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Riwaq Allah's avatar

It is wonderfully ironic that when these right wing extremists, like Shapiro or Murray, go on talk shows to sing the praises of western values and warn of the apparent war on them, they are never asked to define what they actually are - because then the whole argument would unravel...

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todd smith's avatar

I didn't realize that Douglas Murray was such a nut-job. I only knew him from the Munk Debates in Toronto, where he paired with Matt Taibbi to absolutely shred Malcolm Gladwell and the NYT writer over the issue that "MSM is not to be trusted." Murray was outstanding in that role, but wow does Reason (another "Western value," but a real one when you can find it) go out the window when Israel pops up. If I had his address, I'd send Murray a "Netanyahu Doll" for Christmas, maybe with a little Zelensky doll on the side...

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ChazLB's avatar

So many seem to throw out all intellectual courage or logic out the window when its the emotional investment in the tribes guilt reparations narratives.. the perpetual victims status rhetoric warped the minds of these people.. Israel is the litmus test to see who is a raving hypocrite rendering their opinions on anything suspect of being taintied in bias.

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spingerah's avatar

Lol. I've got an old Mcain doll somebody gave me, I was thinking of sending it the trs guys at one time.

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gypsy33's avatar

Heh, Todd:

My daughter was recently in New Orleans and bought me a tank top from Marie LeVeaux’s Voodoo Shop. I requested an effigy of ByeDone that I could stick pins into, but they didn’t have one 😉

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todd smith's avatar

I don't think Joe would feel it if you found one, he's that FarGone. Hey, no Voodoo vote for Joe in 2024!

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Jo Waller's avatar

Yes Douglas Murray is a director of Toby Young's Free Speech Union, who say sensible things about free speech and jab mandates but nonsense things about climate change and Murray, along with council member Torygraph writer Allison Pearson, have revealed themselves to be a total Zionazis.

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JennyStokes's avatar

Hello Riwaq Allah. Don't know these people.

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F....'s avatar

Which Murray?

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todd smith's avatar

Douglas Murray, kind of a British pop-intellectual type, as far as I can tell.

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F....'s avatar

Thanks

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Dec 20, 2023
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Kojo's avatar

The pertinent psychos are the ones with the power of public office, like Blinken, Nuland, Sullivan, Austin, Biden etc.

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DomeLord's avatar

...Sunak, Starmer, Johnson, Braverman, Patel, Hancock, etc., here in the UK. If they weren't psychos to start with then, by golly, surprise surprise, the huge power handed to them on a plate in representational 'democracy' they will be completely psychologically corrupted not long after. Demockery or even, DemAllCrazy describes this well. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely... ...and that's before we come on to the power lusting monarchy here in the UK with the WEF antics of not-my-king. The system itself is politically carcinogenic & requires dismantling and something like direct democracy installed to properly share the power out between ourselves. Such things as the Gaza genocide & all the rest of the ZOG horrors would have been nipped in the bud.

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pretzelattack's avatar

I cannot argue against this. I'm just exhausted these days, there is kind of a constant tension in the air, in social interactions, in trying to absorb and escape the constant barrage of media. Just dealing with more or less everyday life problems is exhausting. I'm sure I'm technically depressed, but if you're not depressed you aren't paying attention. Thanks to Caitlin for a small oasis of sanity in an increasingly fractured world.

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ChazLB's avatar

ugg do i know this one... i have been paying attention for my 60 years and im profoundly exhausted..

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Mary Wildfire's avatar

No, you need to change your life so you can see the horrors and still function, experience joy and contentment. Having a good marriage or at least good friends is critical; doing meaningful work; and spending time in nature are all important. And consider some things to cut out, like maybe Facebook, TV, certain friends,m a job you hate...

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SW's avatar

Nothing justifies Israel’s actions in Gaza — not the Holocaust, not the Diaspora, not God telling them they are the “chosen people”. They need to reread the Old Testament. Non-Zionist Jews in NYC blocked a bridge in protest but that was barely covered in the news.

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ChazLB's avatar

You don't really imagine zionist are the slightest bit religious or influenced by the idea of a omnipotent deity that can see everything they have been and are up to do you??

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Don Macrae's avatar

Of course they're religious. That's their super power. That's what enables their ongoing project to eliminate the Palestinians: that their god gave them the land. Killing babies? They shouldn't have been on the land their god gave them. And of course, religious nut jobs are all over the place in the US halls of power.

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Feral Finster's avatar

Some are religious, others are simply "might is right - except when it happens to us!"

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gypsy33's avatar

Feral, most of them are Zios for the $$$, I suspect.

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ChazLB's avatar

All i meant is their "religion " is a cover to commit crimes

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Vin LoPresti's avatar

Every day, I look closely at what American culture offers me, throws at me in distraction -- usually when I'm trying to do something productive -- and mostly what I want to scream (and often I do) is "exploitation". That's what we do. We exploit: the planet, the biosphere, and anyone the culture has set up to be most susceptible to that exploitation. And it's all perpetrated with a consumerist smile that tries to make us feel so so democratic that all these choices are flung before our consciousnesses, when in reality, it's all an authoritarian push by big money to keep the destructive front of the tsunami of consumption moving forward inexorably. Once you see it, it's pure madness incarnate.

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ChazLB's avatar

Red pill blue pill red state blue state coke pepsi red can blue can .. the illusion of choice in between the fences of the slaughterhouse ramp where we are podded and encouraged to argue about who is first to get to face the blades.. left right left right keep shuffling along the left right corral fences.. and oohh look a centrist in the middle thinking they are well balanced... move along ...said the polite farmers.

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Tippy's avatar

The flag and voting in America has been branded into the psyche of America!

To be a part of the process, pick out your own rope!

If you do not vote, you can argue over rope burns!

The flag still relates to the John Wayne syndrome

Standing blindly behind all the propaganda for flag and country!

Immigrants need time to catch on, their still getting free money!

This is what makes me laugh, yet it is folklore here in Transylvania!

That politicians have shiny white teeth and change directions like the wind!

Yet they sit in front of a tv watching it all day and arguing about it every other second!

Pure self inflicted abuse! People do their own brainwashing!

People are all addicted to this red blue crap like they say in AA get a hobby!

Dissecting propaganda and lies. It’s not useful for a happy weekend.

It is why I will only talk baseball to anybody inside the matrix!

I start with we need all grass fields!

Too much artificial shit in this world!

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DomeLord's avatar

Upon the subject of flag shagging & its associated dystopian behaviours, I rather like this 1969 Terry Riley poem, "A Rainbow In Curved Air", that offers us hope...

And then all wars ended / Arms of every kind were outlawed

and the masses gladly contributed them to giant foundries

in which they were melted down and the metal poured back into the earth

/ The Pentagon was turned on its side and painted purple, yellow & green

/ All boundaries were dissolved / The slaughter of animals was forbidden /

The whole of lower Manhattan became a meadow in which unfortunates

from the Bowery were allowed to live out their fantasies in the sunshine

and were cured / People swam in the sparkling rivers under blue skies

streaked only with incense pouring from the new factories /

The energy from dismantled nuclear weapons provided free heat and light

/ World health was restored / An abundance of organic vegetables,

fruits and grains was growing wild along the discarded highways /

National flags were sewn together into brightly coloured circus tents

under which politicians were allowed to perform harmless theatrical games

/ The concept of work was forgotten

Hmm. That's given me an idea...

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Tippy's avatar

I grew up in that time period when a lot of people wrote and talked liked this poem! People knew for a long time something is amiss!

Mother Nature, organic living stop the wars was a real thing back then.

DuPont corporation! The poisoning of our lakes and streams!

Corrupt governments starting wars!

Back then late 1960’s early 1970’s and peace sign on your jacket would get you at the very least attacked! If not seriously beat up!

From all kinds of citizens!

Good times I miss them!

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Tippy's avatar

To this day 2023 people will say do not give me any of that hippy crap!

Ha ha ha ha Got to love it!

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Tippy's avatar

You want to live in harmony with Mother Nature!

What are you a commie pinko!

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DomeLord's avatar

...and you can't machine gun an idea to death!

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spingerah's avatar

I am depressed reading so many comments, believe it I wish it wasn't what it is.

But it is. An old gal i used to know, a German lady that survived ww2 and the appalling atrocitys of the soviet occupation. Shit in one hand, wish in the other & see which one fills fastest she would tell me. Of course its right to call out the genocide going on in Gaza today. And every new atrocity that will never ever end.

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Citizen's avatar

So well said, I have saved this into my list of great quotes :-)

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Philip Mollica's avatar

All of our congressional reps in my State pat themselves on the back over how many military contracts they "secure" for our state and how many "good paying jobs" they are creating, never for a moment considering the carnage that is left in the wake of U.S. weaponry, or that we blindly value jobs regardless of the part we play in murder across the globe.

That's the thing that really pisses me off about Capitalism. It doesn't care where it makes its money.

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Literally Mussolini's avatar

These people's lack of understanding of the simple concept of opportunity cost is mind boggling.

But then again, these same people would likely account for the destruction that these weapons cause when used as a benefit, instead of a huge direct cost.

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Feral Finster's avatar

"That's the thing that really pisses me off about Capitalism. It doesn't care where it makes its money."

A dollar made teaching elementary school is worth just as much as a dollar made selling heroin to elementary school kids.

Both are worth one dollar.

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lsmunroe@gmail.com's avatar

Jobs could be created in building schools, hospitals, roads, bridges and delivering services to people! Better jobs even!

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Philip Mollica's avatar

Imagine what could be done domestically with the already spent 115 Billion dollars and then the next 100 billion dollars plus that was proposed?

Hell, even take half of that and use it for humanitarian purposes offshore -- imagine the good will that would come of that?

This blood-lust will have a terrible price.

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Thomas's avatar

It’s always about money 💰 don’t get it they just jabbed all their personal in the forces. Maybe this is how they are going to test the

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Dec 20, 2023
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spingerah's avatar

Marx... no human construct doesn't slaughter the weaker.

It is human nature.

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Maurice Ward's avatar

I don’t think he used the word “western “ in this context. He was:is very clear the driving contradictions are between classes, not cultures or national nor regional boundaries

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Phillip Badger's avatar

Israel actually has no right to exist. Really. We have to quit accepting the utterly dishonest foundations of their lies.

https://open.substack.com/pub/phillipbadger/p/yes-virginia-there-really-is-no-reason?r=ia08f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Citizen's avatar

100%. And it should never have been created in the first place, it was done with zero consideration of the existing inhabitants. They tried to persuade the world "a land without a people for a people without a land" and I know people TO THIS DAY who say "there was nothing there". Actual IDIOTS.

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Dec 20, 2023
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ChazLB's avatar

Now they plow under ancient olive groves out of spite and its one of the more profoundly disturbing disgusting things they do and to have NO reverence for it...

ZIopaths only know how to hate and resent..

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Phillip Badger's avatar

"Hitler may have lost WW2, but fascism won." -- George Carlin.

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todd smith's avatar

The West, or at least Western Elites, has unleashed its Inner Nazi. We support neo-Nazis over in Ukraine, and we give practically unqualified support to the the Right Wing Extremist-Supremacists in Israel. The West has a Fascist monkey on its back that it never shook off, despite a Fairy Tale of defeating Fascism in World War 2.

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ChazLB's avatar

Every time the USA says they are fighting some terrorist it turns out they had been funding them.. USA dropped weapons and supplies on ISIS and called it an accident..they did the "accident" three times ...

You can see your car on google earth with pedestrian technology and they want people to believe they did it all by "accident" ... they bet on the fact most average humans have the logical attention span of a gnat..

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Mary Wildfire's avatar

and they've been engineering usd to have gantlike attention spans, via all those fracking screens

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ChazLB's avatar

That's what government run education (obedience training ) has been all about for generations. make them learn to memorize dates and times of historical (distorted ) beliefs to than mindlessly repeat official narratives ..its pretty much ushered in the time of idiocracy that has really caught up to the film.

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Gnuneo's avatar

Literally 2000 years in Europe. It started with barbarian Rome's claims to be "Bringing civilisation", when all it was really doing was mass slaughter and extracting loot to pay for further slaughters.

And that is all it has been ever since.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x72r71p

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SDButlerRedux's avatar

"The only democracy in the Mid East" is sorely in need of a tune up, or a regime change.

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Dec 20, 2023
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SDButlerRedux's avatar

Sorry for the oversight. Not even Kanadian.

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Patricia Blair's avatar

Yes, it is the settlement of what is now called America, Canada, New Zealand, & Australia. The violence against indigenous, the slaughter, the reservations, the smashing of customs, so it’s easy to see why these countries support Israel’s atrocities against the Palestinians.😢there is no conscience!

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John Day MD's avatar

Alastair Crooke, They Can Wait at Leisure, Whilst Netanyahu Labours – and Errs (paraphrasing Sun Tzu's Art Of War)

​ This man in the wheelchair and with the rickety earpiece – Sheikh Ahmad Yasin – was the founder of Hamas.

And what he said to me that morning has come to upend the Islamic world today.

​ What he said was: “Hamas is not an Islamic movement. It is a liberation movement, and anyone, be they Christian, or Buddhist – or even I – could join it. We all were welcome”.

​ Why was this simple formula somehow so significant and connected to today’s events?

Well, the ethos of Gaza, at that time (2000-2002), was predominantly that of ideological Islamism. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was deeply embedded. It was not then a resistance movement per se – it was capable of violence, but its prime focus was social work and uncorrupted governance. It wanted to show how well it could govern.

​ Yasin’s comment was revolutionary because liberation trumped dogma and the various ‘schools’ of political Islam. This ultimately was to become ‘Gaza Hamas’ – at odds with its conventional leadership resident in Doha. Sinwar and Dief are ‘Yasin’s children’.

​ ‘Long story short’, a little while later, Yasin, on one of his Friday prayers’ wheel-chair trundles across the road to his adjacent mosque, was blown to pieces by an Israeli missile as he exited.​..

..PM Blair and President Bush put together a secret (unacknowledged to the EU) plan in response: Hamas leaders – plus the movements’ social support NGOs – were to be eliminated. And the Palestinian Authority would crack down on all and every Hamas activity – in close collaboration with Israel.

​ The West Bank, in this plan, would be the recipient of large financial aid to construct a prosperous western-style consumer/security state, and Gaza explicitly was to be impoverished...

​..As Tareq Baconi writes in Foreign Policy:

​ “Hamas was stuck in … a “violent equilibrium,” whereby military force emerged as a means for negotiating concessions between Hamas and Israel. [Hamas used] missiles and other tactics to compel Israel to ease restrictions on the blockade, while [Israel] responds with overwhelming force to build deterrence and secure “calm” in the areas around the Gaza Strip. Through this violence, both entities operated within a framework whereby Hamas could maintain its role as a governing authority in Gaza even under a blockade that enacts daily structural violence against Palestinians”.

​ It is this siege paradigm for Gaza that blew up on 7 October​...

​..Hamas has transformed: It is now the ‘liberation movement’ that Sheikh Yasin foresaw – liberation of all living under occupation, and again, Yasin-like, is centred around non-ideological Islam on the civilisational icon of ‘Al-Aqsa’ mosque which is neither Palestinian nor Shia nor Sunni, nor Wahhabi, Brotherhood, nor Salafist.

​ And it is this – Hamas’ liberation framing – that chimes directly with the new global ‘independence push’ that we are witnessing today, and that perhaps explains the huge marches in support of Gaza, across the global south, as well as in Europe and the U.S. The punishment meted out to Gaza civilians has that unmissable ‘old colonial’ touch to it – one that evokes wide resonance and anger.

​ Hamas’ calculus is that its military resilience, plus the sustained international pressure from the Gaza massacres, ultimately may compel Israel to negotiate – and eventually reach a (costly, ‘all for all’) hostage deal with the Palestinian movement – as well as a paradigm-change in the political realm of endless ‘peace talks’ with Israel. In short, Hamas’ bet is that its military resilience will likely outlast the White House impatience to bring a speedy end to the Gaza war episode.​..

​..Netanyahu both has to keep the war going (for his own survival), because the end of it may spell disaster for the him (and his family). Netanyahu therefore is in the midst of ‘a campaign’. It’s not an election campaign, because he has no real chance of surviving an election.

​ On the contrary, it is a ‘campaign for survival’ with two aims: to hang on to his seat for two more years (which is feasible as the chance of government defections is far from assured), and secondly, to preserve, or even strengthen, the slavish admiration of ‘the base’.

​ "Only I, Netanyahu, can prevent a Palestinian State ever coming into being in Gaza, Judea or Samaria”: “I will not allow it”. “There will never be” a Palestinian state. Only I can manage relations with Biden. Only I know how to manipulate the U.S. psyche’.

​ “I am leading”… not only on behalf of Jewish history, but also for western civilization.

“But what good is a long war”, Israeli correspondent, Haaretz commentator B. Michael asks,

​ “if at the end, or even while it’s still ongoing, the ‘base’ becomes bored and indifferent and disappointed? That’s not the kind of base that will rush to the voting booth with the right voting slip in its teeth. A base wants action. A base wants blood. A base wants to hate, to be angry, to be offended, to get revenge. To unload on ‘the other’ everything that is getting it riled up”.

​ “This is the only way to understand the stubborn evasion [by Netanyahu] of any serious discussion of an exit policy from the war. This is the only way to understand the groundless promises of everlasting control of Gaza”. The Base is delighted. Hopes coming true. “We’re really sticking it to the Arabs, pushing them toward the sea. And it’s all Bibi”.

​ “There isn’t a drop of logic to the massive bombardment in Gaza. Nor will a drop of benefit result from the killing of more Palestinians … the step is blatant foolishness and embarrassing grovelling to the base – lest it be at all disappointed by the leader. What will become of the hostages? The base is more important”.

​ Israel has seen this before – notably with the 1948 Nakba. The hubristic expectation that this would be the ‘end to it’ – Palestinians expelled, their property plundered and appropriated – ‘End of story’ (it was believed). ‘Problem solved’.

​ Yet it was never solved. Hence 7 October.

The Prime Minister and his cabinet are on a ‘campaign trail’ to seize and magnify the base’s trauma arising from the 7 October – and to mould it to their electoral needs.

​ Netanyahu has been repeating a single message: ‘We will not stop the fighting’. From his perspective, the war must continue forever:

“The vision of Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich and company is taking shape. And the messiah’s arrival must be just around the corner. And it’s all Bibi. Hooray for Bibi!”.

​ The Resistance understands and can see it all: How does Israel get out of this? Overthrowing Bibi? That won’t do it. It’s too late. The stopper is off; the genies and the demons are out.

​ If the ‘front’ remains co-ordinated, proceeds by consensus; eschews any Pavlovian over-reaction to events that might plunge the region into an all-out war, then:

​'They can wait at leisure, whilst (Netanyahu) labours’ – and errs (Sun Tzu).

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/12/18/they-can-wait-at-leisure-whilst-netanyahu-labours-and-errs/

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ChazLB's avatar

I'm surounded by psychopaths

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John Day MD's avatar

Completely surrounded, or just almost?

:-o

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ChazLB's avatar

With a few minor exceptions ...Catlins got a few exceptions on her subscriptions list at least..

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Jack Mackeddie's avatar

Another brilliant article from Caitlin. Possibly one of the most succinct articles which hopefully will get people to think about what values they really have.

One of the biggest issues is that western culture has imposed greed into society, whereby people are looking for financial returns, particularly on their superannuation. Incidentally, Australian Super Fund one would think that it's Australian, It's Not. One does not have to look far to see that a greedy few all but control the ASX top 200 companies, including our "big 4 banks", govt. advisory groups, political parties, in fact almost every aspect of Australian business.

Australia has all but given it's sovereignty to America with the most ridiculous "purchase of the nuclear submarines" AUKUS !!

America makes money out of war, America is a failed state which cannot even look after it's people (except for the privileged few) and those with their "snouts in the trough" so America wants a war, any war as long as they can make more money from providing arms, missiles, hardware, ships, submarines, bombers, etc.

This article from Caitlin needs to be available for all to read, not just the people who subscribe here.

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David Avenell's avatar

"Australia has all but given it's sovereignty to America..." I wouldn't bother with the 'all but', the sentence is correct without it.

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gypsy33's avatar

Lol Dave… Caitlin has described Australia as a US. Military base with kangaroos 😉

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David Avenell's avatar

Yeah, she's pretty well right and one worry is that the US has declared China and the Chinese people the greatest threat to their interest and security (of course, they really mean their global domination), but Darwin has a large ethnic Chinese population, so I don't know how that's going to play out.

Darwin used to to be a great and fun place to live, but I wouldn't go back there now. Apart from anything else, I saw what happened to Kings Cross in Sydney, with the US troops visiting for their R&R during the Vietnam war.

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ChazLB's avatar

ASK??? the entire world is now in debt to WHOM?? The dynasty banking families? and why do we put up with it just because they order society in their psychopathic abusive images to hold power..

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F....'s avatar

War is a racket.

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The Revolution Continues's avatar

"That mountain of child corpses is a much better representation of western culture than anything Mozart, da Vinci or Shakespeare ever produced."

Bravo! This shocking mental image epitomizes the audacious hypocrisy of those who hold to "western values". More like western insanity than values, really.

"We say we value freedom, justice, truth, peace and free expression, but our actions paint a very different picture. The real western values, the actual product inside the box underneath the attractive label, are the ones you see acted out in Gaza today."

Bingo. You can't sum up in words any better than what is being done in action. Westerners commit genocide. Western values are all about genocide and the murder of children obviously. Westerners should be ashamed of themselves, but they are too sociopathic to realize just how sick they are.

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jamenta's avatar

Stinging endictment. Hard not to disagree.

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Douglas's avatar

I am currently reading a new book by Naoise MacSweeney , "The West" in which she scholarly deconstructs the idea of the superiority of "Western values" and the superiority of "Western Civilisation", from the Greco-Roman world to this century.

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Les's avatar

Could interest you . . .

The long and rich history of the contemporary genocides of the cultured, cultivated Europeans, The Americans and the Brits., to nominate yet a few.

https://les7eb.substack.com/p/genocide-and-economics

Free to subscribe . . . The Dead Do Not Die.

_____________

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ChazLB's avatar

Very interesting read i'm poised to continue viewing .."Scientific racism" is a good way of putting it..

Im wondering of you know of the works of Victor hugo and of Les Misérables.

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