Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
Israel is reportedly preparing to launch a ground assault on Rafah, the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip where Gazans have been pushed to flee to. Israel has instructed the 1.4 million refugees sheltering there to evacuate, along with the hundreds of thousands of people who were already living there before, but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere for them to go. This could wind up being the single deadliest phase of Israel’s onslaught to date.
So to summarize, the IDF has been packing the population of Gaza into the southernmost part of the enclave like toothpaste toward the end of a tube, and now they’re going to attack that southernmost part, but it’s totally not genocide and you’re an evil Nazi if you say it is.
This genocide is not a genocide. Ceci n’est pas une pipe.
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Can we all just stop and marvel at how successful Israel and its allies have been at moving the conversation from “The ICJ ruled that Israel needs to immediately cease killing Palestinians” to “Is it right or wrong to starve two million people based on unevidenced claims?”
Australian foreign minister Penny Wong has acknowledged that Canberra joined the US, UK and other allies in cutting off UNRWA funding without having seen proof of Israel’s claims against the organization. Empire managers are now openly admitting they suspended aid to Gaza without having seen evidence of the claims that call was based on; they cut the aid because they were told to, then waited for narratives to be provided to them as to why this was a good and righteous decision.
If you’re going to say that a bad thing happened and we therefore need to cut off aid to the most aid-dependent population on earth, then you’d better at least be able to prove the bad thing actually happened. If evidence exists, then show it. If you insist on starving two million people, you can’t do it on vibes alone.
How is this not obvious to everyone? How was it not immediately obvious the instant it came up? Time and time again we are asked to consent to the empire doing the most heinous things to the most vulnerable populations on secret, invisible evidence. We are expected to trust their secret evidence without getting to look at it, even though they’ve been caught lying about things like this over and over and over again.
They think we’re idiots.
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Biden is a spent piece of Beltway flotsam with a swiss cheese brain being used as a ventriloquist dummy by DC swamp monsters to commit genocide, expand the US war machine, and play nuclear chicken with Russia. This is the face of the US empire, folks. This is as good as it gets.
I’ll never forget how obnoxious and condescending Democrats were when telling me how wrong I am about Biden obviously having dementia. These people will look you right in the eye and tell you up is down and that if you disagree you’re a Russian agent.
“Biden is too senile to be president” is the wrong lesson to take from this. Replacing Biden with someone less senile won’t change the behavior of the US government, it’ll just lend false credibility to the illusion that the official elected government is calling the shots in DC.
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Support capitalism, it gives you freedom.
The freedom to watch helplessly as sprawling megacorporations feed your planet’s biosphere and your children’s future into a wood chipper.
The freedom to stare impotently as your government commits genocide and ramps up tensions with nuclear-armed states.
The freedom to be transformed into a profit-generating cog and a rent-generating battery in a machine that is fueled by human blood, sweat and tears.
The freedom to have your mind filled with propaganda, advertising and mainstream capitalist culture to keep you thinking, speaking, voting, working and spending like everyone else.
The freedom to watch your world being driven toward dystopia and armageddon and being alienated, marginalized, demonized and silenced if you try to bring its trajectory toward oblivion to a halt.
The freedom to be a slave who has been bullied, indoctrinated and worn down until they believe that they are free.
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Believing that the inequality, exploitation and warmongering we see today is the natural state of humanity is like looking at 17th century indigenous populations in the Americas and believing widespread disease, chaos and bloodshed is natural for them. Our society’s injustices have concrete causes brought about by specific individuals and maintained by those who benefit from our abusive status quo. A better world is absolutely possible. It doesn’t have to be this way.
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Just a moment of praise for this writer. Does anyone write like Johnstone? Anyone at all? I've been reading subversive literature for over 55 years and her voice is as powerful and moving as any. So necessary in this time. It feels like a voice straight out of the darkness, a klaxon call waking us from the narcotic sleep of sociopathic empire. And the tenacity! tapping into some well of prodigious energy and creativity. Month after month immersing herself in the atrocities and brutal savagery of the merciless, destructive juggernaut that is Western imperialism. But what an opportunity. When in history has it been on such incredibly vivid display? You and Tim are holding valuable space for a lot of us out here Caitlin. Grateful, deeply grateful.
“Most aid-dependent population on earth.”
I’m reminded of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s comment on Palestine, “Most pampered people in the world.”
A population is caged, but you’re lucky we feed and water you.