JOHNSTONE

In reality, while the pandemic has certainly been a major factor in exacerbating civil rights erosion, Australia's Covid response has simply added to a problem that had already existed and was already getting worse. The 2019 CIVICUS Monitor, a global research group that tracks fundamental freedoms in 196 countries, downgraded Australia from an “open” country to one where civil space has “narrowed”, citing new laws to expand government surveillance, prosecution of whistleblowers, and raids on media organizations.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/australia-has-no-bill-of-rights-and

Pride, praise and celebration are not the appropriate emotional response to the day. The appropriate response to a decades-overdue withdrawal from a war that should never have happened in the first place is rage. Unmitigated rage at an unforgivable atrocity which amassed a mountain of corpses for no legitimate reason, from which the region will probably not recover in our lifetime. Unmitigated rage at those responsible for starting and maintaining this horror all this time.

Reading by Tim Foley.

In the wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal influential promoters of western militarism have been absolutely fuming about the popular idea of ending the forever wars, and their tantrums are not even trying to disguise it as something else. They're literally using that phrase, "ending the forever wars", and then saying it's a bad thing.

I mean, what a bizarre hill to die on. War is the very worst thing in the world, and forever is the very worst amount of time they could go on for, yet they're openly condemning the "doctrine of ending the forever wars". How warped does your sense of reality have to be to even think this is a view anyone who isn't paid by defense contractors could possibly be sympathetic to?

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/warmongers-keep-raging-about-the

A new BBC report shows eyewitnesses at the scene of the deadly Kabul airport explosion on Thursday saying that a significant number of the 170 Afghans killed in the attack actually died from gunfire by the US-led alliance in the chaos following the blast.

"Many we spoke to, including eyewitnesses, said significant numbers of those killed were shot dead by US forces in the panic after the blast," the BBC's Secunder Kermani said on Twitter.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/questions-after-new-reports-that

We don't talk nearly enough about the fact that wealthy and powerful people are constantly pouring vast fortunes into manipulating the way we perceive our world and that this is the ultimate source of all our major problems.

Democracy is a meaningless concept when the primary factor in determining how votes will be cast is the wealth that plutocrats have poured into mass-scale media psyops to manipulate public perception of reality.

Reading by Tim Foley.

ISIS has reportedly claimed credit for an explosion near Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport. As of this writing there are around 90 dead including 13 US military personnel, though to read western mainstream media reports you'd think only US troops died and not scores of Afghans as well.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-war-on-terror-scam-continues

During the Trump years the media wept for the poor kids in cages and ignored all the bombs he was dropping. Now the media ignore the kids in cages and weep for the poor neglected bombs.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change has posted a lengthy essay by the former British Prime Minister who led the United Kingdom into two of the most unconscionable military interventions in living memory. Blair criticizes the withdrawal as having been done out of "obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending 'the forever wars'," bloviating about “Radical Islam,” and asking, "has the West lost its strategic will?"

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/bush-era-war-criminals-are-louder

And it was seen that there's not actually any reason humanity cannot collectively awaken to this perspective. The ability to awaken from the illusion of the mental self exists within us all, and probably exists for a reason. Every species eventually reaches a point where it must adapt to changing conditions in an ever-changing world, and with egoic consciousness threatening our existence with climate collapse and nuclear war we are most certainly arriving at that point today.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Military members who support imperialism get promoted. Those who get to the top go on to work for war profiteers. The war profiteers fund think tanks which promote more wars. The mass media report "news" stories citing those think tanks. These stories manufacture consent for more wars.

The war industry reinforces itself. Those who get to the top of the war machine move on to the private sector and spend their time lobbying for more wars which create more eventual Pentagon officials who go on to lobby for more wars. Peace should be easy. This is why it's not.

Reading by Tim Foley.