Lmst

Well folks, as you may have heard the Klepto Kaiser bombed Iran on Saturday night. This in turn means that we are now living in wartime America again; assuming we weren't already. As if on cue swarms of imperialist propagandists have dominated our mainstream discourse; rallying to justify both what Trump has just done, and further military action pointing towards an obvious regime change operation in Iran. I'm not a fortune teller, but everything I know about American culture and MENA wars tells me that the manufacturing consent machine is in full operation already and you're about to be buried in propaganda, bullshit, and motivated reasoning on the subject of US imperialism and military action against Iran; in fact, it's kind of already happening.

At this point, in what seems like the beginning to folks who don't know America's long history of attempting to control the political and economic fortunes of Iran, I thought I'd take a moment to review what just happened, how we got here, and why the American forever war on Iran is already older than almost everyone who might actually read this. Given that I do not have high hopes that the Pig Empire establishment is going to do anything to reign in our nazi president, I'm probably going to be writing a lot about US imperial violence in and against Iran going forward on this blog, and I feel like this essay is a good, concise version of where I stand, given the history of American imperial ambitions in the MENA.

https://www.ninaillingworth.com/2025/06/22/forever-at-forever-war-with-iran/

Forever At Forever War With Iran

"So, we’re clearly at war with Iran, right? Not according to the Kelpto Kaiser’s couch-curious Vice President JD Vance; who gifted Trump’s war in Iran with its first Bushism when he confidently informed NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” moderator Kristen Welker that we’re only at war with Iran’s nuclear program. Why that isn’t a difference without a distinction, remains unclear. This naturally won’t be the last lie the Trumpenreich regime utters to justify this illegal war, nor is it the first. After all, the entire premise of the attack, to shut down the nonexistent Iranian nuclear weapons program, is a lie. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been claiming Iran is on the verge of building a nuclear weapon without evidence for over thirty years. In March, Trump’s own Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard publicly told Congress that Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon and wouldn’t be capable of doing so for at least three years. This has put the United States in the precarious position of bombing a country we claim we’re not at war with, while simultaneously declaring we’re at war with a nuclear weapons program that does not exist; that faint clapping sound you hear is Dick Cheney applauding the Trump regime’s chutzpah."

#Imperialism #War #Iran #Israel #Trump #PigEmpire #RegimeChange #IllegalWar #WarCrimes #BenjaminNetanyahu #WarOnTerror #MohammadMosaddegh #1953 #CIA #MENA #ForeverWars #IraqInvasion #DickCheney #JDVance #Propaganda #ManufacturingConsent

Israel brutally massacares Palestinians at their food traps. TheGuardian:

https://lemmy.ml/post/32148007

Fake News. Get your Fake News here.

https://lemmy.ml/post/32137320

@urlyman
#manufacturingConsent

*edited to add: there are often open-source alternatives, many of which need help with everything from translation to documentation to writing code. That is to say, I acknowledge that for many interactions, my posting the hashtag on it's own is reductionist, but perhaps where Manufacturing Consent seems relevant, we can trace our steps back and figure out the point we started consensually engaging with the entity that is or seems to be manufacturing consent.

There's probably a spectrum of degrees of choice represented at those points we started consensually engaging with the other entity, depending on (em)urgency of the customer's need and degree of monopoly supplier holds. Eg.: emergency medical care > insulin pump > railway ticket.

The user has to consent to all of those things, but obviously at one end of the spectrum is "or death", and moving away from that things get more relaxed.

Crikey. Sorry. Don't stand there. I think there's a soapbox on the floor. Dangerous stuff this social media!

#foss #openSource #consent #degoogle #demeta #defacebook #selfHosted #homeLab #BSD #openBSD #linux #ethics #law #civics #complexSystemsTheory #cybernetics #contractLaw

Sat 21 Jun 2025. TheGuardian still dreams up 61 people which do not exist. The number 1200 must be repeated.

https://lemmy.ml/post/32062485

One of the lessons I learned from the War on Terror and US invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, is that it's important to talk about the manufacture of consent for war in real time, no matter how obviously false, or rooted in motivating reasoning, the propaganda and arguments that manufacture that consent may seem to you. Long after we admit our imperial adventures are slaughterhouse catastrophes, everyone will remember the big lies, and sometimes even the big liars in the media who told them, but the reality is that the primary tool by which an always pro-war establishment manipulates public opinion to justify imperial violence is not the big lies, but an all pervasive environment of little lies, acts of framing, and the creation of a perceived mass consensus around "common sense" arguments for war rather than factual analysis. Colin Powell didn't convince Americans to support the invasion of Iraq by shaking around a vial at the UN, it was the thousands upon thousands of news stories, articles, and presentations in our discourse that portrayed Iraq as the source of all evil in the world, and the idea of *not* attacking Iraq as the unreasonable position, that did the deed in the end.

I mention this because as this article by Belén Fernández writing for media watchdog FAIR notes, imperialist corporate media in America is performing Olympic-level mental gymnastics to flip victim and aggressor in stories about Israel's completely illegal and unprovoked attack on Iran. A burgeoning war the US President is currently threatening to embroil America in despite the overwhelming wishes of its people.

https://fair.org/home/working-hard-to-justify-israels-unprovoked-attack-on-iran/

Working Hard to Justify Israel’s Unprovoked Attack on Iran

"Imagine for a moment that Country A launched an illegal and unprovoked attack on Country B. In any sort of objective world, you might expect media coverage of the episode to go something along the lines of: “Country A Launches Illegal and Unprovoked Attack on Country B.”

Not so in the case of Israel, whose special relationship with the United States means it gets special coverage in the US corporate media. When Israel attacked Iran early last Friday, killing numerous civilians along with military officials and scientists, the press was standing by to present the assault as fundamentally justified—no surprise coming from the outlets that have for more than 20 months refused to describe Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as genocide."

I like to share the media studies FAIR publishes because they're generally well sourced, and extremely concise; this article is no exception. The author looks at three pro-Israel propaganda arguments in particular, woven throughout corporate American media stories about the unprovoked attack, which as I've mentioned before, is almost certainly a literal fucking war crime. Specifically she examines the argument that Israel's illegal attack on Iran was pre-emptive, that being attacked by Israel is actually saving Iranians somehow, and arguments that Israel's attack on Iran echoes its (also illegal) attacks on Lebanon, which are magically transformed into a good thing in this narrative.

Virtually all of these propositions are of course utterly absurd. A "pre-emptive" strike is literally just starting an illegal war, just like it was when Bush attacked Iraq under the same logic. The idea that Iranians are thanking Israel for killing civilians to punish their government is some jingoistic absurdity. And Israel's activities in Lebanon were themselves another illegal war and dare I say, terrorism. Literally none of this makes any sense unless you're high on Zionist propaganda released directly by the Netanyahu government, and yet Fernández found reporting in corporate mainstream media outlets like the Associated Press, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and ABC all making one or more of these absurd arguments to justify Israel's again, unprovoked, illegal attack on Iran.

My friends, please let me remind you that Israel is a US client state, and could not prosecute a war against Iran (or a genocide in Gaza) without American military hardware, funding, and diplomatic support. Manufacturing consent for a regime change war, by Israel, in Iran, is in fact just manufacturing consent for a US war in Iran. American media outlets are not talking this way, or pushing these pro-war, anti-Iran propaganda arguments because it makes them feel good; they're framing any potential conflict with Iran as unambiguously justified, morally virtuous, and entirely the fault of Iranians for not overthrowing their government on our behalf by now. This, is what the manufacture of consent for war in America looks like in real time; not one big lie, but a thousand voices telling you over and over that every "reasonable" person agrees Iran had it coming.

#USA #Imperialism #War #Israel #Iran #ManufacturingConsent #Media #WaPo #NYT #Propaganda #WarOnTerror #Gaza #Genocide

It had been my hope that those of you too young to remember Mike Huckabee as Governor of Arkansas, would be spared from having to come to grips with the insane bullshit this sociopathic fundie fascist believes in any meaningful way. Unfortunately, because Trump makes everything shitty about American politics infinitely worse, Huckabee is now the US Ambassador to Israel at the exact time we're kinda maybe sorta already joining them in a war against Iran. This gives him a position of outsized importance right now, and provides him with an opportunity to advise President Trump at what may well be the most critical moment in American politics since Bush (disastrously) declared war on Iraq. What sage words of stately wisdom is Mike providing the Swine Emperor at this volatile moment? As it turns out flattery, messianic end times nonsense, and encouragement to fucking nuke Iran. No, really.

https://truthout.org/articles/huckabee-suggests-trump-should-nuke-iran-follow-guidance-from-heaven/

Huckabee Suggests Trump Should Nuke Iran, Follow Guidance From “Heaven”

"US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has suggested to President Donald Trump that he should use a nuclear bomb against Iran, urging Trump to listen to the voice he will “hear from heaven” and follow its guidance in making decisions about Israel’s war on Iran.

In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump posted a screenshot of the lengthy text he says was sent to him by Huckabee, an evangelical and Christian Zionist who Trump praises as a “Great Person!”

In the text, Huckabee says Trump’s current decision on whether or not to involve the U.S. further in attacks on Iran is akin to the decision President Harry Truman faced in 1945 — when Truman dropped two atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Japan and decimating the cities."

Folks, I don't want to be accused of being a foot solider in the (totally made up) "War on Christianity" but perhaps it's not a great idea to put people who believe we need to herd all the Jewish People into Israel, and then blow it up so Jesus can come back and save white Christian nazis from eternal hellfire, in charge of anything important. And you're going to tell me that I'm being ridiculous because Huckabee is only the Ambassador to Israel, but I will respond by reminding you that this is what virtually all evangelical Christian Zionists believe and that includes powerful folks like Senator Ted Cruz, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, among many other influential fundie nutjobs in and around the Trump administration. All of which of course is to say nothing of Huckabee's apocalyptic vision of the future, or his attempts to cast Trump in the role of a literal messianic figure. I'm listening to folks on my TV talk about the evils of "fundamentalist clerics running Iran" and the US Ambassador to Israel is out here telling Trump that God himself is gonna tell him to turn Iran to glass at any moment. Are you people fucking kidding me? We're gonna take foreign policy advice from people who're big worried about Satanic possession and witchcraft in the year 2025?

Regardless of whether or not you accept my premise that Christian Zionism itself should be disqualifying for all government service, you have to admit that this is an absolutely fucking insane thing for an American diplomat to say while we're on the verge of a war with Iran that the Trump regime seems to actively preparing for; and for Lindsey Graham, a US Senator, to agree with him that we should fucking nuke Iran, is mind-numbing, War on Terror-level, xenophobic, imperial bullshit. All of these people should be removed from office fucking immediately; and that goes double for Mike Huckabee.

Why? Well I have some news for Mike. His job? Is to represent the UNITED STATES of fucking AMERICA in Israel. His job is not to represent Benjamin Netanyahu's case for making his war, our war, on the international stage. There are fucking governments that would consider what Huckabee just said here treasonous; and they would not be entirely wrong to do so. I do not give one flying fuck about American national security, but if my news is any indication, a great number of Very Serious People TM in our society do, and if that's the case our Ambassador to Israel needs to be reminded who he actually works for.

Of course, none of that is going to happen; indeed it barely even registered in mainstream Western media that Huckabee just called on Trump to literally nuke Iran at all. A bipartisan, mainstream American establishment that has wanted a regime change war in Iran every waking moment since 1979, is so close to what they desire that they can literally taste it - and if they have to put up with fundie end times prophecy, a little fascism, and some light treason to get it, so be it.

#Trump #War #Imperialism #Iran #Israel #USPol #MikeHuckabee #NuclearWeapons #ManufacturingConsent #Propaganda #EndTimes #Fundamentalism #ChristianZionism #WarOnTerror