JOHNSTONE

Democracy of the vote without democracy of information is not democracy. It doesn't matter if people are able to vote as long as the media-owning class are able to manipulate how they vote. "One person, one vote" is meaningless if influence and control of information is highly concentrated in an elite few. And it is.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The largest religion on earth is not Christianity or Islam: it's the widespread, faith-based belief system which holds that humans are separate from each other and from the world. 

Humanity is becoming less religious as awareness expands that religions are nothing but a collection of unhelpful and unevidenced belief systems. In the same way, and for the same reason, humanity may one day do the same with the belief systems about self and separateness to which nearly everyone on earth is presently a devout adherent.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The commander of the US nuclear arsenal has stated unequivocally that the war in Ukraine is just a warmup exercise for a much larger conflict that's already in the mail.

Reading by Tim Foley.

There is no such thing as unbiased journalism. If someone tells you they are unbiased they are either knowingly lying, or they are so lacking in self-awareness that you should not listen to them anyway. 

The divide is not between biased journalists and unbiased journalists, it's between journalists who are honest and transparent about their biases and journalists who are not. There are no unbiased journalists. There are no unbiased people. You're either honest about this or you're not.

Reading by Tim Foley.

A system which perpetuates and exacerbates itself while pretending to solve the problems it creates is often called a self-licking ice cream cone. Because that type of system is promoted by those serving the most powerful and belligerent power structure on earth, one might call US militarism a self-licking boot.

Reading by Tim Foley.

"Those most touched by the war, namely the internally displaced, were more likely to prioritise saving lives. Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes."

Those two simple sentences sum up so much of the attitude we are seeing toward this war, and it applies as much to those cheerleading continual escalation and bloodshed from the comfort of their homes on the other side of the world.

Reading by Tim Foley.

2022 is an insane year to be a critic of the empire. People are being censored for disputing official narratives about a war. Those who aren't censored are being mobbed by astroturf trolling operations. A frenetic propaganda push is turning our friends, family, coworkers and acquaintances into brainwashed empire automatons who despise our heretical rejection of official imperial doctrine about Russia and Ukraine.

And this is just a quick note to say thank you for holding the line anyway, and to note that your opposition to nuclear brinkmanship, US warmongering and propaganda makes a difference.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Pointing out the various flaws in historical attempts at communism does not address the problem that if we don't move from competition-based models to collaboration-based ones we're going to destroy all life on this planet in short order. We've still got to find a way to change.

Reading by Tim Foley.

So it turns out the US intelligence cartel has been working intimately with online platforms to regulate the "cognitive infrastructure" of the population. This is according to a new investigative report by The Intercept, based on documents obtained through leaks and an ongoing lawsuit, on the "retooling" of the Department of Homeland Security from an agency focused on counterterrorism to one increasingly focused on fighting "misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation" online.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Leaked documents reveal that the US intelligence cartel has been working intimately with online platforms to regulate the "cognitive infrastructure" of the population — the information systems people use to feed their minds and think their thoughts.

If it is the job of the US intelligence cartel to regulate society's cognitive infrastructure, then it is the job of healthy human beings to disrupt the cognitive infrastructure.

Reading by Tim Foley.