The world is as it is because the way the majority of people in the most influential nations think, act and vote is being continuously manipulated by the powerful, for the powerful. The mainstream worldview is just a giant bundle of power-serving lies and manipulations…”—Caity Johnstone
First published may 2021
Ben Norton was invited to give this talk about the fake left and imperialism. He discusses how the CIA’s “woke” recruitment ad is not new; it is rooted in an “intersectional imperialist” history going back to the first cold war, in which the CIA poured money into cultivating anti-communist, pro-imperialist progressive groups, using fronts like the Congress for Cultural Freedom and billionaire-funded foundations like Ford and Rockefeller. Ben goes through the book “The Cultural Cold War,” and talks about supposed “leftist” CIA assets like feminist leader Gloria Steinem and Trotskyite civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, then analyzes examples of astroturfed, Nonprofit Industrial Complex-backed pseudo-left campaigns in the US, Western Europe, and Latin America. Links and show notes: https://moderaterebels.com/cia-fake-l…
Links and show notes: https://moderaterebels.com/cia-fake-l…
Note: The topic of the fake left, virtually created by the CIA, is also discussed at length by Caleb Maupin in his video chats and books. He usually calls it, “the synthetic left”, an apt label for these phonies.
If you find the above useful, pass it on! Become an “influence multiplier”!
Since the overpaid corporate media whores will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality. After systematically corrupting the entire media, thereby hijacking the mainstream narrative, corporate power, led by the US, has practically killed democracy wherever it managed to survive, including in the US itself, easily one of the most heavily propagandised nations in history. The consequences of this disgraceful situation can be seen everywhere, and that’s why the fight for the truth has never been so vital. We stand on the edge of an ecological abyss precipitated by a cancerous industrial system devoid of any moral restraints. Furthermore, dripping hypocrisy, the West has unilaterally declared war on China, Russia and Iran, which threatens a nuclear confrontation, plus other nations like Venezuela or Cuba that also dare to resist the tyrannical diktats emanating from Washington. It’s clear that war, ceaseless propaganda, and the immiseration of labor is the chosen solution of the empire managers to the capitalist system’s incurable crisis, a crisis rendered all the more intractable by the computer revolution which has only deepened capital’s legendary “overproduction” contradiction.
In this ridiculously uneven struggle between people’s voices like Caitlin Johnstone, Jonathan Cook, Jimmy Dore, Lee Camp, Glenn Greenwald, Abby Martin, Jeff Brown, Godfree Roberts, the Grayzone team, the folks at Consortium News, and others of equally impressive merit, and the capitalist system’s Orwellian media machine, our role must always be to help distribute far and wide what these journalists produce—to act as “influence multipliers”. There’s power in numbers, power that the enemy cannot hope to match. This is the primal power that the masses possess and which the oligarchs fear. Put it to use by becoming an influence multiplier. Repost this material anywhere you can. Send it to your friends and kin. Discuss it with your workmates. Liberation from this infernal and mendacious system is in your hands.
—The Editor, The Greanville Post
