It’s The Media’s Job To Normalize War: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Friday, 16 April 2021, 3:48 pm
Opinion: Caitlin Johnstone

Exactly zero percent of the world's worst criminals are in prison. Imperialists. War profiteers. Ecocide profiteers. The very worst of thieves are financial elites. The system isn't designed to protect us from society's worst, it's designed to protect society's worst from us.

I don't write much about the specific individuals who drive the oligarchic empire because individuals are not the problem, the system is. Right-wing conspiracy analysts prefer to focus on specific corrupt elites because they like to think if you just got rid of them, capitalism would work fine. And it just wouldn't. If you rounded up and executed all the sociopathic ruling elites today but left our current systems intact they'd just be replaced tomorrow. A competition-based model where war, corruption, oppression and exploitation remain profitable guarantees this.

A lot of right-wing conspiracy analysis today ultimately boils down to "These bastards are ruining the capitalism!" But capitalism is already ruined, and ruinous. As long as it's profitable to destroy each other and our ecosystem, the ruin will continue. That's the real problem. Making it about individuals feeds into the false impression that the individuals are the problem, and absolves us of our collective responsibility to move out of our competition-based model to one in which we collaborate with each other and our ecosystem to create a healthy world.

As long as we have systems in which it's advantageous to be sociopathic enough to do whatever it takes to get ahead, we will find ourselves ruled by sociopaths. The names and faces on those sociopaths are ultimately irrelevant. They're a symptom of the underlying disease.

It's the mass media's job to normalize war and abnormalize peace. It's our job to do the exact opposite.

Every single time a possibility opens up for stepping even an inch back from endless war there's a New York Times article explaining why the war is actually humanitarian and progressive. https://t.co/ERnOouPWqk

— Caitlin Johnstone

(@caitoz) April 15, 2021

People who say cops are fine to kill people for disobeying orders are saying they believe in a death penalty without trial.

"The black man deserved to be killed because he disobeyed the authority figure" is nineteenth century slaver talk.

Sure I guess spending your nation's wealth and resources on an endlessly expanding worldwide military campaign while impoverishing your citizenry at home and keeping them in line with an increasingly violent and militarized police force is one way you can choose to do things.

The fall of the US empire wouldn't necessarily be a concern if its government hadn't espoused the neoconservative doctrine that US unipolar hegemony must be preserved and prolonged at all cost. That last bit is what's frightening.

I've been tripping on the frenzied propaganda campaign against China a lot lately because it's so effective. People are swallowing it en masse, which means that when things get ugly (and they will get ugly), people will be easily manipulated into playing along with that ugliness.

I write about narrative control all the time because that's ultimately what it's all about. If you don't believe that human life is dominated by mental narrative on all levels, sit down, close your eyes, and try to still your mind for a few minutes. Try as hard as you can. And watch what happens.

Easy right? You can stop your thoughts and rest in stillness for as long as you like. Right?

Of course not. Most people's lives are dominated by a relentless deluge of thought stories from the moment they wake up in the morning to the moment they go to sleep at night. We say we think our thoughts, but in reality they're more like something that happens to us whether we like it or not. Our entire experience of life is shaped by story. By narrative.

Because humans are so pervasively dominated by mental narrative, whoever can manipulate the narratives about a given subject can manipulate humans at mass scale. That's why so much energy goes into propaganda: narrative control is the real crux of power.

This is how you can spot someone who prioritizes manipulation in their lives: they pour a tremendous amount of energy into influencing the thoughts people think about them and the stories they tell each other about them rather than making real changes to themselves and the world. This applies to people you know personally, all the way up to politicians and plutocrats.

Narrative rules the earth. If we can free our minds we can free the world.

Your life touches so many others in more ways than you know. The more conscious you become, the more consciousness you bring to others through all those connections. You can become a light for the world by enlightening yourself. Awaken your mind. Heal your wounds. Shine bright.

New book: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix.

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

© Scoop Media

Caitlin Johnstone

Rogue journalist

Caitlin Johnstone is a 100 percent crowdfunded rogue journalist, bogan socialist, anarcho-psychonaut, guerilla poet and utopia prepper living in Australia with her American husband and two kids. She writes about politics, economics, media, feminism and the nature of consciousness. She is the author of the illustrated poetry book "Woke: A Field Guide For Utopia Preppers."

Contact Caitlin Johnstone

• Twitter - @caitoz
• Facebook