I do my bit every day, though yelled at, told I've lost it, asked what happened to me since I used to be so smart, mainly told I'm under Russian propaganda, am told why don't I move to Russia or China or Cuba or Venezuela, or.....if I hate America and Israel so much. I plug away anyway and am tired sometimes. My greatest help are people like Caitlin and Tim...you know the others. They give me stamina and courage. Thank you. Rob
Thank you both for your wonderful writing and thoughts. Now in my late seventies and with 10 grandchldren I still appreciate the beauty of this world. I realised 60 years years ago that we were being lied to. I have found "joy" in fighting authoritarians all my life and following the golden rule. Evolution is an on-going process so I am sure the time of empire and corrupt capitalism will cannibalise itself. I might not be here to see it. However, I am sure one of my off-spring will. That is reason for optimism.
Caitlin and Tim, your words never ever fail to inspire and empassion me! I drop everything when i see an email from you. Three nights ago, your inspiration was in my heart as I was arrested for trespassing at an Elbit Systems arms manufacturing plant in SC then sat in jail feeling privileged that unlike Palestinians captured by the zionist entity, I would eventually be charged and tried without a tortured confession. This action needs media inertia. If you feel called, please message me.
Thank you for keeping up the good fight. They took the wrong person as a prisoner. I've seen the same here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Those who stand against genocide are criminalised, those who stand against the armaments for genocide are arrested or pepper sprayed or hammered. But the warriors against the real crimes are heroes.
Intolerance of criticism is a hallmark of falsehood. Healthy organizations, movements, governments should welcome criticism as an opportunity to learn and grow. Illegitimate governments, regardless of their stripe, are repressive and cannot tolerate dissent because it exposes their carefully constructed facade.
Next time you see oppression, know that it is to cover the rot.
we can try to wake people up. we can talk about all the injustices. But we need to be prepared to be told that we are doomsayers, that we are interfering, that we are antisemites, that we are obsessed with Gaza (or whatever), that we create the problems ourselves just by thinking about them. And then we can look at the squirrels or our dogs or our cats or the birds flying by our windows and know that there is beauty and peace out there. And be thankful for that.
Nice, Caitlin...however, at 81 yo and burned out to the point of desperation and resignation (Ukraine, the MidEast [Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran...], SKorea, Taiwan-China, Panama, Greenland, the absolute chaotic/violent mess that is the US domestic scene, the advent of Trump and his chumps...), I feel that I'm past the time of "learning to relish each moment of life on this amazing blue planet and to suck in its air like a passionate lover." I pray that many others can and will take up the cudgel in a determined spirit of global "liberte, egalite, fraternite"....
Beat you by 10, Robert at 91. I do understand your comment.
My slight disagreement with your comment is based on my advocacy for Palestine which started with the USS Liberty in 1967 (and all that has meant to create the resulting Israel arrogance and total US subservience), which has been a long journey of some 57 years.
I would like to take it to its end (read 'my end') otherwise it would seem to have been a long journey (and lots of effort) for nothing
A perfect in-solidarity comment, sir, and best regards in return! Thank you...The Liberty massacre (6-08-'67) remains one of my prime heartaches anent Colonial Zionist Israel's -- yes, arrogant -- entanglement/takeover of the USA in its demonic genocidal agenda of ridding Palestine of Palestinians...and its expansion into the "Greater Israel" that is taking place before our eyes. We are all Palestinians now....
[I learned about Palestine and became a lifetime supporter of its people's rights and aspirations in 1964, and so your "...a long journey (and lots of effort) for nothing" resonates deeply and painfully....]
I'll be 80 this month, and learned about what Israel was doing when I was 14, so that was 66 years ago, back in the late 1950's when such information was hard to come by. I have never given up on trying to right the wrongs in human society, and have learned to find solace in the wild creatures wherever I can. I am completely convinced that, for me, and I hope those who also see and care, is an unswaverable path. To quote the late Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, "Keep the Faith, baby!"
For those who may not see whatI believe to be the start of the world's problems (other than all the American wars starting with Korea), that is the USS Liberty lies and criminal acts by Israel, may I suggest a search on the web for an interview by Candace with a survivor of the USS Liberty. Very recent, very illuminating very frightening to know what a Zionist President can do to his own country, now too far advanced to stop with 86% 0f politicians in the grip of the genocidsts.
I am sure that you and so many others have seen this crime by Johnson as the beginning of the creation of Israel, the most hated state in the history of the world.
I watched with rapt attention that interview by Candace Owens of Phil Tourney about 10 days ago. If anyone can -- at long last -- blow the lid off Colonial Zionist malevolence and tyranny, it should be CO and the audience (conservative, I took it) she represents.
Note: I appeared as a live radio guest on Phil Tourney's program (he in Seattle, I in Honolulu), somehow linking via telephone to his area's radio broadcasting. I'd guess that was 2015, maybe even as far back as 2007, the 50th marking of the Liberty's 1967 terrorization and wholesale slaughter by the CZ vermin. I also was co-producer on Honolulu's public-access TV system, about 6 years -- 2005-2011 -- of weekly pro-Palestine fare including the Liberty, "good" Israelis such as Dr. Jeff Halper, Shir Hever; also UK's Anthony Lawson, Australia's wonderful Antony Loewenstein, Palestine's Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh, and much more including John Pilger's circa 2002 51-minute video-documentary "Palestine is Still the Issue"...and indeed, Palestine is STILL THE ISSUE in this 2025.... (My personal revolted takeaway from "Palestine is Still..." was the footage of a Palestinian children's classroom where Ziogoons had--I think in that 2002 as part of the Second Intifada--smeared their feces on the walls. Worse, far worse than beasts....)
I am reading "I want a better catastrophe" about the inevitability of the coming climate disaster. Oddly it is very helpful for dealing with these feelings of despair.
I agree. Well said. It has occurred to me recently that Washington State is a prime candidate for fighting for and getting free healthcare, M4All, for everyone in the state. We have liberals on the West coast and conservatives in the East. They are all struggling with medical and dental bills. Healthcare as a Left vs Right issue is a myth. We all need it, except the wealthy. In Canada, healthcare started in a single province. The US Congress in entirely corrupt. The wealthy own it, and, coincidentally, they also own the healthcare system. But they don’t entirely own the WA State legislature. This, in my opinion, is doable. It would also be a great opening for fighting for democracy, which is also not a Right vs Left issue.
I’m definitely suggesting it’s time to abandon the Left vs Right identifier. It’s being used to weaken and manipulate both constituencies. Being Progressive should be about strengthening, creating, a real democracy that is responsive to the actual human beings living in a particular place. This will require taxing rich parasites out of existence, in my opinion.
i see the point, but advise not to forget the history (in the us among others) of what used to be 'left vs right' (there's lots of things to learn from).
Since the Iraq War I’ve come to truly recognize the use of propaganda within the USA to support incredible abuse, murder, torture, cultural destruction, with an underlying and merciless racism. This was done by my country with complete impunity. Historically these horrors were also done in the 1800’s in the Philippines, Cuba, Mexico. And have continued nonstop up to the present, now in the Middle East. That same propaganda apparatus has been used to define the USA as a fount of fairness and democracy. We are exceptional! Yet We, the People, have an extraordinary Labor History! Of Communists, Socialists, and a few Anarchists, fighting the Pinkertons (and their death squads), and occasionally the National Guard. Labor fought, won, and eventually lost. Cuz capital rules over all. The lesson learned? Half measures don’t work. Labor and the Poor must crush the wealthy. Once and for all. We must break their power. Real democracy has become a survival necessity. The Climate Crisis alone requires, demands, real democracy.
The problem I nearly always arrive at is: How do you open the eyes of someone who is willfully blind? Facts and even pictures sure as fuck don't get through to them.
As others here have said, you inevitably get screamed at for being an agent of whoever the enemy du jour might be.
You must tell them stories. Story is more powerful than data. If the story is indirect, and a good story, they they take it in before they realize it is a lesson, and they learn the lesson will they nil they.
Unfortunately, they've heard stories. From a very early age: from school, from the footy club change room, from the pub with their mates and from Murdoch, the rest of the MSM and Hollywood.
They are deeply inculcated in the narrative and the Hidden Persuaders have a 70 year head start. I think it would take the skills and experience of those people who extract cult victims, which I don't possess.
"None so blind as them who will not see." How does one extract another from a cult? That is really the task we are facing. Indoctrination so deep that it may be the darkness, for some, is impenetrable.
But, many are here with us now, who were not, and would not have been, even two years ago. They have seen the truth of what is going on, acknowledged it, and have taken a stand against the slaughter. And there will continue to be others.
Indeed Joy, how do you get through to these cultists. Even with a diploma as a professional counselor, I have been unable to penetrate the indoctrination of even one person.
Yes some have been woken ( possibly why 'Woke' has become a term of abuse ) and more will likely be, but will it be in time?
Like Hedges, Sachs and Mearsheimer et al, I don't think we have much time left. At the age of 73, my optimism fizzled out some years ago.
Caitlin's is not an invitation or even just a stimulus. It is a propulsive, indispensable exhortation that leverages the logic and necessity of the large majority. If it is true that information is power, then, to overthrow a dominant power that controls information by making propaganda and telling lies, people must be informed about the real facts, without ever forgetting that "Subaltern groups always suffer the initiative of dominant groups, even when they rebel and rise up: only "permanent" victory breaks, and not immediately, subordination" (Antonio Gramsci).
I realize that there are some businessmen who feel only they want to be left alone, that government and politics are none of their affairs, that the balance sheet and profit rate of their own corporation are of more importance than the worldwide balance of power or the nationwide rate of unemployment. But I hope it is not rushing the season to recall to you the passage from Dickens' "Christmas Carol" in which Ebenezer Scrooge is terrified by the ghosts of his former partner, Jacob Marley, and Scrooge, appalled by Marley's story of ceaseless wandering, cries out, "But you were always a good man of business, Jacob." And the ghost of Marley, his legs bound by a chain of ledger books and cash boxes, replied, "Business? Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
Caitlin has gone full guru with this one. The “on the bus” metaphor worked well for the Merry Pranksters in the 60’s - let’s face it, no one likes to miss a bus eh?
Let’s just bear in mind other forms of transport are available.
So are you at protests? Are you getting arrested? Are you getting a police record that jeopardizes your job? Your Palestine flag in your apartment window gets you an eviction ? A pro palestime bumper sticker gets you pulled over? If you spend time in jail your govt checks are suspended ! You are pulled from the plane on your way out of country to attend peace conference and interrogated for hours and loose all the money you spent for hotel, plane fare, train tickets, lost your booked time off work.. Your phone + info is taken !
Those who call for revolution better be in the frontlines.!
Made me smile! I’ve been revolting for a long time and will continue as long as I live. My country’s actions are totally immoral and unacceptable to any good human being. Imua!
Caitlin and Tim, your words never, ever fail to inspire and empassion me to live fully and take action. I drop everything when I see an email from you.
Three nights ago, that inspiration pulsed through my heart as I was arrested for trespassing at an Elbit Systems arms manufacturing plant. Sitting in jail, I felt privileged that, unlike Palestinians subject to the zionist entity, I would eventually be charged and tried without a confession extracted via torture.
The action still needs media inertia. If you feel called, please reach out to me.
I do my bit every day, though yelled at, told I've lost it, asked what happened to me since I used to be so smart, mainly told I'm under Russian propaganda, am told why don't I move to Russia or China or Cuba or Venezuela, or.....if I hate America and Israel so much. I plug away anyway and am tired sometimes. My greatest help are people like Caitlin and Tim...you know the others. They give me stamina and courage. Thank you. Rob
Don’t you love the pots calling the kettle black?
Hi Caitlin,
Your article brings to mind one of my favorite quotes:
"The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so."
--- Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Hello Caitlin and Tim,
Thank you both for your wonderful writing and thoughts. Now in my late seventies and with 10 grandchldren I still appreciate the beauty of this world. I realised 60 years years ago that we were being lied to. I have found "joy" in fighting authoritarians all my life and following the golden rule. Evolution is an on-going process so I am sure the time of empire and corrupt capitalism will cannibalise itself. I might not be here to see it. However, I am sure one of my off-spring will. That is reason for optimism.
Good on you. I feel the same, we must act - action, speaking, and passing the baton to those who see us as role models. Giving up makes them give up.
Caitlin and Tim, your words never ever fail to inspire and empassion me! I drop everything when i see an email from you. Three nights ago, your inspiration was in my heart as I was arrested for trespassing at an Elbit Systems arms manufacturing plant in SC then sat in jail feeling privileged that unlike Palestinians captured by the zionist entity, I would eventually be charged and tried without a tortured confession. This action needs media inertia. If you feel called, please message me.
Thank you for keeping up the good fight. They took the wrong person as a prisoner. I've seen the same here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Those who stand against genocide are criminalised, those who stand against the armaments for genocide are arrested or pepper sprayed or hammered. But the warriors against the real crimes are heroes.
I read about that! Congratulations! So few act responsibly these days.
Intolerance of criticism is a hallmark of falsehood. Healthy organizations, movements, governments should welcome criticism as an opportunity to learn and grow. Illegitimate governments, regardless of their stripe, are repressive and cannot tolerate dissent because it exposes their carefully constructed facade.
Next time you see oppression, know that it is to cover the rot.
Respect✊🏼
I love and needed this so much. Thank you.
we can try to wake people up. we can talk about all the injustices. But we need to be prepared to be told that we are doomsayers, that we are interfering, that we are antisemites, that we are obsessed with Gaza (or whatever), that we create the problems ourselves just by thinking about them. And then we can look at the squirrels or our dogs or our cats or the birds flying by our windows and know that there is beauty and peace out there. And be thankful for that.
Imagine what they'd have called you if you lived in Mississippi in 1840 and went around saying the slaves should be freed.
Nice, Caitlin...however, at 81 yo and burned out to the point of desperation and resignation (Ukraine, the MidEast [Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Iran...], SKorea, Taiwan-China, Panama, Greenland, the absolute chaotic/violent mess that is the US domestic scene, the advent of Trump and his chumps...), I feel that I'm past the time of "learning to relish each moment of life on this amazing blue planet and to suck in its air like a passionate lover." I pray that many others can and will take up the cudgel in a determined spirit of global "liberte, egalite, fraternite"....
Beat you by 10, Robert at 91. I do understand your comment.
My slight disagreement with your comment is based on my advocacy for Palestine which started with the USS Liberty in 1967 (and all that has meant to create the resulting Israel arrogance and total US subservience), which has been a long journey of some 57 years.
I would like to take it to its end (read 'my end') otherwise it would seem to have been a long journey (and lots of effort) for nothing
Best regards to you.
A perfect in-solidarity comment, sir, and best regards in return! Thank you...The Liberty massacre (6-08-'67) remains one of my prime heartaches anent Colonial Zionist Israel's -- yes, arrogant -- entanglement/takeover of the USA in its demonic genocidal agenda of ridding Palestine of Palestinians...and its expansion into the "Greater Israel" that is taking place before our eyes. We are all Palestinians now....
[I learned about Palestine and became a lifetime supporter of its people's rights and aspirations in 1964, and so your "...a long journey (and lots of effort) for nothing" resonates deeply and painfully....]
I'll be 80 this month, and learned about what Israel was doing when I was 14, so that was 66 years ago, back in the late 1950's when such information was hard to come by. I have never given up on trying to right the wrongs in human society, and have learned to find solace in the wild creatures wherever I can. I am completely convinced that, for me, and I hope those who also see and care, is an unswaverable path. To quote the late Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, "Keep the Faith, baby!"
Thank you. Your frequent postings in Caitlin's space are testament to your "never [having] given up on trying to right the wrongs in human society."
For those who may not see whatI believe to be the start of the world's problems (other than all the American wars starting with Korea), that is the USS Liberty lies and criminal acts by Israel, may I suggest a search on the web for an interview by Candace with a survivor of the USS Liberty. Very recent, very illuminating very frightening to know what a Zionist President can do to his own country, now too far advanced to stop with 86% 0f politicians in the grip of the genocidsts.
I am sure that you and so many others have seen this crime by Johnson as the beginning of the creation of Israel, the most hated state in the history of the world.
Yes, including Japan and Germany in WWII
It is worth the effort to see the interview
I watched with rapt attention that interview by Candace Owens of Phil Tourney about 10 days ago. If anyone can -- at long last -- blow the lid off Colonial Zionist malevolence and tyranny, it should be CO and the audience (conservative, I took it) she represents.
Note: I appeared as a live radio guest on Phil Tourney's program (he in Seattle, I in Honolulu), somehow linking via telephone to his area's radio broadcasting. I'd guess that was 2015, maybe even as far back as 2007, the 50th marking of the Liberty's 1967 terrorization and wholesale slaughter by the CZ vermin. I also was co-producer on Honolulu's public-access TV system, about 6 years -- 2005-2011 -- of weekly pro-Palestine fare including the Liberty, "good" Israelis such as Dr. Jeff Halper, Shir Hever; also UK's Anthony Lawson, Australia's wonderful Antony Loewenstein, Palestine's Dr. Hatim Kanaaneh, and much more including John Pilger's circa 2002 51-minute video-documentary "Palestine is Still the Issue"...and indeed, Palestine is STILL THE ISSUE in this 2025.... (My personal revolted takeaway from "Palestine is Still..." was the footage of a Palestinian children's classroom where Ziogoons had--I think in that 2002 as part of the Second Intifada--smeared their feces on the walls. Worse, far worse than beasts....)
"It is not necessary to hope, to persevere."
We never get past the time to relish every moment of life that we have to live on this amazing blue planet. Keep relishing.
I am reading "I want a better catastrophe" about the inevitability of the coming climate disaster. Oddly it is very helpful for dealing with these feelings of despair.
I agree. Well said. It has occurred to me recently that Washington State is a prime candidate for fighting for and getting free healthcare, M4All, for everyone in the state. We have liberals on the West coast and conservatives in the East. They are all struggling with medical and dental bills. Healthcare as a Left vs Right issue is a myth. We all need it, except the wealthy. In Canada, healthcare started in a single province. The US Congress in entirely corrupt. The wealthy own it, and, coincidentally, they also own the healthcare system. But they don’t entirely own the WA State legislature. This, in my opinion, is doable. It would also be a great opening for fighting for democracy, which is also not a Right vs Left issue.
I’m definitely suggesting it’s time to abandon the Left vs Right identifier. It’s being used to weaken and manipulate both constituencies. Being Progressive should be about strengthening, creating, a real democracy that is responsive to the actual human beings living in a particular place. This will require taxing rich parasites out of existence, in my opinion.
i see the point, but advise not to forget the history (in the us among others) of what used to be 'left vs right' (there's lots of things to learn from).
Since the Iraq War I’ve come to truly recognize the use of propaganda within the USA to support incredible abuse, murder, torture, cultural destruction, with an underlying and merciless racism. This was done by my country with complete impunity. Historically these horrors were also done in the 1800’s in the Philippines, Cuba, Mexico. And have continued nonstop up to the present, now in the Middle East. That same propaganda apparatus has been used to define the USA as a fount of fairness and democracy. We are exceptional! Yet We, the People, have an extraordinary Labor History! Of Communists, Socialists, and a few Anarchists, fighting the Pinkertons (and their death squads), and occasionally the National Guard. Labor fought, won, and eventually lost. Cuz capital rules over all. The lesson learned? Half measures don’t work. Labor and the Poor must crush the wealthy. Once and for all. We must break their power. Real democracy has become a survival necessity. The Climate Crisis alone requires, demands, real democracy.
I like your optimism!
I don’t think of it as optimism. It’s what we need to do.
The problem I nearly always arrive at is: How do you open the eyes of someone who is willfully blind? Facts and even pictures sure as fuck don't get through to them.
As others here have said, you inevitably get screamed at for being an agent of whoever the enemy du jour might be.
No force on Earth or in Heaven can save a fool from himself.
I just hope some force can save us from him.
You must tell them stories. Story is more powerful than data. If the story is indirect, and a good story, they they take it in before they realize it is a lesson, and they learn the lesson will they nil they.
Unfortunately, they've heard stories. From a very early age: from school, from the footy club change room, from the pub with their mates and from Murdoch, the rest of the MSM and Hollywood.
They are deeply inculcated in the narrative and the Hidden Persuaders have a 70 year head start. I think it would take the skills and experience of those people who extract cult victims, which I don't possess.
"None so blind as them who will not see." How does one extract another from a cult? That is really the task we are facing. Indoctrination so deep that it may be the darkness, for some, is impenetrable.
But, many are here with us now, who were not, and would not have been, even two years ago. They have seen the truth of what is going on, acknowledged it, and have taken a stand against the slaughter. And there will continue to be others.
Indeed Joy, how do you get through to these cultists. Even with a diploma as a professional counselor, I have been unable to penetrate the indoctrination of even one person.
Yes some have been woken ( possibly why 'Woke' has become a term of abuse ) and more will likely be, but will it be in time?
Like Hedges, Sachs and Mearsheimer et al, I don't think we have much time left. At the age of 73, my optimism fizzled out some years ago.
Caitlin's is not an invitation or even just a stimulus. It is a propulsive, indispensable exhortation that leverages the logic and necessity of the large majority. If it is true that information is power, then, to overthrow a dominant power that controls information by making propaganda and telling lies, people must be informed about the real facts, without ever forgetting that "Subaltern groups always suffer the initiative of dominant groups, even when they rebel and rise up: only "permanent" victory breaks, and not immediately, subordination" (Antonio Gramsci).
I realize that there are some businessmen who feel only they want to be left alone, that government and politics are none of their affairs, that the balance sheet and profit rate of their own corporation are of more importance than the worldwide balance of power or the nationwide rate of unemployment. But I hope it is not rushing the season to recall to you the passage from Dickens' "Christmas Carol" in which Ebenezer Scrooge is terrified by the ghosts of his former partner, Jacob Marley, and Scrooge, appalled by Marley's story of ceaseless wandering, cries out, "But you were always a good man of business, Jacob." And the ghost of Marley, his legs bound by a chain of ledger books and cash boxes, replied, "Business? Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
-John F. Kennedy November 18, 1963
Agreed, Caitlin. We have to all start being participants and not just spectators of this crucial historic moment.
Caitlin has gone full guru with this one. The “on the bus” metaphor worked well for the Merry Pranksters in the 60’s - let’s face it, no one likes to miss a bus eh?
Let’s just bear in mind other forms of transport are available.
So are you at protests? Are you getting arrested? Are you getting a police record that jeopardizes your job? Your Palestine flag in your apartment window gets you an eviction ? A pro palestime bumper sticker gets you pulled over? If you spend time in jail your govt checks are suspended ! You are pulled from the plane on your way out of country to attend peace conference and interrogated for hours and loose all the money you spent for hotel, plane fare, train tickets, lost your booked time off work.. Your phone + info is taken !
Those who call for revolution better be in the frontlines.!
Made me smile! I’ve been revolting for a long time and will continue as long as I live. My country’s actions are totally immoral and unacceptable to any good human being. Imua!
Caitlin and Tim, your words never, ever fail to inspire and empassion me to live fully and take action. I drop everything when I see an email from you.
Three nights ago, that inspiration pulsed through my heart as I was arrested for trespassing at an Elbit Systems arms manufacturing plant. Sitting in jail, I felt privileged that, unlike Palestinians subject to the zionist entity, I would eventually be charged and tried without a confession extracted via torture.
The action still needs media inertia. If you feel called, please reach out to me.
In sumuud and solidarity. 🇵🇸