2016: How Truth Was Destroyed So Youd Buy The Governments PropagandaBy Claire Bernish Rove might have said that 12 years ago, but the words hauntingly describe our situation in 2016 Oxford Dictionaries, incidentally, named post-truth the international word of the year with facts seemingly relative, truth debatable, and a falsely-premised war on fake news, Orwell must be rolling in his grave. In fact, given these telling circumstances, perhaps Oxford Dictionaries didnt go far enough this year epitomizes a new era of post-coherence. Rove and his ilk the dynasties Bush and Clinton, reigning powers for nearly 30 years must chuckle behind closed doors as Americans quarrel savagely over the authenticity of falsehoods and facts, alike. With ostensibly everything now up in the air, the U.S. power apparatus has inarguably created a new reality one in which doubt has been so instilled as to obstruct and thwart the dissemination of accurate, factual information. This purposeful manipulation of perception, in other words, does exactly what Rove and the aptly-termed historys actors intend it keeps the rest of us confused and bitterly arguing over whats actually going on. Online communication facilitated this madness exponentially its doubtful such disorientation would have occurred decades ago, when social media didnt have critical influence. Of course, this tumult and turbulence isnt manufactured without reason it allows the surreptitious and sometimes flagrant distribution of propaganda favorable to the American political establishment to circulate largely unhindered. But those aspects of post-coherence unintentionally also gave rise to a furious backlash the Internet might facilitate confusion and propaganda, but it is, after all, a global library of information and wary independent and alternative media outlets immediately tear apart false information published by collusive corporate media presstitutes. With all of this in mind, the following are just a smattering of many outrageous examples of how the Fake News narrative brought us post-truth, intentionally shaping the events of 2016 and promises to continue the inanity far into the future. Perhaps the most laughable Fake News came to us courtesy of CNNs Chris Cuomo, who warned the planet amid ongoing publication by WikiLeaks of documents deleterious to the credibility of the Democratic establishment to remember, its illegal to possess these stolen documents. Its different for the media. So everything you learn about this, youre learning from us. Cuomos conspicuous ploy to limit the spread of the actual documents and win CNN additional reader- and viewership constituted a reckless foray into censorship of information. Of course, CNN didnt proclaim the leaked emails verboten for nothing the outlet bears the snarky moniker, Clinton News Network, as its parent company, Time Warner, donated over $400,000 to Hillary Clintons campaign and was exposed by alternative media countless times for cutting off reporters who dared criticize its darling candidate or report on revealed corruption. Further, CNNs pernicious claim came as the documents revealed the outlet and others colluding with the Clinton campaign to report news portraying Democrats in a favorable manner of course, those who took Cuomos warning to heart and relied solely on the Clinton News Network would never know that pertinent detail. Other mainstream media outlets who coordinated with the Clinton camp struggled to accurately report the contents of the WikiLeaks documents when they bothered covering the revelations. Corporate propagandas spin machine seemed to be on overdrive for the duration of the election cycle and has reached the level of absurdity following Donald Trumps win. Because, according to corporate media who ignored the depth of corruption exposed by WikiLeaks the election of Trump was so anomalous, there had to be an explanation beyond the fact the American people didnt find Hillary qualified for the job. Enter The Russians. Taking cues from the era of McCarthyism and leading the new Red Scare with a bullhorn is the once-illustrious Washington Post, who first posited, without any evidence sans statements from unnamed CIA officials, that the Intelligence Community had reached a consensus Russian hackers had interfered in the election to install Trump. Famously in lockstep, the New York Times quickly parroted the same assertion as if it were steel truth neither outlet, however, bothered consulting officials from the 16 other agencies comprising the U.S. Intelligence Community. In actuality, no such consensus had been reached not even inside the CIA. Shortly after the Posts shameful scare piece was published, the FBI came forward to denounce the Russian hacking theory as fuzzy and ambiguous showing the lack of cohesion amongst intelligence officials, as well as the rush to shirk blame for the lost election. Wikileaks, itself the one organization with insider information has vociferously and repeatedly denied their source hacked anything, is not Russian, and that the documents were leaked by an insider. Nonetheless, news of the report went viral and furthered current administrations agenda to both paint Russia as a villain and Trump as having somehow stolen the election. Indeed, the utterly unproven Russian Hackers theory provided the impetus for President Obama to an embarrassing diplomatic meltdown this week, announcing the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, sanctions, and the shuttering of two compounds owned by Russia. While that move could have easily brought the two superpower nations yet closer to military conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin allowed cooler heads to prevail, went against the fury of other officials, and announced there would be no diplomatic tit-for-tat no United States diplomats would be expelled from Russia. Incidentally, the mainstream press jumped the gun again, publishing the statements of Russian officials claiming the country would be mirroring moves by the U.S. before Putin announced Russia would not be stooping to such diplomatic pettiness. While these points show the unseemly power of misinformation and make the corporate media a soft target for ridicule, its imperative to understand these false and misleading news items amount to government propaganda the more the public buys the preferred narrative, the easier it will be to shove unsavory actions, including war, down our throats. Labeling some 200 independent and alternative outlets as Russian propagandists and Fake News was another feat the Post underhandedly managed in 2016 and, thanks to its efforts, Obama officially wrote into law, in essence, a Ministry of Propaganda to putatively combat foreign State disinformation. Of course, considering the Posts owner, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has received $600 million in CIA funds, albeit ostensibly for a stand-alone project, this hardly comes as a shock. With truth in the balance, 2016 seemed to be a year plucked straight from the pages of George Orwells 1984 perhaps lightly edited by Aldous Huxley. We dont need censorship from Facebooks neoliberal Fake News slayers or the U.S. Ministry of Truth but in this new era of post-coherence, the masses fell for the trick, and now believe themselves incapable of discerning fact from fiction despite the still-accessible, voluminous information available on the Internet. If the somnambulant masses were coherent enough to see through the ploy, freedom of speech and the press wouldnt currently hang in the balance. An idiotic need to be spoon fed information could quash the institutions at the heart of our supposedly-free society. However, until the government acts more drastically, we still have independent media whose integrity has a phenomenal track record of refusing to publish bogus information, or retracting any items later found to be mistaken. In the very near future without hawk-like vigilance dissenting opinion and reports accurately depicting corruption endemic in government may become a thing purely of the past. Claire Bernish writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. This situation is made worse by Americans belief in their own exceptionality regardless of the facts. This belief allows them, or in fact, requires them to disregard all foreign news sources where the truth might not be so challenged. I, for one, have given up on the American MSM. All of my information is now, either from foreign sources or the Net. My first real clue to the nefarious workings of the MSM came many years ago, when the Downing Street Memo was big news and yet not a word in the MSM. That was the straw that broke the camels back for me! Like your fellow UK tribesman also bamboozled by British MSM, most Americans are stressed and pummeled daily trying to survive, running on their hamster wheels trying to keep the homestead intact. Foreign news MSM sources are now NWO spin agents, different flavors of Kool-Aid. Perhaps but without the Albatross of thinking ourselves better than the rest of the World! You must not have a lot of real life experience with everyday Americans, theres quite a cultural and ethnic mix. Year after year, the US has absorbed more immigrants than the entire world combined. I never hear jingoism (closest was anger at terrorists after 9/11) or exceptionalism, thats the propaganda on the MSM youre buying into. More divide and conquer and self loathing which only plays into the hands of the Banksters (ya know, City of London) but you dont believe in any globalist internationalist conspiracies, as youve stated before. I lived in the US and my whole family still lives in the US and have for over fifty years. The point is this, exceptionalism is the support of ordinary Americans for government after government that continues to break its own law and international law to wreak havoc, death and destruction anywhere and everywhere, it wishes to and then claims it can do so because it is exceptional. Dont tell me this isnt supported generally and across the US political spectrum because reality on the ground proves otherwise. Did the Russians support Stalin, the Germans Hitler, the Chinese Mao? Were French and Turkish peasants anxious to conquer territories to expand the Empires connected to their places of birth or were they focused on daily survival unable to penetrate the fog of tyranny? People are people wherever you go, a person doesnt need to be a neuroscientist, anthropologist, or professional historian to understand this and how it plays into the top of the pyramid cap pitting groups against each other. The reality is most people *believe* the Big Lieswhich is why some of us have dedicated ourselves to exposing them and hopefully that includes your family living in the US working as energized and dedicated activists in the 9/11 Truth movement. 911 was the turning point for me and of course the internet which gave us all a chance for alternative views and opinions. And what really opened my eyes on 911 was a video called In Plane site and it made the point that then plane that supposedly hit the Pentagon had all these cameras fixed on the building and yet we were only offered about 6 still shots supplied by the pentagon. All of this article is timely, and I appreciated Claires recollection of Karl Rove and his cult. Scary folks. Just to be clear, Claire, the opening quote of this piece wasnt by Karl Rove. I followed the link to the source that you provided. According to the source, those words were spoken by a senior adviser to Bush. The full context from that source follows: In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didnt like about Bushs former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White Houses displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didnt fully comprehend but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The aide said that guys like me were in what we call the reality-based community, which he defined as people who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. Thats not the way the world really works anymore, he continued. Were an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while youre studying that reality judiciously, as you will well act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and thats how things will sort out. Were historys actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. Seems somewhere along the line it was acknowledged by the writer this was Rove, though we were never told directly. Great that you supplied the entire context. Chilling reflection of the dark principalities we battle who use our collective penchant for getting stuck in old ruts and nonlinear disinformation wars while they steamroll ahead. Dont worry, the majority of the people no longer believe the mainstream news media is giving them the straight story. These news media corporations have been colluding with the CIA in feeding CIA generated propaganda to the public since the 1950s, with the organization of Project Mockingbird by head of Covert Operations, Frank Wisner, as documented in the book CIA: Crime Incorporated of America. 