Myriad agencies, funded by Western governments, foundations, and NATO, continue to erect barriers to freedom of thought and expression in the West’s post-democratic, New Fascist, societies.
The totalitarianism implicit in these restrictions means that colonial media is monochromatic, tightly framed, and ubiquitous. There is no “free exchange” of ideas, a necessary foundation of democratic societies. Hence, messaging that promotes wars of aggression, and dysfunctional economic ideologies remains ascendant in the public sphere.
The public is led to believe that never-ending criminal wars and vast outflows of public monies to the military industrial complex are normal and necessary. Similarly, publicly bailed-out, predatory, diseconomies are presented as the only viable economic models. Socially-oriented, (democratic) political economies, we are told, “do not work”. The public remains unaware that Empire wages criminal economic and “kinetic”, terrorist-supporting warfare, against societies that seek to determine their own political economies. Socially-oriented political-economies in countries such as Libya, Iraq, Syria, Nicaragua, Venezuela and on and on, are constantly under attack, and not allowed to thrive. Empire targets these countries criminally, aggressively, and perpetually.
The covert barriers which create bounded, framed restrictions on freedoms of expression create a “chilling effect” that promotes self-censorship, and disappears evidence-based truths which would otherwise counter-balance narratives from media conglomerates, all of which are unduly impacted, and subservient to “establishment” pressures from Big Oil, Banking, Military Industrial Complex, Big Pharmaceutical, and other monopolies.
Thought leaders who step outside of the confines of Establishment narratives are targeted. The University of Sydney’s warrantless suspension of best-selling author and Senior lecturer, Prof. Tim Anderson[1], from his teaching duties, is a case in point. Not only does his suspension create a “chilling effect”, and a culture of academic self-censorship, but it also restricts the amount of evidence-based research that reaches the public arena.
Military/Intelligence fronts, such as the Integrity Initiative[2]– well-funded by state agencies and even NATO[3]– add to the oppression, not only by targeting individuals for smear campaigns, but also by guaranteeing a non-stop flow of war propaganda.
Time and again, policymakers use Private Intelligence Contractors (PICS) as sources of fake intelligence that they wrap around previously planned policies, to give an air of credibility to war propaganda. Have we forgotten already the lies used to justify the West’s supremely criminal destruction of Iraq? All of the post-9/11 wars (and beyond) were sold to gullible domestic populations by means of well-planned strategies of deception.
It is an unequal battle, but the broad-based public must first free itself from foundational war lies if we are to make transformative changes. Foremost amongst these lies is “The War On Terrorism”. The public needs to understand that this War on Terror myth is cover for criminal wars of conquest. Our governments and their agencies support the terrorists. Pretending that the West is fighting ISIS and other terrorists (i.e al Qaeda) prolongs the suffering of its victims, past, present, and future. It is not a war against ISIS. It never was. The West and its allies support all of the terrorists in Syria, (and beyond), including ISIS.
If the public can be disabused of the “War on Terrorism” myth, then it will be ready for mass social unrest and mobilizations for fundamental reforms. Incremental reforms only bolster Establishment positions by providing illusions of democratic policymaking.
For starters, Canada needs to leave NATO, cut its military budget, end its “neoliberal” diseconomy, instate a socially-oriented economy, and regain its sovereignty and democracy.
Given all of the structural barriers that we face, these goals may never be achieved, but we still “win” when we at least struggle for justice.
Original source: Global Research