Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone

A spirituality that is uninterested in ending war, genocide, poverty and injustice is a dead spirituality. If you hold your time on the meditation cushion as something separate from the weeping mother clutching a small body in Lebanon, you're wasting your time. Reading by Tim Foley.

They keep saying I hate the guy because of his religion. I don't even care about his religion, I just don't like sharing my house with some random outsider who broke in here out of nowhere and took my stuff. Reading by Tim Foley.

If you can hear the whales through your glowing foot roots, then stand up. Open your mouth. Let their aria rip through you. Let it pound up and out so the others can find you. Burrrp! Now's not the time for politeness, my love. We're staring down mass extinction. We don't have time to be cool. Care! It's fine! There's a rumbling in your belly. Can you feel it? An inner ocean, still teeming with luminescent jellyfish, dulled by a thin coat of plastic, immortal but dying anyway. For so many their foot roots have withered away somewhere in between an Uber shift and a Door Dash, and besides, their heart, rick-roll racketed by rent scam subscriptions, beats too loud and fast to hear any stupid whales. Exhausted bodies hosting ghosts running on foodless food and godless gods, too sick and tired to look up to see, to know what's happening in our name, to understand that the cold blue eyes of the empire of whiteness stamped on our every dollar bill that we are forced to pray for fervently each night, “Please God please God Please may I pay my bills God Please may I feed my children God Please may we keep this roof God Please may you give me more money God Please oh money God Please oh please I don't want to die Please give me your demon dollars Made from the bones of African child slaves Pressed from the meat of the babies of Gaza Printed with the oil made from the blood sacrifices of Chevron Paper gods every one I know not where they come from Or how they are made And I might die of grief if I did Just give me some more of your green demon prayer cards So that I might live Another day, Amen.” That is not you. You pray of course (we all must), but you, you hear the whales. And there are others. You can tell us by the flowers of light sprouting from our eye stalks and noggin crowns, from our bellowing war cries roaring through us giving voice to our blue mama, her rainforest hair slick with oil but beautiful still. Reading by Tim Foley.

From all this melodramatic garment-rending and victim-LARPing you'd assume the four Israelis were killed in their beds in Tel Aviv, not traveling by tank through a foreign country they'd invaded. Reading by Tim Foley.

We're basically ruled by emotional toddlers who never learned to rein in their egos. They're trying to control the planet in the same way they tried to control their access to toys and candy when they were small. Reading by Tim Foley.

The US empire is the most destructive and tyrannical force on the planet, and it is good when it fails to accomplish its goals. Reading by Tim Foley.

Elon Musk is a military-industrial complex plutocrat who is balls deep in the US intelligence cartel and recently facilitated the US-Israeli regime change operation in Iran. You have infinitely more in common with the average person in Iran, Cuba, Lebanon or Palestine than you have with the world's first trillionaire. Reading by Tim Foley.

Caitlin and Tim discuss Trump, trillionaires and other tribulations. Caitlin paints the US Secretary of War and then sets fire to the painting. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixOiTYdMCLM

It's a war on the human conscience. Sentencing anti-genocide activists as terrorists. Working to deport mainstream foreign policy experts for criticizing an American war. They're actually punishing people for not acting like sociopaths. Reading by Tim Foley.

Under capitalism, humanity exists to serve the interests of the corporation. We are all livestock; beasts of burden used to carry margin expansion forward from quarterly statement to quarterly statement. Enjoyment of life has no value other than the extent to which it can be used to increase the net worth of the shareholders. Reading by Tim Foley.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that the US is going to be launching major strikes in Iran, while President Trump says he'll "bomb the shit out of" the Iranians if they don't agree to a deal of his liking. Reading by Tim Foley.

One reason AI is being pushed so hard is because it's the last "humanity can capitalism its way out of all its problems" narrative that has yet to be fully discredited. Reading by Tim Foley.

The US is bombing Iran again after an American attack helicopter was downed over the Strait of Hormuz amid renewed escalations in the conflict. Reading by Tim Foley.

Raising kids who aren't allowed to say no to you is raising adults who don't think anyone should be allowed to oppose their rulers. Reading by Tim Foley.

We could just be taking care of one another and holding each other's hands as we hurtle toward the grave. Reading by Tim Foley.

Israel's +972 Magazine reports that the Israeli military establishment has launched a training program designed to "influence public consciousness" around the world, with courses aimed at training hundreds of operatives per year in strategies for "actively disrupting or manipulating the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of target audiences." Reading by Tim Foley.

The 73 year-old activist barely grazes the clothing on Luna's arm with her hand while speaking, after which the US Air Force veteran Luna collapses into a pile of blubbering victimhood. Reading by Tim Foley.

Caitlin and Tim discuss this strange dark future we've all tumbled into and the things that make life worth living. Available as a painting video as well. This conversation can be found on every major podcast platform. Please send us your questions, comments and feedback so we can address them in the next show.

This is just what supporting Israel looks like: standing shoulder to shoulder with genocidal extremists and making common cause with them. That's what Israel is. Reading by Tim Foley.

The UK is getting crazier and crazier in its defense of Israel. Now they're canceling the visas of mainstream normie political pundits for criticizing the state of Israel, and investigating people for antisemitic hate crimes when they denounce Zionists who aren't even Jewish. Reading by Tim Foley.

The film's trailer depicts sympathetic protagonists being brutally victimized by Iranian authorities, and concludes with the image of fighter jets soaring overhead while an English-captioned Persian voiceover says "If Iran gets liberated, celebrate for me. Enjoy it for us!" Reading by Tim Foley.

If you believe Israel is worthy of disproportionately high levels of support, then you must necessarily also concede that it is worthy of disproportionately high levels of criticism. Reading by Tim Foley.

Reading by Tim Foley.

It is not okay to be a stormtrooper for the western empire. It is not honorable. It is not worthy of respect. If you are a westerner who is considering joining the military, you should choose a different career path instead. Reading by Tim Foley.

The empire's war on activism and journalism continues to escalate as the Trump administration targets left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and antiwar activist Medea Benjamin for the crime of bringing humanitarian aid to Cuba. Reading by Tim Foley

International flotilla activists say they were subjected to torture and sexual assault by Israeli forces after being abducted in international waters while attempting to bring aid to Gaza. Reading by Tim Foley.

Caitlin and Tim discuss Itamar Ben-Gvir, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Cuba, capitalist dystopia, and love. Please send us your questions, comments and feedback so we can respond to them in the next episode.

In a sign that the US is preparing for yet another evil war, Marco Rubio is now claiming that Cuba poses a "national security threat" to the United States, saying the likelihood of a peaceful agreement is "not high". Reading by Tim Foley.

Western and Israeli officials are currently wagging their fingers in faux outrage at Israel's national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for publicly boasting about the mistreatment of flotilla activists attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. Reading by Tim Foley.

Americans just watched the Israel lobby openly manipulate yet another election, and then in like two weeks they're going to hear their government tell them they need to regime change another foreign country to bring "democracy" to its people. Americans themselves do not have democracy. Reading by Tim Foley

Caitlin and Tim discuss AI, Israel's threat to sue the New York Times, militarized robots, and the ethics of watching porn. Caitlin paints Sam Altman. Please send us your questions, comments and feedback so we can respond to them in our next podcast.

Israel is now saying it will sue The New York Times as Zionists continue their days-long freakout over the outlet's reporting on the systemic rape of Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons. Reading by Tim Foley.

Basically you have two choices: either you believe Israel is a genocidal state that is morally comparable to Nazi Germany, or you believe there's a giant global conspiracy of mainstream western institutions and media outlets dedicated to making Israel look bad. Reading by Tim Foley.

I don't enjoy writing about this shit. I don't enjoy getting called a Nazi by state-funded shills all day. I didn't ask to spend years watching a live-streamed genocide perpetrated right in front of my eyes with the facilitation of my own government. I didn't choose to live in a world where Israel's actions directly affect me and my country. I never invited the Israel lobby to attack my freedom of speech by trying to outlaw criticism of a genocidal apartheid state. It was never my decision to live in an information ecosystem where pro-Israel propagandists are constantly trying to deceive me about what's going on in my world and manipulate the thoughts in my head. Those things were imposed upon me. Reading by Tim Foley.

The highest award in all of journalism is being accused of antisemitism by the Israeli government for factual reporting. Reading by Tim Foley.

In a fawning softball 60 Minutes interview released Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the importance of winning "the propaganda war" on social media. This comes as Israel moves to quadruple its propaganda budget to $730 million a year. Reading by Tim Foley.

It's not impossible to solve our world's problems, it only looks that way because we've created systems which cause human behavior to be driven by mindless mechanisms of our own making rather than by human interest. Reading by Tim Foley.

Critics have been warning for years that these age restriction laws are being rolled out around the world to erase online anonymity and enable greater surveillance of the entire population, and they are looking more vindicated than ever today. This isn't about protecting children from social media addiction and porn, it's about expanding the western empire's surveillance network. Reading by Tim Foley.

First and foremost the west needs to stop murdering people. Ending western warmongering should take priority over every other societal concern, in the same way your husband being a serial killer would be a more urgent concern than his refusal to wash dishes. Reading by Tim Foley.

I am confident the chatbots aren't conscious in the same way I'm confident the animatronics at Disneyland aren't conscious. I know humans constructed them to mimic the behavior of a sentient person. We know this for a fact. Nobody's pretending otherwise. Reading by Tim Foley.

Caitlin and Tim discuss art, AI, consciousness, propaganda, spiritual awakening and more while Caitlin paints a portrait of Marco "the Gorey Gusano" Rubio. Please leave us your questions, comments and feedback so we can respond to them on the next podcast.

Israel supporters really expect you to be intimidated when they mob your replies yelling at you and calling you names. Like oh no, the people who defend bombing hospitals think I'm bad. Reading by Tim Foley.

I recently watched a Sky News segment on the need to ban pro-Palestine marches which nicely illustrates the way the mass media have been working to manipulate the public into believing these demonstrations are causing antisemitic attacks. Reading by Tim Foley.

Basically every Israel-Palestine debate goes like this: “Israel did X.” “Yeah, because Hamas did Y.” “Yeah, because Israel did Z.” “Yeah but only because the Palestinians keep doing A.” “Okay but that's wouldn't have happened of the Israelis hadn't been doing B.” “But that only happened because the Arabs did C!” But if you bring the debate back far enough in time, eventually you get to the part where the western world forcibly dropped a brand new ethnostate on top of a pre-existing civilization without the permission of — and to the extreme detriment of — the people who were already living there. Reading by Tim Foley.

Laws aimed at pro-Palestine protests should always be looked at as efforts to ban criticism of Israel. That's what we're seeing in the UK as the prime minister encourages the prosecution of anyone who says “globalise the intifada”. Reading by Tim Foley.

Caitlin and Tim discuss the Israeli abduction of Global Sumud Flotilla activists hundreds of miles away from their territorial waters, US war plans for Cuba, Israel's ethnic cleansing plans for Gaza, the billionaire propagandist who owns Politico, motherhood, misogyny, and more. As usual, please leave us your questions, comments and feedback so we can respond to them in the next podcast. Feature image by Brahim Guedich via Wikimedia Commons.

Sure capitalism is driving us toward collapse on multiple fronts while everyone gets sicker, poorer, dumber, crazier, and more miserable, but hey look, McDonald's is bringing back the McRib. Reading by Tim Foley.

In the last few days I've seen three separate instances of generative AI being used to promote propaganda for US-Israeli war agendas which are worth paying attention to. Reading by Tim Foley.

Caitlin and Tim discuss the global consequences the US-Israeli war on Iran is set to have on the weakest members of the poorest countries, the latest Trump assassination attempt, BBC headline shenanigans, and more.

However bad you're imagining it is, it's worse. The handbook, set to be formally launched later this week under the title "Understanding Antisemitism in Australia," explicitly conflates antisemitism and antizionism with statements like "Antisemitism and antizionism are both expressions of hatred towards Jews" and asserting that it is antisemitic to accuse Israel of "apartheid, oppression, racism and genocide." Reading by Tim Foley.

They do this all the time, with everything. They'll falsely claim pro-Palestine protests make them feel unsafe just to get laws passed to shut down the demonstrations. They'll pretend to believe that phrases like "from the river to the sea" and "globalize the intifada" are hateful slogans which encourage antisemitic attacks. They'll regurgitate ridiculous hasbara slogans like "human shields" and "world's most moral army" which they know for a fact are false. They just make whatever noises they need to make to keep the western weapons shipments heading to Tel Aviv. Reading by Tim Foley.