If we don't hold "the vote" as important, where does that leave us? Perhaps, Caitlin has forgotten. It was the "vote" that allowed women to own property,Blacks to sit anywhere in the bus and restaurant, all adults to legally buy medicinal marijuana, wildlife to be protected etc. The vote is a civic power - exercised or not. Flippancy about the vote functions as collusion with Big Money interests. Not pairing the vote with organized, sustained, civic action for the interests of the public good is the junction where civic empowerment or disempowerment is determined.Where the vote functions as it is intended in a democratic structure.
Selina, the voting system is rigged by the Oligarchs who own the politicians. There is such a miniscule number of politicians not bowing to the lobbyists representing the Oligarchs.
Oh yes, sometimes votes make change but only rarely with such an overwhelming majority it can't be overcome by fraud. For the most part it's deadlocked because of manipulation of the media owned by the Oligarch Rulers and Mega Donors. They want us divided hence conquered. It keeps us off their throats. Their only fear is a united populace who realized it's been duped and are done being enslaved.
The most effective prison is the type of prison Jeano doesn't even know Jeano is in. Or as Chomsky succinctly put it "manufacturing consent". Or as Caitlin writes in almost every other essay she posts here - the mass propaganda applied to the general populace 24/7 - which Jeano seems to think is so easily avoidable.
This is meant for Selina. You are brilliant! And so right. The latest nihilism among the Left about voting is just so ignorant. Since Nixon was taken to the woodshed, the ultra Right has been trying to get people to forsake voting. They identified it in PNAC that if the Left continued to vote, the Republicans would never win another election. So they set out to persuade people not to vote and have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They didn’t have to outlaw voting, they just empowered the Bernie Bros to convince people not to vote. Yikes.
And she also says everybody is so propagandized that they are not responsible for their lazy non participation in their own civic lives. That’s not brilliance. She’s a good writer and a very good artist but not always the thinker that I would bow down to as you do.
Maybe, but she opened my eyes and changed me for the better. It was painful to see the error of my ways. I was introduced to Caitlin when she wrote her guest article on the fabiusmaximus.com website. That article was about the Narrative Matrix.
This was over a decade ago when I was a Neocon Dupe.
I’m glad. And yes, I do think she reaches a certain crowd of people that I could never reach and brings them into the light. And I applaud her for that. But it’s important not to stay in the kind of thinking that simply criticizes and proposes no ideas for moving forward. Just mocking and advocating a boycott of one way of having revolution is not brilliant—it’s sad. However, I do think the tone of this site will change radically in the next 6 to 9 months so here’s lookin at you kid.
You totally missed the point Jenny. It doesn’t matter who is left or right, what matters is your participation in what ever crowd meets with your approval. If none does, then start a new crowd. But Do something! Just voting every 2 to 4 years and bitching online the rest of the time is for fools.
Agreed. So great to see workers following Christian Smalls heroic organizing against Amazon. But lately I’ve been seeing the Know-it-all critics of the Comment Class taking to their computers to criticize the UAW for not doing their strike in the right way—ie how the Know It All commenters think it SHOULD be done—from the comfort of their living rooms. And when the UAW wins, they’ll say it wasn’t enough while they continue to do nothing to help. Sigh. Guess it’s up to us smart ones.
If we didn't have mail in voting, I might believe that. At least in some cases. But if the rulers think we might elect someone to challenge them, they will try to put him in jail or murder him like they did with the Kennedys.
Well said. We live in an upside down world. The terrorists are lauded as heroes and we are told that the peace loving freedom fighters are dangerous conspiracy theorists. John Lennon would now be called a domestic terrorist!
Mike, it's exactly what I do!😂 I fry the taters in the Olive Oil with a bit of garlic. Then I throw in the Kale and saute it mixing in the garlic. I serve it with baked Salmon or Chicken.
Bravo. Don't neglect pasta faggioli, or lentil soup, two of my favorites. I dropped my cholesterol 30 points solely with diet after I told some fool MD to shove his statins. Double bravo to your doc for his dietary rec.
Sounds like you nice Middies can afford to eat better than the people in the countries from which you’re adopting the recipes. And without a sense of irony.
6. That the only reason anyone could possibly be critical of the most dangerous impulses of the world’s most powerful and destructive government is if they are a secret agent working for the enemies of that government.
This one is my favorite. People who have known me for decades as a critic of U.S. foreign policies suddenly decided I had become Putin's mouthpiece. Or, alternatively, that I was parroting Tucker Carlson -- whose show I don't watch. I've even been warned that I risk losing my *standing in the community* for sounding like I might be parroting Tucker Carlson.
I often wonder why writers overseas (Caitlin) can go straight to the truth while at home in the US we keep dancing around it. Must be the pressures of Mob-think that keeps us from fully expressing ourselves. Thanks Caitlin for bringing us the unvarnished truth!
Americans on the whole don't travel unless it is in Coach Tours. Check into the best Hotels/herded to the best/awful restaurant/don't talk to the locals. Take 'selfies' showing how brave you were to travel to another country.
I have lived in Sri Lanka and now France......abysmal US Tourists.
We as individuals, as a society, as a culture, as a race of beings have been intentionally misinformed and mislead. We have been presented with a mirage that we have believed in and have run after.
This mirage can be summed up as ‘Western Civilization', beginning around a thousand years ago, although it's roots as a concept and philosophy go back even farther than that.
We have gone down the wrong road and the only thing that will save us from the natural consequences of our mistaken beliefs and ideas is for us to ‘turn around' and head back towards where we once belonged.
Even when we begin to see through the delusion that has been foisted on us, we have to realize how deeply the roots of this deception actually go.
We may recognize it and repudiate it with our conscious mind but it's influence reaches deeply into our subconscious and unconscious mind as well where it is difficult, if not entirely impossible for us to get at it on our own.
The limits of psychoanalysis are obvious. Whereas it's ability to shine a dim light on these depths are understood, it's ability to purify, illumine and actually heal what is lurking in these same depths are questionable at best.
The word, ‘repent’ means quite literally to ‘turn around' from the direction we are going in.
And the ‘Noetic Prayer of the mind in the heart’ is a method of contact and communication with the Creator of the Universe, who sees and has the ability to help us to uncover and change what is so deeply hidden within ourselves.
These two combined with the reception of the Sacraments provided for us in the Orthodox Church, which are the most powerful ‘Spiritual Medicine’ known to Man, work together synergistically as a course of therapy that has the ability to restore us entirely to our Original Blessed State and to raise us up from there into the gods we were meant to become from before the beginning of time.
You might have been 'intentionally misinformed' BUT while you ruled the world and could go shopping/not bother about politics/not vote you became complicit.
Oh, I agree! The word, 'complicity' comes from the same root as the word, 'accomplice' and we are all accomplices to the crimes that have been committed in our names, whether we agreed to them or not. We allowed for them to happen by our general lack of awareness of what was being done by our rulers.
Thus, the necessity of true repentance once we do wake up and find out, a true 'turning around' and heading in the other direction!
I am not sure if you can avoid a Civil War which fills me with horror because you all have so many guns.
The rich are NOT going to back down...they have had it too easy. The mainstream press are complicit.
I don't know what the end result will be but I hope the American people will 'wake up' and learn something.
The British never did and the follow the US like sheep.
My parents were part of the British Empire. IF my father was still alive and he could see the devastation in Britain he may have woken up BUT I doubt it. The British thought they could do without Europe....ha!
The direction that the world is headed in at the moment is towards a brick wall and it is unlikely that enough people are going to turn around in time to avoid the fate that they have created for themselves.
More than likely, it is only at the expense of the drastic reprecussions involved in the crash that a few people may come to their senses.
The thing that we have to realize is that the misdirection that we are suffering from goes much deeper than any sort of political/social/economic factors. Those elements are just the 'tip of the iceberg' and in fact, merely outer symptoms of a more serious disease.
It is the very nature of reality itself and the limits of our potential as Human Beings that we have been consistently mislead about.
Our entire worldview has been misrepresented to such an extent that we have lost touch almost entirely with what our real capabilities are.
What we need is a change of consciousness altogether and that is something that each of us can have, at any time, if we so desire...
We as individuals, and certain individuals of a like mind together, may be able to mitigate some of the worst concequences of the unavoidable difficulties ahead and some may be able to transcend them altogether, but this will demand the conscious and intentional practice of a genuine Spiritual Life.
I’ve always say we took a wrong turning when we stood on hind legs, and until humanity has it’s light bulb moment, we are drawn inevitably down the path of Nihilism
The direction that the world is headed in at the moment is towards a brick wall and it is unlikely that enough people are going to turn around in time to avoid the fate that they have created for themselves.
More than likely, it is only at the expense of the drastic reprecussions involved in the crash that a few people may come to their senses.
The thing that we have to realize is that the misdirection that we are suffering from goes much deeper than any sort of political/social/economic factors. Those elements are just the 'tip of the iceberg' and in fact, merely outer symptoms of a more serious disease.
It is the very nature of reality itself and the limits of our potential as Human Beings that we have been consistently mislead about.
Our entire worldview has been misrepresented to such an extent that we have lost touch almost entirely with what our real capabilities are.
If you have ever seen the movie, 'The Matrix', it provides a fairly good analogy of the 'prison for our mind' that I am describing here.
What we need is a change of consciousness altogether and that is something that each of us can have, at any time, if we so desire...
We as individuals, and certain individuals of a like mind together, may be able to mitigate some of the worst concequences of the unavoidable difficulties ahead and some may be able to transcend them altogether, but this will demand the conscious and intentional practice of a genuine Spiritual Life.
The expense of offense over defense in war is often cited as 3 to 1. Inevitably the US/western aggressive, offensive posture will bankrupt us, morally and financially, a case can be made it already has!
Spot on, thanks. Regarding #4, it's interesting that Rep lobbyists like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove are freaking out about Kevin McCarthy's defenestration. Gaetz's bid to assert more power for the rank and file members, and therefore voters, obviously threatens the center of power and status quo.
That there's a war waged by a conspiracy of Jews on the oil and motor industries as well as on animal farmers livelihoods who should be allowed to pollute and destroy the environment and treat sentient beings as commodities, with no regulations at all, even if their products, such as dairy, are over produced, no longer wanted domestically, poured into the ground or sold to China (possibly not for much longer).
number 12
That this is far more worrying than the growing open acceptance of anti-semitic fascists in Western govenments.
11. Our vote counts.
If voting could change anything, it would have been forbidden a long time ago.
12. Only competition and greed is what can drive a healthy civilization, instead of cooperation and fairness.
13. Safe and effective.
😂😂😂🤣💥💨💩 Oh Lord! You made me have to shower!
You need to read Caitlin's post titled "Voters are like Babies Driving with Toy Steering Wheels".
Bask in Caitie's brilliance.
If we don't hold "the vote" as important, where does that leave us? Perhaps, Caitlin has forgotten. It was the "vote" that allowed women to own property,Blacks to sit anywhere in the bus and restaurant, all adults to legally buy medicinal marijuana, wildlife to be protected etc. The vote is a civic power - exercised or not. Flippancy about the vote functions as collusion with Big Money interests. Not pairing the vote with organized, sustained, civic action for the interests of the public good is the junction where civic empowerment or disempowerment is determined.Where the vote functions as it is intended in a democratic structure.
Selina, the voting system is rigged by the Oligarchs who own the politicians. There is such a miniscule number of politicians not bowing to the lobbyists representing the Oligarchs.
Oh yes, sometimes votes make change but only rarely with such an overwhelming majority it can't be overcome by fraud. For the most part it's deadlocked because of manipulation of the media owned by the Oligarch Rulers and Mega Donors. They want us divided hence conquered. It keeps us off their throats. Their only fear is a united populace who realized it's been duped and are done being enslaved.
VOTE 3rd party.
They they they. They’re to blame for my inaction.
The most effective prison is the type of prison Jeano doesn't even know Jeano is in. Or as Chomsky succinctly put it "manufacturing consent". Or as Caitlin writes in almost every other essay she posts here - the mass propaganda applied to the general populace 24/7 - which Jeano seems to think is so easily avoidable.
😂 I'm a man of action, then there's everybody else. It's the deed that counts.
Indeed. 🤪
IF you consider your vote important?
1) Who are you voting for? b) Dems. owned by big money. c)Repubs.owned by big money.
The only vote that really counts is for a 3rd party candidate who is NOT owned by big money.
Voting outside the duopoly makes the oligarchs super angry. I'm all for it! Vote alternative parties (third parties)!!
This is meant for Selina. You are brilliant! And so right. The latest nihilism among the Left about voting is just so ignorant. Since Nixon was taken to the woodshed, the ultra Right has been trying to get people to forsake voting. They identified it in PNAC that if the Left continued to vote, the Republicans would never win another election. So they set out to persuade people not to vote and have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They didn’t have to outlaw voting, they just empowered the Bernie Bros to convince people not to vote. Yikes.
I am sick and tired of saying this: There is NO 'left' in the US!
You have been brainwashed.
Bernie Bros - wow, we still have shitlibs like Jeano using that epitaph.
And she also says everybody is so propagandized that they are not responsible for their lazy non participation in their own civic lives. That’s not brilliance. She’s a good writer and a very good artist but not always the thinker that I would bow down to as you do.
Maybe, but she opened my eyes and changed me for the better. It was painful to see the error of my ways. I was introduced to Caitlin when she wrote her guest article on the fabiusmaximus.com website. That article was about the Narrative Matrix.
This was over a decade ago when I was a Neocon Dupe.
I’m glad. And yes, I do think she reaches a certain crowd of people that I could never reach and brings them into the light. And I applaud her for that. But it’s important not to stay in the kind of thinking that simply criticizes and proposes no ideas for moving forward. Just mocking and advocating a boycott of one way of having revolution is not brilliant—it’s sad. However, I do think the tone of this site will change radically in the next 6 to 9 months so here’s lookin at you kid.
Dear Jeano.
The US is a 'brainwashed society.' Probably before Reagan.
All Americans don't even know 'left' from 'right!'
Who is 'left' in your opinion?
You totally missed the point Jenny. It doesn’t matter who is left or right, what matters is your participation in what ever crowd meets with your approval. If none does, then start a new crowd. But Do something! Just voting every 2 to 4 years and bitching online the rest of the time is for fools.
Our sustained organized efforts count more. Then, the vote is the icing on the cake.
Agreed. So great to see workers following Christian Smalls heroic organizing against Amazon. But lately I’ve been seeing the Know-it-all critics of the Comment Class taking to their computers to criticize the UAW for not doing their strike in the right way—ie how the Know It All commenters think it SHOULD be done—from the comfort of their living rooms. And when the UAW wins, they’ll say it wasn’t enough while they continue to do nothing to help. Sigh. Guess it’s up to us smart ones.
If we didn't have mail in voting, I might believe that. At least in some cases. But if the rulers think we might elect someone to challenge them, they will try to put him in jail or murder him like they did with the Kennedys.
No it doesn't.
Yes it does.
Well said. We live in an upside down world. The terrorists are lauded as heroes and we are told that the peace loving freedom fighters are dangerous conspiracy theorists. John Lennon would now be called a domestic terrorist!
Never fear. You can get used to it. Or else.
That eating either Borscht or Wonton soup is a deeply unpatriotic act punishable under the Espionage Act.
Get yer freedom fries...
Not healthy. Boiled potatoes sauteed in olive oil is much better.
Ooooh, a little sauteed kale on top....we are making me hungry.
Mike, it's exactly what I do!😂 I fry the taters in the Olive Oil with a bit of garlic. Then I throw in the Kale and saute it mixing in the garlic. I serve it with baked Salmon or Chicken.
STOP ALREADY, IM STARVING!
😂😂😂😂😂
I love foreign cuisine. The Chinese, Vietnamese and Koreans make delicious healthy soups. Same for Eastern Europe.
Tonight I'm making an Italian Tomato Bake with Crusty Bread.
My vegan diet is Dr. ordered to fight my cancer. I won!!!
Bravo. Don't neglect pasta faggioli, or lentil soup, two of my favorites. I dropped my cholesterol 30 points solely with diet after I told some fool MD to shove his statins. Double bravo to your doc for his dietary rec.
Oh yes. I love "Poor Man's Linguine or Spaghetti" with olive oil and garlic. I like to toss in some Anchovies.
Do you post your recipes anywhere?
(Congratulations on your restored health.)
No. I get them from the net. Substack has hundreds of chefs and dieticians posting recipes.
🤣😂🤣😂 I make a damn good pot of Borsht and bought the ingredients last evening.
Sounds like you nice Middies can afford to eat better than the people in the countries from which you’re adopting the recipes. And without a sense of irony.
Off you go to MacDonalds.
Yes! all of you 'off you go to MacDonalds'. Stop Americanising Caitlin's Newsletter. This is not a recipe sharing site.
Oh no! I'm an adult exception to that. I'm aware of those countries, cultures, the damage my country and motherland have done to them.
Only RED borscht!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JpPTqDnUiRg&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thv11.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE&feature=emb_title
6. That the only reason anyone could possibly be critical of the most dangerous impulses of the world’s most powerful and destructive government is if they are a secret agent working for the enemies of that government.
This one is my favorite. People who have known me for decades as a critic of U.S. foreign policies suddenly decided I had become Putin's mouthpiece. Or, alternatively, that I was parroting Tucker Carlson -- whose show I don't watch. I've even been warned that I risk losing my *standing in the community* for sounding like I might be parroting Tucker Carlson.
Lisa. I will support you wherever you are from another who has been castigated/comments taken down from WAPO
I am Putin's mothpiece according to WAPO comments.!!!!
This is the USA
Thanks, Jenny. You can find me here: https://went2thebridge.substack.com
Not surprised you've written this in bold! Well done to the Caitlin Johnson entity for an excellent summary!
*Johnstone*
I often wonder why writers overseas (Caitlin) can go straight to the truth while at home in the US we keep dancing around it. Must be the pressures of Mob-think that keeps us from fully expressing ourselves. Thanks Caitlin for bringing us the unvarnished truth!
Bigger perspective.
Americans on the whole don't travel unless it is in Coach Tours. Check into the best Hotels/herded to the best/awful restaurant/don't talk to the locals. Take 'selfies' showing how brave you were to travel to another country.
I have lived in Sri Lanka and now France......abysmal US Tourists.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain...
https://youtu.be/YWyCCJ6B2WE?feature=shared
It's too bad that the 'man behind the curtain' that we have to deal with is not as bumbling and good intentioned as the Wizard of Oz!
We as individuals, as a society, as a culture, as a race of beings have been intentionally misinformed and mislead. We have been presented with a mirage that we have believed in and have run after.
This mirage can be summed up as ‘Western Civilization', beginning around a thousand years ago, although it's roots as a concept and philosophy go back even farther than that.
We have gone down the wrong road and the only thing that will save us from the natural consequences of our mistaken beliefs and ideas is for us to ‘turn around' and head back towards where we once belonged.
Even when we begin to see through the delusion that has been foisted on us, we have to realize how deeply the roots of this deception actually go.
We may recognize it and repudiate it with our conscious mind but it's influence reaches deeply into our subconscious and unconscious mind as well where it is difficult, if not entirely impossible for us to get at it on our own.
The limits of psychoanalysis are obvious. Whereas it's ability to shine a dim light on these depths are understood, it's ability to purify, illumine and actually heal what is lurking in these same depths are questionable at best.
The word, ‘repent’ means quite literally to ‘turn around' from the direction we are going in.
And the ‘Noetic Prayer of the mind in the heart’ is a method of contact and communication with the Creator of the Universe, who sees and has the ability to help us to uncover and change what is so deeply hidden within ourselves.
These two combined with the reception of the Sacraments provided for us in the Orthodox Church, which are the most powerful ‘Spiritual Medicine’ known to Man, work together synergistically as a course of therapy that has the ability to restore us entirely to our Original Blessed State and to raise us up from there into the gods we were meant to become from before the beginning of time.
youtu.be/IKJqecxswCA
You might have been 'intentionally misinformed' BUT while you ruled the world and could go shopping/not bother about politics/not vote you became complicit.
Every one of you are complicit.
NO excuses.
Oh, I agree! The word, 'complicity' comes from the same root as the word, 'accomplice' and we are all accomplices to the crimes that have been committed in our names, whether we agreed to them or not. We allowed for them to happen by our general lack of awareness of what was being done by our rulers.
Thus, the necessity of true repentance once we do wake up and find out, a true 'turning around' and heading in the other direction!
Hello Steven.
I am not sure if you can avoid a Civil War which fills me with horror because you all have so many guns.
The rich are NOT going to back down...they have had it too easy. The mainstream press are complicit.
I don't know what the end result will be but I hope the American people will 'wake up' and learn something.
The British never did and the follow the US like sheep.
My parents were part of the British Empire. IF my father was still alive and he could see the devastation in Britain he may have woken up BUT I doubt it. The British thought they could do without Europe....ha!
Be safe.
Jenny
Dear Jenny,
The direction that the world is headed in at the moment is towards a brick wall and it is unlikely that enough people are going to turn around in time to avoid the fate that they have created for themselves.
More than likely, it is only at the expense of the drastic reprecussions involved in the crash that a few people may come to their senses.
The thing that we have to realize is that the misdirection that we are suffering from goes much deeper than any sort of political/social/economic factors. Those elements are just the 'tip of the iceberg' and in fact, merely outer symptoms of a more serious disease.
It is the very nature of reality itself and the limits of our potential as Human Beings that we have been consistently mislead about.
Our entire worldview has been misrepresented to such an extent that we have lost touch almost entirely with what our real capabilities are.
What we need is a change of consciousness altogether and that is something that each of us can have, at any time, if we so desire...
We as individuals, and certain individuals of a like mind together, may be able to mitigate some of the worst concequences of the unavoidable difficulties ahead and some may be able to transcend them altogether, but this will demand the conscious and intentional practice of a genuine Spiritual Life.
I’ve always say we took a wrong turning when we stood on hind legs, and until humanity has it’s light bulb moment, we are drawn inevitably down the path of Nihilism
Good analysis, but now what?
Jeano,
The direction that the world is headed in at the moment is towards a brick wall and it is unlikely that enough people are going to turn around in time to avoid the fate that they have created for themselves.
More than likely, it is only at the expense of the drastic reprecussions involved in the crash that a few people may come to their senses.
The thing that we have to realize is that the misdirection that we are suffering from goes much deeper than any sort of political/social/economic factors. Those elements are just the 'tip of the iceberg' and in fact, merely outer symptoms of a more serious disease.
It is the very nature of reality itself and the limits of our potential as Human Beings that we have been consistently mislead about.
Our entire worldview has been misrepresented to such an extent that we have lost touch almost entirely with what our real capabilities are.
If you have ever seen the movie, 'The Matrix', it provides a fairly good analogy of the 'prison for our mind' that I am describing here.
What we need is a change of consciousness altogether and that is something that each of us can have, at any time, if we so desire...
We as individuals, and certain individuals of a like mind together, may be able to mitigate some of the worst concequences of the unavoidable difficulties ahead and some may be able to transcend them altogether, but this will demand the conscious and intentional practice of a genuine Spiritual Life.
Spot on! Thank you.
Yes indeed, the domestic enemies of the US Constitution and the rule of law are far more virulent than the foreign enemies of the rule of law.
In regard to dumb things #1, I'm waiting for Russia and China to say 'the poor bastards have us surrounded!'
The expense of offense over defense in war is often cited as 3 to 1. Inevitably the US/western aggressive, offensive posture will bankrupt us, morally and financially, a case can be made it already has!
Spot on, thanks. Regarding #4, it's interesting that Rep lobbyists like Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove are freaking out about Kevin McCarthy's defenestration. Gaetz's bid to assert more power for the rank and file members, and therefore voters, obviously threatens the center of power and status quo.
Outstanding list. Sounds like many people care not a whit for others, but love money and power.
Pretty much nailed it! What to do about it?
Now we just need Bush Jr. reading them to a laugh track and...
Bah-dum-bump
9a. That disinformation is only disinformation when you don’t agree with the narrative managers.
number 11
That there's a war waged by a conspiracy of Jews on the oil and motor industries as well as on animal farmers livelihoods who should be allowed to pollute and destroy the environment and treat sentient beings as commodities, with no regulations at all, even if their products, such as dairy, are over produced, no longer wanted domestically, poured into the ground or sold to China (possibly not for much longer).
number 12
That this is far more worrying than the growing open acceptance of anti-semitic fascists in Western govenments.