Could you elaborate, please? She blames capitalism and pigeonholes conservative/right as knuckle-dragging greed monkeys who recently startled awake and reflexively urge to oppress minorities, blind and deaf to all basic human needs and suffering.
This is well-intentioned but illiberal ranting. But for someone well-known who calls attention to an information matrix enslaving us all in propaganda, this is ridiculous. It reads like one side of the coin blaming the other.
That's precisely what has paralyzed us and made us vulnerable to mass influence of corporate, media, and political control. The cretins who do this don't see left or right in their own ranks, because it's one of their ways of controlling us, like antagonisms in race and gender. We're manipulated to fight each other through diabolical social and political engineering of information.
People surely have concrete differences in ideology, but independent minds always listen, identify differences, and can peacefully co-exist. What Caitlin pontificates breeds intolerance for hundreds of millions of people, and effectively declares them dead to the human struggle.
Left vs. Right nonsense is defunct in any serious, intelligent discussion. I come from the right and it's always hard to watch people breathe into each other's mouths. To see both left and right camps surge in 2025, leading people away from truly independent, and mired in jaded, confused, tribal camps, is deeply disappointing.
I hope Caitlin and others can zoom out and do more work on deprogramming themselves. I'm far from healed, but good grief.
“I have found little that is "good" about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.” - Sigmund Freud
Events of recent years have made it clear to me that each side tends to see some problems clearly that the other side misses. The worst thing about political polarization is that it gets in the way of respectful inter-tribal communication, which would help all of us see the big picture more clearly.
I heard Dennis Kucinich sum up the problem very succinctly: "partisanship does violence to cognition". Sadly, for all Catlin's brilliance, she periodically exemplifies this problem.
As long as people believe that money and technology will bring them more happiness than a bright smile, a kind word, a hearty laugh, a helping hand, a warm hug, the love of a good woman and a good man, they will continue to lead empty, lonely, depressing, disconnected and meaningless lives. And I mean not only the smiles, words, laughs, hugs and love that you receive, but moreso the ones you give.
So incredibly spot on! I always knew something was wrong, particularly in corporate America, but I thought it was a personal problem that I didn't have an obsession with "getting ahead," hustle culture, getting rich, etc. The past 5 years (especially this last one, watching a livestreamed genocide), showed me that there was nothing wrong with me and everything wrong with our capitalist society. Now I am both more miserable in knowing what this empire continually unleashes on the world and happier than ever in my new pursuits of community building and mutual aid. It has been so freeing to let go of all the aspirations I've been told I should have, but it's also extra hard to pretend to care to get the paycheck with every passing day.
I never bought into the myth. Working within that system was pretty damn unpleasant but I did it, saving my money so I could get out. It took twenty years but I did it. Once I had what I needed I left the United States immediately. That was twenty-two years ago.
I was a programmer in Silicon Valley and Oregon for twenty years. One day I couldn't do it any more. I decided to leave before they found out. I couldn't afford to retire in the USA so I had to try overseas. I sold my pickup truck and other such things and flew to Bali. That worked out great. I speak Indonesian, which is the easiest language in the world to learn.
After about a dozen years I'd seen everything in Bali and was bored. By accident I wound up in Tokyo and found out what a bargain it was. So now I spend half of the year on the outskirts of Tokyo. There's always something to see in Tokyo. The music, painting, and dance are terrific. Not much in the way of nature in Tokyo but enough there on the edge of town.
Huh! I live the spring and fall in Tokyo and the rest of the year in Bali. It is a very little-known fact that Tokyo is a bargain. It might have the best arts in the world -- dance, music, and painting -- and it costs nothing compared with New York City or Paris. Doesn't have much nature though so I live on the outskirts and take the train.
In Bali I live on the outskirts of Ubud. I do lots of walking in the ricefields. A very friendly and pretty place. Lots of ducks laying eggs near where I live. Bali is close to the equator but has a nice climate, not too hot and it never gets cold. It's very popular with tourists. I moved here twenty years ago.
I have friends who are farmers/survivalists/Buddhists/conspiracy buffs. They've lived in Fiji and Kauai but now have returned to Texas and gone Christian(!). Life has some surprises, yes?
Sadly, the plutocrats have such total control over political/civic decision-makers, news-manufacturers/avoiders/twisters and propagandists, that the majority are being kept generally ignorant and desperately busy in making just to keep their heads above water. The super-duper-rich call the shots and keep the factory-fodder in its place. The moral-free zone that encompasses the politico-corporate slice of the society will be obliged to apply ever greater strictures upon the populace, especially when, and if, it becomes a little restive. I see more Luigi Mangiones popping up, somehow.
Thirty years ago I used to visit the beach on an island. There were no houses or businesses. You could see the water for as far as you could see as long as you looked over the sand. You could smell everything and breathe the air. I went there before the pandemic flood and now you couldn't see the beach past high rise condos, strip malls and ugly chain hotels. Certain roads to the beach were blocked off when before there were no signs that said don't enter. Before the beach was free for everyone, now you had to pay hundreds of dollars just to look at the beach. Now the old beach is a memory to me that I cherish because I will never be able to stand there at that specific spot and just stare into the water, wondering.
Money is their vehicle. If we want to make them impotent, then we must start using an alternative to their system. We can definitely do this and without much bother. We need to get started, there are many possibilities for us today with our digital technology that can empower us.
Money is their medium. Having studied the theory of money, I can see how they have incited greed. Think about this - they make money scarce (by issuing only a fraction of what needs to be paid. Interest is never an amount included in the issuance of money so there is always a huge shortfall) So when something is scarce, say water, wheat or anything that people need, what do we do? We hoard and become grasping (greedy). We're very different in scarcity than we are in abundance. And that's what they've done to us with this money system, they have inculcated greed into our everyday lives by making money scarce.
Just to clarify, if money were not issued like it currently is, if it were issued in a different way, under a different system, it wouldn't incite greed. There is a tendency to think all money systems produce greed but that is not so at all.
I remember Montauk NY being as you describe. I spent 2 weeks there when I was 9, no TV, radio, or anything. I was miserable. As I grew older and life beat at me to succumb, I thought of Montauk as my great escape... Someday I'd run away and live on the empty beach. Like you, I was horrified that all the pristine land is crammed with crap and people. We still have our memories and can stroll those beaches as they were forever. Keep the faith and the memories 🤗
Recently discovered your writing and am now a loyal fan! So glad you are on the scene and obviously fearless as well as brilliant! I regularly re-post you! I'd be interested in learning your thoughts on how we get out of this mess; I can't see any solution other than taking to the streets with pots and wooden spoons - en mass! Repeatedly. Endlessly. What say you?
Yep, the benign-sounding “Status quo voting” or “lesserevilism” is directly responsible for this increasing trend of exploitation, capitalist extraction of resources, and the upward shift of wealth - produced as surplus by the working class - largely to the top 0.1 of a percentage point, but also the top 10 percent which encompasses the ruling class in order that they do their job and legislate for yet more protection, the militarisation of police, more prisons run for more profits, and the subjugation and colonisation and extermination of the people “in the way” whom are resisting this hegemony backed with extreme violence which is only available to state actors.
The liberal ‘PMC’ voters naively think they are helping ‘incrementalism’ improve people’s lives and helping ‘save the planet’, but actively block or ignore any attempts to open their eyes and minds to the carnage they are actively enabling by voting “lesserevilism” - which must be the most egregiously misnamed political ideology since “National Socialism”.
Excellent discussion but I would highly recommend avoiding the use of the term "conservative" in such a broad sense. After all, this battle with conservatives is precisely what the power players want to trap us in. Moreover much of the so called conservative agenda is not conservative at all but rather revolutionary. True conservatives exist out there and you will find you have a lot in common with them. Those hyped up free market China threat anti immigrant conservatives are not conservative but rather caught in the net
Since my youth many words have mutated in meaning. Back then a liberal was anti-war, pro-free speech, pro-working man. Nowadays a "liberal" is anything the DNC wants it to be. Not long ago a bedrock conservative goal was a balanced budget. Now "conservatives" advocate a multi-trillion dollar deficit. In short, these words are so debased as to have become meaningless.
Arguing about the meaning of these deliberately confused words is a fruitless waste of time. I recommend avoiding the quicksand of such propagandized labels and instead sticking with individual issues.
Thanks. I tend to cringe when people, even people I like and respect, speak about "liberals". What they mean by the word isn't what I mean by it. So I just don't use the word.
And I am 100% with you that wise people don't use labels, but just stick to the issues.
I observe that the primary political/cognitive rift is one between those who valorize and support Capitalism and those who wish for its overthrow and replacement by some form of Socialism.
Who deleted the comment? The author or Caitlin? If it was Caitlin then that makes a lot of her writing moot but I'm not saying it was however I hope it wasn't as that will mean she's a censor and thus does not understand that free speech is all we have to get through this nightmare. I sincerely hope it wasn't you that deleted the comment, Caitlin. The age we are upon now is the age of reason. Free speech is more important than oxygen. And if one doesn't understand that, then woe.
It was IceBox (the author of the comment) who deleted it (FYI).
>>"Free speech is more important than oxygen. "
NO, it's not. Have you lived ANYWHERE else in the world other than in the US (or the West)? Try living without Oxygen and let me know how it turns out...
Well it's going to be the same soon. They're not going to let you have oxygen. You totally missed the point - you're too fixated on minutia and missed the whole point. I still stand by it, but what it is meant to convey is that we can only get through this nightmare on the shirtails of free speech. I'm telling ya, you won't have oxygen if we don't, and if we do have free speech, we'll be free! No kidding. Psychopaths cannot live in the light and they always favor censorship. Thanks for letting me know that the author deleted the comment. however Caitlin threatened further down to suspend one of the commenters. I find that extremely infantile. It really changes the face of Caitlin. Anyone who is "awake" must surely by now understand that free speech is our ticket out of this asylum? Seems nobody wants out of it, just repeats the same memes. So we keep repeating the same nightmare. Let's try something different?
What's your problem dude? Don't have any logic or rational arguments? Are ad hominem attacks all you have? Please don't make yourself look worse than you already have.
>>"Moreover much of the so called conservative agenda is not conservative at all but rather revolutionary."
Huh? Project 2025 is revolutionary? What have you been smoking? Now don't say the Trump administration is not "true conservatives" in order to weezle your way out. That would be an excuse.
Please tell me, WHAT is good about "conservative thinking" - because I haven't been able to come up with a single thing good about "conservative principles"? (Maybe I need to be educated on some of those things - here's your chance).
It is revolutionary in that it intends to destroy existing institutions and replace them with a privatized global system to support banks and billionaires. This is a revolutionary act, not a conservative one. The confusion emerges from the use of the terms "conservative," "progressive," and "revolutionary." We use the terms "conservative" for what is in fact "reactionary" and "progressive" for what should be "egalitarian". It is no contradiction to be reactionary and revolutionary. For that matter, many of the well meaning progressives are conservative in posture in that they wish to preserve existing systems (like constitutional balances) not create new systems. I could go on, but thank you for the question.
"destroy existing institutions and replace them with a privatized global system to support banks and billionaires."
You mean destroy the institutions of Russia and China? The DNC is 100% on board with this. Though I would agree that the DNC is deeply conservative, using these Orwellized words confuses discourse to such an extent that I recommend simply not using them. Stick with specific issues, as you did here. I never would have understood what you meant without this clarification.
>>"It is revolutionary in that it intends to destroy existing institutions and replace them with a privatized global system to support banks and billionaires."
What is revolutionary about it? What is new about it? The neoliberal project (which is what you describe) has been going full-swing since the 1970s. Are you just waking up now?
We use the terms "conservative" for what is in fact "reactionary" and "progressive" for what should be "egalitarian".
I've never heard such bullshit. And why are you redefining terms to suit your contrived justifications? Maybe look up the common known and understood meanings of "conservative, reactionary, progressive, egalitarian, etc." instead of creating your own definitions and meanings for them.
>>"For that matter, many of the well meaning progressives are conservative in posture in that they wish to preserve existing systems"
Nope - you are COMPLETELY WRONG on that. First, I suggest understanding what "progressive" means. You're trying really hard to gaslight aren't you?
Wow. Not much to say in response to this sort of attack. If others are interested in the issues, not personal attacks, please see green-liberty.org/ctp
If you think "my comment" was an attack, then obviously you lack sufficient reasoning and logical abilities (and argumentation skills). How is it that when people don't have an adequate defense to back up their statements that they "play the victim"?
Shame on you. I thought you were better than this.
In fact your comment did come across as a personal attack. You need to think about your choice of words, arguing the issues, not degrading the other person's intelligence or education or intention.
You wrote: "I've never heard such bullshit. " And instead of owning your insulting words, you blame the person you attacked. I expect you will now attack me for pointing out the obvious.
The Maga agenda is not conservative (ie with goal of preserving most cherished traditions and institutions) but reactionary radical in the attempt to tear them down. There are some, such as the Electoral College or Citizens United that should be torn down but to tear down institutions in order not to transform society but to immobilize society for control is even revanchist. I suggest that these terms thrown around, such as conservative and liberal, have lost all meaning. INstead be specific in terms of policies and laws: when Sanders proposes a bill to halt military aid to Israel, it is neither liberal nor conservative but a moral mandate. When AOC calls out Israel for genocide, at the price of being attacked and censored, it is not liberal; it is simply telling the truth, and the truth has no party. So let's stop using meaningless words which have so many meanings they have none. Let's talk about real issues, real polcieis, real proposals and not label them as a cheap way to shout boo or hooray!
Bernie Sanders' proposal to halt military aid to Israel is Conservative, because we aren't supposed to waste weapons. Around the time of the Founding, wars had to be paid for with real money.
If money was real now, we'd each be paying back $100,000 dollars to the Treasury Bond holders. Taken right out of our paychecks.
Sorry, it's far more. Each taxpayers share is now 280k, plus the debt of what ever state and city you live in. We have never been here before with the dollar being used as a weapon. I have a Treasury account, and now don't use it.
Not one person who calls himself a conservative in Congress agrees with Sanders. And the issue is not about "wasting" weapons but the policy that prohibits delivering them if it is likely they will be used in violation of international law. The American Revolution was not funded with "real money" but with loans: "For the first two years of the war, the colonists received secretive private and public loans from the French, who held a lingering resentment for the British after the Seven Years' War.[9] After the British defeat at Saratoga, however, foreign support for the Continental Army increased, and in 1778 the colonies signed a treaty with France, officially bringing them into the war with Great Britain.[10] By the end of the war, the colonies had received loans from several different European nations, including a significant contribution from France, Spain and the Netherlands."
>>"The Maga agenda is not conservative (ie with goal of preserving most cherished traditions and institutions) but reactionary radical in the attempt to tear them down."
Dale Ruff, I think you may have misunderstood. The MAGA agenda IS "preserving most cherished traditions and institutions" - and those are NEOLIBERAL ones (that are so cherished by MAGA and capitalists alike). What it's tearing down are regulatory mechanisms, curbs to capitalism, oversight, public protections, etc.
So NO - MAGA is not reactionary - it is just ANOTHER LEVEL (and an extreme one at that) in continuing "neoliberal capitalism" down its current path and eventual objectives.
Also, I wonder if you will EVER get over your "pandering" of virtue signallers like "AOC" and to a certain extent Sanders. I have a bit of respect for Sanders (for all the good that he has done over his long career), but AOC is a faker (and she has conned and fooled many - just like Clinton and Obama).
Maga means make America great again, which means not change but stopping change and returning to a previous (mythical) era of greatness, thru steps like repealing the ACA, repealing Roe vs Wade, and reigniting racism. "Reactionary is a term for a person or ideology that opposes social, political, and economic change and seeks to restore a previous condition of affairs. " This is the proclaimed goal of the MAGA movement, and I add it is destructive because it is based not on new programs but breaking down those that exist, repealing birthright citizenship, repealing reproductive rights, repealing Social security and handing it over to Wall St for profit, etc etc. So reactionary is always destructive, for its goal is to break things, to "destroy the administrative state." It is also revanchist because the underlying appeal of Trump to his base is to restore their sense of lost status and even territory (Panama, Greenland, Canada): Revanchist is an adjective or noun that describes a policy or a person who seeks to recover lost territory or status. "
And restoring neoliberalism is not revolutionary but reactionary, for it means cutting down progressive programs and laws and restoring the campaign to replace government functions (education, prisons, etc) with private corporations, something the Nazis did in the 1930's (tho the mythi is they took over corporations, but the fact is while everyone else in Euroope and the US was was doing the opposite, Nazi Germany had a huge privatization program: 'n the mid‐1930s, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in western capitalistic countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s." This is a basic fascist move: reactionary in restoring superannuated programs and law, by tearing down existing programs and law, and revanchist in restoring "lost status" of the white working class and "real Americans" and returning to neoliberal privatization. This is not revolutionary but anti-revolutioinary, as all fascist regimes proclaim communism (revolution) as the enemy to be destroyed: Here is Trump saying just that to his base: "Former President Donald Trump frequently derides Vice President Kamala Harris as "Comrade Kamala." He says she must be stopped to prevent the United States from turning communist or Marxist.
"She is a communist, I guess," Trump said in an Aug. 26 podcast " This is how HItler created a mass movement unified by hatred of the Bolsheviks, or "far left radicals," as Trump also called the Democrats, a party clinging except for its progressive faction, to the center.
Mathew Wills put it this way: "The immediate post-war reading of fascism was of an “ideology of nihilistic irrationalism, a movement fueled by pathological barbarism.” Marxists on the other hand viewed fascism from the 1930s on as an end-stage of capitalism, a corporate-state reaction. More recent liberal academic theories of fascism have defined it as: authoritarian nationalism; reactionary mass movement; revolutionary ultra-nationalism; synthesis of right-wing and left-wing characteristics; mobilizing myth of national rebirth." From the left a false populism arises and from the right, a movement to restore the greatness of the past after having been "stabbed in the back" by the liberals or far left radicals, or as in the case of hapless Harris, communists.
>>"And restoring neoliberalism is not revolutionary but reactionary"
I disagree! restoring is closely related to preserving. Isn't that what you said yourself in one of your comments above about "conservatives preserving things"?
>>"Maga means make America great again"
NO! MAGA is an "ACRONYM" for "Make America Great Again" (which itself is a vague statement). When was America great? And for whom? And in what circumstances? And for which races/cultures? And in what context?
(1) Was America great when it Genocided the native population of the Americas?
(2) Was America great when it profited off slavery?
(3) Was/Is America great because of racism?
(4) Was/Is America great because of Imperialism, Colonialism, War, destruction, exploitation, etc........?
(5) Was America great for exploiting migrant labor? Indentured servitude? Promoting and spreading neoliberal Capitalism?
(6) Was America great for destroying so many countries, regime change operations, debt diplomacy,....
(7) Was/Is America great because of its prison system and rates of incarceration?
(8) Was/Is America great because of inequality? (and MAGA agendas will only make this worse)
(9) Was/Is America great because of its "Health Care System"?
(10) Was/Is America great because of its "fake democracy"?
.....
I'll have to stop here (since this could be a never-ending list)
I will add this, though (in the spirit of objectivity). America HAS made many positive contributions to the world too (lest we lose sight of this).
MAGA means some VERY DIFFERENT things from what the acronym stands for.
Damn, could not have said it better myself ha. Thank you for that. My brother was a maga supporter, and after the Mush, Vivek hate on working people, he now agrees with me on our previous discussions ha. Thank you Mush and Vivek, doing the work : )
The leadng intellectual of the Maga agenda is Steven Bannon and his mission, as he has announced, is to tear down the administrative state: that is hardly preservation but rather destruction. BTW, virtue signaling is an evolutionary feature of people seeking mates or, in today's, world, jobs. Using it as a slur is a cheap shot, which is a way of signaling your virtue in a negative way. AOC is out in public calling out genocide while you attack her. HOw pathetic. She is working to build a majority to outlaw shipment of arms to Israel, while you are taking cheap shots. Sad.
>>"...tear down the administrative state: that is hardly preservation but rather destruction."
Wow - you like twisting things so they work in your favor, don't you?
Ok, here's another way to look at it ->
(1) PRESERVATION of neoliberal policies
(2) PRESERVATION of capitalism
(3) PRESERVATION of "white supremacy/dominance" (Make America Great Again - make america white again?)
(4) PRESERVATION of "male dominance and patriarchy" (that's what they really mean by "family values")
(5) PRESERVATION of "social norms that discriminate against immmigrants, minorities, at-risk marginal communities"
(6) PRESERVATION of "the ability to continue exploiting the ENVIRONMENT" in the pursuit of profits
(7) PRESERVATION of "laws (and legal loopholes) that concentrate wealth to the top 1% and exploit others"
(8) PRESERVATION of "structural and systemic RACISM, bigotry, etc."
(9) PRESERVATION of "systems and organizations that continue to financially exploit the majority" (such as the banking system, Wall Street, etc.)
..... I could go on for quite a while.
To summarize, what CONSERVATIVES would like to do is to "PRESERVE THE STATUS QUO" (those policies that benefit THEM) and DESTROY any opposition to "CHALLENGES TO THE STATUS QUO" (which is what progressives are trying to do).
Hope you understand the difference between WHAT conservatives are PRESERVING and WHAT they are DESTROYING.
Restoring policies by deregulating and getting rid of the rules is not preservation but restoration......I am have no interest in further discussion with you. There are no conservatives in the Trump regime...there are reactionaires, revanchist, and restorative I do not see repealing the current rules (environment, car safety, etc) and restoring the unregulated capitalism that people like Bannon want to bring back: Make America great again is not about preserving but restoring. You are free to disagree..I no longer care. Please spare me.
To tear down means to preserve? When Bannon says tear down the administrative state, he uses the term "deconstruct the administrative state," which he explains means to undo, to repeal, the "liberal" policies and deregulate, thus nothing is preserved but neoliberal policies (privatization and deregulation) are restored.
>>"AOC is out in public calling out genocide while you attack her."
Wow - you are either "intellectually challenged", employed in some capacity by AOC, lack adequate critical thinking skills, or are unable to see through the propaganda, false narratives, and virtue signaling (or a combination of the above).
I believe you have been CONNED, gaslighted, bamboozled, hoodwinked, been misled, and duped about YOUR "AOC narratives". If you can't figure out how, then I suggest you spend some time (with an open, questioning, and objective mind) with Caitlin's past articles (going back years).
Don't worry, MANY people (including me at one point in time) have been fooled by AOC, Clinton, Obama and such purveyors of "hopium". You are NOT ALONE!
Your accusations are both false and absurd: AOC is one of the few calling out genocide and for halting shipment of arms to Israel. At 83, totally independent, and with a world class education, I reject your insults and forgive you.
Actually all talk about politics is showing that one is still in the kindergarten of thought. Question yourselves, why do you obey something psychopaths write into the thing they call "law"? Why do you feel compelled to obey it? Why do you give it your energy, your attention, you money, your life? Why? Is it due to cowardice because you're afraid of their thugs? Or that they could ruin you? It's all based on blackmail isn't it? You're giving energy to blackmail when you talk about politics. All parties, all policies, all hairstyles.
Whether YOU are interested in politics or not, POLITICS is interested in YOU. Everything is politics. There is NOT AN AREA of human society/culture/economics/civilization that is NOT touched by politics.
Maybe make an effort to understand what politics is, the history of politics (in various forms) throughout human history, etc.
Before "Economics" was called economics, it was called "the political economy".
well we could live with no politics and no laws...if we were hunter-gatherer bands. It simply isn't realistic in modern mass society. There must be organization, and a huge culture like ours requires a lot of centralization. Which pretty much inevitably leads to corruption; I think it could be designed to block that path, but I don't know if it ever has been.
Even in hunter-gatherer bands there were laws (unwritten, non-codified socially/culturally agreed upon ways of behaving, etc.). And there is always politics (though of different kinds in smaller groups).
I'm not sure why you think hunter-gatherer societies had no laws or politics - since anthropology studies refute that claim.
I will admit that I WANT to believe that hunter-gatherer bands were/are egalitarian and mostly nonviolent. Because it suggests that this is a POSSIBLE mode for humanity; we aren't constructed, hardwired, to hierarchy, domination and violence. But there may be those who want to grind the ax on the other side. Who want to believe that only law and rulers keep us in line--or that we are fucked-up POS who need God/Jesus/Allah to redeem our worthless selves. Researchers with advanced degrees may well be affected by either of these biases too. I looked at the link you posted and note that it goes between talking about what ancient societies were like, to talking about what the researchers here actually studied--ONE group of tribes in northern Chile, in the driest desert in the world (the extreme environment could be a factor although I note that the famously peaceable and egalitarian Pygmies/Bantu live in the Kalahari.)
So maybe the point is that SOME small bands have been egalitarian and peaceable but not all. And I'm a proponent of the Parable of the Tribes, which says that when a group turns to agriculture, division of labor and hierarchy, it's set up for expansion, warfare and domination. Likely this domination always includes domination of women by men and domination of other creatures by humans--it's part of the same mindset. But the key thing is--once this gets going, the tribe is going to need more land and they will be well set up to take it from their neighbors. Who will almost never succeed in defending their tenancy--the aggressive tribe has more young men, they practice war, they work on weapons development, and their culture justifies it. So the peaceable tribe is either vanquished, the survivors absorbed into the aggressive one, or they flee. One of those aggressive tribes has evolved into today's world order.
From I can tell, hunter-gatherers are the only groups that are really egalitarian. And radical egalitarian behavior seems to be an essential part of what keeps them together.
I mean right as in conservatives predict policies will end badly, and they do. From education, to crime, to marriage, etc... It always plays out the same. Conservatives raise an alarm about, let's say, divorce rates exploding in the 70's and the social ills that will happen. The leftist media dismisses and ridicules their concerns. Then exactly what the conservatives say will happen...happens. There is never any accountability for those who were wrong.
That is why I have urged governments to title legislations with the names of those who created each Act: Minister/Departmental Head/project officer. The cascading effects on society would be immediate change in culture.
You give the example of "raising alarm rates over divorce" as being proof of "conservatives being right". There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to begin...
(1) What are the statistics of divorce rates in "conservative, liberal or neither" groups?
(2) What's your target focus group? Conservatives ONLY in the US or conservatives throughout the world? (in the context of divorce rates)
(3) Have you bothered to examine/analyze/understand WHY divorce rates are going up? Maybe it has to do with financial issues arising in families because of Capitalism and neoliberalism? Maybe it has to do with a "patriarchal system"? Maybe it has to do with "women not taking shit from men as they used to? Many more reasons.
There are too many errors in your critical thinking here, so I won't proceed further on the fallacies in your argument.
Sorry, but there's no coherent logic in your comment. BOTH conservatives AND liberals can be NEOLIBERALS (it's not either/or). Being a neoliberal is independent of the conservative/liberal classification.
>>"There are many “conservatives” who have take a strong stand against the colonial-settler Zionist state of apartheid Izrahell"
So? What does that prove? There are leftists against Zionism, there are rightists against Zionism, there are people who are neither right or left that are against Zionism, there are conservatives and liberals and neither of the two that are against Zionism.
Yeah, they construct false matrixes and superimpose them on top of terms like “liberal” and “conservative”. The terms are so twisted they’re hardly cohesive concepts of political science, much reflectively of our body politic and society as a whole.
I was brought up in Scotland. I never bothered with politics. I think I heard and somehow some was in there. I was never good at reading all the shenanigans in newspapers either. I think that helped keep me from some of what Caitlin is talking about now. I always had my own way of not bothering about some things. Eg. I laughed at swine flu. What was that. Never had a flu jab. Only since being in Australia many years later and intuitively going against things like covid, the vax etc have I taken an interest in politics and only because I felt I had to. Had to for the next generation, children, freedom etc. I do not like what I see and I see too well what Caitlin is talking about and have done for a while. Trying to extricate yourself from that empty feeling of having no joy in life over what you see as a complete mess all over the world is not easy. I try now to look within for that feeling of contentment and to not allow the pressures of this dystopia Caitlin talks about, to destroy me mentally. To enjoy family and those few you still think are genuine. To continue reading about the horrors our govts are trying to descend on us but to stay above it. I remember in Scotland when you were either conservative or labour Labour being supposedly for the worker and progression and against exploitation. Conservative as the more family, less confrontational element. Quick explanation as I’m sure it meant a lot more. However, today I think they are all one and the same and all on the same path of destruction.
Let’s hope that with knowledge and truth we can avoid the wanted outcome.
I have no idea what that emoji is supposed to mean, but it looks suspiciously like something that Australians who are pissed off with national politic, are likely to draw on their ballot paper come election time.
Sorry, Caitlin, but I have huge issues with your statements about antidepressants, which quite literally have saved my life. I suffer from CLINICAL DEPRESSION, which means my brain is unable to transmit serotonin to the appropriate cells. The correct antidepressants can correct this. If not for them, I would have taken my own life many years ago.
I have been taking them for forty years.
What you are describing is situational depression, that is, depression due to outside circumstances. Antidepressants will NOT CORRECT THIS, and I resent your implication that they are being “handed out like candy”. A psychiatrist knows the difference.
A mild anti-anxiety agent such as Buspar can help.
Am I depressed over the state of the world? Of COURSE I am. Only a psychopath wouldn’t be. And this is in spite of being on the maximum dose of sertraline.
If you’ve never taken antidepressants, Ms. Caitlin, don’t speak about what you don’t know. And don’t disparage those of us who actually require them in order to live as normal a life as possible.
Gypsy, I think you may have misunderstood the context in which Caitlin talks about "anti-depressants". She is focusing/emphasizing the "push towards anti-depressants" by BIG PHARMA (including on kids being over-prescribed stuff like Prozac, etc.) to increase profits (and not serious clinical cases and diagnoses or genetic/hereditary conditions that people may have).
That’s not how I read it, Chang. She places this in the context of people seeking happiness.
Caitlin clearly is unaware of the fact that antidepressants are NOT a “feel-good” pill. They are a corrective medication. People with clinical depression taking them is exactly the same as a diabetic taking insulin.
When Caitlin states, "If they put microchips in our brains which allowed them to fully control our minds, they’d have us moving around in more or less the same way we’ve been moving for generations" I automatically thought of Sheldon S. Wolin's 'DEMOCRACY INC. Managed Democracy and The Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism' a book ever American should read as it's a great study in Caitlin piece.
Yes, there is a false world created by our conditioning, education, loneliness and self-hate that's being used to the advantage of big pharma, junk food, gambling, drinking, smoking and endless products. However, Caitlin, remember the environmental dystopia that greeted Neo when he was jacked out of it? It's not all tweeting birds and cream teas.
When we wake up we see that we have fucked over every member of every species, including our pets, some of whom we have bred so that they can hardly breath. We see the tiny pockets of jungle trapping the last members of millions of species. 'Co-existence'?: what a joke.
We see that we are in the calm before the storm of mass migration of humans, as many countries become too hot for either arable or the farming of other animals for food.
Waking up is not for the faint hearted. Many may prefer to stay asleep.
Great post as always. Living in the UK all we get from the government and the MSM is lies but trying to convince people they are constantly being lied to is very difficult. People don’t want to admit that large numbers of things they are told are simply outright crap. Also they have been taught from birth that the UK is a world leading democracy, whereas I don’t think it’s democratic at all, or if it is, only slightly, and most of them love the BBC which I’m boycotting. It’s great to read some posts here that actually tell the truth and make sense.
Wonderful writing.
Thanks.
Could you elaborate, please? She blames capitalism and pigeonholes conservative/right as knuckle-dragging greed monkeys who recently startled awake and reflexively urge to oppress minorities, blind and deaf to all basic human needs and suffering.
This is well-intentioned but illiberal ranting. But for someone well-known who calls attention to an information matrix enslaving us all in propaganda, this is ridiculous. It reads like one side of the coin blaming the other.
That's precisely what has paralyzed us and made us vulnerable to mass influence of corporate, media, and political control. The cretins who do this don't see left or right in their own ranks, because it's one of their ways of controlling us, like antagonisms in race and gender. We're manipulated to fight each other through diabolical social and political engineering of information.
People surely have concrete differences in ideology, but independent minds always listen, identify differences, and can peacefully co-exist. What Caitlin pontificates breeds intolerance for hundreds of millions of people, and effectively declares them dead to the human struggle.
Left vs. Right nonsense is defunct in any serious, intelligent discussion. I come from the right and it's always hard to watch people breathe into each other's mouths. To see both left and right camps surge in 2025, leading people away from truly independent, and mired in jaded, confused, tribal camps, is deeply disappointing.
I hope Caitlin and others can zoom out and do more work on deprogramming themselves. I'm far from healed, but good grief.
“I have found little that is "good" about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.” - Sigmund Freud
I agree, though I come from the left.
Events of recent years have made it clear to me that each side tends to see some problems clearly that the other side misses. The worst thing about political polarization is that it gets in the way of respectful inter-tribal communication, which would help all of us see the big picture more clearly.
I heard Dennis Kucinich sum up the problem very succinctly: "partisanship does violence to cognition". Sadly, for all Catlin's brilliance, she periodically exemplifies this problem.
Who did you vote for?
Meant for George Kim: cognitive dissonance
Listen to the words of The The "Cognitive Dissident"
As always, Caitlin, you make such common sense to this disaffected, dissident community. Truth to power: go for it!
As long as people believe that money and technology will bring them more happiness than a bright smile, a kind word, a hearty laugh, a helping hand, a warm hug, the love of a good woman and a good man, they will continue to lead empty, lonely, depressing, disconnected and meaningless lives. And I mean not only the smiles, words, laughs, hugs and love that you receive, but moreso the ones you give.
Diane!🕊️Yes…
So incredibly spot on! I always knew something was wrong, particularly in corporate America, but I thought it was a personal problem that I didn't have an obsession with "getting ahead," hustle culture, getting rich, etc. The past 5 years (especially this last one, watching a livestreamed genocide), showed me that there was nothing wrong with me and everything wrong with our capitalist society. Now I am both more miserable in knowing what this empire continually unleashes on the world and happier than ever in my new pursuits of community building and mutual aid. It has been so freeing to let go of all the aspirations I've been told I should have, but it's also extra hard to pretend to care to get the paycheck with every passing day.
I never bought into the myth. Working within that system was pretty damn unpleasant but I did it, saving my money so I could get out. It took twenty years but I did it. Once I had what I needed I left the United States immediately. That was twenty-two years ago.
I would love to read the story of Patrick.
I was a programmer in Silicon Valley and Oregon for twenty years. One day I couldn't do it any more. I decided to leave before they found out. I couldn't afford to retire in the USA so I had to try overseas. I sold my pickup truck and other such things and flew to Bali. That worked out great. I speak Indonesian, which is the easiest language in the world to learn.
After about a dozen years I'd seen everything in Bali and was bored. By accident I wound up in Tokyo and found out what a bargain it was. So now I spend half of the year on the outskirts of Tokyo. There's always something to see in Tokyo. The music, painting, and dance are terrific. Not much in the way of nature in Tokyo but enough there on the edge of town.
What country did you move to? It's a worldwide mess - not just U.S.
Huh! I live the spring and fall in Tokyo and the rest of the year in Bali. It is a very little-known fact that Tokyo is a bargain. It might have the best arts in the world -- dance, music, and painting -- and it costs nothing compared with New York City or Paris. Doesn't have much nature though so I live on the outskirts and take the train.
In Bali I live on the outskirts of Ubud. I do lots of walking in the ricefields. A very friendly and pretty place. Lots of ducks laying eggs near where I live. Bali is close to the equator but has a nice climate, not too hot and it never gets cold. It's very popular with tourists. I moved here twenty years ago.
I have friends who are farmers/survivalists/Buddhists/conspiracy buffs. They've lived in Fiji and Kauai but now have returned to Texas and gone Christian(!). Life has some surprises, yes?
Sadly, the plutocrats have such total control over political/civic decision-makers, news-manufacturers/avoiders/twisters and propagandists, that the majority are being kept generally ignorant and desperately busy in making just to keep their heads above water. The super-duper-rich call the shots and keep the factory-fodder in its place. The moral-free zone that encompasses the politico-corporate slice of the society will be obliged to apply ever greater strictures upon the populace, especially when, and if, it becomes a little restive. I see more Luigi Mangiones popping up, somehow.
Oppression will continue to increase.
Thirty years ago I used to visit the beach on an island. There were no houses or businesses. You could see the water for as far as you could see as long as you looked over the sand. You could smell everything and breathe the air. I went there before the pandemic flood and now you couldn't see the beach past high rise condos, strip malls and ugly chain hotels. Certain roads to the beach were blocked off when before there were no signs that said don't enter. Before the beach was free for everyone, now you had to pay hundreds of dollars just to look at the beach. Now the old beach is a memory to me that I cherish because I will never be able to stand there at that specific spot and just stare into the water, wondering.
Money is destroying our culture and our life support system.
It’s not money Denise, it’s GREED.
You get the drift though. I could also say it's not the greed. It's all of it, ignorance, money, politics, greed, etc. Many would include religion.
Money is their vehicle. If we want to make them impotent, then we must start using an alternative to their system. We can definitely do this and without much bother. We need to get started, there are many possibilities for us today with our digital technology that can empower us.
Money is their medium. Having studied the theory of money, I can see how they have incited greed. Think about this - they make money scarce (by issuing only a fraction of what needs to be paid. Interest is never an amount included in the issuance of money so there is always a huge shortfall) So when something is scarce, say water, wheat or anything that people need, what do we do? We hoard and become grasping (greedy). We're very different in scarcity than we are in abundance. And that's what they've done to us with this money system, they have inculcated greed into our everyday lives by making money scarce.
I think it’s the money.
Just to clarify, if money were not issued like it currently is, if it were issued in a different way, under a different system, it wouldn't incite greed. There is a tendency to think all money systems produce greed but that is not so at all.
Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
The world's a stage.
I remember Montauk NY being as you describe. I spent 2 weeks there when I was 9, no TV, radio, or anything. I was miserable. As I grew older and life beat at me to succumb, I thought of Montauk as my great escape... Someday I'd run away and live on the empty beach. Like you, I was horrified that all the pristine land is crammed with crap and people. We still have our memories and can stroll those beaches as they were forever. Keep the faith and the memories 🤗
The same is happening in Chicago : (
Recently discovered your writing and am now a loyal fan! So glad you are on the scene and obviously fearless as well as brilliant! I regularly re-post you! I'd be interested in learning your thoughts on how we get out of this mess; I can't see any solution other than taking to the streets with pots and wooden spoons - en mass! Repeatedly. Endlessly. What say you?
Be at peace within yourself. That’s all I have. It’s easier said than done, but it works. The energy and vibration goes UP when we do this.
Truth.
Yep, the benign-sounding “Status quo voting” or “lesserevilism” is directly responsible for this increasing trend of exploitation, capitalist extraction of resources, and the upward shift of wealth - produced as surplus by the working class - largely to the top 0.1 of a percentage point, but also the top 10 percent which encompasses the ruling class in order that they do their job and legislate for yet more protection, the militarisation of police, more prisons run for more profits, and the subjugation and colonisation and extermination of the people “in the way” whom are resisting this hegemony backed with extreme violence which is only available to state actors.
The liberal ‘PMC’ voters naively think they are helping ‘incrementalism’ improve people’s lives and helping ‘save the planet’, but actively block or ignore any attempts to open their eyes and minds to the carnage they are actively enabling by voting “lesserevilism” - which must be the most egregiously misnamed political ideology since “National Socialism”.
Excellent discussion but I would highly recommend avoiding the use of the term "conservative" in such a broad sense. After all, this battle with conservatives is precisely what the power players want to trap us in. Moreover much of the so called conservative agenda is not conservative at all but rather revolutionary. True conservatives exist out there and you will find you have a lot in common with them. Those hyped up free market China threat anti immigrant conservatives are not conservative but rather caught in the net
Never seen you complain when I bash liberals.
Since my youth many words have mutated in meaning. Back then a liberal was anti-war, pro-free speech, pro-working man. Nowadays a "liberal" is anything the DNC wants it to be. Not long ago a bedrock conservative goal was a balanced budget. Now "conservatives" advocate a multi-trillion dollar deficit. In short, these words are so debased as to have become meaningless.
Here's an article about this Orwellization of words. https://science1arts2and3politics.substack.com/p/the-orwellization-of-words
Arguing about the meaning of these deliberately confused words is a fruitless waste of time. I recommend avoiding the quicksand of such propagandized labels and instead sticking with individual issues.
Thanks. I tend to cringe when people, even people I like and respect, speak about "liberals". What they mean by the word isn't what I mean by it. So I just don't use the word.
And I am 100% with you that wise people don't use labels, but just stick to the issues.
I observe that the primary political/cognitive rift is one between those who valorize and support Capitalism and those who wish for its overthrow and replacement by some form of Socialism.
Nope - BOTH liberals AND conservatives support Capitalism.
Yup. 🤓
Fine with me!!
I guess you haven't understood ANY of CJ's articles (if that was your takeaway).
PS: Here is the deleted comment by IceBox: "All you do is complain".
Who deleted the comment? The author or Caitlin? If it was Caitlin then that makes a lot of her writing moot but I'm not saying it was however I hope it wasn't as that will mean she's a censor and thus does not understand that free speech is all we have to get through this nightmare. I sincerely hope it wasn't you that deleted the comment, Caitlin. The age we are upon now is the age of reason. Free speech is more important than oxygen. And if one doesn't understand that, then woe.
It was IceBox (the author of the comment) who deleted it (FYI).
>>"Free speech is more important than oxygen. "
NO, it's not. Have you lived ANYWHERE else in the world other than in the US (or the West)? Try living without Oxygen and let me know how it turns out...
Well it's going to be the same soon. They're not going to let you have oxygen. You totally missed the point - you're too fixated on minutia and missed the whole point. I still stand by it, but what it is meant to convey is that we can only get through this nightmare on the shirtails of free speech. I'm telling ya, you won't have oxygen if we don't, and if we do have free speech, we'll be free! No kidding. Psychopaths cannot live in the light and they always favor censorship. Thanks for letting me know that the author deleted the comment. however Caitlin threatened further down to suspend one of the commenters. I find that extremely infantile. It really changes the face of Caitlin. Anyone who is "awake" must surely by now understand that free speech is our ticket out of this asylum? Seems nobody wants out of it, just repeats the same memes. So we keep repeating the same nightmare. Let's try something different?
Sure, I live in Indonesia. The government is much less powerful. The press much more free than in the West.
My responses were all deleted
I never deleted anything.
Nope - none of your responses were deleted. Nice try - they're all still here. You can always try again. And please stop LYING!
What's your problem dude? Don't have any logic or rational arguments? Are ad hominem attacks all you have? Please don't make yourself look worse than you already have.
I second that!
>>"Moreover much of the so called conservative agenda is not conservative at all but rather revolutionary."
Huh? Project 2025 is revolutionary? What have you been smoking? Now don't say the Trump administration is not "true conservatives" in order to weezle your way out. That would be an excuse.
Please tell me, WHAT is good about "conservative thinking" - because I haven't been able to come up with a single thing good about "conservative principles"? (Maybe I need to be educated on some of those things - here's your chance).
It is revolutionary in that it intends to destroy existing institutions and replace them with a privatized global system to support banks and billionaires. This is a revolutionary act, not a conservative one. The confusion emerges from the use of the terms "conservative," "progressive," and "revolutionary." We use the terms "conservative" for what is in fact "reactionary" and "progressive" for what should be "egalitarian". It is no contradiction to be reactionary and revolutionary. For that matter, many of the well meaning progressives are conservative in posture in that they wish to preserve existing systems (like constitutional balances) not create new systems. I could go on, but thank you for the question.
"destroy existing institutions and replace them with a privatized global system to support banks and billionaires."
You mean destroy the institutions of Russia and China? The DNC is 100% on board with this. Though I would agree that the DNC is deeply conservative, using these Orwellized words confuses discourse to such an extent that I recommend simply not using them. Stick with specific issues, as you did here. I never would have understood what you meant without this clarification.
I agree. I was not the one who was tossing around the term *conservative* here. I have written at length about this problematic.
>>"It is revolutionary in that it intends to destroy existing institutions and replace them with a privatized global system to support banks and billionaires."
What is revolutionary about it? What is new about it? The neoliberal project (which is what you describe) has been going full-swing since the 1970s. Are you just waking up now?
We use the terms "conservative" for what is in fact "reactionary" and "progressive" for what should be "egalitarian".
I've never heard such bullshit. And why are you redefining terms to suit your contrived justifications? Maybe look up the common known and understood meanings of "conservative, reactionary, progressive, egalitarian, etc." instead of creating your own definitions and meanings for them.
>>"For that matter, many of the well meaning progressives are conservative in posture in that they wish to preserve existing systems"
Nope - you are COMPLETELY WRONG on that. First, I suggest understanding what "progressive" means. You're trying really hard to gaslight aren't you?
Wow. Not much to say in response to this sort of attack. If others are interested in the issues, not personal attacks, please see green-liberty.org/ctp
If you think "my comment" was an attack, then obviously you lack sufficient reasoning and logical abilities (and argumentation skills). How is it that when people don't have an adequate defense to back up their statements that they "play the victim"?
Shame on you. I thought you were better than this.
In fact your comment did come across as a personal attack. You need to think about your choice of words, arguing the issues, not degrading the other person's intelligence or education or intention.
You wrote: "I've never heard such bullshit. " And instead of owning your insulting words, you blame the person you attacked. I expect you will now attack me for pointing out the obvious.
Green Liberty actually looks pretty good, minus the Covid Project reference.
Who is "we"? I'm a conservative. Pat Buchanan is a good example of what I call a conservative.
The Maga agenda is not conservative (ie with goal of preserving most cherished traditions and institutions) but reactionary radical in the attempt to tear them down. There are some, such as the Electoral College or Citizens United that should be torn down but to tear down institutions in order not to transform society but to immobilize society for control is even revanchist. I suggest that these terms thrown around, such as conservative and liberal, have lost all meaning. INstead be specific in terms of policies and laws: when Sanders proposes a bill to halt military aid to Israel, it is neither liberal nor conservative but a moral mandate. When AOC calls out Israel for genocide, at the price of being attacked and censored, it is not liberal; it is simply telling the truth, and the truth has no party. So let's stop using meaningless words which have so many meanings they have none. Let's talk about real issues, real polcieis, real proposals and not label them as a cheap way to shout boo or hooray!
Bernie Sanders' proposal to halt military aid to Israel is Conservative, because we aren't supposed to waste weapons. Around the time of the Founding, wars had to be paid for with real money.
If money was real now, we'd each be paying back $100,000 dollars to the Treasury Bond holders. Taken right out of our paychecks.
Sorry, it's far more. Each taxpayers share is now 280k, plus the debt of what ever state and city you live in. We have never been here before with the dollar being used as a weapon. I have a Treasury account, and now don't use it.
Not one person who calls himself a conservative in Congress agrees with Sanders. And the issue is not about "wasting" weapons but the policy that prohibits delivering them if it is likely they will be used in violation of international law. The American Revolution was not funded with "real money" but with loans: "For the first two years of the war, the colonists received secretive private and public loans from the French, who held a lingering resentment for the British after the Seven Years' War.[9] After the British defeat at Saratoga, however, foreign support for the Continental Army increased, and in 1778 the colonies signed a treaty with France, officially bringing them into the war with Great Britain.[10] By the end of the war, the colonies had received loans from several different European nations, including a significant contribution from France, Spain and the Netherlands."
>>"The Maga agenda is not conservative (ie with goal of preserving most cherished traditions and institutions) but reactionary radical in the attempt to tear them down."
Dale Ruff, I think you may have misunderstood. The MAGA agenda IS "preserving most cherished traditions and institutions" - and those are NEOLIBERAL ones (that are so cherished by MAGA and capitalists alike). What it's tearing down are regulatory mechanisms, curbs to capitalism, oversight, public protections, etc.
So NO - MAGA is not reactionary - it is just ANOTHER LEVEL (and an extreme one at that) in continuing "neoliberal capitalism" down its current path and eventual objectives.
Also, I wonder if you will EVER get over your "pandering" of virtue signallers like "AOC" and to a certain extent Sanders. I have a bit of respect for Sanders (for all the good that he has done over his long career), but AOC is a faker (and she has conned and fooled many - just like Clinton and Obama).
Maga means make America great again, which means not change but stopping change and returning to a previous (mythical) era of greatness, thru steps like repealing the ACA, repealing Roe vs Wade, and reigniting racism. "Reactionary is a term for a person or ideology that opposes social, political, and economic change and seeks to restore a previous condition of affairs. " This is the proclaimed goal of the MAGA movement, and I add it is destructive because it is based not on new programs but breaking down those that exist, repealing birthright citizenship, repealing reproductive rights, repealing Social security and handing it over to Wall St for profit, etc etc. So reactionary is always destructive, for its goal is to break things, to "destroy the administrative state." It is also revanchist because the underlying appeal of Trump to his base is to restore their sense of lost status and even territory (Panama, Greenland, Canada): Revanchist is an adjective or noun that describes a policy or a person who seeks to recover lost territory or status. "
And restoring neoliberalism is not revolutionary but reactionary, for it means cutting down progressive programs and laws and restoring the campaign to replace government functions (education, prisons, etc) with private corporations, something the Nazis did in the 1930's (tho the mythi is they took over corporations, but the fact is while everyone else in Euroope and the US was was doing the opposite, Nazi Germany had a huge privatization program: 'n the mid‐1930s, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in western capitalistic countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s." This is a basic fascist move: reactionary in restoring superannuated programs and law, by tearing down existing programs and law, and revanchist in restoring "lost status" of the white working class and "real Americans" and returning to neoliberal privatization. This is not revolutionary but anti-revolutioinary, as all fascist regimes proclaim communism (revolution) as the enemy to be destroyed: Here is Trump saying just that to his base: "Former President Donald Trump frequently derides Vice President Kamala Harris as "Comrade Kamala." He says she must be stopped to prevent the United States from turning communist or Marxist.
"She is a communist, I guess," Trump said in an Aug. 26 podcast " This is how HItler created a mass movement unified by hatred of the Bolsheviks, or "far left radicals," as Trump also called the Democrats, a party clinging except for its progressive faction, to the center.
Mathew Wills put it this way: "The immediate post-war reading of fascism was of an “ideology of nihilistic irrationalism, a movement fueled by pathological barbarism.” Marxists on the other hand viewed fascism from the 1930s on as an end-stage of capitalism, a corporate-state reaction. More recent liberal academic theories of fascism have defined it as: authoritarian nationalism; reactionary mass movement; revolutionary ultra-nationalism; synthesis of right-wing and left-wing characteristics; mobilizing myth of national rebirth." From the left a false populism arises and from the right, a movement to restore the greatness of the past after having been "stabbed in the back" by the liberals or far left radicals, or as in the case of hapless Harris, communists.
>>"And restoring neoliberalism is not revolutionary but reactionary"
I disagree! restoring is closely related to preserving. Isn't that what you said yourself in one of your comments above about "conservatives preserving things"?
>>"Maga means make America great again"
NO! MAGA is an "ACRONYM" for "Make America Great Again" (which itself is a vague statement). When was America great? And for whom? And in what circumstances? And for which races/cultures? And in what context?
(1) Was America great when it Genocided the native population of the Americas?
(2) Was America great when it profited off slavery?
(3) Was/Is America great because of racism?
(4) Was/Is America great because of Imperialism, Colonialism, War, destruction, exploitation, etc........?
(5) Was America great for exploiting migrant labor? Indentured servitude? Promoting and spreading neoliberal Capitalism?
(6) Was America great for destroying so many countries, regime change operations, debt diplomacy,....
(7) Was/Is America great because of its prison system and rates of incarceration?
(8) Was/Is America great because of inequality? (and MAGA agendas will only make this worse)
(9) Was/Is America great because of its "Health Care System"?
(10) Was/Is America great because of its "fake democracy"?
.....
I'll have to stop here (since this could be a never-ending list)
I will add this, though (in the spirit of objectivity). America HAS made many positive contributions to the world too (lest we lose sight of this).
MAGA means some VERY DIFFERENT things from what the acronym stands for.
Damn, could not have said it better myself ha. Thank you for that. My brother was a maga supporter, and after the Mush, Vivek hate on working people, he now agrees with me on our previous discussions ha. Thank you Mush and Vivek, doing the work : )
To preserve is to keep what exists.
To restore is to dismantle what exists and to put in place that which once existed.
The leadng intellectual of the Maga agenda is Steven Bannon and his mission, as he has announced, is to tear down the administrative state: that is hardly preservation but rather destruction. BTW, virtue signaling is an evolutionary feature of people seeking mates or, in today's, world, jobs. Using it as a slur is a cheap shot, which is a way of signaling your virtue in a negative way. AOC is out in public calling out genocide while you attack her. HOw pathetic. She is working to build a majority to outlaw shipment of arms to Israel, while you are taking cheap shots. Sad.
>>"...tear down the administrative state: that is hardly preservation but rather destruction."
Wow - you like twisting things so they work in your favor, don't you?
Ok, here's another way to look at it ->
(1) PRESERVATION of neoliberal policies
(2) PRESERVATION of capitalism
(3) PRESERVATION of "white supremacy/dominance" (Make America Great Again - make america white again?)
(4) PRESERVATION of "male dominance and patriarchy" (that's what they really mean by "family values")
(5) PRESERVATION of "social norms that discriminate against immmigrants, minorities, at-risk marginal communities"
(6) PRESERVATION of "the ability to continue exploiting the ENVIRONMENT" in the pursuit of profits
(7) PRESERVATION of "laws (and legal loopholes) that concentrate wealth to the top 1% and exploit others"
(8) PRESERVATION of "structural and systemic RACISM, bigotry, etc."
(9) PRESERVATION of "systems and organizations that continue to financially exploit the majority" (such as the banking system, Wall Street, etc.)
..... I could go on for quite a while.
To summarize, what CONSERVATIVES would like to do is to "PRESERVE THE STATUS QUO" (those policies that benefit THEM) and DESTROY any opposition to "CHALLENGES TO THE STATUS QUO" (which is what progressives are trying to do).
Hope you understand the difference between WHAT conservatives are PRESERVING and WHAT they are DESTROYING.
Restoring policies by deregulating and getting rid of the rules is not preservation but restoration......I am have no interest in further discussion with you. There are no conservatives in the Trump regime...there are reactionaires, revanchist, and restorative I do not see repealing the current rules (environment, car safety, etc) and restoring the unregulated capitalism that people like Bannon want to bring back: Make America great again is not about preserving but restoring. You are free to disagree..I no longer care. Please spare me.
To tear down means to preserve? When Bannon says tear down the administrative state, he uses the term "deconstruct the administrative state," which he explains means to undo, to repeal, the "liberal" policies and deregulate, thus nothing is preserved but neoliberal policies (privatization and deregulation) are restored.
>>"AOC is out in public calling out genocide while you attack her."
Wow - you are either "intellectually challenged", employed in some capacity by AOC, lack adequate critical thinking skills, or are unable to see through the propaganda, false narratives, and virtue signaling (or a combination of the above).
I believe you have been CONNED, gaslighted, bamboozled, hoodwinked, been misled, and duped about YOUR "AOC narratives". If you can't figure out how, then I suggest you spend some time (with an open, questioning, and objective mind) with Caitlin's past articles (going back years).
Don't worry, MANY people (including me at one point in time) have been fooled by AOC, Clinton, Obama and such purveyors of "hopium". You are NOT ALONE!
Your accusations are both false and absurd: AOC is one of the few calling out genocide and for halting shipment of arms to Israel. At 83, totally independent, and with a world class education, I reject your insults and forgive you.
https://www.workersstrikeback.org/
Actually all talk about politics is showing that one is still in the kindergarten of thought. Question yourselves, why do you obey something psychopaths write into the thing they call "law"? Why do you feel compelled to obey it? Why do you give it your energy, your attention, you money, your life? Why? Is it due to cowardice because you're afraid of their thugs? Or that they could ruin you? It's all based on blackmail isn't it? You're giving energy to blackmail when you talk about politics. All parties, all policies, all hairstyles.
Whether YOU are interested in politics or not, POLITICS is interested in YOU. Everything is politics. There is NOT AN AREA of human society/culture/economics/civilization that is NOT touched by politics.
Maybe make an effort to understand what politics is, the history of politics (in various forms) throughout human history, etc.
Before "Economics" was called economics, it was called "the political economy".
well we could live with no politics and no laws...if we were hunter-gatherer bands. It simply isn't realistic in modern mass society. There must be organization, and a huge culture like ours requires a lot of centralization. Which pretty much inevitably leads to corruption; I think it could be designed to block that path, but I don't know if it ever has been.
Even in hunter-gatherer bands there were laws (unwritten, non-codified socially/culturally agreed upon ways of behaving, etc.). And there is always politics (though of different kinds in smaller groups).
I'm not sure why you think hunter-gatherer societies had no laws or politics - since anthropology studies refute that claim.
Also, have you looked at the crime and violence in hunter-gatherer societies? Here's one link -> https://news.tulane.edu/pr/new-study-reveals-long-history-violence-ancient-hunter-gatherer-societies
I will admit that I WANT to believe that hunter-gatherer bands were/are egalitarian and mostly nonviolent. Because it suggests that this is a POSSIBLE mode for humanity; we aren't constructed, hardwired, to hierarchy, domination and violence. But there may be those who want to grind the ax on the other side. Who want to believe that only law and rulers keep us in line--or that we are fucked-up POS who need God/Jesus/Allah to redeem our worthless selves. Researchers with advanced degrees may well be affected by either of these biases too. I looked at the link you posted and note that it goes between talking about what ancient societies were like, to talking about what the researchers here actually studied--ONE group of tribes in northern Chile, in the driest desert in the world (the extreme environment could be a factor although I note that the famously peaceable and egalitarian Pygmies/Bantu live in the Kalahari.)
So maybe the point is that SOME small bands have been egalitarian and peaceable but not all. And I'm a proponent of the Parable of the Tribes, which says that when a group turns to agriculture, division of labor and hierarchy, it's set up for expansion, warfare and domination. Likely this domination always includes domination of women by men and domination of other creatures by humans--it's part of the same mindset. But the key thing is--once this gets going, the tribe is going to need more land and they will be well set up to take it from their neighbors. Who will almost never succeed in defending their tenancy--the aggressive tribe has more young men, they practice war, they work on weapons development, and their culture justifies it. So the peaceable tribe is either vanquished, the survivors absorbed into the aggressive one, or they flee. One of those aggressive tribes has evolved into today's world order.
From I can tell, hunter-gatherers are the only groups that are really egalitarian. And radical egalitarian behavior seems to be an essential part of what keeps them together.
https://www.workersstrikeback.org/
Conservatives have been right across the board, from what I can see.
I'm not sure what you see. Firstly, what is "right across the board"? Who's right? Yours? Your values? Conservative values?
Your "right across the board" may very well be "wrong across the board".
What does YOUR "right across the board" entail?
I mean right as in conservatives predict policies will end badly, and they do. From education, to crime, to marriage, etc... It always plays out the same. Conservatives raise an alarm about, let's say, divorce rates exploding in the 70's and the social ills that will happen. The leftist media dismisses and ridicules their concerns. Then exactly what the conservatives say will happen...happens. There is never any accountability for those who were wrong.
That is why I have urged governments to title legislations with the names of those who created each Act: Minister/Departmental Head/project officer. The cascading effects on society would be immediate change in culture.
I seem to have issues with your logic.
You give the example of "raising alarm rates over divorce" as being proof of "conservatives being right". There are so many things wrong with this that I don't know where to begin...
(1) What are the statistics of divorce rates in "conservative, liberal or neither" groups?
(2) What's your target focus group? Conservatives ONLY in the US or conservatives throughout the world? (in the context of divorce rates)
(3) Have you bothered to examine/analyze/understand WHY divorce rates are going up? Maybe it has to do with financial issues arising in families because of Capitalism and neoliberalism? Maybe it has to do with a "patriarchal system"? Maybe it has to do with "women not taking shit from men as they used to? Many more reasons.
There are too many errors in your critical thinking here, so I won't proceed further on the fallacies in your argument.
Sorry, but there's no coherent logic in your comment. BOTH conservatives AND liberals can be NEOLIBERALS (it's not either/or). Being a neoliberal is independent of the conservative/liberal classification.
>>"There are many “conservatives” who have take a strong stand against the colonial-settler Zionist state of apartheid Izrahell"
So? What does that prove? There are leftists against Zionism, there are rightists against Zionism, there are people who are neither right or left that are against Zionism, there are conservatives and liberals and neither of the two that are against Zionism.
And your point was?
Yeah, they construct false matrixes and superimpose them on top of terms like “liberal” and “conservative”. The terms are so twisted they’re hardly cohesive concepts of political science, much reflectively of our body politic and society as a whole.
Oh that term made me giggle, "political "science""?
Don’t encourage her! She will grow up eventually!
I say the GOP agenda is superficial revolutionary posing to garner votes. Nothing will fundamentally change.
https://science1arts2and3politics.substack.com/p/usa-politics-new-years-predictions
Seeing China as a threat is conservative cannon.
Seeing Israel as an ally...is not. Almost always an indication of a neocon, which was never conservativism.
Just IMO.
I was brought up in Scotland. I never bothered with politics. I think I heard and somehow some was in there. I was never good at reading all the shenanigans in newspapers either. I think that helped keep me from some of what Caitlin is talking about now. I always had my own way of not bothering about some things. Eg. I laughed at swine flu. What was that. Never had a flu jab. Only since being in Australia many years later and intuitively going against things like covid, the vax etc have I taken an interest in politics and only because I felt I had to. Had to for the next generation, children, freedom etc. I do not like what I see and I see too well what Caitlin is talking about and have done for a while. Trying to extricate yourself from that empty feeling of having no joy in life over what you see as a complete mess all over the world is not easy. I try now to look within for that feeling of contentment and to not allow the pressures of this dystopia Caitlin talks about, to destroy me mentally. To enjoy family and those few you still think are genuine. To continue reading about the horrors our govts are trying to descend on us but to stay above it. I remember in Scotland when you were either conservative or labour Labour being supposedly for the worker and progression and against exploitation. Conservative as the more family, less confrontational element. Quick explanation as I’m sure it meant a lot more. However, today I think they are all one and the same and all on the same path of destruction.
Let’s hope that with knowledge and truth we can avoid the wanted outcome.
"We come to nirvana by way of samsara"
🙏Thank you Caitlin.
I have no idea what that emoji is supposed to mean, but it looks suspiciously like something that Australians who are pissed off with national politic, are likely to draw on their ballot paper come election time.
Hah! That's a good one.
They're supposed to be praying hands.
Thanks. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed.
Sorry, Caitlin, but I have huge issues with your statements about antidepressants, which quite literally have saved my life. I suffer from CLINICAL DEPRESSION, which means my brain is unable to transmit serotonin to the appropriate cells. The correct antidepressants can correct this. If not for them, I would have taken my own life many years ago.
I have been taking them for forty years.
What you are describing is situational depression, that is, depression due to outside circumstances. Antidepressants will NOT CORRECT THIS, and I resent your implication that they are being “handed out like candy”. A psychiatrist knows the difference.
A mild anti-anxiety agent such as Buspar can help.
Am I depressed over the state of the world? Of COURSE I am. Only a psychopath wouldn’t be. And this is in spite of being on the maximum dose of sertraline.
If you’ve never taken antidepressants, Ms. Caitlin, don’t speak about what you don’t know. And don’t disparage those of us who actually require them in order to live as normal a life as possible.
Gypsy, I think you may have misunderstood the context in which Caitlin talks about "anti-depressants". She is focusing/emphasizing the "push towards anti-depressants" by BIG PHARMA (including on kids being over-prescribed stuff like Prozac, etc.) to increase profits (and not serious clinical cases and diagnoses or genetic/hereditary conditions that people may have).
That’s not how I read it, Chang. She places this in the context of people seeking happiness.
Caitlin clearly is unaware of the fact that antidepressants are NOT a “feel-good” pill. They are a corrective medication. People with clinical depression taking them is exactly the same as a diabetic taking insulin.
When Caitlin states, "If they put microchips in our brains which allowed them to fully control our minds, they’d have us moving around in more or less the same way we’ve been moving for generations" I automatically thought of Sheldon S. Wolin's 'DEMOCRACY INC. Managed Democracy and The Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism' a book ever American should read as it's a great study in Caitlin piece.
Yes, there is a false world created by our conditioning, education, loneliness and self-hate that's being used to the advantage of big pharma, junk food, gambling, drinking, smoking and endless products. However, Caitlin, remember the environmental dystopia that greeted Neo when he was jacked out of it? It's not all tweeting birds and cream teas.
When we wake up we see that we have fucked over every member of every species, including our pets, some of whom we have bred so that they can hardly breath. We see the tiny pockets of jungle trapping the last members of millions of species. 'Co-existence'?: what a joke.
We see that we are in the calm before the storm of mass migration of humans, as many countries become too hot for either arable or the farming of other animals for food.
Waking up is not for the faint hearted. Many may prefer to stay asleep.
Such beautiful writing. The good thing Is how the awareness of living in a dystopic society, makes us more authentic and genuine
Great post as always. Living in the UK all we get from the government and the MSM is lies but trying to convince people they are constantly being lied to is very difficult. People don’t want to admit that large numbers of things they are told are simply outright crap. Also they have been taught from birth that the UK is a world leading democracy, whereas I don’t think it’s democratic at all, or if it is, only slightly, and most of them love the BBC which I’m boycotting. It’s great to read some posts here that actually tell the truth and make sense.