JOHNSTONE
1,117 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 3 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 99 ratingsReadings of all Caitlin Johnstone's articles, usually by her co-writer Tim Foley.
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Episodes
Luke Harding's Continued Employment Discredits All Western Media
July 16, 2021 00:22 - 4 minutes - 4.34 MBBut the most damning evidence of all against this claim is the fact that serial fabulist Luke Harding had anything to do with it. This is after all the same reporter who authored The Guardian's notorious 2018 claim that Trump crony Paul Manafort had meetings with Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, an evidence-free claim that was clearly false from the moment it was published and discredited even further by the fact that the Mueller investigation found no evidence for it. The same auth...
US Intervention Is Never, Ever, EVER The Solution
July 15, 2021 14:07 - 7 minutes - 6.7 MBPeople who believe US military intervention solves problems are as dumb as flat-earthers but infinitely more destructive. It is always disastrous and it never achieves what its proponents claim it will achieve. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/07/15/us-intervention-is-never-ever-ever-the-solution/
Our Rulers Have All The Power And None Of The Responsibility
July 14, 2021 13:18 - 6 minutes - 5.58 MBThey are living as kings on wealth they made by raping the planet we all live on, whose health we all depend on for survival, and because their mass media propaganda is so successful it hardly ever even occurs to anyone that they should have to pay for it. They take what they want and do as they please, at our expense, for free. They are spoiled little boys with flamethrowers. The people who are leading us to armageddon are hailed as charitable and industrious job creators. Rob a man for mon...
Freedom Is Not Free (That's Why You Don't Have Any)
July 13, 2021 11:41 - 4 minutes - 3.99 MBFreedom is not free. It takes billions of dollars worth of mass media propaganda to manufacture the illusion of freedom. Reading by Tim Foley.
Cuba, Space Billionaires, And Other Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
July 12, 2021 12:58 - 5 minutes - 5.37 MBWhen US blockades on Cuba cause suffering, the suffering proves that socialism doesn't work. When US-backed blockades on Yemen cause suffering, it's an unfortunate and tragic accident of nature. Reading by Tim Foley.
Sunday Funny Pages
July 11, 2021 12:51 - 6 minutes - 5.97 MBA military which can afford to spend trillions on a twenty-year war which accomplished literally nothing besides making horrible people wealthy is a military that needs its budget slashed to ribbons. Reading by Tim Foley. Article version: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/sunday-funny-pages-notes-from-the
Violent Extremists Took Over The US Capitol Long Before January 6
July 10, 2021 12:06 - 7 minutes - 6.68 MBBut perhaps the most annoying thing about all the melodramatic garment-rending over how close the US Capitol came to being taken over by violent extremists is that the US Capitol has been under the control of violent extremists for a very long time already. For all the fretting everyone has been doing about fascists and white supremacist groups, those are not the violent extremists posing the greatest threat and amassing the highest body count today. Neither are the communists. Neither are t...
The Problem With Yemen
July 09, 2021 11:50 - 5 minutes - 5.49 MBA big part of the problem with Yemen is that the photos of starving kids are too often captioned with "Ohh, look how sad" instead of "Your government is doing this on purpose." Reading by Tim Foley.
The Assange Case Isn't About National Security, It's About Narrative Control
July 08, 2021 12:40 - 5 minutes - 5.2 MBThe US government is not afraid that unauthorized publication of government secrets will lead to Americans being killed, it's afraid it will lead to their knowing the truth. The powerful understand that narrative control is everything, and that an entire globe-spanning empire depends on keeping the masses from having a lucid perception of what's really going on in the world. There is an unfathomable amount of power riding on their ability to continue doing this. Reading by Tim Foley. Article...
The Empire Depends On Psychological Compartmentalization
July 07, 2021 14:47 - 6 minutes - 6.17 MBCompartmentalizing is when we mentally separate information or experience from our existing understanding of ourselves and our world and kind of sweep it under the carpet so we don't experience cognitive dissonance anymore. We don't delete it; the information is still there to be accessed if we want to, but it's placed in a separate file and treated as though it exists in a parallel alternate reality. Compartmentalization sometimes comes into play when a wife discovers that her husband has b...
The Sociopaths Are Cocksure While Those With Empathy Are Full Of Doubt
July 06, 2021 16:27 - 8 minutes - 8.2 MBIn a 1933 essay lamenting the rise of Nazism in Germany, Bertrand Russell wrote: "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” Which is of course a dynamic that's still at play in the modern world; the Dunning-Kruger effect is a thing, and one need only to look at American presidents to see that there's little relationship between one's intelligence and how far they can rise if they get it in their heads th...
TYT, Jimmy Dore, And Other Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
July 06, 2021 01:05 - 7 minutes - 6.43 MBYou know what would've been a lot worse than a vile McCarthyite smear against an important antiwar journalist igniting an ugly war in online left media circles? A vile McCarthyite smear against an important antiwar journalist being tolerated by online left media circles. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/tyt-jimmy-dore-and-other-notes-from
Happy "Independence" Day
July 04, 2021 12:05 - 7 minutes - 7.27 MBToday America celebrates its hard-fought victory in its fight to free itself from the rule of British monarchs so it could be ruled by US oligarchs. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Horrifying Rise Of Total Mass Media Blackouts On Inconvenient News Stories
July 03, 2021 14:11 - 11 minutes - 10.8 MBThe way the mass media have begun simply ignoring major news stories that are inconvenient for the powerful, across not just some but all major news outlets, is extremely disturbing. It means any time there's an inconvenient revelation, mainstream news institutions will just pretend it doesn't exist. Seriously think about what this means for a moment. This is telling whistleblowers and investigative journalists that no matter how hard they work or how much danger they put themselves in to ge...
The System Isn't There To Protect Us From Criminals, It's To Protect Criminals From Us
July 01, 2021 11:33 - 6 minutes - 6.15 MBIraq war architect Donald Rumsfeld has died. Not in a prison cell in The Hague, not murdered by bombs or bullets, but peacefully in his home, surrounded by loved ones, a week and a half shy of his 89th birthday. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-system-isnt-there-to-protect
You Ordered Healthcare, You Got Airstrikes
June 30, 2021 11:15 - 7 minutes - 6.92 MBAmericans: healthcare please Biden: Sorry, did you say airstrikes on Iraq and Syria? Americans: no, healthcare Biden: Alright, you drive a hard bargain, but here are your airstrikes on Iraq and Syria. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Weird, Creepy Media Blackout On Recent Assange Revelations
June 29, 2021 13:24 - 6 minutes - 6.13 MBAs of this writing, it has been three days since the Icelandic newspaper Stundin broke the story that a key witness in the US government's case against Julian Assange had fabricated allegations against the WikiLeaks founder. And yet, somehow, Assange is still in prison. Weirder still, not one major western media outlet outside of Iceland has reported on this massive and entirely legitimate news story. A search brings up coverage by Icelandic media, by Russian media, and by smaller western o...
US Again Bombs Nations On Other Side Of The World In "Self - Defense"
June 28, 2021 02:03 - 4 minutes - 4.54 MBThe US is again illegally bombing nations on the other side of the planet which it has invaded and occupied and branded this murderous aggression as "defensive". "At President Biden's direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region," reads a statement by Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby. "The targets were selected because these facilities are utilized by Iran...
Assange Prosecution Relied On False Testimony From A Diagnosed Sociopath And Convicted Pedophile
June 27, 2021 14:06 - 6 minutes - 6 MBThe Icelandic newspaper Stundin reports that a key witness in the US prosecution of Julian Assange has admitted in an interview with the outlet that he fabricated critical accusations in the indictment against the WikiLeaks founder. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/assange-prosecution-relied-on-false
Into The Unprecedented
June 25, 2021 12:12 - 5 minutes - 5.14 MB"Look at her, just staring at her phone like a zombie," the middle-aged woman said in a loud stage whisper which was clearly intended to be heard. "She's sitting in an art museum, right in front of a genuine Monet, and she's staring at her phone," said her husband, not even bothering to whisper. "Guarantee you if someone had shown Monet an iPhone while he was painting that piece of shit he woulda dropped his brush and forgotten all about it," said the girl without looking up. Reading by Ti...
The Right And Wrong Lessons From Afghanistan
June 24, 2021 12:19 - 8 minutes - 7.62 MBThe correct lesson from Afghanistan instantly beginning to revert back to Taliban control the moment the western occupation ends is not that the occupation needs to continue, it's that it should never have happened in the first place. "Oh no, bad things are happening because we're leaving!" No, bad things are happening because you went in. You spent two decades hammering that poor nation with bombs and war crimes, and now they're just going right back to where they were before you inflicted ...
'Rules-Based International Order' Means Washington-Based International Order
June 23, 2021 13:55 - 5 minutes - 5.14 MBThe 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 i...
So Much Of What The CIA Used To Do Covertly It Now Does Overtly
June 22, 2021 11:20 - 8 minutes - 7.77 MBSoon 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
Humanity Is Sloppily, Awkwardly Lumbering Toward Consciousness
June 21, 2021 11:49 - 7 minutes - 6.49 MBThere 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. Re...
The Left Isn't Failing, It's Being Sabotaged
June 20, 2021 12:06 - 9 minutes - 8.42 MBIn 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...
Who Wants To Hear My Crazy, Kooky Conspiracy Theory About 1/6?
June 19, 2021 11:44 - 7 minutes - 6.93 MB"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 sou...
The Emperor Has No Authority
June 18, 2021 11:59 - 5 minutes - 5.34 MBIt'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...
America's Soup-Brained President Says The US Never Interferes In Other Countries' Elections
June 17, 2021 01:02 - 5 minutes - 5.14 MBThe 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 interf...
Political Partisanship Is A Propaganda Lubricant
June 16, 2021 13:50 - 8 minutes - 7.58 MBThe 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 i...
The Fucking President Has Fucking Dementia
June 15, 2021 12:53 - 6 minutes - 5.84 MBThe 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 corpor...
New Song Demo: "Alien"
June 14, 2021 09:58 - 3 minutes - 3.52 MBThis 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 Difference Between Totalitarian Regimes And Free Democracies
June 13, 2021 13:29 - 6 minutes - 5.73 MBIn totalitarian regimes they have massacres and wars. In free democracies they have humanitarian interventions. In totalitarian regimes they use torture. In free democracies they use enhanced interrogation techniques. In totalitarian regimes they fund terrorist groups to create instability. In free democracies they fund terrorist groups to create stability. In totalitarian regimes evil dictators bomb their own people. In free democracies we do it for them. In totalitarian regimes a single...
Media Flipping 180° On UFOs At Pentagon's Directive Says More About Media Than UFOs
June 12, 2021 13:24 - 8 minutes - 8.22 MBThese unprincipled propagandists are falling all over themselves to dismantle taboos which they've been unquestioningly upholding and enforcing for decades, really for no other reason than because they were told to by the US military. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/media-flipping-180-on-ufos-at-pentagons
The Lie That A Kinder, Gentler US Empire Is Possible
June 11, 2021 12:05 - 7 minutes - 6.66 MBMinnesota Representative Ilhan Omar has once again been the center of an artificial controversy launched in bad faith over a tweet where she mentioned the United States and Israel in the same breath as Hamas and the Taliban as perpetrators of "unthinkable atrocities". "We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban," Omar said while sha...
Poverty Is A Weapon Of The Powerful
June 10, 2021 13:07 - 9 minutes - 8.37 MBPoverty itself is a weapon of the powerful. Keep people too poor to fund political campaigns and you keep them powerless. Keep them too busy to research and they can't see through your propaganda. Keep them desperate and you can get them hating each other instead of hating you. They're not just robbing ordinary people so they can have more for themselves; the poverty itself actually benefits them. They would benefit from keeping you poor even if it gave them nothing else. It is not a coincid...
Fermi's Other Paradox
June 09, 2021 12:30 - 19 minutes - 17.7 MBIn the summer of 1950, four nuclear physicists were walking to lunch from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Their names were Emil Konopinski, Herbert York, Edward Teller, and Enrico Fermi. One of them was not human. Reading by Tim Foley.
Tom Cotton Explains Why Warmongers Love The Wuhan Lab Leak Theory
June 08, 2021 13:09 - 9 minutes - 8.72 MBAt a recent appearance on Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton took a break from masturbating to drone bombing footage to explain what it is he and his fellow psychopathic warmongers love so much about the hypothesis that Covid-19 originated in a Chinese laboratory. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/tom-cotton-explains-why-warmongers
Mainstream Politics Offer Pretend Revolutions To A Discontented Public
June 07, 2021 12:10 - 9 minutes - 8.28 MBAnd that's all mainstream electoral politics ever is in the US empire: a fake, decoy revolution staged for the public every few years so that they don't have a real one. A symbolic ceremony where the public pretends to cast the abusive status quo into the sea so they feel like the battle against their oppressors has been won. And then their oppressors just keep right on oppressing them. Every few years the public gets to choose between two reliable lackeys of the oligarchic empire, and then ...
Media Converges On The Narrative That UFOs May Be Russian/Chinese Threat
June 06, 2021 01:08 - 7 minutes - 6.75 MBSo in case you haven't been keeping up it's been pretty thoroughly confirmed that the US government's highly anticipated UFO report due this month won't contain any significant revelations and certainly won't verify anyone's ideas about these phenomena being extraterrestrial in origin, but it absolutely will contain fearmongering that UFOs could be evidence that the US has fallen dangerously behind Russian and Chinese technological development in the cold war arms race. Reading by Tim Foley....
Divide And Brainwash: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
June 05, 2021 12:27 - 7 minutes - 6.85 MBThe imperialist oligarchy deliberately keeps the public poor, busy and confused and then directs their resulting anger toward Russia, China, immigrants, and people from the other political party. Our anger at each other protects them from our anger landing where it belongs. Reading by Tim Foley. Article version: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/divide-and-brainwash-notes-from-the
MSM Wastes No Time Using Senate UFO Report To Promote Arms Race
June 04, 2021 12:11 - 7 minutes - 6.45 MBThe New York Times has published an article on the contents of the hotly anticipated US government report on UFOs, as per usual based on statements of anonymous officials, and as per usual promoting narratives that are convenient for imperialists and war profiteers. Together with one voice, the anonymous US officials and the "paper of record" which is supposed to scrutinize US officials assure us definitively that the mysterious aerial phenomena that have reportedly been witnessed by militar...
Eight Thoughts On The "UFO" Narrative
June 03, 2021 13:29 - 5 minutes - 5.42 MBThere's no getting around talking about this UFO stuff. The fact that it's a story is itself a major story. There's no point in trying to look cool by ignoring it, especially given its potentially huge implications in propaganda narratives and the expansion of the US war machine. Nothing with this much public interest that is also being pushed by the Washington political establishment, by military insiders and by the mass media in cooperation with the Pentagon is likely to go away anytime soo...
A Truly Free Society Would Have No Official Narratives
June 02, 2021 13:15 - 7 minutes - 7.09 MBIn a truly free society, there would be no Official Narratives. There wouldn't be any monolithic authority construct deciding what's true and marginalizing, censoring and smearing anyone who said something different. There'd just be raw information and a bunch of humans arguing their opinion, and people would take all that and form their own beliefs, and that would just be accepted and allowed. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/a-t...
Drivers Of The New UFO Narrative Keep Absurdly Saying They Could Be Dangerous ETs
June 02, 2021 02:27 - 8 minutes - 8.04 MBThe idea that a civilization could attain a level of advancement comparable to ours, successfully learn to share resources and collaborate enough to avoid wiping itself out, continue maturing for a very long time, master interstellar, intergalactic, and/or interdimensional travel, create aircraft that can operate in the way people who encounter them describe, and then fly across the universe to go kill a bunch of barely-evolved primates for some reason is just absurd on its face, and even if ...
US Troops Die For World Domination, Not Freedom
May 31, 2021 11:52 - 8 minutes - 7.6 MBThis is all US troops have been fighting and dying for since the Berlin Wall came down. Not "freedom", not "democracy", and certainly not the American people. Just continual uncontested domination of this planet at all cost: domination of its resources, its trade routes, its seas, its air, and its humans, no matter how many lives need to risked and snuffed out in order to achieve it. The US has killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century in the reckless ...
The Screams Of A Dying Empire
May 30, 2021 11:56 - 6 minutes - 5.54 MBAna Kasparian's Young Turks tantrum about Aaron Maté was the screams of a dying empire. Some want to dismantle the imperial slaughter machine and create a harmonious world; others just want the imperial slaughter machine to give them healthcare. These are two entirely different positions. It's not strange that these factions feud—it would be strange if they didn't. US progressives who smear The Grayzone and other anti-imperialist media never have any other equally anti-imperialist media tha...
Israel Narrative Management Is Getting Incredibly Desperate And Brazen
May 29, 2021 12:18 - 8 minutes - 7.34 MBSupporters of Israeli apartheid and mass murder are losing control of the narrative, which has led to redoubled perception management efforts ranging from the cringey to the iron-fisted. In the former category we're seeing them pen entire articles attacking Seth Rogen for tweeting a fart emoji at virulent Israel apologist Eve Barlow and claiming that putting "fart" in Barlow's name is the same as a literal pogrom. In the latter category they're blowing up entire press offices and arresting Pa...
Australia Is A Giant US Military Base With Kangaroos
May 28, 2021 11:04 - 7 minutes - 6.93 MBEveryone around the world should criticize the US empire constantly and without apology. Nobody anywhere ever needs to justify or defend criticizing the most powerful, destructive and influential government on earth. It's always right to criticize America, in any way you choose. Reading by Tim Foley. Article: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/05/28/australia-is-a-giant-us-military-base-with-kangaroos-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
How To Sabotage The Pro-Palestine Movement
May 27, 2021 11:29 - 10 minutes - 9.31 MBIf I were an imperial narrative manager trying to help regain control of the Israel narrative, I would employ such validate-and-divert tactics. I would not try to dismiss people's concerns about the oppression and murder of Palestinians, I would validate those concerns. I would get on their side. I would insert myself into the conversation by condemning Israeli apartheid abuses and calling for Palestinian freedom. And then, once I was a part of the conversation, I would begin working to make ...
The US Empire Is A Self - Reinforcing Trauma Factory
May 26, 2021 13:14 - 9 minutes - 8.33 MBThe status quo of the US empire guarantees that there will always be new offenders to imprison, new extremists to bomb, new justifications for blockades, sanctions and apartheid oppression. Every aspect of it creates traumatized people, whose resultant behavior is then cited to justify the existence of the power structure which caused their trauma in the first place. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links and sources: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-us-empire-is-a-self-reinforcing