Caitlin Johnstone

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

I’ve been seeing a few people saying they’re not sure what I’m about politically. As a reader-supported writer I try to be as transparent about such things as possible to let any would-be patrons know what they’re getting into, so here’s my position on a bunch of different issues if anyone’s curious.

Ideology

I’ve always called myself a socialist. Lately a lot of people have been calling me a communist, which I don’t mind either. Really I just support shoving things as far to the left as possible until we’ve created a healthy and harmonious world and moved from competition-based systems to systems in which we collaborate with each other and with our ecosystem for the good of everyone.

That’s my ideological preference, but I’m not arrogant enough to believe I personally know what’s best for everyone, so more than anything what I want is a world where we’re not being manipulated and deceived about what’s going on so that we can figure out the best course for our species as a collective. That’s why first and foremost ahead of my own ideological preferences I support government transparency, democratized information, free speech, and the end of mass-scale manipulation and propaganda. Once everything’s out in the light and our perception is no longer being obfuscated and distorted by the powerful I personally believe we’ll find our way toward something resembling socialism, but I hold that belief with an open palm.

Politics

I believe the closer you get to the nexus of power the more worthless electoral politics becomes, because more and more effort goes into manipulating the electoral process to protect the interests of status quo power. US presidential elections are completely fake, and even the elections for lower-level positions like senators and representatives are aggressively manipulated in the most powerful country on earth. Both parties are stacked to serve the interests of the powerful.

I don’t personally think we’re likely to see big meaningful changes in the west until the people force change to happen by direct action, and that’s not going to occur as long as everyone’s being successfully manipulated into accepting the status quo by mass-scale propaganda. That’s why I write about propaganda so much — I see it as the ultimate obstacle to the revolutionary changes we desperately need.

War and militarism

I see the empire-like power structure centralized around the United States as the greatest source of conflict and dysfunction in the world today. All the largest international conflicts of our day ultimately boil down to the US empire trying to secure planetary domination and weaker nations resisting it in some way. This campaign to secure planetary hegemony is placing our world at greater and greater risk of nuclear war as it sees the empire engaging in increasingly confrontational standoffs with Russia and China. I therefore see ending the US empire and neutering its global war machine as a matter of existential importance for humanity.

Environment

I believe environmental collapse and nuclear war are the two greatest existential threats to our species, and both are breathing down our necks. I think global warming is real and caused by human activity, but I also think it’s suspicious that that debate consumes so much oxygen when there’s so much other evidence that the biosphere is dying (ocean desertification, deforestation, vanishing wildlife, plummeting insect populations, etc).

Obviously there are rich and powerful people who’ll be looking to ride their various agendas on top of humanity’s shift from fossil fuels to other energy systems, but that doesn’t mean climate change isn’t real — it would be strange if they weren’t doing that. That just means we need to pry the fingers of the powerful from the steering wheel of our civilization, not that drastic changes aren’t needed to how we live on this planet.

Religion

I was raised Roman Catholic but now despise the church. I’m critical of all religion and 99 percent of what people call spirituality, but that one percent of authentic spirituality just might be what ends up being what saves humanity.

I view authentic spirituality not as any set of beliefs but as a sincere investigation in our own experience into the nature of consciousness, self, mind, and perception. The discoveries this investigation turns up can be deeply transformative, and could solve all the world’s problems if realized at mass scale.

Civil rights

I think protecting the rights of the individual protects the health of the collective. It’s always going to be the outspoken fringesters who first notice something’s wrong about where we’re at or where we’re headed, so you need to make sure there’s space for them to speak and be heard. Because nobody can be trusted to determine what speech is valid and true, it needs to be legal to the furthest extent the collective can tolerate without harm.

The freer people are to think, speak, act and live however they want undisturbed, the healthier our society is; this means freeing them from having their minds manipulated by the powerful as noted above.

The collective is also within its rights to stop an individual from harming them. If someone’s using wealth and power as a weapon to exploit and abuse people for instance, then their wealth and power can rightfully be taken away in the same way a mass shooter’s weapon can be taken away to protect the collective.

Social justice issues

I oppose racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination against disempowered groups of all sorts. These are real problems that do need to be solved as humanity winds its way into the future; we can’t just ignore them.

I do get frustrated at times with the way these issues consume all the political oxygen in the room without leaving any space for far more urgent matters like the looming threat of nuclear war, and I do think it’s a bit ridiculous that in our current political environment being a racist is regarded as far more outrageous and offensive than being a warmonger. But I understand that’s just the nature of the mainstream political framework people are being presented with, where we’re encouraged to argue as hotly as possible over culture war issues that don’t threaten the powerful at all so we don’t start turning that heat onto issues like war, ecocide and oligarchy.

Feminism

I’m a pretty hardcore feminist with a lot of ideas on the subject that I think are interesting and worthy, but I don’t bother because I always get a bunch of furious men with mommy issues screaming at me for days. There are more important things to write about right now anyway.

Covid-19

I’ve annoyed a lot of people with how I’ve refused to take a position on some Covid-related issues like masks and lockdowns and the lab leak vs zoonotic origin debate, but I don’t really care. I can’t be an expert on all issues, and the amount of scientific research I’d need to pour into Covid to take a confident stand on disputed scientific points would leave me with no time to talk about anything else. There are literally hundreds of other commentators who’ve spent years talking about Covid from any angle you could possibly want if you want commentary on Covid.

I have repeatedly and unequivocally opposed things like vaccine mandates, police brutality enforcing Covid restrictions, and the censorship of Covid skeptics, because those are positions I feel solid on. Beyond that I feel perfectly comfortable with my agnosticism on such things, especially now that the lockdowns are long over while we hurtle toward nuclear armageddon.

Israel/Palestine

Israel is an apartheid state whose existence can only be maintained by nonstop violence, both inside and outside its borders. A nation that can’t exist without continuous war is like a house that can’t exist without continuous construction. If your house is perpetually buzzing with power tools and construction workers because if the construction stops it will collapse, eventually you’re going to start thinking you maybe shouldn’t have built your house there in the first place.

Julian Assange

Support.

Cryptocurrencies

Indifferent.

Cashlessness/central bank digital currencies

Oppose.

UFOs

Intensely skeptical.

9/11

There’s nothing I’d put past these assholes.

JFK assassination

See 9/11.

This or that indie media figure

People are always asking me what I think of various indie media figures, but I don’t have time to form opinions about other commentators, let alone write about them. If I see them saying something useful I’ll highlight it, if I don’t I don’t. That’s as far as my interest generally goes.

Right wingers

I read and follow right-wing libertarians for their anti-war commentary and I welcome people from any ideology to read and follow me, but over the years I’ve become aware that there’s a lot less useful anti-war sentiment on the right than I used to hope there was. The so-called “populist right” mostly just opposes US aggressions toward Russia so they can prepare for aggressions toward China, and few put nearly as much energy into opposing Russia brinkmanship as they do into shrieking about trans people and “wokeism”. For the most part today’s rightists are the same stuffy conservative bigoted militarists they’ve always been, no matter how hard they try to rebrand themselves as “populist” these days.

Progressives

Over the years I’ve found that most people who identify as “progressive” and support Bernie Sanders and AOC have a lot less in common with me than I used to think they did. Most are just empire loyalists who hope the empire gives them healthcare one day. They don’t oppose the empire, they just quibble over a few of the details about how the empire should be run.

US intelligence agencies

Smash them into a thousand pieces and scatter them to the winds.

Universal Basic Income (UBI)

I don’t see any path to UBI in our current society that doesn’t entail trading away our power in exchange for letting billionaires become trillionaires via automation while we’re paid subsistence wages controlled by the powerful which can be choked off by the powerful. If it looks like UBI is being rolled out by our current systems it’s probably a sign that we’re headed somewhere dark.

If we want automation to bring everyone wealth we’re much better off creating a society where the automation is owned and controlled by the collective, for the good of the collective.

Australia

The biggest problem with Australia is its role as a member state of the US empire. The worst thing about Australia is America. It would be good to see what our nation can become when we’re not owned and controlled by the yanks or the brits.

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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