There was a simultaneously hilarious and nightmare-inducing meme format that was popular not long ago called Creepy Garfield, in which the familiar Jim Davis comic is re-imagined as a Lovecraftian horror genre in which the titular cat often features as an eldritch demigod who is tormenting his owner Jon in some existentially terrifying way.
A common theme is a comic which starts out like a normal Garfield cartoon in which Jon is talking to his obese pet in the usual way we all grew up reading, then it turns out we were completely misperceiving the situation and the cat’s head is for example actually part of a tentacled hellbeast, perhaps dwelling within Jon himself.
Anyway, that’s basically what the “two”-party political system is like.
When the comic starts out, you’re looking at two separate and distinct political parties with completely different goals and platforms. One of them seems nice, the other is a bit of a jerk who’s always eating all the lasagna. But subsequent panels reveal something far less comfortable to look at.
As you read on, it turns out that both the character on the left side of the panel and the one on the right side of the panel are actually just two tentacles on the same abyssal monster, who’d been putting on a two-headed performance within the small puppet show frame of the comic strip. In reality, they are both extensions of the same murderous oligarchic forces.
Those oligarchic forces use the illusion of the puppet show to manipulate the public into consenting to their continued rule. For example, in the US there’s a pretend presidential race on right now in which voters are being presented with a nasty, fascistic idiot incumbent who is running against a character who is far from perfect, but at least he’s not the tyrant who has been abusing and terrifying them for four years.
In reality, they’re both part of the same oligarchic Cthulhu monster, whose continued rule is ensured by manipulating people into begging for the tentacle on the left.
Joe Biden is a half-dead piece of beltway flotsam who is held together by nothing but Aricept and crazy glue, and it’s been his job to push for for wars, austerity and authoritarianism on behalf of his oligarchic donors since before most Bernie supporters were even born. Yet American progressives are being told to believe that they can push him to the left during his administration to help them stomach the idea of voting for him.
If he wins the imaginary US election, Biden’s most progressive achievement will be having the most diverse, inclusive and intersectional cabinet of mass murderers ever assembled. He will function in the same way a skin suit full of government agencies, war profiteers and rapacious corporations would function if it became president, because that’s essentially all he is as a person.
There are slightly different factions and agendas in the US oligarchy, and those can manifest as some of them backing one tentacle over the other in various puppet shows. But what all oligarchs have in common is the need to maintain the same basic status quo upon which their respective kingdoms have been built, which means that while there might be some sectarian power struggles at the top, none of them are going to improve upon the oppressive, exploitative, Orwellian, imperialist status quo that is crushing ordinary human beings to death every single day.
So as far as ordinary human beings are concerned, all you’re ever looking at is a giant bully telling you to beg him to punch you with his left fist or he’ll punch you a bit harder with his right.
What do you do in such a situation? What is the correct response when a powerful oligarchy is telling you that if you don’t consent to being ruled by one of its puppets, it will brutalize disadvantaged communities and take away people’s civil rights?
Is it to do as it says, hold your nose, and do everything you can to get the puppet on the left elected so that the oligarchic tentacle beast won’t devour disempowered members of the population? Is it to refuse to appease the beast and elect the right tentacle in a deluded act of defiance? Is it to pour all your energy into building a third party?
Or is it to actually fight?
What if everyone just completely ignored the frame of the comic strip panels? What if they completely ignored the puppet show stage, and just stared directly at their infernal tormenter who is holding the puppets? What if instead of talking about elections all the time, they started pointing at the real reason elections never change anything?
If you are an American who is dissatisfied with the presidential choices you are being offered in election after election, consider focusing your energy on the status quo itself. Consider taking the energy you might have put into talking about Donald Trump and Joe Biden and putting it into waking up your countrymen to the fact that the political class is there to rob them and the media class is there to deceive them on behalf of their oligarchic owners.
What prevents real change from coming to the most powerful nation in the world is not the fact that the “lesser evil” loses elections, it’s the fact that everyone’s being manipulated into buying into a fake performance that is wholly owned and operated by a single oligarchic force which benefits directly from oppression, exploitation and mass murder. It’s that there is no “lesser evil”.
The conversation about the political system should be dragged kicking and screaming into these waters at every opportunity. Refuse to clap along with any aspect of the puppet show, and keep pointing to the oligarchy behind the stage. The naked emperor only has invisible clothes until someone points out that his balls are showing.
Our job is to wake people up from this illusion. Our job is to wake them up from the dream.
______________________
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89 responses to “Why The ‘Lesser Evil’ Is An Illusion”
I want to live like Fidel, can the socialists help?
By the time of Bill Clintons first term had ended & after he passed NAFTA, CAFTA & the WTO, I had had enough of “both” parties & haven’t voted for one since.
For years I “voted” 3rd party but now I’m giving up even that bit of futile protest, this year it’s -“BOYCOT THE FAKE, RIGGED, FRAUDULENT 2020 “ELECTIONS” we the people can never win.
I am long past “voting” for the “lesser” of those 2 oligarch EVILS, even I could figure out that “voting” for a “lesser” evil WAS STILL VOTING FOR EVIL!
Biden showed his hand too soon, now we all know he won’t pass “medicare for all”, the wars will continue, the military budget will continue to get more of our tax $$$ while people continue to die in our streets from lack of jobs, housing & health CARE.
Why would anyone vote FOR such a POS?
If the only “choices” our OLIGARCH RULERS will allow us is EVIL, why bother to “vote” in a obviously FAKE, RIGGED, FRAUDULENT “ELECTION” WHERE OUR WORTHLESS “VOTES” CAN BE OVERRULED BY THAT UNDEMOCRATIC ELECTORAL “COLLAGE”?
The best thing for me to do on “election” day is to stay home & get STONED, at least then I know the illusions I’m seeing aren’t real.
Anyhow, this civilization is toast, we are headed for collapse & nothing can stop it, may as well PAR-TAY LIKE IT’S 1999!
Ahhh. The Nero defence. Bit risky, don’t you think ?
Not a good look when Death asks “What did you do when the Shit hit the Fan ?”.
Your choice absolutely.
Personally, i want something less defeated to take home.
Caitlin’s given me a fierce picture. Oooh. Shit.
I’m tired of playing their “game” where they give us terrible choices & we are expected to “choose” what we hope is the “lesser evil”. The problem with that is you are still VOTING FOR EVIL!
No matter what path we choose, “vote for the lesser evil”, “vote for a 3rd party” that will never be allowed to win or admit the system is so dam corrupt & RIGGED, that no choice is just as “good” as selecting on of THEIR EVILS.
After decades of “voting” for either their “lesser evil” or a 3rd party that can never be allowed to win since CORPORATE OLIGARCHS are in total control of the entire “election” system now, why bother to keep beating your head against a stone wall? You into pain?
I’m not!
I see the situation as a hopeless one, this empire is on it’s way down, it has failed, even Europe doesn’t want our disease riddled tourist & the dollar is losing it’s favor & will be replaced. Say goodby to the petro dollar & hello to rampant inflation & shortages.
I like your anger, Sheila Chambers. You are angry for the right reasons, which is rare enough to be valuable.
And i like that you took a couple of days composing your response. Smart woman.
Perhaps if you saw a way out , you would be able to take back your freedom.
It’s important that you care this much : you will need it for holding your ground against the liars.
`
You have my sympathy, and i see you as in good shape ; a touch of cabin fever can be very motivating of change. 🙂
You’ve got a sound mind, which is a fundamental advantage.
Few people are this lucky ; so make the best of it.
`
Another advantage is you can ask me difficult questions. I love solving difficult questions.
I use my intellect a lot because i love expanding my knowledge, too.
Knowledge never left me for a man with a Mercedes, never nags, never tidies my untidyness.
`
Knowledge is like a bestFriendship headed wherever we want.
I make a point of being alert for forbiddenKnowledge, a strategy predicated upon forbidden being more likely to have important information about weaknesses in an adversary. Generally, the farmers rely on us being plain dumb. Downright Embarrassing Dumb when humans read the Bible as bringing good news.
`
So i also look for contradictions, because usually they come from a liar, and now is a good time for studying liars . . . because they’re bloody everywhere .!. {where i come from, liars are very rare indeed. grin}
`
There’s an occasional benefit from being a contradictionHunter ; sometimes it’s not a contradict ; instead we are looking at a paradox. Mysterious, tantalising, wtf . . . how do i fit This into the realityMap ? paradox.
When we are mining for meaning Paradox is rich ore, which is maybe why i like problems nobody else will try. If values were to change, some day i might be a celebrity. One never knows, do one.
`
Meanwhile it’s knowledge with no market . . . because everybody is a cynic : how did that happen to y’all ??? This is a question worth investigating thoroughly, because cynicism is a veryUnhealthy state of mind : wholly unTrustworthy is cyniCism.
`
Figuring out how things work provides an interesting background to everyday chores and encounters.
Pattern recognition is a powerful filter for obfuscated agendas. Together with a stream of clues, and we have an interesting life going on, and a place we want to end up.
`
I spend my talent on being useful ; whatever needs doing is where i place my work.
Since my talent is thinking, my work consists of finding problems nobody else wants to take on.
I sometimes call it cleaning the toilets to remind myself i volunteered for this mission.
`
Using pattern recognition, i came to assemble a picture of our secret adversary.
There are things about the mudShadows they cannot hide.
One sure sign is pointless cruelty ; cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
`
For example the prohibition on opium exploits people, lots of us, who are in chronic pain.
Take away the pain ; we stop taking opium.
This dynamic has been deliberately perverted into a method of keeping an unfortunate minority unwanted and desperately poor. Which minority ? Those whose body or mind is seriously painful, people who are already poor in health shall be even poorer in spirit and food.
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By my reckoning, it is illegal under the Common Law to use a bunch of Lies to steal opium and its unique applications out of the public domain, when opium naturally and historically serves our needs very well.
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Now nobody can be trusted to have opium without medical supervision and strict rationing.
8 a day is all you get Mr Mann ; it says so on the label.
`
After they turn reliable safe opium resin into opaque capsules of synthetic molecules oR anonymous white powders :
`Now Nobody knows what tooMuch looks like ! ! !
This industrialised deconstructing and denaturing of opium is what kills people accidently,
and explains why there has never before been so bad a drug problem from this endless prohibition.
`
So, while bigPharma gets rich supplying an innately dangerous product at fabulous prices,
the black market supplies bleeds those who are excluded . . . with extortionate prices.
Pain being painful, the black market eventually drives all but the rich into direst poverty.
`
Worse than the poverty of peasants, untreated pain is a daily life & death type of poverty.
Without the Medicine of Mercy, life is unbearably tortured by an endorphin swindle.
Not for everyone, say maybe 10% endure troublesome pain which doctors cannot measure, yet doctors are directed by politicians (who know fuckAll of medical ethics) to refuse real treatment for genuine malaise.
`
Come from mentioning it, doctors cannot measure any kind of pain.
Medical bureaucrats are empowered with management of a pivotal medicine . . . while they have no benchmark for calibrating dosage. That’s criminally negligent. When i complain about pain to a GP, they don’t ask where it rates on a scale of ten. Not likely. These armchairExperts are always off with the fairies ; wondering instead how the fuck they ended up with a medically-informed egalitarian in their consulting room . . . asking difficult bloody questions, while the bureaucrat schemes how to be rid of me forEver (instead of taking an interest in helping me in managing my pain.)
We are random victims of the USA Government siezing monopoly control of an essential herbal medicine, starting back in 1909, and taxing us with compulsory high prices (which are attractively cheaper than blackMarket prices. Smart distributors reliably pay a generous percentage to the Police Chief and Commissioner, the union bosses, and a few strategic politicians.)
`
Armies of spies and sadistic secret police are endless employed by our ‘Leaders’ to displace an inexpensive herbal medicine with an impeccable history of reliable effectiveness for long term users.
`
Having opium keep me alive and functioning for 30 years, and having lost a dear friend to heroinHunger in the 1970s, i can authoritatively declare that the ill-effects associated with addiction during a prohibition is due not to opium or its dubious modern analogues, but is caused by melancholia at being worthless, plus starving and thieving to pay for some temporary pain relief.
`
Little wonder so many who need opium exit life via suicide, unambiguous feedback to a Government with neither empathy noR a purpose which could fulfill our abilities.
`
Stealing our sovereignty back, bit by bit as we figure out the socialisedSwindle . . . makes sense to me as getting ready for a task of historical ramifications.
Descriptively put. In my view, accurate to the last full stop. Keep up the good work. Thank you for sharing your views.
Descriptively put. In my view, accurate to the last full stop. Keep up the good work. Thank you for sharing your views.
From what I could tell the Democratic convention had no substance; it consisted of personal stories about what a good person Biden is; we are supposed to vote for Biden because he is “good”. They could have run Adolph Hitler with exactly the same approach of people relating stories about their positive experiences with Hitler.
Ms Johnstone the average United States citizen realized after the ” banks ” were bailed out by our government in 2008 that all hope was lost. ” We the people ” were never on anyone’s radar after that; we did not matter at all anymore. Very few people are willing to risk their lives or their families out in the streets challenging government forces. They bury their heads and just keep putting up with the ” status-quo of our very corrupt government “.
Here’s another one that I forgot; thievery;
Western technological corporations have been blocking channels, accounts and resources that may undermine the plans of the globalist/neo-liberal establishment. It is strange to see, but it looks that SouthFront is being considered by them as one of the main threats. On Friday, August 21, Google even terminated SouthFront’s Google AdSense account and stole funds collected there for the past 1.5 months.
The oligarchs, aka, the Mafia, Mossad, etcetera love to steal. That was what really set me off in the first place. That’s what the City of Chicago does every day with its automatic Red Light camera system giving its citizens one and two hundred dollar fines for making a legal right turn on red when there is no sign stating otherwise. The U.S. is nothing more than a huge criminal enterprise.
Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
> Why The ‘Lesser Evil’ Is An Illusion
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It’s looking like that’s essentially right, for the most fundamental issues. With both parties, no Medicare for all, no end to war profiteering and endless wars, no end to becoming a police state, and so on.
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“We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy, and I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
— Former President Jimmy Carter (Sep 27, 2015)
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Yes, there is for example the Gilens and Page study:
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Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy — BBC News
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746
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Or the Kalla and Porter study:
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Study: Politicians Don’t Really Care What Voters Want… Because They Don’t Have To | Independent Voter News
https://ivn.us/posts/study-politicians-dont-really-care-what-voters-want-because-they-dont-have-to
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Julian Assange answering on Clinton and Trump (Jul 27, 2016):
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“Well, you’re asking me, do I prefer cholera or gonorrhea? First, personally, I would prefer neither.
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“Look, I think, you know, we know how politics works in the United States. Whoever, whatever political party gets into government is going to merge with the bureaucracy pretty damn fast. It will be in a position where it has some levers in its hand. And so, as a result, the corporate lobbyists will move in to help to control those levers.
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“So it doesn’t make much difference in the end. What does make a difference is political accountability, a general deterrence set to stop political organizations behaving in a corrupt manner. That can make a difference.”
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Julian Assange: Choosing Between Trump or Clinton is Like Picking Between Cholera or Gonorrhea
As I recently reported, I survived yet another pharmaceutical attack on my life by making anti oligarch remarks on this and other anti oligarch websites, not scare anyone, but you risk your lives by making such remarks, I will continue to do so till my last dying breath. From Veterans Today;
This is but the continuous and tireless battle between Russia and a West infected by the deadly virus of lobbying by the Deep International State which, thanks to the powerful multinationals Big Pharma, has been affecting the health of citizens for decades by corrupting doctors, hospitals, clinics. and politicians.
the great majority of the population sit complacent with Netflix and KFC, trusting the authority figures to do what is best. The truth we hate to admit is that even dissidents and protesters are relatively complacent with their circumstances and inadvertently (usually indirectly) support the status quo which they so aggressively criticize and protest. The Deep State will continue to indoctrinate the masses , empowered by Big Money and Big Business. Only effective revolutionary action by a wide awake, well-informed and courageous small faction, guided by the Great Liberator will be strong enough to end tyranny. But ironically, His revolutionary strategy and subversive tactics 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 Yeshua meant when training His Ambassadors for revolutionary action. Read more of this here: http://www.wisdompage.com/2013%20Articles/Molyneaux%20essay.pdf
just curious. is that Great Liberator you are referring to Jesus? The one who was supposedly killed two thousand years ago, and we are still slaves to sin and “Romerica? I will visit the site, but have no great expectations to learn anything of worth if that is who you are referring to.
No, he’s referring to the creator, and as he refers to instructructions and ambassadors, and after reading the essay, (is he the actual author?) he appears to be an ambassador of the oligarchs, knowingly or otherwise.
Indeed, the idea of a community or two will save nobody, as the powers have unlimited surveillance, and nobody is outside their sight- we need real action, not people “saving” themselves and a few loved ones. Totally useless. The powers are ruthless and want nobody outside their control and oppressive rule.
Jesus is a mythical person, a so-called god-man created by the Roman Catholic Church to deceive and mislead anyone who might have come to discover the real liberator with a similar name. But I refer to a man called “Yeshua” whom you probably never heard about. His name “Yeshua” indicates “Liberator” in Hebrew and His vision and mission is to help precipitate the collapse of this civilization in preparation for the next much better civilization.
Certainly the two-party system, whether in the US or the UK, serves to perpetuate itself and leaves little or no space for third parties or for real change.
That said, the party now occupying the White House differs from its opposite number in a way that seems to have been overlooked in this discussion, yet that non-Americans like myself consider crucial – that is, concerning the formal diplomatic relationship of the United States with the rest of the world.
The Trump party has not only withdrawn US support from some UN agencies but, more importantly, has cancelled its commitment to the terms of carefully negotiated international agreements on nuclear weapons control and on the environment. Of course, such accords are far from ideal and need improvement but tragically they are all that stand between us and the possibility of nuclear disaster and ultimately irreversible environmental degradation.
Carlo wrote:
> . . . has cancelled its commitment to the terms of carefully negotiated international agreements on nuclear weapons control . . .
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Yes, that’s extraordinarily important. However, I think almost everyone agrees that any US government will need to extend the current nuclear weapons treaty before its expiration next February, unless they’ve gone completely mad:
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America’s allies support New START extension — Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
https://armscontrolcenter.org/americas-allies-support-new-start-extension/
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A No-Cost, No-Brainer of a Nuclear Deal — Defense One
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/07/no-cost-no-brainer-nuclear-deal/149603/
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Count-Down Begins For No-Brainer: Extend New START Treaty — Federation Of American Scientists
https://fas.org/blogs/security/2020/02/count-down-begins-for-no-brainer-extend-new-start-treaty/
a treaty is only a declaration of intention and half a lie. the other half is the other guy who thinks the same thing as you do. remember the poland thing Bet. Stalin and Mr. H?
well, i do.
and we need to attack Iran anyway if we are gonna stop the trans-siberian railway before it bankrupts Cleveland and Gary. We NEED to bury Russia not to treaty up with her.
so you can lie to Iran and f course tits for tats.
i love Persians: often wonder what was so bad about Xerxes except for the shabby scary name. he used bubble up vs trickle down. and only had a 10th the # of wives as Soloman and David. 1500 and 3,000 it say sin the bible so it has to be true.
so we got stuck with the greek views on life which as you can plainly see now how fucked up that is. Rumi was a person from persia and he said, only when asked, how to live?
Do what you love.
nice. [do they have a beach?]
Humanity is caught in the death grip of political and corporate leaders and their criminal overlords,
As a deer frozen with fear from oncoming headlights on a road at midnight.
Life for those leaders of the establishment is so comfortable and so luxurious, they feel it is better that everything remains the same for them.
Whilst humanity has to be modified, neutered, lobotomized and culled.
Now the establishment itself has created the situation of an ultimate change.
There have been great people in the world, but even the greatest of them in some way or other, compromise with the establishment.
They all lived in a compromise with the vested interests.
These ‘great’ people are not going to save you!
The society’s whole interest is in how to exploit you, how to enslave you, how to use you in a more efficient way, almost like a machine.
It gives you all the education just for these hidden, secret aims.
Around the world a great rebelliousness is being born against politicians, oligarchs, banksters, technocrats and corporate leaders who are dividing humanity and discriminating between people for total control, power and ownership of the world.
Yet the rebels who are born out of violence prove, in the end, to be anti-rebellious.
The moment they are in power their rebellion disappears.
They become as ugly as the predecessors they have replaced, because through violence you cannot bring flowers of love.
By sowing the seeds of poison you cannot hope that the flowers will be anything other than poison.
Their rebellion was only a reaction of the mind.
They were angry, enraged by all the exploitation, oppression, by all the inhumanity that the establishment had been doing to other human beings.
Out of their anger, out of their violence, out of their rage, they rebelled.
Violence has been the way of life for millennia.
Directly or indirectly we have all lived under violence.
Our armies, our police, our jails, our judges, our wars, our so-called great religions, all have lived in violence.
And violence, reduced to its essentials, is irreverent towards life.
Through violence you cannot achieve a peaceful, silent, loving humanity.
The violence will be in the roots, it will poison your whole superstructure.
Violence can never be a part of the rebellious spirit for the simple reason that violence is the whole past of humanity, and the enlightened rebel wants to discontinue with the past.
The enlightened rebel has to be nonviolent out of sheer necessity.
Unless they are nonviolent, they cannot be the vehicle of a peaceful, warless, classless humanity.
If you sow the seeds of violence, you cannot expect and hope that the flowers will not be affected by violence.
Those flowers will come out of the seeds you have sown.
So each violent revolution has created another violent society, another violent culture.
Out of violence only more violence is born.
When all the revolutions have failed some new door should be opened.
Two words for the world at this moment, and for those who are intelligent enough in the present, are ‘enlightened rebellion’.
What is the difference?
Enlightened rebellion is individual action, it has nothing to do with the crowd.
Enlightened rebellion has nothing to do with politics, power, violence.
Enlightened rebellion has something to do with changing your consciousness, your silence, your being.
It is a spiritual metamorphosis.
The real rebel is not a fighter.
Real rebels are individuals of understanding.
They simply grow in intelligence, not in anger, not in rage.
You cannot transform yourself by being angry against your past.
Then the past will continue to dominate you, then the past will remain the center of your being, the past will remain your focus.
You will remain focused in your mind, attached to the past.
You may move to the further extreme, from anger to violence, but still you will be attached to the past.
If you rebel against your own mind it will be a reaction, not a rebellion.
Note the difference.
A reaction is out of anger, a reaction is violent.
In a reaction you become blind with rage.
In a reaction you start moving to the further extreme.
Enlightened rebellion is not a reaction, it is an action.
Enlightened rebellion is not a reaction against the old, against all those who worship and propagate death, against all their lies, control and propaganda.
But it is an action for the new, for all those who celebrate and honour life and rebel for truth.
That is the difference between reaction and action.
Reaction is always determined by your enemy.
Perhaps you have never thought about it, that in reaction the enemy is in a dominating position, they are deciding your action.
What you are going to do, the enemy can decide.
But guns are not needed, bombs are not needed, rioting is not needed, killing is not needed.
What is needed is more alertness, more meditativeness, more love, more consciousness, more gratitude.
Surrounded by all these qualities you are born anew.
We have tried collective efforts and they have failed.
Now let us try individual efforts.
Only a few enlightened rebels are needed to create a rebellious society, then others will follow suit, but they will not, on their own, be rebellious.
If the rebellious people create a society, the crowds, just as today they are part of the society, will then become part of the rebellious society.
But they cannot do anything on their own, for the simple reason that it is scary.
Remember, you can act in two ways, one is reaction, another is response.
Reaction comes out of your past conditionings, it is mechanical.
Response comes out of your presence, awareness, consciousness, it is non-mechanical.
And the ability to respond is one of the greatest principles of growth.
You are not following any order, any commandment, you are simply following your awareness.
https://whenwardisappears.wordpress.com/
Remember, if you want to change the world, you have to change yourself first.
Enlightened rebellion must come to you first.
Only then can you radiate it into others’ hearts.
You must have the flame that you want to see in others’ eyes.
The blind cannot help the blind.
Those who are groping in darkness cannot lead others to light.
Those who are hypocrites, pretenders, cannot help others to be honest.
Those who are not yet themselves, know nothing about themselves, have no idea of their individuality, who are still lost in their personality which is fake and created by the society, cannot help anybody else to attain individuality.
Even with all good intentions, it is simply not possible.
You have to be rebellious, then you can spread rebellion all around you.
If you are on fire, aflame, you can create a wildfire which goes faraway beyond your vision.
But first you have to be aflame.
The blind person leading another blind person, both will fall into the well.
Whatever you want the world to be, you will have to be a model first.
You have to pass through a fire test to prove your philosophy of life by your example.
You cannot just go on arguing about it.
Reasoning and argument will not help, only your experience can give to others the taste of love, of meditation, of silence, of rebelliousness.
“If you are an American who is dissatisfied with the presidential choices you are being offered in election after election, consider focusing your energy on the status quo itself. Consider taking the energy you might have put into talking about Donald Trump and Joe Biden and putting it into waking up your countrymen to the fact that the political class is there to rob them and the media class is there to deceive them on behalf of their oligarchic owners.”
That is what the Socialist Equality Party, the WSWS, and I do and have done for decades.
Can I be one of the top socialists who gets all the money and holds all the power? Same puppeteers, different show. More propaganda.
Things that go bump in the night?
Goldberg, before he was murdered, says Israel plans to murder 15 million Americans using disease, accidents and eventually, as America becomes more “Trumpish,” simply outright murder.
“Why The ‘Lesser Evil’ Is An Illusion”
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We all have SUCH freedom of choice these days…
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Vote for the Lesser Evil… OR ELSE.
Wear a Mask… OR ELSE.
Pay your taxes… OR ELSE.
Follow every virtue-signaling narrative out there… OR ELSE.
Do not write or think contrary to approved Corporate Social Media company Double-Think notions and social-engineering positions…OR ELSE.
Accept 5G and all Vaccines… OR ELSE.
Accept Globalism and World-Wide Supranational Socialism… OR ELSE.
Do not stand out from the Crowd…OR ELSE.
Stand six-feet apart from each other… OR ELSE.
Keep America Great. Vote for Donald Trump… OR ELSE.
Save America from another four years of disaster. Vote for Harris, er, Biden…OR ELSE.
Ignore what acts Harris performed that really got her careering going in politics… OR ELSE.
Be sure to get out there and vote!…OR ELSE.
Have no personal objection from choosing between two forms of evil… OR ELSE.
Never, ever, look at the men and women behind curtain running everything… OR ELSE.
Be satisfied with having less and less each day and don’t complain about it… OR ELSE.
Enjoy all these freedoms you have to follow all these orders… OR ELSE.
And never, ever, ask what “Or Else” even means… OR ELSE.
Your anti-vax and anti-mask stance ruins what otherwise might have been a decent comment. Antivaxxers and mask refuseniks are like spoiled children, threatening to hold their breath until they turn blue. I say, go ahead. Blue is a lovely color.
Fear is s terrible thing because it overrides common sense. Fear shuts down discourse and causes reaction. It causes mob mentality. It causes violence. There is no cure for fear but time. Mankind fears Covid. Many rabidly.
It takes courage to wear a mask, it takes none to ignore the truth. Your cowardice may have already taken an innocent life or two.
Just wishing I were physical younger and still had enough energy to fight with more than words. However, since words are my only weapons in my seniority, I’ll continue to wield them daily, if perhaps not quite so eloquently as Caity did in this article.
Trump is an evil cartoon character villain. In other words, Trump is the best thing the Democrats could possibly have to scare everyone into voting for them despite their utter failure to offer any alternative to the corporate military industrial complex empire. The “left” (assuming there is such a thing) could have significant influence were it not for buying into this puppet horror show. A recipe for irrelevance. Here is another cartoon variation on that theme: https://youtu.be/S0yft9WFu-8
The lesser evil will never cease being evil unless and until it is actually punished — whatever action that involves, and whatever magnitude it requires.
Yes, we all know that both parties are rotten, but the fact remains that they are parts of a deeply entrenched system in which we all live. The system needs to be torn down, but that is not going to happen in the near future, if ever. We cannot escape the system anymore than we can escape living on earth. Caitlin and others believe that the only solution is revolution, which might be nice, if it were not terribly bloody and the resulting new system were truly benign. Can anyone guarantee that?
In the meantime, while we await the revolution, I prefer to be controlled by the less evil masters. Anyone who prefers the more evil ones is getting a taste of that right now with Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell. And let’s face it, their Republican successors are likely to be even worse full-on fascists.
Your are so boring with your usual cliched excuses for supporting the two-party capitalist system. Get this. We socialists DO NOT SUPPORT THE CAPITALIST PARTIES. EVER. Getting through to you?
Well, maybe not everyone on this forum is a socialist, and maybe some who are socialists will take anyone, even a capitalist, over Trump. Getting through to you, arrogant snob?
I want to live like Fidel, can the socialists help?
All of the Right-Wing, Oligarch Propaganda falls apart this year.
They try to claim they are all the same. Thus, there is no reason for opposing Trump. They are all the same, so you should just accept that the Great Leader will rule you for four more years.
Except, this time, it is quite obvious that they are not the same.
I don’t like Biden. I’ve been a political opponent of Biden for 40 years.
But, Trump must go!
They are not all the same!
This year, Trump is clearly not only the Greatest Evil, but a Clear and Present Danger.
————-
“The Enemy is Anyone Who’s Trying to Kill you.” -Yosarian, in Heller’s Catch-22.
Trump and the Republicans are trying to kill me.
Biden and the Democrats are not. At least not so directly. Trump and the Republicans want be to be homeless, starving to death and denied medical care. They want to kill me. Maybe that wouldn’t be clear if I lived on a beach in Australia.
But, since I live in America, and four more years of Trump means I’m dead, I therefore proclaim that they are not equal. That Trump and the Republicans are not only a Greater Evil but a Far Greater Evil that must be defeated even if I have to vote for people I don’t like such as Biden and the Democrats.
Thus, the enemy is clear.
Trump must be defeated!!!!!!!!!
The Oligarch speaks ….
“What, you think you have a Right not to go Hungry”
“You demand that you be fed”
“How Outrageous! Do you think that Food just grows on trees?”
————–
Yes, actually.
Good cop/bad cop.
It is very much like the classic definition of a con game. It’s just a really, really, really, . . . big con.
Confidence trick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_trick
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“A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, irresponsibility, and greed.”
Clearly we’re being defrauded by the crime syndicate in this manner.”
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They exploit, both, our positive human values and our negative human values to get what they want. i.e. power and control.
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“A confidence trick is also known as a con game, a con, a scam, a grift, a hustle, a bunko (or bunco), a swindle, a flimflam, a gaffle, or a bamboozle. The intended victims are known as marks, suckers, stooges, mugus, rubes, or gulls (from the word gullible).”
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I don’t know about anyone else, but I no longer intend to be one of their marks.
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“Foundation work
Preparations are made in advance of the game, including the hiring of any assistants required and studying the background knowledge needed for the role.”
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Just think of all the resources they’ve wasted preparing (conditioning)us.
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“Approach”
“The victim is approached or contacted.”
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“Build-up”
“The victim is given an opportunity to profit from participating in a scheme. The victim’s greed is encouraged, such that their rational judgment of the situation might be impaired.”
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I don’t know if greed is necessarily the right word in the way we’re being duped here. Maybe to some extent though. I’d say our hopes for a better lives and our compassion for others is equally exploited.
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‘The “hurrah”
” A sudden manufactured crisis or change of events forces the victim to act or make a decision immediately. This is the point at which the con succeeds or fails. With a financial scam, the con artist may tell the victim that the “window of opportunity” to make a large investment in the scheme is about to suddenly close forever.”
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This is obvious, I think. Seems like we see manufactured crises all day every day. It’s a long list I think.
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“The in-and-in”
” A conspirator (in on the con, but assumes the role of an interested bystander) puts an amount of money into the same scheme as the victim, to add an appearance of legitimacy. This can reassure the victim, and give the con man greater control when the deal has been completed.”
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Have to give this one some more thought. Maybe all the buy in to the Biden campaign from the other primary candidates?
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“In addition, some games require a “corroboration” step, particularly those involving a fake, but purportedly “rare item” of “great value”. This usually includes the use of an accomplice who plays the part of an uninvolved (initially skeptical) third party, who later confirms the claims made by the con man.[6][7]
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An “independent source” , a “bipartisan this or that” . . .. Or perhaps, in the “rare” cases that the two sides, say fox news and msnbc, agree on something, we might think: “well that must true, then.”
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“Vulnerability factors”
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“Confidence tricks exploit typical human characteristics such as greed, dishonesty, vanity, opportunism, lust, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, desperation, and naïvety.”
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Check.
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” Cons succeed for inducing judgment errors—chiefly, errors arising from imperfect information and cognitive biases. In popular culture and among professional con men, the human vulnerabilities that cons exploit are depicted as ‘dishonesty,’ ‘greed,’ and ‘gullibility’ of the marks. Dishonesty, often represented by the expression ‘you can’t cheat an honest man,’ refers to the willingness of marks to participate in unlawful acts, such as rigged gambling and embezzlement. Greed, the desire to ‘get something for nothing,’ is a shorthand expression of marks’ beliefs that too-good-to-be-true gains are realistic. Gullibility reflects beliefs that marks are ‘suckers’ and ‘fools’ for entering into costly voluntary exchanges. Judicial opinions occasionally echo these sentiments.”
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. . . ” errors arising from imperfect information” Hah!
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“Accomplices, also known as shills, help manipulate the mark into accepting the perpetrator’s plan. In a traditional confidence trick, the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task. The accomplices may pretend to be strangers who have benefited from performing the task in the past.[citation needed]”
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Check. Won’t win anything by voting for either one. We will continue to lose.
“Hustle” the series (Robert Vaughn) was indeed a great example.
I don’t disagree, but I still think Biden over Trump if only for the sake of the virus. Cover-19 really has thrown a bit of a pickle into the political situation, Ms Johnstone, that’s having ramifications. Thinking of your Garfield comic analogy, how would it work if the comic Jim Davis was drawing was completely upended by a story Mrs. Davis decided to tell?
Did you hear what’s going on in Ireland? The Irish Government is a literal collaboration between the ‘right elites’ and the ‘left elites;’ think of Dems and Republicans cooperating to stave off a third party government led by Bernie Sanders. In Ireland, a government by the IRA/Marxists, very left, I forget the political name was prevented because 2 enemies would rather oppose another enemy than either partner with them. Anyhow, none of that’s the point, only the history. Only, elites, be they left or right want to be in charge.
The big deal is the WHOLE government, well 80 members of the two governing parties and some of the Greens (so, they’re no different), went to hotel/ golfing weekend. In Ireland, it is illegal for groups of 50 or more to gather together because of the virus–they’re have been resignations from the government because of what happened and people are furious, politics doesn’t matter. The hypocrisy of the elites has been bared, and the arrogance of thinking they are above the law has been exposed..
The thing is coincidentally the same sort of thing is happening in Canada. The government in charge has kept apologizing for illegal acts, and the main opposition party has a similar history of illegal acts. The parties are no different. I don’t know if it’s as big a deal as I think but Mark Cuban, an American billionaire, once said that if something didn’t change, people had pitchforks (paraphrase). I suspect the narrative control is changing.
But, I suspect Mrs. Davis is beginning to learn how to use her pen.
(Irish Examiner has the story about the politics and golf situation, Canadian controversy covered in Globe and Mail or CBC, I heard Mark Cubanon youtube? or maybe an RT show)
Vote for Biden. Trump is trying to ban TikTok and we cant let that happen.
In support of my comment above:
https://youtu.be/AdVNX_NUocI
I dont know Caitlin. I agree with your analysis of the two official parties; which I view as synthetic constructions to cater for and manage the US population on behalf of the oligarch elites; but in my opinion there was a lesser evil in 2016; and I think Donald Trump was that lesser evil. I believed then and I still do today that the Clintons would have been far worse for the US and the world.
You do not get to choose what you want in US politics; the best you get is the lesser evil; and very often you dont even get that much.
Well, Trump was relatively weak, so I think that means he was lesser at doing evil than we can suppose Clinton would have been. Of course, we paid a high price for that ineffectiveness. Trump did not start any new wars (that I know about) but he dithered and blithered while COVID-19 killed 170,000 Americans and counting. In any case, it’s hard to judge the likely effectiveness of Biden-Harris. They seem inept and profoundly phony, and they’re likely to be confronted with some really severe problems that should dissuade them from extreme imperial adventures, but only God knows what they will come up with — if elected, that is.
Quoting inaccurate politicised DNC stats on covid deaths as you have done here is not helpful , and in fact supports putting the greater evil back on the ceremonial POTUS Throne . Covid is a fraud and has been proven to be nothing more than a mild form of flu for 99.9 % of the global population. Mr Trump’s initial response , was to do nothing which has been shown to be the right one.
lame duck Donald Trump does not drain the swamp. He pardons criminal swamp creatures. The Deep State put him in the white house to control him. .
Do what?
The US has relatively poor underlying health and that would have played a role in the mortality rate. Overall the US is doing better than many European countries; the UK for instance is doing far worse. I dont think any of the deaths can be blamed on any of the leaders. Death is part of life and every year many more die of lifestyle disorders like cancers (600K+) and heart disease than of Covid. Influenza killed 70K+ in the US in 2017. No lockdown for that. Covid has been politicized and weaponized like everything else these days.
I think you are right about Biden-Harris; a very hapless and weak team. Sock puppets I would say. The real danger will be those lurking in the shadows pulling their strings – Hillary will be there, you can bet.
Yeah, I’m with you. When your arteries are clogged apply some no-itch topical cream. Uhuh, that’ll help. While yer feelin a little better, we will still be bombing the shit out of / or strangling people who are not US, pretty much everywhere cuz thatz what keeps the billions coming to our billionaires. At least their OUR billionaires.
The DNC is so blatantly the more effective evil. The Clinton Dynasty and their myriad lackeys are only the most recent example. All empires are evil but none surpasses the insatiable reach of the worst of them all: The American Empire. With his incapacity for filtering out the unpalatable, Trump merely blurts out what the rest of the greedy psychopaths left unsaid. The entire system is corrupt to its core and, sadly, always has been. We the people are being played. Caitlin magnificently exposes the rottenness at the heart of “American Democracy’.
‘There’s only ONE CORPORATION.’
“A nasty, fascistic idiot incumbent who is running against a character who is far from perfect, but at least he’s not the tyrant who has been abusing and terrifying them for four years.” So, you DO have a preference. Based on the belief that socialism is superior to fascism, when the two are exactly the same. Requiring the state to be in absolute control. Which delivers the exact same tyranny inflicted by psychopaths. They both result in the poor masses, and the rich elite, and the loss of liberty. All controlled by the bank cartel. No, Biden is “not the tyrant who has been abusing and terrifying them for four years”, he’s the one who has spent his entire adult life, except for the last four years, doing so. He supported and voted for every single military adventure the US Military Industrial Complex has engaged in since he first held public office. Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil, and grants that evil credence to rule.
The American state is not absolutely in control of anything, however.
Hola, I love the way you say what I have so unsuccessfully been trying to elucidate to my bourgeois family who live in the states and fervently hate Trump. One thing you might consider adding is that what we need to do demand in mass is to restructure all governments world-wide from vertical top-down to horizontal bottom-up which is virtually incorruptible as in Rojava, Syria, Chiapas, Mexico with the Zapatistas and many other local examples where citizens are as volunteers reimagining their cities. We have made a 7 minute animation explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywMhg604W8&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR38N8I_GNWAQ4jlNCQyPg37DpssaPtDRjbx6-S0S5DrNFu_3uugenckVpQ. If you Caitlin see its merits, I should hope that you might help the idea to become viral. More of such strategies can be found at utopiacornucopia.org. Abrazo, Mofwoofoo
Telling how and why we are being screwed by the wealthy and powerful is the easy part. How we fix this lethal situation is the almost(?) impossible part. I guess when you don’t know how to do something that really must get done, you just have to keep looking for the means to do it and trying implement your ideas, and see what happens. It’s a long and frustrating process, but what else is there….
Mike, I believe Caitlin is on the right path, in that the people must first be freed from the Matrix before a new world can be built. Why is this? Because when you are living in illusions and fictions your efforts are misdirected and wasted by fighting shadows, while the actual problems facing humanity are left untouched.
Simply put, the lesser of two evils is still, of course, evil.
The ” owners and the masters ” have decided to ” cull the masses ” Ms Johnstone. Bombing far away placing is not working fast enough for them. Covid-19 is killing people and also bringing on much more tyranny; ” the forced vaccine ” will kill off many more. The ” two party hoax ” will remain on some back burner because the owners and the masters use germs and diseases now to kill the unwanted and unwashed masses of humanity no longer serving their purposes. The nuclear war between India and China will also de-populate the planet and insure ” the evil empires ” stranglehold of the earth.
That’s the truth. Politics is hive of scum and villainy populated primarily by psychopaths and narcissists. The notion of “public servant” is a naive fantasy.
I read your commentaries, opinions and articles voraciously, and enjoy them immensely. However, I respectfully disagree wholeheartedly with this. There is a clear choice in this election between a xenophobic, homophobic, sexist, ignorant, racist who rules from twitter and embraces QAnon and other conspiracy theories and has alienated most of the world from the United States, making us the laughing stock – and a racist in recovery who will place someone who actually believes in climate change in the EPA, someone who embraces public education as opposed to disdaining it as head of Education, someone who understands the crucial role of the Post Office as head of the postal system, and on and on. Biden was pushed further left during the 8 years he served with President Barack Obama. Yes they are neoliberals, but they will not dog-whistle white supremacists and racists, they won’t mimic Hitler’s Make Germany Great Again campaign. A party of centrist Democrats, with the influence of progressives like AOC, Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters and others is quite different from a party of tea-party Republicans under the influence of QAnon, KKK, Neo-Nazis and Putin. You may not like either one, but you certainlly can’t paint them with the same brush.
The entire Democratic convention gave us absolutely nothing at all but begging for us to vote against trump for NOTHING IN RETURN.
NOTHING.
Biden’s nomination and Bloomberg’s endorsement was a direct punch in our greasy fuggin pleb faces, couoled with a DEMAND that you vote for them OR ELSE.
NO M4A. NO end to warmongering. NO overhauling the fascist, racist police force. NO Covid response. NO ACA reform. NO POLICY OF ANY KIND for the average American; nothing but more handjobbing for oligarchs.
Biden IS NOT being “pushed left” and he has NOT “moved further left” after 8 years with Obama.
He HAS NOT.
This election is a COMPLETE FAILURE. You will either get trump again, or another smarter, more dangerous fascist in 2024.
I agree, Corporcrat trickery is better than White Supremacist Neo-Nazi/Fascist Storm-troopers killing Leftist’s, Liberals, Socialists, Environmentalists Etc in the streets and in their homes. At least with Corporcrats we’ll live to keep up the good fight for kindness, decency, compassion, and for the life of our dying planet.
if you’re lucky, you’ll get to pretend to keep up the good fight. while you watch the powerful performance of pharmaceuticals on biden, they are quite openly setting the stage for the next ‘act’.
There is no such thing as a ‘centrist’ Democrat. The proper term is ‘conservative’. Biden is explicitly conservative, he himself said so rather recently, because that’s what ‘no fundamental change’ means. ‘Progressives’ have thus far shown no serious influence on the conservative side of the party. One still might prefer conservatism to the radical right-wing neoliberal experiments of Trump and those like him, but let’s call things by their right names.
I think not. Democrats have run big cities in America unobstructed for over 50 years. All have been run into the ground. Give them free rein over America and it would be Detroit, Minneapolis, LA nationwide. No thank you.
Simply put: You need to wake up.
This is pretty new. it has us all confused. Let’s see ’bout what exactly that is. Our .GOV has performed admirably in da past. Even Nixon gave us the EPA, and something to talk about. if you’re thinking about not getting capitalism abolished to your expectations will you please get yer brain on. CApital is A-MerdRica! to abolish that is gonna be maybe impossible. esp. as long as they contro the money and money is our blood, god, and reason for living. What’s yers? you gonna open your borders to immigration?
First of all i wanna say Caitlin i like you, you write well. now think a little bit. sure we get fooled. sure we have to protect our black community for all their B, S, and tears. for their great sports playahs and their music from blues to jazz to rock and roll to the first open heart surgery ever performed in amerdrica…i think in the Civil War by a black surgeon.
they are the canaries in our coal mine.
white people with college degrees do not have it so bad. they might worry about sticking their necks out for a Dying Planet even. should i save the planet at the expense of losing my great job….i’m even putting my kids through college the great american college system, which is TOTALLY taken over by fascism. At two places i observed in Mean ol’ Dirty Frisco, and that is a blues song. look it up. they do not allow any talk of politics….
city college and U. of CAL. the SF public health system. Uh, that would be Mental health system. because Merdrican cannot talk politics very long: we shout it!
We’re already filled with all kinds of hate!
can’t talk. so we hit the street. we destroyed the draft, but could not stop the war. so now we got an economic draft. only da poor die young. Vietnam. a massive war crime. 4 million of them dead. now they. run their nation better than we do ours. GAIA loves them. All are wars are lost causes. We cannot beat a nation with no air force. sounds crazy. but just like Britain lost to us by getting shot at from behind every tree…
17 years to pound Afghanistan into submission? We won’t win that one until we bomb the hell out of ever madrassah…in Saudi Arabia. and kill all kings and shiekhs btw. AND we’d have to stay and watch over the new found freedom of women. all religions are evil as the core. everyone is founded upon lies. no one has been to heaven yet to cound the virgins waiting there. (and if they got in by being virtuous they ain’ta gonna change for some ignorant puppy who killed his for his room in da Way Inn….for place to sleep and get laid.)
and so the DNC is a fascist club. impotent pretty much except to maybe cling to power and their jobs. we will not know them all, but its leadership consists of Tom Perez and john Podesta and nancy Pelosi. their money machine is ActBlue for small donations, plus grandiose donors who really regally need them to keep them funneling Gov’t largesse into their cookie jars. we call them BIGS. Everything. The BIGS run the system. and the System is the problem.
you cannot change da system by working within da system.
which is: ya gotta mutha phuck da mutha phuckahs ‘fore da muthah phuckas muthah phuck you.
that is America. PPP&B vertigo is coming to a corner near you.
it already dominates Australia, and the old British Empire. and anyone who believes the 19 Arabs with box cutters took down the WTC #s 1, 2, and 7 all by themselves is stupidly, selfishly blind. refusal to look at a crime is one thing. Catching the criminals is vastly another … i know. maybe you do too. killing 1.4 million IRAQIS WAS A CIA INDUCED STILL BIRTH. ANd we left them drenched in Radioactivity. these the people who never had any power either. we kll people not dictators so much…and if we do we replace them with new ones. same cloth.
Saddam Hussein was their (read “our”)chosen boy. we killed the man they elected. we do that. then he got hubris. we gave him nerve gas, via Rumsfeld. so we knew he had WMDs. only he used it already on the Kurds. huh? what? duh…these guys are not sharp.
name any of the usurpers of these men we killed: Lumumba, Torrijos, Arbenz, Allende, Zelaya, Bosch, Qaddafi, and those we threw out: Rousseff, Lula, Fernandez Kirchner, Morales, Lincoln, Gandhi, JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, and lots more my addled brain cannot scoop up fo’ you….it is so bad that Honduran mommies are putting their kids on the roofs of trains (called la bestia) to show us how much we messed their nation up.
nightmares are everywhere all the time every time….worse in other places. i’m glad yo had one. nice to know. wanna die young? hit da streets. cops are winning this fight. the NBA is wearing signs on their uniforms…black lives matter. they wanna be included in the vast delusion. mentally they are mo’ bettah off than whitey, by not being accomplices. financially, not so much.
i mean the people not the playahs. George Floyd was buddies with Stack Jackson one great NBA millionaire player. they call Stack Jack because he liked to bring stacks of cool cash to the projects like he survived. Floyd was innocent. do you know how many busted dollars appear in da projects…that is all they get. the new money goes to the Burbs.
cabbies know this. there was always a saying in the taxi biz: never get liberal driving a taxi! now of course, that problem is solved, they are taking our currency away from us. lyft and uber –both 4 letter words– do not pick up flags and if they did no driver has cash on him anyway. taxis used to be of the peephole, we had criminals sitting behind us. i got a stack of knives i found in the seat crack in back after nights out there. nice switch blades et al that jazz.
we got to change da system. fo’ shoor, Shirl. but yo’ might as well bark up a tree as tell anyone that. all we need to know is HOW?
that might be your nightmare.
try Gallipoli or Rabbit Proof Fence. Aussies ain’t so cool, either. And Quisling was a Norwegian. Vichy was French. Every nation has one. Had one. Power is a mental disease.
but it can still kill ya.
i got a list of factual projects we got to kill: CIA, FED, and it’s 28 member banks, DIA, DEA, Elec-troll College, militarized local police defunded. DoD appropriations cut in half NOW. and then positives like Health Care, free education until you die. forever. all grades and/or doctorates, shut down 800 bases, first the one in Honduras. wha? Honduras gonna attack us? yes, with their children….keep on growing this list. refresh restart and reset over and over and maybe we shall get a femme prez like AOC our own little joan d’arc and maybe we can protect her…and surround her with love and beauty so she can survive long enough….to get us over….this quagmire of greed and murder.
Ya been readin too much Joyce Jimmy.
The stream runs deep.
“…we got to change da system. fo’ shoor, Shirl. but yo’ might as well bark up a tree as tell anyone that. all we need to know is HOW? that might be your nightmare….” Really enjoy the substance and style of your comments, Jimmy. Here you put your finger on the problem that plagues every clear thinking, well-meaning person much more than Covid-19. Caitlin believes that shredding the neoliberal narrative is the key, creating the opening to begin to construct a new one. My fear, however, is that we’re so mired in dystopian thinking–sinking more deeply each day, weighing ourselves down even more–by the constant consumption of endless explanations and condemnations of this or that particular evil, most of which are true, of course, but also unhelpful, actually counterproductive, in freeing ourselves from the dystopian neoliberal morass. After reaching a certain saturation point, where you clearly understand that the system is totally fucked up, how does it help to continue to focus on just how fucked up this or that aspect of it is? Does it not soon become like going to a hospital and visiting, room by room, only the dying or most desperately sick patients? I applaud those intrepid souls with the courage and compassion to do this kind of thing, but for most of us, I suspect, we burn out and become mired in depression before very long and leave the hospital enervated and devoid of hope. THAT state of mind and heart does NOT a revolution/evolution make. But how to shift our focus from dystopia to utopia, how to begin to use the carrot of vision as well as the stick of condemnation to move the cart? That’s my more specific version of the nightmare you put your finger on.
Hey Newton, how goes it my friend? Spot on. Observe and don’t absorb is a mental mantra I am using on an increasing level. It is indeed good that you are mindful of the collective conscious and how this will affect the outcome. I see the environment, I see the Education systems, the laws of the land, society and how it interacts. This is just the beginning.
I wish you well,
Paul.
Heavy hitting Girl! I think there is a lot of truth there. I will try to educate others.But it will be a small drop in the bucket. I will also vote for the one I think will create somewhat less suffering,because it does make some difference,weather you will admit it or not.
I like your essays, but overall, I tend to believe that your physical isolation from the U.S. has you in some sort of fantasy land, because they are actually killing us over here, employing secret trials. Not that it really matters, because, as an example I just read an article on Vetrans Today, a reprint from the Daily Beast(which is itself a joke) concerning pedophilia and the like. It would seem that the only thing that really gets people riled up are other people’s genitals. So, what are people? Farm animals? Seems like that’s pretty much that’s what they are and not much more. So, to be totally honest if the oligarchs do in fact slaughter the vast majority of the human species, as they claim is their intent, then it wouldn’t really be all that of a lost. Humans would appear to be on the whole even dumber than the dumbest farm animals we presently employ to feed us.
Yeah, I’m with you. When your arteries are clogged apply some no-itch topical cream. Uhuh, that’ll help. While yer feelin a little better, we will still be bombing the shit out of / or strangling people who are not US, pretty much everywhere cuz thatz what keeps the billions coming to our billionaires. At least their OUR billionaires.
This comment was intended for FOSTER GOODWILL.
I want you to know my arteries are clear thank you. I subsist on a strict diet of Solyent Green.
Goodonya, Soylent Green IS a vital ingredient in the new proactive vegan nomenclature.
the big new deal is Woolsey’s Machine ( that’d be Sir James to you) and it’s called the thermo whachamacallit. it consists of a huge funnel–big enough for mad cows to slide down–and then it’s melted by this thermo whachama…..so outa da bottom comes for a cow now brown cow or holstein, about a galloon or 2 of distilled water, 6 quarts of pure shell oil, or beepee, and maybe ten shoe boxes of ash for yer garden.
they got these outside of Tyson –fact checkers hop in yer cars– in Arkansas set up to deteriorate the chicken parts so there is zero waste.
now if you put a man in there like e.g., those 43 Mexican student teachers, you get a profit for that type of work which helps pay your fees. and way more than the cost of bullets….@ 1.50 a shot sometimes.
“if the oligarchs do in fact slaughter the vast majority of the human species, as they claim is their intent, then it wouldn’t really be all that of a lost. Humans would appear to be on the whole even dumber than the dumbest farm animals we presently employ to feed us.”
So you’re saying that your criterion for the value of a human is their level of intelligence. Got it. Not that this attitude is terribly uncommon, especially I find among the chattering classes… Have you been tested yet for sociopathy?
Dear Caitlin,
That’s quite an achievement ; finding a use for Garfield.
And providing an easily understood metaphor for the hijacking of humanity’s destiny by subverting our leadership with an alien-controlled puppeter.
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I’m impressed.
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Looking for ways to express this concept to my fellow travellers has obsessed me since i experienced irrefutable evidence that the mudShadows are as described, 11 years ago. Harder than it seems.
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And Caitlin has nailed it. Bravo Madame !
I salute your prowess as an essayist and a thinker.
You’ve earned your daily bread with a touch of genius.
May you live long and prosper.
Peter Mann
Good find, Sister Caitlin!
So is this author, Samo Burja
Why Civilizations Collapse is a good length to lern something and see the value of the author’s insights.
https://thesideview.co/journal/why-civilizations-collapse/
Great Founder Theory, which I spent all day reading, really helped me understand imperial and bureaucratic power relationships, and why imperial power structures decay and fight inwardly when they stop gobbling up other countries and resources. It’s long, but illuminating.
http://samoburja.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Great-Founder-Theory-v-1.43.pdf
We would have been better off sticking with Royal lineage.
At least there was always a slim chance you could end up living under a benevolent Queen or King.
There’s fuck all chance under a Corporatocracy.
Elon Musk for president.
i prefer MRS. BEZOS.
Edward Bellamy, speaking through the character of Edith in the opening Socratic dialogue of “Equality” (by far, the greatest debate, pitting socialism against capitalism, ever penned), has her observe that at least under monarchy, where the king/queen was supposed to serve the interests of his/her subjects, there was on rare occasion one who did so or at least tried to do so. Under plutocratic capitalism, however, where the corporate class who owns and runs the government is, by law as well as inclination, focused only on enhancing their private pecuniary interests, there is literally no one in government, nor can there be, who puts the people’s interests ahead of those of the elite. Bellamy’s working out of a viable egalitarian democratic system, in which the public interest is absolutely and inevitably paramount, is one of the greatest feats of human imagination ever attempted and pulled off. Both “Looking Backward” and its expansive and corrective sequel, “Equality,” are free to read on the net, for those open to the possibility that a forgotten Victorian novelist saw more clearly and deeply into both the evils of capitalism and their cure than any contemporary analyst or critic…and, yes, even more clearly and deeply, in certain key respects, especially concerning the cure, than the great and justly venerated Karl Marx.
It’s the same old Punch & Judy Show technique while the audience look on they are pickpocketed
Let me add to why the cliche “lesser of two evils” does not belong in any discourse on this campaign. In fact, let me give a painful example. Remember the Ebola outbreak, in which two United States citizens died. It didn’t become a pandemic because George Bush, in his paranoia about coming pandemics had begun to establish pandemic prevention centers throughout the world. Barack Obama picked up where Bush left off, establishing 70 global pandemic prevention centers in all. Trump, in his stupidity, focused only on undoing everything Barack Obama did, foolishly thinking this would erase Obama’s legacy from history & the world would never know a Black man once presided over this country, disbanded every one of those centers. If they had been in place, perhaps the virus would not have traveled outside of China, it certainly wouldn’t have culminated in so many deaths. On top of that, Trump fired half of the Center for Disease Control, broke ties with the World Health Organization, who he thinks is out to destroy the United States, and called the coronavirus a “Democratic hoax, nothing to worry about” in January & February, & then prompted his base, his supporters to protest wearing masks, social distancing and other precautions. That didn’t work out too well for many of trump’s staunch supporters, including Herman Cain, deceased co-chair of Black voices for Trump, who attended a Trump rally where masks were not required. A president who promises a civil war if he’s not re-elected. A President who has told over 20,000 documented lies to the American people. America cannot survive 4 more years of trump – and to paint him as a “lesser evil” is a misnomer. He is the only evil in this equation. Justice Ruth Baines Gingsberg is afraid to leave her post to deal with her cancer because of what will become of the Supreme Court if one more tea-party justice is appointed by this man. He has his base believing that he alone stands between a “communist” Chinese take-over of the United States, where we all would be speaking Chinese, and/or a Muslim take over where Sharia law would be imposed on the United States, or a take-over by the United Nations, where they would make us all slaves, or a take-over by Mexicans where we would all be ruled by Cartels. Never before in history have there been so many white people, mostly white women, weaponizinig the police against Black people by calling 911 on Black people for sleeping in a dorm, waiting in Starbucks, selling water to neighbors, walking a dog, asking that a dog be leashed, etc. etc. America has become a dangerous place for Blacks, Hispanics, Africans and anyone else from what this President references as “shit-hole countries” because in the white world of Trump and his followers, we don’t belong here. Four more years of putting flunkies in place to do his bidding and democracy will be something we read about in history books, about a time when fascism didn’t exist and elections were held, and the planet was dying.
yeah. and it will be dead. The final dead zone.
ps~~ tell your techie to fix the “save my name ” gimmick and the “i;m not a robot” dingydong thangy, it always say i failed to do it right but get on anyway.
you are some kind of femme warrior/angel of mercy and vengeance/joan d’arc or what they called in Mexico una soldadera, named Adelita.
keep on keepin on.
No, we are supposed to vote for Biden because trump is that bad.