"the US president is just a figurehead and if it wasn’t Trump standing in that position it’d be some other ideologically identical empire goon."
This is the key item to know about America.
and . . . "The network of plutocrats and empire managers who really run America have been in power since long before Trump . . . and will continue to run things after Trump"
Exactly describes the then and now of the good old USA.
I’ve long thought that the president was just the CEO of the country and Biden’s presidency proved that to me. He could barely read the teleprompter, but we were supposed to believe that he was running the country?
He should have been made to step down after the Hur investigation said that he was too demented to stand trial.
Put a designer tie on Zippy the Chimp and he could easily fill the role of occupying that chair in the oval office. And on second thought, we might even get away with Topo Gigio the mouse, very popular with Mexican audiences back in the day, so would likely be a far better solution to the southern border problem.
Meanwhile The Deep State expansion has picked up speed, implemented by AI enforcers. One can only hope that the different agencies gaining power might come into conflict with one another and implode.
One can only hope that the propensity of AI for creativity will manifest in those enforcers for different agencies recognizing one another as hostile entities and carrying out mutual obliteration, that action of course picked up from their human models who tend to mostly resort to war first.
But the thing is that Trump has given so much power to an unelected Elon Musk who was raised to believe that white is right. He joined Nazi groups when he was young. He is a Nazi. His Nazi salute is what he really believes. In my mind this adds another dimension to the usual hate and discrimination against anyone they decide is lesser than. This is the US Empire barrelling toward straight up Nazi fascism. This is openly attacking any hope of the possibility of justice and equality.
All due respect, Susan. To me, The Nazi, white supremacist ideology is almost less troubling because it's easily observable. More troubling is the narcissist's mantle of power Capitalism because it brings him so many acolytes, who see him as the super-intellect engineer of electric vehicles etc., rather than as a manipulative businessman who made his initial fortune in PayPal and is driven by the sociopathology of extreme untrammeled greed.
I agree that it is less troubling when something is easily observable. For me, the really threatening part is the combination of the white supremacist ideology with the narcissism of capitalist power. All of it is, in fact, quite observable if one is looking. One of the problems is that so many in this world have been conditioned to believe that rich equals good.
Indeed, that sordid bit of brainwashing appears to be fundamental to conditioning folks to ignore or downplay themselves as consumers and rather see themselves as millionaires (or exponentially deluded billionaires) in-gestation.
Yep. I see musk as the head of one group of oligarchs fighting the other group. Nothing he’s going to do will help Main Street Americans. Hopefully I’m wrong, but republicans are going to attack food stamps and Medicaid. Funny how neither party is interested in rolling back corporate welfare. That costs way more money.
He had best spend a moment or two checking on his own bank balance before he addresses the USA bank balance. He is also destined for a burst of reality in that department as well, in my humble, unqualified opinion.
Just a gut feel with such a reduction in the acceptance of his technology worldwide, and his product in particular.
His personality, even on a good day, could discourage further sales, therefore expansion, therefore success.
He is a misfit, as Trump will eventually find out. ( Sorry, have I said that before? )
Totally agree with you Susan T. Elon Musk, the X president of the US empire.
The MSM found a whole lot of explanations regarding his Nazi salute; that it wasn't 'hail Trump'. But anything expressed by the public loathing of Israeli war crimes becomes antisemitism.
He also went to a German school where Hitler was praised for the "good things" he achieved. The Nazi was indoctrinated by other Nazis and his dad's beliefs. Elon is a sociopathic narcissist who takes that upbringing to a whole new levels of Nazism, the likes of which are not normally so openly seen by the world and his cultists that he is indoctrinating.
The US is not barreling toward Nazi fascism. It already is all that. Just nicely packed totalitarian Zionist system supported by endless propaganda, manipulations, and lies.
There is a network of plutocrats and empire managers who serve the interests of the USA and global socio-economic elite (1/100 of top 1%). However - who those are has changed. Now the emotionally arrested techie bros of Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos etc rather than the Kochs et al are the socio-economic elite.
Ceasefire or no ceasefire; scam or no, we cannot allow Israel to escape the legal consequences of their war crimes. The Hind Rajab Foundation has, among other things, filed a case with the ICC against 1,000 Israeli soldiers for war crimes in Gaza.
They have taken further steps in recent days, and vacations are becoming a lot more difficult for IDF soldiers, worldwide. The Hind Rajab Foundation can use our help. Please join me in making a contribution.
You might find meaningful to watch the recent interviews that Glenn Greenwald did on his Rumble platform, and Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada, did with the head of this organisation, Dyad Abou Jahjah. It was very informative.
Here's a petition calling for accountability for the arrest of Ali Abunimah in Switzerland:
I will NEVER apologize for voting for Jill Stein. Anyone who maintains that I “effectively took away a vote from Harris” can go fuck themselves with a sharp stick.
If I hadn’t voted Stein, I’d have voted West. If I hadn’t voted West, I’d have voted de la Cruz. If I hadn’t voted de la Cruz, I’d have stayed home and tried watching my first soap opera.
I voted for ByeDone “because he wasn’t Trump”, and look who I got: ByeDone. I hang my head in shame, since I normally vote outside the D and R box.
I have extreme reservations that we stupid, stupid Amerikkkans will EVER see our way out of the duopoly, until this godforsaken empire implodes due to our own ignorance. Good fucking riddance.
As an outsider, gypsy, the duopoly is one of the worst aspects of the US elections encouraging such graft and future corruption.
Where else in this cock-eyed world do we see an elected government having been purchased at the ballot box by money, with a major country now dictated to by a criminal country of 95 million people, 97% of whom supported what we have just seen in Gaza.
That makes the USA just as much a criminal as Israel. As for Biden, one of the greatest criminals unhung.
Enough reason to ban such people from ever visiting the USA. As for living there and promoting their inhumanity by way of dictating policy to the dirty 86% of politicians in both houses, that is the first thing that needs to change.
There is a large, spacious country out in the Pacific which has also suffered with the duopoly to which you referred.. Election time in a month or so and I will forecast a hung Parliament with the control in the hands of Independents. Not a perfect result but it beats a duopoly any day. The next election, 2028, ;perhaps with a majority of independents, voting independently.
You need to follow suit, America. Money from the likes of Musk and the Jewish gambling casino donor, Adelson, an Israeli in every way possible, therefore with very questionable loyalty to the USA,, is not a good look.
Bingo. It's why so many of us are desperate to move. The irony is that we'd be replaced by people from central and south America, the ones whom US tariffs created their poverty.
Anyone in this society who would ask or expect you to apologize , gypsy dear, would not be worth the loss of that sharp stick, a natural wood product, better used constructively. I'd suggest a man-made object like the steering column of a Tesla.
Wasn't it Kamala Harris who said, "Americans are more interested in the price of a loaf of bread than what's happening in Palestine"? She stated clearly that she would have continued Biden's support of Israel, if elected. The entire USA is now being seen for what it always has been - a genocidal colonialist empire, and we are now witnessing its downfall.
Quite right, Pete. The IDF can do whatever the hell it wants. It wants to kill as many Palestinians as possible because of the seething, visceral hatred and twisted-gut fear they feel for them, and knowing Israel has carte blanche from Uncle Sam ('Finish the job') and other supportive states. They know they will get away with it. Meanwhile, the blinkered fools on the US home front are seemingly unaware that in fast-approaching runaway bus autocracies such as the US, the little guy invariably gets flattened at some point.
"The goal was always to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable in order to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians."
I knew that for certain on the day the Israeli genociders destroyed the incubators and left the tiny babies in them to die... How could a baby be a threat to anyone except a racist who wants to steal the baby's homeland from its rightful occupants?
Those who kept their hearts and minds screwed tight these past 16 months are the true demons, not Trump the Buffoon who does simply as his billionaire masters tell him to.
Remember Laos, Cambodia, the dumping of Agent Orange on a poor population not in any way engaged as a combatant against the hegemonic USA. Thousands of limbs missing due to cluster bombs, and no assistance these days to help with that crime.
Gaza, bombed amputees by the thousands. The USA again against a defenceless country. The name of the game.
It's not the ethnic cleansing of Gazans that was upsetting, but the fact that the entire planet watched it happen in total disempowerment, with no clear alternative....
There was always an "alternative" to the genocide. The alternative was to demand that it stop forthwith and to continue demanding it to stop until it's ended for good. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.” --Alice Walker
But I also find ethnic cleansing quite upsetting. I'm not sitting still for it--ever.
It's one thing to demand an end to genocide, but quite another to stop it... For example, the U.N. demanded the arrest of Netanyahu, and the U.S. congress applauded him for the same reasons.
Israel is 1000 times worse than Nazi Germany. This is all made possible by the "holocaust industry" of endless lies and propaganda while counting on majority of humans being greedy ignorant idiots.
'If you want to fight the power, take your stand against the empire itself.'
Caitlin Johnstone, thank you for your eloquence and determination in fighting the power with truth.
At seventeen I worked out that the US President is just a figurehead, that the power behind any throne is the power, and the President is a puppet - Punch or Judy - it does not matter because the punches are delivered by the same force.
Obama confirmed that for me when he failed to close Guantanamo, of course he is likely a better dinner party conversationalist than Trump but he is a figurehead and the system is rotten.
We all need to stop being complicit in the con job. Those who have not raged against the genocide are active participants in oppression. Those who are fearful have more to fear by doing nothing.
We grew up on a made-to-order diet from Cowboys and Indians to 'black lives don't matter'. Those of us who are not indigenous should all now realise the 'Indians' have been robbed and discredited. Those of us who are not descended from slaves should realise that people who owned people were compensated, and that the people whose freedom was stolen were never compensated.
Those of us who are not lead players in this horrible tragedy should stop playing our part in the play that has been written for us. We must stop giving the persecutor control of the narrative.
Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and occupied Israel are the 'Indians' of today. The oligarchs would like to exile or enslave them. Nothing is clean in this whitewash.
The bad guys drive tanks, use toxic chemicals, and act as snipers in mercenary armies. They are servant soldiers in a megalomaniacal system that steals land and uses it as a commodity to prop up the rich and create a slave/servant underclass.
It's the old world order. The feudal class system gave birth to capitalism. If the disenfranchised working class resist they are deemed members of the criminal class. This system has always rendered people homeless and it has always exiled the homeless.
Those who say 'never again' miss the fact that it never stopped.
We must strive for a different system, we must unite towards that goal, strive for a system where all people are equal and where the criminal Empire can no longer rule.
When we unite against the inequality and against oppression, we save others, we save ourselves and we save the planet.
I think your descriptions resonate loudly and clearly, BUT what is/are the magic formula( s) that could change our descent into an existential abyss? It's been said millions of times before, but if we don't change the status quo of the human condition soon, there just won't be any human condition.... i.e., to experience the human condition, there must be humans around to experience it. With tens of thousands of thermonuclear bombs aimed at our collective heads, and with Global Warming and Global Dimming competing against one another as to which one will turn the Earth into a fireball, I'm afraid Lady Luck has just about ended her vigil.
You may well be right. But when I attend rallies, when I rally myself, when I meet with creatives and passionate activists I do hold hope.
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand I meet regularly with socialists working towards a different system, one we most likely won't see in our own time, but planting the seeds, nurturing the possibility is the only way I can live.
And if I don't hold hope then I sentence others to hopelessness. I hold hope because I have found light under the darkness many times and I know the power of that transformation.
I hold hope because I see others who will pick up the baton.
Destruction is terrible but out of it comes creation. Something will rise and it will be beautiful. I do believe this.
But yes, I understand completely the logic of your suggestion that it is too late. I have learned from experience to be skeptical but the only way I can live is to act as an idealist working towards freedom.
Sage, I love your enthusiasm, and hope for the future. I do however always keep the word HOWEVER very close by, just to remind me that hope in and of itself without clearly identifying its pragmatic qualities might as well stay unwritten.
Go on, tell us some more fairy tales about how Harris really really was opposed to the genocide but she just couldn't say or do anything like she had some mysterious paralysis.
And you can cherry pick Trump statements to pretend that he opposed the genocide as well. Who cares? Talk is cheap.
“I was excited to flaunt my told-you-sos at all the empire simps on social media who’ve been calling me a Russian propagandist for saying Ukraine is an unwinnable proxy war that should never have been started — then I realized most of them are probably offline now that they’re not getting paid.”
Thanks for giving me a laugh in the midst of the dystopia.
no where so true as in ukraine where indeed some 80-90% of 'independent' media reported (financial) troubles (with lay-offs) when the usaid-spigot was turned of. (musk, for once rightfully, mocked the wapo headline 'independent media in russia, ukraine lose their funding with usaid freeze'.) - hurray for reader financed media (but even then ...).
i agree with the saying, also regarding the second world war, keeping in mind you probably meant the simplified official version that is/was fed to us in movies and education (but also the diversionary academic stuff rinsed through the superstructure).
A lot of suspicious things happened during the 1930's - that is the before - but don't forget the illegal Balfour declaration which would never have happened were it not for the first ww - but who would have had the foresight that it would come in handy one day so now were talking about long term planning involving several generations.
All wars are bankers wars and from that aspect the second ww could easily have been avoided and neither need it have lasted for as long as it did. [but it was so profitable for the MIC]
US companies continued providing material support for the Nazi's even Prescott Bush was charged for trading with the enemy [he was their banker]
All the European nations which were liberated from the Nazi's by the allied have all become obedient and submissive vassal states serving empire, administered by the US.
WW2 served to justify a certain agenda which under normal circumstances would be impossible to justify and implement just like the fraudulent pandemic had nothing to do with safeguarding our collective health instead it serves to justify a extremely unpopular agenda which is ongoing.
looking for the long term planning is often a wild-goose chase imo, though. they figured out a long time ago that outright conspiracies are risky and mostly work with the 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink'. but there is long term planning in maintaining a conscious ruling-class (very well aware what's in its interest) and suppressing and dividing the consciousness of the lower class.
The blame is on “liberal” democrats who didn’t vote for Jill Stein. They are the shit stains of the modern world along with MAGA. History will not be kind to them. And it shouldn’t be.
Agreed. These Dem-wits will not end up looking very pretty in the history books. They are self-centered genocide enablers. They have no one to blame but themselves.
From what I understand, bombing a hospital is a war crime. But Israel systematically bombed hospitals all over Gaza and then went back and bombed them again, even while many Palestinians were seeking shelter there. They also killed many of the medical staff, evacuated a hospital and left babies in incubators to die. They claimed that the MRI machine was some sort of weapon, and claimed that Hamas tunnels were under the hospitals. They claimed they gave folks ample warning to evacuate the area, when the reality was that it was almost impossible to evacuate those patients who were plugged up to medical machines, or those who had to be wheel-chaired out of the facility. These an many more horrendous acts on the Medical System of Gaza was heavy on my mind just yesterday morning.
If anything is true about Israel's intent, we certainly can say they wanted to make it unlivable. I would also add they wanted to make sure that those who did make it thru their bombs would not have the medical machine, staff or assistance to keep them alive.
Hospitals are the heartbeat of a community because it cares for the most vulnerable among us. The bombing of these facilities, despite it being a war crime, showed Israel's motive of making it almost impossible for anyone sick or injured to get the medical assistance they needed. To me, of all the most inhumane things they could have done, bombing hospitals and destroying medical equipment and preventing medical supplies to enter Gaza, was a clear sign that Israel's soul intent was to use every means necessary to kill as many Palestinians as they possibly could either directly or indirectly. They purposely made it so catastrophic that medical staff was amputating the limbs of young children with no anesthesia. This type of cruelty showcased just how inhumane Israel and its IDF are. At this moment, I cannot even conceptualize a word that would fully describe this horrendously cruel behavior.
israel and the idf indeed do not have 'excuses', but only the wordless action that they've (again) diverged from the path that humans somehow considered 'decent', even in warfare. in their logic of supremacy and palestinians being inhuman, they see these medical devices as devices that could save a 'terrorist' (medical staff normally swears an oath to use these devices even to save the life of a 'terrorist'). as they regard all palestinians (even the babies) as 'terrorists', they've abandoned the notion of collateral damage. they've lost the freedom to care.
The hypocrisy is galling. While they say the Palestinian Hospitals use these devices to save the life of a "terrorist" they have reportedly taken so-called terrorists into their own medical facilities as an act of humanity. I don't like to make statements without data to back it up, so I did a bit of research so you can see where I got my information from. I'm not sure what their angle is or whether the doctors are more humane than the IDF, but there is a picture of Netanyahu looking down on a Hamas Militant in an Israeli hospital. I couldn't find the video where he claimed it was the "humane thing to do to treat the injured..." but one thing that is for sure, it certainly is a gross contradiction to what we see as clearly inhumane. We know that Hamas has been funded by Israel for some years now. And I will also add, that I don't know why Hamas would take money from their mortal enemy. The politics of war and resistance can sometimes make the strangest bedfellows with enormous conflicts of interests.
In addition to financial and military support; They were taken to Israel for treatment . A picture of Netanyahu's meeting with an injured member of Takfiri groups in a hospital in Israel https://x.com/EbneHava/status/1712107855363395714
Exactly. Isn't that interesting. On the one hand the Palestinians are evil terrorists who need to be killed down to the babies. On the other hand they will treat them with a whole other agenda. The question in my mind is why such a gross contradiction? I read some of the comments on Twitter and the Israeli apologist were saying this showed the humanity of the Israeli military and medical personnel. Yet they blithely ignore the total destruction of Gaza.
It reminds me of the colonial days in the US, where some of the indigenous warriors were used as scouts to help the colonizers. Could this possibly be a move on the Israelis' part to garner a certain allegiance from these Hamas fighters so that they will betray their own?? It's also interesting how in one breath, they call them Hamas fighters and in another breath they call them Hamas terrorists. All in all, in my view, it's a full scale psyops. What do you think?
it's pr, highlighting what should be considered normal. there's plenty of (less reported) facts to put in the other scale to counter this narrative. i think hamas was, is and always has been aware (from long experience) of the double, triple and quadruple crossing schemes of the zionist entity.
It's one thing to identify the status quo of human enslavement, but quite another to try and change it. We can name culprits from every corner of humanity, but where are the potential changes that would make any difference? Are there any ?
Yup! Unless all the Gods from all the heavens play as a team, I'm very much afraid most of the dinosaurs will have lived a lot longer than the Earth's most intelligent species.
Yes! But I wouldn't put human idiots in the same category with dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were intelligent creatures that survived several hundred million years and would still walk the Earth if it wasn't for an unfortunate astronomical event. Stupid greedy narcistic and supposedly "intelligent" humans will probably not make it more than 10,000 years of organized societies. Humans do not even deserve a space rock. They are perfectly fit and capable of committing civilizational suicide all by themselves. Sorry for being sarcastic, but I cannot stand "civilized humans".
the notion of 'socialism or barbarism' originated a long time ago. as one can observe empire has had plenty of time to stomp out the notion of 'socialism' and they have put quite some effort in it.
True power comes from full control of the fundamental means by which the production and trade of goods and services necessary to satisfy human needs and desires function and by which the economy and finance, information (propaganda), education, culture, science, technostructures, health, politics (nation states and their bureaucracies), armed forces and police forces are controlled. That fundamental means is money, that money created from nothing by the banking system through interest-bearing loans. Without money, states, churches and multinationals could not exist. The only way to eliminate that power is: first, to replace the banking system in the hands of very few people with an interest-free credit system (www.ekabank.org) and, then, legal tender with the money of work (www.dhana.org): from EkaBank to Dhana.
I think you have identified an important part of the human problem with the banking system a very real contender as leader of the pack vying for the destruction of humanity.
Il problema umano, anzi la situazione umana, come di tutta la materia, dipende dalle "condizioni iniziali", quando, dopo 380.000 anni dall'origine del'universo, si è formata la struttura, una struttura gerarchica http://www.wgov.org/holosbank.com/unigov/Conarchy-en.htm
No doubt the complexity of matter and/or its origins will probably remain a mystery for all time, providing we can understand that 'time' can be defined in any particularly understandable format.
The article referred above relies on many assumptions, most of which can be challenged by any astute analysis. I am open to discuss any of them, but within particular limits. Although I was working with children from Italian families for 5 years, I utterly failed to learn the language. Living in Montreal, the English and French languages were about as much as my brain could handle....
Excellent analysis. Also agree 100 % Donald Trump is a distraction. We need to be paying attention to the ongoing imperialism of the USA empire, who benefits from it domestically and internationally, who pays, and how. Trump is just so arrogantly bombastic about it. And the USA has repeatedly backed murderous regimes - look at what has happened over the decades in Central and South America.
I bet the IDF robbed up any drugs uppers downers etc that had street value and women’s clothing they could find that’s the morality of the most moral army
"the US president is just a figurehead and if it wasn’t Trump standing in that position it’d be some other ideologically identical empire goon."
This is the key item to know about America.
and . . . "The network of plutocrats and empire managers who really run America have been in power since long before Trump . . . and will continue to run things after Trump"
Exactly describes the then and now of the good old USA.
I’ve long thought that the president was just the CEO of the country and Biden’s presidency proved that to me. He could barely read the teleprompter, but we were supposed to believe that he was running the country?
He should have been made to step down after the Hur investigation said that he was too demented to stand trial.
Put a designer tie on Zippy the Chimp and he could easily fill the role of occupying that chair in the oval office. And on second thought, we might even get away with Topo Gigio the mouse, very popular with Mexican audiences back in the day, so would likely be a far better solution to the southern border problem.
Meanwhile The Deep State expansion has picked up speed, implemented by AI enforcers. One can only hope that the different agencies gaining power might come into conflict with one another and implode.
One can only hope that the propensity of AI for creativity will manifest in those enforcers for different agencies recognizing one another as hostile entities and carrying out mutual obliteration, that action of course picked up from their human models who tend to mostly resort to war first.
But the thing is that Trump has given so much power to an unelected Elon Musk who was raised to believe that white is right. He joined Nazi groups when he was young. He is a Nazi. His Nazi salute is what he really believes. In my mind this adds another dimension to the usual hate and discrimination against anyone they decide is lesser than. This is the US Empire barrelling toward straight up Nazi fascism. This is openly attacking any hope of the possibility of justice and equality.
All due respect, Susan. To me, The Nazi, white supremacist ideology is almost less troubling because it's easily observable. More troubling is the narcissist's mantle of power Capitalism because it brings him so many acolytes, who see him as the super-intellect engineer of electric vehicles etc., rather than as a manipulative businessman who made his initial fortune in PayPal and is driven by the sociopathology of extreme untrammeled greed.
I agree that it is less troubling when something is easily observable. For me, the really threatening part is the combination of the white supremacist ideology with the narcissism of capitalist power. All of it is, in fact, quite observable if one is looking. One of the problems is that so many in this world have been conditioned to believe that rich equals good.
Indeed, that sordid bit of brainwashing appears to be fundamental to conditioning folks to ignore or downplay themselves as consumers and rather see themselves as millionaires (or exponentially deluded billionaires) in-gestation.
Spot on.
Yep. I see musk as the head of one group of oligarchs fighting the other group. Nothing he’s going to do will help Main Street Americans. Hopefully I’m wrong, but republicans are going to attack food stamps and Medicaid. Funny how neither party is interested in rolling back corporate welfare. That costs way more money.
Lots of trouble coming from that corner, Susan. Embarrassing trouble at that.
There is something missing between his left ear and his right ear, as Trump will find out, sooner or later,
yeah. there is no empathy at all anywhere in that man. Not between his ears, in his heart, not anywhere. Maybe he put it in the bank.
He had best spend a moment or two checking on his own bank balance before he addresses the USA bank balance. He is also destined for a burst of reality in that department as well, in my humble, unqualified opinion.
Just a gut feel with such a reduction in the acceptance of his technology worldwide, and his product in particular.
His personality, even on a good day, could discourage further sales, therefore expansion, therefore success.
He is a misfit, as Trump will eventually find out. ( Sorry, have I said that before? )
Totally agree with you Susan T. Elon Musk, the X president of the US empire.
The MSM found a whole lot of explanations regarding his Nazi salute; that it wasn't 'hail Trump'. But anything expressed by the public loathing of Israeli war crimes becomes antisemitism.
Elon Musk is creating a Neo-Apartheid.
He also went to a German school where Hitler was praised for the "good things" he achieved. The Nazi was indoctrinated by other Nazis and his dad's beliefs. Elon is a sociopathic narcissist who takes that upbringing to a whole new levels of Nazism, the likes of which are not normally so openly seen by the world and his cultists that he is indoctrinating.
The US is not barreling toward Nazi fascism. It already is all that. Just nicely packed totalitarian Zionist system supported by endless propaganda, manipulations, and lies.
There is a network of plutocrats and empire managers who serve the interests of the USA and global socio-economic elite (1/100 of top 1%). However - who those are has changed. Now the emotionally arrested techie bros of Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos etc rather than the Kochs et al are the socio-economic elite.
You likely identify one of the reasons that Yanis Varoufakis felt it necessary to write "Technofeudalism", a worthwhile read.
Ceasefire or no ceasefire; scam or no, we cannot allow Israel to escape the legal consequences of their war crimes. The Hind Rajab Foundation has, among other things, filed a case with the ICC against 1,000 Israeli soldiers for war crimes in Gaza.
https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/perpetrators/hind-rajab-foundation-files-historic-icc-complaint-against-1000-israeli-soldiers-for-war-crimes-in-gaza
They have taken further steps in recent days, and vacations are becoming a lot more difficult for IDF soldiers, worldwide. The Hind Rajab Foundation can use our help. Please join me in making a contribution.
https://buy.stripe.com/cN228hbY5g7jaM84gg
You might find meaningful to watch the recent interviews that Glenn Greenwald did on his Rumble platform, and Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada, did with the head of this organisation, Dyad Abou Jahjah. It was very informative.
Here's a petition calling for accountability for the arrest of Ali Abunimah in Switzerland:
https://chng.it/8D4pkxPhWS
Please sign the petition and share widely.
Thank you Joy!
I also have added.
I will NEVER apologize for voting for Jill Stein. Anyone who maintains that I “effectively took away a vote from Harris” can go fuck themselves with a sharp stick.
If I hadn’t voted Stein, I’d have voted West. If I hadn’t voted West, I’d have voted de la Cruz. If I hadn’t voted de la Cruz, I’d have stayed home and tried watching my first soap opera.
I voted for ByeDone “because he wasn’t Trump”, and look who I got: ByeDone. I hang my head in shame, since I normally vote outside the D and R box.
I have extreme reservations that we stupid, stupid Amerikkkans will EVER see our way out of the duopoly, until this godforsaken empire implodes due to our own ignorance. Good fucking riddance.
As an outsider, gypsy, the duopoly is one of the worst aspects of the US elections encouraging such graft and future corruption.
Where else in this cock-eyed world do we see an elected government having been purchased at the ballot box by money, with a major country now dictated to by a criminal country of 95 million people, 97% of whom supported what we have just seen in Gaza.
That makes the USA just as much a criminal as Israel. As for Biden, one of the greatest criminals unhung.
Enough reason to ban such people from ever visiting the USA. As for living there and promoting their inhumanity by way of dictating policy to the dirty 86% of politicians in both houses, that is the first thing that needs to change.
There is a large, spacious country out in the Pacific which has also suffered with the duopoly to which you referred.. Election time in a month or so and I will forecast a hung Parliament with the control in the hands of Independents. Not a perfect result but it beats a duopoly any day. The next election, 2028, ;perhaps with a majority of independents, voting independently.
You need to follow suit, America. Money from the likes of Musk and the Jewish gambling casino donor, Adelson, an Israeli in every way possible, therefore with very questionable loyalty to the USA,, is not a good look.
Oh Contrarian, I couldn’t agree more. I was lecturing hubs the other day that at the very least we should have a parliamentary system.
A candidate here could win an election by one single teeny vote and still claim victory. Oh and dont get me started on the electoral college thang…. 🙄
Bingo. It's why so many of us are desperate to move. The irony is that we'd be replaced by people from central and south America, the ones whom US tariffs created their poverty.
9.7 million people.
Anyone in this society who would ask or expect you to apologize , gypsy dear, would not be worth the loss of that sharp stick, a natural wood product, better used constructively. I'd suggest a man-made object like the steering column of a Tesla.
Vin, hysterical 😂😂😂
Wasn't it Kamala Harris who said, "Americans are more interested in the price of a loaf of bread than what's happening in Palestine"? She stated clearly that she would have continued Biden's support of Israel, if elected. The entire USA is now being seen for what it always has been - a genocidal colonialist empire, and we are now witnessing its downfall.
Quite right, Pete. The IDF can do whatever the hell it wants. It wants to kill as many Palestinians as possible because of the seething, visceral hatred and twisted-gut fear they feel for them, and knowing Israel has carte blanche from Uncle Sam ('Finish the job') and other supportive states. They know they will get away with it. Meanwhile, the blinkered fools on the US home front are seemingly unaware that in fast-approaching runaway bus autocracies such as the US, the little guy invariably gets flattened at some point.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/harris-gaza
"The goal was always to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable in order to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians."
I knew that for certain on the day the Israeli genociders destroyed the incubators and left the tiny babies in them to die... How could a baby be a threat to anyone except a racist who wants to steal the baby's homeland from its rightful occupants?
Those who kept their hearts and minds screwed tight these past 16 months are the true demons, not Trump the Buffoon who does simply as his billionaire masters tell him to.
And still the world sat on its ass after watching Israel let those babies die. Damn every country that didn’t immediately cut all ties with Israel.
A despicable act. Also…...
Remember Laos, Cambodia, the dumping of Agent Orange on a poor population not in any way engaged as a combatant against the hegemonic USA. Thousands of limbs missing due to cluster bombs, and no assistance these days to help with that crime.
Gaza, bombed amputees by the thousands. The USA again against a defenceless country. The name of the game.
It's not the ethnic cleansing of Gazans that was upsetting, but the fact that the entire planet watched it happen in total disempowerment, with no clear alternative....
There was always an "alternative" to the genocide. The alternative was to demand that it stop forthwith and to continue demanding it to stop until it's ended for good. "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.” --Alice Walker
But I also find ethnic cleansing quite upsetting. I'm not sitting still for it--ever.
The Revolution....
It's one thing to demand an end to genocide, but quite another to stop it... For example, the U.N. demanded the arrest of Netanyahu, and the U.S. congress applauded him for the same reasons.
Israel is 1000 times worse than Nazi Germany. This is all made possible by the "holocaust industry" of endless lies and propaganda while counting on majority of humans being greedy ignorant idiots.
Fuck Israel. Fuck USA. Genocidists.
'If you want to fight the power, take your stand against the empire itself.'
Caitlin Johnstone, thank you for your eloquence and determination in fighting the power with truth.
At seventeen I worked out that the US President is just a figurehead, that the power behind any throne is the power, and the President is a puppet - Punch or Judy - it does not matter because the punches are delivered by the same force.
Obama confirmed that for me when he failed to close Guantanamo, of course he is likely a better dinner party conversationalist than Trump but he is a figurehead and the system is rotten.
We all need to stop being complicit in the con job. Those who have not raged against the genocide are active participants in oppression. Those who are fearful have more to fear by doing nothing.
We grew up on a made-to-order diet from Cowboys and Indians to 'black lives don't matter'. Those of us who are not indigenous should all now realise the 'Indians' have been robbed and discredited. Those of us who are not descended from slaves should realise that people who owned people were compensated, and that the people whose freedom was stolen were never compensated.
Those of us who are not lead players in this horrible tragedy should stop playing our part in the play that has been written for us. We must stop giving the persecutor control of the narrative.
Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and occupied Israel are the 'Indians' of today. The oligarchs would like to exile or enslave them. Nothing is clean in this whitewash.
The bad guys drive tanks, use toxic chemicals, and act as snipers in mercenary armies. They are servant soldiers in a megalomaniacal system that steals land and uses it as a commodity to prop up the rich and create a slave/servant underclass.
It's the old world order. The feudal class system gave birth to capitalism. If the disenfranchised working class resist they are deemed members of the criminal class. This system has always rendered people homeless and it has always exiled the homeless.
Those who say 'never again' miss the fact that it never stopped.
We must strive for a different system, we must unite towards that goal, strive for a system where all people are equal and where the criminal Empire can no longer rule.
When we unite against the inequality and against oppression, we save others, we save ourselves and we save the planet.
Very eloquently said, dear Saige!
(Unsurprising, considering your writing ability!)
Thank you my dear friend and happy friends day. X
I think your descriptions resonate loudly and clearly, BUT what is/are the magic formula( s) that could change our descent into an existential abyss? It's been said millions of times before, but if we don't change the status quo of the human condition soon, there just won't be any human condition.... i.e., to experience the human condition, there must be humans around to experience it. With tens of thousands of thermonuclear bombs aimed at our collective heads, and with Global Warming and Global Dimming competing against one another as to which one will turn the Earth into a fireball, I'm afraid Lady Luck has just about ended her vigil.
You may well be right. But when I attend rallies, when I rally myself, when I meet with creatives and passionate activists I do hold hope.
Here in Aotearoa New Zealand I meet regularly with socialists working towards a different system, one we most likely won't see in our own time, but planting the seeds, nurturing the possibility is the only way I can live.
And if I don't hold hope then I sentence others to hopelessness. I hold hope because I have found light under the darkness many times and I know the power of that transformation.
I hold hope because I see others who will pick up the baton.
Destruction is terrible but out of it comes creation. Something will rise and it will be beautiful. I do believe this.
But yes, I understand completely the logic of your suggestion that it is too late. I have learned from experience to be skeptical but the only way I can live is to act as an idealist working towards freedom.
Sage, I love your enthusiasm, and hope for the future. I do however always keep the word HOWEVER very close by, just to remind me that hope in and of itself without clearly identifying its pragmatic qualities might as well stay unwritten.
Exactly so. It means nothing without pragmatism, intention, and action. Your 'HOWEVER' is wise John.
Go on, tell us some more fairy tales about how Harris really really was opposed to the genocide but she just couldn't say or do anything like she had some mysterious paralysis.
And you can cherry pick Trump statements to pretend that he opposed the genocide as well. Who cares? Talk is cheap.
“I was excited to flaunt my told-you-sos at all the empire simps on social media who’ve been calling me a Russian propagandist for saying Ukraine is an unwinnable proxy war that should never have been started — then I realized most of them are probably offline now that they’re not getting paid.”
Thanks for giving me a laugh in the midst of the dystopia.
no where so true as in ukraine where indeed some 80-90% of 'independent' media reported (financial) troubles (with lay-offs) when the usaid-spigot was turned of. (musk, for once rightfully, mocked the wapo headline 'independent media in russia, ukraine lose their funding with usaid freeze'.) - hurray for reader financed media (but even then ...).
After all that has been allowed to happen I hope it makes people question the official version of the second world war.
there's this anarcho-leftist saying 'all wars are bankers wars'.
Anarcho Leftism isn't a requirement.
Why aren't they then?
i agree with the saying, also regarding the second world war, keeping in mind you probably meant the simplified official version that is/was fed to us in movies and education (but also the diversionary academic stuff rinsed through the superstructure).
A lot of suspicious things happened during the 1930's - that is the before - but don't forget the illegal Balfour declaration which would never have happened were it not for the first ww - but who would have had the foresight that it would come in handy one day so now were talking about long term planning involving several generations.
All wars are bankers wars and from that aspect the second ww could easily have been avoided and neither need it have lasted for as long as it did. [but it was so profitable for the MIC]
US companies continued providing material support for the Nazi's even Prescott Bush was charged for trading with the enemy [he was their banker]
All the European nations which were liberated from the Nazi's by the allied have all become obedient and submissive vassal states serving empire, administered by the US.
WW2 served to justify a certain agenda which under normal circumstances would be impossible to justify and implement just like the fraudulent pandemic had nothing to do with safeguarding our collective health instead it serves to justify a extremely unpopular agenda which is ongoing.
There's so much more to this.
looking for the long term planning is often a wild-goose chase imo, though. they figured out a long time ago that outright conspiracies are risky and mostly work with the 'nudge, nudge, wink, wink'. but there is long term planning in maintaining a conscious ruling-class (very well aware what's in its interest) and suppressing and dividing the consciousness of the lower class.
History doesn't repeat but it rhymes.
The blame is on “liberal” democrats who didn’t vote for Jill Stein. They are the shit stains of the modern world along with MAGA. History will not be kind to them. And it shouldn’t be.
Agreed. These Dem-wits will not end up looking very pretty in the history books. They are self-centered genocide enablers. They have no one to blame but themselves.
From what I understand, bombing a hospital is a war crime. But Israel systematically bombed hospitals all over Gaza and then went back and bombed them again, even while many Palestinians were seeking shelter there. They also killed many of the medical staff, evacuated a hospital and left babies in incubators to die. They claimed that the MRI machine was some sort of weapon, and claimed that Hamas tunnels were under the hospitals. They claimed they gave folks ample warning to evacuate the area, when the reality was that it was almost impossible to evacuate those patients who were plugged up to medical machines, or those who had to be wheel-chaired out of the facility. These an many more horrendous acts on the Medical System of Gaza was heavy on my mind just yesterday morning.
If anything is true about Israel's intent, we certainly can say they wanted to make it unlivable. I would also add they wanted to make sure that those who did make it thru their bombs would not have the medical machine, staff or assistance to keep them alive.
Hospitals are the heartbeat of a community because it cares for the most vulnerable among us. The bombing of these facilities, despite it being a war crime, showed Israel's motive of making it almost impossible for anyone sick or injured to get the medical assistance they needed. To me, of all the most inhumane things they could have done, bombing hospitals and destroying medical equipment and preventing medical supplies to enter Gaza, was a clear sign that Israel's soul intent was to use every means necessary to kill as many Palestinians as they possibly could either directly or indirectly. They purposely made it so catastrophic that medical staff was amputating the limbs of young children with no anesthesia. This type of cruelty showcased just how inhumane Israel and its IDF are. At this moment, I cannot even conceptualize a word that would fully describe this horrendously cruel behavior.
israel and the idf indeed do not have 'excuses', but only the wordless action that they've (again) diverged from the path that humans somehow considered 'decent', even in warfare. in their logic of supremacy and palestinians being inhuman, they see these medical devices as devices that could save a 'terrorist' (medical staff normally swears an oath to use these devices even to save the life of a 'terrorist'). as they regard all palestinians (even the babies) as 'terrorists', they've abandoned the notion of collateral damage. they've lost the freedom to care.
The hypocrisy is galling. While they say the Palestinian Hospitals use these devices to save the life of a "terrorist" they have reportedly taken so-called terrorists into their own medical facilities as an act of humanity. I don't like to make statements without data to back it up, so I did a bit of research so you can see where I got my information from. I'm not sure what their angle is or whether the doctors are more humane than the IDF, but there is a picture of Netanyahu looking down on a Hamas Militant in an Israeli hospital. I couldn't find the video where he claimed it was the "humane thing to do to treat the injured..." but one thing that is for sure, it certainly is a gross contradiction to what we see as clearly inhumane. We know that Hamas has been funded by Israel for some years now. And I will also add, that I don't know why Hamas would take money from their mortal enemy. The politics of war and resistance can sometimes make the strangest bedfellows with enormous conflicts of interests.
Here are some links to check out.
Doctor who treated wounded Hamas terrorist calls him 'essence of evil' but says he must treat everyone https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/ryhdlt9zt#
Homepage
Hamas terrorist wounded in Gaza being treated in Israeli hospital — reports
https://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-terrorist-wounded-in-gaza-being-treated-in-israeli-hospital-reports/
Israeli Health Minister Moshe Arbel on late Wednesday told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he had ordered a halt to the treatment of Hamas militants in public hospitals, local media reported. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/israeli-public-health-system-wont-treat-injured-hamas-militants-health-minister/3016531
https://x.com/i/status/1712101907353719258
In addition to financial and military support; They were taken to Israel for treatment . A picture of Netanyahu's meeting with an injured member of Takfiri groups in a hospital in Israel https://x.com/EbneHava/status/1712107855363395714
Revealed: Terrorists receive nonessential treatment in Israeli hospitals https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/403860?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
I thought you were going in a different direction. Israel treated actual terrorists in occupied Golan Heights—the ones they used to destroy Syria.
Exactly. Isn't that interesting. On the one hand the Palestinians are evil terrorists who need to be killed down to the babies. On the other hand they will treat them with a whole other agenda. The question in my mind is why such a gross contradiction? I read some of the comments on Twitter and the Israeli apologist were saying this showed the humanity of the Israeli military and medical personnel. Yet they blithely ignore the total destruction of Gaza.
It reminds me of the colonial days in the US, where some of the indigenous warriors were used as scouts to help the colonizers. Could this possibly be a move on the Israelis' part to garner a certain allegiance from these Hamas fighters so that they will betray their own?? It's also interesting how in one breath, they call them Hamas fighters and in another breath they call them Hamas terrorists. All in all, in my view, it's a full scale psyops. What do you think?
it's pr, highlighting what should be considered normal. there's plenty of (less reported) facts to put in the other scale to counter this narrative. i think hamas was, is and always has been aware (from long experience) of the double, triple and quadruple crossing schemes of the zionist entity.
So what do you think is the reason or reasons that Hamas continues to collude with the zionist entity?
It's one thing to identify the status quo of human enslavement, but quite another to try and change it. We can name culprits from every corner of humanity, but where are the potential changes that would make any difference? Are there any ?
John; No.
Time for humanity to go the way of the dinosaur.
Yup! Unless all the Gods from all the heavens play as a team, I'm very much afraid most of the dinosaurs will have lived a lot longer than the Earth's most intelligent species.
Well John I must dispute that Homo sapiens is the earth’s most intelligent species…
And I hope you’re correct about the reign of the dinosaurs outlasting the reign of “humanity”.
Mother Earth will vomit us out like the poison that we are.
Yes! But I wouldn't put human idiots in the same category with dinosaurs. Dinosaurs were intelligent creatures that survived several hundred million years and would still walk the Earth if it wasn't for an unfortunate astronomical event. Stupid greedy narcistic and supposedly "intelligent" humans will probably not make it more than 10,000 years of organized societies. Humans do not even deserve a space rock. They are perfectly fit and capable of committing civilizational suicide all by themselves. Sorry for being sarcastic, but I cannot stand "civilized humans".
the notion of 'socialism or barbarism' originated a long time ago. as one can observe empire has had plenty of time to stomp out the notion of 'socialism' and they have put quite some effort in it.
True power comes from full control of the fundamental means by which the production and trade of goods and services necessary to satisfy human needs and desires function and by which the economy and finance, information (propaganda), education, culture, science, technostructures, health, politics (nation states and their bureaucracies), armed forces and police forces are controlled. That fundamental means is money, that money created from nothing by the banking system through interest-bearing loans. Without money, states, churches and multinationals could not exist. The only way to eliminate that power is: first, to replace the banking system in the hands of very few people with an interest-free credit system (www.ekabank.org) and, then, legal tender with the money of work (www.dhana.org): from EkaBank to Dhana.
I think you have identified an important part of the human problem with the banking system a very real contender as leader of the pack vying for the destruction of humanity.
Il problema umano, anzi la situazione umana, come di tutta la materia, dipende dalle "condizioni iniziali", quando, dopo 380.000 anni dall'origine del'universo, si è formata la struttura, una struttura gerarchica http://www.wgov.org/holosbank.com/unigov/Conarchy-en.htm
No doubt the complexity of matter and/or its origins will probably remain a mystery for all time, providing we can understand that 'time' can be defined in any particularly understandable format.
The article referred above relies on many assumptions, most of which can be challenged by any astute analysis. I am open to discuss any of them, but within particular limits. Although I was working with children from Italian families for 5 years, I utterly failed to learn the language. Living in Montreal, the English and French languages were about as much as my brain could handle....
Excellent analysis. Also agree 100 % Donald Trump is a distraction. We need to be paying attention to the ongoing imperialism of the USA empire, who benefits from it domestically and internationally, who pays, and how. Trump is just so arrogantly bombastic about it. And the USA has repeatedly backed murderous regimes - look at what has happened over the decades in Central and South America.
I bet the IDF robbed up any drugs uppers downers etc that had street value and women’s clothing they could find that’s the morality of the most moral army