They don't just call Democrats "communists" and "Marxists" in order to attack Democrats, they do it to disappear the entire giant expanse of political spectrum that exists to the left of the capitalist imperialist Democratic Party. They want you to think that's as far left as it gets.

Democrats refer to themselves as "the left" for the same reason. Both mainstream factions work to shrink the Overton window into a tug-o-war between Republican capitalist imperialists and Democrat capitalist imperialists. Between two opposing factions of neoliberal neocons.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Two Parties Of Capitalist Imperialists: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

The science of modern propaganda arguably got its start over a century ago during World War I when a young Edward Bernays was recruited to help sell the conflict to a reluctant American populace, after which he took what he'd learned on that front and folded it into a lifetime of work on the study of mass-scale psychological manipulation.

That was when propaganda as we know it today came into being, with the scientific method applied to the task of refining techniques for manipulating large-scale human behavior using modern media distribution. Those methods have been in research and development this entire time, and have advanced at least as much as our other instruments of warfare have advanced since World War I.

But that wasn't the beginning of mass-scale psychological manipulation by the powerful. That has been going on since the dawn of civilization.

Reading by Tim Foley.

We've Been Dominated By Narrative Control Since The Dawn Of Civilization

The Washington Post has an article out with the brazenly misleading headline "Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters". Anyone who reads the article itself will find its author Tim Starks acknowledges that "Russian accounts had no measurable impact in changing minds or influencing voter behavior," but the insertion of the word "little" means anyone who just reads the headline (the overwhelming majority of people encountering the article) will come away with the impression that Russian trolls still had some influence on 2016 voters.

"Little influence" could mean anything shy of tremendous influence. But the study did not find that Russian trolls had "little influence" over the election; it failed to find any measurable influence at all. 

Starks does some spin work of his own in a bid to salvage the reputation of the ever-crumbling Russiagate narrative, eagerly pointing out that the report does not explicitly say Russia definitely had zero influence on the election's outcome, that it doesn't examine Russian trolling behavior on Facebook, that it doesn't address "Russian hack-and-leak operations," and that it doesn't say "doesn’t suggest that foreign influence operations aren’t a threat at all."

None of these are valid arguments. Claiming Russia definitely had no influence on the election at all would have been beyond the scope of the study, the report's authors do in fact argue that the effects of Russian trolling on Facebook were likely the same as on Twitter, the (still completely unproven) "Russian hack-and-leak operations" were outside the scope of the study, as is the question of whether foreign influence operations can be a threat in general.

What Starks does not do is make any attempt to address the fact that mainstream news and punditry was dominated for years by claims that Russian internet trolls won the election for Donald Trump. He does not, for example, make any mention of his own 2019 Politico article telling readers that the Russian Twitter troll operation ahead of the 2016 election "was larger, more coordinated and more effective than previously known."

Reading by Tim Foley.

Western Journalists Are Cowardly, Approval-Seeking Losers

One of the main differences between myself and other commentators who talk about an elite conspiracy to implement a totalitarian dystopia is that the others warn that we are being pushed toward this dystopia, while I insist that we're already there and have been for generations.

Reading by Tim Foley.

A Prison Where The Prisoners Don't Know They're In Prison

I get funny reactions from people who are new to my work, often because I don't act like the other indie media figures they follow. I'm unrefined and swear a lot. I engage on social media with both followers and critics far more than most do. I talk about elite conspiracies to create a totalitarian dystopia, but I differ from other conspiracy analysts in that I assert that the dystopia is already here and has been for generations.

One of the main things that sets me apart from other people whose names I often get mentioned alongside is that I don't just publish anti-establishment commentary on news and politics and polemics against the empire; I publish art, poetry, philosophical musings, and big-picture assessments of what's going on with humanity as a whole. In case anyone's curious, I have a number of reasons for doing this.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Why I Publish Art And Philosophy In Addition To News Commentary

If the logic that "there are no innocent Russians" because the Russian people have a moral obligation to overthrow their warmongering government were evenly applied, it would also apply to Americans. Even more so, really, since their government is vastly more warlike than Moscow.

Per the "there are no innocent Russians" argument, Americans should be banned from participating in international events. Americans should be kicked out of foreign universities. Cinemas should stop playing Hollywood movies. Hemingway should be banned from schools.

Reading by Tim Foley.

There Are No Innocent Americans

The US empire is telling Moscow "I'm the craziest motherfucker around, I'll keep ramping up the brinkmanship looking you right in the eye and daring you to use nukes," while telling the rest of the world "I am the voice of sanity that you should all look to for leadership."

One of the empire's faces is the virtuous upholder of freedom and democracy, while the other face puts on an intimidating show of viciousness like a prisoner biting off someone's cheek in the prison yard. At least one of those faces is necessarily lying.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Let's Nuke The World Over Who Governs Crimea

I often hear talk of how depressing it is to learn the truth about what's really going on in our society and in our world, including in the comments sections of the places my own writings appear. I'm always being asked for advice on how to keep going on when everything seems so dismal.

This blog has largely functioned as a space where I document the ongoing expansion of my own awareness and understanding of the world and all its ills, an education which I suspect will continue for as long as I have a functioning brain. But to be honest in the six plus years I've been working at this project I've never once experienced a moment of the despair and depression I hear people talking about, and it's never once occurred to me to give up or stop fighting.

Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.

There Is Always Hope, And There Is Always Wonder

The western alliance has established a policy of continually escalating every time Russia doesn't react forcefully to a previous western escalation, which necessarily means Russia is being actively incentivized to react forcefully to those escalations.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The West Is Incentivizing Russia To Hit Back

The other day I stumbled across a 2014 opinion piece in The Guardian titled "It's not Russia that's pushed Ukraine to the brink of war" by Seumas Milne, who the following year would go on to become the Labour Party's Executive Director of Strategy and Communications under Jeremy Corbyn.

I bring this up because the perspectives you'll find in that article are jarring in how severely they deviate from anything you'll see published in the mainstream press about Ukraine in 2023. It places the brunt of the blame for the violence and tensions in that nation at that time squarely at Washington's feet, opening with a warning that the "threat of war in Ukraine is growing" and saying there's an "unelected government in Kiev," and it only gets naughtier from there.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Mass Media Used To Publish Perspectives On Ukraine They Would Never Publish Today

It's impossible to overstate how much our society is shaped by the fact that those who are given the most influence and the largest platforms will experience our status quo systems as working very nicely and have a vested interest in preserving those systems which benefit them. The media-owning, culture-manufacturing class of the super-wealthy elevates people to wealth and celebrity who look like they will be good protectors of their class interests. Those people will necessarily speak fondly of the status quo political systems which let them be rich.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Celebrities Protect The Interests Of The Empire

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

The Mass Media Used To Publish Perspectives On Ukraine They Would Never Publish Today

Caitlin Johnstone

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