One of the most consequential collective delusions circulating in our society is the belief that our society is free. Our society is exactly free enough to create the illusion that we have freedom; from that line onwards it’s just totalitarianism veiled in propaganda.
I get comments from people every day wagging their fingers at my criticisms of western imperialist agendas against nations like China or Iran saying “If you lived over there you wouldn’t be allowed to criticize the government the way you criticize western governments!”
It is true that dissidents are permitted to criticize the government systems of the US-centralized empire to an extent, but only to an extent. Yes, as long as my criticisms of capitalism, oligarchy and imperialism remain relegated to the fringes of influence I am indeed permitted to express my views unmolested. If however I somehow ascended to a position of significant mainstream influence I would be targeted and smeared until my reputation was ruined or I had a psychological breakdown and went away. You may be certain of this.
The managers of empire do not work to crush and silence all dissent like a conventional totalitarian regime would do. They are much more clever than that.
In a society that maintains the illusion of freedom in order to prevent outrage and revolution, it does not serve rulers to stifle all dissent. Just the opposite in fact: their interests are served by having a small number of dissidents hanging around the fringes of society creating the illusion of freedom. If Johnny Hempshirt over there is allowed to stand on a soapbox and criticize the US war machine, then the US must be a free country.
So they don’t work to silence all dissent. What they do is work to make sure that dissent never hits a critical mass and goes mainstream. That’s their sweet spot. That’s what the entire imperial propaganda engine is geared toward accomplishing. Not to eliminate socialist and anti-imperialist voices, but to make sure they never attain enough influence to be politically consequential.
This is why you rarely see anyone who opposes the empire platformed on mainstream media. The imperial narrative managers work to shrink the Overton window of acceptable debate to get people arguing about how best to support imperial interests, rather than arguing about whether those interests should be supported or whether there should be an empire at all. Having on people who oppose imperialism, oligarchy and capitalism would widen that Overton window, which is against the empire’s interests.
This is also why you saw the imperial narrative managers completely lose their minds during the Tulsi Gabbard presidential campaign. It wasn’t because they feared she could win the election, it was because there was a US congresswoman standing on mainstream liberal platforms criticizing certain critical aspects of US warmongering. Someone had attained a position of influence and was using that influence to disrupt narratives that are very important for powerful people to maintain. She therefore needed to be smeared very aggressively to nullify the influence she was having.
So the good news is that they can’t get rid of us altogether or they’ll shatter the illusion of freedom, while the bad news is that they’re working tirelessly to prevent us from ever attaining a critical mass of political consequence. Our job is to find a way to outmaneuver them and attain that critical mass anyway so that we can use the power of our numbers to force real change. We know they can’t shut us down completely or else they’ll break the illusion of freedom and lose the ability to propagandize effectively, which is an ability the entire empire depends upon.
Our job is to wake up the mainstream public. This is very feasible, as trust in the imperial media is at an all-time low while our ability to network and share information is at an all-time high. It does mean we need to stop thinking of ourselves as radicals (we’re not radical, we’re just sane) and push inward from the fringes to the heart of the mainstream public as hard as we can.
We’ve got creativity, inspiration and humor on our side, and if we can wake up a critical mass of people to the fact that they live in a profoundly unfree society disguised by propaganda we’ll have the numbers too. We absolutely can win this thing, we just have to push hard enough for it.
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94 responses to “They Don’t Work To Kill All Dissent, They Just Keep It From Going Mainstream”
If however I somehow ascended to a position of significant mainstream influence I would be targeted and smeared until my reputation was ruined or I had a psychological breakdown and went away.
Or assassinated like MLK was when he started working with the labor movement.
It is definitely a heart shattering human tragedy when half a million, and counting, innocent Americans die unnecessarily, because of criminal conspiracy. But where is that same heartfelt American grief for those many millions of innocents abroad, whose lives it shatters daily, by its inhumane interference in, and mistreatment of the ‘other’ through its foreign policy actions?
Let’s not quibble over the factual details here!
President Biden makes a speech mourning this COVID-19 related loss of life; most unnecessarily.
That’s what the likes of a Biden and his cohort in governance just don’t get! We are all, without exception, ordinary Americans (human beings). No one is more special than another under the symbolic ‘covers’ we wear.
This is merely in the ego of the eye of the beholder speaking; seeing all Americans as “extraordinary”. However, this is but the political rhetoric of the notion of fork-tongued American exceptionalism in action. “…We have to resist viewing each life as a statistic.” (WSJ) Isn’t this precisely what the functioning of an entire society is based upon? This is what this economic foundation – based solely on an unbridled neoliberal corporate capitalism, has been promoting since its inception, both domestically and globally for generations now? Every living person of heart and sentience is reduced to a statistical matériel commodity, whereby the value of each rests solely upon its utility to the private profits of the owners of this too narrowly focused egregious system; the survival and thriving of an actual ‘humanity’ in toto, be damned!
This is the “bill of ‘goods’” that American’s have bought (have been forced to swallow) hook, line and sinker. America, as it is today; if not the global failed state, is the tragedy of the world.
Does Mr. Biden, who obviously shows the grief he feels for his own flesh and blood, truly feel the same for all those other nameless innocents, both domestic and foreign that America kills and maims, either by proxy or directly, in the name of humanity and democracy?
The only “extraordinary” is the hypocrisy in the deception, of the fact, that they are unwilling to see themselves as the perpetrators of the iniquity of the global tragedy that their inhumanity has brought about. This blindness, as to the polarity in conscience, comes about through the willful (egotistical) focus on short-term gain for the few, and long-term draining of the many. And, by now, they have accrued the necessary power to proceed further, unimpeded… unless.
Fill in the blank with broad imagination!
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I often admonish people to go letter to the editor route. I moved to TN about 5 years ago. 3 years ago I sent my first article in. I was pleasantly shocked when it got published. After continued success, I decided to widen my horizen. I took out e – subcriptions to 3 papers in other cities. Some were introductory rates, $3 for 3 months. If they didn’t publish any of my submissions, I didn’t renew. One paper in a college town has published all 5 of my letters.
Sometimes I miss AOL chat. Specially when I see comments written by ordinary people and bots on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and whatever else. At least we knew the point of being there at that time.
Thanks for the photo of Kacey Hunt that morning on Mourning Joe. I saw it at the gym with the sound off, but immediately noticed her Angry Birds frown. It was a sight to behold.
You wrote about Assange a while ago. Look up H. Rap. Brown and what happened and what is still happening. Same shit different decade or century.
Once upon a time in a different time and place, I believed it was possible to get enough people onboard to break through the propaganda illusion because of how obvious it all was (and is today, even more so), at least to me. It made me feel like how Cassandra (Greek mythology) must have felt!
The reason I don’t think it possible anymore, to get people to realize how they are being played? You left out the “bread and circuses” aspect in your article. And the ability of people to remember how to use critical thinking when vetting information.
As a college instructor, I have been calling attention FOR YEARS to what was/is happening to our students. Instead of being taught critical thinking, they are being inculcated with the propaganda. Heck, let’s call it what it really is – brainwashing. MK Ultra yielded a lot of information, don’t you know.
Needless to say, I am persona non grata at the school where I work. I have come to not giving a flying fig anymore and vacillate between thinking people of this ilk should be pitied and people of this ilk will get what they deserve. I continue to do well by my students and have avoided being doxed by any student for marching to the beat of a different drum – though every semester is another game of Russian roulette until I am reported by a snowflake for making them feel unsafe/hurting their feelings/not being progressive enough/et al/ad nauseam.
To summarize: the reason people of the USA will never understand because we’ve lost the young whippersnappers to the propaganda – they believe they know it all and have already stopped growing and maturing.
Sirena, you are not alone in feeling this way. Do know that more and more people are waking up. Even if people like you just plant a seed in their minds, they will begin to perceive things with a somewhat broader understanding of the world. Educators are incredibly important, so don’t ever fear speaking out. If nothing else, explain why civil liberties are so important. Tell them that all evil dictatorial regimes began with the understanding that they were trying to improve society and enact changes “for the safety and benefit of the people.”
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I used to be a public school teacher, and have always been a staunch supporter of unions, but the past few years (really accelerating throughout 2020) have taught me that schools are nothing more than indoctrination centers. I am starting to really favor a voucher system where parents can use the same (or slightly less) amount of money to educate their children in whatever way they choose. Parents could send their kids to private schools, form coops with other parents, or homeschool…or whatever new options they might dream up. It would be entirely up to them, and their decisions would be final. Quite frankly, I’ve know a number of families who “unschooled” their kids, and in nearly every case, those kids turned out to be smarter (many entrepreneurs and college graduates who scored very well), more confident, more engaged with the world, and more socially stable than their public school counterparts.
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I think we need to seriously consider abolishing the public school system.
I feel like there is a need for a good song in the conversation of many minds and many ideas. All that is good and music is where it is at! That and Mutual Aid if you give a flip.
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Here is the song I have in mind.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgHnqTmKhoc
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Its a Saturday where I am at, is is February 20, 2021, and one year ago I fell in love even more than I already was. I didn’t think it was possible, but there you go…..it is good to learn.
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The author of this article never mentions the role the United States government had in creating and supporting the massive killing that has ravaged Chile for many, many years. Any new constitution there is not going to stop that rampant killing anytime soon.
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This article can be read here:
The Need for Accountability Over Impunity in Chile by Ramona Wadi!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/20/the-need-for-accountability-over-impunity-in-chile/
it’s a lot worse than all that, because that little bit of control can take away the minds of all generations. In essence they will all be reduced to mindless beast of burden. So, in essence you all are already dead, you’re all clueless though you just don’t know it. And no doubt this comment will be altered by the censor before it is posted, just like the other one. Yup, they did, anyway, there’s a lot of chatter on the internet that soon we’ll all be dead, including the censors; the censors fail to realize that the same game that they are playing on us is being played on them and so too on their master’s minds as well, soon, just as you think you’ve won you’ve lost.
I am coming out of the closet…I will be 64 years old this year. I have been targeted since at least my late teens. I’ve struggled with hate and love and life and death. I choose Life and Love.
it’s a lot worse than all that, because that little bit of control can take away the minds of all generations. In essence they will all be reduced to mindless beast of burden. So, in essence you all are already dead, you’re all clueless though you just don’t know it. And no doubt this comment will be altered by the censor before it is posted, just like the other one.
unfortunately my observation has been extreme stupidity
I like you. I takes courage and a deep sense of responsibility to recognize a mistake.
You seem to have grown more than the world at large has. It’s not just, “just”, it is as Caitlin has said, who controls the narrative controls your mind.
It is nice that some of the ” teflon ” surrounding Andrew Cuomo is finally fading fast.
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This article can be read here:
Covid Karma: United States Lockdown Kings Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo Suffer Political Fallout by Robert Bridge!
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/20/covid-karma-us-lockdown-kings-gavin-newsom-and-cuomo-suffer-political-fallout/
Caitlin, I am a conservative and I love your blog.
It is my belief that there is overlap between the conservative position and progressive position.
Namely, distrust in a hegemonic media/government power structure.
How can we come together despite our differences?
Vincent,
I’d be very interested in your thoughts regarding the book “The Reality Creators.” I can send you a pdf copy — my email is chris.dancefarm@gmail.com
It’s written in such a way as to bridge the gap and explore what we all have in common.
Christopher Hall
Vincent, a lot of people are thinking the way you do and trying to overcome this divide and get out of our boxes. Please think about ways this could happen and share your ideas with the world. https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-boxes-we-live-in-3b702fa7c516
Vincent, I agree 100% and have both conservative and progressive views. I think that if we shrink the number of issues about which the government should have control, we can work together in a diplomatic and harmonious way, without expecting the other side(s) to agree with us all the time or live under our dominion. I believe that a majority of the population would agree with the following, and would love to hear the input of others regarding these issues:
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1.) Anti-authoritarianism:
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— Each nation-state is sovereign, and every country has the right to self-determination. This includes their ability to decide for themselves what kind of economic, political, cultural, educational, religious, etc. system they want in their country. The only laws that would apply across nations would be the right to emigrate (nobody can be held in a country against their will, especially if they are being targeted in some way), and no country would be allowed to have control over another without the consent of the citizens of that less-powerful country (all backed by a contract that could be enforced by a UN-type peacekeeping/negotiating entity).
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-Every person is sovereign and cannot be surveilled or incarcerated without due process; this due process requiring a free, high-quality public defense and a neutral judge/jury. Every person is entitled to equal protection under the law.
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2.) Decentralization: This would include putting a cap on the power of nation-states, governments (of all types), corporations, and individuals. It’s not capitalism or communism that causes nations to fail, it is the concentration of wealth and power that pose the greatest threat to humanity. This ties in with #1 because nations and people do not have sovereignty or the right to self-determination when there exists a power structure that is large enough and powerful enough to easily oppress said nation and/or people.
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3.) Anti-war: This ties in with both #1 and #2 (what doesn’t?). No nation has the right to claim rights to another nation’s resources or to force their will on another nation. All countries have the right to an equally strong defense. Offensive weapons should exclude nuclear, radiological, biological, chemical weapons, and unmanned drones or robots of any kind. “Technologically enhanced” soldiers would likewise be banned.
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4.) Civil liberties: The U.S. Constitution could be a guide, particularly the Bill of Rights.
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-All people would have the absolute right to free speech with extremely limited exceptions — direct threats of imminent physical or financial harm to a person or well-defined group of people (includes doxxing) would not be covered under free speech laws. That’s all that should be excluded, IMHO. This includes all media and journalism, whether they are licensed (a gate-keeping method to silence opposition) or not.
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All other issues should be reserved to the local level, and nation-states would be permitted to join larger associations of states in order to provide general assistance, or to trade, etc., but the individual states should have the unassailable right to govern itself outside of the specific issues included in the contracts that would govern these associations.
Maybe stop making fun of “woke” people for starters?
When the heart is failing, it is time for a transplant, if one wishes to keep the body alive. It may be dangerous, exhausting and long and drawn out. But it is necessary, if the body is to survive.
The same is true of political, social and financial systems, if the greater body, the country, is to survive. I don’t have all the answers as to how those positions are to be cast aside, like an old heart, but they must be – in favor of a radically (sane) new system that criminalizes the abuses of the corrupt current system but which, first and foremost, puts the needs and well-being of the people – all of the people – first.
It’s a difficult, likely long-drawn out operation, but the patient is currently on life-support. Our option is our choice; pull the plug or step up with life-saving surgery.
When I was 19, my dad took me on a trip to London, where he had lived for four years. We went to the speakers’ corner in Hyde Park, where any number of (mostly) men literally stood on soapboxes to expound their “free speech” views. Very astutely, my dad noted that having this speakers’ corner accomplished two things for the government in power: 1) it allowed those with radical ideas in conflict with the ruling class narrative to let off steam; and 2) those same people were out in the open where they could be identified by the authorities in case they became too influential. Much more clever than brute repression, said my father.
Very true. It’s why the right to be anonymous (as a journalist, author, or random person on the internet) is so important.
The ruling elites whose fortunes were made by selling out America to China have had enough of commoner’s rights and are putting us back in our places. The American experiment is over and it will be 1% authoritarian rule over the 99% as it has always been worldwide throughout history. Say goodbye forever to the middle class via more lockdowns and say goodbye to the Bill of Rights.
Prepare yourselves for the purge that is coming. You will either be forced to acquiesce to the leftist propaganda LIE or you will purged from society. Independent news sites like this one will have a choice to make very soon. Conform to the left’s delusion or be removed from the internet period. The FCC will be run by the same big tech that already does whatever it wants.
Do not acquiesce and accept the LIE or you will be condemned along with them.
Do not take up arms and fight, or you will condemn yourself along with them.
Do not flee and hide, in so doing you will lose your reward.
Stand with Christ and die for His Name and you will rule and reign with Him very soon.
https://www.jesussaidwhat.com/tribulation-is-not-coming-it-is-her
Australia, what have you done.
https://news.yahoo.com/facebook-blocks-news-australia-dozens-004256253.html
Anglos love being told what to put in their bodies as much as they love perpetual house arrest.
https://mobile.twitter.com/nationalpost/status/1362075379637358598
Bravo! A crucial insight! Thank you Caitlin Johnstone.
Phil Donahue and Dan Rather are two I can think of immediately who learned their lesson the hard way. Nowadays, if you’re on TV or write for a major publication, you are a CIA stenographer. All the real journalists have been relegated to the internet, or some are lucky enough to get on some satellite TV providers.
What’s really pissing off the PTB is that their audiences are still growing. For now they are just refining the search engines to make their articles and websites harder to find, but I’ll bet dollars to donuts that will change within the next four years.
Has anyone noticed the trend of layering sites to other sites. When this hapoens you often cannot post or see all comments or information. Sometimes articles change. I think this is a dangerous trend. It even happens on this site. Google will layer it with a google suffix. Below I was initially layered with whotrades which made linking impossible. Anyone else notice this trend.
Caitlin says: “Our job is to wake up the mainstream public. This is very feasible….” She’s certainly right about the job, but she’s also certainly wrong about it’s feasibility. That much should be strikingly clear by now. “The mainstream public” is not only captured by the PTB, but likes it that way. Has “the mainstream public” ever been able to think for itself, see a shared reality, and come together in effective action to address the challenges of that reality? Perhaps now and then in the past you can find an exceptional example or two where this occurred, but the need to search for an exception only proves the rule. No, our only hope lies in the enlightenment of enough of our elite masters, who then can condition “the mainstream public” to move in the right direction to begin to improve the health of people and planet. For example, while I’m well aware of their shortcomings and blind spots, including but not limited to an overvaluation of technology, I’m starting more and more to warm up to Bill and Melinda Gates.
Ugh. Mr. & Mrs. Satan. Perfect. *rollseyes*
What are their shortcomings and blind spots?
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What, precisely, are you warming up to?
They’re enthralled with the upside of tech but not sufficiently aware of the downside. And that downside can be big, especially when the tech gets into the hands of the wrong people, which it inevitably does. They also seem to avoid getting into the crucial issue of imperial war, which is obviously a huge and pressing concern, etc. On the other hand, I think they’re largely well-meaning people, at least as much as insanely privileged people can be, and propose, as Thoreau said his village neighbors didn’t, “greatly to do right.” They’ve pledged to contribute their obscene wealth to the cause of making the world a better place, and their foundation is involved in lifting some of the poorest of the poor in what Trump called shithole countries. I could go on with their good deeds and also talk more about their shortcomings (which we all have), but the most important thing IMHO is that they get the absolute necessity of a Great Reset to save both people and planet, recognizing that our pre-pandemic way of life was utterly ecocidal. Frankly, I find myself more encouraged in this regard by the recent Davos rhetoric than by the kind of prophetic but inherently marginalized language I read here. Don’t get me wrong, I love Caitlin’s work and can’t wait to read it as she puts it out. But the necessary action, if there is to be any, will come from the more enlightened among the Davos set, not from the dissidents, who are good at deconstructing but not at constructing that new and better world they so rightly demand.
Sorry, but Bill and Melinda Gates are pure evil. Do you really believe that they aren’t aware of the downsides (putting it mildly) of big tech? The “downsides” are precisely their goals. Understand that they set up their foundation for two reasons: to avoid paying taxes and to project their control well after their deaths.
The Davos crowd (some of the wealthiest and most powerful people on the planet) and their “Great Reset” are not about saving the earth or saving humanity. Dig deeper into what they (and the Green New Deal folks…same thing are trying to do. They want to establish “public-private partnerships” where private interests, in which they’ve been heavily invested, will benefit from government mandates and quotas that will shift us from a natural to a synthetic lifestyle. Their goal is to inventory, surveil, and control all living and non-living things on the planet. They are trying to centralize control and reinstate a feudal system (many royal family members are involved, coincidentally) where people will no longer have sovereignty or private property — we will all be renting it from the global oligarchs (see Bill’s patent, linked below, to see how they might go about controlling our work and our ability to earn a living and buy/rent things).
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Review these links and then tell us how you feel about Bill Gates:
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database/Grants/2018/11/OPP1199760
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Bill Gates: people will not have a choice regarding vaccines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE518ans5dM&feature=emb_logo
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Patent to harvest energy produced by people’s brainwaves and physical activities:
https://news.bitcoin.com/microsoft-cryptocurrency-system/
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Gates: “We’ll have to prepare for the next one…that, I’ll say, will get their attention…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8f27ta1uu0
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https://summit.news/2021/02/08/robert-f-kennedy-jr-pens-encyclopedic-account-of-bill-gates-neo-feudalism/
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Yes. Thanks for laying out there. We can do without Mr. & Mrs. Gates.
Of course, your points are well taken and made, since they conform exactly to my thinking :). One way to get around this juggernaut is to create a giant network of networks of millions to billions of like minded individuals, groups, orgs., and networks with state of the art tools for collaboration and organizing. This is what we have been working on since March, 2020. Now, we are at the point of finding how to collaborate with and and all who are doing something similar or the same. Problems such as interoperability, database sharing, maintaining sovereignty and brands, etc. make it difficult. But we will find a way. Any IT experts are welcome to help. utopiacornucopia.org, mofwoofoo@gmail.com.
I hope those “state-of-the-art tools” will have ways to counter internal sabotage within open groups and open societies. This problem seems to requires new thinking on the sophistication level of game theory.
Of course, that is being taken into account.
This is why roger Waters is so courageous. He is risking the John Lennon treatment; being silenced by a bullet.
I don’t watch TV, but does Roger Waters get any MSM exposure anymore? Lennon was always doing outrageous stuff and people saw a lot of it on their TV sets. This was before the propaganda model had reached perfect implementation. The biggest platform I see Roger Waters on nowadays is Consortium News.
He mainly shows up on social.media, whereupon an army of Zionists surrounds him, screaming things like “crazy anti-Semite! Your music sucks!”
It’s all really predictable and really absurd.
At any rate, I think I’ve seen him get MSM exposure maybe twice in the last few years.
Oriana Fallaci whose books ‘A Man’ and ‘Inshallah’ were insightful if not revelatory, wrote
that ‘words are the real bullets.’ When words as reason fail, body bags can become the
new words. There’s no guarantee that either words or body bags will lead to truth as an
end. WWII ended with tens of millions dead, and yet the US picked up the Nazi guide on
and marched into the future we know today.
Most of what we talk about is already within the realm of public opinion, maybe within
this Overton window as Caitlin uses. New ideas are outside the realm of public opinion.
Also they are generational. New generations don’t necessarily change anything but when
change does occur, it will come from a historical generation. A new generation begins
in 2022, calculated in 15 year increments from 1917 which saw the advent of both
Communism and Fascism. Though the Millennials may yet propose a new idea. Yanis
Varofakis of my boomer generation or one younger, say the Vietnam generation, is
proposing some new ideas of economy worth listening to if not closing ranks with.
But what’s really needed at this juncture of historical crisis, is a new revelation not
unlike what the Cartesian revelation was to the theocratic world order which fell into
historical crisis circa 1350 with a loss of faith in the order, to day we would say system.
We need a new revelation a new universal idea beyond Cartesian Idealism that has
prevailed since 1650. We need a new revelation bringing about a new order for this
our Carsonian epoch of ecology and climate change with concomitant problems of
world over population and intolerable inequality that is a product of deliberate
manipulation by that elite 1%. We saw this before circa la belle epoch in 1870’s to
the first world war, and then the second convolution to follow to prove that the first
was not even the greatest slaughter to end all wars.
The US is indeed where Nazi Germany was in 1938, Iraq and Libya are the
Czechoslovakia and Sudetenland of a century ago, Poland might be Iran today.
NATO is the Japan of that time. Let’s hope Russia and China take an active
stance against Biden’s ‘America is back’ propaganda, like Heinrich van Loon
did in his rebuttal of Mein Kampf upon Hitler being given a ticker tape parade
down Madison Avenue in 1936. The US are the new Nazis, plain and simple,
Buckle your seat belts.
I think you’re on to something in calling for “a new revelation not unlike what the Cartesian revelation was to the theocratic world order…bringing about a new order for this our Carsonian epoch of ecology and climate change with concomitant problems of world over population and intolerable inequality.” Strange and sad to say, I see new ideas along these lines, ideas which acknowledge the necessity of a great reset which was patently obvious pre-pandemic, coming more from the Davos elite these days than I do from “the people.” Right now, if I had to choose between two alternatives to rule the world, either Bill and Melinda Gates or the those who comment frequently on blogs like this one, I’d opt for the former in a heartbeat. “The people” seem to have lost the ability to come together, see a shared reality, and respond appropriately. And we don’t have time to fuck around.
So what just happened at Davos? What are these “new ideas” coming from your “master elite”?
You can search for a good number of videos from the recent Davos session and watch and evaluate them for yourself. The best of the filthy rich elites get the inescapable point that we HAVE to have a great reset because our pre-pandemic way of life was oppressive in many ways and ecocidal to the max. To return to it would seal our fate. Period. Note how many who make comments on blogs like this one DON’T seem to get that fundamental fact, from which all else must flow if human beings are to be around much longer.
The Davos crowd **created** our “pre-pandemic way of life.” Please do some research into what this “Great Reset” is all about.
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All tyranny comes under the guise of something benevolent. Do not fall for their ruse, and do not buy their propaganda.
So, they are calling this thing the “Great reset”? By the way, It’s an upgrade or downgrade? Today I was shocked. I did read an article saying that The Muppet ‘Show is offensive. I/m even willing to spend a penny to know Who is this person or group deciding what is offensive and normal? Looks like the whole cast of the movie The Crucible was hired to work as White House consultants-experts. Only in Washington you can find the ones coming up with crazy ideas. In the 80s to prevent HIV the experts said: Condom. 9/11: If you see something say something. By the way the criminal definition of terrorists is used now to harass, arrest and to shot citizens complaining against the absurd, the surreal. Now in this covid thing era: wear the damn mask. It’s the same thing to use a raincoat to fix a nuclear reactor. Ok, time to go.
Excellent post. To see what is coming, one only has to look back in history. Most people ignore history or simply rewrite it. Fascism is definitely on the rise in America. Here is a thought provoking article by one of the last investigative journalists in America.
https://zerohedge.whotrades.com/
Wrong link. Here is correct one.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/brandon-smith-question-leftists
If I offered you a way for humanity to go, would you even read it? Restructure all governments from vertical top down to horizontal bottom up, which is by and for the people, no more politicians or lobbyists, much more democratic, more effective and efficient, definitely feasible, decentralized and virtually incorruptible. Here is a 7 minute animation I made a while ago that explains it all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywMhg604W8&feature&fbclid=IwAR3HcZvrdRJvRNqMRZ3m6t3hvuac7bTXlxnQn-WjutSbWoWXOw7iW7AAEd4
Most are so gullible that they actually believe what USA Incorporated tells them. They think that picking MSNBC puts them at advantage over those that pick Fox News, and vice versa. Both will proclaim our freedom, just define it differently, and inaccurately. They proclaim themselves arbiters of truth while constantly telling lies. If one does not actively pursue truth, one will never see it. “Misinformation” is nothing more nor less than open debate, which is required to expose truths and lies. Which is exactly why it’s forbidden among corporations.
Mark Crispin Miller of NYU makes an excellent point. He says that an MSNBC viewer will say that Fox news is propaganda, and a Fox viewer will say MSNBC is propaganda. Fact is, they’re both right.
” If however I somehow ascended to a position of significant mainstream influence I would be targeted and smeared until my reputation was ruined or I had a psychological breakdown and went away. You may be certain of this. ”
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—The other way they keep the authentic left from being heard is very simple: Mass media, which is corporate-owned, simply refuses to provide any sort of significant forum for the left.
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I think it was about 25 years ago that you could regularly hear Chomsky on PBS, public radio, and elsewhere. When Malcolm was alive he was also visible to mass audiences on public tv, as was King.
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It’s only when someone like Tulsi Gabbard, who as a House member could not be entirely marginalized by the expedient of ignoring her, and who radically opposed certain aspects of overseas empire, that they resort to the smear, as when Howard Dean went on corporate media to assert there was no place in US politics for someone like Gabbard.
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The cleverest trick these swine ever played was amputating the entirety of the authentic Left from view and substituting in its place the right-wing Democratic party. Now, left-economic populism is essentially unknown to 95% of the populace, who believe that “the left” is engaged in a culture war against “the heartland” and is primarily left wing in its advocacy of compulsory diversity, abortion on demand, transsexuals in the bathrooms of their own choosing, and other business having nothing to do with economics or foreign policy.
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Meanwhile there’s no debate, certainly no honest debate over issues such as universal health care, the lack of which (extrapolating from the 2020 Yale study published in The Lancet) has murdered 2,700,000 in the United States since 1970.
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Think of it: 2,700,000 murders, for money.
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That dwarfs the slaughter in Yemen and we don’t even talk about it except to hear the most obvious and extraordinary lies about the cost of Medicare For All in the Democratic debates—none of which were seriously rebutted by Sanders or Warren.
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—This is the essential point: corporate media has been incredibly effective in shutting out the left entirely. They barely need to smear or cause implosions when the great mass of people have no idea at all that we exist, or what our arguments are in favor of peace and prosperity.
“Now, left-economic populism is essentially unknown to 95% of the populace, who believe that ‘the left’ is engaged in a culture war against ‘the heartland’ and is primarily left wing in its advocacy of compulsory diversity, abortion on demand, transsexuals in the bathrooms of their own choosing, and other business having nothing to do with economics or foreign policy.”
Amen.
Well, I think you’re really talking about roughly 40-45% the population with the culture war transfixion. Another 40-45% are, of course, those idiots of an opposing kind that Caitlin often describes well.
I comment on Zero Hedge (as it is somewhat visible), occasionally to rail against many of their ridiculous socialism/communism/totalitarian/”SocialMarxism” conflations; their love of unrestrained wealth inheritance in the name of freedumb; their mania for freedumb from govt, but their subconscious slavery to large corps as well as their anthropomorphic Abrahamic god hallucinations; etc. as self-strangulation. Some seem to be getting it, so maybe it’s worth it….
I am skeptical of all so called studies computer generated or otherwise. I used to trust data but now even that is skewed and corrupted. When people start seeing the democrats and republicans as the center, only then will they be able to recognize the options from the left and right. However saying that there is also some very very toxic elements within the authentic left and right.
And if the real culprits were illuminated, but aren’t here, then the blog would be erased.
They let you continue because you refuse to point out the real guilt and controllers.
The groupthink that exists in mainstream media newsrooms encompasses pretty much 100 percent of journalists and editors. For example, I could name 10 COVID stories that are legitimate and important that will NEVER get published. Many of these stories would resonate with readers. However, no journalist would even think about writing these stories. If a freelancer writes them, and submits them, they don’t even get looked at. So Caitlyn is right that we are going to have to be creative to get around the gatekeepers of the news.
Bill, apparently you have a pretty loose definition of journalist. Being a real journalist will get you thrown in jail. Even if you escape imprisonment, the corporate media, including the corporate social media, has no use for you. They have zero interest in the truth, other than disposing of it at every opportunity.
Caitlin, I agree that we aren’t radical but just sane to criticize the US Empire’s political perversities and its instigators in the mainstream media. As long as our criticism doesn’t infect the mainstream, they let the “loonies” off steam. Tulsi Gabbard was an excellent case in point. An insider criticized some aspects of a failed US foreign policy. Right away, they smeared and destroyed her publically. The infamous Hillary Clinton called her a “Russian asset.” If Donald Trump had been smart, he would have made Tulsi Gabbard his running mate, which I supported.
The empire does not forgive neither forget. If you hurt them like Snowden and Assange did, you’re an outcast forever. Another case was Diane. She knew at least one decade before the unfolding events of 9/11. To hurt the plans of the empire she was going to be the first royal in history to marry with a muslim. This event alone if had happened would twist and frustrate all efforts of the empire to go to the Middle East. And for that, she was murdered. The system doesn’t care about the us. We are no consequence. Our voices can be scattered in millions of pieces. Isolated. Muted. If by any chance one of us, the resistance got “lucky” enough to hurt them it will be a shame not know how to fly or how to teleport yourself to another dimension. With the one pen and the right thought you can stir the whole world. We lack the numbers, vision and talent to make it happen. We are all trapped inside the cloud. We don’t know how to live anymore without looking to an smartphone or laptop. We lost our power to generate true knowledge. Most of us is limited to produce just facts or fractions of facts. Distorted, of course. We are lost in the middle of a hurricane of misinformation. We don’t look to know more about the background of our “experts”, leaders, representatives. We lost track of the lobbyists and banksters sponsoring governments. There will not be a revolution. The soil is already sterile. All what we have to be the heir of our mistakes and faults as citizens, parents, friends is a generation of spoiled brats.
so you (and your circle) disagree and are tired. that’s allright, take a break, recharge, realign rediscover that there’s not much else to do than revolt.
I beg your pardon. The article is outstanding. Inspiring. Remarkable. I wish I could have been a close friend of this gang in our youth. But for some reason, we are in the right spot separated by an ocean. Indeed, there’s not much to do than revolt. I did this my whole life. I’m an outcast. I could have been successful, rich but I choose to be honest, A patriot not of a country but the whole world. I don’t complain about the price paid. I don’t know how to be another person than myself. I’ve been living in hurricane my whole life. I can weather anything. The previous answer was a statement of someone who knows exactly how much pressure ordinary people can handle. And you’re right, I’ve been taking a break because my body and mind are not what used to be. I live between moments of lucidity and moments when I’m far away. But I’m cheering up for the new.
Caitlin,
I am beginning to worry about your safety. Please be careful, and keep your eyes on the sky above you. You are clearly positioning yourself in the crosshair of an imperial drone. I would hate to lose such a sensible, honest and well-informed voice.
With Love and admiration
Hubert M. Reiter
Footscray Aged Care
Melbourne – Australia
Caitlin, I am beginning to worry about your safety. Please be careful, and keep your eyes on the sky above you. You are clearly positioning yourself in the crosshair of an imperial drone. I would hate to lose such a sensible, honest and well-informed voice.
With Love and admiration
Hubert M. Reiter
Footscray Aged Care
Melbourne – Australia
The two most virulent forms of propaganda right now are (1) critical race theory CRT and (2) masks-lockdowns-vaccines. If you are not addressing and exposing these control scams mind schemes you’re just talking to the wind, just theorizing.
Taboo subjects. Move on, nothing to see here.
There’s only certain taboos one can violate, the rest are certain fame or literal death — if not immediately, then at a future time just when it matters. This also includes (3) the 2020 US election, which even Zero Hedge seems to have dropped.
Despite their protestations that questioning those things is rubbish, I believe people such as Caitlin, GGreenwald, Mike Taibbi, Chris Hedges, and the like want to stay more prominent and arguably relevant. So, don’t touch any third rails. I breathe a sigh of relief every time I successfully re-open Off-Guardian.
Appreciate what we have.
Suggest you go over to Quillette for (1) and Off-Guardian for (2).
No, you fail to realize how oppressive China is.
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/global#
That doesn’t mean that the United States gets any kind of a pass, it just means that the United States isn’t alone in doling out oppression.
We need to try to get some countries to commit to building societies based on improving life on the planet and improving the lives of the people that live in those countries to stand as an example for all the peoples of the world to aspire to. It would be great if the United States was really a federal democratic republic, but any chance of the ended in 1963 with the elimination of a president that sought to end the Vietnam war and end the choke hold the Federal Reserve System had on the United States and the world for that matter.
Some way the people of the United States, or Australia or Europe, or Africa or India or wherever need to get motivated to see that their governments transform back into a government that represents the people and for that matter all life on this planet.
I don’t look to China to do that any more than I really look to the United States to do that.
i’m looking to you to do that.
I plan to make that a priority. Will take some time, but I will forever work toward that end.
“get some countries to commit to building societies based on improving life on the planet ”
A thing that has never been done. At least not in any kind of permanent fashion. Countries are run by governments, and there has never been, is not now, and never will be such a thing as good government. All are founded on the principal that whichever psychopath(s) is in charge has authority to kill you if you don’t comply with their insanity. The only difference between them is the level of psychopathy, which is ever changing, usually for the worse Power does not corrupt, it attracts the corruptible, and the insane.
China lifted I think it’s 800 million people out of poverty, and that’s
not what an imperialist like the US does. With 1.4 billion people,
things are not going to be as individualistic as with American
Liberal ideology, though whether homelessness and poverty are
‘freedom’ or bondage could be debated. No doubt there’s some
truth in what you say, but look at what Jonathan Wong did in
Hong Kong, the epitome of privilege and arrogance. If this is
your ideal of freedom, I’m not on board with that.
But became the biggest producer of CO2 on the planet, now ahead of the U.S. Also became the biggest polluter of the environment in that process as well, so way to go China. I guess from that logic, the United States should ditch whatever remains of their environmental regulations and make their country great again. And to ensure competitiveness they should get rid of any remaining labor laws as well so that the top 57% of its people can live the good life while the labor class works in abject poverty.
This one should touch down in the, ‘Why do I like this song this much?’ zone…
https://youtu.be/4ht80uzIhNs
Josh – Great song!
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There is so much wonderful music out there. Lets not forget how important music is. Please, lets not forget that. Music can make the difference.
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Yesterday, my daughter told me of an inspired college friend who was a musician as well as a painter. He was very talented, but she said he suffered from severe mood swings. She sent me some of his music that included the album cover and it was special. Well, very sadly, he recently took his own life – or he died from an overdose. Either way, the outcome is a very creative young man, who shared his artistry with his friends and whoever wanted to listen, is with us no more. To an extent I think sometimes “The World at Large” these days kills off sensitive and talented artist, and I want that to diminish.
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Thanks for sharing this song, and in honor of my daughter’s friend, as well as all my music my daughter has shared with me over the years, here is another:
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Ken
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That’s a good song, if a bit sad. I’m sorry about the passing of your daughter’s boyfriend. Too many young people taking their lives these days. Take care of yourselves, all.
https://youtu.be/gOsM-DYAEhY
Is it schoolboyish that I’m shaing my playlist here?
😉
https://youtu.be/j60ClcNYWu4
We live every bit the coercion and the violence of late 1930s Europe. Like technology. computers and phones, the fascism we live today is sophisticated on levels we’ve never had before. The scale is global. Part of the skill deployed by the fascist overlords is precisely that the surface of our overall daily lives looks like freedom, it looks like wealth, it looks like shiny consumerism. They have the masses churning away forced to work with each person hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt hanging over their head and are slaves to the next new phone and the billion dollar industries of insurance, media, health care, food, Amazon, profiting off them taking far more than they give under the clever illusion of opulance. They wield global scales of violence. They use $700+ billion dollars per year to violently control the world. They have decimated the cradle of civilization. They are raping our life giving earth, and plundering and irreparably polluting our descendants resources. It’s a slick control and violence they slay with. The masses don’t even realize how much they’re robbed and enslaved. They don’t realize how with today’s technology and production that no one should be hungry, that everyone should have all the health care they need, that all our children could be educated, that we could have all that on six hour work days. Instead people of the colonizing forces feel grateful that they get to idolize shallow Hollywood stars, and don’t have drones and bombs decimating their neighborhoods.
You seem to have grown more than Caitlin has. It’s not just, “just”, it is as Caitlin has said, who controls the narrative controls your mind.
https://youtu.be/yuFI5KSPAt4
Once again, Ms Johnstone you are extremely correct; the owners and the masters will allow dissent as long as it never rises to the level that can threaten their stranglehold on our society. One way or another they always find and use any means necessary to keep ” the status-quo ” under their complete control. The last thing they ever want to see are the ” pitchforked peons ” storming their gated estates seeking revenge!
I just offered is short essay to my pastor with the recommendation that it be shared with every other pastor in the Church, so that they could share it with every member of their congregations so that we can hear some sanity being reported for a change I am not the richest man in the world. Not even the second richest, but if I had a chance, I would love to ask President Putin three simple questions, all needing simple yes or no answers!
1.) Did your country choose the President and Vice President of the United States in the last two elections? If you were able to do that, it would demonstrate a far more advanced ability to conduct cyber warfare than any other country, and would explain why you are able to trim your military spending to a mere $46 billion. I would like to suggest two names for 2024 so you can fire up your secret “weapon” early: Tulsi Gabbard for president, and Ron Paul for running mate. America is in desperate need of reasonable leadership and the rest of the world would be eternally grateful!
2.) Is it possible to convert nuclear warheads into high yield “MOX” fuel that could be burned in “breeder” reactors to provide clean energy for centuries without stockpiles of radioactive waste (that we don’t know what to do with)? If so, it would certainly lend hope to people everywhere who are praying for a miracle!
3.) Is there a natural line of demarcation that could simply divide Ukraine into two halves, so that Crimea and “Eastern Ukraine” could use Russian currency, and enjoy the safety and security of belonging to the Russian Federation, while “Western Ukraine” could be free to join the European Union, use the Euro as their currency, and enjoy the liberty of western democracy without having to kill their Ukrainian brothers that don’t want that fate? As I understand, there was a particular River that marked the end of Germany’s advance toward Russia in the Second World War. If it still exists, perhaps it could mark the end of Europe’s advance as well!
It’s not Russia that controls anything. It’s the shareholders, it’s the massive corporations of all our major industries, they are who control our government and our lives. Just follow the money. The US is one of the richest economies, and all that money goes to a very few people rather than back to the mass population that creates it. If every industry were to not be profiteering, everyone could be fed, everyone could have all the health care they need and all our children could be educated without being in a lifetime of debt. It’s not Russia, It’s not Russia, It’s not Russia. It’s not outside the US it is the US.
We don’t want the neo-nazi Ukrainians in the already severely debilitated E.U. Let them use dollars and petition Kabala Harris to be the 53rd State.
The USA can then freely use Ukraine to harass Russia without the formalities of bring the enclave into NATO and Ukraine can unabashedly give free reign to their genetically predisposed fascism.
Solution?
“I get comments from people every day wagging their fingers at my criticisms of western imperialist agendas”
Thank You Caitlin perhaps you can remind me exactly again ! Julian Who ?
The people will awake sooner or later, as the US society is falling apart. They’ll be forced to. The Texas crisis has again shown how the corrupt Political establishment is both unable and unprepared to protect its own people. As the last semi-decent president said:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” ― John F. Kennedy
Excellent point, Caitlin. The World Socialist Web Site didn’t start to get interfered with until it reached a certain amount of readership and then the establishment noticed and worked to minimize the danger. But the WSWS is gaining readership all the time and its branches all over the world are growing. Watch this space.