Well I’ll be damned. There’s a lot of cool stuff happening all of a sudden.
After loudly denying rigging their primaries for two years, the leaders of the Democratic Party are now openly admitting to deliberately stacking primary elections to ensure the win of preselected establishment loyalists. In response to an audio recording of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer telling a progressive congressional candidate that he’ll be running in a contest rigged for his opponent by the DCCC if he doesn’t drop out, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi came right out and told the press “I don’t see anything inappropriate in what Mr. Hoyer was engaged in — a conversation about the realities of life in the race as to who can make the general election.”
I mean, wow. She just came right out and said it. All it took was a little audio recording to transform months and months of “But Russia! Russia Russia Russia!” into “Yeah of course we do that. Duh.”
And it really is that blatant and undeniable. I’ve gotten a few establishment loyalists in my social media notifications attempting to argue that “rigging” is too strong a word for the act of secretly stacking primary contests to ensure the election of preselected candidates, but their heart isn’t really in it. After a certain point there’s only so much Orwellian doublethink you can do.
Not long ago I was downright terrified that the western empire was going to provoke a dangerous military escalation in Syria, and while that still could very well happen it looks like the warmongers are going to have to do a lot of work to get there. An aggressive opposition to military interventionism and intense skepticism of the establishment narrative about an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma arose all across the political spectrum as soon as the drums of war began beating, and after a few empty buildings were bombed under the false claim that they contained chemical weapons, the drums are much quieter.
What has replaced the sound of the war drums is the desperate shrieking of the establishment propaganda machine, which has been frantically attacking anyone who dared to express skepticism about the official western Douma narrative. One particularly shrill day saw no less than seven high-profile smear pieces published about antiwar voices toward that end. Seven. In one day.
The war propagandists exposed themselves very badly with that one, and the public is unlikely to forget it. You can only be seen screaming “You’re not allowed to ask questions about that” so many times before people start wondering what you’re trying to hide. The propaganda machine has never been so visible to the public, and this is all coming after the empire was caught lying about the Skripal poisoning.
After all that white knuckle Syria intensity, seeing what just happened on the Korean Peninsula was pure heart candy. There are reasons to be optimistic, there are reasons to be pessimistic. But hope is in the air, and people are excited.
And sometimes that’s all it takes.
Trump’s support base is highly enthused about these new developments, and who can blame them? If peace prevails on the Korean Peninsula it will be regarded a major political victory for this administration no matter how his opposition tries to spin it, and, more importantly, it will open people’s minds to what is possible all over the world. If enough people in a large and influential political faction get it into their minds that the world is transforming and awakening, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy whether it was technically true to begin with or not.
Either way, the MAGA crowd believes, and now they’re talking like a bunch of patchouli-wearing hippies. Which is of course awesome.
https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/985770099113017344
The other day I watched some Trump supporter guy with a Youtube show called America First because he made a tweet which caught my eye. The first 43 minutes of the clip I skimmed through looked like fairly generic MAGA fare about free speech and conservative values, but then all of a sudden this clean cut, couldn’t-look-more-Republican-if-he-tried guy pulls out a white board with a yin-yang symbol, a picture of someone meditating, and the words “shakti” and “kundalini” written on it. And he starts monologuing about eastern mysticism.
I’m not sure what this is, but it’s definitely different. A bunch of tweets and videos by Mike Cernovich, Scott Adams and Kanye West have been dancing in an unexpected way that has conservatives now talking about a shift in consciousness transforming the way humanity functions in the near future. Liberals and leftists are scoffing at it of course, but it’s definitely a thing, and in my opinion it’s downright fascinating.
The MAGA crowd has always impressed me with its ability to energetically and spontaneously unify behind a single theme as a group, like a flock of birds or school of fish changing direction together on a dime. There are certainly worse things they could pour their collaboration into than manifesting a spiritual revolution.
https://twitter.com/iShantiDotOrg/status/985888607260028931
And who the hell am I to say they’re wrong about that? It’s not like we’ve got a choice anyway; either our species will change the way it functions or we’ll wipe ourselves out via nuclear holocaust or climate catastrophe within a few decades, no matter how loudly and smugly we scoff at the guys in MAGA hats. If humanity is going to take a last-ditch, evolve-or-die leap into the unknown and unprecedented, now would surely be the time to do it. If a bunch of right-wingers get it into their heads that humanity is undergoing a spiritual transformation, that certainty could be all it takes to tip us into the shift we all know we need to make anyway.
Could something big be in the works? Something which transcends all our little echo chamber walls and ideological boundaries, which comes not from the repetitive thought loops in our minds but from our deep evolutionary drive to survive? I hope so. And call me naive and deluded if you like, but right now I’m seeing plenty of reasons to hope.
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28 responses to “Happy New Universe Day”
Nice to find some good news. It sometimes seems like Trump is purposely turning his term into a caricature so people fully realize how absurd the Empire has become. In any case I hate following the lead of the MSM where it seems imperative to show disrespect to the Don. Perhaps extremely immature but I chafe at being told to do things. I like his missile attacks, hugely expensive, ineffective, very thought provoking, what the hell is he doing? type conversations. Oh and to the person telling us to turn off the TV, there isn’t one in my place, nor will there be. No movies either. Ok I am a little addicted to Online Chess.
The sooner we collapse the empire the better. Maybe. The thing that is in the air for me is a general feeling that we have tried so many sick things to scratch the itch, it seems inevitable that we wind up in a peaceful meadow, with a friend, contemplating God, happier than we have ever been! No gadgets. To me a sign of progress will be when the number of people being paid big money to lie starts to decrease.
Somebody asked H.G. Wells, “What do you think about democracy?”
He said, “It is a good idea.”
The man said, “A good idea?”
Wells said, “Yes, it has yet to happen.”
And it has still not happened .
Yet In the name of democracy something else has been going on.
Those who are powerful in society do not want any change in the social structure, because their power, interest and exploiting capacity depend on it.
And humanity has been exploited in every possible way.
Even their hopes have been exploited, their aspirations have been exploited, their absolutely valid demands have been exploited.
We are giving so much power, to power hungry people, with our own hands we are asking them to hang us!
This is not democracy.
In the name of democracy these people are exploiting us.
We have to go through a truly radical change…
https://whenwardisappears.wordpress.com/
The title is more apt than many of us think. Get out and look at the new spring, and prepare to see some new stars, constellations, and galaxies soon. That’s how awakening works, don’t you know?
Hi Caitlin,
First time commenting here. Well, first time even landing on your website to tell the truth.
I’m a long time reader/commenter/contributor at Naked Capitalism and Ian Welsh where I was initially introduced to your work. I guess you’ve pulled me into your blogosphere, which, (kudos to your sober worldview) is not an easy thing.
On topic: While I certainly don’t think “the universe” gives two craps about us, I have noted in several different blog comments over the past year that I believe humanity is nearing an inflection point in which our prospects for the long-term future is determined.
On the one hand, as you note things are looking optimistic on several fronts. The obedience to authoritarian blinders art being pulled from whole segments of the population. If you follow nuclear fusion (and I’m no believer in the technological myth) we are about 15 years out from commercially viable net gain energy production. That, is revolutionary. But we have to get there.
The inflection sits on the other hand. We have to not succumb to the devastation we’re wreaking on this planet. We have to not blunder into nuclear armageddon.
It’s coming.
I think this is what everyone is feeling. They just don’t have the scope of knowledge to apprehend the causes, and thus, reliably turn to mysticism.
Ive been told by a postgrad working in nuc fusion research that we are 50 years from commercially viable fusion
I’m approaching 50 years old and have been following advancements and set-backs for years now. The problem has been a lack of artificial gravity. MIT scientists, using new magnet tech, seem to think they’ve overcome this barrier. It’s moving fast and multiple countries and private enterprises are investing massive amounts of capital. It’s basically turned into a race like nuclear fission.
Link here: https://www.geek.com/science/mit-researchers-claim-nuclear-fusion-could-be-commercially-viable-in-15-years-1733398/
Could a spiritual revolution break down the deep divide in our political thinking and make us all a human family again? Here’s what Rumi said:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” doesn’t make any sense.
Wait a minute. Here we are commenting on Caitlin Johnstone’s blog and find people arguing about whether Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize? Of course he should, because it is the award given to the worst enemies of peace! Trump is horrible, and had nothing to do with any tentative peace agreement – which he might blow up with his instinctive rudeness as soon as he gets over there – unless it was because he might be bat shit crazy enough to end the world over this. No Trump, Chakras, Moon anybody, or cosmic energy should get credit. Koreans just want to end this externally imposed war, period. And they have no oil.
The absolute state of you, bruh.
It’s okay to admit that people you don’t like sometimes do good things. I have a wait-and-see attitude towards denuclearization. If it happens, it is a huge win for Trump.
I don’t know if it is Trump per se, but the world is definitely changing.
Caitlin, Sorry. I need achronisms explained. What does MAGA mean?
Caitlin, I love reading your work but what does MAGA mean? I have no idea.
Make America Great Again (!)
Thanks!
Yes! This is what I have been seeing to. I am jazzed as all get-out, as my nana used to say.
The energy is definitely changing and the propaganda media is desperately trying to suppress the knowledge!
-Here in Mexico, 14,000 people thronged the streets of Guadalajara to protest the wave of murderous violence the USA’s drug war has unleashed on the country. Total media blackout.
-In Armenia, they just politely dethroned their prime-minister-for-life.
-In Nicaragua, Ortega’s time is short as people protest police repression and censorship in demonstrations misrepresented in the English-language press as being totally about social-security pension cuts.
This is happening! And rogue journalists like you are covering it!
The universe has gone mad. What the hell is it with people suggesting Trump should get a Nobel Peace Prize? He has done NOTHING to invite peace in the Koreas; in fact, just the opposite. Shit, at the same moment that Moon and Kim were meeting, Trump was tweeting that North Korea couldn’t be trusted.
Any end to the Korean War, any peace treaty, any good that comes out of this is thanks to Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea. Period.
Seriously, WTF is wrong with everyone?
Perhaps it is not “everyone” who is wrong.
Well Obama got one and he din do nuffin’ !
Denial is a destructive force. Yes he did broker this agreement, that is clear unless you follow the Mockingbird Media….and I didn’t vote for him. Research Operation Mockingbird and the NDAA. The television and anything that feeds off of it are lies. Fact. Research it.
You can have your opinion….but opinions are not facts. Peace!
Even the South Korean President says Trump should receive the credit for this agreement. Turn off the boob tube.
Peace!
I dunno. I dunno if Trump ‘ended’ the war in Korea. Perhaps his insanity was a catalyst. I feel a change in the air coming from Greece, Spain, Catalonia, Portugal, and Italy. And maybe France–well Europe I guess. With the former, some say failed, Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis writing an introduction to the Communist Manifesto which people actually want to read, while some of the left implode over identity politics, I think the polarity of ideas is corroding with so many new perspectives so that we can no longer see merely left or right, we will have to judge ideas on their merits. And the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25) is very interesting with their new “European Spring” https://diem25.org/european-spring-the-transnational-list-to-present-a-progressive-alternative-in-2019-gathers-pace/. We live in interesting times.
How is it that all the traditional Presidents since 1953
could not put an end to the Korean War; – then along
comes the ”swap-cleaning” reality-TV-star with a big
ego, and a non-stop twitter machine, who talks with
junior high school syntax. . .
and after 1-year, two Korean leaders are able to do
an end-run around the war machine – to end this war?
.
Where the hell is John Bolton when the war machine wants
to crush a peace initiative?
.
I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but Great Caesar’s Ghost,
is this really going to happen?
.
If an end to the Korean war is authentic, what’s next?
.
Korean leaders Moon Jae-In, Kim Jong-Un, and
U.S. President Donald Trump get the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE?
.
Gull darn, Amy Goodman will choke on this!
Unless I missed it in the article, you skipped the one most ludicrous story on the news today. I happened to be changing channels and heard this: Donald Trump is being considered as a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Isn’t that a lot like saying we should give BP Petroleum Company an award for the work it did in cleaning up the escaped oil in the gulf of Mexico?
Only if the prison that is our minds, at least according to Scott Adams in his video, refuses to permit a belief that Donald Trump is a far better man than the caricature of him drawn by the Clinton machine or the bombastic rhetoric he insists on using to focus attention on the myriad of global political sicknesses that have invaded the organism of humanity over the past 75 years.
Turn off the t.v. It’s all lies. Fact. Research Operation Mockingbird and the NDAA Obama signed. Nothing on the t.v. or anything that feeds off it is truth. It’s manipulated facts…i.e….lies.
DT was responsible for this. Even the South Korean President says Trump should receive credit for this. Please do some research on your own…and turn off the t.v.
Peace!
Just starkly lovely!
Caitlin, you are a cosmic treasure. LOL !!