Soft Propaganda, Opiate Of The Masses

The quintessential guilty pleasure of the 21st century may be binge watching shows on platforms like Netflix. Guilty, because your favorite series was probably designed to serve as a smoothly effective soft propaganda vehicle for policing, military funding, and war. Take the case of the BBC's Call the Midwife one of my all time favorites as it combines socialized medicine, public health, disability rights, and the womanly art of midwifery in a setting that has evolved over seasons to resemble my now vintage childhood. 

That Midwife has been doing hasbara for Israel for a few years will probably not surprise you. To be fair, the show also portrays London's Muslim immigrant community sympathetically, but the Holocaust industry is on full display in more than one episode where the word "Israel" is uttered with a reverence that again is reminiscent of my youth. And of course it is the mighty U.S. and the plucky UK that vanquished Hitler. (Red Army? What Red Army?)

So I was more disgusted than surprised when the new season devoted an entire episode plus bits of a few others to glorifying the U.S. space program.

I'm already surrounded by soft propaganda for the "warfighting domain" undergoing the most rapid expansion in funding and mission at the moment.  

Getting students pumped about space begins in preschool 

and runs right through post graduate research at universities on behalf of aerospace profiteers. 

That this is an Anglicized effort is revealed by Australian educators sick of their government injecting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) curricula with pro-U.S., pro-militarized space content. Also revealed by the rubber bullets fired at resisters to AUKUS and other manifestations of the vassal status of Australia vis a vis the U.S./NATO war machine.

We see Hollywood and professional sports and corporate media and corporate public education work in concert to promote positive views of the military, including Space Force, and the never-admit-it's-military NASA.

All NASA programs are military in nature, no matter what pr they put out to the contrary. You remember how NASA was founded by Nazi rocket scientist Werner von Braun, right? He was one of many who knew that the next world war would undoubtedly be fought using outer space and that space therefore needed to be dominated by the U.S. before Russia or China could gain a toehold.

So it is that the fictional residents of the East End of London gather around the television for breathless witness of the moon landing. Perennial child Sister Monica Joan is the most rapt (and, incidentally, the character most addicted to what we'd now call screen time), her blissed out wrinkled face lit up by the light emanating from the boob tube. 

Some might call it coincidence but the context of U.S. Space Force presently supporting construction of  multiple rocket launch sites in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia seems relevant. RAND think tankers noted that militarizing outer space would be the largest industrial undertaking in the history of the human race. Thus, very expensive. How to get citizens to willingly give up pensions, health care, public transit and other necessities that their corporate overlords have decided they can no longer afford?

https://x.com/TheSurvivalPodc/status/1834300137105227782

Russian President Putin today made crystal clear the role that space technology plays in the current NATO proxy war escalations when he observed that long-range, precision-guided missiles can only be controlled via satellites Ukraine lacks. So, Russia would consider such strikes as evidence of NATO attacking Russia. WWIII immediately began trending on Twitter.

It's what the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space has been saying all along. The GN's latest video "US/NATO Dangerous Alliances" gives the details and invites concerned citizens of the world to join in with Keep Space for Peace activities October 5-12.

Religion was once the opiate of the masses. Television and other forms of digitized entertainment have long since surpassed it. As we face down a potential nuclear Armageddon, keep a clear head if you can.

Whose Lie Was Worse -- Phantom Pets For Dinner Or Phantom Rapes On Oct 7?

I had planned to watch the debate last night with my 97 year old friend but she changed her mind after brief exposure to the pre-debate show, so we went back to watching midwives doing soft propaganda for war in space (more on that next time).

I'll watch the recording eventually I suppose, though the chance I'd vote for either of the lying warmongers that our corporate donors have selected for us is zero.

Prominent in this morning's coverage of the debate are two horrible lies told by the horrible candidates.

Which is more egregious -- Trump lying about crimes that Haitian immigrants in Ohio haven't committed, or Harris lying about crimes that Hamas resistance fighters didn't commit on October 7?

Lying about Black crime is dangerous to not only Haitian immigrants (many of whom were driven out of their home country by Kenyan death squads sent by the good old USA) but dangerous to all immigrants and all Black people. Telling such a ridiculous lie -- that household pets are being stolen and eaten -- is on brand for Trump. Stoking fear and laying the groundwork for racialized violence, also on brand.

Lying about rapes by repeating a thoroughly debunked claim about mass rapes on October 7 is on brand for Harris. In June, Harris hosted a screening at the White House of the documentary "Screams Before Silence" which promotes this particular lie. 

Helping Israel spread lies about October 7 has a purpose, because those events -- which were immediately termed "Israel's 9/11" -- are being used as the pretext for the rapidly escalating genocide since. Other components of this web of lies includes the number of casualties ascribed to Hamas -- as we now know that Israel under the Hannibal Directive killed scores of its own soldiers and citizens that day. Also the beheaded babies that senile POTUS claimed to have seen pictures of and which his own staff chose to refute the next day.

But lies are effective and that's why talking heads for our imperial overlords employ them. As Mark Twain explained, "A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots."

Today is the anniversary of the U.S.'s 9/11/01, an event that never passed the smell test but was used almost immediately to curtail civil liberties and to unleash wars on Afghanistan and then Iraq. There are indeed many similarities between Sep 11 and Oct 7: both appear to have been colossal, unbelievable failures of intelligence in that authorities knew what was being planned yet did not intervene. Both resulted in a surge of actual rape and other forms of torture in gulags for Muslims like Guantanamo and Sde Teiman. Both were the pretext for military responses that had been long planned.

One thing both candidates did tell the truth about: they are determined to display their Zionist allegiance in the hopes of emerging as the most pro-Israel candidate. Harris has taken $5+ million from Israel's chief lobbying arm AIPAC, while Trump has a modest $1+ million. But we know from his first term that Zionists in his family have a big influence and can be expected to reap the benefits of nepotism should he be elected again.

Harris is married to a Zionist who is actively campaigning for her, but her track record on installing family members in key positions is unknown. Certainly her endorsement by forever wars architect and torture czar Dick Cheney does not bode well for her to rein in Israel's death dealing.

But in the end let's keep in mind that it's been a long time since a POTUS was the decider of anything. This debate was really an audition to see who will be selected as the celebrity spokesperson for the donor class. 

Biden flunked out because he could no longer lie coherently or convincingly. Both Trump and Harris bent over backwards last night to assure their sponsors that yes, they can.