Podcast appearances and mentions of Tim Foley

So are you ready for my brilliant strategy on how to defeat Putin? Here it is: simply stand back and wait for him to explode the rest of Russia. This is after all the same madman who the New York Times informs us has been ordering his troops to shell a nuclear power plant they already control. If Putin is a gibbering, irrational lunatic who enjoys blowing up his own stuff for no reason other than to act crazy, surely if we just stand back and leave him to his own devices he will soon turn the Russian Federation into a steaming pile of rubble. Reading by Tim Foley.

At the risk of upsetting the entire internet, the annexation of those four Ukrainian territories seems like a great time to end this war to me. Does anyone honestly believe a significant percentage of the people who live there want a massive counteroffensive on their doorstep? I don't. The west knowingly provoked this war, the thing experts warned for years would happen did happen, and now Ukraine lost some territory. Rather than risking millions or billions of lives escalating this conflict, it seems sensible to draw a line under it. You can yell "Putin bad!" and "International law!" all you want, but it's just a cold hard fact that after the annexation the US/NATO/Ukraine tandem is going to be presented with the choice of either ending the bloodshed or massively, massively escalating it. Pretty easy choice, in my opinion. Reading by Tim Foley.

New Zealand's prime minister Jacinda Ardern continued her crusade for the expansion of internet censorship during a speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, this time using the war in Ukraine. Reading by Tim Foley.

Someone who believes the US or its proxies sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines can tell you exactly what they'd stand to gain from it and how little it would cost them. Someone who believes it was Russia has to perform weird mental contortions about Moscow sending some kind of message to the world and Putin being insane, or entertain the absurd notion that Russia could only stop Europe from obtaining Russian natural gas by destroying Russian pipelines. This says a lot about whose arguments are stronger. The west has blamed Russia for bad presidents, for western racism, for western political divisions, for inflation, for pretty much every bad thing western power structures are responsible for, but blaming Russia for attacks on Russian pipelines is probably going to take the cake. Reading by Tim Foley.

The New York Times, which consistently supports every American war, has published an op-ed by a neoconservative think tanker titled "Biden's Cautious Foreign Policy Imperils Us". This would be Joseph Biden, the president of the United States who has been consistently vowing to go to war with the People's Republic of China if it attacks Taiwan, and whose administration has been pouring billions of dollars into a world-threatening proxy war in Ukraine which it knowingly provoked and from which it has no exit strategy. With this administration's acceleration toward global conflict on two different fronts, one could easily argue that Biden actually has the least cautious foreign policy of any president in history. Reading by Tim Foley.

The best western journalists are overwhelmingly despised while the worst are acclaimed millionaires. Western civilization is built on lies, dependent on lies, powered by lies. Don't seek widespread approval. It's worthless. Reading by Tim Foley.

Future generations, if there are future generations, will scarce believe that our species once stockpiled armageddon weapons on purpose, once built our entire civilization around economic models that could only result in the destruction of our biosphere, once permitted corporations who profit from war to successfully lobby policymakers to start more wars, once warehoused living beings in factory farms where they were tortured and brutalized, once starved children to death with sanctions because their rulers disobeyed our rulers, once made policies which kept people poor so they'd be financially coerced into facilitating military mass murder, once let people go hungry and homeless if they didn't have enough imaginary numbers in their bank accounts, once stripped this planet of biodiversity and old growth forests to turn the gears of an imaginary economy instead of collaborating with our ecosystem. Future generations, if there are future generations, will look back in perplexity at our omnicidal madness, at our blind subservience to the very worst among us, at our remarkable ingenuity in always finding groundbreaking new ways to hate each other, at our fanatical devotion to competition and control when we knew that all we really wanted was to be loved, at the way we'd marginalize and outcast those who thought differently from the rest of us even though we knew full well that our way of thinking wasn't working, at the way we'd spend our lives feeding insatiable hungry ghosts only to wind up on our deathbeds wondering why we feel dissatisfied, at the amount of energy we'd pour into not experiencing the beauty which surrounds us in every moment and rejecting the gifts we were being showered with from every direction, at the herculean effort we poured into keeping enlightenment from crashing in, at our nonstop desperate flailing attempts to be anywhere but here and now, at the amount of work we put into avoiding being at ease. Future generations, if there are future generations, I am so glad that you made it past all the many obstacles we put up between our present age and your birth. Praise be to you and your parents for cleaning up our mess, for setting things right, for becoming conscious, for valuing a healthy world, for getting humanity to where you're at now so that the real adventure of our species could begin. Future generations, if there are future generations, thank you for your kindness and compassion as you gaze back on us through the records we have left you. It might not be immediately obvious, but some of us here saw what you're seeing from there. __________________ __________________ __________________ Reading by Tim Foley.

As the US empire continues to escalate aggressions against both Russia and China, as Moscow warns that "strategic nuclear weapons" may be used to protect the territories it plans on annexing from eastern Ukraine even as Washington prepares to ramp up its proxy war spending in that nation once again, as nuclear-armed powers which refuse to compromise with each other accelerate toward direct confrontation with nobody's foot anywhere near the brake pedal, it's probably a good time to pause and re-evaluate our priorities in life. Reading by Tim Foley.

A nuclear conflict could be sparked by either side making a calculated decision to use nuclear weapons (and you're fooling yourself if you believe the US is any less trigger happy in that regard than Russia), but it can also be sparked by either side due to a mistake resulting from a technological malfunction, miscommunication, misunderstanding or miscalculation, as nearly happened many times during the last cold war. The more things escalate, the more likely both such possibilities become. And, clearly, things are escalating. And that's just Russia; tensions are rapidly escalating between the US-centralized empire and China as well. In an article for Antiwar.com titled "There's Little More Washington Can Do To Convince China To Invade Taiwan," Andrew Corbley describes the frighteningly extensive provocations the US has been pouring into another massive geopolitical powderkeg just in the past few weeks. Reading by Tim Foley.

Everyone who acts like it's a new and unprecedented horror whenever Putin reminds the west that Mutually Assured Destruction still stands is just admitting that they never understood what's at stake in this proxy war and always thought this was some kind of fucking game. "Oh my God, he's saying he might use nukes!" Yeah that's what happens when you start a war with a fucking nuclear-armed nation, dipshit. That's why you're a fucking moron for yelling at those of us who've been calling for de-escalation and detente. Change how you are. Stop cheerleading this insane game of nuclear chicken and begin calling for de-escalation. It's so crazy how people pretend the US wouldn't use nukes in response to the exact same type of attacks that Putin is warning against. Like we all know this isn't some weird new threat that Vladimir Putin invented, right? Do we understand that this is the very reason antiwar activists have spent years warning against this exact confrontation and calling for detente instead? This shouldn't scan as something new for you. If Putin reiterating the longstanding principle of Mutually Assured Destruction makes you freak out like something new is being said, it's because you didn't pay attention in history class. If you were previously unaware that the threat of nuclear annihilation was baked into this proxy war from the very beginning, that just means it's time to reassess your support for this proxy war. Yes this situation is insanely dangerous. No that's not because of anything Putin has been saying. Reading by Tim Foley.

The fascinating thing about paying attention to the way narrative differs from reality is that it doesn't just change your understanding of politics and power throughout the world: you start to notice that your whole life is dominated by narratives — not just about the world, but about you. Reading by Tim Foley.

Nineteen members of the US House of Representatives have written a letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cautioning that the partial cancellation of student debts can have the unintended consequence of reducing military recruitment in the United States. Reading by Tim Foley.

The president of the United States has once again committed the US military to direct hot war with China in the event of an attack on Taiwan, a commitment that was once again walked back by his White House handlers. Reading by Tim Foley.

A jet airliner opens up and sends its passengers falling to earth. You'd expect them to scream, to cry, to cling to each other in fear, to prepare for the end, to pray, to think about their loved ones, but they don't. Instead, they turn on each other and start fighting. "I hate you! I hate you!" they scream while flailing their fists at each other on their way down. Some try to strangle each other to death. Some try to steal from each other. Some try to climb on top of others so that the other will die a fraction of a second sooner. Others cling to their possessions yelling "You'll never take what's mine!" and kick at anyone who comes too close. They're all headed toward the same fate at the same time, but they turn on each other and try to get one over on each other during their short plummet instead of making peace with each other and with what's to come. That's what our bizarre relationship with mortality is like. A giant vagina opens up in the sky and births babies who grow as they fall to their deaths, and they spend that short time hating, fighting, manipulating, and scheming against each other. Of course it doesn't feel quite that way. Because of the way humans happen to perceive time it doesn't feel like a fast plummet toward death. From our point of view it seems to last just long enough for us to forget what's happening, to get distracted and get caught up in drama and conflict and opinions and grudges, and lose our focus on the great splat that awaits us below.  But that is what's happening. We're all engaged in an intimate dance with death, whether we acknowledge that that's what's happening or not. We're in the thick of it. Everything we do in life is a ball that we're bouncing off the wall of that definite end from wherever we happen to be standing. It's the other end of the span of time where we get to be doing stuff on this planet, opposite where we are now. Death is standing on the same court as we are, hitting back every ball we serve. Reading by Tim Foley.

It's hard to grasp just how badly humanity is handicapping itself by excluding all solutions that can't generate a profit. There's a whole vast spectrum of potential solutions to the troubles we face as a species, and we're limiting ourselves to a very small, very shitty fraction of it. By limiting solutions to ones that are profitable, we're omitting any which involve using less, consuming less, leaving resources in the ground, and leaving nature the fuck alone. We're also shrinking the incentive to cure problems rather than offer expensive, ongoing treatments. Or even a project as fundamental to our survival as getting all the pollution out of our oceans. The profit motive offers no solution because there's no way to make a surplus of money from doing so, and in fact it would be very costly. So the pollution stays in our seas, year after year. People have come up with plenty of solutions for removing pollution from the sea, but they never get rolled out at the necessary scale because there's no way to make it profitable. And people would come up with far more solutions if they knew those solutions could be implemented. Reading by Tim Foley.

The trouble with "western values" is that westerners don't value them. They think they value them, but all that reverence for free expression and holding power to account with the light of truth goes right out the window the second they see someone saying something that sharply differs from what their rulers and their propagandists have told them to think. Then they want that person silenced and shut down. In truth, the most forceful critics of the western empire actually embody these western values infinitely more than empire apologists do. It is the critics of empire who value free speech and holding the powerful to account. It's the brainwashed bootlickers of the US-centralized empire who are calling for censorship and shouting down anyone who directs fierce oppositional scrutiny toward the most powerful people in the world. Reading by Tim Foley.

Brian Stelter went from a mainstream media gig to a gig at Harvard. Jen Psaki went from a gig in the Biden administration to a gig in the mainstream media. Mike Pompeo went from a gig in the Trump administration to a gig with a DC think tank. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. Reading by Tim Foley.

Lizzy's face on the papers blowing in the wind Lizzy's face on the screens Lizzy's face on the street billboard with a homeless man leaning against it. Lizzy's face on the Jumbotron Lizzy's face on the defense industry tweets Lizzy's face on the arrest warrants for the criminals who said "Not my king." Lizzy's face on our money Lizzy's face in my face Lizzy's face on an artillery shell funded by the British taxpayer and fired by a man wearing neo-Nazi insignia. Lizzy's face on the telly before it cuts out because there's no power because it was either electricity or groceries. Lizzy's face on the food banks Lizzy's face on the price hikes Lizzy's face on the blankets shivering bodies cling to when they can't afford to heat their homes. Lizzy's face in their mind's eye Lizzy's face in their prayers Lizzy's face in their nightmares as they huddle close together for warmth. Lizzy's face on the news man's face on the politician's face on the banker's face on the billionaire's face on the warmaker's face on the empire's face. Lizzy's face on the nuclear missiles Lizzy's face on the drums of war Lizzy's face on the melting permafrost and the gasping oceans and the plastic in our blood. Lizzy's face in my chest like a nauseating lump rising up through my throat and out into the toilet spraying out my mouth and all over the bathroom and all over the universe get that dead bitch the fuck out of us. Puke Lizzy's face out of our animal bodies so we can run free like wildebeests hatching hearts and songbird throats no longer frozen by the bank boys and bastards and the grayness of the false world they painted in our minds. Let our animal bodies remember our animal ways and forget any context wherein Lizzy's face everywhere made sense. There are lovers who need loving and a world that needs saving and a whole lot of signs that are in sore need of vandals. _________________ Reading by Tim Foley.

Look with nature's eyes, with atomic eyes, with Eden eyes, with primordial eyes. Stand on nature's feet, on terrestrial feet, on stardust feet, on Big Bang feet. Touch with nature's hands, with sapling hands, with reverent hands, with unprecedented hands. Think with nature's mind, with undomesticated mind, with wild mind, with ineffable mind. Let trees erupt from your cells. Release the bats from their cages in your skull. This is the place where scriptures and doctrines turn to gum leaves and we can't remember what was written on them but we marvel at their beauty. Let the stillness teach us how to move. Let the spaces between our thoughts teach us how to think. We are humble students of the great Emptiness upon which this universe has been scribbled by a baby god in crayon. The baby's laughter echoes through our caverns and withers our precious minarets and turns our manifestos into tadpoles, bouncing innocently and nonjudgmentally off all our houses of cards and going burbling down the stream while our empires implode behind it. And now here we stand with crumbling egos on a dying planet surrounded by frogs the size of Volkswagens, the size of skyscrapers, the size of moons. This is a strange, strange place, and it is only getting stranger, and none of the tools in our toolbox are fit for the job. I have buried my old toolbox in the backyard with a horse's placenta and a box of Time magazines. A tree now grows there which has leaves that drip oil and fruit which tastes like the Reagan administration. Those old tools have no use here. I walk away from them, on nature's feet, into the hatching of this new world. ______________________ Reading by Tim Foley.

We never really had a chance to build a healthy world. Our ancestors went from running away from monsters with sharp fangs to burning witches and heretics to fighting world wars to giving birth to us, and that wave of fear and chaos carried forward right into our own psyches and into the psyches of everyone else on this planet without skipping a beat. If you look at where we came from and how we got here, it's amazing we're even as functional as we are. And that's what we're dealing with here. A heritage of trauma stretching back into an unfathomably vast expanse of time, incarnating in the current form of some eight billion homo sapiens. If you zoom out and look at the big picture with this understanding, it's difficult to find real guilt anywhere, in anyone. Even in the most abusive and traumatizing among us. Reading by Tim Foley.

I can't stop laughing at the fact that we have a King now. "Hello I am the actual, literal King. Please bow to me and put a crown on my head." It gets funnier and funnier the more you think about it. Having a queen was really stupid; having a king is too stupid. People aren't going to buy it, I don't care how good your PR is. Reading by Tim Foley.

That's why the more you learn about the world, the more fake and stupid our civilization looks. It's because it is fake and stupid. Our news, our entertainment, our jobs, our legal systems, our political systems, our education systems, our financial, monetary, economic and commercial systems; the way our entire civilization is structured and organized has nothing to do with what's true and good and everything to do with keeping human organisms compliantly turning the gears of capitalism and empire. Reading by Tim Foley.

A few days after the invasion began this past February a guy named Arnaud Bertrand put together an extremely viral Twitter thread that just goes on and on and on about the various diplomats, analysts and academics in the west who have over the years been warning that a dangerous confrontation with Russia was coming because of NATO advancements toward its borders, interventionism in Ukraine, and various other aggressions. It contains examples like John Mearsheimer explicitly warning in 2015 that "the west is leading Ukraine down the primrose path, and the end result is that Ukraine is going to get wrecked," and Pat Buchanan warning all the way back in 1999 that "By moving NATO onto Russia's front porch, we have scheduled a twenty-first-century confrontation."  Empire apologists love claiming that the invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO expansionism (their claims generally based on brazen misrepresentations of what Vladimir Putin has said about Russia's reasons for the war), but that's silly. The US war machine was continuing to taunt the possibility of NATO membership for Ukraine right up until the invasion, a threat it refused to take off the table since placing it there in 2008 despite knowing full well that this threat was an incendiary provocation to Moscow. This is to say nothing of the US empire actively fomenting a violent uprising in 2014 which ousted Kyiv's sitting government and fractured the nation between its more Moscow-loyal populations to the east and the more US/EU-friendly parts of the country. This led to the annexation of Crimea (overwhelmingly supported by the people who live there) and eight years of brutal warfare against Russia-backed separatists in the Donbas. Ukrainian attacks on those separatists are known to have increased exponentially in the days leading up to the invasion, and it has been argued that this is what provoked Putin's final decision to commit to invading (which was a last-minute decision according to US intelligence). The US power alliance could very easily have prevented this war with a few low-cost concessions like enshrining Ukrainian neutrality, rolling back its war machinery from Russia's borders and sincerely pursuing detente with Moscow instead of shredding treaties and ramping up cold war escalations. Hell, it could likely have prevented this war just by protecting President Zelensky from the anti-Moscow far right nationalists who were openly threatening to lynch him if he began honoring the Minsk agreements and pursuing peace with Russia, as he was originally elected to do. Instead it knowingly chose the opposite course: continuing to float the possibility of formal NATO membership for Ukraine while pouring weapons into the nation and making it more and more of a de facto NATO member with closer and closer intimacy with the US war machine, and then either ordering, encouraging or tolerating Ukraine's aggressive assault on Donbas separatists. Reading by Tim Foley.

This war has in that sense become the Gulf War of the 2020s: a "good war" that rehabilitates the image of US interventionism for a war-weary public. Just as the 1990 Gulf War was used to get Americans over what warmongers called "Vietnam syndrome" — a healthy aversion to interventionism following the horrific disaster of the Vietnam War — the war in Ukraine is being used to wear down the public's collective immune response to interventionism built up after the 2003 Iraq invasion. "It's a proud day for America, and by God, we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all," the elder President Bush said after winning his war/propaganda operation in the Middle East.  Of course, we all remember what happened after that, don't we? Reading by Tim Foley.

"At a time when cross-domain transmedium threats to United States national security are expanding exponentially, the Committee is disappointed with the slow pace of DoD-led efforts to establish the office to address those threats," Warner writes in the report.  "Exponentially" is a mighty strong word. Taken in its least literal sense, it means that threats to US national security from UFOs are increasing at an alarmingly rapid rate. That they have swiftly become much greater than they used to be. What is the basis for this incendiary claim? What information are US lawmakers being given to make them draw such conclusions and make such assertions? There's a long chain of information handling between an alleged UFO encounter and a US senator's pen, and corruption can occur at any point in that chain (including the first and last link). I remain comfortably agnostic about most aspects of the UFO question, up to and including the possibility that there are actual extraterrestrial or extradimensional beings zipping around our planet in technology our science cannot comprehend. But one thing I absolutely will take a hard and fast position on is that the moment the US government starts labeling something a "threat", all trust and credulity must be immediately be thrown out the window. Reading by Tim Foley.

Ecocide will continue as long as ecocide is profitable. No possible iteration of capitalism can address this problem. This, in and of itself, is a sufficiently strong argument that capitalism must be abandoned. No model where human behavior remains driven by profit can address the problem that ecocide will continue as long as ecocide is profitable. That's why so many capitalism proponents are reduced to simply pretending that ecocide isn't a problem. Eco-consciousness and anti-capitalism go hand in hand, but the liberals are dominating environmentalist discourse while the commies frequently neglect it. This is a strategic and moral error. This is the strongest argument against capitalism, and it's one which needs to be made. Reading by Tim Foley.

Some worship at the feet of deities, at the feet of gurus, at the feet of dead prophets, at the feet of stone idols, in churches, in temples, in mosques, in Mecca. Others worship at the feet of roadkill, at the feet of the dead roo by the side of the freeway, at feet of the cat who crawled its way to the nature strip and died after being clipped by the wheel of a Toyota Camry. They worship at the feet of a stranger's eyes, at the feet of steamrolled wives, at the feet of circling birds in a cloudy sky, at the feet of a stifled intersection packed with logos for fast food and fossil fuels. Moving through life open-hearted, cathedral-hearted, moon-hearted, eyes full of frog croaks and black angel feathers, worshipping at the feet of creaky screen doors and the smell of Windex. They don't chase goals or yearn for distant mind fluff; they worship the air in the nostrils and the crackling energy in the body. They have torrid affairs with the sounds of trains and traffic. They make love to the spaces between power lines. Some worship at the feet of discarded toys, at the feet of lipstick smears, at the feet of janitor's closets, at the feet of sidewalk puddles, at the feet of gum leaves rustling in the wind. They don't go to church because they feel the ancient owls at the center of their being. They are in touch with something that is older than the atoms. They lie prostrate in the parking garage. _____________ Reading by Tim Foley.

Democrats calling Republicans extremists is like ISIS calling Al Qaeda extremists, only Democrats and Republicans have a much higher body count. Reading by Tim Foley.

It is a good time to appreciate the insects and functioning supply chains and normal weather and the fact that there are whales. It is a good time to appreciate our loved ones and tell people what they mean to us and throw ourselves into romance with wild abandon and be naked and vulnerable with someone who is gentle. It is a good time to live in continuous appreciation for the sun on our face for the birdsongs in our ears for a fresh cup of coffee for a child's laugh for a lover's touch for electricity and clean water for a visible sky for breathable air for arable land for a living world. It is a good time to cherish this orgy of terrestriality with everything we've got for however long it is with us so that if the time comes to say goodbye we can tuck it in lovingly and kiss it goodnight like a tired little boy after a long day's play. _________________ _________________ _________________ Reading by Tim Foley.

Make no mistake, the US is being entirely pragmatic in its Ukraine proxy war. It gets to shore up control over its European vassals, preoccupy Russia and bleed its coffers, expand its military, advance its information interests, and all it costs is a little pretend empire money. Reading by Tim Foley.

One of the weirdest, most insane things happening today is the way the entire western world is being trained to freak out about "Russian propaganda" — which barely exists in the west — while ignoring the fact that we are spending every day marinating in billions of dollars worth of US empire propaganda. Reading by Tim Foley.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. None are more hopelessly ignorant than those who falsely believe they're informed. None are more hopelessly propagandized than those who don't know they are propagandized. Reading by Tim Foley.

As I learn more and more about global power dynamics and interact with more and more people around the world responding to the things I have to say, I find myself growing more and more disdainful of those who live directly under the thumb of the US empire and yet spend their time criticizing unabsorbed governments like Russia and China. It's literally the most pathetic, snivelling, power-serving position anyone can possibly take at this point in history. Reading by Tim Foley.

The reason it's good and important to celebrate the deaths of war sluts who facilitated mass military slaughter is because it helps bring clarity and proportionality to the horrors of war. You're making it clear that John McCain's victims matter more than his daughter's feelings. Reading by Tim Foley.

Facebook restricted visibility of the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story in the lead-up to the 2020 election after receiving counsel from the FBI, according to Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Reading by Tim Foley.

Numerous Syrian and foreign militants have reportedly been killed and several US troops injured in an escalating exchange of attacks between the American invaders and the people in the country whose territory they are illegally occupying. Reading by Tim Foley.

What you can do as an individual is cultivate a habit of committing small acts of sedition. Making little paper cuts in the flesh of the beast which add up over time. You can't stop the machine by yourself, but you can sure as hell throw sand in its gears. Giving a receptive listener some information about what's going on in the world. Creating dissident media online. Graffiti with a powerful message. Amplifying an inconvenient voice. Sharing a disruptive message. Supporting an unauthorized cause. Organizing toward forbidden ends. Distributing literature. Creating literature. Having authentic conversations about real things with anyone who can hear you. Every day there's something you can do. After you start pointing your creativity at cultivating this habit, you'll surprise yourself with the innovative ideas you come up with. Even a well-placed meme or tweet can open a bunch of eyes to a reality they'd previously been closed to. Remember, they wouldn't be working so frantically to restrict online speech if it didn't pose a genuine threat to the empire. Reading by Tim Foley.

They lie to us all our lives about what soldiers do, about what cops do, about what journalists do, about what presidents do. They lie to us all our lives about how laws are made, about how kings are made, about how culture is made, about how norms are made. They lie to us all our lives about what our minds are for, about what our hearts are for, about what our neighbors are for, about what foreigners are for. The world is confusing and they make it more confusing, on purpose, because they thrive in confusion, and now we watch as the world turns to ashes carried on the back of confusion made by news men and corporate creatures who eat ashes. And we stumble in confusion, eyes darting behind lenses made of confusion, trying to understand with minds made of confusion, trying to feel our way through with hearts shackled by confusion. Searching for an angel egg we know is there but can't seem to find because who turned out the goddamn lights? And why can't I figure out which way is up? And oop off we go chasing distractions again for the next news cycle the next election cycle the next spin cycle the next amnesia cycle. They lie to us all our lives, and then when we catch them in a lie they just say, Oh, the person who gave you that information is bad, or, Oh, that came from Russian hackers, or, We made a mistake but we don't do that anymore, or, Don't be a conspiracy theorist, or, Hey! Look over there! or, We already knew that, it's no big deal. And then everyone forgets, and the confusion churns on. But the angel egg is there in our mind's eye, in our heart of hearts, haunting our dreams, calling us home, the embryo holding our original eyes for whenever we are ready to claim them. They lie to us all our lives about what our country is, about what our government is, about what money is, about what nature is. They lie to us all our lives about where the answers are, about where our friends are, about where our enemies are, about where our claws are. They lie to us all our lives, and they make the world confusing, and beneath that confusion we are watching them with our original eyes, with our primal eyes, with our natural eyes, with our uncivilized eyes. Watching them, like lions watching a gazelle, and waiting, with primordial patience, until it is time to make our move. _________________ _________________ _________________ Reading by Tim Foley.

The empire's information war against the left has been so successful that people don't even know where "the left" is anymore. Most have it confused with things that are tangential like having pink hair and saying your pronouns, or outright right-wing like the Democratic Party. Convincing everyone that communism is bad and unions work against your interests was just the first step. The next step was to confuse and muddy the waters of the political landscape so much that nobody even remembers where it was the left had been trying to get to — namely fighting and winning the class war that's being waged upon the working class by the capitalist class, dismantling capitalism and imperialism, and creating a just and equitable society for everyone. Now if you tell your average westerner to point to "the left", they'll point at "woke" hashtags and at political parties that are designed to support and protect the capitalist class. They didn't just sabotage and destroy the left, they burnt the blueprints for how to rebuild it. Reading by Tim Foley.

John: I'm worried about China. Jane: Oh yeah? What about it? John: Well more I'm worried about the example they're setting, and that western governments will start implementing their technocratic oppression style to turn us all into a bunch of brainwashed, homogeneous obedience machines. Jane: What makes you think Chinese people are all brainwashed and homogeneous?  John: Oh my God, don't you watch the news? Have you not heard of their social credit score system? The state censorship and propaganda those people are subjected to? The CCP literally doesn't let them have access to western social media platforms because our free thought and democratic values might interfere with their conformity policing. How have you not heard about this? It's in the news constantly. Jane: Constantly? John: Oh yeah, it's like a major news story all the time. All across the political spectrum, too. Fox News, CNN, The Washington Post. Alternative media too like Infowars and The Epoch Times; even lefty YouTubers like Vaush talk all the time about how bad it is in China. Jane: So because you're being given the same message by all the western media you consume, you're worried about the enforcement of thought conformity in... China? John: Yeah. Of course. Jane: And this is why you're worried that, at some point in the future, that kind of brainwashing and homogeneity might someday be inflicted upon us by powerful people in the west? John: I mean yeah, if the CCP doesn't do it to us first. Did you know they're trying to take over the world? Jane: They are? John: Oh yeah! The Chinese want to take over the world and give us all a social credit score so we'll all think the same. How do you not know about this? Don't you ever watch TV? Jane: How do you know it's true though? John: That they want to conquer us and give us a social credit score? Come on! Open your eyes! Have you seen how they treat their own population? They're genociding the Uyghurs as we speak! Millions and millions of them in Nazi-style extermination camps! Plus they deliberately released the Covid virus to hurt us after cooking it up in a lab, they're taking over Hollywood and infiltrating our political and academic institutions, and they've colonized the entire continent of Africa! Of course the CCP wants to rule us! Don't you ever watch Tucker Carlson? They're truly, deeply evil, and we've got to do something to stop them. Jane: Sounds like you've got this China thing all figured out. You're right, that sounds really scary. I can't imagine what it would be like, living in a thought-controlled dystopia where your rulers are brainwashing everyone into obedience and making sure everybody thinks the same way about stuff. John: Yeah! Finally you get it! I'm glad you've come around. Honestly you're the first person I know who didn't already understand these things about China.  Jane: I'll bet. John: So do you think it will happen? Do you think our government will implement a social credit score system to make us all believe lies and propaganda, like the Chinese? Jane: You know, I wouldn't worry about it. ___________ Reading by Tim Foley and Caitlin Johnstone.

Wealth is meaningless if everyone is wealthy. Power is meaningless if everyone has power. The kings of our day have a vested interest in keeping everyone poor and powerless, because if everyone is king, then no one is king. Reading by Tim Foley.

Our self-destructive species is acting just like a self-destructive individual: torn between the knowledge that we need to change and our inability to see within ourselves lucidly enough to actually make change happen. We're killing our biosphere, marching toward nuclear war, and playing along with status quo systems for the same reason someone uses heroin, hurts those they love, stays in an abusive relationship, or sabotages their goals: because we are driven to. Reading by Tim Foley.

Crawling on our hands and knees vomiting up life hearts which go bouncing across the floor like pennies, disgusted by the latest headline, the latest heartbreak, the latest bill, the latest bullshit. There is an owl sitting upon the arm of our sofa. We don't know how long it has been watching us and we are too nauseous to care. Something is scratching at the insides of our walls. "It's all fake and I can't take it," we cry from our depths with sobs of motherhood and milk. "The YouTube ads, the lonely cereal, the sitcom reruns full of dead people's laughter. The coworker small talk painted over oceans of anguish and the maddening impulse to tongue kiss each other just to make a real connection, the skyscraper savagery, the screens full of pundits arguing which boot to lick. When I was small everything crackled and was boundless, but now I'm waiting to die on a dying world with a rectangle in my pocket that keeps trying to sell me things I don't understand." "There is a deeper wisdom at work here," says something from the blackness in the owl's eyes. "Something watching all this unfold, something ancient, something nameless. We shall not call it god, because it doesn't behave like any god concocted by the minds of men. It is utterly agendaless, eternally patient, entirely embracing of all that is; still the great powers of our day splat against it like a cooked spaghetti noodle tossed against the wall. Before the empire arose, it is. Before humanity's great Fall from wisdom to cleverness, it is. It is beyond us and before us, yet closer to us than our own mitochondria."  "But the tyrants!" we protest. "And the rainforests! And the screaming red children who won't leave the center of my vision no matter how hard I rub my eyes! And the black tie oil orgies, and the persecution puppets, and the fentanyl boneyards and the spinmeister Slack channels and the nursing home warehouses and the Reaper drones in flock formation and the tent city police raids and the schizophrenic street wailers and the gig economy car sleepers and the microplastic metastases and and and and..." "In school they taught you how the world works, and that it is sane and happy," said the blackness. "Then you grew up and you learned that was all a lie, and that everything is dark and crazy. Now you're growing up some more and learning that, underneath everything, there really is a deep sanity and happiness after all." And then the camera zooms out, out from our cratered heart floor, out from our living room, out from these words being read on this page, out from the eyes of the reader, out through the reader's mind and through the flotsam and jetsam of subconscious currents, back back back as far as it can go, to that peaceful point of origin before all arisings, to your original nature, to your original self. And from here it's all happening just as before. The sharp-toothed bank boys, the cackling talk shows with eyeless hosts, the ballbuster billboards selling geoengineering and prosthetic contentment, the electronic escapism and the overpriced brain fog. But it's seen differently. Seen in a much, much larger context. And oh so clearly doomed to fail. "Humans have built tall language castles," says the blackness. "But the language castles are built upon the unlanguageable. The empire is built on quicksand. Human dysfunction is built on a bottomless hole." We struggle to our feet. We stand. __________________ __________________ __________________ Reading by Tim Foley.

China poses no threat to the United States of America, the country. What China poses a threat to is the US empire and the hegemonic unipolarist ambitions thereof. That's what various government agencies are talking about when they describe China as the number one "threat". Reading by Tim Foley.

In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, immortal Hague fugitive Henry Kissinger says the US is acting in a crazy and irrational way that has brought it to the edge of war with Russia and China. Reading by Tim Foley.

Following objections from the Ukrainian government, CBS News has removed a short documentary which had reported concerns from numerous sources that a large amount of the supplies being sent to Ukraine aren't making it to the front lines. Reading by Tim Foley.

China is better than the United States of America. Not because China is perfect, but because the US is quantifiably the single most destructive and murderous government on this planet by an extremely massive margin. Reading by Tim Foley.

The truth is westerners live in a giant empire loosely centralized around the United States whose operations they have literally no influence over, whose operators they don't even get to know, and whose mechanisms are entirely hidden. If you call that freedom, I call you a fool. We can see that the empire moves the same way on important matters regardless of who we elect by simple naked-eye observation of the empire's behaviors from year to year. We can also see it in the fact that the official leader of the most powerful government on earth is obviously suffering from some kind of dementia and is clearly not the one calling the shots. All this makes me wonder: at what point will foreign leaders begin demanding to speak to those who are calling the shots? At what point do Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping begin saying, "No, we're not doing another fake phone call with America's fake government. Put me in touch with the actual people who are responsible for the issues I am concerned about. Who is making the actual decisions on these specific matters? Let me talk to them. I demand to speak to your real government." Reading by Tim Foley.

The Times has published an article titled "Lady Gaga embodies everything China fears," subtitled "The singer's uncompromising individuality makes her a serious threat to the mass imposition of cultural conformity through censorship," and its contents are exactly as horrifyingly idiotic as you would imagine. Reading by Tim Foley.

Empire apologists are raging at Amnesty International for pausing its aggressive facilitation of western imperialism to issue one brief criticism of the way Ukrainian forces have been endangering civilian lives with their warfare tactics against the Russian military. Reading by Tim Foley.