Imperial Truth Decay

Source: r/MapPorn

I’m devouring the new Orhan Pamuk book Nights of Plague, an historical novel about an imaginary island where plague management challenges the decaying Ottoman Empire. He’s one of my favorite authors on the power of ideas in contradiction to facts on the ground, and he always makes me laugh as when the nonstop spying of the island’s mythical Department of Scrutinia is headed by a Chief Scrutineer.

Just yesterday I read that a big hospital in the SF Bay Area reinstated a mask mandate due to a surge of covid cases there, and that an average of ten people are still dying of covid in California every day.

Cue the chorus of covid is a hoax, people masking are sheep easily led, more people were injured by the covid vax than saved by it, and so on. The divisiveness of the U.S. empire’s response to this pandemic is a subject I’ve written about before. Originating in a lab, it’s not the first but only the most novel of pathogens weaponized by those who would wield power over restive populations. It turns out that the purpose is murky: smear China via its Wuhan lab? Divide and conquer the U.S. masses seething for change that never comes? Or hasten the information control that kicked off with the post 9/11 Patriot Act and may be cemented into place by claiming free speech can be “weaponized” against the ruling class?

Pamuk writes:

Anyone who joined the Empire’s 65 year old quarantine establishment would quickly realize that their first and most important duty to the Sultan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was not so much to stop outbreaks of cholera, as to stop the news of those outbreaks from spreading.

Which reminds me that I was busy with family and did not manage an Earth Day post bemoaning the deadly assault of the empire of capitalism on climate and life. Politically motivated information management abounds in this arena, too, where a billionaire’s rocket uses taxpayer funding to crash and burn on liftoff, allegedly because key safety equipment was deemed too costly by the billionaire himself. Even if Starship had not exploded over the Gulf of Mexico its effect on both climate and coastal environs would have been terrible. All rocket launches, now proliferating rapidly, are terrible for the environment. So space is constantly sold to kids as hooray for science, technology, engineering and math.

Pentagon Planet by Anthony Freda

Meanwhile, liberal rags like Common Dreams provide sophisticated information management around military harm to the environment, well-documented but largely unaddressed as the U.S. military budget continues to metastasize (Space Force requested a 100% increase in its annual budget to pollute and militarize outer space). I noticed and disliked the subtle bias of CD’s Earth Day article with the ironic headline: “Can you fight for climate justice without being antiwar?” No, you cannot —  as some of us have been pointing out for years

But the author used tried and true grammatical sleight of hand to shield some culprits while vilifying others. The U.S. and NATO conspired over the biggest release of methane, the worst of the greenhouse gases, into the Baltic Sea off Denmark, but that act of war on the environment just happened in the passive voice: “the sabotage of the underwater Nord Stream pipelines.” Ditto “the shelling of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, particularly the Zaporizhzhia plant” as if the shelling had mysterious origins rather than emanating from Ukraine.

The U.S. public has been told in both cases via its subservient corporate press that “Russia did it.” That is, destroy its own newly completed gas pipeline and attempt to blow up a nuclear power plant its military had captured quickly. These lies are easily refuted, but you won’t read about it in Common Dreams or the New York Times.

What you will read or hear in every imperial media “news” channel is the active voice when it comes to their current favorite villain. Common Dreams again: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has mutated the global fuel market.”

See the difference? Grammar matters.

Truth, however, is merely an inconvenience to our imperial rulers. If evidence of the president’s deep involvement in corrupt energy schemes in Ukraine might threaten his election, the press stampedes to suppress it and silence those who don’t go along.

Similarly, if the national conversation is about how best to respond to a deadly pathogen, social media platforms obediently silence dissenting voices at the behest of the federal government. The Twitter files are largely, though not exclusively, about sharing evidence of this.

When Pamuk has an Ottoman public health doctor say, “Quarantine is the art of educating the public in spite of itself, and of teaching it the skill of self-preservation,” he might also be thinking about empires and their strategies for preserving their reign.

Nowadays you can be silenced for pointing out enforcement of the preferred narrative, or just for not agreeing with the imperial version of their destructive, expensive wars.

Prior to Earth Day the FBI and DOJ collaborated on the indictment of four members of the African People’s Socialist Party for allegedly colluding with Russia to affect the outcome of an election. Hmm…


According to HandsOffUhuru.com:

On April 18, 2023, indictments were issued by the U.S. Department of Justice against African People’s Socialist Party Chairman Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Solidarity Committee Chair Penny Hess and Uhuru Solidarity Movement Chair Jesse Nevel.

Donate to our legal fund at HandsOffUhuru.org/Donate.

“I ain’t ever worked for a Russian. Never ever ever ever,” said Omali Yeshitela. “Their problem is, I’ve never worked for them.”

Pamuk is a writer from the last bit of the once powerful Ottoman Empire who knows: not working for the imperial forces is the ultimate crime.

Sifting Through Reports On War In Ukraine And Nuclear Weapons

Maybe the reason I get called a “mouthpiece for Putin” a lot these days is that I’ve been writing commentary like this for years:

Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia Security Council: “The American state is just a shell for a conglomerate of huge corporations that rule the country and try to dominate the world. For transnational corporations, even US presidents are just extras who can be shut up, like Trump. All four assassinations of American leaders are connected to the corporate trail. It is no coincidence that a growing number of Americans are saying that Republicans and Democrats are just two actors in one play that has nothing to do with democracy. The American authorities, merged with big business, serve the interests of transnational corporations, including the military-industrial complex. The assertive foreign policy of the White House, the unbridled aggressiveness of NATO, the emergence of the military bloc AUKUS and others are also a consequence of corporate influence. The draft American budget for 2023 is the best evidence of Washington’s plans to unleash new wars to the detriment of the well-being of its own citizens.”

The unprecedented information control around what is developing into WW3 with the U.S. and its (sometimes reluctant) NATO partners threatening Russia, China, and Iran makes it hard for people in my country to know what’s going on.

Original collage by James Fangboner (left image), modified by me (see “Hating On ____ Is What Gives Life Meaning“)

Orange man bad equals Putin bad equals Zelensky good is the analysis they’re being fed by a media conglomerate that runs on the fuel of false dichotomy.

It used to be that I wasn’t allowed to dissent on the wisdom of dumping $100 billion into arming and propping up Ukraine because I was doing Putin’s work for him.

Then I was told I sounded like Tucker Carlson which liberals think is enough to silence anyone with a brain. (Never mind that Carlson has left-leaning intelligentsia like Aaron Mate and Glenn Greenwald on his show regularly.)

Currently the crime of people who oppose the war on Russia in Ukraine is that we sound like some of the most disparaged Republican members of Congress. Knowing that you might share the stated beliefs of someone like Marjorie Taylor Green is supposed to send you scurrying back to the safe haven of the Democrats.

The fact that both parties receive millions in donations from the very corporations who profit from the constant warmongering of the U.S. and NATO is not obscure, but mainstream propaganda never brings it up.

So forgive me if I say I don’t give a fuck who I sound like, this war is 1) morally wrong; 2) gobbling up resources better spent making sure children in the U.S. don’t sleep on the pavement and go hungry; and 3) uniquely dangerous as it staggers toward the use of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear forces are being moved into place in Europe and the Pacific region as you read this.

Photo : Twitter / @US_EUCOM

From the Instagram account of Russian media outfit Sputnik shared under the ominous headline:

US ‘Doomsday Plane’ Capable of Ordering World-Ending Nuclear Strikes Spotted in Europe

Is Sputnik biased? Of course. Is their information useful? It might very well be. They seem to share my concern that an all out nuclear war would destroy the cities where children in the U.S. sleep on the pavement.

Here’s another ominous piece of news I found this week at the website zerohedge:

Air Force Relieves Six Leaders At Nuclear Base Over “Loss Of Confidence”

Tyler Durden's Photo

BY TYLER DURDEN

TUESDAY, FEB 28, 2023 – 12:45 PM

Six leaders, including two commanders and four of their subordinates, at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, were abruptly relieved of their duties “due to a loss of confidence,” the US Air Force wrote in a press release Monday.  

Maj. Gen. Andrew J. Gebara, commander of the 8th Air Force, relieved Col. Gregory Mayer of the 5th Mission Support Group and Maj. Jonathan Welch of the 5th Logistics Readiness Squadron from their leadership positions at Minot AFB “due to a loss of confidence in their ability to complete their assigned duties.” 

“These personnel actions were necessary to maintain the very high standards we demand of those units entrusted with supporting our Nation’s nuclear mission,” said Gebara.

Also, four subordinate leaders assigned to Minot AFB were relieved of their duties. 

“Eighth Force continues to safeguard global combat power and conduct around-the-clock strategic deterrence operations in a safe, secure and effective manner.

“Our mission is foundational to our Nation’s defense, and we remain committed to the success of that no-fail mission,” Gebara said.

Minot AFB is home to the 5th Bomb Wing, which falls under the 8th Air Force. The wing flies nuclear-capable Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers. The air base also has a missile wing that operates intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

Gebara did not explain what caused the loss in confidence among Minot AFB commanders entrusted with the nation’s nuclear bombers and ICBMs. 

I found this item because it was shared on Twitter via the account of someone I follow on the basis of his bio (“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.” -Anatole French).

ahf (Tony) speculated: they didn’t want to shoot balloons? or nuke Russia?

Several times in history nuclear war has been averted because individual military men refused to follow orders.

And don’t think the Pentagon doesn’t know that, even if they don’t want you to know it.

Meanwhile, if you’re not a U.S. Air Force nuclear weapons commander — or even if you are — all out on March 18 to say NO to war!