The mass-scale psychological manipulation is so pervasive that only a small minority are reacting to history’s first live-streamed genocide with an appropriate level of horror.
Aerial view showing destruction in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip, after Israeli forces withdrawal and as the ceasefire took hold, Jan. 21, 2025. (UNRWA/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 4.0)
By Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter
Listen to Tim Foley reading this article.
Donald Trump is committing genocide for Israel after publicly admitting to being bought and owned by the Adelsons.
All the worst shit happens right out in the open. You don’t need to come up with any elaborate conspiracy theories to see it. It’s right there, completely unhidden.
It’s not hidden, it’s just spun. Disguised by the propaganda of the mass media who frame this holocaust as a war of defense in response to a terrorist attack while constantly diverting our attention to other far less significant issues.
It says so much about the power of the imperial propaganda machine that Trump could openly admit to having been fully controlled by Adelson cash on the campaign trail, get elected, and then facilitate a blatant extermination campaign in Gaza while aggressively stomping out free speech that is critical of Israel throughout the United States — and somehow not have this be the main thing that everyone talks about all the time.
It is only because our minds are being forcefully manipulated by the powerful at mass scale that this has been the case.
The narrative spin is greatly aided by the fact that Trump isn’t doing much different from the previous president here. A public which has been indoctrinated from childhood into seeing everything in Democrat-vs-Republican binaries is conditioned to focus far more on the differences between the two parties than the similarities.
But you can learn a whole lot more about real power and what’s actually going on in the world by paying less attention to how U.S. presidents differ from each other, and more attention to the ways in which they are the same.
The mass-scale psychological manipulation is so pervasive and ubiquitous that only a small minority are reacting to history’s first live-streamed genocide with an appropriate level of horror.
If Americans could see what their government is doing in their name with fresh eyes and uncalloused hearts, the nation’s capital would be burnt to the ground within days.
But because their vision is clouded by propaganda indoctrination they can’t see it, so they overlook what’s right in front of them while awaiting a gigantic Epstein bombshell or UFO disclosure or some other Big Reveal that never comes.
Consider the possibility that the Big Reveal has already happened. That it’s been right here staring you in the face this entire time, but you haven’t noticed its significance because it has been constantly normalized for you throughout your life since you were small.
That the truth behind all your most sparkly conspiracy theories could be published online tomorrow, and it still wouldn’t tell you as much about what your rulers are doing and how evil they are as what’s already happening in plain sight.
This is the dystopia we were warned about. It’s not some ominous threat looming on the horizon. It’s here. We are being psychologically manipulated at mass scale into consenting to the most nightmarish atrocities imaginable. Children’s bodies are being shredded to bits right in front of us.
And when you turn on the TV you see famous people laughing and making jokes with fake plastic grins, babbling about vapid nonsense. This is the dystopia. It isn’t on its way. It’s here.
We don’t need a Big Reveal. If the Big Reveal happened next week, the public would be indoctrinated into overlooking and dismissing it by the imperial spin machine by the weekend. We don’t need new information, we need people to truly see the information that’s already here.
To see it with eyes that are free from the cataracts of propaganda conditioning, with hearts that are free from the calluses of desensitization. Waking the public up is less about whistleblowers, FOIA requests and investigative journalism at this point than it is about finding creative and artistic ways to get people noticing the information that’s already public.
And the good news is that we can all help do this. We can all help our fellow members of the public to see what’s really happening with fresh eyes. Using our creativity, our humor, our insight and our compassion, we can find new ways every day to open a new pair of eyelids to the truth of our present circumstances.
Our rulers do not have creativity. They do not have humor, insight or compassion. These are not tools that they have in their toolbox, and they have no weapons to counter them.
All they have is manipulation, and manipulation only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you. Our task is to keep finding new and creative ways to help more people see and understand the ways in which they have been manipulated.
Caitlin Johnstone’s work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, YouTube, or throwing some money into her tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy her books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at her website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes. For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, click here. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com.au and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Master Piece explaining apparent brain dead Americans.
Hang on Caitlin things may explode at any minute.
J.B. Pritzger has made a speech compelling people around the county to get into the streets and raise hell. I wonder if he will bail anyone out of jail.
J.B. is working hard to gain a spot in the next presidential election. He is a billionaire and he and his family have more money than dear leader. Ever notice how overweight the guy is?
I do not trust him any further than I could throw him. He’s they guy who removed bathrooms from his Chicago mansion to save on taxes.
Truth is I will never support a billionaire who runs for POTUS.
Good to see that criticism of Israel and Zionism is not yet anti-Semitism on CN.
Unfortunately, ~98% of the US public is seemingly OK with mass slaughter done by our military or our munitions & assistance, as long as the MSM can feed them barely plausible fictions about them and they can get back to worrying about trans-sexuals making eggs so expensive and the latest sporting event or drama series. This was brought home to me not only by the Vietnam War (and as I’ve subsequently learned, the Korean War), but most blatantly by the Iraq War back in 2003 where we killed at least 100,000 people on the other side of the world based on a fabricated lie (that even the MSM admitted) and no-one was held accountable in any meaningful way – – a simple ‘oopsie – my bad, sorry about that’ and onward to re-election for ‘W’ and friends. Yet when Russia invades a bordering country based on repeated provocations, it’s the seeming ‘crime of the century’ with numerous sanctions and hypocritical self-righteous rhetoric. It is getting hard NOT to believe that eventually this is going to lead to a major nuclear exchange.
It has taken our government and it’s propaganda ministers decades to create the perfect citizens that we see today. The combination of stupidity, ignorance and brainwashing is awesome to behold. It is, However, the arrogance that has been encouraged in the population that makes them incapable of ever waking from their stupor and recognizing reality.
Caitlin Johnstone’s superb article regarding widespread apathy and inaction in the face of premeditated mass murder genocide raises/begs the obvious question:
“How can seemingly educated, intelligent, good and decent, critical thinking people the world over sit on the sidelines, watch as innocent men, women and children are murdered, – and then do nothing to stop the crimes?
“The Brain is the Battlefield of the Future” is a term which emerged recently and has increasingly become the focus of discussions among serious world affairs observers and analysts.
Covert neurowarfare is arguably being fought right now, and not in the future. Covert mind manipulation of the masses military operations explains the current, ongoing worldwide apathy and inaction in the face of genocide; cognitive(brain) warfare answers the obvious question posed above.
The term “OMNIWAR” will soon come into the awareness of billions of people across the Earth – and (thankfully) change the world forever in the process … to the profound benefit of this and future generations.
See: hxxps://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/events/omniwar-symposium/omniwar-symposium-2-battle-for-brain-apr-26/
Peace.
Thank You Caitlin
A million thanks Caitlin for never stopping to talk about the genocide and the horrors Israel is raining on the Palestinians. As a side note, I just purchased a used car in the state of New Jersey and when I discovered the owner was Palestinian, I hugged him so hard. He was born in Nazareth but has an Israeli passport. What a crime.
Biden was disgusting in his complicity with the Israeli genocide, but Trump is even worse. Both are controlled by AIPAC, Zionists, and other right wing capitalists. Most of the American people are ignorant about the history of how the UK, France and the USA created countries in the Middle East after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1917. They also don’t know that Israel made Gaza an open air prison of the native people, the Palestinians. The western media says nothing about what Israel is doing in its desire to exterminate all Palestinians.
It’s far worse than that: all of our politicians are bought and paid for. They all take bribes LEGALLY. The fancy term for this is institutionalized corruption.
Even a former US pres. admitted: “The US is an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery” (Jimmy Carter)
The banksters are above the law, war criminals are above the law, remember Tony Blair and Bush Jr.? High Crimes are REWARDED, not punished. The law and taxes are only for the “little people”
The banksters got bailed out by Congress, allowed to keep all of their fraudulent loot, and to add insult to injury the so-called Federal Reserve created Quantitative Easing that printed money to buy 100s of billions worth of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities (worth the same as a “pile of dogsh*t.) at FULL FACE VALUE. Folk done forgot already, it went down the Memory Hole. The largest financial crimes in US history, by orders of magnitude. (according to financial crime expert, prof. W.K. Black) NO ONE was investigated, let alone prosecuted. The US AG told us they are “Too Big To Fail” They are Above the Law! Folk done forgot already, went down the Memory Hole.
US mass slaughter is nothing new: for example, the Nixon/Kissinger duo carpet bombed SE Asia without informing Congress. This was not only a heinous act of mass slaughter, it was a flagrant violation of the law and the US constitution. They got away with it. Laos, to this day, remains the most bombed country in history.
The list goes on, but no one was held to account then, and no one will be held to account now. The rule of law and democracy are nothing but PR stunts, and a cruel joke
1000 %!!!!
Thank You.
Two most ODIOUS nations: israel and the US.
There’s nothing left to bomb in Rafah, but I bet the IDF will bomb it again. Talk about beating a dead horse.
Excellent article (as usual) Caitlin! Thank you.
For everyone’s general information; the history of our mental manipulation and the media’s misinformation (by this same subset of our culture) has been illuminated in documentaries by Adam Curtis. They are ; “the Century of the Self” (4 parts) & “The Power of Nightmares” (4 parts). Also, I recommend, the A&E episode; “Hollywood, An Empire of Their Own” (3 parts) and “Hollywoodism”, 1998. Very informative background information.
hxxps://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+century+of+self
hxxps://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+power+of+nightmares
hxxps://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Hollywood+An+Empire+of+Their+Own
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXeHnvImcMk&t=81s
Thanks for the recommendations
“This is the dystopia we were warned about.”
I don’t remember being warned about dystopia.
I remember being told of wonderful things and governments only here to serve the public. And innovative devices to enhance our lives etc. Dystopia? No. Never heard of that.
Until recently. But i still didn’t get any warning. It came about 18 months ago. Not that recently i suppose. But the dystopia which followed has altered and affected many aspects of life. Life, as in death of innocent people. Dystopia, as in normalization of death of innocent people.
This is a fabulous article by C.J. Excellent.
Only one minor quibble: she writes, “Our rulers do not have creativity.” I disagree with this to a certain point. Our elites employ some of the best and brightest in the creative community to sell their souls and run extremely slick propaganda operations against us over the airwaves. Their noxious content comes at us in daily waves constantly on television, online, print, and via radio.
I agree.
Some of our sharpest, most creative minds work for the propaganda machine, at many levels.
Some of them are not even aware of this.
Not only for “official” propaganda, but for the “wallpaper” variety that comes from Hollywood and the TV (just don’t watch it!) and suffuses every aspect of our lives.
Those who see through this veil—who start to see the patterns it obscures—are effectively sidelined by new dystopian labels such as “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
Excellent comment Litchfield. Stay strong my friend.