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This past week, we have been engaged in the strongest case of media narrative warfare we have seen in my life. I just want to, without making a determination on a given story or not, provide how I think about it and then run through examples of media warfare. Everything I’m saying here is addressed specifically to Americans consuming American media
Most people, because of a truly horrible American education system, do not engage with content in a literate manner. They are not thinking about who is saying it, why they are saying it, who they are responding to, and, in the context of the media ecosystem, who is saying what.
So I’m going to first give you an example. I’m going to walk through how I think about responding to the narrative warfare that goes on regarding Iran and regarding Venezuela. Then I’m going to try to demonstrate the superstructure by which I think about this, as a person who has to respond to these kinds of things all the time.
Third, I want to explain how I want you to critique me for doing so. Because if we can all be speaking the same language, we can have much more productive conversations. After that, I’ll talk about some other narratives that are going on with ICE, what I think is helpful, what I think is not, how to think about them, and how to talk about them.
Case Study 1: Iran
First and foremost, let’s start with Iran.
This is an ongoing situation where we have to establish some base facts about what we are talking about. As a base fact, what I will take in any conversation is that there are protests going on, undoubtedly, and they are being met with some level of brutality. Many numbers are being thrown out, and it is unequivocal that some people have died. I will not reject that, and I unilaterally condemn all state violence that ends in death across the board.
But I want to talk less about what the truth actually is regarding this, because frankly that has been published extensively by more expert people, and more about the truths that are being pushed by the media and how to engage with them.
There are three separate narratives being pushed around this. One is that all the protests are CIA and Mossad. Another is that all the protests want regime change or a return to monarchy. Another is that all the protests are purely about women’s rights. None of those are fully true, and yet all of those are partially true.
I’m not as interested in how true they are, because frankly we don’t have the data. We don’t know how many of these protests are CIA or Mossad influenced. We don’t yet know the full extent of the brutality. Most Westerners are getting their information through a massive propagandized lens. Before we even get to truth data, we need to start processing the narratives.
So how do I engage with this? How do I think about it? How do I talk about it?
Do I talk singularly about the openly, publicly, and consistently reported brutality of the IRGC? Do I come out in full-throated support of the IRGC because that is the only way to prevent American intervention, painting them as perfect? Or do I highlight American and Israeli influence in the protests? Or do I highlight the evils of the monarchy, American sanctions, and intervention that are being underreported?
Those are the options. If you’ve watched my content, you know what I did. I chose the last one.
How to Choose to Between the Narratives?
Why won’t I spend all my time focusing on the most immediate humanitarian concern, the IRGC harming people right now? Well, what is my job? Is my job to report everything that’s happening? No. I’m not a journalist. I’m a political commentator trying to fill in the gaps of mainstream media.
Do I think the brutality of the IRGC is underreported? No. I think the New York Times is reporting it, if not more than is actually happening, then at least exactly as much as is happening. Do I think the Washington Post, Reuters, and most American media are doing this in good faith? No. I think they are doing it in bad faith.
Every second I contribute to talking about how horrible and evil the IRGC is, I’m not educating my audience. Most people have already heard that. I’m repeating propaganda and contributing to the bad-faith aims of American media, which are clearly oriented toward American intervention.
You can levy genuine humanitarian critiques, but if it’s not done with an understanding of why and how American media is pushing this narrative, you will continue to contribute to its aims.
Should I come out in full-throated support of the IRGC? No. Obviously not. Iran is not a communist state, but it is also not a peripheral state in the American empire. It is a state under constant pressure and war. I do not support all actions of the IRGC, and I’m not going to lie about that.
Should I highlight American and Israeli influence in the protests? Maybe. It’s certainly in their interest. But that also risks undermining real moral concerns against the Iranian state, and we don’t yet have sufficient information. We won’t have it for decades, because that’s how CIA and Mossad documentation works.
So what can we do with sufficient certainty while avoiding the risk of supporting American intervention while also not undermining genuine humanitarian concerns?
What I do is anti-intervention propaganda. Even if you accept the mainstream narrative that the IRGC is brutal, don’t accept what the media is not saying. Don’t accept that the monarch is the natural next choice. Don’t accept the erasure of the Shah’s brutality, of American-backed regime change, of sanctions, and of intervention.
That’s the point. You don’t need to undermine the truth value of the propaganda. You need to undermine its aim.
There’s a reason they’re doing it. And whenever I’m in a conversation and I’m filling in that second part, I get yelled at for not repeating the first part. But if they are not repeating the second part, and I’m the only one saying the whole thing, I’m not contributing to balance. I’m contributing to imbalance.
So that’s how I think about it. Fill in that second half. And it’s just not true the second half is, no, the Iranian regime is perfect. It’s just not true that, none of these protests are grassroots. But it is true that, number one, historically we know these movements have been infiltrated by Mossad and the CIA. Number two, it is true that the monarch is leveraging the shah,
The current one who got an opinion piece written in the New York Times by him is trying to leverage these to push monarchism, which is not popular amongst the Iranian people. And number three, it is being pushed by the American regime to support regime change and installation of a worse regime.
“Listen To Iranians“ - Which? When? Where?
I also get the response, which is fair and should be taken seriously, that we should listen to Iranians. Yes, you should listen to Iranians. The issue, of course, with that, is that there are Iranians like Nina Farnea, who are engaged in incredible decolonial and anti-colonial analysis. Some support the Shah. Some support the IRGC. Some say this is all Mossad.
It’s the same thing that was used in “Listen to Venezuelans”. Yes, you should listen to Iranians, but because of a massive blackout and because of a multi-billion dollar propaganda machine in the American Empire, all of those things, every single Iranian voice, is being filtered, valued, and contextualized by the imperial interests. And if we fail to leverage our narrative in response to that context, we’re not doing good. We’re enabling their co-optation of these voices. So yes, listen to those that are affected.
So that’s my, so don’t not listen to Iranians. I’ve read extensively both direct, you know, communiques from Iran currently that have gotten out. Iranians that are in support of the IRGC, Iranians that are in support of the Shah.
It is not an end-all be-all, just as ask Venezuelans isn’t, but is used in bad faith by the American Western Empire to legitimize it by highlighting people like Shah supporters.
And so, this is I get to critique me. I don’t think I’m perfect in this. No narrator, no context should think that they’re perfect in weighing when do I leave out this part of the context. When do I include this part of the context? When do I highlight this and when do I not highlight this?
ICE and The Murder of Renee Nicole Good -
Now I want to talk about ICE.
There have been many narratives after the killing of Renee Nicole Goode. There was fascist denial. There was liberal debunking. There were claims of escalation and claims of continuity. All of these contain truth. Some say, this is actually a part of increased violence and point to, it’s not just important that she’s killed, but it’s important that she’s white. That’s an escalation. And then there’s a response to that saying, well, actually this is a continuity of longstanding ICE violence.
So some might say, yes, Trump’s ICE is absolutely horrendous. Look how bad, how much worse they’re getting, countered of course by “Well, actually they’re pretty consistent and they follow from a long tradition of ICE following the Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security Increasing it and then there’s another saying it this isn’t even just about ICE.” (Listen to the video, I’m not summarizing this part, point is theres a lot of narratives what matters is how you use them, timestamp 15:00)
I think it matters that she was white, that she was a citizen, and that she was a legal observer. Not because that makes her more valuable, but because those are categories that America values. It shows you what the regime is willing to do, and how it will lie afterward.
The mobilization that happened this week was massive. People who never cared before now care. That matters.
But if you say fuck ICE, you should also say fuck the cops. And if you say fuck ICE, you should also say fuck Biden, because this is all the same security structure. What is important to this end is not just that we undermine or critique bad narratives but that we leverage the underlying truth or aim of those narratives to action. Which bring me to my final plea: when trying to parse this insanely complex narrative landscape, focus on action.
Conclusion - Focus on Action, Understand the System
What I want people to understand is that narratives are not just about being true. They are about pushing action. When I talk about Iran, I want Americans to oppose sanctions and intervention. When I talk about ICE, I want people to recognize that they are being threatened too.
Don’t orient yourself only toward being right. That’s hard and often impossible. Orient yourself toward understanding how narratives function, where they come from, and what actions they encourage.
Every post you make exists inside an imperial propaganda machine. You don’t get to opt out of that. You only get to choose how you engage with it. You can’t win by accident. You have to choose to engage intentionally.
