They Don’t Care Which Side You Pick, so Long as You Pick One
by Ryan DeLarme, Oct. 30
The Israel-Palestine conflict is the latest narrative in the war of stories and is serving multiple strategic purposes. Aside from fueling the war economy, this conflict is having a particularly divisive effect on America. It is also being used as a pretext to bolster the Western censorship regime.
It is obvious that establishment forces want you hungry for this war; they might not even care which side you are on so long as you do pick a side. This article suggests that there is an alternative option, and it is one that the deep political establishment does NOT want you to consider.
It seems as though the permanent political class is in total agreement that the US should back Israel, despite the fact that a majority of American voters are not in favor of US support for Israel, many fearing that our involvement will only lead to broader conflict.
Elected officials are supposed to be working on behalf of their constituents, but if their constituents express reticence to take a hard stance on a complicated foreign war and officials then choose to blatantly ignore those concerns, who do they really work for?
The answer all too often is: the donor class, particularly the military industrial complex.
The phrase military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC) was coined in a speech given by President Dwight Eisenhower (written by Malcolm Moos and Ralph E. Williams) in his farewell address from the White House on January 17th, 1961, though before Ike made the speech, the reference to Congress would be edited out. The same concept is also referred to as the permanent war economy.
Eisenhower’s speech was an important warning not given much attention at the time, presumably since the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird had already given the Deep State a high degree of control over the corporate media; the primary tool used to drum up support for war.
Despite a rise in public awareness of the MICC’s exploits, the speech still manages to fall on deaf ears every time a new war with a good marketing campaign comes along. All it takes is a few traumatic rounds of atrocity propaganda and suddenly the public is rallying behind a war-economy cash cow.
Most journalists and pundits worth their salt should be well aware of this system, yet time and time again talking heads prove their lack of understanding (or perhaps willful ignorance) of the real monster lurking in the background behind so many headlines.
The MICC is made up of many moving parts and sub-complexes, one of them is what’s been called the military-industrial-media complex. The role of the commercially-controlled media in promoting war and militarism is essential for the system to properly operate.
Even disregarding known CIA projects such as Operation Mockingbird, the case for Deep State control of the corporate media, and their wedding to the interests of the permanent war economy is compelling.
For years, General Electric owned 49% of NBC, and was a subcontractor for the Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot II missiles, which were used extensively during the Gulf War. GE also manufactured components for the B-2 stealth bomber and B-52 bomber and the E-3 AWACS aircraft, which were also used extensively during the conflict. General Electric received around $2 billion in defense contracts related to weapons which would be used in Gulf War and the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. This is just one example of many showcasing the historic marriage between defense contractors and corporate media. (#)
We can expect the mainstream to be largely in agreement, but the response of journalists and talking heads in the alternative media is much more interesting, and more accurately represents the various attitudes of the greater public.
This conflict has caused some heated exchanges in alternative media spaces, both liberal and conservative. These exchanges showcase just how high some peoples emotions are running, and we should all have learned from 9-11 that emotional responses, particularly when it comes to war, often turn out to be disastrous.
Read more from Ryan DeLarme here.
