JOHNSTONE
1,117 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 99 ratingsReadings of all Caitlin Johnstone's articles, usually by her co-writer Tim Foley.
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Episodes
If You Buy Into The Anti-China Propaganda You're Just A Stupid Asshole
October 06, 2023 02:09 - 5 minutes - 5.29 MBI can't say enough unkind words about people who are buying into the obvious anti-China propaganda push. We've seen them do this so many times to so many countries by now, if you still fall for it at this point you're just a stupid asshole who deserves to have their feelings hurt. All out of patience for this bullshit. Reading by Tim Foley.
Journalism Itself Is Locked Up In Belmarsh
October 05, 2023 11:02 - 3 minutes - 3.41 MBAs the 17th anniversary of the creation of WikiLeaks passes us by, it's probably worth taking a moment to reflect on Julian Assange and what his persecution means for us and our society. Reading by Tim Foley.
Relish The Gaps
October 05, 2023 01:31 - 4 minutes - 4.37 MB"Relish the gaps," said the old woman at the nursing home, grabbing at my hand as I walked past. "I'm sorry… do you need your nurse?" I said, reluctantly giving her my hand to hold. Her bones felt frail. I wasn't there to see her. I didn't know this woman. "Everyone lets life pass them by," she said urgently, ignoring my obvious discomfort. "They're always focused on attaining and accomplishing, meeting their goals, winning people's approval. Then before they know it they're sitting in a...
American State Propaganda: A Thought Experiment
October 04, 2023 13:07 - 6 minutes - 5.88 MBThe New York Times has published another CIA press release disguised as news, this time aimed at whipping up paranoia toward anyone who criticizes the US proxy war in Ukraine. Reading by Tim Foley.
When Even The Nazis Aren't Nazis
October 04, 2023 01:29 - 5 minutes - 5.35 MBLast year liberals were calling their political opponents Nazis and comparing Putin to Hitler. This year they're defending Nazis and saying you can't hate someone just because he swore allegiance to Hitler. Reading by Tim Foley.
This Proxy War Can't Be Both 'Unprovoked' AND A Great Strategic Investment
October 03, 2023 12:11 - 7 minutes - 7.24 MBAs opposition to funding the US proxy war in Ukraine increases on Capitol Hill, empire apologists have been frantically churning out think pieces about how much the war serves US strategic interests in order to manufacture support for its continued backing by Washington. Such arguments flatly contradict the propaganda messaging we were inundated with at the beginning of the war that this was an "unprovoked invasion", but empire managers don't seem particularly interested in defending that nar...
In Support Of The Policy Of Deterrence
October 02, 2023 02:00 - 3 minutes - 2.9 MB"That's why I propose that the People's Liberation Army should begin militarily encircling the continental United States with Chinese war machinery as quickly as possible, in order to deter future US aggression around the world." Reading by Tim Foley.
The Mad Propaganda Push To Normalize War Profiteering In Ukraine
October 01, 2023 02:39 - 6 minutes - 5.65 MBThere's been an astonishingly brazen propaganda push to normalize war profiteering in Ukraine as Kyiv coordinates with the arms industry and western governments to convert the war-ravaged nation into a major domestic weapons manufacturer, thereby turning Ukrainians into proxies of the military industrial complex as well as the Pentagon. Reading by Tim Foley.
Modern Empire Apologia Is Mostly Just Westerners Arguing With Reality
September 30, 2023 02:43 - 5 minutes - 4.62 MBThat's the main tool in the empire apologist's toolbox these days: arguing with reality. If you point out the reality of where people are at in Moscow and Beijing with regard to western provocations on their nations' borders, their only answer is to say "Yeah well that's not how things should be so we're going to keep doing what we're doing." It's like being warned that you'll get punched if you keep yelling ethnic slurs in public but doing it anyway because you believe people should respect...
People Are Dying For Inches In Ukraine, The "World's Largest Arms Fair"
September 29, 2023 03:04 - 5 minutes - 4.63 MBThere's a heartbreaking graphic going around right now showing the almost microscopic changes that have occurred to the frontline of the war in Ukraine this year despite nonstop death and destruction of unfathomable horror the entire time. Reading by Tim Foley.
The News Has Nothing To Do With Newsworthiness
September 28, 2023 12:17 - 4 minutes - 4.29 MBI don't mention it often but I actually have a degree in journalism. I graduated with distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2003, and while it would be another 13 years before I'd ever put my degree to any use, the experience played a massive role in forming my opinions about the mainstream press. Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.
Unprecedented Times Call For Unprecedented Measures
September 27, 2023 02:26 - 5 minutes - 5.17 MBSo while I am talking about a future civilization that sounds utopian, I am also talking about the only kind of future civilization that can possibly exist. If there are future generations, they will necessarily be living in a society that functions in a completely different way than our current one does. Reading by Tim Foley.
Bill Kristol's Refreshingly Honest Ukraine War Ad
September 25, 2023 00:10 - 6 minutes - 6.35 MBThe Bill Kristol-led group "Republicans for Ukraine" has released a TV ad to help drum up GOP support for Washington's proxy war against Russia, and it's surprisingly honest about what this war is really about: advancing US strategic interests using Ukrainians as sacrificial pawns. Reading by Tim Foley.
This War Wasn't Just Provoked - It Was Provoked Deliberately
September 24, 2023 02:42 - 5 minutes - 5.49 MBSo while we members of the public were blindly speculating about whether or not Russia would attack Ukraine, the US intelligence cartel was fully aware that the US was taking actions ensuring that that would happen. That's the environment the US security state knew it was operating under when it continued to taunt the idea of adding Ukraine and Georgia to NATO right up until the final moments before the invasion. Reading by Tim Foley.
We're Being Prepped For The Ukraine War To Last Into The 2030s
September 23, 2023 02:54 - 6 minutes - 5.97 MBWestern officials and media pundits are now directly acknowledging that Ukraine's much-touted "spring counteroffensive" has been a catastrophic failure, but rather than seeing this as a reason to reconsider the mainstream political consensus on this war, they are instead telling everyone that the counteroffensive's failure means we must commit to the status quo of bloodshed and nuclear brinkmanship for years to come. Reading by Tim Foley.
Okinawa Disproves The US Narrative About Overseas Bases
September 22, 2023 02:27 - 8 minutes - 7.58 MBWhenever I talk about the rapidly increasing number of US military bases and operations surrounding China I get empire simps telling me "But the people in those countries WANT us there!" Okinawa shows it's always been a nonconsensual relationship disguised as a consensual one. Reading by Tim Foley.
War Profiteers Are A Sign Of A Profoundly Sick Society
September 20, 2023 12:13 - 6 minutes - 5.79 MB"War is good for business." So reads a quote from an arms industry executive in a recent Reuters article titled "At London arms fair, global war fears are good for business" about Europe's biggest arms show, the biennial Defence and Security Equipment International. You will probably be unsurprised to learn that Reuters does not name the war profiteer whose quote inspired their headline. Reading by Tim Foley.
On The Idiotic Notion That It's Brave To Support Nuclear Brinkmanship In Ukraine
September 20, 2023 00:40 - 5 minutes - 4.95 MBDuring a Sunday appearance on Face the Nation to plug his new Zelensky movie, actor Sean Penn decried the "cowardice" of the US government in its caution around provoking a nuclear exchange with its proxy warfare in Ukraine. Reading by Tim Foley.
On Escalation, De-Escalation, And "Deterrence"
September 19, 2023 00:19 - 4 minutes - 4.2 MBA very confused and distressed young man wandered into our home on Sunday and began acting erratically. He was clearly suffering from a severe mental illness, probably schizophrenia, and from his nice clothes yet disheveled appearance I'm guessing he had a home somewhere but had been on the street for a few days. Reading by Tim Foley.
It's Hard To Find Fulfillment In A Civilization That Revolves Around Corporate Profits
September 17, 2023 14:59 - 6 minutes - 5.74 MBIt's so hard to live as an authentic human being in a civilization whose every molecule is wrapped around something as vapid and soulless as corporate profits. It's what most of us pour most of our life force into. Most people work all day generating corporate profits to pay bills that go toward corporate profits and pay off loans from giant banks for their corporate profits or rent from real estate giants for their corporate profits. Then they come home, eat some products from giant megacor...
We Must Never Let Ourselves Become Desensitized To This
September 17, 2023 01:40 - 4 minutes - 3.79 MBWe must never let ourselves become desensitized to this. To any part of this. We must never cease appreciating the sun on our skin and the wind in our hair, and we must never cease being shocked by the fact that there are people whose entire job is to push for more war. We must never lose our sense of wonder at the birds in the air, and we must never lose our sense of horror at the fact that there are people who profit from war and militarism and lobby for more of it at every opportunity. Re...
Barack Obama Belongs In A Fucking Cage
September 16, 2023 12:27 - 9 minutes - 8.27 MBThe Twitter account of America's 44th president just casually shared some links to organizations providing relief to the victims of the terrible flooding in Libya, which as of this writing has already killed thousands of people. And that would of course be a fine and normal thing for America's 44th president to do - had America's 44th president not personally played a massive role in paving the way to the devastation we're seeing in Libya today. Reading by Tim Foley.
Crazy, Unrealistic People Vs Rational, Realistic People
September 16, 2023 03:27 - 3 minutes - 3.32 MBCrazy, unrealistic people believe all our systems are rigged for the benefit of the rich and powerful. Rational, realistic people believe all our systems happen to benefit the rich and powerful by pure coincidence. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Most Wall Street Journal Op-Ed In The History Of Wall Street Journal Op-Eds
September 15, 2023 02:07 - 5 minutes - 4.82 MBThe Wall Street Journal put an article out a few days back titled "In Defense of the Defense Industry" and subtitled "Populists of the right and left attack U.S. companies that make weapons. Who do they think protects us?" And it's exactly what it sounds like: the author defending war profiteers like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin from critics of the military industrial complex. Reading by Tim Foley.
The US Air Force Is Clearing Out Jungles In The Pacific To Prepare For War With China
September 14, 2023 02:39 - 3 minutes - 2.95 MBThe US Air Force is clearing out jungles in the Pacific and replacing them with airfields for its coming war with China, because there exist people on this earth who look at a jungle and think, "This should be replaced with an airfield to prepare for a war with China." Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.
Putin Doesn't Think US Foreign Policy Will Change If Trump Is Re-Elected (And He's Probably Right)
September 13, 2023 13:25 - 4 minutes - 4.33 MBVladimir Putin said at the Eastern Economic Forum on Tuesday that he wouldn't expect any meaningful changes in US policy toward Russia if former president Donald Trump secures re-election next year. Reading by Tim Foley.
Wealthy Capitalist Accidentally Makes Great Argument For Revolution
September 13, 2023 02:22 - 5 minutes - 5.43 MBRecent comments from a wealthy Australian property developer named Tim Gurner are going viral on social media right now for the unusual frankness with which he discusses the inherent conflicts of interest between the working class and employers, saying workers who've grown lazy and arrogant during Covid need to experience economic pain in the form of unemployment to rein them in and put them in their place. Reading by Tim Foley.
Rabbit Holes And Men Behind Curtains
September 12, 2023 13:08 - 6 minutes - 6.01 MBYou dive down rabbit hole after rabbit hole, searching for the man behind the curtain. You've seen enough to be convinced that everything you've been taught about the world is false, and now it's just a matter of finding out who's really responsible for making such a mess of things. Reading by Tim Foley.
If The US Really Was What It Pretends To Be
September 11, 2023 23:55 - 5 minutes - 4.87 MBThe world would be a much more healthy and harmonious place if the US really was the peace-loving, tyranny-opposing democracy that it and all its propaganda systems frame it as. But because the US government is actually the most tyrannical regime on earth and values nothing apart from its own ability to dominate as many members of the human species as possible, we live in a world of far greater peril and abuse than we otherwise would. Reading by Tim Foley.
Blinken: US Does Not Oppose Ukrainian Attacks Inside Russia With US-Supplied Missiles
September 11, 2023 12:50 - 9 minutes - 8.41 MBDuring an appearance on ABC's This Week with Jonathan Karl, Secretary of State Tony Blinken explicitly said that the US would not oppose Ukraine using US-supplied longer-range missiles to attack deep inside Russian territory, a move that Moscow has previously called a "red line" which would make the United States a direct party to the conflict. Reading by Tim Foley.
Laws Don't Exist To Prevent Wrongdoing
September 11, 2023 02:13 - 7 minutes - 7.03 MBPart of growing up is learning that laws do not exist to prevent wrongdoing, they exist to keep society moving in an orderly way for the benefit of the world's worst perpetrators of wrongdoing. None of the world's worst people are in prison. Most of them are quite wealthy and respected, because they benefit from the abusive status quo that laws are set up to protect. Reading by Tim Foley.
Pay Attention To The Everyday Horrors
September 10, 2023 01:00 - 5 minutes - 5.13 MBThey make up fictional horrors because they don't want you looking at the real ones. They don't want you looking at the suffering of the homeless on the street. At the working poor flailing in endless toil unable to get their heads above water and relax for a minute. At the families in nations like Venezuela, Syria, North Korea and Iran struggling to obtain food and medicine because of imperial economic warfare. At the emaciated bodies of Yemeni children. At the shredded corpses of drone bomb...
NATO Chief Openly Admits Russia Invaded Ukraine Because Of NATO Expansion
September 09, 2023 01:22 - 7 minutes - 6.71 MBDuring a speech at the EU Parliament's foreign affairs committee on Thursday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg clearly and repeatedly acknowledged that Putin made the decision to invade Ukraine because of fears of NATO expansionism. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Real Obama Scandal Is That He Destroyed Multiple Nations
September 08, 2023 01:50 - 5 minutes - 5.03 MBHoly shit did you guys hear the news about Obama? Turns out this nasty freak destroyed Libya, signed off on the destruction of Yemen, armed terrorists with the goal of destroying Syria, set the stage for the Ukraine war, and jailed more whistleblowers than any other president! Reading by Tim Foley.
If Everyone Understood That The US Deliberately Provoked This War
September 07, 2023 13:03 - 5 minutes - 5.43 MBThe worst thing that could possibly happen to the information interests of the US empire would be for a critical mass of people to become aware that all this death and destruction in Ukraine could have been avoided by the US-centralized empire behaving less aggressively on Russia's doorstep, and that those aggressions were instead increased with the goal of advancing US strategic interests on the world stage. Reading by Tim Foley.
Revisiting John Pilger's 2016 Warnings About US Warmongering Against Russia And China
September 06, 2023 13:27 - 6 minutes - 5.59 MBIn March of 2016 the renowned Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger published an article titled "A world war has begun. Break the silence." which urgently warned of the US empire's aggressive escalations against Russia and China. Re-reading parts of it in 2023 is like watching someone placing flags next to recently planted seeds that would eventually grow into the towering problems our world now faces. Reading by Tim Foley.
Think Tanks Are Information Laundering Ops For War Profiteers
September 06, 2023 01:56 - 6 minutes - 6.2 MBThe British billionaire-owned newspaper The Telegraph has an appalling new article out which reads like a paid advertisement for a missile manufactured by Lockheed Martin. The title even sounds like it was written by a marketing team: "A war-winning swarm missile will knock China out of Taiwan - fast", subtitled "Rapid Dragon is a military gamechanger that provides the US Air Force with a crucial edge in the Pacific". Reading by Tim Foley.
Vivek Ramaswamy Is Just Another Disgusting Warmonger
September 05, 2023 12:25 - 9 minutes - 9.02 MBI'm seeing Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy building up a lot of credibility in some antiwar circles, which is ridiculous because he's clearly just another disgusting warmonger. He is not meaningfully different from all the other warmongers in the DC swamp. Reading by Tim Foley.
Access Journalism At Its Most Pernicious
September 05, 2023 02:04 - 5 minutes - 5.37 MBModern western national security journalism is mostly just writing what a government official tells you to write and then calling it a "scoop" which you got from a nameless "source" in the government. Reading by Tim Foley.
The More Inner Work You Do, The More You See How Humanity Is Dominated By Narrative
September 04, 2023 02:08 - 7 minutes - 6.98 MBThe more inner work you do and the more awareness you bring to your own inner processes, the more you understand how thoroughly human consciousness is dominated by mental narrative. And the more you understand how thoroughly human consciousness is dominated by mental narrative, the more acutely aware you become of how much power someone could gain over other humans by controlling those narratives. Reading by Tim Foley.
US Officials Keep Boasting About How Much The Ukraine War Serves US Interests
September 03, 2023 01:58 - 6 minutes - 5.9 MBOne of the most glaring plot holes in the official mainstream narrative on Ukraine is the way US officials keep openly boasting that this supposedly unprovoked war which the US is only backing out of the goodness of its heart just so happens to serve US interests tremendously. Reading by Tim Foley.
Opposing The Empire Means Widening Our Circles Of Compassion
August 31, 2023 01:37 - 4 minutes - 3.71 MBIn trying to get people to care about warmongering and imperialism what we're really trying to do is get people to widen their circle of compassion to the furthest extent possible. To extend their care for the people around them to include caring about violence and abuse against people even on the other side of the world. Reading by Tim Foley.
Mitch McConnell's Brief Flash Of Humanity
August 31, 2023 00:05 - 4 minutes - 3.78 MBMitch McConnell just froze up in public again, the second such incident in the last few weeks. He just stood there silently - a gentle, childlike smile flickering across his face, probably for the first time since the Truman administration. Reading by Tim Foley.
Even The Bald Eagle's Call Is Propaganda
August 30, 2023 01:59 - 4 minutes - 4.33 MBThe most distinctly American fact you will ever learn is that the piercing cry you associate with the bald eagle is actually a Hollywood invention. The long, powerful cry you likely heard in your mind's ear when asked to imagine the call of a bald eagle is actually the call of a red-tailed hawk, whose voice Hollywood studios have been dubbing over footage of bald eagles for generations. You simply cannot fit more America into a unit of information than this. The symbol of the nation which si...
Always Opposing Past Wars But Never The Present One
August 29, 2023 11:58 - 6 minutes - 5.83 MBA lot of empire sycophancy hides behind the fact that it's always permissible to retrospectively oppose US wars that already happened, but not the current one. It's permitted now to say the destruction of Vietnam and Iraq and Libya were mistakes, for example, but if you said it at the time people would treat you like a monster and call you all kinds of names. And it's important to understand that this is still happening today. One day it will be permissible to say in mainstream circles that ...
Only Idiots Believe The US Is Protecting Australia From China
August 29, 2023 00:27 - 7 minutes - 6.86 MBThis artificially manipulated information ecosystem has made Australians so pants-on-head idiotic that they think the US empire is filling their country up with war machinery because it loves them and wants to protect them from the Chinese. That's as stupid as it gets. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Last Time A Foreign Military Threat Was Placed Near The US Border, The World Almost Ended
August 27, 2023 13:06 - 5 minutes - 5.45 MBTo demand that Russia and China tolerate foreign activities on their borders that the US would never even think about tolerating on its own borders is just demanding that the entire world lie down and submit to being ruled by Washington. It's American supremacism at its worst. Reading by Tim Foley.
Abnormalize The Empire
August 27, 2023 02:30 - 5 minutes - 5.35 MBThe primary job of both Hollywood and the mainstream western press is to is to put a friendly, normal-looking face on a globe-spanning empire which dominates the world using nonstop violence and coercion. Their job is to continually normalize freakish tyranny. And if their job is to normalize the empire, then our job is to abnormalize it. Reading by Tim Foley.
30 Signs You Might Be An Empire Simp
August 26, 2023 13:20 - 5 minutes - 4.75 MBThere are many bootlicking simps for the US empire. It's not entirely their fault; the empire has the most sophisticated propaganda machine ever devised and most westerners have been marinating in its influence their entire lives. But it does happen, and it's good to bring awareness to it. Here then are 30 signs you might be an empire simp. Reading by Tim Foley.
Another Day, Another CIA Press Release Disguised As News
August 26, 2023 02:22 - 6 minutes - 6.2 MBCNN has a new article out titled “Newly declassified US intel claims Russia is laundering propaganda through unwitting Westerners,” and it's pretty much exactly what you’d expect if you’ve been critically observing the western mass media over the last several years. An anonymous source making vague and unevidenced claims of an unverifiable nature about a longtime target of the US intelligence cartel, based solely on information provided by that same intelligence cartel. Reading by Tim Foley.