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8 1/2 EP963 - ไม่สูงให้เขย่ง ไม่เก่งให้ขยัน

It's not that the US elects incompetent leaders who make bad decisions that kill millions of people with warfare, it's that the global US empire is held together with military violence and the threat thereof. It's an intrinsically evil institution and you should always oppose it.

It's not that the US government has done evil, it's that the US government is itself evil. The very way it has set itself up to operate in the world necessarily means it must exert endless violence and oppression to keep populations functioning in its interests. That's evil.

The Mafia hasn't happened to make bad decisions throughout its history that resulted in the unfortunate demise of certain individuals, it's an institution explicitly set up to reap profits by exerting and threatening violent force. The US empire is exactly the same. Same evil.

It's not that the American people keep accidentally electing warmongering thugs, anymore than it's an accident that the Mafia is always led by men who are willing to bully and kill. The US empire is an intrinsically thuggish and violent institution, and needs that kind of leader.

The US empire is just a rich man's mafia. And you should want it gone for the exact same reason you don't want your neighborhood to be tyrannized by violent mobsters.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The US Empire Is Evil And You Should Want It To Fail

Putin has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the goal of which he claims is not to occupy the country but to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” it. We've no reason to put blind faith in any of those claims. Only time will tell.

As of this writing dozens have reportedly been killed so far. All war is horrific. We can only hope that this one winds up being the least horrific a war can be.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Twelve Thoughts On Ukraine

If the Kremlin wanted to kill large numbers of people it should have done so with starvation sanctions and proxy militias like a civilized government.

Fashion has moved on since the early 2000s, you savages.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Civilized Nations Kill With Sanctions And Proxy Armies

I am convinced that mainstream culture's fascination with World War II has made us all dumber. Everyone just lives in this dopey children's cartoon now where every US enemy is Hitler and they're the brave hero who is fighting Hitler.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Every US Enemy Is Hitler

The war is not going well for Kyiv, and it would be unreasonable to expect that to change. As a vastly superior military force overwhelms the US client state, reality is in the process of crashing down hard in the face of western liberals who bought into the war propaganda that the brave, sexy comedian was leading an upset victory to kick Putin's ass out of Ukraine.

Zelensky is now raging at NATO powers for refusing to intervene militarily against Russia, apparently having previously been given the impression that the US-centralized empire might risk its very existence defending its dear friends the Ukrainians from an invasion. 

"Unfortunately, today there is a complete impression that it is time to give a funeral repast for something else: security guarantees and promises, determination of alliances, values that seem to be dead for someone," Zelensky said Friday.

"All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you," Ukraine's president added. "Because of your weakness, because of your disunity."

It must be hard, the process of learning that you were never actually a valued partner in western civilization's fight for freedom and democracy. That you were always just one more sacrificial pawn on the imperial chessboard.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Ukraine Is A Sacrificial Pawn On The Imperial Chessboard

Ukraine's only chance at stopping Russia in the near term would be if it could persuade NATO powers to take a more direct role in combat, like setting up a no-fly zone as President Zelensky has persistently pleaded with them to do. One way to get around NATO's rational resistance to directly attacking the military forces of a nuclear superpower would be to appeal to emotion via atrocity propaganda. By circulating a narrative that Russia has done something heinous which cries out to the heavens for vengeance, regardless of the risks entailed.

The United States would also benefit from circulating atrocity propaganda about Russia, in that it would further consolidate international support behind the agenda to economically strangle the nation to death in facilitation of the empire's struggle for unipolar planetary hegemony. Even before the invasion the US was already pushing the narrative that Russia has a list of dissidents, journalists and "vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons” who it plans on rounding up and torturing.

To be clear, it is not conjecture that the US and its proxies make use of atrocity propaganda. The infamous Nayirah testimony for example helped manufacture consent for the Gulf War when a 15 year-old girl who turned out to be a coached plant falsely told the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus that she'd witnessed Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of incubators in Kuwait and leaving them on the floor to die. 

Reading by Tim Foley.

The US And Ukraine Have Every Reason To Lie About The War

Let's be clear: you're not paying more for necessities to punish Putin and save Ukraine, you're paying more for necessities to fund an economic war of unprecedented scale geared toward collapsing Russia to help secure US unipolar domination of this planet.

It's not "Putin's price hike". This was all orchestrated by the empire, from root to flower. The goal is to use economic warfare and a costly counterinsurgency against western-backed Ukrainians to either collapse and balkanize the Russian Federation or foment enough discontent to secure regime change in Moscow. This is because Putin refuses to kiss the imperial ring.

The western empire could not possibly care less about Ukrainians beyond the extent to which they can be used to roll out this agenda. There hasn't been nearly enough public rage about the fact that the US government knew this war was coming, knew exactly how to prevent it with very low-cost concessions to Moscow, and chose not to. They made that choice in order to advance this agenda.

That's what you're paying for as the your cost of living skyrockets. Not freedom and democracy. Not saving Ukrainian lives. Just the very mundane and unsexy unipolarist objectives of a few sociopathic empire managers. Empire managers who, of course, will have no trouble paying for things like fuel and groceries while ordinary people struggle.

And if you think these cold war escalations against Russia are hurting your bank account, wait til the imperial crosshairs move to China.

Reading by Tim Foley.

This Ain't Putin's Price Hike

Sometimes I can only stop and stare in awe at the power of the US propaganda machine. Almost the entire global north has been paced into perfect alignment with cold war agendas geared toward securing US unipolar dominance by an unprecedented propaganda and censorship campaign.

There's nothing intrinsic in Russia's invasion of Ukraine which says the nation must be strangled to death by unheard-of levels of economic warfare from Washington-loyal governments. A huge international consensus needed to be manufactured for that specific response, and the public needed to go along with it. Just absolutely incredible.

By securing control of global narratives via Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and plutocratic "news" outlets, the US empire has effectively supplanted the UN and international law in its ability to get whole groups of nations moving in a certain way with the consent of the governed. The human species is being led around like a dog on a leash by a collective mind control system of unparalleled and unprecedented sophistication that hardly anyone even notices. Imperial propaganda is the single most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of our society.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Awesome Power Of US Propaganda: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

It's not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe the US is pouring weapons into a foreign nation to defend freedom and democracy.

It's not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe serious military conflicts consist of Good Guys fighting Bad Guys like a children's cartoon show.

It's not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and believe a war is being fought between an evil monster who is the same as Hitler and a virtuous sexy comedian of surpassing bravery and wisdom.

Reading by Tim Foley.

It's Not Okay For Grown Adults To Think This Way About Ukraine

You know you are being aggressively propagandized about Ukraine by the mass media and by Silicon Valley. You can feel it in your guts. Everyone can feel it, on some level. It feels gross. 

The split on this issue is between those who trust this gut feeling and those who choose to psychologically compartmentalize away from it. Because if you don't compartmentalize away from it, the implications of this are very frightening. It means pretty much everything you've been told your whole life about the government, about your nation, about the news media, and about the way the world works, has been a lie.

But that is the basic reality. If you've already seen this, you won't experience cognitive dissonance when you observe it in the unprecedented imperial narrative management campaign we're seeing with Ukraine. If you haven't seen it, you'll likely experience a lot of cognitive dissonance if you try to square your gut feeling that you're being propagandized about Ukraine with your belief that your favorite politicians and news sources always tell you the objective truth. And you will compartmentalize accordingly.

That's just how we're wired. Our minds are wired to select for cognitive ease and forcefully reject information which challenges our present worldview. Pushing past the cognitive discomfort and facing reality is the only way to come to real understanding.

Reading by Tim Foley.

They're Enslaving Our Minds And Driving Us Toward Destruction

Readings of all Caitlin Johnstone's articles, usually by her co-writer Tim Foley.