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
We're Here To Become As Conscious As Possible
June 16, 2022 02:06 - 6 minutes - 5.85 MBIf there is a purpose of human life, as near as I can tell from these severely limited sense organs and this very limited brain, it's to become as conscious as possible. Reading by Tim Foley.
MBS Sullies Saudi Arabia's Good Name With Plans To Meet US President
June 15, 2022 02:02 - 5 minutes - 5.47 MBThe White House has officially confirmed reports that President Biden will indeed be visiting Saudi Arabia in contradiction of his campaign vows to make the nation a "pariah" for its human rights violations, and everyone's acting like visiting a murderous tyrant is somehow beneath the dignity of a US president. Reading by Tim Foley.
Biden's New Press Secretary Almost Calls Saudis A 'Regime'
June 14, 2022 13:24 - 6 minutes - 6.32 MBWhite House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre came very close to committing the cardinal sin of referring to a US-aligned nation as a "regime" on Monday. Reading by Tim Foley.
Our Real Enemies Are Not In Beijing Or Moscow
June 14, 2022 02:04 - 5 minutes - 4.71 MBMy enemies are not in Moscow or Beijing. My enemies are in Washington, Arlington, Langley, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. And so are yours. The only question is whether or not you realize it yet. Reading by Tim Foley.
The US Empire Acts Like A Textbook Manipulative Sociopath
June 12, 2022 03:34 - 7 minutes - 6.93 MBThe US-centralized empire is a giant macrocosm of this entire dynamic. It pours vast amounts of energy into narrative control in the form of propaganda, censorship, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, government secrecy, and the war on journalism. It weaves nonstop narratives about how great it is and how horrible its enemies are. And it fears being seen more than anything in the world. Reading by Tim Foley.
They Plan To Keep Repeating "Putin's Price Hike" Until People Believe It
June 11, 2022 02:08 - 6 minutes - 6.01 MBPresident Biden used the phrase "Putin's price hike" again in a reaction to Friday's Consumer Price Index report revealing continued high inflation, showing once again that the US government believes Americans are idiots. Reading by Tim Foley.
Study US Foreign Policy By Looking At Oil Reserves
June 10, 2022 00:56 - 6 minutes - 5.9 MBYou can learn more about US foreign policy from a casual glance at a list of the world's largest proven oil reserves than you can from a lifetime of consuming mainstream news media. Reading by Tim Foley.
Paul Mason Says Bellingcat Launders Information For Western Intelligence
June 09, 2022 03:11 - 7 minutes - 6.7 MBThe Grayzone has published leaked email communications between faux-left British commentator and aspiring parliamentarian Paul Mason and a shady intelligence contractor named Amil Khan which plainly shows the two plotting to use state power to subvert anti-imperialist media outlets like Consortium News and Grayzone, as well as "far left rogue academics" and the broader left more generally. There will probably be a lot written about these leaks in the coming days, but for now I'd like to focu...
You're Only As Free As You Allow Your World To Be
June 07, 2022 01:43 - 7 minutes - 6.87 MBThe more control you exert over your environment, the more your environment is destroyed. The more control you exert over your citizenry, the more likely they are to put someone else in charge at the earliest opportunity. The more control you exert over your employees, the more likely they are to want to go work someplace else. The more control you exert over your friends and coworkers, the more likely they are to turn against you. The more control you exert over your family, the more likely ...
Empire Managers Are Fucking Idiots
June 06, 2022 14:14 - 5 minutes - 4.94 MBA recent article in Politico's Lockheed Martin-sponsored National Security Daily newsletter featured a quote from an empire think tanker who argued that the tyranny of Saudi Arabia's murderous crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) can be tempered by sending him to seminars. Reading by Tim Foley.
Silicon Valley Corporations Are Taking Control Of History
June 06, 2022 03:17 - 5 minutes - 5.05 MBTwitter has imposed a weeklong suspension on the account of writer and political activist Danny Haiphong for a thread he made on the platform disputing the mainstream Tiananmen Square massacre narrative. The notification Haiphong received informed him that Twitter had locked his account for "Violating our rules against abuse and harassment," presumably in reference to a rule the platform put in place a year ago which prohibits "content that denies that mass murder or other mass casualty eve...
The US Empire Will Be Defeated By The US Empire
June 04, 2022 01:19 - 5 minutes - 4.83 MBWhatever ends up collapsing the US empire is far less likely to come from Russia or China than from the US empire itself. Reading by Tim Foley.
Biden's Visit To Saudi Arabia Exposes The Ukraine Narrative For The Sham It Is
June 03, 2022 01:35 - 5 minutes - 4.69 MBSo in order to punish Vladimir Putin for his war crimes and his assault on freedom and democracy, Biden will be courting a tyrannical war criminal whose country has no freedom or democracy. Washington will be ending its brief diplomatic dry spell with a government that has been waging a horrific war against Yemen while suppressing any semblance of human rights at home in order to more effectively punish Putin for waging a horrific war against Ukraine which we're told threatens freedom and de...
People Who Defend Empire Narratives Are Really Just Defending Their Worldview From Destruction
June 02, 2022 02:03 - 8 minutes - 7.34 MBMany of the people you'll run into online or in person who defend imperial narratives from your criticisms aren't doing so because they believe the US-centralized empire is awesome and great, they're doing so because it's much more comfortable than confronting the possibility that their entire worldview is made of lies. Reading by Tim Foley.
Ukrainian Official Behind Western Media Reports Of Russian Atrocities Fired By Ukrainian Parliament
June 01, 2022 01:33 - 3 minutes - 2.85 MBA Ukrainian government official frequently cited as a source by western news media for her allegations of atrocities committed by Russian troops has been fired by the Ukrainian parliament, in part because of the unevidenced nature of those claims. Reading by Tim Foley.
Empire Solves Ukraine's Nazi Problem With A Logo Change
May 31, 2022 01:40 - 7 minutes - 6.77 MBBritish empire smut rag The Times has a new article out titled "Azov Battalion drops neo-Nazi symbol exploited by Russian propagandists," which has got to be the most hilarious headline of 2022 so far (and I'm including The Onion and other intentionally funny headlines in the running). Reading by Tim Foley.
Ten Times Empire Managers Showed Us That They Want To Control Our Thoughts
May 29, 2022 14:49 - 17 minutes - 15.7 MBThe single most overlooked and under-appreciated aspect of our society is the fact that immensely powerful people are continuously working to manipulate the thoughts we think about the world. Whether you call it propaganda, psyops, perception management or public relations, it's a real thing that happens constantly, and it happens to all of us. And its consequences shape our entire world. Reading by Tim Foley.
Kayfabe Populism: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
May 28, 2022 23:07 - 6 minutes - 6.39 MBIt's so important that the public have no real say in US politics that the empire not only set up two oligarchic puppet parties which pretend to oppose each other, but also set up fake populist movements within each of those factions which pretend to be fighting the establishment within those parties. It's a very clever illusion that sucks up almost all real opposition. If you don't fall for the first kayfabe conflict and realize the game is rigged for the powerful, you can still end up buyi...
MSM Offers Rare Glimpse Into How Bad Things Are Really Going For Ukrainian Forces
May 27, 2022 13:12 - 6 minutes - 5.71 MBWhile everyone's focused on the latest mass shooting in the US, The Washington Post published what may be the first major acknowledgement from the mainstream western media that Ukraine's war against Russia has not been nearly the cakewalk they've been leading the public to believe. In a new article titled "Ukrainian volunteer fighters in the east feel abandoned," WaPo reports that contrary to the triumphant narratives the western world is being spoon fed, many troops in eastern Ukraine have ...
Has America Tried Bombing Its Mass Shooting Problem?
May 26, 2022 00:31 - 6 minutes - 5.56 MBThere's probably a correlation between the fact that the US is the only nation with a mass shooting epidemic and the fact that Americans are the most aggressively propagandized population on earth. If you took any armed population and psychologically pummelled them from birth with narratives about how mass military slaughter is fine while turning them into underpaid, alienated gear-turners and giving them an artificial culture mass-produced in Los Angeles, you'd probably see some mass shooti...
They're Just Outright Telling Us That Peace In Ukraine Is Not An Option
May 24, 2022 16:31 - 7 minutes - 6.93 MBUS Senator Joe Manchin said at the World Economic Forum on Monday that he opposes any kind of peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Manchin, who at the moment is one of the most powerful elected officials in Washington, added that only the complete forcible ejection of Russia from all of Ukraine is acceptable, that the war should ideally be used to remove Putin from power, and that he and the strategists he talks to see this war as an "opportunity". Reading by Tim Foley.
They're Worried About The Spread Of Information, Not Disinformation
May 23, 2022 14:57 - 5 minutes - 4.76 MBWe're in the final countdown to British Home Secretary Priti Patel's decision on the fate of Julian Assange, with the WikiLeaks founder's extradition to the United States due to be approved or rejected by the end of the month. Joe Lauria has a new article out with Consortium News on the various pressures that Patel is being faced with from both sides of this history-making issue at this crucial time. And I can't stop thinking, as this situation comes to a boil, about how absurd it is that th...
MSM Is Empire Fanfic For Children
May 23, 2022 01:31 - 6 minutes - 5.51 MBApril 2022: Zelensky speaks at the Grammy Awards May 2022: Zelensky speaks at Cannes Film Festival June 2022: Zelensky hosts SNL July 2022: Zelensky stars as himself in action biopic co-starring The Rock August 2022: Zelensky releases his own breakfast cereal and clothing line September 2022: Celebrities are flocking to the new Hollywood pop religion known as Zelenskyyology Reading by Tim Foley.
Western Media Run Blatant Atrocity Propaganda For The Ukrainian Government
May 21, 2022 12:55 - 10 minutes - 9.38 MBThe Ukrainian government is quickly learning that it can say anything, literally anything at all, about what's happening on the ground there and get it uncritically reported as an actual news story by the mainstream western press. The latest story making the rounds is a completely unevidenced claim made by a Ukrainian government official that Russians are going around raping Ukrainian babies to death. Business Insider, The Daily Beast, The Daily Mail and Yahoo News have all run this story de...
Twitter To Ramp Up Censorship Of 'Misinformation' About The Ukraine War
May 20, 2022 13:29 - 7 minutes - 7.19 MBTwitter has published what it calls a "crisis misinformation policy" announcing that it will be actively reducing the visibility of content found to be false which pertains to "situations of armed conflict, public health emergencies, and large-scale natural disasters." If you've been paying attention to the dramatic escalations in online censorship we've been seeing in 2022, it will not surprise you to learn that the Ukraine war is the first crisis to which this new censorship policy will be...
On Bush's Freudian Confession
May 19, 2022 12:05 - 5 minutes - 4.75 MBOh my God. It happened. I can't believe it really happened. During a speech in Dallas at Southern Methodist University’s George W Bush Presidential Center on Wednesday, the man himself, George W Bush, did the best thing ever. I am pretty sure it is the single best thing that has ever happened. I do not believe I am exaggerating when I say that. While criticizing Russia for having rigged elections and shutting out political opposition (which would already be hilarious coming from any America...
The TV Man Is Not Your Friend
May 19, 2022 00:59 - 5 minutes - 5.03 MBPeople who think Tucker Carlson is fighting the establishment are exactly the same as people who think "the Squad" is fighting the establishment. Exactly the same. Same people, slightly different bumper stickers. It's obvious that every member of the "populist right" who's now getting praise for being correct about Ukraine will function as virulent empire propagandists once the imperial crosshairs inevitably move from Moscow to Beijing. We know this because of their rhetoric about China toda...
We're Just A Confused Species In An Awkward Transition Phase
May 17, 2022 01:40 - 5 minutes - 5.26 MBReally, when it comes right down to it, things are a mess because humans are in a very awkward and confusing stage in our development as a species. Our giant brains evolved faster than we could adjust to, and now we're these scared little apex predators stumbling around the earth with massive prefrontal cortices overlaying a bunch of deep primordial conditioning. A rapidly developed capacity for language and abstract thought strapped on top of a fear response that our distant evolutionary an...
Pentagon-Funded Think Tank Simulates War With China On NBC
May 16, 2022 01:22 - 5 minutes - 4.78 MBNBC's Meet the Press just aired an absolutely freakish segment in which the influential narrative management firm Center for a New American Security (CNAS) ran war games simulating a direct US hot war with China. CNAS is funded by the Pentagon and by military-industrial complex corporations Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin, as well as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, which Antiwar's Dave DeCamp has described as the de facto US embassy in Taiwan. Readin...
Celebrities Are Such Scumbags Because They're Invested In The Status Quo
May 15, 2022 01:35 - 7 minutes - 6.73 MBCelebrities have been particularly odious empire sycophants these last few days, and it's probably worth taking a moment to reflect on what's going on when that happens. Reading by Tim Foley.
Israel's PR Problem, And Other Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
May 14, 2022 12:16 - 6 minutes - 5.56 MBPublic approval of the Israeli apartheid regime, like approval of the US police, has plummeted in direct proportion to the ubiquitousness of video cameras. In much the same way DNA testing vindicated prisoners who'd insisted on their innocence for years, a new technological development proved true what a marginalized population had been saying all along. Reading by Tim Foley.
"The Squad" Doesn't Exist Outside Of Social Media
May 13, 2022 14:31 - 6 minutes - 6.02 MBThe US House of Representatives has voted 368-57 to spend $40 billion on a world-threatening proxy war while ordinary Americans struggle to feed themselves and their children. All 57 "no" votes were Republicans. Every member of the small faction of progressive House Democrats popularly known as "The Squad" voted yes. The massive proxy war bill then went to the Senate, where it was stalled with scrutiny not from progressive superstar Bernie Sanders, but from Republican Rand Paul. This is be...
Fake Political Parties In A Fake Democracy
May 10, 2022 12:29 - 6 minutes - 6.06 MBAll the Democratic Party's actions make sense when you switch from thinking of it as a political party whose job is to enact the will of voters to thinking about it as a narrative control operation whose job is to prevent the local riff raff from tampering with the gears of a globe-spanning empire. Reading by Tim Foley.
The US Could've Prevented This War Just By Protecting Kyiv From Nazis
May 09, 2022 01:56 - 8 minutes - 7.82 MBAs we hydroplane toward the brink of nuclear armageddon while Bono and the Edge play U2 songs in Kyiv, it's probably worth taking a moment to highlight the fact that this entire war could have been avoided if the US had simply pledged military protection for Zelensky against the far right extremists who were threatening to lynch him if he enacted the peacemaking policies he was elected to enact. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-us-couldve...
Ukraine Alone Makes Biden The Worst US President In A Long Time
May 08, 2022 00:41 - 6 minutes - 5.98 MBAllowing the world to come this close to nuclear war already makes Biden the worst US president since Bush. At least. History may well show his to be the single most depraved presidency of all time. Preventing nuclear war is a US president's single most important job. It's so important you shouldn't even really have to talk about it, because it's so self-evidently the number one priority. And this administration is just rolling the dice on nuclear conflict with increasing frequency every day...
On Psychopathy, Power, Empire And Ego
May 06, 2022 01:29 - 8 minutes - 7.4 MBI've been watching The John Wayne Gacy Tapes on Netflix, which features previously unheard recordings of the serial killer known as "The Killer Clown" who murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men in the 1970s. I wasn't able to finish it because I don't have that kind of stomach, but what jumped out at me listening to him was the way he talked about how much he loved power and what an easy time he had manipulating his way up the ladders of political influence. Really makes you think ab...
Empire News Roundup: Latin American Sovereignty, Anatoliy Shariy And More
May 05, 2022 18:07 - 4 minutes - 4.46 MBMultipolarista's Ben Norton reports that Former Brazilian president Lula da Silva, who is still favored to beat Bolsonaro in the nation's election later this year, has announced plans to create a Latin American currency called the "Sur" (South) in order to "be freed of the dollar." Lula is also making headlines today for his position that presidents Zelensky and Putin are both equally to blame for the war in Ukraine, and that the US and EU also share blame for the conflict. This comes at the...
The Most Joe Biden Thing Ever
May 04, 2022 13:53 - 6 minutes - 6.34 MBJoe Biden doing a live infomercial for Javelin missiles while everyone who voted for him worries about women's reproductive rights is the most Joe Biden thing that has ever happened. Reading by Tim Foley.
A Weird, Stupid Dystopia
May 03, 2022 14:00 - 7 minutes - 6.54 MBThe last few days in the United States have seen a parade of wealthy freaks fellating each other's egos and preening for the cameras in outlandish garb while ordinary Americans suffer more and more. Reading by Tim Foley.
Western Civilization Is Being Organized Around Winning US Infowars
May 02, 2022 00:59 - 6 minutes - 5.5 MBI feel the need to reiterate once again that the censorship we're seeing about Ukraine is of a whole new kind than anything we've seen before. There's no pretense that it's done to save lives or protect democracy this time around, it's just "We need to control the thoughts that people think about this war." Once it was accepted that disinformation and misinformation must be curtailed from above, government and tech institutions took that as license to decide what's true and false on our beha...
Oh God It's Going To Get SO Much Worse
April 30, 2022 13:20 - 8 minutes - 7.65 MBRightists have spent the last couple of days freaking out and invoking Orwell's 1984 in response to something their political enemies are doing in America, and for once it's for a pretty good reason. The Department of Homeland Security has secretly set up a "Disinformation Governance Board", only informing the public about its plans for the institution after it had already been established. Reading by Tim Foley.
PayPal Blocks Multiple Alternative Media Figures Critical Of US Empire Narratives
April 29, 2022 01:41 - 6 minutes - 5.64 MBIn what appears to be yet another escalation in Silicon Valley's redoubled efforts to quash dissident voices since the beginning of the Ukraine war, PayPal has just blocked the accounts of multiple alternative media voices who've been speaking critically against official US empire narratives. These include journalist and speaker Caleb Maupin and Mnar Adley and Alan MacLeod of MintPress News. Reading by Tim Foley.
Siding With The US Empire Is Always Wrong
April 28, 2022 00:28 - 6 minutes - 6.07 MBIf you're on the side of the US empire on any issue you are on the wrong side. This doesn't mean the other side is always necessarily in the right, it just means a globe-spanning empire that's held together by lies, murder and tyranny will always be in the wrong. Yes, it is that simple. Reading by Tim Foley.
Everyone's Anti-War Until The War Propaganda Starts
April 27, 2022 01:09 - 6 minutes - 6.39 MBEveryone's anti-war until the war propaganda starts. Nobody thinks of themselves as a warmonger, but then the spin machine gets going and before you know it they're spouting the slogans they've been programmed to spout and waving the flags the flags they've been programmed to wave and consenting to whatever the imperial war machine wants in that moment. Virtually everyone will tell you they love peace and hate war when asked; war is the very worst thing in the world, and no healthy person re...
Billionaires Only Come To The Rescue In Movies And Comic Books
April 26, 2022 01:36 - 4 minutes - 4.06 MBYou don't get to be a billionaire, much less a billionaire with massively influential media ownership, unless you collaborate with existing power structures. Musk has certainly been collaborating with the oligarchic empire very nicely up until this point, and it's a safe bet that his purchase would not be happening if the empire felt its narrative control machine was in any way threatened by it. Believing Elon Musk is going to save Twitter is as naive as believing Joe Biden was going to save...
Please Use My Writings And Quotes With Or Without Attribution
April 23, 2022 11:27 - 5 minutes - 4.61 MBThis is just a quick article to remind everyone of my standing offer to please use my work however they like, and that it isn't necessary to attribute any words I've written to me if you don't want to. I think a reminder is due because lately I've been seeing more people take me up on this repeated offer on social media, with people sharing quotes I've made without putting my name on them or sharing screenshots of my Twitter posts but cropping my name off of them, and I want to make it clea...
CIA Torture Queen Now A Beauty And Life Coach
April 21, 2022 14:15 - 4 minutes - 4.55 MBThe news man tells me the CIA's "Queen of Torture" now runs a life and beauty coaching business which helps midlife women “look good, feel good, and do good.” "HI, I'M FREDA, A CERTIFIED BEAUTY AND LIFE COACH READY TO HELP YOU OWN YOUR BEAUTY FROM THE INSIDE OUT AND FEEL INVINCIBLE IN MIDLIFE," her website reads in all caps. And I can only sit here and wonder, twiddling my pockmarked heart in my hands, how one is meant to react to such information? Does one fall to one's knees and weep hot...
The US Cries About War Crimes While Imprisoning A Journalist For Exposing Its War Crimes
April 20, 2022 13:20 - 3 minutes - 3.44 MBThis is happening at the same time the United States and the United Kingdom are loudly demanding accountability for alleged war crimes by the Russian military in Ukraine, which is interesting because attempting to bring accountability for war crimes is precisely why Julian Assange is in prison. Reading by Tim Foley.
Hard To Swallow Pills
April 19, 2022 00:43 - 3 minutes - 3.05 MBYou were born in the middle of the most sophisticated and expansive mass-scale perception management operation that has ever taken place. The news media is propaganda and schooling is designed to condition us to accept that propaganda. Public understanding of what a normal moderate position looks like and what a radical extremist position looks like has been warped to the most insane extent possible. Noam Chomsky is not a radical and is in fact far too aligned with establishment power on f...
A Propaganda Campaign Wrapped In A Psyop
April 17, 2022 22:54 - 6 minutes - 5.6 MBIt's impossible to overstate how completely blanketed by propaganda distortion the Ukraine war is. US spooks saying they're leaking disinfo to the press, Ukrainian war propaganda, the blackout on Ukrainian losses, the uncritical media acceptance of allegations against Russia, etc. This war is a propaganda campaign wrapped in a psyop. Reading by Tim Foley