Caitlin Johnston: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

 Your Sigh Of Relief Is Grounded In Delusion: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Caitlin Johnstone

Caitlin Johnston,

20 January, 2021

Ahh at long last America is returning to normality: the hub of a globe-spanning empire which rings the planet with military bases and destroys any nation which disobeys it while propagandizing the entire world into supporting its murderousness, without rude tweets.

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Biden's inauguration will be a huge relief for people who aren't actually affected by US government policy.

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Americans want to believe Trump was uniquely evil among recent presidents because they want to believe their government will become significantly less evil when he leaves. This is delusional and harmful.

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The only way to find Trump's presidency remarkably awful is to (A) greatly diminish the scale of Bush and Obama's crimes and (B) believe foreign lives don't matter. Saying Trump was the worst president, even since the turn of this century, is saying that you're a shitty person.

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Trump was a US president of fairly average depravity surrounded by an ocean of influential narrative managers LARPing about treason and sedition for four years.

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So many Trumpers told me he'd free Assange. They were 100% certain Trump was going to get re-elected, drain the swamp, end the wars, and free Assange. He did none of these things. If this is you, please overhaul your worldview and drastically change your media consumption habits.

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Arguing that Trump wanted to pardon Assange but Republicans threatened him is just saying Trump wanted to fight the establishment but the establishment told him no.

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It's so crazy how the State Department has been led by a man who is even more evil and disgusting than Trump, and now that man is leaving office without the mass media having given him any critical attention at all.

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I haven't yet figured out how so many Americans manage the cognitive balance of simultaneously (A) thinking their country is the center of the universe and (B) thinking it odd that foreigners would have opinions about their country.

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Super excited for America to finally get rid of its racist corrupt right-wing asshole of a president, hopefully by sometime in the next four to eight years.

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It's easy to applaud Martin Luther King Jr when he is dead, when he exists as a legend and you don't have to meet any of his imperfections and controversies. If you want to know if you would have supported King back in his day, don't look at King. Look at whether or not you support Julian Assange.

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Julian Assange has provided many explosive revelations about the malfeasance of the powerful, but none so explosive as the revelation that the US and its allies will imprison and torture a journalist for exposing US war crimes.

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Just tell the truth. Just tell the truth. You will never out-manipulate a manipulator, either in personal relationships or politics. You can't "capitalize on" this or "leverage" that; they'll beat you every time. In the battle against the manipulators, truth is our only weapon.

I see socialist groups get behind this or that mainstream liberal agenda like "Hey we can ride the momentum of this to socialist revolution!" No you can't you sweet precious lamb. You're swimming with sharks. They'll take everything you put in and then let you have nothing.

When you're not a manipulator it's hard to understand how much better at manipulation a manipulator is than you. They're SO much better. If you're a truth teller then you need to drag the battle kicking and screaming into truth like a BJJ black belt taking the fight to the ground.

You're not going to out-manipulate a globe-spanning empire that is backed by billionaires and powerful intelligence agencies. It will not happen. We make it a battle of truth versus truth, or we lose.

Caitlin Johnston

Because of this nonsense I think you will be hard-pressed to find any more from Caitlyn Johnstone. I think I am finished with her.

For people like her every question has the same answer.  These people don't care about evidence unless it confirms their (in this case, pro-CCP) ideology.

And that is it. Beneath all the partisan noise and electoral implications, that is the message we were meant to take away from the interview. Not that the Biden family is corrupt, not that Joe Biden lied about being uninvolved in his son’s business enterprises as vice president, but that Joe Biden is compromised in favor of China. That is the story that’s going to keep resurfacing.

We are being played.

This would after all be the same Tucker Carlson who has been pushing ridiculous conspiracy theories about Democratic Party officials being secret Chinese intelligence agents and Covid-19 being a lab-made virus deliberately released by China, and just generally whipping up anti-China hysteria in his viewers at every possible opportunity. This would also be the same Tucker Carlson who tried to join the CIA after college. The same Fox News that reliably propagandizes its right-wing audience into alignment with imperialist agendas that resonate with rightist sensibilities.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/55813.htm

Caitlyn Johnstone on the murder of Soliemani

US Assassination Of Top Iranian Military Official May Ignite World Warn of Qassim Soleimani

Caitlin Johnstone

Caitlin Johnstone,

3 January, 2020

The US has admitted to assassinating Iran’s most beloved military leader, General Qassem Soleimani, in a drone strike which seems very likely to ignite a full-scale war. Six others are also reported killed, including Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

According to the Pentagon, Trump personally ordered the assassination. I’ll keep following this hugely important story and will probably be writing a lot about it as it unfolds. I encourage everyone who values peace and humanity to follow it as well.

“Spoke to a very knowledgeable person about what Iran’s response to Soleimani’s assassination might be,” The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi tweeted regarding this developing story. “This would be the equivalent of Iran assassinating Petreus or Mattis, I argued. No, he responded, this is much bigger than that.”

Grace Segers

✔@Grace_Segers

Pentagon out with a statement on the airstrike.
"This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans. The United States will continue to take all necessary action to protect our people and our interests wherever they are around the world."

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“Most Americans won’t understand the gravity of this,” tweeted journalist Rania Khalek. “Qasem Soleimani is head of the Iranian IRGC’s elite Quds Force, which conducts operations outside of Iran in both Iraq and Syria. He was credited with helping turn the tide in both countries against Al-Qaeda and ISIS.”

“This is very serious,” Khalek added. “The US essentially declared war on Iran by assassinating its most revered military figure in Iraq. And by also killing the head of the PMF, the US created more enemies in Iraq. There will be regional retaliation. It’s unlikely it can be prevented.”

“If true, It is not an understatement to say this could change the entire Middle East,” tweeted Rising‘s Saagar Enjeti.

“There’s going to be that war now that people have been pushing for since tanking the Iran Deal,” tweeted The Intercept‘s Murtaza Mohammad Hussain.

“If this is true, the US has effectively declared war on Iran, which has established militarily ties with Russia and China. It’s not hyperbole to say this could start WW3. Insane,” tweeted Grayzone‘s Dan Cohen, who also highlighted the important fact that “Iran, Russia and China held joint naval drills less than a week ago.”

“Iranian sources in Iran are warning that killing Gen. Qasem Sulaimani spells war,” tweeted Farnaz Fassihi of The New York Times. “‘Official reaction will begin with a strike,’ one says.”

A proportionate retaliatory strike would necessarily entail an attack on US military targets, or the military targets of US allies. If that happens, either the empire stands down or we’re looking at an all-out war of a size that is potentially almost limitless.

Farnaz Fassihi

✔@farnazfassihi

Iranian sources in Iran are warning that killing Gen. Qasem Sulaimani spells war.
"Official reaction will begin with a strike," one says.#Iraq

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2:58 PM - Jan 3, 2020

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Months after Donald Trump took office it was reported that the CIA had escalated covert operations in Iran, and the administration has been escalating tensions with that nation further and further ever since it announced its withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 on completely false pretenses. 
The withdrawal was followed by waves of debilitating, civilian-starving sanctions implemented with the goal of provoking civil unrest, a goal Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has openly admitted. From there we saw increased US military presence in the region, then the Iraqi-killing airstrikes earlier this week and the resulting tense angry standoff at the US embassy in Baghdad, and now here we are with Iran planning retaliation for an unforgivable assassination on its most senior and revered military official.

Many are understandably claiming that this geostrategically pivotal confrontation was precisely what Trump was installed to facilitate all along. The largest donor to any campaign in 2016 was oligarch Sheldon Adelson, who gave $25 million to the Trump campaign, and who in 2013 said that the US should drop a nuclear bomb on Iran. After Trump’s election win, Adelson gave another $5 million to his inauguration, the largest single presidential inaugural donation ever made. Newt Gingrich, another of the billionaire’s hired politicians, has said that Adelson’s “central value” is Israel

Make no mistake, Iran is not Iraq or Libya. A full-scale war against Iran would be many times more deadly, costly and destabilizing than those interventions; the UK’s Admiral Lord West told The Daily Star Online last year that winning such a war would require no less than a million troops, or nearly the total number of active duty US military personnel in the entire world. Even if a direct war with Iran didn’t lead to a confrontation with China, Russia and the other unabsorbed allies, it would still be worse than Vietnam and Iraq combined in terms of death, destruction, expense, and regional destabilization

Caitlin Johnstone @caitoz

Last year Lord Admiral West warned that the US would need no fewer than a million troops to win a war with Iran, almost the number of total active-duty US military personnel in the whole world. Even if this doesn't become WW3, it would still be worse than Vietnam + Iraq. https://twitter.com/dailystar/status/1130380386356170752 …

Daily Star

✔@dailystar

US would need ‘one million soldiers’ to invade #Iran, warns Brit admiral https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/779762/iran-us-war-invasion-middle-east-warships-bombers-donald-trump-john-bolton-admiral-west …

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2:56 PM - Jan 3, 2020

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And now, as I sit as the mother of two teenagers watching what might be a third world war looming on the horizon, all I can think is about how infuriating it is that we’ve spent the last three years on Russia bullshit and sectarian political infighting instead of building an actual cohesive antiwar movement and pushing real opposition to Trump’s warmongering.

Let’s get it together, humans. We need big changes, and we need them yesterday.

From Caitlin Johnstone

Sayonara John Bolton, Adios 

ThinkProgress, and MSM 

Shenanigans

Washington's plans for aitstrikes against Iran

Report: US Planning “Massive” Airstrike On An Iranian Facility

Caitlin Johnstone,

18 June, 2019

According to a new article from English-language Israeli publication The Jerusalem Post, the Hebrew-language Israeli publication Maariv has reported that diplomatic sources in the UN are assessing a US plan to conduct a “massive” airstrike on “an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program” in response to alleged attacks on two sea vessels in the Gulf of Oman.

“The sources added that President Trump himself was not enthusiastic about a military move against Iran, but lost his patience on the matter and would grant Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is pushing for action, what he wants,” The Jerusalem Post reports.

This news comes after public statements by Pompeo that the US is considering a “full range of options” against Iran. It also comes as 1,000 additional US troops are being sent to the Middle East to “address air, naval, and ground-based threats” there. It also comes amid sightings of depraved war criminal Henry Kissinger at the Pentagon.

So that’s great.

Arash Karami

✔@thekarami

in response to unproven claim that Iran attacked a Japanese tanker in the Persian Gulf the US is going to bomb an Iranian nuclear facility. https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-News/UN-officials-US-is-planning-a-tactical-assault-in-Iran-592832 …

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5:56 AM - Jun 18, 2019

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U.N. officials: U.S. planning a 'tactical assault' in Iran

The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.

jpost.com

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Ryan Browne

✔@rabrowne75

Spotted today at the Pentagon: former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

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9:43 AM - Jun 18, 2019

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Many comparisons are being made today between the unforgivable Iraq invasion and the agendas that this administration is attempting to advance in Iran, and rightly so. But make no mistake, Iran is not Iraq. A full-scale war against Iran would be many times more deadly, costly and destabilizing than Iraq; the UK’s Admiral Lord West told The Daily Star Online last month that winning such a war would require no less than a million troops. And it’s not difficult to imagine how the Trump administration’s brinkmanship could lead to all-out war.

If the US does decide to attack Iran over the highly suspicious Gulf of Oman allegations, for example, it’s not difficult to imagine a scenario in which Iran defends itself or retaliates and kills US servicemen. Once you’ve got the names and faces of US military personnel blaring on news screens all across America, you’ll see the war hawks converge and demand far more aggressive retaliations against Iran, and if the pressure works we could easily see an all-out war between the two nations. It just takes the right spark to land in the right place at the right time for the whole thing to go up in flames, and there are a lot of people trying to create sparks.

It would not be difficult for Trump to find himself in such a situation.

“This is actually a line that both the Saudis and the Israelis have been making to Washington for quite some time,” Iranian foreign policy analyst Trita Parsi told CNN International in response to the question of whether Iran would just allow an attack without retaliation. “This is essentially saying that Iran is no different from Syria. You can strike yet they won’t have the guts to respond. We actually know that that’s not true because just two weeks ago when there was a ratcheting up with tensions the US intelligence itself picked up that as US warships were heading towards the middle east, the Iranians started putting some of their missiles on boats and started moving them around, appearing as if they were either wanting to protect those missiles or preparing for counter strikes.”

“So the idea that this will just be a limited strike and the Iranians won’t respond seems extremely unlikely, but this is how you sell a big war: you pretend that you are selling a small war,” Parsi continued. “Because that’s much more digestible. That’s something perhaps that Trump could agree to. If you actually try to say ‘Look, let’s have a big war,’ not only would the American public be strongly against it, I personally think that Donald Trump himself would not be in favor of it.”

Trita Parsi

✔@tparsi

My interview on @cnni regarding Trump's escalation with Iran and the idea that you can have a small, limited war with Iran.

"But this is how you sell a big war. You pretend you're selling a small war because that is much more digestible."

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5:37 PM - Jun 18, 2019

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As proof of its Gulf of Oman claims against Iran, the US has circulated a grainy, Loch Ness Monster-quality video which shows nothing whatsoever and which one analyst attests has been edited in a misleading way, as well as a few photographs which prove absolutely nothing.

It is worth noting, however, that some typically reliable anti-imperialist voices have been saying it’s likely that Iran was indeed behind the attacks, including Moon of Alabama, Elijah J. Magnier, and former UK ambassador to Syria Peter Ford. They argue that Iran has been backed into a corner with economic sanctions, so now it’s fighting dirty to force the Trump administration to either end the sanctions in order to come to the negotiating table or enter into a costly, unpopular war right before election time. Magnier claims to have sources in Tehran who confirm this, saying that we can expect more such incidents in the future.

I’m not taking a position either way, but I do think it would be a mistake to make the possibility of a false flag into the entire argument against attacking Iran for the Gulf of Oman incident. If Iran did indeed attack a Japanese and a Norwegian vessel to obstruct trade in accordance with Tehran’s pledge that “if Iran cannot export oil through the Persian Gulf, no-one will do this,” it’s important to recognize that Iran would only be doing this in response to extremely aggressive economic warfare by the United States. As we discussed recently, sanctions are an act of war, and if Iran is behind this and any other attacks, the US will have been the aggressor.

In any case, things could get very, very ugly, very, very fast, and if it does it will be entirely the Trump administration’s fault.

Tulsi Gabbard

✔@TulsiGabbard

Here we go again! The US sending more troops to Middle East for what will be disastrous war with Iran. To prevent Trump and future presidents from waging war illegally (without Congress approval) we must sign my No More Presidential Wars Act. Join me: http://tulsi.to/iran10 

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1:08 AM - Jun 19, 2019

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Our one saving grace through all this has been Trump’s incompetence in manufacturing any kind of coalition or broad support for increased aggressions against Iran. EU foreign ministers have joined Japan and Germany in demanding further proof of Washington’s Gulf of Oman claims, and China is now denouncing US pressure on Iran and cautioning against “opening Pandora’s box” in the Middle East with further escalations. At home, the political/media class has been far less eager to help manufacture consent for war in this case than it generally is, with even virulent neocon Max Bootadvocating for diplomacy and a return to the Iran deal, and Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard actively plugging her No More Presidential Wars Act in response to the administration’s Iran brinkmanship.

I don’t know exactly what’s going on with Washington’s plans for Iran, but what I do know that 30 million people marched worldwide against the war in Iraq and it didn’t make a whit of difference. The same dangerously evil people who bullied, lied and cheated their way into getting their war with Iraq are pretty much the same bunch of assholes who are attempting to do the same with Iran today. Not only did none of them go to jail for that diabolical crime against humanity, most of them are still in positions of influence, and most of them are using that influence to push the world again into another war that nobody wants. How long do we put up with this crap?

Do you want to know the truth about what’s going on with Iran? The real truth? The real truth is that there’s an ever-growing, globe-spanning, oligarch-run power alliance with the United States at its center, an alliance which functions as a single empire and works relentlessly to bully other nations into either joining it or collapsing. Iran is by far the strongest nation in the region that has refused to allow itself to be absorbed into the blob, so its government has found itself in the imperial crosshairs  being commanded to either submit or be toppled. That’s all that’s going on here. Everything else is camera-friendly window dressing.