Headline News Week 4 2024 22nd-28th January
It’s useless to react to the news of the day; instead we should understand each report as a maneuver in a hostile field of strategies to be decoded, operations designed to provoke a specific reaction. It’s these operations themselves that should be taken as the real information contained in these pieces of news.
-The coming Insurrection by the Invisible Committee
Media Matters
Legacy media continues its' slow and steady extinction with the NYT reporting on Tuesday that the LA Times will potentially lay off a hundred people. Thursday saw the Financial Times reporting that Business Insider, "the financial news group, is set to slash a tenth of its' workforce amidst a fight with billionaire Bill Ackman over plagiarism claims against his wife".
Royals again
As if we didn’t have enough royal action last week, Monday brought us another royal health BOMBSHELL as Fergie, sister in law of the king, wife of the man who raped a minor that was trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein (the paedophile multi millionaire deep state operative who did not kill himself), has skin cancer. I wanted to work in a joke here, maybe something about having growths removed, and how it's easier to do that than it is to divorce a royal, but I couldn't make it land. The Royals take the piss out of themselves enough anyway.
WAR
Everything is still on fire, and it appears to be spreading. The defeat in Ukraine is getting larger as it approaches across the horizon, with the NYT reporting on Monday that Zelensky's boys are running low on ammo while Vlad is getting re-upped from his boy Kim. The NYT also carried some of Kim's comments from the week previous where he said that North Korea no longer regarded South Korea as inhabited by "fellow countrymen" but as a "hostile state" which it would subjugate through nuclear war. The only other item from the eastern European front this week that was deemed noteworthy was a military transport plane which suddenly exploded into flames mid flight on Wednesday. Russia immediately blamed Ukraine and said there were POWs on board. Ukraine said they were within their rights to target military planes but no one told them there was POWs being flown to Beograd. Oh well ! Tragic no doubt, but merely a drop in the oceans of blood already spilled to prop up the cause of empire.
In the middle east theatre we got a glimpse of where the real power brokering is happening these days with the NYT reporting on Friday that CIA Director Billy Burns was being sent out to Qatar to help negotiate a ceasefire. Earlier in the week Netanyahu already preemptively dismissed any chance of a ceasefire. "Netanyahu has ruled out ending the fighting in exchange for the return of the hostages” (Irish Times 22.01). Two besties got back together this week after a brief mis(sile)understanding without any need for negotiations. “Iran, Pakistan welcome ambassadors back to their respective posts” (Tehran Times 27.01). A noticeable trend this week was journalists being afforded access to the brave boys and girls of the IOF and their daily struggles to murder children in their beds. The NYT article on Sunday was interesting in that it admitted that a huge amount of rockets fired by Palestinian militants are made from salvaged missiles which failed to detonate. Presumably the current bombardment will leave behind enough duds to keep militants supplied for many decades. The article also referenced a military report from last year that detailed how large numbers of guns and ammunition have been stolen from poorly guarded army bases in the region. This neatly demonstrates how the billions in aid money from Washington is clearly not buying any security, it is merely buying more chaos. Wednesday saw the National Post in Canada run an emotive piece detailing the horror experienced by kibbutz residents on October 7th. The reporting was carried out as part of a sponsored trip to Israel which was "organised by business man Larry Maher on behalf of community leaders partnered with Toronto’s Temple Sinai Congregation." Presumably any day now we will have reporting from journalists who get to go on a sponsored trip to Gaza.
The ICJ ruling on South Africa’s case against Israel came on Friday. This landed like a wet fart and gave rise to reams and reams of discourse about whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. All I can tell you here is that the bombs were raining down on Gaza the day before the ruling, and the bombs were raining down the day after the ruling. At the time of writing, the bombs are still raining down. On the same day as the ruling Israel came out with information (given to them by detained Palestinians who were presumably tortured) that 12 UN employees were involved on October 7th, leading to the U.S. and other client states of the Empire withdrawing funding from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. This basically negated the ICJ ruling that Israel must do all it can to make sure aid is delivered to Gaza, and has given flimsy cover for other countries to step in as sub contractors on Project Genocide. It is predicted that the UN agency could collapse by the end of February if new funding is not forthcoming.
In Israel itself, internal conflicts are being kept on a simmer, and could boil over any day. This week, hostage families stormed the Israeli parliament in protest at the government's handling of the situation. Presumably they have also seen the information that Israeli forces deliberately killed their own citizens on October 7th, and knowingly killed more in Gaza since then, including the three hostages who were shot by the IOF while waving white flags in the air back in December. The chief of the IOF this week pushed back on the Israeli comptroller’s inquiry into October 7th, saying that this would “distract commanders”. Presumably this doesn’t apply to the IOF’s own internal probe into its' failings on the day, which is ongoing. This speaks to a conflict over who will get to decide the definitive narrative of the conflict, and its' place in the history books. On the topic of definitive narratives, the Washington Post ran this headline on Monday : "Movement calls Oct.7 attack a ‘false flag’". Without having read this article, I can already let you know that this piece is a classic smear campaign often enacted by legacy media. It's really simple : Find a fairly far fetched theory that most people will not believe. Then, ridicule the people promoting it and maybe debunk it, although that is rarely necessary. This serves to discredit any and all uncomfortable facts about the event and reinforces the narrative deemed to be "fit to print". In this case, a 'false flag' implies that the whole thing was orchestrated by Israel and/or its' allies to justify Project Genocide. Most people won't buy that. There is of course lots of evidence to show that the IOF murdered a substantial number of its' own citizens in cold blood and that there was detailed intelligence reports from its' own soldiers stating that an attack was imminent. While this is not evidence of a false flag, it is evidence that there was a willingness to ignore critical information which could have prevented the attacks. The WaPo piece is designed to paste over these glaring inconsistencies and put anyone asking serious questions into the same bracket as Alex Jones. It's important to see these pieces for what they are : propaganda.
Staying with propaganda, Tuesday saw the Torygraph run a picture on their front page which took me quite a few seconds to comprehend. Elon Musk stood looking solemn alongside Ben Shapiro at the front gate of the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp in Oświęcim, Poland. Yes, the richest man in the world must atone for his sins against Twitter’s ad revenue and as punishment had to spend 48 hours in the company of Ben Shapiro in a small town in Poland. He later said that this now made him “Jewish by association”. Alright mate, take it easy on the ketamine.
Some nice pro-Empire propaganda appeared in the WSJ on Friday with a headline that ran “Iran Got Warning From U.S. on ISIS Attack”. This was referring to the suicide bombing at the memorial service for General Soleimani on the 3rd of January. The source quoted was of course an anonymous “U.S. official”. Another article on this story admitted “It is not clear through what channels the US delivered the message to Iran given that the countries have no formal diplomatic relations.” The U.S. of course have long supported ISIS in the region, given that they share many of the same goals. Another pertinent question would be to ask how exactly the Americans knew this was coming. Franchises of McJihad just keep popping up at the most opportune moments these days. Uncanny.
The new citizen army.
Quite the headline in the Torygraph on Thursday : “PM forced to rule out Army draft as Russian threat rises”. Oh yes, the war is coming and your country needs YOU ! A speech made by a General at a conference aluded to an all out war with Russia on the horizon, and that the Army would be wholly unprepared even if it’s numbers were boosted by more than 50%. Apparently Downing street did not want these comments made public. A quote from the speech that got widely picked up and commented on was “regular armies start wars, citizen armies win them”. The same day carried an opinion piece from Torygraph head honcho Allister Heath which ran “The British are crying out for an insurgent like Trump”. The Telegraph itself is currently being targeted for takeover by a UAE backed fund. Government is not too keen on this with junior minister Julia Lopez saying “As a principle, I would be concerned about government ownership of any media institution.” Can someone please let the BBC know ? This topic primed the Torygraph for what is honestly a banger headline and in hot contention for Culture War item of the year : “Feckless Britain is too woke to fight. We will lose the next war”. Oh yes ! If Britain loses the war it won’t be because of NATO deliberately provoking Russia, or Boris scuppering peace talks, or the funnelling of massive amounts of arms to war zones, NO ! It will be all the fault of those pesky snowflake peaceniks who are too busy posting tik toks to sign up and fight the good fight. Saturday saw Boris in the Daily Heil shouting “I’d sign up to fight for King and country. Yes, Sah!”. Yes mate, you better sign up seeing as you hold huge responsibility for escalating the situation in Ukraine. Boris had some unrelated headline action on Friday after Nicola Sturgeon's covid era messages got revealed as part of the ongoing covid inquiry. "Nicola Sturgeon called Boris a 'f**king clown' over his 'utter incompetence' in handling Covid crisis" (Independent UK 26.01)
Above : An honest-to-god army recruitment campaign from 2019
More conflict at the intersection of culture and politics is brewing. Ireland’s entry for Eurovision Erica-Cody has said Israel should be expelled from the competition. “I don’t stand behind genocide” (Irish Independent 26.01). This is a continuing trend, with Finnish and Swedish musicians also calling for a boycott. Eurovision has always claimed it is apolitical, but this is obviously complete hogwash. Last year's event featured plenty of Ukrainian flags (Ukraine won the competition in 2022) and Russia have been excluded from the competition since the invasion. The ostensible reason for this was that the Russian state broadcaster had broadcasted misinformation at the start of the invasion. I did not have time to do a deep dive on what kind of news output there is from the Israeli state broadcaster, but I will return to this issue over the next while and see how it weighs up. The European Broadcasting Union has stated that “the Russian attack on Ukraine cannot be compared with Israel's actions in Gaza.” Correct, it cannot be. One is a war between two states and one is an all out slaughter of innocent unarmed civilians with no safe zones to escape to. Hopefully in this case we will indeed see politics being downstream of culture. The competition this year is giving a good opportunity to artists to speak up and openly call out Israel on an international level, where many politicians do not dare to tread. The competition is set to take place in May. My prediction is we could see quite a few on screen displays of Palestinian solidarity (a fine was previously given out for an entrant waving a Palestinian flag), and maybe even entrants pulling out at the last minute in protest. There's around three months to go before the competition kicks off, so plenty of time for things to heat up.
Culture war items
Some bangers this week from the usual suspects.
“Multiculturalism is becoming a Trojan horse for Islamist domination” (Torygraph 22.01) Just another day of blatant racism on the front page of a national newspaper.
“My husband is unbearably rude to my mother” (Indo 22.01) I'm sure he has his reasons.
“How beauty regimes snare TikTok tweens” (Irish Examiner 23.01) Is it because children now get bombarded with unrealistic body standards from their iPhones that they get for their 7th birthday?
I must have missed some type of zeitgeist moment or viral incident, but two headlines on the same theme appeared on Wednesday. First up was“Fighting against the stigma of a one-child family” (Irish Independent 24.01) Who said Catholic Ireland is dead and buried ? Second one was “Family-Why one child is enough for me” (i 24.01). If someone knows the reason behind these appearing the same day I am all ears.
“Please, no more pregnant action women on prime time” (i 24.01) I think this is referencing some kind of copaganda currently running on British TV. As always, if it's a slow day for the culture warriors, discussing uteruses is always a safe bet.
“Clean girl is out, and mob wife esthetic is in. The icon to mimic is Carmela Soprano” (National Post, Canada 25.01) Here's hoping that mob husband aesthetic comes back in. I've been working on my Tony Soprano figure since about a month before Christmas.
“I’m 64, was married for 35 years and have had five children. But I’ve never had an orgasm” (Daily Heil 25.01) This headline pretty much sums up the target audience of the Heil.
“Must we apologise for being men?” (Times UK 25.01) Yes, you should wake up every morning and confess your sins to the online woke leftist snowflake mob.
“How household chores can boost your sex drive” (Irish Examiner 26.01) "Why being a stay-at-home parent is good, actually"
“Why guaranteed basic income proposal is basically doomed” (National Post Canada 23.01) Is it because the ruling class interests that your newspaper represents need a supply of very cheap labour to keep the money machine pumping ? I never read any of these articles so I have genuinely no idea.
Climate
Things are going exactly as you expect. Here are a couple of key headlines to sum up the mood.
“Expect more ‘thousand-year’ extreme storms, forecasters say” (LA Times 25.01)
“Global insurance losses from natural catastrophes in 2023 reached 118 billion USD, 31% above the 21st century average” (Royal Gazette, Bermuda 25.01)
Honourable mentions
Modi continues to solidify his legacy as a model dictator by building a Hindu Shrine on what was for centuries a scared Muslim holy site. “Ayodha set for Lord Ram’s Homecoming” (The New Indian Express 22.01) “Ram temple ‘an affront to Indian Muslims’, says FO” (Dawn Pakistan 23.01) Legacy media has now figured enough time has passed and maybe will be OK with facing some uncomfortable truths.“Why Covid lab leak theory is gaining ground” (i 22.01) Nathan Robinson wrote an excellent piece on this nearly three years ago, which is very much worth the read. Bad news for any collective bargaining enthusiasts in America.“The share of American workers in unions fell to a record low last year, even as the total number of union members nationwide grew” (WAPO 24.01) A small glimpse into a world we will never inhabit.“Your money: Is it worth owning a private jet or renting one?” (Gulf News Dubai 25.01) A court has ruled that actually, enacting terrorist legislation on domestic protesters and freezing their bank accounts is not really OK."Invoking of emergency act for the truckers was not justified, court rules" (National Post Canada 24.01) Nuclear scientists are still quite anxious, and have been for some time. I personally let them do enough worrying about nuclear war so that I don't have to. I have enough on my plate. “Doomsday clock stays near catastrophe” (USA Today 24.01)
Obituaries
22.01 Dexter Scott King - Son of MLK Jr.
22.01 Dr. Arno A. Penzias - 1964 discovery of the big bang