JOHNSTONE

It's still funny that the entire US-controlled world has been raging at Russia all year for doing something the US does routinely.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Un-banning a few famous people will drum up a lot of headlines and online chatter and make it look like you're really doing something, but in the end all you've done is reinstate a handful of Twitter accounts. You haven't done anything to meaningfully scale back the speech restrictions on your platform.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Euthanizing the poor is just capitalism finally being honest about itself. After all these years of falsely pretending to have real solutions to the problems it creates, it finally presents a solution entirely in alignment with its values that actually works.Capitalism's answer to "What about the poor?" has always been "They should work harder," and its answer to "What about those who can't work?" has always been "They should die quickly." But until now it's always been spoken wordlessly in the policies enacted and the societal structures put in place. Now it's just right there, completely undisguised. It's refreshingly honest.

Reading by Tim Foley.

I met a fox last night who was carrying a dead possum.

Foxes, unlike possums, are not native to Australia,

but neither are white people so no judgement.

I got here the same way she did.

Her ancestors came here because rich Englishmen wanted to have fox hunts in the bush,

mine came here because rich Englishmen wanted a distant prison colony.

We are all where we are on this planet because of the dances our ancestors did

with rich Englishmen

and native possums.

I walk on stolen land under a sun that burns my pale skin,

ripping the dead ideas of dead men out from my skull like thorns.

If you ever need to find me just look for the trail

of rosary beads and communion wafers,

of Murdoch papers and nice guy rapists.

If I am dead when you find me please weave fairy lights through my bones

and leave a sign that reads HERE LIES EMPTINESS.

Maybe lizards and frogs will play in this ribcage.

Maybe native flowers will grow in this skull.

I don't know what any of this is or where any of it is going.

I'm blown through this horny graveyard party like a dandelion seed in the wind.

The old crone told me cosmic joy would cost me everything,

but when I paid her she showed me the money was only leaves.

I accidentally scared the fox off by flicking on the porch light,

causing her to drop her dinner in her haste to escape.

I switched the light off and waited in the dark for her to reclaim her prize,

which she eventually did,

slinking off into the night with the possum.

"I'll see you around,"

I said to the both of them.

Fruit bats passed overhead.

_______________

Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.

A surprisingly frank article by The New York Times titled "Western Allies Look to Ukraine as a Testing Ground for Weapons" describes how the imperial war machine is capitalising on the US proxy war to test its weapons for future use. 

Reading by Tim Foley.

Two false news reports have gone viral in recent hours due to sloppy sourcing and journalistic malpractice. As usual they both featured bogus claims about US-targeted nations, in this case Russia and Iran.

Reading by Tim Foley.

I wonder if my own government is being truthful about its actions in that part of the world?

I wonder if my own government is in the wrong on this issue?

I wonder if the news media are telling the truth right now?

I wonder if the news media tell the truth about things generally?

I wonder if the "Evil Dictators versus Virtuous Liberal Democracies" framework I've been taught by teachers, pundits and politicians is the most accurate lens through which to view world events?

Could I have been deceived about the way my government operates, at home and abroad? 

Is it possible that my beliefs about my society, my government and my world are completely wrong?

What if the teachers, preachers and parents who helped form my worldview were relying on inaccurate information?

Who has benefitted from the beliefs that are in my head? Is it possible that those beliefs were placed there, directly or indirectly, from people who have benefitted from my having them?

Are there any power-serving falsehoods that I believe because it is cognitively easier to believe them than to let in information that might hurt my ego or require me to restructure my entire worldview?

Reading by Tim Foley.

Westerners are taught that evil foreign "regimes" don't let their people criticize their government, meanwhile westerners themselves are trained to never criticize their government. They're trained instead to criticize decoy dichotomies — false partisan nonsense — not the real power.

Westerners are trained to criticize the actions of the other party or the beliefs of the other ideological faction, never the foreign or domestic policies which are fully supported by both parties. The power structure which maintains 99.9% of the same policies regardless of which party is officially in charge is the real government, but westerners are trained never to look there. They're instead trained to fixate on a false two-handed puppet show diversion.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Atlantic, which is owned by billionaire Laurene Powell Jobs and run by neoconservative war propagandist Jeffrey Goldberg, has published a pair of articles that are appalling even by its own standards.

Reading by Tim Foley.

War criminal George W Bush and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be appearing at an event next week at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, in partnership with US government-funded narrative management operations Freedom House and National Endowment for Democracy. The goal of the presentation will reportedly be to address the completely fictional and imaginary concern that congressional Republicans won't continue supporting US proxy war efforts in Ukraine.

Reading by Tim Foley.