Journalists should be exposing inconvenient truths about powerful people in their own nation and its allies. Instead the people we call “journalists” criticize enemy nations, smear political dissidents, demand increasing amounts of censorship, and advance narratives that are convenient for the powerful.
❖
The “war on terror” is a false pretext for interventionism in the Middle East and the “war on drugs” is a false pretext for interventionism in Latin America.
❖
Lula being free and eligible to run again in Brazil is a very big deal with huge implications for US imperialism. This isn’t like some fake leftist getting into the Democratic Party or whatever, this is a real thing that will have real consequences in a nation with huge geostrategic significance to the US empire. The empire invested many years staging a coup in one of the largest nations on earth, and it’s not just going to let it be reversed without a fuss. I’m bit nervous about what will happen.
❖
The Monroe Doctrine is literally just the US saying “Latin America is our Africa. You guys get those brown people over there, these are our brown people over here.”
❖
I love how pundits talk about the Monroe Doctrine like it’s a real thing that has actual legitimacy. “Well we can’t have Russia and China interfering in Venezuela, that’s just the Monroe Doctrine.” No, how about you fuck all the way off from any country not named the United States of America.
We could be collaborating with each other and with our ecosystem to create a beautiful, awesome, healthy world. Instead we’re all competing with each other working meaningless jobs creating pieces of landfill which serve no purpose besides turning millionaires into billionaires.
The overwhelming majority of human effort goes into competing against other humans. We do have the ability to take all that lost energy and re-route it toward collaborating with each other toward health and thriving. There is no real reason we can’t do this. There are no hard obstacles preventing us from moving away from our failed competition-based model to a collaboration-based model. All that’s stopping us is plutocratic propaganda and our collective belief in it. We do have the ability to drop that belief and move toward sanity.
Leftist thinkers who predicted that the inevitable decline in material conditions caused by capitalism would necessarily lead to its downfall failed to foresee just how powerfully effective capitalist propaganda would get at preventing revolution, and the US conclusively proves this. It’s like predicting that an abuser’s abuse will necessarily lead to the victim leaving; that’s simply not the case if the abuser is adept at manipulation, as many abusers are. The science of modern propaganda has been in research and development for over a century. It is very potent.
Across nearly all sectors of thought, people consistently underestimate how easy human beings are to psychologically manipulate. The only sectors which are exempt from this rule are those which make manipulation their business: advertising, politics, and propaganda.
The left simply doesn’t have the numbers to advance socialist and anti-imperialist agendas in the western world. We don’t have the numbers because mass-scale plutocratic propaganda actively works to keep us from having the numbers. Until we address this head-on, meaningful changes are impossible.
It’s amazing how often leftists ignore this massive, glaring problem of not having enough numbers to accomplish anything real. You have to address it. You must find those numbers somewhere. Deteriorating material conditions aren’t doing the job for us; we need to do it ourselves.
I mean the Green Party presidential candidate got 0.2 percent of the vote in the US last year. The Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate got 317 votes, total. Three hundred and seventeen, in the entire United States. That’s not even an average-sized Italian wedding. I don’t care what your reasons are, you can’t just keep trucking along like those numbers aren’t a huge problem. Something needs to be done, and that something begins with directly tackling the problem of plutocratic propaganda.
I want every child to know that if you work hard, kiss the right asses, and collaborate with the interests of the powerful, you too could grow up to murder poor people in nations your school books lie about. https://t.co/PvSLbfLA3T
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 10, 2021
Taking back the wealth that the plutocrats have stolen isn’t just valuable because it can be used to help the needful: it’s a defensive measure as well. Take their money and they can’t use it to buy politicians, buy up news outlets, fund think tanks, and propagandize the masses. The collective is entitled to confiscate any weapon that someone is using to harm the collective. If you’re using a rifle to fire upon a crowd, they’re entitled to disarm you for their collective safety. If you’re using your billions of dollars to exploit and manipulate, they’re entitled to disarm you for their collective safety.
❖
Very upsetting how whoever’s the next high profile western anti-imperialist turned out to be a sinister Kremlin agent and/or evil anti-semite.
❖
We are told that capitalism is responsible for accelerating progress, but capitalism’s version of “progress” is destroying the ecosystem, and is clearly progressing far too fast: the development of artificial intelligence without a thorough examination of the risks, medicines being released that haven’t been fully tested, etc.
❖
A socialist who only criticizes the GOP is called a liberal.
❖
In a world that is rapidly dying and at increasing risk of nuclear war there is no functional difference between a liberal incrementalist and a progressive who favors advancing change by slowly taking over the Democratic Party over the course of the next century.
The biggest obstacle to American progress is not the Republican Party, it's the Democratic Party. https://t.co/vrhlc94j6E
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 11, 2021
How many of people’s mental health diagnoses are really just them not coping well with capitalism?
❖
If you’re a father to boys and you’re not having regular conversations with them about what consent is, what rape is and how important it is to not rape people, you are a big part of the problem. If you currently don’t know how to have these conversations in ways that are age-appropriate and informative then look it up, ask for directions, listen and learn. You are your kid’s only hope that he doesn’t cause irreparable damage to others. You need to take this seriously.
Oh, your dad never did this for you? Well color me shocked. It shows. Your son will not have the same excuse of ignorance. The world is getting brighter with far less places for rapey behavior to hide. He needs your help to navigate this.
______________________________
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my new book Poems For Rebels (you can also download a PDF for five bucks) or my old book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
132 responses to “Mainstream Journalism Doesn’t Exist: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
A General Theory Of Testosterone
by Christopher Hall (full use permission granted)
Why men concentrated so much testosterone and grew to be so big and tall: men had to adopt an imperial evolutionary path to try and match wits with women, to compensate for the inherent power of women. Women give birth to humans; they have the greatest power of the universe in them, the power of life. To see a woman give birth is to see that raw power like a lion personified, roaring. To see your son or daughter come out of your wife, is among all things, the greatest humbling experience.
To match wits with women on this level is impossible in every way, thought man, but one day it occurred to him in the back of his evolutionary brain that killing was the equal power of birth, and with that, he could match wits with the power women have. Man killed any and everything to show he was powerful too. He killed deer, bear, bison, fish, and sheep. He fought lions and tigers while riding elephants. He has waged war with other men to show his power to kill en masse, therefore trying to upstage women’s power. He has taken steroids to augment his vast reserves of testosterone that occur in him, and he’s worked out to rip his muscles.
He came to the opinion that owning her was not only equivalent to having her power, but that in fact, it was better, because he did not have to go through the work carrying, birthing, and raising the children, and that fishing and hunting were much more fun. Man saw his wife as a baby appliance that spat out future workers and wealth builders. Testosterone poisoning such as this was the birth of patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny. Today, neocons and neolibs see all of us as appliances of one kind or another, and they’ll either dump or recycle us (respectively) as soon as they can get their robot appliances working.
The best part of this essay is the very last part on testosterone poisoning. Men have a moral responsibility not to keep handing down the violence and rape and murder they have perpetrated over the entire past of human existence. I am a cis-gender white heterosexual male who is armed to the teeth with privilege, and I stand fully responsible for benefitting from the evils of men in the past. For those of you who have thin skins and cry injustice, know that too is a result of your testosterone poisoning.
My next post below this one is my Generale theory of Testosterone.
“We live in a world where propaganda seems to be more important than the reality of what’s really going on.”
.
• Roger Waters denounces “fake” White Helmets, Don’t bomb Syria
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FFReCibdMM
.
Featured here …
.
• Group Unveils OPCW Cover-up in Douma Chemical Attack
.
https://uprootedpalestinians.wordpress.com/2021/03/14/group-unveils-opcw-cover-up-in-douma-chemical-attack/#like-434923
.
… and now we await the word salad from the terrorist group WHO about the origin of “The Virus™”
I.
haven’t been so entertainted [sic – that was a genuine typo] since Sefton Delmer’s WWII atrocity propaganda.
Would now be an opportune time to mention “Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control” by E. Michael Jones
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQeRu7BUEr8
.
Is it just me or is it hot in here?
This place is culty.
I don’t agree. We should keep engaging with Caitlin. I think she is a good person and not a rapist like all us men. Reading the hate and emotions of her writings about men – it seems she might have had some personal issues with men. And that is understandable and forgivable. Eventually she will have no choice but to stop hating because it will eat you from the inside and make you sick from disease. Hope she can let the hate go and forgive men. We all need to understand that each person has their own demons to battle in life – male or female. Maybe this is her battle.
Yes, she is remarkable about politics but I would not trust my money, people I love neither my time a crusade against the establishment with her thinking like that. To be a leader or a reference you cannot have someone like her.
Ragnar – you are correct. She rants and raves about propaganda and injustice yet allows her own gender bias to skew her reasoning centres. She is a die hard feminist ideolouge. Just in my opinion adhering fully to ANY ideology is dangerous. You should always keep your mind / opinion fluid and open. I understand that all feminist ideology is not wrong or bad – but even CJ needs be called out when spewing hate ie: like shaming young boys for all being potential future rapists. That’s just hateful and makes her part of the problem.
Telling boys that they are inherently rapists and wrong to be born male is like telling children that they are supremacists who are wrong to be born white.
Good thing that only happened in your imagination.
@Tim Glover: Caitlin didn’t say tell your boys they’re likely to sexually assault someone. You are hyper-sensitive about this. The stats say about 25% of women have been sexually assaulted — almost always by men. Obviously there’s a lot of guys who have done this. It is preventable — and a good way to do that is to socialize children to understand that this is wrong. She is giving you a warning — the #MeToo movement is only going to get stronger and if our sons are doing this to women, it will be much more likely to be brought to light with consequences to bear.
No one besides you believes those stats. That is a repeated feminists talking point that has no relevance in statistics or facts. Go drink some more cool aid, this is the reason why you are culty.
https://youtu.be/zlVI7CpUmSU?t=508
Thank You KHATIKA
Rothschilds love hydrocarbons – along with their long established banking cartel – it gives them COMPLETE control !
CNG will be the Rothschilds hydrocarbon downfall – Russia has all the expertise to help the BRI countries profit from this !
The NG rich countries have all joined the BRI !
You most definitely have nothing else to offer but ordure. People who can only express themselves with scatology like you, tell us all we need to know about where your mind is situated.
James, would you prefer words like ‘collateral damage’ ‘intervention’
‘nuclear deterrent’ ‘patriotism’ ‘homeland security’ ‘freedom fighters’ ‘napalm’ ‘downsizing’ ‘war’ etc etc.
The list is ENDLESS, UGLY, BRUTAL and far, far worse than a couple of colourful expletives.
Wake up FFS.
Definition of capitalism – An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development occurs through the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.
All freedom and protecting private property, right?
No.
Notice how they slip in the “or corporately owned”. A corporation is established directly upon government force, starting with compelling the populace to accept it as a person. There is nothing private about a corporation, nor can it by definition own anything. Corporate “ownership” means not ownership but simply control of resources by force, preventing private ownership.
Check!
“Taking back the wealth that the plutocrats have stolen isn’t just valuable because it can be used to help the needful: it’s a defensive measure as well. Take their money and they can’t use it to buy politicians, buy up news outlets, fund think tanks, and propagandize the masses. The collective is entitled to confiscate any weapon that someone is using to harm the collective.”
This is exactly what is proposed here with a Peoples’ Bank. Taking back the wealth that has been stolen and redistributing it using a money system far superior to the present usurious one. The bare bones of the idea are here: https://twitter.com/DomeLord/status/705772854630084608?s=20 but obviously the infrastructure of the bank needs to be developed at each locality with perhaps locally flavoured money being issued. Blockchain tech might be utilised, et c. There’s effectively more money here than you can shake a stick at so there need not be any pleading of poverty anymore anywhere at any time. The seeds of recovery are hereby planted. Please yourselves.
Humble opinion: The overwhelming majority of human ingenuity is underutilized, that’s for sure!
“The only sectors which are exempt from this rule are those which make manipulation their business: advertising, politics, and propaganda.”
What is the hard and fast RULE here being referred to?
The ‘sectors’ of which are being spoken of are made up of living, breathing, fallible human beings, none of which are exempt from anything other human beings are subject to. All human beings are susceptible to being psychologically manipulated, and are manipulated, by their own unconscious ego’s desires; unless of course they have become aware enough to recognize this contradiction within themselves. This is the first hurdle each and every one of us has to overcome.
Naming names: Buddha, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Eckhart Tolle and other such like exemplary beings is encouraging. Probably omitted hundreds of others!
The science of modern propaganda may have been in research and development for over a century, and its effects on the human mind are very potent, but it is NOT a hard and fast rule; as in – what are understood as ‘the laws of physics’.
[Over the years, one thing scientists have discovered is that nature is generally more complex than we give it credit for. The laws of physics are considered fundamental, although many of them refer to idealized or theoretical systems that are hard to replicate in the real world.] ThoughtCo
In other words, the facts of physics are such that the human mind, at this point in neurological evolution still only has the capacity for comprehending a minute smidgen of the infinite extent of the outer physical universe. Just as the entirety of the cosmos is unfathomable, so too the inner space of the ever-expanding infinite mind. Perhaps even more so!
If one is not conscious, even of beginning to know the full extent of self; what we think of others is merely theoretical conjecture. At this rate, how many more years will it take? Does humanity have but more than a few short years to come to its senses?
Conflating the power of the Plutocratic collective with the power of the collective of the ninety-nine percent, however, is delusional. “If you’re using your billions of dollars to exploit and manipulate, they’re entitled to disarm you for their collective safety.” (Perhaps I’m misinterpreting the gist of the argument)
It requires a huge stretch of imagination to go from rightfully feeling ‘entitled’, to actually carrying through the act, against such odds where the Plutocratic death cult, now “for over a century” has grown ever more powerful, and holds all the cards. Changing the fraudulent system from within that system is laughable. Changing it by exponentially enhancing human conscious for the benefit of the majority of the global populace, is a laudable goal.
Are individual Identity issues, in the short-term the immediately necessary overall political solution, or are they more the playing out of the propaganda art of the divide and rule strategy, of the owners and therefore, more of an obstacle to resolving the major issue of human survival as a more cohesive, compassionate, fully sharing, community?
Some critical thoughts!
“The science of modern propaganda has been in research and development for over a century. It is very potent.”
So far, this is in the lead for Understatement of 2021.
Individuals Do Not matter in propaganda science, it is the science of herding humans en masse. This is no longer guesswork or the sort of blind fumbling we are taught to expect in the so-called social “sciences”: propaganda is cold hard known fact science, and it is the bedrock technology of the modern world.
You’re bound to lose a few stragglers, but they simply do not count.
yes, I like to move slow. I’m old but not stupid enough to be a public figure offending ordinary people. I would never put in risk the integrity of my sons, daughters and friends because of something I said. I guess CJ is not smart enough about setting up the standards of her fight. My honest advice. change your attitude before it’s too late. I’ve seen this thing happen in the past.
“The “war on terror” is a false pretext for interventionism in the Middle East and the “war on drugs” is a false pretext for interventionism in Latin America.”
The war on Terror began in earnest, under Reagan, when someone realized that you couldn’t really claim to be a “democracy” while implementing “counter-insurgency” and “counter-intelligence” campaigns within your own borders. http://whale.to/b/mackenzie_b.html#Hiding_Political_Spying_ (That’s a great book btw – “Secrets: the CIA’s War at Home” – for anyone who hasn’t read it, yet. And it appears that ‘whale’ has it up for free. Angus Mackenzie – killed with galloping CIA brain cancer, before the media tour on his award-winning book could begin.)
Both wars are directed as much at internal populations, as they are used as covers for Empire building. And a close look at either problem, will find the CIA and DoD, actually igniting-, and fanning the flames-, of the wildfires that they claim to be be fighting.
Do not dismiss the influences and political dispositions of the Dulles brothers post WW1 AWIP, and all the way to and including WW2 and beyond. The cultures have manifestly been cultured and endorsed by successive governing US political forces irrespective of any supposed doctrinal party differences.
“Journalists should be exposing inconvenient truths about powerful people in their own nation and its allies.” Such as Statement of Concern: The OPCW Investigation of Alleged Chemical Weapons Use in Douma, Syria: https://couragefound.org/2021/03/statement-of-concern-the-opcw-investigation-of-alleged-chemical-weapons-use-in-douma-syria/
And, when one of the few remaining (actual) journalists, like Aaron Matte, makes a sound — bring them to the forefront, then attack relentlessly.
The numbers are there is we learn to team up with conservatives. They too want to defeat the hegemony of politics, mass media and social media.
Conservatives are not the demons they are portrayed to be. And just as true, I am slowly waking up to the fact that progressives are not my enemy. Together we can defeat the hegemony.
Yup
The problem, unfortunately, goes much deeper than Caitlin explains it. It’s not just that the elites have put together an extremely effective propaganda machine; it’s that “the people” being propagandized have become utterly incapable of uniting behind and pushing for enlightened positions on public issues, much less of fomenting anything approaching a revolution. Deep inside most of us know this, including, I suspect, Caitlin. So like it or not, bitch about it or go with the flow, we find ourselves at the mercy of elites who will do with us–and with our world–what they will. For half a century we allowed the plutocratic bed to be made, and now we must lie in it. Yet is it possible that a virus will do what “the people” could not? Has the pandemic opened enough elite eyes to the ecocidal nature of neoliberal capitalism and the necessity of a great reset away from it? Will the ongoing, bumbling battle against Covid in the exceptional nation continue to sap enough of its energy and resources to dissuade it from starting another imperial war? Strange days have found us when our most realistic hopes, at least in the short run, lie in a virus instead of in ourselves.
We must become more self-reliant and it starts with coming to understand our condition, our circumstance; only after realizing what’s going on can we ever hope to know well-enough, know better, to take action.
So, yes, Mr. Finn, the biggest problem is that we are utterly dependent on the corporations everything we need in life, period.
First, this dependency is made up of our loss of living-on-earth skills developed over the past millennia that technology has taken over so now we don’t know how to do anything but our one job, shopping, and driving.
Second, this dependency is also made of our extreme division of labor where we are each rely on the other to such a degree no one is free from the system — the social structure — and must participate as if life were one big assembly line from birth to death. Sure, a reasonable division of labor is great, but we over-shot that a long time ago.
Third, we are dependent upon the <1% plutocrats and their hirelings to keep the political economy up and running in ways we cannot do ourselves precisely because they own the capital and manage the political system — this is very risky due to the fragility of putting all of our hopes and expectations in such a tiny, greedy minority who view us as livestock and run the corporate-government complex like a farmer does a farm.
In the last 14 months we have been telling stories, talking, writing, cooking, fishing, hunting (you can have a problem with that but we need to eat, so I don’t care), supporting local small business and farmers struggling to move on. I was in a supermarket just to buy bread and milk when this covid panic started. It was horrible to see people in despair taking what they could. They didn’t spare Starbucks sugar in the middle of that chaos. Which is sad because they truly believe in everything what is said. We had an unexpected unprecedented tornado in the middle to this period which just made things worst. America is not what you see in your television. They are not prepared to educate, to save lives in large scale in a short period of time. But they are invincible in deception, death, destruction, poverty and misery worldwide.
Unfortunately, the virus has succeeded in distracting and frightening such a huge portion of the population that the elite can get away with anything they want, with hardly a ripple of reaction from the masked masses. They are doing it right now.
Of course, we don’t actually count the votes in a “1, 2, 3, 4, …” sort of way.
You have to extrapolate to interpret the true desire of Mr and Ms voter.
Red or Blue –
These are the choices m’am.
At least in America we have a choice!
Right?
Awesome, Caitlin.
Thanks for that dose of un-commonly good sense.
And All please support Greewald as well, particularly in his battle with censorship.
https://greenwald.substack.com/
So much to comment upon
1. What makes you think journalism is any different today than in the past. Pull the NY Times from any era and it reads the same as today.
2. Mankind coooperates in their own tribal structure. They usually will ignore other tribal groups if their territory is not infringed upon and resources are plentiful. Quit ignoring this reality when talking about cooperatiing among nations with limited worldwide resources.
3. Our ecosystem is being destroyed because of so many people in the world. Ancient London was a cesspool of filth as they decimated the area. Too many people in one place even without oil and capitalism.
4. The left you mention are dreamers who have no real practical solutions beyond virtue signaling with green energy and other such things.
5. Your nonsense on boys and rape. Go back and read blairs post again slowly. Now read it again.
“1. What makes you think journalism is any different today than in the past. Pull the NY Times from any era and it reads the same as today.”
Must have missed the advent of the 24 hour ‘news cycle’, internet alerts, echo chambers, the repeal of the fairness doctrine, the embedding of intelligence assets in media outlets that are owned by plutocrats who work in close association with the CIA et al, and all of the other realities make your post worth ignoring from the very first line.
Go read it. The articles ard the same. The editorials are the same. Political corruption and bitching between parties. Fearmongering of other countries. After you read a few editions from the 20s and 30s, or 60s and 70s if you prefer, then comment on how different it is today.
It’s true that the New York Times was always an establishment propaganda organ. My field is the history of American journalism and I have read thousands of issues of the paper from its founding in 1851 through World War II. Its founder was Henry Raymond, who would be one of the founders of the Republican Party in 1856. The Times was a pro-establishment, pro-business organ right from the start, just as the GOP was founded as the party of corporatism. When you look through Civil War issues of the paper, you’d think the Union had an unbroken series of victories, for one example. The same holds true for the paper’s enthusiastic support of the genocide of Native Americans, the lies of the Spanish-American war, and the ever more sophisticated lies of the twentieth century. The insulting of Irish-Americans and mockery of African Americans, the class-obsessed contempt for working people – these are staples of early issues of the Times.
~
The Republican Party, incidentally, was created to fight the political power of the slaveholders, who were aggressively attempting to take over the national government. There was little interest in ending slavery, but rather to contain it in order to contain the power of the antidemocratic southern lobby.
The answer to society’s ills isn’t going to come from within the system. Democracy is a plutocracy nowadays. People have little to no effect on the running of government. Elections are held just to give the illusion but whatever monkey is elected be he/she left or right wing, are well and truly instruments of the wealthy elite. If you were to try to seperate the two you would need to eradicate capitalism altogether – another fine but daunting task. Same applies to us here Downunder. Corporations run our government. They control the media, they write the laws, they create and disseminate the propaganda and advertising. They control all finance as well. But “we fight fascists not because we will win, we fight fascists because they are fascists.” And so the struggle goes on. If you are going to fight the good fight make sure your house is in order first. Make sure you have the right consciousness. Make sure you are doing what you do because it is the right thing to do and for no other reason. It’s all about to come crashing down for the capitalists soon anyway. Once Gaia calls time she’s going to make things very unpleasant for humans. Let’s hope that we can make the transition to the new system as smooth as possible. It doesn’t look good. After centuries of greed and corruption and violence it will be a miracle if we can pull off a coloured revolution. But here’s hoping …
Let me update your quote:
The Monroe Doctrine is literally just the US saying “Latin America is our Africa. And Africa is our Latin America.”
No different than the spanish and portugese and dutch and others over the ages. Now its the US, Russis and China.
You like it.
Cailin,
Whether we like it or not, mainstream journalism does exist. This is why Media moguls are invited to Government social events ant treated to the best food and champagne. This is why Presidents and Prime Ministers have private, one to one, gourmet lunches with Media barons. Mainstream Media has the power to make or destroy the career of an ambitious politician.
As to the “war on terror” as you say, is a false pretext for interventionism in the Middle East and the “war on drugs” is a false pretext for interventionism in Latin America. However, if you study all countries in the world, the fortunes spent on anti/terror/drugs military purchases and activities and take away the countries affected by ‘interventionism’, you’ll see that the main objective is the promotion of military sales.
War on Terror was coined by America, but the UK, France, Canada, Brazil, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Russia, China, India and Pakistan were all most thankful to then President Bush for such clever slogan. It was the boost their military industries needed.
May I add that, whilst we keep producing and selling killing weapons, explosives, missiles and vehicles, training people in their use, when you reach the 90 years of age, you will be writing the same comments you write today.
Alberto
The more things change the more they remain the same. I just made that up.
It doesn’t make it right.
Ignorance has no bounds.
I already made it up yesterday, in French
Dang. I thought I was first.
“The collective is entitled to confiscate any weapon that someone is using to harm the collective.”
If it were only true. The collective has entitled itself to shoot you dead if you say something that could be determined a threat, however wild and irrational that determination may be. Soft pedaling the power of government is a BIG part of the political disaster we suffer. The state assumes the authority to KILL you if you don’t comply with its wishes. In this example, the intent may be to confiscate weapons, but if one resists that confiscation, they are likely going to be killed. And the state demands a monopoly of this authority. Such is true of all governments, however benign they may appear to be at the moment.
There is no fundamental evil in competition. There would be no effective solar panels or windmills without it. The oligarchy corrupts it. First by extracting wealth from the 99.9% to the point they have to vigorously participate in competition at all moral and ethical cost in order to live, and second by competition between monopolistic oligarchies that are completely devoid of any significant humanity in the first place. In a truly free market, one can only gain wealth by offering a product or service that people want or need, at a sufficient level of quality and moral production, at a price people are able and willing to pay. In other words by serving their fellow man. Once the state puts its thumb on the scale, the market is no longer free.
Hasnt that the way it has always been. Go watch braveheart. Drawn and quartered and we complain about the inhumane death penalty today.
Why bother evolving?
Remember when folks sang, “Free your mind, your ass will follow”?
I thought it was free your ass and your mind will follow and now I’m in a cell wering someone elses pants
Damn it, man, you made me spew coffee all over my screen!
That was hysterical.
Caitlin – why are you alienating 50% of your audience?
I’m considering becoming a patreon, but your anger about men is offsetting. Men are victims of neo liberal, violent war mongering over sexualized culture too! Wouldn’t this have been just as an effective statement for parents to teach their kids?
“If you are a parent you should talk to your kids regularly about treating other humans with more compassion, and how important it is to respect each others differences in order to create a more loving and kind world for us all to inhabit”
Maybe this girl could have used that same lesson about consent? Or should parents just ignore teaching girls that same lesson?
– https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/81a8f303-5849-45b8-85a0-e8532b5d948b
Why do you consitently single out only bad male behaviour?
Only in the most perversely warped reality tunnel would saying that men committing rape is a problem be considered an attack on men.
CJ this topic is your achilles tendon in the same way as it was for Hillary Clinton. As I said before, one paragraph to sump up such diversity of realities, distorted or not, is the ultimate stupidity or arrogance. I’ve been advocating for women and marching with them side by side for a long time. If you’re not going to discuss this topic with an open mind and being the usual very smart woman as you are, it’s pointless. I have sons and daughters , grandchildren and granddaughters. We have a prolific debate in family and it was never used hate, discrimination to educate all of them.
She wants us to have less raping in the future, and has the courage to say so. That’s worth a few hurt feelings.
CJ — Testosterone poisoning will be the end of the world.
Hey Caitlin,
You are much too smart for your above comment. You knew what I meant.
My point was why are daughters who are “rapey” exempt from the same conversation with their parents? Why are you singling out only boys?
A 2012 study “of those who affirmed that they had ‘ever forced someone to have sex with you against their will,’ 43.6 percent were female and 56.4 percent were male.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/the-understudied-female-sexual-predator/503492/
https://youtu.be/zlVI7CpUmSU
Isn’t it best we teach everyone in society not to sexually assault each other? Why should only fathers speak to boys? Should’nt moms speak to daughters about respecting other people’s boundaries too?
Isn’t it more important that we avoid identity politics (incl. gender issues) and stop using language that divides us until we get out from the death spiral our planet and species is on?
Our BIGGEST issue is a small group of socio / psychopaths at the top. Instead, try appealing to men’s good traits and characteristics (if you think we have any). Shaming men / boys doesn’t move us closer to a more just society – it just alienates us. Even if feminism is correct about “rape culture” this is not the right stratergy. Class solidarity is more important because “rape culture” is argubaly largley a subset of current abusive socio economic system.
In all due respect I think you are an amazing political writer, but right now we need solidarity and your voice is too important! Please stop going on about how bad men and boys are and the constant domestic violence analogies and the constant comparison to abuse in relationships. Yes – we get it, we’re HORRIBLE. Now can we unite and move forward?
I challenge you to write one nice paragraphy about men. Good luck.
No intellectually honest person who has lived a human incarnation believes that women rape as much as men do. Stop this nonsense. It’s embarrassing.
Actually, NO – your hate is embarrassing. You understand that your political messaging and mind is more important than going on about gender issues? Most societal problems can be traced back to our socio economic system and culture. IF we can improve lives for humans and reduce inequality it will reduce violence by extension. So put your sword down fighting “EVIL MEN” and let’s change the system together. Where is your solidarity? How does constantly shaming 50% of the people you need on board help save the planet? Is that a winning strategy? Why are you so full of hate? You can never change something if the origins of the emotion are hate. You actually come off as quite miserable in your existence, ranting into the ether – where is your love? I have love for you Caitlin. So please. we are all begging you….PLEASE PLEASE STOP RANTING ABOUT GENDER. We are all here for your politics and have the same goal as you. It’s not helpful.
Let it go Mr. NC. Have respect for those who respect you. Move on. There are more balanced and better people in this world. I can assure you of that.
Yes, you are probably correct. I’m pissing into the wind, she will NEVER change.
@NC: Interesting analogy, pissing into the wind. Why are you trying to piss on Caitlin? Are you pissed off she said that you, as a man, are part of the problem if you’re not part of the solution. If you’re so easily offended maybe you should piss off, if you can’t change your perspective on this.
I have read many of your articles where you rant about abuse in relationships. So let me ask you – what happens to someone in an abusive relationship who is always told they are fat, ugly or stupid etc.? Do they perhaps eventually believe and internalize this? How is this any different from constantly telling boys from a young age how bad and “rapey” they are? Well, in the western world, teen males die by suicide five (5) five times more often than teen girls – so lets keep shaming them right? In a sense, this actually kind of makes you a propagandist of the worst kind that you complain about. 4’th wave feminist ideology is creating a lot of hatred and division, which was the exact reason the shitlibs adopted it as a strategy since true feminist theory is a threat to power structures.You might want to look deeper into how the statistics are compiled and gathered from the “peer” reviewed gender department papers that you seem to have based your ideology around.
https://youtu.be/OlqU_JMTzd4
https://youtu.be/7Wxc9E7Uuws
Since you are so focused on men intimidating and raping women, please do a scathing article on Cuomo. Seven women have come forward. I think that is enough. Democratic senators from NY asked for his resignation.
Only in the most perversely warped reality tunnel would saying that all men are rapists not be considered an attack on men.
She knows that. Maybe it’s a new way to wake up people to hate her using shock therapy, random insults, humiliation, fascism. It’s not about gathering followers, definitely. In what reality would someone be cool with that?
This post is where our paths diverge. I’m not going to become a troll simply reacting against something awful. It’s interesting to discover this long forgotten side of me attracted to a toxic personality. I like her. But not enough to agree with that. I wonder how someone can be a Patreon of this. Farewell everyone.
Yeah, I’m out of here too, her ideology is a cult.
“Tribal feminists, in the name of fighting shame and oppression, shame and oppress views that contradict their own.
And once your philosophy has inverted upon itself, it becomes corrupt. Just like the old communist societies of the 20th century, once you set out to provide perfect equality for everybody, you achieve the exact opposite. What was once progressive becomes regressive. You become so busy policing people’s thoughts and opinions that you lose track of what actually matters.”
It honestly really worries me that someone of her stature and mind can have such warped ideas about gender. AND on top of that be so wilfully blind when you point out all the contradictions. It actually terrifies me that even someone of that level of intelligence can be fooled. We are doomed for sure now. Really CJ? WTF. Biggest dissapoint of the year for me so far.
Stop spinning your unresolved issues with women into me having a problem with men.
Ad Hominem Fallacy. I have no issue with women, or you personally. I actually like you. But, many people see parts of your ideology as a form of fascism. If you don’t base your claims on legitimate statistics and facts, it merely becomes a gender war. “Rapey” boys and men are not the main reason for all the world’s problems. It’s almost like your brain had a temporary gender studies neurosis. You sound like a shitlib cultural opinion paid hit piece when you write that crap.
If a woman saying fathers need to talk to sons about rape bothers you, the woman is not the creepy weird one. You are.
Good thing that only happened in your imagination then.
We start with the asexual princess iconography about the time females learn to sit up, so why do we expect the women they become to feel anything but contempt for the male reality they encounter?
I have yet to experience a fruitful discussion about sex or sexuality with any woman under 50, or come to think of it, a satisfactory intimacy, either.
And fellas, you haven’t scored a touch on Johnstone unless she deletes your comment.
I’m trying hard here to get deleted! lol
Amazing how this victim mentality infects humanity. Takes away any responsibility for our own actions.
@NC: I don’t think Caitlin is alienating 50% of her audience. You’re vastly overestimating the proportion of us men that are insulted by what she wrote. The vast, vast majority of sexual assault is done by men.
Your response sounds like you feel oppressed. When people lose their privilege, they feel oppressed. Are you concerned that you will lose your male privilege?
Why are you off-put by her being angry at men for engaging in sexual assault? That’s immature to say you are offended because she got angry.
Hey Stephane,
Well, CJ did lose some patrons after that post. Not that she probably cares. lol
You don’t need to come to CJ’s defense. She is fully capable of dealing with me, I assure you she would tell you the same.
And I have no issue with CJ – she is great (although we differ on gender). My issue was more related to solidarity, her voice is too important in terms of political analysis for the message to constantly be interjected with gender rhetoric (although I understand that’s her training). My argument to her is that human and the planets existence supersedes gender infighting. Furthermore I believe that hateful abusive male / female behaviours are largely a subset of an abusive, hierarchical, anti human and abusive political/economic structures we live under. Solidarity is what we are lacking on every metric in order to achieve change – Dem/Rep, Whites/BLM, LGBTQ/Straight, Male/Female etc. The population has been divided and conquered and split into so many factions. We should unite together and put our swords down to achieve POLITICAL change first – gender rhetoric just further divides us all. It also annoyed me that she understands the importance of solidarity and division much better than me! Even if her intent wasn’t to alienate the males reading her post, the language she used and the fact it was the “conclusion” made her sound like an angry shitlib opinion piece article published by some neoliberal CIA controlled gender studies graduate (I bet CJ loves my prose – i’m not as skilled writer as her).
In terms of gender – I don’t think shaming young boys that they are all potential rapists will change the world. I said we should teach EVERYONE to respect individuals’ sexual boundaries. Why only single out boys? What harm would that do telling girls the same? A small percentage of women rape, but psychological coersion is something women arguably do better than men and feminist theory argues that is rape too. On top of that, don’t we want to teach young girls the importance of sexual boundaries so they can’t teach their sons, brothers, boyfriends and fathers the same thing?
I don’t know who is right or wrong when it comes to the gender wars, I’m sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But if you have any counterpoint arguments to the videos below, I would be more than happy to read/watch to expand my knowledge and challenge my existing assumptions. I dislike much of feminist ideology / theory because I don’t think having peer reviewed papers with skewed / cherry picked questionaires / statistics written by academics seeking meritocricy for their career is a good model for sound research. And to be honest – you kind of sound like one of those people – why are you so defensive about this? They are all scratching each other’s back for profit! Gender studies is an art and not a science, people like CJ are smart enough to treat it as such. How do you scientifically quantify human behavior accurately and unbiased? (not an easy task).
And what’s with this oppressed rhetoric every feminists babbles on about when you disagree with them? Let me get this straight – basically I am oppressed because I don’t have your same opinion? Sounds like you are the definition of oppression yourself! I don’t need your ideology to come “save” me – if that’s part of your training (feminism often sounds like religion to me). We are all oppressed in various ways. WTF…lol. Human existence is oppression. So yes? I am? Not sure what your point is. Male privilege? Which one? To die 5 years earlier? 80% higher chance of homelessness? 5X high chance of teen suicide? To die more in work accidents? To have less money spent on prostate cancer research even though it kills more people? To have a higher chance of kids being taken away in divorce? To wait on a freezing wing floating in the hudson as all the women get off first? (I would have loved to see what CJ would have done in that situation with me standing beside her) To die in wars? Longer prison sentences? To be circumcised? OR maybe we are all just advantaged and disadvantaged in different ways? Patriarchy and rape culture theory is NOT something everyone accepts as truth. Your ideology and reality is definitely not the same as mine, so don’t assume just because you believe something that it’s true. You and CJ are just as susceptible to propaganda and ideologies that fit your lived experience and narrative. The only real true ideology for everyone is love, it’s that simple. So stop hating on boys and men please, so we can move forward together. You are merely doing the leg work for the elites by dividing us.
https://youtu.be/zlVI7CpUmSU
https://youtu.be/OlqU_JMTzd4
https://youtu.be/7Wxc9E7Uuws
I lost patrons because Patreon is censoring content creators and patrons are moving to other forms of patronage in protest. You’re the only one who’s shitting themselves about this post. Because you have serious issues with women and sex.
How do you truly know this was the reason? Did you do a survey and skew the stats on this one too? Why do you keep attributing that I have an issue with women? Women are great – my issue is with your ideology and know it all absolutist mindset. It’s kind of beneath you to actually make such a stupid argument. You have an issue with mem? You are merely projecting onto me because you can’t respond to my arguments. Pathetic CJ.
You have issues with men Caitlin – don’t deny it. That’s fine, I get it. Hopefully you can let go of the hate, because it will eat you from the inside.
You guys still arguing? She will never admit a mistake. “I’m sorry” does not exist on that mind. Erratum just apply for a newspaper. Move on. It’s a lost cause to follow up.
Two randos with severe mommy issues saying I’m wrong does not make me wrong. I am right.
You still a child about this. I can forgive you. Most people who act as if they’re always right know that they like to be right, they would not necessarily understand consciously that they act this way because they are overcompensating for feelings of shame, a sense of insufficiency, and fear that would arise if they were wrong.
I don’t think I’m always right, you made that up in your imagination. I just don’t take some random idiot with mommy issues saying “you’re wrong” as evidence that I am wrong. If I did, I would be the idiot.
Well, even in denial, you did the first step to become a better person considering the possibility that you’re an idiot. I didn’t mean to offend you by the way. Since the beginning I was trying to be an ally, not a rando man with mommy (mine is already dead for a long time) issues which I never had. That’s what true friends do their best talented friends. You can refuse it politely but for now it’s too much. I’ve been there among the wolves and when I say such things it’s because they will use it against you. And so far, so bad, you’re an easy prey. Lower your guard and don’t demonize those who are not the same hate mode. I’m at the end of my lifetime and I don’t have such time for this. I wish you well kiddo.
Your analysis of the reasons for capitalism’s survival is fundamentally flawed, and fails to address the key problem : the misleadership of the workers’ organisations. Working class people have given their support to Parties claiming to act in their interests all over the world, over many decades, so your belief that capitalist plutocrats can control their minds, as well as their bodies, is wrong.
The failure of these Parties, including Lula’s Party in Brazil, to turn working class support into Socialist policies to transform society IS A PROBLEM OF INADEQUATE, WEAK, OR TRAITOROUS LEADERSHIP. In France in 1968, a revolutionary situation was lost due to the criminal, counter-revolutionary role of the Stalinists in the misnamed “French Communist Party.”
So too in Spain in 1936-39, in Germany before Hitler’s coup d’etat in 1933, and throughout post-war Europe in the aftermath of the Second World War. Either the Stalinists or the Social Democrats, or a combination of both, derailed and thwarted the revolutionary movement, supported by the mass of the working class.
You seem to blame the masses, rather than their traitorous or ineffective leaders, for the survival of capitalism. Therein lies your big mistake, and false conception.
Corbyn is a very good illustration of the problem. He was undoubtedly the victim of coordinated character assassination by the capitalist State machine, and intelligence agencies in Britain, the US, and Israel. But he also assisted in digging his own political grave by his muddle-headedness, vacillation, weakness, and lack of a well-thought out Socialist strategy and perspective. His political “mentors” were the Stalinists in the misnamed “Communist Party of Britain,” who view the working class as children who are not capable of understanding Socialist ideas, and who will be “frightened off” by a full-blooded Socialist programme! This is like arguing that flowers dislike sunshine, or the desert doesn’t need water.
Corbyn failed to take the initiative against the right – Labour’s Fifth Column. In fact, he allowed this bunch of non-entities, wholly confined to the House of Commons, with little or no support amongst the Labour Party membership, to set the agenda, and launch the utterly bogus “anti-semitism” campaign, throwing his own supporters, like Ken Livingstone, Chris Williamson, and Mark Wadsworth, under the bus.
You also fail to notice the enormous level of disillusionment with politicians of all capitalist parties all over the world, reflected in low turn-outs in Elections. In Britain, a third of the electorate didn’t vote in the December, 2019, General Election. In the US, Biden won his victory on a 66 per cent turn-out, which was the highest since 1900, BECAUSE OF THE DANGER POSED BY TRUMP AND HIS FAR-RIGHT AND FASCIST BASE, well understood by advanced, thinking members of the working class and poor. Prior to 2020, turn out at Presidential Elections was hovering around 50/55 per cent. Turn-out in Congressional and Senate elections is even lower.
The task facing those who sincerely want to overthrow capitalism and the rule of the billionaires is to build Revolutionary Socialist Parties, patiently, painstakingly, and determinedly. There is no other way out of the nightmare of diseased capitalism, which has nothing to offer the mass of humanity other than poverty, uncontrolled pandemics, unemployment, drug/alcohol abuse, inequality, and War. The crisis of humanity is the crisis of working class leadership, as Trotsky pointed out when launching the Fourth International in 1938. That remains the Gordian Knot that is the task of contemporary generations to unravel.
Wrong. People give their support to status quo parties precisely BECAUSE they’ve been propagandized to do so. There’d be no reason for them to do so otherwise. Ruling class narrative management consistently herds the working class into parties controlled by the ruling class via mass-scale manipulation.
I am afraid political reality does not lend itself to your dogmas, or anyone else’s for that matter. As Lenin was fond of remarking, because it expresses essential truth, Theory is Gray, whilst the Tree of Life is Green.
I am well aware of the power of the capitalist press and media, and its ceaseless brainwashing of the population, and demonisation of those who advocate Socialism. But objective conditions carry far greater weight than subjective factors – like press and media lying – in the long run. You can only pull the wool over the eyes of the masses for so long before they eventually realise they are being lied to and grasp the truth.
You also fail to understand the oppressed are not a homogenous, amorphous, undifferentiated mass of people. There are advanced and backward; educated and uneducated; bright and stupid; selfless and selfish; employed and unemployed; reasonably well-to-do and impoverished, and so on.
A Revolutionary Socialist Party builds itself from the vanguard of the working class, and offers leadership to the class as a whole. It sets up its own press and media outlets, when finances allow, to counteract the poison of the boss class, and to educate, organise, and agitate for Socialism.
I think you need to study history a lot more than you appear to have done. Russia was considered a backwater of barbarism, ignorance, and reaction by the vast bulk of the bourgeois and petit-bourgeois “intelligentsia” at the time of the first February Revolution in 1917. 9 months later the Bolsheviks led the working class and peasantry to power in the October Socialist Revolution of 1917! The bourgeois controlled the press and media in that country too, albeit without TV and the internet as we have today, and it did not save them or their system.
The key to events in Russia was that objective conditions – War, death, destruction, abject poverty, collapse of industry, ruination of agriculture, etc. – were addressed by the critical subjective factor of a Revolutionary leadership in the form of Lenin, Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks.
It is the duty of Socialists to fight for leadership of the working class against the misleaders of the Stalinists, Social Democrats, and out-and-out agents of the ruling class like the Bidens and Starmers of this world. We do this with our own press, and propaganda methods, but also by standing alongside working class people in struggle, and helping them to understand the need for a Socialist transformation, which they intuitively grasp through experience, and which great events – like the 2008 financial crash – lead them inexorably towards comprehending.
You won’t win any support from the masses, and thus will always be a “voice in the wilderness,” if you stand on the sidelines telling them they are stupid, manipulated, and led by the nose by their exploiters. Some are. A lot more are NOT. Accentuate the positive Ms.Johnstone, and also understand that all things in life and politics are PROCESSES, subject to change. Nothing, especially in a capitalist society wracked by insoluble crises, IS SET IN STONE. Everything is in a state of flux. What seems improbable or even impossible TODAY becomes probable and possible TOMORROW, depending on the interaction of OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FACTORS. Read Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution. You’ll derive great benefit from it, and perhaps adopt a more optimistic outlook on life and politics as a result.
Your dogmas are contrary to reality; America proves this consistently as material conditions continue to degrade yet status quo politics remain as effective as ever due to the power of modern mass-scale psyops, something Marx never witnessed. The rest of your comment is based on imaginary nonsense you made up in your head about what my position is and requires no response.
No. Marx witnessed brute force. That is fallback option when psyops fail. Both provide the same result. Compliance.
I don’t know who you think you are, Madam, but I can assure you it isn’t the world-changing philosopher you laughingly imagine yourself to be. Your puerile insults prove two things : 1) You have no rational answer to my criticisms; and 2) You are a run-of-the-mill petit-bourgeois prattler, with no understanding of Marxism, political processes, history, or dialectical materialism. To listen to you, Madam, there is no hope for humanity; we are all enslaved hand, foot, and mind to the ruling class; and nothing will ever change! Total balderdash. But then someone who is comfortably middle class like you doesn’t really care if there is never any fundamental change in capitalist society. You are doing very nicely, thank you, with the “status quo” you pretend to disparage. You massively overstate the powers and sway of the capitalist Thought Police. Look at turn-out in Elections, Madam. They disprove your crackpot theory that the American masses are all hypnotised drones of the capitalist class. They are not. The US was ablaze with revolt all over the country during 2020 because of Police brutality, racism, and violence. Did those upheavals escape your notice? Where the hundreds of thousands who participated in those demonstrations in the US, and all over the world, victims of CIA/FBI “psyops,” to use your Science Fiction like language? I’m afraid you are what real Socialists like myself call a “pseudo-radical.” Your prophesies of doom play right into the hands of the ruling classes all over the world, who’d like nothing better than for us all to give up hope, stop fighting for change, and sit at home twiddling our thumbs, or messing about on “blogs” like you. Happily, the laws of history and the class struggle are immeasurably stronger than your pessimism and petit-bourgeois scribblings.
You got alot more studying to do, try and read from outside the box you’re in now. Pro tip: You need to realise that its not just everybody else that is full of shit
I won’t dignify this scatological abuse with a reply. I only deal with serious people.
Stopped reading at “puerile insults”. I gave you no insults that you did not give me. You’ve just lived a life which has led you to be unaccustomed to getting back what you dish out. I hope this changes for you. You are not entitled to reverence, despite what your privileged life has led you to believe.
Game. set, and match to me . I neither seek nor require “reverence” from a petit-bourgeois non-entity like you. Au revoir.
Way to go Caitlin! Another patreon gone. Stop hating if you want to move forward.
Dear CJ,
Isn’t Jimmy’s point that the failure of a sustained revolutionary consensus is the failure of its leadership?
Inadequate, Weak, Traitorous leadership …
Seems there’s some truth there.
You were doing great till the moment you sabotaged your own viewpoint when you mixed up with Trump. I thought it was clear, according to yourself that there is no left and right in America. Clearly, a misunderstanding by mistake. It’s okay to be wrong, you know. CJ will die defending her viewpoint even if she is wrong which is very rare to happen. I’m afraid for my life if she loses a bridge game with me. I don’t have a problem losing. I can be wrong. But both of you have serious problems.
Sounds like high road to me
It’s been a long time but let’s make an update in history.
“In Marx’s time, the classification of social strata was quite simple: you were either bourgeois, owner of the means of production or you were a proletarian, destined to sell your labor power to receive a salary.
If Marx had the power to be reborn, he would have much more work to classify today’s society.
What about a farmer who owns the land, but everything he plants follows the guidelines of the company that hires him, preventing him from growing food for his livelihood? Was he a sort of wage earner on his own property?
What about a modern delivery worker, who works on his own without the right to vacation and other social rights? Would it be the peak of capitalism, in which one explores oneself?
Another problem to be faced by Marx would be a new classification of unemployment which, according to his old logic, would serve to train a surplus labor, in order to guarantee the permanence of low wages.
The current explanation is the lack of qualifications and thus it became easier to blame the worker for his own failure, because in a world of opportunities, only those who have no determination do not reach happiness.
Beggars, drug users and those who have given up looking for a job would easily be classified as lumpenproletariat.
It would still be necessary to classify a specific group, formed by the corrupt, militia and traffickers, who could be called liberals at the expense of others, always finding loopholes in the law, in oppression and dependence on chemicals, opportunities to establish zones of power and parallel states.
In the case of militiamen, the new feudal lords could be considered, with total control over their area of activity.
Marx would have to return much more qualified, because otherwise, even he would be unemployed and would not have the support of the socialist party.
The middle class, as Trotsky said, oscillates between the proletarian and the bourgeois. When progressive economic policies increased the number of people in this category, the first thing they did was to take their conservative side, voting against who had elevated them.
And now, in the government they elected, they are poor again and still remain ignorant.”
Ms Johnstone, proper parenting is extremely rare into todays world. Whole ” families ” live within the same house or apartment and they are complete strangers to one another. Proper parenting is hard work that must be done 24/7. As a teenager when I read ” 1984 ” the one thing that rang many bells in my body and soul was that people had to prove that they were worthy and capable of bringing new life into this world and properly raising their children. Childhood trauma never goes away no matter how well people suppress its effects. Neither ” sex ” is very good good at teaching their offspring proper behavior!
Parenting should be a topic to be discussed in CJ’s Frequency Radio or some podcast. You can’t resume it in one paragraph and it’s okay. It’s not okay. We have people here from all corners of this world.
Yes Caitlin – your fancy feminist friends passed legislation that incentivized divorce, so men can be disposed of if they are of no financial use (because of neo liberal austerity). Therefore many homes now don’t have any fathers to speak with all the future rapist boys. Kind of a Catch-22 huh? Keep ranting Caitlin – lets save the world through shaming men. Great strategy.
“If you’re a father to boys and you’re not having regular conversations with them about what consent is, what rape is and how important it is to not rape people, you are a big part of the problem..”
—Oh, Caitlin, you’re still as full of shit as the corporate propagandists you deplore.
The problem in this regard isn’t men, it’s people. Most do not, but some people rape, assault, and abuse. And it’s not less often women that do this, as feminist icon and Slate XX co-founder Hanna Rosin writes in:
“When Men Are Raped: A new study reveals that men are often the victims of sexual assault, and women are often the perpetrators,” by feminist icon and Slate XX co-founder Hanna Rosin
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/04/male-rape-in-america-a-new-study-reveals-that-men-are-sexually-assaulted-almost-as-often-as-women.html
—Then there’s
“Sexual Victimization by Women Is More Common Than Previously Known
A new study gives a portrait of female perpetrators,” by Lara Stemple, at
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sexual-victimization-by-women-is-more-common-than-previously-known/
—Then there’s every DHHS Child Maltreatment report ever published, showing “mothers acting alone” are the primary abusers, by far, of children.
Until you acknowledge all this you’re just one more special interest hack working out your personal grudges by deforming the factual and scientific literature on the subject of interpersonal violence and sexual violence.
Given that you do this every other article or essay, it matters.
You took the words right out of my mouth but with links. Thanks.
My father never had regular conversations with me about what murder is and why it is important not to murder people.
So he’s a big part of the problem.
It not my fault. Its my parents fault. They spanked me. Wheels started falling off when we decided to have other people tell us what to think. A doctor with no kids became the expert for raising your kids for a generation or more. I think he was on star trek too.
Oh boy… this post lost his charm since the beginning.
I kind of feel bad for her. Such a smart mind, and she got trapped in this crazy ideology.
@Blair Schirmer: Oh Blair, you should get your head out of your echo chamber (pun intended). Do you really NOT believe that the vast majority of sexual assaults are done by men? One article supports your point of view (note to self: no need to ever go to Slate XX website). Another article does not say that men do not perpetrate sexual assault in the vast majority of cases — just says that more women than we thought do it. And the third article says nothing about sexual abuse, only about child abuse.
Is that your case!?! I can see how that would convince @Khatika, @Ragnar and @NC.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I can see your male privilege showing.
Oh god. We are surely doomed as a species. Only on this planet would someone like CJ be so convinced she knows everything without having the slightest clue she has been ideologically brainwashed. CJ – you have sold your soul to absolutism. You are no better than the people you write about.
Stephan – Why are you such a cuck for CJ? She can handle herself fine, she is a powerful brainwashed woman. She is a creepy horse with pink gender blinders that ignores creepy girls like Asia Argento. Why doesn’t she get a prison term CJ?
“I don’t know about anyone else, but I can see your male privilege showing.”WHAT does that even mean? Am I dealing with a moron? It’s like calling someone in prison privileged just because they are male?? What do you think the consequences of 50 years of neoliberalism has done? Did those policies only target women?
FYI – most men are struggling! Drowning in neoliberal debt, chronic illness, overdosing, divorced, homeless, commiting suicide (not that you or CJ would care). What are you babbling on about privilege? Do you need mental help? Where is the white male privilege because I would love to have some? Is it a distant cousin to the Sasquatch? Is yours and CJ’s IQ that low that you imagine patriarchy and rape culture everywhere? Do you wake up screaming about patriarchy in the middle of the night? Maybe you should go write a children’s novel about some monster named “Patriarchy” and brainwash kids at 3 years of age – similar to religion huh CJ? So just use that phrase on the rich and powerful men please (so approx 1 insult for every 1000’th man you meet – and it might work better. Don’t forget to call out privileged women too – equality is important.
Blair – facts or stats don’t matter. Don’t waste any time here – CJ has an ideologically absolutist mindset. You could kill all the men in the world and these people would still find a reason to blame everything on men. If not on men directly, then on the and the ohhh soooo scarrry PATRIARCHY….oooooohhh sooooo scary CJ!!!!
Here is another BIG reason why you are seeing unprecedented media BULLSHIT !
The Rottenchilds are on notice – China will soon follow Russia’s lead !
https://mondestuff.com/world-news/putin-announces-total-independence-from-rothschild-controlled-us-dollar/#disqus_thread.
The BRI will be paved with GOLD – NOT the Rottenchilds $US OR Euros !!
One more thing Caitlin – an EDIT’ button would be handy so posters like ‘Buffalo’ don’t have tp post 10 times on every thread !
Huh. I thought it was Israel.
Here is some news you won’t see, testimony to the Texas Legislature about early outpatient treatment of COVID. What? That’s a thing?
Dr McCullough gave excellent testimony yesterday. I missed it.
He really hit that nail towards the end with the whole compassion situation.
This is a perfect illustration of how the medical industry, the media and the government collaborated to create this tragic farce. So much suffering and death could have been prevented, but the agenda precluded that. It’s still going on.
I sincerely hope CJ watched this.
It’s is another surreal scandal – among thousands in our recent history – which no one will be never held accountable. It’s not by lack of solid evidences, testimonies, scientific investigation. This Texas Senate HHS committee hearing will be ignored by Washington. They are not interested in this kind of solution. Americans don’t know how the making decisions are elaborated. If they knew, they would never listen to any Presidential speech again. Probably the only ones visiting public buildings would be pigeons, skunks, raccoons. People should ignore Dr. Faucci or any other physician working to the White House or the selected ones working to the media. Since they will never be put in jail because to make it happen with the full meaning of what’s n the law the whole chain of command should be put on trial to the death row. It’s surreal. They are all protected by a strong culture of corruption, deception, impunity. Once inside, if you open your mouth to protect the people, you’re a traitor. You’re a hero if you shut your mouth and do as they say.
Every time I’m looking to the new WTC, specially in September when they are honoring the ones who will never be forgotten, I want to vomit.
I would rather watch reruns of practically anything than a presidential speech! As for public buildings, I continue to retch every time I hear someone refer to the Capitol as “sacred to democracy.”
As a one time member and current supporter of the Socialist Equality Party, I rather resent your slur against us, as though we had anything in common with the Green Party or the DSA for that matter. You are quite correct about the power of propaganda and its mind control, but the WSWS exists to inform the working class about the truth. That is our job and we work hard at it. More and more young people are joining our youth party, the IYSSE.
We are not just an American party, but a part of the Fourth International, and we have branches all over the world and support groups that are not yet large enough to be branches, including in Russia, Turkey, and Brazil. The SEP is an international party. We are not trying to get elected into any capitalist government, but to reach out to the working people of the world through our campaigns and educate them as to what power they have to overthrow capitalism–a system that has failed monumentally–and replace it with socialism.
Rosa Luxemburg, whose 150 birthday was the other day, put it succinctly: the choice is either socialism or barbarism. There is no other. We already have barbarism, so you know what to do.
There’s really no way to spin 317 votes as okay. It’s just a very bad problem. Period.
There’s a difference between honest disagreement, and slanderous speech, and those that use it against you, I can’t see as how they can be anything other than paid trolls, working for evil oligarchs attempting to inflict psychological damage upon your psyche in an effort to modify either your speech or thought patterns. In a real world these people would be crucified just as the inhabitants of ancient Jerusalem were when they attempted to escape the city, before it fell to the Romans and the city sacked.
I never thought I would live enough to read in one sentence “one time member and now supporter of the socialist equality party AND we had anything in common with the Green Party. To sum up, looks like Michael Jackson singing Billie Jean.
But look at the bright side, this is a forum to share and to discuss ideas. No one here is the owner of the truth. CJ and this series about the Matrix are gunpowder if you are willing to ignite something. I think it’s cool. But it can be really mean at the same time with people unprepared about how to react and how to put your thought in the middle of this pit fire. Sometimes I wonder if we are not part of an experiment about responding to “Borderline” Provocations. Anyways, we are all learning, walking, cursing, listening, answering as we can. And just for the record, America will never have a proper understanding about socialism and populism because to understand what it really means you gotta live it in a place where it exists to build a decent answer.
Kind wishes. Peace and love.
Lol. Starting to really enjoy you posts.
Well, I’m glad about that. Today I received a birthday card (it’s not today, by the way). ” A friend is someone who’s the same kind of weird as you. I’m glad our weirdness made us such great friends.” Kind wishes. Have a good one.
right now
Cars – trucks and buses running on NG has doubled in Russia in the last 5 years alone – there are now over 900 NG stations in Russia !
Russia has something like 40 trillion cubic metres in KNOWN reserves !
NG is the FUTURE and the US is not a major player – Syria suffered for that !!
There is NO more FREE oil for the ZIO/US – Russia has stopped it – see Venezuela !
All downhill from here for the US and THIS is what COVID is all about !
BRI to the MOON !
Yes, few people realize Covid is all about energy and other resources.
BRAVO!