JOHNSTONE
1,117 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 6 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 99 ratingsReadings of all Caitlin Johnstone's articles, usually by her co-writer Tim Foley.
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Episodes
A Good And Righteous Proxy War Wouldn't Need Such Cartoonish PR
October 10, 2022 02:42 - 6 minutes - 6.33 MBNone of this would be happening if this proxy war was as just and righteous as its proponents are pretending. If your proxy war demands nonstop perception management at maximum aggression to manufacture public consent for it, your proxy war is probably immoral and bad. If maintaining public support for a proxy war requires nonstop PR spin, aggressive propaganda from the mainstream news media, banning of Russian media, and giant troll information ops amplified by think tanks and government age...
Biden: We're Trying To Figure Out How Putin Can Exit This War
October 09, 2022 13:47 - 4 minutes - 4.07 MB“First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have the threat of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going,” the president said. “We are trying to figure out what is Putin’s off-ramp? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself where he does not only lose face but significant power?” As though the US government itself has not played a major role in both provoking and sustaining this conflict. Reading by Tim Foley.
Once Upon A Time
October 08, 2022 21:07 - 7 minutes - 6.93 MBThe arrival of the human brain gave the universe the ability to experience itself through not only sensory organs and nervous systems but through thought and through science. Suddenly the stardust was able to not just look at itself but to think about itself. To philosophize about itself. To meditate on itself. To explore itself. To run experiments on itself. To know itself with greater and greater intimacy. Reading by Tim Foley.
Opposing Armageddon To Trigger The Libs
October 07, 2022 12:16 - 7 minutes - 6.63 MBEveryone has lost their fucking mind. Propaganda has made madness look like sanity and sanity look like madness, has normalized cheerleading for nuclear world war and abnormalized calls for de-escalation and detente. It's truly as bat shit insane as anything could possibly be. Over and over again we're being fed the message from the US and its proxies that this game of nuclear chicken can only escalate and never de-escalate. They are lying. They are playing games with all our lives in servic...
We Survived The Last Nuclear Standoff Through Compromise And De-Escalation
October 05, 2022 13:11 - 6 minutes - 6.29 MBBack in 2013 The Atlantic published a solid article titled "The Real Cuban Missile Crisis," subtitled "Everything you think you know about those 13 days is wrong." Its author Benjamin Schwartz details how the crisis was peacefully resolved not because JFK was on the phone yelling "Try and die" at Nikita Khrushchev, but because he secretly cut a deal to remove the Jupiter missiles the US had stationed in Italy and Turkey which provoked the 1962 incident in the first place. Moscow perceived th...
It's Only A 'Conspiracy Theory' When It Accuses The US Government
October 04, 2022 00:57 - 7 minutes - 7.01 MBThe western political/media class has been dismissing as "conspiracy theories" all claims that the US is likely responsible for last month's sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, even while leveling the exact same accusations against Russia without ever using that term. Which probably says a lot about the way that label has been used over the years, if you think about it. Reading by Tim Foley.
Nothing's More Important Than Avoiding Nuclear War
October 03, 2022 01:31 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MBAvoiding nuclear war is the single most important agenda in the world. The single most important agenda in history. It is more important than your political faction. It is more important than how Vladimir Putin makes your feelings feel. It is more important than anything else. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Narrative That This War Was "Unprovoked" Prevents Peace
October 02, 2022 01:47 - 7 minutes - 7.1 MBThe moronic narrative that the invasion of Ukraine was "unprovoked" poses a massive obstacle to peace, because if Putin is just attacking and invading countries solely because he's crazy and evil it means detente is impossible and he won't stop until he's decisively crushed. If it's accepted that the US empire has played no role in provoking Putin's actions, that means there's nothing the empire could do to make continued Russian aggression less likely apart from regime change, or at least se...
How To Defeat Putin
October 01, 2022 03:04 - 5 minutes - 5.43 MBSo are you ready for my brilliant strategy on how to defeat Putin? Here it is: simply stand back and wait for him to explode the rest of Russia. This is after all the same madman who the New York Times informs us has been ordering his troops to shell a nuclear power plant they already control. If Putin is a gibbering, irrational lunatic who enjoys blowing up his own stuff for no reason other than to act crazy, surely if we just stand back and leave him to his own devices he will soon turn th...
This Would Be A Wise Stopping Point For This War
September 30, 2022 14:15 - 6 minutes - 5.94 MBAt the risk of upsetting the entire internet, the annexation of those four Ukrainian territories seems like a great time to end this war to me. Does anyone honestly believe a significant percentage of the people who live there want a massive counteroffensive on their doorstep? I don't. The west knowingly provoked this war, the thing experts warned for years would happen did happen, and now Ukraine lost some territory. Rather than risking millions or billions of lives escalating this conflict...
New Zealand's PM Wants More Online Censorship For The War In Ukraine
September 29, 2022 14:27 - 6 minutes - 6.04 MBNew Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern continued her crusade for the expansion of internet censorship during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, this time using the war in Ukraine. Reading by Tim Foley.
Nobody Who Supports NATO Is A Moderate
September 29, 2022 01:57 - 5 minutes - 4.97 MBSomeone who believes the US or its proxies sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines can tell you exactly what they'd stand to gain from it and how little it would cost them. Someone who believes it was Russia has to perform weird mental contortions about Moscow sending some kind of message to the world and Putin being insane, or entertain the absurd notion that Russia could only stop Europe from obtaining Russian natural gas by destroying Russian pipelines. This says a lot about whose arguments ar...
I'm Sorry, Biden's *WHAT* Foreign Policy??
September 27, 2022 12:26 - 6 minutes - 5.64 MBThe New York Times, which consistently supports every American war, has published an op-ed by a neoconservative think tanker titled "Biden’s Cautious Foreign Policy Imperils Us". This would be Joseph Biden, the president of the United States who has been consistently vowing to go to war with the People's Republic of China if it attacks Taiwan, and whose administration has been pouring billions of dollars into a world-threatening proxy war in Ukraine which it knowingly provoked and from which...
The Best Journalists Are Persecuted And Despised
September 26, 2022 02:29 - 6 minutes - 5.86 MBThe best western journalists are overwhelmingly despised while the worst are acclaimed millionaires. Western civilization is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don't seek widespread approval. It's worthless. Reading by Tim Foley.
Future Generations (If There Are Future Generations)
September 25, 2022 01:49 - 3 minutes - 3.47 MBFuture generations, if there are future generations, will scarce believe that our species once stockpiled armageddon weapons on purpose, once built our entire civilization around economic models that could only result in the destruction of our biosphere, once permitted corporations who profit from war to successfully lobby policymakers to start more wars, once warehoused living beings in factory farms where they were tortured and brutalized, once starved children to death with sanctions becau...
As We Closer To WW3, It's A Good Time To Reassess Our Priorities In Life
September 24, 2022 02:12 - 5 minutes - 5.09 MBAs the US empire continues to escalate aggressions against both Russia and China, as Moscow warns that "strategic nuclear weapons" may be used to protect the territories it plans on annexing from eastern Ukraine even as Washington prepares to ramp up its proxy war spending in that nation once again, as nuclear-armed powers which refuse to compromise with each other accelerate toward direct confrontation with nobody's foot anywhere near the brake pedal, it's probably a good time to pause and r...
The US Empire Is Accelerating Toward Global Conflict On Two Fronts
September 22, 2022 13:50 - 5 minutes - 5.32 MBA nuclear conflict could be sparked by either side making a calculated decision to use nuclear weapons (and you're fooling yourself if you believe the US is any less trigger happy in that regard than Russia), but it can also be sparked by either side due to a mistake resulting from a technological malfunction, miscommunication, misunderstanding or miscalculation, as nearly happened many times during the last cold war. The more things escalate, the more likely both such possibilities become. ...
Idiots Are Just Discovering That This War Is Dangerous
September 22, 2022 02:18 - 6 minutes - 6.06 MBEveryone who acts like it's a new and unprecedented horror whenever Putin reminds the west that Mutually Assured Destruction still stands is just admitting that they never understood what's at stake in this proxy war and always thought this was some kind of fucking game. "Oh my God, he's saying he might use nukes!" Yeah that's what happens when you start a war with a fucking nuclear-armed nation, dipshit. That's why you're a fucking moron for yelling at those of us who've been calling for de...
The Narrative Matrix Hides The Truth About The World, And About Ourselves
September 21, 2022 02:28 - 5 minutes - 4.66 MBThe fascinating thing about paying attention to the way narrative differs from reality is that it doesn't just change your understanding of politics and power throughout the world: you start to notice that your whole life is dominated by narratives — not just about the world, but about you. Reading by Tim Foley.
US Lawmakers Say Student Loan Forgiveness Will Hurt Military Recruiting
September 20, 2022 02:05 - 6 minutes - 6.14 MBNineteen members of the US House of Representatives have written a letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cautioning that the partial cancellation of student debts can have the unintended consequence of reducing military recruitment in the United States. Reading by Tim Foley.
Biden Keeps Pledging Direct US War With China Over Taiwan
September 19, 2022 03:28 - 5 minutes - 4.92 MBThe president of the United States has once again committed the US military to direct hot war with China in the event of an attack on Taiwan, a commitment that was once again walked back by his White House handlers. Reading by Tim Foley.
Our Mortality Should Unite Us
September 17, 2022 13:53 - 5 minutes - 4.78 MBA jet airliner opens up and sends its passengers falling to earth. You'd expect them to scream, to cry, to cling to each other in fear, to prepare for the end, to pray, to think about their loved ones, but they don't. Instead, they turn on each other and start fighting. "I hate you! I hate you!" they scream while flailing their fists at each other on their way down. Some try to strangle each other to death. Some try to steal from each other. Some try to climb on top of others so that the ot...
The Profit Motive Is Crippling Humanity
September 16, 2022 02:03 - 6 minutes - 5.67 MBIt's hard to grasp just how badly humanity is handicapping itself by excluding all solutions that can't generate a profit. There's a whole vast spectrum of potential solutions to the troubles we face as a species, and we're limiting ourselves to a very small, very shitty fraction of it. By limiting solutions to ones that are profitable, we're omitting any which involve using less, consuming less, leaving resources in the ground, and leaving nature the fuck alone. We're also shrinking the ince...
The Trouble With 'Western Values' Is That Westerners Don't Value Them
September 15, 2022 02:50 - 4 minutes - 4.46 MBThe trouble with "western values" is that westerners don't value them. They think they value them, but all that reverence for free expression and holding power to account with the light of truth goes right out the window the second they see someone saying something that sharply differs from what their rulers and their propagandists have told them to think. Then they want that person silenced and shut down. In truth, the most forceful critics of the western empire actually embody these wester...
It's A Big Club, And You Ain't In It
September 14, 2022 01:49 - 7 minutes - 7.07 MBBrian Stelter went from a mainstream media gig to a gig at Harvard. Jen Psaki went from a gig in the Biden administration to a gig in the mainstream media. Mike Pompeo went from a gig in the Trump administration to a gig with a DC think tank. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. Reading by Tim Foley.
Lizzy's Face
September 13, 2022 13:00 - 2 minutes - 2.46 MBLizzy's face on the papers blowing in the wind Lizzy's face on the screens Lizzy's face on the street billboard with a homeless man leaning against it. Lizzy's face on the Jumbotron Lizzy's face on the defense industry tweets Lizzy's face on the arrest warrants for the criminals who said "Not my king." Lizzy's face on our money Lizzy's face in my face Lizzy's face on an artillery shell funded by the British taxpayer and fired by a man wearing neo-Nazi insignia. Lizzy's face on the telly be...
Look With Nature's Eyes
September 13, 2022 02:09 - 2 minutes - 2.45 MBLook with nature's eyes, with atomic eyes, with Eden eyes, with primordial eyes. Stand on nature's feet, on terrestrial feet, on stardust feet, on Big Bang feet. Touch with nature's hands, with sapling hands, with reverent hands, with unprecedented hands. Think with nature's mind, with undomesticated mind, with wild mind, with ineffable mind. Let trees erupt from your cells. Release the bats from their cages in your skull. This is the place where scriptures and doctrines turn to gum leave...
In This Disaster We Are All, Ultimately, Innocent
September 10, 2022 23:31 - 10 minutes - 9.87 MBWe never really had a chance to build a healthy world. Our ancestors went from running away from monsters with sharp fangs to burning witches and heretics to fighting world wars to giving birth to us, and that wave of fear and chaos carried forward right into our own psyches and into the psyches of everyone else on this planet without skipping a beat. If you look at where we came from and how we got here, it's amazing we're even as functional as we are. And that's what we're dealing with her...
Having a Queen Was Stupid; Having A King Is TOO Stupid
September 10, 2022 01:04 - 4 minutes - 4.48 MBI can't stop laughing at the fact that we have a King now. "Hello I am the actual, literal King. Please bow to me and put a crown on my head." It gets funnier and funnier the more you think about it. Having a queen was really stupid; having a king is too stupid. People aren't going to buy it, I don't care how good your PR is. Reading by Tim Foley.
Our Entire Civilization Is Fake And Stupid
September 08, 2022 10:11 - 7 minutes - 6.87 MBThat's why the more you learn about the world, the more fake and stupid our civilization looks. It's because it is fake and stupid. Our news, our entertainment, our jobs, our legal systems, our political systems, our education systems, our financial, monetary, economic and commercial systems; the way our entire civilization is structured and organized has nothing to do with what's true and good and everything to do with keeping human organisms compliantly turning the gears of capitalism and e...
It's Not Okay For Grown Adults To Say The Ukraine Invasion Was "Unprovoked"
September 07, 2022 13:27 - 12 minutes - 11.4 MBA few days after the invasion began this past February a guy named Arnaud Bertrand put together an extremely viral Twitter thread that just goes on and on and on about the various diplomats, analysts and academics in the west who have over the years been warning that a dangerous confrontation with Russia was coming because of NATO advancements toward its borders, interventionism in Ukraine, and various other aggressions. It contains examples like John Mearsheimer explicitly warning in 2015 th...
The Ukraine Proxy War Has Been A Propaganda Win For Interventionists
September 06, 2022 13:19 - 6 minutes - 5.68 MBThis war has in that sense become the Gulf War of the 2020s: a "good war" that rehabilitates the image of US interventionism for a war-weary public. Just as the 1990 Gulf War was used to get Americans over what warmongers called "Vietnam syndrome" — a healthy aversion to interventionism following the horrific disaster of the Vietnam War — the war in Ukraine is being used to wear down the public's collective immune response to interventionism built up after the 2003 Iraq invasion. "It's a pro...
Who Benefits From US Government Claims That The UFO Threat Is Increasing 'Exponentially'?
September 05, 2022 04:30 - 9 minutes - 8.74 MB"At a time when cross-domain transmedium threats to United States national security are expanding exponentially, the Committee is disappointed with the slow pace of DoD-led efforts to establish the office to address those threats," Warner writes in the report. "Exponentially" is a mighty strong word. Taken in its least literal sense, it means that threats to US national security from UFOs are increasing at an alarmingly rapid rate. That they have swiftly become much greater than they used t...
Capitalism Has No Solution To Ecocide
September 04, 2022 13:17 - 5 minutes - 4.96 MBEcocide will continue as long as ecocide is profitable. No possible iteration of capitalism can address this problem. This, in and of itself, is a sufficiently strong argument that capitalism must be abandoned. No model where human behavior remains driven by profit can address the problem that ecocide will continue as long as ecocide is profitable. That’s why so many capitalism proponents are reduced to simply pretending that ecocide isn’t a problem. Eco-consciousness and anti-capitalism go...
Some Worship At The Feet Of Roadkill
September 03, 2022 02:08 - 2 minutes - 1.97 MBSome worship at the feet of deities, at the feet of gurus, at the feet of dead prophets, at the feet of stone idols, in churches, in temples, in mosques, in Mecca. Others worship at the feet of roadkill, at the feet of the dead roo by the side of the freeway, at feet of the cat who crawled its way to the nature strip and died after being clipped by the wheel of a Toyota Camry. They worship at the feet of a stranger's eyes, at the feet of steamrolled wives, at the feet of circling birds in a...
Democrats Are Violent Extremists
September 02, 2022 04:15 - 5 minutes - 5.47 MBDemocrats calling Republicans extremists is like ISIS calling Al Qaeda extremists, only Democrats and Republicans have a much higher body count. Reading by Tim Foley.
It Is A Good Time To Appreciate The Insects
September 01, 2022 10:58 - 1 minute - 1.61 MBIt is a good time to appreciate the insects and functioning supply chains and normal weather and the fact that there are whales. It is a good time to appreciate our loved ones and tell people what they mean to us and throw ourselves into romance with wild abandon and be naked and vulnerable with someone who is gentle. It is a good time to live in continuous appreciation for the sun on our face for the birdsongs in our ears for a fresh cup of coffee for a child's laugh for a lover's touch fo...
Ukraine In The Membrane
September 01, 2022 02:22 - 5 minutes - 5.31 MBMake no mistake, the US is being entirely pragmatic in its Ukraine proxy war. It gets to shore up control over its European vassals, preoccupy Russia and bleed its coffers, expand its military, advance its information interests, and all it costs is a little pretend empire money. Reading by Tim Foley.
We're Being Trained To Worry About 'Russian Propaganda' While Drowning In US Propaganda
August 31, 2022 03:44 - 6 minutes - 6.33 MBOne of the weirdest, most insane things happening today is the way the entire western world is being trained to freak out about "Russian propaganda" — which barely exists in the west — while ignoring the fact that we are spending every day marinating in billions of dollars worth of US empire propaganda. Reading by Tim Foley.
Free Speech Doesn't Matter If Propagandists Determine What People Say
August 29, 2022 13:21 - 5 minutes - 4.97 MBNone are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. None are more hopelessly ignorant than those who falsely believe they're informed. None are more hopelessly propagandized than those who don't know they are propagandized. Reading by Tim Foley.
It's Gross To Live Under The US Empire And Spend Your Time Criticizing Other Governments
August 27, 2022 14:12 - 6 minutes - 6.1 MBAs I learn more and more about global power dynamics and interact with more and more people around the world responding to the things I have to say, I find myself growing more and more disdainful of those who live directly under the thumb of the US empire and yet spend their time criticizing unabsorbed governments like Russia and China. It's literally the most pathetic, snivelling, power-serving position anyone can possibly take at this point in history. Reading by Tim Foley.
Celebrating John McCain's Death Is Good, Actually
August 27, 2022 03:34 - 4 minutes - 4.49 MBThe reason it's good and important to celebrate the deaths of war sluts who facilitated mass military slaughter is because it helps bring clarity and proportionality to the horrors of war. You're making it clear that John McCain's victims matter more than his daughter's feelings. Reading by Tim Foley.
When Billionaires And The Government Work Together To Control Information
August 26, 2022 16:25 - 5 minutes - 4.91 MBFacebook restricted visibility of the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story in the lead-up to the 2020 election after receiving counsel from the FBI, according to Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Reading by Tim Foley.
US Invades Syria, Kills People, Claims Self-Defense
August 25, 2022 04:26 - 4 minutes - 4.54 MBNumerous Syrian and foreign militants have reportedly been killed and several US troops injured in an escalating exchange of attacks between the American invaders and the people in the country whose territory they are illegally occupying. Reading by Tim Foley.
Cultivate A Habit Of Small Acts Of Sedition
August 24, 2022 15:16 - 6 minutes - 6.16 MBWhat you can do as an individual is cultivate a habit of committing small acts of sedition. Making little paper cuts in the flesh of the beast which add up over time. You can't stop the machine by yourself, but you can sure as hell throw sand in its gears. Giving a receptive listener some information about what's going on in the world. Creating dissident media online. Graffiti with a powerful message. Amplifying an inconvenient voice. Sharing a disruptive message. Supporting an unauthorized ...
They Lie To Us
August 21, 2022 13:45 - 3 minutes - 2.99 MBThey lie to us all our lives about what soldiers do, about what cops do, about what journalists do, about what presidents do. They lie to us all our lives about how laws are made, about how kings are made, about how culture is made, about how norms are made. They lie to us all our lives about what our minds are for, about what our hearts are for, about what our neighbors are for, about what foreigners are for. The world is confusing and they make it more confusing, on purpose, because they...
They Demolished The Left And Burned The Blueprint
August 21, 2022 02:31 - 6 minutes - 5.86 MBThe empire's information war against the left has been so successful that people don't even know where "the left" is anymore. Most have it confused with things that are tangential like having pink hair and saying your pronouns, or outright right-wing like the Democratic Party. Convincing everyone that communism is bad and unions work against your interests was just the first step. The next step was to confuse and muddy the waters of the political landscape so much that nobody even remembers ...
"I'm Worried We're Becoming A Thought-Controlled Dystopia, Like China!"
August 20, 2022 03:38 - 2 minutes - 2.47 MBJohn: I'm worried about China. Jane: Oh yeah? What about it? John: Well more I'm worried about the example they're setting, and that western governments will start implementing their technocratic oppression style to turn us all into a bunch of brainwashed, homogeneous obedience machines. Jane: What makes you think Chinese people are all brainwashed and homogeneous? John: Oh my God, don't you watch the news? Have you not heard of their social credit score system? The state censorship and ...
If Everyone Is King Then No One Is
August 19, 2022 03:12 - 6 minutes - 5.69 MBWealth is meaningless if everyone is wealthy. Power is meaningless if everyone has power. The kings of our day have a vested interest in keeping everyone poor and powerless, because if everyone is king, then no one is king. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Human Species Is Acting Like A Self-Destructive Individual
August 17, 2022 14:09 - 9 minutes - 8.45 MBOur self-destructive species is acting just like a self-destructive individual: torn between the knowledge that we need to change and our inability to see within ourselves lucidly enough to actually make change happen. We're killing our biosphere, marching toward nuclear war, and playing along with status quo systems for the same reason someone uses heroin, hurts those they love, stays in an abusive relationship, or sabotages their goals: because we are driven to. Reading by Tim Foley.