Unifying Narratives, Part 1: The Soleimani Strike and the Aaron Maté Club

Matamp233 and his colleagues at The Grayzone a media project intended to provide quotinvestigative journalism and analysis on politics and empirequot were not alone in rushing to judgment and making sweeping predictions based on amp8212 particularly at the time amp8212 a few bits of information in a very developing story The difference for Matamp233 and his colleagues however was how developed a narrative they were so sure of mere minutes after the news broke that Soleimani had been killedMatamp233 along with Max Blumenthal Glenn Greenwald Ben Norton Matt Taibii and Michael Tracey comprise this socalled quotresistance to the resistancequot By now their group has become increasingly formalized often being invited as guests to the same television programs interestingly enough one is Tucker Carlson Tonight citing each other in articles and engaging in frequent Twitter exchanges The members of the group support the progressive Left Bernie Sanders and noninterventionism They are also wellknown for not necessarily preferring the establishment wing of the Democratic Party eg Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton to President TrumpLike the 12 percent of Bernie Sanders supporters who supported Donald Trump in the 2016 election they align with the president on certain economic and foreign policy positions such as opposition to the TransPacific Partnership and skepticism about Russiabased narratives It would however be inaccurate to claim that they quotlikequot or quotsupportquot President Trump All the while this group is attracting an everbroadening base of fans with now a combined 228 million Twitter followers among those six leaders which for comparison is nearly double the number of followers of say Jeb Bush and nearly triple that of Amy Klobuchar39sWhat has made this group so famous however is how correct they were regarding the Russia collusion narrative questioning amp8212 for two years running amp8212 the media39s nonstop coverage of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin They flatly didn39t believe it Instead they argued that the quantity of this coverage was intended to be a distraction from the actual reasons the more seasoned and wellfunded presidential candidate was defeated by a political newcomer They were also incessantly critical of the tendency by certain media personalities mostly notably Rachel Maddow to seek to tie everything back to Russia while at the same time failing to give the Trump administration credit for its successes amp8212 or for failing to point out foreign policy situations considered more urgent such as those in Venezuela or Yemen In the view of the Matamp233 club the media was fixated on Russia to the exclusion of all else After the group39s twoplus years of consternation about quotRussiagatequot they were largely vindicated on March 22 2019 when the Mueller Report failed to establish the much bandiedabout collusionSo in the spring of 2019 the Matamp233 club was on its way to being able to bill itself as the group who could block out a prepackaged narrative and see things for what they really were Now in many cases they still make good points such as their view that the far more significant story than that of impeachment was what happened days later the overwhelmingly bipartisan passage of the 2020 defense bill to the order of 738 billionSimilarly their reasoning is sound for their concerns about leakers being prosecuted under the Espionage Act during the Obama administration as well for their observations on the incongruity of the Democrat Party39s professed affection for workers while simultaneously supporting trade agreements that put industrial jobs at riskBut now amp8212 with their kneejerk reactions to the Soleimani killing amp8212 this club is bordering on having its own version of a quotRussiagatequot and championing one prepacked narrative that seeks to explain a priori nearly every foreign policy eventTheir narrative goes something like this Due to the militaryindustrial complex both parties amp8212 with the exception of the staunchly progressive left and the staunchly libertarian noninterventionist right amp8212 generally approve of interventionism because their defense contractor donors make money from it and armed conflict can be good for business Also the United States chooses to intervene militarily in countries where resources are at stake which might explain intervention in the oilrich Middle East but not a midgenocide Rwanda The United States also seeks out justifications to explain to the public why war is necessary in some cases the events are true the sinking of the Lusitania in other cases they are not quotWeapons of Mass Destructionquot Then major media players who frequently employ past CIA officers and military generals nearly universally support the federal government39s justification for conflictWhenever just about anyone embraces a quotsystemquot or an allencompassing ideology there are aspects of truth to it amp8212 and this is certainly the case for the Matamp233 club The militaryindustrial complex is a longstanding concern Britain and the United States did run out of patience with Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 when his administration nationalized Iranian oil and media parties have at times come out far too strongly in war amp8212 the most glaring example being in the prelude to the World War I History however is a guide not prophecyIn part two of this examination I will explore the risks of media figures amp8212 of any stripe amp8212 putting forward a single unifying narrative and then look to tie everything back to thatClick the social buttons to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Unifying Narratives, Part 1: The Soleimani Strike and the Aaron Maté Club

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Erich J. Prince

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Unifying Narratives, Part 1: The Soleimani Strike and the Aaron Maté Club

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