JOHNSTONE

The New York Times, which consistently supports every American war, has published an op-ed by a neoconservative think tanker titled "Biden’s Cautious Foreign Policy Imperils Us".

This would be Joseph Biden, the president of the United States who has been consistently vowing to go to war with the People's Republic of China if it attacks Taiwan, and whose administration has been pouring billions of dollars into a world-threatening proxy war in Ukraine which it knowingly provoked and from which it has no exit strategy. With this administration's acceleration toward global conflict on two different fronts, one could easily argue that Biden actually has the least cautious foreign policy of any president in history.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The best western journalists are overwhelmingly despised while the worst are acclaimed millionaires. Western civilization is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don't seek widespread approval. It's worthless.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Future generations, if there are future generations,

will scarce believe that our species once stockpiled armageddon weapons on purpose,

once built our entire civilization around economic models that could only result in the destruction of our biosphere,

once permitted corporations who profit from war to successfully lobby policymakers to start more wars,

once warehoused living beings in factory farms where they were tortured and brutalized,

once starved children to death with sanctions because their rulers disobeyed our rulers,

once made policies which kept people poor so they’d be financially coerced into facilitating military mass murder,

once let people go hungry and homeless if they didn’t have enough imaginary numbers in their bank accounts,

once stripped this planet of biodiversity and old growth forests to turn the gears of an imaginary economy instead of collaborating with our ecosystem.

Future generations, if there are future generations,

will look back in perplexity at our omnicidal madness,

at our blind subservience to the very worst among us,

at our remarkable ingenuity in always finding groundbreaking new ways to hate each other,

at our fanatical devotion to competition and control when we knew that all we really wanted was to be loved,

at the way we’d marginalize and outcast those who thought differently from the rest of us even though we knew full well that our way of thinking wasn’t working,

at the way we’d spend our lives feeding insatiable hungry ghosts only to wind up on our deathbeds wondering why we feel dissatisfied,

at the amount of energy we’d pour into not experiencing the beauty which surrounds us in every moment and rejecting the gifts we were being showered with from every direction,

at the herculean effort we poured into keeping enlightenment from crashing in,

at our nonstop desperate flailing attempts to be anywhere but here and now,

at the amount of work we put into avoiding being at ease.

Future generations, if there are future generations,

I am so glad that you made it past all the many obstacles we put up between our present age and your birth.

Praise be to you and your parents

for cleaning up our mess,

for setting things right,

for becoming conscious,

for valuing a healthy world,

for getting humanity to where you’re at now

so that the real adventure of our species could begin.

Future generations, if there are future generations,

thank you for your kindness and compassion as you gaze back on us through the records we have left you.

It might not be immediately obvious,

but some of us here saw what you’re seeing from there.

__________________

__________________

__________________

Reading by Tim Foley.

As the US empire continues to escalate aggressions against both Russia and China, as Moscow warns that "strategic nuclear weapons" may be used to protect the territories it plans on annexing from eastern Ukraine even as Washington prepares to ramp up its proxy war spending in that nation once again, as nuclear-armed powers which refuse to compromise with each other accelerate toward direct confrontation with nobody's foot anywhere near the brake pedal, it's probably a good time to pause and re-evaluate our priorities in life.

Reading by Tim Foley.

A nuclear conflict could be sparked by either side making a calculated decision to use nuclear weapons (and you're fooling yourself if you believe the US is any less trigger happy in that regard than Russia), but it can also be sparked by either side due to a mistake resulting from a technological malfunction, miscommunication, misunderstanding or miscalculation, as nearly happened many times during the last cold war. The more things escalate, the more likely both such possibilities become.

And, clearly, things are escalating.

And that's just Russia; tensions are rapidly escalating between the US-centralized empire and China as well. In an article for Antiwar.com titled "There’s Little More Washington Can Do To Convince China To Invade Taiwan," Andrew Corbley describes the frighteningly extensive provocations the US has been pouring into another massive geopolitical powderkeg just in the past few weeks.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Everyone who acts like it's a new and unprecedented horror whenever Putin reminds the west that Mutually Assured Destruction still stands is just admitting that they never understood what's at stake in this proxy war and always thought this was some kind of fucking game.

"Oh my God, he's saying he might use nukes!" Yeah that's what happens when you start a war with a fucking nuclear-armed nation, dipshit. That's why you're a fucking moron for yelling at those of us who've been calling for de-escalation and detente. Change how you are. Stop cheerleading this insane game of nuclear chicken and begin calling for de-escalation.

It's so crazy how people pretend the US wouldn't use nukes in response to the exact same type of attacks that Putin is warning against. Like we all know this isn't some weird new threat that Vladimir Putin invented, right? Do we understand that this is the very reason antiwar activists have spent years warning against this exact confrontation and calling for detente instead?

This shouldn't scan as something new for you. If Putin reiterating the longstanding principle of Mutually Assured Destruction makes you freak out like something new is being said, it's because you didn't pay attention in history class. If you were previously unaware that the threat of nuclear annihilation was baked into this proxy war from the very beginning, that just means it's time to reassess your support for this proxy war.

Yes this situation is insanely dangerous. No that's not because of anything Putin has been saying.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The fascinating thing about paying attention to the way narrative differs from reality is that it doesn't just change your understanding of politics and power throughout the world: you start to notice that your whole life is dominated by narratives — not just about the world, but about you.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Nineteen members of the US House of Representatives have written a letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cautioning that the partial cancellation of student debts can have the unintended consequence of reducing military recruitment in the United States.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The president of the United States has once again committed the US military to direct hot war with China in the event of an attack on Taiwan, a commitment that was once again walked back by his White House handlers.

Reading by Tim Foley.

A jet airliner opens up and sends its passengers falling to earth. You'd expect them to scream, to cry, to cling to each other in fear, to prepare for the end, to pray, to think about their loved ones, but they don't. Instead, they turn on each other and start fighting.

"I hate you! I hate you!" they scream while flailing their fists at each other on their way down.

Some try to strangle each other to death. Some try to steal from each other. Some try to climb on top of others so that the other will die a fraction of a second sooner. Others cling to their possessions yelling "You'll never take what's mine!" and kick at anyone who comes too close.

They're all headed toward the same fate at the same time, but they turn on each other and try to get one over on each other during their short plummet instead of making peace with each other and with what's to come.

That's what our bizarre relationship with mortality is like. A giant vagina opens up in the sky and births babies who grow as they fall to their deaths, and they spend that short time hating, fighting, manipulating, and scheming against each other.

Of course it doesn't feel quite that way. Because of the way humans happen to perceive time it doesn't feel like a fast plummet toward death. From our point of view it seems to last just long enough for us to forget what's happening, to get distracted and get caught up in drama and conflict and opinions and grudges, and lose our focus on the great splat that awaits us below. 

But that is what's happening. We're all engaged in an intimate dance with death, whether we acknowledge that that's what's happening or not. We're in the thick of it. Everything we do in life is a ball that we're bouncing off the wall of that definite end from wherever we happen to be standing. It's the other end of the span of time where we get to be doing stuff on this planet, opposite where we are now. Death is standing on the same court as we are, hitting back every ball we serve.

Reading by Tim Foley.