Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST
Resize text-+= |
One very important task we can undertake as citizens of the western empire is to help de-normalize the tyranny, murderousness and savagery that the imperial propagandists work to normalize.
One very important task we can undertake as citizens of the western empire is to help de-normalize the tyranny, murderousness and savagery that the imperial propagandists work to normalize. To help other westerners see the freakishness and depravity of the empire with fresh eyes.
If we lived in a healthy, harmonious society, and then all of a sudden the status quo changed to the one we have right now, people would scream their fucking lungs out. They would scream and scream and scream in abject horror and gut-wrenching grief at what they were seeing. It would feel like the end of the world to everyone.
Our task is to try to give our fellow westerners a taste of that experience. To help people viscerally experience the vast contrast between what we have now and what an acceptable status quo would actually look like. To show them the immense suffering, brutality and psychopathy of the empire in all the ways it shows up from day to day, in ways that the normality manufacturers in Washington, New York and Hollywood have been trying to keep them from seeing.
"This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 30, 2024
~ Aaron Bushnell https://t.co/YQ5TzPRlww
The job of the empire propagandist is to normalize the empire. Our job as healthy human beings who care about the world is to do the exact opposite — to denormalize it. To find new and creative ways to help people see that these things we’ve been conditioned to accept as normal are actually shocking and unacceptable.
- Denormalize poverty.
- Denormalize injustice and inequality.
- Denormalize the ruined buildings and ruined bodies in Gaza.
- Denormalize the nuclear brinkmanship with Russia.
- Denormalize the destruction of our biosphere in the ravages of ecocidal capitalism.
- Denormalize the surging authoritarianism we’re experiencing as the empire works frantically to stomp out dissent.
- Denormalize the war machinery rolling out around the world, and the increasingly militarized police forces in our streets.
- Denormalize the psychopathy of the politicians and government officials who cheerfully serve the empire in facilitation of these horrors.
- Denormalize the way media and government institutions controlled by the powerful work to manipulate the way we think and perceive every day of our fucking lives for the benefit of the powerful.
One of the advantages the empire propagandists have over normal people is that these things are all we’ve ever known. We’ve never experienced a healthy world, so we don’t experience the shock and outrage we’d otherwise experience at what these pricks are stealing from us by keeping that healthy world from us.
But one thing we have that the empire propagandists do not is creativity, and the ability to capture the human imagination. We can use these things to find ways of making the evils of the empire stand out against the background of normalization, and to help people envision a world without those completely unnecessary evils.
There’s always something we can do on this front. Our votes might not matter. Our peaceful protests might get ignored by those in power. Our rights might be getting steadily eroded as the empire managers work to reinforce the bars of our cage. But we can always work to open the eyes of our fellow citizens to the reality of our situation, and to how completely unacceptable it is. And to the urgent need to change it. And to the truth that, if enough eyes can be opened, the power of our numbers will place such change within our grasp.
Lili News 029
- In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
- Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
- Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.
- In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
- Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
- Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.
All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone
VITAL
- If you approve of this article, please share it with your friends and kin.
- Help us grow our reach. Lies cost countless lives. And freedom.
- We must act together to smash the VILE Western disinformation machine.
- If you approve of this article, please share it with your friends and kin.
- Help us grow our reach. Lies cost countless lives. And freedom.
- We must act together to smash the VILE Western disinformation machine.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Photo Credit: GDA via AP
Covid-19 has put this site on ventilators.
DONATIONS HAVE DRIED UP…
PLEASE send what you can today!
JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW
NOTE : ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS.