236 Comments
User's avatar
Anthony Hendriks's avatar

Dead right on this one. As a musician myself, I've been mulling how to approach a new song on the issue. I don't have any fame or fortune to lose, so it should be easier. Keep bringin' the truth as best you can make it out.

Expand full comment
Pseudonym's avatar

In my opinion, the real artists who are still famous and their music is still alive and relivent, even after their death, are the ones who began folksy and built their fame and fortune from the grounds up. Because they drew their inspirations and muses from the adversites of their societes and the human condition of their times and their lyrics reflected that..... not the singy dancy crap that passes as art nowadays.

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

They also did small 'gigs' for a long time.

Expand full comment
gypsy33's avatar

Hi Jenny

The great actress Vanessa Redgrave began speaking out for the Palestinians decades ago.

Expand full comment
Indu Abeysekara's avatar

gypsy33, I am glad that I have good company in remembering Vanessa Redgrave with admiration.

Do you by any chance remember Laila Kahlid who highjacked a plane ( in the 60s?) in order to bring awareness to the Palestinian cause... .

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

Yes she did and was villified for it.

Expand full comment
Too much work's avatar

Video: The Privatization of Nuclear War. A “First Strike” Use

of Nuclear Weapons as a Means of “Self Defense”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky and James Corbett

America’s use of nuclear weapons on a first strike basis is no

longer considered as a weapon of total annihilation. Quite the

opposite, the preemptive use of nuclear weapons is upheld as a

means to ensuring global peace and security.

Read here

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

Caitlin, your article reminds me of the "5 filters of the mass media" written about in Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" as applied to artists & celebrities.

Thank you for shedding a light on the media/entertainment industry and its complicity in this.

Expand full comment
Dr.Who's avatar

Exhibit A: Elon Musk

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

Dr. Who - I want to like your comment a 100 times over!

Expand full comment
Ned B.'s avatar

Genocidal guns are fitted with celebrity silencers.

Expand full comment
A Parseeker's avatar

There’s no shortage of crazy, crackpot, conspiracy-theory-like reality going on.

Here’s one that’s so over the top it shouldn’t be believable. But in the new reality, it is. https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/spying-hacking-intimidation-israel-war-icc-exposed?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

With big carrots and even bigger sticks, it’s no wonder that celebs don’t want to rock the boat. It takes balls to speak truth to power. Not many balls in showbiz it seems.

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

This is not conspiracy theory territory (IMHO). Israel has always operated like this - even before 1948. Unfortunately, most people are unaware of the sordid history of the "terrorist state" that is Israel.

Expand full comment
A Parseeker's avatar

No, not a conspiracy but a conspiracy-theory-like REALITY (emphasis on reality).

Expand full comment
User's avatar
Comment deleted
May 30
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
𝓙𝓪𝓼𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓦𝓸𝓵𝓯𝓮's avatar

Mossad is a criminal enterprise just like the CIA.

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

Like I said in my comment above - one has to know the history of the Middle East and be intimately familiar with the details in order to understand how the Zionist (terrorist) state of Israel has been operating for the last 100+ years.

Here is one book recommendation for you:

"The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017" by Rashid Khalidi

Expand full comment
Paul Prendergast's avatar

Not by anybody with the slightest knowledge of Israel’s short but disgusting history.

Expand full comment
Patricia Blair's avatar

Soulless people, same with once investigative journalists who become public relations beings for the powerful.

Expand full comment
M F's avatar

"We are ruled by weird, phony freaks in Washington and Virginia who collaborate with weird, phony freaks at the top of the corporate world, and their rule is enforced by weird, phony freaks in New York and Los Angeles"

Yes--know and been tainted by all those webs, lairs.

Supposedly some are democratically elected, although none is; the vast majority are hired.

Expand full comment
Robert Billyard's avatar

Never has "silence is complicity" had greater meaning.

There is a class war ongoing and anybody of prominence cannot be seen as having empathy for the Palestinian cause. They will be seen as a traitor.

We are seeing how deeply racist Western civilization is as "the white man's burden" is emerging as the global majority and pushing the decadent West into a minority position. This is why the Western elites are having a panic attack-- they are no longer "masters of the universe." They just can't stand the fact that China has the world's largest economy and refuses to be drawn into a global war.

Its all about sour grapes and eating crow, a tough diet for Western despots.

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

Excellent.

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

The US is still the world’s largest by a significant margin, but China who is 2nd is growing their economy at a faster pace than the US

Expand full comment
Robert Billyard's avatar

The US has lost its industrial base which it shipped off to China.

Who is the largest depends on the method of calculation. In the West the GDP is used which is an invalid calculation in many ways.

Asia presently accounts for 70% of the world's wealth production.

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

We certainly agree on the pissing away our money and resources on needless perpetual wars…it needs to stop

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

So now it’s Asia not just China…nice move of the goal post

Expand full comment
Robert Billyard's avatar

You might as well accept the fact the West only speaks for 16% of the world's population.

Further more the rest of the world has been pursuing peace and prosperity while we in the West have have been pissing away trillions of dollars and millions of lives on perpetual war ... which is never a good investment.

Make it a point to see the world as it is, not what bull shit Western propagandists tell you.

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

Yes. Spot on but the US people don't know much about the rest of the world!

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

I see it the same way you see but the US economy, especially give the relative size of the

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

Of the population makes the size of the economy even more impressive

Expand full comment
El dragon's avatar

Russia has the greatest tapped and untapped resources and land area. China has the greatest manufacturing capacity. The U.S. has the GREATEST national debt. Plus they produce the most clowns in the world.

Expand full comment
The Revolution Continues's avatar

Wow, the US is the leaders in clowns since 1776! How impressive. Not.

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

And yet the US still has the world’s largest economy by a significant margin, clowns and all!

Expand full comment
El dragon's avatar

Fake economy, just like your country. The largest shopping mall where everyone is invited. The collapse will be glorious - and nobody will be sorry.

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

You will be dead soon enough anyway so enjoy being a 3rd world leach clown till then

Expand full comment
Indu Abeysekara's avatar

Tesla Marine, You obviously are enjoying the ill gotten gains of empire.

Expand full comment
El dragon's avatar

Lol!

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

No and it's going down fast. China and Russia allied.

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

Adding together countries does not change the fact that the US still has the world’s largest economy by a significant margin

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

What rubbish! You must read the MSM!

Expand full comment
Paul Yeager's avatar

Rubbish….lol my late great grandmother used that word too, but I hadn’t heard it in decades

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

Well here I am a Grandmother too!

Expand full comment
Susan T's avatar

Everyone is taught from birth that making lots of money is a sign of success. If you are also famous, then you have even more success, so they tell us. It is difficult to let go of all that money and fame once it has been achieved. Too bad more celebrities would not choose to use the power they have to speak out about atrocities like Gaza or disasters like the climate crisis. I guess the fact that they have bought into the same lie as so many others makes it clear that they are not really all that special after all.

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

I find most media personalities to be "virtue signallers" rather than genuine human beings (I guess one could add Instagram "influencers" to this lot too).

Expand full comment
Stephen Walker's avatar

Oh how I miss Sinéad O'Connor.

Expand full comment
Leon Brown, Jr.'s avatar

Livin’ the Good Life in Golden Cages…..sacrificing Integrity for the trappings of Wealth and Celebrity…..

Expand full comment
Sarah May Grunwald's avatar

That's why we all need to support independent artists who aren't afraid of the truth.

Expand full comment
The Revolution Continues's avatar

Exactly. Why be like everyone else--watching the same TV shows, the same movies, listening to the same recording artists? Find indie artists at your local art fairs and on YouTube. Buy their art/music/films. Help others to find the truth, too.

Expand full comment
Leon Brown, Jr.'s avatar

Exactly!

Expand full comment
Stephen Obisanya's avatar

Wow! This is such a brief but poignant article, Caitlin! It cuts straight to the heart of the issue. Artists today prioritize their lifestyle as well as their access to fame, power, and the industry that delivers that. In return they sacrifice the bravery, authenticity, individuality, sensibility, and humanity that is required to advocate for a more just world. This is very similar to how corporate journalists today prioritize the very same things: access to power and the industry that provides them their preferred lifestyle. While adversarial journalists, on the other hand, display the courage and attitude that risks their chances of being embraced into the inner circles of their peers.

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

Well said Stephen Obisanya!

Expand full comment
jamenta's avatar

When Money becomes the new Religion.

Expand full comment
Susan T's avatar

I think money has been the religion for quite a while

Expand full comment
jamenta's avatar

Yes. Although Time is relative. How long have human beings been on the planet compared to its age? How long has Earth existed compared to the Milky Way? Our lives - just flashbulbs in eternity.

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

Susan... you beat me to that comment.

Expand full comment
John Turcot's avatar

Jamenta, Yes, but MONEY is already the new religion..?

Expand full comment
jamenta's avatar

Money and greed John Turcot. Greed at the expense of everyone else - and you're treated like a God.

Expand full comment
Ro Dann's avatar

I thought scientism was the new religion

Expand full comment
jamenta's avatar

And I thought Nihilism was the new religion. Go figure - everyone gots it all figured out, especially the know-it-all fuckers.

Expand full comment
Edward Bernaysauce's avatar

Frank Zappa said something to the effect that politics is the entertainment arm of the MIC-

he was mis-directing...

Hollywood is the entertainment arm of the MIC (with politics as a subset of the reality programming)

Expand full comment
Jack Lomax's avatar

America rules the western world and US Zionists de facto rule America and its voting system is just to wave in more zionist supporting good looking smooth talking folks. That is sad but the major problem is that Zionism is a cult of psychiatrists . On the bright. side the present mass murder of helpless innocent people is opening people's eyes . In the long run this mass murder is going to make the zionist cover of a poor helpless people in constant danger of another holocaust be seen for what it is . A Sham

Expand full comment
novapsyche's avatar

A cult of psychiatrists?

Expand full comment