Listen to a lush and immersive dusck chorus captured in the East African savanna. Long version at https://youtu.be/pjsDqXcreDw

Dusk in the African savanna

Putin has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the goal of which he claims is not to occupy the country but to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” it. We've no reason to put blind faith in any of those claims. Only time will tell.

As of this writing dozens have reportedly been killed so far. All war is horrific. We can only hope that this one winds up being the least horrific a war can be.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Twelve Thoughts On Ukraine

Everyone feels the pinch when inflation is on the rise and so the pressure on central banks to manage inflation rates has grown exponentially in recent weeks. In this first podcast of a two-part series on inflation, distinguished economists Miles Kimball and Ruchir Agarwal discuss how a robust negative interest rate policy can help central banks better control inflation and stabilize the economy. 
Transcript: https://bit.ly/3xlHFEK 

Miles Kimball is a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Ruchir Agarwal is a senior economist in the IMF Research Department. 

This podcast series is based on their inflation trilogy published in Finance and Development. Read the article at IMF.org/fandd

Ruchir Agarwal and Miles Kimball on Negative Interest Rates and Inflation

リズム

Twitter has published what it calls a "crisis misinformation policy" announcing that it will be actively reducing the visibility of content found to be false which pertains to "situations of armed conflict, public health emergencies, and large-scale natural disasters."

If you've been paying attention to the dramatic escalations in online censorship we've been seeing in 2022, it will not surprise you to learn that the Ukraine war is the first crisis to which this new censorship policy will be applied.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Twitter To Ramp Up Censorship Of 'Misinformation' About The Ukraine War

Tpc244

So in order to punish Vladimir Putin for his war crimes and his assault on freedom and democracy, Biden will be courting a tyrannical war criminal whose country has no freedom or democracy.

Washington will be ending its brief diplomatic dry spell with a government that has been waging a horrific war against Yemen while suppressing any semblance of human rights at home in order to more effectively punish Putin for waging a horrific war against Ukraine which we're told threatens freedom and democracy throughout the western world.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Biden's Visit To Saudi Arabia Exposes The Ukraine Narrative For The Sham It Is

Happiness - Single

Happiness

The Guardian has put out a smear piece on critics of the imperial Syria narrative that reads like propaganda made by seven year-olds without adult supervision.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The Guardian Churns Out Embarrassingly Awful Empire Propaganda

All of our world's worst problems are created by the powerful. The powerful will keep creating those problems until ordinary people use their superior numbers to make them stop. Ordinary people don't use their superior numbers to stop the powerful because the powerful are continuously manipulating people's understanding of what's going on. 

Humans are storytelling creatures. If you can control the stories humans are telling themselves about the world, you control the humans, and you control the world. 

Mental narrative plays a hugely prominent role in human experience; if you've ever tried to still your mind in meditation you know exactly what I'm talking about. Babbling thought stories dominate our experience of reality. It makes sense then that if you can influence those stories, you're effectively influencing someone's experience of reality.

The powerful manipulate the dominant narratives of our society in approximately five major ways: propaganda, censorship, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, government secrecy, and the war on journalism. Like the fingers on a hand they are distinct from each other and each play their own role, but they're all part of the same thing and work together toward the same goal. They're all just different aspects of the US-centralized empire's narrative control system.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Imperial Narrative Control Has Five Distinct Elements

Closing the 2022 calendar year for Valley View Records in huge style is the incredible 18 track ambient masterpiece from renowned producer, Lauge.
Sceneries is an epic audio journey through sonic soundscapes and features 9 gorgeous originals with each track accompanied with a stunning remix from 9 of today's top ambient producers.
Do yourself a favor and set aside a chunk of time to sit down, unwind and let your mind travel across all these gorgeous soundscapes.
credits
released December 16, 2022

Lauge - Woodlands (Science Of Sleeping Remix)

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