I like this Johnstone chat by the way all media is to some extent just propaganda say it offen enough and people begin to absorb it. Scary huh.

Chattel slavery and human exterminating policies for 400 years does not connote off ramp policies.  It's as black humor as possible when a demented bribed old mass murderer like the creep who lives at 1600 Penn has the narcissistic audacity to want to remain on center stage...Nero would be proud of such a pathetic stage performance!

"WWE event" – OH! – As an American, I'm neither a Trumpster nor a Republican. Trump did terrible things. But I looked at those who got triggered by Trump as the same people who'd believe the villain in professional wrestling was real.

People who live in the Middle East have every right to attack the occupying forces there whose presence they oppose, and those occupying forces do not have any legitimate right to retaliate.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Syrians Have Every Right To Attack US Occupiers

A fascinating exchange took place at a UN press briefing the other day between China Global Television Network's Xu Dezhi and the UN's Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Farhan Haq about the US military occupation of Syria. The exchange is interesting both for the wild pro-US bias shown by a UN official, and for the way it illustrates how much truth can be exposed when journalists do what they're supposed to do in the press gallery.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Imagine If All Officials Were Interrogated By Reporters Like This

The use of the phrase "journalism is not a crime" is an interesting choice since the most common individual case you'll hear it used in reference to is surely that of Julian Assange, who has been locked in a maximum security prison for four years while the US government works to extradite him for the crime of good journalism. Every pro-Assange demonstration I've ever been to has featured signs with some variation of the phrase "journalism is not a crime," and any Assange supporter will be intimately familiar with that refrain.

So as an Assange supporter it sounds a bit odd to hear that slogan rolled out by two DC swamp monsters who have both enthusiastically supported the persecution of the world's most famous journalist.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Washington Says "Journalism Is Not A Crime" While Working To Criminalize Journalism

The US State Department's spokesperson Ned Price is being replaced by a man named Matthew Miller. Like Price, Miller has had extensive prior involvement in both the US government and the mass media; Price is a former CIA officer and Obama administration National Security Council staffer who for years worked as an NBC News analyst, while Miller has previously had roles in both the Obama and Biden administrations and spent years as an analyst for MSNBC.

Reading by Tim Foley.

The US Needs Separation Of Media And State

People shouldn't be punished for revealing the secrets of the government, governments should be punished for keeping secrets from the people.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Free Those Who Expose Government Misdeeds, Jail Those Who Try To Conceal Them

The Biden administration's Department of Justice has just charged four members of the African People's Socialist Party (APSP) for conspiring to act as agents of Russia by using speech and political action in ways the DOJ says "weaponized" the First Amendment rights of Americans.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Biden DOJ Indicts Four Americans For "Weaponized" Free Speech

No I will not be supporting any US presidential candidate. Not because I don't think Australians have any business involving themselves in US political affairs (we absolutely do), but because the elections are fake and the next president will with absolute certainty be another corrupt imperialist monster. I won't be picking any favorites in the next WWE event either.

Reading by Tim Foley.

US Presidential Elections Are Children's Entertainment

Some people wonder why mental health conditions are so bad, while I marvel at the fact that they're not much worse. It's actually amazing anyone's functioning at all in a civilization that's ruled by exploiters and abusers who dominate the world using mass-scale psychological manipulation. It's a testament to human resilience that anyone is sane. When everyone's mind is always being pummeled with messaging that you're deficient if you can't thrive under our oppressive systems, that you're flawed if you don't look, think and act a certain way, that poverty is normal and acts of mass military slaughter are acceptable, it's a wonder we don't all snap.

When everyone's consciousness is being continually warped and twisted to suit the agendas of the powerful and keep us all thinking, speaking, working, shopping and voting in ways that advance their interests, it's surprising we're not seeing more suicides, more mass shootings, more substance abuse, more clinical depression and anxiety. In a totalitarian dystopia that's held together by mass-scale psychological abuse, it's entirely reasonable that people are finding themselves overwhelmed with despair, alienation, depression and anxiety.

Everything seems phony, meaningless and needlessly difficult because it is. This isn't a statement about human nature or life as it naturally exists, it's a statement about the artificially constructed systems we live under currently. Systems that were built by people and are being maintained by people. Systems which can be changed and restructured by people, too.

Reading by Tim Foley.

You're Not Deficient, You're Just Ruled By Assholes

I think it's probably a good thing when our idols get knocked off the pedestals we put them on. Chomsky. Bernie. The Dalai Lama. It's not healthy to elevate others to a lofty status above ourselves instead of seeing them as normal human beings who are as capable of error as anyone else.

Reading by Tim Foley.

It's Good When Idols Get Knocked Off Pedestals

The biggest impediment to free speech is people's belief that they have it. Not censorship. Not refusal to platform critical voices. Not the war on journalism. It's the fact that most people are propagandized into saying what the powerful want them to say, and don't know it.

Reading by Tim Foley.

Propaganda Restricts Speech More Than Censorship Does

Disquiet Junto Project 0620: Beat Accrual Accrual
The Assignment: Turn someone’s slow-build beat into a finished track.

I decided to build on Going Modular's "Disquieting Polyrhythm" because of the haunting, repetitive synth and dramatic build of the piece. It's a soundscape that I've been living in now for days. I only made one alteration which was to short it a bit in the last two thirds. https://soundcloud.com/goingmodular

I also really wanted to see if I could combine that with yet another junto from last week just to be cheeky about the assignment. Lee Evans' "Euclidian Dub" worked quite well with this, bringing it in just at the end of the song, making this slow, driving, building piece extra climactic and almost dancy in the end. (https://soundcloud.com/hippieswearingmuzzles/euclidean-dub-disquiet0619)

I haven't been able to write lyrics for a long time but this really sparked it for me and I was able to jot out some words that relate to a lot that's on my mind - the Israel-Hamas war, a complicated relationship with an ill and possibly dying father, being almost 40 and still not knowing if I'll get to be a mother or "just" an artist or both...all the things! It felt cathartic to express some of that. (AND pretty vulnerable).

I love creating choirs in my music. I also loved the idea of once again building from something simpler to something more complex so I had the backing choir slowly emerge while the lead vocal gradually got more crunchy. I added a subby bass partway through and strings to mimic the melody of the synth and bring it out more for the climax. 

Oh! And it was raining when I recorded and I just needed that sound in there.

Thank you so much to Going Modular and Lee Evans for your creations!

More on this 620th weekly Disquiet Junto project, Beat Accrual Accrual (The Assignment: Turn someone’s slow-build beat into a finished track), at: https://disquiet.com/0620/

About the Disquiet Junto: https://disquiet.com/junto/

Subscribe to project announcements: https://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co: https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0620-beat-accrual-accrual/

stone soup (w Going Modular and Lee Evans) (disquiet0620)

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

US Presidential Elections Are Children's Entertainment

Caitlin Johnstone

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