Escaping The Prison Of Mainstream Culture
Caitlin Johnstone is one of my favorite pundits . . . always speaking and writing good sanity and positive propositions for sensible people.. This is this morning's offering by her from Melbourne, downnunda in the land of Oz. 
Escaping The Prison Of Mainstream Culture: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Caitlin Johnstone
May 24
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
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Many people turn to conservatism and religion because they perceive — correctly — that mainstream culture is a fraudulent sham bereft of meaning and authentic values. Their solutions are misguided, but their reasons arise from a perception of a very real problem.
It isn't actually necessary to turn to religion or conservatism to find depth, meaning and groundedness; depth, meaning and groundedness are always abundantly accessible. But nothing about western culture makes this obvious, especially in the mainstream.
Turning to religion and conservatism as a solution to the degradation of mainstream culture is just replacing the modern systems of mass-scale thought control with the old ones. It's a completely maladaptive solution to the problem, but you can't ask people to just keep participating in a worldview that feels like it's sucking your soul out of your body 24/7. You need to offer them something nourishing and authentic. Nothing in mainstream liberal culture offers this; it's self-evidently phony, soulless and vapid.
This isn't something the left can just dismiss. There needs to be something on offer which meets these needs better than both mainstream culture and the regressive belief systems which caused so much suffering in the past.
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Feminism was supposed to mean freeing women from oppression and inequality. Now it means shooting off Palestinian children's feet with sniper rifles. https://t.co/9CxfRiZBKh
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 23, 2023
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It's incredible how much money the Americans can afford to blow just on exploding stuff overseas. Their healthcare system and infrastructure must be phenomenal.
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Communism is such a non-thing in the west that western rightists have to make up imaginary communist threats to be afraid of, pretending devoutly anti-communist institutions like the Democratic Party and the World Economic Forum are communist, or that "woke" stuff is communism.
If you have to make up imaginary communist threats to give your ideology meaning and purpose, you have a dumb ideology. Making an identity out of being anti-communist in the west is like making an identity out of being anti-dinosaur. Stop being ridiculous and do something real.
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No normal person is asking for digital IDs or central bank digital currencies. They're being supplied without any demand, for the benefit of the power structures supplying them.
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If a western-backed Ukrainian offensive on Crimea leads to a series of escalations culminating in nuclear armageddon, only about 200 people in the entire world would think it was worth it, and none of them live in Crimea.
pic.twitter.com/kkyIEXhOgp
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 23, 2023
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So much is lost due to the fact that modern science and academia don't research western domestic propaganda and its effects, because they don't acknowledge the existence of western domestic propaganda. As a result, there are no studies or data anywhere on the most sophisticated and widespread psychological operation of all time. And this is of course because our academic fields are captured by the same influence interests as our media and tech and every other means of controlling the information westerners ingest.
This leaves us unable to scientifically study how we're being programmed at mass scale. Because there's not research and data, we can't even talk to most people about the most significant thing that's happening in our society. Unless you've spent countless hours researching the many systems of imperial information manipulation, it's hard to believe it's even happening.
This is the only reason those who talk about western propaganda and Silicon Valley information manipulation get branded conspiracy theorists. It's not because the evidence for our position on those issues isn't abundant, it's because it's not officially acknowledged and studied.
Domestic propaganda is the most overlooked and underappreciated aspect of our civilization, because it causes people to think, speak, work, shop and vote in ways that perpetuate the status quo. You should be able to get a PhD in its study, but you can't even write a thesis on it.
The most important thing you need to know about our society is that all our means of understanding our world are being aggressively and continuously interfered with by powerful people who benefit from the status quo. They're actively meddling in our perception of reality.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to 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. 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. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
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