Human Rights for Everyone

01/09/2026

01/09/2026

01/09/2026

It's important to acknowledge how potent war propaganda is. It's been developed over centuries and stimulates the most visceral tribalistic impulses.

The days and weeks after every new US war or "regime-change" operation are triumphalist. We're always vanquishing The Bad Guys. We're freeing the repressed peoples of the world. It makes everyone feel noble, purposeful and, most of all, brave and strong (even though they're not the ones fighting).

The media only shows the people who cheer it. The costs are concealed. The motives aren't questioned. Patriotic pride swirls. It's been like this for decades.

During this initial burst of war intoxication, there's no persuasion or reasoning possible. It's like trying to talk to a drunk person. They're inebriated on the war glories (of others).

This dissipates only a few months or a year later when the whole thing falls apart, when it becomes obvious none of the motives were benevolent or the ones stated, when only a tiny fraction benefit at everyone else's expense, when the only outcome is bloodshed, autocracy and misery.

By then, most people who supported it won't admit they did (or they'll blame "poor implementation" or a failure to carry it through).

But those regrets don't matter. By then, it's just time to sell the new war, and the war propaganda process just starts anew.

This time, it's the good war, the one that will work, the one that will bring us prosperity and purpose, etc. etc. And the only ones opposed are ones who hate all that's good. That's how a country stays in a posture of endless war.

~ Glenn Greenwald

01/09/2026

Reading by Tim Foley: