The US-centralized empire controls the global south with bombs, bullets and blockades and controls the rest of us with mass-scale psychological manipulation.

Sure it's more pleasant to be sitting where we are rather than at the barrel of the gun, but don't confuse pleasantness with freedom. It's nice that here they let you criticize your government and buy whatever you can afford at the store. It would be pleasant to live in a vat with your brain plugged into a virtual world of endless pleasure, too, but it wouldn't be freedom. Psychological tyranny is still tyranny.

You'll never get change as long as propagandists are able to convince a critical mass of people not to push for change. You'll never stop depraved agendas as long as propagandists can manipulate a critical mass of people into consenting to those agendas. Propaganda is enemy #1.