"This is not what freedom looks like. Humanity could be so, so much more than this, and it should be."
Amen to this! The more we can help our neighbors see beyond the propaganda wall that has been built around them, the faster we can create a world where truth is lauded and cherished. #FreeAssange
I seriously doubt that any of the well-known liberal freedoms are absolute, including the right of free association, in actual practice. Given that humans start life as utterly dependent infants and most are continuously dependent on a given social order throughout their lives, whether they consent to it or not.
As for marketplaces, I find it hard to imagine one that would be absolutely unregulated. Certainly not in actually-existing versions of capitalism, "free enterprise", private enterprise, and all that.
ALL OUR RIGHTS are absolute, else they are merely privileges with is what the empire / state certainly wants you to believe - whether its crushing people's right here or over in Gaza
I f you only support privileges and not rights you should just say so
Let's say Jim thinks Jane is hot and wants to associate with her, but if Jane doesn't think Jim is hot and doesn't want to associate with him, who has the right of association?
"Communismy"? Hmm, Methinks Caitlin may have been reading First Dog On The Moon :)
A trivial and irrelevant point I know, but I have nothing left to say about Israel and Amerika that hasn't been said a thousand times or more already.
I've used up all the words I can use in polite company and despair and dread are just about my default state of mind. Even my dreams are becoming polluted.
I will say, I think pot is a much better alternative to anti-depressants.
I'd argue learning history and taking this one as just another genocide in a long line of past, current, and future ones will save you money (and trouble, where applicable). That is, just being awake and aware.
Hi Botty. Not to be condescending or arrogant or anything, but I'm 72 and I've been paying attention to the world around me since JFK got shot and I have learned a lot of history in that time. Most of it since leaving school, where we were reminded more than once about the holocaust and 6 million Jews. But it was only after I left school that I learned about 26 million Soviets who died fighting fascism and genocide. In 11 years of schooling we were never told about that.
But I didn't live through any of those previous genocides or under an openly brutal, ruthless fascist oligarchy so history offers no succour.
And I sure as fuck won't seek it in religion of any flavour. Not that you've suggested that in any way, but many do. "Gods will and plan".
Sure, you haven't lived through any of the previous ones, but others did. Still others will in the future. And for them it's no less difficult than for you.
What I'm trying to say is we are not unique in that regard. Hence no need to wring our hands and dull ourselves with substances. There were, are, and will be those who in similar circumstances didn't despair, and did something useful instead, whatever they could. Smoking joints, taking pills, and crying out loud is not among those activities.
Note the difference. I don't bug anybody with a pointless question of what to do. Only to step coyly aside when pressed for the answer and implementation details.
Everyone should decide for themselves and do what they can. And it's far closer to Earth - as in down to Earth - and away from what you've been suggesting: dismantle the Deep State, my ass.
Those previous atrocities were many generation past, in both years and technology. In our I.T. A.I. generation, in the face of the most extensive, invasive, pervasive surveillance and the most advanced weaponry the human race has never known, what useful things do you suggest we might do?
Perhaps you've noticed there is a huge effort to divide generations against one another. The fact that millennials can't afford homes is being blamed on Boomers. That Boomers learned the lesson of Kent State quite well is never talked about. Just another forgotten point in history that Caitlin writes about here. I can imagine anyone not a boomer thinking, "Kent State? -- Huh?"
My dad was a graduate student at Kent State, and was forced to leave for protesting the war in Vietnam and the killing of unarmed students. He also protested apartheid at the South African embassy, and was scorned but not fired over that. My kids are millennials and Gen Z, and they see the patterns. AI, like religion, doesn't work very well when you don't subscribe to it. As I've said to recent college students studying data analytics, skepticism is your best tool.
"Those previous atrocities were many generation past" - share your definition of atrocity before we can continue. What I had in mind is something that is ongoing, and not "many generation past".
Toooo true. And here’s another thing the press/media didn’t tell us—that as soon as the US is stopped from killing and oppressing everyone overseas, they’ll be killing and oppressing everybody at home. Gotta drop those bombs somewhere!
Caitlin writes..."We’re already working, consuming and voting in perfect alignment with the interests of the powerful, and for the most part we’re thinking and speaking as the powerful want us to as well. This is because our education and,........
The most succinct powerful description of global capitalism I have ever read in my long decades And I have spent almost 80 years experincingit and studying it from a personal and academic. level .
"The U.S. could convince Saudi Arabia and the UAE to supply six
helicopters each if the American "bureaucracy" prevented
quick approval, Saleh suggested. The General responded that
he had already considered the ROYG's request for helicopters
and was in discussions with Saudi Arabia on the matter. "We
won't use the helicopters in Sa'ada, I promise. Only against
al-Qaeda," Saleh told General Petraeus."
Saleh *'promised'* to use the helicopters only in war #1 and not war #2.
In the same meeting the Yemeni made a joke about lying to their own Parliament.
""We'll continue saying the
bombs are ours, not yours," Saleh said, prompting Deputy
Prime Minister Alimi to joke that he had just "lied" by
telling Parliament that the bombs in Arhab, Abyan, and Shebwa
were American-made but deployed by the ROYG."
The lie was well appreciated by the American side who gifted the Yemeni
with an increase in U.S. security assistance.
---
Have to include this too. General Petraeus demonstrates intimate familial knowledge
of the women and children he slaughtered, else complete shamelessness:
"4. (S/NF) Saleh praised the December 17 and 24 strikes
against AQAP but said that "mistakes were made" in the
killing of civilians in Abyan. The General responded that
the only civilians killed were the wife and two children of
an AQAP operative at the site,"
According to Amnesty International the December 17th attack alone was devastating:
"A Yemeni parliamentary inquiry found that 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children, and 14 alleged al-Qa’ida members were killed in the attack."
Were I to be consulted, Obama would be placed in irons and delivered over to the people of Libya, there to receive whatever fate they choose to mete out. His charming one-time Secretary of State HRC could accompany him, far as I am concerned.
I ask only that the video of their last plane ride and the aftermath be put on YouTube. I say this, not because I am so bloodthirsty, but because sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment and their doubtless grisly demises might get something through to those like them.
iZrael recognized that Hamas' written plan (which iZrael had captured months before) for Oct 7th could not succeed without help from iZrael itself.
iZrael decided to stop monitoring Hamas' hand-held radio network, so they claim.
They had to ignore the alerts being sounded by border watchers.
They had to give a thumbs-down to written reports by intelligence officers
warning of an imminent Oct 7th (this happened!).
They had to ignore that Hamas had been trying to lull them into complacency (this was in writing in the Hamas Oct 7th plans).
They had to remove the vast majority of the IDF troops surrounding Gaza just in time for Oct 7th.
Once the jail break was under way support troops had to be delayed for hours. (They refuse to explain why this happened, stating that they will "investigate" only after Hamas is defeated.)
They had to implement the Hannibal Directive in order to achieve maximum civilian casualties.
The confluence of too many huge failures and too many horrible decisions
It’s been said that if not for Oct. 6, Oct. 7 would not have happened.
Meaning, of course, the complete and utter subjugation of the Gazans by IsraHell.
I’ve made this analogy previously: if one keeps a tiger locked in a 6x6 cage without sufficient food and water and takes pot-shots at it on a regular basis, one day you will forget to lock the tiger’s cage, and it will escape and rightfully kill you.
9/11 is still up for opinion and has much thst is hidden: (for good reason); and I’m sorry , though it may be hard to accept the machinations behind and beyond J/6 have the same NON “coincidences” that are extraordinarily present for 10/7.
I know you are dedicated to dying on the hill of 9/11, and J/6 , however I know far too many who were boots on the ground eye witnesses of 9/10, and J/5:
they recorded everything: and like the eye witnesses of 11/22/63(?): have been threatened and silenced.
None of them fear the government any longer, nor the agencies that enforce their policies by proxie of law enforcement and/or the military. I’m no longer surprised.
i suspect they are going to wait for the Friday news dump to announce they are extraditing Julian. the process has been so rigged and opaque, I'm not optimistic for a better outcome, and this is a common tactic used in releasing information that will be highly unpopular.
Assange is very ill. I don't think either way it will be long. Perhaps they are hoping he will die over the Atlantic so neither the US nor lapdog UK will look like the murderers that they are.
"One thing a lot of people miss about the rising authoritarianism in our society is that such measures are not being rolled out with the goal of constructing a new dystopia that will look wildly different from what we see today, but to lock our current dystopia into place." --An extremely profound insight. I've been distracted by fear of what's coming, and failed to see what already is...
Julian should break his principle and disclose the source of Hillary's cabal e-mails.
Julian already stated that Wikileaks' source was NOT a state/country actor. The source was likely murdered Seth Rich, DNC operative and Sanders supporter.
Ep. 76 -- As they lecture us endlessly about human rights in other countries, the Biden administration is trying to kill journalist Julian Assange for the crime of embarrassing the CIA. His wife Stella joins us from his extradition hearing. -- Feb. 21, 2024
For anyone that is aware of the history of Israel & Palestine, this issue is an incredibly simple one. There are few issues in geopolitics as simple as this one. Yet we find all sorts of people performing incredible feats of mental gymnastics to convince everyone else that this is somehow a "complex" issue.
The so-called "intellectual elites", journalists, think tanks, mainstream media, social and political elites and capitalists are spending vast amounts of resources to "complexify" a simple issue - in part because they are on the losing end and they know it - they are desperately trying to take back control of the narrative - they know that most people are aware of the truth and have been able to see through most of the propaganda.
I believe their attempts at propaganda will only get more desperate as time goes on...
i watched security council voting yesterday or the day before. hell knows what i had expected, but the result and usa explanations just blew my brains out. Now I think that us/uk policy consists of dragging everyone into state of desperation so deep they will bow to US dictate and approve any ceasefire resolution US won't veto. Anything, just to save the remaining Palestinians.
It is rather perverse or rather simply horrific! that international law allows a country to be judge in their own case.
If one follows the history and evolution of so-called "international law" (and the organizations that purport to respect and/or uphold it), they sooner or later realize that it wasn't really international to begin with. There is one set of international rules and laws that the US and its Western allies follow, and there is another set for everyone else to adhere to. IMHO, our systems of "international law" and "rules-based order" have institutionalized the representation, preferences, and power of the strong over the weak. To me, these "international laws" come across as another manifestion of neo-colonialism, neo-imperialism, and efforts at the maintenance of the status quo of the global power elite.
To be sure, there have been quite a few positive contributions by organizations that seem to uphold international law (ICJ, ICC, UN, etc.) over the decades. But this is only allowed in so far as it does not go against the major interests of Western powers (and on occasion the global ruling power elite).
brasil and turkey spoke for necessity of reforms to UN.
You are most probably right that applying double standards is one of the core values of rules-based order, some sort of sacred tradition. To me it was a moment of my own personal little epiphany - I just couldn't believe all these officials remained in the room to carry on with the pantomime. They seemed decent people, spoke considerate words, are they aware of talking in vain? Is it just how they earn their living, just one of those so-called 'bullshit jobs'?
By "neo" it means "different". i.e. colonialism, imperialism, etc. have always existed and continue to exist. In this context, "neo" means "a different form of colonialism, imperialism, etc." than in the past.
To paraphrase - same goals, but different strategies to achieve those goals.
My view/opinion is irrelevant and inconsequential when compared in relation to the views and opinions of much more knowledgeable experts. Instead of asking me what my view is, I think you should focus on asking and learning from historians, subject-matter experts, and the thousands of people that have already explained the "simple logic" of the 100+ year conflict. (That is of course, if you are still confused about the simplicity and clearness of the Palestine-Israel issue). The fact that you ask me this question raises doubts about the sincerety of your question and motives.
My question was an expression of simple curiosity. I'm somewhat familiar with the history of Palestine, but do not know what the simple answer might be from your perspective.
The only time I have felt free was when I was living halfway up a mountain with no neighbours, no roads going by where I lived, no running water, no electricity. Just a few bears, a couple of cougars and my dogs. Every now and then I had to go into the nearby, very small town for groceries and I always felt overwhelmed by the "crowds". Now I live in a bustling city and the only free things I see are the squirrels and the birds.
who said it was a solution? I said it was the only time I have ever really felt free. Weird that you would right away connect that idea with a serial murderer. He is not the only person who ever escaped from the insanity of the world for a long or short while.
I actually find his manifesto quite good! Serial murder? No more than an average politician, just more direct, less subtle.
I just don't think that returning to nature would make human kind any better in our essence. Or any more free, just less defiant when faced with laws/constraints of primitive, absolutely basic, instinctive level. I would argue rather in progressive extending of the cooperation/interdependence of herd than regressing into what is easier to manage instinctively.
In the natural world, humans are not really necessary. In fact they often interfere. It is in the non natural world of politics etc that people are necessary. Maybe that is why so many of those who are powerful in the non natural world fight so hard to keep it going and are so disrespectful of nature.
I would like to strive to not be a murderous anyone. One day when I walked out my door I had a strong feeling of who I really was. Just a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things. Just the same as the ants I saw or even the mosquitoes flying around. That's all any politician is too, really. Just that some of them seem to be viral specks that cause a lot of damage. I think that getting in touch with nature somehow, whether that meant isolation or just paying attention to the plants and animals around, would actually make us more free and possibly even more defiant when faced with unjust laws and contstraints.
not quite sure what you are saying. I thought that I had said that humans are a part of the natural world. I see us as much less important than we think we are. We are important to keeping the mess going that we have created, but if we all disappeared, the rest of the natural world would function just fine.
and then, just after I wrote the following reply, I listened to some amazing music and thought about all the incredible art, music and writing that humans have made. Humans have so much potential, but it is being railroaded by people who think power and money is the most important thing. For that reason, the rest of the earth would probably do just fine without us.
Really? UK Warns It Could Restrict Arms Sales To Israel If Rafah Offensive Proceeds
Fresh headlines Wednesday say the United Kingdom is mulling restricting arms sales to Israel if it goes ahead with its planned major offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is packed with over a million Palestinian refugees who've been forcibly relocated from other parts of the Strip...
..Not only has London's High Court recently dealt with petitions from legal advocacy groups alleging British arms sent to Israel are being used to commit war crimes (petitions which thus far have been rejected), but the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has just issued a letter to Netanyahu's office calling for Israel to "stop and think seriously about the repercussions of a military offensive" on Rafah.
Earlier this week Israeli defense officials for the first time said that the offensive would likely be launched by Ramadan, which begins on March 10 this year. The military has said Hamas can avoid this by releasing all of the hostages. At the UN Security Council, the UK abstained from a Tuesday vote on a resolution calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It failed due to veto from the United States.
Cuban President backs Lula's comments on Gaza genocide
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel expressed his solidarity with Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva after he was classified as persona non grata by "Israel for his sincere condemnation of the extermination of the Palestinian population in Gaza."
This comes after the Brazilian President said during an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, "What's happening in the Gaza Strip isn't a war, it's a genocide," detailing that Israeli troops were not fighting "soldiers against soldiers," but rather a highly prepared army against "women and children."
Gideon Levy (paywalled) opinion piece from Haaretz: The World Must Force Peace on Israel
Now is the time for the United States, and in its wake the international community, to make a decision: Will the endless cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians continue, or are we going to try to put a stop to it? Will the United States continue to arm Israel and then bemoan the excessive use of these armaments, or is it finally prepared to take real steps, for the first time in its history, to change reality? And above all, will the cruelest Israeli attack on Gaza become the most pointless of all?
"At the UN Security Council, the UK abstained from a Tuesday vote on a resolution calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It failed due to veto from the United States."
What an impressive set of balls by the UK! Of course, next time they'll switch places to ensure the required outcome. Not to mention flash the balls.
That simply marks them as the cyber version of the world’s “oldest profession” russian_bot. In our nomenclature, it’s “hired gun”, and “troll”..(they’re very well compensated for it all : count on it).
Did usa bot address the world's largest "nation" of genocide, war crimes, CaH, Wars of Aggression, ... ? As bad as the uk is, they are only a junior member sucking up to the usa.
They control quite a bit of the narrative these days. They’ve all but solidified complete control over all of American media, whilst buying out newspapers and newsrooms all over the country.
Yes, but there is something being arranged which we do not yet see. AIPAC/Mossad superficially control the US political machine, but their neighbors are thinking of how to take out enough Israeli nukes in a first strike to make Israel actually negotiate (I think).
Iran has something very, very similar to the Kinzhal hypersonic missile these days.
This article makes a great point about the fact that we are already in a dystopia that will only look more dystopian as authoritarian measures (censorship, etc) currently being implemented are really like a new coat of paint for the same old prison-house. Bio-medical tyranny? Already in place for quite a while now: the Covid Regime was just an accelerant. Information Space Control? Just fine-tuning the apparatus. The elites running the Machine are mostly brain-washed drones that have been brain-chipped, as it were. Plenty of freedom of thought and perspective still out there, however, despite the avalanches of White Noise coming from the top. Free Assange!
Yes, the covid regime got us all afraid of left wing control, the Lockdown Left didn't help https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/left-covid-lockdowns-mind-autopsy/ and got us talking about chips in our brains and mind control. Yet millions are already happy to wear fitbits and ZOE patches collecting our biological data, understanding more and more about our reactions, enhancing the algorithm that already controls our behaviour.
True story. Covid made me feel like a rat in a maze being led to a magical, miracle sugar cube (I passed on the cube, by the way; in hindsight, no regrets there).
Love it. I knew when 'lockdown' was proposed it was to make us take that horrid cube. I was in the maze but trying to get out and was hurt by the opprobrium of the people going the other way.
Thank you for the comment. I would say neither pejorative epithet fits my critique of the way the Covid crisis was handled, especially by unelected authorities. What I observed was that all voices of dissent, or, frankly, other perspectives, were suppressed during Covid, radically narrowing the public discourse, and herding people into a single solution, the experimental therapeutic aka mRNA shots, which proved to fall well short of the mark. Covid is obviously a "hot button" topic that has considerably cooled off. All the hype around it from mainstream media bullhorns was a serious red flag from my perspective, with lots of "authoritative sources" pontificating about a Virus we still don't know very much about, like where it even originated. Just a few thoughts on the subject...
For whatever reason, your comment disappeared, Gregor, but I suggest not arguing by means of false dilemmas.
The choice is not "this vaccine" or "let er rip" and you can only choose one or the other and you must choose, any more than the "Patriot Act" was the only possible response to 9/11.
I am actually arguing that FF! I get your point about the response to anything always being negotiable but when you say people died of a new virus or 9/11 'happened' there's lots of doubt about testing, end of life care, controlled detonations and video evidence even there.
Your words Gregor are apt though not in the way you mean them. We do know that millions of people die from the capitalist dystopia; where a few people have over half the wealth. That it affects the entire world, every species and individual. That nothing is left untouched.
It recalls to mind the steady revelations of the horrors the US war crimes committed upon The Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians over 60 years ago now.
The problem is indeed one of organization. Individuals without groups will never solve the problem of organization. Individually we are weak and easily crushed, powerless. The only power available comes from ideologically united groups. Currently our opposition has groups and institutions that are very powerful, and have no qualms about exercising their power. It is magical thinking to believe avoiding any groups will present any threat to the existing power structure.
And the problem does seem to be that it is hard to find groups worth joining and throwing your personal effort behind. But we must find them or make them.
I didn't say avoid any group, I said don't let any group do your thinking for you. Don't go along with their thinking and understanding. Don't shirk your responsibility for your own mind onto others.
Pragmatically, this is incompatible with the collective action (planning and coordination) you recognize as essential. Such collective action requires consensus, which can not be achieved without shared thoughts and values and "facts" (and expertise), which cannot be obtained without trust, which can not happen if each individual of the group "does their own thinking". Some things have to be accepted without individual thought - it is impossible to de novo everything.
Nonsense. If an agenda is right it doesn't require mindless conformity to generate support. You see me here every day throwing my support behind various agendas because I did my own thinking and came to the conclusion that they were good and beneficial, not because some group said I should.
Shared experience and collective efforts are not "mindless conformity".
Playing in the band, singing in the choir, playing the beautiful game, reaping the harvest, or storming the Bastille require individuals to share reality and trust groups. That's never "mindless conformity".
We appear to be talking past each other. You say you're not talking about mindless conformity, and I'm definitely not saying anything against collective efforts. I'm also pretty sure I'm not saying anything against shared experience; I'm not sure what you mean when you use those words, but the way I use them I definitely didn't say anything against that.
maybe awareness regarding individual and group motives or nearly constant scrutiny of group and individual premises or choices, could help?
of course, it complicates decision making. democracy is more messy and acts slower than an authoritarian regime, but that might be detrimental to acting good causes yet advantageous when it comes to committing crimes.
It's also advantageous to shirk responsibility for those crimes. Can you name or just give a number of recent UK PMs? Could it be related to crimes they helped perpetrate?
It doesn't. But going in the other direction - scaling the worth - is also problematic. Starting with the quality of the scales and ending with the quality of the people loading the trays.
Peter Gabriel, in a live performance, introduced a song 'Not One Of Us' by saying: "This is about groups of people who make themselves into smaller groups of people, in order to feel strong by excluding others". I thought that more than a little profound.
Here in lies the problem with party politics. We can only be heard or effective in groups yet all groups are manipulated by the elites and each other- I've watched how 'health freedom' has been fed climate denial, the conspiracy of left wing control by Klaus' vanity project in Davos and got all the lockdown and vaccine skeptics protesting in the highstreet with 'co2 is plant food' placards. Ridiculous. Now they'll all losing their minds over 'excess deaths' by the jabs not understanding that actually deaths are decreasing again after the all time low of 2019 and the subsequent increase (on level with 2008) in 2020. Life expectancy in the West is high. They want us fat sick and on drugs. This is the model. Not depopulation.
Yet the world must come together, least we all go down the shitter, to address food and energy for 8 billion and protect the lives of all other creatures and plants at the same time. Can each nation and species voice be heard? Let alone can each individual be heard?
The "opposition" you refer to has at its disposal a full repression mechanism and unlimited resources to go after you in every possible way. Nowadays, given pervading surveillance, any group you might be thinking of in terms of building viable opposition is bound to lose.
True, but we'll never have a chance with that attitude, will we? Submit, or organize and fight? Everything starts small and you'll never know what can be accomplished until you try.
Sure, but don't ever think about doing anything that can be constituted as illegal or concocted to be such.
In no time - again, as opposed to the times past - the group will be infiltrated, or founding members recruited (based on past sins, which are all documented, stored, and can, and will be retrieved in due time), and activities steered in the direction such as to be compromised.
"This is not what freedom looks like. Humanity could be so, so much more than this, and it should be."
Amen to this! The more we can help our neighbors see beyond the propaganda wall that has been built around them, the faster we can create a world where truth is lauded and cherished. #FreeAssange
To 'The Revolution Continues': The problem is it has yet to begin.
Realist: The problem is it has yet to begin.
======
That is most assuredly a VERY REALISTIC position.
ALL social freedom MUST START with the LIBERAL social right to Freedom of Association.
Failure to choose that option means STATE-MANDATED (EMPIRE MANDATED) associations
Whether these associations are simply social, personal, or MARKETPLACE is irrelevant IF you really want to support that liberal civil liberty.
The marketplace is a part of society
People who think they can have a regulated marketplace but a free society are contradicting themselves.
Both D's and R's are famous for their disapproval of that liberal social right
You mean like the freedom to associate Meacham talks about here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xl9PQk1C9gQ
50,000 members of the KKK walked down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Truman almost joined the KKK but had too many Catholic Friends
"In theory" I support your point.
AI mean like your ability to associate with whom you choose as long as FREEDOM is involved as FREEDOM of Association says!!!!
Give that up and you implicitly support Empire/State mandated associations
I seriously doubt that any of the well-known liberal freedoms are absolute, including the right of free association, in actual practice. Given that humans start life as utterly dependent infants and most are continuously dependent on a given social order throughout their lives, whether they consent to it or not.
As for marketplaces, I find it hard to imagine one that would be absolutely unregulated. Certainly not in actually-existing versions of capitalism, "free enterprise", private enterprise, and all that.
ALL OUR RIGHTS are absolute, else they are merely privileges with is what the empire / state certainly wants you to believe - whether its crushing people's right here or over in Gaza
I f you only support privileges and not rights you should just say so
Let's say Jim thinks Jane is hot and wants to associate with her, but if Jane doesn't think Jim is hot and doesn't want to associate with him, who has the right of association?
"Communismy"? Hmm, Methinks Caitlin may have been reading First Dog On The Moon :)
A trivial and irrelevant point I know, but I have nothing left to say about Israel and Amerika that hasn't been said a thousand times or more already.
I've used up all the words I can use in polite company and despair and dread are just about my default state of mind. Even my dreams are becoming polluted.
I will say, I think pot is a much better alternative to anti-depressants.
I'd argue learning history and taking this one as just another genocide in a long line of past, current, and future ones will save you money (and trouble, where applicable). That is, just being awake and aware.
Yes there have been a lot of genocides. Some more out there and noticed than others
And some made up as well.
Many of them seem to be easily forgotten. As a noted European politician said once, "Who remembers the Armenians today?"
The Armenians do, Starry.
Of course, but I wonder how many here got the reference, which still seems all too relevant.
Hi Botty. Not to be condescending or arrogant or anything, but I'm 72 and I've been paying attention to the world around me since JFK got shot and I have learned a lot of history in that time. Most of it since leaving school, where we were reminded more than once about the holocaust and 6 million Jews. But it was only after I left school that I learned about 26 million Soviets who died fighting fascism and genocide. In 11 years of schooling we were never told about that.
But I didn't live through any of those previous genocides or under an openly brutal, ruthless fascist oligarchy so history offers no succour.
And I sure as fuck won't seek it in religion of any flavour. Not that you've suggested that in any way, but many do. "Gods will and plan".
Sure, you haven't lived through any of the previous ones, but others did. Still others will in the future. And for them it's no less difficult than for you.
What I'm trying to say is we are not unique in that regard. Hence no need to wring our hands and dull ourselves with substances. There were, are, and will be those who in similar circumstances didn't despair, and did something useful instead, whatever they could. Smoking joints, taking pills, and crying out loud is not among those activities.
"There were, are, and will be those who in similar circumstances didn't despair, and did something useful instead, whatever they could."
Gee, it seems just like yesterday I was saying essentially the same thing. Much to a rash of shit from you.
Note the difference. I don't bug anybody with a pointless question of what to do. Only to step coyly aside when pressed for the answer and implementation details.
Everyone should decide for themselves and do what they can. And it's far closer to Earth - as in down to Earth - and away from what you've been suggesting: dismantle the Deep State, my ass.
Those previous atrocities were many generation past, in both years and technology. In our I.T. A.I. generation, in the face of the most extensive, invasive, pervasive surveillance and the most advanced weaponry the human race has never known, what useful things do you suggest we might do?
Teach your Children
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAu1T6syiD4
Perhaps you've noticed there is a huge effort to divide generations against one another. The fact that millennials can't afford homes is being blamed on Boomers. That Boomers learned the lesson of Kent State quite well is never talked about. Just another forgotten point in history that Caitlin writes about here. I can imagine anyone not a boomer thinking, "Kent State? -- Huh?"
My dad was a graduate student at Kent State, and was forced to leave for protesting the war in Vietnam and the killing of unarmed students. He also protested apartheid at the South African embassy, and was scorned but not fired over that. My kids are millennials and Gen Z, and they see the patterns. AI, like religion, doesn't work very well when you don't subscribe to it. As I've said to recent college students studying data analytics, skepticism is your best tool.
and who were the groups of people who engineered those happenings in history??
"Those previous atrocities were many generation past" - share your definition of atrocity before we can continue. What I had in mind is something that is ongoing, and not "many generation past".
The definition of "atrocities" is everything the usa does to all the poor nations of the world so Gangster usa can steal their wealth.
From the Founding Gangsters/Genocidists/... to this day.
You know this, usa bot.
Rwanda, Congo, Palestine, Brazil, Libya, Iraq ... oh yes you have lived through them, but you do not know.. because the press do not tell us.
Toooo true. And here’s another thing the press/media didn’t tell us—that as soon as the US is stopped from killing and oppressing everyone overseas, they’ll be killing and oppressing everybody at home. Gotta drop those bombs somewhere!
Religion? You could make up your own.
Tequila
Caitlin writes..."We’re already working, consuming and voting in perfect alignment with the interests of the powerful, and for the most part we’re thinking and speaking as the powerful want us to as well. This is because our education and,........
The most succinct powerful description of global capitalism I have ever read in my long decades And I have spent almost 80 years experincingit and studying it from a personal and academic. level .
I posted a link to a Wikileaks leak here yesterday. No one wanted to read it as it pertained to sacred cow Obama.
People are still living with rose colored glasses when it come to Obama.
Remember, Obama is the one that began the persecution of Assange.
Here is a Wikileaks cable that you may not be familiar with.
You can see why Assange is hated by the blood thirsty warmongers.
A week after Obama gave his speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize
he slaughtered dozens of women and children in Yemen.
He topped that war crime off by covering up the crime.
It was claimed that the Pentagon was targeting a terrorist in Yemen.
Legal problem was that his organization wasn't on the official list
of designated terrorist organizations (darn that paperwork!).
Obama/Pentagon missed their target but slaughtered dozens of women and children.
The perps met with their Yemen counterparts afterwards and the meeting was
described in a memo. Yemen covered for Obama/Pentagon by publicly claiming
that Yemen forces had accidentily killed all those women and children,
but that pesky Assange and his organization leaked the memo!
The cable summing up a meeting between General Petraeus and President Saleh of Yemen
discusses laundering weapons to get around the 'American "bureaucracy"'.
Was this standard operating procedure? We sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and they
transfer them to President Saleh of Yemen to use against the Houthis.
https://search.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10SANAA4_a.html
"The U.S. could convince Saudi Arabia and the UAE to supply six
helicopters each if the American "bureaucracy" prevented
quick approval, Saleh suggested. The General responded that
he had already considered the ROYG's request for helicopters
and was in discussions with Saudi Arabia on the matter. "We
won't use the helicopters in Sa'ada, I promise. Only against
al-Qaeda," Saleh told General Petraeus."
Saleh *'promised'* to use the helicopters only in war #1 and not war #2.
In the same meeting the Yemeni made a joke about lying to their own Parliament.
""We'll continue saying the
bombs are ours, not yours," Saleh said, prompting Deputy
Prime Minister Alimi to joke that he had just "lied" by
telling Parliament that the bombs in Arhab, Abyan, and Shebwa
were American-made but deployed by the ROYG."
The lie was well appreciated by the American side who gifted the Yemeni
with an increase in U.S. security assistance.
---
Have to include this too. General Petraeus demonstrates intimate familial knowledge
of the women and children he slaughtered, else complete shamelessness:
"4. (S/NF) Saleh praised the December 17 and 24 strikes
against AQAP but said that "mistakes were made" in the
killing of civilians in Abyan. The General responded that
the only civilians killed were the wife and two children of
an AQAP operative at the site,"
According to Amnesty International the December 17th attack alone was devastating:
"A Yemeni parliamentary inquiry found that 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children, and 14 alleged al-Qa’ida members were killed in the attack."
Were I to be consulted, Obama would be placed in irons and delivered over to the people of Libya, there to receive whatever fate they choose to mete out. His charming one-time Secretary of State HRC could accompany him, far as I am concerned.
I ask only that the video of their last plane ride and the aftermath be put on YouTube. I say this, not because I am so bloodthirsty, but because sociopaths learn only from reward and punishment and their doubtless grisly demises might get something through to those like them.
Feral, and I would request that their executions be carried out in the same manner as that of Qaddafi.
What fun! 😁
Well spoken Levi and point ON.
Obama? I honestly did not know this was a liberal retard website.
Most Americans don't support Israel's War on Gaza. They're reasonably terrified to skate on the thin ice of anti-semitic defamation of character. More chilling than anti-vaxxer libels. https://stephensimac.substack.com/p/war-is-war-lies-are-weapons
Americans have and are supporting wars with their taxes and labour,
iZrael recognized that Hamas' written plan (which iZrael had captured months before) for Oct 7th could not succeed without help from iZrael itself.
iZrael decided to stop monitoring Hamas' hand-held radio network, so they claim.
They had to ignore the alerts being sounded by border watchers.
They had to give a thumbs-down to written reports by intelligence officers
warning of an imminent Oct 7th (this happened!).
They had to ignore that Hamas had been trying to lull them into complacency (this was in writing in the Hamas Oct 7th plans).
They had to remove the vast majority of the IDF troops surrounding Gaza just in time for Oct 7th.
Once the jail break was under way support troops had to be delayed for hours. (They refuse to explain why this happened, stating that they will "investigate" only after Hamas is defeated.)
They had to implement the Hannibal Directive in order to achieve maximum civilian casualties.
The confluence of too many huge failures and too many horrible decisions
to be credible.
iZrael betrayed -- Intentional Defense Failure --
and slaughtered its own -- Hannibal Directive
in order to invoke the latent blood lust in it's citizenry
so that they would support GENOCIDE.
And such a Beast claims that "it has a right to exist".
What a world.
Hi Levi
It’s been said that if not for Oct. 6, Oct. 7 would not have happened.
Meaning, of course, the complete and utter subjugation of the Gazans by IsraHell.
I’ve made this analogy previously: if one keeps a tiger locked in a 6x6 cage without sufficient food and water and takes pot-shots at it on a regular basis, one day you will forget to lock the tiger’s cage, and it will escape and rightfully kill you.
NONE of which were “coincidental” Levi. It was a clear cut INSIDE JOB just as J6, and 9/11.
9/11 is still up for opinion and has much thst is hidden: (for good reason); and I’m sorry , though it may be hard to accept the machinations behind and beyond J/6 have the same NON “coincidences” that are extraordinarily present for 10/7.
I know you are dedicated to dying on the hill of 9/11, and J/6 , however I know far too many who were boots on the ground eye witnesses of 9/10, and J/5:
they recorded everything: and like the eye witnesses of 11/22/63(?): have been threatened and silenced.
None of them fear the government any longer, nor the agencies that enforce their policies by proxie of law enforcement and/or the military. I’m no longer surprised.
i suspect they are going to wait for the Friday news dump to announce they are extraditing Julian. the process has been so rigged and opaque, I'm not optimistic for a better outcome, and this is a common tactic used in releasing information that will be highly unpopular.
Assange is very ill. I don't think either way it will be long. Perhaps they are hoping he will die over the Atlantic so neither the US nor lapdog UK will look like the murderers that they are.
Well we know he is ill......if they take a long time to come to a conclusion it makes. what have said all along, his death in prison more likely.
Then we have to refer to the Navalny case.
NO! Sorry had a bad day yesterday.
Sorry, Jenny…hope today is better for you!
Well I have just read Greenwalds report and the comments have driven me into a frenzy.
Take a look?
Hugs and xxxxx
"One thing a lot of people miss about the rising authoritarianism in our society is that such measures are not being rolled out with the goal of constructing a new dystopia that will look wildly different from what we see today, but to lock our current dystopia into place." --An extremely profound insight. I've been distracted by fear of what's coming, and failed to see what already is...
Thank you, Caitlin.
Julian should break his principle and disclose the source of Hillary's cabal e-mails.
Julian already stated that Wikileaks' source was NOT a state/country actor. The source was likely murdered Seth Rich, DNC operative and Sanders supporter.
Ep. 76 -- As they lecture us endlessly about human rights in other countries, the Biden administration is trying to kill journalist Julian Assange for the crime of embarrassing the CIA. His wife Stella joins us from his extradition hearing. -- Feb. 21, 2024
https://x.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1760424414124867651?s=20
Agree, but would not change a thing, it would still be the 'Russians' ...
For anyone that is aware of the history of Israel & Palestine, this issue is an incredibly simple one. There are few issues in geopolitics as simple as this one. Yet we find all sorts of people performing incredible feats of mental gymnastics to convince everyone else that this is somehow a "complex" issue.
The so-called "intellectual elites", journalists, think tanks, mainstream media, social and political elites and capitalists are spending vast amounts of resources to "complexify" a simple issue - in part because they are on the losing end and they know it - they are desperately trying to take back control of the narrative - they know that most people are aware of the truth and have been able to see through most of the propaganda.
I believe their attempts at propaganda will only get more desperate as time goes on...
i watched security council voting yesterday or the day before. hell knows what i had expected, but the result and usa explanations just blew my brains out. Now I think that us/uk policy consists of dragging everyone into state of desperation so deep they will bow to US dictate and approve any ceasefire resolution US won't veto. Anything, just to save the remaining Palestinians.
It is rather perverse or rather simply horrific! that international law allows a country to be judge in their own case.
If one follows the history and evolution of so-called "international law" (and the organizations that purport to respect and/or uphold it), they sooner or later realize that it wasn't really international to begin with. There is one set of international rules and laws that the US and its Western allies follow, and there is another set for everyone else to adhere to. IMHO, our systems of "international law" and "rules-based order" have institutionalized the representation, preferences, and power of the strong over the weak. To me, these "international laws" come across as another manifestion of neo-colonialism, neo-imperialism, and efforts at the maintenance of the status quo of the global power elite.
To be sure, there have been quite a few positive contributions by organizations that seem to uphold international law (ICJ, ICC, UN, etc.) over the decades. But this is only allowed in so far as it does not go against the major interests of Western powers (and on occasion the global ruling power elite).
brasil and turkey spoke for necessity of reforms to UN.
You are most probably right that applying double standards is one of the core values of rules-based order, some sort of sacred tradition. To me it was a moment of my own personal little epiphany - I just couldn't believe all these officials remained in the room to carry on with the pantomime. They seemed decent people, spoke considerate words, are they aware of talking in vain? Is it just how they earn their living, just one of those so-called 'bullshit jobs'?
By "neo" it means "different". i.e. colonialism, imperialism, etc. have always existed and continue to exist. In this context, "neo" means "a different form of colonialism, imperialism, etc." than in the past.
To paraphrase - same goals, but different strategies to achieve those goals.
And what is your simple view of the Israel-Palestine issue?
My view/opinion is irrelevant and inconsequential when compared in relation to the views and opinions of much more knowledgeable experts. Instead of asking me what my view is, I think you should focus on asking and learning from historians, subject-matter experts, and the thousands of people that have already explained the "simple logic" of the 100+ year conflict. (That is of course, if you are still confused about the simplicity and clearness of the Palestine-Israel issue). The fact that you ask me this question raises doubts about the sincerety of your question and motives.
My question was an expression of simple curiosity. I'm somewhat familiar with the history of Palestine, but do not know what the simple answer might be from your perspective.
"It's complicated" is truly my favorite phrase deployed by Liberals to defer responsibility.
Grow a goddamn spine.
It’s also been deployed by the so called “conservatives” Gavin to even greater extent.
It’s a very old “cop out”.
Or "it's nuanced".
The only time I have felt free was when I was living halfway up a mountain with no neighbours, no roads going by where I lived, no running water, no electricity. Just a few bears, a couple of cougars and my dogs. Every now and then I had to go into the nearby, very small town for groceries and I always felt overwhelmed by the "crowds". Now I live in a bustling city and the only free things I see are the squirrels and the birds.
ted kaczynski path, might work in practice but it's treating symptoms instead of the causes.
who said it was a solution? I said it was the only time I have ever really felt free. Weird that you would right away connect that idea with a serial murderer. He is not the only person who ever escaped from the insanity of the world for a long or short while.
I actually find his manifesto quite good! Serial murder? No more than an average politician, just more direct, less subtle.
I just don't think that returning to nature would make human kind any better in our essence. Or any more free, just less defiant when faced with laws/constraints of primitive, absolutely basic, instinctive level. I would argue rather in progressive extending of the cooperation/interdependence of herd than regressing into what is easier to manage instinctively.
In the natural world, humans are not really necessary. In fact they often interfere. It is in the non natural world of politics etc that people are necessary. Maybe that is why so many of those who are powerful in the non natural world fight so hard to keep it going and are so disrespectful of nature.
I would like to strive to not be a murderous anyone. One day when I walked out my door I had a strong feeling of who I really was. Just a tiny speck in the grand scheme of things. Just the same as the ants I saw or even the mosquitoes flying around. That's all any politician is too, really. Just that some of them seem to be viral specks that cause a lot of damage. I think that getting in touch with nature somehow, whether that meant isolation or just paying attention to the plants and animals around, would actually make us more free and possibly even more defiant when faced with unjust laws and contstraints.
'Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.'
there's second part to this poem, which i'm still ambivalent about.
https://allpoetry.com/poem/8495989-Love-by-Czeslaw-Milosz
not quite sure what you are saying. I thought that I had said that humans are a part of the natural world. I see us as much less important than we think we are. We are important to keeping the mess going that we have created, but if we all disappeared, the rest of the natural world would function just fine.
and then, just after I wrote the following reply, I listened to some amazing music and thought about all the incredible art, music and writing that humans have made. Humans have so much potential, but it is being railroaded by people who think power and money is the most important thing. For that reason, the rest of the earth would probably do just fine without us.
emu (?),
The Old Unibomber did miss that part there……..
and i missed several parts of the sentence :D
Day 2 at ICJ hearing: Saudi Arabia condemns Israel’s actions in Palestinian Territories as ‘legally indefensible’
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2463186/middle-east
Really? UK Warns It Could Restrict Arms Sales To Israel If Rafah Offensive Proceeds
Fresh headlines Wednesday say the United Kingdom is mulling restricting arms sales to Israel if it goes ahead with its planned major offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which is packed with over a million Palestinian refugees who've been forcibly relocated from other parts of the Strip...
..Not only has London's High Court recently dealt with petitions from legal advocacy groups alleging British arms sent to Israel are being used to commit war crimes (petitions which thus far have been rejected), but the UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron has just issued a letter to Netanyahu's office calling for Israel to "stop and think seriously about the repercussions of a military offensive" on Rafah.
Earlier this week Israeli defense officials for the first time said that the offensive would likely be launched by Ramadan, which begins on March 10 this year. The military has said Hamas can avoid this by releasing all of the hostages. At the UN Security Council, the UK abstained from a Tuesday vote on a resolution calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It failed due to veto from the United States.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uk-warns-it-could-restrict-arms-sales-israel-if-rafah-offensive-proceeds
Cuban President backs Lula's comments on Gaza genocide
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel expressed his solidarity with Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva after he was classified as persona non grata by "Israel for his sincere condemnation of the extermination of the Palestinian population in Gaza."
This comes after the Brazilian President said during an African Union summit in Addis Ababa, "What's happening in the Gaza Strip isn't a war, it's a genocide," detailing that Israeli troops were not fighting "soldiers against soldiers," but rather a highly prepared army against "women and children."
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cuban-president-backs-lula-s-comments-on-gaza-genocide
Gideon Levy (paywalled) opinion piece from Haaretz: The World Must Force Peace on Israel
Now is the time for the United States, and in its wake the international community, to make a decision: Will the endless cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians continue, or are we going to try to put a stop to it? Will the United States continue to arm Israel and then bemoan the excessive use of these armaments, or is it finally prepared to take real steps, for the first time in its history, to change reality? And above all, will the cruelest Israeli attack on Gaza become the most pointless of all?
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-02-18/ty-article-opinion/.premium/now-peace-by-force/0000018d-b862-dd5e-a59d-fdf2034d0000
"At the UN Security Council, the UK abstained from a Tuesday vote on a resolution calling for immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It failed due to veto from the United States."
What an impressive set of balls by the UK! Of course, next time they'll switch places to ensure the required outcome. Not to mention flash the balls.
You failed to address war criminal usa's genocides and support for genocides, usa bot, just as a usa bot would do, usa bot.
the subject of his post was the war criminals' support for genocides in the UN.
That jerk operates at least four accounts: "Pete Schult", "Ernesto Che", "Terry Byrne", "Klaus Hubbertz".
i try to stay out of others' disputes because i have enough of my own, but that was just so blatant I had to speak up.
I'm not recruiting anybody. Just helping to make sense of such crap and cut down on the abuse as much as possible.
Typical usa bot's lies. Ernesto Che, below, laughed at your proclivity to say woefully ignorant things.
That simply marks them as the cyber version of the world’s “oldest profession” russian_bot. In our nomenclature, it’s “hired gun”, and “troll”..(they’re very well compensated for it all : count on it).
russian_bot(?),
They’re hired guns right out of The @MurdochGutterMedia stable
Paid very well to post this kind of rubbish.
Sure there's that kind. And then there are some who are plain nasty. Never having grown out of teenage bullying mentality.
Did usa bot address the world's largest "nation" of genocide, war crimes, CaH, Wars of Aggression, ... ? As bad as the uk is, they are only a junior member sucking up to the usa.
AIPAC is ruling.
I keep mentioning all the Palestinian prisoners held in Israel without trial but all I hear about are hostages!
Indeed Jenny,
They control quite a bit of the narrative these days. They’ve all but solidified complete control over all of American media, whilst buying out newspapers and newsrooms all over the country.
This is worldwide Patricia.
YES,
It most definitely
IS.
Yes, but there is something being arranged which we do not yet see. AIPAC/Mossad superficially control the US political machine, but their neighbors are thinking of how to take out enough Israeli nukes in a first strike to make Israel actually negotiate (I think).
Iran has something very, very similar to the Kinzhal hypersonic missile these days.
How accurate is it?
Hello John.
I hope this is correct difficult to know anything these days!
I must admit Arab States and Iran have been very quiet......I keep waiting for something to happen.
I feel sick!
Speaking of locks on prisons, enter A.I.
This article makes a great point about the fact that we are already in a dystopia that will only look more dystopian as authoritarian measures (censorship, etc) currently being implemented are really like a new coat of paint for the same old prison-house. Bio-medical tyranny? Already in place for quite a while now: the Covid Regime was just an accelerant. Information Space Control? Just fine-tuning the apparatus. The elites running the Machine are mostly brain-washed drones that have been brain-chipped, as it were. Plenty of freedom of thought and perspective still out there, however, despite the avalanches of White Noise coming from the top. Free Assange!
Yes, the covid regime got us all afraid of left wing control, the Lockdown Left didn't help https://thegrayzone.com/2022/03/31/left-covid-lockdowns-mind-autopsy/ and got us talking about chips in our brains and mind control. Yet millions are already happy to wear fitbits and ZOE patches collecting our biological data, understanding more and more about our reactions, enhancing the algorithm that already controls our behaviour.
True story. Covid made me feel like a rat in a maze being led to a magical, miracle sugar cube (I passed on the cube, by the way; in hindsight, no regrets there).
Love it. I knew when 'lockdown' was proposed it was to make us take that horrid cube. I was in the maze but trying to get out and was hurt by the opprobrium of the people going the other way.
Thank you georgie&donny,
You have made a salient and ominous point.
You're welcome!
Point(s), ON todd:
Well said.
Thank you. Caitlin always writes great essays, but this one seemed especially good.
Thank you for the comment. I would say neither pejorative epithet fits my critique of the way the Covid crisis was handled, especially by unelected authorities. What I observed was that all voices of dissent, or, frankly, other perspectives, were suppressed during Covid, radically narrowing the public discourse, and herding people into a single solution, the experimental therapeutic aka mRNA shots, which proved to fall well short of the mark. Covid is obviously a "hot button" topic that has considerably cooled off. All the hype around it from mainstream media bullhorns was a serious red flag from my perspective, with lots of "authoritative sources" pontificating about a Virus we still don't know very much about, like where it even originated. Just a few thoughts on the subject...
We're not arguing that. But that doesn't mean ipso facto that the means put in place were justified.
9/11 also happened. That does not make the so-called "Patriot Act" justified.
For whatever reason, your comment disappeared, Gregor, but I suggest not arguing by means of false dilemmas.
The choice is not "this vaccine" or "let er rip" and you can only choose one or the other and you must choose, any more than the "Patriot Act" was the only possible response to 9/11.
I am actually arguing that FF! I get your point about the response to anything always being negotiable but when you say people died of a new virus or 9/11 'happened' there's lots of doubt about testing, end of life care, controlled detonations and video evidence even there.
Your words Gregor are apt though not in the way you mean them. We do know that millions of people die from the capitalist dystopia; where a few people have over half the wealth. That it affects the entire world, every species and individual. That nothing is left untouched.
You're so funny. Yes I know you were.
Yourvideo/painting gets the war crimes totally clear. It is difficult to express how horrible what we are watching happen in Gaza is.
Yes Susan T,
It recalls to mind the steady revelations of the horrors the US war crimes committed upon The Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians over 60 years ago now.
I disagree that people should avoid ANY group.
The problem is indeed one of organization. Individuals without groups will never solve the problem of organization. Individually we are weak and easily crushed, powerless. The only power available comes from ideologically united groups. Currently our opposition has groups and institutions that are very powerful, and have no qualms about exercising their power. It is magical thinking to believe avoiding any groups will present any threat to the existing power structure.
And the problem does seem to be that it is hard to find groups worth joining and throwing your personal effort behind. But we must find them or make them.
I didn't say avoid any group, I said don't let any group do your thinking for you. Don't go along with their thinking and understanding. Don't shirk your responsibility for your own mind onto others.
Pragmatically, this is incompatible with the collective action (planning and coordination) you recognize as essential. Such collective action requires consensus, which can not be achieved without shared thoughts and values and "facts" (and expertise), which cannot be obtained without trust, which can not happen if each individual of the group "does their own thinking". Some things have to be accepted without individual thought - it is impossible to de novo everything.
Nonsense. If an agenda is right it doesn't require mindless conformity to generate support. You see me here every day throwing my support behind various agendas because I did my own thinking and came to the conclusion that they were good and beneficial, not because some group said I should.
Shared experience and collective efforts are not "mindless conformity".
Playing in the band, singing in the choir, playing the beautiful game, reaping the harvest, or storming the Bastille require individuals to share reality and trust groups. That's never "mindless conformity".
So surprising that you don't get it.
We appear to be talking past each other. You say you're not talking about mindless conformity, and I'm definitely not saying anything against collective efforts. I'm also pretty sure I'm not saying anything against shared experience; I'm not sure what you mean when you use those words, but the way I use them I definitely didn't say anything against that.
maybe awareness regarding individual and group motives or nearly constant scrutiny of group and individual premises or choices, could help?
of course, it complicates decision making. democracy is more messy and acts slower than an authoritarian regime, but that might be detrimental to acting good causes yet advantageous when it comes to committing crimes.
It's also advantageous to shirk responsibility for those crimes. Can you name or just give a number of recent UK PMs? Could it be related to crimes they helped perpetrate?
it is. nothing is perfect, but it doesn't need to mean that everything is equally worthless.
It doesn't. But going in the other direction - scaling the worth - is also problematic. Starting with the quality of the scales and ending with the quality of the people loading the trays.
A stark and factual assessment of criminal behavior emu:
Thank you.
Peter Gabriel, in a live performance, introduced a song 'Not One Of Us' by saying: "This is about groups of people who make themselves into smaller groups of people, in order to feel strong by excluding others". I thought that more than a little profound.
Here in lies the problem with party politics. We can only be heard or effective in groups yet all groups are manipulated by the elites and each other- I've watched how 'health freedom' has been fed climate denial, the conspiracy of left wing control by Klaus' vanity project in Davos and got all the lockdown and vaccine skeptics protesting in the highstreet with 'co2 is plant food' placards. Ridiculous. Now they'll all losing their minds over 'excess deaths' by the jabs not understanding that actually deaths are decreasing again after the all time low of 2019 and the subsequent increase (on level with 2008) in 2020. Life expectancy in the West is high. They want us fat sick and on drugs. This is the model. Not depopulation.
Yet the world must come together, least we all go down the shitter, to address food and energy for 8 billion and protect the lives of all other creatures and plants at the same time. Can each nation and species voice be heard? Let alone can each individual be heard?
The "opposition" you refer to has at its disposal a full repression mechanism and unlimited resources to go after you in every possible way. Nowadays, given pervading surveillance, any group you might be thinking of in terms of building viable opposition is bound to lose.
True, but we'll never have a chance with that attitude, will we? Submit, or organize and fight? Everything starts small and you'll never know what can be accomplished until you try.
Sure, but don't ever think about doing anything that can be constituted as illegal or concocted to be such.
In no time - again, as opposed to the times past - the group will be infiltrated, or founding members recruited (based on past sins, which are all documented, stored, and can, and will be retrieved in due time), and activities steered in the direction such as to be compromised.
Just ask Julian,
russian_bot………
Lots of people don't even know he exists, let alone analyze his circumstance.
I think the corrupt Justice system in the US needs to be mentioned here!