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.
Was just reading a World News thread, multiple positive up votes comments like "kill all Russians" "kill anyone supporting the war which is 80% of Russians" "savages shouldn't be allowed in the UN."
Liberals have become incredibly bloodthirsty and are using some honestly genocidal language at this point.
the magical thing was how they became like this the day the war started. like a switch was flipped.
now they're even forgetting basic facts they used to know about russia... even basic demographics facts that can be looked up on wikipedia.
would have been a real shame if every american who supported invading iraq in 2003 had been killed
Yeah, in spite of having casualty rates somewhere between 1-2 magnitudes higher, Iraq was just a little mistake and the war in Ukraine is the crime of the century.
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
He suggested if I like those other countries maybe I should move there
It should be legal to strangle coworkers in scenarios such as these
He suggested if I like those other countries maybe I should move there
"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.
its scary and so totalitärian , you can strike up millions of conversation and they all will follow "their" same fucking script. Starting from the Most Racist and Chauvinist postition and defending this position to the Death.
What makes this strain of propaganda particularly potent is that Americans are convinced everyone ELSE is propagandized but them. And the US exists as the one shining beacon of liberty that gives them the unique freedom to pursue truth that is concealed in the rest of the world.
Nothing quite like having an yank explain to you about how your own country really works
Had a conversation with someone recently that went like this:
Them: "Oh, did you hear about the guy from Ben & Jerry's?"
Me, lying: "No, what?"
Them: "He donated money to a group that wants the U.S. to stop sending weapons to Ukraine. "
Me: "Far out."
Them: (impotent sputtering, absolutely flabbergasted that I didn't find peace intrinsically repulsive)
"the guy from Ben & Jerry's"
Couldn't even name him with a 50% chance.
maoists doing maoist stuff again i guess
i cant say i particularly blame them about being angry the Philippine government is receiving arms from china though
Yep it's very powerful. It's why one of our duties is to sow doubt about following media narratives uncritically and to then drop some socialism on them.
People tend to shut up when you say they would've supported invading Iraq.
Roderic Day has some interesting thoughts about brainwashing. You might find it compelling. He thinks it's closer to just regular old bullying than anything else. It definitely seems like the propaganda machine is nearly supernatural at times, but (he argues) going along with it is often just the easiest and most advantageous (in the moment) thing for people in the imperial core to do.
and yet, in a head-scratching tweet, Daniel Bessner once said that the one thing he would tell everyone is that "propaganda rarely works." He deleted the tweet later, but I always wondered why he was cavalier about that
