Astonishingly, T Cotton and others before him speak as if this represents a revolution in the history of ideas. In reality, this has been understood widely for many generations.
Come on, people! He barely spoke honestly, pretending that one shining democracy (the US) was not always picking its allies from other democracies--the truth is there are very few genuine democracies on this planet and the US is not among them. And not only are US wars not about "spreading democracy"--often suppressing democracy is one of the objectives, because spreading neoliberal capitalism. is what they're about, and democracy conflicts with that.
So in your opinion what type of governance is best suited to feed the world? Socialism? Communism? Fascism? Naive children, what many sound like here. Unsubscribed.
An example of your "suppressing democracy" over time, Mary, are the majority of the South American countries, their closeness to the USA making them easy targets.
Of course, there are many more to come but for other reasons such as oil, Venezuela being #1 on their list with oil reserves of 1000 years compared to the USA, 8 years.
Some very good people have been closed down over time in that geography.
understood, maybe (by older people), but keeping it taboo and not having it expressed is quite important to maintain the imperial narrative, imo. i think there's a tremendous imperial effort to not exposing especially young people to marxist ideas for instance. once one is older and locked inside the system (participating), openness to change is very much reduced (the old adage of becoming more conservative whilst aging).
Then you have those who in their youth embrace and embody the hard right, reconsider their orientation in midlife, and embrace a revolutionary Marxist position in their elder years. That has been my path. Nor am I alone.
that is indeed nice, but in the mean time they succeeded in making us spend many productive years (unwittingly) supporting the status quo. looking around, it seems unlikely (but you never know) that anything 'big' would happen in the next 10+ years (and my remaining lifetime). societies have been led very far in opposite directions (like back to feudalism) since marx (re-)exposed the system. priority for now seems to be, to spread class consciousness among the youth.
Understand that we are and for some time have been in a pre-revolutionary condition. Understand that the same conditions under Capitalism which drive the world to war, global war, and authoritarian reaction AT THE SAME TIME raise proletarian consciousness and unite the global working class. Understand that it is only in the last stage of pre-revolutionary conditions that you see simply massive action in which tens, scores or even hundreds of millions taking to the streets.
Understand that as the revolutionary stage opens, time speeds up in the sense that political events unfold with simply astounding rapidity. Even the massive protests as I mentioned can break out very, very quickly.
Also know that the working class has an extremely powerful mechanism which, when used by class conscious workers, will break the power of the bourgeois state and its Democratic Party petit bourgeois lackeys. It is the industrial strike, the basis of the coerced extraction of order-created wealth.
For this to occur, it is necessary to build worker-run, Rank-and-File committees in every shop and workplace, INDEPENDENT of both Capitalist parties, and INDEPENDENT of party-owned unions.
WHEN said committees develop and workers support the strategy of worker-led struggle on three fronts against corporations, unions and the administration, it begins. The regime orders striking workers back on the job. The strike is made permanent. The industrial strike is converted into a direct political strike against the central government.
Plans for global war are very far advanced. Conflicts seen now are the opening stages of WW III. There is no time to waste, my friend. Use that URL. Every day.
i'm familiar with the wsws and understand they're trots. although vigilant as a 'lenin-opportunist', i think we're still that far away from anything big that that discussion shouldn't distract from things we'd have in common (like the hunger for a worldwide 3 month general strike).
There is always Liberal Socialism that was set up in France and many European Countries with free HEALTHCARE/Housing for the aged/free schools. Yes this is changing BUT you try dismantling the Health system in any country there will be people, angry people on the streets.
Have you seen the Farmers in the streets and blocking roads in France.
Unfortunately if you are in the US there is nothing much to dismantle!
"From what I’m seeing, I really don’t believe that’s going to happen. I think permanent damage has been done, especially in the eyes of young people. I think people will focus on Trump because he’s the president now and his abuses need to be criticized, but I don’t think they’ll ever forget the way Democrats exposed their true face through 15 months of mass atrocities." just like those of us in the sixties never forgave LBJ for his Vietnam atrocities and stayed home when his deputy (Humphrey) took his place in 1968. We didn't like Nixon either.
That election marked the end of liberal reformism as a strategy the political class would allow. The postwar boom was ending and US Capitalism was entering a phase of declining rates of profit and internal contradictions from which it has never recovered.
In January 2025, 645,000 children under 5 died of hunger and/or curable diseases, 20,806 per day, 867 per hour, 14 per minute, one every 4 seconds. To prevent this, just over 5 million euros/dollars would have been enough. A normal cruise missile costs about 1 million dollars. A Storm Shadow, a 5.1 meter long cruise missile designed not to be seen by radar (stealth) costs 2.5 million dollars. This is the reality. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18Nd9KfXYv/
Or our soul. There are many very sharp well educated people of every race who are total a$$holes. We need to stop equating professional education with decency, integrity, true humanity, goodness, credibility.
They believe in “the Holy Spirit” unrelated and unconnected to their actual behavior or physical being. So long as it's abstract and mysterious, you can “believe” without actually doing anything different or making any attempt to be righteous. Just occasionally say the words, wear a cross and thump a Bible, and you're God's chosen! American Christianity is largely a joke.
After democracy dies oligarchy and demagoguery take over. When legislatures give standing ovations to all the wrong people it is gone. Watching the confirmation hearings is totally bizarre as all the senators have been bought and paid for by lobbyists. The USA is so openly corrupt and nobody appears to give a damn.
Very true Robert. "Foreign Agents" by Casey Michel documents this, and interestingly, barely mentions AIPAC because the whole US system is hugely corrupted by the pursuit of money. Trump exemplifies what American "success" is all about... "wealth and power, no matter what it costs". Democracy? Who cares! D9's to Gaza? What price!
Oh, we give a damn. It;s just that most of us are walking around in a deluded bubble--either the DNC-approved bull, or the even madder Trump MAGAtry. Those that clearly see it's all lies, and see that things are getting really really desperate, aren't loud and aren't doing anything because we can't figure out what to do, when everything we've tried has been so ineffectual, and most of our fellow citizens are taken in by nonsense and have their brains being sucked out by their phones.
The election of Ken Martin as DNC Chair proves your last point so clearly. His comments were that the Ds have a “branding problem”. They truly still believe that the poors and commoners just don’t “get” the messaging that they’re putting out.
Here he is last November:
“One thing that is deeply alarming to me, and you’ve probably seen this research, is that for the first time in modern history, the majority of Americans believe that the Republican Party best represents the interests of the working class and the poor,” he told The New York Times in an interview last November. “And that the Democratic Party represents the interests of the wealthy and the elite.”
“That would suggest we have a huge branding problem, because that is not who our party is,” Martin continued.
Oh, funny! So, in their minds, it all comes down to advertising? That they didn't spend enough on advertising so that we would see them the way they want us to see them? That is, not up to their thighs in rubble and blood?
The Dems spent enough all right--over a $1 billion and it still couldn't get Harris rammed down enough voters' throats. But all the billions in the world will never bring back the thousands of innocents dead in Gaza, killed by Biden's heartlessness in arming a genocide. #DemExit
This is what stupidity, lack of decency, and arrogance does to people. Ds or Rs believe it is just a matter of packing/branding it nicely. Regardless that the substance is stinky rotten to the core. Shows incredible but not surprising lack of self awareness.
After every election loss democrats say that they just need to message better and people will vote for them. That was one of their excuses for why the Hellabitch lost until they decided to blame Russia instead.
Some shitlibs are finally waking up and seeing that dem resistance to Trump is just saying mean things about him.
That indicates that average people have been noticing reality...that can't be allowed! And some of them have noticed that Biden was 100% responsible for Israel's murderous reign of terror in the middle east with massive donations of arms, and by totally blocking UN action...Obviously, more censorship was needed....
"Branding" - oh my goodness. Yup. Corporatistic thinking at work. Forget about the workers. It's makeup time, a little eye shadow, and more joy, isn't that what Kamala suggested? More joy?
Trump's plan, which is actually the plan of his Israel lobby genocidal Zionist handlers who own him, is to complete the Gaza genocide after the first two phases of the ceasefire gets the Israeli prisoners out by cutting off all essential aid and starving out the people as they sell it as "voluntary migration".
Israel yesterday banned UNRWA from operating, which plays the key role in supplying and administering essential services and goods, from food to healthcare and education. So that's the first part of the plan already enacted.
Steve Witkoff is a lifelong fanatical Zionist who sees Israel as his true homeland. All those reports about him "playing hardball with the Israelis" is bullshit PR that is used as part of the genocidal campaign to fully annex Gaza and the West Bank.
Just yesterday after his "visit" to Gaza, which consisted of a quick embed tour with the IDF, Witkoff advanced this agenda by saying "Gaza is now uninhabitable", and lying that people returning to the north were going back south.
After they have made Gaza actually unhabitable by cutting off all essential services and supplies, they will goad them all to the border with Egypt, and then create a media spectacle about how Egypt is being inhumane and evil by not opening up the border, as they add pressure in the background to their puppet Sisi to open it or they will cut off all military and financial aid and even impose sanctions. At the same time they will do the same with their puppet in Jordan, and create some sort of agreement where the population will be divided.
This is their plan. Whether or not it will work is uncertain at this time.
Several very important factors can lead to its failure:
- The people of Gaza's resilience and steadfastness even as supplies are cut increasingly up to starvation levels. They refuse to be goaded to the border in sufficiently large numbers for a prolonged period of time, increasing pressure on the genocidal Israeli death-cult and Epstein-pedophile rapist Trump to back down.
- In combination with the steadfastness of Palestinians in Gaza, Pressure from below in the US and West to force Israel to abide by the ceasefire agreement's third phase and not allow it to cut off all aid as part of its starving out strategy. The protest movement must remain active and on the streets, in every US-NATO country. France, Germany, UK, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and of course most importantly the US.
- The reactivation of the Axis of Resistance factions as the genocide proceeds, with the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraqi factions beginning their resistance attacks on the genocidal Israeli death cult again to add further pressure.
- The emergence of mass movements in Egypt, Jordan and other US-NATO-Israeli "Arab shield" puppet regimes (see https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/1789589065630650704…) to add pressure on the puppet dictators to not bow to the US-Israeli pressure to complete the genocide.
The genocidal Israeli death and rape-cult and the Zionists who comprise it have had many plans to complete the genocide of Gaza over the past year, and the past decades, and they all failed. So while Trump's handlers, his owners, his masters, have this grand vision of how to complete the genocide, it is not at all clear that they will succeed with it. And we, all of us, have the ability to thwart it.
one more small piece--by blocking UNRWA and Hamas from distributing what aid they let in, they encourage looting and hoarding and violence, which they can then showcase to tell the world what uncivilized animals the Palestinians are.
This is a copy of the embedded link in reference to the obstacles the Trump/Israeli plan faces. I think it’s so astute as not to be “missed.” Those on X/Twitter should repost & share widely.
"Biden destroying Gaza and then Trump working to ethnically cleanse it is such a classic case of the jab-cross combo that Democrats and Republicans employ to advance the agendas of the empire."
Isn't it so? Isn't it so..."bipartisan" of these two, helping wipe out the Palestinian culture and its people all for the sake of their "dear friends" in Tel Aviv. If voters couldn't figure out that the Dems and the GOP are one and the same last election, they probably will by the next. Let's all hope we can survive until then!
"Democrats seriously seem to believe everyone’s just going to forget that they spent 15 months ignoring, making excuses for, and outright supporting a genocide. They think all the outrage over Trump is going to magically erase what they did from people’s minds over four years.
From what I’m seeing, I really don’t believe that’s going to happen."
I don't think this is going to happen either. Whenever I see an email from a Democrat or that mentions supporting a Democrat, I delete it. I wonder how many others do the same?
anybody who defended the democrats and urged people to vote for them knowing damn well they were aiding and abetting a genocide will never be forgotten for their moral cowardice.
This is a good discussion to have - thank you Caitlin. Tom Cotton's remarks only highlight how it was always thus. Biden was worse than the one before and who comes next after Trump is anybody's guess. All the presidents down the ages have led to the here and now of the second coming. Trump is brash enough, crude enough to voice the intentions of empire without any niceties.
The world finds itself in transition - Trump's inauguration was a celebration of unilateral imposition of rules on humanity. Trump and his tycoons plan to make America "great again " , a confirmation of US decline disguised as a return to a "golden age". The modern world economy is a continuous expansion of capitalism and colonialism. They believed in infinite economic growth, unilinear progress and racial superiority. And the development of the last 100 years wasn't possible if not for the US. Trump seems to believe that the world now owes the USA reparations!
Not for China to surpass them together with Russia and BRICS. No wonder China's Deep Seek came as a shock.
Ukraine war, the most cynical of enterprises was to weaken Europe - for it to stop being an economic rival - to weaken Russia, and to isolate China. Trump is carrying on where Biden left off.
With the ethnic cleansing of " immigrants" domestically ,the US is like a potential Gaza. A warning of what comes next to the US underclass. Trump blithely says that Egypt and Jordan can take all the displaced Palestinians, sounding like a humanitarian!
Trump's tycoons are promoting economic freedom for themselves and freedom for their ideas. And repression and censorship for the ideas of others. They are legitimising fascism.
Shitlibs are still more livid about people not voting for genocide Kamala than they are that both her and genocide Joe helped Israel genocide Palestinians. They think that people who lost family and friends to the genocide should have sucked it up and voted for her because of Trump.
They think it’s worse that Trump wants to ethnic cleanse Gaza, but they have forgotten that Blinken tried to do the same thing. And if Biden had won how long till he suggested doing it?
I wonder what would happen if nobody voted for anyone. Would the elite just decide among themselves? Would everyone else take to the streets to protest?
People could take people not voting many different ways. Why not vote for a party you believe in. Especially if you’re from CA or NY where Dems will win no matter who we vote for. That clearly tells both capitalist parties what voters really want.
Fine. I voted for the Greens, knowing they can't win BECAUSE they oppose war and genocide and want to actually address climate change, and reverse the galloping enrichment of the .0001% at the expense of everyone else. It's not any solution to "tell both capitalist parties what voters really want"--they don't give a shit, they care about what their donors want, and they already know what we want--they need to know so they can manipulate us into voting for Dracula or Frankenstein, doesn't much matter which.
If you vote, then you are agreeing to be bound by the results of the vote. If you believe that the system is rigged, then by voting you grant legitimacy to that system. If you simply dislike the R and D candidates, then by all means vote 3rd party. If you believe that the system is rotten through and through, then stop legitimizing it by participating.
I say this to present an argument, not necessarily to present my own belief. While this argument makes logical sense to me, I haven’t yet put it into action. I’ve voted 3rd party for president my whole life with the one shameful exception of ‘08 (I knew better. But I got caught up in the hype and decided on the way to the polls to be part of history. Damn that guy has silver tongue don’t he?). Apparently I don’t have the stomach for a meaningful protest. So I vote third party and march with signs and sign petitions that nobody reads. And I pay my taxes (an immoral act).
We need enough people with the courage to stop enabling our own oppression before real change will happen. And I hate to say it, because I don’t really want to live through it, but it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
But we can each be a light in the darkness. We can refuse to despair and choose to spread love in the face of evil. Darkness cannot win if we refuse to extinguish our light.
Sorry for rambling. To everyone reading Caitlin’s Substack, I want to say thank you for not giving in or giving up. Just the fact that you’re here shows that they haven’t broken you yet. Stay strong, and shine on.
Refusing to vote is not meaningful protest. When only half, or a quarter of those eligible to vote bother, it makes it easier to manipulate the result--but the main manipulation is to ensure that both parties serve the corporate/elite interests, and third parties are marginalized out of viability. Voting does not legitimize the system, not voting does not attack it, and voting does not affect anything. If we are to make change we need to find something more effective--and not waste time and emotional energy either on elections or on fighting with those who made a different choice about voting Having elections every four years keeps us wasting out collective time on this instead of having conversations about what we can to do actually change things.
Chang, take a look at where people do vote. They have been corporatist states since day one. Elections and debate within defined parameters is intended to make us believe we have a democracy, to placate us. The UK and the USA are now openly corporatist (= Fascist). Now begins the overt oppression, the Nazification. Voting is not going to change that.
I don't think that most of those countries ever had voting. To go from a pretend democracy where it was pretended that your vote counted to everyone refusing to vote is different. Maybe it would become a dictatorship. Maybe, if people pushed enough in the other direction, it would not become a dictatorship. It would become something that many people discussed, and then decided how to put it into place.
tptb would probably point out that you could have voted for parties that would change the political system (or you could've started a new one). self-rule requires quite an effort (merely demanding 'better rulers' won't solve the problem, imo).
TPTB would of course point out that you could vote for change. But they know the system’s rigged to prevent that. The only way that would be possible is to build an alternative party structure completely outside of the existing parties and mainstream media. It’s theoretically possible but as soon as such a party structure was gaining momentum, it is guaranteed that it TPTB would take notice and would take efforts to infiltrate and subvert that party. They would attempt to take control of it, they would wage propaganda wars against it, they would attempt frame and discredit the leaders, and if all else fails assassinate them. (Look at smear campaign against Jill Stein, e.g. and that’s someone most people haven’t even heard of).
At present all parties are working under the same political system. I agree that rule from the bottom up rather than from the top down would require a huge amount of work. There is no sense demanding 'better rulers' when they all have the same agenda.
No he doesn't like Netanyahu, because Netanyahu doesn't 'market' his actions as a "Deal" and this causes problems for Israeli supporters.
But Trump just wants to pay (US taxpayers money) to make the problem of Palestine go away.
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"The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." " Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
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. "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.
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"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine,Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.
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We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum"
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"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.
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David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.
Astonishingly, T Cotton and others before him speak as if this represents a revolution in the history of ideas. In reality, this has been understood widely for many generations.
I find the honesty refreshing. Most US people are OK with the world domination plan.
Come on, people! He barely spoke honestly, pretending that one shining democracy (the US) was not always picking its allies from other democracies--the truth is there are very few genuine democracies on this planet and the US is not among them. And not only are US wars not about "spreading democracy"--often suppressing democracy is one of the objectives, because spreading neoliberal capitalism. is what they're about, and democracy conflicts with that.
Mary Wildfire, Noam Chomsky called it " Deterring Democracy".
Haha. Had not heard. Very apt
Deter democracy where possible
Destroy democracy, where necessary
Thank you.
So in your opinion what type of governance is best suited to feed the world? Socialism? Communism? Fascism? Naive children, what many sound like here. Unsubscribed.
An example of your "suppressing democracy" over time, Mary, are the majority of the South American countries, their closeness to the USA making them easy targets.
Of course, there are many more to come but for other reasons such as oil, Venezuela being #1 on their list with oil reserves of 1000 years compared to the USA, 8 years.
Some very good people have been closed down over time in that geography.
The list over the years, too long to mention.
That's because most Americans are braindead. Hence, they think like squirrels gathering acorns, they want 'em all.....
Oh Michael, squirrels are much more savvy than humans… they think ahead!
understood, maybe (by older people), but keeping it taboo and not having it expressed is quite important to maintain the imperial narrative, imo. i think there's a tremendous imperial effort to not exposing especially young people to marxist ideas for instance. once one is older and locked inside the system (participating), openness to change is very much reduced (the old adage of becoming more conservative whilst aging).
As an elderly person I am outspoken and moving further left!
Jenny, I get more radical by the day!
I wouldn't say left for myself at all. But more populist.
Then you have those who in their youth embrace and embody the hard right, reconsider their orientation in midlife, and embrace a revolutionary Marxist position in their elder years. That has been my path. Nor am I alone.
See https://wsws.org for more.
that is indeed nice, but in the mean time they succeeded in making us spend many productive years (unwittingly) supporting the status quo. looking around, it seems unlikely (but you never know) that anything 'big' would happen in the next 10+ years (and my remaining lifetime). societies have been led very far in opposite directions (like back to feudalism) since marx (re-)exposed the system. priority for now seems to be, to spread class consciousness among the youth.
Martin:
Understand that we are and for some time have been in a pre-revolutionary condition. Understand that the same conditions under Capitalism which drive the world to war, global war, and authoritarian reaction AT THE SAME TIME raise proletarian consciousness and unite the global working class. Understand that it is only in the last stage of pre-revolutionary conditions that you see simply massive action in which tens, scores or even hundreds of millions taking to the streets.
Understand that as the revolutionary stage opens, time speeds up in the sense that political events unfold with simply astounding rapidity. Even the massive protests as I mentioned can break out very, very quickly.
Also know that the working class has an extremely powerful mechanism which, when used by class conscious workers, will break the power of the bourgeois state and its Democratic Party petit bourgeois lackeys. It is the industrial strike, the basis of the coerced extraction of order-created wealth.
For this to occur, it is necessary to build worker-run, Rank-and-File committees in every shop and workplace, INDEPENDENT of both Capitalist parties, and INDEPENDENT of party-owned unions.
WHEN said committees develop and workers support the strategy of worker-led struggle on three fronts against corporations, unions and the administration, it begins. The regime orders striking workers back on the job. The strike is made permanent. The industrial strike is converted into a direct political strike against the central government.
Plans for global war are very far advanced. Conflicts seen now are the opening stages of WW III. There is no time to waste, my friend. Use that URL. Every day.
i'm familiar with the wsws and understand they're trots. although vigilant as a 'lenin-opportunist', i think we're still that far away from anything big that that discussion shouldn't distract from things we'd have in common (like the hunger for a worldwide 3 month general strike).
Socialism has never worked. Communism has never worked. I'm smh at the comments here. Marxist trash.
But socialism has also been subjected to intelligent criticism.
For example: some will contend that socialism has never been implemented, and then proceed to argue that there must be reasons for that.
Now as a socialist, I disagree with both positions. But again, the later example is at least intelligent.
Edit: word substitution.
Socialism has never worked: China. Russia?
There is always Liberal Socialism that was set up in France and many European Countries with free HEALTHCARE/Housing for the aged/free schools. Yes this is changing BUT you try dismantling the Health system in any country there will be people, angry people on the streets.
Have you seen the Farmers in the streets and blocking roads in France.
Unfortunately if you are in the US there is nothing much to dismantle!
Too bad the American citizens are the ones who keep it going
"From what I’m seeing, I really don’t believe that’s going to happen. I think permanent damage has been done, especially in the eyes of young people. I think people will focus on Trump because he’s the president now and his abuses need to be criticized, but I don’t think they’ll ever forget the way Democrats exposed their true face through 15 months of mass atrocities." just like those of us in the sixties never forgave LBJ for his Vietnam atrocities and stayed home when his deputy (Humphrey) took his place in 1968. We didn't like Nixon either.
PS Kamala lost the "new voters' by 11% Dems thought they would have he youth vote. Nope, dope!l
"Hey, look. Gaza is a mess and we gotta clean it up, send the people packing to Jordan and Lebanon and build some hotels so Jared can get rich".....
What do they think Hamas will do........sit back and let this happen?
Jenny, nor will the Gazan people themselves allow it. What are they going to do, herd them into cattle cars? (Sound familiar?)
If Egypt and Jordan are bribed into accepting this, their respective leaders can kiss their asses goodbye.
That election marked the end of liberal reformism as a strategy the political class would allow. The postwar boom was ending and US Capitalism was entering a phase of declining rates of profit and internal contradictions from which it has never recovered.
In January 2025, 645,000 children under 5 died of hunger and/or curable diseases, 20,806 per day, 867 per hour, 14 per minute, one every 4 seconds. To prevent this, just over 5 million euros/dollars would have been enough. A normal cruise missile costs about 1 million dollars. A Storm Shadow, a 5.1 meter long cruise missile designed not to be seen by radar (stealth) costs 2.5 million dollars. This is the reality. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18Nd9KfXYv/
Evil that I dont think their God would approve of. Or don't they actually believe in "him?"
They think God looks like an old white man. We know Jesus was darker skinned Palestinian .
The color of our skin is a detail. What matters is our brain.
Or our soul. There are many very sharp well educated people of every race who are total a$$holes. We need to stop equating professional education with decency, integrity, true humanity, goodness, credibility.
Agreed. This (true humanity) is in our brain. We say currently "in our heart", but our heartvis or motor. Everything is in our brain.
They believe in “the Holy Spirit” unrelated and unconnected to their actual behavior or physical being. So long as it's abstract and mysterious, you can “believe” without actually doing anything different or making any attempt to be righteous. Just occasionally say the words, wear a cross and thump a Bible, and you're God's chosen! American Christianity is largely a joke.
Always wondered about the Holy Ghost.
It's fun! Feels good! I don't think it excuses being a jerk.
After democracy dies oligarchy and demagoguery take over. When legislatures give standing ovations to all the wrong people it is gone. Watching the confirmation hearings is totally bizarre as all the senators have been bought and paid for by lobbyists. The USA is so openly corrupt and nobody appears to give a damn.
Very true Robert. "Foreign Agents" by Casey Michel documents this, and interestingly, barely mentions AIPAC because the whole US system is hugely corrupted by the pursuit of money. Trump exemplifies what American "success" is all about... "wealth and power, no matter what it costs". Democracy? Who cares! D9's to Gaza? What price!
Oh, we give a damn. It;s just that most of us are walking around in a deluded bubble--either the DNC-approved bull, or the even madder Trump MAGAtry. Those that clearly see it's all lies, and see that things are getting really really desperate, aren't loud and aren't doing anything because we can't figure out what to do, when everything we've tried has been so ineffectual, and most of our fellow citizens are taken in by nonsense and have their brains being sucked out by their phones.
The election of Ken Martin as DNC Chair proves your last point so clearly. His comments were that the Ds have a “branding problem”. They truly still believe that the poors and commoners just don’t “get” the messaging that they’re putting out.
Here he is last November:
“One thing that is deeply alarming to me, and you’ve probably seen this research, is that for the first time in modern history, the majority of Americans believe that the Republican Party best represents the interests of the working class and the poor,” he told The New York Times in an interview last November. “And that the Democratic Party represents the interests of the wealthy and the elite.”
“That would suggest we have a huge branding problem, because that is not who our party is,” Martin continued.
Oh, funny! So, in their minds, it all comes down to advertising? That they didn't spend enough on advertising so that we would see them the way they want us to see them? That is, not up to their thighs in rubble and blood?
The Dems spent enough all right--over a $1 billion and it still couldn't get Harris rammed down enough voters' throats. But all the billions in the world will never bring back the thousands of innocents dead in Gaza, killed by Biden's heartlessness in arming a genocide. #DemExit
This is what stupidity, lack of decency, and arrogance does to people. Ds or Rs believe it is just a matter of packing/branding it nicely. Regardless that the substance is stinky rotten to the core. Shows incredible but not surprising lack of self awareness.
I was thinking 'necks' or even 'waists,' but that's relative, and rising.
After every election loss democrats say that they just need to message better and people will vote for them. That was one of their excuses for why the Hellabitch lost until they decided to blame Russia instead.
Some shitlibs are finally waking up and seeing that dem resistance to Trump is just saying mean things about him.
That indicates that average people have been noticing reality...that can't be allowed! And some of them have noticed that Biden was 100% responsible for Israel's murderous reign of terror in the middle east with massive donations of arms, and by totally blocking UN action...Obviously, more censorship was needed....
"Branding" - oh my goodness. Yup. Corporatistic thinking at work. Forget about the workers. It's makeup time, a little eye shadow, and more joy, isn't that what Kamala suggested? More joy?
Like putting lipstick on a pig.🤣😂
Smokey, I’d have much preferred a real actual pig in the WH to Scamala!
Amen to that!👏👍🙏💯
You got it summarized in one short sentence.
Trump's plan, which is actually the plan of his Israel lobby genocidal Zionist handlers who own him, is to complete the Gaza genocide after the first two phases of the ceasefire gets the Israeli prisoners out by cutting off all essential aid and starving out the people as they sell it as "voluntary migration".
Israel yesterday banned UNRWA from operating, which plays the key role in supplying and administering essential services and goods, from food to healthcare and education. So that's the first part of the plan already enacted.
Steve Witkoff is a lifelong fanatical Zionist who sees Israel as his true homeland. All those reports about him "playing hardball with the Israelis" is bullshit PR that is used as part of the genocidal campaign to fully annex Gaza and the West Bank.
Just yesterday after his "visit" to Gaza, which consisted of a quick embed tour with the IDF, Witkoff advanced this agenda by saying "Gaza is now uninhabitable", and lying that people returning to the north were going back south.
After they have made Gaza actually unhabitable by cutting off all essential services and supplies, they will goad them all to the border with Egypt, and then create a media spectacle about how Egypt is being inhumane and evil by not opening up the border, as they add pressure in the background to their puppet Sisi to open it or they will cut off all military and financial aid and even impose sanctions. At the same time they will do the same with their puppet in Jordan, and create some sort of agreement where the population will be divided.
This is their plan. Whether or not it will work is uncertain at this time.
Several very important factors can lead to its failure:
- The people of Gaza's resilience and steadfastness even as supplies are cut increasingly up to starvation levels. They refuse to be goaded to the border in sufficiently large numbers for a prolonged period of time, increasing pressure on the genocidal Israeli death-cult and Epstein-pedophile rapist Trump to back down.
- In combination with the steadfastness of Palestinians in Gaza, Pressure from below in the US and West to force Israel to abide by the ceasefire agreement's third phase and not allow it to cut off all aid as part of its starving out strategy. The protest movement must remain active and on the streets, in every US-NATO country. France, Germany, UK, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and of course most importantly the US.
- The reactivation of the Axis of Resistance factions as the genocide proceeds, with the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iraqi factions beginning their resistance attacks on the genocidal Israeli death cult again to add further pressure.
- The emergence of mass movements in Egypt, Jordan and other US-NATO-Israeli "Arab shield" puppet regimes (see https://x.com/zei_squirrel/status/1789589065630650704…) to add pressure on the puppet dictators to not bow to the US-Israeli pressure to complete the genocide.
The genocidal Israeli death and rape-cult and the Zionists who comprise it have had many plans to complete the genocide of Gaza over the past year, and the past decades, and they all failed. So while Trump's handlers, his owners, his masters, have this grand vision of how to complete the genocide, it is not at all clear that they will succeed with it. And we, all of us, have the ability to thwart it.
one more small piece--by blocking UNRWA and Hamas from distributing what aid they let in, they encourage looting and hoarding and violence, which they can then showcase to tell the world what uncivilized animals the Palestinians are.
Thought the devils banned UNRWA over a year ago. Hell isn't hot enough...
This is a copy of the embedded link in reference to the obstacles the Trump/Israeli plan faces. I think it’s so astute as not to be “missed.” Those on X/Twitter should repost & share widely.
"Biden destroying Gaza and then Trump working to ethnically cleanse it is such a classic case of the jab-cross combo that Democrats and Republicans employ to advance the agendas of the empire."
Isn't it so? Isn't it so..."bipartisan" of these two, helping wipe out the Palestinian culture and its people all for the sake of their "dear friends" in Tel Aviv. If voters couldn't figure out that the Dems and the GOP are one and the same last election, they probably will by the next. Let's all hope we can survive until then!
"Democrats seriously seem to believe everyone’s just going to forget that they spent 15 months ignoring, making excuses for, and outright supporting a genocide. They think all the outrage over Trump is going to magically erase what they did from people’s minds over four years.
From what I’m seeing, I really don’t believe that’s going to happen."
I don't think this is going to happen either. Whenever I see an email from a Democrat or that mentions supporting a Democrat, I delete it. I wonder how many others do the same?
And I curse at them and vow to never vote for a Democrat again.
Oh, yes!
anybody who defended the democrats and urged people to vote for them knowing damn well they were aiding and abetting a genocide will never be forgotten for their moral cowardice.
Whether it is better to let someone use your heart for their own personal interests, or to throw it into the river...
This is a good discussion to have - thank you Caitlin. Tom Cotton's remarks only highlight how it was always thus. Biden was worse than the one before and who comes next after Trump is anybody's guess. All the presidents down the ages have led to the here and now of the second coming. Trump is brash enough, crude enough to voice the intentions of empire without any niceties.
The world finds itself in transition - Trump's inauguration was a celebration of unilateral imposition of rules on humanity. Trump and his tycoons plan to make America "great again " , a confirmation of US decline disguised as a return to a "golden age". The modern world economy is a continuous expansion of capitalism and colonialism. They believed in infinite economic growth, unilinear progress and racial superiority. And the development of the last 100 years wasn't possible if not for the US. Trump seems to believe that the world now owes the USA reparations!
Not for China to surpass them together with Russia and BRICS. No wonder China's Deep Seek came as a shock.
Ukraine war, the most cynical of enterprises was to weaken Europe - for it to stop being an economic rival - to weaken Russia, and to isolate China. Trump is carrying on where Biden left off.
With the ethnic cleansing of " immigrants" domestically ,the US is like a potential Gaza. A warning of what comes next to the US underclass. Trump blithely says that Egypt and Jordan can take all the displaced Palestinians, sounding like a humanitarian!
Trump's tycoons are promoting economic freedom for themselves and freedom for their ideas. And repression and censorship for the ideas of others. They are legitimising fascism.
Nothing says settler more than taking a bulldozer to the land to prevent The Return Of The Native
"stable democracies make the most stable friend"
And if they aren't our friend then we make sure they aren't stable.
"Eyes have been opened that will never again close." So true! That is what happened to me.
But have enough eyes been opened? It doesn't seem like it to me.
I can't answer that, hoping time will tell?
Shitlibs are still more livid about people not voting for genocide Kamala than they are that both her and genocide Joe helped Israel genocide Palestinians. They think that people who lost family and friends to the genocide should have sucked it up and voted for her because of Trump.
They think it’s worse that Trump wants to ethnic cleanse Gaza, but they have forgotten that Blinken tried to do the same thing. And if Biden had won how long till he suggested doing it?
I wonder what would happen if nobody voted for anyone. Would the elite just decide among themselves? Would everyone else take to the streets to protest?
They’d just show fake election results that say 350 million people voted…and we’d believe it
Would the elite just decide among themselves?
That's how the Ds got their nominee.
Kudos. That’s my dream. No one bothers to vote for either party and send a message that neither one is better than the other.
People could take people not voting many different ways. Why not vote for a party you believe in. Especially if you’re from CA or NY where Dems will win no matter who we vote for. That clearly tells both capitalist parties what voters really want.
Fine. I voted for the Greens, knowing they can't win BECAUSE they oppose war and genocide and want to actually address climate change, and reverse the galloping enrichment of the .0001% at the expense of everyone else. It's not any solution to "tell both capitalist parties what voters really want"--they don't give a shit, they care about what their donors want, and they already know what we want--they need to know so they can manipulate us into voting for Dracula or Frankenstein, doesn't much matter which.
If you vote, then you are agreeing to be bound by the results of the vote. If you believe that the system is rigged, then by voting you grant legitimacy to that system. If you simply dislike the R and D candidates, then by all means vote 3rd party. If you believe that the system is rotten through and through, then stop legitimizing it by participating.
I say this to present an argument, not necessarily to present my own belief. While this argument makes logical sense to me, I haven’t yet put it into action. I’ve voted 3rd party for president my whole life with the one shameful exception of ‘08 (I knew better. But I got caught up in the hype and decided on the way to the polls to be part of history. Damn that guy has silver tongue don’t he?). Apparently I don’t have the stomach for a meaningful protest. So I vote third party and march with signs and sign petitions that nobody reads. And I pay my taxes (an immoral act).
We need enough people with the courage to stop enabling our own oppression before real change will happen. And I hate to say it, because I don’t really want to live through it, but it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
But we can each be a light in the darkness. We can refuse to despair and choose to spread love in the face of evil. Darkness cannot win if we refuse to extinguish our light.
Sorry for rambling. To everyone reading Caitlin’s Substack, I want to say thank you for not giving in or giving up. Just the fact that you’re here shows that they haven’t broken you yet. Stay strong, and shine on.
Refusing to vote is not meaningful protest. When only half, or a quarter of those eligible to vote bother, it makes it easier to manipulate the result--but the main manipulation is to ensure that both parties serve the corporate/elite interests, and third parties are marginalized out of viability. Voting does not legitimize the system, not voting does not attack it, and voting does not affect anything. If we are to make change we need to find something more effective--and not waste time and emotional energy either on elections or on fighting with those who made a different choice about voting Having elections every four years keeps us wasting out collective time on this instead of having conversations about what we can to do actually change things.
"If you vote, then you are agreeing to be bound by the results of the vote. "
Huh?
Take a look at countries where there is no voting (or psuedo-voting). They become dictatorships, monarchies, tyrannies, oligarchic autocracies, etc.
Chang, take a look at where people do vote. They have been corporatist states since day one. Elections and debate within defined parameters is intended to make us believe we have a democracy, to placate us. The UK and the USA are now openly corporatist (= Fascist). Now begins the overt oppression, the Nazification. Voting is not going to change that.
Yes, I believe you may be right.
I don't think that most of those countries ever had voting. To go from a pretend democracy where it was pretended that your vote counted to everyone refusing to vote is different. Maybe it would become a dictatorship. Maybe, if people pushed enough in the other direction, it would not become a dictatorship. It would become something that many people discussed, and then decided how to put it into place.
What does TPTB mean?
The powers that be
True, it is something interesting to contemplate...how will TPTB react? How will events unfold?
Chang, I’d prefer to live under a benevolent dictator.
the elite already decides among themselves. what would everyone else be protesting about?
Hopefully, everyone else would be protesting the political system that is destroying our planet and our lives.
tptb would probably point out that you could have voted for parties that would change the political system (or you could've started a new one). self-rule requires quite an effort (merely demanding 'better rulers' won't solve the problem, imo).
TPTB would of course point out that you could vote for change. But they know the system’s rigged to prevent that. The only way that would be possible is to build an alternative party structure completely outside of the existing parties and mainstream media. It’s theoretically possible but as soon as such a party structure was gaining momentum, it is guaranteed that it TPTB would take notice and would take efforts to infiltrate and subvert that party. They would attempt to take control of it, they would wage propaganda wars against it, they would attempt frame and discredit the leaders, and if all else fails assassinate them. (Look at smear campaign against Jill Stein, e.g. and that’s someone most people haven’t even heard of).
At present all parties are working under the same political system. I agree that rule from the bottom up rather than from the top down would require a huge amount of work. There is no sense demanding 'better rulers' when they all have the same agenda.
Trump is an Israel first person.
No he doesn't like Netanyahu, because Netanyahu doesn't 'market' his actions as a "Deal" and this causes problems for Israeli supporters.
But Trump just wants to pay (US taxpayers money) to make the problem of Palestine go away.
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"The Palestinians" would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls." " Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
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. "We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel... Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours." Rafael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces - Gad Becker, Yediot Ahronot 13 April 1983, New York Times 14 April 1983.
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"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine,Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.
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We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." Israel Koenig, "The Koenig Memorandum"
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"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.
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David Ben Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): "If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti - Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?" Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.