Are We in a Propaganda Bubble?
We should pop the bubble if we are.
“I hope that the propaganda bubble that we live in will be popped as soon as possible—it’s important to overcome any filters on the information that you receive and any filters on the moral outrage that you express.”
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that we live in a propaganda bubble—certain information just doesn’t flow to us efficiently, and our moral outrage is efficiently directed away from certain unacceptable targets and toward certain acceptable targets.
See my previous pieces about the war in Ukraine:
“Is US Policy Killing Ukrainians?” (17 March 2022)
“Where’s the Diplomacy?” (26 March 2022)
Noam Chomsky has an excellent new piece that everyone should read:
I just want to use this short piece to bring attention to Chomsky’s 30 March 2022 piece and to provide some notes on the piece.
My notes don’t cover everything that Chomsky says in the piece. And I added some hyperlinks to my notes—in addition to the ones that Chomsky already supplied in his piece—so that people can get background information on the things under discussion.
Chomsky makes the following points about the war in Ukraine:
the West is reinforcing NATO’s eastern front
this course of action makes sense if you believe in an “incredibly powerful and efficient Russian military machine”, but we can plausibly conclude from what we’ve seen in Ukraine that Russia can’t even overcome limited military forces—and a citizens’ army—in order to conquer cities a few miles from the Russian border
the US might want to reinforce an eastern front that it knows faces no invasion threat—the goal might be to establish more firmly the great gift that Putin gave the US when Putin drove Europe into the US’s grip
the US hasn’t strayed from the 1 September 2021 document “Joint Statement on the U.S.-Ukraine Strategic Partnership”
this 1 September 2021 document is “crucially important”
the September 2021 document welcomes Ukraine to join NATO; talks about “Deepening Strategic Defense Cooperation”; announces a new “security assistance package” that includes “anti-armor systems and other defensive lethal and non-lethal capabilities”; and says that the US intends to continue a “robust training and exercise program in keeping with Ukraine’s status as a NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partner”
CIA directors, top US diplomats, and numerous others have warned Washington about the foolishness of ignoring Russia’s security concerns
Putin’s criminal aggression carried a “step forward the annual mobilizations on Ukraine’s borders in an effort to elicit some attention to his unanswered calls to consider Russia’s security concerns”
maybe Putin meant what every Russian leader since Boris Yeltsin has said about neutralization of Ukraine
the highly provocative September 2021 document has been “silenced in the US”
maybe Putin paid attention to the September 2021 document and “therefore decided to escalate the disregarded annual efforts to direct aggression”
And Chomsky makes the following points about negotiations regarding the war in Ukraine:
according to the press, Ukraine is “ready to declare neutrality, abandon its drive to join NATO and vow to not develop nuclear weapons” if Russia withdraws and Kyiv gets security guarantees
will the US relent and “move to expedite efforts to save Ukraine further misery”?
will the US continue to refuse to take part in negotiations, continue to interfere with these efforts, and maintain the September 2021 document’s position?
Chomsky also makes some important points about Biden—for context, let me inject my transcription of something that Biden said:
I was expressing my outrage at the behavior of this man. It’s outrageous. It’s outrageous. And it’s more an aspiration than anything. He shouldn’t be in power. People like this shouldn't be ruling countries. But they do. The fact—they do. But it doesn’t mean I can’t express my outrage about it.
Chomsky makes the following points:
Biden made an “ad-libbed call for Putin to be removed”—this would deny Putin an escape
Biden’s statement was “recognized to be a virtual declaration of war that could have horrifying consequences”—the statement “did cause considerable consternation worldwide, not least among his staff, who hastened to assure the world that his words didn’t mean what they said”
it’s “hard to be confident” that Biden’s words don’t reflect his administration’s policy, given the “stance of his close circle on national security issues”
Biden has explained his comment as an expression of “moral outrage”
“Moral outrage over Russian crimes in Ukraine is understandable and justified. The extreme selectivity in moral outrage is also understandable, but not justified. It is understandable because it is so common.”
where’s the moral outrage about the Biden administration’s policies?
there isn’t any—that’s the “extreme selectivity in moral outrage”
there’s a “terrifying” situation in Afghanistan—it’s a “colossal tragedy” where millions of people face starvation
this is literally millions of people
a major reason for the crisis is that the US is “refusing to release Afghanistan’s funds, kept in New York banks in order to punish poor Afghans for daring to resist Washington’s 20-year war”
there’s an official pretext that the US must “withhold the funds from starving Afghans in case Americans want reparations for crimes of 9/11”—this is a shameful pretext because the Afghans bear no responsibility for 9/11
the “dramatic selectivity in moral outrage is understandable” and is “another outrage”
according to the UN, Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis—last year the official death toll reached 370,000 and nobody knows the actual death toll
the “shattered country is facing mass starvation”
Saudi Arabia and the UAE “share primary responsibility” for what’s happening in Yemen
Saudi Arabia has “intensified its blockade of the sole port used for food and fuel imports”
the UN is “issuing extreme warnings, including the threat of imminent starvation of hundreds of thousands of children”
US specialists have echoed these warnings
Bruce Riedel of the Brookings Institution was the top CIA analyst on the Middle East under four presidents—he charges that the Saudi “offensive action” should be investigated as a war crime
the Saudi and Emirati air forces “cannot function without U.S. planes, training, intelligence, spare parts”
“Britain is taking part in the crime, along with other Western powers, but the U.S. is well in the lead.”
I highlighted in this piece the points that I found most urgent.
But in the piece Chomsky also goes through cases where the US has violated the rule of law and violated the sanctity of sovereignty—Chomsky comments:
These are just further illustrations of the commitment to the “rule of law” and the sanctity of sovereignty that Washington has demonstrated for 70 years in Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile, Iraq, and on and on—the commitment that requires the U.S. to extend the welcome mat to Ukraine to join NATO.
Everyone should read the following pieces on the crises in Yemen and Afghanistan:
“As U.S. Focuses on Ukraine, Yemen Starves” (16 March 2022)
“Afghanistan Facing ‘Total Collapse’ as Biden Refuses to Release Central Bank Assets” (30 March 2022)
I hope that the propaganda bubble that we live in will be popped as soon as possible—it’s important to overcome any filters on the information that you receive and any filters on the moral outrage that you express.