154 Comments
Aug 9, 2022·edited Aug 9, 2022

Completely agree with how hopeless the Chinese are at propaganda. It’s almost endearing. I don’t think Confucius said much to promote lying at the expense of your fellow man. This now is second nature in the US with a huge segment of their population who have been lied to now from cradle to grave. I think wholesale lying was jumpstarted by Bernays who had much influence with the American Armed forces, not to mention his seminal role in advertising.

Expand full comment

Covid and war-mongering directed at US "enemies" are the same thing: a drive to cull the herd for the benefit of elites.

Expand full comment

In journalism, it’s called “working a beat.” Hers is U.S. empire. Nobody does it quite like Caitlin Johnstone, and I’m grateful for her relentless focus. Meanwhile there is some excellent coverage of Covid, that will be forensically helpful for widespread, take-no-prisoners litigation. The two subjects certainly are connected, I theorize.

And regarding the PRC: I grew up in a community (in Texas) driven entirely by a major engineering university. There were thousands of Chinese grad students, etc., et al. The distinctions mattered more in that town of whether one was a physics, or math, or engineering major. Race based, and politics based, judgments were and are viewed as very low brow in that setting. Merit-based. Hard sciences. Calculus or die. Beyond that, nobody cared. Liberal arts students kept their heads down. Growing up, and afterwards, I considered the Chinese to be patriotic, hardworking, helpful, affable but no-nonsense types, and the women often so beautiful. China didn’t appear out of the blue in just the last generation. I have a hard time with the recent hard sell of hatred for those people.

Yes they have, by the designs of D.C. globalists, increasingly outshined competitors. At the invite of western governments, they have done so. It would be harder to find a more dependable ally, though I can make a good argument for Russia too, and for that matter, any nation of humans willing to peaceably collaborate. And now those legacy factions in D.C. (foreign special interests, the federal reserve, the Vichy Congress, etc.) want to throw the blame and make war over their own doing? This reminds me of when mom beat me at the Candy Land board game when I was three years old, and I tumped over the board.

Impeach D.C. The whole swamp. Scuttle the federal reserve, full default. Bring the military back, all of them. And then rebuild. It’s the only logical way out. ~C.G.

Expand full comment

Bitching about the current Empire completely ignores what happens when the alternative doesn’t turn out better but becomes much much worse? I don’t hear any suggestions about how to make it better. Voting is worthless since even Putin knows the bureaucrats are running the insane asylum. Unless voters become much smarter or concerned very soon all the complaining in the world won’t make a dam bit of difference, unless we embrace truckers, farmers and other protesters willing to push back.

Expand full comment

I wonder what any other country would be like in the same dominate position as the US. The issue is that power and wealth corrupt. I disagree that China is better than. When humans raise their level of consciousness they will create better governments. When patriarchy gives way to balance between our masculine and feminine sides we will create better governments. You write only of the evils of the US in a comparison?

Expand full comment

Caitlin, sorry to take things off topic, but I'd like to broadcast the injustice being done to British journalist Graham Phillips who is being criminalised by the UK government for his work exposing what is going on in the Donbass. Graham has been defamed and formally sanctioned by Westminster without any due process, the first case of a UK citizen being subject to the kind of social credit that will be imposed on us all. This is serious and a threat to everyone in the West who wants to think for themselves or speak according to their conscience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Blzn-ncfQ8

Expand full comment

Liberal democracy is the theology of capitalism.

Expand full comment

At the moment Washington is trying to ease out Xi. Pelosi's visit was an attempt to create the right optics for Xi's rivals within the CCP to face the following dilemma.

If China seeks to forcibly reincorporate Taiwan they will need the military. The CCP leadership is scared of the Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) and seeks to constrain it. The build-up or modernisation of Chinese military force needs to be managed very carefully so as not to empower the leadership of the PLA to the point where they might challenge the party. From the perspective of Beijing, there is no point in gaining Taiwan at the expense of losing control at home.

The collective leadership of the CCP is divided into factions. Some of these would be prepared to do a deal with Washington if they could: oust Xi and work with (to a degree for) Uncle Sam. To make that deal happen, Washington will need to make concessions to the Chinese elite. These concessions, should they occur, will be camouflaged somehow. Do not forget that the Chinese elite have a lot of money invested in the West. Plenty of CCP senior cadre are exposed to the US financial and real-estate market. Beijing is the second largest investor in US treasury bonds, so is very vulnerable to US financial pressure. The sanctions against Russia prove that the US is prepared to do anything to get its way. Should the US suspend the repayment of interest to China on its treasury bills, the implications for China would be catastrophic and could well bring down the CCP itself.

Taipei understands that it is merely a card to be played. The Taiwanese gov't (or elements within it) will do a deal, if they can, with Beijing and Washington simultaneously. The optimum deal for Washington and Taipei is some kind of re-unification under the auspices of a compliant faction of the CCP with Xi removed. The wild cards are the Chinese counter-intelligence, the PLA and the ordinary Chinese people. The sabre rattling by the Pentagon and Pelosi's visit are just part of a wider, more complex, situation that could well see Washington and Beijing get a lot closer - the geopolitical equivalent of sex following an argument.

Alternately, I am full of shit and Uncle Sam is just crazy.

Expand full comment

China is better than the USA. Eastasia is better than Oceania? Well if you are Winston Smith's Julia then you might fervently believe that.

Expand full comment

Neither is better or worse than the other. Caitlin forgets the translation problems between cultures.

While China/Russia seen far behind in the propaganda race the only people they are trying to influence are their own.

Expand full comment

Just as in Ancient Rome the powerful are oblivious to the erosion of their foundation by the very policies they themselves enacted while they continued to enjoy a privileged , comfortable a seemingly safe life. The only difference is it took hundreds of years for Rome while our fall it seems will only take a fraction of that time.

Expand full comment

Awesome stuff - I may even need a few top-level comments to address some points :)

Re: provocation/response routine - that's the classic the empire uses. What helps them is they have total initiative and so can anticipate different scenarios:

- the action is planned and executed such that it is completely under the radar, or as much as possible. Certainly the media is kept out of it altogether.

- everything is ready for the response from the target. As soon as one is triggered a corresponding scenario kicks in presenting the situation as if it originated from the target.

OK, with the above spoiler it should be easy to answer the following question: what was the cause of the Cuban missile crisis?

Expand full comment

Holy shit! I was under the impression that the US Empire (Biden/Blinken) has failed to drag India into the Russian sanctions and Ukraine proxy war, so WTF is this?

Twitter avatar for @WilliamYang120

William Yang

@WilliamYang120

The United States is to take part in a joint military exercise with India less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the South Asian country's disputed border with #China.

Expand full comment

The response about China/Russia not being forced to respond reminds me of riding in the car as a kid back in pre-internet times. The back seat had a "dividing line" between my sister and me. She would repeatedly "accidentally" push stuff onto my side. When I would react she would yell to my parents about my reaction just as disingenuously as these people saying China and Russia don't "have" to respond.

Expand full comment

done with your posts. we can lament how corrupt america has become under the infiltration of global bankers, but to pretend china in the same situation wouldn't be far far worse is insulting to my intelligence. we still have the pretense of a democratic republic to soften the edges, not to mention law and courts as a possible way to wrestle back power. under an authoritarian dictatorship, we have no such delusions as we have clearly seen in their zero covid policy. you are really starting to sound like a ccp mouthpiece. you've had enough of my attention. do better.

Expand full comment

This:

Normal person: Seems like a bad idea to continually ramp up tensions between powerful nuclear-armed governments instead of working toward detente.

Crazy person: So what you're saying is you love dictators and want them to kill babies and commit genocide.

The world has entirely too many crazy persons for my good. It's time to preach normality to them and talk them off the ledge of nuclear armageddon.

Expand full comment