Do You Ever get Sick of the Constant Gaslighting by Shitty Journalists and Sold-out Politicians?
Western
media is perpetually shocked. They clutch their pearls and gasp for
breath whenever the predictable blowback of imperial overreach lands.
How much fake surprise do they have in reserve for events that were
entirely foreseeable. It seems as though presenting predictable events
as shocking breaking news has become their entire editorial model.
NATO
creeps, inch by inch, in broad daylight, right up to the Russian border
for thirty years straight. Every anti-imperialist, every Marxist, and
the occasionally mainstream journalist with an actual spine warned us
that NATO expansion would lead directly to trenches and artillery.
The
legacy media called those warnings conspiracy theories circulated by
useful idiots and Putin apologists. Now they report daily on the
Ukrainian front as if it were a shocking surprise that the Russians have
held on to all the positions they "liberated." Western media pundits
and academics seem incapable of drawing the direct line from the Maidan
coup to the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian casualties.
Quell
surprise that the Russians treated what they always understood and
always claimed was an existential issue as exactly that. An existential
issue. When the wolf is at the door the Russians don't have a tradition
of running to hide.
Who
could have predicted that all the Russian diplomacy conducted prior to
the Special Military Operation would lead to the exact consequences that
Russian diplomats pleaded and warned about. Who could have guessed that
the deliberate sabotage of the Minsk agreements by Zelensky would
result in a massive escalation of tensions on the border between what
used to be Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
Russian
diplomats begged the US to rein in the rabid ultra nationalists from
western Ukraine. Who could have guessed that US funding and arming and
encouragement of Azov and the Banderites to keep shelling Donetsk, would
result in Russian tanks rolling across the border. The answer is anyone
who was not suffering from western propaganda brain rot.
We
were told on a daily basis that Russia had a smaller economy than
Texas. We were told it was a gas station masquerading as a country. We
were told it was Nigeria with snow, run by incompetent mobsters. We were
told they had to disassemble washing machines to use the microchips for
weapons. And we were told after a month that they had completely run
out of bullets. If you take the time to go back and look at Russian
coverage of the special operation during this period you will find that
they correctly called out all these lies peddled by western "experts."
Russian
media understood perfectly that the west had to pretend the invasion
was unprovoked and morally reprehensible. They understood that western
media would pretend Ukraine "held all the cards" and pretend they had
every chance of winning a real war against Russia.
The
only way they could convince western media audiences of this Ukrainian
victory fantasy was to pretend that Russia was weak and unprepared.
The
relentless lies and omissions pushed daily by western media weren't a
miscalculation or a mistake. They were an important part of the
imperialist plan to convince ordinary Western workers that it would be
okay if all our tax revenue was transferred directly into the bank
accounts of the billionaires who own US arms companies.
The
billionaire class who push imperial policy in the West want us to
forget completely that every escalation, every step along the path to
where we are, was as predictable as it was easily avoidable.
European
leaders now want us to be as coddled and infantilised as US media
consumers. They expect us to play along with pouring billions of
precious European taxpayers money into a terrible and unnecessary war
against an enemy who only ever wanted peace.
It's
worth reminding everyone that both Yeltsin and Putin himself made many
attempts to join our NATO gang. But they were refused because NATO was
never about the security of Europe, it was always about US led Western
imperialism. It always was and remains to this day inherently
Russophobic.
This
is how Western media has always conducted itself and it's just useful
to look back over previous events while examining the current ones. They
inflict horrific violence on the targeted nation. And when the targeted
nation reacts in a completely understandable predictable manner they
gaslight media consumers in the west into imagining that the response
was unprovoked, out of the blue, disproportionate and shocking.
The
leadership in the targeted nation is presented as uniquely evil and
Hitler-like Then 'hey presto' you've got a Western propaganda narrative
ready to be used as justification for economic war, total blockade,
invasion, bombing hospitals, shooting children in the head, all the way
up to mass murder by famine. It's always the same.
The
Cuba narrative is equally grotesque. We've watched the blockade for six
decades. Recently we're seeing starvation by design. Now that the
island nation suffers their worst crisis of scarcity in history, those
same voices who cheered for the continued strangulation of Cuba under
the Helms Burton Act are suddenly shocked that the Cuban regime has
allowed itself to fail so far, that her own citizens are dying.
Fake
humanitarian champions. They posture as saviours of a people they
intentionally starved. They feign ignorance of their own sanctions
regime whilst blaming socialism for the very crimes they committed in
the name of western imperialism.
You're
not supposed to remember that the only reason the Cuban people struggle
at the moment is because the US is deliberately trying to kill them.
You're supposed to forget that and pretend that Cuba is a dictatorship
that's deliberately trying to kill its own citizens.
Look
at Syria. They told us al-Assad was a monster. Another Hitler to be
removed. They told us the "moderate rebels" were a hothouse for true
democracy. Good independent journalists and those from outside the
imperialist propaganda sphere knew very well what was coming. They
warned us. They knew Idlib was a petri dish of CIA funded Wahhabi head
choppers.
They
knew that the continuation of the al-Assad government was fundamental
to the smooth running of a nation as complex demographically as Syria.
And they warned us that if Assad was removed he would be replaced by
something far more dangerous.
Every
step along the path was entirely predictable if you listened to the
right people. But you're not supposed to know any of that. You're
supposed to wake up every morning and think that the news cycle started
today. The western press then run a three part docuseries about a
country they helped dismantle, wondering aloud how it became a
playground for radical Islamists.
We're
all supposed to be surprised that this post Assad Syria isn't a utopia
for free Syrians. Again surprised by predictable events. Spend five
minutes reading about Operation Timber Sycamore. Billions in dark Contra
style money funnelled into groups of radical jihadists who promised to
assist the CIA with their regime change operation in Syria. The
inevitable blowback of Syria falling into the hands of ISIS head
choppers is as predictable as the timely departure of a Swiss train.
As
for the EU, what a pathetic circus that's turned into. Commission
mandarins act stunned that the EU population has turned against them.
They can't fathom why ordinary people might not wish to fund a genocide
in Palestine with hard earned European tax money. They've turned the EU
into little more than a rubber stamping operation for US imperialism and
now that monster is turning on its own imperial junior partners.
Collapsing
empires always begin to eat themselves. That's why heavily armed police
are on the streets of the US shooting civilians in the face without
cause. That's also why the US has begun deliberately sabotaging the EU.
Threats of invasion (Greenland), the destruction of EU energy
infrastructure in Nord Stream, trade tariffs etc. The honeymoon is very
much over and the only people in Europe who want to be part of a gang
that endorses genocide, are the Fash, the Billionaires and the bent
politicians.
We're
supposed to be shocked that European industry is collapsing. Even
though it's the direct result of sanctions we slapped on ourselves to
stop buying cheap Russian energy. We could be paying a fifth of the
current price. We could be making our own fertiliser plastics and
chemicals.
We
could be providing the world with these exported goods from the EU,
building up our continental economy and reinvesting into our
infrastructure, improving the lives of European citizens. Instead we've
allowed US imperialists to bring us on a merry dance of war, regime
change and genocide. This was all entirely predictable yet we're
supposed to be surprised that things aren't going our way.
Looking
at West Asia and the mess that western imperialists have created there
should make your head spin. The West has spent decades planting US
assets and puppets as leaders in each of the phony statelets that
surround the Zionist regime. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait,
Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, even Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan. These
countries are all occupied. If you've got a US military base on your
land, it's not your land.
With
regard to the US Israeli attack on Iran we're supposed to be shocked
and surprised when Iran retaliates by targeting US military bases in
neighbouring "countries." Iran is one of the only unoccupied countries
left in the region. They are known to have huge weapon stockpiles and
it's commonly understood that they've spent the last year since the 12
days war preparing for another invasion by US/Israel.
How
cucked do you have to be to believe that Iran wouldn't immediately
retaliate with strikes against US military bases in their vicinity. It's
been clear for decades that Iran's number one policy would be to shut
down the Strait of Hormuz. I remember Iranians telling me in September
2001 that if the US invaded them without provocation, in the same way
that they threatened to do in Afghanistan, that the Iranians would shut
down the Strait and block all their neighbours oil from getting out.
Again completely predictable events being described as shocking or
surprising by western media.
I
notice yesterday that the Russians have issued a warning to the
government of Finland and the Baltic states against allowing Kiev to
continue using their airspace for drone attacks on Russia. Will this be
one of those moments when the Finns cross a line after which the
predictable consequences of their own actions will be presented as
shocking breaking news. Russian retaliation would be presented by
Western media as unprovoked imperial aggression rather than the
predictable consequences of Finland's refusal to comply with
international law. It's the same thing all over again.
Some
of us have been studying this for years and thankfully the gaslighting
has no effect on anti imperialists or anyone from a post colonial
country with a culture of resistance but I'm watching people all around
me wake up and smell the bullshit. Everyone is sick of being gaslit by
low IQ journalists and compromised politicians. It's not journalism we
get in the west. It's all one deep US imperial psyop, dressed in beige
chinos, with a phony smile exposing painfully veneered teeth and game
show host hairline.
They're
manufacturing amnesia so they can continue to make up the narrative as
they go along. If nothing exists within actual historical events, if
everything happens without context, it's a perfect environment for mass
mind control.
Every
day we're surprised by predictable events. But we need to wake up,
there should be no surprises. The people screwing us are doing what
they've always done. We should be disgusted by the fact that our leaders
keep making decisions on our behalf which have predictable apocalyptic
consequences for the rest of us schmucks. We need a revolution.
Polemics by Rory Mo-ran (Critical Theory) published on Substack.
Inspired by Chris Hedges.
