I was just watching a gaggle
of blue-checkmarked narrative managers attack
progressive commentators Katie Halper and Briahna Joy Gray
on Twitter for platforming antiwar journalist Rania Khalek
on the grounds that Khalek is an “Assadist”, which is
imperialist for “someone who opposes western imperialism in
Syria”.
Cool, just Sanders’ former
press spox hanging out with an Assadist.
Normal.— Jasmin Mujanović (@JasminMuj)
November
24, 2020
At no point do any of
these narrative managers bother to address the actual things
these women were discussing together or why anything Khalek
was saying in their video conference was wrong. They do not
feel the need to do such a thing, because they have this
label, “Assadist”, which they can pin on one of the speakers
and thereby reject one hundred percent of her work and one
hundred percent of the people who give her a platform from
which to speak. They feel no need to address the arguments,
because they have a label which they all agree means they
can completely un-person someone who opposes western regime
change agendas in a specific region.
There are many
such labels that are used to exclude people from positions
of influence and power for simply disagreeing with the
official doctrine of status quo oligarchic imperialism in
any way. “Assadist” is one of them; it allows someone to be
completely marginalized from platforms of significant
influence without anyone ever needing to admit that they’re
simply depriving anyone of a platform who criticized the way
the US power alliance used proxy armies and propaganda
campaigns in a campaign to topple Damascus. “Kremlin asset”
is another, as are “conspiracy theorist”, “tankie”, or
“[insert imperialism-targeted leader] apologist”.
In
reality, these labels are interchangeable with the word
“heretic”. They mean “Someone who disagrees with the
mainstream consensus religion of oligarchic
imperialism”.
In ages past people would be excluded
from positions of influence and power if they did not belong
to the dominant religion in that place and time. If you were
a Jew living in the Holy Roman Empire, for example, the door
would be closed to you from ever holding a position of power
or influence over the mainstream population. In the same
exact way, those who do not espouse the mainstream orthodoxy
of continual military expansionism and status quo politics
are cut off from major positions in politics and media using
the modern-day equivalent of the “heathen” label. It’s a
very old dynamic adapted for a new
world.
Caitlin Johnstone: ‘Mainstream
establishment orthodoxy is essentially a religion, as fake
and power-serving as any other, and if you want to work in
mainstream politics or media you need to demonstrate that
you are a member of that religion’ https://t.co/kUrbutA9Cj—
Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November
21, 2020
Oligarchic imperialism
is the new dominant world religion. It is the scripture that
everyone reads from. It is what shapes our culture. It is
what holy wars are fought over and acts of terrorism
committed for. It’s what power is built around. It’s what
you’re branded a heretic for rejecting. It’s just as fake as
any other religion, just as crafted toward the advantage of
the powerful as any other religion, and just as dependent
upon blind faith in insubstantial narratives as any other
religion. But it lets its adherents feel smug and superior
to people who believe in those primitive older
religions.
Adherents of the old dominant religion used
to read the Bible; adherents of the new dominant religion
read The New York Times. Adherents of the old
dominant religion used to go to church on Sunday; adherents
of the new dominant religion go to Hollywood movies.
Adherents of the old dominant religion fought in the
crusades; adherents of the new dominant religion kill
families with drones and Tomahawk missiles overseas.
Adherents of the old dominant religion used to burn heretics
at the stake; adherents of the new dominant religion
imprison journalists and deplatform “Assadists”, “Putin
apologists” and “conspiracy theorists” so their ideas don’t
infect the rest of the flock.
These labels exist
because if mainstream platforms admitted that they refuse
access to literally anyone who disagrees with status quo
oligarchic imperialism, they would have to admit that they
are not the objective arbiters of absolute reality they
portray themselves as being, but are in fact propagandists
for a very specific belief system. That they are not tasked
with the responsibility of reporting the news, but with
promoting the doctrine of the new dominant world religion.
That they aren’t news reporters, but high
priests.
Religion
isn’t disappearing, it has just changed its form. The world
has become too small for widespread belief in omnipotent
deities creating the universe in six days and controlling
all our affairs, so now people tell new fairy tales about a
liberal world order which must be preserved by a beneficent
superpower and its allies. In reality it is nothing other
than propaganda for a murderous, tyrannical theocratic
empire, of just the sort once presided over by
Rome.
Western imperialism is worse than every single
issue the mass media are screaming in your face about on any
given day. It is without exaggeration worse than 100 percent
of those issues. If people could really grasp the horrific
nature of imperial warmongering, the wars would be forced to
end. It is the job of the imperial high priests to prevent
this from happening, which is why they use dismissive labels
to marginalize anyone who might be inclined to remind you of
this.
In a murderous, tyrannical theocratic empire,
the only sane position to hold is that of heresy and
apostasy. Hopefully one day mankind will open its eyes to
reality and require no blind faith in any artificial belief
constructs of any
kind.