JOHNSTONE

Everyone's acting shocked and outraged at the Supreme Court ruling that Donald Trump and other former presidents are largely immune from criminal prosecution, as though presidents getting prosecuted for their crimes is something that's been happening this entire time.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Ehud Olmert: "The entire Israel Air Force relies completely on American aircraft: fighter planes, transport planes, refueler planes and helicopters. All of Israel's air power is based on the American commitment to defend Israel. We have no other reliable source for essential supplies of equipment, munitions and advanced weapons that Israel cannot manufacture on its own."

Reading by Tim Foley.

This obvious genocide is not what it looks like, smirks the man behind the podium.

Reading by Tim Foley.

I truly do not see how anyone can still give a fuck about this bullshit. It's so obvious at this point that the US is being run by unelected empire managers who throw up half-dead, half-brained presidential candidates to trick Americans into thinking they live in a democracy. Those empire managers are going to do whatever they want to you regardless of how you and your compatriots vote. Your electoral system is a fake plastic toy they give you to play with so you won't interfere with the gears of the imperial machine. 

There are no answers in electoral politics. Start looking for answers elsewhere.

Reading by Tim Foley.

If people really believed the president runs the country, they'd be freaking out that Biden in his demented haze might order an attack on the Soviet Union or nuke Libya to kill Muammar Gaddafi or something. They're not worried that this will happen because they know their government is actually being run by unelected empire managers from behind the scenes, and that Biden is just the official face on the operation.

Reading by Tim Foley.

If you desire the sovereignty and self-determination of any group of people, your first and foremost task is to seek the dismantling of the US-centralized empire, because that's the power structure that is doing the most around the world to undermine this possibility. As long as a population is in any way intertwined with the agendas of a globe-dominating empire that's doing everything it can to bring everyone under its control, then there is no possibility of that population gaining any real self-determination. If they remain aligned with those agendas, all they can ever hope to be is subjects of the empire.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The thing that stands out for me the most when watching the deeply moving footage of Julian Assange arriving home to Australia is how impossible this all felt until it happened.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Justice would look like Assange being granted a full and unconditional pardon and receiving millions of dollars in compensation from the US government for the torment they put him through by his imprisonment in Belmarsh beginning in 2019, his de facto imprisonment in the Ecuadorian embassy beginning in 2012, and his jailing and house arrest beginning in 2010.

Justice would look like the US making concrete legal and policy changes guaranteeing that Washington could never again use its globe-spanning power and influence to destroy the life of a foreign journalist for reporting inconvenient facts about it, and issuing a formal apology to Julian Assange and his family.

Justice would look like the arrest and prosecution of the people whose war crimes Assange exposed, and the arrest and prosecution of everyone who helped ruin his life for exposing those crimes. This would include a whole host of government operatives and officials across numerous countries, and multiple US presidents.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Listen deeply to the screaming mothers

and the whirring of the drones.

Listen deeply to the news man's lies

and the crashing of the bulldozers.

Listen deeply to the tanks and missiles

as they are rolled into position.

Listen deeply to the dying fish

and the fruit bats dropping out of trees from the heat.

Listen deeply to the gasping biosphere

and the reverberating cries of the long-dead indigenous.

Listen deeply to the vibrations all around you

and to the vibrations deep within yourself.

This is a holy place.

This is a holy moment.

It demands your reverence,

even amid the smell of exhaust fumes and landfill

and of rotting whales washing up on the shore

and of rotting human corpses in Gaza.

Even amid the blaring screens and the smirking lies

of podium pontiffs and Pentagon propagandists.

Even amid the dead-eyed dystopioids

marching through life sedated by smartphones

and sitcoms and sports and snacks and synthetics.

So listen.

Listen deeply.

There are messages here.

Buried in the code.

Hidden in the metadata.

Whisperings of something big.

Something lurking just behind the chatter.

Something ancient,

yet entirely unanticipated.

Listen deeply, kind friend,

because mark my words:

even within our oceans choked with plastic,

even within our minds choked with media,

even within our hearts choked with capitalism,

even within our souls choked with fraudulence,

there are still leviathans.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Please please please don't let Gaza be a one-off in terms of your opposition to the imperial machine. Keep your eyes fiercely trained on its actions after this is over, and help bring as much attention to its crimes as possible.

Reading by Tim Foley.