I love your writing Caitlin, but you are unfairly shitting on animals here. I am pretty sure that animals - from reptiles to the great apes - are far closer to the here-and-now, no-self-exists, no-storylines-playing state of mind than any humans ever will be. They are also not currently destroying the world. It is not our animals selves that are the problem, I really don't think.
You are anti-anthropomorphizing. There are plenty of examples of certain animals bullying others of their own species or other species for personal advantage which can only be described as sadistic. Likewise, there are plenty of examples of some species doing "the right thing", like the gorilla who (note "who" not "which", I give it some respect, although maybe "she" [the caption said it was a female but what the heck] would like a completely different pronoun. Looking forward to seeing the Dave Chapple special on Netflix tonight -- especially after reading Matt Taibbi's takedown of the MSM over their handwringing about the "walkout of tens of thousands of Netflix employees" that turned into a couple of dozen maybe if you counted their supporters who didn't work for Netflix.) who picked up the little boy who had fallen into the gorilla enclosure and took him to the keepers access door so they could easily retrieve the unconscious lad.
Note that I was not saying 'animals are always nice by human standards'. I said that animals are likely closer to that zen state of mind that Caitlin always wants us humans to adapt. I was saying that I believe that it is not our animal natures that are the problem - especially not by Caitlin's own standards.
( Barack Obama is a spook, from a spook family, and his political campaigns were financed by spooks… )
In 1965 CIA organized a coup against Indonesia founding president Sukarno by CIA-trained generals. The US considered Sukarno too progressive (he implemented land-reform – same reason for CIA coup in Guatemala which resulted with a genocide of high-land Mayas). CIA installed one of the most murderous military regime (under Suharto dictatorship) on Earth which killed more than two millions ( 2M ) civilians – the massacres are known as “The Jakarta Method” (see book by Vincent Bevins) used subsequently in Africa (Angola, Mozambique) and throughout Latin and Central America.
What is important here is that Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, worked for U.S. government agencies and allied NGOs—the Ford Foundation, Asia Foundation, Development Alternatives Inc., and United States Agency for International Development (USAID)—in Indonesia in the 1960s and 1970s as well as later in Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Thailand.
Obama’s mother married Indonesian Lt. Col. Lolo Soetoro; they had a daughter Maya Soetoro when Barack Obama was four. The colonel was from an aristocratic family which lost out in Sukarno’s land reform; the marriage was likely arranged, Obama’s mother may have acted as a female “honeypot” for the CIA whose job was to recruit assets
Obama claimed that his mother did not know about the countless atrocities that were committed by the Suharto government, which is implausible given her CIA background and the fact that they were much reported on by mainstream newspapers at the time (although mostly favorably by right-wing media). Of significance, Obama underplayed his stepfather Lolo’s army rank in his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope
A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - October 1, 2021
A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA - CovertAction Magazine
you will NEVER hear bad things Indonesia does in the press. you will NEVER hear bad things Pakistan does in the press. you will NEVER hear....you get the idea......it's all for a reason. And what do the bedfellows tell you about the suitor?
Recent US crimes against Haiti people -- by Hillary , Condoleezza Rice/Bush, Obama -- corruption, coups, military invasions (see general Smedley Butler), theft of $16B+ earthquake financial aid, century of massive exploitation of one of the poorest country. UN (Nepal soldiers) brought in cholera (30,000+ dead, million sick) but negated the horror for six (read slowly - six) years.
A detailed, most horrible recent history of US colonialism -- kudos to Aaron Mate (always remember how vulgarly he was attacked by TYT's despicables - Ana & Cenk). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3iT3y7MktI
PS: Going way back, 2nd President John Adams (1797-1801) supported Haiti and the revolution. He got voted out and Jefferson reversed policy immediately, black listing Haiti and yanking out support. One of Jefferson’s protégés was Monroe, of the Monroe Doctrine.
Adams’ predecessor, George Washington, had no use for the black leaders of Saint-Domingue. Nor did Adams’ vice president, Thomas Jefferson. He dreaded the prospect of black sailors, supercargoes and missionaries spreading the message of freedom and revolution into the Southern states. “We have to fear it,” Jefferson wrote Adams.
the egoic condition leads to our being dominated by the reptilian/ape/ survival brain and the result is individual and collective madness and brutality...
Avenues where we can talk freely without Corp. or govt. control will be important and seeing each other— even if we are simply reading out our tweets or ‘ quakes’ on camera will help neutralize the power of amateur or professional disruptors that use online anonymity and survival brain- triggering comments to keep people from consensus, clarity, and collective, calm courage. We may not have to do it all the time we nice we build an honest sincere reputation but with practice we will know when face to face interaction is necessary to disarm, clarify and humanize... or reveal insincerity or deception.
Human beings can be bamboozled by slick visuals but basic webcams bring us all down to earth... heck the paparazzi has made a billion dollar industry out of grabbing embarrassing/ humanizing video and photos of the rich and powerful looking and behaving just like the rest of us mere mortals.
It is much harder to deceive the human brain when we are visually humanized and can more easily read intentions compared to the current context where we are propagandized and triggered and divided so easily.
You don't go to Reddit do you. People latch on to their beliefs and refuse to consider that they might be wrong. They are backed up by charlatans who keep reinforcing the us/them fight over "nothingness". What is needed is some way for us to talk to one another at an individual to individual level without the cacophony of propaganda.
The point is, when someone points to an article from (for example) globalresearch.ca and uses that to "prove" a fact, without any awareness that this web site wouldn't exist if the publisher weren't making money on it, and they refuse to listen to counter arguments (Snowden's article on Aphonia examines this well) -- you've already lost.
imho, Reddit is an opinion swinging medium populated by AI bots in the guise of "threads". The comment thread on reddit, imho, is far more effective in swinging the readers opinion for or against something than even straight advertising. Reddit in my opinion is a most cunning platform; it cultivates a "bro" tone, with a sort of cultured "lay it on me" back-alley friendliness, but it is a platform for SALE. It's a most insidious algorithm because it cultivates a peer-peer feel. This is how I see it. I've seen too much of reddit influence in the stock market and crypto fraud and many places from personal experience, that when i see reddit in search results, i "goto next".
Reddit provides me with different perspectives on a wide variety of issues. Sometimes I get some good information, often it is extremely biased. One can clearly see the Aphonia that Snowden wrote about, and also see how difficult it is to crawl out of one's rabbit hole.
Do you know some people (apparently a lot of them) have no idea about the controversy over Building 7?
Reddit provides me with stimulus to "look into it."
But, if you're talking about the "Game Stop" rumpus, yeah, a lot of people got screwed and Robinhood was exposed for the fraud it is -- and we learn that "nothing" will be done about it. Seems to fit perfectly here with Caitlin's article here and her general philosophy.
Hi, what you recommend :”individual to individual level” talking without interference from propaganda is exactly what I recommended in my comment.... but that’s ok, it happens... and emphasizes the root cause of humanity’s problems which come from within.
The cacophony of thinking in our heads which is compulsive—the egoic condition—sometimes prevents us from taking in what we are reading.
You missed the hurdles I thought I was bringing up that prevent that individual to individual discussion. Seriously, try to talk to the anti-vaxxers on r/wayofthebern.
I may not have been as clear about making my point as I might have been.
I'm old enough to remember when Google first came out their tag line was "Don't Be Evil." That got dropped so quickly I wonder how many even noticed.
Our politics is broken. Totally useless. As Einstein said, the minds that got us into this mess cannot get us out, or words to that effect. So we're all doing the Twist, waiting for the Beatles.
I have no idea exactly what comes next; I only know we desperately need one. In order to usher a next in, we need to create space for it. That means stopping feeding the machine. No lesser of two evils voting. Laughing at all wealthy corporate gasbags instead of tuning in. Rejecting faux fixes like Trump. Thumbing our noses at our alphabet agencies. No kneejerk thanking of troops.
In the stillness, what's next will make itself known.
It will get much, much worse before it gets better. Still, the best place to start is to opt-out of the false choice of Red or Blue. The inaction of our political leaders on the Climate and their continuing fraud, makes it very clear that there is no such thing as a good politician.
OpenSecrets.org is a good place to start. I found it interesting to see the wild variations in donations to politicians depending on the year. For example: I think of Peter Defazio as a "good guy", but wonder why his 2020 campaign raised 4-6 times his usual amount and 2x the average donations to House members. Then I look at the PACs that contributed to him -- mostly in Air Transport. Just exactly what did he sell his soul for?
No one is coming to help us. Its either we stand up or we are eventually exterminated. During the other two world wars, an alliance of US, Britain, Canada went in to save and stop the wars. But this is spiritual war. We either have the guts or we dont because the cancer has spread to all world governments. They learned from the last two WW what to do so we can’t win by having one or two coundtries ruin it for them. So now, it is up to us. Do we have the guts and stamina or do we roll over.
Thank you. It is too late. The masters will soon implement a global facist state...we will be slaves...emprisoned...tortured...deported...it is coming....poverty everywhere...however...they forget...the Life Force or Nature is being awaken from neoliberal abuses on forests..seas...animals...Nature shall generate monstruous pandemics that will collapse human societies....little neoliberal nazis will have to go...they will fire on the masses in the streets...but even..they will go...
You need to read more science fiction. The good guy always escapes in the end... except for 1984, but perhaps that wouldn't be classified as science fiction. ;-)
As I was reading, Caitin's article reminded me of this short article found on Op Ed News, "King George Was More Democratic Than American Revolutionaries"
Which summarizes the theme of Howard Zinn's book, which, in turn, reminds me of how mistaken I was about the 9/11 overthrow of Chile's government and the role the US played. Most Americans seem to be unaware of the (Evil) Empire.
Then, as I paused to review the point I'm trying to make, RCP posted this article by Madeleine Albright, "The Coming Democratic Revival"
Just a few paragraphs in and you have to wonder if Albright is so blinded by her dedication to the idea of democracy that she isn't suffering from some cognitive dissonance. Every sentence she uses "Democracy" could substitute "Empire" and it would still make complete sense -- except the former version is "good" and the later is "bad". A perfect example of double-speak.
Which brings us back to Caitlin's point, "But of course it's not as clear-cut as good guys vs bad guys, us vs them," perhaps shining some light on the fear gripping Zionists who commit unspeakable crimes to protect themselves.
"The sociopaths who rule our world are no more conscious of their own inner processes than your average serial killer. "
What is it you feel when you read Albright's article? Are we all sociopaths? Doesn't claiming our leaders to be sociopaths without acknowledging our own sociopathic tendencies just fertilize the us vs. them mentality that has led us to this point in history? Are we self-selecting the silo of hate we want to occupy?
It "would be nice" if folks would recommend commentators they respect, like: Taibbi, Dore, Mate, Greenwald, Blumenthal, as well as alternates to substack like OpEd News (where the quality of articles is quite mixed.)
In the end though, the question always left unanswered is, "What are you going to do about it?"
I know enough of Madeleine Albright to know that I needn't read anything more of what she has to say on any topic; particularly world affairs.
Did I misread you or did you claim that we all have sociopathic tendencies? Maybe there's a continuum we all fall on, but I draw the line at false wars that kill hundreds of thousands. Her and Colin Powell did not.
Ah, com'on. Read the article and s/Empire/Democracy then tell me you weren't laughing out loud at the hypocrisy.
I said "sociopathic tendencies" which isn't quite the same thing as saying we're all sociopaths. We all lie to ourselves about who we are. The more fearful we are, the stronger the lie -- thus my reference to Zionists and that pathetic Jewish Dick who stole a Palestinian Family's home with the excuse that if he didn't do it, someone else would. (As if that's suppose to -- what? make the family feel better about having become homeless? Nope, just justification for acting like a dog in a dog-eat-dog world)
While I agree with you that Albright and Powell are war-criminals (although you didn't specifically state "war-criminal", so perhaps I read in too much), I was an American Citizen when they were committing those crimes, what did I do to stop them? Nothing. I masturbated by voting for the "Peace Candidate" who really wasn't.
When Al Capone gave the "average" folks on his block T-Day turkeys (hypothetically anyway, perhaps he never did that specific act but I hope you get the point) weren't they complicit in his crimes when they accepted them? If you see a guy bludgeon another to death on the street, and he walks over to you and gives you $10, what do you do? Insist on $10,000? At what point would you be bought off. Look at what the USA is doing to Venezuela, what are we, the "average Joe" doing about it? At least Code Pink gets in the Oligarchy's face once in a while.
Consider the judgement the Allies held on the Germans after WWII and all the hagiography about how "honest" and "upstanding" the Americans were in the defeat of Germany. (Which still continues with "Saving Private Ryan" and other patriotic movies like that) It is at least interesting now how much restraint the Germans now show when dealing on an international stage. Yet there have been no consequences for My Lai, Abu Ghraib, Benghazi, Chile, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and dozens more atrocities that eliminated many, many more than the millions of Jews the Germans incinerated.
Yet, what do I do about it? Nothing -- except to acknowledge that I benefit from the criminal acts of my government.
I don't know how to turn down Capone's turkey. Do you?
I get what you're saying. I tried writing my representatives like a good citizen should and got some nice form letters in return that totally failed to address the issues. I've stopped voting for either of the sold out major parties and advise everyone else do the same, but I'm not setting myself on fire in the town square or going on a hunger strike. I pay my taxes. I consume gasoline. Yes, I do think they are all war criminals. Still waiting for my turkey.
I am not vouching for the total accuracy of what they've put out here, but there are plenty of references if you care to follow it up.
Note that they don't talk about the dead in Argentina after the US supported coup, nor the dead in Honduras or Nicaragua or Guatemala. They don't talk about how Hillary Clinton killed Berta Caceres and Kaddafi and returned slavery to Libya. They don't talk about the overthrow of the government of Iran in 1953 or that of Egypt at least twice. Venezuela is not mentioned. Syria is not mentioned.
There are many caveats in how some of these numbers might be determined. If the US gives guns to ISIS in Syria because it wants to overthrow Assad, and ISIS kills thousands of Syrians, does that count?
The Nazis only had 10-15 years to wreck havoc, the USA has been doing it continuously since before 1776.
Which number? The deaths of Jews has been stated as over 6 million however most do not know that there were 4Million others that were killed. Catholics, Protestants and sick or deformed people and children were also killed. So there is over 10Million
The corporate fascists responsible for resource-theft aggressions and most of the destruction of our ecosystem have usurped our media, our politics, and our global economy. The duopoly parties masquerading as our "representatives" now serve up their Kabuki Theatre Politics solely in service to these corporate fascists. The primacy of these fascists is the culmination of more than forty years of the targeted dismantling of our essential economic safety measures, the deliberate usurpation of our nation's commons, a massive upward transfer of wealth, and the installation of political sycophants willing to bend over for them. Don't even get me started about the militarized police...
We must recognize that a minuscule fraction of old white men (less than a thousand out of eight billion of us peeps, hailing from over sixty countries) now owns virtually the entire planet. Resource-theft aggressions are their favorite wealth acquisition vectors. Their power and influence are immeasurable.
These old white men, neoliberal corporate fascists to a one, have distorted our global economy to support their psychopathy of wealth hoarding and they're destroying our ecosystem in the process. Naomi Klein has covered this fact in her seminal work, The Shock Doctrine.
We are witnessing these corporate fascists (psychopaths, in my opinion) stripping our planet of every possible resource; leaving in their wake millions of metric tons of radioactive waste (still spewing into the Pacific Ocean, actually; did you know GE is the "parent corporation"?), multiple deathly toxic Superfund sites, and decades of poisons in our air, our water and our soil. We bear witness to the fact that a hundred multinational corporations (most from the United States) are responsible for 70% of CO2 emissions. We bear witness to their hoarding of the wealth of this planet, keeping the vast Hoi Polloi in or near destitution and vulnerable to their relentless resource-theft aggressions and their relentless hoarding of wealth.
I think our children and our children's children deserve better. At the rate we're going, we're sentencing our entire species to a hellish future and our likely extinction event... all for filthy lucre.
"Any solution is therefore going to have to come from somewhere they haven't secured." - Impossible! All we have is capitalism - and we must use it to break out of it.
Might consider taking inspiration from Adorno: "...freedom itself and unfreedom are so entangled that unfreedom is not just an impediment to freedom but a premise of its concept" (from Negative Dialectics)
I love your writing Caitlin, but you are unfairly shitting on animals here. I am pretty sure that animals - from reptiles to the great apes - are far closer to the here-and-now, no-self-exists, no-storylines-playing state of mind than any humans ever will be. They are also not currently destroying the world. It is not our animals selves that are the problem, I really don't think.
You are anti-anthropomorphizing. There are plenty of examples of certain animals bullying others of their own species or other species for personal advantage which can only be described as sadistic. Likewise, there are plenty of examples of some species doing "the right thing", like the gorilla who (note "who" not "which", I give it some respect, although maybe "she" [the caption said it was a female but what the heck] would like a completely different pronoun. Looking forward to seeing the Dave Chapple special on Netflix tonight -- especially after reading Matt Taibbi's takedown of the MSM over their handwringing about the "walkout of tens of thousands of Netflix employees" that turned into a couple of dozen maybe if you counted their supporters who didn't work for Netflix.) who picked up the little boy who had fallen into the gorilla enclosure and took him to the keepers access door so they could easily retrieve the unconscious lad.
Note that I was not saying 'animals are always nice by human standards'. I said that animals are likely closer to that zen state of mind that Caitlin always wants us humans to adapt. I was saying that I believe that it is not our animal natures that are the problem - especially not by Caitlin's own standards.
Thank you. And - more details on St. Obama:
( Barack Obama is a spook, from a spook family, and his political campaigns were financed by spooks… )
In 1965 CIA organized a coup against Indonesia founding president Sukarno by CIA-trained generals. The US considered Sukarno too progressive (he implemented land-reform – same reason for CIA coup in Guatemala which resulted with a genocide of high-land Mayas). CIA installed one of the most murderous military regime (under Suharto dictatorship) on Earth which killed more than two millions ( 2M ) civilians – the massacres are known as “The Jakarta Method” (see book by Vincent Bevins) used subsequently in Africa (Angola, Mozambique) and throughout Latin and Central America.
What is important here is that Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, worked for U.S. government agencies and allied NGOs—the Ford Foundation, Asia Foundation, Development Alternatives Inc., and United States Agency for International Development (USAID)—in Indonesia in the 1960s and 1970s as well as later in Ghana, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Thailand.
Obama’s mother married Indonesian Lt. Col. Lolo Soetoro; they had a daughter Maya Soetoro when Barack Obama was four. The colonel was from an aristocratic family which lost out in Sukarno’s land reform; the marriage was likely arranged, Obama’s mother may have acted as a female “honeypot” for the CIA whose job was to recruit assets
Obama claimed that his mother did not know about the countless atrocities that were committed by the Suharto government, which is implausible given her CIA background and the fact that they were much reported on by mainstream newspapers at the time (although mostly favorably by right-wing media). Of significance, Obama underplayed his stepfather Lolo’s army rank in his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope
A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA
By Jeremy Kuzmarov - October 1, 2021
A Company Family: The Untold History of Obama and the CIA - CovertAction Magazine
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/10/01/a-company-family-the-untold-history-of-obama-and-the-cia/
you will NEVER hear bad things Indonesia does in the press. you will NEVER hear bad things Pakistan does in the press. you will NEVER hear....you get the idea......it's all for a reason. And what do the bedfellows tell you about the suitor?
An extraordinary interview !! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3iT3y7MktI
Recent US crimes against Haiti people -- by Hillary , Condoleezza Rice/Bush, Obama -- corruption, coups, military invasions (see general Smedley Butler), theft of $16B+ earthquake financial aid, century of massive exploitation of one of the poorest country. UN (Nepal soldiers) brought in cholera (30,000+ dead, million sick) but negated the horror for six (read slowly - six) years.
A detailed, most horrible recent history of US colonialism -- kudos to Aaron Mate (always remember how vulgarly he was attacked by TYT's despicables - Ana & Cenk). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3iT3y7MktI
PS: Going way back, 2nd President John Adams (1797-1801) supported Haiti and the revolution. He got voted out and Jefferson reversed policy immediately, black listing Haiti and yanking out support. One of Jefferson’s protégés was Monroe, of the Monroe Doctrine.
Adams’ predecessor, George Washington, had no use for the black leaders of Saint-Domingue. Nor did Adams’ vice president, Thomas Jefferson. He dreaded the prospect of black sailors, supercargoes and missionaries spreading the message of freedom and revolution into the Southern states. “We have to fear it,” Jefferson wrote Adams.
That is right !!! Modern and US colonialism.
Really nice Caitlin Collective...
the egoic condition leads to our being dominated by the reptilian/ape/ survival brain and the result is individual and collective madness and brutality...
Avenues where we can talk freely without Corp. or govt. control will be important and seeing each other— even if we are simply reading out our tweets or ‘ quakes’ on camera will help neutralize the power of amateur or professional disruptors that use online anonymity and survival brain- triggering comments to keep people from consensus, clarity, and collective, calm courage. We may not have to do it all the time we nice we build an honest sincere reputation but with practice we will know when face to face interaction is necessary to disarm, clarify and humanize... or reveal insincerity or deception.
Human beings can be bamboozled by slick visuals but basic webcams bring us all down to earth... heck the paparazzi has made a billion dollar industry out of grabbing embarrassing/ humanizing video and photos of the rich and powerful looking and behaving just like the rest of us mere mortals.
It is much harder to deceive the human brain when we are visually humanized and can more easily read intentions compared to the current context where we are propagandized and triggered and divided so easily.
You don't go to Reddit do you. People latch on to their beliefs and refuse to consider that they might be wrong. They are backed up by charlatans who keep reinforcing the us/them fight over "nothingness". What is needed is some way for us to talk to one another at an individual to individual level without the cacophony of propaganda.
The point is, when someone points to an article from (for example) globalresearch.ca and uses that to "prove" a fact, without any awareness that this web site wouldn't exist if the publisher weren't making money on it, and they refuse to listen to counter arguments (Snowden's article on Aphonia examines this well) -- you've already lost.
imho, Reddit is an opinion swinging medium populated by AI bots in the guise of "threads". The comment thread on reddit, imho, is far more effective in swinging the readers opinion for or against something than even straight advertising. Reddit in my opinion is a most cunning platform; it cultivates a "bro" tone, with a sort of cultured "lay it on me" back-alley friendliness, but it is a platform for SALE. It's a most insidious algorithm because it cultivates a peer-peer feel. This is how I see it. I've seen too much of reddit influence in the stock market and crypto fraud and many places from personal experience, that when i see reddit in search results, i "goto next".
Reddit provides me with different perspectives on a wide variety of issues. Sometimes I get some good information, often it is extremely biased. One can clearly see the Aphonia that Snowden wrote about, and also see how difficult it is to crawl out of one's rabbit hole.
Do you know some people (apparently a lot of them) have no idea about the controversy over Building 7?
Reddit provides me with stimulus to "look into it."
But, if you're talking about the "Game Stop" rumpus, yeah, a lot of people got screwed and Robinhood was exposed for the fraud it is -- and we learn that "nothing" will be done about it. Seems to fit perfectly here with Caitlin's article here and her general philosophy.
Hi, what you recommend :”individual to individual level” talking without interference from propaganda is exactly what I recommended in my comment.... but that’s ok, it happens... and emphasizes the root cause of humanity’s problems which come from within.
The cacophony of thinking in our heads which is compulsive—the egoic condition—sometimes prevents us from taking in what we are reading.
You missed the hurdles I thought I was bringing up that prevent that individual to individual discussion. Seriously, try to talk to the anti-vaxxers on r/wayofthebern.
I may not have been as clear about making my point as I might have been.
I'm old enough to remember when Google first came out their tag line was "Don't Be Evil." That got dropped so quickly I wonder how many even noticed.
Our politics is broken. Totally useless. As Einstein said, the minds that got us into this mess cannot get us out, or words to that effect. So we're all doing the Twist, waiting for the Beatles.
I have no idea exactly what comes next; I only know we desperately need one. In order to usher a next in, we need to create space for it. That means stopping feeding the machine. No lesser of two evils voting. Laughing at all wealthy corporate gasbags instead of tuning in. Rejecting faux fixes like Trump. Thumbing our noses at our alphabet agencies. No kneejerk thanking of troops.
In the stillness, what's next will make itself known.
It will get much, much worse before it gets better. Still, the best place to start is to opt-out of the false choice of Red or Blue. The inaction of our political leaders on the Climate and their continuing fraud, makes it very clear that there is no such thing as a good politician.
OpenSecrets.org is a good place to start. I found it interesting to see the wild variations in donations to politicians depending on the year. For example: I think of Peter Defazio as a "good guy", but wonder why his 2020 campaign raised 4-6 times his usual amount and 2x the average donations to House members. Then I look at the PACs that contributed to him -- mostly in Air Transport. Just exactly what did he sell his soul for?
No one is coming to help us. Its either we stand up or we are eventually exterminated. During the other two world wars, an alliance of US, Britain, Canada went in to save and stop the wars. But this is spiritual war. We either have the guts or we dont because the cancer has spread to all world governments. They learned from the last two WW what to do so we can’t win by having one or two coundtries ruin it for them. So now, it is up to us. Do we have the guts and stamina or do we roll over.
Best writing ever.
Thank you. It is too late. The masters will soon implement a global facist state...we will be slaves...emprisoned...tortured...deported...it is coming....poverty everywhere...however...they forget...the Life Force or Nature is being awaken from neoliberal abuses on forests..seas...animals...Nature shall generate monstruous pandemics that will collapse human societies....little neoliberal nazis will have to go...they will fire on the masses in the streets...but even..they will go...
It’s been far worse than this. It’s never too late. But things will get far worse before they get better.
You need to read more science fiction. The good guy always escapes in the end... except for 1984, but perhaps that wouldn't be classified as science fiction. ;-)
And again: Thank you ,Caitlin .
Man, am I being chatty this morning.
As I was reading, Caitin's article reminded me of this short article found on Op Ed News, "King George Was More Democratic Than American Revolutionaries"
https://www.opednews.com/articles/King-George-Was-More-Democ-by-David-Swanson-American-Imperialism-211022-510.html
Which summarizes the theme of Howard Zinn's book, which, in turn, reminds me of how mistaken I was about the 9/11 overthrow of Chile's government and the role the US played. Most Americans seem to be unaware of the (Evil) Empire.
Then, as I paused to review the point I'm trying to make, RCP posted this article by Madeleine Albright, "The Coming Democratic Revival"
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-10-19/madeleine-albright-coming-democratic-revival
Just a few paragraphs in and you have to wonder if Albright is so blinded by her dedication to the idea of democracy that she isn't suffering from some cognitive dissonance. Every sentence she uses "Democracy" could substitute "Empire" and it would still make complete sense -- except the former version is "good" and the later is "bad". A perfect example of double-speak.
Which brings us back to Caitlin's point, "But of course it's not as clear-cut as good guys vs bad guys, us vs them," perhaps shining some light on the fear gripping Zionists who commit unspeakable crimes to protect themselves.
"The sociopaths who rule our world are no more conscious of their own inner processes than your average serial killer. "
What is it you feel when you read Albright's article? Are we all sociopaths? Doesn't claiming our leaders to be sociopaths without acknowledging our own sociopathic tendencies just fertilize the us vs. them mentality that has led us to this point in history? Are we self-selecting the silo of hate we want to occupy?
It "would be nice" if folks would recommend commentators they respect, like: Taibbi, Dore, Mate, Greenwald, Blumenthal, as well as alternates to substack like OpEd News (where the quality of articles is quite mixed.)
In the end though, the question always left unanswered is, "What are you going to do about it?"
I don't know.
Lol, I actually did that (reading the article and mentally replacing each case of 'democracy' with 'empire' and it really works. It's scary and funny.
I know enough of Madeleine Albright to know that I needn't read anything more of what she has to say on any topic; particularly world affairs.
Did I misread you or did you claim that we all have sociopathic tendencies? Maybe there's a continuum we all fall on, but I draw the line at false wars that kill hundreds of thousands. Her and Colin Powell did not.
Ah, com'on. Read the article and s/Empire/Democracy then tell me you weren't laughing out loud at the hypocrisy.
I said "sociopathic tendencies" which isn't quite the same thing as saying we're all sociopaths. We all lie to ourselves about who we are. The more fearful we are, the stronger the lie -- thus my reference to Zionists and that pathetic Jewish Dick who stole a Palestinian Family's home with the excuse that if he didn't do it, someone else would. (As if that's suppose to -- what? make the family feel better about having become homeless? Nope, just justification for acting like a dog in a dog-eat-dog world)
While I agree with you that Albright and Powell are war-criminals (although you didn't specifically state "war-criminal", so perhaps I read in too much), I was an American Citizen when they were committing those crimes, what did I do to stop them? Nothing. I masturbated by voting for the "Peace Candidate" who really wasn't.
When Al Capone gave the "average" folks on his block T-Day turkeys (hypothetically anyway, perhaps he never did that specific act but I hope you get the point) weren't they complicit in his crimes when they accepted them? If you see a guy bludgeon another to death on the street, and he walks over to you and gives you $10, what do you do? Insist on $10,000? At what point would you be bought off. Look at what the USA is doing to Venezuela, what are we, the "average Joe" doing about it? At least Code Pink gets in the Oligarchy's face once in a while.
Consider the judgement the Allies held on the Germans after WWII and all the hagiography about how "honest" and "upstanding" the Americans were in the defeat of Germany. (Which still continues with "Saving Private Ryan" and other patriotic movies like that) It is at least interesting now how much restraint the Germans now show when dealing on an international stage. Yet there have been no consequences for My Lai, Abu Ghraib, Benghazi, Chile, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and dozens more atrocities that eliminated many, many more than the millions of Jews the Germans incinerated.
Yet, what do I do about it? Nothing -- except to acknowledge that I benefit from the criminal acts of my government.
I don't know how to turn down Capone's turkey. Do you?
I get what you're saying. I tried writing my representatives like a good citizen should and got some nice form letters in return that totally failed to address the issues. I've stopped voting for either of the sold out major parties and advise everyone else do the same, but I'm not setting myself on fire in the town square or going on a hunger strike. I pay my taxes. I consume gasoline. Yes, I do think they are all war criminals. Still waiting for my turkey.
Are you seriously saying that more than 10 million people died in those countries? If that is true, we are more evil than the Nazis
I was going to try to look up each war but then stumbled across this web site:
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports/Imperialism/usmurder.html
They say 12 Million since WWII.
I am not vouching for the total accuracy of what they've put out here, but there are plenty of references if you care to follow it up.
Note that they don't talk about the dead in Argentina after the US supported coup, nor the dead in Honduras or Nicaragua or Guatemala. They don't talk about how Hillary Clinton killed Berta Caceres and Kaddafi and returned slavery to Libya. They don't talk about the overthrow of the government of Iran in 1953 or that of Egypt at least twice. Venezuela is not mentioned. Syria is not mentioned.
There are many caveats in how some of these numbers might be determined. If the US gives guns to ISIS in Syria because it wants to overthrow Assad, and ISIS kills thousands of Syrians, does that count?
The Nazis only had 10-15 years to wreck havoc, the USA has been doing it continuously since before 1776.
I'm confused where that number turned up or who your question was addressed to.
Which number? The deaths of Jews has been stated as over 6 million however most do not know that there were 4Million others that were killed. Catholics, Protestants and sick or deformed people and children were also killed. So there is over 10Million
The corporate fascists responsible for resource-theft aggressions and most of the destruction of our ecosystem have usurped our media, our politics, and our global economy. The duopoly parties masquerading as our "representatives" now serve up their Kabuki Theatre Politics solely in service to these corporate fascists. The primacy of these fascists is the culmination of more than forty years of the targeted dismantling of our essential economic safety measures, the deliberate usurpation of our nation's commons, a massive upward transfer of wealth, and the installation of political sycophants willing to bend over for them. Don't even get me started about the militarized police...
We must recognize that a minuscule fraction of old white men (less than a thousand out of eight billion of us peeps, hailing from over sixty countries) now owns virtually the entire planet. Resource-theft aggressions are their favorite wealth acquisition vectors. Their power and influence are immeasurable.
These old white men, neoliberal corporate fascists to a one, have distorted our global economy to support their psychopathy of wealth hoarding and they're destroying our ecosystem in the process. Naomi Klein has covered this fact in her seminal work, The Shock Doctrine.
We are witnessing these corporate fascists (psychopaths, in my opinion) stripping our planet of every possible resource; leaving in their wake millions of metric tons of radioactive waste (still spewing into the Pacific Ocean, actually; did you know GE is the "parent corporation"?), multiple deathly toxic Superfund sites, and decades of poisons in our air, our water and our soil. We bear witness to the fact that a hundred multinational corporations (most from the United States) are responsible for 70% of CO2 emissions. We bear witness to their hoarding of the wealth of this planet, keeping the vast Hoi Polloi in or near destitution and vulnerable to their relentless resource-theft aggressions and their relentless hoarding of wealth.
I think our children and our children's children deserve better. At the rate we're going, we're sentencing our entire species to a hellish future and our likely extinction event... all for filthy lucre.
#OurRevolution
#ExtinctionRebellion
#MniWiconi
#BlackLivesMatter
"Any solution is therefore going to have to come from somewhere they haven't secured." - Impossible! All we have is capitalism - and we must use it to break out of it.
Might consider taking inspiration from Adorno: "...freedom itself and unfreedom are so entangled that unfreedom is not just an impediment to freedom but a premise of its concept" (from Negative Dialectics)