In America, lying by the Government is routine because the Government represents not the public but only the wealthiest billionaires who provide most of the money that funds political campaigns. Any candidate who doesn’t represent the megadonor won’t get their money and will therefore be defeated by one who DOES represent the billionaires and NOT the public. Consequently, the winningest political candidates are the best liars, who (get all lof the billionaire money that they need in order to) deceive the most voters the most — and who fulfill on their public campaign promises to the voters the least, and fulfill on their private promises to their billionaire donors the most. This fully explains what the U.S. Government actually does, which is corruption, NOT democracy.
Though some of the billionaires are Republicans, and some are Democrats, the most important political issues aren’t actually the Republicans-versus-Democrats issues, but instead are the-billionaires-versus-the-public issues, such as is demonstrated in these examples:
On February 14, the AP had headlined “Where US adults think the government is spending too much, according to AP-NORC polling,” and listed in rank-order according to the opposite (“spending too little”) the following 8 Government functions: 1. Social Security; 2. Medicare; 3. Education; 4. Assistance to the poor; 5. Medicaid; 6. Border security; 7. Federal law enforcement; 8. The Military. That’s right: the American public (and by an overwhelming margin) are THE LEAST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on the military, and the MOST SUPPORTIVE of spending more money on Social Security, Medicare, Education, Assistance to the poor, and Medicaid (the five functions the Republican Party has always been the most vocal to call “waste, fraud, and abuse” and try to cut). Meanwhile, The Military, which actually receives 53% (and in the latest year far more than that) of the money that the Congress allocates each year and gets signed into law by the President, keeps getting, each year, over 50% of the annually appropriated federal funds.
On March 5, the Jeff-Bezos-owned Washington Post headlined “GOP must cut Medicaid or Medicare to achieve budget goals, CBO finds: The nonpartisan bookkeeper said there’s no other way to cut $1.5 trillion from the budget over the next decade.” Though the CBO is ‘nonpartisan’ as between the Democratic and Republican Parties, it is (since both are) entirely beholden to America’s billionaires; and, so, that term there is deceptive. What that ‘news’-report is reporting is that the sense of Congress (even including Democrats there) is that a way needs to be found to cut $1.5T from ‘Medicare or Medicaid” (which, since only Medicaid, health care to the poor, is ‘discretionary’, Medicare is not) means cutting Medicaid over the next ten years.
Elon Musk spoke for roughly 100 minutes on Sunday at a town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he was campaigning for Brad Schimel, a conservative judge running in the state’s upcoming Supreme Court election.
The session evolved into a freewheeling discussion on Musk’s thoughts about the future of the US and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as he fielded questions from supporters and bashed Democratic leaders.
Musk said little about concrete plans for DOGE but gave attendees a glimpse at what he thinks should be cut.
Here are the top five takeaways from Musk’s town hall.
Musk gave two attendees $1 million for their support
Musk said the checks would be made to “spokespersons” at the event, amid concerns that his $1 million lottery would violate Wisconsin state law.
Musk, who started the event wearing a cheesehead hat, kicked off the talk by handing giant $1 million checks to two supporters.
Musk had originally offered Wisconsin voters $100 each to sign a petition opposing “activist judges,” and they’d be entered to win a $1 million lottery prize.
But amid concerns the giveaway would violate state law, Musk later said the payment would be compensation for the winners to be spokespeople at the event.
Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general, Josh Kaul, tried to block the $1 million lottery, but the state’s Supreme Court declined on Sunday to hear his case.
Musk’s high-profile campaign stop underscores the importance of the judicial election, set for April 1, for Republicans.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has a 4-3 liberal majority, and one of its left-leaning judges, Ann Walsh Bradley, is set to retire — paving the way for a realignment of the state’s ideological future. The vote is also being hyped as a litmus test for sentiment on the Trump administration’s actions in the last few months.
On April 2, the New York Times headlined “Liberal Wins Wisconsin Court Race, Despite Musk’s Millions,” and reported that “Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate for a pivotal seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, overcame $25 million in spending from Elon Musk to defeat her conservative opponent. … With over 70 percent of the vote counted on Tuesday evening, Judge Crawford held a lead of roughly 10 points.” So, the candidate of Democratic Party billionaires (such as George Soros) defeated the candidate of Reublican Party billionaires (such as Elon Musk).
The billionaires control corporate America, and — via their corporations, both profit and nonprofit — they own, and advertise in their media, their corporations; and hire, to write their ‘news’ stories, the reporters that are the best ones to get their candidates elected to public offices. (Other reporters won’t be able to stay long in their media — they’ll fail, just like the candidates the billionaires don’t like will fail.)
The inevitable result is that because the candidates are constantly lying to the public, the public are constantly being disappointed in the Government. And, since the public aren’t intelligent enough to recognize that the source of all this constant corruption and lying is the billionaires-control over the Government and the press, the public don’t blame the billionaires but instead “the Republicans” or “the Democrats” or “the minorities” or “the immigrants” or whatever. So, they never learn, but instead just stick with whatever their prejudices happen to be. And, of course, the Government officials, and the billionaires who made them so, are publicly calling this “democracy” and privately laughing at it, because they’re in perfect positions to know that it’s just another lie. The problem isn’t that they don’t respect the public, but that they don’t serve the public. In a democracy, the public officials serve the public even if they don’t respect them. It’s their job — regardless of what they think of the public. But in an aristocracy or other kind of dictatorship, serving the public isn’t a Government official’s job. And that’s the way it is in this country — and they need to lie about that, too.
Trump Administration allies, along with their bipartisan co-conspirators in Congress, are actively undermining and rendering useless the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This week alone, they have repeatedly defamed our women’s peace organization, claiming we are funded by or take orders from foreign governments or groups like Hamas. The false accusations, given under oath, that claim CODEPINK and other organizations are funded by a foreign government are laying the groundwork for shutting down civil society organizations – and not just ours. CODEPINK is in Congress every single day, calling for peace, elevating the popular demands of the American people, and educating the public on war and militarism. Because we are loud and effective, they are attacking and trying to silence us with smears and intimidation. We do not believe they will stop at us.
These attacks come as the Trump administration target students who’ve spoken out against the genocide in Gaza. Secretary Rubio and President Trump are extrajudicially revoking student visas and attempting to deport any student they wish, without any due process. Their crime? Disagreeing with the U.S. government’s support for genocide. Students are being kidnapped by masked officers in broad daylight – that should sound the alarm for every American who might openly disagree with President Trump.
These gestapo-like tactics and McCarthyist smears of peace organizations are leading the country down a dark path of unchecked fascism and dictatorship. Between the intimidation of peace groups and blatant attacks on students,every person in the U.S. should stand against this repression – or prepare to face it themselves down the line. Individuals may not like CODEPINK or our messaging around Palestine or China, but that doesn’t exclude them from repression if they let the Trump Administration set this precedent. If they disagree with him on anything at all, they may face the same smears and repression we have. After the groundwork is laid, it’s only a matter of time.
To be clear: CODEPINK is not funded by any foreign government. Protesting war and genocide is not supporting terrorism. Not only are they lying, they are defying the U.S. Constitution to muzzle the burgeoning student movement.
The slanderous statements made by elected officials can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those being lied about, as well as their friends and family. It appears that the United States government is not only committed to waging war abroad, but it is also intent on waging war domestically against U.S. citizens and non-citizens, both of which are also protected by the Constitution.
It is not a coincidence that both Senator Cotton and Secretary Rubio referred to peace activists and students as “lunatics” – they have clearly received their talking points. However, what is actual lunacy is how those elected to serve the American people are ignoring the fact that a majority of Americans do now want wars or war crimes being carried out in our name.
We live in a 24/7 media society of the spectacle where brainwashing is cunning and relentless, and the consuming public is consumed with thoughts and perceptions filtered through electronic media according to the needs and lies of corporate state power.
This propaganda comes in two forms: covert and overt. The latter, and most effective form, comes with a large dose of truth offered rapid-fire by celebrated, authoritative voices via prominent media. The truth is sprinkled with subtle messages that render it sterile. This has long been the case, but it is even more so in the age of images on screens and digital media where words and images flow away like water in a rapidly moving stream. The late sociologist, Zygmunt Bauman, updating Marx’s famous quote “all that is solid melts into thin air,” called this “liquid modernity.”
Welcome to Operation Pandemonium
See, these experts purport to say: What we tell you is true, but it is impossible to draw definitive conclusions. You must drink the waters of uncertainty forever lest you become a conspiracy nut. But if you don’t want to be so labelled, accept the simplest explanation for matters that disturb you – Occam’s razor, that the truest answer is the simplest – which is always the official explanation. If this sounds contradictory, that is because it is. It is meant to be. We induce schizophrenia.
And it is, these experts suggest, because we live in a world where all knowledge is relative, and you, the individual, like Kafka’s country bumpkin, who in his parable “Before the Law,” tries to get past the doorkeeper to enter the inner sanctum of the Law but is never allowed to pass; you, the individual, must accept the futility of your efforts and accede to this dictum that declares that all knowledge is relative, which is ironically an absolute dictum. It is the Law. The Law of contradictions declared from on high.
Many writers, journalists, and filmmakers, while allegedly revealing truths about the U.S. and its allies’ criminal operations at home and abroad, have for decades slyly conveyed the message that in the end “we will never know the truth,” the real facts – that convincing evidence is lacking.
This refusal to come to conclusions is a sly tactic that keeps many careers safe while besmirching, intentionally or not, the names of serious researchers who reach conclusions based on overwhelming circumstantial evidence (the basis for most murder convictions) and detailed, sourced facts, often using the words of the guilty parties themselves, but are dismissed with the CIA weaponized term “conspiracy theorists.”
This often escapes the average person who does not read footnotes and sources, if they even read books. They read screens and the mainstream media, which should now be understood to include much of the “alternative” media. And they watch all sorts of films.
But this “we will never know” meme, this false mystery, is shrewdly and often implicitly joined to another: That we do know because the official explanation of events is true and only nut cases would believe otherwise. Propaganda by paradox. Operation chaos.
The JFK Assassination and the Release of Files
There are so many examples of this, with that of President Kennedy’s assassination being a foundational one. In this case, as with the current phony Trump release of more JFK assassination files, the ongoing “mystery” is always reinforced with the implicit or explicit presupposition that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, but yet implying that there are more mysteries to explore forever because “people” are paranoid. (Trump’s position, as he recently told interviewer Clay Travis, is that he has always believed Oswald assassinated Kennedy, but he wonders if he may have had help.) They are paranoid not because of government and media lies, but because “popular culture” (not highbrow) has created paranoia. To spice this up, there is often the suggestion that President Kennedy was assassinated on the orders of the Mob, LBJ, Cuba, or Israel, when the facts overwhelmingly confirm it was organized and carried out by the CIA. A. O. Scott’s recent front page article in The New York Times in response to the JFK files release – “J. F. K., Blown Away, What Else Do I Have to Say?” (the title appropriately taken from a very fast-paced Billy Joel song and video) – is a perfect example of such legerdemain.
Thus the ruse to keep debating the assassination, get the latest documents, etc. to satisfy “people’s” insatiable paranoia. To pull out CIA fallback stories 2, 3, or even 4 when all else fails. Dr. Martin Schotz, the JFK researcher, rightly compares this to George Orwell’s definition of Crimestop:
‘Crimestop’ means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, or misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to [the powers that be]… and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. ‘Crimestop’, in short, means protective stupidity.
It’s the crazy people’s fault, not Scott’s or those who back him up at The Times, a newspaper that has been lying about the JFK assassination from day one. The same goes for the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, et al., and so many key events in U.S. history. It is a game of creating mental chaos by claiming we do know because the official explanation is correct but we don’t know because people have been infected with paranoia. If only people were not so paranoid! Unlike us at The Times, goes the implicit message.
The Epistemological Games of Certain Filmmakers
It is well known that people today are watching far more streaming film series and movies than they are reading books. That someone would lucubrate with pen in hand over a footnoted book on an important issue is now as rare as someone without a cell phone. The optical-electronic eye-ear screen connection rules most lives, mental and sensory. Marshall McLuhan, if a bit premature while referring in 1962 to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin – the French philosopher, paleontologist, and Jesuit priest – wrote sixty-three years ago in The Gutenberg Galaxy:
Instead of tending towards a vast Alexandrian library the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as an infantile piece of science fiction. And as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside. [my emphasis] So, unless aware of this dynamic, we shall at once move into a phase of panic terrors, exactly befitting a small world of tribal drums, total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.… Terror is the normal state of any oral society, for in it everything affects everything all the time.
The series is a pastiche film filled with seven plus hours of fleeting, fragmented, and fascinating archived video images from the BBC archives where Curtis has worked for decades, accompanied by Curtis’s skeptical commentary about “a world where anything could be anything because there was no meaning anywhere.” These historical images jump from one seemingly disconnected subject to another to reinforce his point. He says it is “pointless to try to understand the meaning of why things happen.” He claims that we are all living as if we are “on an acid trip.”
While not on an acid trip which I have never taken, I was reminded of this recently as I watched a new documentary – Chaos: The Manson Murders (2025) – by the equally famous U.S. documentary filmmaker, Erroll Morris, a film about the CIA’s mind control operation, MKULTRA, and its use of LSD. As everyone knows, the CIA is that way-out hippie organization from Virginia that is always intent on spreading peace, love, and good vibes.
While the content of their films differs, Curtis’s wide-ranging and Morris’s focused on Manson and the book by Tom O’Neil, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, I was struck by both filmmakers tendency to obfuscate while titillating their audience with footage and information that belies their conclusions about not knowing. In this regard, Curtis is the most overt and extreme.
Morris does not use Curtis’s language, but he makes it explicit at Chaos’s end that he doesn’t believe Tom O’Neil’s argument in his well-researched book that Charles Manson was part of a CIA mind-control experiment led by the psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Jolyon “Jolly” West. West worked in 1967 for the CIA on MKULTRA brainwashing projects in a Haight Ashbury clinic during the summer of love, using LSD and hypnosis, when Manson lived there and was often in the clinic with his followers.
On April 26, 1964, West also just “happened” to visit the imprisoned Jack Ruby, the man who killed Lee Harvey Oswald in the Dallas Police Department, and when West emerged from the meeting, he immediately declared that in the preceding 48 hours Ruby had become “positively insane” with no chance that this “unshakeable” and “fixed” lunacy could be reversed. What happened between the two men we do not know – for there were no witnesses – but one might assume West used his hypnotic skills and armamentarium of drugs that were integral to MKULTRA’s methods.
MKULTRA
MKULTRA was a sinister and secret CIA mind-control project, officially started in 1953 but preceded by Operation Bluebird, which was renamed Operation Artichoke. These operations started right after WW II when U.S. intelligence worked with Nazi doctors to torture Russians and others to reveal secrets. They were brutal. MKULTRA was run by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb and was even worse. He was known as the “Black Sorcerer.” With the formula for LSD, the CIA had an unlimited amount of the drug to use widely, which it did. It figured prominently in MKULTRA mind control experiments along with hypnosis. Tom O’Neil sums it up thus:
The agency hoped to produce couriers who could imbed hidden messages in their brains, to implant false memories and remove true ones in people without their awareness, to convert groups to opposing ideologies, and more. The loftiest objective was the creation of hypno-programmed assassins. . . . MKULTRA scientists flouted this code [the Nuremberg Code that emerged from the Nuremberg trials of Nazis] constantly, remorselessly – and in ways that stupefy the imagination. Their work encompassed everything from electronic brain stimulation to sensory deprivation to ‘induced pain’ and ‘psychosis.’ They sought ways to cause heart attacks, severe twitching, and intense cluster headaches. If drugs didn’t do the trick, they’d try master ESP, ultrasonic vibrations, and radiation poisoning. One project tried to harness the power of magnetic fields. [my emphasis]
In 1973 during the Watergate scandal, CIA Director William Helms ordered all MKULTRA documents destroyed. Most were, but some were forgotten, and in the next few years, Seymour Hersh reported about it and the Senate Church Committee went further. They discovered records that implicated forty-four universities and colleges in the experiments, eighty institutions, and 185 researchers, Louis West among them. The evil cat and its large litter were out of the bag.
MKULTRA allegedly ended in 1973. But only the most naïve would think it did not continue under a different form. In 1964, McLuhan wrote that “the medium is the message.” The new medium that was developed in the decades since has been effectively pointed straight at the brain as you watch the screens. And the message?
Tom O’Neil’s Powerful Case
While admitting that he has not conclusively proven his thesis because he has never been able to confirm Manson and West being together, O’Neil amasses a tremendous amount of convincing circumstantial evidence in his book that makes his case very strong that they were, and that Manson’s ability to get his followers to kill for him was the result of MKULTRA mind control and the use of LSD, which he used extensively and which was introduced by the CIA and used by West. Both men had an inexhaustible amount of the mind-altering drug to use on their victims.
This is the subject of Morris’s film, wherein he interviews O’Neil on camera, who explains the extraordinary fact that Manson was able to mesmerize his followers to kill for him without remorse or shame. They “couldn’t get him out of their heads,” even many years later. This was, of course, the goal of MKULTRA – through the use of brainwashing and drugs – to create “Manchurian Candidates.” This case has much wider ramifications than the sensational 1969 Hollywood murders for which Manson and his followers were convicted; for clearly Mansion’s “family” that carried out the murders on his orders appeared in every way to be under hypnotic control. How did a two-bit, ex-con, pipsqueak, minor hanger-on musician learn to accomplish exactly what MKULTRA spent so many years working on?
Yet at the end of his film, Morris makes a concluding comment without even a nod to the possibility that O’Neil is correct. He says he doesn’t believe O’Neil. I found it very odd, jarring, as though O’Neil had been set up for this denouement, which I think he had. But at the same time I recognized it as Morris’s method of setting up and then undermining the narrative protagonists in his films that are ostensibly about getting to factual truths but never do; they are stories about how all we ever have are endless interpretations and the unknowable, confounded by human fallibility. Everything is lost in the fog of Morris’s method, which is no accident.
Frank Olson
I then found an interview that O’Neil did in 2021 in which he said he pulled out of Morris’s film proposal because Morris wanted to make a film that combined the Frank Olson story (a CIA biologist) with his about Manson. In the interview, O’Neil said he knew Eric Olson, Frank Olson’s son, who has spent a lifetime proving that the CIA murdered his father in 1953, but he didn’t explain why he pulled out of the project. However, he appears extensively throughout Chaos, being interviewed on camera by Morris, only to be undermined at the end. Why he eventually agreed to be part of the project I do not know.
I am certain he has seen Wormwood(2017), Morris’s acclaimed (they are all acclaimed) Netflix film series about the biologist/ CIA agent Frank Olson and his son, Eric Olson’s heroic lifelong quest to prove that the CIA murdered his father because he had a crisis of conscience about the agency’s use of torture, brainwashing, LSD, and U.S. biological weapons use in Korea, much of it in association with Nazis. The evidence is overwhelming that Frank Olson did not jump from a NYC hotel window in 1953 but was drugged with LSD to induce hallucinations and paranoia, smashed in the head, and thrown out by the CIA. [Read this and view this] Despite such powerful evidence available to him before making Wormwood, in another example of Morris’s method, he disagrees with Eric Olson’s decades of conclusive research that his father was murdered.
Conclusion
Filmmakers like Adam Curtis and Erroll Morris are examples of a much larger and dangerous phenomenon. Their emphases on the impossibility of knowing – this seeming void in the human mind, an endless acid trip down a road of kaleidoscopic interpretations – is much larger than them. It is deeply imbedded in today’s society. One of the few areas in which we are said to be able to know anything for certain is in the area of partisan politics. Here knowingness is the rule and the other side is always wrong. Fight, fight, fight for the home team! Here the nostalgia for “knowledge” is encouraged, as if we don’t live in a 24/7 media society of the spectacle where brainwashing is cunning and relentless, and the consuming public is consumed with thoughts and perceptions filtered through electronic media according to the needs and lies of corporate state power.
With the arrival of the electronic digital life, “knowledge” is now screening. If you don’t want to confirm McLuhan’s prediction – “as our senses have gone outside us, Big Brother goes inside” – it behooves everyone to step back into the lamplight to read and study books. And take a walk in nature without your machine. You might hear a little bird call to you.
Yesterday, in the US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats with the five heads of intelligence agencies of the US government, Senator Tom Cotton, accused on national TV a group I have worked with for over 20 years, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, of being funded by the Communist Party of China.
During the hearing CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry stood up following the presentation of the Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard’s lengthy statement about global threats to US national security and yelled ‘Stop Funding Israel,’ since neither Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton and Vice Chair Mark Warner had mentioned Israel in their opening statement nor had Gabbard mentioned the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in her statement either.
As Capitol police were taking Barry out of the hearing room, in the horrific style of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, Cotton maliciously said that Barry was a “CODEPINK lunatic that was funded by the Communist party of China.” Cotton then said if anyone had something to say to do so.
Refusing to buckle or be intimidated by Cotton’s lies about the funding of CODEPINK, I stood up and yelled, “I’m a retired Army Colonel and former diplomat. I work with CODEPINK, and it is not funded by Communist China.” I too was hauled out of the hearing room by Capitol police and arrested.
After I was taken out of the hearing room, Cotton libelously continued his McCarty lie, “The fact that Communist China funds CODEPINK which interrupts a hearing about Israel illustrates Director Gabbard’s point that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are working together in greater concert than they ever had before.”
Senator Cotton does not appreciate the responsibility he has in his one-month-old elevation to the chair of the Senate’s intelligence committee.
Senator Cotton does not seem to care that his untruthful statements in a US Congressional hearing aired around the world can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those he lies about, their friends and family. In today’s polarized political environment we know that the words of senior leaders can rile supporters into frenzies as we saw on January 6, 2021 with President Trump’s loyal supporters injuring many Capitol police and destroying parts of the nation’s capitol building in their attempt to stop the Presidential election proceedings.
CODEPINK members have been challenging in the US Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the Bush wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Senator Cotton was elected as a US Senator in 2014. We have been in the US Senate offices and halls twice as long as he has. We have nonviolently protested the war policies of Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump again.
After getting out of the Capitol Hill police station, a CODEPINK delegation went to Senator Cotton’s office in the Russell Senate Office building and made a complaint to this office staff.
We are also submitting a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee for the untrue and libelous statements Senator Cotton made in the hearing.
The abduction and deportation of international students who joined protests of U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, the scathing treatment of visitors who have wanted to enter our country and now the McCarthy intimidating tactics used by Senator Cotton in a Senate intelligence committee hearing of telling lies about individuals and organizations that challenge U.S. government politics, particularly its complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza must be called out and pushed back against.
And we must push back against US Senators who actually receive funding from front groups for other countries. Senator Cotton has received $1,197,989 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to advocate for the genocidal policies of the State of Israel.
Real estate has become climate change’s biggest victim. Climate change is attacking America’s most valuable, biggest asset class. For the first time in history there are regions of the country where major property insurers have dropped coverage altogether as elsewhere rates are on the climb, pricing some buyers out of the market.
America’s politicians punted on tackling climate change decades ago, except for Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who has masterfully delivered more than 290 “Time to Wake Up” climate speeches to the Senate, calling out deniers and demanding bold action. If Congress had been composed of “Whitehouse intellect,” the world climate system would be in much better shape today. And not threatening the American Dream of Homeownership.
At a Senate confirmation hearing for Trump appointee Michael Faulkender as Deputy Treasury Secretary, Senator Whitehouse opened up all firing cylinders, blasting away like there’s no tomorrow, which may be where we’re headed after listening to the senator’s scolding rendition of how Congress has failed climate change impacting the financial system and US economy. In short, climate change is raising hell with the financial system as US property insurance goes up in flames.
In his opening remarks, the senator referenced “very dark economic storm clouds on the horizon,” because of climate change which the administration cannot seriously address because massive political funding has made it “an article of faith to deny climate change,” in fact, claiming “it’s a hoax.” This perverse attitude is now holding America’s homeowner’s hostage.
Interestingly, over past decades, scientists have gotten it right, even the Exxon scientists got it right, meaning, fossil fuel emissions (CO2) cause climate change. Nevertheless, Congress has failed to act because of pressure by fossil fuel interests, including the “largest campaign of disinformation that America has ever seen,” as dark money spills out all over the place. As a result, all serious bipartisan efforts on The Hill on climate change have been squelched. Poof!
Disinformation, disinformation, disinformation has been the guiding light of climate denialism. It’s a hoax; it’s a hoax; it’s a hoax; it’s fake news; it’s fake news, repetition creates fact.
As the senator and the Trump appointee discussed in a meeting beforehand in the senator’s office, the consequences of climate change are severe based upon professional risk judgement where fiduciary responsibly is considered. For example, the chief economist of Freddie Mac told committee hearings we are headed for a “property insurance collapse” that will cascade into a crash in coastal property values that will be so significant that it will cascade into the entire economy, same as 2008. That’s the warning on coastal properties. Additionally, wildfires have now added new property insurance risks that are far removed from coastal property. Climate change knows no boundaries as congressional ineptness and timidity to challenge it clobbers American homeownership.
Senator Whitehouse offered one example after another of how climate change is undermining the financial system of America. In a recent Senate banking committee hearing, the Fed Chairman said there will be “areas of the country where you can’t get a mortgage any longer” because of climate change; a very stern warning that something has to change.
Also, as related by the senator, the Financial Stability Board, the entity that warns the international banking system of impending issues gives the same warning that “property insurance has become a major risk to the survival of the economic system.”
And even closer to home base, meaning Congress itself, a recent bipartisan CBO (Congressional Budget Office) report identified fires, floods and climate change in toto, threatening to undermine our financial system. Yet, Congress ignores its own warnings.
And The Economist magazine cover story in April 2024 depicted climate damage undermining insurance markets and threatening the biggest asset class in the world, RE. predicting a 25 trillion dollar hit to RE because of climate change.
Senator Whitehouse: “The lie that climate change is a hoax is no longer just an act of political malfeasance. It is now an act of economic malfeasance.” Climate change is hitting America’s pocketbooks throughout the country like an early summer thunderstorm crackling in the sky.
The financial-Wall Street-economic impending upside down collapse due to radical climate change should be item number one on Congress’s docket to do whatever is necessary, but it’s not even given a glancing look. Yet, the insurance industry is feeling the heat; homeowners are feeling the heat. Mortgage companies are feeling the heat. And Wall Street is starting to feel the heat. Can the Trump climate hoax syndrome, “ignore it, it’s not real… it’s fake news” hold up in the face of extremely severe financial strain impacting the world’s largest asset class, real estate?
“President Trump issued an executive order aimed at dismantling many of the key actions that have been undertaken at the federal level to address climate change. The order, ‘Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth.” (“Trump Issues Executive Order on Climate Change,” Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia Law School)
“Nobody’s Insurance Rates Are Safe From Climate Change,” Yale Climate Connections, January 14, 2025.
“Property Values to Crater Up to 60% Due to Climate Change,” Business Insider, Aug. 9, 2024.
“U.S. Department of the Treasury Report: Homeowners Insurance Costs Rising, Availability Declining as Climate-Related Events Take Their Toll,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, January 16, 2025.
“Next to Fall: The Climate-driven Insurance Crisis is Here – And Getting Worse,” Senate Budget Committee, Dec. 18, 2024.
“Climate Risk Will Take Trillion-dollar Bite Out of America’s Real Estate, Report Finds,” USA Today, Feb. 7, 2025.
“Real Estate: How Climate Risk is Changing Prices,” Medium, March 3, 2025.
“At Least 20% of U.S. Homes Will be De-Valued Due to Climate Change, Says DeltaTerra CEO Dave Burt,” CNBC, Feb. 19, 2025.
“Climate Change is Fueling the US Insurance Problem,” BBC, March 18, 2024.
“US Housing Market May Face Losses Due to Climate Change,” Realty, Feb. 21, 2025.
“Nearly Half of U.S. Homes Face Severe Threat from Climate Change, Study Finds,” CBS News, March 13, 2024.
“The Possible Collapse of the U.S. Home Insurance System,” New York Times, May 15, 2024.
“The Climate Crisis Will End Home Ownership as We Know It and Eventually Crash the Economy,” Splinter, Jan. 8, 2025.
Fake news?
The big question going forward is whether climate change’s real estate devaluation, which impacts every American household, will take MAGA down to its knees, drowning its lameness in a sea of turbulent financial chaos followed by a massive irrepressible political tsunami payback event that cleanses the nation of lies?
Sufficiently gruesome to learn of the casualties in the Ukraine/Russo war. More gruesome to learn that the statistics don’t reflect actuality and are only another weapon ─ humiliate the opponent and have the public believe the enemy ignores the deaths of its soldiers.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (ISSS) is less sanguine: “…as of early January 2025, the IISS estimates that a minimum of 172,000 Russian troops have been killed and 611,000 wounded, of which at least 376,000 are severely wounded (disabled), with up to an accumulated 235,000 wounded but recoverable.”
For one simple reason, the statistics don’t seem credible ─ other longer and more deadly wars had fewer casualties. The much, much longer Vietnam War had much less American casualties and the horrific World War II, which featured several beach invasions and large infantry battles, had less American dead and about the same casualties as claimed for the Russian battalions in their present war.
In the three years of war in Ukraine, no large infantry battles have occurred; the battles are mainly heavy weapons pulverizing a civilian area, followed by troops entering and occupying after the area is leveled and the enemy leaves. The Russians may have lost a large number of troops in the early stage of the war (30,000?), during the attempt to invade Kiev and the decision to leave. Later months do not indicate the same rate of casualties. In the next largest battle, three months in Mariupol, Ukraine claims to have killed 6,500 Russian soldiers. Even if this is slightly exaggerated, the next largest battle had only 2000 mortalities/month, which equates to 72,000 deaths in three years of equally intensive battles, of which there were none. On the southern front, Russia captured Kherson with few losses and retreated across the Dnieper when Ukraine launched its only large offensive, ceding Kherson and showing no intention of sacrificing soldiers in a losing battle.
Contrasting with Kyiv Independent’s stats, is Mediazona, an independent (?) Russian online news source that methodically searched records to obtain military losses. Their meticulous “data service, in collaboration with the BBC Russian Service and a team of volunteers, concluded that, “…Over 95,000 people fighting for Russia’s military have now died as the war in Ukraine enters the fourth year…. Given the estimate above, the true number of Russian military deaths could range from 146,194 to 211,169.”
Why is the number of Russians killed in the three-year war a meaningful and controversial topic? This is Ukraine’s way of informing the public that it may have lost territory but is not losing the war. Russia cannot continue gaining meager ground with a massive number of their soldiers permanently interred in the ground. Russia will be forced into compromise. Dubious logic.
The Russians have all they want — Crimea, the Russian mainland linked to Crimea, and the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts incorporated into Russia. The war map, as of March 2025, tells that story
The Donetsk basin reaches to the dark lines. Russia needs only to capture Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk to control all the cities of the Donetsk Oblast, and effectively all of Donetsk and Luhansk. Their troops are at the gates of both cities. Super nationalist Vladimir Putin will not rest until his nation controls all of Donetsk, nor will he allow those who have died for that cause to lie buried without the cause succeeding.
Why this farce of “let’s end the war,” without ending the war, is a mystery. Zelensky mentions “guarantees,” undoubtedly meaning that other nations will prevent Russia from interfering again in Ukraine sovereignty. Doesn’t the Ukraine president realize that guarantees are only words on paper, that European governments say what they mean but don’t mean what they say and that governments who change with international styles may not recognize a previous government’s decisions. A solid guarantee has NATO or UN troops at the border between the two warring nations, a prelude to World War III.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.” ─ George Santayana, “Tipperary.”
This month marks the five-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed 1.2 million people in the US alone. While life has returned to normal for most Americans, the threats to our health haven’t disappeared. On this week’s episode of More To The Story, infectious disease epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera talks with host Al Letson about the collision course between the Trump administration’s health priorities and our developing public health emergencies, including the spread of bird flu and the ongoing measles outbreaks. We’ve not only failed to learn our lessons from the pandemic, she argues, but we also might be stumbling into the next one.
Producer: Josh Sanburn | Editor: Kara McGuirk-Allison | Theme music: Fernando Arruda and Jim Briggs | Digital producers: Nikki Frick and Artis Curiskis | Interim executive producers: Taki Telonidis and Brett Myers | Host: Al Letson
The US government funded a Ukrainian military intelligence firm which smeared US Vice President JD Vance, US Counterterrorism Director Joe Kent, and Rep. Thomas Massie as “foreign propagandists of the Russian Federation.”
To this day, the online blacklist published by the USAID-funded Ukrainian group, known as Molfar, lists Vance, Massie, and Kent as “foreign propagandists” aligned with the Russian government, and demands their “removal from public positions, the introduction of sanctions, and investigations into personal involvement in crimes.”
A popular French TV show recently aired an undercover investigation by two young French journalists, Justine Jankowski and Marine Zambrano, who snuck into multiple clothing factories in China with one aim: to find evidence of forced labor.
And if you watched their program, part of France 2’s “Cash Investigation” series, you might be convinced that they found astonishing and scandalous evidence.
The fact of the matter, though, is that the show’s creators used blatant lies to come to that conclusion, and I have all the evidence on today’s show.
What is even more delicious is that the show also featured seasoned anti-China “academic” Adrian Zenz, who has ended up being exposed by this show at the same time. Two birds with one stone!
Grab a cuppa and come with me as I explain all of the tricks the two female reporters used, and highlight clearly why they are lies.
This is Reports on China, I’m Andy Boreham in Shanghai. Let’s get reporting!
Little more than a month into the new US presidency, The Washington Post’s owner dimmed the light on a motto that became a beacon for freedom during the first Trump administration.
“Democracy dies in darkness” has appeared below Washington Post for the past eight years.
Last month it was powdered in irony after the newspaper’s owner, Jeff Bezos, decreed in an email to staff that the newspaper’s editorial section would shift its editorial focus and that only opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome.
Amazon founder Bezos had already sullied the Post’s reputation by refusing to allow it to endorse a candidate during the presidential election — an action capable of no other interpretation than support for Donald Trump.
Since then, there has been a US$1 million Amazon contribution to Trump’s inauguration and, according to the Wall Street Journal, a US$40 million deal with First Lady Melania Trump for an authorised documentary to be run on Amazon’s streaming service.
Now Bezos has openly bowed before the new emperor and dimmed The Washington Post’s lights.
Martin Baron, editor of the Post when the democracy motto — the first in the newspaper’s 140-year history — was adopted, last month described Bezos’s directive as a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression”.
Standing up to Trump
Two years after the slogan appeared on the Post masthead, a former editor of The New York Times, Jill Abramson, published a book titled Merchants of Truth. In it she praised Bezos (who had bought the Washington newspaper six years earlier) for his support of Baron in standing up to Donald Trump’s assaults on the media and his serial falsehoods.
However, she also made a prediction.
“Though it hadn’t yet happened, it seemed all but inevitable that the Post’s coverage would one day bring Bezos’s commitment to freedom of the press into conflict with Amazon’s commercial interests, given the company’s size and power as it competed with Apple to become America’s first trillion-dollar conglomerate.”
That day has come.
It is patently obvious that Jeff Bezos puts the interests of his US$2 trillion Amazon empire ahead of a newspaper that last year lost US$100 million. In the process he has trashed the Post and turned readers against it.
In the 24 hours after last month’s email was revealed, it lost 75,000 online subscribers. It had already shed close to 300,000 when the refusal to endorse a presidential candidate was revealed (I was one of them).
It is unsurprising that he puts an enormously profitable enterprise ahead of one that is costing him money. However, rather than risking the future of a fine newspaper, he could have sought a buyer for it.
He could even afford to sell it for one dollar to staff or to an individual who has a stronger commitment to the principles of free speech than he can now muster. He has done neither.
Chilling effect
Instead, he is prepared to modify content to make The Washington Post more acceptable to the White House in order to protect — perhaps even enhance — his other interests. That will have a chilling effect on the journalists he employs.
In an industry that has lost more than 8000 newsroom roles over the past three years, fear for your job can be a powerful inducement to conform.
An analysis of Bezos’ current strategy by the Wall Street Journal (which paid more attention to commercial interests than journalistic principles) suggested that Bezos had already paid a very high price for being perceived by Trump as an enemy during his first term.
“In 2019, the cost of crossing Trump and funding the Resistance became staggeringly clear to Bezos. Amazon lost out to rival Microsoft on a mammoth $10 billion cloud-computing contract issued by the Pentagon.
“It was a surprising decision since Amazon Web Services was the industry leader in cloud computing and was judged by many to have presented a stronger bid. This time around, the risks to Bezos appear far greater. Trump 2.0 is faster, more ruthless and more skilled at pulling the levers of government power.
“Amazon is vulnerable on many fronts — from antitrust to contracts.”
An even higher price could be paid, however, by the people of the United States (and beyond) as Trump uses those levers to diminish the ability of news media to hold him to account.
Press Corps manipulation
His manipulation of the make-up of the White House Press Corps has been another example. The White House Correspondents Association has been stripped of its role in deciding which journalists have access to the president. Not only has this resulted in the ascendancy of Trump acolytes like Brian Glenn of Real America Voice but America’s pre-eminent wire service, the Associated Press, has been ejected from the Press Pool.
Ostensibly, the ban was due to the AP refusing to change the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in its copy. It is far more likely, however, that the wire service’s balanced coverage and quest for accuracy stands in the way of Trumpian disinformation.
And, of course, his war on words even goes beyond the media to stripping government websites of words, phrases and ideas that challenge or complicate the administration’s views.
I agree with a New York Times editorial that characterised these actions as Orwellian — protecting free speech requires controlling free speech. It said the approach was “deliberate and dangerous.” It labelled Trump’s moves to control not only the flow of information but the way it was presented as “an expansive crackdown on free expression and disfavoured speakers that should be decried not just as hypocritical (Trump and his supporters advocate a form of free speech absolutism) but also as un-American and unconstitutional”.
These are strong words. Sadly, they have yet to result in a mass movement to restore sanity.
And that leaves me at a loss to understand what in Hell’s name has happened to principled people in the United States. If I (and many like me) are affronted by what is happening far from here, why are we not hearing a mass of voices demanding a stop to actions that threaten not only the United States’ international reputation but the very fabric of its society?
Orwell on truth
In 1941, George Orwell made a radio broadcast on truthfulness that may have awful portents for Americans. In it he said:
“Totalitarianism has abolished freedom of thought to an extent unheard of in any previous age. And it is important to realise that its control of thought is not only negative but also positive. It not only forbids you to express — even to think — certain thoughts but it dictates what you shall think, it creates an ideology for you, it tries to govern your emotional life as well as setting up a code of conduct. And as far as possible it isolates you from the outside world, it shuts you up in an artificial universe in which you have no standards of comparison.”
That, I suspect, would be music to Donald Trump’s ears. And Jeff Bezos’s dictating the limits of what is acceptable on The Washington Post’s op/ed pages is one tiny step it that direction.
Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. This article was published first on his Knightly Views website on 4 March 2025 and is republished with permission.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
An unvaccinated child has died of measles, Texas officials announced Wednesday, the first death from measles in the United States in a decade. The child’s death in a hospital in Lubbock, in West Texas, comes as the largest measles outbreak in the state in over 30 years is now spreading to New Mexico. Since last month, 124 people have contracted the disease, most of them unvaccinated children. “The minute you stop vaccinating and maintaining that vigilance of 90-95% vaccine coverage, measles comes roaring back, and that’s what’s happened here in West Texas,” world-renowned pediatrician, virologist and vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez, tells Democracy Now!
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
An unvaccinated child has died of measles, Texas officials announced Wednesday, the first death from measles in the United States in a decade. The child’s death in a hospital in Lubbock, in West Texas, comes as the largest measles outbreak in the state in over 30 years is now spreading to New Mexico. Since last month, 124 people have contracted the disease, most of them unvaccinated children. “The minute you stop vaccinating and maintaining that vigilance of 90-95% vaccine coverage, measles comes roaring back, and that’s what’s happened here in West Texas,” world-renowned pediatrician, virologist and vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez, tells Democracy Now!
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
A New Zealand-based community education provider, Dark Times Academy, has had a US Embassy grant to deliver a course teaching Pacific Islands journalists about disinformation terminated after the new Trump administration took office.
The new US administration requested a list of course participants and to review the programme material amid controversy over a “freeze” on federal aid policies.
The course presentation team refused and the contract was terminated by “mutual agreement” — but the eight-week Pacific workshop is going ahead anyway from next week.
Dark Times Academy’s co-founder Mandy Henk . . . “A Bit Sus”, an evidence-based peer-reviewed series of classes on disinfiormation for Pacific media. Image: Newsroom
“As far as I can tell, the current foreign policy priorities of the US government seem to involve terrorising the people of Gaza, annexing Canada, invading Greenland, and bullying Panama,” said Dark Times Academy co-founder Mandy Henk.
“We felt confident that a review of our materials would not find them to be aligned with those priorities.”
The course, called “A Bit Sus”, is an evidence-based peer-reviewed series of classes that teach key professions the skills needed to identify and counter disinformation and misinformation in their particular field.
The classes focus on “prebunking”, lateral reading, and how technology, including generative AI, influences disinformation.
Awarded competitive funds Dark Times Academy was originally awarded the funds to run the programme through a public competitive grant offered by the US Embassy in New Zealand in 2023 under the previous US administration.
The US Embassy grant was focused on strengthening the capacity of Pacific media to identify and counter disinformation. While funded by the US, the course was to be a completely independent programme overseen by Dark Times Academy and its academic consultants.
Co-founder Henk was preparing to deliver the education programme to a group of Pacific Island journalists and media professionals, but received a request from the US Embassy in New Zealand to review the course materials to “ensure they are in line with US foreign policy priorities”.
Henk said she and the other course presenters refused to allow US government officials to review the course material for this purpose.
She said the US Embassy had also requested a “list of registered participants for the online classes,” which Dark Times Academy also declined to provide as compliance would have violated the New Zealand Privacy Act 2020.
Henk said the refusal to provide the course materials for review led immediately to further discussions with the US Embassy in New Zealand that ultimately resulted in the termination of the grant “by mutual agreement”.
However, she said Dark Times Academy would still go ahead with running the course for the Pacific Island journalists who had signed up so far, starting on February 26.
Continuing the programme
“The Dark Times Academy team fully intends to continue to bring the ‘A Bit Sus’ programme and other classes to the Pacific region and New Zealand, even without the support of the US government,” Henk said.
“As noted when we first announced this course, the Pacific Islands have experienced accelerated growth in digital connectivity over the past few years thanks to new submarine cable networks and satellite technology.
“Alongside this, the region has also seen a surge in harmful rumours and disinformation that is increasingly disrupting the ability to share accurate and truthful information across Pacific communities.
“This course will help participants from the media recognise common tactics used by disinformation agents and support them to deploy proven educational and communications techniques.
“By taking a skills-based approach to countering disinformation, our programme can help to spread the techniques needed to mitigate the risks posed by digital technologies,” Henk said.
Especially valuable for journalists
Dark Times Academy co-founder Byron Clark said the course would be especially valuable for journalists in the Pacific region given the recent shifts in global politics and the current state of the planet.
Dark Times Academy co-founder and author Byron Clark . . . “We saw the devastating impacts of disinformation in the Pacific region during the measles outbreak in Samoa.” Image: APR
“We saw the devastating impacts of disinformation in the Pacific region during the measles outbreak in Samoa, for example,” said Clark, author of the best-selling book Fear: New Zealand’s Underworld of Hostile Extremists.
“With Pacific Island states bearing the brunt of climate change, as well as being caught between a geopolitical stoush between China and the West, a course like this one is timely.”
Henk said the “A Bit Sus” programme used a “high-touch teaching model” that combined the current best evidence on how to counter disinformation with a “learner-focused pedagogy that combines discussion, activities, and a project”.
Past classes led to the creation of the New Zealand version of the “Euphorigen Investigation” escape room, a board game, and a card game.
These materials remain in use across New Zealand schools and community learning centres.
It’s like reverence for innocence. Well, yes, kids sure are sweet, unsullied, open, positive, vibrant, curious. They wear their innocence well and we all envy their abandon. But we’re protecting them. So we bear all the risks and potential for endangerment. They play. We watch the playground to make sure there are no perverts, rabid dogs, snipers, or kidnappers.
As adults, it’s a different story. ‘Ignorance is bliss’ and ‘What you don’t know won’t hurt you’ work for a while until the axe falls. Or the bill comes due. Or the door is kicked down in the middle of the night. Being stupidly innocent as an adult can bring heartache and tragedy. In fact, it typically does. While embracing wholesome open-mindedness and holistic trust, so as to not preclude learning and discovery, we are also well-advised to maintain a wary eye for the sham, the con, the manipulation, the lie, the entire range of possible mischief humans are capable of.
From what I now see reported on the news, such prudence is no longer at all possible. Evidence would suggest that a dam has been breached. A tsunami of misinformation, disinformation, fake news, deep fakes, propaganda, calculated deceptions, AI artifacts, accompanied by a bottomless barrel of salacious scandals and mindless trivia, has flooded the once-habitable terrain of public discourse and understanding. We are drowning in bullshit.
It shows. People are becoming confused, erratic, and increasingly desperate. We’re being constantly bombarded with bad news, rendering us numb, dumb, wary and increasingly frightened. It seems that folks constantly are stressed out to the max. We have the firing squad of 24/7 if-it-bleeds-it-leads news coming at us from every direction. We’re surrounded by crises — personal, political, national, international. It’s beyond overwhelming.
This makes us hunger for both relief and anything that will make sense out of the chaos.
Which renders many, if not most people, vulnerable to brainwashing.
I recently saw a compilation of talking heads relentlessly hammering home completely vaporous, frankly ridiculous but engaging, arresting, highly charged, and clearly effective memes. I presume that a majority of citizens, already reeling and punch drunk from years of propaganda, hearts and minds filled with hatred and fear, stumbling about in the house of mirrors that media has become, react to a frightening degree by buying into what these people are saying. Repetition is like kickboxing. Or like kneading dough. It’s just a matter of time before the target succumbs to persistence and becomes a subdued and unresisting lump, next to be carted off on a stretcher or put in the oven. Or in the case of the TV/smart phone-addicted public, put in a coma-like trance, a hypnotic stupor, an obedient oblivion. Cut to KFC commercial or ad for a miracle age spots remedy. Save now like never before!
Here’s the video (if you can handle epic levels of tedious repetition).
Seriously? We are fine with media messaging that’s like Chinese water torture? To have our brainwaves flat-lined by nonsensical, hyperventilating, Orwellian vapor. This is not news reporting. To think so is like mistaking a metronome for a symphony orchestra.
But that’s where we’re at.
To suggest for even a moment that somehow this state of mental paralysis came about organically, the result of societal entropy or personal devolution — as if random impulse, modernity, complexity, technology, solar flares, pollen, coronavirus, climate change, over-the-counter drugs, 5G, GMOs, aspartame, and ozone depletion, randomly interacted and the default became wholesale stupidity — is both foolhardy and extremely dangerous. It didn’t just happen. It is part of a plan. That plan is about control and oppression, gross manipulation and enslavement.
Let’s give credit where it’s due. Our manipulators, our oppressors, our autocratic puppet masters, are phenomenal at what they do. They’re organized; they’ve got the bucks; they’ve gained a total monopoly over the seats of power and the social/political levers of control; they are unencumbered by ambivalence, morals, common decency; they are merciless, ruthless, focused.
For just a single but highly representative example, read this article about how the lunatic power elite work to shape the entire narrative about the conflict in Ukraine.
Now, take that level of calculated deceit, cold manipulation, audacity, unscrupulousness, ruthlessness, arrogance, pernicious intent, disdain for we the people, and scornful sense of entitlement, then replicate it over the entire spectrum of social/political ills, crises, and dysfunction — the things we whine about and debate constantly: the economy, wealth inequality, corporate welfare, socialism for corporations and Wall Street, our deteriorating education system, our crumbling infrastructure, our fake democracy, the ruling elite-controlled two-party duopoly, Covid-19 “pandemic”, our entire shameful health care system, the destruction of labor unions, the criminalizing of dissent, the marginalization and disempowerment of minorities, the Fed, the CDC, the FDA, the FCC, censorship, citizen surveillance, our two-tier justice system, and perhaps the worst and most egregious of them all, the expanding militarization of our country and its foolhardy, suicidal pursuit of world conquest.
Yes, just imagine all of this contention as the product of sociopaths and power-drunk bullies, who have no sense of duty to country, or responsibility to you and I normal everyday citizens, smug self-anointed sociopathic despots who are incapable of conceiving of, inaugurating, and promoting anything which doesn’t serve the narrow agenda of an ultra-wealthy ruling aristocratic class — truly sinister malefactors who live and breathe to humiliate and subjugate others, abuse their power and privilege, gain advantage and mount incomprehensible piles of money and affluence, regardless of the harm and suffering it causes everyone else.
Yes, imagine that!
But wait! … you don’t have to imagine it after all. You just have to look around you.
Because that is exactly what is going on.
This is what we end up with when WE THE PEOPLE lose control of our country.
This is what we end up with when self-serving oligarchs control the narrative.
This is what we end up with when fed a 24/7 diet of lies and propaganda.
Now the question is: What can we do?
The answer couldn’t be simpler. Or more difficult.
This is where improbable teams up with impossible. Because the only way to stop this is through individual responsibility — everyday citizens taking charge, both of their own lives and our government. The existing private and public institutions which have engineered this juggernaut of blind ignorance and social control surely are not going to change. The puppets of the oligarchy we dutifully “elect” to represent we the people know who butters their bread. They and their ruling elite sponsors reap huge rewards from keeping us dumb and misinformed. So if anything is going to reverse this disastrous course, it will be us as individuals, hopefully working collectively to provide support and reinforcement, wielding the power of ‘NO’.
Obviously, this is a very tall order, as epic in scale as apocalyptic it is to be on the present course. We have to be honest. Perhaps it’s impossible. Old habits die hard. For most of our lives, we everyday folks, busy with their personal lives and trusting by nature, have relied on what we thought were worthy, reliable government spokespersons, TV news anchors, elected representatives, thought leaders, even celebrities, for the honest scoop on the specific events going on across our nation, more generally for our broad understanding of the world out there beyond our immediate reach. But slowly, imperceptibly, they turned on us. They increasingly recited from an intentionally faulty script, designed to hide the truth and substitute a fabricated reality. This was calculated — correctly so — to make us easily manipulable, often voting and behaving against our own interests. They fooled us so many times, we lost count and became completely detached from reality. Evidence? Look at what we put up with as citizens. We are treated abysmally, our government no longer works for us, and somehow we maintain pride in a nation which regards us as some necessary evil it needs to patronize with hollow promises and fairy tales about exceptionalism and greatness.
Most Americans now are totally brainwashed. We everyday citizens have no idea that those who we were certain we could trust are now lying to us with every breath they take. Any resemblance between what we are told and reality is a coincidence, or a convenience because it just happens to fit with the web of lies which surrounds it.
That’s hard for anyone to swallow. It’s depressing, demoralizing, unsettling, infuriating. Worse, thinking we’re “staying informed” has always been and still is so convenient. Just flip on the News at 6, read Time or Newsweek or USA Today. Scroll through Yahoo News on a smartphone. These wonderful trusted sources look and feel as they always have. But now they’re all streams of toxic misinformation and propaganda. And most people have no clue.
So quite honestly, I’m not very optimistic.
But of one thing I’m sure. We can stop this. We know what to do.
The only question is: Will we develop the presence of mind and resolve to … ?
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) has called on the Senate to reject Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to the top health position in the U.S., calling out Kennedy’s blatant lies on vaccines that health experts have repeatedly said could endanger lives across the country. In a statement on his “no” vote for Kennedy’s nomination for Health and Human Services Secretary on Tuesday…
Speaking to RNZ Pacific Waves, Sir Collin said leaders had a duty to protect people from inaccurate public health statements.
He said he was “absolutely horrified” that the person who “is the most influential individual in the US health system” could “tell lies and keep a straight face”.
“But [I am] not surprised because Kennedy has a history of subscribing to fringe, incorrect knowledge, conspiracy theories, and odd things of that type.”
He said Dr Ekeroma was very clear and direct in his condemnation of the lies from Kennedy and the group.
‘Call it for what it is’
“I encourage all of our people who are in a position to call these people for what it is.”
Sir Collin is the chair of the WHO’s Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases.
He said Kennedy’s comments and attitude toward vaccination will feed the anti-vaxxers and and discourage parents who might be uncertain about vaccines.
“So, [it is] potentially going to have a negative impact on immunisation programmes the world over. The United States has a significant influence on global health policy.
“These kinds of proclamations and attitudes and ideologies will have disastrous consequences.”
He believes that the scientific community should speak up, adding that political and business leaders in the region should also condemn such behaviour.
Sir Collin Tukuitonga . . . “horrified” that the “most influential individual in the US health system” could “tell lies and keep a straight face”. Image: Ryan Anderson/Stuff/RNZ
Withdrawal of US from WHO Sir Collin described President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the WHO as “dangerous”.
He said Washington is a major contributor to the money needed by WHO, which works to protect world health, especially vulnerable communities in developing countries.
“I understand they contribute about a fifth of the WHO budget,” he said.
“The United States is a world leader in the technical, scientific expertise in a number of areas, that may not be as available to the rest of the world.
“Research and development of new medicines and new treatments, a large chunk of which originates in the United States.
“The United States falling out of the chain of surveillance and reporting of global outbreaks, like Covid-19, puts the whole world at risk.”
He added there were ‘a good number of reasons” why the move by the US was “shameful and irresponsible”.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Among his first official acts on returning to the White House, President Donald Trump issued an executive order “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship”.
An RSF statement strongly refutes Trump’s “distorted vision of free speech, which is inherently detrimental to press freedom”.
Trump has long been one of social media’s most prevalent spreaders of false information, and his executive order, “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship,” is the latest in a series of victories for the propagators of disinformation online.
Bowing to pressure from Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, whose Meta platforms are already hostile to journalism, did away with fact-checking on Facebook, which the tech mogul falsely equated to censorship while throwing fact-checking journalists under the bus.
Trump ally Elon Musk also dismantled the meagre trust and safety safeguards in place when he took over Twitter and proceeded to arbitrarily ban journalists who were critical of him from the site.
‘Free speech’ isn’t ‘free of facts’
“Free speech doesn’t mean public discourse has to be free of facts. Donald Trump and his Big Tech cronies like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are dismantling what few guardrails the internet had to protect the integrity of information,” said RSF’s USA executive director Clayton Weimers.
“We cannot ignore the irony of Trump appointing himself the chief crusader for ‘free speech’ while he continues to personally attack press freedom — a pillar of the First Amendment — and has vowed to weaponise the federal government against expression he doesn’t like.
“If Trump means what he says in his own executive order, he could start by dropping his lawsuits against news organisations.”
Trump should immediately drop both lawsuits and refrain from launching others while in office.
After a campaign where he attacked the press on a daily basis, Trump has continued to berate the media and dismissed its legitimacy to critique him.
During a press conference the day after he took office, Trump reproached NBC reporter Peter Alexander for questions about Trump’s blanket pardons of the January 6th riot participants, saying, “Just look at the numbers on the election.
“We won this election in a landslide, because the American public is tired of people like you that are just one-sided, horrible people, in terms of crime.”
An incoherent press freedom policy The executive order also flies in the face of his violent rhetoric against journalists.
The order asserts that during the Biden administration, “the Federal government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate.”
It goes on to state, “It is the policy of the United States to ensure that no Federal Government officer, employee, or agent engages in or facilitates any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
This stated policy, laudable in a vacuum, even if made redundant by the First Amendment, is rendered meaningless by Trump’s explicit threats to weaponise the government against the media, which have recently included threats to revoke broadcast licenses in political retaliation, investigate news organizations that criticise him, and jail journalists who refuse to expose confidential sources.
Instead, the policy appears designed to amplify disinformation, which benefits a President of the United States who has proven willing to spread disinformation that furthered his political interests on matters small and large.
“If Trump is serious about his stated commitment to free speech, RSF suggests he begin by ensuring his own actions serve to protect the free press, rather than censoring or punishing media outlets,” the watchdog said.
“The United States has seen a steady decline in its press freedom ranking in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index over the past decade to a current ranking of 55th out of 180 countries, with presidents from both parties presiding over this backslide.
“While Trump is not entirely responsible for the present situation, his frequent attacks on the news media have no doubt contributed to the decline in trust in the media, which has been driven partly by partisan attitudes towards journalism.
“Trump’s violent rhetoric can also contribute to real-life violence — assaults on journalists nearly doubled in 2024, when his campaign was at its apex, compared to 2023.”
With the Tiktok ban just days away, American youth have started flooding the Chinese social media app RedNote, pushing it into #1 position on the app store. Labeled “Tiktok refugees” by Chinese netizens, the newcomers have been welcomed by app users with open arms, curiosity, and a fair bit of humor.
Though initially confused at the sudden influx of English speakers, long-dwelling app users quickly connected the dots and were quick to poke fun at the US government’s accusations of China spying on your typical American citizen.
The app “Xiaohongshu” directly translates to ‘Little Red Book,” but it has been dubbed RedNote in the United States. Many are quick to think of Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong’s famous Little Red Book, though app officials say it isn’t a direct reference. Still, the comedic composition is something to celebrate.
The Tiktok ban is quite evidently backfiring on the US government. As users snub the ban and move to a real Chinese social media app, spontaneous interactions between US and Chinese citizens are naturally sorting through years and years of anti-China propaganda.
WAIT! The social credit thing isn’t real??? One user commented, after locals revealed that there is no such thing as a social credit score in China — just one of the many stories the media has falsely fed us.
The app has ushered in a new wave of cross-cultural learning. Americans have been posting questions like, “How does China feel about Palestine?” and “What does the US government tell us about China that isn’t true?” There’s been comparisons between the US and China health systems (of which China’s is undoubtedly superior) and tours of China’s incredible EVs. The vast number of Americans agree: the US has fallen way behind.
Not only that, but American citizens cite a new appreciation for China, and the number of people learning Mandarin has grown. Duolingo has already seen a 216% spike. While Chinese citizens have taken it upon themselves to start teaching newcomers common Chinese phrases, Americans simultaneously help local users with their English homework.
It is more than just cultural exchange, however. This is an unprecedented people-to-people moment, allowing two communities to come together and realize they are more alike than not. Such a realization is desperately needed, and undercuts a rapidly escalating war climate between the US and China.
Recently, the US approved a $2 billion arms sale to Taiwan, citing potential war with China. In response, China sanctioned numerous US weapons companies for violating the one-China principle and destabilizing the region. War talk isn’t new — the US government has been pushing and planning for it ever since China rose to power in the early 2000s. A natural threat to US global hegemony, our politicians have been plotting the fall of China for decades, spending billions and billions of dollars to militarize the region around China and pushing a narrative of hatred and fear in the media.
Just this week, China hawk Marco Rubio underwent his Secretary of State confirmation hearing. Due to his push for war against China, he has been travel-sanctioned by the Chinese government for years. Our nation’s top “diplomat” is going to have some trouble conducting diplomacy when he’s unable to even travel to the nation where we need it most. Not that anything Rubio does could ever be considered diplomacy.
But despite the constant anti-China rhetoric plaguing our politicians and media, new RedNote users appear to be taking a different path:
The internet is a modern tool not previously available to the people during the great power wars of previous decades. It provides a fresh avenue that can circumvent the weaponization of the media and allow people to easily connect from different sides of the globe.
Perhaps an app like RedNote is exactly what we need to continue diffusing all the anti-China propaganda attempting to manufacture consent for the next great war. It’s about time the people decide for themselves who they should and shouldn’t be calling “enemy” rather than adhering to the whims of a war-obsessed government.
forty hard years of lobotomizing, dumbdowning, infantilizing, and deploying this multilayered PSYOPS of direct and covert operations have been brought to us, partially, by the Edward Bernays of the World … now we are here: Fear and Loathing in Our Delusional and Self-Incriminating Selves! (Haeder, May 28, 2023)
Trillions for Ukraine. Christ, this is 2019, from The Nation, not exactly a radical rag : Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine/ Five years after the Maidan uprising, anti-Semitism and fascist-inflected ultranationalism are rampant. By Lev Golinkin
Before the Russian invasion, CIA reports linked him to an oligarch so dirty and so mired in “significant corruption” that the State Department banned him from entering the U.S.
But now CIA propaganda portrays Zelensky as nobler than Winston Churchill and saintlier than Mother Theresa.
Will the Real Volodymyr Zelensky Please Stand Up (source)
Now now, I know we can’t in PC/PAEC (Politically Approved by Elites Correct) society point out a spade from a diamond. Ahh, even after Nakba 75? Who stopped it, a celebration-remembrance-sadness of that genocide?
Sorry, but it does matter who controls the levers of power, the narrative, the engines of Press-Propaganda-Entertainment. As well as, politics, marketing, education? Nakba is a lie. You don’t see a pattern here?
In a statement Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said, “We will fight the ‘Nakba’ lie with full strength and we won’t allow the Palestinians to continue to spread lies and distort history.”
Ahh, this commemoration, by the UN, of all organizations, is despicable, according to another Jew, and that is a-okay language, no?
In a recorded statement, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, said that the organization’s decision was “shameful” and would harm any efforts to find a peaceful solution to the generations-old conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people.
Asking other U.N. representatives to boycott the commemoration, he said, “[A]ttending this despicable event means destroying any chance of peace by adopting the Palestinian narrative calling the establishment of the state of Israel a disaster while ignoring Palestinian hate, incitement, terror and refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state.”
“UN Recognition of Palestinian Displacement Angers Israel” — One headline, and just replace, “…angers Israel” with, “…. angers Christians, Zionists, Israel-Firsters, Members of Congress, Members of the MSM, politicians, AIPAC, etc., et. …”
Shit, recognition of that Liberty, that United States SHIP, and more poison arrows launched by the Isra-Hellions:
Shit, that crime memorial is coming up, June 8 = The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War.
Ahh, can we protest that other anniversary? By virtue of General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted to membership in the United Nations on 11 May 1949. In the three years following the 1948 Palestine war , about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, residing mainly along the borders and in former Arab lands.
Can we remember June 8 without being smeared?
For more information on Israel’s crimes, and the USS Liberty, go here: IAK.
Now transitioning to more racism and bigotry and Big Brother-ism by Jewish leaders, ZioCryptos, and the like, let’s scour the WWW for those attacks on Pink Floyd’s front man: Jews will attack Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd, and they will get countless thousands of lies published in countless broken media outfits immediately. Just Google-Gulag search: “Roger Waters and Berlin Fascism.” Hate, pure lies, and the hasbara and powerful Jewish hatred of thinking Rogers is an antisemite!
Again, a concert, and Israel speaks up.
Israel’s foreign ministry later criticized Waters on social media, tweeting on May 24: “Good morning to everyone but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”
I am sorry to say that the Jewish folk I have been reading about, listening to, and researching throughout my decades, even from day one of college onward, many (not all) are indeed a clear and present danger to straight-up research and critical thinking. Then, just move over to the fact in my humble opinion, many powerful Jews hate Russia, Russians, and anyone who might dare question the UkroNazi Proxy War with Russia, started, oh, hell, way before 2014.
Self-proclaimed Jewish criminal, Kolomoyskyi is the dirty banker and the dirty funder of Zelensky:
[Photo: On the left, Zelensky in circle behind Kholomoisky. On the right, Zelensky on the campaign trail is followed by one of Kholomoisky’s bodyguards.]
But, read this Jewish rag in Isra-Hell, Haaretz | World News/
Ukraine recently requested air defense systems and training from Israel, saying that Iran would use the deployment of its weapons systems in Europe to refine their capabilities. Still, Israel maintains that it would not send military assistance to Ukraine
A senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on world Jewry to push Jerusalem to arm his country with defensive weapons on Wednesday, only two days after Moscow warned Israel that supplying military equipment to Ukraine would “destroy the political relations between the two countries.”
Of course, I am disgusted by any racist group calling on “all Jews worldwide to continue the murder of Russians and Ukrainians in Donbass, and now, throughout Ukraine and into Russia.
This is merchant of death war mongering, and it has to stop, stop first by beginning to call a Jewish Fascist a Jewish Fascist when you come in contact with him or her or them: Here, more lies, blatant valorizing of a corrupt and criminal man, Zelensky!
1. The most important Jewish leader in the world (source)
The past week has turned us all into experts on Ukraine, now at the center of every conversation. Did you know how big it is? (When you lay it over the U.S. map, it stretches from New York to Chicago.) Who knew that we were actually using the Russian city names and not the Ukrainian ones (it’s Kyiv, not Kiev; Lviv, not Lvov; and Kharkiv, not Kharkov). And their president—did you know that he is Jewish?
Volodymyr Zelensky is probably the most admired Jewish leader the world has to offer right now. Before entering politics in 2018, Zelensky was a popular comedian (and you can’t get any more Jewish than that); he does not often speak about his Jewish identity, but he has never tried to hide it. In a country like Ukraine, which is still struggling with a painful legacy of antisemitism, Zelensky’s Jewishness has always been present.
For Jews across the world, Zelensky is now a source of pride: a young, inexperienced leader who is putting his life at risk for his people by leading a nation of 40 million people in opposing a ruthless Russian aggressor.
In his inauguration speech, Zelensky famously told lawmakers not to hang his portrait on their walls. “I do not want my picture in your offices: The president is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids’ photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”
True to form, Zelensky maintained his unassuming, direct style when crisis hit. His video messages, posted several times a day, have been helping reassure the Ukrainian people. He spoke from his office and from the streets of Kyiv, even as Russian troops closed in on the capital, and when the fighting intensified, Zelensky candidly shared with all Ukrainians the fact that he has been marked by the Russians as “target number one” and that his family is “target number two.” But when the U.S. offered to evacuate him from Kyiv to somewhere safer, he responded: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”
I’m writing this column on Sunday, as Russian forces, bogged down and weakened by courageous Ukrainians armed with AK-47s, Molotov cocktails, or sometimes just a large pole they picked up on the side of the street, still threaten the capital. Zelensky is leading the effort to save his nation, though most foreign intelligence services still think he’s fighting a losing battle.
So, this POS war crimes leader, Zelensky, *elensky because the letter “Z” has been outlawed, and Ukraine and Zelensky with the one-two-three punch of US and UK, with their Kill List, you have to imagine that in the USA and Canada and UK and EU and Europe, all brains have been thrown out the window, or the voice of reason has gone where?
Propaganda is administered in western nations, by western nations, across the political spectrum — and the really blatant and well-known examples of its existence make up only a small sliver of the propaganda that our civilization is continuously marinating in.
The most common articles of propaganda — and by far the most consequential — are not the glaring, memorable instances that live in infamy among the critically minded. They’re the mundane messages, distortions and lies-by-omission that people are fed day in and day out to normalize the status quo and lay the foundation for more propaganda to be administered in the future.
[…]
One of the forms this takes is the way the western political/media class manipulates the Overton window of acceptable political opinion.
It’s propaganda in multiple ways: it excludes voices that are critical of the established status quo from being heard and influencing people, it amplifies voices (many of whom have packing foam for brains) which support the status quo, and, most importantly, it creates the illusion that the range of political opinions presented are the only reasonable political opinions to have.
Then there’s the ideological herding funnel we discussed recently, which herds the population into two mainstream factions of equal size which both prevent all meaningful change and serve the interests of the powerful.
Maybe the most consequential of all the mundane, routine ways we’re propagandized is the way the mass media manufacture the illusion of normality in a dystopia so disturbing that we would all scream our lungs out if we could see it with fresh eyes.
Another of the mundane, almost-invisible ways the public is propagandized from day to day is described in a recent video by Second Thought titled “You’re Not Immune To Propaganda“. We’re continually fed messages by the capitalist machine that we must work hard for employers and accept whatever standards and compensation they see fit to offer, and if we have difficulty thriving in this unjust system the fault lies with us and not with the system. Poor? That’s your fault. Miserable? Your fault. Unemployed? Your fault. Overworked? Your fault.
Another related method of manipulation is agenda-setting — the way the press shapes public thinking by emphasising some subjects and not others. In placing importance on some matters over others simply by giving disproportionate coverage to them, the mass media (who are propagandists first and news reporters second) give the false impression that those topics are more important and the de-emphasised subjects are less so.
But then, this is another form — of propaganda . . . denial, and denigration and plain ignoring alternative views, even those that are consistent and repeated:
But it’s the 74th Anniversary of an illegitimate state, apartheid and ethnic cleansing one albet> This is how ZioAzovLensky rolls, and even the corrupt CIA-controlled Wikipedia has some facts here on the murderous Jews, Zelenksy’s mother ship, historical grounding, who called themselves Zionists, but I know very few Jews who are not ZIONISTS, overtly or covertly:
A successful paramilitary campaign was carried out by Zionist underground groups against British rule in Mandatory Palestine from 1944 to 1948. The tensions between the Zionist underground and the British mandatory authorities rose from 1938 and intensified with the publication of the White Paper of 1939. The Paper outlined new government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases, and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years. Though World War II brought relative calm, tensions again escalated into an armed struggle towards the end of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were close to defeat.
The Haganah, the largest of the Jewish underground militias, which was under the control of the officially recognised Jewish leadership of Palestine, remained cooperative with the British. But in 1944 the Irgun, an offshoot of the Haganah, launched a rebellion against British rule, thus joining Lehi, which had been active against the authorities throughout the war. Both were small, dissident militias of the right-wingRevisionist movement. They attacked police and government targets in response to British immigration restrictions. They intentionally avoided military targets, to ensure that they would not hamper the British war effort against their common enemy, Nazi Germany.
The armed conflict escalated during the final phase of World War II, when the Irgun declared a revolt in February 1944, ending the hiatus in operations it had begun in 1940. Starting from the assassination of Baron Moyne by Lehi in 1944, the Haganah actively opposed the Irgun and Lehi, in a period of inter-Jewish fighting known as the Hunting Season, effectively halting the insurrection. However, in autumn 1945, following the end of World War II in both Europe (April–May 1945) and Asia (September, 1945), when it became clear that the British would not permit significant Jewish immigration and had no intention of immediately establishing a Jewish state, the Haganah began a period of co-operation with the other two underground organisations. They jointly formed the Jewish Resistance Movement.
The Haganah refrained from direct confrontation with British forces, and concentrated its efforts on attacking British immigration control, while Irgun and Lehi attacked military and police targets.[6] The Resistance Movement dissolved amidst recriminations in July 1946, following the King David Hotel bombing. The Irgun and Lehi started acting independently, while the main underground militia, Haganah, continued acting mainly in supporting Jewish immigration. The Haganah again briefly worked to suppress Irgun and Lehi operations, due to the presence of a United Nations investigative committee in Palestine. After the UN Partition Plan resolution was passed on 29 November 1947, the civil war between Palestinian Jews and Arabs eclipsed the previous tensions of both with the British. However, British and Zionist forces continued to clash throughout the period of the civil war up to the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948.
Within the United Kingdom there were deep divisions over Palestine policy. Dozens of British soldiers, Jewish militants, and civilians died during the campaigns of insurgency. The conflict led to heightened antisemitism in the United Kingdom. In August 1947, after the hanging of two abducted British sergeants, there was widespread anti-Jewish rioting across the United Kingdom. The conflict caused tensions in the United Kingdom–United States relations.
Putin and Russians and those of us who actually want Russia to have a safe border, peace, and zero NATO interference, see Zelensky and his Jewish Lords — Kagan Familias, Nuland, Blinken, Yellen, Sherman, Garland, and hundreds of others in the Biden White House and thousands of others in the Military Industrial Expanded (finance, computing, surveillence) Complex and millions more in the world of turning a dollar on death — as the ENEMY. Murderous, conniving, hateful, slick enemies numero uno, those espousing war with China and war with Russia.
I know Dissident Voice is reluctant to publish voices that might lean toward a Pepe Escobar critique of the Israel Hell unleashed on the world. I get it. But, the fact is violence and terror, those are right up Zelensky’s alley, and this war that UK and USA and Five Eyes and EU have unleashed will not end soon, because Ukraine in the minds of many is Israel 2.0. An added “benefit” for these monsters: Expect those weapons that USA taxpayer footed the bill for to bring down some commercial airlines in a neighborhood near-by soon.
We are a soiled Western Culture, and we have seeded the rest of the world with our feces — high tech, low tech, money, land theft, pollution, exploitation, consumerism, throw-away mentality, sanctions, blood lust, coups, supporting despots, money laundering and gold theft and assets removal. Loans from Hell, and alas, here we are, in a putrid world, a day before the big Monday Holiday, Memorial Day, and we are straddled by syphilitic monsters running the world and our own populous generally marked for death, marked as marks, these, the billionaires, the fleecers and many left and right, Jewish or not, they are Zionists and Israel-Firsters who have sold us down the Ukrainian toilet.
Israeli newspapers point out the victories?
These are THEIR graphics, and by me point these out, I am deplatformed, stopped from teaching, pushed to the excrement posts of publishing my books anywhere
But leave it to the Paranoid Former Nazis and the disgusting ADL and AIPAC and Mossad loving Israelis to attack us all attacking them:
“The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ in 1980,” Roger Waters said.
“I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression where I set it… My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price,” he said.
“Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it.”
Waters is a well-known pro-Palestinian activist who has been accused of holding anti-Jewish views. He has floated an inflatable pig emblazoned with the Star of David at his concerts. The singer denies the anti-Semitism accusations, saying he was protesting against Israeli policies, not Jewish people.
Ah, those old days, which now would be both considered hate speech and also ground down by the ugly media and the uglier mainstream fools in college, in towns, every where.
Yep, it is a piece of shit piece of cloth for many, representing so so much death, murder, hate, and racism. Cloth, man, and alas, a symbol, for those who cry crocodile tears when they hear the National Anthem, and then for others, it is the greed and murder and Empire of Chaos-Lies-Terror in every red and white strip, every star and bar:
This stuff is not allowed on campuses, and not just Guantanamo Desantis’s Florida.
This is not anti-DIsney, but it is the Dsneyification of the world, and this is the outcome: bones, immolation, worldwide.
Old school, but you can’t get college students to analyze this without being charged with a Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT.
I doubt you can loosely call for the execution of Corporations, CEOs, what have you. Again, Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT on Haeder.
Ahh, if we are the biggest war profiteers, then we’ll be letting China take first place. Yep, that’s the modern college student’s response.
Ahh, I have been warned that telling my students that I was rapped on the head by cops, in Portland, El Paso, Seattle, and elsewhere, and that protest is dangerous but necessary, and that I would dare use the ACAB as an opening to discuss that Defund the Police Movement — who, what, where, when and WHY — as well as my own work as a police reporter and what I think of cops/pigs, all verbotten! Call SWAT on Haeder.
Hell, you can look this one up in Wikipedia. And babies?
Read the transcript: with the reason the poster was made, the soldier who was in the massacre!
Oh, no, trigger warnings, vicarious PTSD, verboten.
Partial transcriptof the Mike Wallace interview with Paul Meadlo in which Meadlo describes his participation in the My Lai massacre:
Q. So you fired something like sixty-seven shots?
A. Right.
Q. And you killed how many? At that time?
A. Well, I fired them automatic, so you can’t – You just spray the area on them and so you can’t know how many you killed ‘cause they were going fast. So I might have killed ten or fifteen of them.
It is a well-oiled, well-placed, complex, 3-D kind of chess machine, and it is pure killer, pure killer, and most campuses utilized Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, DoD, BOrder Patrol, CIA, FBI, ATF, MONEY. Some of the nation’s most elite universities are deep into defense lobbying, often hiring Washington-based firms to press Congress and the Pentagon to fund their science projects.
Asked whether students or professors ever have ethical objections to working on projects funded by the Defense Department, Zuber said that “no professor has to take money from DoD.”
“We’re a bottom-up organization,” she said. “Professors make those choices.”
She also said that “if there are students who have a feeling that they don’t want to work on defense-related issues, they certainly don’t have to.” But, she added, “a whole lot seem to want to.”
Like MIT, the Association of American Universities, an alliance of 62 of the leading research institutions in the United States and Canada, advocates defense research funding.
The end result is that BABIES, kids, NEWBORNES, women, SENIOR citizens, disabled, PATIENTS in hospitals, youth on PLAYGROUNDS, are mudered, and killed, and imploded, so, then, BABY Killers is just a limited sigh — wedding parties, goat herders, and entire families at gravesites, murdered by universities, colleges, think tanks, corporations, marketing firms, law firms, retail services in the EMPLOY of the USA.
This sign? These youth? Their message? Their no war and stop the escalation and disarmament now, ahh, then, of couse, it’s triple bad, since they are free thinkers and align with New York Young Communist League.
So many more organizations working on it, working on it — no more NATO, no more Arms.
Back to the Jewish thing in Ukraine: And, well, and, who writes the narrative of Ukraine, of Zelensky, of the Jewish Apartheid State supporting the Nazis under Zelensky?
There is no way in hell you will read this story, objectively, anywhere:
The Jews are the ones behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and their goal is to create a new Jewish state to replace the failing Zionist project of Israel, Palestinian Islamic scholar Mraweh Nassar has claimed, as reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
Nassar, whom MEMRI identified as the secretary-general of the Jerusalem Committee of the International Union of Muslims Scholars, made his claims on March 22 while speaking with Channel 9, an Arabic-language TV station in Turkey that the media watchdog says is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Now now, Dan Shapiro (New Atlanticist, err, Atlantic Council) wrote this one, and again, it’s the NARRATIVE and the MEDIUM is the MESSAGE driver, and then who gets to tell the stories and how the algorithms benefit the propagandists, shit dog, need we look further?.
Speaking to reporters this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the future he sees for his country in unusual terms: as “a big Israel.”
Gone, he said, are hopes for “an absolutely liberal” state—replaced by the likely reality of armed defense forces patrolling movie theaters and supermarkets. “I’m confident that our security will be the number-one issue over the next ten years,” Zelenskyy added.
With Russian forces having withdrawn from around Kyiv, suggesting that Ukraine successfully repulsed the first phase of the Kremlin’s invasion, the time is right for Zelenskyy to contemplate how to prepare for the next—and potentially much longer—phase of this conflict.
But what does he mean by “a big Israel”? With a population more than four times smaller, and vastly less territory, the Jewish state might not seem like the most fitting comparison. Yet consider the regional security threats it faces, as well as its highly mobilized population: The two embattled countries share more than you might think.
So if Zelenskyy really does have Israel in mind as a model for Ukraine, here are some of the key features he might consider for adoption (some of which are already applicable today):
Security first: Every Israeli government promises, first and foremost, that it will deliver security—and knows it will be judged on this pledge. Ordinary citizens, not just politicians, pay close attention to security threats—both from across borders and from internal sources— and much of the public chooses who to elect by that metric alone.
The whole population plays a role: The Israeli model goes further than Zelenskyy’s vision of security services deployed to civilian spaces: Most young Israeli adults serve in the military, and many are employed in security-related professions following their service. A common purpose unites the citizenry, making them ready to endure shared sacrific
I ask, “Will one vapid bought-and-brainwashed media person get on with some rejiggering their knowledge:
There is no way to reverse the emergence of Artificial Intelligence on its way to dominating our lives. From customer service to censorship and war, AI is making its mark, and the potential for disaster is real.
The amount of face-to-face contact, or even human voice-to-voice interaction on the phone when doing business has been declining for years and is getting worse with AI. But AI is doing far more than just erode community, destroy jobs and enerverate people waiting on hold.
AI is increasingly behind decisions social media companies make on which posts to remove because they violate some vague “community” standards (as it destroys community), when it’s obvious that AI is programed to weed out dissident political messages.
Billionaire Trump associate Elon Musk’s latest disinformation campaign is targeting the U.K. government, which Musk appears to believe is not sufficiently anti-immigrant. Musk, who has already shaped the incoming Trump administration’s economic policy by proposing cuts to government spending and tech-oriented privatization of services, signifies a “new era” in American politics…
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Can academic freedom survive Donald Trump’s plans for thought control? The president’s aim to remove power from universities and punish so-called “woke” ideology has chilling implications for free speech globally By Emma Briant https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2024/12/academic-freedom-survive-donald-trump-plans-thought-control-universities-colleges-education/
This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation and was authored by Andrea Chalupa.
In recent months, even across the collective West’s media, growing admissions are being made about both Russia and China’s superior military industrial capacity. With Russia’s first use of the intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, it is admitted that Russia (and likely China) possess formidable military capabilities the collective West currently lacks.
Despite the collective efforts of NATO in arming, training, and backing Ukraine, Ukrainian forces continue to give ground at an accelerated rate across the entire line of contact amid the ongoing Russian Special Military Operation (SMO).
I was in Cuba (again) during the first week of December. I traveled with a delegation of members of the National Single Payer organization, which is working to achieve a national healthcare system in the US that would fully cover everyone under a single, comprehensive, government-funded program. We visited a variety of healthcare institutions in the cities of Havana and Matanzas, the capital of the province of the same name.
One of the most memorable interactions took place at the University of Medical Sciences in Matanzas. After receiving a presentation about the organization and curriculum by one of the leaders of the institution, I asked the assembled academic and clinical professors how many of them had participated in international medical missions.
Every year, Project Censored publishes its State of the Free Press, which takes the pulse of the media and shares the 25 most important but underreported stories of the past year. In State of the Free Press 2025 (The Censored Press & Seven Stories Press, December 3, 2024, paperback), editors Mickey Huff, Shealeigh Voitl and Andy Lee Roth look back on a year in which significant news stories lost…
The changes will also prohibit tertiary institutions from adopting positions on issues that do not relate to their core functions.
Associate Education Minister David Seymour said fostering students’ ability to debate ideas is an essential part of universities’ educational mission.
“Despite being required by the Education Act and the Bill of Rights Act to uphold academic freedom and freedom of expression, there is a growing trend of universities deplatforming speakers and cancelling events where they might be perceived as controversial or offensive,” he said.
“That’s why the National/ACT coalition agreement committed to introduce protections for academic freedom and freedom of speech to ensure universities perform their role as the critic and conscience of society.”
Minister for Tertiary Education and Skills Penny Simmonds said freedom of speech was fundamental to the concept of academic freedom.
“Universities should promote diversity of opinion and encourage students to explore new ideas and perspectives. This includes enabling them to hear from invited speakers with a range of viewpoints.”
It is expected the changes will take effect by the end of next year, after which universities will have six months to develop a statement and get it approved.
Aside from the fact that the free speech legislation for universities is a waste of time (and seemingly ideologically inconsistent with the anti-regulation stance of the government), this line from the RNZ article is both hilarious and worrying pic.twitter.com/aOoPa0ZPc5
Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington said the important issue of free speech had been a dominant topic throughout the year.
It believed a policy it had come up with would align with the intent of the criteria laid out by the government today.
However, the Greens are among critics, saying the government’s changes will add fuel to the political fires of disinformation, and put teachers and students in the firing line.
Labour says universities should be left to make decisions on free speech themselves.
‘A heavy-handed approach’ The Tertiary Education Union (TEU) said proposed rules could do more harm than good.
They have been been welcomed by the Free Speech Union, which said academic freedom was “under threat”, but the TEU said there was no problem to solve.
TEU president Sandra Grey said the move seemed to be aimed at ensuring people could spread disinformation on university campuses.
“I think one of the major concerns is that you might get universities opening up the space that is for academic and rigorous debate and saying it’s okay we can have climate deniers, we can have people who believe in creationism coming into our campuses and speaking about it as though it were scientific, as though it was rigorously defendable when in fact we know some of these questions . . . have been settled,” she said.
Grey said academics who expressed views on campus could expect them to be debated, but that was part and parcel of working at a university and not an attack on their freedom of speech.
“There isn’t actually a problem. I do think universities, all the staff who work there, the students, understand that they’re covered by all of their requirements for freedom of speech that other citizens are.
“So it feels like we’ve got a heavy-handed approach from a government that apparently is anti-regulation but is now going to put in place the whole lot of requirements on a community that just doesn’t need it.”
Some topics ‘suppressed’
Free Speech Union chief executive Jonathan Ayling . . . some academics are afraid to express their views and there is also a problem with “compelled speech”. Image: VNP/Phil Smith/RNZ News
Free Speech Union chief executive Jonathan Ayling said freedom of speech was under threat in universities.
“We’ve supported academics . . . where they feel that they have been unfairly disadvantaged simply for holding a different opinion to some of their peers. Of course, that is also an addition to the explicit calls for people to be cancelled, to be unemployed,” he said.
Ayling said some academics were afraid to express their views and there was also a problem with “compelled speech”.
“Forcing certain references on particularly ideological issues. There’s questions around race, gender, international conflicts, covid-19, these are all questions that we’ve found have been suppressed and also there’s the aspect of self-censorship,” he said.
“As we have and alongside partners looked into this more and more, it seems that many people in the academy exist in a culture of fear.”
University committed to differing viewpoints Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington is committed to hearing a range of different viewpoints on its campuses, vice-chancellor Professor Nic Smith says.
Free speech had been an important issue during 2024, and the university had arrived at a policy that covered both freedom of speech and academic freedom.
By consulting widely, there was now a shared understanding of “foundational principles”, and its policy would be in place early in the new year.
“We believe this policy aligns with the intent of the criteria [from the government] as we understand them. It recognises the strength of our diverse university community and affirms that this diversity makes us stronger,” Professor Smith said.
“At the same time, it acknowledges that within any diverse community, individuals will inevitably encounter ideas they disagree with-sometimes strongly.
“Finding value in these disagreements is something universities are very good at: listening to different points of view in the spirit of advancing understanding and learning that can ultimately help us live and work better together.”
The university believed in hearing a range of views from staff, rather than adopting a single institutional position.
“The only exception to this principle is on matters that directly affect our core functions as a university.”
‘Stoking fear and division’
The Green Party’s spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Francisco Hernadez . . . this new policy has nothing to do with free speech. Image: VNP/Phil Smith/RNZ News
Green Party’s spokesperson for Tertiary Education, Francisco Hernadez, said the new policy had nothing to do with free speech.
“This is about polluting our public discourse for political gain.”
Universities played a critical role, providing a platform for informed and reasoned debate.
“Our universities should be able to decide who is given a platform on their campuses, not David Seymour. These changes risk turning our universities into hostile environments unsafe for marginalised communities.
“Misinformation, disinformation, and rhetoric that inflames hatred towards certain groups has no place in our society, let alone our universities. Freedom of speech is fundamental, but it is not a licence to harm.”
Hernandez said universities should be trusted to ensure the balance was struck between academic freedom and a duty of care.
“Today’s announcement has also come with a high dose of unintended irony.
“David Seymour is speaking out of both sides of his mouth by on the one hand claiming to support freedom of speech, but on the other looking to limit the ability universities have to take stances on issues, like the war in Gaza for example.
“This is an Orwellian attempt to limit discourse to the confines of the government’s agenda. This is about stoking fear and division for political gain.”
Labour’s Associate Education (Tertiary) spokesperson Deborah Russell responded: “One of the core legislated functions of universities in this country is to be a critic and conscience of society. That means continuing to speak truth to power, even if those in power don’t like it.”
“Nowhere should be a platform for hate speech. I am certain universities can make these decisions themselves.”
‘Expectations clarified’ – university The University of Auckland said in a statement the announcement of planned legislation changes would help “to clarify government expectations in this area”.
“The university has a longstanding commitment to maintaining freedom of expression and academic freedom on our campuses, and in recent years has worked closely with [the university’s] senate and council to review, revise and consult on an updated Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom Policy.
“This is expected to return to senate and council for further discussion in early 2025 and will take into account the proposed new legislation.”
The university described the nature of the work as “complex”.
“While New Zealand universities have obligations under law to protect freedom of expression, academic freedom and their role as ‘critic and conscience of society’, as the proposed legislation appreciates, this is balanced against other important policies and codes.”
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
An Aotearoa New Zealand-based community education provider is preparing a new course aimed to help media professionals in the Pacific region understand and respond to the complex issue of disinformation.
The eight-week course “A Bit Sus (Pacific)”, developed by the Dark Times Academy, will be offered free to journalists, editors, programme directors and others involved in running media organisations across the Pacific, beginning in February 2025.
“Our course will help participants recognise common tactics used by disinformation agents and support them to deploy proven educational and communications techniques including lateral reading and ‘pre-bunking’,” says Dark Times Academy co-founder Mandy Henk.
As well as teaching participants how to recognise and respond to disinformation, the course offers an understanding of how technology, including generative AI, influences the spread of disinformation.
The course is an expanded and regionalised adaption of the “A Bit Sus” education programme which was developed by Henk in her former role as CEO of Tohatoha Aotearoa Commons.
“As the Pacific Islands have experienced accelerated growth in digital connectivity over the past few years — thanks to new submarine cable networks and satellite technology — the region has also seen a surge in harmful rumours and disinformation that is increasingly disrupting the ability to share accurate and truthful information across Pacific communities,” Henk says.
“By taking a skills-based approach to countering disinformation, our programme can help to spread the techniques needed to mitigate the risks posed by digital technologies.”
Evidence-based counter disinformation
Henk says delivering evidence-based counter disinformation education to Pacific Island media professionals requires a depth of expertise in both counter-disinformation programming and the range of Pacific cultures and political contexts.
“We are delighted to have several renowned academics advising the programme, including Asia Pacific Media Network’s Dr David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report and founder of the Pacific Media Centre, and Professor Chad Briggs from the Asian Institute of Management.
“Their expertise will help us to deliver a world class programme informed by the best evidence available.”
Dark Times Academy’s Mandy Henk . . . “The region has seen a surge in harmful rumours and disinformation that is increasingly disrupting the ability to share accurate and truthful information across Pacific communities.” Image: Newsroom
The programme will be co-taught by Henk, as well as American journalist and counter disinformation expert Brooke Binkowski, and New Zealand-based extremism expert Byron Clark, who is also a co-founder of the Dark Times Academy.
“Countering disinformation and preventing the harm it causes in the Pacific Islands is crucially important to communities who wish to maintain and strengthen existing democratic institutions and expand their reach,” says Clark.
Binkowski says: “With disinformation narratives on the rise globally, this course is a timely and eye-opening look at its existence, its purveyors and their goals, and how to effectively combat it.
“I look forward to sharing what I have learned in my years in the field during this course.”
The course is being offered by Dark Times Academy using funds awarded in a public competitive grant offered by the US Embassy in New Zealand.
While it is funded by the US, it is a completely independent programme overseen by Dark Times Academy and its academic consultants.
The media’s role in peddling disinformation over last week’s violence in Amsterdam just keeps getting darker.
Owen Jones has interviewed a Dutch woman who shot the footage used by major outlets – from Sky News and the BBC to the Guardian and New York Times – to suggest that locals in Amsterdam carried out “antisemitic attacks” on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
In fact, as she has noted on social media, her footage shows the exact reverse: Israeli fans attacking local Dutch residents.
As I noted in my recent article, despite her efforts to get these outlets to correct their mistake and issue apologies, none has done so, apart from a German news programme, Taggeschau.
Jones’ interview offers insights as to why.
We know that an early report from the scene by Sky News’ reporter was one of the only ones to correctly describe the video as showing Israeli hooliganism, not antisemitism.
But Sky quickly took down that report, saying it wasn’t “balanced”. The channel then heavily re-edited the segment and issued a new version that presented the footage – quite wrongly – as evidence of Dutch locals attacking Israeli fans.
That was crucial to shoring up the false “antisemitism” and “pogrom” narratives spread by western politicians and the establishment media.
Here’s where it gets even more disturbing. The Dutch photographer interviewed by Jones says she was interviewed by Sky News about her footage before the second, re-edited report was aired.
In other words, not only was Sky’s reporter correct in her first account of the events in Amsterdam, but Sky’s news editors back in London knew exactly what the footage showed too – because the Dutch woman who filmed it had told them.
And yet Sky’s news team still edited a truthful news report to make it untruthful.
The only conclusion one can draw is that they did so to mislead their audience. They didn’t make a mistake. They didn’t act out of ignorance. They knowingly aired disinformation. They intentionally peddled fake news.
That’s something very hard for most of us to accept. It requires a troubling recalibration, a shift of perspective, if we are to understand the world we live in. But doing that is the only way to make sense of some of the most significant events that have unfolded over the past two decades.
Remember the lies we were sold by the western establishment media about “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq to justify a US-UK invasion and get western troops into a key oil-rich Middle Eastern state in gross violation of international law?
Remember the years of evidence-free claims from the entire British establishment media about the most prominent anti-racist politician of his generation, Jeremy Corbyn, who suddenly was outed as an unhinged antisemite the moment he became leader of the Labour party? Corbyn also just happened to be the first democratic socialist to head the party in 40 years.
Remember the entire western media establishment telling us that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was completely “unprovoked” – memory-holing years of warnings from leading western foreign policy advisers and analysts that the West was playing with fire: that Nato’s relentless military advance towards Russia’s borders; its meddling to overthrow in 2014 a Ukrainian government sympathetic to Moscow; and Washington’s tearing up of nuclear arms treaties with Russia leaving the latter exposed to Nato’s expansion to its borders would inevitably trigger a backlash – and Ukraine would be its epicentre?
Remember the entire western media insisting that Israel’s slaughter and maiming of many tens of thousands of children in Gaza, the systematic bombing of the enclave’s hospitals, and the mass starvation of the 2.3 million people there was not textbook genocide? Rather, it was “self-defence”. It was a legitimate war against Hamas.
None of those things should have sounded like they made any sense at the time.
And if they did, we should have noticed that the media’s presentation of the “facts” just happened to coincide precisely with Washington’s interests to prop up its most important client state in the oil-rich Middle East and isolate its one potential military rival, Russia, as part of a strategic policy of “global full-spectrum dominance” – or, expressed another way, its project to be the world’s sole imperial power, to run the planet like some untouchable godfather.
The problem wasn’t, as you feared, you. You weren’t going mad. Your suspicions were justified. You were being lied to. The media was gaslighting you.
The challenge is to find a way to liberate other minds still desperately clinging to a comforting illusion: that the establishment media can be trusted, that it is free, honest and moral.
On 25 July 1945, U.S. President Harry Truman accepted the advices from both his personal hero General Dwight Eisenhower and Winston Churchill, to 100% reverse his predecessor Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s carefully designed plan to prevent a WW3 by creating a fully armed democratic federal government of the world to create adjudicate and enforce international laws and NO national laws, and to outlaw and end the cause that had produced both World Wars, which was imperialism and the contests between them, and so he created the basis for what he named “the United Nations” to do that, but his immediate successor Truman’s version of the U.N. was/is instead a mere talking forum, with no such powers. This would allow him and Eisenhower to create the military-industrial complex to take over the entire world starting with Russia and all of its neighbors. His plan failed, but nonetheless then the Soviet Union itself failed, because of its Marxian economics and dictatorship; and, on 24 February 1990, Truman’s successor President GHW Bush started secretly to inform America’s European colonies that though the Soviet Union and its communism and its military alliance against America’s NATO, the Warsaw Pact, would likely all soon end, the U.S. side of the Cold War would secretly continue on until Russia itself will be defeated, because, as Bush said to Helmut Kohl, “We prevailed, they didn’t!” In other words, he was telling them to continue on until Russia itself becomes just another U.S. colony like they were, because “we” can do it. He was telling them that “we” will do it, because we can. And none of them objected, because they all would be cut in on the take. But all of this was in blatant violation of repeatedly made verbal promises that the U.S. regime and its agents had made to the Soviet leader Gorbachev that NATO wouldn’t be expanded and take in Warsaw Pact nations if the Soviet Union would break up.
Fast-forward a few more decades, and the U.S. regime invaded a nation that was friendly toward Russia, Iraq, on 20 March 2003, and destroyed it.
On 5 January 2020, Iraq’s Government ordered the U.S. out of Iraq. The Trump regime refused. A reporter for CNN, Manu Raju, tweeted from the Air Force 1 press pool, “Trump … tells pool he will slap Iraq with ‘very big sanctions’ if they force US troops to leave. ‘We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time. We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.’ Trump added: ‘If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis, we will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.’”
The next day, on January 6, Sajad Jiyad of The Century Foundation blogged from Baghdad, “On the issue of US bases, Iraqi sovereignty and sanctions” and reported and presented the legal documents proving that (quoting now from the contract that both Iraq and U.S. had signed) “Iraq owns all the buildings and installations, the nontransferable structures on the ground that are located in the areas and installations agreed upon, including those the U.S. utilizes, constructs, changes or improves.” Furthermore, he noted that, “The US troops that are currently in Iraq are part of a request for assistance to combat ISIS that was sent in 2014. These troops are meant to advise, train and assist Iraqi troops. This request was sent by the Iraqi government and can be revoked at any time.”
On January 24, “The Chief of Police in Baghdad just estimated the number of Iraqis protesting against the US’ presence in Iraq today to be in excess of one million people.” The march in Baghdad was 5 miles long.
So: all of this is old news, which is never reported in the U.S.-and-allied press, which instead starts from assumptions that are false about both the Iraq and the Ukraine matters. And the U.S.-and-allied media never apologize to the public about their having lied, because they say that they make only mistakes, no lies. That’s a lie about their lying.
The media’s role in peddling disinformation over last week’s violence in Amsterdam just keeps getting darker.
