In a recent interview with CBS This Morning host Gayle King, former First Lady Michelle Obama contrasted her husband’s presidency with that of his successor by claiming that unlike Trump, the Obama family had had “no scandal”.

“I had to sit in [Trump’s inauguration] audience, one of a handful of people of color and then listen to that speech, and all that I had sort of held onto for eight years, watching my husband get raked over the coals, feeling like we had to do everything perfectly, you know, no scandal,” Obama said.

“Yeah,” King responded.

“No nothing,” Obama said  “No nothing!”

“Yes. No scandal,” King said.

You hear this claim a lot from Democrats. There was a viral tweet with tens of thousands of shares shortly before the 2016 election which read, “8 years. No scandals. No mistresses. No impeachment hearings. Just class and grace, personified.” It’s a very common refrain which resurfaces in memes and tweets periodically, usually as criticisms of the sitting president.

https://twitter.com/HolevasT/status/792163189320540160

Of course, the only reason anyone can attempt to claim that Barack Obama had “no scandals” is because in our bat shit crazy world, murdering, oppressing and exploiting large numbers of people isn’t considered scandalous.

In a sane, healthy world, a presidency like Obama’s would be looked upon with abject horror. Actually in a sane, healthy world a warmongering Wall Street crony like Obama would never have been elected in the first place, but if you were to show the members of a healthy, harmonious society the way that president used his power to do what he did to Libya and Syria, to continue and expand all of Bush’s most evil policies, to divert the push for economic justice into a neoliberal orgy for eight years, those people would recoil in absolute revulsion.

The only reason liberals think Obama had a low-key, drama-free presidency is because that presidency was normalized for them by the establishment narrative managers of the political/media class. If that class had been shrieking about Obama’s warmongering, surveillance expansion, persecution of whistleblowers, crony capitalism etc in the way that it’s been shrieking about Trump’s nonexistent Russia ties or his obnoxious tweets, these same people would see Obama as a horrible monster. But the propagandists didn’t do that, because it would hinder the cause of bloodthirsty imperialism abroad and crushing austerity at home.

The plutocrat-owned media and the plutocrat-owned politicians have the ability to control what people view as normal and what they view as weird, just by not reacting with alarm to occurrences they want normalized and reacting hysterically to occurrences they want rejected.

Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard’s fairly mild differences with US foreign policy orthodoxy, for example, are treated as so freakishly bizarre that you routinely see establishment pundits making fascinatingly absurd statements about her and getting away with it. The Hill‘s Reid Wilson posted a tweet that got thousands of likes and shares saying “Hot take/prediction: Tulsi Gabbard is going to endorse Trump in the end.” Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden shared Wilson’s tweet with the hysterical caption, “My prediction: Tulsi runs as third party Green candidate to help Trump win. I will take bets on this.” Again, thousands of likes and retweets.

https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1153842985764868099

Neither of these things are going to happen. Both Wilson and Tanden know they will never happen. Gabbard is a fairly conventional center-left Democrat who just wants to scale back US warmongering somewhat; she’s so well within the establishment-authorized Overton window that she just voted in favor of a House anti-BDS bill for Christ’s sake. But because she opposes a few aspects of the forever war and says it’s a good idea to communicate with world leaders who the US government doesn’t like, establishment attack dogs are acting like Hawaii’s second congressional district is being represented by some kind of eldritch tentacle beast from the Andromeda Galaxy.

I’m highlighting some of the more glaring recent examples here, but this sort of thing is happening all the time with varying degrees of subtlety. The public’s perceptions of events are continually being distorted by an establishment narrative management machine which controls what people view as normal and what they view as abnormal. You notice this very quickly when you start cultivating your news sense and paying attention to what news stories the mass media choose to give tons of coverage to and what stories they all but ignore; you notice almost immediately that there’s very little connection between how important a story is and how much news coverage it receives. The factor that determines the extent of coverage is the advancement of establishment interests and advertising revenue, in that order. Actual newsworthiness barely registers.

The way to rob the narrative managers of their ability to manipulate our sense of normalcy is to create an image of a sane and healthy world for ourselves to hold onto at all times, and to make that image into our own personal sense of what normal is. By having a vivid picture of what a sane and healthy world would look like in your mind, the false normal that the propagandists are trying to sell you will have no purchase.

Many people want to change the world, but hardly anyone ever sits down and creates a clear, positive image for themselves of a world in which all positive changes have been successfully put into full effect. Most people tend to just look at the current hot topic debates they’re seeing in the news over healthcare, immigration policies, gun control, austerity policies, abortion, LGBTQ issues, police brutality etc, and hope that those specific issues are resolved in their preferred way. But what if you zoomed out to a much bigger picture and imagined a healthy and harmonious world in which all our major problems have been resolved, and we’ve built something beautiful together? What would that be like?

I can’t envision such a world for you, because you and I will have different ideas about what a perfectly healthy and harmonious world looks like. I’m not trying to give you a specific image, I’m trying to get you to make a solid, lucid image of your own creation that can’t be replaced by the false normal the narrative managers are trying to implant in your mind day in and day out. Don’t hold back; go all the way and make the world as perfect as possible. All your ideas about what changes you might make are “realistic” or “unrealistic” are corrupted by propaganda anyway, so just create a perfect world.

This is worth setting aside an hour or two and investing some serious mental energy into. Once you’ve got a positive image of a healthy and harmonious world, and once you have a really clear image of what it would be like to live in that world, it’s kind of like you become someone from that imaginary world who stepped into this one and gets to see it for the first time. You get to see life through the eyes of someone for whom “normal” isn’t endless violence, oppression, exploitation and degradation, but for whom normal is the absence of those things. This makes all of the insanity in this world stand out like a black fly on a white sheet of paper, and gives you the ability to clearly see and describe precisely what needs to change about our situation here.

You’ve already had a taste of this if you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of having to explain what war is to a small child. Nothing about war makes sense to a creature who is looking at this world with fresh eyes; the confusion and upset which immediately flashes over their face will make you feel like an idiot even if you oppose war, just for being a part of a world where grown-ups engage in such idiotic behavior. Someone who came into this world from a healthy and harmonious parallel earth would see it very much the same way.

Imagine if war weren’t normalized. Imagine if a US plane dropping a bomb on foreign soil and ripping human bodies to shreds was treated as the horrific event that it actually is and given weeks of extensive investigative coverage, instead of something that happens many times every single day without any mention at all. A pundit on Fox or MSNBC will tell you that you’re a delusional imbecile if you think this should cease immediately. Anyone who’s seeing our world with unindoctrinated eyes knows you’re a delusional imbecile if you don’t.

All the injustices we’re trained like dogs to see as normal are like this. Corruption. Plutocracy. Wage slavery. The way the homeless are treated. The fact that there are homeless at all. Police militarization. The drug war. Prisons for profit. Government surveillance. Propaganda. All of these things are inherently disgusting, but we lose our accurate sense of disgust because we’ve been tricked into accepting them as normal. So remove the scales from your eyes by creating a new normal for yourself.

_____________________

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64 responses to “How To Inoculate Yourself From Establishment Bullshit”

  1. As an African-American, I was once really excited about Obama. I drank the hope-flavored kool-aid. However, the effect didn’t last long. My hope was destroyed, not by anything said about Obama, but by Obama himself, before he was even elected.

    I remember the exact moment. It was during the second debate. Barack Obama stood in front of an international television audience and his own children and said, “I will kill Osama bin Laden.”

    The shock I felt at that moment will stay with me for the rest of my life. I said to my self, “This man just publicly vowed to commit murder and no one batted an eye. He didn’t vow to capture bin Laden and bring him to justice, he vowed to murder him.” The feeling was something like watching the point in the Star Wars saga when Anakin Skywalker turns to the dark side and starts killing all of the Jedi children. Only, this was real life and real people’s lives would be taken. Further, if he was willing to publicly announce his murder plot, what would he be keeping secret?

    I had long before realized that this country did not operate the way we were taught and had stopped paying much attention to what happens in the mainstream media. I had already figured out that whenever they start hyping anything loud and hard, it is a misdirection, just like a magician’s sleight of hand, and I wonder what it is they don’t want us paying attention to. I had even recognized that the “culture” we live in is actually a psychotic cult of death and money, but, for a minute, I was taken in.

    Of course, if my disillusionment hadn’t come in that moment, it would have come with the broken promise to close the Guantanamo Bay torture palace, the broken promise to end the Iraq war, the drone strikes, the expanded endless wars, the persecution of whistle-blowers…. The only difference between Obama and any other politician is that he’s better looking and delivers his lies with a smoothness and finesse that surpasses most others.

    It just goes to show. Even those of us who are aware can sometimes slip back into the matrix. We must stay vigilant.

    1. OMG! I never considered this perspective. Today you destroyed the little affection I had for Obama, the war criminal.

  2. […]Imagine if war weren’t normalized.[…]

    A reading recommendation normality.
    “Erich Fromm – The Pathology of Normalcy”

    It is not a sign of mental health to be well adapted to a fundamentally ill society. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

  3. Steve Rauworth Avatar
    Steve Rauworth

    One has to wonder if, as intelligent at the Obamas are, as committed to social change as their careers were prior to Barack’s holding political office, and as black Americans, subject to some of worst this empire deals out, if they understood, and still might understand the depth of the problem. The apparent answer is no, but then they might also, knowing it, have just put on blinders in their ambition for power. The system encourages this from all contenders. Entering into the upper echelons via Harvard and Princeton and thus adopting the attitude that they have the right to manipulate the world at will is the Kool-Aid du jour of the ruling class.

  4. Another excellent article, thank you Caitlin. I’ve been following your work sporadically, time to give you an email addie.

    William Morris, a great socialist activist (and writer, and designer) of late 19th century England may have pioneered this approach with his utopian novella, News from Nowhere. The protagonist wakes up in a post capitalist future (the 1950s as I recall) in which everyone is working a few hours a day when they choose to, usually making something useful and beautiful to give away. If a road needs fixing, a few blokes get together and go out and do it.

    In this age of advanced tech this dream would have been so incredibly easy to realise, had capitalism not squandered our resources and ruined the climate in the service of private profits.

    We need to all keep up the fight — why? And what’s the point? Never forget, even as the lights go out, that there is a moral dimension to the universe. We fight because we must.

  5. […]Of course, the only reason anyone can attempt to claim that Barack Obama had “no scandals” is because in our bat shit crazy world, murdering, oppressing and exploiting large numbers of people isn’t considered scandalous.[…]

    WORD Caitlin!
    For example: Obama was the first US president to wage war during his entire term of office. And this is just one example.

    Someone in the comments here mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize Obama received. In this context I’d like to share with you a little piece of music about 2 minutes long that I made as I heard Obama talk about it in the Stephen Colbert late show:

    the real SystemErrOr : Obomber [I Still Don’t Know]

    Here is the relevant location in the youtube video.

    Take care all!
    And
    LLAP
    =Λ=

    1. Couldn’t find the freakin’ volume control.
      Permanent deafness isn’t on my priority list of things to yearn for, so your piece of music remains in oblivion, unfortunately.

      Some praise Obama for his sense of humor, but he looks to me like a person who is just good at memorizing text.
      Actual comprehension doesn’t go beyond the confines of his house, or his limousine.
      I expect he has several books about IQ too, just to help him retain his impression that he is above average, which I’m sure he is – like that’s some sort of benchmark in today’s America…?

      1. Hello there.
        Thank you for your answer!
        The volume control, on the side there, is at the bottom right, where the player is. The bottom line of the browser window is the player. At the top is only the waveform display and a button to play / stop. This applies to the desktop, I don’t have any mobile devices.
        But I guess you also have a volume control on your device? – however.

        As far as I had observed, Obama can’t remember texts very well. He often used teleprompters for his speeches and when they failed, he was visibly irritated and didn’t know what to say. In my opinion Obama is just a well trained actor, no more and no less – a dazzler and star for the dull masses.

        Maybe IQ is a kind of benchmark in the USA, I don’t know, I’m from Germany, but IQ doesn’t say anything about personality and what a person with a high IQ does with it. IQ is primarily an evaluation system of the industry, in order to be able to decide for what the self-sustaining slaves are useful and can be employed.

        If I can give you a reading recommendation on intelligence that comes to mind spontaneously, then this would be the one here:

        https://web.archive.org/web/20081026025920/http://www.increasingintelligence.com/index.html

        “Think for yourself and question authority – Timothy Leary”

        Greets and have a good one!

      2. Oh well, here’s another source for the music, on my website – maybe it works better for you.

        https://www.therealsystemerror.de/the-real-systemerror/obomber-i-still-don-t-know.html

  6. “And I know from a good friend who was there when it happened, that at a small dinner with progressive supporters – after these progressive supporters were banging on Obama before the election, Why don’t you do the things we thought you stood for? Obama turned sharply and said, ‘Don’t you remember what happened to Martin Luther King Jr.?’ That’s a quote, and that’s a very revealing quote. . . . I suspected at the time, now I’m pretty convinced the president of the United States is afraid of the CIA.”
    — Ray McGovern, former CIA officer who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President’s Daily Brief
    .
    CIA whistleblower: Obama reversed positions because of ‘what happened to MLK Jr.’
    http://www.policestateusa.com/2014/mcgovern-obama-afraid-of-cia/
    .
    Note: During the last year of his life, MLK was actively campaigning against the Vietnam war, and for that reason was falsely accused of being a communist.
    .
    “This is what’s going to happen to me also. I keep telling you, this is a sick society.”
    — Martin Luther King Jr. to his wife Coretta, after the JFK assassination

    1. MLK WAS a communist. Pictures of him attending Communist Training sessions are in the public domain. MLK was also a philander and a plagiarist. Anyone using MLK as an example of “change” is a fool and a poser.

      1. Larry, that comes from J. Edgar Hoover’s passionate hatred of MLK, and his COINTELPRO smear campaign against Dr. King.
        .
        You know, dissidents that work for truth, peace, and human rights are routinely subjected to smear campaigns. And when that isn’t enough, they are often imprisoned or even killed.
        .
        In a world full of lies, when we don’t verify facts, when we believe anything against anyone without evidence, then we are mere accessories of the real criminals and evil doers.
        .
        – – –
        .
        “When King condemned the Vietnam War in a speech at Riverside Church on 4 April 1967, the FBI ‘interpreted this position as proof he has been influenced by Communist advisers’ and stepped up their covert operations against him (Senate Select Committee, 180). . . .
        “In August 1967, the FBI created a COINTELPRO against ‘Black Nationalist–Hate Groups,’ which targeted SCLC, King, and other civil rights leaders. . . . In the last few months of King’s life, the FBI intensified its efforts to discredit him and to “neutralize” SCLC (Senate Select Committee, 180).”
        .
        Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) | The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute
        https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/federal-bureau-investigation-fbi

  7. Happy National Rebellion Day!!!!
    (what Cuba celebrates as the anniversary of the revolution that sent the mobsters and other capitalists fleeing)

  8. RT’s days in Britain are numbered.
    https://tass.com/economy/1070527
    ..
    Notice RT’s purported failure to provide “due impartiality” as the excuse for Ofcom’s fine. RT is being fined for not spreading the UK government’s bald-faced propaganda. Amazing. I guess that if the UK government says that the earth is flat, RT has to present that view with “impartiality”.

    I find the relationship in time between Johnson’s coronation and the above announcement by an organ of what is now His Majesty’s government to be much much more than a mere coincidence. Simply stated, in order to “unite” the people of the UK, RT, the voice of truth 99% of the time, must be silenced so that the only thing that the people or the UK can hear is the British MSM, to voice of propaganda 99% of the time.

  9. Bob montgomery Avatar
    Bob montgomery

    For once you took your eye off the ball. Yeah Gabbard is a pretty conventional center-left Democrat with unacceptable views on regime change wars. But she’s unique among the twenty candidates in defending Julian Assange. And that makes her totally “bizarro” and puts her way beyond the pale for the Democratic controlled MSM.

    1. Gabbard recently tweated out that she was having a Sunday dinner with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and his family. What is she doing pandering to this race baiting pos?

  10. Hi Caitlin, I admire your guts and persistent efforts to unveil the ruling narrative. You are right in most cases as far as I can assess, and your general perspective I support totally. I think if you could put in a little less emotion/anger in your comments it could reach a still larger public. It would certainly be easier for me to forward your messages. I myself generally skip the parts you “get loose” so to say. I want to hold on to the thread/core message and these parts are distracting. I hope I make myself clear because English is not my home language. Anyway, keep up the good work!

  11. The Obama Presidency was just as guilty of war crimes, building up the Surveillance State, promoting US imperialism, and slavish adherence to US capitalism as its Bush predecessor. The Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin – they both exist to perpetuate, preserve, and uphold the Divine Right of Profit, and the world empire objectives of US imperialism.

    It is often forgotten it was Obama who authorised the assassination/murder of Osama Bin Laden, when he could easily have been captured and put on trial for his alleged terrorist offences. The US State machine did not want a trial to take place because of all the incriminating, revealing, and damning disclosures Bin Laden would have made about US collaboration, collusion, and coperation with his outfit, and family, prior to, and immediately after, the attacks on the Twin Towers.

    There was also a massive escalation of Drone killings under Obama, in addition to the military adventures in Libya and Syria, where US arms and money have been freely given to Islamic terrorist organisations who happen to chime in with US imperialism’s strategic objectives in these countries.

    The reason why there is so much hagiography surrounding Obama in the US capitalist press and media is due to its obsession with, and promotion of, the “identity politics” agenda – deliberately banging on about issues of race, gender, sexuality, age, and the like, IN A CONCERTED, COORDINATED, AND SINISTER CAMPAIGN OF DISINFORMATION to belittle, devalue, and distract attention from CLASS, and the much more important CLASS DIVISION OF CAPITALIST SOCIETY INTO EXPLOITERS – BOURGEOISIE- AND EXPLOITED – WORKING CLASS.

    The overwhelmingly bourgeois and petit-bourgeois press and media propagandists in America and elswhere in the capitalist world cultivate the myth that Obama’s Presidency represented some sort of massive leap forward for Afro-Americans, Hispanics, and other oppressed minorities in America. IT WAS NOTHING OF THE SORT.

    It was, however, a massive leap upwards in SALARY, STATUS, AND LIFE-TIME SECURITY for Obama and his privileged family, who are a part of the American ruling class, just like multi-millionairesses, and fake “progressives,” like Oprah Winfrey.

    It is a person’s politics that counts, not the colour of their skin, their sexual appendages, or their sexual proclivities.

    The entire “identity politics” smorgasbord is a deliberate diversion and distraction from CLASS STRUGGLE, and the need for a Socialist transformation of society. It is also a very convenient way for the Oprah Winfrey windbags and hypocrites of this capitalist world to enrich themselves on a humungous scale whilst masquerading as “champions” for oppressed minorities of one kind or another.

    The issue of ending racism, like every other key injustice in a capitalist society, can NEVER be decisively and permanently resolved unless and until capitalism is overthrown on a worldwide basis.

    It is no accident that far-right politicians and crypto-fascists like Trump are enjoying a renaissance all over the capitalist world because capitalism in crisis breeds such movements and individuals in the same way as a body racked with cancer breeds cancer cells.

    Workers of all countries, and of all colours and races, UNITE – to paraphrase Marx and Engels in their world-changing “Communist Manifesto” of 1848. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

    1. The “Killing of Osama Bin Laden” was a fraud.

      After the raid:
      The body of so-called “Bin Laden” was immediately thrown overboard mafia-style to the bottom of the ocean.
      Before we got to even see it.
      Photos of the body were ordered destroyed or turned over to the CIA, out of reach of FOIA requests.
      The helmet cameras were at first heralded! Hurrah !!, everyone said. But then we were told, “they never existed”.
      The witnesses, the Seals, were ordered silent forever. No witnesses. Forever.
      The DNA was handled by the CIA itself.

      At the same time the CIA is claiming, “We got Bin Laden”, they are eliminating all evidence.

      Who trusts the CIA?

      It was a year and a half before the book “No Easy Day” was published by one of the Seals.

      The Seal that got the best look at the body, took pictures of the body, collected bodily fluid samples and compared the body
      to pictures he had brought on the raid, said in his book that he had refused to identify the body as Bin Laden.
      The Seal said on 60 Minutes that when he got back to base the CIA came in and told him and General McRaven, “you got him, it was Bin Laden”.
      The CIA. The CIA told the Seals and General McRaven it was bin Laden.

      Three years later another Seal broke ranks and came out into the lime light.
      His version and the first Seal’s version do not match up. But the second Seal explained it as, “fog of war”.
      The second Seal, who is credited with shooting “Bin Laden”, said he did seven things in less than one second.
      That is the total time he had to look at “bin Laden”.
      Less than one second and doing multiple things. And while wearing night vision goggles.

      He said, while wearing night vision goggles, that he:
      1) jumped into the doorway.
      2) id’d the figure as bin Laden
      3) made sure he wasn’t going to shoot any women or children
      4) raised his weapon because the figure was taller than he expected
      5) noticed a weapon on a nearby shelf
      6) saw that the figure appeared to be reaching for the weapon
      7) put several shots into the skull of the figure
      He said that all took place in less than one second and then he continued into the room and the next in his sweep.
      Never stopped to look at “the mess” he had made.

      There is no evidence, but there are two witnesses. One which refused to id the body as bin Laden
      and the other had less than a second to make his id while wearing night vision goggles
      and dealing with the fog of war.

      Witnesses ordered to be silent forever. Pictures destroyed. Helmet cameras “never existed”.
      Body immediately thrown overboard to the bottom of the ocean mafia-style. The CIA handled the DNA.

      The CIA told us all what to believe, as they were destoying all evidence.
      Their claim was echoed and multiplied a million times in the news media.

  12. [In a sane, healthy world a warmongering Wall Street crony like Obama would never have been elected in the first place]

    Actually, in a sane, healthy world NO ONE would have been elected, because nobody would need a president in the first place.

    1. This is a good and important point. Of course, it depends on what one means by ‘sane’ and ‘healthy’. The instincts of humans seem well adapted to being members of small bands of predatory apes running through the woods, killing large animals including one another. The addition of rationality to the species has been a dangerous experiment, because it has reached and amplified their practices but not their desires. ‘Formerly, man could not do as he desired. Now he can do as he desires; and he must change his desires, or perish.’

      Unfortunately, it’s not just the media.

  13. The Titanic of the U.S. Empire is on full speed ahead.

    We peons have not been able to influence the officers
    of this ship in any way, shape or form.

    Now, there’s a tussle among the officers of the ship
    about who gets to sail the Titanic into the iceberg.

    The passengers in First Class are busy having fun by
    placing bets to see who gets to crash the ship into the iceberg.

    Meanwhile, the passengers on the peon deck are told how
    wonderful they are to have faith in the First-Class 1-Percenters
    and the Officers of the ship to successfully crash into the iceberg
    so that the owners of the Life Boat Company get to test the life boats.
    AND, they have provided the peon deck with giant flat-screen TV’s in
    every room with over 666 channels to choose from.

    god how I love watching the movie “Groundhog Day” over & over again.
    How about you-?

    1. Great post Elkojohn !
      And yes I’ve seen Groundhog Day again and again. In the end he learned authenticity.
      Everyone on the Titanic was at the mercy of the owner of the White Star line….JP Morgan !
      Quintessential bankster, who insisted on a lighter steel for the hull, to save money, and at whose behest they set sail with a known fire in one of the coal bunkers. The fire meant they had to clear all the coal from the bunker into the furnace, hence the full speed mode. But worse it ran them low on coal so they couldn’t slow down or change course without running out of coal before reaching New York. The fire also catastrophically weakened one of the famous bulkheads that was supposed to hold the water back after a hole in the hull. You might say the stage was set for a disaster by a greedy bankster. You might very well say, here we go again. But the stage is very much bigger this time.

      1. foster goodwill Avatar
        foster goodwill

        Its a MAD world ,and madness speaks in the media.

  14. While your trying to imagine such a world put on a little John Lennon song urging the same.

    Thanks for putting Obama’s legacy of criminality in proper perspective. Most of my so called liberal friends who get their news from CNN/MSNBC worship that asshole, and I can not convince them otherwise. But I will keep trying.

    1. Actually, that 1/2 breed POS Obama did his best to destroy this country and all the commie left wing morons didn’t even notice.

  15. HEAR, HEAR!!!! *And now this word from our sponsor.*

  16. To inoculate means implanting something for protection. Yes, if you have to, but we also have our natural defences against BS like observation, intelligence, reason, and wakefulness! They just need to be exercised.
    In Western democracies the political arena is where ‘the establishment’ agenda has to be played out, and so we need to be very watchful of what goes on there. We might note that politicians come in two forms. Those who want to BE someone, and those who want to DO something.
    Obama came triumphantly into the arena parading himself as the latter who would do things to deliver “hope and change”. But he just wanted to be President. So he played the part nicely, and played a lot of golf, and let the deep state run things. Very little that happened on his watch was initiated by him. In other words he abdicated. This was strange for a man of such considerable gifts, and therefore he should be remembered as a great deceiver. The warrior turned into a fool. By and large the American electorate weren’t awake enough to detect it, and they continue to dream. Will it take a nightmare to wake them?

  17. I love you, Caitlin, and it’s not just the Scotch style ale AKA “real beer” talking. I’m also sure that the vast majority of your readers also love you with or without the accompanying beer. Keep up the good work.

    Initial impression… that picture, MO in her spell casting pose… I seem to remember once reading something about how the eyes being so totally absent of symmetry represents the outward manifestation of a psychotic “tell”. Apparent psychosis notwithstanding, Mrs. Obama does seem to have some very pretty nails.

  18. While most of the world stayed stunned by a half colored man serving as the President of the United States; the deep state killed with impunity. Barack Obama was a perfect ” hood ornament ” that did real good at hiding the evil, ugly, government of these United States. Donald Trump is evil and ugly, like our government, and he never feels any shame about any part of his ugliness. The Trumpeteers love him for it. If you think his first term is bad; you have not seen anything yet. After President Trump is re-elected; the gloves come off and the hammer comes down extra hard on everybody!

    1. Excellent post. 1/2 breed Obama did his best to destroy the USA and do the bidding of Israel by invading Libya and Syria. And the Jew controlled media lied for him.

  19. Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
    H.L. Mencken: ‘Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.’
    Mark Twain, “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”

    Politicians exist to get elected, not to represent the electorate.

  20. “I can’t envision such a world for you, because you and I will have different ideas about what a perfectly healthy and harmonious world looks like.”
    ..
    I am going to ABSOLUTELY DISAGREE with the part of the above quote that I’ve made bold. I believe with every fiber of my being that if every human being on planet earth were to undertake to manufacture in their minds a DETAILED image of exactly how people would behave toward/with each other, and exactly how they would organize with each other to produce the necessities of life — both of these for a living-day-to-day basis in an ideal world, these billions of images in billions of minds, in many different languages and from many different cultures, would be, in the most important aspects, PRACTICALLY IDENTICAL.
    ..
    To illustrate just one example of an important aspect, no matter on what part of the planet we live on, most of us have neighbors with whom we frequently interact to one degree or another. There can be good neighbors and there can be bad neighbors. When we moved into our neighborhoods, or new people moved into our neighborhoods, we “naturally” realized that the first meetings with those neighbors was of utmost importance for the future of those neighborly relations. What was the foundational principle that determined how we would behave during that very first meeting? What principle did we “bet on” that would engender good relations for the future? I’m willing to literally bet my life that every reader of what I’m writing is right now thinking/imagining the exact same thing, to the point that I don’t even have to state it. It’s that “self” evident.
    ..
    Another example. I think that it is equally self-evident that no human being on planet earth enjoys digging ditches or harvesting sugar cane or laying asphalt shingles on a roof , etc. etc. etc. on an extremely hot day. But the “job” of bringing the ditch into existence, getting sugar in the bowl and new shingles on the roof, etc. ad infinitum, MUST SOMEHOW be done. Just exactly HOW and by just exactly WHOM are those things going to be accomplished in the imaginations of the billions of people imagining an ideal-yet-practical world or, for that matter, in the minds of good neighbors who have to build fences between properties or clear debris from the neighborhood after a storm? What is the very first principle that those minds “base their thinking” on that will result in getting the job done while maintaining good relations between people rather than have them deteriorate? Again, I think that that is self-evident.
    ..
    IMO, although this principle is absolutely necessary to be employed between people who profess to “love” each other, it is also absolutely necessary, but sometimes much more difficult, that this principle be employed between people who do NOT love each other. In the latter case it must be employed, not out of love, but out of pure self-interest, in order to maintain decent-but-never-going-to-be-close relationships – in other words, to maintain “civil” relationships between perhaps distant “strangers” who are never going to meet.
    ..
    So as we all begin imagining an ideal world in which we individuals are not the only inhabitant, is that world going to be all about me, me, me, or is it going to be about us, us, us? Keep in mind that the former has gotten “first world” humanity to exactly where it is today – the edge of extinction by either environmental catastrophe or nuclear war. (And do not fucking tell me that the present situation exists because we have NOT been greedy enough!)

    1. In anticipation of this essential ideation being undertaken by a “super majority” of the global population and achieving what I believe would be what 99.9999% of us would agree, like Eternal Peace by way of collaborations among equally sovereign individuals, equally responsible for harm they cause others…

      We’re going to have to immediately design and implement an AI system (expectantly, we must have AI designers on our side) that will tap into currently available surveillance made to harm and exploit us, but would now be used to help us realize @realGlobalUnityofPurpose without the aforementioned “Bullshit”. Thom Madden

      1. OUR problem is that 0.0001% of us own or control the VAST majority of LARGE SCALE capital equipment (for their own astronomical profit) upon which we, the 99.9999% of the population knowingly, or unknowingly depend for our lifestyle, bad or good.
        ..
        If we 99.9999% do not want to go back in time to an era in which most tasks were accomplished by human hard labor, and continue to enjoy the benefit of LARGE SCALE capital equipment, we, the 99.9999%, have to some how, any way, take control of that LARGE SCALE equipment for OUR “profit”.
        ..
        There is no other way forward to a better world. It can not be acceptable for the “owners” of a factory that employs 2,000 people in a town of 20,000 people to decide to move “their” factory to another country in order to hire 1,500 desperate, starving people who are “willing” to work 12 hours a day for food and a place to sleep on the factory floor, in order to make more profit.

  21. I have repeatedly advised my friends to imagine that better world you speak of, Caitlin. And although I do this myself, I have yet to convince a single one of them to do it for themselves (and really, for all of us). Inner work and visualization are just something so different and strange to most people, they won’t do it. Would that it was otherwise – our ability to dream of a better world might b our salvation from this imperfect mess we are mired in…..

    1. I’ve had the same experience… I think if we can develop an incorruptible polling system (maybe distributed blockchain) that will make every vote
      of equal weight with every other sovereign vote, people will participate. I believe the positive feedback of the “We the Sovereign Persons” finally having a direct effect, would ensure it…

  22. Obombie, Eric “the Red” Holder and ATF Operation Fast & Furious shipped thousands of illegal weapons to Mexico killing thousands of Mexicans.

    Obombie, Reptillary and CIA Operation Zero Footprint shipped thousands of illegal weapons to the big Mo hood to overthrow Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Libya and Syria killing hundreds of thousands in the middle east.

    Obombie is a war criminal….Moochie is a tranny….

  23. Michel Bélisle Avatar
    Michel Bélisle

    I just feel I have to post my last comment again because I feel somebody somewhere is not eager to let it be known:

    “One thing is sure. There is no normalcy in the weather with extreme heat in Europe and in North America and in fact all around the world with record-Breaking températures:

    https://weather.com/safety/heat/news/2019-07-22-europe-heat-wave-forecast-france-germany-netherlands-belgium

    It seems that God is signaling to us that the propagandists of the System are lying to us and that we are not living at all in “normalcy” as the propagandists of the System try to convince us.

    And there are more and more earthquakes, volcanoes etc…

    No doubt the Second Coming of Jesus is very near. And I pray the Rosary to hasten His Glorious return because I am fed up and I have really really seen enough of all that bullshit.”

  24. “You’ve already had a taste of this if you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of having to explain what war is to a small child.”

    This sentence hit home, as my grand daughter will soon be asking these very questions herself. I believe your writings resonate with a lot of your followers because we have kept our child within ourselves alive and awake somehow. Thank you.

    1. By chance I did not have a lot of trouble with this. I was managing a small nursery school scene — three year olds — and one of them asked that question. I answered, ‘Remember when Billy punched Bobby in the face because he wanted the toy Bobby had and Bobby wouldn’t give it to him?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘That’s war.’

  25. That entire Michelle Obama sequence begins with a lie. One way to avoid BS is to stop following the argument when you detect an obvious lie. Nothing that follows can be good.
    —–
    The Lie is that “she had to sit there.” No she didn’t. Yes, tradition says she should be there. And there would have been comment and discussion if she was not there. But, there wasn’t an armed guard pointing a gun at her head to keep her there. It was not a Hollywood Star Wars movie where the princess is chained and collared to the throne. She didn’t have to be there. She could have publicly said she wouldn’t attend, and dealt with the stir that would have caused. She could have been more diplomatic and pleaded illness and that it wasn’t a good day for her to sit outside in January in the northern hemisphere. She didn’t have to be there.

    1. Are you suggesting that attending President Trump’s inauguration represented a betrayal of Mrs. Obama’s noble, upstanding convictions? A step down from her standards? Something beneath her?

      If you had read Caitlin’s essay, you’d know there was nothing particularly upstanding and noble about the Obama administration. At the moment of the new president’s inauguration, Trump was a thousand times more noble and innocent than Obama. Dennis Kucinich, one of the truest progressives to hold public office in this country, said of Trump’s inaugural address: “[T]he 45th President, in his Inaugural Address, indicated an awareness of economic and policy concerns which needed to be said, and must be addressed.”

      You can read the inaugural address here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/

    2. If that’s your takeaway from the article just go back to sleep.

  26. I felt the dissonance of our troubled world early in life; I lost a great deal of my trust in people then, and my perceptions of truth were irrevocably changed. Talk about feeling like an outsider.

    I know we cannot change the world individually, but together we stand a chance. How on earth does one go about getting that started? Little by little? One by one? I’ll be dead before it happens. A quick way to a clear vision of reality? Try this: trash television!

  27. Even before the targets in Yemen had been “legally” designated as
    a Foreign Terrorist Organization Obama used cluster bombs to shred
    dozens of women and children in a failed attempt to hit members of
    “al Qaida in Yemen (AQY)”.
    .
    The war crime immediately became a dirty Obama secret, covered up
    with the help of the MSM, in particular ABC.
    .
    An enthusiastic White House had leaked to their contacts at ABC that
    Obama had escalated the War on Terror, taking it to another country,
    Yemen. This was December 17, 2009 only days after Obama had returned
    from his ceremony in Oslo where he proudly accepted the Nobel Peace
    Prize.
    .
    ABC was thrilled with their scoop and in manly voices announced
    the escalation in the War on Terror.
    .
    The very next day ABC went silent forever about it, joining the cover up
    of a war crime.
    .
    Hillary Clinton, by the way, committed her own act of cover up.
    Covering her butt by backdating a memo.
    .
    The designation of a organization as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization)
    is not official nor legal until it is published in the Federal Register.
    An oversight? Obama attacked Yemen before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
    had done the paperwork to make the killing legal?
    .
    The designation was not published until a month later, January 19, 2010.
    Hillary Clinton back dated the memo she published in the Register with the date of
    December 14, 2009, to somewhat cover her butt.
    .
    Obama’s acceptance speech in Oslo for the Nobel Peace Prize was December 10th.
    .
    Yemen leaders agreed to participate in Obama’s coverup saying it was their
    own Yemen forces that had accidentally shredded dozens of women and children.
    .
    Obama was grateful to the Yemen leaders. The Yemen leaders were not
    honored in Oslo. But, ironically, Obama ended his speech honoring women
    and children, days before he ordered their slaughter.
    .
    Obama in Oslo, December 10, 2009:
    .
    “Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty
    still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what
    few coins she has to send that child to school — because she
    believes that a cruel world still has a place for that child’s
    dreams.
    .
    Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will
    always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the
    intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed,
    we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.
    We can do that — for that is the story of human progress; that’s the
    .
    hope
    .
    of all the world; and at this moment of challenge,
    that must be our work here on Earth.
    .
    Thank you very much.
    (Applause.)
    .
    One week later Obama shredded dozens of women and children in Yemen
    and covered it up.
    .
    Here is ABC’s Brian Ross using his most masculine voice to boast about Obama’s attack:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHcg3TNSRPs
    .
    Wikileaks cable corroborates evidence of US airstrikes in Yemen (Amnesty Intl)
    https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2010/12/wikileaks-cable-corroborates-evidence-us-airstrikes-yemen/
    .
    Actual cable at Wikileaks:
    https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10SANAA4_a.html
    .
    More at ABC [12/18/2009]:
    https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236
    https://web.archive.org/web/20190624203826/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236
    https://web.archive.org/web/20190725171012/https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cruise-missiles-strike-yemen/story?id=9375236
    .
    ps.
    I am pleasantly surprised to find that the ABC video is still available at YouTube, and it can be discovered byboth DuckDuckGo and Google. One curious thing though, I have never seen the “Views” counter change at Youtube. It stands at 2413 views. Perhaps it just needs a nudge.

    1. Hillary Clinton’s back dated memo in the Federal Register:
      .

      .
      [Federal Register: January 19, 2010 (Volume 75, Number 11)]
      [Notices]
      [Page 2920]
      From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
      [DOCID:fr19ja10-110]
      https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2010-01-19/pdf/2010-946.pdf
      =======================================================================
      ———————————————————————–
      .
      DEPARTMENT OF STATE
      .
      [Public Notice 6875]
      .
      Designations of Foreign Terrorist Organizations; In the Matter of
      the Designation of: al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Also
      Known as…….Also Known as al Qa’ida in Yemen (AQY)…
      .
      Therefore, I hereby designate the aforementioned organization and
      its aliases as a foreign terrorist organization pursuant to section 219
      of the INA.
      .
      This determination shall be published in the Federal Register.
      .
      December 14, 2009.
      Hillary Rodham Clinton,
      Secretary of State, Department of State.
      [FR Doc. 2010-880 Filed 1-15-10; 8:45 am]
      BILLING CODE 4710-10-P

      1. Did I mention?

        Backdating can be a serious crime.

    2. Good post except for one thing. You correctly identify a war crime but at least seem to be saying it wouldn’t have been so bad if Clinton had “done the paperwork”. In my opinion THE major problem in the world is the US assuming the right to decide what is or isn’t “legal”; then all it’s lickspittle “allies” murmuring their approval.

      1. I appreciate your comment.
        .
        I put “legal” in quotes for a reason.
        However, that being said, if I post this
        again elsewhere it will be after a
        rewrite.
        .
        Thanks for the constructive criticism.

  28. Sandra Dobbyn Avatar
    Sandra Dobbyn

    On the very day Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace prize, I would love to know the numbers of how many men, women, and especially children were killed around the world by bomb or starvation ordered by him. Could that number be found somewhere?

  29. Michel Bélisle Avatar
    Michel Bélisle

    One thing is sure. There is no normalcy in the weather with extreme heat in Europe and in North America and in fact all around the world with record-Breaking températures:

    https://weather.com/safety/heat/news/2019-07-22-europe-heat-wave-forecast-france-germany-netherlands-belgium

    It seems that God is signaling to us that the propagandists of the System are lying to us and that we are not living at all in “normalcy” as the propagandists of the System try to convince us.

    And there are more and more earthquakes, volcanoes etc…

    No doubt the Second Coming of Jesus is very near. And I pray the Rosary to hasten His Glorious return because I am fed up and I have really really seen enough of all that bullshit.

  30. You know, Ms Johnstone, my perfect world would just recognize and accept people, their ethnicities, religions, genders, colours; I like to think war would stop because of common empathy.

    I actually want to comment on how normalization of a particular idea is working, right now, and I say this with respect for my Black Brother wherever he is from, and because I need him to illustrate my point. Class war is colour blind, but the poor are distracted by identity politics.

    Law and Order is an American t.v. show that tends to popularize the idea of Black pimps, underage prostitutes, and actions without conscience. A Black guy does a bad thing to a young woman and goes to prison; sometimes, he is released with a rehabilitated conscience, usually after finding God. Rarely are johns mentioned, and everyone has a heart of gold or a guilty conscience–as in, this is how people behave, and they’re basically pretty good. The world as it is displayed on television.

    Do you ever think of this nonsense as a form of reinforced discipline? The television images as a reflection of how people are made to be? Black guy? Bad. White cop? Good.

    In real life, Jeffrey Epstein trafficked with underage girls, had money from where no one knows, and got hurt in prison. Everything is phrased euphemistically, a white sex trafficker is not called a pimp, under age girls are not referred to as prostitutes, and their behaviour is rationalized as neglected youth and unidentified billionaires are not called johns, they’re just not mentioned. Epstein tries to kill himself in prison because white guys can’t face what they have done; it couldn’t possibly be because jailed men can’t abide a pedophile?

    Rich, white people are treated differently because money enables the right to purchase privilege, and that is wrong; Epstein is a common pimp and billionaires, especially the elite crowd men, are just johns, they paid to have sex. I think it is disingenuous of the ‘free’ press to ignore the obvious discrepancy: there are more WHITE billionaire men getting away with breaking the law than there are than poor, black pimps, the most common image of them is from t.v.

    I don’t know if I make sense but I think the Epstein case is an illustration of capitalism failing, or society, but something has broken. The veil that separated the rich from the poor has been torn because white johns are getting away with breaking the law, and that is wrong. No one is above the law, and the law doesn’t work if the blatantly guilty aren’t held to account.

    Of course, I could be wrong. Bernie Madoff has asked Trump to commute his sentence and he could; but it strikes me, an awful lot of poor people just found legal arguments.

    1. Random Castagna Avatar
      Random Castagna

      There is no way to know if Epstein did what he is accused of or not until he is tried. You know – due process ? Presumption of innocence?

      1. Actually, that is the point, presumption of innocence; Epstein has been imprisoned because he is a flight risk; most people are not flight risks because they’ll forfeit their passports to stay out of prison. Double standard based on wealth?

        1. If one has access to a transcontinental private jet, plenty of places to go and piles of cash, gold and diamonds – why stick around for a politically explosive show trial knowing any number of former friends have the motive and means to permanently silence you, particularly if you’re being held by “authorities”?

          1. Some would think wealth enabling access to leave verses poverty meaning the rest of us are stuck is the issue; think of two guys with a past history, one rich can flee the jurisdiction, poor guy is stuck; now considers those two guys as innocents charged with a crime, money should not mean one is treated differently from the other. Yet a poor guy will be stuck, a poor black guy will be f %$#ed but it is more likely a rich white guy will flee the scene and a rich guilty white guy will just get off.

  31. At the end of WW2 the US Army determined that an unsatisfactory number of US soldiers had shot at the enemy and deliberately missed. Soldiers who decide not to kill are not much use so something had to be done. A new training regime was developed so that troops could kill and feel good about it.
    Now America is full of former soldiers and political leaders who have no trouble killing to ‘solve’ problems.
    This will not end well.

    1. American police forces give preference to Veterans in their hiring.
      American police forces kill over a thousand Americans every year.

  32. Thank you for articulating this so clearly.

  33. Maybe she made her comment to soon being Obama not involved in a scandal as she percieves it. Epsteins tapes and black book are not yet revealed.

  34. Dear Caitlin,
    You are clearly an outstanding Human being with a clear head on top of those broad shoulders.
    I would just ask you to check out Kate Raworth’s 2017 book Doughnut Economics. She has many thought provoking ideas for the 21st century. I am sure you will resonate with them. She has youtubes, Ted Talks, etc. to familiarize yourself with her message.
    I would love if you became a fan and used your platform to expand Kate’s message.
    Keep up the good work.
    Ron Rubin

  35. Michel Bélisle Avatar
    Michel Bélisle

    There is a sense of normalcy in this world only if you are of bad faith.

    For people of good faith, the propagandists of the System cannot convince them that everything is ok.

    But too much people have too much to lose so they have to endorse all the lies knowing very well they are lies.

    Days of Noah are here. Totally fed up. I pray the Rosary for the return of Jesus, which return according to many prophecies is very soon.

    Good song very telling by famous French Canadian crooner Luc de la Rochellière:

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