Postscript

I said earlier that the information landscape has changed. At one level, it has. At another very important level, this change has primarily been in the experience of many of us in (so-called) western liberal democracies, who previously enjoyed the #privilege of feeling less routinely lied. Citizens of the majority world have for decades/lifetimes experienced a similar pattern of shamelessly manipulative falsehoods and consequence-free empty promises from leaders in the #ImperialCore.

Once citizens in these colonising and settler-colonial wealthy nations realise that, then the potential for genuine #solidarity across national, colonial and generational boundaries begins to open. And that solidarity represents the only genuine threat to the #plutocratic divide-and-conquer agenda that is as old as time and which is currently hurtling us collectively towards an uninhabitable Earth.

Solidarity or hell-on-Earth: these are only two paths currently available. Indeed, given the enormous success of this #InformationWarfare over recent decades, this is reduced to one choice: solidarity amidst our unfolding hell-on-Earth or collapse, mass death and the extinction of the last shreds of human dignity, kindness and joy. Let us each choose wisely.

In an age where social trust is deliberately poisoned by those who will profit (politically/financially) from a landscape dominated by suspicion, what is most needed are not more fact-checking pieces unpicking the latest bullshit from the sophistry of increasingly undisguised authoritarian cult leaders, but the nurturing of more direct interpersonal relationships in which the value of truth, trust and companionship can be experienced firsthand. Authoritarianism requires (and perpetuates) social atomisation. The epidemic of #loneliness exploding around the world (especially amongst young people) is both symptom and cause of the erosion of public life and the occlusion of any shared sense of a desirable future.

I said earlier that the information landscape has changed. At one level, it has. At another very important level, this change has primarily been in the experience of many of us in (so-called) western liberal democracies, who previously enjoyed the #privilege of feeling less routinely lied. Citizens of the majority world have for decades/lifetimes experienced a similar pattern of shamelessly manipulative falsehoods and consequence-free empty promises from leaders in the #ImperialCore.

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