Matthew Sloly

The War Propaganda Is Even Dumber This Time As CENTCOM meets with Trump to plan more Iran strikes, the war propaganda is dumber than it has ever been. Fox News is running stories about an Iranian “plot” to kill US military personnel in the middle east, as though a country planning ways to defend itself from hostile attackers is some sinister new development. CBC ran a completely evidence-free report alleging that Iran has been paying gunmen to shoot bullets into empty buildings in Toronto, Canada. One of the dumbest things we are asked to believe about Iran is that it keeps taking time away from defending itself against US-Israeli aggressions in order to orchestrate random acts of arson and vandalism in mid-power western states for no discernible benefit to its strategic interests. Former Israeli military intelligence officer Mordechai Kedar went on Piers Morgan to call Iran an “artificial state”, saying “its fate is to be dismantled, is to be shattered to pieces, as it should have been from the beginning.” Calling one of the world’s oldest civilizations an “artificial state” from inside a country that’s younger than Mick Jagger and has been propped up by nonstop western military aggression throughout 100 percent of its existence is, uh, certainly a choice. Under Trump, the war propagandists don’t even need to try anymore. He’s just going to inflict all sorts of horrors upon the middle east and Latin America with blunt-force military aggression, and then when he leaves office they’re going to act like he’s carrying all the sins of the US empire with him on his back. ❖ British police arrested 325 people on terrorism charges for protesting in support of the proscribed activist group Palestine Action on Saturday. Sky News reports that 94 percent of all terrorism arrests this year have been made because of support for Palestine Action. “There were 3,867 arrests for suspected terrorist activity in the year to June, of which 94% were linked to supporting the group,” Sky News reports, adding, “In the previous 12-month period, before the ban came into force, 234 terror arrests were made.” Drop bombs on buildings full of children and the UK will call you an ally. Express support for activists who try to stop those bombs and the UK will call you a terrorist. ❖ I fucking, fucking, FUCKING HATE writing about “antisemitism”. I am so motherfucking SICK of it. I hate the word. I hate the rapey, gaslighting way all western institutions are constantly forcing this fake narrative down our throats that opposing genocide and apartheid and crazy wars means you secretly hate some random tiny religious group. Hate it, hate it, HATE it. But I have to keep writing about it, because if you let them control the narrative it just takes over and becomes the consensus reality. So essay after essay after motherfucking essay I find myself writing “Uh no actually it’s not a hate crime to say you shouldn’t drop military explosives on buildings full of children” like a fucking moron, over and over and over again. These freaks make me fucking sick. I hate the way they’re constantly trying to stick their gross, rapey fingers into our minds and convince us we think things we don’t think and feel things we don’t feel. They never stop. They’re like a cloud of gnats on a humid summer day constantly trying to fly into your nose, mouth and eyes. You swat them away and they’re back an instant later, swarming, suffocating. Pieces of shit. Fucking disgusting, evil scumbags. ❖ No one supports Israel on principle. It’s always because they think they’re getting something out of it. Career advancement. A place in Heaven. Real estate in Tel Aviv. Acceptance from their family. Approval from their peers. The presidency of the United States. People support Palestine because they sincerely believe it’s the right thing to do, but Israel supporters always believe they’re personally getting something out of it. It may have been possible for someone to sincerely believe Israel was on the right side of history once upon a time, but in 2026 nobody honestly thinks that. There’s always something in it for them. Always some skin in the game. In that sense, they’re just plunderers. They’re taking from an abused population in order to get something for themselves. They’re throwing their support behind a genocidal settler-colonialist project in exchange for some personal reward in the same way vikings used to raid coastal towns and steal everything they had. Pretty evil if you think about it. ❖ I hear people say things like, “I don’t understand why they’re pushing AI so hard when we can all see it’s making everything worse.” That’s because it’s not being marketed to you; it’s being marketed to governments and plutocrats. They’re the real target audience for these products, not you. You are not receiving the real sales pitch for AI, because the real sales pitch would not appeal to your sensibilities. The real sales pitch for AI isn’t “Hey check out this product, it makes some web searches slightly easier and it can maybe write your emails for you.” The real sales pitch for AI is “This product allows you to surveil the entire population of your country. It can be built into autonomous surveillance drones and killing machines. It can allow you to monitor and control every aspect of your society. It can reverse the decentralization of information brought on by the internet age. It can take away the collective bargaining power of workers and give you the skilled services your company requires. It can nullify strikes, civil disobedience, and even full-scale revolutions, and lock humanity into your capitalist dystopia forever.” That’s the real sales pitch. It doesn’t sound appealing to any normal person, but it makes sense when you remember who these technologies are really being sold to, and why. ❖ Reading by Tim Foley: