Bullshit Spoken In An Assertive Tone: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Sunday, 28 February 2021, 5:02 pm
Opinion: Caitlin Johnstone

Watching the slow, silent realization creep over online Democrats that Biden really isn't going to do anything for them.

Americans: $2000 checks please

Government: Sorry did you say airstrikes on Syria?

Americans: No, $2000 checks

Government: Okay, since you asked nicely here's your airstrikes on Syria.

This latest Biden airstrike is being spun as "defensive" and "retaliatory" despite its targeting a nation the US invaded (Syria) in response to alleged attacks on US forces in another nation the US invaded (Iraq). You can't invade a nation and then claim self-defense there. That's not a thing.

If you're uncritically repeating US government claims about its justifications for its acts of mass military violence, you're not doing journalism, you're writing Pentagon press releases.

It's like the Biden administration is actively trying to vindicate everyone who spent the last four years saying that as far as policy decisions are concerned there's nothing unusual about the Trump administration.

The only way to see the Biden administration as significantly different from the Trump administration is to jack your mind into an alternate reality made of partisan narrative constructs.

The short-term plan to fix America: Get rid of Trump.

The long-term plan to fix America: Mumble mumble diverse cabinet mumble mumble mumble I bet Trump is hatching some pretty bad schemes for 2024 mumble mumble.

The facts are in and the debate is settled. Those who claimed the Democratic Party can be used to move the United States toward sanity were wrong. The first step to escaping a burning building is to stop pushing on the fake emergency exit door that's been painted on the wall.

Biden is doing to his campaign promises what MBS did to Jamal Khashoggi.

Yes what Mohammed bin Salman is doing to Yemen may be quantifiably hundreds of thousands of times worse than what he did to Jamal Khashoggi, but as a liberal I am more offended by the latter because Yemeni children don't write for my favorite newspaper.

China's success on the world stage benefits the Chinese people. America's success on the world stage comes at the expense of the American people.

The second-most profitable ability is a knack for moving numbers around in a way that benefits the powerful. The most profitable ability is a knack for moving words around in a way that benefits the powerful.

You can convince people to believe absolute bullshit if you say it in a confident-sounding and assertive tone. If you say it when designated an authority figure it becomes even more convincing. Powerful manipulators are acutely aware of this, while the general public is not.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it is broke, spend billions of dollars in mass media influence convincing everyone that it's not broke and doesn't need to be fixed.

When everyone's been marinating in propaganda their entire life, common sense is often non-sense.

Coming to a mature understanding of the world is the slow, humbling process of realizing that the socialists and anti-imperialists have been pretty much right about pretty much everything, and that everyone who calls them crazy or extremist is wrong.

Lord, please let me love myself the way western centrists love criticizing the brutality of non-western governments while ignoring their own.

They snatched the slingshot out of the child's hand because he might hurt someone, then a few short years later they handed him an automatic rifle and gave him the power of life and death over people in a village overseas.

Alternate answer to Fermi's paradox: we haven't met the aliens because a civilization far more advanced than our own would have matured emotionally and spiritually beyond the need to sail around the galaxy molesting the natives like a bunch of fifteenth century Europeans.

Whether or not you will make the best decision in a given moment has a lot less to do with what's happening in that moment than with how consciously you have lived each moment leading up to it.

Deep inner looking will reveal a kind of "event horizon" to your field of experience beyond which there's only emptiness. Deeper looking will reveal that your perception of your field of experience is actually coming from that emptiness. That emptiness is therefore your true self. This is the only sensible place from which to take your stand.

Putting truth before all else makes it harder to be comfortable, but it's also the only path to real lasting happiness.

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Caitlin Johnstone

Rogue journalist

Caitlin Johnstone is a 100 percent crowdfunded rogue journalist, bogan socialist, anarcho-psychonaut, guerilla poet and utopia prepper living in Australia with her American husband and two kids. She writes about politics, economics, media, feminism and the nature of consciousness. She is the author of the illustrated poetry book "Woke: A Field Guide For Utopia Preppers."

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