Propaganda, Demonetization, And Obscuring The Truth
The Response To Seeking Truth and Objectivity In Western Narratives Is Apparently Censorship and Blackouts.
It would appear that, in terms of the current state of affairs in the world, in April of 2022, the average person is becoming a victim of narratives and policies formed by powerful forces with malicious intent.
We are frogs in the allegorical pot of boiling water, not even realizing that we are being slowly cooked to death.
I’m not sure why, but it seems that these interests are hell-bent on the destruction of human life, health, and well-being.
The threat of COVID is all but forgotten and has been tossed aside with reckless abandon, despite the fact that 2021 was the deadliest year in US History. “Moving on from COVID” was intended as a blanket, if dubious “policy” of the West to presumably prevent economic disaster, but, in fact, the opposite has occurred. The rapid and severe spread continues to knock people out of day-to-day participation in school and work. The complications of Long COVID and the people who are suffering from it are barely acknowledged. EXTREMELY healthy people who contract COVID are dying. Highly-paid medical pundits, working for corporate interests over public health, urge us to return to work and leisure activity maskless, and even when actively infected with COVID. “Normalcy” is more important than reality. It’s a complete abandonment of the principle of “First do no harm”.
It’s not melodramatic to say that it appears we are collectively being sacrificed through war, disease, and the removal of economic security at a seemingly unprecedented level. The truth of things is exceptionally hard to discern at a time when truth and good information matter more than ever.
A recent conference sponsored by the University of Chicago Institute Of Politics and The Atlantic Magazine, called “Disinformation And The Erosion Of Democracy” featured an array of speakers from former Presidents to CNN talking heads. ALL of these parties have an interest in controlled narratives. The wide implication is that the US, Corporate media, and its NATO partners are the only ones defending sacred principles, and steering the average concerned citizen to the truth. It’s framed as being a moral battle as much as a practical pursuit of truth. Unfortunately, that’s far from the case.
In a time often referred to as “the fog of war”, media narratives on the Ukraine conflict, especially from the US and the West, have become largely hysterical, devoid of skepticism, and lacking in objectivity. The understandable emotional response from the global populace is being exploited in the most cynical of ways. However, there are voices that are trying to remain objective, but those voices are few and far between. They are also being censored wholesale, and economically sanctioned in the allegedly “free and democratic” environments of social media platforms. These social media corporations have done the “heavy lifting” for the government and quickly risen up to censor and police anyone questioning the official Western Media war narrative.
Consider Scott Ritter, who, as an experienced military analyst and weapons inspector for the UN during the Iraq conflict, recently challenged the narrative propagated by the West that Russia was solely responsible for the massacre in Bucha. To quote Ritter from a recently published article:
“In short, the evidence suggested that the bodies were of civilians friendly to, or sympathetic with, Russia. It would take a leap of faith to conclude that Russian troops gunned these unfortunate souls down in cold blood, as alleged by the Ukrainian government.”
By the evening of April 5, I believed I had more than enough information to try and put forth a counter-narrative to the one being pushed by The New York Times and President Biden, namely that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for the Bucha killings.
“The Ukrainian National Police,” I composed on Twitter, “committed numerous crimes against humanity in Bucha.” Drawing on the precedent of the Nuremburg International Military Tribunal established at the end of the Second World War to prosecute Nazi war criminals, I then went on to state that “Biden, in seeking to shift blame for the Bucha murders onto Russia, is guilty of aiding and abetting these crimes. Congratulations, America…we’ve created yet another Presidential war criminal!”
At 9:42 p.m. I hit “send,” and the deed was done.
As far as Twitter metrics go, this tweet didn’t do so badly—5,976 “likes”, 2,815 retweets, and 321 comments, for a total of what Twitter calls 265,098 “impressions.”
It also got me suspended from Twitter.”
Somehow, under dubious reasoning proffered by Twitter, Ritter was accused of abuse and harassment in simply tweeting his evidence-based beliefs. As he noted numerous times, no one, without onsite forensic inspection, can possibly know the truth of what happened.
It should be obvious that objectivity is the last consideration in any narratives of the war. President Biden, as a spokeperson first and foremost for the Military-Industrial Complex, wasted no time in a counter-narrative: “
“On the television screen before me, the President of the United States was making a live appearance, where he addressed the Bucha killings. “You may remember I got criticized for calling Putin a war criminal,” Biden told the gathered reporters.
“Well, the truth of the matter,” he continued, “you saw what happened in Bucha. This warrants him [Russian President Vladimir Putin]—he is a war criminal.”
Biden went on to declare that his administration was gathering evidence for a possible war crimes trial. “We have to gather all the details so this can be an actual—have a war crimes trial,” Biden said. “This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone’s seen it.”
To date, no action (obviously) has been taken against Biden for reckless statements despite the extreme possibility that they simply aren’t true.
Part of the problem, beyond iron-fisted narrative control, is that free speech platforms for writers on social media, whether Google, YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook can be instantly demonetized. The threat of losing income for full or part-time writers is a powerful incentive to toe the line and “stick to the story”.
Substack Writer Rachel Blevins of Rachels Rants sums up what is happening:
The truth of the matter, in terms of Ukraine, is that it is an extremely complex geostrategic and geopolitical situation. There are very few scholarly, knowledgeable takes on Ukraine. Americans, especially, remain blissfully ignorant of the fact that Ukrainian militias in the guise of the Azov Battalions are made up at least in some percentage of antisemitic, virulent Neo Nazis. Jacques Baud is a former NATO military analyst who has written a clear and concise accounting of what has led us to this moment, free of hysteria. I would urge you to read his detailed historical account to give you an accurate view of what could be happening in Ukraine.
Here are some highlights:
“Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the past eight years have been talking to us about “separatists” or “independence” from the Donbass. It’s wrong. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in May 2014 were not ” independence ” (независимость) referendums , as some unscrupulous journalists claimed , but ” self-determination ” or ” autonomy (самостоятельность). The term “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin.”
In fact, the army is undermined by the corruption of its cadres and no longer enjoys the support of the population. According to a UK Home Office report , when reservists were called up in March-April 2014, 70% did not show up for the first session, 80% for the second, 90% for the third and 95% for the fourth. In October/November 2017, 70% of callers did not show up during the “ Autumn 2017 ” callback campaign. This does not include suicides and desertions(often for the benefit of the autonomists) which reach up to 30% of the workforce in the ATO zone. Young Ukrainians refuse to go and fight in the Donbass and prefer emigration, which also explains, at least partially, the country’s demographic deficit.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense then turned to NATO to help it make its armed forces more “attractive”. Having already worked on similar projects within the framework of the United Nations, I was asked by NATO to participate in a program intended to restore the image of the Ukrainian armed forces. But it’s a long process and the Ukrainians want to go quickly.”
If you dig into the facts as presented by Jacques Baud (and you might want to read it ASAP before it’s censored entirely which is a possibility) it’s apparent that the West and NATOS framing the Ukrainian military as willing, purely good fighters on a heroes journey, valiantly courageous in the face of an unprovoked attack based on pure evil, is the children’s cartoon version of the Ukrainian conflict. Real-life is rarely, if ever that simple.
President Biden has, in the face of great social needs, diverted money to weapons manufacturers, the literally destructive industries of the American economy. Without learning any of the previous lessons about randomly throwing weapons at independent militias formed out of volunteerism, without a command structure or military strategy, disaster and possible escalation to a nuclear conflict are almost assured.
It’s telling of the suspected motivation of the US and the West that (again referring to the Baud article) that peace and neutrality engineered through the two Minsk accords were quickly and summarily rejected, while billions of dollars in tanks, missile platforms, “helicopters, artillery, ammunition,” are purchased in the name of US citizens and taxpayers, without any debate or even a formal declaration of war.
There is no doubt that as the accusations and narratives fly, more confusion will result. We should all take the corporate narratives thrown at us by academia, government, the military, and corporate news, especially with huge degrees of skepticism.
None of us are in the loop of reality, and they want to keep it that way.
Late Edit (5/2/2022) The trend toward censorship and harsh demonetization policies is only, disturbingly, growing. We saw celebrity comedian Trevor Noah at the White House Correspondents Dinner, an elitist orgy of platitudes, comedy, and ego fluffing, telling us that journalism is alive and well. Reality says otherwise, however. Noah implied that corporate journalists have a duty to hold truth to power and that they risk their lives to show us the truth of what’s happening in Ukraine, seems dubious, especially in light of recent attempts by the Biden Administration to establish a Government disinformation board. No counter-narratives to the official government narrative are allowed. Consider that an anti-war anti-imperialist website Consortium News was recently defunded by Pay Pal without explanation. From the CN website:
“PayPal has canceled Consortium News‘ account without any prior notice or due process and with virtually no explanation.
As Consortium News is today launching its Spring Fund Drive, it has lost one of its most important ways for its viewers and readers to show their support through donations. Clicking on the yellow PayPal donate button on our home page now yields this message:
PayPal has sent an email to CN that says:
“You can’t use PayPal anymore. … We noticed activity in your account that’s inconsistent with our User Agreement and we no longer offer you PayPal services. … Because of potential risk exposure, we’ve permanently limited your account. You’ll no longer be able to use the account for any transactions.”
The message says that “any money in your PayPal balance will be held for up to 180 days,” after which, “if applicable, we’ll email you with information on how to withdraw any remaining money.”
This is part of a slowly growing trend, and for all the talk of a “free press”, the reality is far from it. Censorship and the arbitrary power to defund and disappear independent news organizations with opposing narratives is happening with more frequncy.