JOHNSTONE

"The Australian Government is sanctioning 10 people of strategic interest to Russia for their role in encouraging hostility towards Ukraine and promoting pro-Kremlin propaganda to legitimise Russia’s invasion," reads a new statement from Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne. "This includes driving and disseminating false narratives about the 'de-Nazification' of Ukraine, making erroneous allegations of genocide against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, and promoting the recognition of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic as independent."

Reading by Tim Foley.

In the end we went the way of the dinosaur

not because of any asteroid or apocalyptic disease,

nor because we failed to adapt quickly enough to environmental changes,

but because we got bored.

We let the bastards (who were just as bored as the rest of us)

wave their warheads around like dongs at a bachelorette party,

even egging them on, calling for starvation sanctions

and no-fly zones and endless escalations in brinkmanship,

because there was nothing new on Hulu,

because CNN needed the ratings,

because they canceled Jerry Springer,

because they don't let you smoke anywhere these days,

because snarling at Putin made us feel giddy and euphoric

in a way we didn't quite understand but kind of scared us,

because our friends stopped letting us masturbate our drama addiction on them,

because we shuddered at the thought of a boring world where nations simply get along

and collaborate toward the highest interest of all beings,

because that wouldn't feed our egoic hungry ghosts,

wouldn't give us the exhilarating conflicts we've been trained to expect by Hollywood,

wouldn't distract us from the echoing screams of our early childhood trauma,

wouldn't engorge our sex organs and release adrenaline and endorphins

and assist us in our interminable quest to be

anywhere but here.

We ended it all out of boredom.

Because we never figured out how to be okay with what is.

Because we never learned how to let our restlessness drain from our legs

and from our minds and down into the earth which birthed and sustained us.

Because we could never create enough space to let the beauty in

and be uplifted by the sunlight and the birdsongs and the wind in our hair

instead of by fighting and hating and selfing and othering.

A strange primate species showed up,

looked around,

couldn't quite make sense of the place,

and checked out.

And now we are gone,

like the tyrannosaurs and the mastodons

and the dead stars and the forgotten gods.

A foolish mistake made playing foolish games

opened a Pandora's box labeled "NO TAKESIES BACKSIES",

and the rest, as they say,

was the end of history.

But hey.

Bright side.

At least we're not bored anymore.

_______________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________

Reading by Tim Foley.

The war is not going well for Kyiv, and it would be unreasonable to expect that to change. As a vastly superior military force overwhelms the US client state, reality is in the process of crashing down hard in the face of western liberals who bought into the war propaganda that the brave, sexy comedian was leading an upset victory to kick Putin's ass out of Ukraine.

Zelensky is now raging at NATO powers for refusing to intervene militarily against Russia, apparently having previously been given the impression that the US-centralized empire might risk its very existence defending its dear friends the Ukrainians from an invasion. 

"Unfortunately, today there is a complete impression that it is time to give a funeral repast for something else: security guarantees and promises, determination of alliances, values that seem to be dead for someone," Zelensky said Friday.

"All the people who will die starting from this day will also die because of you," Ukraine's president added. "Because of your weakness, because of your disunity."

It must be hard, the process of learning that you were never actually a valued partner in western civilization's fight for freedom and democracy. That you were always just one more sacrificial pawn on the imperial chessboard.

Reading by Tim Foley.

If they were telling us the truth about Russia they wouldn't be censoring Russian media.

Reading by Tim Foley.

When you've got the hawks screaming that Putin is Hitler and calling for airstrikes on the Russian military while the doves are using extremely mitigated both-sides language and taking great pains to forcefully condemn Putin to avoid being shouted down and censored, what you wind up with is a spectrum of debate that has been pulled so far toward insanity that the "moderate" position becomes support for unprecedented acts of economic warfare and funding a brutal insurgency in Ukraine.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Multiple American podcasters who speak critically of the political status quo in their country are reporting that their channels have been shut down as the censorship campaign against Russia-backed media continues to escalate. These include Moment of Clarity with Lee Camp, The Politics of Survival with Tara Reade, and By Any Means Necessary on Radio Sputnik.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Kremlin-backed media outlets have been banned throughout the European Union, both on television and on apps and online platforms. RT has lost its Sky TV slot in the UK, where the outlet is also blocked on YouTube. Australian TV providers SBS and Foxtel have dropped RT, and the federal government is putting pressure on social media platforms to block Russian media in Australia.

In the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Latvia, speaking in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine will get you years in prison.

Twitter, historically the last of the major online platforms to jump on any new internet censorship escalation, is now actively minimizing the number of people who see Russian media content, saying that it is "reducing the content's visibility" and "taking steps to significantly reduce the circulation of this content on Twitter". This censorship-by-algorithm tactic is exactly what I speculated might emerge after former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey resigned back in November, due to previous comments supportive of that practice by his successor Parag Agrawal.

Twitter is also placing warnings labels on all Russia-backed media and delivering a pop-up message informing you that you are committing wrongthink if you try to share or even 'like' a post linking to such outlets on the platform. It has also placed the label "Russia state-affiliated media" on every tweet made by the personal accounts of employees of those platforms, baselessly giving the impression that the dissident opinions tweeted by those accounts are paid Kremlin content and not simply their own legitimate perspectives. Some are complaining that this new label has led to online harassment amid the post-9/11-like anti-Russia hysteria that's currently turning western brains into clam chowder.

Reading by Tim Foley.

I am convinced that mainstream culture's fascination with World War II has made us all dumber. Everyone just lives in this dopey children's cartoon now where every US enemy is Hitler and they're the brave hero who is fighting Hitler.

Reading by Tim Foley.

"Is what the US and its allies are trying to accomplish in Ukraine worth continually risking nuclear armageddon for?"

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with relevant links: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-single-most-important-question?utm_source=url

"I’m concerned about Russian disinformation spreading online, so today I wrote to the CEOs of major tech companies to ask them to restrict the spread of Russian propaganda," US Senator Mark Warner tweeted on Friday.

Since then YouTube has announced that it has suppressed videos by Russian state media channels so that they'll be seen by fewer people in accordance with its openly acknowledged policy of algorithmically censoring unauthorized content, as well as de-monetizing all such videos on the platform. Google and Facebook/Instagram parent company Meta both banned Russian state media from running ads and monetizing on their platforms in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Twitter announced a pause on ads in both Russia and Ukraine.

"Glad to see action from tech companies to reign in Russian propaganda and disinformation after my letter to their CEOs yesterday," Warner tweeted on Saturday. "These are important first steps, but I’ll keep pushing for more."

Reading by Tim Foley.