Inside the Submissive Void — Propaganda, Censorship, Power, and Control
Brief: The use of propaganda and censorship is more frequently associated with totalitarian, corrupt and/or despotic regimes, not modern democracies in the West. Yet the history of how western governments and their ever-vigilant overlords in the media, financial, and business spheres have controlled the political narrative of the time via these means is a long, storied and ruinous one, going back well before 1914. Along with serving the contemporaneous political objectives of its perpetrators as contrived, such activities often continue to inform our understanding, and cement our interpretation, of history. If as the saying goes, “history repeats itself”, we need look no further as to the main reason why. In this wide-ranging ‘safari’ into the disinformation, myth-making, fake news wilderness—aka The Big Shill—Greg Maybury concludes that “It’s the narrative, stupid!”
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Inside the Submissive Void — Propaganda, Censorship, Power, and Control
Brief: The use of propaganda and censorship is more frequently associated with totalitarian, corrupt and/or despotic regimes, not modern democracies in the West. Yet the history of how western governments and their ever-vigilant overlords in the media, financial, and business spheres have controlled the political narrative of the time via these means is a long, storied and ruinous one, going back well before 1914. Along with serving the contemporaneous political objectives of its perpetrators as contrived, such activities often continue to inform our understanding, and cement our interpretation, of history. If as the saying goes, “history repeats itself”, we need look no further as to the main reason why. In this wide-ranging ‘safari’ into the disinformation, myth-making, fake news wilderness—aka The Big Shill—Greg Maybury concludes that “It’s the narrative, stupid!”
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Of Treachery, Treason, Terror, Truth, and Liberty Forsaken (An American Tale) — Part One
Brief: With the impending anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War (SDW) between Israel and the Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Jordan), it’s timely to take another look at the origins and causes of that pivotal war, and with that examine in some detail the deliberate attack by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) during that conflict on the US naval reconnaissance ship the USS Liberty, with the loss of 34 lives and scores of casualties. To this day, despite irrefutable evidence it was a deliberate attack, the official explanation is that it was a case of “mistaken identity”. Along with showcasing one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. military history, it presents us an opportunity to place into broader, more urgent relief, the history of America’s increasingly contentious relationship with Israel in addition to probing the role of both nations in events unfolding in and across the Greater Middle East. It moreover, crucially invites us to reexamine the largely unexplored role played in these events by one of America’s most psychopathic and criminally inclined of Oval Officeholders, one whose political ascendancy and tenure may have been the most consequential of all. As our narrative herein will eventually reveal, had things gone the way they were planned, it almost certainly would’ve triggered the most cataclysmic consequences of all for the human race. On all counts, author Phillip Nelson’s soon to be published book Remember the Liberty: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas, provides us ample context and perspective within which to contemplate all of this and more.
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The Praetorian Bodyguards (Of the Empire’s Liars)
Brief: The response from the mainstream media to Wikileaks revelations of CIA surveillance and hacking – against the backdrop of the MSM and Beltway fuelled brouhaha over fake news, alleged Russian spying and interference in U.S elections, and general animus towards Moscow – is further evidence the Fourth Estate is irretrievably beholden to the Deep State and the ruling classes du jour. It in turn underscores the MSM’s ever present grip on the broader American political psyche. That it was ever thus has been obvious for decades to all but the most deluded afficionados of life, liberty, democracy, privacy, freedom, the rule of law, the pursuit of happiness, and the American way. With this in mind, it’s time to take a deep breath for an even deeper dive into the cess-pool that is the collective press-pool.
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The Great American Perpetual Motion War Machine
Brief: The so-called ‘military-industrial complex’ ushered in by the passing of the 1947 National Security Act is a luxury America and the world can no longer afford. The unprecedented threat posed by the over-privileged belligerents infecting U.S. military doctrine with their unbridled hegemonic ambition is redolent of that of the British Empire in the years leading up to the Great War in 1914. With Donald Trump advocating massive upgrades of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and full-spectrum dominance likely to remain integral to American foreign and national security policy making, we ponder the past, the here and now, and an unthinkable, yet, still avoidable future.
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The Werewolves of Washington
The death of Fidel Castro offers us an ideal opportunity to reflect not just on the profound geopolitical import of Cuban-American relations. In the process we acquire a timely insight into how badly the Washington establishment gets it all so demonstrably and disastrously wrong. As we enter unmapped terrain in U.S. foreign policy, Greg Maybury looks at that relationship and what lessons might be learned, and why all things Cuba and Castro still infuriate U.S. political elites on both sides of the political divide.
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Of Privilege, Plunder and Immoral Reward
Brief: The outcome of the 2016 presidential election will keep pundits across the political spectrum looking to explain the rise to the Oval Office of the most improbable candidate in American political history for some time to come. This will especially be the case for those who either never saw it coming or decried its possibility however remote that might have seemed. But there is one single factor that stands out as the root cause, and it has little to do with Donald Trump: Neoliberalism. Greg Maybury asks: Could this be the beginning of the end of the increasingly anti-democratic, rapacious, anti-social, and destructive ideology that infuses this now utterly discredited doctrine of privilege, plunder and immoral reward?
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A Clean Break from Israel (What America Needs Most)
Brief: America’s interminable meddling and interventions in the Middle East has wreaked havoc upon the region. Although the U.S. was the principal curator of the chaos, it seems gradually more people are recognizing it’s the region’s resident hegemon Israel that’s been the real driver of the turmoil and violence that defines the region. Greg Maybury reports on what is arguably the most portentous geopolitical issue of our time.
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Chilcot’s Can of Worms – Anatomy of a Catastrophe
The release of the Chilcot Report in the UK reopened the can of worms that was the Iraq War, providing us an opportunity for reconsidering the rationale behind the decision and why all those responsible should be held accountable. Of greater import, with the fallout of the invasion still resonating across the Greater Middle East — exacerbated by even more ill-judged incursions into the region under president Obama such as in Libya and Syria — the Chilcot findings call into question U.S. foreign and national security policy, not just in the region but in broader spheres of influence on the geopolitical scene.
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Hillary Clinton’s House of Cards
'My accomplishments as Secretary of State? Well, I'm glad you asked. My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you know. The remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too narrowly focused...
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A Last Best Hope (The Obama Promise)
Brief: After Barack Obama’s hope-fuelled triumph in 2008, it was clear millions of Americans were looking forward to moving in a wholly new direction. As we near the final year of his tenure, and with these expectations in mind, now is as good a time as any to look at some of the factors likely to shape his legacy. To this end, we scrutinise a presidency that promised so much to so many.
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Anarchists Amok in The Era of Normalcy
Greg Maybury () is a freelance writer based in Australia. His main areas of interest are American history and politics in general, with a special focus on economic, financial, national security, military, and geopolitical affairs. For 6+ years he has regularly...
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