Not only does it not help, it actually makes it worse for them. Any help from Westerners for these movements only reinforces narratives -- by the Chinese or Iranian authorities, for example -- that protesters or dissidents are tools of American interference. And the result is a tightening of the screws, and less freedom. Hong Kong is a perfect case. Western solidarity only makes things worse. As a Hong Konger, I beg you -- please, please, do NOT give me solidarity!!!
You're one of the few people that I can tolerate reading anymore. You're among the few that aren't reactive, but are proactive, and can see what's occurring and going to occur, unlike most everyone else that "finally figure things out" after they become blatantly transparent.
I'm incredibly saddened by the lack of people desiring to learn more about how best to preserve our/their future liberty, who seem to have plenty of time to spend on mindless immoral amusements in the entertainment arena, at the expense of the former.
I've grown weary of attempting to educate them. They claim to want to know and understand, but if you cannot explain the equivalent of decades of learning and volumes of info into a handful of Twitter/Instagram/etc. sound and media bites, they're attention span vaporizes.
Meanwhile, they walk into their homes, and on goes the TV on "news" channels. It's gotten to the point where I get mad when I see this shit called "news" on anywhere, and that people actually believe what a bunch of people reading off of telescripts are re-reading to them. For starters, what, they can't go read it for themselves, the all but literally have to have their thoughts spoon-fed to them.
Anyway, sorry about the rant, but you're among the very few people that I can even tolerate reading anymore.
- Long time reader and partner in exposing the truth
I feel the same way frankly have tried to show people 15 years . A lot come into it late because they are slaving ridiculous hours just to survive or have families and are poor. Yes we have to look after the planet but we have to see where the greed is too there is balance. Balance the greed and ignorance and be realistic sustainable development is not mass murdering the poor in the population or sheep n cows . It is controlling g greed and using tech to solve problems not digitally enslaving us making lab diseases and wespons for us to kill each other and the planet . But write g leaves us with0 option to fight. Instead of attacking each other fight wrong. Peace and democracy are illusions. A reset is required . Get rid of the greedy and corrupted.
We have to be careful as to what kind of "reset." They are on the fast track for a reset, as you well know, their "Great Reset."
But any reset apart from the sheer and utter dissociation with their, "The Company," system of currency dooms us.
In short, control the money-supply/currency, and control the people.
That's the quote that is associated with Mayer Amschel Rothschild purports as well;
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
There's a reason for that. But the problem for us is greed. We'd rather take a gamble, and ill-conceived one, on retaining all that we've obtained in that bogus system, than give it up in exchange for our liberty.
What liberty im disabled I can’t even get a bus in my village they’re like hens teeth. It’s resources they control too not just the digital cashless panopticon social credit system once we are cashless we’re dead and sheep are faking for it taking the rest of us with them
The resources are controlled via the system of currency. It ALL revolves around the central banking SYSTEM.
This is why prominent people back at the time of the establishment of the Federal Reserve, a privately held corporation owned largely by foreigners, sternly warned against allowing it to get passed.
That's why the snuck it thru after Congress had recessed for Christmas, on the 23rd of December.
"the international left must formulate a way to effectively express solidarity" with protesters in Iran, and Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein was recently making the same case regarding Chinese protesters as well."
Naomi Klein - who currently is well paid by "The Intercept" - that rag that forced Glenn Greenwald out because he refused to be silent with the Biden laptop story.
A liberal is a liberal is a liberal. In the 60’s, before the “neo” tag was invented, the liberals were all for the war in Viet Nam. They loved McNamara, that weasel, and Johnson that liar, who talked endlessly about helping “them little yalla people” while bombing the hell out of them. It took their children, who had nothing but contempt for liberals and called ourselves radicals, to shake the country and the liberals by the shorthairs and show them up for the ignorant, middle class Walter Cronkite loving, war tolerating nincompoops that they were. Naomi Cline is smart and likable but she ain’t no radical thinker nor actor. She’s only considered interesting because the country has gone so far Right, she looks like a lefty. She’s a centrist just like all liberals.
Ain't it funny how only those protesters in countries that the United States doesn't like deserve support. Just like "world leaders" affected touching sympathy for the suffering people of Libya before the bombs started to fall.
But the Gilets Jaunes, to give one example, are ignored.
Support of minority grievances in countries targeted by Western governments is a Trojan horse ploy popularly supported by pious ignorance and delusions of moral superiority. It was infamously used in Iraq to save people from the depredations of Saddam Hussein - by killing a million of them - men, women, children, the elderly, disabled. Hussein had installed excellent education and public health programs, all free. He had been brought up by a single mother, had respect and empathy for women. He used poison gas against the Kurds, provided for the purpose by the West. He did regrettably kill as well, all the communists. But since when is that considered a crime in the West? I could mention dozens of far worse Western leaders whose terrible crimes are entirely forgotten by Wednesday. They wear, like high priests it would seem, invisible, sin-dissolving vestments.
"Is the claim that if people voice expressions of "solidarity" with their voices and on the internet and feel feelings of solidarity in their feely bits, something good will happen? What is the good thing that will happen?" Indeed, this is my question for any online "action" involving people in countries thousands of miles away. As noted in the article, there are exceptions like boycotting Israel to help protect Palestinians - a well established practice with years of proof of effectiveness and clear resistance from the status quo (ask Ben & Jerry, or hell, ask Jeremy Corbyn). But no-risk amplification of some vaguely understood overseas "movement" is just virtue signaling.
(Honestly, so is most protesting, but I'm not supposed to say that...)
Any links to that? I never heard of it but this would be devastating news! Also I need to know what people inside the US who can’t afford to move across the street can actually DO
Orwell showed solidarity for socialists in Spain by going to Spain and actually doing something. This was before twitter. Now he could just #FrancoSucks and get the same result (fuck all) but without all the hassle with unfamiliar money.
You can’t do it by aping the narrative. I think you can thread the needle, but not without mentioning the imperial dynamic.
I’m fine with women in Iran protesting for more rights. I’m fine with Hong Kongers protesting for their heritage of British-style rights. I’m not fine with my country getting involved, and if you actually care about those people and the success of their protests, you shouldn’t be either.
Brilliant! You got right to the heart of the matter:
"If you live inside of the empire, then you need to be responsible with your relationship with its propaganda. Otherwise you're just a garden variety imperialist with a cutesy story about yourself."
What if you live inside an empire and you don't support its propaganda, and are even actively trying to make changes? I was very active in the antiwar movement when the US made the decision to go to war with Iraq. Truth came to light, here and there, but of course we went to war no matter how many marches, or how many people marched, or called their representatives. Made not one bit of difference, and maybe that's why the movement died. Hard to make a difference in your own backyard let alone China. However because you live in the good old USA doesn't mean you can't be empathetic to those in other countries
Most of the revolutions in other countries are sponsored, fomented, and orchestrated by our CIA and purely in the interests of bringing those nations under the Westernized Central Banking Cabal model. They're not organic grass-roots movements.
I know that the CIA since it's inception after WWII has orchestrated through the decades the overthrow of governments, killed off heads of state, and has engaged in many activities which directly or indirectly have killed millions of people, but I fail to see Caitlin's point in this article. You come from America, and support in one way or another those that are looking for more pay, better housing, greater equality in a country that maybe at odds with our agenda, but I am not my country.
You could also reflect on the fact that when any of these countries has an actual left progressive socialist government committed to providing better pay, greater equality etc…..the agenda of the US govt is ALWAYS: to topple or remove them!
That’s been the case since the 1950s right through until today.
So when the very same US government is fanning these protesters, you should ask why. Because they would never be allowed by the US govt to actually implement a left progressive agenda.
In which case, why are you getting yourself caught up in spreading the US govt astroturfed protest, aimed mainly at regime change……and the subsequent establishment of not left progressive govt but rather neoliberals.
"You come from America, and support in one way or another those that are looking for more pay, better housing, greater equality in a country that maybe at odds with our agenda, but I am not my country."
I'm not sure what you mean by that, can you rewrite it another way?
Oh, I get it now, so if Iran has protests we use it as justification for attacking it's government and it's leadership, a country we would love to topple, in other words by leftist lending support we are without knowing adding to US propaganda. Good point. Since I was a kid I separated my government from the people, and no doubt do the same in regard to other countries. I had an uncle who was a chief engineer in the Merchant Marines, and there wasn't a country he hadn't been to. He had a global perspective on the world which I thought was great. No governments just people which is what I was thinking here. Thanks!
Imperialist governments EXPLOIT the public support by good-hearted people in an empire country for people protesting in an empire-targeted country, to amplify and broaden their “hybrid” attack on the foreign govt.
The end result of a foreign government overthrown by an imperial power is pain, plunder and peonage for its people. Not liberation. Not security. Not a better future for the people.
If you live inside an empire and you are only trying to make changes, you are merely begging for the clemency of a master who doesn't have any material or moral reason to accede. They are holding up the system in which you beg them for your life and suborn yourself to their whims, and they get to feel good about "giving" life to you. In trying to break that system, you're actually holding it up.
The Protestant moral persuasion movement has ended up as an exhausted, obsolete, or intentionally defective theory of change. Like Rev. Warnock (D-GA) all but said, they're merely a theater for moral performance. We can, and IMO should, tear down this theater and devalue virtue signaling, so that "morality" generates material wealth, rather than consuming it like private equity overhead.
Any support you give to the empire props it up to some extent. The more support you refuse to give it, the closer it inches towards collapse. And collapse is the only plausible goal if you hope to some day see an end to the empire.
The control lies in the banking/currency system, which is terminally centralized at this point.
What has happened in our Christ-forsaken world is that we've turned our focus/worship/hearts to mammon. In short, we worship mammon.
The ENTIRE financial system is run by satanists, literally. Instead of "investing in their markets," those wishing to avoid terminal enslavement, should be investing in each other and small businesses.
But you see, all of those peoples' focuses are on wealth, making more of it, etc., and the "small business" model that promises liberty, doesn't make them wealthy, so they stay in the The Company Currency model, ... to THEIR OWN, and OUR, ultimate demise.
That's overly simplistic, but that's the gist of it.
In short, we worship mammon, and I refer to those that claim to be Christian that have fallen for the "Christians can seek wealth too" mantra.
This is why Jesus warned that it's easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle that it is for a rich man to enter his Kingdom, which was there, and has been here, since he arrived on earth. Think about it, what was the very first thing he told people that wanted to follow him? ...
.......
.... it was to sell all that they owned or give it away and follow him. Material possessions get in the way of true faith. We're mostly all guilty of it to one or more extents, but continually wanting "more" and "more" becomes worship of "more"/mammon. My brother is like that, the word "enough" is simply not in his vocabularly as is the case with most wealthy people.
And as long as they pay their 10% at church, the Americanized church equivalent of Carbon Credits, then the rest of their filthy lucre, obtained in our satanic financial SYSTEM, is theirs.
I could go on, but you get the point.
Ever notice that the professions that prop up that SYSTEM the most generally speaking seem to get paid the most from it.
Many of us have disability and can’t fight back and are held back cos those who can fight back won’t they’d rather kill their own disabled to feel superior or they are fascist nazi boomers and older generations. UK has a population imbalance most are over 50 look at the age and make of the UK population . They want to kill their over 50s the fascism ageism and ableism is rife the young fall for the divide and rule. I say this as a woman with disability over 50
And, in surely the oddest of twists, the western media just always happens to be around to breathlessly cover the *protests* against the government the US has decided must go. Except, of course, in the US. Where the media only covers for the government, and any opposition to anything is considered not worthy of reporting on. So strange.
They are offering this app for free download on Smartphones in Iran to circumvent the Iranian government's ability to shut off the Internet. The problem is this is an app that collects very granular and personal information in real time for the CIA. Talk about a Trojan Horse. If you're Iranian and you want to criticize present-day Iran as being misogynistic, you will get all the coverage (or publication) you want in the U.S. (From personal experience I highly doubt the majority of Iranian men really care about women's freedom of movement.) But if you want to really explore the issues politically and talk about not what Iranians DON'T want but what they DO want, you will be shut off. It happened a few days ago very dramatically in a story on NPR. Such obvious censorship of the Iranian street and clearly part of NPR's policy to censor THOSE voices. The Arab Spring was not born solely of frustration on the street; it was a CIA-conceived action to destabilize Israel's enemies. And it worked. The same thing with the "civil war" in Syria. Also on the Israeli "to do" list and clearly stated as such before the main part of the destruction of Iraq was done.
There is one benefit to Westerners demonstrating on the streets in support of rebellions in the East and that is purely psychological. It gives one a short-lived warm and fuzzy feeling of not being alone, not being entirely ignored. But it also taints these movements by association with criticisms of being CIA-sponsored movements (which they predominantly are). Iranians would be wise to remember the central lesson of the 1978 Revolution. If you do not have something strong and competent and native to your country to fill the inevitable political vacuum caused by a revolution, act with care. Khomeini never would have succeeded if the left in Iran had stronger options for replacing the Shah and if they had more support amongst the undereducated rural poor. The CIA uses these vacuums to their own advantage and well-meaning Westerners haven't a clue what's really happening on the ground.
As Kit Klarenberg points out, mainstream press is not talking about Psiphon at all. No need to point out why, I should hope. Psiphon is the worm in the apple. Apple lovers, beware.
No I think the Arab Spring was organic and freaked out the CIA. They supported the overthrow of the Morsi government in Egypt. They never wanted Mubarak or Omar Suleiman ousted. They did their bidding on the war on terror. The people came out bravely on their own, and held the square despite the machinery of repression. The alphabet soup ppl couldn’t control it. The last thing they want is power to the Arab street. The first thing Egyptians did is burn Israeli flags and stop the “war” between Muslims and Christians, and the CIA only found it would be a propaganda disaster to openly oppose the people so they covertly opposed them (and Obama as well who was east to circumvent bc Presidents have very limited power) and once the show of “democracy” finished, they installed another brutal dictator by manipulating the protestors. The Arab Spring scared the sh*t out of Israel.
This is utterly disheartening. Many in the movement were people I knew whom I’m sure had no idea about this. I find it somewhat difficult to believe it was ENTIRELY orchestrated by the CIA et al, which itself as a narrative despoils the notion that people can ever rise up against the West and its toadies and win, when even a seeming win ended up to be just another Israeli-financed plan. This argument says “we did it ourselves” – the statement in the link that none of these expressed anti-Israeli propaganda is patently false. One of the first things to go was the Israeli flag wherever it had been placed to cheering crowds. All those involved were very much ardently pro Palestinian and had wanted an entirely different candidate certainly than Morsi, and many only cooperated with the Ikhwan in order to achieve victory, and didn’t want to rush the elections but rather wanted to bring in previously banned leaders with an interim “technocrat” government.
Maybe the actual ouster of Mubarak was too easy? Certainly however the strike against Egyptian industries, such as cotton workers in Mahala Al-Kubra, was a genuine internal rebellion. The assertion that it was “all orchestrated by the CIA” is also too good to be true — for the CIA. To strike such a claim is to strike at the heart of those in Egypt (and elsewhere – although it’s clear they were fighting tooth and nail for it all to fail) and the Arab world that all their efforts were actually NOT EVEN THEIRS but part of an overarching Israeli narrative in which they, the forever-subjugated little people, were nothing but pawns. This narrative too MUST BE OPPOSED and it seems this book uses lots of evidence — can the CIA not manufacture evidence? Are they not invested in controlling the narrative of invincibility? – but no actual statements or claims from the supposed leaders of the revolution, and claims about what happened on Twitter that actually contradict was was reported (and I heard from first hand witnesses) at the time.
That it was ruined by the CIA et al in the aftermath and latter days is undisputed. That the people themselves had nothing to do with it is pure bullsh*t. Don’t believe everything you hear. Oh, and that it was led by the middle class presupposes that the other “classes” were unsympathetic? Does not jive with what I saw on the ground. But it had to be those educated enough to do something. There may have been involvement, there always is, of anti-democratic “forces” especially Israeli interests, but there’s a powerful sense of “things getting out of hand” and people finding a voice. We don’t want to smother that… as if it was all under control and every detail according to alphabet soup’s and Zionists’ plan. This itself feeds despair.
It is very disheartening. But the Iranian Revolution did succeed, no matter how it has been framed by the West (nor how Khomeini was used by Reagan/Bush to make sure Carter had no chance of a second term, unfortunately). They used the mosque to win that Revolution. It was against the law for 3 people or more to gather at the time. Khomeini's people smuggled in cassette tapes that were played in the mosques. There's more political background re mosque vs. bazaar (business) class that's specifically Iranian and goes back to Reza Shah. But it can be done. The "Arab Spring" was too easy in Egypt. You have to kick the Americans out entirely. Even though there are well-meaning Americans, you have to get rid of all of them. You have to take back your country.
This is not to denigrate what ordinary Egyptian citizens accomplished. The CIA has grown into a hydra that no branch of the U.S. government oversees, monitors, controls, etc. And the billionaire class allows this to happen. Economic inequality is a threat to everyone--not just the poor and not just the billionaires. It is inevitable that we have social and political unrest. The CIA is in social media. I'm sure they're monitoring this conversation. Zippity doo da.
Israel has way too much power in the U.S. government. It's not all-knowing, all-powerful. It has lost a lot of support in the U.S., which I think is a miracle. If that can happen, anything is possible. It is now showing its hand and the general population in the U.S. is repulsed by what they're seeing. Israelis aren't reproducing their population so their days are numbered. Either they change or they die out. They say they are 9 million. They're actually around 6.8 million. People are leaving that country every day, for good.
The CIA cannot accomplish anything without bodies. They are very big on psychological manipulation.
Don't despair. Each generation moves forward a little bit on the efforts of their parents and grandparents. Look at what Egypt managed to do to the British Empire in 1956! Amazing. The U.S. is fighting to survive. The ruling class doesn't want everyone to know how close it is to imploding financially. That's what its hostility towards Russia and China is about; it's what its hostility to Iran and Iraq and Venezuela was about. When the US dollar is no longer the reserve currency, we're going to see the emperor is butt naked. The dollar will lose most of its value and Americans are going to have to learn how to work for a living. Forget Starbucks. And forget the 900 bases in foreign countries. They're trying to pass another bill with huge amounts of funding for the military. I'm sure a lot of hidden funding is in that bill which will go to the CIA.
You cannot undo history. Egyptian culture has changed. Have faith in the future.
Thanks for your very thoughtful, insightful and balanced reply. Your last words are what sustains me in fact. And I think on some level Egyptians realize they were duped, but that people power can actually be a thing that works; they have to work differently.
Are you old enough to have been alive when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait over their theft of Iraqi oil? The American public was split on the issue of attacking Iraq. So President Bush (Sr.) hired a PR firm (I think it was Hill Knowlton) to make up a story about Iraqi soldiers throwing babies in their incubators out of hospital windows. The "eye witness" was the teenage daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador who lived in D.C. (and was not honestly identified). Americans do not acknowledge their racism against Middle Easterners. They would be far more skeptical if the same thing was said about American soldiers. Bottom line, I tell people if they cannot imagine themselves doing the same thing that is being attributed to a group they don't know much about, it's probably a lie. Even Amnesty International bought the incubator story. I haven't given them a penny since.
Don't take it personally. look at what happened to the enormous change the Baby Boomers effected in the 60's and 70's in the West. By the 1980's Reagan was installed as President and all those changes were turned into commodities by corporations. Same thing has happened to the ecological movement. Now electric cars are the "answer"? I think not. Global warming is primarily a problem of American "culture" of over-consumption and rabid exploitation of natural resources. What is their solution? Create technological answers that pollute the earth even more. It's a pathological culture but most Americans are not willing to go there. Nature, or reality, has a way of taking care of things. Egyptians need to focus on becoming as self-sufficient as possible, to rely as little as possible on Western powers. I know Egypt, like most Middle Eastern countries, has many religions and sects, but I do think the core Islamic values of brother- and sisterhood are what we need for the future. Unfortunately, sibling rivalry is part of our nature. People power does work but the people need to educate each other and refuse top-down solutions.
I completely agree with this and other critiques of any and all support for US sponsored so-called "protest movements". I also believe there is a way to be fully anti-imperialist and fully anti-capitalist at the same time. It's about maintaining a laser-like focus on calling out US covert operations while at the same time acknowledging that class struggles (the domination by the haves over the have-nots) exist everywhere and have been and continue to be highjacked by the US-NATO Empire.
The creation of front movements is an old strategy involving infiltration, subversion, and represents a classic form of black psyops. Coopting authentic demands for change was the main path to power for both the National Fascist Party and the National Socialist German Workers' Party. The secular left in Iran was decisively wiped out in the aftermath of the Mullah revolt of 1979. In keeping with its imperialist agenda, the US government sided with the Mullahs over the arguably much larger secular left. And in keeping with its strategy of back-stabbing betrayals, the US government is seeking another regime change of the very regime it sided with when it realized that the dictator it installed in 1953 had provoked a massive backlash. In the imperial playbook absolutely every actor is expendable as a matter of design.
Does this mean an authentic secular left has never been able to resurface in any way, shape, or form? Does this mean any and all mention of an authentic secular left is tantamount to being a victim and a tool of imperialist subversion? Perhaps we can do better by relentlessly exposing US covert operations, especially US sponsored and organized front movements, while also identifying historically authentic demands for change? Is it always true that the enemy of your enemy is always your friend? Imperialist covert operations require us to be vigilant of the entire gamut of consequences of our analysis.
Great article Caitlin. I’ve been thinking about the weird relationship between protests, foreign interference and censorship. Places like China and Russia are criticized for their censorship and crackdowns on protest but the context for that is undeniable foreign interference and propaganda campaigns stirring up trouble for those governments. I won’t go as far as justifying the actions of these countries but based on the censorship that goes on in the United States over mostly contrived evidence of similar interference you certainly could. It’s a sort of doubled up double standard.
We've gotten to a point where sticks and stones can't hurt us, but words are the most dangerous things around.
Americans have been indoctrinated to battle one another online via tweets, other hashtags, etc., all the typical nonsense, but try to actually get someone to sit down to defend their "tweets," "hashtags," etc., and well, good luck. They don't have time for that. Some drama sitcom, romcom, or other shit on the TOOOB/Lobotomy-Box requires 20 hours of their attention per week. They don't have time to actually think beyond the superficial, much less go and get real, not contrived phony bullshit info, to educate themselves.
They certainly can't see through the charade that Tucker Carlson's every bit as involved via the Operation Mockingbird MO as Cooper Anderson is. But they've got their "team" to root for, so that's what they do.
As was stated by Hawkeye in one episode of MASH, "War, the world's greatest spectator sport." e.g.
Not only does it not help, it actually makes it worse for them. Any help from Westerners for these movements only reinforces narratives -- by the Chinese or Iranian authorities, for example -- that protesters or dissidents are tools of American interference. And the result is a tightening of the screws, and less freedom. Hong Kong is a perfect case. Western solidarity only makes things worse. As a Hong Konger, I beg you -- please, please, do NOT give me solidarity!!!
Caitlin,
You're one of the few people that I can tolerate reading anymore. You're among the few that aren't reactive, but are proactive, and can see what's occurring and going to occur, unlike most everyone else that "finally figure things out" after they become blatantly transparent.
I'm incredibly saddened by the lack of people desiring to learn more about how best to preserve our/their future liberty, who seem to have plenty of time to spend on mindless immoral amusements in the entertainment arena, at the expense of the former.
I've grown weary of attempting to educate them. They claim to want to know and understand, but if you cannot explain the equivalent of decades of learning and volumes of info into a handful of Twitter/Instagram/etc. sound and media bites, they're attention span vaporizes.
Meanwhile, they walk into their homes, and on goes the TV on "news" channels. It's gotten to the point where I get mad when I see this shit called "news" on anywhere, and that people actually believe what a bunch of people reading off of telescripts are re-reading to them. For starters, what, they can't go read it for themselves, the all but literally have to have their thoughts spoon-fed to them.
Anyway, sorry about the rant, but you're among the very few people that I can even tolerate reading anymore.
- Long time reader and partner in exposing the truth
You have perfectly articulated exactly, to a tee, my own thoughts. Thankyou.
Damn well said. Thank you.
You said what I was thinking. Kudos to you and Caitlin for speaking out in this warkawkish-propaganda-riddled world.
I feel the same way frankly have tried to show people 15 years . A lot come into it late because they are slaving ridiculous hours just to survive or have families and are poor. Yes we have to look after the planet but we have to see where the greed is too there is balance. Balance the greed and ignorance and be realistic sustainable development is not mass murdering the poor in the population or sheep n cows . It is controlling g greed and using tech to solve problems not digitally enslaving us making lab diseases and wespons for us to kill each other and the planet . But write g leaves us with0 option to fight. Instead of attacking each other fight wrong. Peace and democracy are illusions. A reset is required . Get rid of the greedy and corrupted.
We have to be careful as to what kind of "reset." They are on the fast track for a reset, as you well know, their "Great Reset."
But any reset apart from the sheer and utter dissociation with their, "The Company," system of currency dooms us.
In short, control the money-supply/currency, and control the people.
That's the quote that is associated with Mayer Amschel Rothschild purports as well;
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
There's a reason for that. But the problem for us is greed. We'd rather take a gamble, and ill-conceived one, on retaining all that we've obtained in that bogus system, than give it up in exchange for our liberty.
Falling for it ( not faking it excuse typo)
What liberty im disabled I can’t even get a bus in my village they’re like hens teeth. It’s resources they control too not just the digital cashless panopticon social credit system once we are cashless we’re dead and sheep are faking for it taking the rest of us with them
The resources are controlled via the system of currency. It ALL revolves around the central banking SYSTEM.
This is why prominent people back at the time of the establishment of the Federal Reserve, a privately held corporation owned largely by foreigners, sternly warned against allowing it to get passed.
That's why the snuck it thru after Congress had recessed for Christmas, on the 23rd of December.
CBS even
Yes deffo cbi workers are really in trouble now it’s depressing
"the international left must formulate a way to effectively express solidarity" with protesters in Iran, and Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein was recently making the same case regarding Chinese protesters as well."
Naomi Klein - who currently is well paid by "The Intercept" - that rag that forced Glenn Greenwald out because he refused to be silent with the Biden laptop story.
I smell something rancid.
Klein used to be good before she caught a good whiff of life on the NPR circuit.
Money is the root of all evil.
So is cashless and digital slavery
A liberal is a liberal is a liberal. In the 60’s, before the “neo” tag was invented, the liberals were all for the war in Viet Nam. They loved McNamara, that weasel, and Johnson that liar, who talked endlessly about helping “them little yalla people” while bombing the hell out of them. It took their children, who had nothing but contempt for liberals and called ourselves radicals, to shake the country and the liberals by the shorthairs and show them up for the ignorant, middle class Walter Cronkite loving, war tolerating nincompoops that they were. Naomi Cline is smart and likable but she ain’t no radical thinker nor actor. She’s only considered interesting because the country has gone so far Right, she looks like a lefty. She’s a centrist just like all liberals.
Ain't it funny how only those protesters in countries that the United States doesn't like deserve support. Just like "world leaders" affected touching sympathy for the suffering people of Libya before the bombs started to fall.
But the Gilets Jaunes, to give one example, are ignored.
Support of minority grievances in countries targeted by Western governments is a Trojan horse ploy popularly supported by pious ignorance and delusions of moral superiority. It was infamously used in Iraq to save people from the depredations of Saddam Hussein - by killing a million of them - men, women, children, the elderly, disabled. Hussein had installed excellent education and public health programs, all free. He had been brought up by a single mother, had respect and empathy for women. He used poison gas against the Kurds, provided for the purpose by the West. He did regrettably kill as well, all the communists. But since when is that considered a crime in the West? I could mention dozens of far worse Western leaders whose terrible crimes are entirely forgotten by Wednesday. They wear, like high priests it would seem, invisible, sin-dissolving vestments.
Thank you. For god's sake, thank you.
"Is the claim that if people voice expressions of "solidarity" with their voices and on the internet and feel feelings of solidarity in their feely bits, something good will happen? What is the good thing that will happen?" Indeed, this is my question for any online "action" involving people in countries thousands of miles away. As noted in the article, there are exceptions like boycotting Israel to help protect Palestinians - a well established practice with years of proof of effectiveness and clear resistance from the status quo (ask Ben & Jerry, or hell, ask Jeremy Corbyn). But no-risk amplification of some vaguely understood overseas "movement" is just virtue signaling.
(Honestly, so is most protesting, but I'm not supposed to say that...)
I think you should cover the story of big ag taking over Ukrainian farmland
Any links to that? I never heard of it but this would be devastating news! Also I need to know what people inside the US who can’t afford to move across the street can actually DO
Orwell showed solidarity for socialists in Spain by going to Spain and actually doing something. This was before twitter. Now he could just #FrancoSucks and get the same result (fuck all) but without all the hassle with unfamiliar money.
You can’t do it by aping the narrative. I think you can thread the needle, but not without mentioning the imperial dynamic.
I’m fine with women in Iran protesting for more rights. I’m fine with Hong Kongers protesting for their heritage of British-style rights. I’m not fine with my country getting involved, and if you actually care about those people and the success of their protests, you shouldn’t be either.
Brilliant! You got right to the heart of the matter:
"If you live inside of the empire, then you need to be responsible with your relationship with its propaganda. Otherwise you're just a garden variety imperialist with a cutesy story about yourself."
What if you live inside an empire and you don't support its propaganda, and are even actively trying to make changes? I was very active in the antiwar movement when the US made the decision to go to war with Iraq. Truth came to light, here and there, but of course we went to war no matter how many marches, or how many people marched, or called their representatives. Made not one bit of difference, and maybe that's why the movement died. Hard to make a difference in your own backyard let alone China. However because you live in the good old USA doesn't mean you can't be empathetic to those in other countries
Most of the revolutions in other countries are sponsored, fomented, and orchestrated by our CIA and purely in the interests of bringing those nations under the Westernized Central Banking Cabal model. They're not organic grass-roots movements.
Perfect. I totally agree.
I know that the CIA since it's inception after WWII has orchestrated through the decades the overthrow of governments, killed off heads of state, and has engaged in many activities which directly or indirectly have killed millions of people, but I fail to see Caitlin's point in this article. You come from America, and support in one way or another those that are looking for more pay, better housing, greater equality in a country that maybe at odds with our agenda, but I am not my country.
You could also reflect on the fact that when any of these countries has an actual left progressive socialist government committed to providing better pay, greater equality etc…..the agenda of the US govt is ALWAYS: to topple or remove them!
That’s been the case since the 1950s right through until today.
So when the very same US government is fanning these protesters, you should ask why. Because they would never be allowed by the US govt to actually implement a left progressive agenda.
In which case, why are you getting yourself caught up in spreading the US govt astroturfed protest, aimed mainly at regime change……and the subsequent establishment of not left progressive govt but rather neoliberals.
Brilliant!
"You come from America, and support in one way or another those that are looking for more pay, better housing, greater equality in a country that maybe at odds with our agenda, but I am not my country."
I'm not sure what you mean by that, can you rewrite it another way?
Who is "our" for example?
What do you mean you "are not your country?"
Oh, I get it now, so if Iran has protests we use it as justification for attacking it's government and it's leadership, a country we would love to topple, in other words by leftist lending support we are without knowing adding to US propaganda. Good point. Since I was a kid I separated my government from the people, and no doubt do the same in regard to other countries. I had an uncle who was a chief engineer in the Merchant Marines, and there wasn't a country he hadn't been to. He had a global perspective on the world which I thought was great. No governments just people which is what I was thinking here. Thanks!
You’ve said it perfectly.
Imperialist governments EXPLOIT the public support by good-hearted people in an empire country for people protesting in an empire-targeted country, to amplify and broaden their “hybrid” attack on the foreign govt.
The end result of a foreign government overthrown by an imperial power is pain, plunder and peonage for its people. Not liberation. Not security. Not a better future for the people.
Yes
If you live inside an empire and you are only trying to make changes, you are merely begging for the clemency of a master who doesn't have any material or moral reason to accede. They are holding up the system in which you beg them for your life and suborn yourself to their whims, and they get to feel good about "giving" life to you. In trying to break that system, you're actually holding it up.
The Protestant moral persuasion movement has ended up as an exhausted, obsolete, or intentionally defective theory of change. Like Rev. Warnock (D-GA) all but said, they're merely a theater for moral performance. We can, and IMO should, tear down this theater and devalue virtue signaling, so that "morality" generates material wealth, rather than consuming it like private equity overhead.
Any support you give to the empire props it up to some extent. The more support you refuse to give it, the closer it inches towards collapse. And collapse is the only plausible goal if you hope to some day see an end to the empire.
BTW, I ran across this and thought of our exchange here, it's related yet only a small part of the entire issue.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/VU1UUobac83L/
Exactly!!
The control lies in the banking/currency system, which is terminally centralized at this point.
What has happened in our Christ-forsaken world is that we've turned our focus/worship/hearts to mammon. In short, we worship mammon.
The ENTIRE financial system is run by satanists, literally. Instead of "investing in their markets," those wishing to avoid terminal enslavement, should be investing in each other and small businesses.
But you see, all of those peoples' focuses are on wealth, making more of it, etc., and the "small business" model that promises liberty, doesn't make them wealthy, so they stay in the The Company Currency model, ... to THEIR OWN, and OUR, ultimate demise.
That's overly simplistic, but that's the gist of it.
In short, we worship mammon, and I refer to those that claim to be Christian that have fallen for the "Christians can seek wealth too" mantra.
This is why Jesus warned that it's easier for a camel to go thru the eye of a needle that it is for a rich man to enter his Kingdom, which was there, and has been here, since he arrived on earth. Think about it, what was the very first thing he told people that wanted to follow him? ...
.......
.... it was to sell all that they owned or give it away and follow him. Material possessions get in the way of true faith. We're mostly all guilty of it to one or more extents, but continually wanting "more" and "more" becomes worship of "more"/mammon. My brother is like that, the word "enough" is simply not in his vocabularly as is the case with most wealthy people.
And as long as they pay their 10% at church, the Americanized church equivalent of Carbon Credits, then the rest of their filthy lucre, obtained in our satanic financial SYSTEM, is theirs.
I could go on, but you get the point.
Ever notice that the professions that prop up that SYSTEM the most generally speaking seem to get paid the most from it.
Many of us have disability and can’t fight back and are held back cos those who can fight back won’t they’d rather kill their own disabled to feel superior or they are fascist nazi boomers and older generations. UK has a population imbalance most are over 50 look at the age and make of the UK population . They want to kill their over 50s the fascism ageism and ableism is rife the young fall for the divide and rule. I say this as a woman with disability over 50
And, in surely the oddest of twists, the western media just always happens to be around to breathlessly cover the *protests* against the government the US has decided must go. Except, of course, in the US. Where the media only covers for the government, and any opposition to anything is considered not worthy of reporting on. So strange.
Highly recommend anyone concerned about this issue read this link about Psiphon being used in Iran: https://kitklarenberg.substack.com/p/beware-psiphon-cia-tool-fueling-global
They are offering this app for free download on Smartphones in Iran to circumvent the Iranian government's ability to shut off the Internet. The problem is this is an app that collects very granular and personal information in real time for the CIA. Talk about a Trojan Horse. If you're Iranian and you want to criticize present-day Iran as being misogynistic, you will get all the coverage (or publication) you want in the U.S. (From personal experience I highly doubt the majority of Iranian men really care about women's freedom of movement.) But if you want to really explore the issues politically and talk about not what Iranians DON'T want but what they DO want, you will be shut off. It happened a few days ago very dramatically in a story on NPR. Such obvious censorship of the Iranian street and clearly part of NPR's policy to censor THOSE voices. The Arab Spring was not born solely of frustration on the street; it was a CIA-conceived action to destabilize Israel's enemies. And it worked. The same thing with the "civil war" in Syria. Also on the Israeli "to do" list and clearly stated as such before the main part of the destruction of Iraq was done.
There is one benefit to Westerners demonstrating on the streets in support of rebellions in the East and that is purely psychological. It gives one a short-lived warm and fuzzy feeling of not being alone, not being entirely ignored. But it also taints these movements by association with criticisms of being CIA-sponsored movements (which they predominantly are). Iranians would be wise to remember the central lesson of the 1978 Revolution. If you do not have something strong and competent and native to your country to fill the inevitable political vacuum caused by a revolution, act with care. Khomeini never would have succeeded if the left in Iran had stronger options for replacing the Shah and if they had more support amongst the undereducated rural poor. The CIA uses these vacuums to their own advantage and well-meaning Westerners haven't a clue what's really happening on the ground.
As Kit Klarenberg points out, mainstream press is not talking about Psiphon at all. No need to point out why, I should hope. Psiphon is the worm in the apple. Apple lovers, beware.
Snowden already laid out the real agenda many years ago. Collect all the data on the planet. And use it to manipulate people on social media.
He revealed that almost a decade ago. And yet it seems nobody has grasped it.
No I think the Arab Spring was organic and freaked out the CIA. They supported the overthrow of the Morsi government in Egypt. They never wanted Mubarak or Omar Suleiman ousted. They did their bidding on the war on terror. The people came out bravely on their own, and held the square despite the machinery of repression. The alphabet soup ppl couldn’t control it. The last thing they want is power to the Arab street. The first thing Egyptians did is burn Israeli flags and stop the “war” between Muslims and Christians, and the CIA only found it would be a propaganda disaster to openly oppose the people so they covertly opposed them (and Obama as well who was east to circumvent bc Presidents have very limited power) and once the show of “democracy” finished, they installed another brutal dictator by manipulating the protestors. The Arab Spring scared the sh*t out of Israel.
https://ahmedbensaada.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=333:the-arab-spring-made-in-the-usa
This is utterly disheartening. Many in the movement were people I knew whom I’m sure had no idea about this. I find it somewhat difficult to believe it was ENTIRELY orchestrated by the CIA et al, which itself as a narrative despoils the notion that people can ever rise up against the West and its toadies and win, when even a seeming win ended up to be just another Israeli-financed plan. This argument says “we did it ourselves” – the statement in the link that none of these expressed anti-Israeli propaganda is patently false. One of the first things to go was the Israeli flag wherever it had been placed to cheering crowds. All those involved were very much ardently pro Palestinian and had wanted an entirely different candidate certainly than Morsi, and many only cooperated with the Ikhwan in order to achieve victory, and didn’t want to rush the elections but rather wanted to bring in previously banned leaders with an interim “technocrat” government.
Maybe the actual ouster of Mubarak was too easy? Certainly however the strike against Egyptian industries, such as cotton workers in Mahala Al-Kubra, was a genuine internal rebellion. The assertion that it was “all orchestrated by the CIA” is also too good to be true — for the CIA. To strike such a claim is to strike at the heart of those in Egypt (and elsewhere – although it’s clear they were fighting tooth and nail for it all to fail) and the Arab world that all their efforts were actually NOT EVEN THEIRS but part of an overarching Israeli narrative in which they, the forever-subjugated little people, were nothing but pawns. This narrative too MUST BE OPPOSED and it seems this book uses lots of evidence — can the CIA not manufacture evidence? Are they not invested in controlling the narrative of invincibility? – but no actual statements or claims from the supposed leaders of the revolution, and claims about what happened on Twitter that actually contradict was was reported (and I heard from first hand witnesses) at the time.
That it was ruined by the CIA et al in the aftermath and latter days is undisputed. That the people themselves had nothing to do with it is pure bullsh*t. Don’t believe everything you hear. Oh, and that it was led by the middle class presupposes that the other “classes” were unsympathetic? Does not jive with what I saw on the ground. But it had to be those educated enough to do something. There may have been involvement, there always is, of anti-democratic “forces” especially Israeli interests, but there’s a powerful sense of “things getting out of hand” and people finding a voice. We don’t want to smother that… as if it was all under control and every detail according to alphabet soup’s and Zionists’ plan. This itself feeds despair.
It is very disheartening. But the Iranian Revolution did succeed, no matter how it has been framed by the West (nor how Khomeini was used by Reagan/Bush to make sure Carter had no chance of a second term, unfortunately). They used the mosque to win that Revolution. It was against the law for 3 people or more to gather at the time. Khomeini's people smuggled in cassette tapes that were played in the mosques. There's more political background re mosque vs. bazaar (business) class that's specifically Iranian and goes back to Reza Shah. But it can be done. The "Arab Spring" was too easy in Egypt. You have to kick the Americans out entirely. Even though there are well-meaning Americans, you have to get rid of all of them. You have to take back your country.
This is not to denigrate what ordinary Egyptian citizens accomplished. The CIA has grown into a hydra that no branch of the U.S. government oversees, monitors, controls, etc. And the billionaire class allows this to happen. Economic inequality is a threat to everyone--not just the poor and not just the billionaires. It is inevitable that we have social and political unrest. The CIA is in social media. I'm sure they're monitoring this conversation. Zippity doo da.
Israel has way too much power in the U.S. government. It's not all-knowing, all-powerful. It has lost a lot of support in the U.S., which I think is a miracle. If that can happen, anything is possible. It is now showing its hand and the general population in the U.S. is repulsed by what they're seeing. Israelis aren't reproducing their population so their days are numbered. Either they change or they die out. They say they are 9 million. They're actually around 6.8 million. People are leaving that country every day, for good.
The CIA cannot accomplish anything without bodies. They are very big on psychological manipulation.
Don't despair. Each generation moves forward a little bit on the efforts of their parents and grandparents. Look at what Egypt managed to do to the British Empire in 1956! Amazing. The U.S. is fighting to survive. The ruling class doesn't want everyone to know how close it is to imploding financially. That's what its hostility towards Russia and China is about; it's what its hostility to Iran and Iraq and Venezuela was about. When the US dollar is no longer the reserve currency, we're going to see the emperor is butt naked. The dollar will lose most of its value and Americans are going to have to learn how to work for a living. Forget Starbucks. And forget the 900 bases in foreign countries. They're trying to pass another bill with huge amounts of funding for the military. I'm sure a lot of hidden funding is in that bill which will go to the CIA.
You cannot undo history. Egyptian culture has changed. Have faith in the future.
Thanks for your very thoughtful, insightful and balanced reply. Your last words are what sustains me in fact. And I think on some level Egyptians realize they were duped, but that people power can actually be a thing that works; they have to work differently.
Are you old enough to have been alive when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait over their theft of Iraqi oil? The American public was split on the issue of attacking Iraq. So President Bush (Sr.) hired a PR firm (I think it was Hill Knowlton) to make up a story about Iraqi soldiers throwing babies in their incubators out of hospital windows. The "eye witness" was the teenage daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador who lived in D.C. (and was not honestly identified). Americans do not acknowledge their racism against Middle Easterners. They would be far more skeptical if the same thing was said about American soldiers. Bottom line, I tell people if they cannot imagine themselves doing the same thing that is being attributed to a group they don't know much about, it's probably a lie. Even Amnesty International bought the incubator story. I haven't given them a penny since.
Don't take it personally. look at what happened to the enormous change the Baby Boomers effected in the 60's and 70's in the West. By the 1980's Reagan was installed as President and all those changes were turned into commodities by corporations. Same thing has happened to the ecological movement. Now electric cars are the "answer"? I think not. Global warming is primarily a problem of American "culture" of over-consumption and rabid exploitation of natural resources. What is their solution? Create technological answers that pollute the earth even more. It's a pathological culture but most Americans are not willing to go there. Nature, or reality, has a way of taking care of things. Egyptians need to focus on becoming as self-sufficient as possible, to rely as little as possible on Western powers. I know Egypt, like most Middle Eastern countries, has many religions and sects, but I do think the core Islamic values of brother- and sisterhood are what we need for the future. Unfortunately, sibling rivalry is part of our nature. People power does work but the people need to educate each other and refuse top-down solutions.
I completely agree with this and other critiques of any and all support for US sponsored so-called "protest movements". I also believe there is a way to be fully anti-imperialist and fully anti-capitalist at the same time. It's about maintaining a laser-like focus on calling out US covert operations while at the same time acknowledging that class struggles (the domination by the haves over the have-nots) exist everywhere and have been and continue to be highjacked by the US-NATO Empire.
The creation of front movements is an old strategy involving infiltration, subversion, and represents a classic form of black psyops. Coopting authentic demands for change was the main path to power for both the National Fascist Party and the National Socialist German Workers' Party. The secular left in Iran was decisively wiped out in the aftermath of the Mullah revolt of 1979. In keeping with its imperialist agenda, the US government sided with the Mullahs over the arguably much larger secular left. And in keeping with its strategy of back-stabbing betrayals, the US government is seeking another regime change of the very regime it sided with when it realized that the dictator it installed in 1953 had provoked a massive backlash. In the imperial playbook absolutely every actor is expendable as a matter of design.
Does this mean an authentic secular left has never been able to resurface in any way, shape, or form? Does this mean any and all mention of an authentic secular left is tantamount to being a victim and a tool of imperialist subversion? Perhaps we can do better by relentlessly exposing US covert operations, especially US sponsored and organized front movements, while also identifying historically authentic demands for change? Is it always true that the enemy of your enemy is always your friend? Imperialist covert operations require us to be vigilant of the entire gamut of consequences of our analysis.
Great article Caitlin. I’ve been thinking about the weird relationship between protests, foreign interference and censorship. Places like China and Russia are criticized for their censorship and crackdowns on protest but the context for that is undeniable foreign interference and propaganda campaigns stirring up trouble for those governments. I won’t go as far as justifying the actions of these countries but based on the censorship that goes on in the United States over mostly contrived evidence of similar interference you certainly could. It’s a sort of doubled up double standard.
We've gotten to a point where sticks and stones can't hurt us, but words are the most dangerous things around.
Americans have been indoctrinated to battle one another online via tweets, other hashtags, etc., all the typical nonsense, but try to actually get someone to sit down to defend their "tweets," "hashtags," etc., and well, good luck. They don't have time for that. Some drama sitcom, romcom, or other shit on the TOOOB/Lobotomy-Box requires 20 hours of their attention per week. They don't have time to actually think beyond the superficial, much less go and get real, not contrived phony bullshit info, to educate themselves.
They certainly can't see through the charade that Tucker Carlson's every bit as involved via the Operation Mockingbird MO as Cooper Anderson is. But they've got their "team" to root for, so that's what they do.
As was stated by Hawkeye in one episode of MASH, "War, the world's greatest spectator sport." e.g.