Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone

Free speech is meaningless and worthless if you don't use it to oppose real power. In western "democracies" the majority of people are so effectively propagandized into speaking in alignment with the interests of the western empire that they may as well be taking orders on what to say at gunpoint. In totalitarian regimes you say what your rulers want you to say because they physically coerced you using the threat of violence. In "free democracies" you say what your rulers want you to say because they psychologically coerced you using propaganda. The end result is the same. Reagan once joked about Soviets thinking they are free because they're allowed to criticize the US government as much as they like, but really that was just projection. Westerners think they have free speech, but they never use that "free speech" to criticize the tyrannical empire they live under.  Free speech is held as an important human right because it helps the people put a check on power. If you're not using for that, you may as we

Whether you agree with Moscow and Beijing about their "red lines" or not, you must concede that there's a very big difference between the way they draw them and the way the US makes use of that concept. Russia and China are issuing these warnings about the areas immediately adjacent to their own territory, while the US issues them to anyone it likes about what they are permitted to do with their neighbors, even when the US itself engages in those very activities all the time. Washington literally thinks of this entire planet as its territory. It believes it is its divinely bestowed right to issue decrees about what may and may not be done anywhere in the world, and that any transgression against these decrees is an act of aggression against it.  Reading by Tim Foley.

Humans, interestingly, fall somewhere between tiny-brained hive insects and the larger-brained mammals and birds in terms of self-preservation impulses involving violence, despite having the most advanced brains in the animal kingdom. We have the same instinctive aversions to putting ourselves at risk as those other animals, but that instinct can be overridden by putting a bunch of stories in our heads about how the enemy must be destroyed for this or that reason. A few false narratives about God and glory had humans marching off to fight and die in the Crusades like a bunch of mindless insects. This is because the capacity for abstract thought that our recently evolved brains have given us can be exploited by clever humans with a predisposition toward manipulation. Because we're often finding our way around in the world by thoughts and language rather than instinct, we can be manipulated into acting far more foolishly than a pigeon or a squirrel or a tiger ever would. Reading by Tim Foley.

If anti-war protests made no difference, the US empire wouldn't have completely abandoned full-scale ground invasions after 2003 and switched to sneakier, less effective means of warfare while launching unprecedented narrative management systems to suppress anti-war sentiments. They abandoned Bush-era Hulk Smash ground invasions in favor of drones, proxy warfare, covert ops and sanctions because enough people rose up and said "NO" to make them afraid of the masses beginning to wake up and begin turning against them and their institutions. And now people are even beginning to protest the proxy warfare. I  guarantee you that's making our rulers nervous about the possibility of losing the ability to effectively dominate the world with violence and coercion, and even losing the ability to continue to rule us. Reading by Tim Foley.

Imagine Chinese warships sailing around near California and Hawaii, in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, under the same aggressive "freedom of navigation" exercises that US warships routinely perform in waters near China to the anger of Beijing. Imagine People’s Liberation Army military bases in Central and South America, like the network of military bases the US has set up around China and continues to build up to this very day. Reading by Tim Foley.

You know, everyone's always talking about how the US military is only ever used to kill foreigners for resource control and generate profits for the military-industrial complex, but that's not entirely true. Turns out the US military is also used for shooting down party balloons. Reading by Tim Foley.

There's this Pink Floyd line that's been rattling around in my head, "You have to be trusted by the people that you lie to." Because it's so true; you can't deceive people who don't trust you. Propaganda only works if people don't know it's happening — if they don't think of its source as untrustworthy. That's why it gives me hope that trust in the mass media is plunging to historic lows: if people sufficiently distrust those who lie to them, then those lies won't take root in their minds anymore. Without trust, the propaganda machine can't function.  All our world's troubles are ultimately due to propaganda; people only consent to status quo systems which hurt their interests because their consent is manufactured via propaganda. And that propaganda only works because of public trust in the messengers. We can fight this by working to exacerbate public distrust in the institutions that manufacture our consent, spreading public awareness of the fact that everything we've been taught to believe about our nati

The US government is permitted to have nuclear weapons in Australia. What's more, Australians are not permitted to know whether or not this is happening. What's more, not even Australia's elected senators are permitted to know whether this is happening. It's assumed to be none of Australia's business whether there are foreign nuclear weapons in Australia. This was clarified during a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday, when Greens senators were condescendingly admonished by the Australian foreign minister for the very normal and appropriate attempt to clarify the government's policy regarding the presence of US armageddon weapons on Australian soil. Reading by Tim Foley.

In the latest escalation in Australia's increasingly forceful campaign to manufacture consent for war with China, the Murdoch-owned Sky News Australia has aired a jaw-droppingly propagandistic hour-long special which advocates a dramatic increase in the nation's military spending. Reading by Tim Foley.

The Washington Post has a weird new article out citing multiple anonymous US officials saying that the Chinese "spy balloon" we've been hearing about for the last two weeks was never intended for a surveillance mission over North America at all. Reading by Tim Foley.

US war planes have shot down three unidentified objects in North American airspace over the last three days, which is entirely without precedent. On Sunday an octagon-shaped object was reportedly shot down over Lake Huron near the Canadian border after first being detected some 1,300 miles away over Montana on Saturday night. On Saturday a cylindrical object was reportedly shot down over Canada's Yukon territory by an American F-22, and on Friday an object "about the size of a small car" was reportedly shot down after being detected over Alaska. Reading by Tim Foley.

“We had people taking apart Russian propaganda and telling the true story on blogs,” WaPo was told by a source described as "a person in the Special Operations community." US special ops forces "employing Ukrainian operatives" to "take apart Russian propaganda" and "tell the true story on blogs" is just US special ops forces administering US propaganda online. Whether or not they actually see themselves as "telling the true story" or "taking apart Russian propaganda" does not change the fact that they are administering US government propaganda. A government circulating media which advances its information interests is precisely the thing that state propaganda is. Reading by Tim Foley.

(My sources are logic, common sense, and public statements by US government officials.) Reading by Tim Foley.

Days after the war in Ukraine began it was reported by The New York Times that "President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to mediate negotiations in Jerusalem between Ukraine and Russia." In a recent interview, Bennett made some very interesting comments about what happened during those negotiations in the early days of the war.  Reading by Tim Foley.

Being labeled a Russian propagandist all day every day for criticizing US foreign policy is really weird, but one advantage it comes with is a useful perspective on what people have really been talking about all these years when they warn of the dangers of "Russian propaganda". Reading by Tim Foley.

The US empire has been surrounding China with military bases and war machinery for many years, in ways Washington would never tolerate China doing in the nations and waters surrounding the United States. There is no question that the US is the aggressor in this increasingly hostile standoff between major powers. Yet we're all meant to be freaking out about a balloon. Reading by Tim Foley.

Don't let the fraudulence of this civilization eclipse the supernova of authenticity hidden just beneath that thin membrane. Don't let the vapid artificiality of mainstream culture cause you to miss the weird magic of life as it actually is. Don't let the barrage of advertisements screaming "THIS IS NEVER ENOUGH" distract from the symphony of joy in your cells at simply being alive. Don't let the nonstop corporate messaging that you are ugly conceal from you your radiant beauty. Don't let the Valentine's Day products from Hallmark steal the spotlight from our wide open hearts and our roaring passion. Don't let the authoritative dronings of the imperial pundits mask the fact that they are babies made of mysteries and stardust. Don't let the feigned confidence of the people around you trick you into thinking that any of us really knows anything. Don't let all the buildings and billboards make you forget that no matter where you go you are always in the thick of nature. Don't let the deluge of lies and p

People have a fairly easy time accepting that things are fucked because we are ruled by corrupt assholes. They have a much harder time accepting that we are ruled by corrupt assholes because our corrupt asshole systems will always necessarily elevate corrupt assholes to the top. It's easier to blame our problems on oligarchs or the Deep State or a cabal of satanic pedophiles than it is to blame them on systems that we ourselves participate in and have lived our entire lives intertwined with and which have been continuously normalized within our culture. If the problem is just a few corrupt assholes then it's not a very daunting problem, because all you have to do is remove those corrupt assholes and everything's golden. If the problem is the systems around which our entire civilization is structured, it's far more daunting. Reading by Tim Foley.

It's impossible to overstate how much our society is shaped by the fact that those who are given the most influence and the largest platforms will experience our status quo systems as working very nicely and have a vested interest in preserving those systems which benefit them. The media-owning, culture-manufacturing class of the super-wealthy elevates people to wealth and celebrity who look like they will be good protectors of their class interests. Those people will necessarily speak fondly of the status quo political systems which let them be rich. Reading by Tim Foley.

"Why don't you ever criticize RUSSIA'S warmongering?" is a question I am often asked with great indignation. People cannot comprehend why I would spend all my time criticizing the warmongering of the power structure I live under without spending any time criticizing the government they're used to hearing criticisms of. It's a question born of delusion and propaganda brainwashing, and it has several good answers. Here are some of my favorites. Reading by Tim Foley.