Instead they prefer to listen to the propaganda emanating from governments and other vested interests.

These listeners are not just your average dumb Joe but people who are reasonably intelligent and should know better.

Why smart people are beguiled by this stuff is decidedly curious.

Perhaps it is just the sheer weight of the propaganda and disinformation that is heaped on us on a daily basis.

Perhaps it is the incredible subtlety of the stuff that seeps into our brains without us even noticing it.

Perhaps it is the human proclivity to see the world in simple binary terms. ‘USA good, China bad’ is a ludicrous way to view the world.

Just because the USA has a neurotic fear of China doesn’t mean we have to do the same.

The USA, and its sycophants like Australia, are extremely good at disseminating propaganda and disinformation.

Everything we see, read and listen to is riddled with propaganda.

And it’s not just obvious sources like the nightly news. The propaganda occurs in the books we read, the music we listen to and the films we watch.

That a large part of our literature, music and cinema originates in the USA or its aligned countries should be a warning to treat it very carefully.

We shouldn’t just simply absorb it, we should think about it too.

If Australia had any sense, it would listen to people like Sachs and start to think for itself.

It should be encouraging the Pacific Islands nations to join it in forming a regional bloc that also thinks for itself, makes its own rules and sees to its own future.

The USA is a sick society staggering into its end days, just like all the empires before it - and it's dragging the rest of the western world down with it.