The U.S. empire has been doing everything it can to restrict the flow of inconvenient information as public opposition to its criminality swells at home and abroad.
Caitlin Johnstone: US Escalates War On Dissent
August 10, 2024
Tag: Caitlin Johnstone
People often object to criticisms of Israel’s ongoing mass atrocity in Gaza by saying, “Well what SHOULD Israel have done in response to October 7 then?” They say it like the question should confound you, as though it’s some kind of thought-terminating unanswerable Zen koan or something.
“Well What SHOULD Israel Have Done After October 7?”
By Caitlin JohnstoneAug 7, 2024
On the fantasy worlds of Democrats trying to free Palestine from the river to the sea and Republicans trying to turn the White House into a puppet regime of Moscow, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
Big Lie: Biden & Harris Hate Israel; Trump Loves Russia
July 29, 2024
If Americans were actually in charge, there would be some option available to them to end the Israeli genocide in Gaza. But when it comes to matters of such importance, they never get a vote.
The desperation shows when the cry of Anti-Semitism is used as a smokescreen to deflect Truth
Actual hatred of Jews absolutely does exist in western society, but it’s much more peripheral than racism toward immigrants and people of colour. You don’t typically see the average westerner espousing a hatred of Jewish people unless they dive down some pretty obscure and fringey rabbit holes that leave them babbling about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and denying the Holocaust and such nonsense. Jewish people simply are not othered that much in western society compared to other minorities, so if an Israel apologist needs to shout down western criticism of Israeli atrocities as arising from a hatred of Jews, they must necessarily resort to fallacious reasoning.
Have you ever asked why so many of the loudest, but aged voices, in media came from country towns or a working-class background? They were apprentices and the local paper in town was a means to not being a farm worker or laborer. They didn’t go to university they were trained in verifying and reporting facts not simply the secondhand fantasies and rumors of who said what to whom. That certainly changed when journalism became a university degree and facts were shown the back door to opinion a commodity in itself to be bought and sold..
It’s not just the obscenely wealthy owners of the mass media who are protecting their class interests — it’s the reporters, editors and pundits as well.
All the most widely amplified voices in our society are the celebrities, journalists, pundits and politicians who’ve proven themselves to be reliable stewards of the matrix of narrative control which keeps the public jacked in to the mainstream worldview.
Is it any wonder, then, that all the sources we’ve been taught to look to for information continually feed us stories which give the impression that the status quo is working fine and this is the only way things can possibly be?
Is it any wonder that the mass media support all U.S. wars and cheerlead all imperial agendas?
This is how things were set up to be. Our media act like propagandists for a tyrannical regime because that’s exactly what they are.
The single dumbest thing the U.S. empire asks us to believe nowadays is that surrounding its two biggest foes with war machinery is a defensive action, rather than an act of extreme aggression.
Source: Caitlin Johnstone: Biden Lies About ‘Not Surrounding’ China
Peter Costello’s Ch9, Murdoch’s News Corp, and Kerry Stokes… That 80%+ Oh, yes a very wounded ABC
Australians are particularly vulnerable to propaganda because the country has the most concentrated media ownership in the Western world, dominated by Nine Entertainment and the Murdoch-owned News Corp.
Source: Caitlin Johnstone: 60 Minutes Australia Churning Out War-with-China Propaganda
You don’t get to say “journalism is not a crime” while literally working to criminalize journalism, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
Russian security services have formally filed espionage charges against Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia since his arrest last month. Gershkovich reportedly denies the spying allegations and says he was engaged in journalistic activity in Russia.
This news came out at the same time as a joint statement was published by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemning Gershkovich’s detention as a violation of press freedoms.
“Let there be no mistake: journalism is not a crime,” the senators write. “We demand the baseless, fabricated charges against Mr. Gershkovich be dropped and he be immediately released and reiterate our condemnation of the Russian government’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish independent journalists and civil society voices.”
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age just produced an immense example of conflict-of-interest journalism. A former prime minister called it “the most egregious and provocative news presentation” he had ever witnessed in over 50 years of public life.
Anyone who’s paying attention knows the behavior of the U.S. war machine is as relevant to Australians as it is to Americans, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
Source: Murdoch Propaganda Readies Australia for War with China
In what Austin journalist Christopher Hooks has called “one of the stupidest news cycles in living memory,” the entire American political/media class is having an existential meltdown over what the Pentagon claims is a Chinese spy balloon detected in U.S. airspace on Thursday.
Technology today is even designed in such a way as to have us believe we are less as a species than we in fact are. The algorithms on social media platforms are designed to divide and have us fight each other rather than raise our awareness of humanity. When Jews join Christians to become Nazis betterment of the human condition isn’t their goal. That’s what Israeli has done. We aren’t individuals we are a species, humans are more alike than they are different. However, doubt and lack of trust have increased and we are the creators of that blunder and not “nature”.
If you find yourself rushing to defend the foreign policy of the most militarily, economically and culturally dominant nation on earth, ask yourself why that is. Ask whom that impulse benefits. Ask how that impulse came upon you. Ask if it could have been put there by propaganda.
It is false to claim that capitalism, competition and greed are “human nature”. I cite as my source for this claim the fact that I am human. The truth is that those who claim capitalism, competition and greed are “human nature” are not actually telling you anything about human nature.
They are telling you about their own nature. And it isn’t even really accurate to call it their “nature”; it’s just their conditioning. And we can all change our conditioning. The only people who deny this are those who haven’t sincerely tried to yet.
olddogthoughts 
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