Listen to a reading of this article:
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As the world burns, as ecosystems die off, as the insects vanish, as the forests disappear, as soil becomes rapidly less fertile, as extinction takes over, as the oceans gasp for air and become lifeless deserts while continents of plastic form in their waters, it is interesting how often you hear the sentiment that this is the result of some flaw in humanity for which we all share equal guilt.
To hear people talk about it, you’d think we all had some say in the way our society is organized, the way food, goods and energy are distributed, the kinds of vehicles which dominate our civilization, the way our planet is being stripped bare to turn millionaires into billionaires and billionaires into trillionaires.
And of course, we don’t. We’ve never gotten to vote on how corporations behave in our world. We never got a vote on which technologies would be suppressed and which would be subsidized and backed by wars and military scams. We never got a vote on the US war machine becoming the worst polluter of any institution on earth. We never got a vote on whether a tree should be cut down for profit or left standing for the benefit it provides to our ecosystem.
And the things we do get to vote on don’t count because our dominant political systems are owned by corporate elites. And even if they weren’t it wouldn’t matter because those elites use media propaganda to brainwash us at mass scale and manufacture our consent for the ecocidal paradigm that has turned them into modern-day kings.
Remember:
1. The oceans are being killed.
2. Forests will soon be gone.
3. Fertile soil is disappearing.
4. Megafauna risk extermination.
5. Insects are vanishing.
6. Climate chaos is inevitable.
7. Extinction is now.
8. Plastic is in our blood.None of this is front page news.
— Ben See (@ClimateBen) March 9, 2019
The kings of today do not live as the kings of old. They don’t sit on thrones publicly issuing decrees to their subjects; they hang out in the background behind the theatrical performance of the officially elected government, quietly funding think tanks and corporate lobbyists, buying up media, bribing politicians with campaign donations, rigging the system, amassing more and more wealth and power, and shaping the fate of our world.
Yet if you ask the wealthy who is to blame for the death of our planet, they’ll tell you it’s the fault of the riff raff for having too many babies. If you ask the billionaire-owned media who is to blame, they’ll tell you it’s your fault because you didn’t go vegan and ride your bike to work.
In our extinction existence of invisible kings and wall-to-wall lies, those with all the wealth and power are completely free of responsibility, while their rank-and-file victims are made to justify their very existence to the system every day and pay through the nose for every misstep. None of the world’s worst people are in prison, and if you tell the police your employer stole your wages you’ll get a very different response than if your employer tells them you stole from the company.
You can get a hefty fine for throwing a paper cup out a window, but corporations can fill the oceans with plastic without ever being told “This is your fault. Fix it.” You can go to jail for smoking a leaf, but corporations can blacken the air at immense profit without ever facing any consequences.
Extreme heat roasting parts of North America is not a mere weather event – it's evidence of a crime.
The oil industry deceived us for decades knowing its operations would create mass death events like this.
Prosecute those responsible. https://t.co/2yn1Kuv5xO pic.twitter.com/HiWaAkuTQE
— Steven Donziger (@SDonziger) July 9, 2021
They are living as kings on wealth they made by raping the planet we all live on, whose health we all depend on for survival, and because their mass media propaganda is so successful it hardly ever even occurs to anyone that they should have to pay for it. They take what they want and do as they please, at our expense, for free. They are spoiled little boys with flamethrowers.
The people who are leading us to armageddon are hailed as charitable and industrious job creators. Rob a man for money and they’ll call you a thief. Rob a planet for money and they’ll call you a philanthropist.
This cannot stand. The one area in which we do have power is the fact that there are a lot more of us than there are of them, a fact that secretly terrifies them which they spend vast amounts of energy making sure we never notice ourselves. As folk singer Utah Phillips famously said, “The Earth is not dying, it is being killed. And those who are killing it have names and addresses.”
But this insight does us no good if only a few of us realize it. Until a critical mass of the human collective rises up against these sociopathic ecocidal tyrants, we won’t be able to stop them. But stop them we must, which is why it’s so important to spread awareness of what’s going on and where the blame really lies. All positive changes in human behavior are always preceded by an increase in awareness, whether it be individually or collectively.
And from there, perhaps we can create a healthy world directed not for the greed of the few but for the good of everybody. Where scientific endeavor is poured not into creating billionaires and finding new ways for the war machine to kill people but into ways we can harmoniously collaborate with our natural environment.
If we can’t find some way to pull this off, humanity’s epitaph will read, “In the end it was easier to let them kill the ecosystem than to take away rich people’s rocket money.”
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76 responses to “Our Rulers Have All The Power And None Of The Responsibility”
I tip my hat to that piece Caitlin
Every time someone responds to an emotional rant with a restatement of the necessary steps to freedom, those who prefer the pretense of activism to its substance resort at once to personal attack.
If what we want is a society that meets the basic needs of its people and gives every person a fair start, then we each must radically adjust the way we are living, now.
If we wait for a movement to arise, we will wait until genocide overtakes us. Propaganda science has advanced to the point that the heads of our potential leaders are lopped before we ever hear their names.
The system is creating the wealth inequality required to foment unrest and violence among those it has crushed and destroyed. It needs our fear of violence from below to justify the violence it is (always) preparing to commit from above. If this crop of billionaire buttheads falls over dead today, a worse crew will arise tomorrow. Whining about these individuals, especially at a public podium, informs the system that its envy generating mechanisms are producing well, and that the danger of intelligent response remains small.
The tiny hamster wheel I am assigned to spin is doing exactly, on its scale, what Elon Musk is doing with his billions: stupidly wasting scant resources on gadgets and schemes and weapons that create hunger, ignorance, desperation, violence, and genocide.
If I wish to live in a world in which feeding, clothing, sheltering, and educating our people is considered baseline, not radical, then I must stop feeding the system that destroys us and encourage my brothers to do likewise.
Of course, there is the alternate strategy of blaming the rich, or the poor, while congratulating oneself, then turning on the news. How’s that working out?
“The earth is not dying, it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.”
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Seems like anytime someone talks about holding the criminal robber barons accountable for their crimes against humanity, the trolls, shills and paid operatives come out and cry about how it’s the system and that we’re all responsible.
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Horse dung.
“Seems like anytime someone talks about holding the criminal robber barons accountable for their crimes against humanity, the trolls, shills and paid operatives come out and cry about how it’s the system and that we’re all responsible.”
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I understand your point, and agree totally that those responsible should be held to account. The problem I have with the simplistic approach of blaming the “named addressee” elitist douchbag is that it is merely “One” person.
Dow Corning, Monsanto, Shell, USDoD, et al are comprised of millions upon millions of individual people who are all playing their part. Some asshat is driving truck that is delivering that toxic shit some where. Some semi-retarded monkey is unloading it. Someone is selling it. Creating it. Boxing it. Tagging it. Buying it. Paying the salaries. Mopping the halls. Coordinating all the logistics so the whole scheme runs smoothly.
No ONE person, or ten, or 250 can change the world without millions upon billions of little helpers chipping in their support and encouragement.
My favourite example is the story of when some private prison in Northern California closed. The people in the town crying boohoo my poor job. “I can’t enslave some schmuck for some petty crime?? How unfair!! How unjust!! Same story different town different industry wreaking havoc on culture, society, the planet . . . take your pick or take them all.
My advice: Go take a shower and slather up with loads of shampoo so it all can go down the drain into the water supply. Then go cover up with some deodorant, brush your teeth with some toothpaste . . . on and on and on and on and on. Then come back and tell me how it’s not the average schmucks around the world eating away at all life like voracious termites.
“It rubs the lotion on its skin. It does this whenever it is told.”
Just a quick note today. More people died in the heatwave up in the Pacific Northwest of USA and Canada during the recent heatwave than in the Miami Florida condo collapse, lots more. Yet the condo collapse was on the news and in the corporate(MSM) press and media services around the clock. I’ve yet to see a re[ot on TV about the heatwave–heat-bomb, really–deaths in the NW. Last I saw was 97 in condo collapse and hundreds, no real solid numbers, in the heat-bomb. And if I was to speculate the condo collapse could be chalked up to unwise building on reclaimed land that used to be a swamp and unethical building practices.
Something just ain’t quite right these days. Peace, All
Blaming the handful of turds at the top of this dung heap is simplistic, self-serving, and escapist. Sure, the view from the top of the pile is better, but the smell is exactly the same.
Maybe a tenth of the commenters here appear to understand that the problem is stupid people like us consuming stuff we don’t need. That would be encouraging, if it became a trend.
Owing and paying debt to the financial system is morally the same act as slapping food from the hands of a starving Yemeni child, or turning her flesh to charcoal with a blowtorch. Ditto for casting a vote, buying a new shirt, or eating industrially manufactured food.
Nothing changes until we stop cooperating. Big fat bloody period.
Everything that divides us serves the system. You have nothing that cannot be stripped from you– your job, your house, your family– your hair, your teeth, your skin– can and will be taken to feed the machine. It’s been done before. We might as well die singing.
We already know what must be done. We already know how to do it.
Boycott. Stop buying new stuff. Second hand is just as good, costs less, does not feed the beast. I bought my only new car in 1986, and I’m still ashamed. Would you hold your family down and spread their legs for a rapist? Think of debt and new gadgets the same way. Stop soaking your brain in propaganda. Turn the tv off. Sell it. Give the money to the homeless. Stop playacting online and live what you know is right for a change.
Divest. Get out. Get out of your debt, your mortgage, your engagement with the system. Until you quit the corporate job, you are the problem. The day I consume only what I need, the day my hurting brother gets my extra, will be be the first day I have any business calling myself an adult human being.
Sanction. Maybe you can’t get everything you need from folks who aren’t complicit with the system– yet. But if we do not start trying, no one ever will.
Stop waiting for the change you want. Learn to live free. If you buy in, heart and soul, the system will eventually rent you a bigger kennel, a fancier food dish, and a nice long, lighter chain around your neck: just look at the Obamas. If that’s what you want, go on.
If what you want is an equitable and benevolent society, you better get on your game.
Yes, making this come to pass would mean sharing with each other, not hoarding our little turd bits in our little corner of the turd pile. Yes, our lives would radically change.
We do not lack the ability or the vision a better world requires. We lack the commitment and the guts. I am asking you, reader, to change or shut up, and stop blaming top turd for being king of all the crap you claim you do not want.
Sadly most folk won’t really want to know until they’re right on the edge.
Capitalism likes to purport that it is the driving force for most “progress” by the human race. The net result of capitalism in action is to degrade natural resources and prime living environment for conversion into dollars. In terms of thermodynamics, the dollars were originally conceived to represent the Gibbs Free Energy dissipated (that is to say the real “costs”) in the process of converting the natural forms of low entropy (complex, highly organised) on this planet (ecosystems and their component living things) into even lower entropy products of human desire and use (select rich diets, housing, vehicles for transportation, etc). The Gibbs Free Energy is routinely supplied by daily sunlight driving photosynthesis which originates, through long complex biochemical pathways, the low entropy biological entities covering the planet–all the fish of the sea, birds of the air, animals of the field and bacteria up your butt.
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But sunlight alone is not dense enough in free energy content to make all the human products (those cars, houses and marbled New York strip steaks) we covet from the environment that nature provides. We make up the difference mostly by exploiting fossil fuels, with a smidgen of nuclear, hydroelectric and geothermal energy extracted with great prejudice from nature. Wind and solar don’t yet make a substantial contribution and many if not most physicists and geoscientists suspect that they never will–not at the levels needed to sustain Earth’s population of 8 billion people and counting. What’s left behind as the energy is extracted from these sources is high entropy waste: beautiful forests reduced to stumps, desert sands, polluted water, dead animals (many extinct) and oxides of Carbon, Sulphur, Nitrogen and other non-metallic elements, most of which are toxic to biological organisms, and some of which influence atmospheric temperatures. Everyone knows the consequences if not the physics underlying the very conspicuous transformations of resources to products and wastes. Unlike many issues it’s not kept a secret by the MSM, though nothing much is ever done (beyond cheap virtue signaling) as a consequence of the exposure. I suspect that many, even in science, privately suspect that nothing much can be or is going to get done to effectively turn things around. Too massive a problem, too many obstacles presented both by human attitudes and extant technology. If I had to place a bet, I’d predict the “Bladerunner” scenario for the Earth’s environment by the end of this century. After that? Things are not gonna get better. Elon had better find some planet more hospitable than Mars for his colony, since that would be like living in an airless, mostly waterless Antarctica.
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As I said at the beginning, the net result is to convert beauty and sustenance into a pile of fiat U.S. Dollar bills. These dollars (or gold pieces, clam shells or whatever wampum being traded) were originally meant to merely REPRESENT the cost or value of the energy expended to create low entropy products and make possible convenient commerce and trade. But over time they became the primary goal of acquisition, especially once the “middle man” involved in financial transactions evolved on this planet. People who already possessed large piles of said currency got it in their heads that THIS (accumulating ever more) is the essence of progress and that those who accumulate the very biggest piles of cash are the WINNERS in some global contest of wills. So, money becomes an end in itself rather than a mere facilitator of human culture and the consequences to the Earth become even more dire. After all, money is fungible: you can exchange it for anything your heart desires, right? Not so fast…
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Unfortunately, the day is coming when all of Nature (of which we are inseparably contiguous on the molecular level) that served as the grist for generating those dollars is gone and only the dollars will remain. We will have converted all of true value into dollars that can no longer buy a thing from empty shelves. What will they be worth then? To anyone? The hard truth is that any survivors will have to once again be sustained by only the sunlight that causes plants to grow, providing food and wood to make shelters and allowing any surviving animal species to thrive, perhaps providing transportation and labor for human masters. Of course, we will be handicapped by all the pollution, degraded soil, lack of potable water, and the extinction of many useful plants and animals left behind by previous human activity. It will once again become an unforgiving pre-industrial society, supporting a much lower population, lacking modern technology, comforts and medical care. In that sense it will be even more primitive than what Europe went through in the Dark Ages. Mad Max’s world might be considered opulent compared to what is coming. Think more like the Stone Age, perhaps before H.sapiens had evolved from H.erectus or another of that diverse lot of pre-human hominids. It will be an environment that even an enthusiastic survivalist would not enjoy over the long run. Of course, even this presumes that in the process of circling the technological drain that the lingering advanced societies do not take to launching nukes at one another in the competition for the last remaining natural resources, and that the mothballed nuclear power plants do not suffer fuel rod meltdowns, subsequent explosions and distribution of their lethal radionuclides throughout the atmosphere as their electricity-dependent cooling systems inevitably fail.
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Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty place from day to day, till the last syllable of recorded time and all our yesterdays hath lighted fools the way to dusty death.
As this native American saying goes, “when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will you realize that you cannot eat money”.
The story of Midas was quite symbolic actually in ancient Greece. King Midas had pleased god Pan who granted him a wish and Midas asked that everything he touched turned into gold”.
Of course he soon asked Pan to get him back to square one when he found out he couldn’t eat, drink, make love… or do anything he thought money would buy :o)
It’s always a question of how. It’s not so much the individuals or even the corporations themselves that we need to stop, it’s the systems that have been put in place that seem inescapable. Everyone is still shopping, driving, consuming, obeying the laws, voting and generally participating in the capitalist game show. And that is exactly how they need it to stay for the powerful to remain in power. Until we break out of that on a mass scale nothing will change. But to break out would require a huge sacrifice. Are you going to give up your car, quit working, take to the streets, get arrested, starved, beaten, killed? Who’s going to provide for your family while your doing all that? Are you willing to die to change the system? Because they will kill you. And your death will be meaningless, thousands maybe millions of deaths will be meaningless before power is wrested from the hands of the oligarchs. I didn’t think so …
The only answer has ever been and will only ever be “here and now”. Most of the rest is fantasies: depression at evoking the past, anguish at evoking the future. It’s the story of this zen master travelling with a disciple. As they are resting in the grass, the disciple says: “Master, how can I get into zen?” After a couple of minutes, the master replies: “Do you hear the sound of that brook over there?” The disciple lends an attentive ear and replies with an enthusiastic smile: “Yes master” – “Get into zen from there”.
A few minutes go by and the disciple says: “Master?” – “Yes” – “What if I hadn’t been able to hear the sound of the brook over there, what would you have answered then?” After a couple of minutes, the master replies:
– Get into zen from there :o)
“The earth is not dying, it is being killed. And the people who are killing it have names and addresses.”
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Seems like anytime someone talks about holding the criminal robber barons accountable for their crimes against humanity, the trolls, shills and paid operatives come out and cry about how it’s the system and that we’re all responsible.
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Horse dung.
One of the best of your always brilliant pieces, Caitlin. Having read all the comments on this article, by people who clearly hold you in high regard, I hold no hope of there ever being a popular uprising against the evil tyrants… it is far too late, and humans are simply incapable of acting in their own best interests without someone goading them with a big stick. Appealing to intellect, reason and common sense never works. It’s not how humans evolved.
“someone goading them with a big stick” or simply a magic pipe like the Pied Piper:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin
its NEVER too late!! or have you never heard that saying.
The uprising is now really starting to happen, and far more to come. It takes time for new groups and intelligent thinking and healthy structures to be made – but that is happening now across many areas of life.
This is an opportunity to really restructure and move down the paths that we were on a long time ago and that many people wanted to stay on with steady improvements. People wondered with each change and new Rules and Regulations installed, but were not needed, as people were adults and took responsibility in every form and wanted sensible improvements. But Politicians. Bureaucrats and money making worshippers took us down these paths that we are on now.
NOW we can restructure/regenerate the many areas of society that have been so dysfunctional for far too long. Ensure that that the Legal systems are cleaned out and brought into reality and work for the people, not the Elite criminals.
So much to be done and such a challenge.
That’s right. Know the enemy and cut it out by the root.
End The Fed
Live A Good Life
“it is interesting how often you hear the sentiment that this is the result of some flaw in humanity for which we all share equal guilt.”
But there are several flaws – we (mostly) believe the spin, propaganda, lies, narrative they tell us, we keep electing bad governments (because we believe what they tell us), and then we try to ignore the problems we’ve allowed them to create.
If these aren’t flaws then what are?
Veganism is not a ‘lifestyle choice’ Caitlin.
It’s a moral and ethical responsibility.
If we cannot empathise with the suffering of other sentient creatures, we are less than beings. We are programmed humans.
A couple more items for your collection:
https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/07/science/high-pcb-levels-found-in-eskimo-breast-milk.html
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/13/extraordinary-levels-of-toxic-pollution-found-in-10km-deep-mariana-trench
Also an interesting read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Year_Lie
The Hundred Year Lie: How Food And Medicine Are Destroying Your Health (2006) is a book by investigative journalist Randall Fitzgerald that examines the rise of the local and global influence of the United States food and chemical industries, and argues that they have, over the last century, altered, affected and damaged the lives of millions of people in the United States by introducing synthetic chemicals into the mainstream food chain.
Among other good news:
1/ The average American now carries a “body burden” of seven hundred or more synthetic chemicals, including Teflon residues, plastics and dozens of pesticides.
2/ A fire retardant chemical contaminates fish, pork, turkey, chicken, cheese, butter, milk, eggs and ice cream in most grocery stores.
3/ A 2005 study of lactating women in 18 US states found perchlorate (a toxic component of rocket fuel) in practically every mother’s breast milk.
4/ Lab tests have found that four common food additives – aspartame, MSG and two coloring chemicals – interact synergistically to produce nerve damage. These additives are commonly found in junk food marketed to children.
And he doesn’t even talk (as far as I can remember) of the levels of mercury found in big fish at the end of the food chain like tuna or salmon or battery farming (aka animal concentration camps) of chicken, pigs and calves that don’t move, are fed crap and vaccinated with antibiotics up to their eyebrows that end up in the consumer’s own system.
And of course US junk food is not sold only in the US but it’s a pure coincidence that a large chunk of the world population (787 millions) is obese – with the records being held in little Pacific islands that import most of their food.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_Pacific
What? The autism epidemic? Let’s not get into that…
But let’s not despair! The Covid vaccine will put an end to all that and the jab, far from adding new shit in organisms already struggling to process and eliminate all this chemical pollution, will make us as good as new and save the planet! :o)
True. Sickeningly true. Violence is the only way to stop this, because humans do not respond to anything else. They never have. Not one rational argument has ever changed anything important. But violent revolt would produce so much more pollution it would tip us over the brink to rapid extinction.
As Joan Baez sang…Too late my brothers, too late, but never mind…. it’ll all be over soon.
I also love this verse by Dylan of the same period: “Don’t ask me nothing about nothing, I just might tell you the truth” :o)
Rulers have NO power.
What they have is force.
Armed forces.
Police forces.
The force of law.
The force of propaganda.
The force of fear.
The Earth is power.
The Sun is power.
Nature is power.
The rulers will be brought to account by these powers.
They are power-less to stop it.
But wait, there’s more….
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2021/jul/14/food-monopoly-meals-profits-data-investigation
“The kings of today do not live as the kings of old… they hang out in the background behind the theatrical performance of the officially elected government, quietly funding think tanks and corporate lobbyists, buying up media, bribing politicians with campaign donations, rigging the system, amassing more and more wealth and power, and shaping the fate of our world.”
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Jesus concluded, ‘So those who are last will be first, and those who are first will be last.’
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Sayings like this are why The Dark Forces don’t like the Bible. And now, Wokesters have taken the clue and They don’t like the Bible either (if they ever did). Too many dangerous ideas in there.
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“In the end it was easier to let them kill the ecosystem than to take away rich people’s rocket money.”
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To continue the Bible idea today, how about this:
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“Yes, I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”
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Even if you’re one who doesn’t care much for the Bible… you have to admit there is some (darn) good stuff in there if you look.
Parables are good. The Wise and the Foolish.
Parting the Red Sea is one of the coolest ideas ever. Moses was inspired.
Yes, you have a good point.
“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The Beatitudes impart the lifeblood of the message of humility, mercy, righteousness, and steadfast love.
Best part of the Bible for me.
My favorite is definitely the straw and the beam that the US politicians have obviously never heard of, seeing the entitlement with which they admonish and sanction other countries for presumably doing punctually (spying, hacking, election meddling, invading, occupying…) exactly what the US does all the time in your face on an industrial scale.
The bible is promising that the roles will be reversed after death. And of course they will be. All dead things are equal. Unfortunately, in the living world nothing will change for the better and living in misery and pain while the rich murder all life, is still horrible for the downtrodden billions.
I love your stuff, and read every article you write; however, I rarely comment because, well, why? Preaching to the choir?
Now, though. Yes, the elite are heinous monsters destroying this world, but who are they? Most of them were one of “us” at one point. Take most of “us” and put us in their spot, and the behaviour remains the same.
WE are the problem.
WE buy the shampoos, the detergents, the plastic everything.
WE vote for the same assholes who implement the stupid policies. Then we vote for them again. And again. And again.
WE support the toxic corporations with our money, with our attention, with our intention even when we know better.
WE buy the pesticides, the fertilizers, the homicides.
WE fill our trash bins to full week after week after week.
No one forced us to do this.
WE all have access to the same information, yet only a small percentage of “us” do anything differently. Even that small percentage is lazy in many ways.
I know some of this was your point, but to imply that WE aren’t the problem or the cause is simply a lie. WE had the chance to do great things and WE failed. I failed. You failed. The moment of the Sun is coming, and WE have created a world that is toxic even during calm times. Reap what you sow. Garbage in Garbage out.
Perhaps the next sentient species will do better.
Remarkable ! You keep surprising me with the power of your daily exposé.
Thank you Caitlin Johnstone
You have to admit at one point that the ruling elites are way too bright for the common people. Look at France: a handful of elites totally neutralized millions of yellow vests:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/529188-france-mandatory-health-pass/
No doubt we are living the return of the days of Noah just before the return of Jesus.
Keeping my Rosary on hand!
In our culture power and responsibility is an oxymoron. The Uber-wealthy and powerful operate a self-obsessed egotistical guilt-free existence. These creatures emotional development were arrested at childhood. Don’t get me wrong, they’re charming manipulative beings who lack the compassion or the ability to self-sacrifice even for one moment, if it’s slightly inconvenient or if they see no immediate personal gain.
F. Scott Fitzgerald acknowledged these traits in the “Great Gatsby”: “Let me tell you about the very rich.They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.”
And that’s why it’s the “unscrubbed masses” who are being held responsible for planetary devastation resulting from oceans and soil inundated with corporate toxins. More than 7 billion powerless footsteps are held accountable for the plutocrats mess It will be plebs who sacrifice and clean up “billionaire slop.” It’ll be the poor “schlepper-class” that’ll be compelled to cut back, own less, enjoy little, travel nowhere, and remain anxiety ridden over capricious lockdowns and irrational edicts while the super-wealthy and powerful flitter about in private jets and yachts traveling to multiple enormous palatial estates.
If billionaires had their way they’d create an “Elysium” like the one described in the 2013 sci-fi movie. A first-class planet only for the “lucky rich.” A haven from the broken Earth, a sanctuary removed from the “contaminated masses.” That’s how the insane “earthly billionaire class” thinks.
Be that as it may, there’s numerous “humans” still occupying the planet Earth trying to educate and improve the lives of many. Two such individuals are Vandana Shiva and RFK, Jr., the following is a worthwhile insightful discussion.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2zpOa3ipazI5SDt0XOzp0Y?si=4iIfsAvmRliA6pJZ30ZAbQ&utm_source=native-share-menu&dl_branch=1
Caitlin’s framing is routinely instructive. The internet, for example, is rife with those claiming ‘humanity is a curse. We’re vile creatures who don’t deserve to survive.’
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What those people have done is internalize the behavior of the roughly 2% of the populace that is sociopathic or psychopathic, and that I’ve noted for decades are far more likely than the rest of the population to rise to the top of our political and economic pyramids.
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Our leaders aren’t us. They aren’t manifestations of us.
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I’ve also thought for years that the intrusiveness of requiring the MMPI for anyone seeking public office or an executive position was trivial compared with how sociopaths and psychopaths globally intrude on our lives.
The kings spent trillions of dollars chasing fake terrorists, ruining Middle East countries, murdering tens of thousands of innocents, forcing millions of people to flee away from their countries for nothing. And they have been over the last 2 years trying to convince us the covid pandemic is the real threat, gimme a break. It’s almost like seeing the Demon CIA trying to find an honorable scape.
Demon CIA: You kill me and the truth is exposed. You can even become the benevolent rulers. Tell to the people what they really are and why they do what they do.
Whistleblower: You treated real people’s lives like some kind of sick game.
Demon CIA: It’s not personal, it’s practical.
Whistleblower: it was personal to me and 8 billion of people.
Demon CIA: We are all villains here. We’ve all done horrible, terrible, horrific things. But now, I, I mean, you and me have a good chance to do them for a good reason.
China is now the number one producer of green house gasses, yet I don’t see anyone condemning China for this.
I have just been evicted by the owner of the house, where I rent a room, who lives in central China. I was actually evicted by the owner’s agent, who is Chinese, but lives here in the United States, who rented the house to the woman, whom I thought owned the house, whom I was renting the room from, who was originally from Taiwan. She came here to avoid the CCP, yet the CCP is running her life her in the United States anyway.
You people talk about motivating the masses, but you probably use something like Zoom to do that. Zoom is owned by a Chinese company which is likely using the platform to harvest user data for the benefit of the CCP.
In order to organize people, you are going to have to develop your own means of communication.
I know how to do that, but I can’t get people to let go of their Social Media or conference calling platforms.
See what happened to this ability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ
Here is how you connect people: https://civicrm.org/blog/dev-team/civicrm-537-release
Here is how you do conference calls: https://jitsi.org/
Psychopaths/sociopaths come in all colours, genders, shapes and sizes.
So what’s new?
Plato’s book The Republic had some good insights on human governance. He saw that all forms including democracy have inherent weaknesses. I believe he suggested that rule by the wise would be the best thing. But we have seldom seen that, and if we have it has not been for very long.
Polybius stated that no matter how well a constitution is crafted, no sooner does that ink try on the tablets upon which it is written than the wood worms of corruption go to work eating it to pieces. 100 years after he wrote that Julius Caesar rode into Rome and was declared emperor for life, and hence the Roman Republic came to an end.
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https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/polybius-origins-separation-powers
Sorry to differ but Julius Caesar was never declared emperor. Even though he figures in the sets of cards as the king of diamond, he was never a king either. After a set of populist and popular reforms that angered the elites, he was proclaimed dictator for life (which is different for a dictator was a regular magistrate of the Roman Republic) by the Senate and a bunch of dissenting senators, fearing for their own powers, assassinated him in 44 BC. This led to a civil war, the winner of which, Julius Caesar’s great-nephew and adoptive heir Octavian was granted by the Senate the new titles of Augustus and Princeps on top of which he proclaimed himself “imperator” (which merely meant commander) as Caesar Augustus in 27 BC and this is considered the start of the Roman Empire, even though the whole story is a bit more complicated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar#Dictatorship_and_assassination
Technicalities, technicalities. The point was that corruption had seen the demise of the plebeian class and it was Julius Caesar that set in motion the rise of Octavian. The other point is that unless a constitution is continually renewed it will fail to keep pace with cleaver strategies designed to circumvent that constitution.
Instead, the US Constitution was renewed to make it easier to circumvent. The States were an effective deterrent until the War Between the States ended the right to secede. “Play by the rules or we quit, and we’re taking our marbles home”. But after 650,000 Americans died to dispel such notion, that enforcement ceased to exist, and its been a disaster ever since.
Very similar, but I think a monarchy with a benevolent king would be better. However, it can only last as long as the benevolent king. Much like the wise ruler can only last until a sociopath discovers how to replace them.
Until the benevolent king’s son assumes the throne.
“The point was that corruption had seen the demise of the plebeian class and it was Julius Caesar that set in motion the rise of Octavian”.
By having himself assassinated?
“The kings of today do not live as the kings of old.” There are still “public positions and private positions” – but, now they can “[shape] the fate of our [entire] world [as] invisible kings [implementing] wall-to-wall lies [campaigns].” And, they have united [kingdoms]: these “spoiled [men] with flamethrowers” are no longer any different than the “spoiled [women] with flamethrowers” who joined them. “Rise up.” “Here is wisdom.” “[Sing] a new song.”
https://seaclearly.com/2020/02/02/words-of-mass-discernment
Last I checked, we are still a part of this ecosystem, so shouldn’t mental illness also be added to the catastrophe. I recently returned from Greece to visit my family…it was sad. But the same can be said about the states… look at the meds our kids are on
Sorry, but nothing runs without the masses at their work stations ensuring that the machine that now comes to devour them continues to function properly. Because they would not stop serving it when they had the chance to starve the beast during more prosperous times, most will become dependent upon it until it’s their turn to be eaten.
http://freefall555.blogspot.com/2020/11/selfless-subjugation.html
The problem is mostly that the ‘tyrants,’ each and everyone, is a psychopath, yet too many of us are unwilling to be as extreme in our behavior as they are in theirs.. If they are living in the dirt, we have to get down there too, to fight them on their own terms. If they are living in the clouds, we must individually learn how to take flight.
Dear Caitlin,
I have no doubt that you are sincere in your concerns about the environment. But you underestimate how the powers that be are using those concerns to advance their own agendas. Just as public health has become co-opted by interests supporting useless measures to combat a pandemic (it has been shown that lockdowns and masks, if anything, make things worse), so has the environmental movement been co-opted by interests that benefit from distorting the science of climate and weather. You need to look into this properly.
I recommend starting with Cliff Mass report on the actual science behind the heat waves that just occurred in the Pacific Northwest. Mass shows how the various reports blaming the event on climate change are based on flawed methodology and are basically propaganda. Here is a link to his latest article in which explains this:
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/flawed-heatwave-report-leads-to-false.html
Mass is a well trained meteorologist who knows his stuff. Please read and learn.
I went through a similar process myself a few years ago–I had accepted the narrative propagated by Al Gore and others that put global warming front and center as our main environmental problem, hockey stick graph and all. However, the increasingly alarmist claims about climate change made me suspicious, so I made the effort to educate myself about climate science going to the original sources whenever possible. I was appalled to find that the conventional “green” narrative was not supported by the science at all–that the predictions of climate catastrophe were based on deeply flawed computer models that were contradicted by the actual data from real observations.
This is not to say we don’t have many environmental problems–we certainly do, with plastic pollution, animal habitat loss, and soil degradation being among them. But I make a distinction between those well known problems, and the thesis that CO2 warming the globe is our main problem. That is simply not true, and the measures that are being proposed to “decarbonize” society lead to more control by the elites while degrading life for the rest of us. Please give this the attention it deserves.
Sir, this is a Burger King.
https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Most of the areas that are already a shade of blue will melt out this summer, leaving only a few small islands of ice left over.
Climate change is real. It is relentless, and industry isn’t doing anything to deal with it, in fact we now have 2,000 HP sports cars which means that rather than rolling back our insatiable apatite for fossil we are indulging ever more greedily.
What should industry do about it?
Self Regulate??? Invest in high speed rail in the interest of phasing out the automobile??
Or realize that “fossil fuels” causing “climate change” is another lie and put a stop to “climate engineering” by oligarchs.
Geoengineeringwatch.org
Fossil Fuels is fake. Geoengineering is real. NASA is manipulating the weather.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKB4L6r17FE
Geoengineeringwatch.org
Stop it. You’re giving conspiracy theorists a bad name.
I wish it was a theory, but they have and use climate engineering patents.
Oil is abiotic.
Well a couple of them are companies ie Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, then there are the monster politicians. One of the biggest monsters lives in The White House and we all know that address. Then there’s Bezos, Gates and others like them. They’ll have several addresses. But as Caitlin says, it would take a lot of us to change the system. I’d be up for that but I don’t think there would be enough of us.
We, the working class of the world, are the majority of earth’s population. We must take the power into our own hands. There must be a socialist revolution. Join the SEP. Read the WSWS.
Judging from some of your posted comments, you may appreciate the deep insights in this very recent, in-depth elaborative 1.08hr conversation:
The WSWS website is more like the “Coronavirus Daily.”
Look who’s talking.
The supposed WSWS revolutionaries “support” the official COVID security state narrative 100%. I totally oppose it and question every part of it.
If you can’t detect the difference you’re a moron.
Any human endeavor that can be corrupted will be. They aren’t especially plentiful, but there are enough sociopaths around to take advantage of the slightest opportunity. It doesn’t matter what you may call the system. They all end up the same. Since the system that created the problem cant possibly fix it, shall we not dispose of government “systems” all together?
“Our Rulers Have All Of The Power And None Of The Responsibility” , Caitlin Johnstone
“The Way Of The Tao Is Reversal” , Lao Tzu
“Payback is a mo-fo” , bumper sticker
“Dance Your Life” , http://www.johndayblog .com
oops,
http://www.johndayblog.com
“Workers of the World Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” Karl Marx
I disagree. Marx was paid to write the Manifesto by bankers and aristocracy. Why?
“Because the entire Marxist philosophical battery is aimed at extermination of the middle class and the supremacy of the elite. Marxism is a device for consolidating power by the elite. It has nothing to do with relieving the misery of the poor or advancing mankind: it is an elitist political device pure and simple.” – Anthony C. Sutton
I wish we could lose some of these trolls, this site is being swarmed by new names that all say the same crazy things over and over again.
Attn John Day
Sorry to differ but the actual quote from Lao Tzu is “Return is the movement of the Tao”.
Which is quite different.
Tao Te Ching – Verse 40
Return is the movement of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
All things are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.
Doesn’t that depend on the translation?
https://www.buzzsprout.com/732839/4250906
Tao Te Ching Verse 40
translated by Tao Huang
Tao moves by returning.
Tao functions by weakness.
All things under heaven are born of being.
Being is born of nonbeing.
This don’t change nuffin’ to the fact that we talk about “return” here, not “reversal” as mentioned in the original post. And the return of the seasons (which is Lao Tzu’s point) has nothing to do with an hypothetic “reversal” of the seasons. It’s two different concepts altogether. There comes a time when being contrarian just for the sake of being contrarian won’t get you anywhere if you ask me :o)
I can’t say I’ve ever seen these home addresses for any of the serious monsters alluded to by Utah Phillips in a n y. post – MSM or ALT. Does Mr. Phillips have a blog that features them?
Utah Phillips died about 8 years ago, unfortunately.
I have an un-gracious, un-trendy general approach to out-of-control rulers that seems to be the only one that has worked reliably across recorded history: that civilian populations in every country of the world be armed (and trained) to military parity – by their own efforts. An anonymous author has said “A man is entitled to the rights he is able to defend.” Perhaps when they produce a new edition of the US Constitution they can place that note as a prologue to the second amendment?