Caitlin Johnstone

Every Billionaire Is A Predator: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Step 1: Be the billionaire class. Step 2: Buy up all news media. Step 3: Structure outlets to elevate voices who defend the status quo. Step 4: Smear non-plutocratic media who don’t protect the status quo as crazy conspiracy theorists and Russian propaganda. Step 5: Dominate the narrative about what’s going on in the world.…

Caitlin Johnstone
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Step 1: Be the billionaire class.

Step 2: Buy up all news media.

Step 3: Structure outlets to elevate voices who defend the status quo.

Step 4: Smear non-plutocratic media who don’t protect the status quo as crazy conspiracy theorists and Russian propaganda.

Step 5: Dominate the narrative about what’s going on in the world.

~

Mainstream news is just advertising. You watch advertisements for maintaining the plutocratic status quo, then you watch advertisements between those advertisements for useless crap to make plutocrats even richer. It’s all just different layers of marketing. When I was getting my journalism degree they used to talk about journos selling their souls and going into marketing, going into PR. It’s like bitch, you’re already doing that.

~

It’s amazing how after all the lies we know we’ve been told about countries our rulers don’t like people are still all derp duhh China’s harvesting organs and Russia’s attacking our democracy and Iran wants to nuke us and Maduro’s a dictator and Assad gasses babies for fun.

~

It is true that social media platforms are run by oligarchs and depraved government agencies. It is also true that ideas and information are moving vastly faster than they used to, in a way establishment power structures can’t really keep up with. Denying either of these is dumb.

People who say “Twitter isn’t real life” really mean “Twitter isn’t mainstream life”. It’s the innovators, early adopters, influencers, cool hunters. Obviously this bleeds into the mainstream. It’s what university culture used to be, only far more populist and democratic, and much faster.

MSM has always prevented enlightened ideas from ever moving at the speed of print or broadcast media, which means until social media they mostly moved at the speed of university papers and books. They took literally years to circulate. The speed jumped from that to instantaneous. To think this isn’t having an impact on our collective consciousness is demented. Our species has literally never looked anything like this. We’re now like a giant planetary brain in which each of the billions of internet-connected humans is a neuron. This can’t not change us.

Obviously establishment power structures are working to bring this unprecedented movement of ideas and information under tight control, but there’s only so much control you can exert over a force this big. Past a certain point it’s like trying to wrestle a tornado. We’re moving.

~

The relationship between Wall Street numbers and people’s wallets is more divorced than ever. People are more aware than ever that anything they read can be propaganda or disinfo. Deep fakes make it impossible to even trust video. Narrative itself is crumbling on all levels.

It has always been almost impossible to know what’s really going on, since the narrative about the present has always been controlled by the powerful and the narrative about the past written by whoever won the most recent war. What’s changed is that now people are realizing this.

~

Remember Americans, if you have a problem with the fact that your system literally makes it impossible to elect a president who isn’t pure dog shit, you are crazy and murderous and the worst person in the world.

~

Now is not the time to take a stand against America’s corrupt electoral process. You should wait until after Joe Biden is elected, then wait until after he is re-elected, and keep waiting, and just keep on waiting until planet Earth is one more cold dead rock in the solar system.

~

Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Terence McKenna’s ghost, literal Buddha and Actual Biblical Yahweh could all show up on my doorstep telling me to support Joe Biden for president and I’d still tell them to go sniff farts.

~

We’ve been given zero reasons to believe that a Biden administration would be any less likely than the Trump administration to make murderous foreign policy decisions, and we’ve been given numerous reasons to suspect the opposite might be the case.

~

Julian Assange’s Twitter account was one of the most interesting, heterodox and insightful voices in the world before he was silenced and it’s absolute bullshit that we’ve had to navigate this bizarre and confusing political landscape without the resource of his perspective.

~

Trump supporters who circulate the false and destructive narrative that Trump is secretly helping Assange by imprisoning and extraditing him are just as guilty of smearing Assange as liberals who circulate the false narrative that he’s a rapist and a Russian agent.

~

People who still believe Trump is fighting the establishment remind me of senior citizens gratefully entering their credit card numbers to every message that pops up telling them their computer urgently needs virus protection.

~

People calling for climate action without calling to defund the Pentagon do not actually care about climate action.

~

Not every predator is a billionaire, but every billionaire is a predator.

~

Capitalism will let you starve to death while sitting meters away from food.

~

I get that people are scared and stressed out, but the way masks have been turned into yet another stupid fucking culture war partisan wedge issue is probably the dumbest and most annoying widespread debate that I have ever seen.

~

Everyone who writes about propaganda and government lies is expected to have a really strong opinion about Covid-19 and masks and lockdowns, but I just don’t and I can’t help it. I find the whole thing ultimately irrelevant and boring and have nothing to add to the debate.

I find that people get ridiculously irrational and emotional about it, and I find that both sides of the debate have a lot less evidence for many of their beliefs than they think they do. I pay attention to actual concrete policies which threaten to facilitate pre-existing authoritarian agendas like increased tech surveillance, and I’ve written multiple articles about such things. But getting involved in the hysterical shrieking about masks, the economy and just how deadly the virus actually is blah blah blah is just completely uninteresting to me. It doesn’t in and of itself affect the large-scale power dynamics I write about.

I think a lot of the intensity in this debate has a lot more to do with the fact that people are scared and stressed out than actual facts and data. I see a lot of sloppy thinking and conflation of issues that should be kept distinct, and not a lot of emotional wisdom. I think discourse about the virus would greatly benefit from people just taking responsibility for their emotions, feeling their feelings all the way through, completely divorcing themselves from partisan thought, thinking carefully, then seeing what remains.

And that’s really the extent of my opinions on the matter. There are a lot of people who are a lot more knowledgeable than myself on the actual science of these matters, and I have nothing to add to that conversation. People tell me it’s because I’m trying to appear nonpartisan or because I’m afraid of being called a conspiracy theorist, but really I just don’t have any opinions on the matter that are strong enough to write about.

Sorry if that doesn’t conform to your expectations, but I’m not going to start writing about something just because that’s what everyone else is doing.

~

I still always get libertarian types expressing shock and confusion at the fact that they like some stuff I say, yet I also say lefty things which they don’t like. If you expect people to either always say things you agree with or always say things you disagree with, you’re in a really bad echo chamber.

~

Me, a naive idiot: The world can be saved by a mass-scale shift in human consciousness into a healthy relationship with mental narrative.

Smart, realistic person: No that’s stupid and impractical. The world will be saved by monopolistic profit-chasing tech oligarchs.

~

The most important work you need to do to be a good parent is not reading the right books or getting the right parenting philosophy, it’s healing your own bullshit so you don’t inevitably pass it down to them. If you don’t work on yourself, you can’t help giving them your issues.

_________________________

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58 responses to “Every Billionaire Is A Predator: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. michael Avatar
    michael

    “People calling for climate action without calling to defund the Pentagon do not actually care about climate action.
    ~
    Not every predator is a billionaire, but every billionaire is a predator.
    ~
    Capitalism will let you starve to death while sitting meters away from food.”

    The ROCK bottom. Resolve these issues of the social immaturity of the collective and we be home free.

  2. LUCiD Avatar
    LUCiD

    […]Every Billionaire Is A Predator[…]

    I understand what you are trying to say with this metaphor, it is indeed nothing extraordinary, nevertheless it is completely wrong!

    To keep this comment as short as possible, I’d like to point out that the humanoid as an animal has nothing in common with a predator – neither anatomically, physiologically, nor in its way of life, i.e. society in general. The humanoid rather resembles a sacrificial animal, similar to a fish in a shoal of fish, in which the individual only gains security and strength through the massive numbers. As a single humanoid he would be hopelessly lost in the long run!

    Even the powerful and super-rich are nothing without the countless others who do the work for them and ensure their safety (regarding your title of the article, see the scene with the “woman in red” in “The Matrix” in which Morpheus talks about the adapted humans in the Matrix) – they too are not predators!

    This metaphor of humans as predators is ancient, but no less false. The peak of ignorance is reached in the fables, in which all kinds of (bad) qualities are attributed to the animals in order to fuck something into the minds of people, mostly children. Gorge Orwell’s “Animals Farm” is a good example where the pigs are denigrated and this example is indeed one of the better ones.

    If you want to have a more useful metaphor for the super rich and powerful, it would be the vampire, who sucks blood, the life energy of others and at the same time has to stay largely in the dark, as they evaporate in sunlight[1]. Life energy in the form of money (converted energy), which the individual has to work with his or her own labour (mechanically with muscle power, or cognitively with psychic power), but also life energy in the form of psychic energy, the so-called psychic, or energy vampires[2].

    Think for yourself and question authority!

    — Timothy Leary

    Cheers!

    [1]

    The architects of power in the United States must create a force that can be felt but not seen. Power remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight it begins to evaporate.

    — Samuel P. Huntington (“The Clash of Civilisations”)

    [2]
    Judith Orloff M.D. at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour, UCLA: https://drjudithorloff.com/what-is-an-energy-vampire/

    Many people who walk the earth practice the fine art of making others feel responsible and even indebted to them, without cause. Satanism observes these leeches in their true light. Psychic vampires are individuals who drain others of their vital energy. This type of person can be found in all avenues of society. They fill no useful purpose in our lives, and are neither love objects nor true friends. Yet we feel responsible to the psychic vampire without knowing why.

    — Anton LaVey

  3. Reg Avatar
    Reg

    This is about the most stupid pointless and vapid article by Catlin Johnson.
    I could not care less if Trump supporters oppose lockdown, it does not mean opposing lockdown is wrong. To assume those who oppose lockdown also oppose BLM as a way of dismissing the importance of the lockdown, and to avoid dealing with the arguments of the very serious effects is lazy, specious and intellectually dishonest.

    Millions of people will die due to social lockdown measures, people will commit suicide, people will lose their homes due to mass unemployment, and the self inflected economic depression, people have been denied healthcare, have missed cancer screenings, and cancer treatment and heart attacks and strokes have gone untreated, with other old people left under house arrest, isolated, with many left to die of neglect. Mental health issues, domestic violence have all already shown significant increases. I have relatives who have not gone out since the lockdown on the 24th of March in the UK, isolation kills.

    Unscreened older people sent to die in care homes as hospitals, denied healthcare, with blanket DNRs issued in the UK and in some states in the US, as hospitals were cleared for the non existent surge in Covid 19 patients. If this is not eugenics, I do not know what is.

    The idea that imposing mass house arrest on the majority of the population is somehow unimportant is quite frankly absurd, this is nothing less than a coup. Imposing social distancing on small children, denying them contact from their friends, when they are psychologically forming relationships is a form child abuse, and will psychologically damage them for years to come. Millions of children have had their education and future destroyed. Even if they complete their education, they will have no jobs to go to. Anybody who supports social distancing is responsible for this developing humanitarian disaster, as initial deaths from denial of health treatment are nothing to the health costs and deaths from the economic depression will cause in the decades to come. Remember adult mortality rate reached 13%, and millions died due to shock therapy imposed on the Russia after western imposed shock therapy., and that was just one country. What do you think is going to happen to the economy and peoples lives when people come off furlough?

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/1/18/685673/-

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16043569-the-body-economic

    More important that allot of self indulgent hippy musings I think.

  4. Harry Nydick Avatar
    Harry Nydick

    Either you were being facetious about Twitter, or I completely disagree with you on that one. Since I opened a Twitter account not that long ago and found it as utterly worthless as I expected. I completely closed my account. when having to read nonsense from idiots who just want to attack those I wanted to follow, a nice trip to the toilet is more beneficial than listening to, or reading, them.
    Twitter is a slightly enlarged (compared to how it used to be) system of soundbites where anyone with an account can post virtually any kind of nonsensical opinion, without having to substantiate a thing they say and without the space to do so if they wanted.
    As far as COVID-19 is concerned, Caity, you don’t have to write about it – and I’m not expecting it from you.
    I’ll just say that we (doctors, scientists, etc.) don’t know everything,, but we are able to analyze current data and trends. for instance, the naysayers used to point to Sweden’s results of three months ago, when Sweden had not implemented a stay-at-home order. They still do, not knowing that, per capita, Sweden has now caught up to the U.S. in cases and nearly so in deaths. Furthermore, yesterday (7/16/2020) there was a record set in the U.S. for new cases at over 77,000 (and 943 new deaths). The entire European Union (which has a combined population that is 100 million greater than that of the U.S. had 5,579 new cases (nearly 72,000 fewer than the U.S.). What we can take from this is that some things are working and some are not and that the doctors and scientists, on the whole, are learning more and more about the virus.
    It makes no sense to take sides but given the number of deaths, globally, attributed to the virus, it would seem more prudent to err on the side of caution. And no human life, in my estimation, is worth any amount of money – especially in a corrupt, unfettered capitalism on which the U.S. economy is built. Yet reopening that economy seems to be the biggest justification. How about, instead, if we create a new system, one that relieves the billionaires of their power and build an economy where the needs of all the people are tended to first and foremost.

  5. LilyQ Avatar
    LilyQ

    OMG, Hillary, you are so ignorant! You’re just parroting what you hear from MSM. You know nothing.

  6. Harry Avatar
    Harry

    Jeez Caitlin. That Photo vis too disturbing.

    Please try to get a Photo of an Alligator eating BEZOS.

    Truly disturbing thing he is. Yes sure Bezos and Gates started those businesses in a garage. They had no help from their blue blooded parents.

  7. Tired and no longer active revolutionary Avatar
    Tired and no longer active revolutionary

    Caitlin’s metaphor is useful: “Each of the billions of internet-connected humans is a neuron. This can’t not change us.” Yes, it changes people into group-think. People are now less able or willing to escape the MATRIX, the global brain.

  8. Tired and no longer active revolutionary Avatar
    Tired and no longer active revolutionary

    The world’s Great Liberator said: “I am way, the truth and the life. I am the light of the world; Follow me….If you remain in my message, you will know the truth and the truth will liberate you.” Indeed, the strategy and tactics promoted by that Great Liberator to precipitate a global crisis and purify the human gene pool are so brilliant, exceptional and powerful that this is way above the mental abilities even for highly intelligent and well-educated people who fail to grasp what he said and meant. His name “Yeshua” (translated Jesus in Greek) derives from the Hebrew word meaning LIBERATOR, but for 1700 years His revolutionary message and strategies have been twisted, corrupted by translation errors and/or hidden by the Roman Catholic church, the mother of abominations.

  9. Roundball Shaman Avatar
    Roundball Shaman

    “Step 1: Be the billionaire class.
    Step 2: Buy up all news media.
    Step 3: Structure outlets to elevate voices who defend the status quo.
    Step 4: Smear non-plutocratic media who don’t protect the status quo as crazy conspiracy theorists and Russian propaganda.
    Step 5: Dominate the narrative about what’s going on in the world.”
    .
    Step 6: Then spend Eternity in the Very Hot Place. And by that, it’s not at some tropical paradise location.
    .
    “When I was getting my journalism degree they used to talk about journos selling their souls and going into marketing, going into PR. It’s like bitch, you’re already doing that.”
    .
    If you’re going to sell your soul, you might as well go directly into politics or organized religion and leave out the middle step.
    .
    “It is true that social media platforms are run by oligarchs and depraved government agencies.”
    .
    No surprise that corrupt internet platforms would be run by the corrupted.
    .
    “We’re now like a giant planetary brain in which each of the billions of internet-connected humans is a neuron. This can’t not change us.”
    .
    But each of those billions of human neurons will soon be thinking the very same thoughts every moment. That’s Their End Game.
    .
    “Remember Americans, if you have a problem with the fact that your system literally makes it impossible to elect a president who isn’t pure dog shit, you are crazy…”
    .
    Maybe only actual dogs should run for office. At least then they would physically resemble what they actually are. And no doggie-treats for them, either.
    .
    “Not every predator is a billionaire, but every billionaire is a predator.”
    .
    Not every predator is a billionaire. There are lots of those around who are flat broke.
    .
    “I get that people are scared and stressed out, but the way masks have been turned into yet another stupid fucking culture war partisan wedge issue is probably the dumbest and most annoying widespread debate that I have ever seen.”
    .
    People simply don’t believe what they are being told about this entire “pandemic” because trust has fully broken down between the public, the media, and “authorities”. When most of what you are being told is lies you no longer trust anything at all from anyone. Do masks “work”? Yes. Do masks NOT work? Yes. Are you confused? Good. We work hard to see that you are.

  10. ron campbell Avatar
    ron campbell

    Anguish and despair fills my heart and soul as I gaze upon the society and the government of these United States. Very few ever venture to dare talk about it; and no one dares to try and do something about it.
    Beneath, them all, however, lies the same terrifying phenomenon. For more than half a century, the United States has experienced the largest number of broken families and children brought up by single parents or in drug and alcohol-riddled families than any other nation in the world.
    You can read this great article here:
    How Americas Adult Children Who Never Grew Up Became Dostoyevskys Demons by Martin Sieff!
    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/07/16/how-america-adult-children-who-never-grew-up-became-dostoyevsky-demons/

    1. khatika Avatar
      khatika

      I truly believe the US is a modern day Babylon which will be brought down as ancient babylon. It will rot from within and collapse. Very sad.

    2. mike k Avatar
      mike k

      Sorry Ron, but the overblown article you reference is a simplistic diatribe that does little to explain our global predicament, which has more to do with simple power addicts trying to rule the world over the rest of our starving or dead bodies, rather than some fancied failure of parental discipline. To drag Dostoyevsky’s work into his conservative rant is really deplorable.

      1. Gregory Herr Avatar
        Gregory Herr

        The generalizations may seem harsh, and perhaps the attack on environmentalists may be a bit unfair…but overall, the author made several valid observations that I would be hard pressed to try and argue with. In fact, the observations are in evidence and go beyond “some fancied failure of parental discipline.”
        American structures of power, outwardly represented by a bought “political class”, their MSM mouthpieces, and a largely duped citizenry of followers, certainly do bear a significant share of responsibility for our global predicament. I see little maturity in evidence when observing that political class or reading their mouthpieces. Many real grown-ups exist in our society, but on the whole…it often doesn’t feel that way, does it?
        What’s deplorable about using a reference to a “type” of person that Dostoyevsky examined as a point of comparison? Seems legitimate.

  11. Hillary Avatar
    Hillary

    “A government watchdog organisation says Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and a White House adviser, likely violated federal ethics rules when she posed with a can of Goya beans after the company’s CEO backed her father.” — Independent (UK)
    Lock Her Up!
    Lock Her Up!
    Lock Her Up!
    Lock Her Up!
    Lock Her Up!
    …

  12. Newton Finn Avatar
    Newton Finn

    I would add a step to your billionaire takeover scenario:

    Step 6: Don’t merely dominate the narrative but change it by changing the words we use. What was once called “normal,” being in a position to live a modestly decent and fairly secure life, now call “privileged,” as if anyone whose neck is not under the oppressor’s boot to the point of immanent death is fortunate, exceptional, above the mean or average or customary mode of being human. This will entail a subtle, implicit, unwitting buy-in to the neoliberal view of the default non-elite human position: a mad, frenzied, brutal struggle for daily survival.

  13. John Day Avatar
    John Day

    Special Mask-Day Edition:

    We have ​political ​mask-wars​ these days​.
    http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/07/new-management.html
    Theory and practice are the same… in theory …, but not in practice
    Viral particles are small, and they can float in the air a long time and fly through masks because of it, but they almost never do, because they are on teeny-tiny little drops of spittle people exhale and cannot get off of them They have no intentional action, either, which I like. All you have to do to catch the little electron-microscope-visible virions is to catch the microscopic drops of spittle, which are like Gilligan’s Island to them.
    It’s as easy as fishing with dynamite!

    I started Med School in 1982. I’ve worn masks a lot since then, lots of different masks, and now those special plastic face shields that always seem like Mandalorian armor to me (Hi , Boba Fett!)
    Who remembers the huge damned constitutional controversy about requiring manufacturers to INSTALL seat belts in cars, not merely offer them as an option!
    Do you recall how hot under the collar the grown-ups got about that? My grown ups were basically in favor of it, because of little me, and little Robert and Tom and Vickie. They made us pee before we got in the car, and strap-in before Dad turned the ignition key.
    There was a dead-cat-bounce of that for requiring people to wear them by law, but the state had an interest in avoiding orphans and medical bills.
    I may have been primed for mask-tolerance, even before mask-tolerance was inculcated into me, because I went to high school in Yokohama and rode trains about 3 hours per day. Japanese wear masks like Californians wear light jackets, anytime, whenever, especially on the trains.
    I’m just not being made to lick the fresh shit off the bottom of a stiletto spike heeled boot worn by Frank-N-Furter to wear a mask as a basic public-health measure.
    I wear masks all day, whenever at work, and I used to wear them in the OR when I did c-sections and deliveries and scrubbed on other surgeries.
    The mask should never be your focus. It’s just there between important things, not an important thing, just a mobile filtration unit for random contagion.
    Masks make the inside of my nose itch, especially when those little filtration fibers are looe and tickly up my nostrils, where the drip is trying to drip out. All that stuff only bothers me when I’m not focused on caring for a patient, when I’m clicking boxes and typing text on my computer and I want a quick snack that’s right there, but what a bother…
    N-95 masks do have bit more flow resistance, and they make me itch and sweat where they seal around my face. Do you smother at night when you sleep face-down? Not unless you have sleep apnea, you don’t. Your brain has a respiratory center, which senses both oxygen and CO2 levels, and adjusts your respiratory drive, so you breathe deeper, use your chest muscles some. Things like that. Progesterone, the “hormone of pregnancy” stimulates the respiratory center, too, because breathing-for-two. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BBff-cStE4
    This ain’t the first rodeo for your amazing human body!
    You’ll be ok.
    Focus on important things you have to do today.
    You don’t have to convince anybody. They’re having a hard day with cognitive-dissonance.
    ​I did COVID testing in the parking lot yesterday morning at clinic. I just got the last couple of test results from June 29. 15 day turnaround on test results. You are well, hospitalized or dead by then.
    I had to send 3 people to hospitals from the parking lot, 2 for really low blood oxygen, and a pregnant lady, short of breath, who had just vomited blood. These are the people who sounded good enough on the phone to schedule for a drive-up swab, except one of the low oxygen guys just showed up without scheduling. I know him. He has cancer.
    I dressed back up and went out to see him. We talked. He drove to the hospital with no AC, in 105 degrees.
    I printed some of his labs and notes and called ahead to the ER charge nurse.
    I didn’t make him wait long in the parking lot.
    He’s a nice guy.​ I’d have done the same for a jerk

    1. Newton Finn Avatar
      Newton Finn

      Thank you, John Day, for injecting some common sense and basic human decency into this comment section following another damn good post from Caitlin. I hope you can find the time and energy to keep at it, given all the vital work you’re doing.

    2. Hillary Avatar
      Hillary

      Remember, the goal is to kill as many people as possible.
      There is a faction loose in this world that obviously believes that and has set this goal. Kill as many people as possible. The oligarch psychopaths don’t care. They know they have the best health care waiting on standby. They’ve already equipped their 3rd mansion with ER nurses and ventilators. The oligarch psychopaths know they’ll be ok. But there is obviously a group of these psychopaths that view this current pandemic as their golden opportunity to kill as many of the rest of us as possible.
      The psychopaths want to see as many as possible of us in body bags.
      Its all a hoax.
      Chloraquine is a magic cure.
      Just take your vitamins, and its no worse than the ordinary flu where the oligarch psychopaths have gotten you accustomed and trained to accept the tens of thousands of deaths each year many of which could be prevented by spending more on nurses and health care.
      Kill as many as possible.

    3. Jim McDonagh Avatar
      Jim McDonagh

      An excellent exercise in avoiding the issue . Seat belts save lives , motorcycle helmets do not yet both are required by law in much of North America and Europe. Why is that ? Wearing a face nappy is common practice in Asia and has been for decades , but it has been in the main a personal choice. If we are to have even a shred of personal freedom where do these politically and financially motivated draconian edicts end is the real question?

    4. George Critch Avatar
      George Critch

      Thank you doctor. You have provided much valued information here on this site over time and I thank you for that. I won’t bother to dispute or offer any advise about the use of masks. The major problem that I have with their use is that they are a form of PPE, and with the use of PPE comes safety protocols that the general public has not been trained in. When you use PPE you have to assume that you have been exposed and that the PPE is contaminated. That’s it. Contaminated!! Now it has to be disposed of in a proper manner and handled as a BIO-Hazard. That’s what we are dealing with here, biological not dust, paint chips or rust scale etc. I have witnessed people remove the mask to sneeze and then spit and then put the mask back on with now hands contaminated. Violations of safety protocols and the use of face masks are flagrant. Disposal of the masks seems to be as casual as if someone were tossing aside a candy wrapper in the street. They are everywhere blowing around. Potential little viral time bombs. Just the other day I witnessed three women dressed in scrubs at a parking lot COVID testing site. After testing a patient, one women removed her gloves, THEN removed her mask to hang below her chin while she pulled out her cell phone and started scrolling through whatever flashed before her as she sat on the curb chatting with her co-workers. So, people are getting a false sense of security with the use of face masks and are potentially becoming a source of contamination theirselves. I appreciate that, at the start of your post, you admitted straight out that you had ‘Priority Bias’. It is hard to overcome bias because we all have it. I offer this comment not as an argument but with the same intention that you have offered your observations. So, let everyone of us take PERSONAL responsibility for our safety and health and keep our immune systems prepared for the daily onslaught of the millions of virus’ and bacteria that we encounter on a daily basis. Be happy, Enjoy life, Love everyone and Pray for PEACE.

      1. LilyQ Avatar
        LilyQ

        I am a trained surgical technologist. What angers me is of equal or more importance is in addition to “proper” face masks (not homemade or bandana-like) emphasis on HAND WASHING is not emphasized. We have to scrub our hands, nails and forearms for a good ten minutes before donning sterile gloves to do surgery. People touch cooties when they go shopping from the cart to the products, credit card machine, etc. and don’t consider or are even aware that germs are not just spread from the mouth. Our eyes, too, are and avenue for contamination. N-95 masks are not 100 percentbecause they are not individually fitted. It’s still better than the options. If you have compromised health issues; stay home. If that’s not possible, wear mask, goggles and be very aware of surface contamination and WASHING YOUR HANDS and DO NOT rub your eyes or nose or mouth unless they are clean (with antibacterial). Keep your immune system as strong as possible. I take zinc, vitamin C, Vitamin D and querciten. I keep colloidial silver on hand. I’m pretty sure I had Covid in Dec. because I went to Houston (via air) and came down with a fever, unproductive, cough, headache and fatigue that lasted 6 weeks. I travel quite a bit and have not been sick with the flu (ever) until this one hit. I do believe it’s all deliberate and for evil reasons. Hydroxycloroquine has been shown to work, but MSM and the evil ones shut that one down quick. Fu$%#rs!!!!

  14. David Eire Avatar
    David Eire

    I think Biden would be far worse than Trump.
    I also think Clinton would have been far worse than trump.
    Like him or loathe him we all owe Donald Trump for blocking the Clinton’s path back into the Whitehouse.
    To date Donald Trump has been the least murderous US president in decades.
    US elections are not about US citizens wining anything. US citizens lose every election. The best US citizens (and the the rest of us too) can hope for is the lesser evil.

    1. Hillary Avatar
      Hillary

      He’s catching up real fast as the mass graves are dug and the refrigerated trucks are called in to keep the bodies from stinking too badly before they can dig the graves.
      Donald will be setting up gas furnaces soon to more efficiently handle the bodies. And the one difference is that Donald Trump is killing Americans instead of foreigners, and doing so faster than the Kaiser did and will probably approach Hitler+Tojo numbers before election day.
      Hitler and Tojo killed about 420,000 combined, military and civilians.
      Trump is already at 130,000 and accelerating just from COVID-19. He may easily top 400,000 by the fall. And of course, he also owns the 40,000 Americans a year who die because of lack of decent health care each year while he’s in charge. And those are just the broad strokes for how many dead Americans that Trump will have to answer to St. Peter for.
      Lock Him Up!
      Lock Him Up!

      1. khatika Avatar
        khatika

        It amuses me that people blame Trump for coronovirus response. Governors ignore federal mandates, mayors ignore state mandates. Sheriffs ignore all madates. But somehow this is all Trumps fault. Oh lets blame him for the crappy health care systrm that was decimated further by Obamacare.

      2. LilyQ Avatar
        LilyQ

        OMG!! Hillary, above. You are SUCH AN IGNORANT gullible idiot. You can’t help it though, there are many more just like you.

  15. Khatika Avatar
    Khatika

    First of all when you say there is a Jewish influence, I find it racial in concept. If everytime in your article you replaced the word Jewish with black how would it sound to you. If you said Israeli then it would have country connotations but you say Jewish. You totally ignore why jewish people have had money through the centuries. They financed kings in the middle ages. For them to be the bankers and power behind the scenes is nothing to do with being Jewish but their cultural history of adept money lending and hereditary movement of such wealth to their offspring. Many are bankers. It does not make them evil any more than being poor and black make you a criminal. Rage against the elites or rich but I for one am sick and tired of blaming everything on thr jews.

    1. michael burgwin Avatar
      michael burgwin

      “Jews” and “Jewish elites” are not one and the same any more than “whites” and “white supremacists” is one and the same.

  16. JWK Avatar
    JWK

    “Capitalism will let you starve to death while sitting meters away from food.” And socialism will take food out of your pantry and let you starve to death. 20,000,000 Kulaks can’t be wrong.
    So you are totally unconcerned about the primary tool the Psychopaths In Charge are currently using to facilitate the enslavement of the entire world population? Fear and division are the primary tools of tyrants, and corona flu is the tool de jure for inflicting both around the world, in abundance. I agree that one needs to account for their own mental and spiritual well being first and foremost. But of what use is it if you have no life, your only function as a slave to the bank cartel? And in the US, of what use is disposing of a tiny minority of “white supremacy” only to replace it with far larger minority of “black supremacy”? Both are equally evil on their face.

    1. Khatika Avatar
      Khatika

      Why do people think they cannot be racist because they are in a minority of the population. Rascist hypocrites who call others racist. All very ignorant. We can see hate when it manifests whether it be white, black, yellow, red or brown. Hate is hate.

  17. Guillermo Calvo Mahé Avatar
    Guillermo Calvo Mahé

    At least every billionaire who has acquired pet pseudo-journalists. Caitlin raises unfortunate facts that have led us to where we find ourselves. The most serious obstacle to functional democracy is the purportedly “mainstream” media, instead of the heart of democracy, nothing more than shills for the billionaire class. Worthy heirs of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

    1. Newton Finn Avatar
      Newton Finn

      Yes, the MSM is a HUGE part of the problem. I wish we could organize an effective boycott of them, along with their advertisers.

    2. Hillary Avatar
      Hillary

      Yes, and unfortunately, the psuedo-journalists don’t always wear patches identifying their sponsors like race car drivers. Non-mainstream psuedo-journalists can be bought a lot cheaper than the mainstream psuedo-journalists. Its a lot easier to buy a person who is struggling to pay rent. You don’t think the psychopathic oligarchs who worship money would pay the mainstream psuedo-journalists 6 or 7 figures if they didn’t have to. They aren’t known for just giving away money. So, remember that the psuedo-journalists who aren’t mainstream can be bought for a lot less money. These days, they are pretty much a dime a dozen and you can’t swing a cat by its tail on the internet without hitting four of them.

      1. LilyQ Avatar
        LilyQ

        You mean someone like you, Hillary?

  18. Lloyd Avatar
    Lloyd

    Twitter was hacked! Is nothing sacred anymore? 😉

    Q. Which came first, the billionaire class or the Globalist Intelligence Cabal?

    A. A certain billionaire (now deceased, well maybe) has been said to be a “construct” of one or more intelligence agencies. Is this an answer or another question?

    Q. How much in the way of billionaire class seed development investment and subsequent revenues have basically come directly out of the U.S. Treasury or perhaps out of an unaccounted for black budget slush fund? Is this an answer or another question?

    Q. How is it even the PRC has “billionaires” when it is a communist country and the state owns everything? Why would a communist government owned bank “invest” 1.5 billion dollars of venture capital (ist) with a U.S. political figure’s son who has zero experience as a hedge fund manager? Hint, no one ever claimed orientals were stupid, only inscrutable.

    A. How easy would it be for any government to seize most, if not all private and corporate assets in the event of a declared emergency? Oh, was that supposed to be a question? Who is the government?

    1. Hillary Avatar
      Hillary

      One big change between the 60’s and today is that everything has been privatized and outsourced. In the 60’s, the oligarchs had to buy the government to get the tools that only the government really had working for them, like the Army Intelligence assassination team that had Dr. King targeted that day in Memphis, apparently as a back-up plan.
      Today, the world is full of lots of ex-CIA and ex-FBI and all the rest of the alphabet who work for their own firms outside of the government. This is the way its been for the last thirty years, the taxpayer essentially pays to train government operatives who then become private operators available to the highest bidder. Its true with military outfits like Blackwater/Academe, but also for all sorts of police and intelligence functions.
      These days anyone with money can hire them. They cost too much for ordinary people. But their rates are chicken feed for psychopathic oligarchs. No need to build an intelligence agency. There’s probably a trade show where you can go and pick and choose your own.

      1. Hillary Avatar
        Hillary

        These days, a lot of the agent-provocateurs and informers you encounter within a democracy movement won’t be working for the government, but for psychopathic oligarchs or corporations, each of which see the democracy movement as a threat.

  19. Jim Mcdonagh Avatar
    Jim Mcdonagh

    A great article with which I agree until the last 3 paragraphs which are indeed naive idiocy ? There must be better options , than those you have offered. I would suggest that getting a handle on humanities drive to feed and breed would be a better start point . If an attempt to keep our species from going extinct in the near future is deemed a worthwhile goal . Blaming 2000 or so billionaires for all the world ills is indeed naive demagoguery ?.

    1. Khatika Avatar
      Khatika

      I may be wrong but I think Caitlins point is that billionaires are the posterchild more or less for wealth and power being concentrated among the elites. This extreme comcentration leads to abuses we see today. First get legislation past in congress to allow such concentration such as media then execute it. I doubt you will ever see many antitrust suits brought in the future.

      1. Jim McDonagh Avatar
        Jim McDonagh

        Whether or not extreme concentration of wealth and power is indeed a bad thing is a moot point in a world that has reached the limits of its resources . The majority of humans now numbering 8 billion and rising 80 million /year are still trying to wring more from it and are embarked on a fools errand that must end in disaster ?

  20. mike k Avatar
    mike k

    We are witnesses to the profound influence of a massive shock to human systems and consciousness delivered by the corona virus. This needs to be studied and understood in our search for ways to a better future for all of us. Shocks like this can be the precursors of hopeful new beginnings, or harbingers of our devolution and demise. Which will it be? Can we find ways to turn this situation to our ultimate advantage?

    1. michael burgwin Avatar
      michael burgwin

      …and the coronavirus is but one of several obvious and probably many not so obvious forces at play as we slip and slide down the steepening slope of global collapse. Complete collapse with human extinction? Transformational depopulation collapse in which deconsumption displaces waste recycling? Sudden enlightenment of the Leader Class? Go to sleep a neoDarwinist ~~> wake up a symbiotist? Coronavirus is about to be displaced as the primary fear alarm by the economic crash epidemic. Local, state, national and global bankruptcy with the richies, once again, at the helm leading us through the Crisis of their making. Ugh

      1. Khatika Avatar
        Khatika

        Its just hard to take all of this too seriously when each politician is doing their own thing. I really love the latest where all gatherings were prohibited but demonstrations and protests were exempted.

        1. michael burgwin Avatar
          michael burgwin

          Imagine what would have happened if police had tried to enforce the quarantine against the protests. Seems like a pretty wise move to de-escalate by not escalating in the first place.

  21. John Thomas Avatar
    John Thomas

    “I get that people are scared and stressed out, but the way masks have been turned into yet another stupid fucking culture war partisan wedge issue is probably the dumbest and most annoying widespread debate that I have ever seen.”
    Fair enough but to people like myself who have chronic lung issues, the [compulsory] wearing of masks is fast becoming a direct assault on my life and while you might casually toss that issue to one side, I find the mask issue is actually pretty important especially when they are of very limited use in this plandemic.

  22. ron campbell Avatar
    ron campbell

    So Ms Johnstone you are not going to be distracted and intend to ” stay on point “; wonderful. I have to go out into this insane society to shop for food; but it is extremely dangerous because there are so many very twisted people everywhere. I still can not get over the wildest statement I have seen so far this year; New evidence shows that Mr. Putin murdered Jesus! Our owners and our masters consider us ” complete dumbshits “.

  23. David Slesinger Avatar
    David Slesinger

    There is evidence that I don’t have readily at hand that the oligarchs began buying up US media as early as 100 years ago.

    1. Newton Finn Avatar
      Newton Finn

      My guess is that they were buying up “the media” when it came only by scratches on stone or parchment.

  24. Glynn Baker Avatar
    Glynn Baker

    Very, very good. But quit sugar-coating and call them for what they are, psychopathic maggots feeding on the wounded body of our beautiful planet,

  25. Loring Palmer Avatar
    Loring Palmer

    Bravo–to you and all who carry the torch of Freedom.
    “Bye, bye, Amercan pie…”

    Love and blessings to you and all.
    Loring

  26. Glynn Baker Avatar
    Glynn Baker

    You Go Girl, you write from a good heart, and may the Goddess ease your way. Thank you from a Beat generational, now a US ex-pat 15 years out. I feel like my life has been as a witness to the abused and wounded body of the planet being devoured by the maggots of psychopathic corruption. I thought that I might help but it’s up to you younger ones now, I have wounds to lick as I prepare for my transition.

    1. michael burgwin Avatar
      michael burgwin

      You just gave me the words that I have been running in circles around like an old Hollywood Indian looking for coup. “Licking my wounds.’ While I do not feel responsible for the shit fix we are in, I do some regret not being better equipped to help our generational almost wakeup of the 60s follow through with some long term helpful changes — voluntary simplicity would have been a good start. Now, as much as I would like to be involved more than just spouting off on FB, I really am self-absorbed with discovering how much I am enjoying the comfort of not being involved. Barefootin the Pacific’s eastern edge takes a lot of practice. Thanks for that!

  27. George Critch Avatar
    George Critch

    Well young lady, I stepped away from your writing for a bit and ventured off on a binge of some other efforts at understanding our time here. Your short comparison between the naive idiot and smart realist is funny but flawed in my opinion. You see, the world is Not going anywhere and it doesn’t need saving. The great mother will survive. Now, on the other hand, our civilization is another matter. You see, the key component to civilization is civility and I don’t see much of that anymore. So, understanding our time and place, and helping those that we can will have to do, as the slow devolution of our civilization descends into insanity and darkness. For surely, we have front row seats and are honored to be here as witness in the final act of mankind. Just try and “Be Happy, Enjoy Life, Love Everyone, and PRAY FOR PEACE.“

  28. Bob Browning Avatar
    Bob Browning

    A whole lot of good points. You must be exhausted. Take a well deserved break.

  29. Stephen Sadd Avatar
    Stephen Sadd

    Now read about VACCINE INGREDIENTS that our Governments and MSM, have been hiding from us! IT IS FRIGHTENING, so beware folk!
    The site has been recording vaccination issues for over 40yrs. Take note, America now has an a health emergency, being hidden by MSM, 54% of NEW BORN require continued care for the rest of their entire life! Just think about that for a moment. What’s more frightening is that approximately 80% of them, have an IMMUNE DISORDER, where the patient own immune system is trying to destroy ITSELF!
    https://avn.org.au/information/vaccines-and-diseases/vaccine-ingredients/
    https://thehighwire.com/
    https://londonreal.tv/the-coronavirus-vaccine-agenda-exposing-the-dangerous-truth-of-big-pharmas-master-plan-del-bigtree/

  30. khatika Avatar
    khatika

    Caitlin, one of the reasons I enjoy your writing is that your opinion on partisan subjects is all over the place. That shows that you think things through. A person with an open mind will like some conservative positions and some progressive or liberal positions as well. You take each on its merit and either endorse or reject it. Too many people close their minds to any but the partisan they support. Thus Trump can say one thing and they object but agree when Obama says it. This was a good article as is most you write.

  31. Cal Lash Avatar
    Cal Lash

    And now I lay my head down and sleep

    1. John Day Avatar
      John Day

      Fruitful Dreams!

  32. Pete Petersen Avatar
    Pete Petersen

    Many thanks for posting and please keep up the great work Caitlin!!!

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