I am not given to conspiracy theories.

It is my considered opinion – as a thinking 60-year-old who unashamedly claims to be reasonably well-read and well-informed – that the current spread of right wing extremist politics in North and South America, in Europe, and elsewhere, is no organic “grassroots” development.

This is being coordinated by authoritarians, billionaires, and technocrats through the organs of the mass media – which are of course owned and controlled by these people, by and large.

This is a cross-border, internationalist project.

Some will quite rightfully argue that the ever-rising cost of living – housing, food, fuel – has stoked a widespread dissatisfaction with our current institutions. This is true.

The mass movement of refugees from zones of famine, poverty, gang violence, political/religious persecution, and war (mostly in the global south) to wealthier or more stable countries (mostly in the global north) is bringing with it a sense of social and cultural flux which angers conservative – and many centrist – voters.  This anger is found mostly among the underclasses who bear the brunt of large scale unskilled immigration.

This anger is being tapped-into by various opportunists only too happy to use populist rhetoric and fascist-adjacent language to stir up further “right wing” sentiment.

All of this has already been written about and published in innumerable places.

So what’s the point in repeating what many people already know?

The point is, people on both the Left and Right have allowed themselved to be divided into camps and set against one another in an endless series of carefully crafted culture and identity wars.

Why?

In order to distract the underclasses from their common foe – the ultra-wealthy, and their worldwide push for complete authoritarian, technocratic, and corporatocratic control of governmental systems.

Traditional nation state borders have become irrelevant.

But those who currently hold shocking amounts of wealth and control over basic resources – everywhere – have come to see a serious danger to their position.

So they are now in the “shoring-up the defences” phase.

*****

Consider the following social issues, and how they are framed by a corporate media, within a corporatocratic paradigm:

The REAL cause behind the cost of living crisis – corporate greed – is NEVER framed and elucidated honestly by any mainstream political candidates.

The REAL cause behind the climate emergency – corporate greed – is ignored, while blame is shifted onto consumer habits alone.

The REAL causes of war and poverty – which are driving immigration – are likewise never discussed by any mainstream political candidates.

When was the last time you heard a USA or European politician say “Our colonialist policies over the centuries have left a legacy of conflict and dysfunction in the Middle East and elsewhere.  If we want to stop immigration from the Middle East and Latin America, we must get our corporatocracy to share their ill-gotten gains until we raise the living standards of people everywhere.  We must stop getting rich supplying arms to conflict zones – especially the ones we created ourselves.  Only then will the mass migration of refugees stop”.

Most politicians are beholden to the corporatocracy, so of course we will never hear such unvarnished truths.

With real power being held by media barons, technocrats, and the wider corporatocracy, they are the ones who get to frame the terms of political discourse and the daily news agenda.

Not the politicians, and certainly not us.

The corporate media and mega-wealthy invite us to argue stupidly and endlessly about SYMPTOMS instead of CAUSES.

Example “news item”:

Everyone is “said” to be up in arms about crime, drug gangs, and drug use.

And often, this in itself is true.

But the corporate media invites us to argue about welfare and unemployment among drug users.

The corporate media invites us to argue about a general decline in “morals” and “work ethic”.

The corporate media invites us to look at the color, religion, or immigration status of those involved in crime or drug use.

What politicians and the corporate media will never do, is discuss the shallowness and hopelessness of a society designed for Big Business and consumerism, which leaves many turning to drugs in despair.

And we are of course sometimes even allowed to turn to drugs, as long as those drugs are controlled, sold, and distributed by the corporatocracy.

Opioids, anyone?

So why are the ultra-wealthy and their political minions now “shoring-up the defences” with a coordinated push toward authoritarianism?

Because addressing the climate emergency and world overpopulation properly would require nothing less than the wholesale dismantling of current forms of multi-national capitalism.

(And yes, the world is overpopulated.  Could we feed everyone with equitable wealth distribution?  Sure.  But just because we could feed everyone doesn’t change the fact that there are too many of us.)

At any rate, equitable distribution of wealth will not be allowed to happen…

And the consequences of refusing to address this climate emergency will include famine, mass migration, and social unrest on a scale never seen in historical times.

For the ultra-wealthy to survive this turmoil and widespread civil unrest – with their fortunes intact – requires a brutal, forced lurch away from democracy.

*****

A free media is the very heartbeat of a free society.

Over the past few of years, we have seen ceaseless attacks on the free media.

A cheerleader for authoritarianism has already taken over one major social media platform, and spent millions to get “his man” elected.

The owner of The Washington Post (the paper of Woodward and Bernstein!) no longer allows the paper to take editorial positions which might annoy the incoming government.

In an act of pre-obeisiance, Disney (the owners of ABC), have recently directed the company to settle out of court a case taken against it by DJT.

The head of Facebook has already donated $1 million to the inauguration day “celebrations” coming-up in a couple of weeks.

The latest terms and conditions of use, and the advice to “content creators” on that platform, make clear that “political posts” are discouraged, and will be downranked by the magic invisible algorithms controlling public discourse.

In an atmosphere of zero transparency, writers seeking an audience are left second-guessing which formulation of words will find favor.

Not favor with their readers, mind you, but with an unknowable, inscrutable AI system, programmed to optimize addictive engagement.

It is already patently clear that Facebook is awash with AI-generated “content”, full of factoids and phrases scraped (stolen) from the wider internet and the scribblings of real-life writers.

This “content” has also been scraped clean of emotion and human motive, bleached of complaint or social conscience.

Actual humans – writers, poets, activists – are “guided” toward becoming low-paid producers of anodyne “content”.

“IF YOU WANT AN AUDIENCE, DO IT THIS WAY.”

You may speak of “love”, “peace”, and “social justice”, but under no circumstances will you be allowed to point to the corrupt human obstacles and institutions standing in the way of achieving those things.

*****

This writer has spent years trying building an online readership honestly.  Every person who ever followed me on social media (other than trolls), found me via word of mouth or recommendation from other kind and generous booster souls elsewhere in the ether (or miasma) of the internet.

Facebook in particular, however, has a very simple and effective mechanism for shutting-down unwelcome shit-stirrers like myself.

After a person “likes” or “follows” a page, they should expect to see more from that page, right?

Wrong.

“The Platform” has three almost hidden settings behind the “liked” or “following” button – “unfollow”, “default”, and “favorite”.

It has become apparent that if a writer or content producer is “too political”, the settings on their READERS’ PAGES are toggled to “default”, rather than “favorite”.

The “default” setting means a writer’s posts are then distributed according to the platform’s internal, secret ranking system.

Most people never notice this “off-toggling”, and presume the person they once followed has simply quit posting articles.

“X” and Facebook are no longer “social media”.

On “X” and Facebook, users are now the equivalent of unfortunate French geese being force-fed grain so the ultra-wealthy can have their foie gras.

I’ll say it again.  I am not given to conspiracy theories.  But I’m not ready to be someone’s liver paté, either.

Maybe the standard of my writing has fallen off a cliff, and people are ignoring me in droves on Facebook.

Or maybe people who write about the things I do are being quietly ushered from the foyer there?

I’d like to believe that every one of the 7K-strong “legacy” followers of my Facebook page followed it because they had read something which informed, entertained, or touched an emotional chord.

But I cannot know for certain, because my writing there is being slowly “disappeared”.

We are entering challenging times.  I fear they will be more challenging than most people imagine.

We must “gird our loins for battle”, to borrow a phrase from my long-abandoned evangelical upbringing.

I’m signing aboard the good ship Substack, with my website as a lifeboat just in case…