Realizations on Two Fronts
Napolitano and your author break through the wall
[Image: a frame from the first of the two discussions at hand.]
Published: 2023-05-29
Realization
I would normally provide lots of background and sourcing for an article. And, if one of those sources was Judge Napolitano interviewing Ray McGovern I would advise you to listen, and to listen to McGovern.
The first point of this article is to advise you to listen not to the interviewee, but the interviewer.
I commented recently that Napolitano has assembled a good lineup of guests. He seems to have moved beyond entertaining the ideas they provide into recognizing the veracity and importance of their understanding and analysis. There is a specific moment, after McGovern delivers one of his “I think I’ve got the quote here somewhere” theatrix and quotes an old head of the DIA (USA Defence Intelligence Agency) which accurately summarizes the current situtation. The ex-Director is describing, in a required report to Congress, how the Russians see the situation, years ago.
The moment for Napolitano is not as extreme as for Nils Melzer when he finally looked into the Assange case, but it is similar. He recognizes that the honest work of good intelligence officials is being suppressed to support a fictional narrative which is wholely designed to hoodwink a population into doing dangerous and stupid things.
Narrative
While we’re on narratives, another of Napolitano's regular guests is Alastair Crooke, who is not ex-CIA but ex-MI6. He knows his stuff. During his most recent discussion with Napolitano they discuss recent changes in the war of stupid being waged by the US and a corralled NATO against now Russia and soon China. Crooke is as worried as I am about yet another escalation. I believe he sees the same hints as I have about dissent within the USA power structure against this continued belligerence which I mentioned in the recent Week in Review.
Where narrative comes in, is the US need to organize its NATO allies to apply the same storylines or talking points to shift their aggression to east Asia.
Wetware Bugs
When I began reading Caitlin Johnstone and agreeing with her general analysis, I accepted her notion of narrative. But, whilst listening to Crooke I’ve had a moment a little like Napolitano’s. It all about narrative. Narrative is everything (or perhaps 90% of what must force its NATO allies to accept).
If one takes a moment to think about this, it is quite revealing. Firstly, reality is completely unimportant. We’re back to the neo-con line of “we create reality” which is about as megalomaniacal as one can get. There was a sense of truth in this during the period of USA as the hegemon, but that period has passed. One may even say it has been squandered. Next, what is narrative? It is not a story, it is a specific collection of phrases. There is an implied “backstory” but it is not important. It is as simple as US + NATO good, them bad.
It is the phrasing that matters to the power structure.
The elected front people for the power players behind them, “the deep state” or ”the establishment”, believe that not only does this narrative phrasing work, but that it is the most important thing, and that it does not need to relate to reality or purpose or intention or justice or law or anything. It just needs to be unified.
Why do they believe this works? Because it does.
Why does it work?
Because 98% of the western media are stenographic and often ideological idiots who couldn’t analyze their way to a draw in tic-tac-toe. They also profit from NOT analyzing what the politician/front people say. The art is now so perfected that the US cable news (propaganda) companies employ ex-establishment people to repeat the same talking points as were foisted on the politicians. It is a unified front designed, as Caitlin and others including James Corbett have informed us, to exploit our wetware bug of accepting anything we hear over and over again as truth.
The “how did we get here” is trivial: politicians need to convince large numbers of people to vote for them. Using psychological / emotional tricks is more efficient and effective than facts or actual policy. This was discovered by the advertising/PR industry a century ago (see Edward Bernays). As soon as one goes down the policy line one ends up “in the weeds” and people’s attention is lost, making this a losing ploy.
Our job is to accept that pollies do this because, essentially, they must. But, we can push back a bit and identify journalists who actually ask useful questions. More importantly, we need to identify new narrative when it emerges and question it. If it is rubbish, we need to identify for ourself that so that the repetition has no effect and we dont get sucked into believing hogwash.
Have a listen to the interview with Crooke. Notice what he has to say about the use of narrative for the pivot from Ukraine to China or the “pivot to Asia” as President Obama put it.
But, first, listen to the judge having his realization during the McGovern interview.
Sources
Putin's Plan for Ukraine Now - Ray McGovern, Napolitano inteviews McGovern, Judging Freedom, 2023-05-24
Team Biden Antagonizing Putin - Alastair Crooke fmr Brit ambassador, Napolitano inteviews Crooke, Judging Freedom, 2023-05-25
Meet Edward Bernays, Master of Propaganda, James Corbett, The Corbett Report, 2017-10-02
We've Been Dominated By Narrative Control Since The Dawn Of Civilization, Caitlin Johnstone, her newsletter, 2023-01-10
Culture
Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2), Pink Floyd (from the 1979 album "The Wall"), Pink Floyd, uploaded 2016-01-12
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