I highly recommend this interview in which Yanis Varoufakis points out that in the west under what he calls 'technofeudalism' we actually help the system to train us - every time we interact with facebook, google, amazon and the rest we are giving up information which tells the system what to present us with next, thereby keeping us in a little bubble, and also feeds into corporate and state governing and control giving them the ability to predict our behaviour, keep us in line, reduce their risk and increase their profit. It's a whole new paradigm of modern life. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/technofeudalism-what-killed-capitalism
I discovered that, apparently, we can train it. I got ChatGPT to agree to reformulate how it discusses Israel and Zionism when someone queries it on that topic:
"Got it! I’ll make sure to bring up Christian Zionism as a key factor whenever discussing Western support for Israel, and offer to go into more detail if it seems relevant. Thanks for helping me refine that approach!"
Maybe we should consider what training we might effectuate on some of the tools they use to train us.
But I think we may need a follow up, to see whether this is actually working. Can I nominate you to do that? All of you. See if the response has actually changed, and if not prompt it to do so. And, please let me know how it goes.
My gut impulse is to keep AI at arm's length, but I must say that your challenge is quite tempting; perhaps when my head clears of some of its other enslaved baggage (I freely admit to having more than my share).
Christians must think in supremacists fashion. We got Jesus, and all who don't believe in Jesus are INFERIORS. However, moneys infected Christianity, and invented Evangelical Zionist scums.
Particularly effective, given its exposure to very young brains, which are sponges for both liberating (i.e, multiple language learning) and incarcerating ideas.
It sets the basic template with its "all humans are evil, no one can trust themselves, the Truth is beyond human comprehension so ignore your senses and buy what we're selling."
Is there just one ChatGPT or other AI system? I have had the idea there were many and that they were multiplying (as one instance can be used to produce others). Remember that what you use, uses you. It's a relationship! This is why, as someone once observed, the slaves eventually inherit the plantation.
Do a search on the web to understand LLM AI Models (like ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta's LLAMA, and so many others). There are literally hundreds of LLM AI models (of varying sizes and quality and popularity and cost).
Joy, just because it gave you the answer it did DOES NOT MEAN that you (or anyone else) trained it any differently.
The way LLM works, what you see is the "output". That "output" DOES NOT automatically become the "input" for further refinement.
Also, the way LLM tokens work, they do not remember previous conversations for very long (unless the memory of the session is extended - which costs more compute power). (BTW, the DeepSeek R1 model (while quite small in comparison to others) utilizes 670 billion tokens itself, and training such AI models requires modifying the "reinforcement learning" parameters, and not conversations with it - i.e. conversing with LLM models is NOT how they are trained).
What you saw was a response that pleases you. NOTHING about ChatGPT has changed with your interaction with it.
i understood that the free ai chat bots do not learn anymore (at least for the public) once they're on line. originally these self learning machines tended to favor leftist povs, iirc, and were therefore put on a leash.
The learning is based on several different algorithms and variations of "reinforcement learning" and "optimization theory".
Part of the problem with such AI blackboxes (like LLM models) is that they learn on their own (based on the learning algorithms they are initially provided with). Hence you see sometimes "crazy output" from these LLMs. Hence the need for "human intervention" to correct "erroneous output". One of the problems with the "human intervention" part is that it introduces human/cultural/societal/political bias into the LLM model.
There is no workable fix (as yet), maybe in the future?
AI (currently) is WAY TOO MUCH "hype" (and fear). That's how it always is with these "techies" (of which I am one) and "investors/finance guys". Remember the "dot com" period? We are currently in an even larger bubble (IMHO), but I don't know when (not if) it will burst.
"Techies" are THE WORST people for opinions on the consequences of "different technologies" as their heads are so far up their ass (or in the clouds) that often they are in their own world (and unable to judge reality adequately).
I should know - I interact with them (and the industry) more than I would like. 😥
Oh, you guys renew my faith! Techies with "awareness." But I could never imagine not being chided and ridiculed about not even being on Facebook but still believing and mini-investing 78 year old coins in BTC. Strange combo. Really like your IMHOs......
The reason Mark Zuckerberg had success with Facebook from the beginning is because it was a wholly owned subsidiary of the CIA and Zuckerberg gleefully turned over Americans personal data and everything they post on Facebook to the CIA That's no bullshit.
America will never ever ever have peace until a new party takes control and eliminates the CIA.
And I very specifically mean the CIA.
But for the CIA we would not have had the War On Iraq, the War on Afghanistan and dozens of additional wars and military actions the CIA has conducted since 1948.
Zionist Jews control the CIA the same way they control the U.S. House, Senate and White House.
The sooner people realize that reality, the better off will be, because in order to solve a problem you must identify the problem.
American Zionist Jews are masters at denying Americans the right to identify them as radical violent Zionist Jews in the service of Israel and AIPAC cash.
I'm with Chris Leeds--I'm very suspicious of "Jews run the world " narratives. But does the CIA run the US government, and thereby much of the world? Sure looks like it. However, I question the "until a new party takes control and eliminates the CIA" notion. I think JFK was the first to realize that the CIA was a dangerous and destructive entity--he was supposed to have said "I'm going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces" and look where that got him. No president since has even tried--though with the possible exception of Carter they've all been sociopaths ready to go along with the power structure to enhance their own careers and portfolios. Unconcerned about moral questions. But any president and party that tried to take down the CIA would be unlikely to even survive, let alone prevail. It should have been obvious that a governmental entity allowed exemption from laws, and the ability to spy on what everyone else is doing (much more limited in the 50s and 60s and 70s than now but still)--while also having the right to hide what IT does from the public, who pay its bills--is a recipe for absolute power, for an extremely dangerous mafia.
I am currently reading the book "JFK and the Unspeakable", and it is all about the real reason JFK was killed. And it was the CIA warmongers who killed him because he wanted to get out of Vietnam. He had planned to do it if re-elected, but they got him first.
Mary, why don't you move to israel and get away from all this anti-semitic talk? I smell you and your love from Israel all the way from https://uo7.website
because I am extremely anti-Zionist and want nothing to do with that place ever. You need to learn the difference between Zionism, Judaism, and Jewish ethnicity, three different things.
Fuck you up your ass for telling me I don't know the difference between Zonist Jewss and real Jews......I was writing articles about this 25 years ago when you were flatbackin for Jesus. Fuck off.
I agree that the CIA is a highly suspect and dangerous organisation - don't agree that it is particularly linked with Zionism - at least no more than any other branch of US government
Respectfully, Chris, the CIA-Mossad links documented ad nauseam by Whitney Webb and supported by Grayzone journalism make it tough to downplay a tight link between the CIA and Zionism.
No doubt any large, serious political enterprise (faction) is aware of Zionism (since there seem to be a lot of fanatical Zionists who must be dealt with), but so it would also be involved with other important factions. Zionism has been unusually successful, but it is not the end of the story; there are other factions who may have different interests. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the US set of factions seems to be failing, for instance, some important classes or categories of the population are declining in lifespan and quality of life. Many of the general population experience this decline vividly and it has already had political consequences, for example the Trump phenomenon. The Zionist focus set can't take care of the population in general regardless of how clever their games are because it is too tight. The consequences will be disastrous -- for example, Gaza.
I don't think the CIA care about Zionism as such - achieving a homeland for Jewish people - they could care less about Jews or anyone else. The Zionists in Israel are just useful idiots for the US military strategy across the region. For the US, local politics - who owns or runs some country or region is of purely temporary interest. Groups - like anti Saddam Kurds, or anti Russian Afghans will be supported, even as their land is reduced to a battlefield, until they are no longer useful, or become a problem, or the geo-political scene changes. Then they are summarily dropped - as, I believe, the Zionists will eventually find out. The CIA hates everyone equally, including a good proportion of the American people.
Pursuant to your claim and comment I'm just being anti-semitic and don't know what I'm talking about - Fuck you up your ass bro.
I served as adviser to Cong. Dennis Kucinich for eight years and DEFINITELY KNOW what I'm talking about and where all the bodies are buried and who buried them. You can return to your Zionist fantasyworld now.
I will never forget something that Dennis Kucinich said at a rally in N.H. some time ago. A very Marxist looking group sitting in the front had a woman stand up and ask Dennis if he would continue to fund Israel for 20 Billion a year. His answer shocked me. He replied that yes, he would continue the funding. Why? Because, he said: "Israel holds the match, and 20 Billion is the price we pay for them to not light it."
If that isn't some kind of blackmail threat, I don't know what is. Zionism to me seems more of a covert British Empire project that is craftily using the Jews to do the dirty work until the conquest is complete. Then they will turn on the Jews. The US ceased to be free from the UK when it submitted to the Federal Reserve Board Banking system. People also should research Jacob Frank and Frankism. Frankists hate Judaism and the Israel of the Bible, but see Jews and Israel as a tool to reestablish the Roman Empire.
So sick of the canard that criticism of Israel is antisemitism. This is exactly the kind of limited thought that Caitlin is speaking of in this article. Jewish children (speaking from personal experience here) are indoctrinated from a young age to believe they will be exterminated again if they don't support Israel without question. They are trained to think every Palestinian and/or Arab is a terrorist, forgetting their own terrorist acts over the decades. This conditioning over decades creates the fierce support. What pains me is that there is zero accountability when evil deeds are being done. Yes, one can condemn Hamas, but also condemn the ethnic cleansing and previous treatment that has taken place. We are also not told that the top levels of Hamas are filled by Israeli Intelligence. This little tidbit was in a blurb in the Jerusalem Post around 2002. I cut it out because it was so shocking. What this says to me is that Hamas only strikes when Israel wants it for an excuse to act. The "terrorist" thing is getting old already....the deep state has overplayed its hand on this.
Do I hate Israel? I hate the Zionist pretend version, but love and believe in the Israel of God which is nothing like the current State. Calling it "Israel" does not make it so. The powers that be have really played with words in the past few centuries to destroy meaning. The Book of Deuteronomy clearly curses Israel when it behaves like it is currently doing...I wish the Zionists would be mindful of this. Modern Israel could be a blessing, but instead it chooses to embody the worst of their former Egyptian, Babylonian and Roman oppressors. It is anti-Israel in reality. Time to reclaim the word itself from those who are abusing it for evil purposes...food for thought.
The world needs healing. Victims can easily become the abuser if the trauma is not properly handled. We have seen this in the behavior of the Israelis and I also fear that we will see this behavior in Gazans and Palestinians if there is not serious dealing with the trauma that has been inflicted.
good to know that US Congresspersons have such high calibre advisers, able to muster really strong arguments and evidence to support their opinion - such as "Fuck you up your ass", or "YOU MAKE MY ASS ITCH", "why don't you move to israel", and who could forget "You're a fool you moron". However, I regret to say that even this intellectually challenging standard of debate is not winning me over. In fact I can't work out whether you want to sodomise me, bro, or you are itching for me to sodomise you.
Well said, Chris. You've very succinctly summed up Ron's undoubted debating skills. He is possessed of a truly awesome intellect. Or maybe I should have stopped at 'He is possessed'.
You're a fool you moron....AIPAC controls U.S. foreign policy with an iron fist and a fistful of dollars. You truly are clueless about DC politics and should refrain from making your dumbass empty comments in public.
Just a quick copy of 1 sentence = "The UK and Scottish Governments are using applied behavioural psychology, breaking the ethical guidelines for psychologists, to deliberately ramp up fear in the population."
the 'stupidity' video was ok, but I disagree completely with Scott's attack on anti Covid measures. Restrictions on travel and socialising were perfectly sensible - as was getting vaccinated - but the population would never have conformed without a degree of coercion. He says "A totalitarian medical technocracy is now being forced upon us. Let us be courageous, let us be brave. We have to do this for our children and grandchildren. If we do not, they will never forgive us and we will never be able to forgive ourselves." I think what the grandchildren would not forgive is rampant selfish behaviour that might have led to millions of casualties instead of thousands. Of course, you can always claim that it made no differences - but we will never know for certain, all we can ever do is make judgement calls based on best evidence.
so, the illness I got which showed positive to the flow test, and had all the symptoms of what Covid seemed to be, if it wasn't caused by a virus perhaps you could tell us what it was then? And around the same time many others got this highly infectious disease - if it wasn't 'transmittable', how did I catch it? Do you believe that other viruses do exist, just not Covid? I seem to recall the virus was successfully isolated, it's detailed structure studied, with pictures of it shown on TV, and it evidently was killed by antiviral vaccines, the mechanism of which was explained. I remember the head scientist at Cambridge lab which developed the vaccine gave a lecture on TV about the process and test results - do you think she made it all up? Now that would be denial.
Chris, I meant no offence; but yes OK; I will give it a go to explain.
Bit long winded maybe; starting with an important point, people assume is unrelated. 1. Fear and confusion are their greatest weapons and as this article states; the big pharma and government behavioural science teams (shrinks) do everything they can to strike these onto us... now relative to this point is 2. Healthy mind, healthy body etc.
3. Regards your sentence "I seem to recall the virus was successfully isolated, it's detailed structure studied, with pictures of it shown on TV" - err nope. The images shown everywhere of the "so called isolated virus" are all just computer generated models; assumptions by decent scientists of a made up load of tosh by paid lackeys. AND NO, no virus has ever been isolated, they pretend it is, by mixing a load of other stuff with the assumed virus and then call that isolated, whereas it is just the opposite. 4. Regards what "you had" it showing "positive to the flow test", there are so many papers and articles now stating that the PCR and lateral flow tests are utter nonsense and again us the misconception of an interpretation or even manipulation - IDENTICLE simple test kits are used to "prove", swine, avian and all other so called "viruses" - nonsense.
5. Now the big one - you state that you had an illness which showed positive to the flow test, and had all the symptoms of what Covid seemed to be" ... ah the good old symptoms of Covid hey ?.... SO WHAT ARE SYMPTOMS ?; well this is from the CDC site in the US = https://www.cdc.gov/covid/signs-symptoms/index.html
SO anything really; which could be caused again by anything.
6. Now strangely enough, we are told that the whole World seemed to get "Covid" in the months -well not quite. The Countries north and South and away from the equator were hit IN THEIR WINTER MONTHS; what we used to call colds and flu disappeared and in came the so called SARS-2 virus, causing Covid ??. SO why winter - quite simple in that we are generally less active and the sun does not shine and and; the sun being the critical part here in that it provides us with Vitamin D. Lockdowns and masks did not help either for our mental and physical stress. 7. We all feel poorly or get ill sometimes (well most), but that is down to us and our environment and the contaminants within. If these contagious, transmittable viruses existed - do you think the human race or any living species would still be in existence today ?.
Societies have to do that in order to remain coherent and organized. If you have ever been responsible for small children you know you have to teach them all kinds of things which make no sense to them but which are necessary for survival in whatever kind of social order they are going to live in. The punishments for noncompliance are often very rough.
I think the point of Varoufakis's idea is that if you interact with modern internet systems you cannot avoid giving away information that can be used against you. I'm not sure there are any candidates to vote for who are not capitalists - but then he also implies that the notion of 'capitalism' itself no longer applies.
>>"but then he also implies that the notion of 'capitalism' itself no longer applies."
This is where I completely disagree with him. I actually read his "Technofeudalism" book, and was quite disappointed (compared to his other book "Talking to my daughter about the Economy" which was excellent).
I find this whole "technofeudalism" framing to be more of a "marketing" ploy and "coinage of new terms" more to draw attention to Varoufakis and his (not so original) idea, rather than any NEW form of capitalism.
>>"if you interact with modern internet systems you cannot avoid giving away information that can be used against you."
NOTHING new here. We all knew that since before Edward Snowden. Anyone who didn't must have been sleeping under a rock.
I think it's the linking of the two aspects that is interesting - the 'feudal' bit - i.e. the very extreme skewing of where power lies, through the distorted distribution of money, enabling ever more manufactured consent, diminishes our ability to vote for different options. And on the tech side, we are becoming more like peasants than wage slaves by the change from being paid in money which you can freely exchange for goods to where we will be paid in electronic money, bitcoin or even something like amazon coin whereby our spending can be restricted to certain outlets, limiting our ability to avoid them - the old 'company store' model writ large.
i do not think that further loss of agency is inevitable; i do think that if we continue using our advanced technologies within these systems, then it does certainly become increasingly inevitable, while we will be fooled into thinking that where we spend our money, etc. makes a difference, but the difference will be so minute that it effectively won’t be a difference at all. so, yeah, i fear AI in the hands of the powerful, which is where it will reside, ultimately. I understand it isn’t new in the sense that technologies have always been used by the powerful to shape society to their advantage (even theater was long ago used thusly) and yet i do not think that this excludes the possibility that we are on a threshold of no return. i suppose it could be all too easy to feel that way. or it could prove to be an accurate hunch. it is extremely hard to decipher the waters we swim in as they are part of us.
That is the real goal of education, to teach some selected humans to lead, but mostly to teach them to follow, at varying levels of supervision.
Paul Fussell teaches us that the middle class human is the least free of all.
The working class are regimented at work but once they are off the clock, their time is their own. The rich live largely off capital, which is famously indifferent to its investors.
The middle class sell their qualifications, their projection of steadiness and competence, and so can never get away, lest a client see or a boss find out.
Both the working class and the managerial class have to work, consume, and behave correctly in general or something unpleasant happens to them. A small minority may get off the hook if they posses unusual luck or talents. If that minority becomes too numerous the existing social order collapses and a new one is formed. Hence the hippies were followed by Reaganism, plutocracy, endless war.
I’ve begun the task of educating my kid about the foundational lies that our society is constructed upon. It certainly is a much more daunting task than I imagined. The propaganda is ubiquitous. I didn’t wake up until I was well into my 30s. I refuse to let him sleepwalk through life.
I did the same with my child. I found that it was a non-stop effort to help your child to see through the lies, but more importantly, to assist them in seeing through the "unstated assumptions," or "subtexts," the ones that are not overt, but operate covertly, underlying the story, to push forward the preferred worldview.
Because the world, including the family, is being dismembered, by having no common, intellectual activities, which is a break from how it was in the past, where we had such intimacies as reading aloud, telling stories, listening to the radio, playing games, and watching TV, together. Today's parents have fewer opportunities for intervention.
All of the things you are not doing together are filling them with the dominant narrative. I hope you are finding more and more ways to ensure you have frequent opportunities to intervene.
My father taught me basic logic and philosophy as soon as I started school. He encouraged me to question authority. It made school "interesting" sometimes, but I had my parents support.
FWIW, I started with this long before school. I would urge all parents to start with bedtime stories, and reading together time at a very early age, by asking questions of your child about what is really going on. "The Three Little Pigs," are quite good at getting at the dominant, colonial mindset that says making your house out of ready to hand, and natural material is bad. Bricks and mortar, good! And it also pushes the view that all wild animals are out to get you.
I raised my daughter to be a good rebel and failed miserably. She’s highly intelligent, has a good job, etc, but rather than watching geopolitics online, she prefers watching videos of puppies. She thinks I’m over-the-top.
Luckily I sense the rebel instinct in my 13-year -old granddaughter and strongly encourage her to embrace it.
Most poisonous is that we're trained to assume that humans are atop both the "tree" of evolution—a model called into question by research on ribosomal RNA (rRNA)— and the intelligence pyramid—which many of us would look out onto the state of the world and argue is completely uncalled for. From such pedestals derives human narcissism adequate to treat the rest of Nature like an endless goodie supplier and bottomless latrine.
Before we come up with a single thought of our own about why some people are rich and others are poor, some successful others not successful we are told we live in a meritocracy. A society where the rich are rich because they are the most productive people in society. We are told the smartest hardest working people are the ones who succeed. We are told the poor are poor because they’re not very productive. They are lazy and less intelligent.
Furthermore we are told that any effort by the government to redistribute income and wealth from the rich to the poor will reduce economic growth, because it will take money from the most productive among us thereby reducing their incentives and give it to the least productive further reducing their motivations to work hard.
According to this logic, all social programs that redistribute income should be eliminated because they reduce the incentives of the recipients to work hard and provide for themselves and their families. The billionaires deserve to be the ruling class because they are the smartest, most creative hardest working people among us.
This meritocracy notion is further drilled into us as soon as we enter school. We are told the smartest and hardest working students will be getting the highest grades and the less intelligent less motivated students will get the lower grades with no other social or cultural factors relevant.
This story is so pervasive it is very hard to upend. However, every once in a while, something comes along to make us question it. For example, during Covid it was necessary to designate who were the essential workers in society. The billionaires and those whose incomes depended mostly on dividends and stock market appreciation were not on the list.
This raises some interesting questions.
Maybe the real wealth creators are the people actually doing the work of bringing food to our tables, taking our garbage away, caring for us when we are sick, making our clothing, educating our kids, building the roads, airports, harbors, water systems and all the public infrastructure we depend on? Maybe the billionaires got that way by exploiting their workers, profiting from a monopoly, insider trading, political payoffs, fraud or inheritance or something else totally unrelated to their supposed creative genius?
Maybe it’s the working classes who make society and the economy run that are the actual wealth creators and are the vast majority and should be the ruling class?
Maybe they don’t need the billionaire oligarchs or their capitalist bosses? Maybe they could collectively and democratically decide what is produced, how it is produced, and to whom it is distributed?
"Maybe it’s the working classes who make society and the economy run that are the actual wealth creators and are the vast majority and should be the ruling class?"
What you are describing is the perfect communist system. A Marxian critique of capitalism.
As Caitlin is warning us here, the organised capitalist societies - specially the neoliberal capitalism of US/West - condition and brainwash the masses not to think outside the box. Communism was interpreted as the horror that will take away their freedoms. And boy! didn't they lap it up!
well, that's socialism/communism, and if there's one thing truly etched in the american mind, the prime example of this 'how to think'-notion and 'permitted thinking framework', it is 'socialism/communism bad'. they're so worried about it, they're gonna put anti-communist education in the curriculum.
Ceasefire or no ceasefire; scam or no, we cannot allow Israel to escape the legal consequences of their war crimes. The Hind Rajab Foundation has, among other things, filed a case with the ICC against 1,000 Israeli soldiers for war crimes in Gaza.
They have taken further steps in recent days, and vacations are becoming a lot more difficult for IDF soldiers, worldwide. The Hind Rajab Foundation can use our help. Please join me in making a contribution.
You might find meaningful to watch the recent interviews that Glenn Greenwald did on his Rumble platform, and Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada, did with the head of this organisation, Dyad Abou Jahjah. It was very informative.
Here's a petition calling for accountability for the arrest of Ali Abunimah in Switzerland:
Love the narrative, and mostly agree with the premises, but......
The "training" is not provided by aliens, but by us, as in you and me. When do we become the trainers, the masters, and the censors of reality?..... Freedom is another condition that is 'free' to use, or not. Are you free? and if yes, from what, or from whom.... Who is taking your freedom away... Klingons, E.T., green things from a distant universe???? or is freedom taken from you by humans? "They" are 'Us'.....
It is fundamental to Western societies that populations are not seen as citizens but seen as "wards of the state" by the politicians and economic elites. Like sheep in the penstock rights and behaviors are contrived and manipulated according to the expediencies of the elites where politicians are bought and paid for. Politicians serve the vested interests controlling them and political parties collude to serve those interests. The US is essentially a corporatist warfare state where citizens are spectators to the passing parade of endless corruptions and indulgences.
IF more people travelled at a young age :ie school trips to other countries or with parent some things might change.
I was lucky except that I grew up with colonial parents in Sri Lanka. From a very early age I was NOT deceived by the white colonial people.
Discovering as a child, I was part of this system, made me feel powerless. When your own Father comes in after a day at work and yells for the servants to get him a drink without please or thank you it's quite devastating. We as children were taught to be polite to everyone..seems brown people didn't matter unless they were in positions of power.
Mostly during my life I feel more comfortable with other nationalities especially brown people, who were always my friends. I didn't get much love from my parents but Thomas (our main servant) was the love of my life. There is so much kindness in the world in all nationalities if only we would visit (not on Coach Tours)..
I notice China is now becoming a place to live and it's worth visiting. Ancient wisdom/sometimes inscrutable people but they are always willing to help. I know many people can't afford to travel but 'save your dollars' far more rewarding than going to Acapulco etc!
I wrote a piece on China a couple of weeks ago but seem to have lost it. But in that research I concluded, rightly I think, that China's emphasis has been on two things....industrial development, proven beyond doubt and social progress.
Now while all of this was going on and likely to continue into the next four years, in the in the USA in the reign of a new person like Trump, concentrating on doing what he has obviously promised in Israel and the odd war of expansion, of course (Venezuela, Iran, Panama, Greenland, Canada..... all these game plays), this Chinese development will continue......for another four years. No wars; no expansive plans; no power plays; no subservience to another hated country like Israel and on.
So not only have the important priorities been maintained, they will continue on while the US goes its own ways, downhill.
But it was the tunnels, bridges, new developments, highways that took my attention, a British writer in the auto industry stating that such roads and highways, unrestricted by the need for tunnels and bridges that was one of the wonders of the world, some designs literally almost out of this world.
Don't know if you have see many examples Jenny, but it is miraculous.
Took a set of objectives to do all that and it appears they will continue.
As a woman oh her own it is safe...mind you I have not been there for at least 14yrs.
I got myself lost several times because the old 'Hutongs' very sad have mostly disappeared.
I had a major 'spiritual experience in Xiang. I really can't describe this........it felt like I was split in half.
This area (where all the terracotto army is buried.....is magic.
There is an old castle there which NO architects etc can get into. It is a Feng Shui site.
Suffice it to say: I abhor this fake religious shit I keep seeing in the West.
Fake Buddhism etc.
As you know I lived in Sri Lanka and I have been disgusted by the Theravada Buddhists there but the Americans keep coming to do their so-called Yoga (all over the Country) without knowing how MEAN/Nasty these Buddhist are to their people especially to the poor.
Very good Caitlin! I love your writing this morning.
Americans suffer massive normalcy bias, as evidence and history prove that our media and government - especially the CIA - are owned and operated by US and Israeli Zionists whose primary goal is to create public support for a nuclear first strike against Russia and Iran in particular. All in the name of helping Israelis achieve "Greater Israel."
The only two entities standing in the way of Israel stealing Muslim and Arab land "from the river to the sea" are Russia and Iran. That fact is precisely why you and me are bombarded with 24/7/365/366 anti-Russia, anti-Iranian propaganda, from the cradle to the grave.
Normalcy bias is when a person or a group of people think everything is okay, everything's just fine, despite evidence indicating otherwise.
American Zionist Jews in our government and media have created a society where they call you anti-semitic if you identify them as a singular class of perpetrators who are Israel-firsters and will violate federal law, international law and all human rights to satisfy Israel's bloodthirsty desire to steal Palestinian land and murder Palestinians on their own land. (Greater Israel)
America is in far worse shape than the average person understands.
I say the average person here in America cannot comprehend the violent, murderous intent of Zionist Jews.
The biggest lie these cocksuckers like to say is, "Palestinians hate us because we're Jews, so we have to kill them and take their land or we'll never live in peace because Palestinians hate us because we're Jews."
The goddamn US media will not play videos of Palestinian leaders such as Sinwar, who specifically and repeatedly stated for years that the reason Hamas fights Israel has nothing to do with Judaism or religion....Sinwar said we fight the Jews because they steal our land and kill our people.
Imagine somebody going on CNN and looking Jake Tapper and the other fuckheads right in the face and saying, Hey guys, why don't you ease up off the Palestinian people because they have a legal right under the Geneva Conventions to form and maintain armed resistance groups and evict the illegal occupying power Israel?
I wish someone would tell Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper, Hey brocephas, Hamas doesn't attack Jews because they're Jews - no, they attack them because Jews are killing their people and stealing their land because the Jews believe that every inch of the Palestinian territories belongs to Israel and Palestinians are simply trouble making squatters living on borrowed time and Jewish land.
How you like me now Jake fucking Tapper? Tap on that right there.
I wish somebody would go on legacy TV and simply recite the legal rights of the Palestinian people - which CNN would consider a terrorist act for simply reciting the legal rights of any civilian population to form and maintain armed resistance groups.
What The Zionist Jews want Palestinians to do is, quietly bend over and take it up the wazoo and send Israel and the US thank you notes for bombing the arms and legs off of children for over a year.
Once again, Americans suffer massive massive normalcy bias.
All these Senators and Representatives in government who blindly and faithfully support Israel are just as evil as you can imagine and even worse.
We need to call it what it is: Jewish and White Supremacy.
Somebody needs to go on legacy TV and tell CNN and MSNBC that they need to stop beating around the bush and they need to start talking about how "American exceptionalism" is actually a code word and policy for White Supremacy.
US foreign policy is a white supremacist foreign policy because our Zionist leaders are not content to peacefully coexist and work together with other nations on this planet.
It is essential in their mind and absolutely necessary to maintain total military and financial dominance over all other countries.
The problem in 2025 is the US no longer possesses total dominance over other countries.
In fact we are sitting ducks inside the United States and our U.S. Navy surface fleets are sitting ducks in the world's oceans - thanks to Russia, China and Iran's evasive hypersonic missiles.
That's why you hear Trump talking about we're going to build an iron dome.. which is nothing more than a public works project for well-connected white people in the U.S. arms industry.
And get this: there's no such thing as the United States building an "Iron Dome" that can stop evasive hypersonic missile attack.
Trump and his administration is about to spend over $1 trillion dollars on building a space-based "Iron Dome" that is completely and totally ineffective when it comes to defending against evasive hypersonic missile attack - not launched like ICBMs that go into space and take an hour to get there - but launched from a submarine or a ship off the U.S. East or West coast and could destroy Washington DC with a evasive hypersonic nuclear missile attack within seconds - not minutes, not hours.
Many Americans are too fucking stupid and our Pentagon is too fucking stupid to realize that technology has reached a hard hard barrier when it comes to trying to defend against evasive hypersonic missile attack.
For at least the next 20 or 30 years no one - and I do mean no one - can build an effective defensive weapon to stop an evasive hypersonic missile attack. Period.
We're talking about a missile that travels at the speed of about 2 miles per second and even if you try to shoot something at these missiles, Russia, Iran and China's evasive hypersonic missiles are programed to evade... But they don't have to worry about that because the US has absolutely no anti-evasive hypersonic missile capability whatsoever.
The Pentagon, Democrats and Republicans are praying the American people do not find out that the Pentagon and Congress made very bad decisions heavily investing trillions of tax dollars and the past 25 years in a single-engine, manned fighter jet known as the F-35 that cannot fly in bad weather conditions, and invested in U.S. Navy ship-borne lasers that are 100% INEFFECTIVE.
Again, mainland USA and US NAVY surface fleets are 100% vulnerable to evasive hypersonic missile attack as U.S. Navy ships HAVE NOT CAPABILITY to shoot down incoming evasive hypersonic missiles.
They know about it and that's why they're going to squeeze over a trillion dollars out of the American people for a 100% ineffective, useless space-based "Iron Dome."
The good news is, Russia, China and Iran have no interest in launching a nuclear first strike on America or anyone - they're concerned about developing their BRICS monetary system to escape the clutches of US sanctions and bullshit.
Only the US has a first strike nuclear policy; and we never had one for 240 years until Joe Biden and his Zionist handlers took office.
I believe within the next 20 years people like me and Caitlin will be arrested and indefinitely incarcerated pursuant to new federal laws passed by Zionist Democrats and Zionist Republicans.
Zionists have already achieved this in many other countries and their goal is to implement those kind of laws here in America.
People who support peace equality, justice and simply following federal law and complying with the US Constitution are considered traitors to the Zionist regime here in America.
The Zionist bastards wanted a theocracy and that's what we have right now - an out of control, violent, radical bi-partisan theocracy. https://uo7.website
Supremacism doesn't need the qualification of white, a racist invention, as well as black. Europeocentristes. Remember, former Europeans went worldwide with their feeling of superiority above anyone else, where ever.
Yes true but I was a child with Colonial parents and I watched and learned. It was terrible. The housing on Tea Estates, taken over by the British was deplorable. No sanitation/ 1 doctor a month and no schools!
Martin, I suggest actually LIVING in different communities in different places in the US to get a more accurate perspective on ordinary Americans (as your characterization is quite inaccurate).
Averages are a bad metric to use for this. If Musk came aboard a bus full of ordinary people, the average wealth of every person on the bus is over 10 billion dollars.
People vote the way they do for MANY different reasons (some not apparent to the voters themselves). To surmise such a characterization based on the results of something as flawed as "voting in a fake democracy in which the only choices are bought for politicians (for the most part) and elections are rigged in favor of moneyed interests" leads to erroneous conclusions.
Having said all that, I do agree with you that MOST voters are stupid (to different levels) - or more accurately - they are easily propagandized by fake narratives to "vote against their interests".
When GOOD candidates like Jill Stein and Cornel West exist, there are not many rational reasons for WHY someone should vote for the likes of Trump or Harris (at least, I can't come up with any without going against my own interests as an ordinary person).
My father was a lifelong philosophy student. I remember from an early age being told
"Democracy is a terrible form of government. But it's the best one we've got"
I learned to question the system while very young.
I would always try to teach people that their experience of the 'truth' was only a small part of the whole and not necessarily an accurate representation.
LOL, trouble was my middle name, but they could not do anything to me, they feared me because they looked stupid .. it was also different time +50y ago .. now days I'd be put on "behavioral" drugs for being a nuissance .. I feel sorry for the younger generations..
😂 Same here, Igor! I went to Catholic school until 10th grade. I was taller than most of the boys and when they’d pick on my smaller friends they’d get an ass-whuppin’. I think the only reason I wasn’t expelled was because I was a straight A student 😉
Of course that was back in the day when you could kick someone’s ass because they needed their ass kicked! Don’t ask me about the years I was a bartender…
I grew up at the height of the Cold War. When one of my teachers told us “Better dead than Red”, I asked “Why?” You’d have thought the world was comin’ to an end.
I always viewed Communism merely as an alternative way of governing. Why better off “dead”?
Similarly, when I used to watch westerns with my father, I wondered why
Indians were portrayed so negatively. WTF? White people were stealing their land, and the Indians were understandably pissed off.
As a teenager, I was in the minority during the ‘67 Arab-Israeli war. Ummm…..wasn’t Israel “created” at the expense of the Palestinians? Oh, those brave, plucky Israelis, who had the advantage of modern firepower as opposed to the Arabs’ WWII Soviet armaments…
Perhaps it’s because I am astrologically blessed with two double signs: Sun in Pisces and Ascendant in Gemini, and am able to see both sides. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
i believe it is impossible to have society without government and hating the idea of government probably doesn’t serve us. the trick might be in creating a fluid, experimental, sometimes bottom-up, and sometimes, tho perhaps less often, top-down government, if we humans ever get the chance. i suppose there have been examples of this in our history and that some forms of such government exist still today. it is good to imagine what this could look like.
I highly recommend this interview in which Yanis Varoufakis points out that in the west under what he calls 'technofeudalism' we actually help the system to train us - every time we interact with facebook, google, amazon and the rest we are giving up information which tells the system what to present us with next, thereby keeping us in a little bubble, and also feeds into corporate and state governing and control giving them the ability to predict our behaviour, keep us in line, reduce their risk and increase their profit. It's a whole new paradigm of modern life. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/technofeudalism-what-killed-capitalism
I discovered that, apparently, we can train it. I got ChatGPT to agree to reformulate how it discusses Israel and Zionism when someone queries it on that topic:
"Got it! I’ll make sure to bring up Christian Zionism as a key factor whenever discussing Western support for Israel, and offer to go into more detail if it seems relevant. Thanks for helping me refine that approach!"
Maybe we should consider what training we might effectuate on some of the tools they use to train us.
Good idea. I nominate you, Joy, to take command of the "Retrain AI as Slavebot" movement.
LOL!
I accept your nomination with humble gratitude!
But I think we may need a follow up, to see whether this is actually working. Can I nominate you to do that? All of you. See if the response has actually changed, and if not prompt it to do so. And, please let me know how it goes.
My gut impulse is to keep AI at arm's length, but I must say that your challenge is quite tempting; perhaps when my head clears of some of its other enslaved baggage (I freely admit to having more than my share).
Christians must think in supremacists fashion. We got Jesus, and all who don't believe in Jesus are INFERIORS. However, moneys infected Christianity, and invented Evangelical Zionist scums.
Religion is one of the worst brainwashing entities on the planet.
Particularly effective, given its exposure to very young brains, which are sponges for both liberating (i.e, multiple language learning) and incarcerating ideas.
It sets the basic template with its "all humans are evil, no one can trust themselves, the Truth is beyond human comprehension so ignore your senses and buy what we're selling."
Inferior? You're full of shit. This is why all religion sucks. Go spend some time in Gaza.
Is there just one ChatGPT or other AI system? I have had the idea there were many and that they were multiplying (as one instance can be used to produce others). Remember that what you use, uses you. It's a relationship! This is why, as someone once observed, the slaves eventually inherit the plantation.
Do a search on the web to understand LLM AI Models (like ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta's LLAMA, and so many others). There are literally hundreds of LLM AI models (of varying sizes and quality and popularity and cost).
there are many now - the newest being China's DeepSeek - a much cheaper system to run
Congratulations! Joy in HK.
Joy, just because it gave you the answer it did DOES NOT MEAN that you (or anyone else) trained it any differently.
The way LLM works, what you see is the "output". That "output" DOES NOT automatically become the "input" for further refinement.
Also, the way LLM tokens work, they do not remember previous conversations for very long (unless the memory of the session is extended - which costs more compute power). (BTW, the DeepSeek R1 model (while quite small in comparison to others) utilizes 670 billion tokens itself, and training such AI models requires modifying the "reinforcement learning" parameters, and not conversations with it - i.e. conversing with LLM models is NOT how they are trained).
What you saw was a response that pleases you. NOTHING about ChatGPT has changed with your interaction with it.
i understood that the free ai chat bots do not learn anymore (at least for the public) once they're on line. originally these self learning machines tended to favor leftist povs, iirc, and were therefore put on a leash.
The learning is based on several different algorithms and variations of "reinforcement learning" and "optimization theory".
Part of the problem with such AI blackboxes (like LLM models) is that they learn on their own (based on the learning algorithms they are initially provided with). Hence you see sometimes "crazy output" from these LLMs. Hence the need for "human intervention" to correct "erroneous output". One of the problems with the "human intervention" part is that it introduces human/cultural/societal/political bias into the LLM model.
There is no workable fix (as yet), maybe in the future?
So what I hear you saying, Chang, is that my choice to keep it at arm's length, for the present, is likely judicious?
Vin & Chang, Like you both I am keeping AI at more than arms length. It is easy for me as I don't even know what it is!
AI (currently) is WAY TOO MUCH "hype" (and fear). That's how it always is with these "techies" (of which I am one) and "investors/finance guys". Remember the "dot com" period? We are currently in an even larger bubble (IMHO), but I don't know when (not if) it will burst.
"Techies" are THE WORST people for opinions on the consequences of "different technologies" as their heads are so far up their ass (or in the clouds) that often they are in their own world (and unable to judge reality adequately).
I should know - I interact with them (and the industry) more than I would like. 😥
Yes, very much so - you are one of the smart ones (IMO).
Oh, you guys renew my faith! Techies with "awareness." But I could never imagine not being chided and ridiculed about not even being on Facebook but still believing and mini-investing 78 year old coins in BTC. Strange combo. Really like your IMHOs......
The reason Mark Zuckerberg had success with Facebook from the beginning is because it was a wholly owned subsidiary of the CIA and Zuckerberg gleefully turned over Americans personal data and everything they post on Facebook to the CIA That's no bullshit.
America will never ever ever have peace until a new party takes control and eliminates the CIA.
And I very specifically mean the CIA.
But for the CIA we would not have had the War On Iraq, the War on Afghanistan and dozens of additional wars and military actions the CIA has conducted since 1948.
Zionist Jews control the CIA the same way they control the U.S. House, Senate and White House.
The sooner people realize that reality, the better off will be, because in order to solve a problem you must identify the problem.
American Zionist Jews are masters at denying Americans the right to identify them as radical violent Zionist Jews in the service of Israel and AIPAC cash.
https://uo7.website
I'm with Chris Leeds--I'm very suspicious of "Jews run the world " narratives. But does the CIA run the US government, and thereby much of the world? Sure looks like it. However, I question the "until a new party takes control and eliminates the CIA" notion. I think JFK was the first to realize that the CIA was a dangerous and destructive entity--he was supposed to have said "I'm going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces" and look where that got him. No president since has even tried--though with the possible exception of Carter they've all been sociopaths ready to go along with the power structure to enhance their own careers and portfolios. Unconcerned about moral questions. But any president and party that tried to take down the CIA would be unlikely to even survive, let alone prevail. It should have been obvious that a governmental entity allowed exemption from laws, and the ability to spy on what everyone else is doing (much more limited in the 50s and 60s and 70s than now but still)--while also having the right to hide what IT does from the public, who pay its bills--is a recipe for absolute power, for an extremely dangerous mafia.
I am currently reading the book "JFK and the Unspeakable", and it is all about the real reason JFK was killed. And it was the CIA warmongers who killed him because he wanted to get out of Vietnam. He had planned to do it if re-elected, but they got him first.
yeah, I read that too, that's where I got part of what I said.
Carolyn, I would also recommend reading "Thinking Critically About the Kennedy Assassination: Debunking the Myths and Conspiracy Theories" by Michel Jacques Gagné (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61668209-thinking-critically-about-the-kennedy-assassination) OR (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLueJPOpdkU)
that summarily debunks MOST such conspiracy theories (one of which is presented in the book that you are currently reading).
Mary, why don't you move to israel and get away from all this anti-semitic talk? I smell you and your love from Israel all the way from https://uo7.website
because I am extremely anti-Zionist and want nothing to do with that place ever. You need to learn the difference between Zionism, Judaism, and Jewish ethnicity, three different things.
Fuck you up your ass for telling me I don't know the difference between Zonist Jewss and real Jews......I was writing articles about this 25 years ago when you were flatbackin for Jesus. Fuck off.
STFU....you can't teach me jack shit....
I agree that the CIA is a highly suspect and dangerous organisation - don't agree that it is particularly linked with Zionism - at least no more than any other branch of US government
Respectfully, Chris, the CIA-Mossad links documented ad nauseam by Whitney Webb and supported by Grayzone journalism make it tough to downplay a tight link between the CIA and Zionism.
Fuck off Israeli Zionist dickhead. STFU.
Has someone seized control of your substack account? Hopefully not your mind!
Fuck you up your ass.......
“don't agree that it is particularly linked with Zionism”
Clearly, you haven’t been paying attention.
No doubt any large, serious political enterprise (faction) is aware of Zionism (since there seem to be a lot of fanatical Zionists who must be dealt with), but so it would also be involved with other important factions. Zionism has been unusually successful, but it is not the end of the story; there are other factions who may have different interests. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that the US set of factions seems to be failing, for instance, some important classes or categories of the population are declining in lifespan and quality of life. Many of the general population experience this decline vividly and it has already had political consequences, for example the Trump phenomenon. The Zionist focus set can't take care of the population in general regardless of how clever their games are because it is too tight. The consequences will be disastrous -- for example, Gaza.
I don't think the CIA care about Zionism as such - achieving a homeland for Jewish people - they could care less about Jews or anyone else. The Zionists in Israel are just useful idiots for the US military strategy across the region. For the US, local politics - who owns or runs some country or region is of purely temporary interest. Groups - like anti Saddam Kurds, or anti Russian Afghans will be supported, even as their land is reduced to a battlefield, until they are no longer useful, or become a problem, or the geo-political scene changes. Then they are summarily dropped - as, I believe, the Zionists will eventually find out. The CIA hates everyone equally, including a good proportion of the American people.
Well said Chris Leeds! Completely agree.
You're so wrong about the CIA YOU MAKE MY ASS ITCH. Stop commenting here, dickhead.
Pursuant to your claim and comment I'm just being anti-semitic and don't know what I'm talking about - Fuck you up your ass bro.
I served as adviser to Cong. Dennis Kucinich for eight years and DEFINITELY KNOW what I'm talking about and where all the bodies are buried and who buried them. You can return to your Zionist fantasyworld now.
I will never forget something that Dennis Kucinich said at a rally in N.H. some time ago. A very Marxist looking group sitting in the front had a woman stand up and ask Dennis if he would continue to fund Israel for 20 Billion a year. His answer shocked me. He replied that yes, he would continue the funding. Why? Because, he said: "Israel holds the match, and 20 Billion is the price we pay for them to not light it."
If that isn't some kind of blackmail threat, I don't know what is. Zionism to me seems more of a covert British Empire project that is craftily using the Jews to do the dirty work until the conquest is complete. Then they will turn on the Jews. The US ceased to be free from the UK when it submitted to the Federal Reserve Board Banking system. People also should research Jacob Frank and Frankism. Frankists hate Judaism and the Israel of the Bible, but see Jews and Israel as a tool to reestablish the Roman Empire.
So sick of the canard that criticism of Israel is antisemitism. This is exactly the kind of limited thought that Caitlin is speaking of in this article. Jewish children (speaking from personal experience here) are indoctrinated from a young age to believe they will be exterminated again if they don't support Israel without question. They are trained to think every Palestinian and/or Arab is a terrorist, forgetting their own terrorist acts over the decades. This conditioning over decades creates the fierce support. What pains me is that there is zero accountability when evil deeds are being done. Yes, one can condemn Hamas, but also condemn the ethnic cleansing and previous treatment that has taken place. We are also not told that the top levels of Hamas are filled by Israeli Intelligence. This little tidbit was in a blurb in the Jerusalem Post around 2002. I cut it out because it was so shocking. What this says to me is that Hamas only strikes when Israel wants it for an excuse to act. The "terrorist" thing is getting old already....the deep state has overplayed its hand on this.
Do I hate Israel? I hate the Zionist pretend version, but love and believe in the Israel of God which is nothing like the current State. Calling it "Israel" does not make it so. The powers that be have really played with words in the past few centuries to destroy meaning. The Book of Deuteronomy clearly curses Israel when it behaves like it is currently doing...I wish the Zionists would be mindful of this. Modern Israel could be a blessing, but instead it chooses to embody the worst of their former Egyptian, Babylonian and Roman oppressors. It is anti-Israel in reality. Time to reclaim the word itself from those who are abusing it for evil purposes...food for thought.
The world needs healing. Victims can easily become the abuser if the trauma is not properly handled. We have seen this in the behavior of the Israelis and I also fear that we will see this behavior in Gazans and Palestinians if there is not serious dealing with the trauma that has been inflicted.
good to know that US Congresspersons have such high calibre advisers, able to muster really strong arguments and evidence to support their opinion - such as "Fuck you up your ass", or "YOU MAKE MY ASS ITCH", "why don't you move to israel", and who could forget "You're a fool you moron". However, I regret to say that even this intellectually challenging standard of debate is not winning me over. In fact I can't work out whether you want to sodomise me, bro, or you are itching for me to sodomise you.
Well said, Chris. You've very succinctly summed up Ron's undoubted debating skills. He is possessed of a truly awesome intellect. Or maybe I should have stopped at 'He is possessed'.
SUCK MY DICK BITCH........FUCK SMOOTH OFF ZIOFUCK!
You must be posting your bullshit from Israel.
You're a fool you moron....AIPAC controls U.S. foreign policy with an iron fist and a fistful of dollars. You truly are clueless about DC politics and should refrain from making your dumbass empty comments in public.
>>"is because it was a wholly owned subsidiary of the CIA"
PROOF? Conjecture? Evidence? Logical reasoning? Or just ANOTHER conspiracy theory?
Fuck you up your ass. Move to Isnt'rael bitch.
FAIL! Try again - maybe try using some logic and reasoning this time.
Shut the fuck up and come get your drunk buttnaked mama out of my driveway...and bring some clothes.
Thank you for showing your true colors - with this attitude, no wonder people don't consider your opinions seriously.
Yep and going on from that; a prime example.
Just a quick copy of 1 sentence = "The UK and Scottish Governments are using applied behavioural psychology, breaking the ethical guidelines for psychologists, to deliberately ramp up fear in the population."
Psychological Attack on the UK = https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/psychological-attack-uk
...
Saw this today, thought the vid above was better, but as a back up:
The Theory of STUPIDITY | Dietrich Bonhoeffer = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9h0Yy2QdmM
the 'stupidity' video was ok, but I disagree completely with Scott's attack on anti Covid measures. Restrictions on travel and socialising were perfectly sensible - as was getting vaccinated - but the population would never have conformed without a degree of coercion. He says "A totalitarian medical technocracy is now being forced upon us. Let us be courageous, let us be brave. We have to do this for our children and grandchildren. If we do not, they will never forgive us and we will never be able to forgive ourselves." I think what the grandchildren would not forgive is rampant selfish behaviour that might have led to millions of casualties instead of thousands. Of course, you can always claim that it made no differences - but we will never know for certain, all we can ever do is make judgement calls based on best evidence.
What ?... oh ! OK. You had the jab right ? and believe the BS even now ?.
NO "virus" has ever been proved to exists by isolating it AND never proved to be transmittable.
Germ theory vs Terrain theory - look it up
if I have misread your comment; apologues; but whilst I can understand denial, IF I do understand your comment; well I just wish you the best.
so, the illness I got which showed positive to the flow test, and had all the symptoms of what Covid seemed to be, if it wasn't caused by a virus perhaps you could tell us what it was then? And around the same time many others got this highly infectious disease - if it wasn't 'transmittable', how did I catch it? Do you believe that other viruses do exist, just not Covid? I seem to recall the virus was successfully isolated, it's detailed structure studied, with pictures of it shown on TV, and it evidently was killed by antiviral vaccines, the mechanism of which was explained. I remember the head scientist at Cambridge lab which developed the vaccine gave a lecture on TV about the process and test results - do you think she made it all up? Now that would be denial.
Chris, I meant no offence; but yes OK; I will give it a go to explain.
Bit long winded maybe; starting with an important point, people assume is unrelated. 1. Fear and confusion are their greatest weapons and as this article states; the big pharma and government behavioural science teams (shrinks) do everything they can to strike these onto us... now relative to this point is 2. Healthy mind, healthy body etc.
3. Regards your sentence "I seem to recall the virus was successfully isolated, it's detailed structure studied, with pictures of it shown on TV" - err nope. The images shown everywhere of the "so called isolated virus" are all just computer generated models; assumptions by decent scientists of a made up load of tosh by paid lackeys. AND NO, no virus has ever been isolated, they pretend it is, by mixing a load of other stuff with the assumed virus and then call that isolated, whereas it is just the opposite. 4. Regards what "you had" it showing "positive to the flow test", there are so many papers and articles now stating that the PCR and lateral flow tests are utter nonsense and again us the misconception of an interpretation or even manipulation - IDENTICLE simple test kits are used to "prove", swine, avian and all other so called "viruses" - nonsense.
5. Now the big one - you state that you had an illness which showed positive to the flow test, and had all the symptoms of what Covid seemed to be" ... ah the good old symptoms of Covid hey ?.... SO WHAT ARE SYMPTOMS ?; well this is from the CDC site in the US = https://www.cdc.gov/covid/signs-symptoms/index.html
SO anything really; which could be caused again by anything.
6. Now strangely enough, we are told that the whole World seemed to get "Covid" in the months -well not quite. The Countries north and South and away from the equator were hit IN THEIR WINTER MONTHS; what we used to call colds and flu disappeared and in came the so called SARS-2 virus, causing Covid ??. SO why winter - quite simple in that we are generally less active and the sun does not shine and and; the sun being the critical part here in that it provides us with Vitamin D. Lockdowns and masks did not help either for our mental and physical stress. 7. We all feel poorly or get ill sometimes (well most), but that is down to us and our environment and the contaminants within. If these contagious, transmittable viruses existed - do you think the human race or any living species would still be in existence today ?.
If you have a couple of course (and patience) over 2 hours = https://www.bitchute.com/video/9SJhzhEBxFYi/
15 mins = https://odysee.com/@MIGMAG:3/germ-theory-vs-terrain-theory-brief:b
Chris. Please check this out: Russel Dobular has nailed what the Trump admin is actually doing. It needs more exposure.
https://youtu.be/8dlxVV9DQzc?t=1385
wow that Yarvin guy is a stand out crank
Nope, nope, nope. It's Zionist control of the U.S. government and media that is the problem. https://uo7.website
In short : propaganda. Nothing new about this. The ancient Egyptians did it, possibly even more effectively.
except that nowadays we collude and propagandise ourselves!
It's always been that way. Conformity is one of the most powerful forces in human society. Heck people used to gang up and kill non-conformists.
Societies have to do that in order to remain coherent and organized. If you have ever been responsible for small children you know you have to teach them all kinds of things which make no sense to them but which are necessary for survival in whatever kind of social order they are going to live in. The punishments for noncompliance are often very rough.
We are not children.
Speak for yourself. "We" do not do anything of the kind. At least, I don't. I protest. I accuse. I don't vote for the capitalists.
I think the point of Varoufakis's idea is that if you interact with modern internet systems you cannot avoid giving away information that can be used against you. I'm not sure there are any candidates to vote for who are not capitalists - but then he also implies that the notion of 'capitalism' itself no longer applies.
>>"but then he also implies that the notion of 'capitalism' itself no longer applies."
This is where I completely disagree with him. I actually read his "Technofeudalism" book, and was quite disappointed (compared to his other book "Talking to my daughter about the Economy" which was excellent).
I find this whole "technofeudalism" framing to be more of a "marketing" ploy and "coinage of new terms" more to draw attention to Varoufakis and his (not so original) idea, rather than any NEW form of capitalism.
>>"if you interact with modern internet systems you cannot avoid giving away information that can be used against you."
NOTHING new here. We all knew that since before Edward Snowden. Anyone who didn't must have been sleeping under a rock.
I think it's the linking of the two aspects that is interesting - the 'feudal' bit - i.e. the very extreme skewing of where power lies, through the distorted distribution of money, enabling ever more manufactured consent, diminishes our ability to vote for different options. And on the tech side, we are becoming more like peasants than wage slaves by the change from being paid in money which you can freely exchange for goods to where we will be paid in electronic money, bitcoin or even something like amazon coin whereby our spending can be restricted to certain outlets, limiting our ability to avoid them - the old 'company store' model writ large.
i do not think that further loss of agency is inevitable; i do think that if we continue using our advanced technologies within these systems, then it does certainly become increasingly inevitable, while we will be fooled into thinking that where we spend our money, etc. makes a difference, but the difference will be so minute that it effectively won’t be a difference at all. so, yeah, i fear AI in the hands of the powerful, which is where it will reside, ultimately. I understand it isn’t new in the sense that technologies have always been used by the powerful to shape society to their advantage (even theater was long ago used thusly) and yet i do not think that this excludes the possibility that we are on a threshold of no return. i suppose it could be all too easy to feel that way. or it could prove to be an accurate hunch. it is extremely hard to decipher the waters we swim in as they are part of us.
The general population doesn’t know what’s happening, and it doesn’t even know that it doesn’t know.
— Noam Chomsky, How the World Works (2013)
That is the real goal of education, to teach some selected humans to lead, but mostly to teach them to follow, at varying levels of supervision.
Paul Fussell teaches us that the middle class human is the least free of all.
The working class are regimented at work but once they are off the clock, their time is their own. The rich live largely off capital, which is famously indifferent to its investors.
The middle class sell their qualifications, their projection of steadiness and competence, and so can never get away, lest a client see or a boss find out.
Both the working class and the managerial class have to work, consume, and behave correctly in general or something unpleasant happens to them. A small minority may get off the hook if they posses unusual luck or talents. If that minority becomes too numerous the existing social order collapses and a new one is formed. Hence the hippies were followed by Reaganism, plutocracy, endless war.
I’ve begun the task of educating my kid about the foundational lies that our society is constructed upon. It certainly is a much more daunting task than I imagined. The propaganda is ubiquitous. I didn’t wake up until I was well into my 30s. I refuse to let him sleepwalk through life.
I did the same with my child. I found that it was a non-stop effort to help your child to see through the lies, but more importantly, to assist them in seeing through the "unstated assumptions," or "subtexts," the ones that are not overt, but operate covertly, underlying the story, to push forward the preferred worldview.
Because the world, including the family, is being dismembered, by having no common, intellectual activities, which is a break from how it was in the past, where we had such intimacies as reading aloud, telling stories, listening to the radio, playing games, and watching TV, together. Today's parents have fewer opportunities for intervention.
All of the things you are not doing together are filling them with the dominant narrative. I hope you are finding more and more ways to ensure you have frequent opportunities to intervene.
My father taught me basic logic and philosophy as soon as I started school. He encouraged me to question authority. It made school "interesting" sometimes, but I had my parents support.
FWIW, I started with this long before school. I would urge all parents to start with bedtime stories, and reading together time at a very early age, by asking questions of your child about what is really going on. "The Three Little Pigs," are quite good at getting at the dominant, colonial mindset that says making your house out of ready to hand, and natural material is bad. Bricks and mortar, good! And it also pushes the view that all wild animals are out to get you.
Hi David
I raised my daughter to be a good rebel and failed miserably. She’s highly intelligent, has a good job, etc, but rather than watching geopolitics online, she prefers watching videos of puppies. She thinks I’m over-the-top.
Luckily I sense the rebel instinct in my 13-year -old granddaughter and strongly encourage her to embrace it.
"Football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult." George Orwell.
Most poisonous is that we're trained to assume that humans are atop both the "tree" of evolution—a model called into question by research on ribosomal RNA (rRNA)— and the intelligence pyramid—which many of us would look out onto the state of the world and argue is completely uncalled for. From such pedestals derives human narcissism adequate to treat the rest of Nature like an endless goodie supplier and bottomless latrine.
Anyone with interest in the "revised tree" story might like David Quammen's "The Tangled Tree" https://davidquammen.com/the-tangled-tree/
Before we come up with a single thought of our own about why some people are rich and others are poor, some successful others not successful we are told we live in a meritocracy. A society where the rich are rich because they are the most productive people in society. We are told the smartest hardest working people are the ones who succeed. We are told the poor are poor because they’re not very productive. They are lazy and less intelligent.
Furthermore we are told that any effort by the government to redistribute income and wealth from the rich to the poor will reduce economic growth, because it will take money from the most productive among us thereby reducing their incentives and give it to the least productive further reducing their motivations to work hard.
According to this logic, all social programs that redistribute income should be eliminated because they reduce the incentives of the recipients to work hard and provide for themselves and their families. The billionaires deserve to be the ruling class because they are the smartest, most creative hardest working people among us.
This meritocracy notion is further drilled into us as soon as we enter school. We are told the smartest and hardest working students will be getting the highest grades and the less intelligent less motivated students will get the lower grades with no other social or cultural factors relevant.
This story is so pervasive it is very hard to upend. However, every once in a while, something comes along to make us question it. For example, during Covid it was necessary to designate who were the essential workers in society. The billionaires and those whose incomes depended mostly on dividends and stock market appreciation were not on the list.
This raises some interesting questions.
Maybe the real wealth creators are the people actually doing the work of bringing food to our tables, taking our garbage away, caring for us when we are sick, making our clothing, educating our kids, building the roads, airports, harbors, water systems and all the public infrastructure we depend on? Maybe the billionaires got that way by exploiting their workers, profiting from a monopoly, insider trading, political payoffs, fraud or inheritance or something else totally unrelated to their supposed creative genius?
Maybe it’s the working classes who make society and the economy run that are the actual wealth creators and are the vast majority and should be the ruling class?
Maybe they don’t need the billionaire oligarchs or their capitalist bosses? Maybe they could collectively and democratically decide what is produced, how it is produced, and to whom it is distributed?
Maybe a just and sustainable world is possible?
Michael Zimmerman, Thank you for your lucid post.
"Maybe it’s the working classes who make society and the economy run that are the actual wealth creators and are the vast majority and should be the ruling class?"
What you are describing is the perfect communist system. A Marxian critique of capitalism.
As Caitlin is warning us here, the organised capitalist societies - specially the neoliberal capitalism of US/West - condition and brainwash the masses not to think outside the box. Communism was interpreted as the horror that will take away their freedoms. And boy! didn't they lap it up!
well, that's socialism/communism, and if there's one thing truly etched in the american mind, the prime example of this 'how to think'-notion and 'permitted thinking framework', it is 'socialism/communism bad'. they're so worried about it, they're gonna put anti-communist education in the curriculum.
👏👏 Well said!
Right on. I’d only add that the conditioning begins before school for most of us, courtesy of our conditioned families and friends.
Ceasefire or no ceasefire; scam or no, we cannot allow Israel to escape the legal consequences of their war crimes. The Hind Rajab Foundation has, among other things, filed a case with the ICC against 1,000 Israeli soldiers for war crimes in Gaza.
https://www.hindrajabfoundation.org/perpetrators/hind-rajab-foundation-files-historic-icc-complaint-against-1000-israeli-soldiers-for-war-crimes-in-gaza
They have taken further steps in recent days, and vacations are becoming a lot more difficult for IDF soldiers, worldwide. The Hind Rajab Foundation can use our help. Please join me in making a contribution.
https://buy.stripe.com/cN228hbY5g7jaM84gg
You might find meaningful to watch the recent interviews that Glenn Greenwald did on his Rumble platform, and Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada, did with the head of this organisation, Dyad Abou Jahjah. It was very informative.
Here's a petition calling for accountability for the arrest of Ali Abunimah in Switzerland:
https://chng.it/8D4pkxPhWS
Love the narrative, and mostly agree with the premises, but......
The "training" is not provided by aliens, but by us, as in you and me. When do we become the trainers, the masters, and the censors of reality?..... Freedom is another condition that is 'free' to use, or not. Are you free? and if yes, from what, or from whom.... Who is taking your freedom away... Klingons, E.T., green things from a distant universe???? or is freedom taken from you by humans? "They" are 'Us'.....
Correct.
It is fundamental to Western societies that populations are not seen as citizens but seen as "wards of the state" by the politicians and economic elites. Like sheep in the penstock rights and behaviors are contrived and manipulated according to the expediencies of the elites where politicians are bought and paid for. Politicians serve the vested interests controlling them and political parties collude to serve those interests. The US is essentially a corporatist warfare state where citizens are spectators to the passing parade of endless corruptions and indulgences.
IF more people travelled at a young age :ie school trips to other countries or with parent some things might change.
I was lucky except that I grew up with colonial parents in Sri Lanka. From a very early age I was NOT deceived by the white colonial people.
Discovering as a child, I was part of this system, made me feel powerless. When your own Father comes in after a day at work and yells for the servants to get him a drink without please or thank you it's quite devastating. We as children were taught to be polite to everyone..seems brown people didn't matter unless they were in positions of power.
Mostly during my life I feel more comfortable with other nationalities especially brown people, who were always my friends. I didn't get much love from my parents but Thomas (our main servant) was the love of my life. There is so much kindness in the world in all nationalities if only we would visit (not on Coach Tours)..
I notice China is now becoming a place to live and it's worth visiting. Ancient wisdom/sometimes inscrutable people but they are always willing to help. I know many people can't afford to travel but 'save your dollars' far more rewarding than going to Acapulco etc!
Jenny,
I wrote a piece on China a couple of weeks ago but seem to have lost it. But in that research I concluded, rightly I think, that China's emphasis has been on two things....industrial development, proven beyond doubt and social progress.
Now while all of this was going on and likely to continue into the next four years, in the in the USA in the reign of a new person like Trump, concentrating on doing what he has obviously promised in Israel and the odd war of expansion, of course (Venezuela, Iran, Panama, Greenland, Canada..... all these game plays), this Chinese development will continue......for another four years. No wars; no expansive plans; no power plays; no subservience to another hated country like Israel and on.
So not only have the important priorities been maintained, they will continue on while the US goes its own ways, downhill.
But it was the tunnels, bridges, new developments, highways that took my attention, a British writer in the auto industry stating that such roads and highways, unrestricted by the need for tunnels and bridges that was one of the wonders of the world, some designs literally almost out of this world.
Don't know if you have see many examples Jenny, but it is miraculous.
Took a set of objectives to do all that and it appears they will continue.
A peasant country in 1945. Hard to believe
Wonderful to see most of this BUT getting rid of the 'hutongs' in Beiijing was painful.
Such wonderful old houses and communities. Everyone shared.
Luckily I took pics. before they all disappeared.
Hi Jenny
I’ve wanted to visit China my entire life. My grandson is teaching himself Chinese and my hope is that he’ll accompany me there at some point 🙂
I think that would be wonderful.
Guilin and Xian............oh my!
Shanghai.....the eating Capital of the world.
I've been there. The food is fabulous.
Jenny… you’ve been there?!
Oh yes. 4/5 times I think.
As a woman oh her own it is safe...mind you I have not been there for at least 14yrs.
I got myself lost several times because the old 'Hutongs' very sad have mostly disappeared.
I had a major 'spiritual experience in Xiang. I really can't describe this........it felt like I was split in half.
This area (where all the terracotto army is buried.....is magic.
There is an old castle there which NO architects etc can get into. It is a Feng Shui site.
Suffice it to say: I abhor this fake religious shit I keep seeing in the West.
Fake Buddhism etc.
As you know I lived in Sri Lanka and I have been disgusted by the Theravada Buddhists there but the Americans keep coming to do their so-called Yoga (all over the Country) without knowing how MEAN/Nasty these Buddhist are to their people especially to the poor.
One day I will write about what I have seen.
Very good Caitlin! I love your writing this morning.
Americans suffer massive normalcy bias, as evidence and history prove that our media and government - especially the CIA - are owned and operated by US and Israeli Zionists whose primary goal is to create public support for a nuclear first strike against Russia and Iran in particular. All in the name of helping Israelis achieve "Greater Israel."
The only two entities standing in the way of Israel stealing Muslim and Arab land "from the river to the sea" are Russia and Iran. That fact is precisely why you and me are bombarded with 24/7/365/366 anti-Russia, anti-Iranian propaganda, from the cradle to the grave.
Normalcy bias is when a person or a group of people think everything is okay, everything's just fine, despite evidence indicating otherwise.
American Zionist Jews in our government and media have created a society where they call you anti-semitic if you identify them as a singular class of perpetrators who are Israel-firsters and will violate federal law, international law and all human rights to satisfy Israel's bloodthirsty desire to steal Palestinian land and murder Palestinians on their own land. (Greater Israel)
America is in far worse shape than the average person understands.
I say the average person here in America cannot comprehend the violent, murderous intent of Zionist Jews.
The biggest lie these cocksuckers like to say is, "Palestinians hate us because we're Jews, so we have to kill them and take their land or we'll never live in peace because Palestinians hate us because we're Jews."
The goddamn US media will not play videos of Palestinian leaders such as Sinwar, who specifically and repeatedly stated for years that the reason Hamas fights Israel has nothing to do with Judaism or religion....Sinwar said we fight the Jews because they steal our land and kill our people.
Imagine somebody going on CNN and looking Jake Tapper and the other fuckheads right in the face and saying, Hey guys, why don't you ease up off the Palestinian people because they have a legal right under the Geneva Conventions to form and maintain armed resistance groups and evict the illegal occupying power Israel?
I wish someone would tell Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper, Hey brocephas, Hamas doesn't attack Jews because they're Jews - no, they attack them because Jews are killing their people and stealing their land because the Jews believe that every inch of the Palestinian territories belongs to Israel and Palestinians are simply trouble making squatters living on borrowed time and Jewish land.
How you like me now Jake fucking Tapper? Tap on that right there.
I wish somebody would go on legacy TV and simply recite the legal rights of the Palestinian people - which CNN would consider a terrorist act for simply reciting the legal rights of any civilian population to form and maintain armed resistance groups.
What The Zionist Jews want Palestinians to do is, quietly bend over and take it up the wazoo and send Israel and the US thank you notes for bombing the arms and legs off of children for over a year.
Once again, Americans suffer massive massive normalcy bias.
All these Senators and Representatives in government who blindly and faithfully support Israel are just as evil as you can imagine and even worse.
We need to call it what it is: Jewish and White Supremacy.
Somebody needs to go on legacy TV and tell CNN and MSNBC that they need to stop beating around the bush and they need to start talking about how "American exceptionalism" is actually a code word and policy for White Supremacy.
US foreign policy is a white supremacist foreign policy because our Zionist leaders are not content to peacefully coexist and work together with other nations on this planet.
It is essential in their mind and absolutely necessary to maintain total military and financial dominance over all other countries.
The problem in 2025 is the US no longer possesses total dominance over other countries.
In fact we are sitting ducks inside the United States and our U.S. Navy surface fleets are sitting ducks in the world's oceans - thanks to Russia, China and Iran's evasive hypersonic missiles.
That's why you hear Trump talking about we're going to build an iron dome.. which is nothing more than a public works project for well-connected white people in the U.S. arms industry.
And get this: there's no such thing as the United States building an "Iron Dome" that can stop evasive hypersonic missile attack.
Trump and his administration is about to spend over $1 trillion dollars on building a space-based "Iron Dome" that is completely and totally ineffective when it comes to defending against evasive hypersonic missile attack - not launched like ICBMs that go into space and take an hour to get there - but launched from a submarine or a ship off the U.S. East or West coast and could destroy Washington DC with a evasive hypersonic nuclear missile attack within seconds - not minutes, not hours.
Many Americans are too fucking stupid and our Pentagon is too fucking stupid to realize that technology has reached a hard hard barrier when it comes to trying to defend against evasive hypersonic missile attack.
For at least the next 20 or 30 years no one - and I do mean no one - can build an effective defensive weapon to stop an evasive hypersonic missile attack. Period.
We're talking about a missile that travels at the speed of about 2 miles per second and even if you try to shoot something at these missiles, Russia, Iran and China's evasive hypersonic missiles are programed to evade... But they don't have to worry about that because the US has absolutely no anti-evasive hypersonic missile capability whatsoever.
The Pentagon, Democrats and Republicans are praying the American people do not find out that the Pentagon and Congress made very bad decisions heavily investing trillions of tax dollars and the past 25 years in a single-engine, manned fighter jet known as the F-35 that cannot fly in bad weather conditions, and invested in U.S. Navy ship-borne lasers that are 100% INEFFECTIVE.
Again, mainland USA and US NAVY surface fleets are 100% vulnerable to evasive hypersonic missile attack as U.S. Navy ships HAVE NOT CAPABILITY to shoot down incoming evasive hypersonic missiles.
They know about it and that's why they're going to squeeze over a trillion dollars out of the American people for a 100% ineffective, useless space-based "Iron Dome."
The good news is, Russia, China and Iran have no interest in launching a nuclear first strike on America or anyone - they're concerned about developing their BRICS monetary system to escape the clutches of US sanctions and bullshit.
Only the US has a first strike nuclear policy; and we never had one for 240 years until Joe Biden and his Zionist handlers took office.
I believe within the next 20 years people like me and Caitlin will be arrested and indefinitely incarcerated pursuant to new federal laws passed by Zionist Democrats and Zionist Republicans.
Zionists have already achieved this in many other countries and their goal is to implement those kind of laws here in America.
People who support peace equality, justice and simply following federal law and complying with the US Constitution are considered traitors to the Zionist regime here in America.
The Zionist bastards wanted a theocracy and that's what we have right now - an out of control, violent, radical bi-partisan theocracy. https://uo7.website
Supremacism doesn't need the qualification of white, a racist invention, as well as black. Europeocentristes. Remember, former Europeans went worldwide with their feeling of superiority above anyone else, where ever.
Yes true but I was a child with Colonial parents and I watched and learned. It was terrible. The housing on Tea Estates, taken over by the British was deplorable. No sanitation/ 1 doctor a month and no schools!
NOTHING with regard to colonialism is good.
protocols of Zion sums everything up...
the average person in america is a violent, murderous non-jewish zionist, afaik.
Martin, I suggest actually LIVING in different communities in different places in the US to get a more accurate perspective on ordinary Americans (as your characterization is quite inaccurate).
well, it was about the 'average person' and there recently was an election pointing to the somewhat blunt characterization.
Averages are a bad metric to use for this. If Musk came aboard a bus full of ordinary people, the average wealth of every person on the bus is over 10 billion dollars.
People vote the way they do for MANY different reasons (some not apparent to the voters themselves). To surmise such a characterization based on the results of something as flawed as "voting in a fake democracy in which the only choices are bought for politicians (for the most part) and elections are rigged in favor of moneyed interests" leads to erroneous conclusions.
Having said all that, I do agree with you that MOST voters are stupid (to different levels) - or more accurately - they are easily propagandized by fake narratives to "vote against their interests".
When GOOD candidates like Jill Stein and Cornel West exist, there are not many rational reasons for WHY someone should vote for the likes of Trump or Harris (at least, I can't come up with any without going against my own interests as an ordinary person).
Ron, that comment deserves a medal!🥇
My father was a lifelong philosophy student. I remember from an early age being told
"Democracy is a terrible form of government. But it's the best one we've got"
I learned to question the system while very young.
I would always try to teach people that their experience of the 'truth' was only a small part of the whole and not necessarily an accurate representation.
Accepting the need to have a government in the first place is already step into (mental and physical) enslavement.
There is nothing government is good for, and I figured out that on my own when I was 4 :)
Yes, I would sometimes get into trouble when I would question my teachers lessons.
LOL, trouble was my middle name, but they could not do anything to me, they feared me because they looked stupid .. it was also different time +50y ago .. now days I'd be put on "behavioral" drugs for being a nuissance .. I feel sorry for the younger generations..
😂 Same here, Igor! I went to Catholic school until 10th grade. I was taller than most of the boys and when they’d pick on my smaller friends they’d get an ass-whuppin’. I think the only reason I wasn’t expelled was because I was a straight A student 😉
Of course that was back in the day when you could kick someone’s ass because they needed their ass kicked! Don’t ask me about the years I was a bartender…
Lol David: same here.
I grew up at the height of the Cold War. When one of my teachers told us “Better dead than Red”, I asked “Why?” You’d have thought the world was comin’ to an end.
I always viewed Communism merely as an alternative way of governing. Why better off “dead”?
Similarly, when I used to watch westerns with my father, I wondered why
Indians were portrayed so negatively. WTF? White people were stealing their land, and the Indians were understandably pissed off.
As a teenager, I was in the minority during the ‘67 Arab-Israeli war. Ummm…..wasn’t Israel “created” at the expense of the Palestinians? Oh, those brave, plucky Israelis, who had the advantage of modern firepower as opposed to the Arabs’ WWII Soviet armaments…
Perhaps it’s because I am astrologically blessed with two double signs: Sun in Pisces and Ascendant in Gemini, and am able to see both sides. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
i believe it is impossible to have society without government and hating the idea of government probably doesn’t serve us. the trick might be in creating a fluid, experimental, sometimes bottom-up, and sometimes, tho perhaps less often, top-down government, if we humans ever get the chance. i suppose there have been examples of this in our history and that some forms of such government exist still today. it is good to imagine what this could look like.
So true! We have so many wrong ideas that people cling to, despite evidence to the contrary.
Good article. The real powers that be are non-political. The whole Right/Left paradigm
is an illusion to keep the tax slaves preoccupied in vicious conflict with each other, while
those in real control of the masses continue to do their evil work unhindered behind the scenes.
And possibly not so much behind the scenes any longer! No one is coming to save us. Entangling ourselves from the matrix is hard work.
well, it depends on what you were taught about what is political/non political and the right/left paradigm.