"Americans are the most propagandized population on earth". Pretty much says it all in one sentence. IRREDEEMABLE is the adjective that has formed in my brain after 75 years of observing my country-men and -women. A vastly powerful and all-encompassing neural-ablation ray-gun would be required to reset all synapses to the infantile state, restarting us all as blubbering infants, tabula rasas (rasae?)with only the biological potential engendered, after which strict isolation from mainstream culture would be necessary, as the ideas of peaceful co-existence among all beings in the natural world was inculcated instead. Only remedy I can fathom. Otherwise, it's good luck while you're vortexing into the depths, good ol' USA.
No, I just need the arrival of an advanced civilization with that synaptic ablater / resetter if I'm going to be able to continue to survive much longer among the immense weight of smiley, giggly 'Mericans whose lives are run by these Hollywood-programmed modules in their limbic systems, their higher cortical functions engaged only in the service of those . . . urges, I guess I'd call them. Flashes of urgency for everything to be nice and dandy here in 'Merica again, just like the movies and novels say. Honest cops (although functional alcoholics) solving crimes, young people with big dreams of accomplishment because anyone can make it in the USA, military heroes flying jets like modern gods, families where members exhibit genuine compassion, business owners eschewing greed in favor of serving customers and community. Boy Howdy, Popeye, that's our 'Merica, and Kamala . . . no Trump . . . no RFK . . . no some savior waiting in the wings is going to bring it all back (like it was ever really here, snicker). So smile, back-slap, release balloons, blast old tunes -- like "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow." I swear, it's bloody hard to keep breathing in the stultifying atmosphere surrounding this vast ocean of brainwashed counterproductivity.
I'd be proud to claim your comment as one of my own, Vin LoPresti.
After reading Caitlin and then the focused comments directed at her latest I'm overcome with a feeling of utter powerlessness. It gets to me - the absurdity of our situation.
How do we stand up against such nameless, uncountable, faceless blobs of filtered and distilled EVIL that feed on the lies they, themselves invent?
I have no answers. Do you? Ideas that can be discussed openly and honestly on public forums, I mean?
Regrettably, in this spacetime continuum, I have only astonishment that human social devolution has gone the route it has -- with, of course, the attendant metaphysical distress.
Workers Strike Back. Look for it across social media.
Yesterday there was a 2 hour live broadcast from Chicago. Kshama Sawant spoke. We need to reach the working class to find common ground. 75.5 yrs. old here. We've heard the Russia, totalitarian state bashing since the 50s. This is another reason education has been dumbed down and underfunded in many places, especially Republican states.
"The only reason the US empire isn’t seen for the horrifying blood-soaked dystopia it is is because of that very propaganda machine, which normalizes and glorifies this freakish status quo through both its “news” media and its mainstream culture manufacturing centers in New York and Los Angeles."
This blood-spaked dystopia is in fact far older than the United States or so-styled "western civilization". AFAICT, it is a universal of the human condition.
A friend of mine who studied in the USSR -- as a foreign student -- used to joke: Russians claim to be better informed than Americans because Russians read the news and know that it is false, while Americans read the news and believe it to be true.
Sadly, this remains true 40 years later.
Media literacy and critical thinking should be taught from kindergarten as opposed to the brainwashing "cult of America" stuff.
Oh my gosh! Accurate as it can get. The Soviets used to joke and laugh at the attempts of the State to spread propaganda because they knew from a mile how to spot it. Americans meanwhile are a whole different story.
There was also the other side - what was said about the West was true. But since no one believed the former, the latter got dismissed too.
The West's situation has been mirror image. "News" affiliates seem unable to lie much about what happens locally, hence public tends to believe them, and everything else they subsequently spread.
A Parseeker, this is true in many parts of the world outside the US too. Russians are brainwashed by their media, just as China is by theirs, and India is by theirs (as evidenced by the popularity of a Trumpian fascist authoritarian dictator-like strong-man figure Modi).
All countries propagandize their own citizens in their own ways. That is the only way a system of Global Capitalism can prevail - by controlling their citizens through propaganda, brainwashing, gaslighting, etc. That is the only way to maintain the socio-economic class structures prevalent almost everywhere.
>>"Media literacy and critical thinking should be taught"
That's exactly what the Power Elite do not want - they seek to maintain the status quo - hence they actively and passively seek to not have their citizens "think critically". And "media literacy" would erode their success in "manufacturing consent".
Americans have been drinking neurotoxic fluoride pursuant the fact that the Nazis figured out it made their inmates apathetic and without will. Fluoride consumption also destroys I.Q and causes dementia. Russians have not been drinking fluoride. Although like the rest of us, they do enjoy the neurotoxic booze.
"The fluoride issue has moved from conspiracy theories of the 1940s and 50s – claiming it was a communist plot or a government mind-control trick – to today’s science-based debate."
The Flouride Conspiracy has been around since the 1940s in various forms.
Can you provide a link to ANY flouride study that supports your thesis AND that has NOT been debunked? (Also, the study should have been a randomized, coontrolled trial (RCT), double-blind, a large enough sample size, peer-reviewed, published in a reputable journal, taken into account placebo effects, and have a P-Factor (statistical significance) of less than .5)
(3) Toxicity of fluoride: critical evaluation of evidence for human developmental neurotoxicity in epidemiological studies, animal experiments and in vitro analyses (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7261729/)
I notice you ignore the unbiased EPA scientists and posted a bunch of bought paid for bullshit.
You think you know better that the point on experts at the EPA? and you are not stupid enough to pretend we need to drink fluoride for our teeth, but you won't admit that fact.
You ignore the fact that laboratories use Fluoride to kill living things.
Drink all you want. Darwin knew all about people like you.
It may be, but also universal of the human condition has been the desire for justice, and the desire to do good for oneself and others. The "human condition" has never been just one thing.
One doesn't preclude the other. Take a current billionaire and bring him down to earth somehow (that is, make him a regular Joe). He'll start wanting "justice".
Take regular Joe as he climbs the ladder and hits a jackpot of some sort - and he'll soon forget that pesky justice thing.
Got my vote. At least get rid of the obscene wealth inequality that exists due to a corrupted system (corrupted by the billionaires). Doesn't mean I believe everyone should have exactly the same, but before there are billionaires, society needs to take care of all that live and work in that society through collaboration and cooperation - and not exploit the fuck out of its workers, just to make a handful of greedy sociopaths extremely rich.
Horseshit. There are many systems, hybrid systems that you would not call fully socialist - that doesn't allow the billionaire assholes to screw everyone else in the name of the "holy" free market - which turns out to be anything but free, but instead is rigged up the kazoo by these same greedy sociopaths.
The hierarchy brought on by capitalism is just one manifestation of the humans propensity to create castes. This dumb simplification - money, money, money - shows infantilism of the self-assigned intelligentsia.
If it's not money then it's going to be something else ensuring castes and segregation. We're dealing with humans here, for God's sake!
Capitalism originated in Europe. Read up on the history of Capitalism. The US has its own version (which is not very different from what other Western countries - including European ones, have).
The Americas were colonized by the British, French, Spanish, and the Portuguese (for the most part). That's how Capitalism took hold of the US - through colonization and imperialism.
The biblical aphorism, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." still has the ring of authenticity today.
However, what is good about human life is that it isn't "statistical" - each individual life is a unique event, that no generalized math formula can quantify. Where, Jung might say, the irrational synchronicity enters - making life meaningful for that individual. Take Keanu Reeves for example.
Meaning happens in the particular, and isn't a statistic.
I imagine Caitlin attracts some remarkable people to her substack, given the quality of her writing. Many of them from different parts of the world for sure.
Nope. We live under the boot of capitalism. Nothing normal about that. Cooperation is necessary for our species survival but capitalism demands competition.
maybe it isn't quite 'universal of the human condition'. one should ask anthropologists, i suppose, maybe they know of societies where it was different. i also think the 'human condition' didn't and doesn't just happen, but is construed (there are material external factors, but also human agency, imo).
Right, anthropologist David Graeber’s work has centered on showing how there have been thousands of different social organizations in human history different from capitalism. The idea that capitalism is the natural human condition is one of capitalism’s central propaganda myths.
Yes, everyone should read: The Dawn of Everything, A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
Also, indigenous societies existed peacefully for thousands of years.
Also, Against the Grain by James C. Scott is excellent and discusses how the discovery of agriculture about 10,000 years ago is what turned humans into capitalist pigs (sort of, it's much more complicated than that).
It’s not a myth. It’s right there in front of your face. All life competes AND collaborates. Competing is the more primitive but natural behavior. Plants, animals, human animals.
Capitalism goes hand by hand with colonialism that is a European invention. For some reason I think that Protestantism is better matched with both above than Catholicism. Seems to me that being Protestant induces more social restraints than Catholicism,thus more hypocrisy. By the way I don't belong to any of those dogmas.
Yes - there is an interesting book "Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57928536-humankind) that presents a good thesis on the Hobbes versus Rousseau debate. Worth checking out for an alternate perspective on human behavior and psychology.
"... is in fact far older than ..." - exactly. It's through modern means of communication that it became exposed so it looks like something new. Well, it got amplified by the tools, only proving what mushy and spineless material the human race is.
Americans and many others are propagandized into thinking they live in a free society. After all it is in the constitution. You know free speech, freedom of movement etc. They point to China that does not have a constitution promoting free speech and does not have free speech either. They don't point to their own attacks on free speech. Like arresting journalists. Like people losing their jobs for being "antisemitic". They don't point to all the controls they are putting on gay and trans people. They never point to their destruction of the environment or their greed for more more more money.
recently saw a tiktok of an american chinese comparing chinese and american constitutions. chinese had quite some 'democracy' and 'democratic' in it, american had none. us is constitutional republic, not a democracy as the right wing often stipulates.
I second that. So obvious too, and yet how many will come up with excuses or some rationale that not everything Caitlin writes here is true. And yet the two party system is about as corrupt and broken as the day is long now.
Vote for Dr. Jill Stein, at the very least, we can send a message, one to TPTB and the other, perhaps more important, to ourselves. We need to know how strong we really are, when the MSM suppresses any mention of those holding an anti-imperialist position. Wake up to the awareness that millions voted outside the duopoly, or wake up to the same old, same old. It's on you.
Although Gaza is the most urgent issue, and we cannot turn our eyes from them, there is increasing settler violence and land confiscation in the West Bank, aka illegally Occupied Territory. Here’s a group we can support, made up of committed Israelis and Palestinians working together to protect the Palestinians there.
Work on the Ground: Transforming Lives in Israel-Palestine — American Friends of Combatants for Peace
I don't always agree with you, but this is so spot on. I struggle to communicate this concept to people, friends, and family.
As an American, I feel so disenfranchised from a country that has washed words in such a way that they are at once meaningless and vitriolic.
It is dystopia. It makes me think that Orwell, Bradbury, Rand, etc. actually wrote diagnostic manuals in excruciating detail as literature. And, rather than see their works as cautionary tales, the buisness machine, the neoimperialist zombies that thirsted evermore, sought to execute the plans some of our worlds greatest dystopia novelist wrote against. How twisted...how expected.
Where did the notion of freedom go, America? Where did your longing to be individuals, thinkers, and creators go? What happened to the Enlightend?
We are the horde.
I'm new to the substack world. But I like joining in the thoughts of others that I dont experience myself. Thank you for your voice Caitlin.
Never stop writing.
I just started...please join me over at my own substack, An Incomplete Thought. I can't write or speak on subjects like Caitlin, but I like to share my random thoughts.
This commentary should be mandatory reading in all schools. Having read this the next item on the reading list should be "1984". Your comment, "They’re both imperialist lackeys of neoliberal capitalism, are both devoted to the US empire’s goal of stomping out communism around the world by any means necessary, and are both pledged to continue the exploitation, oppression, ecocide and warmongering of the status quo capitalist order if elected." has got to be the best, most concise description of political parties in the western world that I have read.
Democrats are demonstratably fascists. They support Zionists and Nazis overseas and outright fascist anti-American policies at home. Nothing remotely "communist" about them. Stop listening to Trump.
There are also many resources (on YouTube and elsewhere) that might aid you in understanding what "Fascism" is (eg. What is Fascism? - Umberto Eco's Characteristics of Fascism [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLXjNBBz6fM])
I'll definitely look at that, thanks. But I'm pretty sure Nazis are fascists. And the Democrats are staunch supporters of the West Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Never the East Ukrainian separatists, got to be the Nazis. That why I say the Democrats are demonstratably fascists. Both parties support the Zionists (also a form of fascism last I checked). But the Democrats support both of them, including the original, old school ones, Nazis. Anyhow thanks for your reply and the information. Always looking to learn more. Oh and FYI I don't buy the Democrats being anything "leftist". They might identify as liberals but their actions tell a much different story.
You're right - Democrats are NOT leftist. Most people in the US don't know what "the left" is. As you say, they are liberals, but not even remotely close to being "leftists". For one thing, anyone that adheres to Capitalism CANNOT be a 'leftist'.
Democrats are not Nazis either. Support of Nazis does not make one a Nazi. It is a certain set of beliefs that make someone a Nazi. And, BOTH Team D and Team R politicians support the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. It's not because they are neo-Nazis, it's due to geopolitical reasons - they (America) will do anything to weaken Russia - including using ALL Ukrainians as cannon fodder - irrespective of their political ideologies.
Fascism is more complex. And there are different varieties of fascism. There's pure ideological fascism, military fascism, social fascism, classic 20th Century fascism, corporate fascism, and more.
A really interesting book to read is: "Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America" by Bertrand Gross (written in the 1980s) - which is yet another very sophisticated form of soft, fascistic power and control.
chokaski - while up there can you ask river to pull its head out and back up empty (still) assertions it made about various things? After you've made some love of course - no rush 😳🤣🤡
Dystopia is already here--never a truer statement made! But they want you to think one color of dystopia is preferable to another. I'd rather just toss the box of crayons out and work to build a better world for all.
"The Democratic Party is devoutly capitalist." How I wish the Republicans would stop insulting real Communists by claiming the Dem-wits are Communists. Can you imagine how brain dead you'd have to be to actually believe that? Proof that propaganda fries your brain!
What is most terrifying is that people so passively buy into the propaganda. We are it appears a long way from social revolution and the West is entering a very dark era.
In my opinion it is because it took 75 years (for example) to reach this level of corruption and social disintegration and it will take at least an equal amount of time to rectify. There is evolution, devolution and revolution- the volutions of history. TV has been and will continue to be a contributor. It is banished from our house.
It is so weird, having grown up being told that the USSR is the great villain, to realize that my own country has become what it avowedly hates most. ☮️
I believe that most Amercians are happy about empire and the wealth it supposedly brings. They particularly like the part where foreigners are imprisoned, tortured, and/or killed.
"Americans are the most propagandized population on earth". Pretty much says it all in one sentence. IRREDEEMABLE is the adjective that has formed in my brain after 75 years of observing my country-men and -women. A vastly powerful and all-encompassing neural-ablation ray-gun would be required to reset all synapses to the infantile state, restarting us all as blubbering infants, tabula rasas (rasae?)with only the biological potential engendered, after which strict isolation from mainstream culture would be necessary, as the ideas of peaceful co-existence among all beings in the natural world was inculcated instead. Only remedy I can fathom. Otherwise, it's good luck while you're vortexing into the depths, good ol' USA.
Tabulae rasae, yes.
Thank you, Latin scholar.
You don't need to be a Latin scholar to know this!
No, I just need the arrival of an advanced civilization with that synaptic ablater / resetter if I'm going to be able to continue to survive much longer among the immense weight of smiley, giggly 'Mericans whose lives are run by these Hollywood-programmed modules in their limbic systems, their higher cortical functions engaged only in the service of those . . . urges, I guess I'd call them. Flashes of urgency for everything to be nice and dandy here in 'Merica again, just like the movies and novels say. Honest cops (although functional alcoholics) solving crimes, young people with big dreams of accomplishment because anyone can make it in the USA, military heroes flying jets like modern gods, families where members exhibit genuine compassion, business owners eschewing greed in favor of serving customers and community. Boy Howdy, Popeye, that's our 'Merica, and Kamala . . . no Trump . . . no RFK . . . no some savior waiting in the wings is going to bring it all back (like it was ever really here, snicker). So smile, back-slap, release balloons, blast old tunes -- like "Don't Stop Thinkin' About Tomorrow." I swear, it's bloody hard to keep breathing in the stultifying atmosphere surrounding this vast ocean of brainwashed counterproductivity.
I'd be proud to claim your comment as one of my own, Vin LoPresti.
After reading Caitlin and then the focused comments directed at her latest I'm overcome with a feeling of utter powerlessness. It gets to me - the absurdity of our situation.
How do we stand up against such nameless, uncountable, faceless blobs of filtered and distilled EVIL that feed on the lies they, themselves invent?
I have no answers. Do you? Ideas that can be discussed openly and honestly on public forums, I mean?
Regrettably, in this spacetime continuum, I have only astonishment that human social devolution has gone the route it has -- with, of course, the attendant metaphysical distress.
Jill Stein 2024.
Join a chapter in your area.
Workers Strike Back. Look for it across social media.
Yesterday there was a 2 hour live broadcast from Chicago. Kshama Sawant spoke. We need to reach the working class to find common ground. 75.5 yrs. old here. We've heard the Russia, totalitarian state bashing since the 50s. This is another reason education has been dumbed down and underfunded in many places, especially Republican states.
An advanced civilization is one that does not need The State to control it
Never gonna happen
I always saw the more English. Tabula Rosa?
Raisins.
It's raisins.
;)
Well, you have a plan.
"The only reason the US empire isn’t seen for the horrifying blood-soaked dystopia it is is because of that very propaganda machine, which normalizes and glorifies this freakish status quo through both its “news” media and its mainstream culture manufacturing centers in New York and Los Angeles."
This blood-spaked dystopia is in fact far older than the United States or so-styled "western civilization". AFAICT, it is a universal of the human condition.
A friend of mine who studied in the USSR -- as a foreign student -- used to joke: Russians claim to be better informed than Americans because Russians read the news and know that it is false, while Americans read the news and believe it to be true.
Sadly, this remains true 40 years later.
Media literacy and critical thinking should be taught from kindergarten as opposed to the brainwashing "cult of America" stuff.
Oh my gosh! Accurate as it can get. The Soviets used to joke and laugh at the attempts of the State to spread propaganda because they knew from a mile how to spot it. Americans meanwhile are a whole different story.
There was also the other side - what was said about the West was true. But since no one believed the former, the latter got dismissed too.
The West's situation has been mirror image. "News" affiliates seem unable to lie much about what happens locally, hence public tends to believe them, and everything else they subsequently spread.
indeed, i sometimes come across ancient soviet propaganda on the west and would recommend modern russians to revisit it too.
A Parseeker, this is true in many parts of the world outside the US too. Russians are brainwashed by their media, just as China is by theirs, and India is by theirs (as evidenced by the popularity of a Trumpian fascist authoritarian dictator-like strong-man figure Modi).
All countries propagandize their own citizens in their own ways. That is the only way a system of Global Capitalism can prevail - by controlling their citizens through propaganda, brainwashing, gaslighting, etc. That is the only way to maintain the socio-economic class structures prevalent almost everywhere.
>>"Media literacy and critical thinking should be taught"
That's exactly what the Power Elite do not want - they seek to maintain the status quo - hence they actively and passively seek to not have their citizens "think critically". And "media literacy" would erode their success in "manufacturing consent".
You haven't actually read "A Parseeker"'s comment have you chokaski?
Americans have been drinking neurotoxic fluoride pursuant the fact that the Nazis figured out it made their inmates apathetic and without will. Fluoride consumption also destroys I.Q and causes dementia. Russians have not been drinking fluoride. Although like the rest of us, they do enjoy the neurotoxic booze.
Bullshit. Any credible scientific research papers to support this "conspiracy theory"?
PS: the "flouride deception" conspiracy theory has been debunked already.
There are hundreds of credible papers that show harm. Its common sense man.
Read this letter from the people we employ to protect us from poison tell it like it is.
Why EPA’s Headquarters Professionals’ Union Opposes Fluoridation
https://fluoridealert.org/content/epa-union/
==============
78 human studies linking fluoride exposures with reduced intelligence.
Over 60 animal studies reporting that mice or rats ingesting fluoride have an impaired capacity to learn and/or remember.
12 studies (7 human, 5 animal) linking fluoride with neurobehavioral deficits (impaired visual-spatial organization).
3 human studies linking fluoride exposure with impaired fetal brain development.
11 Mother-Offspring studies linking certain levels of fluoride in the urine of pregnant women to reduced IQ in their offspring.
fluoride works topically for caries, NOT systemically.
Fluoride kills enzymes which kills cells, which is why things die.
Harm to the brain, heart, pancreas, pineal gland ,reduces thyroid function, causes cancer, dental harm, liver harm, skeletal harm, arthritis harm, kidney harm, gastrointestinal harm.
Was a perfect play. I live among zombies running for jabs that are killing them
No survival instinct. Its gone.
The Fluoride Controversy Never Dies (by the American Council on Science and Health) [https://www.acsh.org/news/2023/05/30/fluoride-controversy-never-dies-17093]
"The fluoride issue has moved from conspiracy theories of the 1940s and 50s – claiming it was a communist plot or a government mind-control trick – to today’s science-based debate."
[https://www.salon.com/2022/09/13/why-anti-fluoride-conspiracy-theories-have-persisted-for-over-70-years/]
Controversy: The evolving science of fluoride: when new evidence doesn’t conform with existing beliefs (from NIH Library) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9922476/]
Pipe Dreams: America’s Fluoride Controversy: How did a seemingly benign chemical and a near-miraculous public-health initiative spark decades and decades debate? [https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/pipe-dreams-americas-fluoride-controversy/]
The Flouride Conspiracy has been around since the 1940s in various forms.
Can you provide a link to ANY flouride study that supports your thesis AND that has NOT been debunked? (Also, the study should have been a randomized, coontrolled trial (RCT), double-blind, a large enough sample size, peer-reviewed, published in a reputable journal, taken into account placebo effects, and have a P-Factor (statistical significance) of less than .5)
Hare are some links debunking "flouride" studies:
(1) https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/water-fluoridation-hasnt-been-associated-with-cognitive-health-problems-contrary-to-widespread-claims/
(2) https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/flawed-comparison-cancer-mortality-fluoridated-non-fluoridated-us-cities-doesnt-provide-sufficient-evidence-fluoride-causes-cancer/
(3) Toxicity of fluoride: critical evaluation of evidence for human developmental neurotoxicity in epidemiological studies, animal experiments and in vitro analyses (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7261729/)
.... the list is really long ....
I notice you ignore the unbiased EPA scientists and posted a bunch of bought paid for bullshit.
You think you know better that the point on experts at the EPA? and you are not stupid enough to pretend we need to drink fluoride for our teeth, but you won't admit that fact.
You ignore the fact that laboratories use Fluoride to kill living things.
Drink all you want. Darwin knew all about people like you.
It may be, but also universal of the human condition has been the desire for justice, and the desire to do good for oneself and others. The "human condition" has never been just one thing.
One doesn't preclude the other. Take a current billionaire and bring him down to earth somehow (that is, make him a regular Joe). He'll start wanting "justice".
Take regular Joe as he climbs the ladder and hits a jackpot of some sort - and he'll soon forget that pesky justice thing.
End Capitalism, billionaires no longer exist
Got my vote. At least get rid of the obscene wealth inequality that exists due to a corrupted system (corrupted by the billionaires). Doesn't mean I believe everyone should have exactly the same, but before there are billionaires, society needs to take care of all that live and work in that society through collaboration and cooperation - and not exploit the fuck out of its workers, just to make a handful of greedy sociopaths extremely rich.
Yes. I agree. BUT what are you going to do about 'brainwashed' citizens?
You just described the aims and goals of National Socialism.
National socialism entails nationalism.
What part of any of that gave you the impression of nationalism? Or are we just out calling everyone we don’t agree with Nazis today?
Horseshit. There are many systems, hybrid systems that you would not call fully socialist - that doesn't allow the billionaire assholes to screw everyone else in the name of the "holy" free market - which turns out to be anything but free, but instead is rigged up the kazoo by these same greedy sociopaths.
Wrong, Nazi.
The hierarchy brought on by capitalism is just one manifestation of the humans propensity to create castes. This dumb simplification - money, money, money - shows infantilism of the self-assigned intelligentsia.
If it's not money then it's going to be something else ensuring castes and segregation. We're dealing with humans here, for God's sake!
Your comment means NOTHING to me.............HOW did Capitalism take hold of the USA.
The USA was always about greed exactly the same as any Empire.
Capitalism originated in Europe. Read up on the history of Capitalism. The US has its own version (which is not very different from what other Western countries - including European ones, have).
The Americas were colonized by the British, French, Spanish, and the Portuguese (for the most part). That's how Capitalism took hold of the US - through colonization and imperialism.
The biblical aphorism, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven." still has the ring of authenticity today.
However, what is good about human life is that it isn't "statistical" - each individual life is a unique event, that no generalized math formula can quantify. Where, Jung might say, the irrational synchronicity enters - making life meaningful for that individual. Take Keanu Reeves for example.
Meaning happens in the particular, and isn't a statistic.
Jamenta. You know I like you.
The 'human condition' as you say has never been ONE thing. I would like to add to this.
Human experience.
IF people go out of their own environment for a long time they learn quite quickly the differences between humans.
EXPERIENCE is what the US has NO idea about.
Maybe that's what it's all about Jenny: experience. Who knows for sure?
Nobody knows for sure about anything but I would bet you that many people here on Caitlins substack have lived outside the USA?
I imagine Caitlin attracts some remarkable people to her substack, given the quality of her writing. Many of them from different parts of the world for sure.
Nope. We live under the boot of capitalism. Nothing normal about that. Cooperation is necessary for our species survival but capitalism demands competition.
maybe it isn't quite 'universal of the human condition'. one should ask anthropologists, i suppose, maybe they know of societies where it was different. i also think the 'human condition' didn't and doesn't just happen, but is construed (there are material external factors, but also human agency, imo).
Right, anthropologist David Graeber’s work has centered on showing how there have been thousands of different social organizations in human history different from capitalism. The idea that capitalism is the natural human condition is one of capitalism’s central propaganda myths.
Yes, everyone should read: The Dawn of Everything, A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
Also, indigenous societies existed peacefully for thousands of years.
Also, Against the Grain by James C. Scott is excellent and discusses how the discovery of agriculture about 10,000 years ago is what turned humans into capitalist pigs (sort of, it's much more complicated than that).
It’s not a myth. It’s right there in front of your face. All life competes AND collaborates. Competing is the more primitive but natural behavior. Plants, animals, human animals.
In France they have just uncovered a whole village of Neanderthal man.
It seems that they were NOT stupid as history tells us but humans who did what they did in order to survive.
The myth of Neanderthal man is broken.
Capitalism is not only about competition. A big part of it is making money and the more the better. That is where the problems really come in.
Capitalism goes hand by hand with colonialism that is a European invention. For some reason I think that Protestantism is better matched with both above than Catholicism. Seems to me that being Protestant induces more social restraints than Catholicism,thus more hypocrisy. By the way I don't belong to any of those dogmas.
Yes - there is an interesting book "Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57928536-humankind) that presents a good thesis on the Hobbes versus Rousseau debate. Worth checking out for an alternate perspective on human behavior and psychology.
"... is in fact far older than ..." - exactly. It's through modern means of communication that it became exposed so it looks like something new. Well, it got amplified by the tools, only proving what mushy and spineless material the human race is.
Seems like yours is a rather Hobbesian view of humanity. My comment (https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/politicians-in-dystopialand-warn?commentId=66158142) suggests a source that adds more nuance to this view of "the human condition".
Scapegoating again Feral?
Your hate of Europe is quite clear.
"Watching people give standing ovations to politicians feels like cattle cheering for the crew at the meat packer facility." :)
Lol yes
Americans and many others are propagandized into thinking they live in a free society. After all it is in the constitution. You know free speech, freedom of movement etc. They point to China that does not have a constitution promoting free speech and does not have free speech either. They don't point to their own attacks on free speech. Like arresting journalists. Like people losing their jobs for being "antisemitic". They don't point to all the controls they are putting on gay and trans people. They never point to their destruction of the environment or their greed for more more more money.
recently saw a tiktok of an american chinese comparing chinese and american constitutions. chinese had quite some 'democracy' and 'democratic' in it, american had none. us is constitutional republic, not a democracy as the right wing often stipulates.
When people talk of freedom what they are usually concerned about is their access to guns, booze, and porn.
Well said Susan!
Excellent article. Succinctly put.
I second that. So obvious too, and yet how many will come up with excuses or some rationale that not everything Caitlin writes here is true. And yet the two party system is about as corrupt and broken as the day is long now.
Vote for Dr. Jill Stein, at the very least, we can send a message, one to TPTB and the other, perhaps more important, to ourselves. We need to know how strong we really are, when the MSM suppresses any mention of those holding an anti-imperialist position. Wake up to the awareness that millions voted outside the duopoly, or wake up to the same old, same old. It's on you.
Although Gaza is the most urgent issue, and we cannot turn our eyes from them, there is increasing settler violence and land confiscation in the West Bank, aka illegally Occupied Territory. Here’s a group we can support, made up of committed Israelis and Palestinians working together to protect the Palestinians there.
Work on the Ground: Transforming Lives in Israel-Palestine — American Friends of Combatants for Peace
https://www.afcfp.org
I don't always agree with you, but this is so spot on. I struggle to communicate this concept to people, friends, and family.
As an American, I feel so disenfranchised from a country that has washed words in such a way that they are at once meaningless and vitriolic.
It is dystopia. It makes me think that Orwell, Bradbury, Rand, etc. actually wrote diagnostic manuals in excruciating detail as literature. And, rather than see their works as cautionary tales, the buisness machine, the neoimperialist zombies that thirsted evermore, sought to execute the plans some of our worlds greatest dystopia novelist wrote against. How twisted...how expected.
Where did the notion of freedom go, America? Where did your longing to be individuals, thinkers, and creators go? What happened to the Enlightend?
We are the horde.
I'm new to the substack world. But I like joining in the thoughts of others that I dont experience myself. Thank you for your voice Caitlin.
Never stop writing.
I just started...please join me over at my own substack, An Incomplete Thought. I can't write or speak on subjects like Caitlin, but I like to share my random thoughts.
1984 is here now.
Welcome to you.
Ayn Rand was a great FEMALE philosopher but destroyed by the title of her book -The Virtues of Selfishness
Did she have flaws too ? Yes
"destroyed by the title of her book" - "Howie Shrinked", was it?
you require people to associate with the state and therefore oppose Freedom of Association for most likely State-Mandated ones
And you want to call that Liberal ?
I was right - you're quoting passages from it.
and you doi nort even have the guts to admit you require people to associate with the state
I have no problem admitting my beliefs
Just give us a range of pages - interested parties will consult the source.
This commentary should be mandatory reading in all schools. Having read this the next item on the reading list should be "1984". Your comment, "They’re both imperialist lackeys of neoliberal capitalism, are both devoted to the US empire’s goal of stomping out communism around the world by any means necessary, and are both pledged to continue the exploitation, oppression, ecocide and warmongering of the status quo capitalist order if elected." has got to be the best, most concise description of political parties in the western world that I have read.
It takes a stupid person to make a stupid rule.
And a fool to mind it.
Do not be a stupid.
Do not be a fool.
And watch the dystopia collapse.
Like a torn souffle.
Democrats are purely really stupidity people and Love communists
Did you even read Caitlin's article? You have just contradicted what she said.
one could say 'yes, caitlin, you're exactly right' or one could do a q-e-d comment like this.
Learn to write so that people can understand what you are saying. This makes no sense.
Beat me to it.
Democrats are demonstratably fascists. They support Zionists and Nazis overseas and outright fascist anti-American policies at home. Nothing remotely "communist" about them. Stop listening to Trump.
>>"Democrats are demonstratably fascists." ???
Fascism isn't a Democrat/Republican thing. Neither is it perfectly aligned with Left/Right thinking.
Try: "How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38255329-how-fascism-works) for a quick intro to what Fascism is.
There are also many resources (on YouTube and elsewhere) that might aid you in understanding what "Fascism" is (eg. What is Fascism? - Umberto Eco's Characteristics of Fascism [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLXjNBBz6fM])
"Umberto Eco on Donald Trump: 14 Ways of Looking at a Fascist: The Leading Republican Presidential Candidate is More Mussolini Than Hitler" [https://lithub.com/umberto-eco-on-donald-trump-14-ways-of-looking-at-a-fascist/]
I'll definitely look at that, thanks. But I'm pretty sure Nazis are fascists. And the Democrats are staunch supporters of the West Ukrainian neo-Nazis. Never the East Ukrainian separatists, got to be the Nazis. That why I say the Democrats are demonstratably fascists. Both parties support the Zionists (also a form of fascism last I checked). But the Democrats support both of them, including the original, old school ones, Nazis. Anyhow thanks for your reply and the information. Always looking to learn more. Oh and FYI I don't buy the Democrats being anything "leftist". They might identify as liberals but their actions tell a much different story.
You're right - Democrats are NOT leftist. Most people in the US don't know what "the left" is. As you say, they are liberals, but not even remotely close to being "leftists". For one thing, anyone that adheres to Capitalism CANNOT be a 'leftist'.
Democrats are not Nazis either. Support of Nazis does not make one a Nazi. It is a certain set of beliefs that make someone a Nazi. And, BOTH Team D and Team R politicians support the neo-Nazis in Ukraine. It's not because they are neo-Nazis, it's due to geopolitical reasons - they (America) will do anything to weaken Russia - including using ALL Ukrainians as cannon fodder - irrespective of their political ideologies.
Fascism is more complex. And there are different varieties of fascism. There's pure ideological fascism, military fascism, social fascism, classic 20th Century fascism, corporate fascism, and more.
A really interesting book to read is: "Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America" by Bertrand Gross (written in the 1980s) - which is yet another very sophisticated form of soft, fascistic power and control.
🤣🤣 - chokaski wormed its way up River's ass - 🤣🤣
chokaski - while up there can you ask river to pull its head out and back up empty (still) assertions it made about various things? After you've made some love of course - no rush 😳🤣🤡
Huh? You can't even form a legible sentence.
Do let us know when Team D seizes control of the means of production.
Someone missed the assignment
Dystopia is already here--never a truer statement made! But they want you to think one color of dystopia is preferable to another. I'd rather just toss the box of crayons out and work to build a better world for all.
"The Democratic Party is devoutly capitalist." How I wish the Republicans would stop insulting real Communists by claiming the Dem-wits are Communists. Can you imagine how brain dead you'd have to be to actually believe that? Proof that propaganda fries your brain!
The mass media has the power to Orwellize words. So it does.
👍👍
What is most terrifying is that people so passively buy into the propaganda. We are it appears a long way from social revolution and the West is entering a very dark era.
Why Robert? Is this about education or is it because in rural counties you can only get certain TeeVee channels?
In my opinion it is because it took 75 years (for example) to reach this level of corruption and social disintegration and it will take at least an equal amount of time to rectify. There is evolution, devolution and revolution- the volutions of history. TV has been and will continue to be a contributor. It is banished from our house.
It is so weird, having grown up being told that the USSR is the great villain, to realize that my own country has become what it avowedly hates most. ☮️
"has become" should be changed "has always been".
It does take some getting used to.
It's all about money.
US politicians do this because it works on a large segment of the population, witnessed by people voting for these assholes.
And yes, I'm very aware of the relentless, pervasive propaganda but at what point does the voting population become complicit?
At all points, always. Not realizing it does not absolve from responsibility. The "people deserve their governments" is astonishingly true.
Exactly. It's just another variation on "Wir haben es nicht gewußt".
I believe that most Amercians are happy about empire and the wealth it supposedly brings. They particularly like the part where foreigners are imprisoned, tortured, and/or killed.
Hello Joe.
This is exactly what I have been trying to understand. Thank you for pointing this out.
IF you are sitting watching TeeVee in say Oklahoma.........how many channels can you get?
I think I know the answer but I would like to hear this from an American.
I'm sure you can find this information online.
You just have to ask yourself, "Is it true? Is something being omitted or misrepresented? Who benefits and who doesn't?".
What a gong show! I don't even read about American politics right now.
Me neither.............it's a sick circus. Meanwhile the USA is EXPOSED as the vicious slaughterer of Palestinians AND Ukranians.