My favourite Mark Twain saying is basically that if you don't consume the msm you’re uninformed. If you do consume the msm, you’re mis-informed. It goes to show that nothing much has changed. The number of people I hear say they don’t read the msm anymore has increased enormously over the years. Trust in the mainstream has plummeted. This has left people uninformed and that equates to an opportunity to mould minds as the powers that be see fit.
Available on YouTube. (for now)
As cries for Joe Rogan’s removal from Spotify began to die out questions were being asked in the msm about his curious popularity and why people trust him rather than the msm. As part of the Silence Joe Rogan campaign a list emerged of guests that had appeared on the Joe Rogan experience divided into left and right wingers.
This list purportedly demonstrated that Joe Rogan by favouring right wing guests was himself right wing. That Joe Rogan has guests from across the political spectrum was not enough to save him from the dreaded label – Right wing or worse far right wing!
The list itself was fatally undermined by its inclusion of Russell Brand and Tulsi Gabbard. Others on the right wing list include Bret Weinstein and Heather Heyling (evolutionary scientists), Sam Harris, Steven Pinker and Michael Shermer.
Public Domain
Of course the real point of the list is to appeal to the deep psychological need we have for a left and a right. It shapes our political discourse and many peoples understanding of the world. Divide and rule hasn’t been a tactic of the ruling class for ever for nothing.
In our current climate anyone who criticises and doesn’t go along with key parts of the narrative are likely to have this label attached to them. Further, under Trump and Russiagate, truth was thrown overboard in favour of political bias. The prevailing view was so long as the story was against Trump truth was a secondary consideration. It still is.
In search of this illusive truth, now a rather outmoded concept, the best people covering it are to be found in traditional conservative/republican places. Other locations proved to be where so-called conspiracy theorists hung out. Conspiracy theorist was really last decades derogatory labelling though. (Especially since the msm were peddling the fake Russiagate conspiracy).
Far right wing, libertarian, is the label du jour.
The extremely left wing journalist Caitlin Johnstone who has herself been labelled a Nazi writes
The confusion around the label alt-right is one of those things that makes it abundantly clear how thick the walls of the political social media are. .
It conveys racism though. In a very basic way it associates the individual expressing the dissenting narrative as racist. It’s purpose is to particularly put off people from the left.
Since the protests started in Europe around the vaccine mandates/certificates they have been characterised as right wing movements and the left ignored them completely not wanting to be associated with the racists. This was so even when dockers at Trieste and Rotterdam took action, they were ignored.
The Canadian truckers protest has encapsulated this smear campaign against anyone who believes the mandates are wrong. I’m not denying that they received financial support from elite right wingers - although the extraordinary reaction that resulted in donations being stolen twice, and the doxing of individual donors. Everyone knows politics can make strange bedfellows. They certainly weren’t getting any help from their union, who in fact condemned them.
Even The Grayzone did a hit piece on the truckers linking them to the truckers protests in Brazil in 2021. Pointing out how many owned their own rig, so as to characterises this as a somewhat petit bourgeois and obviously far right. However, Matt Taibbi has put forward that some events (including this one) are best understood through watching hours of raw footage and making your own mind up.
Even though I did watch hours of footage I still felt the gaslighting presence. Was I wrong? Were they really far-right nationalists with whatever shady intentions the prevailing narrative has given them.
Of course there is more behind their complete and utter demonisation than garnering public opinion against them. It is to have the reason to bring in the Emergency Orders Act. This grants the federal cabinet unprecedented powers including the ability to suspend law. Alarmingly the government is directing financial institutions to freeze bank accounts and cancel insurance on the protesters.
Throwaway insults
I’ve come to be more sensitive to emotive language. Especially when it’s wrapped up in an insult. Climate denier comes to mind. It evokes for me villagers shouting denier, denier as someone’s led to the stake. Obviously Communist still retains some popularity as an insult in the US.
In the increased tensions "Russian agent" has been thrown at Zero Hedge, with no evidence cited, by the CIA. Undoubtedly though because they ran an article suggesting the Russian invasion of Ukraine was not imminent.
Far right anti-vaxxer is just the latest in a long line
In our crazy world turned upside down, if you ask how effective has the vaccine been? How good is natural immunity in comparison? You could easily find yourself being labelled right wing and then before you know it your watching Tucker Carlson because you find him more trustworthy then the entire msm.
