CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—They’ll justify, they’ll excuse, they’ll exonerate, and then they’ll distract, moving public attention on to the next big thing and allowing the amnesia of the daily news churn to wash Gaza from our attention — all while pretending to be on our side.

This messaging will need to be fought tooth and claw. We cannot allow them to neuter this political moment with spin and propaganda. We need to make sure their criminality remains front and center of public awareness, and we need to push for the real revolutionary changes that Gaza plainly proves are needed.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The US-centralized globe-spanning power structure therefore relies heavily on its historically unprecedented ability to psychologically manipulate global populations when carrying out such atrocities. The empire has invested more heavily in soft power than any empire or government in human history, and the science of modern propaganda has been advancing under this investment at least as rapidly as military technology has been.

That’s why you can have the most damning information imaginable about the people who rule over us sitting right out in the open, and you won’t see anywhere remotely close to the public outrage and backlash you ought to see.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The Grayzone has a new report out featuring leaked slides from a private Israel lobby presentation teaching politicians and prominent figures how to talk about Gaza in ways the public will be receptive to, based on focus group-tested information gathered by Republican political operative Frank Luntz. Journalist Mark Ames tweeted of the report, “This is an incredible scoop, a direct window into how the genocide-propaganda sausage is made.”

My favorite part of the article is where the author Max Blumenthal writes that Republicans and Democrats were found to be receptive to different words used to describe Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza, saying “Republican voters prefer phrases which imply maximalist violence, like ‘eradicate’ and ‘obliterate,’ while sanitized terms like ‘neutralize’ appeal more to Democrats.”

That’s pretty much the only difference between Republicans and Democrats right there. That’s it in a nutshell.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Losing an election costs Democratic party leaders nothing; all the career politicians and political operatives at the top keep their careers either way. From their point of view this is just a cushy job with sweet benefits, and they keep those win or lose. And obviously Biden himself doesn’t care; he’ll have a comfortable retirement regardless of the outcome in November, and on some level he’s surely aware that it’s nuts for a dementia patient to be in the White House anyway.

If the Democrats cared about getting your vote they’d be trying hard to earn it. They’re not trying because they don’t care.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—In case you haven’t been following the story, back in December the Times published an article titled “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7” which was riddled with glaring plot holes that were exposed by research from outlets like The Grayzone, Electronic Intifada, and Mondoweiss. Later it came out with the help of an anonymous Twitter account named zei_squirrel that one of the three authors of the New York Times piece — Anat Schwartz — is a genocide-supporting Israeli intelligence veteran who had never worked in journalism before, and that another author of the piece — a food writer named Adam Sella — is her partner’s nephew.