Take off the revolutionary’s mask, and it’s the CIA.
Take off the terrorist’s mask, and it’s the CIA.
Take off the news man’s mask, and it’s the CIA.
Take off the filmmaker’s mask, and it’s the CIA.
Take off the professor’s mask, and it’s the CIA.
Take off the billionaire’s mask, and it’s the CIA.
Take off the whistleblower’s mask, and it’s the motherfucking CIA.
These monsters are raping our sensemaking faculties.

Never call anyone from the CIA a “whistleblower” unless they are actually whistleblowing on the CIA, without the CIA’s permission, in a way that inconveniences the CIA.

The deployment of a bomb or missile doesn’t begin when a pilot pushes a button, it begins when propaganda narratives used to promote those operations start circulating in public attention. If you help circulate war propaganda, you’re as complicit as the one who pushes the button.

Many believe that the mass media just tell whole-cloth, outright lies all the time, but that’s not usually how it works. What they do is selectively omit inconvenient facts, disproportionately amplify convenient facts, and uncritically report on dubious government assertions. Basically they only tell the truth when it’s convenient for them, and when it’s inconvenient they are silent. Only telling the truth when it’s convenient for you is effectively the same as lying all the time, only you can get away with it a lot easier.

How to solve the climate crisis:
– End the economic system which requires infinite growth on a finite planet.
– Let people get more relaxed and less busy.
– End corporate influence in politics.
– End militarism.
– End patents.
– Kill the capitalist propaganda engine known as the mainstream media.

Any environmentalism which adamantly ignores the need for a complete overhaul of the economic system which created this mess is just feel-good PR for capitalism.

Trying to solve the climate crisis with plutocrat-driven tech consumption is like trying to put out a house fire with a flamethrower.

Perhaps the greatest advantage the ruling class has over us is that they’ve got a crystal clear idea of exactly what they want and exactly what they’re pushing for, and we, on average, do not. It’s easy for us to be manipulated in unwholesome directions when we don’t know where we’re going.

When it comes to our future, the ruling elites have compelling narratives worked up by teams of talented creatives to sell us the products they want us to buy. They know exactly where they want to herd us. We just have a notion of “No, not that!” and some very vague, amorphous ideas about what we do want. Without a clear, positive vision of what we want, we cannot succeed. With a clear, positive vision of what we want, we can’t be stopped.

The fun thing about revolution in the US-centralized empire is that everything everyone has tried has failed, so your guess as to what we should be doing is literally as good as anyone else’s.

Whenever anyone tells you that a vastly better, saner world is impossible, they’re fulla shit. This is the only world any of us have ever lived in; nobody’s going around observing a bunch of other worlds and seeing that they’re all insane like this one. They have no authority to make such a proclamation. As far as any of us know, anything is possible.

One mark of an adept conspiracy analyst is comfort with the unknown in a world where information is greatly obscured by secrecy. By this I don’t mean they’re okay with government opacity, I just mean that they’re comfortable acknowledging what is unknown and unknowable instead of pretending to know. I point this out because it seems like a lot of people self-censor and remain silent on their ideas about what’s going on in the world due to some embarrassment that they don’t understand it all. It’s okay: no one does. Many pretend to, but no one actually does.

The dynamics of this world are extremely complex, too complex for any individual to fully make sense of. One way to ease the burden on your sensemaking tools is to reduce your own inner complications by getting very clear on how your own perception and cognition are happening. Dedicated inner work will reveal that your conscious experience is actually happening in a much simpler way than the mind imagines: a field of consciousness appearing before an imperceptible witness. This eliminates needless cognitive twists and roadblocks in your sensemaking. Our mental narratives add mountains of needless layers of complexity. Once you see that none of those narratives apply to your true identity, you’re able to bypass all those distortions in the way you process information and simply use thought as a tool; otherwise you’re just ingesting highly manipulated narratives about an already complex world through your own distorted perceptual filters which are based on unconscious believed assumptions about what you are, what the world is, etc. Inner clarity eliminates those distortions. There are many approaches to the inner work one can do to find this inner clarity, but here’s one way.

Anyone who claims to oppose Trump and support the free press, yet doesn’t aggressively fight the Trump administration’s agenda to imprison a journalist for exposing US war crimes, is a lying hypocrite.

The US government and its lackey allies are torturing a journalist for telling the truth. This amounts to a full confession on their part that you are living in a totalitarian empire. They are telling you exactly what kind of world you live in, and exactly what role they play in it. A society is only as free as its most inconvenient political dissident. Free Assange to free yourself.

It’s really weird how getting money out of politics isn’t a bigger agenda than it is. It should be bigger than healthcare or any other issue, and everyone across the political spectrum agrees it’s important except the rich and their puppets. That’s something tangible to push for.

If a tree falls in the woods, and no one’s around to hear it, is it still Susan Sarandon’s fault?
~ Old liberal koan

I will not be authoring any essays about impeachment because it’s an impotent political side show and much too boring to write about.

All Democrats know these impeachment shenanigans will never result in his removal from office, regardless of what they pretend. Trump’s “opposition” only ever attacks him in ways they know won’t actually hurt him. It’s like pro wrestling.

May 2019: Progressives get to choose between Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson.
September 2019: Progressives get to choose between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
May 2020: Progressives get to choose between Elizabeth Warren and fuck you.

The Democratic presidential primary will be rigged by the DNC and the mass media; in fact this is happening already. I talk about the candidates and the race a lot not because I believe the DNC has real primaries, but because the dance the narrative managers need to do to ensure an establishment nominee keeps exposing them.

Ninety-nine percent of political arguments and activism are happening inside lines that have been set by the narrative-dominating, Overton window-shrinking plutocratic class and their underlings. If you want to fight a real fight, you need to color outside those lines.

The US Department of State was originally intended to be a peace/diplomacy-focused counterpart to the Department of War (later falsely renamed the “Department of Defense”), but what actually ended up happening was the creation of two war departments.

Putting someone on a pedestal is just guaranteeing that you’ll have to knock them off it one day. It’s actually a rather violent thing to do to somebody, if you think about it. Best to skip it entirely.

Don’t take life advice from people who are miserable. Don’t take career advice from people whose careers aren’t where you want to be. Don’t take creative advice from people who don’t create things. Don’t take foreign policy advice from people who supported the Iraq invasion.

_________________________

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74 responses to “CIA, Climate And Conspiracy: More Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. Latest information on climate change

    “This publication from the Australian Academy of Science aims to address confusion created by contradictory information in the public domain. It sets out to explain the current situation in climate science, including where there is consensus in the scientific community and where uncertainties exist.

    ‘The science of climate change: Questions and answers’ was prepared by a working group of nine members co-chaired by Dr Ian Allison FAA and Professor Mike Raupach FAA FTSE. The document was also reviewed by an oversight committee of eight members chaired by Professor John Zillman AO FAA FTSE. This publication is an update of the Academy’s 2010 booklet of the same name.
    Contents:
    1. What is climate change?
    2. How has climate changed?
    3. Are human activities causing climate change?
    4. How do we expect climate to evolve in the future?
    5. How are extreme events changing?
    6. How are sea levels changing?
    7. What are the impacts of climate change?
    8. What are the uncertainties and their implications?
    9. What does science say about options to address climate change?
    Download (PDF)
    This version contains 44 pages, including 11 pages of references.
    https://www.science.org.au/files/userfiles/learning/documents/climate-change-r.pdf

    https://www.science.org.au/education/immunisation-climate-change-genetic-modification/science-climate-change

  2. Words from this article were on the Jimmy Dore show today, in fact he mentioned you quite a bit. Maybe you should look at getting on there? I’ve only started watching him in the last week or so, very interesting to say the least….

  3. “May 2019: Progressives get to choose between Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and Marianne Williamson.
    September 2019: Progressives get to choose between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
    May 2020: Progressives get to choose between Elizabeth Warren and fuck you.”

    And August 2016: Progressives got to choose between Ms. Clinton and fuck you, allowing Trump to be elected. And the great DNC blamed Bernie Sanders for their choosing of a losing candidate who ran a horrible campaign.
    So, August 2020, is it Joe Biden v. fuck you? Or has DNC maybe learned something and at least allow Elizabeth Warren to compromise her way into the White House?

  4. JUST JOINED /VISITED YOUR WEBSITE. FOLLOWING ON TWITTER.

  5. You will not find in any Main Stream Media that the army of Yemen has invaded Saudi Arabia and wiped out three brigades of troops over this past weekend. So how is that even possible? Please peruse this:
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/09/30/three-saudi-brigades-annihilated-in-devastating-houthi-offensive-in-saudi-arabia/

    1. They do not have the time to care about what is happening in the Middle East.

      They have their arms full in the Western countries where the corporate ruling elites that include Main Stream Medias are fighting to stay in power against ordinary people which are in Economic, social and political stagnation and whose expectations for their lives and the lives of their children have been thwarted by those elites.

      Those elites are well aware they did not make friend with ordinary people and now they fear them.

      I guess it was that way in the days of Noah because it is written that in those days, it was a violent society.

      We are living the repetition of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus and I pray the Rosary to hasten His Glorious Return because I have really seen enough bullshit.

  6. This whole thing brings out ” the real dirt ” that the whole world needs to see and understand. Please peruse this:
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52308.htm

  7. I’m looking for “Uncle Sam’s a Psycho” bumper stickers. Or “Uncle Psycho Want’s You” recruiting posters with Mansons face on it.

  8. ”The fun thing about revolution in the US-centralized empire is that everything everyone has tried has failed, so your guess as to what we should be doing is literally as good as anyone else’s.”
    ..
    This is absolutely not true, unless you mean by “everything everyone has tried” that “revolutionary” new strategies undertaken by say Elite “authorities” such as central banks and oligarchs within the US’s vassal states “have failed”. However, small, alternative-economy communities have survived for many decades within the US. Their revolutionary ideas for an alternative arrangement are definitely BETTER than “anyone else’s”. Yes, these alternative-economies have not as yet expanded and replaced the present, fatally flawed large-scale arrangement because, unlike the Matrix we live in, they do not WANT to grow, grow, grow, grow, but big things have small beginnings and these alternative economies can serve as examples for those who have never even heard of them, let alone studied them.

    “We just have a notion of “No, not that!” and some very vague, amorphous ideas about what we do want. Without a clear, positive vision of what we want, we cannot succeed. With a clear, positive vision of what we want, we can’t be stopped.”
    ..
    That is absolutely true, Caitlin and Tim. “What we do want” means, literally, HOW we (from individual farmers to individual central bankers to oligarchs and every individual in between) want to live our lives on a day-to-day basis. For example, most average people (in the so-called “first-world” nations, anyway, which, admittedly, excludes literally billions of individuals) head to a grocery store at some time interval to buy food with “money”.
    ..
    Just exactly HOW do people acquire that money? They “do something” — the muscles that move their fingers, hands, limbs and mouths/vocal-chords BEHAVE (literally, move) a certain way. And for behaving that certain way, some other person, essentially, hands them money which can be “spent” by those individuals for a wide variety of “products” including food, shelter (a “home”), a toilet, energy to heat a home or to fuel a “vehicle”, etc.
    ..
    There are literally millions of types of products, but among those millions, are an amazingly small number of the “bare necessities” of life — food, water, covering/clothing and warm shelter. Any products beyond those necessities of life are, for lack of a better word, luxuries — products whose process of production for 7.4 billion human beings simultaneously, are literally destroying the environment in which those 7.4 billion live. (Be very careful what you 7.4 billion wish for (demand), because you may actually get it.) One billion human beings can “have” just about any thing they can imagine. Unfortunately, 7.4 billion human beings can not.
    ..
    Therefore, what should be the number one goal of the human race? To dramatically reduce the number of human beings because a wide variety of environmental and social problems could be solved very simply by a dramatic reduction in the human population by people having only one or two children. The perhaps insurmountable political problem to this relatively simple solution is that population reduction CAN NOT be undertaken within the present economic arrangement in which a microscopic percentage of the population owns or controls the vast majority of wealth, land and LARGE SCALE capital equipment. Why? Because there is no “profit” to be made in a nation whose population is shrinking. What do investors invest in in such a nation and expect to make a profit? Certainly not real estate. WHAT, then?
    ..
    Something else to consider about the present, fatally flawed Matrix in which we live.
    ..
    Remember Martin Shkreli?
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/martin-shkreli-who-raised-drug-prices-5-000-percent-heads-into-fraud-trial/
    ..
    Now that you understand how the “free market” works, imagine what’s going to happen if the Tangerine Jackass signs an executive order requiring all of those hundreds of trillions of printed-out-of-thin-air US “dollars” to be “invested” within the US of A. What are the “owners” of those hundreds of trillions (if not quadrillions) of US “dollars” going to “invest” in?
    ..
    And after all of those “investors” “invest in” the US, how much “money” are you going to be paying for food, rent, mortgage, electricity, gas, oil, health care, drugs, road/bridge tolls, etc. (the absolute necessities of life)?

    Like the very “shrewd” Mr. Shkreli, no doubt the Elite investors will let “free market competition” decide.

    1. @Hillel Weintraub:

      TECHNICAL TIP: In a link, you can generally delete everything starting with (including) and following a question mark (?). The stuff after the question mark is just referrer information indicating where you got the link. (In this case, you got it from a mailing-list email.) Some links maybe not work without a specific referrer, but most do. Just test the “truncated” base link before using it. If it works, you’ve saved the recipient a lot of space and visual garbage. The base link here is https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019/10/24/edward-snowden-labyrinth/ It’s a lot shorter and it works just fine.

  9. right before the 2003 US war on Iraq, an employee of an ambassy in Italy, who knew all too well how much demand there was for “information” about Sadam’s WMD, created and sold that “information” to “intelligence” agencies in the US, UK, France, Germany etc. they contacted each other and confirmed each other’s “intelligence” as true. voila! the rationale for the war was established. an Italian journalist/author wrote this whole story, which shocked me. what was more shocking was, this has always been the way “they” operate. i don’t remember the author’s name but someone else may?

  10. I think you would like this classic, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy by Joseph A Schumpeter (1942).

  11. “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. ”

    — Dr. Martin Luther King, “Beyond Vietnam”, Address delivered to the Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, at Riverside Church 4 April 1967 New York City https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/MLKapr67.html

    1. The hard part about quoting the good Doctor is that it is so hard to cut it down to a small quote, as all of the stuff around the quote is very important as well. In fact, this quote comes at the end of a paragraph that begins with another favorite quote of mine. It is then followed by several paragraphs about what a “True revolution in values” will really look like. It all should be heard or read. I urge people to follow the link to see the rest of this, and here I will quote the entire paragraph and its beginning which is also so very, very true.
      ——————–
      “It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” [applause] Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin [applause], we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
      A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies….
      A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth….
      A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.”….”

  12. Fine reading Caitlin!

    The following song is not addressed to you, but to all liars of this world, especially to the professional liars and psychic vampires in all avenues of society.

    https://youtu.be/iaysTVcounI

    Take care!

    1. Oh, sorry Caitlin, exept the man-made climate thing.

      […]– End the economic system which requires infinite growth on a finite planet.
      – Let people get more relaxed and less busy.
      – End corporate influence in politics.
      – End militarism.
      – End patents.
      – Kill the capitalist propaganda engine known as the mainstream media.[…]

      Those are good thoughts! But you don’t have to link that to the so-called man-made climate crisis just to fish for approval. You should stick to your own knowledge and your own powers.

      1. You have to understand that now everything that humans does badly on earth is completely mixed up and subsumed under the so-called climate crisis. This is wrong and amounts to a lie and is the popular instrument of power with the generation of fear.

        Are you scared?

        1. @completely mixed up

          Timex Social Club – Mixed Up World

          https://youtu.be/e5RKzhY-ufU

          Listen closer and don’t be scared!

  13. Charles Andrew Robinson Avatar
    Charles Andrew Robinson

    A very powerful film by John Pilger. If you are concerned about global warming, unless we act more intelligently, we are more likely to have a Dr Strange Love kind of mass death, global warming then cooling. But where are the mass protests calling for an end to the global over militarization, where are the mass protests calling for the dismantling of all nuclear weapons? The build up of which leads to a much more dangerous and likely scenario, unless this insane kind of destructive mind set is not stopped in it’s tracks?

  14. I’m reading “Poisoner in Chief” by Historian Stephen Kinzer. It’s a good to know some of the history of the CIA.

    “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
    William Faulner

    1. That’s William Faulkner, my mistake.

  15. Just playing the Devil’s Advocate here, but isn’t it somewhat reassuring to know that someone, something, somewhere, somehow actually has everything in the whole world under complete control no matter how things go, as well as the broad shoulders to accept the fallout (no pun intended, well, hopefully not anyway) when the SHTF (as it ultimately always does)? These are, after all, human beings we’re talking about and (as we know) they’ve been screwing up things royally since their own day one. Stock tip, Popcorn. GO TEAM!

    What? Me Worry?

  16. Don’t take life advice from people who are miserable. Don’t take career advice from people whose careers aren’t where you want to be. Don’t take creative advice from people who don’t create things. Don’t take foreign policy advice from people who supported the Iraq invasion.
    — Caitlin Johnstone
    .
    This Caitlin’s impressive quote with WikiLeaks’ “Collateral Murder” photo (Iraq):
    https://imgflip.com/i/3bw53t

    1. A corollary ….. Don’t get your news from people you know have lied to you in the past.
      ————
      Similar, but more expansive than Caitlin’s 4th Don’t. If you know they lied to you about bombing Serbia, invading Iraq, that Enron was a great company, etc, etc, etc, then don’t listen to them now. By following this rule, I am currently completely immunized against any lies the NYT, CNN, WaPo, BBC, MSNBC, CNBC, WSJ, FOX, etc, etc, etc try to tell me today.

  17. In your list of exposed CIA operatives you left out a very important one.

    *Take off the politician’s mask, and it’s the CIA.*

    When seven first-year Representatives put out a statement recently that supported impeachment, six of them had prior experience in law enforcement or the military and one of the six, Rep. Spanberger is a former(?) CIA agent.

    The blob is making a concerted effort to put former (current?) members of the military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies into Congress.

  18. I have to give credit where credit is due; this article has made my day. I laughed out loud more than once.
    A Dumpster Fire on a Garbage Barge by JHK;
    https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/a-dumpster-fire-on-a-garbage-barge/

    1. the ugly, bloody, zionist neolibs are turning the masses of the world into Trump fans. thanks for the link to a satisfying read.

  19. My experience in fighting climate change has shown how corporate profit making has connected itself with every effort you can make. I traded in my seven year old Toyota for a new Prius Prime. Right away I am unable to get the GPS because I still use an old fashioned flip top phone. Since the time of purchase I am
    harassed by Sirius Radio to pay for special radio access and with phone calls forever, and letters pushing for a warrantee extension for my automobile. This never happened with my previous Toyota but now that I’m using an electric car I am inundated with promotions. I looked into solar roof panels but this also requires an iPhone to control as well as recently having my Plumbing & Heating company installing a thermostat with a WiFi connection costing me $600. I don’t have WiFi. My electric company offers a savings for people who use an electric car but if you don’t have an iPhone you don’t get it. Also the Honeywell thermostat installed is the wrong make for them.

    1. Ha! I recently reverted to an old fashioned flip phone and never looked back, but if anyone wants to dance to the music of technology… they must first pay the pipers.

  20. “Take off the terrorist’s mask, and it’s the CIA”

    Well said Indeed; Apply it to 9/11 of course. No wreckages of airplanes on impact sites. Strange enough.

    About climate change, there is a good article by Paul Craig Roberts with the title: “A different view of Greta Thunberg”:

    https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/09/28/a-different-view-of-greta-thunberg/

    If we were putting in practice article 25 of the Declaration of Human Rights which says in Article 25:

    “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
    Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.”

    We would have less trouble with the climate putting this declaration into practice. Ask yourself why the youth are not marching to force governments to really put into practice Article 25 of the Declaration of Human Rights.

    It is the repetition of the days of Noah that we are living now. It means the return of Jesus is very near and I pray the Rosary to hasten His Glorious return because I have really seen enough of all the bullshit.

    1. I marched and protested outside of Paul Craig Roberts office back when he was an Asst. Sec of the Treasury for Ronald Reagan. These days, he’s a gullible conduit for any conspiracy theory. This seems to be the one the Blob is pushing today, as I’ve seen several other rather questionable authors also backing the Big Fake Climate Change theory of Greta Thornberg. The Blob is busy on multiple fronts this week. Greta has become known, therefore she must be smeared and attacked.
      ——————-
      BTW, too late on that 2nd coming thing. The Battle of Armageddon took place in 1917. Jesus then saved the human beings that were worth saving. It was a very small crowd, and Jesus had prepared way too many refreshments for the ceremony.

  21. Love your words on CIA. The worst of the evil machinations of WWII carried forward to the present. Your solution to the climate crisis would help rip out the foundation of the most evil confluence of thought and power THE CIA… or as it is more appropriately known “THE DEEP STATE”

  22. As a child I loved to read books. My entire family adult family were into books and learning. In school I enjoyed history class above all others; I spent many hours in libraries. There is nothing like knowledge. I bring this up because I am guilty of not reading books anymore. I buy a morning newspaper to do the puzzles as I ride on Staten Islands public transportation and look at the craziness of our society. Yes I am an old fossil; as this article made me realize:
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/09/29/world-without-books-end-game-for-social-justice-radicals/

    1. Ron – I, like you made reading part of my daily life from childhood. My personal library has included thousands of books. It is not that reading is the only thing I have done in my life, but it has been such a constant occupation that I now tell people who know me that I am largely made of all the marvelous books of knowledge that I have read.

      1. If it is not to nosy, Mike, what books influenced you the most?

        1. Dostoevsky, Gandhi, Ken Wilber, Thucydides, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, D.T. Suzuki……..the list is too long to continue. In the words of the I Ching – “everything furthers” in the search for knowledge and beauty.

  23. (With regard to your self inquiry method and result, Caitlin)

    All of this is That. Reality can be thought of as interpenetrating fields of varying compositions and laws characterizing them. All of these layers of existence are equally “real”. We may choose to value some levels over others, but this does not mean that they are more real than other layers. The layer of the individual’s cosmic identity with everything arising may be more wonderful and empowering than the level of sensory perception, but it is not more real for those reasons. To be stuck valuing one level to the exclusion of other “lesser” levels is to embrace a limited perspective of reality. The true appreciation of the individual honors all the many interpenetrating levels of that identity.

    Again: All of this is That (ultimate all inclusive reality).

    My Divine identity does not obliterate my limited personhood, they are both aspects of the total “me”. When mystics speak of the death of the ego, they do not mean that it vanishes. They mean that our exclusive belief in this limited portion of our greater reality relaxes. Embracing my greater dimensions does not destroy anything, but only enhances my personhood, and cures an ignorant attachment to my lower dimensions. The usual idea of my individuality is not totally incorrect, but simply unnecessarily limited.

  24. Thank you so much for going into such fine detail of how liars lie; so of course we can be absolutely sure that when they speak of other liars in the past, that they are definitely telling the truth, and I’m talking here about that other filthy lie that all our wars are all about money and not about blood, when we spill so much of it, that in addition to the C.IA. there is it’s filthy underbelly, the F.B.I. that can do such a wonderful job of solving bank robberies, but somehow, mass murders, those that are committed with knives not guns, on a scale of hundreds, remain not only unsolved, but aggressively protected by any outside inquiry. I’m talking here about that filthy lie that the habitual liars speak of when they speak of the filthy, ‘blood libel’, lie; so, who is the liar? Are we to trust these present day liars to give us the truth?

  25. “The fun thing about revolution in the US-centralized empire is that everything everyone has tried has failed, so your guess as to what we should be doing is literally as good as anyone else’s.”

    If this statement applies to the US empire, then it’s certainly true, because not much has been tried. But if it’s to mean that nothing has worked at all, ever, then clearly that’s not true at all. Such a notion reflects the reactionary liberal myth that a forcible ouster of the ruling class is the ‘violent’, ‘original sin’ of all revolutions.

    The Russian revolution, the only successful overthrow of a ruling class by the working class is the example no-one wants to talk about. Why? Because it’s the template most applicable to advanced capitalist societies where the productive class, the working class, outnumbers all other productive classes. Moreover, the working class has the social power to bring even the largest corporations to their knees, whose potential the latest UAW strikes against GM has shown.

    From liberal historians in their ivory towers down to what’s taught in school classrooms and to what’s promulgated by the corporate media, everyone is brainwashed into the fiction that the Russian October revolution’s ‘violent’ and ‘dictatorial’ roots led directly and inevitably to Stalin. But the rise of Stalin and the bureaucracy wasn’t inevitable. For example, if the Russian revolution had spread to an advanced country, a close run thing in Germany in 1923, then Stalinism would not have had its roots in prolonged scarcity, backwardness and imperialist encirclement. History would have been very different indeed if Germany had a successful revolution in 1923. No Stalin and no Hitler.

    So the primary question should be: what has succeeded in overthrowing the existing social order? Not: what has resulted some years down the track, for all kinds of reasons, once the revolution has been achieved. The lessons of October basically are that a revolutionary party is needed to lead the working class to make a revolution. A revolution certainly won’t be made by ‘grass roots’ movements endlessly protesting on the streets, or by ‘Occupy’ movements. It will be made when industrial actions by workers, which directly affect the flow of corporate profits and whether society can function, are led by Bolsheviks with a program to turn today’s struggles into the conquest of power.

    It’s certainly no ‘fun’ not knowing ‘What Is to Be Done’, or basking in ignorance about what needs to be done. The lessons of October are there for all to study, properly.

    1. Please, don’t believe in fairy tales.

      […]Consequently, a similar elite structure grew up in all forms of Second Wave society. And this secret power hierarchy – with small differences, depending on the location of the events – reappeared after every crisis, every political upheaval. Names, slogans, party badges and candidates may change, revolutions may come and go, new faces may emerge in the executive floors: The basic structure of power remained the same.
      Time and again, in all sorts of countries, rebels and reformers have tried over the past three hundred years to storm the bastions of power, to build a new society based on the principles of social justice and political equality. At times such movements, with their promises of freedom, have carried millions of people along. Many revolutionaries even succeeded in overthrowing a regime. But each time the same result came out. Each time the rebels, now under their own banner, established an equal structure of sub-elites, elites and super-elites. For this integrative structure with its power technicians was as necessary for Second Wave civilization as its factories, fossil fuels, or even its nuclear families.
      Industrialism was in reality incompatible with the comprehensive democracy it promised. The industrialized countries could at best be forced by revolutions and the like to move back and forth in the spectrum between “free market economy” and “central planning”; they could change from “capitalist” to “socialist” and vice versa. But like a leopard who can’t change his spots, they couldn’t get out of their skin either. They could not function without a powerful hierarchy of integrators.[…]

      From the Book “Alvin Toffler – The Third Wave”

      Communism was and is not an alternative to capitalism, it is only the other side of the same coin, a state capitalism (in the sense of Slivio Gesell and his natural economic order).

      Today more visible than ever, in all the nouveau riches and oligarchs in Russia, with whom Putin has no problems, as he himself said, if they do not interfere in politics. And China is not at all an example of a desirable society, unless you like the Panspectron with its total surveillance.

      We don’t need another bloody revolution! We need an evolution of consciousness. Krishnamurti was wrong with the term “revolution” when he said that we need a radical revolution in consciousness – one should describe and understand it as evolution, then what Krishnamurti said in this regard is also correct.

      Regards.

      1. That’s exactly the kind of ideology that will keep the rulers in power. They more than anyone don’t want a revolution, which might entail violence (but that’s really up to them), because revolution would be directed against them, the most violent and bloody ruling class in human history.

        Despite their unpleasantness and violence, revolutions have benefited those societies where they’ve occurred. The English, French and European revolutions that overthrew feudalism, the American Civil War that overthrew chattel slavery, and the Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Cuban, etc, revolutions of the 20th century, all advanced those societies socially and economically. Yes, revolutions are bloody and more often than not devour their own.

        Cuba, for all its limitations now has a similar life expectancy and significantly higher literacy rate than the richest country on earth, the US. China has landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon and devised a satellite orbit to communicate with it. That still hasn’t been achieved by anyone else. The Russians put the first craft, then a human, into space. These were all backward countries that revolutions dragged out of all the filth of imperialist domination. And because they were backward and rooted in scarcity and isolation, Stalinist regimes resulted.

        Quoting pop sociologist Alvin Toffler doesn’t help the case against revolution. Like all liberals, pop sociological arguments justifying resignation to the current state of affairs ultimately are founded on the old chestnut of ‘human nature’, that humans are too corrupted and only want personal power and wealth. Therefore elites, like the poor, will always be with us. ‘State capitalist’ and ‘communism being the other side of the coin’ type arguments are no different, except they comfort ‘leftists’ who can’t quite stomach the mainstream narrative of ‘there is no alternative to capitalism’.

        Evolution or revolution in consciousness isn’t the question either. The question is which kind of consciousness is desired, whose consciousness, and how does such change occur? This notion that ‘we are all brothers and sisters and why can’t we just get along’ is at best naive and at worst lethal. The consciousness of the bourgeoisie will never ‘evolve’ to the point of ‘we must surrender our sacred right to command our capital as we see fit’ in order to save the planet, to unite humanity in its hour of need. That’s a deadly illusion, a fairytale. Conversely, the masses will ‘evolve’ their consciousness only in struggle against the ruling class, to the point that the majority see that such rulers can no longer be tolerated but must be forcibly overthrown. That’s a consciousness in direct conflict with the rulers, but when they’re threatened they’ll also be mouthing platitudes like ‘why can’t we all just get along’, as they unleash their dogs of repression.

        Have no illusions: an anti-capitalist revolution will not produce a classless society overnight. A new ruling class will be established, the workers. But what’s needed is to get to the point of bringing down the existing order first before wringing hands about who might or might not constitute a new elite.

        1. Sorry, but so much nonsense and Propaganda in just one comment?

          I’m not going to go into everything now, because your consciousness doesn’t seem ready yet, or worse.

          […]The consciousness of the bourgeoisie will never ‘evolve’[…]

          Let me guess. You think you are very elitist and see yourself as part of the educated middle class?
          At least that’s the usual bullshit talk of the elites, or those who think they are. That ordinary people are far too stupid to let them make any decisions – a counter rhetoric to not have to allow a true and genuine democracy. Very transparent!

          If you think that education has something to do with the Enlightenment, then you’re making a big mistake. Education is only there, and has always been, to trim young people so that they are able to take their place in this abominable society and maintain it. Man also tends to shape his psychic energies so that he likes to do what he has to do to keep this society going. This is intentionally forged and supported by education, not to allow mature citizens to grow up. But of course it also brought progress and prosperity, which is and was inevitable in order to keep uprisings low and above all to produce more and more consumerism, which these self-sufficient, now educated slaves are supposed to consume day in, day out, so that the elites and moneybags make their profit out of it.
          But I don’t want to let this go out of the window here and now. Nonsense like landing on the moon, the Obama policy regarding Cuba to shine as a black Messiah, the damn genocides of the American natives with land theft on a very large scale, which made it possible at all that at some point the black liberated, or better said apparently liberated, race conflicts to this day show a completely different picture than your fairy tale world – presumably well taken care of in the woolly home.

          One last one still. If you really believe that with a bloody revolution today you still make any stab against the elites, which you also armed to the teeth, with all possible killing equipment, then you can hardly be helped. At least not in time. And no, I don’t trust workers who slaughter others by force of arms – they become the new fascists. It seems as if you are only looking for new cannon fodder for your own war.
          There are long alternatives for financial capitalism which are far better, inform yourself about Silvio Gesell and the miracle of Wörgel. If one would introduce such a thing peacefully, then these would be, your workers also in the advantage, completely without bloody revolution, but for this it needs enlightenment of all humans and not this disparagement they are all much too stupid. They are only because they have been kept stupid for hundreds of years and education has been sold to them as enlightenment – Eletarian weakness!

          Your understanding or misunderstanding of time does the rest. I can understand it, but your ego-I, the life span connected with it and if possible still a few genarations of your descendants, is not the measure of all things. On a cosmic scale, humanity is not even out of its diapers and is still deep in the Middle Ages of civilization, even if one likes to regard oneself as modern and enlightened. If mankind does not extinguish itself, it still has a few billion years to develop further and to get a little better on the line. And even if people at the last moment before the abyss, as is so often the case, manage to make a turn, this is just another testimony of poverty, that it always has to come so far until something moves.

          Have a nice one!

          1. All I can say to such dreck is that I know which side of the barricades you’ll be on.

            1. LOL!
              Me too to this cloaked ad hominem. Why do you not just say that you want me to die?

              “If fascism returns, he will not say, ‘I am the fascism’ No, he will say, ‘I am the anti-fascism’” — Ignazio Silone.

              Nothing elso to add.

              EOD

              <°)++++><

  26. ‘Conspiracy Analyst’ sounds like a good neutralization of CIA’s ‘conspiracy theorist” 🙂

  27. This world is going insane again. Yes we are polluting the planet but there is no climate crisis. Facts mean nothing to climate alarmists. History means nothing to climate alarmists. Common sense means nothing to climate alarmists. They have drank thr koolaid and been brainwashed. History will look back on this era with chagrin much like we did the flat earth theorists even though Galileo and copernicus showed otherwise. Back then they locked up Galileo. Today they shout down and ridicule anyone who doesn’t agree that we are doomed. See any comparison here. People read your history and wake up out if your climate dream.

    1. Your opinion means nothing because you obviously were too lazy to read about the 98% scientific consensus that human induced climate change is real and is happening now. Polar ice cap is rapidly melting away, glaciers in rapid retreat worldwide, Alaska permafrost has all melted away, Miami streets flooding w/increasing frequency, Solomon Islands going under water forcing inhabitants to leave the islands– and still ass hats such as yourself call it all a ‘climate dream’.

      1. Oh, you talk about the so called consensus in science.

        Have a look…
        Here: https://notrickszone.com/skeptic-papers-2019-1/
        Here: https://notrickszone.com/skeptic-papers-2019-2/
        And here: https://notrickszone.com/skeptic-papers-2019-3/

        And now continue babbling on, again and again 99% of all scientists claimed to agree. In reality it is only the scientists who represent the official hoax. The one per cent of them serves only for the additional deception.
        Anyone who claims after this compilation that there is a scientific consensus that climate change is man-made is either perceptually disturbed or an ideologist who wants to persuade people that there is such a consensus. And climate change is not denied, only the co2 hoax is questioned.
        I have nothing at all against environmental protection, animal welfare and the like. But I have extreme problems with it, if something is to be justified by lies and omitting facts, false assertions, even out of ignorance is tantamount to a lie.

        Regards.

    2. The overwhelming findings of the best scientists in our world testifies to our being in a very dangerous climate crisis. This is not “dreaming”. Anti-science fantasies are “dreaming”.

      1. There is no “Anti-science fantasies”, except you are talking about yourself.

        https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-11/scientists-finland-japan-man-made-climate-change-doesnt-exist-practice

        And this is just one of hundreds of peer reviewed scientific papers about the sun, solar and cosmic rays influence.
        https://notrickszone.com/2016/11/21/the-sun-climate-connection-over-100-scientific-papers-from-2016-link-solar-forcing-to-climate-change/comment-page-1/#sthash.g8JP0Bzw.ZerwXDDK.dpbs

        I think you are dreaming!

  28. It’s All about who’s Up who N Who’s not Paying

  29. And Homeland Security is essentially a war dept aimed at the American people…

  30. CIA stands for Central Intelligence AGENCY. Every agency has a principal. Let’s name the principals.

    1. look around, and you find the real names and faces. they are around you.

  31. I have just read ‘the wrong kind of Green’ by Cory Morningstar… and i feel very small…

    1. “the deceit is so thick you can cut it with a knife” from the front page of Wrong Kind Of Green, and is why I’ll have nothing whatsoever to do with ‘groups’ like Avaaz, Get Up, Change.com, 350.Org. Follow the money people. Who is funding them, who sits on their Boards.

  32. I’d add two more things to your “how to solve the climate crisis” list:

    * Don’t have more than one child. (Human overpopulation lies at the root of global warming, resource depletion, the Great Holocene Extinction, and more. We urgently need a global one-child policy.)

    * End limited corporate liability aka “the corporate shield.” (Corporate shareholders can currently skim billions in profits from activities that have massively destructive externalities while limiting liability to their initial investment. Exposing them to full long-term liability for acts done by their corporate proxies would cause them to be a lot more circumspect about the kinds of activities they support and their effect on customers (unhealthy products), workers (unhealthy working conditions), retirees (pensions and medical benefits currently dischargeable in bankruptcy), local communities (degradation of quality of life), and the environment (pollution and global warming). The law might take a while to catch up in all these areas, but if shareholders were personally liable for corporate malfeasance, they’d be more cautious.

  33. Superb and astute piece Caitlin, but can you please elaborate on how the cessation of “patent’s” will be an effective means of helping to alleviate climate change. Thanks, Sam Kampschmidt

    1. Peter in Seattle Avatar
      Peter in Seattle

      @Sam Kampschmidt:

      I stumbled on that for a second, too. I’m guessing it’s because excessive patent royalties on new and effective green technologies would delay widespread adoption for up to two decades that the planet doesn’t have. The other side of the argument is that no patent protection at all would inhibit major private investment in R&D, leaving it all up to public and non-profit organizations. A better solution might be compulsory licensing at fair and reasonable rates.

  34. Ain’t that the truth, Caity.

    If anything is possible, how ‘bout the first woman POTUS elected strictly by write-in votes?
    Let’s make sure everyone knows how to spell T-u-l-s-I G-a-b-b-a-r-d.

  35. Taking on the Pentagon and then taking on the Central Intelligence Agency. Holy smokes, Ms Johnstone, you are on a roll; please keep it up! Do you think that Donald Trump finally gets it that the Central Intelligence Agency, the F.B.I., and the rest of the ” Deep State ” are setting him up to be bar-bequed and burned at the stake? The ” owners and the masters ” want another ” civil war ” here and they have the arms and they call the shots. Welcome to the Divided States of America.

  36. Absolutely spot on **CJ**

    ask not for whom the bell tolls
    the bell tolls for us

  37. Boom. Nail, hammer, head again Caitlin, cheers. There’s an excellent website called The Wrong Kind Of Green by Cory Morningstar, with a lengthy but brilliant series called ‘The Manufacturing Of Greta Thunberg – For Consent’. It details the odious characters surrounding Greta, who are using her as a massive marketing tool. The prize: literally Trillions $$$$ in the green washing of Capitalism. Appreciate your work also. As someone said to me the other day, why are Extinction Rebellion and Greta getting so much coverage in the mainstream media while they are almost completely silent about Julian Assange, Jeremy Hammond and Chelsea Manning (amongst others)

  38. Unlike most concerned about the environment, I’m far more concerned with the many obvious instances of damage, such as chemical pollution, diminution of species such as the decline in insect population, and the incomprehensibly deadly waste generated by the “Defense Dept” than I am about “climate change”. For one thing, the climate of this planet has been changing, radically, since its creation. We may be influencing it somewhat, but it’s hubris to suggest we are the principal cause. To get fanatically focused on “climate change” just provides cover for the more dangerous threats. “Look over there !!!”

    I’m not voting for candidates any more. Voting legitimizes and supports a process I don’t believe in. What mandate would they have if no one voted?

    1. You are wasting your breath. No one cares about the truth. This is an agenda. Move aside or get run over.

  39. Every time I read an essay from you I find myself nodding in agreement all the way through. It’s rare to find someone who so completely shares my view of the u.s. govt., mass media, capitalism, etc. Keep up the good work!

  40. Blessings of goodness on you for this one! Assange must be freed, compensated (how on earth?). And protected, helped back to health! Somehow. We must show up for his life. How? Thank you for your beautiful article. I can imagine this as the way he must see things too. Please keep his name in our sight. Thank you, Caitin. E

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