" Kyle Rittenhouse: Anatomy of a divisive distraction" by Kit Knightly

Readers would probably do better going to the source to read this, as images in OffGuardian articles do not transfer onto the blog.

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Kyle Rittenhouse: Anatomy of a divisive distraction  

The teenager’s trial for double murder is a case study in how the media covers a story to distract and divide the public.

Kit Knightly

 

How many people reading this think that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist who shot three black people?

Probably more than a few.

The truth is that all three of the shooting victims were white.

And yet, yesterday, on the day of the verdict being announced, the UK Independent ran this frontpage, describing the victims as black:

[Go to source to see image of Independent article with lede "Full story: teenager who shot three black men with rifle found not guilty on all charges"] 

This is after three weeks of a live-streamed trial in which one of the victims had actually testified on the stand.

Think about that, in the most high-profile trial for years, the press can’t even be relied upon to get the race of the victims right.

Is this an accident? Of course not.

It’s all part of a disinformation campaign designed to turn one tragic violent incident into a narrative that serves a bigger agenda by further dividing the public into racial and political factions.

background

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the case, yesterday, after four days of deliberation, a jury found 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse “not guilty on all charges”.

Rittenhouse was on trial for shooting three people, two fatally, during the riots in Kenosha WI in August 2020.

The verdict “sparked outrage”, and protests over the acquittal sprang up all over the country. President Joe Biden “urged calm”, but that was highly disingenuous.

The truth is the establishment wants those protests, and wants them to be anything but calm. They feed on that type of chaos.

The entire Kyle Rittenhouse situation is a perfect exemplar of how an incident can be created, then exploited in the media, to create bitter political divisions and distract the public from greater issues.

Creating the chaos

First of all, let’s clarify what we mean by “created”. That’s not to say the victims weren’t shot, or that Kyle Rittenhouse isn’t real. I’m not saying it’s a psy-op (although I can’t 100% rule that out).

Rather, the conditions were created where something like this was almost certainly going to happen.

The death of George Floyd getting the publicity it did was entirely deliberate. The resulting protests being praised by the “healthcare heroes” and being excused from Lockdown rules, is a sure sign of narrative creation.

This fed into all the BLM protests last summer. Protests which, regardless of whether or not you agree with their cause or trust that there were created organically, were unquestionably violent and destructive.

The violence was schizophrenically both dismissed and simultaneously encouraged in the press.

In some cities, mysterious pallets full of bricks appeared on street corners in the planned marching route:

[Go to source to see tweet on the subject of pallets of bricks being found on the marching routes] 

Meanwhile, as this violence was being encouraged on the one hand, the police forces were being ordered to stand down, and let the riots run their course.

The nurtured violence and police inaction was always going to result in vigilantes attempting to restore order on their own terms. And that was always going to end in violence.

Enter Kyle Rittenhouse.

The trial

I’m not going to get into the legal technicalities of the trial here, or argue whether or not the boy was guilty (save for saying, according to the evidence I have seen, the self-defense argument has a lot of merit).

My point isn’t about the trial itself, but rather about the media coverage of the trial, and how it is used to entrench opinions and bitterness.

First they create the violence, then they misrepresent it to tell a story that serves the agenda.

It’s interesting to note that whether or not you were surprised by the not guilty verdict entirely depends on where you’ve been reading about the trial.

If you were following the trial on the live stream or discussing it on twitter, you probably were pretty sure the Rittenhouse would be found not guilty.

But conversely, anyone reading/watching mainstream “left” or “liberal” outlets will almost certainly think of the boy as a white supremacist who shot three black protesters on purpose, and consider his guilt a foregone conclusion.

The misinformation was such that, as shown above, many people still believe that the three shooting victims were black, when all three were actually white.

These misconceptions were deliberately fostered in order to turn the trial into a “race issue”. Much like the OJ Simpson trial, the real story is sidelined in favour of manufactured political theatre designed to split the nation along racial divides.

The truth stops mattering, it instead becomes a hindrance as the issue is transformed into a platform on which to demonstrate virtue.

“I believe Rittenhouse is evil, no matter the evidence, because I am a good person.”

The teams are picked, and the implacable positions taken up, to ensure constant in-fighting in the public.

The Aftershocks

So, what happens now?

Well, now comes the media autopsy, where myths are solidified and future agendas set in motion.

First, we can expect dozens of articles condemning the American justice system, and demanding unspecified “reform” (which is always a dangerous word).

Editorials will appear claiming that Rittenhouse would have been convicted if he were black, and similar banal interpretations designed to do nothing but reinforce a worldview.

On top of that, it will be used as fuel for gun control cause, which we should expect to gather some momentum as vaccine mandates are brought it in. (If the US wants to become like Australia or Germany right now, they’re going to need fewer guns in public hands or things could get real messy.)

And while all of this is going on, there’s no discussion of the really important issues.

The mass transfer of power to the state. The hysterical witchhunt-like social atmosphere. The ever-increasing rate of unemployment and poverty. The frightening power of monopolies.

All put aside so that Democrats can hate Republicans, and black and white people can fear each other. Resentment, bitterness, anger…all cultivated and nurtured, like garden.

Kyle Rittenhouse is a famous name now, he will be demonised by the left and canonised by the right.

But we’ll likely never know the names of the men who stack loose bricks on street corners, and profit from the ensuing chaos.

 

Source: Off-Guardian