JOHNSTONE

The US government has shut down multiple news media websites based in the Middle East, including Iran's state-owned Press TV, and al-Masirah TV which is owned by the Houthi group Ansarullah in Yemen. The Department of Justice said on Tuesday it had seized 36 Iranian-linked websites, claiming without evidence that they were associated with "either disinformation activities or violent organizations" and were shut down for a violation of US sanctions.

This would be the same US government that is imprisoning Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes, the same US government which paid for the weapons used to destroy more than 20 Palestinian media outlets in Gaza last month, the same US government whose unipolar domination of the planet is made possible by the journalism-destroying propaganda of the media-owning plutocratic class in alliance with sociopathic government agencies.

This would also be the same US government which constantly pays lip service to the need to protect the freedom of the press, as part of the "rules-based international order" it purports to uphold in the world. 

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/rules-based-international-order-means

Soon the CIA will just be openly selling narcotics door to door like Girl Scout cookies.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/so-much-of-what-the-cia-used-to-do

There are aspects of humanity which the CIA doesn't understand, which the plutocrats can't control, which the manipulators can't anticipate. Something is brewing here, and we're almost at the boiling point. I don't know if it will be enough to save us from all the existential hurdles our species faces in the near future; I just know that we are rapidly becoming a conscious species, and consciousness and dysfunction cannot coexist. We won't need to wait long to find out which one wins out.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/humanity-is-sloppily-awkwardly-lumbering

In later years we're going to learn about some of the covert operations which US intelligence agencies and their proxies were using to smash the rise of socialism in America today and a lot of people are going to feel silly for all their remarks blaming the state of the left on leftists. I see so much talk about the left's fragmentation and political ineffectiveness like it's the result of some kind of character flaw in leftists themselves, when it is clearly the result of generations of high-intensity mass-scale psyops which with 100 percent certainty continue to this day. 

The left is not failing, it is being actively sabotaged. It is being sabotaged with psychological operations in our own society by the same power structure which sabotages the left in foreign nations around the world. COINTELPRO-like tactics most certainly continue today, especially online.

Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-left-isnt-failing-its-being-sabotaged

"And you can call me a crazy tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist if you like, but I can't help wondering if these two stories might perhaps be related somehow. If maybe, just maybe, the FBI's suspicious behavior before and after the Capitol riot has something to do with the agenda to implement authoritarian measures designed to stomp out any revolutionary impulses that might emerge in an increasingly impoverished and oppressed population."

Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/who-wants-to-hear-my-crazy-kooky

It's weird how Biden's obvious dementia has made it essentially mainstream knowledge that the president doesn't actually call the shots in the US government but everyone's still going to treat the next presidential election like it matters anyway. 

I mean it was basically already mainstream knowledge, as evidenced by the fact that whenever you'd point out that Obama or Trump were continuing the same evil policies as their predecessors their supporters would say "Come on you can't just expect the president to do things." But then the next presidential election rolls around and once again it's "THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF OUR LIFETIME", even though deep down everyone knows it's basically an audition for who gets to play the lead character in a scripted theater production that's been running for generations.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The fact that the entire press corps did not erupt in side-splitting laughter at this ridiculous utterance is in itself proof that western news media is pure propaganda. The United States has directly interfered in scores of foreign elections since it began its ascent to global domination at the end of the second World War, to say nothing of all the coups, color revolutions, proxy conflicts and regime change military invasions it has also participated in during that time. The US openly interfered in Russia's elections in the nineties, and literally just tried to stage a coup in Bolivia by interfering in its democratic process. The US is far and away the single most egregious offender in the world on this front, which is largely why it is perceived around the world as a greater threat to democracy than any other government.

Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/americas-soup-brained-president-says

The likelihood of a news story going viral in our society has little to do with its newsworthiness, its unusualness, or even whether or not it is factually accurate. The single most likely factor in whether or not a news story will have mass appeal is whether it appears to validate the worldview of one of the two mainstream political factions. This is why the mainstream media have been deliberately sowing partisan divisiveness and marketing toward increasingly distant partisan echo chambers instead of just reporting the news; they have an obvious profit motive to do so, because tickling people's egos with hate porn and illusory validation is the best way to get clicks and generate ad revenue.

Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/political-partisanship-is-a-propaganda

The only people promoting the idea that Joe Biden has dementia are right wingers, left wingers, and Joe Biden.

People tell me I should criticize Biden's policies and not his obvious mental decline, but a very clear sign that the most powerful government on earth is not being run by its elected officials is actually an extremely noteworthy fact that everyone should be talking about.

The only face more suitable for the US empire than a sociopathic billionaire is a decrepit warmongering corporate whore with dementia.

Reading by Tim Foley.

This is a demo for a song I wrote. Anyone is free to cover it and alter it in any way they like.

~ CJ

Lyrics:

I am an alien

A stranger in a strange land

My skin blisters in the sun

The air rejects my lungs

Everything about me screams

"I'M NOT FROM HERE!"

And yet, here I am.

A stranger in a strange land

Such is life

I'm rich in material things

But poor in culture

I yearn for connection

I yearn to connect to the land

But I'm born of the ghost people

I'm born of the ghost people

I'm born of the ghost people

My culture is sitcoms

And Amazon

And the Brady Brunch

And the birthday song

My culture is Coke Is It

And Lord Hear Our Prayers

And Milli Vanilli

And the twisted thoughts of stunted billionaires

I can name more stars in the Marvel universe

Than I know in the sky

There are more pokemon I can tell apart

Than plants I can identify

I yearn to say "Here try this"

While proffering you a cup

"My pops used to make this for me,

this'll fix you right up."

I yearn to say "this is how we do things here"

Or "this is what this weather means"

Or "this bark is good for toothache"

Or "Just lie with me

and listen to the land"

Just lie with me

and listen to the land

Just lie with me

My culture is full of lies

My culture is made of lies

My culture is lies cooked up

By ad execs

In suits made by slaves

My culture was strategized

My culture was bastardized

My culture was militarized

In the parlor rooms

Of monarchs, popes, and liars

My culture was spun

Out of lies

By lobby groups

And think tanks

And lawyers protecting their clients

And middlemen chaining up the things that shine

And scavenger men

Looking for scavenger means

To predate on vulnerable people

My culture is a vulture

My culture is a vulture

I yearn to say "this is how we do things here"

Or "this is what this weather means"

Or "this bark is good for a toothache"

Or "Just lie with me

and listen to the land"

Just lie with me

and listen to the land

Just lie with me

Just lie with me

They lied to me

But you can just lie with me

And be free

And we'll

Listen to the land