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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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How much power does some random person actually have? It’s really unlikely that anyone in America could have stopped a war the elites wanted to have, or really any other decisions those elites wanted to make. Democracy isn’t about giving the unwashed masses a real say, especially in imperial matters. You might ge5 a say in whether a lane gets added to a local highway, or a Walmart being built nearby, but in matters the elite care about, our oligarchy is not really that different than any other historical empire. No average Joe ever gets the kind of say that would make him morally responsible for wars.

A random person has not much power. But if the media were all agreeing about war, it's not because they are jewish, but because there was no market fir opposing war. The media could have opposed the war as much as they could, people would have looked at other media. They had as much appetite for anti war media as a AOC supporter for looking Tucker Carlson show. So after that blaming the media and the establishment is ridiculous. Just like it would be ridiculous for Bush to blame it on the people.

The American media is explicitly pro-regime as unless they sufficiently report the news as the regime wants it reported, they don’t get access to the leadership of the regime. And so, essentially, the appearance of consent is often manufactured. I would consider most of the statements of “support” for regime positions as selective polling used to create support, not as dispassionately reported unbiased facts.

Then you have to explain why it fails sometimes, eg Vietnam and pentagon papers