As an Australian I will never forgive successive governments in this often feeble country for not going to bat for (supporting) Julian Assange. Yes, we have a selection of parliamentarians who have made their point of view clear as to the need we have to show some maturity and discard our grovelling subservience to the now disrespected Unites States with AUKUS now being the possible vehicle for WWIII.
One can't help noticing, yet again, that this will not be in the US geography but once again a long way away from any likely US mainland fallout from a war which, if located off the coast of the USA would at least have some of the realistic population concerned about their safety. Perhaps thinking differently about the totally feeble-minded Biden and his Neocon entourage, now in the thousands as he does their bidding and as always, supported by his military/industrial buddies, making a big dollar off all the US-generated hype. That's what it is all about, surely. Money, power, hegemony.
The effort made by Julian has been the only real example of truth in any writing on the US-initiated wars he addressed, the crimes committed by America and the general attitudes of NATO, US henchmen as they have become, one and all. Just observe the comments from those NATO countries, dancing to the US tune of lies and more lies and putting themselves at risk should they take a foolish action, in error or on purpose by creating a climate which requires Russia to respond. forcefully. It is easy to make a mistake. One Ukrainian mistake killed hundreds. Remember Malaysian Flight MH17, when Ukraine shot down an airliner? No, it wasn't Russia. As Secretary of State, John Kerry said (just once and never repeated it) "we know where the missile was fired from" (or similar).
Yes, we know you do.Keeping that detail a secret was just another lie, now the order of every day in the West.
Journalists have lost people's respect throughout the world and the compliance by media owners to submit to the dictates of the US is just one more example of the frightening state of the truth in the world today.
WWII showed us the effectiveness of the likes of Joseph Goebbels in controlling the thinking of the masses in Germany. This is now well overshadowed by the Western Media under instructions from the US secret army, the CIA, found under any rock in any country of their choosing where dirty deeds are the order of the day.
As well the double standards of organisations like The Guardian in being a user of Julian's material for so long and then, after his show trial arrest, showing that their loyalty to him as a source of the truth for so long was not worthy of any loyalty at all. Their behaviour stands condemned by all.
Margarita Simonyan having communicated with him "had asked Assange why he "sacrificed his life," and he answered that he hated lying and being lied to."
This is so true and this system put in place has the victim as the guilty party in most every part of the system from the lowest form of crimes a common car accident to rape! Make money off the victims by any means possible! They victimized Julian, made a profit from him and then through him to the filth that the Criminal Elite are. The sad thing is they don't even bother to hide their criminal activities any longer because no one can stop them. It is utterly disgusting that Julian will die in prison for the crimes of the world's enemies!
The Guardian was captured by the security state in 2013 after they started publishing the Snowden files. Their offices were raided by GCHQ staff and they were made to destroy their disks.
Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis wrote a detailed piece on it published on 9/11 2019 in the Daily Maverick.
Thanks, John. I have read the piece now in The Daily Maverick as you mentioned. I was not aware of this series of actions about the involvement of the thought police. If it was covered out here in the far colonies, it must have been low key.
However, in my opinion, their lack of support for Julian developed into something far worse than that and it is really this very noticeable change in emphasis that annoyed me and past Guardian readers the most. So many within my circle of readers dropped off and I doubt if they will ever return.
You can't (shouldn't be able to) run with the foxes and hunt with the hounds and maintain any credibility among readers who care greatly about the subject.
My how the climate has changed in 2022. If Julian's main stories occurred now, not only would no media organisation run them but even if they did, no one would believe them after treatment by the powers that be in both the UK and USA.
It is a pity that there is no George Orwell to take up the challenge and update 1984 to suit the 2022 climate.
I'm now reading "Berlin Diary" by William Shirer. Along with accounts of different kinds of reporting and reporters even back then, some of the propaganda he describes printed in the press by Germans mirrors today's MSM to a T.
Examples:
"The Nazi press full of hysterical headlines. All lies. Some examples: WOMEN AND CHILDREN MOWED DOWN BY CZECH ARMOURED CARS, or BLOODY REGIME—NEW CZECH MURDERS OF GERMANS. The Börsen Zeitung takes the prize: POISON-GAS ATTACK ON AUSSIG? The Hamburger Zeitung is pretty good: EXTORTION, PLUNDERING, SHOOTING—CZECH TERROR IN SUDETEN GERMAN LAND GROWS WORSE FROM DAY TO DAY!"
...
"The only news I had was that the Hungarians and the Poles had been down to Berchtesgaden during the day to demand, like jackals, their share of the Czech spoils. This subject exhausted, I took to reading the headlines from the evening papers. The usual lies, but if I said so, the Nazis would cut me off. Headlines like this: CZECH SOLDIERS ATTACK GERMAN EMPIRE!"
This is a fact, no doubt of it. Even Biden's bumbling is contrived - not on his part, he is well past his prime, but the image of the well-meaning, benign father figure is purposeful: he is a softie, but will do the right thing if pushed, in this case concerning Russia. He is made in the mold of Jimmy Carter, an old American stereotype that belies his murky record on Burisma, and what looks like political manipulation in a foreign country known for corruption. The US and West have proven themselves corrupt on the Assange issue alone, were there not a mountain of previous and subsequent evidence of corruption and inhuman malfeasance. How much longer are we going to accept this systems as democratic, when it resembles Ancient Rome more than anything else. Mussolini coined the word "fascist" from the emblem of that country, and it has little to do with jackboots or salutes: the Roman soldier wore tunic and sandals, and war was the coin of the realm. They had a voting Senate, but the vote was mainly for and about elites who profited the most from war. Sound familiar?
I wouldn't liken Biden to Carter. Biden in his prime was a war hawk. Carter was always a "dove". (I am talking in relative terms here, this is not praise for Carter).
To me, a profound difference between Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden is the motivation for their actions/ decisions. Carter is an engineer by education, and a farmer by trade. He has a skewed view of the world by virtue of his social conditioning, but his view of people is humane and consistent. Biden is a lawyer whose actions and decisions are based on what wins. He is presently on a neocon global supremacy path that features little to no personal reflection or self-examination. Carter had the courage to call Israel an apartheid state, and Joe had the opportunity to listen to Anita Hill, take her story seriously and investigate in earnest, and he chose not to.
Carter always wore the guise of a "dove" while supporting very violent elements. Check out Guatemala 1977, Congo under Mobutu, Suharto and East Timor. He us a pretty good if not perfect comparison with Biden. But he lived in different times ,so impossible to say what he would do under present circumstances.
I don't know about Guatemala "77" and the "Congo" but I happened to have been in the Navy during part of Carter's presidency (went through 4 presidents!) and he did not allow the Embassy guards (marines) to have ammo for their weapons while on duty in Karachi Pakistan. I found out about this after my ship left port a group of pakistanis overthrew the embassy and killed all the marines I had been partying with the night before! He seemed at the time to be a man of peace but? Wolf in sheep's clothing? I don't know.
Well, have you heard of the former Portuguese colony East Timor, its bid for independence quashed by US usually clandestine support for Indonesia and its dictator Suharto? They, the Carter admin in 1978, wanted to sell GOI arms and do other business, and East Timor was inconsequential and just a nuisance in the greater scheme - Money and Power. Carter increased military funding from about $13 million to $112 in 1978, enough for a squadron of ground bombers and 16 military fighter jets. Also, some chemical sprayers. Yes, human rights and concerns when necessary, but not necessarily human rights and concerns.
I get you. Yeah now that I'm some 50 years older I can see the cover story clearly. He was this wonderful peanut farmer and cared so much about human rights was the standard media coverage all the while as I mentioned being a wolf in sheep's clothing. During 78 I spent 14 months in the Persian Gulf and was off the coast of Iran during the hostage crisis when he sent helicopters in to attempt a rescue. This was actually a big joke to us because (at one time I had a picture of this!) we knew the helo's to be useless in the desert sand storms they had enough problems just getting off the deck and as I mentioned above I had a picture of one that crashed into the aft gun mount! Since I was basically in isolation being on an ocean in the middle of a desert!, I was subjected to what I now know to be very crafted media reports, so I thank you for giving me the missing pieces!
I once read of an honest journalist's interview with Carter: he was benign as a saint, but if you broached touchy subjects, I imagine like the one you cite, or the East Timor atrocities, his eyes immediately clouded and shot daggers. And he clammed up and turned away.
Adding to that ,Doris was the following dirty actions by Australia in bugging the rooms in East Timor where discussions were being held on oil exploration in the Timor Sea to our great financial advantage. Extremely high politicians were involved in that one.
Yes, we learn all the dirty tricks from the masters as we faithfully serve them as their tame lackeys, day in and day out., now waiting for the chance to join them once again as part of AUKUS (Australia, UK and US) in a war promoted heavily by the US with Taiwan as the objective.
Just for the record for those readers who may not have heard of East Timor or know much about the country. As Doris said, a former Portugese territory, virtually gifted to Indonesia as stated, perhaps the poorest country in the region....maybe in the world and Australia did this to them?
Basque journalist Pablo Gonzalez has been incarcerated incommunicado in Poland since February 28th. His family have started a petition in change.org "Respeten los derechos del periodista Pablo González, detenido en Polonia el 28 de febrero"
I’m convinced they want to kill off most of humanity to save the earth from climate change since colonizing mars isn’t happening quick enough for the ruling class.
A nuclear war would kill off most, but likely not all (especially not the rulers in their bunkers) of humanity. Whoever is unlucky enough to survive will be enslaved by the ruling class just like they are today but way way worse with the threat of violence if one steps out of line completely overt. Think of jews during the time of the pharaohs building pyramids, or the trans Atlantic slave trade. Brutality is the point. We will revert to the divine right of kings, but rather than a monarchy we will have the billionaire kings of industry - and they will “deserve” their billions because they “saved” those of us who remain.
I sound like a crazy q anon conspiracy theorist, and it’s funny because that’s the brush they paint anyone with who speaks up regarding their suspicions of the elites. For the record I hate trump and biden, and no, Hillary doesn’t eat babies and drink their blood or whatever wild shit those psychos believe.
Generally agree Caitlin, but why limit this to Western journalists? I live in Japan, and have taught top-notch, multilingual exchange students from Communication University of China ... but can not name any top notch journalists from the Far East.
Brown University educated Hiroko Kuniya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroko_Kuniya) was a pretty good muck-raking social commentator and critic on Japan's tax-funded NHK television ... for awhile. But going off-script while interviewing a politician from the ruling LDP got her sacked and replaced by a string of pretty faces. From what I hear, neither Koreans nor Chinese would have gotten that close to the truth through state sponsored television.
With quite a few open protests, but little coverage, the Japanese corporate nation-state will be putting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to rest tomorrow. One reason for the protests are bits and pieces of his legacy regarding individual human rights (or rather, lack of).
For example, the State Secrets Law rammed through by the supermajority Abe-led government allows no limit on how long the govt. can keep information from the citizenry, and the Japanese version of FOIA is a Kabuki show. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20191217/p2a/00m/0na/008000c
Still searching, but have not found any Far Eastern equivalence of substack.
Just a modest suggestion, but cutting the first word from — ''Western civilization is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don't seek widespread approval. It's worthless.'' — would improve the accuracy, but possibly black-pill the implications of your insight. Keep up the good fight.
The crucial distinction might be no other media but Western claim universal supremacy in every way. Just that one aspect makes them (non-Western) more truthful.
But that might just be self-promotional marketing, or 'branding'.
Business as usual, and necessary in a culture grounded in the Enlightenment conceit of 'informed consent'.
Japanese media don't even need to make that claim.
It is already unconsciously embedded in compliance to the cultural conceit of a 'harmony', superior to the West. Of course, the working class are kept too close to the edge to have time to wonder for whom that harmony is reserved.
Sorry, but I don't think there is anything "maybe" in the Western shameless self-promotion. It is purposeful and deliberate and aims to deceive not just the rest of the world but huge chunks of its own population.
And I agree with you that it's marketing and they understand it perfectly well, but that just makes it so much more sinister since most non-western cultures just can't conceive such blatant lying is possible.
So I think Caitlin's qualification makes a lot of sense.
But ... ''most non-western cultures just can't conceive such blatant lying is possible''?
I can't understand where you are getting your data points from. We are talking about human nature here. I've been living and working in Japan for 40 years now, and believe me, Japanese are perfectly capable of the same degree of deception as any other social primate. It comes with being human ... the whole collective genetic package.
I've been reading a lot on psychopathology over the last 10 years, all in English, but to try and get a handle on life in Japan. Basic human psychology seems to apply equally well to the same dysfunctions I've experienced and observed in the Far East ... both in personal relationships and in institutional settings.
One book I am still in the process of reading that tries to bridge the 'dark-triad' Cluster B personality hiding in the family closet (the pathological narcissists, machiavellian opportunists, and morphologically defined psychopaths among us) with the dysfunctions of populations of scale (corporate nation-states or would-be ruling globalists) is Lobaczewski's 'Political Ponerology; The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of Totalitarianism'. Though emerging from his experience with Soviet-era Eastern Europe, so far, it is quite descriptive of group dynamics as I have experienced in Japan.
Will welcome any counter argument for Japanese exceptionalism.
I realize I may have been unclear - I do not claim that cultures per se are more honest or less honest. I refer strictly to the certain national or regional or some other structured media/journalists positioning themselves in relation to the rest of the world and the world's reception of the attitude.
For some reason Loboaczewski's book was not on my radar (which I'm sure has nothing to do with Amazon's ability to shadow ban certain titles). I notice it is recommended by Phillip Zimbardo, the psychologist who conducted the famous Stanford Prisoner Study. It is now on my reading list. Thanks!
Hi Jack, I'm still near the beginning, and have yet to read Desmet ... but so far, I think L is nailing it connecting the micro with the macro of so much bad stuff going on. Another good info source I've only discovered in the last couple of years are the YouTube podcasts of Dr. Ramani, but she doesn't make so many connections with the political landscape. I used to think sociopaths were more common in 'developed' societies, but came across this great post by Mathew Crawford ... https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-kunlangeta-part-i
I guess it’s no surprise that this link https://dilyana.bg/ to investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva can’t be shared easily on social media. It just confirms what I suspect.
How horrifying! The "Reality" of this letter is tragic. Just think these young people will be the next set of Adult Americans! How can anyone realistically expect them to have any sense of self or be mature in their thinking when they are brought up in utter chaos!?
Yep. For 17 continuous years, I have yet to meet anyone in the USA - including my family, friends, neighbors — who fail to fall back on their get-out-of-jail-free-card dismissive response to my criticisms of this nation (both the policies of the govt and the ordinary american’s willingness to minimize this country’s record of committing atrocities) with —
“Oh, but we’re not as bad as so & so”.
As if that argument is even relevant.
As Catherine Austin Fitts has reiterated many times — Americans feel compelled to look in our mirrors and tell ourselves the
“I-am-good” story.
Not surprising that we’ve failed to hold those criminal psychopaths, sociopaths, Cluster-B, Dark Triad, covert & overt narcissists and petty tyrants in our own personal lives accountable and responsible for their vile, malicious, vicious deeds of destructions — much less those in positions of power; we can’t even hold OURSELVES accountable for our own individual personal transgressions.
We have got to be individually and collectively the most narcissistic nation EVER!!
And, as narcissists always do, we will never apologize, acknowledge or admit the truth— or avoid blaming everyone but ourselves for our contemptible desire to dominate and control every life form in the universe.
I sincerely pray that whatever fate we have incurred in our arrogance and hubris falls upon us exclusively with little to no fall-out on others.
I am soo glad and grateful to you for being able to articulate all that I have been feeling and expressing (in my less articulate way) to others for years.
This country is a failure.
We are the quintessential example to the world of what NOT to do — of what NOT to value — of what NOT to be.
We are NOT a role model that anyone anywhere should copy or imitate or follow.
I still say — BDS the US!!
We like to claim — we are the “light” of the world.
And we are. Only the “light” we are aligned with is the Luciferian Light.
You know. The blindingly brilliant white light that blinds us so we cannot see.
Close your eyes and imagine brilliant white light.
What can you see?
When I close my eyes and imagine that form of light, I can’t see anything except light.
Which means I can’t see anything lurking or hiding within that light.
Now imagine impenetrable dark blackness. What can I see?
I can see absolutely nothing.
The same blindness either way.
The pinkish golden light allows me to SEE clearly all that would be hidden by Luciferian light and dark.
Using Ian MacGilchrist’s descriptions of the attributes of the left and right brain’s hemispheres —I am suggesting that the blinding white light is synonymous with the left brain hemisphere and the golden pinkish light is synonymous with right brain hemisphere.
I see the collective consciousness of this nation as aligned with the left brain hemisphere light.
Which I translate to —
Being reasonable with evil.
We are committed to being reasonable with evil.
For and bah humbug on us.
Thanks for hearing my cry in this wilderness of woe.
Much love to you Caitlin and eternal thanks for stating the truth and—
You have once again fully highlighted the activities of the Criminal Elite. The very issue of the "Bootlicker" problem is what would solve a big part of the problem. If only they would wake up and smell the shit they are standing in! I am in utter despair since people I know to have a bit of intelligence still cling to the same excuses. It's always the other guys fault and in this case Putin! That big "BUT" you have mentioned is brought out every time. I have stated the obvious of the rush to nuclear destruction and it brings out silence or the other guy! Tell them these criminals have purposely not gone to the table to discuss the matter and silence or disbelief! We are done for since no one will put these thugs in the prisons they made for us and this false belief that they have our best interest at heart will be our doom.
Yes and you discover those who smile slyly in your face as they manipulate you are serial abusers & stone, cold psychopaths. Discovering that nation states, corporations and institutions can be run by psychopaths means we have grown up politically speaking. Time for sane adults to stand up or it is all over.
Hard to see how they will succeed with fantasies to take over the world, with lying, living in the social darkness , ignoring everyone else, and killing millions of people in real life scenes to fulfill these fantasies of domination.
These people don’t do well in real life so
I’d say death is awaiting for these minds. No worries here that Life itself will have to pay for so serious a moral transgression into the primitive.
308,000 Timorese lost their lives under Suharto, almost half the total population: Carter's attitude was cynical. Motivation can't remove such a stain, nor that of brutal S American dictators.
As an Australian I will never forgive successive governments in this often feeble country for not going to bat for (supporting) Julian Assange. Yes, we have a selection of parliamentarians who have made their point of view clear as to the need we have to show some maturity and discard our grovelling subservience to the now disrespected Unites States with AUKUS now being the possible vehicle for WWIII.
One can't help noticing, yet again, that this will not be in the US geography but once again a long way away from any likely US mainland fallout from a war which, if located off the coast of the USA would at least have some of the realistic population concerned about their safety. Perhaps thinking differently about the totally feeble-minded Biden and his Neocon entourage, now in the thousands as he does their bidding and as always, supported by his military/industrial buddies, making a big dollar off all the US-generated hype. That's what it is all about, surely. Money, power, hegemony.
The effort made by Julian has been the only real example of truth in any writing on the US-initiated wars he addressed, the crimes committed by America and the general attitudes of NATO, US henchmen as they have become, one and all. Just observe the comments from those NATO countries, dancing to the US tune of lies and more lies and putting themselves at risk should they take a foolish action, in error or on purpose by creating a climate which requires Russia to respond. forcefully. It is easy to make a mistake. One Ukrainian mistake killed hundreds. Remember Malaysian Flight MH17, when Ukraine shot down an airliner? No, it wasn't Russia. As Secretary of State, John Kerry said (just once and never repeated it) "we know where the missile was fired from" (or similar).
Yes, we know you do.Keeping that detail a secret was just another lie, now the order of every day in the West.
Journalists have lost people's respect throughout the world and the compliance by media owners to submit to the dictates of the US is just one more example of the frightening state of the truth in the world today.
WWII showed us the effectiveness of the likes of Joseph Goebbels in controlling the thinking of the masses in Germany. This is now well overshadowed by the Western Media under instructions from the US secret army, the CIA, found under any rock in any country of their choosing where dirty deeds are the order of the day.
As well the double standards of organisations like The Guardian in being a user of Julian's material for so long and then, after his show trial arrest, showing that their loyalty to him as a source of the truth for so long was not worthy of any loyalty at all. Their behaviour stands condemned by all.
And so it is still today.
Margarita Simonyan having communicated with him "had asked Assange why he "sacrificed his life," and he answered that he hated lying and being lied to."
I heard her say that on one show and just found the quote here: https://www.pakistanpoint.com/en/story/592393/rt-sputnik-editor-in-chief-on-arrest-of-wikileaks-foun.html
That is, Assange is a rare individual on that level who on principle would not tolerate lies. Such people are extremely dangerous for the powerful.
This is so true and this system put in place has the victim as the guilty party in most every part of the system from the lowest form of crimes a common car accident to rape! Make money off the victims by any means possible! They victimized Julian, made a profit from him and then through him to the filth that the Criminal Elite are. The sad thing is they don't even bother to hide their criminal activities any longer because no one can stop them. It is utterly disgusting that Julian will die in prison for the crimes of the world's enemies!
The Guardian was captured by the security state in 2013 after they started publishing the Snowden files. Their offices were raided by GCHQ staff and they were made to destroy their disks.
Matt Kennard and Mark Curtis wrote a detailed piece on it published on 9/11 2019 in the Daily Maverick.
Thanks, John. I have read the piece now in The Daily Maverick as you mentioned. I was not aware of this series of actions about the involvement of the thought police. If it was covered out here in the far colonies, it must have been low key.
However, in my opinion, their lack of support for Julian developed into something far worse than that and it is really this very noticeable change in emphasis that annoyed me and past Guardian readers the most. So many within my circle of readers dropped off and I doubt if they will ever return.
You can't (shouldn't be able to) run with the foxes and hunt with the hounds and maintain any credibility among readers who care greatly about the subject.
My how the climate has changed in 2022. If Julian's main stories occurred now, not only would no media organisation run them but even if they did, no one would believe them after treatment by the powers that be in both the UK and USA.
It is a pity that there is no George Orwell to take up the challenge and update 1984 to suit the 2022 climate.
.
If they're not on the Ukrainian and US State Department's mutual hit list (funded by the US tax payer) well, you can't trust their reporting.
I'm now reading "Berlin Diary" by William Shirer. Along with accounts of different kinds of reporting and reporters even back then, some of the propaganda he describes printed in the press by Germans mirrors today's MSM to a T.
Examples:
"The Nazi press full of hysterical headlines. All lies. Some examples: WOMEN AND CHILDREN MOWED DOWN BY CZECH ARMOURED CARS, or BLOODY REGIME—NEW CZECH MURDERS OF GERMANS. The Börsen Zeitung takes the prize: POISON-GAS ATTACK ON AUSSIG? The Hamburger Zeitung is pretty good: EXTORTION, PLUNDERING, SHOOTING—CZECH TERROR IN SUDETEN GERMAN LAND GROWS WORSE FROM DAY TO DAY!"
...
"The only news I had was that the Hungarians and the Poles had been down to Berchtesgaden during the day to demand, like jackals, their share of the Czech spoils. This subject exhausted, I took to reading the headlines from the evening papers. The usual lies, but if I said so, the Nazis would cut me off. Headlines like this: CZECH SOLDIERS ATTACK GERMAN EMPIRE!"
Roger Waters was just "canceled" from Poland: https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/pink-floyd-founder-cancels-poland-concerts-war-remarks-90433199
He's also on that site I believe you mentioned: https://myrotvorets.center/criminal/uoters-rodzher/
<b>CAUTION</b> that last link - click at your own risk. That shit is nasty. Courtesy of Langley, VA and Warsaw, Poland.
Disagree with not a single thing you said.
George, you haven't thought this through .... read my comment - please.
George made a double negative
This is a fact, no doubt of it. Even Biden's bumbling is contrived - not on his part, he is well past his prime, but the image of the well-meaning, benign father figure is purposeful: he is a softie, but will do the right thing if pushed, in this case concerning Russia. He is made in the mold of Jimmy Carter, an old American stereotype that belies his murky record on Burisma, and what looks like political manipulation in a foreign country known for corruption. The US and West have proven themselves corrupt on the Assange issue alone, were there not a mountain of previous and subsequent evidence of corruption and inhuman malfeasance. How much longer are we going to accept this systems as democratic, when it resembles Ancient Rome more than anything else. Mussolini coined the word "fascist" from the emblem of that country, and it has little to do with jackboots or salutes: the Roman soldier wore tunic and sandals, and war was the coin of the realm. They had a voting Senate, but the vote was mainly for and about elites who profited the most from war. Sound familiar?
I wouldn't liken Biden to Carter. Biden in his prime was a war hawk. Carter was always a "dove". (I am talking in relative terms here, this is not praise for Carter).
To me, a profound difference between Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden is the motivation for their actions/ decisions. Carter is an engineer by education, and a farmer by trade. He has a skewed view of the world by virtue of his social conditioning, but his view of people is humane and consistent. Biden is a lawyer whose actions and decisions are based on what wins. He is presently on a neocon global supremacy path that features little to no personal reflection or self-examination. Carter had the courage to call Israel an apartheid state, and Joe had the opportunity to listen to Anita Hill, take her story seriously and investigate in earnest, and he chose not to.
I agree.
Carter always wore the guise of a "dove" while supporting very violent elements. Check out Guatemala 1977, Congo under Mobutu, Suharto and East Timor. He us a pretty good if not perfect comparison with Biden. But he lived in different times ,so impossible to say what he would do under present circumstances.
I don't know about Guatemala "77" and the "Congo" but I happened to have been in the Navy during part of Carter's presidency (went through 4 presidents!) and he did not allow the Embassy guards (marines) to have ammo for their weapons while on duty in Karachi Pakistan. I found out about this after my ship left port a group of pakistanis overthrew the embassy and killed all the marines I had been partying with the night before! He seemed at the time to be a man of peace but? Wolf in sheep's clothing? I don't know.
Well, have you heard of the former Portuguese colony East Timor, its bid for independence quashed by US usually clandestine support for Indonesia and its dictator Suharto? They, the Carter admin in 1978, wanted to sell GOI arms and do other business, and East Timor was inconsequential and just a nuisance in the greater scheme - Money and Power. Carter increased military funding from about $13 million to $112 in 1978, enough for a squadron of ground bombers and 16 military fighter jets. Also, some chemical sprayers. Yes, human rights and concerns when necessary, but not necessarily human rights and concerns.
I get you. Yeah now that I'm some 50 years older I can see the cover story clearly. He was this wonderful peanut farmer and cared so much about human rights was the standard media coverage all the while as I mentioned being a wolf in sheep's clothing. During 78 I spent 14 months in the Persian Gulf and was off the coast of Iran during the hostage crisis when he sent helicopters in to attempt a rescue. This was actually a big joke to us because (at one time I had a picture of this!) we knew the helo's to be useless in the desert sand storms they had enough problems just getting off the deck and as I mentioned above I had a picture of one that crashed into the aft gun mount! Since I was basically in isolation being on an ocean in the middle of a desert!, I was subjected to what I now know to be very crafted media reports, so I thank you for giving me the missing pieces!
I once read of an honest journalist's interview with Carter: he was benign as a saint, but if you broached touchy subjects, I imagine like the one you cite, or the East Timor atrocities, his eyes immediately clouded and shot daggers. And he clammed up and turned away.
Adding to that ,Doris was the following dirty actions by Australia in bugging the rooms in East Timor where discussions were being held on oil exploration in the Timor Sea to our great financial advantage. Extremely high politicians were involved in that one.
Yes, we learn all the dirty tricks from the masters as we faithfully serve them as their tame lackeys, day in and day out., now waiting for the chance to join them once again as part of AUKUS (Australia, UK and US) in a war promoted heavily by the US with Taiwan as the objective.
Just for the record for those readers who may not have heard of East Timor or know much about the country. As Doris said, a former Portugese territory, virtually gifted to Indonesia as stated, perhaps the poorest country in the region....maybe in the world and Australia did this to them?
Shame, Australia
Right on the money!
Basque journalist Pablo Gonzalez has been incarcerated incommunicado in Poland since February 28th. His family have started a petition in change.org "Respeten los derechos del periodista Pablo González, detenido en Polonia el 28 de febrero"
This is the way it always has been. People in power want fawning courtiers and dutiful stenographer, not truth.
The reaction to "The Prince" is most instructive.
I’m convinced they want to kill off most of humanity to save the earth from climate change since colonizing mars isn’t happening quick enough for the ruling class.
A nuclear war would kill off most, but likely not all (especially not the rulers in their bunkers) of humanity. Whoever is unlucky enough to survive will be enslaved by the ruling class just like they are today but way way worse with the threat of violence if one steps out of line completely overt. Think of jews during the time of the pharaohs building pyramids, or the trans Atlantic slave trade. Brutality is the point. We will revert to the divine right of kings, but rather than a monarchy we will have the billionaire kings of industry - and they will “deserve” their billions because they “saved” those of us who remain.
I sound like a crazy q anon conspiracy theorist, and it’s funny because that’s the brush they paint anyone with who speaks up regarding their suspicions of the elites. For the record I hate trump and biden, and no, Hillary doesn’t eat babies and drink their blood or whatever wild shit those psychos believe.
I don't agree with you. Who are the "they" that you are referencing here?
Nuclear war would certainly not be in any ways good for the planet.
As for Killary, all I can say is "we came, we saw, he died". She's a psychopath.
I'm afraid your right!
I disagree.
Generally agree Caitlin, but why limit this to Western journalists? I live in Japan, and have taught top-notch, multilingual exchange students from Communication University of China ... but can not name any top notch journalists from the Far East.
Brown University educated Hiroko Kuniya (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroko_Kuniya) was a pretty good muck-raking social commentator and critic on Japan's tax-funded NHK television ... for awhile. But going off-script while interviewing a politician from the ruling LDP got her sacked and replaced by a string of pretty faces. From what I hear, neither Koreans nor Chinese would have gotten that close to the truth through state sponsored television.
With quite a few open protests, but little coverage, the Japanese corporate nation-state will be putting former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to rest tomorrow. One reason for the protests are bits and pieces of his legacy regarding individual human rights (or rather, lack of).
For example, the State Secrets Law rammed through by the supermajority Abe-led government allows no limit on how long the govt. can keep information from the citizenry, and the Japanese version of FOIA is a Kabuki show. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20191217/p2a/00m/0na/008000c
One will find no Far Eastern version of Julian Assange or Ed Snowden. But hey, we can get new Beatles footage ... http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20220925_12/
Still searching, but have not found any Far Eastern equivalence of substack.
Just a modest suggestion, but cutting the first word from — ''Western civilization is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don't seek widespread approval. It's worthless.'' — would improve the accuracy, but possibly black-pill the implications of your insight. Keep up the good fight.
Cheers from Japan Caitlin,
— steve
The crucial distinction might be no other media but Western claim universal supremacy in every way. Just that one aspect makes them (non-Western) more truthful.
Hi Russian Bot.
Maybe.
But that might just be self-promotional marketing, or 'branding'.
Business as usual, and necessary in a culture grounded in the Enlightenment conceit of 'informed consent'.
Japanese media don't even need to make that claim.
It is already unconsciously embedded in compliance to the cultural conceit of a 'harmony', superior to the West. Of course, the working class are kept too close to the edge to have time to wonder for whom that harmony is reserved.
Cheers!
Sorry, but I don't think there is anything "maybe" in the Western shameless self-promotion. It is purposeful and deliberate and aims to deceive not just the rest of the world but huge chunks of its own population.
And I agree with you that it's marketing and they understand it perfectly well, but that just makes it so much more sinister since most non-western cultures just can't conceive such blatant lying is possible.
So I think Caitlin's qualification makes a lot of sense.
Hi again Russian,
But ... ''most non-western cultures just can't conceive such blatant lying is possible''?
I can't understand where you are getting your data points from. We are talking about human nature here. I've been living and working in Japan for 40 years now, and believe me, Japanese are perfectly capable of the same degree of deception as any other social primate. It comes with being human ... the whole collective genetic package.
I've been reading a lot on psychopathology over the last 10 years, all in English, but to try and get a handle on life in Japan. Basic human psychology seems to apply equally well to the same dysfunctions I've experienced and observed in the Far East ... both in personal relationships and in institutional settings.
One book I am still in the process of reading that tries to bridge the 'dark-triad' Cluster B personality hiding in the family closet (the pathological narcissists, machiavellian opportunists, and morphologically defined psychopaths among us) with the dysfunctions of populations of scale (corporate nation-states or would-be ruling globalists) is Lobaczewski's 'Political Ponerology; The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of Totalitarianism'. Though emerging from his experience with Soviet-era Eastern Europe, so far, it is quite descriptive of group dynamics as I have experienced in Japan.
Will welcome any counter argument for Japanese exceptionalism.
Cheers.
I realize I may have been unclear - I do not claim that cultures per se are more honest or less honest. I refer strictly to the certain national or regional or some other structured media/journalists positioning themselves in relation to the rest of the world and the world's reception of the attitude.
For some reason Loboaczewski's book was not on my radar (which I'm sure has nothing to do with Amazon's ability to shadow ban certain titles). I notice it is recommended by Phillip Zimbardo, the psychologist who conducted the famous Stanford Prisoner Study. It is now on my reading list. Thanks!
Hi Jack, I'm still near the beginning, and have yet to read Desmet ... but so far, I think L is nailing it connecting the micro with the macro of so much bad stuff going on. Another good info source I've only discovered in the last couple of years are the YouTube podcasts of Dr. Ramani, but she doesn't make so many connections with the political landscape. I used to think sociopaths were more common in 'developed' societies, but came across this great post by Mathew Crawford ... https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-kunlangeta-part-i
Cheers!
Japan is part of the West.
Politically / economically ... yes.
Since WWII, it has been a puppet state of the U.S.
But culturally, it is East of 'Communist' China.
I guess it’s no surprise that this link https://dilyana.bg/ to investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva can’t be shared easily on social media. It just confirms what I suspect.
At least I can share it here.
What we need now is intellectual bravery:
https://joshketry.substack.com/p/what-we-need-now-is-intellectual?r=7oa9d&utm_medium=ios
How horrifying! The "Reality" of this letter is tragic. Just think these young people will be the next set of Adult Americans! How can anyone realistically expect them to have any sense of self or be mature in their thinking when they are brought up in utter chaos!?
Yep. For 17 continuous years, I have yet to meet anyone in the USA - including my family, friends, neighbors — who fail to fall back on their get-out-of-jail-free-card dismissive response to my criticisms of this nation (both the policies of the govt and the ordinary american’s willingness to minimize this country’s record of committing atrocities) with —
“Oh, but we’re not as bad as so & so”.
As if that argument is even relevant.
As Catherine Austin Fitts has reiterated many times — Americans feel compelled to look in our mirrors and tell ourselves the
“I-am-good” story.
Not surprising that we’ve failed to hold those criminal psychopaths, sociopaths, Cluster-B, Dark Triad, covert & overt narcissists and petty tyrants in our own personal lives accountable and responsible for their vile, malicious, vicious deeds of destructions — much less those in positions of power; we can’t even hold OURSELVES accountable for our own individual personal transgressions.
We have got to be individually and collectively the most narcissistic nation EVER!!
And, as narcissists always do, we will never apologize, acknowledge or admit the truth— or avoid blaming everyone but ourselves for our contemptible desire to dominate and control every life form in the universe.
I sincerely pray that whatever fate we have incurred in our arrogance and hubris falls upon us exclusively with little to no fall-out on others.
I am soo glad and grateful to you for being able to articulate all that I have been feeling and expressing (in my less articulate way) to others for years.
This country is a failure.
We are the quintessential example to the world of what NOT to do — of what NOT to value — of what NOT to be.
We are NOT a role model that anyone anywhere should copy or imitate or follow.
I still say — BDS the US!!
We like to claim — we are the “light” of the world.
And we are. Only the “light” we are aligned with is the Luciferian Light.
You know. The blindingly brilliant white light that blinds us so we cannot see.
Close your eyes and imagine brilliant white light.
What can you see?
When I close my eyes and imagine that form of light, I can’t see anything except light.
Which means I can’t see anything lurking or hiding within that light.
Now imagine impenetrable dark blackness. What can I see?
I can see absolutely nothing.
The same blindness either way.
The pinkish golden light allows me to SEE clearly all that would be hidden by Luciferian light and dark.
Using Ian MacGilchrist’s descriptions of the attributes of the left and right brain’s hemispheres —I am suggesting that the blinding white light is synonymous with the left brain hemisphere and the golden pinkish light is synonymous with right brain hemisphere.
I see the collective consciousness of this nation as aligned with the left brain hemisphere light.
Which I translate to —
Being reasonable with evil.
We are committed to being reasonable with evil.
For and bah humbug on us.
Thanks for hearing my cry in this wilderness of woe.
Much love to you Caitlin and eternal thanks for stating the truth and—
REFUSING to be reasonable with evil. 🧚♀️
You have once again fully highlighted the activities of the Criminal Elite. The very issue of the "Bootlicker" problem is what would solve a big part of the problem. If only they would wake up and smell the shit they are standing in! I am in utter despair since people I know to have a bit of intelligence still cling to the same excuses. It's always the other guys fault and in this case Putin! That big "BUT" you have mentioned is brought out every time. I have stated the obvious of the rush to nuclear destruction and it brings out silence or the other guy! Tell them these criminals have purposely not gone to the table to discuss the matter and silence or disbelief! We are done for since no one will put these thugs in the prisons they made for us and this false belief that they have our best interest at heart will be our doom.
Yes and you discover those who smile slyly in your face as they manipulate you are serial abusers & stone, cold psychopaths. Discovering that nation states, corporations and institutions can be run by psychopaths means we have grown up politically speaking. Time for sane adults to stand up or it is all over.
Hard to see how they will succeed with fantasies to take over the world, with lying, living in the social darkness , ignoring everyone else, and killing millions of people in real life scenes to fulfill these fantasies of domination.
These people don’t do well in real life so
I’d say death is awaiting for these minds. No worries here that Life itself will have to pay for so serious a moral transgression into the primitive.
Love you Caitlin! Nice straight speech!
I did translate in italian and posting in few minutes on my Substack blog!
308,000 Timorese lost their lives under Suharto, almost half the total population: Carter's attitude was cynical. Motivation can't remove such a stain, nor that of brutal S American dictators.