and public figure disassociation [freely chosen]. It's risky for the latter to make braver choices.)
"The US empire is openly working to unite the planet under a single power structure which effectively functions as one government." True, but the globalists in control of the empire are failing, and they're becoming desperate. That's dangerous, because many of them are ignorant of (ie, they wilfully ignore) nuclear winter.
The biggest problem is not man's intellectual development, but the retarded emotional development that allows fear to override both man's intellectual skills and the softer emotions like empathic love. If something can be done, I must be the first, in order to preempt potential rivals from "stealing" what's "mine." As the Goldblum character said in Jurassic Park 30 years ago, the blink of an eye on the evolutionary scale, “...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nz8YrCC9X8
Well, I do have one quibble, the hub of the propaganda machine is based in NYC, if not also "Washington". Everyone in California is just carrying out orders that emanate from the East.
"I do believe we have the ability to make the jump from this awkward transition phase to become a truly conscious species. But it looks like if we make it, it's going to be by the skin of our omnivore teeth.”
I imagine that to function as a respected and aware writer like Caitlin, one has to have a positive expectation of the future….or why bother writing at all?
But for once, I question these sentiments. Let me add though, this is only because of the current climate generated by big business sanctions incorporating serious shortages of oil, gas and foodstuffs together with corrupt governments and there are so many of these, well engineered and managed pandemic diversions (likely to continue) and now, an engineered war that takes about one half of the headline space around the world, nightly.
For those things to change, even just one, we require a backdown. Unlikely. Did we see Bush backdown, kicked along by his Israelis trained Neocons, eventually killing 500,000 Iraqi children and probably four times that number of men and women? Where do we see the benefits going to in replacing the supply of grains, oil, heating gas and any number of products in short supply a seriously large market place like Europe in light of the sanctions imposed by the US.
Yes. We know that answer, don’t we. Already happening. Keeping 8o% of barley, 40% of wheat, really large quantities of heating gas and oil supplies and on and on to service multiple countries in Europe, until recently supplied from Europe (Russia and Ukraine alone) is not of economic benefit to the US master race. Hence a war. It’s the name of the game. Been going on since the 1950’s with slight variations. 20 million dead to date. More to come.
Finally, we now have a further expansion of US empire into the Asia Pacific region with the cooperation of servile countries like Australia and using “incentives" with little Pacific Islands to buy their way into the last sphere of US control. (1 Solomon Islands dollar worth US 12 cents). Easy.
Biden’s buddies at BlackRock could own the whole country for the price of a week’s supply of decent lunches …...and probably will.
The next battleground versus China. Australia’s backyard, whose subservience to Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden, allowed it all to happen.
Scott Ritter’s tweet – April 6, 2022 (he was immediately banned from Tweeter – soon reinstated without explanation). Scott courageously fought US bipartisan War party’s WMD fraud in Iraq.
“The Ukrainian National Police committed numerous crimes against humanity in Bucha. Biden, in seeking to shift blame for the Bucha murders to Russia, is guilty of aiding and abetting these crimes. Congratulations America…. We’ve created yet another Presidential war criminal !!”
-----------------------------------------------
@DefenceU -- regarding the Tochka-U fired at the train station:
Get the serial number of the missile off the debris. Provide a list of all Tochka-U’s in your inventory by serial number. Prove that missile was never in your inventory. But you can’t, because it was..
The idea that a no-fly zone over Ukraine imposed by the US might lead to WWIII because Russia could respond in no other way than going nuclear is a delusion. We are trained to believe the US has the most powerful conventional military in the galaxy, but the truth is something else. Russia has state of the electronic warfare, anti-satellite, and air defense, as well as an air force equal to what the US can put into the European theater. It is not at all unlikely that if the US tried to impose a no-fly one over Ukraine, it would be defeated. That's the truth we aren't allowed to hear, no doubt because of the shock it create that all that money spent on the US war machine mostly went into the deepest sinkhole of corruption in the already huge cesspool that is today's American and European governance.
"Washington DC is the hub of the imperial political machine, Virginia is the hub of the imperial war machine, California is the hub of the imperial propaganda machine."
Virginia, only if you pay attention to natural geographic boundaries, like major rivers. Technically, still part of Washington DC proper. But it doesn't have any housing of its own, thus Virginia is its bedroom community.
"Washington DC is the hub of the imperial political machine, Virginia is the hub of the imperial war machine, California is the hub of the imperial propaganda machine."
Virginia, only if you pay attention to natural geographic boundaries, like major rivers. Technically, still part of Washington DC proper. But it doesn't have any housing of its own, thus Virginia is its bedroom community.
*sigh* For most people most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the only people we can hope will have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Those who have lived in those countries where the "rule of law" is weak should have a light come on about now.
What this also means is that when we are presented with incontrovertible proof that the group narrative is wrong or that the group leaders are mad or charlatans or worse, rather than change leaders or change beliefs or change groups, most people, most of the time will instead double down. Witness the behavior of cultists.
The process is called "cognitive dissonance" and it is abundantly documented. As alluded to earlier, there are entire religions organized around the principle.
Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people. In fact, the intelligent are at least as prone, perhaps because they are better at rationalizing. In fact, much so-called "knowledge work" is basically learning symbol manipulation in order to rationalize something.
Keep in mind that if you follow the consensus, there are no consequences, at least not for the time being. But if you reject the consensus, then you will have to make some tough choices, and there are likely to be near-term personal and professional consequences, especially if you speak out. Even if you stay silent, you are likely to have a guilty conscience.
From that perspective, it's not surprising that most Americans prefer to emulate obedient citizens of the Third Reich. They won't necessarily go out of their way to root out dissenters, but it's a lot easier if you just accept what you are told to accept and rise for the Flag Salute.
According to Albert Speer's memoirs, one can conclude that the most dangerous individual in the Third Reich was Josef Goebbels, the propaganda minister. Sinister to a fault, Goebbels was an effective manipulator of Hitler, responsible for promoting numerous insane policies. Such history warns of the immense danger of propagandists in driving policy decisions that are assumed to be semi-rationally made by political leaders. But we never learn: humans are willingly irrational creatures whose history of continual brainwashing can be readily utilized to manufacture consent for the most vile actions. In the pantheon of war criminals, never forget that this group of liars occupies a preeminent position.
War is a propaganda Disneyland, where anything goes, as long as it stirs emotions.
The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 is a giant piece of legislation of which the general public has no idea that it knows it exists.
1947 saw the enactment of The Smith-Mundt Act, an anti propaganda law for Americans and their information sources. Post WWll, the people just wanted the wartime lies to stop, and they sorta did with Smith-Mundt, until O'bomber had the foresight to "modernize" journalistic input and pull the plug on open propaganda. They were lying before, but it was illegal for them to do that, until 2012.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/5736
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." And yet the sheep continue to believe every lie.
Native Americans had the Wisdom they were exterminated and sidelined.
Here's how the propaganda machine got the vaccinated to be hostile towards the unvaccinated.
https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/why-anger-towards-the-unvaccinated?s=w
Random thoughts here.
US government pursues its reckless 'empire' goals and media-deepstate manufactures consent with bullshit about freedom while tech platforms play hypocrites and censor dissent. Etc. As it has been, so it continues to be. Marginalized journalists like Caitlin hammer away, pointing out the hypocrisy, exposing the lies, but...
... The protests over George Floyd brought MILLIONS out onto the streets. Demand for reform was made across America (and much of the neoliberal world). Then... The police got a little tougher, and everyone went home. Sleepy Joe Biden, the most egregious tough on crime lock-em-up candidate, gets elected. Year plus later, almost zero policy change over police brutality and militarized law enforcement funding across the country increased at record levels 2020/2021.
The whole kleptocracy scam is as plain as a Bulgarian pin-up. Quality of life for 99% is deteriorating year on year. Yet if anything there's less pushback from the public. Nobody's on the streets. Nobody's occupying anything. Nobody seems to remember what's happened long enough for it to impact their voting. X for Biden, X for Trump. Or across the Atlantic, X for Boris Johnson, X for Keir Starmer. It's the same duopoly fakeout. What's going to change this dynamic?
(In part, the problem is public disconnection [manufactured] and public figure disassociation [freely chosen]. It's risky for the latter to make braver choices.)
"The US empire is openly working to unite the planet under a single power structure which effectively functions as one government." True, but the globalists in control of the empire are failing, and they're becoming desperate. That's dangerous, because many of them are ignorant of (ie, they wilfully ignore) nuclear winter.
The biggest problem is not man's intellectual development, but the retarded emotional development that allows fear to override both man's intellectual skills and the softer emotions like empathic love. If something can be done, I must be the first, in order to preempt potential rivals from "stealing" what's "mine." As the Goldblum character said in Jurassic Park 30 years ago, the blink of an eye on the evolutionary scale, “...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nz8YrCC9X8
Bravo Caitlin for putting it out there. It was inevitable that you would break through the concrete ceiling!
Well, I do have one quibble, the hub of the propaganda machine is based in NYC, if not also "Washington". Everyone in California is just carrying out orders that emanate from the East.
Caitlin today…..
"I do believe we have the ability to make the jump from this awkward transition phase to become a truly conscious species. But it looks like if we make it, it's going to be by the skin of our omnivore teeth.”
I imagine that to function as a respected and aware writer like Caitlin, one has to have a positive expectation of the future….or why bother writing at all?
But for once, I question these sentiments. Let me add though, this is only because of the current climate generated by big business sanctions incorporating serious shortages of oil, gas and foodstuffs together with corrupt governments and there are so many of these, well engineered and managed pandemic diversions (likely to continue) and now, an engineered war that takes about one half of the headline space around the world, nightly.
For those things to change, even just one, we require a backdown. Unlikely. Did we see Bush backdown, kicked along by his Israelis trained Neocons, eventually killing 500,000 Iraqi children and probably four times that number of men and women? Where do we see the benefits going to in replacing the supply of grains, oil, heating gas and any number of products in short supply a seriously large market place like Europe in light of the sanctions imposed by the US.
Yes. We know that answer, don’t we. Already happening. Keeping 8o% of barley, 40% of wheat, really large quantities of heating gas and oil supplies and on and on to service multiple countries in Europe, until recently supplied from Europe (Russia and Ukraine alone) is not of economic benefit to the US master race. Hence a war. It’s the name of the game. Been going on since the 1950’s with slight variations. 20 million dead to date. More to come.
Finally, we now have a further expansion of US empire into the Asia Pacific region with the cooperation of servile countries like Australia and using “incentives" with little Pacific Islands to buy their way into the last sphere of US control. (1 Solomon Islands dollar worth US 12 cents). Easy.
Biden’s buddies at BlackRock could own the whole country for the price of a week’s supply of decent lunches …...and probably will.
The next battleground versus China. Australia’s backyard, whose subservience to Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden, allowed it all to happen.
Interview w/Scott Ritter, April 6, 2022, By Don DeBar -- Bucha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfHohl6gCJY
------------------------------------------------
Scott Ritter’s tweet – April 6, 2022 (he was immediately banned from Tweeter – soon reinstated without explanation). Scott courageously fought US bipartisan War party’s WMD fraud in Iraq.
“The Ukrainian National Police committed numerous crimes against humanity in Bucha. Biden, in seeking to shift blame for the Bucha murders to Russia, is guilty of aiding and abetting these crimes. Congratulations America…. We’ve created yet another Presidential war criminal !!”
-----------------------------------------------
@DefenceU -- regarding the Tochka-U fired at the train station:
Get the serial number of the missile off the debris. Provide a list of all Tochka-U’s in your inventory by serial number. Prove that missile was never in your inventory. But you can’t, because it was..
GUILTY !! --- Scott Ritter tweet – April 8, 2022
The idea that a no-fly zone over Ukraine imposed by the US might lead to WWIII because Russia could respond in no other way than going nuclear is a delusion. We are trained to believe the US has the most powerful conventional military in the galaxy, but the truth is something else. Russia has state of the electronic warfare, anti-satellite, and air defense, as well as an air force equal to what the US can put into the European theater. It is not at all unlikely that if the US tried to impose a no-fly one over Ukraine, it would be defeated. That's the truth we aren't allowed to hear, no doubt because of the shock it create that all that money spent on the US war machine mostly went into the deepest sinkhole of corruption in the already huge cesspool that is today's American and European governance.
"Washington DC is the hub of the imperial political machine, Virginia is the hub of the imperial war machine, California is the hub of the imperial propaganda machine."
Virginia, only if you pay attention to natural geographic boundaries, like major rivers. Technically, still part of Washington DC proper. But it doesn't have any housing of its own, thus Virginia is its bedroom community.
"Washington DC is the hub of the imperial political machine, Virginia is the hub of the imperial war machine, California is the hub of the imperial propaganda machine."
Virginia, only if you pay attention to natural geographic boundaries, like major rivers. Technically, still part of Washington DC proper. But it doesn't have any housing of its own, thus Virginia is its bedroom community.
Scott Ritter and The Battle of the Donbas – April 11, 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5RKNoIhE40
Russian army is highly trained and professional. Mainstream media should stop repeating Nazi-Ukraine and US War party lies and propaganda.
*sigh* For most people most of the time, the fastest and surest way to wind up dead or seriously disadvantaged has been at the hands of our fellow humans. At the same time, "our group", whether by faith, family, tribe, regiment, whatever, are the only people we can hope will have our back.
Therefore, whatever else happens, whatever we have to do, believe absurdities, blindly follow barking insane leaders, parrot obvious lies to our detriment, do or suffer terrible things, but please whatever you do, please don't kick us out of the group!
Those who have lived in those countries where the "rule of law" is weak should have a light come on about now.
What this also means is that when we are presented with incontrovertible proof that the group narrative is wrong or that the group leaders are mad or charlatans or worse, rather than change leaders or change beliefs or change groups, most people, most of the time will instead double down. Witness the behavior of cultists.
The process is called "cognitive dissonance" and it is abundantly documented. As alluded to earlier, there are entire religions organized around the principle.
Cognitive dissonance is not limited to stupid people. In fact, the intelligent are at least as prone, perhaps because they are better at rationalizing. In fact, much so-called "knowledge work" is basically learning symbol manipulation in order to rationalize something.
Keep in mind that if you follow the consensus, there are no consequences, at least not for the time being. But if you reject the consensus, then you will have to make some tough choices, and there are likely to be near-term personal and professional consequences, especially if you speak out. Even if you stay silent, you are likely to have a guilty conscience.
From that perspective, it's not surprising that most Americans prefer to emulate obedient citizens of the Third Reich. They won't necessarily go out of their way to root out dissenters, but it's a lot easier if you just accept what you are told to accept and rise for the Flag Salute.