Healthy natural systems are always characterized by intrinsic negative feedback controls that prevent the kind of destructive overshoots that we're witnessing in "a civilization that has gone bat shit crazy". Citizen skepticism and opposition to such a bat shit society's excesses are part of that negative feedback regulation, but they're instead treated as unpatriotic, anti-Semitic, as anything but the appropriate necessary elements of an entity truly worthy of the appellation "system". Without those feedbacks, it's not really a system, it's just a horribly degraded excuse for something else, some out-of-control beast.
Yes, but negative feedback needs a feedback loop that connects to systems/people that analyze/respond to the negative feedback.
Sadly, there is no effective feedback mechanism for this hegemonic mania occurring now. And the 0.000000001% richest elite at the top of the totem pole, clearly, are sociopaths at best - taking the whole world to nuclear gunpoint. This booklet, written in the early 1970s, is describing what's happening today. https://44x.xyz/rocke.pdf John D "donated" the land the UN sits on - in 1946.
Thanks. Your link looks interesting; I'll have to check out its details; and I remember being suspicious of the Rockefellers as a child because my mom seemed overly positive about them. Seems like you're reinforcing my point that there are negative feedbacks available from the populace, but unlike the case in healthy systems, they're not only ignored,but downplayed and marginalized; thus don't have the damping effect that they're designed to have (in a "democratic republic"). Hell, the whole point of separation of powers was that they should sense oversteps and act as negative feedbacks on one another. And not even that is occurring, much less anything beyond that.
Yes. Negative feedback is a term used to describe mechanical, electronic, biological systems, etc. If you see an obstacle on the road while driving, you, as part of a negative feedback loop (you, car, steering wheel, gas/brake pedals, etc.) proportionally steer the car, brake, etc) appropriately to avoid the obstacle. Without negative feedback, steering wheel, etc, the car is a ballistic "missile" and one "rolls the dice!"
It's as clear as can be that the "checks and balances" of a healthy 3 branch government in the US have been almost totally subverted as unrecognizable and that main$tream media (M$M) is no better than Russia's "pravda" or China's Xinhua, as all M$M & feeding wire services are owned/controlled by same few elites. On FB was a splash: https://www.facebook.com/howard.switzer.1/posts/pfbid022Jva5jQmaNY6MQ8n75cHaqejSEBTX2XcWq5yN2jhaZQAJa13UytcTtw6QMAZRtt8l?notif_id=1713733399461143¬if_t=close_friend_activity&ref=notif Judicial & congressional review of POTUS's criminal activities should have been done - even when he was VP and quid-quo-pro'd re Ukrainian president firing the Burisma prosecutor so as to keep off the heat! And the laptop. Or 100s of money laundering accounts and entities, etc. Sadly, there is a knee on the neck of the grey mare of liberty and justice.
Sorry, I gave up on FB a while back. And as a molecular biologist, I've certainly been teaching about both negative (damping) and amplifying (stupidly called "positive") feedback in complex biological and chemical systems for many years, so I hardly need a primer, thanks. Of course I recognize the veracity of your points about elites and media control across the board. I wish I had something more constructive to add. The knee on the neck metaphor sees to capture much of it.
The FB link may display even for non-members. I am a physicist & mathematician with heavy interest in med, organic chem, molecular bio etc. I respect your position and work!
For others that may read this, your description of feedback is quite appropriate in loosely or non-controlled feedback systems. In electronics for example, an amplifier with part of the output fed back to the input will oscillate. Ditto if inverted phase is fed back to input, it'll damp, maybe completely! We would love to have our 3 tier governmental system operate with full control of the transgressions of a branch, disciplining the "naughty" branch. But, as fff.org suggests, our government is no longer functioning that way.
Re: FB Actually, they plague me to reinvigorate my membership anytime I click on a link, so I immediately go away. Just my pref. Yes, I'm familiar with the oscillatory behavior you cite; are you unaware of its occurrence not just in well known pathological cardiac (electrochemical) situations, but in isolated chemical reaction centers in both lymph nodes and tissue sites in aspects of immune responses where oscillations of chemical messenger (cytokine) concentrations appear to occur as a normal aspect of the response? Not that well characterized; certainly not nearly as well as those non-biological situations, but let's not underplay the dynamics of complex adaptive biological systems, where oscillatory and more complex behavior is demonstrable. I wish I still had the mathematics links/books, but my ex-wife was that end of our partnership and those materials went with her (confessions of divorced people! Sorry). Thanks for the conversation. Peace.
This is a good point. You’ve put your finger on something that’s been bothering me about Caitlin’s worldview. It’s so passionate, and the criticisms are valid in some cases as far as they go. I agree sincere criticism is a healthy thing. Furthermore, her insight is correct that the US is a superpower or empire as she calls it. But she stops there. She tirelessly points out what the empire has to do to perpetuate itself in this ugly world, but she never compares it to other empires. If we did not have the US Empire, we’d be living under some other empire. Would Caitlin’s preferred empire be the Russian Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Iranian Empire? it would be a great service in the name of depolarization for Caitlin to use her analytical abilities to illuminate the relative merits of candidate empires.
That's ahistorical nonsense. There has been exactly one (1) unipolar hegemon in all of human history, and it didn't begin until the 1990s. Your assumption that if this one falls there'll be another one is premised on the false believe that something that has only ever happened one single time in all of human history is the normal state of affairs for the world. Multipolarity has always been the norm. Without US hegemony, we'd have that.
With respet, there have been other dominant empires in history, and they used similar tactics to dominate their citizens, but none was as global as the U.S. empire. And they all fell, usually for similar reasons, and this one will fail, too, for similar reasons. So you are right to say that the Mr. Howde's question is nonsense, but less for the reason you stated and more for the reason that trying to compare the U.S. empire to something that never existed is beyond pointless.
Yours is one of the depressingly few voices of reason; thank you for what you do.
I was just about to jump on that, then see that you already have. Are we all AI driven bots? I almost have to laugh; I think I found a human on here, but still, no, I'll pass on humanity, just because, example; above mentioned, but love your words.
You know damn well that we'll never see each other again, except maybe in a courthouse if you don't take yourself and kids to family therapy, and I'll know damn well if in fact you ever actually do that, because at some point I'll have to participate as well.
If you even so much as dare to pull that, "Me and my kids are all fine and good", then go effing to hell, I went through almost 70 years of that shit, I'm through with all that and there's no effing way that I'm going to stand by and watch another child's love destroyed. If you can't do that, then never expect to see me on one knee.
Like I'd really give a flying F about whatever you would think about anything. Or as one of my friends used to say, "go F a flying donut"; he was a cop killing donut baker, as though that wouldn't be hilarious in any world. I still think about him though; in what world does a donut baker supply SAMs etc to an insurrection for it to gain it's freedom from the filthy shit people that once ruled South Africa? Now called South West Africa. Filthy F scum.
Mark Hovde: you've fallen for the propaganda. We are constantly being told how horrible it would be if the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians or anyone else besides the US Empire were in control. And then we are told how great the American style of "democracy" is. Sure. No health care. Increasing police oppression. Can't say anything negative about some states or we are antisemitic which makes us right up there with Hitler. Everyone in the world wants what America has. Freedom. Really???
You know, Caitlin always talks about the propaganda, everyone else as well, but it occurred to me today that maybe the people who speak English are already by the nature of the English language, total shit people, so like a dog trained to come home for dinner by a puff of breath through a dog whistle; there we are. Why wouldn't someone treat us like dog shit? When was the last time that you saw someone do something nice for someone? The last time that something like that happened, the Earth began to shake and the San Francisco earthquake was the result of it. LOL 😆🤣
Wow. you have a sad life. I see people doing nice things for others every day. I even do nice things for other people myself sometimes. I also see people doing icky things to others. I live in a very linguistically diverse area so I see people of all languages doing really nice things and sometimes really shitty things.
Otherwise, sweetheart, I can't say; it's not like I don't know that you planted that time bomb in the Black Panther's car. You should be ashamed 😔😔. Probably, safe at school teaching, as though they would actually call you and let you know that an ICBM was on it's way.
We got it all straightened out. I received a call earlier today that she had apparently passed away due to an overdose of a much needed medication. Sorry for the misunderstanding; have yourself a wonderful evening.
You can delete it, but you read it first. Let some effing person love you, so that you can take that happiness to eternity. Give yourself a chance at a real life. That's what a real friend is supposed to say whether you like it or not. That's the sort of love neither of us have ever had. Later.
Because Taiwan invaded Ukraine and made it a slave state to produce cotton to clothe the soldiers of its many armies? That would have to be it; wouldn't it?
Any empire will evolve having had to follow the path of ignoring the feedback controls that genuine systems include in their makeup, that is, ignoring the model by which Nature has flourished on this planet for Millennia. To me personally, as a naturalist, there are no benefits to such a path regardless of the specifics of its actualization.
Many of these man-made induced theories - Naturalist "models" concocted by scientific dinosaurs - such as a Richard Dawkins, has little to do with what has been more recently uncovered about Nature. That all of Nature turns on a "Selfish Gene" is pseudo-intellectual bosh, or that the human psyche is primarily driven by Freudian psychosexual fantasies has also been shown to be nonsense.
Fuck Dawkins. I'm not talking about selfish genes and don't subscribe to that bullshit. Why don't you try ceasing your attempts to be a gadfly no matter what the topic. To wit: show me a natural system that exists without physiological negative feedback regulation (simple idea: change A sensed by system monitors provokes adaptation activating change B that dampens the effect of change A -- observables, not theories.
I think you are living under the impression that there needs to be a global superpower. This is not necessary and is the first time it has happened globally. Until the last 30 years or so, independent power structures on separate continents have coexisted on the planet for millennia without substantially interfering with each other.
You want to have a ruler to tell you how to live. That is a form of insanity. To be able to do much as we please as long as we aren't harming others is how nature works, and human societies (if there is such a thing) should also. Panarchy or Anarchy maybe a viable alternative. Hierarchies of Oligarchies No thanks.
So much of what we do is learned behavior. Home, school, Tele, internet games. I know people that believe EVERY family is as dysfunctional as their family story, which is Disfuncional! I am just saying that there are alternatives, like anything else they require effort and a certain level of Trust and truth. Our American society has been corrupted to trust government Despite the reality
we see everyday. Those who see it as it is are attacked for being unpatriotic, conspiracy nuts and such. I am certain the world these creeps want is not one based on love, peace or health.
I'm not so sure about that Craig. It seems we in the USA have underwritten Europe's standard of living since WWII, being that they spend so little on defense. They're all 'living at 100%' while in America our health coverage, infrastructure, and the like, are below first world standards. Of course our defense industry thrives.
Yes, they're dependent on us and they all live the good life. They're our bitches. But we're fast approaching the point we can no longer afford the them (i.e. the whores). I think they'll be cut-loose...
And being and knowing that little whisper in the ear of millions may be all it takes. You and I may never know who or how it sparks a return to sanity. But it will.
The Gaza genocide has not just brought the whole Western post WW II superiority into question, it is bringing down the entire Judeo Christian ethic. If none of the Christian churches can bring themselves to condemn the Zionists, then my whole upbringing in a smug, safe Christian world is worthless.
Fuck the Pope, fuck the Archbishop of Canterbury, and fuck all of the Baptists and every other so called “Christian” religions.
Yes, the masks are all off now. I gave up on attending a church that was the denomination I was born into because the pastor couldn't even answer my question, "Where do we as a church (the local) stand on the issue of genocide?" I walked away and have found other Christian groups who are discussing "What would Jesus do in the midst of genocide?" and not hiding their heads in the sand. I would have never known they existed without that "push" (out the door) by a very rude pastor.
I have a feeling that things have been MUCH worse for some time now, but many of us are just now understanding the extent of that MUCH worse. I mean, I for one would never have thought they would attempt to normalize and cover-up a genocide. And yet here we are.
Thank you Jenny for your share. Yes, I also cancelled my subscription to WaPo a few months ago. It was hard for me because I lived in dc for 8 years and considered it sort of a hometown paper. But after October 7 I saw how murderously complicit it is: reporting, comments policies, slanted titles, propaganda rag, genocide supporter, etc. so I cut it out of my life. I feel much better and hope that you will too. More time to read Caitlin and other outstanding independent journalists and writers.
Are you aware that "Ukraine" is now attacking Russia's long range early-warning radar used for detecting incoming Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). That particular radar is also used to determine if something is a false positive, that is, a missile that only looks like it is headed for Russia. So it makes the possibility of war that much greater.
These radar are not pointed at Ukraine and they are more than a thousand miles from Ukraine.
Ukraine doesn't have the ability to target these radar on their own so it is unmistakably the West that is behind this.
Is the West committing world suicide, or does it believe it has an ace up it's sleeve which will allow it to win WWIII?
From what I have read and listened to (many scholars and ex-army people) we seem to have a bunch of 'nincompoops' ruling the west with absolutely no interest in the lives of the people who are slowly being ground down and killed every day.
Neither it seems, does the US have a chance of beating Russia even with NATO weapons.
So we sit here read and learn and get more and more frustrated. When something looks bad it is bad.
You are right Caitlin we need to keep talking and somewhere there may come some enlightenment to another person. Yes a small spark.
I used to think the same thing Levi, always giving 'Them' the benefit of a doubt. No more. These people are honestly out-of-control psycho lunatics. Really. It's abundantly clear at this point. They are.
Zionist Nazi Biden and the Evangelical nut jobs want Armageddon! I just read an article from another poster here on Caitlin's substack who proved this point. It sure looks like Biden actually wants a nuclear confrontation!
Me too. You write about it better than I do. Many are afraid to oppose power. The powerful feel dangerous and can be dangerous. Look what they have done to Julian Assange, Snowden, whole nations. Look what they spin and do to people they want to destroy. I know genocide and the history of Palestine. I know the back story on Ukraine. I know those drunk with power think they are right and that might makes right, even though they are wrong.
Being part of a community is , even if it is a virtual community, is essential. It is critically important for those of us in the West to escape the ghetto and know the larger world seeing it as it is, not through the lies and propaganda of our quisling elites. In so many ways we are now citizens of the world, disenfranchised and orphaned by failed despots.
Your broadcasts are much appreciated and do help to alleviate the dispair but I think there is a deeper level of dispair to begin with for someone like me who has a fairly large family whose members are all pretty apathetic regarding the parlous state of the world. How do you overcome that?
I grew up in North Dakota and have a large family that likes to live their lives and not be bothered by bad stuff happening ‘somewhere’. Hang in there Robert!! What I’m noticing is a generational shift with the kids, grandkids, nieces, etc., which may also happen with your family.
Depends on what Hope you have. Once Hope goes, there really is nothing left. Victor Frankel wrote about this in his book of his own Auschwitz concentration camp experiences, "Man's search for Meaning". He said that once a fundamental hope was lost, the will to survive quickly disappeared from those clinging to life. Hope can have many sources, often extramundane Hope - believing in something more than just the Nihilistic philosophy that life is a random process and consciousness a by-product of that random process and nothing more. Whatever it is that might give you Hope - that's how you can bear the suffering.
You can use theory till the 'cows come home' but I have lived through a civil war and theory goes out of the window when families fight each other/neighbours remember things done to them by others. Killing is in the human brain and so is hate.
Jenny - I'm not a priest or an academic philosopher. I'm just a yokel living in Idaho putting out my two cents here on Caitlin's substack for what is a pretty open platform, without heavy censorship like Twitter-X or WaPo. I have my own thoughts on how to approach and somehow resolve in my mind the enigma of human suffering - hell all suffering of life, not just human. Victor Frankel's book came to mind given his own hellish experiences in Auschwitz, and the conclusions he reached in his fairly short work. But do I know really anything about real suffering? Can I really answer how one minute some young woman will be driving down the road in her Nissan, and then a minute later, some random driver crosses the divide and smashes head on into her Nissan - she had no chance to respond, and she is dead 2 minutes later from internal injuries sustained from traumatic impact? Did she deserve it? What about her hopes and dreams? What about her two young children strapped in the backseat of that Nissan? And you know what - 123 people die in the US alone per day from simply getting into their car, like they usually do, and driving somewhere.
So then the sad riddle becomes the riddle of our own mortality. Of the mortality of the 15,000 children now dead in GAZA by a genocidal Nazified State. Do I simply damn the entire human race? Damn the Universe for the obvious horror and suffering that so many appear to be arbitrarily victimized by? And how do I find a path through for my own remaining years, and find a way to support those whom I care about myself? Given the reality I find myself in - as so many others find themselves in.
It's not easy. The question of suffering is almost always the centerpiece of theological thought and beliefs. Mortality is a crucial question that has been asked by philosophers since the Greeks. And God only knows, I'm not any kind of Aristotle or Plato or Socrates. I mean, I do what I can to keep moving forward in this horror show. But I too sometimes question, what the fuck is all this really about?
Actually random processes gives me great hope that life will survive, and new experiments will bring new species. If I thought there was anything more behind the curtain, I’d be really, really upset.
Shelley said it much better, “ Lift not the painted veil which those who live/ Call Life.
For me its not that something is "behind" the curtain, rather that the curtain is much more than many dare to surmise.
For example, William James Mrs. Piper, or the enigmatic Eileen Garrett. It is true that free will can only depend on fundamental probability, which Schrodinger and Heisenberg uncovered. Determinism has been losing its throne now for the last century, although the old-school Materialists are still clinging to Determinism (along with Super-Determinism) with their last dying breaths.
However, as William James pointed out, there is no meaning for an Individual when one only assumes Universal laws and Universal Generalizations govern our reality. But it was Jung that pointed out that statistics do not actually deal with human reality,reality and facts deal with unique instantiation of life and meaning rather than general averages - and we see through the probabilities of quantum physics - that indeed, Individual specificity can (and does) slip through all broad generalizations of "truth".
I don't expect to find anything "behind" the curtain as cartoonish as some male God with a beard that suddenly appears and passes judgement over my life. However, nor do I believe consciousness and meaning can be attributed to random processes alone - that too I find equally ridiculous. First explain to me Mrs. Piper and Eileen Garrett, then come back to me. But if you cannot explain either of these two extraordinary individuals - or you come back with a mindless, deliberately concocted "Wikipedia" explanation, then you fail to see the extent of the intellectual mystery at large IMO.
"It means you are surrounded by lunatics, and ruled by madmen" This is exactly how I have been feeling. It does help to hear someone else say it. I keep thinking about the good humans who have made great music, great art and written great books. Money and power corrupt. At least I think that is what is making people so horrible. Otherwise our water supply is contaminated.
I'm in the UK. I identify so closely with what you are saying. Thank you for being a voice in the darkness.
Me too
This “inversion” of reality started with the British Empire and was handed over to the US Empire, as the sun finally set on her. Just my $.02.
Healthy natural systems are always characterized by intrinsic negative feedback controls that prevent the kind of destructive overshoots that we're witnessing in "a civilization that has gone bat shit crazy". Citizen skepticism and opposition to such a bat shit society's excesses are part of that negative feedback regulation, but they're instead treated as unpatriotic, anti-Semitic, as anything but the appropriate necessary elements of an entity truly worthy of the appellation "system". Without those feedbacks, it's not really a system, it's just a horribly degraded excuse for something else, some out-of-control beast.
Yes, but negative feedback needs a feedback loop that connects to systems/people that analyze/respond to the negative feedback.
Sadly, there is no effective feedback mechanism for this hegemonic mania occurring now. And the 0.000000001% richest elite at the top of the totem pole, clearly, are sociopaths at best - taking the whole world to nuclear gunpoint. This booklet, written in the early 1970s, is describing what's happening today. https://44x.xyz/rocke.pdf John D "donated" the land the UN sits on - in 1946.
Thanks. Your link looks interesting; I'll have to check out its details; and I remember being suspicious of the Rockefellers as a child because my mom seemed overly positive about them. Seems like you're reinforcing my point that there are negative feedbacks available from the populace, but unlike the case in healthy systems, they're not only ignored,but downplayed and marginalized; thus don't have the damping effect that they're designed to have (in a "democratic republic"). Hell, the whole point of separation of powers was that they should sense oversteps and act as negative feedbacks on one another. And not even that is occurring, much less anything beyond that.
Yes. Negative feedback is a term used to describe mechanical, electronic, biological systems, etc. If you see an obstacle on the road while driving, you, as part of a negative feedback loop (you, car, steering wheel, gas/brake pedals, etc.) proportionally steer the car, brake, etc) appropriately to avoid the obstacle. Without negative feedback, steering wheel, etc, the car is a ballistic "missile" and one "rolls the dice!"
It's as clear as can be that the "checks and balances" of a healthy 3 branch government in the US have been almost totally subverted as unrecognizable and that main$tream media (M$M) is no better than Russia's "pravda" or China's Xinhua, as all M$M & feeding wire services are owned/controlled by same few elites. On FB was a splash: https://www.facebook.com/howard.switzer.1/posts/pfbid022Jva5jQmaNY6MQ8n75cHaqejSEBTX2XcWq5yN2jhaZQAJa13UytcTtw6QMAZRtt8l?notif_id=1713733399461143¬if_t=close_friend_activity&ref=notif Judicial & congressional review of POTUS's criminal activities should have been done - even when he was VP and quid-quo-pro'd re Ukrainian president firing the Burisma prosecutor so as to keep off the heat! And the laptop. Or 100s of money laundering accounts and entities, etc. Sadly, there is a knee on the neck of the grey mare of liberty and justice.
Sorry, I gave up on FB a while back. And as a molecular biologist, I've certainly been teaching about both negative (damping) and amplifying (stupidly called "positive") feedback in complex biological and chemical systems for many years, so I hardly need a primer, thanks. Of course I recognize the veracity of your points about elites and media control across the board. I wish I had something more constructive to add. The knee on the neck metaphor sees to capture much of it.
The FB link may display even for non-members. I am a physicist & mathematician with heavy interest in med, organic chem, molecular bio etc. I respect your position and work!
For others that may read this, your description of feedback is quite appropriate in loosely or non-controlled feedback systems. In electronics for example, an amplifier with part of the output fed back to the input will oscillate. Ditto if inverted phase is fed back to input, it'll damp, maybe completely! We would love to have our 3 tier governmental system operate with full control of the transgressions of a branch, disciplining the "naughty" branch. But, as fff.org suggests, our government is no longer functioning that way.
Best!
Re: FB Actually, they plague me to reinvigorate my membership anytime I click on a link, so I immediately go away. Just my pref. Yes, I'm familiar with the oscillatory behavior you cite; are you unaware of its occurrence not just in well known pathological cardiac (electrochemical) situations, but in isolated chemical reaction centers in both lymph nodes and tissue sites in aspects of immune responses where oscillations of chemical messenger (cytokine) concentrations appear to occur as a normal aspect of the response? Not that well characterized; certainly not nearly as well as those non-biological situations, but let's not underplay the dynamics of complex adaptive biological systems, where oscillatory and more complex behavior is demonstrable. I wish I still had the mathematics links/books, but my ex-wife was that end of our partnership and those materials went with her (confessions of divorced people! Sorry). Thanks for the conversation. Peace.
This is a good point. You’ve put your finger on something that’s been bothering me about Caitlin’s worldview. It’s so passionate, and the criticisms are valid in some cases as far as they go. I agree sincere criticism is a healthy thing. Furthermore, her insight is correct that the US is a superpower or empire as she calls it. But she stops there. She tirelessly points out what the empire has to do to perpetuate itself in this ugly world, but she never compares it to other empires. If we did not have the US Empire, we’d be living under some other empire. Would Caitlin’s preferred empire be the Russian Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Iranian Empire? it would be a great service in the name of depolarization for Caitlin to use her analytical abilities to illuminate the relative merits of candidate empires.
That's ahistorical nonsense. There has been exactly one (1) unipolar hegemon in all of human history, and it didn't begin until the 1990s. Your assumption that if this one falls there'll be another one is premised on the false believe that something that has only ever happened one single time in all of human history is the normal state of affairs for the world. Multipolarity has always been the norm. Without US hegemony, we'd have that.
With respet, there have been other dominant empires in history, and they used similar tactics to dominate their citizens, but none was as global as the U.S. empire. And they all fell, usually for similar reasons, and this one will fail, too, for similar reasons. So you are right to say that the Mr. Howde's question is nonsense, but less for the reason you stated and more for the reason that trying to compare the U.S. empire to something that never existed is beyond pointless.
Yours is one of the depressingly few voices of reason; thank you for what you do.
Rome? The world was "smaller" then.
Not all that important because the American Empire is failing anyway.
I was just about to jump on that, then see that you already have. Are we all AI driven bots? I almost have to laugh; I think I found a human on here, but still, no, I'll pass on humanity, just because, example; above mentioned, but love your words.
You can still jump but that character is impenetrable. For honing your writing skills maybe.
You know damn well that we'll never see each other again, except maybe in a courthouse if you don't take yourself and kids to family therapy, and I'll know damn well if in fact you ever actually do that, because at some point I'll have to participate as well.
If you even so much as dare to pull that, "Me and my kids are all fine and good", then go effing to hell, I went through almost 70 years of that shit, I'm through with all that and there's no effing way that I'm going to stand by and watch another child's love destroyed. If you can't do that, then never expect to see me on one knee.
No effing way, no shit.
Like I'd really give a flying F about whatever you would think about anything. Or as one of my friends used to say, "go F a flying donut"; he was a cop killing donut baker, as though that wouldn't be hilarious in any world. I still think about him though; in what world does a donut baker supply SAMs etc to an insurrection for it to gain it's freedom from the filthy shit people that once ruled South Africa? Now called South West Africa. Filthy F scum.
That's some fine writing!
Mark Hovde: you've fallen for the propaganda. We are constantly being told how horrible it would be if the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians or anyone else besides the US Empire were in control. And then we are told how great the American style of "democracy" is. Sure. No health care. Increasing police oppression. Can't say anything negative about some states or we are antisemitic which makes us right up there with Hitler. Everyone in the world wants what America has. Freedom. Really???
You know, Caitlin always talks about the propaganda, everyone else as well, but it occurred to me today that maybe the people who speak English are already by the nature of the English language, total shit people, so like a dog trained to come home for dinner by a puff of breath through a dog whistle; there we are. Why wouldn't someone treat us like dog shit? When was the last time that you saw someone do something nice for someone? The last time that something like that happened, the Earth began to shake and the San Francisco earthquake was the result of it. LOL 😆🤣
Wow. you have a sad life. I see people doing nice things for others every day. I even do nice things for other people myself sometimes. I also see people doing icky things to others. I live in a very linguistically diverse area so I see people of all languages doing really nice things and sometimes really shitty things.
Otherwise, sweetheart, I can't say; it's not like I don't know that you planted that time bomb in the Black Panther's car. You should be ashamed 😔😔. Probably, safe at school teaching, as though they would actually call you and let you know that an ICBM was on it's way.
you are not making any sense. I hope you have people to talk to.
We got it all straightened out. I received a call earlier today that she had apparently passed away due to an overdose of a much needed medication. Sorry for the misunderstanding; have yourself a wonderful evening.
Your eves droping by impersonating someone else. Get an effing life or go to effing hell.
You can delete it, but you read it first. Let some effing person love you, so that you can take that happiness to eternity. Give yourself a chance at a real life. That's what a real friend is supposed to say whether you like it or not. That's the sort of love neither of us have ever had. Later.
I think that China and Russia have seen the ravages caused by Empires. Why would they want one or am I being naive.
Two words for you: Taiwan and Ukraine.
1. Taiwan has always belonged to China
2. Ukraine. Maidan coup d'etat started by the US
Your point being...?
Because Taiwan invaded Ukraine and made it a slave state to produce cotton to clothe the soldiers of its many armies? That would have to be it; wouldn't it?
🤡
Any empire will evolve having had to follow the path of ignoring the feedback controls that genuine systems include in their makeup, that is, ignoring the model by which Nature has flourished on this planet for Millennia. To me personally, as a naturalist, there are no benefits to such a path regardless of the specifics of its actualization.
Many of these man-made induced theories - Naturalist "models" concocted by scientific dinosaurs - such as a Richard Dawkins, has little to do with what has been more recently uncovered about Nature. That all of Nature turns on a "Selfish Gene" is pseudo-intellectual bosh, or that the human psyche is primarily driven by Freudian psychosexual fantasies has also been shown to be nonsense.
Fuck Dawkins. I'm not talking about selfish genes and don't subscribe to that bullshit. Why don't you try ceasing your attempts to be a gadfly no matter what the topic. To wit: show me a natural system that exists without physiological negative feedback regulation (simple idea: change A sensed by system monitors provokes adaptation activating change B that dampens the effect of change A -- observables, not theories.
Jesus. You need to check what pills you took this morning. Talk about feedback controls ...
"If I don't sell heroin, someone else will!"
Maybe and maybe not.........we don't know.
I think you are living under the impression that there needs to be a global superpower. This is not necessary and is the first time it has happened globally. Until the last 30 years or so, independent power structures on separate continents have coexisted on the planet for millennia without substantially interfering with each other.
You want to have a ruler to tell you how to live. That is a form of insanity. To be able to do much as we please as long as we aren't harming others is how nature works, and human societies (if there is such a thing) should also. Panarchy or Anarchy maybe a viable alternative. Hierarchies of Oligarchies No thanks.
You really think humans can rule themselves?
Obviously you have never been in a Civil War where family fights family and neighbors remember sleights from years ago!
So much of what we do is learned behavior. Home, school, Tele, internet games. I know people that believe EVERY family is as dysfunctional as their family story, which is Disfuncional! I am just saying that there are alternatives, like anything else they require effort and a certain level of Trust and truth. Our American society has been corrupted to trust government Despite the reality
we see everyday. Those who see it as it is are attacked for being unpatriotic, conspiracy nuts and such. I am certain the world these creeps want is not one based on love, peace or health.
I'm not so sure about that Craig. It seems we in the USA have underwritten Europe's standard of living since WWII, being that they spend so little on defense. They're all 'living at 100%' while in America our health coverage, infrastructure, and the like, are below first world standards. Of course our defense industry thrives.
If this is so then why have US done this............it's called hegemony.
Yes, they're dependent on us and they all live the good life. They're our bitches. But we're fast approaching the point we can no longer afford the them (i.e. the whores). I think they'll be cut-loose...
More likely the other way round!
And being and knowing that little whisper in the ear of millions may be all it takes. You and I may never know who or how it sparks a return to sanity. But it will.
The Gaza genocide has not just brought the whole Western post WW II superiority into question, it is bringing down the entire Judeo Christian ethic. If none of the Christian churches can bring themselves to condemn the Zionists, then my whole upbringing in a smug, safe Christian world is worthless.
Fuck the Pope, fuck the Archbishop of Canterbury, and fuck all of the Baptists and every other so called “Christian” religions.
Yes, the masks are all off now. I gave up on attending a church that was the denomination I was born into because the pastor couldn't even answer my question, "Where do we as a church (the local) stand on the issue of genocide?" I walked away and have found other Christian groups who are discussing "What would Jesus do in the midst of genocide?" and not hiding their heads in the sand. I would have never known they existed without that "push" (out the door) by a very rude pastor.
Thank you for making me laugh. I feel the same.
Today I have cancelled my subscription to Wash Post.
Tried to make 3 comments none of which were allowed. No bad words just a refutation of another comment and calmly made.
Things are getting MUCH worse.
I have a feeling that things have been MUCH worse for some time now, but many of us are just now understanding the extent of that MUCH worse. I mean, I for one would never have thought they would attempt to normalize and cover-up a genocide. And yet here we are.
Just recently (last few weeks) more than Scott Ritter and his passport.
I have many things on u-tube which I cannot get access to.
I have made many comments on Wash Post sending people to substack. First time I have been unable to comment!
Thank you Jenny for your share. Yes, I also cancelled my subscription to WaPo a few months ago. It was hard for me because I lived in dc for 8 years and considered it sort of a hometown paper. But after October 7 I saw how murderously complicit it is: reporting, comments policies, slanted titles, propaganda rag, genocide supporter, etc. so I cut it out of my life. I feel much better and hope that you will too. More time to read Caitlin and other outstanding independent journalists and writers.
This is how totalitarian states always have acted. They need subjects who will believe absurdities, or their rule will swiftly end.
Surely, you have read 1984?
It's been awhile. But man, is that book quoted a lot these days.
What is it that LBJ said about WWIII...?
"The survivors will envy the dead."
Are you aware that "Ukraine" is now attacking Russia's long range early-warning radar used for detecting incoming Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). That particular radar is also used to determine if something is a false positive, that is, a missile that only looks like it is headed for Russia. So it makes the possibility of war that much greater.
These radar are not pointed at Ukraine and they are more than a thousand miles from Ukraine.
Ukraine doesn't have the ability to target these radar on their own so it is unmistakably the West that is behind this.
Is the West committing world suicide, or does it believe it has an ace up it's sleeve which will allow it to win WWIII?
From what I have read and listened to (many scholars and ex-army people) we seem to have a bunch of 'nincompoops' ruling the west with absolutely no interest in the lives of the people who are slowly being ground down and killed every day.
Neither it seems, does the US have a chance of beating Russia even with NATO weapons.
So we sit here read and learn and get more and more frustrated. When something looks bad it is bad.
You are right Caitlin we need to keep talking and somewhere there may come some enlightenment to another person. Yes a small spark.
I used to think the same thing Levi, always giving 'Them' the benefit of a doubt. No more. These people are honestly out-of-control psycho lunatics. Really. It's abundantly clear at this point. They are.
Zionist Nazi Biden and the Evangelical nut jobs want Armageddon! I just read an article from another poster here on Caitlin's substack who proved this point. It sure looks like Biden actually wants a nuclear confrontation!
It's not Ukraine attacking Russia Radar. It is most probably US personnel with US weapons, and US intel. If not then UK.
Me too. You write about it better than I do. Many are afraid to oppose power. The powerful feel dangerous and can be dangerous. Look what they have done to Julian Assange, Snowden, whole nations. Look what they spin and do to people they want to destroy. I know genocide and the history of Palestine. I know the back story on Ukraine. I know those drunk with power think they are right and that might makes right, even though they are wrong.
Being part of a community is , even if it is a virtual community, is essential. It is critically important for those of us in the West to escape the ghetto and know the larger world seeing it as it is, not through the lies and propaganda of our quisling elites. In so many ways we are now citizens of the world, disenfranchised and orphaned by failed despots.
That's the truth!
Correct.
Amen. To your voice of sanity.
Your broadcasts are much appreciated and do help to alleviate the dispair but I think there is a deeper level of dispair to begin with for someone like me who has a fairly large family whose members are all pretty apathetic regarding the parlous state of the world. How do you overcome that?
I grew up in North Dakota and have a large family that likes to live their lives and not be bothered by bad stuff happening ‘somewhere’. Hang in there Robert!! What I’m noticing is a generational shift with the kids, grandkids, nieces, etc., which may also happen with your family.
Depends on what Hope you have. Once Hope goes, there really is nothing left. Victor Frankel wrote about this in his book of his own Auschwitz concentration camp experiences, "Man's search for Meaning". He said that once a fundamental hope was lost, the will to survive quickly disappeared from those clinging to life. Hope can have many sources, often extramundane Hope - believing in something more than just the Nihilistic philosophy that life is a random process and consciousness a by-product of that random process and nothing more. Whatever it is that might give you Hope - that's how you can bear the suffering.
Jamenta. You talk well in theory.
BUT one thing that the US has never known is war.
You can use theory till the 'cows come home' but I have lived through a civil war and theory goes out of the window when families fight each other/neighbours remember things done to them by others. Killing is in the human brain and so is hate.
Yes, but life is also in the human brain, and so is love.
True BUT where is the person with love in their heart when a man is pulled off a bus and beaten to death by a mob?
Jenny - I'm not a priest or an academic philosopher. I'm just a yokel living in Idaho putting out my two cents here on Caitlin's substack for what is a pretty open platform, without heavy censorship like Twitter-X or WaPo. I have my own thoughts on how to approach and somehow resolve in my mind the enigma of human suffering - hell all suffering of life, not just human. Victor Frankel's book came to mind given his own hellish experiences in Auschwitz, and the conclusions he reached in his fairly short work. But do I know really anything about real suffering? Can I really answer how one minute some young woman will be driving down the road in her Nissan, and then a minute later, some random driver crosses the divide and smashes head on into her Nissan - she had no chance to respond, and she is dead 2 minutes later from internal injuries sustained from traumatic impact? Did she deserve it? What about her hopes and dreams? What about her two young children strapped in the backseat of that Nissan? And you know what - 123 people die in the US alone per day from simply getting into their car, like they usually do, and driving somewhere.
So then the sad riddle becomes the riddle of our own mortality. Of the mortality of the 15,000 children now dead in GAZA by a genocidal Nazified State. Do I simply damn the entire human race? Damn the Universe for the obvious horror and suffering that so many appear to be arbitrarily victimized by? And how do I find a path through for my own remaining years, and find a way to support those whom I care about myself? Given the reality I find myself in - as so many others find themselves in.
It's not easy. The question of suffering is almost always the centerpiece of theological thought and beliefs. Mortality is a crucial question that has been asked by philosophers since the Greeks. And God only knows, I'm not any kind of Aristotle or Plato or Socrates. I mean, I do what I can to keep moving forward in this horror show. But I too sometimes question, what the fuck is all this really about?
Hi Jamenta. No idea what any of anything is about!
I am now 75yrs and still know nothing about human beings. I've seen enough in life to make me assume it's all bullshit.
I would like to think we could have all lived simply and allowed our earth to blossom!
Actually random processes gives me great hope that life will survive, and new experiments will bring new species. If I thought there was anything more behind the curtain, I’d be really, really upset.
Shelley said it much better, “ Lift not the painted veil which those who live/ Call Life.
For me its not that something is "behind" the curtain, rather that the curtain is much more than many dare to surmise.
For example, William James Mrs. Piper, or the enigmatic Eileen Garrett. It is true that free will can only depend on fundamental probability, which Schrodinger and Heisenberg uncovered. Determinism has been losing its throne now for the last century, although the old-school Materialists are still clinging to Determinism (along with Super-Determinism) with their last dying breaths.
However, as William James pointed out, there is no meaning for an Individual when one only assumes Universal laws and Universal Generalizations govern our reality. But it was Jung that pointed out that statistics do not actually deal with human reality,reality and facts deal with unique instantiation of life and meaning rather than general averages - and we see through the probabilities of quantum physics - that indeed, Individual specificity can (and does) slip through all broad generalizations of "truth".
I don't expect to find anything "behind" the curtain as cartoonish as some male God with a beard that suddenly appears and passes judgement over my life. However, nor do I believe consciousness and meaning can be attributed to random processes alone - that too I find equally ridiculous. First explain to me Mrs. Piper and Eileen Garrett, then come back to me. But if you cannot explain either of these two extraordinary individuals - or you come back with a mindless, deliberately concocted "Wikipedia" explanation, then you fail to see the extent of the intellectual mystery at large IMO.
Tonight I was out talking to my knowledgable French friends here in France.
The upshot of the conversation was: Not many people care as long as they have their toys!
I am in despair.
"It means you are surrounded by lunatics, and ruled by madmen" This is exactly how I have been feeling. It does help to hear someone else say it. I keep thinking about the good humans who have made great music, great art and written great books. Money and power corrupt. At least I think that is what is making people so horrible. Otherwise our water supply is contaminated.
One only need observe Joe Biden for 5 minutes and you will come to realize there is something seriously wrong with US Empire right now.
“You’re not crazy. I see it too.”
And I see you.
Thanks for raising your voice and assuring us that we're not crazy, Caitlin. We all need to point that out in order to maintain any level of sanity.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ― J. Krishnamurti
Quoting the Great Master I see 🐺
More people should look into J. Krushnamurti as his words are Timeless..
FYI -- The original surnames of some Israeli presidents and prime ministers before they changed them are as follows:
David Ben-Gurion (born David Grün)
Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (born Isaac Shimshelevich)
Moshe Sharett (born Moshe Chertok)
Golda Meir (born Golda Mabovitch)
Shimon Peres (born Szymon Perski)
Benjamin Netanyahu (born Benjamin Mileikowsky)
Ehud Barak (born Ehud Brog)
Menachem Begin (born Mieczysław Biegun)
Yitzhak Shamir (born Yitzchak Yezernitsky)
Levi Eshkol (born Levi Shkolnik)
Thanks for this. Fascinating. Why did they change their names I wonder?