by Caitlin Johnstone - 29 Dec 2021
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The US and its allies are pushing the world toward nuclear armageddon. The US and its allies armed Al Qaeda in Syria. The US and its allies are carrying out a literal genocide in Yemen. The US and its allies are deliberately starving children by the thousands. Shut up about Russia and China.
Desmond Tutu said “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” This is especially true of the unjust situation in which the largest power structure on earth oppresses and tyrannizes populations around the world to force their obedience. Refusing to take a clear stance against that power structure is siding with it.
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William Van Wagenen has a new article out with The Libertarian Institute documenting the mountains of evidence that the US and its allies were supporting Al Qaeda-tied militias in Syria from the beginning of the war, in direct contradiction of the mainstream narrative that that started later.
This is what happened in Syria, it’s what happened in Libya, and it’s what was on track to happen in Xinjiang before Beijing said “nah” and launched its crackdown. The west isn’t mad at Beijing for committing a “genocide”, it’s mad at Beijing for preventing one.
Like so many other western propaganda operations these days, this one is predominantly about China’s Belt and Road Initiative which it plans to use to help rise above US hegemony and create a multipolar world. The actual interest in Xinjiang has been about the fact that it is a key geostrategic region that the western empire would greatly benefit from balkanizing away from China so it can’t fulfill the crucial role planned for it in the BRI.
Criticize Beijing’s crackdown in Xinjiang all you want, but it is indisputably orders of magnitude less draconian than the US “war on terror” approach which has killed millions and displaced tens of millions since 9/11.
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Yes, China’s government is more authoritarian than yours in some ways. Also, you’re being deceived by a massive, sweeping propaganda campaign about the things China’s government does and the threat it poses to you. Both of these things are true. They do not contradict each other.
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If somebody somehow managed to leak 100 percent of all classified information on all US government malfeasance, it probably wouldn’t have the effect you’d imagine. The mass media would either ignore it or spin it into obscurity, and it would be quickly shuffled out of the spotlight. We may be sure this is true because there’s already more than enough publicly available information on US government depravity to completely discredit all of its leading institutions. The reason that information hasn’t caused uproar and unrest is because of narrative management. Propaganda is the ultimate enemy.
The real problem isn’t access to information so much as the way that information is presented to the average citizen. That’s why it’s so important to attack and discredit the means of information presentation at mass scale wherever there’s an opportunity. Imperial narrative control is our real prison.
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You can understand why the US political system refuses to bring Americans out of debt and impoverishment by imagining what would happen if it didn’t. Ordinary people would use their new financial influence to create a system that serves them rather than serving a globe-spanning empire. In a system where money equals power, people would begin using their new economic power to change political and economic realities for their benefit. They’d begin working to divert wasteful war machine spending to themselves. The oligarchs who control both US political parties can’t have that.
Money is power and power is relative, so those with lots of money are incentivised to keep as much money as possible for themselves to maximize their power. If everyone is a king then nobody is a king. There is a tremendous amount of power riding on keeping Americans poor and busy.
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Echo chamber dynamics and cognitive biases are the uncrowned rulers of the human worldview. They shape our perceptions of what’s happening in the world and tend to do so without ever even being noticed. That’s why introspection and self-awareness are fundamental to understanding.
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The world is burning and psychopaths are brandishing armageddon weapons in the name of global domination. If you are going to spend any of your remaining time on this planet fighting, it would probably be wise to spend it fighting for something that truly matters.
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