The US superpower is as insane as any meth head addict. Thanks for exposing the insanity.
Horrible nightmare world of misinformation. Sorry you get harrassed about it. As an antifracker in Pa., I and other environmental activists were name-called as Kremlin paid and sponsored over ten years ago !
My twitter description includes ‘russian bot’. They however locked it recently and won’t deactivate my account. We should all leave twitter. It’s already an echo chamber for neoliberal nonsense.
I wonder where the State ends now. I used to believe in a private commercial sphere, but the economy is not differentiated anymore. Media, tech, education, medicine, manufacturing, mining and on and on are all heavily linked to and controlled by government. The world we were warned about is here.
The state has merged with corporations. How can Facebook be considered independent when its owner publicly admits suppressing a story at the request of the FBI? Or when Facebook and Twitter openly admit they are hiring censors, or fact-checkers as they call them, from the CIA and FBI? This is what Fascism looks like.
The censors and propagandists claim to be acting in accordance with legal mandates when it suits them, but to be private parties when they wish to avoid legal constraints.
Much like the banks and their privatization of profits and socialization of losses. Which they need GOVERNMENT (the real bad guys - the State) to make reality.
It is exactly fascism. GG (best journalist in the world) used to say that social media companies never wanted to censor, etc, etc as if it was self-evident. It would piss me off… I’d be like wtf Glenn?! If they didn’t want to censor they wouldn’t do it.
And then I heard him make this distinction: the power to label as misinformation, fact-check, etc is a power that flows through them - it doesn’t stem from Twitter, FB, etc.
That’s the truth. This story is the proof you didn’t need…
I was part of the 0.04% of Britons that watched RT...great programs like Renegade Inc. and George Galloway's Sputnik; which had many British politicians from all political persuasions on it and Galloway has great insights into British constitutional workings including anecdotes of his time in the 'House'.
Now we have to watch absurd items on C4 or the Beeb about Ukraine's 'counter offensive' that even the British Defense Intelligence Office failed to mention in its daily reports...yeah, it was that significant.
RT was the only news and entertainment that I watched. When it was shut down here in the US I lost all hope of ever seeing them come back. I could not believe the number of idiots who started petitions to "Ban RT"! I have to wonder who was behind them as on the one hand they claimed not that many people watched them and yet they were such a threat! This is the reason I am on this page right now because I had to go searching for a new source OF THE TRUTH! So now the question remains when will Caitlin become the next threat to the bullshit lies of the Criminal Elite along with the few other outlets of truth and what will they do to shut them down?
Yes, I still watch it on Rumble. But some of the programs I enjoyed are gone. Ridiculous as many MPs from the British parliament appeared on it and even Boris Johnson's dad. But they had to ban it when they knew their plan to war in Ukraine had worked. The last thing the west's governments and media want is RT journos telling the truth...and exposing the BBC, C4, Guardian etc. for the charlatans that they are.
If yes, then these and a few others can be consulted for the same level of info you used to get on RT. Sans a few of your favorite programs, of course, since those might no longer exist.
I have them both as android apps however they are merely news feeds at this point. While I periodically read them they are not at all what they used to be. There isn't even a "News Desk"!
I completely agree. I don’t see any Russian propaganda, at least none I can distinguish from honest dissent. Like you I find knee jerk abuse for simply questioning what is plainly BS. But Americans have been up to their nostrils in BS since birth, so it’s important to understand where they’re coming from.
The farce that was Russiagate should have convinced those capable of being convinced, that the whole ridiculous exercise was a pretext for further meddling in Ukraine and to excuse the sending of tens or hundreds of billions to them. At least they finally realize they can’t send American cannon fodder without scrutiny any more.
"Propaganda machine" i see reporting from russian side closer to the truth compared to the western inverted truth in massmedia, without any blinking the west takes unfiltered news from the ukraine and uses it as headline, it is just sad.
Im reading several neutral journalists on their blogs, YT, Odysee etc and mixing this the russian reporting is spot on whats happening in donbas, while the ukraine side sure not tells the west they attack civilians every day and nuclear power plants, no they just say its the russians and the west just prints it.
When are people going to realise that propaganda is primarily a tool used by governments on their domestic populations? Which includes in the country you live in.
You cannot see your culture even a little clearly until you remove yourself from it. Fish don't know what water is until you remove them from the sea. As a kid, since I lived in a country adjacent to the U.S.S.R. and a block and a half from the Soviet Embassy, and found Americans more bizarre than the Soviets so watched their propaganda with intense interest, I have always been disappointed that more Americans don't criticize their own culture with much insight. A lot of things most Americans believe in seem to me to be ridiculous propaganda. What is quite remarkable is how many are willing to open their eyes and see what's going on, to at least attempt to look at the world through another culture's eyes. You do need some background in history to be able to understand the present and Reagan decimated the public school system, especially in History, and replaced it with what I would call "The World According to Reagan" which was memes from Hollywood films that themselves were EXTREME propaganda. I liked Capra's films when I was young but they are such propaganda it's hard to believe anyone could take them seriously. And the first thing Bush II did after 9/11 was make a quickie trip to Hollywood to encourage filmmakers to make uber propagandistic films. Which they did. During the Iranian Hostage Crisis Dan Rather's interviews were extremely biased. I knew some of the people he used as "Americans on the street". He edited out anything sympathetic to the Iranian point of view. That's not journalism. If you didn't know what the U.S. did to Iran from WWII on, their behavior looks irrational. But if you do know, their behavior looks very tempered and intelligent and sane, compared to the crazy Americans who look like ignorant, uneducated plebes who just crawled out of the woods.
All governments use propaganda to prop themselves up. Both Russia and the U.S. do but Russia tends to tell the truth more often than the U;.S. The American propaganda is very awkward and obvious and it's pretty hard to find any objective truth in it to make it believable. The only reason Americans believe it is because they're so isolated from the rest of the world and also are insulated from reality by their wealth. They tend not to speak anything but English so are dependent on others to translate events. Many people who are supposedly "bilingual" aren't really (I'm thinking of the CIA). Even the poorest Americans are wealthy compared to many people around the world. And they don't know how to travel to maximize exposure to other people's realities. They insulate themselves from learning anything with their money. And, yes, what a person on SSI or welfare makes is considerable wealth elsewhere because of the exchange rate. Americans think they need amounts of money they do not and they make deals with the devil for that money.
The people who join the military are real victims of propaganda. Otherwise, they would never join. NEVER. And how would we have forever wars without them? Without war our economy doesn't work. Perpetual growth is a myth. The U.S. is a culture that's imploding and we're just unfortunate enough to have been born at a time where we could witness it. If I thought enough Americans were capable of thinking for themselves, outside the propaganda box they've lived in all their lives, I would have some hope. But I don't think there are enough independent thinkers in this country. Americans are probably the MOST CONFORMIST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. It's shocking and, let's admit it, quite fascinating. These are incredibly interesting times. And speaking for myself and many reading this, we have ringside seats.
Having said that, these forever wars--and I include the COVID debacle among them--have opened the eyes of a lot of people--more than I ever thought possible. So maybe there is a tiny glimmer of hope. The truth is if enough people refuse to buy into the myths of this culture--especially those of money and status being indicative of a person's "success"--the Great Reset would be impossible to effect.
I do think the rapid deployment of 5G around certain parts of the world is part of a plan of world-wide surveillance and eventually high-tech methods of controlling the behavior of masses of people. So look at your lifestyle and stop running after the almighty dollar, caring more about other people's opinions than your own, get rid of as much tech as you can. Try to replace "modern" appliances with appliances and technologies from before WWII, at the very least. Learn the old ways that your great-grandparents used. They make much more sense and afford much more self-sufficiency. Stop relying on technology for information. Read books. And keep them around for reference. Keep a journal. It's so easy to "forget" events you have witnessed with this shock and awe attack on our sensibilities.
And get out of as much debt as possible. My American grandparents survived the Great Depression, they said, because they paid cash on the barrel and refused to buy farm equipment on credit. People who still owed when the bottom fell out ended up being foreclosed on and they had to join the masses of people migrating from one place to another. The banks just took their farms and businesses. It's been happening here for awhile--thus the issue homelessness gets worse and worse and includes employed middle class people--but we are not connecting the dots. Stop buying stuff you don't need. You're just empowering the billionaires. STOP.
Most of all, to inoculate yourself against all the propaganda, ask yourself this: Is it within the realm of possibility for me to behave the way X media are saying those other people are behaving? If it is not, the media is most likely flat out lying. If you had to face the same things the people you are encouraged to hate or disparage are facing, would you react as they are? And is your behavior (or your perceptions) based on reality or is it based on the need to curry favor/status/wealth? If it is the latter, STOP IT.
Get off the grid, if you can, at least partially. Stop consuming all this violent entertainment. Ask yourself: Is this click bait? If it is, do not click on it. Anti-Russian propaganda is definitely click bait and so is most of the coverage of Ukraine. Stop allowing them to make money on your gullibility.
If the bones of a story do not make sense, the story probably is bullshit. Look at references. Stick out your elbows and take up space. Don't hide. Don't keep silent. The more people openly speak up, the more space there is to say what you think and the harder it'll be for these nuts to effect their scenario on the world. Don't rely on the healthcare system to keep you healthy; don't rely on the food supply system for your food; cut as far back on energy systems as you can. The more independent you are in your practical, lived life, the more independent your thinking will become.
Take up as much space as possible. The most important form of communication is in-person, one-on-one. It's also the most effective. Change one person's perspective and the perspectives of all the people they interact with after that will be changed, even if they don't realize it. No algorithm is that strong. Read between the lines. Follow who is doing financial/economic deals with whom. That will tell you much more than all the journalism you consume. Ask yourself how are the films that are promoted and the books that are allowed to be published part of the propaganda machine? A whole generation has been raised on violent, joy-stick content. Why? (It's pretty obvious now.)
Except my rent just increased to become more than SS monthly income. (Tiny one bedroom apt). Son pays for smart phone so I'm here tonight. Can't fix truck. They replaced the community garden with a dog run. My Master's degree was worthless. I just saw a rat run along the top of the remodeled kitchen cabinets. My kids don't want my books. At least I won't leave un-, mis-, or dis-informed.
PS: our innocent but deadly, subconscious, predatory nervous system (that also forms social dominance hierarchies) operates 400× faster than the cognitive, conscious nervous system. That's why we allow inequality, violence, tyranny and forever wars. I call it the "predator paradox". Bless those few who miraculously co-create compassionate communities that last for several generations.
The anti-Russian hysteria is merely one aspect of the situation. By far the worst is the fact that the propaganda extends to everything and helps shape the choices people make about how to live their lives. Advertising and infotainment destroy people: they encourage unhealthy lifestyles, celebrate consumerism, coarsen behaviour and legitimise the most corrosive forms of cynicism and nihilism.
I love RT and am extremely disappointed that RT America is no more Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp, On Contact with Chris Hedges and America's Lawyer with Mike Papantonio we're real gems that you won't find in US or UK mainstream media. RT publishes op-eds that cover a much wider range of political views than any US publication like NYT or Washington Post. In fact, the first time that I read a Caitlin Johnstone editorial was on RT English. Great stuff. I'm just bummed I can't get my Z t-shirt because RT can no longer take my American credit card.
It's funny and it's sad, but I've been watching Americans for over 70 years, and quite frankly most of them seem very happy being slaves and to never awaken from whatever dream state that they're in, so maybe they should die as planned, because they seem to have been dead from birth anyway. 200 million dead by 2025 is the goal, no doubt I'll be first in line.
I am not sure if people in the Soviet Union believed that they are the happiest; what I do know is that people in Czechoslovakia during the time of really existing socialism knew that they were lied to...... it seems that all changed now, everywhere, in the neoliberal states. The really sad part is - many now uncritically accept this onslaught of misinformation! And everywhere in the collective West, as it is now designated. As always, THANK YOU for your peace.
Once again right on the nail! This is an automatic end of conversation trigger the minute you tell someone that they are being fed propaganda by the CIA funded think tanks they completely forget what you just told them and out comes this automated response "Your a Mouth Piece For Russia/Putin"! The people in this country are brainwashed. It is a major issue because we can no longer have a mutual discourse any longer as there is such a great division and limited understanding of the very cause of the division that the word Zombie comes to mind!
I recently read "The Power of the Powerless," a 1978 essay by Czech dissident Vaclav Havel, and as I was reading his description of the social and political situation behind the iron curtain, with everyone pretending and then pretending not to be pretending, I kept thinking he might as well be describing the USA in the early 2020s. At least most of the Soviet-era commies knew it was all bullshit; America's current political class and their useful idiot NPCs actually seem to believe their own lies, no matter how absurd, and to be genuinely perplexed when anyone entertains a counternarrative that better explains reality.
They certainly are not teaching Americans to worry about the US State Department participating in the committee selecting people for the hit list, and Congress earmarking funding the organization in Ukraine which created the hit list, A hit which included American politicians, academics, and journalist, right along with Dugina and her father, and thus is a violation of 1st amendment as well as the preamble of the Constitution.
The criminalized governance in the US controlled Ukraine will inevitably encourage much the same in the US. There is no rational reason why one portion of the empire should be governed any more leniently than another.
I think that horse already fled the barn long ago, for example the occupation of Japan. The real leadership of LDP of Japan had US backing to violently remove any serious competition starting right after the war, and they (edit: USA and Japan) began both bribing and being bribed from 1946. The murder of the thug and decedent of war criminals PM Shizo Abe is just another mark in that long, violent struggle over the money and power, but now internal among nasty men it would be hard to separate in their foul opinions with a well lubricated butter knife. (edit: They are starting to consume their own).
It is just one for-runner to Ukraine/USA both pre and post (euro)Maidan. The interesting angle here is both the very open warfare on Americans and the Constitution, both of which interfere with the flow of the spice. That and the gentle, quiet acquiescence (not so much of the public cattle, but) of even the Washington elite to it. May they all eventually be Shizo'd.
Sounds like Italy, where the US teamed up with the Mafia (and the Vatican) to establish the Christian Democrats as the preeminent political party in the late 40s. It must be a standard practice across the empire to use organised crime. The price we pay is the license the gangsters get to ship drugs, traffic people etc.
Or how the CIA either turned a blind eye or actively assisted (depending on whom you ask) The Secret Army in its heroin trafficking endeavors in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s.
The real life backstory behind The French Connection, or the Mujahedin in Afghanistan smuggling heroin, or Colombian death squads (not to mention one Manuel Noriega, until he was no longer useful) being permitted to engage in the cocaine trade, are all also most instructive.
i have recently lost friends who say they realize that our mainstream media is entirely controlled by about seven billionaires, all of whom are in lock step and daily spout 100% u.s. propaganda, much of which is outright lies of both commission and omission. then they watch CNN, PBS, MSNBC, NY Times, WAPO, BBC, and the local on-air tv news and tell me i'm a putin apologist and a conspiracy theorist because i form my own opinions after performing actual research. are these people really that dumb, is it simply pure laziness, or is a lifetime of u.s. propaganda just too much to put aside?
It is beyond dispute: as an entity, the West makes Pavlov's dog look like a doberman on steroids. We are tame, we are trained, and even the name Tucker Carlson, a total non-entity, makes us think warm, comforting thoughts of moral superiority and a monopoly on Truth itself. CNN, MSMBC and the rest of the hack media prop our heads up literally, so we never see facts on the ground. But they are creeping up on us, and the only consolation is a kind of unfortunate Schadenfreude. How very sad.
The US superpower is as insane as any meth head addict. Thanks for exposing the insanity.
Horrible nightmare world of misinformation. Sorry you get harrassed about it. As an antifracker in Pa., I and other environmental activists were name-called as Kremlin paid and sponsored over ten years ago !
If the Kremlin is paying anti fracking activists, I’d like to sign up.
Please add me!
Any time I gently point out the US role in the current crisis I am attacked and called a Russian Stooge.
I now take it as a badge of honour.
I get that by default.
My twitter description includes ‘russian bot’. They however locked it recently and won’t deactivate my account. We should all leave twitter. It’s already an echo chamber for neoliberal nonsense.
Not just echo chamber but a psyops. See https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/sio-aug-22-takedowns
deleted prior comment - it had the wrong link - here's the correct link from the original event: 9/20/12
http://www.wolfenotes.com/2012/09/from-the-corporate-suites-pennsylvania-gov-corbett-attacks-thousands-in-the-streets/
I wonder where the State ends now. I used to believe in a private commercial sphere, but the economy is not differentiated anymore. Media, tech, education, medicine, manufacturing, mining and on and on are all heavily linked to and controlled by government. The world we were warned about is here.
The state has merged with corporations. How can Facebook be considered independent when its owner publicly admits suppressing a story at the request of the FBI? Or when Facebook and Twitter openly admit they are hiring censors, or fact-checkers as they call them, from the CIA and FBI? This is what Fascism looks like.
The censors and propagandists claim to be acting in accordance with legal mandates when it suits them, but to be private parties when they wish to avoid legal constraints.
Edit: stupid autocorrect.
Much like the banks and their privatization of profits and socialization of losses. Which they need GOVERNMENT (the real bad guys - the State) to make reality.
It is exactly fascism. GG (best journalist in the world) used to say that social media companies never wanted to censor, etc, etc as if it was self-evident. It would piss me off… I’d be like wtf Glenn?! If they didn’t want to censor they wouldn’t do it.
And then I heard him make this distinction: the power to label as misinformation, fact-check, etc is a power that flows through them - it doesn’t stem from Twitter, FB, etc.
That’s the truth. This story is the proof you didn’t need…
More like International Organized Corporate Crime
Yes. We have a globalist kleptocracy of finance capitalists.
I was part of the 0.04% of Britons that watched RT...great programs like Renegade Inc. and George Galloway's Sputnik; which had many British politicians from all political persuasions on it and Galloway has great insights into British constitutional workings including anecdotes of his time in the 'House'.
Now we have to watch absurd items on C4 or the Beeb about Ukraine's 'counter offensive' that even the British Defense Intelligence Office failed to mention in its daily reports...yeah, it was that significant.
RT was the only news and entertainment that I watched. When it was shut down here in the US I lost all hope of ever seeing them come back. I could not believe the number of idiots who started petitions to "Ban RT"! I have to wonder who was behind them as on the one hand they claimed not that many people watched them and yet they were such a threat! This is the reason I am on this page right now because I had to go searching for a new source OF THE TRUTH! So now the question remains when will Caitlin become the next threat to the bullshit lies of the Criminal Elite along with the few other outlets of truth and what will they do to shut them down?
You can still watch RT online at RT.com. We watch it daily.
But it's not RT America. I used to have it on all day to catch as much as possible going in and out to the garden.
Yes, I still watch it on Rumble. But some of the programs I enjoyed are gone. Ridiculous as many MPs from the British parliament appeared on it and even Boris Johnson's dad. But they had to ban it when they knew their plan to war in Ukraine had worked. The last thing the west's governments and media want is RT journos telling the truth...and exposing the BBC, C4, Guardian etc. for the charlatans that they are.
"Censor us please!"
Incredible.
rt broadcasts live on odysee and rumble for the countries where free speech is prohibited.
Is https://www.rt.com/ reachable in Britain? What about https://sputniknews.com/ ?
If yes, then these and a few others can be consulted for the same level of info you used to get on RT. Sans a few of your favorite programs, of course, since those might no longer exist.
I have them both as android apps however they are merely news feeds at this point. While I periodically read them they are not at all what they used to be. There isn't even a "News Desk"!
I completely agree. I don’t see any Russian propaganda, at least none I can distinguish from honest dissent. Like you I find knee jerk abuse for simply questioning what is plainly BS. But Americans have been up to their nostrils in BS since birth, so it’s important to understand where they’re coming from.
The farce that was Russiagate should have convinced those capable of being convinced, that the whole ridiculous exercise was a pretext for further meddling in Ukraine and to excuse the sending of tens or hundreds of billions to them. At least they finally realize they can’t send American cannon fodder without scrutiny any more.
"Propaganda machine" i see reporting from russian side closer to the truth compared to the western inverted truth in massmedia, without any blinking the west takes unfiltered news from the ukraine and uses it as headline, it is just sad.
Im reading several neutral journalists on their blogs, YT, Odysee etc and mixing this the russian reporting is spot on whats happening in donbas, while the ukraine side sure not tells the west they attack civilians every day and nuclear power plants, no they just say its the russians and the west just prints it.
When are people going to realise that propaganda is primarily a tool used by governments on their domestic populations? Which includes in the country you live in.
You cannot see your culture even a little clearly until you remove yourself from it. Fish don't know what water is until you remove them from the sea. As a kid, since I lived in a country adjacent to the U.S.S.R. and a block and a half from the Soviet Embassy, and found Americans more bizarre than the Soviets so watched their propaganda with intense interest, I have always been disappointed that more Americans don't criticize their own culture with much insight. A lot of things most Americans believe in seem to me to be ridiculous propaganda. What is quite remarkable is how many are willing to open their eyes and see what's going on, to at least attempt to look at the world through another culture's eyes. You do need some background in history to be able to understand the present and Reagan decimated the public school system, especially in History, and replaced it with what I would call "The World According to Reagan" which was memes from Hollywood films that themselves were EXTREME propaganda. I liked Capra's films when I was young but they are such propaganda it's hard to believe anyone could take them seriously. And the first thing Bush II did after 9/11 was make a quickie trip to Hollywood to encourage filmmakers to make uber propagandistic films. Which they did. During the Iranian Hostage Crisis Dan Rather's interviews were extremely biased. I knew some of the people he used as "Americans on the street". He edited out anything sympathetic to the Iranian point of view. That's not journalism. If you didn't know what the U.S. did to Iran from WWII on, their behavior looks irrational. But if you do know, their behavior looks very tempered and intelligent and sane, compared to the crazy Americans who look like ignorant, uneducated plebes who just crawled out of the woods.
All governments use propaganda to prop themselves up. Both Russia and the U.S. do but Russia tends to tell the truth more often than the U;.S. The American propaganda is very awkward and obvious and it's pretty hard to find any objective truth in it to make it believable. The only reason Americans believe it is because they're so isolated from the rest of the world and also are insulated from reality by their wealth. They tend not to speak anything but English so are dependent on others to translate events. Many people who are supposedly "bilingual" aren't really (I'm thinking of the CIA). Even the poorest Americans are wealthy compared to many people around the world. And they don't know how to travel to maximize exposure to other people's realities. They insulate themselves from learning anything with their money. And, yes, what a person on SSI or welfare makes is considerable wealth elsewhere because of the exchange rate. Americans think they need amounts of money they do not and they make deals with the devil for that money.
The people who join the military are real victims of propaganda. Otherwise, they would never join. NEVER. And how would we have forever wars without them? Without war our economy doesn't work. Perpetual growth is a myth. The U.S. is a culture that's imploding and we're just unfortunate enough to have been born at a time where we could witness it. If I thought enough Americans were capable of thinking for themselves, outside the propaganda box they've lived in all their lives, I would have some hope. But I don't think there are enough independent thinkers in this country. Americans are probably the MOST CONFORMIST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD. It's shocking and, let's admit it, quite fascinating. These are incredibly interesting times. And speaking for myself and many reading this, we have ringside seats.
Having said that, these forever wars--and I include the COVID debacle among them--have opened the eyes of a lot of people--more than I ever thought possible. So maybe there is a tiny glimmer of hope. The truth is if enough people refuse to buy into the myths of this culture--especially those of money and status being indicative of a person's "success"--the Great Reset would be impossible to effect.
I do think the rapid deployment of 5G around certain parts of the world is part of a plan of world-wide surveillance and eventually high-tech methods of controlling the behavior of masses of people. So look at your lifestyle and stop running after the almighty dollar, caring more about other people's opinions than your own, get rid of as much tech as you can. Try to replace "modern" appliances with appliances and technologies from before WWII, at the very least. Learn the old ways that your great-grandparents used. They make much more sense and afford much more self-sufficiency. Stop relying on technology for information. Read books. And keep them around for reference. Keep a journal. It's so easy to "forget" events you have witnessed with this shock and awe attack on our sensibilities.
And get out of as much debt as possible. My American grandparents survived the Great Depression, they said, because they paid cash on the barrel and refused to buy farm equipment on credit. People who still owed when the bottom fell out ended up being foreclosed on and they had to join the masses of people migrating from one place to another. The banks just took their farms and businesses. It's been happening here for awhile--thus the issue homelessness gets worse and worse and includes employed middle class people--but we are not connecting the dots. Stop buying stuff you don't need. You're just empowering the billionaires. STOP.
Most of all, to inoculate yourself against all the propaganda, ask yourself this: Is it within the realm of possibility for me to behave the way X media are saying those other people are behaving? If it is not, the media is most likely flat out lying. If you had to face the same things the people you are encouraged to hate or disparage are facing, would you react as they are? And is your behavior (or your perceptions) based on reality or is it based on the need to curry favor/status/wealth? If it is the latter, STOP IT.
Get off the grid, if you can, at least partially. Stop consuming all this violent entertainment. Ask yourself: Is this click bait? If it is, do not click on it. Anti-Russian propaganda is definitely click bait and so is most of the coverage of Ukraine. Stop allowing them to make money on your gullibility.
If the bones of a story do not make sense, the story probably is bullshit. Look at references. Stick out your elbows and take up space. Don't hide. Don't keep silent. The more people openly speak up, the more space there is to say what you think and the harder it'll be for these nuts to effect their scenario on the world. Don't rely on the healthcare system to keep you healthy; don't rely on the food supply system for your food; cut as far back on energy systems as you can. The more independent you are in your practical, lived life, the more independent your thinking will become.
Take up as much space as possible. The most important form of communication is in-person, one-on-one. It's also the most effective. Change one person's perspective and the perspectives of all the people they interact with after that will be changed, even if they don't realize it. No algorithm is that strong. Read between the lines. Follow who is doing financial/economic deals with whom. That will tell you much more than all the journalism you consume. Ask yourself how are the films that are promoted and the books that are allowed to be published part of the propaganda machine? A whole generation has been raised on violent, joy-stick content. Why? (It's pretty obvious now.)
Spot on commentary. Very useful advice.
Thank you for this.
Except my rent just increased to become more than SS monthly income. (Tiny one bedroom apt). Son pays for smart phone so I'm here tonight. Can't fix truck. They replaced the community garden with a dog run. My Master's degree was worthless. I just saw a rat run along the top of the remodeled kitchen cabinets. My kids don't want my books. At least I won't leave un-, mis-, or dis-informed.
PS: our innocent but deadly, subconscious, predatory nervous system (that also forms social dominance hierarchies) operates 400× faster than the cognitive, conscious nervous system. That's why we allow inequality, violence, tyranny and forever wars. I call it the "predator paradox". Bless those few who miraculously co-create compassionate communities that last for several generations.
The anti-Russian hysteria is merely one aspect of the situation. By far the worst is the fact that the propaganda extends to everything and helps shape the choices people make about how to live their lives. Advertising and infotainment destroy people: they encourage unhealthy lifestyles, celebrate consumerism, coarsen behaviour and legitimise the most corrosive forms of cynicism and nihilism.
I love RT and am extremely disappointed that RT America is no more Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp, On Contact with Chris Hedges and America's Lawyer with Mike Papantonio we're real gems that you won't find in US or UK mainstream media. RT publishes op-eds that cover a much wider range of political views than any US publication like NYT or Washington Post. In fact, the first time that I read a Caitlin Johnstone editorial was on RT English. Great stuff. I'm just bummed I can't get my Z t-shirt because RT can no longer take my American credit card.
It's funny and it's sad, but I've been watching Americans for over 70 years, and quite frankly most of them seem very happy being slaves and to never awaken from whatever dream state that they're in, so maybe they should die as planned, because they seem to have been dead from birth anyway. 200 million dead by 2025 is the goal, no doubt I'll be first in line.
I am not sure if people in the Soviet Union believed that they are the happiest; what I do know is that people in Czechoslovakia during the time of really existing socialism knew that they were lied to...... it seems that all changed now, everywhere, in the neoliberal states. The really sad part is - many now uncritically accept this onslaught of misinformation! And everywhere in the collective West, as it is now designated. As always, THANK YOU for your peace.
Reference re 200 million dead by 2025, please? 200 million in U.S. alone or across the globe?
Once again right on the nail! This is an automatic end of conversation trigger the minute you tell someone that they are being fed propaganda by the CIA funded think tanks they completely forget what you just told them and out comes this automated response "Your a Mouth Piece For Russia/Putin"! The people in this country are brainwashed. It is a major issue because we can no longer have a mutual discourse any longer as there is such a great division and limited understanding of the very cause of the division that the word Zombie comes to mind!
I recently read "The Power of the Powerless," a 1978 essay by Czech dissident Vaclav Havel, and as I was reading his description of the social and political situation behind the iron curtain, with everyone pretending and then pretending not to be pretending, I kept thinking he might as well be describing the USA in the early 2020s. At least most of the Soviet-era commies knew it was all bullshit; America's current political class and their useful idiot NPCs actually seem to believe their own lies, no matter how absurd, and to be genuinely perplexed when anyone entertains a counternarrative that better explains reality.
They certainly are not teaching Americans to worry about the US State Department participating in the committee selecting people for the hit list, and Congress earmarking funding the organization in Ukraine which created the hit list, A hit which included American politicians, academics, and journalist, right along with Dugina and her father, and thus is a violation of 1st amendment as well as the preamble of the Constitution.
The criminalized governance in the US controlled Ukraine will inevitably encourage much the same in the US. There is no rational reason why one portion of the empire should be governed any more leniently than another.
I think that horse already fled the barn long ago, for example the occupation of Japan. The real leadership of LDP of Japan had US backing to violently remove any serious competition starting right after the war, and they (edit: USA and Japan) began both bribing and being bribed from 1946. The murder of the thug and decedent of war criminals PM Shizo Abe is just another mark in that long, violent struggle over the money and power, but now internal among nasty men it would be hard to separate in their foul opinions with a well lubricated butter knife. (edit: They are starting to consume their own).
It is just one for-runner to Ukraine/USA both pre and post (euro)Maidan. The interesting angle here is both the very open warfare on Americans and the Constitution, both of which interfere with the flow of the spice. That and the gentle, quiet acquiescence (not so much of the public cattle, but) of even the Washington elite to it. May they all eventually be Shizo'd.
Sounds like Italy, where the US teamed up with the Mafia (and the Vatican) to establish the Christian Democrats as the preeminent political party in the late 40s. It must be a standard practice across the empire to use organised crime. The price we pay is the license the gangsters get to ship drugs, traffic people etc.
Or how the CIA either turned a blind eye or actively assisted (depending on whom you ask) The Secret Army in its heroin trafficking endeavors in Laos in the 1960s and 1970s.
The real life backstory behind The French Connection, or the Mujahedin in Afghanistan smuggling heroin, or Colombian death squads (not to mention one Manuel Noriega, until he was no longer useful) being permitted to engage in the cocaine trade, are all also most instructive.
Very true. And China. All the while it's the west who is trying to kill us.
i have recently lost friends who say they realize that our mainstream media is entirely controlled by about seven billionaires, all of whom are in lock step and daily spout 100% u.s. propaganda, much of which is outright lies of both commission and omission. then they watch CNN, PBS, MSNBC, NY Times, WAPO, BBC, and the local on-air tv news and tell me i'm a putin apologist and a conspiracy theorist because i form my own opinions after performing actual research. are these people really that dumb, is it simply pure laziness, or is a lifetime of u.s. propaganda just too much to put aside?
All signs point to yes.
It is beyond dispute: as an entity, the West makes Pavlov's dog look like a doberman on steroids. We are tame, we are trained, and even the name Tucker Carlson, a total non-entity, makes us think warm, comforting thoughts of moral superiority and a monopoly on Truth itself. CNN, MSMBC and the rest of the hack media prop our heads up literally, so we never see facts on the ground. But they are creeping up on us, and the only consolation is a kind of unfortunate Schadenfreude. How very sad.