68 Comments
User's avatar
Nana Baakan Agyiriwah's avatar

Caitlin, I really don't know how you were even able to paint him without having to go to the bathroom and throw up ever so often. You are really good though, gotta give you your props, but I'ma tell ya, it would be really hard for me to generate any rendition of these warmongers without having nightmares afterwards. I'm just saying.

Expand full comment
Dr.Who's avatar

“I hate Piers Morgan.“

…just these four words would have sufficed for this post :)

Expand full comment
dale ruff's avatar

Hatred can tear down the bad: tyranny, injustice, etc. But it cannot build anything. Only love can build, create, nurture, nourish, protect. And so there must be a balance: if we have only hatred, we can tear down injustice but it will just be replaced with another injustice, for injustice is the result of hatred. We can find love in our hatred, for we hate injustice and cruelty out of love for the victims.

If we can find a balance, we can replace injustice with justice, lies with truth, hatred with compassion. If we cannot find that balance, we become what we hate.

Expand full comment
Nana Baakan Agyiriwah's avatar

I agree, dale. I wrote about it just the other day in my post, Why I Struggle With the Slogan, Death, Death to the IDF. https://topicsfromatoz.substack.com/p/why-i-struggle-with-the-slogan-death?r=beq0e

It's human nature, they say, for us to dislike what we cannot find peace with, but I think it's important to counter our dislike with more creative options. "Hate" is a very strong word.

I guess in a sense, Caitlin was using her creativity for social change. But there's a thin line between love and hate, and if we focus on hate, like you said, we become what we hate.

What better example do we have than to see how the so-called Jews who have taken over Palestine, are now the epitome of what they hated. They say the oppressed become the oppressors once they have been freed from their oppressors. I can't help but wonder if that "freedom" was laced with so much hate it turned them inside out such that they became the oppressors themselves.

Israel uses this "inevitability" as a calling card because they know that their abuse of the Palestinians (and Israel's neighbors) will cause the people to hate them. Then Israel can say everyone is anti-Semitic, cry victim and make the world bow down to it as it claims it has the "right to defend itself." The result?? Israel is continually armed to the teeth by its Western backers and Israel continues to rain down death and destruction, which only makes the people "hate" them more, thus the prophesy is fulfilled and the aggressions never end.

Even when we look at the establishment of the USA. Born out of wanting to be free from the Oppression of the British... the very founders of the USA were in active oppression of the indigenous, women and the Africans. So yeah, hate does tend to replicate itself as history has shown.

Expand full comment
David D's avatar

In regard to judeonazi’s I’m unable to engage cognitive dissonance, therefore I celebrate ‘death death to the IDF’.

Expand full comment
dale ruff's avatar

I assume you want to destroy the IDF out of love for its victims. That suggests a balance.

Expand full comment
David D's avatar

Yes, I’d like the IDF to be destroyed for the sake of their victims and humanity in general.

Expand full comment
pyrrhus's avatar

Love is the ultimate answer to most human problems...That's why politicians hate the word and the thought.....

Expand full comment
Gordon Groves's avatar

Read the story of Spartacus, a slave like us who didn't get nailed to the cross, but almost won. It's the resistance that matters, not the passive lovey-dovey mealy-mouthed Biblical garbage

Expand full comment
dale ruff's avatar

MLK, who fought and died for the gospel of love, was not lovey dovery mealy mouthed. by love, he meant struggle without surrendering to violence, which takes much more courage than taking up arms.

Expand full comment
Landru's avatar

Death, Death, to the IDF, is not hate of a person or persons, it's the hate of an organization according to the artist. Myself I call them the israeli (lowercase) Genocide Force. That is what they are all of them actively participating in genocide. My fear the iGF spreads it's ugly hate around the world in the feeling they can do no wrong. There are many stories now of rape, and violence against who ever they choose as a target. We in the u.s. did that. Children will ask WHY did we allow this?

Expand full comment
Indu Abeysekara's avatar

dale ruff, I applaud you for saying - " If we can find a balance, we can replace injustice with justice, lies with truth, hatred with compassion. If we cannot find that balance, we become what we hate".

Finding the balance is the problem.

Expand full comment
Gordon Groves's avatar

there isn't a balance. Fight back or die like a dog.

Expand full comment
dale ruff's avatar

If there is no balance, you have become the enemy. You can destroy with hatred but you cannot create. To destroy injustice and create justice requires a balance. You most likely don't understand and do not have balance. Balance is precisely how we fight without being toppled.

Expand full comment
Nana Baakan Agyiriwah's avatar

Indu, we live between two polarities as seen in the ancient oracle System, the Book of Changes or I Ching (Yi Jing) The Yin and the Yang. The Tao is the path in the middle, the balance that we struggle with due to the nature of this physicality. We need both the negative frequency and the positive frequency like we see in the battery. When we go to the extreme, even to the extreme of love or the extreme of hate, we are out of balance, and that is where the struggle lies. As the Ra Material points out, "extremes" are distortions.

As children we learn, up and down, in and out, hot and cold. The middle ground is where the balance is. But there will always be a pull towards either extreme. Within the Yin is the Yang and within the Yang is the Yin. The movement between the two polarities creates the "changes" that we see around us. There is a beautiful serenity when the night meets the dawn and when the day meets the night.

Sometimes I struggle with destruction. I have to take a moment to change my perspective to see there is a creativity within it. When a woman gives birth there is a sort of destruction of the womb in that it has to go thru a radical change in order for a child to be born. In some strange way, while we may abhor what is happening to the Palestinians, had it not been so extreme, the cry of alarm may have remained simmered to a dull roar, as it has been over the past 7 decades. This very destruction is giving us an opportunity to be pro-active in constructive ways.

Our collective consciousness produced what we see. If we change our collective consciousness towards hope, love, creativity, compassion and empathy then we can create a better future for all of us. That does not mean that we should become passive. We must remain ever vigilant in how we think and act. We must always remember that every thing is energy. Energy cannot be destroyed, but it can be re-directed and channeled.

Expand full comment
dale ruff's avatar

It is a struggle for meaning in an absurd world. It begins with personal balance.....understanding hatred as both a gift rooted in love for victims and fuel for reform and as a poison, if not understood and acted out with compassion. The revolution begins in our own hearts and minds, finding a balance between them...and if we can find a rough balance in ourselves, we can connect with others involved in the same struggle and find, as Camus described it, a "strange form of love" that is the love of the people united, erasing evil felt with hatred but servving the victims with love. It's not an easy struggle, for first we must break away from the status quo and find ourselves alone. If we can survive that alienation from an alienated world, we will discover others on the same path..and then there is something the opposite of the hatred which provoked our journey, something like joy or love...often called solidarity.

That is when the alienated individual becomes part of "the mob," the People. Here is Sandburg's evocation of that joining:

I Am the People, the Mob” – Carl Sandburg (1916)

I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.

Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?

I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes.

I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns.

They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.

I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing.

Terrible storms pass over me. I forget.

The best of me is sucked out and wasted.

I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have.

And I forget.

Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember.

Then—I forget.

When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—

Then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.

The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then." The lesson, I think, is that will never become the People who, united can never be defeated, until we risk the isolation of breaking from the matrix, the established order which guarantees our misery and exploits our alienation. Only then, we rebel, do we begin the journey of a lifetime, a journey that spans many generations, perhaps all, and works to reunited the dismembered community betrayed long ago by remembering what we lost, our birthright, of equality, liberty, and a community of mutual debt and aid.

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

Dale,

In the final analysis, doesn’t most of our actions come from a need to survive, which in essence is the principal agent of life? We are tied to those limitations that promote survival as much as the sea is tied to water…

Expand full comment
Davina's avatar

I find it amusing that the people who voted for Drumpf are now suffering and complaining. What did they expect when they opened the doors for a psychopath to run free? Did they really think for one moment that Drumpf would actually make wealthy. His interests lie in one.person only, and that is Drumpf. Those who voted? Suck it up.

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

Davina,

If elections worked for the betterment of humankind, we wouldn’t be on the edge of extinction. Unfortunately, Russian Bot has it right when he questions the intelligence of the voting masses.

I find that what is said by politicians is seldom a truth, but that I am quite alone in thinking that lying is the strongest asset of a politician. Why people believe them still even though what was said was false is the greatest mystery that the more successful politicians know quite well.

Expand full comment
Nana Baakan Agyiriwah's avatar

Indoctrination is a powerful tool and most folks who vote have been indoctrinated to think that giving their sovereignty over to an authority who is supposed to take care of them is the best thing to do. That's the illusion.

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan.

I struggle with the whole majority gets to control the minority until the minority gets to be the majority and then they can rule over the majority that has become the minority.

People who aspire to be politicians so they can make laws and rule over others are suspect to me. I live in a small town and the folks who get voted into office, are people I have never met, anywhere. Nor have I had a conversation with them about anything. So why would I vote for them? But you can best believe, come time for voting, their names are on sticks in yards, plastered on doors and windows, in neighborhood circulars, etc. After the voting cycle is over, they go back to being anonymous.

We are indoctrinated into thinking that our world will simply devolve into chaos if we don't have leaders, not matter how corrupt they are and no matter how many lies they tell. People just can't imagine living without them.

Expand full comment
russian_bot's avatar

Are you suggesting that voting for Kamala would be better? Or are you sincere in thinking that any other voting outcome would be possible?

I'd agree with you if you didn't name names and simply said "people who voted are now suffering and complaining". Because via participation in a corrupt system voters take full responsibility for their governments.

Expand full comment
Nana Baakan Agyiriwah's avatar

Have your read Larken Rose's book, The Most Dangerous Superstition? https://ia600600.us.archive.org/31/items/hybridphilosophy-collection/the-most-dangerous-superstition-larken-rose-2011.pdf

In a society that promotes and propagandizes its citizens from childhood that voting means something, it is relatively hard to convince them that voting in a corrupt system makes them responsible for their governments.

Most people who vote simply believe that they "voted for the "wrong" person and that next time they'll vote the wrong person out and put another person in that they have been made to believe is the "right" person. They seldom see that they are enablers, keeping the corrupt system alive and well, while simply changing the faces of the persons in leadership of the corrupt system.

Expand full comment
Landru's avatar

I won 500$ betting that Genocide Don would win. I almost won 3k on the popular vote. Why did I have the thought Genocide Don would win? Genocide Joe was demented for years, I knew this with experience from my Mother's slow mental decline. People are still looking for someone to do anything for working people. Of course expecting a Billionaire ( with several Billion in debt) to do or care about working people was the ultimate bad joke. Bernie standing next to my Governor, Pritzker on bended knee, Genocide Kamala, " Iran is our greatest enemy" drove working people away to the stay home vote. I worked for and donated to Jill Stein, which wasn't worthless because she didn't win, but because she was and is clueless on how to campaign. I knocked doors on weekends for a month, then she didn't have anyone to pick-up and submit the sigs. Jill didn't make the New York ballot. Now my only champion is Kshama Sawant, I donate with all the funds that would have gone to a candidate for working people. I don't live in her state, however, change is coming "Reform or Revolution" Rosa said it best.

Expand full comment
dale ruff's avatar

I find it less than amusing that those who claimed Harris was no better than Trump are now suffering in ways they would not have had they not made this stupid blunder. By trashing Harris, they helped Trump win, and now we have a psychopath in charge, threatening nuclear war with Russia, resuming shipment of the 2000 lb bombs to Israel, putting Marines on the streets of Los Angeles and rounding up immigrant workers and sending them to gulags. When we support the lesser evil, it is not to embrace evil but to prevent a greater evil. Failure to understand this allows the greater evil to triumph. In this way, moral absolutism (which is a form of egotistical virtue signaling) is complicit in the greater evil.

Expand full comment
dale ruff's avatar

Yes: and evolution has taught us that the best way to survive is to cooperate, to crush injustice (fueled by anger and hatred) and to create justice, fueled by love...so in the end, survival is an act of balance like walking on a narrow path without leaning too far over in either direction.

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

The cooperative condition is not necessarily conducive to a viable evolutionary outcome. An uncle of mine once suggested that “too much of a good thing is no more good”.

In our case, for Homo Sapiens, our cooperation re survival conditions has been one of the main reasons for our survival success, and that success has allowed us to go from throwing stones to sending nuclear missiles, which suggests that cooperation can turn out to be too much of a good thing.

Expand full comment
Gordon Groves's avatar

Tell it to the guy who was nailed to the cross and accomplished nothing

Expand full comment
pyrrhus's avatar

Why do you think they banished Corbin from English politics? Because he was too moral and honest about Israel, of course, which is strictly not allowed in Britain or most Western countries...

Expand full comment
The Revolution Continues's avatar

Piers Morgan’s stupid, punchable face...

I got an idea. What if you put Pier's portrait onto a punching bag, Caitlin? Oh, the joy of releasing all your pent up anger at how these genocide-apologists operate by swinging at Piers' ugly mug!

Expand full comment
@realRodster's avatar

Why any country supports Israel is beyond me. This is one crazy, unhinged State led by Adolf Hitler's son Bibi NuttenYahoo.

https://www.rt.com/russia/622537-israeli-settlers-attack-russian-diplomats/

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

Why does any country support Israel? My guess in one word: Money.

Expand full comment
unwarranted's avatar

Predators prey. There are plenty of examples in nature where the stronger kill and consume the weaker. And the stronger is typically something else’s prey. Humans have the capacity to understand and to forgive, but if those options are never taught, they won’t be learned, won’t be assimilated. We are drowning ourselves in ignorance and self hatred.

Expand full comment
Mumtaz ahmed's avatar

They are savages mostly the eastern european and russian jews and they comprise almost 60% of Isreals population

Expand full comment
Chuck Nasmith's avatar

Vomitus front page! Great painting.

Expand full comment
Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Thank you for the great target poster! I'll print a few off and take them to the range later. Getting rusty on the old .45. This should sharpen my aim.

Expand full comment
John Webb's avatar

Morgan is a polished, soulless tv personality whose habit of pursing his prissy lips is kinda revolting to see. There, i said it.

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

Piers Morgan knows full well that there is nothing gained from being more than fifteen minutes ahead of the hegemonic consensus.

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

“A stark, raving mad society”, believe it or not, includes you and me. But what makes us even madder is what Money has become in our lives. We live and breathe and dream about making money, most of us anyway, and for very good reasons.. I.e., Survival.

In a world gone bonkers, psychos appear and begin strutting their egos, A La Trump.. With millions and millions of people helping president Tariffs in his quest for utter stupidity, is it any wonder that madness is arising from every facet of society, including the use of nuclear arsenals from the maddest of all madhatters?

Expand full comment
julie cousineau's avatar

not everyone is a predatory capitalist

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

Julie,

“ not everyone is a predatory capitalist” I didn’t write that everyone is a predatory capitalist, so why the statement? I did write however about survival. I.e., >>>. No money , no candy…

Expand full comment
Sean Griobhtha's avatar

If you use the Substack app, the pleasant “Oliver” voice provided by Substack will read this to you; in your car, your LR stereo, headphones, etc… “He” does a nice job and doesn't get tired.

John’s Hopkin’s Genome Study Proves Jews ‘Interlopers’ in Palestine…no ‘Semitic Blood’ WHATSOEVER…

Eran Elhaik - "Did contemporary Jews descend from the ancient Israelites, as the primordialists claim? Or did they descend from people who converted to Judaism?"

https://griobhtha1.substack.com/p/johns-hopkins-genome-study-proves

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

Some people don’t have a clue about “substack” I’m a member of that group..

Expand full comment
Landru's avatar

Thank you Caitlin, Love, love, love the painting. I can feel his blood soaked character with that slight reddish hue : )

Expand full comment
7thSignSoul's avatar

U.S. ARMS SALES & TRANSFER TRACKER

https://www.forumarmstrade.org/

Expand full comment
Elyse Gilbert's avatar

Caitlin, I can tell that the intense effort you put forth in getting his much-hated face just right was your goal. Geez, not only has your unique style of journalism become perfected, but your artistic talent has also soared to great heights.

Thank you so much for this, and for all your articles, which I have loved, followed, and shared for over a decade.

Expand full comment