A propaganda machine that can make people worry about foreign governments while their own government is destroying lives in their own country and all over the world is a propaganda machine that can make people believe anything.
~
Americans are hurt by their own government infinitely more than they are hurt by Russia, China and Iran. People around the world are hurt by the US government far more than Americans are hurt by their own government. Stop worrying about foreigners, America. It serves only the powerful.
~
Joe Biden: Nothing will fundamentally change.
Liberals: THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF ALL TIME
~
The US government has killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since 9/11. Babbling about how this election has unique importance because the current president will take America down a dark road is going to fall on a lot of deaf ears around the world.
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It’s so dumb how Americans tell me not to talk about the US election. I literally write about what’s in the news for a living. I’m not going to suddenly stop criticizing the two-headed one-party system of the most powerful government on earth just because there’s another pretend election in the works. This is what I do. Deal with it.
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US foreign policy is far more important than US domestic policy. It affects far more people far more severely, and elite manipulators pour far more energy into maintaining the status quo on foreign policy than domestic policy. Yet the presidential race practically ignores it. There’s a reason for this, and it ain’t pretty.
~
It sure is a mighty strange coincidence how US democracy keeps getting attacked by nations it just so happens to want to target and it’s always in ways that are completely invisible to the public and the evidence for the attacks is always classified.
I mean there are all sorts of ways that a country can be attacked, but the only ways the country that is literally always at war ever gets attacked is in ways that nobody can see and we just have to take the word of the same government agencies that are responsible for the wars. Mighty, mighty strange I say.
~
1. We are in the middle of a slow-motion third world war between the US empire and the remaining nations which have resisted its attempts to absorb them.
2. Propaganda is used to move this world war along.
3. Points one and two explain all these US “election meddling” narratives.
~
To be clear, any nation in the world would be fully justified in interfering in US elections, since the US is by far the very worst offender in foreign election meddling. You don’t get to normalize something by doing it constantly and then say it’s wrong.
And that’s just election interference; it says nothing of invasions, coups, proxy wars and other regime change operations the US wages. You can’t do these things and then say it’s wrong to interfere in US democracy. It isn’t wrong; what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
The US uses its military, economic and cultural might to bully and manipulate the entire world, to the point where people in many nations are affected by US politics more than Americans themselves are. It’s not valid to interfere like that and then say others can’t reciprocate.
None of this is to concede that any of these nations actually are interfering in the US election; the US government lies about these things constantly and should never be taken on faith about them. But if they did interfere, it would be perfectly legitimate for them to do so.
~
Believing something because everyone else believes it is stupid. Believing something because everyone else believes it in an information ecosystem that’s controlled by powerful sociopaths is insane.
~
If war propaganda stopped working and people realized what the imperial war machine is actually doing, it would immediately become impossible for the military to recruit.
“I joined the Army, Ma.”
“You mean you’re gonna kill kids for money? How am I supposed to tell people that??”
~
Rags-to-riches stories of people clawing their way to the top from nothing are just the modern day equivalent of fairy tales about peasants discovering they’re actually royalty: wildly improbable fantasies to let the commoners imagine the system could one day work for them, too.
~
You are not free if you are not mentally free. A truly sovereign human has liberated their mind from all delusions. Propaganda-generated delusions. Culture-generated delusions. Ego-generated delusions.
_____________________________
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65 responses to “Nothing Will Fundamentally Change: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
It would be fantastic if the hundredth monkey theory and concept of critical mass could somehow manifest. But,..I think the planet we are living on is built to be a schoolhouse with different types,species and strains of humans with varying levels of comprehension of what life is all about.
The ying/yang symbol is a perfect metaphor,…each part of the whole ying/yang circle contains two separate halves,…within each half is the color of the other,…thus displaying within the light there is dar kand within the dark there is light.
I sense we need to move to acceptance and surrender to alloflife in every form it is in to not get caught in the drama.
I suggest we are not mirrors for what is occurring in the world,…we are in fact viewing life with our fears and filters and personal constructs.
When Americans tell me not to interfere with US elections I tell them I’ll stop interfering when the US moves its military bases out of Europe. Then I tell them that there’s an air and naval base at Rota, just 28 miles from where I live in Spain, before asking if there’s any Spanish military bases near to where they live in the US. They never answer.
I agree completely. I would not appreciate Chinese military bases in every state of America. Why should you want military bases in Spain.
@Khatika – Obviously, we have differing perspectives.
From my perspective, I cannot understand why a sensible precaution against disease, that is very commonly worn in quite a few other countries around the world, is seen as a political issue in the US.
The problem with your (Khatika’s) argument that “you wear a mask when you are sick” is that you do not always know that you are sick. It is entirely possible (with colds, flu and the COVID-19 coronavirus) to be infectious even before you start feeling ill.
This is why many people in Asia wear masks in winter – because they realise that it’s a sensible precaution to help protect both themselves and other people.
It doesn’t make them sheep. It doesn’t make them less free. It does, however, make them considerate of others.
Different cultures, different societal norms. They wear masks to protect from the cold. Your paradigm has shifted. Masks are part submission, part succumbing to social peer pressure “which is rampant in todays facebook era”, part fear and part anxiety. People are thrashing about to justify them. It is to protect me or is it to protect you. It is mandated in one place and not in others based on politics. Then you confess confusion. Open your eyes to this contrived pandemic based on testing results instead of actual sick people. How do worldwide death rates remain the same on a yearly basis. Open your eyes, close your ears. Look at the signs they are all around for those who are brave enough to look It is what Caitlin calls enlightenment but most call it being foolish. It is easy to spot enlightened people they are ones traveling against the prevailing current.
People in many nations are affected by US politics more than Americans themselves are.
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The minimum wage in all US counties is less than the cost of a two bedroom apartment.
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Everywhere, from coast to coast. Showing that most Americans are not part of the club you despise. We tend to be ignorant, true, but that is not a disease exclusive to America.
“… any nation in the world would be fully justified in interfering in US elections, since the US is by far the very worst offender in foreign election meddling.”
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Meddling is such a nice vague word that corporate media is tossing around a lot. What the hell does it mean? Hacking into one’s brain? Rigging the voting software? Paying for votes? Putting a bunch of crap on social media that people should not be looking at anyway? Meddling is an excuse for failing candidates and a pathetic flawed system of selection of leaders.
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“Believing something because everyone else believes it is stupid.”
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People do not have the strength of conviction and maturity to find their own beliefs. It is so much easier to glom on to some entrenched belief system composed of horse manure than it is to find one’s own way. And those who peddle these entrenched horse manure belief systems are more than happy to gain additional followers.
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“Rags-to-riches stories of people clawing their way to the top from nothing are just the modern day equivalent of fairy tales…”
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This is what the elitists try to peddle to clueless people whom the elitists are simply trying to keep quiet and pacify. In other words, if you don’t claw your way up (through a heavily rigged system tilted in favor of the elitists) then it’s YOUR fault, not ours… so be quiet about it and contemplate your being a failure you worthless thing!
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“You are not free if you are not mentally free. A truly sovereign human has liberated their mind from all delusions.”
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Many, many people do not want to be free. They’ll say they do, but that’s not their truth. They want someone and something else to dominate them so they’ll get all upset about it and have easy outside targets to blame instead of themselves. There is a true pandemic of this going on that there is no fix for other than true personal revelation and honesty and the strength to confront one’s own failings. Not a real popular thing to do today.
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There might be about 10 percent of the general population that actually wants to be free.
Good thoughts here R.S.
`
I especially appreciated:
“This is what the elitists try to peddle to clueless people whom the elitists are simply trying to keep quiet and pacify. In other words, if you don’t claw your way up (through a heavily rigged system tilted in favor of the elitists) then it’s YOUR fault, not ours… so be quiet about it and contemplate your being a failure you worthless thing!”
`
I do have to say that vague terms like “elitists” ain’t cuttin’ it. I believe we need to be much more specific.
`
The corruption, and the robber baron controlled crime syndicate is overwhelming in its scope. Our rhetoric, the way we communicate the truth, needs to match the magnitude of the problem.
“Many, many people do not want to be free. They’ll say they do, but that’s not their truth. They want someone and something else to dominate them so they’ll get all upset about it and have easy outside targets to blame instead of themselves.”
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I don’t think that it’s because they want to be able to get upset about it, and have someone else to blame.
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I think that most people simply want to be looked after. They want someone telling them that it will be OK, that someone else will take care of it, that someone else will improve things, someone else will make their life better, someone else will make the big decisions.
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Being an adult, being in charge of yourself, your own life, the life of other people can be hard and can be tiring. So for anything than their immediate circle, people want to hand off responsibility.
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Improving the planet? Not my responsibility – those people over there are looking after that. It’s easier and less stressful that way.
Your vision of reality is like a stream clear pure water in a world full of polluted muddy water. So refreshing for us drowning souls! Please keep it flowing Caitlin…..
Very seldom do ordinary people, like myself, ever get to finally be exposed to the despicable underbelly of the United States government. To that end this article should be given an award or a prize of the highest order.
~
This magnificent article can be read here:
The Governments Case Against Michael Flynn Is Falling Apart by Eric Zuesse!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/10/25/government-case-against-michael-flynn-falling-apart/
Caitlin, this is one of your more important insights lately:
“It sure is a mighty strange coincidence how US democracy keeps getting attacked by nations it just so happens to want to target and it’s always in ways that are completely invisible to the public and the evidence for the attacks is always classified.”
We are so propagandized, we don’t know who to believe or how to think for ourselves any more. Reaction against this then leads to the proliferation of conspiracy ideas here and other places on the internet. Be careful. I am reminded of this famous quote:
“If people are made to believe in absurdities, they can be made to commit atrocities.”
– Voltaire
“…we don’t know who to believe or how to think for ourselves any more.”
Speak for yourself.
If you have trouble with a “conspiracy idea”, whatever the hell that is, refute it with sound evidence/argumentation.
It might take another few hundred thousand more covid deaths for many Americans to finally figure out that America is not “the shining city on a hill”.
Either that or the propaganda machine will get a lot more funding!!
PS: Vietnam population almost 100,000,000, had an open border with China. 1168 covid-19 cases, 35 deaths as of today 25/Oct.
Thailand, dependent on Chinese tourists for a large part of the GDP and with a population of 65m, has had 3,736 cases and 59 deaths. Masks are the rule, not the exception.
I did not watch the debates; I do not watch any TV at all. My ” gut ” tells me that Donald Trump is going to be re-elected. I am not a guru; I do not see any excitement about the Biden-Harris ticket that is going to draw voters to the polls. This author, who I respect, has a different opinion.
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On the substance of economic policy and foreign policy, Donald Trump remains vastly preferable to Joe Biden for all his foul-ups. And on some substantive issues, the policies he expressed in the debate were far more realistic than Joe Bidens. But none of that matters.
Joe Biden was commanding. He dominated the sound bites. Since Richard Nixon pummeled John Kennedy on substance but lost big on image in the 1960 presidential debate, image has always bulldozed substance in these events.
The idiotic and criminally incompetent Democrat governors of New York State, New Jersey and California were directly responsible for the deaths of at least one third of the 220,000 Americans so far carried off by COVID-19: They packed old peoples homes with thousands of contagious sufferers from the virus. But Donald Trump was president, and his national policies in the face of the crisis too have often been irresponsible and woeful.
Donald Trump is the head man. As he admitted in the debate, he is responsible. And he will be the national scapegoat, just as any Democratic including the Sainted Barack Obama would have been had they been in the White House when the coronavirus hit.
~
This article can be read here:
Debate Victory May Have Sealed It for Biden by Martin Sieff!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/10/24/debate-victory-may-have-sealed-it-for-biden/
For once I think you’re wrong. Utterly wrong on your central premise, which is not about the US (no argument there) but about the responsibility of each person to investigate reality for herself rather than believing what others agree on. This is not possible. 100% of us take some things as given and weigh only new information again st a framework of what we already believe to be true.
Example ever seen the movie The Truman Show? How can you be certain you aren’t Truman? It’s damned unlikely but you can’t be totally certain of the existence of gravity, or that this is the year 2020–if there were a conspiracy to persuade you of some false thing, you could not detect it. The odds are so overwhelming in these cases that it’s entirely reasonable to make assumptions and take it from there–some other things are much less clear. COVID19 is a fine example–was it grown in a lab, was it accidentally or deliberately released? If deliberate, what was the motive? Do masks reduce transmission and if so, by how much? You have to make logical deductions and go with the odds–it just isn’t possible for someone who doesn’t have a degree in epidemiology and friends working at the Wuhan lab to be sure (and even they couldn’t be certain). Who was behind 9/11 and how was it pulled off? You can’t make your decisions based on certainties–we don’t have the time or ability to fully investigate even one such thing, let alone everything. So yeah, it’s good to think for yourself but honesty requires that you acknowledge at the outset that there are attempts made to influence you and you can’t know about all of them, that you’re going with the odds and logic and judging new claims on the basis of what you already believe.
Here is a little thought experiment.
:
1. Consider all your relationships with others as “strings” from one person to another.
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2. When you started out as a baby, the strings connected to you made conscious choices about how they wanted to influence you – they tugged this way and that. As a baby, you had strings pulling on others as well, but they were formed out of your innate desire to survive and they were only attached to a relatively small number.
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3. As a baby grows, the nature of the strings changes in both directions, and soon the baby turns into a child able to make up their own mind. Yet, that mind was shaped to an extent by the nature of the strings that had been attached early on as the baby grew and become more sentient. (This is why I think we should raise our children “gently”).
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4. At some point all children solidify their views. Perhaps this is the most critical time as a child grows into a young adult.
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5. Solidified views don’t change easily unless the “heat is on” so to speak.
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6. In my mind, the key is have a primary view that you always have more to learn – call it an open mind or call it wisdom or call it what you want, but if you think you have nothing left to learn, then you ultimately have little to offer.
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7. The second primary key that can only form after much ongoing learning, suffering, mistakes, hard life lessons, laughter and conscious effort is the ability to be aware of the strings pulling on you and vice versa. Then, if you are still learning, you can judge the probability of many strings taken collectively, and if need be, you can choose to cut the harmful strings consciously and be FREE of them.
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8. If more folks realize they can cut the harmful strings, then real change can happen and it can happen quick. To realize this, you must not be a “puppet”.
:
:
So what the hell, was the point of that experiment? I guess I’m suggesting Mary, that while I don’t disagree that sometimes there are strings that we just have no idea about, it doesn’t mean we lose our ability to differentiate. The power of probability is immense and thank god we have so many connections in our brains. So, of course it is possible that each and every one of us is in the midst of some sort of “Truman” experience, but the probability is so low that I reject that outright. I think your criticism of the author is misplaced. It also seems a bit fatalistic, but I could be wrong about that.
+
Peace,
Ken
I quite agree Ken. I resonate with the notion from the existentialist thought tradition that we are in fact “condemned to be free” – whether we want to consciously accept the burden of that freedom or not. It is a lifetime of ongoing very hard work to continuously educate and “reeducate” oneself about the world, debunking one propaganda operation only to find you’d been yet again hoodwinked into another one.
However, over time, one learns to “read” the MSM and the political class fronting for oligarchy – along with their non-stop propaganda operations – with greater and greater sophistication. Spotting their tricks becomes second nature, and eventually one almost can’t help but see through them in real-time even as they are unfolding. The problem is that it is impossible to simply share such “insights” with others who haven’t done their own work on this. This quote sums up the problem rather nicely I think:
“When a well packaged web of lies has been gradually sold to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and it speaker a raving lunatic.” – Dresden James
Gary – Thanks.
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Plus, I appreciate the references to “condemned to be free” as well as Dresden James, who really had another name, but it wasn’t hard to figure out!
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By the way, a pack of a web a lies can be unwound in a heartbeat! One web at a time damn near simultaneously. Imagine that!
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Peace,
Ken
It is called mob mentality. Thinking for yourself is often very dangerous to your physical and mental health. Mob mentality is safer. Your paradigm of the socially acceptable filter will never allow you to transcend to a new more enlightened paradigm. That is what Caitlin means. You must take the road less traveled. You must swim against tbe prevailing current.
A simple harsh true life example. In the 1930s the Jews who opened their eyes using a new harsh paradigm fled Nazi Germany. The rest who could not shift their perspectives because they were using a more socially acceptable framework went to the concentration camps.
Yep, spot on.
Dear Caitlin Johnstone:
I admire the good deal of wisdom and courage that is in what you have written, and have agreed with many things you have said. I think you are easily among the best and most honest of political commentators, and that judgement is based on reading a great deal, including Consortium News, The Grayzone, some of the Intercept and Jacobin and rags like the NY Times. I have also disagreed with some of what you have written, but never about crucial issues. This time I think you are wrong and it matters greatly. What you have written will discourage people from voting for Biden.
I could go into the politics but that would be a quagmire where other people will find something to disagree with and ignore the main issue. If I want to feel pure, or even like a good person, I would never vote for Trump or Biden. In the meantime, I feel the suffering of other people should matter more than my desire to feel clean, and that is why I am urging people in swing states to vote for Biden. I live in NY so I can actually vote for someone I don’t despise.
The reason: Both candidates are easily among the worst we have ever had, yet Trump is openly taking us far down the road to a fascist dictatorship at quite a fast pace. Biden will do the same but at a slower pace, albeit more stealthily, which gives the forces that oppose him more of a chance to stop him.
This is a tough call, and you make a colorable case for opting for Biden over Trump….domestically speaking. But when it comes to foreign “affairs,” as Caitlin indicates, Biden may turn out to be even more of a warmonger than Trump. Exhibit A is Libya, which, while far from perfect, was one of the most progressive countries on the African continent until, with Biden cheering, we blew it all to hell because Gaddafi wouldn’t completely sell out his people to serve global corporate interests. So it sort of comes down to this dilemma for the American voter. Biden would probably be a little better in terms of the slower fraying of our social safety net, already in tatters, and in race relations rhetoric, environmental rhetoric, SCOTUS and other federal judge appointments, etc. He’d likely be somewhat preferable to Trump on the domestic scene. But in the foreign arena, where Trump has (for reasons that escape most all of us) seemed a bit less aggressive and violent than other recent American presidents, although certainly being aggressive and violent toward other countries in his own ways, Biden would appear to be more inclined to start a new shooting war and return Venezuela, Iran, or some other vulnerable geopolitical target to the stone age. I guess the “lesser evil,” as Caitlin explains, depends on the ground on which you’re standing–whether you’re here in the exceptional nation or in the fly-over country we Americans consider to constitute the rest of the world.
Agree Newton. People are trying to rationalize in their mind on how to vote. Simply not voting is unthinkable to many so they must form a story within themselves to justify their vote.
Trump does not personally possess the power to quickly or in an other way form a dictatorship, and actual power brokers aren’t lining up to do that for him at any rate.
Operation Warp Speed is coming. The entire MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank) will be behind it. We will have this dictated to us, like many things coming down the road, because fascism is already here.
Lol. So true. He cant even get a wall built much less usher in a dictatorship.
The idea Trump is planning a fascist takeover and dictatorship is completely ungrounded in anything objective. It is just a perception/interpretation generated by media propaganda – aka liberal hysteria.
Not saying he is an ideal candidate for President; but he is preferable;e to Biden. The fact that he is hated & demonized by almost the entire Western Imperial Establishment is in my opinion a reason to prefer him to Biden, who has always been and will continue to be a loyal servant of the Washington Regime and its Imperial War Industry.
i think this election is the same sort of watershed election as that of 1876 discussed here. if you haven’t read it yet, please do.
http://www.peoplestribune.org/latest-news/u-s-presidential-election-1876-election-debacle-a-warning/?fbclid=IwAR2KFROqnqs1SMb6GxPvBXAntKPMphvmhJig9GvSkPwvdgm6HgnNz_1uXAo
this is not just another election between the 2 corporate parties..
i’ve been calling trump a neo-fascist since 2016– altho he’s too ignorant ideologically, his instincts are there–and he surrounds himself with nazi types like steven miller and bannon.
there has never been a president who :
1. has openly stated he will not accept the election results if he loses the vote which he has worked public opinion among his supporters to see as fraudulent.
2. who openly has supported, encourage, empowered, enabled and legitimized a hard core base of armed white supremacist nazi/kkk gangs, instructing them to “stand by” for future orders around the election.
3. who openly encourages violence against protesters, and poisons the atmosphere around opponents setting them up for possible assassinations
4. trump is a fascist, not a neo-con like bush or a neo-lib like obama–both of whom wreak enough havoc, chaos and conflict around the world on their own terms. i think if trump gets a 2nd term, we’ll see a wave of repression like the mccarthy era, or even the palmer raids. and even if he loses, the movement he has led and helped to immeasurably boost will still continue to be a source of conflict and chaos which we must anticipate. it’s not going away.
5. living in a safe state, i don’t have to vote for biden, but if i lived in one of the battleground states, i would, and i urge those who do, to do so.
the main thing biden has going for him is that he’s not trump–and he does not bring with him the explicit white supremacist culture that emboldened many in their racist attacks. on foreign policy the dems are just as much the war party as the repugs, and with biden as prez, building an antiwar, anti-coup,ant-militarist movement will be a key task among others.
large sectors of the ruling class oppose trump at this time–but they also did so in 2016 when he won.
this is a very dangerous moment–and we underestimate the danger at our own peril.
The ideals you hold and propagandize–with which I am entirely in synch–perhaps I should say ‘ideology’–are the basis for a growing critical awareness in Europe and the USA even if they are not yet bringing about government behavior change. That IDEOLOGY has much better prospects for growth and development under Biden than Trump, despite Biden’s and his party’s history of more aggressive foreign policy than the republicans and, indeed, could bring a change there. Biden’s attitude about science will lead to aggressive approaches to vaccination and probably other compulsions that I won’t like; nevertheless, in a broad perspective, that “professionalism” will mean more attention to climate change, more support for education. You ignore these foundational issues.
supporting vaccinations isn’t going to lead to more attention to climate change. 2 different problems, with 2 different sets of interests. biden’s attitude about science is expressed by his refusal to commit to end fracking.
All economies are capitalist. The differences arise in who controls the capital (wealth). Those who created it, or those who stole it. I assume what you refer to as “capitalism” is a free market. A thing that has not existed in this world for some time, except in the black markets. Practically all wealth is under the control of those who stole it. Socialists, fascists, it makes no difference which, governments steal it. They are parasites that produce nothing, except death. In fact, killing people is the only thing they have ever demonstrated any competence in, and they are indeed quite good at it.
If we are in the middle of a deadly pandemic, why is it that overall world wide deaths from all causes are LOWER this year than over the same period in the previous two?
I do want to jest on your post with some inane reason for the data. Here goes. Wearing masks have lowered all other diseases worldwide to make up for Covid pandemic deaths. Thank God for the masks or the dwath rate would be much higher. Hows that.
Calling them masks is dumb.
Their function is dissipating exhalation,
to reduce range of exhaled airborne pathogens.
`
Better to think of them as a Breath Diffuser.
Calling these ‘masks’ obfuscates their paramedical function,
so that too many unskilled thinkers misconstrue their purpose
as a sinister assault on individual freedom.
`
Stupidity thrives on use of inaccurate terminology.
Lol. Yes. We live in the age of semantics.
It’s not LOL funny, Khatike.
Semantic ineptitude is one of the commonest mental weaknesses,
so calling this a semantic age is utter nonsense.
Publishing the first thought to enter your mind
is a symptom of verbal diahorrea.
“US foreign policy is far more important than US domestic policy. It affects far more people far more severely, and elite manipulators pour far more energy into maintaining the status quo on foreign policy than domestic policy. Yet the presidential race practically ignores it. There’s a reason for this, and it ain’t pretty.”
In fact, the US has no foreign policy in the sense that it feels it has the right to determine what happens to everybody everywhere on the planet (*just out of a sense of fairness and bigness of heart, of course*), and in that sense all US policy is domestic policy.
** indicates irony
PS Please get rid of the stupid, 100%-US-oriented CAPCTHAs
With the grainy blurry pictures that these ancient eyes have a lot of trouble seeing in the detail required.
SORRY, here is the link to interview with prof.robinson. You may have already commented on the topic of the co-opting of BLM, et al, but, as covered by this show’s (A New Day) guest, it will add considerably to the discussion. A Marxist perspective on the current state of global fascism. https://www.wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=16681
You may have already commented on the topic of the co-opting of BLM, et al, but, as covered by this show’s (A New Day) guest, it will add considerably to the discussion. A Marxist perspective on the current state of global fascism.
Thank the Heavens that Ms Caitlin Johnstone tells the truth about the United States government and the massive propaganda narratives designed to keep the citizens of this country un-aware of the United States Evil Empire engine ravaging this planet. This is the belly of the Beast; we are monsters; we need to stop what our government is doing to the world and to us.
“If war propaganda stopped working and people realized what the imperial war machine is actually doing, it would immediately become impossible for the military to recruit.
“I joined the Army, Ma.”
“You mean you’re gonna kill kids for money? How am I supposed to tell people that??”
That is not true, Caitlin. War propaganda is really unnecessary in the US of today. All the govt. needs to do is issue licenses to kill and a few hundred billion printed-out-of-thin-air dollars and, voila, its got an army of volunteers. These volunteers will supply all of the conscience-easing rationalizations that soldiers/mercenaries very deliberatly use when telling people that they are voluntarily about to kill infants, children, men and women for money (and country). The tens of millions of people directly or indirectly employed by the MIC do the same. “We’re helping to defend America” (while simultaneously thinking “We don’t give a shit how many people we help kill as long as we keep our jobs.”) Those few who actually feel a little guilt about what they’re doing will go to confession for absolution, or get their partners to tell them that they’re doing the right thing.
Your example would probably go down something like this.
“I joined the Army, Ma.”
“You mean you’re gonna defend America from its enemies all over the world? That’s fantastic! Just try real hard not to kill any innocent civilans when you fire your howitzer and machine gun, OK? Aim really well.”
“OK, mom. I’ll try my best. I’ll make you proud of me. I’ll also be getting some extra combat pay, so I’ll send home as much money as I can each month. Then you can finally get that leak in the septic tank fixed, and if I survive long enough, maybe you can move into a newer mobile home.”
“I love you, son. Write and call often, OK?”
However, if war ITSELF either stopped making war corporations a profit or, heaven forbid, bombs started falling as a not-so-gentile rain from heaven on a place beneath called Main Street USA, THEN the soldiers and mercenaries and their mothers, along with the tens of millions of employees of the MIC just might start thinking that fast-moving, white-hot shrapnel and babies’ bodies don’t interact very nicely, especially if they’re American babies and foreign shrapnel.
ishkabibble is telling us she is smarter and truer than Caitlin.
If this was true, ishkabibble would not be reading Caitlin, and writing her own blog.
The world always has thugs and bullies more than happy to push people around. Most of them go into some form of law enforcement. The military is another matter. Most are normal people just doing their job, a job they believe in. Take away their patriotic belief and many if not most will find other employment. That is why drafts are necessary. If its citizens saw the military as evil most would not participate. That is why history is full of examples of courts giving a choice of military or jail. Also why mercenary forces are used. Paid thugs aka blackstone.
If war propaganda is unnecessary, why does the Pentagon put so much money into it? A previous CJ piece mentioned someone’s investigation that found 800 movies and 1000 TV shows had contracts with the Pentagon or CIA. You talk about how easy it is to recruit–but that’s BECAUSE of the propaganda.
A very well written and TRUTHFUL editorial! here is another for your readers in their search for truth.
“Initially, three charges were brought against me with a possible sentence of 35 years; by the end of the same year I was indicted on 12 counts with a possible sentence of 115 years.”
My Statement on the Prosecution of Julian Assange
by Daniel Ellsberg | Oct 17, 2020
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/my-statement-on-the-prosecution-of-julian-assange/
https://www.fff.org/
“The US government has killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since 9/11.”
`
Please, define “The US government.” Who, exactly, controls. it?
She means the US Permanent State.
Okay, please, define the US Permanent State. Who controls it?
Good macro:
here’s some micro, comparatively.
DOD 53% of US federal budget: always needs work.
what you called meddling could have been called murder of: Lincoln Gandhi Lumumba,
Allende, Torrijos, Arbenz, Bosch, Aristide (not killed only kidnapped 2X) Mossadeqc, Qaddafi, Trujillo, jfk, rfk, mlk, malcolm x, and all who died in confinement, like those who we used to call freedom fighters, and SAndra Bland Epstein (who haad tonsof nasty revelations to spill), some Black Panthers., and everyone who voted againsst mayor Daley of chicago…oh nevermind.
i’m glad you picked this career.
Yup, you’re right, and to that I say let these scum sociopaths have their world War three, they’re already using small nuclear weapons on an almost weekly basis anyway, so let’s have at it if they think that a small group of trillionairs and billionaires is a sufficiently large gene pool by which to restore the human population afterwards. I personally am sick of this human scum, the Rockefellers’, Gates, Rothschilds’. We shouldn’t have to endure such trash living on the same planet as the rest of us.
Those who understand that this ‘reset’ is not a reset but rather a whole new proposal on the entire organization of society, but being done through oligarchical methods and without the sort of mandate required in a society governed by laws and not men, are – as we have said – reluctant to admit that a great change is indeed necessary.
Rather, we must understand that the underlying catastrophic economic mechanisms which are forcing this great change exist independently of the coronavirus, and exist independently of the particular changes which the oligarchs promoting their version of a ‘reset’ (read: new proposals) would like to see.
You see, the people and the oligarchs are locked into a single system together. In the long-term, it seems as if the oligarchs are looking for solutions to change that fact, and effect a final solution that grants them an entirely break-away civilization. But at this moment, that is not the case. Yet this system cannot carry forward as it has been, and the Coronavirus presents a reason at once both mysterious in its timing and also profound in its implications, to push forward a new proposal.
We believe that technology is quickly arriving at a point where the vast majority of human beings will be considered redundant. If the technocracy wants to create a walled civilization, and leave the rest of humanity to manage their own lives along some agrarian, mediaeval mode of production, there may indeed be benefits to those who live along agrarian lines. But based in what we know about psychopathy, and the tendency of that among those who govern, such an amicable solution is likely not in the cards.
That is why the anti-lockdown protests are so critically important to endorse. This is precisely because the lockdown measures are used to ban mass public demonstrations, a critical part of pushing public policy in the direction of the interests of the general public. A whole part of the left has been compromised, and rolled out to fight imaginary fascists, by which they mean anyone with conventional social views which predate May of 1968. All the while the actual plutocrats unleash a new system of oligarchical control which, for most, has not been hitherto contemplated except by relatively obscure political scientists, futurists, and science fiction authors.https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/10/18/whose-great-reset-fight-for-our-future-technocracy-vs-republic/
I believe people are quite easily rolled. Went to the supermarket on saturday. It was packed. Probaby a hundred people in there wearing masks. Three or four of us without masks. I for one refuse to live in fear.
Thank you. You are not afraid, but perhaps you had the virus and infected others. You don’t wear a mask primarily to protect yourself, but to protect others. Why is this so hard to grasp?
None of you can grasp this because your paradigm has be shifted over the years. You do not isolate the world because you may get sick you isolate yourself. You do not mask up the world because of fear of a contagion. You wear a mask when you are actually sick. Doctors and nurses wear masks around sick prople not around every person in the world. This is simple paranoia. You are afraid so you wear a mask. It is a sign of submission, paranoia and hypochondria. You are now afraid of germs. In an insane world a sane man will appear insane. This is mass insanity, open your eyes, throw off your fear.
I’m really sad that the situation/debate in the US (and some other countries) has descended to the level of “wearing a mask takes away my freedom”.
There are, as far as I am aware, very few places where it is mandatory to wear masks. However, it is both considerate of others, and a good idea, to wear masks, as it both helps to protect you, and to protect others.
That is, essentially, your social duty. You don’t *have* to do it, but you *should* do it, because of the people around you.
Mask wearing is very common in some Asian countries, such as Japan, China and Sth Korea, particularly in winter (which is flu season). It’s regarded as entirely normal, and people do it out of consideration towards others and to protect themselves. It just seems bizarre to me that in the US some people have turned it into a struggle for freedom.
It is just the new societal norm. Nothing more. A sad commentary on our anxiety filled paranoid society.
Ever wear a seatbelt? Ever get vaccinated? Ever wear a lifejacket? Etc etc….. Ever care about anyone else?
I wear a seatbelt for my own safety not yours. However they should not be mandatory.
so did typhoid mary. the more packed it is, the more necessary wearing a mask is. keep driving drunk and telling yourself it’s for freedom.
Pretzle, never take off your shoes, you may step on a nail. Never take off your mask, you may catch a germ. Never take off your gloves, you may spread germs. Start driving 10 mph below the speed limit, you may save lives. This kind of behavior was considered abnormal anxiety and fear years ago. Now it is considered normal. Throw off your fear and anxiety. Wake up.
The sad thing about this article is that you are absolutely correct. Mark Twain once said: “If voting mattered, they wouldn’t let us do it.” The Americans only elect psychopaths to the presidency. The United States invented the Nuclear Weapon and used it to mass murder Japanese for no reason at all. The establishment still lies to the American People, telling them that the mass murder saved American Lives. Actually Truman Nuked Japan to keep Stalin from taking the country. So the wonderful yankee country committed a massive war crime, started the cold war and now has the population believing they life in the best country in the world. Americans deserve the country they have, they will be really surprised when the shit hits the fan and it isn’t too far away.
A spoiled child is also the hardest one to cope. The wail of anquish from America will be heard around the world when the great reset occurs.
Right on. Again. The one quibble I might have is that the U.S. government does indeed hurt its own citizens on a daily basis through the capitalist system. The huge amount of social inequality, no universal free health care, decrepit public schools and the effort to privatize everything that can be sold, no livable pensions for retirement, the greed of the corporatists, the forcing of “herd immunity” during a deadly pandemic and the blackmailing workers into return to unsafe work places. All of this takes thousands of lives every day, including before the pandemic struck. Police violence, ultra-right militias under “open carry” laws. I could go on.