The ability to manipulate public thought, not just within the U.S. but across vast swaths of nations, has allowed the U.S. to manufacture international consensus for whatever agendas it wishes to advance.
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
If you use Twitter and engage with the subject of the war in Ukraine, you’ve probably noticed a verified account called The Kyiv Independent pop up while you’re scrolling through your feed which puts out highly biased content in favor of the Zelensky regime and the western powers which support it.
If you’re using a desktop browser, it will usually look like this:
Do you see the gray text in the top left-hand corner of the image which says “War in Ukraine”? That’s a Twitter “Topic” that the page’s algorithm has recommended to me without my having subscribed to it, where posts from The Kyiv Independent feature prominently. This Topic is being aggressively pushed on Twitter users around the world, showing up over and over again in their feed until they adjust their settings to remove it.
As Pedro Gonzales recently documented in Human Events, The Kyiv “Independent” was slapped together a few months ago with what the Committee to Protect Journalists called “an emergency grant from the European Endowment for Democracy.”
The European Endowment for Democracy is a spinoff of the U.S. government-funded “NGO” National Endowment for Democracy, which according to its own co-founder was set up to do overtly what the CIA used to do covertly, namely orchestrate coups and manage narratives to advance U.S. interests. A page on an NED website says that “All EU member states are members of EED’s Board of Governors, together with members of the European Parliament and civil society experts.”
So this is a media outlet funded by a government-run “NGO” being forcefully pushed in front of millions of western eyeballs by a major Silicon Valley corporation that people have come to rely on for getting information about the world. In the same way Silicon Valley facilitates government censorship by proxy, it also facilitates government propaganda by proxy.
The Globe and Mail reports that the Canadian government also put $200,000 toward Kyiv Independent’s funding. The outlet is being so loudly amplified by Twitter that not only has its Twitter account secured nearly two million followers since its creation in November, but one of its reporters (who calls the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion his “brothers in arms“) has gained a million followers since the start of the Russian invasion.
Do you see how sophisticated just that one tiny component of the U.S.-centralized empire‘s propaganda campaign is? How many seemingly disparate and unrelated elements it has? Multiple countries, NGOs, an ostensibly independent social media platform, an ostensibly independent news outlet. It’s very difficult to see how any of it connects at all if you don’t know where to look. And almost nobody knows where to look.
This highly advanced perception management operation is happening all around the world about any issue the empire has a vested interest in. As anti-imperialist author and podcaster Justin Podur recently put it, “The U.S. Empire is based on the mastery of storytelling. Making reality through propaganda.”
Truly, one of the most under-appreciated and overwhelmingly powerful forces on this earth is the U.S. imperial propaganda machine. The ability to manipulate public thought, not just within the United States but across vast swaths of nations, has allowed it to manufacture international consensus for whatever agendas it wishes to advance in a way that eclipses the collective organizing power of official international bodies like the United Nations.
We’re seeing it today in the way unprecedented acts of economic warfare are being used to attack the economy of Russia with the goal of fomenting unrest and toppling Moscow. There was nothing inherent in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which called for this specific response from all the specific nations who have chosen to participate in it, but that’s what ended up happening, and because of the power of the imperial propaganda machine the public has gone right along with it, even as it sends their fuel and grocery bills through the roof.
A big fuss gets made about the power of the U.S. war machine, despite the fact that it tends to fail at the rather important task of winning wars. This is partly because the empire often doesn’t benefit from those wars ending quickly and partly because it’s hard to win wars when your entire military juggernaut is built entirely around generating the maximum amount of profit possible.
Where the real fuss ought to be made is the truly jaw-dropping power of the U.S. propaganda machine. So subtle and sophisticated that even relatively intelligent and well-informed people fail to see the strings that are pulling at their minds, but so powerful it shapes the world.
In the book Inventing Reality, published all the way back in 1986, Michael Parenti makes the following observation:
“For many people an issue does not exist until it appears in the news media. How we view issues, indeed, what we even define as an issue or event, what we see and hear, and what we do not see and hear are greatly determined by those who control the communications world. Be it labor unions, peace protesters, the Soviet Union, uprisings in Latin America, elections, crime, poverty, or defense spending, few of us know of things except as they are depicted in the news.
Even when we don’t believe what the media say, we are still hearing or reading their viewpoints rather than some other. They are still setting the agenda, defining what it is we must believe or disbelieve, accept or reject. The media exert a subtle, persistent influence in defining the scope of respectable political discourse, channeling public attention in directions that are essentially supportive of the existing politico-economic system.”
This was long before Twitter, before Google, before Mark Zuckerberg, before Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act allowing for news media to be bought up and consolidated under just a few oligarchic mega-corporations. And yet the exact same dynamic we see before us today was already in play, even back then. It’s just gotten a lot more complex.
You know what’s funny about this mad push to censor speech in the name of fighting “Russian propaganda” is that the people who are pushing it are indirectly admitting to a very important truth that they normally try not to draw too much attention to: the fact that it’s very possible to use media to manipulate the way people think, act, and vote at mass scale. The part that they don’t admit is that they themselves are far and away the very worst offenders in that area.
The status quo worldview requires two entirely contradictory positions to be held simultaneously: that Russian propaganda has a corrupting influence on public thought, but that orders of magnitude more wealthy and powerful oligarchic media institutions do not.
This is not sustainable. People are already struggling to keep their heads above water with the constant white-noise torrent of psychological abuse they’re being subjected to day after day. We’re on our way to finding out just how much mass-scale psychological manipulation the human brain can tolerate before it snaps if we don’t find some way to change our collective relationship with mental narrative first.
Or who knows? Maybe a healthy relationship with mental narrative lies on the other side of that snap.
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium. Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Said Ike, after spending eight years constructing the MIC.
I’m not an expert on this subject, however I do have 20 + years since first recognizing deliberate media manipulation.
For others to get up to speed (if you dare – it can be overwhelming) try the classics like Bermays, Propaganda or Simpsons , The art of Coercion and round it off with books on NLP – neuro linguistic programming.
Some techniques involve trauma then reward for adhering to certain narratives – this so called shaming then simulated acceptance into a group methodology- which doesn’t work very well on free thinking individuals.
Many people simply find it difficult to admit that they were incorrect and vigorously resist anything contrary. It’s like delusion is embraced in order to protect their ego – these are prime candidates for the manipulators
It would be good to do a study and charting of media-induced hysteria in the last 100 years. Include an event where a large group of people is induced to believe a narrative and then pull the plug and tell them it was a set-up…a study. (like Orson Well’s “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast.) They would react with anger, because no one likes to made a fool of.
But that’s the problem. Somehow, due to psychology, the ‘believer’ can move from one hysterical event to another without admitting their own history of gullibility. Denial comes into play. Young people are susceptible due to the lack personal history—older folks less so.
I just lost a friend over this.
He was calling weekly and wanted to talk Ukraine or China etc. (It’s like he’s letting me in on inside info that only he’s privy to). I listen politely for a while, and then I snap, and tell him that he’s simply regurgitating what he’s heard on Fox News (and MSM it turns out). So I send him articles and videos—you know–from the good guys: Joe, Jimmy, Max, Glenn, Aaron, Ben, Craig, Lawrence, Patrick, John, etc.. These are acknowledged with maybe a mere curt dismissal via email—at best.
In desperation, unwilling to concede defeat I try a different tactic and sic the goddesses on him. He is a guy after all. How could one resist an onslaught from such formidable femininity? Caitlin, Kim, Abby, Danica.
No cigar
It seems there is only one jealous god: Fox News.
In conclusion, it boils down to psychology. Ignorance is self-imposed. It’s not self-regulating. There is no regulation, only stubbornness in stasis.
Ignorance can be cured by knowledge. But the stubbornness–the insistence on remaining ignorant is an incurable malady.
Thank you for this article, it’s great to see that there are still sane people in America who see the truth. I am Russian, but I lived most of my life in Ukraine. After Maidan 2014 my whole family except my own brother left for Russia, because even then it was clear how everything would end. The level of nationalism in Ukraine has only increased over the years, if before the nationalists were mostly soccer fans, now Nazism is a STATE ideology! Just look at the state-funded Nazi military formations Azov, Aidar, and others. Russia and Ukraine have always been home to people who are close to each other by blood, many relatives live in the two countries. And it is terrible that they have been separated. I haven’t seen my brother for several years – and now I don’t know how long I will. The U.S. and American authorities are to blame for everything that is happening, Putin tried to the last minute to avoid hostilities, but Russia simply was left with no choice…
CIA. Criminally Insane America.
But wait there is more…..
Australia just imposed sanction so Russia. {China’s sanctions are so last week.}
The Orange Nosed Wombat, gets tough, pulls a face like Boris who intern, pulls a face like Churchill.
Yes I do believe live inside a hologram for some ones amusement.
That can only explain Australian teenage politicians.
Indeed I’ve noticed those stories popping up kinda mysteriously about Ukraine. There seems to be almost no other perspective anywhere except that Ukrainians and Zelensky are infallible saints and angels, including Azov. I used to think Amy Goodman was pretty unbiased, but she explained that she’s descended from Jews from, wait for it….Ukraine. I appreciate her honesty at least, and she still does have some coverage of alternative views at least. But overall, this is an almost totally all-encompassing multi-media blitz on our senses and minds. It’s really not unlike the dystopian Terminator films, in that this is very much computers and algorithms that are “taking over” in many ways, and could, by their sheer power, end the world with nuclear winter, like the “Skynet” AI did in Terminator. It’s not so different really, people have the illusion of personal free will and power, but in reality, their very thoughts are a creation of algorithms.
Uncle Doug,
My thouhts exactly. Thank you.
Also, the invasion was legal according to the UN Charter. One country can pre-emptively attack another if it fears ultimate attack upon itself. All US wars, since 1942 have been illegitimate.
Caitlin, thanks again for hitting the nail on the head. I’ve been to Iran and Russia and started receivng the Iranian News and Moscw Times. The Iranian is owned by the UK and the Moscow Times is obvious propaganda. I don’t use Twitter, Facebook. Instagram, etc. or get my news from MSM, but friends and family fall for it. Hard to put a dent in their thinking. Thank heaven there are reporters like you!
I call the KYIV Independent the CNN of Ukraine.
It seems to me the West’s propaganda is designed and directed to crush, destroy and wreck Russia’s accomplishments and true intentions in Ukraine and painting it as losing and growing desperate, in order to inoculate the West’s populations in case the West causes a major false flag operation, thereby making it look like Russia did it out of desperation.
This is particularly dangerous in Ukraine, as having had nuclear weapons in the past, it is possible that there are still nuclear materials around for a Nazi-inspired group like Azov Battalion, C14, Right Sector, Aidar etc. to build a dirty nuclear bomb and detonate it in a NATO country. This will surely be the justification for the US and NATO to intervene with troops, airpower and even a US pre-emptive nuclear strike. It would be easy for any of these Nazi groups to do this since they absolutely hate Russia and the West has shown that its real intention is the annihilation of the Russian State and its current political leadership.
Absalutely RIGHT!
The Great Wurlitzer LIVES!!! Frank Wisner would be proud!! Especially at the return of the Werewolves left behind by the SS and fighting in russia until 1954 run by Wisner/Dulles later called ‘Green Berets” and and incorporated into USSA Army (trained at former SS barracks) Look it up Spitfirelist.com….
Brilliant, thank you. It comes down to this one: “The Media is the Message.”For years I did not understand that famous quote. But watching US Imperialism and the Military Industrical Complex over the last 3 or 4 decades, it is now clear as a bell.
This is a great article and I only want to add two things which I didn’t see. One, this was pioneered by Douche Chaney in the build up to Iraq, where he would plant a lie (story) with a small newspaper, then refer to it in an interview so that all the rest of the craven press—I’m lookin at you NYT—could use that reference to “verify” the veracity of his “facts” It wasn’t masterful—it was cheap and easy because the press was already a tool, not an adversary of the creeping corporate coup taking over in this country. And two—this strategy was outlined in PNAC, which was also a Chaney project after his boss Nixon was held to account. Part of PNAC was to have a mouthpiece for Neo-con propaganda, and Roger Alles was just the boy to do it. Hence FOX and Murdock and Limpbough. And omygod you should have seen the Neolibs kowtow as soon as the NYT agreed with rather than investigate this propaganda. It was sickening. But so successful that a mere 20 years later they are able to do it again, except that the NYT is well trained now to do it on its own. Puke.
In fact, J. Edgar Hoover and Allen Dulles were pulling this trick ’way before Cheney. They understood the necessity of controlling the narrative at every level. When you’re building an empire based on lies, truth needs to be chased from every nook and corner of the people’s minds as if it were darkness.
Thank you very much Gene Poole. Great job in so few words.
When one delves into the early history of the CIA, say for instance in the earliest edition of it’s official history it is painfully obvious. It was and is the way CIA’s “sources and methods” has been used time and again.
The big difference between J Edgar and Allen Dulles is that Dulles had a new world concept in his view finder, an older brother filling him in when he wasn’t paving the way for his ideas in D.C. The fix was in!
So what else is new??? The US has always been good at bending the truth (I think it is called propaganda) in its favour. No different now. And especially inconvenient truths disappear under the carpet.
Omission of info about the Azov battalion and allied neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine and support for them by the US since the 2014 coup, with the Ukronazis’ vicious attacks and killing of the Russian people in the Donbas, is the biggest lie that is being perpetrated by propaganda. Thousands of Russian ethnic citizens of Ukraine have died and many have been detained and tortured. Putin has called this “genocide” and rightly so. Even websites that should be reporting this, state the Russian objective as only anti-NATO for Ukraine. And bio laboratories in Ukraine right on Russia’s western border, about 11 to perhaps 14 as reported by Diltana Gaytandzhieva, Bulgarian reporter, is no small thing. The omission of this information is the biggest lie perpetrated by what Putin has called the “Empire of Lies”.
I think when Putin cited Article 51 of the UN Charter he did it for a reason.
Having sat through endless corporate meetings I know how long it really takes to plan and organize something.
The mother of all propaganda campaigns could not have been organized overnight. It is as much evidence that we were planning to invade Russia as bombed German tanks in Poland in May 1941 would have been of Operation Barbarossa.
I see that we finally got out of Iraq….just in time to got after Russia. Gotta have a mission so we can keep the “Defense Dept” busy busy busy, hungry and homeless Americans can f themselves. Our government really sucks.
The Washington cabal’s first victims were domestic. Try taking a tour of North Philadelphia on Google Street View (e.g. N19th St) to see the desolation that has been wrought on America’s first capital.
Take a look at the full text of Eisenhower’s farewell address, it was all predicted:
hxxps://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address#transcript
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.”
By not voting and by giving in to big money’s subversion of our liberties and democratic processes we have failed to heed Eisenhower’s warning. Every citizen now needs to stand up be counted, tell the world what has been really going on and then vote the bastards out of office.
“The status quo worldview requires two entirely contradictory positions to be held simultaneously: that Russian propaganda has a corrupting influence on public thought, but that orders of magnitude more wealthy and powerful oligarchic media institutions do not.”
People in my 3D environment keep starting conversations about the war in Ukraine and I keep asking them to think about who owns the cable news channels they are plugged into. It used to be a huge red flag for conservative acquaintances when the liberal establishment media was united with them on some issue and their talking points were identical. But not anymore. How can you not believe what you see with your eyes and hear with your ears?! The black box cannot tell a lie. I am the crazy one.
“We’re on our way to finding out just how much mass-scale psychological manipulation the human brain can tolerate before it snaps”
Most of us “snapped” a while ago.
“There was nothing inherent in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which called for this specific response from all the specific nations”
Sorry to interfere, but that’s a half-truth at best. In the first place, I agree that a very similar response would have been justified when Bush invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, to say nothing of the economic warfare against Venezuela. Plus, the West {sic} contributed shamefully to the provocations. No clean hands.
However, the sanctions regime is tailored to the specific situation: an open act of aggression by a nuclear power. Given the danger of nuclear annihilation, the US and NATO cannot intervene directly – fortunately, they’re so far actually showing restraint. That leaves economic sanctions and aid to the attacked government. If there’s another option, please tell us about it. And little as I trust or support Biden, the extreme sanctions are proportional to the extreme situation in Ukraine – but probably inadequate.
I wish I thought there were better options, but given the realities at the UN, I don’t see them.
The other option would have been for the US not to have overthrown the democratically-elected Ukrainian government in 2014, which led to the current situation. Subsequently, and even to this day, the other option to end the problem would have been for the Ukrainian government to implement the Minsk II Agreement.
The US sanctions are not only not “tailored” they are extremist responses to Russia’s minimalist responses to the US years of aggression against Russians in Ukraine and everywhere else. You did not miss those facts, you are covering them up.
Bingo, give that man a cigar! OregonC doesn’t want to admit that the US has been playing both sides against the middle, as usual. As the current, soon to be forgotten, enforcer of the Great Reset, our once great nation is about to experience chastisement like they’ve never received before.
The war could end if Russia’s demands are met. Russia has been trying to diplomatically solve this problem for many years and has not been met in good faith by the US and it’s European partners. Since we refuse to change our course and to legitimately engage with Russia’s security concerns we refuse to negotiate for a peaceful resolution, even now. But it would be possible to do so although it would take a long time and a lot of work to repair the damage that has been done to the relations between Russia and the west.
Another option is to negotiate. Sanctions are aimed at making the lives of the poor and the working class in Russia (as in Iran and Afghanistan) even more miserable than at present. Rarely do they achieve their stated aims. If negotiations and diplomacy had been seriously pursued in the last few years, Vladimir Putin would not have had his excuse to launch his invasion in the first place. Right now, it appears that neither President Zelensky nor the USA have much desire to end this war, as the longer it continues the more heroic Zelensky appears at the cost of his citizens’ lives and the more likely it is that President Putin will be replaced by a more US-friendly leader as in the years after 1991. To return Russia to the decade when life expectancies shrank markedly and oligarchs – encouraged by the IMF – thieved every state institution would be the ideal outcome for the USA.
I would say Ukraine signing the Minsk agreement and being neutral would have been a good option. This war did not happen out of nowhere. Most saw it coming due to beligerence of NATO and US. This war can still stop if some variation of the above is agreed to, but the western powers have chosen profit over death, destruction and misery of Ukrainians and Russians.
Come to the table and talk — which should have happened in response to Russian concerns, and could have prevented the war — surely that’s a better option?
Did you personally do anything to withdraw support for the US at the onset of the Iraq invasion? “Showing restraint”? I’d hate to see you punish your kids.
You seem to have forgotten all the diplomatic options put before Washington and Nato before military confrontation would become their last resort. The list is long and will not be repeated here (it includes, for example, Minsk2, Ukrainian neutrality, Ukrainian membership in Nato, cessation of the genocide in Donbas (laughed at by the German chancellor!), removal of missiles from Poland & Romania, etc, etc. In fact, the West was told exactly how things would play out if Russia’s security issues were not addressed. Not only were they not addressed, they were pointedly ignored, then brushed aside with utter contempt, as if beneath the dignity of Washington to acknowledge anyone’s concerns but its own. Frankly, Washington DARED Putin to take military action (because it made damned sure all else would fail) precisely so it could continue to double down on the punishments, provocations, and rampant propaganda it dispenses in place of truth, wisdom or common sense. Washington is delighted that it has brought the world to the brink of a nuclear conflagration. The fools think it enhances their leverage which, on the merits, has receded to near zero with most of the planet. It is cocked sure that its harassed “enemy” will stop short of any mutually suicidal decision and make absolutely no mistakes in its responses. Washington’s only committed allies left are Nato and its junior auxiliary in the Pacific, and even those lackey vassals are kept on the reservation through threats and intimidation. Can you not see any of this, man? Oh, that’s right, you said that you do not. Well, look harder.
> “I wish I thought there were better options, but given the realities at the UN, I don’t see them.”
That may be because you aren’t familiar with the decades-long, relentless aggression by the US/NATO that pushed Russia into a corner from which it believes this action is the only escape.
One better option for the US and its dependent allies would have been not to encircle Russia with a hostile military alliance. It would have been better not to sponsor a coup, fronted by actual Nazis, to overthrow an elected president in Ukraine. It would have been better not to arm the nation where we sponsored that coup and not to have trained and supported the forces besieging ethnic Russians in the breakaway oblasts of eastern Ukraine, killing many thousands over eight years.
It would have been better, this past December, upon receipt of the draft proposal for a mutual security agreement, to proceed immediately to the negotiating table.
It would be much better, right now, to stop prolonging a war that Ukraine can only lose and to stop risking escalation that could easily trigger the nuclear annihilation we’d all like to avoid. Well, most of us would like to avoid it.
I think it might be a good idea to review the options again.
There is no question that the US designed and directed sanctions against Russia have been successfully sold to the general public as an appropriate and effective way to pressure Putin to end his “special military operation” in Ukraine and restore the peace. However, when you consider that there has been no peace jn the Donbas region of Ukraine since the US supported 2014 coup, one cannot help but wonder if the real purpose of the sanctions has less to do with bringing peace to Ukraine than it does to employing economic warfare to completely destroy Russia once and for all.
Another option would have been to refrain from systematically undermining Russia’s economy and physical security by every means possible since 1992.
But that option is now off the table. Isn’t it a shame? How about this for an option: Large numbers of people in all the “Western” nations organize and discuss the issue of global security, beginning with neighborhood dicussions and on up to mass petitioning, strikes, and election boycotts, followed by a demand for the immediate dissolution of NATO and the banning of any MICIMATT* influence on the political process.
But don’t worry; I’m sure you and I will be able to find work somewhere.
*Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think Tank