The Western Know-it-Alls
I have some friends who pride themselves on their intake of what they consider to be a wide spectrum of opinions and sources of information. They’re intelligent people with a genuine interest in everything from politics to philosophical and scientific matters, etc. Up until about 3 and ½ years ago I shared a high percentage of these friends’ political opinions. We were what most people in the US would view as “left of center”. We pretty much always voted Democrat across the board in any election that came up. A few of us, including myself, supported Bernie Sanders’ campaigns in 2016 and 2020. When Bernie was (apparently) blocked from further progress by the DNC we, of course, voted for the establishment Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.
Straightforwardly, we considered ourselves to be a little more informed than the majority of people. I can still remember the feeling, a sensation that was accompanied by an underlying assumption of intellectual superiority whenever one of my Republican friends would speak about anything that contradicted what I viewed to be the truth of a social-political matter. You see, unlike my less informed Republican friends, I believed that I had looked more thoroughly into what both the so-called “right” and the so-called “left” had on offer and that I’d come away with a more reasoned, better articulated point of view.
At the time it seemed very clear to me that a considerable portion of the people I knew had been brainwashed into believing the wrong parts of the information that the mainstream media was pumping out. This was the case for decades, in fact. We, the more intellectually nimble, better informed “progressives”, just happened to be a bit hipper, a little more with it than our less fortunate, more gullible right-of-center friends. Or so we thought.
That Moment When You Realize You’re an Idiot
I’ve written in detail about a realization I had in 2022 that shifted my worldview somewhat. If you’d like to read more about it you can look at my article from a few months ago here: https://www.pressenza.com/2025/06/crossing-into-the-forbidden-zone-beyond-the-valley-of-the-neocons/ Getting right to the point: About 3 and ½ years ago, due to a few different factors, I found myself in a situation in which it was necessary to venture into the murky online waters of nonWestern news sources from all over the planet. I looked at news from China, from Africa, from Russia, from South America, from India, etc.. After a few months of accumulating what I considered to be a group of somewhat reliable sources, I began comparing and contrasting what these sources were saying about foreign affairs and war-related events with what the Western press was saying.
As the months went by it became obvious that all of the Western “mainstream” sources of news ranging from the NY Times to FOX News to The Daily Mail in the UK to the BILD newspaper in Germany to Le Monde in France, The Globe and Mail in Canada, etc., were parroting what was essentially the same narrative regarding what was supposedly happening in the wars that were being fought at the time. I found a similar uniform adherence to this narrative in Western podcasts that were funded or partially funded by large Western corporations.
In the nonWestern sphere, in the narratives of the “Global South”, I found some uniformity but not as much as I saw in the West, surprisingly. Within 6 months of my online news journey I had settled on about 9 or 10 sources from both the progressive Western sphere and from the nonWestern sphere as my “go-tos” that I was consulting along with a group of 5 or 6 Western “mainstream” sources I had settled on.
By the end of 2022, after a few bouts with cognitive dissonance caused by a near complete loss of faith in pretty much all Western mainstream media news sources, I came to the unsettling conclusion that a portion of my beliefs about the world were rooted in what turned out to be a myopic, limited set of assumptions that simply didn’t hold up to any serious investigation involving a combination of both Western and nonWestern sources. In fact, in a little more than half a year I realized that my views were in some cases as ill-informed as those of friends I had previously considered to be clueless.
In actuality all of us, due to our assumption that the knowledge and information presented to us in our comparatively small part of the world is somehow superior to knowledge and information that proliferates outside of our little “civilized” Western bubble, are living in a delusional mental construct of what we consider to be the “reality” of the world we inhabit.
The “Mainstream” Western News Media’s Propagation of Ignorance (4 Examples):
1- About 7 months ago I wrote an article that reported on the biggest news story (by a landslide) of the last few years. In fact, the story I’m referring to may very well end up being the most important news item of the 21st century. And no, it wasn’t the recent election of Donald Trump. I’m betting that the vast majority of Westerners who are reading these words now don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not joking or exaggerating when I say that this news item, that was almost entirely ignored by the Western “mainstream” news media, was of paradigm shifting proportions. When you’re done reading this article you can access the story in my article that I mentioned above by clicking on this link: https://www.pressenza.com/2024/11/the-biggest-world-news-item-of-2024-was-not-the-recent-us-election/
2- This one is probably gonna irk some of you, but I’m gonna include it here anyway because the vast majority of the world (the nonWestern world) has known it since, at least, 2023: The war in Ukraine is, without question, a US proxy war that technically began in 2014 with the help of a US aided and funded coup against a democratically elected Ukrainian government. This war has cost American taxpayers 250 Billion Dollars in aid to Ukraine, billions of which have apparently been pocketed by Ukrainian government officials.(1) If you think that the US would spend 250 Billion dollars on a so-called “humanitarian” war, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you on Long Island. The war in Ukraine was/is obviously another failed regime change attempt by the US/NATO.
Vladimir Putin and Russia did not want this war, contrary to the thoroughly drummed in Western media’s reports that Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine as a first stop on a trans-European imperialist rampage. In actuality, the war was thoroughly provoked and pushed upon Russia via decades of US’ broken treaties, false promises and constant encroachment by US/NATO nations on Russia’s border. For more information about how the US planned to knowingly use the Ukrainian population as cannon fodder, as a battering ram against Russia, see this, my article from mid-2024: https://www.pressenza.com/2024/08/the-us-calculated-sacrifice-of-the-ukrainian-population/
Additionally, Ukraine has been losing the war against Russia since early 2023, arguably longer. By the end of this decade it will become clear that what has been said about this war in the Western press has been misreported to the point of criminality in a notable number of cases. Two million soldiers have died so far in this war (more than half of them Ukrainian), which could have ended in May of 2022 if the US and the UK hadn’t upended the negotiations that were taking place between Ukraine and Russia.(2) This war was entirely preventable. Unfortunately Joe Biden, following the orders of his neocon handlers, did everything he could to make the war happen. You can read the details of how he/they did it here: https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/wgtgma5kj69pbpndjr4wf6aayhrszm
Lastly, the idea that speaking out about the Ukraine-Russia war in a manner that doesn’t align with the “mainstream” Western media’s narrative makes you some kind of Russian propaganda victim is preposterous. We simply have to get beyond this sort of silliness. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, former US Colonel Douglas McGregor, myself and hundreds of millions (actually billions) of others all over the world who agree with everything said above don’t have the cooties just because some people in the US and Europe are still attached to a debunked, error ridden Western war narrative, say that we do. The grace period is over for that sort’ve McCarthyist claptrap.
3- A year or two ago, writing about the fact that Israel is obviously an apartheid state that has been using mass violence against the Palestinian population all throughout the 21st century, arguably since the middle of the 20th century, would have been met with more resistance than I’m guessing it will be met with here and now. People are starting to get the full picture of what Israel has been doing for decades. Well over 200,000 Gazans have been murdered by Israel (and counting) in the current Amnesty International and UN affirmed Israeli genocide.(3) Up until about a year ago, most people in the West supported Israel despite their systemic use of terrorism, their overt racism/their state-instigated apartheid and their periodic self-titled “lawn mowings”, which involved the IDF’s murdering of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the 21st century. The fact that all of this is just coming to the surface for most people in the West now is an example of how the “mainstream” Western press has kept people in the dark as to Israel’s long list of war crimes over the course of the last half century.
4- The American two party political system has become a billionaire-donor class owned uniparty in the 21st century. Anyone who still thinks that the Democratic party is any less war-obsessed and/or any less corrupt to its core than the Republican party is, you’re sorely mistaken. For more information about this matter look at this, my article from 2024: https://www.pressenza.com/2024/03/the-birth-of-the-american-uniparty-and-the-rise-of-the-multi-polar-world-order/
The Other 81% of the World, a Few Things to Ponder
Think about what you and I have considered to be “the reality of our world”, “the way things are”, etc., all of these years. Then think about the fact that almost all of our information has been filtered through a Western prism. Then think about the fact that this prism, that this lens has been shaped, to a considerable degree, by people who are beholden to powerful special interest conglomerates and oligarchs, exorbitantly wealthy persons who fund, select and disseminate information through a media that is now almost completely owned and controlled by these same persons.
Suggesting that we should be pondering these matters has nothing to do with claiming that the nonWestern news media doesn’t contain propaganda. There’s propaganda being disseminated all over the world in different places to different degrees. What’s being pointed to here is the fact that we assume that we and only we, are getting the true scoop when in reality we’re getting less than a quarter of the overall picture.
Have you ever wondered what it might be like outside of the Western information bubble you and I have been living in all these years? Have you ever wondered what the other 81% of the world thinks about current events, about the perpetual wars that we’ve been experiencing over the course of the last 23 years? If so, I’ve compiled a “starters list” for anyone who would like to begin looking at opinions and information from outside the “mainstream” corporate Western media narrative. See below:
The Following is a List of Well Known Youtube Channels and People that Present an Alternative to the US/Western Narrative:
1-The Duran Channel – One of the most prominent and reliable geopolitical podcasts/youtube channels in the world today.
2- Dialogue Works – An excellent source of fresh opinions featuring highly knowledgeable guests from all over the world
3- Jeffrey Sachs – This clip features Jeffrey Sachs, who is in my view, one of the greatest sources of geopolitical information out there today. This particular clip contains seminal information. The Channel that the clip appears on I am not familiar with.
4- Al Jazeera News – A good source of alternative news and information.
5- MOATS with George Galloway – Galloway is a political progressive and he’s a member of the Workers Party in the UK. He is also a very entertaining and informative talk show host.
6- Glenn Greenwald – Glenn is one of the very best journalists living on planet Earth today. Hands down:
7- The Jamarl Thomas Show – Jamarl is a very astute interviewer and one of the premier presenters of alternative points of view on youtube. **This particular clip is for advanced students.
8- Colonel Douglas McGregor and the youtube channel “Judging Freedom” – McGregor is arguably the world’s top military expert, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others. “Judging Freedom” is a youtube show that has excellent guests.
9- Neutrality Studies – A very good Swiss program that isn’t bound by the Western narrative. The New Atlas with Brian Berletic – Brian is one of the more knowledgeable and consistently enlightening war reporters on youtube.
10- Mark Lesseraux at Pressenza – At the preceding link you can access all of my articles at Pressenza:
CITATIONS:
1-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8zvuaQ-I_k
