Alt-Media: Debunking the Dogma | Astute News

Alt-Media and its corresponding online community can be treasure troves of knowledge and insightful discourse in an increasingly censored world, but just like their Mainstream Media counterparts that they go to great lengths to openly differentiate themselves from, there are certain dogmas inherent in this informational space that sometimes make it difficult to tell the difference between objective facts and “wishful thinking” narratives. 

The US’ post-Cold War informationdominance has ended and it’s finally possible to speak about multipolarity in the international media space, with major publicly funded outlets such as RT and CGTN presenting an alternativeanalysis of events and giving a voice to figures that are oftentimes ignored by the Mainstream Media (MSM). In addition, a mushrooming number of other Alternative Media (Alt-Media) ventures have appeared online in the past couple of years, and the exciting result is that people all across the world who are opposed to unipolarity have been united for the very first time and now form a thriving internet community.

The countless intellectual opportunities that this provides for the average person anywhere on this planet can’t ever be overstated, and the Alt-Media Community is one of the only platforms that someone has to network with other likeminded individuals and contribute to the “collective’s” ever-expanding treasure trove of knowledge if they so choose.

That being the case, the situation isn’t all that rosy either, since all massive communities – even relatively decentralized ones such as Alt-Media – have a tendency to take on certain characteristics of “groupthink” that eventually evolve with time into what can only be described as “dogma”, or to put it more colloquially, “political correctness”. That’s not to say that every Alt-Media outlet and member of the community engages in this, but just that it’s nevertheless a worrying trend that will be extrapolated upon in this analysis in the hopes of raising widespread awareness about this informational cancer.

Dogma is so dangerous to the Alt-Media Community because it leads to the self-censorship or sometimes even aggressive bullying of a member’s well-intended viewpoints and ultimately blurs the lines between this informational space and the MSM one that people are presumably trying to escape from. Publicly funded outlets don’t practice dogma as much as their less “official” counterparts or to the same extent as they do, so the reader should keep in mind that the following points that will be addressed are mostly relevant for those second- mentioned actors and the private individuals who form the bulk of the community.

Having gotten the “disclaimer” out of the way, it’s now time to turn the article’s attention to the most common examples of dogma in the Alt-Media Community. What follows will be a listing of their main points and a realistic example “from the field” that debunks each of them by showing how ridiculous and contradictory they are, though it should be noted that this isn’t a comprehensive collection and that there are many more that could be added to this file. In any given order, they are:

The US Lied Before, So that Means That It’s Always Lying And Nothing That Its Representatives Say Should Ever Be Believed

“Bush lied about Iraq’s WMD, so there’s no way that the State Department is now telling the truth in warning about an impending North Korean nuclear weapon or missile test even though they’ve been right about this several times before.” 

The US/”Israel”/Saudi Arabia/Turkey/Etc. (“The Other Side”) Are Inherently Evil And Never Do The “Right Thing”

“It’s impossible for the US to ever carry out a real anti-terrorist operation anywhere in the world, ‘Israel’ is wrong for not expelling Russian diplomats amid the Skripal scandal since nothing that it does can ever be commended, and Saudi Arabia’s growing relations with Russia and China should be condemned because of the very principle that anything that Riyadh does is ‘bad’.”

Anything That The “Other Sides’” Representatives Support Is The “Wrong Side”

“Saudi Arabia shouldn’t ever dare invest in agricultural projects in the Africa because only Iranian businessmen are allowed to improve the suffering masses’ standard of living.”

Russia/China/Iran/Syria/Etc. (“Our Side”) Are Inherently Righteous And Always Do The “Right Thing”

“Iran has the most principled foreign policy in the history of the world, and it was right to support armed Islamic extremists in Bosniaand celebrate Gaddafi’s assassination even though these two instances went against Russia’s interests in each situation; likewise, Russia was right to condemn the Houthi missile strike on Riyadh in almost the same language as the US did despite this being the opposite of Iran’s stance towards the issue.” 

“Your Side” Is Deified, The “Other Side” Is Demonized

“Iran is a ‘god-state’ and President Putin is the closest that mankind will ever get to the ‘second coming of Jesus’ in our lifetimes, while President Erdogan is the epitome of ‘evil’ even though Tehran and Moscow are deepening their relations with him.” 

Everything Is Black And White And There Is No Gray Zone, The Battle Lines Are Always Clearly Defined And Never Change

“Turkey will always be ‘evil’ and will never sincerely work with Russia in constructively – albeit however imperfectly – resolving the Hybrid War of Terror on Syria that it helped spark together with the US, and everything that President Putin is doing together with President Erdogan is just to trick the American ‘stooge’ into doing Russia’s real bidding at any given moment. 

All Dogmatic Contradictions Can Be Explained Away By The “Master Plan” Theory

“The ‘uninitiated simpletons’ who haven’t been ‘enlightened’ by Alt-Media can’t understand the genius-level thinking of the ‘god-state’ and the ‘Second Jesus’, so instead of ‘sacrilegiously’ pointing out their visible contravention of dogma in dealing with Bosnia/Libya and ‘Israel’/Saudi Arabia respectively, we all need to have faith that it’s just a 5-D chess move for advancing a “master plan” that’s beyond any human being’s possible comprehension.” 

All US Partners Are Puppets In All That They Do And They Can’t Make Any Decision Without America’s Prior Approval

“’Israel’, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan’s newfound and high-level strategic relations with Russia and China aren’t what they seem to be and are really intricate traps laid out as part of an evil American ‘master plan’, but one that Presidents Putin and Xi are already aware of due to their ‘godly’ insight and which will inevitably be thwarted by their own ‘master plans’ that no mere moral can articulate or let alone even understand.” 

“Our Side’s” Cold War-Era Allies Will Always Remain The Same, Just Like Their Enemies

“Russia and Pakistan were rivals in the Old Cold War so there’s no way that they can become allies in the New Cold War, but this dogma doesn’t apply to Russia and China for inextricable reasons that only Presidents Putin and Xi can understand as part of their elaborate ‘master plans’.” 

All Countries That Aren’t American Puppets Are Opposed To It, And They’re All In Perfect Agreement With One Another All Of The Time

“The US is geopolitically opposed to both Russia and Iran, so there’s no way that these two would have any disagreements whatsoever about their post-war political visions for Syria, and anyone saying otherwise is a ‘provocateur’ who wants to divide ‘our side’.” 

It’s Impossible To Explain An Event Without Endorsing It

“Just talking about how Russia’s relations with ‘Israel’ and Saudi Arabia are objectively better than at any moment before in their histories is to blasphemously betrayal ‘the cause’ by ‘endorsing’ the inexcusable, but highlighting America’s relations with these same two actors is an act of service to ‘the cause’ by raising awareness of Washington’s malignant intentions.” 

Viva Trotsky! Permanent Revolution Lives On In Alt-Media

“Every single thing that any Alt-Media outlet or individual says or does in public must be to the benefit of ‘the cause’ , and anyone or anything that draws attention to ‘the deities’’ contradiction of community dogma or doesn’t zealously enough embrace ‘the cause’ must be shut up, shamed, and shooed out of the informational space.” 

The “Other Sides’” Intelligence Agencies (CIA/Mossad/MI6/Stratfor/Soros/Etc.) Have “Infiltrated” The Community 

“Crediblereports have proven that ‘the enemy’ is trying to ‘infiltrate’ the community, so this means that anyone who doesn’t march in lockstep with its leaders and abides by the ‘dog whistles’ blown by “our sides’” representatives is a CIA/Mossad/MI6/Stratfor/Soros spy who must be discredited with as many ad hominem attacks as possible prior to being destroyed.” 

The Loudest And Nastiest Community Members Guide “The Cause”

“The louder and nastier that the Alt-Takfiris are in rooting out the ‘infidels’ that have ‘infiltrated’ the community’s rank, the more loyal they are to “the cause” and therefore the more entitled they are to guide everyone to the ‘promised land’ as the modern-day ‘prophets’ that they pretend to be.”

The Alt-Media Community Protects The Free Speech Of Its Members Unlike The MSM

“You can say or believe anything that you want in Alt-Media, just don’t publicly express your views if there’s even the remotest chance that they might be interpreted by a single community inquisitor (Alt-Takfiri) as slightly challenging the many dogmas that generally define this informational space.” 

Constructively Criticizing A Country On “Our Side” Is Tantamount To Crucifying Its Leader And Crushing Its Soft Power Credibility

“No matter how anyone feels about Iran’s former policies towards Bosnia & Libya or Russia’s currently very close relations with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, any constructive criticism of them is equivalent to a personal attack on the ‘god-state’ and the ‘Second Jesus’ and won’t ever be tolerated because of the presumably immense damage that it could inflict on their country’s soft power.”

What The Community Thinks “Our Side” “Should” Do Is What It “Will” Certainly Do No Matter What

“Russia/China/Iran ‘should’ do this, this, or that because it ‘makes the most sense’ and purely aligns with the community’s dogma, so this means that they really are doing that and any perceived transgressions of Alt-Media’s ‘political correctness’ is just part of a ‘master plan’ that will reveal itself with time.”

Events Can Only Be Interpreted Through The Prism Of A Single-Issue Cause That Everything Ultimately Leads Back To

“9/11 was shady and Zionists hold disproportionate influence in the world, so this means the Hybrid War on Venezuela must somehow or another trace its origins back to covering up what happened on 9/11 and increasing the Zionists’ global power while it’s at it, and saying otherwise is to endorse the official 9/11 narrative and side with the Zionists.” 

Facebook Articles, Posts, And Arguments Are The Most Powerful Way To Change International Relations 

“Discussing the growing geopolitical differences between China and India somehow turned this into a reality by driving their leaderships to compete with one another and is akin to siding with the ‘enemy’ by doing its ‘bidding’, since everyone knows that “our sides’” governments read everyone’s Facebook posts all across the world and are influenced by whatever any random person in the community is saying at any given time.” 

All People On Publicly Funded Alt-Media Platforms Secretly Channel/Insinuate Government Views And Are “In On” The “Master Plan”

“Even though publicly funded doesn’t necessarily always mean ‘state-controlled’ and the community must continually clarify that point to its MSM detractors, its members must dogmatically believe that the Kremlin and other power centers from ‘our side’ are using all of the figures who appear on those platforms to send hints about what those governments truly believe, but we must selectively enforce this standard in ‘calling out’ the ‘infiltrators’ who Russia and others are ‘too stupid’ to realize have secretly entered their ranks and are ‘sabotaging’ their foreign policies by defying their dogmas.”

Victory Is Inevitable And “Our Side” Is Always Winning

“It doesn’t matter that the US carried out the ‘Arab Spring’, provoked EuroMaidan, and is surrounding China with a ‘containment coalition’ because the ‘master plan’ theory teaches us that these were actually victories for Iran, Russia, and China, which have never suffered any setbacks and can’t stop winning due to the momentum of history and the ‘empire’s’’ imminent’ demise.” 

All Unrest Is 100% An American-Backed Conspiracy That Came Out Of Nowhere

“Everything was always perfect everywhere else in the world and people lived in a true ‘Garden of Eden’ until the US came along and magically invented all of these ethno-religious and territorial problems, since it’s impossible to believe that there’s such a thing as preexisting problems that Washington largely exploitedbecause that would acknowledge that America can’t be blamed for 100% of anything bad that ever happens.” 

All Elections By “The Other Side” Are Predetermined And Nothing More Than Staged Steps In Carrying Out Their “Master Plans”

“Brexit and Trump weren’t the largest populist upsets in modern-day history but actually part of a ‘master plan’ by the British and American elites in which the people ultimately had no say, though the reelections of Presidents Putin and Rouhani were the purest expressions of democracy that history has ever witnessed because everybody knows that it’s only ‘our side’ that allows the people to express their will and never the ‘other side’.” 

It’s Not Abuse Or Trolling If Someone In Alt-Media Does It

“People fled from the misery of MSM to join the ‘enlightened’ Alt-Media Community so don’t ever accuse one of your fellow ‘brothers’ or ‘sisters’ in ‘the cause’ of verbally abusing or trolling youbecause they wouldn’t ever do that unless they’re an ‘infiltrated agent’, so if you have a problem with what someone says, it’s because your faithful adherence to dogma isn’t as strong as theirs is and you could actually learn something by shutting up and unquestionably accepting whatever it is that they’re ranting about even if it’s irrelevant attacks against you personally.”

The First Rule Of Fight Club Is To Never Talk About Fight Club, Just Like The First Rule Of Alt-Media Is To Never Talk About Its Dogmas

“Don’t ever violate this cardinal rule otherwise you’ll be maliciously removed from the community the moment that you publicly reveal anything about its ‘sacred’ but secret dogmas, and its Alt-Prophets (Alt-Takfiris) will forever regard you as a ‘traitor’ and force the rest of the community to spit upon your name whenever they invoke it as part of their ‘two-minute hate’ in reminding everyone about the ‘infiltrated conspirators’ that still secretly roam within their ranks.” 

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Alt-Media and its community can be the most useful sources of information and insight that curious minds can rely upon in the modern day amidst the present conditions of heavy unipolar censorship, but extreme caution and skepticism must be exercised whenever voyaging into this space in order to be able to discern fact from fiction in separating the objective truth of what’s happening from the subjective dogmatic narratives about what a small clique of people (the Alt-Takfiris or Alt-Prophets) wishfully believe should happen. RT encourages its audience to “question more” and Sputnik strives to “tell the untold”, and that’s exactly what people should do whenever they’re interacting with non-publicly-funded Alt-Media and the overall community in general. No individual should ever be bullied by fellow social media users and have their ideas suppressed no matter what “side” they’re on at any given time and on any issue, and the only way that the Alt-Media Community can truly differentiate itself from the MSM is if it respects people’s views and encourages a diversity thereof within its sphere.

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Alt-Media and its corresponding online community can be treasure troves of knowledge and insightful discourse in an increasingly censored world, but just like their Mainstream Media counterparts that they go to great lengths to openly diffe
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