I’ve never had anyone from the UK or Israel tell me I can’t criticize their government because I don’t live there, but Americans say this to me all the time. American exceptionalism is an entirely unique mind virus.
Criticizing the most powerful, destructive, and influential government on the planet should be normal and ubiquitous around the world. It should not be something that stands out as unusual or inappropriate. Yet when Americans see it, that’s exactly how it shows up for them.
This is of course because Americans are the most propagandized population on earth, which is due to the fact that the US is the hub of a globe-spanning empire with an unprecedented amount of power riding on its continued operation. Can’t have the locals meddling with the machine.
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If the world truly saw that killing someone with starvation is no better than killing them with bombs, that abusing human rights overseas is no better than abusing them at home, and that US “allies” are functional US member states, a lot more US evil would be seen for what it is.
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There is nothing, literally nothing, that the US condemns other governments for doing that it does not also do:
Obama administration did the same thing, but to a head of state, Evo Morales, in an attempt to kidnap Snowden. https://t.co/Swqup1Q7C7
— Margaret Kimberley (@freedomrideblog) May 24, 2021
Saying the US is guilty of something it criticizes other governments for doing doesn’t mean what those other governments did was okay. What it does mean is that the US has absolutely no legitimacy in criticizing anyone for doing it.
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America talks a big game for a country whose chief exports are Marvel movies and human suffering.
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There are many words which could accurately be used to describe someone who supports a status quo of endless war, nuclear brinkmanship, oppression, exploitation and ecocide, but “moderate” isn’t one of them.
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Conflating discrimination against whites with racism against people of color is like conflating going on a diet with dying of starvation.
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FYI it’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2021 and still believe that Trump was a good president.
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It’s pretty funny how they went to all that trouble killing Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign to prevent Palestinian rights from going mainstream and then Israel’s own actions made it mainstream anyway.
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Saying Palestinians are responsible for their current situation is essentially claiming that a population caused its own genocide. It’s claiming they oppressed, displaced and mass murdered themselves by failing to obey the orders imposed on them by a hostile occupying force. Which happens to be the exact same argument that has been made in preceding centuries by apologists for genocidal settler colonialism in Australia, Africa, and the Americas.
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Palestine occupies such a special place in activism because people intuitively recognize it as a potential turning point in the evolution of humanity’s collective consciousness. A chance to say it’s no longer okay to kill and displace an indigenous population and take their land. A chance to stop engaging in a deeply unconscious and wildly traumatizing behavior that humanity has been engaged in since the dawn of civilization. A chance to collectively recognize “Okay, we don’t do that anymore” and evolve into a better kind of species.
Palestine moves something deep within people and captures the human imagination about what might be possible, what kind of world we could create together if we just got a little more sane.
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Americans: Help us please
Biden: Fuck you
Media: pic.twitter.com/9MzwfP8Bj5— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 24, 2021
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There’s an immense gap between those who want to dismantle the US-centralized empire and those who merely want the empire to behave a bit more nicely. These two factions happen to be aligned on opposing the abuse of Palestinians right now, but the gap will highlight itself again.
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Attempts to turn the conversation about Palestinian suffering into a conversation about anti-semitism are cynical and manipulative and should be dismissed accordingly.
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Dark ugly family secrets can remain taboo subjects for decades, then something erupts and everyone starts talking about them. This shift in the Israel narrative feels kind of like that.
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You can tell how establishment-indoctrinated someone still is by how much of the status quo they try to hold onto. We can still keep capitalism, it just needs reform. We can still keep the Democratic Party, it just needs reform. We can still keep our military, our alliances, etc.
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I make my living from entirely voluntary and unconditional donations by strangers who enjoy the writings I publish for free and I let anyone use my work for free, and I still get people doing the “and yet you participate in capitalism haha” thing whenever I criticize capitalism.
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Trauma self-perpetuates. Abused parents abuse their children, traumatized leaders and executives pass their trauma on to everyone below them, Israelis pass the trauma of their ancestors on to Palestinians. Only by turning inward do we heal the trauma and stop the cycle.
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43 responses to “America’s Chief Exports Are Marvel Movies And Human Suffering: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”
My advice to all those ashamed of being an American, or hate the country: Leave now. Stop being a part of the thing you hate so much. Move to some of the wonderful countries you compare America to. GTFO and stop being a hypocrite. I left the country I didn’t like and came to America. Legally, I might add. I love America. So stop your criticism and hypocrisy while still being a part of the thing you purportedly hate so much. Whiners.
We own it, that’s why we don’t leave. It is ours to improve as we see fit. If you don’t like what we do to fix own country, GTFO and stop being a drama queen.
So you moved to Jeff Dahmer’s neighborhood, like it, and decided that anybody who complains about mass murder is a hypocrite. Fuck You.
We sell sex, drugs and death. That’s what we sell.
Each of us live in a bubble of our own experiences and lives. A culmination of all we have absorbed and come to believe. Empathy is capable of carrying us just so far. Add onto this our personality and moral compass. What results is the world as we each uniquely see it. I personally see the world as a cold and cruel place lightly littered with good true hearted people. May we each be one of them to one another.
All I can say is if I am not fucking some one over such as the British empire, merely alleged communists, yuppies, women, minorities, non-westerners, illegal Mexicans, do-gooders, queers, neo-conservatives, me-too whiners, junior high school social science teachers, ecologists, child labor prohibitionists & activists for human rights in the course of getting some thing I want I suffer a vast sense of deprivation in the experience that can only be assuaged by drastic violence such as police brutality & dis-memberment of trouble making journalists. If this be capitalism make the goddam most of it, hos.
Turning inward to heal our past trauma does not necessarily succeed. But turning to someone who has found the way to heal their past trauma and succeeded can help a traumatized person. “Make every effort to enter through the narrow gate, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to……The gateway to life is narrow and the way is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” Luke 13:24 and Matthew 7:14.
‘Marvel movies and human suffering’
You forgot to mention that brown fizzy drink, McPoison, jingoism and shitfuckery.
Here, here. And always a happy ending to the story/movie.
https://youtu.be/UkyLp8fZSNw
https://www.greanvillepost.com/?na=v&nk=49-8c21ac51b7&id=36
Other than the above there isn’t much else that can be done, narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths can’t really be reasoned with and there’s nothing that we can really say about it; they control the internet, the phone lines, snailmail and even food. Here in the US, I’ve been blocked access to all of them from time to time including access to medical care, though they know that I am terminally ill. The very reason why they do it. So, I don’t know what to really think of it, but to hope that my God is as real to others as it is to me, and that if as my God has said to me, “I can become angry, ” If it should be true, then that hopefully only the guilty should suffer for it.
THE PROBLEM: “…Americans are the most propagandized population on earth…”
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THE REASON FOR THE PROBLEM: “Trauma self-perpetuates. Abused parents abuse their children, traumatized leaders and executives pass their trauma on to everyone below them…”
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THE ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM: “Only by turning inward do we heal the trauma and stop the cycle.”
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THE REASON WHY THE ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM IS SO ELUSIVE: “Trauma self-perpetuates…“Dark ugly family secrets can remain taboo subjects for decades…”
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HOW WILL A PROPAGANDIZED POPULATION RESPOND TO A CALL TO TURN INWARD BE ANSWERED: “Marvel Movies”.
It’s past time for the overthrow of capitalism/imperialism. Viva la Revolution !!
The list of condemnations of other countries by the US that couldn’t be used to illustrate Jesus’ parable about the straw and the beam could fit on a postage stamp.
https://www.globalresearch.ca/160-experts-slam-covid-vaccines-unnecessary-ineffective-unsafe-powerful-letter/5745907
Dozens of medical experts issued a warning this month about COVID-19 vaccines, slamming the jabs as “unnecessary, ineffective and unsafe” and likely to lead to “foreseeable mass deaths.”
Their letter offers various rather speculative reasons for concern and vigilance, but little or no evidence for these ‘foreseeable mass deaths.’
And “Natural T-Cell immunity provides stronger and more comprehensive protection against all SARS-CoV-2 strains than vaccines, because naturally primed immunity recognises multiple virus epitopes and costimulatory signals, not merely a single (spike) protein” ignores the fact that some vaccines involve whole, inactivated virus, and not merely spike protein.
Caitlin, you write “Conflating discrimination against whites with racism against people of color is like conflating going on a diet with dying of starvation.” I don’t understand this statement. While you use the term “racism” in referring to bigotry directed against people of color you use a different term, “discrimination”‘, in referring to bigotry directed against whites. You seem to be suggesting that we should not “conflate” all manifestations of bigotry, but should rather take into account the skin color of the victim. This sounds stupid, and I know that you are not stupid. But perhaps this is precisely your point, and the reason it sounds stupid to me is because I am white. Can you please clarify?
LOL. Knowingly or otherwise essentially what you’re saying is that hating your oppressor is no different than brutalizing the defenseless and innocent because of some deep seated hatred that the victimizer has to toward anyone that they can overpower.
I use different words because they are completely different things, in the same way the words “You’re fired” have completely different meanings when spoken by an employer to an employee than when spoken by an employee to an employer. When a system is stacked against people of color, as is most certainly the case in our society, then prejudice which goes against the stacking of that system is necessarily different in nature from prejudice which goes with it.
https://twitter.com/_SJPeace_/status/1395797426313875460
Thank you. I think I understand what you’re saying. Sort of. Frankly, I’m not really sure. Please help me out a bit more. Do you think that when Martin Luther King Jr. said that he dreamed of a day when a man will be judged on the basis of his character rather than the color of his skin, it would have been better if he had said that he dreamed of a day when black people can start getting even with whitey?
Stop trying to waste people’s time on the internet. It’s an obnoxious habit.
Its probably a sure bet that all religions and other such beliefs systems have mythologies and dogmas that can be exploited for nefarious purposes just like most computer software programs have flaws, intentional or otherwise that make them exploitable we need only look at the birds that live in large urban centers that their genetic make up is different than that of their cousins in the countryside due to the different levels of stress that each are subjected to.
So, though it sounds good on paper or a video clip the devil is in the details. Last weekend in Chicago there were 55 attempted homicides with guns and 11 successful ones; compare that with the UK, where 10% of all murders are committed by the adult children upon their parents. Very few individuals ever seem to notice that in these sort of nations the only sort of morality is ever discussed much concerns controlling sexual activities or guns, but never the violence or the causes of violence that powers it.
What all these nations do is assault all forms of empathy between individuals so that the end game of their intrusions into the personal lives of its citizens is that the government becomes the ultimate maker, and seller of sexual possibilities. The very nature of their societies from birth to death, is predicated on diminishing all forms of affection and enhancing all forms of hatred.
All the time we hear about the dangers of the big lie, without realizing that they are all victims of the big lie. The narrative that Caitlin speaks of so often, so very few seem to notice that those who push that narrative don’t believe it themselves. Cohen who passed the business to Epstien was a contemporary of Al Capone, apparently most of our world leaders are pedophiles, but notice too that the, ‘N’, word began as a name of a color but was quickly turned into a derogatory term. Yes, there are many issues involved, but this is just one of many social weakness that are exploitable by those with an agenda. There’s an open discussion going on about what to do with a bunch of worthless people who due to technology are neither employable or trainable to engage in a modern society; yes, they are talking about you, what they call the, “worthless class”. Yes, worthless, so if you want to save your worthless selves, you have to stop believing their lies and love the unlovable, but in English speaking countries I doubt that will ever happen, we should know that when individuals are put on pedestals their rights are taken away for their own benefit. In the good old days of American slavery there were many statutes that celebrated the strength of Black men, but with their freedom, they were all removed.
The indigenous Americans once exterminated, robbed and defeated were then suitable for coins and mascots. It’s a function of the human mind that nothing is free. When Jesus saved the life of a dead man a few years ago the complaint was that he did it on the sabbath, his reply was, “Why do you think that way?”
When I was in high school one of my teachers claimed that to touch tongues while kissing was a mortal sin and a mortal sin is for all eternity, just like killing 6 million Jews and 6 million Gypies. Same punishment. Of course the first thing that these narrative controllers want is to be afraid of your own thoughts. Any God that demands that even your thoughts belong to it, is not a God worth having.
The N-word derives from the Latin for black, but the word itself was first used for black people, not the colour black.
To be clear, I mean the English word was first used for black people.
Being a resident of the US, there is nothing that would delight me more than to see this country balkanized. To break it up into smaller political units that simply don’t have the resources to be the monster the US is. The biggest threat to our liberty, property, livelihood and our very lives, does not reside in Russia, China, Iran, or any other foreign land. Its in Washington DC. The sooner it folds up the better off we will all be. With the dollar on the brink, we may yet live to see it happen. It will not be painless, nor easy, but it will eliminate the hegemony immediately. and is most definitely desirable.
“Conflating discrimination against whites with racism against people of color is like conflating going on a diet with dying of starvation.” The logic of that statement escapes me. Simply trading one for the other. Continued animosity, just in the other direction. How about we dispose of both.
Dear Caitlin. I am an American who loathes the U.S. empire and has since the Vietnam War in the 1960s. All Americans do not disagree with what you write about the U.S., only the idiots in denial do. I post and share your articles every day because you tell the truth about the U.S. empire, the most vicious and destructive force on the planet. That is the reason I support you both politically and financially. Although I am a Marxist and you are not, your observations about the United State are spot on and need to be drummed into the heads of all those defenders of the indefensible. Keep it up!!!
American exceptionalism is is americans being exceptional at overthrowing governments, invading countries, slaughtering people, stealing their natural resources……
It isn’t the American people who are doing this. It is the American corporate capitalist empire doing it. And it even does it to its own citizens. American exceptionalism is like Israeli exceptionalism. A fiction promoted to excuse every crime.
But it is the American people that are implementing and enforcing this. Vulture Capitalism consuming itself leading to subsistence living for all (peasants). Suckers and losers.
The corporate capitalist oligarchy or whatever has no nation. Capitalist, Socialist and Communist are currently just words to distract you into enabling the persistence of a system of extraction with minimal return. Poop is the most valuable commodity that most people produce and instead of being garnered to make moderate amounts of energy or grow food to make more poop, it is wasted in a bath of life killing compounds and released out into our planet to further bring death to life.
“American exceptionalism is an entirely unique mind virus.” Delusional doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Yes, only in America could so many millions of people STILL believe that their last election was rigged, based on one person’s claim – despite so many investigations, audits, and re-counts. In my mind, that qualifies as mass hysteria. It’s also has to be the largest conspiracy theory in history.
America is so exceptional that its elections could not possibly be rigged. Ruby Freeman. Say her name.
Get a grip. One investigation after another is turning up fraud. Ongoing.
I think this amounts to more than one person’s claim.
https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2021/01/01/stop-the-steal-2/
https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud
Here in the US, the biggest transgression is not criticizing our own country. At least the super heroes did not decide to expand Arkham Asylum and move in with the same criminally insane villains that continue to betray them.
“If the world truly saw that killing [nations] with starvation [sanctions] is no better than killing them with bombs” their eyes would be opened to the facts that the Nuremberg Principles, and everything else set up after WWII, have been bypassed in such a manner and to such an extent that George Orwell is now considered a prophet, to many.
“Conflating discrimination against whites with racism against people of color [very often] is like conflating [that racism is unacceptable toward any race or ethnicity].” That is undeniable. But, if it is denied and obfuscated to an extreme, what does that reveal? MLK: I Have a Dream: “The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the [African American} community must not lead us to a distrust of all White people.”
Spoken word art, wholly welcoming – for all:
https://seaclearly.com/2019/11/13/dance-of-the-saints
Americans neither see nor hear, when it comes to self-critique, more especially, when it is from those who are not members of the exceptionals empire.
Love it, or leave it, was the phrase spat back atcha, in daze gone bye!
Nowadays, they’ve largely dispensed with the ‘leave it’ option, in favour of ‘Deal with it.’
https://twitter.com/panoparker/status/1318157559266762752?lang=en
Once again, generalization about Americans is mistaken. Millions of us U.S. citizens are also victims of the vicious capitalist system that controls our country and threatens to destroy life on the planet. Millions of us protest. Millions of us oppose the government and the corporate overlords. I protested against the imperialist war in Vietnam back in the 60s and heard people use that vile expression “love it or leave it” far too many times. But the point is that they were using it against those of us U.S. citizens who were opposed to the policies of imperialism. We exist. We have always existed.
Mea Culpa! The only ‘ist’ I am is Human.
At this point in the species’ evolution, I’d like to be able to take the fifth on this!
I’ve never really understood USAmericans’ objections to foreigners criticising their country and its policies. Their First Amendment gives them the right to peddle drivel, propaganda, hate speech and fake news, and the likes of Facebook enable them to do so on a massive scale, yet an outsider commenting on the USA somehow undermines and threatens their supposed democracy and freedom. They must feel very insecure underneath all the bluster and bravado if they think Caitlin is so dangerous.
It doesn’t matter that you’re not from this country, even if you are from the US, you’ll be discredited and admonished for describing it. Especially if you point out the biggest and most important flaws (criminal acts). Masses of people are so propagandized they won’t accept in any way, that we’re destroying the environment, that we are the most violent country in the world, that capitalism creates poverty and oppression. All the most salient issues are off limits to the minds of the masses. Illuminating any of those topics will have the story turned around to something is wrong with you. It always amazes me that so many people can be so completely taken in by such deep falsehoods.
It amazes me, as well, and I live in the U.S. The ignorance of many of my fellow U.S. citizens enrages and dismays me. I oppose the imperialists with every fibre of my being and have since the 1960s.