“To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It’s irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.” Eugene O’Neill, The Iceman Cometh
There is a good chance that very shortly the United States will overtly join its proxy Israel in attacking Iran. Only a fool would be surprised. Plausible deniability only goes so far. Pipe dreams perdure as the nuclear war that could never happen gets closer to happening.
That Donald Trump is a diabolic liar and his administration is composed of depraved war criminals is a fact.
That those who bought his no foreign wars bullshit were deluded is a fact.
That Trump fully supports the genocidal lunatic Netanyahu is a fact.
That the U.S.A. is already supporting Israel’s unprovoked war on Iran is a fact.
That the American electorate is always fooled by the linguistic mind control of its presidents is a fact.
“Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” George W. Bush said at a staged pseudo-event on October 7, 2002 as he set Americans up for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It was all predictable, blatant deception. And the media played along with such an absurdity. Iraq obviously had no nuclear weapons or the slightest capability to deliver even a firecracker on the U.S. The same is true for Iran today.
Trump is, after all, a United States President. The job’s requirements insist that he be a war criminal at the head of a terrorist state, and that he support the apartheid state of Israel’s killing regime, as the United States has done since its founding – actually long before.
The CIA and its ilk provide the shifting propaganda narratives that take many forms: smooth, blustery, halting, etc., but they are all aimed at creating two minds in the American population by sending mixed messages (a Trump specialty), creating mental double-binds, and using various techniques to mystify people’s experience of reality and truth. The CIA always liked to attract literary types to its propaganda efforts. Their objective is to create through verbal contradictory word usage a sense of schizoid confusion in the population. To provide pipe dreams for those who feel that their politician will set things right next time around. Or to provide ex post facto justifications for the last president’s innocence.
Think of the bullshit media headlines such as “Trump is weighing his options” or “Trump weighing Involvement” about attacking Iran. As I wrote about Trump and Iran in June 2019 – The War Hoax Redux – in a repeat of what I wrote about Bush and Iraq in February 2003 by simply substituting names:
As in 1991 and 2003 concerning Iraq, the MSM play along with Trump, who repeatedly says, or has his spokespeople say, that the decision hasn’t been made [to attack Iran] and that the U.S. wants peace. Within a few hours this is contradicted and confusion and uncertainty reign, as planned. Chaos is the name of the game. But everyone in the know knows the decision to attack has been made at some level, especially once the propaganda dummies are all in place. But they pretend, while the media wait with baited breath as they anticipate their countdown to the dramatic moment when they report the incident that will “compel” the U.S. to attack.
Now that Biden has made sure a terrorist runs Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon is rendered weak, allowing Israel full control over their air spaces, and Gaza pulverized with genocide well underway, the pieces are in place for Trump to bomb Iran.
Commentators often blame the actions – like Trump’s vis-à-vis Iran – on pressure from the so-called “deep state.” Excuses abound. But there is no deep state. The official American government is the “deep state.” The use of the term is a prime example of the efficacy of linguistic mind control. The use of words that have contradictory meanings – contronyms – to create untenable double-binds that result in mental checkmate. Create false opposites to frame the mind control.
Innocence – give a sardonic laugh! These are the men who have waged endless wars, overt and covert, for decade upon decade, have dispatched special forces and CIA death squads throughout the world, and support genocide in Gaza and the destruction of Russia as their bosses require. Those who seek the office know this. Only those who are known to pledge allegiance to American imperialism and the love of war are allowed anywhere near the U.S. presidency. The present war on Iran has been long in the making, as has the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Russia, China, etc.
These bloodthirsty hyenas with polished faces come in all varieties, from Slick Willy to Dumb Georgie to Smiling Barack to Gross Don to Malarkey Joe and around and around we go again and again. Each is cast to perform the script – to speak the lingo – appropriate to his actor’s ability and his looks (let’s not forget this), but to serve the same ends. If it were not so, the U.S. would have stopped waging non-stop wars long ago. It’s simple to understand if one retains a smidgeon of logic.
If you think otherwise, you are deluded. I will not waste much time explaining why. The historical facts confirm it.
The U.S.A. is a warfare state; it’s as simple as that. Without waging wars, the U.S. economy, as presently constituted, would collapse. It is an economy based on fantasy and fake money with a national debt over 36 trillion dollars that will never be repaid. That’s another illusion. But I am speaking of pipe dreams, am I not?
And whether they choose to be aware of it or not, the vast majority of Americans support this killing machine by their indifference and ignorance of its ramifications throughout the society and more importantly, its effects in death and destruction on the rest of the world. But that’s how it goes as their focus is on the masked faces that face each other on the electoral stage of the masquerade ball every four years. Liars all.
But they all speak the double-speak that creates pipe-dreams on the road to nuclear war.
Will we ever stop believing them before it is too late?
Edward Curtin: Sociologist, researcher, poet, essayist, journalist, novelist….writer – beyond a cage of categories. His new book is AT THE LOST AND FOUND: Personal & Political Dispatches of Resistance and Hope (Clarity Press)
War pigs are promised to get more food, nato will double military spending. Supposedly, natostan is in danger because some countries dared to response to its actions… in reality they were cornered into response.
And more death tools will make us safer??? What a double-think.
I’m astonished how many people take these ominous developments very lightly, like it’s a football game, like it’s fake, like there is no chance this might affect their lives profoundly. That goes primarily to public persons, they form public opinion…. I believe most people are just followers; I’m uttering this as a state of affairs, not as value judgment. How comes there is so little people like you, Ed?
“Will we ever stop believing them before it is too late?”
I think we need a replacement therapy, a new better belief.
I wrote about this, link is below, here is a teaser:
“I guess, we are part of truthers-community, we want to know what is really going on, we know the world is in deep shit. And we would like a better world.
Most people here are sincerely surprised how well documented facts and good enough theories have little to no effect on Joe Sixpack, normies. They are accused of being dumb and ignorant. There is a prevailing thought that we must persist and one day normies will get it and go to action.
Go to action??
No amount of facts and theories, rationality, will move people into action was concluded by Hume long time ago. What moves people into action is: WANT.”
https://off-guardian.org/2025/06/22/so-the-us-just-bombed-iran/#comment-724788
Thank you mik. You said; What moves people into action is: WANT.” I ask what do people want? We know we need food, water, shelter. Do we consider how we live? How many ‘wants’ precede healthy wants. I want freedom from man-designed systems which are led by hierarchies and insane individuals. Is that really a first want? I want to know beyond what is generally considered knowledge? I don’t care about the popular authors. An Indigenous community living in the wild of Brazilian jungle is in danger from those who want timber, lithium and other resources. Should we consider how the community lives, most likely more in relation to nature than we do. Should we simplify how we live? What does simplify mean if so many ‘wants’ do not bring the relief or pleasure we thought they would? Ask, do I really want this? Do I really want that? Do I want to be a dentist who knows nothing about mouth care but is willing to accept the methods that are profitable to associated businesses and industries that will help bring in maximum dollars so that I can buy the Maserati that I think I want? Am I the same as a tree but with a perverted understanding of life in relation to life? I want to end this at this point fore I do not have the knowledge that I want so to continue to attempt to be helpful!
Thank you.
Israel might have a few nuclear weapons, there’s a rumor to that effect. Not often mentioned in mainstream reporting, occasionally this fact oozes out. One is unlikely to read in the New York Times such a formulation as, “Israel has targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities in an effort to prevent it from becoming the Middle East’s other nuclear-armed nation,” or “It’s widely believed that Iran seeks to join Israel as a Middle Eastern nuclear power,” &c. Iran but not Israel is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Israel would be constrained to de-activate its nuclear arsenal in order to become a signatory, so it declines.
If I’m not mistaken, the only people whom the government of Israel has ordered to be murdered, starved and humiliated are members of non-nuclear nations, or peoples without a nation.
I can’t imagine a more persuasive set of circumstances that might encourage Iran to seek a nuclear bomb than what the fools in Washington and Jerusalem are doing right now.
Your last question…., “Will we ever stop believing them before it is too late?” Recently I attended a group meeting. Why are billions of people in this world enabling a relatively, small, handful of people telling the masses how to live, how to think and so forth? Why do billions of people think they need a small group of people to govern over them without ever considering if there is another, more sane way to co-exist with others. I think that discussion, that thought needs to at least be thrown into the atmosphere…, more often ! The plantation owners need to be left behind to rot. Insert any word or phrase as a substitute for plantation owners so to drive this message home! Gods and presidents and prime ministers, and kings and man defined hierarchies are proving more acutely than ever that we need a huge shift, a discussion at the very least.
Interestingly Edward, not that it will probably make a whit of difference, 66% of the American public are opposed to the US also joining in the attack on Iran, so perhaps they’re not as dumb and as misled as we are led to believe?
Frankly, I’m not sure it will happen, not because they don’t want to, after all it’s been 40 years in the making but because I think there are voices in the US ruling class who think they might lose, that it might be a most disastrous adventure that stretches the Empire just too far.
Agreed. There exists the slight chance that IC have misjudged the Iranian capability and resolve. ‘But what if’ seems to pervade throughout the narrative.
Thank you Edwardo, I have been saying this now and for years, 100% agree. Even back during ‘Desert Storm’ I was making comic collage art about the struggle of Hope through a girl and a boy, who see through and try escape the stage set world of mainstream media illusions and lies, they are pursued by the President and his court of clowns, who is a masked actor and behind his mask is really a steel imperial American eagle like global war machine monster I called Thungsten!
I must republish what is left of it on my Substack. I will see about reading your book.
Well said man!
Brilliant piece, Ed. My one caveat, as one who uses the term often, is over the deep state. I see it as the aggregate of alphabet agencies, with left hand not always knowing what the right is doing, by which dominant sectors of America’s ruling class execute their will. One task in extremis being to see that in the event, off the scale unlikely for reasons you have given, of a POTUS going dangerously off-piste, no remedial action is off the table.
But as you point out with great clarity and no small panache, the notion – embraced by admirers and detractors alike – of Trump as spectacularly different was always fanciful.
Meanwhile we all stand on an oil slicked slope to a vertical cliff and the abyss below.
Better don our masks, place our heads between our knees and kiss our arses goodbye.
And thank God for the US of A.