“Privileged” is the word of the day, with liberal narrative managers using their massive platforms to shame and berate anyone who says they’re not going to vote for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in November.

MSNBC’s Joy Reid recently made headlines by teaming up with Al Jazeera‘s Mehdi Hasan to dogpile progressive commentator Kyle Kulinski on Twitter for saying he refused to support Biden and was fine with Democrats blaming him for a Trump re-election.

“What this kind of thing says to me is that these are not ‘left-wing’ voters. They are privileged white voters who demand to be bowed down to, no different than Trump’s voters want those who are not white and Christian to take the knee for them like in the ‘good old days,’” Reid tweeted Monday evening. “These are voters whose primary concern is that everyone else kneel. That’s it. Kneel. Or they threaten the rest of us with the endless torment of Trumpism. Caged children. Viral death. Poverty. Want. Voter Suppression. Muslim bans. Of course none of this harms or impacts them.”

“Well here is [reality],” Reid continued. “No one is going to kneel. Those who get the danger of Trumpism are going to vote and find enough fellow voters committed to doing the right thing. The danger to living, breathing people is real. Most don’t have the luxury to pout over their preferred candidate.”

There are two problems with this “privileged” narrative, the first being that it is objectively false. As The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald explained in an article published last week, those who participate in America’s two-party voting performance are overwhelmingly richer and whiter than those who decline to participate, with a comprehensive Pew Research Center survey finding that “Nonvoters were more likely to be younger, less educated, less affluent and nonwhite.”

Which makes sense. Wealthy Americans have two mainstream parties which represent their interests to an extent that is directly proportionate to their wealth, while everyone else is aware to a greater or lesser extent that they do not.

And that is the second problem with the “refusing to support Biden is a sign of privilege” narrative: not only is it objectively false, but the exact opposite is true. Refusing to participate in a system you know doesn’t serve you is not a sign of privilege, a sign of privilege is feeling that you can afford to continue to support a status quo which murders, exploits and oppresses disadvantaged groups at home and abroad regardless of which party’s sock puppet occupies the White House.

World Socialist Website accurately described the privileged nature of Biden’s oligarchic support base after Barack Obama endorsed his former veep:

One should recall that Obama’s selection of Biden as his running mate following the 2008 primary campaign was a gesture from Obama to the ruling class, an assurance that despite his anti-war posturing and “hope and change” rhetoric, there would be no encroachment on the wealth and privilege of the oligarchy, nor an end to US imperialist wars. Or as Biden put it himself when speaking to major party donors at a 2019 New York fundraiser for his presidential run, under a Biden administration, “nothing would fundamentally change.”

The argument that refusing to support the Democratic Party nominee is a sign of privilege is premised on a fundamental misconception about the reality of America’s two-party system. Its exponents believe that there are two separate parties: a really awful and abusive one, and another one which, while imperfect, is still a suitable vehicle for protecting vulnerable communities from the abuses of the other.

That’s the theory. In practice, what you actually get is one party with two distinct yet inseparable faces using a good cop/bad cop routine to advance the interests of the billionaire class which controls them both. From Bush to Obama to Trump Americans have seen a two-headed one-party system consistently advance Orwellian government intrusiveness and destructive neoliberal agendas at home and murderous world-dominating military agendas abroad, without missing a beat. Hell, Obama’s deportation numbers are still greater than Trump’s, but Trump has certainly continued and expanded the murderous foreign policies of his predecessors. It’s been an unbroken legacy of slaughter and brutality regardless of who’s in office.

When Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere was accused by the US of running a one-party state in the 1960s, he famously said “The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.” When you really grasp this truth, you become incapable of ever seeing two separate American political parties again. What you actually see is a single giant monster beating you with both fists while telling you it will beat you harder if you don’t clap whenever it hits you with its left hand.

“Clap for my left hand while I beat you or I’ll take abortions away from women!” bellows the monster. “Clap for my left hand while I beat you or I’ll take civil rights away from minorities!”

What is the correct response to being assaulted by such a beast? Is it to placate it and do as it commands? Is it to say “Oh yes mister monster man, I’ll do whatever you want to get you to abuse me with a little bit less ferocity”?

Or is it to fight back? Is it to turn and face the beast and say, “Actually, no. You don’t get to abuse anyone at all. You don’t get to bully anyone into applauding their own abuse. You don’t get to threaten to assault disadvantaged groups to bully me into supporting what you’re doing. No.”

If you belong to a privileged group that is more insulated from the abuses of the monster, you will be less inclined to stand your ground and fight it. If you are less privileged, you’ve got a lot less to lose by bringing the fight out into the open.

But how? Simply not voting for Biden is obviously an insufficient and impotent gesture in and of itself; people refused to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016 and the party remained utterly unchanged in every meaningful way. This is because for all their huffing and puffing, those who control the Democratic Party do not actually care about losing to Trump; they know they’ll maintain their status and privilege win or lose, so long as they can successfully protect the political paradigm upon which that status and privilege are premised.

So what can be done? Well, for starters we’ve got to awaken Americans to the reality that they do not live in the kind of nation they were taught about in school. The two-headed one-party monster demands that people clap for its left-armed abuses because it needs to keep the public plugged into the illusion that they live in a democracy and the status quo reflects the will of the electorate. This is precisely the illusion we need to awaken people from if we’re ever to attain a critical mass of people forcing real change.

For what appears to be a limited window of time, the public has an unprecedented ability to network and share information in the democratized information ecosystem afforded by the internet and social media. It’s a highly imperfect medium but it’s the best tool we’ve got for sharing the truth about the reality of our situation, which is why so much effort is going into closing that window via increasingly ham-fisted internet censorship.

The oligarch-owned political/media class continually spouts propaganda geared toward manufacturing the consent of the governed for our exploitative, oppressive, murderous and ecocidal status quo, so our job is to shatter people’s trust in the narratives being promulgated by that political/media class.

Awakening from the establishment narrative matrix to the reality of what’s actually going on is extremely uncomfortable, because it immediately brings on a tremendous disgust and dissatisfaction with what the two-headed monster is doing to us. This is a good thing, not a bad thing. It means that anyone we awaken to the reality of our situation and the lies we’ve been told about it will also experience the same disgust and dissatisfaction, which will in turn drive them to help awaken others, who will in turn be driven to awaken others, and so on. The potential for exponential growth is there.

But, again, that window is closing. We’ve got to strike while the iron is hot.

______________________________

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73 responses to “#NeverBiden Isn’t “Privileged”, Supporting The Status Quo Is”

  1. Barbara Mullin Avatar
    Barbara Mullin

    Read book “Yesterday’s Man–The Case Against Joe Biden” by Branko Marcetic on how well Joe Biden did in presiding over the Supreme Court’s hearings on nominees which at the time over and over again went to conservative justices. Joe Biden will never be a hero when it comes to progressivism.

  2. How dare they call us privileged!
    https://youtu.be/iRaygyGmTm0

  3. Roundball Shaman Avatar
    Roundball Shaman

    You could say I lost my faith in science and progress
    You could say I lost my belief in the holy church
    You could say I lost my sense of direction
    You could say all of this and worse but
    If I ever lose my faith in you
    There’d be nothing left for me to do

    Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world
    You could say I lost my faith in the people on TV
    You could say I’d lost my belief in our politicians
    They all seemed like game show hosts to me
    I could be lost inside their lies without a trace
    But every time I close my eyes I see your face

    I never saw no miracle of science
    That didn’t go from a blessing to a curse
    I never saw no military solution
    That didn’t always end up as something worse but
    Let me say this first
    If I ever lose my faith in you
    There’d be nothing left for me to do

    Artist: Sting

  4. At last, another commentator like Jon Rappoport who sees the fakery of the alleged ‘two’ party system. Respect your forthright realism, Caitlin. Well said.
    Haven’t looked into this deeply but have suspicion the ‘two’ party system is well, global?
    In my country New Zealand, it’s buttressed by relentless media brainwash They push There Is No Alternative (TINA) to our two main parties Labour & National. One allegedly left, one allegedly right. (Both really the same team – proof, they hardly ever undo each other’s destructive legislation.) Voting for anyone but Labour & National is a ‘wasted vote’. The media have peddled this line at least since the fifties, when was old enough to notice. Yet the wasted-vote brainwash is only true if you choose to believe it. Your choice and of course your responsibility.
    Labour and National are two tired, run-out-of-ideas, foreign-controlled parties. Both have a Chinese Communist spy embedded as list MPs. Both take money from China.
    My suspicion is Labour & National still get the majority of votes partly because Kiwis like to back the winning horse, even if the wretched creature pays no dividend
    Two areas in your post I strongly disagree with though.
    One, abortion, euphemistically aka a woman’s right to choose. Abortion makes unwantedness a capital offence deserving worse punishment even than mass murder or treason. The precedent it sets has led in my country to to the introduction of perinatal infanticide and euthanasia. Cheered by the bloodthirsty media of course.
    Two, the implication we must welcome unlimited unskilled Third World so-called refugees/migrants/boat people. These are unarmed invaders. They have no more right to force their way into other people’s countries than do armed invaders. If a stranger came to your house and said, “You must take me in, feed me, clothe me, support me, let me bash/kill your sons and rape your daughters, put my interests ahead of theirs.” What would you say? Individuals haven’t unlimited resources. Neither have countries. The State’s first duty is to look after its own citizens. Otherwise, why bother with a State? The armed forces’ first duty is to defend their country from invaders. Otherwise, why waste taxes on armed forces? Perhaps to invade other countries (Iraq, Libya) and steal their oil?
    Worth remembering is these -ism and -phobia crimes are fairly recent inventions, unknown to history. In legal terms their roots are shallow.
    Surely it’s better to be name-called as an -ist or -phobe by globalists and their stooges – such playground stuff, namecalling – than to be a self-hating fool.

    1. “Haven’t looked into this deeply but have suspicion the ‘two’ party system is well, global?”
      Spot on!

  5. I hope Caitlin’s readers fully understand the following bone-simple truth. In order for 3rd party candidates to be elected, people have to vote for them.
     
    Therefore, if YOU want 3rd party candidates to become POUTS or senators or representatives, YOU have to vote for them even though: 1. You won’t, by deliberate design, have any idea whatsoever how many other people feel the same way you do; 2. You have been carefully trained to think that the person you are considering voting for doesn’t stand a hope in hell’s chance of “winning”.
     
    Again, in order for 3rd-party candidates to be elected, they must garner more votes than the other candidates for those offices. So, no matter what “predictions” you will read or see or hear 24/7 on the MSM from today until election day, if YOU want 3rd-party candidates to be elected, YOU MUST vote for them in November. THAT is your civic duty, NOT to try to “pick a winner”.

    1. I just wish everyone would take away the key message that the best way to defeat the narrative managers is to boycott corporate news outlets. Starve the beast of ad dollars. If we could get half of the people who watch the propaganda news shows on TV to stop watching, it would really hurt them. It might even force them to change, at least a little, to try and get their revenue stream back.

      1. The MSM no longer depends upon ad revenue because they are all owned by oligarchs. The question is: why do oligarchs buy and support MSM? Answer: so that their, for lack of a better word, consumers will see or read or hear exactly what they will today when those consumers observe those sources of now-pretty-blatant propaganda.
         
        Oligarchs pay for the polling results (and may very well own the polling companies) that they show and analyze on their MSM.
         
        Oligarchs also conduct “focus group” analysis, using randomized individuals/samples grabbed from the bewildered herd in various locations around the country. Under the observation of behaviorists behind a one-way mirror (or nowadays probably by CCTVs, even remotely), these individuals are asked certain questions, and everything about their answers — words, body language, interaction with other group members or implanted agent/provocateurs — is observed. Then reports are written about the focus group members — how and for whom they will vote; what turns them on or off, etc. etc.
         
        The oligarchs or their employees read the reports, consider their conclusions and then adjust their MSM and social-media “influencers”/employees so that they see “better” results in the next focus group a few days or weeks down the road to election night.
         
        This is all very expensive stuff, but the oligarchs have a literally unlimited supply of printed-out-of-thin-air USD to pay for it. If an oligarch-owned institution gets into financial trouble, they’ll give Jermome Powell and call and, voila, they’ll get a big bailout paid for by future taxpayers/herd members.
         
        This, together with a poltically omnipotent MIC that directly or indirectly employs literally millions of herd members/voters, is why Rs and Ds have been, and will forever be, elected by individual members of the bewlidered herd…………… until the nukes start dropping on Main Street, USA, anway. Then the herd will see things differently.

    2. When you note “THAT is your civic duty”, you immediately reminded me about this truly excellent essay written by B. Sidney Smith (a university math professor), for CounterPunch, about “Voting Green In a Swing State”. He ends the article with exactly what you noted. He also touches upon an issue which still arises every time when I get into a discussion with some of my self-identified “liberal” friends (“liberal” even though I never hear objections or protestations about the almost one trillion dollars per year that the US govt spends, for lack of any really better way to put it… killing people all over the world, people we really know absolutely nothing at all about, not that that should matter anyway). After the smoke clears, and I stop trying to get them to realize that their Dem-candidate is really just as awful as their Rep-candidate counterpart, they invariably respond with… well, you have to vote for the Dem prez candidate because of all the upcoming court appointee choices. I’ve never been moved by this argument in the least because I do not really believe that a system that is completely controlled by profit over human beings could somehow suddenly produce just the opposite-minded court appointees. But I have nothing to really document my feelings/suspicions. I’d be interested in getting other commenters’ ideas on this court appointee issue. Also, I strongly recommend anyone reading thru this comment section to also read B. Sidney Smith’s piece… https://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/26/voting-green-in-a-swing-state/

      1. Barbara Mullin Avatar
        Barbara Mullin

        On reading book “Yesterday’s Man–The Case Against Joe Biden” by Branko Marcetic, it reveals how Joe Biden himself presided at Supreme Court hearings of nominees quite a few times and how he did little to prevent or turn the tide in getting more and more conservative judges appointed. The idea that Joe Biden is going to be the big hero in doing anything progressive is pretty poor thinking.

  6. The coronavirus pandemic has started to have another profound effect: The political leadership of the world is being transformed. No world leaders have as yet been actually killed by the virus. But several have been incapacitated, one major leader appears already to have been toppled with a second under sudden threat while the policies and world views of several others have been turned upside down and inside out. Please read this relevant article here:
    The Decapitation Effect by Martin Sieff!
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/16/the-decapitation-effect/

  7. “American privilege is black bloc protests against public appearances by figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and the Proud Boys while murderous war pigs like Bill Kristol, Henry Kissinger, John Bolton, David Frum and arms industry executives go from appearance to appearance completely unbothered.”

    It is not just about America being two faced. American privilege is not knowing Americans are in prison. Americans don’t know what Blac Bloc is. Or its online equivalent.

  8. All talk and no action! Nothing changes. Round and round the arguments we go!

    1. I’m getting sick of it too.

  9. Don’t you just love how Joy Reid seems to think that her voice and others like her speak for all democrats everywhere
    and any one who disagrees with what she says is a traitor? Kind of a slave master telling a slave how he or she can think.

  10. Message of the Democratic Party: “Shut up. Get in line. Do what you are told. (insert voter-shaming name-calling epithet – ie. racist/sexist/privileged, fascist etc.)” Perhaps a voter strike is the only means of influence remaining for those who want real change, or with a modicum of dignity.

  11. Groping-Joe-Biden is a placeholder.
    Who will our shadowy puppet masters choose to serve the Sith?
    Somebody…
    Ben Hunt at Epsilon Theory has the answer, and it’s us, but first we have to receive this ancient wisdom.
    https://www.epsilontheory.com/inception/

    http://www.johndayblog.com

    1. I had the idea that Biden was a placeholder several months ago, but I’m not sure any more for what. It could be for a conservative not attractive enough to the primary voters, like Harris, or it could be for a junta of bigdeals. This isn’t a conspiracy, however, it’s sort of obvious and out in the open. Trump is not right-wing enough and is sort of a loose cannon in any case.
      —-
      Esoteric mysteries seem irrelevant in this case; it’s just more finagling by the ruling class for the basest and most practical of motives.

    2. I’ve also felt for some time Biden is a placeholder. I have come to envision the scenario where the Dems go through the coronation charade so Uncle Joe can have his moment of pomp and circumstance. Then, within days after the convention he steps down magnanimously for health reasons.
      By then, his replacement will have been determined. For a while it looked like Cuomo. Who knows. WTF cares. Critical is the VP choice. I’m leaning more and more toward Stef Zamorano‘s guess …. Michelle Obama.
      What a royal clusterf**k for the rest of humanity.

  12. If anyone is looking for Russiagate 2, this is exactly how it begins. Blame China, and if that does not seem to be working, look for the perfidious hand of Vladimir Putin, who clearly spends all day in his office dreaming up schemes whereby providing medical supplies to the United States and Europe is all part of some master plan to subvert the 2020 presidential election. But wait a minute, the ballot will feature Donald Trump against Joe Biden. Putin is too late. The election has already been subverted. Please read this nice article here:
    The Russians Get Blamed Again, but Who Is Really Subverting American Democracy? by Philip Giraldi
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/16/the-russians-get-blamed-again-but-who-is-really-subverting-american-democracy/

    1. Russiagate does not seem to have gone over well with the public, and I doubt if Chinagate will go over well either.

  13. With the exception of her metaphysics (perhaps a small matter), I agree with the vast majority of what Caitlin says here and elsewhere. But I want to express a caution, a warning, about this word “privilege,” which has become so commonplace in social discourse. Yes, of course, elites live different lives with far different options and enjoyments than most of us. And yes, also, the desperately poor live impoverished lives that even most of us non-elites can only faintly imagine with a shudder. But to adopt neoliberal language that connotes that anyone not living in desperate poverty is somehow “privileged” is unwittingly to buy into–and implicitly to reinforce–the neoliberal view that desperate poverty is the default human position, the way that the vast majority of humanity is supposed to live. Accordingly, if one manages, through circumstance or effort, to rise even slightly above the level of desperate poverty, then one should consider him- or herself lucky, exceptional, above the norm; i.e., PRIVILEGED. No, this is nothing but mind-manipulative BS. The default position for humanity, the normal state in which ALL people should live, is nothing less than a decently viable life with at least modest comforts and conveniences. The most insidious aspect of neoliberalism’s evil is that it not only surrounds us and confines us but also seeps into us. When we use the word “privileged” to refer to anyone not suffering from desperate poverty, we are, often with the best of intentions, playing neoliberalism’s game and strengthening its stranglehold on the human spirit.

  14. After decades of being spoken about historically in terms of the Cuban Revolution and ideological anti-imperialism, the coronavirus pandemic has thrust Cuba onto the international arena and as a formidable opponent to capitalism. While Western countries struggle to cope with increasingly failing healthcare systems that account for a high death rate among coronavirus patients, Cuba is managing the situation at home while also maintaining its internationalist outreach. No longer isolated, Cuba and its doctors are very much in demand by the same governments that pander to United States foreign policy. Please read this fine article here:
    United States Coercion Is No Match for Cubas Internationalist Solidarity by Ramona Wadi!
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/16/us-coercion-no-match-for-cuba-internationalist-solidarity/

    1. After decades of being spoken about historically in terms of the Cuban Revolution and ideological anti-imperialism,

      I believe that this is mainly true in the USA. Where I live Cuba is mainly discussed in terms of which holiday resort is best.

  15. So Joy Reid is not privileged? Because she is black, she gets to distance herself from the concept of privilege? What do you think MSDNC is paying her? She is obviously more privileged than her black and brown brothers and sisters who got blown up by Obomber during his 8 years of office. She is obviously more privileged than Chelsea Manning who was imprisoned by her black hero who had Citigroup choose his cabinet for him in 2008.

    Privileged is as privileged does. And Blacks can be racists too.

    1. And her “opinions” and what she deems as “facts” are privileged. Thanks for your voice Skip.
      I’ll take this opportunity also to express to you that I was wrong to give Sanders my “benefit of the doubt” regarding his personal motivation that you were keen to withhold. As much as I disagreed with him about things I won’t rehash here, I thought it important to support his candidacy (regardless of his chance for election). My thinking was that the primary vote needed an indisputable clear “plurality” (if not majority) to take to the Convention so that the “screwing” would be so blatant and clear cut as to result in a political awakening. I am heartened to say that the awakening is ahead of pace. Sanders is a despicable man…I fooled myself into thinking he simply had some blind spots and too much bad advice. And even if he has some sort of proverbial gun-to-his-head, his cowardice is despicable. Enough said about you Bernie, you and anything you have to say are all irrelevant now.

      1. Thanks Gregory. It gives me no pleasure to have been right about Bernie. If he had stuck with it, and chosen an anti “regime-change war” candidate for VP like Tulsi, I would have voted for him. As it is, I will be voting Green Party again in the General Election.

        BTW, I have been moderated to death over at CN regarding their COVID-19 coverage. I believe I am done contributing to that site. I’ll still read their articles, but their outright censorship is not something I can support any longer.

        1. Do you know who the Greens are running? I do not vote for war criminals because it is perilous to my conscience, so no go for any Democrat or Republican.

          1. Barbara Mullin Avatar
            Barbara Mullin

            Howie Hawkins is running for Green President. Like him on many issues especially newsmedia propaganda but he seems to support Russiagate unlike Dr. Jill Stein. He’s good on the environment.

        2. I too think they are dropping the ball on COVID. RFK Jr. is sounding alarms about the Gates agenda that needs attention. I would like more investigation into the test itself (see Kevin Ryan, Dig Within) and the extent to which deaths are possibly being over-attributed. Whitney Webb has exposed people involved with Dark Winter/Event 201 along with some other disturbing (to say the least) aspects of Continuity of Government.
          I think the novel virus is real and dangerous, but am very skeptical of the way this is being “handled”.

          1. I tried to mention the Whitney Webb piece but my comment was moderated. Ironic, since they had her on CN Live previously. Same with Francis Boyle.

      2. You are absolutely right, Sanders is despicable. Despicable and weak and cowardly. He must think he’ll live forever and hasn’t figured out what some geezers have: Do you want to live what life you’ve got left with some integrity? or will you sell yourself for crap until your dying breath?

  16. So the anti-left meme has changed from “Bernie Bros” to “white privilege”. This is fluff to avoid talking about real issues. These people basically want an illusionary democracy where people pretend to make choices when they vote but decide nothing.

    1. At the end of “1984”, Winston Smith sits around a table with several other men, arguing about nonsense, and that is about where we are with the press.

  17. Who would have thought that apparently the “Nonvoters who are more likely to be younger, less educated, less affluent and nonwhite” were actually BETTER educated, since it seems they are aware that voting is an exercise in futility. Anyone participating in a decision to select this sociopath or that sociopath to be in charge are themselves mentally deranged. Since no sane person would seek such power over their neighbors only sociopaths aspire to such position. Any who proclaim to do so in your favor are bald faced liars, and only favor themselves.

  18. The non-violent answer is to vote out every incumbent in every state and federal election for the next 12 years (or for however long it takes), even if they were just elected in the previous election, until they finally get the message, again, that they work for us.

  19. Caitlin. I know you use the US as an example but to you view all governments as a single system including Australia or just outright single system like China. If so what do you view as a more reasonable modern country today for government if one exists.

  20. R Zwarich ('Caliban') Avatar
    R Zwarich (‘Caliban’)

    Caliban hopes that Ms. Johnstone might take heart in knowing that there is ‘energy’ working on the American Left to counter this simple but devastatingly effective ‘good cop bad cop’ routine, (which she so brilliantly illuminates), that has so many good people so completely confused.

    (People are self-blinded to ‘the elephant in the room’, which is essentially just a variation of Hans Christian Anderson’s old metaphor in his fable of the Naked Emperor’s New Clothes. Sigh … Folks is jes’ folks … It’s our human condition).

    In the US, the Ruling Elite, the Mass Media Barons who rule over us, have successfully created a devastatingly effective weapon to quash any genuine resistance to their total control, which I have been calling the Marionette Left.

    The name is mostly self-explanatory (I would hope). The entire American Left is dancing on the ends of their own Enemy’s strings, (and tragically, the Left is indeed telling us we must vote for our own Enemy’s old lapdog, errand boy, and bagman, Skinny Joe Biden.

    The American Marionette Left is itself ruled over, (by means of its ugly and overtly Stalinist Political Correctness), by cadres of old-leftists, (we called ourselves the New Left in the 60s), as well as by cadres of relatively ‘privileged’ (highly educated and economically well-off) Executive Directors of left NGOs, who are mostly people with desperately thirsty egos who derive their entire identities from their self-righteous self-concept as the ‘heroes of the downtrodden’.

    These people’s desperate egos render them desperately and hatefully covetous of their own pretended ‘status’. They are deeply invested in the Established Order. And they have been tricked by their own cunning Enemy into supporting and advancing the Ruling Elites’ age old ‘divide and rule’ strategy for The Few to rule over The Many.

    The Marionette Left’s execrable ‘Identity Politics’ mirrors, and echoes, the Ruling Elites’ cunning ‘neo-liberalism’ snake oil ruse of advancing ‘democracy’ around the world. (There is no more virulently anti-democratic edifice in all creation than the American Marionette Left).

    The Marionette Left’s overt demonization of all ‘white males’ as “racists” is THE primary reason that our Big Orange Buffoon is in the White House.

    I hope that Ms. Johnstone (and others) will take heart from knowing that there are still AUTHENTIC leftists in the US who know that to achieve our objective, (to defeat the most powerful power structure that has ever existed in all of Human History), the Marionette Left is the FIRST dragon we MUST slay.

    (To even get close to Sauron, we must ‘fight our closest enemy first’. We must fight Sauron’s goblins and orcs, before we can meet the Demon itself in the field.)

    We must strive to always remember, however, that it is ‘bad spirits’ that have captured people’s hearts that we must fight. We must ALWAYS try our best not to let ourselves ‘hate the sinner’. It is their sins that must be exorcised from their hearts. The people themselves must be freed from the Demons that they have internalized. (Sometimes we have no choice but to fight, and even ‘slay’ the people themselves, but we must always try to win people over, not vanquish, or defeat, (or kill), the people themselves. (I’m using symbolic terms here. I take great inspiration from people like Gandhi, and Dr. King. I believe that non-violence will be our most effective strategy. But when orcs’ bows are drawn and aimed at us, time to lop off their heads. None of us are Jesus, and turning the proverbial other cheek, which is what we almost always should do, is not recommended when your life itself is threatened).

    We must ALWAYS remember that people who should be allies must FIRST stop being enemies.

    Authentic American leftists can see the opportunity in front of us. In my own 50 plus years as a leftist, (since shortly after the Tet Offensive), I have NEVER before seen conditions in America in which actual ‘revolution’ has been actually even possible. (I do NOT use this ‘R’ word lightly, as so many, like ole Sheepdog Bernie, do).

    It is VERY clear, (to American leftists who have not drunk the Marionette Left’s Identity Politics kool-aid), that such conditions exist NOW!

    But the idiotic bozo-clownish Marionette Left is too self-involved to even ‘see’ this opportunity at ALL, let along act on it. I’ve been listening to some of these clowns preach ‘revolution’ for over half a fracking century, but now, at this cusp moment in history, when real REVOLT has become actually possible, they are advocating that the best course of action is to vote for Snake Oil Skinny Joe Biden.

    The Democratic Party is a foul nest of deadly poisonous Slithering Sewage Scum Vipers. These Scum Vipers CANNOT win without the Left’s support. They simply CANNOT! ‘We’, (the AUTHENTIC Left that is trying to be born), absolutely have the power, ALREADY in our hands, to blow the Democratic Party clean out of the fracking water, (for GOOD!), simply by announcing publicly that they will NEVER win another election, EVER!

    We absolutely would have this power in our hands NOW, IF (a very big ‘if’), we can awaken the Marionette Left from the ‘evil spirits’ that have infected their hearts, and bamboozled their minds.

    We, the AUTHENTIC American Left, are advocating for forming up into a New Party. NOT a ‘third party’, (not, Not, NOT!). A third party in a two-party system is an obviously losing strategy. We must slay these Scum Vipers first. When their necks are bleeding, their heads are are gnashing helplessly in the basket, and their slithering has gone to writhing, the TRUE Democrats will take our rightful place, as The Party of The Common People, as one of the two major parties in our two party system.

    “If you don’t believe in TRUE Democracy, then DON’T call yourself a True Democrat”.

    That is a VERY threatening credo to the overtly Stalinist Marionette Left. Actual democracy is anathema to the Marionette Left’s overtly Stalinist party-line ‘Political Correctness’.

    The Common People United, (a pretense still in the throes of being born), is the community action arm of the Party of True Democrats. While the Marionette Left is advocating for prostrating ourselves to beg our Ruling Elites for a “people’s bailout”, (and for protection from evictions and foreclosures), the Common People United are now advocating for a People’s Unilateral Declaration of an Emergency Moratorium on ALL Debt. (Not yet outright debt forgiveness. We have a LOT to ‘sort out’ before that will become even possible).

    This People’s Declaration will comprise the Common People’s OPEN REVOLT against the power of Capital.

    We currently have about 165 MILLION people in America who had less that $500 total liquid assets (cash) when the lockdown began over five weeks ago. These people are living in a state of tortuous anxiety and fear. Their money is either gone, or is running out, and their children are as hungry every day as children always are.

    They need something to yell back at the Landlord when she or he pounds on their door. They would join our People’s Moratorium in an eager heartbeat.

    In 50 plus years as a leftist there have NEVER been conditions in the US conducive to actual ‘revolt’. Now there are, but the idiotic Identity Politics American Left is, (thus far, Caliban is hard at work on it), COMPLETELY blind to the opportunity.

    I would greatly value corresponding directly with Ms. Johnstone, who has shown herself to be among the most brilliant ‘revolutionary’ essayists of our times. She is such a prolific writer, however, that I’m not sure if she even has time to read the comments to her essays. The fact that she does not provide any direct contact information suggests that as well. She does not want to get email that she does not have time to read.

    Well … She now has Caliban’s email.

    I very seldom submit material for publication for exactly this reason. I think I can be more effective if I remain ‘accessible’. (rzwarich@gmail.com)

    Caliban

    (Zwarich)

    1. This aging, ailing Boomer is with you. So are many others of all ages, even if they can’t quite find the words or even the concepts to express what’s welling up in their hearts. Is the world so structured or evolved that truth will eventually, inevitably triumph despite all odds? It looks like we’re about to find out, and it may well be now or never. Who would have dreamed that I’d live to see, to feel, to savor the exhilarating revolutionary air we breathed so briefly in my youth?

  21. You do enter with a false premise, I am “rather wealthy”, not such as anyone you’d note, but I’ve made it to the top of my profession, as a machinist and toolmaker, designer, and as such, have fought the death of our “productive efforts” since I was a young child, knowing I was growing up to be a “dinosaur”.
    I expect to be joined by many, latecomers, to my current job, fixing ever more antique, and merely old, equipment, meant to last lifetimes, and no longer with parts available, as we have to decide, as communities, to be “self-sufficient”. I chose “farm country” to retire in, for this reason, I’ve done repairs as often for food, as money, and always “trade labor for labor”, I am helping my community find this “the new normal”.
    Only the extremely wealthy are aided by politics, I’ve earned my way where I am, by working two and three jobs, for fifty years, always investing profit into raw material, tooling, machines, almost all old, and rebuilding said machinery to new condition. My investments earn more than my retired pay, and I still work six days a week.
    I’ve only voted “against” the worst candidate, ever in my life, never actually for one, and haven’t seen one worthy of voting for, since Barry Goldwater, and given the outcome of JFK, were he elected, no doubt he too, would have been assassinated by the CIA.
    No “regular American” is served by our system, we are all, every one, but corporate heads, banking owners, taxed far more than we gain by increased work. I’ve spent a lifetime, since age six, arguing we have to break the crony capitalist system, and restore “the rule of law over government”, to ever repair the damage done, noted by me in 62, at six.
    “Our bread and circuses” have enticed far too many into far too lazy a lifestyle, for us to fix it now. We will fail, and follow the lead of those who re-assemble a world order, as rationally as possible.
    Semper Fidelis,
    John McClain
    Vanceboro, NC, USA

    1. Finally, for once on here I see a mature logical comment. You are totally right. The system does not support any regular person making a basic living.
      I have never in my life made more than 100,000 dollars in a year. It seems like a decent amount but it is really not. It is the kill zone.
      I pay more and more each year and make less and less. I have my own small business and get punished if I make more or try to grow.

      I have not voted in thirty years. I refuse to be part of that. I tune out all the nonsense arguments that people try to shove down my throat.
      The system serves the rich or top ten percent. That’s it. It does not do me any good. No party is better or worse. They are the same. Just different rhetoric.
      I live in an area where most people could care less about Trump or Biden or anything like that.
      We all learned many years ago that it doesn’t translate to main street in anyway.

  22. The people who tell you not to vote. The people who tell you not to participate in politics. Those people never, ever give an intelligent plan for how to change things without participating in politics. Never. They just sit back and say it will look so cool not to vote, not to participate. But they never give an actual, credible way of changing things in any other fashion. Such columns always end in some airy-fairy notion that by not participating the world will change. But they never say how.

    1. well one things for damned sure–voting for biden isn’t going to change a goddamned thing.
      #generalstrike
      #sanderssoldusout
      #never biden.
      thank you caitlin johnstone, and kyle kulinski and all the other genuine progressives out there.

    2. Mike McDonnell Avatar
      Mike McDonnell

      Yes. If you don’t like the major parties, at least vote for something. I have voted Green for years now. What oligarchs like the best is people who have given up and decided that the whole thing is corrupt and they just won’t take part. If you don’t vote your conscience, you collaborate with the powers that be. Anomie is their best weapon. Lots of votes for a “losing” party at least lets us know we’re not alone and sends a message to the big boys that there are a number of us who are against them.

  23. Look, lets get real.
    The American system sucks.
    But the American system ends up with a choice between two people.
    Short of a revolution, nothing else is on offer.
    People can sit around holding their breath until they turn blue.
    But that won’t work any better than it did when they were four years old.
    I’m in favor of a revolution.
    But short of that revolution taking place in this year, one of two people will be the American President after Jan. Biden or Trump.
    There is a clear difference.
    Do you really want the guy who just cut funding to World Health in the middle of the worst pandemic in a century?
    Do we really want the the guy with a massive ego who doesn’t care if others live or die as long as he looks like a hero on TV?
    Biden sucks. Biden has dimentia. Both are true statements. But, I’d trust the Democrat minions who will rule under Biden a whole lot more than I trust people like John Bolton and Elliot Abrams. We’ve seen under Clinton and Obama that Democrat rule seems at least minimally competent. We’ve seen under Bush and Trump that Republicans are incompetent. We’ve seen Republican idiots start major wars that last for decades. We’ve seen Republican idiots kill people. During Bush it was people I knew living in New Orleans that paid the price. This time, its the whole nation.
    There is a difference between Biden and Trump.
    If you want to sit around and watch a news network and complain, I suggest you switch from Microsoft News over to Rupert Murdoch’s Aussie news on Fox news. Listen to the slavedrivers scream “Back to work even if it kills you, you worthless, lazy slaves.” There is a difference. By the fall, we’ll see that difference in the mass graves in every American city.
    This may look like just a silly beach volleyball game, but the lives of millions depend on the outcome. Sorry if we give a damn if we live or if we die. A Trump second term would be a disaster with millions dead on top of the millions he’s already killing in his first term.
    I can’t stand the Democrats. I wouldn’t watch MSNBC if you strapped me into the Clockwork Orange chair. I wouldn’t know who Joy Reid is to piss on her. But, there is a clear difference between the two choices in this election. One of the choices wants me dead. And yes, I am so un-cool as to vote against the guy who wants me dead.

    1. biden was as corrupt as trump when he had all his marbles. there is aclear choice– 3d party or don’t vote. as far as the virus goes, cuomo is as much to blame as trump was in new york. clinton was more likely to make me dead than trump, last election, and as far as i can see biden is as likely to get us into a nuclear war as clinton was. so if you don’t mind, i’m going to refrain from voting for people like biden, or like trump, that are going to cost millions of lives, and possibly my own.

    2. Both of your choices want you dead. Time to wake up to that reality. A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for billions of deaths including you own. A vote for Donald Trump means billions of deaths including your own. That is your reality. That is OUR reality. Time to shut it all down before we are all dead. Time to dissolve our governments and economic system like responsible citizens.

    3. Barbara A Mullin Avatar
      Barbara A Mullin

      The demise of the human species will come sooner with Trump than with Biden.

    4. The choice between Trump and Biden is the choice between two sock puppets with the Invisible Hand up the arse all the way into the skull. I’d watch a presidential debate between two brain-damaged old geezers neither of whom can form a whole sentence, because I’m a sick puppy. But there is no lesser evil here. Short of a revolution, nothing else is on offer.

  24. Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth! The United States ” monster ” is evil, demented, and brash as it crushes humanity everywhere.

    1. You forgot your usual link to Russian propaganda.

  25. I now feel that Fox News is playing the edge game, a little, because they just showed clips of actual real journalists and authorities talking on actual real news channels about how it’s a mistake and a distraction when 45 talks about withholding funds from WHO.

    Of course they debunk those people before and after they show the clips, but allowing a smidgen of reality into the Fox News bubble takes a lot of chutzpah, and belief that they’ve got those viewers totally hoodwinked and captivated.

    It reminds me of a scene in some movie about a con artist running a really big con, and at one point he’s talking to the mark in these elaborate but phony offices they’re using, and he starts talking about this massive computer system he’s got in the back office running this powerful software which is the center of the supposed business, which is actually a con. He opens the door in a way that keeps the mark from seeing what’s in the room, and he starts waxing poetic about all the computer hardware in there and how amazing it is. Of course, the back office is completely empty. He’s getting off on the thrill of knowing that if the mark walks over to the door and looks in, he’ll know the whole thing is a con, and on the confidence of knowing that the mark trusts him so completely that he won’t bother to look in that back office.

    It’s kinda the same thing with Fox, I now believe. They’re showing their audience snippets of the truth, getting off on the thrill of knowing the audience won’t recognize it for the truth that it is because they are so thoroughly whipped and conned into believe that truth is lies and Fox lies are truth.

    That’s a game that requires the utmost skills and nicety of judgment, because the smallest slippage in trust on the part of the conned audience can bring the whole phony edifice crashing down.

    “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

    1. R Zwarich ('Caliban') Avatar
      R Zwarich (‘Caliban’)

      These are cogent comments, Mr. Moskowitz, but they do reveal that you are not quite yet ‘there’. You have not quite yet fully grasped what Ms. Johnstone is trying to get across.

      Our Enemy’s control of US Mass Media is ‘total’, (as in totalitarian). Fox News is merely one facet of essentially the same ‘good cop-bad cop’ routine that Ms.Johnstone is trying to get people tp ‘see’ in our two-headed monster of a political system. The two heads may squabble with each other, but both mouths feed the same belly.

      No commentator of Fox News is ‘worse’, in ANY way, than Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, any more than Mitch McConnell is ‘worse’ than Nancy Pelosi.

      Maybe you are closer to ‘seeing’ than these comments reveal, but please try to keep in mind that when you denounce one ‘head’, you implicitly give succor to the other.

  26. foster goodwill Avatar
    foster goodwill

    I see your point, but since it seems very dubious to me that we can get enough people informed about this agenda in time (considering the strangle hold they have on the mass media),perhaps we should take Noam Chompskys advice and try to get Biden elected so we dont get a completly fascist state where we cant even begin to speak out in the future.

    1. you think that’s less likely, the darling vegetable of the intel agencies, than trump, who is at least involved in a power struggle with them? i don’t.

    2. You are already in a Fascist State. Too late. Actually learn what the term “fascism” means, and you will understand that the USA has been such for most of its existence, especially post-Reconstruction after the Civil War. Noam Chomsky used to be relevant, and much of his scholarship still is relevant, but he should really be dismissed outright now since he has turned into a compete apologist for the fascist Democratic Party; a turn so hypocritical he now contradicts his own life’s work while denying he is doing such.

  27. The best way to organize is to help people with their problems. Talk to other people. Let them tell you what their problems are. Then help to organize to fight that problem.
    Examples. the way the Black Panthers organized in the slums in the sixties. They’d set up community centers and help people. Another example, read about the Zapatistas is Chiapas. Again, what worked for them was to ask people what their problems were, then to help organize to solve those problems.
    ———-
    For the next few months, and likely again next fall (at least in the northern hemisphere), most organizing is going to be online. So, find a way to help people. Maybe its just connecting. Maybe its art online. Be creative. But use that to connect with people and talk to people. Don’t preach at people, but get them talking about their problems. Then maybe once the conversation is going along you can point out that their problems are the result of too many and too powerful oligarchs in the world.

    1. and then hoover and the fbi crushed the panthers, ronald reagan took away their guns in california. what worked for the panthers, in addition to setting up to help communities, was the threat of burning down cities. the panthers never stopped preaching that power comes from the barrel of a gun. is that what you mean? i seem to remember an similar attempt to crush the zapatistas in chiapas.
      our problems absolutely stem from a surplus of oligarchs, and we can start by not voting for either of the two choices they have given us.

  28. Harry S Nydick Avatar
    Harry S Nydick

    This column, while more literary, in many respects than the words I tend to use, is saying exactly what I, an American, have been saying for a long, long time.
    I am white, but hardly privileged, I am well educated, with an reasonably high IQ, but I am not well off financially. I am a senior citizen who will never vote for Biden – nor Trump. In over 50 years of voting, I have never failed to vote in either a primary nor a general election. but I am beginning to come around to George Carlin’s way of thinking at least for as long as we are given a choice between two worthless pieces of crap. I will not vote for the lesser of two evils, because no degree of evil belongs in the White House and because Biden and Trump are up to their necks in evil.
    Carlin said that he didn’t vote, so when a victor turns bad, no one could blame him. Normally, we hear that if you don’t vote, you have no right to complain, However, Carlin said that people have that backwards. Since he didn’t vote for the victor, they have no right to blame him. However, he has every right to complain about the people who voted for the victor, since they are the ones who put him in office.
    And the duopoly, as we often refer to America’s one party/two party system is put there by the money of oligarchs, so that they will vote to protect the interests of those same oligarchs. It’s a symbiotic arrangement, in which the winners are the politicians and the oligarchs and the losers are everybody else.
    We also define Democratic Party leadership as neoliberal corporatists who are right of center, residing in the space vacated by moderate Republicans who moved further right in search of more oligarchic financial support. It’s simply a case of legalized bribery of politicians, wherein the infighting is an illusion, like a magician’s distraction, so that the ‘little’ people don’t see how much of our country and our freedoms the oligarchs are stealing every day.
    The only psychic victory I can picture one in which everyone stays home and nobody votes. But, that won’t happen, because too many Americans, when faced with the truth are unwilling to believe it. As Muhammad Ali used to say, “Pity the fools.” It would not shock me if the current slow slide toward totalitarianism becomes a U.S. reality. I don’t know if it could be successful, but it seems to me that the only possible answer lies in an armed revolution, the second revolution for independence. Only this time, we’re not fighting to break away from a king, Instead, we’d be fighting to see who is the real victor – the oppressors or the freedom fighters.

  29. Sadly nowhere near enough people ever will ‘awaken’ to the reality of what’s going on. History shows us that, time and time again. People, en masse, do not think enough, they act and react – which is why they can be manipulated and conned, regardless of intelligence or education. They don’t look at the bigger picture,they focus on their own immediate needs, and then react to the narrative that they hear.

    1. That is the line of the oligarchs through history. Its hopeless to resist.
      And yet, what history does show is just exactly the opposite of what you say. Suggested reading would be about the Russian, French and even American revolutions. History is full of occasions when people did just exactly the opposite of what you are saying they always do.
      Tyrants always think they are in control. Until suddenly they are not. Nobody sees it coming. Everyone is always surprised. The spies and police are surprised. The people who thought they were vanguards of the coming revolution are surprised. Yet, it happens over and over again in history. The people decide to move, and they move. When the people have had enough, everything changes. And it doesn’t matter how many times the oligarchs have told them that it is hopeless to resist, because the people have stopped listening.

      1. https://youtu.be/DA9c8tB1BNU

        At the 29:30 mark of this interview begins a remarkable story. The upshot of this remarkable story is that events can “cascade”, so to speak, from a single action.

    2. foster goodwill Avatar
      foster goodwill

      I agree,unless we can upgrade peoples consciousness,any revolution will revert to elitist control as did the russian, the american the french etc.etc. True evolution is the only lasting revolution.

  30. “…for all their huffing and puffing, those who control the Democratic Party do not actually care about losing to Trump; they know they’ll maintain their status and privilege win or lose, so long as they can successfully protect the political paradigm upon which that status and privilege are premised.” Trenchant truth.
    Joy Reid’s comment are marked by projection, deflection, and deceit. She is a millionaire right-winger who is demanding that the true left bow down to a false choice, a narrow mindset, a bitter lie. It is she who is not impacted by poverty, want, the fraudulent voting system, and banishment.
    And by the way—Biden is a sick fuck.

    1. Who is Joy Reid? I’ve never heard of her.
      And yes, that is quite deliberate….. and quite nice.
      You do not have to let other people into your head telling you what to think. There is an off switch.

      1. Joy Reid is a “show host” on MSNBC. My television isn’t hooked to anything except a DVD player so I can watch an occasional film from my collection. I referenced Reid’s comments from Caitlin’s article. I think for myself regardless of what I am exposed to. I respect your personal choice to spare yourself from MSM nonsense.

  31. Your article today makes me more inclined to believe this COVID-19 was a deliberate attempt to force everyone into a totalitarian state of government. 1984 style with forced control of our location, under the claims they need to “know “ the healthy from the “unhealthy “Volunteers needed

  32. However after 80 years of living i think no matter how smart the Silicon boys and girls are and no matter how corrupt a politican you are by 4020 the only folks still around will be Afganistan cave dwelling, goat herders.

  33. DISCLAIMER: The following essay is entirely the work of satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns.

    newly normal
    https://www.opednews.com/articles/Brave-New-Normal-by-CJ-Hopkins-Capitalism_Conspiracy_Counterterrorism_Death-200416-946.html

    a like-minded writer making fun of the dominant paradigm …FYI

    1. Long live CJ Hopkins!

  34. Thanks Caitlin. Great Scribbling.
    Makes me think even at 80 its not to late to go to war.

  35. Here is an interesting look at a pandemic scenario from 2010 designed by an American think tank:

    click here https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/04/pandemics-and-social-control.html

    We are clearly seeing governments around the world flexing their powers to control the behaviours of their citizens. This plan suggests that citizens will be willing to give up their sovereignly in exchange for “safety and stability”.

    Submitted on Wednesday, Apr 15, 2020 at 12:29:57 PM via https://www.opednews.com/articles/COVID-19-will-make-us-thin-by-Jonas-Dringelis-Conflict_Conflict_Covid-19_Militarization-200414-196.html#startcomments

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