If You Want To Fight The Machine, Do Not Move To The Right by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!
(2025-03-07 at 07:17:54 )

If You Want To Fight The Machine, Do Not Move To The Right by Ms Caitlin Johnstone!

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

People in politics and media who oppose the status quo often drift rightward, especially in the United States. Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr are some clear recent examples, but you see it happen all the time.

This is because the Trumpian political wing offers mainstream power and influence to those with an "anti-establishment" streak, while mainstream progressive politics does not offer anything close. If you are a right wing "populist" you can get elected president, while anyone to the left of Kamala Harris sees their campaigns sabotaged with smears and rigged primaries.

We see a similar dynamic play out in independent media; you will see many solidly leftist commentators drifting to the right as they find bigger numbers in attacking liberal institutions than attacking the Trumpian faction, because anti-establishment sentiment is much more mainstream on the right. A much larger audience pool has been allowed to amass there for hostility toward establishment institutions - because the right poses no threat to real power.

And therein lies the key point. Anti-establishment figures in politics and punditry are not drifting rightward because the right has better arguments or is more solidly grounded in truth and morality, they are drifting rightward because the so-called "populist right" has been allowed to flourish while its mirror on the left has not.

Right wing "populism" has been allowed to flourish by the very power structures its proponents purport to oppose, while the authentic left has been systematically dismantled by generations of aggressive imperial operations (look up COINTELPRO for example). That is why you see Trump backed by oligarchs, empire managers and DC swamp monsters and see Trumpism uplifted by the Murdoch press, while anti-imperialist socialism can barely even be said to exist anywhere in the United States-aligned world.

So while the power and influence offered by right wing "populist" factions can be tempting, that power and influence only exists because those factions are supported and defended by the empire itself.

Public discontent is being corralled toward establishment-friendly political structures so that it does not head anywhere that can threaten the mechanics of the empire, while authentic opposition to capitalism, militarism and empire building is viciously subverted by any means necessary.

Bernie Sanders and AOC play the same role on the other side of the aisle, by the way, as do ostensibly leftist media like TYT who herd people back into support for the Democratic Party.

Real opposition to real power is not permitted to ascend to the presidency of the worlds most powerful government. It is marginalized, smeared and subverted, and kept as small as possible. That is why some who begin with sincere opposition to real power find themselves drawn to the right: it is larger and offers more opportunities, because it is more aligned with the ruling power structures of our day.

It is fools gold. It sells you power and influence so that you can fight the power, but after you have made that bargain you find yourself on the same side as the power. You sold out for nothing. You might as well have skipped the middle part and gone directly to collecting the big bucks whoring yourself out to mainstream politics and media defending the empire without pretending to be something else.

Staying true and authentic can be hard. It comes at a price.

You do not get to see your favorite politicians win elections and take important positions in government. You do not get to amass tens of millions of loyal followers who hang on your every word. You lose friends and alienate family members with your positions on war and capitalism and imperialism and Zionism. You can not even watch a movie or a show without being frequently disgusted by the empire propaganda you will see. It is not pretty. But at least it is real.

It is another one of those red pill vs blue pill deals.

Do you want disconcerting truths or comforting lies? If you want to be true to what is true, you do not compromise your values to support political factions which help prop up the very power structures you oppose.

You stay focused on the enemy. You keep throwing sand in the gears of the machine, hoping that if enough people throw enough sand it will eventually come crashing down, but self-assured that you are going to keep throwing sand either way, win or lose.

Sure it is hard. Sure it entails a lot of disappointments and losses. But at least it is real. At least it stands a chance at beating the bastards, however small. As weak and pathetic as you can feel throwing haymakers at a globe-spanning empire some days, it sure beats the hell out of collaborating with it. And that is exactly what you would be doing by joining up with fraudulent political factions which claim to oppose the empire!

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Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin speaks the truth!!! - Cousin Lucky