Bill & Ted’s Excellent Armageddon

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Armageddon

by C.A. Matthews

Bill, a.k.a. “Bill S. Preston, Esquire”, shuffles into a suburban garage music studio where his friend, Ted “Theodore” Logan, is busily grinding his ax. That is, he’s playing an electric guitar, loudly and poorly.

TED: (Puts down his guitar.) Dude! What did Rufus say?

BILL: (He throws his backpack to the side and sits behind the Wyld Stallyns drum kit and hits a few beats in frustration.)You’ll never guess this, dude, but Rufus says he needs us to time travel back to the dark ages.

TED: You mean to the time where the princesses came from?

BILL: No, Ted, even further back. He wants us to go back in history to 1961 and borrow President Eisenhower and help him write a more excellent farewell speech before he leaves the White House.

TED: Whoa...1961? That is dark! But Bill, Rufus knows we can’t spell, so that’s not going to happen.

BILL: I told him, but Rufus says we gotta do it to save humanity or something like that. He gave us a copy of the speech he wants Ike to give.

TED: Awesome! (Frowning.) So, who’s like “Ike”?

BILL: Ike’s the president’s nickname, like yours is “Theodore.” 

TED: (Shaking his mop head.) I like Ike!

BILL: I do too. Well, it’s a bodacious speech that could stop a lot of egregious stuff and do a lot of good according to Rufus, so I told him we’d do it.

TED: No way!

BILL: Yes way!

TED: What’s this speech supposed to be about?

BILL: It’s about how we shouldn’t trust the military-industrial complication something or other. All they want to do is start wars so they can sell more bombs and guns and stuff and make lots of money by killing people.

TED: Whoa. That’s totally bogus, dude. Killing people should not be making anyone rich.

BILL: Right you are, dude. (He hits a few beats on the skins and then hits on the cymbals.) That’s why I told Rufus we’d agreed to do it.

TED: (Shakes his head repeatedly.) Okay. So we travel back and give Ike the speech he needs to give in 1961 and everything will be totally gnarly, right?

BILL: Correctomundo. (He puts down the drumsticks.) We just gotta be extra careful not to forget to tell Ike to not forget the last couple of paragraphs that Rufus told me to tell him. They’re real important.

TED: What are these so-called “paragraphs,” dude?

BILL: Rufus said that we should tell Ike to tell the folks not to trust the government when it lies to them about why the wars are starting all the time. Ike has to say, “I’m lying because I’m the government, and I’m caught up in all the military-industrial complications that make a lot of money for rich dudes. Don’t believe me.”

TED: Dude, that doesn’t make any sense. Aren’t we suppose to like Ike and believe him because he’s the president? He wouldn’t be lying to us, right? He wouldn’t want us all to be heinous and go around killing people for money.

BILL: (Scratching his chin in thought.) You make a good point there, Ted. I was a bit confused with what Rufus said about the censorship-industrial complications and how the government would make up stuff just to keep folks from shutting down the wars and killings and all. Let’s skip that confusing part about the government lying. I don’t have enough room in my backpack for all the papers Rufus gave me anyway.

TED: Excellent, dude! Should we get going now so we can get home in time to rehearse with the princesses when they get home from their jobs later?

BILL: Right you are, Ted! We don’t want to keep our most bodacious babes waiting a second longer than absolutely necessary.

(Bill picks up his backpack. The duo exit the garage and head toward a beat up phone booth sitting askew on the driveway.)

TED: Wyld Stallyns will be burning up the airwaves before too long once we get 1961 all straightened out. Won’t we, Bill?

BILL: (Gesturing widely.) Dude, we’ll make an explosion of sound that will wipe out all this “Don’t trust the president and the government lies” heinous stuff in the speech about making money and killing people in starting wars.

TED: (Shaking his head energetically.) Rufus will be so proud of us this time.

(The two look at each other and smile as they play a riff on their air guitars.)

BILL and TED: Excellent! Party on, dude!

END

 

  

To see where Bill and Ted went wrong in their mission to save humanity, check out President Eisenhower’s actual speech above. 

To understand more about how the censorship-industrial complex works currently (and it is complicated), read Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Top 50 Organizations to Know, by Matt Taibbi and company. After you check it out, you'll see how easily Bill and Ted got confused.

Americans are indoctrinated from childhood to believe that authority figures would never lie to us and only have our best interests in mind. To be told that the public needs to be warned against trusting everything they’re told by government officials and spokespersons goes against our earliest training. Throw in a scary scenario like 9/11 and you'll get the Patriot Act before you know it.  

If anyone had told Eisenhower back then what we now know about how US government disinformation agencies work to keep the public in the dark about the machinations of billionaire capitalists in the 21st century, I doubt Ike would have believed it. I know it’s hard for me to believe even with that excellent graphic in the Report on Censorship-Industrial Complex article and reading all about the Homeland Security's new "Political Police" program to teach us all how to snitch on our neighbors. The sheer lack of ethics evident in these Behind The Curtain styled machinations is mind-boggling. 

George Orwell's 1984 couldn't have put it any better!

Consider where we’d be today if Americans had learned in 1961 not to trust every government narrative on world events. Would we have continued warring in Vietnam as long as we did if we had known the truth of what was really happening there? Knowing the US military-industrial complex's self-serving goals, would Americans have considered going along with invading Grenada, Iraq, or Afghanistan? Would we have sponsored the Maidan Coup of 2014 that kicked out a democratically elected president and set up the current money-laundering/people-killing operation in Ukraine? Would Americans have agreed to harsh economic sanctions in places such as Yemen, Iran, Cuba, Syria and elsewhere that have starved and killed more people worldwide than our outright military interventions have?

Time travel as a sub-genre in science fiction has always intrigued me. The temptation to go back in time and “fix things” or to journey into the future and see if we’ll even still be here, alive and well on planet Earth, is so tempting. Until we’ve perfected time travel, however, we’re stuck living a linear existence.

We can’t take back what we’ve said or done to provoke a war. But we can do the ethical and compassionate thing and sit down at the negotiations table and discuss peace terms. We can halt the current wars and prevent any future conflicts from ever starting. We can cooperate and work together with our neighbors on this globe to gain and maintain harmony.

If only Americans weren’t quite as “brilliant” as Bill and Ted! If only we used our critical thinking skills instead of blindly swallowing whatever false narrative those in authority want us to swallow. We’d be living in a peaceful world now, today, and not vainly wishing for a chance to go back in history to do it over again in order to garner better results.

Armageddon need never come then—just excellent adventures of the most awesome and bodacious variety. It’s time we put down our air guitars and journey forth from our garage studios and spread truths to counter the lies. Right, dudes?

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you can imagine. ~William Blum

 

Articles of Interest:

Eisenhower Farewell Address (Full)
https://youtu.be/CWiIYW_fBfY

Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Top 50 Organizations to Know https://www.racket.news/p/report-on-the-censorship-industrial-74b

 
The Government Created a New Disinformation Office to Oversee All the Other Ones  https://theintercept.com/2023/05/05/foreign-malign-influence-center-disinformation/

Political Police? New Docs Show DHS Program To Target “Middle-Aged Pro Life Advocates” and “Budding Conspiracy Theorists” Under Guise Of “Deradicalization” https://foundationforfreedomonline.com/dhs-video-series-to-target-peer-beliefs/ 

DHS and FBI Depict Vegan Activists as Potential Domestic Terrorists https://www.leefang.com/p/dhs-and-fbi-depict-vegan-activists/

Proof 911 Hijackers Were CIA https://youtu.be/-JbdfgqzsEg

US Sold Weapons to Nearly 60 Percent of World's Authoritarian Nations in 2022  https://truthout.org/articles/us-sold-weapons-to-nearly-60-percent-of-worlds-authoritarian-nations-in-2022/ 

As Arab states seek peace, US insists that Syrians suffer https://mate.substack.com/p/as-arab-states-seek-peace-us-insists

Title 42 Was Inhumane and Illegal. So Are Biden’s New Border Policies. https://truthout.org/articles/title-42-was-inhumane-and-illegal-so-are-bidens-new-border-policies/

War for Profit: A Very Short History https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/09/war-for-profit-a-very-short-history/

Nazis in Ukraine--It's Worse Than You Think https://joebrunoli.substack.com/p/nazis-in-ukraine-its-worse-than-you-think-80a2b8028306

Special Counsel Reveals 2016 Trump-Russia FBI Investigative Failure https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/14/special-counsel-reveals-2016-trump-russia-fbi-investigative-failure/

Former Dumping Ground Became A Flourishing Food Ecosystem
https://popularresistance.org/former-dumping-ground-became-a-flourishing-food-ecosystem/

Sabotage For The Planet? https://popularresistance.org/sabotage-for-the-planet/

London police carry out mass arrests during coronation of King Charles https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/07/siop-m07.html

This Season’s Hottest Trend: Anti-Consumption
https://popularresistance.org/this-seasons-hottest-trend-anti-consumption/

Private Jets Are Dirty Luxuries For The Ultra Rich – Let’s Tax Them
https://popularresistance.org/private-jets-are-dirty-luxuries-for-the-ultra-rich-lets-tax-them/

Teamsters bureaucracy orders members not to join picket lines of Writers Guild strike https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/08/twga-m08.html

Following unexplained death of kindergartner, Detroit elementary school reopens amid cluster of “mystery” illnesses
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/08/kzyk-m08.html

This Civilization Is Mentally Ill https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/this-civilization-is-mentally-ill

The narrative of the “unprovoked war” in Ukraine falls apart
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/11/gfgh-m11.html

Neo-Nazi terror threat grows as Ukraine fighters jailed in France
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/05/09/neo-nazi-terror-threat-grows-as-ukraine-fighters-jailed-in-france/

More People Died from the Failures of Obamacare than from Covid-19  https://scheerpost.com/2023/05/12/more-people-died-from-the-failures-of-obamacare-than-from-covid-19/

Another Norfolk Southern Train Derails 15 Miles From Site of East Palestine, Ohio Disaster  https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/05/14/epal-m14.html

Behind The Curtain https://bernie2016.blogspot.com/2023/05/behind-curtain.html 

 

Coming soon, the first book from The Revolution Continues blog:  The Little Red Book of Revolution

How can you get your e-copy? The easiest way is to subscribe to The Revolution Continues on Substack as a paying subscriber. Choose what level you'd like to subscribe at via the buttons on any post online at https://therevolutioncontinues.substack.com

More details to come. Power to the people!

 

Weaponizing Free Speech

 

This is the dystopia you were warned about. A mind-controlled populace thinking, speaking, shopping, moving and voting in accordance with the will of the powerful. All that's left now is to secure the few dissidents on the fringes and keep bolstering the mind control matrix.

This doesn't mean it's hopeless, it just means we've got to acknowledge reality and start working from where we're at. The biggest obstacle to real freedom is the belief that we already have it. --Caitlin Johnstone, The Empire of Hypocrisy

 

Weaponizing Free Speech

by C. A. Matthews

Most Americans believe that no one has ever gotten into trouble simply for speaking their mind. No matter how much you might disagree with a fellow American, you probably agree that they have the right to free speech. You believe that freedom of speech is a basic right protected by our Constitution. You feel confident that all Americans have the right to believe and express themselves as they deem fit. 

Sorry to break it to y’all, but you really don’t.  

Free speech is not guaranteed, as demonstrated by the latest US government shenanigans. The feds have charged four African Americans simply because they are members of the African People’s Socialist Party and expressed opinions that don’t align with the current administration’s viewpoint. 

According to the Black Alliance for Peace: 

The unsealed indictment states that on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, a federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, levied charges of “conspiring to covertly sow discord in U.S. society, spread Russian propaganda and interfere illegally in U.S. elections.” While no evidence of conspiracy, propagandizing, or interference has been presented, the APSP and its members have the right, as all US citizens do, to freely criticize U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

Not since the Palmer Raids of the early 20th century, nor since the indictment of W.E.B DuBois in 1951, or the confiscation of Paul Robeson’s U.S. passport during the anti-communist “McCarthyist” era, has there been such a hysterical response to African people asserting their rights and freedom of speech in the United States.

The Department of Justice claims APSP members had “weaponized” free speech by expressing solidarity with the Russian people and “conspiring to interfere” with US elections. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen in the DOJ's press release regarding the indictments stated, “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt US elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are US citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

Quick translation: The DOJ is prosecuting US citizens for political speech and related activities because they’re worried that more and more Americans don’t agree with the status quo of the uniparty and might not support the incumbent in the upcoming presidential election. The grand jury alleges that a Russian national "directed" these Americans to "publish pro-Russian propaganda" and "information designed to cause dissension in the United States." 

HandsOffUhuru.org

(Watch this excellent short video to learn more about the case: https://youtu.be/fvwhHouTZh0. Omali Yeshitela, APSP co-founder, voices how the US government apparently doesn't believe that African Americans are intelligent enough to come up with a socialist philosophy all on their own or know if they're being used by a foreign power. Obviously the FBI feels scared enough of an 82 year old African American man that they had to use violent tactics to break into his home to handcuff him and arrest him.)

I take all the Biden administration's legal mumbo-jumbo to mean that the Dems can’t afford to have any real competition running against the corpse of Joe Biden for a second term because he and his war in Ukraine are that unpopular. They must shut all dissenting voices down no matter how fascistic it makes them look. I suppose the white supremacists at the FBI couldn't wait to do something this evil, too.

(Did I just say that part out loud about Biden being a corpse and the FBI being Klansmen? Should I be watching out the window for the feds to arrive any minute on my doorstep carrying flash bang grenades?)

I do believe in “The pen is mightier than the sword,” and “The truth shall set you free.” But when an army’s worth of federal agents can show up at your front door and take you away simply because you’re an 82 year old African People’s Socialist Party member who doesn’t agree with the US government's racist and warmongering actions, can anyone ever too be careful speaking their mind? Will believing in the truth and the power of free speech save us from government abuse?

It's not reasonable for the government to just dismiss the First Amendment on the grounds that it is being "weaponized". You can't have your government dictating what speech is valid and what counts as "agitprop" and "disinformation", because they'll always define those terms in ways which benefit the government, thus giving more power to the powerful and taking power away from the people. -- Caitlin Johnstone

Speaking of abuse, although this is nothing quite as horrific as what’s happening to the APSP members, I was accused of using “weaponized” free speech this past week as well. I found myself a victim of corporate censorship. For the first time in eight years of writing and editing this weekly blog, a warning appeared at the top of the Blogger posting page. It read:

Your post titled "Who Is Stealing Our Election? " was flagged to us for review. We have determined that it violates our guidelines and have unpublished the URL http://bernie2016.blogspot.com/2016/05/who-is-stealing-our-elections
making it unavailable to blog readers.

Say what? What could we have published that was so heinous that it had to be hidden from public view now? Why was Google (who owns Blogger) all of a sudden so upset that it had to censor the post, “Who Is Stealing Our Election?” after seven years? The post was published in early May 2016, long before Trump and his followers’ denials of the 2020 election results began. The date of the post should have been a dead giveaway about whose election was being “stolen” and by whom.

Flashback: Bernie Sanders was being royally screwed over by the Hillary Clinton campaign in early 2016. The trolling of “Berners” online was dreadful. As editor of what was then known as The Bernie Blog, I gladly published almost every decently written submission sent in by Bernie supporters. A short piece called, “Who Is Stealing Our Election?” was the first of two short pieces that I edited and published that week, so I titled the entire posting with that catchy question.

Who would have thought that seven years later a bunch of neoliberals would get their knickers in a twist (or panties in a bunch) so much that anything that sounds remotely like something a Trump supporter might say about the 2020 election must be completely blocked from public view, censored forever?

After a quick edit or “self-censoring” of the title, Blogger allowed the post to go live again. I didn’t change a word of the posting, just its title. Somehow that change made it acceptable to Google for public consumption. The English-speaking public once again has been saved by the brave censorship of private agents working behind the scenes for the US government, or, in this case, the Joe Biden re-election campaign.

And what exactly are we being saved from by corporate censorship? What didn’t you have the right to read because the powers-that-be wanted to protect your delicate sensibilities? From what I can gather from the Blogger policy page, it’s most likely this:

Misleading Content

Do not distribute content that deceives, misleads, or confuses users. This includes:

Misleading content related to civic and democratic processes: content that is demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in civic or democratic processes. This includes information about public voting procedures, political candidate eligibility based on age / birthplace, election results, or census participation that contradicts official government records. It also includes incorrect claims that a political figure or government official has died, been involved in an accident, or is suffering from a sudden serious illness.

Now, why would anyone have any doubts about Joe Biden based on his “age” or from“suffering from a sudden serious illness,” such as having a stroke or dementia or that he hasn't "died" already and is simply a walking zombie? It's not like he's ever been seen babbling like an idiot on camera or wandering off a stage or looking to shake an invisible hand, is it?

I apologize if we’ve ever mislead you with the content here at The Revolution Continues or made you not trust in “civic or democratic processes,” but that was never our intent. The post from seven years ago was simply a Berner’s lament over how the Clinton campaign had “stolen” Bernie’s primary wins. Well, we live and learn and move on, don’t we? The Dems haven’t “stolen” any primaries from their rightful winners since 2016, right? And it's not like they're cancelling the Democratic Party primaries and debates in 2024, either!

(If you believe those last two statements, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, or its equivalent in the Midwest. Your choice!)

Free speech is a right no American should ever take lightly. People have fought and died for your right to express yourself freely. People have been imprisoned around the world for expressing themselves and sharing important—and sometimes embarrassing and incriminating—information about governments.

One such journalist springs to mind: Julian Assange. This week marks the fourth anniversary of Assange becoming the guest of His Majesty King Charles in England's Belmarsh Prison. In other words, an Australian journalist has been imprisoned in the UK because of his “crime” of journalism that has made the US government very angry. Assange dared to publish on his online platform, Wikileaks, the infamous “Collateral Murder” video. He exposed the lies of many governments, but he was particularly prolific in sharing information about the US involvement in the bloody war in Iraq and the tortures of detainees at our super-secret base at Guantanamo Bay. And, so far, nothing Wikileaks has ever published has been proven false.

Assange is being charged under the 1917 Espionage Act. His case raises troubling questions about whether it breaches both the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. The Espionage Act criminalizes journalism by ignoring the fact that the First Amendment makes an exception for a journalist possessing and informing the public about state secrets that reveal government crimes and corruption. 

 

Assange’s indictment should be dismissed on the ground that the Espionage Act’s overreach is an existential threat to First Amendment freedoms. For a US court to do otherwise is to undermine due process and threaten the First Amendment’s guarantee of a free press. But we will see. This administration's paranoid take on free speech being used as a "weapon" seems to be the driving force in his continued imprisonment.

Just like the APSP members speaking their minds, and our blog posting a short piece with an incendiary title implying that elections can actually be stolen in the US, Julian Assange is being actively censored. He is by being blotted out of human memory, locked up to wither away behind bars without trial, his reputation smeared by Western governments because they didn’t like what he had to say, and they don’t want the rest of the world to know what he has yet to say. 

Other independent journalists have been censored, mocked, and threatened recently. Remember Matt Taibbi and Seymour Hersh? We featured both on them on the blog not too long ago. They're also being harassed by the US government and their corporate media partners.  

Matt Taibbi is even being threatened with criminal charges of lying to a Congressional committee for a mistake made by a network propagandist who interviewed him on MSNBC. Seymour Hersh has been ridiculed and his Substack posts about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombing have been blocked on Facebook and labeled as "disinformation." If you ever needed more proof that the US government doesn't believe in the public's right to know and practice free speech, the demeaning treatment of these two maligned journalists prove it.

To all of you who are still reading at this point, I have just one word of advice to you in case you ever feel compelled to censor yourself and not use your right of free speech as a “weapon” for good in the world.

Don’t.

No matter what the corrupt government threatens, no matter what the corrupt corporations that do their bidding threaten, nothing—absolutely nothing—is as important as free speech and your right to express yourself fully. It is your inborn right, and it is your duty to continue to speak and write freely. It is your inborn right and your duty not to believe, agree with, or even acknowledge the lies and propaganda put out by untrustworthy powers-that-be.

Because if you don’t believe in and practice free speech in spite of the risks, then who else will?

 

Related Links:

Why Is The Government Targeting Black Socialists? (video) https://youtu.be/fvwhHouTZh0

Indictment Of African People’s Socialist Party Is A Racist Assault On The Black Liberation Movement https://popularresistance.org/indictment-of-african-peoples-socialist-party-is-a-racist-assault-on-the-black-liberation-movement/

Biden DOJ Just Indicted 4 Americans For Free Speech! Who's Next? (video)  https://www.youtube.com/live/EzvJIBfIYu4

War on Dissidents: New DOJ Indictments Criminalize Dissent—Weaponizing the Russian Censorship Tactics They Condemned (video) https://youtu.be/uxa_BSMPf1Q

Biden DOJ Indicts Four Americans For "Weaponized" Free Speech
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-doj-indicts-four-americans

Biden DOJ Charges Black Activists For Supporting Russia (video)
https://www.youtube.com/live/sbKT-MeY7kU

You're Not Immune To Propaganda (video) https://youtu.be/dl2fnWIlDZg

The Empire of Hypocrisy https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-empire-of-hypocrisy-notes-from 

The American Empire and its Media
https://swprs.org/the-american-empire-and-its-media/

1st Amendment Authorized Assange’s Possession of Classified Data
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/21/1st-amendment-authorized-assanges-possession-of-classified-data/

WikiLeaks: Collateral Murder (Iraq, 2007) https://youtu.be/HfvFpT-iypw (video)

Corporate Media Are The Anti-Wikileaks https://popularresistance.org/corporate-media-are-the-anti-wikileaks/

Facebook Brands Seymour Hersh Reporting As ‘False’ & What Does This Mean For A Free Press (video) https://odysee.com/@HardLensMedia:9/facebook-brands-seymour-hersh-reporting:2

Matt Taibbi: House Democrats Have Lost Their Minds
https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/19/house-democrats-have-lost-their-minds/

MSNBC Host’s Lie Could Send Journalist to Prison! w/ Matt Taibbi (video) https://youtu.be/tWNh03Ma1SA

Digital McCarthyism  https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/03/digital-mccarthyism.html

Pay For Your Own Wars, Big Oil! https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2023/02/pay-for-your-own-wars-big-oil.html

Here Come the Militarized Robots (But There Go Our Civil Liberties) https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/18/here-come-the-militarized-robots-but-there-go-our-civil-liberties/

House Democrat Threatens Twitter Files Journalist with Prosecution and Imprisonment  https://leefang.substack.com/p/house-democrat-threatens-twitter

Today In Empire: War Machine-Funded War Games, Facebook Censors Hersh, And More  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/today-in-empire-war-machine-funded

Universal Public Services: The Power of Decommodifying Survival
https://popularresistance.org/universal-public-services-the-power-of-decommodifying-survival/

Fossil Fuel Giants with Most Emissions Paid $118 Billion to CEOs in the Last Decade https://truthout.org/articles/fossil-fuel-giants-with-most-emissions-paid-1-18-billion-to-ceos-in-last-decade/

You Won't Believe Who Got The Richest From The Afghanistan War
https://youtu.be/wEFTLIzGZ6M

 

Disinformation Wars

Disinformation Wars

by C. A. Matthews  

“The first casualty when war comes is truth.” —Senator Hiram W. Johnson

From Caitlin Johnstone’s Newsletter:

AP's anonymously sourced report which said "A senior U.S. intelligence official says Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland, killing two people" went viral because of the massive implications of direct hot warfare erupting between Russia and the NATO alliance. AP subsequently retracted its story as the mainstream political/media class came to accept that it was in fact a Ukrainian missile that had struck Poland.

AP's firing of reporter James LaPorta looks at this time to be the end point of any accountability for the circulation of this extremely dangerous falsehood. AP spokesperson Lauren Easton says no disciplinary action will be taken against the editors who waved the bogus story through, and to this day the public has been kept in the dark about the identity of the US official who fed such extremely egregious misinformation/disinformation to the public through the mainstream press. —AP Editor Says She “Can’t Imagine” a US Intelligence Official Being Wrong

I find it odd that any grown, normally-functioning person couldn’t possibly imagine being lied to by a US intelligence official, but that is what this recent news story suggests. The mainstream media (the AP or Associated Press, no less) is acting stupid to please the American intelligence community. Simply put, the US government wants to keep us in the dark about which one of their propagandists fed false information about these missiles to a now unemployed reporter, James LaPorta. I think in this case the intelligence official(s) knew the lie would be exposed sooner or later, but they felt confident that the damage they wished to inflict upon the reputation of Russia would be enough to justify their actions.

According to journalist Ben Norton at Multipolarista:

By publishing the fake news, the AP set off an international scandal that could have triggered a direct US military attack on Russia.

 

To try to save face, the AP fired LaPorta on November 21... This controversy shows how cozy mainstream corporate media outlets are with US intelligence agencies, and how anonymous spies feed them claims that are often false, but that serve Washington’s foreign-policy interests. —Media Regurgitates Fake News From US Spies Risking World War III with Russia

“All is fair in love and war.”—a proverb attributed to John Lyly's Euphues

Is it? When has “lying in war” ever come close to the equivalent of “fairness”? To propagandists, lying is just another tool in their repertoire they use to control the public’s initial reaction and later to build devotion to a cause. In this case, the cause is the continued support of the NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine and the continuing monetary and military aid the US is sending without hesitation to that part of the world. 

 

If any evidence would surface to demonstrate that the billions of dollars of weaponry the US is giving away isn’t being used for the purpose it was sent for, then it would be more than embarrassing—it could prove fatal to the cause. (For more about the 70% of US-provided weapons gone missing in Ukraine, check out Lab Rats of the World Unite! and the archived CBS 60 Minutes documentary.)

 

If the actual facts were made crystal clear, people might see through the trickery practiced by the US "Ministry of Truth" and demand an end to this conflict altogether. But never fear, the military industrial complex and fossil fuel corporations would never stand for that. Neither would their politician-puppets who enjoy all the money that come from these special interest groups. 

 

The propaganda-spewing US mainstream media stays in step as they cry in horror about the dangers of free speech. Award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald states:

Online censorship has become one of the most potent propaganda weapons they possess, and there is no way they will allow anyone to dilute it even mildly without attempting to destroy them.  (...)

In unison, these media outlets decreed that not only would greater free speech on Twitter usher in the usual parade of horribles they trot out when demanding censorship — disinformation, hate speech, attacks on the “marginalized,” etc. etc. — but this time they severely escalated their rhetorical hysteria by claiming that Musk would literally cause mass murder by permitting a broader range of political opinion to be aired. —The Media's Deranged Hysteria Over Elon Musk's Restoration of Free Speech

Journalist Matt Taibbi shares another instance of how the US intelligence community is working to muddy the waters of public opinion:

Whether or not you thought the actual content of the story was important, the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop affair was a crossroads moment in the history of modern censorship. YouTube played a major role in this event.

This was a case in which major news media — including CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and countless other outlets — actively embraced disinformation, in the form of a group letter from 50-plus former intelligence officials saying the laptop story (they referred to a “laptop op”) had the “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” All the aforementioned news agencies fell for this, as did Twitter (which blocked access to it, in what then-CEO Jack Dorsey later admitted was a “total mistake”) and Facebook (whose increasingly adrift founder Mark Zuckerberg later told Joe Rogan the story was throttled down at the suggestion of the FBI).

YouTube also pushed this disinformation campaign. It still does. Despite the total absence of evidence ever existing that the laptop was either fake or part of a Russian “information operation” and a growing pile of evidence that the laptop is real, YouTube continues to leave unmolested on its site countless videos promoting the conspiracy theory — that’s what it is, let’s be clear — that the laptop story is both bunk and an intelligence op. —YouTubeCensors Reality, Boosts Disinformation: Part 1

Once again, a US intelligence agency—in this case it appears to be the FBI—has jumped into the news cycle and tried to deflect attention away from what is actually happening. Not only did they try to cast doubts on the authenticity of the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop, they tried to place the blame for the laptop’s potentially embarrassing and possibly criminal contents on another source. 

 

Hunter Biden’s laptop contents were a “Russian op” like the Ukrainian missiles shot into Poland were “Russian missiles.” No thoughts are given to the facts of how the Ukrainians are still using Soviet-era rocket launchers and multiple experts in ballistics can prove the missiles were launched by Ukraine. No thoughts as to how much of the content of the laptop in question has already been verified. (Read more about how Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma in 2014 here.) Whatever the US intelligence community wants the public to think, that's the story mainstream media is going with.

 

There seems to be sort of a pattern to these disinformation attempts... Who are we supposed to trust? Who are we supposed to distrust? What actual evidence have we been given not to trust these people other than what the US intelligence services have told us?

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” —John 8:32

Before we get too down on journalists in general, here's more sobering news that reporting the truth can prove dangerous to one’s health and career:

Sweden’s parliament adopted a major espionage law expansion that will permit the country’s police to investigate journalists, publishers, and whistleblowers if they reveal secret information that “may damage Sweden’s relationship with another state or an international organization.”

Journalists, publishers, or whistleblowers found guilty of revealing such “damaging” information could be sentenced to up to four years in prison under the new law.

The expansion was aimed at ensuring the Swedish government has even more control over what the public learns about the country’s cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union, and the United Nations. —Sweden Expands Espionage Law, Endangering Freedom of Journalists and Whistleblowers

What comes to mind after reading this bit of news is that Sweden has cooperated with the United States and the United Kingdom to keep Wikileaks publisher Julian Assange imprisoned, first in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and currently in Belmarsh Prison. Western governments—particularly NATO members—seem to be big on perpetuating their propaganda and covering up the truth from the public. They're more than willing to cooperate with each other if the lie proves to be of benefit to them, too.

Here’s another example of the hypocrisy of this situation:

US State Department spokesman and CIA veteran Ned Price tweeted disapprovingly about the Kyrgyz Republic's decision to deport investigative journalist Bolot Temirov to Russia, where press freedom groups are concerned that the Russian citizen could face conscription to fight in Ukraine. (...)

This is after all the same government that is working to extradite an Australian journalist from the United Kingdom with the goal of imprisoning him for up to 175 years for exposing US war crimes. Price says "Journalists should never be punished for doing their job," but that is precisely what the government he represents is doing to Julian Assange, who has already spent three and a half years in Belmarsh Prison awaiting US extradition shenanigans. This is in top of the seven years he spent fighting extradition from the Ecuadorian embassy in London under what a UN panel ruled was arbitrary detention. —US Officials Concern Troll About World Press Freedoms While Assaulting Them

Whistleblowers are forever being painted as the enemy, but never those who openly lie and obfuscate the truth via the implementation of propaganda. Our so-called freedom relies on government officials lying to us and locking up truth-tellers, or so it seems.

“A fool and his money are soon parted.” —Proverbs 21:20

Once again, US propagandists and mainstream media pundits are good at confusing the public about what’s really going on in the world and how much tax payer money we’re throwing at it. We’re informed that economically distressed Americans shouldn’t be too concerned about how the US is sending billions of dollars in military aid to country with a dubious history to fight our proxy war against Russia. There's never enough money for social programs such as universal health care and student loan debt relief, but there's always enough to buy and ship instruments of death: 

The White House on Tuesday asked Congress to approve $37.7 billion in new aid for Ukraine, which would bring total US spending on the war to about $105 billion.

According toThe Hill, the request includes $21.7 billion in military aid for Ukraine and to replenish US military stockpiles that have been sent to the country.

A total of $14.5 billion in budgetary aid to directly fund the Ukrainian government is included, as Kyiv is expecting the US and its allies to pay its budget deficit for 2023. —White House Asks Congress for $37.7 Billion in New Ukraine Aid

Over one-hundred billion dollars sent to Ukraine and who knows how much more will be forthcoming. And US intelligence officials will continue to lie to us about what’s really going on there.

 

When will Americans realize that wars are not being run by generals? They’re being run by propagandists. Yeah, fools and their money are soon parted. Disinformation from our own government is turning us all into penniless fools. What are we going to do about it?

 

Related Articles:

 

US Officials Concern Troll About World Press Freedoms While Assaulting Them  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/us-officials-concern-troll-about

 
YouTube Censors Reality Boosts Disinformation: Part 1
https://scheerpost.com/2022/11/22/youtube-censors-reality-boosts-disinformation-part-1/

 

AP Editor Said She "Can't Imagine" a US Intelligence Official Being Wrong  https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/ap-editor-said-she-cant-imagine-a

 

MSM Admits They Lied to You (video) https://rumble.com/v1vvgug-no-russia-did-not-bomb-poland-msm-admits-they-lied-to-you.html

 

The Media's Deranged Hysteria Over Elon Musk's Restoration of Free Speech (video) https://rumble.com/v1xbl8g-the-medias-deranged-hysteria-over-elon-musks-restoration-of-free-speech.html
 

While Crypto Bro Scammed Clients Reporters Scammed Readers
https://scheerpost.com/2022/11/21/while-crypto-bro-scammed-clients-reporters-scammed-readers/
 

Sweden Expands Espionage Law Endangering Freedom of Journalists and Whistleblowers https://scheerpost.com/2022/11/21/sweden-expands-espionage-law-endangering-freedom-of-journalists-and-whistleblowers/
 

Why is the AP Still Protecting the Source Behind Its False Russia Bombed Poland Story? https://scheerpost.com/2022/11/18/why-is-ap-still-protecting-the-source-behind-its-false-russia-bombed-poland-story/
 

Media Regurgitates Fake News From US Spies, Risking WWIII with Russia https://popularresistance.org/media-regurgitates-fake-news-from-us-spies-risking-world-war-iii-with-russia/

 
White House Asks Congress for $37.7 Billion in New Ukraine Aid
https://scheerpost.com/2022/11/16/white-house-asks-congress-for-37-7-billion-in-new-ukraine-aid/

Seen on Twitter:

Whole lotta “AsSaNgE iS nOt A JoUrNaLisT” geniuses out today so allow me to remind you that not only is Assange a journalist, he’s the only journalist on earth with a 100% record of accuracy. Thank you, next. #FreeAssangeNOW pic.twitter.com/5B5L7BMkpb

— Comrade Misty is Putin’s Buddy 🍀 (@SarcasmStardust) November 28, 2022

US changed Iranian flag to that of protesters during #WorldCup coverage. Iran should change the US flag to a BLM flag pic.twitter.com/eEEb27knLm

— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) November 28, 2022