{"id":2582,"date":"2019-12-28T14:03:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T18:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=2582"},"modified":"2019-12-28T14:03:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-28T18:03:40","slug":"2019-the-year-of-maximum-manufactured-hysteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=2582","title":{"rendered":"2019: The Year of Maximum Manufactured Hysteria"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The Year of Manufactured\u00a0Hysteria<\/h1>\n

CONSENT FACTORY, INC.
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Optimized by JPEGmini 3.14.11.71554471 0xf6bbf138<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

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Well, it looks like we\u2019ve somehow managed to survive another year of diabolical Putin-Nazi attacks on democracy. It was touch-and-go there for a while, especially coming down the home stretch, what with Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s desperate attempt to overthrow the UK government, construct\u00a0a British version of Auschwitz<\/a>, and start rounding up and mass-murdering the Jews.<\/p>\n

That was certainly pretty scary \u2026 but then, the whole year was pretty scary.<\/p>\n

The horror began promptly in early January, when Rachel Maddow revealed that\u00a0Putin was projecting words out of Trump\u2019s mouth in real-time<\/a>, i.e., literally using Trump\u2019s head like a puppet, or one of those\u00a0Mission Impossible<\/em>\u00a0masks. And that was just the tip of the iceberg, as, despite the best efforts of\u00a0Integrity Initiative<\/a>,\u00a0Bellingcat<\/a>, and\u00a0other such establishment psyops<\/a>, Internet-censoring sites like\u00a0NewsGuard<\/a>, and\u00a0an army of mass hysteria generators<\/a>, Putin\u2019s legion of Russian \u201cinfluencers\u201d was continuing to maliciously influence Americans, who were probably also still under attack by\u00a0brain-eating Russian-Cubano crickets<\/a>!<\/p>\n

While Resistance members were still wrapping their heads in anti-cricket aluminum foil, Putin (i.e., Russian Hitler) ordered Trump (i.e., Russian-asset Hitler) to launch a coup in Venezuela (i.e., Russian Hitler\u2019s South American ally), probably to distract us from \u201cSmirkboy Hitler<\/a>\u201d and his acne-faced gang of MAGA cap-wearing Catholic high-school Hitler Youth, who were trying to invade and Hitlerize the capital. Or maybe the coup was meant to distract us from the un-American activities of Bernie Sanders, who had also been deemed a Russian asset, or a devious \u201cKremlin-Trump operation<\/a>,\u201d or was working with Tulsi Gabbard to\u00a0build an army of blood-drinking Hindu nationalists, genocidal Assadists, and American fascists<\/a>\u00a0to help the Iranians (and the Russians, of course, and presumably also Jeremy Corbyn) frontally assault the State of Israel and drive the Jews into the sea.<\/p>\n

As if all that wasn\u2019t horrifying enough (and ridiculous and confusing enough), by early Spring there was\u00a0mounting evidence<\/a>\u00a0that Putin had somehow gotten to Mueller, possibly with one of those FSB pee-tapes, and was sabotaging the \u201cRussiagate\u201d coup the Intelligence Community, the Democratic Party, the corporate media, and the rest of the Resistance had been methodically preparing since 2016. Liberals\u2019 anuses began puckering and unpuckering as it gradually became clear that the \u201cMueller Report\u201d was not going to prove that Donald Trump had colluded with Putin and Julian Assange to steal the presidency from Hillary Clinton and transform the United States of America into a genocidal Putin-Nazi Reich.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the\u00a0anti-Semitism pandemic<\/a>\u00a0that had mysteriously erupted in 2016 (i.e., right around the time Trump won the nomination) was raging unchecked throughout the West. Jews in Great Britain were on the brink of panic because approximately\u00a00.08 percent of Labour Party members were anti-Semitic<\/a>, as opposed to the rest of the British public, who have never shown any signs of anti-Semitism (or any other kind of racism or bigotry), and are practically a nation of Shabbos goys. Clearly, Corbyn had turned the party into his personal\u00a0neo-Nazi death cult<\/a>\u00a0and was planning to carry out a second Holocaust just as soon as he renationalized the British railways!<\/p>\n

And it wasn\u2019t just the United Kingdom. According to corporate media virologists, idiopathic anti-Semitism was breaking out everywhere. In France, the\u00a0\u201cYellow Vests\u201d were also anti-Semites<\/a>. In the U.S.A., Jews were facing \u201ca perfect storm of anti-Semitism<\/a>,\u201d some of it stemming from the neo-fascist fringe (which has been a part of the American landscape forever, but which the corporate media has elevated into an international Nazi movement), but much of it whipped up by Ilhan Omar, who had apparently entered into a \u201cRed-Brown\u201d pact with Richard Spencer, or Gavin McInnes, or some other formerly insignificant idiot.<\/p>\n

Things got very confusing for a while, as Republicans united with Democrats to denounce Ilhan Omar as an anti-Semite (and possibly a full-fledged Islamic terrorist) and to condemn the existence of \u201chate,\u201d or whatever. The corporate media, Facebook, and Twitter were suddenly swarming with hordes of angry anti-Semites accusing other anti-Semites of anti-Semitism. Meghan McCain couldn\u2019t take it anymore, and\u00a0she broke down on the\u00a0Joy Behar Show<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and begged to be converted to Judaism, or Zionism, right there on the air. This unseemly display of anti-anti-Semitism was\u00a0savagely skewered by Eli Valley<\/a>, an \u201canti-Semitic\u201d Jewish cartoonist, according to McCain and other morons.<\/p>\n

Then it happened \u2026 perhaps the loudest popcorn fart in political history. The Mueller Report was finally delivered. And just like that,\u00a0Russiagate was over<\/a>. After three long years of manufactured mass hysteria, corporate media propaganda, books, T-shirts, marches, etc., Robert Mueller had come up with squat. Zip. Zero. Nichts. Nada. No collusion. No pee-tape. No secret servers. No Russian contacts. Nothing. Zilch.<\/p>\n

Cognitive dissonance gripped the nation. There was beaucoup wailing and gnashing of teeth. Resistance members doubled their anti-depressant dosages and went into mourning. Shell-shocked liberals did their best to pretend they hadn\u2019t been duped, again, by authoritative sources like\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em>,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>,\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>, CNN, MSNBC, et al., which had disseminated completely fabricated stories about\u00a0secret meetings which never took place<\/a>,\u00a0power grid hackings that never happened<\/a>,\u00a0Russian servers that never existed<\/a>,\u00a0imaginary Russian propaganda peddlers<\/a>, and\u00a0the list goes on<\/a>, and on, and on \u2026 and hadn\u2019t otherwise behaved like a bunch of mindless, shrieking neo-McCarthyites.<\/p>\n

Except that Russiagate wasn\u2019t over. It immediately morphed into \u201cObstructiongate<\/a>.\u201d As the corporate media spooks explained, Mueller\u2019s investigation of Trump was never about collusion with Russia. No, it was always about Trump obstructing the investigation of the collusion with Russia that the investigation was not about, and that\u00a0everyone knew had never happened<\/a>. In other words, Mueller\u2019s investigation was launched in order to investigate the obstruction of his investigation.<\/p>\n

Or whatever. It didn\u2019t really matter, because, by this time,\u00a0Assange had been arrested<\/a>\u00a0for treason, or for jumping bail, or for smearing poo all over the walls of the Ecuadorean embassy, and\u00a0The New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0was reporting<\/a>\u00a0that a veritable \u201cconstellation\u201d of social media accounts \u201clinked to Russia and far-right groups\u201d was disseminating extremist \u201cdisinformation,\u201d and Putin had unleashed the\u00a0Russian spywhale<\/a>, and \u201cJews were not safe in Germany again<\/a>,\u201d because the Putin-Nazis had formed an alliance with the Iranian Nazis and the Syrian Nazis, who were backing the Palestinian Nazis that\u00a0Antifa was fighting on behalf of Israel<\/a>, and Jews were not safe in the UK either, because of Jeremy Corbyn, who Donald Trump (who, let\u2019s all remember, is literally Hitler) was conspiring with a group of \u201cunnamed Jewish leaders\u201d to prevent from becoming prime minister, and Iran was\u00a0conspiring with Hezbollah and al Qaeda<\/a>\u00a0to amass an arsenal of WMDs to launch at Israel and Saudi Arabia, and other peaceful Middle Eastern democracies, and Trump was finally going to go full-Hitler and declare martial law on the Fourth of July, and he was operating literal \u201cconcentration camps\u201d where\u00a0immigrants were being forced to drink out of toilets<\/a>, which looked almost exactly the same as\u00a0the \u201cdetention facilities\u201d Obama had operated<\/a>, except for \u2026 well, you know, the \u201cfascism.\u201d So who had time to worry about the corporate media colluding with an attempted Intelligence Community coup?<\/p>\n

Then, in August, right on cue, some racist whack job murdered a bunch of people, and so now, as if the mass hysteria hadn\u2019t already been jacked up to the max, America had \u201ca white nationalist terrorist problem<\/a>,\u201d or was in the throes of a \u201cwhite nationalist terrorism crisis.<\/a>\u201d Trump was now officially our \u201cNihilist-in-Chief<\/a>,\u201d and \u201ca white supremacist who inspires terrorism<\/a>\u201d and was basically no different than\u00a0Anwar al-Awlaki<\/a>. It was time to take some\u00a0extraordinary measures<\/a>\u00a0along the lines of the Patriot Act, except focused on potential white supremacist terrorists, or anyone the Editorial Board of\u00a0The New York Times\u00a0<\/em>might deem a \u201cthreat.\u201d<\/p>\n

This sudden outbreak of \u201cTrump-inspired terrorism<\/a>\u201d and the\u00a0manufactured \u201cfascism\u201d hysteria<\/a>\u00a0that followed got the Resistance through end of the Summer and into the Autumn, which was always when the main event was scheduled to begin. See, these last three years have basically been a warm-up for what is about to happen \u2026 the impeachment, sure, but that\u2019s only one part of it.<\/p>\n

If you thought the global capitalist ruling classes and the corporate media\u2019s\u00a0methodical crushing of Jeremy Corbyn<\/a>\u00a0was depressing to watch \u2026 well, prepare yourself for 2020. The Year of Manufactured Mass Hysteria was not just the Intelligence Community and the corporate media getting their kicks by whipping the public up into an endless series of baseless panics over imaginary Russians and Nazis. It was the final phase of cementing the official \u201cPutin-Nazi\u201d narrative in people\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n

For the sake of anyone new to my columns, here\u2019s how the Putin-Nazi narrative works \u2026<\/p>\n

The Putin-Nazi narrative has two basic parts, or messages, which are constantly repeated: (1) \u201cRussia is attacking our democracy!; and (2) \u201cfascism is spreading like wildfire!,\u201d both of which parts are essentially fictions. This official Putin-Nazi narrative was introduced in the Summer of 2016, and replaced the official \u201cWar on Terrorism\u201d narrative, which had run for fifteen years, and which was just as fictional. It has been methodically reinforced and repeated by the neoliberal establishment, the corporate media (and, more recently,\u00a0the alternative media<\/a>, and even by extremely intelligent anarchist anthropologists\u00a0like David Graeber<\/a>) for the last three years on a daily basis. At this point it has become our \u201creality,\u201d just as the War on Terror became our \u201creality\u201d \u2026 as the Cold War had previously been our \u201creality.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I say that this narrative has become our \u201creality,\u201d I mean that it is now virtually impossible to refute it in any mainstream forum without being dismissed as a \u201cconspiracy theorist,\u201d or an \u201canti-Semite,\u201d or a \u201cRussian asset.\u201d It has become axiomatic and is taken for granted that we are experiencing an explosion of anti-Semitism, and fascism, and that Russia is out to get us (so axiomatic that someone like Graeber falls into the trap of defending Corbyn by relying on, and thus reifying, the very \u201cfascism\u201d hysteria that was used to destroy him).<\/p>\n

Never mind that the entire planet continues to be ruled by global capitalism, transnational corporations, and supra-governmental bodies, and that most of it is occupied by the U.S. military, NATO, and other GloboCap allies, and assorted corporate military contractors. Never mind that Russia isn\u2019t \u201cattacking\u201d anyone, and that the \u201cNazis\u201d haven\u2019t taken over anything, and that no one is rounding up and murdering the Jews, or the Mexicans, or anyone else for that matter \u2026 because when have facts had anything to do with maintaining an official narrative?<\/p>\n

The answer, in case you were wondering, is \u201cnever.\u201d We are, all of us, living in a fiction. A fiction authored by those in power to serve the interests of those in power. That\u2019s what an official narrative is. It makes no difference whether we believe it or not. It functions as \u201creality\u201d regardless. If you doubt that \u2026 well, just ask Jeremy Corbyn. Or watch as the Labour \u201canti-Semitism crisis\u201d evaporates into thin air, as the War on Terror did in 2016, once it no longer served a useful purpose.<\/p>\n

As for 2020, I\u2019m afraid the manufactured mass hysteria is only going to get worse. The global capitalist ruling classes are determined to snuff out this\u00a0populist rebellion<\/a>, and to make sure it never happens again, or at the very least not on this scale. Anyone who gets in the way is going to be branded an \u201canti-Semite,\u201d or a \u201cfascist,\u201d or a \u201cRussian asset.\u201d Politicians who do not toe the line are going to have their political careers and personal reputations destroyed. (Did you notice how it took less than two days after the crushing of Jeremy Corbyn for\u00a0the smearing of Sanders as an anti-Semite<\/a>\u00a0or \u201csoft on anti-Semitism<\/a>\u201d to begin?)<\/p>\n

Mainstream journalists who dare to question the official Putin-Nazi narrative, even in the most respectful way, are going to come under increasing pressure to tone it down or suffer the consequences. Putin-Nazi paranoia will metastasize. Dissident websites will be deplatformed and demonitized. The Internet will be increasingly monitored for any and all forms of non-conformity. Dissent will be increasingly stigmatized.\u00a0\u201cReality\u201d will be increasingly policed<\/a>. It\u2019s all going to get extremely unpleasant, and that\u2019s assuming that civil war doesn\u2019t break out.<\/p>\n

And as for me, I\u2019m just a political satirist with a barely respectable cult-sized following, so they\u2019ll probably let me get away with continuing to cover the whole ugly show (as long as no one starts to take me seriously). I\u2019ll try to find the humor in it, but honestly, just between you and me, what\u2019s coming may not be all that funny.<\/p>\n

#<\/p>\n

CJ Hopkins
\nDecember 18, 2019
\nPhoto:\u00a0The Eye of Faith<\/a><\/p>\n

___
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The Year of Manufactured\u00a0Hysteria CONSENT FACTORY, INC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}