"It's incredible how much money the Americans can afford to blow just on exploding stuff overseas. Their healthcare system and infrastructure must be phenomenal."
The US can afford to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars over to Ukraine, but my insurance (Medicaid handled by a private insurer in this state) can't afford to cover a stress test. We must send more tanks and F-16s to a proxy war, but we certainly should never let heart patients have stress tests. It's too dangerous!
Most of those Trillions of dollars that were made from the Petro dollar never saw the light of Day when it came to the Peoples Government and needs. It was all stolen by the Federal Reserve, Pentagon, MIC, and the hundreds of Black Op Agencies that used them for Their Agendas. Americans still don't understand that - They don't own , nor have the patent to their Dollar - the Zionist Bankers do.
Don't forget to dutifully sign and date those tax checks though as trained. Or face the Inevitable death coupled to it by a clever little joke. (As is all mind control subliminally installed)
The sheep are still clinging to the mythology of the civil contract that's been broken a long time ago. Vote like it means something, to create the illusion of having any say so you won't revolt. Every tax dollar going to the MIC is your labor and blood sweat and tears going to blow the feet off children for USrAel
Taxes wouldn't be a problem if Americans weren't being screwed by serf level corporate wages, and an economy increasingly dominated not by competition but by monopolies, along with rapacious costs in health care and housing.
Taxes weren't a problem until the obscenely rich bought the US government beginning around the 1970s - and have every decade since, lowered the taxes for themselves and their feudal corporate holdings, while the Serfs - working class Americans have been taxed every which way from Sunday along with new fees.
The elephant in the room isn't government. The elephant in the room is wealth inequality and lack of an ethical society. Social Darwinism leads to the society we now have - where everyone is fucked except the obscenely rich.
Well said. Until Americans acknowledge that it's not just the puppet-politicians who need to go, but their billionaire masters/owner-operators, we'll never see any meaningful change. Billionaires shouldn't exist. It's that simple. And everyone should have access to #MedicareForAll
Agree. That's been the major diversionary tactic by the billionaires - make Americans blame all their problems on government - a government they themselves now corruptly run. It is true we now have catastrophic problems with the US government, but the lie is that it's government itself that's the problem, not the corruption of the government by obscenely wealthy interests.
Whenever I hear a discussion steered toward taxes, an immediate red flag comes up. Because there is almost never any discussion about how taxes have been lowered systematically on the rich for decades now, or even how, under both parties, there has been no fiscal responsibility. Ronald Reagan was one of the first presidents to have record deficits. It's the piece of propaganda the deficit is the problem, but the only way to fix it is to fuck all the social programs, while reducing taxes on the rich. And both political parties do it. It's a scam by the rich - it's class warfare wrapped in an ideology that only serves their insatiable sociopathic greed i.e. government is bad, the workers deserve what they get because we live in a meritocracy. The big lie we're all meant to believe.
Yep. It's amazing how the US government can continue to "print money" to pay for eternal wars for oil and resources, but when we need a tiny fraction of a percent of that huge military expenditure figure to cover social programs, it's just "too much to pay." Well, I for one am very tired of this shitty attitude that's not even based on the real economics of the situation as you've pointed out. Billionaires don't pay hardly a dime in taxes and are NOT "job creators", but instead they are the worst polluters on the planet. (Read my Substack piece on "The Average Billionaire".) The US government should shut down the war machine, tax the billionaires until they squeak, support the working classes, and practice what they preach when they say they're all about "freedom and democracy." If so, that would include shutting down the propaganda and censorship-industrial complex as well. THEN we can all sit down and discuss just how we're divvying up the fiat currency...
Very well said. And I don't see anyway out of this with the current electoral circus we're all subjected too every 4 years - the upcoming one not excluded. Billions spent on a phony contest between two corrupt political parties with their elections entirely rigged from the start.
Only way out of this is there is uprising from the streets. And the only way that might happen is if we sink into a severe economic depression where Americans finally realize it doesn't matter what party is in office, they're still getting screwed royal. I'm beginning to see signs of some awakening - ie.. such as the Writers strikes in LA, and some attempts by the Railway unions to fight back - but Biden and the Democrat party of course fucked them over.
So - until we see Americans on the streets like the French are in the streets against Macron, I think things will only continue to descend into totalitarianism/fascism here in US. And no, I don't believe "to large a" government is the problem: corrupt government is the problem.
So that's the excuse to not hold taxs until your government behaves itself and makes you it's master instead of the dynasty families that now run it...
How about having direct control of where taxs go?
Those decisions are removed from the public on purpose and given in "theory" to "representatives" veted and installed by the elite establishment psycopaths running the show..
This slow burn takeover was generations in the making and the publics lack of dealing with it for that long is a result..but they baught the mythological mindset that might makes right.. The hiarchy fallacy sufferer who believes in power over people is won by a sword or a bankers suit
Well that's just it - we're supposed to have a "representative government" of the people and for the people. But in DC now we have something like 16 lobbyists for every politician, and the only Americans who are being represented by our supposedly Constitutional government are the super wealthy and their interests - not ordinary Americans.
The real signs our Empire is in trouble is how much the Elites are now ignoring the US Constitution itself ie. we're now seeing encroachments on the Constitution such as mass surveilance (lack of privacy and thus liberty), encroachment on freedom of speech increased censorship, unending wars never voted on by the American public - corporations are now people too which is absurd.
The Bankers are running the US government now. Not We The People.
Really really well-put. “Serf-level corporate wages” and the rest. Not to mention billionaires buying up large swaths of homes in order to increase demand, jack up the prices, and/or keep it until it peaks and sell at a profit or maybe keep some because they know it’s all going to collapse pretty soon and are hedging their bets – “silver? housing? gold?” They don’t know what will in the end be worth anything. We need to literally rise up en masse and refuse en masse to participate in any of this. If ppl protested in the 100,000’s over the fake debt ceiling issue, calling it a scam to screw the working poor even more than they’re screwed already, and imposed a nationwide strike on everything across the board until somebody stops this, I guarantee those cowards would change their tune.
Western societies have suffered astounding levels of betrayal and abandonment in recent decades. I am surprised this isn't discussed more than it is. Our political elites have adopted the neoliberal ideology which has fragmented our societies and ruined our democracies.
I wish everybody would read Noam Chomsky's book Profits over People, especially the introduction by Robert W. McChesney where he outlines the effects of neoliberalism on societies.
Liberalism is dead in our societies and been replaced by neoliberalism-- it is the instrument of reckless criminal capitalism which has created so many billionaires and is synonymous with economic fascism-- which is what the Ukraine war is really all about .
People aren’t aware of it because people in society is are a product of decades of neoliberalism. Morality does not exist, honour does not exist, money and power are worshipped. And everyone exists in an internet-infused society, that has been carefully screened by “libertarian” fundamentalists to avoid protections that stop such behaviours from being normalised and promoted.
So shamelessness and even gaslighting are behaviours that if you look carefully you see that even CHILDREN in today’s society, expect and themselves practice. It’s horrific.
A perfect picture of Trudope and Freeland in Canada. Re: Freeland in response to voiced concerns re the costs of existence now and the continually rising taxes, she said we have to keep up with our trade agreements. Thus, we the the people just don’t count!!
I dunno about your take on religion. I suppose the committed non theists here would heartily agree, but i think because religion has always been a mainstay of culture, that it needs an update like economics and sociology and those sorts of things do. And it is of course getting it. You maybe just hear about the most ostentatious versions of fundamentalism, that still is quite popular.
There will be social conservatives. You might as well make common cause with them so they won't attack your coven or whatever and so you can work together in some common causes. Or not. Just do your own thing and ignore those who differ. As you like. But movements are created through a confluence of groups converging for a time. It is happening. The amount of leftists who are sympathetic to Tucker is quite significant. You don't have to agree 100%. I rarely find that kind of agreement with anyone.
But can we truly separate religion from spirituality? I try, too, but is is really possible? Do we even possess enough individual sovereignty to support private spirituality independently of social forces, or of other people (especially spouses, family, and friends), or outside of existing institutions?
I have met spiritual people inside religious organizations, but that is rare, and that’s because “organized religions” in the west (and beyond) are first and foremost materialist, not spiritual. Organized religions are businesses in disguise. Their focus is on income, buildings and land (for churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and parking lots), legal compliance for their “nonprofit” corporation, growth of congregations, franchising, and advertising. The clergy and lay leadership of organized religions are corporate executives or middle managers who are indistinguishable from those in our corporate workplaces. In a society dominated by materialism, this is what we get. Materialism is our state religion. We obviously put “In God We Trust” on our currency for a reason. Most scientists and academics cannot even consider or mention spirituality without threatening their careers—even in the few religious studies programs that still exist the strict emphasis in on objective history, anthropology, linguistics, or archaeology, not spirituality. Science has become Scientism, and Fauci is a modern messiah. Even those studying “consciousness”—which is the latest pseudonym for spirit—must all agree that consciousness is only a material process—just something that arises from bio-chemical reactions in the the physical structures of the brain. Hence we get Sam Harris—a spiritless hack if there ever was one—teaching us about “mindfulness.”
Of course, organized religion is also an inseparable integrated component of central government and cultural control. It is perhaps the main way we perpetuate systems in which small elites rule the masses. We are only just beginning to realize (or admit) that, for example, Christian orthodoxy and Rabbinic Judaism were inventions of the Roman Empire. The purpose of those imperial religions was simply population control and preservation of the elites. And it has worked fabulously. The most successful propaganda ever created—indeed the model for all modern propaganda—is the Bible.
In modern terms, organized religion is and always has been a psyop. And psyops today are far more sophisticated—they infect everyone, even those who believe they can practice their spirituality alone and in secret. I submit for your consideration that you (or likeminded people like you, me included) may not have the spiritual sovereignty we think we do. We may not even have sufficient individual sovereignty to decide who to vote for, let alone what god(s) to worship or refuse to worship, or what values we choose, or what doctrine we choose, or which books we decide are sacred, or which ethics to adopt.
If we hope to preserve enough individual sovereignty to maintain even our own private spirituality, then we must re-invent the entire concept of religion, as well as government and economics, because they are all inseparable. And somehow, I think, we will eventually need to do that together in communities, not individually.
Many good points which I can agree with. But, and I hope I’ve got my dates right, the Dead Sea Scrolls, found 60 or 80 years ago, contained some or all of every book in the Old Testament except for The Book of Esther. An almost completely intact Book of Isaiah. The Nag Hammadi scrolls found in Egypt surely predate the Roman Empire. They are clearly Gnostic manuscripts. Recent articles on the Gnostic ideas in globalism and the woke ideas are available - and hard, at least for me, to fully understand. Even so I find this stuff kind of relieving after all the parbage we are daily filled with, unless we shut off it all.
What I like is that the Dead Sea Scrolls proved that there was no single monolithic form of Judaism; there were many “judaisms”—probably many more than today. Similarly, the Nag Hamadi texts proved that what we recognize as Christian today took at least 400 years to develop, and prior to that it was a wild west show of countless “christianities.” But then the Romans did what empires do best, which is to create a single master narrative and then mercilessly enforce that narrative on every citizen. Empire is the ultimate enemy of free or diverse thought. And obviously, as so many modern people have noted, the parallels of the Roman Empire with the U.S. Empire are many and striking. I half expect Joe Biden to walk out of the White House tomorrow wearing a toga and sandals.
Great comment and I agree except I reject the notion of religion or of government in its entirety and consider myself a political prisoner in this open air insane asylums. I reject all of it.
Also ever notice how all major government buildings in the USA are designed in Roman architecture?
The only difference between Ancient Rome and D.C. is that most of the Roman ruins were built to last, while the iconic buildings and temples in D.C. all seem like cheap plaster-of-paris knock-offs. Without constant maintenance, I doubt they survive even a century after the inevitable upcoming collapse.
Regarding feeling like a political prisoner in an open air asylum, ditto. I actually go full gnostic on this world and its creator. This rock has been a mess since day one, and it’s gone downhill ever since.
The joke is, a conservative is nothing more than a liberal with two kids and a mortgage. To me, conservatism is rooted in wanting to keep traditions one grew up with and the same social norms, cultural values, etc. It’s the ‘don’t fix what’s not broken’ crowd. liberalism or progressivism attempts to change that and even force the change. Sometimes things ARE broken, sometimes not. Who decides? This is the cultural battle. Neither leaning is all bad or all good. Conservatism and progressivism is both good and bad depending on ‘societies’ point of view at any point in time. Let’s not paint this with one color.
I do think of myself as a leftist but find i'm in agreement with conservatives of some important issues. Right now it's conservatives mostly who are raising the banner of free speech, medical autonomy, and even anti war. In the US congress it is only the right that is voting against escalating the war. Maybe that's because it's a Democrat war tho. So partisan. But the progressive squad keeps failing over and over.
Where i squabble with conservatives and some on the further left is over the environment. Their wanting things to go back to how it was in the fifties means not having to think much about how the environment is being destroyed. Very much head in the sand. And very much to the pleasure of Big Gas, Oil, Coal, and Nuklear. So many are conspiracy theorists as well who believe whatever their biases tell them to, evidence be damned.
But still it is the liberal establishment that is the greatest threat to our existence now. And way too many family and friends have drunken that kool aid.
Definition of Overton Window: I went to the Idea Store yesterday and bought 2 conservative ideas and two liberal ideas, but when I got them home and tried them on, none of them fit, so I guess I’ll go back to the Idea Store today and exchange them for two different conservative ideas and two different liberal ideas.
Liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat, left/right—all false dichotomies that keep us placidly grazing with the rest of the herd.
Divide and conquer works well. It doesn’t matter how many have guns, so long as they are pointing them at each other. But if things get really bad and say 10% wake up….
People tend to assign the intent to others that may not be there as a means of turning them into a category they can disparage.
We all do it on occasion to bolster an argument,, but it's ultimately lacking integrity at its core.
I don't allign with either side of the pick a team and fight paradigm that has been purposeful created to coral people into easily controlled factions.
I don't see a whole lot of movement on the older religions updating some of their old belief systems to more modern sensibilities. So I am able to see Caitlin's point easily here. And also knowing the history of Christianity for example, all the wars and Crusades done in the name of Jesus, all that historical slaughter of human beings - or the ongoing history we see right now in Israel - makes you realize the hypocrisy and political control that is invariably hidden under the hood of many spiritual theologies.
On the other hand, I also feel people should be free to believe what they want, including some of the Skeptic Atheist assholes I've come across these last few decades, who are just as much zealots and know-it-all arrogant pricks as the fundamental Christians of old - who have made it their mission in life to smear anyone who doesn't take up their mantle of reductive materialism.
So I guess there is something to be said for no censorship and freedom of speech along with separating church and state. Although there are now warning signs everywhere in US society - coming from conservative religious groups, manipulated by the deep state - to enforce codified censorship on US citizens and the banning of books has become reintroduced in many US states along with increasing laws against abortion - which was hard fought in the country so each woman would be free to choose for herself - not the government, what she does.
So it is a very real danger encroaching upon us - extremes of beliefs, where these beliefs are then enforced on the rest of us - and these extremes can range from nihilist atheists to zealot zionists. Without tolerance there can be no free society. But you can't have tolerance without meaning - and there is no meaning in the ruthless, social darwinistic society so many Americans are now being subject too - where they are being exploited ruthlessly by a system that screws over even their simplest dreams of owning a home and getting a decent education, and a decent paying job so they can afford to see a doctor.
As I agree with you for the most part here..no one needs religion or somee belief in a deity to have morals or integrity..that idea is a religious fallacy. Its another piece of the deep seated mind control the religious or spiritual designers created to excuse any logic that might overturn their ideology.
All words and concepts for these deities was man made..all of it ,,every idea concept was penned by man there is no empirical evidence for any of it...but I defend your right to live in whatever way you see fit as long as you keep your religious soldiers boots off my neck.
Yes. Religion and state separation. People can believe what they want - but don't force your beliefs on the rest of us. We can all agree on some moral principles: such as murder and theft should not be allowed in any civilized, free society. But other spiritual principles which might separate your religion from another - should be kept out of government codes and our schools and libraries and government itself.
Which means sometimes - you will see your fellow Americans doing stuff your religion or even atheistic beliefs do not agree with. But that is the price of having a free society. Tolerance.
Tucker Carlson is - and has been since the early 1990s - a leading light of hatred and amorality in the US. That’s like 30 years of spewing bile and marginalising the weak, cheerleading the worst excesses of the powerful, and applauding violent american exceptionalism abroad.
If, after that long track record, anyone calls themselves “left” and finds themselves in kindred with Tucker Carlson, then they just outed themselves as fake left.
If you think progressives who can see Tucker change his belifes as he grew and took stock are that dogmatic then you outed yourself as neoliberal.
Also the fact Tucker is attacked by the neoliberal and Rino agenda and you type applaud that type of Orwellian censorship fascistic behavior just because you drank your ideology koolaid yourself outs you as a useful idiot too..
Yeah, that fanatic anti Tucker and Trump derangement syndrome stuff is pure CNN or those CNN wannabes like the Young Turks..The left I admire are pragmatic these days after seeing many of their comrades drink the covid koolaid. It's been a harsh learning experience these last three years, but we can't unsee what we've seen.
The corporate Dems have gone into soft fascist mode and are turning on any neoliberals like Tucker Carlson that don’t fall in line. Just as they are turning on real leftists like Omali Yeshitela.
But if you think that this means Tucker Carlson is a cuddly toy, or a victim, or that his hated for people like Yeshitela is reduced, then you’re deluded.
No to fascists of any type. Carlson is one. He’s simply losing to a different faction of fascists is all.
I hated him myself for his war mongering Arab bashing "patriotic" mindset..
But I think he's a genuinely good person at heart and can no longer in good conscience hold those views he once had..I still think he's very deluded..(as so many of you are too)
But at least some core sense of right and wrong is changing him...maybe it's just a trick to keep his fame and fortune comming too though..
He doesn't have to be right on all issues to make common cause. But he's very influential. I've never heard of Yeshitila, and she/he might be right on, but have little influence. We have to be pragmatic no?
You’ve never heard of Yeshitela who is actually sacrificing himself fighting for principles of this country. But you worship fascist moneygrubbingTucker Carlson. Right….
In 1978 an American writer named Jerry Mander wrote Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television. It should have been required middle school reading, but that didn’t happen, and America would have no provocative dinnertable discourse reflecting back on its empty consumerist agendas.
Here is the introductory paragraph of Mander’s book:
“If this book has any basis in ‘authority,’ it lies in the fifteen years I worked as a public relations and advertising executive. During that time, I learned that it is possible to speak through media directly into people’s heads and then, like some otherworldly magician, leave images inside that can cause people to do what they might otherwise never have thought to do.”
At the time this book was published, major newspapers ran stories and editorials about the inherent biases of news reportage via the television medium. Public Television was a real alternative to the commercial media run by mind miners.
What Mander did, without dramatically presenting his thesis, was show how propaganda is embedded in the psyches of every American. The tools of advertising are the tools of fomenting coups, are the tools of countering rational thought.
We now have a culture that is rooted in lying, The vendor lies to the buyer, the politicians lie to the voters, the news anchor lies to the camera and the viewers believe the words of the people they know are lying. In this environment, truth telling is a defiant act and is fraught with risks. Lest anyone get the right idea, Julian Assange is there to counsel inaction.
At this time, there is nothing more important, in my opinion, than keeping journalists alive and working.
To unwarranted for his claim that "At this time, there is nothing more important, in my opinion than keeping journalists alive and working" - it depends on one's definition of journalism. What purpose will that serve when 'journalism' is a manufactured propaganda machine there to serve the establishment. As Caitlin has pointed out before when the 'experts' they interview and the 'think tanks' they go to for 'information' are parts of the same machine.
There are no journalists in Oz. If it’s part of an advertising arrangement, it’s a product to keep you uninformed and distracted. The only journalists in our present stage of unawareness are the writers and reporters who work for donations and subscriptions.
All main stream media has one vested interest in keeping the public maliable to manipulation to sell them products and ideas that exploit them as a resource to be managed and controlled.
Streaming platforms and broadcast licenses and cable networks are probably lucrative, but the news reports from those outlets have more value in disinformation than dollars, I think.
There is a cultural void that is being fought over, between the oligarchs and the journalists. The billionaires own the trappings of professionalism, the telegenic on-camera talent, the eye catching state-of-the-art graphics, tens of thousands of viewers, or, in the case of the national newspapers, accomplished writers, niche features, and a nationwide, if shrinking readership. All of that conveys a powerful “sense” of credibility. The journalists have their reputations and the truth. Their credibility is real, but their work has to be sought out, because the platforms are unavailable to them.
The MSM has the lowest credibility in its history.
Curtis's work is visually great and he has a compelling story, but in fact besides complaining about liberal capitalist culture he has no solutions. The original or early idea of liberalism was to minimize the role of the state and to maximize the freedom of the individual to do as he, she, or it pleases -- "laissez faire" -- but it turns out that humans are highly social animals that can't leave each other alone -- indeed, they are highly dependent on one another -- and so when freedom is exercised by some individuals it leads to a lack of communal order, which frightens and threatens most people. Various solutions have been proposed -- Curtis likes to focus on social engineering through propaganda, censorship, and advertising a la Bernays, and this is where we are now in the West at least, but this is precisely what Curtis and many of you are complaining about. Other solutions have been calling the cops and starting wars. Are they any better?
I find it fascinating how almost all of you tend to shove people like me into some category you can then desparage without a shred of evidence for it. Let's see how that works out for you here.
I have never in my life felt comfortable in your groups cults or institutions as they inevitably demonstrate high levels of dysfunctional behavior patterens of abuse. (institutionalized mind controlled serfs)
Yeah we depend on each other,,some one makes the electricity, or car, or food. I can respect that But! most of you do more harm than good always looking to scam each other or cheat each other or fund a war machine because you think you might benefit from the spoils.
There are plenty of solutions you just dont want to hear them..you use that tag line all the time to never even look at them. Then you vomit out accusations of comi at the slightest suggestions that civilisation should be designed around benefiting its citizens and not some opulent psycopaths you all like to worship and grovel at their feet in obsequious toadism to hopefully get the scraps they discard your way.
I for one find your species akin to a cancer with a board of directors. "Devour everything, meeting adjourned"
One solution is just stop fucking lying, the world would sort itself out in three weeks.
I don't know what's going on today, but back in my youth the public library was an excellent place to pick up a potential romantic partner. Do people still read, though? Hard to tell.
As a parent I noticed certain kinds of bad behavior and destructive or depressive mental states, so, having read Mander's book, I broke the television and noticed an almost immediate improvement. The main difficulty after that was that the school _required_ the watching of certain programs, which meant watching them at someone else's house, with a partial return of the pathologies.
As a person who got a Master's in New Media and Cultural Studies, I wanted to study this and write a paper on it.
I was quickly informed that my paper would fail if I did. "Just write about something u identify with" was the final word from my dean. Fuck u academia!
Noam Chomsky reported that at MIT his friend Ferguson showed that in the USA campaign contributions by a corporation were correlated with a boost in the stock price of said corporation. MIT told Ferguson to stop it and confine such research to Nazi Germany. Ferg did not get continued employment at MIT.
I'm pretty that what killed science was the fact that all "scientists" are employed by government in one fashion or another. Engineers have to be right (for example: 737 Max) but scientists have only to get another grant. One wrong political turn and that will not be forthcoming.
Ha. That’s a big ask. But I’ll try to be brief. At one time science was known as “natural history “ a systematic inquiry into the mystery of nature for the betterment of mankind. (Without getting too deep in the philosophical weeds) it became wedded to engineering which sought to apply scientific knowledge for the betterment of their benefactors, capital . Natural history had a spiritual edge to it. No such appendage was attached to engineering which bred technology. Ultimately science became the handmaiden of engineering/technology. Finally like Jesse chained to the meth lab science died as a slave to money and power cranking out discoveries in the cause of profit. Oh my I’m exhausted 😜
Just look at the medical establishment...there "science" is just uses as a tool for making profit,,,and they make the most off of human suffering..the only reason they bother to even occasionally cure anyone is to keep up the facade.
Physics is the derelict computational child of metaphysics. But it seems many physicists are finally grokking that math alone can’t explain/describe the cosmos. I imagine the world would be much improved if we added another M to STEM--Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Metaphysics. (Throwing in some arts, literature, and history wouldn’t hurt either.)
I had a copy of “Myth of the Machine” in my library for years, but I never gave it enough attention. Now I notice that all of Mumford’s books are out of print, which I take as a sign that he must have written something dangerous, so his work is being memory-holed. You’ve rekindled my interest. Searching eBay. Thanks!
They (women) and minorities are being (and have been for a while now) deliberately promoted so they would be eager to prove they could be up to the task - being as evil as a white male can be - and more!
Never mind Israel - that image is being played out across all of Europe, where in many countries young women have for years now been conscripted. They take to social media, which for them is like water for a fish, and bombard it with images of themselves skydiving or doing that they think are “cool” things with weapons.
But what sort of society uses women of 18-25 as warriors, and exposes them to chemicals and physical trauma? What kind of children - an future society - will result from this?
Just awesome. It had never occurred to me before listening to the last part of this post that there has been no “scientific research” on the effects of domestic propaganda. One could, I suppose, put together multiple volumes of examples of domestic propaganda; study and put together a list of the financiers of specific types of propaganda that has been published at different times; research what the financiers were focused upon via their messages to shareholders, etc., and get some information about what people who were polled thought about the issues or events that were the specific subjects of the propaganda. But, all you would have is a conclusion that the financiers got what they wanted- if they did (they almost always do) - and infer that they would not have spent money on an effort they did not have good reason to believe would be effective. But, there are no studies with control groups etc. You are absolutely correct- you couldn’t do a PhD thesis on it. And then, of course, there is the problem that we are swimming in it. How would you do a double-blind or whatever study of the attitude of fish to water with certain characteristics, if they go home to the river after an hour and experience those characteristics plus a million more? And, having come to the test site after spending their entire lives in the river? This assumes that fish have attitudes they can communicate and that there are any left in the river that aren’t floating, bloated and dead. Starting to fade. A very thought provoking post. Many thanks.
Actually, I think there is a lot of research on the effectiveness of propaganda and advertising, but obviously it's located so it doesn't give the game away.
What the scientists were studying (and exposing) was the use of propaganda by the US and its satellites. I am surprised they were able to publish it given the present extent of the "censorship-industrial complex" as Mr. Taibbi calls it. I'll assume the scientists I mention above are lovers of knowledge; However, there is also extensive research and literature on the practices and effects of propaganda, advertising, and media in general paid for by capitalists and others and motivated mostly by profit.
Of course we're being manipulated, they'd have to be stupid not to. TPTB may be mean spirited, violent and greedy, but they employ people who are not stupid.
“So much is lost due to the fact that modern science and academia don't research western domestic propaganda and its effects, because they don't acknowledge the existence of western domestic propaganda. “
A Russian & a USAmerican find themselves sitting side by side on a flight to the US. At one point the USAmerican asks: Why are you flying to the US? Russian: To study US propaganda techniques. USA: What propaganda techniques?
Once you understand that we are governed either by sociopaths, or by persons whose behavior is functionally indistinguishable from that sociopaths, everything makes sense.
And a significant number are plain stupid. The picture of crying young and middle-aged white males rallying when Obama won his first presidency has damaged me forever. While he was scanning the crowd haughtily with the right arm extended in an unmistakable gesture.
Religion need not be an escape or reaction from our civilization, society or toxic culture. Religion comes from the root word religio, which means to be "bound back" to something of substance, that which is universal and transcendent. It should not be a crutch or a fortress, but a moment by moment engagement with our world and its problematic human inhabitants. A true faith is not afraid to question itself and sees the hypocrisy and casual cruelty of humankind, including those who profess to have a "special relationship" with God.
In the specific case of Christianity, one can see how the fundamental message of Christ has been adulterated and distorted through time. That does not change the message, which is so simple as to be revolutionary, radical. It is the commitment to love, even when are moved to outrage and hatred by the injustice, blind ambition and selfishness that we see around us, from our own families to the conduct of world affairs. Thus, when we oppose something, we must oppose it out of love; when we fight, we fight from love. It helps me to know that I am commanded to love the unlovely people around me. I cannot do it on my own, because I am not without sin. War, greed, racism, hatred, aggression, cruelty all result from the rejection of the commandment to love.
The world rejects love as a solution to domestic and international discord. Politics and geopolitics reject this simple commandment as impractical to the point of absurdity, yet it is glaringly obvious that all our machinations and intrigues and quest for dominance, our realpolitiks and casual cruelties have NOT been the solution--to anything. This is the role of religion: to "bind us back" to the only thing that has ever worked, when its central, naked, unembellished truths, free of doctrine and delusion, are embraced without pride or embarassment.
Christ never said a word about abortion, LGBTQ, capitalism, socialism or any other -ism or political system. That in itself speaks volumes. The "law and the prophets" was subsumed in two commandments: to love "God," as we comprehend the unifying Intelligence of our universe, and to love our "neighbor.". And who is our neighbor? Our enemies as well as our friends. Those with whom we agree and those with whom we don't. People "like us" and people unlike us. I guess that would include our rivals, geopolitical or otherwise, and probably those evil Russians and Chinese. In fact, there are NO EXCLUSIONS, no exceptions. That is a world-changing, consciousness-changing commandment.
Caitlin Johnstone is among the most perceptive journalists of our day and gives voice to all of us who see the monumental folly and injustice of our pretentious, pathetic and perhaps fatally flawed system. I cannot be optimistic about our world, yet I cannot be cynical and pessimistic to the point of inaction. A religious perspective certainly gives many the strength and vision to carry on the good work of resistance and advocacy.
"It's incredible how much money the Americans can afford to blow just on exploding stuff overseas. Their healthcare system and infrastructure must be phenomenal."
The US can afford to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars over to Ukraine, but my insurance (Medicaid handled by a private insurer in this state) can't afford to cover a stress test. We must send more tanks and F-16s to a proxy war, but we certainly should never let heart patients have stress tests. It's too dangerous!
Most of those Trillions of dollars that were made from the Petro dollar never saw the light of Day when it came to the Peoples Government and needs. It was all stolen by the Federal Reserve, Pentagon, MIC, and the hundreds of Black Op Agencies that used them for Their Agendas. Americans still don't understand that - They don't own , nor have the patent to their Dollar - the Zionist Bankers do.
Don't forget to dutifully sign and date those tax checks though as trained. Or face the Inevitable death coupled to it by a clever little joke. (As is all mind control subliminally installed)
The sheep are still clinging to the mythology of the civil contract that's been broken a long time ago. Vote like it means something, to create the illusion of having any say so you won't revolt. Every tax dollar going to the MIC is your labor and blood sweat and tears going to blow the feet off children for USrAel
Taxes wouldn't be a problem if Americans weren't being screwed by serf level corporate wages, and an economy increasingly dominated not by competition but by monopolies, along with rapacious costs in health care and housing.
Taxes weren't a problem until the obscenely rich bought the US government beginning around the 1970s - and have every decade since, lowered the taxes for themselves and their feudal corporate holdings, while the Serfs - working class Americans have been taxed every which way from Sunday along with new fees.
The elephant in the room isn't government. The elephant in the room is wealth inequality and lack of an ethical society. Social Darwinism leads to the society we now have - where everyone is fucked except the obscenely rich.
Well said. Until Americans acknowledge that it's not just the puppet-politicians who need to go, but their billionaire masters/owner-operators, we'll never see any meaningful change. Billionaires shouldn't exist. It's that simple. And everyone should have access to #MedicareForAll
Agree. That's been the major diversionary tactic by the billionaires - make Americans blame all their problems on government - a government they themselves now corruptly run. It is true we now have catastrophic problems with the US government, but the lie is that it's government itself that's the problem, not the corruption of the government by obscenely wealthy interests.
Whenever I hear a discussion steered toward taxes, an immediate red flag comes up. Because there is almost never any discussion about how taxes have been lowered systematically on the rich for decades now, or even how, under both parties, there has been no fiscal responsibility. Ronald Reagan was one of the first presidents to have record deficits. It's the piece of propaganda the deficit is the problem, but the only way to fix it is to fuck all the social programs, while reducing taxes on the rich. And both political parties do it. It's a scam by the rich - it's class warfare wrapped in an ideology that only serves their insatiable sociopathic greed i.e. government is bad, the workers deserve what they get because we live in a meritocracy. The big lie we're all meant to believe.
Yep. It's amazing how the US government can continue to "print money" to pay for eternal wars for oil and resources, but when we need a tiny fraction of a percent of that huge military expenditure figure to cover social programs, it's just "too much to pay." Well, I for one am very tired of this shitty attitude that's not even based on the real economics of the situation as you've pointed out. Billionaires don't pay hardly a dime in taxes and are NOT "job creators", but instead they are the worst polluters on the planet. (Read my Substack piece on "The Average Billionaire".) The US government should shut down the war machine, tax the billionaires until they squeak, support the working classes, and practice what they preach when they say they're all about "freedom and democracy." If so, that would include shutting down the propaganda and censorship-industrial complex as well. THEN we can all sit down and discuss just how we're divvying up the fiat currency...
Very well said. And I don't see anyway out of this with the current electoral circus we're all subjected too every 4 years - the upcoming one not excluded. Billions spent on a phony contest between two corrupt political parties with their elections entirely rigged from the start.
Only way out of this is there is uprising from the streets. And the only way that might happen is if we sink into a severe economic depression where Americans finally realize it doesn't matter what party is in office, they're still getting screwed royal. I'm beginning to see signs of some awakening - ie.. such as the Writers strikes in LA, and some attempts by the Railway unions to fight back - but Biden and the Democrat party of course fucked them over.
So - until we see Americans on the streets like the French are in the streets against Macron, I think things will only continue to descend into totalitarianism/fascism here in US. And no, I don't believe "to large a" government is the problem: corrupt government is the problem.
So that's the excuse to not hold taxs until your government behaves itself and makes you it's master instead of the dynasty families that now run it...
How about having direct control of where taxs go?
Those decisions are removed from the public on purpose and given in "theory" to "representatives" veted and installed by the elite establishment psycopaths running the show..
This slow burn takeover was generations in the making and the publics lack of dealing with it for that long is a result..but they baught the mythological mindset that might makes right.. The hiarchy fallacy sufferer who believes in power over people is won by a sword or a bankers suit
Well that's just it - we're supposed to have a "representative government" of the people and for the people. But in DC now we have something like 16 lobbyists for every politician, and the only Americans who are being represented by our supposedly Constitutional government are the super wealthy and their interests - not ordinary Americans.
The real signs our Empire is in trouble is how much the Elites are now ignoring the US Constitution itself ie. we're now seeing encroachments on the Constitution such as mass surveilance (lack of privacy and thus liberty), encroachment on freedom of speech increased censorship, unending wars never voted on by the American public - corporations are now people too which is absurd.
The Bankers are running the US government now. Not We The People.
Really really well-put. “Serf-level corporate wages” and the rest. Not to mention billionaires buying up large swaths of homes in order to increase demand, jack up the prices, and/or keep it until it peaks and sell at a profit or maybe keep some because they know it’s all going to collapse pretty soon and are hedging their bets – “silver? housing? gold?” They don’t know what will in the end be worth anything. We need to literally rise up en masse and refuse en masse to participate in any of this. If ppl protested in the 100,000’s over the fake debt ceiling issue, calling it a scam to screw the working poor even more than they’re screwed already, and imposed a nationwide strike on everything across the board until somebody stops this, I guarantee those cowards would change their tune.
Western societies have suffered astounding levels of betrayal and abandonment in recent decades. I am surprised this isn't discussed more than it is. Our political elites have adopted the neoliberal ideology which has fragmented our societies and ruined our democracies.
I wish everybody would read Noam Chomsky's book Profits over People, especially the introduction by Robert W. McChesney where he outlines the effects of neoliberalism on societies.
Liberalism is dead in our societies and been replaced by neoliberalism-- it is the instrument of reckless criminal capitalism which has created so many billionaires and is synonymous with economic fascism-- which is what the Ukraine war is really all about .
any discussion is labeled dismismal and dismissed as conspiracy
the conversation is canceled
Agreed, but a very big part of the problem is that most people aren't even ware of it!
People aren’t aware of it because people in society is are a product of decades of neoliberalism. Morality does not exist, honour does not exist, money and power are worshipped. And everyone exists in an internet-infused society, that has been carefully screened by “libertarian” fundamentalists to avoid protections that stop such behaviours from being normalised and promoted.
So shamelessness and even gaslighting are behaviours that if you look carefully you see that even CHILDREN in today’s society, expect and themselves practice. It’s horrific.
I suspect you are unaware of how you practice a form of it yourself when you find it quite convenient
A perfect picture of Trudope and Freeland in Canada. Re: Freeland in response to voiced concerns re the costs of existence now and the continually rising taxes, she said we have to keep up with our trade agreements. Thus, we the the people just don’t count!!
Why has Freeland not been pie-in-the-faced?
I dunno about your take on religion. I suppose the committed non theists here would heartily agree, but i think because religion has always been a mainstay of culture, that it needs an update like economics and sociology and those sorts of things do. And it is of course getting it. You maybe just hear about the most ostentatious versions of fundamentalism, that still is quite popular.
There will be social conservatives. You might as well make common cause with them so they won't attack your coven or whatever and so you can work together in some common causes. Or not. Just do your own thing and ignore those who differ. As you like. But movements are created through a confluence of groups converging for a time. It is happening. The amount of leftists who are sympathetic to Tucker is quite significant. You don't have to agree 100%. I rarely find that kind of agreement with anyone.
I separated religion from spirituality. I’m in agreement with everything you said
But can we truly separate religion from spirituality? I try, too, but is is really possible? Do we even possess enough individual sovereignty to support private spirituality independently of social forces, or of other people (especially spouses, family, and friends), or outside of existing institutions?
I have met spiritual people inside religious organizations, but that is rare, and that’s because “organized religions” in the west (and beyond) are first and foremost materialist, not spiritual. Organized religions are businesses in disguise. Their focus is on income, buildings and land (for churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and parking lots), legal compliance for their “nonprofit” corporation, growth of congregations, franchising, and advertising. The clergy and lay leadership of organized religions are corporate executives or middle managers who are indistinguishable from those in our corporate workplaces. In a society dominated by materialism, this is what we get. Materialism is our state religion. We obviously put “In God We Trust” on our currency for a reason. Most scientists and academics cannot even consider or mention spirituality without threatening their careers—even in the few religious studies programs that still exist the strict emphasis in on objective history, anthropology, linguistics, or archaeology, not spirituality. Science has become Scientism, and Fauci is a modern messiah. Even those studying “consciousness”—which is the latest pseudonym for spirit—must all agree that consciousness is only a material process—just something that arises from bio-chemical reactions in the the physical structures of the brain. Hence we get Sam Harris—a spiritless hack if there ever was one—teaching us about “mindfulness.”
Of course, organized religion is also an inseparable integrated component of central government and cultural control. It is perhaps the main way we perpetuate systems in which small elites rule the masses. We are only just beginning to realize (or admit) that, for example, Christian orthodoxy and Rabbinic Judaism were inventions of the Roman Empire. The purpose of those imperial religions was simply population control and preservation of the elites. And it has worked fabulously. The most successful propaganda ever created—indeed the model for all modern propaganda—is the Bible.
In modern terms, organized religion is and always has been a psyop. And psyops today are far more sophisticated—they infect everyone, even those who believe they can practice their spirituality alone and in secret. I submit for your consideration that you (or likeminded people like you, me included) may not have the spiritual sovereignty we think we do. We may not even have sufficient individual sovereignty to decide who to vote for, let alone what god(s) to worship or refuse to worship, or what values we choose, or what doctrine we choose, or which books we decide are sacred, or which ethics to adopt.
If we hope to preserve enough individual sovereignty to maintain even our own private spirituality, then we must re-invent the entire concept of religion, as well as government and economics, because they are all inseparable. And somehow, I think, we will eventually need to do that together in communities, not individually.
Many good points which I can agree with. But, and I hope I’ve got my dates right, the Dead Sea Scrolls, found 60 or 80 years ago, contained some or all of every book in the Old Testament except for The Book of Esther. An almost completely intact Book of Isaiah. The Nag Hammadi scrolls found in Egypt surely predate the Roman Empire. They are clearly Gnostic manuscripts. Recent articles on the Gnostic ideas in globalism and the woke ideas are available - and hard, at least for me, to fully understand. Even so I find this stuff kind of relieving after all the parbage we are daily filled with, unless we shut off it all.
What I like is that the Dead Sea Scrolls proved that there was no single monolithic form of Judaism; there were many “judaisms”—probably many more than today. Similarly, the Nag Hamadi texts proved that what we recognize as Christian today took at least 400 years to develop, and prior to that it was a wild west show of countless “christianities.” But then the Romans did what empires do best, which is to create a single master narrative and then mercilessly enforce that narrative on every citizen. Empire is the ultimate enemy of free or diverse thought. And obviously, as so many modern people have noted, the parallels of the Roman Empire with the U.S. Empire are many and striking. I half expect Joe Biden to walk out of the White House tomorrow wearing a toga and sandals.
Nominating a horse for the Senate?
Great comment and I agree except I reject the notion of religion or of government in its entirety and consider myself a political prisoner in this open air insane asylums. I reject all of it.
Also ever notice how all major government buildings in the USA are designed in Roman architecture?
Subliminally brain washing the mass's
The only difference between Ancient Rome and D.C. is that most of the Roman ruins were built to last, while the iconic buildings and temples in D.C. all seem like cheap plaster-of-paris knock-offs. Without constant maintenance, I doubt they survive even a century after the inevitable upcoming collapse.
Regarding feeling like a political prisoner in an open air asylum, ditto. I actually go full gnostic on this world and its creator. This rock has been a mess since day one, and it’s gone downhill ever since.
The joke is, a conservative is nothing more than a liberal with two kids and a mortgage. To me, conservatism is rooted in wanting to keep traditions one grew up with and the same social norms, cultural values, etc. It’s the ‘don’t fix what’s not broken’ crowd. liberalism or progressivism attempts to change that and even force the change. Sometimes things ARE broken, sometimes not. Who decides? This is the cultural battle. Neither leaning is all bad or all good. Conservatism and progressivism is both good and bad depending on ‘societies’ point of view at any point in time. Let’s not paint this with one color.
I do think of myself as a leftist but find i'm in agreement with conservatives of some important issues. Right now it's conservatives mostly who are raising the banner of free speech, medical autonomy, and even anti war. In the US congress it is only the right that is voting against escalating the war. Maybe that's because it's a Democrat war tho. So partisan. But the progressive squad keeps failing over and over.
Where i squabble with conservatives and some on the further left is over the environment. Their wanting things to go back to how it was in the fifties means not having to think much about how the environment is being destroyed. Very much head in the sand. And very much to the pleasure of Big Gas, Oil, Coal, and Nuklear. So many are conspiracy theorists as well who believe whatever their biases tell them to, evidence be damned.
But still it is the liberal establishment that is the greatest threat to our existence now. And way too many family and friends have drunken that kool aid.
Definition of Overton Window: I went to the Idea Store yesterday and bought 2 conservative ideas and two liberal ideas, but when I got them home and tried them on, none of them fit, so I guess I’ll go back to the Idea Store today and exchange them for two different conservative ideas and two different liberal ideas.
Liberal/conservative, Republican/Democrat, left/right—all false dichotomies that keep us placidly grazing with the rest of the herd.
Divide and conquer works well. It doesn’t matter how many have guns, so long as they are pointing them at each other. But if things get really bad and say 10% wake up….
People tend to assign the intent to others that may not be there as a means of turning them into a category they can disparage.
We all do it on occasion to bolster an argument,, but it's ultimately lacking integrity at its core.
I don't allign with either side of the pick a team and fight paradigm that has been purposeful created to coral people into easily controlled factions.
I don't see a whole lot of movement on the older religions updating some of their old belief systems to more modern sensibilities. So I am able to see Caitlin's point easily here. And also knowing the history of Christianity for example, all the wars and Crusades done in the name of Jesus, all that historical slaughter of human beings - or the ongoing history we see right now in Israel - makes you realize the hypocrisy and political control that is invariably hidden under the hood of many spiritual theologies.
On the other hand, I also feel people should be free to believe what they want, including some of the Skeptic Atheist assholes I've come across these last few decades, who are just as much zealots and know-it-all arrogant pricks as the fundamental Christians of old - who have made it their mission in life to smear anyone who doesn't take up their mantle of reductive materialism.
So I guess there is something to be said for no censorship and freedom of speech along with separating church and state. Although there are now warning signs everywhere in US society - coming from conservative religious groups, manipulated by the deep state - to enforce codified censorship on US citizens and the banning of books has become reintroduced in many US states along with increasing laws against abortion - which was hard fought in the country so each woman would be free to choose for herself - not the government, what she does.
So it is a very real danger encroaching upon us - extremes of beliefs, where these beliefs are then enforced on the rest of us - and these extremes can range from nihilist atheists to zealot zionists. Without tolerance there can be no free society. But you can't have tolerance without meaning - and there is no meaning in the ruthless, social darwinistic society so many Americans are now being subject too - where they are being exploited ruthlessly by a system that screws over even their simplest dreams of owning a home and getting a decent education, and a decent paying job so they can afford to see a doctor.
As I agree with you for the most part here..no one needs religion or somee belief in a deity to have morals or integrity..that idea is a religious fallacy. Its another piece of the deep seated mind control the religious or spiritual designers created to excuse any logic that might overturn their ideology.
All words and concepts for these deities was man made..all of it ,,every idea concept was penned by man there is no empirical evidence for any of it...but I defend your right to live in whatever way you see fit as long as you keep your religious soldiers boots off my neck.
Yes. Religion and state separation. People can believe what they want - but don't force your beliefs on the rest of us. We can all agree on some moral principles: such as murder and theft should not be allowed in any civilized, free society. But other spiritual principles which might separate your religion from another - should be kept out of government codes and our schools and libraries and government itself.
Which means sometimes - you will see your fellow Americans doing stuff your religion or even atheistic beliefs do not agree with. But that is the price of having a free society. Tolerance.
Tucker Carlson is - and has been since the early 1990s - a leading light of hatred and amorality in the US. That’s like 30 years of spewing bile and marginalising the weak, cheerleading the worst excesses of the powerful, and applauding violent american exceptionalism abroad.
If, after that long track record, anyone calls themselves “left” and finds themselves in kindred with Tucker Carlson, then they just outed themselves as fake left.
If you think progressives who can see Tucker change his belifes as he grew and took stock are that dogmatic then you outed yourself as neoliberal.
Also the fact Tucker is attacked by the neoliberal and Rino agenda and you type applaud that type of Orwellian censorship fascistic behavior just because you drank your ideology koolaid yourself outs you as a useful idiot too..
Yeah, that fanatic anti Tucker and Trump derangement syndrome stuff is pure CNN or those CNN wannabes like the Young Turks..The left I admire are pragmatic these days after seeing many of their comrades drink the covid koolaid. It's been a harsh learning experience these last three years, but we can't unsee what we've seen.
He…has…not….changed.
The corporate Dems have gone into soft fascist mode and are turning on any neoliberals like Tucker Carlson that don’t fall in line. Just as they are turning on real leftists like Omali Yeshitela.
But if you think that this means Tucker Carlson is a cuddly toy, or a victim, or that his hated for people like Yeshitela is reduced, then you’re deluded.
No to fascists of any type. Carlson is one. He’s simply losing to a different faction of fascists is all.
I hated him myself for his war mongering Arab bashing "patriotic" mindset..
But I think he's a genuinely good person at heart and can no longer in good conscience hold those views he once had..I still think he's very deluded..(as so many of you are too)
But at least some core sense of right and wrong is changing him...maybe it's just a trick to keep his fame and fortune comming too though..
He doesn't have to be right on all issues to make common cause. But he's very influential. I've never heard of Yeshitila, and she/he might be right on, but have little influence. We have to be pragmatic no?
You’ve never heard of Yeshitela who is actually sacrificing himself fighting for principles of this country. But you worship fascist moneygrubbingTucker Carlson. Right….
In 1978 an American writer named Jerry Mander wrote Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television. It should have been required middle school reading, but that didn’t happen, and America would have no provocative dinnertable discourse reflecting back on its empty consumerist agendas.
Here is the introductory paragraph of Mander’s book:
“If this book has any basis in ‘authority,’ it lies in the fifteen years I worked as a public relations and advertising executive. During that time, I learned that it is possible to speak through media directly into people’s heads and then, like some otherworldly magician, leave images inside that can cause people to do what they might otherwise never have thought to do.”
At the time this book was published, major newspapers ran stories and editorials about the inherent biases of news reportage via the television medium. Public Television was a real alternative to the commercial media run by mind miners.
What Mander did, without dramatically presenting his thesis, was show how propaganda is embedded in the psyches of every American. The tools of advertising are the tools of fomenting coups, are the tools of countering rational thought.
We now have a culture that is rooted in lying, The vendor lies to the buyer, the politicians lie to the voters, the news anchor lies to the camera and the viewers believe the words of the people they know are lying. In this environment, truth telling is a defiant act and is fraught with risks. Lest anyone get the right idea, Julian Assange is there to counsel inaction.
At this time, there is nothing more important, in my opinion, than keeping journalists alive and working.
To unwarranted for his claim that "At this time, there is nothing more important, in my opinion than keeping journalists alive and working" - it depends on one's definition of journalism. What purpose will that serve when 'journalism' is a manufactured propaganda machine there to serve the establishment. As Caitlin has pointed out before when the 'experts' they interview and the 'think tanks' they go to for 'information' are parts of the same machine.
There are no journalists in Oz. If it’s part of an advertising arrangement, it’s a product to keep you uninformed and distracted. The only journalists in our present stage of unawareness are the writers and reporters who work for donations and subscriptions.
All main stream media has one vested interest in keeping the public maliable to manipulation to sell them products and ideas that exploit them as a resource to be managed and controlled.
Streaming platforms and broadcast licenses and cable networks are probably lucrative, but the news reports from those outlets have more value in disinformation than dollars, I think.
There is a cultural void that is being fought over, between the oligarchs and the journalists. The billionaires own the trappings of professionalism, the telegenic on-camera talent, the eye catching state-of-the-art graphics, tens of thousands of viewers, or, in the case of the national newspapers, accomplished writers, niche features, and a nationwide, if shrinking readership. All of that conveys a powerful “sense” of credibility. The journalists have their reputations and the truth. Their credibility is real, but their work has to be sought out, because the platforms are unavailable to them.
The MSM has the lowest credibility in its history.
Watch Adam Curtis great documentary called century of the self.
It outlines how and why we got here in keeping with your theme.
Curtis's work is visually great and he has a compelling story, but in fact besides complaining about liberal capitalist culture he has no solutions. The original or early idea of liberalism was to minimize the role of the state and to maximize the freedom of the individual to do as he, she, or it pleases -- "laissez faire" -- but it turns out that humans are highly social animals that can't leave each other alone -- indeed, they are highly dependent on one another -- and so when freedom is exercised by some individuals it leads to a lack of communal order, which frightens and threatens most people. Various solutions have been proposed -- Curtis likes to focus on social engineering through propaganda, censorship, and advertising a la Bernays, and this is where we are now in the West at least, but this is precisely what Curtis and many of you are complaining about. Other solutions have been calling the cops and starting wars. Are they any better?
I find it fascinating how almost all of you tend to shove people like me into some category you can then desparage without a shred of evidence for it. Let's see how that works out for you here.
I have never in my life felt comfortable in your groups cults or institutions as they inevitably demonstrate high levels of dysfunctional behavior patterens of abuse. (institutionalized mind controlled serfs)
Yeah we depend on each other,,some one makes the electricity, or car, or food. I can respect that But! most of you do more harm than good always looking to scam each other or cheat each other or fund a war machine because you think you might benefit from the spoils.
There are plenty of solutions you just dont want to hear them..you use that tag line all the time to never even look at them. Then you vomit out accusations of comi at the slightest suggestions that civilisation should be designed around benefiting its citizens and not some opulent psycopaths you all like to worship and grovel at their feet in obsequious toadism to hopefully get the scraps they discard your way.
I for one find your species akin to a cancer with a board of directors. "Devour everything, meeting adjourned"
One solution is just stop fucking lying, the world would sort itself out in three weeks.
If there are plenty of solutions, why don't you just say what they are?
Did not Frank Zappa teach the masses thusly?
"Go to college if you want to get laid.
Go to the library if you want to get an education."
I don't know what's going on today, but back in my youth the public library was an excellent place to pick up a potential romantic partner. Do people still read, though? Hard to tell.
You must have different libraries than we do.
I like to read but the local library doesn't let me take naps there any more. They used to.
We live in a fallen world.
Verily.
To be fair, there's also a not insignificant population of addicts that otherwise would be using the library for nap-time.
As a parent I noticed certain kinds of bad behavior and destructive or depressive mental states, so, having read Mander's book, I broke the television and noticed an almost immediate improvement. The main difficulty after that was that the school _required_ the watching of certain programs, which meant watching them at someone else's house, with a partial return of the pathologies.
As a person who got a Master's in New Media and Cultural Studies, I wanted to study this and write a paper on it.
I was quickly informed that my paper would fail if I did. "Just write about something u identify with" was the final word from my dean. Fuck u academia!
Noam Chomsky reported that at MIT his friend Ferguson showed that in the USA campaign contributions by a corporation were correlated with a boost in the stock price of said corporation. MIT told Ferguson to stop it and confine such research to Nazi Germany. Ferg did not get continued employment at MIT.
If you look up the terms fascism it is never applied to the western imperialist powers yet they are the most volumously stealthy practitioners of it.
Science is dead. Technology killed it.
I'm pretty that what killed science was the fact that all "scientists" are employed by government in one fashion or another. Engineers have to be right (for example: 737 Max) but scientists have only to get another grant. One wrong political turn and that will not be forthcoming.
Hmm, interesting, I will have to ponder that! Can you elucidate further? (Asking seriously btw)
Ha. That’s a big ask. But I’ll try to be brief. At one time science was known as “natural history “ a systematic inquiry into the mystery of nature for the betterment of mankind. (Without getting too deep in the philosophical weeds) it became wedded to engineering which sought to apply scientific knowledge for the betterment of their benefactors, capital . Natural history had a spiritual edge to it. No such appendage was attached to engineering which bred technology. Ultimately science became the handmaiden of engineering/technology. Finally like Jesse chained to the meth lab science died as a slave to money and power cranking out discoveries in the cause of profit. Oh my I’m exhausted 😜
Just look at the medical establishment...there "science" is just uses as a tool for making profit,,,and they make the most off of human suffering..the only reason they bother to even occasionally cure anyone is to keep up the facade.
Physics is the derelict computational child of metaphysics. But it seems many physicists are finally grokking that math alone can’t explain/describe the cosmos. I imagine the world would be much improved if we added another M to STEM--Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Metaphysics. (Throwing in some arts, literature, and history wouldn’t hurt either.)
See "Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford.
I had a copy of “Myth of the Machine” in my library for years, but I never gave it enough attention. Now I notice that all of Mumford’s books are out of print, which I take as a sign that he must have written something dangerous, so his work is being memory-holed. You’ve rekindled my interest. Searching eBay. Thanks!
I cracked up laughing when I saw the photo of the Israeli women. Caption this photo:
George Wallace Glee Club (Alabama)
WFU (Women for Ukraine)
"We want our alimony and child support payments! And we want them NOW!"
One thing feminism has made abundantly clear is that women can be every bit as evil as men. Full equality. NOthing less.
They (women) and minorities are being (and have been for a while now) deliberately promoted so they would be eager to prove they could be up to the task - being as evil as a white male can be - and more!
Boy, are they trying hard...
Tarun: You must have met my ex-wives.
😛
My first thought is gina haspel.. bloody gina
Notice the establishment makes her type the new darling of their ideological world and promote them to positions of power
Never mind Israel - that image is being played out across all of Europe, where in many countries young women have for years now been conscripted. They take to social media, which for them is like water for a fish, and bombard it with images of themselves skydiving or doing that they think are “cool” things with weapons.
But what sort of society uses women of 18-25 as warriors, and exposes them to chemicals and physical trauma? What kind of children - an future society - will result from this?
Just awesome. It had never occurred to me before listening to the last part of this post that there has been no “scientific research” on the effects of domestic propaganda. One could, I suppose, put together multiple volumes of examples of domestic propaganda; study and put together a list of the financiers of specific types of propaganda that has been published at different times; research what the financiers were focused upon via their messages to shareholders, etc., and get some information about what people who were polled thought about the issues or events that were the specific subjects of the propaganda. But, all you would have is a conclusion that the financiers got what they wanted- if they did (they almost always do) - and infer that they would not have spent money on an effort they did not have good reason to believe would be effective. But, there are no studies with control groups etc. You are absolutely correct- you couldn’t do a PhD thesis on it. And then, of course, there is the problem that we are swimming in it. How would you do a double-blind or whatever study of the attitude of fish to water with certain characteristics, if they go home to the river after an hour and experience those characteristics plus a million more? And, having come to the test site after spending their entire lives in the river? This assumes that fish have attitudes they can communicate and that there are any left in the river that aren’t floating, bloated and dead. Starting to fade. A very thought provoking post. Many thanks.
".... there has been no “scientific research” on the effects of domestic propaganda...."
Here's some scientific research: https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/massive-anti-russian-bot-army-exposed-by-australian-researchers/
Actually, I think there is a lot of research on the effectiveness of propaganda and advertising, but obviously it's located so it doesn't give the game away.
Lol..,all aimed at Russia..lol
More to create all that Russian xenophobic Putin bogeyman syndrome sufferer.
The west is good at telling everyone else what's wrong with them and refuses to look in a mirror.
What the scientists were studying (and exposing) was the use of propaganda by the US and its satellites. I am surprised they were able to publish it given the present extent of the "censorship-industrial complex" as Mr. Taibbi calls it. I'll assume the scientists I mention above are lovers of knowledge; However, there is also extensive research and literature on the practices and effects of propaganda, advertising, and media in general paid for by capitalists and others and motivated mostly by profit.
Of course we're being manipulated, they'd have to be stupid not to. TPTB may be mean spirited, violent and greedy, but they employ people who are not stupid.
“So much is lost due to the fact that modern science and academia don't research western domestic propaganda and its effects, because they don't acknowledge the existence of western domestic propaganda. “
Chomsky did write Manufacturing Consent.
Indeed! We need to hit the More Like That button!
A Russian & a USAmerican find themselves sitting side by side on a flight to the US. At one point the USAmerican asks: Why are you flying to the US? Russian: To study US propaganda techniques. USA: What propaganda techniques?
🤣
Once you understand that we are governed either by sociopaths, or by persons whose behavior is functionally indistinguishable from that sociopaths, everything makes sense.
I really enjoy your content. Thank you a heap.
Seek a career in the fast-growing realm of duckspeak.
Women can gain equal rights if they act like dickhead men.
BIPOC people can gain equal rights if they act like dickhead white men.
In case you make a logical fallacy in any replies, this does not mean all white men are dickheads. Some (like me) are arseholes.
And a significant number are plain stupid. The picture of crying young and middle-aged white males rallying when Obama won his first presidency has damaged me forever. While he was scanning the crowd haughtily with the right arm extended in an unmistakable gesture.
My loathing for Obama the war criminal has exceded my loathing for the Bush family.
What I hate the most is the posture of a saint given to a demon.
Religion need not be an escape or reaction from our civilization, society or toxic culture. Religion comes from the root word religio, which means to be "bound back" to something of substance, that which is universal and transcendent. It should not be a crutch or a fortress, but a moment by moment engagement with our world and its problematic human inhabitants. A true faith is not afraid to question itself and sees the hypocrisy and casual cruelty of humankind, including those who profess to have a "special relationship" with God.
In the specific case of Christianity, one can see how the fundamental message of Christ has been adulterated and distorted through time. That does not change the message, which is so simple as to be revolutionary, radical. It is the commitment to love, even when are moved to outrage and hatred by the injustice, blind ambition and selfishness that we see around us, from our own families to the conduct of world affairs. Thus, when we oppose something, we must oppose it out of love; when we fight, we fight from love. It helps me to know that I am commanded to love the unlovely people around me. I cannot do it on my own, because I am not without sin. War, greed, racism, hatred, aggression, cruelty all result from the rejection of the commandment to love.
The world rejects love as a solution to domestic and international discord. Politics and geopolitics reject this simple commandment as impractical to the point of absurdity, yet it is glaringly obvious that all our machinations and intrigues and quest for dominance, our realpolitiks and casual cruelties have NOT been the solution--to anything. This is the role of religion: to "bind us back" to the only thing that has ever worked, when its central, naked, unembellished truths, free of doctrine and delusion, are embraced without pride or embarassment.
Christ never said a word about abortion, LGBTQ, capitalism, socialism or any other -ism or political system. That in itself speaks volumes. The "law and the prophets" was subsumed in two commandments: to love "God," as we comprehend the unifying Intelligence of our universe, and to love our "neighbor.". And who is our neighbor? Our enemies as well as our friends. Those with whom we agree and those with whom we don't. People "like us" and people unlike us. I guess that would include our rivals, geopolitical or otherwise, and probably those evil Russians and Chinese. In fact, there are NO EXCLUSIONS, no exceptions. That is a world-changing, consciousness-changing commandment.
Caitlin Johnstone is among the most perceptive journalists of our day and gives voice to all of us who see the monumental folly and injustice of our pretentious, pathetic and perhaps fatally flawed system. I cannot be optimistic about our world, yet I cannot be cynical and pessimistic to the point of inaction. A religious perspective certainly gives many the strength and vision to carry on the good work of resistance and advocacy.