America’s unelected power establishment has deliberately fanned the flames of a new moral panic about Nazis taking over America, and now that all its chess pieces are in place its media propaganda outlets have spun around to unanimously condemn Antifa counter-protesters, just in time for a new increase in police militarization.

Hmm…

On seeing this, readers who oppose Antifa may be thinking “Good! I’m glad those thugs are finally facing some backlash and condemnation after being coddled by the liberal media all this time,” while Antifa supporters may point at the fact that the media is now paying less attention to the threat of white supremacists in America than to the people standing up to them. In my opinion neither of these takes reflect the full picture of what we’re seeing here, though.

For weeks conservatives in America have been complaining that the mainstream media have not been accurate in their coverage of the Charlottesville incident and subsequent rallies wherein black-bloc protesters made an appearance, saying there’s been far too much focus on white supremacists and not enough on the violent counter-protesters. This is arguably fair from a certain point of view; what coverage the corporate media has given to Antifa has until recently been largely packaged in a more curious and interested tone than a condemnatory one, like this Washington Post article titled “Analysis: Who are the antifa?”, or this segment by CNN. Now all of a sudden you’ve got conservative pundits like Dinesh D’Souza and Tucker Carlson’s The Daily Caller crowing about WaPo’s “stunning” pivot against Antifa’s violent tactics.

I always keep careful track of what the Washington Post is up to. Since its sole owner is one of the wealthiest plutocrats in human history, who also just so happens to be a CIA contractor, I find it a very useful tool for figuring out what America’s unelected power establishment wants its human cattle to be thinking on a given day. This outlet which once infamously ran sixteen smear pieces against Bernie Sanders in the span of sixteen hours during the hottest point in the Democratic primaries has never failed as a reliable gauge of what America’s second government wants. This new narrative pivot is therefore noteworthy, especially given how many mainstream news outlets are now following its lead.

One major reason for this pivot can be found in a new Chris Hedges essay titled “How ‘Antifa’ Mirrors the ‘Alt-Right’”, which is definitely worth reading and is far more nuanced than its title would suggest. In it, Hedges describes how the “corporate state seeks to discredit and shut down the anti-capitalist left,” which is of course its natural enemy. The establishment which has enabled Jeff Bezos to become an actual, literal oligarch wants far-left expressions like Antifa to be as violent as possible, so that they can have their propaganda mouthpieces turn and say “See? This is what happens when you stray from the center that we just so happen to fully control.”

This alone would be reason enough for the mass media propaganda machine to fan the flames of a moral panic; get the left terrified that Nazis are taking over America and then when they react violently you’ve got an excuse to smear the political faction which opposes the economic injustice that your oligarchy is built upon. But there may be even more to it than that.

As noted in a recent Department of Defense Risk Assessment by the US Army Strategic Studies Institute, the US empire is in what it calls “post-primacy” and may currently be on its way out the door.

“In brief,” the assessment reads, “the status quo that was hatched and nurtured by U.S. strategists after World War II and has for decades been the principal ‘beat’ for DoD is not merely fraying but may, in fact, be collapsing. Consequently, the United States’ role in and approach to the world may be fundamentally changing as well.”

There are a lot of extremely powerful people who have built some massive corporate kingdoms upon this empire, so if you’ve been wondering why the US power establishment has been acting bizarre, insecure and desperate lately, there’s your answer. The Russia nonsense, the Syria lies, the need to have a dependable establishment stalwart in the White House; it all makes sense when you perceive it all through the lens of a ruling class whose empire is rapidly eroding underneath them.

What this means, of course, is that these extremely powerful and desperate people are growing increasingly worried that they’ll someday have to stop relying upon the illusion of freedom and democracy to maintain their empire. The fact that America’s police are becoming more and more militarized should concern everyone for this reason.

The New York Times reports that due to a removal of restrictions by the Trump administration, police departments “will now have access to military surplus equipment typically used in warfare, including grenade launchers, armored vehicles and bayonets,” which Attorney General Jeff Sessions is laughably calling “lifesaving gear.”

Is it easier to manufacture support for this escalation now that a narrative about Nazis clashing with violent anarcho-socialists in the streets has been firmly implanted into the minds of mainstream Americans? Of course it is. Is this narrative helped along by the way they’re being told that police have been forced to stand down at these recent protests out of “concern for officer safety”? Of course they are. Has the US power establishment given us any indication that they should be trusted with a police force armed with military equipment? Fuck no.

As historian Laurie Marhoefer notes: “One of Hitler’s biggest steps to dictatorial power was to gain emergency police powers, which he claimed he needed to suppress leftist violence.”

Something to keep an eye on.

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