If you've ever wondered whether you're the sort of person who would have taken a stand against the Nazis in Germany, the answer is that you would have behaved however you're behaving toward the murderous imperialist power of today, namely the United States government.
Overall, a good take, but when Caitlin writes, "It sure would be nice if US liberals pushed as hard for an end to the Trump administration's policies as they did for an end to the Trump administration," she inadvertently boosts the narrative that there is such a thing as "Trump administration's policies." The policies pursued in the last four years are not "Trump administration" policies. They are permanent US state policies, pursued seamlessly starting with Bush 41's invasion of Iraq to cure the "Vietnam Syndrome." Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump and Biden foreign policies have all been seamless. Trump did make some feeble efforts to change those policies, but he really had no clue how to do it without offending donors like Sheldon Adelson.
This afternoon, after receiving about six of Caitlin's emailed pieces, something clicked. I feel in sync with her urgency, felt the reasonableness of her cursing, cantankerous, snarling moments; felt the agony and nausea of what we have become: a dirty Empire. And felt the vulnerable heart of her beating madly and tasted the foam of her outrage in my own mouth. Our American guilt is undeniable and it's impossible to see what role anyone like me could have in making a difference. But I know my awareness will give me no rest.
The clarity and morality of your voice is totally lacking from our mainstream American media and political discourse. I'm certain that this is no accident. Liberals -- not leftists -- but liberals, now spew CIA talking points and champion censorship in the name of wokeness.
Our nightly news is nothing but Pentagon dictation. When l confronted a family member with this they accused me of "creating my own reality." l'm certain the irony was lost on them. There are few things more difficult than getting someone swimming in propaganda to realize that they're wet.
At this point in history, I’m not even sure that governments are really at each other‘s throats, at least not the big ones. It just seems like a lot of global capital constructing narratives to justify what’s going on. For example, the Russia versus United States narrative helps both countries control their populations better. Mutual benefit. If they weren’t in real conflict, it would make sense to engage in fake conflict.
Thank you. Yes, it’s not a flaw in human nature but it is a dysfunction. The egoic dysfunction makes us distort our perception and understanding of reality—small, separate, fearful creatures with an unfillable lack and hundreds of cognitive biases hitting us daily. And it makes our natural dominator/hierarchy tendencies, designed for immediate crises, emerge constantly and simultaneously suppresses our natural empathetic,caring, collaborative tendencies.
Those that lack empathy are largely the product of an egoic society that doesn’t know better. These abusers were innocent happy kids once—even if it was for a moment. They did not choose the egoic madness which altered their brains and shut down their empathy centers and encouraged them to live from the survival brain. We do not excuse their behaviour but we must understand root causes or we will keep producing more.
We must not point out root causes in a way that shuts down attempts to alleviate symptoms ( Dominator hierarchies, oligarchy, imperialism, sociopathy, propaganda, racism, sexism capitalism etc are symptoms). But we must keep pointing out root causes or else we will never be rid of the symptoms/manifestations of the affliction.
Every time we speak of pure consciousness we are speaking of root causes. We are speaking of the root cause of existence. And when we discover that a lack of awareness of our root—our essence—is the root cause of suffering and madness, we must keep pointing to root causes to alleviate the symptoms we see and read about every day.
Yes, every time we point to consciousness as the key someone may feel they are being blamed. So we do not only point out root causes, we meet people and the world where they are....we can also encourage the prevention of sociopaths and permanent dominating hierarchies and support strategies to eliminate propaganda while pointing out these are symptoms and not root causes...and that dealing firmly with the symptoms is valid and humane and sane and will help free more people to discover the root causes of suffering and of existence itself.
Yes, if someone is using spiritual terminology to prevent alleviation of suffering or as an evasive denial of said suffering then this can be pointed to as making victims feel unseen and unsupported. “Don’t worry we are all love and light ... or ... you should have meditated more that’s why you were abused.”
It is also true that anytime we mention consciousness we are discussing root causes of existence and of suffering, but we must keep pointing to it. If we are not permitted to point out root causes then this is the inner oligarch, the ego using (insert injustice/violation here) rationales to stop pointing out root causes so that it can continue to dominate us and our species in a clever act of survival. The ego wants us to play endless whack-a-mole with our thoughts and with the aforementioned symptoms of society.
We need to point out the empathy deprived, the cruel dominators and their methods of control. And we need to stop and prevent their behaviour whenever possible. But they are symptoms of egoic madness and dysfunction not the root cause. We will unintentionally reproduce these people and their systems of domination and control again and again if we do not acknowledge and understand the root cause for them.
They lack empathy. Yes. Why?
What happened to them?
The egoic dysfunction happened to their families and schools and priests and rulers to socially condition them and to spread egoic unconciousness to them.
The few on top control and dominate the many. Yes. Why?
Why is there a top, a hierarchy?
The survival brain makes us feel that we should have a hierarchy with strong leadership, a few that govern the many. Propaganda helps enhance and maintain what we are already wired for and helps suppress our other side which does not believe in permanent hierarchies of deception and competition and domination.
Everyone is acting exactly as they should given the egoic madness compounded by the survival brain.
It is unlikely that activism and legislation alone could sustain a peaceful world. Peace is our essential being and requires greater consciousness to access this and make it manifest.
Without greater consciousness a period of global justice and equity would not last too long. As long as the egoic dysfunction controls us it won’t take much more than a few natural cataclysms to activate survival mode and deep trauma and individual and collective pain bodies. And the aggressive hierarchical dominators will emerge again and again.
I loathe living in the US and I'm aggressively working to gtfo seeing as the people aren't getting their shit together, but I'm honestly JUST as distrusting and suspicious of numerous other first world countries' governments and to imply that imperialism is being used exclusively by western allied forces is absolutely delusional. I won't bullshit myself into believing that the USA and its allies are the ONLY countries abusing of their power and oppressing their people.
I think that's a dangerous and naive idea to entertain since it's exactly the kind of strategy used to distract people from 'ugly truths' and demonize a specific demographic.
I'm always questioning and researching the many hypocrisies of our government but I'm not about to pretend that Russia, China and every other first world country that's NOT in the west is, automatically, by default a sparkling beacon of human evolution and collective progressive growth. The fact is MOST countries have governments that are corrupt AF and there's like five to eight countries (being optimistic with these numbers) in the whole world that are actually trying to do better and improve quality of life for all their citizens. Western allies are not the only bullies in the playground, they just happen to be the most privileged.
To be blunt, this is where your article lost all credibility;
'Only one government is dominating the planet with nonstop military and economic warfare. It and its allies deserve more criticism than other governments.'
To believe that there's exclusively one government that is doing and controlling all of these things is right on par with some truly asinine conspiracy theories. It's one thing to say 'the US government is the single largest pro-fascist oppressive organization in the world' and something almost completely different to say 'the US government is the ONLY pro-fascist oppressive org. that's fucking up the world'
That's the kind of generalizing, all encompassing statements that politicians use in order to create fictional absolutes that they can use to manipulate the masses. The US military industrial machine is by far the biggest threat to human liberties but it is far from being the only one. I think it's important to be unbiased when criticizing your own country as well as others.
Overall, a good take, but when Caitlin writes, "It sure would be nice if US liberals pushed as hard for an end to the Trump administration's policies as they did for an end to the Trump administration," she inadvertently boosts the narrative that there is such a thing as "Trump administration's policies." The policies pursued in the last four years are not "Trump administration" policies. They are permanent US state policies, pursued seamlessly starting with Bush 41's invasion of Iraq to cure the "Vietnam Syndrome." Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43, Obama, Trump and Biden foreign policies have all been seamless. Trump did make some feeble efforts to change those policies, but he really had no clue how to do it without offending donors like Sheldon Adelson.
This afternoon, after receiving about six of Caitlin's emailed pieces, something clicked. I feel in sync with her urgency, felt the reasonableness of her cursing, cantankerous, snarling moments; felt the agony and nausea of what we have become: a dirty Empire. And felt the vulnerable heart of her beating madly and tasted the foam of her outrage in my own mouth. Our American guilt is undeniable and it's impossible to see what role anyone like me could have in making a difference. But I know my awareness will give me no rest.
The clarity and morality of your voice is totally lacking from our mainstream American media and political discourse. I'm certain that this is no accident. Liberals -- not leftists -- but liberals, now spew CIA talking points and champion censorship in the name of wokeness.
Our nightly news is nothing but Pentagon dictation. When l confronted a family member with this they accused me of "creating my own reality." l'm certain the irony was lost on them. There are few things more difficult than getting someone swimming in propaganda to realize that they're wet.
At this point in history, I’m not even sure that governments are really at each other‘s throats, at least not the big ones. It just seems like a lot of global capital constructing narratives to justify what’s going on. For example, the Russia versus United States narrative helps both countries control their populations better. Mutual benefit. If they weren’t in real conflict, it would make sense to engage in fake conflict.
Your article nicely compliments Matthew Ehret's Newsletter of today. Worth a read, you will enjoy it, Caitlin. matthewehret@substack.com
Thank you. Yes, it’s not a flaw in human nature but it is a dysfunction. The egoic dysfunction makes us distort our perception and understanding of reality—small, separate, fearful creatures with an unfillable lack and hundreds of cognitive biases hitting us daily. And it makes our natural dominator/hierarchy tendencies, designed for immediate crises, emerge constantly and simultaneously suppresses our natural empathetic,caring, collaborative tendencies.
Those that lack empathy are largely the product of an egoic society that doesn’t know better. These abusers were innocent happy kids once—even if it was for a moment. They did not choose the egoic madness which altered their brains and shut down their empathy centers and encouraged them to live from the survival brain. We do not excuse their behaviour but we must understand root causes or we will keep producing more.
We must not point out root causes in a way that shuts down attempts to alleviate symptoms ( Dominator hierarchies, oligarchy, imperialism, sociopathy, propaganda, racism, sexism capitalism etc are symptoms). But we must keep pointing out root causes or else we will never be rid of the symptoms/manifestations of the affliction.
Every time we speak of pure consciousness we are speaking of root causes. We are speaking of the root cause of existence. And when we discover that a lack of awareness of our root—our essence—is the root cause of suffering and madness, we must keep pointing to root causes to alleviate the symptoms we see and read about every day.
Yes, every time we point to consciousness as the key someone may feel they are being blamed. So we do not only point out root causes, we meet people and the world where they are....we can also encourage the prevention of sociopaths and permanent dominating hierarchies and support strategies to eliminate propaganda while pointing out these are symptoms and not root causes...and that dealing firmly with the symptoms is valid and humane and sane and will help free more people to discover the root causes of suffering and of existence itself.
Yes, if someone is using spiritual terminology to prevent alleviation of suffering or as an evasive denial of said suffering then this can be pointed to as making victims feel unseen and unsupported. “Don’t worry we are all love and light ... or ... you should have meditated more that’s why you were abused.”
It is also true that anytime we mention consciousness we are discussing root causes of existence and of suffering, but we must keep pointing to it. If we are not permitted to point out root causes then this is the inner oligarch, the ego using (insert injustice/violation here) rationales to stop pointing out root causes so that it can continue to dominate us and our species in a clever act of survival. The ego wants us to play endless whack-a-mole with our thoughts and with the aforementioned symptoms of society.
We need to point out the empathy deprived, the cruel dominators and their methods of control. And we need to stop and prevent their behaviour whenever possible. But they are symptoms of egoic madness and dysfunction not the root cause. We will unintentionally reproduce these people and their systems of domination and control again and again if we do not acknowledge and understand the root cause for them.
They lack empathy. Yes. Why?
What happened to them?
The egoic dysfunction happened to their families and schools and priests and rulers to socially condition them and to spread egoic unconciousness to them.
The few on top control and dominate the many. Yes. Why?
Why is there a top, a hierarchy?
The survival brain makes us feel that we should have a hierarchy with strong leadership, a few that govern the many. Propaganda helps enhance and maintain what we are already wired for and helps suppress our other side which does not believe in permanent hierarchies of deception and competition and domination.
Everyone is acting exactly as they should given the egoic madness compounded by the survival brain.
It is unlikely that activism and legislation alone could sustain a peaceful world. Peace is our essential being and requires greater consciousness to access this and make it manifest.
Without greater consciousness a period of global justice and equity would not last too long. As long as the egoic dysfunction controls us it won’t take much more than a few natural cataclysms to activate survival mode and deep trauma and individual and collective pain bodies. And the aggressive hierarchical dominators will emerge again and again.
I loathe living in the US and I'm aggressively working to gtfo seeing as the people aren't getting their shit together, but I'm honestly JUST as distrusting and suspicious of numerous other first world countries' governments and to imply that imperialism is being used exclusively by western allied forces is absolutely delusional. I won't bullshit myself into believing that the USA and its allies are the ONLY countries abusing of their power and oppressing their people.
I think that's a dangerous and naive idea to entertain since it's exactly the kind of strategy used to distract people from 'ugly truths' and demonize a specific demographic.
I'm always questioning and researching the many hypocrisies of our government but I'm not about to pretend that Russia, China and every other first world country that's NOT in the west is, automatically, by default a sparkling beacon of human evolution and collective progressive growth. The fact is MOST countries have governments that are corrupt AF and there's like five to eight countries (being optimistic with these numbers) in the whole world that are actually trying to do better and improve quality of life for all their citizens. Western allies are not the only bullies in the playground, they just happen to be the most privileged.
To be blunt, this is where your article lost all credibility;
'Only one government is dominating the planet with nonstop military and economic warfare. It and its allies deserve more criticism than other governments.'
To believe that there's exclusively one government that is doing and controlling all of these things is right on par with some truly asinine conspiracy theories. It's one thing to say 'the US government is the single largest pro-fascist oppressive organization in the world' and something almost completely different to say 'the US government is the ONLY pro-fascist oppressive org. that's fucking up the world'
That's the kind of generalizing, all encompassing statements that politicians use in order to create fictional absolutes that they can use to manipulate the masses. The US military industrial machine is by far the biggest threat to human liberties but it is far from being the only one. I think it's important to be unbiased when criticizing your own country as well as others.