Electoral Politics Does Not Work: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2021-09-24 at 21:21:30 )

Electoral Politics Does Not Work: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!

Listen to a reading of this article:

It says a lot that Ms Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not even able to vote against an Israeli apartheid measure that everyone already knew would pass regardless of her vote.

I mean, how far gone is your progressive revolution if you are not even allowed to have a perfectly safe performative "no" vote? If even the illusion of opposition is banned?

People say, "Why pick on AOC when other lawmakers are way worse?"

They are not worse, they just perform different functions. The Manchins and Sinemas kill leftward movement openly, the AOCs encourage the left to feed their political energy into a party that is built to kill leftward movement.

It happens that one of these manipulations is much easier for leftwardy-inclined people to see than the other; it is easier to recognize Manchin and Sinema-type bullshit than AOC-type bullshit. So you will see some factions on the left putting special emphasis on pointing out the one that the general public needs a lot more help recognizing.

I do not know who needs to hear this but there is no functional difference between a politician who votes a certain way because they want to and a politician who votes a certain way because systemic pressures push them to.

It is like Donald Trump supporters saying he wanted to fight the Deep State but the Deep State would not let him. It is like, okay, so? Who gives a f-ck? Either he is an asshole or an impotent puppet, either way
f-ck him. Same with AOC and her constant establishment capitulations.

Whether they are serving the empire because they want to or because they have to, it is clear and undeniable that electoral politics is not the way to advance the interests of normal human beings. The system simply does not allow for that.

The absolute least important thing in the universe is how some politicians feelings are feeling inside. It does not matter what secret intentions they have in their heart. All that matters is what they do. If they can not do what you need them to, it means they are useless. Period.

The single greatest threat to freedom and democracy is not foreign governments, nor the authoritarian measures being implemented by our own governments, but the fact that giant media and tech companies are used to continuously manipulate the way people think about all of those governments.

You are not free if your mind is not free. It does not matter if you were free to say and do whatever you want if the powerful are still actively manipulating the thoughts you think, because all your words and actions will arise from those thoughts. Mental sovereignty comes first.

In an alternate universe the governments of a parallel Earth responded to the pandemic by pouring money into healthcare systems, transferring wealth from their nations richest to their poorest, and saying "Here is a new vaccine but it is up to you whether you use it or not."

It is true that knowledge is power. That is why the powerful work to control peoples access to knowledge through the internet and news media. It is also why there is privacy for the powerful and radical transparency for the public, instead of the other way around as it ought to be.

President Biden proclaiming that the United States is no longer at war because he moved a few thousand troops out of Afghanistan is the most Donald Trump-like thing that has happened so far in this very Trumpian administration.

The United States is like "We do not seek a new cold war, we simply seek to remain the unipolar dominator of the entire planet and maintain the ability to unilaterally destroy smaller nations which disobey us. And we will do anything to accomplish this, including waging a new cold war."

George W Bush should never be able to give any speech anywhere without people in the audience cutting him off to yell about his war crimes.

Invented a highly effective new antidepressant that I hope to get to the market ASAP. It is not a pill it is just a big wad of cash taken by force from giant corporations.

Mothers and nurses work harder than any billionaire on earth.

People complain about how I do my thing here and say I should do it some other way, and I totally get it. One time I went to an AC-DC concert and they played not one note of smooth jazz. I was so angry.

We are ruled by a nuclear-armed globe-spanning power structure which is driving our world to its doom in myriad ways and that power structure has somehow seamlessly paced us from fearing terrorists to fearing Russian hackers to fearing anti-vaxxers instead of fearing it.

Someone who calls you an "anti-vaxxer" for expressing moderate and reasonable human rights concerns about brand new government policies that affect everyone deserves as much respect as someone who calls you an "anti-semite" for voicing legitimate criticisms of Israeli apartheid.

Having principles means having them even when they do not further your personal agenda. You may enjoy the sight of having your politics enforced by gunpoint today, but it completely demolishes your voice and integrity when police brutality comes for you tomorrow. Those little self-serving lies that we tell ourselves about how our principles do not apply here because of blah-blah reason are the levers by which the powerful manipulate us into further and further submission.

Propaganda works because it plugs into our most fundamental egoic mechanisms: identity and fear. Identify tightly with a group or political faction and you will accept propaganda which comes from there. Be driven by fear and that will be used to herd you into power-serving agendas.

If you want to free your mind from the chains of power it is not enough to do research and memorize a bunch of facts.

The most important step to freeing your mind from its shackles is to remove from yourself the psychological hooks to which those shackles are attached.

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