Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ Multiple American podcasters who speak critically of the political status quo in their country are reporting that their channels have been shut down as the censorship campaign against Russia-backed media continues to escalate. These include
One of the most disheartening aspects of this is the collection of Boomers (many personally known to me) who stringently opposed and marched against Vietnam in '68/'69, but who are now beating the drums of war against Russia, with precious little thought about poking the hornet's nest of a nuclear power and even less understanding of the last 30 years of history in that region. The worst aspect of that historical amnesia is missing — or willfully ignoring — the connection between 21st and 20th-Century US imperialism. While I once called these folks brothers and sisters of the left, they have since succumbed to the barrage of propaganda; degraded themselves into the seemingly huge community of otherwise decent people rendered warmongers by the narcissist nerve gas of American exceptionalism. This feels like the stamp of the demon of impending demise because the irrationality augurs poorly for a clear-headed approach to the "other existential crisis" facing the planet. Anger and grief mix together in my gut with gratitude that I'm old and might luckily be dead by the time such this other cataclysm reaches full expression, but I now have anxiety thrown into that mix. It's mostly anxiety that the biosphere will be so completely devastated by nuclear holocaust that even should the offending species (Homo) go away, this most beautiful complex adaptive system known to us could be too pauperized to recover. As far as I'm concerned, Earth First is the sanest path because were we to follow the principles of ecological economics, war would also be treated as an impossibly destructive insult, eco-economically ridiculous to pursue. Quite frankly, the theater of hand-wringing for the Ukrainian people makes me even angrier because it entirely misses the larger context — that war is implicit in the anti-human and anti-ecological postures of Capitalism.
During the Obama terms of office, the politicians overturned the Smith/Mundt Act of 1948 which had been in place to outlaw US propaganda in US newsmedia. Many changes over the years in other areas followed of what we the people no longer get from journalism.
America's ongoing war on free thought -- and I didn't say free speech, because a war on thought is what's really going on here -- is incontestable. All forms of censorship are, unless you're a hack partisan merely dressing up in the costume of a patriot, which, judging from our corporate media, is a gig that pays exceedingly well. Our media is drenched in it, our politics is broken by it, and a frighteningly large part of our citizenry are hypnotized by it. And in such soiled apparel do we go prancing about on the world stage. Careers are made in doing so. Of course, people also die because of it, but never the ones who matter.
Being told what to think is the sign of mental immaturity, as is surrounding yourself only with people and ideas you already cling to. I'd say most people seem to gravitate to this at a young age and then just calcify there. For the rest of us, there's censorship, manipulation, stigmatization, and a kind of personal sanctions designed to poison and isolate our point of view.
Go back and read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution and see if you can mentally ask the Founders what they'd think about censoring Joe Rogan, plowing billions into the maintenance of a foreign Jewish State, or being led to war by the president and not the congress. Go ahead; I'll wait.
Thank you Caitlin. It becomes so obvious what is going on with American media propaganda and American war mongers. After 20 years of lies and deception in order to feed Americans with their propaganda to gain our favor in each and every war you think American's would wake up and choose a different path. It's not a Democrat/Republican issue because both of them feed their own propaganda at different times. The only thing that both parties agree on appears to be war and controlling the rest of the world.
I believe our government size and our governments over governing is a major problem. The FBI the CIA the DHS are all corrupt and all have their own agenda's. It's been obvious from the days President Kennedy when it first became obvious that the CIA built and push more propaganda to control the world and who knows what else.
When I hear current government officials talking it disgust me that our leaders are so ignorant.
I do not believe America media should be displaying anything about the war in Ukraine. I had been watching Fox News lately because I felt it was the only place to hear honest news as compared to CNN etc. however if you watch Fox Now now the only thing you hear and see is Ukraine and Zelensky a completely one sided view of a war that were we should not even be involved with. At least Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfield have different views than the rest.
What I can say is that I agree 100% with Caitlin and most of her opinions about the wests imperialistic approach to the world and NATO has to stop.
I do not believe America should be in NATO. I believe NATO members are being fed lies via American propaganda.
I myself was an Aircraft Mechanic on F4 Phantoms back in 1973 stationed in Germany during the end of the Vietnam war. I also have worked for a top defense company until recently retired because they were forcing us to get vaccinated and for other reasons related to changing the definition of equality to equity and forcing us to admit being white made me an oppressor.
Looks like war, of semantics to start with, and who knows from there? - and we're all supposed to be good little soldiers. The West has been able to float two contradictory balloons - 1)we are the open society - and 2) those of us who don't agree with the propaganda are traitors. So the market-place of ideas is really a closed shop? Who knew?
Thank you, Caitlin. Word of mouth still rules, and is slower but much richer for so much beautifully intrinsic human bs-detection. Trust is the only real currency. Stay strong and look out for each other. Freedom for Assange! Peace for All!
I think that when the Ukraine phase of this war finishes (and its just the first of many phases I believe), Russia should go on a diplomatic offensive. Putin should give a speech re-presenting the December security guarantees treaty demands, saying, in terms everyone can understand, that agreeing to the treaty means nothing more than returning NATO military forces to their 1997 dispositions. Did NATO populations and governments feel in the least insecure in 1997? So how can returning to those same dispositions be harmful to anyone's security now? Given Russia now has the world’s attention, Western media will no longer be able to suppress Russia's conditions for peace -- the promise that, by agreeing, all Europeans, including Russians, can feel secure. At the very least, that should give a boost to nascent Western peace movements, encouraging them to focus their demands on their governments to support Russia’s peace offensive. Force Western governments to negotiate, stop the process before Russia starts turning up the heat on NATO countries themselves:, e.g. the US missile emplacements now installed in Romania and soon in Poland that can nuke Moscow in seven minutes. This new phase of the war could turn seriously ugly, especially if people like Scott Ritter are right that Russia can defeat NATO armies in Europe if it comes a hot war. Hopefully that will cause cooler heads to prevail and eventual agreement to Russia's terms. But isn't it better not to go there in the first place? Agree to Russia's terms now should be our call. Negotiate a new European security arrangement! End this now!
What? Did Neil Young threaten to take his music off Spotify again if Putin doesn't leave Ukraine? I hear Neil can't understand why the Kremlin isn't listening to him.
Ukraine has been living under a government essentially held at gunpoint by fascists financed by oligarchs and working closely with CIA and US special forces, many of them out and nazis, who’ve burned dozens of peaceful Russian protesters in Odessa, locked up opponents, closed down opposition media, and killed 14000 civilians in the Donbass since 2014. I can only celebrate the destruction of such a regime and can’t feel too sorry for that country for being subjected to Russian suzerainty in place of the even worse US kind.
"Caitlin Johnstone" is a Russian propaganda plant to sow seeds of mistrust amongst real leftists. He/she has done its research on leftism and is very talented at nuance as it slips in pro-Russia propaganda into its articles. "Caitlin Johnstone" did not exist online prior to 2017. The name comes from a female sports player from Australia who was born in 2001. This comment will be deleted by this Russian plant. I hope somebody sees it before the truth is silenced.
Fair play to the West for what they're doing to make Russia suffer for all the evil they're perpetrating and all the deaths they're causing in Ukraine. Now could someone in MI6 or the CIA tell me how to make Saudi Arabia, the US and the UK suffer for all the murders they've been committing directly and indirectly for years in Yemen. I'm perplexed about what to do. How can I contribute?
"...Humanity's immensely exploded ability to share ideas and information could have been a tool of the people to advance positive change..."
I think it actually was for a while. A whole lot more people learned the truth about Israel/Palestine than otherwise would have, Bernie (when he wasn't blatantly a Democratic Party sycophant) got a lot of votes he otherwise wouldn't have in the 2016 primary, and when that primary was rigged then a lot more people knew about it because of social media. Many more of us learned that the Western narrative on Syria was BS than otherwise would have. And so on...BUT, then the powerful got a better handle on how to not only limit the spread of what THEY call misinformation, but also how to use social media for their own way ends. And the result of that is that today, damn near everyone believes the establishment's narratives once again: on Covid, on Russia/Ukraine, etc.
thank you for sharing your life story. so, you have never experienced racial bigotry, discrimination, or disadvantage to speak of. that is the proof that there's no privilege? why don't you listen to your black, brown, and yellow friends, neighbors, and colleagues when they are telling you they experience it all day everyday everywhere, sometimes subtle and other times explicit? why do you deny their real first hand experience and its effect on them? do you believe they achieve less "success" academically or financially because they are indeed somehow inferior on average?
One of the most disheartening aspects of this is the collection of Boomers (many personally known to me) who stringently opposed and marched against Vietnam in '68/'69, but who are now beating the drums of war against Russia, with precious little thought about poking the hornet's nest of a nuclear power and even less understanding of the last 30 years of history in that region. The worst aspect of that historical amnesia is missing — or willfully ignoring — the connection between 21st and 20th-Century US imperialism. While I once called these folks brothers and sisters of the left, they have since succumbed to the barrage of propaganda; degraded themselves into the seemingly huge community of otherwise decent people rendered warmongers by the narcissist nerve gas of American exceptionalism. This feels like the stamp of the demon of impending demise because the irrationality augurs poorly for a clear-headed approach to the "other existential crisis" facing the planet. Anger and grief mix together in my gut with gratitude that I'm old and might luckily be dead by the time such this other cataclysm reaches full expression, but I now have anxiety thrown into that mix. It's mostly anxiety that the biosphere will be so completely devastated by nuclear holocaust that even should the offending species (Homo) go away, this most beautiful complex adaptive system known to us could be too pauperized to recover. As far as I'm concerned, Earth First is the sanest path because were we to follow the principles of ecological economics, war would also be treated as an impossibly destructive insult, eco-economically ridiculous to pursue. Quite frankly, the theater of hand-wringing for the Ukrainian people makes me even angrier because it entirely misses the larger context — that war is implicit in the anti-human and anti-ecological postures of Capitalism.
During the Obama terms of office, the politicians overturned the Smith/Mundt Act of 1948 which had been in place to outlaw US propaganda in US newsmedia. Many changes over the years in other areas followed of what we the people no longer get from journalism.
America's ongoing war on free thought -- and I didn't say free speech, because a war on thought is what's really going on here -- is incontestable. All forms of censorship are, unless you're a hack partisan merely dressing up in the costume of a patriot, which, judging from our corporate media, is a gig that pays exceedingly well. Our media is drenched in it, our politics is broken by it, and a frighteningly large part of our citizenry are hypnotized by it. And in such soiled apparel do we go prancing about on the world stage. Careers are made in doing so. Of course, people also die because of it, but never the ones who matter.
Being told what to think is the sign of mental immaturity, as is surrounding yourself only with people and ideas you already cling to. I'd say most people seem to gravitate to this at a young age and then just calcify there. For the rest of us, there's censorship, manipulation, stigmatization, and a kind of personal sanctions designed to poison and isolate our point of view.
Go back and read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution and see if you can mentally ask the Founders what they'd think about censoring Joe Rogan, plowing billions into the maintenance of a foreign Jewish State, or being led to war by the president and not the congress. Go ahead; I'll wait.
From the point of view of the People Who Matter, this is a feature, not a bug.
Thank you Caitlin. It becomes so obvious what is going on with American media propaganda and American war mongers. After 20 years of lies and deception in order to feed Americans with their propaganda to gain our favor in each and every war you think American's would wake up and choose a different path. It's not a Democrat/Republican issue because both of them feed their own propaganda at different times. The only thing that both parties agree on appears to be war and controlling the rest of the world.
I believe our government size and our governments over governing is a major problem. The FBI the CIA the DHS are all corrupt and all have their own agenda's. It's been obvious from the days President Kennedy when it first became obvious that the CIA built and push more propaganda to control the world and who knows what else.
When I hear current government officials talking it disgust me that our leaders are so ignorant.
I do not believe America media should be displaying anything about the war in Ukraine. I had been watching Fox News lately because I felt it was the only place to hear honest news as compared to CNN etc. however if you watch Fox Now now the only thing you hear and see is Ukraine and Zelensky a completely one sided view of a war that were we should not even be involved with. At least Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfield have different views than the rest.
What I can say is that I agree 100% with Caitlin and most of her opinions about the wests imperialistic approach to the world and NATO has to stop.
I do not believe America should be in NATO. I believe NATO members are being fed lies via American propaganda.
I myself was an Aircraft Mechanic on F4 Phantoms back in 1973 stationed in Germany during the end of the Vietnam war. I also have worked for a top defense company until recently retired because they were forcing us to get vaccinated and for other reasons related to changing the definition of equality to equity and forcing us to admit being white made me an oppressor.
The most important question to ask ourselves is exactly what Caitlin wrote about here: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-single-most-important-question?s=r
Wake the Fuck Up America.
Looks like war, of semantics to start with, and who knows from there? - and we're all supposed to be good little soldiers. The West has been able to float two contradictory balloons - 1)we are the open society - and 2) those of us who don't agree with the propaganda are traitors. So the market-place of ideas is really a closed shop? Who knew?
Thank you, Caitlin. Word of mouth still rules, and is slower but much richer for so much beautifully intrinsic human bs-detection. Trust is the only real currency. Stay strong and look out for each other. Freedom for Assange! Peace for All!
I think that when the Ukraine phase of this war finishes (and its just the first of many phases I believe), Russia should go on a diplomatic offensive. Putin should give a speech re-presenting the December security guarantees treaty demands, saying, in terms everyone can understand, that agreeing to the treaty means nothing more than returning NATO military forces to their 1997 dispositions. Did NATO populations and governments feel in the least insecure in 1997? So how can returning to those same dispositions be harmful to anyone's security now? Given Russia now has the world’s attention, Western media will no longer be able to suppress Russia's conditions for peace -- the promise that, by agreeing, all Europeans, including Russians, can feel secure. At the very least, that should give a boost to nascent Western peace movements, encouraging them to focus their demands on their governments to support Russia’s peace offensive. Force Western governments to negotiate, stop the process before Russia starts turning up the heat on NATO countries themselves:, e.g. the US missile emplacements now installed in Romania and soon in Poland that can nuke Moscow in seven minutes. This new phase of the war could turn seriously ugly, especially if people like Scott Ritter are right that Russia can defeat NATO armies in Europe if it comes a hot war. Hopefully that will cause cooler heads to prevail and eventual agreement to Russia's terms. But isn't it better not to go there in the first place? Agree to Russia's terms now should be our call. Negotiate a new European security arrangement! End this now!
What? Did Neil Young threaten to take his music off Spotify again if Putin doesn't leave Ukraine? I hear Neil can't understand why the Kremlin isn't listening to him.
Ukraine has been living under a government essentially held at gunpoint by fascists financed by oligarchs and working closely with CIA and US special forces, many of them out and nazis, who’ve burned dozens of peaceful Russian protesters in Odessa, locked up opponents, closed down opposition media, and killed 14000 civilians in the Donbass since 2014. I can only celebrate the destruction of such a regime and can’t feel too sorry for that country for being subjected to Russian suzerainty in place of the even worse US kind.
Great. There is hope. Rumble, Substack, and Odyssey are the most important proxy wars.
"Caitlin Johnstone" is a Russian propaganda plant to sow seeds of mistrust amongst real leftists. He/she has done its research on leftism and is very talented at nuance as it slips in pro-Russia propaganda into its articles. "Caitlin Johnstone" did not exist online prior to 2017. The name comes from a female sports player from Australia who was born in 2001. This comment will be deleted by this Russian plant. I hope somebody sees it before the truth is silenced.
Fair play to the West for what they're doing to make Russia suffer for all the evil they're perpetrating and all the deaths they're causing in Ukraine. Now could someone in MI6 or the CIA tell me how to make Saudi Arabia, the US and the UK suffer for all the murders they've been committing directly and indirectly for years in Yemen. I'm perplexed about what to do. How can I contribute?
https://youtu.be/xsh9V8UxenI
Col. Douglas Macgregor has advice for Zelensky
------------------------------------------------
Ukraine and Russia: What the Media Wants You To Think!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1W5o3Xz5OI
"...Humanity's immensely exploded ability to share ideas and information could have been a tool of the people to advance positive change..."
I think it actually was for a while. A whole lot more people learned the truth about Israel/Palestine than otherwise would have, Bernie (when he wasn't blatantly a Democratic Party sycophant) got a lot of votes he otherwise wouldn't have in the 2016 primary, and when that primary was rigged then a lot more people knew about it because of social media. Many more of us learned that the Western narrative on Syria was BS than otherwise would have. And so on...BUT, then the powerful got a better handle on how to not only limit the spread of what THEY call misinformation, but also how to use social media for their own way ends. And the result of that is that today, damn near everyone believes the establishment's narratives once again: on Covid, on Russia/Ukraine, etc.
thank you for sharing your life story. so, you have never experienced racial bigotry, discrimination, or disadvantage to speak of. that is the proof that there's no privilege? why don't you listen to your black, brown, and yellow friends, neighbors, and colleagues when they are telling you they experience it all day everyday everywhere, sometimes subtle and other times explicit? why do you deny their real first hand experience and its effect on them? do you believe they achieve less "success" academically or financially because they are indeed somehow inferior on average?