The thread of Caitlin Johnstone's words

[Dennis Leahy]

Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/) has the sanest perspective and least loyalty to any faction of Empire of any contemporary political writer, in my opinion. She tells the truth, so that blows all the mainstream 'journalists' out of the water, and she is more on the pulse of the world stage than any alternative journalist I know of.

Caitlin has declared (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/05/i-permanently-release-all-copyrights-to-all-my-writing-use-any-of-it-however-you-want/) that her words may be shared freely, even entire articles at a time, and has even said that she doesn't care if she gets attributed (though I always will.) Those who wish to financially support her can also follow on to her Patreon page and donate, but even those who do not donate are welcomed by Caitlin to read and quote her words. With her generous permission, I'm starting this thread to add an extremely bright mind, an anti-war, pro-peace, anti-neoliberal, anti-neoconservative, anti-Empire voice to Avalon. She will knee-jerk some political partisans here, and I would advise them to go deeper and see the underlying truth in her words. This is not a thread about Caitlin Johnstone; this is a thread about Caitlin Johnstone's words.

[Dennis Leahy]

Source: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/22/the-mueller-report-is-in-they-were-wrong-we-were-right/

The Mueller Report Is In. They Were Wrong. We Were Right.

"The Robert Mueller investigation which monopolized political discourse for two years has finally concluded, and his anxiously awaited report has been submitted to Attorney General William Barr. The results are in and the debate is over: those advancing the conspiracy theory that the Kremlin has infiltrated the highest levels of the US government were wrong, and those of us voicing skepticism of this were right.

The contents of the report are still secret, but CNN’s Justice Department reporter Laura Jarrett has told us all we need to know, tweeting, “Special Counsel Mueller is not recommending ANY further indictments am told.” On top of that, William Barr said in a letter to congressional leaders that there has been no obstruction of Mueller’s investigation by Justice Department officials.

So that’s it, then. A completely unhindered investigation has failed to convict a single American of any kind of conspiracy with the Russian government, and no further indictments are coming. The political/media class which sold rank-and-file Americans on the lie that the Mueller investigation was going to bring down this presidency were liars and frauds, and none of the goalpost-moving that I am sure is already beginning to happen will change that.

...(more (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/22/the-mueller-report-is-in-they-were-wrong-we-were-right/))..."

[Dennis Leahy]

Source: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/26/the-illusory-truth-effect-how-millions-were-duped-by-russiagate/

The Illusory Truth Effect: How Millions Were Duped By Russiagate

"“Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy”, read the front page headline of Sunday’s New York Times. Bit by bit, mainstream American consciousness is slowly coming to terms with the death of the thrilling conspiracy theory that the highest levels of the US government had been infiltrated by the Kremlin, and with the stark reality that the mass media and the Democratic Party spent the last two and-a-half years monopolizing public attention with a narrative which never had any underlying truth to it.

There are still holdouts, of course. Many people invested a tremendous amount of hope, credibility, and egoic currency in the belief that Robert Mueller was going to arrest high-ranking Trump administration officials and members of Trump’s own family, leading seedy characters to “flip” on the president in their own self-interest and thereby providing evidence that will lead to impeachment. Some insist that Attorney General William Barr is holding back key elements of the Mueller report, a claim which is premised on the absurd belief that Mueller would allow Barr to lie about the results of the investigation without speaking up publicly. Others are still holding out hope that other investigations by other legal authorities will turn up some Russian shenanigans that Mueller could not, ignoring Mueller’s sweeping subpoena powers and unrivaled investigative authority. But they’re coming around.

The question still remains, though: what the hell happened? How did a fact-free conspiracy theory come to gain so much traction among mainstream Americans? How were millions of people persuaded to invest hope in a narrative that anyone objectively analyzing the facts knew to be completely false?

The answer is that they were told that the Russiagate narrative was legitimate over and over again by politicians and mass media pundits, and, because of a peculiar phenomenon in the nature of human cognition, this repetition made it seem true.

...(more (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/26/the-illusory-truth-effect-how-millions-were-duped-by-russiagate/))..."

[Dennis Leahy]

Source: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/28/your-plans-for-revolution-dont-work-nothing-weve-tried-works/

Your Plans For Revolution Don’t Work. Nothing We’ve Tried Works.

"All the old ideas for uprooting the status quo have failed. I point this out not to depress people, but to persuade them to stop twisting on locked doorknobs. The old ideas don’t work, so we need new ones.

The political process has failed. Capitalism has failed. Socialism has failed. Libertarianism has failed. Marx has failed. Populism has failed. Anarchism has failed. I say this not because of any glaring flaws in any of those ideas (in theory any of them could potentially work in an alternate universe), but because we are hurtling towards extinction in the fairly near future, and none of them have saved us.

“But Caitlin!” you may object. “My particular favorite ideology would have saved us long ago if only everyone had gotten on board with it!”

Okay. But they didn’t. And now we’re on the brink of armageddon. That means it has failed. It doesn’t work.

We are well on our way to extinction via climate collapse or nuclear holocaust, and even if we miss those by some miracle we are headed toward an artificial intelligence-led tech dystopia in which our consciousness is permanently enslaved by a propaganda network that is far too advanced for there to be any hope of escaping into truth.

We are witnessing a mass extinction the likes of which we haven’t seen since the end of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, with some 200 species going extinct forever every single day. The very ecosystemic context in which we evolved is vanishing underneath us. More than half the world’s wildlife has vanished in forty years, and the worldwide insect population has plummeted by as much as 90 percent. Fertile soil is vanishing, and so are forests. The oceans are choking to death, 90 percent of global fish stocks are either fully fished or overfished, the seas are full of microplastics, and phytoplankton, an indispensable foundation of earth’s food chain, have been killed off by 40 percent since 1950. Science keeps pouring in showing that global warming is occurring faster than previously predicted, and there are self-reinforcing warming effects called “feedback loops” which, once set off, can continue warming the atmosphere further and further regardless of human behavior, causing more feedback loops.

Our ecosystem is very fragile and rapidly fading, and the difference between the ability to survive without it and our current scientific capability is the difference between flying and jumping. Which won’t matter if one of the many small, unpredictable moving parts in the steadily escalating new cold war with Russia results in a nuclear weapon being deployed as a result of misunderstanding or miscommunication and sparking off the annihilation of every organism on earth, as nearly happened during the last cold war on more than one occasion.

This is where the status quo has gotten us. All attempts to overthrow it have failed. The time is up, and the results are in.

...(more (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/28/your-plans-for-revolution-dont-work-nothing-weve-tried-works/))..."

[Dennis Leahy]

Source: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/31/people-will-never-ever-rebel-as-long-as-theyre-successfully-propagandized/

People Will Never, Ever Rebel As Long As They’re Successfully Propagandized

"Our predicament is simple to describe.

Since the dawn of civilization, powerful individuals have controlled the stories people tell themselves about who they are, who’s in charge, how a good citizen behaves, what groups should be loved, what groups should be hated, and what’s really going on in the world. When you study what we call history, you’re mostly just reading the ancient proto-propaganda of whatever kingdom happened to win the last war during that period of time. When you study what we call religion, you’re mostly reading stories that were advanced by ancient governments explaining why the people should be meek, forgiving taxpayers instead of rising up and killing their wealthy exploiters.

This continues to this day. We fill our children’s heads with lies about how the world works, how the government works, how the media works, and, on a deeper level, how their own consciousness works, and the entire process is shaped to funnel power toward the people who control our stories. The modern schooling system was largely formed by John D Rockefeller, widely considered the wealthiest person in modern history, in order to create generations of docile gear-turners for the industrial plutocratic machine. Modern schooling is essentially mainstream media in a building; it promotes authorized narratives day in and day out to ensure that children will have a reaction of cognitive dissonance and rejection when confronted with information which contradicts those narratives.

This funnels the populace seamlessly into the narrative control matrix of adulthood, where childhood indoctrination into mainstream narratives lubricates the way for continual programming of credulous minds with mass media propaganda. All the print, TV and online media they are presented with supports the status quo-supporting agendas of the same plutocratic class that John D Rockefeller dominated all those years ago. This ensures that no matter how bad things get, no matter how severely our spirits are crushed by end-stage metastatic neoliberalism, no matter how many stupid, pointless wars we’re duped into, no matter how much further we are drawn along the path toward extinction via climate chaos or nuclear war, we will never revolt to overthrow our rulers.

That’s three paragraphs. Our predicament is simple to describe and easy to understand. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to solve.

...(more (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/03/31/people-will-never-ever-rebel-as-long-as-theyre-successfully-propagandized/))...

[Frankie Pancakes]

Trump Supporters Are Hurting Assange With Their 4-D Chess Talk

At a time when everyone should be out in the streets shaking the earth and protesting the Trump administration’s prosecution of Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes, those who continue to support this president have one message and one message only when it comes to the WikiLeaks founder: Don’t do anything. Relax, wait and see, trust Trump, and don’t do anything. Trump is about to save Assange, and save us all. Do nothing.

Who do you guys think this strategy benefits, exactly?
These are all people who say they support Assange and WikiLeaks, who say they support free speech and oppose the deep state, and yet what they are doing today hurts Assange and helps the unelected power establishment known as the deep state just as much as the hysterical Russiavape dupes who are overtly smearing Assange today.

To be clear, not everyone who voted for Trump is doing this; many are aggressively opposing this administration’s prosecution of Assange and vocally withdrawing all support for him. But the ones who are engaged in the behavior I’m describing are all helping to kill the loud and aggressive opposition to Assange’s imprisonment which is so desperately needed right now, and they’re helping everyone they claim to oppose. The pussyhat-wearing Assange haters and the MAGA hat-wearing Assange lovers are on the same side on this issue, mindlessly working toward the exact same agenda: the permanent imprisonment of a truth-telling journalist
Every time President Trump advances a longstanding evil agenda of America’s permanent government, I see my social media notifications swarmed with Trump supporters telling me that it is actually a good thing, because it’s secretly a brilliant strategic chess move that the 45th president is taking against the deep state.

When I say that this happens every time, I’m not being hyperbolic to make a point. I mean it happens every single time, without a single, solitary exception, always. It happens with such clockwork reliability that I preemptively addressed it in the article I wrote when Julian Assange was arrested, saying, “I am going to have a zero tolerance policy for QAnon cultists who try to tell me that this is actually 5-D chess by Trump to overthrow the Deep State. Stay out of my comments, stay out of my social media notifications, stay the hell away from me, and please rethink your worldview.”

I said this because I knew it was coming, and indeed it did. All sorts of theories have been concocted since Assange’s arrest which people cite as proof that Trump is actually protecting Assange with his administration’s indictment and extradition request, instead of working to imprison a journalist for exposing US war crimes, which is actually what’s happening.

They tell me that Trump is bringing Assange to America for trial because he can only pardon him after he’s been convicted. This is false. A US president can pardon anyone at any time of any crime against the United States, without their having been convicted and without their even having been charged. After leaving office Richard Nixon was issued a full presidential pardon by Gerald Ford for “all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9,1974.” Nixon had never been charged with anything. If Trump were going to pardon Assange he could have done it at any time since taking office, instead of issuing a warrant for his arrest in December 2017 and executing it on Thursday after a series of international legal manipulations. A pardon is not in the plans.

Another common belief I keep encountering is that Trump is bringing Assange to America to get him to testify about his source for the 2016 Democratic Party emails in exchange for a pardon, thereby revealing the truth about Russiagate’s origins and bringing down Clinton and Obama. This is false. Everyone who knows anything about Assange (including the Trump administration) knows that he will never, ever reveal a source under any circumstances whatsoever. It would be a cardinal journalistic sin, a violation of every promise WikiLeaks has ever made, and a betrayal of his entire life’s work. More importantly, imprisoning a journalist and threatening him with a heavy sentence to coerce him into giving up information against his will is evil. If you believe your president is doing that, the last thing you should be doing is cheering for him.

But that isn’t what Trump is doing. Trump is pursuing the imprisonment of a journalist for exposing US war crimes, so that he can scare off future leak publishers and set a legal precedent for their prosecution.

I’ve been engaging people in debates on this subject online so I can understand their arguments well enough to address them, and what I’ve learned is that they don’t really have any. Those who believe Trump is actually secretly helping Assange and helping the American people by prosecuting a journalist have no basis for their belief other than pure faith that Trump is good, therefore anything he does must be good. It’s the exact mirror image of Russiagate hysterics, and it benefits the exact same corrupt establishment.

The mental contortions that people are doing to avoid the cognitive dissonance between their support for Assange and their support for Trump is truly something to behold. For the last 24 hours QAnon adherents have been telling me that Assange holding a Gore Vidal book when arrested is an undeniable signal that he’s in coordination with the Trump campaign to bring down the Deep State, and that I’m crazy for being unable to see that. Turns out it was actually a book that Assange wanted to read while he was waiting to be processed at the courthouse, which makes sense since Vidal’s “History of the National Security State” covers a subject that Assange has devoted his entire life to.

QAnon is such a brilliant propaganda construct. With some cryptic posts on an anonymous message board, whoever is behind that psyop has succeeded in manipulating a vocal and impassioned sector of Trump’s base into applauding every single step he’s taken in advancing the dystopian agendas of his predecessors as a brilliant 4-D chess move against the establishment. I’ve been told that his bombing of Syria actually took out an Iranian nuclear base, that he’s helping to free the Venezuelan people without harming anyone, that he’s fighting the deep state in Iran, that his dangerous escalations against Russia are just a show because he and Putin are working together (a comical overlap with the Russiagate crowd), and last year they were telling me that Assange isn’t in the embassy at all because Trump had already covertly rescued and pardoned him. There are people who honestly believe that there is a revolution against the establishment underway which is being led by a plucky alliance between the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Israel, and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It’s that bad.

QAnon followers make up a minority of Trump’s base, but the insanity of the QAnon psyop bleeds into the greater MAGA crowd and helps normalize the kind of thinking which leads people to conclude that a blatant prosecution of a journalist for telling the truth about the US political construct is actually a strategic maneuver against the establishment. The enthusiastic promotion of this narrative has an undeniable and pernicious chilling effect on opposition to Assange’s wrongful imprisonment, which should be an issue upon which the right and the true left agree.

I’ve never pushed away Trump supporters because I believe isolating into ideological echo chambers makes the left impotent and stupid, and many of them have followed me since I started this gig because they agree with some of what I’ve got to say. I don’t know how many MAGA people I still have in my readership after all the stuff I’ve been writing about their president, but those of you who are still out there, please, for the love of God help get this idea out there. This is a time where everyone who supports WikiLeaks should be flooring the gas pedal, and all the “Don’t do anything, trust the plan, wait and see” rhetoric is keeping one foot on the brakes.

Assange should have been pardoned already, long ago, if not by Obama then by Trump. There is no excuse whatsoever for this not to have happened already, let alone for Assange to be behind bars at the behest of this administration. Stop saying “wait and see”. We’ve already seen. The time to protest is now. Get your foot off the brakes, and aggressively demand that your president cease doing what he is doing. Make this an election issue. Trump can’t afford to lose his base, but if you keep saying “wait and see” the narrative manipulators will keep moving back the line you’d sworn you’ll never let him cross until before you know it you’ve got another four years of another Bushbama while Assange remains locked in a cage.

Don’t let them do this to you. Use your power now.

.

[Dennis Leahy]

New post on Caitlin Johnstone


https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/cropped-caitlinpic1.jpg?resize=32%2C32&ssl=1 https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2F12152988a68a6d4dae7506812444c18f%3Fs%3D50%26d%3Dmonsteri d%26r%3DG&d=2019-05-27T04%3A45%3A00.214Z (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) How You Can Be 100% Certain That QAnon Is Bull**** (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/26/how-you-can-be-100-certain-that-qanon-is-bull****/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) President Trump has yet again advanced an evil longstanding agenda of America's depraved intelligence and defense agencies, so as usual the QAnon cult is out in force telling everyone not to worry because this is all part of the plan. Ever since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was slammed by Trump's Justice Department with a mountain of espionage charges (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-many-times-must-assange-be-proven-right-before-people-start-listening-61229805a3d8) carrying a possible sentence of 175 years in prison, QAnon acolytes have been showing up in my social media mentions with screenshots of a new post from the mysterious 8chan anon assuring us all that Assange is actually being protected by Trump.
The post (https://qanon.pub/#3341) reads in the typical QAnon cryptic word salad style that its adherents often annoyingly imitate when normal people try to engage them in an adult conversation:
"Under protection.
Threat is real.
Key to DNC 'source' 'hack' '187'.
Q"
I find this subject very tedious, and my regular readers aren't generally the types to fall for this sort of toxic propaganda construct, but I'm putting this information out there anyway as a public service since many people are being deluded by it.
If you're one of those fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with the QAnon phenomenon, in October of 2017 odd posts began appearing on the anonymous message board 4chan, which is wildly popular with trolls, incels and racists. Those posts ceased appearing on 4chan and moved to a related site, 8chan, where they continue appearing to this day. The poster purports to have insider knowledge of a secret, silent and invisible war that President Trump has been waging against the Deep State with the help of the US military and various "white hats" within the US government, and shares snippets about this war with 8chan users in extremely vague and garbled posts.
Here are three reasons you can be absolutely, 100 percent certain that it's bull****:
1. It always, always, always excuses Trump's facilitation of evil deep state agendas.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgjDLKsWAAAdQv8.jpg
I don't generally use the term "deep state" anymore, mainly because its proper meaning has been distorted by right-wingers and Qultists to mean basically "Democrats and Never-Trumpers", and by mainstream liberals to mean something like "a right-wing conspiracy theory about a secretive cabal of Jews who rule the world". But originally the term simply referred to a concept used for political analysis to describe the undeniable fact that plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies tend to form relationships with each other in a way that persists amid the comings and goings of the official elected government.
This alliance has certain agendas that it has consistently pushed for, many of them involving the advancement of wars which financially benefit the plutocrats and which secure geostrategic dominance for the intelligence/defence agencies. Trump has been advancing these longstanding agendas with his administration's regime change interventionism against Iran (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/us-blames-iran-for-impoverishing-civilians-while-prepping-further-sanctions-845cb5136e99) and Venezuela (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/trump-has-murdered-over-40-000-venezuelans-with-sanctions-6eb3e7f0eb7f), world-threatening new cold war escalations against Russia (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/responses-to-this-tweet-show-how-people-fixate-on-narrative-over-fact-b43925719952), military expansionism, continuing and expanding of all of Bushbama's warmongering and Orwellian surveillance programs, the campaign to destroy WikiLeaks and imprison Julian Assange for life, and many other actions (https://www.stpete4peace.org/trump) which benefit the agenda of global hegemony and the profit margins of war plutocrats.
Every single time Trump advances one of these depraved agendas and I speak out against it, I begin getting angry social media responses from QAnon cultists telling me to calm down and relax, that this is all part of the plan, and that Trump is actually doing the exact opposite of what he appears to be doing. And when I say "every single time", I mean exactly that, without a single, solitary exception.
QAnon cultists do this every single time because they have been propagandized into doing so, both by the 8chan anon they follow and by the herd mentality of the community that it has fostered. They begin with the baseless premise that Trump is a righteous warrior against corruption, conclude that everything he does must therefore be a righteous maneuver against Deep State corruption, then apply their hive mind to coming up with reasons to believe this. Then they show up in my mentions telling me I'm crazy for believing Trump is doing the things that he is very plainly and obviously doing.

I've lost count of amount of #MAGA (https://twitter.com/hashtag/MAGA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) & #QAnon (https://twitter.com/hashtag/QAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) bots in last 48hrs who think Assange indictment/extradition is secret 5D chess move by #Trump (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Trump?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) to prove 2016 DNC emails were leak. Besides fact it's already proved(Binney,VIPS) it shows we're dealing w/#Cult (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cult?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) that's stripped all agency.
— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) May 25, 2019 (https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1132321879862194176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)


There must be some kind of Q anon dm group where they just decide who to spam because my mentions look like one flew over the cuckoos nest
— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) May 24, 2019 (https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/1131778385871613952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

You don't need to take my word for this. As of this writing right now you can go to the Twitter search bar and type in the words "Assange" and "QAnon" and you'll get a bunch of posts explaining that Assange is "under protection", and that imprisoning a longtime target of the CIA and the Pentagon is actually a devastating blow to the Deep State. You can continue to repeat this exact same experiment every single time Trump advances a disgusting warmongering deep state agenda, and every single time you'll get the exact same results.
This to me is reason enough to be absolutely certain that QAnon and the credulous cult which has sprouted up around it is crap. US presidents are reliably corrupt warmongers and CIA cronies, so the current president acting like one is not surprising or extraordinary. Trying to justify a US president doing the sort of thing that all US presidents always do as a total deviation from the norm for US presidents would be a ridiculous thing to do even one time. Doing it every single time is fully discrediting.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you could maybe be excused if you mistook it for a rabbit after one quick glance, but continuing to stare directly at a duck and saying "Yeah that's definitely a rabbit, look at the long ears" over an extended period of time would mean you're a bull****ter.
2. They always, always, always refuse to prove the validity of their position.


Thinking of writing an article about #Qanon (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Qanon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw), which I personally believe is an establishment psyop designed to lull the antiwar right into complacency at a time of escalating war agendas. I have an open mind though; show me your very best link or screenshot showing that Q is real.
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) April 15, 2018 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/985548365239914502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

A year ago I tweeted out (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/985548365239914502) that I was thinking of writing an article about QAnon and asked its adherents for their very best links/screenshots proving its legitimacy. Go ahead and have a read of the kinds of responses I got by clicking this hyperlink (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/985548365239914502) if you're curious. No one came remotely close to providing anything like the evidence I'd asked for, with most responses falling along the lines of "You kind of have to just immerse yourself in it over an extended period of time and marinate in it until you believe," which is the same sort of response you'll get if you ask a religious proselytizer to prove the legitimacy of their religion.
This is completely different from standard conspiracy theories. If you ask a 9/11 truther to prove the legitimacy of their position, they'll instantly be able to produce clear and concise videos and articles for you, and if they've actually done their homework they'll be able to regale you with information about physics, forensics, architecture, chemistry, and plot holes in the official narrative. If you ask someone who's got theories about the JFK assassination you'll get a comparable amount of lucidity. Ask a QAnon cultist for the same level of intellectual transparency and you'll get a bunch of mealy-mouthed gibberish which will quickly turn into accusations that you are lazy for refusing to do your own research if you keep pressing.
This is because there is no actual, tangible factual basis for the belief system which has sprouted up around QAnon. It begins, just like any other religion, as a premise of faith, and then the adherents to that faith pool their intellectual resources into the task of finding reasons to legitimize that premise. They begin with the premise that Trump is a good and noble savior who is uprooting the source of all of America's problems with strategic maneuvers which are so brilliant that they look like the exact opposite of what they are, then they let confirmation bias (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-2795024) and other (https://twitter.com/FakeLeftSucks/status/1132115412831879169) cognitive biases (https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe) do the rest of the work for them.

Qanon is a skilled propagandist so naturally people respond to Q's Pavlovian tactics.
Q is a pusher.
Partisans are irrational, they think with emotions and behave like a herd.
At the behavior's core is biology not ideology & all good propagandists since Bernays understand this. pic.twitter.com/oslq9ysI3j (https://t.co/oslq9ysI3j)
— JG Bennet (@FakeLeftSucks) May 25, 2019 (https://twitter.com/FakeLeftSucks/status/1132115412831879169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Again, you don't need to take my word for this; you can repeat this experiment for yourself. Whenever you encounter a QAnon adherent, either by chance or by seeking them out deliberately, simply ask them to prove the legitimacy of their position. You might get links to sources which attempt to prove that QAnon is connected to the Trump administration (as though that would somehow counter the idea that it's a pro-Trump propaganda construct), you might get links to the mountain of cryptic word salads that QAnon has posted and told to comb through them yourself, but you won't ever get anything resembling an attempt to clearly prove that QAnon is the thing that it purports to be. If you keep pushing you'll encounter nothing but anger as you run into a wall of cognitive dissonance.
This proves that QAnon is not even a proper conspiracy theory, as we've come to understand that term. Conspiracy theories, per definition, consist of some sort of concrete theory. QAnon, like Russiagate, consists of nothing other than something that people desperately want to believe and then seek out excuses which allow them to feel comfortable believing it. This makes it far more akin to a religion or a cult than a conspiracy theory.
If QAnon were legitimate, it would be easy for its followers to demonstrate that legitimacy in a clear and simple way. They never can.
3. It's made many bogus claims and inaccurate predictions.


"A non-comprehensive timeline of Q's failed predictions and mistakes and a list of tactics he uses to hook and drag followers." #QAnon (https://twitter.com/hashtag/QAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #WWG1WGA (https://twitter.com/hashtag/WWG1WGA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)https://t.co/uPGQ35wMBX
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) May 25, 2019 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1132409389078368256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

I'm putting this one last instead of first because the appeal of QAnon has very little to do with facts and evidence; if you show these to a Q cultist they'll typically just say "Oh Q didn't really mean that" or "That one wasn't the real Q" or even "Disinformation is necessary (https://twitter.com/1tsakeeper/status/1132411953710866433)" (a John Bolton doctrine (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/that-time-john-bolton-said-its-good-to-lie-about-war-4b956c063caa) which QAnon itself has proclaimed on multiple occasions (https://qanon.pub/?q=disinformation%20is%20necessary)), but for anyone who's kind of on the fence about the whole thing you should be aware that the QAnon phenomenon has been rife with demonstrable inaccuracies. Personally I prefer to focus on the behaviors of the QAnon cultists themselves, since they're the ones interpreting the cryptic word salads and circulating those interpretations online. They behave as cheerleaders for their government's most depraved agendas; it doesn't really matter what they are being told to believe to get them to behave that way.
This recent Reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/bshen7/a_noncomprehensive_timeline_of_qs_failed/) on r/conspiracy breaks down many of the bogus claims, inaccurate predictions and deceitful manipulations that the QAnon construct has made since its inception. They include claiming in October 2017 that Hillary Clinton had been arrested and to expect mass rioting in response, posting and then deleting a fake Podesta email, posting multiple photoshopped images as though they were real, posting a bogus photo suggesting that the operator of the account was on Airforce One, and posting bogus "codes" that are demonstrably nothing other than gibberish.
I don't claim to know everything about this QAnon thing or who exactly is behind it, but these three points I just outlined in my opinion kill all doubt that it's not what it purports to be. For anyone looking at them with intellectual honesty rather than the same way a creationist or cult member might look at something which challenges their faith, anyway.
It is not good that a vocal and enthusiastic part of Trump's largely anti-interventionist, pro-WikiLeaks base has been propagandized into consistently stumping for longtime agendas of the CIA and the Pentagon. Someone's benefiting from this, and it isn't you.
________________________

[Dennis Leahy]

https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2F12152988a68a6d4dae7506812444c18f%3Fs%3D50%26d%3Dmonsteri d%26r%3DG&d=2019-06-04T01%3A08%3A42.572Z (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)
Thirty-Two Tips For Navigating A Society That Is Full Of Propaganda And Manipulation (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/03/thirty-two-tips-for-navigating-a-society-that-is-full-of-propaganda-and-manipulation/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)

For as long as there has been human language, humans have been using it to manipulate one another. The fact that it is possible to skillfully weave a collection of symbolic mouth noises together in such a way as to extract favors, concessions, votes and consent from other humans has made manipulation so common that it now pervades our society from top to bottom, from personal relationships between two people to international relationships between government agencies and the public.
This has made it very difficult to figure out what's going on, both in our lives and in the world. Here are thirty-two suggestions for navigating this complex manipulation-laden landscape, whether it be for navigating the manipulations you may encounter in your small-scale personal interactions, or the large-scale manipulations which impact the entire world:
1 - Understand the fact that humans are storytelling animals, and that whoever controls the stories controls the humans (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/society-is-made-of-narrative-realizing-this-is-awakening-from-the-matrix-787c7e2539ae). Mental narrative dominates human consciousness; thought is essentially one continuous, churning monologue about the self and what it reckons is going on in its world, and that monologue is composed entirely of mental stories. These stories can and will be manipulated, on an individual scale by people we encounter and on a mass scale by skillful propagandists. We base our actions on our mental assessments of what's going on in the world, and those mental assessments can be manipulated by narrative control.
Society Is Made Of Narrative. Realizing This Is Awakening From The Matrix.
This is the clearest I've been able to sum it all up so far.https://t.co/JqbZMKn7ov
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) August 22, 2018 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1032066540219203584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
2 - Be humble and open enough to know that you can be fooled. Your cognitive wiring is susceptible the same hacks as everyone else, and manipulators of all sorts are always looking to exploit those vulnerabilities. It's not shameful to be deceived, it's shameful to deceive people. Don't let shame and cognitive dissonance keep you compartmentalized away from considering the possibility that you've been duped in some way.
3 - Watch people's behavior and ignore the stories they tell about their behavior. This applies to people in your life, to politicians, and to governments. Narratives can be easily manipulated and distorted in many different ways, while behavior itself, when examined with as much objectivity as possible, cannot be. Pay attention to behavior in this way and eventually you'll start noticing a large gap between what some people's actions say and what their words say. Those people are the manipulators. Distrust them.
4 - Be suspicious of people who keep telling you what they are and how they are, because they're trying to manipulate your narrative about them. Be doubly suspicious of people who keep telling you what you are and how you are, because they're trying to manipulate your narrative about you.
5 - Learn to see how trust and sympathy are used by manipulators to trick people into subscribing to their narratives about what's going on. Every manipulator uses trust and/or sympathy as a primer for their manipulations, because if you don't have trust or sympathy for them, you're not going to mentally subscribe to their stories. This is true of mass media outlets, it's true of State Department press releases which implore you to have sympathy for the people of Nation X, and it's true of family members and coworkers. Once you've spotted a manipulator, your task is to kill off all of your sympathy for them and your trust in them, no matter how hard they start playing the victim to suck you back in.
6 - Be suspicious of anyone who refuses to articulate themselves clearly. Word salading is a tactic notoriously used by abusive narcissists (https://narcwise.com/2018/05/22/narcissist-word-salad/), because it keeps the victim confused and unable to figure out what's going on. If they can't get a clear handle on what the manipulative abuser is saying, they can't form their own solid position in relation to it, and the abuser knows this. Insist on lucid communication, and if it's refused to you, remove trust and sympathy. Apply this to people in your life, to government officials, and to 8chan propaganda constructs (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-you-can-be-100-certain-that-qanon-is-bull****-57b7c6abb368).
Happy #EarthDay (https://twitter.com/hashtag/EarthDay?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) This is a 10 minute read but worth your time. https://t.co/yTKPC5A1qn (https://t.co/yTKPC5A1qn)
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) April 22, 2019 (https://twitter.com/Oatmeal/status/1120406167006646272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
7 - Familiarize yourself with cognitive biases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases), the glitches in human cognition which cause us to perceive things in a way that is not rational. Pay special attention to confirmation bias (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-2795024), the backfire effect (https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe), and the illusory truth effect (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-illusory-truth-effect-how-millions-were-duped-by-russiagate-61199bfbe325). Humans have an annoying tendency to seek out cognitive ease (https://farthertogo.com/what-is-cognitive-ease-and-why-should-you-be-wary-of-it/) in their information-gathering and avoid cognitive dissonance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y17YaZRRvY), rather than seeking out what's true regardless of whether it brings us cognitive ease or dissonance. This means we tend to choose what we believe based on whether believing it is psychologically comfortable, rather than whether it's solidly backed by facts and evidence. This is a weakness in our cognitive wiring, and manipulators can and do exploit it constantly. And, again, be humble enough to know that this means you.
8 - Trust your own understanding above anyone else's. It might not be perfect, but it's a damn sight better than letting your understanding be controlled by narrative managers and dopey partisan groupthink, or by literally anyone else in a narrative landscape that is saturated with propaganda and manipulation. You won't get everything right, but betting on your own understanding is the very safest bet on the table. It can be intimidating to stand alone and sort out the true from the false by yourself on an instance-by-instance basis, but the alternative is giving someone else authority over your understanding of the world. Abdicating your responsibility to come to a clear understanding of what's going on in your world is a shameful, cowardly thing to do. Be brave enough to insist that you are right until such time as you yourself come to your own understanding that you were wrong.
9 - Understand that propaganda is the single most overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of our society. Everyone's constantly talking about what's wrong with the world, but hardly any of those discussions are centered around the fact that the public been manipulated into supporting the creation and continuation of those problems by mass media propaganda. The fact that powerful people are constantly manipulating the way we think, act and vote should be at the forefront of everyone's awareness, not relegated to occasional discussions in fringe circles.
10 - Respect the fact that the science of modern propaganda has been in research and development for over a century (https://medium.com/rally-point-perspectives/the-war-on-sensemaking-900086bca636). Think of all the military advancements that have been made in the last century to get an idea of how sophisticated this science must now be. They are far, far ahead of us in terms of research and understanding of the methods of manipulating the human psyche toward ends which benefit the powerful. If you ever doubt that the narrative managers could be advanced and cunning enough to pull off a given manipulation, you can lay that particular doubt to rest. Don't underestimate them.
https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.youtube.com%2Fvi%2F34LGPIXvU5M%2F0.jpg&d=2019-06-04T01%3A08%3A42.580Z (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LGPIXvU5M)
11 - Understand that western mass media propaganda rarely consists of full, outright lies. At most, such outlets will credulously publish the things that are told to them by government agencies which lie all the time. More often, the deception comes in the form of distortions, half-truths, and omissions. Pay more attention to discrepancies in things that are covered versus things that aren't, and to what they're not saying.
12 - Put effort into developing a good news-sense, a sense for what's newsworthy and what's not. This takes time and practice, but it lets you see which newsworthy stories are going unreported by the mass media and which non-stories are being overblown to shape an establishment-friendly narrative. When you've got that nailed down, you'll notice "Why are they acting like this is a news story?" and "Why is nobody reporting this??" stories all the time.
13 - Be patient and compassionate with yourself when it comes to developing your narrative navigating skills. Like literally any skill set, you'll suck at it for a while. If you learn you've been wrong about something, just take in the new information, adjust appropriately, and keep plugging away. Don't expect to have mastered this thing before you've had time to master it. Like anything else, if you put in the hours you'll get good at it.
14 - Find reliable news reporters who have a good sense for navigating the narrative matrix, and keep track of them to orient yourself and stay on top of what's going on. Use individual reporters, not outlets; no outlet is 100 percent solid, but some reporters are pretty close on some specific subjects. Click this hyperlink (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-to-make-a-solid-customized-news-stream-that-isnt-manipulated-by-silicon-valley-43e7020a83a5) for an article on one way to do build a customized and reliable news stream. Click this hyperlink (https://twitter.com/caitoz/lists/news/members) for a list of all my favorite news reporters on Twitter right now.
How To Make A Solid, Customized News Stream That Isn’t Manipulated By Silicon Valley
"It can be hard to find a supply of information about what’s going on in the world that isn’t being manipulated by power."#MediaLiteracy (https://twitter.com/hashtag/MediaLiteracy?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #revolution (https://twitter.com/hashtag/revolution?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #propaganda (https://twitter.com/hashtag/propaganda?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)https://t.co/xRyBtDJx2Y
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) October 4, 2018 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1047653102482931713?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
15 - Don't let paranoia be your primary or only tool for navigating the narrative matrix. Some people's only means of understanding the world is to become intensely suspicious of everything and everyone, which is about as useful as a compass which tells you that every direction is north. Spend time in conspiracy and media criticism circles and you'll run into many such people. Rejecting everything as false leaves you with nothing as true. Find positive tools for learning what's true.
16 - Hold your worldview loosely enough that you can change it at any time in the light of new information, but not so loosely that it can be slapped out of your head by someone telling you what to think in a confident, authoritative tone. As Carl Sagan once said, "It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out."
17 - Speaking of confident, authoritative tones, be suspicious of confident, authoritative tones. It's amazing how much traction people can get with a narrative just by posturing as though they know that what they're saying is true, whether they're an MSNBC pundit or a popular conspiracy Youtuber. So many people are just plain faking it, because it works. You run into this all the time in debates on online political forums; people come at you with a supremely confident posture, but if you push them to present their knowledge on the subject and the strength of their arguments, there's not actually anything there. They're just accustomed to people assuming they know what they're talking about and leaving their claims unchallenged, and it completely throws them off when someone doesn't buy their feigned confidence schtick.
18 - Be aware that sociopaths exist. There are people who, to varying degrees, do not care what happens to others, and these are the types of people who will use manipulation to get their way whenever it serves them. If you don't care about truth or other people beyond the extent to which you can use them, then there's no disincentive to manipulating.
19 - Be aware of projection, and be aware of the fact that it cuts both ways: unhealthy people tend to project their wickedness onto others, while healthy people tend to project their goodness. Don't let your goodness trick you into thinking there aren't monsters who will deceive and manipulate you, and don't let sociopaths project their own sinister motives onto you by telling you how rotten you are. This mixes a lot of good people up, especially in their personal lives. Not everyone is good, and not everyone is truthful. See this clearly.
20 - Be suspicious of those who excessively advocate civility, rules and politeness. Manipulators thrive on rules and civility, because they know how to manipulate them. Someone who's willing to color outside the lines and get angry at someone noxious even when they're acting within the rules makes a manipulator very uncomfortable. Often times those telling you to calm down and behave yourself when you are rightfully upset are manipulators who have a vested interest in getting you to adhere to the rules set they've learned to operate within.
How To Wake Up
"I’ve been putting off writing this article all year, but readers keep asking for it, and since I’ve been writing about mass enlightenment a lot lately I figure I might as well slip it in now."#enlightenment (https://twitter.com/hashtag/enlightenment?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #spirituality (https://twitter.com/hashtag/spirituality?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)https://t.co/gmxHh267LX
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) September 1, 2018 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1035693421959102464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
21 - Meditation, mindfulness, self-inquiry and other practices (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-to-wake-up-f49cfa6266af) are powerful tools which can help you understand your own inner processes, which in turn helps you understand how manipulators can manipulate you, and how they manipulate others. Just be sure that you are using them for this purpose, not for escapism as most "spiritual" types do. You're trying to become fully aware of what makes you tick mentally, emotionally and energetically; you're not trying to become some vapid spiritual bliss bunny. The goal isn't to feel better, the goal is to get better at feeling. Better at consciously experiencing your own inner world.
22 - Be relentlessly honest with yourself about your own inner narratives and the various ways you engage in manipulation. You can't navigate your way through the narrative control matrix if you aren't clear on your own role in it. Look inside and consciously take an inventory.
23 - Understand that truth doesn't generally move in a way that is pleasing to the ego, i.e. in a way Hollywood scripts are written to appeal to. Any narrative that points to a Hollywood ending where the bad guy gets karate kicked into lava and the hero gets the girl is manufactured. Russiagate and QAnon are both perfect examples of an egoically pleasing narrative with the promise of a Hollywood ending, either by Trump and his cohorts being dragged off in chains or by the "white hats" overcoming the Deep State and throwing all the Democrats and Never-Trumpers in prison for pedophilia. Ain't gonna happen, folks.
24 - Try to view the world with fresh eyes rather than with your tired old grown-up eyes which have taught you to see all this as normal. Hold an image in your mind of what a perfectly healthy and harmonious world would look like; the sharp contrast between this image and the world we have now allows you see through the campaign of the propagandists to normalize things like war, poverty, ecocide, and impotent electoral systems which keep seeing the same government behavior regardless of who people vote for. None of this is normal.
25 - Know that the truth has no political party, and neither do the social engineers. All political parties are used to manipulate the masses in various ways, and nuggets of truth can and do emerge from any of them. Thinking along partisan lines is guaranteed to give you a distorted view. Ignore the imaginary lines between the parties. You may be certain that your rulers do.
26 - Remain always aware of this simple dynamic: the people who become billionaires are generally the ones who are sociopathic enough to do whatever it takes to get ahead. This class has been able to buy up near-total narrative control via media ownership/influence, corporate lobbying, think tank funding, and campaign finance, and are thus able to manipulate the public into consenting to agendas which benefit nobody but plutocrats and their lackeys. This explains pretty much every major problem that we are facing right now.
The Legal Narrative Funnel That’s Being Used To Extradite Assange
How warped interpretations of technicalities in Ecuadorian, British and American law allow for a journalist to be imprisoned for telling the truth while keeping the illusion of democracy.https://t.co/OaBVDeuyax
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) April 13, 2019 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1116871491914649600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
27 - Understand that nations are pure narrative constructs; they only exist to the extent that people agree to pretend that they do. The narrative managers know this, and they exploit the fact that most of us don't. Take Julian Assange, perfect example: he was pried out of the embassy and imprisoned by an extremely obvious collaboration (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-legal-narrative-funnel-thats-being-used-to-extradite-assange-8a2e8f7a53d1) between the US, UK, Sweden, Ecuador, and Australia, yet they each pretended that they were acting as separate, sovereign nations completely independently of one another. Sweden pretended it was deeply concerned about rape allegations, the UK pretended it was deeply concerned about a bail violation, Ecuador pretended it was deeply concerned about skateboarding and embassy cat hygiene, the US pretended it was deeply concerned about the particulars of the way Assange helped Chelsea Manning cover her tracks, Australia pretended it was too deeply concerned about honoring the sovereign affairs of these other countries to intervene on behalf of its citizen, and it all converged in a way that just so happened to look exactly the same as imprisoning a journalist for publishing facts. You see this same dynamic constantly, whether it's with military interventions, trade deals, or narrative-shaping campaigns against non-aligned governments.
28 - Understand that war is the glue which holds the US-centralized empire together. Without the carrot of military/economic alliance and the stick of military/economic violence, the US-centralized empire would cease to exist. This is why war propaganda is constant and sometimes so forced that glaring plot holes become exposed; it's so important that they need to force it through, even if they can't get the narrative matrix around it constructed just right. If they ceased manufacturing consent for the empire's relentless warmongering, people would lose all trust in government and media institutions, and those institutions would lose the ability to propagandize the public effectively. Without the ability to propagandize the public effectively, our rulers cannot rule.
29 - Remember that when it comes to foreign policy, the neocons are always wrong. They've been so remarkably consistent in this for so long that whenever there's a question about any narrative involving hostilities between the US-centralized power alliance and any other nation, you can just look at what Bill Kristol, Max Boot and John Bolton are saying about it and believe the exact opposite. They're actually a very helpful navigation tool in this way.
30 - Notice how the manipulators like to split the population in two and then get them arguing over how they should serve the establishment. Arguing over whether it's better to vote Democrat or Republican, arguing over whether it's better to increase hostilities with Iran and Venezuela or with Syria and Russia, over whether you should support the US president or the FBI, arguing over how internet censorship should happen and whom should be censored rather than if censorship should happen in the first place. The longer they can keep us arguing over the best way to lick the imperial boot, the longer they keep us from talking about whether we want to lick it at all.
31 - Watch out for appeals to emotion. It's much easier to manipulate someone by appealing to their feely bits rather than their capacity for rational analysis, which is why any time they want to manufacture support for military interventionism you see pictures of dead children on news screens everywhere rather than a logical argument for the advantages of using military violence based on a thorough presentation of facts and evidence. You see the same strategy used in the guilt trips they lay on third-party voters; it's all emotional hyperbole that crumbles under any fact-based analysis, but they use it because it works. They go after your heart strings to circumvent your head.
32 - Pay attention to how much propaganda goes into maintaining the propaganda machine itself. This is done this because propaganda is just that central to the maintenance of dominant power structures. Much effort is spent building trust in establishment narrative management outlets while sowing distrust in sources of dissent. You'll see entire propaganda campaigns built around accomplishing solely this.

[Dennis Leahy]

Article (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/category/article/)
July 6, 2019 (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/)
author: Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/author/caitlin-johnstone/)
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US Foreign Policy Is A War On Disobedience




https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/medium-1-5.jpg?fit=800%2C495&ssl=1

In an excellent new essay titled “We’re Not the Good Guys — Why Is American Aggression Missing in Action? (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176582/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_war_with.../#more)“, Tom Engelhardt criticizes the way western media outlets consistently describe the behavior of disobedient nations like Iran as “aggressions”, but never use that label for the (generally antecedent and far more egregious) aggressions of the United States.

“When it comes to Washington’s never-ending war on terror, I think I can say with reasonable confidence that, in the past, the present, and the future, the one phrase you’re not likely to find in such media coverage will be ‘American aggression,'” Engelhardt writes. He then asks a very fair question:
“So here’s the strange thing, on a planet on which, in 2017, U.S. Special Operations forces deployed to 149 countries (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176363/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_wider_world_of_war/), or approximately 75% of all nations; on which the U.S. has perhaps 800 military garrisons (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1627791698/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) outside its own territory; on which the U.S. Navy patrols most of its oceans and seas; on which U.S. unmanned aerial drones conduct (https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/projects/drone-war) assassination strikes across a surprising range of countries; and on which the U.S. has been fighting wars, as well as more minor conflicts, for years on end from Afghanistan to Libya, Syria to Yemen, Iraq to Niger in a century in which it chose to launch full-scale invasions of two countries (Afghanistan and Iraq), is it truly reasonable never to identify the U.S. as an ‘aggressor’ anywhere?”
In other words, does it really make sense for any nation to be able to take over the world and then look up with Bambi-eyed innocence saying “I was attacked! Completely out of the blue!” whenever any government pushes back on this? If you ask the empire’s narrative makers, the answer is a resounding yes.
The U.S. has military forces in over a hundred countries. So why won't the mainstream media call us an aggressor? https://t.co/8jFs4QSyqV
— The Nation (@thenation) July 5, 2019 (https://twitter.com/thenation/status/1147227882403565581?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
This important discrepancy is as close as we’ll ever get to an honest admission from the political/media class that they consider empire-building and endless war to be normal, and any opposition to it freakish. All nations are meant to submit to America’s use of military and economic force upon them, and if they don’t, that’s “aggression”. The official position of the political/media class is that the US is a normal nation with the same rights and status as any other, but the unofficial position is that this is an empire, and nations will either obey or be destroyed.

It’s a machine with the same values as Napoleon or Hitler or Genghis Khan or any other imperialist conqueror from ages past; the only difference is that it pretends not to be the thing that it is. The US markets itself as an upholder of rules-based liberal democratic values, even though it consistently flouts international law, wages imperialist wars of aggression, imprisons journalists, crushes dissent and uses propaganda just as much as any totalitarian regime. The only difference is that it does so in a way that enables its supporters to pretend that that’s not what’s actually happening.

Forget the “war on terror”. If US foreign policy were honest it would unite all its war propaganda sloganeering under a single banner: the War on Disobedience.

After the end of the first cold war there was much celebration. At long last! The USSR was no longer a threat, so America could finally stop pouring its resources into the nuclear arms race and finally just relax and start acting like a normal country in the world. But it didn’t take long after the Berlin Wall fell for the neoconservatives to find their way into key points of influence (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/02/03/why-all-anti-interventionists-will-necessarily-be-smeared-as-russian-assets/) and steer US foreign policy into the agenda of ensuring that America never again risks losing its status as the world’s only superpower. Which necessarily meant expanding the use of military and economic force to a level never previously seen.

So now you’ve got this weird dynamic where the US is constantly working to make sure that no other countries surpass it and gain the ability to treat America the way America treats other countries. That’s all US military and economic agendas in a nutshell right now.

The nation that poses the greatest threat to US hegemony is of course China. Most of the US war machine’s aggressions right now are ultimately built around securing resource control and geostrategic dominance to prevent China from surpassing it without attacking China itself. Any time you see the US ramping up hostilities toward a given nation, just do a search for that nation’s name plus China (or plus “Belt and Road Initiative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative)“), and you’ll usually find a strong connection.

So the USSR was simply replaced with China, and the nuclear arms race was simply replaced with greatly increased global military expansionism. The plutocrat-owned media and the plutocrat-owned political class have fallen right in line with this and normalized the idea of US imperialism around the world. The cold war never ended, it just shifted its narrative and focus. Neoconservatism never went away, it just went mainstream.
U.S. Foreign Policy for Dummies: pic.twitter.com/jRZh0lSW5f (https://t.co/jRZh0lSW5f)
— John McAfee (@officialmcafee) July 6, 2019 (https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1147491115949580291?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
But the thing about neocons and the rest of the increasingly indistinguishable proponents of American imperialism is that their underlying thesis is actually fundamentally correct: the US empire does depend on endless war in order to maintain its dominance over other nations. America doesn’t have the leverage to stay on top using economic prowess alone; it requires both the carrot of US military backing and the stick of US military aggressions. War is the only adhesive holding the US-centralized empire together, and the more its economic dominance slips away in the face of China’s economic rise, the more ham-fisted and desperate its warmongering is necessarily going to get.

This is completely unsustainable, especially in a world where the other major nuclear weapons force, Russia, is on China’s side of the new cold war dynamic. We’ve all now found ourselves trapped on a planet made of limited resources with two major alliances trying to out-consume and out-resource control each other, while hurtling toward a major military confrontation between nuclear superpowers. This puts us on a direct trajectory toward either nuclear annihilation or ecosystemic collapse in the near term. This means the argument that America needs to maintain its dominance at all cost is no longer a viable one, since that cost will almost certainly be everything in the world.

So we’ve all got some important questions to ask ourselves, haven’t we? Do we desire to stay in the familiar US-controlled world order at the price of omnicide and ecocide, or do we wish to roll the dice and bet on humanity instead? Do we wish to stay the course because it preserves a status quo that is all we’ve ever known, or do we take a leap of faith on the possibility that we can de-escalate all geopolitical enmity and move into collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem?

This choice right here is why I write so much about mankind’s need to transcend its old conditioning patterns and move into something wildly unprecedented. Our current fear-based mentality makes a populism-driven leap of faith into transcendence impossible and ensures that we remain on an oligarch-driven trajectory toward extinction. I firmly believe that we have the freedom to either pass or fail this test, but we don’t have the freedom not to take it. We’ll transcend our old conditioning patterns which we inherited from our evolutionary ancestors who lived in a wildly different world from the one we’ve created, or we will perish. It’s an A or B choice, but the choice is ours.
-------
Source: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/06/us-foreign-policy-is-a-war-on-disobedience/

[Dennis Leahy]

https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2F12152988a68a6d4dae7506812444c18f%3Fs%3D50%26d%3Dmonsteri d%26r%3DG&d=2019-07-11T03%3A16%3A25.942Z (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)
Opposing War Is The Best Approach To Revolution (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/11/opposing-war-is-the-best-approach-to-revolution/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)

One of the most common labels people use to describe what I do is some variation of "anti-war journalist" or "anti-imperialist blogger", and I'm always a tiny bit surprised when I see it. Not because I disagree with it; opposition to US-centralized warmongering probably constitutes a majority of my content, so it's a reasonable description. I've just never explicitly had opposing war in mind when doing what I do. It's been the main byproduct of my journey here, but it's never been my objective.

I got started on this gig making Facebook posts in Bernie Sanders groups (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/who-i-am-where-i-stand-and-what-im-trying-to-do-here-4a113e783578) after noticing that the US mass media were actively sabotaging his 2016 primary race. My goal at the time was the same as it is now: to help jailbreak Americans, and thus the rest of the world, from the nearly invisible power structures which are oppressing us all and driving us toward extinction. When I first started writing about the 2016 presidential campaign I didn't focus nearly as much on US foreign policy as I do now.

The shift toward emphasis on US-led warmongering wasn't something I planned, it was just the natural consequence of my staring, day after day, at the puzzle of how to free humanity from its chains. I didn't understand the mechanics of empire all that well when I started out, so I meticulously studied the behavior of government and media structures and watched for opportunities to expose glitches in the narrative matrix (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/society-is-made-of-narrative-realizing-this-is-awakening-from-the-matrix-787c7e2539ae) so I could highlight them for my readers. As I got better at noticing these glitches, I found that the opportunities to go "Look! See? They're lying to you!" most often presented themselves around the issues of war and imperialism.

This is because it turns out that endless war is an absolutely essential component of the globe-spanning alliance between oligarchs and government agencies which is sometimes referred to as the "deep state". Exerting more and more control over world affairs is how the largest power structures on earth continue to expand their power, and this is impossible to do without using the carrot of US military/economic alliance and the stick of US military/economic punishment. US economic control isn't hegemonic enough on its own to overcome the influence of growing economic powers like China, so the threat of military violence is absolutely essential for maintaining the power alliance. It's the glue that holds the entire empire together.
US Foreign Policy Is A War On Disobedience
"So now you’ve got this weird dynamic where the US is constantly working to make sure that no other countries surpass it and gain the ability to treat America the way America treats other countries."https://t.co/AVJoxuLOSq
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) July 6, 2019 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1147650088036028416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
So endless war is a 100 percent indispensable element in preserving existing power structures. The US-centralized empire cannot exist without it. The trouble for the empire, however, is that it can't just come out and tell the public "Yeah we need to destroy everyone who opposes our resource control agendas and dominance in key geostrategic regions, so we'll be forcibly eliminating this noncompliant government on Thursday." The public would never go for it, because that's a plainly sociopathic values system which we are taught since school age that our society evolved beyond many generations ago. People would lose trust in all government institutions, and revolution would quickly foment as a result.

For this reason, propaganda is necessary. Because America is where the empire has centralized most of its military firepower and billionaires, Americans are the most propagandized people on earth. There are thousands of people whose whole entire job is to convince Americans that it is good and desirable to keep trillions of dollars in military hardware moving around the planet and killing complete strangers who pose no threat to any American.

The challenge for the propagandists is that this is plainly bat **** crazy. It's an assignment that is both absolutely necessary and extremely difficult. When the entire world order depends on convincing millions of people that something transparently insane and ridiculous is perfectly sane and rational, you're naturally going to have difficulty smoothing over all the plot holes in the narratives you're selling. That's why you're always seeing glaring discrepancies in the narratives used to promote US foreign policy agendas. In retrospect I've pretty much built my career on highlighting these discrepancies.

The primary role US-led warmongering plays in maintaining existing power structures, which I first started to notice during the 2016 Democratic primaries, is on even clearer display during the 2020 Democratic primaries. You see candidates like Bernie Sanders being frowned upon by hardline centrists for promoting domestic policies which would hurt the profit margins of the oligarchs, but overall he's being treated as a legitimate candidate and receiving reluctant coverage on mainstream media networks. Then you look at the treatment of a candidate like Tulsi Gabbard, who is campaigning on a major overhaul of US foreign policy, and she's treated as a raving lunatic and a traitor.

"Challenging domestic policy status quo in Washington can be controversial and subject you to some attacks. But those who dissent from DC's foreign policy addiction to imperialism, militarism and support for repression are those who are always most smeared and maligned," Glenn Greenwald tweeted (https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1096031076114415616) a while back.
Challenging domestic policy status quo in Washington can be controversial and subject you to some attacks. But those who dissent from DC's foreign policy addiction to imperialism, militarism & support for repression are those who are always most smeared and maligned: https://t.co/JYTJo9vXdq (https://t.co/JYTJo9vXdq)
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 14, 2019 (https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1096031076114415616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
You can get away with promoting things like universal healthcare or student debt forgiveness with only moderate pushback from the establishment, but wanting to scale back the forever war will quickly see you branded a Russian asset or an antisemite and canceled. The empire won't even tolerate you interfering with their narratives, let alone getting elected. Your voice will be targeted with an aggressive smear campaign until they make sure that hardly anyone is listening to what you have to say.

The fact that we're so strictly forbidden from pursuing this line of attack is a clear sign that warmongering is the weakest point in the empire's armor. It's the most essential component of the oppression machine, and its narratives are the weakest and most plot hole-riddled. If you're interested in taking down the oligarchic machine which keeps ordinary people poor, sick and stupid, then attacking war propaganda is the most useful expenditure of energy.

American leftists and progressives have not been great at this; even those who identify as "anti-imperialist" tend to mostly stay focused on domestic issues. This is perfectly understandable, since Americans are the victims of the empire's soul-crushing neoliberal exploitation and it is therefore the thing that is staring them in the face most often.

But the drivers of empire do not fear a push for domestic policy reform nearly as much as they fear a push for foreign policy reform. They know that the plebs can be kept poor and stupid enough to pose no threat to the oligarchs controlling all the money (and therefore all the power) by simply manipulating the system and herding everyone into controlled political opposition groups who will end up telling them "Ohh, sorry, we couldn't get the congressional votes. Those damn Republicans!" A large public demand to end warmongering would be a much tougher challenge to manipulate around.
The Forever War Is So Normalized That Opposing It Is “Isolationism”
"Under our current Orwellian doublespeak paradigm where forever war is the new normal, the opposite of war is no longer peace, but isolationism." #war (https://twitter.com/hashtag/war?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #peace (https://twitter.com/hashtag/peace?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #TulsiGabbard (https://twitter.com/hashtag/TulsiGabbard?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)https://t.co/dLbW6O2bRV
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) June 29, 2019 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1144780969884303361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
It's actually the same agenda anyway; the plutocratic class, which is incentivized to keep everyone else poor in a system wherein money equals power and power is relative, is the driving force behind both neoliberal exploitation and the forever war, and if you can end either of these things you will end the whole empire. It just happens that warmongering is the far easier and far more efficacious line of attack.

There are plenty of moral arguments against imperialism, but you don't even need to enter into morality to see that it's smart to make opposing war your foremost priority. The kingdom of the bastards who are grinding us all down and trying to make us poorer, sicker and stupider so we can't muster the chutzpah to toss them out on their asses is fed by an umbilical cord of endless war, and we have the power to cut that cord by opposing war and attacking war propaganda together.

Change that, and we change everything. Ordinary humans can finally begin to make the world their own, guided not by sociopathic oligarchs but by an enlightened self-interest which realizes that the only way we can continue to survive is if we learn to collaborate with each other and with our ecosystem for the common good. This is all I've ever been pushing toward here. Deep down, it's all any of us want.
__________________________

[Dennis Leahy]

Top Assange Defense Account Deleted By Twitter (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/12/top-assange-defense-account-deleted-by-twitter/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)

One of the biggest Twitter accounts dedicated to circulating information and advocacy for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, @Unity4J, has been completely removed from the site. The operators of the account report that they have been given no reason for its removal by Twitter staff, and have received no response to their appeals.

Any Assange supporter active on Twitter will be familiar with the Unity4J account, which originated to help boost the wildly successful Unity4J online vigils (https://unity4j.com/) in which well-known Assange defenders would appear to speak out against his persecution. As of this writing, the account has been gone for a day and a half.

"About 8:45am CST on Thursday July 11, one of our Unity4J Twitter team members went to retweet on the account and noticed that the account was no longer accessible," reports pro-Assange activist Christy Dopf, one of the operators of the account. "When each of us also attempted to access the account we all received the same message 'Account Suspended'. Twitter did not send us a reason or violation for the suspension. So an appeal was submitted. We did receive correspondence that Twitter got our request and the case is currently open. Unfortunately we do not have a timeline on how long this could take."
I’m back on Twitter after the outage but @unity4J (https://twitter.com/Unity4J?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) is still suspended - we did not receive an email or a reason for the suspension. Appeal process started. #FreeAssange (https://twitter.com/hashtag/FreeAssange?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #Unity4J (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Unity4J?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) pic.twitter.com/a14DqZaoGt (https://t.co/a14DqZaoGt)
— https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png Christy Dopf https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/2728.pnghttps://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/1f313.pnghttps://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/2728.png (@ChristyMKD84) July 11, 2019 (https://twitter.com/ChristyMKD84/status/1149407683512033280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Speaking for myself as a vocal Assange supporter on Twitter, I can say that I've been following the @Unity4J account closely since its earliest days and I've never once seen it post anything other than highly professional-looking advocacy for Julian Assange. I've certainly never seen it post anything that could be construed as abusive, misleading, or otherwise in violation of any of Twitter's posted rules.

This account's deletion is just the latest in a long string of apparently biased actions against WikiLeaks and Assange by the immensely influential social media platform. That bias was made abundantly clear with Twitter's ridiculous refusal to verify Assange (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/twitter-is-using-account-verification-to-stifle-leaks-and-promote-war-propaganda-8135c806197) while he was posting from his own account despite his undeniably being a significant public figure, and despite the fact that Twitter was well aware that the account was authentic (https://twitter.com/DefendAssange/status/884908558852206592). The platform has been receiving consistent complaints (https://twitter.com/search?q=assange%20shadow%20ban&src=typd) among Assange supporters of using shadow bans to marginalize their voices, as well as unfair posting locks (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/twitter-locks-wikileaks-and-multiple-wikileaks-staff-accounts-c9deb33e0592) and restrictions (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1108112602326917121).

"It seems that Assange supporters have been targeted for suspension over the last few days and weeks, including the suspension of individuals (Yon Solitary, Monique Jolie) as well as accounts like Unity4J," Unity4J co-founder Elizabeth Lea Vos told me today. "All of these suspensions are unacceptable, but I find the Unity4J suspension especially egregious because it was an amplifier of events across the board, not only actions run by Unity4J. It never broke the twitter rules and it was an activist account supporting a journalist who's been silenced or 'disappeared,' so this suspension is an extension of that suppression. Assange asked us to become his voice, and platforms like Twitter appear to be actively working against the possibility of that effort."
The main Twitter account defending Julian Assange, and therefore press freedom & freedom of speech, has been suspended.@Unity4J (https://twitter.com/Unity4J?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) - suspended for defending a hero.#Unity4J (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Unity4J?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) July 12, 2019 (https://twitter.com/LeeCamp/status/1149720802767642625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Pro-Assange activists have been speaking out against @Unity4J's removal.

"The main Twitter account defending Julian Assange, and therefore press freedom and freedom of speech, has been suspended," tweeted (https://twitter.com/LeeCamp/status/1149720802767642625) comedian and Redacted Tonight host Lee Camp. "@Unity4J - suspended for defending a hero."

"HELP!! Twitter suspended @Unity4J The global #FreeAssange supporters account!" tweeted (https://twitter.com/AssangeMrs/status/1149415943723999233) Assange's mother Christine Assange. "Its a central point for updates, interviews and actions re my son politically persecuted journalist JULIAN ASSANGE! Please demand @TwitterSupport and @Jack re-instate it. Many thanks #Unity4J"

"I have no doubt that @Unity4J's twitter account was suspended because it was a hub of useful information on solidarity events and actions in support of Assange, WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning and more. Horrendous censorship to suspend the account, @TwitterSupport," tweeted (https://twitter.com/ElizabethleaVos/status/1149371121747103744) Elizabeth Lea Vos.

"If @Unity4J is not restored, it is proof that Twitter would have sided against the Free Mandela movement, and every other mass liberation movement of a 'terrorist' turned Nobel nominee," tweeted (https://twitter.com/Suzi3D/status/1149340592016625666) Unity4J co-founder Suzie Dawson.

Many other Assange supporters have been flagging the attention (https://twitter.com/search?q=%40unity4j&src=typd) of the Twitter Support account and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey objecting to the unjust silencing of a perfectly legitimate activist account, to no avail thus far.
HELP!! @Twitter (https://twitter.com/Twitter?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) suspended @Unity4J (https://twitter.com/Unity4J?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The global #FreeAssange (https://twitter.com/hashtag/FreeAssange?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) supporters account!
Its a central point for updates, interviews & actions re my son politically persecuted journalist JULIAN ASSANGE!
Please demand @TwitterSupport (https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) & @Jack (https://twitter.com/jack?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) re-instate it.
Many thanks #Unity4J (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Unity4J?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
— Mrs Christine Assange (@AssangeMrs) July 11, 2019 (https://twitter.com/AssangeMrs/status/1149415943723999233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The censorship of political speech on online media platforms is a large and growing problem. Twitter has been better about this than the far more sycophantic Facebook and Google, but the discrimination against anti-establishment political speech is undeniable at this point. I myself was removed from the platform last year (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/twitter-has-shut-down-my-account-for-abusing-john-mccain-25e7be909f4d) just for saying the world would be better off without warmongering US Senator John McCain in it, and was only restored after protests from high-profile Twitter users.

In a corporatist system of government, in which there is no meaningful separation of corporate power and state power, corporate censorship is state censorship. With giant Silicon Valley corporations aligning themselves with shady state-funded propagandistic think tanks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3Xj-NQ8x1k) like the Atlantic Council, being admonished on the Senate floor (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/01/goog-n01.html) that they must help quash political rebellion, and being targeted for narrative control influence (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/10/05/pers-o05.html#disqus_thread) by the US military, there's vanishingly little difference between what's happening more and more to political speech with these tech giants and what happens in overtly totalitarian governments. The only difference is the stories people choose to tell themselves about it.

The time to speak up about this silencing is now. Your voice is next.

[Kryztian]

:bump: Essential Reading :bump:


New post on Caitlin Johnstone


https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/cropped-caitlinpic1.jpg?resize=32%2C32&ssl=1 https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2F12152988a68a6d4dae7506812444c18f%3Fs%3D50%26d%3Dmonsteri d%26r%3DG&d=2019-05-27T04%3A45%3A00.214Z (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) How You Can Be 100% Certain That QAnon Is Bull**** (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/05/26/how-you-can-be-100-certain-that-qanon-is-bull****/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) President Trump has yet again advanced an evil longstanding agenda of America's depraved intelligence and defense agencies, so as usual the QAnon cult is out in force telling everyone not to worry because this is all part of the plan. Ever since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was slammed by Trump's Justice Department with a mountain of espionage charges (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/how-many-times-must-assange-be-proven-right-before-people-start-listening-61229805a3d8) carrying a possible sentence of 175 years in prison, QAnon acolytes have been showing up in my social media mentions with screenshots of a new post from the mysterious 8chan anon assuring us all that Assange is actually being protected by Trump.
The post (https://qanon.pub/#3341) reads in the typical QAnon cryptic word salad style that its adherents often annoyingly imitate when normal people try to engage them in an adult conversation:
"Under protection.
Threat is real.
Key to DNC 'source' 'hack' '187'.
Q"
I find this subject very tedious, and my regular readers aren't generally the types to fall for this sort of toxic propaganda construct, but I'm putting this information out there anyway as a public service since many people are being deluded by it.
If you're one of those fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with the QAnon phenomenon, in October of 2017 odd posts began appearing on the anonymous message board 4chan, which is wildly popular with trolls, incels and racists. Those posts ceased appearing on 4chan and moved to a related site, 8chan, where they continue appearing to this day. The poster purports to have insider knowledge of a secret, silent and invisible war that President Trump has been waging against the Deep State with the help of the US military and various "white hats" within the US government, and shares snippets about this war with 8chan users in extremely vague and garbled posts.
Here are three reasons you can be absolutely, 100 percent certain that it's bull****:
1. It always, always, always excuses Trump's facilitation of evil deep state agendas.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgjDLKsWAAAdQv8.jpg
I don't generally use the term "deep state" anymore, mainly because its proper meaning has been distorted by right-wingers and Qultists to mean basically "Democrats and Never-Trumpers", and by mainstream liberals to mean something like "a right-wing conspiracy theory about a secretive cabal of Jews who rule the world". But originally the term simply referred to a concept used for political analysis to describe the undeniable fact that plutocrats and intelligence/defense agencies tend to form relationships with each other in a way that persists amid the comings and goings of the official elected government.
This alliance has certain agendas that it has consistently pushed for, many of them involving the advancement of wars which financially benefit the plutocrats and which secure geostrategic dominance for the intelligence/defence agencies. Trump has been advancing these longstanding agendas with his administration's regime change interventionism against Iran (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/us-blames-iran-for-impoverishing-civilians-while-prepping-further-sanctions-845cb5136e99) and Venezuela (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/trump-has-murdered-over-40-000-venezuelans-with-sanctions-6eb3e7f0eb7f), world-threatening new cold war escalations against Russia (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/responses-to-this-tweet-show-how-people-fixate-on-narrative-over-fact-b43925719952), military expansionism, continuing and expanding of all of Bushbama's warmongering and Orwellian surveillance programs, the campaign to destroy WikiLeaks and imprison Julian Assange for life, and many other actions (https://www.stpete4peace.org/trump) which benefit the agenda of global hegemony and the profit margins of war plutocrats.
Every single time Trump advances one of these depraved agendas and I speak out against it, I begin getting angry social media responses from QAnon cultists telling me to calm down and relax, that this is all part of the plan, and that Trump is actually doing the exact opposite of what he appears to be doing. And when I say "every single time", I mean exactly that, without a single, solitary exception.
QAnon cultists do this every single time because they have been propagandized into doing so, both by the 8chan anon they follow and by the herd mentality of the community that it has fostered. They begin with the baseless premise that Trump is a righteous warrior against corruption, conclude that everything he does must therefore be a righteous maneuver against Deep State corruption, then apply their hive mind to coming up with reasons to believe this. Then they show up in my mentions telling me I'm crazy for believing Trump is doing the things that he is very plainly and obviously doing.

I've lost count of amount of #MAGA (https://twitter.com/hashtag/MAGA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) & #QAnon (https://twitter.com/hashtag/QAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) bots in last 48hrs who think Assange indictment/extradition is secret 5D chess move by #Trump (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Trump?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) to prove 2016 DNC emails were leak. Besides fact it's already proved(Binney,VIPS) it shows we're dealing w/#Cult (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cult?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) that's stripped all agency.
— Patrick Henningsen (@21WIRE) May 25, 2019 (https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1132321879862194176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)


There must be some kind of Q anon dm group where they just decide who to spam because my mentions look like one flew over the cuckoos nest
— Cassandra Fairbanks (@CassandraRules) May 24, 2019 (https://twitter.com/CassandraRules/status/1131778385871613952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

You don't need to take my word for this. As of this writing right now you can go to the Twitter search bar and type in the words "Assange" and "QAnon" and you'll get a bunch of posts explaining that Assange is "under protection", and that imprisoning a longtime target of the CIA and the Pentagon is actually a devastating blow to the Deep State. You can continue to repeat this exact same experiment every single time Trump advances a disgusting warmongering deep state agenda, and every single time you'll get the exact same results.
This to me is reason enough to be absolutely certain that QAnon and the credulous cult which has sprouted up around it is crap. US presidents are reliably corrupt warmongers and CIA cronies, so the current president acting like one is not surprising or extraordinary. Trying to justify a US president doing the sort of thing that all US presidents always do as a total deviation from the norm for US presidents would be a ridiculous thing to do even one time. Doing it every single time is fully discrediting.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, you could maybe be excused if you mistook it for a rabbit after one quick glance, but continuing to stare directly at a duck and saying "Yeah that's definitely a rabbit, look at the long ears" over an extended period of time would mean you're a bull****ter.
2. They always, always, always refuse to prove the validity of their position.


Thinking of writing an article about #Qanon (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Qanon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw), which I personally believe is an establishment psyop designed to lull the antiwar right into complacency at a time of escalating war agendas. I have an open mind though; show me your very best link or screenshot showing that Q is real.
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) April 15, 2018 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/985548365239914502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

A year ago I tweeted out (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/985548365239914502) that I was thinking of writing an article about QAnon and asked its adherents for their very best links/screenshots proving its legitimacy. Go ahead and have a read of the kinds of responses I got by clicking this hyperlink (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/985548365239914502) if you're curious. No one came remotely close to providing anything like the evidence I'd asked for, with most responses falling along the lines of "You kind of have to just immerse yourself in it over an extended period of time and marinate in it until you believe," which is the same sort of response you'll get if you ask a religious proselytizer to prove the legitimacy of their religion.
This is completely different from standard conspiracy theories. If you ask a 9/11 truther to prove the legitimacy of their position, they'll instantly be able to produce clear and concise videos and articles for you, and if they've actually done their homework they'll be able to regale you with information about physics, forensics, architecture, chemistry, and plot holes in the official narrative. If you ask someone who's got theories about the JFK assassination you'll get a comparable amount of lucidity. Ask a QAnon cultist for the same level of intellectual transparency and you'll get a bunch of mealy-mouthed gibberish which will quickly turn into accusations that you are lazy for refusing to do your own research if you keep pressing.
This is because there is no actual, tangible factual basis for the belief system which has sprouted up around QAnon. It begins, just like any other religion, as a premise of faith, and then the adherents to that faith pool their intellectual resources into the task of finding reasons to legitimize that premise. They begin with the premise that Trump is a good and noble savior who is uprooting the source of all of America's problems with strategic maneuvers which are so brilliant that they look like the exact opposite of what they are, then they let confirmation bias (https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-2795024) and other (https://twitter.com/FakeLeftSucks/status/1132115412831879169) cognitive biases (https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe) do the rest of the work for them.

Qanon is a skilled propagandist so naturally people respond to Q's Pavlovian tactics.
Q is a pusher.
Partisans are irrational, they think with emotions and behave like a herd.
At the behavior's core is biology not ideology & all good propagandists since Bernays understand this. pic.twitter.com/oslq9ysI3j (https://t.co/oslq9ysI3j)
— JG Bennet (@FakeLeftSucks) May 25, 2019 (https://twitter.com/FakeLeftSucks/status/1132115412831879169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

Again, you don't need to take my word for this; you can repeat this experiment for yourself. Whenever you encounter a QAnon adherent, either by chance or by seeking them out deliberately, simply ask them to prove the legitimacy of their position. You might get links to sources which attempt to prove that QAnon is connected to the Trump administration (as though that would somehow counter the idea that it's a pro-Trump propaganda construct), you might get links to the mountain of cryptic word salads that QAnon has posted and told to comb through them yourself, but you won't ever get anything resembling an attempt to clearly prove that QAnon is the thing that it purports to be. If you keep pushing you'll encounter nothing but anger as you run into a wall of cognitive dissonance.
This proves that QAnon is not even a proper conspiracy theory, as we've come to understand that term. Conspiracy theories, per definition, consist of some sort of concrete theory. QAnon, like Russiagate, consists of nothing other than something that people desperately want to believe and then seek out excuses which allow them to feel comfortable believing it. This makes it far more akin to a religion or a cult than a conspiracy theory.
If QAnon were legitimate, it would be easy for its followers to demonstrate that legitimacy in a clear and simple way. They never can.
3. It's made many bogus claims and inaccurate predictions.


"A non-comprehensive timeline of Q's failed predictions and mistakes and a list of tactics he uses to hook and drag followers." #QAnon (https://twitter.com/hashtag/QAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #WWG1WGA (https://twitter.com/hashtag/WWG1WGA?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)https://t.co/uPGQ35wMBX
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) May 25, 2019 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1132409389078368256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

I'm putting this one last instead of first because the appeal of QAnon has very little to do with facts and evidence; if you show these to a Q cultist they'll typically just say "Oh Q didn't really mean that" or "That one wasn't the real Q" or even "Disinformation is necessary (https://twitter.com/1tsakeeper/status/1132411953710866433)" (a John Bolton doctrine (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/that-time-john-bolton-said-its-good-to-lie-about-war-4b956c063caa) which QAnon itself has proclaimed on multiple occasions (https://qanon.pub/?q=disinformation%20is%20necessary)), but for anyone who's kind of on the fence about the whole thing you should be aware that the QAnon phenomenon has been rife with demonstrable inaccuracies. Personally I prefer to focus on the behaviors of the QAnon cultists themselves, since they're the ones interpreting the cryptic word salads and circulating those interpretations online. They behave as cheerleaders for their government's most depraved agendas; it doesn't really matter what they are being told to believe to get them to behave that way.
This recent Reddit post (https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/bshen7/a_noncomprehensive_timeline_of_qs_failed/) on r/conspiracy breaks down many of the bogus claims, inaccurate predictions and deceitful manipulations that the QAnon construct has made since its inception. They include claiming in October 2017 that Hillary Clinton had been arrested and to expect mass rioting in response, posting and then deleting a fake Podesta email, posting multiple photoshopped images as though they were real, posting a bogus photo suggesting that the operator of the account was on Airforce One, and posting bogus "codes" that are demonstrably nothing other than gibberish.
I don't claim to know everything about this QAnon thing or who exactly is behind it, but these three points I just outlined in my opinion kill all doubt that it's not what it purports to be. For anyone looking at them with intellectual honesty rather than the same way a creationist or cult member might look at something which challenges their faith, anyway.
It is not good that a vocal and enthusiastic part of Trump's largely anti-interventionist, pro-WikiLeaks base has been propagandized into consistently stumping for longtime agendas of the CIA and the Pentagon. Someone's benefiting from this, and it isn't you.
________________________

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/lL6cLNM.jpg

[Dennis Leahy]

Here are a handful of recent topics covered by Caitlin Johnstone. I think in most of these cases, the title of the article is probably enough to entice you to go read the article, without needing a paragraph or two.

“No No You Guys, THIS US-Backed Coup Is Perfectly Legitimate!”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/14/no-no-you-guys-this-us-backed-coup-is-perfectly-legitimate/


So, About That Moment Of Clarity You Experienced That One Time…
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/15/so-about-that-moment-of-clarity-you-experienced-that-one-time/


Bolivia’s New Puppet Regime Wastes No Time Aligning With US Foreign Policy
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/16/bolivias-new-puppet-regime-wastes-no-time-aligning-with-us-foreign-policy/


The Hugely Important OPCW Scandal Keeps Unfolding. Here’s Why No One’s Talking About It.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/17/the-hugely-important-opcw-scandal-keeps-unfolding-heres-why-no-ones-talking-about-it/


25 Times Trump Has Been Dangerously Hawkish On Russia
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/18/25-times-trump-has-been-dangerously-hawkish-on-russia/

[Dennis Leahy]

Link: Now That Assange Is Safely Locked Up, Sweden Drops Its “Investigation” (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/20/now-that-assange-is-safely-locked-up-sweden-drops-its-investigation/)



"Now that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is safely locked up in Belmarsh prison awaiting a US extradition hearing, Sweden has, for a third time, dropped its rape investigation.

“After conducting a comprehensive assessment of what has emerged during the course of the preliminary investigation I then make the assessment that the evidence is not strong enough to form the basis for filing an indictment,” said deputy chief prosecutor Eva-Marie Persson at a press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday.

This decision comes days after the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer began making noise about the Swedish government’s refusal to answer his questions on the many enormous, glaring plot holes in the investigation which began in 2010. These plot holes include “proactive manipulation of evidence” with the testimony of the alleged victim, a condom provided as evidence that had neither the DNA of Assange nor of the alleged victim on it, complete disregard for confidentiality rules and normal investigative protocol from the earliest moments of the investigation onward, disregard for conflicts of interest, Sweden’s refusal to provide assurance that Assange would not be extradited to the US if he went there to answer questions, statements made by the alleged victims which contradict the allegations, unexplained correspondence between Swedish prosecutors and the FBI, and many others.

{snip - read the full article by clicking the link above}

[Dennis Leahy]

Can I ask a favor? Could someone else who recognizes the brilliance of Caitlin Johnstone please sort of take over refreshing this thread? I've been AWOL, and at this time I'm still unable to be online much. Caitlin publishes frequently, often daily. This thread could, in essence, allow Caitlin to be a major sane contributor to Avalon. Maybe for a daily post, just a link to a specific blog page, along with the title and quoting a snipped paragraph or two to let Avalon readers decide if they want to follow the link. I added the post just above as an example.

Caitlin is one of the most brilliant, alternative-thinking, geopolitical writers of our time. She has a citizen-centric, anti-imperialist, pro-peace perspective that is free from partisan BS. She understands that the political "class" are mobsters, all of them. She understands that Empire maintains itself through narrative control. She cuts through propaganda with a light saber. ...and it would be great if someone took up the task of making her words visible at Avalon. Thanks in advance for your consideration.

[onawah]

Advancing Propaganda For Evil Agendas Is The Same As Perpetrating Them Yourself
NOVEMBER 22, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/22/advancing-propaganda-for-evil-agendas-is-the-same-as-perpetrating-them-yourself/
https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/medium-4-3.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1
"The Guardian has published an editorial titled “The Guardian view on extraditing Julian Assange: don’t do it”, subtitled “The US case against the WikiLeaks founder is an assault on press freedom and the public’s right to know”. The publication’s editorial board argues that since the Swedish investigation has once again been dropped, the time is now to oppose US extradition for the WikiLeaks founder.

“Sweden’s decision to drop an investigation into a rape allegation against Julian Assange has both illuminated the situation of the WikiLeaks founder and made it more pressing,” the editorial board writes.

Oh okay, now the issue is illuminated and pressing. Not two months ago, when Assange’s ridiculous bail sentence ended and he was still kept in prison explicitly and exclusively because of the US extradition request. Not six months ago, when the US government slammed Assange with 17 charges under the Espionage Act for publishing the Chelsea Manning leaks. Not seven months ago, when Assange was forcibly pried from the Ecuadorian embassy and slapped with the US extradition request. Not any time between his April arrest and his taking political asylum seven years ago, which the Ecuadorian government explicitly granted him because it believed there was a credible threat of US extradition. Not nine years ago when WikiLeaks was warning that the US government was scheming to extradite Assange and prosecute him under the Espionage Act.

Nope, no, any of those times would have been far too early for The Guardian to begin opposing US extradition for Assange with any degree of lucidity. They had to wait until Assange was already locked up in Belmarsh Prison and limping into extradition hearings supervised by looming US government officials. They had to wait until years and years of virulent mass media smear campaigns had killed off public support for Assange so he could be extradited with little or no grassroots backlash. And they had to wait until they themselves had finished participating in those smear campaigns.

This is after all the same Guardian which published the transparently ridiculous and completely invalidated report that Trump lackey Paul Manafort had met secretly with Assange at the embassy, not once but multiple times. Not one shred of evidence has ever been produced to substantiate this claim despite the embassy being one of the most heavily surveilled buildings on the planet at the time, and the Robert Mueller investigation, whose expansive scope would obviously have included such meetings, reported absolutely nothing to corroborate it. It was a bogus story which all accused parties have forcefully denied.

This is the same Guardian which ran an article last year titled “The only barrier to Julian Assange leaving Ecuador’s embassy is pride”, arguing that Assange looked ridiculous for remaining in the embassy because “The WikiLeaks founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US”. The article was authored by the odious James Ball, who deleted a tweet not long ago complaining about the existence of UN special rapporteurs after one of them concluded that Assange is a victim of psychological torture. Ball’s article begins, “According to Debrett’s, the arbiters of etiquette since 1769: ‘Visitors, like fish, stink in three days.’ Given this, it’s difficult to imagine what Ecuador’s London embassy smells like, more than five-and-a-half years after Julian Assange moved himself into the confines of the small flat in Knightsbridge, just across the road from Harrods.”

This is the same Guardian which published an article titled “Definition of paranoia: supporters of Julian Assange”, arguing that Assange defenders are crazy conspiracy theorists for believing the US would try to extradite Assange because “Britain has a notoriously lax extradition treaty with the United States”, because “why would they bother to imprison him when he is making such a good job of discrediting himself?”, and “because there is no extradition request.”

This is the same Guardian which published a ludicrous report about Assange potentially receiving documents as part of a strange Nigel Farage/Donald Trump/Russia conspiracy, a claim based primarily on vague analysis by a single anonymous source described as a “highly placed contact with links to US intelligence”. The same Guardian which just flushed standard journalistic protocol down the toilet by reporting on Assange’s “ties to the Kremlin” (not a thing) without even bothering to use the word “alleged”, not once, but twice. The same Guardian which has been advancing many more virulent smears as documented in this article by The Canary titled “Guilty by innuendo: the Guardian campaign against Julian Assange that breaks all the rules”.

You can see, then, how ridiculous it is for an outlet like The Guardian to now attempt to wash its hands of Assange’s plight with a self-righteous denunciation of the Trump administration’s extradition request from its editorial board. This outlet has actively and forcefully paved the road to the situation in which Assange now finds himself by manufacturing consent for an agenda which the public would otherwise have found appalling and ferociously objectionable. Guardian editors don’t get to pretend that they are in some way separate from what’s being done to Assange. They created what’s being done to Assange.

You see this dynamic at play all too often from outlets, organizations and individuals who portray themselves as liberal, progressive, or in some way oppositional to authoritarianism. They happily advance propaganda narratives against governments and individuals targeted by establishment power structures, whether that’s Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, Maduro, Morales, Assange or whomever, but when it comes time for that establishment to actually implement the evil agenda it’s been pushing for, they wash their hands of it and decry what’s being done as though they’ve always opposed it.

But they haven’t opposed it. They’ve actively facilitated it. If you help promote smears and propaganda against a target of the empire, then you’re just as culpable for what happens to that target as the empire itself. Because you actively participated in making it happen.

The deployment of a bomb or missile doesn’t begin when a pilot pushes a button, it begins when propaganda narratives used to promote those operations start circulating in public attention. If you help circulate war propaganda, you’re as complicit as the one who pushes the button. The imprisonment of a journalist for exposing US war crimes doesn’t begin when the Trump administration extradites him to America, it begins when propagandistic smear campaigns begin circulating to kill public opposition to his imprisonment. If you helped promote that smear campaign, you’re just as responsible for what happens to him as the goon squad in Trump’s Department of Justice.

Before they launch missiles, they launch narratives. Before they drop bombs, they drop ideas. Before they invade, they propagandize. Before the killing, there is manipulation. Narrative control is the front line of all imperialist agendas, and it is therefore the front line of all anti-imperialist efforts. When you forcefully oppose these agendas, that matters, because you’re keeping the public from being propagandized into consenting to them. When you forcefully facilitate those agendas, that matters, because you’re actively paving the way for them.

Claiming you oppose an imperialist agenda while helping to advance its propaganda and smear campaigns in any way is a nonsensical and contradictory position. You cannot facilitate imperialism and simultaneously claim to oppose it.

They work so hard to manufacture our consent because they need that consent. If they operate without the consent of the governed, the public will quickly lose trust in their institutions, and at that point it’s not long before revolution begins to simmer. So don’t give them your consent. And for God’s sake don’t do anything that helps manufacture it in others.

Words matter. Work with them responsibly."

[Praxis]

Advancing Propaganda For Evil Agendas Is The Same As Perpetrating Them Yourself
NOVEMBER 22, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE


I found this to be a wonderful piece. I am still confused how people who support the current administration are fitting this into their narrative. POTUS should drop the espionage charges simply for the attack on press freedom that it is, let alone the fact that Wikileaks is certainly anti deep state.

I am however, not surprised in the slightest at this and am sad that we are going to see Julian die in Belmarsh. That is what the intent of just keep him is I believe. They hope they can put him in that hole and that he will just die there and then next week everyone will forget he was an issue.

Kind of like how we have all forgotten the War on Terror that is still costing of daily, in so many ways.

[mountain_jim]

Advancing Propaganda For Evil Agendas Is The Same As Perpetrating Them Yourself
NOVEMBER 22, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE


I found this to be a wonderful piece. I am still confused how people who support the current administration are fitting this into their narrative. POTUS should drop the espionage charges simply for the attack on press freedom that it is, let alone the fact that Wikileaks is certainly anti deep state.

I am however, not surprised in the slightest at this and am sad that we are going to see Julian die in Belmarsh. That is what the intent of just keep him is I believe. They hope they can put him in that hole and that he will just die there and then next week everyone will forget he was an issue.

Kind of like how we have all forgotten the War on Terror that is still costing of daily, in so many ways.

My narrative: I support the current admin to the extent that this ongoing information war helps expose the current MSM and Democrat Party corruption to all. Trump appears to have some backers that are expert instigators.

I am interested in a candidate like Tulsi but the current Democrat org and MSM would prevent her from winning the nomination, just like they did for Bernie last time. And she's a way better option than him, in my view.

That party needs to be rebuilt from the ground up, and only exposure can lead to there.

But so does the other one.

I agree with your views on Julian - such a service and travesty/tragedy that our leadership does not see it this way. Military influence I presume.

I agree with the progressive views on the current environmental non-support by the current folks in power. Well except for climate change policies, anyways.

I want clean air and water protected and Glyphosphate gone.

Yet I am thankful every day that Hillary did not win and get more power. She is the front-person for that much evil in my view.

But for the future we need 9/11, Mossad, and MIC exposure and loss of power - don't know how we get from there from here, but the many waking up to the daily mind-control from the Media and the current corruption all around has to help in my view.

I read Caitlin and I read Dennis, but no workable Reset button has yet been located and it's not obvious how to affect these great changes needed in the short-term just by writing about or realizing the need.

I say don't confuse support of the current disruption and exposures with unyielding support for those now (supposedly) in power. (Well for some of us, anyways.)

And I realize the hidden-hands of those in power are not so clearly visible - but for Trump the MIC and Israel and her supporters have too strong a voice - and freedom of speech and constitutional rights have a much weaker voice.

[onawah]

Barr Says Epstein Died By A Series Of Coincidences, Ending All Conspiracy Theories Forever
NOVEMBER 23, 2019
AUTHOR: CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/23/barr-says-epstein-died-by-a-series-of-coincidences-ending-all-conspiracy-theories-forever/
https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/medium-4-4.jpg?w=720&ssl=1

"In an interview with Associated Press, US Attorney General William Barr put all conspiracy theories to rest once and for all by assuring the world that alleged sex trafficker and alleged billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s death was simply the result of a very, very, very long series of unfortunate coincidences.

“I can understand people who immediately, whose minds went to sort of the worst-case scenario because it was a perfect storm of screw-ups,” Barr told AP on Thursday.

This perfect storm of unlucky oopsies include Epstein being taken off suicide watch not long after a previous suicide attempt and shortly before his successful suicide, suggestions that the first attempt may have actually been an assault via attempted strangulation inflicted by someone else, two security guards simultaneously falling asleep on the job when they were supposed to be checking on Epstein, one of those guards not even being an actual security guard, security footage of two cameras outside Epstein’s cell being unusable due to a mysterious technical glitch, at least eight Bureau of Prisons officials knowing Epstein wasn’t meant to be left alone in his cell and leaving him alone in his cell anyway, Epstein’s cellmate being transferred out of their shared space the day before Epstein’s death, Epstein signing a will two days before his death, unexplained injuries on Epstein’s wrists and shoulder reported by his family after the autopsy, and a forensic expert who examined Epstein’s body claiming that his injuries were more consistent with homicide than suicide.
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1197917289422585859/HJwUNeY4?format=jpg&name=600x314
“The attorney general also sought to dampen conspiracy theories by people who have questioned whether Epstein really took his own life, saying the evidence proves Epstein killed himself,” AP reports. “He added that he personally reviewed security footage that confirmed that no one entered the area where Epstein was housed on the night he died.”

Well if reporting that he’s reviewed footage which we were previously told didn’t exist isn’t enough to dampen those kooky conspiracy theories, I don’t know what is.

So there you have it. The US government says that an intelligence asset with damning information on many powerful individuals did in fact kill himself due to an admittedly bizarre and wildly unlikely series of strange coincidences. I for one have no more questions. Checkmate, conspiracy theorists.

“Mr. Epstein’s death in August at a federal detention center in Manhattan set off a rash of unfounded conspiracy theories on social media that were picked up and repeated by high-profile figures, including Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani. No matter their ideology, the refrain of the theories was the same: Something did not add up,” says The New York Times in its report Barr’s statements.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. It’s a completely unfounded conspiracy theory to believe that someone with ties to powerful institutions and individuals might be murdered in a way that was made to look like a suicide. We don’t live in a world where opaque organizations do evil things in secret, we live in a world where the government is always our friend and the TV would never lie to us. I’m glad these comments made by Barr (whose father in another strange coincidence gave Epstein his first job) have at long last struck a fatal blow to anyone who would doubt the beneficent hand of our beloved institutions.
[IMG]https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1197840241903767553/6W6re1p2?
It’s hard to imagine what more the US government and its allied political/media class could possibly do to quell conspiracy theories that now have Hollywood celebrities clamoring for government internet censorship. I guess if they really, really wanted to dampen conspiracy theories, there are a few more extremely drastic steps that could be taken. Steps like not lying all the time. And maybe not hiding immense amounts of information about what the most powerful institutions in the world are doing behind thick walls of government opacity. And maybe cease promoting conspiracies themselves, as with Russiagate. And maybe stop secretly doing depraved things. And maybe stop engaging in conspiracies.

Pretty sure Barr’s assurances will be enough to do the trick, though. "

[Praxis]

[

My narrative: I support the current admin to the extent that this ongoing information war helps expose the current MSM and Democrat Party corruption to all. Trump appears to have some backers that are expert instigators.



Hello Mountain.

I stopped reading after the bolded. It seems to me that you are a party person.
I am not.

Briefly: I dislike the Democratic Party. I dislike the Republican Party. I dislike the MSM.

So I wont engage if your left vs. right paradigm.(which fits right in with Caitlin Johnston as she, i believe, feels about the same about D v R).



We do need exposure. So when POTUS didnt release all the JFK files(which again classification is ENTIRELY UNDER THE PURVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT https://fas.org/sgp/library/quist/index.html for more detail on that) , I knew instantly what was happening.

Cheers

[mountain_jim]

I would say you stopped reading too soon - but whatever.

A party person is the last thing that I am.

It's just the daily media circus daily and for the last 3 years has put the D-side absurdity and MSM collusion in the spotlight.

With Onawah's previous posting of Catlin's response to Barr's 'views' on Epstein's 'suicide', the R-side absurdity and corruption are again now spotlighted.

I won't respond to you anymore, since I can't get the courtesy of a full reading of my response in return.

[Praxis]

I would say you stopped reading too soon - but whatever.

A party person is the last thing that I am.

It's just the daily media circus daily and for the last 3 years has put the D-side absurdity and MSM collusion in the spotlight.

With Onawah's previous posting of Catlin's response to Barr's 'views' on Epstein's 'suicide', the R-side absurdity and corruption are again now spotlighted.

I won't respond to you anymore, since I can't get the courtesy of a full reading of my response in return.


You right and I apologize for being so curt.

You are also right that we agree about many of things in the middle of your post.

I do still feel that the way you frame things is actually helping the people I feel you are fighting against.

I challenge you to not talk about Republicans or Democrats or MSM. Talk about specifc people and not vauge groups. THat is why i discount the rest of your post.,

In the first couple of sentences you start with the classic "They" issues that dont help solve anything or illuminate anything. It just creates division.

Dont say democrats. Says Nancy Pelosi or which ever specific person you have an issue with.

[onawah]

I think you might both benefit from checking this out, and it might help to resolve your differences in opinion about who is to blame:
http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?109242-Prince-Andrew-to-step-back-from-public-duties-after-car-crash-Epstein-interview&p=1324767&viewfull=1#post1324767


I would say you stopped reading too soon - but whatever.

A party person is the last thing that I am.

It's just the daily media circus daily and for the last 3 years has put the D-side absurdity and MSM collusion in the spotlight.

With Onawah's previous posting of Catlin's response to Barr's 'views' on Epstein's 'suicide', the R-side absurdity and corruption are again now spotlighted.

I won't respond to you anymore, since I can't get the courtesy of a full reading of my response in return.




You right and I apologize for being so curt.

You are also right that we agree about many of things in the middle of your post.

I do still feel that the way you frame things is actually helping the people I feel you are fighting against.

I challenge you to not talk about Republicans or Democrats or MSM. Talk about specifc people and not vauge groups. THat is why i discount the rest of your post.,

In the first couple of sentences you start with the classic "They" issues that dont help solve anything or illuminate anything. It just creates division.

Dont say democrats. Says Nancy Pelosi or which ever specific person you have an issue with.

[onawah]

New OPCW Leak Further Vindicates Skeptics Of Establishment Syria Narrative
11/24/19
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/24/new-opcw-leak-further-vindicates-skeptics-of-establishment-syria-narrative/?subscribe=already#blog_subscription-3
(More live links in the article.)
https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/medium-4.png?resize=1200%2C716&ssl=1

"On the sixth of July last year, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) released its interim report https://www.opcw.org/sites/default/files/documents/S_series/2018/en/s-1645-2018_e_.pdf
on its findings regarding an alleged poison gas attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018. The incident, which resulted in dozens of civilian casualties, was blamed on the Syrian government by the US, UK and France, who launched retaliatory airstrikes on multiple targets in that nation.

The interim report claimed that “various chlorinated organic chemicals were found” in different locations on the scene, but strangely said nothing about the levels at which those chemicals were found. The Moon of Alabama blog https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/syria-opcw-issues-first-report-of-chemical-weapon-attack-in-douma.html
highlighted this suspicious exclusion on the day the report came out, noting that levels are absolutely essential in determining chemical weapons use when you’re talking about compounds which are found virtually everywhere at some level in any industrialized region.

“The preliminary OPCW report says nothing about the concentrations in which these substances were found,” MoA observed. “Without knowing the concentrations, which may be extremely low, one can not come to further conclusion.”

“The ‘various chlorinated organic chemicals’ are unsurprising,” MoA wrote. “Chlorine is widely used for water purification and cleaning and ‘chlorinated organic chemicals’ will be found in any household.”

A new addition
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1198390941314420736
to the body of leaks
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-hugely-important-opcw-scandal-keeps-unfolding-heres-why-no-one-s-talking-about-it-3632903f22a2
which have been hemorrhaging from the OPCW shows that such skepticism was indeed entirely warranted. A leaked email sent shortly before the interim report was published reveals that the chlorinated organic chemicals which OPCW investigators found on the scene were as low as one or two parts-per-billion, meaning, just as Moon of Alabama speculated last year, that they were found at trace quantities you’d expect to find in any industrialized area.

WikiLeaks
✔
@wikileaks
RELEASE: Secret internal e-mail from OPCW whistleblower, a member of the fact-finding mission sent to Douma, Syria, after the alleged chemical attack in April last year, accusing OPCW management of doctoring report on the incident and distorting facts. https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/

3,684
6:00 PM - Nov 23, 2019
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The leaked email, which has been published by WikiLeaks
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/Internal-OPCW-E-Mail/page-2/#pagination
and several other outlets, was sent by an unnamed OPCW investigator to the OPCW’s then-cabinet chief Bob Fairweather, outright accusing OPCW leadership of misleading the public with the information it was omitting from the report it was drafting. Those who’ve been following this scandal closely may remember Fairweather as the man who journalist Jonathan Steele recently reported
https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/15/the-opcw-and-douma-chemical-weapons-watchdog-accused-of-evidence-tampering-by-its-own-inspectors/
was responsible for calling investigators into his office to be intimidated by unknown officials from the United States government.

The email was sent to Fairweather on June 22nd, laden with pointed words and phrases like “misrepresents the facts”, “selectively omitting”, “highly misleading”, “disingenuous”, “inaccurate”, and “a major deviation from the original report.” Less than two weeks later, on July the fourth, the investigators were reportedly called into Fairweather’s office for a disturbing meeting with US officials which deeply rattled them.

“On July 4 there was another intervention,” Steele’s report reads. “Fairweather, the chef de cabinet, invited several members of the drafting team to his office. There they found three US officials who were cursorily introduced without making clear which US agencies they represented. The Americans told them emphatically that the Syrian regime had conducted a gas attack, and that the two cylinders found on the roof and upper floor of the building contained 170 kilograms of chlorine. The inspectors left Fairweather’s office, feeling that the invitation to the Americans to address them was unacceptable pressure and a violation of the OPCW’s declared principles of independence and impartiality.”

It’s worth noting at this time that the US government already has a known and established history of leveraging the ostensibly neutral and international OPCW to conform to its preexisting military agendas.
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-usas-history-of-controlling-the-opcw-to-promote-regime-change-7a965bbe78c6

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1195909008797900800/sw41wxwC?format=jpg&name=600x314

Fairweather’s intimidation ploy appears to have been a response to comments made in the email, and probably other similar internal objections made by other investigators at that time. The email reads as follows (transcript and parenthetical annotations made by Daily Mail)https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7718627/Sexed-dossier-furore-alleged-poison-gas-attack-Assad.html:

Dear Bob,

I wish to express, as a member of the FFM (Fact Finding Mission) team that conducted the investigation into the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April, my gravest concern at the redacted version of the FFM report, which I understand was at the behest of the ODG. (Office of the Director General). After reading this modified report, which incidentally no other team member who deployed into Douma has had the opportunity to do, I was struck by how much it misrepresents the facts. Many of the facts and observations outlined in the full version are inextricably interconnected and, by selectively omitting certain ones, an unintended bias has been introduced into the report, undermining its credibility. In other cases, some crucial facts that have remained in the redacted version have morphed into something quite different to what was initially drafted. If I may, I will outline some specific aspects to the redacted report that are particularly worrisome.

The statement in paragraph 8.3 of the final conclusions ‘The team has sufficient evidence at this time to determine that chlorine, or another reactive chlorine-containing chemical, was likely released from cylinders’, is highly misleading and not supported by the facts. The only evidence available at this moment is that some samples collected at Locations 2 and 4 were in contact with one or more chemicals that contain a reactive chlorine atom. Such chemicals could include molecular chlorine, phosgene, cyanogen chloride, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen chloride or sodium hypochlorite (the major ingredient of household chlorine-based bleach). Purposely singling out chlorine gas as one of the possibilities is disingenuous. It is also worth noting that the term ‘reactive chlorine-containing chemical’ used in the redacted report is, in fact, inaccurate. It actually describes a reactive chemical that contains chlorine which itself (the chlorine) is not necessarily reactive e.g. chlorophenol. The original report uses the more accurate term ‘a chemical containing reactive chlorine’.

The redacted report states that the gas was likely released from the cylinders (in Locations 2 and 4). The original report purposely emphasised the fact that, although the cylinders might have been the source of the suspected chemical release, there was insufficient evidence to affirm this. It is possible the error was simply a typo. This is a major deviation from the original report.

Paragraph 8.2 states that ‘based on the high levels of various chlorinated organic derivatives, […] detected in environmental samples’. Describing the levels as ‘high’ likely overstates the extent of levels of chlorinated organic derivatives detected. They were, in most cases, present only in parts per billion range, as low as 1-2 ppb, which is essentially trace quantities.

The original report discusses in detail the inconsistency between the victims’ symptoms, as reported by witnesses and seen in video recordings. Omitting this section of the report (including the Epidemiology which has been removed in its entirety) has a serious negative impact on the report as this section is inextricably linked to the chemical agent identified. It either supports or detracts from the confidence in the identity of any possible chemical. In this case the confidence in the identity of chlorine or any choking agent is drawn into question precisely because of the inconsistency with the reported and observed symptoms. The inconsistency was not only noted by the FFM team but strongly noted by three toxicologists with expertise in exposure to CW (Chemical Weapons) agents.

The original report has extensive sections regarding the placement of the cylinders at both locations as well as the relative damage caused to the impact points, compared to that caused to the cylinders suspected of being the sources of the toxic chemical. These sections are essentially absent from the redacted report. This information was important in assessing the likelihood of the ‘presence’ of toxic chemicals versus the ‘use’ of toxic chemicals.

A feature of this investigation and report was the robust and extensive scientific basis for sampling plans and analysing the data collected. A comprehensive bibliography of peer-reviewed scientific literature was attached to support and enhance the credibility of the work of the mission. This has unfortunately been omitted from the redacted report.

By singling out chlorine above other equally plausible substances containing reactive chlorine and presenting it as a fact in isolation creates, I believe, a level of partiality that would negatively impact on the perceived credibility of the report, and by extension that of the Organisation. I am requesting that the fact-finding report be released in its entirety as I fear that this redacted version no longer reflects the work of the team. The original report contains facts and observations that are all equally valid. The fact that inconsistencies are highlighted or observations not fully understood does not justify their omission. The inconsistencies and observations are based on the evidence and data collected. Further information in the future may help resolve them but the facts as they stand at present will not alter and need to be reported.

If the redacted version is to be released, I respectfully request to attach my differing observations, in accordance with the spirit of paragraph 62 of part II of the Verification Annex of the CWC.

Yours sincerely,

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1197964742716878848/nPMWpbso?format=jpg&name=600x314

The OPCW’s final report
https://www.opcw.org/media-centre/news/2019/03/opcw-issues-fact-finding-mission-report-chemical-weapons-use-allegation
published March of this year continued the pattern https://twitter.com/UK_OPCW/status/1101561760732057601
of crucial omissions even more egregiously than the interim report.

“Regarding the alleged use of toxic chemicals as a weapon in Douma, the evaluation and analysis of all the above-referenced information gathered by the FFM provide reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon has taken place on 7 April 2018,” the final report claims. “This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine. The toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine.”

Again, the information complained about in the leaked email remained omitted.



Susan Sarandon
✔
@SusanSarandon
This is really important. Why aren’t we talking about it?

"We may have just discovered a major piece of the puzzle explaining how seemingly independent international organizations help deceive us into consenting to wars and regime change interventionism around the world." https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1129194527720263680 …

Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
CONFIRMED: Chemical Weapons Assessment Contradicting Official Syria Narrative Is Authentic

"We now have confirmation that, for whatever the reason may be, this assessment was hidden from the public by the OPCW."#Syria #Douma #OPCWhttps://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/confirmed-chemical-weapons-assessment-contradicting-official-syria-narrative-is-authentic-fbcbf7ef281a …

6,873
10:49 AM - May 17, 2019
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The unfolding scandal about the US and its allies once again deceiving the world about yet another military intervention in yet another Middle Eastern nation is a major story, and hardly anyone’s been on top of it.

Back when I published an article
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7718627/Sexed-dossier-furore-alleged-poison-gas-attack-Assad.html
about the first OPCW whistleblower this past May it was shared by actress Susan Sarandon on Twitter, who captioned it with the question, “This is really important. Why aren’t we talking about it?” Click on the tweet and read through the comments if you want to see the platoon of blue-checkmarked narrative managers who converged on her post telling her I’m a crazed conspiracy theorist who mustn’t be listened to. I got this story right, and everyone who’s been ignoring it or dismissing it has made an ass of themselves.

So congratulations to me. Congratulations to Moon of Alabama for getting this story right from day one. Congratulations to Piers Robinson, Tim Hayward, and the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media who published the first OPCW leak
http://syriapropagandamedia.org/working-papers/assessment-by-the-engineering-sub-team-of-the-opcw-fact-finding-mission-investigating-the-alleged-chemical-attack-in-douma-in-april-2018
back in May of this year in the face of numerous obnoxious smear pieces from the mainstream media. Congratulations to Jimmy Dore, Aaron Maté and the handful of other alternative media figures who’ve been keeping this story alive while all the “reputable” mainstream news outlets tried to let it die.

We were right, they were wrong. Maybe going forward people should listen to us a bit more and listen to them a bit less.

[onawah]

Surprise! MSM Spins OPCW Leak As Russian Disinfo
NOVEMBER 25, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/25/surprise-msm-spins-opcw-leak-as-russian-disinfo/
https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screen-Shot-2019-11-26-at-1.15.12-AM.jpg?resize=1200%2C674&ssl=1

"So, you might want to sit down for this, but believe it or not the mainstream media is behaving in a way that seems somewhat untruthful.

I know! I know. I’m just as astonished as you are.

So you know that Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons scandal we’ve been talking a lot about lately? The one where evidence keeps piling up that the US, UK and France launched airstrikes against the Syrian government last year in retaliation for a poison gas attack which never took place, and then manipulated an ostensibly independent and international chemical weapons watchdog organization into covering it up?

Well, it turns out that bigtime news media outlets haven’t been all that interested for some strange and mysterious reason. But just today they broke the silence with a new report that mentioned the scandal, and they’ve totally spun it in a way that makes the US and its allies look good! Can you believe that?

And you’ll never guess what excuse they’re using to spin it. Never in a million, billion years.

Put a pillow down on the floor, because your jaw’s about to drop like James Le Mesurier: believe it or not, they’re blaming it on Russian disinformation.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKNsOtlUUAI4qhN?format=png&name=small

AFP, which just as an aside is one of only three gigantic news agencies that are responsible for most of the stories you see in the mass media, has put out an article that has been picked up by multiple mainstream media outlets titled “Showdown looms over Syria chemical weapons probe”. The article deliberately frames the issue as one which has been “highlighted” by “Moscow”, and publishes a claim sourced to unnamed western officials that “the Russians and Syrians are trying to muddy the waters”.

“Moscow has consistently raised doubts over chemical attacks in Syria or insisted they were staged, and has recently highlighted a leaked report raising questions about a deadly chlorine attack in the Syrian town of Douma in April 2018,” AFP reports. “Western diplomats however say the Russians and Syrians are trying to muddy the waters about alleged attacks by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces.”

Never mind that the leaks themselves are intrinsically important and completely authentic, regardless of who’s “highlighting” them. Never mind that the leaks have been “highlighted” by many non-Russian outlets, ranging from small alternative platforms like my own here in Melbourne all the way up to as mainstream as the UK’s Daily Mail. All it takes is one Russian to talk about any issue of any kind and it can magically be spun as a talking point of Moscow, no matter how many westerners who have nothing to do with Russia are also talking about it.

The report’s author, Danny Kemp, has been spending time narrative managing about the OPCW scandal on Twitter as well. Kemp argues that WikiLeaks, who published a leaked internal email from the organisation on Sunday which challenges the establishment Douma narrative, doesn’t have trustworthy publications because WikiLeaks is associated with (you guessed it) Russia.



Aaron Maté
✔
@aaronjmate
AFP’s Hague reporter downplays *leaks* from *whistleblowers* that likely clear Syria of a chemical attack & undermine rationale for US-UK-France strikes. Why? Because Russia. This was a goal of Russiagate: to smear any dissent from “Western” party line, & enlist journos to do so: https://twitter.com/dannyctkemp/status/1198633795844485122 …

Danny Kemp
✔
@dannyctkemp

Western source notes Russians are particularly sensitive re Douma because happened close to where their own troops were operating. Also worth noting Mueller highlighted WikiLeaks role in publishing Russian-hacked DNC documents. Plus Russia was accused of hacking OPCW last year https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1198390941314420736 …

“Western source notes Russians are particularly sensitive re Douma because happened close to where their own troops were operating,” Kemp tweeted. “Also worth noting Mueller highlighted WikiLeaks role in publishing Russian-hacked DNC documents. Plus Russia was accused of hacking OPCW last year.”

Kemp’s baseless Russia smear is invalidated by the fact that multiple other outlets have also published the email, including the Daily Mail, and by the fact that Reuters has independently verified the email’s authenticity with a source in the OPCW.

The OPCW’s Director General Fernando Arias said during a convention at The Hague today that he fully supports the conclusions that were published in the OPCW’s final report on the Douma incident this past March, which asserted, contrary to everything the OPCW whistleblowers claim, that there was enough evidence to believe that a chemical weapon was used.

“On the first of March, 2019, the Fact Finding Mission issued its final report on the incident of alleged use of toxic chemical weapons in Douma on the seventh of April, 2018,” Arias said. “The evaluation and analysis of all the information gathered by the Fact Finding Mission provide reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon had taken place.”

“It is in the nature of any thorough inquiry for individuals in a team to express subjective views,” Arias added. “The overall conclusions of the inquiry, however, must be based on the preponderance of objective facts.”

“While some of these diverging views continue to circulate in certain public discussion forums, I would like to reiterate that I stand by the independent, professional conclusions reached by the Fact Finding Mission,” Arias said.

MuU3OfAtnyM

Again, everything Arias said is contradicted by what the whistleblowers from inside the aforementioned Fact Finding Mission have been saying:

The leaked email says chlorinated organic chemicals on the scene were as low as one or two parts per billion, meaning they were trace background levels you’d find in any industrialized area, and that the symptoms of the victims were inconsistent with chlorine gas poisoning.
The leaked Engineering Assessment signed by ballistics expert Ian Henderson states that the alleged chlorine cylinders were much more likely to have been manually placed on the ground than dropped from the air, meaning the incident would have been staged by the Jaysh al-Islam fighters occupying Douma and not the Syrian air force.
The information given to journalist Jonathan Steele by the whistleblower “Alex” lists even more inconsistencies with the OPCW report, claims that dissent from the final drafts of the OPCW’s Douma reports was a majority opinion within the team, and says investigators felt pressured both by OPCW management and an uncomfortable intercession by US government officials to come to a specific conclusion.
Given all this, there is no reason for anyone to feel at all confident that “the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon had taken place” in Douma.

In the hours since Arias finally gave them a denial of the OPCW scandal that they can use in their reporting, the mass media have suddenly broken their deafening silence on this important story. Reports have come out on Arias’ defense of the official Douma reports from Reuters, AP and CBS explaining to readers that the OPCW’s head honcho says all the naughty people sharing unauthorized narratives about Douma are wrong. In a story about Syria and The Hague, the CBS article mentions the words “Russia” or “Russian” no fewer than twelve times, spinning the entire affair as nothing more than a Moscow-orchestrated conspiracy theory.

Here’s an excerpt from the CBS article, just to give you a taste of the conspiratorial-lunatic spin job they’re doing on something that amounts simply to authentic leaked information:

'ussia and Syria have alleged that the incident was staged since soon after it took place. Russia even attempted to bolster its case by bringing individuals who it identified as Syrians seen in “staged” videos after the attack to testify to the OPCW at The Hague.

European OPCW members rejected the Russian-Syrian claims outright, and refused to attend the session at OPCW headquarters.

“This obscene masquerade does not come as a surprise from the Syrian government, which has massacred and gassed its own people for the last seven years,” France’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Philippe Lalliot, said in response.'

Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
New OPCW Leak Further Vindicates Skeptics Of Establishment Syria Narrative

"We were right, they were wrong. Maybe going forward people should listen to us a bit more and listen to them a bit less." #Douma #Syria #OPCWhttps://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/new-opcw-leak-further-vindicates-skeptics-of-establishment-syria-narrative-1cf9d035db8b …

http://https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1198445276513497088/2u5chrDN?format=jpg&name=600x314

I guess it’s nice to have some company on this important story after months and months of near-total silence, but man the spin’s making me dizzy.

Of course it’s not the mass media’s job to objectively report facts, it’s the mass media’s job to manufacture consent for the status quo upon which the media-owning plutocratic class is built. This status quo naturally includes the globe-spanning US-centralized empire and the endless war which glues the whole thing together. The narrative that this oligarchic power alliance has once again deceived the world about yet another military intervention in yet another Middle Eastern nation would do serious damage to people’s trust in the imperial propaganda machine, so the story will be ignored for as long as possible and then attacked with extreme aggression when that fails.

We’re on attacking already. This is good."

[onawah]

Narrative Managers Faceplant In Hilarious OPCW Scandal Spin Job
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
NOVEMBER 27, 2019
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/27/narrative-managers-faceplant-in-hilarious-opcw-scandal-spin-job/

"Imperialist propaganda firm Bellingcat has published a response to the ever-expanding OPCW scandal, and it’s got to be seen to be believed.

Before we begin I should highlight that Bellingcat is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, which according to its own cofounder was set up to do overtly what the CIA had previously been doing covertly, namely orchestrating narrative management geared toward the elimination of governments which refuse to comply with US interests. NED is funded directly by the US government, which means that Bellingcat is funded by the US government via an organization set up to promote imperialist regime change agendas. Bellingcat is also funded by Open Society Foundations, another imperialist narrative management operation.

Syria has been the target of what may be the most sophisticated propaganda campaign in history, and Bellingcat has been consistently rallying behind even the most transparently ridiculous tools of this campaign. This includes the notorious Bana Alabed psyop which at its height saw CNN staging a fake, scripted interview featuring a seven year-old girl assigning blame to Bashar al-Assad for an alleged sarin gas attack in Khan Shaykhun. Bellingcat’s stellar investigative work (which has been praised in fawning puff pieces by mainstream outlets like The Guardian and The New Yorker) concluded that this obvious propaganda construct was in fact nothing other than a little girl and her mother independently composing viral tweets, giving interviews and authoring books about how the Syrian government must be toppled via western interventionism.

R7MRWhZzL5k

Bellingcat’s latest phenomenal report on how you’re supposed to think about important geopolitical disputes, titled “Emails And Reading Comprehension: OPCW Douma Coverage Misses Crucial Facts“, addresses the leaked OPCW email which was recently published by WikiLeaks and various other outlets revealing that the OPCW omitted crucial information from its Douma report which indicated that a chemical weapons attack was unlikely to have occurred. I encourage you to go and check out Bellincat’s new masterpiece for yourself; don’t worry about giving them clicks, that’s not where they get their money.

The first thing you’ll notice about Bellingcat’s article is that at no point does it even attempt to address the actual inflammatory comments within it, such as the OPCW whistleblower’s assertion that the samples tested where a chlorine gas attack is alleged to have occurred in April 2018 contained levels of chlorinated organic compounds which were so low that it would be unreasonable to claim with any confidence that a chlorine gas attack had occurred at all. The whistleblower writes in the leaked email to the OPCW cabinet chief that the levels “were, in most cases, present only in parts per billion range, as low as 1-2 ppb, which is essentially trace quantities.”

As we discussed previously, early skeptics of the establishment Douma narrative highlighted the bizarre fact that when the OPCW published its Interim Report in July of last year its report contained no information about the levels at which the chlorinated organic chemicals occurred. Chlorinated organic chemicals occur at trace levels in any industrialized area, so they are only indicative of a chlorine gas attack when samples test at high levels. The email said they didn’t. The OPCW omitted this in both its Interim and Final Reports.

The whistleblower told journalist Jonathan Steele that the levels found “were comparable to and even lower than those given in the World Health Organisation’s guidelines on recommended permitted levels of trichlorophenol and other COCs in drinking water.”

“Had they been included, the public would have seen that the levels of COCs found were no higher than you would expect in any household environment”, the whistleblower said.

ojItF6MGL-0

In a new Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson, Steele explained the significance of this revelation.

“The main point is that Chlorine gas degrades rapidly in the air,” Steele said. “So coming in two weeks later, you wouldn’t find anything. What you would find is that the gas contaminates or affects other chemicals in the natural environment. So-called ‘chlorinated organic chemicals.’ The difficulty is they exist anyway in the natural environment and water. So the crucial thing is the levels, were there higher levels of chlorinated organic chemicals found after the alleged gas attack than there would have been in the normal environment?”

“When they got back to the Netherlands, to The Hague where the OPCW has its headquarters, samples were sent off to designated laboratories, then there was a weird silence developed,” Steele continued. “Nobody told the inspectors what the results of the analysis was. It was only by chance that the inspector found out through accident earlier the results would come in and there were no differences at all. There were no higher levels of Chlorinated organic chemicals in the areas where the alleged attack had happened where there is some suspicious cylinders had been found by opposition activists. So it didn’t seem possible that there could have been a gas attack because the levels were just the same as in the natural environment.”

Bellingcat simply ignores this absolutely central aspect of the email, as well as the whistleblower’s point about the symptoms of victims not matching chlorine gas poisoning.

“In this case the confidence in the identity of chlorine or any choking agent is drawn into question precisely because of the inconsistency with the reported and observed symptoms,” the whistleblower writes in the email. “The inconsistency was not only noted by the FFM team but strongly noted by three toxicologists with expertise in exposure to CW [Chemical Weapons] agents.”

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/11/25/emails-and-reading-comprehension-opcw-douma-coverage-misses-crucial-facts/

Bellingcat says nothing about these revelations in the email, and says nothing about the fact that the OPCW excluded them from both its Interim Report in July 2018 and its Final Report in March 2019, the latter of which actually asserted the exact opposite saying there was “reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place. This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine. The toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine.”

Bellingcat completely ignores all of these points, which are literally the only reason any of this is in the news at all, instead opting to make silly, pedantic arguments that the text of the email and the Interim and Final Reports indicate that some of the whistleblower’s concerns appear to have been partially addressed by OPCW leadership in its publications. To make this argument, Bellingcat highlights how some of the wording in the reports was changed to appear a bit less conclusive, such as changing “likely” to “possible” and changing “reactive chlorine containing chemical” to “chemical containing reactive chlorine”.

By highlighting these barely-significant changes Bellingcat attempts to spin the narrative that there was no internal OPCW coverup of its investigators’ findings at all, which is of course invalidated by the fact that its Final Report concluded that a chlorine gas attack had taken place despite the whistleblower clearly stating that there is no basis upon which to conclude this. It’s also obviously invalidated by the fact that not one but two whistleblowers have come forward, meaning they plainly do not feel as though their concerns were met.

“Ian and I wanted to have this issue investigated and hopefully resolved internally, rather than exposing the failings of the Organisation in public, so we exhausted every internal avenue possible including submission of all the evidence of irregular behaviour to the Office of Internal Oversight,” the whistleblower told Steele. “The request for an internal investigation was refused and every other attempt to raise our concerns was stone walled. Our failed efforts to get management to listen went on over a period of nearly nine months. It was only after we realised the internal route was impossible that we decided to go public”.

“Ian” is Ian Henderson, the OPCW ballistics expert whose Engineering Assessment which was leaked this past May. Henderson concluded that, contrary to what the OPCW’s Final Report strongly implies, the cylinders found at the scene in Douma were more likely to have been manually placed there, i.e. staged. The anonymous whistleblower informed Steele that all but one of the OPCW’s investigative team agreed with Henderson’s assessment. This too was left out of all OPCW reports, and Bellingcat’s piece completely ignores it, instead writing only that “Three independent analyses by experts in three different countries were carried out, and all reached complimentary conclusions: the damage at the impact sites is consistent with the cylinders having fallen from height.”



Danny Gold
✔
@DGisSERIOUS
Just so all my followers are clear, Tucker Carlson and the merry band of alt left grifter idiots trying to convince you that 1 of the 257 chemical attacks in Syria was a false flag are wrong, again, and never even bothered to read the report they say is wrong https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1198996383656763392 …

Bellingcat
✔
@bellingcat
Over the weekend, Wikileaks published an email from an OPCW employee, claiming that an OPCW report “misrepresents the facts he and his colleagues discovered on the ground”.

We've written about this email here. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/11/25/emails-and-reading-comprehension-opcw-douma-coverage-misses-crucial-facts/ …

600
8:59 PM - Nov 25, 2019
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With the temerity only an NED paycheck can get you, Bellingcat argues that this vapid pedantry which has no bearing on the actual story whatsoever completely invalidates all reporting on the OPCW scandal.

“Although this letter appears to be at least superficially damaging to the OPCW, after reading the actual reports published by the OPCW it is clear that this letter is outdated and inapplicable to the final Douma report,” Bellingcat concludes. “If the people covering this story had actually taken the time to read the letter and the FFM reports, they may well have chosen to publicize it in a very different manner.”

Empire apologists have taken this ridiculous, nonsensical line of argumentation as gospel and run with it on social media, sharing Bellingcat’s embarrassing faceplant with triumphant, chest-thumping captions.

“Just so all my followers are clear, Tucker Carlson and the merry band of alt left grifter idiots trying to convince you that 1 of the 257 chemical attacks in Syria was a false flag are wrong, again, and never even bothered to read the report they say is wrong,” tweeted Newshour‘s Danny Gold.

“So the letter written by the dissenting OPCW employee on Douma investigation was sent two weeks before the interim report was released and nine months before the final one. In the final one, the employee’s concerns were addressed. Where’s the cover up?” tweeted Telegraph‘s Josie Ensor.

“WikiLeaks et al are lying to you in defence of the Assad regime,” tweeted odious Syria narrative manager Oz Katerji.

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1199430106659377154/a8tBDRMK?format=png&name=600x314

Media Matters For America, another narrative management firm founded by troll army commander David Brock, has also picked up Bellingcat’s ridiculous arguments and run with them in an even dumber article titled “Tucker Carlson spreads disinformation about a deadly chemical attack in Syria“.

“Despite the seemingly scandalous accusation in the leak, Carlson is misrepresenting the nature of the WikiLeaks documents and their significance,” MMFA claims. “Investigative journalists at Bellingcat found that the leaked letter was in fact referring to an ‘interim report’ issued in July of 2018, before the OPCW released its final conclusions. A side-by-side comparison shows that the concerns addressed in the letter ‘are present, or else are in modified form, in the final report.’”

Which is of course false, as explained above.

MMFA’s other claims are nothing other than simple regurgitation of the very reports that are now being invalidated by the leaks that Tucker Carlson highlighted on his show. Their entire argument boils down to “This old information is in contradiction to that new information,” which is of course the entire bloody point.

“These claims contradict and misrepresent the available evidence regarding the attack, the conclusions of multiple governments, and they are based on a Syrian and Russian misinformation campaign seeking to discredit investigators and absolve Assad of responsibility for the atrocity,” MMFA argues, linking to a 2018 BBC article saying Assad was responsible for the Douma incident, a 2018 Guardian article about the US government’s unsubstantiated claim to have secret proof of Assad’s guilt, and a 2018 Guardian article claiming that Russia is wrong about its skepticism of the western Douma narrative, respectfully.

Which is the same as saying “You’re wrong because we disagree with you. Here is evidence of our disagreeing with you last year.”

This is the best the spin masters can do, and the OPCW scandal is only going to unfold more. Should be fun."

_________________________________

[onawah]

Attacking The Source: The Establishment Loyalist’s Favorite Online Tactic
NOVEMBER 28, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/28/attacking-the-source-the-establishment-loyalists-favorite-online-tactic/
https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/medium-8.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1

"If you’re skeptical of western power structures and you’ve ever engaged in online political debate for any length of time, the following has definitely happened to you.

You find yourself going back and forth with one of those high-confidence, low-information establishment types who’s promulgating a dubious mainstream narrative, whether that be about politics, war, Julian Assange, or whatever. At some point they make an assertion which you know to be false–publicly available information invalidates the claim they’re making.

“I’ve got them now!” you think to yourself, if you’re new to this sort of thing. Then you share a link to an article or video which makes a well-sourced, independently verifiable case for the point you are trying to make.

Then, the inevitable happens.

“LMAO! That outlet!” they scoff in response. “That outlet is propaganda/fake news/conspiracy theory trash!”

Or something to that effect. You’ll encounter this tactic over and over and over again if you continually engage in online political discourse with people who don’t agree with you. It doesn’t matter if you’re literally just linking to an interview featuring some public figure saying a thing you’d claimed they said. It doesn’t matter if you’re linking to a WikiLeaks publication of a verified authentic document. Unless you’re linking to CNN/Fox News (whichever fits the preferred ideology of the establishment loyalist you’re debating), they’ll bleat “fake news!” or “propaganda!” or “Russia!” as though that in and of itself magically invalidates the point you’re trying to make.

And of course it doesn’t. What they are doing is called attacking the source, also known as an ad hominem, and it’s a very basic logical fallacy.

Most people are familiar with the term “ad hominem”, but they usually think about it in terms of merely hurling verbal insults at people. What it actually means is attacking the source of the argument rather than attacking the argument itself in a way that avoids dealing with the question of whether or not the argument itself is true. It’s a logical fallacy because it’s used to deliberately obfuscate the goal of a logical conclusion to the debate.

“An ad hominem is more than just an insult,” explains David Ferrer for The Quad. “It’s an insult used as if it were an argument or evidence in support of a conclusion. Verbally attacking people proves nothing about the truth or falsity of their claims.”

This can take the form of saying “Claim X is false because the person making it is an idiot.” But it can also take the form of “Claim X is false because the person making it is a propagandist,” or “Claim X is false because the person making it is a conspiracy theorist.”



Sharmine Narwani
✔
@snarwani
I don't think @bellingcat knows what's about to hit them now that @caitoz is on their case. Settle in for a few fun months as their entire bull**** narrative on #Syria chemical weapons comes tumbling down. Here's her opening jab: https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/narrative-managers-faceplant-in-hilarious-opcw-scandal-spin-job-6710730cda01 …


Narrative Managers Faceplant In Hilarious OPCW Scandal Spin Job
Imperialist propaganda firm Bellingcat has published a response to the ever-expanding OPCW scandal, and it’s got to be seen to be believed.

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Someone being an idiot, a propagandist or a conspiracy theorist is irrelevant to the question of whether or not what they’re saying is true. In my last article debunking a spin job on the OPCW scandal by the narrative management firm Bellingcat, I pointed out that Bellingcat is funded by imperialist regime change operations like the National Endowment for Democracy, which was worth highlighting because it shows the readers where that organization is coming from. But if I’d left my argument there it would still be an ad hominem attack, because it wouldn’t address whether or not what Bellingcat wrote about the OPCW scandal is true. It would be a logical fallacy; proving that they are propagandists doesn’t prove that what they are saying in this particular instance is false.

What I had to do in order to actually refute Bellingcat’s spin job was show that they were making a bad argument using bad logic, which I did by highlighting the way they used pedantic wordplay to make it seem as though the explosive leaks which have been emerging from the OPCW’s investigation of an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria were insignificant. I had to show how Bellingcat actually never came anywhere close to addressing the actual concerns about a leaked internal OPCW email, such as extremely low chlorinated organic chemical levels on the scene and patients’ symptoms not matching up with chlorine gas poisoning, as well as the fact that the OPCW investigators plainly don’t feel as though their concerns were met since they’re blowing the whistle on the organisation now.

And, for the record, Bellingcat’s lead trainer/researcher guy responded to my arguments by saying I’m a conspiracy theorist. I personally count that as a win.

The correct response to someone who attacks the outlet or individual you’re citing instead of attacking the actual argument being made is, “You’re attacking the source instead of the argument. That’s a logical fallacy, and it’s only ever employed by people who can’t attack the argument.”

The demand that you only ever use mainstream establishment media when arguing against establishment narratives is itself an inherently contradictory position, because establishment media by their very nature do not report facts against the establishment. It’s saying “You’re only allowed to criticise establishment power using outlets which never criticize establishment power.”



Oliver Stone
✔
@TheOliverStone
2/2 No principle is worth nuclear war. This honest reporter, @caitoz, beholden to no ideology or special interest, calls it as it is, not as the #MSM wants to see -- https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/19/25-times-trump-has-been-dangerously-hawkish-on-russia/ …


25 Times Trump Has Been Dangerously Hawkish On Russia
Caitlin Johnstone discredits a CNN listicle on Trump's "softness" towards Moscow. In fact, she writes, the U.S. president has actually been consistently reckless towards Moscow, with zero resistance...

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Good luck finding a compilation of Trump’s dangerous escalations against Moscow like the one I wrote the other day anywhere in the mainstream media, for example. https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/19/25-times-trump-has-been-dangerously-hawkish-on-russia/ Neither mainstream liberals nor mainstream conservatives are interested in promoting that narrative, so it simply doesn’t exist in the mainstream information bubble. Every item I listed in that article is independently verifiable and sourced from separate mainstream media reports, yet if you share that article in a debate with an establishment loyalist and they know who I am, nine times out of ten they’ll say something like “LOL Caitlin Johnstone?? She’s nuts!” With “nuts” of course meaning “Says things my TV doesn’t say”.

It’s possible to just click on all the hyperlinks in my article and share them separately to make your point, but you can also simply point out that they are committing a logical fallacy, and that they are doing so because they can’t actually attack the argument.

This will make them very upset, because for the last few years establishment loyalists have been told that it is perfectly normal and acceptable to attack the source instead of the argument. The mass hysteria about “fake news” and “Russian propaganda” has left consumers of mainstream media with the unquestioned assumption that if they ever so much as glance at an RT article their faces will begin to melt like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. They’ve been trained to believe that it’s perfectly logical and acceptable to simply shriek “propaganda!” at a rational argument or well-sourced article which invalidates their position, or even to proactively go around calling people Russian agents who dissent from mainstream western power-serving narratives.

But it isn’t logical, and it isn’t acceptable. The best way to oppose their favorite logically fallacious tactic is to call it like it is, and let them deal with the cognitive dissonance that that brings up for them.
Of course some nuance is needed here. Remember that alternative media is just like anything else: there’s good and bad, even within the same outlet, so make sure what you’re sharing is solid and not just some schmuck making a baseless claim. You can’t just post a link to some Youtuber making an unsubstantiated assertion and then accuse the person you’re debating of attacking the source when they dismiss it. That which has been presented without evidence may be dismissed without evidence, and if the link you’re citing consists of nothing other than unproven assertions by someone they’ve got no reason to take at their word, they can rightly dismiss it.

If however the claims in the link you’re citing are logically coherent arguments or well-documented facts presented in a way that people can independently fact-check, it doesn’t matter if you’re citing CNN or Sputnik. The only advantage to using CNN when possible would be that it allows you to skip the part where they perform the online equivalent of putting their fingers in their ears and humming.

Don’t allow those who are still sleeping bully those who are not into silence. Insist on facts, evidence, and intellectually honest arguments, and if they refuse to provide them call it what it is: an admission that they have lost the debate."

[onawah]

MUST SEE! 25 Times Trump Has Been Dangerously Hawkish On Russia
November 19, 2019
By Caitlin Johnstone
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/19/25-times-trump-has-been-dangerously-hawkish-on-russia/

"CNN has published a fascinatingly manipulative and falsehood-laden article titled “25 times Trump was soft on Russia,” in which a lot of strained effort is poured into building the case that the U.S. president is suspiciously loyal to the nation against which he has spent his administration escalating dangerous new cold war aggressions.

The items within the CNN article consist mostly of times in which Trump said some words or failed to say other words; “Trump has repeatedly praised Putin,” “Trump refused to say Putin is a killer,” “Trump denied that Russia interfered in 2016,” “Trump made light of Russian hacking,” etc. It also includes the completely false but oft-repeated narrative that “Trump’s team softened the GOP platform on Ukraine”, as well as the utterly ridiculous and thoroughly invalidated claim that “Since intervening in Syria in 2015, the Russian military has focused its airstrikes on anti-government rebels, not ISIS.”


Marshall Cohen
✔
@MarshallCohen
NEW ANALYSIS: We tallied 25 times Trump was SOFT ON RUSSIA. Examples: He praised Putin. Denied Russian meddling. Said Russia can keep Crimea. Reluctant to impose new sanctions. Attacked NATO. Congratulated Putin's election. Withdrew from Syria. (1/4) https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/17/politics/trump-soft-on-russia/index.html …

25 times Trump was soft on Russia
President Donald Trump has an Achilles' heel when it comes to Russia.

cnn.com
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CNN’s 25 items are made up almost entirely of narrative and words; Trump said a nice thing about Putin, Trump said offending things to NATO allies, Trump thought about visiting Putin in Russia, etc. In contrast, the 25 items which I am about to list do not consist of narrative at all, but rather the actual movement of actual concrete objects which can easily lead to an altercation from which there may be no re-emerging. These items show that when you ignore the words and narrative spin and look at what this administration has actually been doing, it’s clear to anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty that, far from being “soft” on Russia, Trump has actually been consistently reckless in the one area where a US president must absolutely always maintain a steady hand. And he’s been doing so with zero resistance from either party.

It would be understandable if you were unaware that Trump has been escalating tensions with Moscow more than any other president since the fall of the Berlin Wall; it’s a fact that neither of America’s two mainstream political factions care about, so it tends to get lost in the shuffle. Trump’s opposition is interested in painting him as a sycophantic Kremlin crony, and his supporters are interested in painting him as an antiwar hero of the people, but he is neither. Observe:

1. Implementing a Nuclear Posture Review with a more aggressive stance toward Russia


Defense News
✔
@defense_news
Nuclear Posture Review puts Russia firmly in crosshairs https://trib.al/TyikpZj
https://twitter.com/i/status/1164450550764724224
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Last year Trump’s Department of Defense rolled out a Nuclear Posture Review which CNN itself called “its toughest line yet against Russia’s resurgent nuclear forces.”

“In its newly released Nuclear Posture Review, the Defense Department has focused much of its multibillion nuclear effort on an updated nuclear deterrence focused on Russia,” CNN reported last year.

This revision of nuclear policy includes the new implementation of “low-yield” nuclear weapons, which, because they are designed to be more “usable” than conventional nuclear ordinances, have been called “the most dangerous weapon ever” by critics of this insane policy. These weapons, which can remove some of the inhibitions that mutually assured destruction would normally give military commanders, have already been rolled off the assembly line.

2. Arming Ukraine


Max Blumenthal
✔
@MaxBlumenthal
For years, neocons and arms industry darlings like @RepAdamSchiff have sought to re-arm Ukraine and escalate the conflict in Donbas. By stirring up Russiagate, they finally got their deadly deal. My latest: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/russiagate-helped-secure-dangerous-arms-deal/ …
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1198907650148306944/JgEUjGtH?format=jpg&name=600x314
How 'Russiagate' Helped Secure a Dangerous Arms Deal
Dec. 18 was a day like any other in the Donbas region, the flashpoint of a grinding civil war between the Ukrainian military and pro-Russian separatists. T
truthdig.com
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Lost in the gibberish about Trump temporarily withholding military aide to supposedly pressure a Ukrainian government who was never even aware of being pressured is the fact that arming Ukraine against Russia is an entirely new policy that was introduced by the Trump administration in the first place. Even the Obama administration, which was plenty hawkish toward Russia in its own right, refused to implement this extremely provocative escalation against Moscow. It was not until Obama was replaced with the worst Putin puppet of all time that this policy was put in place.

3. Bombing Syria
Another escalation Trump took against Russia which Obama wasn’t hawkish enough to also do was bombing the Syrian government, a longtime ally of Moscow. These airstrikes in April 2017 and April 2018 were perpetrated in retaliation for chemical weapons use allegations that there is no legitimate reason to trust at this point.

4. Staging coup attempts in Venezuela



The New York Times
✔
@nytimes
Russia accused the United States of promoting regime change in Venezuela, warning of the "catastrophic" consequences of destabilizing one of the Kremlin's key South American allies https://nyti.ms/2DwUGiI
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, center, makes clear the armed forces’ “support of the constitutional president,” Nicolás Maduro, on Thursday.
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1197753738007465986/Dl-aAlbx?format=jpg&name=600x314Russia Warns U.S. Not to Intervene in Venezuela as Military Backs Maduro
The declaration of loyalty to President Nicolás Maduro was a setback for the Venezuelan opposition leader, who has been backed by several countries, including the United States.
nytimes.com

Venezuela, another Russian ally, has been the subject of relentless coup attempts from the Trump administration which persist unsuccessfully to this very day. Trump’s attempts to topple the Venezuelan government have been so violent and aggressive that the starvation sanctions which he has implemented are believed to have killed tens of thousands of Venezuelan civilians.

Trump has reportedly spoken frequently of a U.S. military invasion to oust Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, provoking a forceful rebuke from Moscow.

“Signals coming from certain capitals indicating the possibility of external military interference look particularly disquieting,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “We warn against such reckless actions, which threaten catastrophic consequences.”

5. Withdrawing from the INF treaty



Sky News
✔
@SkyNews
Russia's Vladimir Putin has said America's latest missile test has raised new threats and will warrant a response from Moscow.

The missile test on Sunday would have been banned under a now-defunct arms treaty.

Read more: http://po.st/4J94hg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECj1VqgWkAEJaBj?format=jpg&name=small


1164450550764724224


2:13 AM - Aug 22, 2019
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For a president who’s “soft” on Russia, Trump has sure been eager to keep postures between the two nations extremely aggressive in nature. This administration has withdrawn from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, prompting UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to declare that “the world lost an invaluable brake on nuclear war.” It appears entirely possible that Trump will continue to adhere to the John Bolton school of nuclear weapons treaties until they all lie in tatters, with the administration strongly criticizing the crucial New START Treaty which expires in early 2021.

Some particularly demented Russiagaters try to argue that Trump withdrawing from these treaties benefits Russia in some way. These people either (A) believe that treaties only go one way, (B) believe that a nation with an economy the size of South Korea can compete with the U.S. in an arms race, (C) believe that Russians are immune to nuclear radiation, or (D) all of the above. Withdrawing from these treaties benefits no one but the military-industrial complex.

6. Ending the Open Skies Treaty
“The Trump administration has taken steps toward leaving a nearly three-decade-old agreement designed to reduce the risk of war between Russia and the West by allowing both sides to conduct reconnaissance flights over one another’s territories,” The Wall Street Journal reported last month, adding that the administration has alleged that “Russia has interfered with American monitoring flights while using its missions to gather intelligence in the US.”

Again, if you subscribe to the bizarre belief that withdrawing from this treaty benefits Russia, please think harder. Or ask the Russians themselves how they feel about it:

“US plans to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons and multiply the risks for the whole world, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said,” Sputnik reports.

“All this negatively affects the predictability of the military-strategic situation and lowers the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which drastically increases the risks for the whole humanity,” Patrushev said.

“In general, it is becoming apparent that Washington intends to use its technological leadership in order to maintain strategic dominance in the information space by actually pursuing a policy of imposing its conditions on states that are lagging behind in digital development,” he added.

7. Selling Patriot missiles to Poland



Reuters
✔
@Reuters
Poland signs $4.75 billion deal for U.S. Patriot missile system facing Russia https://reut.rs/2pM5j9Y
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“Poland signed the largest arms procurement deal in its history on Wednesday, agreeing with the United States to buy Raytheon Co’s Patriot missile defense system for $4.75 billion in a major step to modernize its forces against a bolder Russia,” Reuters reported last year.

8. Occupying Syrian oil fields
The Trump administration has been open about the fact that it is not only maintaining a military presence in Syria to control the nation’s oil, but that it is doing so in order to deprive the nation’s government of that financial resource. Syria’s ally Russia strongly opposes this, accusing the Trump administration of nothing short of “international state banditry”.

“In a statement, Russia’s defense ministry said Washington had no mandate under international or US law to increase its military presence in Syria and said its plan was not motivated by genuine security concerns in the region,” Reuters reported last month.

“Therefore Washington’s current actions – capturing and maintaining military control over oil fields in eastern Syria – is, simply put, international state banditry,” Russia’s defense ministry said.

9. Killing Russians in Syria
Reports have placed Russian casualties anywhere between a handful and hundreds, but whatever the exact number the U.S. military is known to have killed Russian citizens as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing Syria occupation in an altercation last year.

10. Tanks in Estonia


Ron Paul News
@RonPaulNews
US Tanks, Troops Arrive In Estonia As Part Of NATO Anti-Russia Build Up http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2017/february/07/us-tanks-troops-arrive-in-estonia-as-part-of-nato-anti-russia-build-up/ … #tlot #ronpaul
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Within weeks of taking office, Trump was already sending Abrams battle tanks, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and other military hardware right up to Russia’s border as part of a NATO operation.

“Atlantic Resolve is a demonstration of continued US commitment to collective security through a series of actions designed to reassure NATO allies and partners of America’s dedication to enduring peace and stability in the region in light of the Russian intervention in Ukraine,” the Defense Department said in a statement.

11. War ships in the Black Sea


CNN
✔
@CNN
The US Navy is ramping up its presence in the Black Sea as part of a bid to counter Russia's increased presence there, a US military official tells CNN http://cnn.it/2GrOQ0G
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12. Sanctions
Trump approved new sanctions against Russia on August 2017. CNN reports the following:

“US President Donald Trump approved fresh sanctions on Russia Wednesday after Congress showed overwhelming bipartisan support for the new measures,” CNN reported at the time. “Congress passed the bill last week in response to Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election, as well as its human rights violations, annexation of Crimea and military operations in eastern Ukraine. The bill’s passage drew ire from Moscow — which responded by stripping 755 staff members and two properties from US missions in the country — all but crushing any hope for the reset in US-Russian relations that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin had called for.”

“A full-fledged trade war has been declared on Russia,” said Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in response.

13. More sanctions
“The United States imposed sanctions on five Russian individuals on Wednesday, including the leader of the Republic of Chechnya, for alleged human rights abuses and involvement in criminal conspiracies, a sign that the Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on Russia,” The New York Times reported in December 2017.

14. Still more sanctions



...By The Way ☕☕
@_MrDavidJones
Trump just hit Russian oligarchs with the most aggressive sanctions yet http://dlvr.it/QNfTz8 via @vicenews
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“Trump just hit Russian oligarchs with the most aggressive sanctions yet,” reads aVice headline from April of last year.

“The sanctions target seven oligarchs and 12 companies under their ownership or control, 17 senior Russian government officials, and a state-owned Russian weapons trading company and its subsidiary, a Russian bank,” Vice reports. “While the move is aimed, in part, at Russia’s role in the U.S. 2016 election, senior U.S. government officials also stressed that the new measures seek to penalize Russia’s recent bout of international troublemaking more broadly, including its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad and military activity in eastern Ukraine.”

15. Even more sanctions
The Trump administration hit Russia with more sanctions for the alleged Skripal poisoning in August of last year, then hit them with another round of sanctions for the same reason again in August of this year.

16. Guess what? MORE sanctions


Aaron Maté
✔
@aaronjmate
Each new round of sanctions on Russia is an opportunity to remind ourselves that serious pundits & cable news hosts have openly posited -- like, not just pondered in their in minds or anonymous chat rooms -- that Trump is a Kremlin operative and/or subjected to Kremlin blackmail: https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1060611181549965312 …

The Hill
✔
@thehill
Trump admin imposes new sanctions on Russia over annexation of Crimea http://hill.cm/g7KJvix
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“The Trump administration on Thursday imposed new sanctions on a dozen individuals and entities in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea,” The Hill reported in November of last year. “The group includes a company linked to Bank Rossiya and Russian businessman Yuri Kovalchuk and others accused of operating in Crimea, which the U.S. says Russia seized illegally in 2014.”

17. Oh hey, more sanctions
“Today, the United States continues to take action in response to Russian attempts to influence US democratic processes by imposing sanctions on four entities and seven individuals associated with the Internet Research Agency and its financier, Yevgeniy Prigozhin. This action increases pressure on Prigozhin by targeting his luxury assets, including three aircraft and a vessel,” reads a statement by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo from September of this year.

18. Secondary sanctions
Secondary sanctions are economic sanctions in which a third party is punished for breaching the primary sanctions of the sanctioning body. The U.S. has leveled sanctions against both China and Turkey for purchasing Russian S-400 air defense missiles, and it is threatening to do so to India as well.

19. Forcing Russian media to register as foreign agents
Both RT and Sputnik have been forced to register as “foreign agents” by the Trump administration. This classification forced the outlets to post a disclaimer on content, to report their activities and funding sources to the Department of Justice twice a year, and could arguably place an unrealistic burden on all their social media activities as it submits to DOJ micromanagement.

20. Throwing out Russian diplomats



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
Worst. Putin Puppet. Ever.

"Isn't it weird how when you ignore the narratives being promoted by both sides and just look at the raw behavior, being a 'Putin puppet' looks exactly the same as being a dangerously aggressive Russia hawk?"#Russia #diplomatshttps://steemit.com/russia/@caitlinjohnstone/worst-putin-puppet-ever …

Worst. Putin Puppet. Ever. — Steemit
In what the BBC is unironically referring to as "a remarkable show of solidarity," the US and more than 20 other… by caitlinjohnstone
https://steemit.com/russia/@caitlinjohnstone/worst-putin-puppet-ever
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The Trump administration joined some 20 other nations in casting out scores of Russian diplomats as an immediate response to the Skripal poisoning incident in the U.K. "
Continued

[onawah]

Continued from http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?106650-The-thread-of-Caitlin-Johnstone-s-words&p=1325572&viewfull=1#post1325572

" 21. Training Polish and Latvian fighters “to resist Russian aggression”
“US Army Special Forces soldiers completed the first irregular and unconventional warfare training iteration for members of the Polish Territorial Defense Forces and Latvian Zemmessardze as a part of the Ridge Runner program in West Virginia, according to service officials,” Army Times reported this past July.

“U.S. special operations forces have been training more with allies from the Baltic states and other Eastern European nations in the wake of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014,” Army Times writes. “A low-level conflict continues to simmer in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region between Russian-backed separatists and government forces to this day. The conflict spurred the Baltics into action, as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia embraced the concepts of total defense and unconventional warfare, combining active-duty, national guard and reserve-styled forces to each take on different missions to resist Russian aggression and even occupation.”

22. Refusal to recognize Crimea as part of the Russian Federation
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0bb_t8XcAAYkZ2?format=jpg&name=small

…even while acknowledging Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights as perfectly legal and legitimate.

23. Sending 1,000 troops to Poland
From the September article “1000 US Troops Are Headed to Poland” by National Interest:

Key point: Trump agreed to send more forces to Poland to defend it against Russia.

What Happened: U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to deploy approximately 1,000 additional U.S. troops to Poland during a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, Reuters reported Sept. 23.

Why It Matters: The deal, which formalizes the United States’ commitment to protecting Poland from Russia, provides a diplomatic victory to Duda and his governing Law and Justice ahead of November elections. The additional U.S. troops will likely prompt a reactive military buildup from Moscow in places like neighboring Kaliningrad and, potentially, Belarus.

24. Withdrawing from the Iran deal
Russia has been consistently opposed to Trump’s destruction of the JCPOA. In a statement after Trump killed the deal, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it was “deeply disappointed by the decision of US President Donald Trump to unilaterally refuse to carry out commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”, adding that this administration’s actions were “trampling on the norms of international law”.

25. Attacking Russian gas interests


Stuart Wallace
✔
@StuartLWallace
Trump threatened sanctions over Merkel’s continued support for a gas pipeline from Russia https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-12/trump-says-he-s-considering-sanctions-to-stop-nord-stream-2 … via @josh_wingrove
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Trump has been threatening Germany with sanctions and troop withdrawal if it continues to support a gas pipeline from Russia called Nord Stream 2.

“Echoing previous threats about German support for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Trump said he’s looking at sanctions to block the project he’s warned would leave Berlin ‘captive’ to Moscow,” Bloomberg reports. “The US also hopes to export its own liquefied natural gas to Germany.”

“We’re protecting Germany from Russia, and Russia is getting billions and billions of dollars in money from Germany” for its gas, Trump told the press.

I could have kept going, but that’s my 25. The only reason anyone still believes Trump is anything other than insanely hawkish toward Russia is because it doesn’t benefit anyone’s partisanship or profit margins to call it like it really is. The facts are right here as plain as can be, but there’s a difference between facts and narrative. If they wanted to, the political/media class could very easily use the facts I just laid out to weave the narrative that this president is imperiling us all with dangerous new cold war provocations, but that’s how different narrative is from fact; there’s almost no connection. Instead they use a light sprinkling of fact to weave a narrative that has very little to do with reality. And meanwhile the insane escalations continue.

In a cold war, it only takes one miscommunication or one defective piece of equipment to set off a chain of events that can obliterate all life on earth. The more things escalate, the greater the probability of that happening. We’re rolling the dice on Armageddon every single day, and with every escalation the number we need to beat gets a bit harder.

We should not be rolling the dice on this. This is very, very wrong, and the U.S. and Russia should stop and establish detente immediately. The fact that outlets like CNN would rather diddle made-up Russiagate narratives than point to this obvious fact with truthful reporting is in and of itself sufficient to discredit them all forever."

(This all makes sense especially if you think that EVERYTHING in US politics is being orchestrated from behind the scenes, and that ALL of the MSM is designed to distract us from that, including FOX, which likes to portray itself these days as being in a separate category. )

[onawah]

Understand The OPCW Scandal In Seven Minutes
NOVEMBER 29, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/29/understand-the-opcw-scandal-in-seven-minutes/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screen-Shot-2019-11-29-at-10.04.20-PM.jpg?resize=1200%2C750&ssl=1

"One of the annoying things about continuing to write about the OPCW/Douma scandal in the near-total absence of mainstream media coverage is the fact that it’s difficult for a new reader to just jump in on this developing story without having followed it from the beginning. There are a lot of details to go over to introduce someone to the story, and if I repeat them every time I write an article on the subject I’m twelve paragraphs in before I get to the new developments, and by that time I’ve bored all the readers who didn’t need the introduction. I’m sure other alternative media figures commenting on this story have encountered the same problem.

Fortunately for us, In The Now and journalist Dan Cohen have stepped up to the plate and put together a concise, easy-to-follow video on both Twitter and Facebook explaining the OPCW scandal in a way that enables anyone to familiarize themselves with the story in seven minutes. This article exists solely to draw attention to this excellent resource.


Dan Cohen
✔
@dancohen3000
A leaked email accuses the OPCW of doctoring a report to suit the US government’s justification for its illegal bombing of Syria in April 2018. I explain the scandal mainstream media is trying to supress:
1,512
7:19 PM - Nov 27, 2019

video at: https://twitter.com/i/status/1199860236946935808
Cohen has been really great about quickly getting concise, quality videos out to help people make sense of specific developing stories which the haze of western propaganda makes difficult to understand; his recent videos on the Bolivia coup and the Hong Kong protests were very helpful in the same way. He uses robust arguments and independently verifiable facts to clearly show that there’s much more to these stories than the mass media have been letting us know.

I’ll definitely be linking to this video in my articles going forward to enable anyone who hasn’t been following the OPCW scandal closely to quickly familiarize themselves with the story. The more of these lucid, accessible resources we’ve got circulating within the information ecosystem, the better. "

[onawah]

A Surefire Cure For Despair
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
DECEMBER 4, 2019
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/04/a-surefire-cure-for-despair/

"“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”
~ Samuel Beckett

Sometimes it just gets to be too goddamn much. You just finished a soul-draining argument with a family member who insists that Putin controls all major world events because that’s what the TV said so it must be true, then you check the poll numbers for the upcoming elections in the US and UK and you see your favorite candidates just don’t have the kind of numbers they’re going to need, the latest revelation that the US and its allies deceived the world about what’s happening in Syria has been completely swept under the rug by the establishment news churn, Bolivia has been taken over by US-backed Christian fascists, and now you’re watching Mike Pompeo’s stupid asshole face spouting some made-up bull**** about Iran that you know the news media will never hold him accountable for.

And it’s just too goddamn much.

To become oppositional to the status quo is to enter into a long-term relationship with despair. It’s not a monogamous relationship; you’ll have the occasional affair with anger, a fling with fear, a rendezvous with rage, and every once in a while even a brief tryst with triumph. But you always end up drunkenly stumbling home to bed with the old ball-and-chain despair.

Every time you think you might have the bastards on the ropes, every time you see a shining crack in the cage, a glowing glitch in the matrix, it’s quickly covered up by some gibberish about Russia or empty shrieking about Donald Trump, and then everyone’s herded along into the next authorised imperial narrative.

This is because the deck is stacked so very high against you. The rulers of the empire have all the money, all the resources, all the infrastructure and almost all the media, and they use these advantages ceaselessly to shift things around in order to prevent the unwashed masses from rising up and toppling their palaces.

It’s possible to avoid confronting this reality by busying oneself with activism and information, but at some point despair always kicks in.

So what do you do? I get asked this all the time.

“How do you stay so optimistic, Caitlin?” people often ask me. “How, in the face of so much deception, exploitation and oppression, do you avoid giving in to despair?”

Well I’ll tell you my secret: I don’t.

I don’t avoid despair at all. I give into it fully, over and over and over again.

Whenever things seem hopeless and I feel like I’m bashing my head against a solid brick wall, I just say, “Fine then. I quit.”

And then I do.

I quit fully. I let go of the entire battle. I let go of all the responsibility I feel to help create a better world. I let go of my desire to stick it to the bastards, and I relinquish every inch of skin I’ve got in this game. I lay down (sometimes literally), and I stop struggling against the relentless tide of establishment evil.

And I feel a tremendous relief. Ah, what a great feeling! To no longer be holding the world together with my efforts!

Having been granted the thing that it wanted, the crushing weight of despair is lifted from my chest. It snatches its terrible prize and slithers off to gnaw on it in a dark corner somewhere.

And then something interesting happens. The world keeps turning. And it doesn’t fall apart.

It’s the darndest thing. I stopped holding off armageddon through sheer force of will, yet the world remains. The sun comes up, the birds chirp, the internet forum debates continue, and my lungs keep taking in oxygen.

A lot of magic can happen in that space. When you quit. When you relinquish the illusion that your sustained, straining willpower has anything to do with the continued battle against corruption and bloodshed.

Because in that moment you see clearly that it’s got nothing to do with you. Anti-imperialists pick up their weapons and begin the battle anew each morning, regardless of anything you’re doing or saying. Your body keeps taking in air, pumping blood and digesting food regardless of anything you’re doing or saying. And, without the assistance of any Atlas-like effort on your part whatsoever, you’ll notice that your body also re-engages in the battle.

Because what the hell else is it going to do? Not fight? Of course not. What has been seen will never be unseen. Your operating system isn’t going to stop fighting the bad guys just because you stopped willing it to, any more than your body will refrain from putting its arms up when someone throws a baseball at your head.

You can trust that your whole body-brain-organism-thingy will keep fighting with or without the sustained straining of your personal willpower. And that works out nicely, because it’s the sustained straining of your personal willpower that creates the sense of despair. If you aren’t constantly straining to win elections, expose wrongdoing, topple the oligarchs and end wars by sheer force of will, and are rather just picking up your weapons of truth and compassion and doing what comes naturally to you from moment to moment, then despair really has nothing to work with, because you’re not fixated on some remote end-goal that keeps getting obstacles thrown in front of it.

Journalist Chris Hedges once said, “I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.” It’s the fighting itself that matters, and you can trust that that fighting will continue even without your sustained personal will.

Don’t take my word for it. Next time you find yourself feeling like you can’t go on fighting this fight anymore, just give up. Quit. Then watch what happens. Before long you’ll see your fingers typing dissident ideas onto screens, you’ll hear your voice speaking unauthorized truths, you’ll watch your mind forming forbidden ideas. And it will all be happening without “you”, without the sustained personal effort of the thing you take yourself to be.

This fight will fight itself, if you let it. And it can actually fight a lot more efficiently without the sustained sense of personal effort constantly bogging the whole process down with frustration and despair. Just let your body’s operating system fight this one on its own. It doesn’t need your help.

And in the end, maybe the war will be won. Maybe it won’t. It’s really none of your business. Your job is to let your organism fight for its life, as it’s been conditioned to do by millions of years of evolution. That evolutionary drive to survive was here long before you showed up, and it will remain after you’re gone. It’s got nothing to do with you. So stand back and let it fight."

[onawah]

Pro Tip: Mentally Replace All Uses Of “Conspiracy Theorist” With “Iraq Rememberer”
by Caitlin Johnstone
12/5/19
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/05/pro-tip-mentally-replace-all-uses-of-conspiracy-theorist-with-iraq-rememberer/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-1.jpg?w=1050&ssl=1

"I watched the film Official Secrets the other day, which I highly recommend doing if you want to rekindle your rage about the unforgivable evil that was the Iraq invasion.

Which is a good thing to do, in my opinion. Absolutely nothing was ever done to address the fact that a million people were murdered with the assistance of government lies just a few short years ago; no new laws were passed mandating more government transparency or accountability with its military operations, no war crimes tribunals took place, no new policies were put into place. No one even got fired. In fact we've seen the exact opposite: the people responsible for unleashing that horror upon our species have been given prestigious jobs in government and media and the US government is currently collaborating with the UK to set the legal precedent for charging under the Espionage Act any journalist in the world who exposes US war crimes.

The corrupt mechanisms which gave rise to the Iraq invasion still exist currently, stronger than ever, and its consequences continue to ravage the region to this very day. The Iraq war isn't some event that happened in the past; everything about it is still here with us, right now. So we should still be enraged. You don't forgive and forget something that hasn't even stopped, let alone been rectified.
pP4zhzIyTUA
Apart from the howling rage surging through my veins during the film, the other thing I experienced was the recurring thought, "This was a conspiracy. This is the thing that a conspiracy is."

And, I mean, of course it is. How weird is it that we don't use that word to describe what the architects of that war did? Conspiracy is defined as "a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful." From the secret plan between the NSA and GCHQ to spy on and blackmail UN members into supporting the illegal invasion which is the subject of Official Secrets, to the mountain of other schemes and manipulations used by other government bodies to deceive the world about Iraq, it's absolutely insane that that word is never used to describe the conspiracy within the Bush and Blair governments to manufacture the case for war.

The engineering of the Iraq war was a conspiracy, per any conceivable definition. So why isn't that word reflexively used by everyone who talks about it?

Easy. Because we haven't been trained to.

The use of the word "conspiracy" is studiously avoided by the narrative managers of the political/media class who are tasked with the assignment of teaching us how to think about our world, except when it is to be employed for its intended and authorised use: smearing skeptics of establishment narratives. The pejorative "conspiracy theory" has been such a useful weapon in inoculating the herd from dissident wrongthink that the propagandists do everything they can to avoid tainting their brand, even if it means refraining from using words for the things that they refer to.

This is why the word "collusion" was continuously and uniformly used throughout the entire Russiagate saga, for example. It was a narrative about a secret conspiracy between the highest levels of the US government and the Russian government to subvert the interests of the American people, yet the word "conspiracy" was meticulously replaced with "collusion" by everyone peddling that story.

A self-described "former Rolling Stone fact-checker" called me (what else?) a "conspiracy theorist." But when challenged, this was the best she could do. 🤣 https://t.co/S5pLGaaHTS

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 30, 2019
Syria narrative managers on Twitter have been in meltdown for a week ever since the Rolling Stone podcast Useful Idiots featured oppositional journalist Max Blumenthal talking about the US-centralized empire's involvement in the Syrian war and its pervasive propaganda campaign against that nation. The entire site has been swarming with high-visibility blue-checkmarked thought police demanding the heads of the show's hosts Matt Taibbi and Katie Halper for giving this evil "conspiracy theorist" a platform to say we're being deceived about yet another US-led regime change intervention in yet another Middle Eastern nation.

Narrative managers use the "conspiracy theorist" pejorative to shove skepticism of establishment narratives into the margins of political discourse, far away where it can't contaminate the mainstream herd. Whenever you see a dissenting interpretation of events getting too close to mainstream circles, as with Blumenthal appearing on a Rolling Stone podcast, Tulsi Gabbard saying on national television that the US government has armed terrorists, or Tucker Carlson interviewing Jonathan Steele about the OPCW leaks, you see an intense campaign of shrieking outrage and public shaming geared at shoving those dissident narratives as far into the fringe as possible by branding them "conspiracy theories".

My suggestion then is this: whenever you see the label "conspiracy theorist" being applied to anyone who questions an establishment narrative about Syria, Russia, Iran or wherever, just mentally swap it out for the term "Iraq rememberer". When you see anyone shouting about "conspiracy theories", mentally replace it with "remembering Iraq". It makes it much easier to see what's really going on.

The regime changers have been melting down for days bc @kthalps and @mtaibbi interviewed @MaxBlumenthal on their @RollingStone podcast. They can’t stand seeing an antiwar voice anywhere near the mainstream. Check out the episode that’s driving them mad https://t.co/nXbGMjSRPl
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) December 1, 2019

Powerful people and institutions secretly coordinating with each other to do evil things is the absolute worst-case scenario for the rest of the population; it is precisely the thing we fear when we allow people and institutions to have power over us. We need to be able to talk about that worst-case scenario occurring, especially since we know for a fact that it does indeed happen. Powerful people do conspire to inflict evil things upon the rest of us, and we do need to use thoughts and ideas to discuss how that might be happening. We are not meant to think about this, which is why we're meant to forget about Iraq.

The Iraq invasion was like if a family were sitting around the dinner table one night, then the father stood up, decapitated his daughter with a steak knife, then sat back down and continued eating and everyone just went back to their meals and never talked about what happened. That's how absolutely creepy and weird it is that the news churn just moved on after a conspiracy within the most powerful government in the world led to the murder of a million human beings.

Never forget the Iraq war conspiracy, no matter how hard they try to make you. They did it before, they've done it again in Libya and Syria, and they'll continue to attempt it in the future. When you sound the alarm about this they will call you a conspiracy theorist. All they're really saying is that you're one of those annoying pests who just won't shut up and forget about Iraq."

[onawah]

Fake News By Omission :  The Mass Media’s Cowardly Distortion Tool
12/6/19
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/06/fake-news-by-omission%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8athe-mass-medias-cowardly-distortion-tool/

"Western mass media have continued their conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal, making no significant mention yet this month of the leaks which have been emerging from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons indicating that the US, France and UK bombed Syria last year in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack which probably never occurred, and that OPCW leadership helped cover it up.

If you haven’t been following the still-unfolding OPCW scandal, you can catch up quickly by watching this seven-minute video.

1199860236946935808

Mass media’s silence on this hugely important story is noteworthy not just because it has far-reaching consequences for the future of the Syrian regime change agenda and for public trust in US-led war narratives, not just because the leaks have already been independently authenticated by the mainstream press, and not just because scandalous revelations about powerful entities are normally the sort of incendiary click fodder that makes a mainstream news editor hasten behind his desk to hide his arousal. It is also noteworthy because we’re being told by people in the know that even more leaks are coming.

“Much more to come about the censoring of the facts on Douma at the Poison Gas Watchdog OPCW,” tweeted journalist Peter Hitchens earlier today. “It really is time that the Grand Unpopular Press and the BBC, realised this is a major story. Are they too proud to admit they might have been wrong?”

Hitchens, who was among the very first to publish the leaked internal OPCW email last month revealing multiple glaring plot holes in the official narrative about the alleged chlorine gas attack in Douma, Syria, has been saying this for a while now.

“More is known by the whistleblowers of the OPCW than has yet been released, but verification procedures have slowed down its release,” Hitchens wrote in his blog last week. “More documents will, I expect, shortly come to light.”

So this is still an unfolding story that is only going to get more scandalous in the coming days. Yet rather than reporting on an important news story (which it may surprise you to learn is actually supposed to be the literal job description of the news media), the mainstream press has been silent. The only times the mass media have commented on this major story has been to spin it as Russian disinformation, and Tucker Carlson’s segment on it last week which was also falsely spun as disinfo by establishment narrative managers like David Brock’s Media Matters for America.



Left I on the News
@leftiblog
It may be hard for some to grasp this concept, but not telling people about something that *did* happen gives them just as incorrect knowledge about reality as does telling them something did happen which actually did not. That's why "fake news" (by omission) is the right term. https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1202035505568698369 …

Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
Con artists prefer lies by omission because they are cowards and they would prefer not to look you in the eye while lying. The same is true for the MSM. Omissions like not reporting on OPCW leaks are the same as straight-up lies. It’s fake news by omission (h/t @leftiblog).

34
7:26 PM - Dec 3, 2019
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The blog Left I on the News uses the term “fake news by omission” to describe this obnoxious yet ubiquitous propaganda tactic, where imperial media outlets deliberately distort people’s understanding of what’s going on in the world by simply declining to cover news stories which are inconvenient to the establishment narrative.

Refusing to tell people about things that did happen distorts their worldview just as much as telling them things that did not happen, yet mass media will never be held accountable for engaging in the former, while engaging in the latter forces them to print embarrassing retractions and lose credibility with the public. For this reason, fake news by omission is their preferred tactic of deceit.

People sometimes think of the mainstream media as always straight-up lying all the time, just fabricating stories whole cloth about what’s going on, but that isn’t generally how it works. A good liar doesn’t lie all the time, and they don’t even tell full lies unless absolutely necessary. What they do is far more cowardly and far more effective: they spin, they distort, they tell half-truths, they emphasise insignificant details and marginalize significant ones, they uncritically report what government officials are telling them, and they lie by omission.

However, the total disappearance of the OPCW leaks is unusual for the legacy media. The imperial press have had their ways of hiding inconvenient stories since newspapers began. Running stories late on a Friday, running them on the “graveyard page” of page 2 (so-called because stories go there to die), holding on to them until another big story breaks so they can be published relatively unnoticed, waiting for them to be broken in a disreputable publication so people will be skeptical of it (sometimes known as “fixing” a story), or running an oppositional op-ed at the same time to spin the uncomfortable facts in a more salubrious way. But in the end, they usually run the story, in one way or another, so they can be seen not to be censoring.

Not this time though. The exceptional silence on the OPCW scandal from imperial news media, in and of itself, discredits them completely. But people won’t know about it unless they are told. Spread the word."

[mountain_jim]

"I watched the film Official Secrets the other day, which I highly recommend doing if you want to rekindle your rage about the unforgivable evil that was the Iraq invasion.

Our mailed copy should arrive today for viewing this weekend. I was definitely aware of those lies leading up to that war as it happened, and will never forget. That and 9/11 leave so many war-criminals and traitors still walking around free today.

[onawah]

Self-Validating Circle Jerk Of War Psyops: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
by Caitlin Johnstone
12/7/19
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/07/self-validating-circle-jerk-of-war-psyops-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Screen-Shot-2019-12-07-at-1.03.15-PM-1.jpg?w=858&ssl=1

"Everyone made fun of Billie Eilish the other day for not knowing about Van Halen. Meanwhile most of them still think they live in a free democracy where the news reporter tells you true facts about the world.

Here’s how politicians, media and government could eliminate conspiracy theories if they really wanted to:

Stop lying all the time
Stop killing people
Stop promoting conspiracy theories (Russiagate)
Stop doing evil things in secret
End government opacity
Stop conspiring
I actually envy the pro-establishment types. What pleasant lives they must have lived to be able to trust authority with such pure, blind faith like that.

On the right they often refer to deaths under 20th century communist governments. On the left they talk a lot about Nazi Germany. What doesn’t get nearly enough attention is how the tyrannical force that’s doing the killing and oppressing right now is the US-centralized empire.

If a reporter in the mass media advances the establishment line in a clever and skillful way, they’ll be published, praised and promoted. Those who figure this out quickly rise to the top. Those who don’t get fed bottom-tier assignments no one reads until they find new careers. This is all you’re seeing when you see blue-checkmarked media figures smearing Assange or shrieking about the Evil Dictator Of The Week. You’re seeing ambitious reporters who understand how the game is played signal their understanding to current and future employers.

Nowhere in the mainstream news cycle is the difference between fact and narrative highlighted more clearly than in the difference between the facts of Trump’s dangerous escalations against Russia and the narrative about his softness toward Russia. Same planet, different worlds.

The devious and depraved individuals who work in government agencies know that many great evils can be hidden behind people’s entirely irrational tendency to dismiss their own suspicions with a “No, my government would never do something that devious and depraved!”

It’s not ****ing complicated. If a narrative serves the interests of powerful groups with a known history of lying, be skeptical of that narrative. This should be extremely obvious to everyone.

How to avoid being called a Russian agent online:

Don’t be Russian
Support all US wars
Trust the CIA
Believe everything the TV tells you
Get excited for President Pete
Reject the evil Hawaiian woman
Believe all problems began January 2017
Obey
Obey
Obey
Obey
Con artists prefer lies by omission because they are cowards and they would prefer not to look you in the eye while lying. The same is true for the imperial media. Omissions like not reporting on OPCW leaks are the same as straight-up lies. It’s fake news by omission.

We really cannot afford to lose the battle to free Assange. If we’re going to let them imprison a journalist for life because he exposed US war crimes then we might as well tap out and hand the imperialists the keys to the world forever, because we’ll never reclaim what we lost.

Anybody who isn’t loudly protesting Assange’s imprisonment is now caping for Trump’s diabolical attack on the free press worldwide. Silence is complicity right now. This is endgame; without a free press holding power to account, we are done and we will freefall into dystopia.

Things that make me sick about the Assange case:

The fact that we keep trying to appeal to journalists’ self-preservation to get them to support him because we know their moral compass is not enough.
#Resistance Democrats happy to see him die in jail because “He helped Trump.” Even if that was true (it’s not), how psychopathically authoritarian do you have to be to condemn someone to death because they have different politics to you?
And the hypocrisy of it all. My God. They’re like, “Hey kids! Don’t forget to #Resist tyranny and fascism by cheerleading a Trump administration agenda to make it possible for the US government to imprison journalists for exposing US war crimes!”
Another thing that makes me side-eye my fellow man when it comes to Assange: so many Australians tell me they are disgusted by what’s happening but very few of them are willing to speak out publicly. Bloody wusses. They might as well tie the noose for all the good they’re doing.
One thing that gives me hope: the cool-factor is building momentum around Assange here in Australia. I think maybe it’s because Australians generally loathe that church-lady busy-body tsk-tsk tone that typifies the general narrative on Assange. It’s so uncool. So there’s that.

People often say if MSM reporters don’t defend Assange then they’ll be next behind bars. One problem: it’s not true. And they know it’s not true. If you serve power, nothing you publish will get you into trouble. If they’re silent on Assange, they’ve openly chosen to serve power.

Every single person who still believes Hillary Clinton would have made a decent president has simply spent the last few years adamantly refusing to do intellectually and emotionally honest research into the things that she did as a secretary of state and senator.

Democrats who continually object to centrists being criticized from the left within their party while also simultaneously shrieking about Jill Stein running as a third party candidate are really just saying “No one’s allowed to be to the left of Hillary Clinton. Ever. At all.”
https://twitter.com/KamalaNation/status/1188116139215224834?s=20

Broke: Buttigieg is a Rhodes Scholar, isn’t that awesome?
Woke: Corey Booker is also a Rhodes Scholar, but nobody makes a big deal about a Black man’s achievements.
Bespoke: The Rhodes Scholarship is just a training program for CIA-aligned establishment swamp monsters.

I’m almost certainly wasting my breath here, but the Bernie crowd vs. Tulsi crowd sectarian feuding I’m seeing on social media will be over and irrelevant in a few months, so maybe it would be a good idea to contemplate how wise it is to say hurtful/damaging things to/about each other in the meantime.

Trump is doing countless evil things right out in the open, yet instead his “opposition” focuses on imaginary Russia conspiracies and an impeachment that can only fail, much like a pro wrestler stomping on the mat next to his downed “opponent” to avoid hurting the other actor.

I’m going to start mentally replacing the label “conspiracy theorist” with “Iraq rememberer”.

The reason it’s so important to stay enraged about Iraq is because it’s never been addressed or rectified in any real way whatsoever. All the corrupt mechanisms which led to the invasion are still in place and its consequences remain. It isn’t something that happened in the past; it’s happening now.

It’s just so insane how Bush showed up, launched two full-scale ground invasions based on lies, murdered a million people, launched unprecedented domestic espionage programs, and then the news churn just moved on and now we’re only supposed to care about Trump’s rude tweets.

If you lack a deep, visceral loathing of the Bush administration for the evils it unleashed and the precedents it set, then you also lack (A) any framework through which to correctly understand the world, and (B) a conscience.

QAnon is Fox News in puzzle form. It gives adherents a bunch of cryptic hints leading them down artificial rabbit holes which just so happen to result in their all believing mainstream GOP narratives like Trump is awesome, everything’s Obama’s fault, and Iran needs regime change.

The NED-funded Bellingcat isn’t toxic on its own. What makes it toxic is the way it’s aggressively elevated and promoted by mainstream news media, who then cite it as an authoritative source in their own imperialist propaganda. It’s a self-validating circle jerk of war psyops.https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1201418120541458437


There’s a very common, very stupid notion that if you criticize the US government, you also have to criticize other governments equally. Ask which specific governments must be criticized, and out of all the corrupt governments in the world they’ll name only those targeted by US imperialism. Nobody will ever bitch at you for criticizing the US government without criticizing corrupt governments like Egypt, the Philippines or Saudi Arabia. They only ever want you to attack the governments their TV tells them to attack: Russia, China, Iran, etc.

The capitalism cultist’s solution to caring for developmentally disabled children is that their families care for them at home for their entire lives. Society gets those families’ labor, for free. Free stuff! Sweet, huh? But the problem with capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people’s free labor.
Everyone talks about “free stuff” but no one talks about free labor. The carers of children, the disabled, and the elderly do free work all day every day, but that’s fine, just don’t give them any free stuff because that would be immoral. Everyone loves to say “Not everything is about money,” but only when it comes to carer’s work. Otherwise it’s all “Taxation is theft!” and “Don’t coerce me in to caring for others!” Carers are just meant to retire on good feelings and pay their rent with sweet sentiments. Or depending wholly on the charitable inclinations of an industrious man. Who hopefully is the nice kind of man and tough luck if he isn’t.
And don’t hyperventilate at me about violence and coercion. The current system is based on coercion and force when you’re a primary carer. You can’t leave even if your situation is abusive, you don’t get paid so you can’t even retire. That’s as coercive and forceful as it gets.

I’m really looking forward to when we’ve won this thing and the people have wrested their rightful power away from their oppressors so I don’t have to stay plugged into the news cycle 24/7 keeping track of what bull****’s spewing out of people’s televisions today.

If we make it out of this mess, it won’t be because anyone’s ideology won out over the others, it will be because we fundamentally changed the way we function as a species. It will be because we completely transformed our relationship with abstract thought and mental narrative.

[onawah]

Journalist: Newsweek Suppressed OPCW Scandal And Threatened Me With Legal Action
12/8/19
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/08/journalist-newsweek-suppressed-opcw-scandal-and-threatened-me-with-legal-action/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-2-2.jpg?w=750&ssl=1

"A Newsweek journalist has resigned after the publication reportedly suppressed his story about the ever-growing OPCW scandal, the revelation of immensely significant plot holes in the establishment Syria narrative that you can update yourself on by watching this short seven-minute video or this more detailed video here.


“Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason,” journalist Tareq Haddad reported today via Twitter.

“I have collected evidence of how they suppressed the story in addition to evidence from another case where info inconvenient to US government was removed, though it was factually correct,” Haddad said. “I plan on publishing these details in full shortly. However, after asking my editors for comment, as is journalistic practice, I received an email reminding me of confidentiality clauses in my contract. I.e. I was threatened with legal action.”

Yesterday I resigned from Newsweek after my attempts to publish newsworthy revelations about the leaked OPCW letter were refused for no valid reason.

— Tareq Haddad (@Tareq_Haddad) December 7, 2019

Haddad added that he is now seeking legal advice and looking into the possibility of whistleblower protections for himself, and said at the very least he will publish the information he has while omitting anything that could subject him to legal retaliation from his former employer.

“I could have kept silent and kept my job, but I would not have been able to continue with a clean conscience,” Haddad said. “I will have some instability now but the truth is more important.”

This is the first direct insider report we’re getting on the mass media’s conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal that I wrote about just the other day. In how many other newsrooms is this exact same sort of suppression happening, including threats of legal action, to journalists who don’t have the courage or ability to leave and speak out? There is no logical reason to assume that Haddad is the only one encountering such roadblocks from mass media editors; he’s just the only one going public about it.

Newsweek has long been a reliable guard dog and attack dog for the US-centralized empire, with examples of stories that its editors did permit to go to print including an article by an actual, current military intelligence officer explaining why US prosecution of Julian Assange is a good thing, fawning puff pieces on the White Helmets, and despicable smear jobs on Tulsi Gabbard. The outlet will occasionally print oppositional-looking articles like this one by Ian Wilkie questioning the establishment Syria narrative, but not without immediately turning around and publishing an attack on Wilkie’s piece by Eliot Higgins, a former Atlantic Council Senior Fellow who is the cofounder of the NED-funded imperial narrative management firm Bellingcat. Newsweek also recently published an article attacking Tucker Carlson for publicizing the OPCW scandal, basing its criticisms on a bogus Bellingcat article I debunked shortly after its publication.


Mainstream media doesn’t think the leaks are newsworthy indicating that the US, France and UK bombed Syria last year in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack which according to the official scientists who invested it maybe never occurred. https://t.co/CRnL9Ejatw

— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) December 6, 2019

The ubiquitous propagandistic tactic of fake news by omission distorts the public’s worldview just as much as it would if mass media outlets were publishing bogus stories whole cloth every day, only if they were doing that it would be much easier to pin them down on their lies, hold them accountable, and discredit them.

A recent FAIR article by Alan MacLeod documents how the Hong Kong demonstrations are pushed front and center in mainstream consciousness despite the fact that to this day not one protester has been killed by security forces, while far more deadly violence is being directed at huge protests in empire-aligned nations like Haiti, Chile and Ecuador which have been almost completely ignored by these same outlets. This deliberate omission causes a distorted worldview in casual and mainstream news media consumers in which protests are only happening in nations that are outside the US-centralized power alliance. We see the same kind of deliberate distortion-by-omission with the way mass media continually pushes the narrative that Donald Trump is “soft on Russia”, while remaining completely silent on the overwhelming mountain of evidence to the contrary.

The time is now for everyone with a platform to start banging the drum about the OPCW scandal, because we’re seeing more and more signs that the deluge of leaks hemorrhaging from that organisation is only going to increase. Mainstream propagandists aren’t going to cover it, so if larger alternative media outlets want to avoid being lumped in with them and discredited in the same sweep it would be wise to start talking about this thing today. It’s only going to get more and more awkward for everyone who chose to remain silent, and more and more validating for those who spoke out."

[onawah]

The Most Significant Afghanistan Papers Revelation Is How Difficult They Were To Make Public
DECEMBER 11, 2019 by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/11/the-most-significant-afghanistan-papers-revelation-is-how-difficult-they-were-to-make-public/

"The Washington Post has published clear, undeniable evidence that US government officials have been lying to the public about the war in Afghanistan, a shocking revelation for anyone who has done no research whatsoever into the history of US interventionism.

In all seriousness it was a very good and newsworthy publication, and those who did the heavy lifting bringing the Afghanistan Papers into public awareness deserve full credit. The frank comments of US military officials plainly stating that from the very beginning this was an unwinnable conflict, initiated in a region nobody understood, without anyone being able to so much as articulate what victory would even look like, make up an extremely important piece of information that is in conflict with everything the public has been told about this war by their government.

But the most significant revelation to come out of this story is not in the Afghanistan Papers themselves.
Ac5D6og9Z54

The most significant Afghanistan Papers revelation comes from The Washington Post‘s account of the extremely difficult time they had extricating these important documents from the talons of government secrecy, as detailed in a separate article titled “How The Post unearthed The Afghanistan Papers“. WaPo explains how the papers were ultimately obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests which, after they were initially rejected by the US government, needed to be supplemented over three years with two lawsuits.

“The Post’s efforts to obtain the Afghanistan documents also illustrate how difficult it can be for journalists — or any citizen — to pry public information from the government,” WaPo reports. “The purpose of FOIA is to open up federal agencies to public scrutiny. But officials determined to thwart the spirit of the law can drag out requests for years, hoping requesters will eventually give up.”

“In October 2017, The Post sued the inspector general in U.S. District Court in Washington — a step that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees — to obtain the Flynn interview materials,” WaPo adds.

Now, The Washington Post is a giant, for-profit corporate media outlet which is solely owned by Jeff Bezos, who is currently listed as the wealthiest person on earth. Does anyone reading this have hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of their life to spend battling the US government into complying with its own transparency laws? Are any of the alternative media outlets which consistently oppose US imperialism able to afford many such expenditures? I would guess not.

Is it not disturbing that the American taxpayer has to depend on outlets like The Washington Post, a neocon-packed outlet with an extensive history of promoting US interventionism at every opportunity, to extract these documents from behind the wall of government opacity?

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-2.png?w=600&ssl=1

After all, by WaPo’s own admission it both sought and published the Afghanistan Papers in order to take a swing at Donald Trump. According to the Post it went down this path in 2016 initially seeking documents on Michael Flynn, who was then part of the Trump campaign, after receiving a tip that he’d made some juicy statements about the war in Afghanistan to the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). WaPo then made the decision to publish the papers now rather than waiting for its legal battle for more information to complete because Trump is currently in the midst of negotiating with the Taliban over a potential troop withdrawal.

“The Post is publishing the documents now, instead of waiting for a final ruling, to inform the public while the Trump administration is negotiating with the Taliban and considering whether to withdraw the 13,000 U.S. troops who remain in Afghanistan,” WaPo reports.

It is obviously an inherently good thing that WaPo poured its immense wealth and resources into pursuing and publishing these documents. But would it have done so if those documents hadn’t presented an opportunity to embarrass the Trump administration? What kinds of information does the notoriously war-happy WaPo not spend its wealth and resources pursuing and publishing? Probably a whole lot.

It is a very safe assumption that, because of the immense walls of government opacity that have been built up around the unconscionable things America’s elected and unelected leadership is doing, there are far, far more evil things that are far, far worse than anything revealed in the Afghanistan Papers that we don’t know about, and that we don’t even know we don’t know about. Is it not deeply disturbing that we have to pray that some war-loving, establishment-supporting billionaire media outlet will have a partisan agenda to advance if we want to know about even a tiny sliver of this information?


I’m waiting for something like the #AfghanistanPapers to be released about U.S. involvement in Syria.

The story won’t be one about corruption and false reports of progress but of knowingly helping Al Qaeda, its radical rebel friends, even ISIS.

— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) December 10, 2019

I mean, it’s not like the Afghanistan Papers revealed anything we didn’t already know. It’s been public knowledge for many years that there was a preexisting agenda to invade Afghanistan well before September 11, it’s been public knowledge that many lies were put in place after the invasion, and it’s been public knowledge for a long time that we’re being lied to about how well the war is going. All these new revelations did was reify and draw attention to what anyone with an ear to the ground already knew: like all other US-led military interventions, we were lied to about Afghanistan. It’s not like the US government was staving off some massive unknown bombshell revelation with its resistance to WaPo’s FOIA requests. Yet it resisted them anyway, just because it was more convenient.

Julian Assange once said “The overwhelming majority of information is classified to protect political security, not national security,” and we see this tacitly confirmed by the US government in its massive backlogs of unanswered FOIA requests, illegitimate refusals, unjustifiable redactions and exploitation of loopholes to retain as much security as possible. As one Twitter follower recently put it, “The FOIA was enacted in 1966 to make legally compulsory the opening of government activities to ‘sunlight’. Fifty-three years later, the government has learned how to neutralize the law and once again hide their misconduct. Classifying everything is one way, requiring an expensive ‘lawsuit’ is another.”

It shouldn’t work this way. People shouldn’t have to count on immoral plutocratic media institutions to get their government to tell them the truth about what’s being done in their name using their tax dollars. A free nation would have privacy for its citizenry and transparency for its government; with the growing increase in surveillance and government secrecy across the entire US-centralized empire, what we’re getting is the exact opposite. "

[onawah]

The website appears to be down where Caitlin Johnstone's articles have been posted. I get the message:

Service Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Additionally, a 503 Service Unavailable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

...But I am getting them in her email newsletter, so I'm copying and pasting the last 2 as follow:

"Why I Don’t Talk More About 9/11
by Caitlin Johnstone
12/11/19

"For some reason 9/11 keeps coming up in my online interactions with people, both with establishment loyalists who call me a "9/11 truther" and with skeptics who say I don't write enough about what really happened on that day 18 years ago. So I figured I'll bang out a few quick paragraphs on the subject in the interest of transparency, and so I don't have to keep having the same conversations over and over again.

My position on 9/11 itself is pretty simple: I don't know exactly what happened on the eleventh of September 2001, and I think anyone who claims to know with absolute certainty exactly what happened is fulla ****. But it's also extremely obvious that the world was lied to about what happened by the US government and its allies, as evidenced by the massive, glaring plot holes in the official 9/11 narrative.

The most concise and rock-solid compilation of these plot holes that I have ever seen was compiled by conspiracy analyst James Corbett in this five-minute video and its accompanying source notes. Corbett made this video eight years ago on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and to this day I believe it's the strongest and most irrefutable case against the official narrative.

yuC_4mGTs98

I have never once seen anyone even attempt to refute Corbett's video, because as an argument it is completely unassailable. The brilliant thing about it is that, while it's called "9/11: A Conspiracy Theory", all it actually contains is the official narrative about how the alleged Al-Qaeda conspiracy to attack US buildings with jet planes is officially theorized to have taken place, per the establishment narrative. Corbett simply tells the story, exactly as it exists in mainstream discourse, but he tells the full story all at once while omitting the part where the storyteller tries to make it all sound perfectly reasonable and plausible. When you hear the official narrative repeated in this way, it's transparently self-evident that the public hasn't been told the truth.

So why don't I talk about this more? It seems like it's right in my wheelhouse, right? 9/11 was used to manufacture consent for multiple wars in a highly suspicious way that just so happened to align with preexisting imperial geostrategic agendas, and if everyone could understand that they were deceived by their own government and media about something so important, the entire evil empire would come crashing down. Based on all my other writings you'd assume this would be something I'd be focused on facilitating.

But I don't. I very rarely mention 9/11 except in passing. There are two reasons for this:

Firstly, the narrative control battle has already been decisively won by the other side. The mainstream understanding is that anyone who talks about what really happened on 9/11 is a crazy crackpot who must not be listened to, because the establishment narrative control campaign to discredit and demonize critical thinking on the subject succeeded many years ago. If today's ubiquitous internet access had happened to coincide with 9/11 and the grassroots push to find out the truth behind it, that narrative control would have been far more difficult if not impossible for the establishment to shore up. But the timing didn't work out that way, and now the narrative is fully locked down except in the margins of discourse which have no effect on the mainstream.

Secondly, even if there were some way to show everyone in the western world the truth of what happened on 9/11, the establishment propaganda machine would immediately narrative manage the problem away. The operation would be blamed on rogue actors, maybe a few powerful establishment loyalists would face consequences (though probably not) and be replaced with other establishment loyalists, and then the imperial propaganda machine would pace everyone into an understanding of why it's still right and necessary to support the US-centralized empire and its globe-sprawling war machine. The status quo would march on essentially undisturbed. This is one hundred percent guaranteed as long as the empire still has a functioning propaganda engine.


How To Defeat The Empire
"What I do advocate, in as many different ways as I can come up with, is a decentralized guerrilla psywar against the institutions which enable the powerful to manipulate the way ordinary people think, act and vote."https://t.co/4F5dWaURdq
— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) September 10, 2019

This is why I focus on attacking the establishment propaganda machine using clear, undeniable arguments against which people haven't been preemptively prejudiced against by narrative management campaigns, in a way that people can verify independently for themselves.

As I explain in my article "How To Defeat The Empire", people can only hope to oust the oppression machine by using the power of their numbers to do so, and they won't use the power of their numbers to do so as long as they're successfully propagandized. The way to kill the empire's ability to propagandize people is not to run up to them saying things they've already been conditioned to view as bat **** insane, it's to help them see in their own experience that those outlets are behaving in an untrustworthy way here and now. Distrust in the mass media is already at an all-time high, so all it takes is a little nudge in the right direction.

That's where I choose to pour my energy. Not into attacking a heavily-armored narrative about something that happened 18 years ago, but into independently verifiable deceptions happening here and now like the mass media's conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal, Bellingcat's easily debunked lies, and the various deceitful narratives used to manufacture consent for the imprisonment of Julian Assange. I can point to these things in a way that people will actually get curious about and look into for themselves, rather than slamming the cognitive door with a conditioned reflexive "LOL **** up 9/11 truther."

It is good and right to ask questions about 9/11, but that's a rabbit hole that only opens up for people when it opens up for them. You can't force people to jump down it. Believing I should keep pushing 9/11 truth on principle because they lied to us about something evil is like believing I should keep bashing my face into a brick wall on principle because it shouldn't be there rather than simply walking around and going through the open door.

Anyway, that's the conclusion my experience and study of this puzzle has brought me to. I'm open to changing my mind at a later date, but that's what seems the most effective way to fight the machine for the time being."

********************************************************************************


Someone Interfered In The UK Election, And It Wasn’t Russia
by Caitlin Johnstone
12/12/13

"Ladies and gentlemen I have here at my fingertips indisputable proof that egregious election meddling took place in the United Kingdom on Thursday.

Before you get all excited, no, it wasn't the Russians. It wasn't the Chinese, the Iranians, Cobra Command or the Legion of Doom. I'm not going to get any Rachel Maddow-sized paychecks for revealing this evidence to you, nor am I going to draw in millions of credulous viewers waiting with bated breath for a bombshell revelation of an international conspiracy that will invalidate the results of the election.

In fact, hardly anyone will even care.

Hardly anyone will care because this election interference has been happening right out in the open, and was perfectly legal. And nobody will suffer any consequences for it.


The centrists and mainstream media outlets are responsible for the right wing win in the UK. They spent all their time bashing and smearing Jeremy Corbyn bc they will always prioritize smashing the left, even if it means allying with the far right. Shameful.
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) December 13, 2019

Nobody will suffer any consequences for interfering in the UK election because the ones doing the interfering were extremely powerful, and that's who the system is built to serve.

As of this writing British exit polls are indicating a landslide victory for the Tories. Numerous other factors went into this result, including most notably a Labour Party ambivalently straddling an irreconcilable divide on the issue of Brexit, but it is also undeniable that the election was affected by a political smear campaign that was entirely unprecedented in scale and vitriol in the history of western democracy. This smear campaign was driven by billionaire-controlled media outlets, along with intelligence and military agencies, as well as state media like the BBC.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has been described as the most smeared politician in history, and this is a fair description. Journalist Matt Kennard recently compiled documentation of dozens of incidents in which former and current spooks and military officials collaborated with plutocratic media institutions to portray Corbyn as a threat to national security. Journalistic accountability advocates like Media Lens and Jonathan Cook have been working for years to compile evidence of the mass media's attempts to paint Corbyn as everything from a terrorist sympathizer to a Communist to a Russian asset to an IRA supporter to a closet antisemite. Just the other day The Grayzone documented how establishment narrative manager Ben Nimmo was enlisted to unilaterally target Corbyn with a fact-free Russiagate-style conspiracy theory in the lead-up to the election, a psyop that was uncritically circulated by both right-wing outlets like The Telegraph as well as ostensibly "left"-wing outlets like The Guardian.

Just as Corbyn's advocacy for the many over the plutocratic few saw him targeted by billionaire media outlets, his view of Palestinians as human beings saw him targeted by the imperialist Israel lobby as exposed in the Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby. For a mountain of links refuting the bogus antisemitism smear directed at Corbyn, a lifelong opponent of antisemitism, check out the deluge of responses to this query I made on Twitter the other day.

This interference continued right up into the day before the election, with the BBC's political editor Laura Kuenssberg flagrantly violating election rules by reporting that early postal votes had been illegally tallied and results were "looking very grim for Labour".


There was extreme election interference in the #UKElection. It didn't come from the Russians. It didn't come from the Chinese. It came from the billionaire class and its political/media lackeys. And it was perfectly legal.

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) December 12, 2019

The historically unprecedented smear campaign that was directed at Corbyn from the right, the far-right, and from within his own party had an effect. Of course it did. If you say this today on social media you'll get a ton of comments telling you you're wrong, telling you every vote against Labour was exclusively due to the British people not wanting to live in a Marxist dystopia, telling you it was exclusively because of Brexit, totally denying any possibility that the years of deceitful mass media narrative management that British consciousness was pummelled with day in and day out prior to the election had any impact whatsoever upon its results.

Right. Sure guys. Persistent campaigns to deliberately manipulate people's minds using mass media has no effect on their decisions at all. I guess that's why that whole "advertising" fad never made any money.

I am not claiming here that the billions of dollars worth of free mass media reporting that was devoted to smearing Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party had a greater effect on the election results than Brexit and other strategic stumbles in the party. I'm just saying that it definitely had a much greater effect than the few thousand dollars Russian nationals spent on social media memes in the US, which the American political/media class has been relentlessly shrieking about for three years. To deny that a media smear campaign the size and scope of that directed at Corbyn had an effect is the same as denying that advertising, a trillion-dollar industry, has an effect.

Which means that plutocrats and government agencies indisputably interfered in the British election, to an exponentially greater extent than anything the Russians are even alleged to have done. Yet according to British law it was perfectly legal, and according to British society it was perfectly acceptable. It's perfectly legal and acceptable for powerful individuals to have a vastly greater influence on a purportedly democratic election than any of the ordinary individuals voting in it.

A free and healthy society would not work this way. A free and healthy society would view all forms of manipulation as taboo and unacceptable. A free and healthy society would not allow the will of members of one small elite class to carry more weight than the will of anyone else. A free and healthy society would give everyone an equal voice at the table, and look after everyone's concerns. It certainly wouldn't tolerate a few individuals who already have far too much abusing their power and wealth to obtain even more. "

[onawah]

America’s Two-Headed One Party System
12/13/19
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/14/americas-two-headed-one-party-system/

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-3-7.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

"There’s a scene from John Steinbeck’s The Pearl that’s been coming back to me over and over again ever since I started writing about US politics. I find it amazing that this scene hasn’t become a political meme yet, given Steinbeck’s fame and given its perfect illustration of the fake two-party system that we see in western so-called democracies.

The Pearl is a short novel about a poor fisherman, Kino, who discovers the titular enormous gem in an oyster and goes to sell it to the pearl buyers in town. What he doesn’t know is that the buyers, while they have multiple offices and pretend to compete with each other, all actually work for the same owner.

“Kino has found the Pearl of the World,” Steinbeck writes.
https://learn.stleonards.vic.edu.au/yr8literature/files/2016/06/The-Pearl-John-Steinbeck.pdf
“In the town, in little offices, sat the men who bought pearls from the fishers. They waited in their chairs until the pearls came in, and then they cackled and fought and shouted and threatened until they reached the lowest price the fisherman would stand.”

“And when the buying was over, these buyers sat alone and their fingers played restlessly with the pearls, and they wished they owned the pearls. For there were not many buyers really – there was only one, and he kept these agents in separate offices to give a semblance of competition.”

When Kino brings the priceless pearl to the sellers, they put on a performance, working together to deceive him into thinking it has no value in order to cheat him out of it for a ridiculously low price.

The man behind the desk said: “I have put a value on this pearl. The owner here does not think it fair. I will ask you to examine this – this thing and make an offer. Notice,” he said to Kino, “I have not mentioned what I have offered.”

The first dealer, dry and stringy, seemed now to see the pearl for the first time. He took it up, rolled it quickly between thumb and forefinger, and then cast it contemptuously back into the tray.

“Do not include me in the discussion,” he said dryly. “I will make no offer at all. I do not want it. This is not a pearl – it is a monstrosity.” His thin lips curled.

Now the second dealer, a little man with a shy soft voice, took up the pearl, and he examined it carefully. He took a glass from his pocket and inspected it under magnification. Then he laughed softly.

“Better pearls are made of paste,” he said. “I know these things. This is soft and chalky, it will lose its color and die in a few months. Look-” He offered the glass to Kino, showed him how to use it, and Kino, who had never seen a pearl’s surface magnified, was shocked at the strange-looking surface.

The third dealer took the pearl from Kino’s hands. “One of my clients likes such things,” he said. “I will offer five hundred pesos, and perhaps I can sell it to my client for six hundred.”

Kino reached quickly and snatched the pearl from his hand. He wrapped it in the deerskin and thrust it inside his shirt. The man behind the desk said, “I’m a fool, I know, but my first offer stands. I still offer one thousand. What are you doing?” he asked, as Kino thrust the pearl out of sight.

“I am cheated,” Kino cried fiercely. “My pearl is not for sale here. I will go, perhaps even to the capital.”

Now the dealers glanced quickly at one another. They knew they had played too hard; they knew they would be disciplined for their failure, and the man at the desk said quickly, “I might go to fifteen hundred.”

This is exactly how the two-headed one-party system works, in America and elsewhere. One party owned by one imperialist oligarchic class is placed in two separate offices “to give some semblance of competition,” just like Steinbeck’s pearl buyers. And just like Steinbeck’s pearl buyers they work together to deceive the people into accepting the lowest possible bid, in their case meaning the acceptance of virtually no change at all from the imperialist oligarchic status quo.

You see this kleptocratic dynamic at play regardless of who is in office. When the two-headed one-party system convinced Americans to sell their pearl to Barack Obama, for example, their payment took the form of a corporatist healthcare scam deceitfully labeled the Affordable Care Act and a pathetic temporary band-aid on the sucking chest wound of environmental peril, along with a continuation and expansion of all of Bush’s most depraved foreign and domestic policies.

Then Kino, angry and determined never again to be deceived, sold his pearl to the Republican Party. This time his payment consisted of a tax break for the wealthy and some verbiage about a wall, along with a continuation and expansion of all of Obama’s most depraved foreign and domestic policies.

This pattern repeats over and over and over again, whether it’s the presidency or Congress, and the people never learn their lesson. They’re trained to think of the two parties as competing, when really they’re more like the left fist and the right fist on the same boxer. An orthodox-stance boxer uses the left jab and the right cross in conjunction with each other in one-two punch combinations to accomplish the same goal, namely to leave his opponent staring up at the arena lights and rethinking his life decisions. And in this case, the boxer’s opponent is you.

Ralph Nader, who to this day is still falsely
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/dont-fall-for-it-the-nader-myth-and-your-2016-vote/
...smeared as responsible for George W Bush’s pseudo-victory over Al Gore in 2000, occasionally shares an anecdote about the time he told his father that what America needs is a good third party.

“I’ll settle for a second,” his father replied.
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/211052

This is the kind of clear seeing we all need to have. We need to not fall into the drama of the two-handed puppet show and mistake what we are seeing for two separate and competing entities. We need to see and be aware of the puppeteer at all times.

Look past the “semblance of competition” and watch what the pearl buyers are actually doing.

Ignore their words.

Ignore their fake pro-wrestling kayfabe combat over impeachment agendas they know will never bear fruit and their Russia conspiracies they know are pure nonsense.

Watch their actual behaviors instead.

Don’t fall for the illusion.

Don’t get sucked into the drama of the two-handed puppet show.

Don’t be deceived, Kino.

Don’t sell your pearl."

[onawah]

Deluge Of New Leaks Further Shreds The Establishment Syria Narrative
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/15/deluge-of-new-leaks-further-shreds-the-establishment-syria-narrative/
by Caitlin Johnstone
(Many hyperlinks in this article--too many to copy and paste here.)

"It’s been a bad last 24 hours for the war propagandists.

WikiLeaks has published multiple documents providing further details on the coverup within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) of its own investigators’ findings which contradicted the official story we were all given about an alleged chlorine gas attack in Douma, Syria last year. The alleged chemical weapons incident was blamed on the Syrian government by the US and its allies, who launched airstrikes against Syria several days later. Subsequent evidence indicating that there was insufficient reason to conclude the chlorine gas attack ever happened was repressed by the OPCW, reportedly at the urging of US government officials.

The new publications by WikiLeaks add new detail to this still-unfolding scandal, providing more evidence to further invalidate attempts by establishment Syria narrative managers to spin it all as an empty conspiracy theory. The OPCW has no business hiding any information from the public which casts doubt on the official narrative about an incident which was used to justify an act of war on a sovereign nation.


WikiLeaks
✔
@wikileaks
RELEASE: Third batch of documents showing doctoring of facts in released version of OPCW chemical weapons report on Syria. Including a memo stating 20 inspectors feel released version “did not reflect the views of the team members that deployed to [Syria]”https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/

4,104
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The following are hyperlinks to the individual OPCW documents WikiLeaks published, with some highlights found therein:

A first draft of the OPCW’s July 2018 Interim Report on the team’s findings in Douma.

Contains crucial information that was not included in either the final draft of the July 2018 Interim Report or the March 2019 Final Report, including (emphasis mine):

1. The symptoms of the alleged victims of the supposed chemical incident were inconsistent with chlorine gas poisoning.

“Some of the signs and symptoms described by witnesses and noted in photos and video recordings taken by witnesses, of the alleged victims are not consistent with exposure to chlorine-containing choking or blood agents such as chlorine gas, phosgene or cyanogen chloride,” we learn in the unredacted first draft. “Specifically, the rapid onset of heavy buccal and nasal frothing in many victims, as well as the colour of the secretions, is not indicative of intoxication from such chemicals.”

“The large number of decedents in the one location (allegedly 40 to 45), most of whom were seen in videos and photos strewn on the floor of the apartments away from open windows, and within a few meters of an escape to un-poisoned or less toxic air, is at odds with intoxication by chlorine-based choking or blood agents, even at high concentrations,” the unredacted draft says.

This important information was omitted from the Interim Report and completely contradicted by the Final Report, which said that the investigation had found “reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place. This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine. The toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine.”

2. OPCW inspectors couldn’t find any explanation for why the gas cylinders supposedly dropped from Syrian aircraft were so undamaged by the fall.

“The FFM [Fact-Finding Mission] team is unable to provide satisfactory explanations for the relatively moderate damage to the cylinders allegedly dropped from an unknown height, compared to the destruction caused to the rebar-reinforced concrete roofs,” reads the leaked first draft. “In the case of Location 4, how the cylinder ended up on the bed, given the point at which it allegedly penetrated the room, remains unclear. The team considers that further studies by specialists in metallurgy and structural engineering or mechanics are required to provide an authoritative assessment of the team’s observations.”

We now know that a specialist was subsequently recruited to find an answer to this mystery. A leaked document dated February 2019 and published by the Working Group On Syria, Propaganda and Media in May 2019 was signed by a longtime OPCW inspector named Ian Henderson. Henderson, a South African ballistics expert, ran some experiments and determined that “The dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders, and the surrounding scene of the incidents, were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder being delivered from an aircraft,” writing instead that the cylinders being “manually placed” (i.e. staged) in the locations where investigators found them is “the only plausible explanation for observations at the scene.”

More on Ian Henderson in a moment.

3. The team concluded that either the victims were poisoned with some unknown gas which wasn’t chlorine, or there was no chemical weapon at all.

“The inconsistency between the presence of a putative chlorine-containing toxic chocking or blood agent on the one hand and the testimonies of alleged witnesses and symptoms observed from video footage and photographs, on the other, cannot be rationalised,” the unredacted first draft reads. “The team considered two possible explanations for the incongruity:
a. The victims were exposed to another highly toxic chemical agent that gave rise to the symptoms observed and has so far gone undetected.
b. The fatalities resulted from a non-chemical-related incident.”

Again, none of this information made it into any of the OPCW’s public reports on the Douma incident. The difference between the information we were given (that a chlorine gas attack took place and the strong suggestion that it was dropped by Syrian aircraft) and the report the inspectors were initially trying to put together (literally the exact opposite) is staggering. For more insider information on the deliberation between OPCW inspectors who wanted their actual findings to be reported and the organisation officials who conspired to omit those findings, read this November report by journalist Jonathan Steele.

A memo from a member of the OPCW’s Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) in Douma to the OPCW Director General Fernando Arais.

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Screen-Shot-2019-12-16-at-12.26.51-AM-1.jpg?w=1066&ssl=1

It’s worth noting that this memo is dated two weeks after the OPCW published its Final Report on the Douma incident in March 2019, because it further invalidates the bogus argument made by narrative management firms like Bellingcat claiming that the grievances of the dissenting OPCW inspectors had been satisfactorily addressed by the time the Final Report was published.

Clearly the concerns were not addressed, because the memo consists entirely of complaints, and according to its author “there are about 20 inspectors who have expressed their concern over the current situation.”

The memo’s author complains that the FFM report was made almost exclusively by team members who never even went to Douma, doing their research instead solely in “Country X”, which WikiLeaks speculates may be Turkey.

“The FFM report does not reflect the views of all the teams that deployed to Douma,” the memo says. “Only one team member (a paramedic) of the so-called ‘FFM core team’ was in Douma. The FFM report was written by this core team, thus by people who had only operated in Country X.”

“After the exclusion of all team members other than a small cadre of members who had deployed (and deployed again in October 2018) to Country X, the conclusion seems to have turned completely in the opposite direction. The FFM team members find this confusing, and are concerned to know how this occurred.”

The memo’s author is unnamed in the WikiLeaks document, but claims to have been “assigned the task of analysis and assessment of the ballistics of the two cylinders,” indicating that it was likely the aforementioned Ian Henderson. A concurrent publication by Peter Hitchens in the Daily Mail appears to confirm this. Hitchens reports that when Henderson lodged his Engineering Assessment in the OPCW’s secure registry after failing to get traction for his report, which the memo’s author also reports to have done, an unpopular unnamed OPCW official nicknamed “Voldemort” ordered that every trace of the report be removed.

“Mr Henderson tried to get his research included in the final report, but when it became clear it would be excluded, he lodged a copy in a secure registry, known as the Documents Registry Archive (DRA),” Hitchens reported. “This is normal practice for such confidential material, but when ‘Voldemort’ heard about it, he sent an email to subordinates saying: ‘Please get this document out of DRA … And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA’.”

So to recap, the OPCW enlisted a longtime ballistics expert with an extensive history of work with the organisation to run some experiments and produce an Engineering Assessment to explain how the alleged chlorine cylinders could have been found in the condition they were found in, and when he came to conclusions which were exculpatory for the Syrian government, his boss ordered every sign of it purged from the registry.

Again, not a whisper of any of this was breathed in the OPCW’s public reports on the Douma incident, despite somewhere around 20 inspectors having objections. The OPCW had no business hiding this from the public.

An internal email from May 2019 voicing further concerns.



Max Blumenthal
✔
@MaxBlumenthal
The usual regime change fanatics helped provoke more OPCW leaks by flagrantly lying about a whistleblower. Read the whole thread here. https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1206006260962738177 …

Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
Replying to @caitoz
"A falsehood issued by the OPCW, that Ian did not take part in the Douma FFM team, has been pivotal in discrediting him and his work."

Yes indeed. Syria narrative managers made extensive use of this bogus claim.

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This interesting email, sent to the OPCW’s Office of Strategy and Planning Director Veronika Stromsikova, defended Ian Henderson and objected to the mistreatment of a principled and respected team member.

“A member of the FFM team has been suspended from his post and escorted from the OPCW building in a less than dignified manner,” the email’s author complains. “After more than 12 years, I believe, serving the OPCW with dedication and professionalism, Ian Henderson’s personal and professional integrity have taken a knock in the most public of fora, the internet. A falsehood issued by the OPCW, that Ian did not take part in the Douma FFM team, has been pivotal in discrediting him and his work.”

Indeed, as soon as Henderson’s Engineering Assessment was leaked this past May, Syria narrative managers like Idrees Ahmad, Brian Whitaker, and Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins immediately set to work trying to spin him as merely a lone “disgruntled employee” who was “not a part of the Fact-Finding Mission”.

“The denial is patently untrue,” the email’s author writes. “Ian Henderson WAS part of the FFM and there is an abundance of official documentation, as well as other supporting proof, that testifies to that.”

But I don’t suppose we can expect to see any apologies or corrections from the usual suspects in light of this new information.

“We are not insisting on being right in our assertions, but we are demanding to be heard,” the email’s author writes. “We have desperately tried to limit expression of concerns to within the Organisation and will continue to do so. However, we have been stonewalled throughout by obfuscation, exclusion, and even thuggish and bullying behavior.”

The author wraps things up by explaining why they’re pushing so hard to be heard with a quote from Edmund Burke: “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

Email communications between FFM members and their team leader Sami Barrek.



Dr. Roy Schestowitz (罗伊)
@schestowitz
New leak: "It's because the stakes are so high that we have a responsibility to guard against misrepresentation, by both sides."
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/Omission_of_ppb_levels_in_Interim_R_on_6-July/ …
#Douma #wikileaks #syria #opcw

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This July 2018 correspondence is significant mainly because it brings in hard evidence for the exchange described by the OPCW whistleblower “Alex” in the aforementioned Jonathan Steele report, which was described as follows:

“This request was rejected but Sami Barrek, the team leader, was put in charge of replacing the doctored version with what turned out to be a toned-down but still misleading report. During the editing four of the Douma inspectors, including Ian Henderson, the engineering expert, had managed to get Barrek to agree that the low levels of COCs [Chlorinated Organic Chemicals] should be mentioned. On the day before the new publication date, July 6, they found that the levels were again being omitted.”

The back-and-forth exchanges feature one or more anonymous team members arguing with Barrek that more information needs to be included in the Interim Report so that people won’t jump to conclusions that the team had found evidence it hadn’t. And sure enough, Moon of Alabama documented multiple mass media headlines which falsely claimed the Interim Report had asserted chlorine gas was used (that invalid claim wasn’t made until the Final Report in March 2019).

Here’s a sample exchange where one inspector tries to persuade Barrek to change the language in the report so readers will understand that the information they had about chlorinated organic chemical concentrations at the time hadn’t reached any “damning conclusion”, with Barrek throwing up inertia and saying he can unilaterally overrule them if he wants to:

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-3.png?w=956&ssl=1
https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-4.png?w=928&ssl=1

Again, none of the findings which were inconsistent with the US narrative were included in either the final draft of the Interim Report or in the Final Report. Nothing about the low levels of chlorinated organic chemicals, nothing about the inconsistencies in symptoms with chlorine gas poisoning, nothing about the lack of damage to the cylinders, nothing about Ian Henderson’s findings. Nothing. The OPCW had no business withholding that information.



Brian Whitaker
✔
@Brian_Whit
Eight weeks ago a whistleblower claimed to have documents showing "irregularities" in the OPCW's investigation of a suspected chemical attack in Syria. Since then, only one document has surfaced. Where are the others? https://al-bab.com/blog/2019/12/douma-whistleblower-and-long-wait-leaked-documents …


The Douma whistleblower and the long wait for leaked documents
Last October a whistleblower emerged from inside the OPCW alleging

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These new leaks take care of the latest spin jobs by establishment narrative managers, who were just the other day beginning to argue that the fact that there hadn’t been any more OPCW leaks in a while indicated that the whole OPCW scandal was bogus. Sorry to disappoint you, fellas.



Tareq Haddad
@Tareq_Haddad
My full account of what took place at Newsweek.
Despite a number of offers, I decided to publish on my website because I take full responsibility for what's reported
It's a long piece so I recommend reading at a time when you can digest and on a computerhttps://tareqhaddad.com/2019/12/14/lies-newsweek-and-control-of-the-media-narrative-first-hand-account/ …
Lies, Newsweek and Control of the Media Narrative: First-Hand Account
A mafia runs editors. Freedom of the press is dead. Journalists and ordinary people must stand up.
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The WikiLeaks documents and Hitchens’ Daily Mail article came out the same day as ex-Newsweek reporter Tareq Haddad shared emails sent to him by his editors forbidding him to publish information on the OPCW scandal, an important slice of information on the way mass media outlets stifle commentary on important stories that are inconvenient for US imperialism.

Newsweek’s foreign affairs editor Dimi Reider (who Haddad notes has Council on Foreign Relations ties) shot down Haddad’s pitch for a story about the OPCW scandal last month by falsely claiming that Bellingcat had “published a thorough refutation” of the story Haddad wanted to report on. In fact, as I documented at the time, Bellingcat had published an unbelievably pathetic spin job in which it tried to paint the whole OPCW scandal as a big misunderstanding.

Bellingcat argued that the concerns voiced in the leaked email published by WikiLeaks last month about the developing Interim Report in July 2018 had been fully addressed by the time the Final Report was published in March 2019, citing as evidence the fact that some slight adjustments had been made in the wording, like changing “likely” to “possible” and changing “reactive chlorine containing chemical” to “chemical containing reactive chlorine.” In focusing on this ridiculous, pedantic nonsense, Bellingcat tries to weave the narrative that because the whistleblower’s concerns were addressed with this pedantry, there was therefore no OPCW coverup. Never mind the fact that the multiple OPCW whistleblowers were still plainly so incensed by the organisation’s publishing that they felt the need to leak internal documents. Never mind that Bellingcat made no attempt whatsoever to address the aforementioned actual grievances by the OPCW whistleblowers like the low levels of chlorinated organic chemicals on the scene, the inconsistencies in symptoms and testimony with chlorine poisoning, or the Ian Henderson report.

But that’s what happens when mass media outlets like The New York Times and The Guardian publish swooning puff piece after swooning puff piece about Bellingcat; they grant a US government-funded narrative management firm so much unearned legitimacy that even a transparently bogus argument like the one they made about the OPCW scandal gets passed around newsrooms by credulous editors assuring each other that it’s a “thorough refutation” of facts and reality. Mass media outlets help puff up Bellingcat’s legitimacy, and in turn Bellingcat rewards them with an excuse to not have to ever challenge establishment narratives.

Reider also argued that Haddad’s report on the OPCW couldn’t be published because “not a single respected media outlet – many of whom boast far greater regional expertise, resources on the ground and in newsroom than Newsweek does – have taken the leak remotely seriously.”

That’s a great self-reinforcing system, isn’t it? MSM outlets validate US government-funded narrative managers like Bellingcat so they can tell them with authority why an unauthorised story shouldn’t be published, and each outlet sees the absence of other outlets reporting on it as evidence that it shouldn’t be reported on. And we wonder why no one’s reporting on the OPCW scandal.



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
Fake News By Omission — The Mass Media’s Cowardly Distortion Tool

"The exceptional silence on the OPCW scandal from imperial news media discredits them completely, but people won’t know about it unless they are told. Spread the word." #OPCW #Syriahttps://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/fake-news-by-omission-the-mass-medias-cowardly-distortion-tool-b80f3d0fe7e4 …


Fake News By Omission — The Mass Media’s Cowardly Distortion Tool
Western mass media have continued their conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal, making no significant mention yet this month of the…

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And Newsweek’s Digital Director Laura Davis gave Haddad the same answer, regurgitating the absolutely bogus Bellingcat line that the leaked email wasn’t newsworthy because “it predates the final report” and because no one else has written about it. It’s a system fully locked down against any oppositional reporting, and we can surmise that this is the norm for newsrooms throughout the English-speaking world.

Haddad also published a similar email he’d received from International Business Times then-editor-in-chief Julian Kossoff, who rejected a pitch he’d made for an opinion piece he’d written about the Khan Sheikhun incident in April 2017.

“Thanks for the suggested opinion piece,” Kossoff wrote. “However, I do not think we will be able to use it. Its narrative is highly controversial and likely to offend and only a writer or expert of repute (e.g Noam Chomsky) could get away with such an incendiary thesis.”

And what was this “incendiary thesis”? Well, Haddad published it with CounterPunch, so you can see for yourself. He simply argued what in my opinion should be a completely uncontroversial position: that there wasn’t yet enough evidence to be certain Assad was behind the attacks, and the US has a known history of entering into military entanglements based on lies, so the warmongers demanding Assad’s overthrow shouldn’t be listened to.

This insight into the dynamics behind the mass media’s lies by omission are very valuable, and they help us paint a better picture about the reason we’re not seeing more discussion of these OPCW leaks."

[onawah]

Hot Mic Moment Exposes Insane Sleaziness Of British Political/Media Class
DECEMBER 16, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
(Not really anymore disingenuous or fatuous than what we see every day and night here in the US on CNN, but perhaps in the UK it's not so much the rule as the exception.)

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Screen-Shot-2019-12-16-at-10.12.11-PM.jpg?resize=1200%2C651&ssl=1

"There’s a wildly under-appreciated clip of news footage from Thursday’s general election in the UK that, now that everyone’s had some time to emotionally process the emotional fallout from that depressing night, needs more attention.

Labour MP and chronic left-puncher Jess Phillips appeared on Channel 4 to talk about how devastated she was about the news of exit polls showing her party’s crushing defeat, except the cameras switched on before she was prepared and caught her in the middle of a joyful chuckle. It took several seconds and the overt reminders from the show’s hosts to put on a “straight face” and act emotional before she could conceal her cheery mood as Corbyn’s Labour leadership was trampled underfoot by odious empire lackey Boris Johnson.

“Good evening Jess,” said the program’s host Krishnan Guru-Murthy. “How are you feeling as these results unfold?”

Watching the stumbling improvisation that came next feels like walking into a room full of awkward silence when your supposed friends had just been saying mean things about you, or seeing your spouse conspicuously jump away from an attractive coworker when you drop by the office.KEcu4Hha5Us
Phillips, still unaware that the cameras were now rolling, did not interrupt the delighted guffaw she’d been enjoying.

“Can you hear me Jess Phillips?” the host asked over nervous tittering from the audience. “It’s Krishnan.”

“I can hear you, sorry,” Phillips said after a moment, literally putting her hand over her mouth for a few seconds to hide her giant ****-eating grin.

“Straight face,” said Guru-Murthy, who then apparently realized that this was a bizarre thing to say and added “Actually you don’t have to have a straight face, umm, on this show. Umm… what are you thinking?”

“Oh are you talking to me now? Sorry that wasn’t clear,” said Phillips after a pause, her face now finally somewhat straightened out. “Sorry, I’m really tired. What I’m thinking is… it’s, it’s just totally devastating isn’t it? It’s totally devastating that all the people that I see every day, they’re gonna have nowhere to turn. I mean, I should probably do that thing where we all pretend that we’re gonna wait and see if the results are better than we thought, but it feels like a kick in the stomach.”

Jess Phillips had not been acting like a woman who felt devastated, and she had certainly not been acting like a woman who felt like she’d been kicked in the stomach. Jess Phillips had been acting like a woman on her third strawberry daiquiri down at the pub with a couple of hilarious mates.

“I’m just waiting actually, I mean, for your thoughts,” Guru-Murthy said after an awkward pause. “I mean, you look emotional, and upset, and that’s understandable.”

Guru-Murthy was lying. At no time did Phillips look either emotional or upset.

“Jess it’s just that you look very emotional, and we know you, we know you’re a normal, sane person, so it’s very confusing,” host Katherine Ryan bull****ted when Phillips struggled to hear what Guru-Murthy had said.

“I am very emotional,” Phillips lied. “But not just for me or for the Labour Party. I’m emotional for the people that the Labour Party was invented to help.”

The audience, probably relieved to have a taste of something that isn’t intensely awkward and disturbing, erupted in applause.

Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush
@WarmongerHodges
"Enter Jess Phillips. She backs Trident, austerity and Israel. She hates Corbyn, Williamson and Leftists in general. She doesn’t believe in class politics or ideology, but she does talk about gender all the time, and says '****' a lot..." https://off-guardian.org/2019/03/15/jess-phillips-emerges-as-establishment-pick-to-replace-corbyn/ … via @offguardian0


Jess Phillips Emerges as Establishment Pick to Replace Corbyn
It seems The Times is willing to give column inches to any Labour MP willing to insult and undermine their leader, and is determined to try and tell the public which politicians are the “tren…
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1203789990012104706/zcXS19R7?format=jpg&name=600x314
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4:54 PM - Mar 16, 2019
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For months the imperial media have been loudly anointing Phillips as the establishment choice to replace the unabashedly socialism-minded Corbyn, as Kit Knightly described for Off-Guardian back in March. This coronation-by-media continues today with outlets ranging from The Guardian to Daily Mail to Telegraph placing her on the short list to assume leadership of the Labour Party over the last couple of days.

After an anti-imperialist, pro-Palestinian socialist was magically thrown into role of Opposition leader by an extraordinary accident in 2015, Phillips leapt into her role as outspoken Corbyn critic by publicly telling him “I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front.” Despite this vow, Phillips proceeded to steadfastly knife Corbyn in the back by fanning the flames of incredibly disingenuous smears against his leadership, elevating the imaginary Labour antisemitism crisis to such a cartoonish extent that earlier this year she proclaimed that a tweet saying “Palestine Lives” from Young Labour “is antisemitic and it has to stop.” This malicious termiting continued into the final days before the general election, with Phillips criticizing Corbyn for not responding adequately to claims about antisemitism in the Labour Party by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

Phillips’ hot mic moment, and the mad scramble of the show’s perception-managing pundits to clean it up, provides us with a brief glimpse behind the phony persona that the empire’s political/media class put on for us. Should Bernie Sanders by some Corbyn-like miracle overcome the rigged primaries and receive the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, we may be absolutely certain we’ll see a campaign to sabotage his run and force a loss to Trump in the US elections next year. And we may be absolutely certain they’ll cackle about it just as Jess Phillips did when she thought the cameras were off.https://i2.wp.com/cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/720/1*I-iPBgzJmxiqHYzebmZN4A.png?resize=1000%2C749&ssl=1These people aren’t like you and me. They don’t care about truth, and they don’t care about human beings. They rose to the positions they occupy within media and politics by consistently demonstrating that they’ll do whatever it takes to advance the interests of the oligarchic empire while giving the people the bare minimum possible to prevent an insurrection. They’re where they’re at precisely because they don’t care about truth or people. They care about their own dominance within our sick dominator culture, and when they achieve it, they smile, and they celebrate, and they laugh.

Sometimes the guardians of empire make little mistakes. Sometimes they accidentally allow an anti-imperialist to lead one of their major parties. Sometimes they accidentally get caught in mid-guffaw when they’re meant to be pretending to be heartbroken. Whenever those holes appear it’s important to pay attention to them, and to shove as many rays of light through them as possible before they are closed."

[onawah]

The 12 Strongest Arguments That Douma Was A False Flag
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
DECEMBER 19, 2019
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/19/the-12-strongest-arguments-that-douma-was-a-false-flag/

(Long article, many hyperlinks Tweets and videos--everything that needs to be known about the Douma False Flag. More than I have time to copy here now.)

[onawah]

Spot The Manipulators In Your Own Life: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
by Caitlin Johnstone
DECEMBER 20, 2019
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/20/spot-the-manipulators-in-your-own-life-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/

"The real underlying currency of our world is not gold, nor bureaucratic fiat, nor even military might. The real underlying currency of our world is narrative, and the ability to control it. Everything always comes down to this one real currency. If you look at what all these think tanks, NGOs, media outlets and grant making networks that billionaires pour their money into actually do, it ultimately boils down to controlling the dominant stories that people tell about what's going on in their world.

If you want to understand how narrative management works in the world, pay attention to how it plays out in your own life. What are some popular narratives within your family, perhaps about one of your family members, that don't reflect reality? What subjects are off limits in your immediate or extended family, and why? Who do you know that repeatedly spins narratives about the kind of person they are, or the kind of person you are?

Most of us have at least one strong narrative manipulator in our circle somewhere; family, friends, work, etc. You can spot them by how much energy they pour into manufacturing a consensus about someone in their circle, including themselves; working to spin narratives about themselves that make them look good, or narratives about someone else to make them look bad.

Watch for anyone in your life who repeatedly tells you stories about the kind of person they are, because they're trying to manipulate your narrative about them. Also watch for anyone who keeps telling you stories about yourself, because they're trying to manipulate your narrative about you. Be especially wary of the latter.

Spot the manipulators in your own life and watch their patterns, then look out to the world and compare those patterns to what you see with government and media. You'll see the exact same patterns on a macro scale. Manipulation takes the same form whether small-scale or large.

We'll get angry at our compatriots for not rising up and forcing real change. We'll get angry at a loved one for not leaving an abusive relationship. What we rarely do is look closely and see that both are victims of manipulation which keeps them from changing their situation.

Whenever I talk about propaganda influencing public action I get accused of depriving people of their "agency", but the only way to believe that is to believe it's impossible to influence people's decisions through media. An idea both propagandists and advertisers would scoff at.

I love my job, but it's so stupid and annoying to have to keep dignifying the mass media with attention and analysis. They're so discredited at this point that everyone should just be dismissing them like raving street corner preachers. I look forward to that day so I can spend my time making art instead of paying attention to the lies that are coming out of people's screens.

There are exactly zero babies in the mainstream media bathwater. It's a propaganda network which manufactures consent for mass murder, oppression and exploitation, and it deserves nothing other than total obliteration. Toss it all out.

All this impeachment stuff is very exciting for everyone who lacks the mental capacity to count Senate seats.

Still haven't seen any coherent defense of Democrats impeaching over Trump's Biden/Ukraine political shenanigans but not Bush's torture scandals or lying about a war that slaughtered a million people.

It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where Democrats would impeach a Republican president for war crimes. Unfortunately it won't happen because (A) they'd implicate countless Democrats in the process and (B) they want be able to commit their own war crimes once back in office.
Anyone who warns that impeachment is a distraction from more important issues will get told "We can walk and chew gum at the same time! We can push impeachment AND advance progressive agendas!" The same people saying this just spent the last three years fixating on Russia instead of advancing progressive agendas.

It's unfortunate that when someone changes to a new belief system, like converting to a religion or whatever, their attention goes into that new belief system and not into the amazing discovery that they have the incredible superpower to change their beliefs whenever they want.

To have the luxury of being able to do deep inner work and become a healthy human being on this planet is a tremendous privilege, yet most who have this privilege neglect to use it. Do your part in clearing our species of insanity, if you are able. To do otherwise is a betrayal of humanity.

A certain type of antisocial personality disorder will always tend to gravitate toward circles where violence and aggression are the norm. This includes the military and police force, naturally. It also includes political activist circles which encourage violence and aggression.

People spend so much time on online political forums pretending to disagree with each other's opinions when really everyone's just masturbating their early childhood trauma on each other in a socially acceptable disguise.

Mentally replace all the doofy company logos on people's cars and clothing with the word "CAPITALISM".

If US government agencies say "So this thing just happened and as a result we're going to have to intervene militarily over there," and your immediate, reflexive answer isn't "Bull****, either provide indisputable and independently verifiable proof or **** off," then you've learned nothing at all about the history of US interventionism.

The extremist militants who nearly succeeded in toppling the Syrian government are not and have never been "moderate rebels". They're only "moderate" compared to the psychopaths who've been funding them.

Establishment narrative management about Syria is so uniquely heated and aggressive for two reasons:
1) Syria has unique geostrategic importance.
2) The empire has done extremely evil things in Syria that it absolutely cannot allow to enter into mainstream attention.

People tell me "It's not Trump's fault he keeps advancing evil establishment agendas! He's being manipulated!" But seriously, who gives a ****? Either he's an impotent puppet who does as he's told or he's doing it on his own. Either way, **** him. It's a meaningless distinction.

How to criticize the Israeli government without being labeled an anti-semite:
1. Don't criticize the Israeli government.
2. Ever.
3. At all.

"Is it journalism?" is a meaningless, power-serving debate. The question is if it's GOOD journalism. Stop imbuing the word with magical significance and accept that it's simply a description of an activity that can be done by Jake Tapper, Julian Assange, or a small-time Youtuber.

I have this platform because of baked-in privileges, extraordinary support, but also sheer luck and miracles clearing me over the many invisible walls that prevent people like me getting a big voice. I acknowledge the existence of those invisible walls. I exist to knock them down."

[onawah]

Humanity’s Salvation Will Necessarily Look Like A Leap Into The Unknown
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/21/humanitys-salvation-will-necessarily-look-like-a-leap-into-the-unknown/
DECEMBER 21, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/21/humanitys-salvation-will-necessarily-look-like-a-leap-into-the-unknown/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-6.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

"If humanity is to turn away from its murderous, omnicidal, ecocidal, oppressive and exploitative trajectory, it will necessarily involve a sharp, drastic deviation from all its previous patterning.

You would think that this would go without saying; obviously a drastic change in behavior will look drastically different from the behavior which preceded it. This is self-evident. Yet when you look at the arguments that people are making today, there’s almost universally a built-in assumption that humankind’s salvation will in some way involve a continuation of its previous patterning.

Most people with an ear to the ground understand to some extent that the collective behavior of our species is unsustainable. Where they differ in opinion is on what should be done to address this problem. Where they unify in opinion is on the assumption that the solution will look like their own personal ideology winning out over all the others. Capitalists believe that capitalism will provide technological solutions to the problems that capitalism has created, and that this will happen more quickly and efficiently if the fetters on capitalism are removed. Socialists believe that socialism will solve the problems that socialism has been powerless to provide this entire time, if only this consistent pattern of socialism’s inability to obtain dominance is magically deviated from somehow. And so on.

But if you really think honestly about it, how can that possibly be? How can any preexisting ideological pattern possibly create a deviation in patterning? Any ideology you are bringing to the table will almost certainly be one which has been a part of humanity’s collective patterning for generations, and probably for centuries. How can an ideology which has been promoted in more or less the same patterns for generation possibly lead to a pattern deviation?

Believing you can create a sharp change in direction by shoving in a direction people have already been shoving for generations is like believing you can dry yourself off using water. The old patterns cannot create new patterning any more than water can create the state of dryness. It is against their inherent nature.

Because of our limited lifespans and our cognitive inability to perceive everything at once, it’s difficult to see the big picture of humanity’s plight as a whole. It’s difficult to give due significance to the fact that the ideological tug-of-war game which seems to be presenting in one particular election in one particular location we’re particularly passionate about has actually been going on all over the world since long before we were born, and all that it has gained us is the situation in which we now find ourselves. The shoving of your one preferred ideology is inseparable from the whole of our total collective patterning, and it always has been.

What this means is that if there is to be any deviation from our species’ self-destructive trajectory, the cause of that deviation will come completely out of left field. No one will expect it, because it won’t come from a direction that we have been conditioned through our experience to look. Our unpatterning will necessarily come from a completely un-patterned direction. A collective movement in an unprecedented direction will necessarily have an unprecedented antecedent.

So in what way is what I’m saying useful to you? If the only hope for humanity lies in the arrival of conditions you can’t possibly predict, then it makes no difference what you think or do because those conditions will either arrive or not regardless of your conditioned patterning, right?

Well, yes and no. Obviously there’s nothing you can do to create the conditions of a change agent you can’t possibly anticipate with your learned mental patternings. So in that sense you may as well keep fighting the bastards in whatever way seems best to you in order to keep them at bay for the time being (and also because **** them). But one thing you can do in order to help grease the wheels of drastic change is to prepare yourself and the world for a leap into the unknown.

Because that’s necessarily what a drastic pattern deviation will look like: a leap into the unknown. The precipice of the changes we all intuitively sense are on our horizon is the precipice between the known patterns and the unknowable unpatterning. The annihilation that many are predicting will look like literal human extinction may well end up actually presenting as the annihilation of our conditioned patterning. Which is, experientially, a kind of death.

So what you can do on a personal level is let go of your attachment to the known. Sell off all stocks you’ve invested in your conditioned mental patterning and begin doing the hard inner work necessary to embrace the unknown and unknowable. Begin surprising yourself, and opening doors to allow life to surprise you. Take chances on new and unpredictable situations instead of taking refuge in the known and the familiar. Give less and less interest and attention to your conditioned, looping mental narratives and more and more to the uncontrollable present moment in which literally anything can be born.

You can carry this embrace of the unknowable out into the collective level by creating and expressing from it. Make art which comes from an unpatterned direction. Do things which make people question how reliable their patterned expectations are. It may sound cliche, but there is immense wisdom hidden in the saying “practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty”.

Making this your way of life can help create little gaps in our patterning, so that if and when the change agent for humanity’s evolutionary transcendence of its self-destructive patterns arrives, you and those who’ve encountered your unpatterning dance in the world will be better able to improvise along with it, without fear or inertia."

[onawah]

Why Everything Is F---ed
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
DECEMBER 22, 2019
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/author/caitlin-johnstone/

(This makes me think of the famous koan and the demand of the Zen Master " Show me your original face before you were born"!)

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-6-1.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

"We all slid out of the womb an itty bitty helpless information sponge into a world full of mentally ill giants who couldn’t wait to fill our tiny skulls with all of their inner demons. And now everything, understandably, is ****ed.

That’s basically our whole entire situation in a nutshell. You can add on as many extra details as you like–plutocracy, corruption, mass media propaganda, billionaire wine cave fundraisers, whatever–but ultimately our plight is due to the fact that every single human showed up on this planet completely helpless and knowing nothing, forced to trust crazy giants to give them the grand introductory tour.

Why were those giants crazy? Well you see, they got here the same way you did: small, slippery and completely clueless, surrounded by enormous gibbering lunatics who were all in a mad rush to teach them how to be insane.

And those giants came into the world under the exact same circumstances, as did the giants who came before them, and the giants who came before them, and so on.

It’s a grand old tradition of ours, ultimately stretching all the way back to our own evolutionary birth in this world and the emergence of a massive cerebral cortex in a mammal who up until that point had been primarily concerned with sneaking in a snack and a quick shag in between mad sprints away from sharp-fanged predators. This newfound capacity for complex abstract thought burst onto this frantic, confusing scene and was quickly seized and manipulated by the cleverer primates.

And thus human madness was born.

The most powerful early humans were the cleverest humans, the ones who understood how to use this new capacity for language and abstract thought to their own advantage. They realized that by simply saying something is true in a sufficiently confident way, they could persuade the less clever humans to treat it as true.

Those clever humans used this newfound ability to place themselves in charge, and to make a bunch of rules to be passed down from generation to generation proclaiming that the less powerful humans must submit to the more powerful humans. Over the generations these rules became more and more numerous and complex, weaving in moralism, codes of filial piety, and insane, power-serving religions glorifying meekness, obedience and poverty.

These power-serving rule sets were picked up and used to justify highly traumatizing behavior in the service of the powerful, from wars to genocides to institutionalized torture and brutal executions of the disobedient, and just within domestic power structures the institutionalized normalization of spousal rape and physical abuse in households all around the world.

This eons-long tidal wave of deep trauma and power-serving rules structures passed from generation to generation to generation picking up more and more demented flotsam and jetsam as it went along, to ultimately come crashing down upon your crowning head as you emerged from your mother’s body.

That is your legacy. That is everyone’s legacy. Countless generations of cumulative madness, washed into the present moment on a current of eons of exploitation and senseless cruelty stretching all the way back to the dawn of our species on this planet.

This heritage of madness is funneled straight into our sponge-like brains from the moment we emerge from the womb and all the way through an extremely traumatic and confusing ordeal known as childhood, after which we are handed the keys to the world and told “You’re an adult now. You’re in charge. See if you can figure out how to run this place better than we did.”

And we’re just like:

https://i0.wp.com/i.imgur.com/6tQ371b.gif?resize=373%2C250
We never stood a goddamn chance. None of us did. The deck was stacked against us long before we got here.

And now you get political commentators constantly railing on about “Gosh, if only we could get people to stop listening to their televisions and vote third party and read World Socialist Website and turn up to demonstrations and take back the power of the people from our oppressors, we could turn this thing around!” Not realizing that everyone else in their country went through the same traumatic, confusing ordeal that they went through at the beginning of their lives, the only difference being that most of them got a lot less lucky in sorting out reality from madness. And not realizing that they themselves are still quite mad.

This is ultimately the answer to every question about why things are ****ed right now. Why does it seem like nothing changes no matter who wins the election? Why do the wars keep expanding instead of ending? Why is the news man always lying? Why are they locking up that white-haired fellow for publishing facts? Why are those nuclear superpowers hurtling closer toward direct confrontation? Why are the rainforests vanishing? Why are the whales dying? Why are the mass shootings increasing? Why is everyone so miserable?

Because every adult on this planet started off tiny, helpless, impressionable, and surrounded by gargantuan madmen, and it made it almost impossible to be sane. That’s why.

Notice I said “almost”. It is still possible to find one’s way into a relationship with reality that is guided by truth and untainted by madness, but you’ve got to start way, way, way back at the beginning and deeply re-examine even your most fundamental assumptions about what’s true and real. Because it turns out that while the mad giants gave us information that was very useful for interacting with other mad giants, it was almost entirely useless for learning how to navigate through life in a wise and truthful way.

And that’s what I’m pointing to here: it’s important to get clear on just how far back the crazy goes and how fundamentally interwoven it is with the situation in which we now find ourselves. If you begin with the assumption that our problem is simply due to humans not voting and mobilizing correctly in alignment with the correct ideology, you’ll miss the real obstacle entirely. You’ve got to zoom the camera out much, much further to see the full picture.

Can you become a deeply sane individual, untainted by your ancient heritage of madness? With a lot of work and uncompromising self-honesty you can.

Can all humans become deeply sane and untainted by their ancient heritage of madness? It would take a miracle. A whole lot of miracles. Billions, to be precise.

But then, I believe in miracles."

[onawah]

Don’t Be Crushed By Your Own Belief System
DECEMBER 27, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/27/dont-be-crushed-by-your-own-belief-system/

"We’ve all known people who’ve changed their belief systems. Whether it’s switching political ideologies or converting to a new religion, we’ve all witnessed with our own eyes that people have the ability to willfully change their beliefs. Unless you’ve been living an incredibly boring and immature life, you’ve probably made such a change yourself at some point, too.

What’s very, very strange, and very very unfortunate, is that when such changes in belief systems occur it tends to go unnoticed and underappreciated just how significant it is and how enormous its implications are. We discover that we have this incredible superpower to change our beliefs whenever we want, and instead of paying attention to that superpower and what it means for our lives, we focus on the new belief system instead.

I once had a friend who converted to fundamentalist Christianity for six weeks, then dropped it like a hot potato. For those six weeks she was absolutely gung-ho, plunged fully into that reality tunnel and perceiving the world through that perceptual lens, and then she was done and moved on to something else. At no time did she ever stop and go “Holy crap! I can change my entire worldview at will! What does that mean for me and my life? What doors can I unlock with this amazing newfound ability?” Instead she focused entirely on her new belief system, then when she dropped it she just reverted to her old one.

How bizarre is that? It’s like if you were straining to reach a book on the top shelf at the bookstore, then you suddenly and unexpectedly levitated off the ground and grabbed it, and instead of paying attention to the discovery that you have an amazing superpower you got all excited to read the book and forgot all about your newfound flying powers.

Because as far as the conventional worldview we’re taught by our teachers and parents is concerned, the ability to change your beliefs at will really is an extraordinary superpower. It’s not an ability we’re ever taught we have; we’re taught in a way that assumes we’re all just floating along taking in information about the world, and whatever that information adds up to is what our belief system looks like. Even in the case of a radical change in belief systems like converting to a new religion, the fact that you’re performing an astonishing miracle by tearing down your old worldview and replacing it with a new one gets de-emphasised and re-framed as you being “saved”. It’s made to look passive. Like something that happened to you.

But it’s not passive at all. You consciously and deliberately replaced beliefs you previously held about the reality you’re living in with an entirely different set of beliefs.

That’s an amazing superpower, and everyone has it. But this extraordinary fact almost always goes completely overlooked. Someone switches from “liberal” to “conservative” and spends their time focusing on how dumb those libtards are. Someone switches from agnostic to Christian and it’s all about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. When really, if they weren’t getting ahead of themselves and staring at the new worldview instead of noticing the amazing thing they were doing to get there, it would be all about “Holy ****! I can believe whatever I want about anything! What belief system will bring me the most happiness and wellbeing?”

Because you really can do that. You do have the ability to completely rewire your beliefs in whatever way serves you. There’s often an unquestioned assumption that we exist to serve our belief systems, but actually the opposite is true: belief is a tool that you can use to serve yourself.

One way this can make a huge difference is in your beliefs regarding yourself. Most of us form beliefs about ourselves which cause us a lot of unhappiness and limit us in a great many ways. Beliefs about being deficient, inadequate, unlovable, incapable, ugly, awful, etc, which we internalize and forget about. These beliefs about ourselves continue guiding our inner lives and our life choices unconsciously from behind the scenes, determining everything from our career paths, to our love lives, to our level of inner peace, to what kinds of things we do to make life feel less painful.

You have the ability to simply change these stories at will. You can choose to believe that you are awesome. That you are capable. That you are supremely lovable. That you are the baddest bitch in the room. You’ll experience some cognitive dissonance as one belief is replaced with another, but that will dissipate as you settle on your new belief about yourself. You don’t need to weigh a bunch of concepts to determine whether you are lovable or whatever; you can just decide that that is a true thing that you believe about yourself, and hold it as true and real.

You can also change your beliefs about the world you live in. Many people believe they live in a fundamentally hostile universe that they need to constantly be on guard against or else something awful will happen, for example. You can actually counter this belief by replacing it with its opposite: you live in a fundamentally beneficent universe that is endlessly conspiring toward your wellbeing, and any speed bumps you encounter along the way are just opportunities in disguise. Again, you don’t have to ask anyone’s permission to believe this about your world, and you don’t need to add up all the facts and decide if it’s an evidence-based belief; you can just hold it as true for as long as it serves you.

There’s no danger in picking up a new belief system and trying it on for a while, because, as my temporarily fundamentalist Christian friend can tell you, you can put them back down and replace them with something else whenever you want.

It generally serves us to have a worldview that’s based on predictable observations about how reality tends to behave on a pragmatic level; it’s useful to hold as true that getting hit by a car will be hazardous to your health and if you jump off a cliff you won’t walk on air. But those are beliefs based on practical considerations about what’s best for you, which is the same kind of consideration you can give to what type of universe you live in and what kind of person you are. You are the author of your own belief system, and the only beliefs you should hold are the ones that serve you, for exactly as long as they serve you.

Because ultimately it’s impossible to know what this strange reality is. Our ability to perceive the world is limited to a laughably small slice of spacetime, our brains process a very tiny sliver of the tiny sliver of information our senses take in, and science can’t even tell us what things like consciousness and matter are at their most fundamental level. We’re all just making this up as we go along, so rather than trying to add up a bunch of facts and figures to form a belief system about this mess, it’s much wiser to consciously and deliberately construct one which actually benefits you as a person.

Another thing you have the power to do, which I highly recommend, is to get rid of beliefs which do not serve you and replace them with nothing at all. When you notice a belief you have about the world, or about yourself, or about someone else, or whatever, you can ask yourself how that belief is beneficial to you. If you conclude that the belief harms your ability to enjoy life or to succeed at your goals, or even if it’s just not particularly useful, you can simply consciously relinquish it by ceasing to energetically hold it in yourself as true and real. You don’t actually need to replace it with another belief if you don’t want to; you can just let it exist as one big question mark.

In fact it’s possible to live life with very few beliefs, because very few of them will be useful to you at any given time. You can comb through your entire belief system and consciously relinquish almost all of it one item at a time, leaving nothing in its place but question marks. You can choose to experience life as a mystery, without holding any beliefs about what this whole explosion of sensory impressions and thoughts we experience in our field of consciousness fundamentally is. You can determine what assessments about this world are useful to hold as true to some extent (you can even choose to hold them loosely so that they can be readily dropped at any time), and then leave everything else as one giant unknowing.

Not knowing can be intimidating at first, but once you’re comfortable with it it’s very expansive and makes life extremely enjoyable. When we’re not filtering our experience of the world through a whole bunch of beliefs and labels and “knowledge”, its innate beauty can be deeply perceived. And this makes our time in this weird universe a lot more fun.

It also makes us a lot more efficacious in our interactions with other people. When we’re meeting others without a bunch of beliefs about them or ourselves, a very free-form improvisation is able to take place in real time, with your reactions based on what you’re both actually saying and doing rather than a bunch of preconceived notions. Anyone who’s ever played a fast-paced sport where you need to be fully in the moment knows how much more effective you can be when you’re not mentally trying to anticipate what will happen and going with the flow instead. With a lens free of rigid beliefs, you can flow with all of life like that.

To be able to grasp and release beliefs at will takes some practice, just like grasping and releasing with your physical hands took practice when you were little. But once you’ve got the hang of it you can create a very artful, beautiful life for yourself."

[onawah]

Opposing Interventionism In Nation X Means You Love Nation X’s Government!”
DECEMBER 27, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/27/opposing-interventionism-in-nation-x-means-you-love-nation-xs-government/

"Every time you speak out against western imperialism in a given nation or question western propaganda narratives about that nation’s government, you will inevitably be accused of loving that nation’s government by anyone who argues with you.

When I say “inevitably”, I am not exaggerating. If you speak in any public forum for any length of time expressing skepticism of what we’re told to believe about a nation whose government has been targeted by the US-centralized empire, you will with absolute certainty eventually run into someone who accuses you of thinking that that government is awesome and pure and good.

I have never, ever had this fail to occur, even once. If I write an article about the mountain of evidence suggesting we were lied to about a chemical attack in Syria, I get people telling me I think Bashar al-Assad is a girl scout who’s never ever done anything wrong. If I express skepticism of the flimsy narratives we’re being fed in the escalating propaganda war against China, I get “If you love Beijing so much and think Xi is so innocent you should go and move to China!” It’s one of the only completely predictable things about this job.

Which is of course idiotic. Understanding that the US government and its allies lie constantly with the full-throated support of western news media in no way suggests a belief that the targeted government in question is wonderful, and there’s absolutely no legitimate reason to infer such a thing. The indisputable fact that US-led military interventionism is universally disastrous and based on lies has nothing to do with anyone’s level of emotional support for the governments targeted for destruction by the US-centralized empire. Yet everyone reading this who’s ever tried to speak out against US foreign policy has encountered the behavior I’m describing here.

Why is that? Why do establishment loyalists engage in such a weird, nonsensical behavior with such reliable consistency? Why do they literally always accuse anyone who questions any narrative about any empire-targeted government of having positive emotions toward that government, even though there is no rational reason for them to do so?

I’ll tell you why: Hollywood.

Well, not just Hollywood. Really the dynamic we’re about to discuss has been going on for as long as there have been war stories. But the dominant storytellers of today are in Hollywood, and that’s where the dominant war stories are told.

For as long as war stories have been told, those stories have been framed as a battle between good and evil. The good side is the side you identify with, and the evil side is the one you want to lose. You see this in almost all depictions of war coming out of Hollywood today, from movies based on actual wars to sci-fi and fantasy films like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. Over and over and over again from childhood we are trained to assume that mass military violence must have a Good side and an Evil side, so when we see a war being depicted anywhere we immediately start trying to sort out who are the Good Guys and who are the Bad Guys, usually without even thinking about it.

Obviously war isn’t actually about Good versus Evil; usually it’s nothing more noble than geostrategic agenda versus geostrategic agenda. But because people are conditioned from an early age to overlay any ideas about large-scale conflict with this false Good or Evil dichotomy, there’s an immediate assumption that if you’re suggesting that one side might not be Good, then the other side are the Good Guys. If you say the government pushing regime change in Iran is doing something immoral, then you’re saying they’re the Bad Guys, which means you think the Iranian government are the Good Guys.

Yes, the behavior in question really does boil down to something that stupid. This phenomenon where empire apologists will predictably accuse you of loving an empire-targeted nation just because you oppose imperialist agendas is primarily due to a combination of dumb binary thinking and watching too many Hollywood movies. In other words, it’s due to bad information meeting bad thinking.

All we can really do to address this dynamic is bring consciousness to it. When someone’s acting out the unexamined assumption that because you are critical of western imperialism you must necessarily believe that all of its targets are perfect and wonderful, you can point out the absurdity of this position and invite them to think a little harder about it. Or just link them to this article.

Beyond that, all you can really do is understand what you’re looking at, roll your eyes, and sigh."

[onawah]

Media’s Deafening Silence On Latest WikiLeaks Drops Is Its Own Scandal
DECEMBER 28, 2019
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/28/medias-deafening-silence-on-latest-wikileaks-drops-is-its-own-scandal/

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/medium-6-4.jpg?w=900&ssl=1

"This is getting really, really, really weird.

WikiLeaks has published yet another set of leaked internal documents from within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) adding even more material to the mountain of evidence that we’ve been lied to about an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, Syria last year which resulted in airstrikes upon that nation from the US, UK and France.

This new WikiLeaks drop includes an email from the OPCW Chief of Cabinet Sebastien Braha (who is reportedly so detested by organisation inspectors that they code named him “Voldemort”) throwing a fit over the Ian Henderson Engineering Assessment which found that the Douma incident was likely a staged event. Braha is seen ordering OPCW staff to “remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever” from the organisation’s secure registry.

Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: “the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure”.https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQN

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019

The drop also includes the minutes from an OPCW toxicology meeting with “three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one bioanalytical and toxicological chemist”, all four of whom are specialists in chemical weapons analysis.

“With respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure,” the document reads.

According to the leaked minutes from the toxicology meeting, the chief expert offered “the possibility of the event being a propaganda exercise” as one potential explanation for the Douma incident. The other OPCW experts agreed that the key “take-away message” from the meeting was “that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified”.

Like all the other many, many, many, many different leaks which have been hemorrhaging from the OPCW about the Douma incident, none of the important information contained in these publications was included in any of the OPCW’s public reports on the matter. According to the OPCW’s Final Report published in March 2019, the investigative team found “reasonable grounds that the use of a toxic chemical as a weapon took place. This toxic chemical contained reactive chlorine. The toxic chemical was likely molecular chlorine.”

We now know that these “reasonable grounds” contain more holes than a spaghetti strainer executed by firing squad. This is extremely important information about an unsolved war crime which resulted in dozens of civilian deaths and led to an act of war which cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and had many far-reaching geopolitical consequences.

Yet the mass media, freakishly, has had absolutely nothing to say about this extremely newsworthy story.

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Screen-Shot-2019-12-28-at-1.04.30-PM-1.png?w=774&ssl=1

As of this writing, a Google News search for this story brings up an article by RT, Al-Masdar News, and some entries by alternative outlets you’ve almost certainly never heard of like UrduPoint News and People’s Pundit Daily.

Make no mistake about it: this is insane. The fact that an extremely important news story of immense geopolitical consequence is not getting any mainstream news media coverage, at all, is absolutely stark raving insane.

Up until the OPCW leaks, WikiLeaks drops always made mainstream news headlines. Everyone remembers how the 2016 news cycle was largely dominated by leaked Democratic Party emails emerging from the outlet. Even the relatively minor ICE agents publication by WikiLeaks last year, containing information that was already public, garnered headlines from top US outlets like The Washington Post , Newsweek, and USA Today. Now, on this exponentially more important story, zero coverage.

The mass media’s stone-dead silence on the OPCW scandal is becoming its own scandal, of equal or perhaps even greater significance than the OPCW scandal itself. It opens up a whole litany of questions which have tremendous importance for every citizen of the western world; questions like, how are people supposed to participate in democracy if all the outlets they normally turn to to make informed voting decisions adamantly refuse to tell them about the existence of massive news stories like the OPCW scandal? How are people meant to address such conspiracies of silence when there is no mechanism in place to hold the entire mass media to account for its complicity in it? And by what mechanism are all these outlets unifying in that conspiracy of silence?

We can at least gain some insight into that last question with the internal Newsweek emails which were published by journalist Tareq Haddad two weeks ago. The emails feature multiple Newsweek editors telling Haddad that they would not publish a word about the OPCW leaks for two reasons: (1) because no other outlets were reporting on them, and (2) because the US government-funded narrative management firm Bellingcat had published a laughably bogus article explaining why the leaks weren’t newsworthy. Haddad has since resigned from Newsweek.

We may be certain that this story is being killed in news rooms all around the world in similar fashion, and possibly using those very same excuses. As long as no other “respectable” (i.e. establishment) outlets are covering this story, it can be treated as a non-story, using a deceitful US government-funded narrative management operation as justification as needed. If one journalist threw his life into chaos and uncertainty by resigning and blowing the whistle on this conspiracy of silence, we may be certain that the same is happening to countless others who don’t have to courage and/or ability to do the same.

Our fearless media watchdogs still maintaining complete blackout on @OPCW whistleblower leaks debunking WMD attack in Douma. The leaks show that Trump—like Dubya— used fake WMDs to bomb Arab country—then strong-armed @OPCW to cover up the lies.https://t.co/bdbzf6py8p

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) December 27, 2019

Many alternative media commentators are highlighting this news media blackout on social media today.

“Our fearless media watchdogs still maintaining complete blackout on OPCW whistleblower leaks debunking WMD attack in Douma. The leaks show that Trump—like Dubya— used fake WMDs to bomb Arab country—then strong-armed OPCW to cover up the lies,” tweeted journalist Mark Ames.

“The US attacked Syria for a chemical attack by Assad last year. But official OPCW scientists who investigated the event didn’t find evidence the Syrian military used chemical weapons. The media has chosen to ignore this story and fire its own journalists who try to report on it,” tweeted author and analyst Max Abrahms.

“This is the FOURTH leak showing how the OPCW fabricated a report on a supposed Syrian ‘chemical’ attack,” tweeted journalist Ben Norton. “And mainstream Western corporate media outlets are still silent, showing how authoritarian these ‘democracies’ are and how tightly they control info.”

“Media silence on this story is its own scandal,” tweeted journalist Aaron Maté.

But this spin machine is twirling off its axis trying to normalize this silence.

Surprise, surprise, Wikileaks didn't leak the next email in this chain from the OPCW questioning why Ian Henderson was creating rogue reports.

This email also quite clearly contradicts "Alex's" claim that Henderson was in the FFM. pic.twitter.com/qcJkAyXe9W

— Nick Waters (@N_Waters89) December 27, 2019

Bellingcat narrative jockeys such as “senior investigator” Nick Waters are already scrambling to perception manage everyone into believing their own eyes are lying to them. Waters has a thread on Twitter that’s being shared around by all the usual Syria spinmeisters claiming, based on no evidence whatsoever, that WikiLeaks is selectively publishing the documents it has to create a false impression of events in the OPCW. Waters falsely claims that an email by Sebastien “Voldemort” Braha — the guy at the center of the scandal — proves that Ian Henderson was not a part of the Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) in Douma, in contradiction to the claims made by the anonymous second OPCW whistleblower who goes by the pseudonym of “Alex”.

As Waters is one hundred percent aware, Henderson absolutely was part of the Douma Fact-Finding Mission, and one of the FFM members who actually went to Douma no less. I’ve put together a Twitter thread refuting Waters’ ridiculous claims which you can read by clicking here, but in short an arbitrary distinction seems to have been made between the FFM and the “FFM core team”, or what is labeled the “FFM Alpha team” in a newly leaked email trying to marginalize Henderson’s assessment. Henderson actually went to Douma as part of the FFM, unlike almost all members of the so-called “core team” who except for one paramedic operated solely in another nation (probably Turkey).

Of course, the distinction of whether Henderson was or was not “in the FFM” is also itself irrelevant and arbitrary, since we know for a fact that he is a longtime OPCW inspector who went to Douma and contributed an assessment which was hidden from the public by the OPCW.

So this narrative being spun by the US government-funded propagandists at Bellingcat is bogus from top to bottom, but what’s infuriating is that we already know who editors in news rooms are going to listen to.

"We have this alternative media ecosystem that is driving a lot of disinformation. It is not understood by journalists or anyone really beyond a very small group of people who are really engaged with it," @EliotHiggins says https://t.co/RWi2Mqy8jV

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 27, 2019

It’s absolutely amazing how tightly interlaced Bellingcat is with the upper echelons of mainstream news media and the public framing of what’s going on in Syria. Mere hours after the latest WikiLeaks drop, CNN pundit Brian Stelter shared an article about Bellingcat founder and former Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Eliot Higgins, who warns of the dangers posed by alternative media reporters who cover underreported stories like the OPCW scandal.

“We have this alternative media ecosystem that is driving a lot of disinformation. It is not understood by journalists or anyone really beyond a very small group of people who are really engaged with it,” reads the ironic Higgins quote in the excerpt shared by Stelter.

We’ve been seeing a mad rush from mass media pundits to give this US government-funded narrative management operation unearned and undeserved legitimacy, churning out tweets like Stelter’s and fawning puff pieces by The New York Times, The Guardian and The New Yorker. This unearned and undeserved legitimacy is then used by editors to justify looking to Bellingcat for instructions on how to think about important information on Syria rather than doing their own basic investigation and analysis. It’s a self-validating feedback loop which just so happens to work out very conveniently for the government which funds Bellingcat.

It remains unknown exactly what’s transpiring in news rooms around the world to maintain the conspiracy of silence on the OPCW scandal, but what is known is that by itself this scandalous silence is enough to fully discredit the mass media forever. WikiLeaks has exposed these outlets for the monolithic propaganda engine that they really are, and they did it just by publishing extremely newsworthy leak after extremely newsworthy leak.

In order to perception manage us any harder, these freaks are going to have to go around literally confiscating our ears and eyeballs."

[onawah]

Narrative Managers Claim White Helmets Founder Was Driven To Suicide By Syria Skeptics
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
DECEMBER 29, 2019
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/29/narrative-managers-claim-white-helmets-founder-was-driven-to-suicide-by-syria-skeptics/

"Imperialist spinmeisters are trial-ballooning a new Syria narrative that is so breathtakingly stupid it needs its own article solely for the purpose of mockery.

On Christmas Eve PBS aired a bizarre segment on the death of James Le Mesurier, the former military intelligence officer who founded the extremely shady propaganda construct known as the White Helmets. The segment makes relentless, ham-fisted appeals to emotion, even attempting to associate the White Helmets with Armistice Day using wistful camera pans over poppy flowers and misty war memorial art exhibits, but by far the most yogurt-brained part is its repeated suggestions that Le Mesurier killed himself because people had been accusing him of being a propagandist.

“And now a story of a humanitarian trying to help Syria: the suspicious death in Turkey last month of James Le Mesurier, the co-founder of the White Helmets rescue organization in Syria,” opens PBS News Hour‘s Judy Woodruff. “Friends and colleagues fear that he may have been murdered or driven to suicide by a campaign of character assassination.”
kAauClUw_q8

“Whatever the cause, Le Mesurier was a victim of a very modern war,” the special’s narrator solemnly intones. “There is no hiding place in cyberspace. Le Mesurier was at the epicenter of a propaganda war, and his friends are appalled at what they regard as a campaign of character assassination.”

“The amount of abuse, the amount of ill-placed propaganda, disinformation that’s on social media and the Internet coming out of Russian bots and Syria, Syrian regime, and others was unbearable,” Col. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon mourns.

This ridiculous narrative was picked up and run with by Syria narrative managers on Twitter.

“On lethal disinformation— a thread,” tweeted virulent Syria narrative manager Idrees Ahmad. “This is a disturbing report by Malcolm Brabant on the lethal consequences of conspiracism. It shows how slander and disinformation may have pushed James Le Mesurier, one of the finest humanitarians, to his death. The report highlights the pernicious lies issuing from the self-described ‘Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media’, which is a small group of academics, none specialising in Syria or the Middle East, in alliance with a group of pro-Kremlin trolls like Vanessa Beeley et al.”

It is true that both Beeley and the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media have accused Le Mesurier of running a propaganda operation on behalf of western governments using western government funding. But if Ahmad truly believed that accusing people of conducting propaganda caused them to kill themselves, he should turn himself in for attempted murder, because he accuses people of being propagandists constantly.

Here’s a link to Ahmad calling journalist Max Blumenthal a “propagandist for Maduro”. Here’s a link to Ahmad calling Beeley a “pro-regime propagandist”. Here’s a link to Ahmad calling award-winning journalist Jonathan Steele “a fabricator and a propagandist”. Here’s a link to Ahmad calling CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou “a propagandist for Putin”.

Talk about “lethal disinformation”, Idrees.


Alexander "I'm so far left I agree with Mike Pompeo on every foreign policy issue" Reid Ross also assures us that questioning establishment Syria narratives definitely kills people. https://t.co/RyDlQ7Ex7X

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) December 29, 2019

But of course, no one really believes that accusations of conducting propaganda actually drive people to suicide. If they did, people like me would have thrown ourselves off a building years ago.

I am accused of being a propagandist nearly every day. At the height of Russiagate hysteria it happened many times a day in my blog post comments and social media notifications. Depending on what’s in the news and how I’ve responded to it I’ve been accused of writing paid propaganda for the Kremlin, Assad, the Iranian government, Palestinians, Pyongyang, Beijing, Maduro, the alt-right, George Soros, and WikiLeaks, just off the top of my head.

Every anti-imperialist, anti-interventionist, and antiwar activist with any kind of platform has had this experience. Ever since the new McCarthyism of establishment-driven Russia hysteria took off, accusing people who question imperialist narratives of conducting psyops for foreign governments has become the norm in political discourse. It’s created an extremely hostile and vitriolic environment in which productive conversations are vanishingly rare.

Where’s our PBS special? Does anyone care? Is there any compassion from these hand-wringing establishment loyalists for the fact that Vanessa Beeley and the members of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media are hounded day in and day out by establishment narrative managers and their brainwashed followers with accusations of spreading propaganda, supporting genocide, and embracing war crimes? I know I’ve never had a garment-rending Idrees Ahmad thread written about concerns for my psychological well being, and I’ve been targeted by multiple online harassment campaigns over the years.
h8kK1I8on3k

The amount of hateful vitriol that gets leveled at people for simply opposing imperialism, for wanting peace, is truly astonishing. Just for saying “Hey here are some reasons we should maybe reconsider toppling yet another government in yet another Middle Eastern nation” will bring in complete strangers calling you all sorts of names, calling you disgusting, calling you evil, calling you a monster. For supporting peace.

There are all kinds of people in the world who are very deserving of harsh words. Powerful exploiters, oppressors and manipulators. People who destroy the environment for profit. People who get rich selling weapons of war while paying politicians and think tanks to advance the cause of war. War criminals who’ve never faced justice. With all those people in the world who we can all agree are terrible, you wouldn’t think peace activists should feature anywhere near the top of anyone’s list. But they do. Because war propaganda is just that influential.

And, of course, nobody cares. None of these narrative managers care about what psychological burden they might be placing on people by assuring their audiences that it’s perfectly sane and normal to hound and harass anyone who questions imperialist propaganda. Their concern is not and has never been about anyone’s psychological health. Their concern is in managing narratives in a way that favors the US-centralized empire that they serve.

I do not know what caused Le Mesurier’s death; to be in any way confident that a known spook committed suicide at all, or was murdered by Russians, is absurd. Maybe he killed himself because he failed to listen to the adage “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.”

What I absolutely do know, with absolute certainty, is that only idiots believe that skepticism about western regime change agendas in the Middle East kills people."

[onawah]

Why I Don’t Criticize Russia, China, Or Other Unabsorbed Governments
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
DECEMBER 30, 2019
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/30/why-i-dont-criticize-russia-china-or-other-unabsorbed-governments/

"Depending on whose political echo chamber I happen to be arguing with on a given day, one common criticism I run into a fair bit which many of my readers have surely also encountered is that I put all my energy into criticizing the foreign policy of the United States and its allies.

“You’re not anti-war, you’re only anti-AMERICAN wars!” they say, as though they’re delivering some kind of devastating slam-dunk point. “If you’re so antiwar, why don’t you criticize Assad’s war in Syria? If you’re such an anti-imperialist, show me where you’ve ever once criticized Russian imperialism, or Chinese imperialism?”

The argument being that someone who opposes US-led warmongering isn’t really motivated by a desire for peace and an opposition to war unless they’re also voicing opposition to all other violent governments in the world. If you’re only criticizing US imperialism and not the imperialism of other nations, you must be motivated by something far more sinister, perhaps a hatred for the United States of America.

I have three responses to this feeble line of argumentation, which I’ll list here for the benefit of anyone else who’d like to make use of them:

1. People making this argument never apply its own logic to themselves.
Nobody criticizes all misdeeds by all governments everywhere in the world. If you run into someone making this “you have to criticize all bad governments or your criticisms are invalid” argument on Twitter, just do an advanced search for their Twitter handle plus “Duterte” or “Sisi” or one of the other US-allied tyrants who the mainstream media haven’t spent years demonizing, and you’ll find that they’ve never made a single mention of those leaders the entire time they’ve had that account.

What this proves, of course, is that they don’t actually practice the belief that all misdeeds by all governments are equally worthy of condemnation. What they actually practice is the belief that one ought to criticize the governments they hear their television criticizing: Russia, China, Syria, Iran, etc. The governments the US State Department and the CIA don’t like. The disobedient governments. The governments which have resisted absorption into the blob of the US-centralized empire.

They don’t put the logic of their own argument into practice because it is impossible to put into practice. Everyone’s only got so much time in the day, so you have to choose where to put your focus. I personally choose to put my focus on the single most egregious offender in warmongering and imperialism. Which takes us to:

2. The US empire is by far the worst warmongering imperialist force on the planet.
US-led regime change interventionism is literally always disastrous and literally never helpful. This is an indisputable fact. Imperialists get very frustrated when I take my stand there in arguments online, because it is an unassailable position. That’s usually when the ad hominems start flying.

All things are not equal. This isn’t something you should have to explain to grown adults, but such is the nature of propaganda. It is true that other governments do evil things; as far as I can tell this becomes pretty much a given as soon as a government is allowed to have a military force and keep important secrets from its citizenry. Obviously Russia, China and other unabsorbed governments are no exception to this rule. But the US is worse, by orders of magnitude.

No other nation comes anywhere remotely close. No other nation is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and engaged in dozens of undeclared military operations. No other nation has cultivated a giant globe-sprawling empire in the form of tightly knit alliances with powerful murderous governments like the UK, Israel and Saudi Arabia. No other nation is constantly laboring to sabotage and undermine any government which refuses to be absorbed into military and economic alliance with it using sanctions, staged coups, covert CIA operations, color revolutions, economic manipulations, propaganda, the arming of dissident militias, and launching full-scale military invasions. Only the US and the nations that its cancerous empire has metastasized into are doing anything like that on anywhere near the scale.

So since I, like everyone else, only have enough time in the day to oppose so many different evils in the world, I choose to pour my energy into opposing the single most egregious offender. An offender which doesn’t get nearly enough opposition, in my opinion.

3. I have a special responsibility for the evils of the empire in which I live.
When asked in an interview why he spends the bulk of his time criticizing his own government, Noam Chomsky replied:

“My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that: namely, I can do something about it. So even if the US was responsible for 2% of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2% I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one’s actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century.”

When people here in Australia ask about what I do for a living, I sometimes jokingly tell them I write about Australian foreign policy, which means that I write about US foreign policy. I’ve written many times about how Australia functions as Washington’s basement gimp, an impotent vassal which functions as little more than a US military/intelligence asset in terms of meaningful international affairs.

So all I really am doing here is applying Chomsky’s philosophy to the reality of an empire in which sovereign nations do not exist to any meaningful extent; as a member of a state within that empire I focus on US government malfeasance in the same way I would if I were living in Alaska or Hawaii.

All I’m doing is pointing my personal skill set at what I see as the biggest problem in the world: a murderous empire in which I happen to reside and therefore bear special responsibility for opposing. Which is simply the only sane stand for anyone to take, in my opinion."

[onawah]

What Upstanding Citizens Believe Vs. What Crazy Conspiracy Theorists Believe
JANUARY 2, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/02/what-upstanding-citizens-believe-vs-what-crazy-conspiracy-theorists-believe/

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/medium-1.jpg?w=900&ssl=1

"Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe a mature worldview requires skepticism toward power.

Smart upstanding citizens believe the government is your friend, and the media are its helpers.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe that powerful people sometimes make immoral plans in secret.

Smart upstanding citizens believe the TV always tells the truth and the CIA exists for no reason.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe that extreme government secrecy makes it necessary to discuss possible theories about what might be going on behind that veil of opacity.

Smart upstanding citizens believe that just because a world-dominating government with the most powerful military in the history of civilization has no transparency and zero accountability to the public, that doesn’t mean you’ve got to get all paranoid about it.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe it’s okay to ask questions about important events that happen in the world, even if their government tells them they shouldn’t.

Smart upstanding citizens believe everything they need to know about reality comes out of Mike Pompeo’s angelic mouth.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe the very rich sometimes engage in nefarious behavior to expand their wealth and power.

Smart upstanding citizens believe billionaires always conduct themselves with the same values that got them their billions in the first place: honesty, morality, and generosity.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe it’s important to remember the lies that led up to the invasion of Iraq, and the disastrous consequences of blind faith in government claims.

Smart upstanding citizens believe “Iraq” is a fictional land similar to Narnia or Middle Earth, from the writings of a fantasy author named George Galloway.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe Syria is fighting to avoid becoming another Libya in a war of defense against extremist proxy armies of the US-centralized empire, who were given billions of dollars in military support with the goal of toppling Damascus.

Smart upstanding citizens believe Bashar al-Assad is a real-life version of a cartoon supervillain who just started murdering civilians willy nilly in 2011 because he loves murdering civilians, then in 2015 his friend Vladimir Putin joined in because he loves murdering civilians also.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe the extensive history of US government lies means you should always demand mountains of independently verifiable evidence when they make claims about unabsorbed nations.

Smart upstanding citizens believe Russia literally committed an act of war on the United States in 2016, China is orchestrating a second Holocaust, Maduro is deliberately starving the Venezuelan people because he hates them, Assad is using chemical weapons but only when it makes no strategic sense, Cuban spy crickets are trying to assassinate US diplomats, there’s novichok everywhere, and every noncompliant party in the Middle East is secretly working for Iran.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe that it can be difficult to figure out what’s going on in a mass media landscape that is saturated with the propaganda of the US-centralized empire.

Smart upstanding citizens believe that all you need to do to ensure you’re getting all the facts is watch television and run screaming from the room if you accidentally flip past RT.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe the Gulf of Tonkin incident was faked, the “taking babies out of incubators” narrative was a lie, Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, Gaddafi’s rape armies never existed and the Libya intervention was never really about humanitarian concerns.

Smart, upstanding citizens believe it’s better not to think about such things.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe the latest WikiLeaks publications of internal OPCW documents provide ample evidence that we were lied to about the 2018 Douma incident.

Smart upstanding citizens believe those documents aren’t real because The New York Times never reported on them.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe that increasing levels of government secrecy are making it easier for government agencies to do unethical things in secret.

Smart upstanding citizens believe that questioning your government makes you a Russian anti-semite.

Crazy, stupid conspiracy theorists believe that the billionaire class which owns the mass media has a natural incentive to prop up the status quo upon which it is built, and so construct an environment where reporters are incentivized to always support the establishment line.

Smart upstanding citizens believe that if that kind of conspiracy were really happening, it would have been in the news."

[onawah]

Happy 2020: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
JANUARY 1, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/01/happy-2020-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/

"Start over in the new year. Also, start over at any other time during the rest of the year, whenever you want, as often as you like. Time is an illusion anyway.

I cannot assure you that things will get better in the ’20s. I can’t assure you that they’ll get worse, either. What I can absolutely guarantee is that things are going to keep getting weirder and weirder. At this point in time the only reliable pattern is the disintegration of patterns.

The mainstream worldview isn’t mainstream because it is more fact-based, logical, or makes better arguments than other potential worldviews, it’s mainstream because vast fortunes are poured into keeping it mainstream.

“Why do those people hate us?”
“We destroyed their country.”
“We should leave the Middle East then.”
“We can’t”
“Why not?”
“Israel.”
“What about it?”
“Those other countries hate it.”
“Why?”
“It destroyed the country it was built on top of.”
“Well maybe we and Israel should leave, then?”
“Nazi.”

The empire’s overall strategy toward Iran seems to be to crowd the area with an increasingly intrusive military presence, then react disproportionately in “self defense” when anything happens. It’s like an older sibling’s “I’m not touching you” car ride teasing, but with an entire region.

Not hearing any urgent concerns about that horrible horrifying epidemic of antisemitism that was pervading the Labour Party anymore. I guess they all stopped being antisemites all of a sudden.

“You defend Assad!” No I don’t, idiot. I attack the US-centralized empire for pouring billions and billions of dollars into actual terrorist groups in Syria with the goal of effecting regime change, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. I don’t play defense, I play offense.

I’m still tripping on how the latest WikiLeaks drops are getting literally zero mainstream media coverage, and yet people on the internet still get mad at me for writing about them. Even one indie blogger talking about these authentic documents is unacceptable to some people.

Everyone involved in getting the OPCW leaks out did the right thing but the MSM. The inspectors did the right thing, the whistleblowers did the right thing, WikiLeaks did the right thing… then the media refused to report it and gave control of the narrative to ****ing Bellingcat. The facts are right there online right now, staring us all right in the face, but because coverage is being suppressed and the conversation controlled, I have people in my social media notifications at this very moment regurgitating old establishment Syria narratives as gospel truth.

Imagine living in Nazi Germany and only ever talking about Jim Crow laws in the American south. That’s what it’s like when people who live in the US-centralized empire focus on the alleged misdeeds of non-aligned nations.

Our entire society is mentally ill. What our mentally ill society labels “mental illness” is actually just a small slice of the broader mental illness spectrum–those who are impaired in their ability to participate in the consensus mass delusions shared by the rest of society.

Sometimes I can only stop and stare slack-jawed at all the extreme hate and vitriol that gets directed at anti-imperialists online. I mean, you’ll get called all sorts of names, get called evil and a monster, for advocating peace. PEACE! Really shows you the power of propaganda.

Mentally mute the narrative soundtrack about Obama changing things after Bush and Trump presenting a radical deviation from all US norms, and what you see is a government continuing along pretty much the exact same trajectory with only cosmetic changes between administrations. World minus narrative is night-and-day different from world plus narrative.

Wars aren’t good vs evil; usually they’re geostrategic agenda vs geostrategic agenda. But Hollywood always portrays war as good vs evil, which is why empire apologists always bleat “You’re saying Dictator X is a Good Guy!” whenever you oppose interventionism in X targeted nation. Without that conditioning by professional storytellers, it would never occur to us to try and find the “good guys” in the chaos of a military conflict. We’re trained to think there must be a Good Guy and a Bad Guy, and that if a side isn’t one then they’re the other.

Capitalism is literally a game. It’s based on completely made-up rules with a completely made-up points system just like any other game. The only difference between this game and the others is this one gets taken so seriously that losing can kill you in real life.

Arguably the only people who actually truly understand the highly unscientific and completely made-up field of economics are those who manipulate the economy for their own benefit. And they only understand it because they’re the ones authoring its self-fulfilling prophecies.

Sometimes it’s funny to think about how humanity fought two world wars for basically no reason. World War 2 sprung directly from the effects of World War 1, and hardly anybody can give a coherent explanation for why World War 1 happened. Certainly nobody can justify why World War 1 was necessary. Our species fought two world wars (or arguably one world war with a long intermission to grow more troops) for no justifiable reason at all.

Keep paying close attention to Syria. I know they’re saying “Assad won” and there’s a lot of other stuff going on in the world, but the battle for narrative control over Syria is hotter than ever and we’re going to see even more information emerge to discredit the imperial press.

“I hope those folks in Hong Kong and Iran obtain democracy like we westerners have. Lemme log off this search engine algorithmically stacked toward billionaire CIA-tied media and ponder whether I want Donald Trump or Joe Biden to continue the wars and oligarchic exploitation.”

It can be fun to debate political and ideological solutions to humanity’s problems. Also, it’s worth noting that every one of those problems would disappear very quickly if we all just stopped taking our own mental chatter so seriously."

[onawah]

US Assassination Of Top Iranian Military Official May Ignite World War
JANUARY 3, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/03/us-assassination-of-top-iranian-military-official-may-ignite-world-war/

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/medium-2.jpg?w=885&ssl=1

"The US has admitted to assassinating Iran’s most beloved military leader, General Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike which seems very likely to ignite a full-scale war. Six others are also reported killed, including Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

According to the Pentagon, Trump personally ordered the assassination. I’ll keep following this hugely important story and will probably be writing a lot about it as it unfolds. I encourage everyone who values peace and humanity to follow it as well.

“Spoke to a very knowledgeable person about what Iran’s response to Soleimani’s assassination might be,” The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi tweeted regarding this developing story. “This would be the equivalent of Iran assassinating Petreus or Mattis, I argued. No, he responded, this is much bigger than that.”

Pentagon out with a statement on the airstrike.
"This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world." pic.twitter.com/W1L8ymqScd

— Grace Segers (@Grace_Segers) January 3, 2020

“Most Americans won’t understand the gravity of this,” tweeted journalist Rania Khalek. “Qasem Soleimani is head of the Iranian IRGC’s elite Quds Force, which conducts operations outside of Iran in both Iraq and Syria. He was credited with helping turn the tide in both countries against Al-Qaeda and ISIS.”

“This is very serious,” Khalek added. “The US essentially declared war on Iran by assassinating its most revered military figure in Iraq. And by also killing the head of the PMF, the US created more enemies in Iraq. There will be regional retaliation. It’s unlikely it can be prevented.”

“If true, It is not an understatement to say this could change the entire Middle East,” tweeted Rising‘s Saagar Enjeti.

“There’s going to be that war now that people have been pushing for since tanking the Iran Deal,” tweeted The Intercept‘s Murtaza Mohammad Hussain.

“If this is true, the US has effectively declared war on Iran, which has established militarily ties with Russia and China. It’s not hyperbole to say this could start WW3. Insane,” tweeted Grayzone‘s Dan Cohen, who also highlighted the important fact that “Iran, Russia and China held joint naval drills less than a week ago.”

“Iranian sources in Iran are warning that killing Gen. Qasem Sulaimani spells war,” tweeted Farnaz Fassihi of The New York Times. “‘Official reaction will begin with a strike,’ one says.”

A proportionate retaliatory strike would necessarily entail an attack on US military targets, or the military targets of US allies. If that happens, either the empire stands down or we’re looking at an all-out war of a size that is potentially almost limitless.

Iranian sources in Iran are warning that killing Gen. Qasem Sulaimani spells war.
"Official reaction will begin with a strike," one says.#Iraq

— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) January 3, 2020

Months after Donald Trump took office it was reported that the CIA had escalated covert operations in Iran, and the administration has been escalating tensions with that nation further and further ever since it announced its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 on completely false pretenses. The withdrawal was followed by waves of debilitating, civilian-starving sanctions implemented with the goal of provoking civil unrest, a goal Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has openly admitted. From there we saw increased US military presence in the region, then the Iraqi-killing airstrikes earlier this week and the resulting tense angry standoff at the US embassy in Baghdad, and now here we are with Iran planning retaliation for an unforgivable assassination on its most senior and revered military official.

Many are understandably claiming that this geostrategically pivotal confrontation was precisely what Trump was installed to facilitate all along. The largest donor to any campaign in 2016 was oligarch Sheldon Adelson, who gave $25 million to the Trump campaign, and who in 2013 said that the US should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. After Trump’s election win, Adelson gave another $5 million to his inauguration, the largest single presidential inaugural donation ever made. Newt Gingrich, another of the billionaire’s hired politicians, has said that Adelson’s “central value” is Israel.

Make no mistake, Iran is not Iraq or Libya. A full-scale war against Iran would be many times more deadly, costly and destabilizing than those interventions; the UK’s Admiral Lord West told The Daily Star Online last year that winning such a war would require no less than a million troops, or nearly the total number of active duty US military personnel in the entire world. Even if a direct war with Iran didn’t lead to a confrontation with China, Russia and the other unabsorbed allies, it would still be worse than Vietnam and Iraq combined in terms of death, destruction, expense, and regional destabilization.

Last year Lord Admiral West warned that the US would need no fewer than a million troops to win a war with Iran, almost the number of total active-duty US military personnel in the whole world. Even if this doesn't become WW3, it would still be worse than Vietnam + Iraq. https://t.co/UKuNxwvfqH

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) January 3, 2020

And now, as I sit as the mother of two teenagers watching what might be a third world war looming on the horizon, all I can think is about how infuriating it is that we’ve spent the last three years on Russia bull**** and sectarian political infighting instead of building an actual cohesive antiwar movement and pushing real opposition to Trump’s warmongering.

Let’s get it together, humans. We need big changes, and we need them yesterday."

[onawah]

“We Do Not Seek War,” Says President Who Just Started A War
JANUARY 4, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/04/we-do-not-seek-war-says-president-who-just-started-a-war/

"President Trump has been steadfastly assuring the world that the United States government does not wish to start the war it has already started by assassinating Iran’s top general.

“We are a peace-loving nation and my administration remains firmly committed to establishing peace and harmony among the nations in the world,” Trump said in a speech at his luxury Mar-a-Lago getaway on Friday. “We do not seek war, we do not seek nation-building, we do not seek regime change, but as president I will never hesitate to defend the safety of the American people.”

“We took action last night to stop a war. We did not take action to start a war,” the president added.
TYY29yO8HIc

To be clear, no part of this is a thing. Assassinating a nation’s most senior military official, and then claiming that you do not wish to start a war with that nation, is not a thing.

America is at war with Iran currently. What that war will end up looking like is anyone’s guess right now, but there is no question that a war has been initiated. If any nation had assassinated a top US general via airstrike and then openly admitted to it, the US would immediately be at war with that nation. Without question. An extreme military retaliation would be in the works within minutes of the announcement, and the entire political/media class would fully support that retaliation in whatever form it took.

This may come as a surprise to some Americans, but that same principle holds true for other nations as well.

“His departure to God does not end his path or his mission, but a forceful revenge awaits the criminals who have his blood and the blood of the other martyrs last night on their hands,” Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement on Friday.

And, I mean, of course. Of course “forceful revenge” from Iran is in the mail. Only by the most bizarre American exceptionalist mental contortions could this not be blindingly obvious. The question isn’t if Iran will retaliate with extreme force, but when and where. Nobody with any functioning matter between their ears would expect anything else.



Michael Tracey
✔
@mtracey
We're at war with Iran. It's not a potentiality any more. It just happened. Adjust your frame of reference accordingly
1,131
10:54 PM - Jan 2, 2020


And of course the US government is now spouting completely unsubstantiated claims about General Qassem Soleimani, and of course the mass media are uncritically repeating those claims as fact, and of course the propagandized masses are regurgitating what their perception management screens have told them to believe. Trump administration officials are claiming without any evidence at all that Soleimani was plotting “imminent attacks on American diplomats and military personnel”, even going so far as trying to marry him to the 9/11 attacks and a host of other unsubstantiated excuses.

Anyone who believes any of this is a brainwashed imbecile. Because of the US government’s extensive history of lying to manufacture support for preexisting military agendas, the only sane response to unsubstantiated US government claims about targeted nations is absolute skepticism. That skepticism should remain in place until mountains of independently verifiable proof of the claims made has been provided. This is the only acceptable level of evidence that critical thinking permits in a post-Iraq invasion world.

This should be extremely obvious to everyone. The fact that it isn’t is the result of generations of increasingly sophisticated propaganda manipulating the way people think about war, what it is, and how it works. My social media notifications are currently flooded with Trump supporters assuring me that Soleimani was a “bad guy” and Trump is therefore a “good guy”, and that assassinating the top military official of a sovereign nation is a perfectly sane and acceptable thing for a government to do.



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
“I Oppose Interventionism, But-” But Nothing. Stop Being A Pro Bono CIA Propagandist.
Wrote this last year about apologists for Trump's warmongering, and it applies equally to the "but Soleimani was a BAD GUY!" propaganda line they're regurgitating today.https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/02/02/i-oppose-interventionism-but-but-nothing-stop-being-a-pro-bono-cia-propagandist/ …

“I Oppose Interventionism, But-” But Nothing. Stop Being A Pro Bono CIA Propagandist.
In a recent interview with The Corbett Report, the Ron Paul Institute’s Daniel McAdams spoke disdainfully of those ostensibly anti-interventionist libertarians who picked this moment of all t…
caitlinjohnstone.com
194
6:51 PM - Jan 3, 2020


Don’t do this. Don’t advance war propaganda narratives for the US government.

Those who spread war propaganda are participating in that war just as much as those who actually go and fight in it, only they’re playing a far safer, far more cowardly, and far more dishonest role. A man who flies to Iran and murders Iranians with firearms is at least engaging in the war in a way that he will have to grapple with existentially for the rest of his life. A man who regurgitates Fox News propaganda on Twitter will then eat a pizza, have a wank, go to bed and sleep like a baby. But they both facilitated mass murder based on lies and American supremacist imperialism.

The war that Trump has started must be opposed forcefully and aggressively. Do everything you can to wake people up to what’s going on. This could get very, very ugly.

I’m going to keep following this important story and publishing regular updates as it unfolds. I encourage everyone else to pay close attention to it as well. Trump’s war with Iran should be front and center for everyone who cares about humanity."

[onawah]

The US Government Lies Constantly, And The Burden Of Proof Is On The Accuser
JANUARY 5, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/05/the-us-government-lies-constantly-and-the-burden-of-proof-is-on-the-accuser/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/medium-4.jpg?w=720&ssl=1

"Over the last 48 hours I’ve been splitting my free time between (A) learning as much as I possibly can about the US assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and (B) arguing with people online who are uncritically swallowing US government claims about why that assassination was necessary. I always engage such political debates because they’re a valuable source of information on what propaganda narratives people are buying into, and therefore which propaganda narratives need to be addressed.

What has been made abundantly clear from this particular engagement is that those who have bought into the Trump administration’s completely unsubstantiated claims about Soleimani are sincerely unaware that they have unquestioningly bought into unsubstantiated US government narratives. People tend to get their information from tightly insulated echo chambers, and if you inhabit an echo chamber that supports the current president all you’ll get is a bunch of officials, pundits and reporters saying in a confident-sounding tone of voice that Soleimani needed to be taken out. Since they’re surrounded by chatter affirming that Soleimani had attacked America and/or posed an imminent threat in the near future, they assume that chatter must be based on some actual facts in evidence.

It is not.



Dan Maul
@DanVMaul
This is very telling. I have read every single reply. Not one produced even the slightest shred of indication that he posed an imminent threat to the US.

Seriously, Stalin himself would've been proud of such a display of blind, unflinching acceptance of the deep state narrative. https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1213591198465544193 …

Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
Show me your very best evidence that Soleimani posed an imminent threat to Americans and needed to be taken out immediately. Bonus points if you can explain how the evidence you provide rises to the level of proof required in a post-Iraq invasion world.

154
7:02 PM - Jan 4, 2020
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When I speak out online against Trump’s act of war on Iran and interact one-on-one with those who object to what I’m saying, the disparity between what they think they know and what they actually know gets very quickly highlighted. Simply by my challenging people to prove the claims that they are making about Soleimani planning to attack Americans, attacking a US embassy, directing a strike that allegedly killed a mysteriously unnamed US contractor in Iraq, killing hundreds of US soldiers in Iraq, that he’s a “terrorist”, etc, they quickly realize that they have literally no evidence for their claims beyond the unsubstantiated assertions of US government officials and people who unquestioningly repeated those assertions.

And from there I just ask them, “How well has uncritically swallowing US government narratives about the need for military action worked out for you in the past?”

Nobody wants to admit that they are doing such a thing, least of all a Trump supporter who’s poured plenty of mental energy into distancing this administration from the previous Republican occupant of the White House. But that is indeed exactly what they are doing: uncritically swallowing baseless claims by US government officials about the need to advance a pre-existing military agenda, in a way that is indistinguishable from the cult-like behavior of Bush supporters in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion.



Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
· 21h
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
....hundreds of Iranian protesters. He was already attacking our Embassy, and preparing for additional hits in other locations. Iran has been nothing but problems for many years. Let this serve as a WARNING that if Iran strikes any Americans, or American assets, we have.....


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
....targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!

235K
4:52 PM - Jan 4, 2020
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In reality there’s no evidence for any of the reasons we’ve been offered for why Iran needed to be provoked into an almost inevitable retaliation that Trump is currently tweeting will result in all-out war:

The claim that Soleimani posed an “imminent threat” is completely without evidence, rumored to be “razor thin“, and entirely debunked in this excellent essay by Craig Murray.
Mike Pence’s claim that Soleimani assisted 9/11 terrorists is so ridiculous that even the war-loving Washington Post dismissed it.
There’s no proof that Soleimani directed the strike that allegedly killed a US contractor, or that that contractor even existed.
There’s no proof that Soleimani was involved in any “attack” on any US embassy, leaving aside the obvious fact that a little graffiti on the walls wouldn’t justify his assassination if he did.
The “hundreds of American deaths” line you hear regurgitated by everyone from Trump to Elizabeth Warren actually refers to Iraqis defending themselves from an illegal US invasion with some training from Iran. The claim that Iran was behind Iraqi bombs is without evidence and wouldn’t matter if it were true; claiming the inhabitants of an invaded nation don’t have the right to defend themselves is absurd, regardless of where they got their weaponry.
The claim that Soleimani was “a terrorist” is only made because the branch of the Iranian military he commanded was arbitrarily designated a terrorist organization by the US government last year, a designation that any foreign government could just as easily make for any branch of the US military. He was actually a fearsome enemy of ISIS and al-Qaeda and played a massive role in halting the spread of ISIS.
We are being lied to, yet again, about yet another war on yet another geostrategically crucial Middle Eastern nation. And a huge percentage of the population is marching right along with it. When Iran retaliates for Soleimani’s assassination, these propagandized sheep will be herded by the political/media class into believing that the attack was completely unprovoked. And if their credulity thus far is any indication, they’ll swallow the whole load without so much as a twinge of gag reflex.

Yw0-ASR4sr8

The US government has a very extensively documented history of lying to advance pre-existing military agendas. This is an entirely indisputable fact. It’s been universally true from generation to generation, from administration to administration, and from political party to political party. The Afghanistan Papers came out just a few weeks ago further documenting this already conclusively established fact. Anyone who just accepts US government assertions about the need for military force without a mountain of independently verifiable proof is, to put it nicely, a complete ****ing idiot.

The demand for proof would be normal even if the entity in question didn’t have an extensive history of lying about these things, because, as anyone with even a cursory understanding of logic already knows, the burden of proof is always on the party making the claim. When it comes to incalculably important matters like life and death, demanding that the burden of proof be met is just being a sensible human being.

Add in the fact that the US government is known to lie constantly about these matters, and believing its current claims about Soleimani makes as much sense as believing a known compulsive liar who has deceived you many times when he tells you it’s urgent that you go murder your neighbor right this instant.

Debating the current Iran situation, then, is simply a matter of holding the unassailable positions that (A) the US government lies constantly, and (B) the burden of proof is on the party making the claim. In a post-Iraq invasion world, the level of proof required is very, very high, and the Trump administration has taken no steps whatsoever to even providing anything that could qualify as evidence.

People will often try to get around this unassailable argument by contending “Well where is your proof that they’re lying?” This is called shifting the burden of proof, and it is a logical fallacy.

https://i0.wp.com/i.imgur.com/RCDz7rp.jpg?resize=709%2C500&ssl=1

I lay this all out not because I expect the US government to suddenly begin conducting itself rationally or providing proof of its claims that rises to the level required in a post-Iraq invasion world, but because streamlining our thinking in this way helps to avoid confusion in a landscape that is saturated with propaganda and its mindless regurgitators.

The only sane response to US government claims about the need for military force is intense skepticism. If US government officials begin telling us that something happened necessitating military intervention, your default assumption should always, always, always be that they are lying. And you should hold that position until the (highly unlikely and historically unprecedented) event that conclusive, independently verifiable proof of their claims is provided.

No changes were made after the Iraq invasion to keep the US government from ever again deceiving Americans into war. No new laws were made, no policies changed, no war crimes tribunals were held; no one was even fired. This is because they had every intention of doing it again. And now here’s the US government again spouting lies about why it was necessary to initiate war with another Middle Eastern nation. And people are swallowing it hook, line and sinker.

The more skepticism we can encourage toward current deceptions about Iran, the easier it will be to encourage skepticism about the next wave of escalations, which make no mistake are absolutely on their way. Spread the word."

[onawah]

US Empire’s Passion For Iraqi Democracy Magically Disappears
JANUARY 6, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/06/us-empires-passion-for-iraqi-democracy-magically-disappears/

"Following a vote by the Iraqi parliament to remove foreign troops from the nation, the US president threatened to destroy Iraq’s economy in retaliation and to refuse to leave unless an expensive military base worth billions of dollars was paid for.

“If they do ask us to leave, if we don’t do it in a very friendly basis,” Trump told the press on Sunday. “We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame. If there’s any hostility, that they do anything we think is inappropriate, we are going to put sanctions on Iraq, very big sanctions on Iraq.”

“We have a very extraordinarily expensive air base that’s there. It cost billions of dollars to build. Long before my time,” Trump also said. “We’re not leaving unless they pay us back for it.”



The Hill
✔
@thehill
#BREAKING: Trump says he'll sanction Iraq if US troops forced to leave http://hill.cm/jMz6DOn

View image on Twitter
212
7:29 PM - Jan 5, 2020
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This would be the same President Trump whose starvation sanctions are already known to have killed tens of thousands of people in Venezuela, and probably much more by now. The same President Trump who campaigned in 2016 on bringing the troops home from nations like Iraq.

And this would be the same US empire that used the narrative of bringing democracy to Iraq in order to help manufacture public support for “Operation Iraqi Freedom” (which Bush’s Press Secretary Ari Fleischer kept hilariously calling “Operation Iraqi Liberation” [OIL] by mistake). The same US empire that has used the “liberation” of Iraq from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein and the institution of democracy in the Middle East to justify its evil and unforgivable invasion ever since.

Yet the instant Iraqi democratic institutions become even slightly inconvenient for the US empire, Iraqi democracy gets flushed down the toilet. Iraq’s elected parliament voted very clearly for the removal of America’s military presence in the interests of its own sovereignty, and Trump has stated, in his typical accidentally-honest way, that America will not honor that vote. The US is allowing Iraq the same kind of democracy that Americans have: democracy so long as it doesn’t inconvenience the powerful.

This is, of course, because the invasion of Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with democracy. The invasion of Iraq was about controlling a crucial geostrategic region which refused to bow to the dictates of the US-centralized empire. This is important to remember, because that is also exactly what the regime change agendas against Iran and Syria are about.

GoSBqs6y8uM

It is not a mysterious coincidence that all these horrible dictatorships that urgently need a forceful injection of freedom and democracy just so happen to reside right next to each other. The fight for control over the Middle East has always been about controlling important fossil fuel resources and trade routes, and thereby controlling the world. If the empire can’t gain control of the nations in the region via absorption into the imperial blob (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, etc) or just constructing a satellite from scratch on top of a previously existing nation (Israel), then the empire will work to gain control by attempting to replace any noncompliant governments with compliant ones (Iraq, Syria, Iran).

And, as we now know, the second a compliant government begins to act noncompliant, it will immediately begin receiving the same treatment that noncompliant governments receive.

As things heat up with Iran you will begin hearing more and more babbling gibberish about the poor, poor Iranians and how unfortunate they are to live in a nation where the women can’t feel their hair in the wind and LGBT people need to hide who they are. But as a leaked State Department memo revealed in 2017, the empire is never actually concerned with human rights, and it is never actually concerned with democracy. The sole concern of the empire is power, and the growth of that power. That’s all this has ever been about.

Iraq seems to be destined to be the nation that keeps teaching us important lessons, so the very least we can do in response is make sure that we learn those lessons, and remember them."

[onawah]

On The Idiotic Partisan Debate Over Regime Change In Iran Or Syria
JANUARY 7, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/07/on-the-idiotic-partisan-debate-over-regime-change-in-iran-or-syria/

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/medium-1-1.jpg?w=900&ssl=1

"I love my job. Really, I do. But writing about US military agendas for a living often brings one into contact with such staggering stupidity that all you can do is pause and wonder how our species survived past the invention of the pointy stick.

By far the dumbest thing in all of US politics is the fact that Democrats tend to support regime change in Syria, while Republicans tend to support it more in Iran. I am not talking about the elected officials in those parties; I’m talking about the ordinary rank-and-file Joes and Janets who stand absolutely nothing to gain from toppling either Damascus or Tehran, but who have been brainwashed by lifelong media consumption into supporting one or the other anyway.

Whenever I write against the US government’s longstanding agenda to replace the leadership of Tehran with a compliant puppet regime, I know with absolute certainty that I’m going to spend the rest of my time online arguing with Trump supporters and lifelong Republicans. Whenever I write against the US government’s longstanding agenda to do the same in Syria, I know with absolute certainty that I’m going to be arguing predominantly with so-called centrist liberals.

At no time has this ever failed to occur.

I’ve spent the last few days arguing with Trump supporters who are telling me I’m crazy for not celebrating the death of an Iranian general they had no idea existed one week ago, and many of these pro bono State Department propagandists began following my work because they liked what I’ve been saying about Syria.

Conversely, all the fauxgressives and liberal interventionists who spent all last month telling me I’m a monster for writing about leaked OPCW documents showing we were lied to about an alleged 2018 chemical weapons incident have been staying out of my social media notifications completely these past four days.

It is truly bizarre. And it is truly, deeply, profoundly stupid.

It is truly, deeply and profoundly stupid because the agenda to topple Iran’s government and the agenda to topple Syria’s government are not two separate agendas. They are the same. Supporting one while opposing the other is like wanting to shoot someone in the head but being morally opposed to shooting them in the heart.

FNt7s_Wed_4

Syria and Iran are allies. Eliminating one government necessarily hurts the other. Iran has been helping Syria to win the war against foreign-backed extremist proxy fighters who nearly succeeded in toppling Damascus before its allies stepped in, and should Syria succeed in rebuilding itself (something the Trump administration is actively preventing it from doing) we can be sure it would return the favor when called upon.

The US government’s agenda to “take out” all noncompliant governments in the Middle East is completely removed from any consideration for American party politics. It’s one unified agenda, and the more the imperial blob succeeds in weakening any of the remaining unabsorbed nations, the easier it gets to absorb the others.

Supporting regime change in Iran but not Syria, or vice-versa, is for this reason an inherently absurd position to take. If you opposed Obama’s attempt to topple Damascus via Timber Sycamore-armed proxies, it’s absurd for you to support any maneuvers which could lead to the elimination of Syria’s key ally in that fight. If you oppose Trump’s current warmongering toward Iran, it’s absurd for you to support the elimination of one of Iran’s remaining friends in the region.

If Iran falls you may be sure that Syria will fall next, and vice versa. It’s the same box being ticked; you’re just arguing over whether it should be a left-handed or right-handed check mark.

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/medium.png?w=1196&ssl=1

But such is the strength of propaganda. The perception managers of the US war machine have successfully manipulated the voting public into a debate not about whether regime change interventionism should happen, but which regime change intervention should happen first.

In a sense it’s quite brilliant; we may be quite sure that government agency departments responsible for domestic perception management on US foreign policy have discussed this precise dynamic at length. But in another sense it’s quite mundane: the recent Republican presidents have pursued regime change in Iran, while Obama pursued it in Syria, so Republicans support Republican interventions while Democrats support Democratic ones.

This has nothing to do with any substantial difference in these agendas (again, it’s actually one agenda) and everything to do with what each faction can be more easily propagandized toward. Liberal hearts are easier to grab with horror stories about a monster who gasses babies for no reason and less concerned about refugee crises and the persecution of Syrian Christians, while Republicans are much easier to manipulate into despising a theocracy run by Muslims.

And of course there’s overlap; people who prioritize mass murder above all else like John Bolton and Lindsey Graham will cheer enthusiastically for as much military interventionism as they can get in either country (or any country, really). But by and large, especially among the rank-and-file, people tend to support the interventions their respective presidents propagandized them into supporting. Propaganda is pretty much the only thing the presidential “bully pulpit” is used for.

Because Iraq has poisoned the idea, each mainstream faction may deny actually wanting the US to oust the government of Iran or Syria. Trump supporters who still stand by the anti-interventionist platform he falsely campaigned on may say “I don’t want war with Iran, I just want Iranians to get their freedom and I think it’s awesome they killed Solamumi or however you spell it.” Liberals might say “I don’t want interventionism! I just support the Freedom Fighters™️ in Idlib and want Assad to stop murdering civilians for fun and sexual gratification.” But circulating propaganda narratives about governments targeted for regime change is supporting regime change. You’re participating in it as surely as if you’d deployed the Tomahawk missiles yourself.



Michael Tracey
✔
@mtracey
Now we’re being told that none of the millions of people publicly mourning Soleimani do so voluntarily and they all secretly like the fact that America assassinated their country’s top military commander who defended Iran and just defeated ISIS. The propaganda is getting dumber.

2,349
8:18 AM - Jan 6, 2020
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Yesterday someone told me that everyone at Qassem Soleimani’s incredibly massive funeral procession was attending because they were forced to. When I asked him if he was claiming that every single one of those millions of people were publicly mourning because they’d been literally forced at gunpoint, he told me no: many were forced in the sense that state propaganda was all they’d ever known, so they were psychologically coerced into grieving Soleimani.

“I don’t accept that your ‘state propaganda their whole lives’ model is any more coercive or fascistic than the kind that causes Americans to turn up to pro- and anti-Trump rallies,” I said. “Americans are no less propagandized than Iranians. If anything it’s worse, since Americans don’t know they’re being propagandized.”

“You’ve got it backwards,” he said. “Iranians don’t know they’re being propagandized because they only have one source of information. The U.S. knows it because we have sides screaming it to other sides all the time and the freedom of information and thought to come to our own conclusions.”

“Nonsense,” I replied. “Nearly all Americans are propagandized to the gills. They’re probably the most aggressively propagandized population on earth, just because so much depends on their swallowing propaganda. It’s just a more scientific sort.”

“And yet here we are, talking about it freely without worrying about swallowing a bullet,” he said.

“Here I am arguing with a man who just so happens to be striving very, very hard to convince me to swallow the exact same narrative that Mike Pompeo is trying to convince me to swallow,” I replied.

The greatest asset of the propagandists is the belief that we haven’t been propagandized."

[onawah]

Full-Scale War Is Avoided And Trump Goes Right Back To Warmongering
JANUARY 9, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/09/full-scale-war-is-avoided-and-trump-goes-right-back-to-warmongering/

"The United States and Iran entered into a direct military exchange for the first time ever with the drone assassination of General Qassem Soleimani last week and a retaliatory strike from Iran via surface-to-surface missiles upon two US military bases on Wednesday.

As usual it was the less powerful nation who exercised restraint, with Iran skillfully targeting the bases’ military capabilities but taking measures to successfully avoid any casualties. The two nations de-escalated back down to their previous high level of dangerous hostilities with an understanding between them that neither side wants a full-scale war. Both sides played “chicken” and both sides swerved, and they know that about each other now.

So that was a relief. We were all forced to hold our breath and hope against hope that cooler heads would prevail after the senseless assassination of a sovereign nation’s top military official, and they did. A full-scale war that would have dwarfed Iraq and Vietnam in terms of death, destruction and destabilization was averted.

And then Trump immediately went right back to warmongering.

a2dO_l2YOLM

“As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime,” Trump said in his speech the morning after the Iranian missile strike. “These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior.”

It is unclear at this time what form these sanctions will take. If they are of the sort being leveled at Iran currently, they will further target Iranian civilians with the goal of making them even more miserable so that they rise up and overthrow their government. This deliberate attempt to foment civil war against Tehran is not speculation; it is a fact, admitted to by the Trump administration itself.

A New York Times article from last year reports the following:

“Last week, Mr. Pompeo acknowledged to Michael J. Morrell, a former acting director of the C.I.A., that the administration’s strategy would not persuade Iranian leaders to change their behavior.

“’I think what can change is the people can change the government,’ he said on a podcast hosted by Mr. Morrell, in what appeared to be an endorsement of regime change.”

It is impossible for the US and Iran to de-escalate from the military powderkeg situation they are in as long as the US is deliberately attacking Iran’s economy with the goal of igniting a civil war in that country. The US government intends to not just continue to escalate this direct assault, but to continue its increasingly intrusive military presence in the region, including the unwelcome occupation of Iraq.

And yet, bizarrely, Trump also claims to want to reach a new nuclear deal with Iran.

“The very defective JCPOA expires shortly anyway and gives Iran a clear and quick path to nuclear breakout,” Trump said. “Iran must abandon its nuclear ambitions and end its support for terrorism. The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia and China to recognize this reality. They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal, or JCPOA. And we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place. We must also make a deal that allows Iran to thrive and prosper and take advantage of its enormous untapped potential.”

This is not going to happen. The US government has already burned Tehran on the JCPOA and it’s not going to enter into a new deal as long as the US continues to inflict aggressions upon it that the US itself wouldn’t tolerate from any other nation. Iran is going to be much less willing to trust the US government in a new deal now and will require much more assurance and accommodation than it did in the previous one; such a negotiation (assuming the Trump administration even really wants it) would be harder, not easier. This will remain true even after Trump leaves office.



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
The airstrikes between the US and Iran were the result of the trajectory of escalations Trump initiated by wrongfully withdrawing from the JCPOA in order to smash Iran with sanctions. Heaping even more sanctions on top of those accelerates along that same trajectory toward war. https://twitter.com/joshua_landis/status/1214954871822147585 …

Joshua Landis
✔
@joshua_landis
Iran & the US remain on a collision course despite a possible pause.

Trump offered only more pain for Iran. Iran's single choice is escalation. Trump promised to tighten sanctions.

Fight over eviction of US troops from Iraq is next battleground. https://twitter.com/aarondmiller2/status/1214949271407124483 …

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152
12:18 PM - Jan 8, 2020
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The Trump administration also further inflamed tensions by inviting NATO to become further involved in the Middle East, which NATO chief chief Jens Stoltenberg agreed to.

“The President asked the secretary general for NATO to become more involved in the Middle East,” a NATO statement said. “They agreed that NATO could contribute more to regional stability and the fight against international terrorism.”

So things are only continuing to heat up with Iran, and there is no reason to believe more eruptions like the direct military confrontation we just experienced won’t occur again, with the world perhaps getting a lot less lucky next time. Trump and his supporters are trying to claim the evasion of full-scale war as a victory for both peace and for America, but it is neither.

All of the defenses of Trump’s warmongering that you’ve been seeing are premised upon the unquestioned assumption that it is both reasonable and acceptable for the United States to maintain a military presence in the Middle East, even in nations whose governments don’t want them there like Iraq and Syria. If the US didn’t insist on maintaining an enormous military presence in this one area on the other side of the planet, there would be no debate about the need for America to “defend” itself by attacking the Iranian economy, assassinating government officials, and conducting airstrikes upon Iraqi militias. It would just be another country on the other side of the world, doing its own thing in its own way.

Most Americans haven’t thought very hard about this premise. They are fed some lines about the need to protect American “interests” and some unexplained need to defend Israel, and because those lines are spoken in an authoritative tone of voice most are content to leave it there. But if Americans actually laid out all the facts in front of them and thought deeply about what their government’s Middle Eastern military presence costs them and risks for them compared to what it actually gains them, it would be seen for the insane imperialist power agenda that it so clearly is."

[onawah]

So The US Is Invading Iraq Again
JANUARY 11, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/11/so-the-us-is-invading-iraq-again/

"So the US has decided to become an invading, occupying force in Iraq again.

It won’t be as exciting as last time. There will be no “shock and awe” invasion tactics this time. The invaders won’t even have to enter the country, because they’re already there. It will be a very boring, underwhelming sequel that leaves everyone feeling generally pessimistic about life and human existence. Like This Is 40.

If the initial invasion of Iraq was a violent sexual assault by a stranger in a dark alley, this one is more like an abusive husband raping his wife and then making her cook him dinner. But it is just as much a violent violation of personal sovereignty in both instances.


Morgan Ortagus
✔
@statedeptspox
America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in #Iraq is to continue the fight against ISIS and as @SecPompeo has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis, and our coalition partners.

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The US State Department has issued a press statement in response to Iraq’s vote to demand that the US remove its military presence from the nation, saying the US won’t even discuss a troop withdrawal. I’m just going to post the whole thing here, because its language is so creepy, disgusting and abusive that it should really be read carefully and in full:

“America is a force for good in the Middle East. Our military presence in Iraq is to continue the fight against ISIS and as the Secretary has said, we are committed to protecting Americans, Iraqis, and our coalition partners. We have been unambiguous regarding how crucial our D-ISIS mission is in Iraq. At this time, any delegation sent to Iraq would be dedicated to discussing how to best recommit to our strategic partnership—not to discuss troop withdrawal, but our right, appropriate force posture in the Middle East. Today, a NATO delegation is at the State Department to discuss increasing NATO’s role in Iraq, in line with the President’s desire for burden sharing in all of our collective defense efforts. There does, however, need to be a conversation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments not just regarding security, but about our financial, economic, and diplomatic partnership. We want to be a friend and partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq.”

That last part is my favorite. A “friend and partner to a sovereign, prosperous, and stable Iraq.”

Like, of course we want you to be a sovereign nation! Just not the kind of sovereign where your elected government has any say in what happens in your country. We want you to be the kind of sovereign nation that does everything our government tells it to do. That kind of sovereignty we can really get behind!

I also love the “America is a force for good in the Middle East” bit. Right. When a bunch of guys with guns show up at my house, start killing my family members and refuse to leave, the first thing I’m going to think is, “These guys are such a force of good!”

Just as a side note, if you ever find yourself in any kind of relationship with someone who violates your personal sovereignty in this way and then uses the sort of I’m-your-friend, this-is-for-your-own-good language used by the State Department above to justify it, run, don’t walk, out the door. Because you’re dealing with a full-fledged sociopath.



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
US Empire’s Passion For Iraqi Democracy Magically Disappears

"Following a vote by the Iraqi parliament to remove foreign troops from the nation, the US president threatened to destroy Iraq’s economy in retaliation and to refuse to leave..."https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/us-empires-passion-for-iraqi-democracy-magically-disappears-7f1ee8fb3484 …


US Empire’s Passion For Iraqi Democracy Magically Disappears
Following a vote by the Iraqi parliament to remove foreign troops from the nation, the US president threatened to destroy Iraq’s economy…
https://miro.medium.com/max/785/1*UNLLFQfLQ1yN1_kDlC-4Ew.png

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Since 2014, America’s military presence in Iraq has been at the consent and invitation of the Iraqi government, the democratically elected government the US has used to justify its regime change intervention both before the invasion and ever since. Now that permission has been revoked, and the US government has suddenly lost all interest in Iraqi freedom and democracy. This US government, incidentally, is being led by a president who campaigned in 2016 on the platform of bringing the troops home from nations like Iraq.

So to recap, in 2003 the US wanted to occupy Iraq, and Iraq told them to **** off. The US responded by invading, killing a million people, killing Saddam Hussein, tearing apart its Ba’ath party, tearing apart its military, rebuilding the whole system from scratch, installing a puppet regime, and creating a narrative about being Iraq’s “friend and partner” instead of an illegal occupying force.

The end result after 17 years? The US wants to occupy Iraq, and Iraq is telling them to **** off.

The invasion of Iraq has been a senseless, unforgivable evil from the very beginning, and it remains so to this day, to the exact same extent. Nothing that was done was justifiable in any way, shape or form. Those million Iraqis died for no legitimate reason. The thousands of US soldiers died for no legitimate reason. Nothing was accomplished but the advancement of brute force control over a region the US has no business being in and an energy resource we’ve got no business relying on anymore.

A force for good? Bitch, you misspelled farce."

[onawah]

“Iran Must Begin Acting Like A Normal Nation,” Says Totally Normal Nation
JANUARY 13, 2020
By CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/13/iran-must-begin-acting-like-a-normal-nation-says-totally-normal-nation/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/medium.jpeg?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1

"The government which runs a globe-spanning empire led by a reality TV host keeps talking about the lack of normality in the nation of Iran.

“What we want all countries to join in,” said State Department Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus in a recent Fox News interview, “is to help us not only to de-escalate any tensions with Iran, but to help us bring Iran to a place where they are ready to stop their terrorist and malign behavior, and where they are ready to discuss with the United States, with Europe, with everyone, about how they can change their behavior to act like a normal nation.”

“We want Iran to simply behave like a normal nation,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a press statement the other day. “We believe that the sanctions we imposed today further that strategic objective.”

These would be the additional sanctions which have been expanded to include virtually the entire Iranian economy, deliberately targeting Iran’s already sanction-starved populace, with the explicit goal of fomenting a civil war in that nation.

Which is of course a perfectly normal thing to do, from a perfectly normal nation.

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This would be the same Iran whose cultural heritage sites were threatened with destruction if it retaliated for the totally normal assassination of its top military official via flying robot. The same Iran whose financial system was just threatened with destruction using the totally normal hegemony of American central banking. Perfectly normal, perfectly healthy.

So what can Iran do to become a “normal nation”? Well, since it’s the United States making this demand, we can safely assume that it’s the model Iran should look to.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to expand its interests from the region and begin toppling noncompliant governments and invading nations all around the world.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to circle the planet with hundreds of Iranian military bases.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to obtain thousands of nuclear weapons, and actually use a couple of them.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to become the most dominant military, economic and cultural force in the world, and then use that dominance to destroy any government, political party, ideology, faction, movement or person who stands in its way.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to arm violent extremist factions all around the world with the goal of eliminating all governments that refuse to bow to its interests.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to become the dominant producer of films, music and TV shows and use this influence to propagandize its power structure’s ideology to every possible cultural sphere.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to begin meddling in scores of democratic elections all around the world and then crying for years at the possibility of any nation returning the favor.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to shore up economic control of the world so that it can crush any sort of disobedience by starving civilians and depriving them of medical care while pretending that it’s a force for peace.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to indefinitely occupy a vast region on the other side of the planet with thousands upon thousands of troops and trillions of dollars in military equipment, to no benefit of a single ordinary Iranian, and against the will of the people who live there.

In order to become a normal nation, Iran will need to create a presidency led by a reality TV star oligarch who is only supported because Iran’s populace is so disgusted with the status quo of their government.

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I am kidding, of course. The US government does not want Iran to become like the US. The US government does not want any nation to become like the US. The US likes its abnormality among nations just the way it is, thank you very much. The US is the exception to all its own rules. That’s how American exceptionalism works. This is one of those “do as I say, not as I do” situations.

The US doesn’t want Iran to be like America. The US wants Iran to be like the other nations which have allowed themselves to be absorbed into the blob of the US-centralized empire.

The US would be perfectly happy for Iran to begin acting like Saudi Arabia: arming terrorist factions, beheading heretics, committing war crimes and deliberately creating humanitarian disasters for geostrategic convenience, yet aligning fully with US military, financial, and resource control agendas.

The US would be perfectly happy for Iran to begin acting like Israel: a nuclear-armed military outpost which constantly bombs adjacent nations, interferes in the US and other nations’ politics to shore up support, works toward the slow extermination of its indigenous population and fires upon protesters with live ammunition.

The US would be perfectly happy for Iran to begin acting like Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand or the EU: obedient military/intelligence assets who function as extra American states when it comes to foreign policy and international affairs.

That is what the US means by acting “normal”. Not acting moral. Not acting healthy. Certainly not acting like the US. It means acting obedient, compliant, and enslaved.

Which is precisely what Iran is resisting."

[onawah]

#CNNIsTrash Trends As Pushback Grows Against Oligarchic Election Meddling
JANUARY 15, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/15/cnnistrash-trends-as-pushback-grows-against-oligarchic-election-meddling/

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/medium-4-1.jpg?w=720&ssl=1

The hashtag #CNNIsTrash is the number one trend on Twitter as of this writing due to the network’s appalling treatment of Bernie Sanders in last night’s Democratic presidential debate in Iowa.

The joint smear job against Sanders had many arms, including wildly biased questions like Wolf Blitzer deliberately associating Bernie with “Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei” by pointing out that they both want US troops out of the Middle East and demanding to know how he was going to avoid “bankrupting the country” with a healthcare plan used in nations all over the world.

But by far the most glaringly egregious assault on the Vermont Senator’s image was when CNN moderator Abby Phillip took a completely evidence-free sexism smear which defies all logic and presented it to the debate audience as an established and undeniable fact. You can watch the exchange here:

SC1KQxKy9_Y

Phillip brought up a transparently ridiculous claim that was “leaked” to the press and confirmed by Warren that in 2018 Sanders had told Warren he did not believe that a woman could win a presidential election. It’s a completely unproven allegation about an unwitnessed private conversation, yet Phillip did not ask Sanders if he had said such a thing, she asked him why he said it, presenting it as a given fact.

Sanders explicitly denied ever saying any such thing. He said there’s Youtube footage people can look up of him saying a woman could become president many decades ago, adding that he only ran for president in 2016 because Warren refused grassroots efforts to persuade her to run (efforts which he’d supported).

“So Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here, you’re saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election?” asked Phillip.

“That is correct,” Sanders replied.

“Senator Warren,” Phillip then asked without missing a beat. “What did you think when Senator Sanders told you that a woman could not win the election?”

It was such a brazen manipulation that even CNN’s heavily pro-establishment crowd audibly reacted. Warren then cooperated with this manipulation by responding as though the allegation was a proven fact, without acknowledging Sanders’ denial or defending her claim.

In CNN’s post-debate analysis, pundits actively reinforced the completely fact-free narrative that this allegation was an established reality, with Van Jones referring to “a banana peel sitting out there for Bernie to slip on when it came to his comments about women,” an idea premised on the position that those comments are known to have actually happened.

CNN’s Jess McIntosh took it even further, overtly dismissing Sanders’ denial and saying, “I think what Bernie forgot was that this isn’t a he said/she said story. This is a reported out story that CNN was part of breaking, so to have him just flat out say no I think wasn’t nearly enough to address that for the women watching.”

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Of course, the allegation absolutely is a he said/she said story, per any possible definition: Warren says it happened, Sanders said it didn’t. The fact that CNN “reported out” on that he said/she said story doesn’t magically turn it into a fact, as should be obvious to any grown adult who isn’t suffering from a severe head wound.

More importantly, nobody actually believes that Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren a woman cannot be president. Not Jess McIntosh, not Abby Phillip, not Van Jones, not Elizabeth Warren, not CNN, and not any of the establishment loyalists who are trumpeting this allegation as fact. Anyone who claims to believe that this interaction occurred is simply lying to advance a political agenda, and they know it.

The belief that a woman cannot be elected president in 2020 is not a thing. Nobody believes that, and anyone who pretends to believe that anyone believes that is simply telling you that they are an unprincipled liar who would rather take a nonsense stand on a nonsense issue than promote actual policies and changes. The heavy favorite to win the 2016 election was a woman, and were she not literally in the middle of an FBI investigation during that election she would have overcome the narrow margins she lost by.

It’s been years since anyone has believed that a woman cannot win a US presidential election. If you claim that the one person in the world who does believe this is a senator who’s spent decades advocating for feminism and women in politics, you are a liar. It absolutely is that simple.

1217387777026772993

So angry Berners have been rightly decrying the despicable manipulations of CNN, which can only be a good thing. A massively influential news corporation owned by the largest telecommunications company on the planet should not be able to determine who voters select to the highest elected office in the most powerful country in the world.

This is oligarchic election interference, plain and simple. If the US government is going to call a few thousand dollars in Russian facebook memes election meddling, then the billions which get poured into the billionaire media tilting the scale to advantage the billionaire class is far worse by orders of magnitude.

Last May I wrote an article titled “The Worst 2020 Election Interference Will Be Perfectly Legal” saying that the most egregious forms of election meddling we’ll see in this presidential race will not be perpetrated by the Russians, nor by the DNC, nor by sleazy gerrymandering or voter ID requirements, nor by hard vote tally manipulation, but the everyday, in-your-face manipulations of corporate media outlets like CNN. Unsurprisingly, this is already proving undeniably true.

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In fact the power of these vast news media corporations to manipulate the way the populace thinks and votes stretches far beyond the consequences of a mere presidential election. The ability to manufacture consent for the agendas of the plutocratic class which controls these corporations enables war, ecocide, militarism, soul-crushing oligarchic neoliberalism, increasingly Orwellian surveillance programs and an increasingly militarized police force to destroy lives and this very world without it ever occurring to a critical majority that it would be possible for us to use the power of our numbers to force real changes to our advantage.

It is good that people are loudly criticizing this dynamic. It’s important to keep drawing attention to the way we’re being manipulated out of having any control over not just what happens in our world, but over what we think about what happens in our world. Hopefully public trust in the mouthpieces of oligarchy can be weakened to such an extent that people stop buying into their deceptions."

[Dennis Leahy]

11Bha4iSICg

(Song lyrics are from a Caitlin Johnstone poem, published here (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/a-blessing-for-anyone-30f5dcb0203f).)



May all of your illusions be shattered beyond your ability to reassemble them.

May you learn quickly from your failures and successes.

May life treat you how you treat life.

May you reap swiftly that which you sow, and may it be highly educational for you.

May all of the hidden parts of yourself enter the light.

May all of your unfelt feelings be felt.

May you have a crystal clear glimpse of your own boundlessness.

May you have a crystal clear glimpse of your own insignificance.

May your inner monologue cease and may you experience stillness.

May you experience the beauty of each moment that the babbling mind eclipses.

May you uncover the mystery that hides behind the veil of separation.

May you know true courage.

May you know true wisdom.

May you know true humility.

May you know true truth.

May you know yourself intimately, without disguises or distortions.

May you meet the world lucidly, without projections or prejudices.

May you perceive the world clearly, without filters or fantasies.

May your delusions disappoint you and may authenticity astonish you.

May everything you have constructed in untruth crumble before your eyes.

May life conspire to unmake every false object you have made.

May you live each moment fully, not for the goal of grandiose achievement, but for living itself.

May you truly, deeply see yourself, and find there what you’ve always been looking for.

May you be truly, deeply seen by someone else. May you let yourself be seen by them.

May you end your war against the feminine.

May you finally let in the enormity of what your mother did for you.

May you find a home in your body.

May your body feel at home on this earth.

May the earth feel your sorrow.

May you feel the earth’s forgiveness.

May the earth feel your gratitude.

May the earth feel your love.

May thrum of the earth dance through you.

May you fall in love with that dance.

Amen. - Caitlin Johnstone, published Sept 24, 2019

[mountain_jim]

^ Thanks Dennis - truly one of the best things I have read and felt in some time.

[onawah]

How To Be A Mentally Sovereign Human
by Caitlin Johnstone
1/20/20
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/21/how-to-be-a-mentally-sovereign-human/

"We all showed up naked, slimy and clueless in a world of inexplicable sensory input we couldn't make head or tail out of. We were then taught what's what by people who showed up under the exact same circumstances a blink of an eye earlier.

The amniotic fluid is barely washed from our tiny naked bodies before we find ourselves in a marriage and a day job, staring down at a small pair of eyes looking up to us for guidance.

This is not a good environment for developing mental sovereignty, the ownership and authorship of your own cognitive relationship with life.

Stepping into the world as a small person is like stepping completely unarmored onto a battlefield with live ammunition flying in all directions, except instead of bullets, it's narrative.

On one side of the battlefield you've got your family with rifles and side-arms firing their stories about what's important in life, what the world is like, how people should deal with problems, and what society ought to look like.

On another side you've got teachers and preachers armed with shotguns spraying buckshot about the beliefs that various power structures want you to have about your experience on this earth.

On another side you've got the advertisers, armed with machine guns, hammering anything that moves with narratives about inadequacy and problems you never knew you had.

And, raining bombs from above, you've got the mass media propagandists.

You're not going to make it off of that field without sustaining significant damage. You never stood a chance, really. At best you're going to spend a long time picking slugs, bullets and shrapnel out of your flesh and stitching up the wounds that they caused, and that's assuming you're one of the lucky few who makes it off the field at all. Most just absorb the beliefs that get blasted into them in the frenzy of living and keep almost all of them.

Becoming a mentally self-sovereign human being means undoing all that damage, and protecting yourself from absorbing more. It means completely renouncing everything you've been told to believe about what's happening on these strange shores you washed up on small, sticky and confused, and setting off to find out for yourself instead. It means making it to the swamps of Dagobah and looking where the wise old muppet is pointing when he suggests "You must unlearn what you have learned."

Being a mentally sovereign human means constructing your own understanding of this weird reality based on your own investigations and your own reasoning, which means constructing it from the ground up. Even your most basic assumptions about reality itself must be rigorously cross-examined with complete skepticism. Nothing must be taken on faith.

Most people believe that they are truly free thinkers. Most people are wrong. Most people are controlled by unworthy, unquestioned ideas that were put in their heads long ago by other people.

To attain a truly self-sovereign mind, you need to put truth above all else in every waking moment. You need to constantly dedicate yourself to learning what's true and what's real, and to living in alignment with the truth that has been discovered.

Wanting true mental sovereignty means wanting to know the truth in all areas of your experience, come what may.

It means wanting to know the truth about what's really happening in your world, and how it contrasts with what you're being told to believe about what's happening in your world by confident-sounding voices on the screens that you see.

It means wanting to know the truth about your family and your relationships and the various unconscious, unquestioned dynamics that are at play there.

It means wanting to know the truth about the various aspects of yourself that you keep hidden and compartmentalized out of sight.

It means wanting to know the truth about reality itself, and how you might have been misperceiving various aspects of your own field of consciousness this entire time.

It means wanting to know the truth, even if very powerful people don't want you to know the truth.

It means wanting to know the truth, even if it hurts.

It means wanting to know the truth, even if it is terrifying.

It means wanting to know the truth, even if it means being wrong.

It means wanting to know the truth, even if it means discovering that you've been completely wrong about everything your whole life.

It means wanting to know the truth, even if it crumbles every belief you've ever had about what you are and what the world is.

It means wanting to know the truth, even if it tears your life apart.

It means wanting to know the truth, even though you know you'll never have all of it.

Most people are content to sit in various degrees of untruth, accepting unexamined assumptions as true because it is much easier and more comfortable than confronting reality on reality's own terms. They're happy to let the lies that have been put in their heads by other people rule their experience of this world.

The mentally sovereign human does not do this. The mentally sovereign human looks at life through lenses constructed out of an uncompromising dedication to unrelenting honesty, on all levels and facets of human experience.

Mental self-rule is not for everyone. It is not for cowards. It is not for the lazy or complacent. It's not for those who do things only because there's some material or egoic reward in it for them. These people are destined to have their minds ruled by others.

Mental sovereignty is for those who put truth above all else, and who see truth as its own reward. Their dedication to learning what's true never ceases. These people rule their own minds.

[mountain_jim]

It means wanting to know the truth about the various aspects of yourself that you keep hidden and compartmentalized out of sight.

It means wanting to know the truth about reality itself, and how you might have been misperceiving various aspects of your own field of consciousness this entire time.


Perhaps not a popular viewpoint these days, but it was my early-adult-years sacramental experimentation with psychedelics (self-gathered-organic or of known provenance) which most aided me in the above areas of deprogramming and metaprogramming of my self and consciousness.

[onawah]

The Empire’s War On Oppositional Journalism Continues To Escalate
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
JANUARY 22, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/22/the-empires-war-on-oppositional-journalism-continues-to-escalate/
https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/medium-5-1.jpg?w=900&ssl=1

Journalist Glenn Greenwald has been charged by the Bolsonaro government in Brazil with the same prosecutorial angle used by the US to target WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Per The New York Times:"Citing intercepted messages between Mr. Greenwald and the hackers, prosecutors say the journalist played a “clear role in facilitating the commission of a crime.”

For instance, prosecutors contend that Mr. Greenwald encouraged the hackers to delete archives that had already been shared with The Intercept Brasil, in order to cover their tracks.

Prosecutors also say that Mr. Greenwald was communicating with the hackers while they were actively monitoring private chats on Telegram, a messaging app. The complaint charged six other individuals, including four who were detained last year in connection with the cellphone hacking.

This argument is essentially indistinguishable from the argument currently being used by the Trump administration in charging Assange with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act. The US Department of Justice alleges that Assange attempted to provide Private Manning with advice and assistance in covering her tracks while leaking documents she already had access to, therefore making Assange party to a conspiracy against the United States."

vCnSJ5yDv1g
6/15/19
Glenn Greenwald on the Leaked Brazil Archive Exposing Operation Car Wash

The Intercept
140K subscribers
The Intercept and the Intercept Brasil published a series of exposés that has created a major political earthquake in Brazil. In less than a week, the once-revered justice minister of President Bolsonaro’s government, Sergio Moro, now faces widespread calls to resign from the same large Brazilian media outlets that spent years transforming him into an untouchable icon of integrity and uncritically applauding his every move.

Even more grave, the improprieties revealed by our reporting have cast serious doubt on the validity of numerous guilty verdicts issued by Judge Moro and the anti-corruption task force, beginning — most importantly — with the conviction and imprisonment of former President Lula da Silva last year at exactly the time that he was the overwhelming front-runner to win the presidency in 2018. That conviction by Judge Moro, which we now know was the byproduct of highly improper and unethical conduct, is now scheduled to be reviewed by the Supreme Court as early as next week.

The archive we received from our source is vast, and contains many more explosive stories yet to be reported. We just published another story exposing even more serious improprieties by Judge Moro, widely regarded as the anchor of legitimacy for the Bolsonaro government, that has led for more calls for him to resign. Because of the importance, but also complexity of these issues for those outside of Brazil, we created a video explaining what this archive is about, what these revelations mean, and why the consequences of our reporting are so significant not only for Brazil but for the entire democratic world.

[onawah]

Lucid Living
1/22/20
by Caitlin Johnstone
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/23/lucid-living/

"Beneath all our evolutionary conditioning, beneath all our cultural mind viruses and power-serving, power-promulgated belief systems, beneath the chaos and confusion of life in an insane society, there is a deep stillness.

We all know deep down in our guts that that stillness is there, and that it is our natural condition. That's why we all spend our lives trying out different strategies for coming to inner tranquility. Most of those strategies are unhealthy and doomed to fail, but that inner stillness at the root of our being is what we're always reaching to experience.

Beneath all the warmongering, conflict and violence in our species, there is a bottomless foundation of pure peace. We all know deep in our guts that it's there; that's why we all secretly long for peace, even if most of us are confused about how to get there.

Beneath all the division, drama and us-versus-them othering, there is an underlying perception in each of us which sees only oneness. We all know deep in our guts that this perception is there, which is why, even though we get mixed up about how best to achieve it, we're always reaching in some way toward unity.

Beneath all human hate, rejection, bigotry and prejudice, there is a profound love for all that arises. We all intuitively sense this love below our own surface-level awareness, which is why we all, in our own clumsy ways, seek love.

We all know this, on some level. We all know that everything we really want is already our own true nature. That's why all of us, in our own convoluted, delusional, map-upside-down-and-compass-near-a-magnet ways, seek truth.

That's all we're ever really dealing with here, those of us who value peace, truth and justice. All we're ever really dealing with (in ourselves and in others) is humankind's built-in impulse to come home, and its flailing, awkward attempts to manifest that impulse.

Peace is your true nature. Oneness is your true nature. Love is your true nature.

I am not here saying that there is some aspect of you that is these things, some small part of you which you can find by rummaging around in your mind and possibly locating underneath your id to the east of your latent oedipal complex or whatever. I'm saying that is you. It's what you really are, beneath everyone's mental stories about what you really are.

Day after day from the moment this planet births our body, we experience a field of consciousness containing sensory input, thoughts and feelings. That field of consciousness is all any of us ever experience from cradle to grave, yet it almost never occurs to anyone to pop the hood and directly investigate what makes it tick.


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What intense investigation will show you is that all any of us are actually experiencing in any waking moment is this singular, unified field of consciousness being perceived by something that is utterly free from it, in the same way lucid investigation into a dream will reveal a singular, unified dream being perceived by a dreamer who has no stake in what happens to any of the dream characters.

And, just as in the experience of lucid dreaming, when the dreamer realizes the truth of what's really happening, the experience suddenly becomes a lot more fun. You realize that you, the dreamer are not actually being chased by pirates or whatever, and that you're actually free from the drama and entanglements in the dream which until that moment seemed perilously threatening. From that free perspective, the dream is delightful. The dream is beloved.

An ineffable something is perceiving the mysterious field of consciousness which has been arising every day since your physical form first showed up here. That ineffable something is your true nature. And it is everything you've ever sought in this strange dream world. The only thing keeping your from recognizing this has been your fixation on the drama of the dream.

Lucid living means the dreamer of this waking life, the witness of this beautiful, dancing, ever-changing field of consciousness, is seen clearly to be what you really are.

And the good news is that you are already what it is you've been seeking. You just have to perceive this with lucidity. Your innate love of truth is already calling you home. Just follow it."

[onawah]

WikiLeaks Editor: US Is Saying First Amendment Doesn’t Apply To Foreigners In Assange Case
JANUARY 23, 2020 by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/23/wikileaks-editor-us-is-saying-first-amendment-doesnt-apply-to-foreigners-in-assange-case/
Copied and pasted here: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?101183-Current-Wikileaks-and-Assange-News-Releases&p=1332733&viewfull=1#post1332733

[onawah]

Julian Assange Released from Solitary Confinement to Different Belmarsh Wing
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/25/belmarsh-prison-inmates-prove-more-ethical-than-entire-western-empire/

Copied and pasted here: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?101183-Current-Wikileaks-and-Assange-News-Releases&p=1332923&viewfull=1#post1332923

[onawah]

Just For This Moment
JANUARY 26, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/26/just-for-this-moment/

"We could sit here all day
talking about how the news man is always lying
or how both parties are functionally the same
or how the Bastards toil endlessly to hide the truth from us
or how we know better than all those foolish brainwashed sheep
who are just trying to survive another day on this earth.

We could sit here all day doing that.

Or,
maybe,
just for this one moment,
we could look inward
and be honest with ourselves.

Maybe just for this moment
we could ask if we are truly being present here
and perhaps contemplate what it is we might be running from.

Maybe just for this moment
we could be real about what ways we continue lying to ourselves
and try breathing the light of truth onto those endarkened areas.

Maybe just for this moment
we could stop escaping into smugness and self-righteousness,
into ideological conflict and drama,
into paranoia and suspicion of anyone who stands out,
into worry and fear of what's coming,
and be here now.

And maybe we will find deep wounds inside.
And maybe we can heal those wounds.

And maybe we will find conflicted aspects of ourselves.
And maybe we can move from conflict to integrity.

And maybe we will find all the parts of ourselves which run to escape from here.
And maybe we can love them, and reassure them, and nurture them into presence.

And maybe then we'll look around,
and notice that the smoke has cleared from our vision.

And maybe we'll notice all sorts of things we'd never noticed before.
Things about ourselves.
Things about the life we've been living.
Things about our social circles and relationships.
Things about our political system and government.
Things about our media and information systems.
Things which were previously hidden by cowardice and compartmentalizing.

And maybe we'll start seeing opportunities we'd never noticed before.
Doors and windows which were previously invisible to us.
New escape routes and entryways
as we realize we'd been looking at a 3-D model in two dimensions.

And maybe then we'll have a chuckle
as we realize that the sages across the ages were right.
That it really is all one.
That we are inseparable from the whole.
That any consciousness brought to any area helps awaken the totality.
That the greatest gift anyone can bring to the world
is their own self-realization."

[onawah]

The Establishment Doesn’t Fear Trump, And It Doesn’t Fear Bernie. It Fears
You.
JANUARY 27, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/27/the-establishment-doesnt-fear-trump-and-it-doesnt-fear-bernie-it-fears-you/

"During the George W Bush administration it was popular in conspiracy circles to speculate that events might be orchestrated which would allow the Bush family to complete a coup against the US Constitution and hold on to power indefinitely.

Such paranoia and suspicion of government power in the wake of the extraordinary post-9/11 advancements in Orwellian surveillance programs and unprecedented military expansionism were perfectly understandable, but predictions that the younger Bush would not cede power at the end of his second term proved incorrect. In today’s hysterical Trump-centric political environment we now see mainstream voices in mainstream outlets openly advancing the same conspiratorial speculations about the current administration, and those will prove incorrect as well.

What these paranoid presidential prognostications get wrong is not their extreme suspicion of government, but their assumption that America’s real power structures require a certain president to be in place in order to advance depraved totalitarian agendas. As anyone paying attention knows, intense suspicion of the US government is the only sane position that anyone can possibly have; the error is in assuming that there is no mechanism in place to ensure that the same agendas carry forward from one presidential administration to the next.


Michael Tracey
@mtracey
Schiff dwelling on the fact that Trump departed from the talking points prepared for him by national security officials so he could act "contrary to official US policy," which is to "deter Russian adventurism." Glad to know even the president is not permitted to change US policy
3:01 PM · Jan 23, 2020·Twitter

In a sense, the conspiracy theories about a Bush coup were actually correct: the Bush administration didn’t truly end. All of its imperialist, power-serving agendas remained in place and were expanded under the apparent oversight of the following administration. The same thing happened after the Obama administration, and the same thing–whether in 2021 or 2025–will happen after the Trump administration. The disturbing fact of the matter is that if you ignore election dates and just look at the numbers and raw data of US government behavior over the years, you can’t really tell who is president or which political party is in power at any given point in time.

The mechanism which ensures the perpetuation of the same policies from administration to administration used to be referred to by analysts as the “deep state”, back before Trump and his supporters hijacked that term and began using it to essentially mean something like “Democrats and anyone who doesn’t like Trump”. Originally the term deep state referred not to one political party, nor to some shadowy cabal of Illuminati or Satanists or reptilians, but to the simple and undeniable fact that unelected power structures exist and tend to influence America’s official elected government. It wasn’t a conspiracy theory, it was a concept used in political analysis to describe how US government agencies and plutocrats form loose alliances with each other and with official Washington to influence government policy and behavior.

It is inevitable that such a permanent second government would exist in the current iteration of the United States, if you think about it. It’s impossible to have a globe-spanning empire of the sort America now has without long-term plans spanning years or decades for securing control of world resources, undermining rivals, securing more compliant allies, and ensuring military and economic hegemony. If the US were a normal nation which simply minded its own affairs, a permanent government wouldn’t be necessary. But because it isn’t, one is.

I very seldom use the term deep state anymore, because its meaning in mainstream discourse has been completely corrupted. Now when I want to point to America’s permanent unelected power structures I usually use the word “oligarchy” or “empire”, or simply “establishment”.

EYS647HTgks

This is why I haven’t been especially focused on the US presidential race, despite the Democratic primaries hitting fever pitch intensity. While I believe the race can be a useful tool for forcing establishment propagandists to expose themselves (virulent “never Trump” neocon Bret Stephens just came out in support of Trump if the Democratic nominee is anyone to the left of Pete Buttigeig, for example), the result of the 2020 election isn’t going to change a whole hell of a lot.

This might be a bit offensive to both Trump supporters and Sanders supporters, but it’s true.

Whenever I point out that the current administration has been advancing many longstanding agendas of the CIA and neoconservative war pigs–agendas like military expansionism, imprisoning Assange, regime change interventionism in Iran and Venezuela, and reigniting the Cold War–his supporters always come in saying “If he’s working for the establishment how come the establishment is working so hard to get rid of him, huh?”

Well, for starters, they’re not. Nobody who can count Senate seats believes Trump will be removed from office in the current impeachment sideshow, and everyone who understood Russiagate knew it was going to dead-end at nothing. If they really wanted Trump gone they wouldn’t be pussyfooting around with a bunch of kayfabe combat that they know will never hurt him. Obviously he wasn’t the preferred 2016 choice of certain factions within the establishment, but there are mechanisms in place to ensure that the empire can tick right along with a less-than-ideal president in the White House.

This will also hold true if Sanders miraculously makes his way through another rigged primary, and then through whatever sabotage gets thrown his way in the general election. Sure he might be able to sign a few somewhat beneficial executive orders and we probably wouldn’t see him flirting with an Iran war, but US imperialism will march on more or less unimpeded and his popular progressive domestic policies would require congress to successfully implement. At best he’d be a mild reformer who uses the bully pulpit to help spread awareness while being narrative managed on all sides by the billionaire media, and any changes he manages to squeak through which inconvenience the establishment at all will be reversed by a subsequent administration.



Sarah Abdallah
@sahouraxo
Huge anti-government protests happening now in Iran? Russia? Hong Kong?

Nope. It’s #Paris, #France, today.

So it won’t be plastered everywhere across mainstream media. #YellowVests #GiletsJaunes #greve25janvier


Sarah Abdallah
@sahouraxo
Huge anti-government protests happening now in Iran? Russia? Hong Kong?

https://twitter.com/i/status/1221088342428856320
Nope. It’s #Paris, #France, today.

So it won’t be plastered everywhere across mainstream media. #YellowVests #GiletsJaunes #greve25janvier
https://twitter.com/i/status/1221088342428856320
https://twitter.com/i/status/1221088342428856320
2,948
9:12 AM - Jan 25, 2020
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Obviously the establishment would rather have someone in the White House who doesn’t constantly put an ugly face on the empire by accidentally exposing its mechanics all the time as Trump does, and obviously it would rather have an incompetent oaf like Trump in office than someone who actively points out the evils of oligarchy and imperialism like Sanders. But the establishment which runs the US-centralized empire is not afraid of Trump, and it is not afraid of Sanders. It’s afraid of you.

The unelected power establishment has ways of ensuring its dominance amid the comings and goings of America’s official elected government; they are perfectly capable of dealing with one man being a less than ideal steward of the empire. What they absolutely cannot deal with, at all, is the prospect of ordinary people finally rising up and using the power of their numbers to force real change. That is what they are really fighting against when they try to sabotage populist candidates: not the candidates themselves, but populism itself.

You wouldn’t know it from reading the billionaire media, but the Yellow Vests protests in France are still going on and have remained widespread for more than a year now. This lack of coverage is partially due to the fact that establishment narrative managers are responsible for conveying the idea that the only governments whose citizens dislike them are those which haven’t been absorbed into the imperial blob like China and Iran. But it’s also because the propagandists don’t want us getting any ideas.

The reason the propagandists work so hard to manufacture the consent of the governed is because they absolutely do require that consent. If enough people decide that the status quo isn’t working for them and begin rising up to force it to change, there’s not really anything the establishment can do to stop them. Right now the only thing keeping people from rising up in this way is the fact that they’ve been successfully propagandized not to, and the propagandists intend to keep it that way.

But eyes are beginning to open. If real change is coming, it will come from there. Not from electing anyone president, but from a large-scale awakening to the reality of our situation. The only thing standing in the way is a thin layer of narrative fluff.

[onawah]

The Primary Mechanism Of Your Oppression Is Not Hidden At All
by Caitlin Johnstone
FEBRUARY 2, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/02/the-primary-mechanism-of-your-oppression-is-not-hidden-at-all/
https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium.jpg?w=720&ssl=1

"I write a lot about government secrecy and the importance of whistleblowers, leakers and leak publishers, and for good reason: governments which can hide their wicked deeds from public accountability will do so whenever possible. It's impossible for the public to use democracy for ensuring their government behaves in the way they desire if they aren't allowed to be informed about what that behavior even is.

These things get lots of attention in conspiracy circles and dissident political factions. Quite a few eyes are fixed on the veil of government opacity and the persecution of those brave souls who try to shed light on what's going on behind it. Not enough eyes, but quite a few.

What gets less attention, much to our detriment, is the fact that the primary mechanism of our oppression and exploitation is happening right out in front of our faces.

The nonstop campaign by bought politicians, owned news outlets, and manipulated social media platforms to control the dominant narratives about what's going on in the world contribute vastly more to the sickness of our society than government secrecy does. We know this from experience: any time a whistleblower exposes secret information about the malfeasance of powerful governments like NSA surveillance or Collateral Murder, we see not public accountability, nor demands for sweeping systemic changes to prevent such malfeasance from reoccurring, but a bunch of narrative management from the political/media class.

This narrative management is used to shift attention away from the information that was revealed and onto the fact that the person who revealed it broke the law or misbehaved in some way. It's used to convince people that the revelations aren't actually a big deal, or that it was already basically public knowledge anyway. And it's used to manipulate public attention on to the next hot story of the day and memory hole it underneath the white noise of the media news churn. And nothing changes.

We've seen it happening over and over and over again. The narrative management machine has gotten so effective and efficient that it's been able to completely ignore the recent revelation that the US, UK and France almost certainly bombed Syria in 2018 for a completely false reason. A few half-assed Bellingcat spin jobs and an otherwise total media blackout, and it's like the whole thing never happened. https://thegrayzone.com/2020/01/22/ian-henderson-opcw-whistleblower-un-no-chemical-attack-douma-syria/

What this tells us is that our first and foremost problem is not the fact that conspiracies are happening behind a curtain of government secrecy, but that the way people think, act and vote is being actively manipulated right out in the open. Government secrecy is indeed one aspect of establishment narrative control, but controlling the public's access to information is only one aspect. The bigger part of it is controlling how the public thinks about information.

The reason people never use the power of their superior numbers to force real change, even though they're being exploited and oppressed in myriad ways by the ruling class, is because they've been propagandized into accepting the status quo as desirable (or at least normal). The propaganda of the political/media class is therefore the establishment's front line of defense. Its most powerful, and essential, weapon.

This is important for dissidents of all stripes to understand, because it means we're not just passively waiting around for another Manning or Snowden or an Ian Henderson to give us information which we can use to fight the oppression machine. Those individuals have done a great public service, but the battle to awaken human consciousness to what's really going on in our world is in no way limited to leakers and whistleblowers. It is not at the mercy of government secrecy.

If you are engaged in any type of media, you are engaging the narrative matrix which keeps the public asleep and complacent. https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/society-is-made-of-narrative-realizing-this-is-awakening-from-the-matrix-787c7e2539ae It doesn't matter if you have a Twitter account, a Youtube account, some flyers or a can of spray paint: if you are capable of getting any kind of message out there, you are able to directly influence the mechanism of your oppression. You are able to inform people that they are being lied to, you are able to explain why, and you are able to point them to where they can find more information.

This is extremely empowering. You do not need to wait around hoping that some bombshell piece of information makes it past all the various security checks and spinmeisters and triggers a real social awakening. You can be that information. You can become a catalyst for that awakening.

The key to turning this ship around does not lie hidden somewhere behind a veil of government opacity. It lies in you. It lies in all of us. We can begin awakening our fellow humans right now by attacking the narrative management of the propaganda machine that sits right in front of us, unarmored and unhidden."

[onawah]

DNC Completely Loses Public Trust In Its Primary Process On Very First DayFEBRUARY 5, 2020
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/05/dnc-completely-loses-public-trust-in-its-primary-process-on-very-first-day/

"After a 2016 presidential primary race riddled with scandals, all of which worked against Bernie Sanders to the advantage of anointed establishment favorite Hillary Clinton, the 2020 Democratic presidential primary elections officially began with a massive scandal working against Bernie Sanders to the advantage of an establishment favorite.

The 2020 Iowa caucuses turned out to have been designed to depend on the use of a new, untested app with extensive ties to establishment insiders and to the Pete Buttigeig campaign, and because of problems using this app as of this writing we are still waiting on the full results of the election. The Iowa Democratic Party has bizarrely released a partial result with 62 percent of 99 counties reporting, which just so happens to have favored the campaign of a Mr Peter Buttigeig, who in the sample came out on top in delegates despite coming in second in votes.

A popular “gold standard” poll by the Des Moines Register that is normally released shortly before the Iowa caucuses had Sanders comfortably in first place. The results of the poll were instead left unpublished this time until after elections were underway due to a complaint by the campaign of, you guessed it, Pete Buttigeig. This would be the same Pete Buttigeig who attended the infamous “Stop Sanders” meetings with Democratic Party insiders last year, by the way.

#IowaCaucusDisaster Update: @leefang reports Acronym—the main investor in #IowaCaucus app developer "Shadow"— had senior leadership that "regularly expressed hostility to @BernieSanders supporters."

CEO of Acronym also married @PeteButtigieg staffer https://t.co/HP6QVx61BX

— Jordan (@JordanChariton) February 4, 2020
According to an Iowa precinct chair, the problems using the app (developed by the aptly named Shadow, Inc) included literally switching the numbers entered into it on the final step of reporting results.

“A precinct chair in Iowa said the app got stuck on the last step when reporting results,” CNN reports. “It was uploading a picture of the precinct’s results. The chair said they were finally able to upload, so they took a screenshot. The app then showed different numbers than what they had submitted as captured in their screenshot.”

It doesn’t actually matter anymore who really won Iowa at this point; the damage is already done. Iowa is a sparsely populated state with an insignificant number of delegates; nobody campaigns there for the delegates, they campaign to make headlines and generate excitement and favorable press for themselves in the first electoral contest of the presidential primary race. This has already happened, and with Buttigeig first declaring victory before any results were in, followed by his delegate count lead announced hours later, the favorable press has predominantly gone his way.

Even if Sanders turns out to have won the delegate count as well, this will already have happened. He will have already lost the opportunity to start off the primary contest with a win and a rousing victory speech. In every way that matters, he has already been robbed, by extremely shady establishment dealings, in the very first electoral contest of the race.

The very first. Berners are already as outraged as they were at the height of the 2016 DNC scandal, which was still months out from this point in the race. They’re already getting screwed over, and it’s just getting started.

I see many people blaming this on incompetence, some in bad faith and some in good, but in either case there is no legitimate reason to do that anymore. It has been my experience that if someone seems to be totally incompetent but every “oopsie” they make just happens to end up benefiting them, it’s manipulation you’re dealing with, not incompetence. Some people are happy to look dumb if they can get what they want. If you watch their actions and ignore their words, a very revealing pattern shows up immediately.

This is all extremely blatant, and the feelings it brings up in people are completely legitimate. Yet narrative managers like Neera Tanden and Shannon Watts are telling everyone they’re just like Trump if they suspect the Democratic establishment is again doing the thing it did just four years ago.


Folks who are claiming anything may be rigged sound like Trump. Exactly like him. It’s pathetic.

— Neera Tanden (@neeratanden) February 4, 2020

If such extremely shady shenanigans had occurred in Russia or Venezuela, within minutes Mike Pompeo would have been holding a press conference demanding a new election under UN supervision and an international coalition of sanctions. It’s hilarious how America is constantly staging coups, implementing sanctions and arming violent militias on the basis that their government has an illegitimate democratic process, yet its own most important electoral proceedings would make any third world tin pot dictator blush.

And don’t give me that crap about how Democratic Party primaries are separate from the US electoral system and therefore don’t undermine American democracy; of course they do. If your country has a rigidly enforced two-party system and one of those parties has bogus internal elections, then you do not have any degree of democracy in your country. Saying “Well if you don’t like our rigged primary process you can vote for the other corrupt warmongering pro-establishment party” is not democracy.

The difference between a true totalitarian dictatorship and America is that the totalitarian dictatorship enforces one political belief system which supports the status quo, whereas in America you get the freedom of choice between two political belief systems which support the status quo. The entire system is stacked to ensure the continued rule of the oligarchs, spooks and warmongers who really run things behind the two-handed sock puppet show of the official elected government. The US doesn’t attack and undermine nations when they lack “freedom” or “democracy”, they attack and undermine them when they refuse to bow to the demands of the power establishment which controls the US government and its allies.

The sooner people wake up to this, the better. In Iowa, things couldn’t have gone worse for those responsible for keeping people asleep."

[onawah]

The Myth Of Incompetence: DNC Scandals Are A Feature, Not A Bug
FEBRUARY 6, 2020
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/06/the-myth-of-incompetence-dnc-scandals-are-a-feature-not-a-bug/

"The Iowa caucus scandal has continued to get more egregious by the hour, with new revelations routinely pouring in about extremely suspicious manipulations taking place which all just so happen to disadvantage the campaign of Bernie Sanders in the first Democratic electoral contest of 2020. By the time you read this article, there will likely have been more.

Following the failure of an extremely shady app developed by vocally anti-Sanders establishment insiders which reportedly was literally altering vote count numbers after they were entered, Black Hawk County supervisor Chris Schwartz shared the election results in his county on Facebook so the public could have some idea of what’s going on as the Iowa Democratic Party (IDP) slowly trickles out the results of the caucuses.

Sanders supporters quickly highlighted the fact that the IDP’s reported numbers for Black Hawk County were wildly different from those reported by Schwartz, with votes taken from Sanders and given to minor fringe candidates Deval Patrick and Tom Steyer. The IDP then announced that it would be making “a minor correction to the last batch of results”, which just so happened to be in Black Hawk County and just so happened to give Sanders back some votes (but still remains different from that reported by Schwartz).

It’s probable that this only happened as a result of one Black Hawk County supervisor taking to social media to report the vote tallies for this one particular county. What about all the Iowa locations where this did not happen and local Democratic Party officials didn’t report their numbers on social media? Does anyone actually believe that the one instance where the IDP got caught is the one instance in which such vote tampering occurred?

That would be a very silly belief to hold, in my opinion. It would be like a store clerk discovering that a can of beans is completely rotten, then going ahead and putting the rest of the pallet on the shelf under the assumption that the other cans are fine.

Another of the countless revelations hemorrhaging from this fustercluck is a report from CNN and The New York Post that the DNC, not the IDP, is “running the show” in managing the Iowa caucus scandal. This means that this Democratic presidential primary scandal is being managed by the same committee which orchestrated the last Democratic presidential primary scandal, and that the campaign being victimized by this scandal, that of Bernie Sanders, is the same in both cases.

This would be the same DNC whose chairperson, Tom Perez, recently stacked its nominating committee with dozens of odious alt-centrist establishment insiders who are ideologically opposed to Sanders in every meaningful way.

“Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez has nominated dozens of lobbyists, corporate consultants, think tank board members, and former officials linked to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton to serve on the Democratic National Convention (DNC) nominating committee this July,” Kevin Gosztola reported for Grayzone last month. “Many of Perez’s nominees are vocal opponents of Senator Bernie Sanders and spoke out against his campaign when he challenged Hillary Clinton for the nomination in 2016.”

As these scandalous revelations continue to emerge I don’t see anyone online expressing surprise that the Democratic establishment is once again stacking the deck against Sanders, but I do see some people expressing surprise that they are being so brazen about it. Which is perfectly understandable; if this party wants to screw over progressive voters, you’d expect that they’d at least try to hide it a little bit so they don’t alienate their progressive base before November.

The flaw in this expectation is its premise that Democratic Party elites care if their party wins in November. They do not.

Put yourself in the shoes of one of the leading movers and shakers within the Democratic Party for a minute. Pretend you’re getting a nice paycheck, pretend you’re getting great healthcare benefits, pretend you get plenty of prestige and exclusive access and invitations to classy parties. And pretend you’re the type of person who’s willing to manipulate and deceive and kiss up and kick down and do whatever it takes to get to the top of such a structure.

Now ask yourself, if you were such a person in such a situation, would you care if voters pick Donald Trump or Pete Buttigeig in November? Would it affect your cushy lifestyle in any way whatsoever? Would you lose your job, your prestige or your influence? No party elites lost those things in 2016. Why would you expect this time to be any different?

But you might be at risk of losing your cushy lifestyle if a forcefully anti-elitist progressive movement gets off the ground and takes control of your party. So you’d stand everything to gain by doing everything you can to prevent that from happening, and, because you don’t care if Trump gets re-elected, you’d stand absolutely nothing to lose.

These people do not care if Trump gets re-elected, because they lose nothing if he does. The only people who stand anything to lose are the ordinary citizens who are suffering under a corrupt status quo of soul-crushing neoliberalism and increasing authoritarianism, many of whom currently support Sanders. Democratic Party elites are perfectly happy to keep shrieking about Russia for another four years while making sure that the status quo which rewards their manipulative behavior remains intact, and ensuring that they never wind up like those poor suckers out there who are suffering from poverty and lack of healthcare.

And everything I just said is equally true of the media class who are currently working in conjunction with the DNC’s shenanigans to spin Pete Buttigeig as the clear winner of the party’s first presidential electoral contest. They enjoy all the same perks, and move in many of the same circles, as Democratic Party elites, and it’s all conditioned on their protection of the status quo.

I keep seeing the word “incompetence” thrown around. “Gosh these Democratic Party leaders are so incompetent!”, they say. “How can anyone be so bad at their job?”

Well, they are not bad at their job. They are very, very good at their job. It’s just that their job isn’t what most people assume it is.

Their job is not to win elections and garner public support, their job is to ensure the perpetuation of the status quo which rewards them so handsomely for their malignant behavior. Toward this end they are not incompetent at all. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they’re doing it well.

They are extremely competent. Depraved, certainly. Sociopathic, possibly. But not incompetent.

They’re happy to make their nefariousness look like incompetence though, whenever they can get away with it. Any manipulator worth their salt always will be. If they can make their planned, deliberate acts of sabotage look like innocent little oopsies, they’ll gladly do so. But you learn in life that whenever you see someone making a lot of “mistakes” which just so happen to benefit them every time, you’re dealing with manipulation, not incompetence.

What do the bad guys say in the movies when they order someone’s murder? They say “Make it look like an accident.” If it’s an accident you’ve got no trouble. You won’t be seen for what you are.

But of course it’s no accident, and anyone with clear eyes and good intentions sees this. If you see someone working hard to make you believe that it’s incompetence, you are dealing with someone who is invested in maintaining the status quo in some way. You are being manipulated.

The system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly the way it’s intended to work. It ain’t a bug, it’s a feature. And that feature will remain in operation until the entire sick system is torn down and replaced with something healthy."

[Dennis Leahy]

This should be required reading for every Avalon member:

"The mechanism which ensures the perpetuation of the same policies from administration to administration used to be referred to by analysts as the “deep state”, back before Trump and his supporters hijacked that term and began using it to essentially mean something like “Democrats and anyone who doesn’t like Trump”. Originally the term deep state referred not to one political party, nor to some shadowy cabal of Illuminati or Satanists or reptilians, but to the simple and undeniable fact that unelected power structures exist and tend to influence America’s official elected government. It wasn’t a conspiracy theory, it was a concept used in political analysis to describe how US government agencies and plutocrats form loose alliances with each other and with official Washington to influence government policy and behavior.

It is inevitable that such a permanent second government would exist in the current iteration of the United States, if you think about it. It’s impossible to have a globe-spanning empire of the sort America now has without long-term plans spanning years or decades for securing control of world resources, undermining rivals, securing more compliant allies, and ensuring military and economic hegemony. If the US were a normal nation which simply minded its own affairs, a permanent government wouldn’t be necessary. But because it isn’t, one is.

I very seldom use the term deep state anymore, because its meaning in mainstream discourse has been completely corrupted. Now when I want to point to America’s permanent unelected power structures I usually use the word “oligarchy” or “empire”, or simply “establishment”."The Deep State were in control of the USA, Inc. when John F Kennedy thought he (a democrat, by the way) was in control of the USA, Inc.

The Deep State took Kennedy out. Democrat Kennedy. So the big coup, the big power play in the USA, Inc. in the last 100 years happened with a Democrat in power. They blew his head wide open. You really think the "Deep State" has its roots in the Democrat political party when they showed all of us what happens when you don't behave as ordered by the Deep State?

The Deep State isn't the Democrats, the Democrats are just one cluster of representatives of the Deep State.

Conversely, the Deep State isn't the Republicans, the Republicans are just one cluster of representatives of the Deep State.

"Deep" refers to being under cover, covert, hidden. The 2 USA, Inc. political parties are overt, in plain sight, the public relations face of their lords and masters: the oligarchs/plutocrats. There is nothing "deep" about the USA, Inc. corporate, faux-political parties, in any sense of the word. Well, unless we're talking about the deep mountain of sh!t that these puppets of Empire orally excrete any given day, and how high your boots need to be to wade through it.

The consistency of warmongering and pro-corporate agenda from W bush to obomber should have been a wake-up call to every democrat supporter alive that the USA, Inc. agenda is written "by others." The consistency of warmongering and pro-corporate agenda from obomber to trumph should have been a wake-up call to every republican supporter alive that the USA, Inc. agenda is written "by others." Nothing is covert - it's all there for anyone with eyes. The next USA, Inc. president, and the next, and the next, and the next, and the next will be pro-military, pro imperialism and will do as they are told or the Deep State will blow their head off.

The democrat gang and the republican gang are the enemies of the people of the USA, and they represent only the establishment, Empire, plutocrats/oligarchs, Deep State.

There is going to be a test on Caitlin's words, and if you fail (by insisting that one or the other of the USA, Inc. political parties is - or is mostly or primarily - the Deep State, you have to have a menage a trois with klinton and trumph.

[earthdreamer]

https://consortiumnews.com/2020/02/04/buttigieg-backer-top-funder-of-group-behind-iowas-disastrous-voting-app/

“Seth Klarman is the founder of the Boston-based Baupost Group hedge fund and a longtime donor to corporate Republican candidates. After Donald Trump called for forgiving Puerto Rico’s debt, Klarman — the owner of $911 million of the island’s bonds — flipped and began funding Trump’s opponents.

The billionaire’s crusade against Trump ultimately led him to Mayor Pete’s wine cave.”

https://www.rt.com/shows/news-with-rick-sanchez/480185-news-with-rick-sanchez-february/

“How did Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana come from fourth place to become frontrunner of the 2020 Iowa Caucus? RT America's Michele Greenstein examines Buttigieg's ominous connections to the Defense Dept. and US intelligence community.”


Evidence of Buttigieg being chosen by “Shadow Inc” (as Caitlyn J. so aptly notes is so aptly named), for our “choice” .

[onawah]

2020 Is Going To Get Much Crazier. Prioritize Your Mental HealthFEBRUARY 7, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/07/2020-is-going-to-get-much-crazier-prioritize-your-mental-health/
( Too many hyperlinks in the article to embed here)
https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/meditation.jpg?w=1080&ssl=1

"The outrage over the Iowa caucus scandal has continued to burn white hot as more and more establishment manipulations against the Bernie Sanders campaign come into view.

At the beginning of a CNN town hall with Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg last night, immediately following the network’s town hall with Sanders, the event’s host Chris Cuomo announced that 100 percent of the caucus results were now in and the former South Bend mayor had narrowly won the contest. These results had been announced by the Iowa Democratic Party moments before Buttigieg’s town hall appearance.

There is no reason for anyone, let alone a major news outlet, to believe these results are legitimate. They are full of easily demonstrable errors and discrepancies which have been highlighted by both the Sanders campaign and The New York Times, and they have yet to be addressed. Furthermore, Sanders has a perfectly legitimate claim to the win given the undisputed fact that he received thousands more votes. This is without even getting into all the other extremely shady shenanigans with the now-infamous Shadow app whose crash has given the media days to sing Buttigeig’s praise, which has in turn given him a major polling bump for New Hampshire.

But Chris Cuomo (who is the brother of a Democratic New York governor and the son of another Democratic New York governor) declared Buttigieg (who because of his establishment grooming and alt-centrist ideology is beloved by billionaires and spooks) the winner anyway. In front of millions of people. While Buttigieg was standing right there in the spotlight. Immediately after the “results” were released.

We’re watching a major US election being rigged in real time, right in front of our eyes, and it’s intense. And it’s only just getting started.

In the 2016 race between Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the Iowa caucuses saw some suspicious activity and there was some controversy over improbable coin toss results, but nothing like the furor we’ve been seeing over Iowa for the last several days. It wasn’t until the Nevada caucus that things really started to get crazy in the 2016 race, and we’re still a couple of weeks out from that.

So we’re way ahead of schedule in terms of emotional intensity tied to this presidential primary race, and possibly at a more heated point after the very first 2020 primary contest than at any point in the 2016 race between Sanders and Clinton. And it’s only going to get crazier from here.

And that’s just looking at the US Democratic presidential primary. Later this month we’ve got the beginning of Julian Assange’s extradition trial, we’ve got the OPCW narrative managing its own scandal by smearing the whistleblowers who revealed that the US, UK and France almost certainly bombed Syria in 2018 under false pretenses, we’ve got continuing revelations that pretty much everything the Trump administration told the world to justify the assassination of Qassem Soleimani was a lie, we’ve got an escalating new cold war between the US and Russia, increasing establishment attempts to censor the internet, an increasing propaganda war against China, the general militaristic belligerence of the US-centralized empire, and God knows what else.

As I said back in November, things are going to get weirder and weirder throughout the foreseeable future. We’re coming to a point in history where the only reliable pattern is the disintegration of patterns, and 2020 has come storming out of its corner swinging for the fences working to establish this pattern with extreme aggression. We’re not going to hit a point of stability or normality this year, we’re going to see things get crazier and crazier and crazier. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I know it’s going to be nuts.

In such an environment, it’s going to be absolutely essential to take exceptional care of your psychological health if you want to remain engaged with what’s going on in the world in a positive way.

And I do mean exceptional. Whatever you’re doing now, do more. Start cultivating new habits to keep yourself lucid and serene, and start now before things get super crazy. Work out your issues with your family and with yourself. Remember to move your body in ways that feel good to you. Carve out some time out each day for just being quiet with yourself. Notice the beauty around you. Give cuddles, get cuddles. Take a shower and sing your heart out. Feel your feet on the floor, nestle your bum into your chair and listen to yourself breath like it’s a song on the radio. Yawn. Belch. Stretch. Roar. Put on some loud music and rock out. Whatever you know works for you to get you out of your head and back in to your body, remember to do it, and remember to do it regularly. Make it habitual.

Be proactive with this rather than reactive; if you wait until you have to react to things going ass-side up later on it’s going to feel like you’re fighting to get your head above water. If you do it now you’ll have the mental space needed to navigate tumultuous waters.

This is what will be necessary if you want to engage with the increasingly frenetic narrative matrix in the future. The only alternative will be to disengage completely and throw your attention into escapism, or at least away from politics and news. And if you don’t make the cultivation of mental well-being your first and foremost priority you will be forced, in a very unpleasant way, to disengage anyhow.

LAXcolWbh60

And honestly this is something all activist types should be doing anyway. Believing you can help the world without doing serious inner work is like believing you can clean the house while covered in raw sewage. You can always spot the political activists who engage without doing any inner work by the chaotic, unskillful and frequently counterproductive form their actions take. They can’t see clearly enough to operate efficaciously, because their vision is clouded with unresolved suffering and conflict. Get in the shower and wash the yuck off yourself before trying to clean the house.

Some of my readers want a Sanders insurgency in the Democratic Party, some support third parties or independents, while others eschew electoral politics altogether and endorse other approaches to pushing for real change. But in my experience you all care deeply about the world, regardless of your preferred path toward doing so, and that’s going to take a heavy toll as all manner of things unravel over the next year if you don’t have the psychological spaciousness to navigate it lucidly.

Above all, be gentle with yourself. We got a ways ahead of us, and we need you fresh and feeling good. You won’t be able to help wake the world up if you let the chaos and confusion drag you down. Know when to take a break from the information stream and all the babbling narratives trying to twist your perception of it. Use your tools to distance yourself from the narratives so that you can perceive them objectively. Ground yourself, find your center, then, when you’re ready, wade back in.

No matter how chaotic things get, your ability to navigate that chaos skillfully needs to be your first and foremost priority. Put your mental well-being first, and everything else will fall into place.

Be the peace and harmony you want to see in the world."

[onawah]

Big Buttigieg Bloviations
2/ 9 /2020
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/09/big-buttigieg-bloviations-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-9.jpg?w=1080&ssl=1

"Prediction: if Sanders somehow manages to win the primary, a majority of the centrist pundits screaming “vote blue no matter who” at Bernie supporters right now will help amplify smear campaigns against him and undermine his campaign against Trump.

~

The UK media’s shrieking, deceitful smear campaign against Corbyn last year far exceeds anything we’ve seen against Sanders so far in terms of intensity and egregiousness. I point this out to highlight the fact that there’s still plenty of room for it to get a whole lot worse.

~

Bernie’s most important job is being a very reasonable thing that the people want and the establishment refuses to let them have. Force them to kill his run openly and you can wake more people up to the reality that they’re not living in the kind of nation they thought they were.

~

Fun fact: Amy Klobuchar’s support base consists of nothing but TV news pundits and mainstream op-ed writers.

~

Fun fact: the most dangerous synthetic material ever invented in a laboratory for public consumption is Pete Buttigieg.

~

Most politicians are experts at the art of spouting eloquent-sounding bloviations that never actually say anything. Pete Buttigieg is like the Mozart of that art.

~

Buttigieg has almost no political history and still has to deal with significant scandals from his tiny mayoral stint. Yet he’s still polling well. Very interesting.

~

Nobody’s shocked that the Democratic establishment is rigging the election, but some are shocked that they’re being so brazen about it. Don’t be. Remember, there are no consequences for these people: they know they’ll never lose their jobs, and they’re fine with Trump winning.

If you’re suffering under the status quo, you’re much more likely to care about changing it. If you’re benefiting from the status quo, you’re more likely to care about protecting it and making sure you never become one of those poor suckers who are being crushed to death by it. Establishment lackeys benefit from it.

~

One under-appreciated establishment-friendly perk of the Iowa caucus rigging is that the scandal completely eclipsed the big story of the day: the spectacular face-plant of the anointed king Joe Biden. If not for the scandal, that’s all anyone would be talking about right now.

~

At some point the establishment narrative managers are going to realize that criticizing “Bernie bros” for being angry isn’t an effective strategy, because the answer coming back is only ever going to be “Oh you have no ****ing idea.”

~

By July establishment Democrats are going to be literally urinating on progressives and telling them they’re helping Trump if they react in any way.

~

Any political issue which doesn’t directly threaten the interests of oligarchs and the military-industrial complex is incapable of delivering meaningful political change; it will be hijacked and used as a carrot or a stick by the two-headed one-party system to distract from anything that threatens existing power structures.

~

Anyone who claims the left is starting a “class war” is claiming that the billionaire class has not already been waging war on normal people on a multitude of fronts for many years. They’re saying that the exploitation, oppression, manipulation, corruption and poverty is all in your imagination.

~

There is a large and influential political faction which has spent the last three years subtly indoctrinating the American public into assuming that all of America’s problems will go away once Trump is out of office. These people are doing far, far more harm than good.

~

All the major power players are perfectly fine with Trump getting reelected; he’s been advancing all their key toxic agendas. Democratic Party leaders are fine with it too; they’ll all keep their jobs, wealth and influence regardless of what happens in November, and they know it.

~

Trump supporters who can’t see that their guy is as much a part of the establishment machine as Pelosi are just as dumb as the pussyhatted #Resistance liberals YASS-QUEENing about Nancy ripping some paper. Just because the Dems look extra dumb right now doesn’t mean you’re smart.

You’ve been had. You were duped by narrative and empty words into supporting a garden variety Republican president. Your anti-establishment sentiments were successfully corralled by propaganda into a standard GOP ideology with some edgy window dressing.

~

The CIA website has a kids section with games where children can “solve puzzles, crack codes, and discover clues like a real CIA officer”.

This is like ISIS starting an ice cream truck business.

~

I said back in September that I won’t be authoring any essays about the stupid impeachment side-show because it’s boring and irrelevant, and I never did the entire time, even on days when it was the only thing in the news. I am awesome.

~

Everyone with a brain knew Russiagate and Ukrainegate would fizzle, including leading Democrats. They only pushed them to distract from their own failures and scandals in 2016, and to avoid making any meaningful changes to their party or its policies. Trump supporters who claim it was a major Deep State coup attempt are premising that belief on the idea that the Deep State was capable of orchestrating a massive domestic regime change operation but was incapable of counting Senate seats. There was never any real establishment threat to Trump, because Trump is fully aligned with the establishment.

~

When it comes to Julian Assange, if you zoom out from the noise of propaganda, the question that is very clearly being asked here is this: Should publishers and journalists be jailed for exposing war crimes? Our answer to that question will shape our world for decades to come.

This is the actual thing we’re pushing against. Every partisan angle that people come up with is just trying to avoid tackling the central question that Assange’s case hinges on. Try to keep the debate focused on this one question. Keep hammering it home. Liberals will tell you it’s about Russia Russia Putin Putin, Trump supporters will babble some gibberish about it having something to do with fighting the Deep State, but the real issue is and always has been about whether we should punish journalists and publishers for exposing war crimes

~

Superhero comic writers often envisioned variations on an evil nerd inventing some powerful technology and trying to use it to take over the world. Their work turns out to have been prophetic, except the technology is more boring, and there are no superheroes to stop them.

~

As far as the empire is concerned Palestinians have no more rights than whales dying from Navy sonar tests or wildlife in a prime military base location. Israel is a nuclear-armed imperial military outpost, and Palestinians, as far as the empire is concerned, are just in the way.

~

A nation which requires endless violence to maintain is not a real nation, anymore than a house which requires nonstop, round-the-clock construction work is a real house. If your house needed 24/7/365 construction work to prevent it from collapsing, you’d either move or come up with a radically different design plan.

~

Those pushing the continuation of wars, military expansionism, oligarchic corruption, exploitative neoliberalism, police militarization and Orwellian surveillance are the ones to oppose. Those pushing the opposite way are the ones to support. This perspective should be common sense and obvious to everyone, but it’s been twisted by propaganda into a “fringe” opinion. This is the primary obstacle to sanity right now."

[Jayke]

Caitlin seems to think Bernie supporters would “hardcore out-meme” Trump supporters in a Bernie vs Trump election battle.

https://mobile.twitter.com/caitoz/status/1226849391169830912

1226849391169830912

Trying to find good Bernie memes on a reddit forum (https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/f1hvue/lol/) but they seem a bit cringe. Anyone know of any good Bernie forums that are producing memes good enough to take out Trump?

[Dennis Leahy]

Sadly, support for Bernie Sanders is (as I see it) Caitlin Johnstone's Achilles's Heel. I despise Bernie because he has been so effective at portraying himself as anti-Empire, but his actions in office acquiescing to the MIC (and lifelong, until recently, when it became a PR nightmare for him, support of the Israeli genocide of Palestine and Palestinians), shows that he is just another opportunistic, lying, scumbag, career politician. I don't care if he is "less evil" than other opportunistic, lying, scumbag, career politicians.

I fully agree with her expose of the DNC inner corruption made so obvious with Sanders 2016 run for the US presidency, and Caitlin exposing the complicit mass media, but not to parlay that into any form of support for yet another clever puppet of the oligarchs.

[onawah]

Of all the possible candidates, I would find it less sickening to have to see Sanders' face on a regular basis for 4 years than any of the other candidates, but that's not saying much.
I would have voted for almost anyone rather than have to see Dubya's face anymore than necessary.
Reelecting any POTUS for a second term seems like a bad idea given that in their first term they are more likely to at least make an attempt to live up to a few of their campaign promises, but in the second term the restraints are greatly reduced.

[Dennis Leahy]

Of all the possible candidates, I would find it less sickening to have to see Sanders' face on a regular basis for 4 years than any of the other candidates, but that's not saying much.
I would have voted for almost anyone rather than have to see Dubya's face anymore than necessary.
Reelecting any POTUS for a second term seems like a bad idea given that in their first term they are more likely to at least make an attempt to live up to a few of their campaign promises, but in the second term the restraints are greatly reduced.


Examine that phrase, "of all the possible candidates", noting that every single one is fully connected to the Global Corporate Network (the visible, corporate oligarchy), and you'll see why - unless and until US citizens take over the entire election process - I am done with the oligarchic, corporate, pseudo-binary choice circus that is misnamed "elections." Likely, I will never vote again.

Imagine having elections for major offices, and all of the candidates were unknowns, with no political party (gang) support, and no ties to the Global Corporate Network - candidates that we citizens would examine and scrutinize via a list of major citizen-authored topics and the candidates responses in writing. Candidates for high office would be plumbers, school teachers, carpenters, poets, small farmers, etc., rather than the existing oligarchic, sociopathic, ruling class clowns that are currently the only options on our ballots.

99% of the citizens in the US are not rich, so why would we want the rich in positions of power as our representatives? Probably 90% of US citizens are not tied to the Global Corporate Network, so why would we want those that are to be in positions of power?

Bernie also showed great cowardice in the face of killary and her handlers - why would you think he would grow testicles and actually stand up to the oligarchs if elected to the presidency?

(I don't want to dilute this thread more than I have here, so if this is a discussion point, maybe we could do it in another thread.)

[onawah]

No argument from me at all, Dennis.
I don't know that I will vote either--it seems pretty pointless at this juncture if it all just boils down to which face I find to be somewhat less obnoxious, and nothing more.
But I will invite you, if you care to, to check out the discussion where I've posted this: "It's interesting to me that I believe nowhere in this discussion has anyone mentioned that currently according to C. A. Fitts and others, there are approximately 35 trillion dollars "missing" from the US economy...a good example of the point I was making here: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?109871-President-Trump-s-2020-State-of-the-Union-Address&p=1334927&viewfull=1#post1334927 "


Of all the possible candidates, I would find it less sickening to have to see Sanders' face on a regular basis for 4 years than any of the other candidates, but that's not saying much.
I would have voted for almost anyone rather than have to see Dubya's face anymore than necessary.
Reelecting any POTUS for a second term seems like a bad idea given that in their first term they are more likely to at least make an attempt to live up to a few of their campaign promises, but in the second term the restraints are greatly reduced.


Examine that phrase, "of all the possible candidates", noting that every single one is fully connected to the Global Corporate Network (the visible, corporate oligarchy), and you'll see why - unless and until US citizens take over the entire election process - I am done with the oligarchic, corporate, pseudo-binary choice circus that is misnamed "elections." Likely, I will never vote again.

Imagine having elections for major offices, and all of the candidates were unknowns, with no political party (gang) support, and no ties to the Global Corporate Network - candidates that we citizens would examine and scrutinize via a list of major citizen-authored topics and the candidates responses in writing. Candidates for high office would be plumbers, school teachers, carpenters, poets, small farmers, etc., rather than the existing oligarchic, sociopathic, ruling class clowns that are currently the only options on our ballets?

99% of the citizens in the US are not rich, so why would we want the rich in positions of power as our representatives? Probably 90% of US citizens are not tied to the Global Corporate Network, so why would we want those that are to be in positions of power?

Bernie also showed great cowardice in the face of killary and her handlers - why would you think he would grow testicles and actually stand up to the oligarchs if elected to the presidency?

(I don't want to dilute this thread more than I have here, so if this is a discussion point, maybe we could do it in another thread.)

[onawah]

Puppet Pete Says Revolution And The Status Quo Aren’t Mutually Exclusive
FEBRUARY 10, 2020
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/10/puppet-pete-says-revolution-and-the-status-quo-arent-mutually-exclusive/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium.jpeg?resize=1200%2C667&ssl=1

"The world’s first laboratory-grown presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg met with boos and chants of “Wall Street Pete” at a recent Democratic Party event in New Hampshire for taking a dig at the revolution-minded rhetoric favored by Bernie Sanders and his supporters.

“We cannot risk dividing Americans’ future further, saying that you must either be for a revolution or you must be for the status quo,” Buttigieg said. “Let’s make room for everybody in this movement.”

This is a talking point that the tightly scripted and focus group-tested Buttigieg has been repeatedly regurgitating all month, so it’s worth taking a look at.

Claiming that it isn’t necessary to choose between revolution and the status quo is claiming that you can change the status quo without any kind of revolution. You are saying that the establishment which has created and reinforced the status quo can now suddenly, for some strange and mysterious reason, be counted upon to change it. That the status quo will change the status quo.

Anyone who has paid attention to US politics for more than a few years already knows that this is objectively false. From administration to administration, regardless of who sits in the Oval Office or who controls the House or the Senate, the status quo has been adamantly enforced along a rigid trajectory toward ever-increasing military expansionism, exploitative neoliberal economic policies, income and wealth inequality, police militarization, mass-scale imprisonment, Orwellian surveillance programs and increasing restrictions on journalism and free speech.

Change is not going to come from those institutions, it’s going to come from the people using the power of their numbers to force important changes that those institutions do not want to make. And Pete Buttigieg knows this. And so do the spooks and oligarchs who are backing him.

It is very appropriate that a military intelligence officer with ties to the CIA, who is beloved by intelligence/defense agency insiders and who appears to have been groomed by national security mandarins from the very beginning of his career, should be actively working to kill a revolutionary zeitgeist. After all, backing counter-revolutionaries is a favorite CIA activity.

Progressives already got suckered into forfeiting their revolutionary spirit in exchange for flowery prose and empty rhetoric the last time they elected Pete Buttigieg for president, back when Pete Buttigieg was named Barack Obama. It was literally the exact same script they’re trying to recycle with Puppet Pete: a plucky young underdog with a knack for sparkly verbiage overcomes the frontrunner in Iowa in a stunning upset, then rides the momentum from that initial victory on to the Democratic nomination.

And now we’re seeing the Democratic Party officially award Buttigieg the largest delegate count in Iowa, after a massive scandal and despite countless unresolved discrepancies in the numbers, and establishment narrative managers are now preparing their heartwarming David-and-Goliath stories about the small town mayor knocking out the big bad socialist frontrunner for a second consecutive time in New Hampshire in defiance of the odds and polling expectations. If that falls through they’ve got Nevada, where **** really started to get crazy in 2016, and where they’re preparing to implement a brand new caucus app which they keep trying to say is not an app but a “tool” made for iPads (which is the thing that an app is).

All this to install a man who has managed to pack an astonishing amount of corruption and scandal into a relatively brief, small-scale political career.

That’s what not choosing between revolution and the status quo looks like. It looks like continuing the status quo.

Which is why it’s so dumb when Buttigieg says “Let’s make room for everybody in this movement.” Movement? What movement? You don’t get to call it a “movement” when its entire agenda is to prevent any movement. Use a different word. “Let’s make room for everybody in this inertia,” or “Let’s make room for everybody in this stasis” or something.

As I’ve said many times before, I’m interested in this presidential election not because I am under the delusion that presidential elections tend to change things, but because the attempts to manipulate it, and the public’s response to those manipulations, could shake something loose that actually might. If enough people in the world’s most powerful nation wake up to the fact that they don’t have the kind of political system they were taught about in school, if they realize that everything they’ve been told about how their government operates is a lie, if they realize their lives have been made so unnecessarily difficult by a ruling oligarchic class with a vested interest in keeping them impoverished and distracted, well, then we’re looking at an actual transformative force.

Then we’re looking at the possibility of a real revolution. Not a violent revolution; those always result in a continuation of the same ills under a different system, and there’s nothing revolutionary about that.

I’m talking about a real revolution. One where people begin to open their eyes to the reality that their entire understanding of what’s going on in the world has been the result of mass psychological manipulation throughout their entire lives at the hands of the school system, the billionaire-controlled news media, and the political establishment. One where people open their eyes so wide to the power of narrative control that they become impossible to propagandize. One where people begin weaving their own narratives. Their own understandings of the world. Built not for the benefit of the powerful, but for the benefit of the people.

We’re seeing a lot of movement already in 2020, and it’s just getting started. I see the potential for a lot of light to reach a lot of new areas between the cracks which open up in that movement. And I see the guardians of the status quo having a harder and harder time maintaining the state of stasis. Their increasingly ham-fisted manipulations, such as installing a jarringly phony puppet like Pete Buttigieg, say a lot about their desperation.

Find ways of forcing them to overextend themselves and overplay their hand. Let’s show everyone what they’re hiding behind the puppet theater."

[onawah]

I will add though, that Sanders' choice to refrain from going up against HRC may have been more to do with literal self-preservation rather than cowardice.
Just look at the latest tally in the Clinton Body Count.
I don't put much past them at this point.

Of all the possible candidates, I would find it less sickening to have to see Sanders' face on a regular basis for 4 years than any of the other candidates, but that's not saying much.
I would have voted for almost anyone rather than have to see Dubya's face anymore than necessary.
Reelecting any POTUS for a second term seems like a bad idea given that in their first term they are more likely to at least make an attempt to live up to a few of their campaign promises, but in the second term the restraints are greatly reduced.

[Gracy]

Puppet Pete Says Revolution And The Status Quo Aren’t Mutually Exclusive
FEBRUARY 10, 2020
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/10/puppet-pete-says-revolution-and-the-status-quo-arent-mutually-exclusive/
https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium.jpeg?resize=1200%2C667&ssl=1



The world’s first laboratory-grown presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg met with boos and chants of “Wall Street Pete” at a recent Democratic Party event in New Hampshire

I'm not one to jump on meme nicknames for leading political figures, always found it a bit distasteful in lieu of the actual underlying facts on the ground but, this guy imo is such a glaring example of an establishment planted golden boy these shoes just plain old fit.

I heard another one recently, and it's my favorite thus far:

"Pete Guaido".

42462

[onawah]

A very interesting analysis of the caucus events in Iowa and what it portends from Dark Journalist in the first hour of Episode 81 in the X Series.
See: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?102135-Dark-Journalist-Joseph-Farrell-UFO-X-Factor-Black-Budget-Secret-Space-Network-16-March-2018&p=1335479&viewfull=1#post1335479
WGJOj-ZSBW4

[onawah]

The Belief That Everything Will Be Fine Once Trump’s Gone Is More Dangerous Than Trump
FEBRUARY 13, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/13/the-belief-that-everything-will-be-fine-once-trumps-gone-is-more-dangerous-than-trump/

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-1-2.jpg?w=1080&ssl=1

"The New Hampshire primary election, much like the Iowa caucuses, saw Bernie Sanders doing worse than polls anticipated and establishment favorite Pete Buttigieg doing much better than polls anticipated.

Buttigieg closed at a tight second place behind Sanders and both were awarded the same number of delegates, which with the bizarre Iowa shenanigans means the former South Bend mayor is now leading the pack in total delegates despite receiving fewer votes than Sanders in both states.

So of course “Buttigieg leads” is the information that the mainstream media is placing special emphasis on today.

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screen-Shot-2020-02-13-at-11.24.39-AM-1.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1

It is entirely possible that we’ll continue seeing strange electoral results combined with mass media manipulation result in Buttigieg riding a contested convention into a superdelegate-boosted nomination, even if Sanders has more votes overall. We have at this point in time seen no reason to believe that Sanders will be able to secure the number of delegates needed to prevent such an occurrence.

Then you’ve got racist Republican oligarch Mike Bloomberg jumping on the ballot come Super Tuesday, with his $300 million+ ad campaign throwing more chaos into the mix. Billionaire Bloomberg’s unprecedented campaign spending power has enabled him to push up just shy of second place in a recent Quinnipiac national poll despite having no redeeming characteristics and no real goal agenda apart from stopping Sanders, which is as clear an illustration as you’ll ever see of the power of money in US politics.

Whether it winds up being Buttigieg, Bloomberg, or one of their ideological alt-centrist clones like Amy Klobuchar or the floundering Joe Biden, the mainstream narrative will soon converge around one candidate in a very positive way, with the only important qualification being that they aren’t Bernie Sanders. Many powerful people will do everything they can to prevent a Sanders nomination, whose presidency they oppose more than Trump’s. As journalist Matt Taibbi recently pointed out, the Democratic establishment has “every incentive to play every conceivable card. Trillions at stake.”

The primary argument used will be that defeating Trump is all that matters, even if it’s with another racist Republican plutocrat. If they succeed in sabotaging Sanders’ candidacy, he will help advance the same argument, as will a majority of his supporters. This argument will click perfectly in to a foundational assumption that establishment narrative managers have spent the last three plus years reinforcing, namely that once Trump is out of office, everything will be okay.


Rob
@philosophrob
·
12h
Final polling average (RCP):
28.7% - Sanders
21.3% - Buttigieg
11.7% - Klobuchar
11.0% - Warren
11.0% - Biden

Primary results:
25.9% - Sanders (-2.8%)
24.4% - Buttigieg (+3.1%)
19.8% - Klobuchar (+8.1%)
9.3% - Warren (-1.7%)
8.4% - Biden (-2.6%)

The premise that everything will be fine once Trump is gone isn’t one people generally say out loud. They don’t even usually think it. But the fact that so many Democrats who were fine with the way their nation was being run on January 19 2017 suddenly became furiously critical of it on January 20th tells you that this assumption is at play. And the relentlessly Trump-centric liberal news media has only reinforced this unexamined assumption.

Things are not going to be okay once Trump is out of office. Do you know how I know this? Because things weren’t okay before Trump got into office. America was a murderous imperialist force whose citizenry were suffering under crushing austerity and steadily mounting authoritarianism on January 19 2017, and it remains so today. Certainly the current administration has added its own levels of nefariousness to this dynamic, but the same is true of its predecessors.

By this stage in his administration Bush had launched two full-scale ground invasions and implemented unprecedented levels of global militarism and Orwellian surveillance, while at the same stage Obama had already overtly destroyed Libya and was working on covertly doing the same to Syria. Trump has continued and expanded all of the most evil agendas of those two administrations and added immensely depraved warmongering elements of his own, but you can’t even rightly argue that he’s done anything quite so evil as what Bush did to Iraq or what Obama did to Libya and Syria. Trump is not the unprecedented presidential horror that the Democratic Party-aligned media spin him as.

Imperialist elites dislike Trump not because he’s a uniquely dangerous president, but because he puts an ugly face on the things they were already doing before he took office and plan to continue doing once he leaves. The reason many rank-and-file Democrats dislike him is similar: he forces them to think about the evil things their nation does.

They don’t actually want to fix any of these problems, they just want to stop thinking about them. They’re not interested in waking up, they just want to get an uncomfortable wrinkle out of their bedsheets so that they can go back to sleep.

JhkZMxgPxXU

John Mulaney does an under-appreciated bit at the end of his famous “There’s a horse in the hospital” routine comparing Trump to a horse running rampant in a medical facility, where he admits he just wasn’t paying attention to what was going on during the previous administration:

Or sometimes they go, “If you’re so mad at the horse, how come you weren’t mad when the last guy did this three and a half years ago? You’re beating up on the horse when the last guy essentially did the same thing five years ago.” First off, get out of here with your facts. You’re like the kid at the sleepover who, after midnight, is like, “It’s tomorrow now!” Get the **** out of here with your technicalities. Just ’cause you’re accurate does not mean you’re interesting…



But when people say, “How come you were never mad at the last guy?” I say, “Because I wasn’t paying attention.” I used to pay less attention before it was a horse. Also, I thought the last guy was pretty smart, and he seemed good at his job, and I’m lazy by nature. I’m lazy by nature too. So I don’t check up on people when they seem okay at their job. You may think that’s an ignorant answer but it’s not, it’s a great answer. If you left your baby with your mother tonight, you’re not going to race home and check the nanny cam. But if you leave your baby with Gary Busey…

I think this is how most mainstream liberals feel, if they’re honest with themselves. They felt like they didn’t have to pay attention to the things Obama was doing, and they want to go back to that. Even though the distance between a truly healthy society and what America was like under Obama is many orders of magnitude greater than the distance between what America was like under Obama and what America is like under Trump.

Wanting things to go back to how they were before Trump is wanting things to go back to the conditions which gave rise to Trump. The belief that everything will be peachy keen once Trump is out of office is therefore more dangerous than Trump himself, because it guarantees more Trumps, and it guarantees that the underlying disease of which Trump is a symptom will remain uncured.

Treating a symptom doesn’t cure the disease. Believing that getting rid of Trump will fix America’s problems is like believing cough syrup cures tuberculosis.

The disease is the oligarchic imperialist dystopia which is tormenting millions and controlling billions all around the world. A movement toward health doesn’t look like not having to pay attention anymore, it looks like the exact opposite: becoming fully conscious of all the ugliest and most unpleasant to look at aspects of the thing that America has become. It looks like turning and facing all the bloodshed, genocide, white supremacy, oppression, exploitation, corruption and degradation which form the fibers from which that nation has been woven, deeply ingesting and grokking into their reality, and then healing them completely.



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
The belief that everything will be fine once the Democrats get rid of Trump is more dangerous than Trump himself.

1,059
11:53 AM - Feb 12, 2020
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If the narrative managers succeed in installing Pete Buttigieg or one of his ideological clones, the temptation for millions of Americans will be to go back to sleep. But America won’t be any healthier. The coughing will have stopped, but the tuberculosis will remain. The sociopathic imperialist oligarchy will continue along the exact same trajectory, but the symptom of an oafish, incompetent and ham-fisted president will have been eliminated.

And that’s all any narrative manager ever wants. Their job is to normalize the empire’s depravity and keep its highly profitable murder and exploitation from awakening the masses. That’s why propaganda is so toxic.

I’m not interested in telling Americans whether they should have Trump or some centrist Democrat in office; the odds of four more years of Trump being more disastrous than under President Pete are a toss-up as far as I can tell. But I do wish the malignant belief that eliminating Trump will solve America’s main problems could be expunged from human consciousness forever."

[onawah]

Propagandists Cry About Bernie’s Online Base Because It’s Effective, Not Because It’s Mean
FEBRUARY 14, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/14/propagandists-cry-about-bernies-online-base-because-its-effective-not-because-its-mean/

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-1-3.jpg?w=1080&ssl=1

"Sometimes it feels like the only news stories over the last five years have been about mean tweets. Trump’s mean tweets, Sanders supporters’ mean tweets; some days it’s all the headlines ever want to talk about. You’d hardly know humanity is on the precipice of extinction on multiple fronts.

If you are the sort of person who believed that the “Bernie Bro” talking point would vanish after statistics showed the narrative of Sanders’ base consisting mostly of entitled white men to be completely false, then you are probably the sort of person who is often wrong about things. Whether the headlines are about an MSNBC host comparing Berners on Twitter to literal Nazi brown shirts, Meghan McCain bashing Sanders and then calling his supporters “nasty and cruel” for responding, or a Nevada culinary union dishonestly smearing Sanders on healthcare and then shrieking about being “viciously attacked” by online criticism, this garment rending over angry Bernie Bros remains more popular than ever.

Which, as we’ve discussed previously, is ridiculous. Acting like a few angry social media comments are in any way an inappropriate response to a millionaire narrative manager passive-aggressively sabotaging people’s attempts to fight crushing domestic austerity and create a working healthcare system for themselves is cartoonish drama queenery, and anyone who does this should be mocked by the entire world.

The Elizabeth Warren-supporting writer Sam Adler-Bell–a much less powerful player than the wealthy corporate media pundits who are seen on TV by millions every day–shared his experience with incurring the wrath of Sanders supporters on Twitter.

“Thanks to my squishy ‘be nice to Warren’ takes, I’ve experienced a lot of the storied online Bernie Bro attacks,” Adler-Bell tweeted. “And you know what? Not that bad. Pretty normal stuff. Small faction. I mute and move on. Maybe not a national headline that should last 4+ years.”

The popular explanation for these absurd establishment conniptions over the insolent common folk daring to talk back to their masters is that it’s being used to smear Sanders, and of course that’s true; Sanders is consistently attacked for having rude supporters. A more detailed understanding is that it’s also due to a media class whose ivory towers previously insulated them from the reactions of the riff raff being unable to handle a new paradigm where op-eds receive digital comments from an energized populist political faction, and that’s obviously true as well.

But the primary reason the establishment narrative managers are becoming increasingly shrill about the online behavior of Sanders supporters runs much deeper: they’re afraid of it because it’s effective.

iPvYDjsQVA0

I’ve been writing for a long time about the possibility of a grassroots information rebellion in which ordinary people use new media in sufficient numbers to actually seize control of important dominant narratives, and, at least within the limited scope of Sanders’ presidential campaign, we’re seeing an actual model for what such an insurgency might look like. In their endless freeform improvisation on social media, Berners have demonstrated the ability to collectively send hashtags to the top of Twitter’s trending list like #ILikeBernie, #BloombergIsRacist and #WarrenIsASnake, and to meme top presidential campaigns like that of Kamala Harris completely out of existence.

Centrist elitists are fond of saying “Twitter isn’t real life”, meaning the dominant views you’ll see on social media aren’t necessarily reflective of the broader public, and of course that’s true. But clearly Twitter, like any other large and influential media platform, is able to help shape narratives which affect real life. The difference is that unlike other forms of billionaire-owned media, Twitter allows for the possibility of a grassroots campaign by the people to influence those narratives.

Even if you’re not a Sanders supporter I highly recommend keeping tabs on his online base, because it’s a force that is truly something to behold. And also because it sets an example of something that could change the world, if people could just figure out a way to expand their grassroots information rebellion beyond the scope of a single candidate’s presidential campaign.

And that’s the real reason the imperial narrative managers are so freaked out about it. Not because anyone is being “viciously attacked”, but because they understand that narrative control is power. The people collectively seizing control of the dominant narratives within the empire is the stuff of oligarchic nightmares, because whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

Power is the ability to control what happens. Absolute power is controlling what people think about what happens.Humans are story-oriented creatures, so if you can control the stories that the humans are telling about what’s going on, you can control those humans. Any adept manipulator understands this. So they understand that the people taking control of dominant narratives is a direct threat to their rule.

dFprL7aC0Vk

The oligarchs who control the US-centralized empire would literally kill for such a large and highly energized collective advancing pro-establishment narratives of their own free will, but they know they can’t get one because the status quo offers ordinary people nothing to get excited about. They can only obtain narrative control by purchasing it, whether it’s by advertising, buying up media outlets, funding think tanks, or paying online influencers like Mike Bloomberg.

You can’t buy grassroots energy. Oligarchs find this endlessly frustrating, like an insecure Wall Street executive who can buy anything in the world besides a large penis. They’ve tried to emulate it, as with the so-called “Resistance” astroturf campaign designed to harness the energy of the 2016 Sanders run and corrall it into support for the Democratic establishment against Trump, but it falls flat without any shiny, attractive thing to positively push toward. So since they can’t replicate grassroots energy they do the next best thing: they attack it.

That’s all you’re ever seeing when imperial narrative managers try to disparage and discredit Berners online. They’re doing the exact same thing they’ve been doing with alternative media and RT: attacking a source of unauthorized narratives because they are unable to control it.

As I said from the very beginning, Sanders’ 2020 campaign is much more interesting as a movement than as a presidential candidacy. If Sanders manages to get in he’ll push for a few changes which will be ferociously opposed every step of the way by existing power structures, and some mild reforms will end up taking place. If the people figure out how to use the power they tapped into during his campaign to take control of dominant narratives, they can actually transform the world.

So let the narrative managers educate you with their fake tears. They are informing you of your power. Use it to wisely. Use it to birth a healthy world into existence."

[Dennis Leahy]

Trump Supporters Are George W Bush Supporters LARPing As Ron Paul Supporters (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/16/trump-supporters-are-george-w-bush-supporters-larping-as-ron-paul-supporters/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)

The Trump administration has released its official statement (https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/_cache/files/4/3/4362ca46-3a7d-43e8-a3ec-be0245705722/6E1A0F30F9204E380A7AD0C84EC572EC.doc148.pdf) to Congress justifying its drone assassination of Iran's top military official Qassem Soleimani last month. Surprising exactly zero people, the formal notification makes no mention whatsoever (https://twitter.com/AndrewDesiderio/status/1228342740397756417) of any imminent threat posed by Soleimani, a direct contradiction of this administration's previous claims defending the assassination.

"The Trump administration has been accused of lying after the publication of a new report that undermined its reasoning for assassinating Iranian General Qassem Soleimani last month," reports Middle East Eye (https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trumps-notification-congress-soleimani-strike-fails-reveal-imminent-threat). "The chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Friday that President Donald Trump's official notification to Congress defending the 3 January strike failed to specify an 'imminent threat' posed by Soleimani."

"This official report directly contradicts the president's false assertion that he attacked Iran to prevent an imminent attack against United States personnel and embassies," Democratic Representative Eliot Engel of New York said (https://foreignaffairs.house.gov/2020/2/engel-statement-on-the-white-house-s-latest-justification-for-soleimani-killing).

"President Trump and top officials lied about the existence of an imminent threat to excuse his having engaged in an act of war without congressional approval," tweeted (https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1228414271014547456) independent Michigan Representative Justin Amash. "For Americans’ safety, the Constitution forbids unauthorized offensive actions regardless of the president’s justification."
Pres. Trump and top officials lied about the existence of an imminent threat to excuse his having engaged in an act of war without congressional approval. For Americans’ safety, the Constitution forbids unauthorized offensive actions regardless of the president’s justification. https://t.co/EQLT1T63iY (https://t.co/EQLT1T63iY)
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) February 14, 2020 (https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1228414271014547456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
It has been obvious (https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/the-long-planned-us-assassinations-in-iraq-will-increase-the-political-chaos.html) to many analysts (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/01/lies-the-bethlehem-doctrine-and-the-illegal-murder-of-soleimani/) for quite some time (https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-administrations-assassination-defense-collapses/) that the world was lied to about yet another act of war against yet another Middle Eastern nation by yet another US president; the Trump administration's tacit admission just confirms it. Add this confirmation to the lies we were told about no US soldiers being injured (https://twitter.com/votevets/status/1226920766740013058) by Iran's missile retaliation against US military bases, as well as the revelation that the initial rocket strike which sparked the exchanges of violence in Iraq likely came from ISIS and not Iran-backed militias (https://justworldnews.org/2020/02/07/did-washington-use-a-false-pretext-for-its-recent-escalation-in-iraq/) as claimed by the US.

What this means legally is that Soleimani's assassination was a war crime (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51007961). On a practical level, since the US is never prosecuted for war crimes it commits, what it means is that we now know we were lied to about an assassination which by Trump's own admission (https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-says-war-with-iran-was-closer-than-you-thought-11580857178) brought us "closer than you thought" to a disastrous full-scale war.

What I personally find interesting about the destruction of the "imminent threat" narrative is that none of the many Trump supporters I spent time arguing with last month (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/01/05/the-us-government-lies-constantly-and-the-burden-of-proof-is-on-the-accuser/) about Soleimani's assassination ever attempted to claim (https://twitter.com/DanVMaul/status/1213626764259418113?s=20) that he posed an imminent threat to Americans. They'd argue that Soleimani was a bad man who deserved to die, they'd attempt to spin unfounded claims that he was directly behind the embassy attack or the aforementioned rocket strike, they'd accuse me of being a terrorist-supporting terrorist lover, but I never once encountered anyone who tried to argue that there was an imminent threat to American lives.

They made no attempt to make this argument because they knew it wasn't a good one. They knew the Trump administration was making bogus claims that they couldn't defend. They knew this. They just didn't care.
This is very telling. I have read every single reply. Not one produced even the slightest shred of indication that he posed an imminent threat to the US.
Seriously, Stalin himself would've been proud of such a display of blind, unflinching acceptance of the deep state narrative. https://t.co/GrzzkKBy63 (https://t.co/GrzzkKBy63)
— Dan Maul (@DanVMaul) January 5, 2020 (https://twitter.com/DanVMaul/status/1213626764259418113?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
They didn't care because they weren't approaching the situation from any interest in truth or facts. Their sole interest was, and is always, in defending their president and promoting narratives which help ensure his re-election in November. It's a game to them. A game of imagination which consists entirely of narratives that have little to no relationship with objective reality. They are LARPing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_action_role-playing_game).

Well, not all of them to be fair. There are two kinds of Trump supporters: there's the straight-ticket Republicans who'd support an animatronic Chuck E Cheese robot as long as it had an (R) next to its name, and then there's the so-called "populists" who say everything Trump does is secretly a brilliant strategic maneuver against the Deep State.

There's some overlap between these two categories (neocon swamp monster Sean Hannity now posing as a swamp-fighting enemy of the Deep State (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi_vuuG5tlI) is the most hilarious example), but there's a distinction that's worth noting. After the Soleimani assassination the straight-ticket Republicans were online acting like the Bush voters they are yelling "Yeeehaw, we kill whoever we want!", whereas the "populists" were claiming that this was yet another strategic 4-D chess maneuver against the enemies of peace. I had one former reader sincerely attempt to argue with me that Soleimani was actually working for the Deep State, and had been protected by Obama and Hillary Clinton.

This latter category of Trump supporter is the type I generally encounter in doing what I do. Openly partisan Republicans who are honest about their partisanship tend to take little interest in writers like myself, whereas Trump supporters who see themselves as anti-establishment, anti-war and anti-propaganda often make their way into my orbit. These are also the type that my readers will generally run into for the same reason, so they're the category of Trump supporter I'm writing about here.
First there were no injuries. Then there were a dozen. Then more. Then they were called ‘headaches’ by Donald Trump. Now, this. What is clear is that the initial reports were very, very wrong, but sold to Americans as truth. https://t.co/PyMh3kzsM5 (https://t.co/PyMh3kzsM5)
— VoteVets (@votevets) February 10, 2020 (https://twitter.com/votevets/status/1226920766740013058?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
When the news first broke of Soleimani's assassination I wrote the following (http://archive.is/iz4hr#selection-525.0-525.261):
"A proportionate retaliatory strike would necessarily entail an attack on US military targets, or the military targets of US allies. If that happens, either the empire stands down or we’re looking at an all-out war of a size that is potentially almost limitless."

And indeed that is exactly what happened. Iran did retaliate, against US military targets, injured more than 100 US soldiers, and then the US empire stood down. Trump's reckless act of brinkmanship resulted in a dead Iranian general, a badly damaged airbase, scores of injured soldiers, a tail-between-the-legs retreat, and brought the US and Iran "closer than you thought" to war, for no real strategic benefit. Yet for days after the military exchange I was getting Trump supporters in my social media mentions telling me I'd been crazy and hysterical for warning of the risk of war.

These bizarre mental gymnastics are possible because these Trump supporters aren't interfacing with reality in any way. They're engaged in a weird Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) game where they pretend to be knowledgeable patriots cheering for a Ron Paul-like champion of peace and anti-authoritarianism, while in real life they're acting exactly like garden variety Republicans cheering for a standard Republican president who's been advancing longstanding agendas of neoconservatives and the CIA.
https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.youtube.com%2Fvi%2FlaNOeA8hePU%2F0.jpg&d=2020-02-16T03%3A42%3A57.469Z (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laNOeA8hePU)
In real life Trump has imprisoned Julian Assange (https://consortiumnews.com/2019/09/17/the-worlds-most-important-political-prisoner/), has re-started the Cold War (https://consortiumnews.com/2019/11/19/25-times-trump-has-been-dangerously-hawkish-on-russia/), has killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/trump-has-murdered-over-40-000-venezuelans-with-sanctions-6eb3e7f0eb7f) with starvation sanctions, has vetoed attempts to save Yemen (https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/trump-vetoes-resolution-to-end-u-s-support-for-war-in-yemen.html) from US-backed genocide, is working to foment civil war in Iran (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1216177226917371904) using starvation sanctions (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/starvation-sanctions-are-worse-than-overt-warfare-b52604b53290) and CIA ops (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1216180138351554561?s=20) with the stated goal (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1216179230788046849?s=20) of effecting regime change, has occupied Syrian oil fields (https://consortiumnews.com/2019/10/24/us-troops-staying-in-syria-to-keep-the-oil-have-already-killed-hundreds/) with the goal of preventing Syria's reconstruction, has greatly increased (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-12-03/trump-didnt-shrink-us-military-commitments-abroad-he-expanded-them) the number of troops in the Middle East and elsewhere, has greatly increased (https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/11/13/the-u-s-never-dropped-as-many-bombs-on-afghanistan-as-it-did-in-2018-infographic/#398441ef2fae) the number of bombs dropped per day (https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-military-drops-a-bomb-every-12-minutes-and-no-one-is-talking-about-it/) from the previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians (https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/25/us-dropping-more-and-more-bombs-afghan-civilian-deaths-hit-record-high-2018), and reduced military accountability (https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/06/trump-civilian-deaths-drone-strikes-1207409) for those airstrikes.

Every single one of these longstanding deep state agendas that Trump has advanced have been defended by Trump supporters in my social media mentions as brilliant strategic maneuvers against the deep state. Literally every single one of them, without a single, solitary exception. Every time Trump advances an evil establishment agenda and I speak out about it, I am guaranteed to receive comments explaining why the thing I'm speaking out against is actually an ingenious move by Trump against the establishment. Trump arresting Assange is actually Trump helping Assange (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/13/trump-supporters-are-hurting-assange-with-their-4-d-chess-talk/). Trump helping the neocons is actually Trump hurting the neocons. Those sure are some elegant invisible clothes the emperor is wearing today.

Trump's words say one thing, and his actions say something very different. He gives lip service to anti-interventionism and opposition to the swamp, and his supporters play along with the narratives he's spoon feeding them. He's another George W Bush, concealed by a thin overlay of narrative and imagination. But in the LARP he's Ron Paul.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-10.jpg
I started this job a few months before Trump took office, and ever since January 2017 I've been pointing out evil things this president has been doing and having Trump supporters tell me "Wait and see."

"Calm down," they tell me (they always want me to calm down). "Trump is doing something big here. You'll see."

They've been saying "you'll see" for years now. Trump's term is almost over. It's time to admit you were wrong, guys.

You’ve been had. You were duped by narrative and empty words into supporting a garden variety Republican president who's been advancing garden variety Republican agendas. Your anti-establishment sentiments were successfully corralled by propaganda into a standard GOP ideology with some populist-looking window dressing. You've been sitting very pretty lately while the Democrats make complete asses of themselves with ill-advised impeachment agendas and a scandalous primary race, but in reality you're just as blinkered and duped as they are.

Believing that a US president is going to save you (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-establishment-doesnt-fear-trump-and-it-doesn-t-fear-bernie-it-fears-you-acb8fcd086b3) is just as dumb as believing the FBI and CIA are going to save you. Republicans have been doing the former while Democrats have been doing the latter. Both have been duped by custom-made establishment propaganda (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/06/propaganda-narratives-are-custom-made-for-each-ideological-echo-chamber/) into cheering for different aspects of the establishment, and the only one who wins is that very same establishment.

Stop getting duped into believing in America's two-handed sock puppet show (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/14/americas-two-headed-one-party-system/). It's always fake, and it always ends the same: all your money goes to the performers, and you get screwed. Start seeing through the illusion.
_______________________

[onawah]

Op-Ed: Dems Should Do The Sensible Thing And Nominate A Moderate Rapacious Psychopath
FEBRUARY 17, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/17/op-ed-dems-should-do-the-sensible-thing-and-nominate-a-moderate-rapacious-psychopath/

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-1-5.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

"Editor’s note: In order to circumvent internet censorship, today’s Caitlin Johnstone essay has been replaced with an op-ed by Snooty McCentrist of the National News Conglomerate. NNC: Obey.

After Bernie Sanders failed to impress in his underwhelming consecutive victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, it’s time for his far-far-left extremist base to grow up and face reality: there’s no way he can beat Trump. Especially with people like me churning out all these op-eds every day to make sure that he can’t.

Face it, Democrats: Sanders is no frontrunner. As the always rational adult in the room Chris Matthews recently pointed out, if you compare his New Hampshire votes to the combined vote total of moderate candidates Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar, he’s actually trailing far behind. Sanders clocked in at a paltry 26 percent of total votes, while the triune electoral threegernaut Klobdenbutt amassed a whopping 53 percent. Now, you don’t have to be Andrew Yang to figure out that 53 is more than 26.

That’s not my opinion. That’s math.

If you can’t take it from me, take it from the cold, hard numbers: if Democrats want to beat Trump, they need to nominate a centrist. Someone who rejects the extremes of Bernie’s far left and Trump’s far right and instead espouses sensible, middle-of-the-road values like endless war and military expansionism, rapacious ecocide, corrupt plutocracy, crushing domestic austerity measures, new cold war nuclear escalations, continued deregulation of sociopathic financial and commercial institutions, police militarization, unprecedented levels of imprisonment, Orwellian surveillance programs, internet censorship, and ever-mounting authoritarianism.

You know, the moderate position.

Because think about it, Bernie Bros: if you resist the DNC’s attempt to elevate a sensible candidate like Mike Bloomberg to your party’s nomination just because you don’t want a racist Republican billionaire oligarch authoritarian with dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct against women to be your president, then you’re stuck with Donald Trump.

Chew on that prospect for a minute.

You need to be more realistic, Bernie bros. How can Bernie possibly win when we’re doing everything we can to prevent him from winning? We’re telling you he’s not electable, and no one would know better than us: we’re the ones making sure he stays that way.

Seriously, stop being such insolent little ****s. I’m here presenting very forceful arguments using a confident and assertive tone in a high-profile news outlet, and you’re meant to obey. This is an op-ed. I have a professional headshot photo next to my name. That means you think what I tell you to think.

What exactly do you unwashed riff raff think democracy even is, anyway? Some kind of ponies-and-unicorns fantasy land where people get to just have the candidate they want to have, just because that’s what most of them want? That kind of pie-in-the-sky dreaming is for people who don’t have the entire billionaire media engine pointed at sabotaging them at every turn.

But if you give us a Mike Bloomberg, for example, we’ll just let him sail right on through. Hell, if we can get two right-wing billionaires staging a made-for-TV kayfabe spat over the presidency from July to November we’ll never stop amping that ****. Holy God, imagine the ratings!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQ0dOcLVUAAa76c?format=jpg&name=small

Stop living in a childish fantasy world where the environment is real and war is something you need to think about and people shouldn’t die if they don’t have the correct imaginary numbers in their bank account. Let the realists whose entire worldview is built around made-up narratives and a make-believe economy tell you what to do.

Do as we say. Just do it. Just bend over and let us install a nice moderate psychopath, and this will be over before you know it. Relax, take a deep breath, and think nice, pleasant thoughts until November. Dream one of those wacky dreams you airy fairy hippies are always having, like having a real healthcare system or something.

Anyway, I’m going to send this off to my editor. The next fifty op-eds I write will be garment-rending outrage over the comments this one receives on Twitter."

[Dennis Leahy]

Scandal-Ridden OPCW Now Using Twitter’s “Hide Replies” Function (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/19/scandal-ridden-opcw-now-using-twitters-hide-replies-function/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)

When Twitter first implemented its "hide replies" function last year I published an article (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/09/23/twitters-hide-replies-function-serves-to-appease-the-elitists-of-the-politicalmedia-class/) warning that it could be used by establishment narrative managers to marginalize dissident voices and diminish the relatively egalitarian nature of the platform. When I wrote it I was imagining the function being used by overt manipulators like cable TV pundits and Washington Post columnists, and think tank operatives like Neera Tanden who vocally supported (https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1175022156541059072?s=20) the implementation of the function.
What I absolutely was not expecting, as paranoid and conspiracy-minded as I am, was a highly regarded UN-associated international chemical watchdog group using the function for that purpose.
As of this writing, if you go to the Twitter account (https://twitter.com/OPCW) for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), you'll see this tweet (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1227594827035967493) at the second from the top:
#OPCW (https://twitter.com/hashtag/OPCW?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) Joins @IUPAC (https://twitter.com/IUPAC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) Global Women’s Breakfast #GWB2020 (https://twitter.com/hashtag/GWB2020?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #WomenInScience (https://twitter.com/hashtag/WomenInScience?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #GenderChampions (https://twitter.com/hashtag/GenderChampions?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)https://t.co/jlxqR74eVa pic.twitter.com/cWUiurphTZ (https://t.co/cWUiurphTZ)
— OPCW (@OPCW) February 12, 2020 (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1227594827035967493?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
If you log on to Twitter and go to that tweet and click this little button, it will take you to a section of "hidden replies" (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1227594827035967493/hidden) which aren't visible on the main tweet.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-2-1.jpg
You will not be surprised to learn that the tweet (https://twitter.com/CarlJohanMagnus/status/1228381658258296833?s=20) which the OPCW's Twitter account has chosen to hide is critical of the organization:
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screen-Shot-2020-02-19-at-12.23.03-PM.png
That "#wikileaksdoumareport" hashtag in the hidden tweet refers to the leaks (https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/) which have been pouring out from the OPCW (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/medias-deafening-silence-on-latest-wikileaks-drops-is-its-own-scandal-ad0d28fe0c5c) adding to the mountain of evidence (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-12-strongest-arguments-that-douma-was-a-false-flag-77d300b495c2) that the US, UK and France bombed the Syrian government in 2018 as a retaliation for a chemical weapons attack in the town Douma which did not occur. Whoever is in charge of the OPCW's Twitter account does not like the lowly commoners talking about this on their page.
Here's an OPCW tweet (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1227535842778001408) from a week ago which has the same issue:
Today, #OPCW (https://twitter.com/hashtag/OPCW?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) women build chemical bonds to symbolise the diverse and inclusive workforce needed to achieve #ChemistryForPeace (https://twitter.com/hashtag/ChemistryForPeace?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) at the @IUPAC (https://twitter.com/IUPAC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) Global Women's Breakfast. #GWB2020 (https://twitter.com/hashtag/GWB2020?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #WomenInScience (https://twitter.com/hashtag/WomenInScience?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #GenderChampions (https://twitter.com/hashtag/GenderChampions?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) pic.twitter.com/RIcQHFhXTm (https://t.co/RIcQHFhXTm)
— OPCW (@OPCW) February 12, 2020 (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1227535842778001408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Click the same little button to view hidden replies (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1227535842778001408/hidden) and you'll see three of them on this one, again all discussing the scandal-ridden Douma investigation:
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Screen-Shot-2020-02-19-at-12.41.42-PM.png
It doesn't seem to happen (https://twitter.com/amin251/status/1229919459915313152) if you're not logged on to your account, and seems to express differently on different browsers (https://twitter.com/collapse_into/status/1229697734963269632), but if you log in and scroll through the OPCW Twitter page you'll find many tweets with hidden replies, almost all of which directly pertain to the Douma scandal.
The OPCW tweet which appears to have the largest number of replies is the smear job they released earlier this month (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1225465454065524738) attacking the whistleblowers whose leaks poked giant holes in the official Douma narrative. This smear job has been ripped to shreds in an article by Grayzone's Aaron Maté (https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/11/new-leaks-shatter-opcws-attacks-douma-whistleblowers/), who in his trademark style systematically debunks the organisation's attempts to spin the whistleblowers as incompetent outsiders who tried to manipulate the Douma investigation for no clear reason.
OPCW: Independent Investigation into Possible Breaches of Confidentiality Report Released https://t.co/kaX2LJ71ej (https://t.co/kaX2LJ71ej)
— OPCW (@OPCW) February 6, 2020 (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1225465454065524738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
If you go to that OPCW tweet (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1225465454065524738) and scroll down you'll see dozens of spaces where replies ought to be, with the message "This reply was hidden by the original Tweet author," meaning hidden by the author of the initial top tweet by the OPCW. I've archived screenshots of the entire thread here (https://imgur.com/a/drkxFvx) as it looks from my account as of this writing, but here's a small sample of what the top of the replies section looks like on that tweet:
https://i.imgur.com/VsxlCXT.png
https://i.imgur.com/UfAG6cs.png
I myself posted the reply (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1225474719173885952) that got the most likes and retweets back when the OPCW first shared its smear job, but in a strange twist on Twitter's "hide replies" function it doesn't show up in the main thread or in its "hidden replies" section (https://twitter.com/OPCW/status/1225465454065524738/hidden). Other users (https://twitter.com/NeotipPro/status/1229922403997773825) also say they can't see it (https://twitter.com/Tim_Hayward_/status/1229913359950270464) in either section. So as things are right now it looks like some posts in threads with a large number of hidden replies are just disappeared entirely, which is all the more incentive for narrative managers to use it.
There are already many users in the comments objecting to the OPCW yet again making use of opacity to silence dissident voices, and understandably so. Ever since the first Douma leak in May 2018 (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/confirmed-chemical-weapons-assessment-contradicting-official-syria-narrative-is-authentic-fbcbf7ef281a) this organisation has been stonewalling (https://twitter.com/SMaurizi/status/1187992589594775552?s=20) journalists (http://archive.is/eFnVf#selection-259.254-259.318), refusing to answer crucial questions, smearing its own investigators and denying them a platform to speak, all after hiding from the public the fact that there had been large amounts of internal dissent regarding its Douma investigation. This dissent included unanimous agreement between four toxicologists (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/medias-deafening-silence-on-latest-wikileaks-drops-is-its-own-scandal-ad0d28fe0c5c) that no chlorine attack occurred in Douma, and reports that some 20 OPCW inspectors (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/deluge-of-new-leaks-further-shreds-the-establishment-syria-narrative-e5ba3ba9b44b) had voiced objections to the way the Douma investigation was taking place.
The OPCW had no business hiding all this information from the public about an event which led to an act of war against a sovereign nation, and it has no business hiding the public's attempts to demand more information be brought into the light.
These deliberate acts of obfuscation make no sense if you look at the OPCW as an independent international investigative body whose sole interest is truth and the elimination of chemical weapons, but they make perfect sense if you see it as a narrative management apparatus of the US-centralized empire. The US government already has an established history (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/10/29/the-usas-history-of-controlling-the-opcw-to-promote-regime-change/) of manipulating the OPCW into facilitating the advancement of pre-existing regime change agendas in the Middle East, and not one (http://archive.is/YHAzd#selection-403.136-407.258) but two whistleblowers (https://thegrayzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Henderson-Testimony-UN.pdf) have separately attested that US government officials were brought in by OPCW leadership (in violation of the organisation's supposed independence) to persuade them that the Syrian government had committed a chemical weapons attack.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is acting like a narrative management operation because that is what it has become: a tool to help the US-centralized empire spin narratives favorable to pre-existing regime change agendas like the one it has long had for the Syrian government (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-us-empire-has-been-trying-to-regime-change-syria-since-long-before-2011-40d4e6648d54). That's how it behaves, so we should ignore all narrative spin and assume that that's what it is until its behavior changes. As long as it continues walking like a duck and quacking like a duck, we should continue to assume that it's a duck.
The OPCW has been hiding replies, yes. But at least it has stopped hiding what it is.

[onawah]

Bloomberg’s Poll Numbers Show The Power Of Billionaire Narrative Control
by Caitlin Johnstone
2/18/20
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/19/bloombergs-poll-numbers-show-the-power-of-billionaire-narrative-control/

(Many hyperlinks in the article)
https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-2-2.jpg?w=1080&ssl=1

"Back in November Mike Bloomberg was polling at four percent nationally and had the highest disapproval rating of any potential Democratic presidential candidate, and understandably so; the man has a uniquely horrible record and no redeeming traits to speak of.

Now, after spending $400 million in broadcast, radio and cable ads, $42 million on Facebook ads, $36 million on Google ads, and an unknown fortune on other shady manipulations, a national Quinnipiac poll released last week put him at 15 percent nationally in the Democratic primary. This week national polls released by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist and Zogby put him at 19 and 20 percent, respectively.

You can argue against the validity of polls all you like, and surely none of them are pristine representations of public opinion. But there's no denying that these numbers have gone way up, and there's no denying that now, approvingly or not, everyone's talking about Michael Bloomberg.

Late night talk show hosts are doing bits about the prevalence of Bloomberg ads. People are making satirical videos spoofing them. I've seen parents complaining that their kids recite lines from his ads at the dinner table. It's a story in itself. It's saturating social consciousness. It's very much a thing.

🤑 MICHAEL BLOOMBERG BUYS ADS INSIDE HIS OWN ADS 🤑
(from[/B] @TheUNDERCULTURE) pic.twitter.com/H1dy5KxNz0

— James Adomian (@JAdomian) February 17, 2020

"Nothing remotely like what Mike Bloomberg is doing has ever been seen in US politics - nothing in the same universe," journalist Glenn Greenwald recently tweeted. "And the threat and danger it (and he) poses to US democracy is equally without comparison."

Greenwald is of course correct. But while Bloomberg is doing something that is without precedent, his campaign is also highlighting problems with the system which have existed for ages. And in my opinion it would be an unfortunate waste if his campaign came and went without these problems getting more attention than they currently are.

Mike Bloomberg is not the first plutocrat to use his wealth to manipulate a US election, and he is not the first plutocrat to use his wealth to manipulate public perception. He's just the first to do it so brazenly and ham-fistedly. The fact that it is both possible and easy for a billionaire to throw a vast fortune at an electoral race and drastically influence its direction tells us everything we need to know about the illusory nature of US democracy. And now it's right out in the open.

As long as a small elite group are able to manipulate the way people think and vote, then you don't have democracy, you have oligarchy. If that small elite group happens to be much wealthier than everyone else, then it's a specific kind of oligarchy known as plutocracy. You can watch this video and this video for some general information on the ways US plutocrats exert control over the political system, and you can read this fascinating thread here for more specific information on how Bloomberg has been stifling opposition and manipulating endorsements out of political figures using his unparallelled spending power.

The degree to which Michael Bloomberg is using his fortune to fundamentally alter & manipulate U.S. politics to his personal advantage extends way beyond ads. I've worked against him, covered him as a journalist & worked with his top aides. Here’s their playbook: (1/17)

— Blake Zeff (@blakezeff) February 13, 2020

This has been happening all the time, for generations, and not just with US elections but with Americans' perception of what's going on in their world as well. Whether it's running ads, buying up media outlets, funding think tanks or incentivizing politicians to regurgitate the desired lines, billionaires are constantly using their wealth to shore up narrative control, because they understand that whoever controls the narrative controls the world.

Bloomberg built a media empire. Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post. Most of America's news media are owned or controlled by billionaires. Even that so-called "philanthropy" which mass media pundits keep crowing about in the same breath as Bloomberg's name is actually just another billionaire narrative control apparatus, allowing them to donate a tiny tax-deductible portion of their income in exchange for political influence, and buying them the ability to wear the fancy label of "philanthropist" instead of "sociopathic parasite".

Billionaires pour vast fortunes into think tanks, which are generally institutions where academics are paid to come up with the most intelligent-sounding arguments possible explaining why it would be good and smart to do something evil and stupid, whether that be the destruction of the ecosystem, regime change in Iran, or further corporate/financial deregulation. They then circulate those arguments at key points of influence.

For a Bloomberg-specific example of think tank narrative control, take the time his donations to the Center for American Progress (CAP) leveraged that think tank into removing a chapter from a 2015 report detailing his Orwellian surveillance program targeting Muslims back when he was the mayor of New York City. Back in 2013 The Nation's Ken Silverstein reported that CAP staffers "were very clearly instructed to check with the think tank’s development team before writing anything that might upset contributors." Sure enough, a former CAP staffer named Yasmine Taeb recently detailed for Democracy Now how "the chapter was flagged by a member of the executive committee who actually previously had worked for Mayor Bloomberg" and "said that there would be a strong reaction by Bloomberg World if this report was released as it was." At that point Bloomberg had given CAP nearly $1.5 million.

Yw0qkvvSE7s

The billionaire class has to buy up narrative control because there is nothing about plutocracy that is sane or healthy; people would never knowingly consent to it unless they were manipulated into doing so. Because power is relative, and because money is power in a plutocracy, plutocrats are naturally incentivized to maintain a system where everyone else is kept as poor as possible so that they can have as much relative power as possible. A glance at what the Sanders campaign has been able to accomplish just with small-dollar donations and grassroots support gives you some insight into why these plutocrats want people working long, exhausting hours with as little spare income as possible.

Nobody would ever knowingly consent to being kept poor and busy just so some billionaires can live as modern-day kings, so they need to be propagandized into it via narrative manipulation. If you've ever wondered why it seems like the news man is always lying to you, that's why.

Whenever I write about the power of plutocratic propaganda, I always get people saying I'm just a conspiracy theorist (and that I have an awful addiction to alliteration). They argue that sure, it's possible to influence public opinion a bit, but people are free agents and they make up their own minds based on any number of potential factors, so it's silly to focus on media manipulation as the underlying cause of all the world's ills.

Oh yeah? If people can't be manipulated by the wealthy into supporting agendas which don't benefit them, how come a billionaire presidential candidate was able to quadruple or quintuple his polling numbers in three months just by throwing money at them?

And that's just one agenda of just one billionaire. There are 607 billionaires in the United States. And none of them are interested in giving up their plutocratic throne.

"They had to send me a couple pieces of evidence and to ask me, almost to beg me, to look at it and when I did
I started to see that really the public narrative that we know about Assange has been fabricated. It's not true. The evidence is contradictory" @NilsMelzer#FreeAssange pic.twitter.com/ic2Kqte41p

— Assange Edits 🎬 (@AssangeEdits) February 10, 2020

The unpleasant fact of the matter is that the human mind is far more hackable than people like to believe it is. Just listen to UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer describe how he'd been completely taken in by the horrible mass media smear campaign against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange prior to taking his case. This is an educated, intelligent and highly compassionate man who, simply because he'd relied on the plutocratic media to help him figure out what's going on in the world, had an understanding that Assange was a wicked man who was guilty of wicked deeds. It wasn't until he took the case and began personally investigating the actual facts of the matter without the filter of the plutocratic media spinmeisters that he was able penetrate beneath the layers of narrative distortion to get at the reality of the situation.

Some clever people figured out a long time ago that humans live in two worlds: the real world and the narrative world. The narrative world consists of the mental chatter which occupies the majority of most people's moment-to-moment interest and attention. The real world is everything else: life as it is, without the stories about what life is.

The clever people figured out that you can get folks to give you real things in the real world, just by giving them narratives in the narrative world. Use your control over your society's dominant narratives and you can get people to hand you real wealth and power in exchange for a bunch of made-up stories of fear and inadequacy and factionalism and otherness. Manipulative men can get real-life sexual favors in exchange for narratives about love and romance. Manipulative priests can get your real-life tithes in exchange for narratives about imaginary deities. Manipulative politicians can get your real-life votes in exchange for narratives about imaginary terrorists. Manipulative billionaires can use the rewards of your real-life labor in exchange for units of an imaginary financial system which exists solely as a narrative construct. They figured out a way to get everything for nothing.

Nothing remotely like what Mike Bloomberg is doing has ever been seen in US politics - nothing in the same universe. And the threat and danger it (and he) poses to US democracy is equally without comparison.

It’s a menace beyond what words can describe: https://t.co/tmFzlpBKzr

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 18, 2020

Humans are not difficult to manipulate. I am not difficult to manipulate. You are not difficult to manipulate. If you don't appreciate this fact, you make yourself even easier to manipulate. It's not difficult to mock the people who've been manipulated into supporting Bloomberg. What is difficult is coming to terms with the fact that you yourself, and indeed your entire species, have many glitches in your cognitive processes which can be, have been, and will continue to be exploited by adept manipulators.

All we can do is make this conscious. Like everything else in this struggle, the solution to the mind's intrinsic hackability is bringing the light of consciousness to it. Manipulators cannot operate in an environment with too much awareness of their tricks.

Mike Bloomberg is a terrible human being. But at the very least he may operate as a catalyst for this consciousness."

[onawah]

Assange’s Persecution Has Exposed Media Depravity The World Over
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
FEBRUARY 22, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/22/assanges-persecution-has-exposed-media-depravity-the-world-over/
https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-2-4.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1

"This is the speech I gave at a demonstration last night in Melbourne for Julian Assange, whose extradition trial begins February 24th.

Julian Assange started a leak outlet on the premise that corrupt and unaccountable power is a problem in our world, and that problem can be fought with the light of truth. Corrupt and unaccountable power responded by detaining, silencing and smearing him. His persecution has proved his own thesis about the world absolutely correct.

Power is the ability to control what happens. Absolute power is controlling what people think about what happens. Humans are story-oriented creatures, so if you can control the stories that the humans are telling each other about what’s going on, you can control those humans.

This is the power of narrative management. This is why governments and billionaires use propaganda, advertising, buy up media conglomerates and fund think tanks, employ public relations and spin doctors, buy up troll armies and bot farms: because they know that those who control the narrative, control the world.

You can do whatever you like, as long as you can control what people think about what you’re doing.

No one understands this better than Julian Assange. He famously said that if wars are started by lies, then they can be stopped by truth. That’s the basis of WikiLeaks. Bringing truth to the public in the most pristine and revolutionary way possible. They made it so people could leak documents to them safely, and then they released them with minimal redactions and editorial. Like many online innovations it cut out the middle man, and the middle man, in this case, are the media spinmeisters who normally present information with an overlay of establishment-friendly narrative.

You know the ones. The ones that are like, “Here’s what I found out, but more importantly, this is what you should think about what I found out”.

It had immediate effects. Global reach, exposing the most corrupt roots of the most powerful people in an environment where the growing alarm at the GFC, climate change and endless war meant that people were hungry for the truth about why these things are still happening despite their unpopularity and despite our every effort to stop them.

The spotlight Assange’s persecution has thrown on the institution of journalism is one of the untold stories, mainly because the villains are the journalists–the people we usually rely on to tell us all the stories. This corruption was unearthed not so much through leaked documents, but through what we have been witnessing as the media-driven public mobbing of Julian Assange the person.

The mainstream media, to this day, lies constantly about Assange. If you pick up any recent story about Assange it will be littered with smears and lies. They’ll say offhand how he colluded with the Russians like that’s true, or that he was ”charged” with rape, or they’ll have a throwaway line about how he smeared poo on the walls of the embassy, or they will say the reason he was granted asylum by Ecuador was to flee rape charges (like that’s a thing).

There are dozens and dozens of lies, and they get repeated as truth throughout any reporting on Assange even after months or years of being debunked. There is a story on The Guardian website right now from November of 2018 that claims that Assange met with Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chair. Can not have happened. Did not happen. The Ecuadorian embassy was the most surveilled building on planet earth at the time. Every single person who went in or out of there had to jump through many bureaucratic hoops.

No video evidence or any evidence at all was ever found for this claim, and there were plenty of people who wanted to find it. It didn’t happen.

And yet, that story is still on The Guardian website today over a year after it was first published. It still comes up as the number one result on Google when you search assange and manafort. There’ve been no retractions. No apologies.

The Guardian. Not New Idea. Not Hello!. Not News of the World. The Guardian. The bastion of all things worthy and noble.

It has been very revealing.

Assange has only ever been persecuted because he exposed US war crimes. No one has ever gone to jail for those war crimes, but instead of concentrating on that, the press decided to go after Assange.

Let’s be clear: when journalists use their power and privilege to cover up and divert attention from war crimes, they become war criminals themselves.

Journalists today are finally waking up to the fact that the legal precedent the Trump administration is setting by reaching out across the Atlantic, taking an Australian journalist, from an Ecuadorian embassy, in the middle of London, is devastating to journalism all over the world. Not just in the US, not just in the UK, but all over the world. No journalist is safe. Because if they can do that to him, they can do it to anyone.

We also learned that the United States do not consider foreign nationals to have a First Amendment protection, so the US is effectively saying that the long arm of US law can extend to get you anywhere, but they also don’t have to extend its protections.

And journalists are finally realizing that, but still silence is pretty deafening. Australian journalists should be writing furious op-eds vigorously defending Assange and demanding that our politicians act immediately, but at best we are getting tepid, smear-laden, mealy-mouthed wet squibs of copy that try to maintain that they were, of course, correct in the past, but also hit the alarm button.

And it just doesn’t work.

Until journalists admit they were wrong and Assange was right, and the US really did want him in jail for publishing like he said back in 2010, back when they were calling him paranoid, their readers aren’t going to notice that its time to change course. They aren’t going to know to act.

There is a lot of confusion about what to do. Radio host Alan Jones had a very popular Facebook poll going this morning asking whether the Australian government should intervene and bring Assange home. I saw it a few hours ago and it was at 75 percent for “Yes” with thousands of responses already, six days to go, and gathering hundreds of pro-Assange comments. He deleted it. Obviously that was not the response he was planning on.

So there is confusion, and there is silence. But silence is space. A space has opened up before us. In Australia right now, there are two kinds of people: those who think that Assange should be brought home, and those who don’t want to think about it at all. They’ve gone quiet. And we’re so used to being on the defense, we’ve gone quiet too.

A space has opened up.

The narrative is there for the taking.

All we have to do is to stand up as one and take control of this story.

Let our voices ring out.

This man is innocent.

We must bring him home.

Publishing is not a crime!

Viva Assange! "

[onawah]

Intelligence Sources: All Candidates Are Russian Agents But Pete Buttigieg
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
FEBRUARY 23, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/23/intelligence-sources-all-candidates-are-russian-agents-but-pete-buttigieg/

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-2-5.jpg?resize=1200%2C694&ssl=1

"Today’s Caitlin Johnstone essay has been replaced by this breaking report by the National News Conglomerate. NNC: Obey.

Following shocking reports from The New York Times and The Washington Post that Moscow is simultaneously working to both re-elect Donald Trump and ensure the nomination of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary race, NNC has obtained further information confirming that nearly all candidates currently running for president are in fact covert agents of the Russian government.

According to sources familiar with the matter, the lone candidate not literally conducting espionage on behalf of the Russian government is Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

“Intelligence has revealed that Mr. Buttigieg is at this time the only candidate who we can count on not to place our nation’s interests square in the hands of Vladimir Putin,” an anonymous source in the Central Intelligence Agency told NNC on Saturday.

“In fact Mr. Buttigieg is the only candidate running with the skill, the experience and the multilingual relatability needed to bridge our nation’s deep divisions and bring Americans together in this time of uncontrolled hostility,” the CIA source continued.

“Because in truth, the unity of our togetherness is in the freedom of our democracy,” added the source. “The long and winding road to the American flag was built upon the steps of our founding fathers. You don’t have to be a big shot Washington insider to see that the problems our nation faces are tearing us apart at our own peril with radical divisive rhetoric saying you need to burn down the establishment and voice a concrete foreign policy position. And that’s why I for one believe we don’t have to choose between revolution and the status quo: we can come together and find solutions that help the working class and billionaires.”

Experts say these new revelations on Russian election interference should consume one hundred percent of all news coverage for the entirety of 2020, and that Democrats should definitely spend all their time from now until November focusing solely on President Trump’s suspicious ties to the Russian government.

“I can’t think of a single thing that could possibly go wrong if Democrats focused exclusively on the possibility that the president conspired with Vladimir Putin in the lead-up to the election in November,” said Les Overton of the influential think tank Americans for an American America. “If Democrats want to prevent another four years of Trump they should hit him where they know it hurts: nonstop 24/7 Russia conspiracy theories. That’s what Americans really care about.”

Asked if it’s possible that undue emphasis on Russian collusion could prove a fruitless endeavor given Trump’s soaring approval rating after impeachment resulted in his acquittal and the Mueller report failed to indict a single American for conspiring with the Russian government, Overton disagreed and said this time will be “like, totally different.”

“Democrats should definitely invest all of their mental and emotional energy in this Trump-Russia scandal, because this time it’s a sure thing,” Overton said. “Put all your eggs in this basket and get your hopes up very, very high. The big BOOM is coming any minute now, I promise.”

Overton then departed with an envelope full of cash which he said was his life savings, reportedly to invest in lottery tickets."

[onawah]

We’re Asking One Question In Assange’s Case: Should Journalists Be Punished For Exposing War Crimes?
FEBRUARY 23, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/23/were-asking-one-question-in-assanges-case-should-journalists-be-punished-for-exposing-war-crimes/

https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-2-6.jpg?w=1000&ssl=1

"This is a speech I gave yesterday at a demonstration for Assange with the Socialist Equality Party Australia.

Tomorrow in the UK a judge will start the process of answering a very important question. It’s a question that many of us knew was the heart of this debate back in 2010, ten years ago, when this all started. It’s a question that they have been obfuscating, bloviating, huffily denying, smearing, gaslighting, and distracting from–basically doing anything they can to hide it from view.

It’s a question that they don’t want the public to know that we are answering. A question that goes to the heart of democracy, and to the heart of the role of the fourth estate, journalism. And that question is this:

Should journalists and publishers be punished for exposing US war crimes?

And, ancillary to that question: should we allow them to be punished by the very people who committed those war crimes?

Is that something that we want for our world, ongoing? Because our answer to this question is going to shape our society, our civilization, for generations to come.

There is no coming back from this for a very long time should the answer be, “Yes! Yes, it’s fine, war criminals should go ahead and punish journalists for publishing true facts about their war crimes.”

If we allow the answer to be yes, then the endless stupid wars that everyone wants done with, from Melbourne to Kabul, from Sydney to Syria, right across the world people are done with these stupid wars for profit.

Even the people like us who are very insulated from the effects of war want them over with, let alone the children of Pakistan who fear a sunny day because drones only fly in a blue sky, or the children of Syria whose country is being terrorized by “moderate rebels” armed and funded by the US war machine, or the starving children of Yemen who are being bombed constantly by munitions made in the good ol’ U S of A.

No one wants war except those who make big bucks from it. It’s the most evil thing that humans are capable of. It is murder. It is theft. It is rape. It targets and traumatizes and displaces our planet’s most vulnerable populations. It destroys the environment. It leaves behind cancer-causing waste.

It’s like as if the worst serial killer is going on the worst killing spree while dumping planet-killing chemicals behind him, but instead of running from the cops, he’s been given a trillion-dollar budget and immunity from prosecution.

This is already happening. This is the world we have currently. The question that is being posed in Assange’s case is, should we be allowed to question this? Should we be allowed to expose it? Should we be allowed to stop it?

Julian Assange’s case is a nexus point of where to next.

I was thinking on the way over here what I would most like to say to Julian if I had the chance. If I could tell him anything right now it would be, “Rest now, mate. You’ve done all you can. We’ve got you. Let us take it from here.” Assange acted as a kind of lightning rod for all this bull**** for all those years, and through what they did to him, we saw their true face. We saw their true evil. We know what they are now, and we know how they do it, we’ve seen enough to know how they operate. And in the end it’s never about one man, it’s always about the movement. It’s our job now to stand up now and say as one “We do not consent”, and carry him out of there ourselves if we have to.

This is where we’re at. We need to decide, do we evolve, or devolve? Do we pivot towards utopia, or dystopia?

The persecution of Assange is so blatantly, obviously wrong that the only thing stopping people from seeing it is empire propaganda. You don’t have to be well-read. You don’t even have to be smart. You just have to have to have eyes that are unfiltered by narrative manipulation.

Anyone with common sense and a beating heart in their chest can see this is wrong. Should journalists be tortured and imprisoned for life when they expose war crimes? The answer is not complicated. It’s obvious to anyone who hasn’t been propagandized out of their own clarity.

Assange’s plight only looks complicated when you add on layers of narrative and verbiage. “Ah but Sweden stinky, stink man, hacker not a journalist! Mueller sexist Trump poop on the walls, Nazi Putin!”

Without all the spin it’s very obvious he’s being torturously, unjustly persecuted. It really is an “emperor has no clothes” thing. The court propagandists fill our ears with fancy words about what a bad man Assange is, and why he must be dealt with, they’re trying to tell you that the emperor’s clothes are invisible to those aren’t educated.

But the unpropagandized just yell “Hey! Why is the emperor ass-dick naked? Dude, I can see him! I can see his willy! ”

This is why there are no counter protests here today. There are no regular, every day citizens taking to the streets with signs saying “Jail all the journalists! Endless war for all!” Some people still have strong feelings about Assange, but they’re just feelings, and you’ll find that it’s usually about only one or two of the smears, and if they turn and try to find evidence for the particular smears that have snagged them, they find nothing.

That’s why Nils Melzer, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, is such a courageous figure to me. When people first approached him to look in to Assange’s case, he was reluctant because he too had been affected by the smears. When he turned to the evidence though, he found no substance there.

Because of his honorability, though, he felt through the embarrassment of being duped, and being wrong, he swallowed his pride and he changed course. And he very quickly became one of our most powerful allies in the fight to expose war crimes, expose propaganda, expose the modern-day mobbing and torture tactics used against Assange, and expose the precedent that Assange’s prosecution will set for journalists and publishers world wide.

And you know what? I think the power behind his testimony comes from the fact that he realized that he had been duped, and if he, a very intelligent, well read, worldly, informed and educated person could be duped, then anyone can be.

No one is immune. Human minds are hackable. We’re all very busy with our lives. We’re all kept busy by capitalism, and very few of us have the time to do what he did and sit down and take a look at the facts and assess them. And even if they did that, even fewer of them have had the courage of their convictions to put up with the social consequences of changing course.

Being manipulated isn’t immoral, being a manipulator is. People feel ashamed when they’ve been conned, but it’s not their fault; it’s always the fault of the con man. That’s why fraud is the crime, and being defrauded is being a victim of that crime.

In order for people to see this question that we’re asking ourselves–the question of whether journalists should be punished for exposing war crimes–clearly they have to admit that they have been victims of propaganda. It’s not their fault, but they will be embarrassed to admit it. This shame underpins a lot of reluctance to join us here today, so I think it’s important to outline.

So when you’re talking to your friends and family, keep in mind that they’re hurting. They’re afraid of feeling the shame of having been duped, because in our crazy, ass-backwards culture, being duped is considered shameful while duping people just makes you a productive member of society.

Be gentle with them. Reassure them that it’s not going to be the end of the world if they change their mind. In fact, it may be the end of the world if they don’t.

That’s why I find Nils Melzer’s testimony to be so powerful: because it exposes the abusive nature of propaganda, and he modeled how to act when we find ourselves on the wrong side of the debate. His very existence gives me hope because it means that there are others like him waking up all over the world.

Actually, I’ve seen it already myself. There’s a huge movement in Germany gaining traction supporting Assange. It was the prisoners of Belmarsh who organized three separate petitions and got Julian out of solitary (how’s that for grassroots activism?). Just on Friday Alan Jones posted a poll on Facebook that posed the question “should the Australian government do more to help Julian Assange and bring him home?”. Thousands of people answered and there was a 75 percent “Yes! Yes we should bring him home.” Underneath the poll there were hundreds of comments in support of Assange.

So the tide is changing. Is it enough? I reckon it might be. But we have to keep pushing on it like our lives depend on it, because they do.

Viva Assange!

Thank you."

[Dennis Leahy]

Debunking The Smear That Assange Recklessly Published Unredacted Documents (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/26/debunking-the-smear-that-assange-recklessly-published-unredacted-documents/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)

This is a new section for my ongoing mega-article Debunking All The Assange Smears (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/debunking-all-the-assange-smears-a549fd677cac), a resource for debating 30 of the most common smears against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Use it, share it, and let me know if there's anything you think should be changed or added.

The prosecution in the Assange extradition trial has falsely alleged (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/02/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-2/) that WikiLeaks recklessly published unredacted files in 2011 which endangered people's lives. In reality the Pentagon admitted that no one was harmed (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/bradley-manning-sentencing-hearing-pentagon) as a result of the leaks during the Manning trial, and the unredacted files were actually published elsewhere as the result of a Guardian journalist recklessly included a real password in a book about WikiLeaks.

A key government witness during the Chelsea Manning trial, Brig. Gen. Robert Carr, testified under oath (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130731/15572324025/us-military-admits-no-one-died-because-mannings-leaks.shtml) that no one was hurt by them. Additionally, the Defense Secretary at the time, Robert M Gates, said that the leaks (https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/gates-on-leaks-wiki-and-otherwise/?_r=0&mtrref=undefined&gwh=DEDAAF74E4DC59CA6CDF37C82CFD73CC&gwt=pay&assetType=REGIWALL) were "awkward" and "embarrassing" but the consequences for US foreign policy were "fairly modest". It was also leaked at the time (https://www.reuters.com/article/wikileaks-damage/us-officials-privately-say-wikileaks-damage-limited-idUSN1816319120110118) that insiders were saying the damage was limited and "containable", and they were exaggerating the damage in an attempt to get Manning punished more severely.

As Assange's defense highlighted during the trial (https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1232274807447789568), the unredacted publications were the result of a password being published in a book by Guardian reporters Luke Harding and David Leigh, the latter of whom worked with Assange (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/10/assa-a10.html) in the initial publications of the Manning leaks. WikiLeaks reported (https://wikileaks.org/Guardian-journalist-negligently.html) that it didn't speak publicly about Leigh's password publication for several months to avoid drawing attention to it, but broke its silence when they learned a German weekly called Freitag was preparing a story about it. There's footage of Assange calling the US State Department (https://youtu.be/57Hqfq0rwXI) trying to warn of an imminent security breach at the time, but they refused to escalate the call.
https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.youtube.com%2Fvi%2F57Hqfq0rwXI%2F0.jpg&d=2020-02-26T14%3A46%3A53.224Z (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Hqfq0rwXI&w=420&h=237)
It wasn't long after that that the full unredacted archive was published on a website called Cryptome (https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1232277804546482183), where it still exists in its unredacted form today, completely free from prosecution. It wasn't until the leaks were forced into the public, at the initiation of Leigh's password shenanigans, that WikiLeaks published them in their unredacted form.

Assange’s US criminal defense lawyer Barry Pollack said in a press conference (https://twitter.com/DEAcampaign/status/1232306677162049536?s=20) after the second day of the extradition trial being held at Belmarsh Prison: “What was laid out in great detail in court today was that the United States government making this extradition request claimed that Julian Assange intentionally published names of sources without redaction. We learned today that the United States government knew all along that that wasn’t true. That when others were about to publish those names without redaction, Julian Assange called the State Department to warn the State Department that others were about to publish, and pleaded with the State Department to take whatever action was necessary to protect those sources. The idea that the United States government is seeking extradition of Julian Assange when it, the United States government, failed to take any action is really unfathomable. I think we will learn more as this trial goes on that the United States government simply has not disclosed, in the extradition request, the underlying facts.”

The US government doesn't care about unredacted publications, or it would have gone after Cryptome. The US government doesn't care about people being harmed by the Manning leaks; it knows that didn't happen. The US government cares about punishing a journalist for exposing its war crimes, plain and simple.

The attempts to smear Assange as reckless, cold and cavalier with the Manning leaks have been forcefully disputed by an Australian journalist named Mark Davis, who was following Assange closely at the time filming footage which would become the documentary Inside WikiLeaks. You can listen to Davis' account of what transpired here (https://youtu.be/uZkyLoaMvRg), or you can read about it in this WSWS article (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/08/10/assa-a10.html).
https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.youtube.com%2Fvi%2FuZkyLoaMvRg%2F0.jpg&d=2020-02-26T14%3A46%3A53.224Z (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZkyLoaMvRg&w=420&h=237)
Davis details how The Guardian, the New York Times, and Der Spiegel journalists were putting Assange under extreme pressure to go to press before Assange had finished redacting names from the documents. None of the outlets offered any resources or support to help redact them, and Assange had to pull an all-nighter himself and personally cleanse the logs of over 10,000 names before going live.

Davis says that it was Guardian journalists such as Leigh and Nick Davies, the two most vocal critics of Assange, who were displaying the cavalier attitude toward redaction back then.

"Of course, it was apparent that they would be risking, if not the safety, certainly exposing the identity of many people - there's tens of thousands of documents there,” said Davis. "I never witnessed a conversation where anyone took that seriously. Not one."

Davis says the only conversation that he witnessed on the topic of redaction was between Davies and Leigh, and Assange wasn't present.

"It occurred to Nick Davies as they pulled up an article they were going to put in the newspaper - he said 'Well, we can't name this guy,'" recalls Davis. "And then someone said 'Well he's going to be named on the website.' Davies said something to the effect of 'We'll really cop it then, if and when we are blamed for putting that name up.' And the words I remember very precisely - from David Leigh was he gazed across the room at Davies and said: 'But we're not publishing it.'"

Indeed, the only ones who seem to concur with this "cavalier" characterization of Assange are those who've had a lot invested in making sure they weren’t blamed for the leaks.
I worked closely with Assange when editor of Bureau of Investigative Journalism on the Iraq War Logs. This claim absolutely false when it applies to that. We went to great lengths to redact names, protect identities. This is an assault on whistleblowing.https://t.co/pZjquH8oAA
— Iain Overton (@iainoverton) February 24, 2020 (https://twitter.com/iainoverton/status/1231948664584704000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Journalist Iain Overton observed on Twitter (https://twitter.com/iainoverton/status/1231948664584704000?s=20) recently that his experience working on the Iraq war logs with Assange was very different to the gossip about him.

"I worked closely with Assange when editor of Bureau of Investigative Journalism on the Iraq War Logs," Overton said. "This claim absolutely false when it applies to that. We went to great lengths to redact names, protect identities. This is an assault on whistleblowing."

Finally there is a quote attributed to Assange by Leigh, "They're informants, they deserve to die," with regard to the sources in the logs that he painstakingly redacted all their names from. It was supposedly said at a dinner that was attended by John Goetz from Der Spiegel, who provided a testimony (https://twitter.com/LaFleurDelSur/status/1160295062305161223) saying that he heard no such thing from Julian.

In a classic case of projection, it appears that Assange's enemies are charging him with the very sins they were committing.

[Dennis Leahy]

This Assange “Trial” Is A Self-Contradictory Kafkaesque Nightmare (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/28/this-assange-trial-is-a-self-contradictory-kafkaesque-nightmare/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) https://caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/medium-2-9.jpg
The first segment of the Julian Assange extradition trial has concluded (https://twitter.com/couragefound/status/1233079473798402049?s=20), to be resumed on May 18th. If you haven't been following to proceedings closely, let me sum up what you missed:
The prosecution is working to extradite Assange to the US under a US-UK extradition treaty, a treaty whose contents the prosecution now says we should ignore because they explicitly forbid political extraditions. The prosecution says it doesn't matter anyway because Assange is not a political actor, yet in 2010 the US government that's trying to extradite him labeled him a political actor in those exact words. Assange's trial is taking place in a maximum security prison for dangerous violent offenders because that's where he's being jailed for no stated reason and despite having no history of violence, which means he's kept separate from the courtroom in a sound-resistant safety enclosure where he can't hear or participate in his own trial. The magistrate judging the case says he can't be allowed out of the enclosure since he's considered dangerous, because he's been arbitrarily placed in a prison for dangerous violent offenders. The magistrate keeps telling Assange to stop speaking up during his trial and to speak through his lawyers, yet he's being actively prevented from communicating with his lawyers.
Make sense?
No?
Not even a tiny bit?
Oh. Okay. Let me explain.
A British human rights and law reform organisation found that keeping a defendant locked in a sound-resistant glass cage apart from the courtroom, as they're doing to Assange currently, necessarily breaches their right to a fair trial. https://t.co/FG61rIu1ur (https://t.co/FG61rIu1ur)
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) February 27, 2020 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1232991906574954496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
It's common in British courtrooms (https://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jul/03/senior-judge-abolition-courtroom-docks-security-cage) to have something called a "dock", a place where defendants sit separately from court proceedings. Not all UK courtrooms have docks, and not all docks are the "secure" glass cabinet type which Assange is kept in; they can also be open wooden enclosures (https://justice.org.uk/in-the-dock/). Because Assange is being kept without explanation in a maximum security prison normally reserved the most dangerous violent offenders and terrorism convicts (https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/15/julian-assanges-nightmarish-future/), his trial is taking place in a cage that is very much the "secure" type (so much so that he's been complaining that he can't hear the proceedings (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/02/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-the-assange-hearing-day-3/) in his own trial through the bulletproof glass), and there is an expectation that he remain there. The magistrate has ruled (https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6653388/assange-to-stay-in-dock-during-hearing/) that this nonviolent offender shall be kept in his sound-resistant enclosure throughout the duration of his trial, bizarrely asserting that Assange poses a danger to the public.
Former UK ambassador and longtime Assange supporter Craig Murray was at court all four days of the trial, and he described the situation as follows (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/02/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-the-assange-hearing-day-3/) (Edward Fitzgerald is Assange's defense attorney, Vanessa Baraitser is the magistrate):
On return, Edward Fitzgerald made a formal application for Julian to be allowed to sit beside his lawyers in the court. Julian was “a gentle, intellectual man” and not a terrorist. Baraitser replied that releasing Assange from the dock into the body of the court would mean he was released from custody. To achieve that would require an application for bail.

Again, the prosecution counsel James Lewis intervened on the side of the defence to try to make Julian’s treatment less extreme. He was not, he suggested diffidently, quite sure that it was correct that it required bail for Julian to be in the body of the court, or that being in the body of the court accompanied by security officers meant that a prisoner was no longer in custody. Prisoners, even the most dangerous of terrorists, gave evidence from the witness box in the body of the court nest to the lawyers and magistrate. In the High Court prisoners frequently sat with their lawyers in extradition hearings, in extreme cases of violent criminals handcuffed to a security officer.

Baraitser replied that Assange might pose a danger to the public. It was a question of health and safety.
Ah yes, yes I'm sure everyone at the courtroom is very concerned that the emaciated computer nerd might at any moment go full beast mode and start throwing them all across the room. Sure thing, Vanessa.
So to recap, Assange has been placed in a prison for dangerous offenders for no reason, and he's designated too dangerous to participate in his own trial because he's in a prison for dangerous offenders. Both the defense and the prosecution (https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1232682165130887169) agree that this is absurd, yet the supposedly impartial judge ruled against them both.
Does that make sense to you?
No?
Good. Means you're sane.
Your Man in the Public Gallery – The Assange Hearing Day 3 - In yesterday's proceedings in court, the prosecution adopted arguments so stark and apparently unreasonable I have been fretting on how to write them up in a way that does not seem like https://t.co/Fd56lIUVcM (https://t.co/Fd56lIUVcM)
— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) February 27, 2020 (https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1232962237654011908?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
In the same report Murray also says Assange was forbidden from passing notes to his lawyers, yet when he tried to speak up during his trial to get someone's attention Baraitser told him he may only speak through his lawyers. Even when they let him, Shadowproof's Kevin Gosztola also reports (https://twitter.com/kgosztola/status/1233036424334544898?s=20) that the defense has complained that they can't even see when he wishes to communicate something with them, because his dock is behind them in the courtroom.
Bridges for Media Freedom reports the following (https://assangecourt.report/day-4-afternoon):
Assange then stood up in the dock and said, “The problem is I’m not able to get representation.” Judge Baraitser then told him to “keep quiet and speak through his lawyers.” He replied, “That’s the problem, I can’t.”
Assange has also complained that even when he is both able and permitted to speak to his lawyers during the trial, he's unable to do so in private, saying (https://twitter.com/couragefound/status/1232680137461768193), "I cannot communicate with my lawyers or ask them for clarifications without the other side seeing" and "The other side has about 100 times more contact with their lawyers per day."
“I am as much a participant in these proceedings as a spectator at Wimbledon,” a frustrated Assange complained (https://twitter.com/MacWBishop/status/1232678154080342017?s=20) at one point.
So Assange may only speak through his lawyers, but also he's also been presented with many obstacles to speaking with his lawyers. Perfectly normal stuff in a perfectly normal trial being treated in a perfectly normal way by a perfectly normal empire.
https://outlook.live.com/actions/ei?u=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.youtube.com%2Fvi%2FJxgL7-1QLes%2F0.jpg&d=2020-02-28T03%3A44%3A04.171Z (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxgL7-1QLes)
It's pretty clear by the way Baraitser is even more biased against Assange than the actual prosecutors that she made up her mind how she's going to rule long before the trial even began. This is made all the more shady by the fact that there are apparently no photographs of this public official anywhere online, and indeed no documentation of her existence (https://twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1232995358671659008?s=20) outside of the court.
"Ms Baraitser is not fond of photography – she appears to be the only public figure in Western Europe with no photo on the internet," wrote Murray (https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/02/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-the-assange-hearing-day-3/) after noting her anger at someone photographing the courtroom. "Indeed the average proprietor of a rural car wash has left more evidence of their existence and life history on the internet than Vanessa Baraitser. Which is no crime on her part, but I suspect the expunging is not achieved without considerable effort. Somebody suggested to me she might be a hologram, but I think not. Holograms have more empathy."
This by itself is weird. How is someone with no public face ruling on an extradition trial of such immense historical significance? How is a public official allowed to make a decision which will affect every member of the public in one way or another, yet the public is not allowed to know anything about her or what she even looks like? That, in my opinion, is weird and creepy.
It’s interesting. I have done some research. Baraister does not exist outside of court. Nothing. https://t.co/R0YksHkfbR (https://t.co/R0YksHkfbR)
— Matt Kennard (@DCKennard) February 27, 2020 (https://twitter.com/DCKennard/status/1232995358671659008?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Then there's the prosecution. They're trying to argue (https://shadowproof.com/2020/02/26/prosecution-us-uk-treaty-does-not-apply-to-assange-extradition/) that the US-UK extradition treaty which expressly forbids extradition for political offenses is void and inapplicable to this case because of another law called the Extradition Act which is written differently, despite the fact that the extradition treaty formed the basis for Assange's extradition request in the first place.
“We’re in a pretty strange Alice in Wonderland world where the treaty that controls and gives rise to the request, supposedly has nothing to do with the legality of it, it’s very strange,” Fitzgerald said (https://assangecourt.report/day-4-afternoon) at one point, adding: “it is generally accepted worldwide that people should not be extradited for a non-violent offense of a political nature.”
The prosecution also attempted to argue that even if the exemptions in the extradition treaty did apply, it wouldn't matter because Assange is not accused of anything that could be called a political offense. They said the defense must “equate what Mr Assange is alleged to have done against whether or not the only purpose was to change the government in America or induce America to change its policy, both of which we say it’s not.”
The defense correctly countered (https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1233006982342283264) that not only was WikiLeaks trying (https://twitter.com/auerfeld/status/1233006779908476928?s=20) to affect US government behavior, but that they actually succeeded (https://twitter.com/couragefound/status/1233044368912719873?s=20) in doing so. Not only that, but the US government has itself accused Assange of being a political actor who is trying to change America's behavior.
"He's not a journalist. He's not a whistleblower. He is a political actor. He has a political agenda," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said of Assange in 2010 (https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-boss-assange-a-political-actor-us-207893.html) after WikiLeaks began exposing US war crimes. "He is trying to undermine the international system that enables us to cooperate and collaborate with other governments and to work in in multilateral settings and on a bilateral basis to help solve regional and international issues."
In other words, Assange is a political actor who is deliberately trying to interfere with the US government agenda of world domination.
Defence counsel notes "We're in a pretty strange Alice in Wonderland world where the treaty that controls & gives rise to request supposedly has nothing to do with the legality of it, its very strange."#AssangeHearing (https://twitter.com/hashtag/AssangeHearing?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #NoExtradition (https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoExtradition?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) #FreeAssange (https://twitter.com/hashtag/FreeAssange?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) pic.twitter.com/re0YhGQsfz (https://t.co/re0YhGQsfz)
— PamelaDrew (@PamelaDrew) February 27, 2020 (https://twitter.com/PamelaDrew/status/1233040333186969600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Kafkaesque) the word Kafkaesque as "of, relating to, or suggestive of Franz Kafka or his writings, especially: having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality."
"Kafka's work is characterized by nightmarish settings in which characters are crushed by nonsensical, blind authority," says Merriam-Webster. "Thus, the word Kafkaesque is often applied to bizarre and impersonal administrative situations where the individual feels powerless to understand or control what is happening."
I generally try to avoid words that few people will understand in my writings, especially in my headlines, but, you know, damn. That's the most perfect definition of this ridiculous bootlicking bureaucratic nightmare maze that you could possibly come up with.
We can expect more of this when the trial resumes in May, and, to be clear, this is the more just and equitable half of the fight. If Assange is successfully extradited to the United States as the mysterious Vanessa Baraitser seems primed to allow, he will face a rigged trial (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/smear-6-he-should-just-go-to-america-and-face-the-music-891ac6358ed3) after he and his legal team were spied on by US intelligence agencies (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-23/surveillance-of-julian-assange-captured-lawyers-conversations/11985872) when preparing his defense. He and his legal team will be completely silenced (https://twitter.com/MElmaazi/status/1220329982523854849?s=20) from commentary on the trial, and he'll disappear into a black hole of "Special Administrative Measures" (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/02/01/assa-f01.html) where he won't be heard from again.
The time to speak up for Assange and the future of press freedoms is now. Not when he's extradited. Not after his fake trial and draconian sentencing. Now.

[onawah]

Humanity Is Making A Very Important Decision When It Comes To Assange
MARCH 1, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/01/humanity-is-making-a-very-important-choice-when-it-comes-to-assange/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/medium-2.png?w=1000&ssl=1

"The propagandists have all gone dead silent on the WikiLeaks founder they previously were smearing with relentless viciousness, because they no longer have an argument. The facts are all in, and yes, it turns out the US government is certainly and undeniably working to exploit legal loopholes to imprison a journalist for exposing its war crimes. That is happening, and there is no justifying it.

So the narrative managers, by and large, have gone silent.

Which is good. Because it gives us an opening to seize control of the narrative.

It’s time to go on the offensive with this. Assange supporters have gotten so used to playing defense that it hasn’t fully occurred to us to go on a full-blown charge. I’ve been guilty of this as well; I’ll be letting myself get bogged down in some old, obsolete debate with someone about some obscure aspect of the Swedish case or something, not realizing that none of that matters anymore. All the narrative manipulations that were used to get Assange to this point are impotent, irrelevant expenditures of energy compared to the fact that we now have undeniable evidence that the US government is working to set a precedent which will allow it to jail any journalist who exposes its misdeeds, and we can now force Assange’s smearers to confront this reality.

“Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?”

That’s the debate now. Not Russia. Not Sweden. Not whether he followed proper bail protocol or washed his dishes at the embassy. That’s old stuff. That’s obsolete. That’s playing defense.

Now we play offense: “Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?”

Demand an answer. Call attention to them and demand that they answer. Dig them out of their hidey holes and make them answer this. Drag them out into the light and make them answer this question in front of everyone. Because that is all this is about now.

Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t get tricked into debating defensively. Force the issue: the US government is trying to establish and normalize the practice of extraditing and imprisoning journalists for exposing its misdeeds. That is the issue to focus on.

You will find that anyone who dares to stick their head above the parapet and smear Assange now gets very, very squirmy if you pin them down and force them to address this issue. Because they cannot answer without admitting that they are wrong. And that they’ve been wrong this entire time. It’s a completely unassailable argument.

We now have two and a half months to prepare for the second half of Julian Assange’s extradition hearing: all of March, all of April, and half of May. We’re going to need all that time to seize control of the narrative and make it very, very clear to the world that a very important decision is about to be made by the powerful on our behalf, if we don’t make that decision for them.

This really is do or die time, humans. If we allow them to extradite and imprison Julian Assange for practicing journalism, that’s it. It’s over. We might as well all stop caring what happens to the world and sit on our hands while the oligarchs drive us to ecological disaster, nuclear annihilation or authoritarian dystopia.

If we, the many, don’t have the spine to stand up against the few and say “No, we get to find out facts about you bastards and use it to inform our worldview, you don’t get to criminalize that,” then we certainly won’t have the spine it will take to wrest control of this world away from the hands of sociopathic plutocrats and take our fate into our own hands.

This is it. This is the part of the movie where we collectively choose the red pill or the blue pill. We are collectively being asked a question here, and our answer to that question will determine the entire course we will take as a species.

So what’s it going to be, humanity?

Truth, or lies?

Light, or darkness?

A world where we can hold power to account with the light of truth, or a world where power decides what’s true for us?

A world with free speech and a free press, or a world where journalists are imprisoned whenever they expose the evils of the most powerful institutions on this planet?

A world where we all actively fight to free Assange and get the job done, or a giant, irreversible leap toward the end of humanity as we know it?

Do we free Assange?

Or do we sit complacent with our Netflix and our KFC and trust the authority figures to do what’s best?

Do we take the red pill?

Or do we take the blue one?

Choose your path, humans.

Choose wisely. "

Also posted here: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?110156-Proxima-Centauri-b-ETs-rescue-Julian-Assange-teleport-Donald-Trump-into-Belmarsh-prison-&p=1338576&viewfull=1#post1338576

[onawah]

Dems Converge Around Dementia-Addled Warmonger Ahead Of Super Tuesday
by Caitlin Johnstone
3/3/20
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/03/dems-converge-around-dementia-addled-warmonger-ahead-of-super-tuesday/

(Now it's Sanders, Biden and Warren in the Democrat lineup, and the DNC is poised again to attack Sanders. :facepalm: )

" Back in January, well before the Democratic primary race had taken on its current composition, independent journalist Ruth Ann Oskolkoff reported that a source had heard from high-level Democratic Party insiders that they were planning to install Joe Biden as the party's nominee, and to smear Bernie Sanders as a Russian asset.

"On January 20, 2020 at 8:20 p.m. PDT I received a communication from a reliable source," Oskolkoff wrote. "This person had interactions earlier that evening with high level party members and associates of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) who said that they have now selected Biden as the Democratic Party nominee, with Warren as the VP. They also said the plan is to smear Bernie as a Russian asset."

Now, immediately before Super Tuesday, we are seeing establishment candidates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar drop out of the race, both of whom, along with former candidate Beto O'Rourke, are now suddenly endorsing Biden. Elizabeth Warren, the only top-level candidate besides Sanders who could be labeled vaguely "left" by any stretch of the imagination, has meanwhile outraged progressives by remaining in the race, to the Vermont senator's detriment.

The day before Super Tuesday also saw The Daily Beast, whose corporate owner IAC has Chelsea Clinton on its board of directors, publishing an article titled "Kremlin Media Still Like Bernie, ’Cause They Love Trump" which aggressively smears Sanders as a tool of the Kremlin.

Prior to the South Carolina primary, Russian state media were touting Bernie Sanders as the most likely Democratic nominee, and it won’t be surprising if they do the same after Super Tuesday https://t.co/mH98PVmcjr

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 2, 2020

This latter development is becoming a conspicuously common line of attack against Sanders and, while we're on the subject, also tracks with a prediction made by journalist Max Blumenthal back in July of 2017. Blumenthal told Fox's Tucker Carlson that "this Russia hysteria will be re-purposed by the political establishment to attack the left and anyone on the left--a Bernie Sanders-like politician who steps out of line on the issues of permanent war or corporate free trade, things like that--will be painted as Russia puppets. So this is very dangerous, and people who are progressive who are falling into it need to know what the long-term consequences of this cynical narrative are."

So we're seeing things unfold exactly as some have predicted. We're seeing the clear frontrunner smeared as a tool of Vladimir Putin, accompanied by a deluge of op-eds and think pieces from all the usual warmongering mass media narrative managers calling on so-called "moderates" to rally around the former Vice President on Super Tuesday.

Sanders has not been pulling in anywhere near the numbers he'd need to pull to prevent a contested convention. This means that even if he gets more votes than any of his primary opponents, party leaders can still overrule those votes and appoint Biden as their nominee to run against Trump. Establishment spinmeisters as well as all Sanders' primary opponents have been working to normalize this ahead of time.

"Whatever the case for either Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren...neither is going to be the nominee. And...it’s not going to be Mike Bloomberg either. So it’s Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden." Tomorrow, if you live in one of 14 states, you can choose Biden.https://t.co/btuPbGtWxG

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) March 2, 2020

The only problem? Biden's brain is turning into sauerkraut.

There are two new clips of video footage making the rounds today, one featuring Biden at a rally telling his supporters that tomorrow is "Super Thursday", and another featuring the former VP saying (and this is a direct quote), "We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created-- by the-- you know, you know the thing."

I've written about Biden's recent struggles to form coherent sentences before, and it seems to be getting worse. There's simply no comparing the befuddled, fuzz-brained man we see before us today with the sharp, lucid speaker we were seeing even a few years ago. The man's brain does not work.

And yeah, it's unpleasant to have to keep pointing this out. I'm not loving it myself. I resent Biden's handlers and the Democratic Party establishment for making it necessary to continually point out an old man's obvious symptoms of cognitive decline. But it does need to be pointed to, and it's creepy and weird that they're continuing to prop up this crumbling husk of a man while pretending that everything's fine.

Imagine putting all your eggs in the Joe Biden basket. https://t.co/nRPX4gqol5

— Krystal Ball (@krystalball) March 3, 2020

Not that Biden would be an acceptable leader of the most powerful government on earth even with a working brain; he's a horrible war hawk with an inexcusable track record of advancing right-wing policies. But even rank-and-file Americans who don't pay attention to that stuff would plainly see a man on the debate stage opposite Trump who shouldn't be permitted near heavy machinery, much less the nuclear codes. And Trump will happily point that out.

It's been obvious since 2016 that the Dems were going to once again sabotage the only candidate with a chance of beating Trump in favor of a scandalously inappropriate candidate, but wheeling out an actual, literal dementia patient for the role is something not even I would have imagined.

2020 is weird, folks. And it's going to get a whole lot weirder. Buckle up."

[onawah]

DNC Scrambles To Change Debate Threshold After Gabbard Qualifies
MARCH 4, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/04/dnc-scrambles-to-change-debate-threshold-after-gabbard-qualifies/

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Screen-Shot-2020-03-04-at-2.45.32-PM.jpg?w=1064&ssl=1

"On a CNN panel on Monday, host John King spoke with Politico reporter Alex Thompson about the possibility of Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard qualifying on Super Tuesday for the party’s primary debate in Phoenix later this month.

“I will note this, she’s from Hawaii,” King said of Gabbard. “She’s a congresswoman from Hawaii; American Samoa votes on Super Tuesday. The rules as they now stand, if you get a delegate, you’re back in the debates. As of now. Correct?”

“Yeah, they haven’t, I mean, that’s been the rule for every single debate,” Thompson replied. “And the DNC has not released their official guidance for the March 15 debate in Phoenix, but it would be very obvious that they are trying to cancel Tulsi, who they’re scared of a third party run, if they then change the rules to prevent her to rejoin the debate stage.”

And indeed, as the smoke clears from the Super Tuesday frenzy, this is precisely what appears to have transpired.


Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
Watch it til the end.https://twitter.com/i/status/1235013004011458561 …

Min Min 🌺🕊 🍬 🐢 🏄‍♀️ 🧘‍♀️ 🏂⛹🏻‍♀️ 🏃‍♀️
@parisencorecom
Replying to @XochitlHinojosa
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“The Gabbard campaign said it was informed that it would net two delegates from the caucuses in American Samoa, which will allocate a total of six pledged delegates,” The Hill reports today. “However, a report from CNN said that the candidate will receive only one delegate from the territory on Tuesday evening.”

“Tulsi Gabbard may have just qualified for the next Democratic debate thanks to American Samoa,” reads a fresh Business Insider headline. “Under the most recent rules, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii may have qualified for the next televised debate by snagging a delegate in American Samoa’s primary.”

“If Tulsi Gabbard gets a delegate out of American Samoa, as it appears she has done, she will likely qualify for the next Democratic debate,” tweeted Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel. “We don’t have new debate rules yet, but party has been inviting any candidate who gets a delegate.”

Rank-and-file supporters of the Hawaii congresswoman enjoyed a brief celebration on social media, before having their hopes dashed minutes later by an announcement from the DNC’s Communications Director Xochitl Hinojosa that “the threshold will go up”.

“We have two more debates– of course the threshold will go up,” tweeted Hinojosa literally minutes after Gabbard was awarded the delegate. “By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”

“DNC wastes no time in announcing they will rig the next debates to exclude Tulsi,” Journalist Michael Tracey tweeted in response.


Xochitl Hinojosa
✔
@XochitlHinojosa
We have two more debates-- of course the threshold will go up. By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.

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This outcome surprised nobody, least of all Gabbard supporters. The blackout on the Tulsi 2020 campaign has reached such extreme heights this year that you now routinely see pundits saying things like there are no more people of color in the race, or that Elizabeth Warren is the only woman remaining in the primary. They’re not just ignoring her, they’re actually erasing her. They’re weaving a whole alternative reality out of narrative in which she is literally, officially, no longer in the race.

After Gabbard announced her presidential candidacy in January of last year I wrote an article explaining that I was excited about her campaign because she would severely disrupt establishment narratives, and, for the remainder of 2019, that’s exactly what she did. She spoke unauthorized truths about Syria, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, she drew attention to the plight of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and said she’d drop all charges against both men if elected, she destroyed the hawkish, jingoistic positions of fellow candidates on the debate stage and arguably single-handedly destroyed Kamala Harris’ run.

The narrative managers had their hands full with her. The Russia smears were relentless, the fact that she met with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was brought up at every possible opportunity in every debate and interview, and she was scoffed at and derided at every turn.

Now, in 2020, none of that is happening. There’s a near-total media blackout on the Gabbard campaign, such that I now routinely encounter rank-and-file liberals on social media who tell me they honestly had no idea she’s still running. She’s been completely redacted out of the narrative matrix.


Wajahat Ali
✔
@WajahatAli
All candidates of color are out. An openly gay married candidate is out. 2 women left. The rest? 70+ old white men fighting for the future of America in 2020. Because of course.

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So it’s unsurprising that the DNC felt comfortable striding forward and openly announcing a change in the debate threshold literally the very moment Gabbard crossed it. These people understand narrative control, and they know full well that they have secured enough of it on the Tulsi Problem that they’ll be able to brazenly rig her right off the stage without suffering any meaningful consequences.

The establishment narrative warfare against Gabbard’s campaign dwarfs anything we’ve seen against Sanders, and the loathing and dismissal they’ve been able to generate have severely hamstrung her run. It turns out that a presidential candidate can get away with talking about economic justice and plutocracy when it comes to domestic policy, and some light dissent on matters of foreign policy will be tolerated, but aggressively attacking the heart of the actual bipartisan foreign policy consensus will get you shut down, smeared and shunned like nothing else. This is partly because US presidents have a lot more authority over foreign affairs than domestic, and it’s also because endless war is the glue which holds the empire together.

And now they’re working to install a corrupt, right-wing warmongering dementia patient as the party’s nominee. And from the looks of the numbers I’ve seen from Super Tuesday so far, it looks entirely likely that those manipulations will prove successful.

All this means is that the machine is exposing its mechanics to the view of the mainstream public. Both the Gabbard campaign and the Sanders campaign have been useful primarily in this way; not because the establishment would ever let them actually become president, but because they force the unelected manipulators who really run things in the most powerful government on earth to show the public their box of dirty tricks."

[onawah]

Stop Calling It A “Stutter” :  Here Are Dozens Of Examples Of Biden’s Dementia Symptoms
MARCH 5, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/author/caitlin-johnstone/

(WAY TOO MANY LINKS and VIDEOS in the article--to EMBED here (I embedded a few gems), but GO TO THE ARTICLE AND WATCH if you could use a good: :lol:(:facepalm::loco::shocked::suspicious::twitch: I wonder if Tulsi might be able to run as a third party candidate. Dark Journalist said in one recent program he would be watching for a 3rd party candidate that might actually be able to affect the election. )

"It’s very bizarre and dissonant how there are currently two separate and non-overlapping lines of criticism going on against the campaign of establishment-anointed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. There are the perfectly accurate criticisms regarding the right-wing, militaristic policy positions of the politician Joe Biden used to be, and then there are the equally accurate criticisms of Biden’s handlers and Democratic Party leadership for wheeling out the dementia-addled husk of a man he currently is to run for the world’s most powerful elected office.

These two debates do not interweave, because they are not relevant to one another. It doesn’t matter what political positions a dementia victim once had; what matters is taking care of him and keeping him away from hazards, like sharp objects and nuclear launch codes. It’s impossible to know what actual political convictions still remain held within a mind that can no longer lucidly string thoughts together anyway.

I hate doing this. I hate repeatedly writing about the obvious and undeniable fact that an old man is exhibiting obvious and undeniable symptoms of incipient dementia. It isn’t fun, and it doesn’t feel good. But the alternative is laying down and allowing the Democratic party and its allied media to gaslight people into believing it’s not a thing, as they are doing currently.


Cody Johnston
✔
@drmistercody
At a certain point there needs to be a serious and empathetic conversation about Biden's relatively frequent, confused, irritable inability to complete coherent thoughts. It's not about a stutter. Watching him speak a mere four years ago makes that clear. Hope this happens soon!

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If you do a live Twitter search for the word “stutter”, you will as of this writing see that word being tweeted multiple times per minute on the social media platform as Democrats scramble to defend Biden from people who are accurately highlighting the indisputable fact that the former vice president is showing signs of cognitive decline. In my interactions with Biden supporters over the last 24 hours I’ve had this irrelevant word suddenly start getting thrown at me, because narrative managers in the mainstream media and the Biden campaign have been aggressively promoting the talking point that Biden’s increasingly frequent neurological misfirings on the campaign trail are actually the result of a longstanding speech impediment.

This is false. While it is true that Biden has periodically exhibited signs of a stutter, the inability to hold on to his own train of thought, forgetting where he is and who he’s with, grossly incorrect use of language, and inappropriate behavior are not symptoms of a stutter.

Here is the Mayo Clinic’s list of symptoms for a stutter, also known as a stammer:

Difficulty starting a word, phrase or sentence
Prolonging a word or sounds within a word
Repetition of a sound, syllable or word
Brief silence for certain syllables or words, or pauses within a word (broken word)
Addition of extra words such as “um” if difficulty moving to the next word is anticipated
Excess tension, tightness, or movement of the face or upper body to produce a word
Anxiety about talking
Limited ability to effectively communicate
Here is the Mayo Clinic’s list of dementia symptoms:

Memory loss, which is usually noticed by a spouse or someone else
Difficulty communicating or finding words
Difficulty with visual and spatial abilities, such as getting lost while driving
Difficulty reasoning or problem-solving
Difficulty handling complex tasks
Difficulty with planning and organizing
Difficulty with coordination and motor functions
Confusion and disorientation


Clearly, the symptoms of the speech impediment are very distinct from the symptoms of a degenerative neurological disorder. What follows are dozens of examples suggesting the latter, most of which were compiled by the Twitter user @KoenSwinkels. You may be absolutely certain that Trump will not hesitate to highlight this growing mountain of evidence should Democratic Party leadership successfully install Biden as the nominee; in fact both Trump and his Fox News cheerleaders are doing so already.

Joe Biden is Jeb Bush plus dementia. Trump will be far less charitable with his symptoms than I am here, and if he’s nominated the president will make certain this story dominates news headlines from the convention until November. Anyone who wants Trump out of office should fiercely oppose Biden’s nomination.

1. “Make sure you have the record player on at night… make sure the kids hear words.”
4AYVwgcAOMY

Everyone talked about Biden’s bizarre call for families to make use of an archaic audio technology in response to a debate question about slavery, and some criticized his paternalistic suggestion that black Americans need to be taught how to raise their children correctly, but hardly anyone made a fuss about the fact that his entire answer was also a rambling, incoherent word salad.

It’s easy to overlook linguistic peculiarities when they’re spoken, so I made a verbatim transcript of Biden’s complete answer, exactly as he spoke it. There are no typos. Read it carefully, resisting the urge to mentally re-word it in order to make it make sense:

“Well they have to deal with the — Look, there is institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved I started dealing with that. Redlining. Banks. Making sure that we’re in a position where — Look, talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title 1 schools, triple the amount of money we spend from 15 to 45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise that equal raise to getting out — the sixty-thousand dollar level.

“Number two: make sure that we bring into the help the — the student, the, the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home. We need — We have one school psychologist for every fifteen hundred kids in America today. It’s crazy. The teachers are reca — Now, I’m married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. We have make sure that every single child does in fact have three, four, and five year-olds go to school — school, not daycare. School. We bring social workers into homes of parents to help them deal with how to raise their children. It’s not that they don’t wanna help, they don’t want — they don’t know quite what to do. Play the radio, make sure the television, the — ‘scuse me, make sure you have the record player on at night, the-the-the-the phone, make sure the kids hear words. A kid coming from a very poor school, a very poor background, will hear four million words fewer spoken by the time they get there.”

Compare this muddle-headed mess, and all the following subsequent examples, to the crisp, forceful way Biden used to speak:

Or even just a few years ago:

Aisha Sharna
@SharnaAisha
Joe Biden explains why Bernie Sanders is the best to beat Trump.

(Yes, this is Joe 4 years ago.. I know it's strange watching him talk in full sentences.)

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2. “We hold these truths to be self-evident. All men and women created by the, go, you know the, you know the thing.”
PpMAd7uXMSY
3. “Super Thursday”

4. “I’m a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. Look me over, if you like what you see help out, if not vote for the other Bi- gimme a look though okay?”

Shaun King
✔
@shaunking
This is so sad.

Here @JoeBiden says to the crowd in South Carolina that he is "running for the United States Senate" and that if they don't like him they can "vote for the other Biden."

I honestly wish he would've retired & not subjected himself to the rigors of this campaign.

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Fact check: Biden has not been a candidate for the United States Senate in a great many years, and is in fact running for the presidency.

5. “Alright Chuck!”

Benny
✔
@bennyjohnson
BIDEN: “Alright Chuck”
WALLACE: “It’s Chris but anyway..”
How many Biden Gaffes have there been this week?
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Fact check: Chris. Chris Wallace.

6. “Right here in the state of North South Carolina.”

Fact check: Not a state.

7. Randomly biting his wife’s finger.


Fact check: Don’t do that, Joe.

8. Worked with Deng Xiaoping, who died 23 years ago, on the Paris Climate Accord during the Obama administration.


9. “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”
BujyWqv_dRU

10. Whatever the hell this is.


11. We’ll increase healthcare premiums and make sure care is not quality, only affordable.


12. “Look, fat, look, here’s the deal.”
fbEJpr4A9mQ

13. “My deceased son was the Attorney General of the United States.”
https://twitter.com/Becca4Bernie/status/1234166302354354176?s=20
1234166302354354176?s=20
Beau Biden was only the Attorney General of Delaware.

14. Being aggressive and inappropriate with Iraq war veterans, wrongly insinuating that his son died in the war.


US veterans recently confronted Biden over his support for the Iraq invasion, one saying “My friends are dead because of your policies.”

“So’s my son,” Biden replied. “He was in Iraq, okay? For a year. Not that it matters, right?”

“I’m not going after your son,” the veteran said.

“You better not,” Biden replied.

Biden’s son was in Iraq from 2008 to 2009. He died in 2015, of cancer.

15. This incoherent word salad.

29 U.S.C. § 157
@OrganizingPower
Anyway, good time to remind everyone that Joe Biden has dementia.

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Here’s a transcript of an answer Biden gave to a question at a town hall. Read through it, resisting the urge to mentally revise it into something more coherent:

“And so I was saying that, and what they turned around and said, Joe Biden said, in effect, they said, that Joe Biden said that what he was told, that what, that what the white supremacists argue, that we have no problem, that our, our, our basic English jurisprudential system is not the problem. The problem is those countries like Africa and Asia and those places, they’re the reason why we have all these problems. So they turn it around to make it sound like that, and by the way, the title of the article is, was, is the Washington Post ‘The Deceptively (indecipherable) of Joe Biden Singles, Signals What Is Coming’ and that is that’s a whole bunch of lies. The generic point I’m making here is that, what has happened is that, I know we’re going to get in to, whomever the nominee is of the Democratic Party, is going to have a plethora of lies told about him or her, and misrepresentations and this went on the internet, this edited article, it got retweeted by some press people and then they realized it was edited to make it look like something not… white supremacists, see, Biden’s acknowledging that the problem here is that that all those folks, all those minority folks are the problem. And so, in essence. And so they corrected, they corrected. You’re going to see a lot more of it. You’re going to see a lot more of not only my statements being taken out of context, and lied about, or altered, you’re going to see whomever the Democratic nominee is because that’s how this guy operates. Now. Whether or not I can win?”

16. “We choose truth over facts.”


17. “150 million people have been killed since 2007 when Bernie voted to exempt the gun manufacturers from liability.”


This would be about half the population of the United States. Pretty sure that would’ve made bigger headlines.

18. Confusing Theresa May with Margaret Thatcher.
https://twitter.com/DavidWohl/status/1124878887018684416

19. Confusing Angela Merkel with Margaret Thatcher.


20. “You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.”


21. Rambling confused gibberish, including saying Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr were assassinated in the late 70s.


Both men were assassinated in 1968.

22. Fix the problem of violence against women by “punching at it and punching at it and punching at it.”


23. Implementing a childcare tax credit would “put 720 million women back in the workforce.”


This would be more than double the entire US population.

24. Thought he was in Vermont when he was in New Hampshire.


25. Confused New Hampshire and Nevada.

CaseStudyQB
@CaseStudyQB
#Biden mistakes New Hampshire for Nevada

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26. Said he was vice president during the Parkland shooting.


Biden left the office of the vice presidency in January 2017. The Parkland shooting was February 2018.

27. Said 1976 when he meant 2014.


28. Said he’s looking forward to “appointing the first African American woman to the United States Senate.”

Andrew Pollack
✔
@AndrewPollackFL
Joe Biden is looking forward to ‘appointing’ the first African American woman to the Senate.

First, since when are senators appointed?

Second, Carol Braun was the first African American woman senator in 1993.

Third, Joe Biden’s repeated gaffes make him unfit for the office!

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Nobody “appoints” senators; they’re elected. The first African American woman in the US Senate took office in 1993.

29. “Go to Joe 30330 and help me in this fight.”

Axios
✔
@axios
I beg your pardon?

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Biden apparently received instructions from his team to tell debate viewers to text “Joe” to 30330, but these directions were too complicated for him. He wound up sending viewers to a random empty URL which was subsequently bought up by a Buttigieg supporter.

30. Made, then dropped, claim that he was arrested in South Africa while trying to visit Nelson Mandela in prison.

Tom Scocca
@tomscocca
Biden's fake Mandela story would have been a week-long news disaster for him back when anyone still had bandwidth and standards https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/joe-biden-campaign-walks-back-false-nelson-mandela-story.html …


Biden Camp Backs Away From His Story About Being Arrested Trying to Meet Mandela
After the debate, the campaign finally admitted he wasn’t arrested.

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That’s all I’ve got for now. Let me know if I missed any good ones; I’ll probably keep this updated with all the latest neurological misfirings until this discussion goes mainstream like it should already be."

[onawah]

America’s “Two”-Party System Is Like Bill Cosby’s Routine About Beating His Children
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
MARCH 7, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/07/americas-two-party-system-is-like-bill-cosbys-routine-about-beating-his-children/

"Today I just want to make the simple observation that America’s two-headed one-party political system is a lot like an old stand-up bit Bill Cosby once did about beating his children.

The bit I’d like to highlight is from Cosby’s 1983 special “Himself”. Society’s attitude toward physically assaulting children has changed a bit since then, as has society’s attitude toward Bill Cosby, so it rings a fair bit different in modern ears than it did in those of the audience at the time. In fact when you just read a transcript of the routine, it doesn’t look like a comedy bit at all; it just looks like some guy’s description of abusing his children with his wife.

After painting a scene in which his children bicker and fight in defiance of their mother’s instructions, Cosby said the following:

“My wife turns around, grabs a yardstick. She holds it like a samurai warrior. She then makes an announcement that the beatings will now begin by saying, ‘I have had enough of this!’ Now these three brain-damaged people have the nerve to look surprised. My wife is… [imitates yardstick being thrown]. Children run everywhere.

“Now my job is, I am the goalie. The children come at me, I kick ‘em back into play. Now the beatings are over, not because I see my wife, but because I hear all of upstairs going: [Imitates sobbing.]

“Now here’s the funny part: my wife comes downstairs with the broken stick, throws it on the table, sits down and begins to talk out loud to nobody: ‘Gonna tell me that you’re not going to do something when I tell you to do something. I mean, you move when I say move. Think I carried you in my body for nine months so you can roll your eyes at me? I’ll roll that little head of yours down on the floor. You don’t know who you’re fooling with. I’ll beat you until you can’t grow anymore.’ “

America’s dad, everyone.“Now my job is, I am the goalie. The children come at me, I kick ‘em back into play.”

Does this sound familiar?

Does it sound kind of like the Democratic Party?

Does it sound like the party which draws in voters who are looking to escape from the abusive, violent, warmongering, climate-killing, oligarch-coddling Republican Party, only to “kick ’em back into play”?

That’s the Democratic Party’s job. The Democratic Party is the goalie. Whenever the victims of America’s corrupt status quo start looking for an exit from the abuse, the Democratic Party’s job is to block that exit. It blocks that exit by offering up the promise of social justice, economic justice, advocacy for the working class and progressive reform, and then it actively neuters all attempts to make that happen. Attempts such as electing a progressive candidate to lead the party in a direction that actually reflects the will and interests of the people, for example.

Democrats sometimes accuse me of claiming that both parties are exactly the same, but that’s not true at all. The parties fulfill two very distinct roles in the administration of the beating: one wields the actual yardstick, while the other one acts as the goalie. One openly advances warmongering, ecocidal agendas of the billionaire class, while the other advances all those agendas more slyly while nullifying any attempt by the populace to thwart them.

They play two different roles in advancing the exact same agenda. Their behaviors are a bit different, but they’re both working to assault children with a yardstick.



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
America’s Two-Headed One Party System
"Ralph Nader occasionally shares an anecdote about the time he told his father that what America needs is a good third party.
'I’ll settle for a second,' his father replied.


America’s Two-Headed One Party System
There’s a scene from John Steinbeck’s The Pearl that’s been coming back to me over and over again ever since I started writing about US…

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Cosby’s routine paints him as an innocent and well-intentioned bystander, but in actuality he’s telling a story about two adults beating up young children. Democratic Party leadership paint themselves as the sensible advocates of the people, but in actuality they’re facilitating an assault on the American people just as much as the Republicans are.

And now we are seeing Trump held up as the menacing threat who everyone must run away from, and what is the life raft that the Democratic Party leadership is trying to throw them to escape this threat? Joe Biden. An actual, literal dementia patient with an extensive history of advancing the most toxic and violent policies imaginable.

As the closest thing to a viable left-wing party that exists in the most powerful and influential government on earth, the Democratic Party has more real power than any other political party in existence in terms of the changes it could make to the world if it wanted to. The fact that it plays goalie instead is an inexcusable evil which justifies the total elimination of the entire status quo the entire system is built upon."

[onawah]

Nine Thoughts On COVID-19 And What’s Coming
MARCH 17, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/17/nine-thoughts-on-covid-19-and-whats-coming/

"This gig is kinda weird at the moment. I write about what’s going on in the world for a living, and there’s certainly plenty going on in the world to be written about. But also there’s this acute awareness that anything I write about today is going to look petty and insignificant in the very near future.

I mean, we’re in the first moments of an unfolding pandemic which, from what I can tell just looking at the numbers, is about to change the world in some pretty significant ways. Governmental faceplant after governmental faceplant after missed opportunity after missed opportunity all around the world appears to have set us on a trajectory toward overburdened healthcare systems, severe economic downturns, and, of course, mass deaths.

And maybe chaos. And maybe healing. And maybe, when all is said and done, a total restructuring of power and the way we do things.

Standing on the precipice of that, how the hell am I supposed to write about how Bernie didn’t go hard enough at Biden in the last debate or whatever? So many of the arguments we’ve been placing so much importance on lately could easily look irrelevant in a matter of weeks.

Anyway, here are nine thoughts on COVID-19 and what’s coming.


Ryan Heath
✔
@PoliticoRyan
My job is literally to monitor and compare global policy responses to coronavirus, and this is categorically untrue.
Countries that are doing it better include: Sth Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, China (after the first month of lies and obfuscation), Austria and Australia https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1239359123587846144 …

Brian Stelter
✔
@brianstelter
"America has had the best response to coronavirus in the world!"

—@mattgaetz on Fox

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1 – Everyone in conspiracy circles has strong opinions about what’s going on, so anything I could possibly say about this is going to get a ton of pushback from some faction or another. That’s fine. In my opinion the fears that the ruling class will seize this opportunity to advance preexisting authoritarian agendas are well-founded, and people are right to have suspicions about the official narrative on the origins of the virus, but people who are still saying the whole thing is fake from top to bottom and it’s just another flu/no big deal have been proved wrong by facts in evidence. People should minimize social contact to avoid overburdening healthcare systems and thereby killing people. No matter how certain you are that this is all fake, you’re not certain enough to justify needlessly risking lives.

2 – Google-owned YouTube has just announced that they’re going to be censoring a lot more videos during the pandemic, citing the need to rely on automated censorship as they scale back workers’ presence at the office. No attempt has been made to explain why YouTube staff can’t just review the material working from home. Definitely worth keeping an eye on; if widespread authoritarian measures are going to be implemented during this time, increasing internet censorship will likely be the first step.

3 – I think this is going to hit America much harder than other countries, unfortunately. Combine a literal joke of a healthcare system with a president who up until just today has been dismissive of the threat the virus poses, the fact that the majority of Americans can’t afford a $1,000 emergency expense at a time of mounting layoffs while being chronically uninsured or underinsured, an inability to make anything happen without massive corporations voluntarily going against their own profit margins, a culture of rugged individualism with a reflexive distaste for collectivist organization for the good of the whole, and a highly religious population with many preachers telling their underinsured parishioners to demonstrate their faith by gathering at the megachurch and shaking hands with everyone, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Please stay as safe as you can.


Erik Solheim
✔
@ErikSolheim
How did China 🇨🇳 beat coronavirus⁉️
One of China’s creative techniques was the ❝Disinfection Tunnel❞ which was invented & manufactured in days, NOT years.
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4 – Meanwhile China is having success getting the pandemic under control on its end, with its government’s ability to build hospitals and crank out brand new tech solutions with astonishing swiftness, and of course to clamp down on the public’s free movement as soon as it was deemed necessary. Now Beijing is moving into a world leadership position in tackling the pandemic, stepping in to aid nations which can’t get help elsewhere like Italy and Serbia.

5 – The US became a superpower after being left intact while competing nations were stuck rebuilding themselves from two devastating world wars, allowing it to surge ahead of the competition. China, as we’ve discussed here many times, has been poised to overtake America as the dominant world power, so it’s possible we’ll see China’s relative success and America’s relative failure on this front dance in a way which gives a significant boost in that direction in the same way the US was given a boost by the world wars. It’s very likely China comes out of this notably further along in its agenda to create a multipolar world than before this all began.

6 – And the US of course realizes this threat, which is why my social media notifications right now are full of propagandized human livestock bleating about China being the Latest Official Bad Guy who I absolutely must believe very bad things about. A dying empire knows it’s going to need to take some drastic, dangerous measures to secure world dominance in the face of a surging contender, and it knows it needs to manufacture consent for those drastic, dangerous measures. Anti-China propaganda has been pouring into mainstream consciousness with more and more aggression lately, first and foremost within right-wing echo chambers but also within mainstream liberal ones – Joe Biden compared the Chinese government to Jack the Ripper just last night.

The result has been rank-and-file westerners beginning to lose their minds about China, which has looked exactly like a right-wing mirror of the Russia hysteria we watched unfold throughout late 2016 and early 2017. I have been encountering far more hysterical anti-China sentiment online than I was even a week or two ago; a poll published at the beginning of this month reports US anti-China sentiment is at a 20-year high, and I’ll wager if they took it again today it would be significantly worse.

People are now constantly shrieking about how authoritarian the Chinese government is, which is stupid, because China has always had an authoritarian government. It hasn’t changed; the only thing that’s changed is the narrative management, with glaring adjustments like the mass media reporting on the Hong Kong protests vastly more than the anti-government demonstrations in US empire-aligned nations like France. All this irrelevant emphasis on where the virus originated isn’t there to protect you from the virus, it’s there to make China look bad. China is no more of a threat to you than it was two years ago; the only thing that’s changed is you’re now being hammered with narratives about how threatening it is. Mass media converging upon a single empire-targeted nation is never a good thing.
https://i0.wp.com/media.boreme.com/post_media/2015/napoleon-china.jpg?w=1060&ssl=1
7 – It’s interesting how the virus which might knock down the most powerful government in the world behaves so much like that government: dominating world affairs and killing the most vulnerable members of the populations it attacks. Nations which are being smashed with US sanctions have already been watching their frail and elderly die of inadequate medical care and malnutrition, and now with the coronavirus they’re experiencing those same exact effects squared. Which is why places like Iran are being hit so uniquely hard. America is like if COVID-19 was a country.

8 – Also interesting is watching people react to the way so many of the corporate and government policies which have been causing ordinary human beings to suffer great pains are now simply being canceled all around the world in response to the pandemic. This Slate article documents a number of the changes which have been made just in America, like how for people being thrown in jail for minor offenses, “San Antonio is one of many jurisdictions to announce that, to keep jails from being crowded with sick citizens, they’ll stop doing that. Why were they doing it in the first place?” Or how “Trump has instructed government agencies who administer loans to waive interest accrual for the duration of the crisis. But why on earth is our government charging its own citizens interest anyway?”

We’re seeing immense burdens lifted from people with an easy “Oh, that’s making the pandemic worse? Okay we’ll stop that then.” And we’re seeing people react with fully justified indignation with, “Well why were you doing that to me in the first place??”

And the answer is very simple: because until now, your suffering wasn’t exacerbating a virus which does not discriminate on the basis of class. Politicians and billionaires are just as capable of losing their lives and loved ones to this virus as anyone else, as the CEO of Universal Music Group just learned with his COVID-19 hospitalization. Simply not causing needless human suffering wasn’t enough to get them to stop crushing people; it had to actually show up on their doorstep to make a difference.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETREtzlX0AA-3zW?format=jpg&name=medium
9 – I have long thought that it would be awesome if the world could just take a nap for a minute. Capitalism is built around the glorification of busyness. We’re going to find out how many jobs we can do from home, how many jobs are only busywork, how many jobs we can comfortably consolidate or do without completely, and how many jobs are actually harmful. A big chunk of jobs have nothing to do with feeding, housing or caring for us, and everything to do with persuading people that they are deficient in some imaginary way and require this placebo tonic snake-oil to make us better again. Religion is one such job. Advertising, marketing, and most media are others. If we redesign the economy, we could do away with those altogether and have all that creative effort go toward healthy things.

Primarily though, we all need a big rest from constantly doing such soul-draining things. Having to do this while under the worry that we won’t be able to pay our rent and bills is not ideal, but do as my Mum always says — worry about the things you can change, and for the things you can’t change right now, leave them for the birds. Leave the bills for the birds for now. We will work out something; we always do. But for now, you are safe and you have everything you need. Notice that. Once you’ve established that you’re solid in this moment at least, take this time to really dig as deeply in to relaxation as you can. Watch some stand-up and get yourself laughing, sing to some youtube karaokes, nap often and deeply, take showers and baths, really taste your food and enjoy your breath, yawn and stretch and cuddle and shake it all out. Forget about cleaning out the cupboards or learning that instrument or reading that book or whatever cute thing you decided you really should do now that you have the time — let your animal body lead the way, and give your brain a rest from all the shoulds and shouldn’ts. You’re fine just to do nothing at all. Sink in to that."

[onawah]

The Official Bad Guy Of The Day: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
MARCH 18, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/18/the-official-bad-guy-of-the-day-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/

"Missing the cute, innocent days of early 2020 when our biggest concern was just that the continent of Australia would burn to ashes and Trump would start a full-scale war with Iran.

~

Everyone’s been primed by years of popular post-apocalyptic movies/shows, as well as a growing sense of dread and a general intuition that something’s gotta give soon. Please stay calm and let your better nature win out, humans. We can use this opportunity to transcend ourselves.

~

The political/media class is largely responsible for its own inability to get the public to take this pandemic seriously. You can’t constantly lie to people about important issues their entire lives and then expect them to suddenly trust you.

~

The primary reason people are so vulnerable to propaganda is that hardly anyone clearly sees just how much human consciousness is dominated by mental narrative. There’s a night and day difference between reality and the stories minds tell about reality. Manipulators exploit this.

Most people assume that the mental stories in their heads are an accurate reflection of what’s happening outside their skull, and it just isn’t. Manipulators know they can just feed people stories, narratives, about what’s happening and they’ll accept those narratives as reality.

Manipulators know they can trade a bunch of convincing words in exchange for all sorts of real valuables: sex, deals, loyalty, votes, political power. Humanity’s deluded relationship with narrative means you can get real, concrete treasures in exchange for pure illusion.

Most of the things which consume your attention are pure narrative constructs: religion, philosophy, culture, politics, the economy, even what you take to be your very self. But few ever take the time to sift these narratives apart from reality, so we’re hackable by manipulators.

The difference between what’s happening and what the babbling mind says is happening could not possibly be more different. Until our species evolves a new relationship with mental narrative which allows a real relationship with the real world, we’ll keep moving toward extinction.

~

Obvious cognitive decline is a stutter.

Massive exit poll discrepancies are normal.

An ex-president installing his right-hand man as his successor is democracy.

Facts are Kremlin talking points.

Journalism is a crime.

War is peace.

Freedom is slavery.

Ignorance is strength.

~

Oh, you have another Official Bad Guy of the Day, America? It’s the Chinese government today, is it? We’re meant to hate China? Very cool.

So have you you stopped circling the globe with military bases and mass murdering human beings all over the world, America?

No?

Then stop asking me to care about China.

~

Pandemic priorities:

Priority #1 – Make sure everyone is aware that this virus indisputably originated in China. China, China, China. Call it the China virus or the Wuhan virus so everyone knows. China is very, very bad and we must say so over and over and over again.

Priority #2 – Deal with virus if we have time.

~

I’ve been saying the US is more evil and violent than China for years, and the shrill, hysterical responses I’ve been receiving when I say this over the last few days have been exponentially more intense than they’ve ever been at any other time. China hasn’t gotten any worse during that time, the propaganda has.

All this shrieking about the virus originating in China does nothing to help address the actual virus, and it isn’t meant to: it’s meant to manufacture consent for future unrelated, pre-planned escalations against America’s chief geopolitical rival. People are being trained to support those escalations.

~

Someone who bought the propaganda about Russia is dumb, like a guy with his head up his ass. Someone who rejected the propaganda on Russia but bought into it on China is even dumber, like a guy who pulled his head out of his ass, lubed up his scalp, and willfully re-inserted it.

~

Conservatives: We hate gays!

Fox News: Muslims Execute Gays

Conservatives: We love gays and hate Muslims!

Fox News: China Imprisons Muslims

Conservatives: We love Muslims and hate China!

~

Officials know they’ve got a few months where there won’t be any public backlash in the form of demonstrations and protests due to coronavirus fears, and it’s a safe bet that they’ll take that fact into account when planning decisions in the near future. Assange’s extradition hearing resumes in May and the DNC convention is in July, just for example.

~

It’s so dumb having to constantly argue against the latest herd of propagandized human livestock saying I must believe bad things about the Latest Official Bad Guy. It’s Saddam! It’s Gaddafi! It’s Kim! It’s Putin! It’s the Ayatollah! It’s Assad! It’s Maduro! It’s Xi! They always think they’re so original, too. It’s ****ing tedious.

~

China has not changed. What’s changed is that the USA’s leading rival is poised to surpass a dying empire, which will need to take some drastic actions in order to prevent this. Consent for these actions must first be manufactured. Hence the sudden spike in narrative management.

China has always had an authoritarian government. If you find yourself thinking negatively about the Chinese government more than you did a year or two ago, it’s not because China changed during that time, it’s because you’ve been sucked in by an escalating propaganda campaign.

~

China’s getting its COVID problem under control and helping other nations while American preachers are telling their underinsured parishioners to come to the megachurch and shake hands with everyone. This virus could change the world a lot more than we think.

It’s the perfect storm for ending the hegemony of the US, a nation with a broken healthcare system, dependent on private corporations to make anything happen, full of individualists who reject any collectivist impulse and fundamentalists who think science is a liberal hoax.

~

If COVID-19 were a nation, that nation would enact domestic policies which kill the most vulnerable members of its population. Then it would spread this to the rest of the world by inflicting endless war and sanctions on other countries, killing the most vulnerable people there.

~

Starvation sanctions do the same thing the coronavirus does: kill the most vulnerable members of the population. A population with both experiences these effects squared. The Trump administration owns every single one of the COVID-19 deaths in Iran.

~

It shouldn’t take a new virus pandemic to make people start thinking about whether it’s wise to have a political system that is dominated by very old leaders who won’t be around to suffer the future consequences of their actions.

~

The American people don’t deserve what’s coming. Their government is criminal, but they aren’t. I’m in Australia and I’ve shed more tears for what’s about to hit the US than here, because they really have nothing in place to insulate themselves from this.

~

Stop legitimizing the use of the word “corruption” in news reports of Saudi Arabia’s mass arrests; it’s a meaningless term in a nation whose government just openly owns all the treasure and resources. The Saudi government arresting people for “corruption” would be like water arresting fish for getting wet.

~

Every Trump Supporter I’ve Ever Argued With: Trump is ending the wars and draining the swamp!

Me: No he’s doing the exact opposite, as shown in this mountain of facts here.

Every Trump Supporter I’ve Ever Argued With: Yeah well you can’t expect Trump to just suddenly end wars and drain the swamp, you naive idiot.

~

It’s amazing how far you can get in life without having any idea what you’re doing, just by feigning confidence and speaking in an assertive tone of voice. You can become President of the United States. You can get through almost a full term before people really start noticing.

~

Trump being **** doesn’t magically make Biden not ****. Biden being **** doesn’t magically make Trump not ****.

There. That’s the winning answer to 90 percent of the arguments I’m going to get into from now until November.

~

Biden: I have decided that I will implement progressive policies I opposed up until five minutes ago.

Biden: *tells a mountain of demonstrable lies in one debate*

Biden: You can trust me that I will implement those policies.

~

Democrats: Trump is an unprecedented threat to our democracy because he’s a vulgar racist jingoistic authoritarian reactionary wingnut with dementia who lies constantly.

Those same Democrats: Here vote for this vulgar racist jingoistic authoritarian reactionary wingnut with dementia who lies constantly.

~

The Democratic primary is clearly being tampered with in myriad ways and on multiple levels, both overtly and covertly. The general election will not be. Because the dominant power structures know they’ll get exactly what they want with either Biden or Trump.

~

When I was five, I had a friend who would “be the judge” to whatever game we were playing and whenever I started to win, she would judge that I was actually not winning. I stopped playing with her.

Progressives are correct that the Dems will never stop ****ing them over if they keep unconditionally supporting that party. But what many of them fail to take into account is that the Dems will also keep ****ing them over if they don’t support the party. Because they’re fine with losing.

Progressives assume that they have negotiating power because they assume, wrongly, that the Democratic Party exists to win elections. It doesn’t. The Democratic Party exists, first and foremost, to sabotage the left.

A Democratic Party leader retains their status and donors regardless of who wins an election. But if the left ever succeeded in taking over the party and implementing anti-oligarchic policies, that would end. Given this, who do you think party leaders perceive as the real threat?

Staying with the Dems is a losing strategy, but so is removing your votes with the hopes of influencing them. This is because the answer has never been in electoral politics, one way or the other. It’s an illusory construct built to distract from reality.

~

If you object to people calling Chelsea Manning by her preferred pronouns more than you object to the things that have been done to her, you have wasted all of your time on this planet.

~

If we lived in a truly healthy, sane world, and then it suddenly began acting like the normal status quo of this current world, our collective shock and horror would dwarf the reaction we’re having to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because we’ve normalized so many vastly worse horrors.

~

America shouldn’t be in the Middle East at all, much less Iraq, and the US government is solely responsible for every American soldier who dies there.

~

Some days I just can’t write. I have plenty to say, I know all the things I want to write about, I’ve done all the research and prepared all my links, but I just can’t get the words flowing. It’s what I imagine erectile dysfunction feels like.

~

Doubt anyone remembers this but there was once a time when people expressing socialist or antiwar views were referred to as “pinkos” and “moonbats” instead of “Kremlin agents” and “Russian bots”.

~

Truth is Russian in an empire of lies.

~

Whenever there’s an economic downturn I always get my hopes up that maybe this is the one where people go “Hey wait a minute, this whole ‘economy’ thing is made up! We can just make up something different instead!”

~

I am optimistic that we’ll be okay because I know that humanity has untapped potential in areas within ourselves that we’ve barely even begun discussing, much less researching. The manipulators only understand thoughts and language, and there’s so much more to us than that.

We have the potential to break our conditioning patterns, which is huge because our conditioning patterns are what brought us to this point. Every species eventually hits a point where it either evolves or dies, and I already see signs of mass scale unpatterning. We can make it.

Long-established patterns are now being disrupted on a mass scale, creating lots of space to form new ones. Where there used to be a solid brick wall, there are now many gaps with plenty of space to shine light through. Make sure you take advantage of this, clear-eyed rebels."

[Philippe]

Nine Thoughts On COVID-19 And What’s Coming
MARCH 17, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/17/nine-thoughts-on-covid-19-and-whats-coming/

People are now constantly shrieking about how authoritarian the Chinese government is, which is stupid, because China has always had an authoritarian government. It hasn’t changed; the only thing that’s changed is the narrative management, with glaring adjustments like the mass media reporting on the Hong Kong protests vastly more than the anti-government demonstrations in US empire-aligned nations like France. All this irrelevant emphasis on where the virus originated isn’t there to protect you from the virus, it’s there to make China look bad. China is no more of a threat to you than it was two years ago; the only thing that’s changed is you’re now being hammered with narratives about how threatening it is. Mass media converging upon a single empire-targeted nation is never a good thing.


Many true observations by Caitlin Johnstone about the increased hatred against China in the USA . However looking from Europe I also see the aversion of that communist regime exists because it is put in the same category as the US Democratic Liberals and used in that ideological interior US fight.
But I do not agree with the above argument that nothing has changed in China and "constantly shrieking about how authoritarian the Chinese government is stupid". A hell of a lot has changed in China and with name the new AI monitoring of citizens and the mandatory vaccinations since last year. As an individual citizen I look how horrendous this roll-out is and realize that this is the test ground for what is in store for all of us. Shame on Facebook and Google CEO Eric Smith for their business in China. Is Johnstone also ideologically motivated for not reporting on those changes in China ?

[PurpleLama]

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/liberal-npcs-hate-russia-conservative-npcs-hate-china-9b4ac2f853

[onawah]

We Should All Be Seriously Re-Prioritizing Our Lives And Our Thinking Right Now
MARCH 21, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/21/we-should-all-be-seriously-re-prioritizing-our-lives-and-our-thinking-right-now/

"Imagine if you looked out your window tomorrow morning and saw a mushroom cloud growing on the horizon.

What do you imagine your first thoughts would be?

Do you imagine you’d think to yourself, “Man I wish I’d spent more time arguing with Tulsi Gabbard supporters on the internet”? Or “I wish I’d devoted more of my mental energy to what a dickhead Dale from accounting is”? Or “Maybe I can call my sister and get in one last passive-aggressive jab at her for thinking she’s better than me all these years”?

Now, this pandemic is of course not the same as a nuclear holocaust. It will not kill all of us, or even most of us. But it does appear likely that, for better or for worse, it’s going to change the world in some pretty significant ways.

Which means that we are taking a giant leap into the unknown, which can feel like a kind of death. And, since we are all taking that leap together, it can feel like a we’re all about to die.

When you’re standing on the brink of a history-shaping global paradigm shift, if you’re really consciously experiencing the reality of your situation instead of dissociating and compartmentalizing away from it, you will necessarily have to re-evaluate your priorities. Your priorities in life. Your priorities in thinking about your world. What really matters when you’re about to take the plunge into the Big Unknown.


Eric Topol
✔
@EricTopol
The daily update from @jburnmurdoch @FT for #COVID19 deaths and cases (log scales)
US Deaths keeps looking worse, steeper, more marked divergence from South Korea
US Case curve now worst of all, altho more difficult to interpret w/ testing only ramping up now (2 months too late)

View image on TwitterView image on Twitterhttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETlAB_MU0AAWqs0?format=jpg&name=360x360
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Louis Allday
@Louis_Allday
The contradiction between knowing that extreme measures are obviously needed in order to contain the virus but doing so means giving awful states like the US & UK sweeping powers that they will definitely misuse & likely make permanent is extremely hard to reconcile and process.

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Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
Humanity’s Salvation Will Necessarily Look Like A Leap Into The Unknown

"What this means is that if there is to be any deviation from our species’ self-destructive trajectory, the cause of that deviation will come completely out of left field."https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/humanitys-salvation-will-necessarily-look-like-a-leap-into-the-unknown-b5d71489ec61 …
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1239031348960075776/raonK_qj?format=png&name=600x314

Humanity’s Salvation Will Necessarily Look Like A Leap Into The Unknown
If humanity is to turn away from its murderous, omnicidal, ecocidal, oppressive and exploitative trajectory, it will necessarily involve a…

medium.com
Humanity’s Salvation Will Necessarily Look Like A Leap Into The Unknown
If humanity is to turn away from its murderous, omnicidal, ecocidal, oppressive and exploitative trajectory, it will necessarily involve a…

medium.com
189
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If we are bravely confronting the reality that we may emerge on the other side of this thing to a world that is in some ways unrecognizable to us, some things we previously didn’t pay as much attention to will become more important to us, and other things will become less important.

Our personal relationships will become more precious to us. My elderly parents are isolating now so I’m video-chatting with them every day, and I spent some time yesterday overwhelmed with grief when I realized I won’t get to hug them for months, at best. This is happening all around the world right now, with all of us.

For those of us who are political, it will also change our areas of emphasis. As near as I can tell the four most crucial and attention-worthy things in the world right now are (A) the virus itself, (B) the certainty that powerful people will try to use the virus to advance longstanding authoritarian agendas which they have no intention of reversing, (C) the acceleration toward cold war escalations between the US and China, and (D) the possibility of an opportunity to create something good for all of us coming out of all the increasing amount of shifts and changes we are experiencing. And not necessarily in that order.

It will also de-emphasise a lot of things we’d previously been placing immense importance on. The US presidential race is the first thing that comes to mind. It consumed so much of our attention over the past year, but now it’s a fairly safe bet that this virus and its consequences are going to affect our lives and the world far, far more than they would be affected if the White House changed hands or stayed under the current administration. Doesn’t mean this doesn’t matter at all, just that it’s less significant now.

There are many other areas people have been placing emphasis on that they will necessarily de-emphasise when they get real with themselves about what’s going on which will vary from person to person. Maybe you see the things we should prioritise differently than I do. Maybe you see the things we should de-emphasise differently as well. It doesn’t really matter; all that matters is that we be very courageously honest with ourselves and the reality of our situation, and that we rearrange our priorities in a way that we feel best reflects this.

That’s all I’ve got to say about this for now. Let’s keep watching the shifting tides together.

[Dennis Leahy]

Hollywood Celebrities Are Psyops Wrapped In Human Skin




https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/medium-5-5.jpg?fit=720%2C404&ssl=1

CNN recently trotted out Hollywood actor Sean Penn (https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1240826557154963456) to give the nation expert advice on how to deal with a novel virus pandemic.

Did they do this because we live in a meaningless, godless universe where madness reigns and everything is chaos? Close, but no. They wanted Penn to explain to the public that it would be wonderful if the US military were deployed inside US borders to deal with the pandemic, because the US military is the greatest humanitarian force on planet Earth.

“There is no greater humanitarian force on the planet than the United States military,” Penn said. “The logistical skills, commitment to service, their care for the people. It’s really time to give the military the full breadth command and control of this operation. I wouldn’t blink, I would have put command and control in their hands a month ago, certainly today.”
"There is no greater humanitarian force on the planet than the United States military… it's really time to give the military the full breadth and control of this operation."
– Actor and activist Sean Penn on battling coronavirus#CNNTownHall (https://twitter.com/hashtag/CNNTownHall?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)https://t.co/tVVAtXQVh5 pic.twitter.com/hnAfQq5UmK (https://t.co/hnAfQq5UmK)
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) March 20, 2020 (https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1240826557154963456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The US military is in fact one of the least humanitarian forces on this planet, second only to malaria-laden mosquitos (and even that’s debatable). No other force is circling the globe murdering people in countless undeclared military entanglements and bullying the world into complying with the interests of a nationless alliance of plutocrats and opaque government agencies at the expense of ordinary humans everywhere. They are the exact opposite of a humanitarian force on this planet.

Medical staff are a force for humanitarianism on this planet right now. Grocery store clerks are a force for humanitarianism on this planet. The US military are the armed thugs of a metastatic globe-sprawling empire run by sociopaths.

Don’t say “Thank you for your service” to veterans whose only contribution to humanity has been helping to murder people for imperialist fossil fuel control agendas and Raytheon profit margins. Say “Thank you for your service” to your local cashier. To do the former is to participate in a cruel collective propaganda operation which only encourages more young people to hurl their bodies into the gears of the US war machine in search of the respect and honor you’re displaying, while to do the latter is to thank someone for actually providing a crucial service to human beings.

The malfunction in Penn’s mind is the result of many malignant factors, but among them is the fact that people who rise to fame and fortune naturally experience a gravitational pull toward elitist echo chambers which cultivate narratives that favor the status quo which gave rise to their fame and fortune. You have a hard time hanging out with normal people because most of them don’t treat you normally anymore, so you find yourself spending time with other rich and famous people, and with people who have a vested interest in the rich and famous.

This dynamic naturally fosters an environment where celebrities are eager to believe positive stories about the system which favors them, and where narrative managers are eager to circulate those stories among influential voices. This is why, with very few exceptions, the closest you’ll ever get to seeing a Hollywood celebrity express an anti-establishment opinion is one of them saying “**** Trump” at the Tony Awards. It’s also why every few weeks you’ll see some celebrity tweet something disgusting and then go into a meltdown when thousands of ordinary people react with revulsion; they don’t have ordinary people in their lives giving them feedback on what’s normal anymore, all they have is the elitist echo chamber.

This echo chamber is what led a group of self-quarantining celebrities to believe it would be an awesome idea to share a video compilation (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WrS5rk0B7A) where they all badly sing lines from John Lennon’s “Imagine” from inside their mansions with a world full of people who’ve been laid off from their jobs and are terrified for their futures. The figuratively and literally tone-deaf video was universally panned and people have been mocking it on social media ever since its release, which probably would have come as a surprise to the celebrities themselves since nothing in their insulated day-to-day lives would have told them they could all be collectively rejected with such disgust.

The celebrity “Imagine” project was spearheaded by Israeli actress Gal Gadot (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-gal-gadot-imagine-video-celebrities-singing-montage-john-lennon-the-beatles-isolation-instagram/), who as an IDF veteran would not have required any Hollywood echo chambering to have undergone deep psychological programming in favor of the empire. Gadot, who famously came under fire (https://www.haaretz.com/life/television/gal-gadot-under-fire-for-supporting-idf-1.5256975) for publicly cheerleading the 2014 Gaza massacre (https://mondoweiss.net/2018/07/killing-statistics-massacre/), first shared the video on Instagram with the caption “We are in this together, we will get through it together. Let’s imagine together. Sing with us.”

Memesters have of course been having fun with this (https://twitter.com/yunocIubs/status/1241018201955274753).
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETj7c85XsAAERrs?format=jpg&name=900x900
Then you’ve got celebrities like Rob Reiner, who just tweeted (https://twitter.com/robreiner/status/1241190546422423563) “No more ****ing around. We’re standing on a precipice. Time to consider a Federal lockdown.”

Reiner is one of the more ham-fisted of the right-wing Democrats who we first saw promoting Russia hysteria (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/spies-hollywood-and-neocons-team-up-to-create-new-war-propaganda-firm-f857201743d3), then working against the Sanders campaign (https://twitter.com/search?q=sanders%20(from%3Arobreiner)&src=typed_query), and are now promoting drastic totalitarian measures from their high-profile platforms. If you still hadn’t seen these people for what they are yet, you should definitely be seeing them now.

It is an absolute guarantee that powerful people will use this pandemic to advance authoritarian measures which they have no intention of rolling back once the pandemic is over. They are working to do this currently. This is not a possibility, this is an absolute certainty.
No more ****ing around. We’re standing on a precipice. Time to consider a Federal lockdown.
— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) March 21, 2020 (https://twitter.com/robreiner/status/1241190546422423563?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
While it does appear necessary to collectively use self-quarantining and social distancing to avoid crashing our healthcare systems and needlessly killing millions of people, we need to make sure we slam on the brakes long before we yield any more ground to the authoritarians than they’ve already shored up over the years. And we need to loudly shout down any celebrities who try to tell us otherwise.

Hollywood is a giant propaganda mill which when it isn’t cranking out movies which are literally funded and controlled by the US war machine (https://www.mintpressnews.com/hollywood-propaganda/247154/) is putting on spectacular ninety-minute “The imperialist world order is perfectly sane and capitalism is totally working” infomercial presentations. It is an arm of cultural control which is unrivaled by anything else in this world, so of course it has powerful forces at work within it ensuring status quo loyalism.

Whoever controls the narrative controls the world, and Hollywood celebrities are psyops wrapped in human skin. May our collective disgust with them continue to grow.
____________________________________

[onawah]

“The Coming War On China”  –  Watch John Pilger’s Powerfully Relevant Documentary
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
MARCH 23, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/23/the-coming-war-on-china%e2%80%8a-%e2%80%8awatch-john-pilgers-powerfully-relevant-documentary/

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/medium-5-6.jpg?w=1000&ssl=1

"“The aim of this film is to break a silence: the United States and China may well be on the road to war, and nuclear war is no longer unthinkable,” Pilger says in his 2016 documentary The Coming War on China, which you can watch free on Youtube here or on Vimeo here.

“In a few years China has become the world’s second-biggest economic power,” Pilger’s introduction continues. “The United States is the world’s biggest military power, with bases and missiles and ships covering every continent and every ocean. China is a threat to this dominance, says Washington. But who is the threat? This film is about shifting power, and great danger.”

As we’ve been discussing for years now, the relentless quest of the US-centralized empire-like power alliance for total world domination has put it on a collision course with the surging economic powerhouse of China which refuses to be absorbed into the imperial blob. The empire’s continued existence depends upon its ability to undermine China before it grows too powerful or the empire grows too weak to stop its ascent, at which point global hegemony becomes impossible and we are living in a truly multipolar world.
vAfeYMONj9E
China has therefore always been the final boss fight in the global campaign of violence and domination by what Pilger calls the “empire which never speaks its name”. And the ramping up of anti-China narrative management by the US government indicates that we are being psychologically primed to accept this world-threatening confrontation, just as Pilger warned in 2016.

“The danger of confrontation grows by the day,” Pilger says.

The powerful film breaks down the way the USA has been encircling China with a “noose” of military bases since the Korean War, which all have massive amounts of military firepower, including nuclear firepower, pointed right at China’s cities. Pilger shows the psychopathic toll this has inflicted upon the people who live in the areas where the US war machine has set up shop in the Pacific, including an especially enraging segment on the use of Bikini Atoll natives as human guinea pigs to test the effects of nuclear radiation on people. Also deeply disturbing is the revelation of just how close the US came to launching nuclear warheads at China due to a miscommunication during the Cuban missile crisis.

The film describes China’s recent history and explains its climb in economic power which led us to this point, and the USA’s generations-long history of provocation and hostility toward its government. It also addresses the silly projection so many westerners harbor that if the US wasn’t bullying and slaughtering the world into compliance, China would take over doing the same.


The Daily Beast
✔
@thedailybeast
The White House is launching a communications plan across multiple federal agencies that focuses on accusing Beijing of orchestrating a “cover-up” & creating a global pandemic, according to two US officials & a government cable obtained by The Daily Beast https://trib.al/kRQSbeL
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1241438960729104384/uA_Nr8Lg?format=jpg&name=600x314

White House Pushes U.S. Officials to Criticize China For Coronavirus ‘Cover-Up’
A State Department cable obtained by The Daily Beast says the U.S. and the American people are the “greatest humanitarians the world has ever known.”

thedailybeast.com
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2:04 PM - Mar 21, 2020
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Back in 2016 it was harder for people to see this escalation on the horizon, but now in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic we’re hearing a frantic, disproportionate amount of anti-China sentiment from the Trump administration and its supporters, in the same way we heard Russia hysteria amplified over the last three years by Trump’s enemies. Trump was politically pressured to dangerously escalate cold war tensions with Russia, and he’s now being politically incentivized to pass the blame for his administration’s spectacular failures in addressing this pandemic on to the Chinese government in a way which manufactures support for escalations on that front as well. Two different narratives, same agenda.

“The new president, Donald Trump, has a problem with China,” Pilger says at the end of the documentary. “The urgent question now is will Trump continue with the provocations revealed in this film and take us all to the edge of war?”

The answer to that question appears to be coalescing. It’s a good time for us all to watch this film."

[onawah]

Quarantine Meditations: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
MARCH 24, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/24/quarantine-meditations-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/

"The world is messed up because powerful people think in terms of narrative control, and ordinary people don’t. Change that and you change the world.

Hot tip: Dump all stocks and invest in becoming the kind of decent human being who people will want to help in chaotic times.

Let’s go humans! The sooner we can put aside our differences all around the world and unite to beat this virus the sooner we can get back to exploiting each other over an imaginary monetary system and murdering each other with bombs!

FYI if your government is pushing the suspension of civil liberties before coming up with a healthcare plan or providing you with financial security in an unprecedented economic crisis, then their desire to suspend civil liberties has nothing to do with fighting the pandemic.

Protecting the citizenry in situations like this is the thing governments are supposed to be for. It’s the single most compelling argument for their existence, by a very wide margin. Any government which doesn’t take good care of its people right now does not deserve to exist.
If this virus hasn’t yet caused you to seriously re-evaluate your priorities in life, it should. For better or worse we appear to be standing on the brink of some very significant worldwide paradigm shifts. Where you choose to put your mental energy right now should reflect this

Powerful people will work to advance authoritarian agendas which they have no intention of reversing during this pandemic. They are working on it right now. This is not a possibility, this is a certainty.

I love that so many people are pleading with the Trump administration to end Iran sanctions during the pandemic because it’s killing civilians, but it won’t work. They know it’s killing civilians, and they know it will kill a lot more. That has always been the objective. Pompeo has openly admitted that Iran is being sanctioned no so that its government will change its behavior, but so that the Iranian people will get so desperate from all the suffering and devastation that they rise up and overthrow their government.

Sanctions are the only form of warfare where it is considered legal and acceptable to deliberately target a civilian population with deadly force. That’s what they’ve been doing this whole time. It’s what they want. The pandemic only helps them.

Every single Iranian who is dying because of these sanctions is on Trump. The MAGA narrative that he’s better on war than Obama has been thoroughly invalidated by every metric.

Humanity is uniting against this common crisis. We’re uniting in our desire to beat this virus and protect our more vulnerable populations, and in a shared awareness that this thing could technically kill any of us. If ever there was a catalyst for a shift in consciousness, this is it.

We appear to be watching a confluence of factors on a trajectory to push the world toward vast changes which may leave it unrecognizable in some ways within a matter of months. Maybe we don’t need to pour as much mental energy as we used to into sectarian infighting and petty social media spats.

Nothing’s the same and it never will be again. **** seizing the means of production. Seize this moment. Take back everything they took from us and refuse to give it back.

Also seize the means of production because you can and why not.

Every time there’s a major mainstream narrative shift half my mentions are people going “Caitlin I’m so disappointed in you for saying something I disagree with. Normally I agree with you but now here you are not agreeing with me, like you’re an independent person or something.”

Imagine being such a bleating, brainwashed NPC cuck that you believe China is your enemy.

The nation that is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and engaging in countless undeclared military operations around the world is the belligerent rogue nation. Everyone else is, at worst, acting in self-defense in response to this belligerence.

Governments using force to dominate the planet put every human being on a trajectory toward extinction via nuclear armageddon, and should be vehemently opposed. One government is the worst offender in this area, by a very, very, very wide margin. And it ain’t China.

Every few weeks, depending on who the empire is targeting at a given moment, I swing from arguing with liberals about a nation liberals hate to arguing with conservatives about a nation conservatives hate, or vice versa. And they always think they’re different from the others.

“Caitlin I normally agree with you, but I don’t know what’s gotten into you supporting Evil Nation X like this!” they say, firmly believing that they’re doing something original and unique.

“This Official Bad Guy is different from all the others, Caitlin!” they say. “This one’s real!” It’s like listening to a serial loser-dater explain that her new boyfriend with the neck tattoo is actually a really great guy.

I oppose warmongering against Venezuela and China and they say it’s because I love communism.

I oppose warmongering against Iran and they say it’s because I love theocracy.

I oppose warmongering against Russia and Syria and they say it’s because I love autocracy.

Maybe I just oppose warmongering.

Rank-and-file Dems unwittingly consented to cold war escalations against Russia out of concern for election interference. Rank-and-file Republicans are now doing the same with China out of concern for a virus outbreak. But both escalations were pre-planned by government agencies.

The only reason people don’t worry about cold war escalations against China and Russia like they do about hot wars with non-nuclear powers is because we got lucky in the last cold war. But that’s all it was: sheer, dumb luck. No one was ever in control during that time. Not once.

Nobody likes to think about the fact that we came within a hair’s breadth of total annihilation on multiple occasions during the last cold war due to communication breakdowns and tech malfunctions. That can easily happen again, but without getting lucky. People have a tendency to believe they succeeded because they were in control and lost because they lost control, but nobody was ever in control. We survived by sheer, dumb luck.

With hot wars they take a few lives here, a few lives there. With cold war it’s an all-or-nothing dice roll that nothing goes wrong; no tech glitches, no miscommunications, even when things get very tense. And you roll those dice every single day. And with every escalation you add more dice.

All arguments the US government makes against any “regime” it dislikes are completely invalidated by its alliance with Saudi Arabia alone, to say nothing of all the other tyrannical governments it’s allied with.

If you find yourself thinking more thoughts about China’s authoritarian government than about the abusive authoritarian governments of US allies like Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, the Philippines etc, it’s because you’ve been propagandized to align you with US interests.

Establishment narrative managers aim their publications not at their followers but at other establishment narrative managers, seeking their approval. Alternative media should always do the opposite and address the people; too many also engage in upward-looking approval-seeking.

Everything’s been in a steadily accelerating pattern of unpatterning for a good while now, since well before the virus. There are people who think they’ll be able to shore up control through this thing, but you have no control in a tornado. Nature, which includes homo sapiens, wins out."

[onawah]

Pay People A Living Wage To Stay Home
MARCH 25, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/25/pay-people-a-living-wage-to-stay-home/

"Headline says it all, really. I’m not claiming to have all the answers, but this is one option we should all be talking about a lot in my opinion.

This whole debate about either (A) returning to normal and killing millions of people or (B) consenting to draconian authoritarian measures which may never be fully rolled back once the pandemic is over is a false dichotomy, since our governments have the option of simply giving everyone a paid holiday.

At a time of far less material abundance, governments all around the world managed to fund two years-long planetwide wars which killed tens of millions of human beings. When they say it’s impossible to pay people a living wage to stay home, they are lying. Instead of the citizenry funnelling their money toward the war machine, money can be funnelled away from the war machine and toward the citizenry for a few months.

Money is a made-up concept the rules of which are constantly bent for the benefit of plutocrats, imperialists and war profiteers. Bend it for the benefit of ordinary people instead. To the extent that we still want to pretend money is an actual thing with hard and fast rules, we can redistribute it away from the very wealthy and away from the obscene and unnecessary war machine.

ZF3fb5i9D6U

Governments are supposed to take care of their citizenry in situations like this. That is the primary argument for their continued existence. A government which cannot take good care of its citizenry at a time like this does not deserve to exist. If we’re going to consent to the existence of governments, at bare minimum we should be able to expect them to protect our quality of life as much as possible without consenting to full-blown authoritarianism.

Suspend as many bills for citizens as possible for a few months, and create millions of government jobs with the job description reading something like “Employee will stay inside place of residence during employment, with the following exceptions X, Y and Z.” Just like any other job one’s employment is not mandatory, but you’ve got to do what your job description says or you don’t get paid. Rather than consent to smartphone surveillance or carrying a monitor, compliance can simply be monitored by police; being found out risking infection after signing up for the job means you’ve violated the conditions of employment and lose a certain amount of pay. Not a fine, but docked pay from your employer.

Keep critical infrastructure jobs like hospital staff, farm staff, grocery store staff etc open during this time, and pay those employees extra, maybe their normal wage plus the living wage going to everyone else. Also add more jobs producing PPE and medical equipment and building houses. Anyone who wants to work at these jobs is free to do so, anyone who wants a free paid vacation is free to do so. No crushing authoritarianism, the important stuff stays operational, people catch up on their reading lists, and grandma gets to live.



Existential Comics
@existentialcoms
I know this is going to come as an absolute shock to the ruling class but rich people might have to lose some money during this particular moment in history.

4,281
6:07 PM - Mar 24, 2020
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This would be a good opportunity to redistribute wealth to create a more equitable world than the one where a plutocratic class can just buy up entire governments and media organizations, and to expose just how much abundance has been cut off from ordinary people while they scrape and slave to make ends meet. It would also be an opportunity for the working poor to get a paid vacation in places like America where such things often don’t otherwise happen.

Everyone needs a break anyway. The world is getting crazier and crazier and many people would benefit from a good long breather to get their psychological legs underneath them. We all need a nap.

This is totally doable, but instead we’re hearing groups like the Republican Party saying it would be better for a few million older Americans to die than for the economy to take a hit by people not showing up for work. Instead of playing the beggar and trying to negotiate a compromise with that insane position (“Maybe we can at least find a way for fewer people to die?”), citizens can demand an actual non-psychopathic solution to our dilemma that actually makes sense.

I don’t know everything and there are no perfect solutions to the mess that we have found ourselves in, but to me this looks like the best one that’s out there right now. My main goal is to start a conversation, so please contribute any extra ideas you can think of and if you don’t like what I’m suggesting please share what solution you would like to see. Let’s get our hive mind chewing on this.

_________________________________

Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics onTwitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge."

[onawah]

All The Craziest Things About America Are Being Highlighted By This Virus
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
MARCH 27, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03...by-this-virus/
Copied and pasted here: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?110280-COVID-19-Contrarians&p=1346425&viewfull=1#post1346425

[Dennis Leahy]

The US Is Using Germ Warfare On Sanctioned Nations



https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/medium-1.jpeg?fit=1200%2C677&ssl=1

“As billions hunker down to halt the spread of the virus, President Donald Trump has only ramped up sanctions and other pressure against frequent targets such as Iran and Venezuela,” reads a new article by AFP (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/world-hunkers-down-trump-moves-full-speed-against-160305188.html).

“Iranians say humanitarian imports have effectively been blocked as few foreign banks are willing to deal with Iran due to US sanctions, leading to shortages of vital supplies such as masks,” AFP adds. “Ali Vaez, an Iran expert at the International Crisis Group, which studies peaceful solutions to global problems, said the Trump administration likely believes that any aid would only throw a lifeline to a regime it sees on the brink of falling.”

“It’s almost like a bad joke. What’s worse than a pandemic appearing in a country where there is no government? That is really the last thing that you want,” the Quincy Institute’s Max Abrahms told AFP. “We need to rethink our understanding of US national security. It seems particularly absurd for the United States to invest so heavily in remaking foreign countries at a time when our own nurses in New York City are literally wearing trash bags.”
Me: "We need to rethink our understanding of US national security. It seems particularly absurd for the United States to invest so heavily in remaking foreign countries at a time when our own nurses in New York City are literally wearing trash bags." https://t.co/fOtxsMuY9M
— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) March 27, 2020 (https://twitter.com/MaxAbrahms/status/1243630093148327944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Indeed, in some very important ways the US government has clearly seen the coronavirus outbreak not as a dangerous humanitarian crisis, but as a strategic advantage to be weaponized against governments which refuse to bow to its empire-building agendas.

Weaponizing a virus is the thing that biological warfare is. The US government might not have deliberately released the virus (also not a settled question (https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/china-locked-in-hybrid-war-with-us/)), but they are using the virus as a weapon aimed at toppling vulnerable targeted governments.
The use of biological warfare, or germ warfare, is prohibited by international law (https://books.google.com.au/books?id=boWuDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1317&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false), though in typical fashion the US is skirting the parameters of those laws in this case by weaponizing a virus that was already spreading. Which is not to say that the US is above deliberately infecting a population using biological weaponry as well; they used them extensively during the Korean War (https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/the-long-suppressed-korean-war-report-on-u-s-use-of-biological-weapons-released-at-last-20d83f5cee54).

Thousands of Iranians (https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/covid-19-rages-slaps-sanctions-iranian-individuals-200326145240630.html) have already died of this virus due to the difficulties US sanctions create in obtaining medicine, equipment and resources, and it’s possible that orders of magnitude more dead may follow (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/coronavirus-pandemic-kill-millions-iran-200317135500255.html). This is not accidental, this is deliberate. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has gone on record (http://archive.is/P19nn#selection-639.0-647.166) to say that the objective is to make Iranian civilians so miserable and desperate that they overthrow their own government, and it is clear that this virus is being employed toward this purpose.

This same imperial war machine is actively attempting to inflict this same fate upon Venezuela, where tens of thousands have already died (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/trump-has-murdered-over-40-000-venezuelans-with-sanctions-6eb3e7f0eb7f) of malnutrition and inability to access medicine because of the Trump administration’s brutal economic warfare. The DC-based International Monetary Fund has denied Venezuela a loan (https://twitter.com/APjoshgoodman/status/1240109512692039680?s=20) it says it needs to fight the pandemic citing dispute over the legitimacy of the Maduro government, a dispute the US itself created (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/02/23/anyone-buying-this-venezuela-bull****-is-a-complete-****ing-moron/) out of thin air and narrative spin (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/30/if-the-agenda-to-oust-maduro-was-honest-instead-of-dishonest/). On top of all this the Trump administration is now offering a $15 million bribe to anyone who will help them arrest Maduro on ridiculous drug trafficking and terrorism charges (https://thegrayzone.com/2020/03/27/trump-bounty-maduro-guaido-plot/).

Who would benefit from a disease-ravaged nation not having a government? Certainly not the Venezuelan people.
Assange denied bail in UK amid pandemichttps://t.co/IrmmzU8IFU
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 25, 2020 (https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1242849839211319299?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
We’re seeing the same germ warfare inflicted upon targeted individuals as well as governments, with Julian Assange denied bail (https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1242849839211319299?s=20) as the virus spreads through UK prison systems despite doctors’ warnings (https://doctorsassange.org/doctors4assange-statement-on-assange-bail-hearing-over-coronavirus-risk/) of his vulnerability to death from an infection due to chronic lung disease.

We may be absolutely certain that at least a few people in at least a few government agencies have voiced the observation that Covid-19 may finally solve their Assange problem once and for all. And of course those observations would be a perfectly accurate appraisal of the situation. Psychopathic, but accurate.

For all the outraged shrieking the US government does about disobedient nations like Syria allegedly using chemical weapons, it has certainly shown no hesitation in employing biological warfare today. Those dead Iranians are just as dead as the Syrian civilians who according to the US government’s plot hole-riddled claims (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/the-12-strongest-arguments-that-douma-was-a-false-flag-77d300b495c2) were killed by chemical weapons dropped by the Assad government, and they are dying on a much larger scale. They are dying of a virus that is being used as a weapon to topple a government which dared to disobey the dictates of Washington and its covert controllers, which means they are dying of germ warfare.

Everything the US empire accuses unabsorbed governments of doing, the US empire does worse. That’s the true meaning of American exceptionalism.
_______________________________

[onawah]

US Escalates Warmongering Against Venezuela Because Of… Drug Trafficking?
APRIL 2, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/04/02/us-escalates-warmongering-against-venezuela-because-of-drug-trafficking/

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/medium.png?w=1080&ssl=1

"The Trump administration is sending Navy ships to patrol Venezuela, the latest escalation against the government targeted by an aggressive hybrid US regime change intervention.All of this, of course, is bull****. The US government does not care about “the Venezuelan people” (a term only ever invoked to advance pro-regime change narratives); if they did they wouldn’t be murdering them by the tens of thousands using starvation sanctions and targeting them with backdoor biowarfare by cutting off their ability to protect themselves from a deadly pandemic.

The US government is also not interested in “drug traffickers”. As journalist Ben Norton notes, “Even the US government’s own data admit the vast, vast, vast majority of drugs (mostly cocaine) coming from Latin America come from Colombia — a right-wing US colony.”

“70% of the coca (used to create cocaine) grown in the whole world came from Colombia in 2017 according to the UN,” Norton adds. “Right-wing US colony Colombia is the CIA’s favorite drug dealer, used to fund death squads and Contra terrorist wars to overthrow leftist governments.”

As Venezuela Analysis rightly points out, in 2009 George W Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to then-president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who was previously listed by US intelligence as one of Colombia’s leading narco-traffickers.

So no, the US government does not care about drug trafficking, and it does not care about the Venezuelan people. What the US government cares about is securing control over the largest proven oil reserve on planet Earth, which is located beneath Venezuelan soil.

“President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Navy ships are being moved toward Venezuela as his administration beefs up counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean following a U.S. drug indictment against Nicolás Maduro,” AP reports in an article packed with pro-US disinformation.

“As governments and nations focus on the coronavirus there is a growing threat that cartels, criminals, terrorists and other malign actors will try to exploit the situation for their own gain,” said Trump. “We must not let that happen.”

“The Venezuelan people continue to suffer tremendously due to Maduro and his criminal control over the country, and drug traffickers are seizing on this lawlessness,” added Defense Secretary Mark Esper.


venezuelanalysis.com
@venanalysis
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1243737836236484609/FzNthoAr?format=jpg&name=600x314
AP Sources: US to deploy anti-drug ships near Venezuela
MIAMI (AP) — The Trump administration will soon announce that the U.S. is moving naval ships toward Venezuela as it enhances counter-narcotic operations in the Caribbean following a U.S. drug...
apnews.com
230
4:11 PM - Apr 1, 2020

All of this, of course, is bull****. The US government does not care about “the Venezuelan people” (a term only ever invoked to advance pro-regime change narratives); if they did they wouldn’t be murdering them by the tens of thousands using starvation sanctions and targeting them with backdoor biowarfare by cutting off their ability to protect themselves from a deadly pandemic.

The US government is also not interested in “drug traffickers”. As journalist Ben Norton notes, “Even the US government’s own data admit the vast, vast, vast majority of drugs (mostly cocaine) coming from Latin America come from Colombia — a right-wing US colony.”

“70% of the coca (used to create cocaine) grown in the whole world came from Colombia in 2017 according to the UN,” Norton adds. “Right-wing US colony Colombia is the CIA’s favorite drug dealer, used to fund death squads and Contra terrorist wars to overthrow leftist governments.”

As Venezuela Analysis rightly points out, in 2009 George W Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to then-president of Colombia Álvaro Uribe Vélez, who was previously listed by US intelligence as one of Colombia’s leading narco-traffickers.

So no, the US government does not care about drug trafficking, and it does not care about the Venezuelan people. What the US government cares about is securing control over the largest proven oil reserve on planet Earth, which is located beneath Venezuelan soil.


Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
"Yeah we're super interested in getting rid of Maduro because his country's got so much... uhhh... drug trafficking."

View image on Twitter
487
6:08 PM - Apr 1, 2020
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It’s so precious how the US empire pretends that its transparent resource control agendas are about protecting human interests. It reminds me of the excuses the guys make when they get busted on To Catch A Predator: “No, Chris Hansen, honest! I just drove 300 miles because I wanted to give the 13 year-old girl a talking to about the dangers of flirting with strangers online.” No you didn’t America, you drove 300 miles because you wanted to steal that little girl’s oil reserves you pervert.

The Trump administration has already admitted that its sole interest is in toppling the Venezuelan government with its ridiculous offer https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52111805
... to cease murdering civilians via economic warfare if Maduro leaves office; adding a bunch of unrelated gibberish about narco-trafficking on top of this does nothing to obfuscate this. Warships have been sent to Venezuela because the Trump administration is waging a deadly war upon Venezuelans and that’s what you do during a war. These continued escalations are directed at nothing other than shoring up more power and control for the globe-spanning US-centralized empire, which works tirelessly to dominate the world by dominating its resources.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t remember voting for a paradigm where powerful governments pour the lion’s share of riches into sabotaging, toppling and destroying nations which don’t bow before their demands. This dynamic exists without the consent of ordinary human beings, and it brings nothing but harm to ordinary human beings. It harms human beings abroad with overt and covert applications of deadly force, and it harms human beings at home by robbing them of riches and resources for agendas which benefit them in no way, shape or form.


Ken Klippenstein
✔
@kenklippenstein
In 2017 the military identified a novel influenza disease as "the most likely and significant threat" which it anticipated would lead to a shortage of ventilators, face masks and hospital beds, per Pentagon document leaked to me.

They knew.https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/covid-military-shortage-pandemic/ …

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

All these Venezuela shenanigans are occurring as revelations emerge that the Pentagon had predicted the exact sort of disruptions a deadly coronavirus pandemic would cause way back in 2017. The Nation‘s Ken Klippenstein shows that the Department of Defense had warned that unless changes were made an outbreak of a novel virus would see a shortage of “ventilators, devices, personal protective equipment such as face masks and gloves”, which “will have a significant impact on the availability of the global workforce.”

Hey America? If your Department of “Defense” is not being used to defend the American citizenry from the deadly threats it perceives, but is being used to patrol the shores of an oil-rich nation that has nothing to do with you, then maybe that department needs a new name. And maybe you need a new kind of government. Just a thought."

[onawah]

Prepare To Have Your Worldview Obliterated
APRIL 7, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/04/07/prepare-to-have-your-worldview-obliterated/#comment-31261
https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/medium-3.jpg?w=1024&ssl=1

"The first draft of the civil rights-eroding USA PATRIOT Act was magically introduced one week after the 9/11 attacks. Legislators later admitted that they hadn’t even had time to read through the hundreds of pages of the history-shaping bill before passing it the next month, yet somehow its authors were able to gather all the necessary information and write the whole entire thing in a week.

This was because most of the work had already been done. CNET reported the following back in 2008:

“Months before the Oklahoma City bombing took place, [then-Senator Joe] Biden introduced another bill called the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995. It previewed the 2001 Patriot Act by allowing secret evidence to be used in prosecutions, expanding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and wiretap laws, creating a new federal crime of ‘terrorism’ that could be invoked based on political beliefs, permitting the U.S. military to be used in civilian law enforcement, and allowing permanent detention of non-U.S. citizens without judicial review. The Center for National Security Studies said the bill would erode ‘constitutional and statutory due process protections’ and would ‘authorize the Justice Department to pick and choose crimes to investigate and prosecute based on political beliefs and associations.’

Biden’s bill was never put to a vote, but after 9/11 then-Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly credited his bill with the foundations of the USA PATRIOT Act.

“Civil libertarians were opposed to it,” Biden said in 2002 of his bill. “Right after 1994, and you can ask the attorney general this, because I got a call when he introduced the Patriot Act. He said, ‘Joe, I’m introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.'”

I point this out because it is now more important than ever to be aware that power structures (and their goons like Biden) can and will seize on opportunities to roll out pre-existing authoritarian agendas. We know it happened after 9/11, and we may be absolutely certain that it is happening now.


Good thread compiling the many, many authoritarian measures which governments around the world have implemented and are preparing to implement to deal with the virus. https://twitter.com/consent_factory/status/1238971734063226881 https://t.co/cZ3KnMzdPp

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) April 1, 2020

Commentator and satirist CJ Hopkins has a long, long, long, long ongoing thread https://twitter.com/consent_factory/status/1238971734063226881
...on Twitter right now compiling dozens and dozens of creepy Orwellian steps that have been taken by governments around the world and by Silicon Valley tech giants in response to the virus over the last three weeks. I emphasize how long the thread is because if you think you’ve finished scrolling through it you probably haven’t; make sure you keep clicking “more replies” until you get to the current entries.

I strongly encourage everyone to scroll through the thread when you get a chance to get a sense of the scale and scope of the drastic measures that are being implemented around the world, and maybe bookmark it and keep checking back now and then for updates. The entire thread is comprised of mainstream media articles with excerpts; some entries are more jarring than others, but taken as a whole it becomes clear that we’re looking at a whole lot of power being handed over to the kinds of institutions which historically don’t do good things when given a lot more power.

And these are just the steps we know about.

To what extent are these drastic, intrusive, authoritarian measures justified? The answer, in my estimation, isn’t clear yet. There are too many unknowns about the virus, too many unknowns about the responses to it, and too many unknowns about exactly what is going on behind the veil of secrecy in opaque government agencies around the world. There’s an argument expert epidemiologists are making that there’s no time to get perfectly certain of these things before dealing with a pandemic, that speed is of the essence and hesitating due to fear of maybe getting something wrong can cost millions of lives. https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1238504143104421888 Maybe that’s true; I’m not an epidemiologist and I do not know.

What I do know is that enormous changes are happening, and that powerful people are definitely conspiring to advance their own interests as this unfolds. There are many theories about who specifically is conspiring with whom and the specific manner in which they are doing so, and they’re being dismissed by establishment loyalists as “conspiracy theories” as though that in and of itself constitutes some sort of argument. That conspiracies are happening is actually just a fact that is obvious to any adult with a mature understanding of the world, and it can be useful to come up with theories about how that might be occurring; calling theories about conspiracies the thing that they are in a disparaging tone does not actually invalidate them.
oJFasQSkCME
There are a ton of theories about what’s going on behind the scenes with this pandemic and the policies that are being put in place to respond to it. Some are smart and relatively well-founded, some are stupid and rooted in generalized paranoia or partisan idiocy, many contradict each other, and many could potentially fit together in some way. I personally haven’t seen enough evidence for any one theory to throw my weight behind it, but I am watching carefully, and I am glad that the hive mind is chewing on this riddle.

One thing I will put my weight behind right now is the prediction that those of us who are dedicated to truth are going to have to drastically revise our worldviews in the coming months. There are such large-scale shifts happening in such an unclear information environment that the only thing we should expect is the unexpected; this virus is shaking things up (and being used to shake things up) in ways we don’t really understand yet, and even before the virus the world’s dominant power structures were acting very weird. This means our ideas about what’s going on in the world will likely have to undergo some revising in the relatively near future; the bigger the revelations, the more revision will be necessary.

Right now that’s the primary piece of advice I have to offer: stay skeptical, stay intellectually honest, and keep your perspectives malleable. If we are more interested in the truth than we are in being proven right or in feeling smug, then we are likely on a collision course with future revelations that will change our ideas about how the world is functioning in some pretty significant ways. If this doesn’t sound possible to you, it’s only because you currently lack the humility, intellectual honesty and cognitive flexibility to understand that you may not be seeing the full picture yet.

Things are shifting; all we can do is keep our minds agile enough to shift with them. Prepare to have your worldview obliterated."

[onawah]

Ellen DeGeneres is hydraulic fracking with a face
Caitlin Johnson
4/21/20
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/04/21/ellen-degeneres-is-hydraulic-fracking-with-a-face/
:lol:
https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Screen-Shot-2020-04-21-at-10.11.32-PM.jpg?w=996&ssl=1
"Ellen DeGeneres is hydraulic fracking with a face.
She's like if Walmart union busting was a person.
She's like if Amazon and Disney had a baby
and raised it on a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier
on a steady diet of digital surveillance and NAFTA desolation.

Most people have birds behind their eyes.
Some have owls, some have flamingos,
some have crows,
I have lorikeets.
But most have birds.
Not Ellen DeGeneres, though.
Behind Ellen's eyes, there are fentanyl patches
and eviction notices.
I swear to you I saw them once
during a particularly labored monologue
when she clearly didn't want to be there
and had probably thrown a plate of cheese fries
at the makeup lady minutes before.

Did you know Ellen stopped dancing during her shows?
She says she never liked it.
I believe her.
The whole universe believes her.
Ellen DeGeneres is the opposite of dancing.
Ellen DeGeneres is the Australian coal lobby.

Ellen only enjoys dancing
when she dances with George W Bush,
which she does constantly
for all eternity
in the center of every tear
that falls from the eyes
of Gaia.

There is a sacred, primordial spark within all of us.
It rejoices.
It delights.
It dances.
It is the exact opposite of Ellen DeGeneres.
May the whole world be the opposite of Ellen DeGeneres.
May the whole world dance.
May the whole world delight.
May the whole world de-Ellen,
and may Portia do the same
(come on girl you know you gotta get outta there).

Amen."

[onawah]

We could nickname her Ellen Degenerate or Ellen Disingenuous. Such a tool!

[onawah]

Five Things That Are Revealed By Democrats’ Rehabilitation Of Bush
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
MAY 4, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/05/04/five-things-that-are-revealed-by-democrats-rehabilitation-of-bush/
https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/medium-3.jpg?w=1080&ssl=1

"George W Bush is in the news again today, and once again it’s not for the only legitimate reason that he should ever be in the news, namely a war crimes tribunal. No, it’s because his voice was used in a cutesy feel-good video about unity during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Let us remember how small our differences are in the face of this shared threat,” Bush is heard saying. “We are not partisan combatants. We are human beings, equally vulnerable and equally wonderful in the sight of God.”

And, needless to say, Democrats are all over social media orgasming in their pants about it.

“This video made me ugly cry,” tweeted actress-turned-McResistance pundit Alyssa Milano.

“A REAL president,” tweeted the other Alyssa Milano, Debra Messing.

“In a million years I never thought I’d be crying watching this, thinking how much better we’d all feel if Bush were president today,” tweeted former Democratic congresswoman Katie Hill to thunderous online applause.

The Intercept‘s Mehdi Hasan spent all day on Twitter defending his position that Dubya is superior to Trump, at one point even arguing “You can be a sane warmonger. You can be a warmonger but be an ok human being to your friends and family. You can be a warmonger and be able to handle a domestic public health crisis.”

In a million years I never thought I’d be crying watching this, thinking how much better we’d all feel if Bush were president today. Wtf. https://t.co/SSR3ieZEFP

— Katie Hill (@KatieHill4CA) May 2, 2020

For years rank-and-file Democrats have been giving the true Butcher of Baghdad a majority approval rating, running with the common narrative that while Bush perhaps made some “mistakes”, Trump is spectacularly worse. Here are five things that are highlighted by that common perspective:

1. It shows how little Democrats care about the lives of human beings overseas.
By the end of his first term Bush had launched two full-scale ground invasions, murdered a million Iraqis, destabilized an entire region in a way that would shortly give rise to ISIS, and ushered in a whole new level of unprecedented US military expansionism and imperialism. Trump has done none of these things. He has inflicted many evils upon our world and, like Obama, has continued and expanded the warmongering of his predecessors. But he has done nothing that rises to the level of depravity of Bush’s wars.

The fact that Democrats see Trump’s evils as not only equal to but far in excess of Bush’s reveals as plain as day that, for all their supposed bleeding heart liberal sensibilities, they simply do not place much value on the lives of foreigners. Sure they might enjoy a little masturbatory melodrama over kids in cages when it shows up on their doorstep, but kids getting ripped to shreds by cluster bombs and being born severely disabled from depleted uranium munitions simply does not register for them, because they don’t have to look at it.

They do not care. Rude tweets and racism are worse than institutionalized mass murder for them, because they have to look at one but not the other.

2. It shows that Trump-era Democrats are Bush-era Republicans.
The problem is that Bush and Cheney’s operatives, speechwriters, policy advisers, propagandistas and top aides are the close friends and colleagues of media liberals and DC Democrats and their beloved pundits, so they have to whitewash Bush’s evil to justify themselves: https://t.co/Z1C3CB7JQn

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 3, 2020

“Dems have no choice but to rehabilitate George Bush because their core narrative is the US was a fundamentally good and decent land before Trump vandalized it,” journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted in response to Democrats’ fawning over Bush, adding, “How do you join with Bill Kristol, Nicole Wallace, Rick Wilson, David Frum and the CIA without whitewashing Bush’s crimes?”

Indeed, Bush-era neocons have been able to fully ingratiate themselves to and integrate themselves with Democrats in the age of Trump by posing as moral opposition longing for a more civilized time when presidents would politely butcher humans by the hundreds of thousands without using offensive language like “**** hole”. A gentlemanly time for gentlemanly presidents to unfold gentlemanly Orwellian surveillance measures all around the world without posting rude tweets about celebrities they don’t like.

Trump-era Democrats are Bush-era Republicans. That’s how far to the authoritarian right the party has moved in the last few years on important matters like foreign policy. You can see this by the shrieking, hysterical response they had to Tulsi Gabbard calling for what more or less amounted to a simple reversion back to pre-9/11 US foreign policy. It has been necessary for Democrats to gaslight themselves into this position because for three presidential campaigns in a row–Obama 2012, Clinton 2016, and now Biden 2020–they’ve had to find ways of convincing themselves that a politician who has facilitated Bush’s foreign policy agendas would make a good commander-in-chief.

3. It shows how the amnesia-inducing effects of the mass media news churn make it difficult to retain perspective.
The News Churn Memory Hole: How The MSM Lies Even When Telling The Truth

"It’s not enough to simply expose the truth. You must also fully, repeatedly and consistently expose the ones who are telling lies."https://t.co/OSW6eFQVAn

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) December 18, 2019

Mass media propagandists are able to distort perception even while telling the truth using the news churn memory hole. Even when forced to report on uncomfortable truths like not finding any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or the fact that the occupation of Afghanistan has been justified by an entire generation of lies, the memory of that reporting can be made to fade into the background by frantically reporting on what’s happening right now without referring back to the previous revelations.

Russiagate alone did so much to distort people’s perceptions in mainstream liberal circles. Having the baseless narrative breathlessly promoted year after year after year that the Kremlin had literally seized control of the highest levels of the US government left rank-and-file Democrats who subscribed to it without any sense of scale or proportion, because they were constantly being told that the Most Important Thing Ever was about to happen. How can you hold perspective on a million dead Iraqis when you’re being told day after day, year after year in myriad ways that Russian Hitler was controlling your country but Super Mueller is going to swoop in to the rescue any minute now? It would be very difficult.

4. It shows the glaring difference between fact and narrative.
Most of the mass media reporting on Trump has been factual, it’s just had a ton of narrative spin attached to the facts. It is a fact that Trump frequently says and does dumb, obnoxious and horrible things. It is a fact that many racists think he’s the cat’s pajamas. It is a fact that there was an impeachment and a collusion investigation. But the narrative overlay that has been heaped upon those facts while they’re being reported–the urgency, the alarmism, the hyperbole–leaves viewers with the distinct impression that this US president is awful in a way that is unique and historically unprecedented, and he simply isn’t.

Trump is not worse than Bush, the mass media just yell about him a lot more. If the narratives matched the facts, mass media consumers would be aware that nothing Trump has done is as evil as Bush’s invasion of Iraq alone. In reality Trump didn’t wind up being another Hitler, he wound up being another Obama (not a compliment). And if the narrative spin matched the factual reality, people would understand that.

liberals have the baffling ability to simultaneously believe both that George W. Bush was a good president whom they love and miss dearly AND that Ralph Nader is a piece of **** who's going to burn in hell for supposedly getting George W. Bush elected

— i bless the rains down in castamere (@Chinchillazllla) May 3, 2020

5. It shows that this simply is not working.
Imagine you’re out in the woods with a friend you trust in the dark. You know there’s a horrible monster out there stalking you, and suddenly you hear it in the distance coming crashing towards you. It has picked up your scent and it will be upon you in moments.

You turn to run, but your friend grabs you and won’t let you move. He falls to the ground grabbing your legs screaming “No! No! We must stay here! We mustn’t move an inch!”

Who do you need to fight first? The monster? Or your “friend”?

That’s why I focus so much of my criticism on the Democratic Party instead of the Republicans. Ultimately they’re the party which could actually allow for positive changes to be made to the world, but instead they keep moving further and further into the warmongering totalitarianism they once purported to despise in George W Bush.

Relying on either head of the two-headed one-party system to make meaningful changes simply is not working, and will not ever work. No institution that would so warmly rehabilitate and welcome a bloodthirsty monster like Bush is going to help humanity one iota. In fact, its sole purpose is to do the exact opposite."

[onawah]

The Most Revealing Footage On Police Brutality Is These Cops Applauding Its Perpetrators
See: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?1383-The-Continuing-Search-For-The-Truth&p=1359885&viewfull=1#post1359885

IMPORTANT UPDATE: A very different story when you take a closer look. A friend just sent me the following:
"The old guy the cops shoved (after he pushed into their line and made physical contact) is a 'professional protestor' .
Here is his YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/MartinGugino
His blogger profile = https://www.blogger.com/profile/12535061710557436016

He was trying to jam the officer's phone location data. That's why he's flailing his phone around the officer's belt.

Here's his website where he brags about being arrested for protesting and never convicted:

https://archive.is/4IlFv

He is a paid provocateur.

The crowd was told to disperse (clear on the video). On command the police move forward, attempting to clear the street and sidewalks of people violating curfew. Gugino, against police orders, advanced upon the officers, steps right in front of one, and places his hands on the second one. He could have been arrested and charged with assault.

Watch his fall. He sticks his butt out to take the fall and he hits the ground sitting straight up. There's no way he hit his head hard from that angle. I've taken the same fall myself many times, and always gotten up afterward with no problems.

And if you download the high res video and zoom in while paused, you can see that he's got some kind of blood pack in his ear (looks like a dark brown blob). Note that these pix clearly show that his ears are not naturally that dark!

And when he goes down, there's an instant pool of blood almost as soon as he hits the ground (about 1.5 seconds after he falls on his butt). After 4 seconds there's a way larger pool of blood than your get in that amount of time from a normal concussion (which he wouldn't have gotten anyway from that fall).: The old guy the cops shoved (after he pushed into their line and made physical contact) is a 'professional protestor' . Here is his YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/MartinGugino
His blogger profile = https://www.blogger.com/profile/12535061710557436016

He was trying to jam the officer's phone location data. That's why he's flailing his phone around the officer's belt.

Here's his website where he brags about being arrested for protesting and never convicted:

https://archive.is/4IlFv

He is a paid provocateur.

The crowd was told to disperse (clear on the video). On command the police move forward, attempting to clear the street and sidewalks of people violating curfew. Gugino, against police orders, advanced upon the officers, steps right in front of one, and places his hands on the second one. He could have been arrested and charged with assault.

Watch his fall. He sticks his butt out to take the fall and he hits the ground sitting straight up. There's no way he hit his head hard from that angle. I've taken the same fall myself many times, and always gotten up afterward with no problems.

And if you download the high res video and zoom in while paused, you can see that he's got some kind of blood pack in his ear (looks like a dark brown blob). Note that these pix clearly show that his ears are not naturally that dark!

And when he goes down, there's an instant pool of blood almost as soon as he hits the ground (about 1.5 seconds after he falls on his butt). After 4 seconds there's a way larger pool of blood than your get in that amount of time from a normal concussion (which he wouldn't have gotten anyway from that fall)."

[onawah]

So It Turns Out ‘Overpopulation’ Was Always A Stupid Patriarchal Myth
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
JULY 19, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/07/19/so-it-turns-out-overpopulation-was-always-a-stupid-patriarchal-myth/

"A new study published in the Lancet confirms what people like myself have been saying over and over again for years: that the human population is unlikely to get much bigger than it is right now, and will in fact begin declining in the latter half of this century as more and more women obtain money, education, and reproductive sovereignty.

“It has nothing to do with sperm counts or the usual things that come to mind when discussing fertility,” BBC News explains. “Instead it is being driven by more women in education and work, as well as greater access to contraception, leading to women choosing to have fewer children.”

The mass media have been discussing these findings with shock and alarm, because such information is likely to be new and surprising to anyone who has never gone through the all-consuming herculean effort of motherhood. To anyone who has, the idea that most women would choose to have two or fewer children if given the resources, information and freedom to do so is just self-evident common sense.


BBC Science News
@BBCScienceNews
Fertility rate: 'Jaw-dropping' global crash in children being bornhttps://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1283184303497785344/tSlEJhTG?format=jpg&name=smallB=V=Nearly every country will see their populations fall as people have fewer babies. bbc.com
For decades, the absurd belief that the world population will keep exploding until we either choke the planet to death with tens of billions of humans or figure out how to send people off to live in space has been promoted everywhere from the mass media to Hollywood to oligarchs just saying it themselves. Preventing overpopulation was the driving motivator behind Thanos, the ultimate supervillain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe who featured in Avengers: Endgame, the highest-grossing film of all time. It has also been the foremost stated concern of plutocrats like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos, the latter of whom revealed last year that his grand vision for humanity is to send most of the world population off planet and have a trillion human beings living in giant rotating space cylinders.

And, like so much else in our crazy world, this delusion is ultimately due to the male supremacism which has been interwoven throughout the fabric of our society’s development since the dawn of civilization. Because women have been excluded from the design of our society until only the most recent few generations, there is a built-in assumption underlying much of our thought that men are just going to keep shooting sperm into women and women are going to keep shooting out babies for as long as there are humans.

It would never occur to someone who has thrived in such a pervasively patriarchal society like Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos that women will not always exist as breeding livestock, and would instead at some point begin putting themselves and their interests first. Someone like Bezos just naturally assumes “Well obviously we’re going to keep blowing our loads in these bitches and they’re going to keep getting knocked up, so the only possible solution is to have all those trillions of babies living offworld in giant rotating Amazon Space Phalluses.”

zerohedge
@zerohedge
Bezos Reveals His Ugly Vision For The World He's Trying To Rulehttps://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1283786455068942338/oIg_yIBz?format=png&name=small
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-12/bezos-reveals-his-ugly-vision-world-hes-trying-rule

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/medium-11.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/medium-12.jpg?w=800&ssl=1

Look at those things. He honestly expects people to reproduce on those. If given the choice I don’t even really feel safe enough to have a baby if I’m living in an apartment, let alone floating through the vacuum of space in a giant dildo surrounded by an infinite yawning abyss of instant death.

Billionaires, as we discussed recently, are not smart. They certainly should not be in charge of the future of our species.

Now that another major plot hole has been punched in the establishment myth that brown-skinned babies in impoverished nations are going to ruin the world, establishment voices are taking this opportunity to yell and scream in the other direction, claiming population decline is a dangerous emergency.

“Declining rates of working-age populations could lead to a dramatic shift in the size of economies, the research says, with China set to replace the U.S. with the world’s largest gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035,” warns CNBC.

Oh no! But unipolar US world domination has been working out so great for all of us!

“Who pays tax in a massively aged world? Who pays for healthcare for the elderly? Who looks after the elderly? Will people still be able to retire from work?” asks BBC News.

You mean humanity’s future is going to require a system where we’re not all competing with each other to win a stupid made-up game of who can get the most imaginary numbers in their bank account by selling the most useless junk for us to throw in the ocean? That we’re going to have to create a system where more of us stay home from our gear-turning cubicles and we actually collaborate and take care of needful people instead? Sounds… obvious.

“Population collapse is second biggest danger to civilization after AI,” tweeted billionaire Elon Musk, adding, “Mars needs people!”

What the hell is it with these idiotic tech plutocrats always babbling about flinging everyone into space? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that any arguments against continuing the unsustainable rapacious ecocide and consumerism which makes the billionaire class possible can be spun as irrelevant if we pretend we can just move to space after we destroy our home world.


http://Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
The main thing billionaires get out of having a space program is a narrative management op which helps market their insane economic doctrine of infinite growth on a finite planet. It doesn't matter what the billionaire class does to our home because we can all just move to space.
5:54 PM · Jul 6, 2020

Of course we are still going to need to find a way of collaborating with our ecosystem in a much healthier way than we are now, even if the global population doesn’t get a whole lot bigger. The new study predicts that our population will peak at 9.7 billion around 2064 and then begin falling back down to 8.8 billion by the end of the century, which we simply cannot sustain under our current way of operating.

One way we can get the population to fall a whole lot faster is by removing all societal expectations from women that they be career girls and mothers at the same time. If we as a society collectively stop subscribing to the ridiculous power-serving notion that it’s possible to be a good mother and obtain all of one’s life ambitions and career goals in the same lifetime, far fewer women will opt for motherhood and will pursue their own interests instead.

This would mean treating motherhood as its own career, with an ample wage and benefits provided by the collective. We’ve already established that we’re going to need a lot more caregivers staying at home for the aging population, so we way as well prepare to compensate the caregivers of the young as well. Producing physically and psychologically healthy members of society is the most important job there is, and women shouldn’t have to depend on the charity of a man to be compensated for it.

In any case, we’re going to have to find a much better way of collaborating with each other and with our ecosystem than we are now. As long as we’re being propagandized into consenting to the perpetuation of the status quo it won’t matter if the population peaks at a few billion, we’ll still likely meet our end via climate collapse or nuclear war. It is clear that big changes are going to be needed in the new world that’s to come, so we’d better find a way to force those changes to happen."

[onawah]

Narrative Is Crumbling
JULY 26, 2020
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/07/26/narrative-is-crumbling/
https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/medium-6-1.jpg?w=720&ssl=1

"It’s difficult to understand what’s going on in the world.

It’s difficult to understand what’s going on in the world because powerful people actively manipulate public understanding of what’s going on in the world.

Powerful people actively manipulate public understanding of what’s going on in the world because if the public understood what’s going on in the world, they would rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful.

The public would rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful if they understood what’s going on in their world because then they would understand that the powerful have been exploiting, oppressing, robbing, cheating and deceiving them while destroying the ecosystem, stockpiling weapons of armageddon and waging endless wars, for no other reason than so that they can maintain and expand their power.

The public do not rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful because they have been successfully manipulated into not wanting to.

Narrative is crumbling.
The public have been successfully manipulated into not wanting to rise up and use their strength of numbers to overthrow the powerful due to the way the powerful have been able to shore up mainstream narrative control in the form of purchasing mass media outlets, funding think tanks, buying politicians, implementing government opacity, pushing internet censorship, and other forms of perception management.

The powerful use their control over mainstream narratives to ensure that enough members of the public believe they live in a free democracy where things aren’t perfect but it’s the best you could ask for, instead of in a corporatist oligarchy wherein the powerful exploit, oppress, rob, cheat and deceive them while destroying the ecosystem, stockpiling weapons of armageddon and waging endless wars.

As long as the powerful are able to exert control over mainstream narratives, there will never be enough members of the public willing to use their strength of numbers to shake off the powerful and create a healthy society.

The powerful will remain capable of exerting control over mainstream narratives for as long as the public maintains its current unhealthy relationship with mental narrative.

Narrative is crumbling.
A collective shift into a healthy relationship with mental narrative would mean thought becomes the useful tool we evolved it to be rather than this noisy, compulsive head-chatter which dominates our lives where we are driven by fear and attachment to imbue an endless string of mental stories with the power of belief.

If we had a healthy relationship with mental narrative we would naturally view stories about what’s going on in the world far more objectively, because rather than glomming onto them out of fear and attachment we would have psychological space enough to look at them and critically examine whether or not they are useful tools for us to use in the present moment.

If humanity collectively made such a transition on a mass scale–a transition which sages across the millennia assure us humans are fully capable of–then humanity would become impossible to propagandize effectively.

If humanity becomes impossible to propagandize effectively, the lies will be impossible to conceal via mainstream narrative control, and humanity using the strength of its numbers to create a healthy society will become an inevitability.

And the funny thing is, in a weird way from way out of left field that nobody could possibly have anticipated, humanity’s current relationship with mental narrative appears to be drawing to a close.

Narrative is crumbling.
The narratives are breaking down.

People’s old ways of understanding what’s going on in the world just aren’t holding together anymore.

Trust in the mass media is at an all-time low, and it’s only getting lower.

People are more aware than ever that anything they see can be propaganda or disinformation.

Deepfake technology will soon be so advanced and so accessible that nobody will even trust video anymore.

The leader of the most powerful country on earth speaks in a way that has no real relationship with facts or reality in any way, and people have just learned to roll with it.

Ordinary people are hurting financially but Wall Street is booming, a glaring plot hole in the story of the economy that’s only getting more pronounced.

The entire media class will now spend years leading the public on a wild goose chase for Russian collusion and then act like it’s no big deal when the whole thing turned out to be completely baseless.

There’s a virus causing a massive disturbance in the entirety of human civilization with two wildly different narratives about it running simultaneously, and both sides are 100 percent convinced that all the facts have fully vindicated their position.

There are protests where people are becoming more and more aware that they are being fed empty narratives of approval and understanding while their core demands are going completely unaddressed.

There’s a presidential election between two obvious dementia patients and the mass media are all pretending that’s fine and normal despite what people can see with their own eyes.

New cold war escalations between the US-centralized empire and the unabsorbed governments of China and Russia are going to cause the media airwaves around the planet to become saturated in ever-intensifying propaganda narratives which favor one side or the other and have no interest in honestly telling people the truth about what’s going on.

Now they’re even babbling about UFOs.

Narrative is crumbling.
It’s all accelerating toward a white noise saturation point.

How long do you think we can go on like this?

How far do you think humanity’s relationship with narrative can be stretched before it snaps completely and forces a completely new way of being?

How long before it becomes more and more common for people to begin looking to themselves as individuals to determine which narratives are useful to them instead of looking to establishment narrative managers like they used to?

How long before people find themselves more and more often asking the question “Is this true?”

How long before people find themselves more and more often asking the question “What is truth?”

How long before people find themselves more and more often asking the question “What else have I been deceived about?”

How long before people find themselves more and more often asking the question “How else have I been deceiving myself?”

The current strain that is being placed on our collective relationship with narrative is completely unsustainable.

This would be a bad thing if we’d had a healthy relationship with mental narrative, but we don’t; we have a profoundly unhealthy relationship with mental narrative which has left us susceptible to terrible abuses on a mass scale.

We are now, as a species, collectively squeezing ourselves out of our old unhealthy relationship with narrative.

Narrative is crumbling.
It’s all crumbling to the ground.

This cannot be a bad thing.

It could end up being very, very good."

[onawah]

As US Eviction Crisis Looms, Remember That Poverty Is Weaponized By The Elite
by Caitlin Johnstone
7/28/20
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/07/28/as-us-eviction-crisis-looms-remember-that-poverty-is-weaponized-by-the-elite/

"CNBC News reports that Americans are looking at the possibility of up to 40 million evictions in the coming months as unemployment payments expire and a federal moratorium on evictions runs out.

"On Friday, the federal moratorium on evictions in properties with federally backed mortgages and for tenants who receive government-assisted housing expired." CNBC reports. "The Urban Institute estimated that provision covered nearly 30% of the country’s rental units."

“It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen,” National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel coordinator John Pollock told CNBC, adding that there were 2.3 million evictions in the entirety of 2016 and that “There could be that many evictions in August.”

Here's how the eviction crisis will impact each state.


CNBC
@CNBC
Here's how the eviction crisis will impact each state. https://cnb.cx/3hGzLLj
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ed9JlcvWsAMtuK1?format=png&name=small

While ordinary Americans are worried about being evicted from their homes by the tens of thousands, the nation's billionaires are warning the nation of the dangers of communism. After recently drawing fire for repeatedly cheerleading last year's vicious fascist coup of Bolivia's leftist government, billionaire Elon Musk is now tweeting anti-Marx memes and warning that leftists are "losing the middle".

I suppose we could take it as an encouraging sign that plutocrats are with increasing frequency feeling the need to go out and personally yell at the unwashed masses who are being slowly crushed to death by end-stage metastatic neoliberalism for their insufficient submissiveness to the capitalism god. They used to just have their PR people do it, so they must be at least a little nervous.

This is America. This is what America is designed to be. The head of a vast, globe-spanning empire needs its rank-and-file citizens to be poor, powerless, busy and brainwashed at all times, because a lot of power and money rides on keeping the riff raff away from the gears of the imperial machine.

I have traveled through the US, the parts that everyone ignores and Hollywood doesn't show you, and I have traveled through many countries which are widely considered impoverished. It often surprises Americans when I say this, but the USA is largely a third-world country blanketed in first-world narrative. The way so many of them live compared to the bare minimum standard of living in other wealthy countries is absolutely breathtaking.

And this is entirely by design.
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
Das Kapital in a nutshell
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ed9Fay_WAAAQwjI?format=jpg&name=small
1:57 PM · Jul 27, 2020
165.7K
41.4K people are Tweeting about this

I talk about establishment narrative control a lot here, and it's important to remember that poverty in and of itself can also be a form of narrative control. If you keep a populace impoverished, toiling and constantly terrified of the possibility of losing everything due to a single turn of bad luck or ill health, you ensure that they won't have the time and psychological spaciousness needed to sit down and examine, for example, why their elections never change anything, or what their nation is doing to other nations.

You also ensure that a critical mass of them will never be able to afford political influence. In a nation where you're literally incapable of influencing government policy and behavior unless you have a certain amount of wealth at your disposal, depriving the populace of their ability to pool their money toward electing a government which combats income and wealth inequality. The donor class are the only ones who get a say.

In a nation where money equals power and power is relative, you necessarily get a ruling plutocratic class which needs to keep everyone else poor in order to maintain their rule. If everyone is king then nobody is king, so if money makes you king in your society then you necessarily have to actively deprive the majority of money.

This is why I'm always dismissive of theories which insist that you can let the wealthy keep all their wealth and also provide enough for everybody. No you can't, because the wealthy have a vested interest in keeping everyone from having enough, and they use their wealth as a weapon to enact that agenda in the form of political influence, monopolistic tyranny, and mass media narrative control.

They use their wealth as a weapon. They use poverty as a weapon.


Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
"What is the worst problem in America?"

Homeless people: Economic injustice.
Unemployed/underemployed people: Economic injustice.
The working poor: Economic injustice.
Uninsured people: Economic injustice.
Those soon facing eviction: Economic injustice.
Billionaires: Communism.
7:33 PM · Jul 27, 2020
407
195 people are Tweeting about this

"What is the worst problem in America?"

Homeless people: Economic injustice.
Unemployed/underemployed people: Economic injustice.
The working poor: Economic injustice.
Uninsured people: Economic injustice.
Those soon facing eviction: Economic injustice.
Billionaires: Communism.

— Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ (@caitoz) July 28, 2020

As long as human behavior remains driven by the pursuit of profit, we will continue to see steadily rising amounts of war, ecocide, oppression, exploitation and mass-scale manipulation, because those things are profitable and/or protect the interests of those reaping the profits. We will never, ever profit our way out of any of those problems. The pursuit of profit will only ever make more of them.

The wealthy are only wealthy because they found some clever way to insert themselves as unnecessary middlemen between consumers and the labor, skill, and/or talent which creates the actual thing the consumers are paying for, and skimmed most of the money off for themselves. That's all "profit" ever is in large-scale corporate operations: it's the money that parasitic middlemen were able to steal from the real talent and move into their own bank accounts.

This will never create a healthy and harmonious world. It will only ever create more suffering and dysfunction. Something better is needed."

[onawah]

The Undoing Of Illusions: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
AUGUST 10, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/08/10/the-undoing-of-illusions-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
https://i2.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/medium-10.jpg?w=1140&ssl=1

"Governments have obscenely well-funded intelligence agencies that are literally dedicated to orchestrating secret conspiracies around the world, but if you say they might be conspiring in some part of the world people call you a mentally ill conspiracy theorist.

The fact that the Phoenix Program existed is by itself an unassailable argument for permanently dismantling the entire CIA.

A political establishment which thinks it’s crazy and extremist to reduce a $740 billion military budget by 10 percent is a political establishment that should not exist.

A political establishment which thinks it’s crazy and extremist to reduce a $740 billion military budget by 10 percent can never and will never lead to a sane world.

A political establishment which thinks it’s crazy and extremist to reduce a $740 billion military budget by 10 percent has no business calling its members “moderate” or “centrist”.

A political establishment which thinks it’s crazy and extremist to reduce a $740 billion military budget by 10 percent is a crazy and extremist political establishment.

A political establishment which thinks it’s crazy and extremist to reduce a $740 billion military budget by 10 percent is too crazy and extremist to be permitted to exist.

Democrats and Republicans are like male and female starfish; it’s hard to tell them apart unless you’re one of them.

The modern US imperial war machine kills more like a python than a tiger, placing less emphasis on the full-scale ground invasions of the Bush era and more on slowly suffocating the life out of targeted nations using sanctions, blockades, coups, psyops and CIA-backed uprisings.

This is one reason to be dismissive of Trump supporters who say he “hasn’t started any new wars”. What they mean is he hasn’t done any old school ground invasions. He’s still attacking and killing with sanctions and blockades and imperiling the world with cold war escalations.

From 2021 until nuclear armageddon Biden will be sitting off to the side mumbling to himself as his brain turns to chowder while holdovers from the Obama administration orchestrate cold war escalations against China in retaliation for its 2020 “election meddling”.

You will never, ever hate China enough to bring manufacturing jobs back to the US. Playing along with bull**** narrative spin hoping it will bring your jobs back will never work. You’re just helping opaque government agencies advance their new cold war.

The dumbest thing about believing foreign countries attacked American democracy is believing America has any democracy to attack.

Thought experiment: If you looked out the window right now and saw a mushroom cloud growing on the horizon, how would you feel about the way you’ve been spending your mental energy lately? Be honest with yourself.

If we win this thing it won’t be because conspiracy analysts showed everyone a bunch of complex financial connections or because Marxists put a bunch of theory in everyone’s heads, it will be because clear, simple pointing helped everyone notice the fact that they’ve been duped.

This fight isn’t a game of addition, it’s a game of subtraction. You’re not trying to get the mainstream rank-and-file public to understand a bunch of complicated new information, you’re trying to remove the blindfold so they can see something for themselves that they kind of already suspected was the case.

Cripple public trust in the establishment narrative control apparatus and you remove the only obstacle that’s been stopping the people from using the power of their numbers to force real change. They don’t need anything new, they need to exorcise the lies that have blinded them and stop trusting in the words of liars.

All I’m ever writing about here is the undoing of illusions. The undoing of illusions about what’s happening in the world, the undoing of illusions about the media, the undoing of illusions about society, the undoing of illusions about ourselves. If you’re a lover of truth, it’s all the same to you.

The world isn’t happening the way most people think it is happening. Maturity is learning and understanding the multifaceted, multi-leveled ways in which this is the case."

[onawah]

Why The ‘Lesser Evil’ Is An Illusion
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
AUGUST 23, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/08/23/why-the-lesser-evil-is-an-illusion/

"There was a simultaneously hilarious and nightmare-inducing meme format that was popular not long ago called Creepy Garfield, in which the familiar Jim Davis comic is re-imagined as a Lovecraftian horror genre in which the titular cat often features as an eldritch demigod who is tormenting his owner Jon in some existentially terrifying way.

A common theme is a comic which starts out like a normal Garfield cartoon in which Jon is talking to his obese pet in the usual way we all grew up reading, then it turns out we were completely misperceiving the situation and the cat’s head is for example actually part of a tentacled hellbeast, perhaps dwelling within Jon himself.

Anyway, that’s basically what the “two”-party political system is like.
https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/medium-16.jpg?w=640&ssl=1
When the comic starts out, you’re looking at two separate and distinct political parties with completely different goals and platforms. One of them seems nice, the other is a bit of a jerk who’s always eating all the lasagna. But subsequent panels reveal something far less comfortable to look at.

As you read on, it turns out that both the character on the left side of the panel and the one on the right side of the panel are actually just two tentacles on the same abyssal monster, who’d been putting on a two-headed performance within the small puppet show frame of the comic strip. In reality, they are both extensions of the same murderous oligarchic forces.

Those oligarchic forces use the illusion of the puppet show to manipulate the public into consenting to their continued rule. For example, in the US there’s a pretend presidential race on right now in which voters are being presented with a nasty, fascistic idiot incumbent who is running against a character who is far from perfect, but at least he’s not the tyrant who has been abusing and terrifying them for four years.

In reality, they’re both part of the same oligarchic Cthulhu monster, whose continued rule is ensured by manipulating people into begging for the tentacle on the left.

Joe Biden is a half-dead piece of beltway flotsam who is held together by nothing but Aricept and crazy glue, and it’s been his job to push for for wars, austerity and authoritarianism on behalf of his oligarchic donors since before most Bernie supporters were even born. Yet American progressives are being told to believe that they can push him to the left during his administration to help them stomach the idea of voting for him.

If he wins the imaginary US election, Biden’s most progressive achievement will be having the most diverse, inclusive and intersectional cabinet of mass murderers ever assembled. He will function in the same way a skin suit full of government agencies, war profiteers and rapacious corporations would function if it became president, because that’s essentially all he is as a person.

There are slightly different factions and agendas in the US oligarchy, and those can manifest as some of them backing one tentacle over the other in various puppet shows. But what all oligarchs have in common is the need to maintain the same basic status quo upon which their respective kingdoms have been built, which means that while there might be some sectarian power struggles at the top, none of them are going to improve upon the oppressive, exploitative, Orwellian, imperialist status quo that is crushing ordinary human beings to death every single day.

So as far as ordinary human beings are concerned, all you’re ever looking at is a giant bully telling you to beg him to punch you with his left fist or he’ll punch you a bit harder with his right.What do you do in such a situation? What is the correct response when a powerful oligarchy is telling you that if you don’t consent to being ruled by one of its puppets, it will brutalize disadvantaged communities and take away people’s civil rights?

Is it to do as it says, hold your nose, and do everything you can to get the puppet on the left elected so that the oligarchic tentacle beast won’t devour disempowered members of the population? Is it to refuse to appease the beast and elect the right tentacle in a deluded act of defiance? Is it to pour all your energy into building a third party?

Or is it to actually fight?

What if everyone just completely ignored the frame of the comic strip panels? What if they completely ignored the puppet show stage, and just stared directly at their infernal tormenter who is holding the puppets? What if instead of talking about elections all the time, they started pointing at the real reason elections never change anything?

If you are an American who is dissatisfied with the presidential choices you are being offered in election after election, consider focusing your energy on the status quo itself. Consider taking the energy you might have put into talking about Donald Trump and Joe Biden and putting it into waking up your countrymen to the fact that the political class is there to rob them and the media class is there to deceive them on behalf of their oligarchic owners.

What prevents real change from coming to the most powerful nation in the world is not the fact that the “lesser evil” loses elections, it’s the fact that everyone’s being manipulated into buying into a fake performance that is wholly owned and operated a single oligarchic force which benefits directly from oppression, exploitation and mass murder. It’s that there is no “lesser evil”.

The conversation about the political system should be dragged kicking and screaming into these waters at every opportunity. Refuse to clap along with any aspect of the puppet show, and keep pointing to the oligarchy behind the stage. The naked emperor only has invisible clothes until someone points out that his balls are showing.

Our job is to wake people up from this illusion. Our job is to wake them up from the dream."

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/medium-19.jpg?w=640&ssl=1

[onawah]

(Best thing I've read in awhile)
To Oppose Power Is To Meet With Hopelessness, But Hopelessness Is An Invitation To Real PowerCAITLIN JOHNSTONE
AUGUST 24, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/08/24/to-oppose-power-is-to-meet-with-hopelessness-but-hopelessness-is-an-invitation-to-real-power/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/medium-7-1.jpg?w=723&ssl=1

"To oppose power is to set yourself on a collision course with despair.

You set out, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, charging full speed at the man all set to overthrow the status quo, and then what happens?

You splat headfirst into a solid steel wall.

Your plans fail.

Your heroes capitulate.

Your comrades begin succumbing to propaganda.

You realize that the roots of establishment power stretch far deeper than you’d initially guessed, and that it has strategies in place to ensure its survival that are far more ingenious and effective than you’d ever previously imagined.

And then there she is. Lady Despair, in all her ego-crushing glory.

And then what do you do?

Perhaps you avoid the despair by pretending things aren’t as bad as they seem; pretending that the corrupt establishment lackeys that are being presented to you as power-threatening rebels really are power-threatening rebels, pretending the fake decoy revolution they’re stagnating your movement with is a real one.

Perhaps you do as so many lifelong revolutionaries have done and refuse to give in to despair, keeping your feet planted and refusing to fall as its weight saps the fire from your eyes and makes you hard, jaded and bitter.

Perhaps you avoid the weight of despair by giving yourself a new narrative about how the fight is useless and resistance is futile, so you drop your revolutionary spirit altogether and become whatever we call hippies who become yuppies these days.

Or perhaps you really give in to hopelessness. Really, truly surrender to it. Honestly, directly, and unreservedly.

And perhaps you discover something you hadn’t noticed before. A part of the equation it had never occurred to you to account for.

And perhaps you learn that just as your naive hopefulness was the result of a misperception of reality, so too was your hopelessness.

And perhaps it turns out that just as the impulse to fight the power was an invitation to hopelessness, hopelessness is in turn an invitation to real power.

Because it might perhaps turn out that when you let go of all hope–really, truly let go of it–you expect to fall. You’ve been holding onto hope like someone clinging to a cliff’s edge, so when you let go you expect there to be a disastrous plummet into the abyss.

And perhaps you will find that the fall never comes. You let go, fully prepared to plummet, and it turns out the whole situation was an illusion. There was never anywhere to fall to.

And perhaps you notice that your lungs are still taking in air. That the life of the world–including your own–keeps marching on completely unimpeded. That your body is still standing, all on its own.

And perhaps you discover on an experiential level that the force which powers you has never had anything to do with your hopes and your desires and your personal willpower. Perhaps you discover that it has never had anything to do with what you think of as “you” at all.

Perhaps, by relinquishing all hope and struggle and control, you find that what you’re really made of has never had any use for those things anyway. That, in fact, they’ve only ever been getting in the way.

And perhaps you find out that what you really are is far more powerful than what you thought you were. That it is far more powerful than the power you were trying to fight.

By letting go completely, perhaps you find that the life force which grows your hair and replicates your cells has far greater organizing power and spontaneous creativity than the repetitive thought patterns you’d previously been employing to fight the power.

Perhaps openings in the armor of the machine are noticed in what had previously looked like a solid steel carapace. Perhaps solutions emerge to what had looked like unsolvable dilemmas. Perhaps you begin moving in ways which surprise even you, because they arise from an unpatterned place of unprecedented aliveness.

And perhaps others do the same.

And perhaps that’s how we win.

Hope and hopelessness might just be an opening to a discovery of something that is far beyond them both.

Something boundless.

Something crackling with potentiality.

And something the bastards never saw coming.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. What the hell do I know? Try it out for yourself.

And let go."

[onawah]

Normal Has Failed. Be As Weird As You Like
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
AUGUST 28, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/08/28/normal-has-failed-be-as-weird-as-you-like/

https://i1.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/medium-8-4.jpg?w=1080&ssl=1

"Consumerism is unsustainable. Competition is unsustainable. Imperialism is unsustainable.

Our species is standing on the brink of an extinction-level event due to ecosystemic collapse or nuclear war, and it is because of the way that we have lived on this planet up until this point. If we keep moving in this direction we will go the way of the dinosaur in the not-too distant future and take most terrestrial life with us. Maybe even all of it.

The imperfect and immature nature of our newly evolved capacity for language and abstract thought, combined with our social nature as primates, has caused our species to consistently organize according to the will of the very worst of us–the most sociopathic, the most foolish, the most irresponsible of humans. The one who is the most willing and capable of doing and saying whatever it takes in order to exert control over other humans has throughout our history been the one who ascended to leadership.

So now we find ourselves in a society that has been built from the ground up almost entirely at the direction of sociopaths, for the benefit of sociopaths. Nations point armageddon weapons at one another as a vast globe-spanning empire works toward total planetary domination. Mass-scale human behavior is driven predominantly by the pursuit of profit, and all the most profitable behaviors involve inflicting trauma of some sort: war, militarism, monopolism, usury, strip mining, fossil fuels, factory farming, ads convincing us we’re deficient, etc.

And we’re on track to traumatize ourselves right out of existence very soon.

What this means is that, while on paper we are a successful organism in terms of population and domination of the food chain, we are actually as spectacular a failure as any life form can possibly be. The only species which could arguably rival our failure might be the prehistoric cyanobacteria, which, like homo sapiens, became too populous too quickly for the ecosystem to sustain and caused a mass extinction.

We are not going to consume our way out of this mess. We are not going to compete our way out of this mess. And we are most certainly not going to imperialism our way out of this mess. Those who think we will are delusional. Our old way of doing things has failed.

The path out of this mess can only lie in the exact opposite direction of the path which led us into it. This doesn’t mean ripping apart the earth searching for magical forms of renewable energy and sending rocket ships into space to warehouse all the excess humans so we can keep doing what we’ve been doing. It means turning around and moving into a collaborative relationship with each other and with our ecosystem. That is the only way.

What this means for you, personally, is that you have no responsibility toward any of the old mechanisms which have led us to the brink of extinction, because those mechanisms have failed. Utterly and indisputably.

As a human being, you may safely flush your loyalties to any system which has been a part of humanity’s march to extinction right down the toilet. The political systems, the mindsets, the religions, the culture. It has all failed, so you owe none of it any loyalty.

In fact, you may feel free to reject anything that your society regards as “normal”, because your society is as sick and insane as a society can possibly be. “Normal” has led to a world that is dying and a society that is insane. So be happy with your weirdness.

A wild divergence from our current trajectory is the only hope our species has for survival, so as a member of our species it is your duty to participate in that divergence in any way that looks healthy to you. Our civilization as it exists today is a dead man walking. Do not dance with dead men.

Reject the norms. Let the zombies think you are weird. The values they are criticizing you for diverging from are the values that are choking us all to death.

Leave your crappy marriage. Leave your crappy religion. Change your career. Change your entire lifestyle. Change your name. Change your gender. Change whatever you want. Change things just for the hell of it. If drastic change is what we need, then baby, be the change.

Wherever you see light, move there. Don’t let any inhibitions hold you back, because those inhibitions are imposed by a culture that is an omnicidal maniac. Dismiss all its arguments, because it is insane.

Be you, and don’t let any part of the dead man walking tell you it’s wrong. Your own best guess is better than the “normal” of a society that has signed off on its own obliteration.

Step off from the old patterns.

Diverge."

[onawah]

MSM Promotes Yet Another CIA Press Release As News
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
SEPTEMBER 23, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/09/23/msm-promotes-yet-another-cia-press-release-as-news/

"The Washington Post, whose sole owner is a CIA contractor, has published yet another anonymously sourced CIA press release disguised as a news report which just so happens to facilitate longstanding CIA foreign policy.

In an article titled “Secret CIA assessment: Putin ‘probably directing’ influence operation to denigrate Biden“, WaPo’s virulent neoconservative war pig Josh Rogin describes what was told to him by unnamed sources about the contents of a “secret” CIA document which alleges that Vladimir Putin is “probably” overseeing an interference operation in America’s presidential election.

True to form, at no point does WaPo follow standard journalistic protocol and disclose its blatant financial conflict of interest with the CIA when promoting an unproven CIA narrative which happens to serve the consent-manufacturing agendas of the CIA for its new cold war with Russia.

And somehow in our crazy, propaganda-addled society, this is accepted as “news”.



Jake Tapper
@jaketapper
.⁦@joshrogin⁩: “Secret CIA assessment: Putin ‘probably directing’ influence operation to denigrate Biden” - The Washington Post
Opinion | Secret CIA assessment: Putin ‘probably directing’ influence operation to denigrate Biden
Another revelation of Russian interference in the 2020 election.
washingtonpost.com
https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1306302669322162179/M7E5jH9S?format=jpg&name=small
6:23 AM · Sep 22, 2020
4.3K
3.5K people are Tweeting about this

The CIA has had a hard-on for the collapse of the Russian Federation for many years, and preventing the rise of another multipolar world at all cost has been an open agenda of US imperialism since the fall of the Soviet Union. Indeed it is clear that the escalations we’ve been watching unfold against Russia were in fact planned well in advance of 2016, and it is only by propaganda narratives like this one that consent has been manufactured for a new cold war which imperils the life of every organism on this planet.

There is no excuse for a prominent news outlet publishing a CIA press release disguised as news in facilitation of these CIA agendas. It is still more inexcusable to merely publish anonymous assertions about the contents of that CIA press release. It is especially inexcusable to publish anonymous assertions about a CIA press release which merely says that something is “probably” happening, meaning those making the claim don’t even know.

None of this stopped The Washington Post from publishing this propaganda piece on behalf of the CIA. None of it stopped this story from being widely shared by prominent voices on social media and repeated by major news outlets like CNN, The New York Times, and NBC. And none of it stopped all the usual liberal influencers from taking the claims and exaggerating the certainty:



BrooklynDad_Defiant!
@mmpadellan
America is so screwed up right now that the CIA has determined that Putin is directing efforts to interfere in the 2020 election against Biden, and a collective shoulder-shrug is all we can muster. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
12:27 PM · Sep 22, 2020
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2.5K people are Tweeting about this

The CIA-to-pundit pipeline, wherein intelligence agencies “leak” information that is picked up by news agencies and then wildly exaggerated by popular influencers, has always been an important part of manufacturing establishment Russia hysteria. We saw it recently when the now completely debunked claim that Russia paid bounties on US troops to Taliban-linked fighters in Afghanistan first surfaced; unverified anonymous intelligence claims were published by mass media news outlets, then by the time it got to spinmeisters like Rachel Maddow it was being treated not as an unconfirmed analysis but as an established fact:



Aaron Maté
@aaronjmate


NBC News
@NBCNews
2 months after top Pentagon officials vowed to get to the bottom of whether the Russian gov't bribed Taliban to kill US service members, the commander in the region says a review of the intel has not been able to corroborate the existence of such a program
1305570430925766657
1:13 PM · Sep 14, 2020
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420 people are Tweeting about this

If you’ve ever wondered how rank-and-file members of the public can be so certain of completely unproven intelligence claims, the CIA-to-pundit pipeline is a big part of it. The most influential voices who political partisans actually hear things from are often a few clicks removed from the news report they’re talking about, and by the time it gets to them it’s being waved around like a rock-solid truth when at the beginning it was just presented as a tenuous speculation (the original aforementioned WaPo report appeared on the opinion page).

The CIA has a well-documented history of infiltrating and manipulating the mass media for propaganda purposes, and to this day the largest supplier of leaked information from the Central Intelligence Agency to the news media is the CIA itself. They have a whole process for leaking information to reporters they like (with an internal form that asks whether the information leaked is Accurate, Partially Accurate, or Inaccurate), as was highlighted in a recent court case which found that the CIA can even leak documents to select journalists while refusing to release them to others via Freedom of Information Act requests.



MuckRock
@MuckRock
While we're not saying that the #CIA deliberately leaks inaccurate information to the press, we will that there's a specific form they have to fill out when they do so. https://buff.ly/2GqlyPQ #FOIAhttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DWaubJTW4AYi4hi?format=jpg&name=small


12:15 PM · Feb 19, 2018
85
58 people are Tweeting about this

A lying, torturing, propagandizing, drug trafficking, assassinating, coup-staging, warmongering, psychopathic spook agency with an extensive history of deceit and depravity that selectively gives information to news reporters with whom it has a good relationship is never doing so for noble reasons. It is doing so for the same rapacious power-grabbing reasons it does all the other evil things it does.

The way mainstream media has become split along increasingly hostile ideological lines means that all the manipulators need to do to advance a given narrative is set it up to make one side look bad and then share it with a news outlet from the other side. The way media is set up to masturbate people’s confirmation bias instead of report objective facts will then cause the narrative to go viral throughout that partisan faction, regardless of how true or false it might be.



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
US Intelligence: If Trump Wins Russia Did It, If Biden Wins It Was China And Iran

"Lastly, the dumbest thing about believing foreign nations are interfering in American democracy is believing America has any democracy to interfere with."https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1307171887596867584/BXTKGQ-Y?format=jpg&name=small
US Intelligence: If Trump Wins Russia Did It, If Biden Wins It Was China And Iran
Back in April I said “China’s gonna be so surprised when it finds out it interfered in the November election.”
medium.com
10:15 PM · Aug 7, 2020
1.1K
542 people are Tweeting about this

The coming US election and its aftermath is looking like it will be even more insane and hysterical than the last one, and the enmity and outrage it creates will give manipulators every opportunity to slide favorable narratives into the slipstream of people’s hot-headed abandonment of their own critical faculties.

And indeed they are clearly prepared to do exactly that. An ODNI press release last month which was uncritically passed along by the most prominent US media outlets reported that China and Iran are trying to help Biden win the November election while Russia is trying to help Trump. So no matter which way these things go the US intelligence cartel will be able to surf its own consent-manufacturing foreign policy agendas upon the tide of outrage which ensues.

The propaganda machine is only getting louder and more aggressive. We’re being prepped for something."

_________________________

[onawah]

Americans Who Support Status Quo Politics Are American Supremacists
SEPTEMBER 25, 2020
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/09/25/americans-who-support-status-quo-politics-are-american-supremacists/
https://i0.wp.com/caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Screen-Shot-2020-09-25-at-11.47.31-AM.jpg?resize=1200%2C580&ssl=1

"Trump is a bad president. He’s coddled oligarchs both in America and around the world, he made a mess of the pandemic response and lied about it, he’s incited violence and inflamed hate, he’s done nothing for ordinary Americans, he’s facilitated ecocide, any good decisions he’s made on foreign policy have been far outweighed by the bad, and his recent refusal to guarantee a peaceful transition of power if defeated in November is concerning.

That said, Trump is not a uniquely bad president. The only way to see him that way is to believe that American lives are far, far more important than those of the millions of mostly brown-skinned human beings who have been murdered by the US war machine under the leadership of both Trump and his predecessors.

Just since 9/11 several million people have been killed and tens of millions displaced by American military violence to shore up control of key geostrategic regions with the goal of total global domination. Trump has not been any worse in the facilitation of this butchery than his predecessors. Where he differs significantly is in the amount of stress that his presidency has been causing Americans.

I don’t mean to make light of the stress, disruption and anxiety that Americans have experienced during the Trump administration, but to suggest that it comes anywhere remotely close to the unbroken streak of blood staining presidencies long preceding this one is absurd. Millions of people brutally murdered for imperialist resource control agendas and war plutocrat profit margins is vastly more significant than the emotional discomfort of Americans. It just is. If you disagree with what I just said, you are wrong.



Caitlin Johnstone ⏳
@caitoz
America has slaughtered millions of human beings since 9/11 to facilitate global domination and the people who live there are saying this election is unique because this president is actually bad.
7:53 PM · Sep 24, 2020
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884 people are Tweeting about this

I am not saying who Americans should or should not vote for. What I am saying is that the belief that this election is uniquely important because this president is uniquely bad is the product of a worldview which sees American lives as much more important than non-American lives. It is the worldview of American supremacism.

American supremacism is like any other supremacist ideology which holds an empowered group as innately superior to disempowered groups, except since its consequences are exported overseas its adherents don’t have to look at those consequences. For this reason, most American supremacists are not aware that that’s what they are. Their politics don’t hold all people as equal, but they are able to compartmentalize away from that fact since its consequences are out of sight and out of mind.

If they were executing immigrants in American streets by the millions, there’d be a very conscious divide between those who support this and those who do not, because everyone would be constantly confronted with the fact that it’s happening and forced to come down on one side or the other on the issue. But since it’s an atrocity Americans don’t have to look at, and since their oligarchic news media are all too happy to passively conceal it from them, they wind up unconsciously selecting American supremacism as their default position by supporting the status quo which promotes it.

Americans who support status quo politics, whether by the oligarchic warmongering Democratic Party or the oligarchic warmongering Republican Party, are American supremacists. They might not know it, but they are. They support a political paradigm in which people in other parts of the world are violently butchered to protect a US-centralized power structure which exists solely for the benefit of the powerful. Their American supremacist worldview allows them to see their own emotional discomfort as more significant than human bodies getting ripped apart by explosives every day around the world in support of the status quo their mainstream political faction promotes.


The Hill
@thehill
Nearly 500 former national security officials formally back Biden http://hill.cm/uUaUIJ3
7:07 AM · Sep 24, 2020
579
325 people are Tweeting about this

And it’s just taken as a given that it has to be this way. It’s taken as a given by both of America’s mainstream political factions that endless military expansionism, bombings, starvation sanctions and cold war escalations are going to continue, and the only things up for debate are the specific details of exactly how it’s going to continue and whether or not saying “black lives matter” makes you a communist.

And of course it doesn’t have to be this way. America could just function as a normal country, minding its own affairs inside its own borders without murdering anyone for happening to live near fossil fuels. There’s no legitimate reason why it could not. The endless slaughter benefits no ordinary people in any way.

It would be one thing if Americans actually benefited from all the bloodshed; that would just be garden variety human predation. But it’s not even that; the American supremacist worldview serves nobody but a few elite sociopaths who’ve enmeshed themselves with the world’s most powerful government. Ordinary Americans consent to the interminable churning of the US war machine at their own expense and to their own detriment because they are kept ignorant, poor and propagandized so they don’t get any grand ideas about intervening in the empire-building of the manipulators.

Regardless of what happens in November, this is madness and it must not continue. Don’t let the sideshow of electoral politics distract from this vastly more important fact. Vote for whoever you want, but have no illusions about that vote addressing what is by far the most crucial issue with the US government."

[East Sun]

All of bidons words mean nothing at all. Yes, nothing at all.

[onawah]

Response To Trump Covid Diagnosis Shows His ‘Opposition’ Always Saw Him As Part Of The Club
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
OCTOBER 3, 2020
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/10/03/response-to-trump-covid-diagnosis-shows-his-opposition-always-saw-him-as-part-of-the-club/

"The Joe Biden campaign is reportedly taking down all negative ads against the US president due to his recent positive test for Covid-19.

The Hill reports that according to two sources within the former vice president’s camp, the campaign has “decided to scrap the negative ads before the White House announced that Trump is being taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.”

“The VP can’t say ‘God Bless this family’ and then trash him in ads,” one Biden ally told The Hill.

“Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family,” Biden tweeted upon the news of Trump’s positive test.

“Trump’s campaign hit back at Biden and did not indicate it intends to take down its negative ads,” The Hill reports.



The Hill
✔
@thehill
#BREAKING: Biden camp taking down all negative ads after Trump tests positive for COVID-19 http://hill.cm/uvBZIoP
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EjW5WJlWkAEmV-5?format=png&name=small
1,152
5:32 PM - Oct 2, 2020
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690 people are talking about this


This would be the same Donald Trump that Democratic politicians and pundits have been confidently assuring us is both a Russian agent who is trying to destroy America on orders of Vladimir Putin, and a white nationalist who is trying to eliminate minorities from the United States to create a white ethnostate. This same man who they’ve been saying poses a unique existential threat to human lives will receive no attacks from his only viable political opponent.

“Doug and I join Joe Biden and Dr. Biden in wishing President Trump and the First Lady a full and speedy recovery,” tweeted Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris. “We’re keeping them and the entire Trump family in our thoughts.”

Former president Barack Obama reportedly sent Trump his best wishes, saying “We’re all Americans and we’re all human beings, and we want to make sure everybody is healthy.”

“God bless the president and the first lady,” tweeted the world’s most virulent Russiagater Rachel Maddow. “If you pray, please pray for their speedy and complete recovery — and for everyone infected, everywhere. This virus is horrific and merciless — no one would wish its wrath on anyone.”

Again, this is after years of Maddow staring at the camera and weaving ridiculous narratives about Russia having taken over the highest levels of the US government. Night after night after night after night.

“I join in the chorus of those who wish a speedy and full recovery to President Trump, the First Lady, Hope Hicks, and all who were exposed to them in recent days,” tweeted another virulent Russiagater Laurence Tribe. “This is no time for cruelty, schadenfreude, or any other form of small-mindedness.”



Rachel Maddow MSNBC
✔
@maddow
God bless the president and the first lady. If you pray, please pray for their speedy and complete recovery — and for everyone infected, everywhere.

This virus is horrific and merciless — no one would wish its wrath on anyone.

We must get its spread under control. Enough.

146K
12:19 AM - Oct 2, 2020
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45.8K people are talking about this


These are just a few examples. These sentiments are everywhere throughout the Democratic establishment and its allied media.

Do these seem like the sentiments of a media class who believes Donald Trump poses an urgent existential threat and must be defeated at all cost? Or do they sound like a media class who promoted Russiagate and Trump hysteria for ratings?

Do these seem like the sentiments of a political class who believes there’s an urgent existential need to defeat Donald Trump at all cost? Or do they sound like a political class who promoted Russiagate and Trump hysteria because impeachment and advancing longstanding CIA agendas against Russia are more politically convenient than advancing progressive policies and addressing the massive corruption problems which were exposed in their party in 2016?

Would you stop fighting someone who was trying to kill you with every weapon at your disposal just because they got sick? If you actually believed they truly pose an existential threat to you, would a positive Covid test cause you to let up at all?

Of course not.



Existential Comics
@existentialcoms
So to clarify, the liberal position is that Biden owes us nothing but we absolutely must vote for him anyway because Trump is the second coming of Hitler, and he will dissolve democracy if he wins, and we hope he is doing well and lives a long and happy life?

6,111
12:38 PM - Oct 2, 2020
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It turns out all that unprecedented hysterical shrieking about a Russian Nazi in the White House was just political hyperbole. It was an act. They’ve never seen Trump as a uniquely menacing threat, they see him as what he is: a garden variety corrupt American president who is evil in more or less the same ways the other corrupt American presidents are evil. They see him as a part of the establishment they serve, advancing more or less the same agendas. They see him as a part of the club, just covered by a thin layer of narrative to the contrary.

If you ever had any doubt that Democrats will one day regard Trump the way they now regard George W Bush, you can set that doubt aside.

As George Carlin famously said, it’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.



Laurence Tribe
✔
@tribelaw
I join in the chorus of those who wish a speedy and full recovery to President Trump, the First Lady, Hope Hicks, and all who were exposed to them in recent days. This is no time for cruelty, schadenfreude, or any other form of small-mindedness
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The responses to Trump’s diagnosis from the liberal political/media class show that they’ve never actually been afraid of Trump. In fact, what they have been afraid of is you.

All these admonishments toward civility we’re hearing today, from the subtle like Maddow’s heartfelt prayers to the overt like Tribe’s “This is no time for cruelty, schadenfreude, or any other form of small-mindedness,” are the result of an establishment that is secretly terrified of the rank-and-file public. The ruling class and its lackeys are secretly terrified that one day the ordinary people they despise will awaken from their propaganda trance and realize the power of their numbers, and any incivility and impoliteness directed at the ruling class reminds them of just how ugly that could get for them.

These admonishments toward civility are always anti-populist in nature, and are always the result of nervousness about the public turning toward their rulers with hostility. They are nervous for the same reason you’d get nervous if your dog suddenly remembered its wolf heritage and started killing trespassing deer. They know they are outnumbered. They know our teeth are sharp.

This sudden pivot from portraying the US president as a unique and unprecedented threat to finger-wagging about politeness exposes what’s really going on here. Contrary to what his Democratic detractors and Republican supporters believe, Trump has never been anything other than a servant of the ruling power establishment, serving its agendas in the ways to which his political base is best-suited to support and his opposition is best-suited to allow.



Joe Biden
✔
@JoeBiden
Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery. We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family.

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The establishment narrative managers know this, which is why their alarmism about Trump has only ever been an act. There are plenty of ordinary Americans who view Trump as a uniquely dangerous threat, but it is so, so vital to understand that his ostensible opposition does not see him this way, and never has.

Their job isn’t to resist Trump, their job is to resist you. He’s in the club, you’re not. It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it. "

Also posted here: http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?112402-America-s-Two-Party-Corporate-Duopoly&p=1381327&viewfull=1#post1381327

[Dennis Leahy]

Hmmmmm..... it's been a while since this thread was current.

For those who don't know of Caitlin Johnstone's work, she is an Australian woman writing primarily about the psychopathic, imperialist, corporatist, warlords and technocrats that are the operational face of the American/Ameri-centric Global Empire. Please don't read her stuff if you are a partisan to one of the US political party/corporations - she will hurt your feelings. Do read her if you want a better understanding of Empire. If you don't glean anything else, at least comprehend the notion that she identifies "narrative control" as the key element of control over... well, us and everything.

---------------------------
Listen to a reading of this article: (https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/political-partisanship-is-a-propaganda-lubricant)

Studying the unfolding of the new mainstream UFO narrative (https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/media-flipping-180-on-ufos-at-pentagons) has been very interesting, because it highlights the dynamics I always talk about in a fresh light which makes them easier to point to.

One theme that keeps resurfacing is people marvelling at how low-key the public response to the whole thing has been. One might expect the US government officially stating that the military has been frequently encountering strange unknown aircraft of unthinkable technological advancement would rank a little higher in public interest, but so far that really hasn't been the case.

A YouTuber recently summed up this sentiment with a 13-minute rant (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3w5V4jlGQw) about how weird it is that everyone isn't screaming about this all day long:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/blob:https://outlook.live.com/20960f53-556d-47b3-b6c5-ecd25d5ff037 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3w5V4jlGQw)
I've seen numerous attempts to explain the unexpectedly apathetic response to the fact that UFOs are in the news every day now, the most common being that people have so much on their plate these days that even the possibility of extraterrestrials buzzing US navy ships just doesn't rank high on their priorities. Others suggest that it's such an obvious military psyop that the public is dismissive of the story.
Neither of these offerings are particularly convincing in my opinion. We see vapid nonsense attracting mountains of public interest every day, so the idea that people have no mental bandwidth for this story doesn't hold water. While the belief that the UFO narrative looks like some kind of military psyop is widely accepted among the sort of people who'd be likely to read this article (I've been saying it (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/06/03/eight-thoughts-on-the-ufo-narrative/) for a while now (https://consortiumnews.com/2020/07/26/ufo-hype-is-probably-just-the-us-military-lying-again/) myself), skepticism toward suspicious US government claims is not a very widespread posture (https://www.mintpressnews.com/propaganda-american-public-opinion-russia-china-historic-low/275771/) for people to hold in the mainstream public.

It seems pretty clear to me that the reason there's not as much public interest in this story as you'd expect is because it doesn't fit neatly into any of the little boxes that people have been trained to file news into in this society. There's no partisan angle to it, so it doesn't appeal to any of the egoic constructs to which the general public tends to hook incendiary news stories.

The likelihood of a news story going viral in our society has little to do with its newsworthiness, its unusualness, or even whether or not it is factually accurate. The single most likely factor in whether or not a news story will have mass appeal is whether it appears to validate the worldview of one of the two mainstream political factions. This is why the mainstream media have been deliberately sowing partisan divisiveness (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG1qJeDI9Ok) and marketing toward increasingly distant partisan echo chambers instead of just reporting the news; they have an obvious profit motive to do so, because tickling people's egos with hate porn and illusory validation is the best way to get clicks and generate ad revenue.
https://projectavalon.net/forum4/blob:https://outlook.live.com/cdab3bef-3690-4d50-991c-64aaa805092d (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG1qJeDI9Ok)

This is why those who promoted the theory that Trump was a secret Russian agent saw their ratings soar (https://archive.is/buuhS) for years before it was conclusively discredited (https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/robert-mueller-did-not-merely-reject-the-trumprussia-conspiracy-theories-he-obliterated-them/) by the very Special Counsel they'd been literally singing Christmas carols (https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/television/8487684/snl-all-i-want-for-christmas-is-you-mueller) and lighting prayer candles (https://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-people-are-doing-with-their-robert-mueller-prayer-candles-mugs-and-jewelry-now-2019-03-27) to until then. There is more evidence that space aliens are cruising around in Earth's atmosphere than there ever was that Vladimir Putin had covertly infiltrated the highest levels of the US government, but because it inflamed liberal passions and made them feel like their partisan worldview was about to be vindicated any minute, it sold like crack.

You can immediately tell if something is going to go viral by how politically tinged it is and how mainstream the appeal of those politics are. A story about how schools want to make your kids transgender. A popular conservative acting like an idiot. A black Trump supporter saying Trump isn't racist. Marjorie Taylor Greene doing literally anything. Take it too far outside the mainstream, like the US government getting caught tampering with an OPCW investigation (https://www.thenation.com/article/world/opcw-leaks-syria/) in Syria for example, and you won't see a ton of clicks, but if it appeals to tens of millions of mainstream partisans you will.

In a society that's enslaved to egoic consciousness as ours is, the things that generate the most public interest will be those which flatter or infuriate common egoic constructs. This is not unique to politics; advertisers have raked in vast fortunes by associating products with common cultural mind viruses like body image issues and personal inadequacy, and TV show hosts like Jerry Springer and Maury Povich figured out decades ago that you can attract massive ratings by letting people feel smug and superior at the sight of poor and uneducated guests acting out emotionally.
To make something go viral, it needs to appeal to the ego. Advertisers understand this. Media executives understand this. Propagandists understand this.
The Mass Media Will Never Regain The Public's Trust
"There's no point admonishing the mainstream press for the public's plummeting trust in it, because a thing that has only ever existed to administer propaganda can't suddenly become journalism."https://t.co/1LN9q8dtRQ
— Caitlin Johnstone https://s0.wp.com/wp-content/mu-plugins/wpcom-smileys/twemoji/2/72x72/23f3.png (@caitoz) April 26, 2021 (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1386653866670755843?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Creating big psychological identity structures out of our politics makes the job of the propagandists so very much easier; it's like a lubricant which lets mass-scale psyops glide smoothly into public consciousness. From there it's a very easy task to get people hating Russia or China for this or that partisan reason, or to get people believing Trump or Biden are helping the American people despite their both continuing and expanding the same murderous and oppressive status quo of their predecessors.
This is why the partisan divide is the most heated and contentious it's ever been, while the actual behavior of each mainstream party when it's in power brings in only the most superficial of changes (https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/mainstream-politics-offer-pretend). The oligarchs who own the political/media class desire the continuation of the status quo upon which they have built their empire, but they also want to keep the public as plugged in as possible to the partisan perspectives which facilitate the propaganda that cages our minds.

The solution to this, on an individual level, is to dismantle any egoic attachment you might have to either of the mainstream political factions which preserve the status quo. This includes any attachment to the phony populism of progressive Democrats (https://consortiumnews.com/2021/06/13/a-kinder-gentler-us-empire-is-not-possible/), and it includes any attachment to the phony populism of Trumpian Republicans (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/02/16/trump-supporters-are-george-w-bush-supporters-larping-as-ron-paul-supporters/). These factions within the mainstream factions are themselves propaganda constructs which will never be permitted to advance any agenda that isn't desired by the oligarchic empire; they serve only to keep people who would be inclined to reject mainstream politics plugged in to mainstream politics.

And of course the ultimate solution to this problem is for humanity to awaken from the ego. All propaganda relies on egoic hooks in public consciousness to circulate itself, so if humanity begins dropping its habit of creating psychological identity structures altogether (which it looks like (https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/the-humans-are-waking-up-eb47bcfe6fac) it might (https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-mass-media-will-never-regain)), we will become harder and harder to propagandize. Since humanity's collective problems ultimately boil down to (https://consortiumnews.com/2021/04/01/the-problem-isnt-human-nature/) the fact that sociopaths manipulate our minds at mass scale, such a transformation would make a healthy new world not just possible but inevitable.
_____________________
The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website (http://caitlinjohnstone.com/) or on Substack (https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/), which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/05/24/my-experiments-with-hacking-capitalism/), so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CaitlinAJohnstone/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/caitoz), Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue) or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/CaitlinJohnstone/videos), or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/caitlinjohnstone), Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4445783) or Paypal (https://paypal.me/caitlinjohnstone). If you want to read more you can buy my books (https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/books-by-caitlin-johnstone-a5a5e6f71772). Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/i-permanently-release-all-copyrights-to-all-my-writing-use-any-of-it-however-you-want-9ad929b92d42) to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/11-things-you-should-know-about-me-and-where-im-coming-from-a6b9ddf9806e).
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https://projectavalon.net/forum4/blob:https://outlook.live.com/5413e6b2-9679-46a2-9050-9aecc618efb7 (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) Political Partisanship Is A Propaganda Lubricant (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/06/16/political-partisanship-is-a-propaganda-lubricant/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)

[Dennis Leahy]

America’s Soup-Brained President Says The US Never Interferes In Other Countries’ Elections




https://caitlinjohnstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/medium-6-1200x678.jpg?ea9430&ea9430

Listen to a reading of this article: (https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/americas-soup-brained-president-says-the-us-never-interferes-in-other-countries-elections)

During an astonishingly sycophantic press conference (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/06/16/remarks-by-president-biden-in-press-conference-4/) after the Geneva summit with Vladimir Putin, President Biden posited an entirely hypothetical scenario about what the world would think of the United States if it were interfering in foreign elections and everybody knew it.

When AP’s Jonathan Lemire asked the president of the most powerful government in the world what “consequences” he’d threatened the Russian leader with should the Kremlin interfere in US elections going forward, Biden meandered his way through one of his signature not-quite-lucid word salads, and then said the following:
“Let’s get this straight: How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries, and everybody knew it? What would it be like if we engaged in activities that he is engaged in? It diminishes the standing of a country that is desperately trying to make sure it maintains its standing as a major world power.”

The fact that the entire press corps did not erupt in side-splitting laughter at this ridiculous utterance is in itself proof that western news media is pure propaganda. The United States has directly interfered in scores of foreign elections (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/09/04/u-s-interferes-more-elections-than-russia-meddling-author-says/5700657002/) since it began its ascent to global domination at the end of the second World War, to say nothing of all the coups, color revolutions, proxy conflicts and regime change military invasions it has also participated in during that time. The US openly interfered (http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,984833,00.html) in Russia’s elections in the nineties, and literally just tried to stage a coup in Bolivia (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/10/20/bolivia-shows-why-imperialists-work-to-keep-populations-propagandized/) by interfering in its democratic process. The US is far and away the single most egregious offender in the world on this front, which is largely why it is perceived around the world (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/us-threat-democracy-russia-china-global-poll) as a greater threat to democracy than any other government.

This is not a secret, internationally or in the United States. Anyone who has done any learning about the US government’s actual behavior on the world stage knows this. Hell, a former CIA director openly joked about it (https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/ex-cia-director-thinks-us-hypocrisy-about-election-meddling-is-hilarious-3262692029fe) on Fox News a few years ago.
Fox’s Laura Ingraham unsurprisingly introduced former CIA Director James Woolsey as “an old friend” in a 2018 interview (https://youtu.be/SpWai3kZ-gM) about Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 alleged members of a Russian troll farm, in which Woolsey unsurprisingly talked about how dangerous Russian “disinformation” is and Ingraham unsurprisingly said that everyone should actually be afraid of China. What was a bit surprising, though, was what happened at the end of the interview.

“Have we ever tried to meddle in other countries’ elections?” Ingraham asked (https://youtu.be/SpWai3kZ-gM?t=4m37s) in response to Woolsey’s Russia remarks.

“Oh, probably,” Woolsey said with a grin. “But it was for the good of the system in order to avoid the communists from taking over. For example, in Europe, in ’47, ’48, ’49, the Greeks and the Italians we CIA-”

“We don’t do that anymore though?” Ingraham interrupted. “We don’t mess around in other people’s elections, Jim?”

Woolsey smiled and said said “Well…”,
followed by a joking incoherent mumble, adding, “Only for a very good cause.”

And then they both laughed.

The fact that not one person in the press pool questioned or criticized Biden’s outrageous remarks tells you everything you need to know about the western media and what its real function is. This is further illustrated by the rest of the behavior of these odious propagandists during the summit, which was illustrated quite well by the glowing praise of Democratic Party insider Andrea Chalupa on Twitter:

“The winners of #GenevaSummit2021 are the White House press corp,” Chalupa said (https://twitter.com/AndreaChalupa/status/1405224100772159489?s=20). “Excellent questions confronting Putin and challenging Biden on holding a summit with a ruthless dictator. And they literally held their ground when shoved by Putin’s security and propagandists.”

That actually says it all. Western reporters are forbidden by their oligarchic owners from ever confronting power in any meaningful way; the closest they’re ever allowed to get to punching up is challenging the leaders of CIA-targeted governments, and demanding to know why their own leaders aren’t being more hawkish and aggressive toward those leaders.

As RT’s Murad Gazdiev pointed out (https://twitter.com/MuradGazdiev/status/1405210955475296258), “ABC, NBC, BBC, CNN, and many other Western outlets were invited for Putin’s press conference. No Russian media was invited to Biden’s press conference.” The whole thing was a navel-gazing, masturbatory cold war propaganda orgy where western “journalists” made up fantasies (https://twitter.com/SirajAHashmi/status/1405194501950513154?s=20) about their soup-brained leader staring down Putin, where they yelled nonsense (https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/06/summit-summary.html) about Alexei Navalny at the Russian president and then fangirled at Biden’s response (https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1405124334549704705).
Can anyone imagine a US corporate journalist screaming at Biden: "Why do you fear Assange so much?"
Always easy to condemn the acts of the governments your country tells you to see as Enemy. Much harder – and way more meaningful – to challenge your own government's repression. https://t.co/CtzeU37pn3
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 16, 2021 (https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1405151050903007233?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Real journalists go to Belmarsh Prison (https://www.salon.com/2021/06/15/revisiting-the-case-of-julian-assange-and-the-reality-of-the-rule-of-law/) for exposing US war crimes. Western propagandists ask Putin why he’s such a doodoo dumb dumb poopy head and then dream about Pulitzers all night.

Western news media exists to funnel propaganda (https://youtu.be/ZPazn1XNDQI) into the minds of the public. It is controlled by plutocrats who work in alliance with opaque government agencies to weave narratives about why the US government needs to do the things it had already planned on doing anyway. This gets more obvious by the day.
____________________
The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website (http://caitlinjohnstone.com/) or on Substack (https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/), which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/05/24/my-experiments-with-hacking-capitalism/), so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/CaitlinAJohnstone/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/caitoz), Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue) or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/CaitlinJohnstone/videos), or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi (https://ko-fi.com/caitlinjohnstone), Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4445783) or Paypal (https://paypal.me/caitlinjohnstone). If you want to read more you can buy my books (https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/books-by-caitlin-johnstone-a5a5e6f71772). Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/i-permanently-release-all-copyrights-to-all-my-writing-use-any-of-it-however-you-want-9ad929b92d42) to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here (https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/11-things-you-should-know-about-me-and-where-im-coming-from-a6b9ddf9806e).

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[Gekko]

https://www.wikispooks.com/wiki/Caitlin_Johnstone

[onawah]

I was going to post this article from Caitlin, but couldn't decide whether to put it on the You-must-laugh-at-least-once-a-day thread
...or this one:
Biden-voters-and-supporters.-How-is-it-going
:lol:
Nice to see you back on the forum!


America’s Soup-Brained President Says The US Never Interferes In Other Countries’ Elections

[Dennis Leahy]

The Weird, Creepy Media Blackout On Recent Assange Revelations (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/06/29/the-weird-creepy-media-blackout-on-recent-assange-revelations/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) Listen to a reading of this article: (https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/the-weird-creepy-media-blackout-on-recent-assange-revelations)

As of this writing, it has been three days since the Icelandic newspaper Stundin broke the story (https://stundin.is/grein/13627/key-witness-in-assange-case-admits-to-lies-in-indictment/) that a key witness in the US government's case against Julian Assange had fabricated allegations against the WikiLeaks founder. And yet, somehow, Assange is still in prison.

Weirder still, not one major western media outlet outside of Iceland has reported on this massive and entirely legitimate news story. A search brings up coverage by Icelandic media (https://grapevine.is/news/2021/06/28/siggi-the-hacker-key-assange-witness-admits-to-perjury/), by Russian media (https://www.rt.com/news/527699-assange-key-witness-lies/), and by smaller western outlets like Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/2021/6/28/julian_assange_extradition_case), World Socialist Website (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/28/assa-j28.html), Consortium News (https://consortiumnews.com/2021/06/27/key-witness-in-us-case-against-assange-changes-his-story/), Zero Hedge (https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us-case-against-assange-struck-major-blow-key-witness-admits-he-lied) and some others, but as of this writing this story has been completely ignored by all major outlets who are ostensibly responsible for informing the public in the western world.

It's not that those outlets have been ignoring Assange altogether these last few days either. Reuters recently published an interview (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/assanges-fianc-c3-a9e-urges-biden-to-free-wikileaks-founder-to-show-us-has-changed/ar-AALr0z3) with Assange's fiance Stella Moris. Evening Standard has a recent article (https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/wikileaks-julian-assange-marriage-belmarsh-prison-b942937.html) out on Assange's plans to marry Moris in Belmarsh, as does Deutsche Welle (https://www.dw.com/en/julian-assange-plans-to-marry-in-uk-prison/a-58055351). It's just this one story in particular that they've been blacking out completely.
I don’t think one US or UK newspaper has reported this. The free press is incredible. https://t.co/NpkCpa2kdN
— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) June 28, 2021 (https://twitter.com/kennardmatt/status/1409561400599588865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
And it's not that the mainstream press are unaware of this story. Mainstream western reporters spend a lot of time on Twitter, and Assange's name was trending in the United States (https://twitter.com/SarcasmStardust/status/1408820627323199495) after the Stundin story broke. Tweets about the article by high-profile accounts like WikiLeaks (https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1408741921846181894?s=20) and Edward Snowden (https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/1408847450656415751) have many thousands of shares each. They've all seen the article. They all know it's newsworthy. They're just choosing not to report on it.

It reminds me of the blanket media blackout (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/12/28/medias-deafening-silence-on-latest-wikileaks-drops-is-its-own-scandal/) that occurred while the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons was hemorrhaging leaks (https://www.thenation.com/article/world/opcw-leaks-syria/) revealing a US government-tied coverup in the alleged chlorine gas incident in Douma, Syria. Immensely newsworthy stories were breaking every few days on a major international scandal, yet not a peep was made about it by the mainstream press.

We got some insight into what happens in mainstream newsrooms during such bizarre circumstances when journalist Tareq Haddad leaked the emails from his editors (https://www.tareqhaddad.com/investigation-lies-newsweek-and-control-of-the-media-narrative-first-hand-account/) at Newsweek refusing him permission to write about the unfolding OPCW scandal. Haddad's pitch was rejected by editor Dimi Reider on the basis that other bigger outlets hadn't written about it.

“Leak has been out since weekend," Reider wrote. "It's certainly no scoop. Yet despite the days that passed, not a single respected media outlet – many of whom boast far greater regional expertise, resources on the ground and in newsroom than Newsweek does – have taken the leak remotely seriously. Which already yesterday made my wonder how we could or why we should.”

Reider was supported by Newsweek's digital director Laura Davis, who told Haddad his pitch was being rejected because "the leak found zero to no traction among publications which are highly resourced and experienced on Syria."

And that's just pretty darn convenient for the powerful, is it not? Assuming other mainstream news outlets feel the same, this means they're all generally following the lead of just a handful of top-tier publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian. If just those few outlets decide to ignore a major news story that's inconvenient for the powerful (either by persuasion, infiltration or by their own initiative), then no one else will either. As far as the media-consuming public is concerned, it's like the major news story never happened at all.
And that's really, really creepy.
As far as we can tell from searches, not a single 'mainstream' UK newspaper has covered this major development in the #Assange (https://twitter.com/hashtag/Assange?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) case. Nor has BBC News.
The discipline, or blindness, to ignore awkward facts is a reliable feature of corporate 'journalism'.https://t.co/DMOUD568j5
— Media Lens (@medialens) June 29, 2021 (https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1409794141165428741?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Western mass media outlets are propaganda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPazn1XNDQI). They are owned and controlled by wealthy people in coordination with the secretive government agencies (https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-cia-used-to-infiltrate-the-media) tasked with preserving the world order upon which the media-owning plutocrats have built their kingdoms, and their purpose is to manipulate the way the mainstream public thinks, acts and votes into alignment with the agendas of the ruling class.

You see this propaganda in the way things are reported, but you also see it in the way things are not reported. Entire news stories can be completely redacted from mainstream attention if they are sufficiently inconvenient for the mechanisms of empire, or only allowed in via platforms like Tucker Carlson Tonight and thereby tainted and spun as ridiculous right-wing conspiracy theories (https://greenwald.substack.com/p/questions-about-the-fbis-role-in).

If newsworthiness and significance were what governed mainstream news media reporting, instead of the agendas of profit and power, we'd constantly be hearing about the people dying in Yemen and the brutal income inequality in the United States. And the fact that the most powerful government in the world is persecuting a journalist for telling the truth (https://www.salon.com/2021/06/15/revisiting-the-case-of-julian-assange-and-the-reality-of-the-rule-of-law/) would be at the forefront of everyone's awareness, instead of the mountain of smears (https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/debunking-all-the-assange-smears-a549fd677cac) they have heaped upon Julian Assange.
I worry sometimes, who will explain this stuff with this level of detail, if they put me in jail?
Worth noting that the Thordarson saga has never been reported by mainstream media outside Iceland.https://t.co/sq5hu8PDiV
— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) June 29, 2021 (https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1409838884960325632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
I sometimes get people telling me that some news stories are meant to "distract" us from other, bigger news stories, like this is something the imperial narrative managers do especially on some occasions but not all the time. In reality, distraction is never not happening, because every single day the plutocratic media pull people's attention away from the pressing issues of the moment like ecocide, poverty, oppression and mass military slaughter to get them talking about Cardi B's baby bump and Marjorie Taylor Greene's latest doofy publicity stunt.

We are being lied to. Constantly, and in more ways than we realize. By omission, by distortion, by half-truths and by outright deception. Our minds are being actively messed with by powerful people with limitless resources to ensure their continued domination of the planet at any cost. Our very perception of reality is being assaulted on myriad fronts. Until humanity finds a way to wake itself up from its propaganda-induced coma, the abuses of the powerful will continue.

[Frankie Pancakes]

It begins in typical somewhat Orwellian fashion:

No longer content with absurd claims that the January 6 Capitol riot was as bad as the 9/11 attacks, Democratic Party-aligned pundits are now insisting that it was in fact worse.

On a recent appearance with MSNBC’s ReidOut with Joy Reid, former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd said he felt the Capitol riot was “much worse” than 9/11 and that this is the “most perilous point in time” since the beginning of the American Civil War.

“To me, though there was less loss of life on January 6, January 6 was worse than 9/11, because it’s continued to rip our country apart and get permission for people to pursue autocratic means, and so I think we’re in a much worse place than we’ve been,” Dowd said. “I think we’re in the most perilous point in time since 1861 in the advent of the Civil War.”

“I do too,” Reid said.

Not to be outdone, Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Smith cited Dowd’s hysterical claim but adding that not only was January 6 worse than 9/11, but it was actually going to kill more Americans somehow, even counting all those killed in the US wars which ensued from the 9/11 attacks.

“He couldn’t be more right,” Schmidt said at a town hall for the Lincoln Project. “The 1/6 attack for the future of the country was a profoundly more dangerous event than the 9/11 attacks. And in the end, the 1/6 attacks are likely to kill a lot more Americans than were killed in the 9/11 attacks, which will include the casualties of the wars that lasted 20 years following.”

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/07/10/violent-extremists-took-over-the-us-capitol-long-before-january-6/

[Dennis Leahy]

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/blob:https://outlook.live.com/55060fba-e563-449c-8fd4-d4bbcd5ce14b (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) Electoral Politics Does Not Work: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/09/24/electoral-politics-does-not-work-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) Listen to a reading of this article: (https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/electoral-politics-does-not-work)

❖
It says a lot that AOC wasn't even able to vote (https://jezebel.com/aoc-breaks-with-squad-votes-present-on-1-billion-to-f-1847733155) against an Israeli apartheid measure that everyone already knew would pass regardless of her vote.
I mean, how far gone is your progressive revolution if you're not even allowed to have a perfectly safe performative "no" vote? If even the illusion of opposition is banned?

❖
People say, "Why pick on AOC when other lawmakers are way worse?"
They're not worse, they just perform different functions. The Manchins and Sinemas kill leftward movement openly, the AOCs encourage the left to feed their political energy into a party that's built to kill leftward movement.
It happens that one of these manipulations is much easier for leftwardy-inclined people to see than the other; it's easier to recognize Manchin and Sinema-type bull**** than AOC-type bull****. So you'll see some factions on the left putting special emphasis on pointing out the one that the general public needs a lot more help recognizing.

❖
I don't know who needs to hear this but there is no functional difference between a politician who votes a certain way because they want to and a politician who votes a certain way because systemic pressures push them to.
It's like Trump supporters saying he wanted to fight the Deep State but the Deep State wouldn't let him. It's like, okay, so? Who gives a ****? Either he's an asshole or an impotent puppet, either way **** him. Same with AOC and her constant establishment capitulations. Whether they're serving the empire because they want to or because they have to, it's clear and undeniable that electoral politics isn't the way to advance the interests of normal human beings. The system simply does not allow for that.
The absolute least important thing in the universe is how some politician's feelings are feeling inside. It does not matter what secret intentions they have in their heart. All that matters is what they do. If they can't do what you need them to, it means they're useless. Period.

❖
The single greatest threat to freedom and democracy is not foreign governments, nor the authoritarian measures being implemented by our own governments, but the fact that giant media and tech companies are used to continuously manipulate the way people think about all of those governments.
You are not free if your mind is not free. It doesn't matter if you were free to say and do whatever you want if the powerful are still actively manipulating the thoughts you think, because all your words and actions will arise from those thoughts. Mental sovereignty comes first.

❖
In an alternate universe the governments of a parallel Earth responded to the pandemic by pouring money into healthcare systems, transferring wealth from their nations' richest to their poorest, and saying "Here's a new vaccine but it's up to you whether you use it or not."

❖
It's true that knowledge is power. That's why the powerful work to control people's access to knowledge through the internet and news media. It's also why there's privacy for the powerful and radical transparency for the public, instead of the other way around as it ought to be.

❖
Biden proclaiming (https://news.yahoo.com/biden-un-address-marks-the-first-time-in-20-years-us-is-not-at-war-170852034.html) that the US is no longer at war because he moved a few thousand troops out of Afghanistan is the most Trump-like thing that has happened so far in this very Trumpian administration.

❖
The US is like "We do not seek a new cold war, we simply seek to remain the unipolar dominator of the entire planet and maintain the ability to unilaterally destroy smaller nations which disobey us. And we'll do anything to accomplish this, including waging a new cold war."

❖
George W Bush should never be able to give any speech anywhere without people in the audience cutting him off to yell about his war crimes.

❖
Invented a highly effective new antidepressant that I hope to get to the market ASAP. It's not a pill it's just a big wad of cash taken by force from giant corporations.

❖
Mothers and nurses work harder than any billionaire on earth.

❖
People complain about how I do my thing here and say I should do it some other way, and I totally get it. One time I went to an AC/DC concert and they played not one note of smooth jazz. I was so angry.

❖
We are ruled by a nuclear-armed globe-spanning power structure which is driving our world to its doom in myriad ways and that power structure has somehow seamlessly paced us from fearing terrorists to fearing Russian hackers to fearing anti-vaxxers instead of fearing it.

❖
Someone who calls you an "anti-vaxxer" for expressing moderate and reasonable human rights concerns about brand new government policies that affect everyone deserves as much respect as someone who calls you an "anti-semite" for voicing legitimate criticisms of Israeli apartheid.

❖
Having principles means having them even when they don't further your personal agenda. You may enjoy the sight of having your politics enforced by gunpoint today, but it completely demolishes your voice and integrity when police brutality comes for you tomorrow. Those little self-serving lies that we tell ourselves about how our principles don't apply here because of blah-blah reason are the levers by which the powerful manipulate us into further and further submission.

❖
Propaganda works because it plugs into our most fundamental egoic mechanisms: identity and fear. Identify tightly with a group or political faction and you'll accept propaganda which comes from there. Be driven by fear and that will be used to herd you into power-serving agendas.
If you want to free your mind from the chains of power it's not enough to do research and memorize a bunch of facts. The most important step to freeing your mind from its shackles is to remove from yourself the psychological hooks to which those shackles are attached.

[mountain_jim]

The single greatest threat to freedom and democracy is not foreign governments, nor the authoritarian measures being implemented by our own governments, but the fact that giant media and tech companies are used to continuously manipulate the way people think about all of those governments.
You are not free if your mind is not free. It doesn't matter if you were free to say and do whatever you want if the powerful are still actively manipulating the thoughts you think, because all your words and actions will arise from those thoughts. Mental sovereignty comes first.


David Icke's interview by Chris Martin posted here at Avalon today really covers the first highlighted section here in the context of the what has long-been planned and what is happening now, and why.



https://odysee.com/@Chris_Martenson:2/DavidIcke:0

transcript

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?116362-David-Icke-on-Peak-Prosperity&p=1453833&viewfull=1#post1453833

[onawah]

Pompeo Effectively Admits To Assange Allegations
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/09/30/pompeo-effectively-admits-to-assange-allegations/
by CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
SEPTEMBER 30, 2021

(There are Tweets, a sound recording and videos which I haven't embedded here, but a Mod might want to. It's a good article!)

We are unable to embed soundcloud at this time, enjoy listening at the link:

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1133398447&show_artwork=true&maxheight=1000&maxwidth=1060

"In the process of issuing another not-really-a-denial about a Yahoo News report that the CIA plotted to kidnap, extradite and assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2017, former CIA director Mike Pompeo said that the 30 former government officials the report was based on “should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Here are some quotes from the exchange on Pompeo’s recent Megyn Kelly Show appearance courtesy of Mediaite:

Kelly asked Pompeo about the claims.

“Makes for pretty good fiction, Megyn,” said Pompeo. “They should write such a novel.”

He added, “Whoever those 30 people who allegedly spoke with one of these reporters, they should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Pompeo called Wikileaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” that is “actively seeking to steal American classified information.”

“You deny the report?” asked Kelly.

“There’s pieces of it that are true,” said Pompeo. “We tried to protect American information from Julian Assange and Wikileaks, absolutely, yes. Did our justice department believe they had a valid claim which would’ve resulted in the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States to stand trial? Yes. I supported that effort for sure. Did we ever engage in activity that was inconsistent with U.S. law?… We’re not permitted by U.S. law to conduct assassinations. We never acted in a way that was inconsistent with that.”

1443364303923466240

Pompeo’s point that “We’re not permitted by U.S. law to conduct assassinations” is not especially convincing considering how the Trump administration openly assassinated Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike last year, a move which Pompeo supported and defended.

“President Trump and those of us in his national security team are re-establishing deterrence, real deterrence, against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Pompeo gushed in support of the assassination at the time.

Pompeo’s pseudo-denial is of course further undermined by his position that the former officials who spoke to the press should all be prosecuted for “speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.” Is it false or is it “classified activity”? It can’t be both. The two things Pompeo admitted to, trying to “protect American information” and working to extradite Assange, are not classified information. The classified information he wants them prosecuted for is therefore something else.

After a lot of flailing and humming and hawing Pompeo does eventually make what sounds like a concrete denial with the curiously-worded phrase “I can say we never conducted planning to violate US law.” But even this wouldn’t be a denial of the claims in the Yahoo News report, because the report is mostly about the intelligence community and the Trump administration trying to find legal loopholes that would allow them to take out Assange.

For example, this quote from the Yahoo News article: “A primary question for U.S. officials was whether any CIA plan to kidnap or potentially kill Assange was legal.” This would in no way be contradicted by Pompeo’s claim that “we never conducted planning to violate US law.” It would mean that there were discussions and plans about assassinating Assange amid conversations and debates about whether it would be legal to do so. The fact that they didn’t plan to violate US law doesn’t mean they didn’t plan to assassinate Assange if they could find a legal loophole for it.

1442670286592151553

This follows an earlier non-denial by Pompeo of the exact same nature in an interview with conservative pundit Glenn Beck. Pompeo points out that one of the article’s authors was a Russiagater and says of the former officials cited in the report that “those sources didn’t know what we were doing.” But he doesn’t actually deny it.

If Pompeo had not been involved in plots to kidnap, rendition and assassinate Julian Assange, he would have just said so. He wouldn’t have engaged in all kinds of verbal gymnastics to squirm his way out of a difficult question, and he certainly wouldn’t be calling for the criminal prosecution of his accusers for “speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”

Mike Pompeo is a literal psychopath. He chuckles about lying, cheating and stealing with the CIA. He defends murderous sanctions and openly admits to using them to foment civil war in empire-targeted nations. He defends assassination. He strongly implied the US would interfere in UK politics if Jeremy Corbyn became Prime Minister. And yet somehow he escaped the Trump administration the mass media so despised with nary a scratch of media criticism on him.

This is because Mike Pompeo, as full of centipedes and demon spawn as his enormous head may be, is highly representative of the mainstream US power establishment. He is the embodiment of the empire’s values. He’s just one of its less-subtle representatives."

[Dennis Leahy]

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/blob:https://outlook.live.com/8fe8fc07-2497-42df-9ebc-34cbeacdd8a9 (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2) The US Has Placed Itself In Charge Over Which Nations Get To Eat (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/10/17/the-us-has-placed-itself-in-charge-over-which-nations-get-to-eat/)

by Caitlin Johnstone (https://caitlinjohnstone.com/?author=2)
Listen to a reading of this article: (https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/the-us-has-placed-itself-in-charge-over-which-nations-get-to-eat)

❖
The globally influential propaganda multiplier (https://swprs.org/the-propaganda-multiplier/) news agencies AP and AFP have both informed their readers that a "fugitive" has been extradited to the United States.
"Fugitive businessman close to Venezuela's Maduro extradited to US," reads (https://news.yahoo.com/fugitive-businessman-close-venezuelas-maduro-230133414.html) the AFP headline.

"Alex Saab, a top fugitive close to Venezuela's socialist government, has been put on a plane to the U.S. to face money laundering charges," AP announced (https://twitter.com/ap/status/1449474896828973061) on Twitter.

You'd be forgiven for wondering what specifically makes this man a "fugitive", and what that status has to do with his extradition to a foreign government whose laws should have no bearing on his life. The Colombian-born Venezuelan citizen Alex Saab, as it happens, is a "fugitive" from the US government's self-appointed authority to decide which populations on our planet are permitted to have ready access to food. His crime is working to circumvent the crushing US sanctions which have been starving Venezuelan civilians to death (https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1904/S00166/trump-has-murdered-over-40000-venezuelans-with-sanctions.htm) by the tens of thousands.
Absolutely shameful that @AP (https://twitter.com/AP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) is describing a Venezuelan diplomat being kidnapped by the US as a "fugitive." https://t.co/52AxFOFB80
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) October 16, 2021 (https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1449492737234018305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Saab is being extradited from the African nation of Cabo Verde where he has been imprisoned since last year under pressure from the US government. In an article published this past May titled "Alex Saab v. The Empire: How the US Is Using Lawfare To Punish a Venezuelan Diplomat (https://www.mintpressnews.com/alex-saab-v-the-empire-how-the-us-is-using-lawfare-to-punish-a-venezuelan-diplomat/277364/)", Roger D Harris explains how the US uses its domination of the international financial system to crush nations which disobey it and outlines the real reasons for Saab's imprisonment, which has included torture and draconian living conditions. Harris writes:
Special Envoy and Ambassador (http://www.mppre.gob.ve/en/comunicado/venezuela-joins-request-african-lawyers-demands-government-cape-verde-immediately-release-alex-saab/#:~:text=Alex%20Saab%2C%20Special%20Envoy%20and,which%20is%20why%20Cape%20Verde) to the African Union for Venezuela Alex Saab was on a humanitarian mission flying from Caracas to Iran to procure food and gasoline for the Venezuelan CLAP (https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14602) food assistance program. Saab was detained on a refueling stop (https://www.afriquemedia.tv/afrique/cape-verde-heading-to-hell-paradise-destination-with-high-risk-of-ill-treatment-and-arbitrary-detention) in the African nation of Cabo Verde and has been held in custody ever since June 12, 2020.

Saab’s “crime” — according to the U.S. government, which ordered the imprisonment — was money laundering. That is, Saab conducted perfectly legal international trade. Still, his circumventing of the U.S. sanctions – which are designed to prevent relief to the Venezuelans – is considered by Washington to be money laundering.

After a two-year investigation into Saab’s transactions with Swiss banks, the Swiss government concluded on March 25 that there was no money laundering (https://en.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/politica/fiscales-suizos-abandonan-investigacion-contra-alex-saab/#:~:text=A%20Geneva%2C%20Switzerland%20prosecutor%20has,for%20that%20office%20announced%20Thursday.&text=Swiss%20prosecutors%20concluded%20that%20the,charges%20against%20Saab%20and%20others.). Saab is being prosecuted because he is serving his country’s interest rather than that of the U.S.
News agencies like AP and AFP are well aware that Saab is being extradited not for breaking any actual law but for daring to transgress Washington's unilateral sanctions. As FAIR's Joe Emersberger wrote back in July (https://fair.org/home/saab-case-shows-western-medias-casual-acceptance-of-us-atrocities/):
Reuters (3/15/21 (https://www.reuters.com/article/venezuela-politics-saab-idAFL8N2LD50U), 3/18/21 (https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-venezuela-politics-saab-idUSKBN2BA0HQ)) has casually reported that Saab “faces extradition to the United States, which accuses him of violating US sanctions,” and that he has been “repeatedly named by the US State Department as an operator who helps Maduro arrange trade deals that Washington is seeking to block through sanctions.” A Reuters article (8/28/20 (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-iran-idUSKBN25O1Q9)) about Saab’s case in 2020 mentioned in passing that “the United States this month seized four cargoes of Iranian fuel bound for Venezuela, where fuel shortages are once again worsening.”

The extradition of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab is a clear signal the Biden Administration has made no break with Trump’s all out assault on int’l law
Also a worrying sign for the case of Julian Assange— another foreign citizen the US has essentially kidnapped and held hostage https://t.co/aBVcWI8E3Z
— Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) October 16, 2021 (https://twitter.com/anyaparampil/status/1449465430628880388?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
Critics of the US empire have had harsh words for the extradition.
"Biden, picking up Trump's baton, has kidnapped Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab for the crime of trying to feed Venezuelans in defiance of US sanctions designed to prevent that," tweeted (https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1449491663802540034) journalist Aaron Maté. "Venezuelans aren't allowed to eat so long as the D.C. Mafia has marked their government for regime change."

Yes indeed. The US government has appointed itself the authority to unilaterally decide which of the world's populations get to eat and which do not, and to imprison anyone who tries to facilitate unauthorized eating in a US-sanctioned nation.

"The extradition of Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab is a clear signal the Biden Administration has made no break with Trump’s all out assault on international law," tweeted (https://twitter.com/anyaparampil/status/1449465430628880388) journalist Anya Parampil. "Also a worrying sign for the case of Julian Assange— another foreign citizen the US has essentially kidnapped and held hostage."

This is true. It would seem that the primary difference between Assange's case and Saab's is that the US empire is working to extradite Assange because he transgressed its self-appointed authority over the world's access to information, whereas Saab transgressed its self-appointed authority over the world's access to food.

"The US rogue state just ripped up every international law, after imprisoning and now extraditing Venezuelan DIPLOMAT Alex Saab. Diplomatic immunity is dead; the US empire killed it. Now all foreign diplomats are fair game to be kidnapped and imprisoned, if Washington wants to," tweeted (https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1449472759478824963?s=20) journalist Ben Norton, adding, "The US accusations of 'money laundering' are absurd and politically motivated. The US claims anyone who violates its ILLEGAL sanctions is a 'criminal'."

Indeed, "money laundering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering)" is a vague charge which basically just means trying to conceal the source or destination of money that is deemed to have been obtained illegally, and since the US government considers itself the arbiter of what financial transactions are lawful in nations it is sanctioning, it can apply that claim to anyone who tries to get around US sanctions financially.

The US government does not deny that its sanctions hurt Venezuelans by attacking the economy they rely on to feed themselves, in fact it has openly admitted (https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R44841) that “sanctions, particularly on the state oil company in 2019, likely contributed to the steeper decline of the Venezuelan economy.”

The US government also does not deny that the starvation sanctions it has inflicted upon Iran are directed at its civilian population, with then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo openly admitting (https://archive.is/P19nn#selection-639.0-647.166) in 2019 that Washington's economic warfare against that nation is designed to pressure Iranian civilians to "change the government," i.e. make them so miserable that they wage a domestic uprising to topple Tehran.

The US government also does not deny that the starvation sanctions it has inflicted upon Syria are designed to hurt its civilian population, with current Secretary of State Tony Blinken reaffirming just this past Wednesday (https://news.antiwar.com/2021/10/13/blinken-us-policy-is-to-oppose-the-reconstruction-of-syria/) that it is the Biden administration's policy to "oppose the reconstruction of Syria" as long as Assad remains in power. In other words the US will not allow Syria the funds to help rebuild itself from the devastating regime change proxy war (https://mate.substack.com/p/mccarthyite-meltdown-shows-how-russiagate) the US and its allies waged against it, even as the UN reports (https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/02/1084972) that 60 percent of the nation's population is close to starvation.

And of course there's the US power alliance's horrific blockade on Yemen (https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-lied-about-yemen) which is murdering people by the hundreds of thousands via starvation and disease, with the UN reporting (https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-09-23/un-16-million-yemenis-are-marching-towards-starvation) that a further 16 million people are "marching towards starvation."
Starvation is the only kind of warfare where, because of the continual reframing of mass media propaganda, it is considered perfectly normal and acceptable to deliberately target a civilian population with deadly force.
Last month, the UN warned that 16 million Yemenis are currently “marching towards starvation” due to the US-backed Saudi war on Yemen. https://t.co/fkefzYQtQX
— Human Rights Watch Watcher (@queeralamode) October 16, 2021 (https://twitter.com/queeralamode/status/1449506307304615936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
The US empire is entirely open about the fact that it sees itself as the gatekeeper of the world's food supply. If a population disobeys the empire its people will starve, and anyone who tries to obtain food for them will be arrested by US proxies and extradited to a US jail cell.

This is the imperialist's vision of heaven on earth. A world where America's stranglehold over global financial systems (https://youtu.be/Uiz934HVZjY) allows it to choke off entire populations if their governments disobey imperial decrees, without even firing a shot. A world where the PR nightmares of bombed civilians and destroyed nations are a thing of the past, where disobedient nations can simply be squeezed to death by modern siege warfare tactics while imperial propaganda firms like AP and AFP blame their starvation on their nation's leaders.

That's ultimate power right there. That's total control. Having the world so bent to the will of the almighty dollar and the massive military force with which it is inextricably intertwined to such an extent that disobedience becomes impossible. That's what's being fought for in the slow motion third world war (https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/the-modern-us-war-machine-kills-more-like-a-python-than-a-tiger-606d1747a5ab) that the empire is waging against unabsorbed governments like Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia and China. And that's why those unabsorbed governments are fast at work moving away from the dollar (https://www.rt.com/russia/537407-putin-cnbc-dollar-inflation/) in response.

It should really go without saying, but a power structure that would openly starve civilians to death to ensure global domination is not the sort of power structure that humanity should want dominating the globe. The willingness to do such monstrous things exposes a depravity and a lack of wisdom which has no business determining what direction our world should take into the future.

[Kryztian]

https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-surprise-ending

Humanity's collective awakening will unfold in ways that nobody is anticipating, for the same reasons an individual's awakening always unfolds in ways they can't anticipate.

An individual's journey into greater consciousness is rife with plot twists and M. Night Shyamalan surprise endings, because it is always by necessity a journey into the unknown. Success on the quest to become a more conscious human will necessarily come with surprises, because you're bringing the light of consciousness to things that weren't previously seen. The things you discover surprise you because there's no way you can really anticipate something you haven't yet seen for yourself.

When inner work and therapy begin yielding insights into the underlying sources of one's unhappiness or self-destructive behavior, those insights are often accompanied by a sense of surprise as one realizes for example that a parent whose actions they'd always believed were normal was in fact abusive and traumatizing, or that an early sexual encounter they'd previously believed was innocent was in fact rape. Things that have been kept hidden in unconsciousness due to our inability to grapple with them earlier in life are seen clearly as we coax them into consciousness, and the realization that they weren't what we'd previously assumed can shift our entire experience of life.

When you get it into your head that you need to "find yourself", the Sixth Sense surprise ending of that hero's journey is that there has never been any self to find. People mistake thoughts and the apparent existence of a physical body for a "self", the identification with which they weave into their psychological functioning and energetic experience of life in early childhood. But through careful investigation it's possible to come to the jarring insight that no aspect of our experience actually contains an inherent "me" in it; that it was an unquestioned assumption which got woven into our habits of cognition and perception early on, and that we can consciously un-pick those habits from our way of functioning by bringing awareness to the way life is really happening.

The surprise twist at the end of the quest for liberation is the realization that true freedom comes from setting life free. That freedom from slavery to one's conditioning and the ability to experience life in its natural boundlessness is only possible with a letting go of all effort to control things; to control outcomes, to control our experience, to control others, to control life. All egoic patterning is ultimately born of a desire to control, and freedom from that patterning can only come when there's a letting go of that desire.

The surprise ending of the search for inner peace is the realization that peace has always been here, closer to you than your own heartbeat. That our experience of life in all its sloppy tumultuousness is painted upon a canvass of infinite peace, and that this canvass is your true nature. It was simply overlooked for a time.

The surprise ending in search for unconditional love is the realization that unconditional love is already the case for the entire universe; that everything which appears is utterly beloved exactly as it is without any desire to change it in the slightest. And that change is also utterly beloved. And that even confusion and unconsciousness is utterly beloved. Even in its most painful manifestations.

Every positive change in human behavior is always preceded by an expansion of consciousness, whether you're talking about an individual or an entire world. But you can never truly know ahead of time what's on the other side of that expansion until it happens, because you're not yet conscious of it. A dream character can't know what's happening in the bed of the dreamer. A confused individual can't know what it's like to be a buddha. A confused humanity can't know what it's like to be a conscious humanity. Because they're not conscious of it yet. The lights haven't yet switched on.

And I point this out because I see a lot of people giving up hope for our future; based on what they can perceive and understand about our situation they see no reason to believe humanity will avoid being locked in an Orwellian dystopia if armageddon and extinction doesn't end us altogether. But that's just it: there's so very much we can't yet see and understand about our situation, because we're simply not conscious of it yet.

We are a young species. So much is still hidden in our collective unconsciousness. There are so many lights that can yet be switched on. So many potential doors currently hidden in darkness creating the illusion that there is no exit.

I don't know what's going to happen. I'm just as incapable of seeing what's behind all the curtains of our collective unconsciousness as everyone else. Maybe we'll make it, and maybe we won't. But there's one bet I'd definitely lay down good money on, and it's this: by the time we know for sure how this thing turns out, we'll have surprised ourselves many times.

[Bill Ryan]

Published two days ago (1 March) on Consortium News:


https://consortiumnews.com/2022/03/01/caitlin-johnstone-the-single-most-important-question-in-the-world-right-now

Caitlin Johnstone: The Single Most Important Question In The World Right Now

The more tense things get, the greater the likelihood of an unthinkable chain of events from which there is no coming back.

There is one question today that is more important than any other question that could possibly be asked, and it’s this:

“Is what the U.S. and its allies are trying to accomplish in Ukraine worth continually risking nuclear armageddon for?”

Russian state media confirmed (https://sputniknews.com/20220228/russian-nuclear-triad-begins-combat-duty-with-reinforced-staff-shoigu-tells-putin-1093446860.html) that Vladimir Putin’s orders to move the nation’s nuclear deterrent forces into “special combat duty mode” have been carried out, citing “aggressive statements from NATO related to the Russian military operation in Ukraine.”

“Russia’s ground, air and submarine-based nuclear deterrent forces have begun standby alert duty with reinforced personnel, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has informed President Putin,” Sputnik reported.

This came days after Putin issued a thinly veiled threat of an immediate nuclear strike (https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/putin-ukraine-nato-nuclear-weapons-1.6362890) should western powers interfere in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying, “Whoever tries to hinder us, and even more so, to create threats to our country, to our people, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate. And it will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history.”

https://twitter.com/scharap/status/1497989127303843840
1497989127303843840

This also comes as the U.S. and E.U. countries commit to sending fighter jets and stinger missiles (https://www.ketk.com/news/world/war-in-ukraine-what-to-know-as-putin-escalates-tensions/) to assist Ukraine in fighting an unwinnable war against a longtime target of the U.S. empire, perhaps with the hope of dragging Moscow into a costly military quagmire (https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1497693854132502529) like it deliberately worked to do in Afghanistan (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2003/4/23/afghanistan-the-soviet-unions-vietnam) and in Syria (https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1327710965274710017).

This also comes as the ruble crashes (https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/28/business/russia-ruble-banks-sanctions/index.html) following crushing (https://news.antiwar.com/2022/02/24/biden-announces-more-sanctions-on-russia-more-us-forces-headed-to-europe/) sanctions (https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news-02-27-22/h_c8fdc829162e79855a766ef5a65844b2) and the banning of Russian banks (https://news.antiwar.com/2022/02/27/us-allies-ban-russian-banks-from-swift-crypto-maybe-next-target/) from the international money transfer system SWIFT by the U.S. and its allies. The economic hardship that follows will hurt ordinary people and may foment unrest, and it is here worth noting that in 2019 then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo admitted (https://archive.is/P19nn#selection-639.0-647.166) that the goal of brutal sanctions on Iran was to push people to rise up and overthrow their government.

We’re also seeing the all-too-familiar phrase “regime change” used in reference to Putin by prominent western narrative managers like Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haas (https://twitter.com/RichardHaass/status/1497975759352250376), European Council on Foreign Relations Co-Chair Carl Bildt (https://twitter.com/carlbildt/status/1497921226924347394), Benjamin Wittes (https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1497916216903618562) of the Brookings Institute and Hoover Institution, as well as USA Today (https://archive.fo/KkOgx).

https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1498289187040157699
1498289187040157699

All of this has made nuclear war in the near term a whole lot more likely than it was just a few days ago… which is a really strange thing to type.

As I’m always saying, the primary risk of nuclear war is not that anyone will choose to start one, it’s that one could be triggered by any combination of miscommunication, miscalculation, misunderstanding or technical malfunction amid the chaos and confusion of escalating cold war tensions.

This nearly happened, repeatedly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls), in the last cold war. The more tense things get, the greater the likelihood of an unthinkable chain of events from which there is no coming back.

Cold war brinkmanship has far too many (https://fpif.org/thousands-people-launch-nuclear-war/) small, unpredictable moving parts for anyone to feel confident that they can ramp up aggressions without triggering a nuclear exchange. Anyone who feels safe with these games of nuclear chicken simply does not understand them.

To get some insight into how easily an unpredictable scenario can lead to nuclear war I recommend watching this hour-long documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VPY2SgyG5w) or reading this article (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-soviet-submarine-captain-who-averted-nuclear-war-awarded-future-of-life-prize) about Vasili Arkhipov, the Soviet submariner who single-handedly saved the world from obliteration during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was one of three senior officers aboard a nuclear-armed sub that was cornered near Cuba by U.S. war ships who did not know the sub had a nuclear weapon on board.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VPY2SgyG5w[/url]
The U.S. navy was dropping explosives onto the sub to get it to surface, and the Soviets didn’t know what they were doing as they had cut off all communications. It took all three senior officers to launch the nuke their ship was armed with, and two of them, thinking this was the beginning of World War 3, saw it as their duty to use it. Only Arkhipov, who had witnessed the horrific effects that radiation can have on the human body during a nuclear-powered submarine meltdown years earlier, refused.

You, and everyone you know, exist because Arkhipov made that decision. Had his personal history and conditioning been a little bit different, or had another officer been on board that particular ship on that particular day, nothing around you right now would be there. We got lucky. So lucky it’s uncomfortable to even think about it. But it’s important to.

This again is just one of the many nuclear close calls (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls) we’ve experienced since our species began its insane practice of stockpiling armageddon weapons around the world. We survived the last cold war by sheer, dumb luck. We were never in control. Not once. And there’s no reason to believe we’ll get lucky again.

A 2014 study by Earth’s Future (https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2013ef000205) found that just a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would throw 5 Tg of black carbon into the stratosphere, blocking out the sun for decades and potentially starving everything to death. India and Pakistan have 160 and 165 nukes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons#Statistics_and_force_configuration) each, respectively. The U.S. and Russia have 5,550 and 6,257.

https://twitter.com/Chinchillazllla/status/1498090973049544706
1498090973049544706

So I repeat again the world’s most important question: is what the U.S. and its allies are trying to accomplish in Ukraine worth continually risking nuclear armageddon for?

Well? Is it?

It’s not really a question you can just compartmentalize away from if you have integrity. It demands to be answered.

Is it worth it to continue along this trajectory? Is it? Is it really? Perhaps there might be some things that would be worth risking the life of every creature on earth to obtain, but is refusing to concede to Moscow’s demands in Ukraine one of them?

Whatever your values are, whatever your analysis is, whatever beliefs you’ve been holding to justify your support for the west’s side of this conflict, will you still proudly stand by them if you look outside and see a mushroom cloud growing in the distance?

Well? Will you?

Here’s a hint: if your answer to this question is premised on the assumption that nuclear war can’t or will never happen, then you don’t have a position that’s grounded in reality, because you’re not accounting for real possibilities. You’re justifying your position with fantasy.

https://twitter.com/PaulSonne/status/1498075412194332673
1498075412194332673

I understand the argument that if we let tyrants do whatever they want just because they have nukes they’ll just do whatever they want. I understand the argument that if we don’t stop Putin now he’s going to take over all of Europe because he’s literally Hitler and blah blah blah. I understand why people ask “Well if we don’t stand up to him now, then when? Where is your line??” I really do.

But the U.S. has been making risk-to-benefit calculations based on the fact that Russia has nuclear weapons every single day since Stalin got the bomb. There are things Russia has been permitted to do that weaker nations would have been forcefully stopped from doing, like annexing Crimea and intervening in Syria, exactly because they have nukes. If those weren’t the line, why specifically does Ukraine have to be? Surely there’s a line somewhere, but it would have to exist at a point where it would be worth risking the life of every living creature for.

So is it? Is keeping the possibility of NATO membership open and retaining control of the Donbas really so important that we should roll the dice on the existence of the entire human species on it? Is maintaining a hostile client state on Russia’s border truly worth gambling the life of every terrestrial organism for? Are the desperate unipolarist grand chessboard maneuverings of a few powerful people in Washington, Langley and Arlington really worth risking the life of everyone you know and love?

If the answer is no, then building some opposition to what we’re seeing here becomes a very urgent matter. Very urgent indeed.

[Franny]

Caitlin Johnstone could have included this video in her article, it fits right in. Received it from a friend a few minutes ago, she said, "just in case".

C9vTlBtA_-0

[Kryztian]

Growing Up Means Extracting The Beliefs That Were Placed In Your Head By Others
https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/growing-up-means-extracting-the-beliefs

Most people never grow up. Not really.

Growing up means maturing. It means becoming independent. It means developing into your own person and standing on your own two feet.

Few people really do this. Because few people ever get around to extracting all the beliefs that were placed in their heads by other people.

Most people have similar beliefs to their parents about life, society, politics and religion. If it's not their parents it's other influential figures in their lives like friends, teachers, or the media pundits they follow. 

More significantly, most people hold a lot of beliefs about themselves and their place in the world that were put in their heads by people they care about. The average person goes from cradle to grave without ever seriously examining their beliefs about who they are, what they're like, or any of the other ideas about themselves that get inserted into their minds by the verbal and nonverbal communications of the people around them.

For most people, a huge amount of their personality is pretty much locked into place in early childhood by the life experiences that they have with other people during that time. They're still essentially who they were when they were kids, but we call them grown ups just because they're a certain age and can have kids of their own.

Really growing up means doing the hard, earnest work of extracting all the bull**** that was placed in our minds over the course of our lives by people who were just as immature, traumatized and confused as us. It means really excavating our beliefs about ourselves, about life, and about our world, all the way down to the old subconscious beliefs that are buried so deep inside us that we don't even normally notice them.

This isn't easy. It takes work, it takes dedication, and it takes courage, because truly relinquishing long-held core beliefs is like a kind of death. But unless we've done it we can't really say we have matured as human beings, because we're still existing in more or less the same state we were in when we were children: sponge-like imitators who soaked up whatever was placed in our minds by trusted authorities.

And to make things even harder, it turns out that there's a whole other category of people who've been placing beliefs in our minds, and they're complete strangers. It turns out that powerful people have been pouring massive amounts of wealth and effort into manipulating the way the public thinks, speaks and behaves in order to manufacture consent for agendas and status quo policies which benefit them.

It's obnoxiously unfair, if you think about it. You go through all the hard work of uprooting all the dopey nonsense that was put into your head by your parents, preachers and teachers since you were small, only to find out that you've got a bunch of other garbage in your head that was dumped there by the news media and the manufacturers of mainstream culture for the benefit of a few powerful assholes. Just as you put down your shovel and got ready to relax, you've got to pick it back up and get right back to shoveling.

But hell, that's the job. That's what it takes to become a mature human being. You've got to rip out all the crap that was placed in your mind over the course of your life by confused elders and corrupt manipulators if you want to live a life that's grounded in truth instead of bull****.

This doesn't mean that you can't have beliefs, or that you can't have beliefs that came from other people. Humanity has been full of brilliant minds with great ideas, and the world is full of true and helpful information. The difference is that you are consciously choosing as a mature adult to take on board whatever you take on board for however long you find it useful, rather than mindlessly ingesting it into your worldview because someone told you to.

And you can't do that until you've cleared everything out. Stripped your worldview bare of everything that was put there before you were mature enough to lucidly interrogate its truthfulness, including your most fundamental assumptions about self, life, and reality. From there, you can consciously construct your own worldview based on what you have independently found to be true.

Again, this isn't something most people tend to do, including the powerful people who are destroying our world and driving us toward disaster and annihilation. Our world is being steered by confused psychological infants who have not done the work of becoming true adults, and it's going about as well as it sounds like it would go.

Humanity needs to mature if we are to avert disaster and begin creating a healthy world. We are each singularly responsible for our own role in that maturing process. Every mature human brings humanity as a whole that much closer to maturity, and provides one more voice that can help orient the world toward truth. The work starts here and now, beneath our own feet.

[Kryztian]

https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/vote-for-six-headed-zombie-hitler



Vote For Six-Headed Zombie Hitler To Stop Seven-Headed Zombie Hitler


https://i.imgur.com/RabYlaE.jpeg

Yvj8kjov7Ko

Jack: So have you given any thought to who you’re going to vote for in November?

Jill: Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it a lot actually. I think I’m gonna sit this one out, or maybe vote third party.

Jack: What?? Don’t you know democracy is on the line this election?? Jill, this is the most important election of our lifetimes!

Jill: Jack they say that every election.

Jack: But this time it’s true, Jill! Seven-Headed Zombie Hitler wants to commit genocide and take over the world!

Jill: So does his opponent, Six-Headed Zombie Hitler.

Jack: Look, I’m not saying Six-Headed Zombie Hitler is perfect, but come on! He’s obviously WAY better than Seven-Headed Zombie Hitler! Sometimes you just have to vote for the lesser evil.

Jill: It’s not even clear to me that Six-Headed Zombie Hitler is meaningfully less evil than Seven-Headed Zombie Hitler, Jack! I mean, Six-Headed Zombie Hitler is really, really evil! What about all that genocide and imperialism he’s been supporting?

Jack: Okay but do you want all that genocide and imperialism to be perpetrated by a Zombie Hitler with even more heads? Just imagine how much worse it could get with that extra Zombie Hitler head added into the mix!

Jill: But Jack, doesn’t it feel kind of silly to even be debating this stuff anymore? At some point don’t we have to stop acting like the election results are the problem, when the real problem is clearly a system that’s so corrupt and undemocratic that it now forces us to choose between being ruled by undead Nazi hydra monsters with six heads or seven heads?

Jack: Jill, now’s not the time. Let’s just focus on getting Six-Headed Zombie Hitler into office, and then we can pressure him from the left to enact the policies we want! We can have our little revolution after we’ve stopped Seven-Headed Zombie Hitler.

Jill: That’s what you say now, but next election cycle they’ll roll out another Zombie Hitler with even more heads and you’ll be saying the same thing.

Jack: There’s a Zombie Hitler with even more than seven heads?? Gosh, Seven-Headed Zombie Hitler doesn’t look so bad anymore!

Jill: See that’s exactly what I’m talking about! This keeps happening! We keep finding ourselves in situations where we have to keep voting for a “lesser evil” who’s more and more evil each election cycle. When I was younger they told us we had to choose the least bad of two corrupt warmongering oligarch puppets who want America to rule the world, then at some point they started telling us we have to choose between two candidates who both literally support genocide, and now we’re seeing presidential races where it’s just a bunch of mad scientists creating Zombie Hitler monsters with more and more heads!

Jack: But Jill—

Jill: Where is the line, Jack?? Where is the line of evil you won’t cross beyond? At what point do you stop supporting evil monsters to defeat other slightly more evil-looking monsters? At what point do you say “Nope, that’s too much evil for me, it’s the system itself that needs to be defeated”?

Jack: I’d definitely never go higher than twelve heads.

Jill: Gah!

[Tintin]

Thanks to Dennis (https://projectavalon.net/forum4/member.php?2605-Dennis-Leahy) (:highfive:) who has asked that I contribute this, and perhaps most appropriately so on this thread.



Caitlin:"I’ve got a new painting that’s now up for auction (https://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/1488624) titled “I’m Speaking”, commemorating the vice president’s use of those words (https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/from-aaron-bushnell-to-im-speaking) to shut down anti-genocide protesters earlier this month."





Oil on canvas, 12" x 16".

Full image:

https://avalonlibrary.net/Tintin/Various_%28of_interest%29/Im_Speaking_%28Caitlin_Johnstone%29_panel_1.jpg

Hand image:

https://avalonlibrary.net/Tintin/Various_%28of_interest%29/Im_Speaking_%28Caitlin_Johnstone%29_panel_2.jpg


Click here to put a bid (https://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/1488624) on the painting. If that’s out of your price range, it will be the cover image for the upcoming issue of JOHNSTONE magazine which you can order for a lot cheaper; that should be coming out shortly. As always people are also free to use or copy these images in any way and for any purpose as they see fit, including making their own prints.

-------------------------

Supporting blog article referenced:
From Aaron Bushnell To "I'm Speaking" In Five Months
Published: August 8th, 2024
Link: https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/from-aaron-bushnell-to-im-speaking


"I can’t really find the words to express how depressing it is to watch the life get sucked out of the anti-genocide movement in the United States because one of the candidates running for president this year happens to come from the administration that’s been overseeing said genocide.

Kamala Harris shouted down protesters against the US-backed incineration of Gaza during a campaign rally on Wednesday, responding to their chants of “we won’t vote for genocide” by telling them they’re helping Trump win."

[Kryztian]

https://i.imgur.com/HQCKTz7.jpeg