Horrifying. The Iraq war and attendant propaganda woke me up to the manipulation. As I grew older I grew more resistant and more suspicious. If an outlet or personality begins to discredit themselves, I stop listening.

And there's be a lot of that going around. It got unbelievable when Trump was elected. The moment he won, the Russia interference campaign began. At the time, I thought, "Aww, that's ridiculous! Nobody's gonna believe that!"

Boy was I wrong. They just kept at it no matter what and all kinds of people, smart people, people who should have known better simply accepted it. Then came the riots and the covid propaganda and the authoritarian restrictions. And now this war. There hasn't been a break for six long years. They are driving the world out of their minds.

But once you begin to see, you SEE. You don't always see and sometimes and they trick you but your defenses are up. Then you begin to hate them. And there are a lot of other people just like you out there.

Our biggest problem is that young people are suggestible and they have no experience or memory of what these assaults on our minds and spirits are like or what they mean. Every year we lose people who understand and gain people who don't.

But our biggest ally is the propagandists themselves. As they turn up the heat, their lies become more obvious and the discredit themselves to more and more people. They can always make a new Twitter account, but they can't just keep going through major media personalities so easily. They have to keep them around so people will recognize them and trust them.

I don't know if we'll ever get out from under this, but national bankruptcy may go a long way to undercutting both the empire and the propaganda machine. And it is coming no matter what bullshit they come up with. They can't print oil and food and they can't talk people out of being hungry.

But they are not going gentle into that good night. Just remember: When the money runs out, we all better WATCH out.