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The mainstream media’s hysteria over “fake news” is aimed less at the few instances of intentionally fabricated stories than at well-reported articles that challenge the U.S. government’s dubious official narratives, says David P. Hamilton.

For the most part, “fake news” is a fake concept designed by the corporate news media to discredit those who challenge the official U.S. hegemonic narrative. The typical MSM fake news accusation starts with some egregious fictionalization and then morphs over to the real targets: the subversives, those who would dispute foundational elements of the official history or its recent approved updates.

The New York Times building in Manhattan. (Photo credit: Robert Parry)

These subversive elements are likely to question important myths, such as the necessity of the nuclear incineration of Hiroshima or – before the Iraq War – Saddam Hussein possessing WMD, and hence must be silenced.

There are people in this world who write what they know to be fiction and try to pass it off as fact. Many of them work for the CIA and related institutions. Then, there are satirists like The Onion who write fictionalized truth. These professional prevaricators are not what draws the ire of the corporate “news.”

The approved rendition of U.S. history is a composite of lies, euphemisms and dubious rationales taught in schools, public and private, since the nation’s founding. It is continuously updated by the corporate news media. There is an army of PR types and psy-op warriors working constantly on this project; some private sector, some public, who often switch roles and sectors, but work hand-in-glove regardless.

The real fake news is the fake narrative that flows perpetually forth from these functionaries of the MSM to dominate the discourse which the billionaire owners allow voiced via their facilities. In this manner, we are all being played, all the time, and have been since birth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Narrative of Fear and Insecurity

September 5, 2017

The Narrative of Fear and Insecurity

On March 4 1933 FDR in his inaugural address to the American people said,

“…the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself….”

And it’s true. It is fear more than anything else that prevents people from turning away from what has failed them and stays their hand from picking up the tools which would allow them to build what would work better. And precisely because it is true, every politician, banker, judge and general has realised that if they wished to stop change from weakening their grip on power and wealth, then what they need above all else is …more fear.

As FDR went on to say, it is

“…nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes….”

So if you want to control a people and contain their desire to replace the system which benefits you, with one that benefits them, then you need to feed them fear and the more of it and the more slippery and inscrutable it seems to them, the better.

A looming, shadowy foreign power lurking just beyond the borders is always good. Russia, China, Communists in general, or if they are too far away, then any kind of socialist will do at a pinch. In 1983 Margaret Thatcher famously branded British miners and their union as ‘The enemy within.” Terrorists are a wonderful new fear. They are everywhere, much like Red’s used to be under every bed.

All these are good and have been used, still are used, to good effect. But there is a new fear, one closer to the fear FDR was talking about. And the currency of that fear is Debt. Here is a very short history, in just a few sentences, of how debt became the currency of fear.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Eight “New Normal” Charts That Are Insanely Abnormal–and Dangerous

May 4, 2016

Eight “New Normal” Charts That Are Insanely Abnormal–and Dangerous

Is there anyone on the planet who’s actually stupid enough to believe these New Normal charts are healthy and sustainable?

Anyone questioning the sustainability and rightness of The New Normal is immediately attacked by the mainstream-media defenders of the crumbling status quo. Not only is everything that broke in 2008 fixed, everything’s going great globally, and anyone who dares question this narrative in a tin-foil hat conspiracy nut or simply an annoyingly doom-and-gloomer who recalcitrantly refuses to accept the positive glories of official statistics: low unemployment, rising valuations of stock market Unicorns, etc.

But the New Normal is anything but normal; all the readings of artificial life-support and manipulation are off the charts. If the New Normal were indeed a return to normalcy, we’d see a rapid and sustained decline in official life-support of the economy.

Instead, we see official life-support efforts rising to new and dangerous levels.The only reason stocks are at nose-bleed valuations globally is massive, sustained intervention on multiple levels.

We also see increasing dependence on debt to sustain increasingly weak growth. The New Normal is all about diminishing returns on additional debt.

The New Normal is also about the loss of institutional credibility. The Federal Reserve denies it makes policy decisions based on the stock market, but as soon as stocks start tumbling, the Fed’s leadership hits the airwaves with a media blitzkrieg, frantically assuring the world that the Fed will do “whatever it takes” to keep stocks at absurdly overvalued levels forever.

It once cost the equivalent of a new auto to attend a highly regarded public university. Now they cost the equivalent of a new house–and a mansion at that. In the pre-New Normal world of academia, the highest paid employees were senior professors (other than the university president).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

American Narratives: The Rescue Game

April 14, 2016

American Narratives: The Rescue Game

Last week’s post here on The Archdruid Report, with its analysis of the way that affluent white liberals use accusations of racism as a dog whistle for their own bigotry toward wage-earning Americans, got a flurry of emails and attempted comments trying to push the discussion back into the officially approved narrative of race in the United States. That came as no surprise, at least to me. Every society has a set of acceptable narratives that frame public discourse on any controversial subject, and trying to get past the narrow confines of any such narrative inevitably brings some form of pushback.

Depending on the society and the era, the pushback can quite readily include such entertainments as being burnt at the stake for heresy, so I don’t feel any need to complain about the really rather mild response I got. At the same time, though, I don’t propose to back down. Every society, as just noted, has a set of narratives that confine discourse on controversial subjects to approved channels, but tolerably often those approved channels exclude crucial details and head off necessary questions. In today’s United States, in particular, the facts concerning nearly every significant crisis we face can be divided up neatly into two entirely separate categories. The facts that most Americans are willing to talk about belong to one of these categories; the facts that matter most belong to the other.

Thus one of the things I plan on doing over the months ahead is talking about some of the narratives that keep most people in today’s America from discussing, or for that matter noticing, the most crucial forces dragging this country down to ruin.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Intro

March 28, 2016

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Intro

SaltIslandRoadF100715

One-sided stories or news features serve many purposes. Unfortunately for the public, serving their interests is rarely if ever one of the objectives … or outcomes.

Who among us doesn’t want an endless parade of good news about issues great, inconsequential, and all in between? For almost all of us, we have enough issues and concerns and challenges to deal with as it is. Devoting time and effort to learn about or involve ourselves in social and political issues outside of matters directly and personally impacting us right now isn’t usually at the top of our “To-Do” lists. If we could assure ourselves that such issues wouldn’t affect us now or later, then we could indeed completely ignore them and let the chosen others deal with them.

Life tends not to work that way, however. Economic, cultural, and political issues influence and impact most aspects of our lives, even if we rarely acknowledge that fact or notice any direct bearing on our daily lives. Energy considerations—and certainly climate change—can be added to that list.So while few of us have the opportunity, means, or capabilities to immerse ourselves in those broader public conversations and policies, we should at a minimum expect that whatever our level of understanding or awareness, it is the product of an honest and complete dissemination of facts and concerns which will affect us—if not today, then soon enough. Idealistic perhaps, but it would be nice if we didn’t have to plead for truth-telling and full disclosures.

There are few if any business, social, or political endeavors which are not designed to influence others in some way.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Let’s define Degrowth before we dismiss it

December 29, 2015

Let’s define Degrowth before we dismiss it

The reluctance of degrowth-critics to define growth makes for poor debate

Diverse commentators such as Samuel Farber, Paul Krugman, and Leigh Phillips are arguing that economic growth is necessary to protect existing, and future well-being.

Diverse leftist commentators such as Samuel Farber, Paul Krugman, and Leigh Phillips are arguing that economic growth is necessary to protect existing and future well-being. But rarely do they define what they mean by economic growth.

Recently there’s been a wave of arguments defending economic growth from a leftist perspective. People are increasingly reacting to the rise of ‘degrowth’: a diverse movement calling for, among other things, scaling back the total material and energy use of the global economy.

One particularly vigorous example is the work of Leigh Phillips, where he accuses degrowthers—who he claims have become “hegemonic” (file under: things I wish were true but aren’t)—of undermining classic leftist pursuits such as progress, well-being, and strengthening of social services. Similar arguments could be seen in a recent article that appeared in Jacobin Magazine, in which growth was posited as necessary for progress. And Keynesian economists like Paul Krugman have come out against degrowth, claiming that economic growth is actually necessary to address climate change, and lumping degrowthers together with the Koch Brothers, as they both seem to seek to dismantle the state.

When two sides of an argument have a totally different definition of the concept that’s being debated, and if one side even refuses to define it, constructive discussions tend to turn into uncompromising squabbles.

Many of their points have been valid and necessary—serving to complicate the simplistic ‘are-you-for-capitalism-or-a-Luddite?’ narrative. Preaching the benefits of technology and criticizing the current economic system are not mutually exclusive. But there are some recurring problems with these arguments that I want to highlight.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Story Line Dissolves

December 1, 2015

The Story Line Dissolves

Sometimes societies just go crazy. Japan, 1931, Germany, 1933. China, 1966. Spain 1483, France, 1793, Russia, 1917, Cambodia, 1975, Iran, 1979, Rwanda, 1994, Congo, 1996, to name some. By “crazy” I mean a time when anything goes, especially mass killing. The wheels came off the USA in 1861, and though the organized slaughter developed an overlay of romantic historical mythos — especially after Ken Burns converted it into a TV show — the civilized world to that time had hardly ever seen such an epic orgy of death-dealing.

I doubt that I’m I alone in worrying that America today is losing its collective mind. Our official relations with other countries seem perfectly designed to provoke chaos. The universities have melted into toxic sumps beyond even anti-intellectualism to a realm of hallucination. Demented gunmen mow down total strangers weekly in what looks like a growing competition to end their miserable lives with the highest victim score. The financial engineers have done everything possible to pervert and undermine the operations of markets. The political parties are committing suicide by cluelessness and corruption.

There is no narrative for our behavior toward Russia that makes sense anymore. Our campaign to destabilize Ukraine worked out nicely, didn’t it? And then we acted surprised when Russia reclaimed the traditionally Russian territory of Crimea, with its crucial warm-water naval ports. Who woulda thought? Then we attempted to antagonize them further with economic sanctions. The net effect is that Vladimir Putin ended up looking more rational and sane than any leader in the NATO coalition.

Lately, Russia has filled the vacuum of competence in Syria, cleaning up a mess that America left with its two-decade-long crusade to leave a train of broken governments everywhere in the region.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“They’re Hopping Mad In The US And Saudi Arabia”: Russian Strikes In Syria Spark Epic Western Media Propaganda Blitz

October 2, 2015

“They’re Hopping Mad In The US And Saudi Arabia”: Russian Strikes In Syria Spark Epic Western Media Propaganda Blitz

We are now two days into Russia’s air campaign against anti-regime forces in Syria and both Moscow and the West are rushing to spin the narrative.

The frantic attempt from both sides to shape public opinion has been truly amazing to behold and the sheer amount of coverage speaks to what we said on Thursday about just how important the conflict really is for the Mid-East balance of power.

For the US, portraying Russian airstrikes as supportive of a murderous regime and as an imminent threat to civilians is key, as it allows Washington to explain away the fact that the US and its allies haven’t coordinated their efforts with Moscow. Take the following from CNN for instance, who reports that Russia has made a “strategic blunder” and that by opening an air campaign, Russia risks raising the spectre of the Soviet-Afghan war in the minds of potential jihadists who will supposedly rush into Syria to join the fight:

There is no ambiguity now about Russia’s current tactics in Syria — they are seeking to take over the airspace in the region and be the agenda-setting force on the ground, several senior administration officials told CNN.

“Yesterday’s demarche to the U.S. by Russian officials in Baghdad was clear in its intent,” one senior administration official said. “Make sure you don’t have anyone around ISIS targets and get out of the air.”

And while U.S. officials have no plans to cede Russia any ground, they also said it appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a dramatic chess move that the Russians have not thought through — one official even called it a “strategic blunder.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

HBO and Snapchat are Actively Working with the U.S. Government to Create Propaganda

October 2, 2015

HBO and Snapchat are Actively Working with the U.S. Government to Create Propaganda

Screen Shot 2015-10-01 at 10.35.58 AM

In 1953, Joseph Alsop, then one of America’s leading syndicated columnists, went to the Philippines to cover an election. He did not go because he was asked to do so by his syndicate. He did not go because he was asked to do so by the newspapers that printed his column. He went at the request of the CIA.

Alsop is one of more than 400 American journalists who in the past twenty‑five years have secretly carried out assignments for the Central Intelligence Agency, according to documents on file at CIA headquarters.

The history of the CIA’s involvement with the American press continues to be shrouded by an official policy of obfuscation and deception.

– From Carl Bernstein’s 1977 article: The CIA and the Media

What is art, when the artist is working with the host government to promote a particular message?

It is propaganda, and just because it’s your government doing it with the help of your friends and neighbors, doesn’t make it any less so. Even if you agree with the message, it is still propaganda. No wonder so many movies suck.

Today, we learn that both HBO and Snapchat are actively working with the U.S. State Department to push an anti-ISIS message. Again, even if the message is a good one, make no mistake about it, it is still propaganda. This is a very slippery slope, and something that Americans shouldn’t tolerate.

The National Journal reports:

The State Department is seeking a counter-narrative to the propaganda being spread by ISIS, and it is reportedly turning to some of America’s preeminent storytellers for help. According to The Daily Beast, executives from both HBO and Snapchat are part of a team of filmmakers and social media specialists that’s brainstorming how to hamper the effectiveness of ISIL’s messaging.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Dark Thoughts on Ecomoderism

August 14, 2015

Dark Thoughts on Ecomoderism

It’s been a year for manifestos. With the dust only recently settled on the British general election, much has been heard about the different (though not that different) ‘narratives’ offered by the major political parties in their manifesto commitments. Meanwhile, a cabal of environmentalist thinkers and activists were busy putting together a manifesto of their own in the form of the Ecomodernist Manifesto (henceforth, EM), which was published in April (1).

Unlike some of those election manifestos, the EM is a model of clarity. It has a goal to be reached, a process for reaching it, a problem that must be solved along the way, and a solution to the problem. The goal is ‘vastly improved material well-being, public health, resource productivity, economic integration, shared infrastructure, and personal freedom’ (p.28). The process is modernisation. The problem is leaving ‘room for nature’. And the solution is decoupling: decoupling human consumption from the drawdown of natural resources, and decoupling humans themselves from the world of nature and from their dependence upon it.

Dark Mountain has a manifesto of its own, of course. It could hardly be more different from the EM. I assume that people reading this blog have an idea of its contents, so I won’t dwell on it here. Nor will I pretend to be neutral in my estimation of these two manifestos’ respective merits. But like any ornery voter, I don’t willingly surrender myself to other people’s manifestos of whatever kind. When it comes to manifesto ‘narratives’, I want to find the stories that lie beneath the words, and compare them with my own. So here I’m going looking for the stories of ecomodernism in Dark Mountain’s light – and if that sounds oxymoronic, so be it. Perhaps there are some truths that only reveal themselves in another’s shadow.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Our Phantom Economy

June 15, 2015

Our Phantom Economy

Those who believe that phantom recoveries and phantom metrics can be substituted for reality are in for a shock in the next downturn.

Stripped of artifice, there are only two kinds of media stories: those that support the status quo narrative, and those that are skeptical of that narrative.

What is the status quo narrative? Simply this: not only is this the best possible arrangement of labor, assets and money, it is the only possible arrangement of labor, assets and money.

It is impossible to challenge a system that is the only possible arrangement; the only option is to accept it.

One of the greatest and most important PSYOPS of the Imperial State (U.S. Government) and its faithful lapdog the mainstream media is the unemployment rate. As I will show tomorrow, the real unemployment rate is between 20% and 40%, depending on whether you think someone earning $1,500 a year selling stuff on eBay and Etsy should be counted as “employed.”In effect, the mainstream media is a vast Psychological Operation (PSYOPS) aimed at persuading the American public that the status quo Imperial system of predatory, debt-based crony-capitalism that benefits the few at the expense of the many is not just beneficial to all its debt-serfs and welfare recipients, but it is the only possible system–there is no alternative(TINA).

The federal government is delighted to count everyone earning $100 a year as employed, and equally delighted to label everyone without a job (even one paying $100/year) who doesn’t qualify for unemployment insurance a job market zombie–a once living person who is no longer counted as among the living.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Charles Eisenstein: Crafting A New Narrative

June 3, 2015

Charles Eisenstein: Crafting A New Narrative

And your chance to be part of it

Much has been written here at PeakProsperity.com of late about the need for society to adopt a new narrative to live by. One deeply-ingrained with sustainability and stewardship — else our current fixation with consumption and exploitation of nature’s finite resources will meet a very predictable and unpleasant end.

So, for those that agree a new operating story is needed: Where do we start?

This week, author Charles Eisenstein joins Chris and Becca to discuss their upcoming participation in The New Story festival, a gathering specifically focused on sparking momentum behind this important movement. More details on the event, which takes place in Bethany CT on June 12-13th, can be found here.

Chris Martenson: Welcome to this Peak Prosperity Podcast. I am your host, Chris Martenson. And with me here today are Becca. Hello, Becca.

Becca Martenson: Hi, Chris.

Chris Martenson: And Charles Eisenstein. Hello, Charles.

Charles Eisenstein: Hi, Chris.

Chris Martenson: Now all three of us we are all going to be presenting at A New Story Festival that is coming up in Connecticut. It is on June 12^th and 13^th coming right up and I am really exciting to be doing that because the timing in this, boy is it ever good for me. There is a vibe in the air – an electric energy among people that I talk to to be doing things differently. People really want – they want a new story and they are ready for a new story. And myself, especially included in that.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trapped in a Narrative

February 15, 2015

Trapped in a Narrative

I’ve addressed the issue a hundred times, and it pains me to see it only gets worse. But it does. And it’s not my pain that counts, it has no meaning whatsoever, it’s the fact that we are inching ever closer to the kind of situations none of us would choose.

That is, war, people dying from sheer misery, people dying because they have no access to the services we take for granted, and even people being shelled by their own government.

All these things are happening as we speak, and we accept them lying down – on our couches -, and choose to ignore and even deny them, because we are trapped in narratives spun by those who see a profit in spreading these narratives. And who have a solid grip on what gets spun and what is not.

This is not going to end well. Not unless we speak up. Not for anyone amongst us. This one will not pass by your door, or mine. We’re approaching decision time. For the world, for your life and mine. It’s time to pick sides.

As I said, I’ve talked about this numerous times. I suggest you read for example 2014: The Year Propaganda Came Of Age. And then realize that the age of innocence is gone. That ‘I didn’t know’ no longer counts for anything. That ‘I’m just trying to make a living’ only goes so far. That your life is not only about you.

February 12 seems to have been a busy day. There had been a 16 hour – largely overnight – meeting in Minsk attended by Merkel, Hollande, Petroshenko and Putin. Why Putin was asked to attend – ostensibly representing the Donbass ‘rebels’ – is up for questioning, but he was there. The rebels themselves were not.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Home Economicus: An Endangered Species

February 12, 2015

Home Economicus: An Endangered Species

The modern world is full of myths. I’m not talking about Greek legends or medieval lore, but the shared stories and constructs underpinning our beliefs and behaviours. We need myths—they help us understand and feel in control of our world—but when they blind us to reality, they can serve as obstacles to change. As long as I accept, for example, that being richer and thinner will make me happy, I’m not actually likely to find happiness. We may not believe in the pantheon of ancient gods, but many of us still believe in mythical creatures that clearly don’t exist, like the infallible celebrity or the unimpeachable leader.

Homo economicus, the mythical creature of neoliberal economics, is one such persistent presence, despite a thorough debunking by commentators and academics. This bizarre specimen is supremely autonomous, free of social bonds, lacking any emotion and interested only in what will make himself [sic] happy. Homo economicusacts within (and only within) a market full of others like himself, each with equal knowledge and resources, each seeking to maximise financial gain.

Both the actor and the market are completely fictional, yet they still serve as a model for much economic thinking. Behavioural economics, beloved of the current government and a heavy influence on our financial regulators, purports to demonstrate how humans are in reality subject to bias and error. Yet by depicting any deviations from rationality as a form of weakness or susceptibility, the discipline betrays its assumption that calculating self-interest is the ideal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Faux News

February 5, 2015

Faux News

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

– Abraham Lincoln

It’s beginning to appear that ‘ol Abe might have been wrong. We have seen war after war after war, intervention after intervention after intervention, crisis after crisis after crisis where there is every reason to think that the stories were complete bullshit. If you thought those videos of captives being beheaded by ISIS or burned alive might be fakes, you’re probably right. If you thought the stories of chemical weapons in Syria or WMDs in Iraq, or nuclear bomb factories in Iran were made-up stories, you were undoubtedly right.

The fact is that governments around the world use the most outrageous lies to provoke behaviour, both domestically and abroad. And the evidence is clear that the media are either willing accomplices to these frauds or they are stupid beyond comprehension.

Just yesterday, an American ‘journalist’ named Brian Williams went on television to admit that he had lied about a story he reported a few days ago. Of course, he had an excuse for it – but he didn’t apologize for all the other lies he and his colleagues have perpetrated over the years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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