JOHNSTONE

The first day of the US appeal of the Julian Assange extradition case saw grown adults arguing in a court of law that the US government could guarantee that it would not treat the WikiLeaks founder as cruelly as it treats its other prisoners.

I wish I was kidding.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-assange-persecution-is-western

A system which financially coerces those who have nothing to sell but their labor to work for companies for a fraction of the value they generate is violent. It is aggression. It is simply legalized theft. The only reason this isn't obvious to everyone is centuries of capitalist propaganda, and if people ever manage to free their minds from that indoctrination and begin moving to redistribute the wealth the capitalist class has stolen, guess what will happen? Armed forces will be deployed to kill them until they stop. This is on top of the global war on communism that has been going on for generations. The entire thing is violence, and is held in place by violence.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The boy listened politely, then picked up another starfish and tossed it into the surf.

"Made a difference to that one," he said to the man.

"I mean that's a cute answer and all," said the man. "It would fit nicely in a Facebook meme shared by your religious aunty, or a motivational speech from the early nineties. But in the grand scheme of things you must surely understand that saving that one starfish is of no real significance? The tide will go out again tomorrow, and this beach will once again be lined with dying starfish just as it is now, among them quite likely our little friend you just rescued."

"What do you want me to say man?" the boy replied, his tone suddenly changing. "That there's some kind of eternally ordained metaphysical justification for my actions here on this beach today? That there's some absolute truth inscribed upon the fabric of reality from on high saying 'One saved starfish equals one Ultimate Meaningfulness?' On what basis are you premising your assumption that any actions have any meaning or purpose at all?"

"I- I- Well..." the man stammered.

The boy began to grow larger, and as he spoke his skin turned an otherworldly shade of blue.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The US government is reportedly close to securing a deal with Pakistan that will ensure its ability to continue military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan, the nation where the Biden administration proudly "ended" a decades-long war.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The behavior of global oligarchic power structures makes a lot more sense when you see that it's not as much a lucid elite conspiracy as it is a few barely-conscious humans compulsively acting out psychological dynamics within themselves that they don't really understand. Elite conspiracies happen to be sure, but what's ultimately driving them is not a complete and coherent vision for the future which takes all things into account but rather the simple egoic impulses of barely-evolved primates blindly trying to shore up control like chimps asserting dominance.

The sociopaths who rule our world are no more conscious of their own inner processes than your average serial killer. They can act out their impulses in a way that looks very organized and efficient, but the driving forces beneath it are the least-evolved aspects of humanity. We are ruled by apes with PR firms.

That's why they often behave in ways that are nonsensical. Some ask why they'd continue killing the biosphere and flirt with nuclear war when it can kill them, for example. And the answer is not that nuclear brinkmanship is a phony performance or that climate destruction is a hoax, but that you're dealing with the same dumb stimulus-response impulses as any other basic organism.

It is true that the drivers of the US-centralized empire want to live as gods, able to cause famines or rain fire in any part of the world which disobeys them. It is not a coincidence that the few remaining parts of the world where they cannot do this are the parts you're most forcefully trained to hate.

But these are not gods enacting grand visions from on high; they are organisms acting out the same forces that have been unfolding since the Big Bang just like the rest of us. And they are less conscious of the way those forces are playing out within themselves than your average healthy human, not more.

Reading by Tim Foley.

It's just so interesting how Russia keeps attacking America in unverifiable and invisible ways that only the US intelligence community can see. First it was plot hole-riddled claims that Russian hackers attacked American democracy in 2016, and now it's invisible microwave beams from secret Kremlin ray guns. Someday soon we may turn on the news to see footage of an empty Capitol Building while a reporter solemnly tells us that it has just been stormed by GRU agents injected with invisibility serum.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The imperial oligarchs wish to rule our world as Greek gods from Mount Olympus. If any population on earth disobeys them, they want to be able to cause sweeping famines in that nation, or rain down fire upon them from on high. They want to be able to control not just how all humans behave, but how they think as well.

And, for the most part, they absolutely can do this. The drivers of empire can inflict famines upon entire populations by imposing starvation sanctions upon them using their control over international financial systems. They can rain down fire upon any disobedient population using the most powerful military force ever assembled. They can control the way we think, act, spend, consume, and vote to ensure it serves their interests, and their control over our minds is continually advancing.

But they don't have total control over those things everywhere on earth. To find where they lack this control, you need only ask yourself which parts of the world the imperial propaganda machine most aggressively tells you you must oppose.

China and Russia have not been absorbed into the globe-spanning empire, and because they are relatively strong compared to the weaker nations the empire likes to target, the imperialists don't have much control over what happens there. Their control is not strong enough to starve their populations on a whim. They could not rain down fire upon those nations without risking their own lives and assets. They cannot exert control over how those populations think and behave.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The billionaire CEO of the multibillion-dollar corporation that recently purchased the news media outlet Politico has said that its newly acquired employees will be required to support Israel and the capitalist world order.

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of the German publisher Axel Springer, said that Politico staffers will be required to adhere to a set of principles which include "support for a united Europe, Israel’s right to exist and a free-market economy, among others."

“These values are like a constitution, they apply to every employee of our company,” Mr. Döpfner told WSJ. People with a fundamental problem with any of these principles “should not work for Axel Springer, very clearly,” he said.

I mean, how refreshing is that? How often does a billionaire corporation buy up a media property and just straightforwardly tell you they're going to be using it to push propaganda? They even say what the propaganda will be. It makes you feel like your intelligence is being respected.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The globally influential propaganda multiplier news agencies AP and AFP have both informed their readers that a "fugitive" has been extradited to the United States.

"Fugitive businessman close to Venezuela's Maduro extradited to US," reads the AFP headline.

"Alex Saab, a top fugitive close to Venezuela's socialist government, has been put on a plane to the U.S. to face money laundering charges," AP announced on Twitter.

You'd be forgiven for wondering what specifically makes this man a "fugitive", and what that status has to do with his extradition to a foreign government whose laws should have no bearing on his life. The Colombian-born Venezuelan citizen Alex Saab, as it happens, is a "fugitive" from the US government's self-appointed authority to decide which populations on our planet are permitted to have ready access to food. His crime is working to circumvent the crushing US sanctions which have been starving Venezuelan civilians to death by the tens of thousands.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-us-has-placed-itself-in-charge

The fact that the propagandists have to work so hard to keep our society this insane means the natural gravitational pull is toward sanity. They have to educate us into crazier and crazier ways of thinking from the moment we go to school until we die, because otherwise we'll collectively awaken and shake off their shackles.

It takes a lot of educating to keep us this stupid.

You think you're struggling? You should see the people trying to manufacture consent for a status quo that is both plainly insane and self-evidently unsustainable. They're the ones doing all the heavy lifting in this struggle. They're the ones fighting gravity.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/it-takes-a-lot-of-education-to-keep