I hope this belongs here, since it's not a news article.
I live in Europe and I've mostly been the guy people listened to when they admitted to not feeling well informed on international conflict situations like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and US/NATO's more secretive and subversive conflicts/coups and backroom deals with autoritarian regimes around the world, all in the name of democracy and freedom.
Can't help it, I'm curious, I like reading books and I think connecting the dots is rewarding for my ADHD. The NATO connections to post WWII-nazis, GLADIO and other stay-behind groups, the CIA ties - it was all thrilling and interesting, but unfortunately part of our reality. During the Wikileaks days even the people most critical of my assessments came and admitted that they were wrong and that they now understood they had been duped. And now, they said, "we know better". They all went back to reading the very news that consistently lied to them.
There still was a semi-reliable left/left-centrist press in Europe that you could point the few normies allergic to "not verified by authority" reporting to, mostly written by a few journalists who didn't bend as much to pressure of falling in line with drumming for the democracy exporting business.
What happened? Of course the big media companies always always bent to the will of the warmongering establishment but there were always some sane voices doing somewhat decent investigative journalism targetting the common narratives, even if just to be able to deflect criticism by pointing to their work. How did they get rid of almost every sane voice? Did the mostly senior editors just die off/retire?
Today I am surrounded by people telling me obvious lies with a blind conviction of almost religious zealotry that can often be debunked with 2 minutes of research in spite of the downfall of major SEO and "24/7 breaking news repitition" infested search engines.
I always knew that most people wouldn't spend the time on research to get an understanding of how this world functions and that Western democracy and liberty are basically strawmen that can be weaponized against anyone who stands in the way of Western interests. But I also always knew that I could rely on some people being receptive of well sourced information. My convincing of some people of course didn't put a dent anywhere but you at least felt like it was still possible to reach people and breakt through the programming.
Even the people calling themselves antifascists are now ignoring the obvious neo Nazi-ties of Ukrainian Banderites while chanting OUN slogans. People are openly calling for censorship of the Internet in the name of "safety" and if you equate "fact checks" by the very people opposed to investigative journalism with the obvious risks of centralized Ministries of Truth being erected in front of our eyes, they vehemently disagree and demand that "freezepeach" must come to an end.
I've never been this worried about the world I'm living in. The US and Western elites are hellbent on provoking a war with every nation that's no longer willing to bend to their unipolar world order, with Europeans taking the brute of it, whether it be economically or, should the war escalate, even on future frontlines.
Is there any serious opposition left? How do you cope with the reality we're headed for? I've never been an optimist but I managed to keep my pessimism in check, until now.
Billionaires also pledged to fund rebuilding Notre Dame in France and no one paid anything. Almost no one actually paid and it seems the press doesn't care to see if anything has been paid since 2019: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/notre-dame-fire-update-big-donors-delay-fulfilling-pledges-to-rebuild-notre-dame/
Pledges are PR, nothing more.