Our entire culture — movies, schoolbooks, religions etc — tells us to always be looking for heroes. Tells us to look outside ourselves for celebrated leaders who will show us where to go. And I just think that's a terrible dereliction of duty — of our duty to find the truth for ourselves.
Most Christian America doesn't fully grasp the Truth in this teaching of The Christ, 'And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God comes not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is WITHIN YOU.'
That's where the questioning must start for The Truth to be found!
I’m not sure it is helpful in a post titled “It’s good when idols get knocked off pedestals” to mention “The Christ”, who 2.4 billion people now believe is the biggest hero/idol of all time and who all place on the biggest pedestal ever constructed.
That said, I actually like this particular alleged saying of Jesus because one interpretation is that you don’t need anyone telling you what you already know because it’s already inside you—no idol, hero, savior, or pedestal required.
The words that are attributed to him seem to be words to consider. As for putting him up on a pedestal? All religions everywhere have their hero idols that they put all of their "trust" in via their writings. My problem with Christianity lies in the fact that your reason, logic and common sense is supposed to be left at the threshold of the building they meet in and you are supposed to believe on FAITH that the man or woman preaching is anointed and you should accept their word since God can only talk through them. It's pitiful.
I am an atheist and was brought up that way. I believe all religions are superstitions, left over from the time of primitive mankind, made up in an attempt to understand life. Now, since the Enlightenment, we have science and we actually KNOW a lot about life. But the stories about Jesus Christ do portray him as a rebel against the Roman Empire and there are some pithy quotations supposedly from his spoken words. But nobody should ever take anything on faith.
Carolyn, If you knew what is written between the covers of the BOOK of BOOKS, you could relate to the record showing Jesus was a rebel against the Religious Establishment!
Living and going through my 80th year, I would love to see the Day on Earth the BOOK says will come when "NO NONE will have to TALK ABOUT GOD because EVERYONE would KNOW GOD"
Effectively that would be a Regime Change of the Religious Establishments of this World's PYRAMID Systems portrayed as the 2 INVERSE PYRAMIDS in the Star of David.
Greater numbers of People from ALL NATIONS are beginning to see how upside down this Material World is become, like the upside down PYRAMID on it's tip ready to topple over.
Jewish Rabbis, Christian TV Evangelists and Muslim Imams would disappear from Public Spaces as no longer necessary.
JOY, PEACE and GOOD WILL to all proclaimed on that 1st Christmas Eve, would prevail in THIS World!
The Kingdom People have been praying for to come the last 2000 years will have finally arrived IF the People ACTUALLY DO the WILL of God on EARTH, as it is in HEAVEN. The people prayed but didn't do for 2000 years, and now this World is in dire straits for OUR GENERATIONS to sort out.
And as the late Carl Klang sang years ago...LORD SAVE ME FROM A FEW OF YOUR FOLLOWERS. Describing you well as one we need to be saved from. A know it all that has it all figured out and has it figured out so well that he judges others according to what HE thinks is the truth. The "book" you write about is so full of contradictions and goes against reason, logic and common sense, which by the way is something the creator gave us ALL, not just you. Enjoy... Which one is YOU Ray? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUwUdHEo0Y4
Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
If you be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.
How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
How does the Finite Mind reason with the Infinite Mind?
It has to be with Reverence, Humility, Trust and lots of PATIENCE in short supply these Days.
What City in our TIMES? Washington, New York, Ottawa, London, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Jerusalem? One or all?
No doubt there are Good and Evil Images and Scenes in the Bible describing what Humans are doing from so long ago to these Days.
In my Faith, I have this view in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, now unfolding and HAPPENING in THIS Material World these 2000 years after it was put to pen.
And the NATIONS WERE ANGRY, and your WRATH is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that you should give reward to your servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear your name, small and great; and should destroy them which destroy the earth.
Revelation 11:18
Everyone can see the NATIONS and the People within them are increasingly Angry and Wrathful.
Science is telling us we Humans are destroying this Earth and the environment that sustains us.
Humans made in the Image and Likeness of God don't listen, are not concerned and continue on that Path without question.
Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and you that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down to you, having great WRATH, because he knows that he has but a short time.
Revelation 12:12
FAITH in the Resurrected Spirit of Christ gives us the tools to walk through that minefield delivered from from the WRATH of God and the WRATH of the devil, and the ability to discern WHICH WRATH IS WHICH?
I think the big Oscar winner this year, not the movie itself, but the Title. 'EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE' is prescient for the Time of Tribulation THIS World is heading into.
As for IDOLS, this was posted online 12 years ago describing 1 surprise night in my Curriculum Vitae in Venice, California 1976,
"And it feels like it's happening faster and faster. The Dalai Lama trying to tongue kiss that kid. Chomsky meeting with Epstein. Bernie Sanders falling all over himself to serve the establishment he once vocally decried. People just don't get to keep their heroes anymore."
Then let the people make a new hero through the ballot box. For just one reason, let us quickly promote Robert Kennedy into the White House, thereby immediately closing 800 US military bases around the world. Do not schedule any visits for him in the state of Texas.
Ask him to dispense with the services of 21,000 employees at the CIA Criminal Club as well. Let us also make it so hard for the self-serving Davos meetings to ever occur again, plotting as they are for their own interests. Close immediately through legislation the overseas-controlled un-American club called AIPAC and their hundreds of similarly motivated anti-democratic consultancies, the Neocons, from functioning on American soil.
Identify publicly and then do away with dual US / Israel citizenship.
Let us all try and find just one respectable (and truthful) media organisation to show the world the real Netanyahu and his Knesset with their 400+ nuclear devices, remembering as well all the regimes in Israel whose corrupt aims have been in place for 70 years without any meaningful action by the toothless and shamed United Nations. A total charade.
The world cannot afford to wait until some fools from a US-based organisation, (most likely) or a US vassal state ‘partner' or a NATO member makes an on-purpose mistake and fires off a nuclear device. No more obvious way imaginable to create yet another world power grouping of say, Russia and China as a new power bloc joining with all the other states in the world that have been treated badly by the USA. Far too many to list.
We cannot wait any longer for a required break from the Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush types of Presidents together with their corrupters, ruling the world…..by force.
I probably ought to have written “It’s ironic” instead of “I’m not sure it’s helpful.” So point taken. I agree that it is always helpful to consider someone else’s perspective.
Regarding Jesus knocking himself off the pedestal he has been placed on, there isn’t enough historical evidence to know what Jesus would think about his idolization, but I like the sentiment of what you say because I tend to like cosmic rulers who are humble . On the other hand, if Jesus wants to come down from heaven tomorrow in a pillar of light with a lightning bolt in either hand and send Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, John Bolton, and all the other Neo-liberal imperials into a lower level of Hell for a few minutes so they can get a taste of their future karmic desserts, I might see that as a nice bit of divine justice.
Killing over 200,000 CIVILIANS in WAR lI with 2 small nukes, since then the US has invaded and bombed ONLY poor, 3rd World countries and couldn't get a win in any of them with the MOST EXPENSIVE Military Force in the History of Nations.
The frantic exit from Kabul in August 2021 was the latest US Humiliation the World saw, Afghanistan being one of the poorest Countries on Earth.
I would agree, except that it’s almost always the innocent bystanders who get killed in such 3rd world conflicts. It is celebrants in wedding parties and teenagers playing soccer and mothers holding babies walking to the market who get droned, or it is teenage boy soldiers who’ve never fallen in love who seem to get their legs blown off. And worse, the preachers of war and the begetters of armies get continuous adulation and bigger and bigger paychecks. Take John Bolton, for example: he has never been right about anything in his adult life, yet he thrives and grows rich. For there to ever be divine justice, there will first have to be a just divinity.
I've often said that if I ever get to question the "creator" one of my first questions would be "why do you let psychopathic control freak parasites rule the world continually from day one?" I suspect that he/she/it whatever, will place the blame on us. After all, don't we vote them in? Don't we support them? Don't we kiss their asses and lick the boots of their enforcement police?
"within YOU." Christianity may have a problem in that it may have begun the cult of individualism, or individual- focused thinking (with some hero worship too). Everything is about YOU and YOUR relation to God, and salvation of the individual. Your sins, life as your own moral test to get YOU in to heaven. Your own individual prayers asking God for stuff for YOU.
Caitlin is right, the problems we have go well beyond the individual. It is funny, I was going to highlight the exact same paragraph:
"Our entire culture — movies, schoolbooks, religions etc — tells us to always be looking for heroes. Tells us to look outside ourselves for celebrated leaders who will show us where to go. And I just think that's a terrible dereliction of duty — of our duty to find the truth for ourselves"
And just add the emphasis that all these cultural influences celebrating heroes tend to rob people of agency, or even the imagination that they need to actively participate in change, rather than just sit back and spectate the elevated heroes as the heroes 'fight for us' and solve the problems we face. Heroes or true leaders (maybe MLK for example) need to be backed by millions of active, engaged, informed and motivated supporters willing to get out there and sacrifice time, resources, and maybe even their own life and limb.
And I would also emphasize that nobody is capable of finding truth by themselves. We are all born malleable idiots that could become Nazis or raving street preachers under the right circumstances. You need support, dozens of helpers present and past to find the truth. Caitlin is one of the present voices that does seem to match up with reality! :) You have to develop a critical brain capable of looking at the world, listening or reading what other people are saying about it, then deciding what actually matches up to your own experience. Unfortunately not everyone during childhood and adolescence under our system of education, family, and community is equipped with broad critical thinking, empathy, and access to historical truths.
"within you" is only 1 part in getting the FAITH into Practise. There are many other Biblical insights that must be taken into consideration.
We all went astray like sheep, we have turned, each one on his way, and the Lord accepted his prayers for the iniquity of all of us.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he would not open his mouth; like a lamb to the slaughter he would be brought, and like a ewe that is mute before her shearers, and he would not open his mouth.
From imprisonment and from judgment he is taken, and his generation who shall tell?
For he was cut off from the land of the living; because of the transgression of my people, a plague befell them.
And he gave his grave to the wicked, and to the wealthy with his kinds of death, because he committed no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
One of the rules for everyone is if we don't forgive others their SINS, God will not forgive US OUR SINS. As for SINS, personally I like Archery definition of SIN. SIN is the degree we fall short of hitting the the Perfect Mark of the BULLSEYE!
It still boggles my mind to understand the heights and the depth of the Love of Chris., Enduring the pain and torture in his Human flesh of Crucifixion, he could say, 'Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing!' That is True to this very Day!
This is one incident I went through practising the FAITH in my Curriculum Vitae 47 years ago,
When I read your comment, I knew that all those who know nothing about Christianity - and in particular Catholicism - would come out of the woodwork and come up with all the clichés. A Christian has no idols, Christ is not an idol for him. The Catholic does not believe that the man of the cloth is anointed and must believe everything he says. I am a Catholic and often the Pope's words give me hives. On the other hand, I do not dispute the truth about the dogma of faith. But that's where it ends. For those who believe with that liar Voltaire that a Christian is a superstitious sheep, I invite them to read Dostoyevsky or Bernanos, they will find there more freedom and truth than they will ever find in all these authors of the so-called Enlightenment, these freethinkers who are rather ready-to-think, the precursors of the American propangandists.
Is that the doubting Thomas who didn't believe the others who said The Lord appeared to them?
Jesus said, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
In the Biblical Timeline the Pharisee Saul would have to be considered the most anti-Christ character in the Bible on a search and destroy mission to eradicate the new Jewish Sect calling themselves Christians.
On his way to Damascus to arrest Christians, Saul was awakened by the Christ Spirit and changing his name to Paul, evolved to become the most Passionate Advocate of Christ never having met Jesus, chosen to articulating the ways that have to be put in practice Jesus said to doubting Thomas, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
I note the descendants of Saul regularly attack and destroy some of a certain belief in Damascus to these Days and OUR TIMES.
This vision was given to Don in the 1990's. I think it is coming to pass as I write this. WE ARE ELOHIM. WE need to get away from "celebrated leaders" who typically are nothing but the dregs of humanity. The psychopathic control freaks that we place in powerful positions that make them untouchable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPHEXuPFPio
I always say that in todays world what is being pushed on to our children from an early age is a leadership cult. This brainwashing is especially perverse in the US, where the good guys "tortured some folks", were the only ones to drop atomic bombs... TWICE!... experimented on their own population (800 young pregnant women were given cocktails of radioactive iron to see how that would affect them and their unborn babies), dropped more bombs than all other countries of the world in all of history combined and murdered/Slaughtered millions of innocent human beings while doing so, including children and elderly, employed thousands of Nazis/SS/Gestapo/SD after WWII in their own ranks, in high positions in NATO, the UN or their own security services (that includes the French and the Brits and the new German government after WWII)...
The "Good" guys have succeeded in perfect double speak.
People can be wrong, monstrously wrong, sometimes, and yet not even the stupidest and most evil.human is wrong all of the time. People can be capable of heroic deeds, and yet they still are flawed.
Believing that conspiracies explain the world is as misguided, unproductive and silly as believing that heroes or gurus can explain it to you. Of course, there are conspiracies, but it's plain lazy to think they provide a useful explanation of how the world works. That is Chomsky's point. Do the work. Why does the CIA exist? Who sponsors it? Why does it have the role and powers it has? What lines did JFK cross? Chomsky has the useful answers to these larger questions that help us understand the significance and likelihood of conspiracy theories, proven or unproven.
People don't have to be perfect in all areas to be very good in one area, Chomsky was the pundit of US foreign policy. He was the best. But you might expect him to be god. He thought the unvaxxed should be sent to camps. Still he was the best at explicating American foreign policy.
It takes a tremendous level of self confidence to avoid idolizing others as heroes. When we have no confidence in ourselves, we look to others to provide stories that we don't feel qualified to come up with ourselves. Breaking that cycle of dependence on others, or on institutions, is key to helping people realize that they can, if they wish, stand on their own two feet.
Agreed. It’s called co-dependency and this Yuppie generation is THE most co-dependent generation since the ‘50’s. In fact they were born in ‘58 to a scared codependent middle class and grew up to love the Reagun Revolution without ever knowing what it was. They are now ‘65 and terrified that they won’t have “enough” to meet their every desire in retirement because Wall Street, the drunken bully they supported their entire lives, has let them down. They are a hollowed out, empty hearted people who plead “compassion fatigue” as they let the world burn while they support wars for oil and hate the Soviets who don’t even exist any more because it makes them feel secure. A sickening breed that is too slowly dying off.
I’m sorry you got this reply sent to you. It was for John Van Steenbergan above in response to his saying he was 68 and going to die soon so I should be happy. 🤔. Substack is weird sometimes.
Psychopathic control freaks have been ruling the world for way too long. The problem seems to be that normal people don't want to rule anything except their own lives. And that leaves a void for the evil in our midst to gravitate to the positions of power and the places they can make themselves so rich that the average person cannot even fathom. WE JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE! https://courageouslion380.substack.com/p/i-just-want-to-be-left-alone
I seriously thing they groom these guys in private “think tanks” or shark tanks, then send them to that oddball Redwood forest “retreat” that looks something like someone’s idea of a satanic cult for the Gatsby’s. They ply them with money. We should outlaw all the covert agencies, who are the lowest of the low. Everyone else is like a bit part in some horror show.
You’re not my idol, but you and your husband are damn good writers! Thank you for your continued witty, honest and consciousness-raising columns. This one hits the nail on the head, as do most of your publications.
I agree. I will follow and learn from an independent, well spoken observer of our political world as they move towards radicalization of thought and action and that seems to be you, Caitlin. I don’t idolize you in the sense of worship, but I sure as hell can emulate you. You’ve kicked up my willingness to get back into the fray that I lost about 10 years ago at 68 and retirement. I may not agree with everything you say but I adore your kickass way of saying it. I had the same admiration for Chomsky and I still respect his insights into manufacturing consent that helped push all of us forward in our analytical skills. But when he considered himself some kind of hero who could tell us all that this was not Fascism we were seeing in the US, I dumped him, without malice or great sadness. I’d do the same with anyone who stops being useful to society as I see it.
I do hate to pick on him. He has done more society and better than I’ll ever do. And his work will never be undone. But I will get huffy when someone seems to a legend in his own mind and uses his accomplishments in one area to give himself cache in another. I don’t like wise old men. They are too often doddering old fools.
You have called Assange a hero, more than once, with good reason and a couple others. You do good work and are putting ideas out there that oppose the narrative. That's a good thing. Reading your work, I have thought you were a good person...reading this article, maybe you're just not a sociopath. ;) It isn't that we are only taught to look for heroes outside ourselves, we are told not be one. "Don't be a hero, cementaries are full of them."
We aren't taught to think, we are taught to repeat, that's the purpose of propaganda, to have it repeated and believed. "The bigger the lie, the bigger the mass of people to believe it." Here is the thing, with me. Even if I believed every lie the empire told me. I still wouldn't want war with Russia or China. Why? I'd understand the reprocussions of such. In my youth, I believed many lies and some ideologies. Now I believe less lies but keep those ideologies and one of those ideologies was a world were people weren't under an oppressive empire. There was a time I believed the US empire was good, but the ideologies and reality became increasingly contrasted to a point where I found the truth.
You may not be great, Kaitlin, but you represent a more compassionate side of humanity. In your work, you remind me that my views aren't insane. I speak about your article about being ruled by assholes. Put you on a pedastal? No, maybe offer a comfortable seat, I have implied the US would do to you what it is doing to Assange. Torture is wrong and only a twisted mind thinks otherwise. Why would the government go to great lengths to oppress free speech? It doesn't want the truth heard or known.
Exactly. I don't think this revelation about Chomsky surprised me any. I've always had a suspicion that something wasn't quite right with the man. He's a closet pedophile/pedo-supporter possibly. That could be it.
So many of you guys are psychopaths yourselves. And deluded conspiracy theorists. You would fuck the world up just as much as the elites you hate. You already have.
I agree with everything said here in general terms about the finding out the truth for oneself without putting people on pedestals and turning them into idols. But on the specifics: Did Chomsky have dinner with Epstein *after* the latter's conviction for sex offences? Because if not, it seems to me that he did nothing wrong, as far as we know. And even if he did know and went out to dinner with him anyway, what that means what exactly? It means that he did something that is wrong, very wrong, and that he is imperfect (assuming he didn't believe Epstein to be innocent of the charges). But if you didn't already assume he was imperfect, then you have a problem, the kind that is described here in this piece by Caitlin Johnstone. And what does this *not* mean? It most certainly does not mean that everything he has done for so many years in speaking truth to power and in educating so many about the nature of power has been without value. It does not mean that at all. Also, the comparison with the Dalai Lama and Bernie Sanders seems to lack sense of reality. These latter two gentleman have not really contributed anything really meaningful, it seems to me, toward justice and peace in the world - at least, I don't think so. They are little more than "idols", it's true (I used to think Sanders was genuine, but it seems to me now that he was probably always something of a phoney). Noam Chomsky is very different. He has spent decades speaking out against oppression and injustice, shining a light on the crimes of the United States in particular. And none that is undone by any foolishness or lack of judgment in his dotage. Let's not put people on pedestals or create idols - I agree - but let's also refrain from casually contributing, by association or insinuation, to the character assassination of a fundamentally decent and morally courageous human being.
I confess, I am what Caitlin is writing about. I am a person who put all hope in Bernie Sanders. I met someone on an experiment who said with our shared politics you need to know Bernie Sanders, this was in 1993. After reading and communicating I wrote an email (AOL ha) asking Bernie to run for president which I had heard that was the thinking and wanted to agree. I door knocked, fund raised and donated like many, I maxed out TWICE. As I have written here, I was mentally damaged when Bernie onstage at the South Carolina debate said " Joe Biden is a friend of mine and he would make a great president". That moment I canceled my Our Revolution membership because that kind of revolution I didn't want to be part of. I too know who Joe Biden is from his record and public speeches. I no longer support political candidates other than friends who I know ( we shall see now that they are in office). People like me continued this fraud Caitlin writes so brilliantly about. Kshama Sawant if she kills what little hope I have it will be devastating. Do all leaders fail us or do we need leadership as Chris Hedges claims? All successful movements have a spokesperson? Workers Strike Back.
Our entire culture — movies, schoolbooks, religions etc — tells us to always be looking for heroes. Tells us to look outside ourselves for celebrated leaders who will show us where to go. And I just think that's a terrible dereliction of duty — of our duty to find the truth for ourselves.
Most Christian America doesn't fully grasp the Truth in this teaching of The Christ, 'And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God comes not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is WITHIN YOU.'
That's where the questioning must start for The Truth to be found!
I’m not sure it is helpful in a post titled “It’s good when idols get knocked off pedestals” to mention “The Christ”, who 2.4 billion people now believe is the biggest hero/idol of all time and who all place on the biggest pedestal ever constructed.
That said, I actually like this particular alleged saying of Jesus because one interpretation is that you don’t need anyone telling you what you already know because it’s already inside you—no idol, hero, savior, or pedestal required.
The words that are attributed to him seem to be words to consider. As for putting him up on a pedestal? All religions everywhere have their hero idols that they put all of their "trust" in via their writings. My problem with Christianity lies in the fact that your reason, logic and common sense is supposed to be left at the threshold of the building they meet in and you are supposed to believe on FAITH that the man or woman preaching is anointed and you should accept their word since God can only talk through them. It's pitiful.
I am an atheist and was brought up that way. I believe all religions are superstitions, left over from the time of primitive mankind, made up in an attempt to understand life. Now, since the Enlightenment, we have science and we actually KNOW a lot about life. But the stories about Jesus Christ do portray him as a rebel against the Roman Empire and there are some pithy quotations supposedly from his spoken words. But nobody should ever take anything on faith.
Carolyn, If you knew what is written between the covers of the BOOK of BOOKS, you could relate to the record showing Jesus was a rebel against the Religious Establishment!
Living and going through my 80th year, I would love to see the Day on Earth the BOOK says will come when "NO NONE will have to TALK ABOUT GOD because EVERYONE would KNOW GOD"
Effectively that would be a Regime Change of the Religious Establishments of this World's PYRAMID Systems portrayed as the 2 INVERSE PYRAMIDS in the Star of David.
Greater numbers of People from ALL NATIONS are beginning to see how upside down this Material World is become, like the upside down PYRAMID on it's tip ready to topple over.
Jewish Rabbis, Christian TV Evangelists and Muslim Imams would disappear from Public Spaces as no longer necessary.
JOY, PEACE and GOOD WILL to all proclaimed on that 1st Christmas Eve, would prevail in THIS World!
The Kingdom People have been praying for to come the last 2000 years will have finally arrived IF the People ACTUALLY DO the WILL of God on EARTH, as it is in HEAVEN. The people prayed but didn't do for 2000 years, and now this World is in dire straits for OUR GENERATIONS to sort out.
Science today is nothing but a money making scam for those who "do it". Another way to be a parasite on the rest of us without feeling bad about it.
That's only if you discount these warnings or cautions in the Book, 'You hypocrites! Isaiah describes you well.
This people draws close to me with their mouth, and honours me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Obviously those words of The Christ are not addressed to those who don't believe in him, but to those who think they do
And this other insight from the Book of Books, 'For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
Good old Isaiah. A cynic, sure, but not a sheep.
And as the late Carl Klang sang years ago...LORD SAVE ME FROM A FEW OF YOUR FOLLOWERS. Describing you well as one we need to be saved from. A know it all that has it all figured out and has it figured out so well that he judges others according to what HE thinks is the truth. The "book" you write about is so full of contradictions and goes against reason, logic and common sense, which by the way is something the creator gave us ALL, not just you. Enjoy... Which one is YOU Ray? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUwUdHEo0Y4
deism.com explains it all. God gave us REASON, not religion.
"God" does not exist, so "he" didn't give us anything.
Come now, and let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
If you be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
But if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it.
How is the faithful city become an harlot! it was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers.
How does the Finite Mind reason with the Infinite Mind?
It has to be with Reverence, Humility, Trust and lots of PATIENCE in short supply these Days.
What City in our TIMES? Washington, New York, Ottawa, London, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Jerusalem? One or all?
No doubt there are Good and Evil Images and Scenes in the Bible describing what Humans are doing from so long ago to these Days.
In my Faith, I have this view in the Revelation of Jesus Christ, now unfolding and HAPPENING in THIS Material World these 2000 years after it was put to pen.
And the NATIONS WERE ANGRY, and your WRATH is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that you should give reward to your servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear your name, small and great; and should destroy them which destroy the earth.
Revelation 11:18
Everyone can see the NATIONS and the People within them are increasingly Angry and Wrathful.
Science is telling us we Humans are destroying this Earth and the environment that sustains us.
Humans made in the Image and Likeness of God don't listen, are not concerned and continue on that Path without question.
Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and you that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down to you, having great WRATH, because he knows that he has but a short time.
Revelation 12:12
FAITH in the Resurrected Spirit of Christ gives us the tools to walk through that minefield delivered from from the WRATH of God and the WRATH of the devil, and the ability to discern WHICH WRATH IS WHICH?
I think the big Oscar winner this year, not the movie itself, but the Title. 'EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE' is prescient for the Time of Tribulation THIS World is heading into.
As for IDOLS, this was posted online 12 years ago describing 1 surprise night in my Curriculum Vitae in Venice, California 1976,
https://rayjc.com/2011/02/28/oscar-and-the-idols-of-the-people/
In response to Caitlin.....
"And it feels like it's happening faster and faster. The Dalai Lama trying to tongue kiss that kid. Chomsky meeting with Epstein. Bernie Sanders falling all over himself to serve the establishment he once vocally decried. People just don't get to keep their heroes anymore."
Then let the people make a new hero through the ballot box. For just one reason, let us quickly promote Robert Kennedy into the White House, thereby immediately closing 800 US military bases around the world. Do not schedule any visits for him in the state of Texas.
Ask him to dispense with the services of 21,000 employees at the CIA Criminal Club as well. Let us also make it so hard for the self-serving Davos meetings to ever occur again, plotting as they are for their own interests. Close immediately through legislation the overseas-controlled un-American club called AIPAC and their hundreds of similarly motivated anti-democratic consultancies, the Neocons, from functioning on American soil.
Identify publicly and then do away with dual US / Israel citizenship.
Let us all try and find just one respectable (and truthful) media organisation to show the world the real Netanyahu and his Knesset with their 400+ nuclear devices, remembering as well all the regimes in Israel whose corrupt aims have been in place for 70 years without any meaningful action by the toothless and shamed United Nations. A total charade.
The world cannot afford to wait until some fools from a US-based organisation, (most likely) or a US vassal state ‘partner' or a NATO member makes an on-purpose mistake and fires off a nuclear device. No more obvious way imaginable to create yet another world power grouping of say, Russia and China as a new power bloc joining with all the other states in the world that have been treated badly by the USA. Far too many to list.
We cannot wait any longer for a required break from the Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush types of Presidents together with their corrupters, ruling the world…..by force.
Hi, I like the idea. Please send me your PayPal username/password so I can deposit funds.
Of course it’s helpful!!! Even Jesus would have knocked himself off the pedestal Christians have put him on.
I probably ought to have written “It’s ironic” instead of “I’m not sure it’s helpful.” So point taken. I agree that it is always helpful to consider someone else’s perspective.
Regarding Jesus knocking himself off the pedestal he has been placed on, there isn’t enough historical evidence to know what Jesus would think about his idolization, but I like the sentiment of what you say because I tend to like cosmic rulers who are humble . On the other hand, if Jesus wants to come down from heaven tomorrow in a pillar of light with a lightning bolt in either hand and send Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, John Bolton, and all the other Neo-liberal imperials into a lower level of Hell for a few minutes so they can get a taste of their future karmic desserts, I might see that as a nice bit of divine justice.
Killing over 200,000 CIVILIANS in WAR lI with 2 small nukes, since then the US has invaded and bombed ONLY poor, 3rd World countries and couldn't get a win in any of them with the MOST EXPENSIVE Military Force in the History of Nations.
The frantic exit from Kabul in August 2021 was the latest US Humiliation the World saw, Afghanistan being one of the poorest Countries on Earth.
I see that as a nice bit of Divine Justice
Yes the US is run by psychopathic control freaks and the majority of the population has swallowed their pied piper swill.
I would agree, except that it’s almost always the innocent bystanders who get killed in such 3rd world conflicts. It is celebrants in wedding parties and teenagers playing soccer and mothers holding babies walking to the market who get droned, or it is teenage boy soldiers who’ve never fallen in love who seem to get their legs blown off. And worse, the preachers of war and the begetters of armies get continuous adulation and bigger and bigger paychecks. Take John Bolton, for example: he has never been right about anything in his adult life, yet he thrives and grows rich. For there to ever be divine justice, there will first have to be a just divinity.
I've often said that if I ever get to question the "creator" one of my first questions would be "why do you let psychopathic control freak parasites rule the world continually from day one?" I suspect that he/she/it whatever, will place the blame on us. After all, don't we vote them in? Don't we support them? Don't we kiss their asses and lick the boots of their enforcement police?
Hahahahahhahaha!!!! You made my day with this idea! a I literally laughed out loud! Thanks so much.
That's the sign of a true disciple.. he doesn't take his shit too seriously.
The Church of boB says::
Kill boB!
"within YOU." Christianity may have a problem in that it may have begun the cult of individualism, or individual- focused thinking (with some hero worship too). Everything is about YOU and YOUR relation to God, and salvation of the individual. Your sins, life as your own moral test to get YOU in to heaven. Your own individual prayers asking God for stuff for YOU.
Caitlin is right, the problems we have go well beyond the individual. It is funny, I was going to highlight the exact same paragraph:
"Our entire culture — movies, schoolbooks, religions etc — tells us to always be looking for heroes. Tells us to look outside ourselves for celebrated leaders who will show us where to go. And I just think that's a terrible dereliction of duty — of our duty to find the truth for ourselves"
And just add the emphasis that all these cultural influences celebrating heroes tend to rob people of agency, or even the imagination that they need to actively participate in change, rather than just sit back and spectate the elevated heroes as the heroes 'fight for us' and solve the problems we face. Heroes or true leaders (maybe MLK for example) need to be backed by millions of active, engaged, informed and motivated supporters willing to get out there and sacrifice time, resources, and maybe even their own life and limb.
And I would also emphasize that nobody is capable of finding truth by themselves. We are all born malleable idiots that could become Nazis or raving street preachers under the right circumstances. You need support, dozens of helpers present and past to find the truth. Caitlin is one of the present voices that does seem to match up with reality! :) You have to develop a critical brain capable of looking at the world, listening or reading what other people are saying about it, then deciding what actually matches up to your own experience. Unfortunately not everyone during childhood and adolescence under our system of education, family, and community is equipped with broad critical thinking, empathy, and access to historical truths.
"within you" is only 1 part in getting the FAITH into Practise. There are many other Biblical insights that must be taken into consideration.
We all went astray like sheep, we have turned, each one on his way, and the Lord accepted his prayers for the iniquity of all of us.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he would not open his mouth; like a lamb to the slaughter he would be brought, and like a ewe that is mute before her shearers, and he would not open his mouth.
From imprisonment and from judgment he is taken, and his generation who shall tell?
For he was cut off from the land of the living; because of the transgression of my people, a plague befell them.
And he gave his grave to the wicked, and to the wealthy with his kinds of death, because he committed no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
One of the rules for everyone is if we don't forgive others their SINS, God will not forgive US OUR SINS. As for SINS, personally I like Archery definition of SIN. SIN is the degree we fall short of hitting the the Perfect Mark of the BULLSEYE!
It still boggles my mind to understand the heights and the depth of the Love of Chris., Enduring the pain and torture in his Human flesh of Crucifixion, he could say, 'Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing!' That is True to this very Day!
This is one incident I went through practising the FAITH in my Curriculum Vitae 47 years ago,
https://rayjc.com/2011/03/01/a-day-in-the-life/
When I read your comment, I knew that all those who know nothing about Christianity - and in particular Catholicism - would come out of the woodwork and come up with all the clichés. A Christian has no idols, Christ is not an idol for him. The Catholic does not believe that the man of the cloth is anointed and must believe everything he says. I am a Catholic and often the Pope's words give me hives. On the other hand, I do not dispute the truth about the dogma of faith. But that's where it ends. For those who believe with that liar Voltaire that a Christian is a superstitious sheep, I invite them to read Dostoyevsky or Bernanos, they will find there more freedom and truth than they will ever find in all these authors of the so-called Enlightenment, these freethinkers who are rather ready-to-think, the precursors of the American propangandists.
This scene from The Life if Brian gets to the point.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DBbuUWw30N8
Read the Gospel of Saint Thomas it says it all.
Is that the doubting Thomas who didn't believe the others who said The Lord appeared to them?
Jesus said, Thomas, because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
In the Biblical Timeline the Pharisee Saul would have to be considered the most anti-Christ character in the Bible on a search and destroy mission to eradicate the new Jewish Sect calling themselves Christians.
On his way to Damascus to arrest Christians, Saul was awakened by the Christ Spirit and changing his name to Paul, evolved to become the most Passionate Advocate of Christ never having met Jesus, chosen to articulating the ways that have to be put in practice Jesus said to doubting Thomas, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."
I note the descendants of Saul regularly attack and destroy some of a certain belief in Damascus to these Days and OUR TIMES.
This vision was given to Don in the 1990's. I think it is coming to pass as I write this. WE ARE ELOHIM. WE need to get away from "celebrated leaders" who typically are nothing but the dregs of humanity. The psychopathic control freaks that we place in powerful positions that make them untouchable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPHEXuPFPio
"Cultural suicide is a tradition well-established in history." --John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards.
Excellent book.
I always say that in todays world what is being pushed on to our children from an early age is a leadership cult. This brainwashing is especially perverse in the US, where the good guys "tortured some folks", were the only ones to drop atomic bombs... TWICE!... experimented on their own population (800 young pregnant women were given cocktails of radioactive iron to see how that would affect them and their unborn babies), dropped more bombs than all other countries of the world in all of history combined and murdered/Slaughtered millions of innocent human beings while doing so, including children and elderly, employed thousands of Nazis/SS/Gestapo/SD after WWII in their own ranks, in high positions in NATO, the UN or their own security services (that includes the French and the Brits and the new German government after WWII)...
The "Good" guys have succeeded in perfect double speak.
Chomsky was never that great. He believes in the conspiracy theory that JFK wasn't killed by the CIA.
I suggest treating no living human as an oracle.
People can be wrong, monstrously wrong, sometimes, and yet not even the stupidest and most evil.human is wrong all of the time. People can be capable of heroic deeds, and yet they still are flawed.
Believing that conspiracies explain the world is as misguided, unproductive and silly as believing that heroes or gurus can explain it to you. Of course, there are conspiracies, but it's plain lazy to think they provide a useful explanation of how the world works. That is Chomsky's point. Do the work. Why does the CIA exist? Who sponsors it? Why does it have the role and powers it has? What lines did JFK cross? Chomsky has the useful answers to these larger questions that help us understand the significance and likelihood of conspiracy theories, proven or unproven.
He's greater than you. Much greater. You? You're just a cynical little whiner.
People don't have to be perfect in all areas to be very good in one area, Chomsky was the pundit of US foreign policy. He was the best. But you might expect him to be god. He thought the unvaxxed should be sent to camps. Still he was the best at explicating American foreign policy.
Agree 100% he was a fraud from the get go.
Prove it.
For the same reason it is best to avoid team or tribe, or all short-circuit critical thinking.
You always say it clearly and truly.
Thank you.
We mostly all need a tribe. The rugged individual gets might lonely sometimes. You need soul mates. Confidants. Family. You do!
I am a cat.
Oh, i see. You speak for the feline race. But still....
It takes a tremendous level of self confidence to avoid idolizing others as heroes. When we have no confidence in ourselves, we look to others to provide stories that we don't feel qualified to come up with ourselves. Breaking that cycle of dependence on others, or on institutions, is key to helping people realize that they can, if they wish, stand on their own two feet.
Agreed. It’s called co-dependency and this Yuppie generation is THE most co-dependent generation since the ‘50’s. In fact they were born in ‘58 to a scared codependent middle class and grew up to love the Reagun Revolution without ever knowing what it was. They are now ‘65 and terrified that they won’t have “enough” to meet their every desire in retirement because Wall Street, the drunken bully they supported their entire lives, has let them down. They are a hollowed out, empty hearted people who plead “compassion fatigue” as they let the world burn while they support wars for oil and hate the Soviets who don’t even exist any more because it makes them feel secure. A sickening breed that is too slowly dying off.
That’s the benefit of death. And a new generation. Maybe. Hopefully.
Looks like it. Europe is just popping with climate rebellions and shutting down Universities. There hope.
Well, if it's any comfort, I am 68 now and expect to die off fairly soon. /s
Actually some ppl are better than others. Let’s work on it while we can :)
It’s not. We’ve made a mess. We should stay and clean it up.
Yes
Besides, you’re too old— it’s the 65’s and under.
Wrong lol
I’m sorry you got this reply sent to you. It was for John Van Steenbergan above in response to his saying he was 68 and going to die soon so I should be happy. 🤔. Substack is weird sometimes.
Psychopathic control freaks have been ruling the world for way too long. The problem seems to be that normal people don't want to rule anything except their own lives. And that leaves a void for the evil in our midst to gravitate to the positions of power and the places they can make themselves so rich that the average person cannot even fathom. WE JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE! https://courageouslion380.substack.com/p/i-just-want-to-be-left-alone
I seriously thing they groom these guys in private “think tanks” or shark tanks, then send them to that oddball Redwood forest “retreat” that looks something like someone’s idea of a satanic cult for the Gatsby’s. They ply them with money. We should outlaw all the covert agencies, who are the lowest of the low. Everyone else is like a bit part in some horror show.
Good one
You’re not my idol, but you and your husband are damn good writers! Thank you for your continued witty, honest and consciousness-raising columns. This one hits the nail on the head, as do most of your publications.
I agree. I will follow and learn from an independent, well spoken observer of our political world as they move towards radicalization of thought and action and that seems to be you, Caitlin. I don’t idolize you in the sense of worship, but I sure as hell can emulate you. You’ve kicked up my willingness to get back into the fray that I lost about 10 years ago at 68 and retirement. I may not agree with everything you say but I adore your kickass way of saying it. I had the same admiration for Chomsky and I still respect his insights into manufacturing consent that helped push all of us forward in our analytical skills. But when he considered himself some kind of hero who could tell us all that this was not Fascism we were seeing in the US, I dumped him, without malice or great sadness. I’d do the same with anyone who stops being useful to society as I see it.
I believe Ralph Waldo Emerson said that "every hero becomes a bore at last."
A phrase attributed when I was small to one of the Sex Pistols: "Kill your idols, before they get a chance to embarrass you."
Aha! You answered my question Re Chomsky’s pedestal. Duly knocked and thanks to you.
I do hate to pick on him. He has done more society and better than I’ll ever do. And his work will never be undone. But I will get huffy when someone seems to a legend in his own mind and uses his accomplishments in one area to give himself cache in another. I don’t like wise old men. They are too often doddering old fools.
Outsourcing our own wisdom is a bad idea.
You have called Assange a hero, more than once, with good reason and a couple others. You do good work and are putting ideas out there that oppose the narrative. That's a good thing. Reading your work, I have thought you were a good person...reading this article, maybe you're just not a sociopath. ;) It isn't that we are only taught to look for heroes outside ourselves, we are told not be one. "Don't be a hero, cementaries are full of them."
We aren't taught to think, we are taught to repeat, that's the purpose of propaganda, to have it repeated and believed. "The bigger the lie, the bigger the mass of people to believe it." Here is the thing, with me. Even if I believed every lie the empire told me. I still wouldn't want war with Russia or China. Why? I'd understand the reprocussions of such. In my youth, I believed many lies and some ideologies. Now I believe less lies but keep those ideologies and one of those ideologies was a world were people weren't under an oppressive empire. There was a time I believed the US empire was good, but the ideologies and reality became increasingly contrasted to a point where I found the truth.
You may not be great, Kaitlin, but you represent a more compassionate side of humanity. In your work, you remind me that my views aren't insane. I speak about your article about being ruled by assholes. Put you on a pedastal? No, maybe offer a comfortable seat, I have implied the US would do to you what it is doing to Assange. Torture is wrong and only a twisted mind thinks otherwise. Why would the government go to great lengths to oppress free speech? It doesn't want the truth heard or known.
"Jeffrey Epstein, Woody Allen, and Noam Chomsky went out to dinner one night. There's no punchline, ...."
Come on! There has to be a punchline.
The punchline is that we put pedophiles on pedestals.
Exactly. I don't think this revelation about Chomsky surprised me any. I've always had a suspicion that something wasn't quite right with the man. He's a closet pedophile/pedo-supporter possibly. That could be it.
So many of you guys are psychopaths yourselves. And deluded conspiracy theorists. You would fuck the world up just as much as the elites you hate. You already have.
I agree with everything said here in general terms about the finding out the truth for oneself without putting people on pedestals and turning them into idols. But on the specifics: Did Chomsky have dinner with Epstein *after* the latter's conviction for sex offences? Because if not, it seems to me that he did nothing wrong, as far as we know. And even if he did know and went out to dinner with him anyway, what that means what exactly? It means that he did something that is wrong, very wrong, and that he is imperfect (assuming he didn't believe Epstein to be innocent of the charges). But if you didn't already assume he was imperfect, then you have a problem, the kind that is described here in this piece by Caitlin Johnstone. And what does this *not* mean? It most certainly does not mean that everything he has done for so many years in speaking truth to power and in educating so many about the nature of power has been without value. It does not mean that at all. Also, the comparison with the Dalai Lama and Bernie Sanders seems to lack sense of reality. These latter two gentleman have not really contributed anything really meaningful, it seems to me, toward justice and peace in the world - at least, I don't think so. They are little more than "idols", it's true (I used to think Sanders was genuine, but it seems to me now that he was probably always something of a phoney). Noam Chomsky is very different. He has spent decades speaking out against oppression and injustice, shining a light on the crimes of the United States in particular. And none that is undone by any foolishness or lack of judgment in his dotage. Let's not put people on pedestals or create idols - I agree - but let's also refrain from casually contributing, by association or insinuation, to the character assassination of a fundamentally decent and morally courageous human being.
suggesting that Chomsky molested kids is kinda out to lunch ...don't you think...?
It's insane, stupid, and beyond the pale. Also totally fact free idiotic conspiracy theory.
That shit is coming from some far right wacko nutcase conspiracy lunatic fringe kinda thing.
I've admired people over the years, but none were a hero nor heroine. All my "hero's" so to speak are dead.
All my heroes are dead. Makes you wonder what it's all about in the end.
Navy Biden - say her name! https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/say-her-name-navy-biden
I confess, I am what Caitlin is writing about. I am a person who put all hope in Bernie Sanders. I met someone on an experiment who said with our shared politics you need to know Bernie Sanders, this was in 1993. After reading and communicating I wrote an email (AOL ha) asking Bernie to run for president which I had heard that was the thinking and wanted to agree. I door knocked, fund raised and donated like many, I maxed out TWICE. As I have written here, I was mentally damaged when Bernie onstage at the South Carolina debate said " Joe Biden is a friend of mine and he would make a great president". That moment I canceled my Our Revolution membership because that kind of revolution I didn't want to be part of. I too know who Joe Biden is from his record and public speeches. I no longer support political candidates other than friends who I know ( we shall see now that they are in office). People like me continued this fraud Caitlin writes so brilliantly about. Kshama Sawant if she kills what little hope I have it will be devastating. Do all leaders fail us or do we need leadership as Chris Hedges claims? All successful movements have a spokesperson? Workers Strike Back.