“We’ve Got to Fight Disinformation,” Says Empire Made Entirely of Disinformation

The weirdest thing about the Biden administration tasking itself with the censorship of “disinformation” on social media is that the United States is the hub of a globe-spanning empire that is built upon a foundation of disinformation, maintained by disinformation, and facilitated by disinformation.

If the propaganda engine of the US-centralized empire ceased actively deceiving the public about the world, it would collapse immediately. There would be mass unrest at home and abroad, status quo politics would be abandoned, alliances and coalitions would crumble, leaders official and unofficial would be ousted, and US unipolar hegemony would end.

The only thing keeping this from happening is the vast amounts of wealth and energy which are poured into continuously deceiving the people of America and its allies about what’s really going on in their nations and political systems, and in the world as a whole.

Getting people believing they live in separate, sovereign nations which function independently from one another, instead of member states within a single undeclared empire which moves as one unit on the international stage.

Getting people believing they control the fate of their nation via the democratic process, when in reality all large-scale politics are scripted puppet shows controlled by a plutocratic class who owns both the politicians and the media outlets which report on them.

Getting people believing they are part of a virtuous rules-based international order which opposes totalitarian regimes to spread freedom and democracy, instead of a tyrannical empire that works to destroy any nation which disobeys its dictates.

And above all, manufacturing the illusion that the oppressive, exploitative imperialist status quo is normal.

It’s not the big, famous lies like those which preceded the invasion of Iraq that make up the bulk of the adhesive holding the empire together, it’s the small, mundane lies we’re fed every single day by the plutocratic media. The ones which distort our worldview by half-truths, spins and omissions designed to normalize a status quo of murder, theft and ecocide.

This normalization happens in the way pundits and politicians treat any attempt to end wars or redress income inequality as freakish extremism and unrealistic fantasy, when in reality it’s the most sane and normal thing in the world and the only thing unrealistic about it is the fact that attempts to advance those agendas are always sabotaged by those same pundits and politicians.

The normalization also happens in the way endless wars, starvation deaths by US sanctions, the looming threat of total extinction via climate collapse or nuclear war, rapidly exacerbating income inequality and increasing tyranny at home and abroad are not treated as newsworthy stories, while celebrity gossip and partisan bickering between AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene makes headline news. Every day the news media fail to report on the greatest horrors that the empire has unleashed on our world while focusing on vapid trivialities, they help normalize the horrors.

If the mass media actually existed to share important information about the world, the US-backed genocide in Yemen would be front-page news every day instead of something which gets a marginal mention once every few weeks. Every day it isn’t, this outrageous abuse is normalized.

If the mass media actually existed to share important information about the world, the fact that Americans are getting poorer and poorer while billionaires multiply their wealth during the pandemic would be brought front and center to everyone’s attention. Every day it isn’t, this outrageous abuse is normalized.

If the mass media actually existed to share important information about the world, the fact that the US military just spent trillions of dollars on a decades-long occupation of Afghanistan that accomplished nothing besides making horrible people rich would have been a national scandal. Every day it isn’t, this outrageous abuse is normalized.

But the mass media do not exist to share important information about the world. They exist to share important disinformation about the world. If they did not do this, the same US empire which is decrying the spread of disinformation today would collapse into its own footprint.

The US empire is without exception the single most corrupt and destructive force on this planet, and it’s not even close. It is the very last institution on earth that should be in charge of deciding what online content is true and what is “disinformation”. Absolute dead last, without exaggeration.

Depraved institutions which lie constantly and have killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century should not be the Ministry of Truth for the world’s online communication systems. This should be extremely obvious to everyone.

Source: Caitlin Johnstone

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  • Penny red

    During the highland clearances of the 17th & 18th century, the peasants were cleared off the common land, cleared off their ancestral small holdings and left to starve, emigrate to the new world or fish on the coast, many millions starved to death.
    This clearance of the independent ‘common man’s’ lively hood is happening again today.

    The ‘highlands’ of the free market economy are being cleared again of the common man, as it is fenced off as the preserve of the large capital owners and billionaire corporations.
    This is not a new policy even in the modern era, it has been a slow creeping shift for decades in the UK & US, that is why there are almost no independent shop keepers on any British or American high-streets. Thy are composed of the same corporations from Glasgow to St Ives. COVID is simply accelerating this process, and causing the mass decimation of small business in only a few months.

    So before you cheer Fox news for attacking Covid measures, remember that it is they who have pushed these policies on us over the years, in the name of deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy, and it is they who share the aims of this very neo-liberal Viruses. They are not operating as lovers of freedom, but rather on behalf of the capital owners who own them.

    This comment is censored on off-guardian, I wonder why?

    • Juan

      You got the symptom but you suck at the causes. Deregulation and low taxes help the small guy, regulation and high taxes are WHAT THE BIG CORPS WANT (both of which fat cats navigate with ease with their armies of lawyers and financial advisers, also they get help from corrupt bureaucrats up to the top of the political chain).

      People that blame “capitalism” is part of the problem. After all, what is socialism but the most extreme form of monopoly?

  • ken

    The only thing keeping this from happening is the vast amounts of wealth and energy which are poured into continuously deceiving the people of America and its allies”

    Americans are willingly deceived. They know what’s going on and don’t give a crap. They have no concern about their neighbor or their country, much less the poor bastards around the world. They checked their liberty at the door years ago for a government check.

    They deserve the hell that’s coming their way.

  • Oilman

    It’s not just in the U.S. but in every 5 Eyes members. They all taking steps to control what you can and cannot see. That is fascism at its very best.

    The worse part is that the people have all the controls but refuse to use them hence why they are now sheep. A handful of people fighting for your rights is simply not enough. Everyone needs to get involved.

    Remember this: They are very few vs billions.

  • Pablo

    This shows once AGAIN the urgent, dire need to smash the Media Monopoly in the USA!! “If the propaganda engine of the US-centralized empire ceased actively deceiving the public about the world, it would collapse immediately.” That is very likely true. And the Neo Cons and AIPAC and Big Pharma and the War Industry are FULLY aware of this fact. It’s why they all worked–Bill Clinton was the prime mover here–to get control of Information. These groups knew this was imortant in the Information Age. We as a People need to smash the Media Monopolies into a thousand pieces.

  • yuri

    “amerikans have been liars and braggarts for 3 centuries”. Daniel Boorstin
    “the men amerikans most admire dare to tell them the most extravagant lies; the men they most despise try to tell them the truth”. HL Menkhen

  • Thomas Turk

    More fake nooz.. by Brian Shilhavy. Editor, Health Impact News. Ohio-based Attorney Thomas Renz was one of several speakers this past weekend at a conference in Anaheim, California, where he announced that with the help of America’s Frontline Doctors, he was filing a federal lawsuit in Alabama based on a “sworn declaration, under threat of perjury,” from an alleged whistleblower who claims to have inside knowledge of a cover-up of reported deaths filed with the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which is operated by the CDC. This whistleblower has allegedly claimed, under oath, that there are at least 45,000 reported deaths that have occurred within 3 days of receiving a COVID-19 “vaccine.” Renz states that this report of 45,000 deaths is just from “one system” that reports to VAERS.

  • Juan

     looming threat of total extinction via climate collapse” not true, but the rest makes sense.