by Detlef Romatzki for the Saker blog
The question of why the Western Punters seem to make such ridiculous statements, and seem to be totally misinformed, has come up in numerous discussion about the Western Leaders and commentators.
Let me try to present a theory in order to make some sense.
In a recent article by Larry Johnson, dated 23 November, “De-Constructing Western Delusions on Ukraine and Russia”, Larry quotes the comments of an unknown Western Commentator. However, Larry refuses to mention who it was for the sake of not embarrassing that person any more than necessary.
You can read the article here
Well, he should have, but that is not the point. But some context would have helped a lot. The rest of the article is basically on how Larry debunks this narrative and I am not going to discuss it.
One has to asks oneself why are these commentators spewing this nonsense when we in the more “enlightened group”, being more open minded and alleged to know the truth, know so much better and claim we live in the real world?
A possible answer is presented in the following arguments made.
The Internet
One of the biggest mistakes the “elite”, the “Illuminate”, the “Deep State”, or whoever you would like to call them, has done was to create the internet and the WWW. Whether they could prevent it, is a different debate because at time the dial up Bulletin Boards already existed at the time and was very popular.
The Internet, as per its inherent redundancy and design, can not be directly controlled nor destroyed and that is the core problem. This is even clear via the China internet model. Information can still escape China if one knows how.
So what is to be done?
You try to control the Big Tech companies, e.g. Google, Facebook, Twitter, DNS Servers and implement the necessary controls. However, control is still limited, since you can not prevent alternatives and competition and we see that in alternatives to Youtube such as Rumble, Oddesy, search engines such as Yandex, and social media apps such a VK, Telegram and We Chat.
You control the media and all narratives disseminated to the populations completely.
You enforce a specific narrative and degrade all and everybody that does not conform to the offical narrative.
You control and instruct leaders and influential people to constantly repeat the narrative.
You weaken the population and break down their “anchor” in life so that they loose the ability to exercise critical thinking and question the official narrative.
You deflect attention to matters away from the desired narrative that they would like to present and thus confuse the population by focusing on unimportant issues.
You present short versions of the narrative, such used in advertisement, television and films, that flashes before your eyes and which you have very little time to look at properly. You can study advertisements on television where you can clearly observe the technique.
What are their sources?
With the high level of censorship in the media, it is no wonder that the information available to these commentators is so limited. What else do they get to read? Every day they are bombarded with the same “false” narrative and, as Joseph Goebbels has said,
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
A friend of mine, who lives in Panama, has recently met some tourists from America. In their discussions it came out that their core complaint was that they got, or are, fed up with the constant bombardment of Fake News. As soon as they turn on their television it, it is one propaganda story after the other, whether it is foreign or domestic issues.
During the pandemic I have seen many people (friends) that first refused the jab and later succumbed to the constant propaganda … and then finally took the jab. It is sometimes very hard to resist this onslaught and you have to have very strong believes and values.
The Internet and Google
If you want to find, say, Larry Johnson, by googeling him, Larry’s website is not even listed in the first 10 search results pages. I have done it.
So I entered a phrase from the Quote that he listed: “Every day Russia makes more military blunders and Putin has just fired one of his top commanders, General Alexander Lapin.”
The Google result was a single entry from https://freerepublic.com, which contained a word for word copy of Larry’s article, but no link to Larry Johnson or his blog.
What I did get was Google’s message;
“In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 1 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.“.
If I pressed on that link, the freerepublic.com link as well as Larry Johnson’s blog, https://sonar21.com/ comes up.
What is the obvious conclusion? Well, Larry is being censored (cancelled) by Google.
So how are these Western commentators suppose to get the information from “enlightened” people?
Wokeness
In recent years the term “Wokeness” has been created and made popular.
Wokeness basically means that you conform to the main narrative and are part of the new modern way of thinking. “You fit in the group” and therefor are considered to be popular and cool.
This type of label then provides you with support for various ventures, whether it is publicity, media, talk shows, university tenure, management positions, etc.
You talk the narrative and therefor you are invited and respected by the people that push the narrative so that you can spread the “word” and continue with the sanctioned story line.
You can call it the Carrot part of the “Carrot and stick” principle.
Cancel Culture
However, beware if you do not toe the line and express yourself against the official narrative. Then you are “Cancelled” and removed from any public forum, be its physical or in the web or in the media.
You can loose your tenure, your job, your social media accounts, and other media engagements, etc. Your are basically removed from society, made invisible and so called “cancelled”.
You can call it the Stick part of the “Carrot and stick” principle.
Creation and use of “strong” words
ZIN thwe 1950 the CIA created the word “Conspiracist” in order to discredit any person that tried to expose their secret dealings. It was found to be quiet effective.
In recent years this technique has been expanded and now includes very “strong” words, e.g. Anti semetist (to hide Israel’s crimes), anti-Feminist and sexist, Homophobic, Racist, Putin’s propagandists, rapist, Climate change denier, Transgender denialist, etc.
It does not matter if you are guilty or not. Once these slogan and accusation are hurled at you, your image is tarnished and doubt, even just a little bit, is injected into all people, even your friends and family. Only very strong people will resist this urge and unfounded doubt.
They always said that the pen is mightier than the sword. Well, in this case it is clearly true.
Media
It is essential to completely control the Mainstream Media in every aspect, from Reuters, the backbone of Media’s information source, to television, news programs and the published papers and magazines.
This has happened all over the Western Worlds and we can acknowledge that the media is fully controlled by the powers that be. News are repeated from channel to channel, using even the same words and sentences. This is the “Repeating” method used in establishing a memory, and thus the narrative, even in a very subtle way, thus being emphasised and engrained..
Media companies that try to be independent are threatened with advertisement withdrawal, demonetization, etc., and ultimate ruin. That is why there are no more ethics in the Main Stream Media, nor proper investigative journalists. They all might loose their jobs and thus fight for the own interest, bugger the truth.
Social media
With the advent of Social media platforms, the ultimate vehicle for dissemination of the official narrative has been created. It is also an ideal means to enforce cancel culture since a minimal number of people, and resources, can smear any dissident and start a propaganda campaign against anybody that deviated from the approved path.
It has lead to the effect that the minority (small group) can rule and control the masses.
Social media is also a form of gathering huge amounts of personal data for deeper analysis. This data can and will be used in the future to control people, maybe not yet but surely in the future. Currently methods are more restricted to feeding you news articles and other articles that support the official narrative, tailed to your personality, believes and habits.
Cellphones
With the widespread availability and use of Cellphones, everybody is connected to the internet, social media and news sources. We have seen how effective cellphones and social media was used during the Arab Spring. Like wild fire information was distributed.
Smart phones, with proper web browsing, social media apps, Whatsapp and Telegram, Youtube, etc., have become the tool of choice for distributing the official narrative and the ability to target anybody that goes against the grain, with a very very wide distribution network (friend of friends) that can instantly “cancel” anybody.
The biggest recent example was Elon Musk’s near cancellation when he proposed a peace deal in Ukraine, or the 40 Democrats that proposed peace negotiations in a letter to Biden and had to withdraw it within 24 hours.
Who can resist this pressure?
Reference is constantly made to WW2 , the Cuban Missile Crises, etc. However that was a different world and era where people and leaders still had Values, Religions was strong, Families were strong, where Integrity, Honour, Patriotism, etc. … had meaning ….. a proper culture.
This has all been destroyed. By whom? That is a debatable point, but it did happen. Society has been transformed and the Western Culture has been destroyed. There is now very little left of the original culture of the 1950/1960/1970/1980 and before.
The family concept is being destroyed. Fewer Children are born, people marry less, Feminism is pushed, Affirmative actions is pushed, Homosexuality is rampant and encouraged, Gender identity is driven to the absurd., Science is destroyed by money, etc. Religion has been destroyed by the introduction of other cultures and religions into society. Inter-race marriages have been promoted and encouraged. And then … Wokeness and Cancel Culture has become dominant.
With the loss in a stable anchor, derived from one’s family and culture, who can resist these dominant forces? People have become isolated and vulnerable and easy to manipulate. Integrity is thrown out of the window and now everybody is for himself. Gone are the days were one would stand up for his values and deny a job, money or position. All of it has now become monetised and self preservation is the order of the day. Money has played the corruptible factor.
Money and wokeness has become the driving forces of the population. Cancel Culture and Social media have become the tools.
Given the facts above, who can then NOT understand why the Western Commentators spew the fake news and ridiculous narratives?
In my assessment I believe it is Selfish Interests, Lack of strong Values, Money, Fear of being Cancelled and a lack of proper Information derived from reality, that drives the Western commentators to create such “devoid of reality” narratives. They are just towing the line, even selling their souls and reputations just to prevent their cancellation.
Pro NON Western commentators
I have watch and read a lot of “Pro Russian” or Anti-Western commentators and they sometimes use or cite Western Media Source to back up their story. This baffles me a bit ….
If we all acknowledge that the news spread by Western media, sources and commentators, is Fake News, then how can we sometimes use these sources to validate our own narratives? This means “Pro Russian” commentators are very selective in what information they use and thus the complete picture, as told by them, might also just be an opinion, and not always cast in concrete, and also not necessary true.
So here we have a paradox.
The narrative of Western Leaders
We know that western leaders have a false narrative and tell lies. However, “Pro Russian” and Anti-Western commentators still, sometimes, take them at their word and make conclusions based on what they say.
Take Stoltenberg…….. We know he lies and repeats the official narrative that he was instructed to present. We know he is a puppet. So how can anybody take whatever he says, seriously or at his word? Why to we even quote him if we know that … whatever he says …. he does not even believe himself?
We all know the Nuclear threat against Putin is bollocks but still we go on and on and make a big issue out of.
We know Mad is always valid and true and that any use of Nuclear Weapons is suicidal and the crossing of any and all red lines. NOBODY will start a nuclear war, except … except… maybe North Korea, because Kim Jong-un is mad enough.
But still we believe Biden and Stoltenberg when they spew their nonsense and then react to this.
Com’on ……
My Name is Detlef Romatzki, of German decent and I lived in South Africa all my life.
I have a Youtube video channel where you can watch my videos, talks and get the latest assessments and news. I present alternative views and even disagree with some Anti-Western Commentators, not to bad mouth or discredit them, but to disagree like normal friends disagree. Friends surely do not always agree about everything.
You can watch the videos at Youtube
Or if you prefer Rumble
This Youtube channel is very young (only 2 months old) and I post one, or more, videos nearly each day.
Please subscribe to the channel so that I can unlock more Youtube features and do Live Discussions.
The narrative is stupid and unrealistic, because the average IQ of the average westoid is extremely low. This is by design. The western education system is beyond imbecilic, years of regurgitating the same material over and over again, as minors cannot comprehend basic arithmetic, reading comprehension and critical thinking, so they can become pawns of the welfare/dole system. It is even more incredible, when you have college/university educated individuals with masters degrees and more being mindless disasters. The entirety of western intellectual elite is goading the gullible to die for Ukraine, to starve themselves, to freeze themselves, and to impoverish themselves to stand up to Putin and the Russians.
That “western intellectual elite” is not western, intellectual, or elite. It’s Hebraic, midwit (at best), and second-rate.
When a subject is out of a person’s expertise they usually defer to the opinion of an expert. The media are purveyors of “expert” opinion. Even smart people are brainwashed because the propaganda is effective on almost everyone.
I would disagree there. Smart people know how to vet sources and see through the propaganda. They know when “experts” are lying in order to advance a narrative. When I look at any propaganda broadcast or written article, it’s like my mind is listening to or reading two things at the same time. One part of my brain hears the incoming verbiage and another part translates that into what it really means, i.e. “ah, they’re saying this to push this narrative, that part is an outright lie, that’s an appeal to emotion designed to tap into sympathy, that part is a distortion of fact” and so on. Once you’re awake, even the subtle propagandisms become obvious like a flashing red light.
In my opinion you are on the right path.
And you think that is what the average “smart” person does? No my friend, that is higher level cognitive functioning, from a person in control of their emotions and well versed in debate, data processing and the subject matter. I have a university degree in literature and art, obtained in Italy when studying was still a very serious matter. My course of studies included Latin, Philosophy, History, Sociology, Anthropology, Eastern religions, Literature spanning the best of 2000 years. Now I live in the US. I am surrounded, have conversations with and read people w/ MBAs, PHD, etc. Most of them are excellent at what they do but completely clueless about everything else. Their level of general knowledge about their world is equal to that of a person that hardly finished high school. They are imbued with all the trappings that Mr. Romatski described in the article, incredibly ignorant, gullible and at the same time entitled. They are all liberals and staunch supporters of Democracy. They all swear by Russiagate, Iraq Blunders, AssadMustGo, Putler, ChinaBad, UkraineMustWin, FauciIsScience. There’s no discussion w/ them. Their beliefs (which as Mr. Ramatski correctly described translate into access to jobs, careers, wealth and comfort) are unshakeable. Their emotions are volatile and get triggered by the sight of things like: a boy that is not allowed by his “extreme” right wing parents to paint his nails. They are anti-war unless it’s an American war. Then it’s ok because it’s done in the name of Democracy vs odious dictatorships. They don’t give a fuck about the millions that die in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen, etc. but they all go crazy for Ukraine. When this will be over with hundreds of thousands dead and a country in ruin (like in all previous US interventions) they will listen to the “experts” telling them that some “mistakes” were made and, while the cause was just” the consequences outweighed the benefits. Well, what can you do? Move on to Taiwan.
A great piece of work. Thank you.
The article by Larry Johnson is dated November, 3rd , not 23.
“I have watch and read a lot of “Pro Russian” or Anti-Western commentators and they sometimes use or cite Western Media Source to back up their story. This baffles me a bit ….”
It does not baffle me at all. I’ve found that when arguing with defenders of Empire that the only way to silence them is to quote from MSM sources.
“Every day Russia makes more military blunders and Putin has just fired one of his top commanders, General Alexander Lapin.”
The search situation is even worse for Duck and Bing, you can’t find it at all.
Yandex finds it.
After returning from Russia years ago, I commented on my blog that Russia was getting more free, and the US was getting less free. At some point they will switch positions.
interesting about the search engine, I did some benchmarking :
“larry johnson” on google.com appears only on 9th page on a youtube video about truth on Ukraine. Before, it’s 9 pages about a basketball player. He appears on 8th page on google.fr, a little better!
but “larry johnson blog” on google.com appears on 1st page, 1st results, altough not directly his website, but wikipedia and then youtube. the wikipedia page is all about discrediting him, by the way, but this is no surprise.
“larry johnson” on duckduckgo appears on 1st page, 6-8th result, not directly but cited by radiantscreator.com, thedukereport.com and europoreloaded.com
“larry johnson blog ” on duckduckgo appears on 1st page, 1st result cited by radiantscreator.com.
“larry johnson” on yandex appears on 1st page, 1st result, with his own website sonar21. the basketball player is also there, on the side. second result is the russian wikipedia article about him.
bing put him 1st page, 6th rank, I expected much worse.
Well, I don’t know anything about basket, but I am ready to believe that more people looking for larry johnson are searching the basketball player than the ex-CIA analyst, so I find duckduckgo is quite balanced in his ranking, based on these 2 single keywords.
But that was an interesting experiment, it was a long time I had not used google, and I will definitely not go back to it.
My comment examines an example of “the western narrative” sounding unrealistic because the headline lies about its own text. Here it is again:
A fine piece of self-contradiction may be found on page 3 of Financial Times, November 5th, “Kherson residents reveal Russian reign of terror”.
The subtitle reads “Ukrainians in occupied region recount instances of murder, torture and property confiscation by Moscow’s troops”.
There’s a big photo of two soldiers looking at the sea. And a quote: They poured something in her mouth and then hanged her in front of the courthouse”.
But the unfortunate author of this piece, a Christopher Miller in Kiev, blows the buildup in the second paragraph. “she was dragged into the street by the self-appointed pro-Moscow authorities and hanged.”
Did you catch that? It wasn’t Russian soldiers who killed this Ukrainian woman. But they were Russians, right? Probably not. The writer would have made it very clear if they were Russians. These “pro-Moscow authorities” must have been Ukrainians.
The story makes more sense now, but it’s hardly big news. Ukrainians have been killing, hanging, and murdering Ukrainians in the thousands ever since Victoria Nuland interfered, and probably before that too.
So a big raspberry for the FT, hoist by its own petard. English dishonesty at its finest.
“One of the biggest mistakes the “elite”, the “Illuminate”, the “Deep State”, or whoever you would like to call them, has done was to create the internet and the WWW.”
This view is expressed quite regularly by different commentators/analysts, & it is a total misconception. The “elite”, or ruling caste in the US knew exactly what it was doing by creating the internet/world wide web, it was not a mistake – the proof of this, if you wish for it, is that they can switch it off any time they wish. The US has total control over the key servers & infrastructure, if they want to flip the switch to OFF, they can. If they wish to limit the internet & police it more stringently, by setting up a Chinese firewall, they can do that. What they have done in recent times, to deal with fall out they do not feel comfortable with, is to begin mass online censorship. Ten plus years ago no one would believe that the internet could be subjected to the kind of censorship that has been enacted, but guess again, they have control over it, they will control what & who is on it & using it. The internet was set up for mass surveillance & intelligence collection purposes, & for that it has been massively effective & successful for the US national security apparatus. They would not walk this back for the benefits of it for all the money in the world.
The Western narrative sounds stupid and unrealistic just about everywhere outside of the Western world. Add to that only some very few “enlightened” Westerners who have so far made the required effort and intellectual investment to actively resist becoming stupid, not bright, or just plain dumb.
The Western narrative is just that, a narrative, a story, a tale. It is not a line of thought nor a philosophy. It has no back-bone nor values behind it. It´s only a very thin and vulnerable veneer without any substrate below. It´s inconsistent, immature, almost childish. It sounds stupid and unrealistic because it is, either according to us here and/or pretty much elsewhere in the world outside of the sick cocoon that not-so-bright Westerners allowed for, developed and deployed for themselves ignoring 85% of mankind.
But it won´t last much longer because a simultaneous self-inflicted political and social crisis driven by the Western lack of energy & valid currency underpinnings will knock out the Western hollow narrative into deep a silence. The Western narrative has talked the talk but did not and cannot walk the walk. It only has tongue, but no legs.
I completely agree with you Jorge: The “Western narrative” has no foundation in cultural substance. It is, in my language, no more than a self serving ego trip of the Western bourgeois class. It is ego imagining that it is the embodiment of culture when it is in fact the denial of culture. That is what the ego must do to culture in order to maintain what it really wants- domination. So you are right. It is no more than a narrative. A tale pushed by egoists. And because it is insane it is actually visibly stupid, as you point out.
In my opinion I.Q. scores or intelligence does not play a decisive role in the current subjugation of the inhabitants living under the Empire of Lies. Take for example South Korea and Japan which are consistently ranked 2 of the countries with the highest I.Q. scores in the world. Supremely educated, disciplined and technologically advanced societies that happen to be absolute puppets of the U.S. for the last 70 plus years. I would love to see both South Korea and Japan embrace more neutral stances like India, Pakistan and other countries who have broken away from the dominance of U.S. influence. Perhaps the time is nearing. I really like the title of this article because questioning everything in today’s world is quintessential in order to avoid falling victim to the lies an deception of our government. Here in many parts of America pseudoscience has replaced religion and many people consider doctors and the pharmaceutical industries as the new Gods. Look at the way they were able to close down the entire nation and most of the world without much resistance. I was personally shocked at the level of obedience and lack or resistance by the majority of the citizens.
@ 7even-N-6
No matter how high an I.Q. they may score — or whatever other conventional metric is used — if Japanese and South Koreans still are …”… absolute puppets of the U.S. for the last 70 plus years….”… Can they still be considered to be ´bright´ people ?
I would not choose to live in N or S Korea, but if I had to choose between them I would without hesitation choose S Korea where there are many voices on any topic, where the citizens have challenged and brought down ultra authoritarian leaders and where there is greater artistic and social freedom and a livelier culture. They make very good products and win customers despite higher prices.
As to Japan , in many ways they have reaped what they have sowed. Brutal imperialistic expansion is a harsh 2 way street. Not that anyone should be treated as the US treats its allies/vassals. I think the Japanese face questions about how to be a free self-reliant people that are harder at this time than they seem. So do we all. This is emphasized by clear geographic boundaries and a unified culture. They are indeed bright people, with all the same problems intelligent and not so intelligent people everywhere face.
In general there is a very large factor in the pervasiveness of US propaganda which is only lightly touched upon in this article, and that is the enormous overt efforts of the CIA to control the news media of the western world. When you read most major news media about any country or conflict or political turn of events it has been ok’d or spun by British or US “intelligence/propaganda’.
I agree with most of your arguments especially about destruction of religion, family, pushing of extremely deviant sexual practices as something good but I stop at culture and religion.
What culture and religion is so weak it gets destroyed by presence of another culture and religion?
Various Christian denominations remained intact and thrived for hundreds of years in the holyland and nearby areas including Egypt, Syria, Lebanon. Large Christian minorities thrived in many muslim lands. Same with different cultures say in India, Tanzania even in china.
The censorship of the internet, cancel culture, wokeness, or social media are largely diversionary issues, often pushed by controlled opposition “critics” or the supposed alternative media.
Why?
Because the internet itself was created by the American military (the Pentagon’s ARPA program) during the Cold War as a tool of surveillance and infowar against Communist guerilla movements in the Vietnam War.
So all the people whining about internet censorship are (deliberately) obfuscating the issue of who created the internet and why.
In other words, the internet was *never* created as a tool of free and open communication. It’s a fairy tale to believe so.
The internet was spawned as a tool of American strategic information warfare and control–to be deployed against “enemy” nations, governments, or guerilla groups.
Yasha Levine’s book _Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet_ documents the real origins of the internet and why it was actually created:
Book Review: Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet
https://www.oif.ala.org/oif/book-review-surveillance-valley-the-secret-military-history-of-the-internet/
And there is the recent development of social media like Google and Facebook, which were also spawned by American military-spook institutions like the CIA or NSA for one ultimate purpose: American informational superiority.
How the CIA made Google: Inside the secret network behind mass surveillance, endless war, and Skynet
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
Ultimately, there is a more important issue:
The Western (read: American) “narrative” is so Goebbelsian because most Americans and Westerners believe in a fundamental civilizational deception: Western Moral Superiority.
So no matter how stupid or unrealistic this narrative is, they choose to believe it, because these brainwashed drones in general believe that …
The West is Best.
And America is a Force for Good in the World.
Because America in particular and the West in general represent Freedom, Democracy, Liberty, Individual Rights, the Rule of Law, Human Rights, Christianity, Family Values, Conservative Values, a Free and Open Society, etc.
These beliefs are total unadulterated bullsh!t–and belied by the many wars of aggression and other crimes against humanity that America and its European imperialist allies are guilty of on a massive scale for centuries, if not millenia.
But pro-Americans and pro-Westerners still cling to these delusions because they fervently believe in their own moral superiority.
That is the real threat.
@xvfsb
It is difficult to refudiate anything you wrote because it is all accurate. Meta for example formerly Facebook illegally collected billions of users facial recognition biometric data without their consent. That is an international crime which of course was brushed aside expeditiously by the U.S. government. I have to admit though Youtube is still awesome. I was able to renovate my entire bathroom including all the plumbing using Youtube tutorials. On a serious note regarding the moral superiority that you say Americans and Europeans possess, to be honest its more to do with the masses being completely unaware of what their governments are truly up to coupled with the massive brainwashing and censoring of information by their media outlets. There is very strict information control in America. Its literally the inversion of truth, they preach freedom of speech, expression, information but they in fact prevent the free flow of information, specially when it does not fit their narrative.
@xvfsb
“The West is Best”
Maybe brainwashed or gaslighted ( it doesn´t really matter ) can Westerners still be ´bright´ if under current circumstances they “fervently believe in their own moral superiority” ?
Exactly Jorge, and the problem is so deep-seated that many of those in positions of influence, who honestly believe that they are fair-minded, reveal clear superiority bias in policy positions, e.g., Australia’s reaction to China’s growing influence in the Pacific.
xvfsb wrote:
The internet was *never* created as a tool of free and open communication.
The internet was created by the American military (the Pentagon’s ARPA program) during the Cold War as a tool of surveillance and infowar against Communist guerilla movements in the Vietnam War.
My comment:
The First PC was launched in 1971, The First IP provider was launched in 1989. The Vietnam War ended in 1975. So there was no Cancel culture, Wokeness or social media during the Vietnam War.
xvfsb wrote:
Recent development of social media like Google and Facebook was also spawned by American intelligence the CIA and NSA for American informational superiority.
My comment: That is right.
xvfsb wrote:
The Western “narrative” can get away with being so Goebbelsian because most Westerners believe in Western Superiority. So no matter how stupid or unrealistic the narrative is, they choose to believe it.
The West in general represent Freedom, Democracy, Liberty, Individual Rights, the Rule of Law, Human Rights, Christianity, Family Values, Conservative Values, a Free and Open Society, etc.
My comment:
The reality however, is that the west represents Tax slavery, Fascism, Cancel culture, Group pressure, law by autocrats, Elite superiority, Satanism, promiscuity, Socialism, free and open sexuality.
xvfsb wrote:
Westerners still cling to these delusions because they fervently believe in their own moral superiority.
That is the real threat.
My comment:
You forget one important detail. The western decline in moral values also has caused a decline in Solidarity, Loyalty and trust within the western population, including among western Nations. Today the west is fractured, and will disintegrate at the first united force it meets (Russia).
That is the real threat for the west.
The Reality is that the west has been hijacked by an Elite cult, who has turned former western Values on its head, in order to willfully destroy Western Christian society. This is done via the educational system, the media, Culture and insane laws, driving the west into self-inflicted crisis after crisis since 9/11.
The final blow to the west will be a war with Russia, sending the west into a new dark age, while 2/3 of the global population rides into the future, freed from lies, filth and wars.
Just to clarify and backup the OP here; The “internet” is/was created by DARPA (DOD) in early 1960’s known as TCP-IP spec, where IP meant “Internet Protocol”, from 1960’s to 1980’s it was used only by corporations, higher-ed, and MIL. The backbone was always the TELCO system, which is why first software came out of bell-labs aka “UNIX”. DARPA is “Defense Advanced Research Products Agency”, sort of the ‘james bond’ of the new tech post WW2. Most stuff was developed say MIT, and such; Just like the A-BOMB. TCP mean is “Transport Control Protocol”.
Like mentioned most of the software was written by bell-labs, which had email, and ‘usenet’ which let groups have conversations, not unlike todays social media; In 1991 the “Internet” went public and the IP’s ( internet-providers ) came into existence, where a home-user with a modem, could connect to the internet. By paying a small fee, say $20/month for the service, at that time a CORPORATE T-1 line was a $1,000 month, and higher bandwidth connections cost even more.
I used the ‘internet’ much in 1970’s, which early on was DEC computers running UNIX; By 1980’s most corporations and universitys were connected;
The point here is that the ‘internet’ is US-MIL financed, and NSA-CIA groomed from the 1950’s; Almost all of the GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, TWITTER – everything came out of bay-area san-francisco, aka in-Q-tel CIA venture capital funding the winners; 1990’s going forward
The first PC commercially available was around early 1970’s, but all the people who worked in “STEM” at mil, univ, or corporation had access to computers, and all the mini-computers were running UNIX; All that can be said is the PC made the ‘computer’ affordable; I can remember early 1970’s the computer was a million dollars from IBM and then DEC came out and you could get a computer for $100k; The early 1970’s PC were essentially useless with no memory monitor, they were just calculators with flashing lights; The real functional PC didn’t come out until 1981 when IBM released the PC, to which you could run real UNIX, and ergo could do the same stuff on a $5k computer that you did at work on a $500K computer; So 1980’s is when the PC really took off; Prior to 1980’s the only functional app for the first gen PC’s was the ‘spreadsheet’, so it was a business tool, but single function;
Today’s Smart-Phone is more powerful that a 1970’s multi-million dollar computer;
Regarding ‘woke’ I think Hudson makes it quite clear that Woke is not new, that the ‘church’ was dividing and conquering civilizations to destroy them for 1,000’s of years prior; Putting minority groups on a pedestal like LGBTQ, and Trans, and blacks now to piss off the majority is not a new idea, its biblical;
Social Networking is not new, first gen UNIX from bell-labs in 1960’s had “USENET” groups, where people could chat about guns, drugs, or whatever, and politics/news; IMHO the only thing new post 1990’s was the GUI, where they put graphics and crap that we had been doing since the 1960’s. Much of the work was done by Apple to create the cheap graphic-computer, which eventually microsoft copied and called ‘windows’, first gen graphic apple was called ‘lisa’, but everything apple did was stolen from UNIX; The first internet-graphics computers were called ‘smalltalk’ and is where apple got the ideas to upgrade their apple-2 first-gen, which was essentially like your early 1970’s commodore, fairly useless; Note all this stuff other than Microsoft came out of the bay-area;
I’m going to cut to the chase here and call out the elephant in the room.
Everything in the west is easily explained by economics, a truly awful value system that cares nothing for anything except profit.
The value of everything is calculated in terms of money. Health care, food, the environment, education – you name it, they are only relevant if the ROI is positive. Nothing else matters.
Those in service to this ideology are the product of exceptionally bad education, and are driven by ego, delusion, and of course money.
Imagine a value system that’s primary concern was the health and well being of people instead of profit …
Quite so, Black Cloud.
Liberalism is the problem.
It was that great hero of liberalism, John Locke, who equated life and liberty with property. As a result everything has a price, as you noted. But as Wilde quipped, they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Cut to the chase? Shall we? First of all “Trumps Wall” is to keep the tax-donkey’s trapped in the company store;
The issue here I can well remember in 1980’s summer on Crete island hanging out of with naked German chicks, they hated americans, all they heard growing up near the bases in Germany by USA gi-joes was “USA is best fuck the rest”; Like most of my time, I flew the canadian flag on my backpack;
The trouble of course is back in USSA, the majority actually believed all the bullshit, about USSA ( united slavery states of the americas ) being the best; Rah-Rah; Like Celente always says folks don’t lose it, until they ‘lose it’ and today with +60% of the USSA public living paycheck to paycheck or worse, most have ‘lost it’;
Yes, everything about USSA is bad at this point, while I’m a USSA citizen, I can safely say I sailed away +25 years ago, and when I go back all I see is people living on the sidewalks in their own vomit & feces; Try to explain this to the people where I live, who still all think USSA streets are paved with gold;
I remember years ago a spec-forces training col beckwith of delta saying “The USA is a third world country with nukes” and the top-dog of LAPD swat-team RAMPART whose night job was to drive around and randomly snipe blackmen would say “The epitaph on the gravestone of the USA will say, the country failed for its inability to incorporate the blackman into society post civil war” that coming from a man paid to kill black men. Like Smedly Butler said “All wars are banker wars”, the USSA is what it has always been a 3rd world plantation of hairlips groomed for genocide and controlling the earth; Nowadays the 330M+ are seen as zombies that must be culled ASAP;
All you can do is get you and your family out of USSA, its all going down; Planned obsolescence, has now reached to level of country’s; Certainly in the near future foreign governments will be be paying militias black, & brown to kill asians & whites in USSA, just like the USSA has done in Ukraine; What you sow, so shall ye reap.
Regarding ROI, its all meaningless at +$30 Trillion ponzi bucks printed, and +$800 Trillion USD derivative bets that can’t be paid when the ship implodes the bankers must murder all the insurance policy owners before the default;
Bad education and medical ain’t new, BIG-OIL took ownership of med&pharma in 1920’s, the UNIV is a racket, all MSM is owned by absentee landlords living in palaces near Italian beaches; Modern USSA doesn’t even have to collect tax anymore, now its infinite fiat pulled out of politician asses to infinity, which is how they can fund UKRAINE $10 Billion USD a month; The problem is working for USD in the USSA will soon have no meaning, as like Weimar Germany the best use of a wheelbarrow of paper fiat is to make a fire at home;
Hi, I just checked the blog of the author « question everything ». I do agree with the statement. I question the picture of Marx as the logo for the blog.
I am not questioning so much the usefulness of the analysis of capitalism that Marx offered. I question Marxism and the quote I just heard:
« Marxism is secularized Jewish eschatology ».
I tend to agree, as I see a similar prophetic taste. « Messianic » as they say:
« One day… »
It sounds that they are both connected to the nowadays globalist « you will be happy and have nothing ».
Maybe, instead of playing the great reset agenda, a great jubilee could happen (like no more IMF and its debt cycle, for example) AND the organization of commons to redistribute locally what has been grabbed by big guys.
It seems utopian but maybe « One day… » … at the time.
Meanwhile let’s be attentive and caring. Let’s feel what there is to be felt, and manage ourselves the best we can, individually and collectively. We are all « on the hook » somehow. We need some rehab, one way or another.
I appreciate a lot this group of commentors on thesaker blog: a collective of mentors, to learn from one another. Thanks
Pretty long-winded to make two basic points, but yes, both points are spot on:
1- Commentators spew known nonsense for fear (cowardice) of losing their name and fame.
. . . but more importantly for this blog:
2- Commentators and writers take the spew seriously and act back against it with “thoughtful” analysis and denunciation.
The second phenomenon is more personally deadly and culturally disruptive than the first. Yet it goes on and on in blog after blog after blog:
Writer: X is slimy, here’s how it got to be slimy, and it also stinks. [To herself: But I get paid to write about it.]
Commentator: X really stinks. Moreover, it stinks. It’s also slimy. But it stinks more than it’s slimy, which is why you [Writer] are a first class moron. And it’s beneath me. I don’t know why anyone pays attention to X or this moron who writes about it. But for me, I just want to say, so there is no misunderstanding about the powers of my brain, that X really, really stinks. And is slimy. And if you don’t believe what I just pointed out for you, you’re a moron too, whose mother wore combat boots and went out with morons like you.
Reading through a lot of the comments in this particular article I see a lot of very broad generalizations of western civilization and its over 1 billion inhabitants.(Removed. Please don’t attack other commenters. Mod.) Most people are good people regardless of what part of the world they are from. Despotic governments are never a representation of the majority of the people of any nation throughout history and I will debate this with anyone anytime.
Larry Johnson is a very common name in America. The most famous LJs appear first on the list if you go by name only, but if you narrow your search to, say, Larry Johnson political commentary, the LJ you are seeking comes up in first place.
Americans spend a LOT of time being entertained. This makes the brain lazy and injects indirect, as well as some direct, propaganda which shapes peoples world views and understanding of human psychology.
Removed. Mod.
Bear with me as I circle around this.
Short answer — the political propaganda narrative sounds stupid and unrealistic because it is stupid and unrealistic for those who have knowledge and do critical thinking, but those are not the ones it is directed towards — the vast majority.
But now need to jump into things on much more basic levels of ontology and epistemology — what is real.
My fundamental assumption, working hypothesis, is that reality, existence, is, at the root, composed of ‘consciousness’, which I now define as relationships among various ‘elements’, or varieties of disturbances in the ‘void’. It starts out as uniform ‘stuff’, in which variations arise (think Heisenberg uncertainty), because everything is made of probabilities too. Every probabilistic deviation from uniformity yields relationships among all oher variations, which can be described in terms of energy, which is how these elements interact with each other. If there is some interaction, some interaction, that the other element is mutually apprehended or perceived as ‘real”. If two things never interact then it is never perceived as real — the other is deemed to not exist or to be false.
True or false, existent or not, on a larger scale, depends on a reality system — some fairly comprehensive scheme of interrelationships, abstractions, by which an advanced consciousness, such as more or less sentient being, can make ‘sense’ of the world they interact with. If there exists some level of resonance of the interacting reaity event with the internal structures of the being (nervous system, chemical system, brain, aI computer program, or whatever, if it ‘fits’ with a large enough portion of the being’s perceptual system, the it will be perceived and have meaning, such that decisions can be made (such as a bug running away from a bird nearby, a bacterium changing its chemical state to infect a cell, a cell calling the immune system to react to an infection, or a man walking around a tree rather than walking into it.
A person hearing propaganda or narrative, needs it to conform with his belief systems, including ‘what is possible’, ‘what is probable’, ‘what is expected’, his religious, world view, political views, educational context, judgement of credibility of the source of information, self identity, identity as part of group, and so on, as well as the perceived cost/benefit of accepting the narrative as real or true. Often a message deemed to be nonsense will not even be noticed but perceived as mere noise, or perhaps never enter into awareness at all but filtered out by the perceptual system (which itself is very limited in sensory and perceptual sensitivities). There are limits as to how far the brain or mind can perceive things, such as art, narratives, understanding languages, or seeing the configuration of Rubic’s Cube, that deviate from the known and existing internal structures of the mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6qgoM89ekM show a popular and obvious example of perceptual deficits, but there are many more subtle, fundamental, and potentiall serious example. another one is the Stroop efect, — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjesfzWozo4 .
Researchers, politicians, advertising people, and propagandists study these things.It’s why governments the US/empire oppose are usually described as ‘regimes’, and why cigarette commercials and brand names such as ‘Virginia Slim’ cigarettes (“thinner than the fat cigarettes men smoke”) are associated with femininity, and the old ad campaign calling cigarettes “torches of freedom” == https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom . Mental (neorological) associations are grist for the mill of the those groups who work at manipulating people thoughts and emotions.
Art and creativity, BTW, depends on pushing peoples’ concepts and associations, often to ‘open up’ their minds and build new associations and abstractions, while not pushing the limits so far that it loses people and deemed as just noise, nonsense, or not understood or perceived at all. Similarly, propagandists work to shift, expand or contract the Overton Window and what is acceptable as ‘mainstream’ and acceptable discussion, sometimes by arguing for things which are ‘stupid’, ‘unrealistic’, or ‘extreme’ at present but will, it is hoped, become standard narrative in the future. It’s about shifting, manipulating, or building new cognitive structures, step by step.
This writer doesn’t seem to holdout the possibility that part of the US intelligence propaganda system is to furnish the patina of authenticity by ‘selling’ as ‘forbidden’.
The running joke in American publishing used to be,
“Do I want to mention on the jacket that it was ‘banned in Boston’!
“Hell Ya…best ad line ever.
Now do I want to be really ‘banned in Boston’?
“Hell No…don’t even joke about it for G-D’s sake. I love you Big Brother if you are listening, Mike”
Did it occur the writer that is precisely why Google ‘bury’ results because in the 5Eyes, esp among the self-proclaimed ‘left’, the ‘counter culture’ and ‘alt whatever’ are generally retail buzzwords suggesting forbidden fruit
We the fodder of the Western Heresy©, know is literally using the very strict moral (sexual usually) repression which, is a hallmark of the Anglo-American-Vatican imperial monopolies (tea or booze similar controls, different excuses, same outputs) to essentially imply ‘truthiness’ that ends like either the Dangerous: 60s ‘critical RACE theory’ equivalent like Agent Cleaver’s ‘Soul On Ice’ whose central theme was the act of black male liberation was only possible through the rape of a white man. Of course Mr Cleaver practiced his form of liberation on dozens of black woman prior to branching out. (Thankfully he GOT justice, (ie wasted gangland style) just after safely ‘retiring’ to his non-profit art grift in North Cali
or
the Ignorant: Chomsky’s love letter to the NYT…cringe worthy Leftfraud esp down to the title itself stolen from Walter Lippmann in the 30s, which should have given pause to thought for US democrats/left as why ‘America’s greatest intellectual’ had such a shallow reading list or why Chomsky seemingly got just as angry at the mere mention of ‘French post-structuralism’ as he did the ‘911 conspiracy theorists or ‘Trump’ or accusations of being a ‘Zionist’…oops and a Israeli citizen!! (He didn’t think that was important because he wanted people to concentrate on the message and not the politics…oh go f yourself Noam, you old ACCF hack)
(…and to think I waited 3 hours in the rain to simply sit in a overflow room at uni to watch this guy on CCTV!…oh Youth, how I miss…oh no…just my hair ;-)
Talking about Noam Chomsky, people usually consider him to be a linguistics professor of MIT, note specifically here that MIT as been the holy-grail DARPA for NSA-CIA special projects since WW2, even Feynman had the top-security clearance;
In actuality Chomsky is/was a DARPA fellow who invented the computational BNF backus-naur-form, which is the basis of all computational human compilers post 1950’s;
He’s the god-father of computational linguistics, and modern computing would not exist, or people would still be flipping switches of banks of lights to ‘program a computer’ if not for chomsky;
We used to call guys like Chomsky “Golden Boys”, because in their day once you made a major contribution to the NSA/CIA who were golden for life, could just slide to retirement, gold watch and all;
Most of the time us ‘liberatarians’ love chomsky, but he really took a backstep recently when he defended the COVID lockdowns and mandatory jab, he let his inner deep state show his true reptillian scales
Trump king of the WWF, aka fake wrestling, what can be said, only in AmeriKKKa can a pt-barnum hairlip become potus; But pleeze a second term this is like more clinton or obamas, please let these old farts be put to pasture
Orlov is most specific on this issue, where he mentions that when Russia was failing the old guard would not step down as they didn’t trust the young people to keep them out of prison; Like Musk says, the only reason Trump wants a second term is to give him & his family an iron tight pardon for life of the mob family.
@Detlef Romatzki @Steve from Oz
1. Citing the MSM has a paradoxical side (e.g., everything they say about Ukraine/Russia is BS; but we still believe what they say about Chinese genocides). But it is very useful, since almost all of what critical commentators say is based on information that has made it into the MSM. They are not citing secret unverified facts, but public information. It’s just that it was stated in paragraph 10, and contradicts the headline and the lede (just like scientific Corona papers who parrot some version of the narrative in the abstract and conclusion, but, wink, wink, the data tells the opposite story). Often public facts occur in articles on p. 61, of have only come to light once or twice. But keeping all this publically available information in the background, scarcely visible, works just as well as if it were absent … very few people will find it and evaluate its significance.
The power of the press (even before the internet) is that something they don’t write about is unimportant: they don’t have to lie that much; they can distort and transform by selectively leave out the most important facts, or making some things almost invisible. They have always execised this power, even before the “algorithmic” censors and cancelers got into high gear.
It can be quite safe to source facts from the MSM when they effectively contradict the official narrative being presented.
2. In terms of resisting propaganda, studies in the fifties showed that intellectuals were most suseptible, farmers the least (often haven’t even heard the “story”). People in the past were far more immersed in other social contexts (church, village, neighbourhood, union, family, political action committee, etc.). These institutions had their own narratives and interpretations, and people naturally adopted the point of view of the social context they moved in. The omnipresence of the media simply did not exist in the past.
“…but we still believe what they say about Chinese genocides…”
Only some of us Webej ! : )
But you do have a point. I’ve locked horns with people who are active on alternative media, who almost by definition mistrust everything from the MSM, but swallow the lies about the SMO.
You are lucky to have such skills. Logos, ethos, and pathos. It’s a skill that needs to be taught and isn’t; critical reading and thinking skills. It takes time to analyze a piece of writing. How many people do that or know how? Listening to something requires even more critical thinking because you have to be able to hold an idea in working memory, compare it to what you already know, make an assumption about it, store it in longer term memory, and quickly move on. That’s why repetitive sound bites, or simple phrases work so well. Media no longer even quotes the source in an article or news clip. That’s your first clue about authenticity. Fifty years ago the quality of a public school education was pretty good. Even in college with mostly only chalk boards, an education was so much better than now. I was astounded at the amount of weekly supplemental computer assignments in my son’s college math, science, even psychology courses, that constituted part of the grade, didn’t teach anything, and didn’t explain the answers. All that does is pass along part of the teaching responsibility without teacher involvement. No wonder we are raising a culture of “woke” individuals. Who’s teaching them?
Sorry, this was supposed to be a reply to Truth Guardian at the beginning of comments. Had trouble with password login.
RT says to “question more”, a short and sweet path to critical thinking, whoever coined that did a good job. Listening to people experienced in a subset of the human knowledge base is an entry point into the search for wider truths, it is not a final destination, either in the subset subject matter or the wider truth it is inevitably related to. A key is to analyze the idea more than the person expressing it. If you are a good systems analyst you can do a better job of idea analysis. If you are a good judge of character you can evaluate the sincerity of the person projecting the idea and the quality of the data attendant to the idea. Liars knowingly twist discernable facts and also people often sincerely misinterpret what they see and that further complicates the already very complicated search for truth. Being a good judge of character makes for more qualitative and quantitative vicarious data gathering and can even sometimes provide ready made truth insights. In the final analysis no one can give you truth, they might help you find it or lead you away from it, but truth is something you must find for yourself. Cultivating an ability to analyse systems and judge character are indispensable skills when it comes to truth finding. I think it is indeed a true statement that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
I say that we are living in the age of stupidity and mediocrity. I personally keep away of mentally poor people what makes my circle of friends and relatives extremely short. I think that the people do not reflect what listen, read or see, becoming a stupid and useless citizen.