Nick Cruse, citizen journalist and cofounder of Revolutionary Blackout Network, discusses the political terrain in the United States today and how legacy media participated in the political framing and exaggeration of the events of the 6 January 2021 protests at the Capitol in Washington, DC. Vituperating the “frauds that cosplay as Socialists and leftists” like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cruse elaborates how this neoliberal class has made a mockery of itself pretending that the unarmed protestors at the Capitol formed an insurgency, while in reality these same actors supported US government-back insurgencies in other countries such as the 2018 assassination attempt on the life of Nicolas Maduro whom they labelled a “tyrant and a thug.” Noting how Bernie Sanders shifted the left radically to the right by siphoning leftists to the Democratic Party, Cruse criticises how legacy media has abetted politics through disinformation to include the attempt to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation” asking: “What are the chances that our media always had the same exact narrative?” Cruse demonstrates how journalism is failing the public remarking how media today collaborates with the state by creating fake news to divert the public from current events as journalists are censorsed or killed. Analysing the Biden administration’s collaboration with the Israeli government in covering up the murder of veteran Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, Cruse scrutinises how White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refuses to take media questions regarding her murder or the torture and imprisonment of journalist and publisher, Julian Assange. Cruse observes that even if Assange were to be freed today, the lesson of terrorising journalists into compliance, into silence, has already been learned.

Get full access to Savage Minds at savageminds.substack.com/subscribe