Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone

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.

Churchill: "I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them. I believe that as civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate partition of China—I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph." Reading by Tim Foley.

So it is a bit funny that John Lansing is now cited complaining about NPR being labeled "state-affiliated media" on Twitter, given that he has devoted his life to promulgating US state-affiliated media. NPR receives funding from the US government, consistently advances the information interests of the US government, and is routinely run by professional propagandists of the US government. You could spend hours of your life just reading through Fair.org's "NPR" section to see the many, many ways that platform has exhibited wild biases to grease the wheels of the US empire. If NPR is not state-affiliated media, then nobody is. Reading by Tim Foley.

Assange is not only the world's greatest living journalist, he is the greatest journalist who has ever lived. There's really no valid argument against this. Seriously, name me a superior journalist. You can't. Assange began his journalism career by revolutionizing source protection for the digital age, then proceeded to break some of the biggest stories of the century. There's no one who can hold a candle to him, living or dead. The fact that he is now in prison for doing great journalism tells you everything you need to know about our society. And now he's in a maximum security prison, solely and exclusively because he was better at doing the best kind of journalism than anyone else in the world. That is the kind of civilization you live in. The kind that imprisons the best journalist of all time for doing journalism. Reading by Tim Foley.

Lyrics: Good morning Mr Newspaper, for your enquiry, thank you kindly you want to profile me? How wonderful, I must say, you surprised me! Let's have an earnest tete-a-tete on the dangers of realpolitik Oh, what's that you wanna know? What's the taste of Putin's dick? I see what's going on here I see what's going on here I see what's going on here You come to me all compliments but we all know where you pay your tithe If you wanna try to smear your shit on me I'll grow roses in your shite No matter how you twist my words, it's me you're gonna amplify I got nothing to lose, I just tell the truth, it's you who'll be ashamed this time Do you see what's going on here? Do you see what's going on here? Do you see what's going on here? Do you see what's going on here? I see what's going on here Do you see what's going on here? the harder you spin, the more eyes it will bring, til everything is in the light Your job's to obscure, to finegal the brutes, pay your tributes, dodge and weave, pretend that you're ri

“Just today, Brazil, the largest country in the Western Hemisphere, cut a trade deal with China," said Rubio. "They're going to, from now on, do trade in their own currencies, get right around the dollar. They're creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent of the United States. We won't have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there'll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won't have the ability to sanction them." Reading by Tim Foley.

The US needs to stop China's rise by militarily encircling it and crippling nations who are aligned with it and waging economic warfare and staging proxy wars and saturating the world in propaganda and crushing free speech, because otherwise a tyrannical regime might take over. Reading by Tim Foley.

We're so far under Washington's thumb that we're not even allowed to know if there are American nukes in our country, and our own government can't even advocate in defense of its own citizen when he's being persecuted for the crime of good journalism. Reading by Tim Foley.

"NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence,” Professor Richard Sakwa once wrote in an attempt to articulate the absurdity of the military alliance's provocative nature on the world stage. At some point Australians must wake up to the fact that this is equally true of AUKUS: we're told the military alliance exists for our protection, but its very existence makes us less safe. Reading by Tim Foley.

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.

Deciding to enter the military is only morally justifiable if your country's military is used in a moral and just way. There's a weird, power-serving taboo against saying this which is born of the idea that it's more important to protect the feelings of "our troops" than to discourage people from enlisting in the most murderous war machine on earth, but it's true. Reading by Tim Foley.

The "paper of record" for the most murderous and tyrannical nation on earth, The New York Times has been run by the same family since the late 1800s, during which time it has supported every depraved American war and has reliably dished out propaganda to manufacture consent for the political status quo necessary for the operation of a globe-spanning empire that is fueled by human blood and suffering. It is a plague upon our world, and it should be destroyed, buried, and peed on. And I am being charitable. Reading by Tim Foley.

This gruelling war has had very little about it that draws a smile, but at least we'll always have the story of an odious imperial spinmeister flying to Ukraine to fight the Russians only to go home in disgrace while being spurned by his fellow propagandists after acting like an infantile troll. Reading by Tim Foley.

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.

The western political/media class has suddenly resurrected the phrase "Axis of Evil" in recent days to refer to the increasing intimacy between Russia and China, just in time for the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Reading by Tim Foley.

In response to questions he received during a press conference on Monday about Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin cementing a "new era" in strategic partnership between China and Russia, the White House National Security Council's John Kirby made no fewer than seven assertions that the US is the "leader" of the world. Reading by Tim Foley.

It's actually a completely damning indictment of all western media if you think about it, and really of our entire civilization. The fact that an actual, literal psychopath whose entire goal in life is to try to get as many people killed by violence as he possibly can at every opportunity is routinely given columns and interviews in The Washington Post, and is regularly brought on CNN as an expert analyst, proves our entire society is diseased. Reading by Tim Foley.

ATTENTION JOURNALISTS: It is never, ever acceptable, under any circumstances, to cite think tanks funded by governments and the military industrial complex as sources of information or expertise on matters of national security or foreign affairs. If you do cite them (and, again, don't), then at the very least you need to disclose the conflict of interest their funding causes in your reporting, and you need to make it abundantly clear to your audience that it is a conflict of interest. Reading by Tim Foley.

Stop calling the Iraq War a "mistake". When you make a mistake, you make changes to ensure that mistake is not repeated. Nobody responsible for that invasion suffered any consequences of any kind, zero policy changes were made, and the unipolarist ideology which led to it has become more entrenched than ever. Reading by Tim Foley.

Watching Keating tear strips off all those war pornographers was so satisfying because it showed Australians the appropriate emotional posture to have toward these disgusting freaks. That's the bare minimum level of contempt they should always be treated with. Australians who don't want a war with China are still unclear about how to respond to this deluge of mass media war propaganda our country is being smashed with, and Keating showed exactly how to respond; he provided a solid model for us all. Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.