{"id":475860,"date":"2022-01-19T14:22:40","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T14:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/?p=10973"},"modified":"2022-01-19T14:22:40","modified_gmt":"2022-01-19T14:22:40","slug":"the-us-empire-is-more-dangerous-than-ever-before-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2022\/01\/19\/the-us-empire-is-more-dangerous-than-ever-before-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix\/","title":{"rendered":"The US Empire Is More Dangerous Than Ever Before: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a\nhref=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/going_rogue\/the-us-empire-is-more-dangerous-than-ever-before\">Listen to a reading of this article:<\/a><\/em><\/p><p><iframe\nwidth=\"1060\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1199386852&%23038;show_artwork=true&%23038;maxheight=1000&%23038;maxwidth=1060\"><\/iframe><\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>Most Americans now understand that it was wrong to spend centuries enslaving millions of people. Not many Americans yet understand how equally wrong it is that their government has spent the 21st century <a\nhref=\"https:\/\/bylinetimes.com\/2021\/09\/15\/up-to-six-million-people-the-unrecorded-fatalities-of-the-war-on-terror\/\">killing millions<\/a> and <a\nhref=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2020\/sep\/09\/conflicts-us-war-on-terror-displaced-37-million-people-report\">displacing tens of millions in its post-9\/11 wars<\/a>.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>The US is more dangerous now as it loses global primacy than it has been at any other point in its history. There really are just two options currently on the table: either the US empire relinquishes unipolar domination voluntarily and leads a peaceful transition into a multipolar world, or it takes increasingly drastic and dangerous action to maintain planetary control. The latter choice is both horrifying and likely.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>People in western imperialist nations pretending to care about Muslims in China will never stop being hilarious.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>Remember kids: false flags are crazy conspiracy theories that only ridiculous crackpots believe in, except when they&#8217;re <a\nhref=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.substack.com\/p\/false-flags-suddenly-no-longer-a\">reported as fact<\/a> by news outlets who&#8217;ve lied to you about every war.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><blockquote\nclass=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\"><p\nlang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Putin has been reading The Art of War in preparation for his unprovoked Ukraine invasion. <a\nhref=\"https:\/\/t.co\/vukLvJBAL2\">pic.twitter.com\/vukLvJBAL2<\/a><\/p><p>&mdash; Caitlin Johnstone \u23f3 (@caitoz) <a\nhref=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/caitoz\/status\/1482469468186230784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 15, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>Sure is an interesting coincidence how all the (still completely unproven) narratives about Russian 2016 election interference and Trump collusion served perfectly to manufacture consent for all the bat shit insane US\/NATO escalations we&#8217;re seeing in Ukraine today.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>Everyone who&#8217;d support going to war with Russia or China over Ukraine or Taiwan should be regarded with the same revulsion and social rejection as child molesters.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>Capitalism is so innately absurd that its proponents always respond to questions about\u00a0<em><strong>systemic<\/strong><\/em> problems by babbling about what people can do <em><strong>as individuals<\/strong><\/em>. People are homeless? Get a job. Jobs don&#8217;t pay enough? Get a better job. It&#8217;s like addressing the problem of a skyscraper being on fire by saying &#8220;Don&#8217;t go to the floors that are on fire.&#8221;<\/p><p>It&#8217;s like if there was a locked room full of ten prisoners and you only gave them enough food to keep seven alive, and you responded to their complaints by saying &#8220;Better make sure you grab the food first when I throw it in your cell, then.&#8221;<\/p><p>It&#8217;s a belief system you can only hold in place with psychological compartmentalization. Tell that one suffering guy to get a better job and save his money, and then simply do not think about the millions of people who are working low-paying jobs and unable to save any money.<\/p><p>Any competition-based system will necessarily have losers as well as winners in those competitions. Saying &#8220;Compete better than those you&#8217;re competing against&#8221; does nothing for the part of the population who must necessarily lose. A collaboration-based system is what&#8217;s needed.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>You don&#8217;t even need compassion for the poor and disadvantaged to oppose capitalism. You just need some basic self-preservation and an understanding that in a system where human behavior is driven by profit, war and ecocide must necessarily continue as long as they are profitable.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><blockquote\nclass=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\"><p\nlang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It&#39;s so easy to get lost in the narrative matrix without a good moral compass. You start off opposing right wingers to be a good person, then you fall down a few rabbit holes and before you know it you&#39;re telling a Rasmussen pollster you support taking kids from unvaxxed parents. <a\nhref=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2vrpo5lUJ5\">https:\/\/t.co\/2vrpo5lUJ5<\/a><\/p><p>&mdash; Caitlin Johnstone \u23f3 (@caitoz) <a\nhref=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/caitoz\/status\/1483236341236510722?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 18, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>Seems like every day the media have an urgent new report explaining why the free flow of ideas on the internet is dangerous and needs to be curtailed. Today it&#8217;s one thing, tomorrow it&#8217;ll be something else. It&#8217;s not about this or that person or issue, it&#8217;s about controlling information on the internet.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>It was pretty clever how they redefined fascism as &#8220;being kind of racist&#8221; while actual fascism was rebranded as &#8220;just normal party politics&#8221;.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>Saying propaganda doesn&#8217;t work is the same as saying advertising doesn&#8217;t work, and advertising is nearly a <a\nhref=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/advertising-industry-revenue-9147f591-3e74-48bb-ab9f-c352f7283a48.html#:~:text=The%20global%20ad%20industry%20now,hit%20%241%20trillion%20by%202025.\">trillion-dollar industry<\/a>. Also, advertising would be much more effective than it already is if corporate ads were allowed to disguise themselves as news reports in The New York Times.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>Having strong political opinions on social media is no substitute for doing the work to heal your early childhood trauma.<\/p><p\nstyle=\"text-align: center;\">\u2756<\/p><p>If you&#8217;re the same person you were a decade ago, you just wasted ten years of your life.<\/p><p>____________________________<\/p><p><em>My work is\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2021\/05\/24\/my-experiments-with-hacking-capitalism\/\" rel=\"\">entirely reader-supported<\/a>, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CaitlinAJohnstone\/\" rel=\"\">Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/caitoz\" rel=\"\">Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/going_rogue\" rel=\"\">Soundcloud<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/CaitlinJohnstone\/videos\" rel=\"\">YouTube<\/a>, or\u00a0throwing some money into my tip jar on\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/ko-fi.com\/caitlinjohnstone\" rel=\"\">Ko-fi<\/a>,\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/user?u=4445783\" rel=\"\">Patreon<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/paypal.me\/caitlinjohnstone\" rel=\"\">Paypal<\/a>. If you want to read more you can\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/caityjohnstone.medium.com\/books-by-caitlin-johnstone-a5a5e6f71772\" rel=\"\">buy my books<\/a>. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at\u00a0<a\nhref=\"http:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/\" rel=\"\">my website<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.substack.com\/\" rel=\"\">on Substack<\/a>, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish.\u00a0Everyone, racist platforms excluded,\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@caityjohnstone\/i-permanently-release-all-copyrights-to-all-my-writing-use-any-of-it-however-you-want-9ad929b92d42\" rel=\"\">has my permission<\/a>\u00a0to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I\u2019ve written) in any way they like free of charge.\u00a0For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I\u2019m trying to do with this platform,\u00a0<a\nhref=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@caityjohnstone\/11-things-you-should-know-about-me-and-where-im-coming-from-a6b9ddf9806e\" rel=\"\">click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><div\nclass=\"captioned-image-container\"> <figure><a\nclass=\"image-link image2 image2-239-514\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.substack.com\/image\/fetch\/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb397d434-3664-4a07-8d0e-8543666c1b98_514x239.png\"  rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img\nclass=\"sizing-default\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.substack.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1100,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb397d434-3664-4a07-8d0e-8543666c1b98_514x239.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"514\" height=\"239\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/b397d434-3664-4a07-8d0e-8543666c1b98_514x239.png&quot;,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:239,&quot;width&quot;:514,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:null,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:null,&quot;href&quot;:null}\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div><p>Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2<\/p> \n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/caitlinjohnstone.com\/2022\/01\/19\/the-us-empire-is-more-dangerous-than-ever-before-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix\/\">Caitlin Johnstone<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen to a reading of this article: \u2756 Most Americans now understand that it was wrong to spend centuries enslaving millions of people. Not many Americans yet understand how equally wrong it is that their government has spent the 21st century killing millions and displacing [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1775,30,190,1178,24,631,204],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":475861,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475860\/revisions\/475861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}