If You Buy Into The Anti-China Propaganda You’re Just A Stupid Asshole: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

The US creates poverty and chaos in other countries and then sounds the alarm over a “migrant crisis” as people flee those conditions it created. It’s like flooding the basement and then crying when the people who live there try to come upstairs.

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I can’t say enough unkind words about people who are buying into the obvious anti-China propaganda push. We’ve seen them do this so many times to so many countries by now, if you still fall for it at this point you’re just a stupid asshole who deserves to have their feelings hurt. All out of patience for this bullshit.

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If you support the persecution of Julian Assange, that means you believe all media everywhere should function as US propaganda organs. You believe all journalists everywhere have a responsibility to help the US empire keep its crimes hidden, and should be punished if they don’t.

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There’s a whole big controversy on Twitter right now over right wing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green posing for photos with the antiwar activism group Code Pink, who were in DC protesting the US proxy war in Ukraine. Code Pink’s left wing supporters got upset, Code Pink issued an apologetic statement, and now everyone’s arguing over whether MAGA Republicans like Greene and Matt Gaetz can truly be considered “anti-war” since their faction is extremely hawkish toward nations like China, Iran, and Mexico.

I personally see no conflict between the two sides of the debate. There’s not actually any contradiction between the positions (A) MAGA Republicans are horrible assholes and are not actually anti-war and (B) MAGA Republicans are far better on Ukraine than even the most progressive Democrats in Washington. It’s very easy and correct to understand both as true.

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There’s a whole network of safeguards in place to ensure that those who get elevated to celebrity status won’t use their influence to disrupt the empire. On the rare occasions that someone has slipped past those safeguards (Roger Waters, Susan Sarandon etc), imperial narrative managers react catastrophically and launch aggressive smear campaigns to undermine their influence, because they are no longer deemed deserving of that influence.

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There’s been an above-average amount of feuding in independent media lately, which illustrates why I try to keep to myself and avoid any formal collaborations with other anti-imperialist content creators these days.

I sincerely couldn’t care less about the grudges indie media figures hold against each other or how their feelings feel about each other. My sole interest in them is how effective they are at exposing and fighting the imperial machine. In whatever ways they are I will amplify and cite their work, in whatever ways they aren’t I’ll ignore them.

This thing is too important to care about anything else beyond that.

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During the 2016 presidential race progressives were galvanized by Bernie Sanders and his talk about revolutionary change and economic justice for all. Turns out he was really talking about voting for shitty Democrats and arresting antiwar protesters like any other asshole in DC.

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In February 2022 everyone was shrieking in unison that this was a completely unprovoked invasion that needs to be crushed by any means necessary. Now even the head of NATO admits it was provoked by NATO expansion and the US congress is having trouble getting proxy war funding.

It always happens this way. There’s screaming emotional hysteria leading to profoundly unwise decisions being made, then the smoke clears and people start realizing it was a big mistake, then there’s this long drawn out silent shrinking away from it. We saw it with Afghanistan and Iraq in the wake of 9/11, we saw it with Libya, and we’re seeing it again with Ukraine. Maybe someday we can stop letting the warmongers capitalize on the emotional frenzy of the moment in such instances and start letting cooler heads prevail.

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Saying “Peace in Ukraine!” without acknowledging the western aggressions which provoked the war is like saying “Save the drowning man!” without acknowledging your own hand holding his head underwater. You can never get to peace while denying the factors which obstruct it.

This is why it matters so much that this war was provoked. It’s not some irrelevant geopolitical blame game to score propaganda points, it’s spotlighting an absolutely essential piece of information for the world to find its way out of this war. Russia will not stop fighting as long as the west is threatening its security concerns in the ways that provoked the invasion.

You can’t just call for an end to aggressions while denying the existence of one of the aggressors. That’s not how peace negotiations work. The very first step is acknowledging reality. Only then can both aggressors, Russia and the western empire, begin working toward mutual de-escalation.

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/if-you-buy-into-the-anti-china-propaganda