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.
Homepage Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Episodes
Unipolar Hegemony Is A Freakish Historical Aberration
August 25, 2023 13:06 - 7 minutes - 6.63 MBThe US is indisputably the most tyrannical regime on earth. Only the US is instigating wars around the world, circling the planet with hundreds of foreign military bases, starving populations with massive unilateral sanctions and blockades, and working to destroy any nation which disobeys it. No other government has spent the 21st century killing people by the millions in wars of aggression; only the US has. Continually trying to destroy anyone in the world who doesn't obey your dictates is a...
For The First Time In History, Humanity Has A Single Common Foe
August 24, 2023 11:17 - 7 minutes - 6.63 MBIt's no longer about nation versus nation, ruler versus ruler, group versus group, person versus person. It's about humankind versus extinction. It's a fight that can only have one winner, and it's a fight we can only win together. Reading by Tim Foley.
In A World Ruled By Propaganda, A Sane Worldview Will Necessarily Be A Fringe Worldview
August 23, 2023 00:52 - 5 minutes - 5.18 MBPeople assume there must be truth in the mainstream worldview because so many others are invested in the mainstream worldview, when really the only reason that worldview is mainstream in the first place is because so much wealth and influence has gone into making it mainstream. In reality the assumption that the truth exists anywhere in either of the two mainstream political viewpoints promoted by the managers of the western empire is an example of the bandwagon effect, which describes the co...
They Dupe People Into Debating War With Russia Vs War With China, Instead Of War Itself
August 22, 2023 12:01 - 6 minutes - 6.06 MBOne of the most brilliant propaganda maneuvers the managers of the US empire have pulled off lately is splitting the debate over US military policy along partisan lines, with one side supporting aggressions against Russia and the other preferring to focus aggressions on China. In this way they've ensured that mainstream discourse remains an argument over how US warmongering should occur, rather than if it should. Reading by Tim Foley.
Americans Are More Propagandized Than Chinese People
August 21, 2023 13:56 - 12 minutes - 11.9 MBThe US government is far more abusive, destructive and tyrannical than the Chinese government and Americans are far more indoctrinated by propaganda than Chinese people. Americans don't even know they're continually ingesting US empire propaganda to inform their worldview, and they live under the most abusive regime on earth. There's this weird propaganda two-step being performed where westerners are being told over and over and over again that Chinese people live in a freakish backwards min...
Evil, Scary China Refuses To Passively Let Us Encircle It
August 20, 2023 13:40 - 5 minutes - 5.26 MBMost mainstream western reporting on Chinese military activity essentially amounts to "OMG you guys China isn't just passively sitting there while we militarily encircle it and prepare to attack it!" Reading by Tim Foley.
Big Brave Western Proxy Warriors Keep Whining That Ukrainian Troops Are Cowards
August 19, 2023 11:58 - 8 minutes - 7.67 MBWestern officials have been spending the last few weeks whining to the media that Ukraine's inability to gain ground is due to an irrational aversion to being killed. They've been decrying Ukrainian cowardice to the press under cover of anonymity, from behind the safety of their office desks. Reading by Tim Foley.
De-Gamify The Earth
August 18, 2023 12:13 - 4 minutes - 3.88 MBBasically the problem is that our whole planet has been gamified. All the Earth's life, resources and geography have been folded into this sick game where people commodify them into points called money, for no other reason than to score as many points as possible. Reading by Tim Foley.
Rename The Secretary Of State The Secretary Of Hypocrisy
August 17, 2023 13:49 - 6 minutes - 6.17 MBUS Secretary of State Tony Blinken tweeted in celebration of Pakistan's preparations for "free and fair elections" on Wednesday, a week after it was revealed that the US pressured Pakistan to oust its popular democratically elected prime minister Imran Khan last year. Reading by Tim Foley.
An Assange Plea Deal? For What Crime?
August 16, 2023 02:12 - 4 minutes - 4.32 MBIt really is nuts how there's now talk of Julian Assange being offered a "plea bargain" for rightly exposing US war crimes. What's he meant to plead guilty to? Good journalism? Reading by Tim Foley.
THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF ALL TIME
August 14, 2023 11:31 - 7 minutes - 6.72 MBThe 2024 presidential election will be THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF ALL TIME, because if Americans don't make the correct choice between the two candidates something terrible might happen to their country. The US might even turn into an abusive totalitarian dystopia where everyone's mind is controlled by propaganda engineered to shape them into unthinking gear-turners for a globe-spanning empire. Reading by Tim Foley.
Their Similarities Matter More Than Their Differences
August 13, 2023 13:29 - 8 minutes - 7.34 MBIf people really understood just how much suffering and destruction is unleashed by US foreign policy, they'd stop making such a big deal about the minor differences between two political parties who always come together to support the most destructive US foreign policy decisions. The human suffering caused by the minor differences in domestic policy between Democrats and Republicans is dwarfed by the suffering caused by foreign policy bipartisanship by orders of magnitude. The ways they are...
New York Times Helps Marco Rubio Push Persecution Of Antiwar Leftists
August 12, 2023 14:31 - 10 minutes - 9.93 MBCiting a recent McCarthyite smear piece by The New York Times, Senator Marco Rubio published a letter on Wednesday that he'd sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for the investigation of American leftist antiwar groups, claiming they are "tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and operating with impunity in the United States." Reading by Tim Foley.
It's Never About The US President, It's About The US Empire
August 10, 2023 13:51 - 4 minutes - 4.01 MBWe talk about US presidents all the time - Obama did this, Trump did that, blah blah blah. But really it's never the president doing those things, it's the empire. The president is just the face of the operation, the name they put on the door that they change every few years to create the illusion that the US government is responsive to the will of the electorate. Reading by Tim Foley.
Victoria Nuland Has Gone To Africa
August 09, 2023 09:53 - 2 minutes - 2.37 MBVictoria Nuland has gone to Africa. Gone to Africa to talk some sense into the Nigeriens and convince them to return to the shackles of Paris. Gone to Africa to harvest blood diamonds and cobalt. Gone to Africa to masturbate on Gaddafi's grave. Gone to Africa to trade glass beads for slaves. Victoria Nuland has gone to Africa to help the bank boys keep their dicks in the mother continent, to help keep the siphon tubes stuck into the mother continent, to help keep the Russians and Chinese out...
The Illusory Truth Effect And The "Unprovoked" Invasion Of Ukraine
August 08, 2023 14:19 - 8 minutes - 8.17 MBThe reason the mass media have been bleating the word "unprovoked" in unison with regard to this war is because the mass media are propaganda organs of the US empire. Their repetition of this war propaganda slogan exploits a glitch in human cognition known as the illusory truth effect, which makes it difficult for our minds to tell the difference between the experience of hearing something many times and the experience of hearing something that's true. Just repeatedly inserting the word "unpr...
Democrats Don't Care About Trump's Real Crimes
August 07, 2023 12:19 - 5 minutes - 4.95 MBAsk an anti-imperialist what's the worst thing Trump did and they'll talk about real things like Yemen, Venezuela, Soleimani, Assange, the JCPOA, and the new cold war. Ask a Democrat what's the worst thing Trump did and they'll talk about pretend nonsense like Russian collusion and insurrection. The US government is doing literally hundreds of things right now as you read this that are more harmful and concerning than a pretend "insurrection" that never at any time had a higher than zero perc...
The Algorithm
August 06, 2023 13:06 - 3 minutes - 2.81 MBThe algorithm knows what you want before you do. The algorithm knows you better than you know yourself. The algorithm knew you back before you were a screaming slime child, back before they washed off the uterine gunk and handed you a smartphone and made you get a landlord, back before you knew that war is sane and poverty is normal, back before you were mature enough to understand that speech is violence and cluster bombs are peace. You can trust the algorithm to tell you the truth — not ...
Disrupt The Culture Wars
August 05, 2023 01:30 - 5 minutes - 5.2 MBKeep breaking the spell and drawing attention to what's really going on, and you can stomp out the abuse at its source. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Australian Press Are Embarrassing Sycophantic Empire Lackeys
August 04, 2023 03:12 - 5 minutes - 4.71 MBThis is how our nation is being marched toward consenting to a military confrontation of unimaginable horror without Australians noticing that something wildly insane is happening. They are being Pied Pipered over a cliff by a mainstream press staffed entirely with bootlicking empire apologists who will do anything to grease the gears of the most destructive war machine on this planet. Reading by Tim Foley.
Mainstream Journalists Are Cloistered Ivy League-Educated Trust Fund Kids
August 03, 2023 14:06 - 7 minutes - 6.74 MBThis is a major reason behind the freakish sycophancy and empire loyalism we see in the mainstream press. It's not just the obscenely wealthy owners of the mass media who are protecting their class interests, it's the reporters, editors and pundits as well. Reading by Tim Foley.
Where I Stand, Issue By Issue
August 02, 2023 13:36 - 10 minutes - 9.39 MBI've been seeing a few people saying they're not sure what I'm about politically. As a reader-supported writer I try to be as transparent about such things as possible to let any would-be patrons know what they're getting into, so here's my position on a bunch of different issues if anyone's curious. Reading by Tim Foley.
Searching For Bigfoot
July 31, 2023 12:35 - 6 minutes - 5.99 MBSomething in us intuits that there must be something more to this thing than we're seeing. We know there are no leprechauns or unicorns hiding in the shadows, but we sense that there must be something magical happening here that's evading our perception. It can't just be the dull humdrum of office drama and stress and horniness and Netflix and food and family that consumes our waking attention from day to day. But what if that's a mistake? What if that assumption is based on an erroneous pre...
We’re Taught About Liberal And Conservative Bias In Media, But Not US Empire Bias
July 30, 2023 12:53 - 8 minutes - 7.55 MBOne of the biggest problems with the urgent push for “media literacy” we’ve been seeing in the west these last few years is that everyone’s being taught about liberal bias and conservative bias in media, but they’re not being taught about US empire bias. Reading by Tim Foley. Article with links: https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/were-taught-about-liberal-and-conservative
Australia Agrees To Build US Missiles; US Dismisses Australian Concerns About Assange
July 30, 2023 02:50 - 7 minutes - 6.42 MBTwo different news stories about US-Australian relations have broken at around the same time, and together they sum up the story of US-Australian relations as a whole. In one we learn that Australia has agreed to manufacture missiles for the United States, and in the other we learn that Washington has told Australia to go suck eggs about its concerns regarding the US persecution of Australian journalist Julian Assange. Reading by Tim Foley.
Capitol Hill Is An Assisted Living Facility For Psychopaths
July 28, 2023 13:56 - 6 minutes - 5.77 MBCapitol Hill is an assisted living facility for psychopaths. It's where people who receive sexual gratification from dropping military explosives on civilians go to wait for the sweet embrace of death. The whole place smells like night terrors and urine. Reading by Tim Foley.
Funny How The UFO Narrative Coincides With The Race To Weaponize Space
July 27, 2023 14:27 - 12 minutes - 11.6 MBThese stories about the space militarization race aren't getting the attention the much more entertaining UFO stories are getting, but it seems likely that those who are responsible for moving the war machinery around are paying a lot more attention to the former than the latter. The US Space Force took its first steps toward becoming a reality in 2017, the same year these mainstream UFO stories started coming out, with the explicit purpose of countering Russia and China. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Star-Spangled Kangaroo
July 27, 2023 04:51 - 3 minutes - 3.23 MBA new US warship has been ushered into service in Sydney. The ship is called the USS Canberra to honor the military union of the United States and Australia, and, if that's still too subtle for you, it has a literal star-spangled kangaroo affixed to its side. Reading by Tim Foley.
More Warmongers Elevated In The Biden Administration
July 26, 2023 12:12 - 4 minutes - 3.71 MBThe Biden administration looks set to become even more warlike than it already was if you can imagine, with virulent Russia hawk Victoria Nuland and virulent China hawk Charles Q Brown now being elevated to lofty positions by the White House. Reading by Tim Foley.
Fighting Propaganda Is A Matter Of Survival
July 25, 2023 02:55 - 5 minutes - 5.01 MBCapitalism has brought us to the brink of environmental collapse on multiple fronts. US empire-building has brought us to the brink of nuclear war on multiple fronts. But if you listen to the mainstream media both these systems are working fine and only lunatics want to change them. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Empire Knows It's Pouring Ukrainian Blood Into An Unwinnable Proxy War
July 24, 2023 03:11 - 7 minutes - 6.54 MBThe empire is still knowingly throwing Ukrainian lives into the meat grinder of an unwinnable proxy war, even as western officials tell the public that this war is about saving Ukrainian lives and handing Putin a crushing defeat whenever they're on camera. Reading by Tim Foley.
A Helpful Suggestion
July 23, 2023 13:25 - 4 minutes - 4.04 MBThe US could strengthen its arguments about the legitimacy of its military buildups on the borders of Russia and China by opening the door to Russia and China militarizing Latin America. Reading by Tim Foley.
The True Symbol Of The United States Is The Pentagon
July 21, 2023 21:52 - 3 minutes - 2.79 MBThe Pentagon should feature centrally on the US flag. It should be on the coins and on all the bills, and it should appear next to the name of every American in the Olympics. When anyone sees a five-sided polygon, they should immediately think "United States of America". Reading by Tim Foley.
Punch The Empire In The Fucking Face
July 21, 2023 02:49 - 7 minutes - 7.14 MBTo be clear, when I talk about how both mainstream political parties are used to advance the same agendas I am not saying that they are the same. I like to compare them to the jab and the cross in boxing; they're two different punches thrown from different hands, and they're used in completely different ways. But they're both being used by the same boxer, and they're both being used to knock you on your ass. The cross, which happens to come from the right hand for an orthodox fighter, is a ...
Anderson Cooper Is A Disgusting CIA Goon
July 20, 2023 03:25 - 6 minutes - 5.82 MBIn a recent CNN interview of US presidential candidate Cornel West, former CIA intern Anderson Cooper argued that the US invasion of Iraq was morally superior to the Russian attack on the city of Grozny. Reading by Tim Foley.
It’s Not The Really Blatant Propaganda That Gets You
July 19, 2023 01:26 - 5 minutes - 4.76 MBMost propaganda isn't of the Yeonmi Park "communists are so poor that they have to eat mud and get out of the train and push it because there's no electricity" variety. It's subtle. It's these tiny little adjustments where US allies are reported on more sympathetically than US enemies, claims made by unaligned governments are reported with much more scrutiny and skepticism than aligned governments, and the sins which take place within the US-centralized power structure are overlooked while th...
Capitalism Is A Giant Scam
July 17, 2023 14:46 - 8 minutes - 7.65 MB"Let the market decide" really means let the manipulators decide, because the markets are dominated by those who excel at manipulating. We're taught that letting the market decide means letting supply and demand take its natural course, as though we're talking about ocean tides or seasons or something, but in reality both supply and demand are manipulated constantly with extreme aggression. Manipulating the supply of diamonds. Manipulating the supply of housing. Manipulating the supply of oil...
Assange Exposes The Empire's True Face
July 16, 2023 12:52 - 6 minutes - 6.31 MBJulian Assange is a journalist who's been imprisoned for doing journalism on war crimes, by an empire that claims to defend journalists and oppose war crimes. Assange and his persecution expose the giant plot holes in every story the western power structure tells about itself. About its love of free speech and the free press. About its opposition to tyranny. About its wars and why it wages them. Reading by Tim Foley.
Real Change Is Impossible While Our World Is Shrouded In Secrecy
July 15, 2023 00:26 - 5 minutes - 5.35 MBI saw a video clip of Julian Assange speaking in London in 2010 where he made an important observation while explaining the philosophy behind his work with WikiLeaks. He said that all our political theories are to some extent "bankrupt" in our current situation, because our institutions are so shrouded in secrecy that we can't even know what's really going on in the world. "We can all write about our political issues, we can all push for particular things we believe in, we can all have parti...
Profit-Driven Systems Are Driving Us To Our Doom
July 13, 2023 12:52 - 11 minutes - 10.2 MBOur entire civilization is driven by the pursuit of profit, and to keep turning large profits your corporation needs to continually grow, and your corporation can't continually grow unless you're manufacturing a crappy product that needs to be continually replaced or supplemented, and you can't manufacture those replacements and supplementations without harvesting them from the flesh of a dying world. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Worst 2024 Election Interference Won't Come From Russia Or China
July 12, 2023 15:50 - 6 minutes - 5.52 MBAnd it really is interesting how almost everyone seems to be pretty much okay with corporations in the media and Silicon Valley interfering in a US election like this. Everyone shrieked their lungs out about the (now wholly discredited) narrative that Russian bots had influenced the US election with tweets and Facebook memes, but immensely wealthy corporations with universes more influence manipulating the way people think and vote is perfectly fine? Reading by Tim Foley.
The US Is War
July 11, 2023 03:10 - 6 minutes - 5.93 MBThe US won WW2 and then immediately plunged into the Cold War. The US won the Cold War and then immediately set to work destroying the Middle East. The US destroyed the Middle East and then immediately started another cold war in preparation for another world war. The US is war. A normal country wages war with the goal of getting back to peacetime. The US wages war with the goal of getting to the next war. Reading by Tim Foley.
Biden Keeps Lying About The US "Not Trying To Surround" China
July 10, 2023 14:11 - 4 minutes - 4.03 MBBiden is lying. The US is deliberately surrounding China with war machinery and has been for years, and has rapidly escalated its efforts to do so during Biden’s term. There are currently no fewer than 313 US military bases in East Asia by the Pentagon’s own admission, with the Biden administration adding four new ones in the Philippines. Biden’s war machine has been busy instituting the AUKUS alliance which is specifically set up to menace China, moving nuclear-capable bombers to Indonesia, ...
Today In War Propaganda
July 09, 2023 12:20 - 5 minutes - 5.36 MBThe New York Times excludes some crucial information about cluster bombs from its headline, The Washington Post and Guardian have some interesting views on NATO membership for Ukraine, and, surprise! John Bolton loves cluster munitions. Reading by Tim Foley.
John Bolton Accidentally Explains Why US Policy On Russia And China Is Wrong
July 07, 2023 11:25 - 6 minutes - 5.92 MBProfessional psychopath John Bolton has an article out with The Hill titled "America can't permit Chinese military expansion in Cuba" which inadvertently spells out exactly what's wrong with the way the US empire keeps amassing heavily armed proxy forces on the borders of its large Asiatic enemies. Reading by Tim Foley.
The Self-Made Man Is A Myth
July 07, 2023 03:17 - 7 minutes - 6.56 MBAnyone who is capable of honest self-reflection and critical thinking understands that the "self-made man" is a myth of our culture; that anyone who amasses a fortune does so on the backs of many other people whose work made it possible, and found the opportunity to do so because of the circumstances they happened upon by chance of birth, conditioning and sheer dumb luck. And it's worth highlighting that this is also true of all other personal circumstances, including those that people in thi...
I Was 19
July 05, 2023 11:21 - 4 minutes - 3.67 MBI was 19 the first time I was raped. Backpacking through Europe, drugged, woke up being sodomised over a toilet bowl in some Italian hotel bathroom. Blood everywhere. Memories were fuzzy through whatever it was he slipped me, but I recall fumbling with the doorknob trying to get out, unable to understand why it wasn't opening, then looking down and seeing that he had his foot up against the bottom of the door. Earlier that day I'd felt like I was flying. Here I was, traveling in Europe just l...
Presidents Keep Hiring Elliott Abrams Because The US Empire Is Just That Evil
July 04, 2023 10:55 - 5 minutes - 4.84 MBCNN reports that President Biden has nominated criminal neocon Elliott Abrams for a position on the United States Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, which according to the US State Department is responsible for "appraising activities intended to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics" and pays "acute attention" to the US government's official foreign propaganda arm, the US Agency for Global Media. Reading by Tim Foley.
Ask Who Benefits
July 03, 2023 12:49 - 5 minutes - 5.39 MBAsk who benefits from the continued emphasis on electoral systems that never succeed in bringing about real change. Ask who benefits from the continued emphasis on culture wars over class war. Ask who benefits from people being continually herded into two mainstream political factions which both support empire, oligarchy and authoritarianism. Ask who benefits from the mass media continually focusing on the misdeeds of nations their government doesn't like while ignoring their own govern...
Fifteen Useful Facts
July 02, 2023 02:05 - 5 minutes - 5.08 MB1. It's easier to understand what's going on in the world when you mentally "mute" people's narratives about what's going on and just look at the material movements of wealth, resources, weapons, and people. That's how you separate what's real from the manipulations and empty narrative fluff, how you see who's doing the taking and hoarding, and how you figure out who the real aggressors are in international conflicts. 2. The three most overlooked and under-appreciated aspects of the human exp...