It's important to understand that the imperial propagandists don't just tell us WHAT to think; they also train us HOW to think. Feeding us bad information is only half their job; the other half is shaping the cognitive frameworks by which we form opinions about that information.
This is why the mass media have "opinion" segments as well as "news" segments. They're not there in case you were curious what Johnny McThinktank's opinions are on the issue of the day (they know you weren't), they're to model the acceptable parameters of thinking on that issue.
And the acceptable parameters of thinking will always take it as a given that the mechanisms of oligarchy and empire mustn't be interrupted or inconvenienced in any way. Differing opinions will be modeled on HOW those mechanisms should be advanced, but never IF they should.
This is why the renowned expert PhD will often have a less truth-based worldview than your stoner flatmate with an eighth-grade education. Because they've been trained on both WHAT to think and HOW to think, they'll pour all their intellect into defending lie-based worldviews.

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More from @caitoz

3 Jul
The Horrifying Rise Of Total Mass Media Blackouts On Inconvenient News Stories

"What's being communicated to whistleblowers and journalists in these blackouts is, don't bother. It won't make any difference, because no one will ever see what you reveal."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-horrifyi…
Two different media watchdog outlets, @medialens and @FAIRmediawatch, have published articles on the complete blackout in mainstream news institutions on the revelation that the US prosecution against Assange relied on false testimony.
medialens.org/2021/a-remarka…
"A search online for either 'Assange' or 'Thordarson' will elicit zero relevant articles from establishment sources, either US or elsewhere in the Anglosphere, even in tech-focused platforms like the Verge, Wired or Gizmodo."
~ @FAIRmediawatch
fair.org/home/key-assan…
Read 19 tweets
30 Jun
The way the mass media have begun simply ignoring major news stories that are inconvenient for the powerful, across not just some but ALL major news outlets, is extremely disturbing. It means any time there's an inconvenient revelation, the MSM will just pretend it doesn't exist.
Seriously think about what this means for a moment. You want to talk about a threat to the press? Forget jailing journalists and whistleblowers, how about all news outlets of any real influence unifying to simply deny coverage to any major information which comes to light?
They just completely blacked out the Stundin report on Assange, and the OPCW leaks before that. The journalists involved in those revelations would naturally have expected these major revelations to receive mainstream coverage, but they just didn't. They were disappeared.
Read 9 tweets
29 Jun
HAHAHA this article is amazing and definitely worth reading, primarily for the insight it provides into the lifestyle and mindset of the elite population that comprises most of mainstream western journalism today.
This is the kind of news reporting that's been shaping the western Syria narrative for years.
"Rather than retract her bogus dispatch, Newsweek quietly issued what might have been one of the longest corrections in journalistic history: a 168-word, seven-sentence mini-essay that read as follows:"
Read 8 tweets
29 Jun
The Weird, Creepy Media Blackout On Recent Assange Revelations

It's been more than three days since the @stundin story broke, and yet somehow not only is Assange still in prison, but the mass media are completely ignoring the massive story about his case.
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-weird-cr…
The Weird, Creepy Media Blackout On Recent Assange Revelations (Audio)

"Western mass media outlets are propaganda... You see this propaganda in the way things are reported, but you also see it in the way things are not reported."
soundcloud.com/going_rogue/th…
As of this writing, it has been three days since the Icelandic newspaper Stundin broke the story that a key witness in the US government's case against Julian Assange had fabricated allegations against the WikiLeaks founder. Yet Assange is still in prison.
stundin.is/grein/13627/ke…
Read 15 tweets
28 Jun
We haven't seen anything like the complete mass media blackout on @stundin's revelation that the Assange prosecution relied on false testimony since the complete mass media blackout on the OPCW leaks.
The evidence that western media is a propaganda arm of the US-centralized empire consists as much of what they don't report as what they do.
The western media have a trick where as long as no other major news media outlet reports a story, they can treat that story as though it never happened. That's what they did with the OPCW scandal, and it's what they're doing with the @Stundin exclusive.
Read 6 tweets
26 Jun
Becoming conscious as a white person is a little bit like waking up with a bad hangover, covered in blood and surrounded by dead bodies, and slowly realizing that you're holding the murder weapon.
White people talk about "white guilt" like it's this horrifying dangerous thing made of molten lava that will kill you if you don't run away from it as fast as you can. But coming to conscious terms with your place in the world will bring up many emotions, like grief, and guilt.
It's not ABOUT the guilt, it's about becoming aware of reality. But the guilt is there, waiting to be felt, and you're either conscious of it and real about it or you're not. Pretending it's not there just makes you defensive and aggressive.
Read 4 tweets

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