I’m taking a few days off from writing and social media to do some personal inventory and think hard about how I can take this weird project of mine to the next level. I’ve asked the hive mind for help gathering ideas and information in the past, but this time I’d like to solicit suggestions on ways I can expand my reach and do more damage to the machine with my platform.
My goal with my writings has always been to wake people up to what’s going on in the world and disrupt the dominant narratives that hold the status quo in place, which I’ve had some success with to varying degrees. But I’m worried it’s not happening fast enough and I want to do more damage to the narrative matrix if possible. Whether that means finding new ways to grow my audience faster so the information I share gets wider circulation or just changing up my approach in a way that opens more eyes I really don’t care; all I care about is doing as much as I possibly can with the energy I’ve got available to me to get people fighting back against the power establishment that is pushing us all toward death.
All ideas and suggestions on how I might go about this are welcome. Are there platforms I could be utilizing that will help me get the word out to more people? Strategies I’m under-using? Other mediums and areas I could expand into? I’m looking for any ideas that get my mind looking in new directions and expanding into strategies I haven’t tried yet. I won’t be able to use all suggestions but I’ll definitely read them all.
Leave your suggestions in the comments of this post, or in the comments where I shared it on social media, or via email at admin@caitlinjohnstone.com.
Thanks!
243 responses to “Give Me Suggestions On How To Level Up My Fight”
Hi Catlin,
As an organization who believes that the very organizations who based on their mission statement are committed to protecting us, have been weakened at best and compromised from within at worst – see video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdh9x1SbScI
We appreciate your work.
Regards,
Debra R Cerritelli – Jazz for Peace™
Hi Catlin,
As an organization who believes that the very organizations that by mission statement are committed to protecting us, have been weakened at best and compromised from within at worst – see video here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdh9x1SbScI
We appreciate your work.
Regards,
Debra R Cerritelli – Jazz for Peace™
Mind control is almost as old as civilization. The profits of it are obvious, as is the technique, which varies in technique but not in principle. It is to offer mind control in a form that makes it desirable to the average person. In today’s culture, it is entertainment, as it has been since the radio became a mass medium. The ability to hear the Fuhrer’s voice was entertaining as it was novel. Since then, it has only been a matter of the medium, which is the message; and the message is we want your mind.
Sorry I finished quick. I was nervous. 🙁 anyway, please keep arguing on the side of awareness and independent thought, and light up the punji traps of all those who are out to enslave others’ minds.
How about invite another guest on each show. Be sweet, but also in charge. That is what makes u cool. You seemed more relaxed, but you need to make sure you drive the bus. Too many guys out there driving buses on the shows even though I like a lot of them.
Do both video and podcast!!! why not!!!
Podcast
Do something a little different than some of the other independent journalists.
I actually like listening to shows when they aren’t propaganda.
Don’t force yourself to do things that don’t flow. At least I find that works for me.
I just watched the new Going Rogue 2.0 video on You Tube. Lovely to see you, Caitlin and Tim! Not sure where to put my comment, since I don’t have an account on You Tube, so I’ll just put it here.
Normally I only listen to podcasts while I’m looking at other things, but I decided to watch the video this time. I thought you were delightful! Fun to see what Tim looks like. 🙂 I know what he sounds like because I listened to Going Rogue 1.0. The hour flew by for me, too.
Here’s a link to the new video for anyone reading who hasn’t found it already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=NEMqGXuLYIQ
Maybe you are already on this, but I didn’t see the video on caitlinjohnstone.com, and I have not received it by email like the articles since I subscribed to the email list.
Funny, World Beyond War just sent out an email saying they are also looking for ways to level up. I can’t find a link to the project. The general website is: https://worldbeyondwar.org/
The email reads:
“World BEYOND War wants to reach everyone.
Help us reach new audiences with our message of peace. Please donate today.
Some peace activists read long articles. Some listen to podcasts. World BEYOND War is designing a graphic-novel style book to reach passionate people who are moved by art and color.
We want to teach the world how to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace, using every possible tool. The illustrated book project came out of a proposal to broaden our audience by diversifying the platforms we use for education. The idea is to reach a different audience through the use of a new medium and to make the material more engaging, youthful, readable, and digestible.
Won’t you join us? Give today to support this exciting new project.
In peace,
David Swanson, Executive Director”
You have written much that is topical and transient.
Your poetry is somewhat separate from your political writings.
Your more philosophical essays are yet another category of writing which is at least somewhat separate.
I think you should now attempt to consolidate whatever of your thoughts and writings
deserve it. In short, you should put some of this together into one or more books.
These need not be published as such, but consolidating your thoughts may be a good way
to clarify them for you and for us.
If you don’t want to actually compile and publish a book, at least you can maybe summarize
some area of your thoughts and put it online as a milestone of what you
have achieved and what you hope to achieve in some direction.
I think you and your husband are wonderful and you should take your time about
any of this. If you need rest, take it. We’ll be here with you when you return.
Hi…amazing how many suggestions here!
My two cents is to MULTIPLY YOUR VOICE by MENTORING OTHERS UP. In other words, have a section on your site that’s rather nuts and bolts – a sort of “How To” – in navigating the media-scape. Your recent self-inquiry article would be one key tool to the process. At this stage, you are plugged into knowing both how to sort through information and where to go for information. Not all of us do. Equipping more people in disrupting the narratives who are on a similar page as you will certainly EXPONENTIALLY MULTIPLY YOUR MESSAGE.
That is all…
We need to get ourselves together. Lots of people see the mess and either give up or expect someone else of something else to fix it. The guy who wrote “The Populist Moment”, Larry Somebody, wrote THE book on Polish Solidarity. “The Rise of Solidarity in Poland” outlined the rank and file organizing that went on in the Gdansk and other shops. Ordinary workers shunned the Warsaw intellectuals, discussed strike strategies democratically, funded brothers /sisters who crisscrossed the country hitchhiking and bicycling convening meetings, introducing their strategies and welcoming others. Everything they did could have cost them their lives. And THEY brought down an incompetent, murderous dictatorship. Everything the elite do in the USA is designed to wreck the confidence and friendship we have in each other. Or, should have.
What you write is the counterbalance to division and hate. We should love each other. And we should organize ourselves for the common good and strike the bosses asses until their uppity noses bleed and every kid enjoys a happy life.
YOU could write the road map to a society in which it is easier to be good as Dorothy Day said.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/sdfe/pdf/download/eid/1-s2.0-003935929190031Z/first-page-pdf
Enjoy your writing very much. Excellent political observations/information. Enjoy the spiritual aspects as well.
One of first sites visit. Others are DemocracyNow, MoonOfAlabama, Jimmy Dore, Grayzone, RealNews, Lee Camp, TruthDig, The Intercept(still). Some sites are meant for reading, others for viewing. Read Harpers Magazine. Maybe am old fashioned since still appreciate the written word (Thomas Frank still working on a book). Not done any pod casting. Whatever you are comfortable with and feel can have most impact. Try to share your information in my small circle. First found your work on ConsortiumNews.
Dear Caitlin
I think you could start to openly and consistently promote a peaceful revolution. Since we don’t know who the really big boys are (if I were powerful – in the ordinary, not the spiritual sense –, I would hide this fact and increase my power even more), since we don’t know the dark ones, it’s useless to fight them.
I suggest, we start to dismantle the universal belief in money, which is totally illusionary. There are some 38 trillions in money (M1, cash and bank deposits) and some 240 Trillions in explicit debts and hundreds of trillions more in implicit debts, obligations outside of the balance sheets and in the derivatives bubble. No person on the planet, not even the craziest economist can tell, how to pay for these enormous debts with that little money, which itself consists at least 90 percent of debts. Eternal debts, on which we have to pay interest till the end of everything – there is not even a word for something like this. It’s the original sin with an eternal financial punishment.
This insane belief in money, which drives people into a collective suicidal madness, is the main root of the global problems which are about to overwhelm us. It is also a critical point in the whole system of capitalism, pseudo-democracies and eternal growth mania.
Unfortunately it’s not that easy to find your way out of the money cult, since we’re all victims ourselves. This system produces ever growing scarcity – in the midst of unbelievable wealth by nature and human productivity. and we’re all behaving as if there was not enough thereby producing real scarcity.
I have elaborated what I believe is a stringent strategy. Unfortunately it can’t be summarized in a few lines. But if you’re interested, I can give a try at a decent translation (I’m writing in german).
The main thing is: we have to start do talk about a peaceful revolution seriously and audibly. People know, that all needed reforms are either watered down, inhibited or getting us nowhere and that we need fundamental change: a debt jubilee, a new and fair money system and the end of ownership of things we can’t produce (namely land, natural resources, the belongings of ancestors) So let’s just be true to this perception. If we’re not, we are legitimizing to lie to ourselves which I think is even more dangerous than lying to others (which is grace sin on all religions).
And since you’re fighting: You can only fight an enemy you know. If you’re not dead sure who it is, you will loose.
I respectfully disagree that “we don’t know who the really big boys are. Yes we do, thanks to Professor Peter Phillips’ book: “Giants: The Global Power Elite.” Phillips looks at the top 300 most powerful players in world capitalism. He names names and organizations.
We know who is killing the planet, the same people that bring us perpetual war and environmental destruction.
Are we going to sit patently waiting for what comes next , or get out into the streets?
I’ve really given this some thought before answering. The best way to up your game is to NOT up your game. We need people like you to keep on doing what you’re doing. This is a marathon and not a sprint. There isn’t a clever action or move to get accelerated results. What you’re doing is very successful exposing the MSM narrative and humiliates TPTB by exposing them. That’s enough. To do anymore invites distraction and exhaustion.
In Chess, there really isn’t a special move or strategy to demolish an opponent or at least I haven’t found it. The key is to play an attentive, consistent game and minimize mistakes. Over time both you and your opponent will get tired (this always happens) someone gets sloppy and more or less volunteers to lose the game.
This is a battle of attrition. The best strategy is to stay fresh, happy and charged while your opponent self destructs under stress. Keep a cool head and be patient. TPTB are guaranteed to make themselves vulnerable to truthful reporting when they are under stress. All you have to do keep yourself prepared, rested, clear headed and emotionally calm in the meantime. The ultimate example of this IMHO is Aaron Maté.
I really appreciate your work and hope to have you around for many years to come.
The only way to force change on governments is through mass uprisings instigated, fuelled and supported by mainstream media such as a national daily newspaper and an independent TV News Channel, both supported by Internet social media.
A national daily newspaper that contained everything readers want, with strongly independent editorials and researched articles telling the facts and truth about what’s going on, will mobilise sufficient people to seriously affect any political party’s re-election promises. And as that is all politicians care about, change will ensue.
The only way to get such an independent national system of mainstream news and facts, is by finding a billionaire who shares your views.
Australia has many obscenely wealthy people in such a position. Surely one would want to save the world? Not Gina, obviously, and not….
Yes, they got rich because of the current system so aren’t going to bite the hand that fed them.
Caitlin, you have joined a long and noble list of philosophers over the centuries who have tried to set humans on the ‘right’ path. None have succeeded in diverting humanity’s race to extinction by following our evolutionary imperatives. You’ve done your best, now take up tatting and gardening, while learning to see the human mess as a disinterested observer. It is too late now to redress the damage already done, so perhaps the best thing would be to encourage everyone to continue our orgy of waste and useless consumption, to accelerate the inevitable turning out of the lights, leaving the stinking, desiccated, washed out shambles of the planet that could have supported us forever, for some other species to clean up.
I unhappily agree. THE PEOPLE get the government they deserve. As long as MONEY RULES and the stupid, ignorant, indifferent and/or naive Sheeple accept as THE TRUTH what they see and hear everyday, you’re pissing into the wind. Noble cause, but you’re going to get very wet and possibly killed like JFK. The Sheeple don’t know they are being played for fools! THEY prey on the young and use their stupidity, ignorance, indifference and/or naivety to fight and die for THEIR cause. As long as the MSM spews propaganda instead of facts and the Sheeple are no better than dogs in Pavlov’s conditioned response experiments, we’re doomed. Here’s what JFK said to get in THEIR crosshairs: https://youtu.be/5ootEGoVKy4
Not wanting to plough through all the suggestions you’ve received so far, I risk repeating what others may have already suggested. And, if I am repeating what others have already suggested, maybe that’s because it’s a good idea. So here I go.
Looking at others working towards the same end, such as Aaron Maté, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Lee Camp etc, etc, etc, there seems to be a lot to be said for appearing on video. Whether in your own productions, or making yourself readily available to offer analysis and opinion on the latest outrages to pre-existing outlets, I believe you could widen the audience for your written work considerably.
The problem with most social media outlets is that their efforts are now being directed to massaging users’ egos by making them feel popular among people who are most like them and share the very same views and opinions. I call it corralling. Using algorithms designed to fool advertisers that far more people are interested in their products than actually are, they also serve the purpose of burnishing the egos of narcissists that used to have to buy beers to keep broke alcoholics listening to them down at the pub. On social media they have discovered there exists huge pools of people who share their abhorrent views. I don’t know the attention span of the average Mugshotbook user, but I would venture that a cat spends more time watching a fly before pouncing. I see I’ve already spent more time suggesting what not to do. Ah well, I’ll leave it at that, save to say that I think you’re doing a tremendously valuable job and you really do deserve a much wider readership. The best of wishes, and best of luck!
The problem with most social media outlets is Big Advertisers who exert near total control over content and ad placement in the interest of brand safety. Advertisers have identified lists of words that absolutely cannot appear in content next to their ads, so social media sites are purging or hiding any content that could even remotely be associated with their ads.
Advertising ruins everything it touches. Remember when prime time TV was mostly show and few commercials? Remember when an NFL game was played in a little over 1.5 to 2 hours? Remember when you were not bombarded with TV ads in the grocery store or the gas station? Remember when web sites loaded in a matter of seconds and were not flooded with ads and banners and pop-ups? Remember when Youtube videos started playing when you tubed them up, instead of choking you with an ad? Remember when local or national news aired controversial or investigative stories? We have reached the point where advertisers are gods; they determine what you can and cannot see. The social media sites are merely doing advertisers’ bidding, and the result is restrictions, banning, de-platforming, etc. Yes, there is a political element to all this, as well, but the underlying force for most of this change is Big Advertising, ruining everything it touches, including the internet
https://www.wsj.com/articles/advertisers-blacklist-hard-news-including-trump-fearing-backlash-11565879086
More to the point, Caitlin will have to wrestle with the restrictions placed on content by Big Advertisers, especially because much or most of her articles are targeted directly at the big oligarchs who control all of that advertising. Regardless of what you do, Caitlin, if it involves any additional effort to reach a wider audience on the internet, you will be swimming up stream. You already have had difficulties with web sites censoring your content; expect that will continue or worsen as you try to widen your reach. BTW, I love almost everything you write and read your columns daily. Thanks for all you are doing.
We come from a heritage of being tribal/communal, and we experience this loss acutely or dimly, but it informs us every moment of our waking life. There is no other species that commits suicide based on some thought pattern it their head.
We are domesticated animals born into captivity to parent(s) who were themselves born into captivity. So after a couple hundred generations, is it any wonder that people are anxious, depressed, uneasy, numb to the world, themselves & each other? This is what civilization has brought us. We are seriously disconnected from the greater Life force.
Getting outside of this trance takes time and effort. What is society whispering in our ear? Humans are special & unique? What is the story we are telling ourselves, maybe to make ourselves feel better? I may not be much but I’m all I have?
We can start by being honest with ourselves. We were born uncontaminated with beliefs, attitudes, ideologies, prejudices, or assumptions about other people or the world. As children, we lived thru our hearts, spontaneous, engaged, generous, connecting with others without reservations. As we grew up, we were taught many things, and sorting out what is true from what isn’t is difficult. To heal ourselves & each other, we have to trust our heart/soul to figure it out. Centering on head/thinking in service of the heart is nurturing, healing, growing, soothing, and puts us in touch with the sacred. Trying to put the heart in service of the head leads to madness/death/destruction. There is no reality w/out the heart!
Now, looming interlocking crises are challenging us to go outside of our comfort zone, even leaving it behind altogether! Can we wake up enough to rise to the challenge or will we go down the black hole of extinction as so many other species have done before us!
Seems to me that if our assumptions are wrong, or inaccurate, then whatever relies on those assumptions is going to be faulty to some degree.
Our main assumptions, mostly unexamined, rely on language for their expression. Language is really a set of containers, some inside others, some larger than others, all jostling for position.
So it is understandable that the business container only wants business, profit and loss, etc while social/environmental items simply don’t fit!
If you were to organize a magazine, for instance, there might be sections about politics, sports, the environment, business, culture, fashion, celebrity, etc. as if these are mutually exclusive categories. On inspection, the environment would/should be the largest container, since all the others derive and are reliant on it. This helps us to think more inclusively and comprehensively.
Lets arrange our magazine according to reality. The environment is the world and everything in it including you & me! You are part of the environment, receiving from it and giving to it. You are not separate from it and to think otherwise will lead to very bad consequences, including death.
Next, is biology, the biosphere, which is every living system on the planet. In this container is not just everything that is alive but all of the energy transfer systems as well, the food you eat, the air you breath, the waste you produce that then becomes an energy source for other beings.
Next, is psychology, or the perception of ourselves within these systems. This includes society, culture, politics, government, religion etc. This includes the question of what do we believe and why do we believe it? If we strongly believe something that is simply not true, something that was told to us as children, we have to ask how did this happen. Have we so lost the felt/experienced reality that we can no longer realize our mistake? Who wants to wake up?
For me, we cannot heal ourselves or each other without talking about our souls. We have to completely rethink ourselves and our relationship to this planet. Make no mistake, Mother Nature will not shed a tear if we fail. As the saying goes, pass performance is not a guarantee of future success!
I have more if you are interested.
Max in Seattle
Secondly solicit some articles from scientist with good communications to explain consensus scientific opinion that global warming is occurring and is an existential threat. Help to counter the anti-intellectual book burning Col Bunny types.
Caitlin, you have shown public is controlled by elite narratives dominating owned media. As next election nears HELP PUBLIC sort out who are the financial backers of each candidate. They are the narrative directors. The ability of the public to access and understand this info would be game changer. It showed Obama’s rhetoric did not match the philosophy of his donors. Then obvious the candidate can be indentified as a liar and scam artist. This information accurately predicted Obamas betrayal of the people. It is powerful.
Your insights into the burgeoning elite class screw job are excellent. I do think you can omit references to “climate change” as that is a worthless term that was devised only to obfuscate the fact that there’s been no “global warming.” It’s not your area what casual references to it add nothing to your core competence and, if anything, reveal that in this particular area you’re just will to mouth the lefty pieties. It’s a nothingburger issue and you have better fish to fry.
“Ecocide” is another issue you can lay aside. Don’t waste your time on vague environmental points. Plenty of other people can carry that burden.
In short, stay focused on what you’re best at, viz., sniffing out hypocrisy and making clear that the once-glorious West has devolved into a greasy plutocracy and eel pit of identity politics.
Thanks, Col; I concur with your recommendations and assessments about climate change.
The 9 million sq miles of permafrost currently melting, and areas the size of China, the US and most of Canada, combined, releasing methane, CO2, and anthrax, potentially doubling the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is just a hoax! Greenland ice sheets are melting, the Thwaite glacier is headed out to sea, but not to worry!
Confidence in your opinion should not substitute for verifiable science.
THAT’s your solution? A Youtube channel? You’re gonna continue feeding the beast?
Hey, maybe you and Tulsi should hang out together. She’s fully in favor of supporting the DNC’s preferences, even after they inevitably commit Election Fraud against the American People. Again.
Caitlin, I know that sounds harsh. From your pov, there doesn’t seem like any other venue to patronize, if you want to spread your message.
But I hope you reconsider this, and find another way that might not be a guaranteed ticket to more expore, but that doesn’t leave a bad taste.
It’s a podcast. I’m just going to also upload video of it onto youtube and maybe also some other video platforms.
Hi Caitlin:
As I believe I mentioned to you in a past comment that I have been in this “fight” since the late 1960’s using many means, including street protesting and yes I am that old 🙂
Loss of our freedom, and other abuses by our, dare I say, “Rulers” have only increased to a great and unbearable degree since that time. They use the FORCE of LAWs and lies and theft, together called “War by Deception”
I eventually learned that, telling people the TRUTH is NOT enough. We must advocate very strongly, SOLUTIONS along with truths.If we do not we shall end with the MOST INFORMED, but, ENSLAVED humanity, in all of recorded history..
I have done just that since 2009, with what I KNOW to be the ONLY solution, which, unfortunately makes people SHAKE with FEAR. and puts them into a state of mental paralysis, especially our RULERS – PROOF it is the RIGHT SOLUTION.
It was applied by Canadian Indigenous against the British Queen, causing her to AVOID Canada,now, for fear of arrest.
Take care now
“Man’s vocation ought to be the use of the art of intelligence in behalf of freedom.” ~Sydney Hook
http://freemygreenpdx.com/public/style_emoticons/default/smilely.gifhttps://dharmawheel.net/images/smilies/bow.gif
engage your best BDS actions against your enemies. everyone should do it.
Target the “institutions” of “higher learning” where future monsters are “educated” — such as:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/467716-harvard-wealth-countries-status-quo/
..
First “course” of study: “How to Maintain the Dominance of the USD as World Reserve Currency Using Color Revolutions, Financial Sanctions and Brute Military Force Murders 101”
You can talk about how the rise of psychiatric medicine has contributed to mass shootings, suicides and other forms of violence. Dr. Peter Breggin is a good place to start. That our “gun problem” is actually a means of disarming the public while the Psycho-pharmaceutical industry turns a blind eye to their ill-gotten gains.
Good luck with a podcast, but keep writing. Podcasting may not be your forte.
Do tv interviews whenever the opportunity arises. I’ve heard you say you don’t wanna do tv interviews, but think of it as a duty of your job, luv! It’s a whole new audience that you’d have little chance of contacting any other way.
He’s right in that the mass media of boob tube is still viable; terrestrial radio as well.
MORE COMING. very difficult for me. 2nd time in ten years. Time will come. Computer/person “interface” no joy for me……but meant for you! Process keyboard INTERFACE ME AND NOT ME.
Okayplease!
First watch this video: https://mashable.com/2013/01/14/aaron-swartz-sopa/
Aaron Swartz was a champion of Open Source Development, he even was in the process of creating something called “The Open Library” before his untimely death. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ
Google is going to be our biggest challenge going forward and we are going to need some way to take them to task. Collaborative Open Source Software is the way we tackle this, in my opinion.
How do you increase you reach. Are you aware that there is an Open Source platform called CiviCRM. With CiviCRM we can have the people that subscribe to your blog actually working to expand your reach through CiviCRM Personal Campaign Pages. Sure CiviCRM is something we set up ourselves, but is also something we control ourselves. If we can get many people to pitch in and do some of the heavy lifting, you could be on your way toward reaching that much broader audience.
Google’s goal is to produce a society where there isn’t any disagreement on anything because we all read exactly the same histories as everyone else. We can’t let this kind of a future happen. Eric Schmidt said on Charlie Rose in 2005:
“When you use Google, do you get more than one answer? Of course you do. Well, that’s a bug. We have more bugs per second in the world. We should be able to give you the right answer just once. We should know what you meant. You should look for information. We should get it exactly right and we should give it to you in your language and we should never be wrong. That’s our challenge.” See: https://charlierose.com/videos/17574
Eric Schmidt also works close with people from the NSA.
We know that the histories are always written by the victors in any exchange and that those histories are almost never true. So which right answer does Eric Schmidt propose to give us.
The point is you will not be able to use the popular platforms like Google, Facebook, What’s App, etc. to expand your audience, because they already have AI sentinels in place to ensure that you don’t expand your audience.
See: James Corbet: We Need to Talk About Search: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NP0sBE98R10feature=share
Again, the point is we are going to have to find a way to fight back, and that way, in my humble opinion, is to use Open Source Tools like CiviCRM.
I think you should be aware by now that Google is already rolling out it’s AI Deep Learning systems, by the way that Google Search has changed, where Google now serves what they want you to find.
Again, there is still an active Open Source Community out there, and I think the way to expands reach in any real way is to leverage what is left of that Open Source community.
I you want to talk about this send me an email.
important aspect well laid out. we need to move on to effective actions.
Be aware that Medium.com is attempting to censor alternative media voices under the cover of banning “conspiracy theories.”
Your website is mentioned by this article below in conjunction with this mainstream media crackdown:
The lights keep going out: Medium shuts down Rainer Shea’s account on spurious grounds
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/08/31/the-lights-keep-going-out-medium-shuts-down-rainer-sheas-account-on-spurious-grounds/
He just lost his personal website as well today; these things are everywhere.
Caitlin = Best. Commentator. EVER.
A breath of fresh sanity in a completely insane world.
But you want suggestions, so I’ll offer 3, and they ARE critical/challenging, so put on teh BGPs!
1) Reduce the number of posts solely aimed at telling people to get woke & reject the dominant narrative/s. I get that this is your core concept & utterly agree, but when that’s ALL you’re offering in a post, it feels like so much raw tofu. We need teh beef as only you can slice it, grill it & serve it up!
2) Really engage with – challenge and test – your belief that humans possess the individual/collective capacity to affect change in relation to forestalling global catastrophe. The idea that ANY species possesses this kind of power and potential control is dubious at best and homocentric at worst. Planetary collapse and extinction are inevitable and natural, and belief in human exceptionalism is essentially whistling past the graveyard from an historical perspective. Seriously grapple with that in lieu of spiritual philosophy which flies in the face of everything we know about the universe.
3) You are truly my favorite commentator EVER, and I put you on a pedestal with Alice Walker, James Baldwin & the like.
But you’re asking for suggestions, so here’s my last one…
Reconsider whether you want to continue solely with the bullhorn/broadcast, one-to-many model you so brilliantly exemplify.
I TRULY adore your writing, but it is a (brilliant) one-way street.
After thorough and rigorous vetting to eliminate people who will A) do nothing but disagree with you, or B) do nothing but agree with you, please consider active and vigorous DIALOGUES (and trialogues, etc.) with other smart people. People who will challenge and expand your perceptual horizons – and vice versa – as you do in your work, but in more dialectic fashion.
And that’s it.
You could change nothing & I’d be happy, but you asked, so I answered.
xox,
Greenie
I’m not sure exactly what to tell you or suggest re building a bigger/broader audience. Maybe hiring a publicity/PR type operation whose expertise is growing audiences. As an author of books that have sold hundreds
of thousands of copies and having visited hundreds of venues and presented maybe close to a thousand public presentations, I assumed some of that would create a bigger audience for my cont’d work but this hasn’t happened, despite much time on Twitter, Instagram, and less but some time on FB. If you find a magic ingredient please let me know. Meanwhile, keep up the good work and keep in mind that every mind you broaden helps the fight and it’s not a numbers game, consciousness changes slowly and sometimes for some folks not at all. Fight on.
TT
Nothing to change, Caitlin; you’re doing fine.
That said, adding video/audio components is always a good idea, as is continuing to link up with other like-minded writers, podcasters, you tube commentators and so forth. Progress often arrives slowly and unexpectedly, and who knows what ends up being the right spark at the right time. Maybe it’ll be something you already said.
What’s kept me relatively sane – but not necessarily optimistic about revolutionary change – is seeing our struggle as akin to being on a life-long marathon race, which means not treating our activism as a series of wind sprints. We’ll only get exhausted.
Palante!
I think you should look into “The Family”. I came in contact with these people recently and they have money and power and a very dark “christian” agenda.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/netflix-the-family-jesse-moss-secret-christian-cult-washington-dc-869396/
I suggest organising some simultaneous group meditations at an organised time.
Collective consciousness can be focused in prayer for more people to wake up… and world peace.
https://eocinstitute.org/meditation/meditation-and-world-peace/
An old Science Fiction Poem, author unknown. “Some day, perhaps, a pair of blood red eyes, set in a cold and chitinous face, will sweep the arch of some dark, distant sky and see a Nova flare, a pinpoint of light on a photographic plate, soon lost forever on miles of dusty shelves where alien beetles feed, a meal for worms, sole epitaph, to mark the curious end of restless man, who for a moment of Galactic time sped on a speck of cosmic dust around a minor sun.”
Whew! Just scrolled (thank you for that feature) all the comments, some good, some really thoughtful, some not thinking to clearly. I am going to scroll through my own mind and see if I can offer anything useful from a 73 yr. old guy. Back in the 70’s I arrived in L.A., found MJ., proceeded to LSD, which led me to a quaint used bookstore, where as usual a book jumped into my hands from the thousands available, That book was “The Experience, A Celebration of Being.” By Sirio Esteve, Random House 1974…..That led me to finding J. Krishnamurti’s Commentaries on Living, thus I began to question everything I thought I knew, and discovered I was living in a world of lies and BS. You remind me of Mr. Krishnamurti, who, at an early age, forswore the people who were trying to make him the next Big Guru. He spent his life giving talks worldwide to at least a million people. If all of them had really listened to what he was saying you would not be needed today. It is like Ms. Greta Thunberg’s address to the English Parliament, who, as usual, treated her visit as just another great funny lark, she said “The world is on fire, we do not want more words, we demand Action.” “Did you hear what I just said?” She asked, in the middle of her speech. The room bellowed “YES!” “Is my English O.K.? The audience laughed. Thunberg’s face flickered, but she did not smile. “Because I’m beginning to wonder.” As if the British Government or any Government for that matter were actually going to take Action….. ~~~~~Now she has sailed to the Great Satan, to give a speech to the U.N. speaking to more deaf ears, but like you, she will continue on because failure is not an option. I just got my neighbor uphill to log onto your site and read your work, I send your letters out via all my e-mails as an attachment. Let those who have ears to hear, hear you. I gained at least five additional years of life when my lady and I threw out the boob tube 40 years ago. This screen here is the only thing I have looked at, and I only got this because I went deaf and I love being able to communicate and meet new friends, of which I consider you one…..Remember the story of the wise man, whose King was beset by problems, so he gave him a ring with an inscription inside, and told him to look at it when he was beset. It said: “This too, shall pass.” Like I said before the problem we have to solve to save our home planet is find a cure for the deadly, infectious disease plaguing this world: Greed, the Lust for Power, and the seeking of endless Profit. Find that cure and all will be well. My suggestion to humans is “Quit giving the Greed Heads your money, starve the beast, save the world. If this does not help at least I hope I encouraged you to Keep Up The Good Fight!
As a teenager I got a ” one on one ” private lecture from a ” leader ” about staying focused. He correctly told me that if I focus on my group or if I focus on my followers it distracts me from what I should be doing. Our main problem is the masters and the owners and finding ways to escape their control. Leadership is a lonely place because ” your followers ” will never understand why you do and say what you do. The owners and the masters will come at you ” sideways ” they will look for someone close to you that they can get to betray you or to kill you. If you make up your mind to ” lead ” then you have to keep in mind just how lonely and dangerous the path you are taking can be. Some people will assume that you have a ” death wish ” because you will never be deterred from ” leading “. Lots of people will assume that you are ” crazy “. If you are going to lead you have to keep these distractions from bending your thinking and/or bending your actions. Your only true ” love ” has to be ” your cause “; if you can not do that then you will fail, and fail badly!
You got that right; in psychology they’re called, ‘flying monkeys’, you always sort of hear about a special type of relationship between the Jews and the Catholic Church, but what that relationship was is usually not mentioned, because they each performed the others murders.
Easy advice: Clone yourself, else you’ll become a target to be silenced.
Difficult bit: dunno how to get others to be, think, act just like you, sorry.
Hmmm. Already told you what to do, months ago. More words are not going to “do” anything. You should have figured that out by now. Lots of people want others to do all the heavy lifting (thinking) for them, that’s a trap too. Real resistance won’t be with more words, or with telling people how to think (or growing you “audience” which really means dragging the deadbeats along). You’re smart, but not smart enough. You’re still following the rules and expected behavior any any citizen/journalist/activist. That’s why you’re having zero effect. Your audience isn’t bright enough either (also zero effect). Still playing by the “rules” designed to keep us in servitude, ignorance and apathy. So far, none of you have managed to break anything – or change anything. Is that good enough for you? Apparently. So you’ll get to the end of your life thinking you “did” something when in fact all you did was chronicle despair, disgust, hopelessness and words that changed nothing. Not effective, not at all. Told myself I’d never bother posting here again, sorry. It was a waste of time then as it is now. You’re not listening, you’re just seeking a platform to keep up the pretense that you’re effective. You’re not. Sorry, but that’s not our fault, it’s yours. Most of your audience is going to reject this, but they’ve also accomplished nothing. You all need to listen. More words are just more words, and have not accomplished anything. Stop with the words. Start with action.
Wow – condescending much. <<<>>> >>>>
Caitlin, thanks for your writing. Times are bleak. After the biggest economic debacle in our lives, the order that brought the catastrophe is now firmer in command than before. They learnt from economic history, and found and are still finding ways to propagate their hold on power. The fact is that after 40+ years of neoliberal economics an inherent nexus has developed between conservatism and liberalism philosophies so that they have nearly become indistinguishable. What looks like middle ground to the majority, I would contend, is instead an increasing opening and void. How else to explain the ever increasing wealth gap, falling life expectancies in may communities, and the accelerating destruction of the environment?
It is much easier to destroy than to build, and that is what the current order is doing across the globe to all ecological communities – whether such communities be in the Amazon or Manhattan. They destroy the physical world and our cultural world to enrich their capital accounts.
Right now, given the current state of economic-political circumstances, it seems wise to hone our individual skills. The J. Assange story is one which you have provided consistent and good coverage. Telling the stories that the nexus doesn’t want to tell (and, in fact, consciously doesn’t tell) is vitally important. If you reach a few people profoundly, you do good work. You have done good work from my perspective.
I suppose after that there is a vital need to build small physical communities in which we can support each other in very material ways. The neoliberal-conservative nexus appeals to some of the worst aspects of human nature to propagate their agendas, but it is the very same human nature from which the answers to their agenda must be found. But without knowing the situation, we cannot find some common ground in order to build a larger commons.
Nobody has the answers, but we need people to explore and record.
Who Shot JR?
😮
what actions have YOU taken that have been so effective that things have completely changed? please share with us. wait a minute, you just said nothing has changed… i’m confused… please help.
LOL. You would do the Jacobins thing?
Start handicapping (online wagering of some kind) relating to current events. Challenge the pundits, true believers, skeptics, climate change deniers, conspiracy theorists, economists, opinion leaders, followers, savants, and loudmouthed wackos to put their money where their mouth is on any and all significant outcomes, events, and trends that are verifiable within specified time frames. Wouldn’t necessarily have to be monetary betting, but for all the bazillions that are wagered on freaking sporting events, imagine how much more would be generated by events that cause people to put their personal biases on the line as well as the “masters’ narrative”, and do some research to improve their odds. Maybe just play for “Monopoly Money”, but make players accountable, have celebrity events in a “Jeopardy” format, possibilities are practically endless. We’ve all been acculturated to be competitive, so put that conditioning to work in exposing the fallacious logic, false flags, and blatant bullshit that forms our beliefs and controls our behaviors.
Not sure whether this will up the odds of reaching more people, but it just occurred to me that you should continue to distinguish yourself from most of the ‘progressive’ crowd.
Mrs. Gabbard has just UNdistinguished herself. She said she wouldn’t consider going Third Party, and that she would support the Democratic Nominee. Read that as “I’ll support the Corporatist/Warmonger/Establishment Pick, in order to defeat Trump.”
I’m out. Ron Paul set the standard. While he used the Republican Party as a vehicle, he refused to play their game.
If Tulsi believes that ‘defeating Trump’ is more important than supporting solid candidates whereever they might be found, then she is not my choice for potus.
Caitlin, if you DO find yourself more widely known, then you will also experience more intense pressures to conform. You will inevitably disappoint people, regardless of what you do. Please don’t react by changing who you are, or by diluting your principles.
Yes, I felt a lot like you about Gabbard saying she’d support the Democratic candidate if she wasn’t it. Defeating TRUMP was her NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. Do we REALLY have a democracy when the Democratic Primary PROCESS is designed to weed out those who hold views that go against the views of those currently holding the power?
Tulsi was all anti-war posturing, while all her real actions have been pro-war. itdidn’t take much for her to show her true colors.
I don’t think I can agree with your last two sentences.
You need to get your face online with podcast or any video. Some people just don’t read a lot. I encourage you to pursue appearances on American alternative news/commentary sites: Jimmy Dore Show, Mi Casa Es Su Casa (Nico House), Secular Talk (Kyle Kulinski), The Humanist Report (Mike Figuerado), The Robust Opposition (Lauren Steiner —- I know her), The Convo Couch (Fiorella Isabel & Pasta Jardula).
The time zone differences could be a bit challenging, but could be worth it, in the exposure you gain.
Wishing you great success in taking your efforts to a new level.
Hi Caitlin I’ve never commented before but I’ve followed you for a few years. Here is a link from the Orphan Wisdom School. I hope you find it helpful. Keep fighting.
Orphanwisdom.com/interviews/the-birdhouse-wisdom-series/
Tell us how to fight this oppressive government of ours without bloodshed for starters!
Boycott! how else?
Ha, Ha, Ha; Really? Didn’t they already try that in Poland, when the Nazis were building death camps?
Keep writing, keep thinking, keep communicating. You’re doing good.
Your work has been awesome from the get-go, as indicated by the speed with which your audience has grown. Thank you!
The one area where I believe your message could be enhanced is by connecting more of the dots between the malignant growth of the industrialized world’s financial sectors, especially that of my home country the USA, and just about everything else that’s gone wrong. Everywhere. The community that is most on top of this is that of the heterodox economists that has blossomed over the past quarter century or so, after decades exiled in the wilderness by the dominant neoclassical school. Two of the more prominent of these are your fellow Aussies Steve Keen and Bill Mitchell, although the former is now in London as head of the department of Economics & Politics at Kingston University. Mitchell is a professor somewhere in your homeland and also author of the widely read Billy Blog. But the person whose work I think puts it all together with regard to both the present day and historically is Michael Hudson. Two of his many books, “Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance” and “Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy the Global Economy” provide a whole new lens through which to view how we got here and what is happening to us today. Super Imperialism was first published in 1972 and substantially updated three decades later. The revised edition is now available for free download in PDF format from Hudson’s website here: http://bit.ly/2ZtXWrK Killing the Host is available from various bookstores, both brick and mortar and online.
Turning 80 sometime this year, Dr. Hudson is still at the top of his game as both economist and economic historian. Last year he published ” . . and forgive them their debts: Lending, Foreclosure and Redemption from Bronze Age Finance to the Jubilee Year,” which is a partial culmination of his work as the alpha economist of the International Scholars Conference on Ancient Near Eastern Economies. This work has revealed that the danger of financialization emerged not long after the invention of money five thousand plus years ago in Mesopotamia and has been with humanity ever since. He is currently at work on a book that will bring that story forward through Greek, Roman and early Christian times.
Thank you again for all you do.
Right on Chuck!
You’re asking all the right questions. In determining how to reach a wider audience what you’re really asking is how can I market my product better. My suggestion is that you set up a marketing team that will start with determining a marketing strategy for your work.
One of the first things your marketing team should determine is who your target audiences are. In determining your target audiences one thing to consider is the question of whether all people should be considered equally valued targets. For example, because of their ability to influence their governments, the opinion of one person in the United States on the issues you raise about US imperialism may be equal to, say, three people in Western Europe, and 10 people in countries not aligned with the American Empire. Your marketing efforts should take this into account.
Another factor to consider in evaluating your target audiences is the power of opinion leaders. One Roger Waters or Susan Sarandon may be equal to a thousand ordinary people, or 10,000. How to reach more of these movers and shakers should definitely be a strategic consideration.
Another question is weather you want to reach someone just once or if you want an ongoing readership. If ongoing readership is your goal, as I suspect it should be, then your offerings should be looked at as magazine subscriptions. The implication of this is that you need to consider your current readership if you decide to alter your product in any meaningful fashion, so as not to lose it.
This marketing team could start with the three of the 4P’s of marketing: product, promotion, place. I’ll use product as an example:
Product: Currently your product consists almost entirely of your writing. Your marketing team should evaluate what people in your target audiences think of your product as it currently stands. This would involve some marketing research, perhaps with focus groups, to gain an understanding of how your writings are perceived by people you want to target who are currently not your readers.
The second question about product is what else could you be producing that would help get your ideas circulated more widely? There is a wide variety of possibilities for additional products. They could include podcasts, online university courses, interviews, debates, books, etc. Only you are familiar enough with your strengths and weaknesses to determine which of these or other possibilities are viable.
That’s my suggestion for how to go about determining how to expand your reach. While I’ve got your attention I’d like to throw out another idea. Your influence can be expanded if you expand your team. As far as I know your team currently consists of you and Tim. Why not add people? – volunteers, interns, paid staff if the money’s available. You could have a visioning team, a marketing team, a PR team, a fundraising team, etc. Imagine the potential power of a worldwide network of people aligned with the vision of saving the world from the sociopaths currently in charge.
With deep gratitude,
Guy Benintendi
I LOVE your ideas Guy. It’s time to organize so that our numbers increase and hopefully, in time, become large enough to take our government to task and clean house!
Perhaps you’re getting too stuck in the weeds. Caitlin is largely fighting against the capitalist economic order. Not sure a capitalist approach to marketing is the way to go.
To achieve the right goals you have to do things in the right way. Otherwise you become a victim of good intentions, and you know where that road leads.
Capitalism has no morals. A capitalist marketing plan is not the way to go.
Please remember also Caitlin, it is not only about us helping you to “level up you fight”, You can help also help others by breaking new ground.
My eye is on the governing bodies within the crypto realms. What if these adapted a form of Collective Intelligence. That would be a large front on the war against the whatever you call them.
https://medium.com/@whmilk/decentralized-thought-9bf368914391
Right away the most needed area of improvement in my view is the comments section. What if it was more than just a way to vent and give one’s ‘opinion’, which amounts to very little in the long run. Would it not be groundbreaking if this site was different that all the 100o’s out there which operate the same way. What if instead people could say; “Hey I went to Caitlins page today and we are discussing x, the forum is permanent, and we are using logic and reason to attempt to get a better perspective on the issue. It is really enlightening”.
It may start out ugly. Like the plane flown by Wilbur Wright. It may only fly a few hundred feet. It would fly though. Others would catch on and the days of the plutocrats or whatever would be numbered.
If you want consciousness, then be conscious that
1 Individual thought is flawed.
2. Individual thought contains bias
3. Individuals harbor self serving and self comforting delusions
4. Individuals are part of social groups and adopt these ‘norms’
I could go on and on. The point is, why not attempt to integrate some aspects of a ‘Collective Intelligence’? It is not as if ‘Individual intelligence’ is working out so good for us.
https://medium.com/@whmilk/what-is-a-real-solution-696608f98b78
Hello Caitlin Johnstone,
I read your column daily.
I have a large family but I do not refer your articles to them because our mother tongue is French, not English.
Amongst all of us I’m the one who understands the best and my comprehension is far from complete. For example I can’t read poetry in English and I am baffled by irony and/or sarcasm.
So if there was a translation of your articles, a good one (not a google one), I would be able to circulate your work to my family.
Or is there already one that i am unaware of ?
We should get a translation team going. The only problem are the hyperlinks.
Write a book.
Write an email to Russell Brand. Try to get an interview with him on his Under The Skin Podcast. You’re fighting the same (or very similar) fight and both would benefit from a combination of your incredible razor-precision with his wit, charm, and reach. Worth a shot, right?
Caitlin, I wondered if you might be interested in more outreach to the consciousness/nondual crowd via Buddha at the Gas Pump. I imagine you’re familiar with that interview site/channel. But if not, the thrust of their work is “Conversations with ordinary spiritually awakening people”. No guru certificate required.
They have quite a following and might really enjoy your particular combination of political and spiritual insight. They favor engaged spirituality.
They encourage their audience to suggest guests at the link, below. And I had thought to recommend you. But they strongly suggest having a video to link to on that guest suggestion form. And the videos of yours that I could quickly find weren’t ones that highlighted your metaphysical side. Also, I wasn’t quite sure if you were interested in this angle. But if so, I thought you might enjoy it. Plus the host, Rick Archer, has commented that their guests usually get a significant “bump” from an appearance. So it might produce the connections you had in mind.
I do think they might (?) have a backlog of upcoming guests “in the queue” so it might be a while before they would schedule an interview with you. But that might not be the case.
So, just an idea. If you do have a video for the purpose, you could have someone submit you (again, link below) or I’d be happy to do it.
I love your work. Thank you.
https://batgap.com/future-interviews/suggest-guest/
What if you went undercover, Manchurian Candidate style. Say the bullshit corporate media wants to hear until you get paid $10 million a year like Rachel Maddow. Then, when you have the attention of the cable news watching audience, red-pill them. Actually, I wonder why this hasn’t happened already.
Have you tried doing political cartoons? I know you are funny and can draw.
Hi Caitlin. My suggestion is that you add an audio-visual component to your work… perhaps get youtube channel and do some lyric videos to accompany select spoken word pieces (poems, articles etc.) maybe add some instrumentation for emotional amplification (percussions, etc). hope this stimulates your creativity.
Personally, I think yer doing a wonderful job and a service to us all. I am also a writer and I was a newspaper columnist for more than a decade, published hundreds of times in a variety of print and online platforms and I have essentially slowed my pace and my resolve because of the feeling that I’m not accomplishing much, if anything of real merit. My last op ed was published in 2003 just before Baby bush invaded Iraq. I had a website and let it go. I’ve had several blogs and I’ve been an online presence since the early 90s… and now I’m just posting on FB, which seems anemic as hell. The machine is too ingrained in the minds of the people we want to reach. They’re the Borg, and I do not utilize that term lightly. The mobsters have won. Very sorry to say that and to feel as such. I don’t think there’s an answer for us. We keep banging the drum, but only a few respond. Only a few even listen. Listening is an ancient artforn. And people wonder why I drink… Kudos to you for fighting the good fight. Thank you for your efforts.
Sorry, I gave you a good email addy but not the email addy you send yer posts to. I’m subscribed, thanks. Keep on keepin’ on.
I followed my comment on this blog but then unfollowed becuz I have no need to be informed every time someone comments. Send me an email please if you feel inclined to chat, thanks Caitlin. Cheers.
Caitlin, you fill a niche/void that no one else was or is filling, and we need you to keep right on filling it (as long as you want to and while taking good care of yourself). You have a quality I greatly admire – Chomsky has it, too – of distilling an issue right down to its essentials, laying it bare in its awkward ugliness, and none of us will ever see that issue in its fancy covering of propaganda and NPR-speak again. Even if you only continue doing as you are, you are doing a lot. One thing I’ve enjoyed recently is seeing independent voices who’ve been arguing against the mainstream come together – for instance Aaron Mate and Glenn Greenwald – because it exemplifies how “We’ve arrived!”, i.e., our viewpoints are being vindicated.
So..how could you make some of the very best journalism of our time even better by reaching more people? My observation is that a great deal of your circulation is with the disaffected left. There are issues and concerns that are shared by critical thinkers on both ends of the political spectrum. I’d look at identifying some of those intersectional issues, and presenting them in places where you haven’t been before. Those who are ready to hear the message will hear it. 😉
Aloha Star ☆ Sister Caitlin
I am Honored to share Friendship and Infinite Expanding Fractal Consciousness with You ☆
You are already having a Powerful Energistic Effect on the global patriarchy sadistic slave machine ☆☆☆
I suggest you become available on ALL platforms of social media ☆
Check out investigative reporters
JON RAPPAPORT at
http://www.nomorefakenees.com ( try to filter out some of his old generation nationalist tendencies….he is of high Dedication and integrity)
I share knowledge freely with Passion and Enthusiasm ☆
I have been practicing Holistic Medicine, Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture, Naturopathy, Chiropractic, Shamanic Wellness, Conscious Cruelty Free Sustainable Nutrition, Ethnobotony, Sacred Plant Medicine Ceremony Facilitation…. ..Since the 60’s☆
I am at your Service ~
Stay in Touch ~
See You Along the Way ~
Peace and Love,
Dr. Z LittleWhiteFeather
Hi Caitline,
I admire your work and persistence. I am a daily reader and agree with your content. I only would change your tone of voice to reach a bigger audience. I am not forwarding your mails because of the sometimes too aggressive tone. I will when you put more mildness in it. E.g. “do more damage to the machine”. I agree with this, put I think it is better not using these kind of offensive/negative words. Also your blog about the Koch brother who died. I, again, agree with your content, but cheering about his death will hold a certain group of readers you definitely want to reach away. There is a difference about being right and getting it.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Caitlin. I’m a big fan and follower of your work – in particular, I love your poetry. If you’d like to collaborate on a video someday, please let me know – I’m an American film maker who lives and works out of Amsterdam. The possibilities are endless and will help to ‘get the word out!’ Here’s a sample of my work:
– ‘Down South.’ I call it a Poetic Music Video and illustrates the legacy of slavery in the United States. Poet, MarShawn McCarrel supplied the text, I supplied the images. Keep up the good work, you’re making a difference! Bob
I want to take a mind trip. I want to compare two worlds – the earth on which we live and another planet that is identical to ours, except that in that planet’s solar system there has been a brief solar event whose radiation has not only instantaneously killed all of the people on that planet, but, amazingly, also slowed down the physical deterioration of any of the things that the planet’s deceased inhabitants created.
..
Hearing about the calamity on the twin planet, millions of people from our planet, who just happen to be unemployed ex-technicians from various professions (yes, a very competent bunch), jump into spacecraft and fly to that other planet. But, before they leave, they agree that all of what is on the other planet will be “owned” equally among them and used for the good of all. (Yes, you’re right, that is exactly where I’m going.)
..
Just like there is on this planet, there is an internet on the other planet, so the immigrants instantly realize that a so-called representative government will not be necessary …………. on the other planet. In that place there shall be direct democracy. People will hammer out important decisions among themselves using the internet as a means of virtually instantaneous mass communication.
..
There will be only one “nation” on this new world and that nation will cover the entire world. There will be no other nation to export to. There will be no other nation to import from.
..
Every person in the new world will be a “world citizen”. There will be only one set of rules for every person. Human beings will either sink or swim together on this new world.
..
After the new immigrants arrive on their new planet, using existing transportation systems, they disperse all over their planet so that they can get their new (old) machines up and running; fields plowed and planted; hospitals operating, etc. (Yes, it wasn’t easy. But with the common good in mind, people were successful. Just accept it for the moment.)
..
The immigrants soon realize that it takes very few people (far fewer than immigrated) to keep the machines running, food on the table, etc., and with some more design engineering and automation, even fewer people will be required as time goes on. Not only that, but the products of these machines can be made to a much better quality then they apparently were previously, so these products will last far longer. As a result, it is realized that perhaps some of the huge machines/factories can be operated far less frequently than they used to be by the previous inhabitants. For example, automobiles soon come to be made much simpler, easier to fix and much more reliable. They have a far greater useful lifespan than they once had.
..
The people enjoy leisure time, developing their artistic abilities, playing games and other non-productive activities.
..
Rather than unfairly have the same small number of people constantly toiling on the machines, the people decide to divide up, or “distribute”, the human labor that is necessary to operate the machines, plow the fields, construct buildings, roads, etc. That is, everyone has to work on the machines, etc., but for only a short period of time each year. And as the machines get improved and further automated, even less labor is required and, therefore, even more of each individual’s time is “free”.
..
The newly-designed machines in this new world come to do almost all of the things that must be done, and the “profit” from the machines – leisure time and the actual products of the machines – is equally divided among all people.
..
Some of the leisure time is used for training all people in the variety of tasks they will be undertaking – everything from brain surgery to sewage treatment. Apprenticeship and training via video (just like Youtube on planet earth!) are found to be the ideal ways of training people. It is soon discovered that most medical and dental procedures can be either performed by robots or learned in a fraction of the time once thought to be absolutely necessary.
..
Through apprenticeship and video schooling, the population becomes very knowledgeable, so they soon realize that by reducing their own population by slow attrition – by having only one or two children – the remaining population has even less to do (less water treatment, housing, electricity, food, everything), so their descendants have even more free time to themselves.
..
These people’s new-found religion is two-faceted — the Golden Rule and the continually-evolving simplicity, ease-of-use, and, most importantly, high-quality-construction and, therefore, long usable life of the products they create. Unlike the people did back on planet Earth, the people on this new world strive to manufacture things only once — things that with simple, inexpensive maintenance, last essentially forever.
..
Transportation systems move people to and from the machines and other places where labor is needed, as well as moving people about the planet for other less practical reasons.
..
Life is great in the new world.
..
The End
..
My point is that there are possible alternative ways of living (economic systems), but the only thing we are allowed to hear in our prefect Matrix of education and 24/7 propaganda is that there are NO alternatives available to the present arrangement, other than the experimental ones that are at this very moment being literally dreamed up by the present entrenched powers-that-be in order to serve only themselves.
..
All of us commenters and Caitlin and Tim have to RIGHT NOW do exactly what our billionaire Elite Overlords are doing – at first “imagining” a different arrangement than the one we were born into (a greed-based arrangement that has for literally centuries benefited only a microscopic percentage of the population and which has led the human species of animal to the edge of extinction either by environmental catastrophe or nuclear war) and then implementing that new arrangement by electing representatives who have that same “vision” of a better arrangement and will carry out their constituents’ wishes against an entrenched, near-omnipotent opposition.
..
Keep in mind that I intended my hypothetical world to stimulate discussion of alternative arrangements. If you can imagine a better arrangement than the one I have imagined and a better way to bring that arrangement into reality, please type it out right here, right now. Big things have small beginnings.
see what i mean? by asking your audience to participate, you got the most responses and excitement. involving your audience so that we have a big stake in what you do is the way to go. two way communications. i bet few visit the sites that got rid of their comment section.
I’ve never even used Twitter, but I do love the way you will seize upon ridiculous things said by high profile people and reveal them for the absurdities they are. The more you can do of this in big threads with thousands of ordinary people looking on, the better.
What particularly resonates with me is something I’ve already seen in your writing, and I can only suggest more of it. Talking about and highlighting tricky, manipulative language. As in, the specifics of it. Like you’ve done for example about how Assange was purposefully associated with animal mistreatment and lack of hygiene through implied statements and weird language and elevated rumors. This stuff is everywhere. The more it’s highlighted in specific cases, the more clearly I see it everywhere else.
Like how words like ‘apologist’ and ‘bedfellows’ or ‘toadie’ are not things that regular people go around saying until they hear those words said about antiwar voices in the media and then go around repeating them like they thought of them themselves.
Or how the way a headline is framed down to a subtle level kinda broadcasts whether the actual article is interested in any level of honesty or not. This is important I think for people who are starting to understand propaganda but who nonetheless believe certain supposed independent media is ‘on their side’ and don’t really get how widespread it is. Like with Vice running a headline: “Tulsi Gabbard is extremely anti-war…and still defending her visit to Assad.”
Two things: ‘extremely’. As in, to question war like, ever, is extreme and the most extreme possible position to take, and then the usual garbage about Assad. And the piece is nonetheless presented as an honest spotlight. It drives me insane, and it’s everywhere and it flies under people’s radar if it’s found in media that a given reader/watcher hasn’t already classified as dishonest, like CNN.
This is the stuff that really started standing out to me, particularly during Russiagate. More than seeing outright lies, even. Seeing a kernel of truth twisted in the media and framed to heavily and even subconsciously imply a bunch of baggage in a way that’s hard to see and address. Like when commentators would want to make people believe that Russia literally installed Trump (not because Trump is a threat, but because people were trying to rebel when voting for him. The point I imagine is to deny such rebellion ever had an effect at all) without saying it (due to lack of evidence) and so they’d say that Russia interfered in the US election: “And they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.”
Which is like saying because I posted a pro-Tulsi meme on Twitter one time and then she gets elected, and so I, personally, succeeded ‘beyond my wildest dreams’ in my attempt to help Tulsi Gabbard. It’s absolutely ludicrous and maddeningly dishonest. But this is the kind of stuff that people read and take the subconscious message from.
Or take all the creepy graphics from the NYT and other outlets during Russiagate, where the’ll have Putin’s and others’ faces dissected and reconfigured to make unsettling human-face jigsaw puzzles or whatever, or an American flag being groped and invaded by robotic Russian arms (yeah, one outlet did this too). All accompanying a set of claims repeated from intelligence agencies. All meant to make people disturbed without quite understanding why they are except…”well I guess I’m just disturbed that ‘Russia hacked the election’”, rather than the reality that the weird-ass graphics are why readers/watchers are unsettled and they don’t even know it.
Subtle, invasive, shadowy, creepy propaganda full of implication and suggestions and triggers for fear and creepiness that suppresses critical thought, and this following implication. Neve quite said, but an implied call-to-action:
“Hmm. Rebelling against the actions of those in power feels wrong….creepy….unsettling…and that only wrong…creepy…and unsettling people would ever do so. We here at ‘Respectable Media Outlet’ couldn’t possibly say, but something’s….off…about questioning orthodoxy. Hmmm. I’m just an honest media outlet. I’ll leave you, the discerning reader, to bravely come up with whatever theories you might have about why this is happening, and decide for yourself what to do with the information you uncover. Follow your conscience, dear reader.”
And there it is. The heart of all the shadowy implications and subtext. To get people to believe power-serving narratives, and then to believe that the power-serving narratives that they were guided toward at every point were somehow a spontaneous epiphany arrived at all by oneself as a result of just being so clever and smart. Do that to people, and they will go around spreading ‘their idea’ everywhere anybody will listen, and even when they won’t, without ever having a clue that there was never an independent thought had about the entire given subject.
God it’s maddening.
Anyway, that’s my thought. You’re awesome. Thank you for everything you do.
If you want to reach a lot of people then communicate with communicators. Most people are not communicators. You tell them something and they agree but it won’t go much further than that. Communicators are the kind of people who love to tell things to other people. They are often writers, artists, musicians, teachers, etc. Get one of those to agree with you and many others will hear about it, guaranteed.
I’m not a “communicator” as you’ve defined it, but I can assure you I communicate with people I know through emails. Daily, I pass 6-10 emails containing a link or two to articles like Caitlin’s. I write frequently to my so-called “representatives” in Washington, D.C. Anyone, IMO, who SPEAKS TRUTH TO POWER is made known to everyone I know. If everyone I send emails to sent my emails or those of their own making to the people they know, it wouldn’t take long for thousands to be “exposed” to a far different version of the “story” fed to them daily by the US MSM. The problem is – most Americans don’t read even if they can read. My adult children are college educated and the thought of being asked repeatedly by me to read a short or long article or, worse, a book, turns them off. I’ve bought books and DVDs for them to read and watch, and, even then, they don’t. It’s soo frustrating. My kids don’t know it (as I didn’t for a very long time), but what they take as THE TRUTH, isn’t. Unfortunately, SELF-CENTEREDNESS and INDIFFERENCE are very real threats to all of humanity and the world. If you’ve heard the same story all your life, then, for example, it is normal to think the sun revolves around the Earth. And anyone who says differently, like Galileo did in the 1600s, is branded a heretic and sentenced to house arrest (or far worse) for the rest of his/her life! And those who have a vested interested in maintaining the BIG LIE will come at you with a vengeance! Ask David Irving and anyone who has punched holes in the “story” we’ve been told over and over and over again about events before, during and after WW2. THE LIES continue and most accept them as THE TRUTH!
I agree with Henry Molander’s post from earlier; sink your claws in all things Israel, from Bibi and the Likud, AIPAC and beyond.
Stress the fact that a majority of people living in Israel today have no genetic link to the Israelis of biblical times, and that those living in Israel today who DO have a kinship are against the whole Greater Israel notion. I’m convinced that the reason Bibi and company get away with such atrocities is because of the “chosen people” bullshit in the Christian bible.
Beyond that, keep being you is job #1.
Love your stuff and thank you so much for what you do.
I have pondered this problem…” what can we really do” … most of my adult life.
Violence not being the answer, I think the only viable alternative is peaceful resistance Mahatma Ghandi style…. international sit downs…nobody does any thing, goes anywhere, just sit refuse to contribute, stop paying into the system, the old ” starve the beast” approach….. Organize and encourage and international “time out”.
yes, BDS is not the best but the only action that works.
now, there are many ways to BDS your enemy.
Make short films?
My mom and I both love your writing, and frequently talk about or post your articles. Like someone else said, you put out a lot of content already, make sure to take time to recharge, and get back in the flow state that lets your intuition lead the way in what Matrix buttons to push next. It’s less of a battle and more of a blooming of new ideas. Be the eternal, infernal dandelion to their over processed Bermuda lawns lol.
From a numbers standpoint, video content is king. Short, shareable think pieces on a single topic are likely to net higher consumption on social media, if that’s your goal. Alan Watts and Terence McKenna videos are wildly popular, and it’s just their philosophies set to illustrations or stock video. You could possibly pick a paragraph or two to narrate. Try it out with a regular release of videos and see if you dig the reaction to them or not. HMU if you need help, branded video is what I do for a living.
Above all else – keep being authentically you!
PS if this comment section is any indication you draw some really interesting minds to your work.
I like positive ideas, like the current one about establishing a publicly-owned national fast-speed internet service that would give all areas the ability to stream videos fluidly. Eisenhower’s interstate highway system is still the model for infrastructure that is win-win for everyone, even the 1%. Light rail transportation service is another such possibility, such being low-cost both to install and to operate, and alleviating horrendous commutes even in places like North Dakota.
LIKE WHAT YOU’VE DONE SO FAR. PERHAPS WHEN YOU GET GOOD SUGGESTIONS ON MAKING YOUR SITE EVEN MORE EFFECTIVE, YOU COULD POST THOSE GOOD SUGGESTIONS AND OTHERS IN THE SAME SITUATION COULD BENEFIT FROM THEM AND POSSIBLY EVEN HELP EXPAND ON THEM ALSO THE MORE THE MERRYIER. BASICALLY WE NEED THE NUMBERS TO BRING DOWN THE OLIGARKY, AND BY THAT PEOPLE HAVE TO HAVE THE REAL INFORMATION ON WHATS REALLY GOING ON–INFORMATION– REAL INFORMATION. HOW CAN THE AVERAGE JOE GET THIS INFORMATION? HE’S BEING WORKED TO DEATH TO EVEN HAVE THE ENERGY TO REALIZE WHATS HAPPENING AROUND HIM. AND AS LONG AS AVERAGE JOE HAS HIS FAVORITE FOOTBALL, SOCCER, OR WHAT EVER SPORT SHOW ON THATS ALL THE ENERGY AND CARING, MR JOE PUBLIC HAS
The best advice is continue on with what you are doing. Word of mouth is powerful. You could start a YouTube channel weekly program with a guest to discuss various subjects. I would watch it and many others too. Doesn’t have to be anyone famous.
Thank you Caitlin for sharing your tremendous gift with the world! Your writing is powerful (prose and poetry) — very lucid. And clearly you are giving voice to what a lot of us are thinking. Keep writing!
.
Good on you for stepping back and taking a break. Making time on a regular basis to rejuvenate is vital to keeping your spirit strong. The fight will be going on for a long time, long after we move on from this earth. Perseverance.
.
Pace yourself — we will always have to struggle to maintain and improve on what we have gained (hopefully it won’t always be this manic). The current zeitgeist is quite hyperbolic and it’s easy to over-catastrophise that the world is going to come to an end in the next few decades.
.
We all have to keep chipping away — death from a thousand cuts is the way to go (of course some cuts will be deeper than others). Some of us have to chip away and some of us have to build better alternatives. People will reject the status quo if they have a better option to choose.
.
Stay grounded. The world has always been on fire. What is needed is a spiritual awakening.
.
Keep on keeping on Caitlin!
Hi Caitlin,
Love what you do so keep on punching and raging against the machine! May l suggest that an avenue towards increasing consciousness among more people about the state of our world can be found by making climate change front and centre in the consciousness of all people. You want to know how to bring the empire crashing down once and for all? By getting far right ideologues agreeing that climate change is real and action needs to be taken now. Imagine if all people of all political persuasions were on the same page re climate change! The empire needs climate change denial to maintain its existence. It needs it to keep people divided because if all people took a position opposed by the dominant empire narrative then the empire is finished! Climate change will treat a neo nazi and a communist the same. When they realise that then we’ll have a fighting chance.
hi! we dearly love your writings, caitlin. your clarity, knowledge, and fearlessness are truly inspiring. you are a total badass!
suggestions: start a podcast! also, get on jimmy dore. mike figueredo. graham elwood. lee camp. kyle kulinski. kim iverson. et al. your voice and perspective are really needed and incredibly valuable. most of the progressive US populace is still unaware of you at this point. perhaps have a chat with aaron mate at the nation or grey zone, as well. essentially do a virtual tour with the progressive voices in the US. we will support you!
if we go down, the world goes down. we need your voice!
Get a blond wig, apply makeup with catsup bottles, don a RED, size 3 party dress and see if you can beat Rachel Maddow to FOX?
Caitlin,
I admire your work as a poet. I think you could reach more people outside your current readership if you could strengthen your reputation as a poet within traditional poetry publishing/reading circles. It will be hard for you to get your foot in that door. I would like to help by naming you poetry curator of Dactyl Foundation, where I am a director. You would have your own poetry corner on our website where we would post your poetry and any poetry-related thoughts you have (about writing, about readership, about style) and you could also use the platform to promote other poets who are trying to wake people from their political slumbers. Email me directly to discuss further if you are interested. Dactyl Foundation used to be quite well known in the poetry world–John Ashbery was on our board–but the other directors and I have had to take a break, because, you know, life. But now I’m back and I’d like to help expose your work to people who don’t run in alt media circles. Best, Tori
To my knowledge, you have NEVER addressed the evil influence of Israel’s Lobby not only in the USA, but in all of the “Western” world (including Australia) . In Germany, and in other countries in Europe, laws have been passed that can cause people to be imprisoned for CRITICIZING Israel. And if it wasn’t for the USA’s FIRST AMENDMENT, that’s exactly what would happen in the USA, too. It’s NOT for a LACK OF EFFORT that Zionists haven’t been able to accomplish in the USA what they’ve “accomplished” in Europe. I suggest you pay close attention to EVERYTHING Philip Giraldi has to say about Israel and its Lobby. Here’s an example: https://www.globalresearch.ca/lying-israel-nearly-everyone-washington-does-it/5687524 . Then you might begin to expose and tear down the Zionist matrix the Western world lives in! Ask yourself – why hasn’t Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s “Two Hundred Years Together” been published in English? Why are books that question the so-called “Holocaust” story been banned by Amazon and Barnes and Noble because of “pressure” from Israel’s lobby. I don’t know for sure if Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said the following, but it sounds like something he would write/say: “You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. More of my countrymen suffered horrific crimes at their bloodstained hands than any people or nation ever suffered in the entirety of human history. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators.”
Methinks your research is inexcusably sloppy.
https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/his-writings/large-works-and-novels/two-hundred-years-together
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Two Hundred Years Together, a two-volume history of Russian-Jewish relations, initially grew out of The Red Wheel, his monumental opus on the Russian Revolution. In Two Hundred Years Together, Solzhenitsyn emphatically denies (in Chapters 9 and 14) that the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917 were the result of a “Jewish conspiracy” (just as he had earlier forcefully criticized the extreme nationalists who were and are obsessed with Freemasons and Jews—see, e.g., Russia in Collapse, Chapter 25, “The Maladies of Russian Nationalism”).
Meanwhile, readers need to be forewarned that any and all English versions available on the Internet (with two important exceptions listed below) are illegal, pirated, and/or entirely unauthorized; often poorly and loosely translated; and redact passages, and indeed whole chapters, that apparently do not support the prejudices of those behind these illegal editions.
My purpose in posting that link and information is NOT in defense of the Jewish stat or AIPAC; they’re rabid skunks as far as I’m concerned. But Solzhenitsyn is my #1 literary hero and I don’t like to see his writings misquoted or taken out of context.
The sooner an English version of Solzhenitsyn’s “Two Hundred Years Together” is made available, the sooner we’ll all have the opportunity to know exactly what he had to say about the role Jews played in Russia. It’s my understanding, Jews didn’t like what Solzhenitsyn had to say, and when I read that, without a doubt, it made me that much more interested in reading “Two Hundred Years Together.” Watch this video titled “The Day Amazon MURDERED History”: http://holocausthandbooks.com/dl/AmazonMurder-hb25.mp4
I’m beginning to wonder if you’re part of Israel’s disinformation campaign. Who stopped an English version of Solzhenitsyn’s “Two Hundred Years Together” from being published. I read it was published in German and French. Only God knows how accurate those versions are! And, even if a English version is made available, how “clean” will it be? There is reason to be skeptical. THE TRUTH is not allowed in the matrix.
Please Caitlin or anyone, Rather than struggle against the power establishments and the narratives they promote. What if we simply made them irrelevant and relics of a bygone era?
I have since 2006 believed there is only one solution. A solution unavailable before the advent of modern technology. That is a Collective Intelligence. Think of it as a form of human powered AI.
I firmly believe that any solution that really gives us the upper hand and would as I say make our adversaries irrelevant requires a new way of looking at the world. We must create a new environment based on as Caitlin has often said, “our relationship with thought”
Radically changing the world will not happen overnight. A bag phone is in our future. Not to worry though, when the bag phone came out people were very happy to have it.
Forums like this are at once the greatest resource of time and energy and human perspective and at the same time the greatest waste of time and energy and human perspective.
If only Caitlin or anyone could find the resources to create on a forum like this a supplemental venue that attempts to capture the thoughts and perspectives of those participating. Using our understanding of human logic as the moderator we could carry on a discussion with the goal of creation. Our goal would be to create superior conclusions and perspective that are a product of an anonymous whole (humanity). These creations would not lend or attach ‘power’ to any individual or group of individual. A superior product Formed of a Collective Intelligence.
It is the creation of these conclusions and perspectives vetted through the moderation of human logic that would create a new environment. It is these conclusions and perspectives characterized as anonymous, transparent and permanently available, always open to refinement, that would shift the power into the hands of the people. The thoughts and ideas and narratives of the ‘elite’ would no longer hold the value they do today. They just could not compete and no amount of narrative enhancement and selling of the product (lies, misinformation, disinformation) could put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
This is the road never traveled. In truth there is no road. Regardless it is the direction we must take.
https://medium.com/@whmilk/what-is-a-real-solution-696608f98b78
https://medium.com/@whmilk/the-value-of-anonymity-in-a-collective-intelligence-c0a003f481b6
https://medium.com/@whmilk/thinking-outside-the-vertical-line-28161b232d64
I agree with Clint… ‘Creating a new Reality’
Here’s an audiobook by a super successful dude…
The Code of the Extraordinary Mind: – by Vishan Lakiani
Listen on Scribd or audiobooks – trial membership
Here is a quote I came across this year. I think it is one on my favorite
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
– Buckminster Fuller
It is right up there with this one, ha ha
If we’d know we were going to be the Beatles, we’d have tried harder.
George Harrison
‘Fictional’ short stories??
I made a similar suggestion. Caitlin is a great poet. She could try to reach literary audiences. I bet she’d make a good fiction writer too.
I’d like to see results of a [team of] forensic accountants digging into the effects on us non-rich people of the activities of what I call the URBMFs [ultra-rich bas**rd MFs]. I think the results would have a lot of effect if posed as amount of increase in our taxes and amount of discretionary spending we can’t have.
You are much appreciated. I found you through a re-post of one of your articles at the ZEROHEDGE.COM website. I’ve also seen your blog linked to at NAKEDCAPITALISM.COM.
I would suggest a network of like minded sites, each site promoting the other, increasing the reach of all. Not much, I know, but there is strength in numbers.
Hi Caitlin—I first found you on Zerohedge, followed you to your website, signed up for your newsletter to come to my email, and later searched for you on Patreon so I could send you my pitifully small donation each month as a way to say thank you for your outstanding work and your beautiful heart that you so fearlessly share with us. I especially love your combination of blending the political with the spiritual. I often post your work on my FB page, and paste links to, or quotations from, your relevant topics to share my resources with others in online discussions. I agree with Christine, you don’t have to do more, we do—your faithful and loyal readers! Thank you and bless you, you beautiful soul and lightworker.
Not sure if we can fix the odds or change them, regarding anyone’s impact. It’s a crapshoot, whether any kind of activity will go viral without corporation-level funding & advertising.
I’d also worry about you wasting time trying to measure impact. It seems like EVERYONE with a Youtube channel starts seeing evidence that they are ‘making a difference’. Maybe some of them are, but they can’t ALL be. There’s a degree of delusion needed to keep a line of communication open, even if it’s reaching half a dozen fans.
What I’m saying, is that I don’t want to see you worrying about popularity, stressing over whether your message is getting through.
However – off the top of the head, audio-visual comes to mind. Most of your punditry is in the form of writing. You used to do soundcloud, which I found enjoyable.
Maybe we could solicit some of the Gaming software developers, to put together a game that simulates the evolution of an egalitarian society.
More interviews with Jimmy Dore, maybe. Contact Jesse Ventura.
As far as reaching people outside the choir – maybe you could travel more, or run for office yourself. Yes, I know this is way out of your comfort level, and I personally don’t want to see you do that. But we’re brainstorming, here.
You don’t want to hear this, Cait – but maybe in certain contexts, you don’t have to be quite as mean. Would that induce more people to pay attention, or to keep reading after they skim through some of your posts? Maybe.
You sometimes use poetry to get your point across. Maybe you can tell short stories, and try publishing them in venues you haven’t tried before.
If I think of anything else, I’ll go ahead and post them. But if you’re right that we’re ‘waking up’ – that’s going to happen regardless of what you do. And if you’re trying too hard, then it will be tempting for your brain to think that it was partly because of you – when it might have happened, regardless of your efforts.
L & R,
Dwayne/Dan/DCQuine
Recognize that the external struggle you are fighting is simply a reflection of your own internal battles that have been resisted and are superimposed on your external world. Come to terms with them and you will know intuitively exactly what to do in the external world.
Beloved Caitlin I was thinking about writing you on this very topic with a couple of suggestions:
1.TALKING POINTS so your readers can easily communicate the basics and counter the media end runs… e.g how to respond to those who call anyone who find Epstein’s death suspicious (70% of Americans according to one poll) “conspiracy theorists”? How to respond to those who label people “anti-semites” if they condemn Israe’ls crimes against humanity etc. Much as you did with that excellent Assange piece. Many of my friends will never ever ever read, for example, an article about Palestine, but when I point out one key, undeniable fact – that the natives were ancient farming people who never invaded anyone, they are far more likely to feel sympathy for the victims.
2. 80% are not ready for these truths, and if you try to pander to a broader audience you’ll have to water it down, so DON’T because we need your brand of triple-X truth. However, I think you can open it up a little: certain jargon, correct and useful as it can be, turns off a lot of brains and could limit your audience. I.e “oligarchic plutocracy” sounds great in Greek, less good in English. Also, as one who uses a great deal of dubious language myself, I still think that slurs like “turd” etc are only worth using if they are truly amusing or enlightening.
3. Take care of yourself. So many of us are heartened by your existence. You are why I stayed on social media.
4. I Agree with the gent who said more interviews/collaboration with other great Diogenes of our times.
I would suggest seeing if you could be interviewed on the Jimmy Dore show. He has a pretty good following. Also getting interviewed on the Sunday Wire show with Patrick Henningsen.
I “discovered” you on the Jimmy Dore show about a year ago — bought your book and have been following you ever since. Interviews on these types of progressive shows is a good way to gain more exposure to bigger audience.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/08/12/how-the-trilateral-commission-drove-a-bankers-coup-across-america/
Must read above, if you haven’t already.
As for suggestions; cartoons! the opioids, Ritalin etcetera is no coincidence, all intended to create sheep
And, don’t forget what Ralph Waldo Emerson had to say in his essay, ‘The Obligation of Civil Disobedience’; “Most men are little more than clods of clay and clumps of manure”. Save yourself and leave the rest to die. Humans are, after all is said and done, little more than rats, and even rats are better than that.
Dear Caitlin,
Start a new “religion”.
A fun one with a platform that is novel, prankish, memeful (sorry Richard) and germane to your goals.
Something viralish that people want to join even if it’s only to brag about or wear the symbol. It needs to grow quickly enough to interest the media.
A good brainstorming with the right people is needed to come up with the right ingredients.
Plenty to borrow from current religions, even Vonnegut’s Church of God the Utterly Indifferent (rough example: replace God with some catchy word meaning of polity or mundi or sheeple).
As is obvious from the Followers of Twitter and Facebook, people are increasingly at a loss and in need of some fresh form of fellowship especially something they can identify with.
There are plenty of thinking people who would love to join something, people like us look to inspirational people like you for fresh ideas, analysis, concept encapsulation and promulgation but it needs to have wide appeal and not a body that can be identified as left, right, green or red and is not crass.
Best regards, Phil.
Caitlin, you probably underestimate the influence and impact you already have. “It’s YUGE!”
You changed my life forever when I tuned into your articles on medium and from there to the updates via E-Mail.
Maybe consider a podcast? Joining forces with Lee Camp, Jimmy Dore, Kyle Kulinski, WeAreChange.org, etc. a bit more might also help?
And: You may not like to hear it, but it really helps to meditate on the good spiritual forces, invite them to join you and enlighten you.
I’d love you to create a podcast. I’m tired of visual stimuli, all the yelling and hyperventilating on YouTube, even when it comes from those whose message I agree with. I’ve quit twitter because much of what’s on there is poison and I’m sick of feeling angry. I love your voice, your Aussie accent, and would happily listen. Podcasts are versatile. I listen to them while working, driving, travelling. There are not enough of them. Thanks for all you do Caitlin.
Remember to appreciate and be in gratitude for all you already bring to the table, which is tremendous in it’s variety by the way –there is always something for everyone! Consider that wanting for more is, well, another form of desiring and, you know, sometimes less is actually more in itself. Your intuition for taking a couple of steps back for a time may be exactly what you need. Perhaps then even you will see just how huge an impact your rock star contributions are already having out there.
Always with Gratitude and Appreciation for your Honest, Sane, and Erudite Perspective — Rock On!
A number of people have suggested YouTube, but with your sense for what is screwed up in this world, it is likely apparent also to you that Google is NOT a force for good. You are well enough known that using an alternative non-Google platform and being vocal about doing so would be a real help, both to the platform you choose and to getting the word out to people that there are alternatives. We could change large things if enough of us make the conscious choice to do the small things…
Hi Caitlin,
I see your work as being of interest to two groups of people, the ones interested in understanding politics and ones interested in spiritual awakening. And my advise would be depending on which of these fields you want to expand.
My advise would keep politics for Twitter or possibly start a Youtube channel. For the spiritual area I’d start an Instagram account. I’ve been following some accounts there that are focusing on personal development, mental health and spiritualism and have seen some of them grow really quickly. Best example is @the.holistic.psychologist who I started following last year when she had 5k followers and she’s now on over 8 hundred thousand. I don’t know how well you know Instagram, it needs some learning how to best go about your posts before you start there, some investments too re graphics, video etc, but I think it’s a great tool in reaching people of all ages, women especially. And judging by myself and what I see there, the need for ‘self-betterment’ tools is great.
Linda 🙂
Caitlin,
I don’t know if you are familiar with the work of Derrick Jensen, but your work reminds me a lot of his, only, he has taken things to the next level. Here is a link: http://www.derrickjensen.org/
His writing is some of the most well-researched, well-thought out, profound and totally outside of the Matrix that I have ever come across. One of the primary subjects he writes about is how to mount an effective resistance.
If you haven’t already, and you are looking for ideas on how to ramp up your fight, you would do well to check out some of his work.
Other suggestions: Since mainstream online platforms like Google, Facebook, Youtube, etc. are censoring content, I would try expanding out to some alternatives like MeWe, and DTube.
I really don’t know how stupid this is, but in the ’80s when we just had house-phones in the squatters movement in holland, we had phone chains in emergencies. It meant, everybody call 2 mates, that will call 2 mates, who call 2 mates, who call 2 mates and so on. In cases of individual squat emergencies, there’d be 20/30 ppl in half an hour, at one riot (queensday-riot, 80/81 in holland) in 1 morning it got 50.000 ppl to amsterdam from all over holland ! Why don’t you apply something like this to all your social media outlets ?
Just ask your followers to share everything you publish twice with ppl that will share it twice and so on.
Keep up the good work, I love it, and don’t forget to cherish your inner child …
antoon.
Amazing how many people have already responded to this. I’ll join others suggesting YouTube and add to that. Use your name recognition in print to jumpstart your YouTube channel (lots of people already there) do collaborations (“collabs”) with other YouTubers as much as possible and as soon as possible. Interview and/or get on Jimmy Dore (who you’ve worked with before) and try to do the same with Kyle Kulinski, David Pakman, David Doel, Tim Black, Mike Figueredo, Jamarl Thomas, Kim Iverson, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Michael Brooks, Glenn Greenwald.
Try to add discussions with experts and “celebrities” in areas you write about: Noam Chomsky, Roger Waters, Theodore Postol, Stephen Cohen.
Keep your videos short and have only one subject (see Kyle Kulinski for a good example, Jamarl Thomas for a poor one). Put them in a format that lends itself to both be listened to (describe visual issues, don’t leave long pauses) and watched in loud environments (use subtitles).
You’ve got a great voice, but video is much more accessible for people.
According to Daniele Ganser, 9/11TRUTH will end the ILLEGAL wars. Unite around this idea if you for real (not you Caitlin).
The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend.
As much as I love the work of the resistance, please Dont be Petty and work/FOLLOW together.
I love your writing so much!! Are you aware of Danish outsider politician Mads Palsvig? He talks about the same issues and problems as you do, but he has some very interesting suggestions for practical solutions to some of these problems. Specifically in regards to our banking/monetary system, which is perhaps at the root of everything. You have a strong point in that we “need to evolve or die”, but some of our problems are more practical and could be fairly “easily” fixed if the political understanding and will was there, building up from the grass root level.
To understand why the human brain is malfunctioning you need to know how its three levels of functioning – the cognitive, the feelings and the brainstem sensations – operate to create our reality. Psychology and psychiatry only focus on the cognitive mind in the prefrontal cortex, when it is the imprinting in the brainstem sensations, either good or bad, that has nearly absolute power over the conscious mind.
Caitlin, the power of a malfunctioning brainstem is why you can’t get thru to damaged people.
Have you seen this Caitlin – ‘The reality Brokers’ by John Steppling (Counterpunch).
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/29/the-reality-brokers-or-the-rise-of-the-automagicians/
I think we have all been rethinking our efforts Caitlin. Much respect and much love for all that you have already done. Social media has become somewhat of an echo chamber these days and seems increasingly less effective at awakening those that most need awakening and more like preaching to the choir. There is value in recognizing that we are not alone in our efforts but that alone doesn’t move us forward. The cultural value shift needed across humanity right now is a truly profound one. For now, I am leaning towards XR efforts as the next step toward created more widespread awareness. They are doing a pretty good job with the red pill truth thing while their approach is more from an emotional rather than a strictly intellectual level, the stages of deep grieving for the immense losses we are all suffering daily. I think they have the right idea on how to appeal to the immense audience we have all been missing so far, by using peaceful, nonviolent, loving disruption of ‘business as usual’.
What is XR?
Extinction Rebellion
I was actually thinking about this just the other day, synchronicity. I was thinking that you should do audiences. Have a youtube show where you pipe in whichever of your fans/guests are selected that week to ask questions and have a chinwag with you. Like a skype meeting or whatever, live. And of course commenters on the sidebar, like for the Unity4J live shows.
You are doing a Great Job.
Relax.
Take time out to smell the roses.
YOU don’t have to do anything.
xxx
Change nothing but take a look at adding more brainstorming creative vents on solutions to world problems. There are some really great appropriate tech solutions that need to be spread around, and as an idea person with no genius for hard hitting writing, my biggest problem is getting knowledge of them spread. As soon as I try to explain, the glazed over eyes start. People are stuck in their narrative ruts for sure, and I can’t break them out, but you can.
First of all, you write too often. I can’t keep up and that forces yesterday’s education out of my vision.
You need to condense your thoughts into a book at some point.
For daily updates, you could join someone like Lee Camp. A lot of people prefer audio/video for their news.
Well I love your work and think you’re one of the most interesting writers around; you’re obviously gifted, that piece you wrote on spirituality the other day was spot on, and as for the political stories, your highly intelligent take no prisoners style is refreshing in the snowflake storm which is so much of mainstream media posturing.
I’ve often thought I’d like to have you in my Medium publication, A Sense of Place Magazine.
The style is different to yours in that it is very visual; but I would love to get some synergy going somehow.
As a retired newspaper reporter, what I lack in youthful enthusiasm I make up for in experience, and Vice Versa.
You can see the magazine here: https://medium.com/a-sense-of-place
All the best.
Do amazing shit that really stands out. Feed the hungry. Cure the sick. Get elected to Congress. Appear on talk shows and spread the word about how love can save the world. That should do it.
Caitlin, you have an intuitive mind, a sharp writing style, and a very entertaining sense of humor. that’s a lot of talent. so keep on writing on what excites you, and more readers will find you.
but if you’re getting antsy and a bit bored, consider utilizing your audience, many of whom seem resourceful, knowledgeable, and politically quite diverse. i enjoy reading, and learn so much from, the comments (except really long ones) as much as the main course at any site including this one.
if you start a youtube channel, involve your audience and invite them to send clips (of videos, interviews, songs, comic strips, skits, etc), and be a curator. you have the ability to connect the dots and come up with a big picture, an alternative narrative, about what’s really going on.
On a another note, Hurricane Dorian, which so thoughtfully sidestepped Puerto Rico and spared it more death and destruction, has now taken direct aim at Mar-de-Lago. The National Weather Service is predicting a 50/50 chance that Mar-de-Lago will see hurricane strength winds within 5 days. To be fair, they also warn that the forecast could change a lot due to the strengths of other systems. They are also predicting Hurricane Dorian to be a Category 4 (out of 5) hurricane by the time it has crossed the unseasonably warm waters (gee, I wonder why?) and arrived at Florida’s coast. Mar-de-Lago is located on a barrier island just off the coast of the mainland. The sort of place where you see the helicopter footage after a big storm of every house battered down and bare concrete foundations.
So, everyone please keep the fate of Mar-de-Lago and the course of Hurricane Dorian in their thoughts and their prayers to whatever, whichever, or whomever spiritual beings you pray to.
Your presence on Consortium News is a boon to both you and to them. CN is the most consistently realistic, timely, and comprehensive resource of all of the news blog.
You may be aware that various individuals post your articles on Facebook, and others Share them to their circles. Seems to me that it would be a readymade means of spreading the Caity words from a central source that would be easily spread.
Your articles are amazing intelligent inspiring, but many of the the people you’re trying to get through to won’t take time to read them. You’ll get lots of good advice butmaybe a youtube Chanel? Jimmy Dore is good with huge following and he simply takes mainstream media clips and shows they’re false and ridiculous and makes people laugh. People will spend 15 minutes watching youtube but not spend the same time reading. I’m sure you’ll get loads of advice from many with better ideas but the best of luck to you and keep up the good work.
Someone should invite Jimmy Dore down under and do shows with Caitlin. 🙂
—————
Sadly, I’m both a reader and a writer, but I have to admit that in this age where schools are underfunded and under attack, videos do seem to have a wider reach than the printed words I prefer.
That’s what I said. Or Lee Camp.
Please, Ms Johnstone, keep in mind that you have a loving family and a lot to lose. The masters and the owners are NOT nice people. There is absolutely nothing that is too low for them to plot or carry out!
Hi Caity .. you put out so much quality writing on THE most important issues .. thank you !
I think it might be good for you to consider rolling your own online community
here’s one https://tribe.so/communityplatform
I see that your blog website is created in WordPress .. there’s also a widely used community tool for
WordPress: BuddyPress
Cheers !
Hi Caitlin, you write well – engaging, insightful – don’t put up with yada, encourage critical thinking not the fake fact free assertions – have well practiced skills. You have the basics – a website and a great regular email service that is invaluable for getting your fine words out to ever larger audiences.
http://Corbettreport.com is an example of what Corbett another gifted writer has done over a good many years. All articles, audios and videos include full text and footnotes – links. Corbett is quickly moving off YouTube to BitChute due to YouTube’s obnoxiousness, censoring etc.
Corbett posts everything to his website and also articles to Minds.com and regular emails with links to each new release. All his material is Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Emails are free. Notice the multiple ways Corrbett can be supported. Also DVD’s are available.
Good luck – the more clear voices the better – your voice is loud and clear.
Start a YouTube Channel. Try not to get demonetized though, 😉
My suggestion would be to focus on the personal and particular. Critique individuals whose work is harmful and explain the harm in concrete terms. Katie Halper’s article on the Times’ Sydney Ember is an example of the kind of thing I have in mind: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/29/how-nyt-reporter-sydney-ember-uses-corporate-sources-attack-bernie-sanders
Ember is someone who has a personal financial interest in perpetuating economic inequality, and the Times provides a platform. Reach out to groups like Fight for $15 whose members might not be as hip to the subtleties of the “narrative matrix” because they are trying to put food on the table. But they can understand the 1% who want to continue the status quo because they benefit from the injustices inherent in the current system.
This is Michael Harrington. My colleagues and I are going to begin working on this now. I believe with all my hope in your chances. We will be back with suggestions.
Wot wot…
How about folks share some of Caity’s work on less traveled roads? Without spamming anywhere that goes without saying. Let her work speak for itself. Take out a few cheap ads in odd spots to gain exposure for her. it all gets linked eventually and will show up in weird search results for a long time. Keep doing that and a whole net of Caity will form. Folks won’t be able to get through that web without looking closer. If most of her followers do that it would be amazing. It would grow more organically.
I see the main problem in gaining widespread acceptance of arguments you write about, being the sophistication and length of the articles. People aren’t incapable of following the points made but for most their apparently busy lives detract from spending time and mental resources on things that they aren’t passionate about, or that they know they won’t be able to remember well enough, to be useful by the time they get to discuss them next.
This has occurred to me in relation to political messaging before elections, which should be able to be critically considered but which are mostly kept too simplistic for the reasons I’ve mentioned.
The only answer I have come to is a pro’s and con’s list that is self conclusive, that ordinary folk can scan and be reminded of the more sophisticated arguments they have probably already heard, and so remember well enough to be obviously useful in future. I see this as being in the form of headings or bold type, or in conclusion to your articles but I guess the fact that no-one else does it, suggests it may not be so effective but one can only try. Like your effective use of the odd expletive, which I suggest is an Australian trait which works well outside Oz if not overdone. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down” still resonates even though I can’t remember the Latin and I commend it to you with affection.
I had to think about this for a moment before responding.
One major problem we have is that many people seem to simply be unreachable. They shut down, they become defensive or even hostile, and they simply refuse to even try to listen. The moment that happens, you’ve already failed with those people … regardless of how true your words are or how well you make your case.
It occurs to me, then, that the problem is less a matter of getting the message out than it is a matter of getting people to HEAR the message. You have to find a way past those automatic defensive barriers that come up in response to anything that might challenge the prevailing narratives.
Allegories like Animal Farm come to mind, as does the relatively recent movie The Matrix, which was arguably a warning about the nature of our world today disguised as a sci-fi action movie. Or, for example, look at what this guy does:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX9hYvpMBR8
The key is finding ways to disguise your message or reframe it in comfortable, familiar terms (for your audience) so that it slips past those automatic defensive barriers and, at least for a moment, forces the normally unreachable to actually think about the point you’re making.
Well, that’s just my two cents. Take it for whatever it may be worth.
Dear Caitlin
Thinking comes before doing , always. So you are halfway there already.
Doing things depends on organizing large numbers of people to do a lot of stuff that finally comes together in a product or objecitve.
Examples: A symphony orchestra , The Bil Gates Foundation, The State Government.. etc etc.
The most efficient method for organizing the people is MONEY. Once you have loads of money you can get stuff done. Your only problem will be how to stop people diverting your money by corruption or theft and thereby destroying your objectives.
So start a not for profit with a board of directors utterly dedicated to TRANSPARANCY and ACCOUNTABILITY. The objective is to get big money from small donations by building great trust with your donors by means of great transparency and accountability. Then you make grants and low interest loans on the bottom line that is “Benefit to all people” . Trustworthy ventures giving benefit to all not just the shareholders and executives.
Kindest Regards JohnB
PS: Your email address is not valid according to my IP.
This isn’t going to help you spread the word at all, however, as an alleged truthseeker you baulk at very obvious and important truths such as, that apart from damage and collapse of buildings, 9/11 was a completely staged event: the plane crashes were faked and death and injury were staged. (I recently discovered that the now sadly-dead Gerard Holmgren, brother of David Holmgren, co-founder of permaculture with Bill Mollison was an amazing pioneering and prescient analyst of 9/11). This puts 9/11 on a continuum starting at least as far back as Pearl Harbour and continuing now at a frenetic pace with a number of events including the recent Sydney CBD shutdown due to staged Muslim-not-terrorist-but-with-mental-health-problems stabbing event and the Philadelphia shooting.
Love take on it by African-American elder, Baba Rahson, who says Philly was as phony as two left shoes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJBCt0F259o
Additionally, Chelsea Manning, whistleblower is a media narrative like many others. The difference between the Chelsea Manning whistleblower narrative and a number of other narratives is that her narrative is specifically aimed at those very same people who are suspicious of “media narratives” and put time into analysing and exposing them. Ironic, isn’t it? But, of course, there is no way in the world that the power elite would allow those who are suspicious of their narratives off the hook, would they? They’re waaaaaay too clever for that. It’s all psychological – they know how to target all groups and have figured out how to dupe those suspicious of their stories just as effectively as they target the unsuspecting. They’ve got it all sewn up.
The thing is though THEY ALWAYS TELL US, rubbing their crimes in our faces. That’s how clever they are – they tell us and yet still we refuse to see. We steadfastly avert our gaze. You only have to turn to the Wikipedia entries of Chelsea and Adrian and see the “secret” code writ very large. The not credible story of how she smuggled out the “leaked” documents, the mismatch in the ages given for Adrian’s acting in the narrative back in 2010 and on his alleged death, and a number of other things that don’t add up.
The fact that they tell us and, in fact, are scrupulous in never providing a single piece of evidence that a believer of their narratives can brandish in defence of them means that no one can present an argument against what I say. They may deride me, ludicrously label me an intelligence asset and a troll, make very inappropriate sexual insults and express their strong desire for me to disappear but they cannot provide a single piece of evidence against what I say – cos their ain’t one, that’s just the way the power elite do things. I find it very disheartening that when people don’t have a single piece of evidence to brandish in support of their belief that this does not make them sit back on their heels and concede that without a single piece of evidence in favour of their belief but with a number of pieces of evidence against it this means THEY MUST CHANGE THEIR MIND. I find that very disheartening. I’m always ready to change my mind in that situation – as I did for 9/11 and Chelsea.
https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com
I think you would be a natural for YouTube. You already do most of the work in writing your columns. Just turn them into videos too. From what I can see it does not take much in terms of equipment and fancy technique. Learn by doing. There are lots of possible models. Some I’ve seen include: The Rational National, Tim Black TV (TBTV), Tim Pool and Kim Iversen. (I am not at all listing these for their politics, but for their varied but accessible techniques and stylistic approaches that you might consider adapting to your own use. I think YouTube rewards sincerity, naturalness, informality and having something to say, plus speaking directly with audience in a vivid and personal way. I think you would need to experiment a bit to develop your YouTube personality, but from your writing, I think it would be compelling and attractive. Fortunately or unfortunately, it’s the wave of the future.
Yes – great suggestion Guy.
De-emphasize the platform.
Elaborate a few basic principles that you would like people to know.
Found a school that follows and teaches the principles. Nothing elaborate to begin with. People will come (by sailboat, if necessary).
Train people to carry the principles to the world. The time for doing everything yourself is over.
(You have been doing wonderful work)
Hi Caitlin,
I’ve just read every message to you, Here is my own blog post today. http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/08/elite-desperation-mounts.html
It was partly inspired by my experience with my compassion-meditation-on-bike commute yesterday. It takes an hour each way. I had a growing feeling of suffering of frustration and feeling of exasperation with people, incompetent, interfering people, and a desire to sweep them away.
That was weird, because nothing was wrong, and I usually dedicate that time to feeling and seeking to calm the suffering around me. Then it hit, the epiphany that this is the kind of suffering that the power elites experience which leads to their frustrated destruction of millions of lives.
Oh, it’s good to practice relieving them of this kind of suffering, which leads them to murder people who they feel threaten their position and prerogatives (us f’rinstance).
With the epiphany came the immediate peace and resolution of those feelings, which I intention-forwarded to the entity whence I received them. Peace, brother or sister, peace.
So, we are little parts of the Big-Grok. I ask the Big-Grok to point out opportunities for me, and I do often pay attention. “I” just need to do the work presented to me.
People wake up in little bits, like that epiphany about one specific type of compassion for one specific kind of sufferer. It doesn’t seem fair. I detest those people (Kill them all!), but it is an efficient form of compassion practice to reduce global suffering.
I communicate with some other folks around the word by email, do the blog, send it to 200 folks, grow vegetables, and have a real job, too.
Keep being part of the solution and asking for guidance.
I reply to all the comments on my blog that are not advertising spam.
Wishing us well in this work.
John
(PS: Pacifica Radio only wants left-gatekeepers like Amy Goodman these days, not YOU.)
I share your essays with everyone in my tiny circle of awake ones. This probably amounts to 3 whole people. 🙂 And they’re Already Woke! Others I know don’t want to be disturbed.
I’m gonna toss out something simple, cheap and maybe silly, considering the bigger ideas here; but based on thousands who’ve never heard of Caitlyn Johnstone and thousand of us across the country who love you.
As an old person who travels a really small circle, I could print small tags with your website address and a catchy lead-in phrase, like ‘Want to Know What’s Really Happening to Us’? (You and others could think of something even better) One sheet of printer paper could produce many tags. Cut them up, put them in an envelope which you could easily carry wherever you go.
Fold them or not, and leave them on (in) grocery shelves, drugstore, restaurants, tip jars, counters, doctors/dentists, waiting room magazines.
Granted, we’d only work locally, but it could be repeated every time we go out. New people would find them. Surely SOME would be curious enough to log on.
Long ago, I used to tape nickels to paper with a friendly little message, and leave them in the places I mentioned. Certainly, some people enjoyed that tiny ‘find.’
I’m kind of embarrassed to suggest this when there are much bigger ideas out there, but heck, I’m gonna do it.
Hi Caitlin, I’m new to your work, which I think is terrific, but you’re one person and cannot do it all. I would suggest that you develop a presentation that others could use to pass on the information. If the price isn’t too onerous, I believe many of your “followers” would gladly buy into the idea. Presentations could be made at places like senior centers, libraries, even churches. I don’t think it will change hearts and minds when you consider how fabulously successful the brainwashing has been, but to me the idea is to get people thinking. No matter how lost someone is in Maya’s Palace of Delusion, most everyone realizes that things are not going well. For example, something fairly neutral like the Fed (central banks) and fractional reserve lending might be one idea to start with because its not too threatening and could segue into other conversations. I hope you get many great suggestions and wish you the very best.
Let’s organize an army of talented wokies like us, and make entertaining movies that we can give away for free so that 50 million people see them. I have the first idea . We can monetize the operation with donations . The end result will be that hundreds of thousands of people will have their minds cracked open, just a little bit at first, by humor, drama, docu series, etc
truth which will then grow to more light and more knowing . They were programmed by content and can awakened by content . That’s what you can do because you understand the nexus between spirit, science, and reality .
Caitlin, you have a gift of exposing the propaganda and narrative that is controlling us in a way that is entertaining and enlightening. If you could employ or teach your skills to other people and organizations who are trying to get their message out, that could exponentially expand your and our effectiveness. For instance, I work with the 9/11 Truth Action Project (911tap.org) and we are trying to move away from the in-fighting of what happened on 9/11 and come up with a new message based on how 9/11 has affected our lives in so many ways, and how it ties into the agenda of the ’60s assassinations and other false flag atrocities. We are finding it so difficult to come up with a brochure, slogans, etc., that will be the most effective and could use help from someone with your writing skills!
I also think that you could do more guest appearances on YouTube channels as well as start your own channel, something like Jimmy Dore or Secular Talk, etc. Whatever you do will be a gem!
1. A gofundme campaign asking for $7B to buy shares in Newscorp. ASX Market cap is just over $12.3B
2. Interview noteworthy people and post videos online.
3. Knock on pollie’s doors and make a general nuisance of yourself.
4. Same as no. 3, but as a female Borat.
5. Run for office.
6. Become a billionaire.
Well, Caitlin, here is a suggestion. Stop just going on about “narrative bad”. People with any clue at all have already awoken to the fact that society is based on narrative and the establishment narrative is not working.
I hope you don’t have the idea that humans can survive without a narrative. The next level in mental disability from having a warped narrative is the inability to give yourself any kind of narrative, any kind of story.
You need to get people woke up to the fact that just getting disillusioned with the present order helps nothing if there is no new and compelling vision to replace it with. People are just lead into a new “matrix” or into flaky mysticism or fanaticism of left right and centre.
The best example right now of a new matrix which people are being sheep dogged into en masse, is the climate” crap, or its latest slogan, the “green new deal”. Yes, a new deal financed by the Rockefeller foundations.
All the “climate scientists” with no qualification in anything cannot be questioned that the climate is heating up. Even when all the actual scientists are telling us that there is no overall warming and something more complex is going on.
What is happening despite all the noise and nonsense over the internet, is that there are an increasing number of people with good critical thinking skills who are developing a clear idea of how a post capitalist order will work. It will not be a paradise. If you are an unhappy flake now you will still be an unhappy flake when the revolution is over. But we are getting a mental model of a better framework within which to advance civilization.
If you want to do something useful Cait, get yourself clued into the best ideas for post capitalism, and disseminate them. This will give people an idea of what leaders, what movements to follow, and which are the Judas goat operations or nut cults.
It all isn’t just going to happen by itself. If there is no idea presented of how to move forward, society will end up going backward in a very bad way. The key is for more people to develop the critical thought to recognize sound ideas and the kind of competent and conscientious leadership which can put them into effect.
The elite put huge effort into preventing people from acquiring good critical thinking skills. They actually encourage mysticism. I hope that gives you a suggestion.
“What is happening despite all the noise and nonsense over the internet, is that there are an increasing number of people with good critical thinking skills who are developing a clear idea of how a post capitalist order will work.”
Why don’t you just provide the links?
tried sending this three times now… decapacha bs. You geting any of this?
A second comment based on the comments I am reading here. Americans are reading you, an Australian. That matters, given how parochial Americans are.
Perhaps the best thing you could do is get Americans who think they are awake to realise that they are part of a global, NOT just a national conspiracy; that their government is as impotent as every other government in the world, and that their damned constitution is utterly irrelevant.
It is my major frustration with Chris Hedges, who otherwise I think is the best journalist in the world. He just does not seem to be able to “get” that this problem has jack squat to do with America as a separate national entity and everything to do with transnational global entities who are controlling the American and every other national conversation.
America is irrelevant. The problem is global. So what say you take those awake and aware Americans and educate them about “the rest of the world”. That would help.
Bam!
Give what you are doing more time. I have shared quote a few of your works on my Facebook site and I will post more. I am a libertarian so I don’t post your economics or the use of government force, but your narrative disruptions are exquisite.
I think you should crowd fund for one of these & direct it at fundraising gatherings of the political elites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=57&v=u9p5naCkz2w&fbclid=IwAR1Os1kg0wHuAva2sqr1iEI3FacrfS_7BEjhLBpMu1Ur4qfG8DOnKoIrKkY
Caitlin, think about creating a Youtube channel, nicely produced, like Joe Rogan, Jimmy Dore, etc. It doesn’t have to be at that quality for a start, but great sound, lighting, camera. Most of online info gathering is turning towards watching shows. You can do this and fill the void left by Molly Ivins, but in your own fearless unique way.
Just a humble suggestion on this note: See if you can book an interview with Joe Rogan. He has over 6 million subscribers and that kind of exposure can’t hurt. Your ideas are spot on, your delivery seems to be reaching more and more people (those who are willing to read – that is important), and your message resonates with many people who have the same idea about what is going on in the world but don’t necessarily know how to express it.
admin@caitlinjohnstone.com DOES NOT EXIST. ( Cut and pasted driecly from the bottom of thy request into my secure proton mail account. ) Does not exist as a valid email.
c&p from my protonMail.com sequre accout failed send:
I am new to twitter, been a follower of you a while, thought you were a freind from Maple Ridge… I don’t know how you found me…. I like your page. Austrailia?
A: list a post box address or friend’s adress to receive cash and anonamous checks. List an account name and bank for the checks. It’s about the free choice how to pay. Many of us do not trust online transactions. My personal experiences and knowledge of computers demonstrates you might not be getting all the money that is due to you. Therefore, fewer wize ones will patreon support, as there is doubt. No theory do I give who intercepts the money.
B: Post a header banner prommiss to prove you got the money that was donated you. Just because I was billed on credit card does not mean you got it.
C: Remember that your choice to be a messiah and savior of the world in your own way is NOT a commandment responsibility from the All MIghty Source. It’s rather an opertunity to be !!! Enjoy the fight, the right, the night, and the light, it will be allright (though yeah, IT’S ALL FUCKED)
D: In feeding the world as we do, feed first ourselves; Feed thine eyes with beauties; thine ears with music s ; thine mouth with natural foods, water ; feed your body with sharing of affections and sleep. Feed your mind with reading. To that end, have a breeze through my facious book posts of authors and sites I follow. Be not astounded, nor dismayed nor amazed at it all or you might burn out.
E: “Take it easy baby; make it last all night ” (american girl, by Tom Petty )
F: Post all the best suggestions to thy query here.
G: Be entertained by my blogger posts Blogger: User Profile: James Beckonwit and facious book.
Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.
Hi Caitlin! I suggest you should find a way to translate your writings, your poems your lyrics to other languages, but specially Spanish. My name is Wilber. I am from Nicaragua. As you may know, Nicaragua went through a regime change U.S. sponsored failed coup last year. I think your audience and followers will expand when other countries could read your articles. Articles like “how to make sense of foreign protest” hit right on the nail. That is exactly what happened to the news about Nicaragua last year. Thanks for your courage and determination to keep saying the true against all odds. Gracias un abrazo fuerte y fraterno.
Assassination of JFK unleashed LBJ madness in Vietnam and the USSLibertyMovie(.)com >
“Unequivocal 9/11 Nukes” at > principia-australia(.)org > unleashed Afgan, Iraq madness >
“Breathtaking: Solving Nuclear 9/11” at > VeteransToday(.)com > WTC vaporization declassified
includes research by Heinz Pommer > 911history(.)de > find and share Truth
What about connecting with other alt media folks on their various platforms via video chat… Aaron Mate, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Glen Greenwald, etc… it may help extend your reach some.
great idea!!! I second that.
I agree with this idea also. I watch several YouTube Videos as the ones Denise mentioned. My favorite is Jimmy Dore. He frequently has really good guests, often via remote videos (skype?) having a conversation with them over a particular topic, 9-11 isn’t talked about enough because it’s so taboo that people have had their careers ruined. FB has blocked me if I try to send any info about it. Aaron Mate explained the Mueller farce on Jimmy’s show via tv conversations. I also like the way he reads a fake news headline pointing out all the lies up on the screen, or other people’s lies or gaffes. More should be done for Jullian Assange , Manning, Snowden, etc. in exposing the truth tellers being criminalized. Also all the bashing of Russia should be more realistic, while they have their problems, It looks as though they have a lot more freedom of speech and the working class is generally happy with free health care, free college if their grades are good, etc, but the media just calls out socialism like it’s the plague in the USA. Plus, I’d like to hear more about the Scandinavian success stories. I would like to see more pictures or charts, etc. Then there’s the systemic ruining of the air, the water, etc not taking care of the environment, getting the regulations backed down. I like your writing a lot because you really have a handle of what’s going on behind the scenes to make some sense of things. I would love to see you get a much bigger audience!!!
You are smart. I do not know that I can help. Listening to music you Love can be a great emotional reset.
Now this teared me up. It is a past we have lost in a lot of ways. Kindness for one.
This was created after the First World War and the Bastard Tick Federal Reserve started bleeding America. But American steadfastness, kindness, goodness and creative brilliance still lingered on when Buster created this. I miss this simple kindness, neighborly and wittingly creative America.
OK, this is my take. I think that everyone who is going to wake up is already awake. I think the rest will never expend the mental effort and discover the courage necessary to wake up. In fact they develop more and more elaborate avoidance behaviours to avoid waking up. Somewhere down deep they are terrified and have no intention of letting reality impinge on their fantasy lives.
So our challenge is not to wake up the sleepers. That is not possible. Our challenge is how to make the “woke” much more effective.
Personally I read you, John Pilger, Chris Hedges and Umair Haque, to give me the words and the perspectives to see what is going on around me from all possible angles. I already know what you are saying but you are better wordsmiths than I am so you say it better and you say it differently. I also read what you write to know that I am not alone.
What I am seriously lacking is not the knowledge of what is going on. I am lacking a forum within which that knowledge is in any way useful. I cannot translate my knowledge into any form of action. I have tried to work at a local level to bring about minor levels of change, and found myself blocked by the awesome ageism and sexism of Australian culture that renders me – as an older woman – 100% impotent. I have not been able to break through the ageism/sexism nexus to a point where I can do anything successfully. I can learn, process what I learn, write about what I learn, publish those writings, but I cannot get my words read, and I cannot actually DO anything.
And I think there are hundreds of thousands of us experiencing the same impotence. We already have an army of “woke”, many of whom find themselves as impotent as I do. So we need to turn the “woke” into leaders of something. We need people who are able to be effective at ground level at whatever they do. Like you, they are preaching to the choir, rather than bringing about any detectable change. And they – we – want to do more.
I am seeing a spate of on-line “leadership” training courses, so others have also woken up to the need to turn intellectuals into activists, but they are profiteering. My observation is that “woke” tends to go hand in hand with “broke”. We need free leadership training that can help us identify potentially successful courses of action, and help us build personal support groups so that we can achieve what we set out to do.
This.
Breakout. Expansion. Amplification.
We need ideas and execution for *action*. However, Caitlin can’t do it all. This is on us.
Absolutely agree with you John Saunders. Caitlin is presuming she has to do more. She doesn’t. The rest of us have to do more. But what?
Caitlin,
Don’t feel qualified to give advice but like the last line in the Niemoller poem, instead of no one left we are down to only the few like you,Paul Craig,Ron Paul,Whitehead,AntiWar and very few others.
The brain dead in the US don’t know and don’t give a shit so don’t preach to the choir. Take it them and in case some one does happen to wander over and your naming names and raising hell they may come back for another look. As Tom Petty sang; “Don’t back down”
Love you GIRL so KICK ASS!!!!
I really liked Caitlin and Tim’s audio show. It’s uplifting to hear you guys make each other laugh. If it’s hard doing that regularly, maybe you could do one occasionally if the mood strikes. It might be good to have audio content that you can put into the YouTube stream, to try and reach more people. Also, some people can more easily make time for listening than reading. I suppose by that logic, some people can more easily make time for watching interpretive dance, but who knows if it would be worth the effort.
I like to repeat your talking points to whomever will listen but I can’t capture your message with the same depth and clarity. When you repeat the most important parts of your larger message it sinks into my gin soaked brain and I do better at speaking like an informed person. If most people don’t practice critical thinking then they can’t really be engaged that way so I’ll shove little bits of data at them instead. But I need help remembering my talking points. Repetition helps. And the gin, that helps too.
I’d like to second this idea. I forget so fast when things disappear into the news churn. I bookmark particular articles I hope to share or quote, and I re-read them. It seems like I can never keep up. Every day is a new outrage. The few times I get a chance to tell someone what I learned from Caitlin, or the rest of my independent new for that matter, it’s always weeks or months after I read the relevant article. I end up saying things like, “it would make sense if you read the whole thing.”
If repeating risks boring those who’ve been keeping up, maybe there could be a different “channel” for newbies, and for oldies struggling to keep up. Maybe something like “remedial Thursdays” or something.
Join a good FACEBOOK group that posts relevant stuff
https://www.facebook.com/groups/391245808382954/
such as that… we counsel and remind and educate one another
I keep hoping people will get off FB. I don’t use it because I don’t want to be part of the Mass Surveillance Industry but it restricts my ability to provide comment or feedback or to participate in forums. We need an independent alternative.
Hi Caitlin; I have only one political issue. No More Nuclear Weapons & its corollary No More War. So here it is, lets talk about NATO and nuclear weapons.
I posted a article with links on my website (first article). It may take awhile to upload fully.
Nuclear Weapons
http://www.unicornhorninc.com/pages/nukes.php
On a different & totally non important subject that involves fun. I turned another one of your poems into a video musical. Thanks for the poem 🙂
Intersectional Omicide August 25, 2019 No More Nuclear Weapons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_geEEKHwjXI
This first one turned out best (to me).
Mysteries OF FROGS Who Are Calling The Cosmos Into Existence With a Sky Shaking, Earth Thumping HaKa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-0WZ8v2bvc&feature=share
Peace & Love from Oregon
I do my best to share links to particular articles, but I’m only on groups of progressives that mostly already agree with me. If I had the time and patience, I’d toss links into a more diverse part of the internet.
I have loved ones in real life I desperately want to de-program, but they won’t listen to me, or read any article I offer. It breaks my heart to see them watching Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher, as if they are reasonable sources of information. It breaks my heart they believe the TV and not me. I remember Caitlin writing about how people who believe the TV are like victims of domestic abuse or cults. I don’t have personal experience with those, but that description sure resonated. Those people get mad at YOU when you tell them their abuser is lying. I literally can’t be in the room and say nothing when the TV is on “news”. I think Caitlin’s advice was to don’t bother lecturing them, and be supportive in a way that shows they have a place to go when they decide to leave their abuser. Maybe Caitlin could write more about that. It’s frustrating seeing no results from my effort, but maybe I’m already doing all I can.
I think you are, yes. I have a similar issue with my family, and I’ve mostly come to terms with the reality that I can’t reach them for the most part. I throw little tidbits that I think won’t be too much to digest at some of the more open-minded among them, but others are too far gone at this time to reach with really anything.
In the words of Morpheus, “You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so hopelessly inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.”
It’s amazing what a good metaphor The Matrix is.
I’ve had the same response from friends and family when I raise a political topic. I’m not hectoring, just throwing in a line or two on something really important like the move to war or planet destruction, but the reactions range from obvious boredom (playing with phone) to hostility and groans (oh no, not politics again). Very discouraging. There’s no point persisting with those efforts.
Caitlin,
Gideon Levy, speaking about Israel, said it is too late to reason with the people of Israel. The same may be true for the US and its allies.
See 7-8 videos put out by Class War Films around 2014, particularly “Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine”. Update them and make them viral in the West, but also outside the West.
I wish you the best,
MS
BTW, I have posted one of your articles on my own website, and would likely post many more if they were PDF ready docs. If you want other websites to post your articles, creating text readable PDF docs available on your own website would facilitate that goal.
During your well deserved break I suggest reading Radio Free Albemuth by Phillip K. Dick, assuming you haven’t already.
In general, Caitlin, you do a pretty good job stirring the pot. I like the way you write. I try to do the same thing, but I’m perhaps not as successful. Here are my suggestions:
Since our history and our culture are being systematically destroyed, I would more focus on comparisons of today’s life with the way things were before the 1970s.
Since it is individuals that create every new and positive contribution to life, I would focus a bit more on the individual than on the group. One of the problems with socialism and communism is that both stifle growth and prosperity, and both eventually fail.
Free market capitalism is much better for everyone than is crony capitalism. Unfortunately big governments and big business prefer crony capitalism over free market capitalism.
Since government is force and violence driven, much less government is better for the people. And yes, that means screw the idea of a one world government – that’s an elitist wet dream.
Have a great day.
I see you as a specialist in critical thinking, I’d love to see you break this skill down for those who want to “wake up”.
Starting really small, with little daily challenges like – “try to notice how many coca-cola signs you pass on your way to work.. think about what they paid to put each sign up.” each challenge could be crafted to unlock a bit more of the bullshit around us..
Perhaps, take us through the journey you made.. when did you start to notice the glitches the “Matrix”? How did you become proficient at spotting the lies? What do you do wake those around you? (I struggle with this one.. everyone is so tangled up in their own problems.. it’s hard to reach them)
I propose a “Practical guide to getting woke” or “Waking friends and influencing people”
Anyway, keep up the good work Caitlin!
Seriously Caitlin Dont take this the wrong way but I think your doing excellent job.
I’d hate to see headlines you had deadly car accident. Might be good idea of changing out you car for lesser technological one. or No computer managed engine control. There’s been too many suspicious alleged accidents already. IMHO you are already doing an excellent job. You can’t do it all others need to step up to the plate.
Y’all scared the crap out of me. The date on all your posts is August 30th..
We have a link to the Minority Report mutants.
Another social media platform such as Telegram !
Translate into another language
One suggestion comes to me at the moment. Ask to be interviewed on the Jimmy Dore show. I think he’d love it. Another one would be to be a guest or host on an RT-News program or Chris Hedges’ On Contact. You should also consider giving a TED Talk.
A big idea would be to start a new alternative cable channel for mass appeal populist ideas. Kind of like a Pacifica station but on TV. It would contain all the sources we learn from ourselves on YouTube with the usual hosts you like with a very large Overton Window to defenestrate the baddies. Like a CSPAN for liberals. Friends like Joe Luria of Consortium News, your choice.
I’ll keep thinking.
I think the suggestion to get on Jimmy Dore is an excellent idea. His huge audience is already out of the mainstream narrative box. And his shows are shared all over the internet the reach goes well beyond just his immediate audience.
Dear Caitlin,
I greatly appreciate nearly all of your postings. I’d like to see you expand your audience.
I have been affiliated with KPFK in No. Hwd, Calif., one of 5 stations in the Pacifica Foundation network. (Others include NYC, D.C., Houston, and Berkeley CA.) If you are willing to be a radio personality (1 hr. per week), I will try to connect you with KPFK’s Program Director, Kevin Fleming.
As you may know, the Pacifica network features Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! The War and Peace report.
Let me know. Yosh (most recent claim to fame: Bernie delegate to the 2016 DNC Convention in Philadelphia)
That’s was just what I was suggesting, Yosh, and you seem to be just the person that can do that! Great minds think alike they say. (Is that really true?)
Good for you. You’d better be aware that to my surprise I’ve detected a few foolish biases even on Pacifica, who for a while drank the Russiagate Putin’s aggression Kool Aid, and who refuse to take 911 Truth seriously, which will one day come home to bite them.
Caitlin would be awesome.
Another radio show that would suit you (with a big audience) is The Richie Allen Show. You could just reach out to him, or some of us could request he have you on the show.
I also like the idea (above) of some exercises to suggest to friends / family that would help them wake up. In the absence of good suggestions most people just get angry &.or lecture those who remain asleep, which does no-one any good.
Tracing the money funding each candidate and how it relates to media, fossil fuel, and health insurance lobbyists. Exposing specific members of the DNC leadership, especially superdelegates and lobbyists. Some kind of history on the previous leaders of the DNC and how the Clinton machine turned the Democrats party into the Third Way party. Just a few random thoughts.
You have a platform to be able to reach people. I too would love to do all I can to ensure people know what is really going on in their world. However I am limited to social media. You have reach via to news sites where people who are already somewhat enlightened will read. I discovered you via one of these – consortium news.
I think if you can get famous people to give a shit, ad get on board as they have so much sway in our distorted world. Get the likes of DiCaprio to make public announcements. I found it interesting the ex president Jimmy Carter started his foundation that decides if countries elections are fair. His foundation came to the conclusion Venezuela’s election was the most democratic in the world. People need to know this so they don’t listen to the tripe that the likes of Bolton or Pompeo spout. Do you think the famous people in our world would read something that came from you? I’d hope a few would, as they as well as the rest of us know Trump is a grand liar in chief, and that yes, there is a problem in the world right now with the climate. Worth a shot!
podcast?
Interviews?
Live events?
Poetry slams?
Debates?
Art projects?
Talks with indigenous folks?
All of us can help by sharing Caitlin’s articles and encouraging others to share them.
I’m a great podcast fan – I learn so much by listening while I’m doing housework/exercising etc. that I wouldn’t have time to sit and read. Guest spots on some of the quality politics podcasts would surely get people checking out your articles.
Just a vague suggestion…..
To me, while there are certainly crisises today that need to be addressed, the huge revolution I see coming is what we are seeing now in the beginnings of rebellion of young teens against the basic fact that we, the older people, are destroying their world before their eyes. Extinction Rebellion and the like. One thing we lose in this age where the corporate machine teaches our children horribly is that we don’t seem to be able to pass a lot of information from generation to generation. Thus, the question is, how do we reach those kids and give them the information and experience they’ll need to be victorious over the machine they have to fight in order to survive?
————-
Its strange getting old. For being a tech guy all his life, I couldn’t begin to tell you specifics about platforms or tools to reach the kids these days. But its in that generation that I see the growing realization that the fight is one for survival and thus an intensity that has been lacking in recent decades.
Great post, Linus. I agree.
Let’s give the generalized ageist shit some rest. This country, the USA, is very behind on respecting elders as it is.
Elders deserve respect only to the extent that they are respectable. The elders of our society have not, as a group, earned that respect.
Quite the contrary. Exactly the contrary, in fact.
I find this kind of comment so disheartening. You may not deserve respect but I damn well do.
No one “deserves” respect. People earn it or don’t. This isn’t about you; it’s about a larger principle.
“Respect your elders” is a meaningless phrase to me. It was meaningless to me when I was a 20-something, and it’s meaningless to me now in my 40s. I expect it will be meaningless to me decades from now as well.
Respect your elders? No. Respect the respectable, whoever they may be.
Amen! Very well said.
It’s another component of the establishment’s divide and conquer. “They” have been drumming up hatred of baby boomers for a long while now, and that is critical given we are retiring and have time on our hands for the first time in our lives. Imagine what we could do, we aging hippies, now we have time to spare. Age is not an issue. Social demographic is not an issue. All ages and all demographics are trapped in this dysfunction. Many of we oldies have been fighting these issues for our entire lifetimes. We have made lots of mistakes that we see younger people making over and over and over – because the generations have been divided and are not sharing wisdom and experience. Its time to end the generation wars.
Have you thought of doing a podcast?
What is wonderful about your work is that you take the news and explain what is really going on in it. What I wish you would do more – but understand the danger to you and your family – is say what really happened. I write a lot about this sometimes under a pen name. and it is dangerous territory. It has ended a lot of us in prison. harassed at airports at the very least. So I fully understand if you want to keep your risk at a minimum. I know a lot that I cannot say in print. I write around the edges . It is a difficult balancing act.
Caity, you have been stellar in leading the fight to unmask the neoliberal narrative and make dissident ideas mainstream. Perhaps the next step is to consider how we go about creating a new society to replace the old one and how we can drain power from their institutions.
In many places in the US, we are creating a network of local autonomous parallel governments in the form of community councils, to create community self-sufficiency and empower the people in every neighborhood to have a voice in decision-making. We are also starting workshops for people of all ages in nonviolent resistance. Our goal is to create our own institutions, to wean ourselves off the teat of the exploitative capitalist corporations and the disappearing social safety net. As Gandhi said, ““A non-violent revolution is not a program of seizure of power. It is a program of transformation of relationships, ending in a peaceful transfer of power.” Through these transformational relationships we’re building, we believe that each person will be individually empowered and our collective power will be growing as their institutions are waning. Eventually, if enough people refuse to lend their power to the capitalist institutions, they’ll crumble, because without the participation of workers, they can’t accomplish anything.
I’ve been working on a series of articles about this, but I’ve been so busy with local organizing that I haven’t completed them yet. If you’re interested, I would love to discuss
this with you further.
You might think about emulating Tom Woods. Although he’s a thorough-going big-L Libertarian, whose ideas don’t exactly mesh with yours (smile), his online presence is growing by leaps and bounds.
He’s got free stuff, like you, and monthly payment stuff as well. He’s doing quite well financially.
Just copy his model, but, hopefully, not his philosophy.
I’d say just keep it up. You’re a great writer. And what you have to say is getting out.
Un abrazo,
John
Repeat often as you do ! Truth is Good. Free Assange , Manning and too many others.
Your challenge is in viewing what you are doing from a conflict standpoint. The folks you demonize and borderline hate on are just as human as anyone else, and just happen to be following a path in their soul’s evolution that is apparently radically different from yours, at least in this lifetime. Perhaps you are a more advanced soul, and have already “levelled up” in the real game? Perhaps not. One of the consequences of us each starting over with almost no knowledge of past lives is the fact that we really don’t know how advanced or behind we are in the ultimate game. That’s what makes the playing of it intriguing for both the psychopath and the saint.
That’s DEEP
This is the closest anyone has come to getting at the heart of the situation we are all in. It is entirely about what Rob calls the “ultimate game” and that is cosmic. and will thus take us into the world of esotericism and the occult. One conclusion from such study is that nobody and nothing exists without there being a reason. But he opposite case is even more desperate and desperation is what is keeping the whole situation on the boil and such a waste of energy and chance to be positively positive, Poo Bears and other creatures of little brain will find such a thought hard to digest
There is a talk given by an esoteric, spiritual philosopher named William Meader on the subject of “The evolving soul of Humanity” and in it he covers the role of crisis in this process of evolving or ‘awakening’. Caitlin rather .delicately touched on this in a recent article. in which she promoted three teachers of awakening, three of many some of whom are long dead but still influential. A few more big steps in that direction might be interesting. But I do have to say hank you for what you do offer us.You use a different
chord than most ot the other “musicians” in this area
.
Agitated, Agitator, Agitating is what I like to Put A Cog In The Machine with (with your help, cause your great). Keep On… That is the answer. Thanks . Wage Peace.