Connecting the Dots
Divided We Fall: How Propaganda and Profit Turn People Against Each Other
MOBILIZED NEWS FEATURE
“Divided We Fall: How Propaganda and Profit Turn People Against Each Other”
At Mobilized News, we are committed to exposing the machinery behind global manipulation and division. This isn’t just politics—it’s about power, profit, and the weaponization of perception. Across history and continents, from Nazi Germany to the MAGA movement to the current conflict in Gaza, propaganda has been used not just to mislead—but to fracture humanity and fuel war for the benefit of a powerful few.
Propaganda as a Weapon of War
Propaganda doesn’t merely misinform—it manufactures enemies. It simplifies reality into “good guys” and “bad guys,” creating a psychological battlefield where nuance dies and violence thrives. It’s no accident that during war, propaganda spikes. It’s not about truth; it’s about consent—manufactured, manipulated, and monetized.
Judaism ≠ Zionism: Faith Hijacked by Nationalism
One of the most dangerous tools of modern propaganda has been the conflation of Judaism, a millennia-old religion and cultural identity, with Zionism, a political ideology advocating for a Jewish ethnostate in historic Palestine.
Judaism is diverse, global, and rooted in spiritual tradition and ethical law. Many Jews around the world, including Orthodox, secular, and anti-colonial Jewish communities, do not identify with Zionism. In fact, countless Jewish scholars and rabbis have condemned the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians as contrary to Jewish ethics.
Zionism, on the other hand, is a modern nationalist project born in the late 19th century—its goals explicitly political. Since 1948, and especially since the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, Zionism has been used to justify military aggression, systemic apartheid, and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
To criticize Zionism is not to hate Jews. To say otherwise is propaganda. It’s a silencing tactic—used by governments and corporate media to delegitimize the global movement for Palestinian liberation.
Palestine ≠ Hamas: A People, Not a Party
Another deliberate distortion: equating Palestinians with Hamas. Palestinians are a people—diverse in religion, political beliefs, and geography—who have endured 75 years of displacement, occupation, and statelessness. They live under siege in Gaza, military occupation in the West Bank, apartheid laws in Israel, and exile across the world.
Hamas, on the other hand, is a political faction that rose to power in Gaza amid a vacuum of Palestinian leadership and failed peace negotiations. Its militancy is often highlighted in Western media without context: without discussion of decades of occupation, Israeli blockades, or the root causes of the conflict. While Hamas has committed acts that violate international law, the collective punishment of 2 million Palestinians in Gaza—half of them children—cannot be justified as “self-defense.”
To flatten the narrative—to say “Israel vs. Hamas”—is not journalism. It’s propaganda.
Middle East Crisis: A Real-Time Case Study in Propaganda
The war on Gaza is being livestreamed in real time, yet so is the misinformation. Western governments and media outlets continue to parrot Israeli military talking points, often uncritically. At the same time, Palestinian journalists, medics, and civilians are bombed, censored, and dehumanized.
Billions of dollars flow from U.S. taxpayers to Israeli weapons systems, while American media portray Palestinian suffering as collateral or inevitable. The actual motives—real estate, geopolitical dominance, arms sales—go unmentioned.
Corporations profit from war. Politicians win votes by appearing “tough on terror.” Media ratings spike with every airstrike. Meanwhile, the truth gets buried—often along with the bodies of innocents.
Same Playbook, Different Frontlines
What do all these examples—Nazism, authoritarian regimes, MAGA, and the Gaza war—have in common?
- Create a scapegoat.
- Simplify the story.
- Demonize dissent.
- Profit from chaos.
And above all: keep the people divided.
From Berlin to Brasília, from Michigan to Rafah, propaganda has one goal: protect the powerful, and keep the rest of us from realizing we have more in common with each other than with those who rule us.
Conclusion: Mobilize or Be Manipulated
If we’re ever going to build a just world, we must start by naming the lie: that war is peace, that critique is hate, that violence is defense.
Judaism is not Zionism. Palestine is not Hamas. America is not Trump. And we, the people, are not each other’s enemies.
It’s time to decolonize our minds, democratize our media, and organize across borders. The antidote to propaganda isn’t counter-propaganda—it’s truth, justice, and global solidarity.
Join the resistance to misinformation. Support independent journalism. Educate your community. Mobilize for peace and people, not profit and power.
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In this episode of ‘Brighter’, Adam busts some of the myths on a particularly bad idea, the idea that ‘less’ – less energy, less transportation, less food, less labor – is a solution to our problems
Doing less cannot get us to net zero emissions. Degrowth doesn’t repair anything. And less economic productivity and less abundance only make solving climate change, and our other major problems, worse.
Adam’s book, ‘Brighter: Optimism, Progress, and the Future of Environmentalism” is available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNYC1GWY and as an audiobook on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.
Visit the RethinkX Website:
This question, dominant in our society, harps on our economic system—capitalism. A driver of progress for centuries, capitalism has led to technological marvels and an increased quality of life. It’s easy to see the fruits of capitalism: the smartphone in your pocket, the car in your garage.
Although, there’s a darker side. Income inequality is rampant. A small fraction holds the majority of wealth. Consumerism equates happiness with possessions. Our natural resources are on the brink of exhaustion. From this perspective, we seem to be serving the system instead of it serving us.
Just as with capitalism, our environment raises a question: Is it a resource for exploitation or a sphere of life needing protection? Far from being a mere resource, our environment is a complex life system providing essentials—air, water, food. We’ve exploited it for our gains, forgetting its true worth. Forests have been chopped, rivers polluted, habitats destroyed—all in the name of progress. The environment has been treated as a mere resource.
The fallout is here: climate change, biodiversity loss, worsening pollution. These challenges arise from our disregard for the environment. Can we shift our perspective? Can we treat the environment as a sphere of life that demands respect and protection?
The question now is: Can we change our ways? Can we shift our perspective to see the environment for what it truly is—a precious sphere of life that demands respect and protection?
Imagine a world where communities decide their destiny, where nature is not just a resource but a living entity with rights.
Welcome to the Community Rights Movement—a powerful wave of change sweeping across the United States. This movement is about people taking power into their own hands, envisioning a new sustainability constitution, and adopting new laws at the local level. It’s about challenging the system that prioritizes corporate rights over the rights of communities and nature.
The Community Rights Movement is grounded in nonviolent civil disobedience, using municipal lawmaking to push for change. At its core, it aims to recognize and enforce the rights of nature and ecosystems. This isn’t a new concept but rather an ancient understanding traced back to Indigenous cultures.
For them, nature isn’t property to be owned but a living entity—a relative. The Anishinaabe, for example, speak of protecting the flying people, swimming people, and singing people. The Uru Nation regards the Cloth River as a living being, a relative. Contrast this with the Western perspective, where nature is seen as a commodity—a thing to be exploited. It hearkens back to the words of Sir Francis Bacon, who urged us to “torture nature on a rack to extract her secrets.”
The Community Rights Movement is challenging these outdated views, following the trail blazed by pioneers like Christopher Stone. In his seminal work *Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects*, Stone argued for conferring rights onto entities previously considered rightless.
So, where do we stand now?
We’re at a critical juncture. The future of our environment, our communities, and our very way of life hangs in the balance. The Community Rights Movement offers a different path—a path where nature’s rights are recognized, where communities have a say in their destiny, where the economic system serves us, not the other way around.
In conclusion, the Community Rights Movement is not just a movement but a necessary shift in perspective. It’s about empowering communities, recognizing the rights of nature, and challenging an economic system that has long prioritized profit over people and the planet. It’s about envisioning a world where sustainability, respect, and community are not just ideals but the foundation of our society.
A web of life for all life, inspired by the original network, nature. Powered by Passion. Empowered by Action. Mobilized by all of us.
