Watching the slow, silent realization creep over online Democrats that Biden really isn’t going to do anything for them.

Americans: $2000 checks please

Government: Sorry did you say airstrikes on Syria?

Americans: No, $2000 checks

Government: Okay, since you asked nicely here’s your airstrikes on Syria.

This latest Biden airstrike is being spun as “defensive” and “retaliatory” despite its targeting a nation the US invaded (Syria) in response to alleged attacks on US forces in another nation the US invaded (Iraq). You can’t invade a nation and then claim self-defense there. That’s not a thing.

If you’re uncritically repeating US government claims about its justifications for acts of mass military violence, you’re not doing journalism, you’re writing Pentagon press releases.

It’s like the Biden administration is actively trying to vindicate everyone who spent the last four years saying that as far as policy decisions are concerned there’s nothing unusual about the Trump administration.

The only way to see the Biden administration as significantly different from the Trump administration is to jack your mind into an alternate reality made of partisan narrative constructs.

The short-term plan to fix America: Get rid of Trump.

The long-term plan to fix America: Mumble mumble diverse cabinet mumble mumble mumble I bet Trump is hatching some pretty bad schemes for 2024 mumble mumble.

The facts are in and the debate is settled. Those who claimed the Democratic Party can be used to move the United States toward sanity were wrong. The first step to escaping a burning building is to stop pushing on the fake emergency exit door that’s been painted on the wall.

Biden is doing to his campaign promises what MBS did to Jamal Khashoggi.

Yes what Mohammed bin Salman is doing to Yemen may be quantifiably hundreds of thousands of times worse than what he did to Jamal Khashoggi, but as a liberal I am more offended by the latter because Yemeni children don’t write for my favorite newspaper.

China’s success on the world stage benefits the Chinese people. America’s success on the world stage comes at the expense of the American people.

The second-most profitable ability is a knack for moving numbers around in a way that benefits the powerful. The most profitable ability is a knack for moving words around in a way that benefits the powerful.

You can convince people to believe absolute bullshit if you say it in a confident-sounding and assertive tone. If you say it when designated an authority figure it becomes even more convincing. Powerful manipulators are acutely aware of this, while the general public is not.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, spend billions of dollars in mass media influence convincing everyone that it’s not broke and doesn’t need to be fixed.

When everyone’s been marinating in propaganda their entire life, common sense is often non-sense.

Coming to a mature understanding of the world is the slow, humbling process of realizing that the socialists and anti-imperialists have been pretty much right about pretty much everything, and that everyone who calls them crazy or extremist is wrong.

Lord, please let me love myself the way western centrists love criticizing the brutality of non-western governments while ignoring their own.

They snatched the slingshot out of the child’s hand because he might hurt someone, then a few short years later they handed him an automatic rifle and gave him the power of life and death over people in a village overseas.

Alternate answer to Fermi’s paradox: we haven’t met the aliens because a civilization far more advanced than our own would have matured emotionally and spiritually beyond the need to sail around the galaxy molesting the natives like a bunch of fifteenth century Europeans.

Whether or not you will make the best decision in a given moment has a lot less to do with what’s happening in that moment than with how consciously you have lived each moment leading up to it.

Deep inner looking will reveal a kind of “event horizon” to your field of experience beyond which there’s only emptiness. Deeper looking will reveal that your perception of your field of experience is actually coming from that emptiness. That emptiness is therefore your true self. This is the only sensible place from which to take your stand.

Putting truth before all else makes it harder to be comfortable, but it’s also the only path to real lasting happiness.

__________________________

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115 responses to “Bullshit Spoken In An Assertive Tone: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. @Caitlin
    I appreciate that there are pros and cons to keeping things as they are, but I could make a really good argument on behalf of turning off the comment section on your articles. While informative and entertaining at times, “contributions” made by others on the whole just represent a detraction. Can’t avoid that on Zerohedge, but here you can.

    1. “…but I could make a really good argument on behalf of turning off the comment section on your articles.”

      Unless, of course, the comments section were turned off.

  2. After leaving my previous job 11 months ago, I’ve had some good luck to learn about this website which was a life-saver for me… They offer jobs for which people can work online from their house. AMs My latest paycheck after working for them for 4 months was for $11600… Amazing thing about is that the only thing required is simple typing skills and access to internet.

    Read all about it here……. Jobs App

  3. Linda Jean Doucett Avatar
    Linda Jean Doucett

    Here is an article worth the read

    On March 3, the US State Department has put on its website a hilarious statement titled The United States Opposes the ICC Investigation into the Palestinian Investigation.

    In a nutshell, the statement exposes that the Joe Biden Administration has blinked for a second time on the human rights situation in West Asia by refusing to even acknowledge that the ICC investigation into the “Palestinian situation” is about human rights first and foremost.

    https://www.indianpunchline.com/blinken-blinks-on-human-rights/

  4. Caitlin Johnstone is alt-right, and makes very bad arguments here. For example: Trump is the same as Biden? Definitely not. I call bullshit on that. It may make for a provocative ‘intrepid journalist’ statement, but does not hold up to scrutiny. Face the facts: Trump was an unmitigated disaster in ways that Biden will not be: especially in domestic affairs. Hey Johnstone: do you seriously believe that Biden will be as bad as Trump on coronavirus? Or how about environmental policy, national parks, endangered species, opening up public lands to fracking, mining, timber interests. Biden is MUCH better than Trump in this extremely important aspect of policy. Biden canceled the XL Canada pipeline–one of his first actions–totally against Trump’s give everything to oil/gas/mining industries approach to natural resources. And going a step further: Johnstone, do you actually believe there is no difference in the way Trump and Biden do public relations!? Trump was/is a divider, an extreme right wing fascist asshole. Like any neo-fascist he creates an enemy. He always needs an enemy to hate on: Muslim ban…Mexico wall to keep out Latinos…war on blacks/BLM….war on Anarchists…war on Anti-fascists–all deeply hated enemies of Trump and his coterie of Proud Boys, Boogaloo Boys, AIPAC Zionists, Koch Bros, etc. Like Reagan before him (his role model and another American far-right fascist), they cannot unite via a positive message: they only can get power and unite a support base with a common enemy. Biden isn’t going to do this. You can already feel a calm replacing the hysterical Trump era. This is not to say Biden is ‘good guy’ and Trump is ‘bad guy’, far from it. Biden, like any corporate Wall St right wing democrat will do the bidding of his handlers, and blow off the pro-social programs of the Bernie Sanders cohort of the democratic party. Biden will be Obama 2.0. And that is a huge difference in domestic policy from Trump. This is where alt-right bloggers like Johnstone, Jimmy Dore, b from Moon of Alabama, or the insufferable CJ Hopkins et al always get it wrong.

    NO: Biden is not the same as Trump. Get a clue.

    1. Deschutes, if Biden is not as bad as Trump on coronavirus, it would only be because the progress scientists made since the invasion of the dangerous and deadly virus. That’s all. Alberto

    2. You sound like one of the chorus of DNCIA Disinformation Operations. Jimmy Dore, Moon of Alabama and Caitlin Johnstone are all correct – and one dimensional PERSON caricatures like this “DESCHUTES” are paid by the post to tell you otherwise. This is the new face of David Brock’s “Correct The Record”/Shareblue Sock-puppeteers – and those telling the TRUTH about Biden and the DNCIA Mean Girls are the “Enemy” that is being referred to above. At least with Trump you could see who was talking. He was a lying demagogue – but he did it in an honest fashion – from his own mouth. These swine hide behind cut-outs. https://imgflip.com/i/4zxri2#com9812397

      And funny he should mention “AIPAC Zionists, Koch Bros, etc” – because they’re all big funders of the NeoLiberal center-right to rightwing DNCIA Democrats like Biden and Pelosi. Boogaloos weren’t always fooled by Trump, in all cases – so that’s a strawman argument. So what you’re left with is “the Proud Boys”. Vile and awful tho’ they are – are the K-hive any better, in the long run. Obama deported MORE people in one term than Trump – because he was a more effective fascist, slicker. His presentation was smooth – so local jurisdictions cooperated with him.

      Joe Biden is huge friend to the Fracking, Gas and Oil businesses – particularly in Ukraine where he and his son in now provably corrupt dealings, under the NAZI COUP Government that he installed.

      Biden Is already escalating our Wars for EMPIRE, warcrimes, and troop numbers abroad. These mean increases in the likelihood of a CATASTROPHIC NUCLEAR WAR.
      https://imgflip.com/i/4zp3r1

      Caitlin supports what she believes with examples and evidence. Stopping one pipeline – that Obama and he had previously greenlit – isn’t overwhelming proof of anything, except that he knows that people are watching what he does… Or better put – his handlers and managers know… Joe appears to be too completely demented to be aware of anything much.

      As Ralph Nader used to say, ‘sure there are differences, but do they make any (real) difference?’.

      1. Blah blah blah Avatar
        Blah blah blah

        Nice one.

    3. Yes biden and trump are different. but they both suck big time, just in different ways. biden bombing syria, what a fukkin murderer, and he wants to censor more, he is a robot style politician with no AI. democracy doesn’t work when there are no real choices except for hideous vs horrific. please recognize that vertical top down is always the same, corrupted bs.

      We need to restructure from vertical top down to horizontal bottom up, its feasible, no more politicians or lobbyist, very democratic and effective, and virtually incorruptible. This option needs to get into the minds of humanity to end the centuries old scourge of corrupted governments that has taken us to the abysmal situation we all are facing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywMhg604W8&feature&fbclid=IwAR3HcZvrdRJvRNqMRZ3m6t3hvuac7bTXlxnQn-WjutSbWoWXOw7iW7AAEd4

  5. my guess is that 15 billion years from now there won’t be that many people who will care all that much about what happened right about now on our planet that no longer exists; so why should we?

  6. Excellent, Caitlin, except that I I was upset by your being ‘more offended’ by the Saudi killing of Khashoggi than than the killings of thousands of Yemenis, ‘because Yemeni children don’t write for my favorite newspaper.’ lf Khashoggi had been a supermarket employee and not a journalist, his assassination was unjustified and as abhorrent as the deaths of the thousands of Yemeni victims. Victims of the Arms Trade.
    Next time you mention Yemen, could you tell us ‘who’s earning points – and dollars – in the Yemeni Government – to allow the Saudi onslaught on their country to happen? thank you.

    1. That was irony, bro. She was lampooning Neo-Lib attitudes.

  7. You want to know how STUPID YouTube – up your boob – is?
    ~
    Here I am watching “The Best of Prokofiev”, and an add shows up talking full of pride of being “a member of the 1% and serving the elite”. That ad pissed me off and I had to stop listening to the music. It was so out of context with the music. I’m sure there must be another source out there, but Google and Facebook are effing monopolies and they need to go down 1 then 2 in reverse order as typed.
    ~
    If you are interested, here is the music, but don’t blame me if that effing ad shows up for you as well:
    ~

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E9tN3vnyf4

    (Sorry for the interruption, but sometimes an “advertisement” might as well just be a “warning” especially if you understand French!)
    ~
    BK

      1. Khatika – my comment to you was rejected. I’m not happy about it and I will get to the bottom of it and it might make a difference and it might not. Still – I know.

        1. I’m told that the “spam-filters” on this blog reject anything with more than 2 links, by one of the webmasters… It answered my questions as to why this kept happening to my posts, as well.

          1. Well that is fine to know, but I didn’t have two links.
            ~
            Whatever – shit happens. I’m a realist.
            ~
            I may not be as sarcastic as Khatika, but that is gift that only mire has – see, the term “mire” could be used if you don’t know the subject’s gender. That is why I created it along with a bunch of other shit.
            ~
            Khatika is my friend and my post is gone into obscurity except for the little remnants of it that remain in my mind, which is mine, and mine only. Just like yours is yours and yours only.
            ~
            I’m ready for Israel to get its comeuppance. The time is upon us.
            ~
            BK

            1. Good enough… I’ve found that a back button or two can salvage you comments’ text, even if the site won’t allow it to be posted. You might then be able post it elsewhere – and get it through as a link… But who knows.

              1. Likewise AWV,
                but that didn’t work this time either. No big deal. Shit happens.
                BK

      2. Or how a bout actually buying and keeping a file of the music?
        You don’t need to have a corporate middleman to listen to music.
        If more people stopped using corporate services they wouldn’t have so much influence
        This is not rocket science

        1. Hey D Dude,
          ~
          Awesome idea – you got a CD you’ll sell me or will I have to buy it on Amazon?
          ~
          Jeeesh.

          1. Rowan Bjrcumshaw Avatar
            Rowan Bjrcumshaw

            A suggestion, don’t buy, peer to peer, share away.

        2. OK, sure I could find some obscure 3rd Party music provider, some of whom have dubious certificates, but you missed the whole freaking point!
          ~
          The point is the composer I was listening to would have vomited if he heard the ad the was played during his music, and it pissed me off that I had to listen to it.
          ~
          Do you understand the difference, and god yes, that is a rhetorical question, so please don’t answer it.
          ~
          I appreciate Khatika wry and sarcastic sense of humor and I also appreciate the Big R, so I hate to see two things I appreciate not getting along. I reckon that is sort of like what it means to be “the number 3”. Lithium on the table.
          ~
          Crazy times in the year of the reckoning, but I remain hopeful.
          ~
          BK

        3. Blah blah blah Avatar
          Blah blah blah

          Rocket surgery.

          1. Unfortunately, music lovers also listen to the Corporate Music Media. This is how some music geniuses spend their life in the shadows of other musicians with half their talent, but the money or contact to influence the Corporate Music Media , who will brainwash the world with false claims

  8. “Words, words, words.” This was Hamlet’s answer to Polonius’ “What do you read, my Lord?” Hamlet is the Zen-less man, whose energy, like a mouse in a wheel, goes round and round inside him and issues, not in action, but in talking.

    1. I like that part when Hamlet stabs Polonius hiding behind the curtain. It’s so similar to our expectations about people.
      – “I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;”

      1. Hey Big R, remember I’ve already called myself out as a full-fledged “bullshitter”, and if the time stamps here were more precise that would be obvious, but I just wanted to say to you that I really, really appreciated it when you referred to me as “brother” and that meant something to me. I consider that an honor.
        ~
        Now, you know I’m a self-professed bullshitter, and you know when somebody tells you – I never lie that it is hard to know what is the truth and what ain’t. That is why we all have to study hard and for me anyday I learn something new is a good day for me.
        ~
        Today I learned that money paid out for those who are “unemployed” is nonetheless taxable on a federal and state level. I also learned some other things regarding the over-complicated tax system, but I didn’t learn anything that surprised me. Still, I learned this while I was helping my daughter file her tax return, and for me, I was just thrilled that she was sitting with me and we were working together to fill out the effed-up forms that are so over-the-top ridiculously complicated.
        ~
        So, even though you might think there are just 6 “common” entities running the show, be they individuals or constructs, I’d like to propose to you that sometimes shows end and new directors and producers show up with better ideas. That is evolution for ya.
        ~
        The beauty is that is can all be done bloodlessly, and that is what I pray for! But I have no effing idea what is gonna happen and based on history if I had to place a bet………well maybe we can discuss that later. Sometimes too much chatter really doesn’t help.
        ~
        BK

        1. Great Big K! I like to read your thoughts. Plain, simple, honest. No circles. It’s an honor to be here with brothers and sisters. It’s a pity the author not be here to interact. I like Finn, Shocker, you. I don’t like Khatika. She is not cool neither good to bring something useful to discuss. Too much bitterness. Her toothbrush must melt in her mouth everyday LOL. But that’s the beauty of life. Diversity. So many levels of knowledge and understanding. We are all here looking for affinities, to share viewpoints, to appreciate, to turn down with class even knowing that I love to say out loud the F word. In some places you cannot even curse when watching baseball, come on!That’s a huge part of the game. Any game. I wish I could be a d.u.m.b. a.s.s. m.t.h.r.f.c.k.r. enough to have a social media to share it here to keep in touch but I don’t have any and I never will. Peace and love to all.

          1. Big R. I like Khatika, so not sure what your getting at there.
            ~
            Sometimes friends disagree or try to send a message and I consider Khatika a friend.
            ~
            I learned the answer to my question regarding what is being defended in Syria, and now I think the moment of truth is upon us to watch and simply see what happens.
            ~
            I know where I’ve got my bet placed.
            ~
            I’m a realist as well.
            ~
            BK

  9. Martin Wendelboe Avatar
    Martin Wendelboe

    BRAVO !!!

    Deep inner looking will reveal a kind of “event horizon” to your field of experience beyond which there’s only emptiness. Deeper looking will reveal that your perception of your field of experience is actually coming from that emptiness. That emptiness is therefore your true self. This is the only sensible place from which to take your stand.

    Putting truth before all else makes it harder to be comfortable, but it’s also the only path to real lasting happiness.

  10. Perceptive and informative, recorded a year ago, with relevance to the ongoing economic hardships and ravages of war inflicted upon the Syrian and Lebanese peoples.
    https://youtu.be/_w5F_0xzdoQ

  11. I basically make about $12,000-$18,000 a month online. It’s enough to comfortably replace my I was amazed how easy it was after I tried it . This is what I’ve been doing old jobs income, especially considering I only work about 10-13 hours a week from home………….. JOBS APP

  12. Awesome. Simply ducking awesome.

    1. Fucking. For some reason spell check doesn’t remember the word fucking …

      1. Thomas – I get a better word for it.
        ~
        I like to say “effing
        ~
        Indulge me while I make this sentence off my fingertips……
        ~
        Eff the eff-effed-up effing fan freaking blowing and effing with my effing effed up eff of a mind of which I’ve got an eff up my butt to eff out of cause – what the eff? Why the eff not?
        ~
        You like them effing apricots?
        ~
        BK

        1. I don’t know…..I figured, why the eff not. The world has gone crazy, so why not join in the party and post a meandering whimsical fluffery bluffery inconsequential umpunctuous post. Why the eff not?
          ~
          Still, I think 28 is a perfect number, and so, what the eff. I’m planning on having some fun while the effing metaphoric bullets fly…………lets keep it that way, shall we? A metaphoric bullet will just pass through your brain if you don’t even know about it, but if you do know about it, you might try to hold it in and get a sense as to what it is all about. Could be a learning experience if you do that.
          ~
          Can it be done, or is some bully gone a come along and try to point the gun in the face of others. Haven’t you figured out yet how to deal with bullies yet? If you need some tips, get in touch with me. I played a game called “Diplomacy” once, and let me tell you, it was WWI time and diplomacy failed.
          ~
          Can’t we do better?
          ~
          BK

          1. Oh by the way, when it comes to “bullshitting” I will take anybody on. I will bullshit you with my hands behind my back and my fingers crossed or not. I’ll send the bullshit off to the side, and then bring it back in a heartbeat just behind your effing ear.
            ~
            Nothing wrong with bullshitting as long as the intent is not harmful – its just another way to learn when it is that I reckon. If it is harmful, then the punishment for that should just depend on the scale of the consequences of the bullshitting and the record of the harmful bullshitter. If the evidence is compelling and the scale significant, then the penalty is DEATH. Simple.
            ~
            Happy 22821 and I’m really happy the Rogue Journalist is back and that I lost the bet….
            ~
            .

  13. The truth is so evident in this column that I am going to expand on only one observation.

    Biden is also doing to his campaign promise the exact same thin that Obama did to his. He’s either ignoring them, distorting them, or doing exactly the opposite of what he promised. And, of course, it’s early. So, he’s capable of far worse,

    1. Biden’s one true promise: “… nothing will fundamentally change.”

  14. “When everyone’s been marinating in propaganda their entire life, common sense is often non-sense.”
    `
    Interesting article by Lee Camp on wealth redistribution. (And he means it!)
    Gotta love Lee Camp.
    `
    https://www.mintpressnews.com/lee-camp-time-major-wealth-redistribution-yes-mean/275667/
    `
    “So the next time someone says to you, “You can’t raise the taxes on the top 1% because that’s class war. It’s redistribution of wealth,” don’t respond the way most squishy liberals respond — “Ummm, ahhh, errr, no, uhhhh, I’m sorry.” Instead respond, “You’re damn right it is! I want redistribution of wealth. I want a nonviolent class war — because it has been done to the rest of us for the past 50 years at least. We have been exploited and abused, beaten down and defeated, kicked and slapped and scratched and drained and sucked dry and extracted and even burgled!” (Oh man, do I hate being burgled.)”

    1. “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

      — Warren Buffet

      (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/123058-there-s-class-warfare-all-right-but-it-s-my-class-the)

    2. Right on, never whine, never apologize when you’re right.

  15. It’s good to see a journalist who doesn’t reflexively rate the life of one of her own profession higher than the lives of thousands of Yemenis.

  16. Lord, with your very hands, your very Spirit, lift me, that I may go forward, that I may fulfill what you wish to be fulfilled — in certitude, strength, and truth.

  17. This new 2021 video by Eric Snowden everyone should see. It crystallizes what Caitlin has been talking about forever. Watch it, share it.

    https://youtu.be/RFHCyyfNslE

    1. Or the slightly more well known Edward Snowden as the case may be.

      1. Its actually his look a like cousin. Lol

      2. His close friends call him eric.

  18. I really am concerned about what is going on in the world. The climate crisis and the fact that we are under the control of madmen, people who are not taking the necessary steps to save us from extinction and instead seem to be taking us into totalitarianism. I don’t think that I am overreacting. 

    In addition it seems that the majority of humanity is in an abusive relationship with their gov’ts. and don’t want to escape, just like in an abusive love relationship, when the battered woman just keeps coming back for more (paraphrasing Caitlin Johnston). 

    We must find a way for humanity to rise up and demand the end of vertical top down abusive gov’ts. and replace it with the very feasible and effective, decentralized and localized, horizontal governing which is truly democratic and virtually incorruptible with the removal of all politicians and lobbyists asap (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wywMhg604W8&feature&fbclid=IwAR3HcZvrdRJvRNqMRZ3m6t3hvuac7bTXlxnQn-WjutSbWoWXOw7iW7AAEd4). 

    I thought that we could do this with a gigantic network of millions to billions of like minded groups and people to collaborate, organize, and unify to make the necessary changes. But this is going to take at least this whole year just for it to get launched. 

    Ironically, the different people and organizations attempting this have not yet found a way to fully collaborate, that is, to have interoperability, that is to bridge different platforms, to share databases with security from abuses, maintain sovereignty, maintain security in general, and create the necessary tools for collaboration and organizing on all scales, and therefore hasn’t yet been able to get off the ground.

    I have been depending on my colleague’s expertise to do this and though she has been great, we have gotten stalled, so to speak, in the water (utopiacornucopia.org). We need the IT experts and visionaries who understand this to come together and find a way as soon as possible, in my opinion.

    Once we have gotten out of the grip of these abusive “democratic” governments we can end wasting our resources on the constant grand scale environmental contamination by the military, their insidious destructions of whole societies, their hideous murder of millions, and their causing of millions of refugees. This is one big example of the abusive relationship we are all in.

    These resources can be used for regenerating the soil, air, and waters, and localizing food production, reinventing cities, using AI ethically. We need to exchange the extraction of resources for the benefit of individuals and multi-corporations for the benefitting of the whole with respect for the environment, create an economy that incentivizes cooperation, compassion, and collaboration, and end polluting our life source, all of nature.

    As the climate crises have begun to spin out of control and the media has been commandeered to manipulate the masses, one can’t help but feel the grave urgency. It seems to me that we can use the internet to unify and take away the power from the psychopaths. This can only be done by combining the efforts of the best of us with the expertise and vision. 

    People who resonate with these ideas, please contact me and we will get together digitally to overcome these obstacles and find solutions, mofwoofoo@gmail.com.

    Note: These ideas may seem idealistic, extreme, and unrealistic to some, but it is radical systemic changes that must occur immediately if we are to have any real hope in my opinion. I am a long time radical anarchist activist, etc, etc. If you wish, you can scroll down my fb page, Tom Osher forever and see where I am coming from.

    1. that sounds a solid idea coming from Ecuador. I’m surprised. Till now I was really upset with Ecuador giving away Assange to the establishment in London to rot slowly in prison. We cannot judge one country by a president working as facilitator to the owners of this world. I wish you lucky in many conquests in your path. Kind wishes.

    2. Barring some magical geo engineering and competent effective politicans and an involved intelligent electorate, we are basically doomed. We are either at, past or almost at the tipping point of climate change. Do you see any of the above? I don’t! Our pre frontal cortex literally shuts down when confronted with what Caitlin calls assertive bullshit. This has been known for almost a decade scientifically and for millennia by the ruling classes. Enjoy your life, it goes fast. If you have kid’s, find a way to get them to a higher/lower latitude; they will be safe there longer. Of course you could try some hope but it’s not a good strategy.

      1. That is precisely how the bastards want us to think and feel–utterly defeated. A parent with eyes wide open should be opening their children’s eyes and teaching them to fight evil, not run from it.

        1. If you ever competed in Judo, you would recognize that when you know your beat, you tap out before you’re unconscious. That’s a small example. The Palestinians will never win their fight so the smart thing would be to say, that you can have it All, you do anyhow.. but we demand Israeli Citizenship for it.

          1. The last thing that the Zionists want is a one state solution. They are outnumbered, and would no longer be a jewish state. Unless you’re talking about two classes of citizenship, ie. “slaves and masters.”

          2. Thanks for the clarification, Bob. I like that way of saying it a lot better. But are we as beat as many think we are? I’m not convinced of that, despite all odds and appearances. Neither is Caitlin.

      2. When I see all these generation in the last 20 years talking about climate change quoting Al Gore, I’ve always the feeling to let it go. People don’t trust media when they talk about wars around the world, general elections but they firmly believe in everything about this topic. I’ll not be alive in 2050. I’m not sure if I’ll be alive in 2025. Decades before Michael Crichton bring up to the light what’s behind of it, I was already there being crushed by Anglo-Ameican, British Petroleum, Exxon, etc. At home my wife is a true believer of these experts who never put their feet in an oil rig off shore, oil refineries, treatment of sewers and water stations. They don’t understand the dynamics between continents, water, forests, underground aquifers. Today, I’m in peace. I did my part. As Mr. Finn spoke early, we all have our time to understand some things. Some people change, luckily. Others, never change.

        1. I am convinced, RAGNARSON, that we understand little as yet about the extraordinary regenerative/recuperative powers of nature, not to speak of nature as a whole. Hell, we’re just beginning to learn about the intricate and near-miraculous fungus world beneath our feet. You might enjoy scoping out “Entangled Life” by Merlin Sheldrake, Rupert’s son.

          1. Thank you Mr. Finn. I’ll checkout. Also I recommend Fantastic Fungi documentary. https://youtu.be/bxABOiay6oA

            1. Appreciate it.

  19. 24/2/21
    ASIO Fears Covid Bringing Left Wing, Right Wing, Islamic Anti-Authority Conspiracy Theorists Wellness and Anti Vax Groups Into One Giant Borg THREAT Which Must be Stopped ! (Everyone is the Enemy!) (Sorry We Have Run Out of Labels)

    https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/25/far-right-exploiting-anger-at-lockdowns-to-radicalise-wellness-community-police-say

    1. For the police and military to exist enemies must constantly be identified…communists, Russia, drugs, trrrorists, china, far right radicals etc. Other true threats which are politically protected must be ignored.

  20. “Coming to a mature understanding of the world is the slow, humbling process of realizing that the socialists and anti-imperialists have been pretty much right about pretty much everything, and that everyone who calls them crazy or extremist is wrong.” Spot on. But that mature understanding must then go on to encompass what our proper response should be to this realization, what would be the most effective actions we could take to help others to understand what we have come to understand. How do we break out of our radical leftist silos, stop preaching to the choir, and begin to win others to the eco-socialist cause? Are we grappling with that question, throwing ideas at one another, exploring every possibility, or are we content in feeling virtuous by endlessly calling out and condemning the bastards in charge of the madness? Do we really have any chance of reaching the masses with incendiary rhetoric largely confined to our own sound chambers? Do we really want to change the world, do we believe we can any longer, or have we resigned ourselves to watching it die so that we can say “I told you so.” That oppositional but futile stance is the opposite of mature, a state of rebellious childishness to which many on today’s radical left has regressed. There will be no possible political traction until we grow up…all the way.

    1. I am old enough that most of my friends are grandparents. The way I try to get them to see more clearly is to ask them if they really think that our nation’s current obsession with global imperialism through endless war is going to lead to a long and happy life for their grandchildren. That seems to work to bypass the TV propaganda and get them thinking.

      1. You’re on to something, Skip. I’ve also found that going right to the big picture, the brutal impact of our insane way of life on the young and those who will follow them, as well as the impact on the environment which sustains us all, clears away a lot of obstructions and gets the really crucial issues into focus far more effectively than arguing about smaller, albeit it more specific, issues.

      2. I’m a similar age, but I find a similar approach doesn’t work with imperial war or climate change supporters of my acquaintance.

        1. Please keep trying, Ian. We have no option but to change minds and hearts, as many as possible ASAP.

          1. I do, but there’s always another Youtube nutter explaining how Muslims are evil and climate change is natural, good and caused by solar cycles.

        2. Another angle that I have used is to recall my life as a merchant seaman traveling all around the world and working with all different kinds of folks, and how most of them were fundamentally good people who wanted a decent life for their kids, thereby humanizing the “enemy” d’jour. Then I remind them that our empire is bombing many of them daily.

          1. Yes, we get nowhere by “othering,” and at the risk of pissing off many of Caitlin’s readers, I go one step further and suggest that plutocrats are also human beings whom we are called upon to love, in the largest, deepest sense, despite all the evil they’ve participated in and profited from. And this love must include pointing out what they’ve done without mincing words, speaking the truth as we see it, for their good as well as our own.

            1. Love the sinner, but hate the sin.

              1. So hard to do, but we must.

  21. “Putting truth before all else makes it harder to be comfortable, but it’s also the only path to real lasting happiness.”
    It makes comfort nearly impossible since a great deal of our construct of reality is based on lies we’ve believed, many for generations. I don’t think it results in lasting happiness, but it does result in a lasting peace with ones self. Once one sees truth it cannot be unseen.
    Truth can easily withstand any scrutiny, criticism, or argument. It neither needs, requires, nor desires protection by censorship. LIES DO!!

    1. Caitlin is right about cognitive dissonance. When I tell people the truth it is like I said aliens have landed. I will give you an example. When 9/11 happened we saw it unfold on TV at work. A woman said it was an accident. Then the second plane came. She then ssid it was an isolated attack. When a car bomb exploded it finally sunk in that it was a coordinated attack. She burst in tears in unbelief. When the pentagon was hit she fell apart. Reality was forced onto her and she mentally broke down. She represented the mindset of many.

      1. It wasn’t “an attack” so much as what Sun Tzu calls “The Self-Inflicted Wound”, in the Art of War. And when you show people the mountain if evidence which proved this – they STILL fight like hell to deny it. They’ll work to discredit any source – or cling to the fallacy of “authoritative” sources like the “9/11 Commission” ‘s Report… Never mind that it was crafted by CIA and Nat’l Security STATE insiders, based upon false points of origin, and glaring ommissions of any evidence that were contradict it’s narrative, or pre-determined solutions.

        It ommits the Testimony of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, regarding what be saw in Cheney’s bunker…and all references to the near-fall, symmetrical, vertical collapse of WTC7 – hit by no airplane, predicted in advance by the BBC, as having already transpired, and then occurring with all of the hallmarks of a Controlled Demolition. https://www.ae911truth.org/

        1. An Attack by our own government.

          1. Yes, indeed – with some help from some ‘foreign actors’ who could never be held to a subpoena. Some of those were actually caught and arrested – but then cut loose and allowed to flee the country.

            But let no one be fooled… the Air Defenses at the Pentagon could only be disabled by members of our own Government. The (at minimum) 7 Secret Wargames – that diverted interceptors to the North Pole, and provided cover for the Attacks, came from within our Government – no outsiders could have known about them, even to time the attacks to capitilize upon them. The “Anthrax Letters’ used the US ARMY’s AMES Strain, in a highly weaponized form – meaning that was done by someone in our Government, as well. And back in the Spring of 2001, Dick Cheney’s Committee on Terrorism changed the protocols for hijackings, to remove NORAD from the chain of decision-making responsibility, substituting the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff above them – which prevented any shoot-down without Political-layer interference. PNAC called for a “New Pearl Harbor” echoing the plans of Brzezinski, from “The Grand Chessboard”… And they ensured that their wishes would come true.

        2. LOL. Written by a Zionist, and falsely attributed to one or many Chinese authors.

  22. I knew something was amiss when I found myself agreeing with Bill Maher last night as he teed off on culture of cancel that has metastasized into a cancer of pervasive censorship. No one is safe from the mob and no thought—no matter how old or relevant to one’s current mindset—is off limits when it comes to dredging up bygone mistakes and current slipups to invalidate someone’s voice. What has been taking place on the fringes is now the new norm; celebrities and civilians alike are apt to be silenced if they commit the sin of speaking out of turn.

    Forget common sense and thick skins, we are now being run by a collective of snowflakes and fascists who insist on limiting expression, restricting emotions and curbing opinions. It’s like we are living in East Germany with the Stasi firmly in control; distrust is pervasive as we are encouraged to turn on each other and conditioned to whip anyone who strays from acceptable narratives back into their lanes. We are so mired down the rabbit holes of speech elimination and news manipulation that Orwell would be thrown for a loss if he was to write a book about 2021…continued…

    https://ghionjournal.com/cancel-culture-run-amok/

    1. Be silent. I am offended by your speech.
      The left like Bill Maher brought this to fruition. Now that it has taken hold they dont like it. Thee not me.

      1. Hmmm, the abuser is offended easily when someone isn’t in resonance with what makes her happy. I knew it, you fascist!!!! LOL

      2. My immediate thought was that he must have a skeleton in his closet that is about to be outed. Maher is an arrogant asshole. He would never care until it was about to hit him personally.

        1. “Love me, I’m a Liberal” fits Maher perfectly. He’s a smug and smarmy snob.

  23. Today, Africa stands at the cross-roads. This is the last opportunity for the continent`s leadership to decide the fate of 1.3 billion people.

    This is the most crucial moment in Africa`s history. The choice on one hand, is to continue following IMF diktat and agree to a future of economic policy that benefits the banks of Wall Street and the City of London. For that choice there is a bribe which is called the Green Finance Package [1].

    Kenya, sadly, has become the first to accept the UN Green Finance Package which was received by Kenya`s Central Bank this week.It has chosen to appease the Paris Club and protect its credit rating.

    By accepting the Green Bribe, Kenya is committing to a zero-growth policy. The Green New Deal will not fund fossil-fuel or nuclear energy. Without reliable, cheap energy, it is impossible to power development and industrialize an economy. Renewables cannot run a steel mill. Hydropower has its physical limits in terms of transmission distance and it is not a possibility without considerable water volume.

    https://risingtidefoundation.net/2021/02/27/discourse-on-the-debt-of-africa-thirty-three-years-on/

    1. World….here is some money.
      Kenya…thank you. Come take our stuff, innoculate and reduce our birthrate by whatever means you choose.
      World….thank you. No troops will be required at this time.

  24. “China’s success on the world stage benefits the Chinese people.”

    Similar to the US, China’s success benefits a few. “Gangsters” on every continent control the planet, pick your poison…..

    1. You’re going in the right direction Charlotte. I think you know how the world really works and just a few understand what’s going to happen in America and the rest of the world. In a week? A month? 2 months? But the process is already in course. it’s a matter of time. Most of you will think it’s insane but mark my words: The USA will take everything from the American people. USA is not a country anymore. It’s a corporation working to the one (mafia) in Europe who holds the rights over all properties and lands on the USA. The rest of the western world will follow the same fate. The great reset is about owning the whole world. It’s surreal, insane. But as I said before, everyone will pay the price for bad decisions committed in closed meetings with bad people in previous administrations of the US.

    2. I believe Caitlin is referring to the growing Chinese middle class while ours is shrinking.

  25. Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin bestows upon us these priceless gems of sane logic and hits another home run completely out of the ball park. She is indeed ” heaven sent”!!
    ~
    They snatched the slingshot out of the childs hand because he might hurt someone, then a few short years later they handed him an automatic rifle and gave him the power of life and death over people in a village overseas.
    ~
    Alternate answer to Fermis paradox: we have not met the aliens because a civilization far more advanced than our own would have matured emotionally and spiritually beyond the need to sail around the galaxy molesting the natives like a bunch of fifteenth century Europeans.
    ~
    Putting truth before all else makes it harder to be comfortable, but it is also the only path to real lasting happiness.

  26. “The long-term plan to fix America: Mumble mumble diverse cabinet mumble mumble mumble I bet Trump is hatching some pretty bad schemes for 2024 mumble mumble.”
    ———-
    It’s so sad to see the future of the American society reduced to Joe Biden or Trump. That’s the price paid for decades hanging out and making deals with bad people.
    ———-
    “The facts are in and the debate is settled. Those who claimed the Democratic Party can be used to move the United States toward sanity were wrong. The first step to escaping a burning building is to stop pushing on the fake emergency exit door that’s been painted on the wall.”
    ———-
    Yeah, that’s Bill Maher for you. The only path to sanity is to bring up to the light all dark deals, where is the money and to where is going the money. All Americans deserve to know the truth to decide what to do with their leaders and representatives. There’s still time to send G. W. Bush and Cheney in the front line to the death row among many many others. Clean the house and start over again from zero to hero. You can’t fix a house if the basement is compromised.
    ———-
    “China’s success on the world stage benefits the Chinese people. America’s success on the world stage comes at the expense of the American people.”
    ————
    To face and to absorb a whole heavy package of economic sanctions from US and allies during an entire administration it’s not a small feat.
    ————–
    Alternate answer to Fermi’s paradox: we haven’t met the aliens because a civilization far more advanced than our own would have matured emotionally and spiritually beyond the need to sail around the galaxy molesting the natives like a bunch of fifteenth century Europeans.
    —————
    It’s true. But it can also means we were put here by these same aliens to not ruin anything else in the universe. The planet is working in the automatic mode. From time to time the self-clean option is turned on. Those micro seismic earthquakes happening around the whole world every 26 seconds since the 60s like a beacon, it’s indeed a message to the outsiders: “Don’t come here, dangerous species in quarantine under study.”

    1. Bush? Bill Cheney? What about Obama and both Clintons? They are all cut from the same cloth.

      1. Yes, yes, yes, it’s a long list going back to the 50s. When people realize (and it will be late) it will not be a surprise so see bodies being exhume in cemeteries to be hanged like Oliver Cromwell was by Charles I when he returned from the exile.

  27. Trump is no spring chicken. Suppose he kicks it in the next year or two. Does that mean some sort of a successor would don the Don’s mantle? What would that look like?

    1. The Donald’s son Barron will soon mature into an imposing twenty-foot high Nephilim and lead a comeback for the Ancient Aliens People’s Party.

      1. I’m no fan of Trump but I believe his son is 14 years old. Maybe we should leave under age children out of the discussion.

        1. I agree. I doesn’t make sense for me too.

        2. Yes, he’s 14 years old and already rather taller than 6’3″ Donald himself, which is quite amazing compared to the unassuming little lad of 4 years ago. The remark was meant as a humorous riff on his rapid growth, not a rip on either one of the individuals and certainly not a real suggestion that he enter politics. Get a grip.

    2. No. Of course not. Kanye.

  28. LOL, great essay and on the point of Fermi’s Paradox, I once lived near Fermi Lab, a nuclear accelerator named after Fermi; and very close to Fermi Lab is a road way called Fabian Parkway, so wrap your head, if you will, around that fact. That Fermi Lab is near Chicago, which is supposedly the most corrupt city in the US . Famous for Al Capone. The Lab is in Kane County, Kane is pronounced the same as Cain. All the people in Kane County are part of another lab experiment; this one operated by the Mafia, some say Mossad, same thing, people just disappear there. Every single day they say, “you can run but you can’t hide”. LOL. I’m not running or hiding, but I’m still being trailed every single day. So, yeah, you can say, but it really is amazing how many people will turn for a few extra bucks and allow themselves to be brainwashed. But, what is learned here will, god willing, will be applied to all the rest of the world as well, including all possessions of the British Empire and it’s nothing nice.

  29. The NYT has as its motto “all the news that’s fit to print” of course that has never been true. Even before Hillary Clinton was attracted to politics by the odious Barry Goldwater who wanted, at the time, to nuke the peasants of Viet Nam.
    There are many egregious examples of the NYT either suppressing information or inventing it.

    Here is another which pertains to the entire MSM. The UN recently reported longevity data ranked by country. Cuba at 45th in the world has just passed the US, despite the US damaging their health via embargo. It was so bad there was an epidemic of nutritional blindness. And Cuba has none of the “FDA-approved” drugs which befoul the nightly airwaves.

    No mention in the American press! The NYT should replace “all the news….. “ with “Bullshit spoken here” .

    1. “All the Booze that really Stinks!”

  30. Caitlin, You are a poet and a truth teller. Thank you.

  31. When you wrote earlier (before this post):

    “Americans: $2000 checks please
    Government: Sorry did you say airstrikes on Syria?
    Americans: No, $2000 checks
    Government: Okay, since you asked nicely here’s your airstrikes on Syria.”

    I thought at the time this cuts to the heart of the matter.

    Now noticing people all over the world either quoting this, or variations on the theme.

    You are waking up lots of people and giving them a new vocabulary. I appreciate your work.

    1. Good on Caitlin for trying to wake people up but the fact that the wealthiest nation spends trillions on war machines but doesn’t have universal free health care should have long since brought Americans and people everywhere to a simple realisation.

      1. Good point. However they haven’t realised yet. The challenge before us all is to take responsibilty for waking people up. I am reluctant to use the analogy of “How do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time” because Elephants are awesom and no human should eat one. However millions of waking up people could possibly gnaw away at that other beast.
        My personal experience of attempting to wake people is mixed. I have found that it is better to ask questions about things that don’t make sense rather than to throw assertions around that make them wrong. It seems like a craft than needs to be developed.

        1. You don’t have to worry about waking up people anymore. The dark side will do this task.
          https://youtu.be/EcnjlNWhx-M

        2. A fundamental part of Socratic dialog. Asking questions which can only be reasonably and truthfully answered by refuting their own argument. Make their minds actually work instead of record and repeat. I have found that this often has the same emotional effect, anger, as making assertions does, but the anger so generated has no basis whatsoever since it’s the product of their own mind they are angry with.

        3. Thank you, IDIG, for thinking constructively and strategically. I’ve been able to move my formerly rightwing friend more to the left in recent years by rational and respectful debate. Where would I have gotten by calling him, at the outset, a goddamn fascist?

      2. Kris Kristofferson wrote the words and Janis Joplin sang them out back in 1969. “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” So, yeah, America is indubitably the freest country in the developed world. We’ve got so much freedom now our lives of quiet desperation are turning to raving panic and paranoia.

        1. And can’t we see that “raving panic and paranoia” as an opening, a restarting of history supposedly ended a while back by global neoliberal capitalism? The pandemic, awful as it is on the personal level (I, too, have lost people I love to the virus), has even got the biggest and baddest neoliberal guns calling for a new and better socioeconomic world order, one more humane and sustainable. Right now it’s only rhetoric, but it’s our job to make them live up to their words, instead of merely throwing them back at them and calling them dirty no-good SOBs. How far will that get us, when we ourselves are at each others’ throats?

          https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/01/28/davos-great-reset-french-prez-macron-declares-modern-capitalism-can-no-longer-work/

          1. Yes, you’re ready Mr. Finn. You overcame and now you own it. The change didn’t came from a source outside forcing you to change using the “productive constraint”. The same eventually will happen with the others, eventually.

    2. Btw, where is my check.

      1. Why, in the mail, of course….;)

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