How can one critique this text and the TF voiceover other than to give it a resounding "superlative"?

A recent US Chamber of Commerce InSTEP program hosted three empire managers to talk about Washington's top three enemies, with the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discussing the PRC, the odious Victoria Nuland discussing Russia, and the US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides talking about Iran. Toward the end of the hour-long discussion, Burns made the very interesting comment that Beijing must accept that the United States is "the leader" in the region and isn't going anywhere.

Reading by Tim Foley.

US Ambassador To China: "We're The Leader" Of The Indo-Pacific

So many emerging technologies would be cause for celebration if our rulers weren't so damn evil and our systems weren't so damn oppressive. In a healthy society we'd be celebrating automation and AI giving us more and more abundance and free time; instead we're terrified of police robots and technocratic dystopia.

The knitting of neurology and technology would have incredible implications if we didn't know sociopathic intelligence agencies would immediately insert themselves into the use of those technologies. Virtual reality would be awesome if it wasn't going to be used to create fake worlds for people to purchase fake goods in so that capitalism can continue expanding while we destroy the real world.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Tech Would Be Fine If We Weren't Ruled By Monsters

Australia has been paying insiders of the US war machine for consultation on how to run the nation's military, a massive conflict of interest given that Washington has been grooming Australia for a role in its war agendas against China.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Australia Pays Washington Swamp Monsters For War Advice

This is what dystopia looks like. Like a bunch of thought-controlled automatons mindlessly marching toward ecocide and omnicide to a beat played out by screens who tell them every day and in every way that there is no higher purpose than this. Like military industrial complex-funded feminist rock operas about drone operators and Cookie Monster helping Samantha Power psychologically colonize Iraqi children. Like Bono coming home from singing a heartfelt number about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr to illustrate a cover for a war propaganda piece in The Atlantic.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Bono Is Doing Illustrations For The Atlantic Now, Because Everything's Fake And Stupid

Wednesday was World Press Freedom Day, and it saw US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and Deputy State Department Spokesman Vedant Patel confronted about the glaring hypocrisy of the Biden administration's persecution of Julian Assange for the crime of good journalism.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Multiple US Officials Confronted About US Assange Hypocrisy On World Press Freedom Day

I say we arm Russia against Russia. If it's bombing its own government buildings, its own pipelines, its own captured power plants, then it's the best proxy force against Russia we've got. Send the Russians tanks and F-16s immediately.

Russia's fighting Russia over there so we don't have to fight Russia over here.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Kremlin Did Not Kill Itself

We go balls to the wall,
laughing and screaming in nightclubs
with AI-generated twisted grins,
dance music pounding our ears so we can't hear our thoughts,
alcohol soaking our organs so we can't feel our feelings,
stomping down with all our might that small voice which calls out to us
from beneath the pile of corporate logos and dead birds
that we keep in the space where our soul used to be.

Then out,
out into the world vaping and smoking,
running down the sidewalk
jumping over homeless people with Super Mario Bros sound effects
screaming I AM ALIVE I AM ALIVE
against all evidence to the contrary,
moving as fast as we can to keep us
from ever catching up to ourselves.

We go balls to the wall,
consuming and being consumed by end-stage metastatic capitalism,
mainlining Empire Inc into the veins between our toes because the ones in our arms collapsed long ago,
plunging straws into our loved ones to siphon out the validation we cannot give ourselves,
stumbling with gig economy exploitation hangovers and mouths that taste like Microsoft
through a dead-eyed civilization of blaring screens and focus-grouped hearts
where young women are sacrificed to gods made of algorithms,
where our minds are stripped of anything that won't help billionaires become trillionaires,
where everything breaks after 18 months but takes millions of years to decompose,
where we're all conditioned to think the same thoughts but hate each other more and more.
Balls to the wall with no brakes on,
shrieking and whooping into the night
laughing joyless laughter through pleasureless coke highs
past the neon signs and 3D billboards
dodging drones and punching panhandlers
strangling starving men on the subway
and disappearing into the dark
and becoming the darkness
and embracing our true calling:

Disciples of Dystopia.
Agents of Omnicide.
Apostles of the Apocalypse.

Kiss the Pentagon on your necklace and floor it.

No brakes, baby.
No brakes.
____________________

____________________

____________________

Reading by Tim Foley.

Balls To The Wall

The best way to live a life based in truth, and the best way to be of use to the world, is to expand consciousness both inwardly and outwardly. Deeply investigate your own consciousness, divest yourself of the misperceptions and erroneous assumptions around thought, perceiving and selfhood which are driving your behavior, and discover your true nature. Also, learn everything you can about what's going on in the world, how people are being subjected to needless suffering by abusive systems, how power is really structured, what the mechanics of our civilization's dysfunctions are, and where some possible solutions might lie. Do both of these things.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Ken Wilber video: https://youtu.be/5TUr949kmZk

Look With Both Eyes

So of course people who see this express despair. When you first punch through the lies and start to gain an understanding of what's really going on, it can be really unpleasant at first. It feels like what it probably felt like to be a lucid thinker back in much less enlightened times when civilization was dominated by religion and superstition. Lonely. Depressing. As Terence McKenna said, "The cost of sanity in this society is a certain level of alienation."

But it gets better. Or at least it does if you allow it to. 

Reading by Tim Foley.

You Don't Have To Choose Between Happiness And Being Informed

Thank you for your service.

I say this not to the employees of the war machine, who in truth serve nothing besides imperial domination and the profit margins of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

I say this to the peacemakers.
To the truth-tellers.
To the defiant ones.
To those who’ve shone the light of truth upon the blood-spattered face of the empire against their own interests for the benefit of everyone.
To those who’ve stared down the barrel of the most powerful military force ever assembled and said “Do your worst.”
To the grandparents who’ve been dragged from nuclear weapons protests in handcuffs to create a safer world for their grandchildren.
To the activists whose incurable disobedience has led them to disrupt empire managers at think tank conferences or paint NO WAR across the face of the Sydney Opera House.
To the selfless martyrs who’ve exposed the abuses of the machine knowing full well that the scales of justice are weighted heavily against them.
To the hero in Belmarsh.
 To the Pentagon Papers whistleblower who today closed his gentle loving eyes for a final time.

Thank you for your service. 
For serving the highest interest over your own. 
For pouring everything you’ve got into the hope for a better tomorrow.
For betting everything on the hope of a healthy and harmonious world. 
For creating a guiding light to help humanity steer its way home.
For seizing your moment to help make things right instead of letting it pass like everyone around you.
For somehow finding the strength to swim against the current when it would be so much easier to drift along with the madness.
For somehow finding a higher calling in this wildly dysfunctional society where everything is pointed at selfishness and meaninglessness.
For somehow cultivating something profound and authentic within yourself in the midst of a civilization of the vapid and fraudulent. 
For doing your very best to get a foot on the brake pedal when everything else is accelerating toward the cliff’s edge. 
For listening to that small voice within which can tolerate no more.
For turning around. 
For taking your stand. 
For finding the courage. 
For doing what is right. 
For putting truth first. 
For lighting the way.

Thank you for your service.
We will do our best to carry the torch forward, and finish what you started.

____________________

____________________

____________________

Reading by Tim Foley.

Thank You For Your Service

It's a little bit bomby in Gaza today,
at least that's what the news men say.

Israel's victims were "murdered" and "killed"
and all mourn the innocent blood that was spilled,

but in Gaza explosives just fall from the air
and nobody mentions who launched them, from where.

They talk about "blasts" and how buildings were "hit".
Who blasted and hit them? Eh, who gives a shit.

It's a little bit bomby outside, that's the weather.
Put up your umbrellas, dudes. Get it together.

Reading by Tim Foley.

It's A Little Bit Bomby In Gaza Today

Readings of all Caitlin Johnstone's articles, usually by her co-writer Tim Foley.

Balls To The Wall

Caitlin Johnstone

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