Most human suffering is due to believed mental stories, from the psychological suffering of the individual to the large-scale suffering caused by international power structures who advance violence and oppression via propaganda. We must evolve a new relationship with narrative.
Most people’s lives are dominated by mental story, so whoever can control those stories controls the people. The good news is that all we need to do to reclaim our world from the controllers is to reclaim our stories. The barrier between us and freedom is as thin as a fairy tale.
I talk about fighting establishment narrative control a lot, not because it’s the best way to change things, but because it’s the only way. The public will never, ever use the power of their numbers to change things so long as they’re being successfully propagandized not to.
We are bulldozing a paradise while praying we go to Heaven when we die. We are killing off giant-brained leviathans in our own oceans whose mental lives we know little about while searching the stars for intelligent life. We are burning our home in our search for a sense of home.
The most condescending sound in the known universe is Bill Maher’s voice.
Joe Biden could slip into a coma tomorrow and they’d still wheel him out to the debates with the words “NOT TRUMP” scribbled on his forehead in sharpie. And he’d continue to poll in the mid-to-high twenties.
We are about three years from watching President Biden say he’s working with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to win the Cold War, soiling himself at the podium, and then CNN pundits earnestly discussing his similarities and differences to President Obama.
It feels like we’re overdue for another media tour by Steven Pinker to tell us that things are better than ever and our discontent is just imaginary.
“Why doesn’t the left look at Israel exactly the same as every other country, hmmmmmmm???” Because it isn’t exactly the same as every other country. It plays a crucial role in the empire’s geostrategic maneuverings in the Middle East. It’s not about Jews or Judaism, it’s about imperialism.
One of the absolute stupidest things about US politics is how they made regime change in Iran vs regime change in Syria a partisan wedge issue, and partisans only question possible false flags based on which of those agendas their team cheers for.
If the political/media class wants to treat “proxy forces” and “Iran” like they mean the same thing, then they should have also been saying things like “USA fires rockets into Damascus” and “American troops sodomize Gaddafi with bayonet”.
It infuriates the empire propagandists to no end that after years of carefully crafting a very specific narrative about what’s happening in Syria, anti-imperialist journalists can just fly on over there and look around and report on the things they are seeing.
The US outsources all its ugliest aspects so that American voters don’t have to look at them. It outsources its torture, it outsources its slavery, it outsources its wars, and it outsources the the holding cells for its political prisoners.
In old-style British imperialism, they’d invade your country and replace your flag with theirs. In new-style US imperialism, your country keeps its flag, and the takeover can happen so slyly that the nation’s citizens sometimes don’t even know it’s occurred. It’s much more efficient.
All empires throughout history have had some kind of positive narrative about why it’s right that they should be conquering and dominating the world. The US-centralized empire with its bogus “freedom and democracy” schtick is no different.
If you were to combine all the very worst possible kinds of government with all the very worst possible government actions and roll them all together to create a single nation, that nation would look exactly the same as Saudi Arabia.
The maneuverings of establishment power structures are always made to protect the power they already have and/or to try and obtain more. It’s never anything more exotic or otherworldly than that: the mundane, primitive drive to try and control as many other humans as possible.
International alliances are often thought of as matters of secondary importance, as just something governments do when possible to make themselves a bit safer, wealthier, etc. Actually, uniting nations into one power structure is the goal, and it’s what alliances are really for.
I love a conspiracy enthusiast who can research with an open mind and live comfortably with the fact that there’s a lot we don’t know due to government opacity. I dislike the all-too-common other kind who pretend they know everything about everything and scoff at everyone else.
There are two kinds of people in conspiracy circles: those who have an intellectually honest relationship with what they know and don’t know, and the bullshitters who fake knowing things they don’t. It’s possible to get quite popular in conspiracy circles by faking it. Many do.
There’s an implicit default assumption among the political/media class that US government agencies have earned back the trust they lost with Iraq, despite their having made no changes whatsoever to prevent another Iraq-like horror from reoccurring, or even so much as apologizing.
I talk about Iraq all the time because that’s what everyone should be doing. It’s never been addressed, never been resolved, yet the US war machine and its propaganda apparatus have marched on as though it never happened. It’s a very large elephant in a very important room.
The Trump administration’s relentless fumbling, ham-fisted attempts to manufacture consent for a war with Iran remind me of of a really awkward loser constantly asking the prettiest girl at the office for a date again and again. Give it up, dude. She ain’t into you.
Many on the left care about domestic policy a lot more than they care about foreign policy. Meanwhile, foreign policy is the foremost priority of the establishment they’re trying to take down. This arrangement works out very nicely for the powerful.
“Peace through strength” just means “We’ll take money away from the poor and the needy and use it to beef up our already bloated military so we can bully the world into obedience.” That’s not peace, that’s tyranny.
It shouldn’t be too much to ask for one of America’s two mainstream parties to put forward at least one presidential candidate who opposes all military mass murders and has no plutocratic loyalties. That is not actually an unreasonable thing to demand. Don’t lose sight of this.
You can thank Obama for normalizing the “campaign as a progressive and govern as a Reaganite” strategy which now has Americans mostly clueless as to which Democratic primary candidate will actually represent their interests.
You are infinitely more qualified to report the news than the propagandists of the mainstream media. Even a teenager making a sloppy, amateurish first-time Youtube video about current events is superior to an MSM talking head who’s paid to lie. Be the press.
The establishment doesn’t fear Trump. It doesn’t fear Bernie, and it doesn’t fear Tulsi. It fears you. It fears the people. A single politician they can deal with. The public rising up and using the power of their numbers to force change is what keeps your rulers up at night.
_____________________
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permissionto republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
69 responses to “Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
How about promoting a real solution like iron dust fertilization of the deep ocean phytoplankton pastures as advocated by Russ George of russgeorge.net and restoring the marine carbon sink to its full glory as advocated by Debbie MacKenzie at fisherycrisis.com?
Its one thing to talk about the matrix, but promoting the real solutions is critical. Climate change and the coming struggle for control of the thawed poles and polar resources is what all this jack-booting today is all about. For the West, preparing for the effects of the staged climate crisis is part of containing the Eurasian century.
Iron dust fertilization of the deep ocean phytoplankton pastures solves the climate change problem.
The debate over whether anthropomorphic climate change is happening or not is such a false dichotomy. The elite level, non-public decision to thaw the poles and end the Ice Ages with CO2 poisoning of the planet is one of the most significant undertakings of the powers that presume to be, and naturally it’s the mother of all disaster capitalism plays.
A few million dollars worth of iron sulphate dust seeded into the deep ocean phytoplankton pastures, far off the shallow continental shelves, solves climate change. Not more government authoritarianism, taxes, fees, fines, property seizures.
Uncontrolled cranking of the carbon dial risks breaking the dial by the extinction of its living organic components, from phytoplanktom species to great whales.
A thousands-year long process is being compressed into centuries, if not decades, giving life no chance to adapt. Iron dust fertilization of deep ocean phytoplankton pastures is necessary to save the planet, not more government interventions and taxes.
Hmmm
“Climate change” happens on planet earth every single day. It has happened every single day since the earth was created, long before there was an atmosphere that could support life.
Climate change as presented to the citizenry today is a complete lie. It is a con designed to separate the common man from his money. Money needed to finance the creation and provide substance for a “world government”.
Think back on how insidiously the “Federal Reserve” with its newly created “income tax” literally handed over the Republic to a tiny group of elites, almost all of whom were Jewish. Most of whom were not even American. It is their descendants, led once again by the Rothschild who are behind this “Climate Change” con. Just as they foisted the lie that America’s finances would collapse without an “independent central bank” (theirs of course) they are trying to sell the idea that man is primarily responsible for “climate Change” and therefore man is the only thing to stop it. Using our hard earned money and their total control of it and us…..
Bye the way, what ever happened to the their decades long mantra of “man made climate change?”Obviously that has been thoroughly debunked so now it is just being peddled as climate change. And no one can deny that….
So, feel free to hand over your money to whom ever you want. And tell as many stories as you want. As for helping yourself to my money, not this time.
One has to understand that fear is an instrument of power and not just one, it is the most popular and effective instrument of power among many. For example, war always becomes possible in advance with propaganda to make people afraid of other people who they don’t know at all and basically don’t have any beef with them either. (as just an example the entry of the USA into WWI and how the US-American population was made to enter the war by propaganda from unwillingness to war). I can understand very well why young people worldwide protest (e.g. friday for future), although they hardly have a plan of the subject if you make them so scared that they do exactly what the elites want. Real criticism of the system is not wanted and permitted, as in France, for example, with the yellow vests, which were fought very quickly, even with military force, and which were and are hardly announced with any real truth in the mainstream media. Or remember the Occupy (Wall Street) movement.
Btw: If you dig deeper you will see that the CIA is also a spawn of the banksters.
Cheers!
Iron sulfate dust fertilization of deep ocean phytoplankton pastures is very cheap and easy. No government needed nor any taxpayer’s money.
Which is why John Martin’s iron hypothesis is the internet’s greatest open secret. To well established to deny outright, but not a recipe for disaster capitalism and End Times power grabbing. Yet humans control the planet’s carbon budget, via fertilizing the oceans.
Fishermen should be allowed to tend their ocean pastures the way organic ranchers tend their land pastures.
If something is missing, like iron dust no longer blown from land because CO2 greened too much surface, then add iron dust to the oceans. And, fishermen,. like organic ranchers, should not overharvest, letting some fish go to grow very big as well as very bountiful. The deep oceans off the continental shelves are our living carbon sink.
No further government authoritarianism or climate regs or taxes are needed. Except maybe to prevent overuse of cheaply available iron sulfate and triggering an ice age.
Both sides of the MSM climate debate are in a classic false dichotomy propaganda fallacy. Neither side presents real solutions that will prevent the ultimate disaster capitalism play from going down hard on our civil and economic rights.
John Martin’s iron hypothesis should be everyone’s response to extremist demands for climate change action or denial. If they’re not on board, they’re some kind of disaster capitalist looking for a government handout or End Times god handout.
There’s not much else to do or say, save for those with a boat suitable for deep ocean forays with bags of iron sulfate dust come spring.
russgeorge.net, fisherycrisis.com
German translation: https://medium.com/@frankdubian/notizen-vom-rand-der-narrativen-matrix-79ae24a34d16
I once heard a jogi state: the stories we tell ourselves and others about our selves and others is the source of misery.
I read somewhere, sometime, back when I was a drunk, that every person wear four faces; the one that we show others, the one others see, the one we want to see ourselves and the reflection in the mirror. I contend that when all four are the same, we are healthy.
But I want to write about the human condition in America. I recently remembered what is shitty about the place where I reside (notice I didn’t say live). I tried to help a person in great need with her life because the support where I reside is, for all intents and purposes, ignorant of “narrative”. Twenty-year old rumors (actually, lies) surface and…well, that’s her story now, and hope she comes out.
The twelve-steppers sometimes call it ‘taking someone’s inventory’; I noticed (from a very young age), the second-person “you” is a killer, and what passes for news consumed by most is horrifyingly inhumane…all the time.
Eventually, I had to ask myself, while I was in Iraq, if I were to deny the perceptions & thoughts of another person, perhaps even that person’s feelings as well, am I not denying the soul of said individual and subsequently, that individual’s very existence.
My reality got clearer when I answered.
Cool observations…
Narrative is part of the problem. As mobile organisms, we experience reality as flashes of cognition, in order to navigate and then tell stories and build civilizations out of the collected knowledge, so we think of time as the point of the present going past to future, but the reality is change turning future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns. So we elevate those with the most compelling goals to be our leaders, because most people could care less about what is real, they only want answers to their immediate problems.
Nature is cyclical. Look at galaxies; Energy expands out, form coalesces in. We have the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy driving us on, along with a central nervous system to sort through the information precipitating out. Desire and judgement. Motor and steering.
Society is the organic desires pushing out, while civil and cultural forms coalesce in. Youth and age, liberal and conservative.
We have this top down, father figure lawgiver as a idealized role model, but a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgment, from which we fell.
It really is the yin and yang, than God Almighty and we are going through one of the more historic paradigm shifts, as our current drive to nirvana/singularity/armageddon reaches in terminal stages and those left behind have to deal with nature as it is.
Government, as executive and regulatory, is the central nervous system of society, while finance and money, as the value circulation system, are the arteries and blood. When private government, aka, monarchy, lost sight of its role, it was replaced and now finance is reaching its ‘let them eat cake moment.’ As a contract, money is an effective medium of exchange, but as a store of value, every asset has to be backed by a debt, so we are draining society and the environments of all potential value, to store as notational value.
Long story, but our tools of abstraction are getting out of hand.
control of the narrative is central to what is happening, you are not alone in recognizing this – here’s a book talking about what a ‘we the people control the narrative’ society might look like – Green Island – http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland.html – note the cover slogan – First we take back our minds, then we go for the country
Caitlin,
These kinds of postings will never make it to the level of Thomas Swell’s “Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene” columns, in my opinion, but I doubt anything can. This was a very good attempt, though, with a lot of thought-provoking points.
I agree with you about 50% of the time, the main disagreements having to do with your preference for Socialist policies. I find it hard to believe that you, and many other thoughtful Socialists, still don’t see the supreme irony in the fact that it will take coercion to implement your vision. Yet, you continually decry, and rightly so, the machinations of the powerful, who use violence and coercion to achieve their goals.
Do you not see the irony in this?
you see irony in “this” only because you operate on the yet-to-be-proven assumption that socialism necessitates coercion.
There is no other kind of Socialism except the coercive kind. Are you seriously contending that a non-coercive version is right around the corner? Color me skeptical.
And, what if I don’t want to participate in your non-coercive Socialism. Will I be coerced?
I find this idea delusional, at best. Sorry to be so blunt, but no amount of jiggering around with human ‘consciousness’ will ever permit mankind to flourish with this formula. That was what the Socialists and the Bolsheviks thought, that the human nature was malleable to the extent that a new Socialist man could be developed. All that idea gave us was the bloodiest century the world has ever seen.
No, thanks.
it’s quite ironic, Caitlin talks about control of the narrative, and a **central** part of that controlled narrative is ‘evil socialism!!!!’ – and you simply prove her point by your completely incorrect comments. If you desire some enlightenment, you might find a read of this useful – It’s not ‘the left’ trying to take over the world and shut down free speech and all that other bad stuff – it’s ‘the right’!
– http://www.rudemacedon.ca/vgi/backgrounders/collectivist%20plot%20omg.html
You are incorrect by assuming I am of ‘the right’. What gives you that idea? Just because I distrust someone who espouses Socialist ideas? What is the track record of said Socialism? Am I to conclude that you, along with Caitlin, are one of those who say that Socialism just hasn’t been applied correctly? That it hasn’t been run by the right people? This time, we’ll do it right? I have no such confidence in an ideology that has been murderous throughout its history.
But, I’ll bite. I’ll read your linked piece. But before I leave, I would like you to tell me how any species of central planning that Socialism entails can fail to be coercive. Can you do that succinctly. I do want to learn if there can be a species of cooperation (and that’s all I’m really after) that can be called ‘Socialist’ that is not coercive. Will you do me the favor of a reply to that request?
You’re making too many assumptions – I never said or even implied you were ‘of the right’ – I simply said you seemed to be controlled by the dominant narrative Caitlin speaks of. And ‘socialism’ does not mean Stalin’s dictatorial rule any more than ‘democracy’ means North Korea (which calls itself a ‘democracy’ – or the USA for that matter, which is as much a true ‘democracy’ as the USSR was a true example of socialism – read on in the essay, and all is explained – but ‘socialism’ does not mean ‘central planning’ it means Democracy, of by and for the people
First of all, you’re going to have to give me your working definition of ‘right’ and ‘left’. I am starting to read your piece, but right away I run into terms which need to be defined.
Who, or what, is ‘left’ and who, or what, is ‘right’. I really can’t go any further without this basic information about where you are coming from.
Narrative from inside the American propaganda bubble. From reading other sites, I’d seen stories about the worldwide wave of climate strikes today. The, I went to ABCnews (USA, not Aussie), and couldn’t find any story about it ‘above the fold’ on their websites. If one scrolled down, one could find a video about only the protest in Australia. I didn’t watch it, but anyone who just pans their headlines wondering about the news of the day would have no idea that people around the world were protesting about the destruction of the planet.
A story about UFO enthusiasts having some sort of concert or festival outside of Area 51 has gotten much more publicity over the last few days.
There was also a story about flooding in Texas from the recent tropical storm. I read that wondering if climate change or the warming of the planet would be mentioned in the piece. Of course, it was not mentioned. There was a link about why Houston keeps flooding, so I followed that. That was largely a demand that more money be spent on flood defenses around the oil shipping city. Again, no mention of warming oceans providing more evaporation and thus more storms which turn into more and bigger hurricanes and tropical storms. Houston simply floods alot because its flat. But now it is flooding more often, for no apparent or given reason, so we simply must spend billions defending the city.
I had an ad-block on, so I didn’t see any ads. But I’d strongly suspect that somewhere on the page it was proudly proclaimed that the news was ‘brought to you’ by ExxonMobile.
Just a description of life deep inside the propaganda bubble.
This of course is why everyone will act surprised when a whole generation revolts against the madness.
No-one seems to want to talk about warming oceans because that’s the easiest thing to fix but very narrative disruptive.
The easy solution to climate change/global warming is iron dust fertilization of the deep ocean phytoplankton pastures (russgeorege.net) and restoring the marine carbon sink cycle (fisherycrisis.com).
It seems to be an open secret that the elites have made the decision to thaw the poles and end the Ice Ages, and the ensuing chaos will be the mother of all eco-disaster capitalism plays.
No-one seems to notice that this also means the extinction of the ecosystem as we know it. Arks of seeds, biological samples and CRISPR – if the elites even thought that far ahead – can’t fix extinction of keystone species and de-oxygenation of the planet. Climate change is more than a socio-economic collapse reset, that’s ultimately a life on Earth reset.
Enjoy those sites while they last; real solutions aren’t appreciated as they not only disrupt but could end a profitable narrative of deception.
Iron sulphate dust fertilization of the ocean saves the phytoplankton and gives us a better chance to settle scores with human evil.
“The barrier between us and freedom is as thin as a fairy tale.”
As much as I like this expression, and I do like it, it’s not the whole truth. The barrier between us and freedom is also as thick as the infrastructure that creates and delivers the fairy tale. Normal people are wired to trust others, which works well when interacting with other normal people. But it doesn’t work at all when normal people interact with sociopaths who are disguised as normal people. That’s the real problem.
To quote some of my favorite musicians …. Its only real if you believe. 🙂
You are also right but also not whole.
The so called normal people are partly also the problem, cause they have left their own self and their own feelings, they are to conform and don’t feel what is wrong in their reality – Erich Fromm worked that out with his “pathology of normalcy” and said “the normal are the ill”.
In the film the Matrix, Morpheus talked about that normal people in the “woman in red” scene – they can get very dangerous with protecting their narratives and the system they believe in, e.g. as a subordinate, but also cause of their cognitive dissonances, cause of fear of authority a.s.o.
Normal people under the influence of the fairy tale are no longer behaving normally. The root problem is still the creators and pushers of the fairy tale, i.e. the ruling sociopaths.
I didn’t write anything about what the root problem is, but you’re right about that. The so-called normals don’t even know where the problem is. Since they also feel themselves to be normal, they don’t ask for it either.
And what you write “Normal people under the influence of the fairy tale are no longer behaving normally”, is also what Erich Fromm meant when he said: “the normal ones are the sickest ones – they form a chronic slight schiziphrenia”, because they just think they are normal, but they are not and they don’t behave like that, it is only generally accepted to be considered normal, as the generality pretends.
Hey Lucid,
Which Erich Fromm book is that from, Lucid?
I’ll order it today!
Hi Dan,
sorry to being late.
What I’ve wrote in this comment is from that linked video, but he also written a book about the topic,
I’ve mentioned already above.
Erich Fromm – the pathology of normalcy
Cheers!
Here is a video with Erich Fromm talking about that, If you understand German (no English subtitles there).
Let me just say something about normality. As you may have noticed I wrote “the so-called^^ normals”.
Normal is not an exact measure, as for example in technology a standardization which is exactly described. It is only that which the general public considers to be normal at a certain time (time span) and what the narratives pretend to be normal. As an example: Until 1972 (or 1974, I’m not sure about that at the moment) homosexuality was still a mental disorder and was also listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Today, homosexuality is generally considered normal and is no longer listed in the DSM. (Regardless of what I think about DSM, because this is another long topic about mental illnesses and if it exists at all).
Another picture smashing narrative.
And to that, in my opinion, one of the stupidest songs of all time.
Addresses directly the affective psyche, emotions, ego, super-ego, greed, envy, rivalry, etc. – and because this narrative was so deeply anchored, this song is also so successful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04854XqcfCY
Have fun q:D
That was magnificent to read, Ms Johnstone, magnificent. It is amazing to me that you can use so few works to hammer truth after truth like a sledgehammer to the mind. Thank You!
The tragedy is when the masses themselves buy into and support the establishment narrative, as witness the apparent nationalistic fervor exhibited by China’s ‘angry youths’. Whenever anything goes wrong, it’s automatically the West’s fault, NEVER that of the CCP. Things like this only go to show how tragically effective establishment narratives can be in pulling the wool over people’s eyes.
I really wish we all had powers of telepathy and clairvoyance that would enable us all to read each other’s minds like a wide-open book. Then liars of every variety would instantly be put out of business, including the creators of the toxic narratives that have destroyed countless lives. (So what if all my dirty personal thoughts would now be wide open for all to see; it’s a small and worthy price to pay.)
Confucius actually got upset when his students just parroted everything he said and never questioned him. He valued independent thinking and hated blind followers. (I can quote chapter and verse for those interested.) We can do with more of his kind today.
Uhhhhh….. Welcome to the borg hive!
And you think, the occult (religious, spiritual, etc. you name it) elite and their sidekicks wouldn’t already know and practice that? Well, in that case, keep sleeping well!
People with a higher state of consciousness know that already.
I don’t agree with all of Leary, but as he said: “Science is all metaphor” and so it also depends on the interpretation and how mature the mind and the knowledge is.
But hey please, be careful in this area! If you want to keep a clear head, don’t take drugs – they can be hard to backfire on!
In any case, first inform and then my choose. And ever be responsible and stay save!!
“The most condescending sound in the known universe is Bill Maher’s voice.”
You had be clapping with this one line… 😉 The man is a wonder.
Be warned – the restart of the matrix (by war) is probably near – or is it just another narrative?
artificial
tuitionassistance – maybe assistance is a better translation for the German Nachhilfe.Predatory Capitalism is Killing Mother Earth & the Human Race #1
I imagine that by now you — at least if you’re a thoughtful person — probably think something like the following: wow, the world is in a mess, capitalism didn’t work out so well. After all, by now, even most of the globe’s top hedge fund managers and investors and CEOs admit it, too. You’re right. But there’s a fact that we don’t consider often enough. The tense.
Think of an exponential curve. That’s the path we’re on. The vertical axis is damage, destruction, regress, the risk of civilizational collapse mounting by the day, second, hour. Capitalism didn’t just “make” a mess. It’s making an exponentially bigger one every moment now. And that’s the key to undoing it, to too.
We need a revolution this century, my friends. What does that revolution look like? I think it’s pretty simple to understand, actually. We are going to have to transform the stuff capitalism made into “money”…right back into the stuff it used to be: the planet, life, democracy, and civilization.
I know that sounds abstract. Don’t worry — let me explain (and you can be the judge of whether or not I do well.)
Now, to get to precisely what I mean, I have to begin with a term that’s going to make your eyes glaze over. Why is it that more than the half world currently suffers “negative interest rates”? Like you, when I studied econ, just the term struck me baffling, idiotic, and inane. “Negative” interest rates? What the? You’re right. It is a term that doesn’t make any sense. The economists are wrong to imagine it does.
So let me translate it for you in plain English. “Negative interest rates” mean so much money has piled up at the tops of economies — in the hands of 0.1%, the .01%, the .0000001% — that there’s literally nothing left to do with it. Not…a…thing. The rich became the mega rich became the super rich became the ultra rich — and along the way, they bought all the superyachts, hypercars, and penthouses in the sky there are. So the money is just…sitting there. (As a result, central banks, desperate for it to do something, anything, begin to charge banks to hold money at all, hence, the “negative interest rate.”)
Now, if you think there’s something wrong with all that — you’re right. It tells us something is deeply, badly wrong with the global capitalist economy. Catastrophically wrong, in fact, when half the world’s economies are effectively so broken that they’ve literally turned upside down to try to shake the blood out of their zombified veins.
What should all that colossal, surreal, insane amount of money that’s…sitting there…doing precisely nothing…be doing? Back up one step. What that simple fact that it’s just sitting there tells us is this: the stuff that was turned into “money” never should have been turned into it at all…because that “money” ended up being useless. So what stuff did global capitalism turn into “money”?
Think of the world’s Five Big Problems. Climate change, mass extinction, inequality, stagnation, and extremism. The money that’s piled up in the hands of richest 1% of the richest 10% of people on earth should be used to solve those problems. In a very real sense, those problems are just different names for “too much money piling up in too few hands.”
What is “climate change”, really, from an economic point of view? It means we turned too many forests, oceans, rivers, and mountains into “money”, literally. We transformed them into “capital.” What is “mass extinction”? It means we turned too many animals into “money”, too — so much so that the insects and bees and fish are dying off. “Inequality” means that capital belongs mostly to the richest 0.1% of the richest 10% of people on earth. “Stagnation” means that capital is literally doing nothing — just sitting there, instead of in the hands of the people formerly known as the middle class, who need it to educate their kids, feed their families, retire…all things that are increasingly just pipe dreams. And the result of all that, my friends, is “extremism” — a fascist-authoritarian tide ripping through the globe.
Do you see how all the world’s Big Five Problems are all linked by predatory capitalism? How they’re all consequences of a deeply, fatally broken global economy, where ever-increasing profit for a tiny few…that they can never, ever spend…only pile up uselessly…is the only point of anything, from human existence, to animals, forests, to skies? And now our planet is beginning to die. But so are our democracies, and the very real possibility of our civilization, too. Is any of that really a surprise?
Umair
September 2019
The number one big problem is not Climate Change. Nit is not even in the top 100.
You’re right. The number 1 problem in the world, in my opinion, is financial capitalism, the economy of capital interest and land ownership. Stop that and everything else will follow and turn to good.
The martyr and Messiah of Christians proclaimed this over 2000 years ago!
But beware! If you pronounce something like that, you’re often defamed as a Nazi.
—
continuative:
https://duckduckgo.com/html?q=Silvio+Society+Theory+of+the+Natural+Economic+Order
https://www.google.com/search?q=The+Wonder+Of+W%C3%B6rgl
We don’t need another revolution. All revolutions of the past 300-400 years had the same result. Under the new banner of the revolutionary the same system was built again and again. We need a
revolution of consciousness.You could save a lot of words and just say we need to fertilize the ocean pastures with iron dust and end the climate change crisis.
russgeorge.net was my source for this information.
No More War
1. The reason there is so much suffering in the world is because people turn their back on God going their own way.
2. Yes the US support for Israel fits the imperialistic ambitions of the government. However, Israel is the historical home of the Jews given by God and should be supported by all Christian people.
3. America is having a full on nervous breakdown on the way to being clinically insane.
4. War is coming. Prepare.
Wow! So Israel being connected to your bloody bible is a good reason for Palestinian genocide. You are wrong; or you are evil.
Yes, that is a popular view among secular humanists.
Canaan for the Canaanites!!!!
Never forget atrocities at Jericho!!!
(now, who was their first? If we go by the old testament, it was not Moses and his wandering migrants. )
When a society is decadent, as is the West in our days, the elites are the first victims of that decadence.
The last effort by the elites to control the narrative is to embark the golden youth of the West in the narrative of climate change.
In the meantime, there are more and more people on the streets and more and more broken lives and nobody care; and those poor people know that the elites and the golden youth won’t talk about them in their “narratives”.
Fortunately, prophecies are telling us the Return of Jesus is very near and I pray the Rosary to hasten His return because I have really seen enough narrative bullshit.
Here’s another “narrative” for your entertainment and it really pops.
..
The short version is that what you are seeing and hearing 24/7 on the corporate MSM is the lead-up to a E.L.E. nuclear war. Is that interesting enough for you? Does it pop and grab your attention? Maybe the “why” of it will be more interesting.
..
George Kennan was an influential US VIP for many years. He said the following only four or five short years before the end of the Soviet Union.
..
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
..
Read the last sentence of the Kennan quote about 10 times before you read on, because at the time he said it, Kennan meant EXACTLY what he said, and ever since the USSR’s collapse, Kennan’s prediction has been time and time again PROVEN to be true. What we average people have an ABSOLUTE DUTY to fully realize and fully appreciate is that what Kennan said is EVEN MORE TRUE TODAY than it was in Kennan’s time.
..
After the USSR collapsed to “The Russian Federation”, the US LITERALLY had no other choice than to CONTINUE its rampage around the world.
..
But economic “things” started to go off the rails in 2007. Elite VIPs Paulson, Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, etc. were ABSOLUTELY CORRECT when they said that the ancient financial system (of a microscopic percentage of the population owning the vast majority of wealth and LARGE SCALE capital equipment) would have “failed” had those VIPs not done what they did. By failure I mean that that microscopic percentage would have suffered massive losses on their investments; that many of their major banks would have gone out of business and that many of the Elite would NOT have been able to remain the Elite. Most importantly of all, the US’s perpetual wars in support of USD hegemony would have had to come to a screeching halt along with its catastrophic effect on, again, the US’s war-based economy.
..
So the president before Trump and the bone-ignorant US Congress Of Morons literally forced future US taxpayers to rescue the Elite. So the Elite have remained the Elite; the Too Big To Fail (TBTF) banks were officially born and the US’s global war to maintain USD hegemony has continued unabated ever since.
..
It is vitally important to fully realize and appreciate that perpetual war and fiat, Fiat, FIAT!, printed-out-of-thin-air USD (NOT gold-backed USD) go hand in hand, because domestic and foreign mercenaries paid by fiat USD now REPLACE US-citizen-draftees. Should those mercenaries “lose confidence in” USD, US citizens and their children are going to have to fight and die around the world for USD/corporate hegemony.
..
Unfortunately for humanity, what those very few human beings did to rescue the Elite and create the TBTF banks was even worse that the actions of Nixon ending gold-based currency and Carter’s “Carter Doctrine”. Those panicked, impulsive actions steered the traditional whatever-you-want-to-call-it system into what is now essentially a worldwide laboratory experiment, or, as Lord Jacob Rothschild bluntly put it in 2016,
..
“The six months under review have seen central bankers continuing what is surely the greatest experiment in monetary policy in the history of the world.”
..
As incredible and ridiculous as it may sound, the model — the experiment — that the increasingly-desperate Elite are trying to foist onto the people of the world all boils down to one thing. Humanity’s ultimate purpose is to SERVE the TBTF banks (more specifically, the Elite that runs and profits from them), NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND — THE WAY THAT THINGS USED TO BE BEFORE this ongoing experiment.
..
Not so subtly, the Elite are telling us that in order for “us” to avoid yet another “financial crisis”, the Elite’s TBTF banks must FIRST have absolute control over each and every THING and each and every PERSON on planet earth and that WE are going to have to pay THEM a lot more money for their services.
..
Experimental negative-interest-rate policy along with their necessary experimental abolishment of cash, are a last-ditch, now-fully-conscious effort by the inheritance/investment-owners to strip-mine some more profit from the no-inheritance owners, thus momentarily delaying the need for yet another astronomically-expensive and destructive war.
..
But unfortunately, almost as if by the intentional design of an “invisible hand”, even all of these desperate, experimental measures CAN NOT and WILL NOT garner enough profit for the Elite’s centuries-long accumulation of inheritances/investments. When the panic-inducing pressure of impending loss on those investments inevitably becomes too great for the whatever-you-want-to-call-it present system to contain, the world will once again explode into full-scale, all-out war — this time, nuclear war, which will, this time around the “business cycle”, truly be the war to end all war. At least its end will come very fast. The mass die-off will take just a few more weeks.
..
The total loss of INDIVIDUAL citizens’ privacy and liberty to an increasingly-secretive, tyrannical, intrusive, inquisitive, lawless, ruthless government/Elite are the inevitable domestic collateral damage caused by that Elite’s “foreign” policy. Foreign policy has “come home” and become domestic policy. “Threats from within” are becoming the focus of the Elite’s experimental national security state. Part of that “threat” comes from willing or unwitting agents of foreign powers — antiwar candidates, for example. These threats will have to be “neutralized”, one way or another.
..
The wars of USD/corporate hegemony and supporting MSM propaganda machine, as well as various Fed-funded hand-outs to keep the serfs in a semi-comatose, manageable state, are astronomically expensive, but all Jerome and Mario’s (now Christine’s) not-so-invisible hands have to do is hold down their computers’ “0” keys for longer and longer periods of time and all of the Elite’s invoices will magically get paid and their wealth infinitely increased.
..
So here’s the US’s new, completely-experimental economic system in a nutshell. Jerome (etc.) holds down the “0” key for longer and longer periods of time; the TBTF banks get bailed out by taxpayers time and time again; the US national debt skyrockets and the US’s printed-out-of-thin-air-USD-funded MIC literally terrorizes the rest of the world into accepting those “dollars” as payment for their REAL goods. Any nation that does not comply with US diktat or fails to accept fiat USD as payment for its real products either has its government replaced or is reduced to stone-age chaos.
..
The TBTF banks’ protective political insulation is very thick and the number of Jerome’s (etc.) fiat money is infinite, so, unfortunately, it’s beginning to look like the one and only thing that will stop the US’s new, politically-unstoppable, “whatever it takes” perpetual-war/TBTF-bank-based economic EXPERIMENT will be a nuclear strike undertaken by one or more of the ever-increasing number of nations who are being victimized by it.
..
The End
..
Now, what good does it do me to state my narrative and what good does it do anybody who actually “believes” my narrative? Absolutely none, because what is desperately, desperately needed is a “narrative” that describes an ALTERNATIVE “arrangement” to the one we live in now — one that describes a day to day, “better” economic system/matrix in minute detail. That should be at least part of your mission, Caitlin. It’s going to take a lot more than reporting “truth” to save humanity from itself. Although a description of reality is a necessary first step to explain why reality must be changed, it is what follows that realization that is IMO most important. The commenters here need a GOAL to shoot for AFTER they eliminate the Elite.
..
Again, the millions of people employed by the MIC and its spin offs already understand very well that their vote for an anti-war candidate is a vote for their own unemployment. Therefore, they’re going to be sticking with the “Russia/China bad” narrative as “truth” and ignore alternative narratives that actually describe reality. They’ll bet their and their children’s lives on the US conquering the world without any blowback from the ones their weapons are killing rather than experience certain unemployment. That’s reality. That’s how bad things are. Is it entertaining to know these things? You tell me.
..
Chris Hedges wrote a book about the US entitled “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle”. Chris observes that many people in the US now think that if they pray hard enough FOR something and believe sincerely enough IN something, that that something will come to pass or into existence. If it doesn’t, that means that those people didn’t believe or wish hard enough.
..
Both inside and outside of government, there are a lot of people who, for one reason or another, hate Agent Orange (AO) with every fibre of their being. Their hatred is almost palpable. They’re praying to God every night to some how, any way, remove the cad, thug, monster, racist, fascist, insane, you-name-it AO from the holy office of the US presidency. Some are a bit more active with their hatred. For example, Trump’s “walk of fame” star has been demolished at least a couple of times by people using various blunt-force tools including a pickaxe and sledgehammer. (A little voice is telling me that Trump’s bust is not going to appear anytime soon on an expanded Mount Rushmore.)
..
The wonderful, mercenary MSM sees gold in them thar Black Hills of popular hatred. People pay money to see movies in which the good guy/nation/etc. vanquishes the bad guy, even if in reality the good guy is actually the bad guy; for example, all the movies in which the now-venerated agents of the US government whup some Russian/Chinese/Iranian/North Korean/or-whomever-the-chosen-enemy-of-the-day’s ass. Hollywood’s philosophy is “give ’em what they want” and, by Jesus, that’s exactly what Hollywood does.
..
The same is nowadays true in the “entertainment news” business — give ’em whatever gives the most clicks. And what millions upon millions of the Empire of Illusion’s people are willing to click/pay for is “news” that Orange is, for whatever reason for today, a very bad man and must be impeached, impeached, impeached.
..
Supply and Demand; it’s as simple as that. Quite obviously, truth isn’t entering this equation because the lying, warmongering whores NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, CBS, NPR and the other MSM are making more and more money peddling lies.
..
Back in my youth I used to wonder, as I stood in line at the supermarket till, who bought those “National Enquirer” tabloids on the rack with the “Mom has alien baby!” headline on the front page. The “report” must have been true because a photo of the little devil accompanied the story. Now I know. Millions of like-minded people are buying the lies and we know why — their overpowering HATE for Orange (and their true, deeply held belief that aliens are having sex with the women of planet earth because their world is dying and they need to save their race).
..
Nobody is going to pay to go see a movie in which US planes bomb/blow up civilian men, women, children and infants in a dozen different nations into a million pieces because “there’s no money in it.” But, as Howard Beale said in one of his on-air diatribes in the movie “Network”, “If you want the truth, go to your gurus; go to yourselves, because you’re never going to get the truth here. We’ll tell you whatever shit you want to hear. We’re in the boredom killing business. None of it is true!”
..
Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men” was exactly right. We “can’t HANDLE the truth!” For just one example, the US of today is certainly the greatest threat to world peace that has ever existed in the world. Big news, right? Yet that “idea”, that “story” is NOT going sell many newspapers or get many clicks in the US of A because Americans won’t believe it. They’ll think it’s “fake news” that has been bought and paid for by Putin. They’ll think that because that’s what their favorite MSM news “star” is going to tell them, because he knows that that is what they want to hear. (Which came first, the chicken or the egg?)
“If you were to combine all the very worst possible kinds of government with all the very worst possible government actions and roll them all together to create a single nation, that nation would look exactly the same as Saudi Arabia.”
..
Caitlin, I guess you haven’t studied REAL US history enough to realize the proper end of your sentence above.
..
What is imperative is that each nation of the world develop its own go-it-alone-economy — one that needs neither imports nor exports nor, essentially, slavery. Obviously, those economies might be quite different from each other, depending on geography and weather conditions.
..
AFTER economic independence is achieved, THEN contacts can be made between “nations” about possible “trade”.
..
NOT having taken these steps within the present whatever-you-want-to-call-it, perpetual-growth-based domestic and inter-national arrangement will INEVITABLY lead to either nuclear war or E.L.E. environmental catastrophe — the latter already well underway, IMO.
You’ve nailed it girl!
A minor point–not sure if Khaddafi was killed by American troops or American-supported troops. Accuracy is important.
Propaganda is violence. Excuses for war or fake meat, take your pick.
no longer a mere author, but a philosopher as well .. great 🙂
That is true. Philosophy and science only differ in that the later is sometimes testable, quantifiable etc.
From a psychology or cognitive science view Ms. Johnston is correct. This is intrinsic to cognition.
Strategies and counter measures based on this science are the key. As demonstrated here.
Alzo sprach Laurie Anderson
This is your captain,
we’re all going down,
we’re all going down
together
…
I’ve got the funny feeling I’ve seen this all before
why
because I’m a caveman
why
because I’ve got eyes in the back of my head
why
it’s the heat
standby
The wheel turns. You have been here before. Many times.
Obama may have normalized ‘campaign as a progressive, govern like Reagan.’, but the Clintons and the Gores had already gone far down that path. Maybe its accurate to say that the Clintons were more ‘campaign as a progressive, govern like a more moderate, big-business style Republican.’. but they did normalize that. By the end of the Clinton years the party faithful had put the blinders on and rallied to move on past impeachment, and the fact that the Clintons and their Republican advisers (who took spots on Fox News afterwards) had forced out of tribal memory that the Democrats used to be about ideals beyond grab the most money. But we must always remember to give credit to the Clintons and the Gores for fronting for the force that moved the Democratic Party away from the old FDR coalition of farm-labor-middle class and over to being a copy of the Republicans. The Clintons and the Gores were a large part of founding of the Democratic Leadership Council which made that move in the 1980’s. They of course did it for the same reason that an old bank robber said he robbed banks ….. because that’s where the money is.
Exactly right, Clementine. The Clintons did more damage that just about any other president in recent history. Bill Clinton…
-passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which eliminated many of the protections of the Glass-Steagall Act.
-passed NAFTA, which devastated businesses on both sides of the border.
-dramatically reduced capital gains taxes, including the cap gains taxes for housing, which, along with artifically low interest rates and financial deregulation, helped propel the housing bubble, IMHO.
-granted China “most favored nation” status, gaining them entry to the WTO.
-moved the Democratic Party away from labor and advocating for the rights of working/middle-class Americans toward “identity politics,” globalism, corporatism, and neoliberalism.
That’s just a short list. That anyone thought that Americans would vote for Hillary Clinton after what Bill did (and she supported), shows how much they underestimate the people’s awareness of the damage the Clintons have caused. Many Americans are ignorant, but they’re not that ignorant.
A couple more that belong on a short list:
– Vast media consolidation via the Telecommunications Act
– Commodities Futures Modernization Act on his way out the door, opening the derivative floodgates and unleashing a torrent of money into the commodities markets, destabilizing the prices of food and just about every other crucial resource
Probably nothing more important than convincing tens of millions of “liberals” to support and identify with the greedheads rather than fighting for people, though. Even now, try convincing a Boomer Democrat that they were wrong about these people…
Sorry, seems the spacing in the above post disappeared.
BDS everyday!
for a refreshingly alternative perspective on the Korean Peninsula situation:
https://truthout.org/articles/democrats-must-stop-dismissing-diplomacy-with-north-korea/
“We are bulldozing a paradise while praying we go to Heaven when we die.”
This reminds me of the Gospel of Thomas (one of the Gnostic Gospels that conveniently was excised from the Bible as we know it . . . Even though he was an apostle . . . Go figure . . .):
“(1) His disciples said to him: “The kingdom — on what day will it come?”
(2) “It will not come by watching (and waiting for) it.
(3) They will not say: ‘Look, here!’ or ‘Look, there!’
(4) Rather, the kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.”
Joe Biden On The Campaigning Trail
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zeN7D1x-phc
http://www.johndayblog.com/2019/09/completely-different.html
Naomi Klein (“Shock Doctrine”) has a new book out about the need for a new and sustainable social and environmental contract, since we have outgrown the nature-is-limitless model.
She lays out the species-wide agreement which must be made. Industrial and financial capitalism are extractive of resources, a one-way trip to less than when you started.Economy must become broadly regenerative, which life can do.
Life must be the basis of the “Green New Deal”, not Mine-to-Landfill. Billions and billions of epiphanies need to happen.
Why is there not already a Green New Deal?
We were approaching it when Reagan got elected. My own answer is that the deal is what Chinese farmers with bicycles had 40 years ago. Really good farmers, by the way… Grow vegetables!
‘On Fire’: In New Book, Naomi Klein Makes the Case for a Green New Deal to Save the Planet” (interview) [Democracy Now]. This part two of a multipart series (one, three, four, and five)
[KLEIN:] But it isn’t a single carbon-based policy, like a tax, you know, or cap and trade. It’s really about transforming the economy and making it fairer. Right? So, it’s battling poverty, it’s battling racism, it’s battling all forms of inequality and exclusion, at the same time as we radically lower our emissions, because we do know that if we are going to lower our emissions in time, it is going to take transformations of how we live in cities, how we move ourselves around, how we grow our food, where we get our energy from. So, essentially what the Green new Deal is saying: If we’re going to do all that, why wouldn’t we tackle all of these systemic economic and social crises at the same time? Because we live in a time of multiple, overlapping crises...
(It’s not enough to know that you have a house on fire, or even that you desperately wish to extinguish it. Is the cause of the fire electrical, or not? Should we use water, or not? For our home, the earth, is the fire caused by bad ideas? White supremacy? Income disparity? Capital? And if combined, how? Surely our answer as to why there is no GND, and what we should do to get one, will vary, according to our theory of the cause of the fire? Given a theory of the fire, what is to be done? “Furious activity is no substitute for understanding,” as programmer H.H. Williams once said. Lambert)
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/09/what-is-the-theory-of-change-in-naomi-kleins-on-fire-the-burning-case-for-a-green-new-deal.html
This kind of thinking within the same box is never going to accomplish the human transformation into stewards of life on Earth, which is what we need to become.
“Scientists Set Out How to Halve Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 2030” fails to address the extractive economic model, and suggests that Google and Facebook should adjust people’s thinking more effectively, so that they will embrace this necessary austerity for their own good. “Here, here’s the list of what you have to do and what you have to give up to be worthy of your own life.You’ll do fine.”
Nothing is said about applying this to the owners and managers first.
https://sputniknews.com/us/201909181076833148-what-do-we-know-about-new-us-national-security-advisor-robert-obrien/
In the early 70’s I had the opportunity to study the future for a year with a cultural anthropologist. I already had a computer career and was studying economics and planning methodologies to get an undergraduate degree so I could get better “jobs”.
As I have come here to rant before, the social contract we live under in the West is not something that is discussed in public circles. The elite who own global private finance that is core to the social contract insure that all of the Plato’s Cave displays that Western humans see keep them from thinking about who controls the lifeblood of our interactions with each other.
We don’t necessarily need a green this or that but we do need to get rid of private finance tools and replace them with public ones that underpin the way we interact with each other…..private finance is a religion called the God of Mammon.
If you step back, up, sideways, or whatever, you will see that the world is currently in WWIII over this very subject I am writing about, public versus private finance. China is the bulldozer of the public finance meme as core to the social contract and others that have similar leanings are hooking on behind…..Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, etc. The West is not talking about the recent election results in Russia because the Communists are ascendant, not the right wing.
Each and everyone who wants to fix the West needs to focus on the aspect of the social contract that makes it the fetid cult it is, private finance. This means understanding that the future lies not in trying to eliminate this or that person or group but in changing the underlying social contract to have public finance at the core instead of private.
That is the Gordian knot that WWIII is being fought over. The sooner folks in the West focus on that the sooner the war will be over and all of humanity can start building an E Pluribus Unum world.
By George you’ve nailed it chum. Problem is… a broken social contract has no repair manual and the brain cell reserve in camp appears to have dried up.
1.) Plant trees and reverse deforestation and desertification. Here’s a video about improving soil health in Africa.
………….
How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change | Allan Savory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
……………
2.) Greatly reduce international trade (enact tariffs that totally offset less stringent labor and environmental standards). Think about all of the pollution caused by the mining, production, transportation and distribution of things coming from around the globe. Buy local whenever possible — it’s good for the planet and for the economy.
………….
3.) Impose a tax on manufacturing and use this money to pay the countries that host our rainforests. (Indonesia has lost ~50% of its rainforests over the past 30 years.) One of the main reasons that they are buring and cutting down forests is because they are trying to compete in an economic system that values money over people and planet. Industrialized nations should be paying them for supplying our oxygen and absorbing our carbon dioxide, instead.
………..
4.) Instead of scam “Energy Star” labels that don’t account for the fact that people have to run hot water before running their dishwashers, or have to wash clothing or dishes multiple times because there isn’t enough heat or water in these new machines, we should have “durability ratings” where appliances are rated for durability and effectiveness over time. A dishwasher that uses a bit more water and energy, but lasts for 20-40 years is better for the environment than a dishwasher that is designed to break down in less than 7 years (hey, but it’s “Energy Star” certified so it’s greener! – NOT!). Again, think of the entire lifecycle, distribution, repairs, and disposal of these items.
…………..
5.) Eliminate/greatly reduce planned obsolescence. Design goods that are built to last, and make manufacturers pay, in advance, for the costs of end-of-life dispostion. If there is no disposition plan, a good should not be manufactured. Did you know that there are no disposition plans for the millions of solar panels (not to mention the other toxic electrical components of solar systems) that we’re installing all over the globe today? This will be our next pollution catastrophe in another 20-40 years. Some solar panels (usually thin-film, IIRC) have very toxic heavy metals which mean that the panels cannot be recycled, assuming that they even build recycling facilities for the other panels. Nobody in the corporate “Green Movement” is talking about this.
………………..
The “Green New Deal” is a corporate scam. We’re simply trading one industry group (oil and gas) for other industry groups (“Green” energy and building & construction). Fixing our environment does not require us to stop driving our cars to the grocery store. The globalists are imposing tyrannical control and surveillance under the guise of “environmentalism,” while doing nothing at all to genuinely help the envirnoment.
…………….
They are installing thousands of street lights with cameras, microphones, and sensors to track people wherever they go. This is not science fiction, and it’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s already being installed, and they are installing thousands more every year. They are doing this because of “enviromentalism.” Not kidding.
https://www.sandiego.gov/sustainability/smart-city
Amen, Caitlin!
With the rollout of Neural Network AI, control of the narrative will be beyond our reach. So fairy tales will not only remain in place but also replace reality.
Here is a song that talked about this a long time ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gQkg8PpGRA
or
I’ll see your Beds Are Burning and raise you with Blue Sky Mine 🙂
AI can NEVER produce or replace sophisticated human narratives, period. human narratives are a LOT more than 0101010101.