The World is Fucked and We’re Partly to Blame?
How we absorb the news has an impact on the future
In the early 2000s I was privileged to attend a gig in City Limits Comedy Club in Cork. The comedian on the night was Tommy Tiernan and he didn’t disappoint. As part of his set, he relayed a story about when he heard the news of the terrorist attack in New York, 9/11 as it came to be known. His initial reaction as he watched the news footage of the towers falling? “The world is fucked,” he screamed several times in rising volume. THEN he went to the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea and he looked out the window… Everything was fine… birds were singing etc. and the despicable attack seemed and indeed was far from the realities of life in Galway.
We Need To Trust Our News
Unfortunately, many of us (myself included) were often guilty of a dismissive attitude when consuming news stories that seem far removed from our sphere of influence. Many still blindly trust their preferred news media and remain stuck in a cycle of a daily work/family routine where it’s simply impractical (due to lack of time) to verify the truth in any of the new stories presented to us by the mainstream media. We assume that journalists are ethical and only publish the truth, especially if they work for long established newsrooms. We assume that our elected governments and so-called intelligence and security offshoots have our best interests at heart and would certainly never control the mass media narrative using Big Tech and mainstream news.
I believe all these assumptions are divorced from reality and this doesn’t make me worthy of admission to the laughing academy, a nutter, or even worse a conspiracy theorist. It simply means I HAVE done the research and I’ve drawn logical conclusions from the results. While there are typically two major political parties in most countries, news media often leans towards one or other of these parties but there is another more sinister and recent in-your-face development, (especially since Covid) the use of propaganda on a global scale to brainwash citizens and push a single narrative from Washington, London or Brussels. “Impossible,” you say. Given that Edward Snowden amply proved that the US (via the NSA) has a global surveillance network that spies on everyone, including their own citizens and allies, is it really such a stretch to assume that the intelligence community can also control much of the news cycle, whether through social media or news organisations? Copy and paste the following into your preferred search engine and see how many former intelligence or government employees now work for social media companies with job titles involving public diplomacy, misinformation, trust, product safety etc.:
site:linkedin.com/in/ Facebook “Central Intelligence Agency”
Experiment by substituting ‘Facebook’ and ‘Central Intelligence Agency’ for your favourite platform/company and government department. THEN tell me I’m a conspiracy theorist.
Is Your News Reliable?
As future articles will delve into specifics by country, topic or industry, detailed information will be provided at that time rather than try to do it all in a single post. Suffice to say that there are simple checks that you can perform to verify if your preferred news outlets are in fact trustworthy. You don’t have to take my word for it that popular news agencies (such as Reuters, AP and AFP) that syndicate worldwide are compromised, I’ll prove that later. You don’t have to believe that mainstream outlets and social media are in cahoots on a single narrative. Take something you know to be true but is supposedly controversial or anti-woke (from personal experience or from someone you know and trust) and see how it’s covered on your news…
For me, a few items stand out. There are many others but in terms of outright suppression and lies these take the prize. Yours will be different.
Julian Assange: Love him or hate him, anything relating to his ongoing case against the US Department of ‘Justice’(DoJ) is newsworthy, right? On June 26, 2021, Icelandic newspaper Stundin posted a lengthy article on the key witness against Assange. This witness, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, was recruited by the DoJ and FBI in return for immunity from prosecution for pending financial fraud charges. He admitted he lied and the same witness is a diagnosed sociopath with convictions for sexual assault against minors and large-scale financial fraud. Did your news source report it? Not many did and it was left to independent media to do so. NONE of the major players even mentioned this article. This revelation should have resulted in Assange’s immediate release yet he is still facing charges…
Russia’s ‘unprovoked’ attack on Ukraine: To describe the defence of Donbass citizens after a 2014 US-sponsored coup as ‘unprovoked’ is nothing short of ludicrous given that Russia held back for 8 years. With NATO ‘defensively’ expanding to Russia’s borders since the fall of the USSR and pumping weapons into the Ukraine since 2014 (to be used on Russian-speaking Ukrainians), it’s comparable to Russia setting up camp (with missiles) in Mexico or Canada. It only seems to matter when US security interests are involved… If your ‘leaders’ and news sources continue to specify ‘unprovoked’ despite evidence to the contrary, congratulations, you are an avid consumer of US propaganda and your leaders are beholden to the ‘international rules-based order.’
Irish fishermen and Russian naval exercises: Finally, being Irish, news sources that carried headlines claiming that a bunch of Irish fishermen triumphed against the Russian war machine are beneath contempt and this included CNN who sent Donie from the US to Ireland for comments. The reality is (and Facebook warned me for this observation) that Russia had the good grace to cancel naval exercises off the southern coast of Ireland rather than impact the lives of fishermen. On the other hand, US and UK exercises off the north coast often result in fishermen returning home with empty nets. Then again, US and UK military assets are free to wander around near Russia and China, claiming freedom of navigation rather than provocation. Bit of a double standard, don’t you think?
Finally, if you want to check out your news sources, ownership is always a good place to start. Much of the world’s media is owned by a handful of companies. More on this later but for now, a simple online search on “who owns the media” + “your country” will make it clear that corporate interests dominate and typically foreign corporate interests if you’re outside the US. If the editorial policies of these organisations are dictated by ‘national security interests’ and open debate is discouraged, how reliable is your news? Ask yourself why Russian media channels are blocked? Ask why war correspondents in Donbass (regardless of country of origin) are demonised in the media and penalised by their own governments. Ask why none of the mainstream war correspondents are based in Donbass but instead celebrity spotting in Kiev (yes, I know how to spell it) and far from active conflict.
From the observations above it’s clear I’ve taken a stance on quite a few things and I’m fully aware my readers are unlikely to agree on everything I write and that’s fine. Some of my favourite celebrities have disappointed me in some way on social media or by their actions (Mr. S King and Ben Stiller take note) but I still enjoy their creative work, whether books, movies or TV. It’s okay to disagree if we can at least identify those who are trying to control us all and unite against a common enemy.
In any case, my first two Substack articles are essentially introductions. I want you to question everything rather than blindly accept whatever narrative THEY push tomorrow and you are welcome to question what I write. I expect nothing less. Future articles will include links to my preferred sources, independent media and investigative journalists, many of whom are on this platform to avoid active censorship and perhaps earn a living that is denied them elsewhere. Substack is a home for the ostracised, the brilliant and those who have been silenced. I’m proud to be a part of it. Thanks for reading!
I’m an Irish freelance journalist, blogger and business consultant. I specialise in technology and its relevance to business, society and popular culture but feel it’s now necessary to voice my opinions on current events in politics and related issues such as the WEF, the ‘new world order’ and their objectives. Consider me a counterpoint to the drivel in the mainstream media. If you got anything from this piece, apart from annoyed, feel free to share it.
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