Great post. We know still so little about collective minds, of whichever sort. But this example, of switching from Hamas love and fraudulent Palestinian solidarity to Iran regime's support shows a common denominator: evil is chosen, and therefore, defended. Perversion of thought and logic and moral inversion are real. Once an enemy is demonized, as the Jews have been for millennia and now the US is, all alliances are seen as legitimate to destroy such enemy. Orwellian " evil is good and good is evil" is possible. Look at history. Humans remain the most dangerous of all species, precisely, for being unpredictable, which beasts are not.
The distinction between “narrative” and “propaganda” may be less about truth than about structure. Propaganda is coordinated messaging from a central actor, while narratives often emerge across institutions that share similar assumptions and incentives. But both ultimately involve actors using stories as instruments of influence in the pursuit of power.
Another banger of an article, Lucy! I was not expecting you to release one so soon after the previous one you posted. The war behind the war is not one of bullets, shells and bombs but one of information and narrative construction. The claim the United States or Israel killed those poor little girls who died in the destruction of that school has NOT been confirmed independently by any news outlet. In fact, the investigation of what took place is still ongoing. But liberals and leftists are claiming it be a fact. But only source is making this claim, that being the Iranian regime. Just like how during the Gaza War it was claimed by Hamas Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and then it was proven by the UN and independent journalists to be complete bunk and the causality numbers were cut in half. As Winston Churchill would say “A lie can get half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots on.” Never has that been more true than right now as mainstream media and social media provide us with a torrent of information most of either lies, half truths or pure speculation.
All these liberals and leftists fighting to protect the Islamic Republic and the Ayatollahs doesn’t surprise me a bit and it goes to show how they’ll do anything to oppose America and Israel and how reactionary they are. They hate their own country so much they’d rather support a regime that slaughters its own people and opposes all the values they claim to hold dear. Just like how they showed they’d rather support the mass murdering psychopaths and feral gang of rapists in Hamas than Israel in the Gaza War. It all stems from the fact they hate western civilization. That’s what drives them above all else, hatred for America and the West. They use a cherry picked version of history to blame America for the rise of the Islamic Republic. This is an oversimplified and misleading version of Middle Eastern history. Yes, the United States did play a role in the 1953 coup that toppled Mohammed Mossadegh and put the Shah in power. However, they didn’t do it alone supporters of the House of Pahlavi and Great Britain assisted in this endeavor as well. Plus, this narrative denies that the Ayatollah Khomeini, Ali Khamenei and their supporters have agency. Sure the 1953 coup was wrong. But it wasn’t just America’s doing and we must hold all parties involved in the whole affair accountable. Plus, what happened after the Ayatollahs and his supporters took power is on them. One most hold France accountable as well for giving shelter to the Ayatollah Khomeini after he was expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein.
At the end of the day, do your own research, form your own conclusions and don’t believe everything the mainstream media and especially the Iranian regime, tell you. Don’t go along with the herd and stand with the Iranian people as they fight to free themselves. These limited strikes America and Israel are doing in Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion respectively, are very much necessary to weaken the Iranian regime and empower its people. Do I have my concerns about these operations? Yes. But at the end of day, I know they are necessary. Iran is acting so irrationally and recklessly right now that Hamas is actually asking them not to fire missiles at Qatar and Turkey. Not kidding! That’s a real news story! Lucy, you’ve done it again with another phenomenal piece! Your account is among the most criminally underrated on Substack! You are absolutely killing it! You’ve really come into your own since leaving the left and going and doing you’re own thing! I look forward to your next piece and hope everyone will become a paid subscriber to Notes from the Ruins!
Thanks. Your post addresses the biggest puzzle I've been wrestling with over the last couple of years. How do people who care about climate change and homelessness end up supporting terrorists who want to kill my family?
I would add that the Islamists have cleverly tapped into the deep vein of antisemitism that hides under the surface in the Christian/Western world. Israel is accused of the same crimes that Jews were always accused of, mostly involving harming children and controlling the world with their money. The Islamist propaganda found fertile ground.
The postwar anti-nationalist consensus was pushed by both center-left liberals (out of idealism) and outright Communists (out of a combination of idealism and perfidy). The United Nations was meant to not just keep the peace, but be a step towards a one world socialist government.
My sense is that, outside of the Middle East, Israel was not initially perceived as an evil aggressor. The Soviets and much of the worldwide left supported its birth, out of ideological solidarity (all those socialist kibbutzes) and (often) ethnic solidarity, and as a poke in the snoot to the British Empire. Eventually Palestinian propaganda and general Third-Worldism won over Western academics, and now there’s a full “red-green alliance” (leftism and Islam). At least the battle lines are clarified.
I totally agree. It began with Viet Nam and has continued since. The media was once predominantly to the right of center, now it is anti-West. I wrote an article that appeared in Commentary (https://simonsobo.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-you-have-to-win) how the depiction of the war in Gaza led to the accusations of Israel's genocide. 250,000 to a million Germans civilians were killed on the road to Hitler. If there had been a daily depiction of the suffering German children and mothers we would not have been able to defeat Germany. Newsmen depicting that would have been considered Hitler's allies, total traitors. Now, somehow newsmen see it as their dedication to righteousness. It should be called what it is. Unfortunately, the left is so dedicated to the destruction of the villainous colonialist West it is unlikely to change any time soon. The educated are so convinced of our evil nature, and the stupidity of patriotism, that this will go on and on.
51% of all posts on the Internet are by bots. While the bots may have American names, many if not most are coming from Iran, Qatar, Russia, and China. The goal is to shape a narrative for foreign policy gain. Sadly, it is working.
Israel, which has one of the most advanced militaries in the world, seems powerless in this bot war. They have allowed Hamas to control the narrative since the 10/7 massacre. They need to adopt some of the enemies tactics. and develop a counter bot strategy
Great post. We know still so little about collective minds, of whichever sort. But this example, of switching from Hamas love and fraudulent Palestinian solidarity to Iran regime's support shows a common denominator: evil is chosen, and therefore, defended. Perversion of thought and logic and moral inversion are real. Once an enemy is demonized, as the Jews have been for millennia and now the US is, all alliances are seen as legitimate to destroy such enemy. Orwellian " evil is good and good is evil" is possible. Look at history. Humans remain the most dangerous of all species, precisely, for being unpredictable, which beasts are not.
I’ve got some recommended reading for all you Ayatollah simps on the left:
* Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic by Michael Axworthy
* Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic by Ervand Abrahamian
* Iran’s Deadly Ambition: The Islamic Republic’s Quest to Global Power by Ilan Berman
* Stop Letting Them Divide Us: A Short, No-Nonsense Guide to Seeing Through the Noise and Reconnecting With What Matters Most by Dustyn Carroll
* The Parasitic Mind: How Bad Ideas are Killing Common Sense by Gad Saad
* Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
* Shame: How America’s Past Sins Have Polarized Our Country by Shelby Steele
* Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator by Ryan Holiday
* Propaganda: The Public Mind in the Making by Edward L. Bernays
* State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda by Susan Bachrach
* Selling Hitler: Propaganda and the Nazi Brand by Nicholas O’Shaughnessy
* Hamas: The Quest for Power by Beverly Milton-Edwards
* Goebbels: A Biography by Peter Longerich
* Julius Streicher: The Nazi Editor of Notorious Anti-Semitic Newspaper Der Sturmer by Randall Bytwerk
The distinction between “narrative” and “propaganda” may be less about truth than about structure. Propaganda is coordinated messaging from a central actor, while narratives often emerge across institutions that share similar assumptions and incentives. But both ultimately involve actors using stories as instruments of influence in the pursuit of power.
Broadly speaking, I’d say Narrative is an attempt to organized agreed facts, while Propaganda is an attempt to manufacture facts.
Another banger of an article, Lucy! I was not expecting you to release one so soon after the previous one you posted. The war behind the war is not one of bullets, shells and bombs but one of information and narrative construction. The claim the United States or Israel killed those poor little girls who died in the destruction of that school has NOT been confirmed independently by any news outlet. In fact, the investigation of what took place is still ongoing. But liberals and leftists are claiming it be a fact. But only source is making this claim, that being the Iranian regime. Just like how during the Gaza War it was claimed by Hamas Israel was committing genocide in Gaza and then it was proven by the UN and independent journalists to be complete bunk and the causality numbers were cut in half. As Winston Churchill would say “A lie can get half way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots on.” Never has that been more true than right now as mainstream media and social media provide us with a torrent of information most of either lies, half truths or pure speculation.
All these liberals and leftists fighting to protect the Islamic Republic and the Ayatollahs doesn’t surprise me a bit and it goes to show how they’ll do anything to oppose America and Israel and how reactionary they are. They hate their own country so much they’d rather support a regime that slaughters its own people and opposes all the values they claim to hold dear. Just like how they showed they’d rather support the mass murdering psychopaths and feral gang of rapists in Hamas than Israel in the Gaza War. It all stems from the fact they hate western civilization. That’s what drives them above all else, hatred for America and the West. They use a cherry picked version of history to blame America for the rise of the Islamic Republic. This is an oversimplified and misleading version of Middle Eastern history. Yes, the United States did play a role in the 1953 coup that toppled Mohammed Mossadegh and put the Shah in power. However, they didn’t do it alone supporters of the House of Pahlavi and Great Britain assisted in this endeavor as well. Plus, this narrative denies that the Ayatollah Khomeini, Ali Khamenei and their supporters have agency. Sure the 1953 coup was wrong. But it wasn’t just America’s doing and we must hold all parties involved in the whole affair accountable. Plus, what happened after the Ayatollahs and his supporters took power is on them. One most hold France accountable as well for giving shelter to the Ayatollah Khomeini after he was expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein.
At the end of the day, do your own research, form your own conclusions and don’t believe everything the mainstream media and especially the Iranian regime, tell you. Don’t go along with the herd and stand with the Iranian people as they fight to free themselves. These limited strikes America and Israel are doing in Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion respectively, are very much necessary to weaken the Iranian regime and empower its people. Do I have my concerns about these operations? Yes. But at the end of day, I know they are necessary. Iran is acting so irrationally and recklessly right now that Hamas is actually asking them not to fire missiles at Qatar and Turkey. Not kidding! That’s a real news story! Lucy, you’ve done it again with another phenomenal piece! Your account is among the most criminally underrated on Substack! You are absolutely killing it! You’ve really come into your own since leaving the left and going and doing you’re own thing! I look forward to your next piece and hope everyone will become a paid subscriber to Notes from the Ruins!
Thanks. Your post addresses the biggest puzzle I've been wrestling with over the last couple of years. How do people who care about climate change and homelessness end up supporting terrorists who want to kill my family?
I would add that the Islamists have cleverly tapped into the deep vein of antisemitism that hides under the surface in the Christian/Western world. Israel is accused of the same crimes that Jews were always accused of, mostly involving harming children and controlling the world with their money. The Islamist propaganda found fertile ground.
Good post, to which I’d like to add a few points.
The postwar anti-nationalist consensus was pushed by both center-left liberals (out of idealism) and outright Communists (out of a combination of idealism and perfidy). The United Nations was meant to not just keep the peace, but be a step towards a one world socialist government.
My sense is that, outside of the Middle East, Israel was not initially perceived as an evil aggressor. The Soviets and much of the worldwide left supported its birth, out of ideological solidarity (all those socialist kibbutzes) and (often) ethnic solidarity, and as a poke in the snoot to the British Empire. Eventually Palestinian propaganda and general Third-Worldism won over Western academics, and now there’s a full “red-green alliance” (leftism and Islam). At least the battle lines are clarified.
I tire of the word "narrative." "Propaganda" is more suitable.
“ Regimes that imprison women “???
They are lauded at the very highest levels for decades at the human rights commission of the UN.
They get a tut tut from European nations….
Meanwhile,
European nations are under judgement for what they’ve done to Jews and Israel.
Why is antisemitism so bad in those nations?
Their women & girls are being raped and their treasuries depleted by non citizens….
Why ?
How about the Lawfare against Israel in international forums ?
How about supporting anti Israel forces in their countries?
You media taking the lead from you elected leaders against Israel.?
Actions against the Jewish state, supporting NGO’s at lawfare warfare with Israel.
We are talking decades of evil….
But, right now as their people are railing about the muslim invaders and crime and societal degregation.
But they are attacking Jewish school children on the way to school, attacking synagogues and Jews going about their business.
a social calumny they do not see or protest about.
Are they helping the USA at removing a global threat ?
Judgement is in their faces everyday.
Waiting outside their schools, in their streets, claiming benefits so their own citizens go without.
Accosting their women on the street, making them uncomfortable and less safe.
I totally agree. It began with Viet Nam and has continued since. The media was once predominantly to the right of center, now it is anti-West. I wrote an article that appeared in Commentary (https://simonsobo.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-you-have-to-win) how the depiction of the war in Gaza led to the accusations of Israel's genocide. 250,000 to a million Germans civilians were killed on the road to Hitler. If there had been a daily depiction of the suffering German children and mothers we would not have been able to defeat Germany. Newsmen depicting that would have been considered Hitler's allies, total traitors. Now, somehow newsmen see it as their dedication to righteousness. It should be called what it is. Unfortunately, the left is so dedicated to the destruction of the villainous colonialist West it is unlikely to change any time soon. The educated are so convinced of our evil nature, and the stupidity of patriotism, that this will go on and on.
Regimes that imprison women ???”
Can we stop calling what's happening in Gaza (and now Lebanon) a “war” please? Start using the proper terminology.
51% of all posts on the Internet are by bots. While the bots may have American names, many if not most are coming from Iran, Qatar, Russia, and China. The goal is to shape a narrative for foreign policy gain. Sadly, it is working.
Israel, which has one of the most advanced militaries in the world, seems powerless in this bot war. They have allowed Hamas to control the narrative since the 10/7 massacre. They need to adopt some of the enemies tactics. and develop a counter bot strategy
Propaganda has been big business as least as long as there has been substantial freedom of the press.