When you want to see what U.S. deep state propagandists are up to, all you have to do is take a glance at what meme corporate media happens to be pushing any given week. It’s been almost a decade since I started observing and analyzing the corporate press on a daily basis, and I can now say unequivocally that the quality of American imperial propaganda has gone completely down the crapper.
The believability of some of the stuff being pushed these days defies all logic and is easily dispelled with an ounce of critical thought, yet there it is, in our face on a daily basis almost taunting the intelligence of the U.S. population. Indeed, it appears the current strategy is no more sophisticated that proclaiming any and all dissent as being the result of “Russia operations.” This is done to prevent any actual debate on subjects of grave national importance since the U.S. government knows its claims don’t hold up to any real scrutiny. Why look into the veracity of a deep state claim when we can just dismiss alternative viewpoints as “Russian operations.”
To see what I mean, take a look at some excerpts from a recent article published by ABC News, Behind #SyriaHoax and the Russian Propaganda Onslaught:
As Syrian president Bashar al-Assad called videos of last week’s chemical attack a “fabrication,” a piece of propaganda promoted by a Russian cyber operation and bearing the hashtag #SyriaHoax has gained traction in the United States, analysts tell ABC News.
Following the chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians on Tuesday, Al-Masdar News, a pro-Assad website based in Beirut, published claims that “something is not adding up in [the] Idlib chemical weapons attack.” Its author cited “holes” in the accounts provided by the “Al-Qaeda affiliated” White Helmets leading to the conclusion that “this is another false chemical attack allegation made against the government.”
That hoax story was promoted by a network of Russian social media accounts and ultimately picked up by popular alt-right personalities in the United States, including Mike Cernovich, one of the leading voices in the debunked ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory. Cernovich popularized its new hashtag — #SyriaHoax — and sent it soaring through cyberspace. According to Trends24, within hours of the retaliatory missile strike President Donald Trump launched on Thursday night, #SyriaHoax was the No. 1 trending Twitter topic in the United States.
There are a few things I want to highlight when it comes to these first three paragraphs. First, anyone paying the slightest amount of attention to what’s happening in the world would have immediately and independently questioned why Assad would launch a chemical attack guaranteed to lead to widespread international condemnation at the very moment he was most secure in his own position. No “Russian operation” needed to recognize Assad’s total lack of motive. Indeed, two of America’s more respectable former Congressmen, Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich both questioned the ridiculous deep state Syria narrative.
Moreover, the reason corporate media needs to call #SyriaHoax a Russian operation is because it became the No. 1 trending topic in America. The public can’t be allowed to think this train of thought represents actual grassroots thinking (which it does), because that would imply that trust in the status quo is evaporating rapidly and uncontrollably (it is).
Now here’s the very next paragraph of the article.
J.M. Berger of The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague, who studies propaganda and social media analytical techniques, said #SyriaHoax is “a clear example of a Russian influence campaign” designed to undermine the credibility of the U.S. government.
This is pure comedy. As if the U.S. government needs Russia to “undermine its credibility.” It does a perfectly good job of doing that all on its own. Was Russia responsible for bailing out Wall Street and funneling trillions to financial criminals, thus propelling the nation into a new Gilded Age where a handful of oligarchs steal everything with impunity while the rest of the country drowns? Didn’t think so.
It’s all very reminiscent to how the pathetic Democratic establishment responded to Hillary Clinton’s loss. Rather than admitting she was a horrible candidate who ran a delusional campaign, theyers merely deflected criticism to Russia, James Comey, Bernie Bros, etc. It’s been a very embarrassing public strategy, and the deep state is now resorting to the exact same strategy through its corporate media parrots. All dissent is a Russian operation. Anything bad that happens to America has nothing to do with our corrupt, clownish leadership, but is Putin’s fault. This is where all of this is going, and it’s further evidence that the American empire has entered a much more pronounced and dangerous period of decline.
From a personal perspective, I know for a fact that the corporate media has a very specific narrative to falsely categorize anyone who questions the status quo as a Russian operative, because it happened to me via The Washington Post. As I noted in the piece, Liberty Blitzkrieg Included on Washington Post Highlighted Hit List of “Russian Propaganda” Websites:
Let’s take Liberty Blitzkrieg for example. Despite the fact that my site is mentioned on “the list,” nobody from PropOrNot bothered to contact me while doing their “research.” They could’ve asked very simple questions about how the site is run, who owns it, and who makes decisions about editorial content. Furthermore, I doubt they did any such research with regard to any of the mentioned sites before slandering them.
Since they failed to do any real work, let me answer several of these questions. I, Michael Krieger, am the 100% owner of Liberty Blitzkrieg. I am the only person who makes decisions on what to publish and when. I have absolutely no connections, financial or otherwise, to the Russian government, Russian interests, or the interests of any other government or government related group. Moreover, there is simply nobody on planet earth who has any influence on what I write or what I publish. I left a very successful and financially lucrative job to do what I do now because my passions and ethical grounding pushed me in this direction. If I was interested in making enormous sums of money, I could’ve easily stayed on Wall Street.
Moreover, I rarely write about Russia, with the exception of trying to prevent insane neocons and neoliberals in our government from actively seeking a military confrontation, because I — like most normal human beings — would prefer not to contribute to the manifestation of World War 3. Likewise, I try to prevent war breaking out in all circumstances where I think it can and should be avoided. I intentionally almost never use RT as a source, and I’ve never quoted anything from Sputnik. Unlike The Washington Post, I try to be extremely diligent about not publishing fake news, but I am a very strong critic of U.S. government policy, because much of U.S. government policy is certifiably insane and unethical. You can disagree with my opinion on that all you’d like, but I challenge anyone to find anything that could reasonably be considered pro-Russia propaganda on my website. If Liberty Blitzkrieg really is a Russian propaganda site, this should be easy to do since I’ve published thousands of articles over the years.
I have yet to receive an apology from The Washington Post for the lies it shamelessly promoted, but I digress.
Perhaps most importantly, the U.S. deep state is increasingly losing the very people it depends on to sustain even the slightest degree of public credibility. I’m one example. Born in the belly of the financial beast of New York City, I was raised privileged, went to the right schools, graduated from a top university and launched my Wall Street career at the age of 22. Ten years later, I was earning a stupid amount of money for adding absolutely nothing to society, but the response from the powers that be to the financial crisis was so grotesque and unethical I could no longer in good faith continue my career. This isn’t the sort of thing that’s supposed to happen. People like me are supposed to stay loyal to the system for life due to the rewards the system bestows upon us. The fact that someone like me became opposed to a system that was so personally lucrative should be seen as a red flag for those in power. If it happened to me, it’s happened to countless others.
Due to my upbringing and career on Wall Street, many of my close friends are from a socioeconomic class that should be deeply loyal to the power structure. The big secret is that they aren’t. Sure, many of them are forced to work in jobs and industries they despise due to familiar obligations and responsibilities, but don’t mistake this for faith or trust in the status quo. The vast majority of people I know fully understand that the U.S. system is a corrupt cesspool of shifty operators and rent-seeking scamsters. While they may need to play the game to survive and protect their families, they have no loyalty to or trust in the current paradigm and that will ultimately be very important. Multiple people told me that The Washington Post’s slandering of my website was a huge wakeup call for them, which highlighted just how dishonest the corporate press has become.
My theory is that the U.S. has entered a more dangerous period of late-stage imperial collapse. Donald Trump was elected by many to reverse this course, but with his recent pivot away from domestic concerns to focus on war, he’ll likely preside over a dramatic and chaotic period of decline. When this happens, all sorts of people will come out of the woodwork, and you’ll see very quickly how little support the deep state actually has amongst the populace. This period will be frightening to witness, but it’s also a necessary evil.
We must harness the opportunity and replace the corrupt, warmongering, Wall Street controlled dead-end culture and economy with a new paradigm after the old one crashes and burns, which it undoubtably will.
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In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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Hey Mike, up to the moment, the decline of the Empire has been hilarious rather than frightening. It is difficult to believe there will be a dramatic collapse. Empires borne of personal conquest, such as that of Alexander often do collapse dramatically shortly after the conqueror’s death because spear-points make poor foundations. America’s Empire is based on a much firmer foundation that won’t crumble before many of its peon “allies” do. Naturally, one can argue the real Empire is only 25 years old, having been born in 1991 with the death of the Soviet challenger — or better yet — 16 years old with the perpetual war cycle begun on 9/11, which saw the wild expansion of the Empire into every continent through CENTCOM’s tentacles. Or maybe the Empire is a mere 8 years old, what with the ridiculous expansion of credit-debt since the 2008 financial crash, which has tied the world’s financial survival to the Empire’s survival. Perhaps Donald Trump, then, is merely a Seleucus Nicator, doomed to oversee a scramble for the fragments of past conquerors as they slip through his fingers like so many grains of sand. Or, he could be a Holy Roman Emperor like Ferdinand III, trading away the health and welfare of his inheritance in exchange for the right to wear the crown. The Holy Roman Empire survived another 158 years after Ferdinand ratified the Treaty of Westphalia, but nobody thought it was worth saving as it finally vanished with scarce acknowledgment.
Great post, Michael, at least IMHO 🙂 I guess Teddy Roosevelt cribbed his quote about country vs gov’t loyalty from Twain… an old story. I’m recently new here (from Max Keiser :), but I love the point… even rich people have brains and consciences… Nomi Prinz, Alexis Goldstein, you… and we could could count Michael Lewis… and your fronting for all the others 🙂
Being 70 yo, I remember other ‘fake news’… so for my latest slogans/signs/ memes/sound bytes etc, designed to snare the non-choir attention: “Fake News = Gulf of Tonkin” “Fake News = Saddam’s WMD” OK…. whose got other fake news war triggers that are familiar to Repubs, etc. “Fake News = US War Mongering” “Eisenhower: Beware the War Profiteers” “Let’s Learn, Not Repeat”
We can know all the history, all the buried facts, etc., but we need unity… if we can’t agree to disagree with fellow patriots about minor issues (that can probably be left to states), and reach out to join hands on the evil of Mammon Worship that has seduced our national leadership …….it’s what we DO that counts.
the late stage of imperial collapse could last easily another 10-20 years before something breaks badly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Leonid_Brezhnev
brezhnev lasted 18 years before gorbachev who lasted only a couple years.
his 18 years were the time of stagnation.
i would state that obama began the 8 years of stagnation post financial crisis . we have another 10 years and probably at least one more president before a president is elected who will preside over a ‘collapse’ moment.
that moment might begin with a bigger yet untenable escalation of war or it might not, but the key signature of such a president will be a dramatic crash of treasury bond prices even while yields remain at near 0 or even negative rates.
these things happen fast in historical time scales but not in human time scales.
social/historical timescale years are to human years as human years are to dog years, not in a numerical sense but more like in a perception sense.
every year of history referenced time scale is a multiple X of human scale perception.
geological time scales are even greater.
that is why when global warming people talk about the end of days or global warming caused catastrophe they get so confused when distinguishing between geological time scale events which may occur 100, 200 or 1000 years from now. they are perceiving the global warming narrative as occuring or threatening to be a human issue on a political or historical time scale rather than a geological one.
to them it’s going to happen ‘very soon in the coming generation’ but someone who accepts a geological time scale approach will admit that whatever expected calamity might occur—–cannot be predicted to occur with any reliable accuracy on the order of the next 5 centuries. When confronted with this observation, most apocolyptic global warmers type cannot even digest this perceptional observation.
however, when it comes to political and financial narrative prediction, it is probably easier for your average observer to digest the reality of this perceptional skew.
why? because they are not heavily invested in an end of days escatological religion that is global warming that obscures their mind towards attempting to observe its own operation. that said, many of the social observers out there can get a bit too wrapped up in the doom in gloom narrative to understand that timing of these narratives is very subject to human perceptional bias and anyone having a bias towards anticipating negative events due to the honest and accurate assessement of currently negative conditions, is likelier to fail to face their own perceptional skew when it comes to accepting the unreliability of their timing and forecasts.
and it is much harder to go back in time by checking a record of one’s predictions than it is to do something as similar as checking ones’ trading book to verify how accurate ones predictions are.
how many people in moscow predicted the soviet union would fail under brezhnev before gorbachev took over and proved them wrong? We know the u.s. and deep state , at least most of the members of these groups, didn’t really see it coming under gorbev after 18 years of stagnation under brezhnev. there are huge disconnects on both ends of the fat tail psychological spectrum for social/political event prediction. taleb and others point out the obvious psychological hubristic foibles of establishment experts and predictors . but we are too guilty of the same errors if we to do not humble ourselves by admitting we are subject to similar psycho heuristic biases, albeit coming from somewhat different institutional settings.
anyways,
I’m not saying we are the ussr. i’m saying it’s a good example to look at how similar and recent historical events for some basis of comparison. it’s truly hard to compare.
I, too, am one of those whose loyalty to the system should have been bought in that I spent 25 years working as a federal agent, and retired as a Special Agent in Charge for one of the federal Offices of Inspector General. Yet it was my experience as someone whose job it was to attempt to hold senior government officials and huge federal contracting companies accountable for breaking the law that caused my disillusionment.
It became painfully obvious, as it was in the Hillary e-mail case, that the whole federal criminal justice system protects the powerful while dropping like a load of bricks on those who have limited means to defend themselves. It was also apparent from how cases I investigated that were reported in the media that what is passed off as “news” often bears little resemblance to the facts on the ground.
Keep up the good work. I don’t always agree with what you write, but yours is one of the few sane voices out there in America these days.
I’m afraid Michael can’t do it all by himself!! lol That…. is…..the…. problem….
Thank you, very informative and truthful information.
Kudos! You are a class traitor. (I mean this sincerely.)
I’d like to see your take on the connection between the deplorable Kushner family and the Clintons and Trumps.
This is great stuff Michale rock on
I think we get a situation like what happened with Iceland. Let the banks fail. Throw them in jail. Then do a big reset. You will be surprised at how lightening fast the economy comes back without the interference and parasitic destruction of the rent seeking bankers.
Then real productive Americans can begin to rebuild this economy the right way.
Not doing what you suggest above was Obama’s great unforced error.
Oh yeah and END THE FED!!!!!
END THE FED!!!!!
That’s right…blah…blah…blah…and more blah. But, what is it that RARELY IF EVER GETS MENTIONED? It’s the “Fed” that FINANCES ALL OF IT !!!
Why Trusting the U.S. Government and MSM (Mainstream Media) and “FED” Makes You A DUPE? Because YOU’VE BEEN LIED TO ~ ABOUT EVERYTHING !!!
1) When Will They Ever Learn?
http://sgtreport.com/2017/04/when-will-they-ever-learn/
2) How to bring down the elephant in the room
http://sgtreport.com/2017/04/how-to-bring-down-the-elephant-in-the-room/
Read all the comments, which follow the posts, at the links above. Read/view/listen to ALL content. Follow all links.
Several thoughts: First, congratulations on being on the ‘List’ as this shows you are irritating the hell out of the plutocracy and those who serve them.
Secondly, we must all now recognize that the MSM is an enemy of the Republic and her people, and indeed all democracy and freedom loving peoples everywhere.
Thirdly, while your former colleagues back on Wall Street take their remuneration while complaining about the corruption their loyalty lays with their pay packet, an indebted bourgeoisie lifestyle and in service of the corruption and looting they say they despise. At some point their lifestyle will become threatened also. This will be shortly after all the little people that hold this structure up on their collective backs can no longer do so. These denizens of Wall Street need to make their “loyalty” decision now as the point of decision is already upon them. These folks may be your friends but they have thrown their lot in with the enemy.
Fourthly I believe it is premature to pronounce the Anglo-Zionist Empire to be in rapid decline. While the seeds of its destruction have begun their growth the Empire still retains vigorous strength and even with the accelerated rate at which history now proceeds it is still decades away from its incremental collapse, barring implosion of a catastrophic nature. Its adversaries are still weak and may succumb, its citizenry disorganized and should they rebel this situation is anticipated and remedy accounted for. If the populous refuses to enter the Empire’s military enforcement they have draft legislation all drawn up and ready to be implemented. This, let alone those who will serve for the pay packet like we witness in many third world dictatorships.
OK… I get it… let me sum up what I’ve learned here… it is HOPELESS … so sticking one’s head in the sand is the only way to save one’s sanity (while waiting for the retrenchment of the Green Spiral … which process seems to operate on ‘automatic’). This explains so much ‘bubble thinking’ on both sides …. simple self-preservation.
It is not just the big fish like you they are coming after. They also come after the little fish like myself. Last year I was a regular and frequent commenter at CNBC.com. Most of the time it was about the economy and investments, particularly gold and silver. But when the conversation turned to government and I questioned the government’s version, I would be accused of being a paid Russian agent by one person in particular. I have seen this person on other sites accusing others of being paid agents. This is obviously a case of projecting what he is doing onto others. Most see through this.
I come from this warrior class. My dad and myself were in the navy. Every brother, male cousin, and uncle were in the military. My dad was gone a lot because of the Vietnam war. My younger brother was in the 2nd Gulf war. He came back with cancer. The VA refuses to admit it was war related, even considering the toxic munitions that were used my the U.S..
I started doing my own research. Many wars could have been prevented. Many were based on lies. They were not in the interest of the people. They were in the interest of an elite group.
In my family, it was expected the all males serve in the military. I was surprised to find that not all believed that. Worse, I found that many that do not serve find it easy to send others off to war. I saw this when I was going to college during the first Gulf War. I met some X-Gens in college that were so Gung-Ho about the war.
Many veteran believe as I do. That is why Ron Paul got most of the military and veteran vote. I believe you do not honor the veterans with just parades. The best way to honor the veterans is by assuring that any foreign intervention must be honorable and in American’s interest.
Michael, I hope now you have a better understanding of why having Trump and the expectation of less foreign interventions was a big deal to me
Smedley Butler made this clear in the 30’s… ‘War Is a Racket’ … how can it still be news to us !! So.. that’s a possible ‘seed’… prints of his speech can be distributed… all of us an carry a copy or two 🙂
Smedley Butler explained this in plain English in the 30’s – ‘War Is a Racket’… how can it still come as a revelation in this day and age!!
Because that generation has died off and first-hand knowledge is lost. Very sad. Very dangerous.
Soooo …. is it up to us?? We’re still alive… and we ‘know’… do we care? Or is it back to the ‘sand’ ?
It is certainly up to us to educate the younger ones and to be active as long as we are able!
Bart, you’re so right. And people are working on the solution.. check out 2 Wiki articles ‘The Chicago Plan’ and “The Chicago Plan Revisited’. (For more info, google ‘The American Monetary Institute…Rep Dennis Kucinich submitted a bill to solve the heart of our problem… debt money – non-debt $ worked well historically, is feasible, affordable, even constitutional … we just have to COMMUNICATE the info!! With the acceptance of BitCoin, maybe debt-free money will become easier to grasp.
So… it is up to us to ‘educate’ ALL of our fellow citizens (R & D)… (and could someone delete my duplicate post above… sorry.)
Michael, I was so impressed by this editorial I decided to get your blog daily. Kudos. And it was good to hear of all the disillusionment among your peers. May they stand up and be counted soon. To my little small-potatoes mind, a few tens of mils should be plenty to live on in comfort indefinitely, especially if you don’t live in a high-rent neighborhood like the Hamptons. But what do I know? Some things are necessary, I guess.
It was remarkable, but not unexpected, how the media did a 180 on Trump the minute he sent missiles to Syria. And they think that we don’t notice. It’s so painfully obvious that they publish what they’re told to publish. And their real reason for opposing Trump became immediately clear: It wasn’t the sexual talk, it wasn’t his loose-cannon style, it wasn’t for any other reason they gave for his “unfitness” for the office of POTUS; it was because he professed to oppose their agenda of continual, eternal war.
A question I have now that so far hasn’t been addressed: What’s BHO going to do from his operations bunker now that Trump’s got respectability with TPTB? Just wondering.
Mr. Krieger,
Thank you for your efforts to expose the absolutely insane neo-con and neo-liberal ideas, if they can be called that, regarding our nation’s financial corruption, its lack of valid proposals to protect the citizens who suffer under the strain placed on them by oligarchs, and their diabolic lust for making war.
Thank you