Insanity Fatigue, Distinguishing Real News

Insanity Fatigue

Oligarchs, though they speak of deconstructing the administrative state, actually increase deficits and the size and power of law enforcement and the military to protect their global business interests and ensure domestic social control. The parts of the state that serve the common good wither in the name of deregulation and austerity. The parts that promote the oligarchs’ power expand in the name of national security, economic growth and law and order.

It’s actually quite extraordinary that a people so systemically and obviously preyed upon cannot see what’s right in front of them. It’s mind-boggling that tens of millions are so easily divided and conquered into manufactured tribes intent on avoiding at all costs what’s really going on in this country, such as a fraudulent financial system, endless imperial wars and the ever encroaching surveillance state. Long story short, we as a people simply refuse to accept what’s really causing the rot in this country and continue to be mesmerized by bread, circuses and opportunistic pundits leading us straight into oblivion.

I suppose this is always the way it is at the end of a failing and bankrupt empire, it’s just extraordinary to watch it happen in real time.

The total insanity of the political debate in the U.S., and a lack of any willingness to admit our real systemic problems — let alone face them — is what convinces me without a doubt that this train is headed straight into a brick wall.

That’s not to say other countries are in fine shape, they aren’t. The whole planet’s become entangled in America’s increasingly corrupt, militaristic and fraudulent imperial financial system. Escape will not be clean or easy for anybody. Nevertheless, the U.S. has the furtherest to fall given it is the world’s dominant power armed with the global reserve currency. An empire with such an overwhelming structural advantage can last a lot longer than it should in the face of monumental incompetence, but the day of reckoning is coming.

The system is breaking down in a very serious and dangerous manner as a result of decades of unaccountable oligarch plunder.

A historic theft aided and abetted by politicians, intelligence agencies and corporate media, which provide the necessary backbone to keep oligarchy entrenched and the public confused and bickering about endless superficialities.

If a thoughtful public backlash based on incisive analysis and energy capable of reforming this imperial oligarchy was coming, it would have arrived by now. It’s not coming, thus, imperial collapse is all but guaranteed.

My guess is it’ll probably all be over by 2025 at the latest.

How You Can Distinguish Fake News from Real News, According to the Expert

What kind of fake news is most damaging? Is it the kind that puts out a conspiracy theory with no evidence? Or is it a headline story that can easily be debunked, designed to ride a wave of viral clicks which only lasts hours or days?

Those aren’t the most dangerous types of fake news. The real problem is when trusted mainstream media sources roll out a propaganda campaign. And that happens basically every day.

In fact, the whole “fake news” agenda is part of a campaign of disinformation.

In a recent Ted Talk, investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson says it all started when Obama gave the media their marching orders.

He insisted in a speech that he too thought somebody needed to step in and curate information of this wild, wild West media environment. Nobody in the public had been clamoring for any such thing, yet suddenly the topic of fake news dominates headlines on a daily basis.

It’s as if the media had been given its marching orders. Fake news they insisted was an imminent threat to American democracy.

But as somebody who studied the industry that seeks to manipulate all of us on behalf of paid interests, I know that few themes arise in our environment organically.

A noted propagandist told me, “It’s like a movie,” he said, and it gave me chills at the time.

“Nearly every scene or image that crosses our path in daily life,” he said “was put there for a reason. Often by someone who paid a lot of money to place it there.”

What if the whole anti-fake news campaign was an effort on somebody’s part to keep us from seeing or believing certain websites or stories by controversializing them or labeling them as fake news?

Attkisson explains that when she followed the money, it led back to Google parent company Alphabet’s CEO Eric Schmidt. He volunteered to advise Hillary Clinton’s campaign and donated millions of dollars to her election bid.

They then got Media Matters involved, who reportedly convinced Facebook to support their “fake news” efforts. The idea was that if they could be the ones to label news fake, they would have ultimate control over the narrative. People would rely on Facebook and Google to curate real news and teach them what was fake news.

Attkisson said:

I’m not the only one who thinks this whole thing smacked of the rollout of a propaganda campaign.

She gives two main ways to tell if powerful interests are trying to manipulate opinion.

Number one, when the media seems to be trying to shape or censor facts and opinions rather than report them.

Number two, when so many in the media are reporting the same stories, promulgating the same narratives, relying on the same sources — even using the same phrases… When everybody’s on the same page, it might be the result of an organized campaign.

Attkisson’s final warning is about efforts to teach “media literacy–as in: we’ll tell you who to trust and who not to trust.”

But you need to remember that when interests are working this hard to shape your opinion, their true goal might just be to add another layer between you and the truth.