“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” — George Orwell

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, consevatives were whipped into a frenzy by propaganda. During Russia-gate, it’s been the liberals turn to be whipped into a frenzy by  propaganda.

It appears that propaganda is bipartisan.

Going further, both liberals and conservatives are subjected to relentless psychological and emotional conditioning by the ruling classes and the corporate media since the day they were born. This propaganda assault largely consists of free-market and American exceptionalism appeals and has been repeated over and over in a manner to make it extremely clear that any contradicting views would be completely unwelcome and might negatively affect their social status and prospects for professional advancement.

Indeed, the higher ones social and professional status, the more intensive the propaganda. It’s no accident that the most sophisticated propaganda resides in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, media consumed regularly by the managerial classes. While these are all good sources of information and sometimes brilliantly written, their primary purpose is to reinforce the official narratives of the ruling classes.

Logic, facts, and actual evidence have little to nothing to do with this process. The goal of the media and other propagandists is not to deceive or mislead. Their goal is to evoke the pent-up rage and hatred simmering within and channel it toward the official enemy. It is not necessary for the demonization of the official enemy to be remotely believable, or stand up to any kind of serious scrutiny.

We witnessed it in the run-up the the invasion of Iraq where Saddam was depicted as the new-Hitler and now Russia-gate where Trump is depicted as Putin’s bitch.

Not that I’m surprised but nevertheless I’ve been completely dismayed by liberal reaction to the 2016 election, where they let the hatred of Donald Trump convert them into bloodthirsty cold warriors, as Max Blumenthal’s new book, The Management of Savagery, makes abundantly clear. The war on terror, which Trump questioned on the campaign trail, Blumenthal argues, led directly to the demonization of Russia. Trump’s anti-interventionist rhetoric, however disingenuous, triggered what Blumenthal calls “a wild hysteria” among the foreign policy elites. Trump called the invasion of Iraq a mistake, and he questioned the arming of Syrian jihadists and deployment of U.S. forces in Syria. He was critical of NATO. At the same time, he called for better relations with Russia.

“Joining with the dead-enders of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, who were desperate to deflect from their crushing loss, the mandarins of the national security state worked their media contacts to generate the narrative of Trump-Russia collusion,” Blumenthal writes. “Almost overnight, hundreds of thousands of liberals were showing up at postelection rallies with placards depicting Trump in Russian garb and surrounded by Soviet hammer-and-sickle symbols.”

What’s darkly amusing is that despite the contrasting tribal signals, Republicans and Democrats don’t differ very much. While they depict Republicans like Trump as the devil-incarnate, the Democrats are simply the other party of capital. For example, when in power the Democrats don’t offer any progressive programs, like retirement, affordable education, childcare, safety nets, green-energy, etc. When they do offer a healthcare plan, it’s a warmed over corporate boondoggle from the Heritage Foundation–Obamacare–with its legacy of falling life expectancy. Instead, both parties seem to believe in more or less the same things– markets as the solution to every problem, and a society that’s populated by greedy, self-interested, profit-maximizing consumers on the one side, and corporate managers on the other. And, of course, we know that corporations are people too, my friend.

The result is the functional equivalent of one-party rule.

And, this brings–ideological rigidity. Though, we might simply call it brainwashing, or propaganda.

Presently, the arrest of Julian Assange provides a window into the 2-Minute hate-fest that’s gripped both conservatives and liberals equally as a result of the pervasive propaganda.

Assange and Wikileaks is despised by conservatives for demonstrating the hollowness of American exceptionalism, with the leaking of the 2007 video of U.S. helicopter pilots nonchalantly gunning down Iraqi civilians, including children, and two Reuters journalists.

Assange and Wikileaks is loathed by liberals for exposing the sham of American democracy with the leaking of the way in which the DNC rigged the Democratic primaries against Bernie Sanders. #Resistance liberals also really, really hate Assange because they’ve bought into the narrative that he helped Russia “steal” the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton by hacking the Democratic National Committee’s emails. That so many prominent American liberals are cheering this on is shameful. I believe that it’s rooted in their sense of betrayal over Wikileaks exposure of the machinations of the corrupt Democratic Party and their Wall Street favoured war-hawk, Hillary Clinton. None of what Wikileaks revealed was untrue, but they blame the failure of their deeply flawed candidate on it nonetheless.

It’s time to acknowledge that the bi-partisan propaganda that’s employed by our rulers is world-class. In response to criticism of George W. Bush’s misadventure in Iraq by Natalie Maines, conservatives destroyed their Dixie Chick albums. And, now with the Russia-gate cult-induced trance, liberals might as well shave their heads, put on robes and start handing out literature at the airport.