I lived in a riding (that's Kanuk for "electoral district") that was the only one in the Western Hemisphere that had a Green in both the Federal and Provincial legislatures.
It is possible!
I vote expat in a "safely Blue" state, so I've been happily "wasting" my vote on the Greens for some three decades. Don't see that changing any time soon.
That may be true, but unless the environment of your childhood taught you to see beyond words to find the underlying truths, it's hardly something to chide young adults about.
I was lucky in life in one aspect: the behaviour of the Labour Party-voting members of my family was so inconsistent with the purported values of the Party that it was obvious to me that what people said and what they actually did very rarely coincided. That led me to explore what other parties had to say, not in the bipartisan (I'm not Labour, so I must be Conservative) nonsensical way, rather to focus on what political, familial and societal principles I actually believed in and then to look at what overlap those had with what political parties had to say.
It's very, very difficult to gain a true understanding of the wider sweeps of society, of politics and of economics, without having lived through at least one economic/political cycle. It's equally hard to work out how to move beyond win-lose politics, unless there are communities engaging in the same challenging struggle.
The last two national leaders (Kadaffi, Hussein) who tried to sell their oil in anything but US Dollars died via American arms, under false pretenses.
But there is a movement afoot to price oil is some other currency. *That* will be the end of American hegemony, as no one would have any use for US Dollars if they weren't forced to have them to buy oil.
I now know that nobody other than an American ever may express an opinion concerning U.S. politics, lest some unsuspecting Yanqui overhear and be led astray.
Would to God that Americans and their UK buttbois display a similar scrupulousness concerning other countries and their politics.
Well said: the problem is the US is infested with imperialist ideology, to the point they think it's normal. But it isnt. It's a murderous and frankly insane worldview. Literally an illness.
Which is a direct consequence of intentional subject avoidance in schools and in the media, the concessions afforded to right-wing pulpit marionettes who spew messages to elicit fear, obedience and hatred, and the orchestrated idiocy that is American political discourse. The only sober discussions permitted to the public are the ones where jingoism is the refrain and war is the “tragic”imperative. The American imperial perspective is top-down.
i conclude the american people is, due to extensive propagandising for generations, no longer capable to rule itself. i refer to the john adam's quote.
"The fact that the unnamed official sees US economic sanctions as “the law” for other countries shows that these freaks really do believe they own the entire planet. They see other countries as their property, and believe they are therefore entitled to seize any property of those countries if they are not sufficiently obedient to the dictates of Washington." Nice summing up Caitlin. This is exactly where the American sense of exceptionalism (inherited from the equally corrupt England) has led. Any nation, tribe, cult, that thinks it is exceptional will always want to subdue, oppress, exploit those who are lesser in their view.
"the US is not a normal country with a normal government; it’s the hub of the most powerful empire that has ever existed" True, of course. But beyond this are the internal dynamics of the society -- and I note that I have lived in NYC, urban and rural New England, ditto the Southwest. No matter, there are two underpinning barriers to population sanity one senses at the deepest gut level as one wanders among the herd: first, a deafness to discourse, as though free speech is as useless to unearth solutions as a plastic snow shovel on concrete; and second, a deep simmering violence as a solution to disagreements, as though the homicidal actions of the most fecked-up government on the planet have the propulsive force of this underlying "don't tread on me" mental energy simmering within the batshit cultural psyche.
Give me a usa tv and within five minutes I can show you someone being shot, simulated or sometimes real. All the bad guys are killed and everything is ok again.
Agreed! I’ve been saying that since the USA makes the whole world’s business its business, they don’t get a say when the whole world makes the USA’s business its business!
A couple of notes. Life is hard, for most. The inner work you describe is one path to deal with the dystopian day to day, and I admire those for whom it works, and can, as you have, use that work to cope, without falling prey to having the inner work blunt the awareness of outer horrors. As one who survived an abusive childhood and adolescence by using compartmentalization, my path is best expressed by the Zen Master clip from Charlie Wilson’s war - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2cjVhUrmII
Secondly, many thanks for what you do. You, and Tim, are in my daily info queue to heighten awareness of what our focus should be, and your advice to filter incoming information through a lens of propaganda, narrative, and empire, has been indispensable in discerning the credibility of the daily barrage of ‘news/analysis’. Your writing is passionate awareness personified.
Lastly, a request. You mentioned in an earlier piece that you had posted a list of sources/sites/writers you recommended on a twitter thread. As I am am not on any social media platforms, and my ability to access them is intermittent, I was wondering if you might post your list on your main page, perhaps as a part of the section you have explaining why you do what you do. Just a thought.
Tom, my view is that many people subconsciously prioritise breeding and raising children over facing up to the manifest horrors of the world. They worry subconsciously that they might damage their children through anger engendered by trying to engage with the manifest horrors like we see today in Gaza.
It's why I think that there's a huge space in politics for those whose children are already adults, as they have in the main completed their child rearing and their adult children are less likely to be damaged if they had an emotional outburst, something they may be less likely to experience being of more senior years.
Politics, after all, is often for those who have raised a family, worked hard for a generation and engaged in a variety of areas in their local communities. That's what gives them grounding in local politics.
National/international politics is a different matter, since much of it is alien to 'normal' people who are good parents. It tends to attract the more deranged mindsets, to be honest. Narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, racists, master-race eugenicists, warmongers etc etc.
Most of the world needs far more 'ordinary' people in politics, ensuring that 'normal' values are not usurped by Zionists, extremist Muslims, belligerent billionaires or the like.
Agree with most of what you write, but would quibble with your statement about who politics is often for. Can’t tell you how many times doing tabling work for various ballot initiatives I was greeted with the ‘I’m not into politics’ line, often by the young, but also others across the age spectrum. My standard response was to throw a thought bomb back at them, saying, ‘Due respect, but everything is political, from the food you eat to the phone in your pocket to the sheets on your bed. We’re all political animals, the awareness of it is what differs among us.’ Was the catalyst for many interesting conversations.
Definitely need more ‘ordinary’ people in politics, but the system has pretty much closed off that avenue of engagement. The streets are pretty much our only avenue to change the bought and paid for paradigm.
agree that having children can make you vulnerable, but also can make you strong if you can see the bigger dynamics and estimate consequences in the longer run. (in job interviews for males being parents was often considered a plus, because one was considered 'tamer').
If Caitlin Johnstone were the UN's Secretary-General, then the United Nations might signify something. The UN is increasingly becoming the last bastion of the US/UK/IMF/WEF/EU/NATO World Dis-order Complex, a fig leaf of "legitimacy." In reality, there is no justification (and there never was one) for the Euro-American World's hegemony, now a mere flaccid phallus with Nukes, for the continuing fiction that the World Stage is directed from DC, London, and Brussels.
Sadly, if CJ were the UN S-G, then it is highly likely that she would be murdered fairly quickly. You know, like Hammarsgjold, Palme, Steve Biko, MLK, JFK etc etc.
Never underestimate the breadth of the tentacles of pure evil.
What's needed is a far more decentralised de-fanging process. You know, mass selling of shares in weapons manufacturers; mass refusal to vote for any candidate endorsed/funded by AIPAC; an alternative UN set up by the BRICS community; a continent-wide initiative of Africans to fund their own peaceful development, reclamation of desert land and optimisation of hydrological cycles; Australia and New Zealand having referenda to vote to leave Five Eyes, to kick the USA out of their nations and to become nations aligned not to malignant warmongers but to nations nearer as neighbours.
Tiny “Israel” is a “holding company,” an off-shore banking enterprise. “Star of David” dimly glimpsed on the horizon: that’s the drift of the grift. Your comment is true to a fault, meaning that it’s true, when the Powers-That-Should-Not-Be are working 24/7 to convince us that the “Truth” does not exist…
Sometimes it just takes the luck of life growing up. I saw a tremendous amount of the shadow of humanity in the first seventeen years of my life, excluding war and mass murder, but then I was lucky enough to enjoy a magical year abroad where the rules changed, I fitted in and wondrous things happened.
It left me with an inner certainty that change is possible, even if you don't know exactly when. It is just a matter of circumstances conspiring to make it possible.
I guess those that haven't lived the life I lived use 'faith' as a mechanism to believe that, since they may not have had any personal experiences yet to prove that it definitely can happen.
"When US officials talk about the “rules-based international order”, what they mean is the US making the rules and giving the orders and everyone else obeying, or else."
That's worthy of inclusion in my database of ~9,000 of my favourite quotes!
This is more a comment than a question. Your response to the person claiming Harris is a communist was inadequate and insulting. I kinda think the insult is deserved but still--there are those so brainwashed by their information stream that they believe this; if some such people are talking to you, you should make use of your platform to straighten them out--primarily by defining "communism" since presumably a misunderstanding of what it means is at the root of anyone buying such ridiculous horseradish. Probably it's one of two things: either a notion that the mildest socialist program equates to communism (like Social Security) or the idea that the word "communism" means totalitarianism--which it does not. Communism is an economic system, totalitarianism is an economic system. Accusing Harris of supporting totalitarianism has considerable merit, but Trump earns the label even more so. In any case, focusing on individuals is a distraction--it's a totalitarian SYSTEM, with a democratic disguise, and the job of a president is spokesperson for an empire. Frontman.
The relevant issues are very much transnational and global like never before. We must start seeing ourselves as an integrated global community in pursuit of planetary survival.
Voting Dem or Rep is learned helplessness.
I lived in a riding (that's Kanuk for "electoral district") that was the only one in the Western Hemisphere that had a Green in both the Federal and Provincial legislatures.
It is possible!
I vote expat in a "safely Blue" state, so I've been happily "wasting" my vote on the Greens for some three decades. Don't see that changing any time soon.
That may be true, but unless the environment of your childhood taught you to see beyond words to find the underlying truths, it's hardly something to chide young adults about.
I was lucky in life in one aspect: the behaviour of the Labour Party-voting members of my family was so inconsistent with the purported values of the Party that it was obvious to me that what people said and what they actually did very rarely coincided. That led me to explore what other parties had to say, not in the bipartisan (I'm not Labour, so I must be Conservative) nonsensical way, rather to focus on what political, familial and societal principles I actually believed in and then to look at what overlap those had with what political parties had to say.
It's very, very difficult to gain a true understanding of the wider sweeps of society, of politics and of economics, without having lived through at least one economic/political cycle. It's equally hard to work out how to move beyond win-lose politics, unless there are communities engaging in the same challenging struggle.
seizing the plane sends the message "how dare you sell and profit from your own oil, that oil belongs to the US".
There's a lot of precedent.
The last two national leaders (Kadaffi, Hussein) who tried to sell their oil in anything but US Dollars died via American arms, under false pretenses.
But there is a movement afoot to price oil is some other currency. *That* will be the end of American hegemony, as no one would have any use for US Dollars if they weren't forced to have them to buy oil.
I now know that nobody other than an American ever may express an opinion concerning U.S. politics, lest some unsuspecting Yanqui overhear and be led astray.
Would to God that Americans and their UK buttbois display a similar scrupulousness concerning other countries and their politics.
Well said: the problem is the US is infested with imperialist ideology, to the point they think it's normal. But it isnt. It's a murderous and frankly insane worldview. Literally an illness.
Which is a direct consequence of intentional subject avoidance in schools and in the media, the concessions afforded to right-wing pulpit marionettes who spew messages to elicit fear, obedience and hatred, and the orchestrated idiocy that is American political discourse. The only sober discussions permitted to the public are the ones where jingoism is the refrain and war is the “tragic”imperative. The American imperial perspective is top-down.
i conclude the american people is, due to extensive propagandising for generations, no longer capable to rule itself. i refer to the john adam's quote.
"The fact that the unnamed official sees US economic sanctions as “the law” for other countries shows that these freaks really do believe they own the entire planet. They see other countries as their property, and believe they are therefore entitled to seize any property of those countries if they are not sufficiently obedient to the dictates of Washington." Nice summing up Caitlin. This is exactly where the American sense of exceptionalism (inherited from the equally corrupt England) has led. Any nation, tribe, cult, that thinks it is exceptional will always want to subdue, oppress, exploit those who are lesser in their view.
For the sociopath, might is right.
"the US is not a normal country with a normal government; it’s the hub of the most powerful empire that has ever existed" True, of course. But beyond this are the internal dynamics of the society -- and I note that I have lived in NYC, urban and rural New England, ditto the Southwest. No matter, there are two underpinning barriers to population sanity one senses at the deepest gut level as one wanders among the herd: first, a deafness to discourse, as though free speech is as useless to unearth solutions as a plastic snow shovel on concrete; and second, a deep simmering violence as a solution to disagreements, as though the homicidal actions of the most fecked-up government on the planet have the propulsive force of this underlying "don't tread on me" mental energy simmering within the batshit cultural psyche.
Give me a usa tv and within five minutes I can show you someone being shot, simulated or sometimes real. All the bad guys are killed and everything is ok again.
Yup, that's the all-too-frequently dominant dynamic.
Agreed! I’ve been saying that since the USA makes the whole world’s business its business, they don’t get a say when the whole world makes the USA’s business its business!
A couple of notes. Life is hard, for most. The inner work you describe is one path to deal with the dystopian day to day, and I admire those for whom it works, and can, as you have, use that work to cope, without falling prey to having the inner work blunt the awareness of outer horrors. As one who survived an abusive childhood and adolescence by using compartmentalization, my path is best expressed by the Zen Master clip from Charlie Wilson’s war - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2cjVhUrmII
Secondly, many thanks for what you do. You, and Tim, are in my daily info queue to heighten awareness of what our focus should be, and your advice to filter incoming information through a lens of propaganda, narrative, and empire, has been indispensable in discerning the credibility of the daily barrage of ‘news/analysis’. Your writing is passionate awareness personified.
Lastly, a request. You mentioned in an earlier piece that you had posted a list of sources/sites/writers you recommended on a twitter thread. As I am am not on any social media platforms, and my ability to access them is intermittent, I was wondering if you might post your list on your main page, perhaps as a part of the section you have explaining why you do what you do. Just a thought.
Edited to add, my favorite latest clip on the Israeli genocide, and voting, courtesy of Katie Halper’s site - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/B2fJfbh0i7A
Tom, my view is that many people subconsciously prioritise breeding and raising children over facing up to the manifest horrors of the world. They worry subconsciously that they might damage their children through anger engendered by trying to engage with the manifest horrors like we see today in Gaza.
It's why I think that there's a huge space in politics for those whose children are already adults, as they have in the main completed their child rearing and their adult children are less likely to be damaged if they had an emotional outburst, something they may be less likely to experience being of more senior years.
Politics, after all, is often for those who have raised a family, worked hard for a generation and engaged in a variety of areas in their local communities. That's what gives them grounding in local politics.
National/international politics is a different matter, since much of it is alien to 'normal' people who are good parents. It tends to attract the more deranged mindsets, to be honest. Narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, racists, master-race eugenicists, warmongers etc etc.
Most of the world needs far more 'ordinary' people in politics, ensuring that 'normal' values are not usurped by Zionists, extremist Muslims, belligerent billionaires or the like.
Agree with most of what you write, but would quibble with your statement about who politics is often for. Can’t tell you how many times doing tabling work for various ballot initiatives I was greeted with the ‘I’m not into politics’ line, often by the young, but also others across the age spectrum. My standard response was to throw a thought bomb back at them, saying, ‘Due respect, but everything is political, from the food you eat to the phone in your pocket to the sheets on your bed. We’re all political animals, the awareness of it is what differs among us.’ Was the catalyst for many interesting conversations.
Definitely need more ‘ordinary’ people in politics, but the system has pretty much closed off that avenue of engagement. The streets are pretty much our only avenue to change the bought and paid for paradigm.
agree that having children can make you vulnerable, but also can make you strong if you can see the bigger dynamics and estimate consequences in the longer run. (in job interviews for males being parents was often considered a plus, because one was considered 'tamer').
Well said Caitlin.
If Caitlin Johnstone were the UN's Secretary-General, then the United Nations might signify something. The UN is increasingly becoming the last bastion of the US/UK/IMF/WEF/EU/NATO World Dis-order Complex, a fig leaf of "legitimacy." In reality, there is no justification (and there never was one) for the Euro-American World's hegemony, now a mere flaccid phallus with Nukes, for the continuing fiction that the World Stage is directed from DC, London, and Brussels.
Sadly, if CJ were the UN S-G, then it is highly likely that she would be murdered fairly quickly. You know, like Hammarsgjold, Palme, Steve Biko, MLK, JFK etc etc.
Never underestimate the breadth of the tentacles of pure evil.
What's needed is a far more decentralised de-fanging process. You know, mass selling of shares in weapons manufacturers; mass refusal to vote for any candidate endorsed/funded by AIPAC; an alternative UN set up by the BRICS community; a continent-wide initiative of Africans to fund their own peaceful development, reclamation of desert land and optimisation of hydrological cycles; Australia and New Zealand having referenda to vote to leave Five Eyes, to kick the USA out of their nations and to become nations aligned not to malignant warmongers but to nations nearer as neighbours.
The U.N. has the U.S. on the Security Boards and can veto anything at ALMOST anytime
Just see how many times it vetoed anything criticizing Israel
Tiny “Israel” is a “holding company,” an off-shore banking enterprise. “Star of David” dimly glimpsed on the horizon: that’s the drift of the grift. Your comment is true to a fault, meaning that it’s true, when the Powers-That-Should-Not-Be are working 24/7 to convince us that the “Truth” does not exist…
Re ‘inner work’, American Roshi, Joan Halifax, writes
‘It takes a tremendous amount of emotional and spiritual maturity to witness in full force the collective shadow of humanity and keep your heart open’
Sometimes it just takes the luck of life growing up. I saw a tremendous amount of the shadow of humanity in the first seventeen years of my life, excluding war and mass murder, but then I was lucky enough to enjoy a magical year abroad where the rules changed, I fitted in and wondrous things happened.
It left me with an inner certainty that change is possible, even if you don't know exactly when. It is just a matter of circumstances conspiring to make it possible.
I guess those that haven't lived the life I lived use 'faith' as a mechanism to believe that, since they may not have had any personal experiences yet to prove that it definitely can happen.
Excellent Q&A. Thank you!
"When US officials talk about the “rules-based international order”, what they mean is the US making the rules and giving the orders and everyone else obeying, or else."
That's worthy of inclusion in my database of ~9,000 of my favourite quotes!
This is more a comment than a question. Your response to the person claiming Harris is a communist was inadequate and insulting. I kinda think the insult is deserved but still--there are those so brainwashed by their information stream that they believe this; if some such people are talking to you, you should make use of your platform to straighten them out--primarily by defining "communism" since presumably a misunderstanding of what it means is at the root of anyone buying such ridiculous horseradish. Probably it's one of two things: either a notion that the mildest socialist program equates to communism (like Social Security) or the idea that the word "communism" means totalitarianism--which it does not. Communism is an economic system, totalitarianism is an economic system. Accusing Harris of supporting totalitarianism has considerable merit, but Trump earns the label even more so. In any case, focusing on individuals is a distraction--it's a totalitarian SYSTEM, with a democratic disguise, and the job of a president is spokesperson for an empire. Frontman.
Harris will ALWAYS maintain the facade of property ownership to support her politics.
She and rest of those supporting State-Mandated "liberalism" will be left-wing fascists
Fascist, yes. But there is NOTHING left wing about Harris. She is pro-capitalist, pro-ruling class, pro-imperial all the way.
she supports state -mandated"liberalism"
It might possibly be liberalism, but the idea of state-mandated liberalism is absurd
hat is "state mandated liberalism"?
You and YesXorNo are the finest Australian commentator/critics on the geopolitical situation of the day. Most americans believe their own propaganda,
intertwined with that belief in Christian and Jewish zionism....both special god chosen peoples.
A very important and objective assessment of the world situation, go to Professor Michael Brenner's "Hegemony of Bust" REQUIRED READING FOR ALL
https://neutralitystudies.com/2024/07/hegemony-or-bust/
The relevant issues are very much transnational and global like never before. We must start seeing ourselves as an integrated global community in pursuit of planetary survival.