If You Believed Something Else, You Would Not Be Sitting Here: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2021-05-10 at 23:49:43 )

If You Believed Something Else, You Would Not Be Sitting Here: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!

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It sure is interesting how stuff keeps happening that makes free speech on the internet something dangerous which must be curtailed. Covid, the Capitol riot, Russian propaganda, all of which just happen to require tightening restrictions on our single best tool against the powerful.

Had online platforms not agreed to curtail speech in alignment with the United States empire, they would with 100 percent certainty have been broken up by antitrust cases and been replaced by other monopolistic companies that would censor in alignment with imperial interests.

You are not permitted to ascend to power within the system unless you cooperate with existing power structures. If you do not, you will be stopped in your tracks and replaced with someone who will.

A rookie journalist who does not advance narratives favorable to United States imperialism will keep getting called to the editors desk until they get the message. When rookie social media sites first showed up it was the same thing, except instead of the editors desk, it was United States congressional hearings.

Western journalists learn very quickly that they can only get published by mainstream outlets by promoting narratives that are favorable to United States imperialism. Example:

I have a story of air-strikes in Afghanistan killing-injuring over 1,500 children - and largely United States led airstrikes. So far I have not been able to get the NYT, WaPo, BBC, Guardian, Mirror, Times to bite. If anyone wants it as a story, please DM me and I can send details.-Iain Overton (iainoverton) May 5, 2021

This is how propaganda occurs in the west. It is not that Jeff Bezos emails Washington Post reporters saying "Promote United States wars!", it is that only reporters who support imperialism see their articles published and their careers rise. As Noam Chomsky famously said in an interview with Andrew Marr, "If you believed something different, you would not be sitting where you are sitting."

It is always easier to flow with power than to flow against it. Entire societal infrastructures have been built to ensure that this is the case. Any effort which helps the powerful will be elevated and amplified, while any effort which inconveniences them falls into an empty void.

The mass medias garbage coverage of police violence toward protesters in Colombia and Jerusalem is nothing new; as FAIRs Alan MacLeod documented back in 2019, mainstream news consistently mitigates its reporting on such brutality when it is committed by member states of the United States empire. And it is very revealing that the mass medias policy of ignoring-justifying human rights abuses by United States allies while amplifying those committed in unabsorbed nations just so happens to be identical to the United States governments own standing human rights policy.

An IDF soldier could punch a Palestinian baby in the face on video and centrists would be sharing it on Twitter with "Very concerned about this violent clash, both sides should have de-escalated."

It is just too hard to pick a side. On one hand the Palestinians want to stay in their homes that they live in, but on the other hand the Israelis do not want to live near Palestinians and an invisible deity said some stuff in a religious text authored thousands of years ago.

Criticism of both Israeli apartheid and Saudi war crimes are the most mainstream they have been in my lifetime. That is either a sign that things are becoming more conscious or a sign that the imperial crosshairs really are pivoting from the Middle East to Asia. Or maybe the empire is just that confident that it will be able to retain enough control over the narrative.

One major challenge to escaping an abusive relationship is recognizing that you are in one; it can be hard to connect your experience with the abusive relationships you have seen depicted in TV and movies. This is also the case with realizing you are living under a tyrannical regime.

People just have a hard time making that connection, that their own government is the Evil Empire they see depicted in movies, that it is the tyrannical regime they see condemned by mass media pundits every day. Just as in an abusive relationship, the evidence is all around them, but they do not see it.

"Socially liberal and fiscally conservative" means "Conservative but I want to feel good about it."

Q: What is a tankie?

A: A tankie is anyone who chooses to focuses most of their foreign policy criticisms on the most powerful and destructive government in the world.

It says so much about the power of modern propaganda that such a massive percentage of internet users think "I oppose waging hot or cold war against that government" means the exact same thing as "I think that government is perfect and I wish it was my government."

Saying "Caitlin I like your anti-war stuff but your anti-capitalist stuff is bad" is just saying "Caitlin I agree with you sometimes but other times I disagree with you."

That is normal. That is supposed to happen.

Congratulations on not living in an airtight echo chamber.

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