Sunlight --> photosynthesis --> food to eat. Nuclear winter? That's a problem. No matter how many times I raise this with empire acolytes (willing or just brain-captured), it never really seems to get through. And I figure they must think something like "why do you hate your country." I just don't understand how anyone can't grasp that the nuclear-weapon precipice descends directly to hell, making the risk unacceptable, regardless of its size.
"I'm finding myself having less and less patience with people who think the US is an innocent little flower..." - and when you find your patience reached zero you'll realize you have to withdraw completely from the "fight". As you're hopelessly outnumbered.
I argue political philosophy with my kitty, she's more receptive to idealistic goals than most folks indoctrinated to Empire's nonstop false, kayfabe! narrative. Peace
Bernie Sanders recruited Lockheed Martin to set up research center in Burlington, and his senate seat races all have major donations from arms manufacturers. Then there's Matt Duss... shesh.
Also supporting the basing the F35's at the airport in Burlington. Oh and he was right there with the C19 narrative as well....even while consistently berating big pharma.
"Friendly reminder that for a fraction of the cost of funding a world-threatening proxy war against Russia the US could simply have protected Zelensky from the neo-Nazi militias who were threatening to lynch him if he tried to make peace with Russia and prevented this entire war."
Why would the US protect Zelensky from neo-Nazis when the US sponsored the coup that brought the neo-Nazis to power in the first place and the last thing the US wanted was for there to be a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine (which was the platform Zelenskyy ran on). The US always wanted a war between Russia and Ukraine in the delusional belief it would last a long time, weaken Russia and also provide an excuse for sanctions to further weaken Russia. Wrong and totally delusional on both counts.
The first objective for both the US and Kolomoisky after Zelenskyy won was to bring him under the control of the neo-Nazis (if he wasn't already via Kolomoisky himself).
"If you're more hawkish than Henry Kissinger, you're too fucking hawkish."
Hell, even Kissinger is deluded. He thinks a negotiated peace could at this point include Russia withdrawing from some of the territory it's gained for Novorussiya and without the de-Nazification of the remainder of Ukraine. I predict that Novorussiya will consist of all territory east of the Dniepr and a coastal strip all the way to Odessa. If the neo-Nazis are not replaced, Russia will also invade Western Ukraine to capture as many as it can, set up a reasonable government pledged to neutrality, then withdraw to Novorussiya leaving a rump state to govern itself, by treaty neutral with no missiles or NATO presence.
It appears there will be a modification to this where Poland takes the area up to Lviv. I'm not sure that helps denazify anything though
Speaking of Nazis, Ben Norton has some interesting history after WWII. (And it seems Hitler got away. Yeah, that one's a bit too far for me too.)
Inside Operation Gladio: How NATO supported Nazis and terrorists
Multipolarista
Multipolarista host Benjamin Norton is joined by journalist Asa Winstanley to discuss Operation Gladio, the NATO "stay behind" networks in which the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies recruited, armed, and trained former Nazis, other fascists, and right-wing terrorists to wage a war on the left. VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UPhFCAI4SnQ Read and support Asa's reporting at his Substack: https://asawinstanley.substack.com
Thanks for posting the Stockman article, John. That's been pretty much my understanding of where the ethnic/linguistic/cultural divide is. A bit of clarification, the gold and navy sections were what composed Ukraine during czarist times after 1654. The purple area was always part of "mother Russia" until 1922, when Lenin thought nationalism was passe and class struggle the wave of the future.
I have suggested the Dniepr as a dividing line only because it's a natural boundary. The northeast can be administered as part of the multi-cultural Russian Federation because the Federation will likely respect the rights of non-Russophones in the area just as it respects other ethnic minorities. There may be short-term discontent, but the Dniepr will assist to block foreign weapons from empowering local hotheads. Eventually, the people of the area will come to support the reality. The Russians may disagree and decide NE Ukraine stays in Ukraine ruled from Kyiv, but absorption is what I would recommend to the Duma. The Russian Federation needs the area as a de-militarized buffer, assuming areas west of the Dniepr come under Polish, German, Hungarian and Romanian influence. Somehow, Western Ukrainian neutrality must be reinforced and missile launchers removed from Poland and Romania, or verified to be non-nuclear capable.
The longer the Western Empire keeps up the struggle, the more likely is my suggestion about NE Ukraine. That's because both the EU and NATO are in the process of collapse given their dependence on Russian resources and dollar collapse. If they negotiate in good faith now, Ukraine may be able to keep the NE in exchange for neutrality, de-Nazification and the dismantling of launchers in Poland and Romania.
Electoral college selects prez by proxy. The two parties gerrymander and jury-rig voting districts. The DNC spends millions keeping any third or fourth party from being on the ballots. And all we have to defend ourselves with are psychos with AR-15s in their moms’ basements and their freedumz upheld by cowardly cops and paid-off judges. Brought to you by the NRA and the MIC.
Stick a fork in the USA. It’s done.
Happy memorial day to the poor schmucks who died defending this imperial shitshow.
Numerous times I argued to dump this illusion of "democracy" in the West and check out of the election process farce. Depending on the level of intimacy I'd either be shamed or dismissed. Implicitly due to my inferior outsider immigrant origin. What would such a creature know anyway. A Russian to boot.
FWIW: suppose to be an American, but born in Minnesota so maybe not. I stopped voting in 2016. To participate is to give the fraud a blessing at least an acquiescence I can no longer do. 12 years as a precinct officer and 3 state conventions convinced me that it is all a sham.
To your last bit about having some kind of practice to calm our nervous system. Yes. I’ve certainly reached my threshold. As I was reading this one Caity, it occurred to the idealist still in me that if theater was still a viable art form, it would be interesting to develop a play around your life and work. I’m old enough to remember the power of live theater. Sadly I’ve rarely seen anything truly innovative or transformative in years. Have the arts been folded into the GloboCap empire? I may pursue this regardless…
Funny you should say that, I'm just doing an episode on the CIA's secret funding of artists, writers, theater, literary magazines like The Paris Review and Salon. This is probably old news to most of you but it still shocked the little naive corner of me left to shock. I'll post a link when it's done.
I just posted it. Here's the description and link: Co-founders of The Rising Tide Foundation and co-authors of the trilogy, Clash of the Two Americas, Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung are the dynamic duo of deep state politics in the global Gotham City, sussing out conspiracies from their book-lined batcave in Montreal. In this episode, I talk about sleepwalking into Fascism, Bertrand Russell, why we should unplug and read a book, 911 wake-up calls, the CIA and abstract expressionism, Shelley and hierophants, and the importance of being Ernest. I end with meaning as healing.
I watched/read. Thanks for sharing. My great grandfather was Russell's publisher (Horace Liveright) so I'm familiar with that creative and intellectual era. I wonder where the line is drawn between artists/writers who may have been folded into the propaganda and those who were attempting to break through forms. I think we need to allow for the Eastern influence on artists too - where meaning making is philosophically attached to dukkha (suffering). Feels like a potential gray area. Appreciate the piece!
Thank you for watching/ reading! Wow, what a connection to Bertrand Russell. You come from an influential line. I feel so much has been lost by making art into Art--something that where only a few will succeed under rules so obscure it's like hitting the lottery. Meaning-making in symbolic forms seems like it should be part of life, inbetween milking the goats and feeding the kids.
And I didn't go into the money-laundering that's behind those big art prices. The art dealers are like fake hierophants, conferring sacred status on some while belittling the rest, for reasons only they can divine. But I agree that good can come out of things that are done for evil purposes, and the CIA inadvertently opened the door to the elitism of art being shattered, and making anything potentially into an art form.
Yes, I grew up with an artist mother who never broke through to the marketing realm. She has a great deal of integrity and did support herself through her artwork, but barely. Back to my original comment about theater - I worked in non-profit theater for many years and barely made a dime. The arts are not funded, supported, encouraged or patronized. Anything that resembles transformation or change is mostly discouraged. So yes, I'm aligned with what you're saying. True, Jackson Pollock had Peggy Guggenheim as a patron (and lover). Yet, there's something about his work that did break forms. But so did Kurt Schwitters, Mark Tobey, John Cage... and as I'm writing these names, I searching for women artists. Louise Bourgeoise, Georgia O'Keefe, Gertrude Stein... I think we can look at the history of art in terms of renovation and innovation. Who are the innovators, who took us to the next step in the evolutionary process of art? Very few to mention. The renovators are everyone else, too many to mention! However, you're right about meaning - we homo sap saps seem to be stuck with these meaning making, story-telling, time traveling brains that don't seem to be integrating well with our basic hardwiring animal functions. And it's getting us into so much trouble. Milking the goats and feeding the kids, reading poetry, watching sunsets, connecting deeply. That's what's missing.
One has to question whether the public will ever wake to any change in the circumstances with which they are bombarded every day., one party as bad as the other. While we are seeing grief and pain by the bucketloads in one part of Texas we have a convention full of gun toting extremists just around the corner....in the same state. They will all still watch Fox news, read the NYT, as it fulfils its role as the official government mouthpiece, still tolerate the censoring of comment on social media as part of the US Grand Plan to keep the people totally ignorant of reality. They call it democracy. Surely it is blind bloody ignorance.
Pick the difference between both parties. Can't be done
It is so easy to do whatever the elected incumbent President chooses to do these days, as easy as it is to ignore the much lauded US Constitution (now a toothless tiger thanks to the violation of the ten original amendments known as the Bill of Rights ). But should we ever have a need for a different anti-democracy target to attack, social media should be de-clawed, made impotent or seriously sued to extinction for restricting the freedom of speech.
Sadly, the people still read and support the government controlled social media platforms. What a pastime that has become. It defies reason.
But I would like to be around when a more enlightened world finally neuters that mob
Some of the nicest people I ever met were Americans: decent, intelligent young men that I feared would die in Vietnam - for nothing. So it's disturbing to see how it's all turned out, but it seems whenever there is a problem anywhere in the world, the US does its utmost to turn it into a complete fuckup from which there is no return. The US could have been an influence for good in Ukraine, as Caitlin suggests, could have protected Zelensky from Nazis. But the US, along with the Vatican, are OK with Nazis, because they're people too aren't they?
We must have a real populist movement: real people and real issues. Because it must be becoming clear as glass that government as we have it - is not about real people and real issues.
Yes, Lira contributes to the loads of information that points to the US as chief culprit in world disorder: a pinprick hole in the workings of most any useful country will be blown into a massive gash for the perceived advantage of the US: they have 800 bases - for no good reason. And NGOs are the first level mechanism - the perfect disguise. I don't believe there is any discord/problem anywhere that was not either fomented by the US in the first place, or soon exploited. Ukraine certainly fits the pattern.
Two parties, both completely comfortable with their Armed Forces. But neither party demanding accounting for the Pentagon who continue to refuse to provide data that auditors can audit. No problem with one female soldier in ten having been raped by one or more of their colleagues (US Army data), no voting by the public on the $21 trillion invasions of Nam , Iraq and Afghan, with the more recent invasion of Iraq cheerled in the Senate by Biden and Blinken etc.
Some democracy. The two party system is a colossal fraud as Caitlin states.
Many of us here can probably relate to having friends, dear friends, accuse us of promoting Kremlin propaganda. They don't get that Ukraine will never recover the Donbass or the land bridge to Crimea without direct involvement from US and NATO forces. They actually believe this is a noble war. I'm gonna go be an American and drown myself in vodka and cannabis and watch some baseball.
"Meditation, self-enquiry, healing and energy practices, whatever gets you there, but surely you've got to have something before you can stare into the face of the beast..."
For myself is limiting how much time I pay attention to this stuff - like a lot less then I used to once I figured out the whole thing is really out of my hands and is rigged up the kazoo. And now I spend more time in Nature and with good writers - such as Robert Lanza, James Hollis, Jung, Aniela Jaffe, Emerson, Tennyson, Frederic Myers, Karlis Osis, Bruce Greyson and so on. Interesting that it is mostly voices of the past, not voices of the present.
You really got to find a good balance for yourself or you are right, you will go insane. At the very least, you'll find yourself spending more time than it's worth fuming at stupid twitter trolls. You got to distance yourself from it. And find other important things as well in your life. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I took up learning how to play the piano. Recommend.
"the whole thing is really out of my hands and is rigged up the kazoo" - not only that, it's that they actually want you to pay attention and submerge yourself in their sewer.
To your list of writers I can suggest adding Dostoyevsky. Translated by Constance Garnett. She's vilified sometimes by the likes of other, horrible translators like a certain couple. But she's still the best.
Well Caitlin, ya did it again, ya made me look up kayfabe. Great term, BTW. Back to my point: I've posted several time on the W Post's comments that a gun didn't up and walk to a school and start shooting by itself; an alienated young male did. I even knew a few kids that carried small handguns to high school back in the early '70's and we never had school shootings nor metal detectors--hmmm.
Another question never answered by the Post writers: Why does a new popular movie have "GUN" as part of its title--"Top Gun Maverick"? They're the ones screaming to ban guns. I know, it's really a snazzy military recruitment film. Nothing says sign up like fast jets, fast women, and the chance to maybe kill fellow humans. Oh, the irony of it all.
Oh, I also told the Post that cops are there to protect rich people's property and that rich kids go to prep schools that have as of yet been a target for an alienated young male. Poor, average folks don't matter to Empire. If they did they'd want peace as soon a possible in Ukraine. And... I quit voting after the '16 debacle when Jill Stein didn't even register a blip except for raising the ire of a sore loser. Peace, All
You know the US & indeed the world is in deep, deep shit when Bernie & AOC can be attacked from the left by the likes of Kissinger & Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Blue & yellow fitting colors for the 'progressive' #FraudSquad/Bernie cowards refusing to stand up to the war machine and the cops who refused to try & save kids under assault in Texas. Meanwhile, the US/NATO/UkroNazi money laundering scheme continues apace & the violence we promote worldwide is reflected in the violence, mass shootings we see here. #EndTheEmpireOfLies
I recently listened to a Chris Hedges Podcast with Kshama Sawant, a City Council member in Seattle. She is disliked by both sides equally for just the reasons Caitlin points out here. Neither side wants anything to change. People don't rise to the heights of the political system and remain there for long if they are disrupters. Look at people like Cynthia McKinney. She got pushed out. If we want things to change, us ordinary people have to stop propping them up. It is absurd that so many people are breaking their backs to hold up systems of control that are not for their benefit AT ALL! I have been watching news reports and documentaries on the growing homelessness problem in this country (the US). It is because there is an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. But wealth does not occur in a vacuum. Where does all of that wealth come from? Stolen land? Stolen resources? Slave labor? Jacked up prices? Only a handful of people are benefiting from the current systems. The rest of us are supposed to fight over the crumbs. But what if we stopped propping up these systems in the first place? What if we stopped fighting amongst ourselves and united together to build new systems?
Sunlight --> photosynthesis --> food to eat. Nuclear winter? That's a problem. No matter how many times I raise this with empire acolytes (willing or just brain-captured), it never really seems to get through. And I figure they must think something like "why do you hate your country." I just don't understand how anyone can't grasp that the nuclear-weapon precipice descends directly to hell, making the risk unacceptable, regardless of its size.
"I'm finding myself having less and less patience with people who think the US is an innocent little flower..." - and when you find your patience reached zero you'll realize you have to withdraw completely from the "fight". As you're hopelessly outnumbered.
I argue political philosophy with my kitty, she's more receptive to idealistic goals than most folks indoctrinated to Empire's nonstop false, kayfabe! narrative. Peace
Cats are awesome. Just wait for Feral Finster to chime in.
Don't just take my word for it. Any cat will tell you the same thing.
They're all anarchists.
True ones at that.
My cat concurs.
I would say that we are all pretty much feline supremacists.
When I was a kitten, one of my littermates asked Mama if humans had gods. Mama said that was silly.
"Well, if humans had gods, do you think their gods would look like humans?"
"No, dear, if humans could imagine gods, of course their gods would look like cats."
Correction: Libertarians. Lol.
Mostly, we avoid ideology as it has a way of clouding one's judgment.
Bernie Sanders recruited Lockheed Martin to set up research center in Burlington, and his senate seat races all have major donations from arms manufacturers. Then there's Matt Duss... shesh.
Bernie is sucking eggs. Every fucking Democrat vote d to support this shitty war, without the balls for any war resolution.
What constitution? Burned that
Also supporting the basing the F35's at the airport in Burlington. Oh and he was right there with the C19 narrative as well....even while consistently berating big pharma.
My practice is simmering rage while I am busy seething and suffering.
My practice is waiting until tomorrow.
My practice is living with all of the anger and allowing it to exist.
My practice is silence when they take the soul of music away
My practice is to stay vegan and avoid big Harma hacksxxxine.
God bless Russia. Thank God we Russia are winning.
End the freaking monkey business.
Who will pay the spooks when our money collapses and ain't worth a shit in US of Arrogance?
What will the traitors do when no one pays them to destroy the world anymore? Suck eggs?
Russia has to win. Any sane rational person, not even freak kissingasser can dispute Russia has no choice but to win.
America is a big piece of shit for making this war, forsaking the peace.
Спасибо
I've lost my native tongue.
Wish I could relearn.
I presume you said something kind.
Spaceba.
I use google translate frequently to pretend I'm some polyglot or something. Just for fun. I don't know much Russian. Yes, I said speceba in cyrillic.
I can almost read it...
I must find a way to relearn Russian now.
Tis only been 47 years since I was fluent in parooskie
So, yeah. I liked your poem/rant.
"Friendly reminder that for a fraction of the cost of funding a world-threatening proxy war against Russia the US could simply have protected Zelensky from the neo-Nazi militias who were threatening to lynch him if he tried to make peace with Russia and prevented this entire war."
Why would the US protect Zelensky from neo-Nazis when the US sponsored the coup that brought the neo-Nazis to power in the first place and the last thing the US wanted was for there to be a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine (which was the platform Zelenskyy ran on). The US always wanted a war between Russia and Ukraine in the delusional belief it would last a long time, weaken Russia and also provide an excuse for sanctions to further weaken Russia. Wrong and totally delusional on both counts.
The first objective for both the US and Kolomoisky after Zelenskyy won was to bring him under the control of the neo-Nazis (if he wasn't already via Kolomoisky himself).
"If you're more hawkish than Henry Kissinger, you're too fucking hawkish."
Hell, even Kissinger is deluded. He thinks a negotiated peace could at this point include Russia withdrawing from some of the territory it's gained for Novorussiya and without the de-Nazification of the remainder of Ukraine. I predict that Novorussiya will consist of all territory east of the Dniepr and a coastal strip all the way to Odessa. If the neo-Nazis are not replaced, Russia will also invade Western Ukraine to capture as many as it can, set up a reasonable government pledged to neutrality, then withdraw to Novorussiya leaving a rump state to govern itself, by treaty neutral with no missiles or NATO presence.
The divided Ukraine is going to look a lot like David Stockman (yes that David Stockman) wrote about: https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2022/04/18/in-praise-of-partition/
It appears there will be a modification to this where Poland takes the area up to Lviv. I'm not sure that helps denazify anything though
Speaking of Nazis, Ben Norton has some interesting history after WWII. (And it seems Hitler got away. Yeah, that one's a bit too far for me too.)
Inside Operation Gladio: How NATO supported Nazis and terrorists
Multipolarista
Multipolarista host Benjamin Norton is joined by journalist Asa Winstanley to discuss Operation Gladio, the NATO "stay behind" networks in which the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies recruited, armed, and trained former Nazis, other fascists, and right-wing terrorists to wage a war on the left. VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UPhFCAI4SnQ Read and support Asa's reporting at his Substack: https://asawinstanley.substack.com
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/multipolarista/id1621947548?i=1000561657070
Finally, let us all remember that it was the USA that declared torture to be "OK". I don't know how we live with that shame.
Thanks for posting the Stockman article, John. That's been pretty much my understanding of where the ethnic/linguistic/cultural divide is. A bit of clarification, the gold and navy sections were what composed Ukraine during czarist times after 1654. The purple area was always part of "mother Russia" until 1922, when Lenin thought nationalism was passe and class struggle the wave of the future.
I have suggested the Dniepr as a dividing line only because it's a natural boundary. The northeast can be administered as part of the multi-cultural Russian Federation because the Federation will likely respect the rights of non-Russophones in the area just as it respects other ethnic minorities. There may be short-term discontent, but the Dniepr will assist to block foreign weapons from empowering local hotheads. Eventually, the people of the area will come to support the reality. The Russians may disagree and decide NE Ukraine stays in Ukraine ruled from Kyiv, but absorption is what I would recommend to the Duma. The Russian Federation needs the area as a de-militarized buffer, assuming areas west of the Dniepr come under Polish, German, Hungarian and Romanian influence. Somehow, Western Ukrainian neutrality must be reinforced and missile launchers removed from Poland and Romania, or verified to be non-nuclear capable.
The longer the Western Empire keeps up the struggle, the more likely is my suggestion about NE Ukraine. That's because both the EU and NATO are in the process of collapse given their dependence on Russian resources and dollar collapse. If they negotiate in good faith now, Ukraine may be able to keep the NE in exchange for neutrality, de-Nazification and the dismantling of launchers in Poland and Romania.
“ I don't know how we live with that shame.”
We have no other option but to.
Electoral college selects prez by proxy. The two parties gerrymander and jury-rig voting districts. The DNC spends millions keeping any third or fourth party from being on the ballots. And all we have to defend ourselves with are psychos with AR-15s in their moms’ basements and their freedumz upheld by cowardly cops and paid-off judges. Brought to you by the NRA and the MIC.
Stick a fork in the USA. It’s done.
Happy memorial day to the poor schmucks who died defending this imperial shitshow.
Numerous times I argued to dump this illusion of "democracy" in the West and check out of the election process farce. Depending on the level of intimacy I'd either be shamed or dismissed. Implicitly due to my inferior outsider immigrant origin. What would such a creature know anyway. A Russian to boot.
I could only shrug my shoulders. Still do.
FWIW: suppose to be an American, but born in Minnesota so maybe not. I stopped voting in 2016. To participate is to give the fraud a blessing at least an acquiescence I can no longer do. 12 years as a precinct officer and 3 state conventions convinced me that it is all a sham.
To your last bit about having some kind of practice to calm our nervous system. Yes. I’ve certainly reached my threshold. As I was reading this one Caity, it occurred to the idealist still in me that if theater was still a viable art form, it would be interesting to develop a play around your life and work. I’m old enough to remember the power of live theater. Sadly I’ve rarely seen anything truly innovative or transformative in years. Have the arts been folded into the GloboCap empire? I may pursue this regardless…
Funny you should say that, I'm just doing an episode on the CIA's secret funding of artists, writers, theater, literary magazines like The Paris Review and Salon. This is probably old news to most of you but it still shocked the little naive corner of me left to shock. I'll post a link when it's done.
National Review being a CIA operation too
This could easily be extrapolated based on:
- Frank Snepp on planting stories in Vietnam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwerBZG83YM
- John Stockwell on manipulating the news https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1tfkESPVY
We don't think CIA would stop at just the press, do we?
Wow, look forward to this!
I just posted it. Here's the description and link: Co-founders of The Rising Tide Foundation and co-authors of the trilogy, Clash of the Two Americas, Matt Ehret and Cynthia Chung are the dynamic duo of deep state politics in the global Gotham City, sussing out conspiracies from their book-lined batcave in Montreal. In this episode, I talk about sleepwalking into Fascism, Bertrand Russell, why we should unplug and read a book, 911 wake-up calls, the CIA and abstract expressionism, Shelley and hierophants, and the importance of being Ernest. I end with meaning as healing.
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/matt-ehret-and-cynthia-chung-geopuzzle
I watched/read. Thanks for sharing. My great grandfather was Russell's publisher (Horace Liveright) so I'm familiar with that creative and intellectual era. I wonder where the line is drawn between artists/writers who may have been folded into the propaganda and those who were attempting to break through forms. I think we need to allow for the Eastern influence on artists too - where meaning making is philosophically attached to dukkha (suffering). Feels like a potential gray area. Appreciate the piece!
Thank you for watching/ reading! Wow, what a connection to Bertrand Russell. You come from an influential line. I feel so much has been lost by making art into Art--something that where only a few will succeed under rules so obscure it's like hitting the lottery. Meaning-making in symbolic forms seems like it should be part of life, inbetween milking the goats and feeding the kids.
And I didn't go into the money-laundering that's behind those big art prices. The art dealers are like fake hierophants, conferring sacred status on some while belittling the rest, for reasons only they can divine. But I agree that good can come out of things that are done for evil purposes, and the CIA inadvertently opened the door to the elitism of art being shattered, and making anything potentially into an art form.
Yes, I grew up with an artist mother who never broke through to the marketing realm. She has a great deal of integrity and did support herself through her artwork, but barely. Back to my original comment about theater - I worked in non-profit theater for many years and barely made a dime. The arts are not funded, supported, encouraged or patronized. Anything that resembles transformation or change is mostly discouraged. So yes, I'm aligned with what you're saying. True, Jackson Pollock had Peggy Guggenheim as a patron (and lover). Yet, there's something about his work that did break forms. But so did Kurt Schwitters, Mark Tobey, John Cage... and as I'm writing these names, I searching for women artists. Louise Bourgeoise, Georgia O'Keefe, Gertrude Stein... I think we can look at the history of art in terms of renovation and innovation. Who are the innovators, who took us to the next step in the evolutionary process of art? Very few to mention. The renovators are everyone else, too many to mention! However, you're right about meaning - we homo sap saps seem to be stuck with these meaning making, story-telling, time traveling brains that don't seem to be integrating well with our basic hardwiring animal functions. And it's getting us into so much trouble. Milking the goats and feeding the kids, reading poetry, watching sunsets, connecting deeply. That's what's missing.
I found Gin to be effective.
Then tequila seemed to work even better.
Kind of gets in the way of life though.
One has to question whether the public will ever wake to any change in the circumstances with which they are bombarded every day., one party as bad as the other. While we are seeing grief and pain by the bucketloads in one part of Texas we have a convention full of gun toting extremists just around the corner....in the same state. They will all still watch Fox news, read the NYT, as it fulfils its role as the official government mouthpiece, still tolerate the censoring of comment on social media as part of the US Grand Plan to keep the people totally ignorant of reality. They call it democracy. Surely it is blind bloody ignorance.
Pick the difference between both parties. Can't be done
It is so easy to do whatever the elected incumbent President chooses to do these days, as easy as it is to ignore the much lauded US Constitution (now a toothless tiger thanks to the violation of the ten original amendments known as the Bill of Rights ). But should we ever have a need for a different anti-democracy target to attack, social media should be de-clawed, made impotent or seriously sued to extinction for restricting the freedom of speech.
Sadly, the people still read and support the government controlled social media platforms. What a pastime that has become. It defies reason.
But I would like to be around when a more enlightened world finally neuters that mob
Some of the nicest people I ever met were Americans: decent, intelligent young men that I feared would die in Vietnam - for nothing. So it's disturbing to see how it's all turned out, but it seems whenever there is a problem anywhere in the world, the US does its utmost to turn it into a complete fuckup from which there is no return. The US could have been an influence for good in Ukraine, as Caitlin suggests, could have protected Zelensky from Nazis. But the US, along with the Vatican, are OK with Nazis, because they're people too aren't they?
We must have a real populist movement: real people and real issues. Because it must be becoming clear as glass that government as we have it - is not about real people and real issues.
The US probably -caused- the problem. Lira talks about NGOs and PMCs and the dirty secret https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSN85dsx4XY&t=3s
Yes, Lira contributes to the loads of information that points to the US as chief culprit in world disorder: a pinprick hole in the workings of most any useful country will be blown into a massive gash for the perceived advantage of the US: they have 800 bases - for no good reason. And NGOs are the first level mechanism - the perfect disguise. I don't believe there is any discord/problem anywhere that was not either fomented by the US in the first place, or soon exploited. Ukraine certainly fits the pattern.
LOVE the use of the word Kayfabe. It's entirely appropriate; the "two party system" illusion is pro-wrestling at its finest.
Two parties, both completely comfortable with their Armed Forces. But neither party demanding accounting for the Pentagon who continue to refuse to provide data that auditors can audit. No problem with one female soldier in ten having been raped by one or more of their colleagues (US Army data), no voting by the public on the $21 trillion invasions of Nam , Iraq and Afghan, with the more recent invasion of Iraq cheerled in the Senate by Biden and Blinken etc.
Some democracy. The two party system is a colossal fraud as Caitlin states.
Many of us here can probably relate to having friends, dear friends, accuse us of promoting Kremlin propaganda. They don't get that Ukraine will never recover the Donbass or the land bridge to Crimea without direct involvement from US and NATO forces. They actually believe this is a noble war. I'm gonna go be an American and drown myself in vodka and cannabis and watch some baseball.
The more NATO prolongs it the more it looks like there'll be no Ukraine anymore. Just Ukrainians as an ethnicity within other countries.
And NATO won't get involved directly as that would turn nuclear right then and there.
"Meditation, self-enquiry, healing and energy practices, whatever gets you there, but surely you've got to have something before you can stare into the face of the beast..."
For myself is limiting how much time I pay attention to this stuff - like a lot less then I used to once I figured out the whole thing is really out of my hands and is rigged up the kazoo. And now I spend more time in Nature and with good writers - such as Robert Lanza, James Hollis, Jung, Aniela Jaffe, Emerson, Tennyson, Frederic Myers, Karlis Osis, Bruce Greyson and so on. Interesting that it is mostly voices of the past, not voices of the present.
You really got to find a good balance for yourself or you are right, you will go insane. At the very least, you'll find yourself spending more time than it's worth fuming at stupid twitter trolls. You got to distance yourself from it. And find other important things as well in your life. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I took up learning how to play the piano. Recommend.
"the whole thing is really out of my hands and is rigged up the kazoo" - not only that, it's that they actually want you to pay attention and submerge yourself in their sewer.
To your list of writers I can suggest adding Dostoyevsky. Translated by Constance Garnett. She's vilified sometimes by the likes of other, horrible translators like a certain couple. But she's still the best.
Re the "criticism" - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/11/07/the-translation-wars
I don't think I've read anything by Dostoyevsky. Tolstoy yes, along with Chekhov. Read quite a bit of Charles Dickens. Thanks for the suggestion.
Well Caitlin, ya did it again, ya made me look up kayfabe. Great term, BTW. Back to my point: I've posted several time on the W Post's comments that a gun didn't up and walk to a school and start shooting by itself; an alienated young male did. I even knew a few kids that carried small handguns to high school back in the early '70's and we never had school shootings nor metal detectors--hmmm.
Another question never answered by the Post writers: Why does a new popular movie have "GUN" as part of its title--"Top Gun Maverick"? They're the ones screaming to ban guns. I know, it's really a snazzy military recruitment film. Nothing says sign up like fast jets, fast women, and the chance to maybe kill fellow humans. Oh, the irony of it all.
Oh, I also told the Post that cops are there to protect rich people's property and that rich kids go to prep schools that have as of yet been a target for an alienated young male. Poor, average folks don't matter to Empire. If they did they'd want peace as soon a possible in Ukraine. And... I quit voting after the '16 debacle when Jill Stein didn't even register a blip except for raising the ire of a sore loser. Peace, All
You know the US & indeed the world is in deep, deep shit when Bernie & AOC can be attacked from the left by the likes of Kissinger & Marjorie Taylor-Greene. Blue & yellow fitting colors for the 'progressive' #FraudSquad/Bernie cowards refusing to stand up to the war machine and the cops who refused to try & save kids under assault in Texas. Meanwhile, the US/NATO/UkroNazi money laundering scheme continues apace & the violence we promote worldwide is reflected in the violence, mass shootings we see here. #EndTheEmpireOfLies
I recently listened to a Chris Hedges Podcast with Kshama Sawant, a City Council member in Seattle. She is disliked by both sides equally for just the reasons Caitlin points out here. Neither side wants anything to change. People don't rise to the heights of the political system and remain there for long if they are disrupters. Look at people like Cynthia McKinney. She got pushed out. If we want things to change, us ordinary people have to stop propping them up. It is absurd that so many people are breaking their backs to hold up systems of control that are not for their benefit AT ALL! I have been watching news reports and documentaries on the growing homelessness problem in this country (the US). It is because there is an ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor. But wealth does not occur in a vacuum. Where does all of that wealth come from? Stolen land? Stolen resources? Slave labor? Jacked up prices? Only a handful of people are benefiting from the current systems. The rest of us are supposed to fight over the crumbs. But what if we stopped propping up these systems in the first place? What if we stopped fighting amongst ourselves and united together to build new systems?