This being the same effect of "what page would you like to open the book to?"
Regularly, propaganda is conflated by "opening the book" to the page that supports the propaganda.
Ignore everything before, ignore everything after. History begins where we say it begins.
Open the book before that, you are a conspiracy theorist, or misinformed. "Please see the relevant Wikipedia page for the correct context" says Youtube, Facebook and the CIA.
Individuals, mostly narcissists will also insist on being our history keeper in our own lives.
All means to hold power over others.
The playbook is so simple, and yet the majority of the population will only believe what they are told by "Authorities."
In sales, I learned that the first number you tell someone is the one they remember, no matter what happens afterwards. That also applies to propaganda.
70% of the population simply follows the crowd. So the answer then is simply to give that 70% something good to follow.
The author of "The Sociopath Next Door" found that 4% of people are sociopaths, 60% are sheep predisposed to obey sociopaths and authority, and 36% are disagreeable free thinking people like us. We must do everything we can to help the 60% develop pattern recognition to spot sociopathic manipulation from neocons like Blinken, Nuland, etc.
😆. I think it was George Harrison of the Beatles who first said—we are all sanpaku in the 60’s. Everybody was huh? Huh? Huh? It seems to have been staggeringly true! 🙏
36%? Wow! That’s wonderful. It always seemed to me to be more like 10%. Maybe I was just look at whites—the most flaccid thinkers in god’s little green acre.
Well, papasha, Toilets are one of the most wasteful and polluting tools in your house. Of course I would assss-ociate them with white European Americans. And for your information, the potty people helped kill the composting toilet industry which would save billions of gallons of potable water each year. Get informed about the damage your great white culture does before offering pointless arguments defending your favorite color.
Composting toilets don't eradicate all of the pathogens in feces. They also need to be cleaned a least twice a week. They have a tendency to leak, producing odor elsewhere in your house which makes them a potential health hazard. But, the arguments you make are typical of the new-wave Lefty fruitcake who exchanges common sense for emotional nonsense. You can hate Western Civilization as much as you wish even though it is these people of European heritage who have given you 98% of the inventions that make your life easier.
You really don’t get it do you? It’s precisely white people’s addiction to ease and comfort that has made them so easily propagandized and weak, willing to turn their destinies over to whatever power they think will guarantee their ease and comfort with the least amount of effort on their part. And since actual thinking is so difficult, they never look beyond the propaganda to see why they lie so ill at ease, and need to justify western civ’s massive failures.
If it is true that "70% of the people follow the crowd", and I think that is actually middle-class whining in the key of PMC managerialism, let them either learn autonomy or don't.
Don't middle class people ever get tired of virtue signaling about how they can run a totalitarian society better than the incumbents? Hiow about burning the whole idea of "leadership" and all these ridiculous attempts to try to realize Unity in Subordination? Why does slavery become venerable and desirable when your imaginary friend is in charge?
“PMC managerialism”. Great! I love your mind. And I’ll add, which you might not agree with, that all the issues you identify are characteristic of patriarchy. They all eventually become “auchtung! or die.” Patriarchies are death societies. Matriarchal societies, the few that we know about, are more stable. The matriarchs don’t lead because being a leader is a fool’s game. Matriarchs nurture, shape, encourage or maybe manipulate, but they let the “offspring” learn and grow. Caitlin is a kind of matriarch—she doesn’t lead here, she shares and lets the siblings squabble here in the comments section. It’s great and evolutionary teaching. I’m glad you’ve joined her here.
That's a very tough kind of freedom. I've been there. In my youth I could lay out in all kinds of weather, but now that I'm not so young I don't know how long I could survive it.
Skyscrapers don't vanish into thin air if we stop acting out capitalist relations any more than Soviet power plants vanished into thin air with the dissolution of the USSR. Stop believing in childish myths.
Last figure I heard 70% of Americans are "functionally illiterate (5th grade reading level". I didn't believe it until I took a look at the people around me. Maybe that has something to do with it? Bless our state educational system.
As far as the level of functional illiteracy in the US is concerned, we need to know that it is not the result of incompetence. Everything went, and is going, according to plan. The powers that be are quite satisfied with it, for the reason that it makes their propaganda irresistible. Thank you, Caitlin, for this. Brilliant stuff.
People who parrot, “you can’t do anything about it” like family members of mine, or the normies in general, need our continual highlighting of the fact that that is propaganda as much as unprovoked is. Some more sinister players who know better should be in jail. But the average person needs help and a lot of it.
It is quite amazing how many people will start out calling you a conspiracy theorist, and then when you show them that what you're talking about is real, immediately switch to "well you can't do anything about it". The message is clear: don't think about it
Also i have an interesting work situation. So im in a gold mine on a 2 week on, 2 week off schedule. Very remote. Our company is currently owned by Australian’s, or the wokest people on the planet. Anyways they are rolling out the censored internet and banning “illegal” sites that aren’t illegal. It is big tech pressure and corporations are forcing it and saying comply or lose your job. I feel it is a slight advanced warning of what they will do in everyday life so gives me a leading edge along with my frustration. I live in Canada, or the 2nd wokest country on the planet. God damn WEF
I was literally blocked from a comment thread on here the other day that linked to a flat earth website. Blocked reason was “potentially extreme violence”. This is amazing and scary
Another phrase I've seen suspiciously often is "Russia's full-scale invasion", as if there were some sliding scale of invasions and this is the worst possible kind
Hahahahaha! Good one. What I love about the Ukraine War, if there is anything to love about war, is that the liars, manipulators, propagandists, and thieves (Hunter and the Big Guy) are being soooo sloppy and, dare I say it? senile about the whole thing that we can more and more see thru their tactics that have been flourishing since Shrub and 9/11. It’s good to see the hypnosis breaking.
Plenty of people might be able to see that Biden is mired in corruption, but a lot of them still believe what the media tells them about Russia. I've given up trying to get friends and family to put two and two together. I wish it weren't the case 😟
In his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” he tweeted, connecting that claim to the U.S. having patriots of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds “who bravely volunteer to defend our country and our values.”
As a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from a working-class background who volunteered to serve more than four decades ago, who am I to argue with Austin? Shouldn’t I just bask in the glow of his praise for today’s troops, reflecting on my own honorable service near the end of what now must be thought of as the First Cold War?
Yet I confess to having doubts. I’ve heard it all before. The hype. The hyperbole. I still remember how, soon after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush boasted that this country had “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.” I also remember how, in a pep talk given to U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2010, President Barack Obama declared them “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known.” And yet, 15 years ago at TomDispatch, I was already wondering when Americans had first become so proud of, and insistent upon, declaring our military the world’s absolute best, a force beyond compare, and what that meant for a republic that once had viewed large standing armies and constant warfare as anathemas to freedom.
In retrospect, the answer is all too straightforward: we need something to boast about, don’t we? In the once-upon-a-time “exceptional nation,” what else is there to praise to the skies or consider our pride and joy these days except our heroes? After all, this country can no longer boast of having anything like the world’s best educational outcomes, or healthcare system, or the most advanced and safest infrastructure, or the best democratic politics, so we better damn well be able to boast about having “the greatest fighting force” ever.
Leaving that boast aside, Americans could certainly brag about one thing this country has beyond compare: the most expensive military around and possibly ever. No country even comes close to our commitment of funds to wars, weapons (including nuclear ones at the Department of Energy), and global dominance. Indeed, the Pentagon’s budget for “defense” in 2023 exceeds that of the next 10 countries (mostly allies!) combined.
And from all of this, it seems to me, two questions arise: Are we truly getting what we pay so dearly for — the bestest, finest, most exceptional military ever? And even if we are, should a self-proclaimed democracy really want such a thing?
The answer to both those questions is, of course, no. After all, America hasn’t won a war in a convincing fashion since 1945. If this country keeps losing wars routinely and often enough catastrophically, as it has in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, how can we honestly say that we possess the world’s greatest fighting force? And if we nevertheless persist in such a boast, doesn’t that echo the rhetoric of militaristic empires of the past? (Remember when we used to think that only unhinged dictators like Adolf Hitler boasted of having peerless warriors in a megalomaniacal pursuit of global domination?).............................................................................
Absolutely 100% spot on! In Germany it's exactly the same. The word here is Angriffskrieg, which does not have an exact equivalent in English ("attack-war") but it rolls even more easily off the unthinking tongue than "unprovoked attack/invasion" and the meaning is the same. Very rarely, if ever, do you here anyone in the mass media refer to the war in Ukraine as anything but "der russische Angriffskrieg." I would like very much to know what the expressions are in other languages, because I'm sure the same is true elsewhere in the West. It's as if there was a central committee that decided on the prescribed words to use -- and maybe there actually is such a committee. If there isn't, it's even worse, because that means everybody does it willingly and without being told!
US/NATO WAR Propaganda does not inform the Public the Ukrainian government dramatically increased the shelling of the ethnic Russian speaking Ukrainian Civilians in the Donbas with up to 2000 shellings a Day in the week before February 24, that provoked Russia to make the incursion into Ukraine to stop it.
On May 3rd Pope Francis said NATO may have caused Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, doubling down on that June 14.
I speculate he was under intense pressure not to mention that again and he succumbed to the pressure.
With all the US Propaganda portraying Putin as an evil brutal monster, these four 1 hour sessions of him questioned by Oliver Stone tell a different story.
The 2nd hour with Putin, shows him in this One on One with Oliver Stone, to be more humane, rational, reasonable and down to Earth with the People than scripted US Presidents.
I have yet to watch sessions 3 & 4 but I definitely will!
They're doing exactly the same thing with China "aggression". Moon of Alabama wrote this yesterday:
"The BBC reported on August 22, 2022:
Taiwan: Two US warships sail through strait
Two US warships are passing through the Taiwan Strait, the US Navy has announced.
...
Washington says its two guided-missile cruisers - the USS Antietam and the USS Chancellorsville - are demonstrating freedom of navigation through international waters.
...
Beijing views such actions as provocative and maintains that the island of Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory.
On Sunday, its military said it was monitoring the two vessels' progress, maintaining a high alert, and was ready to defeat any provocation, Reuters news agency reports.
The US Navy said in a statement that the transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrated the "United States' commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific".
The WSJ on August 6, 2023:
Russia and China Sent Large Naval Patrol Near Alaska
A combined Russian and Chinese naval force patrolled near the coast of Alaska last week in what U.S. experts said appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach American shores.
Eleven Russian and Chinese ships steamed close to the Aleutian Islands, according to U.S. officials. The ships, which never entered U.S. territorial waters and have since left, were shadowed by four U.S. destroyers and P-8 Poseidon aircraft.
“It is a historical first,” said Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a retired Navy captain. “Given the context of the war in Ukraine and tensions around Taiwan, this move is highly provocative.”
...
Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the patrol was a reminder that the U.S. has entered “a new era of authoritarian aggression” and applauded the robust U.S. response.
Jeffery Sachs and John Mearscheimer have impeccable credentials as do Jay Bhattacharya and Peter McCullough, and if experts once universally admired can be disparaged and ignored you would think it would be enough to warn the sky is falling. Oh but no amount of truth is enough to break the spell of those infected with denial by faith in their self righteousness even as it herds them to the slaughterhouse. Denial is a powerful element of human survival and happiness, but all too often is the source of death and despair. A lack of denial can also be very painful making the choice a catch 22.
Credentials are bullshit. Any group of liars can make up their own tokens of value and bestow them on each other. None of that means fuck all to anyone outside the PMC's religious circle jerk.
I take expertise under advisement, to the extent that it isn't talking bollocks at odds with material facts taught in high school physics. That is nothing like deference to *Experts™* who invariably arrive with private or unknown priors and whose output I *may* take under advisement, under the same if not more selective conditions.
The illusionary truth effect is more effective when it supports people's biases. In regards to the United States there are a couple clear ones. Firstly, the first is that the mass media is credible and trustworthy, so it makes it easy for it to manipulate people. Secondly, the majority of the US see Russia as an enemy(ironically they are not). So Putin doing this seems easy to believe, next Zelinsky is lionized, some kind of hero. The average US person knows nothing about him, so boom, we are given someone to support.
It's weird, we invaded Iraq due to a "terrorist" Strangely several of the terrorists were connected to Saudi Arabia?Wrong country much? We'd never invade Saudi Arabia, and we have invaded other countries for less than what Saudi Arabia does openly. How many terrorist attacks happened in other countries since that caused the same reaction as September 11th?
The term unprovoked makes it easy for people to pick a side. Simplicity in politicals is seldom true.
At the beginning of the Ukraine conflict I remember seeing this use of the word "unprovoked" over and over. Even before I did some rudimentary online reading concerning recent Ukraine history, the fact that this word kept being used gave me the "thou doth protest too much" vibe. After all we don't say the unprovoked Vietnam War, unprovoked WWII, the unprovoked Revolutionary War, so why keep saying the "unprovoked" Ukraine War. Because IT WAS PROVOKED. Thou doth protest too much! By the way, my rudimentary online research, in spite of search engine censorship, easily turned up enough information on the US backed 2014 coup, NATO expansion despite promises it wouldn't, Minsk agreements broken by Ukraine and the west, Azov battalion attacks on ethnic Russians in the Donbass, and on and on., to see that this war was repeatedly, brazenly, and persistently provoked by the US/NATO/Ukraine. It's astounding and very scary to realize that MOST people do not even do this rudimentary amount of reading.
That is a different point to what I was making, Gavin.
The MEDIA non-stop hammered "Islamic Terrorism! Islamic Terrorism! Islamic Terrorism!", to mnemonically associate those two words, to "justify" the planned holocaust against Muslim majority countries.
As far as I personally am concerned, the plan by various Bush Cabinet insiders to destroy the WTC was not because they were angry at previous American behaviour, but because they saw lots of flashing dollar signs of personal profit and insane neocon geopolitical ambitions.
Certainly, those Saudis were in the states for no good reason, but can one say "patsies"?
Because the same exact launch system CAN fire nuclear armed missiles half way across Russia? And our good friend Zelensky in Ukraine openly stated the intention of Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons?
Even if what you wrote truly were the whole story (it isn't), the point of missile intercept systems is to give the United States a first strike capability, to allow the US to hold a gun to Russia's head.
Bargaining chip. Or one of those moves in chess where you force your opponent to reconfigure disadvantageously. Missiles to Cuba, missiles out of Turkey.
Actually I have a somewhat different take on this. I used the weird repetition of the word "unprovoked" to show doubting PMC types that the media were being controlled and they were being lied to. I just had to sensitize them to the word "unprovoked" which was easy because it was being repeated a lot. I repeated it some more. Then I showed them where they could find the evidence that it _was_ provoked. Afterward, when they hear the word unprovoked repeated, a little light comes on, a bell rings, and they start to slaver. And since the imperial media keep repeating it, the effect because more intense.
This being the same effect of "what page would you like to open the book to?"
Regularly, propaganda is conflated by "opening the book" to the page that supports the propaganda.
Ignore everything before, ignore everything after. History begins where we say it begins.
Open the book before that, you are a conspiracy theorist, or misinformed. "Please see the relevant Wikipedia page for the correct context" says Youtube, Facebook and the CIA.
Individuals, mostly narcissists will also insist on being our history keeper in our own lives.
All means to hold power over others.
The playbook is so simple, and yet the majority of the population will only believe what they are told by "Authorities."
In sales, I learned that the first number you tell someone is the one they remember, no matter what happens afterwards. That also applies to propaganda.
70% of the population simply follows the crowd. So the answer then is simply to give that 70% something good to follow.
The author of "The Sociopath Next Door" found that 4% of people are sociopaths, 60% are sheep predisposed to obey sociopaths and authority, and 36% are disagreeable free thinking people like us. We must do everything we can to help the 60% develop pattern recognition to spot sociopathic manipulation from neocons like Blinken, Nuland, etc.
Once you see the sanpaku eyes of sociopaths, you can't unsee them: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-spot-a-sociopath-part-2
Sanpaku, what’s with trying to expand my vocabulary. Thanks
😆. I think it was George Harrison of the Beatles who first said—we are all sanpaku in the 60’s. Everybody was huh? Huh? Huh? It seems to have been staggeringly true! 🙏
36%? Wow! That’s wonderful. It always seemed to me to be more like 10%. Maybe I was just look at whites—the most flaccid thinkers in god’s little green acre.
Well, Jeano, if that is your attitude, next time you flush a toilet, thank someone of European heritage, what you call White.
Simultaneous invention doesn't care about your infantile need for recognition, you pious bootlicker.
Well, papasha, Toilets are one of the most wasteful and polluting tools in your house. Of course I would assss-ociate them with white European Americans. And for your information, the potty people helped kill the composting toilet industry which would save billions of gallons of potable water each year. Get informed about the damage your great white culture does before offering pointless arguments defending your favorite color.
Composting toilets don't eradicate all of the pathogens in feces. They also need to be cleaned a least twice a week. They have a tendency to leak, producing odor elsewhere in your house which makes them a potential health hazard. But, the arguments you make are typical of the new-wave Lefty fruitcake who exchanges common sense for emotional nonsense. You can hate Western Civilization as much as you wish even though it is these people of European heritage who have given you 98% of the inventions that make your life easier.
You really don’t get it do you? It’s precisely white people’s addiction to ease and comfort that has made them so easily propagandized and weak, willing to turn their destinies over to whatever power they think will guarantee their ease and comfort with the least amount of effort on their part. And since actual thinking is so difficult, they never look beyond the propaganda to see why they lie so ill at ease, and need to justify western civ’s massive failures.
Flush toilets eradicate nothing. Stop barebacking on the achievements of your "team" as if they somehow made your emotional attachments important.
John C. Calhoun, caring for the slaves.
If it is true that "70% of the people follow the crowd", and I think that is actually middle-class whining in the key of PMC managerialism, let them either learn autonomy or don't.
Don't middle class people ever get tired of virtue signaling about how they can run a totalitarian society better than the incumbents? Hiow about burning the whole idea of "leadership" and all these ridiculous attempts to try to realize Unity in Subordination? Why does slavery become venerable and desirable when your imaginary friend is in charge?
“PMC managerialism”. Great! I love your mind. And I’ll add, which you might not agree with, that all the issues you identify are characteristic of patriarchy. They all eventually become “auchtung! or die.” Patriarchies are death societies. Matriarchal societies, the few that we know about, are more stable. The matriarchs don’t lead because being a leader is a fool’s game. Matriarchs nurture, shape, encourage or maybe manipulate, but they let the “offspring” learn and grow. Caitlin is a kind of matriarch—she doesn’t lead here, she shares and lets the siblings squabble here in the comments section. It’s great and evolutionary teaching. I’m glad you’ve joined her here.
PS, now watch Butt’s head explode.
Because one has many bills and they need to be paid.
Don't reify the status quo as a cosmological "truth". There is no imaginary creditor and their odious debts would be owed nothing if there were.
If only office workers realized those sleeping on the streets beside the towers are the ones who are truly free.
That's a very tough kind of freedom. I've been there. In my youth I could lay out in all kinds of weather, but now that I'm not so young I don't know how long I could survive it.
Skyscrapers don't vanish into thin air if we stop acting out capitalist relations any more than Soviet power plants vanished into thin air with the dissolution of the USSR. Stop believing in childish myths.
Last figure I heard 70% of Americans are "functionally illiterate (5th grade reading level". I didn't believe it until I took a look at the people around me. Maybe that has something to do with it? Bless our state educational system.
As far as the level of functional illiteracy in the US is concerned, we need to know that it is not the result of incompetence. Everything went, and is going, according to plan. The powers that be are quite satisfied with it, for the reason that it makes their propaganda irresistible. Thank you, Caitlin, for this. Brilliant stuff.
People who parrot, “you can’t do anything about it” like family members of mine, or the normies in general, need our continual highlighting of the fact that that is propaganda as much as unprovoked is. Some more sinister players who know better should be in jail. But the average person needs help and a lot of it.
It is quite amazing how many people will start out calling you a conspiracy theorist, and then when you show them that what you're talking about is real, immediately switch to "well you can't do anything about it". The message is clear: don't think about it
Also i have an interesting work situation. So im in a gold mine on a 2 week on, 2 week off schedule. Very remote. Our company is currently owned by Australian’s, or the wokest people on the planet. Anyways they are rolling out the censored internet and banning “illegal” sites that aren’t illegal. It is big tech pressure and corporations are forcing it and saying comply or lose your job. I feel it is a slight advanced warning of what they will do in everyday life so gives me a leading edge along with my frustration. I live in Canada, or the 2nd wokest country on the planet. God damn WEF
I was literally blocked from a comment thread on here the other day that linked to a flat earth website. Blocked reason was “potentially extreme violence”. This is amazing and scary
Another phrase I've seen suspiciously often is "Russia's full-scale invasion", as if there were some sliding scale of invasions and this is the worst possible kind
Hahahahaha! Good one. What I love about the Ukraine War, if there is anything to love about war, is that the liars, manipulators, propagandists, and thieves (Hunter and the Big Guy) are being soooo sloppy and, dare I say it? senile about the whole thing that we can more and more see thru their tactics that have been flourishing since Shrub and 9/11. It’s good to see the hypnosis breaking.
Plenty of people might be able to see that Biden is mired in corruption, but a lot of them still believe what the media tells them about Russia. I've given up trying to get friends and family to put two and two together. I wish it weren't the case 😟
“The Greatest Fighting Force in Human History”
The Perpetual Wars You Aren't Supposed to Notice
In his message to the troops prior to the July 4th weekend, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered high praise indeed. “We have the greatest fighting force in human history,” he tweeted, connecting that claim to the U.S. having patriots of all colors, creeds, and backgrounds “who bravely volunteer to defend our country and our values.”
As a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel from a working-class background who volunteered to serve more than four decades ago, who am I to argue with Austin? Shouldn’t I just bask in the glow of his praise for today’s troops, reflecting on my own honorable service near the end of what now must be thought of as the First Cold War?
Yet I confess to having doubts. I’ve heard it all before. The hype. The hyperbole. I still remember how, soon after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush boasted that this country had “the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known.” I also remember how, in a pep talk given to U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2010, President Barack Obama declared them “the finest fighting force that the world has ever known.” And yet, 15 years ago at TomDispatch, I was already wondering when Americans had first become so proud of, and insistent upon, declaring our military the world’s absolute best, a force beyond compare, and what that meant for a republic that once had viewed large standing armies and constant warfare as anathemas to freedom.
In retrospect, the answer is all too straightforward: we need something to boast about, don’t we? In the once-upon-a-time “exceptional nation,” what else is there to praise to the skies or consider our pride and joy these days except our heroes? After all, this country can no longer boast of having anything like the world’s best educational outcomes, or healthcare system, or the most advanced and safest infrastructure, or the best democratic politics, so we better damn well be able to boast about having “the greatest fighting force” ever.
Leaving that boast aside, Americans could certainly brag about one thing this country has beyond compare: the most expensive military around and possibly ever. No country even comes close to our commitment of funds to wars, weapons (including nuclear ones at the Department of Energy), and global dominance. Indeed, the Pentagon’s budget for “defense” in 2023 exceeds that of the next 10 countries (mostly allies!) combined.
And from all of this, it seems to me, two questions arise: Are we truly getting what we pay so dearly for — the bestest, finest, most exceptional military ever? And even if we are, should a self-proclaimed democracy really want such a thing?
The answer to both those questions is, of course, no. After all, America hasn’t won a war in a convincing fashion since 1945. If this country keeps losing wars routinely and often enough catastrophically, as it has in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, how can we honestly say that we possess the world’s greatest fighting force? And if we nevertheless persist in such a boast, doesn’t that echo the rhetoric of militaristic empires of the past? (Remember when we used to think that only unhinged dictators like Adolf Hitler boasted of having peerless warriors in a megalomaniacal pursuit of global domination?).............................................................................
https://tomdispatch.com/the-greatest-fighting-force-in-human-history/
Beautifully, heartrendingly put truth. Thank you.
speaking of provoked invasions... www.globalresearch.ca /america-has-been-at-war-93-of-the-time-222-out-of-239-years-since-1776/5565946
America Has Been at War 93% of the Time – 222 out of 239 Years – Since 1776 - Global Research
@ dar
Still, USA/US empire made an incremental improvement over the Roman Empire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Janus_(Roman_Forum)
However, the British Empire from 1700 - ? Has even Rome beat for the lowest % of years without a war.
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Friend-or-Foe-Allies-Enemies-of-Britain/
Absolutely 100% spot on! In Germany it's exactly the same. The word here is Angriffskrieg, which does not have an exact equivalent in English ("attack-war") but it rolls even more easily off the unthinking tongue than "unprovoked attack/invasion" and the meaning is the same. Very rarely, if ever, do you here anyone in the mass media refer to the war in Ukraine as anything but "der russische Angriffskrieg." I would like very much to know what the expressions are in other languages, because I'm sure the same is true elsewhere in the West. It's as if there was a central committee that decided on the prescribed words to use -- and maybe there actually is such a committee. If there isn't, it's even worse, because that means everybody does it willingly and without being told!
US/NATO WAR Propaganda does not inform the Public the Ukrainian government dramatically increased the shelling of the ethnic Russian speaking Ukrainian Civilians in the Donbas with up to 2000 shellings a Day in the week before February 24, that provoked Russia to make the incursion into Ukraine to stop it.
On May 3rd Pope Francis said NATO may have caused Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, doubling down on that June 14.
I speculate he was under intense pressure not to mention that again and he succumbed to the pressure.
https://www.politico.eu/article/pope-francis-nato-cause-ukraine-invasion-russia/,
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-05-03/card/pope-says-nato-may-have-provoked-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-E7VAcqXGK8xNoHxJPQFs
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/06/14/pope-nato-may-have-provoked-russian-invasion-ukraine-not-pro/
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2022/06/14/italy-vatican-pope-francis-russia-war-ukraine-nato/5711655218266/
With all the US Propaganda portraying Putin as an evil brutal monster, these four 1 hour sessions of him questioned by Oliver Stone tell a different story.
The 2nd hour with Putin, shows him in this One on One with Oliver Stone, to be more humane, rational, reasonable and down to Earth with the People than scripted US Presidents.
I have yet to watch sessions 3 & 4 but I definitely will!
https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/57703.htm
I watch the entire interview 2 years ago. Very informative.
Even more informative is the documentary Ukraine on Fire. It is introduced in this link by Oliver Stone although I watched the original awhile ago.
Biden’s fingerprints all over the 2014 coup.
https://youtu.be/WBOJtMbGq6g
thanks for the link !!!
They're doing exactly the same thing with China "aggression". Moon of Alabama wrote this yesterday:
"The BBC reported on August 22, 2022:
Taiwan: Two US warships sail through strait
Two US warships are passing through the Taiwan Strait, the US Navy has announced.
...
Washington says its two guided-missile cruisers - the USS Antietam and the USS Chancellorsville - are demonstrating freedom of navigation through international waters.
...
Beijing views such actions as provocative and maintains that the island of Taiwan is an integral part of Chinese territory.
On Sunday, its military said it was monitoring the two vessels' progress, maintaining a high alert, and was ready to defeat any provocation, Reuters news agency reports.
The US Navy said in a statement that the transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrated the "United States' commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific".
The WSJ on August 6, 2023:
Russia and China Sent Large Naval Patrol Near Alaska
A combined Russian and Chinese naval force patrolled near the coast of Alaska last week in what U.S. experts said appeared to be the largest such flotilla to approach American shores.
Eleven Russian and Chinese ships steamed close to the Aleutian Islands, according to U.S. officials. The ships, which never entered U.S. territorial waters and have since left, were shadowed by four U.S. destroyers and P-8 Poseidon aircraft.
“It is a historical first,” said Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a retired Navy captain. “Given the context of the war in Ukraine and tensions around Taiwan, this move is highly provocative.”
...
Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the patrol was a reminder that the U.S. has entered “a new era of authoritarian aggression” and applauded the robust U.S. response.
Exactly.
Jeffery Sachs and John Mearscheimer have impeccable credentials as do Jay Bhattacharya and Peter McCullough, and if experts once universally admired can be disparaged and ignored you would think it would be enough to warn the sky is falling. Oh but no amount of truth is enough to break the spell of those infected with denial by faith in their self righteousness even as it herds them to the slaughterhouse. Denial is a powerful element of human survival and happiness, but all too often is the source of death and despair. A lack of denial can also be very painful making the choice a catch 22.
Credentials are bullshit. Any group of liars can make up their own tokens of value and bestow them on each other. None of that means fuck all to anyone outside the PMC's religious circle jerk.
do you similarly reject expertise?
I agree that they serve illegitimate exclusion and authority purposes, but credentials used to stand as symbols of expertise (in some cases)
Used to, being the operative terms in that idea.
Credentials tell me that, maybe, the holder has abilities.
Show me a body of work, post credentials, and now we’re talkin’.
How you been, Bill?
Keepin’ em honest, I trust.
I take expertise under advisement, to the extent that it isn't talking bollocks at odds with material facts taught in high school physics. That is nothing like deference to *Experts™* who invariably arrive with private or unknown priors and whose output I *may* take under advisement, under the same if not more selective conditions.
PMC que?
The illusionary truth effect is more effective when it supports people's biases. In regards to the United States there are a couple clear ones. Firstly, the first is that the mass media is credible and trustworthy, so it makes it easy for it to manipulate people. Secondly, the majority of the US see Russia as an enemy(ironically they are not). So Putin doing this seems easy to believe, next Zelinsky is lionized, some kind of hero. The average US person knows nothing about him, so boom, we are given someone to support.
It's weird, we invaded Iraq due to a "terrorist" Strangely several of the terrorists were connected to Saudi Arabia?Wrong country much? We'd never invade Saudi Arabia, and we have invaded other countries for less than what Saudi Arabia does openly. How many terrorist attacks happened in other countries since that caused the same reaction as September 11th?
The term unprovoked makes it easy for people to pick a side. Simplicity in politicals is seldom true.
At the beginning of the Ukraine conflict I remember seeing this use of the word "unprovoked" over and over. Even before I did some rudimentary online reading concerning recent Ukraine history, the fact that this word kept being used gave me the "thou doth protest too much" vibe. After all we don't say the unprovoked Vietnam War, unprovoked WWII, the unprovoked Revolutionary War, so why keep saying the "unprovoked" Ukraine War. Because IT WAS PROVOKED. Thou doth protest too much! By the way, my rudimentary online research, in spite of search engine censorship, easily turned up enough information on the US backed 2014 coup, NATO expansion despite promises it wouldn't, Minsk agreements broken by Ukraine and the west, Azov battalion attacks on ethnic Russians in the Donbass, and on and on., to see that this war was repeatedly, brazenly, and persistently provoked by the US/NATO/Ukraine. It's astounding and very scary to realize that MOST people do not even do this rudimentary amount of reading.
It was actually the second time this century.
The first use of this mnemonic technique en masse was the deliberate and unprovoked association of "Islamic" and "Terrorism".
Needless to say, ALSO a psyop to benefit America's Empire.
Yep. Most Americans believe 9/11 was 'unprovoked', and had nothing to do with colonialism.
That is a different point to what I was making, Gavin.
The MEDIA non-stop hammered "Islamic Terrorism! Islamic Terrorism! Islamic Terrorism!", to mnemonically associate those two words, to "justify" the planned holocaust against Muslim majority countries.
As far as I personally am concerned, the plan by various Bush Cabinet insiders to destroy the WTC was not because they were angry at previous American behaviour, but because they saw lots of flashing dollar signs of personal profit and insane neocon geopolitical ambitions.
Certainly, those Saudis were in the states for no good reason, but can one say "patsies"?
Heard it through the grapevine: this blog post was unprovoked!
We would not accept missiles in Cuba
But why does this expand to Russia not accepting missile INTERCEPT systems on their borders?
Because the same exact launch system CAN fire nuclear armed missiles half way across Russia? And our good friend Zelensky in Ukraine openly stated the intention of Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons?
Even if what you wrote truly were the whole story (it isn't), the point of missile intercept systems is to give the United States a first strike capability, to allow the US to hold a gun to Russia's head.
Why were missiles being put in Cuba?
Bargaining chip. Or one of those moves in chess where you force your opponent to reconfigure disadvantageously. Missiles to Cuba, missiles out of Turkey.
What came first? Were the objections leveled? Were they ignored?
US missiles in Turkey came first. That part was kept secret from us for decades. More info here: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuban-missile-crisis-nuclear-vault/2023-04-20/jupiter-missiles-and-cuban-missile
This is really good, thank you. Now apply the “illusory truth effect” to every other area of narrative....
Actually I have a somewhat different take on this. I used the weird repetition of the word "unprovoked" to show doubting PMC types that the media were being controlled and they were being lied to. I just had to sensitize them to the word "unprovoked" which was easy because it was being repeated a lot. I repeated it some more. Then I showed them where they could find the evidence that it _was_ provoked. Afterward, when they hear the word unprovoked repeated, a little light comes on, a bell rings, and they start to slaver. And since the imperial media keep repeating it, the effect because more intense.
What's PMC?
See "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional%E2%80%93managerial_class" in Wikipedia, especially under "Later use", and keeping in mind that Wikipedia itself is a production of members of this class.
@ Starry Gordon
Try not to become the monster in a dark alley yourself there, bro.
Why should I not become a monster in a dark alley? If I am a monster, a dark alley would be the best place to be, would it not?