Listen to a reading of this article:

The US empire uses “freedom and democracy” as a pretext to conquer and kill in exactly the same way European colonialists used the pretext of spreading Christianity and civilization to save the godless savages. And it does so for the exact same reasons.

Calling valid concerns “Russian propaganda” is propaganda.

 

Biden is continuing Trump administration policies with China, Russia, Iran, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, North Korea, etc. The war machine always moves the same regardless of elections. How long before foreign leaders start asking to speak to America’s real government?

“I’m sure glad I don’t live in China! I could never live somewhere people aren’t allowed to think freely or live as individuals,” said everyone in the western world simultaneously while staring at the screens which trained them to think that.

China is better than the United States of America. Not because China is perfect, but because the US is quantifiably the single most destructive and murderous government on this planet by an extremely massive margin:

Normal person: Seems like a bad idea to continually ramp up tensions between powerful nuclear-armed governments instead of working toward detente.

Crazy person: So what you’re saying is you love dictators and want them to kill babies and commit genocide.

A multipolar world is far from ideal, it’s just that accepting it would be a preferable alternative to the increasingly reckless brinkmanship the US empire needs to exert against China, Russia and Iran in its frantic attempts to secure unipolar domination.

China is incredibly bad at international propaganda. Absolute dogshit. They’re far worse at it than Russia, who is also really bad at it. Watching their international propaganda machine try to go up against Washington’s is like watching a toddler fight a polar bear.

The more frantic the US empire gets to militarily encircle China the more the western public will be told about the importance of Taiwan’s freedom and democracy.

FYI it’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and still believe the US gives one single fuck about Taiwanese people.

If I was Xi Jinping I probably would not think it’s a coincidence that the US war machine is showing more and more military interest in so many areas surrounding China:

I always mentally translate “the CCP” to “you can stop reading here, I’m just blindly regurgitating empire propaganda.”

The party of the Chinese government is called the Communist Party of China, the correct abbreviation for which is CPC. But there’s no need to use that when “the Chinese government”, “Beijing”, or “China” would do just as well. The only reason to say “CCP” or “Chinese Communist Party” instead of the normal words people use for other governments would be if you wanted to de-legitimize the government of China.

Empire propaganda always works to change language to psychologically divorce an empire-targeted government from its nation and its people in the minds of its audience. That’s why they say “regime” instead of “government”; they want to frame it as an alien occupying force people need liberating from. The same is true of “CCP”; for older people it invokes the CCCP, which was the Russian abbreviation for the USSR, and for rightists the use of “Chinese Communist Party” reminds them that they are talking about an ideology they despise.

Everyone grows up hearing about China, but it was only when anti-China propaganda ramped up in 2019 that everyone started hearing “CCP” and “Chinese Communist Party” used all the time. This makes it look like a strange, alien thing laying on top of the China we all know and love, when really it’s just China’s government.

Many westerners have probably shared that “you are not immune to propaganda” meme without ever once contemplating the possibility that it might apply to their beliefs about China.

The new formula is to deliberately stage aggressive provocations against disobedient governments and then when they react to those provocations have imperial spinmeisters stare with Bambi-eyed innocence and say “We did nothing wrong! No one is making them do this!”

Example:

You see this “No one made them do this” line with both Ukraine and Taiwan. Like the fact that Moscow and Beijing weren’t literally, physically forced to respond exculpates the empire for its provocations. Like we’re talking about Newtonian physics and not human behavior.

A lot of people spent two years screaming at me for focusing on US brinkmanship with Russia and China, saying I should focus on Covid stuff instead. I don’t expect an apology, but I hope those of you who did this can recognize now that I saw something very dangerous on the horizon that you had missed.

Westerners think they are free because they can criticize their president or PM, when a small amount of research quickly reveals that those officials aren’t the ones calling the shots on any issue of importance. Westerners aren’t even allowed to know who their real government is.

People who spend their entire lives working, shopping, consuming, reading, viewing, voting, behaving, speaking and thinking exactly as the powerful want them to sometimes voice concerns that their society might be in danger of someday slipping into a totalitarian dystopia.

If you spend a lot of time worrying that we are sliding into dystopia, it’s because you haven’t looked closely enough at our present situation. If you think we’re not yet in one, tell me what it is the powerful want but don’t yet have? An entire civilization dedicated to profiting them and serving their interests? Ownership of all political parties? Collective mind control? They have all those things.

The uncomfortable reality is that our entire civilization is set up to benefit a few powerful people, and we think it’s normal because they have conditioned us to think that. We are trained monkeys dancing their owner’s dance while telling each other fairy tales about being free.

____________________

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91 responses to “China Is Better Than The USA: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix”

  1. Quote:

    “China is incredibly bad at international propaganda. Absolute dogshit. They’re far worse at it than Russia, who is also really bad at it. Watching their international propaganda machine try to go up against Washington’s is like watching a toddler fight a polar bear.”

    I agree, the USA really is number 1 when it comes to propaganda, most other nations attempts are lame by comparison, amateurish, unconvincing which is why they resort to so much domestic terror, bad propaganda makes it hard on the rubes to conform, whom then must be subdued with violence while more effective propaganda keeps the rubes in check without as much domestic violence because its carefully crafted by artists to be easily believable.
    The USA machine knows how to lie with great artistry

    1. You can still see it is all fake – when yuou break through the lies and see behind the curtain.

      1. It’s quit hard in my experience. especially because the US presents itself as the natural society, not affected by ideology, while others are slaves to ideology. To break from US propaganda it requiers a mind that’s honest and critical even of itself, a rarity.

        1. Totally AGREE. What is living if your mind is not free. Actually it always is in our power to free our mind, not FROM reality, by engaging fully in reality, our reality and not the reality of another.

          YES it is very challenging when you discover you are making a fake self, a false reality for your self, when you avoid being totally true to your self. Questioning your self and you own reality is very threatening YET totally liberating once you grasp it. It is life.

          1. There is freedom of expression in America but everyone says the same things– Tocqueville 1833

            1. Yes, many think that freedom of expression means they are free in their mind – not so in my view. Parroting what another may have said is far from being free in our mind.

              Adopting and repeating a moral code such as the ten commandments of the Christian Faith does not mean the code is owned and true of our self. A difficult concept to grasp and even more difficult to express.

      2. I agree, the US position on most international policy is totally transparent, absolutely obscene on justice and human rights, and clearly meant to serve only the interests of a tiny transnational clique of oligarchs. Even the rights and interests of loyal Americans who have bled for this country are ignored to accommodate fascist dictatorships like Israel, Saudi Arabia and specific privileged states within the EU–notably the ones that also put the interests of their own citizens behind the aforementioned scum who are held up as paragons of freedom, democracy and justice. It’s real easy to spot all the deceptions emanating from Washington, unless you love smoke blown up your butt. Doesn’t take the logic of a Vulcan to see through the ruse.
        ~
        Maybe the younger generations do not “get it” because they have never lived through a period of justice and prosperity and their government serving their needs (which is its primary purpose) during their lifetimes. Those of us born in the 40’s, whose families prospered in the 50’s and 60’s, may be the last who can bring the actual experiences of what is possible to their attention and disabuse them of the heap of lies shoveled upon them every day by the Biden administration and its conspiracists in the GOP. I don’t see a JFK amongst the potential candidates for president from either party, unless Rand Paul or Tulsi Gabbard volunteer to step up, which would be dangerous for either. Besides, their clout, or that of anyone outside the deep state, may be highly over rated.
        ~
        This country is at the end of an elaborate charade we’ve been living for the past 50 years. One way or another, collapse is baked into the cake in the form of debts or devastation, economic collapse or nuclear annihilation. The rich do want most of us dead because we can all only be supported if we seize and consume all the “surplus” they have. They will NEVER accept LESS when they have always lived for MORE. Both the Clintons and the Obamas perfectly represent the goals even of the most persuasive purveyors of the “liberal dream.” Both families clawed their way out of poverty and ultimately became alleged billionaires, using the presidency mainly as a stepping stone for their own financial benefit while leaving the political and social landscape of the country mostly unchanged, and arguably much worse.

  2. The US is the world’s cancer.

  3. ‘FYI it’s not okay to be a grown adult in 2022 and still believe the US gives one single fuck about Taiwanese people.’

    But Caitlin, what about the women and children!

    There’s that image that goes back to my earliest memories of images from the war front, of the barely old enough to shave/sometimes grizzled veteran soldier on the road, heavily laden with gear, and with a tousle-haired tot before him, reaches into his clothing and pulls out a treat/toy because the kid is starving /scared/lonely, and hands it to the child, probably offering the soldier’s own rations (sacrifice) for day because that’s what a real American hero does. ‘We take lives, so we can save lives.’ And of course, there’s always a photographer there to capture that image (if not set it up) and send it to the (involuntarily) tax-paying, war-supporting folks back home… and the beat goes on. And the beat goes on.

    In the story of Us, we’re always fighting the good fight, for those that can’t defend themselves.

  4. To say that China is better than the US is a bit like saying that it is “better” to have someone take a shit into your eye rather than having them shit into your mouth. (To paraphrase a prominent YouTuber.)

  5. CosaNostra Damus III Avatar
    CosaNostra Damus III

    Well, warm up for war is almost over. Winter here is when the real war will be on. This is not a “seasonal” war. It is a very very long one.

  6. Some months ago it was, that Ms. Johnstone ran the piece on how our government(s) had decided that the time had come when it had become necessary to inform us, that they were lying to us, and they would continue to lie to us until further notice.
    And some of us asked, why would they do this, it doesn’t make much sense, at least as far as traditional propaganda practices are concerned?
    I mean, how do you effectively spead a lie, when you tell us beforehand that the message we are about to receive, is a lie?
    I’ve been puzzling on this ever since.
    Jimmy Dore on the weapon’s gone missing story, that apparently is creating quite a ruckus.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4-UBm3t7Ww
    I believe I have my answer. It is the old chicken and egg question. Who is more responsible for the general arc of the propaganda these days, the giver, or the receiver?
    Because when our media makes even the most modest of attempts to tell us the truth, we reject them, and demand that they cease and desist immediately, and go back to telling us the sweet little lies that we love so well.
    It’s almost as if our government(s) and our media are now a position* where they must politely ask us, “What do you think of this lie? Is it acceptable to you? If it isn’t, please let us know on the platform of you choice, and we will adjust.”
    “We exist to serve your interests.”
    *We backed them into a corner and now they are ours. The revolution, has succeeded! Viva, one and all!

    1. For Pascal. Tour guide Max is back in Guiyang City, only this time, he drove in. This one is definitely for not for you, or for me for that matter, it’s one and a half hours of driving past skycrapers on the multi-dimesional superhighways that make up a city that didn’t exist, in any real sense, just 30 years ago.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ep42KBCCpk
      I think this one is actually for Ms. Johnstone, who believes the Chinese suck at propaganda. Maybe so. I know that when I’m studying their state run media of the kind that is being aimed at the West, the first thought that often comes to my mind is, who put this hastily edited shit together, the Kindergarten Team?
      Sometimes they don’t even bother to translate, despite all the complaints in the YouTube comment sections below, “Will you please translate for me, I would to know what is going on with all these mega-machines that are working on this humungous and fantastic looking tunnel suspension bridge thingy?”
      “At least that’s what I think it is!”
      But nope, they don’t bother, if the closed captions plus settings are off, they’re off. It’s almost as if they don’t give a fuck.
      Look on my works, ye Americans, and weep.
      China has been at this game for 9,000 years, give or take a millenium or two. They know it’s irellevant whether they win the hearts and minds of their rival’s commoners, because the only commoners minds that will matter in this contest, will be their own.
      And they have also learned, through all their various Ages, that propaganda, in all its shapes and forms and intended targets, and as it purtains to full spectrum geo-political warfare, is about imortant to the outcome as the fans are at a sporting contest, which is to say, it can be a factor, but one that shouldn’t be dwelled on all that much.

      1. “the only commoners minds that will matter in this contest, will be their own”.
        I agree completely. They’re way past the time where they gave a fuck about what the West thought about them. Kinda:
        Well, it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
        If you don’t know by now
        And it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
        It’ll never do somehow
        When your rooster crows at the break of dawn
        Look out your window and I’ll be gone
        You’re the reason I’m a-traveling on
        But don’t think twice, it’s all right

        1. PS: Watching the video you posted for a while because of the music, also by Dylan, made me wonder what Guiyang would look like if they hadn’t had a Malthusian policy for 50 years including “one-child” for 35! :o)

          1. Indeed.
            The city’s pop is officially 4.6 million, but clearly there is enough “housing” for 20 million.
            Maybe more. It’s enormous. It’s almost as if China is preparing for a demographic explosion.
            “If you build it, they will come.”

      2. “The only commoners minds that will matter in this contest, will be their own” is pre-nuclear thinking. American commoners = elected sociopaths = global nuclear holocaust, including China.

    2. I knew the answer to this when it first was brought to attention. It’s the next stage (call it the “meta stage”) of psychological manipulation.
      ~
      An abuser who feels they have someone completely under their control doesn’t fear the person resisting them; they fear that person regaining a sense of their own perception of what’s happening (which only after that happens could lead to resistance) So the abuser does what they can to sow every doubt in the person’s mind of their own reality. “Of course i lie to you, but you also lie to me (true or not) so is that any different?” “I lie to you because i care about you” “i would never lie to you about things that are actually important” etc. They’ll outright challenge their victim to do something about it, because they know they’ve crippled the person enough so that the challenge is even more damaging to their psyche. “What are you doing to do about it?” “You would never leave me.” “If I’m so awful then why are you still with me?”
      ~
      The whole goal being to so completely disorient the victim that they spend all their emotional energy trying to sort through everything, and if ultimately successful, to make the victim lose the will to try, and just accept what is presented by the abuser, because there is no effort or struggle required, and they are ‘rewarded’ for it by the abuser. The US has had over a century of studying psychological manipulation, and they undoubtedly know this is the way to keep people from awakening to their own abuse. “You can’t criticize me for lying to you and mistreating you, i already told you i do that, and that I’m sorry, you’re just making a big deal out of nothing.” It paints people as being paranoid or crazy for attempting to identify the HARM of the behavior.
      ~
      I’ve had multiple conversations with different people from all different backgrounds in the US, and universally they all agree that it feels like everything in the world is more convoluted and confusing then ever, and they just want to give up even trying to stay informed and active. There’s a reason for that. A very calculated, deliberate reason. If the empire can keep people so emotionally drained all the time that they just want to retreat into escapism (shows, games, vr) they will never have to worry about any actual counter action against their will.

  7. Everyone would have been better doing nothing like Sweden instead of turning a entire generation into germaphobes.

  8. @Ted Seay: Lovely argumentation! Now you only have to explain how “China’s inaction” led to 231,266 cases in two and a half years and 5,226 deaths, i.e. 161 cases and 4 deaths per million population while the US, in the same time period, registered 94 million cases and 1 million deaths, i.e…. well it apparently doesn’t even bother to communicate the number of cases and deaths per million anymore.

    Fortunately, it’s easy enough to calculate: that’s 282,282 cases and 3,000 deaths per million, 750 times China’s figure.

    Was there by any chance some inaction in the US too?

    Of course not! I’m actually joking because I do know the answer to that one. China had few cases because:

    1/ it fudged its numbers. It’s a well-known fact that these people are totally dishonest and so they just won’t declare anything.

    2/ they locked people up in their buildings, wielding their doors for two weeks until everybody who had the virus and their families had died of hunger (after they’d finished their last dogs) and so the virus couldn’t spread. They then hid the figures of the people who died that way and that they transported to mass graves in the Himalayas and Bob’s your uncle. Proof? There’s video evidence of people screaming their heads off in skyscrapers… What? Of course the screams have not been added on videos of skyscrapers! Who would do such a thing? Whole neighborhoods were screaming their heads off in despair after finishing their Pekinese – which only provided few servings – and facing a horrible death by starvation like during Mao’s Great Leap Forward. And then people were not screaming anymore. See? Dead as doornails they were! And of course the bloodthirsty murderers of the CCP (TM) covered it up…

    It’s like people falling in the streets. Remember that in the beginning, we had videos of people falling in the streets in Wuhan because of this horrible new virus? Brrr… So far, there’s been 94 million cases in the US and not one of them has fallen in the street. Wait a minute! They just haven’t been caught on film falling in the streets, that’s all! And there’s two reasons for this:

    1/ China spies on its people contrary to the US, as Edward Snowden judiciously pointed out, and so every time someone fell in the street because of Covid in China, it was caught on a surveillance camera whereas in the US, where there are no surveillance cameras because it would be considered an invasion of privacy, it was impossible to film such a thing. See?

    2/ the average age of the people who get Covid is 82 years old and 94% have comorbidities, so they are in bed. You can be pretty sure that some of them fell out of bed because of Covid, just like the Chinese but since there were no NSA camera to record it, this went unnoticed.

    And this explains why China’s Covid deaths are 4 per million against 3,000 in the US.

    1. Think you shot yourself in the foot a few times there Pascal.

      1. Like where?

        1. Or is it that you didn’t get the irony of this satire?

    2. FamousDrScanlon Avatar
      FamousDrScanlon

      Anyone who uses the sentence, “it’s a well known fact” has already lost the debate.

      Appeal to Common Belief

      argumentum ad populum

      https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Common-Belief

      I’ll assume you were not on the debating club in high school.

  9. “A lot of people spent two years screaming at me for focusing on US brinkmanship with Russia and China, saying I should focus on Covid stuff instead. I don’t expect an apology, but I hope those of you who did this can recognize now that I saw something very dangerous on the horizon that you had missed.”

    Covid lay groundwork for this whole thing with increase in censorship and the increased power of the state, which are now used to control information flow(anyone who doesn’t believe the official narrative is a white supremacist, anti-vaxxer russian/chinese agent etc.) and it got people used to doing stupid shit for no reason(wear masks, freeze for ukraine). So you’re not getting an apology or anything else. Without A there is no B and without covid people wouldn’t get used to treating present day insanities as if they were something normal. It is exactly because people saw where this was going that they protested mandates and lockdowns. Because they saw where this would lead and you didn’t. And one more thing…If the future is to be defined by lockdowns, mandates and with ever increasing totalitarian control and we are to one day wake up in reality that makes 1984 look like picnic then I don’t care if the world gets nuked. Just so you know.

    1. Nonsense, public health rules are as old as civilization.

      1. Why don’t you try to use your only neuron to think before writing stuff?
        For instance, washing hands before examining patients or performing an operation – which has saved millions of lives – was only invented in 1850 by Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis:
        https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/ignaz-semmelweis-doctor-prescribed-hand-washing#:~:text=Surprisingly

        1. Grampa’s mad again.

          1. Why do you call yourself Grampa? Are you that old? Anyway, I won’t joke about that because agism is a variety of racism.

  10. China’s total number of deaths for COVID-19 to date stands at around 5,226. Even if its 10 x as high; for the non-believing China doubters, that would be 1,050,000, or more, less than the great exceptionalist state, with less than a third of China’s mainland population – besides the most overpriced; and given the total number of COVID-19 deaths the most ineffective healthcare system on the planet.
    Total number of deaths for all of Asia, just over 1,500,000 approx.
    Some jokester you are!

    1. This comment is addressed to TED SEAY

  11. True but with a little investigative effort into how, by whom, and for what money is created one can discover who the real government is. The politically active elite, the ‘power elite’ are the executive arm of the ‘ruling class’, which dominates public policy using the power of money. They direct our privatized monetary system giving them power to direct public policy, wars, and the entire economic development of the nation all for their personal gain, plus interest!

  12. Either you are completely joking about Canada or you just having been here. 8-10 of winter….wtf are you talking about??

    1. havnt been here…

      1. Who talked about Canada?

  13. Reply to Newton Finn
    9/11 ” … remains the one loose thread that could unravel the entire fabric of US government.”
    Exactly.
    What is so frustrating, the plotters at best made half-assed effort to make the event look plausible, and then proceeded to compound this lunacy by botching nearly every aspect of their operation.
    And to top it off, they didn’t even bother to cover up the mountains of evidence the failure left behind, probably for the reason that if they did, they would draw more attention to all the heaping piles of rubbish.
    What we should be pissed about most, as Americans, is we have become so tolerant of incompetence, that even when our false flag operations go totally south, no one is held accountable.
    To give one example, who gave the order to drop World Trade Center 7 at 6:00 pm, 12 hours after the plane that was supposed to hit it disappeared into a mineshaft in Pennsylvania? Did they think it would go unnoticed, a 49 story steel building imploding into own its footprint? In a sane world, whoever gave that order would have been shot by their co-conspirators for such stupidity.
    Cracking the code I call it; the code being the Bilderbergers, the Deep State, the MIC, the Fed, Big Oil, Big Pharma, the New World Order, all of the above and much, much more (hi Klaus!), however you like to think of it; and the stupid motherfuckers were so brazen, so sure of themselves, they risked giving away the cheat to their code just so they could have a galvanizing event, a “new Pearl Harbor,” that might, if everything went off without a hitch, juice their action for 5 or 6 years.
    But it didn’t go off without a hitch, it went off like a blaring neon sign stating, “look how stupid we really are!”
    …. and there is a lesser sign below it that was tacked on in the aftermath, been there for 20 years now, that reads in plain black ink, “you can come and get us any time you want, but we know you won’t, because you are as complicit in all this as we are” ….

    1. They controlled the narrative, that’s all. Remember this BBC anchor announcing the fall of WTC7 twenty minutes before Larry Silverstein ordered to pull it? And everybody in the media and Congress probably guessed that the first one who would voice any doubt about such a brazen operation would “sleep with the fishes” – as Chuck Schumer puts it. Thierry Meyssan, who was the first to write a book debunking the official story was immediately put on the CIA kill list and President Chirac had to give him police protection. Then Chirac’s successor, Sarkozy, who had fambly in the CIA, withdrew that protection and Meyssan had to go into exile. He now lives in Damascus, probably with some government protection.
      Besides the 9/11 victims’ families make the US presidents increasingly unwelcome at the commemorations but they don’t even bother to reply.
      Move along, nothing to see!

      1. “Remember this BBC anchor announcing the fall of WTC7 …”
        Of course. The building can be seen in the background as the reporter informs her audience that it is no longer there.
        Sort of a perfect representation the entire event. It became a transparent magic show. The audience can see everything, all the trapped doors and all the hidden rabbits, and the magicians are forced to perform their magic knowing this, and much their surprise, the audience doesn’t care, and at performance end, they receive the same warm applause they always have.
        This isn’t about them, it’s about us. And I’m not just talking about 9/11. I’m talking about it all. A brilliant scene in an otherwise forgettable Ridley Scott film:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55dMVUHHI3E
        I don’t mind being on a losing team, been on plenty, there is no shame in it, but I’ve never been on team that would prefer to be slaughtered like lambs than face reality.
        But that’s the team I’m on. Team homo-sapien, a team of quitters, and being on it fills me with shame.

        1. “I don’t mind being on a losing team” reminds me of that scene in Rambo II:

  14. Favorite things Americans are indoctrinated to think:
    1) If you don’t support white people bombing Semites you’re antisemitic.
    2) The country that makes most everything in Walmart is bad.
    3) Nuclear war? Is that still a thing?
    4) It’s important that the government lets you decide your gender.
    5) US politicians giving speeches to chanting crowds in Ukraine is normal, a troll farm in Russia is outrageous.
    6) Government murder is actually extrajudicial execution, a decapitation strike, targeted killing, kinetic action, etc.
    7) Something the government declares secret is a secret.
    8) Government employees in black dresses are independent, ethical, and smart.
    9) Terrorists hate your freedom.
    10) Communists want to get you.
    11) Democrats are good, Republicans are bad.
    12) Republicans are good, Democrats are bad.
    13) Libertarians are crazy.
    14) The objective of the media is to inform.
    15) Mechanized indiscriminate fantastically expensive mass slaughter is normal and good.
    16) Getting more votes in an election gives politicians magic powers.
    17) Being born inside the boundaries of a particular passing political entity makes you better than people who weren’t.
    18) Being born to parents of a particular ethnicity or religion makes you better than people who weren’t.
    19) It isn’t slavery if everyone is chained equally and you all picked the owner.

    1. 20) Socialism BAD!! Capitalism GOOD! (LOOK HOW WELL ITS DONE SO FAR! 🙂

      1. Actually they got me on that one.
        I owe my spare writing time to capitalism. And, true story, my big departure from capitalism was when my chicom phone company stock was sold out from under me by order of my own allegedly capitalist government. The commies were paying 7% dividends right on time and my own red white and blue government, specifically Trump, decreed Mercuns weren’t allowed to own the stock and the sale was forced, at a loss. I’ve since been looking to relocate to a country that still has private property.

        1. Good Luck !! Nearly ALL countries are now functioning Corporations hiding under a guise of some form of elected government.
          There is a Huge difference between a Legal System and Law and I suspect the corporatisation is structured to remove LAW in a Corporate legal system.
          No LAW = No protection for private property which was fundamentally why LAW was instituted in the first place.

          1. Flee to Switzerland? Build a castle? Hunt the politicians from helicopters?

            1. Ted, you would think Switzerland might be peaceful and OK. Well there are good reasons why the Swiss are ‘allowed’ to remain supposedly neutral and are not drawn into war or invade. .Worth asking yourself, how was it that during WW2 with an aggressive regime expanding its areas of occupation and control was content to leave an immediate neighbour completely free to continue in the financial and other high tech business?
              Basel, by the way, is home to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), in a building where no business in Switzerland, occurs, that publishes no reports on the meetings held there and is involved in unsupervised activity by un-ellected representatives of government central banks and others mostly unknown people that purportedly dictates economic requirements etc., to central banks around the world. Worth a look.

              1. gtk

  15. I think you’re selling the U.S. short Caitlin. We have achieved so much for a nation populated by lead poisoned rubes and people who kinda feel bad for poisoning the rubes. With lead I mean.

    1. Yeah, and a lot of that lead poisoning is fired into you from a distance! 🙂

  16. peter mcloughlin Avatar
    peter mcloughlin

    All wars are fought for power: but power is an illusion. Until that is faced wars will continue – up until the greatest one of them all: nuclear annihilation.
    https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/

  17. August 9, is the anniversary of the atomic bomb explosion in Nagasaki.

    1. That’s a strange way of putting it. It didn’t just happen. The US dropped a goddamn fucking huge nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, immediately snuffing out 75,000 lives, in order to wag an admonitory finger at the Russians.

      1. Actually the two different types of bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki suggest a ‘test’ opportunity. Meanwhile B29’s were firebombing one city after another systematically despite the denials of officials. The firebombs burnt the heart out of the civil parts of cities while inflicting damage on industry as Japanese homes were primarily made with wood – and far far more in total were killed in the fires than by two nukes.
        The problem was with finding a face saving move to preserve the emperor’s eminent position – that was the hold up, and the nukes were not needed at all. The firebombing broke public support for the regime and the allies let the emperor escape trial.
        Paperwork, always the job is not finished until the paperwork is done and it was crafting a treaty to ‘honorably’ end the conflict while letting the emperor survive the post war that was holding things up – that was all.

        1. Though factual, I don’t understand the point of your remarks. Nukes bad, firebombing good? No matter how appallingly the Japanese armed forces behaved, there’s no possible justification for firebombing civilians, either Japanese or German.

  18. Geez, you are contagious.

    Thank you.

    I 95%% agree with you, other than I suggest the whole anti-Sino thing took off in the USA before 2014-15 because I wasn’t allowed to say anything positive to college educated Hillary or Bernie supporters, about China, when we was touring the USA in mid-2016. The conversation got very tense if I pointed out that China was USA’s major trading partner.

    There were inklings of anti-Sino rhetoric in 2013 with PM Abbott, but I believe Foreign Minister Bishop kept much of it subdued. It really ignited in Australia with the sacking of Malcolm Turnbull as PM & Julie Bishop as deputy PM and Foreign Minister in 2018.

  19. At least we don’t call the place “Red China” any longer.
    ~
    Reason we used to do so? To distinguish it from the “free” Republic of China (Taiwan).
    ~
    With “One China,” “Red” went out the window, though maybe Washington wants the dichotomy back.
    ~
    We really shouldn’t call this gangsterland country simply “America” as there are, I recently read, 35 different countries that are parts of one of the four Americas (North, South, Central and the Caribbean).
    ~
    In Florida, we informally call the last-mentioned part of the world just “the Islands.” Don’t know if Jimmy Buffet invented the term or just used it in his pop tunes, but it’s considered a great place for Americans to aspire to live upon retirement, but a terrible place for migrants to come from.
    ~
    Most USAers figure that 33 of the other American countries are shitholes, though Canada–except for its Communist Frenchies–is probably okay even if too effing cold, especially during the annual “Suckage” (Canadian for Winter) which lasts 8-10 months of the year. With our exceptional perspicacity, we figure it’s clear to all that the USA is the only saving grace in the whole wide world, and not just the Western hemisphere. Besides most of these 30-odd states will never amount to a thing because the deadbeats can’t even speak English, instead jabbering away in mostly Romance languages or some creole pidgin version thereof. Even you Strines can’t speak properly like us Murkins. And dem Brits…Fogeddaboudit!

  20. Richard Simpson Avatar
    Richard Simpson

    Collin Potowell correctly called the neo-cons pushing for war, “the crazies” The “crazies” are in power now and we are bearing witness what happens when the Kagan/Nuland neo-con cabal takes center stage

  21. China is playing the West’s game which they are not good at.

    They have all the cards if they were to think more holistically IMO.

    They could upend the western narrative easily. They start by declaring Taiwan an independent nation, and that China wants to have friendly relations with all countries and recognizes Taiwan’s right to it’s own future. Boom, what would the West do? The best way to win a war is to disarm your enemy first and then work towards peace. This costs nothing but words.

    They could also apologize to Japan for war crimes committed against that country. Again it cost nothing. Further, China could use that moment to point out that the US nuked two Japanese cities, killing vast numbers of civilians, a war crime, and has never apologized for it. Boom, two birds one stone.

    Once China recognizes the power of their ideas on the world, they could really raise hell.

    Imagine if some Chinese company opened a chain of health clinics in the US, to run at cost or below.

    Imagine if a Chinese company offered health insurance to all to operate at cost or below.

    Imagine if a Chinese company offered to pay US citizens to go get advanced degrees and work in China for 10 years, all expenses paid. Brain drain.

    China will be the sole superpower if we dont burn up first. Imagine if China laid down the law about climate change. That would be awesome.

    1. To use their own terminology, the Democratic Party has gone thoroughly batshit crazy with war mania. And they’ve given the franchise for running their forever wars to the most insane maniacs in all of American society–the neocons. The Neocons have thoroughly and permanently recolonised the Democratic Party. The only way to shuck the former (neocons) is to ditch the latter (Dems), for at least several election cycles…maybe a solid decade that gets them desperate to really repent and reform.
      ~
      That said, it is time for the GOP to move on from both unending Trump dramas and all the forever wars if they wish to win in 2024 and start the process of rebuilding America into a solid number two, but still formidable power, in the world economy. China WILL be number one simply by virtue of demographics, talent, will power and discipline, as someone who has recruited and directed Chinese (also Korean) subordinates (post-docs and grad students) in the research lab can tell you. They remain hungry, we, not so much.
      ~
      All the Dem wokesters filling quotas will only further retard our efforts at a comeback, which, sorry to tell you, is at least decades off, because there were simply too many “mistakes” made to quickly remedy. This society needs a complete rebuild, which is what China, Russia and India (also their BRICS recruits insightful enough to jump on the bandwagon) are getting right now which makes them so formidable. (Michael Hudson explained the dilemma perfectly in his interview with the Saker, which you can listen to on that blog. He called China, Russia and India the modern counterparts of 19th century America, i.e., the future world model.) My generation (vanguard of the Boomers represented by the Clintons, Bush, Trump etc), until it passes away, will never again see the United States as a unipolar anything, much less the military and economic hegemon. It could retain its lead in aerospace and astrophysics with oligarchs like Musk and Bezos leading the way, but NASA might be strapped for cash with an evaporating petrodollar.

  22. I don’t think there is a secret government. I think it’s Big Cash. We agree there is Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Oil, etc. There used to be Big Sugar, Big Fruit, Big Slaves, Big Opium. Now it’s Big Weapons. Capitalism, you’re talking capitalism.

    1. Look again I suggest. Been there since almost modern history began. Those who can control the money supply control everything – not my words but the father of a famous banking family, who used slightly different words like issuance of money and care not who makes the laws. Its an old story though no less true.
      The City of London Coporation has existed as a separate ‘state’ with Britain for over 1000 years. There is so much more to the story.

      1. “Those who can control the money supply control everything …”
        Yup.
        This is going to be an interesting thread. Money creation and 9/11 are apparently, very much on the board.
        At least in the early going.
        9/11 is of course, the single dumbest Official Narrative of them all, it is certainly many magnitudes more idiotic than RussiaGate, for instance, and RussiaGate was beyond total nonsense, and we also have what has always been, the Ultimate Boogeyman, a topic so incendiary it can that never be discussed in genteel company, and certainly never in public by our best and brightest thinkers; where does money come from?
        A concept that could literally to taught to kindergarteners, but seemingly passes beyond the ken of almost everyone once they reach adulthood.
        If you refuse to view the world through the prism of 9/11, the reality of it, then you are blind, and if you don’t know where money comes from, or don’t want to know, then you will always be puzzled as to why our species is racing towards extinction at warp factor 12.

        1. My approach to 911 and other questionable narratives is not to prove anything. Like I think a good detective does, I examine the claims for the event and see if they stand up to question.
          It commonly does not take much for the whole woven story to unravel if it is fake – things simply do not add up.
          I tell people, I cannot prove what did happen or by whom, what I can say is the ‘official’ story simply crumbles to dust on so many points is is fake..

          1. Same here. I think in terms of probabilities. If say, an Official Narrative is asking me to believe a million to one long shot came thru, well, whatever.
            The Wuhan Bat Theory falls into that category I think.
            But 20 to 30 one million to one longshots coming thru on the same day, and many, many other longshots coming thru at odds way beyond that?
            Sorry, but I must conclude that this narrative is false, otherwise I must accept I’m living in a sym., and I’m not willing to go there yet.

            1. Thanks to Max and Peter for talking about THE foundational lie few think or care about anymore. Yet it remains the one loose thread that could unravel the entire fabric of US government.

  23. Did the English believe that there was every right, nay it was highly preferable for private financial interests including that of the Crown’s, and the state apparatus mostly in the form of the British Royal Navy, could go invading what they chose to colonize for financial gain. (and to control).
    Of course the ‘natives’ were uneducated savages or any other lesser form of human than your average medieval English wretch or the pennyless little educated gentlefolk, so that made it the right thing to do, to liberate and educate the heathens to ‘our’ civilized ways.
    The Royal Navy set up off the coast and blasted the Chinese imperial city and the seat of government to pieces and the Chinese have left it in ruins as a lesson to the people of what those nice civilized Europeans do. The 100 years of shame monument stands as a very stark physical reminder.
    The Spanish Flu (not a Flu) was not particularly Spanish (actually started in an army camp in the US) so why assume the ‘Wuhan’ Flu is Chinese just because non-Chinese media keeps calling it that?

  24. Timothy Michel Avatar
    Timothy Michel

    Where were you Caitlin, on 9/11. Were you calling out the United States for visiting a false flag operation on itself so that it could remake the maps of the Middle East? Or were you too scared to be called a conspiracy theorist back then, afraid to be marginalized and relegated to the obscure fringes of the internet? Oh that’s right, I remember, you had bills to pay.
    ~
    Because the United States government got clean away with 9/11, they had no worries about being called out for everything that followed.
    ~
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hss1xDQPooo
    ~
    Yes there were many, even a few from the highest ranks of the U.S. military, that were calling out the fact that U.S. foreign policy had been commandeered by a small cabal of influence peddlers within the Bush administration. They too were marginalized and ridiculed.
    ~
    And yes the intelligence services of the United States are what really runs it, and they are financed by global corporations and the global banking system; we the people of the United States are afforded little to no influence on how the United States conducts it’s affairs.
    ~
    As a hegemon, China will be no better than the United States; just another global empire that we will have to endure.

    1. > “As a hegemon, China will be no better than the United States; just another global empire that we will have to endure”

      LOL .. yes indeed .. once the US Regime finally flushes itself down the shit-hole, China will be free to trade and construct railroads – the horror!

      I guess you believe China will be no better than the US Regime because you believe the way USA and China maintain their nations is similar – which demonstrates the character of government. perhaps you need to put down the propaganda and do a (material evidence based) reality check.

    2. Full marks for seeing the reality of 911, many did not. And a LOT of state leaders did not speak out either though I am sure they were fully informed if only by their own people regarding the false claims pumped out before the buildings came down in fact pointing the finger at what we were required to look at – its them over there.
      Yep a bunch of guys living remotely in caves wearing bed sheets using satelite phones organised to hijack four US airliners in one go and got them to hit three targets. Yeah right.
      Pilots all over the world poked a hole in the official story almost immediately, cell phones of the day did not work above 3000 feet altitude and above about 230 knots ground speed. No one ever showed conclusive evidence that weapons were brought on board OR that the airport security camera pictures of the so called perpetrators were actual on the day pictures and not the dry run a week earlier. And intact passport survived a shredding – yep.
      So blame Bin Laden, kill Bin Laden so it must have been him and thus a justified EX-Judicial State Murder. Oh and how many others with drone missile attacks since? What right allows ANY state to conduct Ex-Judicial killings all over the world?

      1. Exactly. How many buildings have we seen free fall into their own footprint, with precision explosives at critical points in the foundation?

        1. I’ve seen many dozens of controlled demolitions over the past 16 years. In fact you could say I’ve become something of a connoisseur of watching buildings implode into their footprints.
          WTC 7 is easily the most impressive one of them all. Pure perfection actually.
          Now did it implode au naturale? That is what I’m told I must believe. A single support column in 47 steel structure became “unseated,” and that led to a “simultaneous global failure” of the entire structure, and it “collapsed” at “near free fall speed” as a result.
          What are the odds, that not only would a third skyscraper would happen to fall in New York on 9/11, but it’s collapse would certainly be in the argument as the greatest failure of a human made stucture in the history of our existence?
          I would put that “coincidence” in the 10 Sigma range, personally.

          1. Not only all that but why was not every single steel framed skyscraper in the world urgently checked for such a design flaw where an office fire can bring the edifice down at free-fall speed as we are expected to believe. They think we’ll forget about such details. We need a Peoples’ Inquiry into 9/11 where we take power to subpoena the suspects. Btw, should israel also be categorically & undeniably involved with the 5 dancing israelis, art students, etc., then there can be no reason whatsoever to continue reverentially laying huge piles of money down at israel’s feet.

            1. “Not only all that but why was not every single steel framed skyscraper in the world urgently checked … ” Exactly.

    3. “As a hegemon, China will be no better than the United States; just another global empire that we will have to endure.”
      They’ll be better at hauling the homeless out of their misery into homes, and so on. Here, have a look: scheerpost.com/2022/08/08/how-the-communist-party-of-china-renews-and-improves-itself/ via
      @Robert_Scheer

      1. I had hoped that the United States could have become a more decentralized country where local communities retained local sovereignty.
        ~
        The United States began as a federation, but after the formation of the CIA, the federal government, instead of being a mediator of concerns between individual federated states, as was the initial intention,, became a hegemon, it’s own right, over the individual states. This set the stage for it’s drive to become a hegemon of the world. Just as the sovereignty of states should have been honored, so should have the sovereignty of the nations of the world have been honored. But this didn’t happen.
        ~
        There is stability in diversity not in uniformity. That is why I do not want to see any hegemon create a uniform and thereby inherently unstable world.
        ~
        In reading Marx I couldn’t help but agree with everything he said except for the idea that global socialism would solve the world’s problems.
        ~
        In my opinion, global capitalism and global socialism will in the end be no different, because in both cases power will be concentrated in the hands of the few and uniformity will issue forth from that arrangement.

        1. Totally agree with you. And the Irish potato famine is my example, maybe not the best but it will do.

          Grandma used to say ‘Put all you eggs in one basket and disaster will be not far away which basically spells out what I believed happened when one potato variety was grown as the staple food crop.

          A one crop failure spelled disaster and death to huge numbers. The English did not behave well in pushing their political agenda in all this, BUT the lesson is clear.

          Standing on one leg gives a visual presentation of this as it is inherently unstable. Central control of societies of people is inherently dangerous and will result in deaths, lots of them as we are seeing RIGHT NOW with a centrally enforced agenda driving most if not all of the world’s population into disaster.

          A single mindset is at the root of this phenomenon and the weakest form of civilization.

        2. “I had hoped that the United States could have become a more decentralized country where local communities retained local sovereignty.” Direct democracy at local level is indeed what we need in so many places throughout the world, principally in the USofA, UK & the EU. Add to that the power to network with today’s technology when appropriate and there’s the remedy to the intensely corrupted representational form of ‘democracy’. Psychopaths and sociopaths would find it awesomely difficult to gain power over us then. Political parties with their innately selfish motives would have no use. Many points of view from street level would honestly indicate the important issues to deal with. Obviously, the ruling classes would not like this scenario. In fact the people of Libya had such a system under Gaddafi’s guidance which is one of the prominent reasons why the USofA/UK/EU NATO thugs destroyed the country and the people in it. In case people don’t know about the advances the Libyan people made in Gaddafi’s time here’s a video that includes a list of the amazing political achievements under their [socialist] system they called Jamahiriya.

          Note that in the motorcade Gaddafi rides openly without bulletproof glass. There’s the undeniable proof that people loved him. Just in case anyone needs to know how to emulate this political system, they need to look at his Green Book where the blueprints are kept. http://openanthropology.org/libya/gaddafi-green-book.pdf Notice too that Women’s Rights were lightyears ahead of the West.

        3. Thanks for the responses. There was a guy named Polybius that was lamenting the same thing concerning the Roman Republic back in 160 B.C.E. He feared that Rome would cease to be a republic and would instead morph into an empire complete with an emperor, because corruption, that is the acquisition of personal wealth without regard for the people that personal wealth is obtained from, is so hard to check against through any system of checks and balances.
          ~
          https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/polybius-origins-separation-powers
          ~
          That is why the sovereignty of local communities needs to be honored, so it makes it prohibitively difficult to corrupt a whole region, nation or world, because every community in that region,nation or world would have to be corrupted first. A legal framework has to be put in place to establish the sovereignty of the local communities and that legal framework would have to be defended by all the participating communities through some kind of hierarchical structure.

  25. I say the innumerable variations of Rosicrucian are running theWest [it’s a huge web, and looking at different groups in different states, influential names show up, but’s it very fragmented before it ever gets to a national organization], all rolling back to theCityOfLondon, which is different from London itself.

    It’s a mindset, it seems, and the “human capital” idea that drives business, marketing, politics-the ends justify the means, at any cost-that devalues all of us. With tech [AI & robotics], we’re now more of a liability than an asset-we think we’re free.

  26. Caitlin, I love you madly, but you need to explain to me how the Chinese government, have learned no later than December 2019 that they had an epidemic on their hands in Wuhan, could allow international flights to leave the airport there through 23 January 2020…

    1. They shut the place up right quickly. But then what proves it was a Wuhan product that escaped? Too many questions not least the media frenzy to scare the shit out of the world over a supposed deadly virus and subsequent excess deaths stats all over the world barely registered a blip up for what was supposedly a massive piling up of the dead in 2020.
      The Chinese leadership just might be in on the deal and playing along with the whole nasty game.
      Just as Russia may be too while preserving some of its independence.

    2. They shut down foreign flights the same time they shut down domestic flights.
      https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1256921092297379840

      1. Thank you for proving my point; January 23 was unconscionably late given their awareness of epidemic coronavirus by early December at the latest.

        1. That’s just saying they botched their Covid response. The US had way more information for much longer and still did much less than China to contain the virus.

          1. Cannot contain a media created narrative that is meant to spread as fast as they choose to make it. The story of the spread does not add up. Its fake.

            1. I wonder why all the focus was on China when New Yorkers were probably hit with a strain from Europe and suffered the first, worst breakout. The only thing I know for sure is that I’ll never know anything for sure except that the US is the last place that has any business pointing fingers at anyone.
              It does seem like dozens of bio-labs in Ukraine might have been more than they needed, though.

              1. The uniformity of the narrative that was fed out to the world describing, actually claiming without true evidence, the spread of a ‘pathogenic virus infection’ was a classic PsyOps program. We were all being fed a story aimed at spreading fear and compliance while justifying draconian public orders which led to general acceptance of a invasive chemical injection of millions.
                The groundwork and template was laid out years ago and the necessary components slowly introduced and put in place in every country possible. The herd just did what the herd was prepared, as in set up , to do.
                Ask anyone under 40 what happened with 911 and who ‘did it?’ and I guarantee the ‘official story’ of BS will be parroted as it is welded into the public narrative and unquestioned. It takes no time and little effort to debunk this rubb ish story but who will bother – its old news right? Wrong but who is bothering.
                Independently thinking people are a bit thin on the ground right now though more needed than ever.

          2. If the epicentre of the global pandemic had been anywhere but Wuhan, you might have a point; unfortunately, China’s “botch” impacted the entire world.

            Silly to compare the situation to the US or any other country’s experience; China’s inaction facilitated the spread of the virus as planeload after planeload of virus was pumped overseas for needless weeks.

            1. See up there for reply

              for space

              1. When you are told to look one way always look the other first to see what you are being directed not to see. Wuhan Lab might have been a sloppy place doing dangerous stuff.
                BUT. Is there incontrovertible proof, beyond ANY doubt that a virus escaped a lab there?
                Is there incontrovertible proof, beyond ANY doubt that suddenly there was a deadly previously unknown virus spreading its effects around the world from anywhere?
                If you cannot put a definite, without question, NO to both the questions above, then start looking at what supports the narratives, there are more than one, if anything at all.
                The MOST deadly aspect of the whole Pandemic game has been the response forced upon people at almost every level – a worldwide co-ordinated and duplicasted response. That is a clue in case it is needed.

            2. Viruses happen. They will always be responded to imperfectly. If you think China’s response to a virus is morally equivalent or worse than the US actively slaughtering people by the millions, then I think you have a stupid opinion sir.

      2. I think it is pretty well established now that SARS-CoV-2 was a genetically engineered virus and that the collaboration of Shi Zengli of WIV, Ralph Baric of UNC Chapel Hill and Peter Daszak of Eco Health Alliance worked together on SARS-CoV viruses. The SARS-CoV-2 development was a joint project between the United States and China, with the United States funding research at the Wuhan lab to the tune of three million dollars through ECO Health Alliance.
        ~
        There are a huge number of papers on this, but because I have limited time I will just reference: Shi Zhengli: Weaponizing Coronaviruses, with Pentagon Funding, at a Chinese Military Lab: the whole series can be found here -> https://www.organicconsumers.org/campaigns/covid-19/gain-of-function-hall-of-shame.
        ~
        I would like to observe first that though RatG-13 virus is 96% identical to SARS-CoV-2, that is not even close to something that can jump to humans, 99% identical is required to do that. It was found by another researcher that there were four viruses collected from the abandoned mine shaft in Yunnan province, each of which had some nucleotide sequences similar to SARS-CoV-2 and if RatG-13 was used as the backbone and the other nucleotide sequences were spliced into that RatG-13 SARS virus genome, the result would be a virus with a nucleotide sequence 99% identical to SARS-CoV-2.
        ~
        Danny Sheehan, the man with the white curly hair, is the attorney that litigated the Iran Contra affair against the Regan administration in the late 80’s, yes the drugs for guns affair.
        ~
        I also know, though I don’t have time to dig out my references, that Shi Zengli, the head of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has spent a lot of time in Canada and the United States working with Ralph Baric, Peter Daszak and others on SARS viruses and exchanging samples. The main reason for this was that Barak Obama shut down SARS-CoV gain of function research in the United States, which made the Wuhan Lab the logical place to carry on research from their point of view since they had been working with Shi Zengli since 2005..
        ~
        The Wuhan lab was built by the French and the French contend that the reverse pressure system for the lab was never adequately completed. Again I don’t have references at the ready here, and this story would need to be verified by someone to make sure it is legit.

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