P. GREANVILLE—Since we are talking here about the global plutocracy’s megaphone, ably directed by an army of hidden persuaders, the money and resources—public and private—for the manufacturing of elaborate lies are inexhaustible. In 1984 Orwell envisioned a shameless tyranny with a “Ministry of Truth” in charge of manufacturing lies and escapist fantasies 24/7. Orwell, who despite his participation in the Spanish Civil War as an anarchist sympathizer was actually no real lefty (but a reactionary snitch who made a blacklist of leftists for the British government), aimed 1984 and his equally famous satire Animal Farm at the Soviet Union. Orwell thought —or asked us to believe—that in the Soviet Union mankind had met the ultimate perfidy. He was alarmingly wrong then and he would be triple wrong today, if, surmounting his class prejudices and temperament, he had examined with equanimity the true history of the world since the end of WW2, and the consequent rise of the Anglo-American empire to global supremacy.
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—“I’m concerned about Russian disinformation spreading online, so today I wrote to the CEOs of major tech companies to ask them to restrict the spread of Russian propaganda,” US Senator Mark Warner tweeted on Friday.
Since then YouTube has announced that it has suppressed videos by Russian state media channels so that they’ll be seen by fewer people in accordance with its openly acknowledged policy of algorithmically censoring unauthorized content, as well as de-monetizing all such videos on the platform. Google and Facebook/Instagram parent company Meta both banned Russian state media from running ads and monetizing on their platforms in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Twitter announced a pause on ads in both Russia and Ukraine.
“Glad to see action from tech companies to reign in Russian propaganda and disinformation after my letter to their CEOs yesterday,” Warner tweeted on Saturday. “These are important first steps, but I’ll keep pushing for more.”
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P. GREANVILLE—Inhabiting a clusterfuck of ignorance and disinformation, Americans are woefully ill-equipped to distinguish truth from falsehood. Granted, the desire to expunge the lies from the national debate is valid and healthy, but that train left the station a long time ago. It left the station when Americans —mostly in the immediate postwar period—the “Eisenhower years”—dropped their guard to concentrate on living the American Dream, brushing aside the need to understand real politics. They did not see that the postwar affluence was the product not so much of capitalism’s wonderful design—long enshrined by hucksters as “the American Way of Life”—but of a historically brief and exceptional moment in which the United States had found itself as the sole global industrial superpower, with all rivals in ruins.
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PATRICE GREANVILLE—Carlson says many odious things, and he is still very much part of the imperial propaganda establishment, yet he’s the only one on the mass media who says some things the American people badly need hearing. And it is Carlson, not some “leftie” media, as so many fakes like to see themselves at CNN, MSNBC, etc., that frequently offers his show as a megaphone to voices of real leftists, like Jimmy Dore. Overall, only Joe Rogan reaches as many people across so many vital demographics. The videos below prove our point.
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The Ukraine invasion that never arrives is showing us once again that when it comes to Russia you really can just completely ignore all the so-called “experts” in the mainstream media. Just dismiss 100 percent of everything they say, because any random schmoe’s best guess would be better than theirs. Looking to the mainstream media for truth is like looking to a prostitute for love. That’s not what they’re there for. That’s not their job.
