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Reprinted from caitlinjohnstone.com
Listen to a reading of this article:
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If you say you oppose Russia because you're an anti-imperialist but you don't oppose the US empire for its role in starting and perpetuating this war, then you're a liar. You don't oppose Russia because you're an anti-imperialist, you oppose Russia because you're an imperialist.
The only people who say "Putin can end this war at any time by withdrawing" are those who deny the US empire's aggressions which led to this conflict, which is just a nonsense garbage position based on lies. They don't actually want peace, they just want victory for the empire. The real unbiased position which supports peace is wanting both Russia and the western empire to begin engaging in diplomacy, de-escalation and detente to end this war. But empire simps will call you treasonously biased if you support anything other than total Russian defeat.
This dopey propaganda-addled notion that the west did nothing wrong and Putin attacked Ukraine solely because he is evil and hates freedom actually prevents peace from happening. If one side only acknowledges the reality of the aggressions of the other side, peace is impossible. If you don't understand how a war was started and perpetuated, then you can't understand how peace can be started and perpetuated. The empire deliberately works to prevent the public from obtaining this understanding, because the empire wants war.
It's not okay for grown adults to act like Putin is just running around invading countries willy nilly because he's a crazed madman. You've got a whole internet of information at your fingertips. Use it.
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It's impossible to overstate how much our society is shaped by the fact that those who are given the most influence and the largest platforms will experience our status quo systems as working very nicely and have a vested interest in preserving those systems which benefit them. The media-owning, culture-manufacturing class of the super-wealthy elevates people to wealth and celebrity who look like they will be good protectors of their class interests. Those people will necessarily speak fondly of the status quo political systems which let them be rich.
Two-time Academy Award winner #SeanPenn gifted his Oscar to Ukrainian president @ZelenskyyUa as a symbol of strength #Zelenskyy #Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar? pic.twitter.com/8UITVC9y7T
"- CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18News) November 9, 2022
These are the people who put on all the shows, movies and music almost everyone consumes, thereby engineering mainstream culture to the benefit of the super wealthy. It shapes the way the people think, speak, act and vote. What they feel entitled to. What they think is possible.
A rich celebrity who makes millions of dollars a year in a fun, easy and egoically gratifying job is not going to be spotlighting all the lives who are being destroyed by the status quo systems which elevated them. They're not going to favor the revolutionary changes that are needed. They're not going to be calling for a massive, sweeping overhaul of the systems which are crushing ordinary people to death and creating widespread misery; at most they're going to be telling you to vote Democrat or Republican and quibbling about minor disagreements on tax rates. But these are the people with the loudest voices in our society "- not just the loudest, but many orders of magnitude more amplified and influential than the voices of the ordinary people who are suffering under existing systems. These loudly-amplified rich celebrities shape and direct mainstream culture.
This dynamic plays such a massive role in hiding from mainstream attention the ways our status quo systems are exploiting, oppressing and abusing people while killing our biosphere and pushing us toward nuclear annihilation, that it's hard to wrap your mind around how far it goes. The way everyone's thinking about the world is so pervasively informed by perspectives that are favorable to the status quo prevents them from even noticing how bad things are for everyone else. It's widely assumed that if you're struggling in this mess, it's because of your own failures. If any media you turn on depicts people who are doing basically fine and are content with the way things are while you're barely able to keep your head above water, the take-home message is that the problem is with you, not with our systems. That you are what needs to change.
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