People have this fundamental, yet bizarre psychological need to belong to a team, a tribe, a group because they’re too afraid or insecure to stand alone even if they have doubts about what their team actually represents morally and spiritually (provided they are capable of thinking that deeply). People also have a bizarre need to be right, and they can only be cozily, lazily right when other people are deemed wrong. Separating ourselves into right and wrong, good and bad, red and blue, winner and loser, etc. is not only the most simplistic and immature way of seeing an essentially complex world, but it is the easiest, the safest, and the most effective way to avoid any kind of personal responsibility for the consequences of how we think and act; that’s why people need leaders so they can follow loyally and blissfully when things go well, and dump them when they fuck up and find a replacement who makes them feel like winners again. It takes a lot of inner strength and courage to keep reminding people of the real issues, as you do, Caitlin, and to take constant flak from people who do not want to look for, let alone see, the truth, and who get some sick satisfaction from viciously attacking you for saying what they don’t want to hear. But without voices like yours, without bright lights in the darkness, we would be truly lost and floundering. Wear that bullet-proof vest, Caitlin, and keep that laptop bursting into flame!
It’s not a “bizarre” need. It’s a completely normal behaviour for primates. It contributes to well being and a long life span actually. And it can lead to warmer and more stable communities if built on constructively.
Problem is human capitalist societies are built on hijacking this impulse to evil ends.
These is some interesting recent psychology research on how current extremist “populism” (misnamed by the ignorant media) is built on hijacking this group belonging and malforming it to create a sort of mass psychosis.
You're right. But human society has evolved, to a large extent, beyond the point where we need to belong to a group to survive and thrive. I find this need to belong bizarre in the way that people identify so strongly with their group that they no longer see or care to see what this group stands for, as in the case of the Democrats' support for Israel. If I were an American and a Democrat, I could not in all conscience vote for Kamala Harris, and I could not go along with the argument that if I do not vote for her, I am letting Trump win.
"......"But human society has evolved, to a large extent, beyond the point where we need to belong to a group to survive and thrive....."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You are succumbing there to the pervasive myths that capitalism is built upon. Margaret Thatcher famously declared, "there no such thing as society" - while ripping the very fabric of society to shreds.
Human beings need groups, and belonging and a life that has social purpose at its core, not merely acquiring things.
But belonging is one of the foundational human needs, which you learn in any study of psychology.
That the left ignores this is one reason they can't overcome capitalism. They are so steeped in capitalist ideas that they don't even know they are capitalist ideas that must be broken down. Yes belong and shared mission matters. They are critical to any society or social or political movement.
"That the left ignores this [foundational human need for belonging] is one reason they can't overcome capitalism." An interesting, and deeply ironic observation since the left, especially the Marxian left, retains, at least ideologically, a strong commitment to a unified working class playing its appointed role in history by overcoming the usually rather atomized capitalist class. But, as Marx also stressed, "the ideas of any society are the ideas of its ruling class," so it's hardly so incomprehensible that the left often eschews its doctrinal emphasis upon "solidarity" and falls back into acting upon the "pervasive myths that capitalism is built upon" just as you say. It seems to me to be a question of the degree to which a counter-hegemonic conception of solidarity and collective action can be maintained in the face of the violence inflicted by hired minions of the ruling class. The famous Homestead Steelworks strikers here in Pittsburgh, in 1892 had sufficient solidarity to defeat the Pinkerton troops sent in, at great expense. to break up their until then successful takeover of Carnegie owned steelworks. Indeed the strikers even forced the Pinkertons to "run the gauntlet" while being shamed and sometimes physically assaulted by the workers. Alas, the victory built upon such solidarity was only fleeting. Henry Clay managed to get the governor of PA to send in the state militia, crush the strikers' gains, and return control of all the properties to Carnegie and his right hand man, Frick. After such a notorious defeat, the workers were never again capable of mustering the necessary solidarity among themselves to continue to fight back, but instead seem to have primarily returned to embrace their private, individual or familial interests.
Dr William Fusfield, Interesting history of Steel Workers.
TODAY'S POLITICAL DEFINITIONS ARE WANKERS (self-absorbing)
Left & Right arose from the side of Parliament each party was on before the Prime-Minister, Speaker or President. By the 18, 19 & 20th centuries, leading 'political' (L 'poly' = 'many' + 'tics' = 'workings-of') thinkers were looking for a more human-relations rooted definition of their mission than top-down parliament. 'Socialist' (Latin 'socius' = 'friend') or 'Communist' (from 'Community' Latin 'com' = 'together' + 'munus' = 'gift-or-service') implied a Bottom-up System rooted among people where they live & work. Mathematically today we can refer this to a Cultural or 'Fractal' ('Fraction, multiplier, Building-block, where-the-part-contains-the-whole'). Researchers like Lewis Henry Morgan, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels or Petr Kropotkin (Mutual-Aid) in Russia's Siberia or Thomas Jefferson in the N. American British Colonies, turned to remaining 'Indigenous' (L 'self-generating') peoples to study these foundational human-relation cultural-Relational-economy systems. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy
My own education was living among Russian Doukhobor, German Mennonite, English Quaker & Back-to-the-land Productive Communities for 1969-80 along with a life of Community Economy animism.
I'm always surprised at indoctrinated westerners, including doctrinaire FAKE: 'capitalists' (L. 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence') fake socialists & communists, who all exist unconsciously, without examination, beneath fake 'money' (Greek 'mnemosis' = 'memory') Oligarch suzerain control of the US-Federal-Reserve, Bank-of-England & Bank-of-International-Settlements. Doctrinaires ignorantly throw these words as insults around, without having read basic texts.
Few are aware of how Jacob Schiff head of the New York Stock Exchange funded Lev Davidovich Bronstein Trotsky & Germany's main financier Warburg funded Vladimir Lenin both many millions of 1917 dollars (billions today) for arms, munitions & supplies of all sorts to turn Russia world's largest community movement into a violent centralized Top Down system of command & control unlike anything Russian Community Animators had hoped for or any definition they gave to 'Communism' or 'socialism'. Doctrinaire communists & socialists today are simply ignorant of language & the history represented.
Because of Oligarch strategic perversion of language over the last 7000 years of failed colonial empire, many words in terms of their original Syllabic or etymological word roots, mean their opposite, in the case of 'intelligence', once a 'verb, action, or process of choosing between options, becoming a static 'noun', stuck in Oligarch morbid institutional assessments of status or control. During all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') period of personal power distributed among all people in a complementary way, intelligence is more about the ability for diverse perspectives & talents to work together in Mutual-Aid. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/5-collaborative-language
👏👏 I feel the exact same way. And I agree that "human society has evolved, to a large extent, beyond the point where we need to belong to a group to survive and thrive."
This is the truth, and it applies to all herding animals, of which primates are but a singular branch. It is a powerful force to overcome for those capable of critical thinking to even see the truth, let alone convince the masses to also see and act upon it.
I'd love to have the source for this! Love reading well constructed studies before I behind my day
The US, the nation of my birth, which makes it a land full of people I still love and worry about... NEEDS third parties. This will be the first time I haven't voted, and it honestly causes me pain, but I knew I was safer as an expat to speak the truth of what's happening still today in the red states which trafficked children legally. It's such a colonialist landscape still in the Bible belt that it's better to speak out against conversion therapy and financial manipulation from the country my new spouse was born in. If not for the constant warmongers against not only other nations, but against the American people themselves across all of NA... I'd have been sochaloy to show him my home.
This is the first year he's watched the national conventions and speeches. The first time he's assisted with the discourse regarding colonialism, capitalism and violence on a larger scale than he ever had when we met years ago.
He didn't even have the chance to travel within his own nation, but we've traveled together so that he can get an education the way I was able to - and I like Kamala/Walz. I really, really do.
I just wish it weren't always a choice between the lesser of similar evils.
If I may ask, why not vote for Dr. Jill Stein? If you are in one of the few states on which she is not on the ballot, you can write in her name. Your non-vote looks exactly like someone else’s non-vote who isn’t voting for very different reasons. Let’s not join the MSM in suppressing our voices.
I will offer your excellent suggestion this, in most states the write-in vote is not counted unless the candidate is registered for write-ins as in IL.
If you do not have the option of voting for Jill Stein, please vote showing you cared enough to vote however no party offered you a candidate worthy of your vote. That is what I have done since Obummers second election.
I wouldn't be any more lost and floundering without Caitlin's voice, but it is awfully good to hear her voice because I don't really hear many others like hers and her voice supports some of what I think and feel.
The classic diagnosis on that kind of dread of an impending inner collapse from "cognitive dissonance," as well as the many mostly specious strategies utilized to avoid such a threat is provided in Leon Festinger's classic "When Prophecy Fails," written in the 1950s. It's still a "must read" -- and a fun read too -- for anyone interested in the susceptibility of us all to challenges to our existing opinions, actions, and values. The famous, and roughly contemporaneous "Milgram experiments," establishing the proclivity of many people to follow orders from anyone they perceive as an "authority figure," even up to the point of carrying out what they've been told would be murder, is also still completely relevant, indeed MORE relevant, now than it was when published 70 years ago.
The "Milgram experiment" has been more or less debunked. Here are just some of the many sources that cast doubt on Milgram's "experiments and theories":
This is a perfectly legitimate request for further elaboration of a claim. No civil discourse can be continued without all participants recognizing such requests and responding to them. .... As for why the Koch brothers are mentioned out of the blue I have no more idea than you do.
I avoid people like the plague they are. I detest any type of "Leader" or Authority. I am one of those people who you could put in a space ship alone and send it off on a 20 year voyage and I would be happy. What you say is very true and you can prove it very easily by talking to anyone from "Team A" or "Team B". It actually shocks me many times how talking to so many people their concerns are about "what will the neighbors think"! Who gives a shit! Will it in anyway affect what your health will be tomorrow? This giving control over to others like Harris for example a complete piece of shit idiot is insane! I do not believe in "Leaders" never have they should be put down at birth as should Zionist Nazis during the first utterance of any words to the effect of wanting to be such a thing.
" But without voices like yours, without bright lights in the darkness, we would be truly lost and floundering." - who's "we"? Forum commenters? I am one of the commenters and I'm certainly not among that "we".
"Good manners call for cleaning after oneself." But good manners do not, evidently, refrain you from writing things like "Your turd is still steaming and stinks."
By "we", I mean humanity, and include myself. Which means that I often find myself lost and floundering. Good for you if you are not, and I'm not being sarcastic.
That's fine. In the context of the forum the way it read was as if "we" (meaning the forum) worship "voices like yours" (meaning Caitlin) for showing us The Way™, and thank heavens for her being here otherwise we'd be "truly lost and floundering". The implication is that by ourselves we are nobodies.
To which I object strongly. Many people, myself included, look proactively for answers, reach conclusions, and then match our findings against those public speakers that to a large enough degree resembles what we ourselves came to realize. Not the other way around.
No, no. I was speaking generally, and did not imply in any way that the commenters are nobodies. On the contrary, there are a lot of critical, independent and deep thinkers here and that is reassuring and stimulating to see.
Caitlin, as utterly insane as the world is right now, your words are truly helping rescue me from all the gaslighting by reminding me that I’m not alone in my beliefs. Thank you. ♥️
Kamala is greasing the skids for backing Israel after Iran retaliates for the assassination in Tehran. She’s letting us know she’s completely on board with WW3 — including nukes — which is why she was chosen in the first place. She is the twin sister of Hillary Clinton who destroyed Libya without a qualm and sadistically laughed at murder. She has that same steely-eyed cruelty so valuable to neocons.
Yeah, the 'most lethal fighting fighting force on the planet' really caught my attention. She is a straight up war pig with that take alone. And listen to her delivery...it is a bizarre combination of hubris, fear, insincerity and unseriousness. I can't quite put my finger on it but it is unappealing and I can't take one word of it seriously.
She's truly awful. Is it just me, or have politicians gotten substantially slimier over the last few decades? It's been a long time since I was naive about them, but she strikes me as an especially vacuous specimen. I've even asked myself, " Will the liberals be right when they accuse me of being sexist because I can't vote for Harris?" But the answer is no. This genocide and her party's deep participation in it are a bridge way, way too far. That and the Dems working so hard to keep third parties off the ballot. My entire life I've dreaded being a chump. That's what I'd be if I voted for Harris.
My hypothesis is that a corrupt organization cannot take in any new members who are not a) more corrupt, and b) more stupid than they are. That is why every political cycle (2-4 years) the candidates get worse and worse. The Republicans sold out to the lobbyists about 15 years before the Dems leaped on that gravy train, so they are further down the drain, but the Dems are ploughing after them with all their might.
I think you're on to something. There seems to be some kind of life cycle to these sorts of things, though I don't have a full handle on it. I'm more confident discussing the inevitable corruption of bureaucracies as they spend less and less time on their ostensible missions and more and more on making themselves indispensable. There's a similarity between the two phenomena but I'd have to think about it more. In any case, greater intelligence does not seem to be the end point of either process, if you'll forgive the understatement.
All empires, when they fail, dissolve into separate states. I'm looking forward to when California is a great nation, and the sixth largest economy in the world. Maybe then we can work to create a garden with our wealth and power, instead of a wasteland across the earth. (What is wrong with these people?)
Definitely much slimier. So slimy, I no longer can listen to any of them - from Obama to Hilly, to Kamala. And I mean this literally, I start becoming nauseous and within a few seconds will have to hit a mute button. Especially nausea inducing is when in the middle of a youtube video, Obama or Kamala (or Trump) pop up asking for more money ...
"have politicians gotten substantially slimier over the last few decades?" It sure seems that way to me as well. They've gotten substantially stupider and more dogmatic as well. One explanation would be that as our entire society and its economy continue to disintegrate we find ourselves in a similar position to the Romans when their world began to crumble. Just have a look at the truly murderous, corrupt, and evil later emperors of the last decades of the empire before the invasion of the Vandals.
Unfortunately one significant reason that this is the pitch to the electorate is well that the electorate is dim enough that the person who says something to them enough times the loudest wins. That’s why money wins elections.
The same is true across most “liberal democracies” . That’s why capitalists like them and insist on spreading them - they are easily hijacked. Especially so in the age of so called social media.
In this particular case it’s not a surprise that the Dems are ranting about war. They have NO actual program of economic and social well being to offer, and Kamala Harris has no ideas or credibility in offering nor implementation of such! So the pitch is war - and the future invasion of Russia they just started is actually a Kamala Harris election promo. It’s not viable and Ukrainians lives are being wasted in it.
"People seem happily oblivious in their little bubble which fuels this empire and its ideals." The well-known geopolitical analyst, Paul Craig Roberts, calls it the great American "insouciance," just the right word for it if you ask me!
I wish I were oblivious. It's long felt as if there's very little but burn out in fighting an empire that has killed socmanh and which would grant immunity to criminals (every president is a criminal and we all know it) to kill many more. Maybe people are aware of this aggression, but haven't found a way to voice it?
I'm ineligible to vote for the first time ever as am expat, but I do feel like the primary thing my former nation is known for is violence. The immigration process has taught me so much about political caste systems here within a country run by parliament, and the differences astound me daily.
How is - try to not dismiss this out of hand - [to] vote for the guy who is using the term DEEP STATE the way you use EMPIRE, both of which (they being one, actually) are to be exposed and de-clawed. Along that path, Trump supporters will discover much, including how deeply the entrenched have fooled both the Dems and themselves. Discovery is a journey and it cannot be successful until it begins. Let it begin with a Trump victory.
You seem to believe that most people are open to disillusionment, even as we have seen how this has played out over decades with ever devolving American politics. There is no new enlightenment lighting strike that’s going to come down and cause the populace to suddenly lose their lifelong blinkers.
No, if there’s anyone who sees, or claims to see, the reality, and still finds reasons to support either of these craven political parties, one might well wonder what their motives really are. Or, perhaps I’m being unfair. Maybe the penny just hasn’t dropped all the way, yet. Sometimes it’s good to give gravity a helping hand.
I love your thought on this coming end stage capitalist drop into chaos. I had never thought of myself as an accelerationist until this election. Bernie rolling over in 2016 was the beginning of the end. Then to see Bernie speaking before the Billionaire Pritzker really drove the point home ha. I couldn't watch much of the Demoncrats lying while I attended the protest on the street.
Maybe not but we have to keep trying. One of the big problems in this world is there is not enough try left in people. Fifty years of brainwashing in our schools have done their damage. The greatest phrase I ever saw was on a wall in a restaurant. It simply said "No we do not have WIFI. Try talking to one another." WE must make every attempt to wake up the generations of zombies that are mesmerized by the evil little boxes.
A friend made the PERFECT AI video, personifying the closing stage of the empire: "Staying Alive In The Land Of The Dead" ... Our zombie politics keeps dancing and twitching on the rubble.
Your title says it all, Caitlin, slam dunk. In tandem with that, the wholeness of your text is, indubitably, contextually crucial and is greatly appreciated "gravy" or "icing" on that proverbial stew or cake! Thank you as I thank you for your every post!
Whoever will be the next US President (Donald Trump or Kamala Harris), the Outlaw US Empire will keep on with its murderous policy, especially in the Middle East. By the way, did you know that Hamas offered as early as 9th October 2023 to release all civilian hostages in exchange for the IDF not entering Gaza?
This is what Haim Rubinstein, ex-spokesman of Families Forum in Israel, stated in April 2024 in an interview with the Times of Israel.
P.S.: I will not be surprised if your answer to my question above is "no", as I have not seen this any Western news media outlet picking up this story!
I have found very little and only through Yandex, as most search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) are based in the West and thus censoring anything that goes against the narrative spun by the Zionists and the Western MSM.
So called American domestic politics is just window dressing for the empire. Both parties have been subsumed by the empire, as it cannibalizes the Republic.
I suggest that the man whose head was shot at is not to be equated with the party he is running in. Therefore the parties may be thought of as different.
Seems the left doesn’t know why people won’t change. Two things we need: grassroots education, both in the classsroom and door to door campaigns. Second, we need a grassroots campaign building from the local up. We need progressives to run for school boards to get the curriculum changed, free up teachers. We need progressives on city councils. Council leaders can get to the public by campaigning and giving speeches on policies that will help communities. Then build up from there. One of my city’s most popular mayors from the turn of the century was named Golden Rule Jones. He did more for citizens with progressive policies than any mayor before or since. These steps will build the base that we need to make it possible for state and national level candidates to succeed. Otherwise, just running a Jill Stein every 4 years is not a spoiler but a spoiled and wasted moment.
Yes, Toledo, much like Milwaukie, had many very progressive, sometimes even openly socialist, leaders back in those days. Milwaukie also used to win awards as the "best governed city in America" nearly every year!
I like the idea, but the duopoly is just as entrenched in local politics as in federal politics. Until there is a war that a lot of Americans are dying in, there will be no change, as most Americans don’t care about other countries citizens that are dying. It’s why these proxy wars are so genius, with the oligarchs still making money off of weapons and the general public not making a big deal out of it. There was almost a great awakening in the 60’s due to Vietnam, but the assassination of JFK, RFK, and MLK, by the CIA put an end to that. We aren’t far from having another major conflict, as the oligarchy seems dead set on it. There will have to be a lot of blood shed before people open their eyes to the truth.
My god Caitlin, I think we’re on the same wavelength today! I’ve been saying the same that regardless of Kamala or Trump or some other bozo, won’t make any difference because it does come down to the regime and what the regime stands for! That same regime is aligned with the Zionist regime, whose power in the shadows engulfs everything else in the US.
Don’t leave off the corollary, “so vote for Dr. Jill Stein, to make a meaningful statement to TOTB. With enough votes, even the MSM can’t suppress the news of just how many we really are.
We are living in the worst of times now. The true nature of our western civilisation has been exposed for the whole world to see. For the non western world, the evil nature of western civilisation is not a new realisation, but for the citizens of western civilisation who up until now believed that they existed in a civilisation that was a force for good in the world, the realisation of how this is not true and is in fact the obvious, has led many into the spiral of depression.
This spiral is evident when witnessing the DNC convention, crazy rhetoric at every stage, compassion for victims one minute and then the next minute how they're going to create more innocent victims. All classic examples of a fractured or broken mind.
There is only one solution to this problem and it isn't revolutionary, it is the complete destruction of a little nation of psychopaths, who for many decades have been eroding the minds of western people. This destruction is taking place and should be completed by next year. After this happens, the long road to recovery will take place to repair and nourish the western mind.
If only. But the history of US empire goes far beyond that one small, albeit outsized influential, bloodthirsty country, you reference. It must be like seeing a “mini me,” for the US imperialists.
In areas other than the Middle East, the peoples of the American continent, the Caribbean, The Philippines, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Indonesians, Nicaraguans, Colombians, Chileans, Argentinians, Venezuelans, most of Central American nations, Africa as well, have suffered, are suffering, and likely will suffer at the hands of the US, irrespective of what happens to that blood soaked scrap of land you are referring to.
We mustn’t mistake this particular episode as something so unique and different from what the US has been doing all along, that we think simply ending this problem would mean an end to the empire. More work will be required to fully dismantle it.
Yes, the problem is the United States, wanted by the controllers of money, which is the effect of capitalism, which is the effect of the hierarchical structure of human society, which is the effect of the selective hierarchical structure of matter, a structure that was formed after about three hundred thousand years from the beginning of the universe. Therefore, to eliminate imperialism, we must eliminate capitalism and to eliminate capitalism we must transform the hierarchical structure into a conarchic structure. Together we can.
I have never said or written that the age of the universe is 300,000 years (it is estimated to be about 13.8 billion years) but (as the phisics) that the "structure" of the universe was formed in the first 300,000 years after the beginning.
People have this fundamental, yet bizarre psychological need to belong to a team, a tribe, a group because they’re too afraid or insecure to stand alone even if they have doubts about what their team actually represents morally and spiritually (provided they are capable of thinking that deeply). People also have a bizarre need to be right, and they can only be cozily, lazily right when other people are deemed wrong. Separating ourselves into right and wrong, good and bad, red and blue, winner and loser, etc. is not only the most simplistic and immature way of seeing an essentially complex world, but it is the easiest, the safest, and the most effective way to avoid any kind of personal responsibility for the consequences of how we think and act; that’s why people need leaders so they can follow loyally and blissfully when things go well, and dump them when they fuck up and find a replacement who makes them feel like winners again. It takes a lot of inner strength and courage to keep reminding people of the real issues, as you do, Caitlin, and to take constant flak from people who do not want to look for, let alone see, the truth, and who get some sick satisfaction from viciously attacking you for saying what they don’t want to hear. But without voices like yours, without bright lights in the darkness, we would be truly lost and floundering. Wear that bullet-proof vest, Caitlin, and keep that laptop bursting into flame!
It’s not a “bizarre” need. It’s a completely normal behaviour for primates. It contributes to well being and a long life span actually. And it can lead to warmer and more stable communities if built on constructively.
Problem is human capitalist societies are built on hijacking this impulse to evil ends.
These is some interesting recent psychology research on how current extremist “populism” (misnamed by the ignorant media) is built on hijacking this group belonging and malforming it to create a sort of mass psychosis.
You're right. But human society has evolved, to a large extent, beyond the point where we need to belong to a group to survive and thrive. I find this need to belong bizarre in the way that people identify so strongly with their group that they no longer see or care to see what this group stands for, as in the case of the Democrats' support for Israel. If I were an American and a Democrat, I could not in all conscience vote for Kamala Harris, and I could not go along with the argument that if I do not vote for her, I am letting Trump win.
"......"But human society has evolved, to a large extent, beyond the point where we need to belong to a group to survive and thrive....."
Wrong, wrong, wrong. You are succumbing there to the pervasive myths that capitalism is built upon. Margaret Thatcher famously declared, "there no such thing as society" - while ripping the very fabric of society to shreds.
Human beings need groups, and belonging and a life that has social purpose at its core, not merely acquiring things.
But belonging is one of the foundational human needs, which you learn in any study of psychology.
That the left ignores this is one reason they can't overcome capitalism. They are so steeped in capitalist ideas that they don't even know they are capitalist ideas that must be broken down. Yes belong and shared mission matters. They are critical to any society or social or political movement.
"That the left ignores this [foundational human need for belonging] is one reason they can't overcome capitalism." An interesting, and deeply ironic observation since the left, especially the Marxian left, retains, at least ideologically, a strong commitment to a unified working class playing its appointed role in history by overcoming the usually rather atomized capitalist class. But, as Marx also stressed, "the ideas of any society are the ideas of its ruling class," so it's hardly so incomprehensible that the left often eschews its doctrinal emphasis upon "solidarity" and falls back into acting upon the "pervasive myths that capitalism is built upon" just as you say. It seems to me to be a question of the degree to which a counter-hegemonic conception of solidarity and collective action can be maintained in the face of the violence inflicted by hired minions of the ruling class. The famous Homestead Steelworks strikers here in Pittsburgh, in 1892 had sufficient solidarity to defeat the Pinkerton troops sent in, at great expense. to break up their until then successful takeover of Carnegie owned steelworks. Indeed the strikers even forced the Pinkertons to "run the gauntlet" while being shamed and sometimes physically assaulted by the workers. Alas, the victory built upon such solidarity was only fleeting. Henry Clay managed to get the governor of PA to send in the state militia, crush the strikers' gains, and return control of all the properties to Carnegie and his right hand man, Frick. After such a notorious defeat, the workers were never again capable of mustering the necessary solidarity among themselves to continue to fight back, but instead seem to have primarily returned to embrace their private, individual or familial interests.
Dr William Fusfield, Interesting history of Steel Workers.
TODAY'S POLITICAL DEFINITIONS ARE WANKERS (self-absorbing)
Left & Right arose from the side of Parliament each party was on before the Prime-Minister, Speaker or President. By the 18, 19 & 20th centuries, leading 'political' (L 'poly' = 'many' + 'tics' = 'workings-of') thinkers were looking for a more human-relations rooted definition of their mission than top-down parliament. 'Socialist' (Latin 'socius' = 'friend') or 'Communist' (from 'Community' Latin 'com' = 'together' + 'munus' = 'gift-or-service') implied a Bottom-up System rooted among people where they live & work. Mathematically today we can refer this to a Cultural or 'Fractal' ('Fraction, multiplier, Building-block, where-the-part-contains-the-whole'). Researchers like Lewis Henry Morgan, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels or Petr Kropotkin (Mutual-Aid) in Russia's Siberia or Thomas Jefferson in the N. American British Colonies, turned to remaining 'Indigenous' (L 'self-generating') peoples to study these foundational human-relation cultural-Relational-economy systems. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy
My own education was living among Russian Doukhobor, German Mennonite, English Quaker & Back-to-the-land Productive Communities for 1969-80 along with a life of Community Economy animism.
I'm always surprised at indoctrinated westerners, including doctrinaire FAKE: 'capitalists' (L. 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence') fake socialists & communists, who all exist unconsciously, without examination, beneath fake 'money' (Greek 'mnemosis' = 'memory') Oligarch suzerain control of the US-Federal-Reserve, Bank-of-England & Bank-of-International-Settlements. Doctrinaires ignorantly throw these words as insults around, without having read basic texts.
Few are aware of how Jacob Schiff head of the New York Stock Exchange funded Lev Davidovich Bronstein Trotsky & Germany's main financier Warburg funded Vladimir Lenin both many millions of 1917 dollars (billions today) for arms, munitions & supplies of all sorts to turn Russia world's largest community movement into a violent centralized Top Down system of command & control unlike anything Russian Community Animators had hoped for or any definition they gave to 'Communism' or 'socialism'. Doctrinaire communists & socialists today are simply ignorant of language & the history represented.
Because of Oligarch strategic perversion of language over the last 7000 years of failed colonial empire, many words in terms of their original Syllabic or etymological word roots, mean their opposite, in the case of 'intelligence', once a 'verb, action, or process of choosing between options, becoming a static 'noun', stuck in Oligarch morbid institutional assessments of status or control. During all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') period of personal power distributed among all people in a complementary way, intelligence is more about the ability for diverse perspectives & talents to work together in Mutual-Aid. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/5-collaborative-language
👏👏 I feel the exact same way. And I agree that "human society has evolved, to a large extent, beyond the point where we need to belong to a group to survive and thrive."
Wrong - see my comment to "Chang Chokaski".
This is the truth, and it applies to all herding animals, of which primates are but a singular branch. It is a powerful force to overcome for those capable of critical thinking to even see the truth, let alone convince the masses to also see and act upon it.
I'd love to have the source for this! Love reading well constructed studies before I behind my day
The US, the nation of my birth, which makes it a land full of people I still love and worry about... NEEDS third parties. This will be the first time I haven't voted, and it honestly causes me pain, but I knew I was safer as an expat to speak the truth of what's happening still today in the red states which trafficked children legally. It's such a colonialist landscape still in the Bible belt that it's better to speak out against conversion therapy and financial manipulation from the country my new spouse was born in. If not for the constant warmongers against not only other nations, but against the American people themselves across all of NA... I'd have been sochaloy to show him my home.
This is the first year he's watched the national conventions and speeches. The first time he's assisted with the discourse regarding colonialism, capitalism and violence on a larger scale than he ever had when we met years ago.
He didn't even have the chance to travel within his own nation, but we've traveled together so that he can get an education the way I was able to - and I like Kamala/Walz. I really, really do.
I just wish it weren't always a choice between the lesser of similar evils.
If I may ask, why not vote for Dr. Jill Stein? If you are in one of the few states on which she is not on the ballot, you can write in her name. Your non-vote looks exactly like someone else’s non-vote who isn’t voting for very different reasons. Let’s not join the MSM in suppressing our voices.
I will offer your excellent suggestion this, in most states the write-in vote is not counted unless the candidate is registered for write-ins as in IL.
If you do not have the option of voting for Jill Stein, please vote showing you cared enough to vote however no party offered you a candidate worthy of your vote. That is what I have done since Obummers second election.
There are good choices for third party candidates
I wouldn't be any more lost and floundering without Caitlin's voice, but it is awfully good to hear her voice because I don't really hear many others like hers and her voice supports some of what I think and feel.
Well said. Thank you.
"People also have a bizarre need to be right,"
Not really bizarre.
People build their belief structure up almost like a pyramid
Pull out a brick in the middle or the bottom and the whole structure is likely to collapse
That is what scares people when facing new ideas.
They frequently will turn their backs and ignore it.
The classic diagnosis on that kind of dread of an impending inner collapse from "cognitive dissonance," as well as the many mostly specious strategies utilized to avoid such a threat is provided in Leon Festinger's classic "When Prophecy Fails," written in the 1950s. It's still a "must read" -- and a fun read too -- for anyone interested in the susceptibility of us all to challenges to our existing opinions, actions, and values. The famous, and roughly contemporaneous "Milgram experiments," establishing the proclivity of many people to follow orders from anyone they perceive as an "authority figure," even up to the point of carrying out what they've been told would be murder, is also still completely relevant, indeed MORE relevant, now than it was when published 70 years ago.
The "Milgram experiment" has been more or less debunked. Here are just some of the many sources that cast doubt on Milgram's "experiments and theories":
(1) https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/why-almost-everything-you-know-about-milgram-wrong
(2) https://www.psypost.org/unpublished-data-from-stanley-milgrams-experiments-casts-doubts-on-his-claims-about-obedience/
(3) https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/rethinking-one-of-psychologys-most-infamous-experiments/384913/
Or people will latch on to certain ideas so strongly they fail to see the forest from the trees.
no
they do see them
They try to ignore them if their beliefs are too severely in question
Right on the money. Take the Koch Brothers for example.
Yes, yes, take the Koch Brothers ....... please!
if you know what the hell she is talking about, please tell me
"Take the Koch Brothers for example."
you need to be more specific !
I have no idea what you are talking about
This is a perfectly legitimate request for further elaboration of a claim. No civil discourse can be continued without all participants recognizing such requests and responding to them. .... As for why the Koch brothers are mentioned out of the blue I have no more idea than you do.
Of course you have no idea.
Well said Diane Engelhardt!
The bigger tribe is more likely to be able to protect you. Join big tribe.
I avoid people like the plague they are. I detest any type of "Leader" or Authority. I am one of those people who you could put in a space ship alone and send it off on a 20 year voyage and I would be happy. What you say is very true and you can prove it very easily by talking to anyone from "Team A" or "Team B". It actually shocks me many times how talking to so many people their concerns are about "what will the neighbors think"! Who gives a shit! Will it in anyway affect what your health will be tomorrow? This giving control over to others like Harris for example a complete piece of shit idiot is insane! I do not believe in "Leaders" never have they should be put down at birth as should Zionist Nazis during the first utterance of any words to the effect of wanting to be such a thing.
Completely agree.
Except, if only a bulletproof vest were enough.
Guns are *so* last century.
💯💯‼️
Excellent! Very well said.
" But without voices like yours, without bright lights in the darkness, we would be truly lost and floundering." - who's "we"? Forum commenters? I am one of the commenters and I'm certainly not among that "we".
Dude;
" I am one of the commenters and I'm certainly not among that "we"." Look again.
Pintada, you got constipated or what? "Look again" at what?
Your turd is still steaming and stinks. Good manners call for cleaning after oneself.
Why are you so toxic?
Why wouldn't you fuck off?
Half the time you just insult people
"Good manners call for cleaning after oneself." But good manners do not, evidently, refrain you from writing things like "Your turd is still steaming and stinks."
Familiarize yourself with the concepts of timeline and context. Then try to apply them. With your "Dr." degree it should be a cinch.
Right, Howie?
Why are you silent? Dropped a turd and disappeared?
Why did you hit "like" first? Get a hold of yourself before deciding what to do. Maybe a cold shower.
That out of the way - are you suggesting that I am among "we would be truly lost and floundering."? In what way?
If you don’t already know, you never will.
By "we", I mean humanity, and include myself. Which means that I often find myself lost and floundering. Good for you if you are not, and I'm not being sarcastic.
That's fine. In the context of the forum the way it read was as if "we" (meaning the forum) worship "voices like yours" (meaning Caitlin) for showing us The Way™, and thank heavens for her being here otherwise we'd be "truly lost and floundering". The implication is that by ourselves we are nobodies.
To which I object strongly. Many people, myself included, look proactively for answers, reach conclusions, and then match our findings against those public speakers that to a large enough degree resembles what we ourselves came to realize. Not the other way around.
No, no. I was speaking generally, and did not imply in any way that the commenters are nobodies. On the contrary, there are a lot of critical, independent and deep thinkers here and that is reassuring and stimulating to see.
Caitlin, as utterly insane as the world is right now, your words are truly helping rescue me from all the gaslighting by reminding me that I’m not alone in my beliefs. Thank you. ♥️
Kamala is greasing the skids for backing Israel after Iran retaliates for the assassination in Tehran. She’s letting us know she’s completely on board with WW3 — including nukes — which is why she was chosen in the first place. She is the twin sister of Hillary Clinton who destroyed Libya without a qualm and sadistically laughed at murder. She has that same steely-eyed cruelty so valuable to neocons.
You are a real voice of reason, boiling it all down to the actual damn truth. Sincerely, thank you!
Yeah, the 'most lethal fighting fighting force on the planet' really caught my attention. She is a straight up war pig with that take alone. And listen to her delivery...it is a bizarre combination of hubris, fear, insincerity and unseriousness. I can't quite put my finger on it but it is unappealing and I can't take one word of it seriously.
She's truly awful. Is it just me, or have politicians gotten substantially slimier over the last few decades? It's been a long time since I was naive about them, but she strikes me as an especially vacuous specimen. I've even asked myself, " Will the liberals be right when they accuse me of being sexist because I can't vote for Harris?" But the answer is no. This genocide and her party's deep participation in it are a bridge way, way too far. That and the Dems working so hard to keep third parties off the ballot. My entire life I've dreaded being a chump. That's what I'd be if I voted for Harris.
My hypothesis is that a corrupt organization cannot take in any new members who are not a) more corrupt, and b) more stupid than they are. That is why every political cycle (2-4 years) the candidates get worse and worse. The Republicans sold out to the lobbyists about 15 years before the Dems leaped on that gravy train, so they are further down the drain, but the Dems are ploughing after them with all their might.
I think you're on to something. There seems to be some kind of life cycle to these sorts of things, though I don't have a full handle on it. I'm more confident discussing the inevitable corruption of bureaucracies as they spend less and less time on their ostensible missions and more and more on making themselves indispensable. There's a similarity between the two phenomena but I'd have to think about it more. In any case, greater intelligence does not seem to be the end point of either process, if you'll forgive the understatement.
Excellent hypothesis. Like two pennies started a different times down thsoe coin cyclone things.
One still hopes they slam into each other and drop fast, though.
All empires, when they fail, dissolve into separate states. I'm looking forward to when California is a great nation, and the sixth largest economy in the world. Maybe then we can work to create a garden with our wealth and power, instead of a wasteland across the earth. (What is wrong with these people?)
My theory on that is the Vircators.
Ever had "burn-the-world-down rage" beamed into your head?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=lgJ6SpHZir8&t=385
Pretty effective when the target has no idea the implanted things aren't their own.
Definitely much slimier. So slimy, I no longer can listen to any of them - from Obama to Hilly, to Kamala. And I mean this literally, I start becoming nauseous and within a few seconds will have to hit a mute button. Especially nausea inducing is when in the middle of a youtube video, Obama or Kamala (or Trump) pop up asking for more money ...
"have politicians gotten substantially slimier over the last few decades?" It sure seems that way to me as well. They've gotten substantially stupider and more dogmatic as well. One explanation would be that as our entire society and its economy continue to disintegrate we find ourselves in a similar position to the Romans when their world began to crumble. Just have a look at the truly murderous, corrupt, and evil later emperors of the last decades of the empire before the invasion of the Vandals.
Politicians have gotten slimier because of who has picked them to run. Quality politicians are prevented from being candidates.
I personally think she is an empty vacuous suit.
Have you seen this video of her mocking protestors?
Her delivery, attitude, demeanour are utterly repulsive.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4HZjLnj7WGM
Was she drunk?
Unfortunately one significant reason that this is the pitch to the electorate is well that the electorate is dim enough that the person who says something to them enough times the loudest wins. That’s why money wins elections.
The same is true across most “liberal democracies” . That’s why capitalists like them and insist on spreading them - they are easily hijacked. Especially so in the age of so called social media.
In this particular case it’s not a surprise that the Dems are ranting about war. They have NO actual program of economic and social well being to offer, and Kamala Harris has no ideas or credibility in offering nor implementation of such! So the pitch is war - and the future invasion of Russia they just started is actually a Kamala Harris election promo. It’s not viable and Ukrainians lives are being wasted in it.
The entire thing is ghoulish. A travesty.
"Dim" is the word.
American people have been schizoid for a long time, but are descending into total madness.
Bravo! This hits the nail right on the head. The other big problem is how to wake people up to the naked aggression committed by this evil empire.
That is the key… how is the question. People seem happily oblivious in their little bubble which fuels this empire and its ideals.
"People seem happily oblivious in their little bubble which fuels this empire and its ideals." The well-known geopolitical analyst, Paul Craig Roberts, calls it the great American "insouciance," just the right word for it if you ask me!
Filtered all the way down under too as our politicians seem to have no legs of their own to stand on
I wish I were oblivious. It's long felt as if there's very little but burn out in fighting an empire that has killed socmanh and which would grant immunity to criminals (every president is a criminal and we all know it) to kill many more. Maybe people are aware of this aggression, but haven't found a way to voice it?
I'm ineligible to vote for the first time ever as am expat, but I do feel like the primary thing my former nation is known for is violence. The immigration process has taught me so much about political caste systems here within a country run by parliament, and the differences astound me daily.
US expats vote. How do you not know this?
You can vote unless you have assumed a new identity or death.
If death, your vote will be cast by the Democrat party.
LOL.
How is - try to not dismiss this out of hand - [to] vote for the guy who is using the term DEEP STATE the way you use EMPIRE, both of which (they being one, actually) are to be exposed and de-clawed. Along that path, Trump supporters will discover much, including how deeply the entrenched have fooled both the Dems and themselves. Discovery is a journey and it cannot be successful until it begins. Let it begin with a Trump victory.
You seem to believe that most people are open to disillusionment, even as we have seen how this has played out over decades with ever devolving American politics. There is no new enlightenment lighting strike that’s going to come down and cause the populace to suddenly lose their lifelong blinkers.
No, if there’s anyone who sees, or claims to see, the reality, and still finds reasons to support either of these craven political parties, one might well wonder what their motives really are. Or, perhaps I’m being unfair. Maybe the penny just hasn’t dropped all the way, yet. Sometimes it’s good to give gravity a helping hand.
"Sometimes it’s good to give gravity a helping hand." Or "what's already falling deserves a shove" as Nietzsche put it.
I love your thought on this coming end stage capitalist drop into chaos. I had never thought of myself as an accelerationist until this election. Bernie rolling over in 2016 was the beginning of the end. Then to see Bernie speaking before the Billionaire Pritzker really drove the point home ha. I couldn't watch much of the Demoncrats lying while I attended the protest on the street.
I tire of saying it but Trump is new to the party and the paty hates him.
You’re a blabbering idiot, dude. Nobody gives a damn about the nonsense coming out of your mouth. You’re a brainwashed sheep.
Said discarded tissue?
The wishful thinking brigade pipes up.
You can't wake dim people up.
Maybe not but we have to keep trying. One of the big problems in this world is there is not enough try left in people. Fifty years of brainwashing in our schools have done their damage. The greatest phrase I ever saw was on a wall in a restaurant. It simply said "No we do not have WIFI. Try talking to one another." WE must make every attempt to wake up the generations of zombies that are mesmerized by the evil little boxes.
I have to disagree, I thought Bernie did just that speaking plainly about working peoples needs. To bad Bernie was a traitor to us all.
And you can spend decades trying to do so. Without any luck.
A friend made the PERFECT AI video, personifying the closing stage of the empire: "Staying Alive In The Land Of The Dead" ... Our zombie politics keeps dancing and twitching on the rubble.
https://mark192.substack.com/p/staying-alive-in-the-land-of-the
It’s now got three likes on YouTube. Sorry TikTok took it off. Copyright issues? Although it looks like “fair use” for satirical purposes, to me.
Absolutely no reason given.
That's what happened with my being banned from commenting on YouTube and absolutely nothing has happened with the appeal process I was referred to.
Your title says it all, Caitlin, slam dunk. In tandem with that, the wholeness of your text is, indubitably, contextually crucial and is greatly appreciated "gravy" or "icing" on that proverbial stew or cake! Thank you as I thank you for your every post!
For me, it's GO GREEN ALL THE WAY!!!
Whoever will be the next US President (Donald Trump or Kamala Harris), the Outlaw US Empire will keep on with its murderous policy, especially in the Middle East. By the way, did you know that Hamas offered as early as 9th October 2023 to release all civilian hostages in exchange for the IDF not entering Gaza?
This is what Haim Rubinstein, ex-spokesman of Families Forum in Israel, stated in April 2024 in an interview with the Times of Israel.
I talk about it in my latest article: https://geopolitiq.substack.com/p/hamas-offered-as-early-as-9th-october
P.S.: I will not be surprised if your answer to my question above is "no", as I have not seen this any Western news media outlet picking up this story!
I think I heard about it on The Grayzone.
If you have a link, please share it.
I have found very little and only through Yandex, as most search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) are based in the West and thus censoring anything that goes against the narrative spun by the Zionists and the Western MSM.
You must mean main stream media
Of course.
So called American domestic politics is just window dressing for the empire. Both parties have been subsumed by the empire, as it cannibalizes the Republic.
But only one of them was nearly killed by a bullet.
That’s very true, but it’s also a non sequitur.
I suggest that the man whose head was shot at is not to be equated with the party he is running in. Therefore the parties may be thought of as different.
lol! -Crumpled Foreskin
To the bone, I am cut.
Seems the left doesn’t know why people won’t change. Two things we need: grassroots education, both in the classsroom and door to door campaigns. Second, we need a grassroots campaign building from the local up. We need progressives to run for school boards to get the curriculum changed, free up teachers. We need progressives on city councils. Council leaders can get to the public by campaigning and giving speeches on policies that will help communities. Then build up from there. One of my city’s most popular mayors from the turn of the century was named Golden Rule Jones. He did more for citizens with progressive policies than any mayor before or since. These steps will build the base that we need to make it possible for state and national level candidates to succeed. Otherwise, just running a Jill Stein every 4 years is not a spoiler but a spoiled and wasted moment.
copying what the conservatives have been putting in practice for a while now, not?
Yes, Toledo, much like Milwaukie, had many very progressive, sometimes even openly socialist, leaders back in those days. Milwaukie also used to win awards as the "best governed city in America" nearly every year!
I like the idea, but the duopoly is just as entrenched in local politics as in federal politics. Until there is a war that a lot of Americans are dying in, there will be no change, as most Americans don’t care about other countries citizens that are dying. It’s why these proxy wars are so genius, with the oligarchs still making money off of weapons and the general public not making a big deal out of it. There was almost a great awakening in the 60’s due to Vietnam, but the assassination of JFK, RFK, and MLK, by the CIA put an end to that. We aren’t far from having another major conflict, as the oligarchy seems dead set on it. There will have to be a lot of blood shed before people open their eyes to the truth.
"We need progressives to run for school boards to get the curriculum changed,"
STATE-MANDATED changes for state-mandated schooling ?
Yes, STATE-MANDATED by LAW too.
Calling that indoctrination would not be a total lie
What nonsense you always speak.
You support authoritarian mandates onto people ?
ALL STATE LAWS are mandated onto the citizenry regardless of what takes place elsewhere.
Maybe one reason GOVERNMENT seems never to be defined at all by enforcement.
You'd think it would at least be a BRANCH
My god Caitlin, I think we’re on the same wavelength today! I’ve been saying the same that regardless of Kamala or Trump or some other bozo, won’t make any difference because it does come down to the regime and what the regime stands for! That same regime is aligned with the Zionist regime, whose power in the shadows engulfs everything else in the US.
Don’t leave off the corollary, “so vote for Dr. Jill Stein, to make a meaningful statement to TOTB. With enough votes, even the MSM can’t suppress the news of just how many we really are.
What does " TOTB" mean?
We are living in the worst of times now. The true nature of our western civilisation has been exposed for the whole world to see. For the non western world, the evil nature of western civilisation is not a new realisation, but for the citizens of western civilisation who up until now believed that they existed in a civilisation that was a force for good in the world, the realisation of how this is not true and is in fact the obvious, has led many into the spiral of depression.
This spiral is evident when witnessing the DNC convention, crazy rhetoric at every stage, compassion for victims one minute and then the next minute how they're going to create more innocent victims. All classic examples of a fractured or broken mind.
There is only one solution to this problem and it isn't revolutionary, it is the complete destruction of a little nation of psychopaths, who for many decades have been eroding the minds of western people. This destruction is taking place and should be completed by next year. After this happens, the long road to recovery will take place to repair and nourish the western mind.
If only. But the history of US empire goes far beyond that one small, albeit outsized influential, bloodthirsty country, you reference. It must be like seeing a “mini me,” for the US imperialists.
In areas other than the Middle East, the peoples of the American continent, the Caribbean, The Philippines, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Indonesians, Nicaraguans, Colombians, Chileans, Argentinians, Venezuelans, most of Central American nations, Africa as well, have suffered, are suffering, and likely will suffer at the hands of the US, irrespective of what happens to that blood soaked scrap of land you are referring to.
We mustn’t mistake this particular episode as something so unique and different from what the US has been doing all along, that we think simply ending this problem would mean an end to the empire. More work will be required to fully dismantle it.
I love you.
Yes, the problem is the United States, wanted by the controllers of money, which is the effect of capitalism, which is the effect of the hierarchical structure of human society, which is the effect of the selective hierarchical structure of matter, a structure that was formed after about three hundred thousand years from the beginning of the universe. Therefore, to eliminate imperialism, we must eliminate capitalism and to eliminate capitalism we must transform the hierarchical structure into a conarchic structure. Together we can.
300,000 years ago was not the beginning of the universe. Maybe give this a rethink.
I have never said or written that the age of the universe is 300,000 years (it is estimated to be about 13.8 billion years) but (as the phisics) that the "structure" of the universe was formed in the first 300,000 years after the beginning.
I work in the wrong field if it 300k ha. https://www.darkenergysurvey.org/
Being on that mountain looking into the past let me forget about the future for a min. : )
Justice resides in Nature?
[Nature is justice?]
No, it needs to be changed.
What needs to be changed?
The structure
Do you enjoy not being understood? Just too damn high to notice or care? Or are you practicing the Socratic method?
It seems that if we are just the (inevitable) result of
the selective hierarchical structure of matter we would not be able to change without risking falling to a universe-imploding paradoxical nightmare.
https://holos-unigov-org.translate.goog/holosbank.com/unigov/Ecco-It.htm?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=it&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=it
Only if powers aren’t too powerful for justice to prevail.
That strikes me as tautological. Would you be inclined to elaborate?
Are you referring to Natural Law or just plain nature, as in Mother Nature?
Neither. I was asking for clarification from you. I can be a little slow. [Sorry, not from you but from Albert S. Starchild.]