Caitlin Johnstone

Your Sigh Of Relief Is Grounded In Delusion: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Ahh at long last America is returning to normality: the hub of a globe-spanning empire which rings the planet with military bases and destroys any nation which disobeys it while propagandizing the entire world into supporting its murderousness, without rude tweets. ❖ Biden’s inauguration will be a huge relief for people who aren’t actually affected…

Caitlin Johnstone
, , , ,

Ahh at long last America is returning to normality: the hub of a globe-spanning empire which rings the planet with military bases and destroys any nation which disobeys it while propagandizing the entire world into supporting its murderousness, without rude tweets.

❖

Biden’s inauguration will be a huge relief for people who aren’t actually affected by US government policy.

❖

Americans want to believe Trump was uniquely evil among recent presidents because they want to believe their government will become significantly less evil when he leaves. This is delusional and harmful.

❖

The only way to find Trump’s presidency remarkably awful is to (A) greatly diminish the scale of Bush and Obama’s crimes and (B) believe foreign lives don’t matter. Saying Trump was the worst president, even since the turn of this century, is saying that you’re a shitty person.

❖

Trump was a US president of fairly average depravity surrounded by an ocean of influential narrative managers LARPing about treason and sedition for four years.

So many Trumpers told me he’d free Assange. They were 100% certain Trump was going to get re-elected, drain the swamp, end the wars, and free Assange. He did none of these things. If this is you, please overhaul your worldview and drastically change your media consumption habits.

❖

Arguing that Trump wanted to pardon Assange but Republicans threatened him is just saying Trump wanted to fight the establishment but the establishment told him no.

❖

It’s so crazy how the State Department has been led by a man who is even more evil and disgusting than Trump, and now that man is leaving office without the mass media having given him any critical attention at all.

❖

I haven’t yet figured out how so many Americans manage the cognitive balance of simultaneously (A) thinking their country is the center of the universe and (B) thinking it odd that foreigners would have opinions about their country.

❖

Super excited for America to finally get rid of its racist corrupt right-wing asshole of a president, hopefully by sometime in the next four to eight years.

It’s easy to applaud Martin Luther King Jr when he is dead, when he exists as a legend and you don’t have to meet any of his imperfections and controversies. If you want to know if you would have supported King back in his day, don’t look at King. Look at whether or not you support Julian Assange.

❖

Julian Assange has provided many explosive revelations about the malfeasance of the powerful, but none so explosive as the revelation that the US and its allies will imprison and torture a journalist for exposing US war crimes.

❖

Just tell the truth. Just tell the truth. You will never out-manipulate a manipulator, either in personal relationships or politics. You can’t “capitalize on” this or “leverage” that; they’ll beat you every time. In the battle against the manipulators, truth is our only weapon.

I see socialist groups get behind this or that mainstream liberal agenda like “Hey we can ride the momentum of this to socialist revolution!” No you can’t you sweet precious lamb. You’re swimming with sharks. They’ll take everything you put in and then let you have nothing.

When you’re not a manipulator it’s hard to understand how much better at manipulation a manipulator is than you. They’re SO much better. If you’re a truth teller then you need to drag the battle kicking and screaming into truth like a BJJ black belt taking the fight to the ground.

You’re not going to out-manipulate a globe-spanning empire that is backed by billionaires and powerful intelligence agencies. It will not happen. We make it a battle of truth versus truth, or we lose.

___________________________

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32 responses to “Your Sigh Of Relief Is Grounded In Delusion: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. Anna Avatar
    Anna

    I am making over $9k a month working part time. I stored being attentive to different human beings inform CMs me how much money they are able to make on line so I decided to lok into it.well, it turned into all actual and has completely modified my life.

    That is what I do…..⇢ Click here

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

    QUOTE: “In the battle against the manipulators, truth is our only weapon.”
    Whose truth?
    What truth?
    Everyone has their own “truth.”
    Everyone believes different things.
    The world’s Great Liberator said: “If you persevere in my instructions you will realize the truth and the truth will liberate you.” But for 1700 years the Roman Catholic Church twisted and corrupted His lectures and brilliant revolutionary strategies through translation errors and/or massive censoring of relevant ancient records. This Church is the mother of abominations, collaborating with governments in fraud, mind control and oppression.

    1. Sarah Avatar
      Sarah

      Losing weight in a short space of time has always been thought of as a near impossible task. For years, doctors and dieticians have told the public that it takes months and sometimes even years of hard work to see any progress with weight loss, or to sculpt the perfect body. But that is simply not true at all.

      Read more—>> One Shot Keto

  3. Realist Avatar
    Realist

    Hey, there is some good news today. Read from Sputnik:
    ~
    “The Chinese Foreign Ministry has announced the introduction of sanctions against 28 American “anti-China politicians” whom Beijing accused of carrying out a “series of crazy moves” that gravely undermined China’s interests and US-Chinese relations, offended the Chinese people, and who interfered in the country’s internal affairs. The list included prominent names from the now-former Trump administration such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, ex-National Security Adviser John Bolton and his successor Robert O’Brien, former Chief White House Strategist Stephen Bannon, and Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro. The ministry also slapped sanctions on former Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, Under Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and UN envoy Kelly Craft.”
    ~
    If only the Russians would offer the barbarians running our country a good slap in the face in return for treachery instead of turning the other cheek every time our goons might start to learn that fire burns.
    ~
    National leader of the day: President Xi Jinping

    1. Buffalo_Ken Avatar
      Buffalo_Ken

      Realist – I like this. Fight fire with fire is what they say.
      ~
      They also say, if somebody lies to you time and time again, then you must be a fool if you ever believe them again – regardless of the representative they throw in front of you. It is all the same and they are all of bunch of sick liars who are fixing to face the cliff of their own creation.
      ~
      So, don’t believe them. Not a one of them. They are all the same.
      ~
      Take solace in this. Soon the ones who want to make some sort of enemy out of the other countries who care about their citizens for the sake of their own pscychopathic super sick group hating gain, will one at a time have to face the justice of the harm they have caused to innocence. One at a time their blood will flow. Seriously – what other options are there now? I hope you are with me on this because it is obvious once you get deep down in the hole. The hole of pain.
      ~
      Go Bills!

      1. Anna Avatar
        Anna

        I am making over $9k a month working part time. I stored being attentive to different human beings inform me how much money they are able to make on line so I decided to lok into it. CMs well, it turned into all actual and has completely modified my life.

        That is what I do…..⇢ Click here

    2. Jack Oliver Avatar
      Jack Oliver

      Russia are comfortable in the fact that they are militarily invincible !!
      Russia has already kicked out any de- stabilising NGO’s !

      The west are doing a good job of destroying themselves !

      “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them as much “ Oscar Wilde

  4. Buffalo_Ken Avatar
    Buffalo_Ken

    No chance in hell. Have you been there? I think I have been, but I might be delusional. The truth hurts sometimes, but I don’t mind dishing out the pain of truth.
    ~
    Tell me what you want to know and I’ll tell you what I think.
    ~
    BK

    1. Buffalo_Ken Avatar
      Buffalo_Ken

      This post was meant for Mr. Tom W. just below.
      ~
      I think this place has been a bit infected, but it don’t matter cause the author still has much wisdom to share.
      ~
      Learn or Die and Fight or be killed!
      ~
      Blue pill or red that is the world we live in, so it will be better for you if you took the red pill. I hope you did, but I really don’t care cause………

  5. Tom Wiersma Avatar
    Tom Wiersma

    More sad shit on its way. Scrabbling about to fix a pandemic, then, likely no change in foreign policy. The first thing they could do is give Venezuela back its democractic goverment. But what chance?

  6. HISTORICVS Avatar
    HISTORICVS

    It’s an oddly sad day. Not for the departure of Trump, but for the end of a most fascinating spectacle, a vicious dogfight among rival factions of the ruling class, right out in public for all to see. The pity of it is that there is no American Left, that could have taken advantage of this historic opportunity to split them apart permanently. And Trump alas showed us once again, as if proof were needed, that the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. The establishment very effectively plugged the loopholes that allowed the leftist rebellions of the Sixties; Biden and crew will relentlessly do the same for rightists in the Twenties. In the final analysis there is no Left and Right among the people in the eyes of the handful of men who make all the decisions, only cattle to exploit.

    1. Buffalo_Ken Avatar
      Buffalo_Ken

      Yo HISTORICVS,
      ~
      I appreciate reading what you are thinking in a way, but I think you are wrong.
      ~
      John Brown knew this. His only problem was he turned into a martyr for the cause, and we have all had enough of them.
      ~
      I don’t want anymore martyrs, but lets be honest with each other – martyrs will show up on their own accord. Good for them I suppose, but if you are dead how are you going to make a difference for the future?
      ~
      I refuse to accept the lies anymore and I’m not alone and the spooks are fixing to get scared because let me tell you, when you go down deep enough, then spooks are like a joke that you flick off in a heartbeat!
      ~
      Let there be blood is what I think!

  7. Levi Tate Avatar
    Levi Tate

    Biden: “hold still while I punch you some more”.
    ​
    “Biden calls for an end to ‘uncivil war’”
    according to a headline about his so-called inauguration speech.
    ​
    Biden’s calls for unity and ending ‘uncivil war’ are
    akin to saying:
    ​
    “hold still while I punch you some more”.

    1. Buffalo_Ken Avatar
      Buffalo_Ken

      Agreed.
      ~
      I refuse to hold still. Always have since I was just a little kid who grew up in Buffalo!
      ~
      The psychopaths are deluding themselves if they think the People are stupid collectively.
      ~
      They are fixing to learn the reality that the POWER is with the People. Always has been and always will be, so individuals who cause suffering of innocence are fixing to learn the hard way – sad it had to go down like this. They were warned, but they dismissed the warnings as idle chatter amongst those who had been ostracized and belittled and pushed off to the side.
      ~
      That is how it seems to me. What do you think?
      ~
      Go Bills!

  8. Buffalo_Ken Avatar
    Buffalo_Ken

    Here is a quick poem off the cuff for today’s day of military occupation-industrial complex (so-to-speak) inauguration situation in the made up city of DC:

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~of the cuff~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    delusion, confusion, conflation – inflation?
    ~
    Who knows what is what these days?
    ~
    Mommy daddy clinton and the BO hombre, got together and laughed….sort of.
    They was having a good time and the spittle fell from their aging tongues – they were sickening
    ~
    The planes flew overhead, some making a deep rumbling.
    The rumbling spoke of something wrong.
    ~
    Lies, lies, lies, lies
    The People were getting tired
    ~
    of the gubment
    full of lies for all to sense.
    ~
    Can you smell the reckoning coming?
    Can you hear it…taste it – FEEL it!
    Can ya?
    ~
    When you see it in your face all you pompous ones,
    just remember this-
    ~
    It was predicted in this very way.
    The reckoning is a coming!

    end of poem off the cuff by:
    BK

  9. Newton Finn Avatar
    Newton Finn

    Disagree with Caitlin on one point. With Biden, awful as he is, America and the world (inextricably linked) have an OUTSIDE chance to BEGIN to turn things around. With Trump, we had NONE. That’s the truth as I see it, the truth which Caitlin wisely calls our only effective weapon in this fight against the evil around us, inside us. Truth has two sides IMHO: recognition of reality, however horrible, AND openness to possibility, however remote. Lose that subtle balance, tilt too far to one side, and you lose a piece of the truth, perhaps the most important piece for the hour at hand.

  10. Carolyn L Zaremba Avatar
    Carolyn L Zaremba

    You write: “I see socialist groups get behind this or that mainstream liberal agenda like “Hey we can ride the momentum of this to socialist revolution!” No you can’t you sweet precious lamb. You’re swimming with sharks. They’ll take everything you put in and then let you have nothing.”

    Those people are not socialists. The Socialist Equality Party is the only real socialist party, and we do NOT get behind this or that mainstream liberal ANYTHING. We warn people about those we call the pseudo-left every day of the week, every week of the year. In particular, the Democratic Socialists of America are not socialists. They are the leftish wing of the Democratic Party. Please stop using the term socialist when referring to bourgeois liberals posting as socialists, Caitlin.

    1. Caitlin Johnstone Avatar
      Caitlin Johnstone

      SEP jumped in on the whole shitlib “It was a COUP!” line, which is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about here. Socialists, yes socialists, do this sort of thing all the time.

  11. Comorbidity 2024 Avatar
    Comorbidity 2024

    Voting, markets, crypto, meditation, racism, socialism, narrative, onlineism, self-isolation… The abstractions the bourgeois will reify to rationalize their disembodiment is exceeded by only their cowardice.

    “I’m telling you, you don’t know what a revolution is, because when you find out what it is, you’ll get back in the alley. You’ll get out of the way….

    You haven’t got a revolution that doesn’t involve bloodshed. And you’re afraid to bleed. I said you’re afraid to bleed…”

    Malcolm X

  12. JWK Avatar
    JWK

    Indeed Caitlin, we can’t compete with a cadre of professional manipulators who constantly practice their trade all day every day without distraction, with a cast of likewise professional psychological advisers assisting them. We can’t out do them in our spare time. Trump was a blip, an unapproved candidate who was a part of the oligarchy, but not an approved political part. People who disapproved of the machine voted for him. Their mistake was expecting him to do anything about the oligarch machine. Voting for him was a legitimate objection to the machine. Praising and supporting him wasn’t. In fact it detracted from the appearance of the legitimacy of their objection. Trump was neither the evil the left purports him to be, nor the saint the right does. Just another POTUS fulfilling the needs of his fellow Psychopaths In Charge.

  13. jmg Avatar
    jmg

    Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
    > Arguing that Trump wanted to pardon Assange but Republicans threatened him is just saying Trump wanted to fight the establishment but the establishment told him no.
    .
    Right now on Twitter, at 2.7K retweets, 112 quote tweets, 15.2K likes:
    .
    “This is how the conversation between Trump and Mitch should have gone
    “MM: ‘Pardon Assange and we’ll convict you in the Senate.’
    “DJT: ‘Oh really? Is there anyone else you don’t want me to pardon? Because they suddenly moved to the top of the list.’”
    .
    Will Chamberlain — Jan 20, 2021 — 2:22 UTC/GMT
    https://twitter.com/willchamberlain/status/1351716776762105864
    .
    .
    Welcome back to the fight…
    .
    #WeAreAllAssange
    https://twitter.com/hashtag/weareallassange
    .
    We Are Julian Assange — #WeAreMillions photo campaign by Courage Foundation
    https://wearemillions.org
    .
    .
    Roman herald: “By command of His Most Merciful Excellency, your lives are to be spared. Slaves you were and slaves you remain. But the terrible penalty of crucifixion has been set aside on the single condition that you identify the body or the living person of the slave called Spartacus.”
    .
    Spartacus: [rises to speak]
    .
    Antoninus: “I’m Spartacus!”
    .
    All slaves: “I’m Spartacus!”
    .
    “I’m Spartacus!” — Spartacus (1960)

  14. Khatika Avatar
    Khatika

    Trump pardoned Lil Wayne the rapper instead of Assange. I am sure it was a tough choice for him.

  15. Khatika Avatar
    Khatika

    Speaking of MLK. It is funny how his family took his dead legend to rake in cash and how the black political community made him about civil rights. In truth he was for peace, antiwar and brotherhood for all men. They even manipulate and use you when you are dead.

  16. Khatika Avatar
    Khatika

    Cailin, you are on a role. Another really good matrix article.

  17. Realist Avatar
    Realist

    Uncle Joe may not be Pol Pot but the Democrat zealots he has behind him seem almost as fanatical as the Khmer Rouge were. They may not be gonna start with firing squads to purge the ideologically impure but they may end up there the way they are already going.
    ~
    You’ve got the DC mayor calling for the termination of national guardsmen with “conflicting views” before the inauguration. The next logical step would be to purge the officer corp.
    ~
    Killery and Nutty Nancy are calling for a 9-11 like congressional investigation of the Trump-Putin relationship. “All roads lead to Putin,” who gave Trump his orders, they say. This is above and beyond the inquiry the Dems have planned for the so-called insurrection purportedly fomented by Trump.
    ~
    “Borat” (Socha Baron Cohen, whom I thought was a British subject) wants Trump banned from YouTube for good, not just until the “liberal” nouveau riche Silicon Valley oligarchs see fit to let him resume his first amendment rights. The next logical step will be the “conservative” old line corporate media monopolists just getting that pesky line of text stricken from the constitution.
    ~
    Democratic “big heat” like Senator Chris Murphy and actress Alyssa Milano who thinks she’s Democratic big heat have been pushing for the expulsion of about 11 GOP senators, including most prominently Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, for daring to challenge, as was their right under the protocols in the constitution, some of the electors from critical swing states in the January 5th counting of the actual ballots in the Capitol Building which was abruptly adjourned because of the putative “coup d’etat” by an alleged army of Trump guerilla fighters.
    ~
    And now we have Democratic big-heat wanna-be sportscaster Keith Olbermann demanding that American Olympic athletes who demonstrated in support of Trump at the Capitol be stripped of the medals they won at the games, not just charged with any pertinent crimes they may have committed on site…as if the two things have anything at all to do with each other. Next he will demand forfeiture of all family property, if he thinks this election has put the nation on the road to his favorite expressions of tyranny.
    ~
    Sounds like the fanatics of the new regime want to see blood in the streets, does it not? No doubt there will be hell to pay if the likes of Michael Moore, Rob Reiner, Robert De Niro, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher and the rest of their fellow celebrity zealots don’t get revenge they seek against their chosen targets.

  18. Keith Hayes (K-Dog) Avatar
    Keith Hayes (K-Dog)

    Trump jumped the shark. Trump idolization of Mussolini went too far and he incited a riot. People died.
    –

    –

    Woman with ‘Don’t tread on me’ flag trampled to death at Capitol riot.
    –
    https://www.dailydot.com/debug/woman-with-dont-tread-on-me-flag-trampled-to-death-at-capitol-riot/

    .

  19. Roy Booher Avatar
    Roy Booher
  20. Stephen Verchinski Avatar
    Stephen Verchinski

    A permanent war economy is a bargain with death and not life.

    We either have common cause with death or with life.

  21. jimmy gulag Avatar
    jimmy gulag

    nice. again. i might, no surely…yep….have ended with “truth vs lies”…because i don’t believe anything i hear and only half of what i see….my Mama taught me that…
    she was from ’30’s and WWII w/ Churchill and all that jazz.
    Mom said to me, and nodded yep, “our war was a good war.” As they told me conspiratorially, that even if i went to Sweden they’d help to the Max. Well, i chose to squirm through the reserves…a nervous breakout, psoriasis, colon ripping, drunken 6 year bacchanal…of here today, splattered all over the jungle to mort tow…an’ so voila!

    the MIC constantly lies. State lies presidents lie colory revolutions are not real revolts. we do not NOT invade nations to save democracy. sanctions are wars against kids not dictators. sanctions just make the peephole more tired and sick and easier for the strong man–who eats well–to control. lies are more common than truth in GOVT quotes….
    the only truth so far is accidental, and then AOC. et crew. of course…and cait, + lotsa great people who think….

  22. ron campbell Avatar
    ron campbell

    “We make it a battle of truth versus truth, or we lose.” Ah Ms Johnstone again speaks the truth, Bravo!

  23. Jan Avatar
    Jan

    This is further supported by the article: The Deep State’s Stealthy, Subversive, Silent Coup to Ensure Nothing Changes

    By John W. Whitehead
    January 19, 2021

    at http://www.rutherford.org.

    1. Keith Hayes (K-Dog) Avatar
      Keith Hayes (K-Dog)

      The article gets close to the truth, a good read. But reality sez Trump jumped the shark. The minute I knew Trumps Twitter was not going to tweet I knew a counter coup was going on. That was the Silent Coup. The deep state protecting itself. The duopoly will be defended. The Democratic Machine and the Republican Machine are there to shield the workings of the Imperial Machine. Keeping layers of abstraction around the Imperial Machine misdirects the People Machine and keeps them from becoming a threat. Trump was a threat hand had to go.

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