We all slid out of the womb an itty bitty helpless information sponge into a world full of mentally ill giants who couldn’t wait to fill our tiny skulls with all of their inner demons. And now everything, understandably, is fucked.

That’s basically our whole entire situation in a nutshell. You can add on as many extra details as you like–plutocracy, corruption, mass media propaganda, billionaire wine cave fundraisers, whatever–but ultimately our plight is due to the fact that every single human showed up on this planet completely helpless and knowing nothing, forced to trust crazy giants to give them the grand introductory tour.

Why were those giants crazy? Well you see, they got here the same way you did: small, slippery and completely clueless, surrounded by enormous gibbering lunatics who were all in a mad rush to teach them how to be insane.

And those giants came into the world under the exact same circumstances, as did the giants who came before them, and the giants who came before them, and so on.

It’s a grand old tradition of ours, ultimately stretching all the way back to our own evolutionary birth in this world and the emergence of a massive cerebral cortex in a mammal who up until that point had been primarily concerned with sneaking in a snack and a quick shag in between mad sprints away from sharp-fanged predators. This newfound capacity for complex abstract thought burst onto this frantic, confusing scene and was quickly seized and manipulated by the cleverer primates.

And thus human madness was born.

The most powerful early humans were the cleverest humans, the ones who understood how to use this new capacity for language and abstract thought to their own advantage. They realized that by simply saying something is true in a sufficiently confident way, they could persuade the less clever humans to treat it as true.

Those clever humans used this newfound ability to place themselves in charge, and to make a bunch of rules to be passed down from generation to generation proclaiming that the less powerful humans must submit to the more powerful humans. Over the generations these rules became more and more numerous and complex, weaving in moralism, codes of filial piety, and insane, power-serving religions glorifying meekness, obedience and poverty.

These power-serving rule sets were picked up and used to justify highly traumatizing behavior in the service of the powerful, from wars to genocides to institutionalized torture and brutal executions of the disobedient, and just within domestic power structures the institutionalized normalization of spousal rape and physical abuse in households all around the world.

This eons-long tidal wave of deep trauma and power-serving rules structures passed from generation to generation to generation picking up more and more demented flotsam and jetsam as it went along, to ultimately come crashing down upon your crowning head as you emerged from your mother’s body.

That is your legacy. That is everyone’s legacy. Countless generations of cumulative madness, washed into the present moment on a current of eons of exploitation and senseless cruelty stretching all the way back to the dawn of our species on this planet.

This heritage of madness is funneled straight into our sponge-like brains from the moment we emerge from the womb and all the way through an extremely traumatic and confusing ordeal known as childhood, after which we are handed the keys to the world and told “You’re an adult now. You’re in charge. See if you can figure out how to run this place better than we did.”

And we’re just like:

We never stood a goddamn chance. None of us did. The deck was stacked against us long before we got here.

And now you get political commentators constantly railing on about “Gosh, if only we could get people to stop listening to their televisions and vote third party and read World Socialist Website and turn up to demonstrations and take back the power of the people from our oppressors, we could turn this thing around!” Not realizing that everyone else in their country went through the same traumatic, confusing ordeal that they went through at the beginning of their lives, the only difference being that most of them got a lot less lucky in sorting out reality from madness. And not realizing that they themselves are still quite mad.

This is ultimately the answer to every question about why things are fucked right now. Why does it seem like nothing changes no matter who wins the election? Why do the wars keep expanding instead of ending? Why is the news man always lying? Why are they locking up that white-haired fellow for publishing facts? Why are those nuclear superpowers hurtling closer toward direct confrontation? Why are the rainforests vanishing? Why are the whales dying? Why are the mass shootings increasing? Why is everyone so miserable?

Because every adult on this planet started off tiny, helpless, impressionable, and surrounded by gargantuan madmen, and it made it almost impossible to be sane. That’s why.

Notice I said “almost”. It is still possible to find one’s way into a relationship with reality that is guided by truth and untainted by madness, but you’ve got to start way, way, way back at the beginning and deeply re-examine even your most fundamental assumptions about what’s true and real. Because it turns out that while the mad giants gave us information that was very useful for interacting with other mad giants, it was almost entirely useless for learning how to navigate through life in a wise and truthful way.

And that’s what I’m pointing to here: it’s important to get clear on just how far back the crazy goes and how fundamentally interwoven it is with the situation in which we now find ourselves. If you begin with the assumption that our problem is simply due to humans not voting and mobilizing correctly in alignment with the correct ideology, you’ll miss the real obstacle entirely. You’ve got to zoom the camera out much, much further to see the full picture.

Can you become a deeply sane individual, untainted by your ancient heritage of madness? With a lot of work and uncompromising self-honesty you can.

Can all humans become deeply sane and untainted by their ancient heritage of madness? It would take a miracle. A whole lot of miracles. Billions, to be precise.

But then, I believe in miracles.

_____________________________

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100 responses to “Why Everything Is Fucked”

  1. yup

    @ the end of 2020

    even mo’ fucked

  2. […]Can you become a deeply sane individual, untainted by your ancient heritage of madness? With a lot of work and uncompromising self-honesty you can.

    Can all humans become deeply sane and untainted by their ancient heritage of madness? It would take a miracle. A whole lot of miracles. Billions, to be precise.

    But then, I believe in miracles.

    Start with yourself!!
    Celebrating Christmas and believing in miracles is part of your ancient heritage of madness!
    And you talk about others as if they were insane – how dare you?!

    I like some of your writings a lot, but the more I read from you, the more contradictions I notice.

    Take care!

    1. Here is an example of an individual using their self-importance to assess radical new information. Note how hostile LUCID is to the inference that their sanity is not 100% perfect, just like Donald Trump’s gut feelings always overRide career speciaists.

      By comparison, a sane person looks at Caitlin’s writing knowing there is something useful represented by her original metaphors. She is not inclined to cruel depictions,
      yet you read her as if she were. This sir, is Freud’s phenomenon . . . which he called projection.

      Having 60 years amongst hypersensitive buffoons (whose most consistent characteristic is a cynical low expectation of me . . . as if i was like them, but worse),
      i’ve seen an awful lot of projection, and i know full well how miraculously accurate it is.

      As a measure of how disgusting i find the attitude LID uses upon Caitlin’s perfect poetic precision about mankind’s cognitive baseline : i became a forest hermit a decade ago,
      to minimise encounters with people who expect me to be even more stupid and resentful than themselves. Much nicer for me, ever since.

      You appear to be what calls themselves ‘atheist’, a self-contradiction because the fake aTheists are as dogmatic as any other religion of conquest. For 200 years, dogmatic materialists have been tolerated when telling us offensive bullshit, like there is no purpose in life beyond self-gratification. That toleration is a mistake with horrible consequences worldwide. Only a materialist would permit the burning of the Amazon jungle and the theft of traditional freedoms.

      Only those who are inspired by a goal bigger than themselves can take back
      the mental sovereignty which LUCID so carelessly forgot the meaning of.

      Those who defend their pretenses as if external sobriety were an assault on their personal essence . . . shooting off their ammunition at the consequences of incompetent thinking.

      Caitlin’s advice to work hard with uncompromising self-honesty cannot be improved.
      That’s how miracles are invited, but that’s plainly beyond where LUCID is afraid to think.

      If LUCID cannot bear to pay the price of absolute truthfulness (our diligent payment to the unThinkable for cultivating our sanity and generosity), then his destiny shall be dark.

      Showing off a suspicious attitude and a hair trigger,
      plus a pretension of wizardry as well, warning as if LUCIDifer were a caster of spells.
      Pick on me, instead of Caitlin. I’ll give you what you want.

  3. Bartender…I’ll have what she’s having!!!

  4. “…our plight is due to the fact that every single human showed up on this planet completely helpless and knowing nothing, forced to trust crazy giants…”
    Not all the crazy giants are the same. Some lack empathy and are focused on deceiving and manipulating in the pursuit of power and control over others. These are the sociopaths, and they are the reason all the other giants in general are crazy. Sociopaths, described as the morally insane, become the leaders, and they lead us into their desired world, which is one of hypocrisy, division, conflict, and insanity. This system could be reversed if sociopaths were not allowed to lead humanity.

  5. Humans exist as entertainment for the gods who in turn exist for God’s entertainment. The basics of any entertainment consists of comedy or drama. It may well be that what passes for drama among humans provides the utmost in the way of comedy to those of the audience. It may also well be that audience participation is a mainstay of such show business which would otherwise be prone towards becoming quite boring. Nothing is so dangerous as a bored omnipotent entity. That said, one should not be found guilty of the sin of being boring because ‘I would rather you be either hot or cold, because if lukewarm I will spit you out’ .

  6. If we could keep psychopaths from power we would have a chance to make things better. There are ways of finding out psychopaths, but it beats me what we might do to make use of that knowledge. Here is a website which talks about how authoritarian psychopaths can be found by well-founded psychological tests: http://www.theauthoritarians.org. The (free) book available on the site is well worth reading, but it will make you feel bad.

  7. We are moving rapidly towards a global annihilation.
    The destruction is not coming from some other planet, we ourselves are preparing our own graves.
    If, in the coming twenty years, humanity goes through a revolution, attains a new consciousness, perhaps, what has been happening up to now can be avoided.
    We should make every effort to avoid it.
    Any surviving future generations? researching our demise later on, may think it to be a natural calamity.
    But it is not.
    It is our own stupidity.
    We have created it.
    The reason is an imbalance in our evolution.
    We go on developing scientific technology without bothering at all that our consciousness should also evolve in the same proportion.
    In fact, our consciousness should be a little ahead of our technological progress.
    But our consciousness has not grown with the same pace as scientific progress, and that has been the root cause of all civilizations destroying themselves.
    There was no outer cause, no outer enemy, the unconscious enemy was within.
    Always the power accumulates in the hands of the unconscious people.
    And it is very dangerous to give so much power to these unconscious psychopaths.
    Oligarchs, politicians, military industrial complex, MSM fake news and propaganda, security services.
    And what do they need more power for?
    To dominate, and to destroy everyone else!
    We create technological masterpieces as far as science and machines are concerned, but we ourselves remain very retarded, unconscious, almost asleep.
    For example, one man, Thomas Alva Edison, creates electricity, and the whole of humanity uses it.
    There is no need for everyone to discover it again and again.
    Yet inner growth is a totally different phenomenon.
    A Gautam Buddha may become enlightened, but that does not mean that everybody else becomes enlightened.
    Each individual has to find the truth by themselves.
    So whatsoever happens on the outside goes on accumulating, piling up, all scientific progress goes on piling up.
    Each scientist is standing on the shoulders of other scientists.
    But the evolution of consciousness does not follow the same law.
    Each individual has to discover it by themselves.
    They cannot stand upon the shoulders of somebody else.
    Anything objective, scientific can be shared, can be taught in the schools, in the colleges, in the universities.
    But the same is not true about awareness,consciousness, subjectivity.
    Someone may know everything about the inner world, still they cannot hand that over to you.
    It is one of the fundamental laws of existence that the inner truth has to be discovered by each individual by his own efforts.
    It cannot be purchased in the marketplace, nor can it be stolen.
    Nobody can give it to you as a gift.
    It is not a commodity, it is not material.
    It is an immaterial experience.
    Many people seem to be interested in meditation, but that interest cannot be very deep because so very few are transformed through it.
    If the interest is really deep, it becomes a fire by itself.
    It transforms you.
    Just through intense interest you start becoming different.
    A new center of being arises.
    So many people seem to be interested but nothing new arises in them, no new center is born, no new crystallization is achieved.
    They remain the same.
    That means they are deceiving themselves.
    The deception is very subtle but it is bound to be there.
    If you go on taking medicine, having treatments, and the illness remains the same, or rather on the contrary, it goes on increasing, then your medicine, your treatment, is bound to be false.
    Maybe deep down you don’t want to be transformed.
    That fear is very real, the fear of transformation.
    So on the surface you go on thinking that you are deeply interested, but deep down you go on deceiving.
    The fear of transformation is just like the fear of death.
    It is a death, because the old will have to go and the new will come into being.
    You will be there no more, something totally unknown to you will be born out of you.
    Unless you are ready to die, your interest in meditation is false, because only those who are ready to die will be reborn.
    The new cannot become a continuity with the old.
    The old must be discontinued.
    The old must go.
    Only then can the new come into being.
    The new is not an outgrowth of the old, the new is not continuous with it, the new is totally new.
    And it comes only when the old dies.
    There is a gap between the old and the new, that gap gives you the fear.
    You are afraid.
    You want to be transformed but simultaneously you want to remain the old.
    This is the deception.
    You want to grow, but you want to remain you.
    Then growth is impossible, then you can only deceive, then you can go on thinking and dreaming that something is happening, but nothing will happen because the basic point has been missed.
    So there are many people all over the world who are very interested in meditation, awareness, no mind, but nothing is happening.
    There is so much noise about it but nothing real is happening.
    What is the matter?
    Sometimes the mind is so cunning that because you don’t want to be transformed, the mind will create a superficial interest so that you can say to yourself, “You are interested, you are doing whatsoever can be done.”
    And you remain the same.
    And if nothing happens, you think that the technique you are using is wrong, the guru you are following is wrong, the scripture, the principle, the method, is wrong.
    You never think that even with a wrong method transformation is possible if the real interest is there, even with a wrong method you will be transformed.
    If you are really interested in transformation, you will become different even if following a wrong guru. If your soul and your heart is in your effort, no one can mislead you except yourself.
    And nothing is a barrier to your progress except your own deceptions.
    When I say that even a wrong master, a wrong method, a wrong principle, can lead you to the real, I mean that the real transformation happens when you are intensely involved in it, not through any method.
    The method is just a device, the method is just a help, the method is secondary, your being involved in it is the fundamental thing.
    But you go on doing something, not even doing, you go on talking about doing.
    And words create an illusion, because you think so much about it, you read so much about it, you listen so much about it, that you start feeling you are doing something.
    So-called religious persons have developed many deception devices.

    I have heard that a motorist, driving along a road in Rome, saw the Vatican on fire.
    Chico,the pope of the Vatican was sitting under a tree.
    The motorist called to him, “What are you doing there?
    The Vatican is on fire!” the pope said, “I know about it.”
    The motorist was much excited.
    He said, “Then why are you not doing something?”
    The pope said, “Ever since it started I have been praying for rain.
    I am doing something.”

  8. Nice and helpful little piece, bringing into broad-brush but essentially accurate focus the sickness in the heart of the human condition. For me, unlike for some other commentators, the way out of the madness is not in the idealized caricature of indigenous people nor in the blanket condemnation of Western Civ (both of which contain, at best, partial truth), but rather in the heights of the human imagination, degraded as much as our natural environment by brutally philistine neoliberalism. What might it look like, feel like, if a so-called developed society were to become radically humane and egalitarian? MLK, for example, drew inspiration and strength from his mountaintop vision of a post-racial society, although he knew that he would not live to experience it. Such meaning, purpose, and perseverance, I submit, are to be found not merely in acknowledgment of and opposition to the insane realities that surround us and seep into us, but even more so in those alternative realities which lie within our imagination and thus also, potentially, within our grasp–what Charles Eisenstein calls “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.”

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/11/19/on-earth-as-in-heaven-the-utopianism-of-edward-bellamy/

  9. If Caitlin is reflecting on the “lawful process” the Fed can use to foreclose on the $22 trillion National Debt for the benefit of Wall Street TBTF banks [think Greece, Bolivia or Argentina], specific details are here: https://ppjg.me/2019/11/18/scenario-of-national-bankruptcy/.

    If she is wanting a method to avoid the above, a simple FOIA suit, with a major accounting expertise, can handle the problem. Ref. https://www.spartareport.com/2019/11/the-federal-reserve-a-different-view/.

  10. Brilliant stuff. You seem to be able to encapsulate my thoughts.

  11. Well Caitlin, you’ve done it again. Written something so clear and true it makes me want to shout hallelujah, I am not alone! You have removed from me forever the need to try to put my thoughts into print to try to inform others. Thanks so much for living the life you are living. I know for sure you have suffered a lot to be able to open the springs of creative contact with truth within yourself. Please know that it means something very precious to all of us seekers hungry for what flows from your Source.

  12. Jordan Maxwell believes there is another species on [or in ] the planet which is driving mankind mad. Based upon my cursory research and as the ice of Antarctica continues to thaw–I believe we may find that his theory has more validity than we might like–whoever of whatever it is we’re going to have to deal with it–so let’s get prepared: http://beforeitsnews.com/paranormal/2019/11/jordan-maxwell-our-hidden-creators-something-on-earth-is-driving-humans-mad-2-2545707.html

    1. I think a more likely explanation for why this society is mad because of the money system we have which has shaped the economic development of the world for centuries and the mass psychology of U.S. citizens for over 100 years. Originating money as debt for profit is usury, the forgotten crime, usury; the abuse of monetary authority for personal gain. All the great religions and philosophers condemned it, Dante’ put the usurers in the lowest sub-circle of hell saying it was “..an extraordinarily efficient form of violence by which one can do the most damage with the least effort.” It is the sin of sins, the progenitor of the 7 deadly sins. There is a growing body of research on the psychological consequences of money, or more accurately credit being used as money, which is actually usury, and is why the religions had banned it. The native cultures had a name for this madness of self-devouring greed; Wetiko, or Windego or any number of other tribe’s name for it.

  13. Wrong. Things are the way they are because all life evolved to maximize energy consumption. If you want to get angry, get angry at the universe’s laws of thermodynamics.

    https://un-denial.com/2019/12/17/by-james-merry-christmas-from-the-big-bang/

  14. They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
    They may not mean to, but they do.
    They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

    But they were fucked up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,
    Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another’s throats.

    Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
    Get out as early as you can,
    And don’t have any kids yourself. – Philip Larkin

    1. martin flaxman Avatar
      martin flaxman

      Thanks, saved me the effort of posting this. There’s a logical reason why things should be so. But not a reason anyone will accept. So we blunder on, devouring our children.

  15. 25 years ago, in my first incarnation as a writer, I was thinking about this, and came up with an idea for a novel to explore the question…which I recently wrote. I call it The Second Human Race. The nub of the idea is that humanity wipes itself out in a final war, and some time thereafter, aliens arrive (in my novel I had the aliens coming looking for the senders of the Cosmic Call message which was sent in 1999). They wonder what happened to the intelligent race, explore the planet and leave–but heading out, they spot a base on the moon. Inside–in a cave sheltered by a mountain so the sun never hits it, constant deep freeze–they find embryos, including human ones. They take these home and eventually succeed in artificially gestating the humans. They raise them. They are NOT crazy, and they have broken the chain of crazy that Caitlin describes here…which as several commenters have pointed out, is cultural, not inborn. Then what? 25 years ago I couldn’t decide, but recently I decided to make it a science fiction romance, and I wanted one character to come from a different mileau. So I made it a mere few hundred years from now, and decided that 18 people did survive the Last War…by hiding in the seed vault at Svalbard–and 300 years later their descendants are a colony of 700 people living in the Alpine foothills. So the hero is one of these while the heroine was hatched 70 lightyears away and raised by the Mrini…

    1. very interesting idea! have u made it come to fruition?

      i generally love caitlin, but the idea that our fuckedupness has everything to do with culture and nothing to do with genes, i don’t agree with.

  16. Hmm…
    No one has mentioned it in the comments, wonder why.
    Yesterday, for several hours, I got a DNS error while trying to access caitlinjohnstone.com
    The message explained that this website had been moved to a new server.
    It wanted me to click on something which I did NOT of course.
    Glad to see this website up and running, but it seems as though it never happened if the comments here are any indication.
    .
    Did anyone else experience a DNS message?
    What was the cause, anyone know?

    1. Her server was overloaded for a very good reason – the word is getting out about Caitlin! She’s been forced to spend the bucks (or whatever they’re called Down Under) to upgrade. It might be a good time for all of us to pitch in and help. ‘It’s the season, after all.
      https://www.paypal.me/CaitlinJohnstone

    2. Me too. I figured it was a DDoS attack, which has been used against many independent websites to fuck them up. Glad to learn that it was just additional traffic. All power to Cait and the Indies!

    3. The same for me…

      I guess the godless golden youth in charge does not like Caitlin’s column.

      They do not realize they live in the return of the days of Noah. They just don’t get it.

      I pray the Rosary for this nightmare to end and for the quick return of Our Lord Jesus!

  17. The reason we are now captured in such a dystopian nightmare is that we only recently found ourselves in a situation we can’t walk out of, can’t vote with our feet, or our wallet. The Sociopaths In Charge have taken control of the world. There is no frontier we can escape to. It will fold up, and we may then have an opportunity to rebuild in a more sane manner. Provided the SIC don’t irradiate the planet first.

    1. Not sociopaths, PSYCHOPATHS. Never forget that they kill without compunction to attain their insane goals.

  18. No, no, no, Caitlin. Totally wrong about how far back this goes. These woes are civilisational, and civilisations have only existed for the last few percent of human history. The problem is that we evolved for societies very unlike the vast civilisations we now live in. We are maladapted. In the environment for which we evolved, hunter-gatherer groups, humans tend to be fair, peaceful, equal (including women), and the psychopaths don’t get to take control. Read Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan.

    1. Julius Skoolafish Avatar
      Julius Skoolafish

      Thank you for the reading recommendation – have it now. And may I also recommend “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Noah Harari

    2. Please explain the actions of the American Indians toward different tribes. Apache, Crow, Mohawk to name a few preyed and enslaved their neighbors.

      1. the neanderthals didn’t all get assimilated, a good number were probably slaughtered by cro magnons.

  19. Thank you Caitlin.

    ”But then, I believe in miracles.”

    So do I. Which gives me hope. Maybe we aren’t as fu**ed as we think we are?

    Acts 2:22
    “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—

    https://youtu.be/JIN36NweL6I

  20. Always end with a Ramones lyric. Happy Christmas Caitlin! Toby, England

  21. LOL. The fucked up piece of shit in my town a former Nazi won’t even let me post a message of love. Always crying about anti-Semitism, but always hating every other group in the world
    So, we have a fucked up world of lying, hating people.

  22. From the movie “Avatar”…

    Moat : It is decided. My daughter will teach you our ways. Learn well, “Jakesully”, and we will see if your insanity can be cured. … Moat : We have tried to teach other sky people, it is hard to fill a cup which is already full.

    Beautiful article Caitlin!

    Nature (and nurture, but nurture also came from nature) made us what we are. Only nature can retrain us. If we cannot be retrained, we will be extincted. The miracle that’s needed could be a very painful process but there’s no other way.

  23. In an effort to make informed decisions, I get as many perspectives as possible. Ironically, I discovered the wonderful insights written by Caitlin on ZeroHedge. If she did not allow them to publish her work I possibly would never have had the privilege of finding her site and reading more of her writings.

  24. It’s that marvelous time of year once again, isn;t it. After you find out that your parents and “the world” have been outright lying to you for several of the earliest years of your life, you start to wonder what other lies they’ve been telling you. For example, have you ever noticed how Santa Claus and the Supreme Being have pretty much the same “powers” (knows when you’ve been bad or good, etc)? THAT couldn’t be another load of bullshit, could it? All those politicians telling us how God Blesses AmeriKKKa and has chosen the US of A to bomb the world to Utopia — that couldn’t be all bullshit, too, could it? (BTW, when’s the next showing of “The Polar Express”? My sliegh bells are getting pretty damned quiet lately.)

  25. Truth is not a thing but the clarity of perception.

    It is not that you will have to see something; it is only the clarity of seeing that is truth.

    Everything becomes transparent, you can see, you can see totally; nothing is hidden from you.

    That perception is truth.

    To be alert and awake is no mind.

    This is being true to yourself.

    Truth is not something outside.

    Truth is not an object that you have to find, search for, seek.

    Truth is your very being.

    Truth is consciousness.

    So drop all belief, drop all thoughts.

    Truth is the one who is seeking.

    Truth is not the sought, but the seeker themselves.

    Truth is not an object but an awakening in you.

    Where truth abides in fullness.

    Nothing is lacking in you, nothing has to be added to you.

    All that is needed this very moment, is to know who you are, and in that very knowing one comes to feel the completion, the awakening.

    Enlightenment has not to be sought actively, to be brought about, because it is already there.

    Martin Heidegger uses the word ‘releasement’ instead of ‘enlightenment’.

    His word is beautiful.

    It is a releasement: something is already there, it has only to be released.

    1. A very newage mish mash of self enlightenment. Ah I Now see blind little grasshopper.

      1. The owner of a big furniture store went to New York to buy some stock, and met a really beautiful girl in the hotel elevator. But she was French, and they could not understand a word of each other’s language.

        So he took out a pencil and notebook and drew a sketch of a taxi. She nodded her head and laughed, and they went for a ride in the park.

        Then he drew a picture of a table in a restaurant with a question mark and she nodded, so they went to dinner.

        After dinner he sketched two dancers and she was delighted. They went to a nightclub and danced and had a lovely evening.

        At length she motioned for the pencil and drew a picture of a four-poster bed.

        He was dumbfounded. He has never been able to figure out how she knew he was in the furniture business.

        One has to be aware; otherwise you can miss the obvious!!!

        1. obviously nothing was obvious and neither was aware in that story…

          1. You proved the point,
            No awareness equals zero perception of the obvious, she wanted to fuck him, you idiot!

  26. Not to mine. Not even close. Hubris to think so.

  27. “And now you get political commentators constantly railing on about “Gosh, if only we could get people to stop listening to their televisions and vote third party and read World Socialist Website and turn up to demonstrations and take back the power of the people from our oppressors, we could turn this thing around!” Not realizing that everyone else in their country went through the same traumatic, confusing ordeal that they went through at the beginning of their lives, the only difference being that most of them got a lot less lucky in sorting out reality from madness. And not realizing that they themselves are still quite mad.”

    This paragraph is unworthy of you, Caitlin. People SHOULD stop listening to their televisions, in fact they should throw them out. People SHOULD vote third party–preferably Socialist Equality Party. People SHOULD read the WSWS and join the SEP. Your comments about people going through the same ordeal are historically inaccurate. The struggle never ends. The only way to end the madness is to end capitalism. Full stop.

    I really like your articles, but this paragraph explains why I don’t like your poetry.

  28. George Tirebiter Avatar
    George Tirebiter

    Yes…..”You’ve got to zoom the camera out much, much further to see the full picture,” starting with the fact that we’ve been fooled about where we actually live and how we came to exist. Until these falsehoods are corrected there isn’t much hope for a leap of awareness in other areas of reality.

  29. The article is Why is everything f*****.

    And Caitlin, you outline your reasons very succinctly.
    However, ironically, you still allow your work to be published on the uber haters website known as Zerohedge.
    Example, today they republished an article from Rolling Stone, whereby they did an interview of Michael Moore.
    And of course, all the rabid haters immediately started commenting about Michael Moore’s weight.
    I counted the word fat 53 times in the comments section.
    The gutter journalism, and the extreme hatred expressed on Zerohedge is part of the reason why everything is f***** up.

    1. Never read the comments at Zerohedge. Never.
      They are the most juvenile collection I have ever encountered.
      That being said, I highly recommend Zerohedge (without the comments).
      You have to cull but you will find lots of worthwhile articles.
      They are pro-gun, anti-environment and push “free” financial advise so cull those articles. In 2016 leading up to the election the MSM was telling us Hillary was polling a double-digit lead over Trump. If you read Zerohedge you were warned AND they gave you statistical information to show you what the fraudulent pollsters were up to.
      Read Zerohedge, for hecks sake, but never ever trouble yourself with the comment section.
      Never.

    2. In an effort to make informed decisions, I get as many perspectives as possible. Ironically, I discovered the wonderful insights written by Caitlin on ZeroHedge. If she did not allow them to publish her work I possibly would never have had the privilege of finding her site and reading more of her writings.

  30. Groundhog Day. I have no choice but to play my role by pointing out that there are living examples of a better world for the rest of humanity to follow. The problem is that it’s difficult if not impossible for most of those in The Matrix to be attracted to these examples, which is a real victory for the agents in our very real Matrix. Too bad.

  31. Joe Van Steenbergen Avatar
    Joe Van Steenbergen

    Merry Christmas to all.

    1. its actually Yalda it was taken over by the catholic church

  32. Everything is fucked because everything is a lie.

    They are so in it that I remember a reporter saying that we clearly saw an airplane hitting the Pentagone on 9/11 and on the video shown at that time, nothing similar to an airplane at all.

    And since a few years, I am not so sure about the famous moon landings in the 1970’s. Were they real of fake?

    It is the return of the days of Noah so the truth does not exist anymore. The good news is that the return of Jesus is near and I pray the Rosary to hasten His return because I have seen more than enough bullshit.

  33. One skill that merits practice in order to more effectively filter away bullshit is the realization offered by Neil Postman some years before the internet, that mass media and the narrative matrix must entertain uninterruptedly to maintain the passive attention of its victims. Things that require cogent thought to maintain one’s attention are boring and dismaying. The concept is similar to that of fnord in the Principia Discordia, itself a worthy guide to disinformation.
    One needs a bit of a Puritan avoidance of soliciting pleasure from the media carnival, and attending only to what offers rational content that can be analyzed. It takes a certain level of Stoic prudence to read about, say, modern agricultural improvements in Africa, and not click on Khloe Kardashian’s diet secrets when interrupted. But the realization that McMedia can only live on tasty and pleasurable offerings helps one develop an acquired taste for nourishing intellectual literature. Even if you grew up on junk food, your palate can change.

    1. Agreed. As much as corporations, the rich and the government facilitate our problems, consumers have their equal part in it. The oligarchs would have no power if nobody bought their conveniences.

  34. Caitlin, you have written the prologue to everyone’s memoir.

    1. Not to mine. Not even close. Hubris to think so.

  35. Ms. Johnstone and all, the reason for the fuckage is that a profound super-majority of humans believe that coercive governments (a) can or even should exist, and (b) are capable of doing good things. This is not the case. Time is of the essence, because things are not getting better. As with anything in life, there are two ways to look at things. I am here and feeling healthy because of vaccines or despite them. I sit here alive and well today thanks to the sun or even though it regularly bears down on me. Same with coercive government. If you can fathom how fantastic your soul’s existence would be without the oppression of such a government, congratulations! Your eyes are starting to open.

  36. Wow Caitlin, just shoot me now and put me out of my misery.

  37. I was lucky enough to be part of a large group that did completely reject basically everything that had been poared into our heads from birth. Thus, I can say quite confidently that it can be done. And that’s a big part of the fight isn’t it? If you know from the start that something can be done, then all you have to do is to figured out how its done, and you can skip the whole part where you wonder if you are crazy for even thinking that something so impossible can be done. It can be done. It has already been done.
    It was called a counter-culture because in many ways it is a complete rejection of an entire culture and then trying to rebuild it and replace it with something more human and more sane. Its not a simple three step or twelve step plan for success. Instead, it is a complete “Take this rubbish and throw it in the bin” and then start over.
    It can be done. Take a look at that crowd of a million people or so at Woodstock, and realize that you are looking at photographic proof that it can be done.
    If you need some pointers about how to start trying to get there, start looking at what was done and said during the 1960’s. Its not a How-To manual. Mistakes were of course made in any human endeavor, and its a different world than the previous deep-state, world-devouring machine that emerged from Doctor Strangelove. But, it is the words and stories of people who’ve already walked along the path that you are seeking to find.
    And remember, “If you get confused, just listen to the music play.”
    One of those hints from the 60’s is that art and music and beauty are ways to talk to people in a way that political meetings can not. Its those sorts of hints that you are looking for that will help you out, where a step-by-step manual would always mislead you.
    It has happened before. It will happen again.
    And pay attention to the very young. They seem to be the ones now realizing just how totally fucked this entire world is, and that realization probably puts them a few steps ahead of their elders.

    1. “When the truth is found to be lies
      And all the joy within you dies
      Don’t you want somebody to love?
      Don’t you need somebody to love?
      Wouldn’t you love somebody to love?
      You better find somebody to love. (love, love, love)”

      1. Fine, if you like Grace Slick. I do not.

  38. Only in a country that produces so much fake news at the official level, could there be a fake impeachment procedure made purely for media consumption, with no real or tangible possible victory in sight. This fine article can be read here:
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/12/22/fake-impeachment-pelosis-botched-ploy-helps-trump-towards-victory/

  39. I think most of us still teach our kids that it is wrong to fight, and that right makes might, not the other way around.
    However, this parental admonition is contradicted by the messages coming out of every film and television show, and the behavior of politicians and other alleged role models. We are counseled repeatedly that the best way to resolve any conflict is through violence. Please read this article ” Bully Nation ” here:
    https://donaldjeffries.wordpress.com/

  40. Well, my new favorite saying is, “as long as I have time and money, I’m good. Run out of either of those and I’m fucked!”. Right now I am good but both are shaky. It’s hard to make plans in life because I don’t want to make God laugh! My new favorite saying has replaced my former favorite saying by Inspector Clouseau, ‘I believe everything and I believe nothing’. I write everyday in response to your essays because it is therapeutic, most days I trash it and move on with the time that I have. I do enjoy your relentless effort to figure things out and can only add that it is the effort that counts not necessarily the result. Sometimes it is difficult to speak about things without coming off as high minded or smug. When we enter this reality, a veil descends over our consciousness and an agreed set of circumstances for our souls continued development is hidden. Our bodies grow and are fed. At some point the age of reason enters and we realize that we have free will (or do we think it is destiny). I explained to my young grandson who was repeatedly doing something that made is younger sister cry and annoyed his mother. I took him aside and said, “ you heard your mother tell you to stop doing that? Yes. Do you you understand that what you are doing to your sister is wrong and it is making her cry? Yes. Okay buddy, the first time was a mistake and everyone gets a chance to make a mistake. But, after that your action becomes a choice. And, when you make choices that are bad you will suffer from the choice in some way or another. So try and make good choices.”
    We only think we understand our reality. Buried under the slime of the oceans evidence of previous civilizations that were far more advanced than ours exist. Someday evidence of our civilization will also be part of an archeological past littered with indecipherable detritus of our attempts at civilization. By the way I enjoy your word choices when they reference the sea. As a wordsmith, you surely realize the debt that society owes the seaman for a large part of our language. We are the ones that left the shore (sure) behind and ventured out toward the unknown and helped to spread culture, language and disease. You’re welcome. Write on sister!

    1. Tim and Caitlin both get the highest praise that I can give to anyone ….. They make me think and write! 🙂

  41. Dear Caitlin Johnstone:

    After so admirably fighting the good fight for years, I believe based on the idea that all men and women are both good and evil, and can be redeemed, you paint a picture of life that is unworthy of and hurts you. Our parents and other adults, taught us both how to care for other people and despise them, to care for the world and how to despise it. The reason we so readily learned these lessons is because from the beginning we had both desires – to see and like what the world really is and to conquer it, including in our minds as something to look down on. We will always be hobbled in getting anywhere if we just blame our parents and are not critical of the desire that is always in our selves of the desire in ourselves, as described by the greatest and kindest thinker , “to think we will be for ourselves, by making less of the outside world.”

  42. I’ve come to the conclusion that our cerebral cortex is our sabretooth.

  43. Don’t jump on anyone’s bandwagon. Believe nothing you hear and only half what you see. As soon as people start believing the male bovine fecal matter the Sociopaths In Charge constantly spew, we get trouble. Since the vast majority of people are decent human beings, to a greater or lesser degree, they simply can’t comprehend the monstrosity of evil the SIC are capable of. They can’t comprehend that these monsters would happily exterminate half the population of the world to attain their goals. THEY ARE NOT HUMAN. They just happen to have the same DNA and appearance. They attained their power by deceiving us into believing they are.

  44. Excellent!
    You took the words right out of my mouth!
    Since, I believe we are here to observe and learn and then leave, perhaps once these lower qualities of the human being are absorbed, we can then move on to a better inviorment and stop the madness!

  45. Not everyone was fucked from the outset.
    When Captain Cook was navigating through the Great Barrier Reef he ran aground and his ship started sinking. A sailor suggest they drag a sail over the hole in the bow to slow the leak. This enabled them to get the boat on to a beach where the carpenters went to work on repairs.
    Captain Cook wandered around and wrote in his log about how the aboriginal people survived in such a harsh land because they all shared equally and helped each other. When his log was published in England any reference to sharing, equality or helping each other was deleted.
    So when referring to how fucked we have been for so long it is important to acknowledge that many aboriginal peoples had the equality that is so sorely missing today.

    1. Julius Skoolafish Avatar
      Julius Skoolafish

      Your comment resonated with me …

      Ever since I first visited the Adelaide museum I have been euphorically reflecting on the extraordinary craftsmanship, artisanship and downright inventiveness of the Australian Aboriginals (and Torres Strait Islanders). The nets and other fishing and hunting implements, food sources and associated knowledge, ropes, cloths, baskets, music, art et cetera – all made from natural resources, especially plant/tree material.

      Just recently I was wandering through the Museum of Economic Botany in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and read these words on one of the display banners:

      **“The natives would, I am sure, come out in a far better light than many of our colonists are wont to regard them in, and their ingenuity would rather astonish those who are in the habit of regarding the Australian aboriginals as the most degraded people on the face of the earth.“**

      Albert Molineux (1881)

      Albert Molineux was instrumental in assembling many of the artefacts in the Museum of Economic Botany which was under the directorship of Richard Schomburgk.

  46. Even crazy giants have good ideas now and then, see the table of contents of the Book of Virtues, an anthology by William J Bennet. Indoctrinate them at an early age with stories about: Self-discipline, Compassion, Responsibility, Friendship, Work, Courage, Perseverance, Honesty, Loyalty, Faith. It’s an education problem.

  47. Lucky for us, the giants didn’t anticipate the eventual arrival of Ho’oponopono http://www.presentlove.com/hooponopono/ I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you.
    The ultimate way of taking responsibility for everything you are aware of. Admittedly, it is a very challenging way of living life in a seemingly fucked up world, but, practicing it eventually de-fucks it all!

  48. LOL. Some people remember being born, so we couldn’t all be a blank sheet of paper to be written upon by the giants. Unfortunately, almost everyone has the wrong beliefs; fact is, if you can’t live forever there’s no reason for ever having been born in the first place. What kind of worthless god gives us life just so that it can have the thrill of killing us later?

  49. Bingo! You’ve got it Caitlin. Made my day. Thank you.

  50. I remember the day I first realized I lived in a society full of crazy people. I was four years old. It was the day I walked into the nursery school classroom for the first time. I remember seeing posters all over the walls with things like colors and shapes and animals labeled with their names and a calendar with the days of the week written at the top. I was perfectly capable of reading the labels at that age, having learned to read from my mother as she taught my one-year-older brother, and from reading along with her as she read stories to us. I was walking around the room looking at all these posters when I overheard the teacher talking to some of the parents, saying that kids our age couldn’t read and weren’t expected to learn until they were older.

    First, I was shocked that the other kids couldn’t read. As children do, I had assumed that what we did was normal and every kid my age could read. “Why can’t they read?!”, I thought. ” And, why did the teacher say they couldn’t learn how?!” Then, I thought, “Why do they put posters all over the walls covered with words they assume the kids can’t read and aren’t expected to learn?”

    None of this made any sense to me. The only conclusion I could come to was that adults were nuts. This conclusion was confirmed for me the next year when I was in kindergarten. Our class took a field trip to our neighborhood fire station and got the fire safety speech from one of the firemen. The thing about that speech that really stood out for me was when he said that most of the people who die in fires die of smoke inhalation. The teacher had said everyone took this same trip, so, I thought, everyone knows this. “If so,” I thought, “then why do adults suck horrible, stinky cigarette smoke into their lungs on purpose?! They know smoke inhalation kills people!”

    Once again, the only possible conclusion was that these people were completely crazy. In the 50+ years since these events, I have seen a whole lot to confirm the insanity conclusion and very little to refute it.

    However, I have to concur with most of what Josh Mitteldorf said about the insanity being a product of culture, not inherent in the human species. The idea that these omnicidal behaviors are inherent to the species is very carefully promoted by the leaders of the dominant culture, so as to make us believe that there is no alternative, that these insane behaviors are inescapable. They also simply wipe out any culture that might prove or demonstrate otherwise, either by outright genocide or by assimilation or some combination of the two.

    Of course, some of these people might actually believe these omnicidal lies, willfully, because they have also concluded that they are the only true humans. Participating in genocide, ecocide, and every other form of mass murder is so much easier when you believe that everyone and everything else is some level below you on the evolutionary or spiritual/religious scale, and killing them off is therefore, totally acceptable.

    Yeah, the crazy goes way, way back, but it is not inherent to the human species. It is inherent to a culture that glorifies arrogance, greed, violence, death, and obsession with power, and sees killing someone or something as the solution to every problem, most especially the problem of how to stay in power and gain more of it.

    Maybe the miracle will come when people stop believing that they have to live in a culture of death and realize that death supports only more death. Life supports life, including theirs, and only by nurturing and supporting all life can they save their own.

  51. Brilliant writing! Thought-provoking essay interspersed with humor, wit and hope. To get healthy, we must first admit we have a problem!

    “Big brains invent nuclear weapons. Big brains terrify the planet into worrying about when those weapons will be used. Big brains are restless. Big brains demand constant amusement.” — Kurt Vonnegut

    “the worst part about being lied to is knowing you weren’t worth the truth” —Jean-Paul Sartre

  52. Julius Skoolafish Avatar
    Julius Skoolafish

    “This newfound capacity for complex abstract thought burst onto this frantic, confusing scene and was quickly seized and manipulated by the cleverer primates.“

    PRECISELY! – I must recommend Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”. He can be found giving a TED talk also on this theme.

  53. The “Creators” NEVER , “Fucked-up” Anything…They merely ALLOWED the situation on this planet TIME to address the “Question” of “What IF” to be dealt with.
    IF you are the “Original Indigenous” Beings of the “Divine Melanin Creators” (The Immortals), then one would Understand WHY these so-called “Fuck-ups” were ALLOWED to exist in the first place.
    Funny thing about the AVATARS….They unwittingly reveal themselves ALL the Time through various means…One of the Best is in the “Hollywood Movies” (Loads of them!)
    The one I found Best describes the “Situation” those Avatar’s is in the Movie entitled “AVATAR”…IF one has not seen that movie, I highly suggest one does….Only REMEMBER how IT “ENDED” ….For the AVATARS (Faked Creatures) occupying the INDIGENOUS BEINGS, of that planet.
    The EXACT situation exist HERE on planet Earth…WATCH 2020.

  54. Klaus von Berlin Avatar
    Klaus von Berlin

    You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution . You can only be the revolution .It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere. Ursula K.Le Guin in her book The Dispossessed . Caitlin you are in her spirit, thanks for your thoughts .

  55. This is your best of many masterpieces. Great epiphany & very well-articulated.

    How far back does this crazy go? To the dawn of civilization. “The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”
    ― James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison

    This subject of social conditiong has been on my mind since I was first able to think and taught myself to read. I never asked anyone their opinion because they were too busy with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to have one. My first thoughts around 5-6 were “something can be nothing” & “nothing is a quantity, i.e., empty space and that is something”..it was very liberating. Then knowing that light from stars and galaxies can take billions of light yrs to reach the earth means it could be the same light, from the rotating universe of space; a reflection of bending younger light, grown more distant, which is something, or nothing since it was there billions of light yrs ago, not necessarily now, unless you have a billion light yrs to wait. It is just refreshing to look up and pretend civilization will not kill everything living thing as it now appears.

    Back to earth. The US 4% of the pop. would require 5 Earths, pristine, to sustain the Global Pop. at that equivalent level. OTH, the 1.5 Billion people in India could all live in Texas. We shagged and snacked too much and there are just too many people and too much plastic and environmental toxins.

    “Religious, political, patriotic, language, habits, cultures, customs, countries, sects, etc. are bondage shackles which debilitate the mind, and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.”

    All religions, rituals, language, customs, politics, money, finance/banking, and wars are effected to bring the many under the power of the few with craftiness and tortuous tricks. “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.” Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild. “… The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating.” -Thomas Jefferson “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it’s issuance.”
    ― James Madison

    Why do we believe in the reasons behind any war or the imaginary WOT & 9/11? Because no one questions God and Country. Israeli Bezos just said “We are the good guys and we need to support the DOD’s War Business or we are doomed.” God is on our side and the Shekel Meisters in charge of the Narrative are chosen to dominate the Earth. Narrative control is like a Pavlovian response – just invoke some DARPA MKUltra code words and everyone lines up to go die in another Proxy War for Oil and Israel.

    9/11: Architects, Engineers, Lawyers, Pilots, First Responders, Scientists, Physicists, & Philosophers have all filed suits in NYC/NY/SCOTUS to convene Grand Juries to prosecute 9/11 and filed suit against all the cover-up artists like Mueller, FBI, CIA, NSA, the Pentagon, White House, FAA, NIST for deception, obstruction, failure to comply with NOIA, destruction of evidence, manipulated data, and the removal of 17,000+ documents from the Internet. It is an open and shut case of controlled demolition, explosives, incendiaries, and bombs. One man’s son was killed by a bomb from 6 floors down when he walked into the North Tower BEFORE a plane hit it. His face was completely blown off. Dozens of subsonic rumbles in the basement were required to cut all the 4’4′ steel columns free from bedrock. The basement bombs were filmed and witnessed by thousands, many burned and died.

    If only we believed in miracles…

  56. Yes native cultures had much saner ways of dealing with having been squeezed through a pelvic bowl too small for their brain by welcoming them into loving community. We, on the other hand are the product of a civilization that allowed usury, the abuse of monetary authority for personal gain, and those it benefited by its systematic concentration of wealth and power, to steer all human development into this insane centralizing system that demands growth at all costs. Usury, makes people crazy, it is the sin of sins, the progenitor of the 7 deadly sins, which is why all the great religions and ancient philosophers condemned the practice, what Dante’ called “..an extraordinarily efficient form of violence by which one does the most damage with the least effort.”

  57. There is one thing over which the “GIANTS” have no control- our Sun and globe.The intensifying GSM and imminent Magnetic Reversal.

  58. I was young maybe ten or so when I realized that ” the crazy giants ” did not have any real answers to my many questions. The libraries had a few answers but no one had ” real answers “. Later in life I became friends with a wise woman who brought me to her oriental teachers and I finally got answers. The crazy giants, even the very rich ones, do not have any real answers; they are ” winging it ” just like everybody else is. It is a very pitiful situation. Perhaps Ms Johnstone can bring a miracle.

  59. It’s horrible. Meanwhile masses of people don’t know or care. It’s mind boggling. One hallmark of expanded awareness is the coexistence of opposites. Knowing and holding two opposing truths is an important ability for me. When I get in too deep, I back up and think of the universe. Life and universe are infinite and amazing. I don’t advocate ignoring and denying. Sometimes I need to let go and contemplate infinity.

  60. Zarathustra's Bastard Avatar
    Zarathustra’s Bastard

    There’s truth to this, but it’s not the whole truth. If it was, life would be nothing but misery all the time and nothing would ever progress ever.

    Humans have achieved some amazing things in our time. There’s something drawing us onwards and upwards, our ‘madness’ notwithstanding.

  61. Oh, dear Caitlin! Yet again – stunningly clear when you explain things! Love the wide-eyed blinking baby – that caps it! I won’t say that given my 70 years I have not at times thought of this – me raised a Seventh-day Adventist – him raised a Hindu – she in a Brethren community – that Pell, well…all trained to believe – until we grew up (or earlier) and put away the childish things – or (as with the political/power psychopaths) used those twisted pathways to control others…etc! Thank-you – and messy festive to you and yours – i.e. the get-togethers and the seasonal catch-ups! And to all my fellows on this site…

    1. I wrote “merry” not “messy” – bt both fit, somehow!!!

  62. Hi Caitlin! I am a fan of the way you put things and your analysis, always. Your solutions, sometimes. Your belief in the failed system called socialism, never. While I truly believe that you and I have similar ideas of what an ideal future for mankind would look like, we obviously have drastically different solutions to the question of how to get there. Voting harder will never work. If you have any hope for the force and coercion of a representative government, we are on different teams. I am anarcho-capitalist, you are not. Yet. Once you understand that where we are today is a product of the absolute certainty that representative government will be corrupted at all costs by crony capitalists, then you can see why true capitalism is not to blame for the present predicament. It is a big step, and requires a leap of faith, but go anarcho-capitalist! You’ll be glad you did. I remain your fan.

    1. Anarchy yes, but capitalism is the very root of the problem.

      1. Once you understand that where we are today is a product of the absolute certainty that representative government will be corrupted at all costs by crony capitalists, then you can see why true capitalism is not to blame for the present predicament.

        1. E. Pluribus Capitalism Avatar
          E. Pluribus Capitalism

          Seems to me that “true capitalism” and “true socialism” are both lovely ideals which ignore the human tendency toward acquisitiveness a.k.a. greed.
          True capitalism, which is very efficient, inevitably morphs into “crony capitalism” which is why the insanely hungry beast of capitalism must be carefully controlled.

          1. True capitalism, which is anarcho-capitalism, to be clear, can not morph into crony capitalism unless we have a coercive government. If the government has no coercive powers, and so is government in name only and can enforce nothing, then there is no influence to peddle. Problem solved. The inevitable transition to a once-again free society might be painful, that we can’t know, but it will be. (And true capitalism is indeed a lovely ideal which acknowledges, in fact, counts on, greed or self-interest or whatever you want to call it. The thrust behind true socialism seems to be to re-educate humans to not want to act in their self- interest, or to convince them that they are wrong about what (for example, being stolen from, as taxation is theft) is in their self-interest. Good luck with that.) I insist that when you say “the insanely hungry beast of capitalism,” you should realize that your opinion is NOT of true capitalism.

            1. Anarchy capitalism is capitalism on steroids and is by very definition not anarchy. As soon as someone has money or capital they become a governing force. True anarchy doesn’t have hierarchy. It has order, it has people working together, it doesn’t have someone profitting on other people’s labor or resources that are communal, it has nobody over anyone else.

              1. No. Put simply, coercion (force) is bad, making your own decisions is good. For everybody. Always.

                1. Great thread. I just love indented comments.

      2. That’s going to be a problem. All economies are capitalist. The difference being who controls the capital. The one creating the capital, the Sociopaths In Charge, or a combination to a varying degree. Combinations inevitably drift toward domination by the Sociopaths In Charge

        1. Actually, I’lI beg to differ. While the sell is that all economies are, to some extent, capitalist, NO economies are capitalist, as coercive government exists everywhere on earth at present. In true capitalism, there is no coercive government managing (sic) or controlling (sic) the economy. Anarcho-capitalism gives end-users the power to regulate as they see fit, by buying more or less or none of a product or service. Indeed, truth reverts to real truth and not a commodity controlled by coercive government and their reins on broadcast systems anymore.

  63. I’d add a layer to your clear and cogent analysis, Caitlin.
    For tens of thousands of years, some native peoples of Australia, Africa and especially America were living sustainably in harmony with each other, with reverence for Gaia that sustained them, transforming and managing whole ecosystems in ways that were bursting with life.

    In Europe, some humans stumbled on a different way — a way of extracting and dominating and exploiting that was not sustainable but that made them able to fight more efficiently with one another. They discovered steel and gunpowder because they were highly motivated to find them, and rewarded by success in wars.

    When the European marauders figured out how to sail to other continents, the cooperative, trusting, sustainable cultures they found didn’t stand a chance against the exploitive, murderous, and ultimately unsustainable cultures of Europe.

    We are in a period after the Europeans have driven everyone else to the margins, but before the unsustainability of their ways has caught up with them. I mean, “us”.

    1. Nonsense. Australia, maybe. The populations of Africa and the Americas were at each others throats most of the time. The Arabs and Portuguese didn’t roam around Africa kidnapping slaves, the Africans enslaved their neighbors and sold them. The noble savage is an illusion just as the notion there is such a thing as good government is. They didn’t develop steel because the necessary material wasn’t lying around on top of the ground as it practically was in Europe.

      1. agreed !

        except for the steel part – it’s “magicality” was due to it’s hardness – no doubt able to penetrate most armour of the day.

        oh well – back to pillaging

  64. I’d add a layer to your clear and cogent analysis, Caitlin.
    For tens of thousands of years, some native peoples of Australia, Africa and especially America were living sustainably in harmony with each other, with reverence for Gaia that sustained them, transforming and managing whole ecosystems in ways that were bursting with life.

    In Europe, some humans stumbled on a different way — a way of extracting and dominating and exploiting that was not sustainable but that made them able to fight more efficiently with one another. They discovered steel and gunpowder because they were highly motivated to find them, and rewarded by success in wars.

    When the European marauders figured out how to sail to other continents, the cooperative, trusting, sustainable cultures they found didn’t stand a chance against the exploitive, murderous, and ultimately unsustainable cultures of Europe.

    We are in a period after the Europeans have driven everyone else to the margins, but before the unsustainability of their ways has caught up with them. I mean, “us”.
    In the last few centuries, these fly-by-night Europeans have

    When th

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