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“This is what will happen in the United States if you allow all the[se] schmucks to promise all kinds of goodies and paradise on earth which will bring the country to crisis” Yuri Bezmenov

Rewatching this video of a defector from the Soviet Union in 1985 in context of our post Covid society connected some dots. Those dots were about what Yuri describes in this video as the “Demoralization” stage of the four-stage KGB process.

Separately, Peter Thiel recently offered his view of three dystopian futures being offered by competing ideologies, and the challenge to the Libertarian right to offer a competing better vision of the future.

But first, the 4 stages of Societal collapse as Yuri Bezmenov describes above offer a nice roadmap to how we got here to begin with. The four stages of US societal collapse as the KGB prophet says are:

Demoralization: in which people are (re)educated according to your own ideology- Pressure to conform
Destabilization: in which essentials like economy, foreign relations, and defense pacts/systems are disrupted- E.G. supply chains, Nato, Etc
Crisis: a confluence of events on the back of the previous two steps creates existential crisis for the status quo.- Constantly threatened
Normalization: during the crisis a “force for good” will appear that promises some return to normalcy. We welcome despotic solutions to immediate problems.- Rise of authoritarianism and reduction in liberty

This reads like a playbook for the last two years, and perhaps going as far back as the GFC of 2009. The stages occur simultaneously and need reapplication like so many vaccine boosters until compliance is 100%.

The Media’s Role in Demoralization

The MSM has been revealed beyond the pale to be a water-carrier for elites (a Trump dividend BTW) and in return for their subservience the media gets to manipulate and monetize our emotions.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Mephistopheles Media

January 26, 2021

The Mephistopheles Media

Ary Scheffer Faust in his Study c1840

The essence of the story of Faust is simple: He is a man who sells his -future- soul to the devil in return for short term gain, for riches “now”. But years later, the devil comes to collect his prize.

Here’s a modern allegory.

In 2015 -or thereabouts- many of the mainstream media (MSM) outlets were facing dire times. Social media were taking over much of their readers’ attention, their ad revenue plummeted, and they didn’t have big stories to tell that would revert that trend. Things did not look good for the survival of CNN, New York Times or MSNBC. The Washington Post suffered the same problems, but they were owned by the world’s richest man.

And then the salvation presented itself on their doorstep in the form of Donald Trump. It’s not something they planned for, it just happened; it even took them a while to figure it out, but once they did, they went for it headfirst and all-in. How could they not? They were dying. Their finance departments told them anything negative about Trump was selling like hotcakes. And Trump willingly added to the fire.

The MSM made a Faustian pact with the devil (through his messenger Mephistopheles) for survival. And that devil was not Donald Trump, they never signed a deal with him, the devil disguised himself in the shape of clickbait, which very much has the devil’s signature, since it required them to do their “reporting” based on promoting hatred, conflict, division, anger, negativity, bitterness, resentment. All of which sells. Like nothing else. You don’t get people’s attention with happy stories, you get it by making them angry.

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

MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot To Call For More Internet Censorship

January 7, 2021

MSM Already Using Capitol Hill Riot To Call For More Internet Censorship

The United States received a very small taste of its own medicine today as rioting Trump fanatics temporarily forced their way into the nation’s Capitol building, and now the whole nation is freaking out.

I am being generous when I say that America was given a very small taste of its own medicine; unlike the horrific coups and violent uprisings the US routinely orchestrates in noncompliant nations around the world, this one stood exactly zero chance of seizing control of the government, and only one person was killed.

I am also being generous when I say the rioters “forced their way” in; DC chose not to increase its police presence in preparation for the protests despite knowing that they were planned, and there’s footage of what appears to be cops actively letting them through a police barricade. There was some fighting between police and protesters, but contrasted with the unceasing barrage of police brutality footage which emerged from Black Lives Matter demonstrations a few months prior it’s fair to say the police response today was relatively gentle.

Predictably, this entirely American disruption has blue-checkmarked commentariat shrieking about Vladimir Putin on social media.

Just as predictably, it’s also got them calling for the censorship of social media.

The New York Times has published two new articles titled “The storming of Capitol Hill was organized on social media” and “Violence on Capitol Hill Is a Day of Reckoning for Social Media“, both arguing for more heavy-handed restrictions on speech from Silicon Valley tech giants.

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

Virus 1 – Media 0

December 20, 2020

Virus 1 – Media 0

Salvador Dalí Mi esposa desnuda 1945

Over the past 5 years I’ve addressed this numerous times, and it just goes on. When the MSM, WaPo, NYT, CNN, MSNBC, started to feel a real threat to their existence and survival from social media, they changed course radically. They no longer attempted to inform people, they began to shape their readers’ and watchers’ opinions. And it worked.

That change appears to bear fruit. The WaPo announced the other day they’re hiring 150 more “reporters”. Who are not really reporters, in the new setting they’re more like narrators. They’re servants to the narratives favored by editors and owners, the ones they expect -and know- to generate the most clickbaits.

Superficially, the media landscape sort of still looks the same, same logos, same slogans, but below the surface everything has changed. What’s important is no longer News, but the favored interpretation of it. It seems to work miracles for the MSM, but it’s dangerous for the nation. Because: where are you going to get your news, on the basis of which you can form your own opinion?

And if you can’t get news that doesn’t already have an inbuilt opinion, how are you supposed to have a opinion of your own? At the end of the day, you will be left with a nation that is poorly informed and has no opinions of its own. Everyone just regurgitates opinions forced upon them 24/7.

The main difference with 5 years ago is probably that social media have joined the MSM in their strategy. They now all force-shape opinions for clickbait. And nobody puts a loophole in their way:

Facebook Joins Twitter In Reverting To Pre-Election News Feed Algorithms

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

Bring Them Home for Christmas

November 14, 2020

Bring Them Home for Christmas

Pablo Picasso Dans l’atelier 1954

“There is nothing in Afghanistan worth the life of a single American soldier.”
– Douglas Macgregor

I’m having a bit of a problem finding the right format for this essay. I want to highlight a whole number of quotes, but I also would like you to read the original setting they came from. Please bear with me.

CNN: “A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Wednesday that retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor “will be serving as a Senior Advisor to the Acting Secretary of Defense. Mr. MacGregor’s decades of military experience will be used to assist in the continued implementation of the President’s national security priorities.”

Also CNN: “Macgregor once advocated for the use of lethal force against unarmed migrants [..] and has made a litany of racist comments.”

I must admit even my encyclopedic brain had never heard of Macgregor, and I’m sure most of you hadn’t either, but I’m taking a liking to the man. “The use of lethal force against unarmed migrants” sounds bogus off the bat, that’s “Putin eats babies” territory, and accusing someone of “a litany of racist comments” without naming even one, doesn’t do it for me either.

And even then. The man wants to bring US troops home. Oh wait, but that’s why you accuse him of all these unsubstantiated “facts”. Gotcha. What I do know is for instance this Nov 6 2019 interview Macgregor did with Tucker Carlson, in which he sounds like a reasonable yet worried man. And while opinions may differ on how big of a threat drug cartels may be to the US, his view appears to have its merit.

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

FBI = Disinformation

October 20, 2020

FBI = Disinformation

René Magritte The seducer 1953

USA Today Headline: “A Tabloid Got A Trove Of Data On Hunter Biden From Rudy Giuliani. Now, The FBI Is Probing A Possible Disinformation Campaign

(The FBI is examining whether the material supplied to the New York Post by Rudy Giuliani is part of a disinformation campaign by Russia.)”

Seeing that makes me think: with Comey, Strzok, Lisa Page, McCabe et al gone, who initiates and approves such “examinations”? The aforementioned were all involved in setting up the Special Counsel led by former FBI chief Robert Mueller, and that was the most embarrassing episode in the Bureau’s history. Which is saying something given J. Edgar’s penchant for dressing up in women’s clothing.

The Mueller probe was all predicated on vague and unproven Russian “disinformation”, and it fittingly ended with it too. With absolutely nothing coming out of the probe, that was based on the Steele Dossier which the protagonists knew was false even before the probe started, Mueller and his right-hand Andrew Weismann in the end had nothing left but “13 Russians” and Julian Assange to “justify” their $30 million, 2 year “effort”.

The only people they could lay any -always unproven- blame or suspicion on were those who could not defend themselves against false accusations. And when Concord Management unexpectedly did raise a defense, Mueller was shut down by a US judge in no time. It’s pathetic. Mueller’s a liar and a coward, as I’ve said a dozen times now. He should be exiled to Mars.

But what’s worse than his reputation having been destroyed, is that he and his pals hammered the FBI’s reputation as well. So when I read in October 2020 that “The FBI Is Probing A Possible Disinformation Campaign by Russia”, I’m obliged to ask: where does that come from?

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

Julian Assange and the Conservative Press

September 15, 2020

Julian Assange and the Conservative Press

Rembrandt van RIjn A Woman Standing with a Candle c.1631

To be honest, I didn’t think it would ever happen, even though it’s been so obvious for so long. But all of a sudden, the conservative voices questioning the Russia collusion narrative and all the investigations that followed from it, are finally figuring out that those behind that narrative and all that resulted from it, are the same people who have been chasing down Julian Assange for many years.

And that to get to the bottom of the hunt for Trump by the DNC, Clinton campaign, US intelligence and last but not least the media in their pockets, the NYT, WaPo, MSNBC, CNN et al, they will have to take a much closer look at what happened to Assange. If they don’t they will never understand. How do we know it’s starting to dawn on them? Look at this illustration at the Last Refuge site yesterday. More on them later.

Note: the mostly left wing Assange supporters would do good to consider the same thing: they in turn must look into the RussiaRussia Trump collusion stories, much as they may not like the president. Because those stories are why Assange has been chased down like so much roadkill. And because the right win of America is their best chance at getting him pardoned/released. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, to put it bluntly. Sometimes you need blunt.

As I’ve pointed out countless times, the Mueller investigation of the Trump campaign -and presidency- may have come up glaringly empty, but the report they issued maintained that “13 Russians” and Julian Assange were responsible for hacking DNC emails. There is no proof of this, but since none of the “accused” can speak out, the report make the claim, and did.

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

MSM Is Propaganda: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

August 25, 2020

MSM Is Propaganda: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

The US tortures journalists and whistleblowers, arms terrorists, kills children with starvation sanctions, wages endless wars, facilitates mass atrocities in Yemen, repeatedly used nuclear weapons on civilian populations, circles the entire planet with hundreds of military bases and bullies every nation on earth using military and economic force, but yeah we need to let them remain in charge of the world or else an evil government might take over.

You know that person in your life who’s always telling you what you should do despite the fact that their own life is a shambles and nobody likes them and they continuously make bad decisions for themselves? That’s America on the world stage.

Don’t take life advice from miserable people, don’t take creative advice from people who don’t create, don’t join religions that facilitate child rape, don’t join political parties that don’t help the public, don’t give military power to people with a history of bad military decisions.

When it first rose to power with the Bush administration the neoconservative ideology of doing whatever it takes to ensure continued US unipolar hegemony was widely criticized. Now it’s the bipartisan beltway consensus, and if you question it you’re smeared as freakish and suspicious.

Now you never even hear the word neoconservative or neocon anymore in mainstream US discourse. That’s not because it went away, it’s because it became the normalized default mainstream worldview.

Tier 1: Good people.

Tier 2: Okay people.

Tier 3: Bad people.

Tier 4: Diseases and parasites.

Tier 5: Shit.

Tier 6: The shit that would come out of shit if shit could shit.

Tier 7: People who defend acts of police brutality on the internet.

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

“One Of The Worst Coverups In Human History”: MSM Attention Turns To Chinese Biolab Near COVID-19 Ground Zero

April 2, 2020

“One Of The Worst Coverups In Human History”: MSM Attention Turns To Chinese Biolab Near COVID-19 Ground Zero

In late January we asked whether a prolific Chinese scientist who was experimenting with bat coronavirus at a level-4 biolab in Wuhan China was responsible for the current outbreak of a virus which is 96% genetically identical – and which saw an explosion in cases at a wet market located just down the street.

For suggesting this, we were kicked off Twitter and had the pleasure of several articles written by MSM hacks regarding our ‘conspiracy theory’ – none of which addressed the plethora of hard evidence linked in the post. These are the same people, mind you, who pushed the outlandish and evidence-free Trump-Russia conspiracy theory for years.

Whether or not the virus was engineered (scientists swear it wasn’t) – it shouldn’t take Perry Mason to conclude that a virulent coronavirus outbreak which started near a biolab that was experimenting with — coronavirus — bears scrutiny. Could a lab worker have accidentally infected themselves – then gone shopping for meat at the market over several days, during the long, asymptomatic incubation period?

In February, researchers Botao Xial and Lei Xiao published a quickly-retracted paper titled “The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus” – which speculated that the virus came from the Wuhan biolab.

Now, mainstream outlets are catching on – or at least have become brave enough to similarly connect the dots.

Earlier this week, Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson suggested that COVID-19 may have originated in a lab.

And now, the Washington Times is out with a report titled “Chinese researchers isolated deadly bat coronaviruses near Wuhan animal market.”

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

MSM Defends CIA’s “Whistleblower”, Ignores Actual Whistleblowers

September 27, 2019

MSM Defends CIA’s “Whistleblower”, Ignores Actual Whistleblowers

The word “whistleblower” has been trending in news headlines lately, but not for the reasons that any sane person might hope for.

“Read the whistleblower complaint regarding President Trump’s communications with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky“, says The Washington Post. “Trump responds to hearing on whistleblower complaint“, says MSNBC. “Trump-Ukraine scandal: what did the whistleblower say and how serious is it?“, writes The Guardian. “Whistleblower complaint says White House tried to ‘lock down’ Ukraine call records” announces CBS. “Whistleblower’s complaint is a devastating report from a savvy official“, declares CNN.

So who is this “savvy official”? Who is this courageous whistleblower who boldly shone the light of truth upon the mechanisms of power in the interests of the common man? Who is this brave, selfless individual who set off an impeachment inquiry by taking a stand and revealing the fact that the US president made a phone call in July urging Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to help investigate corruption allegations against Joe Biden and his son?

Well believe it or not, according to The New York Times this brave, noble whistleblower who the mainstream media are currently championing is an officer for the Central Intelligence Agency.

✔

The idea that the media needs to “protect” a high-level CIA officer making explosive claims about the president, which have now been used as the basis for impeachment proceedings, is such an insane perversion of journalistic ethics

“The whistle-blower who revealed that President Trump sought foreign help for his re-election and that the White House sought to cover it up is a CIA officer who was detailed to work at the White House at one point, according to three people familiar with his identity,” The New York Times reports. “The man has since returned to the CIA, the people said. Little else is known about him.”

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

The Real Reasons Why The Media Is Suddenly Admitting To The Recession Threat

August 24, 2019

The Real Reasons Why The Media Is Suddenly Admitting To The Recession Threat

One thing that is important to understand about the mainstream media is that they do tell the truth on occasion. However, the truths they admit to are almost always wrapped in lies or told to the public far too late to make the information useful. Dissecting mainstream media information and sifting out the truth from the propaganda is really the bulk of what the alternative media does (or should be doing). In the past couple of weeks I have received a rush of emails asking about the sudden flood of recession and economic crash talk in the media. Does this abrupt 180 degree turn by the MSM (and global banks) on the economy warrant concern? Yes, it does.

The first inclination of a portion of the liberty movement will be to assume that mainstream reports of imminent economic crisis are merely an attempt to tarnish the image of the Trump Administration, and that the talk of recession is “overblown”. This is partially true; Trump is meant to act as scapegoat, but this is not the big picture. The fact is, the pattern the media is following today matches almost exactly with the pattern they followed leading up to the credit crash of 2008. Make no mistake, a financial crash is indeed happening RIGHT NOW, just as it did after media warnings in 2007/2008, and the reasons why the MSM is admitting to it today are calculated.

Before we get to that, we should examine how the media reacted during the lead up to the crash of 2008.

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

Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran

June 22, 2019

Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran

Pablo Picasso **Femme aux bras leves- Tête de Dora Maar-** 1936

As a nation, you’re certifiedly (is that a word?!) in deep trouble if and when Donald Trump is your most peaceloving man. But nevertheless, that is America today. It all harks back to the days when Trump was first -grudgingly and painstakingly- recognized as an actual presidential candidate.

He campaigned as a man who would end the costly and neverending decades-old and counting US wars far away from American shores and territory. He hasn’t lived up to those campaign goals at all, far from it, and he hired doofuses like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to show everyone that he didn’t, but in the early hours of June 21 2019 he apparently decided at the last minute that it just didn’t add up.

You don’t kill 150 people because someone destroyed a piece of machinery, he got that right. I vividly remember writing a hundred times that a country of 320 million people that can’t come up with a better president than Trump has a behemoth problem. I also remember saying that Trump himself is not that problem, it’s the system that gave rise to him and his popularity. A war-hungry-system, that is, which has pervaded Washington DC.

And there is absolutely nothing that tells me anything has changed in that system. There are hearings and investigations all over the place, right now from Hope Hicks to Jerry Nadler, but none of them are geared towards trying to make peace with Iran or Russia or China, or anyone else. None.

Trump’s domestic opponents don’t appear to want peace, not those in the Democratic party, and not those in the MSM, or at least not anyone I’ve seen, other than Tulsi Gabbard.

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

Fake News After Mueller

April 6, 2019

Fake News After Mueller

Raphael **The school of Athens** 1509-11

Allow me to start with a question: Has anyone seen any of the main newspapers and networks who went after Donald Trump for 3 years accusing him of colluding with “the Russians”, apologize to either Trump, or to their readers and viewers, for spreading all that fake news now that Robert Mueller said none of that stuff was real, that they all just made it up?

I’ve seen only one such apology, albeit a very good and thorough one, from Sharyl Attkisson for The Hill. But one is a very meager harvest of course. With over 500,000 articles on collusion published on the topic, as Axios said -leading to 245 million social media ‘interactions’, shouldn’t there be more apologies, if only so people can hold on to their faith in US media for a while longer?

Apologies to President Trump

With the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe now known to a significant degree, it seems apologies are in order. However, judging by the recent past, apologies are not likely forthcoming from the responsible parties. In this context, it matters not whether one is a supporter or a critic of President Trump. Whatever his supposed flaws, the rampant accusations and speculation that shrouded Trump’s presidency, even before it began, ultimately have proven unfounded. Just as Trump said all along. Yet, each time Trump said so, some of us in the media lampooned him.
We treated any words he spoke in his own defense as if they were automatically to be disbelieved because he had uttered them. Some even declared his words to be “lies,” although they had no evidence to back up their claims.

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

Can We Lock Up Rachel Maddow Now?

March 25, 2019

Can We Lock Up Rachel Maddow Now?

Message to Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kemala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard and the rest of the crew: you can stop asking for campaign donations, because you no longer stand a chance in the 2020 elections. Your own party, and the media who support you, made sure of that. Or rather, the only chance you would have is if you guys start another smear campaign against your president, and I wouldn’t recommend that.

I don’t want to start another Lock Her Up sequence, that’s too ugly for my taste. But three parties in this No Collusion disaster must be held accountable: US intelligence, the Democratic party, and the media. You can’t just let it go, too much water under the bridge. No can do. “The Democrats need to move on”, a recent ‘soft line’, is not good enough. They must be held to account.

Bill Barr can investigate the FBI and DOJ, but the obstacles there are obvious: investigating the investigators. The Democratic party would mean going after individuals, but sure, let’s see what Loretta Lynch, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Maxine Waters have to say for themselves and take it from there, before you get to Hillary. The media, though, is something else altogether.

Freedom of the press, and freedom of opinion, is one thing. Conducting a 2-year+ smear campaign against your own president is another. So what does US law say about this? Let’s hear it. Since Trump made Bill Barr the new Attorney General, Barr is instrumental in answering these questions. Is it a smear campaign? Is that acceptable? Is it legal? Asking for a friend.

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

Conservatism

March 14, 2019

Conservatism

Commenting on my own essays has never been my favorite activity, because before you know it you land into Russian doll territory. But a few recent comments from readers have me rethinking that, for once.

Of course I understand that my expressed views over the past two years and change on the era of Donald Trump and his presidency do not please everyone out there, whether they’re long time Automatic Earth readers or new to the site. It’s just that a surprising -to me- number of people let their thoughts and opinions be shaped by media that primarily follow the color of politics and money, not objective facts.

Or perhaps it shouldn‘t be all that surprising, given the amount of attention the mainstream media still manages to gather. Then again, if the MSM would have been right on more issues, there would never have been a place for the Automatic Earth and many other ‘alternative’ media sources. So yeah, I’m a bit of two minds on that.

What I am sure about is that I don’t think the advent of Donald Trump has been the main event since 2016, I have very few illusions about US politics. For me the big story has been how the media has shifted from reporting the news to manufacturing it. I’m seeing the Russiagate narrative falling apart in real time right now and I think: I saw that coming, because none of all those collusion stories were based on facts to begin with.

And I’ve said exactly that for two years now as well. It started off with supporting their favorite candidate, who was a shoe-in anyway, then it turned into being angry when she lost, and it ended up with figuring out that denouncing Trump ten times a day was a goldmine that could save entire papers and TV channels, because Americans are addicted to scandals, even if they’re invented and/or inconsequential.

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

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