Propaganda
Podcast: Aaron Bushnell, The Israel Lobby, Mass Media Propaganda And More
We’ve managed to get a third podcast episode up! Recording it and making enough time to create it and edit it are skills we’re still developing, but we’ve always learned on the job in this weird little project of ours anyway. Personally I think this is our best one yet:
https://medium.com/media/72d13148eb12e034b25f2b17c8102f78/href
In this episode we discuss Aaron Bushnell and the pathetic performative airdrop of a few meals in Gaza, we make some embarrassing revelations about how we stay productive amidst a daily deluge of negativity, and we answer a few questions from readers and trolls.
Questions we address in this episode:
“Discuss the reasons explaining the impressive level of US support for Israel.”
“How do you maintain such productivity in the face of the negativity you’re dealing with daily? Mindset, routines, practices?”
“Why weren’t you so ragey about the civil war waged on Syrians by Assad about a decade ago, where far more were slaughtered than in Gaza right now?”
“We talk about pro-war corporate media narratives all the time. Who is the narrator? How is the script passed down?”
“Why Joe Biden and Netanyahu are not Behind the Bars?”
If you liked this podcast, the best way to make sure you get the next one is to subscribe to my Substack newsletter (all Substack content is 100% free; people only pay if they feel like supporting our work here). Podcasts will be designated as such in the title.
Questions and comments and constructive criticism are much appreciated. Enjoy!
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
“Pay No Attention To That Genocide Right In Front Of Your Face”
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/c0e9e672fc41e059e6cbb2e14579530a/href
“Pay no attention to that genocide right in front of your face.”
That’s the constant message we’re getting from the dominant institutions in this present-day dystopia. From our news media. From our political parties. From our government. From our mainstream culture of diversion and superficiality.
“Pay no attention to that genocide right in front of your face.”
We can see it happening. It’s right there. And they know we can see it happening. But they’re telling us to ignore it anyway. Pay attention to this other far less urgent news story instead. Pay attention to what a big meany Donald Trump is. Pay attention to Hamas and October 7 2023. Pay attention to this trend, this TV show, this funny video, this celebrity, this product, this event. Pay attention to anything other than the horror you can see unfolding with your own two eyes right this very moment.
“Pay no attention to that genocide right in front of your face.”
And most are obeying this command. Society’s still puttering along like everything’s fine and normal. The shows, events, social engagements and small talk is all still happening in more or less the same way it was happening on October 6 2023. Attention is going everywhere but to the screaming, hemorrhaging elephant in the room.
“Pay no attention to that genocide right in front of your face.”
It’s an insult to our intelligence. It’s an insult to our hearts. It’s an insult to our humanity. They’re sticking their long, rapey fingers into our minds and commanding us to twist and turn our attention in every direction except where it is most urgently needed, and most of us are submitting to their will and doing as they command. We’re putting on a degrading and dehumanizing performance for our rulers to show how far into knots we will contort our minds, our perception and our sense of reality for their convenience.
“Pay no attention to that genocide right in front of your face.”
Refusing to obey this command is a daily act of defiance. It’s an act of protest each and every moment we refuse to acquiesce to this demand. In each instant we hold our gaze on Gaza and remind others to do the same, we are defying the orders of our rulers. We are disobeying the instructions from the propaganda machine. We are being directly insubordinate to our politicians and our government, and we are disrespecting the plastic smileyface dystopia they supervise.
“Pay no attention to that genocide right in front of your face.”
Yeah I’m gonna keep paying attention to that genocide, actually, and I’m going to keep working to get others to do the same. No matter how much you try to turn my gaze away. No matter how ugly your atrocities become. No matter what names you call me or what accusations you level at me. It’s right there. We can all see it. I refuse to play along with this demented charade. Israel is committing genocide, our western governments are helping them, the sky is blue, a spade’s a spade, and the emperor has no clothes.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Featured image via Matt Hrkac (CC BY 2.0)
‘Mass resignations’ among IDF spokespeople – including Hagari’s number 2 – Israeli media
Israeli Channel 14 reports discontent and departures in Israeli military’s widely-derided propaganda unit
Israel’s Channel 14 broadcaster has reported a slew of resignations among senior members of Israel’s military ‘Spokespersons unit’ amid growing chaos in the unit. The investigations are said to include the unit’s number two Col Butbul, as well as Colonel Moran Katz, Lieutenant Richard Hecht, the unit’s International Spokesperson.
Israel’s spokespeople have been widely derided for ludicrous claims, including calling a calendar a list of terrorist personnel, and have repeatedly pushed transparent attempts to deflect blame for Israel’s atrocities, including the bombing of multiple hospitals.
Many of the propagandists have become ‘memes’ in their own right – and the latest news has generated at least one classic, showing unit boss Daniel Hagari, who infamously made the calendar claim, pointing at himself in a headline about the resignations:
A screenshot of ‘The Agitator’s video meme
Hagari was reportedly appointed to run the unit without any former role in it.
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Even BBC admits Israel lied about slaughter of starving Palestinians gathered for aid
Broadcaster’s ‘Verify’ analysis concludes the obvious
Even the BBC – usually the epitome of ‘both-sidesing’ and the minimisation of Palestinian deaths and suffering – has had to conclude that Israel lied when it claimed that it did not slaughter well over a hundred desperate Palestinians and wound as many as a thousand more who were gathered in a street waiting for an aid delivery.
BBC Verify says it “examined social media videos, satellite imagery and IDF drone footage to piece together what we know… about what happened” – and it concluded:
We have examined exclusive Al Jazeera video filmed close to that second location at the rear of the convoy, about half a kilometre south of the roundabout.
Volleys of gunfire can be heard and people are seen scrambling over lorries and ducking behind the vehicles. Red tracer rounds can be seen in the sky.
Mahmoud Awadeyah said the Israeli vehicles had started firing at people when the aid arrived.
“Israelis purposefully fired at the men… they were trying to get near the trucks that had the flour,” he said. “They were fired at directly and prevented people to come near those killed.”
…There have been reports of casualties being taken to several hospitals.
Dr Mohamed Salha, interim hospital manager at al-Awda hospital, where many of the dead and injured were taken, told the BBC: “Al-Awda hospital received around 176 injured people…142 of these cases are bullet injuries and the rest are from the stampede and broken limbs in the upper and lower body parts.
Israel has claimed that a ‘mob’ – otherwise known as desperate civilians starving because of Israel’s blockade of food, water, fuel and medical supplies – stampeded and attacked the aid convoy, but Israel’s own drone footage shows that this did not happen and any ‘stampede’ was caused by the Israeli gun and tank fire, despite the IDF editing out at least three sections of the video that can be taken to show the Israeli troops’ attacks.
A still from the IDF’s drone footage, which shows people gathered but not attacking or stampeding until troops started firing
Israel also contradicted itself, with various spokespeople saying the Israeli soldiers did not fire at all, that they fired ‘warning shots’ and that they ‘only’ shot at the legs of the crowd.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
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When The Imperial Media Report On An Israeli Massacre
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/89dbd4430ddd9ae8bba235a33f4b3c62/href
In what many are now calling the Flour Massacre, at least 112 Gazans were killed and hundreds more injured after Israeli forces opened fire on civilians who were waiting for food from much-needed aid trucks near Gaza City on Thursday.
Initial investigations by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found that the crowd was fired upon by both IDF automatic rifles and by Israeli tanks, and that dozens of gunshot victims were hospitalized after the incident.
Israel’s version of events has of course changed over the course of the day as narrative managers figure out how best to frame publicly available information in a way that doesn’t harm Israel’s PR interests. Currently we’re at Israel admitting that IDF troops did indeed fire upon the crowd after previously denying this, but claiming that this isn’t what caused most of the the casualties, saying it was actually the Palestinians trampling each other in a human “stampede” which caused them harm. Essentially the current argument is “Yes we shot them, but that’s not why they died.”
The IDF claims Israeli troops only began firing on the Palestinians because the soldiers “felt threatened” by them, which goes to show that there is no atrocity Israel could possibly commit where it wouldn’t frame itself as the victim. Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir took the opportunity to praise the IDF for heroically fighting off the dangerous Palestinians and to argue that the incident proves it’s too dangerous to keep allowing aid trucks into Gaza.
Caitlin Johnstone on Twitter: "Some phrases the mass media is using right now to describe civilians being massacred by the IDF while waiting for food:- "food aid deaths"- "food aid-related deaths"- "chaotic incident"- "reported killed in crowd near Gaza aid convoy, Hamas-run health ministry says" pic.twitter.com/ROUkpoeA9s / Twitter"
Some phrases the mass media is using right now to describe civilians being massacred by the IDF while waiting for food:- "food aid deaths"- "food aid-related deaths"- "chaotic incident"- "reported killed in crowd near Gaza aid convoy, Hamas-run health ministry says" pic.twitter.com/ROUkpoeA9s
As terrible as the Israeli spin machine has been on this atrocity, the western imperial media have been even worse. The verbal gymnastics they’ve been performing in their headlines to avoid saying Israel massacred starving people who were waiting for food would be genuinely impressive if it wasn’t so ghoulish.
“As Hungry Gazans Crowd a Convoy, a Crush of Bodies, Israeli Gunshots and a Deadly Toll” reads one New York Times header, like the summary of an episode of a Netflix murder mystery show.
“Chaotic aid delivery turns deadly as Israeli, Gazan officials trade blame,” says an indecipherably cryptic headline from The Washington Post.
“Biden says Gaza food aid-related deaths complicate ceasefire talks,” says The Guardian. “Food aid-related deaths”? Seriously?
“More than 100 killed as crowd waits for aid, Hamas-run health ministry says,” reads a BBC headline. The UK’s state broadcaster is here using a tried and true tactic for casting doubt on death counts by deliberately associating them with Hamas, despite the fact that the Gaza health ministry’s death counts are considered so reliable that Israeli intelligence services use them in their own internal records.
Sana Saeed on Twitter: ""Chaotic incident"? The word you're looking for here, CNN, is massacre. https://t.co/CyUtyuWYZa / Twitter"
"Chaotic incident"? The word you're looking for here, CNN, is massacre. https://t.co/CyUtyuWYZa
“At least 100 killed and 700 injured in chaotic incident” says CNN, like it’s describing a frat party that got out of control.
“Carnage at Gaza food aid site amid Israeli gunfire” reads another CNN headline, as though the carnage and the Israeli gunfire are two unrelated phenomena which just unluckily occurred at around the same time.
CNN also repeatedly refers to the killings as “food aid deaths”, as though it’s the food aid that killed them and not the military of a very specific and very nameable state power.
(It’s probably worth noting at this point that CNN staff have been anonymously reporting through other outlets that there’s been a uniquely aggressive top-down push within the network to slant reporting heavily in favor of Israeli information interests, driven largely by the new CEO Mark Thompson.)
So that’s what happens when the imperial media report on an Israeli massacre, in case you were curious and haven’t been paying attention since October 7 or the decades which preceded it. The propaganda services of the western press operate in a way that is typically indistinguishable from the spinmeistering of officials in western governments, framing the western empire and its allies in a positive light and their enemies in a negative one.
https://medium.com/media/03da42bfc7ea53a1b71f11610b7c8436/href
This happens because the western mass media do not exist to report the news and give you information about what’s been going on in the world, but to manufacture consent for the political status quo and the globe-dominating power structure it supports. The only difference between our propaganda and the propaganda of a ruthless dictatorship is that the people who live under a dictatorship know they are being fed propaganda, whereas westerners are trained to believe they are ingesting impartial factual reporting.
The demolition of Gaza is alerting more and more westerners to the fact that this is happening, though, because the more blatant the atrocities the more ham-fisted the propaganda machine needs to be about running cover for them. It’s even opening eyes within the propaganda machine itself, which is why we’re seeing things like CNN staff blowing the whistle on their own CEO and New York Times staff telling The Intercept that their bosses committed extremely egregious journalistic malpractice in producing atrocity propaganda alleging mass rapes by Hamas on October 7.
The only good thing about what’s happening in Gaza is that it’s waking westerners up to the fact that everything they’ve been told about their society, their media and their world is a lie. Cracks are appearing in the illusion, and those of us who care about truth, peace and justice need to help draw attention to them. From there, real change becomes a genuine possibility.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Featured image via Adobe Stock.
Israel supporters shamelessly smear Bushnell with ‘dead jews’ claim. It’s an outright lie
US serviceman whose self-immolation resonated around the world did not say ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews are dead’, as multiple pro-Israel accounts have claimed
Supporters of apartheid Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinian civilians have begun spreading a claim that Aaron Bushnell, the US serviceman who died this week after setting himself on fire outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, posted a comment to his Reddit account that ‘Palestine will be free when all the jews [sic] are dead’.
The image has been touted by accounts well known for dismissive and often racist commentary about Palestinians as a means of trying to justify Israel’s war crimes. ‘Comedy’ writer Lee Kern was one of the most prominent:
Kern not only propagated the fake claim but described the whole of Palestine as a ‘racist hate movement’
Kern described the whole of Palestine, not just a resistance group, as a ‘suicide death cult’
Writer Kern’s 2021 comment appears to have been deleted but was commented on as early as 2021 and he does not appear to have made a denial to the many times it has been thrown at him
A careful examination of Bushnell’s Reddit account by fact-checker Snopes, over a wider period than the two months ago that the image shows – including using a service that records deleted posts – showed that no such post had ever been made by Bushnell and the image is completely fake. A reverse image search also revealed no other instances before the image began to be circulated by propagandists.
Bushnell’s shocking protest has focused even greater attention on Israel’s slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children. The attempt by supporters of the slaughter to divert from his aim in his terrible protest by posting an outright lie about him after his death is shameful and entirely unsurprising.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Just Keep Bringing Awareness To The Depravity Of The Empire In As Many Ways As Possible
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/5e56a8a3884c483c55ba00d440539623/href
At this point in history the most effective way for westerners to fight the empire and build support for revolutionary change is to undermine public support for western status quo systems and institutions. One does this by using every means at their disposal to help people see that the power structures which rule over us don’t serve our interests, and that they are in fact profoundly evil and destructive.
It takes a flash of insight for a westerner to be able to really see the perniciousness of the US-centralized empire in all its blood-soaked glory. This is because westerners spend their entire lives marinating in empire propaganda from childhood, which has normalized and manufactured their consent for the murderous, exploitative and oppressive power structure we live under. The current status quo is all they’ve ever known, and the idea that something better might be possible is alien to them.
Teachers of spiritual enlightenment point students to the truth of their being in as many ways as possible in an effort to facilitate a flash of insight into reality. The reason they do that rather than saying the same words over and over again from day to day is because everyone’s mind is unique and ever-changing, and what knocks things home for one student one day will just be useless noise to another student who will later pop open at something completely different. The receptivity to insight varies from person to person.
Similarly, a westerner who’s been swimming in empire propaganda their whole life won’t have their moment of insight into the depraved nature of the empire until something lands for them that they are personally receptive to. Someone who isn’t receptive to words about the exploitative and ecocidal nature of global capitalism may be receptive to the threat of rapidly expanding censorship, surveillance, police militarization and other authoritarian measures. Someone who is unbothered by the empire’s nuclear brinkmanship with Russia and looming war with China may have their heart broken and their worldview changed when shown what is happening in Gaza.
What triggers the opening of one pair of eyes may not be what triggers another. A kickboxer doesn’t throw only overhand rights because that happened to be what scored a knockout in his last bout, he throws a diverse array of strikes in varied combinations at all levels to overwhelm the defenses of his opponent and land a fight-ending blow. When fighting the empire, one needs to bring the same approach.
Look for fresh opportunities to show westerners that the mass media are deceiving and propagandizing them to get them questioning their assumptions about what they’ve been told about the world. Look for fresh opportunities to show them evidence that the US war machine is the most murderous and destructive force on this planet. Look for fresh opportunities to show them how status quo systems create a far less beneficial society and a far less healthy world than what we could have under different systems. You never know what could be the one thing that snaps somebody’s eyes open.
Nothing you do on this front is wasted effort. All positive changes in human behavior at any level are always preceded by an expansion of awareness, so anything you can do to help bring awareness to the reality of our situation is energy well spent. Any effort you make to shove human consciousness toward the light of truth in even the tiniest way has a beneficial effect on our species.
So use whatever tools you can to make that happen. Have conversations, attend demonstrations, put up signs and stickers, write, tweet, make podcasts, make videos — whatever you find effective for you. Just make sure you’re coming at this thing from as many angles as possible, because diversifying your attacks on the mind control machine is the best way to get through its defenses.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Featured image via Adobe Stock.
New Israeli report alleging ‘systematic and intentional rape’ by Hamas relies on debunked Western media reports
The contents of the Israeli Association of Rape Crisis Center’s paper alleging “systematic” Hamas rape derive largely from discredited second-hand testimonies and debunked media reports. Among its most heavily cited sources is a dubious NY Times article that triggered a staff revolt at the paper. Western media outlets are hyping a new report by the Israeli government-affiliated “Association of Rape Crisis Centers” (ARCC) which maintains that Hamas combatants carried out a campaign of “systematic and intentional” rape on October 7. […]
The post New Israeli report alleging ‘systematic and intentional rape’ by Hamas relies on debunked Western media reports first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post New Israeli report alleging ‘systematic and intentional rape’ by Hamas relies on debunked Western media reports appeared first on The Grayzone.
You Only Need To Cage A Bird If It Knows That It Can Fly
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/b06f5b5e627b78bc4febd37e958ce0c0/href
One point I keep trying to drive home here in as many ways as I can is that this is the dystopia we were warned about. The main difference between this mind-controlled dystopia and the fictional dystopias in novels like 1984 is that in 1984 people knew they weren’t living in a free society, whereas in this dystopia the people believe they are free.
In Orwell’s dystopia people knew they weren’t free and had to use doublethink to stay out of trouble with their rulers. In this dystopia people have no idea how pervasively they’re being dominated by their rulers; they think they came up with their ideas, worldview and political positions on their own, when in reality those belief systems were constructed inside their skulls by a profoundly sophisticated propaganda machine without their even knowing it.
All mainstream and semi-mainstream political factions are owned and operated by the powerful, and propaganda is used to get the public subscribing to them to advance the interests of the powerful. Because the overwhelming majority of us have been manipulated into espousing one of these power-serving belief systems (they give you multiple choices depending on your ideological disposition), the more overtly totalitarian measures described by dystopian novelists are unnecessary. You only need to cage a bird if it knows that it can fly.
But make no mistake: our society is no more free than those in the dark futures imagined by storytellers. If our minds are not free, then we are not free. If we’re being successfully manipulated into thinking, speaking, acting, voting, working and consuming in accordance with the wishes of the powerful, then we’re just as locked down as we would be if we had chains around our necks. Collectively we could not be any more aligned with the will of the powerful than we already are, even if our brains were replaced with computer chips.
There is no more need for dystopian fiction, because the dystopia has already arrived. It’s here. In fact, dystopian fiction is actually destructive because it causes people to imagine that dystopia is a threat that exists somewhere off in the future instead of right here and now all around us.
We don’t need dystopian fiction for the same reason we wouldn’t need imaginary swords-and-sorcery fantasy novels if we we lived in a world of wizards and dragons. People living in dystopian societies do not need dystopian fiction, they need dystopian facts. Dystopian journalism. Dystopian documentaries. Dystopian polemics. We just need true information and reality-based ideas to counter the lies and manipulation we’re inundated with from day to day.
We cannot be free until we have used the power of our numbers to shrug off the control of our dystopian overlords, and we’ll never do that as long as a critical majority of us are unable to see how profoundly unfree we really are. There’s no escaping the mind control matrix of imperial propaganda until you can see the lines of code it is made of.
Our most important task then, at this point in history, is to keep pointing out those lines of code for as many people as possible, in as many ways as we can think of. The one advantage to this type of dystopia is that our rulers need to maintain their nice-guy free society image in order to preserve the illusion that we are free, so they can’t just come out and start imprisoning everyone who spotlights the myriad ways we are enslaved by lies and propaganda. They’ll never grant us a major mainstream platform on which to do this, but we can operate within the margins, waking up one person at a time to the reality of what’s going on.
So go around spreading the truth. Fighting the propaganda. Weakening public trust in the mass media and the political constructs it manufactures consent for. Highlighting the depravity and murderousness of the empire. Use any and all media and forums you find to be effective.
Everything you do on this front makes a difference, and don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. The propaganda machine is the linchpin of their power. It’s what holds the empire together. Without the ability to manipulate the public at mass scale, our rulers cannot rule.
Once people are no longer buying into power-serving narratives, we will gain the ability to begin working toward the creation of a truth-based society that works for everyone. But this will never happen as long as we are being successfully manipulated into believing that this model for human civilization is acceptable and serves our interests. The very first step is un-jacking our brains from the propaganda matrix.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Featured image via Adobe Stock.