We’ve Been Lied To Our Whole Lives About Everything That Matters

By Caitlin Johnstone

Source: CaitlinJohnstone.com

Stories about protagonists who’ve been misguided their whole lives about something very important have been emerging in our culture for generations, and they continue to delight audiences in the box office to this day.

The pauper was really a prince. Luke was Darth Vader’s son. Keanu Reeves had been living in a computer simulation. Bruce Willis was really a ghost. Jim Carrey’s whole world was the set of a TV show, and everyone in his life had been lying to him since his infancy.

This theme repeats so often because it strongly resonates with people. And it strongly resonates with people because it’s exactly what is happening.

From our earliest moments we are trained to fit in with a society that was designed from the ground up by the powerful in the service of the powerful. As soon as we are old enough to get curious about the world and how it works our heads are filled with lies about such matters, by our education systems, by the media we consume, by our parents who were indoctrinated in the same way, and by the very culture we find ourselves immersed in from day one.

These stories about a character who’s been deceived about life resonate so strongly with us because on some level we all suspect it might be true of our own lives as well. They whisper to something hidden and sacred within us that has always sensed that there’s something not quite right with the way we are perceiving things.

We’ve spent our whole lives marinating in lies which serve the powerful. We’re deceived into believing that we live in a democracy whose government acts in accordance with the will of the voting public. We’re deceived into believing our political systems are driven by two warring ideological factions whose divisions are naturally occurring phenomena in our society instead of the product of deliberate social engineering. We’re deceived into believing our government is basically good, and that it stands in opposition to foreign governments who are pure evil. We’re deceived into believing the way things are is the only way they could possibly be.

We’re deceived into believing false things about the ways we gather information and form our understanding of the world. We’re deceived into believing the news media tell us the truth about what’s going on. We’re deceived into believing that everything we hear from our side of the political partisan divide is true and trustworthy. We’re deceived into believing the partisan filters which have been placed over our perception of national and world events by indoctrination are entirely reliable instruments for interpreting information and drawing conclusions.

We’re deceived into believing false things about ourselves. We’re deceived into believing that we are successful if we can become dominant capitalists and wealthy ladder climbers, and that we are failures if we don’t turn the gears of industry and climb over others to get ahead. We’re deceived into believing that we are good if we uphold the made-up, power-serving rules of law, of culture and of religion, and that we are bad if we transgress them. We are deceived into believing that we need to keep accomplishing, achieving and obtaining, that we need to keep earning money and approval, so that we might one day feel adequate at some imaginary point in a future which never arrives.

If we really commit to uprooting the untruth that’s been planted in us, we can even discover that we’ve been deceiving ourselves about the way we experience reality. That the perception of oneself as a finite character who is separate from the world is based on false assumptions about the way experience is happening, unhelpful mental habits born of incorrect premises, and overlooked aspects of our own consciousness. That we’ve been making ourselves miserable with false beliefs about who and what we are.

This civilization is the set of the Truman Show, and we are all Truman.

But because we are all Truman, we can only walk off the set if we walk off together. There is no option to leave as an individual, because even if you know it’s all lies, you’re still stuck in a world full of humans whose behavior is driven by lies.

Awakening to reality as an individual can for this reason sometimes be more uncomfortable than remaining asleep in the dream, because you’re like Truman after he realizes it’s all a sham, but before he escapes. At times you’re just stuck there, freaking out at the actor who’s playing your mother while she tries in vain to cut to a commercial break. It can be distressing for you, and it can be distressing for the people around you who aren’t yet on the same page.

The only way we’re getting off the set of the Truman Show is if we can all succeed in waking each other up from the lies which built it. Until then we’ll be stuck in a world of poverty, war, exploitation, degradation, ecocide, and suffering. It’s not until enough of us have unplugged our minds from the matrix of lies that we’ll be able to use our strength of numbers to force real change.

Only then will we be able to escape.

Only then will we be able to walk off the set.

Only then will we be able to turn to the audience and say, “In case I don’t see ya: good afternoon, good evening, and good night!”

And then turn around, and walk out the door, and begin our adventure into reality.

Our Challenge Is To Transcend Our Evolutionary Ape Heritage

By Caitlin Johnstone

Source: CaitlinJohnstone.com

Did you know chimpanzees hunt smaller primates for food?

They do. They’re actually very skillful hunters due to their size, their strength, and especially their intelligence. They coordinate their attacks, working together to cut off the escape routes of their prey to greatly increase their success rate. Scientists have even frequently observed them using crude spears to kill a small primate species called the lesser bush baby for their meat.

One of the many interesting things about this behavior in our primate cousins is that they are so good at hunting they can become victims of their own success, wiping out entire populations of prey in their area. Red colobus monkeys have been hunted to the brink of local extinction in Uganda by chimpanzees hungry for a quick protein fix, solely because they’ve been gobbling up those delicious little guys faster than they can reproduce.

Sound familiar?

The tendency of homo sapiens to overburden our ecosystem with our consumption is not unique to us, and is not new. In fact, it looks like we’ve been on this trajectory toward ecocide since our ancient evolutionary ancestors began evolving extra brain matter.

And it is possible to just stop there and conclude that we are no different from our chimp relatives in this sense. That we will simply keep overhunting the red colobus monkey until there are none left, that we will keep depleting and destroying our biosphere until it can no longer sustain life. That the human brain differs from the chimpanzee’s only in intelligence, not in wisdom. That we are in essence no different from the cyanobacteria at the dawn of the Proterozoic Era, a new species showing up on the scene and causing a mass extinction event in an ecosystem overburdened by their rapid flourishing.

You do also however have the option of openness to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, our species is destined for greater things. That maybe, just maybe, we have within us the capacity to transcend the mindless patterning of our evolutionary ancestors and move into a mindful relationship with this planet and its life forms. That maybe, just maybe, this whole human adventure doesn’t need to end in disaster after all.

From what I can tell, the only people who find this idea outlandish are those who have never experienced a great unpatterning of their own. Who have never healed the wounds of their past and transcended the unwholesome mental habits which were given to them by their conditioning. To anyone who has experienced a dramatic transformation from dysfunction into health, it’s obvious that any human could potentially go through such transformations as well. Or even all humans.

It is possible that our descendents will look back on humanity’s existence on this planet from prehistoric times up until this crucial present moment as a kind of bridge between animal life and a new terrestrial expression that isn’t driven by the unconscious conditioning patterns that have driven the movements of every species on this planet from the very first single-celled organisms onward. That what we’re experiencing right now at this critical juncture is what it looks like before the emergence of the Earth’s first conscious species.

An unconscious human is one driven compulsively by deep-seated mental habits they don’t really see and can’t do much to control, so they’ll often find themselves engaged in unwholesome behavior patterns like addiction, unkindness, greed and neurosis, and making the same mistakes over and over for reasons they don’t quite understand.

A conscious human is one who doesn’t have unseen conditioning pulling the strings from behind the scenes in their subconscious mind, because they have done their work and drawn their inner demons into the light of consciousness where they can be healed. They are therefore able to move through life deliberately and in the interest of what’s best, rather than compulsively and in a way that spreads trauma to others.

A conscious humanity would mean that this way of functioning blossoms throughout the entire species.

Doesn’t it kind of look like that might be what’s happening? Like all the chaos and confusion of these strange times could simply be the birth pangs of a species whose relationship with consciousness is about to take a dramatic pivot? The increasingly shrill mass media narratives rapidly approaching white noise saturation? The increasingly widespread awareness that our society’s rules are made up and we can change them whenever we want? The mysterious increase in incidents of spiritual awakening as reported by teachers of enlightenment? Just how goddamn weird everything’s been getting these last few years?

I think it’s possible. I think it’s possible we are moving as a species toward an adaptation that will enable us to survive in a situation which is very different from the one we first emerged in, as every species eventually does if it doesn’t go extinct. If this is indeed what is happening, it stands to reason that it will be an adaptation that prevents us from wiping ourselves out via ecocide or nuclear war, and that a collective movement into consciousness is what that adaptation will look like.

A conscious species would be able to work in cooperation with its ecosystem, rather than compulsively consuming it due to primitive impulses to obtain and dominate and egoic impulses to be rich and have more. A conscious species would be able to convert civilization from competition-based models into collaboration-based models, where rather than trying to climb over each other to get ahead we all work together to make sure everyone has what they need to live. A conscious species would no longer see the sense in dividing itself up into separate competing nation-states which brandish armageddon weapons at each other out of fear and greed.

The more I learn about humanity, and the more I learn about myself, the more possible such a world appears to be. Sure the world’s a chaotic and distressing mess right now, but so is childbirth. However bad things get for us, as long as we’re still alive our problems are nothing that can’t be fixed with a collective movement into consciousness.

Anyway. That’s my pet theory right now. And the cool thing about my theory is that if you like it too, you don’t have to wait for it to come true. You can start becoming more conscious on your own right now and leading the charge for the rest of us. Investigate your true nature, heal your wounds, be responsible with your actions, and begin working to coax all your endarkened bits into the light.

And then hopefully the rest will follow. If they don’t, worst-case scenario is you wind up a lot more happy and functional than you otherwise would have been, because you brought so much more consciousness to your inner processes and your habits of perception and cognition.

This is where the real adventure is at, in my opinion. This is where the rubber meets the road.

I will meet you there.

10 Promising Signs That The Insidious Mind Control Matrix The Elite Have Created Is Starting To Crumble

By Michael Snyder

Source: Activist Post

Are we witnessing the start of some sort of a mass awakening in the Western world? For years, I have been writing about the extremely complex systems that are designed to shape and control what we think. Today, the vast majority of the “news” and “entertainment” that most of us consume is controlled by just a very small handful of immensely powerful corporations. And of course those corporations are ultimately owned and controlled by the elite of the world. To a very large degree, the elite have been able to determine what we focus on, what we think about current events, and how we feel about the world around us. For such a long time, most of the population would take whatever narratives that were pushed upon them by their corporate overlords as the gospel truth, and that always greatly frustrated me. Fortunately, there are indications that times are changing.

In order for any society to function effectively, there must be a high level of trust.

Unfortunately for the elite, we simply do not trust them anymore.

Trust in our politicians has fallen to an all-time low.

Trust in the media has fallen to an all-time low.

Trust in our corporations has fallen to an all-time low.

Trust in our health care system has fallen to an all-time low.

Trust in our education system has fallen to an all-time low.

Trust in the tech industry has fallen to an all-time low.

We no longer are buying into the crap that they keep shoveling our way.

And that is a really, really good thing.

It is morally wrong for them to try to control what we think.  It is absolutely imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves, because that is the only way that we will ever be truly free.

I have been writing about this stuff for years and years, and a number of recent trends have given me hope that people are starting to wake up on a widespread basis.  The following are 10 promising signs that the insidious mind control matrix the elite have created is starting to crumble…

#1 According to a recent Gallup survey, only 16 percent of U.S. adults have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers and only 11 percent of U.S. adults have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in television news.

#2 All over the Internet I am seeing article after article speaking out against the World Economic Forum.  That is an incredibly hopeful sign.

#3 In the Netherlands, a new government plan would “cut fertilizer use and reduce livestock numbers so drastically that it will force many farms out of business”.  This plan is deeply evil, but the massive farmer protests that have been sparked as a result are a really beautiful thing.

#4 After being arrested, a British man was told this: “Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested”.  But the good news is that there has been a tremendous backlash on social media and so far the video of his arrest has already been viewed more than 2 million times.

#5 As more people on the West Coast wake up, the exodus out of the state of California is rapidly becoming a stampede.

#6 Despite all of the spin from the Biden administration, 66 percent of Americans say that they believe that we are either in a recession or a depression right now.

#7 Joe Biden’s overall approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 36 percent.

#8 Joe Biden’s economic approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 30 percent.

#9 A recent CNN poll discovered that a whopping 75 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters actually want their party to nominate someone other than Biden in 2024.

#10 According to a recent Pew Research survey, only 24 percent of U.S. adults are satisfied with the current state of the country.

Almost all of us can see that our society is on the wrong track, and that is the first step in getting back on the right track.

As time rolls along, I believe that more and more of us will wake up.

And in the end I believe that the current “world order” that the Western elite have tried so hard to establish will fall.

That process will be incredibly chaotic, but the end result will be worth it.

Before I end this article, there is one more thing that I wanted to mention.

According to scientists, we just experienced the shortest day ever recorded

The shortest day on record has been broken by the planet Earth. On June 29, 2022, the planet completed its entire rotation in just 1.59 milliseconds, or slightly more than one thousandth of a second, less time than it typically takes for a 24-hour rotation.

Recently, the Earth has been moving quicker. Since the 1960s, 2020 marked the shortest month on record for the planet. On July 19 of that year, 1.47 milliseconds shorter than a typical 24-hour day, scientists recorded the shortest day so far.

Are the days being shortened?

I often tell people that it feels like the days are going by faster than ever, but I thought that it was just my imagination.

I have been told that as we get older it can seem like time is passing more quickly, and without a doubt 2022 seems like it is the fastest year yet.

It is hard to believe that the beginning of August is already here.

2023 will arrive before we know it, and I believe that 2023 will be a year that changes everything.

I know that there are a lot of bad things that are happening right now, and a lot of my articles tend to focus on those bad things.

But the truth is that there are a lot of good things happening too.

In fact, there is no other time in all of human history that I would have rather lived than right now.

It is when times are the darkest that the greatest heroes are needed, and the years ahead will provide plenty of opportunities for you to be the kind of hero that you were always meant to be.

True Leadership at a Time of Crisis

By Julian Rose

Source: Global Research

Minds that work three dimensionally cannot solve the problems of the world. They can only make them worse.

Those who see themselves as being ‘in charge’ of world events are not able to understand the actual nature of the problems they are supposed to deal with, so obviously they can’t change them for the better.

For example, those trained in banking have a two dimensional thinking process. They can see only ledgers, numbers and material gain.

Those heading leading corporations see only what their corporations can profit from. How to make them ever more profitable. Those who go into politics accept the three dimensional prison that politics is. Anyone thinking outside this box won’t last long in politics. The list goes on – interminably.

But suffice it to say that the great majority of ‘leaders’ of this world come from the above categories. Plus a smattering of billionaires, royals and a handful or two of psychopaths and megalomaniacs.

None of these, quite obviously, come anywhere near fulfilling the need for wisdom or the pursuit of truth and justice. Such values don’t even enter the picture. They are seen as the preserve of those lost in a world of illusion.

So long as this status quo prevails, no change for the better can happen – on the global stage. That place where all attention is focussed, therefore from which all actions emanate. Two/three dimensional actions bereft of insight, wisdom, truth or courage.

Those who believe and follow the edicts of these incapacitated directors of society, live in a prison of their own construction. It’s a dark place of delusional slavery to whatever they hear on ‘The News’. The State uses them to keep its two/three dimensional plans on-track.

In the world we want to become manifest, none of the two/three dimensional thinkers has any part. As we know, if we care to stop and reflect on it, only those with genuine breadth of vision, qualities of humane leadership and a deep devotion to the manifestation of truth, can fulfil the necessary qualities to direct our planet in the way – deep down – we all want and long for.

It’s a surprisingly simple message I am articulating: joining together in refusing to cooperate with those who we know have no qualities capable of improving the health and welfare of humanity and of our planetary ecology – is the only strategy which can end their sterile destructive reign.

We know that only those capable of a deep grasp of life’s challenges and how to set-about confronting them, can put us on the road we all want to be on. Make us feel moved to support the path of liberation from our slave driving oppressors – and from our own weakness –  that leads over and over again into submission to their toxic demands.

The path to victory demands dedication. Dedication to listening to our hearts, not our minds. Only to our minds when they are first informed by our hearts and by a sound sense of morality.

We are becoming aware that this is the channel through which victory will be achieved. The only channel. It is the opposite dimension from the destroyers we are up against. They fear it, because they don’t understand it. It is outside their two/three dimensional prison. Yet it is our greatest asset; our wealth as true sentient humans. Our power as spiritual warriors.

It is time to ditch all distractions from this path. Only that which supports our great awakening must be put at the top of our ‘must do’ list from now on. And the further items down that list must all be in support of this great affirmation, this passion for truth.

There is nothing else ‘to do’.

If we fail to listen and act on the voice of our deepest hearts and intuitions, we can never be free. That message, determinedly put into practice in the outside world, will unlock the gates of all barricades erected to disempower us – and will set us free.

There is no other task.

Everything Is a Weapon: The U.S. Government Is Waging Psychological Warfare on the Nation

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

Source: The Rutherford Institute

Have you ever wondered who’s pulling the strings? … Anything we touch is a weapon. We can deceive, persuade, change, influence, inspire. We come in many forms. We are everywhere.”— U.S. Army Psychological Operations recruitment video

The U.S. government is waging psychological warfare on the American people.

No, this is not a conspiracy theory.

Psychological warfare, according to the Rand Corporation, “involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of opposition groups.”

For years now, the government has been bombarding the citizenry with propaganda campaigns and psychological operations aimed at keeping us compliant, easily controlled and supportive of the police state’s various efforts abroad and domestically.

The government is so confident in its Orwellian powers of manipulation that it’s taken to bragging about them. Just recently, for example, the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, the branch of the military responsible for psychological warfare, released a recruiting video that touts its efforts to pull the strings, turn everything they touch into a weapon, be everywhere, deceive, persuade, change, influence, and inspire.

This is the danger that lurks in plain sight.

Of the many weapons in the government’s vast arsenal, psychological warfare may be the most devastating in terms of the long-term consequences.

As the military journal Task and Purpose explains, “Psychological warfare is all about influencing governments, people of power, and everyday citizens… PSYOP soldiers’ key missions are to influence ‘emotions, notices, reasoning, and behavior of foreign governments and citizens,’ ‘deliberately deceive’ enemy forces, advise governments, and provide communications for disaster relief and rescue efforts.”

Yet don’t be fooled into thinking these psyops (psychological operations) campaigns are only aimed at foreign enemies. The government has made clear in word and deed that “we the people” are domestic enemies to be targeted, tracked, manipulated, micromanaged, surveilled, viewed as suspects, and treated as if our fundamental rights are mere privileges that can be easily discarded.

Aided and abetted by technological advances and scientific experimentation, the government has been subjecting the American people to “apple-pie propaganda” for the better part of the last century.

Consider some of the ways in which the government continues to wage psychological warfare on a largely unsuspecting citizenry.

Weaponizing violence. With alarming regularity, the nation continues to be subjected to spates of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country’s ecosystem, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

Weaponizing surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns. Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence. When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies. Add pre-crime programs into the mix with government agencies and corporations working in tandem to determine who is a potential danger and spin a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies, and you having the makings for a perfect dystopian nightmare. The government’s war on crime has now veered into the realm of social media and technological entrapment, with government agents adopting fake social media identities and AI-created profile pictures in order to surveil, target and capture potential suspects.

Weaponizing digital currencies, social media scores and censorship. Tech giants, working with the government, have been meting out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship, muzzling whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Digital currencies (which can be used as “a tool for government surveillance of citizens and control over their financial transactions”), combined with social media scores and surveillance capitalism create a litmus test to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society and punish individuals for moral lapses and social transgressions (and reward them for adhering to government-sanctioned behavior). In China, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.

Weaponizing compliance. Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on COVID-19, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

Weaponizing entertainment. For the past century, the Department of Defense’s Entertainment Media Office has provided Hollywood with equipment, personnel and technical expertise at taxpayer expense. In exchange, the military industrial complex has gotten a starring role in such blockbusters as Top Gun and its rebooted sequel Top Gun: Maverick, which translates to free advertising for the war hawks, recruitment of foot soldiers for the military empire, patriotic fervor by the taxpayers who have to foot the bill for the nation’s endless wars, and Hollywood visionaries working to churn out dystopian thrillers that make the war machine appear relevant, heroic and necessary. As Elmer Davis, a CBS broadcaster who was appointed the head of the Office of War Information, observed, “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.”

Weaponizing behavioral science and nudging. Apart from the overt dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, there’s also the covert dangers associated with a government empowered to use these same technologies to influence behaviors en masse and control the populace. In fact, it was President Obama who issued an executive order directing federal agencies to use “behavioral science” methods to minimize bureaucracy and influence the way people respond to government programs. It’s a short hop, skip and a jump from a behavioral program that tries to influence how people respond to paperwork to a government program that tries to shape the public’s views about other, more consequential matters. Thus, increasingly, governments around the world—including in the United States—are relying on “nudge units” to steer citizens in the direction the powers-that-be want them to go, while preserving the appearance of free will.

Weaponizing desensitization campaigns aimed at lulling us into a false sense of security. The events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the lockdowns, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers—have conspired to acclimate the populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

Weaponizing fear and paranoia. The language of fear is spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure. Fear, as history shows, is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government and control a populace, dividing the people into factions, and persuading them to see each other as the enemy. This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset. Instead, fueled with fear and loathing for phantom opponents, they agree to pour millions of dollars and resources into political elections, militarized police, spy technology and endless wars, hoping for a guarantee of safety that never comes. All the while, those in power—bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations—move their costly agendas forward, and “we the suckers” get saddled with the tax bills and subjected to pat downs, police raids and round-the-clock surveillance.

Weaponizing genetics. Not only does fear grease the wheels of the transition to fascism by cultivating fearful, controlled, pacified, cowed citizens, but it also embeds itself in our very DNA so that we pass on our fear and compliance to our offspring. It’s called epigenetic inheritance, the transmission through DNA of traumatic experiences. For example, neuroscientists observed that fear can travel through generations of mice DNA. As The Washington Post reports, “Studies on humans suggest that children and grandchildren may have felt the epigenetic impact of such traumatic events such as famine, the Holocaust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

Weaponizing the future. With greater frequency, the government has been issuing warnings about the dire need to prepare for the dystopian future that awaits us. For instance, the Pentagon training video, “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” predicts that by 2030 (coincidentally, the same year that society begins to achieve singularity with the metaverse) the military would be called on to use armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems. What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. The chilling five-minute training video paints an ominous picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots. “We the people” are the have-nots.

The end goal of these mind control campaigns—packaged in the guise of the greater good—is to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in re-shaping the country in the image of a totalitarian police state.

The facts speak for themselves.

Whatever else it may be—a danger, a menace, a threat—the U.S. government is certainly not looking out for our best interests, nor is it in any way a friend to freedom.

When the government views itself as superior to the citizenry, when it no longer operates for the benefit of the people, when the people are no longer able to peacefully reform their government, when government officials cease to act like public servants, when elected officials no longer represent the will of the people, when the government routinely violates the rights of the people and perpetrates more violence against the citizenry than the criminal class, when government spending is unaccountable and unaccounted for, when the judiciary act as courts of order rather than justice, and when the government is no longer bound by the laws of the Constitution, then you no longer have a government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

What we have is a government of wolves.

Our backs are against the proverbial wall.

“We the people”—who think, who reason, who take a stand, who resist, who demand to be treated with dignity and care, who believe in freedom and justice for all—have become undervalued citizens of a totalitarian state that views people as expendable once they have outgrown their usefulness to the State.

Brace yourselves.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, “we the people” have become enemies of the Deep State.

Terrified of Freedom: Why Most Human Beings are Embracing the Global Elite’s Technotyranny

By Robert J. Burrowes

In early 2020, the Global Elite launched its long-planned coup to capture control of the human population by killing off a substantial proportion and technologically imprisoning those left alive as transhuman slaves. A primary intended outcome of this agenda is to enable the Elite to own and completely control use of the Earth’s remaining resources.

Using the World Economic Forum (WEF) as its primary agent, and with the complicity of key international organizations and all national governments (after some hiccoughs requiring the assassination of five national presidents), the Global Elite has gone about progressively implementing the many components of its plan for a full takeover of Planet Earth. See ‘The Final Battle for Humanity: It is “Now or Never” in the Long War Against Homo Sapiens’.

Despite the facts that the horrendous details of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ – which, without consulting any of us, identifies changes to some 200 areas of human life – can be read by anyone on the WEF website and many spokespeople, including the delusional chairperson Klaus Schwab – The fourth industrial revolution ‘is characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds… and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human.’ – and his equally delusional adviser Yuval Noah Harari – ‘History began when humans invented gods, and will end when humans become gods.’ – have outlined some key details of what they are doing to us, the bulk of the human population has submissively accepted their fate by burying their heads deeply into the sand and, gullibly believing the Elite’s ‘virus-threat’ narrative, meekly tolerated a long series of encroachments on their rights and freedom, including mask-wearing, social distancing, lockdowns, QR codes, multiple gene-altering (and, in many cases, injury or death-inflicting) injections, as well as the political, economic and social costs of these elite measures. See ‘Great Reset’‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution, by Klaus Schwab’ and Yuval Noah Harari.

And these encroachments and costs are just the beginning of their very detailed agenda!

Shortly after the Global Elite launched its coup, I wrote an article explaining the psychology of the three primary parties to this conflict: the Elite, their victims and those who resisted. See ‘The Psychology of the COVID-19 Coup: The Elite, their Victims and those who Resist’.

Since that time, some scholars, notably including Professor Mattias Desmet, have offered commentaries on elements of the same subject, particularly in relation to the mass compliance. See, for example, ‘Mass Formation and Totalitarian Thinking in This Time of Global Crisis’ and ‘The Covid-19 Crisis. A Campaign Against Critical Thinking. “Mass Formation Psychosis”’. And you can access a series of commentaries by Dr. Rudolf Hänsel from ‘An Upbringing According to Strict Religious and Military Principles – And the Reflex of Absolute Spiritual Obedience: The Example of Auschwitz Commander Rudolf Höß’.

Other authors, writing in support of the Elite-driven narrative, portray those who resist the dominant narrative as psychologically dysfunctional, in one way or another. See, for example, Adaptive and Dark Personality in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Predicting Health-Behavior Endorsement and the Appeal of Public-Health Messages‘Adaptive and maladaptive behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic: The roles of Dark Triad traits, collective narcissism, and health beliefs’‘Compliance with containment measures to the COVID-19 pandemic over time: Do antisocial traits matter?’ and Sociopathic traits linked to non-compliance with mask guidelines and other COVID-19 containment measures.

Given the value of understanding the psychology underpinning the main categories of actors in this conflict if we are to fully comprehend what has taken place and why, as well as the psychological qualities necessary to resist the Elite agenda effectively, I want to revisit this subject (partly so that the inadequacies of other psychological explanations – including elite critiques of activists – are exposed).

Before proceeding, I wish to acknowledge Erich Fromm’s 1942 classic, The Fear of Freedom, while simply noting that the explanation offered here diverges profoundly in its explanation of the shared thesis: humans fear freedom.

So, let me briefly answer six questions: Why is the bulk of the human population willing to give away the little freedom they have left so readily? Why is the Global Elite so committed to taking over planet Earth and all life on it? Why do all those elite agents collaborate with their masters’ plans? Why are most of those unhappy about the loss of their freedom happy to protest ineffectively rather than resist strategically? Why are psychological critiques of activists by elite agents misconceived? And what psychological qualities are needed to resist effectively?

Before answering these questions in any detail, I will start by briefly explaining why fear or, more accurately, unconscious terror, is the fundamental answer to the first five of the above six questions and then go on to elaborate why this terror manifests differently in the five circumstances. I will then answer the sixth question.

Terrorizing Children into Submission

As I have explained at some length elsewhere, the process of what human beings like to benignly call ‘socialization’ is a process of terrorizing children and adolescents into submissive obedience. Delivered daily by parents, teachers, religious figures and other significant adults in the child’s life as an endless stream of violence – whether ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and/or ‘utterly invisible’ – the child is progressively reduced to a socially constructed delusional identity who is storing a vast amount of suppressed fear, pain, anger, sadness and other feelings that they were not allowed to feel and express throughout childhood (and then adolescence). This individual goes on to lead the life they have been terrorized into leading (with only utterly superficial choices at the margin still allowed). See Why Violence?Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice and Do We Want School or Education?’

And because disobedience on the part of a child is almost invariably met with ‘punishment’ – the sanitized word that adults like to use to obscure from themselves and others the fact that they are being violent – it is a rare child who survives into adulthood with much of the unique Selfhood that evolution bequeathed them at birth. See Punishment is Violent and Counterproductive’.

Hence, as a result of this violence inflicted throughout childhood and adolescence, the typical human being grows into an adult who, perhaps despite complaining at times, is submissively obedient to ‘authority figures’ in a wide variety of contexts: employers, religious figures, doctors, government officials, police and military personnel, legal and prison personnel, and bureaucrats generally. People do not ‘believe’ in authority; they are fearful of being disobedient.

In other words: Virtually all human beings fear the freedom to think for themselves, decide what to believe and choose how to behave. Hence, they think, believe and behave in accord with norms that are determined by Elites and promulgated through Elite-controlled channels including education systems, entertainment outlets and news media.

Devoid of a mind that can critique the structures and processes of the society in which they live (and the role of the actors within them), this compliant individual is also unable to critique Elite propaganda, whether presented as ‘education’, ‘entertainment’ or ‘news’. See Why Do Most People Believe Propaganda and False Flag Attacks?’

Hence the typical human being spends their life as a victim of those structures, processes, individuals and information they learned to fear as a child. And, for example, the idea that they could be responsible for their own health by consulting relevant evidence, information and personnel before making their own informed decision is simply preposterous. After all, as the propaganda they believed taught them, we have ‘experts’ who will tell us what is best for us. And while they accept that this expertise might involve a financial cost, the true cost of this belief in experts is immeasurable: A mind that has been robbed of its capacity for unique and powerful investigation, analysis and action.

So let us return to the six questions above, answering each briefly in turn.

  1. Why is the bulk of the human population willing to give away the little freedom they have left so readily?

Obviously, the answer to this first question is simple: As explained above, terrorized in childhood, the typical person simply adopts obedience as their way of life. Of course, they might powerlessly complain and they might resist a little at the margins (by being ‘a bit late’ or not doing exactly as expected, for example) but, apart from this, they will invariably comply as directed. The idea of genuinely disputing any ‘authority’ is out of the question. Paradoxical though it might seem, plenty of these people will end up in relative positions of authority and expect those in their charge to obey them. Of course, there is no real paradox. They have ‘learned’ throughout childhood that people in higher positions of authority are obeyed, and that includes them in very limited contexts. But there is always a wide range of higher authorities to keep them in line too, and they submit readily.

Consequently, told there is a ‘virus’, they believe it. Investigating and considering the heavily documented evidence that exposes this lie is beyond them. For just a taste of this evidence, see ‘COVID-19: The virus does not exist – it is confirmed!’‘Statement On Virus Isolation (SOVI)’ and ‘189 health/science institutions globally all failed to cite even 1 record of “SARS-COV-2” purification, by anyone, anywhere, ever’.

And told they need to take four or more injections to combat the ‘virus’, they submit. Obedience is all. Although, of course, they will usually characterize their belief and behaviour more favourably – such as ‘I am doing the right thing by the community’ – to (unconsciously) avoid any risk of exposing the terror driving both their belief and behaviour.

Moreover, despite a monumental and mounting death toll from the injectables – for the briefest sample of the extensive documentation of ‘vaccine’ deaths, see ‘The Vaccine Death Report: Evidence of millions of deaths and serious adverse events resulting from the experimental COVID-19 injections’COVID-19 Vaccine Massacre: 68,000% Increase in Strokes, 44,000% Increase in Heart Disease, 6,800% Increase in Deaths Over Non-COVID Vaccines and ‘Dear Friends, Sorry to Announce a Genocide: It’s Really True: They Know they are Killing the Babies’ – which is concealed by elite agents including governments and the corporate media, awareness of this remains low, not so much because of the censorship, but because any temptation to even investigate would suggest an inclination to disobey. And our compliant citizen cannot do that.

Another important way in which their fear works is to suppress awareness of bigger, more profound threats – which might trigger enormous and paralysing (conscious) terror – in favour of focusing on something much smaller (even if untrue) that feels ‘manageable’; that is, the person feels able to exercise sufficient control to navigate or neutralize the threat. So in this current context, most of the population is focusing on more narrow and imminent threats – whether or not these are true and particularly those ‘threats’ (‘SARS-CoV-2’, its ‘variants’ and now ‘Monkeypox’) heavily promoted by governments, the corporate media and other elite agents – because this enables people to participate in the delusion that their cooperation is helping to contain the smaller (delusional) threat.

But the idea of considering the real threat – in this case, a coup by the Global Elite to kill off or control the vast bulk of the human population while capturing full control of Earth’s resources – is simply too terrifying so it is easier to suppress awareness of it and ignore, dismiss or dispute this deeper agenda as unfounded, a ‘conspiracy theory’ or simply non-existent. Delusion, denial and other psychological aversion techniques are extremely common human behaviours among those who are (unconsciously) terrified. See ‘The Disintegrated Mind: The Greatest Threat to Human Survival on Earth’ and ‘The Limited Mind: Why Fear Is Driving Humanity to Extinction’.

  1. Why is the Global Elite so committed to taking over planet Earth and all life on it?

So what about the Global Elite? Why is it committed to killing off so many of us and enslaving those left alive? See ‘The Global Elite’s “Kill and Control” Agenda: Destroying Our Food Security’.

Well, at the superficial level, there are various explanations offered, notably including the fact that the Earth’s resources are depleted and so conserving the bulk of what is left for elite use, shared only minimally with the remaining population of transhuman slaves, is their plan. But there is a deeper and more truthful explanation. Members of the Global Elite have been so utterly terrorized that they are insane. For a careful explanation of this point, see ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’.

  1. Why do all those elite ‘agents’ (international organizations, governments, corporate media, medical and legal systems, industries, professional groups) collaborate with their masters’ plans?

Well, again, in simple terms, they are too terrified not to collaborate but because their terror is unconscious to them they will characterize their obedience as ‘the right thing to do’, ‘just doing my job’, ‘I’ve got a family to support’ or an equivalent. However they characterize their behaviour, it is simply to mask from themselves the fear that drives their submissive behaviour.

For collaborators, the importance of obedience also far outweighs any sense of personal moral choice. Obviously, it is their fear that generates this attitude and behaviour. If you are scared to resist ‘authority’, then you must make a virtue out of submission and obedience. In essence: the collaborator will dogmatically defend their behaviour as ‘right’ in the circumstances as the means of suppressing their own awareness of the terrifying and painful tangle of feelings (suppressed fear, pain and anger…) in their own unconscious.

You can read a great deal more detail in the section headed ‘People Who Pretend to be Your Friend: The Emotional Profile of Collaborators and Traitors’ in Why Violence?

  1. Why are most of those unhappy about the loss of their freedom happy to protest ineffectively rather than resist strategically?

Once again, as already mentioned, because they are unconsciously terrified. While able to penetrate the superficial layer of the ‘virus’/‘vaccine’ narrative, they are unlikely to perceive the far-reaching and horrific agenda – and those responsible – beyond this.

Moreover, by ‘pretending’ to resist – by attending a rally, for example, in which freedom is powerlessly ‘demanded’ from an elite agent (a government) – they can delude themselves and those around them that they are powerful in defence of their freedom when, of course, they have fearfully passed off responsibility for fighting for it, as Anita McKone noted, by powerlessly asking others to change their behaviour and demanding that others give them freedom.

But freedom given is freedom that can be taken away.

Consequently, such events have zero strategic value – and would only have it if used to promote strategically-focused actions designed to defeat the Elite coup – and so those attending such events can obscure their fear of doing something effective. By engaging in these powerless acts of rebellion, they can minimize (and often eliminate) the risk of incurring the cost of disobedience (that will often accompany powerful acts of resistance), by hiding in a crowd whose actions are well known to have no impact. After all, protest rallies are notoriously ineffective as the extensive record demonstrates.

And while government authorities might outlaw such events and even precipitate police engagement to prevent or disrupt them (as has been happening in the past two years), this only obscures the reality that such actions, in themselves, are ineffective anyway and simply distract the bulk of those resisting from taking (different) action powerfully. See ‘Why Activists Fail’.

In essence, the fear of the typical activist makes them incapable of analysing and critiquing the true depth of the crisis and then identifying and taking strategic action in response.

Consequently, this fear then makes them unwilling to offer deeper analyses and more powerful action to those they perceive as only just ‘awakening’. They project their own fear onto others.

  1. Why are psychological critiques of activists by elite agents misconceived?

As noted earlier in this article, several authors in the past two years have purported to show that those opposing the elite agenda are suffering from one or another psychological disorder.

However, these articles are either written by elite agents working in psychiatry or other authors who are too terrified to critique their own submissiveness in the context and, often enough, well paid to discredit, one way or another, those individuals courageous enough to have a mind of their own.

In relation to the first category, while there is no scientific basis to psychiatry, the tragic reality is that there is an extensive and well-documented history that psychiatry has long been used to inflict violence on targeted populations, particularly those resisting an elite-driven narrative. In other words, psychiatric violence is just another elite tool for silencing and discrediting those who resist elite imperatives. See ‘Defeating the Violence of Psychiatry’.

So when certain authors label those resisting the elite-driven narrative as suffering from a psychological dysfunctionality, they are merely continuing what has been a long-term effort to marginalize those who offer serious critiques of, and resistance to, elite behaviour. Another recent effort has been the labeling of those people who resist as suffering from ‘oppositional defiance disorder’. See ‘Psychiatrists now say non-conformity is a mental illness: only the sheeple are “sane”’.

And while many other authors are paid to promote an elite-driven narrative designed to discredit opponents for this or other reasons, it is also the case that all of these authors have been so terrorized by their own ‘socialization’ experience that any concept that each individual has a unique Self is not only incomprehensible but also both terrifying and ‘wrong’. Hence, the person who is truly an individual is dangerous because they have not ‘learned’ to obey – parents, teachers, employers… and elites – as directed.

In essence, for these individuals especially, disobedience of authorities is simply ‘wrong’: not in a moral sense, however, but simply in the sense that they have been terrorized into believing that disobedience reflects improper ‘learning’ and, hence, inadequate punishment to ‘induce’ social conformity. So activists should be pejoratively labeled and punished for not conforming to elite-driven norms.

  1. What psychological qualities are needed to resist effectively?

Mainly, just one: Courage. The courage to investigate what is happening until the truth is uncovered, the courage to analyze what is driving it, and the courage to act powerfully in response.

Easy to type; not so easy to find.

Defeating the Global Elite’s Agenda

If you have the courage to strategically resist the ‘Great Reset’ and its related agendas, you are welcome to participate in the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ campaign which identifies a list of 30 strategic goals for doing so.

In addition and more simply, you can download a one-page flyer that identifies a short series of crucial nonviolent actions that anyone can take. This flyer, now available in 16 languages (Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish & Slovak) with more languages in the pipeline, can be downloaded from here: ‘The 7 Days Campaign to Resist the Great Reset’.

If strategically resisting the ‘Great Reset’ (and related agendas) appeals to you, consider joining the ‘We Are Human, We Are Free’ Telegram group (with a link accessible from the website).

Finally, while the timeframe for this to make any difference is now in doubt, if you want to raise children who are powerfully able to investigate, analyze and act, you are welcome to make ‘My Promise to Children’.

Conclusion

Human freedom is on the verge of being lost. Forever.

If the Global Elite is successful in implementing its ‘Great Reset’ agenda, everything that humans value will be taken from us including, in many cases, our life.

The evidence on this issue is now overwhelming and it is virtually impossible to keep track of all of it once you start to investigate it.

And given the rapidly advancing technological elements of the Elite coup, as well as the ongoing destruction of food and energy supply chains, time is now very short.

Do you have the courage to act on this by resisting strategically?

Robert Burrowes, Ph.D. is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of Why Violence? Websites: (We Are Human, We Are Free) (Charter)  (Flame Tree Project)  (Songs of Nonviolence) (Nonviolent Campaign Strategy) (Nonviolent Defense/Liberation Strategy(Robert J. Burrowes) (Feelings First) Email: flametree@riseup.net

IT’S ALL A DISTRACTION… BUT A DISTRACTION FROM WHAT, EXACTLY?

By Dylan Charles

Source: Waking Times

In a recent conversation with a close friend we were talking about the insane firehose of fear-inducing narratives coming from the talking heads on TV, and she commented that, ‘it was all just a big distraction.’

I hear that a lot. It’s all just a big distraction.

Perhaps it’s true.

But a distraction from what, exactly?

I’m going to zoom all the way out for a few hundred words here. All the way out beyond the distraction from the economic and globalist reality bearing down on all of us. All the way out beyond the cultural revolution underpinning the agendas being pimped on us by mainstream media. All the way out beyond the technocratic, bio-fascist takeover coming from the world’s largest and most-overfunded organizations, like the WEF. All the way out, even, beyond the dehumanization and depopulation agenda becoming evermore clear to the layman in today’s post-Covid authoritarian world.

I’m going full spiritual here, because there’s something big that warrants your attention. Something which all the news, narratives and punditry never even skirt around, much less touch upon.

And that is the fact that you are so much more that what the material scientists and policy makers would have you believe. You’re being distracted from your connection to your higher self, to spirit itself.

It’s been a fascinating journey writing and publishing at Waking Times for over ten years. We’ve discussed in great detail the works of pioneering thinkers like Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock, and even brought renewed attention to the works of people like Rudolf Steiner, Carl Jung and other intellectuals who’ve helped to walk us over the gap between science and spirit. The message that always stuck with me is that the true value of being human, as opposed to a mind-controlled robot, is their uniqueness, individuality and our unique human capacity experience wonder, mystery, and inspiration.

And we need inspiration right now. It’s the antidote to fear. And we need to wonder about the big picture. Your connection to your higher self and all the courage and humanity to be found within that. We need to wonder what we truly are, without all the dense commentary and negative social thought loops keeping us bound to the stupidity inherent in pop culture and group think.

What are you, truly?

“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” ~Carl Sagan

Yeah, something like that.

The thing is, when you lose track of, or allow yourself to be distracted from, this reality, the walls of the world close in on you. You forget about the present moment and look at the future as a foe whose power comes from the failures of your past. You forget that you’re endowed with the power to create, as Paul Levy reminded us in a podcast I did with him. You forget that your natural state is independence and courage, and you forget that you always have instant access to access these qualities, should you desire to call them in.

When you’re distracted from the reality of your own sovereign standing as a unique and potentially powerful spiritual being, you’re unable to set your own sails according to your own life passions. You are rudderless in a sea of mediocrity and conformity, and thereby perpetually seek the false sense of security and safety that comes from thinking you’re part of a tribe. You self-sabotage and engage in all kinds of senseless self-destruction in order to numb the pain of denying your

Your connection to spirit is what gives your life meaning in a world where phoniness is front page news all day, everyday.

The reason why this connection matters is because you’re being put to the test. The test is whether or not you can keep yourself together through all of the bullshit we’re doggie-paddling around in, so that you can still manage to be effective in your own life rather than becoming food for the hostile beings that feed off fear and anxiety.

So, above all the information, data and reasoning required to find material truth in this world, you need to be connected to who you really are, and you need to know what’s right for you. Not what they say is right for you. These are distinctly different things. You need a connection to your spirit. Your higher self. You need access to the best part of your being.

The part of you that doesn’t need public consensus in order to make a decision regarding your personal health. That part of you that doesn’t check to see what everyone else is doing before declaring whatever it is you truly want out of this magical life. That part of you that wants to you be healthy, balanced and vital in a world of poison and pollution.

When you don’t know who or what you are, you look outward towards others to complete this complex puzzle. When you don’t know who you are, you deny your own inner wisdom. You concern yourself with things you have no power over. You live your life seeking approval, people pleasing and over-obligating yourself. When you don’t know who you are, you leave the door wide open for fear, self-doubt, worry, and overwhelm.

If it’s all a distraction, then it’s time you refocus and recover your energy and power from the rigid, thought-controlling social discredit system being built up around you. The only thing that can save any of us is if all us remember who we are.

“A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.” ~Lao Tzu

Creating consensus on Ukraine

By Rick Staggenborg, MD

Source: OpEdNews.com

The antiwar community has fractured at a time when it most needs to speak with one voice to end the war in Ukraine. About all we can agree on is that the war is a terrible thing that needs to be stopped. Beyond that, reasonable people disagree about messaging, and unreasonable people demonize those who disagree. The result is that average Americans who don’t usually follow politics, let alone international affairs, form opinions based on emotional responses to what they hear in mainstream media rather than what may be most likely to promote peace. This is true despite the fact that most would say that peace is what they want.

The ability to influence American thinking through emotional appeals is what those with the power to manipulate the media count on to serve imperialism’s aims. If we can at least agree that how we frame our response is important, people who sincerely want to do something to end the war might be able to agree on what message would most effectively sway public opinion in a way that might influence our government to act in the interest of peace.

The most fundamental disagreement is over whether it’s necessary to call Russia out as solely or even primarily at fault for the war, or whether it is important to provide the context needed to understand the US role in creating the conditions that led it to decide that it had no choice but to respond to Ukrainian actions in Donbass with military force.

Given that our goal is to influence public opinion, it’s understandable that most peace groups have opted to follow the lead of politicians and mainstream commentators and preface every statement with a condemnation of Russia. After all, since they believe these accusations are justified, they fear being seen as supportive of Russia if they only focus on what the US has done that promotes war and what it hasn’t done that might have prevented it. Some peace groups go so far as to ignore clear US provocations as unimportant. Since it was Russia that invaded, they believe that their proper job is to wave Ukrainian flags and protest Russia’s actions, despite the reality that this will have no beneficial effect on the course of the war.

Other peace activists feel that either approach absolves the US of responsibility for creating conditions that led to the conflict. Believing the US actually initiated the conflict, they argue that dating its onset as February 24 is not only misleading, but false. They see the conflict as having started long before the Russian invasion and argue that knowing what choices Putin had is relevant to assigning blame.

The truth is that we don’t have to agree on who is at fault if we don’t make that an issue. As a psychotherapist with training in family therapy, I know from experience that focusing on who is responsible for a problem almost never leads to a satisfactory solution. And from a practical standpoint, placing sole blame on Russia is counterproductive not only because it splits the antiwar movement, but because to much of the public it provides a justification for an aggressive US response. Avoiding a conflict over whether Russia should be characterized as the sole aggressor is why many want to limit the message to demanding that the US
1) stop arming Ukraine, 2) declare it will never support Ukraine joining NATO, and 3) push Ukraine to negotiate without preconditions.

From a family therapy perspective, trying to keep the discussion focused on a solution would certainly be the approach to take if the US actually wanted to end the conflict. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The effect of sending increasingly lethal weapons and imposing sanctions that primarily harm civilians is to prolong the war and increase casualties of both soldiers and civilians on both sides.

Recent reports indicate that the effort to help a depleted Ukrainian military drive Russia out of Donbass is futile. However, this approach is very profitable for a weapons industry that generously funds the elections of members of Congress willing to serve its interests, which is no doubt why any debate about how the US should proceed assumes that it will involve continuing a strategy that has proven to result in arming extremists when used in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And yes, there are extremists with significant influence in Ukraine despite media denials.

Clearly, the focus on providing weapons has redirected the public’s attention from the question of how to end the war to how best to punish Russia, regardless of how US strategy affect Ukrainian civilians. This is not by accident, but by design. That’s why it is necessary to challenge the distortions, omissions and outright lies that are used to influence public opinion to conform with the goals of American imperialism. Unfortunately, the inability to agree on the facts is what has led to the stark divisions among those wanting to do something to make the war to end. That is we have to put aside our pride and listen to each other to understand why a minority firmly believes that the consensus opinion of the majority is based on misplaced trust in mainstream media.

Most Americans think they are informed if they read mainstream media and watch a variety of TV news sources. Antiwar activists know differently, because we know we have been lied into war repeatedly, at least from Vietnam through Syria. Unfortunately, like the general public, many peace proponents have no idea how information that challenges the government’s narrative is being systematically suppressed in unprecedented ways.

It’s always been true that truth is the first casualty of war. In today’s hybrid warfare, it is more critical than ever to control the information domain. The way news is presented by government officials and approved media frames the way most people think about US foreign policy. This is why the idea of sending ever more powerful weapons to prolong a military conflict that cannot be won is never challenged. While the ultimate outcome of Russia’s invasion cannot be predicted with certainty, the one thing we know for sure is that providing increasingly lethal weaponry will lead to more death on both sides and do nothing to promote stability in the region.

Of course, there is much more that could be said about the tremendous amount of disinformation in the mainstream media regarding Ukraine. While much of it is relevant to understanding the situation, it is far beyond the scope of this essay. I can only recommend that those who are inclined to believe what they read or hear in government-approved media look at any of the credible alternative sources that present evidence of critical facts that are being withheld from them.

A good way to find them is to look at the list of websites that Prop or Not, a shadowy group that claims to be the arbiter of “reliable sources,” claims should not be trusted. Interspersed among many dubious websites listed are some of the most informative sources of information contradicting the mainstream narrative. These are sites with authors that include prominent investigative journalists and veterans of the CIANSAState Departmenthigh ranking White House positions and military intelligence. They cite their sources, which gives their articles far more credibility than the mostly anonymous sources favored by the New York Times and Washington Post when reporting on many of the same stories.

I urge anyone interested in finding a common message to present to the public to read the statement released by the US Peace Council.