Authored by Caitlin Johnstone by way of Medium.com,

Being labeled a Russian propagandist all day each day for criticizing US overseas coverage is actually bizarre, however one benefit it comes with is a helpful perspective on what individuals have actually been speaking about all these years once they warn of the hazards of “Russian propaganda”.

I do know I’m not a Russian propagandist. I’m not paid by Russia, I’ve no connections to Russia, and till I began this political commentary gig in 2016 I assumed little or no about Russia. My opinions concerning the western empire generally flip up on Russian media as a result of I let anybody use my work who desires to, however that was all the time one thing they did on their very own with out my submitting it to them and with none fee or solicitation of any variety. I’m actually just a few random westerner sharing political views on the web; these opinions simply occur to disagree with the US empire and its tales about itself and its habits.

But for years I’ve watched individuals pointing at me for instance of what “Russian propaganda” seems like. This has helped inform my understanding of all of the panic about “Russian affect” that’s been circulating these final six years, and given me some perception into how severely it ought to be taken.

As an alternative of monitoring how “Russia” influenced American attitudes, Hamilton 68 merely collected a handful of largely actual, largely American accounts, and described their natural conversations as Russian scheming: https://t.co/vxnKAoI9T7

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) January 27, 2023

That’s one cause why I wasn’t stunned by Matt Taibbi’s reporting on the Twitter Information revelations about Hamilton 68, an data op run by DC swamp monsters and backed by imperialist assume tanks which generated tons of if not hundreds of fully bogus mainstream information studies about on-line Russian affect over time.

Hamilton 68 purported to trace Russian makes an attempt to affect western thought on social media, however Twitter finally discovered that the “Russians” the operation has been monitoring have been really largely actual, largely American accounts who simply occurred to say issues that didn’t completely align with the official Beltway consensus. These accounts have been typically right-leaning, but in addition included individuals like Consortium Information editor Joe Lauria, who’s about as removed from a rightist as you will get.

They performed an enormous function in fanning the flames of public hysteria about on-line Russian affect, however whereas they did this by pretending to trace the habits of Russian affect ops, in actuality they have been monitoring dissent.

One of many craziest issues occurring on the planet as we speak is the way in which westerners are being brainwashed by western propaganda into panicking about Russian propaganda, one thing that has no significant existence within the west. Earlier than RT was shut down it was drawing a whopping 0.04 p.c of the UK’s whole TV viewers. The much-touted Russian election interference marketing campaign on Fb was largely unrelated to the election and affected “roughly 1 out of 23,000 items of content material” in accordance o Fb. Analysis by New York College into Russian trolling habits on Twitter within the lead-up to the 2016 election has discovered “no proof of a significant relationship between publicity to the Russian overseas affect marketing campaign and adjustments in attitudes, polarization, or voting habits.” A research by the College of Adelaide discovered that regardless of all of the warnings of Russian bots and trolls following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the overwhelming majority of inauthentic habits on Twitter throughout that point was anti-Russian in nature.

Russia exerts primarily zero affect over what westerners assume, but we’re all meant to freak out about “Russian propaganda” whereas western oligarchs and authorities companies frequently hammer our minds with propaganda designed to manufacture our consent for the established order which advantages them.

The arguments on this article are self defeating (a disaster of democracy ought to use secret unaccountable CIA subsidies to push “democracy”) and have already been refuted numerous occasions, and is pointless as we’re nonetheless utilizing disguised cutouts and move throughs to do propaganda https://t.co/kMtQxShCSp

— Joel Whitney (he/him) (@joel_whitney) January 30, 2023

All this and we’re nonetheless seeing requires extra narrative administration from the western empire, just like the latest American Goal article “The Lengthy Conflict of Concepts” being promoted by individuals like Invoice Kristol which requires a resurrection of CIA tradition conflict techniques like these used over the last chilly conflict. Every single day there’s some new liberal politician sermonizing about the necessity to do extra to struggle Russian affect and defend American minds from “disinformation”, at the same time as we’re proven over and over that what they really need is to close down dissident voices.

That’s what we’re seeing within the continuous efforts to improve on-line censorship, within the bogus new “fact-checking” trade, in calls to extend the output of formal US authorities propaganda operations like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, in the way in which all dissent about Russia has been forcefully purged from the western media lately, in the way in which empire-amplified trolling operations have been shouting down and drowning out critics of US overseas coverage on-line, in the way in which censorship by way of algorithm has emerged as one of many main strategies of limiting dissident speech.

They declare there must be an enormous escalation in propaganda, censorship and on-line psyops as a way to struggle “Russian affect”, whereas the one affect operations we’re being subjected to in any significant manner are solely ever of the western selection. They only wish to do extra of that.

Our rulers aren’t really apprehensive about “Russian affect”, they’re apprehensive about dissent. They’re apprehensive the general public gained’t consent to the “nice energy competitors” they plan to topic us to for the foreseeable future until they will exert large affect over our minds, as a result of they know that in any other case we are going to acknowledge that our pursuits are straight harmed by the financial warfare, exploding army spending and nuclear brinkmanship which essentially accompanies that marketing campaign to reign in Russia and cease the rise of China.

They’re propagandizing us about the specter of overseas propaganda as a way to justify propagandizing us extra. We’re being manipulated into consenting to agendas that no wholesome particular person would ever consent to with out copious quantities of manipulation.

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