It is so effective at whipping people into a frenzy. I saw a chart which showed how 5-6 years ago, most Americans had a positive/neutral opinion on China but now it’s 80%+ negative.
Look at the wars. Whenever the US is engaging in one, any dissenting opinion is so ruthlessly crushed. But after it, people act as if nothing happened at all. Just compare how Americans talk about the Iraq war today compared to when it occurred. Same with Afghanistan.
And I bet the same will happen with Ukraine. Right now, anything less than full support, with the goal of sending as much military supplies as needed is considered treasonous. But I know there will be a time when even libs will be act as if this war was just a tragedy etc.
It’s like the propaganda machine lives at a low level most of the time, and allows dissent, but when it needs to ramp up, it is able to do so extremely quickly and extremely well. And then it moves on to the next thing.
I fear that maybe “anti-capitalist ideologies” will follow the same path here. Right now, we’re just facing off the low level machine at the background because we aren’t a big threat. But the moment we become, or even threaten it, it’ll be a modern McCarthyism.
It’s scary to think about.
i dont usually post like this but i have had a lot of caffeine already so
Had a conversation with my coworker yesterday about "the leaks" over zoom. He knows my tendencies so he started asking me "yes or no" questions about whether it's ok for a nation to invade a sovereign country, and I said war in ukraine is not my first choice but in this case it was justified after the US wouldnt allow peace talks and the war had been already going 8 years. And I told him he could watch Ukraine on Fire (2016) that could have been released even in Jan 2022 and you wouldn't know it because the information is so relevant and the situation was at an impasse the whole time. Played him the Victoria Nuland clip about the US king-making a pro-western guy as leader of Ukraine, not sure he understood but he said "Yeah, we do that."
I showed him the referendums where Donetsk and Luhansk voted 95%+ to join Russia. He said that not all of Ukraine got to vote on it and the numbers are obviously biased since it was conducted by Russia. I asked if Texas took a vote to join Mexico would we consider what New York and California had to say about it or just Texas? He kept talking about SOVEREIGN NATIONS so I put up a video of the changing boundaries in Europe from 0 - 2000 and lamented all those SOVEREIGN NATIONS changing borders.
I asked him why the US should invade Afghanistan/Iraq and bomb Yugoslavia and showed him where they are in relation to the US on a map, and where Ukraine and Russia are located, and that ~50% of east ukraine consider themselves russian ethnicity. I asked him why we bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 and he said "genocides" and so then I whipped out the Parenti book about Yugoslavia debunking it. He suggested if I like those other countries maybe I should move there (lol so predictable). And of course it's ME "changing the subject" (he didn't say "whataboutism")..
most propagandized country in the world
It should be legal to strangle coworkers in scenarios such as these
"Oh yeah, well then why don't you go away so I don't have to think about what you're saying?"
When I meet people like this, because I do the same thing I attempt 🙃 to move the needle, I become a uniroinic posadist by the end of the conversation :posadist-nuke: Won't listen to reason, ignore facts of material reality, scoff at emotional appeals, yep its American liberal time.