Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone

Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant has announced a "complete siege" of all of Gaza in response to the Hamas attack on Saturday, justifying the deliberate targeting of civilians with siege warfare by the claim that Israel is at war with "human animals". "I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed," Gallant said Monday, adding, "We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." So there you have it, folks: they're attacking civilians, which is fine, because they're not actually attacking human beings. There it is. The true face of Israel, naked and unadorned in the cold light of day. The mask is completely off now. Reading by Tim Foley.

The western press are largely to blame for all this. If they'd just told the truth instead of running "Palestinian child walks into bullet" headlines this whole time and telling everyone that boycotting Israel is genocide, political pressure could've long ago been brought about to force a peaceful and just resolution to this mess. Reading by Tim Foley.

The problem with oppressing a population with maximum force is that at some point they start figuring they've got nothing to lose by fighting back. Reading by Tim Foley.

We're seeing the western political/media class bleating the word "unprovoked" in unison again, this time in reference to the massive multi-pronged operation launched by Hamas against Israel on Saturday morning which reportedly killed hundreds of Israelis. Reading by Tim Foley.

Some days the Caitlin Johnstone articles just write themselves. During her self-titled annual awards ceremony at Georgetown University on Thursday, Hillary Clinton said that the biggest obstacle to peace and security around the world is "men starting wars." Reading by Tim Foley.

When you live under an empire that's held together by lies, you'll be asked to believe a lot of intensely stupid bullshit. Here are the top ten dumbest things the propagandists of the US-centralized empire try to get us to swallow. Reading by Tim Foley.

I can't say enough unkind words about people who are buying into the obvious anti-China propaganda push. We've seen them do this so many times to so many countries by now, if you still fall for it at this point you're just a stupid asshole who deserves to have their feelings hurt. All out of patience for this bullshit. Reading by Tim Foley.

As the 17th anniversary of the creation of WikiLeaks passes us by, it's probably worth taking a moment to reflect on Julian Assange and what his persecution means for us and our society. Reading by Tim Foley.

"Relish the gaps," said the old woman at the nursing home, grabbing at my hand as I walked past. "I'm sorry… do you need your nurse?" I said, reluctantly giving her my hand to hold.  Her bones felt frail. I wasn't there to see her. I didn't know this woman.  "Everyone lets life pass them by," she said urgently, ignoring my obvious discomfort. "They're always focused on attaining and accomplishing, meeting their goals, winning people's approval. Then before they know it they're sitting in a place like this, wondering where it all went." Reading by Tim Foley.

The New York Times has published another CIA press release disguised as news, this time aimed at whipping up paranoia toward anyone who criticizes the US proxy war in Ukraine. Reading by Tim Foley.

Last year liberals were calling their political opponents Nazis and comparing Putin to Hitler. This year they're defending Nazis and saying you can't hate someone just because he swore allegiance to Hitler. Reading by Tim Foley.

As opposition to funding the US proxy war in Ukraine increases on Capitol Hill, empire apologists have been frantically churning out think pieces about how much the war serves US strategic interests in order to manufacture support for its continued backing by Washington. Such arguments flatly contradict the propaganda messaging we were inundated with at the beginning of the war that this was an "unprovoked invasion", but empire managers don't seem particularly interested in defending that narrative anymore. Reading by Tim Foley.

"That's why I propose that the People's Liberation Army should begin militarily encircling the continental United States with Chinese war machinery as quickly as possible, in order to deter future US aggression around the world." Reading by Tim Foley.

There's been an astonishingly brazen propaganda push to normalize war profiteering in Ukraine as Kyiv coordinates with the arms industry and western governments to convert the war-ravaged nation into a major domestic weapons manufacturer, thereby turning Ukrainians into proxies of the military industrial complex as well as the Pentagon. Reading by Tim Foley.

That's the main tool in the empire apologist's toolbox these days: arguing with reality. If you point out the reality of where people are at in Moscow and Beijing with regard to western provocations on their nations' borders, their only answer is to say "Yeah well that's not how things should be so we're going to keep doing what we're doing."  It's like being warned that you'll get punched if you keep yelling ethnic slurs in public but doing it anyway because you believe people should respect free speech, and then melodramatically clutching your broken nose and yelling that what happened should not have happened. Reality doesn't care about your ideological shoulds and shouldn'ts; as far as reality is concerned, there's just what happens and what does not happen. If you actually want to avoid certain outcomes, you can't just heap a bunch of conceptual shoulds and shouldn't on concrete circumstances - you've got to actually conduct yourself in a way that steers clear of those outcomes. Reading by Tim Foley.

There's a heartbreaking graphic going around right now showing the almost microscopic changes that have occurred to the frontline of the war in Ukraine this year despite nonstop death and destruction of unfathomable horror the entire time. Reading by Tim Foley.

I don't mention it often but I actually have a degree in journalism. I graduated with distinction from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2003, and while it would be another 13 years before I'd ever put my degree to any use, the experience played a massive role in forming my opinions about the mainstream press. Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.

So while I am talking about a future civilization that sounds utopian, I am also talking about the only kind of future civilization that can possibly exist. If there are future generations, they will necessarily be living in a society that functions in a completely different way than our current one does. Reading by Tim Foley.

The Bill Kristol-led group "Republicans for Ukraine" has released a TV ad to help drum up GOP support for Washington's proxy war against Russia, and it's surprisingly honest about what this war is really about: advancing US strategic interests using Ukrainians as sacrificial pawns. Reading by Tim Foley.

So while we members of the public were blindly speculating about whether or not Russia would attack Ukraine, the US intelligence cartel was fully aware that the US was taking actions ensuring that that would happen. That's the environment the US security state knew it was operating under when it continued to taunt the idea of adding Ukraine and Georgia to NATO right up until the final moments before the invasion. Reading by Tim Foley.