21 juillet 2017
Caitlin Johnstone and Other Stuff
I’ve only recently become aware of “The Caitlin Johnstone Controversy” due to recent pieces on CounterPunch (need link). I’m pretty sure I had read a piece or two by Caitlin Johnstone somewhere (not to be confused with Diana Johnstone, but more about this later), and found myself thinking that, in spite of what I consider a bit over the top kind of rhetoric, yeah, I tend to agree with her.
Except for her recent pieces about John McCain’s health situation, which I find rather ghoulish ( you can read them on her Medium page, medium.com/@caityjohnstone ), insensitive, and adolescent. One commenter made the point that McCain’s long career in DC was possible because the people in Arizona kept re-electing him, just as the rest of the US has continually elected presidents, senators, congresspeople, all the way down to city council members who are basically unfit for the job.
In other words, McCain isn’t solely responsible for the ravages of US foreign policy. An insane warmonger, for sure, but totally representative of the history of US predatory, warmongering behavior. If the people of the US are tired of war, socio-economic inequality, and all the rest, then it’s up to them to do what they can to change that. And Johnstone’s ideas about bridging the gaps, purposefully constructed by the elites, between what are identified as the extreme left and extreme right is a step in the right direction, a step feared by those currently in power.
So when a relatively trusted left-leaning site, such as CounterPunch, attacks her because she has colored outside the lines of permitted lefty discourse, it gives me the impression that there’s some serious gatekeeping going on, and that’s the last thing we need.
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Those of us who live in vassal states of the US actually have more of a right to comment on American politics than any American has, because it’s all we get. At least US citizens get a fake vote that they can throw away in their pretend elections; we don’t even get to have that. So I’m going to go right on ahead and keep writing about US politics, thank you very much. If anyone has a problem with this, don’t tell people like me to shut up, tell the plutocrats who rule your country to stop screwing us over. You’ll be amazed at how little we have to say about you once you stop dragging us into idiotic wars and manipulating our lives.
Caitlin Johnstone – https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/why-everyone-on-earth-should-be-loudly-opinionated-about-us-politics-ae72951fdcdd
The only thing she forgot to mention is they probably have their own pretend elections down where she lives, and she probably shouldn’t be blaming the US for “everything” that goes wrong down under.
To be continued …
Once. Again. 