Tag Archives: Propaganda

Left and Right Unite Against Speech! by David Cole

Posted on October 2, 2019 | Leave a comment

Everybody is courageously for free speech as long as they agree with it. From David Cole at takimag.com:

I don’t like being wrong. But every now and then, I find myself ashamed to be right.

Last month I made a prediction. There was a movie being distributed by Universal called The Hunt, and right-wingers were up in arms because they thought the movie “glorified” the murder of rightists. Such a movie is dangerous! It could inspire real-life violence, they wailed as they hiked their skirts and jumped on chairs like women in an Edison Kinetoscope.

The screaming meemies were, of course, wrong. The film was actually a pro-“deplorables” actioner featuring cartoonishly villainous leftists. But Universal bowed to the right-wing mob and pulled the film, and the red-state retards rejoiced in having killed one of the few movies in recent history with a plotline that actually favored them.

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Twitter Suspends Accounts For Propaganda, Has Literal Propagandist As High-Level Executive, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on October 2, 2019 | 1 comment

Let’s just have the US and UK governments jointly nationalize Twitter at a handsome premium to its current stock price, make it a propaganda agency, and be done with it. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

Middle East Eye‘s Ian Cobain has published an exclusive titled “Twitter executive for Middle East is British Army ‘psyops’ soldier”, exposing the fact that Twitter’s senior editorial executive for Europe, the Middle East and Africa also works for an actual, literal propaganda unit in the British military called the 77th Brigade. Which is mighty interesting, considering the fact that Twitter constantly suspends accounts from non-empire-aligned nations based on the allegation that they are engaging in propaganda.

“The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit,” Cobain writes. “Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company’s UK office six years ago, has for several years also served with the 77th Brigade, a unit formed in 2015 in order to develop ‘non-lethal’ ways of waging war. The 77th Brigade uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as podcasts, data analysis and audience research to wage what the head of the UK military, General Nick Carter, describes as ‘information warfare’.”

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Posted in Government, Horseshit, Media, Politics

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How To Defeat The Empire, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on September 16, 2019 | Leave a comment

Defeating the empire is not going to be as hard as people think. From Caitlin Johnstone at ronpaulinstitute.org:

One of the biggest and most consistent challenges of my young career so far has been finding ways to talk about solutions to our predicament in a way that people will truly hear. I talk about these solutions constantly, and some readers definitely get it, but others will see me going on and on about a grassroots revolution against the establishment narrative control machine and then say “Okay, but what do we do?” or “You talk about problems but never offer any solutions!”

Part of the difficulty is that I don’t talk much about the old attempts at solutions we’ve already tried that people have been conditioned to listen for. I don’t endorse politicians, I don’t advocate starting a new political party, I don’t support violent revolution, I don’t say that capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction and the proletariat will inevitably rise up against the bourgeoisie, and in general I don’t put much stock in the idea that our political systems are in and of themselves sufficient for addressing our biggest problems in any meaningful way.

What I do advocate, over and over and over again in as many different waysas I can come up with, is a decentralized guerrilla psywar against the institutions which enable the powerful to manipulate the way ordinary people think, act and vote.

I talk about narrative and propaganda all the time because they are the root of all our problems. As long as the plutocrat-controlled media are able to manufacture consent for the status quo upon which those plutocrats built their respective empires, there will never be the possibility of a successful revolution. People will never rebel against a system while they’re being successfully propagandized not to. It will never, ever happen.

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You Are Fighting In The Most Important Battle Of All Time, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on June 25, 2019 | Leave a comment

There comes a day when some people realize that most of what floats around out there is pure bullshit, and that starts their search for truth. Fortunately, that group is steadily growing. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

If you are reading this, it’s most likely the result of a series of events in your life which have drawn your interest and attention to the fact that our world is quite a bit different from what we’ve been told by our school teachers, by the news media, by Hollywood, and by politicians.

At some point, for whatever reason, you’ve come to realize that the consensus narratives in our society about what’s going on are false. The tools that people are taught to use to inform themselves about their government, their nation and their world are not just full of inaccuracies, but deliberate distortions, ranging from the reasons we’re given for why wars are started, to the way our political systems work, to where real power and authority actually lies, to the way nations and governments actually behave in the world.

This awareness has come with a degree of alienation. Not buying into the same consensus narratives about the world as your friends, loved ones and peers comes with an inability to relate to them on some levels, which can cause you to feel a lack of intimacy in those areas. You may have also found yourself the odd one out in conversations about politics or other controversial issues, maybe even lost old friends over it.

But you kept going anyway. For some of us, it’s more important to be true to the truth than it is to fit in. You’re one of those people.

So, I just want to say thank you. Sincerely. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’m on-my-knees grateful to anyone who sets about untangling themselves and their species from the deceitful narratives which pervade our society. It is the most important battle that can possibly be fought. The most important battle that has ever been fought.

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Narrative Management = Reality Management, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on June 18, 2019 | Leave a comment

Dictate what people think and you can usually dictate how they act. From Caitlin Johnstone at medium.com:

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal has published the first part of an investigative series on how so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are being used to manipulate the narrative about what’s going on in Syria by posing as impartial investigative bodies and circulating pro-imperialist disinformation to the western political/media class as objective fact. Part one is titled “Behind the Syrian Network for Human Rights: How an opposition front group became Western media’s go-to monitor”, and it documents a mountain of evidence that one of these “NGOs” is in fact very much state-funded and highly biased in favor of anti-Assad forces, yet still gets cited as an independent source by western mass media outlets in a way that just so happens to help make the case for western interventionism in Syria.

“Citing the Syrian Network for Human Rights as an independent and credible source is the journalistic equivalent of sourcing statistics on head trauma to a research front created by the National Football League, or turning to tobacco industry lobbyists for information on the connection between smoking and lung cancer. And yet this has been standard practice among correspondents covering the Syrian conflict,” Blumenthal writes. “Indeed, Western press has engaged for years in an insidious sleight of hand, basing reams of shock journalism around claims by a single, highly suspect source that is deeply embedded within the Syrian opposition — and hoped that no one would notice.”

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Governments, History, Media

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From Dollar Hegemony to Global Warming: Globalization, Glyphosate and Doctrines of Consent, by Colin Todhunter

Posted on June 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

Get people to focus on your made-up issues and they’ll not notice that you’re robbing them blind of both their money and their freedom. From Colin Todhunter at counterpunch.org:

There has been an on-going tectonic shift in the West since the abandonment of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971. This accelerated when the USSR ended and has resulted in the ‘neoliberal globalization’ we see today.

At the same time, there has been an unprecedented campaign to re-engineer social consensus in the West. Part of this strategy, involves getting populations in Western countries to fixate on ‘global warming’, ‘gender equity’ and ‘anti-racism’: by focusing on identity politics and climate change, the devastating effects and injustices brought about by globalized capitalism and associated militarism largely remain unchallenged by the masses and stay firmly in the background.

This is the argument presented by Denis Rancourt, researcher at Ontario Civil Liberties Association, in a new report. Rancourt is a former full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada and author of ‘Geo-economics andgeo-politics drive successive eras of predatory globalization and socialengineering: Historical emergence of climate change, gender equity, andanti-racism as state doctrines’ (April 2019).

In the report, Rancourt references Michael Hudson’s 1972 book ‘Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire’ to help explain the key role of maintaining dollar hegemony and the importance of the petrodollar to US global dominance. Aside from the significance of oil, Rancourt argues that the US has an existential interest to ensure that opioid drugs are traded in US dollars, another major global commodity. This explains the US occupation of Afghanistan. He also pinpoints the importance of US agribusiness and the arms industry in helping to secure US geostrategic goals.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Cronyism, Currencies, Governments, Imperialism, Media, Politics, race relations

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Propaganda Is The Root Of All Our Problems, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on June 14, 2019 | Leave a comment

Above all, governments must control the flow of information, and anything that threatens that control must be eliminated. From Caitlin Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com:

A new article by Forbes reports that the CEO of Crowdstrike, the extremely shady cybersecurity corporation which was foundational in the construction of the official CIA/CNN Russian hacking narrative, is now a billionaire.

George Kurtz ascended to the billionaire rankings on the back of soaring stocks immediately after the company went public, carried no doubt on the winds of the international fame it gained from its central protagonistic role in the most well-known hacking news story of all time. A loyal servant of empire well-rewarded.

Never mind that US government insiders like Hillary Clinton had been prepping for escalations against Russia well in advance of the 2016 elections, and that their preexisting agendas to shove a geostrategic obstacle off the world stage benefitted from the hacking narrative as much as George Kurtz did.

Never mind that Crowdstrike is tied to the NATO narrative management firm known as the Atlantic Council, which receives funding from the US government, the EU, NATO, Gulf states and powerful international oligarchs. Never mind either that Crowdstrike was financed with a whopping $100 million from Google, which has had a cozy relationship with US intelligence agencies since its very inception.

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Posted in Crime, Cronyism, Government, Imperialism, Intelligence, Media, Politics

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Pentagon’s Phony Iran ‘Evidence’: New Rationale for US Intervention? by Gareth Porter

Posted on June 4, 2019 | Leave a comment

Is what the government doing regarding Iran a replay of what it did in 2003 regarding Iraq? From Gareth Porter at antiwar.com:

Efforts to blame Iran for acts of sabotage went nowhere – but this feels way too much like 2003 all over again

ast week a senior Pentagon official accused Iran of having sabotaged four oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman on May 12 and of firing a rocket into Baghdad’s Green Zone on May 19. Iran executed these events, he said, either directly or through regional “proxies.”

But instead of creating sensational headlines, the briefing by Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, the director of the Joint Staff, was a flop, because it was clear to reporters covering it that he could not cite a single fact to back it up.

The story got only the most cursory coverage in major news outlets, all of which buried Gilday’s accusation deep in stories about the announced deployment of 1,500 more U.S. troops to the Middle East. Relatively few readers would even have noticed Gilday’s inflammatory claims.

Nevertheless, the briefing raises a serious question whether National Security Adviser John Bolton intended to use the new accusation against Iran stoke a war crisis – much as Vice President Dick Cheney, in another era, used the argument that Iraq had purchased aluminum tubes for a covert nuclear weapons program to justify the invasion of Iraq. A careful examination of Gilday’s accusations make clear that they do not even claim to be based on any intelligence assessment.

Substituting syllogism for evidence

Gilday was apparently chosen to give a non-political patina and the authority of the US military to an accusation that clearly originated with Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a prepared statement, Gilday declared, “In the recent past, Iranian leaders have publicly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz. They have backed up those threats with actions, posturing their forces in an effort to intimidate the movement of international trade and global energy sources.”

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The One Way To Spot Vaccine Propaganda, by Bretigne Shaffer

Posted on February 20, 2019 | 2 comments

Government and the media try, on a variety of subjects, to make their stories true simply by endless repetition. That doesn’t make them true. From Britigne Shaffer at lewrockwell.com:

It’s that season again: Another outbreak of a benign childhood disease that only a couple of generations ago the vast majority of the US population contracted and recovered from, serendipitously occurring precisely at the time when legislators across the country are putting forward bills to strip parents of the right to choose whether or not to vaccinate their own children.

In this climate of interest-driven hysteria, it is important to be able to distinguish between reliable information on the issue, and misinformation. Here is one quick way to tell the difference:

Take a look at these three recent articles on the “crisis” of parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. Do you notice something they all have in common?

“Measles outbreak may spread to California from other states, doctors are warned”

“Measles outbreak fueled by anti-vaccination movement, infections disease expert says”

“Dangerous anti-vaccination myths ‘breeding’ on social media, report warns”

Leaving aside the frenzied headlines, what all three share is something common to the vast majority of mainstream articles about the vaccine controversy. You’d be forgiven for thinking that it is the obligatory recitation of some version of the “Wakefield catechism.” Here is one, from KTVQ:

“The mistaken belief in a connection can be traced back to 1998, when a doctor in the U.K. published a now discredited study claiming the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to autism. His research was found to be based on fraudulent data, the study was retracted, and the doctor lost his medical license.”

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Homo Credulus, by Joel Bowman

Posted on February 8, 2019 | 1 comment

Humanity will joyfully embrace almost everything, except the truth. From Joel Bowman at internationalman.com:

Man: He’ll go along with just about anything.

Given the right circumstances… a little programing… and enough time for it all to marinate in his soft, mammalian brain… there is almost nothing Homo Credulus will not learn to embrace.

Don’t believe us?

Take a look at the historical record; you’ll soon wonder how we ever got this far.

Sure, you’ll discover gizmos and flying contraptions… art and agriculture… music and mathematics. You’ll witness spectacular scientific breakthroughs, the number “0” and a man’s footprint on the moon. You’ll also find automobiles with so many cup holders, you won’t know where to holster your oversized 7/11 Big Gulp.

But you’ll also scratch you head. Perhaps you’ll even weep. And if you think hard enough, you’ll put a few things to serious question…

“Central banks?” “Modern democracy?” “The Rosie O’Donnell Show?”

How has mankind survived such atrocities? Self inflicted, no less! And why, moreover, does he rush so earnestly to repeat and replay his worst mistakes?

Don’t be too hard on yourself, Dear Reader. After all, repetition is nothing new…

You’ll recall that it was the Greeks who first gave the world democracy – from the Greek, dēmokratía, literally “Rule by ‘People’”. (And yes, it was those very same Greeks who put their own beloved Socrates to death… by a majority vote of 140-361.)

Today, democracy is a cherished tenet of “the West.” It is woven into the civic religion, sewn into the social fabric. Men march off eagerly to fight for it, to proselytize it … and to die in forgotten ditches defending it.

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