I appreciate what you're doing but I think you miss the mark when you continue describing Trump as an anti-establishment candidate. His interest seems to be in controlling the establishment rather than dismantling it. Your last point that Kamala is part of the establishment and is therefore unable to actually embody these principles suggests to me a major distortion in how you're looking at this; a separation you have drawn between yourself and your in group and this idea of "Establishment", an idea that I'm not convinced is rooted in an effective understanding of how structures emerge from social relationships.
Wonderfully put. It feels to me that Charles's thinking has become warped as a result of social pressures. It's very human for that to happen.
I have to say, it's been sobering to see so many people I respected (like Charles and Russell Brand) effectively become Trump surrogates.
For what it's worth, I'm no fan of Kamala. But why not support an actual non-establishment candidate who will oppose the deep state like Cornel West? Trump is a billionaire who has profited immensely from business as usual and is obsessed with dominance (i.e. "winning"), why does anyone expect him to drain any swamps or overturn the structures of dominance making our world sick? It's patently absurd, and the fact that Charles can't see it tells me his thinking is distorted.
Can West win? Almost certainly not. But who's to say what would happen if there were a genuine movement for a 3rd party candidate instead of all this capitulation to the major parties that I'm seeing.
I am absolutely stymied by the move of such independent thinkers to Trump. I listened to Russell Brand's interview with Tucker Carlson today, trying to get a read, and I heard nothing that explains it. I DO understand his shift towards religion; that "seeking for God" has been in him forever, and he is eloquent on the subject as it pertains to addiction. However, when he talks about things like "reclaiming the sacred Thames River" from corporate influence or "ridding the political system of lobbying, corruption, the influence of money," I see absolutely zero connective tissue with supporting Trump and the party that literally (as David Sirota brilliantly demonstrates in "The Master Plan", and others have elsewhere, and is supremely (pun intended) evidenced in Citizens United) has codified such practices to our collective detriment. Yes, the Dems have their issues; I understand the concern about government overreach. But swinging to Trump literally does not compute. I DO NOT GET IT.
I have been writing a series of essays trying to understand what happened with Charles Eisenstein and Russell Brand -- how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism. Here are the 3 articles I have written so far - if anyone emails me ( Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ), I am happy to give them a month free subscription so they can go behind the paywalls: https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/the-turncoats?r=1mhh1
I think Charles forgot to include the most important principle of all for a true anti-establishment pro-humanity candidate and that is TRANSPARENCY - to commit to NOT meet with our ruling class billionaire abusers in private and secrecy, to commit to having all one's meetings (and all other politicians meetings) to being public, open to public scrutiny. This way we could stop once and for all being deceived by the Qanon/MAGA narrative (that presents pro-billionaire mass-murderer trump as an "anti-establishment candidate who came becasue he loves the people and wants to help the little guy fight the deep state"), this way we could all see out in the open what a pro-billionaire pro-empire pro-ruling class pro-Wall St pro-M.I.C pro-war pro-genocide pro-NeoCon Zionist pro-Big Pharma pro-Big Agri pro-Big Food actually is their criminal ConMan trump!!!
Let me say it as clearly as possible for the people at the back: HARRIS IS A RIGHT-WING PRO-BILLIONAIRE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RULING CLASS ; TRUMP IS A RIGHT-WING PRO-BILLIONAIRE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RULING CLASS (not to mention that he is also profoundly psychologically-undeveloped, emotionally-stunted, infantile & narcissist with a relational maturity level of a 4 year old, but that's the least of his crimes. Details about mass-murderer Godless trump's crimes against humanity and whose narrow interests he works to promote coming up in a moment).
I love you Charles, but IMHO you are doing a huge disservice to humanity by repeating the Qanon/MAGA mythology and presenting trump as "anti-elite rebel who is here to help the little guy fight the establishment". Nothing could be more farther from the truth, as his ACTUAL actions show (not the Qanon/MAGA narrative surrounding hom and his actions, but his ACTUAL actions). I confess, it is extremely sad to see someone as astute as you being so strongly influenced and taken by your political in-group associations...
Mass-murderer anti-life God-ignorant ConMan Trump was already president once, remember? Need I remind us that he and his Zionist PR team of deceivers already sold us the exact same deceptive Qanon/MAGA narrative they are selling us now (as if he is an anti-elite-rebel man-of-the-people who came to fight the deep state for the little guy), and need i remind us that once elected he promptly spat in the face of all the gullible unintelligent propagandized people who believed him and his Zionist team of deceivers, and proceeded to fill up his administration to the brim with deep-state NeoCon swamp creatures from Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Eric Prince's BlackWater merceneries, and the rest of Wall St and the war profiteering industry filled up to the brim every single position in his administration of anti-life deep state billionaire shark predators. In addition, he handed foreign policy over to deep state NeoCon zionist operatives in the form of compulsive-liar CIA director Pompeo, Chabad devotee and Mossad representitive Kushner, ultra-zionist mass-murderer Bolton, NeoCon zionist lunatic ("starve them to death") Abrams etc. etc. Besides them, the State Dept. was literally full of and run by NeoCon israelis during trump's presidency, america's global forigen policy was literally run by israeli supremacists during trump's presidency!!
What on earth makes any of us think that he will act any differently this time? Because the Mossad-created Qanon/MAGA narrative says so? (echoed by large portions of the so-called 'alternative conservative media' ecosystem)
All ConMan trump did during his presidency was transfer trillions to his buddies the ultra-wealthy war profiteers and Big Pharma corporate-capitalists for example in his 5.9 trillion dollar corona giveaway to Big Pharma corporate capitalists and to his ultra-wealthy Wall St billionaire pals, our abusers and predators, and for example in his annual gigantic military spending - spending which SKYROCKETED under trump - to give away trillions and trillions of our money to his anti-life war profiteering buddies); filled his admin to the brim with deep-state swamp creatures, gave tax breaks to the ultra-rich and made sure the most wealthy (the anti-life heart-divorced deep state billionaire abusers who brought him to power) became much wealthier while everyone else stagnated or impoverished; Trump EXPANDED the mass-murdering billionaires' global militarized corporate-capitalist empire (of nearly 900 military bases encircling the entire globe, dozens of warships colonizing every sea on the planet, and at least 13 extra-judicial torture camps where kidnapped human beings are held in captivity for years without trial and tortured by brainwashed conservatives because.."patriotism" and "god" and "jesus" and "christian moral values") with his RECORD HIGH military spending to enrich his war profiteering capitalist billionaire pals; Created a welfare state for billionaires (with his government's coercive force used to lavish his right-wing billionaire scum with public funding, funneling trillions of our money to his backers the conservative war profiteers, who of course privatize the profits and give nothing back to the public that funds them) and crumbs for the rest of us..
As one "small" example for trump's crimes against humanity (out of numerous such examples), trump also initiated, armed and funded (used our money to fund) a coup in Bolivia so that his billionaire pal Elon Musk can steal the world's largest reserves of lithium from Bolivia for his "green"-electric car company (which is at the forefront of the climate capitalists' "4th industrial revolution" and "great reset"). Musk literally sat at the table with trump and pompeo and said "we will coup whoever we want, we're in charge now, deal with it". That is how sure are musk and trump that their propagandized dumb deceived followers will follow them blindly and obediently no matter what crimes they commit against humanity (trump literally bragged that he can shoot someone on the street in broad daylight and his hypnotized deceived conservatives followers will still worship him..)
I hope you are aware Charles that your ideas can (and likely will) be used cynically and deceptively, as feel good slogans (like unity and rise above division) by the most murderous pro-ruling class tribalistic anti-wholism anti-egalitarian hierarchical God-ignorant political manipulators (like trump and his PR team of deceivers) who act in POLAR OPPOSITE ways to the slogans that they'll borrow from you in order to deceive and gain support from the people..
Seems to me that the basic assumption (from which you are writing this piece Charles) would have been true in 2016 when many (propagandized) americans really believed that trump is exceptionally evil and dnc are the benevolent force for good. Hardly anyome belives this anymore but exactly the opposite is the case now, by far most (propagandized) americans now believe the opposite fairytale, that the dnc is the establishmemt force of evil and that trump is an "anti-establishment rebel".
Both these fairytales are profoundly false.
One doesn't have to buy into the stupid CNN/WashPost deceptive propaganda machine (that presents trump as exceptionally and caricaturishly evil) in order to see from his actions that he is actually a common run-of-the-mill murderous american president, by the ruling class for the ruling class, just as pro-billionaire pro-empire and criminal as the ones before and after him. No worse but definitely no better than the life-destroying right-wing american presidents before and after him. BOTH the CNN/NYTimes fairytales AND the Qanon/MAGA failrytales about him are false. His actions clearly show that he's not exceptionally evil nor exceptionally righteous, just a normal anti-life right-wing american president who is here to enrich the ultra-rich, to cement the global control of the american billionaire's militarized empire over the planet and to ensure that our desire for change is hijacked and neutralized and doesn't amount to any real change, which are precisely the things he did as president..
Trump is horrible NOT becasue of what the corporate-capitalist manipulators on CNN/MSNBC/WashPost say about him but precisely because he is like every other pro-billionaire life-destroying mass-murdering right-wing american president (conservative or liberal)
One other small thing, if I may - you seem to have bought into the Qanon/MAGA mythology that trump is "anti-NeoCons", but that doesn't make any sense to say when you acknowledge (as you do) that he is fully wholly and completely in support of the supremacist nazi NeoCons that run the Israeli govt and their genocidal imperialist project of dispossesion and anninilation of the local people, and their imperialist policy of eternal religious division, hostility and war. THE NEOCONS ARE ISRAEL. It makes no sense to acknowledge that trump is fully in support of the genocidal supremacist zionist colonial project and then say he dislikes the NeoCons. Trump's administration was FULL TO THE BRIM with warmongering bloodthirsty zionist NeoCons during his presidency. He literally handed the state Dept. over to NeoCon Israelis. Israelis were literally running his State Dept! He literally made Israelis in charge of american global policy!! And you can be sure that he'll attack Iran and China for them soon after he and his NeoCon Israeli billionaire pals enter the white house. It makes no sense whatsoever to say he is "anti NeoCons". It is a common Qanon/MAGA slogan that has no basis in reality.
Plenty more I wanted to point out regarding trump's crimes against the people and who are the adrenochrome-drinking billionaire abusers that brought him to power before and are doing it again now, but the space for a comment here is finished..
you may be so right in much of what you say...however there is always a place for what the American Indians might call your 'good enemy' - there will be learning and growth however it goes. What I'm appreciating right now is the mix-match/mish-mash/mash-up of all sorts of people - a much needed change away from the black/white, good/bad, evil/virtuous duality which is showing itself so extremely in the world scene. It may seem incongruous but we have no idea what effect the rubbing off of so many different energies may have - it could be combustive, healing, growthful, disastrous - but it is change and it does hold all sorts of potentials. We need breakthrough on every level...change doesn't always look right or nice
- and none of this is intended to disparage anything you say...just another thought to ponder...
This is the writers dilemma. One cannot possibly cover every single large or nuanced issue in every writing. There will always be issues that are left off of the table in relationship to the availability of time and space. It's bothersome not to be able to address it all, but hopefully the reader will take in and simmer with what has been laid on the table. Suggestions to cover future issues is always beneficial.
WOW! You have said in comments on a previous post that you have love. Apart from one little phrase where you claim to love Charles (then immediately append a "but"), this entire diatribe suggests you are filled with such...hate? Is that too strong a word? Try vitriol...you are filled with such vitriol that you can't contain it. It's burning you up.
Thank you though i am not sure i understand. My comment has detailed a few of trump's crimes against life and humanity as president (and I barely scratched the surface in detailing his crimes in that comment, i had to stop short because of space limitations). Are you saying that showing certain people that the billionaires' fairytale propaganda deception they were led to believe in (as if trump is an "anti-elite rebel" who arrived on the scene becasue he really really loves the non-wealthy and all religions equally and wants to help us fight the elite), are you saying that showing that this billionaires' propaganda is profoundly false and completely disproved by the facts of what he ACTUALLY did as president, are you saying that showing that and exposing the biliionaires' deception is "hate"?
Nope. Pointing out facts, propaganda or deception is not showing hate. The way in which we do so can.
If you’re saying all you are doing is pointing out facts and propaganda, then the deception is yours. And if you believe that’s all you’re doing, then you are deceiving yourself.
Only you know what is in your heart regarding Trump. Whatever it is, you are trying to convey that through your comments. Each of us will interpret what you say in our own way. I was searching for a descriptor, came up with hate. As I said, hate may have been too strong a word. That’s why I changed it to vitriol.
The language you use is polarizing. This is very common. It’s worth noting that those who wish to control us want polarization and division. While we’re fighting each other, we’re not paying attention to them.
I have two suggestions for you. Do with them what you will.
Firstly, ask yourself if you think the inflammatory language you use is the best way to convince or convert someone who might have different, even opposing views about Trump? (Newton’s 3rd law, and all that)
You have said that Harris is just as bad, but you spend little time on what she says or does.
So secondly, ask yourself why you focus on Trump? As Jessica Luxmoore says, both modern and ancient texts urge us to know ourselves.
Thank you. The reason that on this substack account (charles’ account) I focus more on the profound life-destroying criminality of pro-empire pro-Genocide pro-Wall St mass-murderer WarMonger trump (or more accurately, the criminality of the DeepState billionaires who brought this grade-B ACTOR to the white house, by creating the manipulative Qanon/MAGA deception that sells to well-intentioned but gullible and misinformed people the false story that he is an “anti-elite rebel” when he is in fact THE POLAR OPPOSITE of that, as his actual actions during his presidency show), the reason I focus more on that here rather than on Harris’ criminality, is because I am writing this on a substack account that is promoting him for presidency (charles literally works for rfk who tells people nonstop 24/7 to vote for trump). When I am dealing with deceived Harris supporters then in those environments I show them in full (just like I did here for trump) the criminality of their candidate and how the DNC is largely a right-wing capitalist organization, by the billiionaire ruling class for the billonaire ruling class.
In my interactions with some deceived die-hard liberals (who actually believe the zionist pro-billionaire propgandists on CNN/MSNBC/WashPost/NYTimes) they constantly call me a trump supporter because i show them what a pro-billionaire right-wing capitalist poison their candidate is and the DNC is.
So i find it profoundly ironic that you seem to accuse me of pro-Harris bias while they accuse me of pro-trump bias.. it’s hilarious really.
But it’s totally understandable that this is how people think (that whoever shows the poison of their chosen candidate and how they’ve been deceived by the billionaires’ propaganda - that portrays their candidate as the one to save us from the elite - that that critical person must therefore be supportive of the empire’s other candidate/puppet).
It is understandable when one is cognizant of how the capitalist NeoCon billionaire ruling class have divided americans (and much of the west) almost evenly into two haves, enclose each half in their own sectarian echo-chamber where we’re bombarded with false narratives to make us hate the other half and pit us against the other half, and then provide a FALSE MESSIAH candidate for each half, a false messiah who pretends to be the one who will save that half from the evil of the other half, when IN REALITY what happens is that support for EITHER of the empire’s two warmongering candidates (the pro-billionaire pro-Genocide pro-empire pro-Wall St right wing conservative capitalist or the pro-billionaire pro-Genocide pro-Wall St right wing liberal capitalist) leads to the EXACT SAME PLACE - the hierarchical domination of the few over the many; the funneling of the wealth we create upwards to enrich the ultra-rich (which allows them to completely dominate the political process and the flow of information on the planet); The financing and arming of a mass-murdering global capitalist militarized empire of greed plunder domination mass-murder torture abuse brutality trauma and control (again, to enrich the ultra-rich and ensure their global domination ove the llanet’s resources and the squashing of anything that deviates from the profit-over-people american economic model); Treating the have-nots lile dirt and squeezimg as much as possible out of us; Hijacking and neutralizing our intense desire for change and funneling it right back into the empire’s duopoly by encouraging us to express our anti-elite sentiment through a FAKE POPULIST and a FALSE MESSIAH who promotes the ruling class interests and makes sure that no real change will happen and that the billionaires’ domination isn’t threatened (which are precisely the things he did as president. Exactly like the FALSE MESSIAH Obama did before him).
I’m sorry but I don’t know how to say it any clearer than this. HARRIS IS A RIGHT-WING PRO RULING CLASS CAPITALIST POISON!!! TRUMP IS A RIGHT- WING PRO RULING CLASS CAPITALIST POISON!!!
How can I be any clearer than this? I mean, just look at my handle name!! Please just look at the first three notes/posts shared on my page and you’ll hopefully understand where i am coming from. I really don’t know how can I be any more clear than that..
I speak more about warmongerer trump in the comment section of Charles’ substack becasue it seems that many readers on this substack account have fallen for the Qanon/MAGA deception and have been funnelled into voting for trump (as rfk jr tells them nonstop to do). That's why i focus on that in the comment section of this specific substack account. When i speak to deceived Harris supporters I show them the poison of their candidate in exactly the same way.
However, unlike trump supporters, most liberals seem to know that their candidate is pretty bad and just view her as the lesser of two evils. Most liberals are not very enthusiastic about her, they just reluctantly support her becasue they think trump is even worse (they’re wrong, they’re both equally right-wing capitalist poison, equally pro-billionaire pro-Genocide pro-NeoCon Zionists pro-Wall St pro Big-Pharma pro Big Oil pro the war profiteering industry and equally working to ensure the domination of the capitalist billionaire ruling class over the planet). However, this lack of enthusiam and seeing that one’s candidate is pretty bad is not the case with most trump supporters, from what i see, becasue most trump supporters are much less critical of their candidate/messiah and do actually fall hook line and sinker for the Qanon/MAGA deception and do truly believe that he is an “anti-elite rebel who is here to free the little guy from the deepstate” and are therefore much more devoted to him as their candidate (than liberals are to harris).
That’s another reason why there is a much greater need to focus on dispelling the trump deception and showing people the actual facts of who this ConMan actor actually is and what he works for, because many more people (especially on this substack and in the conservative echo-chamber) have fallen for the trump deception than the other way around (hardly anyone among harris supporters has the same grand delusions about harris, in the way that there are massive delusions about trump among his supporters).
Of course the billionaoire’s empire has a whole host of other deceptions for the liberal half of the population, but most people here on this substack account have already seen through this. When i speak with die-hard liberals who actually fully believe the mainstream corporate narrative (and there aren’t that many of these anymore) then i focus on dispelling with them the myths that the ruling class has ready for their echo-chamber. But this isn’t the crowd on this substack account and that is why i am not focusing on these deceptions (intended for harris supporters) on this substack account but more on the trump deception, which is many many orders of magnitude more dominant and prevalent in these circles here
Of course it is not ultimately about either trump or harris, they’te both grade-b ACTORS doing the bidding of the capitalist billionaire ruling class and creating (along with the liberal and conservative medias) the desired division of the 99% into two halves who are pitted against each other and emotionally invested in the two puppets provided for us by the ruling class so that we don’t notice that they both work for the same people, the same Godless capitalist billionaire ruling class and their global militarized empire who are tightening the noose around our neck, while we are busy cheering for (or terrified by) the FALSE MESSIAHS they provide for us..
I hope this answers your question as for why i focus more on trunp’s criminality in this specific environment (and as I hope is clear by now that I am absolutely NOT a harris supporter. Not in a million years. She's just as terrible as ConMan WarMonger trump, as I've said over and over and over again)
As for the language I used to describe the humanity-dividing WarMonger trump and his DeepState billionaire abusive scum who brought him to power, I’ll consider your words of caution, though in my view, being kind to the billionaire abusers murderers oppresors (and the puppet candidates they provide for us) who do everything in their power to deceive, control, murder and enslave humanity (to ensure their domination over us) is not really top priority right now, in my view, and in fact can be counter-productive and a form of suppression of (jutified) anger at our abusers. If anything, i think the language i use to describe these criminal ruling class oppressors is pretty tame. I think they deserve all the scorn and contempt and anger that we can muster, just like the anger directed at any malicious rapist or child abuser, because the ruling class are much much worse than these.
Yes, there is room for compassion for the abusers, yes definitely, but only AFTER they have been removed from power and ceased abusing. We’re still very far from that stage, we first need to remove the abusers from power, and in order to accomplish that task, i don’t think that suppression of anger and policing of language is very helpful, becasue it can deplete us of the energy required to stand up to abuse, to stand up to a global empire of controlling violent HIERARCHICAL anti-egalitatian narcissists who view us as inferior and not as worthy as they are.
Wanted to add another small side note but space is finished here, so I will do that in the comment below this one. Please see below.
That’s not the main point, but just wanted to add a small side note, that in my view, besides his numerous murderous crimes against life, ConMan ACTOR trump also has another distinctive harmful personal feature (which wasn’t present in previous false messiahs) which is that besides all the profound harm that his policies have done, trump’s personality is also injured and immature in the extreme. Profoundly psychologically-undeveloped, infantile and narcissist, with an emotional maturity level of a 4 year old (among numerous other examples, just look at the sham abusive loveless “marriages” he has with the trophy wives that he constantly buys off of the playboy catalogue, and replaces with another trophy wife when they get too wrinkled). We’re dealing here with not only a bully, buffoon and ConMan ACTOR who has been deeply immersed in organized crime networks his enitire life (i can give sources for that if you’re interested) and who is sold to conservatives as what he is not, but we are also dealing with the absolute lowest level of human psychological development. THE LOWEST OF THE LOW. a profoundly wounded man-boy who views relationships and human beings as buy and sell transactions, who has been abused from a very young age (as was his brother, who took to drinking because of the severe abuse they experienced by their father in childhood), and who probabaly never experienced a single moment of true love his entire life. He’s the kind of wounded abusive immature loveless narcissist jerk who shouldn’t be allowed to run the neighborhood post office in Duluth Minnesota, let alone be put in charge of the biggest and most powerful militarized empire in the history of mankind..
If I came across someone identical to trump in a social event, that's the kind of person I would stay as far away from as possible, because he's not just an immature jerk, but an extremely dangerous abusive narcessist psychologically-wounded jerk who has no qualms about using others and causing harm to human beings to benefit himself and his image.
If the NeoCon zionist billionaires didn’t bring him to prominance, didn’t pick this grade-b actor to be the horse on which they ride into the white house (by constructing the Qanon/MAGA deception around him and selling him to well-intentioned but gullible and deceived conservatives as ‘anti-elite rebel’), if it wasn’t for that, ConMan trump would still be doing what he was doing before he was picked to be their horse, he would still be banging prostitues in vegas (and occasionally raping underage girls), would still be buying trophy wives off of the playboy catalogue, and he would still be begging billionaires to bail him out after he has driven his bussinesses to bankrupcy (which he did several times) and squanders the enormous wealth he was given at birth.
Again, that’s not the main point here, but besides all of his criminal life-destroying pro-billionaire pro-Genocide WarMongerin humanity-dividinh policies, i’d be amiss if i didn’t also mention what kind of wounded infantile undeveloped immature jerk we are dealing with here
Qanon? I don't think any serious dissident trusts Qanon. That's more something that the left uses as an insult. I know it's a real thing, and some people may still be like, "trust the plan!", and looking at whatever Q is, but, MAHA is Not Qanon.
It's something used to discredit anyone not on the left.
It's not about Trump himself as much as the people around him, some who are only there because the Dem side is so corrupt, pharma captured, about mandates and censorship.
Thank you again Ellen. I hear your and fully understand your concern. Two things. First of all, Qanon was clearly not the focus of my comment, so before anything else I would humbly and respectfully invite you to read slowly and in earnest (meaning, without ideological filters that paint and distort perception) what was ACTUALLY pointed out in my comment. I respectfully request that we please NOT shift the focus of my comment to a minor side issue in order to avoid dealing with the main points of my comment.
Having said that, I am willing to oblige you and explain this minor side point, I only ask that we remember that this is NOT the main point of my comment, so please don't use my willingness to engage with you on this minor point as a way to shift the focus away from what my comment is all about.
Okay, so if that is understood then I'll be happy to oblige and let us explore this minor point together. The reason i mentioned the mossad-created Qanon deception (which - in the usual zionist mode of operation of lies deceptions and emotional-manipulations to get their guy into the white house - sells to uninformed people the manipulative fairytale according to which trump arrived on the scene to save the little guy from the DeepState and fight the elite), the reason i mentioned it (in passing, NOT as the main point of my comment) is because this is the fairytale that every MAGA follower that I've ever interacted with claims to believe in, whether they call it Qanon or not, the story that his devout followers gave to me for why support him is the same as this Qanon fairytale, whether they call it Qanon or not.
I agree that it is a false and profoundly deceptive story, but unfortunately every MAGA devotee that I've ever interacted with believes in it.
You might not like the name Qanon, you can drop that name if you prefer, the name doesn't matter at all; what matters is the gist of the deceptive Qanon marketing ploy (that says that trump arrived in order to help the little guy against the elite) this gist is what every MAGA follower I've met actually believes in - whether they call it Qanon or not - and that is the manipulative story that this pro-billionaire pro-M.I.C pro-NeoCon pro-empire mass-murdering infantile narcissist creep and his DeepState zionist billionaire tyrants are riding on, all the way to the white house...
This is the fairytale that every MAGA follower i've interacted with believes in, despite the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that contradicts this fairytale, which I detailed in my original comment and with additional details in my reply to Glenn below (please do read those, if you still haven't) and I have a lot more evidence to give, if interested, besides what was already detailed. When i ask people why they support this pro-billionaire pro-Genocide pro-Wall St pro-M.I.C pro-NeoCon pro-Big Pharma Capitalists pro-tribalist (religious/nationalist) division of humanity, pro-neo nazi zionist supremacists torturers thieves child-abusers, pro-the global capitalist murder machine to ensure the enrichment domination of the few over the many, to enrich theii hierarchical poistion at the top of rje pyramid over humanity; pro- the removal of all worker protections to allow his right wing billionaire predator pals to abuse and squeeze out as much as they possibly can from workers and the poor for their own enrichment; pro the filling of our food, water, air and soil with toxins (the removal of regulations that put a limit on how much his tyrant billionaire pals can pollute, for the easy profit of his billionaire buddies and for the devastation of life on earth)
when i ask why they suppprt this psychologocally-undeveloped, tribalist hate pushing, emotionally-stunted, infantile bully narcissist with a relational maturity level of a 4 year old (who buys trophy wives off of the playboy catalogue, and has a sham abusive loveless "marriage" with them until they get wrinkled and are replaced with the next bought trophy wife.. a very very sick and wounded heart-divorced man who seem to have never experienced a single moment of real love in his entire life and who urgently needs help, healing and compassion), when i ask his believers why they support this wounded infantile undeveloped narcissist objectifying creep and his pathetic collection of trophy "wives", then this story (the Qanon deception, whether it is named Qanon or not) is literally the number one reason that his followers have told me for why they support this scumbag.
Without this deception and marketing ploy (created by God-ignorant right-wing supremacist zionist-conservative billionaire tyrants, arms dealers and war profiteeres to get their b-level hollywood ACTOR into the white house) without this marketinv ploy, trump simply wouldn't be here, without this massive deception to present this ConMan as what he is not, trump would still be spending all his time banging prostitues in vegas (and occasionally raping underage girls), buying trophy "wives" off of playboy catalogue, covering his toilet seats in gold in his mansions and begging for bailout from his billionaire backers whenever this creepy buffoon drove his business into bankruptcy (which he did several times) and squanders the enormous wealth given to him at birth.
This manipulative Qanon fairytale, that says that this infantile creep arrived on the scene because he wants to fight the deepstate for the little guy, is by far the most common response that i get from MAGA devotees to explain their support for this Godless mass-murderer infantile psychologically-undeveloped deeply-corrupt moron and his the global right-wing billionaire's murder machine (to ensure these tyrant criminals' elevation over us and domination over humanity and the planet's resources (detailed in my original comment and my reply to Glenn).
And as a quick side note, just to clarify and avoid misunderstanding, when i write "right wing" i am referreing to not just one but to BOTH wings of the global corporate-capitalist hierarchical (and militarized) billionaires' empire, i'm referring to both its GOP wing and its DNC wing. Yes, I know that one wing (DNC) has been DECEPTIVELY labelled 'the left' by the capitalist empire's propagandists on cnn/msnbc/fox/WashPost/NYTimes etc (even though the left has been erased from existence a long time ago already - its erasure and replacement started around the mid seventies as the ruling class' backlash against the peace uprisings of the sixties that very nearly toppled from power the capitalist billionaires' global war and domination machine and scared the hell out of oir abusove ruling class. The left's erasure and replacement was a done deal already by the mid eighties, definitely by the time that puppet clinton was introduced, the left was already thoroughly replaced by the right-wing capitalist scum in the dnc who do everything in their power to destroy the left, and ensure the enrichment domination of billionaire corporate-capitalists over the planet, and yet ironically these same right-wing dnc imperialists are deceptively labelled 'the left' by the empire's propagandists on cnn/msnbc/fox etc in order to create the appearance as if americans still have a choice between left and right and not realize that we are actually living in a one-party state, the one big corporate-capitalist war party (with its two wings alternating every few years to give the illusion of choice and change between two distinct options, when IN REALITY bothctje GOP puppet and tje DNC puppet in tje white house continue 99% of tje policies of their predecessor from the other party - just like biden continued 99% of trump's policies and trump continued 99% of obama's policies who vontinued 99% of bush's policies etc etc. The only thing that changes is the STORIES sold to the public about the puppet president, the policies are nearly identical regardless of which puppet is in tne white house, trump, obama, biden, bush.. the policies always remain the nearly identical, to promote the domination interests of the globe-spanning corporate-capitalist american empire and its global murder machine, to ensure thw domination of the few ultra-rich over tje many). In my reply to Jerry I elaborated how the empire keeps this racket going, and how it provides FLASE MESSIAH every few years who are dressed as "anti-elite rebel" (like obama or trump) to hijack our intense desire for change, funnel our anger and rebelling impulse into their fake-change ConMan and thus ensure that no change happens and the empire continues with its global abuse to ensure the enrichment and domination of the ultra-rich over the many (see trump's presidency for example)
A similar process has happened in UK and Germany and much of europe, by the way. Where Labour or SPÖ etc are very clearly right-wing capitalist warmongering parties, by the billionaire corporate-capitalists for the billionaire corporate-capitalists, and yet are deceptively labelled as 'the left' in the capitalist billionaire's propaganda and disinformation media (it's nice isn't it? When you get to own both parties and also get to own the media that tells the people that you don't own both parties and that they have real agency and choice..).. anyway, this is a vast subject in its own right that can easily fill up a whole book if i'd start going into it here, but right now i just wanted to make a quick side note here just to clarify the words used.. :-)
And one more quick clarification of definitions, when i write 'capitalist' and the capitalist domination of government and of humanity, i'm refering to the original meaning of that word, as detailed for example here by one of the world's most brilliant economists: https://www.pdrboston.org/capitalism
Space finished here, so please see continued in the reply below this one
The trump deception (which can also be called the conservative GREAT INVERSION or FLASE AWAKENING) is yet another example of how the ruling class capitalist tyrants stay ahead of the curve (to make sure that real change doesn't happen and that their power over society isn't threatened) by providing us with a vision of "hope and change" to cheer for, to make sure that our desire for real change (and the possibility of unseating them from power over us) is NEUTRALIZED and doesn't amount to any real change.
This do this by anticipating our anger and demand for change, hijacking it and funneling it right back into the empire's duopoly, by providing us with FALSE MESSIAHS to rally behind, false messiahs who keep the status quo in place, who cement the hierarchical anti-egalitarian class nature of society - the domination of the few ultra-rich over the many (all while telling us that we're 'fighting the elite' by cheering for their billionaire FALSE MESSIAH and that this is the way to change things, by rallying behind their marketing ploy, their FALSE MESSIAH. They tell us that that this the way to bring about "the energy of love", that "this is what awakening looks like".
There are just no limits to the level of cynical deception that the billionaire tyrants in power are capable of. People just find it hard to grasp that the fascist billionaires in power - especially clever&cunning zionist billionaires - have NO QUALMS WHATSORVER about lying and deceiving to get their way, and will use absolutely any narrative whatsoever - including the narrative of love and awakening - to make sure that our change impulse is HIJACKED, neutralized and funnelled into their provided narrative that teaches us (through their paid narrative managers and social media influencers) that change will come through their FALSE MESSIAH they provide for us to funnel our change-energy into, a false messiah who IN REALITY maintains the hierarchical domination of the few ultra-rich over the many and EXPANDS their global capitalist militarized empire of greed, mass-murder, control, bullying, theft, and economic-military domination (all actions that Godless anti-life ConMan ACTOR trump did during his presidency)
The billionaire capitalists and their global militarized empire don't care if you cheer for their democrat false messiah (like obama) or their republican false messiah (like trump) as long as you cheer for one of them, as long as your rebellious change energy is HIJACKED and funneled into one of the two options the empire gives you (who both lead to the exact same place, the same hierarchical anti-egalitarian domination of the few billionaire capitalists over the many)
The billionaire capitalists don't care how you arrive into the empire's fold, if it's through the GOP route or the DNC route, as long as you actually believe the hollywood script that their professional actor FALSE MESSIAH is here to bring "change and hope" and 'make america great again' and help us "fight the elite", as long they can hijack and funnel your desire for change into him..
To learn a little more about the way the right-wing capitalist billionaires play this trick on americans, I highly recommend these pieces (with full citacions)
Lastly, you mentioned only dems being captured by big pharma (and i agree that they are, but not only them), so i wanted to share with you an interesting thread i saw a few days ago:
Ron Unz (of the Unz Report') researched the available evidence for more than a year and wrote extensively, with a vast amount of documentation, about how covid 19 was an attack by US conservatives (and zionists) on primarily China and secondarily Iran.
A few brief points (in no way representitive of the vast amount of facts he documented. The ebook is invaluable)
Over the decades US "national security" apparatus has spent over $100 billion to create the world’s largest biowarfare capability, which american capitalists and conservatives viewed as one of the greatest weapons they have to disrupt and destroy the economies of "the enemy".
In 2017 trump brings into his administration the rabid warhawk, Big Pharma executive and NeoConservative Robert Kadlec, who had been America’s leading leading advocate for conducting biowarfare on china since the early 2000s (this is in addition to other Deep State NeoCons extreme biowarfare warhawk lunatics which trump filled his administration with and put in positions of enormous power. See ebook for details)
In 2018 and 2019 "mysterious" viral epidemics devastate China’s poultry and pork industries, causing SEVERE damage to China’s food supply, which is strangely enough EXACTLY as NeoConservative Robert Kadlec had advocated for more than a decade that US should do (only difference is that from 2017 onwards this short-sighted psychopath was actually given by trump the power to implement his hate-filled sectarian conservative ideation)
From January to August 2019 Kadlec initiates and runs the Federal&State “Crimson Contagion” exercise in which US government officials practice their strategies of responss in the case of infection by a hypothetical dangerous respiratory corona virus that "suddenly might appear in China".. (that is the actual wording used to justify the exercise)
Late October 2019, 300 American military men visit Wuhan to participate in the "World Military Games"
Late October 2019, right after the games, Patient Zero in Wuhan becomes infected with Covid (this has been calculated in hindsight). The virus spreads invisibly until the Chinese government discovers its presence near the end of December.
A secret November 2019 DIA report described a “potentially cataclysmic” disease outbreak in Wuhan (confirmed by four intelligence sources to ABC News), long before the Chinese even knew about the existence of the virus.
Israeli TV confirms that the Israeli military received that US intelligence report, which had been produced “in the second week of November”. Again, long before the Chinese even knew about the existence of the virus in China, the conservatives & zionists in US and Israel already knew all about it..
Early January 2020, at the orders of the NeoCon Zionists who completely dominate his administration, Trump assassinates general Soleimani, Iran’s top military leader (equivalent to assansinating the american head of the joint chief of staff) while he was on his way to consultations in Iraq on the fight against ISIS (a western proxy organized, funded and armed by the US -Israel).
Mid January 2020, the virus affecting China suddenly jumps 3,500 miles across multiple untouched countries to the Holy City of Qom, Iran, infecting Iran’s top political elites, with a large number of them dying as a consequence. By February, Iran has become the second global epicenter of the Covid outbreak.. Unz shows that the same NeoCons who trump appointed to his admin who demanded that trump assasinate Soleimani, are from the same NeoCon think-tanks who also were responsible for the virus biological attack on Iran a few weeks after the assassination.
Early March 2020, Iran's Gov't publicly accuses US of launching a biowarfare attack with Covid against Iran & China, including a formal complaint to the UN. Virtually no Western media reports those accusations, a complete media blackout in the west on this story, so almost no westerners are aware of those accusations and of the formal complaints put forth
I'm not sure I understand your question. I wrote in my comment exactly what I know to be true. Did you read the comment? I know there is a lot of information there, and I understand that this is especially new information for those who fell into the trap of the Qanon/MAGA deception (which sells to well-intentiomed but uninformed and gullible people the story that says that trump (the anti-life mass-murdering pro-billionaire pro-Wall St pro-M.I.C pro-Big Pharma pro-genocide pro-NeoCon pro-War profiteering industry ConMan, who is a representative of the ruling class billionaire abusers and of their global militarized empire of greed, domination, murder, theft and control) paints this pro-empire pro domination of tje few over the many narcissist abusive billionaire ConMan scumbag as if he is an anti-elite rebel who came to help the little guy fight the deep state.
And in my comment I gave mountains of evidence and full details and explanations that show as clearly as possible who this pro-billionaire anti-life DeepState murderer actually is (not exceptionally evil nor exceptionally righteous but just your usual pro-billionaire pro-empire mass-murdring right-wing american president who, like all right wing presidents before and after him (liberal or conservative) , is here to implement the anti-life tenets of hierarchical anti-egalitarian Godless right-wing capitalist ideology - to enrich-the ultra-rich, to ensure the domination of the few (his billionaire backers) over the many, to cement the control of the global right-wing capitalist american militarized billionaires' empire over the planet's resources and over humanity, to ensure their dollar's supremacy, and finally (by pretending to be anti-elite when he's anything but that) to ensure that our intense desire for change is hijacked, is funnelled into a FALSE MESSIAH, is neutralized and doesn't amount to any real change (which is precisely the things he did during his presidency, as I showed in my comment above.
And in fact, in that comment I barely scratched the surface on his crimes against the people, I had plenty more details to give besides what I wrote there, but I had to stop short because of the limits on the space available for a comment).
In my comment I also showed the profound falsity of the claim that says that the anti-life right-wing global militarized murder machine of ConMan trump and his backers the deep state billionaire abusers & predators, is a good choice simply becasue of how awful and right-wing and pro-billionaires the DNC are.. (which is pretty much what most of those who were tricked by the mossad-created Qanon/MAGA deception have been taught to believe.. that becasie the dnc are awful then that meams trump is good )
So I highly recommend reading my comment above slowly and attentively to take in all the unfamiliar information and perspective, becasue this is NOT the usual DNC-or-GOP perspective that you'll hear in the dumbed-down and heavily propagandinzed american political discourse (which says that if the dnc are awful right-wing pro-capitalist billionaires then that must mean that the anti-life Godless right-wing billionaire thieves and mass-murderers of the greedy infantile anti-egaitarian DeepState trump must be the solution then).
This is NOT this kind of deceived blindness that thinks that one of the two puppets of the life-destroying global capitalist american billionaires' empire (the biggest hierarchical anti-egalitarian warmongering greedy bullying murderous evil that exists on this planet) is a good option..
They're both absolutely the WORST option that is possible for life on earth, they're both completely right-wing pro billionaires and pro-the billionakres' global capitalist empire, and they're both are here to do what every right-wing american president (liberal or conservative) has always done, which is also exactly what trump did during his presodency - enriching the ultra-rich, cementing the domination of american capitalist billionaores over the planet's resources and (in the case of trump or obama) give us a FALSE MESSIAH who will hijack and neutralized our desite for change (by funnellng it into support for a FALSE MESSIAH) and make sure that the domination of the few ultra-rich over the many isn't threatened.
The trick that the right-wing capitalist billionaire ruling class play on americans, is that every few years they give you a FALSE MESSIAH (like obama or trump) who pretends to be the one who will unseat the evil elite (presented as the other party of course) and help the little guy. Both these ConMen are here to make sure that our intemse desire for change is hijacked and doesn't amount to any real change.
This is how the empire keep alternating americans between one or the other of its two parties (the liberal half or the conservatove half of the one big corporate capoitalist party that rules america and much of the planet), keep americans believing that they can achieve chamge and freedom from the abuse and domination of the few ultra-rich over the many by choosing one or the other of the two options that the billionaire's empire (and their media) allow us to choose between. This is how americans have been played for decades and decades and we still keep falling for the billionaore's deceptions (and be very emotionally invested in tne false messiah they present to us as an "anti-elite rebel") again and again and again, we never seem to learn..
If interested, you can learn more about how they play this trick on us in the following insightful and brilliant posts (which include full citations of sources)
To learn even more at depth about the M.I.C war-profiteering ruling class oligarch deep-state networks that brought trump into power (of Wall St conservative billionaire military contractors, of mass-murderering right-wing arms dealers, of silicon valley surveillance capitalists, of pedophile blackmail networks run by supremacist zionist tribalists (far more than just their epstein operation), and of ultra-wealthy God-ignorant evangelical religious fundamentalists) then please see
And regarding ConMan vance, here's a full breakdown of who this deceiver actually is and who are the deep state adrenochrome-drinking billionaire scumbag abusers (the enemies of the humanity) that are fully funding vance (as well as trump), and brought him to this position.
And regarding what alternative is there to the billionaire's anti-life right-wing capitalist empire and its two puppets (the domination of the few ultra-rich over the many, whether led by a liberal or a conservative puppet) here are a couple of example of what can actually be done (first why and then how)
I wouldn't coin the term 'vaccine paranoia' to describe people's opposition to that particular medical intervention that was pushed on people globally. I think anyone ignorantly accepting this injection pushed so fiercely and aggressively by governments were simply not doing their due diligence and research.
"Evidence-based thinking" in that last article, seriously? The Covid vaccines have indeed caused extreme mortality and morbidity which a multitude of scientists and doctors are speaking out about.
If you understood what is going on with the vaccines, with the bioweapon that was the excuse for the vaccines or with much of what is happening (you know the actual conspiracies), you'd appreciate how nuanced Charles' takes are
I was a fan of Brand because he was funny and trying to cross-dialogue, a fan of Jem Bendell for his read on the climate science and a fan of Eisenstein through Bendell. I think I saw everyone go down conspiracy rabbit holes during Covid, while ignoring the very real and severe threats to POC, women and the LGBTQ+ community coming from Trump/MAGA and the Christian Right. My analysis was that white men suddenly had their freedoms truncated (wear a mask, do not travel!) and this was too much for them (when has this ever happened?), even if for the common good. It then could not have been for the common good (since THEY were FOR the common good) and so it must have been a malicious plot. It is wearying--exhausting--to try to point out to white men what MAGA is. My other theory is that there are super charged clicks and hits and $$$ to be earned from jumping on the conspiracy bandwagons, from the fossil fuel industry and from Russia, etc. etc. ... I am tired and I am going to focus on getting Harris elected. I am interested in what you have written, however, and will try to remember to send an email. I am also baffled and discouraged and depressed.
I read your latest post and was so grateful. I am not in a position to become a paying subscriber at the moment, but I will continue to read with interest as you try and unpack this. I also read the comments section and LOVE the community of thoughtful people that you're bringing together. I have been wondering about this for quite a while, and have not been able to crack the nut. I have been a fan of Brand's for many years (which is very uncharacteristic of me; I really think he's the only person about whom I've actually and legitimately called myself a "fan," even jokingly), and simply do not see the logic. FWIW, I do sense that there is some truth in the suggestion that it really does have something to do with ego. Not entirely, but it's there. In a culture that celebrates brilliance — and RB is undoubtedly brilliant — that brilliance needs somewhere to go, to see itself reflected and hear itself. It can't just fester in its own broth, it must be applied to something. If the left project starts to become untenable for a variety of reasons, and if the person has done a ton of spiritual work, then maybe there is just enough mental flexibility to do the contortions and make the "free speech" "individual liberty" persona stick, even if it means overlooking the very real ways that the biggest mouthpieces for such ideals, at the moment, drag a Santa's sleigh full of destructive behaviors along with them. It's a clean argument "free speech!" rather than the muddy Democratic vision, full of seemingly unresolvable contradictions.
My entire question, at this point, can be boiled down to: What is the proper role of government? A totally deregulated free-market society gives us self-audited Boeing planes falling out of the sky and rivers on fire. But government overreach, over-regulation is also a real thing. It's a conundrum, that's for sure. I wish I could take comfort in religion and Trump the way they seem to; sounds much easier, frankly.
Hmmm, not really. I definitely believe that there is much room for regulatory reform, but I think deregulation is not a good idea. See my example (or maybe it was in a different comment) about planes. I, for one, do not want to walk onto a plane that has been self-evaluated for safety and compliance by the very people who stand to gain the most by cutting corners. That, to me, is insane. Just an example. I also see the point where overburdensome regulations stifle any sort of progress and bury projects in paperwork, which is also untenable. But the swift decapitation of all regulations seems, to me, like a recipe for setting rivers on fire.
Hi Daniel, I'd like to respond better than I have time to now, after taking time with your articles, but for now, reposting what I wrote in response to a good question, someone asked why I don't think a Trump admin would be equally corrupt to a Democrat one. (And I'm from the left, I never thought I'd be voting Trump, but, here we are.)
(OK, there may be paranoia within aspects of the medical freedom movement, the next-level things about tech in the vaccines and stuff I don't pay attention to, because no one I follow who has been unpacking the vaccine dangers sees enough evidence to go next-level, so they stick with what's above the surface, of course not in the media, but easy to find if follow honest, thorough sources, and that's not paranoia, it's obvious and easy to prove about how the covid vaccines are disasters, and No vaccines are well tested with honest, adequate science. That conversation is not paranoia at all.) ( https://merylnass.substack.com/p/2-quite-useful-data-collections?utm_source=publication-search )
Highly recommend reading The Midwestern Doctor for meticulously sourced info about medical gaslighting, vaccine harms, other health topics ~ https://midwesterndoctor.com/
If anything, the paranoia was around actually safe medicines that could have helped treat early, probably have driven the pathogen off the planet, definitely saved a lot of lives and meant less long covid (not necessarily no long covid, but less. And the doctors who treat both LC and vax injury say their vax injured patients have a much harder time healing)
~~ Reposting comment below. Wish had time to share more, I'll read your articles and be in touch, hope to continue the conversation ...
I also come from the left and never thought I'd consider voting Trump, until now. It's much bigger than him .. on both sides, I see a huge difference in the people around the candidates.
The damage done by whatever blob sees free speech - especially true speech, and honest doctors, as its enemy, and just tried to inject the entire world with the genetic code for spike protein, forcing as much as they could get away with, and is trying to tag and track all of us - proof of this is in plain site in 2024 - and exists by infinite wars, is far worse than anything I think Trump and those around him would do.
To be clear, to be not as bad as locking in medical, digital, informational tyranny while gaslighting compassion and protection, is a very low bar. I think that Trump is not-as-bad as the Dems. But I think the people aligning with the side that's not-the-Dems are way better than lesser evil, I think these are some of the wisest people alive today. (Kennedy, Calley and Dr Casey Means, Bret Weinstein, Tulsi Gabbard ... )
It's not about looking at Trump with naive admiration, it's about looking at what the Dems and the global blob they're part of have Already Done, and are Doing Right Now with their other puppets, in countries with less protections than the US. (Canada, the UK, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Germany, the EU ... )
The blob the Dems are part of is all about censorship (mostly of truth), the corruption of medicine, mandates for medical products known to be seriously unsafe at the time they were mandated, as well as incapable of stopping infection / transmission, abuse of digital control. The tyranny of the global blob that wants endless wars, and knows that the current version of the Democratic Party would serve the interests of neocons like Dick Cheney better than a Trump admin.
The pesky first amendment, which Democrats have no respect for, makes it harder to do here what they're already doing in the UK, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Canada, etc.
I don't see Trump as wanting to control what's said and shared online in nearly the same way as the Dems. Without access to information, the world is truly dystopian and tyrannical.
And while the people around Harris / Walz are deeply corrupt (or terrible at processing information), the people around Trump include the speakers at an amazing Senate hearing this Monday about food, nutrition, health (only two Senators were there, both Republican).
Everyone there knows that health / food / soil should not be partisan / political. But they also know that the Democrats are too close to pharma and the food industry for them to prioritize real health.
These are amazing people able and ready to help restore soil, health, and integrity to science and medicine. Some may have liked Trump all along, others are only aligning with him because there's no other way for this wisdom to reach inside the government than in an administration that has Kennedy and Calley Means on that team.
If people on the left heard this conversation and Republican (bad!) politicians weren't part of it, and it had nothing to do with a movement that's working with the Trump campaign, if it was just a hearing about health and nutrition, say, moderated by Democrats - the left, at least the left I used to know, would be thrilled, moved to tears and gratitude and hope that what they've been trying to say for decades may finally be taken seriously.
But now, because there's association with Trump, and because the media has poisoned what anyone on the left thinks of all politicians on the right, because even Ron Johnson's name is poison to my Mom and other liberal sponges, most liberals can't see the good, the amazing, hopeful, genuine, good, that is in this room, https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/sen-johnson-roundtable-american-health-and-nutrition-a-second-opinion/
The accusations of the Dems being determined to limit speech to their approved narrative, and the blob they're part of doing this already across the world, I can back up with many links.
These are just a few, I don't have time to share more, but you probably know of this already, the international effort to police speech, that's based on gaslighting about protection.
I could say much more, and am starting a Substack to attempt to reach through the lack of curiosity on the TDS left. I haven't yet posted, but something will be up in a week or so (apx). https://anotherbetrayedliberal.substack.com/
You ask a good question. There surely was corruption in Trump's first admin. Not the democracy - destroying dictatorship that the TDS left fears, but, there were only two non-swamp creatures in his administration that I know of, and they weren't listened to (Drs Scott Atlas and Paul Alexander).
This time with Kennedy, Tulsi, Calley Means, and others on board, I think it will be different. (Even if not, I don't see how it can be worse than the party of censorship, mandates, and neocons)
(And if Trump says to the MAHA crew after winning the election, something like, "Thank you, thank you very much for helping me win. I actually will not be giving you a job in my administration, I actually don't give a crap about the health of Americans, and we have other things to do. But, you'll get a signed picture of me, as a thank you for your help. And a hat, a very, very nice hat. Don't worry, I got this from here. I'm going to do a great job."
... If he does that - All the energy of excitement and hope that exploded when RFK, Jr walked onto the stage at Trump's rally, all that and more and his reputation among people who fill his ego, all that narcissistic supply would be drained away from Trump, probably never to return. And the media would rejoice in being able to say, "told you so! Idiots who trusted The Bad Man!".
The more they try to kill him, and relentlessly portray him as the Worst Thing Ever, the more I think he may actually let the people who know how to, like Kennedy, clear the corruption. (Mike Benz explains how the definition of "democracy" was re-done. So in this gaslit version, populists are threats to democracy - that corrupt apparatus behind the scenes, that showed its hand in censoring truth and promoting scientific fraud and moving the globe around).
I can explain it because I am someone who began my political journey at 18 with a vote for Obama. I voted for Hillary in 2016 and was utterly sick when Trump won. I felt sure it was the end of us. I was a religious Democracy Now listener and a card carrying member of a certain kind of progressivism.
What I saw over those years though…I saw the media and the institutions form like voltron and from day one do anything possible to sabotage a presidency that our country voted for, if not all at least enough for him to win. I watched these people, those in power, clinging to power, use phony premises to try to oust him, time and time again. This went on for years. I then watched another election where dirty tactics were used. There were lies about COVID. The absolute apex of shock doctrine type economics, though this time used on us, the citizens of this country. I watched as apparent “incompetence” called into question the election. I have seen Trump compared to Hitler, to Putin, to every fill in the blank despot with really no basis in reality. Even not being a personal fan of Trump and his crassness, I could see we were being manipulated in order to restrict more of our freedoms.
I have watched Americans, not all, but many actually vote for the curtailing of their rights. We can argue about semantics of whether or not Twitter or X is a publisher or a platform or a private company and they can do what they wish, but we all can see the degradation of our freedom to think and speak freely.
At this point a vote for Trump is a vote for the discontinuation of rights abuse violations that likely predate the Patriot Act. Say what you will about Trump, the powers that be clearly do not want him elected and that tells me plenty. He is absolutely not part of the current state of affairs but an outsider. Much has been said on this.
You may not agree but to say you literally cannot see why a “free thinker” would toss their lot in with Trump at this point makes me think you could try a little harder to understand those who would.
We vote this way now because it is our BEST choice to dislodge the borg. I get that a Cornel West or a Jill Stein is more palatable but that route has NEVER worked before. Not once. Why would we risk it all on the chance it would work now?
We vote Trump because the stakes are very high and we may not get another chance. I feel absolutely comforted by the fact that RFK and Tulsi and many other well reasoned people have backed Trump. These are people I have followed for many years, whose courage I admire, who have consistently made the hard choices that alienated themselves from power when they could have done the opposite. I never thought I’d find myself here but here I am.
I'm not sure if this comment was in response to mine - I think the Substack thread-tracking mechanism is really hard to follow - but I appreciated it, regardless. In some ways, I see where you're coming from; the "left" (media, commentariat, politicians, whoever) has overplayed its hand many times. I would often read an article that made him sound like a sociopath (like when he booted a crying baby from a rally, if I'm remembering correctly) and then I'd watch the video to see how it ACTUALLY played out, and sometimes they definitely seemed to diverge.
As I wrote recently, I saw him speak in Nashville. I have had a hard time wrapping my head around the difference between what I sort of expected, based on everything I hear (frothing incoherence) and what I experienced (a guy who knows how to work a room, kinda funny, a little rambling, but definitely not perceptibly insane).
But forget how the left has treated him; he seems to be doing just fine (aside from political violence, which is not the point here). You speak of discontinuing rights abuses, presumably free speech at the top of the list. Is that the main point? I would definitely agree that curtailment of free speech is fundamentally unAmerican, but I believe that freedom can be buttressed with real pressure, that we still have extraordinarily free speech in this country, and that we can fight to preserve it without resorting to accepting eveyrthing else Trump stands for which, as far as I can see, is not much. I mean, even at the Bitcoin conference he was wooing everyone with "Bitcoin this, Bitcoin that" and now he's got his own shitcoin coming out. Really? I'd love to imagine all of the Bitcoiners waking up and fully acknowledging that someone else wrote that speech, that it was just shilling for votes, that he has no fucking clue what Bitcoin is, but I'm not holding my breath. They just want a pro-crypto atmosphere, everything else be damned. I cannot imagine how amazingly relaxing it would be to be a one-issue voter.
What does he stand for that you actually agree with? Is he credibly anti-war? The comment above (while I have not fact-checked, specifically) speaks to the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Do you think deregulation and tax breaks will clean up rivers and purify the air? I mean, do you want to get on an airplane whose safety has been verified, essentially, by the boardroom responsible for returning maximum profit to shareholders? Are you cool with the "concept of a plan" stuff for healthcare (to name a few random thoughts that come to mind)?
This is where I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. Philosophically, I see almost nothing in Trump's positioning that leads to any positive outcomes whatsoever. It's as simple as that. Yes, he's been sort of like a punching bag for the left's deepest fears, in many ways, but in MANY of those ways, he's earned it. He's not threading any needles like RFK. He's just a giant inkblot upon which we project all of our shit. He likes being an inkblot; it works for him. I don't feel bad for him, and I certainly see zero evidence that he's going to "dislodge the borg" (a reference I had to look up, so I have no credibility there).
There are no easy answers to our problems. I think Trump offers a palatable "easy answer" that feels like it's backed up by some distant drumbeat of "natural order comes back into balance when the market takes care of itself" but I think that you have to be a world-class cherrypicker to find evidence to support that. On the other hand, I absolutely agree that the Democratic party has been abysmal in so many ways, stole the election from Bernie, lost the plot with things like defund the police, etc.
It's not just a "lesser of two evils" thing, though: I think one can be called out and shaped with pressure and work and long-term movement building (which we have not, in fact, really seen much of - even though it may have looked like it), and the other is like letting out a bull in a china shop. Sure, the bull in his natural habitat would be doing natural, nature-ey, bullish things; but if your society is modern and complicated — if your civilization has reached the point at which china shops are a thing — then bulls don't work.
I know this sounds argumentative but I really do appreciate your comment. I have been so baffled by all of this that I'm really just working out my thoughts out loud, and I apologize if it's more confrontational than I intended. I welcome your thoughts and push back, and would be happily called out for any errors or blind spots. I really need to figure this shit out.
No your comment is excellent. You have some points for sure!
For one thing, it’s not so much that I think Trump the man will dislodge any borgs, it’s more that he is such an interruption to the beltway insider to corporate pipeline. He truly is not one of them. Yes he has money and he’s been in business and he “makes deals” (or whatever) but he is not “one of them” and you can tell by the way he is treated. It’s not so much that I deeply support Trump but I find it striking that a cadre of people I DO trust and support have backed him. I profoundly trust RFKj and his judgment. Likewise for Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise for Bret Weinstein and his wife. It has been helpful for me to actually follow the thought process and shifts of these other people who were also total lifelong democrats.
You would be correct that my number one concern is free speech. I agree that our country is still remarkably free and thank goodness. Much of Europe is finding their leaders unaccountable to them by way of increasingly globalized governing bodies. They don’t have the same protections we do via our constitutional rights. I believe the assessment many before me have made that it was utterly intentional to put the second amendment immediately following the first. I believe it is not just a historical quirk. I think the founders realized we needed a robust and protected way to back up these rights. All to say I think there are MANY within our current regime that would “update” these inconvenient rights the first chance they get. You already have Hillary on TV advocating for criminally charging those who spread information they do not like (I believe she called it propaganda.)
To me Trump is exactly as you say: an ink blot. But I have observed he will change his mind. He will accept counsel. I am heartened by those he is surrounding himself with this go round (mostly).
He appointed the ex CEO of Exxon as Secretary of State. He has promised another tax cut for billionaires and his party will cut Medicare, increased the retirement wage, end all environmental protections and replace the EPA with MAGA and oil stooges. Already 65000 rape victims have been denied abortions including a 10 year old, an 11 year old and a 13 year old. And a mum of a six year old just died because she was denied abortions. And he talks about wanting to fuck his daughter, Ivanka https://www.ibtimes.com/12-times-donald-trump-acted-totally-inappropriately-ivanka-3068093
Not sure how abortion is Trumps problem at this point. The court spoke and the issue is with the states.
I agree that Trump isn’t great on everything. I see reason to believe he is open to changing his mind.
I made this comment somewhere else I think but at this point it’s triage. He isn’t itching to join the global governance orgy and continue restricting our constitutional rights. It’s that simple for me. He is clearly an outsider to what has been going on in our government for years and I’d rather not keep electing the same people that brought us many wars and the patriot act.
I never said he was a good person. I never said I believe him to be some kind of moral beacon.
For me it’s as simple as he seems capable of discontinuing the current agenda.
And Project 2025 is a think-tank wish list. Has nothing to do with what Trump will actually do. In fact, he has said more than once he had nothing to do with it. If you look at his actual positions he’s pretty moderate by most standards.
P2025 has been written by Trump associates and is finance by the same people who finance Trump: Big Oil and evangelicals in particular.
Of course not everything will be implemented exactly as is.
But is is delusion and wishful thinking to imagine Trump will resist anything out of principle or to imagine he won't implement the worst excesses of authoritarianism. He is a natural authoritarian.
Trump is not moderate on abortion. He says women should be punished.
He is not moderate on immigration. He talks about immigrants "poisoning the blood of the nation" and plans to deport thousands including naturalised Americans.
He is an extremist when it comes to democratic process and refuses the first principle of a peaceful succession of power.
The Patriot Act was GOP legislation. Project 2025 will take this further: increasing surveillance, use of military against protest, removal of LGBTQ rights. It's the biggest threat to the constitution and to US democracy there has ever been. How much do you know about it? https://youtu.be/tjjWYWcBPyw?si=9PWJREPKK56F-UBP
On abortion Trump is absolutely responsible. He stacked the court with anti-abortion judges. He boasted that ending Roe vs Wade was his doing and called it "a beautiful thing". And that women should be punished for abortions. He cut a deal with evangelical fundamentalists.
What is your reason for believing he will change? He's been described by psychiatrists and many who know him intimately as a malignant narcissist. Which is obvious to anyone who knows this condition. He is driven entirely by self-interest. He's an unstable and dangerous man.
His chief of staff described as as a "very, very evil man" and reprimanded him for his frequent vocalising of fantasies about sex with his daughter. He's deeply disturbed. It is not compassionate to pretend otherwise. It's solipsistuc psychic defence and a lack of compassion towards those he will hurt. Including the 6 year old boy who lost his mother this week when she was denied an abortion in a medical emergency.
I can see we have very different perspectives here and I respect yours, while I also deeply disagree.
We can get into the weeds here if you’d like but I get the sense you’d like a “gotcha” type moment.
To respond to what you’ve said though:
Trump did not stack the courts. He appointed who he appointed which is well within his job responsibilities. There is much talk amongst democrats about adding Supreme Court justices which is quite literally packing the courts. I agree that Trump says a lot of things I don’t necessarily agree with. He says many things I wish he wouldn’t say. What I will say though is that he is not more creepy to me than the Clinton’s, let’s say. Creepiness seems to be the personality type in politics from what I can see. Many professionals have claimed he is a narcissist and it doesn’t make it so. Consider lots of people have essentially painted him as the second coming of Hitler which is a stretch if I’m being generous. Let’s say he doesn’t hide his worst qualities.
The abortion story I’ve heard cited so frequently over the last days is not a political story. It’s a tragedy and it has nothing to do with being denied abortion. Georgia has exceptions for incest, rape and maternal health. It’s a terrible story but not a political talking point.
And about the GOP bringing us the Patriot Act: it was everyone. There was one congressman who voted against it. One. The Bush/Cheney/old guard has fully endorsed Kamala which tells me quite a lot.
Again, I respect your perspective entirely and that we don’t agree. Just trying to shed light on my point.
I've given loads of sources on this thread. All I stuff I know prior but found sources for while writing. So I don't understand your question about where I get my info from.
I doubt he meant that Trump was genocidal, or wants to invade his neighbours though he's certainly racist.
But like Hitler he's the conductor for a cult of personality fueled by hate and delusion, scapegoats minorities while being backed by big business and he's selling people a false prospectus.
It has everything to do with abortion. "She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear it from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C.
But just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison."
Trump displays all the characteristics of narcissism, it's perfectly obvious. His boasting, silly lies about cried size, never being wrong, always taking credit, claiming to know more than anyone about anything, impulsiveness, vicious personal attacks, lack of empathy. He is an empty deeply wounded man. He needs care. But he shouldn't be a leader!
His narcissism is displayed in the way he sexually objectifies his daughter.
Re Trump's creepiness:
"
#3: ‘If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father’
During a 2015 interview with Donald Trump for Rolling Stone, reporter Paul Solotaroff praised Ivanka Trump. The soon-to-be president’s response? “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father…”
#2: ‘Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife’?
Courtesy of a 2016 Buzzfeed News scoop, the (second) creepiest incident of them all.
In an early draft of a piece by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, he purportedly wrote that “President-elect Donald Trump once asked, ‘Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?’ — but the quote was quietly removed before the syndicated column was published.”
Yes, it’s wrong, Donald.
#1: The absolute worst of them all (and it’s NSFW)
According to a soon-to-be-published book, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy From the Next Trump, the former president “regularly made lewd comments about his daughter Ivanka and fantasized about what it would be like to have sex with her.”
According to The New Republic, “’Aides said he talked about Ivanka Trump’s breasts, her backside and what it might be like to have sex with her, remarks that once led [former Chief of Staff] John Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter,’ Taylor, who served as a Department of Homeland Security chief of staff under Trump, wrote in his book.”"
Clinton certainly abused his power by having sex with an intern. He may have been sexually predatory to other women. Nothing proven. Trump has been found guilty of 'grabbing a woman by the pussy' by a jury of his peers. And said these unspeakable things about his daughter.
Theres nothing equivalent to that with Clinton. I think you're letting Trump off the hook with a false equivalence or low expectations.
My stomach turns when I read these things. You?
He's unwell. And poor Ivanka to have a father who reduces her like that. It must feel terribly unsafe.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "gotcha". I'm interested in evidence. That's all. Intuition is the right lens for decisions about our personal lives, to filter through a chaotic media landscape and come to a decision about voting, we need reason, including source evaluation.
I share your concern about rights. How much do you know about Project 2025? It's far worse than the Republican Patriot Act. Which actually 63 Democrats opposed and just three Republicans https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll398.xml
What specifically is your concern about the Dems re rights?
I am so thrilled to be having this conversation. Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply — not only were you gracious, but you also added a lot to the discussion and gave me much to think about.
I find myself straddling two worlds (or many); basically, my jeans are splitting LOL.
I agree with you that it has been totally illuminating to listen to people like the Weinsteins and others on that circuit (I haven't really paid close attention to Tulsi; maybe I should?). It's hard to listen to those in-depth interviews and not come away with some new insights that are glaringly absent from the broader conversation (I just looked at my list of 1,322 uncatalogued "notes" from such interviews — the day I get around to sorting those will feel like a national holiday — and saw the comment, from Weinstein (oh wait, it was Eric - I don't really know them that well, but have listened to both) that I found compelling enough to take down: "We are mistaking a redistribution of empathy for an expansion of empathy."
Things like that. You just don't get stuff like that in the broader conversation, and it just feels obviously true. I have written about this a bit: empathy, in my view, is like the feeling a parent (or I'll speak for myself) has when they have only one child and wonders how it's possible that there could possibly be enough love for the second child when you're pretty much exploding with love for the first. And then the second child comes, and you're like - oh, wait! it wasn't that the love had to be shared, it was that the quantity of available love simply doubled." Meaning that the way we view resources like empathy - withholding it from some in the name of showering it upon others - makes no sense.
Anyway, that's totally beside the point of our discussion. It's late and I am procrastinating dinner cleanup. I won't get into the weeds of the policy stuff you brought up at the moment, because I still have plenty of questions and can't quite muster the cognitive fortitude, but I didn't want to delay replying and expressing my appreciation for the dialogue. :)
It is a very confusing inversion. What I have noticed in myself is not so much an opening to Trump as an opening to the people who have supported him. The working people, the people of faith, the non-urban, the analog… the left behind. During Covid, it seemed like these were the only folks not snearing at and condemning people who questioned the Covid narrative. (And still are, judging by Mr Pinchbecks comments). I think so many people are just exhausted by the smug certainty of the left, and now see it’s lethality firsthand.
I agree that the left often appears very smug, and this has, in part at least, created the dissident right. But Trump is just a grifter taking advantage of this. Why can't the disaffected band together in solidarity and back an actual alternative, rather than someone who has been as Establishment as it gets since birth?
He's just proved he's not an alternative, by backing Trump. He would have been more alternative by just pulling out and criticising from the sidelines.
I dunno - he's a wild card - and I think that's what's needed. When you listen to him he does come from his heart and he is intelligent and can speak, despite the difficulty (if only he was doing the debates!). Don't start me on the Israel thing - I agree and can't stand that or understand it - but we just don't know - maybe someone who 'gets them' has to be in there too. When it is all resistance it just meets resistance and goes nowhere which is why politics is the same old same old. I think it's important right now for more of us to say 'I don't know' - the world is FULL of know-alls (me included!)
They all lie -- some more seriously than others. Biden's tenure was a lie. News media lies. Kamala lies. Do not believe the 20,000 lies from Trump. It's nothing but a media stunt.
I have knocked on probably a thousand doors at this point, if not more, and I agree with you. The people are often lovely and relatable; in a weird way, they are actually more relaxing. I've been trying to put my finger on the problem (as have we all, obviously); just when you think you've landed on it, though, another side of the situation reveals itself and disqualifies the thought.
The whole POV that they're both faces of the neoliberal war machine, however true it may be, makes it easy to throw up one's hands, vote 3rd party, etc. That's not an option; it'll be one of these two. I believe that the Dems can be pressured to change — they will lose if they don't — and that the Republicans have literally zero incentive to change, because their schtick is working.
PS: i just did the math and it's definitely way more than 1,000 doors. I don't know what i was thinking. Just putting that out there even though nobody cares LOL
thank you Allison - I think I have made more comments on this whole thread than I ever had anywhere else - I like the conversation here and the level of heart/intelligence (both totally necessary!) I think Charles readership is of an ilk that I resonate with - even tho we are each unique and can have differences. One thing that occurs to me about this whole topic is that we will get what we need...and it may not look how any or many of us want. Talking about the election - ironic that I live in NZ but this is the first time I think so many in the world have their eyes on the US! What I see is that the systems need to crash and radically change - some will do so more easily than others. The beauty of the internet is that everything is becoming visible - which freaks a lot of people out I know - 'all that misinformation, disinformation, malinformation in the 'wrong' hands - sacre bleu!', but by the same token, we are all waking up to the truth of how our world has been and is running - and it hasn't been in the people's favour or interest. It's time for massive change. The whole US system being sooooo corrupt and unwieldy is destined for a mighty fall - or a mighty rise after a period of chaos - or complete collapse...whatever it is, bring it on! I suspect the answer and result is going to be more disruptive but it's what we all do with that. It would be a mistake to think we need be disappointed with the results whatever they are. It is all leading us somewhere better as consciousness is rising - but might be rough for a while - we will cope! Love to hear your thoughts...a big part of me doesn't even want to discuss politics because I don't believe that's where it's at but I am kinda curious and enjoy where people are speaking above and beyond the 3D level of politics. I was fascinated when Charles made the leap - I'm glad he's in there on some level... :). Thank you for asking me...(I can rave on sometimes...)
I'm not so sure it's an opening to Trump - more a way 'in' perhaps for some interesting characters who will undoubtedly topple the old apple cart...we have no idea where or how it might all go - the consciousness of us, the world as a whole will play a big role...
I totally agree with you. If enoigh people look to true alternatives they could have a voice. Concerning Brand after watching the channel 4 docu showing evidence of his sexual abuse of women I dont trust a word he says....
Its bigger than Trump. The Dem side is so corrupt, the other side is where those who understand that are. Liking Trump is not necessary to see that. But TDS clouds our ability to see strategy.
If your argument is Trump is less bad, well, I disagree, but we can disagree reasonably because both candidates are awful if you care about putting an end to the war machine, but Trump might be marginally better in that respect (honestly it's difficult to say and personally I don't believe the military industrial complex actually takes orders from the president in a real sense).
But if you're arguing that Trump might be a good man coming to his senses, I'm sorry, I just don't see that. I don't think it's Trump derangement syndrome either. I've been critical of the Democratic party (from the left) for most of my life. I don't have any special allegiance to them and I see Trump as a symptom of a deeper sickness. But he's certainly not an antidote to corruption. Again, some of these claims are so comical that it's hard to understand how people come to these conclusions.
Can you explain why you don't think a Trump administration would be equally corrupt to a Democrat one? We've seen a Trump administration, and it looked plenty corrupt to me.
It's pure pragmatism and dedication to public service. The DNC aggressively sabotaged RFKjr's campaign -- deploying a staff with war chest budget dedicated to re-writing rules and suing in the states to block ballot access, swiftboat his intelligence, twist his words to keep him on the defensive in the media, and infiltrate his staff to create legal issues. The denial of secret service protection was astoundingly venal, and also prevented him being able to organize large rallies; the campaign had to become more media-centered but he was blocked from mainstream audiences and the debate stage.
He'd campaigned without a day off for 17 months and Dems thought they had him cornered, tied up in kangaroo court in New York while they partied in Chicago. With his campaign sabotaged Kennedy pivoted on a dime to put three core issues in front of voters -- ending the Ukraine war, stopping censorship (which is getting scarier from Dems by the day), and taking on the chronic disease epidemic. He endorsed the Trump campaign as a means to get in the White House. It's Trump who's endorsed Kennedy's policies, not the other way around. A brilliant strategy to form a unity coalition government within the U.S. system. Kennedy will have oversight over staffing as chair of the hiring committee. Better policies will result from hiring better people. It's all going to make Trump look very very good, believe me, he'll be happy to take credit.
This is the very best we could hope for out of the lesser-evil-ism into which we've once again been manipulated. And today Trump was very gracious when acknowledging the phone calls he'd received from Biden and Harris after the second attempt on his life. So there's that. Let's keep going we the people with our messy painful beautiful evolution toward a more direct, self-organizing, localized democracy.
It’s not “difficult to say” that Trump is marginally better regarding peace efforts. He’s absolutely 100% better than the Neoliberal Democrats. The Ukraine war never would have started under his watch, and I am near certain he will negotiate out of it if elected. He also squashed the North Korea nuclear threats when in office, though now with Biden/Kamala in office N.K. has ramped it back up again. I very much don’t like the anti-Russia rhetoric coming from the Dems and mainstream Republicans, it’s dangerous and I worry could lead to nuclear war, which is why I’ll be voting for Trump. The Israel-Palestine conflict is another matter though, as both main candidates back Israel, including RFK. I can understand why someone would vote Stein or West because of that.
He'll give Ukraine to Putin. Appeasement in other words. He and other dictators will get the green light to invade their neighbours. Appeasing Putin brings more conflict, not less. 30s redux. I have friends on the front line defending their home. They want the invader out. They want their sovereignty. They want the 100k kidnapped children back. Trump is also far far worse on Gaza. He wants Netanyahu to "finish the job" and told him to reject a ceasefire because it might benefit the Dems. Trump is no peacenink. He's just pro Putin.
I agree with you about Trump’s position on Gaza, that is concerning. But I don’t agree about Putin and Ukraine, the roots of that conflict go back to 2014 which falls on the deep state.
What do you mean Deep State? The Maiden revolution was people rising up against a president who campaigned on aligning with the democratic and prosperous EU and then switched to aligning with Putin (probably after a massive bribe or threat to life). American money backed the uprising. Sometimes the US does the right thing. This was one of those times.
It was a US sponsored coup. We are at opposite ends of how we view Ukraine. Putin repeatedly warned US not to put NATO bases near the Russian border, they consider it a direct threat, yet the US did it anyway. That’s what this war is about. Russia is not our enemy, and US is partially at fault for this fiasco.
Yes they are partially to blame AND as Chomsky says the invasion was just as egregious as the Nazi invasion of Poland and the US/UK invasion of Iraq. The Ukrainian people preferred to be closer to the EU, a propersous, liberal and democratic group that the kleptocratic Russian dictatorship. The Ukrainian president campaigned on going closer to the EU then was bribed or strong-armed into making ties with Russia. If you were Ukrainian would you rather be part of the EU or Russia?
I mean that your claim that the US is sometimes wrong and sometimes right is too nuanced for internet debate. You're supposed to collapse it into a simplified version where they are always wrong or right. Ironically this is what CE is constantly cautioning against, yet by using the term Establishment and painting them as all bad, is himself doing.
Not the deep state. That is propaganda. Paul Manafort, Trump's 2016 campaign manager. Read about his work in Ukraine, including sowing this kind of messed up Russian propaganda.
I have friends on the frontline. They want Russia out of their homeland. Putin is a psycho but he's not insane. He's not going to go nuclear. Russia would be destroyed. And Trump appeasing Putin would give the green light for him to invade other neighbours, for China to invade Taiwan, Turkey to invade Turkmenistan etc etc. 1930s redux. Appeasing bullies doesn't work.
From what I could see, the bombs continued to drop during the Trump presidency. Whether or not the Ukraine war would have started under his presidency is pure speculation. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I do think it's difficult to say or predict. Trump is not a peaceful person by nature. He thrives on conflict and is obsessed with winning. That makes me question whether he would be any less of a warmonger, and as I implied earlier, it's unclear to what extent the president has power over the military industrial complex. I know that's how it's supposed to work, but it seems highly doubtful to me.
You may be right, but at least he didn’t start any new wars, whereas 2 have started under Biden, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. The Ukraine war has its roots going back to 2014, when the U.S. ( Victoria Nuland) participated in a coup to overthrow their president.
I think it comes down to triage. We will have no opportunity to arrest any wars if we can no longer speak freely about them. To me it’s about protecting the essentials first, such as our Constitution, and moving from there. He is the only candidate I trust at the moment to not throw us to the global governance wolves at the door. It’s weighing the situation by saying, Trump will have another 4 years and then someone else can fill the role. He just patently is not the Hitler he’s been made out to be. Unsavory, sure. Says things I’d rather her not, site. I don’t think a Trump cabinet would be near as corrupt as the current regime because he doesn’t control all the levers of power. The deep state is not carrying water for him. He is an outsider coming in with a team of people I have followed and respected for many years and whom I trust. I can appreciate you don’t agree but this is why Trump seems the better option rn.
I believe the most important thing Trump can do is stop the globalist take-over of nation states. He is the only candidate capable of doing that. What do you think the mass immigration everywhere is all about? Yuval Harari has said if Trump gets in, their project (Great Reset, Agenda 2030,etc.) is finished.
I also come from the left and never thought I'd consider voting Trump, until now. It's much bigger than him .. on both sides, I see a huge difference in the people around the candidates.
The damage done by whatever blob sees free speech - especially true speech, and honest doctors, as its enemy, and just tried to inject the entire world with the genetic code for spike protein, forcing as much as they could get away with, and is trying to tag and track all of us - proof of this is in plain site in 2024 - and exists by infinite wars, is far worse than anything I think Trump and those around him would do.
To be clear, to be not as bad as locking in medical, digital, informational tyranny while gaslighting compassion and protection, is a very low bar. I think that Trump is not-as-bad as the Dems. But I think the people aligning with the side that's not-the-Dems are way better than lesser evil, I think these are some of the wisest people alive today. (Kennedy, Calley and Dr Casey Means, Bret Weinstein, Tulsi Gabbard ... )
It's not about looking at Trump with naive admiration, it's about looking at what the Dems and the global blob they're part of have Already Done, and are Doing Right Now with their other puppets, in countries with less protections than the US. (Canada, the UK, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Germany, the EU ... )
The blob the Dems are part of is all about censorship (mostly of truth), the corruption of medicine, mandates for medical products known to be seriously unsafe at the time they were mandated, as well as incapable of stopping infection / transmission, abuse of digital control. The tyranny of the global blob that wants endless wars, and knows that the current version of the Democratic Party would serve the interests of neocons like Dick Cheney better than a Trump admin.
The pesky first amendment, which Democrats have no respect for, makes it harder to do here what they're already doing in the UK, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Canada, etc.
I don't see Trump as wanting to control what's said and shared online in nearly the same way as the Dems. Without access to information, the world is truly dystopian and tyrannical.
And while the people around Harris / Walz are deeply corrupt (or terrible at processing information), the people around Trump include the speakers at an amazing Senate hearing this Monday about food, nutrition, health (only two Senators were there, both Republican).
Everyone there knows that health / food / soil should not be partisan / political. But they also know that the Democrats are too close to pharma and the food industry for them to prioritize real health.
These are amazing people able and ready to help restore soil, health, and integrity to science and medicine. Some may have liked Trump all along, others are only aligning with him because there's no other way for this wisdom to reach inside the government than in an administration that has Kennedy and Calley Means on that team.
If people on the left heard this conversation and Republican (bad!) politicians weren't part of it, and it had nothing to do with a movement that's working with the Trump campaign, if it was just a hearing about health and nutrition, say, moderated by Democrats - the left, at least the left I used to know, would be thrilled, moved to tears and gratitude and hope that what they've been trying to say for decades may finally be taken seriously.
But now, because there's association with Trump, and because the media has poisoned what anyone on the left thinks of all politicians on the right, because even Ron Johnson's name is poison to my Mom and other liberal sponges, most liberals can't see the good, the amazing, hopeful, genuine, good, that is in this room, https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/sen-johnson-roundtable-american-health-and-nutrition-a-second-opinion/
The accusations of the Dems being determined to limit speech to their approved narrative, and the blob they're part of doing this already across the world, I can back up with many links.
These are just a few, I don't have time to share more, but you probably know of this already, the international effort to police speech, that's based on gaslighting about protection.
I could say much more, and am starting a Substack to attempt to reach through the lack of curiosity on the TDS left. I haven't yet posted, but something will be up in a week or so (apx). https://anotherbetrayedliberal.substack.com/
You ask a good question. There surely was corruption in Trump's first admin. Not the democracy - destroying dictatorship that the TDS left fears, but, there were only two non-swamp creatures in his administration that I know of, and they weren't listened to (Drs Scott Atlas and Paul Alexander).
This time with Kennedy, Tulsi, Calley Means, and others on board, I think it will be different. (Even if not, I don't see how it can be worse than the party of censorship, mandates, and neocons)
(And if Trump says to the MAHA crew after winning the election, something like, "Thank you, thank you very much for helping me win. I actually will not be giving you a job in my administration, I actually don't give a crap about the health of Americans, and we have other things to do. But, you'll get a signed picture of me, as a thank you for your help. And a hat, a very, very nice hat. Don't worry, I got this from here. I'm going to do a great job."
... If he does that - All the energy of excitement and hope that exploded when RFK, Jr walked onto the stage at Trump's rally, all that and more and his reputation among people who fill his ego, all that narcissistic supply would be drained away from Trump, probably never to return. And the media would rejoice in being able to say, "told you so! Idiots who trusted The Bad Man!".
The more they try to kill him, and relentlessly portray him as the Worst Thing Ever, the more I think he may actually let the people who know how to, like Kennedy, clear the corruption. (Mike Benz explains how the definition of "democracy" was re-done. So in this gaslit version, populists are threats to democracy - that corrupt apparatus behind the scenes, that showed its hand in censoring truth and promoting scientific fraud and moving the globe around).
Cornel West is not on the ballot in all 50 states and neither is Stein. They have no chance at winning. Serious harm will come to many in the US under Trump-Vance. Serious, serious harm. It is is already. This is Christo-fascism. We need to buy time at this moment. We need to elect Harris and Walz.
I completely agree with everything you say, I am somewhat astonished that Charles could possibly find such a corrupt fraud and sociopath capable of building the society he craves.
Its bigger than Trump. The Dem side is so corrupt, the other side is where those who understand that are. Liking Trump is not necessary to see that. But TDS clouds our ability to see strategy.
TDS is not a thing. It's about researching his past, his actions, his own readings, his business history, his whole history. It's about the facts of Trump.
You are right. It IS bigger than Trump. However, all sides are corrupt, even when we leave these particular contenders aside. I have a hard time participating in any political discussions because when people want to point the finger at the "other" side, it just distracts. CJ Hopkins (here on substack) has written quite a bit about one thing that is at work underneath all of it (not exclusively, I don't think he's claiming that). Make no mistake, it is global and not just the U.S. Sorry I have no glib answers about who to vote for in this mess, but none of us should pretend it's "just the other side," whichever you're on.
I think you may have misinterpreted what's happening with the Independent movement. It's a different paradigm centered on voters' needs and priorities, not on the candidates' personalities and whims in relation to a party platform (or lack thereof). There's definitely no endorsement of Trump-ism or any other -ism. It's as though the American experiment in democracy is rebooting itself under duress into a self-organizing structure through the collective consciousciousness of humanity's immune system.
Aer, It would seem to be true that Donald is part of the establishment. I believe what we mostly hear about Donald may not be true. What we see from Donald may not be so polished. People can change; people can learn and adjust their ways. People can have a brush with death- have a near death experience that can help steer us in a different pattern. Anyway I'm feeling more than hopeful for our future and I want to contribute something that helps
You suggest trump sit down with groups of people to listen with curiosity and compassion. May I suggest he start with the Central Park Five, who he terrorized? Or the women he raped/sexually assaulted? The children he separated, how about he sit with them? The Haitian immigrants in Ohio, who he had now put in real danger? Charles, this man had created real and devastating harm. It’s not media-created. It’s not exaggerated or caricatured. Because you personally have not been his target, it seems, you can look beyond these things. But for those he has targeted, they have no such option.
No he will not change. No, he cannot change. And, as another commentator said, he is no outsider, either. Pull the blinders off.
good for him - he deserves it! Charles has given away lots for free over the years...it's time his worth - as a bridger, a peacemaker, a wise man - was recognised...
I can understand your bitterness - and at the same time it's a challenge to get out of emotional judging mode and deal with reality. Quitting the scene is giving up chances to influence. Bobby Kennedy knows about the massive character flaws of DT and still uses the momentum to prevent much worse things to happen. No chance of clean hands in this game.
This is of course only my subjective view on reality ...
This feels like dull equivocation. To say Biden is bad so u support Trump solves nothing. It is simply Nietzschean ressentiment, the resentment of the slaves and masters tied together. Are we so uncreated that we cannot imagine something worse, something better? Must we follow the herd from one pasture to the other (imagining something greener always). Where is the revolutionary immediacy that is needed to speak to this challenge? Not here sadly, not with Charles, certainly not with the Trump/Kennedy campaign.
They're not all terrible people, though. There are candidates with authentic principles like Cornel West who he could support instead. But he must feel an immense pressure to support Trump given the social circles he has embedded himself in.
What makes you think he wasn't serious? I think he understands the low likelihood and he's spoken to the value of his candidacy in terms of getting a perspective out there even if he doesn't win, but that doesn't mean he's not trying to win. But I don't know, maybe you have some information I don't.
Either way, it feels weird for someone that supported a 3rd party candidate with a very low likelihood of winning to reject another 3rd party candidate on grounds of their chances of victory (which applies to Charles as well as RFK).
I think a lot of this comes down to tribal pressures, which Charles should be aware of given his writing about these psychological forces, but seems to lack self-awareness of their influence on him nonetheless. He got a lot of vitriol and shaming from the left for his takes on Covid, and similarly, he got a lot of love from the right (including all sorts of speaking engagements).
Of course that's going to have an impact on his thinking without a huge helping of self-awareness. If Charles did come out in support of West, there would be all sorts of drama from misguided leftists saying West should distance himself from and denounce the bad antivaxx man. It's unfortunate. The left's general take on Covid was also highly influenced by tribal pressures, for what it's worth.
He's admitted Uraine has lost the doomed war, that he made a mistake in hiring so many neocons in his first term, that he was hoodwinked by the establishment in his term, and possible even that losing Roe was a mistake - edging towards that.
Are you mixing him up with that brainless figurehead from the DNC who never even SAYS anything?
Are you joking? He;s a stooge of Putin, or just has a daddy-crush on him. He wants Ukraine to lose. Admitting? Neocons? Trump wanted generals who were loyal to him “like the German generals” were (to Hitler). Are you honestly comparing the brains of a successful prosecutor from an ordinary family who rose to become AG and VP with an orange TV star who was given 100m bucks from his daddy and still managed to go bankrupt 6x including with casinos? Goodness me. I am absolute astounded at the gullibility of those who think Trump is anything other than a shameless grifter - here he is selling pieces of his goddam suit to his pitiful cult https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLAvyMe7HE8 amazing, truly. So I got it right, the K’mala thing was a sly racial thing. Really gross frankly.
He admires Putin, as Putin is an admirable person. And so is Xi.
Ukraine was always going to lose, fuckwit. Look up Obombers comment on why he refused to arm Ukraine after the Killary facton in the state dept couped the poor place.
Most elected politicians wish the military to be loyal. Please list all the ones you think don't, or STFU.
She was a FAILED prosecutor, who repeatedly broke the laws, let alone any morals.
He's still much richer than YOU, bankruptcies or not. Bet that burns.
Now piss off, I have better things to do than converse with a DNC-apologist and genocide-supporter.
FYI I vote Green. Now there's the exit door - use it, loser.
I usually like substack for well thought out perspectives (and yours might well be that, haven't researched some of that yet), and because people are usually collegial and respectful. Whatever triggered you on that last response needs a little attention, no need for the fuckwit, etc. (I'm no goody-two shoes, swear like a truck driver) but attacking people like this is a reflection of you, and says nothing about them.
Wow. You are most unpleasant, And if you vote Green but love Trump and Putin you are highly confused. They both deny climate change and are a disaster for the planet. Trump admires Putin because he is an amoral coward who admires bigger bullies than him. Putin admirable? He has stolen billions from the Russian people and is now bleeding out the country’s young men for a war driven by ego and lust for power. https://www.npr.org/2014/12/13/370612995/how-putins-kleptocracy-made-his-friends-rich Most democratic leaders do not wish their generals to be loyal to THEM over the constitution. I don’t know what happened to you to make you admire cruel heartless, empty men and in Trump’s case a malignant narcissist, obvious grifter, rapist and daughter-luster who gives not a single fuck that you exist or about anyone or anything other than himself. But I am sorry that it did. Re Trump’s wealth - if the price of having whatever money he has was to live in his diseased mind it wouldn’t be worth it for a single second. With that I’m out. Rudeness is the resort of those without reasoned argument. And your K’mala comment was straight up racist. Charles Eistenstein is bypassing and deeply confused (and possibly corrupted by RFK’s money) but he is not racist. Hope you reflect on your choices and choice of role models. These are not good men.
Agreed. Trump is a milignant narcissist. Everything he does and says is driven by his personality disorder making transformation virtually impossible. All the talk of ending wars, corruption, etc., while simultaneously justifying an ongoing depraved genocide is grotesque.
Trump did not terrorize the Central Park 5. He took out a newspaper ad supporting the death penalty IF they were found guilty of an horrific crime that shocked many at the time. I also am not aware of his raping women. Hopefully you do not mean that woman claiming she was raped in a dressing room. Her story is full of holes. There is a problem at the border and children being separated from their parents is unfortunately a risk. Children are often not accompanied by their real parents. Trump is not targeting these people, he is/was trying to solve a problem. He also is not responsible for the plight of the Haitians. That situation needed to be brought to light, as it is a poignant example of what can and is happening in communities. You have demonized Trump, largely based on misrepresentations in the media. This is what Charles cautions against. Trump's rough manner is off- putting to many, but I believe he stands for good.
Do you mean that phony Jean Carrol case? That was outrageous and an excellent example of how the Dems have politicized the courts. That case was well past the statute of limitations and Dems in NY decided to pass a new law (specifically aimed at getting Trump) to allow old cases to be prosecuted. This one is so old, it is ridiculous to have any sense of justice being served. It was simply he said, she said. The jurors were duped. I am outraged that the justice system has been abused in this way.
Can you explain why you are a better judge of that case than the jury of twelve who heard and saw all the evidence? What is the basis for believing you have special insight?
I largely agree. I've intensely disliked Trump since his Apprentice days, but now I"m far more afraid of the Democrats. As for putting Haitians in danger, I don't buy it. More Democrat over dramatization to deflect from their own actions. As for being a "rapist", I'm not so sure about that either. Meanwhile, I've yet to hear even one Democrat express grief over the young girls and woman raped, brutalized and killed by the Democrats illegally allowed into our country in an effort to increase their likely voter pool. Despicable.
Illegal immigrants don’t vote. The US also relies on ongoing immigration to supplant our aging workforce. Also as Charles even notes, many migrants are fleeing conditions that were unleashed by our corporations, our fossil fuel use, our government’s actions over the last decades.
This is not educated nor based on fact. Family separation was a real policy, crafted by Stephen Miller. So was the Muslim ban, which also separated families and still affects people. The woman whose "story was full of holes" won her case against Trump with a jury of his peers, many of them wealthy New Yorkers, like Trump. He is also accused of raping a 13-year girl at Epstein's New York mansion. My girlfriend worked Miss Teen Universe and could not get him out of the dressing room. I am not kidding. My other girlfriend went to the Mar-a-Lago-Epstein party and said it was "gross." Her modeling agency had been hired to pay for models to be there. But if you want to believe he is good, no amount of info will change your mind. I've learned this despite everything Charles E. says.
Grab em by the .....he bragged about sexual assault. There are a number of women suggesting that he did very inapporpriate things including going into the dressing rooms at the beauty contests because he was privledged to do so. Its clear who he is if you really look ...there are mountains of evidence besides anything media is putting out. Read some of the books by credible journalists. Its not just money they were after but exposing 'a clear and present danger"
Standards were very different 50 years ago when the comment was. made in a private conversation. It's " locker room" talk. Not atypical of guys attitudes at the time. Same with waltzing into dressing rooms. Powerful men took advantage. JFK and Clinton are examples. I think we need to focus on more important issues -- like runaway immigration and impending globalist totalitarianism.
I find myself once again responding to you. . . it is both men AND women who engage in this kind of thinking that has kept women where we are. Second class citizens, still. Yes, much has changed. But until we all realize how participation in "locker room talk" contributes to the power structures that keep men on top, and how it contributes to rape culture, you have no standing here. I don't have enough room to school you in this. I will just say that rape is an extreme version of the paradigm. Men and women, (and this would be you), who make it okay to speak about women in that manner, are part of the problem, all along the line.
Please understand. I am not excusing Trump's behavior. Unfortunately, we are far down the road to totalitarianism. Everyone will be oppressed. Please consider reading this. Elizabeth Nickson is a much respected journalist:
There is much greater reason to fear totalitarian controls from the Right than the Left. Trump mega donor Larry Ellison wants to use Oracle and AI for a total surveillance system that will keep “citizens on their best behavior.” Sounds like China. Plus Project 25 wants total abortion ban - totalitarian control over women’s bodies. CNN has a hidden camera interview with Russell Voight, author of Project 25, saying Trump is just pretending not to know about it. So obvious. When a country voluntarily elects a dictator they are screwed for decades. Franco was 35 years. Everything stagnates and people fear for their lives.
Exactly. Trump is actually trying to tackle Americas problems (the economy, illegal immigration, endless wars) while the Democrats/Uniparty keep adding more.
I’m just calling it like I see it. He’s been consistent with his message the entire time, and is turning out to be correct about a lot of things, but most choose to not believe him based on their current biases.
He was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury of his peers. He shoved his fingers in a women's vagina uninvited. Just like he boasted he did on the audio we have all heard.
What do you mean, "they have no such option"? Of course if his victims are as morally bankrupt and lacking in forgiveness as he, they will be incapable of looking beyond what has been done to them to see past the beast within all human beings. All humans are inherently capable of great evil including mass murder and sexual violence; our biology does not differ that much from one to another because we all share the same primate ancestry that has shaped our behaviour.
Joshua Blahyi's victims, although often permanently and grievously injured—including by rape or permanent disablement and disfigurement, such as his former enforcer whose legs he smashed to bits in a rage for 'lying' he did not notice the priest who came in and began his conversion by teaching him a prayer—are often able to forgive him, when after slaying 20,000 people using child soldiers and cannibalism as well as injuring countless more, he came earnestly and often in tears to them to apologise and try to make amends however he could.
"They have no such option," don't kid yourself into thinking forgiveness and reconciliation are impossible, nor that redemption is either for that matter when even the worst warlords can do it, if willing. Evil is a path chosen and kept to that can be wandered off by even the most wicked at any time, and it more often than not brings great relief to the victims—who you do not speak for—to be able to forgive those who have truly made an effort to redeem themselves.
I'm sure it's good for your cognitive dissonance to believe otherwise, but it's simply not true. Of course, the kind of resilience and tough character you find in Africans perhaps can't be expected to be found much among Americans of the present era in stark contrast to the way Americans were two centuries ago, but there is always room for improvement among any people.
How do you know he’s not sitting with them ?( maybe not even physical but in his consiousness ?) . When we say thinks like humans can’t change, any evolution or growth stops, we might even project that we, ourselves, are not open to change.
Life IS change, and I am sure a bullet dodged TWICE will change any man
And , it’s not about Trump, he’s just a mirror playing his divine role in this play. It’s a miracle he’a still running for president after all these attacks, it shows a strong belief in his truths, it show amazing
Resilience..
Respect for that
Most of the comments I read here are echo’s of the dehumanisation of Trump, a human, that has been going on for 8 years now. It caused a certain bias and brain control, many internalising that toxic narrative.
Charles brings wisdom. Wisdom from the heart starts with : what would it be like to be them, the out-group. This is the seed for compassion
I’m sorry to see that you’ve adopted this mindset. I have had much respect for your thought/writing over the years. However, I see that you’ve crossed the line into delusional. I’m sorry to see that and hope you have the opportunity to reset at some point.
my gosh, the hubris and judgement running thru some of these comments is full-on! You don't have to agree with Charles but perhaps apply the principles he is talking about - try stepping into other shoes...try having a conversation/discussion rather than coming from a moral sense of superiority and being right...try seeing Charles for his goodness and looking for the best in others and wanting us all to look at and own our own stuff! I'm no fan of Trump's at all and I am deeply disappointed in RFK's Israel stance (considering everything else he says that I agree with I just cannot fathom the contradiction), however, realistically...there is a chance that the better part of these people will step up when they find themselves in roles they believe in - I've heard each of them speak with passion about certain topics. Synergy 1 + 1 = 3! I think more than anything I see things changing one way or another rather than everyone rolling over and going back to sleep if the same old same old gets back in. It's probably going to be very tricky and disruptive for a while. In the end, 'we the people' are waking up in droves, there are no saviours, we need to go back to local and doing it for ourselves, together. Politicians will come and go but I sense they are going to start losing any power they thought they had after this election (if it even comes to an election - there's every possibility the whole damn thing will implode or not go ahead just because the times do not support anything that is no longer in integrity. There has to be vibrational alignment - the 'energy' is now important, it's no longer just about the physical...consciousness is rising.) I'm excited with the not knowing how the fuck it will go and having trust that we are evolving no matter how it might look right now! Let's face it - NO-ONE KNOWS!!!
Look, I'll always hold out a sliver of hope in the possibility of people reclaiming their hearts. Even Trump. At the same time, I think delusional applies here, and I don't see it as coming from a judgmental place. Trump, currently, is a predator and someone seeking power and attention. He's your typical narcissist looking for his narcissistic supply on the grandest level possible. I don't say this to judge the man, I think his narcissism and predation are both ultimately rooted in pain and fear. But we can have compassion for Trump while still being realistic about the man he is now and trying to keep him away from the levers of power. There's no need to support someone so clearly corrupt and troubled when there are authentic voices in the race like West.
As someone else pointed out, Charles' supposed compassion (or disingenuous piety) of Trump is what Buddhists call "idiot's compassion". A pretty speech before the mirror. Genuine compassion would be seeing Trump for the wounded and dangerous man he is and still feeling compassion. Not this fantasy about him changing. It is very self-indulgent and self-regarding
Where is the compassion for women? LGBTQ+ human beings? The planet itself--Gaia--which used to the main event for Charles? Migrants? POC? Even Gazans, whom Jared Kushner would like to remove for the amazing "beachfront property."
Yes it's clearly our lack of spiritual elevation that is driving our concern about this rapist. If only Trump would read this article or Eisenstein could use his magic wand all would be well.
We do not need to have compassion when we are actively trying to escape an abuser. We just need to escape. All that other stuff comes later. This essay is a gaslight of the highest order.
Trump started is political career mocking a disabled journalist and hidding an affair. Please, I won't try to understand him. Understanding MAGAs is different and OK. But not Trump.
I've been reading this thread for days, with so much interest. One thing I'd like to add in, and yours seems the perfect comment to add to, is that I think a lot of people (I would include myself) have learned a lot from Charles (I have all his books as well) over the years. He's always been a voice of reason, and has helped me to aspire to a higher self. And I do like that he's speaking to how to approach our political world. What people seem to be upset about here is that he's offered - no, maybe suggested - that the application of his prodigious skills/ideals/strategies has led him to support Trump. I'm not entirely clear 100%, so I think were' all hoping CE writes again, to help us all along. Now that we find ourselves here, however we might describe it. :-)
This sounds rather culty. Waiting for the guru to explain why it's OK to have seven child brides. He's supporting an active misogynist, an actual adjudicated rapist whose idea of 'inter-being' is aggressively shoving his fingers in a woman's vagina, a man of viscious, racist and increasingly stupid, inane and insane rhetoric and whose policies will desecrate the environment. It's indefensible.
Culty . . . you cannot know the breadth and depth of what I read or anything else about me, so I can see how you might view it that way. My comment was (maybe not clear in this) was referring to CE *in the past* bringing a new perspective (a more beautiful world and ways we might think about what that means to each of us individually). Not what to think, but how to frame questions about the world we find ourselves in. He did not write again specifically to what many of us were aghast about, his apparent nod to Trump. No need to get graphic about pussy grabbing, fingers or anything, Jamie, I'm right there with you in abject disgust. CE is no guru. I'm just reading with interest to see where this goes, based on his history, which goes much farther back than his current dance in politics.
I have been writing a series of essays trying to understand what happened with Charles Eisenstein and Russell Brand, among others -- how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism. Here are the 3 articles I have written so far - if anyone emails me ( Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ), I am happy to give them a month free subscription so they can go behind the paywalls: https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/the-turncoats?r=1mhh1
Well this is kinda patronising, esp as it is on Charles's blog - talking about someone rather than to them? I am sure you will have some points to make - I hope they are made with compassion and understanding and not arrogance. I think for a lot of us who were DEEPLY traumatised, cancelled and excluded by the incumbent corrupt govts all around the world over covid/vaccines/having an opinion/being different etc, there is a natural revulsion/grief at the thought of letting those same people back in - so much so that we are willing to give it to almost anyone but them. You say 'how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism' - even in your words, paranoia, "sovereignty", you insinuate some craziness, some abnormality, some extremism - maybe for some it is true it tipped them over an edge - but it is NOT paranoid to want to have control over one's body and what goes into it, to want to have one's opinions and personal research/anecdotal evidence respected and listened to - and not everyone who stood up for themselves went to far-right ideologies and extremes, as you might be suggesting. Can you imagine? I'm in NZ and like Australia, Canada, and Austria, things were far worse for us than many other places where you could still act fairly normally - our once-peaceful, inclusive, intelligent, non-violent country suddenly became military-policed with neighbours ENCOURAGED to dob in their friends and family to the police and govt depts! We couldn't get a haircut, go to the grocery store, go outside to the beach or nature, be with friends or family as they died.
We just could not believe that this outrage, this complete authoritarianism was happening. One of the most damaging things that can happen to a human being is to be completely shunned, ignored and thrown out of the tribe, family, community, world! If you weren't one of these you can't possibly know how it was for so many. So there is a LOT of hurt and a desire for anything but THAT to happen again. Forgive us if we don't play into the mainstream's clever handbook of how intelligent, good, well-balanced people should behave. Yet we are here and stronger. I have found Charles to be well-balanced in his opinions - and open to new thoughts. Yes I'm standing up for him because I'm standing up for myself here too. We were grasping at straws to have anyone hear us, include us, respect us...so many people's lives were ruined and we were watching it with horror, a feeling of complete powerlessness! We were demonised at the very least - made to feel like lepers/idiots (who have been proven right on so many counts now) - by our own families who suddenly didn't see the people they knew and loved any more because society/the authorities told them we were bad people! I'm sure you will have observed this in your works...but please don't tar us all with this same brush because again, you patronise us - some of us react more strongly because we have such a sense of moral justice (CE and myself included), a good moral compass that knows what looks like fairness - and we feel for all those who were hurt and are still hurting. We are not thrilled with the choices before us in terms of political candidates - but for many of us we sense that someone like RFK (much as I detest his Israel stance), will not force us to put crap into OUR bodies, or vaccinate our children - he really does actually care about the health of people...can you not see that that is where so many of us come from? If we had better options we would take them. I can feel my charge as I write this but it is still with many of us due to the ongoing censorship and BS that continues to play out. We know what's on the horizon for humanity if something doesn't radically change!
Here's the thing...everyone has bits of good/bad in them - things we like and appreciate, things we don't. I don't see Charles as a Trumpist at all. He is looking for the best, he is putting out possibilities into the field, he is endeavouring to let go of cynicism and encourage open-mindedness and potential. Thank you for reading if you have come this far. I'm sure someone will come in and take apart what I have written - I haven't had time to be clever about it, more nuanced perhaps but I just felt to jump on and respond. May love, kindness and tolerance be visited upon us all in these times of exciting change and evolution...
Thank you so much, Martine! I'm totally there with you. A quote comes to mind, I think from poet Marianne Moore,(I may be wrong) that brings me back from going down the the dark path of blaming and vilifying others, "The weak overcomes its menace. The strong overcomes itself. "
Thanks for writing this Martine, I could have written the same. Talk about a failure of empathy and tendency to project (what I see in Daniel Pinchbeck's comments re 'paranoia' and 'sovereignty')
On Facebook, Daniel mentioned that he avoided getting the MRNA injections . I just checked again to see if I had remembered correctly, and yes, the comment is still there, in the midst of an argument about Putin and RFK Jr. The exact quote is “I avoided the nRNA vaccine so my hippocampus should be fine! Thanks for your concern.” Daniel, can you now remark on what seems like a big contradiction in your logic and the logic of your accusations of paranoia in those who chose bodily sovereignty and suffered for it? I had to leave the city where I’d worked as a musician for over 30 years because of my “avoidance” of these injections, and start all over.
I was in NYC during the lockdown, and still don’t know a single person who died of Covid. I do know three people who died suddenly within the previous year—-a former student of mine, very talented and in his twenties, who died in his sleep; a former colleague of mine who was also much younger than me, who died in unclear circumstances, and an uncle who was about to retire from farming, and died of a heart attack the day after his doctor diagnosed him with heartburn. These are people I knew directly and for many years, but once-removed, that number is far, far higher. I think most people can attest to similar experience in the past few years, making it, along with many troubling statistical studies, something that goes far beyond anecdotal. Evidently you had some similar fears, or you wouldn’t have “avoided” the injection yourself. Yet somehow, those of us who are tuned into the larger political implications of this complete inversion of public health principles, and are searching for ways to bring some sanity back into policy making, in a highly charged and imperfect atmosphere, are dangerous?
But I think I kind of get it, now—-he got “A“ vaccine, therefore, he is still “on the side of science.“
Look, I sympathize with the sentiment of wanting to trust, doctors, experts, agencies, and so on. It’s a tough leap to make, that the preponderance of institutional medical advice can be that consistently and systematically wrong, let alone, dangerous, let alone able to deceive/self-deceive on such a grand level. I read the essay Daniel linked in his comments here, and I actually find myself agreeing with maybe 85%, almost 90% of what he says. For instance, I agree that the dangers of Trump presidency are quite self evident, in that those backing him are aligned with the intent to govern in a technocratic and dystopian fashion. Peter Thiel, etc. I doubt very much that Charles Eisenstein is not aware of that.
Where I step off from Daniel’s way of seeing this is when he calls people like Charles Eisenstein, Glenn Greenwald, Russell, Brand, Matt Taibbi… Turncoats. To call someone a turncoat is quite incendiary. That is war talk. When you do that, you were aligning yourself with the kind of establishment thinking that wants to rid itself of all opposition. Hillary Clinton just did an interview in which she proposed the prosecution of people spreading misiformation information, as she defines it. When you align yourself with that kind of thinking, that kind of intent by calling people “turncoats,” you are actually calling for them to be prosecuted… Imprisoned, punished, etc.
Daniel, with the growing powers of technocratic surveillance and control that you yourself express worry about, calls like this are really no joke.
So anyone who disagrees with you, or with the central version of the truth that you yourself profess to have many problems with, you seem to be almost enthusiastic about having them eliminated as threats. Which is the very definition of the kind of totalitarianism that you are worried about. It’s the kind of bullying that does happen in totalitarian states, that you decry.
I’ll be honest, it’s this kind of divisive thinking that makes me feel quite certain there is no political solution at stage in our history. Charles joined with RFK Junior‘s campaign in the hope that a political solution was still possible, and , it seems to me, although I don’t know him, kept that hope alive. as a matter of principle and practice, trying to keep optimism alive.
But it seems clear to me, from the overt calls for censorship, prosecution, assassination, and hate… And these are sometimes very direct… in Daniel’s comments on Charles previous post. I read him saying that, “Charles deserves hate.”—-that whatever happens after the election, and whoever wins, the main concern for the average person, and for fair minded people trying to go about their lives, whether Democrat, leaning or Republican leaning or somewhere beyond or in between, is going to be figuring out how to deal with the flavor of tyranny or totalitarianism that gets brought in. The other main concern is going to be how to deal with the insane levels of back and forth hate, which will likely lead to ever more violence and social disruption. Add in the potential of war on some pretty scary levels, and Charles‘s message is exactly the elixir we need to be drinking. It’s either that or Kool-Aid mixed up by the systemic manipulation of naturally occurring ideological factions.
The whole rotten corrupt unwieldy system needs to collapse and fall - out of the ashes! There is always chaos before a paradigm shift and that's where I believe we are at....we just have to ride the waves, keep our cool and extend love and tolerance - the tremendous division is exactly what the establishment wants - they're warmongers after all! We must hold the vision of 'the beautiful new world we all believe is possible' (thank you Charles...)
Also, apologies for grammer mistakes etc in this long diatribe—I narrated it into my ipad and then went back quickly trying to fix things without much time
Question for Daniel should he care to answer, and anyone else who agrees with the gist of what he says:
Should dissenters like Charles have potential criminal charges brought against them for spreading “propaganda” as Hilary proposed in her recent interview with Rachel Maddow?
What are your thoughts on that? I’m trying to get a read on what kind of thing to expect from left wing thought leaders such as him, under a Harris administration, especially if things ramp up on the Russia Ukraine front and the feeble anti-war movement grows in the US in response.
I wanted to be clear that the article I’m referring to in the above post is not the one Daniel links in the comment to which we are replying. I just looked through that and it is full of fallacious assumptions and deep misunderstandings . Atrocitious and insulting.
So, the one and done, which was then discontinued. No boosters. Meanwhile, younger family members going to college in various dem-heavy states have had to stay current (meaning get multiple mRNA shots) just in order to attend and get their careers started. And mRNA ptoducts are just getting started—big Pharma wants to use them for practically everything despite people like us, and like Daniel, prudently avoiding them.
Just curious about folk who felt “cancelled” when Covid happened…I feel the same about body autonomy but I can also understand how fearful most people were about this disease(whether it was “real” or not doesn’t matter to me…what if it WAS real?) and how awful they felt that neighbors and community members were refusing to do something that was relatively simple, out of what seemed to some people an uncaring, selfish egoism. And some people did refuse to mask for those reasons! Humans can be awfully insensitive. However, at the same time, I found a lot of pro-mask folks seemed unable to understand the fundamental need for autonomy, especially those whose lives were hard and stressful to begin with. So what is going on? We are all misunderstanding the needs of each other(at least a good portion of us) and assuming motives that are often not quite on the mark. We are fearful of each other, certainly, and not without reason…lots of injustice happens every day everywhere it is true. Horrid, terrifying things. Mostly I am sad that the anti-Covid folks couldn’t be more compassionate to those of us who were simply scared stiff, for a pretty good reason! Getting angry at scared people for wanting to stay safe is not a practical solution to peace. And scared people can get very defensive and judgemental, which also doesn’t help foster peace. What fosters peace and good will?
i agree with your comments...rubbing things in people's faces, with glee, self-righteousness or anger when they are clearly insecure and feeling vulnerable is equally insensitive and unkind. And does't help heal the divide...any 'steps toward' is what we can all practise.
Sounds like you are in a narcissist abuse pattern with Charles and RFK sorry . If Charles is supporting Trump or even excusing him, his moral compass is long gone.
The idea that RFK Jnr or Eisenstein will mentor or influence this 78 year old malignant narcissist is self-regrading fantasy on their side. RFK Jnr may not even get a security clearance due to his multiple affairs (blackmail risk). They are being used. Or manipulating themselves for power and money.
What about the trauma to women who cannot now get abortions, even if raped, or the victims of incest in MAGA led states, even if they might die, or their fetus is in distress? The women that MAGA Christo-nationalists and Peter Thiel say (or imply) should not be allowed to vote, that JD Vance says are worthless if they do not have children? ... You must believe there was no real health crisis in which people were dying. I did not experience Covid as a trauma at all, but as something we needed to go through to protect others. And I had school age children who did school from home. We were fine.
This is all so wild. I cannot believe Eisenstein, but yet I can. Because so many others have lost their minds and grip on reality in these times. A lot of men, particularly. And, I feel we need to speak up. And so I will and so I did:
The first time I heard Charles speak was at your place in The Bowery. Very interested in your take on what happened here and elsewhere because of the pandemic.
Daniel Pinchbeck….your comment deters me from Ever wanting to read Anything you write. Did you read Charlie’s article? Maybe put some of his points to use. Peace
Trump is not OK (in multiple ways). Clinging to him, providing cover and apology for him in any way is not OK. There is a mental sickness happening. What is it? Could Charles admit he is wrong? Because maybe this is what he does not want to do.
Here’s something that is being reported locally where I live. It seems that someone managed to chemically attack a group of Trump supporters who had been sitting behind him, on one section of the stafe only. A number of them reported severe eye pain that lasted for days and brought them to the emergency room.
Read the comments on the video. The hate and lack of compassion is appalling.
There is zero evidence of attack. This is BS. However delicious it is to play victim, especially when you're in a cult led by a hateful bully. It's been suggested that it was an industrial cleaner. It's really unhelpful and irresponsible to spread alarmist stories like you did.
I don't know what happened. From some of the interview/testimonials of those who experienced severe eye pain for days and had to get medical care, it seems that something serious did happen, to a group of people in one area of the room. You are correct that I don't know if it was an attack or not. It could be an industrial cleaner, sure. I'm not sure how that would work exactly. But, as I said, read the comments on the video. The are full of hate and disgust. There is no other way to describe them. Which, for me, makes the possibility of a crime of some kind realistic. I'm not a Trump supporter, but it does bother me a lot that, coming within what is considered the respectable left, the only acceptable response to any such claim is disdain. Given that so far there have been two assassination attempts on Trump, I really get deeply tired of it. It is impossible to approach any thing---at all---with an open and compassionate mind.
If you want to be that petty about my comment then be my guest. The evidence got what happened is not youtube comments, its in the network news interviews with those who were injured. I don’t know HOW it happened but the possibility of something deliberate has not been eliminated to my knowledge. What I am pointing out is how hateful the youtibe comments are towards the victims. Go with the flow, dude.!
I think it is always helpful to give deep thought to issues such as these, and I always appreciate the provocative ideas you offer.
What I notice about Trump is that he is an abuser: he abuses women, little immigrant children, and handicapped people, among others. In his wake are a multitude of people who have been scarred for life by his actions.
I have been in abusive relationships- I got out as soon as I could, but before that happened, I was counselled on multiple occasions to “cooperate”, “meet them halfway” and “compromise”, and was told I was somehow wrong and less of a person because I wouldn’t do those things. But I never understood how to “compromise” with an abuser. Does compromising mean that I should allow them to abuse me half as much, or for half the time?
America had been in too many relationship with abusers, it is time for us to move out of that cycle.
I agree with you that there is good in everyone. I have seen Adolf Hitler’s early paintings, there is one of a Madonna that is so spiritual and filled with love and light—as an artist and art educator I know beyond any doubt that it could never have been painted by someone without a connection with the essential goodness in his soul, and/or with the Divine. However, when that connection is completely severed by abusive actions, those of us on the receiving end of the abuse have a responsibility to our mental and emotional wellbeing to set appropriate boundaries…not only for ourselves, but for the abuser. It is not any healthier for the abuser to be unclear about these boundaries than it is for the abused.
I have to say that Trump completely lost any remaining bits of my respect the moment he ridiculed a handicapped journalist. That is abuse I wouldn’t let a kindergartner get away with, let alone an adult. That incident showed me everything about his character that I needed to know. I do not see any evidence that Donald Trump has even a remote understanding of what it means to be kind.
If there is dehumanization of Donald Trump, he is the one initiating the dehumanization.
This is beautifully and simply put. Trump embodies classic abuser narcissist and feral predator. And it’s formerly abused people who just get it in their bones, and raised my awareness.
From 2017:
“Like family members living in the home of an abuser our sense of what is normal starts to get blunted and deformed under the weight of abuse. The whole country is damaged in a way that won’t soon lift under the best of circumstances.”
It strikes me as odd that the first person CE plants his flag next to and declare that he won’t participate in their ‘othering’ is someone who exemplifies the extreme case of othering, in/out group thinking, zero-sum thinking, predation, projection, etc. certainly much could be said about polarization and taking sides, and certainly many many people demonize Trump and project all manner of fear and evil onto him. And we should discuss that on a psycho-societal-spiritual level. As a student of Thich Nhat Hanh I know it’s not in my best interest to focus hate and projection like that, and I do want to untie the knots of duality and is vs them I carry within me.
AND YET I can do all this while believing my own eyes, recognizing obvious harm when I see it, and not naively (or disingenuously) trusting/hoping that a very damaged 80 year old who has had his cards on the table for decades, and who stands to cause such harm if given power again, will discover in himself compassion that has never been in evidence.
Those of us who yearn for a ‘new story’ that transcends the binary we’ve been offered must be careful not to be gaslit. I’ve looked to Charles in the past as a beacon of sorts pointing a way out of separation. I can’t follow him here, something has gone awry and if you get it, you get it.
“It strikes me as odd that the first person CE plants his flag next to and declare that he won’t participate in their ‘othering’ is someone who exemplifies the extreme case of othering, in/out group thinking, zero-sum thinking, predation, projection, etc.”
Thank you, and thanks for the link...the text you quoted is perfect, and I appreciated this portion too: "Our sense of reality has been warped...We are like a woman who can’t admit her husband is an abuser. ‘I provoked him.’ ‘He’s got stress at work.’ ‘It was just one time.’ ‘He said he was sorry.’ You want to shake someone like this to open their eyes and see the reality of the situation. But living with someone with a damaged psyche has in turn damaged them. It is hard to emerge from." And one of the reasons it is hard to emerge from this is that the sea of toxic patriarchy in which we all live does not assist the abused in any way, it supports the abuser.
“Those of us who yearn for a ‘new story’ that transcends the binary we’ve been offered must be careful not to be gaslit. I’ve looked to Charles in the past as a beacon of sorts pointing a way out of separation. I can’t follow him here, something has gone awry and if you get it, you get it.” I feel this strongly and agree completely.
"This is the intimate side of the cold civil war America has been stuck in for nearly a decade. Life under Trump’s presidency often felt like being trapped in an abusive relationship, with its need to be hypervigilant about the patriarch’s mercurial moods. We had to endure casual threats of violence and unceasing gaslighting, a term for maliciously undermining someone’s sense of reality that became ubiquitous only after Trump’s election. It is not surprising that this dynamic was repeated in the families of some of Trump’s worshipers."
Thank you for this. I too was in an abusive relationship that took me too long to get out of. When trump was president I felt the same - but this time I was in an abusive relationship with my country. I’m 72. I do not think I could survive four more years. Yes, the DNC is corrupt and owned by the same masters, I don’t understand how people can think trump, who as promised to be a dictator on day 1, and who will unravel the already minuscule and inadequate protections for Earth, children, elders. . . who has promised to put corporate shills in charge of the country, and basically allow corporations to do whatever they want to people and Earth for money . . . is a better alternative? He has literally promised the destruction of the country and Earth! Yet, this is okay? People don’t seem to understand the gravity of what is at stake here. Maybe, because I’m old and I remember people who survived the Nazis (most are dead now), maybe I’m more able to envision the world trump is promising us. And I do not want it! The advantage of going for Harris is we MIGHT get a few more years to turn things around, to create the party, the political movement, and most important begin the transformations necessary to begin healing and restoring Earth for our kids and grandkids, and the species we ALL depend on. There is more at stake this year than just the fate of our country’s politics. Life is at stake. If we can maintain life then we can work to create, to transform, to evolve. If not, this experiment is over.
thank you. Fascism is real. Trump is fascist and an abuser. Russian propaganda is real and there were many Russian family backers of Elon's Twitter takeover. (and so much more going on if one is inclined to do any serious research). We are being firehosed with conspiracies and misinformation, designed to take our nation down entirely for the sake of Petro-nations. Sad state of affairs. Most discouraging. Hard to believe, which makes it so effective.
Susan, we are the same age ;-) .. it sure was a different world back then, wasn't it? Most women in abusive relationships didn't even know the relationship was abusive--it was just a part of the toxic patriarchy that we all took to be "normal"--as they say, a fish doesn't know it is in water! It took us a while to figure all that out... I totally agree with you: "The advantage of going for Harris is we MIGHT get a few more years to turn things around." I became much more excited about Harris after she chose Walz...even though I feel like RBG when she said that all 9 Supremes should be women, LOL--men have tried to run this country for 250 years, and look where we are now! I'm all for giving women a chance at it, I think women can fix most of our worst problems in 20 years...still, I really like Walz, I really like that he's a teacher, and he sure seems to exemplify the kind of "family values" that I think are important. And regardless of actual gender, he does seem to embody the generally accepted "feminine" attributes that I hold dear such as compassion, kindness, cooperation, nurturance, adaptability (more than Kamala imo) ..teachers are typically less inclined to be competitive and hierarchical since their job is to help and assist students, not compete against them. I am looking to Walz to help bring some much needed sanity to our country, in fact, my blue vote is really for him, although I will be very happy to contribute to having the first female president.
Kamala Harris is so far less bad than Trump it's ridiculous. Stein, West and (formerly) RFK, Jr. are all being supported by the GOP. (I suppose, RFK, Jr. now even more so.) I've been reading Harris' book and I believe she does care. Biden's FTC has been amazing on anti-trust (see Lina Khan), the DOJ too. We interviewed a DOJ official on our podcast who wrote "Plunder" about the crimes of private equity. Donald Trump does not give a hoo ha about breaking up monopolies or anything else. Who did he hire as his Treasury Secretary? Steve Mnuchin. "The Foreclosure King." His cabinet was and will be a den of vipers. (Oh, yes! Human! With their own views and perspectives. But who cannot be in power again.)
I’m sad to see that Charles has become such a “ true believer” that he wears a pair of blinders. Trump is his own proud propaganda machine. The so-called Deep State is every bit as much Republican as it is Democrat. The Deep State is Corporate Control and to say Trump doesn’t pander to corporations is simply ridiculous.
Guess what? That video of him making fun of handicapped person was doctored and put together by MSM to make him look bad. It’s fake. He routinely did these weird hand gestures during his 2016 campaign, and the media spliced it together to make him look bad. I don’t have a link handy but I read an article about it a couple years ago that explained it.
That is simply untrue. He cruelly mocks people he perceives as weak. Whether it's women menstruating or ethnic minorities, pilots shot down in Vietnam or dead WW2 vets.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no need to doctor any videos to make Trump look bad. The NY Times responded, : "“We think it's outrageous that [Donald Trump] would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters." Trump responded in familiar fashion, issuing a series of tweets in which he admonished Kovaleski to "stop using his disability to grandstand". This is covered by snopes here: https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/07/28/donald-trump-criticized-for-mocking-disabled-reporter/
I am really shocked that you have taken up the mantle of Trump. He can’t be any of those things you want him to be. He has had many psychiatric experts describe him as “a malignant narcissist.”
This is the side he shows us all, and I cannot imagine he has a different side. He committed fraud. He is a sexual predator and I am very confused why you think he’s our guy.
These are not trumped up charges either. These are real and there’s not some deep state that’s going after the man. He is immoral and choosing to quote and adore dictators is beyond what any presidential candidate in our country should be doing.
I’am shocked that you have fallen into such a rabbit hole. I’ve been following your thought for decades because it seemed true. Once you grabbed on to RFK, you lost me. In a corrupt World you still need to make the best choice.
I have great respect for the motives of RFK Jr. He has aligned himself with Trump. I believe he is seeking what is best for the country. Having dealt with RFK personally, I think Charles must also see and respect his sincerity. Trump is a bull in a china shop, but I believe he too seeks what is best for the country -- and ultimately the world. I think the alternative is world government and totalitarianism.
Trump is aligned with Fascist dictators who actually support real totalitarianism / dictatorship such as Orban, Putin, etc. The Democrats are not doing this - not seeking to end elections or eliminate abortion rights. How have you people become so confused?
Thank you Daniel for pointing to this very obvious elephant in the room. Yes! How can anyone look past the fact that “Trump is aligned with Fascist dictators who actually support real totalitarianism / dictatorship such as Orban, Putin, etc.”
How? And why?
Trust dissolves when facts like these are omitted to make a point.
MarLS: there is a lot of Russian propaganda out there. Like, mountains of it. This started back in 2014 and then became aligned with the movement to elect Trump. Part of the fascist playbook is to make the public believe they cannot trust the MSM. Now, the MSM is corporate. They tend to not take on capitalism itself, but journalism has standards and most real journalists are serious about their work. Not so much the Far Right and MAGA propaganda/apologists at this time--that includes YouTube videos, thousands of social media accounts, Fox, Newsmax and now Russell Brand and apparently, Eisenstein (wittingly or not)
I know!!! So weird that some people see liberals as totalitarian. My experience has been the opposite. The more liberal folks (not all, obviously) that I know are all aware of the need for us all to have a day in how the government is run. It is complicated and messy, absolutely. It is also true that some voices get oppressed as others get louder. But at least there is a WAY to be heard. I know no one on the left who thinks we ought to take voting rights away from certain people, or restrict people from organizing on their own behalf and saying what they feel and believe. There has to be some sort of random limit just for the sake of sanity, but that doesn’t mean that this is totalitarian government.
They don't read or follow current events (it's low-vibe) so their beliefs about politics are based almost entirely on branding and whatever algorithmic feed they're on.
He does. He regularly field's reporters questions --lots of them. He plans to stop the War in Ukraine, tighten the border, He gave a well received speech to some economic group in New York. Many are hopeful he will honor his agreement with RFKJr. Where have you been living? Why is the media constantly attacking him, rather than explaining his platform?
Yet trump himself has said he will be a “dictator” on day one and there will never be a need for another vote. His constant admiration for Putin and others is showing us who he wants to be.
You are reading into those comments what you want to see. I don't believe real dictators announce their intentions, though in Trump's case, media works hard to push that narrative.
He’s absolutely said he would do it. I am not reading anything into a comment. He has said it, but you could read even more into it when you notice that he just sent Covid tests to Putin when our country didn’t have access to them and our own healthcare workers didn’t either. He adored the dictator model. He’s a classic narcissist.
Charles, I don't know what your life is like at this moment that would lead you to write something like this, and I truly want to hold you in good faith as a longtime reader. I absolutely resonate with your main points that are necessary for leadership. But you are seriously wasting both your time and ours by suggesting Donald Trump could embody any of them... I hope that sooner than later, you are able to take some time away from the political cycle to re-ground and re-orient.
He also somehow elevates Trump as "anti-establishment," whereas Harris, a woman, he implies, cannot actually truly embody compassion at all. If I read that right. He seems to lean Trump which makes sense, given RFK, Jr.
This essay is written from inside the Establishment. It still insists on naming good guys/bad guys...but just does so in a covert way. There is no way Mr Trump is the person for this job...as creating peace and compassion , without all the othering. That you are even trying to make a case for this possibility, shows a great lack of understanding human beings. We are ALL part of the establishment...like it or not. Without trying to "figure out" and control the direction of things, Life has the last word. We cannot "essay" our way out of this one.
I had this thought too. What is the "establishment?" It's just us. It's messy and Trump is not the answer. He is a danger. Wounded. and ready to hurt everyone else. Terrible.
Charles, the man is a convicted rapist. He is also many other “ists”—racist, seditionist, etc. but that’s enough for me and should be for anyone with a moral compass or spiritual aspirations. You’ve completely lost me with where you’ve gone, and I’m a bit angry but mostly really sad.
I haven't seen a shred of evidence to support any of your accusations. I've thought he's full of shit long before he ran for office, but now find the Democrats and their candidates to be more revolting and culpable of a long list of attitudes and actions I find alarming. At least Trump tends to lie about absurd stuff like the size of crowds. The Democrats lie about far more serious matters. As for where Charles has gone, smh over the judgmental, condescending comments from those who are so certain the only valid perspective it theirs.
what do you find the Democrats lying about that is more serious than making Haitian immigrants into subhumans, making up garbage on a daily basis, while their entire program is to lower taxes on the wealthy while raising taxes and eliminating social services for everyone else?
Sexual assault, and if you’ve seen pictures of him partying with the late Epstein, you’ll see he’s got his hands all over young girls, including his own daughter. He is a miscreant.
But even most sincere people can get scammed. It happened actually to all indigenous peoples in Latin America. They just see what they want to see, not the reality.
A billionaire who has been convicted so many times of scam, targeting always the poor and the disenfranchised, convicted of rape, is not anti-establishment. Inherited hundreds of millions, uses golden dishes or whatever... your anti-establishement standards have become very awkwards.
That's adolescent thinking. You're letting yourself be taken in by rebellious impulses, like a marxist in 1917, who in the end helped set up 70 years of dictatorship.
And I can guarantee he won't stoop to read the comments from his audience which is turning on him. But wth, $20kpm makes up for multiple unsubscriptions.
Yes, that's where he was getting it from, it's in the campaign declarations that they have to make to show who's getting paid. But it might be coming direct from Trump now, not sure.
I would like to believe it isn’t for the money. I think he is trying to be super-inclusive and coming up to the limits of a human being to be perfectly inclusive. I admire his tenacity in doing this very much, I just can’t be as inclusive as he is advocating at the moment! And I am also aware of the seductiveness of being inclusive, the safety it provides. I am a master of it myself 🙂
Obviously I can't be sure it's entirely for the money but whatever the reason I think he's dead wrong. He's defending DT on the basis of a miraculous potential change of heart that Trump is maybe going to have because he got shot or something.
This is absolute delusion, and sadly, to me the money looks like it must be playing a big role in that delusion. It's serious money. Also his frequent references to 'having a backstage pass' show that he's getting high on being close to power.
I think we can defend someone up to a point, but beyond that, they need to be called out. Fittingly, that's what CE himself should have done when RFK endorsed Trump: called him out. But 'something' stopped him, and I don't personally believe it was just a desire to be inclusive. Also 'inclusivity' shouldn't take priority over justice IMO.
A change of heart he has shown no evidence of having had. If anything he's doubled and tripled down on the maliciousness since then. Literally dehumanizing the Haitian immigrants, right out of the fascist playbook. You can see with your own eyes what kind of person DT is, he shows us every time he opens his mouth, AND in the 4 years he was president and only stoked division and hate. Never really known a 78 year old racist asshole to turn on a dime into anything CE would be proud of.
I think you have been too close to the inside comrade. Some people have gone too far. Trump cannot be reasoned with anymore than can a jaguar about to eat it’s prey. I appreciate your high and noble view, I also carry these aspirations but when the lion is about to eat your children, you make sure that lion is removed from the narrative. Come on Charles. You and Russel are acting very strangely and in times like these you could benefit from good kin to sit you down and talk some sense into you. We love you. Step away from the seduction. Be at ease.
I have been trying... I have been writing a series of essays trying to understand what happened with Charles Eisenstein and Russell Brand -- how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism. Here are the 3 articles I have written so far - if anyone emails me ( Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ), I am happy to give them a month free subscription so they can go behind the paywalls: https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/the-turncoats?r=1mhh1
The real thing you should try to understand is how the fear porn and manipulation of the pandemic led yourself and many like you to support outright corporate/state authoritarianism. While those you mention remained liberal.
Come on, "Vaccine paranoia"? My eyes could not roll any harder.
I know! I have read them! They are wonderful! I hope you write more about it. This shit is crazzzzy and happening frequently. My yoga teacher for the last 25 years is now a Trump supporter. These times are wild! Bayo Akomolafe offers a lot of good insight here. Are you familiar with him David?
Sadly, people do not do the self-reflection which would allow them to compare Trump and the Establishment without the programmed reverence towards "Authority".
It's FINE when the Establishment start wars that slaughter 600,000 people, but by damn Trump tweets bad things!!
Personally, I would be supporting Stein, but I can understand why so many think Trump is more likely to actually win.
If, in the 2026 Mass Afterlife we might all have moved to very suddenly under another DNC authoritarian dictatorship, people were asked: "So, if you could go back, would you this time choose the "Malignant narcissist", or once again the group of psychopaths planning WW3 who you know KNOW kills everyone you know and love?", how many would make the same choice, and how many think "Gee, actually those mean tweets and grandiose statements were not as bad as holding my grandchild as she dies from radiation-induced cancers! :'( ".
I don't think Trump is ANY kind of saviour, and will almost certainly leave America looking worse with most of his plans - but that's not the issue. The issue is that he is LESS LIKELY TO BLOW THE ENTIRE WORLD UP than his main opponent.
That means a great deal. Even Chomsky agrees - hardly a MAGA fan.
Noam Chomsky does not support Donald Trump. In fact, Chomsky has been a vocal critic of Trump on numerous occasions. He has often criticized Trump's policies, approach to governance, and the overall impact of his presidency on both domestic and global issues. Chomsky, known for his progressive and leftist viewpoints, sees Trump's administration as detrimental to many aspects of society, including democracy, the environment, and international relations.
Yeah I've been a consistent critic as well and I agree with all of Gnumeo's points. The MIC is in absolute full swing w the DNC, transition of neocons complete with the Cheneys. On brink of WW3 as we type
It is hilarious to me that we just read several paragraphs on how Trump could change his mind and transform but that the Cheney would finally say enough with this dangerous fool is a bridge too far.
I miswrote -- Dems already started WW3 with recent moves related to Ukraine. I should have written nuclear annihilation. That is a risk that continues to escalate by the day
Chomsky, like many intelligent people, recognises that it is perfectly possible to despise BOTH major parties. And to see different policies. He certainly will not be "supporting Trump", but I also can't see him supporting the current US regime that has brought us closer to WW3 than the Cuban Missile Crisis... SEVERAL times in just the past 3 years.
And as K'mala is nothing but an empty air-head riding a wave constructed for her - even more than Zelensky!! - there will be a continuation of disasterous and (planetary) suicidal policies.
As I clearly said, Chomsky is not a MAGA fan - but nor is he a Demonrat fan.
I like the ideas embedded here. A lot. Bit just don’t get the idea that Trump in not Establishment. That he is a figurehead of the alternative to the deep state. It’s a bit sad isn’t it when someone so misognoist and privileged is posited as the one to save you guys and change your world for the good. Not taking sides just saying from across the oceans.
Trump is Establishment - but not deep state. He is establishment because he is a billionaire who relies upon the state for his wealth, and its legal protections. Trump is NOT going to be promoting worker-ownership, free healthcare, student-loan forgiveness or anything of the sort that could actually help Americans.
At the same time, he is not deep state, the security state apparatus. Who have probably already made attempts on his life, have spied on him and his associates, filed spurious legal obstacles, and work hand-in-glove with the DNC to "Maintain the American Empire".
The sad truth is that there is so little ACTUAL democracy in the USA, it is already an authoritarian dictatorship (In truth it always was), that anyone opposed to the DNCs suicidal warmongering, can only choose the single other 'main party' to realistically have a chance.
"It’s a bit sad isn’t it when someone so misognoist and privileged is posited as the one to save you guys and change your world for the good."
This is all mumbo jumbo - Deep State... Trump amped up the military budget and didn't do anything to "Drain the swamp." Just brought in more swamp things, like the current Supreme Court. This whole enterprise is insane, delusional.
I have been writing a series of essays trying to understand what happened with Charles Eisenstein and Russell Brand -- how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism. Here are the 3 articles I have written so far - if anyone emails me ( Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ), I am happy to give them a month free subscription so they can go behind the paywalls: https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/the-turncoats?r=1mhh1
Quite how you go from pointing out that Trump didn't take on the deep state, to then saying the deep state must not then exist, is a leap I can't follow you over.
I'll explain what happened to Eisenstein and Brand - they remained LIBERAL, with the emphasis upon "My Body, My Choice". They also remained LIBERAL, in that they distrust enormous corporate wealth and power, and can see when the state and such corporates come together, it is never in the Public's interests.
So THEY stayed LIBERAL. What happened to YOU?
Where did all that manufactured fear porn make you leave any Liberalism behind?
Perhaps you might find it easier to examine yourself, rather than two completely different people to yourself, and rather than seeing the changes in THEM, observe the changes in yourself.
Until you follow the ancient wisdom of Know Thyself, you are probably going to get more and more confused, and offering temporary access to get more subscribers probably isn't going to help with that self analysis.
“Quite how you go from pointing out that Trump didn't take on the deep state, to then saying the deep state must not then exist, is a leap I can't follow you over.”
In the past, Charles Eisenstein himself has criticized the belief in a “deep state” running things, and associated it with paranoid conspiracy thinking of the sort he claimed to be rising above. If you don’t put Charles on a pedestal, as I don’t, his numerous inconsistencies and self-contradictions stand out clearly.
I would happily support an actual deep delving into the question of whether a deep state exists and what is its nature and constituents, but for Charles it seems to be Schrödinger’s Deep State — it exists and pulls the strings in one essay, and is merely a figment of people’s imaginations in another. It’s all down to Charles’ whims and moods of the moment.
I would appreciate it if Charles’ readership started reading him more carefully, and had a better memory for his various truth claims over time. As somebody who takes seriously what assertions and arguments individual writers put forth, I’ve noticed that Charles’ books and essays contain numerous contradictions, inconsistencies and also some factual mistakes. I think there needs to be a lot less endless “gratitude” (“thank you so much Charles for your infinite wisdom!”) and more careful weighing and considering of his various positions. Because they don’t all cohere with one another.
Of course they don't. I'm quite suspicious of people who claim THEY have It all worked out". Reality simply doesn't work that way, and only the Goddess may have absolute knowledge.
There is also a considerable gap between saying "There is a deep state of powerful individuals who attempt to arrange matters to their liking", and "There is a deep state and those bastards control EVERYTHING Zomgzz!".
One is rational, the other is paranoic thinking.
While "Conspiracy theorisising" is a made-up term to steer the public away from investigating and critiquing topics the elites would prefer to remain uninvestigated and uncritiqued, "Paranoic Thinking" can be very real indeed, and is genuinely worrisome, and not to be promoted.
What's the distinction? Take the old board game 'Illuminati'. Several powerful groups are duking it out. This is "Conspiracy theorising". However being convinced that ONE group has ALL the power, is all powerful, controls EVERYTHING - that is paranoic. It's crossed the border from reality into fantasy, and likely dangerous fantasy at that.
So this for me is not one of his inconsistencies. It is seeing there is a distinction there.
The deep state is there, but it is one among many interest groups, and is not 'all-powerful', and it is certainly not the case that everything that happens is because of this amorphous group.
I agree there's a bit too much "gratitude" often expressed on substack, although it is also sometimes genuinely meant, and also genuinely earned too.
“Of course they don't. I'm quite suspicious of people who claim THEY have It all worked out". Reality simply doesn't work that way, and only the Goddess may have absolute knowledge.”
But that is exactly how Charles comports himself, as if he has everything worked out and any criticism of his views is a failure to understand how superior his comprehension is.
The issue is not the existence of inconsistencies and contradictions in his writing. The issue is his own denial, his own refusal to acknowledge that they are there.
“There is also a considerable gap between saying "There is a deep state of powerful individuals who attempt to arrange matters to their liking", and "There is a deep state and those bastards control EVERYTHING Zomgzz!". One is rational, the other is paranoic thinking.”
Come off it. These are YOUR views — they do not constitute a position that Charles has ever clearly articulated. If he had, you could simply link to the essay or cut and paste the quotes in which he articulates this same lucid position. I’m aware of what he’s written about conspiratorial mindsets in the past, and it doesn’t match up with this. I partly agree with what you’ve written, and if that were all that Charles has said, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. It’s a clear and common sense and straightforward position. But, guess what? What you’ve written here is NOT Charles’ argument.
You might be right about that, although I comfort myself with the thought that if he did read my comment, he might well agree with it.
He's helped me formulate conceptions I was only fumbling towards, and I don't think he thinks he understands everything.
Even if he comes across that way at times.
Of course, we all know that we are right, all the time, about everything, and when we do change our minds, we actually thought that all along anyway. ;)
exactly - life is paradox and I am far more wary of people who wont allow their minds to change and shift. I can read articles such as Daniels above and actually agree with them on many levels but when I feel into the energy behind clever words it gives me different understandings - superiority and righteousness is a bitch! (I should know, I've done enough of it!)
I have the same impression as Gnumeo. I believe I've read all of Charles' essays that touch on conspiratorial thinking or the deep state. Would you please link statements he's made that you believe directly contradict one another. Also statements that give you the impression that Charles is professing to know some absolute truth when he makes these statements, rather than describing various human tendencies
Well, that's a really big task, as there are dozens of places in his writing where I've observed inconsistencies and dubious claims, but I'll try to provide a few. Here's Charles writing about Trump in 2016:
"I am willing to suspend my judgement of Trump and (very skeptically) hold the possibility that he will disrupt the elite policy consensus of free trade and military confrontation – major themes of his campaign. One might always hope for miracles. However, because he apparently lacks any robust political ideology of his own, it is more likely that he will fill his cabinet with neocon war hawks, Wall Street insiders, and corporate reavers, trampling the wellbeing of the working class whites who elected him while providing them their own sugar-coating of social conservatism.
The social and environmental horrors likely to be committed under President Trump are likely to incite massive civil disobedience and possibly disorder. For Clinton supporters, many of whom were halfhearted to begin with, the Trump administration could mark the end of their loyalty to our present institutions of government. For Trump supporters, the initial celebration will collide with gritty reality when Trump proves as unable or unwilling as his predecessors to challenge the entrenched systems that continually degrade their lives: global finance capital, the deep state, and their programming ideologies. Add to this the likelihood of a major economic crisis, and the public’s frayed loyalty to the existing system could snap."
It is true he does use the phrase "deep state" in this excerpt, but I'll come to that. The important thing to note is that Charles' dark, apocalyptic and pessimistic tone about Trump continued on in all his subsequent writings till RFK endorsed Trump. Only then did the tone drastically shift. Here's Charles writing about Trump now:
"Few people today have been more caricaturized than Donald Trump. I hate to disappoint any of my readers who demonize or lionize the man, but, having at this point something of a backstage pass, I can tell you that neither pole stands anywhere near the truth. It is almost impossible to see the real man through the fog of today’s information war.
He is not a strategic genius out-maneuvering the deep state in a match of 4D chess. Nor is he a Mussolini figure, a bigoted fascist marshaling resurgent far-right forces to elevate him into dictatorial power. He is not even particularly right-wing."
In his essay "The Conspiracy Myth" published in 2020, he writes:
".... the conspiracy myth gives narrative form to an authentic intuition that an inhuman power governs the world. What could that power be? The conspiracy myth locates that power in a group of malevolent human beings (who take commands, in some versions, from extraterrestrial or demonic entities). Therein lies a certain psychological comfort, because now there is someone to blame in a familiar us-versus-them narrative and victim-perpetrator-rescuer psychology. Alternatively, we could locate the “inhuman power” in systems or ideologies, not a group of conspirators. That is less psychologically rewarding, because we can no longer easily identify as good fighting evil; after all, we ourselves participate in these systems, which pervade our entire society. Systems like the debt-based money system, patriarchy, white supremacy, or capitalism cannot be removed by fighting their administrators. They create roles for evildoers to fill, but the evildoers are functionaries; puppets, not puppet masters. The basic intuition of conspiracy theories then is true: that those we think hold power are but puppets of the real power in the world."
It is clear from this paragraph that he does not think there is a "deep state" or Establishment in any meaningful sense of the word. Except, of course, when there is: he now tells us that the deep state will attempt to block Trump's every move and that "The Establishment" is engaged in "information warfare and various forms of cheating." Except that, when Trump lost the last election, he dismissed out of hand Trump's vehement claim that there was electoral malfeasance:
"The political defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 election is a crossroads for the quasi-political movement grouped loosely around the QAnon conspiracy myth and, more broadly, around Trump himself. Because the man and the movement were a dark mirror for the whole of society, it is also a crossroads for society....
"At the present writing (late November, 2020) it would seem that the QAnons would have no choice but to abandon the faith. Not so. In various corners of the right wing alternative media, one may still read desperate theories about how Trump’s apparent defeat is a ploy to set up his master stroke. Even after he is deposed, even if he goes to prison, the myth will only change shape, since it is merely an outcropping of a much larger, long-established mythos, driven by repressed social and psychological forces. The same holds for Trumpism generally. It is thus important to gaze into this dark mirror and see what has been hidden..."
In context, it's clear that back then he gave no truck to Trump's charges of electoral fraud and meddling, nor did he support the Jan. 6 uprising: he presented it as delusional false belief and paranoia derived from the MAGA cult of Trump. Today, however, he takes it as a self-evident truth that the Dems regularly engage in electoral fraud. Oh, and he also said this in 2020:
"It is understandable why so many people have celebrated the defeat of Trump, a man who presided over the deliberate separation of immigrant children from their parents, who needlessly provoked Russia and China, who gave free pass to some of the worst of American’s racist tendencies, who green-lighted new levels of environmental destruction, who pushed regime-change operations in Venezuela and Bolivia, and so on."
I could go on and on, but I hope the point is clear that Charles presents claim after claim that clash with one another, and that this is a problem with his writing. It isn't that I'm not able to appreciate shades of gray or intellectual complexity, it's that he isn't willing to be clear when he changes his mind, or even to express lucid, clear and consistent positions, he wants to hold onto a kind of false profundity, a kind of enigmatic vatic quality that is more of a pose than a true reflection of profundity.
Thank you for being so detailed. I was already familiar with the passages you quote.
I'm going to respond in brief and may loop back later (or feel free to follow up w any questions or criticism).
I have tread a similar path to Charles and don't have any ties to RFK or Trump. I voted for Biden in 2020 and my whole adult life had canvassed for Dems. I'm also a female person of color by the by.
My essential response to you is that I was completely and totally propagandized. It took fully broadening my friendship circles, media sources, spiritual teachers and rallies I attended to arrive at a completely and totally different point of view regarding Trump, MAGA, deep state and how conspiracies are operating in the 3D plane of existence. Would be a book to detail all of this. Because of my own unfoldment, Charles's evolution of perspectives seems entirely natural to me and does not make me question his motives. Not that he might not be blinded -- of course it's possible and I continue to check my own biases. For me Trump is clearly a case of the lesser of two evils. Be that as it may, I will very enthusiastically vote for him (bc of my view of the alternative).
One last thing: at the time when I read Charles' Conspiracy Myth piece I did not interpret it as friends of mine did. To point out the psychological crutch that conspiratorial thinking may become does not in itself suggest that conspiracies aren't rampant. The nature of Charles' writing has been to point out pitfalls in typical frames of thinking, as every version of reality our minds conjure will inevitably entail potential blindspots. I'm not saying his own experience hasn't led him to review his attitude towards how much conspiracies are relevant to understanding reality -- my own experience the past five years certainly has prompted extensive review. I'm saying that even in the Conspiracy Myth he did not say anything that would preclude the existence of an aggregate of power (within alphabet agencies for example) that function as a "deep state" The paragraph you quoted that you regard as proof he didn't believe in a "deep state" does not come across that way to me. People at 3 letter agencies may comprise a "deep state" and ALSO be "puppets of the real power in the world." To understand/unpack that statement requires a spiritual lens which to my knowledge Charles has only touched on during calls, not in his writings
Thank your for your thoughtful reply. This is a valid point: "To point out the psychological crutch that conspiratorial thinking may become does not in itself suggest that conspiracies aren't rampant." I also agree with your further point, that, "I'm saying that even in the Conspiracy Myth he did not say anything that would preclude the existence of an aggregate of power (within alphabet agencies for example) that function as a "deep state" The paragraph you quoted that you regard as proof he didn't believe in a "deep state" does not come across that way to me. People at 3 letter agencies may comprise a "deep state" and ALSO be "puppets of the real power in the world."
However, this wasn't Charles' last word on the matter of conspiracies. Jack Adam Weber, who's recently popped up on these very comment threads, wrote a critique of Charles' Coronation essay, in which he accused Charles of indulging in conspiratorial thinking, and Charles' response was an immediate dismissal of Weber's accusation: "The other day I was amused to read a critique of The Coronation in which the author was absolutely certain that I am a closet conspiracy theorist. He was so persuasive that I myself almost believed it."
He then goes on to write: "What is a conspiracy theory anyway? Sometimes the term is deployed against anyone who questions authority, dissents from dominant paradigms, or thinks that hidden interests influence our leading institutions. As such, it is a way to quash dissent and bully those trying to stand up to abuses of power. One needn’t abandon critical thinking to believe that powerful institutions sometimes collude, conspire, cover up, and are corrupt. If that is what is meant by a conspiracy theory, obviously some of those theories are true. Does anyone remember Enron? Iran-Contra? COINTELPRO? Vioxx? Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?"
However, in the context of Covid, he seems to suggest that this isn't relevant, and what is going on in something else, not a conspiracy but merely the appearance of a conspiracy: "During the time of Covid-19, another level of conspiracy theory has risen to prominence that goes way beyond specific stories of collusion and corruption to posit conspiracy as a core explanatory principle for how the world works. Fuelled by the authoritarian response to the pandemic (justifiable or not, lockdown, quarantine, surveillance and tracking, censorship of misinformation, suspension of freedom of assembly and other civil liberties, and so on are indeed authoritarian), this arch-conspiracy theory holds that an evil, power-hungry cabal of insiders deliberately created the pandemic or is at least ruthlessly exploiting it to frighten the public into accepting a totalitarian world government under permanent medical martial law, a New World Order (NWO). Furthermore, this evil group, this illuminati, pulls the strings of all major governments, corporations, the United Nations, the WHO, the CDC, the media, the intelligence services, the banks, and the NGOs. In other words, they say, everything we are told is a lie, and the world is in the grip of evil."
And to make it clear that he himself doesn't subscribe to this notion (i.e. Weber's charge is invalid), he states: "So what do I think about that theory? I think it is a myth. And what is a myth? A myth is not the same thing as a fantasy or a delusion. Myths are vehicles of truth, and that truth needn’t be literal."
Personally, I don't find it helpful to label an Illuminati conspiracy theory a myth, an archetypical myth rather than a manifestation of paranoia. But whatever. Still, there's a problem here, the same problem I see again and again with Charles. Weber never accused him of believing in the most extreme, outlandish Illuminati conspiracy. So why bring it up? It seems that Eisenstein is incapable of addressing what the other even said. We have a person who doesn't want to be pinned down, his inability to address the actual points made by the other isn't a consequence of the difficulty of the subject matter, but it's some kind of character flaw. The first thing I noted about Charles' response to Weber is that he never addresses himself to anything Weber actually complained about, which has nothing to do with Illuminati type craziness. But Weber also often doesn't take Eisenstein at his word, he quotes certain statements Eisenstein makes and has some strong arguments against Eisenstein's various truth claims, but he keeps claiming Eisenstein also has secret intentions: "Conspiracy theorists are usually easy to identify and easy to debunk. To his credit, Charles Eisenstein is an exception, which makes his rhetoric all the more insidious. He magically mesmerizes, couching his underlying agenda and beliefs (though repeatedly claiming to “not know” anything) in a panoply of pseudo-intellectual smoke and mirrors."
I don't think this is true, about a hidden "underlying agenda," but then again, Charles is so slippery and evasive, always, how do I know? And not evasive because his thought is so complex but because he doesn't like being pinned down and doesn't like to be held to any particular position. Another poster recently described Charles as having a "solipsistic" mind, and that seems true to me.
Charles seems to believe in conspiracy and hidden deception when it suits him. But it also seems to him that he can disown this perspective when it suits him. But if it is simply his own personal preference to believe a conspiracy occurred HERE but did not occur THERE, then surely he needs to start getting specific and stop beating around the bush all the time. He's always warning people against falling into the trap of conspiracy theorizing, even though he himself believes in conspiracies when he feels like it, but doesn't feel it's fair to demand solid and detailed evidence one way or the other, and he immediately issues a solid denial when someone like Weber accuses him of conspiracy theory. There is never any willingness to meet the reader half-way: at some point, he has to stop complaining if he's being misunderstood and start accepting that much of the fault for any confusion and misunderstanding of his views lies with himself and how he typically expresses himself. The lack of clarity, precision, and consistency is in him, not his readership.
Before we can examine the question of whether a deep state exists, we need to agree on the meaning of the term. Perhaps the inconsistencies you note are merely the result of the meaning of "deep state" not being entirely clear in Charles' own mind, as it is also not in mine. I've been thinking that the 'deep state' is a term for the complex of intelligence and spook agencies of our country that run on secret budgets and can act with impunity against normal laws. The sense discussed here seems to be a conspiracy of oligarchs and alphabet agencies. Viewed this way, it could very well be a Schrödinger’s cat concept that one could suppose or deny at different moments of one's writing.
There is no deep state. There is only the state, which is plenty deep. If there actually was a "deep state" and Trump was actually against it, he would have been eliminated, neutralized, or compromised long ago.
Of course the Alphabets could 'take out' Trump, although he has his own long-serving security, but they need to have 'plausible deniability' for the hit.
That complicates matters extensively. It takes time and planning to build an asset like Lee Harvey Oswald, and there is always the terrible danger the plot will fail and their hand will be revealed.
And, of course, there is the high likliehood they have already tried, a few months ago.
They're not supermen, despite all the Hollywood hype. Institutionalised incompetent fuckwits sociopaths is considerably more accurate.
And again - Trump is a BILLIONAIRE, and white. Not like some Black Panther the FBI can just assassinate by busting in the door and shooting him dead.
There is DEFINITELY a deep state (Originally a Swedish concept, I believe), of networked, privately-educated sociopaths. People so powerful they can even order the POTUS never to say "Ceasefire in Gaza" - recall that conundrum recently?
Like all such groups, it will be amorphous, some people will be in, and then out, but the existence of 'highly connected networks of the wealthy and powerful' exist in every society. In our modern, overpopulated, industrialised societies, they are organised.
"There is DEFINITELY a deep state (Originally a Swedish concept, I believe), of networked, privately-educated sociopaths."
I am afraid you are confusing the amorphous, ambiguous term "deep state" for the highly theorized concept of capital. As Joel Bakan pointed out two decades ago in The Corporation, the imperatives of capital accumulation embody the ethos of the psychopath.
No - but obviously they entwine in capitalist economies.
The deep state is more concerned with the security of the state, than the oligarchs. As Putin showed, the Russian deep state had few problems with reining in the excesses of the Russian oligarchy - although undoubtedly there was considerable pushback within the Russian deep state against such policies, due to the entwinement.
But these two things CAN be separate, and studied separately.
Att the risk of being argumentative, I wouldn't necessarily agree that capital accumulation "is" psychopathic, but it certainly can be in those who seek to be 'Oligarchs', or who are utterly uncaring as to the damage their greed is causing to the other members of the community or nation. And it has become institutionalised behaviour in the West.
Gnuneo, you certainly have the right to believe in a Deep State running things. There is a legitimate debate to be had here. But Eisenstein is not consistent on this subject. For him it’s like Schrödinger’s Cat, real and powerful in one essay, a figment of the imagination in another, depending on what point he’s trying to make at a particular time.
Don't forget the whale skulls. But give the guy a break. It's just a rich kid's hobby and a rich kid's sense of entitlement that he can do whatever he wants and it will be indulged.
Frankly, having a whale skull shows how much RFK Jr. is deeply anti-establishment. He's just a random guy, like hundred of millions of Americans. It's very important such people can seize the power for protecting the poor.
I appreciate what you're doing but I think you miss the mark when you continue describing Trump as an anti-establishment candidate. His interest seems to be in controlling the establishment rather than dismantling it. Your last point that Kamala is part of the establishment and is therefore unable to actually embody these principles suggests to me a major distortion in how you're looking at this; a separation you have drawn between yourself and your in group and this idea of "Establishment", an idea that I'm not convinced is rooted in an effective understanding of how structures emerge from social relationships.
Wonderfully put. It feels to me that Charles's thinking has become warped as a result of social pressures. It's very human for that to happen.
I have to say, it's been sobering to see so many people I respected (like Charles and Russell Brand) effectively become Trump surrogates.
For what it's worth, I'm no fan of Kamala. But why not support an actual non-establishment candidate who will oppose the deep state like Cornel West? Trump is a billionaire who has profited immensely from business as usual and is obsessed with dominance (i.e. "winning"), why does anyone expect him to drain any swamps or overturn the structures of dominance making our world sick? It's patently absurd, and the fact that Charles can't see it tells me his thinking is distorted.
Can West win? Almost certainly not. But who's to say what would happen if there were a genuine movement for a 3rd party candidate instead of all this capitulation to the major parties that I'm seeing.
I am absolutely stymied by the move of such independent thinkers to Trump. I listened to Russell Brand's interview with Tucker Carlson today, trying to get a read, and I heard nothing that explains it. I DO understand his shift towards religion; that "seeking for God" has been in him forever, and he is eloquent on the subject as it pertains to addiction. However, when he talks about things like "reclaiming the sacred Thames River" from corporate influence or "ridding the political system of lobbying, corruption, the influence of money," I see absolutely zero connective tissue with supporting Trump and the party that literally (as David Sirota brilliantly demonstrates in "The Master Plan", and others have elsewhere, and is supremely (pun intended) evidenced in Citizens United) has codified such practices to our collective detriment. Yes, the Dems have their issues; I understand the concern about government overreach. But swinging to Trump literally does not compute. I DO NOT GET IT.
In terms of 3rd parties, I am fascinated by the discussion of "fusion voting" in Micah Sifry's newsletter today: https://theconnector.substack.com/p/the-third-party-problem-in-2024-and?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=96838&post_id=149015941&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyMDU2Nzk4LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNDkwMTU5NDEsImlhdCI6MTcyNjYwNTcyOSwiZXhwIjoxNzI5MTk3NzI5LCJpc3MiOiJwdWItOTY4MzgiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.XTCWEvV6Gg54Cmu9hFrPzqOPtlToIaRlJp7VLhijJWI&r=1831a&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
I have been writing a series of essays trying to understand what happened with Charles Eisenstein and Russell Brand -- how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism. Here are the 3 articles I have written so far - if anyone emails me ( Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ), I am happy to give them a month free subscription so they can go behind the paywalls: https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/the-turncoats?r=1mhh1
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-russell-brand-and?r=1mhh1
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/libertarian-fallacies?r=1mhh1
I don't think Charles is Trumpist at all! You are misreading him...
I think Charles forgot to include the most important principle of all for a true anti-establishment pro-humanity candidate and that is TRANSPARENCY - to commit to NOT meet with our ruling class billionaire abusers in private and secrecy, to commit to having all one's meetings (and all other politicians meetings) to being public, open to public scrutiny. This way we could stop once and for all being deceived by the Qanon/MAGA narrative (that presents pro-billionaire mass-murderer trump as an "anti-establishment candidate who came becasue he loves the people and wants to help the little guy fight the deep state"), this way we could all see out in the open what a pro-billionaire pro-empire pro-ruling class pro-Wall St pro-M.I.C pro-war pro-genocide pro-NeoCon Zionist pro-Big Pharma pro-Big Agri pro-Big Food actually is their criminal ConMan trump!!!
Let me say it as clearly as possible for the people at the back: HARRIS IS A RIGHT-WING PRO-BILLIONAIRE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RULING CLASS ; TRUMP IS A RIGHT-WING PRO-BILLIONAIRE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RULING CLASS (not to mention that he is also profoundly psychologically-undeveloped, emotionally-stunted, infantile & narcissist with a relational maturity level of a 4 year old, but that's the least of his crimes. Details about mass-murderer Godless trump's crimes against humanity and whose narrow interests he works to promote coming up in a moment).
I love you Charles, but IMHO you are doing a huge disservice to humanity by repeating the Qanon/MAGA mythology and presenting trump as "anti-elite rebel who is here to help the little guy fight the establishment". Nothing could be more farther from the truth, as his ACTUAL actions show (not the Qanon/MAGA narrative surrounding hom and his actions, but his ACTUAL actions). I confess, it is extremely sad to see someone as astute as you being so strongly influenced and taken by your political in-group associations...
Mass-murderer anti-life God-ignorant ConMan Trump was already president once, remember? Need I remind us that he and his Zionist PR team of deceivers already sold us the exact same deceptive Qanon/MAGA narrative they are selling us now (as if he is an anti-elite-rebel man-of-the-people who came to fight the deep state for the little guy), and need i remind us that once elected he promptly spat in the face of all the gullible unintelligent propagandized people who believed him and his Zionist team of deceivers, and proceeded to fill up his administration to the brim with deep-state NeoCon swamp creatures from Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Eric Prince's BlackWater merceneries, and the rest of Wall St and the war profiteering industry filled up to the brim every single position in his administration of anti-life deep state billionaire shark predators. In addition, he handed foreign policy over to deep state NeoCon zionist operatives in the form of compulsive-liar CIA director Pompeo, Chabad devotee and Mossad representitive Kushner, ultra-zionist mass-murderer Bolton, NeoCon zionist lunatic ("starve them to death") Abrams etc. etc. Besides them, the State Dept. was literally full of and run by NeoCon israelis during trump's presidency, america's global forigen policy was literally run by israeli supremacists during trump's presidency!!
What on earth makes any of us think that he will act any differently this time? Because the Mossad-created Qanon/MAGA narrative says so? (echoed by large portions of the so-called 'alternative conservative media' ecosystem)
All ConMan trump did during his presidency was transfer trillions to his buddies the ultra-wealthy war profiteers and Big Pharma corporate-capitalists for example in his 5.9 trillion dollar corona giveaway to Big Pharma corporate capitalists and to his ultra-wealthy Wall St billionaire pals, our abusers and predators, and for example in his annual gigantic military spending - spending which SKYROCKETED under trump - to give away trillions and trillions of our money to his anti-life war profiteering buddies); filled his admin to the brim with deep-state swamp creatures, gave tax breaks to the ultra-rich and made sure the most wealthy (the anti-life heart-divorced deep state billionaire abusers who brought him to power) became much wealthier while everyone else stagnated or impoverished; Trump EXPANDED the mass-murdering billionaires' global militarized corporate-capitalist empire (of nearly 900 military bases encircling the entire globe, dozens of warships colonizing every sea on the planet, and at least 13 extra-judicial torture camps where kidnapped human beings are held in captivity for years without trial and tortured by brainwashed conservatives because.."patriotism" and "god" and "jesus" and "christian moral values") with his RECORD HIGH military spending to enrich his war profiteering capitalist billionaire pals; Created a welfare state for billionaires (with his government's coercive force used to lavish his right-wing billionaire scum with public funding, funneling trillions of our money to his backers the conservative war profiteers, who of course privatize the profits and give nothing back to the public that funds them) and crumbs for the rest of us..
As one "small" example for trump's crimes against humanity (out of numerous such examples), trump also initiated, armed and funded (used our money to fund) a coup in Bolivia so that his billionaire pal Elon Musk can steal the world's largest reserves of lithium from Bolivia for his "green"-electric car company (which is at the forefront of the climate capitalists' "4th industrial revolution" and "great reset"). Musk literally sat at the table with trump and pompeo and said "we will coup whoever we want, we're in charge now, deal with it". That is how sure are musk and trump that their propagandized dumb deceived followers will follow them blindly and obediently no matter what crimes they commit against humanity (trump literally bragged that he can shoot someone on the street in broad daylight and his hypnotized deceived conservatives followers will still worship him..)
I hope you are aware Charles that your ideas can (and likely will) be used cynically and deceptively, as feel good slogans (like unity and rise above division) by the most murderous pro-ruling class tribalistic anti-wholism anti-egalitarian hierarchical God-ignorant political manipulators (like trump and his PR team of deceivers) who act in POLAR OPPOSITE ways to the slogans that they'll borrow from you in order to deceive and gain support from the people..
Seems to me that the basic assumption (from which you are writing this piece Charles) would have been true in 2016 when many (propagandized) americans really believed that trump is exceptionally evil and dnc are the benevolent force for good. Hardly anyome belives this anymore but exactly the opposite is the case now, by far most (propagandized) americans now believe the opposite fairytale, that the dnc is the establishmemt force of evil and that trump is an "anti-establishment rebel".
Both these fairytales are profoundly false.
One doesn't have to buy into the stupid CNN/WashPost deceptive propaganda machine (that presents trump as exceptionally and caricaturishly evil) in order to see from his actions that he is actually a common run-of-the-mill murderous american president, by the ruling class for the ruling class, just as pro-billionaire pro-empire and criminal as the ones before and after him. No worse but definitely no better than the life-destroying right-wing american presidents before and after him. BOTH the CNN/NYTimes fairytales AND the Qanon/MAGA failrytales about him are false. His actions clearly show that he's not exceptionally evil nor exceptionally righteous, just a normal anti-life right-wing american president who is here to enrich the ultra-rich, to cement the global control of the american billionaire's militarized empire over the planet and to ensure that our desire for change is hijacked and neutralized and doesn't amount to any real change, which are precisely the things he did as president..
Trump is horrible NOT becasue of what the corporate-capitalist manipulators on CNN/MSNBC/WashPost say about him but precisely because he is like every other pro-billionaire life-destroying mass-murdering right-wing american president (conservative or liberal)
Both trumpism and anti-trumpism are fake decoy revolutions. See https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/both-trumpism-and-anti-trumpism-are?
One other small thing, if I may - you seem to have bought into the Qanon/MAGA mythology that trump is "anti-NeoCons", but that doesn't make any sense to say when you acknowledge (as you do) that he is fully wholly and completely in support of the supremacist nazi NeoCons that run the Israeli govt and their genocidal imperialist project of dispossesion and anninilation of the local people, and their imperialist policy of eternal religious division, hostility and war. THE NEOCONS ARE ISRAEL. It makes no sense to acknowledge that trump is fully in support of the genocidal supremacist zionist colonial project and then say he dislikes the NeoCons. Trump's administration was FULL TO THE BRIM with warmongering bloodthirsty zionist NeoCons during his presidency. He literally handed the state Dept. over to NeoCon Israelis. Israelis were literally running his State Dept! He literally made Israelis in charge of american global policy!! And you can be sure that he'll attack Iran and China for them soon after he and his NeoCon Israeli billionaire pals enter the white house. It makes no sense whatsoever to say he is "anti NeoCons". It is a common Qanon/MAGA slogan that has no basis in reality.
Plenty more I wanted to point out regarding trump's crimes against the people and who are the adrenochrome-drinking billionaire abusers that brought him to power before and are doing it again now, but the space for a comment here is finished..
you may be so right in much of what you say...however there is always a place for what the American Indians might call your 'good enemy' - there will be learning and growth however it goes. What I'm appreciating right now is the mix-match/mish-mash/mash-up of all sorts of people - a much needed change away from the black/white, good/bad, evil/virtuous duality which is showing itself so extremely in the world scene. It may seem incongruous but we have no idea what effect the rubbing off of so many different energies may have - it could be combustive, healing, growthful, disastrous - but it is change and it does hold all sorts of potentials. We need breakthrough on every level...change doesn't always look right or nice
- and none of this is intended to disparage anything you say...just another thought to ponder...
Also: there is fascism. And it's not good. So.
very well said
Actually, not clear she is as pro-billionaire as you say. What about the unrealized capital gains tax? Biden's FTC chair? I'd argue this.
This is the writers dilemma. One cannot possibly cover every single large or nuanced issue in every writing. There will always be issues that are left off of the table in relationship to the availability of time and space. It's bothersome not to be able to address it all, but hopefully the reader will take in and simmer with what has been laid on the table. Suggestions to cover future issues is always beneficial.
WOW! You have said in comments on a previous post that you have love. Apart from one little phrase where you claim to love Charles (then immediately append a "but"), this entire diatribe suggests you are filled with such...hate? Is that too strong a word? Try vitriol...you are filled with such vitriol that you can't contain it. It's burning you up.
Recognise your shadow.
Thank you though i am not sure i understand. My comment has detailed a few of trump's crimes against life and humanity as president (and I barely scratched the surface in detailing his crimes in that comment, i had to stop short because of space limitations). Are you saying that showing certain people that the billionaires' fairytale propaganda deception they were led to believe in (as if trump is an "anti-elite rebel" who arrived on the scene becasue he really really loves the non-wealthy and all religions equally and wants to help us fight the elite), are you saying that showing that this billionaires' propaganda is profoundly false and completely disproved by the facts of what he ACTUALLY did as president, are you saying that showing that and exposing the biliionaires' deception is "hate"?
Nope. Pointing out facts, propaganda or deception is not showing hate. The way in which we do so can.
If you’re saying all you are doing is pointing out facts and propaganda, then the deception is yours. And if you believe that’s all you’re doing, then you are deceiving yourself.
Only you know what is in your heart regarding Trump. Whatever it is, you are trying to convey that through your comments. Each of us will interpret what you say in our own way. I was searching for a descriptor, came up with hate. As I said, hate may have been too strong a word. That’s why I changed it to vitriol.
The language you use is polarizing. This is very common. It’s worth noting that those who wish to control us want polarization and division. While we’re fighting each other, we’re not paying attention to them.
I have two suggestions for you. Do with them what you will.
Firstly, ask yourself if you think the inflammatory language you use is the best way to convince or convert someone who might have different, even opposing views about Trump? (Newton’s 3rd law, and all that)
You have said that Harris is just as bad, but you spend little time on what she says or does.
So secondly, ask yourself why you focus on Trump? As Jessica Luxmoore says, both modern and ancient texts urge us to know ourselves.
Thank you. The reason that on this substack account (charles’ account) I focus more on the profound life-destroying criminality of pro-empire pro-Genocide pro-Wall St mass-murderer WarMonger trump (or more accurately, the criminality of the DeepState billionaires who brought this grade-B ACTOR to the white house, by creating the manipulative Qanon/MAGA deception that sells to well-intentioned but gullible and misinformed people the false story that he is an “anti-elite rebel” when he is in fact THE POLAR OPPOSITE of that, as his actual actions during his presidency show), the reason I focus more on that here rather than on Harris’ criminality, is because I am writing this on a substack account that is promoting him for presidency (charles literally works for rfk who tells people nonstop 24/7 to vote for trump). When I am dealing with deceived Harris supporters then in those environments I show them in full (just like I did here for trump) the criminality of their candidate and how the DNC is largely a right-wing capitalist organization, by the billiionaire ruling class for the billonaire ruling class.
In my interactions with some deceived die-hard liberals (who actually believe the zionist pro-billionaire propgandists on CNN/MSNBC/WashPost/NYTimes) they constantly call me a trump supporter because i show them what a pro-billionaire right-wing capitalist poison their candidate is and the DNC is.
So i find it profoundly ironic that you seem to accuse me of pro-Harris bias while they accuse me of pro-trump bias.. it’s hilarious really.
But it’s totally understandable that this is how people think (that whoever shows the poison of their chosen candidate and how they’ve been deceived by the billionaires’ propaganda - that portrays their candidate as the one to save us from the elite - that that critical person must therefore be supportive of the empire’s other candidate/puppet).
It is understandable when one is cognizant of how the capitalist NeoCon billionaire ruling class have divided americans (and much of the west) almost evenly into two haves, enclose each half in their own sectarian echo-chamber where we’re bombarded with false narratives to make us hate the other half and pit us against the other half, and then provide a FALSE MESSIAH candidate for each half, a false messiah who pretends to be the one who will save that half from the evil of the other half, when IN REALITY what happens is that support for EITHER of the empire’s two warmongering candidates (the pro-billionaire pro-Genocide pro-empire pro-Wall St right wing conservative capitalist or the pro-billionaire pro-Genocide pro-Wall St right wing liberal capitalist) leads to the EXACT SAME PLACE - the hierarchical domination of the few over the many; the funneling of the wealth we create upwards to enrich the ultra-rich (which allows them to completely dominate the political process and the flow of information on the planet); The financing and arming of a mass-murdering global capitalist militarized empire of greed plunder domination mass-murder torture abuse brutality trauma and control (again, to enrich the ultra-rich and ensure their global domination ove the llanet’s resources and the squashing of anything that deviates from the profit-over-people american economic model); Treating the have-nots lile dirt and squeezimg as much as possible out of us; Hijacking and neutralizing our intense desire for change and funneling it right back into the empire’s duopoly by encouraging us to express our anti-elite sentiment through a FAKE POPULIST and a FALSE MESSIAH who promotes the ruling class interests and makes sure that no real change will happen and that the billionaires’ domination isn’t threatened (which are precisely the things he did as president. Exactly like the FALSE MESSIAH Obama did before him).
I’m sorry but I don’t know how to say it any clearer than this. HARRIS IS A RIGHT-WING PRO RULING CLASS CAPITALIST POISON!!! TRUMP IS A RIGHT- WING PRO RULING CLASS CAPITALIST POISON!!!
How can I be any clearer than this? I mean, just look at my handle name!! Please just look at the first three notes/posts shared on my page and you’ll hopefully understand where i am coming from. I really don’t know how can I be any more clear than that..
I speak more about warmongerer trump in the comment section of Charles’ substack becasue it seems that many readers on this substack account have fallen for the Qanon/MAGA deception and have been funnelled into voting for trump (as rfk jr tells them nonstop to do). That's why i focus on that in the comment section of this specific substack account. When i speak to deceived Harris supporters I show them the poison of their candidate in exactly the same way.
However, unlike trump supporters, most liberals seem to know that their candidate is pretty bad and just view her as the lesser of two evils. Most liberals are not very enthusiastic about her, they just reluctantly support her becasue they think trump is even worse (they’re wrong, they’re both equally right-wing capitalist poison, equally pro-billionaire pro-Genocide pro-NeoCon Zionists pro-Wall St pro Big-Pharma pro Big Oil pro the war profiteering industry and equally working to ensure the domination of the capitalist billionaire ruling class over the planet). However, this lack of enthusiam and seeing that one’s candidate is pretty bad is not the case with most trump supporters, from what i see, becasue most trump supporters are much less critical of their candidate/messiah and do actually fall hook line and sinker for the Qanon/MAGA deception and do truly believe that he is an “anti-elite rebel who is here to free the little guy from the deepstate” and are therefore much more devoted to him as their candidate (than liberals are to harris).
That’s another reason why there is a much greater need to focus on dispelling the trump deception and showing people the actual facts of who this ConMan actor actually is and what he works for, because many more people (especially on this substack and in the conservative echo-chamber) have fallen for the trump deception than the other way around (hardly anyone among harris supporters has the same grand delusions about harris, in the way that there are massive delusions about trump among his supporters).
Of course the billionaoire’s empire has a whole host of other deceptions for the liberal half of the population, but most people here on this substack account have already seen through this. When i speak with die-hard liberals who actually fully believe the mainstream corporate narrative (and there aren’t that many of these anymore) then i focus on dispelling with them the myths that the ruling class has ready for their echo-chamber. But this isn’t the crowd on this substack account and that is why i am not focusing on these deceptions (intended for harris supporters) on this substack account but more on the trump deception, which is many many orders of magnitude more dominant and prevalent in these circles here
Of course it is not ultimately about either trump or harris, they’te both grade-b ACTORS doing the bidding of the capitalist billionaire ruling class and creating (along with the liberal and conservative medias) the desired division of the 99% into two halves who are pitted against each other and emotionally invested in the two puppets provided for us by the ruling class so that we don’t notice that they both work for the same people, the same Godless capitalist billionaire ruling class and their global militarized empire who are tightening the noose around our neck, while we are busy cheering for (or terrified by) the FALSE MESSIAHS they provide for us..
I hope this answers your question as for why i focus more on trunp’s criminality in this specific environment (and as I hope is clear by now that I am absolutely NOT a harris supporter. Not in a million years. She's just as terrible as ConMan WarMonger trump, as I've said over and over and over again)
As for the language I used to describe the humanity-dividing WarMonger trump and his DeepState billionaire abusive scum who brought him to power, I’ll consider your words of caution, though in my view, being kind to the billionaire abusers murderers oppresors (and the puppet candidates they provide for us) who do everything in their power to deceive, control, murder and enslave humanity (to ensure their domination over us) is not really top priority right now, in my view, and in fact can be counter-productive and a form of suppression of (jutified) anger at our abusers. If anything, i think the language i use to describe these criminal ruling class oppressors is pretty tame. I think they deserve all the scorn and contempt and anger that we can muster, just like the anger directed at any malicious rapist or child abuser, because the ruling class are much much worse than these.
Yes, there is room for compassion for the abusers, yes definitely, but only AFTER they have been removed from power and ceased abusing. We’re still very far from that stage, we first need to remove the abusers from power, and in order to accomplish that task, i don’t think that suppression of anger and policing of language is very helpful, becasue it can deplete us of the energy required to stand up to abuse, to stand up to a global empire of controlling violent HIERARCHICAL anti-egalitatian narcissists who view us as inferior and not as worthy as they are.
Wanted to add another small side note but space is finished here, so I will do that in the comment below this one. Please see below.
To xxx, this is part two of the reply above.
That’s not the main point, but just wanted to add a small side note, that in my view, besides his numerous murderous crimes against life, ConMan ACTOR trump also has another distinctive harmful personal feature (which wasn’t present in previous false messiahs) which is that besides all the profound harm that his policies have done, trump’s personality is also injured and immature in the extreme. Profoundly psychologically-undeveloped, infantile and narcissist, with an emotional maturity level of a 4 year old (among numerous other examples, just look at the sham abusive loveless “marriages” he has with the trophy wives that he constantly buys off of the playboy catalogue, and replaces with another trophy wife when they get too wrinkled). We’re dealing here with not only a bully, buffoon and ConMan ACTOR who has been deeply immersed in organized crime networks his enitire life (i can give sources for that if you’re interested) and who is sold to conservatives as what he is not, but we are also dealing with the absolute lowest level of human psychological development. THE LOWEST OF THE LOW. a profoundly wounded man-boy who views relationships and human beings as buy and sell transactions, who has been abused from a very young age (as was his brother, who took to drinking because of the severe abuse they experienced by their father in childhood), and who probabaly never experienced a single moment of true love his entire life. He’s the kind of wounded abusive immature loveless narcissist jerk who shouldn’t be allowed to run the neighborhood post office in Duluth Minnesota, let alone be put in charge of the biggest and most powerful militarized empire in the history of mankind..
If I came across someone identical to trump in a social event, that's the kind of person I would stay as far away from as possible, because he's not just an immature jerk, but an extremely dangerous abusive narcessist psychologically-wounded jerk who has no qualms about using others and causing harm to human beings to benefit himself and his image.
If the NeoCon zionist billionaires didn’t bring him to prominance, didn’t pick this grade-b actor to be the horse on which they ride into the white house (by constructing the Qanon/MAGA deception around him and selling him to well-intentioned but gullible and deceived conservatives as ‘anti-elite rebel’), if it wasn’t for that, ConMan trump would still be doing what he was doing before he was picked to be their horse, he would still be banging prostitues in vegas (and occasionally raping underage girls), would still be buying trophy wives off of the playboy catalogue, and he would still be begging billionaires to bail him out after he has driven his bussinesses to bankrupcy (which he did several times) and squanders the enormous wealth he was given at birth.
Again, that’s not the main point here, but besides all of his criminal life-destroying pro-billionaire pro-Genocide WarMongerin humanity-dividinh policies, i’d be amiss if i didn’t also mention what kind of wounded infantile undeveloped immature jerk we are dealing with here
Qanon? I don't think any serious dissident trusts Qanon. That's more something that the left uses as an insult. I know it's a real thing, and some people may still be like, "trust the plan!", and looking at whatever Q is, but, MAHA is Not Qanon.
It's something used to discredit anyone not on the left.
It's not about Trump himself as much as the people around him, some who are only there because the Dem side is so corrupt, pharma captured, about mandates and censorship.
This is MAHA ~ https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/sen-johnson-roundtable-american-health-and-nutrition-a-second-opinion/
Thorough, clear, knowledgeable, wise. The opposite of the vague "trust the plan" sounding Qanon ...
Thank you again Ellen. I hear your and fully understand your concern. Two things. First of all, Qanon was clearly not the focus of my comment, so before anything else I would humbly and respectfully invite you to read slowly and in earnest (meaning, without ideological filters that paint and distort perception) what was ACTUALLY pointed out in my comment. I respectfully request that we please NOT shift the focus of my comment to a minor side issue in order to avoid dealing with the main points of my comment.
Having said that, I am willing to oblige you and explain this minor side point, I only ask that we remember that this is NOT the main point of my comment, so please don't use my willingness to engage with you on this minor point as a way to shift the focus away from what my comment is all about.
Okay, so if that is understood then I'll be happy to oblige and let us explore this minor point together. The reason i mentioned the mossad-created Qanon deception (which - in the usual zionist mode of operation of lies deceptions and emotional-manipulations to get their guy into the white house - sells to uninformed people the manipulative fairytale according to which trump arrived on the scene to save the little guy from the DeepState and fight the elite), the reason i mentioned it (in passing, NOT as the main point of my comment) is because this is the fairytale that every MAGA follower that I've ever interacted with claims to believe in, whether they call it Qanon or not, the story that his devout followers gave to me for why support him is the same as this Qanon fairytale, whether they call it Qanon or not.
I agree that it is a false and profoundly deceptive story, but unfortunately every MAGA devotee that I've ever interacted with believes in it.
You might not like the name Qanon, you can drop that name if you prefer, the name doesn't matter at all; what matters is the gist of the deceptive Qanon marketing ploy (that says that trump arrived in order to help the little guy against the elite) this gist is what every MAGA follower I've met actually believes in - whether they call it Qanon or not - and that is the manipulative story that this pro-billionaire pro-M.I.C pro-NeoCon pro-empire mass-murdering infantile narcissist creep and his DeepState zionist billionaire tyrants are riding on, all the way to the white house...
This is the fairytale that every MAGA follower i've interacted with believes in, despite the OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that contradicts this fairytale, which I detailed in my original comment and with additional details in my reply to Glenn below (please do read those, if you still haven't) and I have a lot more evidence to give, if interested, besides what was already detailed. When i ask people why they support this pro-billionaire pro-Genocide pro-Wall St pro-M.I.C pro-NeoCon pro-Big Pharma Capitalists pro-tribalist (religious/nationalist) division of humanity, pro-neo nazi zionist supremacists torturers thieves child-abusers, pro-the global capitalist murder machine to ensure the enrichment domination of the few over the many, to enrich theii hierarchical poistion at the top of rje pyramid over humanity; pro- the removal of all worker protections to allow his right wing billionaire predator pals to abuse and squeeze out as much as they possibly can from workers and the poor for their own enrichment; pro the filling of our food, water, air and soil with toxins (the removal of regulations that put a limit on how much his tyrant billionaire pals can pollute, for the easy profit of his billionaire buddies and for the devastation of life on earth)
when i ask why they suppprt this psychologocally-undeveloped, tribalist hate pushing, emotionally-stunted, infantile bully narcissist with a relational maturity level of a 4 year old (who buys trophy wives off of the playboy catalogue, and has a sham abusive loveless "marriage" with them until they get wrinkled and are replaced with the next bought trophy wife.. a very very sick and wounded heart-divorced man who seem to have never experienced a single moment of real love in his entire life and who urgently needs help, healing and compassion), when i ask his believers why they support this wounded infantile undeveloped narcissist objectifying creep and his pathetic collection of trophy "wives", then this story (the Qanon deception, whether it is named Qanon or not) is literally the number one reason that his followers have told me for why they support this scumbag.
Without this deception and marketing ploy (created by God-ignorant right-wing supremacist zionist-conservative billionaire tyrants, arms dealers and war profiteeres to get their b-level hollywood ACTOR into the white house) without this marketinv ploy, trump simply wouldn't be here, without this massive deception to present this ConMan as what he is not, trump would still be spending all his time banging prostitues in vegas (and occasionally raping underage girls), buying trophy "wives" off of playboy catalogue, covering his toilet seats in gold in his mansions and begging for bailout from his billionaire backers whenever this creepy buffoon drove his business into bankruptcy (which he did several times) and squanders the enormous wealth given to him at birth.
This manipulative Qanon fairytale, that says that this infantile creep arrived on the scene because he wants to fight the deepstate for the little guy, is by far the most common response that i get from MAGA devotees to explain their support for this Godless mass-murderer infantile psychologically-undeveloped deeply-corrupt moron and his the global right-wing billionaire's murder machine (to ensure these tyrant criminals' elevation over us and domination over humanity and the planet's resources (detailed in my original comment and my reply to Glenn).
And as a quick side note, just to clarify and avoid misunderstanding, when i write "right wing" i am referreing to not just one but to BOTH wings of the global corporate-capitalist hierarchical (and militarized) billionaires' empire, i'm referring to both its GOP wing and its DNC wing. Yes, I know that one wing (DNC) has been DECEPTIVELY labelled 'the left' by the capitalist empire's propagandists on cnn/msnbc/fox/WashPost/NYTimes etc (even though the left has been erased from existence a long time ago already - its erasure and replacement started around the mid seventies as the ruling class' backlash against the peace uprisings of the sixties that very nearly toppled from power the capitalist billionaires' global war and domination machine and scared the hell out of oir abusove ruling class. The left's erasure and replacement was a done deal already by the mid eighties, definitely by the time that puppet clinton was introduced, the left was already thoroughly replaced by the right-wing capitalist scum in the dnc who do everything in their power to destroy the left, and ensure the enrichment domination of billionaire corporate-capitalists over the planet, and yet ironically these same right-wing dnc imperialists are deceptively labelled 'the left' by the empire's propagandists on cnn/msnbc/fox etc in order to create the appearance as if americans still have a choice between left and right and not realize that we are actually living in a one-party state, the one big corporate-capitalist war party (with its two wings alternating every few years to give the illusion of choice and change between two distinct options, when IN REALITY bothctje GOP puppet and tje DNC puppet in tje white house continue 99% of tje policies of their predecessor from the other party - just like biden continued 99% of trump's policies and trump continued 99% of obama's policies who vontinued 99% of bush's policies etc etc. The only thing that changes is the STORIES sold to the public about the puppet president, the policies are nearly identical regardless of which puppet is in tne white house, trump, obama, biden, bush.. the policies always remain the nearly identical, to promote the domination interests of the globe-spanning corporate-capitalist american empire and its global murder machine, to ensure thw domination of the few ultra-rich over tje many). In my reply to Jerry I elaborated how the empire keeps this racket going, and how it provides FLASE MESSIAH every few years who are dressed as "anti-elite rebel" (like obama or trump) to hijack our intense desire for change, funnel our anger and rebelling impulse into their fake-change ConMan and thus ensure that no change happens and the empire continues with its global abuse to ensure the enrichment and domination of the ultra-rich over the many (see trump's presidency for example)
A similar process has happened in UK and Germany and much of europe, by the way. Where Labour or SPÖ etc are very clearly right-wing capitalist warmongering parties, by the billionaire corporate-capitalists for the billionaire corporate-capitalists, and yet are deceptively labelled as 'the left' in the capitalist billionaire's propaganda and disinformation media (it's nice isn't it? When you get to own both parties and also get to own the media that tells the people that you don't own both parties and that they have real agency and choice..).. anyway, this is a vast subject in its own right that can easily fill up a whole book if i'd start going into it here, but right now i just wanted to make a quick side note here just to clarify the words used.. :-)
And one more quick clarification of definitions, when i write 'capitalist' and the capitalist domination of government and of humanity, i'm refering to the original meaning of that word, as detailed for example here by one of the world's most brilliant economists: https://www.pdrboston.org/capitalism
Space finished here, so please see continued in the reply below this one
Part2 (continued from above)
The trump deception (which can also be called the conservative GREAT INVERSION or FLASE AWAKENING) is yet another example of how the ruling class capitalist tyrants stay ahead of the curve (to make sure that real change doesn't happen and that their power over society isn't threatened) by providing us with a vision of "hope and change" to cheer for, to make sure that our desire for real change (and the possibility of unseating them from power over us) is NEUTRALIZED and doesn't amount to any real change.
This do this by anticipating our anger and demand for change, hijacking it and funneling it right back into the empire's duopoly, by providing us with FALSE MESSIAHS to rally behind, false messiahs who keep the status quo in place, who cement the hierarchical anti-egalitarian class nature of society - the domination of the few ultra-rich over the many (all while telling us that we're 'fighting the elite' by cheering for their billionaire FALSE MESSIAH and that this is the way to change things, by rallying behind their marketing ploy, their FALSE MESSIAH. They tell us that that this the way to bring about "the energy of love", that "this is what awakening looks like".
There are just no limits to the level of cynical deception that the billionaire tyrants in power are capable of. People just find it hard to grasp that the fascist billionaires in power - especially clever&cunning zionist billionaires - have NO QUALMS WHATSORVER about lying and deceiving to get their way, and will use absolutely any narrative whatsoever - including the narrative of love and awakening - to make sure that our change impulse is HIJACKED, neutralized and funnelled into their provided narrative that teaches us (through their paid narrative managers and social media influencers) that change will come through their FALSE MESSIAH they provide for us to funnel our change-energy into, a false messiah who IN REALITY maintains the hierarchical domination of the few ultra-rich over the many and EXPANDS their global capitalist militarized empire of greed, mass-murder, control, bullying, theft, and economic-military domination (all actions that Godless anti-life ConMan ACTOR trump did during his presidency)
The billionaire capitalists and their global militarized empire don't care if you cheer for their democrat false messiah (like obama) or their republican false messiah (like trump) as long as you cheer for one of them, as long as your rebellious change energy is HIJACKED and funneled into one of the two options the empire gives you (who both lead to the exact same place, the same hierarchical anti-egalitarian domination of the few billionaire capitalists over the many)
The billionaire capitalists don't care how you arrive into the empire's fold, if it's through the GOP route or the DNC route, as long as you actually believe the hollywood script that their professional actor FALSE MESSIAH is here to bring "change and hope" and 'make america great again' and help us "fight the elite", as long they can hijack and funnel your desire for change into him..
To learn a little more about the way the right-wing capitalist billionaires play this trick on americans, I highly recommend these pieces (with full citacions)
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/both-trumpism-and-anti-trumpism-are
And here https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/the-billionaire-class-is-no-more
And here
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/trump-minus-narrative-equals-bushbama-84a363947536
Lastly, you mentioned only dems being captured by big pharma (and i agree that they are, but not only them), so i wanted to share with you an interesting thread i saw a few days ago:
Ron Unz (of the Unz Report') researched the available evidence for more than a year and wrote extensively, with a vast amount of documentation, about how covid 19 was an attack by US conservatives (and zionists) on primarily China and secondarily Iran.
It is all documented in his free e-book here https://www.unz.com/ebook/covid-catastrophe-ebook/
A few brief points (in no way representitive of the vast amount of facts he documented. The ebook is invaluable)
Over the decades US "national security" apparatus has spent over $100 billion to create the world’s largest biowarfare capability, which american capitalists and conservatives viewed as one of the greatest weapons they have to disrupt and destroy the economies of "the enemy".
In 2017 trump brings into his administration the rabid warhawk, Big Pharma executive and NeoConservative Robert Kadlec, who had been America’s leading leading advocate for conducting biowarfare on china since the early 2000s (this is in addition to other Deep State NeoCons extreme biowarfare warhawk lunatics which trump filled his administration with and put in positions of enormous power. See ebook for details)
In 2018 and 2019 "mysterious" viral epidemics devastate China’s poultry and pork industries, causing SEVERE damage to China’s food supply, which is strangely enough EXACTLY as NeoConservative Robert Kadlec had advocated for more than a decade that US should do (only difference is that from 2017 onwards this short-sighted psychopath was actually given by trump the power to implement his hate-filled sectarian conservative ideation)
From January to August 2019 Kadlec initiates and runs the Federal&State “Crimson Contagion” exercise in which US government officials practice their strategies of responss in the case of infection by a hypothetical dangerous respiratory corona virus that "suddenly might appear in China".. (that is the actual wording used to justify the exercise)
Late October 2019, 300 American military men visit Wuhan to participate in the "World Military Games"
Late October 2019, right after the games, Patient Zero in Wuhan becomes infected with Covid (this has been calculated in hindsight). The virus spreads invisibly until the Chinese government discovers its presence near the end of December.
A secret November 2019 DIA report described a “potentially cataclysmic” disease outbreak in Wuhan (confirmed by four intelligence sources to ABC News), long before the Chinese even knew about the existence of the virus.
Israeli TV confirms that the Israeli military received that US intelligence report, which had been produced “in the second week of November”. Again, long before the Chinese even knew about the existence of the virus in China, the conservatives & zionists in US and Israel already knew all about it..
Early January 2020, at the orders of the NeoCon Zionists who completely dominate his administration, Trump assassinates general Soleimani, Iran’s top military leader (equivalent to assansinating the american head of the joint chief of staff) while he was on his way to consultations in Iraq on the fight against ISIS (a western proxy organized, funded and armed by the US -Israel).
Mid January 2020, the virus affecting China suddenly jumps 3,500 miles across multiple untouched countries to the Holy City of Qom, Iran, infecting Iran’s top political elites, with a large number of them dying as a consequence. By February, Iran has become the second global epicenter of the Covid outbreak.. Unz shows that the same NeoCons who trump appointed to his admin who demanded that trump assasinate Soleimani, are from the same NeoCon think-tanks who also were responsible for the virus biological attack on Iran a few weeks after the assassination.
Early March 2020, Iran's Gov't publicly accuses US of launching a biowarfare attack with Covid against Iran & China, including a formal complaint to the UN. Virtually no Western media reports those accusations, a complete media blackout in the west on this story, so almost no westerners are aware of those accusations and of the formal complaints put forth
See for example here:
https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-truth-and-the-whole-truth-on-the-origins-of-covid-19/
And here https://www.unz.com/runz/the-covid-bioweapon-made-in-the-usa-aimed-at-china/
And here https://geopoliticsandempire.com/2022/02/03/ron-unz-covid-19-bioweapon/
And here https://www.unz.com/announcement/breaking-the-silence-on-the-origins-of-covid-19/
what do you know to be true?
I'm not sure I understand your question. I wrote in my comment exactly what I know to be true. Did you read the comment? I know there is a lot of information there, and I understand that this is especially new information for those who fell into the trap of the Qanon/MAGA deception (which sells to well-intentiomed but uninformed and gullible people the story that says that trump (the anti-life mass-murdering pro-billionaire pro-Wall St pro-M.I.C pro-Big Pharma pro-genocide pro-NeoCon pro-War profiteering industry ConMan, who is a representative of the ruling class billionaire abusers and of their global militarized empire of greed, domination, murder, theft and control) paints this pro-empire pro domination of tje few over the many narcissist abusive billionaire ConMan scumbag as if he is an anti-elite rebel who came to help the little guy fight the deep state.
And in my comment I gave mountains of evidence and full details and explanations that show as clearly as possible who this pro-billionaire anti-life DeepState murderer actually is (not exceptionally evil nor exceptionally righteous but just your usual pro-billionaire pro-empire mass-murdring right-wing american president who, like all right wing presidents before and after him (liberal or conservative) , is here to implement the anti-life tenets of hierarchical anti-egalitarian Godless right-wing capitalist ideology - to enrich-the ultra-rich, to ensure the domination of the few (his billionaire backers) over the many, to cement the control of the global right-wing capitalist american militarized billionaires' empire over the planet's resources and over humanity, to ensure their dollar's supremacy, and finally (by pretending to be anti-elite when he's anything but that) to ensure that our intense desire for change is hijacked, is funnelled into a FALSE MESSIAH, is neutralized and doesn't amount to any real change (which is precisely the things he did during his presidency, as I showed in my comment above.
And in fact, in that comment I barely scratched the surface on his crimes against the people, I had plenty more details to give besides what I wrote there, but I had to stop short because of the limits on the space available for a comment).
In my comment I also showed the profound falsity of the claim that says that the anti-life right-wing global militarized murder machine of ConMan trump and his backers the deep state billionaire abusers & predators, is a good choice simply becasue of how awful and right-wing and pro-billionaires the DNC are.. (which is pretty much what most of those who were tricked by the mossad-created Qanon/MAGA deception have been taught to believe.. that becasie the dnc are awful then that meams trump is good )
So I highly recommend reading my comment above slowly and attentively to take in all the unfamiliar information and perspective, becasue this is NOT the usual DNC-or-GOP perspective that you'll hear in the dumbed-down and heavily propagandinzed american political discourse (which says that if the dnc are awful right-wing pro-capitalist billionaires then that must mean that the anti-life Godless right-wing billionaire thieves and mass-murderers of the greedy infantile anti-egaitarian DeepState trump must be the solution then).
This is NOT this kind of deceived blindness that thinks that one of the two puppets of the life-destroying global capitalist american billionaires' empire (the biggest hierarchical anti-egalitarian warmongering greedy bullying murderous evil that exists on this planet) is a good option..
They're both absolutely the WORST option that is possible for life on earth, they're both completely right-wing pro billionaires and pro-the billionakres' global capitalist empire, and they're both are here to do what every right-wing american president (liberal or conservative) has always done, which is also exactly what trump did during his presodency - enriching the ultra-rich, cementing the domination of american capitalist billionaores over the planet's resources and (in the case of trump or obama) give us a FALSE MESSIAH who will hijack and neutralized our desite for change (by funnellng it into support for a FALSE MESSIAH) and make sure that the domination of the few ultra-rich over the many isn't threatened.
The trick that the right-wing capitalist billionaire ruling class play on americans, is that every few years they give you a FALSE MESSIAH (like obama or trump) who pretends to be the one who will unseat the evil elite (presented as the other party of course) and help the little guy. Both these ConMen are here to make sure that our intemse desire for change is hijacked and doesn't amount to any real change.
This is how the empire keep alternating americans between one or the other of its two parties (the liberal half or the conservatove half of the one big corporate capoitalist party that rules america and much of the planet), keep americans believing that they can achieve chamge and freedom from the abuse and domination of the few ultra-rich over the many by choosing one or the other of the two options that the billionaire's empire (and their media) allow us to choose between. This is how americans have been played for decades and decades and we still keep falling for the billionaore's deceptions (and be very emotionally invested in tne false messiah they present to us as an "anti-elite rebel") again and again and again, we never seem to learn..
If interested, you can learn more about how they play this trick on us in the following insightful and brilliant posts (which include full citations of sources)
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/both-trumpism-and-anti-trumpism-are
And here https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/the-billionaire-class-is-no-more
And here
https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/trump-minus-narrative-equals-bushbama-84a363947536
And here
https://www.pdrboston.org/oppressors-need-bogeyman-enemies
To learn even more at depth about the M.I.C war-profiteering ruling class oligarch deep-state networks that brought trump into power (of Wall St conservative billionaire military contractors, of mass-murderering right-wing arms dealers, of silicon valley surveillance capitalists, of pedophile blackmail networks run by supremacist zionist tribalists (far more than just their epstein operation), and of ultra-wealthy God-ignorant evangelical religious fundamentalists) then please see
https://www.exposetheenemy.com/deep-politics-and-trump
and here https://www.exposetheenemy.com/trump-war-the-pentagon-and-the-conservativeestablishment
and here https://web.archive.org/web/20190720130650/https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/tomdispatch-trump-military-foreign-affairs/
and here https://odysee.com/@ExposeTheEnemy:b/america-first-from-wall-street-to-the:a?lid=95a34b649ac72026c32466c45591322426c77cf1
and here https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9e/c5/93/9ec59307f55ea5fabf59dbbdd7abb43a.png
And regarding ConMan vance, here's a full breakdown of who this deceiver actually is and who are the deep state adrenochrome-drinking billionaire scumbag abusers (the enemies of the humanity) that are fully funding vance (as well as trump), and brought him to this position.
Please don't miss this research essay. https://miri.substack.com/p/america-the-movie-screenplay-by-jd?
And especially here https://unlimitedhangout.com/2024/07/investigative-reports/the-man-behind-trumps-vp-pick-its-worse-than-you-think/
And here
https://plagueonbothhouses.substack.com/p/friends-romans-countrymen-lend-me?
And here https://youtu.be/sGySygy0LWs?si=n6u28vsLzazo_gdS
And regarding what alternative is there to the billionaire's anti-life right-wing capitalist empire and its two puppets (the domination of the few ultra-rich over the many, whether led by a liberal or a conservative puppet) here are a couple of example of what can actually be done (first why and then how)
https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/why-have-no-rich-and-no-poor?
And
https://www.pdrboston.org/how-we-can-remove-the-rich-from-power
And https://www.pdrboston.org/let-s-get-organized
And https://www.pdrboston.org/egalitarianism
And https://www.pdrboston.org/mr-billionaire See what a debate with Mr. Right-Wing Capitalist Billionaire (conservative or liberal) looks like
I wouldn't coin the term 'vaccine paranoia' to describe people's opposition to that particular medical intervention that was pushed on people globally. I think anyone ignorantly accepting this injection pushed so fiercely and aggressively by governments were simply not doing their due diligence and research.
Well said
"Evidence-based thinking" in that last article, seriously? The Covid vaccines have indeed caused extreme mortality and morbidity which a multitude of scientists and doctors are speaking out about.
Just from this week how the vaxxed are faring so much worse w Covid wrt cardiac outcomes https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39244425/
Or how about this as something you should have been far more 'paranoid' about - this is a direct route to cancer.
https://t.co/KgTXa3YCqE
If you understood what is going on with the vaccines, with the bioweapon that was the excuse for the vaccines or with much of what is happening (you know the actual conspiracies), you'd appreciate how nuanced Charles' takes are
https://t.co/KgTXa3YCqE
I was a fan of Brand because he was funny and trying to cross-dialogue, a fan of Jem Bendell for his read on the climate science and a fan of Eisenstein through Bendell. I think I saw everyone go down conspiracy rabbit holes during Covid, while ignoring the very real and severe threats to POC, women and the LGBTQ+ community coming from Trump/MAGA and the Christian Right. My analysis was that white men suddenly had their freedoms truncated (wear a mask, do not travel!) and this was too much for them (when has this ever happened?), even if for the common good. It then could not have been for the common good (since THEY were FOR the common good) and so it must have been a malicious plot. It is wearying--exhausting--to try to point out to white men what MAGA is. My other theory is that there are super charged clicks and hits and $$$ to be earned from jumping on the conspiracy bandwagons, from the fossil fuel industry and from Russia, etc. etc. ... I am tired and I am going to focus on getting Harris elected. I am interested in what you have written, however, and will try to remember to send an email. I am also baffled and discouraged and depressed.
I read your latest post and was so grateful. I am not in a position to become a paying subscriber at the moment, but I will continue to read with interest as you try and unpack this. I also read the comments section and LOVE the community of thoughtful people that you're bringing together. I have been wondering about this for quite a while, and have not been able to crack the nut. I have been a fan of Brand's for many years (which is very uncharacteristic of me; I really think he's the only person about whom I've actually and legitimately called myself a "fan," even jokingly), and simply do not see the logic. FWIW, I do sense that there is some truth in the suggestion that it really does have something to do with ego. Not entirely, but it's there. In a culture that celebrates brilliance — and RB is undoubtedly brilliant — that brilliance needs somewhere to go, to see itself reflected and hear itself. It can't just fester in its own broth, it must be applied to something. If the left project starts to become untenable for a variety of reasons, and if the person has done a ton of spiritual work, then maybe there is just enough mental flexibility to do the contortions and make the "free speech" "individual liberty" persona stick, even if it means overlooking the very real ways that the biggest mouthpieces for such ideals, at the moment, drag a Santa's sleigh full of destructive behaviors along with them. It's a clean argument "free speech!" rather than the muddy Democratic vision, full of seemingly unresolvable contradictions.
My entire question, at this point, can be boiled down to: What is the proper role of government? A totally deregulated free-market society gives us self-audited Boeing planes falling out of the sky and rivers on fire. But government overreach, over-regulation is also a real thing. It's a conundrum, that's for sure. I wish I could take comfort in religion and Trump the way they seem to; sounds much easier, frankly.
maybe de-government regulation would make better sense. We dont need the government to do things right. See how this has failed?
Deregulation is what corporate America want. It's why Trump is going to scrap all environmental regulation in return for fhe oil money he's received.
Hmmm, not really. I definitely believe that there is much room for regulatory reform, but I think deregulation is not a good idea. See my example (or maybe it was in a different comment) about planes. I, for one, do not want to walk onto a plane that has been self-evaluated for safety and compliance by the very people who stand to gain the most by cutting corners. That, to me, is insane. Just an example. I also see the point where overburdensome regulations stifle any sort of progress and bury projects in paperwork, which is also untenable. But the swift decapitation of all regulations seems, to me, like a recipe for setting rivers on fire.
I will read asap - curious to hear your thoughts. Thank you!
Such a pathetic cry for readers! How about saying something of interest right here, right now?
Hi Daniel, I'd like to respond better than I have time to now, after taking time with your articles, but for now, reposting what I wrote in response to a good question, someone asked why I don't think a Trump admin would be equally corrupt to a Democrat one. (And I'm from the left, I never thought I'd be voting Trump, but, here we are.)
(And the vaccine risk awareness was not paranoia at all. https://merylnass.substack.com/p/2-quite-useful-data-collections?utm_source=publication-search
(OK, there may be paranoia within aspects of the medical freedom movement, the next-level things about tech in the vaccines and stuff I don't pay attention to, because no one I follow who has been unpacking the vaccine dangers sees enough evidence to go next-level, so they stick with what's above the surface, of course not in the media, but easy to find if follow honest, thorough sources, and that's not paranoia, it's obvious and easy to prove about how the covid vaccines are disasters, and No vaccines are well tested with honest, adequate science. That conversation is not paranoia at all.) ( https://merylnass.substack.com/p/2-quite-useful-data-collections?utm_source=publication-search )
Highly recommend reading The Midwestern Doctor for meticulously sourced info about medical gaslighting, vaccine harms, other health topics ~ https://midwesterndoctor.com/
If anything, the paranoia was around actually safe medicines that could have helped treat early, probably have driven the pathogen off the planet, definitely saved a lot of lives and meant less long covid (not necessarily no long covid, but less. And the doctors who treat both LC and vax injury say their vax injured patients have a much harder time healing)
This was some of the lies we were told at the beginning of covid ~ https://merylnass.substack.com/p/how-a-false-hydroxychloroquine-narrative-23d
~~ Reposting comment below. Wish had time to share more, I'll read your articles and be in touch, hope to continue the conversation ...
I also come from the left and never thought I'd consider voting Trump, until now. It's much bigger than him .. on both sides, I see a huge difference in the people around the candidates.
The damage done by whatever blob sees free speech - especially true speech, and honest doctors, as its enemy, and just tried to inject the entire world with the genetic code for spike protein, forcing as much as they could get away with, and is trying to tag and track all of us - proof of this is in plain site in 2024 - and exists by infinite wars, is far worse than anything I think Trump and those around him would do.
To be clear, to be not as bad as locking in medical, digital, informational tyranny while gaslighting compassion and protection, is a very low bar. I think that Trump is not-as-bad as the Dems. But I think the people aligning with the side that's not-the-Dems are way better than lesser evil, I think these are some of the wisest people alive today. (Kennedy, Calley and Dr Casey Means, Bret Weinstein, Tulsi Gabbard ... )
It's not about looking at Trump with naive admiration, it's about looking at what the Dems and the global blob they're part of have Already Done, and are Doing Right Now with their other puppets, in countries with less protections than the US. (Canada, the UK, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Germany, the EU ... )
The blob the Dems are part of is all about censorship (mostly of truth), the corruption of medicine, mandates for medical products known to be seriously unsafe at the time they were mandated, as well as incapable of stopping infection / transmission, abuse of digital control. The tyranny of the global blob that wants endless wars, and knows that the current version of the Democratic Party would serve the interests of neocons like Dick Cheney better than a Trump admin.
The pesky first amendment, which Democrats have no respect for, makes it harder to do here what they're already doing in the UK, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Canada, etc.
I don't see Trump as wanting to control what's said and shared online in nearly the same way as the Dems. Without access to information, the world is truly dystopian and tyrannical.
And while the people around Harris / Walz are deeply corrupt (or terrible at processing information), the people around Trump include the speakers at an amazing Senate hearing this Monday about food, nutrition, health (only two Senators were there, both Republican).
Everyone there knows that health / food / soil should not be partisan / political. But they also know that the Democrats are too close to pharma and the food industry for them to prioritize real health.
These are amazing people able and ready to help restore soil, health, and integrity to science and medicine. Some may have liked Trump all along, others are only aligning with him because there's no other way for this wisdom to reach inside the government than in an administration that has Kennedy and Calley Means on that team.
https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/sen-johnson-roundtable-american-health-and-nutrition-a-second-opinion/ - worth a listen ...
If people on the left heard this conversation and Republican (bad!) politicians weren't part of it, and it had nothing to do with a movement that's working with the Trump campaign, if it was just a hearing about health and nutrition, say, moderated by Democrats - the left, at least the left I used to know, would be thrilled, moved to tears and gratitude and hope that what they've been trying to say for decades may finally be taken seriously.
But now, because there's association with Trump, and because the media has poisoned what anyone on the left thinks of all politicians on the right, because even Ron Johnson's name is poison to my Mom and other liberal sponges, most liberals can't see the good, the amazing, hopeful, genuine, good, that is in this room, https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/sen-johnson-roundtable-american-health-and-nutrition-a-second-opinion/
Nor the good that will be in Washington DC this weekend - https://jointheresistance.org/
The accusations of the Dems being determined to limit speech to their approved narrative, and the blob they're part of doing this already across the world, I can back up with many links.
These are just a few, I don't have time to share more, but you probably know of this already, the international effort to police speech, that's based on gaslighting about protection.
https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au/p/top-covid-health-official-calls-to
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/age-assurance-as-the-trojan-horse
I could say much more, and am starting a Substack to attempt to reach through the lack of curiosity on the TDS left. I haven't yet posted, but something will be up in a week or so (apx). https://anotherbetrayedliberal.substack.com/
You ask a good question. There surely was corruption in Trump's first admin. Not the democracy - destroying dictatorship that the TDS left fears, but, there were only two non-swamp creatures in his administration that I know of, and they weren't listened to (Drs Scott Atlas and Paul Alexander).
This time with Kennedy, Tulsi, Calley Means, and others on board, I think it will be different. (Even if not, I don't see how it can be worse than the party of censorship, mandates, and neocons)
(And if Trump says to the MAHA crew after winning the election, something like, "Thank you, thank you very much for helping me win. I actually will not be giving you a job in my administration, I actually don't give a crap about the health of Americans, and we have other things to do. But, you'll get a signed picture of me, as a thank you for your help. And a hat, a very, very nice hat. Don't worry, I got this from here. I'm going to do a great job."
... If he does that - All the energy of excitement and hope that exploded when RFK, Jr walked onto the stage at Trump's rally, all that and more and his reputation among people who fill his ego, all that narcissistic supply would be drained away from Trump, probably never to return. And the media would rejoice in being able to say, "told you so! Idiots who trusted The Bad Man!".
The more they try to kill him, and relentlessly portray him as the Worst Thing Ever, the more I think he may actually let the people who know how to, like Kennedy, clear the corruption. (Mike Benz explains how the definition of "democracy" was re-done. So in this gaslit version, populists are threats to democracy - that corrupt apparatus behind the scenes, that showed its hand in censoring truth and promoting scientific fraud and moving the globe around).
Feel free to stay in touch ...
I can explain it because I am someone who began my political journey at 18 with a vote for Obama. I voted for Hillary in 2016 and was utterly sick when Trump won. I felt sure it was the end of us. I was a religious Democracy Now listener and a card carrying member of a certain kind of progressivism.
What I saw over those years though…I saw the media and the institutions form like voltron and from day one do anything possible to sabotage a presidency that our country voted for, if not all at least enough for him to win. I watched these people, those in power, clinging to power, use phony premises to try to oust him, time and time again. This went on for years. I then watched another election where dirty tactics were used. There were lies about COVID. The absolute apex of shock doctrine type economics, though this time used on us, the citizens of this country. I watched as apparent “incompetence” called into question the election. I have seen Trump compared to Hitler, to Putin, to every fill in the blank despot with really no basis in reality. Even not being a personal fan of Trump and his crassness, I could see we were being manipulated in order to restrict more of our freedoms.
I have watched Americans, not all, but many actually vote for the curtailing of their rights. We can argue about semantics of whether or not Twitter or X is a publisher or a platform or a private company and they can do what they wish, but we all can see the degradation of our freedom to think and speak freely.
At this point a vote for Trump is a vote for the discontinuation of rights abuse violations that likely predate the Patriot Act. Say what you will about Trump, the powers that be clearly do not want him elected and that tells me plenty. He is absolutely not part of the current state of affairs but an outsider. Much has been said on this.
You may not agree but to say you literally cannot see why a “free thinker” would toss their lot in with Trump at this point makes me think you could try a little harder to understand those who would.
We vote this way now because it is our BEST choice to dislodge the borg. I get that a Cornel West or a Jill Stein is more palatable but that route has NEVER worked before. Not once. Why would we risk it all on the chance it would work now?
We vote Trump because the stakes are very high and we may not get another chance. I feel absolutely comforted by the fact that RFK and Tulsi and many other well reasoned people have backed Trump. These are people I have followed for many years, whose courage I admire, who have consistently made the hard choices that alienated themselves from power when they could have done the opposite. I never thought I’d find myself here but here I am.
Hope that helps.
I'm not sure if this comment was in response to mine - I think the Substack thread-tracking mechanism is really hard to follow - but I appreciated it, regardless. In some ways, I see where you're coming from; the "left" (media, commentariat, politicians, whoever) has overplayed its hand many times. I would often read an article that made him sound like a sociopath (like when he booted a crying baby from a rally, if I'm remembering correctly) and then I'd watch the video to see how it ACTUALLY played out, and sometimes they definitely seemed to diverge.
As I wrote recently, I saw him speak in Nashville. I have had a hard time wrapping my head around the difference between what I sort of expected, based on everything I hear (frothing incoherence) and what I experienced (a guy who knows how to work a room, kinda funny, a little rambling, but definitely not perceptibly insane).
But forget how the left has treated him; he seems to be doing just fine (aside from political violence, which is not the point here). You speak of discontinuing rights abuses, presumably free speech at the top of the list. Is that the main point? I would definitely agree that curtailment of free speech is fundamentally unAmerican, but I believe that freedom can be buttressed with real pressure, that we still have extraordinarily free speech in this country, and that we can fight to preserve it without resorting to accepting eveyrthing else Trump stands for which, as far as I can see, is not much. I mean, even at the Bitcoin conference he was wooing everyone with "Bitcoin this, Bitcoin that" and now he's got his own shitcoin coming out. Really? I'd love to imagine all of the Bitcoiners waking up and fully acknowledging that someone else wrote that speech, that it was just shilling for votes, that he has no fucking clue what Bitcoin is, but I'm not holding my breath. They just want a pro-crypto atmosphere, everything else be damned. I cannot imagine how amazingly relaxing it would be to be a one-issue voter.
What does he stand for that you actually agree with? Is he credibly anti-war? The comment above (while I have not fact-checked, specifically) speaks to the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Do you think deregulation and tax breaks will clean up rivers and purify the air? I mean, do you want to get on an airplane whose safety has been verified, essentially, by the boardroom responsible for returning maximum profit to shareholders? Are you cool with the "concept of a plan" stuff for healthcare (to name a few random thoughts that come to mind)?
This is where I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall. Philosophically, I see almost nothing in Trump's positioning that leads to any positive outcomes whatsoever. It's as simple as that. Yes, he's been sort of like a punching bag for the left's deepest fears, in many ways, but in MANY of those ways, he's earned it. He's not threading any needles like RFK. He's just a giant inkblot upon which we project all of our shit. He likes being an inkblot; it works for him. I don't feel bad for him, and I certainly see zero evidence that he's going to "dislodge the borg" (a reference I had to look up, so I have no credibility there).
There are no easy answers to our problems. I think Trump offers a palatable "easy answer" that feels like it's backed up by some distant drumbeat of "natural order comes back into balance when the market takes care of itself" but I think that you have to be a world-class cherrypicker to find evidence to support that. On the other hand, I absolutely agree that the Democratic party has been abysmal in so many ways, stole the election from Bernie, lost the plot with things like defund the police, etc.
It's not just a "lesser of two evils" thing, though: I think one can be called out and shaped with pressure and work and long-term movement building (which we have not, in fact, really seen much of - even though it may have looked like it), and the other is like letting out a bull in a china shop. Sure, the bull in his natural habitat would be doing natural, nature-ey, bullish things; but if your society is modern and complicated — if your civilization has reached the point at which china shops are a thing — then bulls don't work.
I know this sounds argumentative but I really do appreciate your comment. I have been so baffled by all of this that I'm really just working out my thoughts out loud, and I apologize if it's more confrontational than I intended. I welcome your thoughts and push back, and would be happily called out for any errors or blind spots. I really need to figure this shit out.
haha I'm laughing reading you and following your back and forth thought processes - I relate! And I am open - this is not a game based on logic...
haha I'm so glad you're following and that it resonates! it is DEFINITELY not a game based on logic. That's so important to bear in mind!
So well put 🙏
No your comment is excellent. You have some points for sure!
For one thing, it’s not so much that I think Trump the man will dislodge any borgs, it’s more that he is such an interruption to the beltway insider to corporate pipeline. He truly is not one of them. Yes he has money and he’s been in business and he “makes deals” (or whatever) but he is not “one of them” and you can tell by the way he is treated. It’s not so much that I deeply support Trump but I find it striking that a cadre of people I DO trust and support have backed him. I profoundly trust RFKj and his judgment. Likewise for Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise for Bret Weinstein and his wife. It has been helpful for me to actually follow the thought process and shifts of these other people who were also total lifelong democrats.
You would be correct that my number one concern is free speech. I agree that our country is still remarkably free and thank goodness. Much of Europe is finding their leaders unaccountable to them by way of increasingly globalized governing bodies. They don’t have the same protections we do via our constitutional rights. I believe the assessment many before me have made that it was utterly intentional to put the second amendment immediately following the first. I believe it is not just a historical quirk. I think the founders realized we needed a robust and protected way to back up these rights. All to say I think there are MANY within our current regime that would “update” these inconvenient rights the first chance they get. You already have Hillary on TV advocating for criminally charging those who spread information they do not like (I believe she called it propaganda.)
To me Trump is exactly as you say: an ink blot. But I have observed he will change his mind. He will accept counsel. I am heartened by those he is surrounding himself with this go round (mostly).
He appointed the ex CEO of Exxon as Secretary of State. He has promised another tax cut for billionaires and his party will cut Medicare, increased the retirement wage, end all environmental protections and replace the EPA with MAGA and oil stooges. Already 65000 rape victims have been denied abortions including a 10 year old, an 11 year old and a 13 year old. And a mum of a six year old just died because she was denied abortions. And he talks about wanting to fuck his daughter, Ivanka https://www.ibtimes.com/12-times-donald-trump-acted-totally-inappropriately-ivanka-3068093
https://www.salon.com/2023/06/28/ex-aide-john-kelly-was-disgusted-as-wondered-what-it-might-be-like-to-have-with-ivanka/
Trump is the most pro corporate and billionaire elite president the US has ever had.
How much do you know about him? It doesn't sound like your perception is informed by his policies
Not sure how abortion is Trumps problem at this point. The court spoke and the issue is with the states.
I agree that Trump isn’t great on everything. I see reason to believe he is open to changing his mind.
I made this comment somewhere else I think but at this point it’s triage. He isn’t itching to join the global governance orgy and continue restricting our constitutional rights. It’s that simple for me. He is clearly an outsider to what has been going on in our government for years and I’d rather not keep electing the same people that brought us many wars and the patriot act.
I never said he was a good person. I never said I believe him to be some kind of moral beacon.
For me it’s as simple as he seems capable of discontinuing the current agenda.
I know enough.
And Project 2025 is a think-tank wish list. Has nothing to do with what Trump will actually do. In fact, he has said more than once he had nothing to do with it. If you look at his actual positions he’s pretty moderate by most standards.
P2025 has been written by Trump associates and is finance by the same people who finance Trump: Big Oil and evangelicals in particular.
Of course not everything will be implemented exactly as is.
But is is delusion and wishful thinking to imagine Trump will resist anything out of principle or to imagine he won't implement the worst excesses of authoritarianism. He is a natural authoritarian.
Trump is not moderate on abortion. He says women should be punished.
He is not moderate on immigration. He talks about immigrants "poisoning the blood of the nation" and plans to deport thousands including naturalised Americans.
He is an extremist when it comes to democratic process and refuses the first principle of a peaceful succession of power.
I’m curious where the information you have given me is coming from. It seems pretty different than what I’ve gathered.
The Patriot Act was GOP legislation. Project 2025 will take this further: increasing surveillance, use of military against protest, removal of LGBTQ rights. It's the biggest threat to the constitution and to US democracy there has ever been. How much do you know about it? https://youtu.be/tjjWYWcBPyw?si=9PWJREPKK56F-UBP
On abortion Trump is absolutely responsible. He stacked the court with anti-abortion judges. He boasted that ending Roe vs Wade was his doing and called it "a beautiful thing". And that women should be punished for abortions. He cut a deal with evangelical fundamentalists.
What is your reason for believing he will change? He's been described by psychiatrists and many who know him intimately as a malignant narcissist. Which is obvious to anyone who knows this condition. He is driven entirely by self-interest. He's an unstable and dangerous man.
His chief of staff described as as a "very, very evil man" and reprimanded him for his frequent vocalising of fantasies about sex with his daughter. He's deeply disturbed. It is not compassionate to pretend otherwise. It's solipsistuc psychic defence and a lack of compassion towards those he will hurt. Including the 6 year old boy who lost his mother this week when she was denied an abortion in a medical emergency.
I can see we have very different perspectives here and I respect yours, while I also deeply disagree.
We can get into the weeds here if you’d like but I get the sense you’d like a “gotcha” type moment.
To respond to what you’ve said though:
Trump did not stack the courts. He appointed who he appointed which is well within his job responsibilities. There is much talk amongst democrats about adding Supreme Court justices which is quite literally packing the courts. I agree that Trump says a lot of things I don’t necessarily agree with. He says many things I wish he wouldn’t say. What I will say though is that he is not more creepy to me than the Clinton’s, let’s say. Creepiness seems to be the personality type in politics from what I can see. Many professionals have claimed he is a narcissist and it doesn’t make it so. Consider lots of people have essentially painted him as the second coming of Hitler which is a stretch if I’m being generous. Let’s say he doesn’t hide his worst qualities.
The abortion story I’ve heard cited so frequently over the last days is not a political story. It’s a tragedy and it has nothing to do with being denied abortion. Georgia has exceptions for incest, rape and maternal health. It’s a terrible story but not a political talking point.
And about the GOP bringing us the Patriot Act: it was everyone. There was one congressman who voted against it. One. The Bush/Cheney/old guard has fully endorsed Kamala which tells me quite a lot.
Again, I respect your perspective entirely and that we don’t agree. Just trying to shed light on my point.
I've given loads of sources on this thread. All I stuff I know prior but found sources for while writing. So I don't understand your question about where I get my info from.
Re Hitler comparisons his own VP worried that he was "America's Hitler": https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jd-vance-once-compared-trump-hitler-now-they-are-running-mates-2024-07-15/
I doubt he meant that Trump was genocidal, or wants to invade his neighbours though he's certainly racist.
But like Hitler he's the conductor for a cult of personality fueled by hate and delusion, scapegoats minorities while being backed by big business and he's selling people a false prospectus.
Psychologically both are malignant narcissists.
It has everything to do with abortion. "She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear it from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C.
But just that summer, her state had made performing the procedure a felony, with few exceptions. Any doctor who violated the new Georgia law could be prosecuted and face up to a decade in prison."
https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-abortion-ban-amber-thurman-death
Why are you denying this?
Trump got Roe V Wade overturned by appointing anti-abortion judges: to of whom lied about their attitude to the law.
" "If it weren't for me, with Roe v. Wade, you wouldn't even be talking about this stuff," Trump said on Wednesday.
"For 54 years they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it and I'm proud to have done it,""
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-boasts-role-ending-roe-wade-abortion-regulations/story?id=106280890
Why are you denying this?
Trump displays all the characteristics of narcissism, it's perfectly obvious. His boasting, silly lies about cried size, never being wrong, always taking credit, claiming to know more than anyone about anything, impulsiveness, vicious personal attacks, lack of empathy. He is an empty deeply wounded man. He needs care. But he shouldn't be a leader!
His narcissism is displayed in the way he sexually objectifies his daughter.
Re Trump's creepiness:
"
#3: ‘If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father’
During a 2015 interview with Donald Trump for Rolling Stone, reporter Paul Solotaroff praised Ivanka Trump. The soon-to-be president’s response? “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father…”
#2: ‘Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife’?
Courtesy of a 2016 Buzzfeed News scoop, the (second) creepiest incident of them all.
In an early draft of a piece by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, he purportedly wrote that “President-elect Donald Trump once asked, ‘Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?’ — but the quote was quietly removed before the syndicated column was published.”
Yes, it’s wrong, Donald.
#1: The absolute worst of them all (and it’s NSFW)
According to a soon-to-be-published book, Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy From the Next Trump, the former president “regularly made lewd comments about his daughter Ivanka and fantasized about what it would be like to have sex with her.”
According to The New Republic, “’Aides said he talked about Ivanka Trump’s breasts, her backside and what it might be like to have sex with her, remarks that once led [former Chief of Staff] John Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter,’ Taylor, who served as a Department of Homeland Security chief of staff under Trump, wrote in his book.”"
https://forward.com/schmooze/357185/7-creepy-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-ivanka/
Clinton certainly abused his power by having sex with an intern. He may have been sexually predatory to other women. Nothing proven. Trump has been found guilty of 'grabbing a woman by the pussy' by a jury of his peers. And said these unspeakable things about his daughter.
Theres nothing equivalent to that with Clinton. I think you're letting Trump off the hook with a false equivalence or low expectations.
My stomach turns when I read these things. You?
He's unwell. And poor Ivanka to have a father who reduces her like that. It must feel terribly unsafe.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "gotcha". I'm interested in evidence. That's all. Intuition is the right lens for decisions about our personal lives, to filter through a chaotic media landscape and come to a decision about voting, we need reason, including source evaluation.
I share your concern about rights. How much do you know about Project 2025? It's far worse than the Republican Patriot Act. Which actually 63 Democrats opposed and just three Republicans https://clerk.house.gov/evs/2001/roll398.xml
What specifically is your concern about the Dems re rights?
I am so thrilled to be having this conversation. Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply — not only were you gracious, but you also added a lot to the discussion and gave me much to think about.
I find myself straddling two worlds (or many); basically, my jeans are splitting LOL.
I agree with you that it has been totally illuminating to listen to people like the Weinsteins and others on that circuit (I haven't really paid close attention to Tulsi; maybe I should?). It's hard to listen to those in-depth interviews and not come away with some new insights that are glaringly absent from the broader conversation (I just looked at my list of 1,322 uncatalogued "notes" from such interviews — the day I get around to sorting those will feel like a national holiday — and saw the comment, from Weinstein (oh wait, it was Eric - I don't really know them that well, but have listened to both) that I found compelling enough to take down: "We are mistaking a redistribution of empathy for an expansion of empathy."
Things like that. You just don't get stuff like that in the broader conversation, and it just feels obviously true. I have written about this a bit: empathy, in my view, is like the feeling a parent (or I'll speak for myself) has when they have only one child and wonders how it's possible that there could possibly be enough love for the second child when you're pretty much exploding with love for the first. And then the second child comes, and you're like - oh, wait! it wasn't that the love had to be shared, it was that the quantity of available love simply doubled." Meaning that the way we view resources like empathy - withholding it from some in the name of showering it upon others - makes no sense.
Anyway, that's totally beside the point of our discussion. It's late and I am procrastinating dinner cleanup. I won't get into the weeds of the policy stuff you brought up at the moment, because I still have plenty of questions and can't quite muster the cognitive fortitude, but I didn't want to delay replying and expressing my appreciation for the dialogue. :)
lovely
ditto
It is a very confusing inversion. What I have noticed in myself is not so much an opening to Trump as an opening to the people who have supported him. The working people, the people of faith, the non-urban, the analog… the left behind. During Covid, it seemed like these were the only folks not snearing at and condemning people who questioned the Covid narrative. (And still are, judging by Mr Pinchbecks comments). I think so many people are just exhausted by the smug certainty of the left, and now see it’s lethality firsthand.
I agree that the left often appears very smug, and this has, in part at least, created the dissident right. But Trump is just a grifter taking advantage of this. Why can't the disaffected band together in solidarity and back an actual alternative, rather than someone who has been as Establishment as it gets since birth?
Exactly Guy. So tired of 2 party politics!
Someone like RFK? They are.
He's just proved he's not an alternative, by backing Trump. He would have been more alternative by just pulling out and criticising from the sidelines.
I dunno - he's a wild card - and I think that's what's needed. When you listen to him he does come from his heart and he is intelligent and can speak, despite the difficulty (if only he was doing the debates!). Don't start me on the Israel thing - I agree and can't stand that or understand it - but we just don't know - maybe someone who 'gets them' has to be in there too. When it is all resistance it just meets resistance and goes nowhere which is why politics is the same old same old. I think it's important right now for more of us to say 'I don't know' - the world is FULL of know-alls (me included!)
I think we do know that Trump is a liar though. To deny that is bordering on pathology. So RFK is putting his name behind those lies.
They all lie -- some more seriously than others. Biden's tenure was a lie. News media lies. Kamala lies. Do not believe the 20,000 lies from Trump. It's nothing but a media stunt.
This is called 'whataboutery', distracting from the issue.
I TOTALLY AGREE re: "I don't know." The three most underutilized words in the English language at this point.
Also RFK is literally a Kennedy. That is the heart of the Establishment, like the Bushes.
I have knocked on probably a thousand doors at this point, if not more, and I agree with you. The people are often lovely and relatable; in a weird way, they are actually more relaxing. I've been trying to put my finger on the problem (as have we all, obviously); just when you think you've landed on it, though, another side of the situation reveals itself and disqualifies the thought.
The whole POV that they're both faces of the neoliberal war machine, however true it may be, makes it easy to throw up one's hands, vote 3rd party, etc. That's not an option; it'll be one of these two. I believe that the Dems can be pressured to change — they will lose if they don't — and that the Republicans have literally zero incentive to change, because their schtick is working.
PS: i just did the math and it's definitely way more than 1,000 doors. I don't know what i was thinking. Just putting that out there even though nobody cares LOL
I like and relate to where you are coming from Allison :)
Oh that makes me so happy! I'd love to hear more from you if you're willing to share - regardless, thank you so much for saying so! :)
thank you Allison - I think I have made more comments on this whole thread than I ever had anywhere else - I like the conversation here and the level of heart/intelligence (both totally necessary!) I think Charles readership is of an ilk that I resonate with - even tho we are each unique and can have differences. One thing that occurs to me about this whole topic is that we will get what we need...and it may not look how any or many of us want. Talking about the election - ironic that I live in NZ but this is the first time I think so many in the world have their eyes on the US! What I see is that the systems need to crash and radically change - some will do so more easily than others. The beauty of the internet is that everything is becoming visible - which freaks a lot of people out I know - 'all that misinformation, disinformation, malinformation in the 'wrong' hands - sacre bleu!', but by the same token, we are all waking up to the truth of how our world has been and is running - and it hasn't been in the people's favour or interest. It's time for massive change. The whole US system being sooooo corrupt and unwieldy is destined for a mighty fall - or a mighty rise after a period of chaos - or complete collapse...whatever it is, bring it on! I suspect the answer and result is going to be more disruptive but it's what we all do with that. It would be a mistake to think we need be disappointed with the results whatever they are. It is all leading us somewhere better as consciousness is rising - but might be rough for a while - we will cope! Love to hear your thoughts...a big part of me doesn't even want to discuss politics because I don't believe that's where it's at but I am kinda curious and enjoy where people are speaking above and beyond the 3D level of politics. I was fascinated when Charles made the leap - I'm glad he's in there on some level... :). Thank you for asking me...(I can rave on sometimes...)
I just saw this and listened. I have listened to this guy before. He makes you think in a very important way, which adds to the complexity of all.https://rumble.com/v5fbarv-politics-isnt-the-answer-a-response-to-naomi-wolfs-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-.html
I'm not so sure it's an opening to Trump - more a way 'in' perhaps for some interesting characters who will undoubtedly topple the old apple cart...we have no idea where or how it might all go - the consciousness of us, the world as a whole will play a big role...
I totally agree with you. If enoigh people look to true alternatives they could have a voice. Concerning Brand after watching the channel 4 docu showing evidence of his sexual abuse of women I dont trust a word he says....
I do not get it either!?
Its bigger than Trump. The Dem side is so corrupt, the other side is where those who understand that are. Liking Trump is not necessary to see that. But TDS clouds our ability to see strategy.
If your argument is Trump is less bad, well, I disagree, but we can disagree reasonably because both candidates are awful if you care about putting an end to the war machine, but Trump might be marginally better in that respect (honestly it's difficult to say and personally I don't believe the military industrial complex actually takes orders from the president in a real sense).
But if you're arguing that Trump might be a good man coming to his senses, I'm sorry, I just don't see that. I don't think it's Trump derangement syndrome either. I've been critical of the Democratic party (from the left) for most of my life. I don't have any special allegiance to them and I see Trump as a symptom of a deeper sickness. But he's certainly not an antidote to corruption. Again, some of these claims are so comical that it's hard to understand how people come to these conclusions.
Can you explain why you don't think a Trump administration would be equally corrupt to a Democrat one? We've seen a Trump administration, and it looked plenty corrupt to me.
It's pure pragmatism and dedication to public service. The DNC aggressively sabotaged RFKjr's campaign -- deploying a staff with war chest budget dedicated to re-writing rules and suing in the states to block ballot access, swiftboat his intelligence, twist his words to keep him on the defensive in the media, and infiltrate his staff to create legal issues. The denial of secret service protection was astoundingly venal, and also prevented him being able to organize large rallies; the campaign had to become more media-centered but he was blocked from mainstream audiences and the debate stage.
He'd campaigned without a day off for 17 months and Dems thought they had him cornered, tied up in kangaroo court in New York while they partied in Chicago. With his campaign sabotaged Kennedy pivoted on a dime to put three core issues in front of voters -- ending the Ukraine war, stopping censorship (which is getting scarier from Dems by the day), and taking on the chronic disease epidemic. He endorsed the Trump campaign as a means to get in the White House. It's Trump who's endorsed Kennedy's policies, not the other way around. A brilliant strategy to form a unity coalition government within the U.S. system. Kennedy will have oversight over staffing as chair of the hiring committee. Better policies will result from hiring better people. It's all going to make Trump look very very good, believe me, he'll be happy to take credit.
This is the very best we could hope for out of the lesser-evil-ism into which we've once again been manipulated. And today Trump was very gracious when acknowledging the phone calls he'd received from Biden and Harris after the second attempt on his life. So there's that. Let's keep going we the people with our messy painful beautiful evolution toward a more direct, self-organizing, localized democracy.
Thanks for putting it perfectly.
Thank you Elke : )
https://rumble.com/v5fbarv-politics-isnt-the-answer-a-response-to-naomi-wolfs-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-.html
The democrats, who shriek about "saving democracy" just installed a presidential candidate without a single primary vote.
It’s not “difficult to say” that Trump is marginally better regarding peace efforts. He’s absolutely 100% better than the Neoliberal Democrats. The Ukraine war never would have started under his watch, and I am near certain he will negotiate out of it if elected. He also squashed the North Korea nuclear threats when in office, though now with Biden/Kamala in office N.K. has ramped it back up again. I very much don’t like the anti-Russia rhetoric coming from the Dems and mainstream Republicans, it’s dangerous and I worry could lead to nuclear war, which is why I’ll be voting for Trump. The Israel-Palestine conflict is another matter though, as both main candidates back Israel, including RFK. I can understand why someone would vote Stein or West because of that.
He'll give Ukraine to Putin. Appeasement in other words. He and other dictators will get the green light to invade their neighbours. Appeasing Putin brings more conflict, not less. 30s redux. I have friends on the front line defending their home. They want the invader out. They want their sovereignty. They want the 100k kidnapped children back. Trump is also far far worse on Gaza. He wants Netanyahu to "finish the job" and told him to reject a ceasefire because it might benefit the Dems. Trump is no peacenink. He's just pro Putin.
I agree with you about Trump’s position on Gaza, that is concerning. But I don’t agree about Putin and Ukraine, the roots of that conflict go back to 2014 which falls on the deep state.
What do you mean Deep State? The Maiden revolution was people rising up against a president who campaigned on aligning with the democratic and prosperous EU and then switched to aligning with Putin (probably after a massive bribe or threat to life). American money backed the uprising. Sometimes the US does the right thing. This was one of those times.
It was a US sponsored coup. We are at opposite ends of how we view Ukraine. Putin repeatedly warned US not to put NATO bases near the Russian border, they consider it a direct threat, yet the US did it anyway. That’s what this war is about. Russia is not our enemy, and US is partially at fault for this fiasco.
Yes they are partially to blame AND as Chomsky says the invasion was just as egregious as the Nazi invasion of Poland and the US/UK invasion of Iraq. The Ukrainian people preferred to be closer to the EU, a propersous, liberal and democratic group that the kleptocratic Russian dictatorship. The Ukrainian president campaigned on going closer to the EU then was bribed or strong-armed into making ties with Russia. If you were Ukrainian would you rather be part of the EU or Russia?
sorry that's too nuanced, try again :)
I dint know what that means
I mean that your claim that the US is sometimes wrong and sometimes right is too nuanced for internet debate. You're supposed to collapse it into a simplified version where they are always wrong or right. Ironically this is what CE is constantly cautioning against, yet by using the term Establishment and painting them as all bad, is himself doing.
Not the deep state. That is propaganda. Paul Manafort, Trump's 2016 campaign manager. Read about his work in Ukraine, including sowing this kind of messed up Russian propaganda.
Better that the war in the Ukraine is ended, than for the world to end up in WW3.
I have friends on the frontline. They want Russia out of their homeland. Putin is a psycho but he's not insane. He's not going to go nuclear. Russia would be destroyed. And Trump appeasing Putin would give the green light for him to invade other neighbours, for China to invade Taiwan, Turkey to invade Turkmenistan etc etc. 1930s redux. Appeasing bullies doesn't work.
From what I could see, the bombs continued to drop during the Trump presidency. Whether or not the Ukraine war would have started under his presidency is pure speculation. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I do think it's difficult to say or predict. Trump is not a peaceful person by nature. He thrives on conflict and is obsessed with winning. That makes me question whether he would be any less of a warmonger, and as I implied earlier, it's unclear to what extent the president has power over the military industrial complex. I know that's how it's supposed to work, but it seems highly doubtful to me.
You may be right, but at least he didn’t start any new wars, whereas 2 have started under Biden, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. The Ukraine war has its roots going back to 2014, when the U.S. ( Victoria Nuland) participated in a coup to overthrow their president.
Which is why I am pleased that people like RFK and Charles (!) are on the team - who knows what subtle effects are at play...
I think it comes down to triage. We will have no opportunity to arrest any wars if we can no longer speak freely about them. To me it’s about protecting the essentials first, such as our Constitution, and moving from there. He is the only candidate I trust at the moment to not throw us to the global governance wolves at the door. It’s weighing the situation by saying, Trump will have another 4 years and then someone else can fill the role. He just patently is not the Hitler he’s been made out to be. Unsavory, sure. Says things I’d rather her not, site. I don’t think a Trump cabinet would be near as corrupt as the current regime because he doesn’t control all the levers of power. The deep state is not carrying water for him. He is an outsider coming in with a team of people I have followed and respected for many years and whom I trust. I can appreciate you don’t agree but this is why Trump seems the better option rn.
I believe the most important thing Trump can do is stop the globalist take-over of nation states. He is the only candidate capable of doing that. What do you think the mass immigration everywhere is all about? Yuval Harari has said if Trump gets in, their project (Great Reset, Agenda 2030,etc.) is finished.
Hi Brian,
I also come from the left and never thought I'd consider voting Trump, until now. It's much bigger than him .. on both sides, I see a huge difference in the people around the candidates.
The damage done by whatever blob sees free speech - especially true speech, and honest doctors, as its enemy, and just tried to inject the entire world with the genetic code for spike protein, forcing as much as they could get away with, and is trying to tag and track all of us - proof of this is in plain site in 2024 - and exists by infinite wars, is far worse than anything I think Trump and those around him would do.
To be clear, to be not as bad as locking in medical, digital, informational tyranny while gaslighting compassion and protection, is a very low bar. I think that Trump is not-as-bad as the Dems. But I think the people aligning with the side that's not-the-Dems are way better than lesser evil, I think these are some of the wisest people alive today. (Kennedy, Calley and Dr Casey Means, Bret Weinstein, Tulsi Gabbard ... )
It's not about looking at Trump with naive admiration, it's about looking at what the Dems and the global blob they're part of have Already Done, and are Doing Right Now with their other puppets, in countries with less protections than the US. (Canada, the UK, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, Germany, the EU ... )
The blob the Dems are part of is all about censorship (mostly of truth), the corruption of medicine, mandates for medical products known to be seriously unsafe at the time they were mandated, as well as incapable of stopping infection / transmission, abuse of digital control. The tyranny of the global blob that wants endless wars, and knows that the current version of the Democratic Party would serve the interests of neocons like Dick Cheney better than a Trump admin.
The pesky first amendment, which Democrats have no respect for, makes it harder to do here what they're already doing in the UK, Brazil, Australia, Germany, Canada, etc.
I don't see Trump as wanting to control what's said and shared online in nearly the same way as the Dems. Without access to information, the world is truly dystopian and tyrannical.
And while the people around Harris / Walz are deeply corrupt (or terrible at processing information), the people around Trump include the speakers at an amazing Senate hearing this Monday about food, nutrition, health (only two Senators were there, both Republican).
Everyone there knows that health / food / soil should not be partisan / political. But they also know that the Democrats are too close to pharma and the food industry for them to prioritize real health.
These are amazing people able and ready to help restore soil, health, and integrity to science and medicine. Some may have liked Trump all along, others are only aligning with him because there's no other way for this wisdom to reach inside the government than in an administration that has Kennedy and Calley Means on that team.
https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/sen-johnson-roundtable-american-health-and-nutrition-a-second-opinion/ - worth a listen ...
If people on the left heard this conversation and Republican (bad!) politicians weren't part of it, and it had nothing to do with a movement that's working with the Trump campaign, if it was just a hearing about health and nutrition, say, moderated by Democrats - the left, at least the left I used to know, would be thrilled, moved to tears and gratitude and hope that what they've been trying to say for decades may finally be taken seriously.
But now, because there's association with Trump, and because the media has poisoned what anyone on the left thinks of all politicians on the right, because even Ron Johnson's name is poison to my Mom and other liberal sponges, most liberals can't see the good, the amazing, hopeful, genuine, good, that is in this room, https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/sen-johnson-roundtable-american-health-and-nutrition-a-second-opinion/
Nor the good that will be in Washington DC this weekend - https://jointheresistance.org/
The accusations of the Dems being determined to limit speech to their approved narrative, and the blob they're part of doing this already across the world, I can back up with many links.
These are just a few, I don't have time to share more, but you probably know of this already, the international effort to police speech, that's based on gaslighting about protection.
https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au/p/top-covid-health-official-calls-to
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/age-assurance-as-the-trojan-horse
I could say much more, and am starting a Substack to attempt to reach through the lack of curiosity on the TDS left. I haven't yet posted, but something will be up in a week or so (apx). https://anotherbetrayedliberal.substack.com/
You ask a good question. There surely was corruption in Trump's first admin. Not the democracy - destroying dictatorship that the TDS left fears, but, there were only two non-swamp creatures in his administration that I know of, and they weren't listened to (Drs Scott Atlas and Paul Alexander).
This time with Kennedy, Tulsi, Calley Means, and others on board, I think it will be different. (Even if not, I don't see how it can be worse than the party of censorship, mandates, and neocons)
(And if Trump says to the MAHA crew after winning the election, something like, "Thank you, thank you very much for helping me win. I actually will not be giving you a job in my administration, I actually don't give a crap about the health of Americans, and we have other things to do. But, you'll get a signed picture of me, as a thank you for your help. And a hat, a very, very nice hat. Don't worry, I got this from here. I'm going to do a great job."
... If he does that - All the energy of excitement and hope that exploded when RFK, Jr walked onto the stage at Trump's rally, all that and more and his reputation among people who fill his ego, all that narcissistic supply would be drained away from Trump, probably never to return. And the media would rejoice in being able to say, "told you so! Idiots who trusted The Bad Man!".
The more they try to kill him, and relentlessly portray him as the Worst Thing Ever, the more I think he may actually let the people who know how to, like Kennedy, clear the corruption. (Mike Benz explains how the definition of "democracy" was re-done. So in this gaslit version, populists are threats to democracy - that corrupt apparatus behind the scenes, that showed its hand in censoring truth and promoting scientific fraud and moving the globe around).
Feel free to stay in touch ...
that's my question, exactly
Agreed. I'm supporting Green Party Jill Stein for these reasons.
She doesn't even know how many Congressmen the country has. Actually, just like Trump. Both are unfit.
Absolutely. @charles any comment?
Cornel West is not on the ballot in all 50 states and neither is Stein. They have no chance at winning. Serious harm will come to many in the US under Trump-Vance. Serious, serious harm. It is is already. This is Christo-fascism. We need to buy time at this moment. We need to elect Harris and Walz.
I've never known Charles to bend or get warped under any kind of pressure. Each of us have to think and sort things out for ourselves.
I completely agree with everything you say, I am somewhat astonished that Charles could possibly find such a corrupt fraud and sociopath capable of building the society he craves.
Its bigger than Trump. The Dem side is so corrupt, the other side is where those who understand that are. Liking Trump is not necessary to see that. But TDS clouds our ability to see strategy.
TDS is not a thing. It's about researching his past, his actions, his own readings, his business history, his whole history. It's about the facts of Trump.
TDS is definitely a thing
You are right. It IS bigger than Trump. However, all sides are corrupt, even when we leave these particular contenders aside. I have a hard time participating in any political discussions because when people want to point the finger at the "other" side, it just distracts. CJ Hopkins (here on substack) has written quite a bit about one thing that is at work underneath all of it (not exclusively, I don't think he's claiming that). Make no mistake, it is global and not just the U.S. Sorry I have no glib answers about who to vote for in this mess, but none of us should pretend it's "just the other side," whichever you're on.
I think you may have misinterpreted what's happening with the Independent movement. It's a different paradigm centered on voters' needs and priorities, not on the candidates' personalities and whims in relation to a party platform (or lack thereof). There's definitely no endorsement of Trump-ism or any other -ism. It's as though the American experiment in democracy is rebooting itself under duress into a self-organizing structure through the collective consciousciousness of humanity's immune system.
49 DAYS TILL ELECTION DAY
Dear Mr. Kennedy,
Back in April of 2023 you told us: "Give me a sword...". We are that sword. We are ready We are here. Where are you??
Your Still Loyal Volunteers
AS POSTED ON SUBSTACK & THE KENNEDY BEACON
Yes! All of this
Aer, It would seem to be true that Donald is part of the establishment. I believe what we mostly hear about Donald may not be true. What we see from Donald may not be so polished. People can change; people can learn and adjust their ways. People can have a brush with death- have a near death experience that can help steer us in a different pattern. Anyway I'm feeling more than hopeful for our future and I want to contribute something that helps
You suggest trump sit down with groups of people to listen with curiosity and compassion. May I suggest he start with the Central Park Five, who he terrorized? Or the women he raped/sexually assaulted? The children he separated, how about he sit with them? The Haitian immigrants in Ohio, who he had now put in real danger? Charles, this man had created real and devastating harm. It’s not media-created. It’s not exaggerated or caricatured. Because you personally have not been his target, it seems, you can look beyond these things. But for those he has targeted, they have no such option.
No he will not change. No, he cannot change. And, as another commentator said, he is no outsider, either. Pull the blinders off.
And will K'mala sit down with those prisoners she refused to release because the state needed more slave fire-fighters?
Will Biden sit down with the parents of all the Ukrainians he has caused killed?
Will Biden and Harris sit down and apologise to the Gazans?
YOU "take the blinders off" too.
Trump is an awful human being. So are his DNC opponents.
Curiousity and compassion are alien to ALL of them, not just Trump.
Charles is trying to make the best of a bad situation. It is hardly HIS fault that ALL of the election leaders are horrible people.
Advocating for Trump is not a solution. Are there not other avenues?
Not at this point. We are threatened by a global technocracy. It is immanent.
there are no other avenues which earn Charles $20k per month, no.
good for him - he deserves it! Charles has given away lots for free over the years...it's time his worth - as a bridger, a peacemaker, a wise man - was recognised...
If he was wise he'd be nowhere near Trump.
Yes. This is a betrayal of women, LGBTQ+, immigrants, democracy. This sucks.
I can understand your bitterness - and at the same time it's a challenge to get out of emotional judging mode and deal with reality. Quitting the scene is giving up chances to influence. Bobby Kennedy knows about the massive character flaws of DT and still uses the momentum to prevent much worse things to happen. No chance of clean hands in this game.
This is of course only my subjective view on reality ...
I am not a fan of the sex addict and womanizer Bobby Kennedy. I choose to put my energy into people with real character, honesty and integrity. There are many people to support, including many women. I am supporting Harris for the following reasons, even though we live with corporate oligarchy in an imperialist nation: https://open.substack.com/pub/momentoftruth/p/our-anti-fascist-anti-racist-eco?r=4uba8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Stein - obviously.
This feels like dull equivocation. To say Biden is bad so u support Trump solves nothing. It is simply Nietzschean ressentiment, the resentment of the slaves and masters tied together. Are we so uncreated that we cannot imagine something worse, something better? Must we follow the herd from one pasture to the other (imagining something greener always). Where is the revolutionary immediacy that is needed to speak to this challenge? Not here sadly, not with Charles, certainly not with the Trump/Kennedy campaign.
They're not all terrible people, though. There are candidates with authentic principles like Cornel West who he could support instead. But he must feel an immense pressure to support Trump given the social circles he has embedded himself in.
I like Bro Cornel, but he was never serious about winning the election. I think Jr wants someone serious.
What makes you think he wasn't serious? I think he understands the low likelihood and he's spoken to the value of his candidacy in terms of getting a perspective out there even if he doesn't win, but that doesn't mean he's not trying to win. But I don't know, maybe you have some information I don't.
Either way, it feels weird for someone that supported a 3rd party candidate with a very low likelihood of winning to reject another 3rd party candidate on grounds of their chances of victory (which applies to Charles as well as RFK).
I think a lot of this comes down to tribal pressures, which Charles should be aware of given his writing about these psychological forces, but seems to lack self-awareness of their influence on him nonetheless. He got a lot of vitriol and shaming from the left for his takes on Covid, and similarly, he got a lot of love from the right (including all sorts of speaking engagements).
Of course that's going to have an impact on his thinking without a huge helping of self-awareness. If Charles did come out in support of West, there would be all sorts of drama from misguided leftists saying West should distance himself from and denounce the bad antivaxx man. It's unfortunate. The left's general take on Covid was also highly influenced by tribal pressures, for what it's worth.
I agree with a lot of that, Brian H.
BTW, if you're Frank's son, PLEASE stop cashing in on Dune with that trash Drek pulp writer. ;) :'D
The H doesn't stand for Herbert but it would be funny if it did.
Humour! That is sorely needed right now. It gives perspective and connects us at that deeper sub basement level where there are no walls.
They all should, yes.
whadabout... whadabout... BOTH SIDES!
"Horrible people" dehumanizes anyone so proclaimed. They are all people swept up by the systems as well. Where's our viewing of who they truly are?
"K'mala"? What's that about?
I'm an old Babylon 5 fan.
Hmm. Trump likes to play games with her name too.
OK, I admit it. I'm actually DJT posting under a pseudonym.
You can't be. Trump is pathologically unable to admit anything.
He's admitted Uraine has lost the doomed war, that he made a mistake in hiring so many neocons in his first term, that he was hoodwinked by the establishment in his term, and possible even that losing Roe was a mistake - edging towards that.
Are you mixing him up with that brainless figurehead from the DNC who never even SAYS anything?
Are you joking? He;s a stooge of Putin, or just has a daddy-crush on him. He wants Ukraine to lose. Admitting? Neocons? Trump wanted generals who were loyal to him “like the German generals” were (to Hitler). Are you honestly comparing the brains of a successful prosecutor from an ordinary family who rose to become AG and VP with an orange TV star who was given 100m bucks from his daddy and still managed to go bankrupt 6x including with casinos? Goodness me. I am absolute astounded at the gullibility of those who think Trump is anything other than a shameless grifter - here he is selling pieces of his goddam suit to his pitiful cult https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLAvyMe7HE8 amazing, truly. So I got it right, the K’mala thing was a sly racial thing. Really gross frankly.
He admires Putin, as Putin is an admirable person. And so is Xi.
Ukraine was always going to lose, fuckwit. Look up Obombers comment on why he refused to arm Ukraine after the Killary facton in the state dept couped the poor place.
Most elected politicians wish the military to be loyal. Please list all the ones you think don't, or STFU.
She was a FAILED prosecutor, who repeatedly broke the laws, let alone any morals.
He's still much richer than YOU, bankruptcies or not. Bet that burns.
Now piss off, I have better things to do than converse with a DNC-apologist and genocide-supporter.
FYI I vote Green. Now there's the exit door - use it, loser.
I usually like substack for well thought out perspectives (and yours might well be that, haven't researched some of that yet), and because people are usually collegial and respectful. Whatever triggered you on that last response needs a little attention, no need for the fuckwit, etc. (I'm no goody-two shoes, swear like a truck driver) but attacking people like this is a reflection of you, and says nothing about them.
Wow. You are most unpleasant, And if you vote Green but love Trump and Putin you are highly confused. They both deny climate change and are a disaster for the planet. Trump admires Putin because he is an amoral coward who admires bigger bullies than him. Putin admirable? He has stolen billions from the Russian people and is now bleeding out the country’s young men for a war driven by ego and lust for power. https://www.npr.org/2014/12/13/370612995/how-putins-kleptocracy-made-his-friends-rich Most democratic leaders do not wish their generals to be loyal to THEM over the constitution. I don’t know what happened to you to make you admire cruel heartless, empty men and in Trump’s case a malignant narcissist, obvious grifter, rapist and daughter-luster who gives not a single fuck that you exist or about anyone or anything other than himself. But I am sorry that it did. Re Trump’s wealth - if the price of having whatever money he has was to live in his diseased mind it wouldn’t be worth it for a single second. With that I’m out. Rudeness is the resort of those without reasoned argument. And your K’mala comment was straight up racist. Charles Eistenstein is bypassing and deeply confused (and possibly corrupted by RFK’s money) but he is not racist. Hope you reflect on your choices and choice of role models. These are not good men.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-trump-demanded-his-generals-be-loyal-like-german-generals-were-to-hitler/ loyal to HIM their Fuhrer.
https://rumble.com/v5fbarv-politics-isnt-the-answer-a-response-to-naomi-wolfs-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-.html
Agreed. Trump is a milignant narcissist. Everything he does and says is driven by his personality disorder making transformation virtually impossible. All the talk of ending wars, corruption, etc., while simultaneously justifying an ongoing depraved genocide is grotesque.
Trump did not terrorize the Central Park 5. He took out a newspaper ad supporting the death penalty IF they were found guilty of an horrific crime that shocked many at the time. I also am not aware of his raping women. Hopefully you do not mean that woman claiming she was raped in a dressing room. Her story is full of holes. There is a problem at the border and children being separated from their parents is unfortunately a risk. Children are often not accompanied by their real parents. Trump is not targeting these people, he is/was trying to solve a problem. He also is not responsible for the plight of the Haitians. That situation needed to be brought to light, as it is a poignant example of what can and is happening in communities. You have demonized Trump, largely based on misrepresentations in the media. This is what Charles cautions against. Trump's rough manner is off- putting to many, but I believe he stands for good.
He was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury of his peers
Do you mean that phony Jean Carrol case? That was outrageous and an excellent example of how the Dems have politicized the courts. That case was well past the statute of limitations and Dems in NY decided to pass a new law (specifically aimed at getting Trump) to allow old cases to be prosecuted. This one is so old, it is ridiculous to have any sense of justice being served. It was simply he said, she said. The jurors were duped. I am outraged that the justice system has been abused in this way.
Can you explain why you are a better judge of that case than the jury of twelve who heard and saw all the evidence? What is the basis for believing you have special insight?
I largely agree. I've intensely disliked Trump since his Apprentice days, but now I"m far more afraid of the Democrats. As for putting Haitians in danger, I don't buy it. More Democrat over dramatization to deflect from their own actions. As for being a "rapist", I'm not so sure about that either. Meanwhile, I've yet to hear even one Democrat express grief over the young girls and woman raped, brutalized and killed by the Democrats illegally allowed into our country in an effort to increase their likely voter pool. Despicable.
You "don't buy it". There have been bomb threats and school closures to protect children's safety.
Illegal immigrants don’t vote. The US also relies on ongoing immigration to supplant our aging workforce. Also as Charles even notes, many migrants are fleeing conditions that were unleashed by our corporations, our fossil fuel use, our government’s actions over the last decades.
This is not educated nor based on fact. Family separation was a real policy, crafted by Stephen Miller. So was the Muslim ban, which also separated families and still affects people. The woman whose "story was full of holes" won her case against Trump with a jury of his peers, many of them wealthy New Yorkers, like Trump. He is also accused of raping a 13-year girl at Epstein's New York mansion. My girlfriend worked Miss Teen Universe and could not get him out of the dressing room. I am not kidding. My other girlfriend went to the Mar-a-Lago-Epstein party and said it was "gross." Her modeling agency had been hired to pay for models to be there. But if you want to believe he is good, no amount of info will change your mind. I've learned this despite everything Charles E. says.
Grab em by the .....he bragged about sexual assault. There are a number of women suggesting that he did very inapporpriate things including going into the dressing rooms at the beauty contests because he was privledged to do so. Its clear who he is if you really look ...there are mountains of evidence besides anything media is putting out. Read some of the books by credible journalists. Its not just money they were after but exposing 'a clear and present danger"
Standards were very different 50 years ago when the comment was. made in a private conversation. It's " locker room" talk. Not atypical of guys attitudes at the time. Same with waltzing into dressing rooms. Powerful men took advantage. JFK and Clinton are examples. I think we need to focus on more important issues -- like runaway immigration and impending globalist totalitarianism.
I find myself once again responding to you. . . it is both men AND women who engage in this kind of thinking that has kept women where we are. Second class citizens, still. Yes, much has changed. But until we all realize how participation in "locker room talk" contributes to the power structures that keep men on top, and how it contributes to rape culture, you have no standing here. I don't have enough room to school you in this. I will just say that rape is an extreme version of the paradigm. Men and women, (and this would be you), who make it okay to speak about women in that manner, are part of the problem, all along the line.
Please understand. I am not excusing Trump's behavior. Unfortunately, we are far down the road to totalitarianism. Everyone will be oppressed. Please consider reading this. Elizabeth Nickson is a much respected journalist:
https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/the-mind-blowing-unprecedented-ineluctable
There is much greater reason to fear totalitarian controls from the Right than the Left. Trump mega donor Larry Ellison wants to use Oracle and AI for a total surveillance system that will keep “citizens on their best behavior.” Sounds like China. Plus Project 25 wants total abortion ban - totalitarian control over women’s bodies. CNN has a hidden camera interview with Russell Voight, author of Project 25, saying Trump is just pretending not to know about it. So obvious. When a country voluntarily elects a dictator they are screwed for decades. Franco was 35 years. Everything stagnates and people fear for their lives.
Exactly. Trump is actually trying to tackle Americas problems (the economy, illegal immigration, endless wars) while the Democrats/Uniparty keep adding more.
This rings false to me. He is not trying to solve problems at ALL he is saying he will to get people to vote for him.
I’m just calling it like I see it. He’s been consistent with his message the entire time, and is turning out to be correct about a lot of things, but most choose to not believe him based on their current biases.
You’re right. He was never convicted of rape.
He was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury of his peers. He shoved his fingers in a women's vagina uninvited. Just like he boasted he did on the audio we have all heard.
What do you mean, "they have no such option"? Of course if his victims are as morally bankrupt and lacking in forgiveness as he, they will be incapable of looking beyond what has been done to them to see past the beast within all human beings. All humans are inherently capable of great evil including mass murder and sexual violence; our biology does not differ that much from one to another because we all share the same primate ancestry that has shaped our behaviour.
Joshua Blahyi's victims, although often permanently and grievously injured—including by rape or permanent disablement and disfigurement, such as his former enforcer whose legs he smashed to bits in a rage for 'lying' he did not notice the priest who came in and began his conversion by teaching him a prayer—are often able to forgive him, when after slaying 20,000 people using child soldiers and cannibalism as well as injuring countless more, he came earnestly and often in tears to them to apologise and try to make amends however he could.
"They have no such option," don't kid yourself into thinking forgiveness and reconciliation are impossible, nor that redemption is either for that matter when even the worst warlords can do it, if willing. Evil is a path chosen and kept to that can be wandered off by even the most wicked at any time, and it more often than not brings great relief to the victims—who you do not speak for—to be able to forgive those who have truly made an effort to redeem themselves.
I'm sure it's good for your cognitive dissonance to believe otherwise, but it's simply not true. Of course, the kind of resilience and tough character you find in Africans perhaps can't be expected to be found much among Americans of the present era in stark contrast to the way Americans were two centuries ago, but there is always room for improvement among any people.
How do you know he’s not sitting with them ?( maybe not even physical but in his consiousness ?) . When we say thinks like humans can’t change, any evolution or growth stops, we might even project that we, ourselves, are not open to change.
Life IS change, and I am sure a bullet dodged TWICE will change any man
And , it’s not about Trump, he’s just a mirror playing his divine role in this play. It’s a miracle he’a still running for president after all these attacks, it shows a strong belief in his truths, it show amazing
Resilience..
Respect for that
Most of the comments I read here are echo’s of the dehumanisation of Trump, a human, that has been going on for 8 years now. It caused a certain bias and brain control, many internalising that toxic narrative.
Charles brings wisdom. Wisdom from the heart starts with : what would it be like to be them, the out-group. This is the seed for compassion
Just try it, even when you feel resistance..
I’m sorry to see that you’ve adopted this mindset. I have had much respect for your thought/writing over the years. However, I see that you’ve crossed the line into delusional. I’m sorry to see that and hope you have the opportunity to reset at some point.
my gosh, the hubris and judgement running thru some of these comments is full-on! You don't have to agree with Charles but perhaps apply the principles he is talking about - try stepping into other shoes...try having a conversation/discussion rather than coming from a moral sense of superiority and being right...try seeing Charles for his goodness and looking for the best in others and wanting us all to look at and own our own stuff! I'm no fan of Trump's at all and I am deeply disappointed in RFK's Israel stance (considering everything else he says that I agree with I just cannot fathom the contradiction), however, realistically...there is a chance that the better part of these people will step up when they find themselves in roles they believe in - I've heard each of them speak with passion about certain topics. Synergy 1 + 1 = 3! I think more than anything I see things changing one way or another rather than everyone rolling over and going back to sleep if the same old same old gets back in. It's probably going to be very tricky and disruptive for a while. In the end, 'we the people' are waking up in droves, there are no saviours, we need to go back to local and doing it for ourselves, together. Politicians will come and go but I sense they are going to start losing any power they thought they had after this election (if it even comes to an election - there's every possibility the whole damn thing will implode or not go ahead just because the times do not support anything that is no longer in integrity. There has to be vibrational alignment - the 'energy' is now important, it's no longer just about the physical...consciousness is rising.) I'm excited with the not knowing how the fuck it will go and having trust that we are evolving no matter how it might look right now! Let's face it - NO-ONE KNOWS!!!
Look, I'll always hold out a sliver of hope in the possibility of people reclaiming their hearts. Even Trump. At the same time, I think delusional applies here, and I don't see it as coming from a judgmental place. Trump, currently, is a predator and someone seeking power and attention. He's your typical narcissist looking for his narcissistic supply on the grandest level possible. I don't say this to judge the man, I think his narcissism and predation are both ultimately rooted in pain and fear. But we can have compassion for Trump while still being realistic about the man he is now and trying to keep him away from the levers of power. There's no need to support someone so clearly corrupt and troubled when there are authentic voices in the race like West.
As someone else pointed out, Charles' supposed compassion (or disingenuous piety) of Trump is what Buddhists call "idiot's compassion". A pretty speech before the mirror. Genuine compassion would be seeing Trump for the wounded and dangerous man he is and still feeling compassion. Not this fantasy about him changing. It is very self-indulgent and self-regarding
Where is the compassion for women? LGBTQ+ human beings? The planet itself--Gaia--which used to the main event for Charles? Migrants? POC? Even Gazans, whom Jared Kushner would like to remove for the amazing "beachfront property."
Exactly. It's gaslighting, bypassy BS
I am stunned. But CE will blame this on me and my projecting. Not on the fact that I care about my daughters and all women. Unreal.
Yes it's clearly our lack of spiritual elevation that is driving our concern about this rapist. If only Trump would read this article or Eisenstein could use his magic wand all would be well.
Well said!
We do not need to have compassion when we are actively trying to escape an abuser. We just need to escape. All that other stuff comes later. This essay is a gaslight of the highest order.
Trump started is political career mocking a disabled journalist and hidding an affair. Please, I won't try to understand him. Understanding MAGAs is different and OK. But not Trump.
I've been reading this thread for days, with so much interest. One thing I'd like to add in, and yours seems the perfect comment to add to, is that I think a lot of people (I would include myself) have learned a lot from Charles (I have all his books as well) over the years. He's always been a voice of reason, and has helped me to aspire to a higher self. And I do like that he's speaking to how to approach our political world. What people seem to be upset about here is that he's offered - no, maybe suggested - that the application of his prodigious skills/ideals/strategies has led him to support Trump. I'm not entirely clear 100%, so I think were' all hoping CE writes again, to help us all along. Now that we find ourselves here, however we might describe it. :-)
This sounds rather culty. Waiting for the guru to explain why it's OK to have seven child brides. He's supporting an active misogynist, an actual adjudicated rapist whose idea of 'inter-being' is aggressively shoving his fingers in a woman's vagina, a man of viscious, racist and increasingly stupid, inane and insane rhetoric and whose policies will desecrate the environment. It's indefensible.
Culty . . . you cannot know the breadth and depth of what I read or anything else about me, so I can see how you might view it that way. My comment was (maybe not clear in this) was referring to CE *in the past* bringing a new perspective (a more beautiful world and ways we might think about what that means to each of us individually). Not what to think, but how to frame questions about the world we find ourselves in. He did not write again specifically to what many of us were aghast about, his apparent nod to Trump. No need to get graphic about pussy grabbing, fingers or anything, Jamie, I'm right there with you in abject disgust. CE is no guru. I'm just reading with interest to see where this goes, based on his history, which goes much farther back than his current dance in politics.
The graphicness is to illustrate the moral depravity of Eisenstein's position.
I have been writing a series of essays trying to understand what happened with Charles Eisenstein and Russell Brand, among others -- how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism. Here are the 3 articles I have written so far - if anyone emails me ( Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ), I am happy to give them a month free subscription so they can go behind the paywalls: https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/the-turncoats?r=1mhh1
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-russell-brand-and?r=1mhh1
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/libertarian-fallacies?r=1mhh1
Well this is kinda patronising, esp as it is on Charles's blog - talking about someone rather than to them? I am sure you will have some points to make - I hope they are made with compassion and understanding and not arrogance. I think for a lot of us who were DEEPLY traumatised, cancelled and excluded by the incumbent corrupt govts all around the world over covid/vaccines/having an opinion/being different etc, there is a natural revulsion/grief at the thought of letting those same people back in - so much so that we are willing to give it to almost anyone but them. You say 'how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism' - even in your words, paranoia, "sovereignty", you insinuate some craziness, some abnormality, some extremism - maybe for some it is true it tipped them over an edge - but it is NOT paranoid to want to have control over one's body and what goes into it, to want to have one's opinions and personal research/anecdotal evidence respected and listened to - and not everyone who stood up for themselves went to far-right ideologies and extremes, as you might be suggesting. Can you imagine? I'm in NZ and like Australia, Canada, and Austria, things were far worse for us than many other places where you could still act fairly normally - our once-peaceful, inclusive, intelligent, non-violent country suddenly became military-policed with neighbours ENCOURAGED to dob in their friends and family to the police and govt depts! We couldn't get a haircut, go to the grocery store, go outside to the beach or nature, be with friends or family as they died.
We just could not believe that this outrage, this complete authoritarianism was happening. One of the most damaging things that can happen to a human being is to be completely shunned, ignored and thrown out of the tribe, family, community, world! If you weren't one of these you can't possibly know how it was for so many. So there is a LOT of hurt and a desire for anything but THAT to happen again. Forgive us if we don't play into the mainstream's clever handbook of how intelligent, good, well-balanced people should behave. Yet we are here and stronger. I have found Charles to be well-balanced in his opinions - and open to new thoughts. Yes I'm standing up for him because I'm standing up for myself here too. We were grasping at straws to have anyone hear us, include us, respect us...so many people's lives were ruined and we were watching it with horror, a feeling of complete powerlessness! We were demonised at the very least - made to feel like lepers/idiots (who have been proven right on so many counts now) - by our own families who suddenly didn't see the people they knew and loved any more because society/the authorities told them we were bad people! I'm sure you will have observed this in your works...but please don't tar us all with this same brush because again, you patronise us - some of us react more strongly because we have such a sense of moral justice (CE and myself included), a good moral compass that knows what looks like fairness - and we feel for all those who were hurt and are still hurting. We are not thrilled with the choices before us in terms of political candidates - but for many of us we sense that someone like RFK (much as I detest his Israel stance), will not force us to put crap into OUR bodies, or vaccinate our children - he really does actually care about the health of people...can you not see that that is where so many of us come from? If we had better options we would take them. I can feel my charge as I write this but it is still with many of us due to the ongoing censorship and BS that continues to play out. We know what's on the horizon for humanity if something doesn't radically change!
Here's the thing...everyone has bits of good/bad in them - things we like and appreciate, things we don't. I don't see Charles as a Trumpist at all. He is looking for the best, he is putting out possibilities into the field, he is endeavouring to let go of cynicism and encourage open-mindedness and potential. Thank you for reading if you have come this far. I'm sure someone will come in and take apart what I have written - I haven't had time to be clever about it, more nuanced perhaps but I just felt to jump on and respond. May love, kindness and tolerance be visited upon us all in these times of exciting change and evolution...
I wouldn’t take apart anything you said. I’m with you 100%.
Thank you so much, Martine! I'm totally there with you. A quote comes to mind, I think from poet Marianne Moore,(I may be wrong) that brings me back from going down the the dark path of blaming and vilifying others, "The weak overcomes its menace. The strong overcomes itself. "
Thanks for writing this Martine, I could have written the same. Talk about a failure of empathy and tendency to project (what I see in Daniel Pinchbeck's comments re 'paranoia' and 'sovereignty')
On Facebook, Daniel mentioned that he avoided getting the MRNA injections . I just checked again to see if I had remembered correctly, and yes, the comment is still there, in the midst of an argument about Putin and RFK Jr. The exact quote is “I avoided the nRNA vaccine so my hippocampus should be fine! Thanks for your concern.” Daniel, can you now remark on what seems like a big contradiction in your logic and the logic of your accusations of paranoia in those who chose bodily sovereignty and suffered for it? I had to leave the city where I’d worked as a musician for over 30 years because of my “avoidance” of these injections, and start all over.
I was in NYC during the lockdown, and still don’t know a single person who died of Covid. I do know three people who died suddenly within the previous year—-a former student of mine, very talented and in his twenties, who died in his sleep; a former colleague of mine who was also much younger than me, who died in unclear circumstances, and an uncle who was about to retire from farming, and died of a heart attack the day after his doctor diagnosed him with heartburn. These are people I knew directly and for many years, but once-removed, that number is far, far higher. I think most people can attest to similar experience in the past few years, making it, along with many troubling statistical studies, something that goes far beyond anecdotal. Evidently you had some similar fears, or you wouldn’t have “avoided” the injection yourself. Yet somehow, those of us who are tuned into the larger political implications of this complete inversion of public health principles, and are searching for ways to bring some sanity back into policy making, in a highly charged and imperfect atmosphere, are dangerous?
Please comment.
He got the Johnson vaccination IIRC. That's not an MRNA one.
But I think I kind of get it, now—-he got “A“ vaccine, therefore, he is still “on the side of science.“
Look, I sympathize with the sentiment of wanting to trust, doctors, experts, agencies, and so on. It’s a tough leap to make, that the preponderance of institutional medical advice can be that consistently and systematically wrong, let alone, dangerous, let alone able to deceive/self-deceive on such a grand level. I read the essay Daniel linked in his comments here, and I actually find myself agreeing with maybe 85%, almost 90% of what he says. For instance, I agree that the dangers of Trump presidency are quite self evident, in that those backing him are aligned with the intent to govern in a technocratic and dystopian fashion. Peter Thiel, etc. I doubt very much that Charles Eisenstein is not aware of that.
Where I step off from Daniel’s way of seeing this is when he calls people like Charles Eisenstein, Glenn Greenwald, Russell, Brand, Matt Taibbi… Turncoats. To call someone a turncoat is quite incendiary. That is war talk. When you do that, you were aligning yourself with the kind of establishment thinking that wants to rid itself of all opposition. Hillary Clinton just did an interview in which she proposed the prosecution of people spreading misiformation information, as she defines it. When you align yourself with that kind of thinking, that kind of intent by calling people “turncoats,” you are actually calling for them to be prosecuted… Imprisoned, punished, etc.
Daniel, with the growing powers of technocratic surveillance and control that you yourself express worry about, calls like this are really no joke.
So anyone who disagrees with you, or with the central version of the truth that you yourself profess to have many problems with, you seem to be almost enthusiastic about having them eliminated as threats. Which is the very definition of the kind of totalitarianism that you are worried about. It’s the kind of bullying that does happen in totalitarian states, that you decry.
I’ll be honest, it’s this kind of divisive thinking that makes me feel quite certain there is no political solution at stage in our history. Charles joined with RFK Junior‘s campaign in the hope that a political solution was still possible, and , it seems to me, although I don’t know him, kept that hope alive. as a matter of principle and practice, trying to keep optimism alive.
But it seems clear to me, from the overt calls for censorship, prosecution, assassination, and hate… And these are sometimes very direct… in Daniel’s comments on Charles previous post. I read him saying that, “Charles deserves hate.”—-that whatever happens after the election, and whoever wins, the main concern for the average person, and for fair minded people trying to go about their lives, whether Democrat, leaning or Republican leaning or somewhere beyond or in between, is going to be figuring out how to deal with the flavor of tyranny or totalitarianism that gets brought in. The other main concern is going to be how to deal with the insane levels of back and forth hate, which will likely lead to ever more violence and social disruption. Add in the potential of war on some pretty scary levels, and Charles‘s message is exactly the elixir we need to be drinking. It’s either that or Kool-Aid mixed up by the systemic manipulation of naturally occurring ideological factions.
The whole rotten corrupt unwieldy system needs to collapse and fall - out of the ashes! There is always chaos before a paradigm shift and that's where I believe we are at....we just have to ride the waves, keep our cool and extend love and tolerance - the tremendous division is exactly what the establishment wants - they're warmongers after all! We must hold the vision of 'the beautiful new world we all believe is possible' (thank you Charles...)
Also, apologies for grammer mistakes etc in this long diatribe—I narrated it into my ipad and then went back quickly trying to fix things without much time
Question for Daniel should he care to answer, and anyone else who agrees with the gist of what he says:
Should dissenters like Charles have potential criminal charges brought against them for spreading “propaganda” as Hilary proposed in her recent interview with Rachel Maddow?
What are your thoughts on that? I’m trying to get a read on what kind of thing to expect from left wing thought leaders such as him, under a Harris administration, especially if things ramp up on the Russia Ukraine front and the feeble anti-war movement grows in the US in response.
I wanted to be clear that the article I’m referring to in the above post is not the one Daniel links in the comment to which we are replying. I just looked through that and it is full of fallacious assumptions and deep misunderstandings . Atrocitious and insulting.
So, the one and done, which was then discontinued. No boosters. Meanwhile, younger family members going to college in various dem-heavy states have had to stay current (meaning get multiple mRNA shots) just in order to attend and get their careers started. And mRNA ptoducts are just getting started—big Pharma wants to use them for practically everything despite people like us, and like Daniel, prudently avoiding them.
same in NZ - it's beyond disgusting
ah that explains a lot!
Thank you for this. I'm with you as well.
Just curious about folk who felt “cancelled” when Covid happened…I feel the same about body autonomy but I can also understand how fearful most people were about this disease(whether it was “real” or not doesn’t matter to me…what if it WAS real?) and how awful they felt that neighbors and community members were refusing to do something that was relatively simple, out of what seemed to some people an uncaring, selfish egoism. And some people did refuse to mask for those reasons! Humans can be awfully insensitive. However, at the same time, I found a lot of pro-mask folks seemed unable to understand the fundamental need for autonomy, especially those whose lives were hard and stressful to begin with. So what is going on? We are all misunderstanding the needs of each other(at least a good portion of us) and assuming motives that are often not quite on the mark. We are fearful of each other, certainly, and not without reason…lots of injustice happens every day everywhere it is true. Horrid, terrifying things. Mostly I am sad that the anti-Covid folks couldn’t be more compassionate to those of us who were simply scared stiff, for a pretty good reason! Getting angry at scared people for wanting to stay safe is not a practical solution to peace. And scared people can get very defensive and judgemental, which also doesn’t help foster peace. What fosters peace and good will?
i agree with your comments...rubbing things in people's faces, with glee, self-righteousness or anger when they are clearly insecure and feeling vulnerable is equally insensitive and unkind. And does't help heal the divide...any 'steps toward' is what we can all practise.
Sounds like you are in a narcissist abuse pattern with Charles and RFK sorry . If Charles is supporting Trump or even excusing him, his moral compass is long gone.
The idea that RFK Jnr or Eisenstein will mentor or influence this 78 year old malignant narcissist is self-regrading fantasy on their side. RFK Jnr may not even get a security clearance due to his multiple affairs (blackmail risk). They are being used. Or manipulating themselves for power and money.
What about the trauma to women who cannot now get abortions, even if raped, or the victims of incest in MAGA led states, even if they might die, or their fetus is in distress? The women that MAGA Christo-nationalists and Peter Thiel say (or imply) should not be allowed to vote, that JD Vance says are worthless if they do not have children? ... You must believe there was no real health crisis in which people were dying. I did not experience Covid as a trauma at all, but as something we needed to go through to protect others. And I had school age children who did school from home. We were fine.
Thank you Daniel. I appreciate you helping us make sense of the weirdness. It was you who got Charles into the spotlight to begin with.
Wow. Was it?
Yep.
This is all so wild. I cannot believe Eisenstein, but yet I can. Because so many others have lost their minds and grip on reality in these times. A lot of men, particularly. And, I feel we need to speak up. And so I will and so I did:
https://momentoftruth.substack.com/p/charles-eisenstein-rfk-jr-donald
What a mistake that was
The first time I heard Charles speak was at your place in The Bowery. Very interested in your take on what happened here and elsewhere because of the pandemic.
Thank you. Reading your blog was helpful. Ive felt bewildered by much and your writing made sense.
https://momentoftruth.substack.com/p/charles-eisenstein-rfk-jr-donald
Daniel Pinchbeck….your comment deters me from Ever wanting to read Anything you write. Did you read Charlie’s article? Maybe put some of his points to use. Peace
https://rumble.com/v5fbarv-politics-isnt-the-answer-a-response-to-naomi-wolfs-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-.html
Trump is not OK (in multiple ways). Clinging to him, providing cover and apology for him in any way is not OK. There is a mental sickness happening. What is it? Could Charles admit he is wrong? Because maybe this is what he does not want to do.
https://rumble.com/v5fbarv-politics-isnt-the-answer-a-response-to-naomi-wolfs-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-.html
Here’s something that is being reported locally where I live. It seems that someone managed to chemically attack a group of Trump supporters who had been sitting behind him, on one section of the stafe only. A number of them reported severe eye pain that lasted for days and brought them to the emergency room.
Read the comments on the video. The hate and lack of compassion is appalling.
https://youtu.be/pIenZ2nqss0?si=YxAV63Ai16viTafj
There is zero evidence of attack. This is BS. However delicious it is to play victim, especially when you're in a cult led by a hateful bully. It's been suggested that it was an industrial cleaner. It's really unhelpful and irresponsible to spread alarmist stories like you did.
I've been in that hall for school jazz concerts. It's an active hall, used frequently. As far as I know nothing like this has ever occurred.
I don't know what happened. From some of the interview/testimonials of those who experienced severe eye pain for days and had to get medical care, it seems that something serious did happen, to a group of people in one area of the room. You are correct that I don't know if it was an attack or not. It could be an industrial cleaner, sure. I'm not sure how that would work exactly. But, as I said, read the comments on the video. The are full of hate and disgust. There is no other way to describe them. Which, for me, makes the possibility of a crime of some kind realistic. I'm not a Trump supporter, but it does bother me a lot that, coming within what is considered the respectable left, the only acceptable response to any such claim is disdain. Given that so far there have been two assassination attempts on Trump, I really get deeply tired of it. It is impossible to approach any thing---at all---with an open and compassionate mind.
If you don't know what happened, and have no evidence except youtube comments, maybe you should stop spreading malicious rumors and delete your post.
If you want to be that petty about my comment then be my guest. The evidence got what happened is not youtube comments, its in the network news interviews with those who were injured. I don’t know HOW it happened but the possibility of something deliberate has not been eliminated to my knowledge. What I am pointing out is how hateful the youtibe comments are towards the victims. Go with the flow, dude.!
It’s not your job to be a disinformation busybody unless you want it to be.
I think it is always helpful to give deep thought to issues such as these, and I always appreciate the provocative ideas you offer.
What I notice about Trump is that he is an abuser: he abuses women, little immigrant children, and handicapped people, among others. In his wake are a multitude of people who have been scarred for life by his actions.
I have been in abusive relationships- I got out as soon as I could, but before that happened, I was counselled on multiple occasions to “cooperate”, “meet them halfway” and “compromise”, and was told I was somehow wrong and less of a person because I wouldn’t do those things. But I never understood how to “compromise” with an abuser. Does compromising mean that I should allow them to abuse me half as much, or for half the time?
America had been in too many relationship with abusers, it is time for us to move out of that cycle.
I agree with you that there is good in everyone. I have seen Adolf Hitler’s early paintings, there is one of a Madonna that is so spiritual and filled with love and light—as an artist and art educator I know beyond any doubt that it could never have been painted by someone without a connection with the essential goodness in his soul, and/or with the Divine. However, when that connection is completely severed by abusive actions, those of us on the receiving end of the abuse have a responsibility to our mental and emotional wellbeing to set appropriate boundaries…not only for ourselves, but for the abuser. It is not any healthier for the abuser to be unclear about these boundaries than it is for the abused.
I have to say that Trump completely lost any remaining bits of my respect the moment he ridiculed a handicapped journalist. That is abuse I wouldn’t let a kindergartner get away with, let alone an adult. That incident showed me everything about his character that I needed to know. I do not see any evidence that Donald Trump has even a remote understanding of what it means to be kind.
If there is dehumanization of Donald Trump, he is the one initiating the dehumanization.
This is beautifully and simply put. Trump embodies classic abuser narcissist and feral predator. And it’s formerly abused people who just get it in their bones, and raised my awareness.
From 2017:
“Like family members living in the home of an abuser our sense of what is normal starts to get blunted and deformed under the weight of abuse. The whole country is damaged in a way that won’t soon lift under the best of circumstances.”
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/in-the-abusers-house-3
It strikes me as odd that the first person CE plants his flag next to and declare that he won’t participate in their ‘othering’ is someone who exemplifies the extreme case of othering, in/out group thinking, zero-sum thinking, predation, projection, etc. certainly much could be said about polarization and taking sides, and certainly many many people demonize Trump and project all manner of fear and evil onto him. And we should discuss that on a psycho-societal-spiritual level. As a student of Thich Nhat Hanh I know it’s not in my best interest to focus hate and projection like that, and I do want to untie the knots of duality and is vs them I carry within me.
AND YET I can do all this while believing my own eyes, recognizing obvious harm when I see it, and not naively (or disingenuously) trusting/hoping that a very damaged 80 year old who has had his cards on the table for decades, and who stands to cause such harm if given power again, will discover in himself compassion that has never been in evidence.
Those of us who yearn for a ‘new story’ that transcends the binary we’ve been offered must be careful not to be gaslit. I’ve looked to Charles in the past as a beacon of sorts pointing a way out of separation. I can’t follow him here, something has gone awry and if you get it, you get it.
“It strikes me as odd that the first person CE plants his flag next to and declare that he won’t participate in their ‘othering’ is someone who exemplifies the extreme case of othering, in/out group thinking, zero-sum thinking, predation, projection, etc.”
-EXACTLY.
Thank you, and thanks for the link...the text you quoted is perfect, and I appreciated this portion too: "Our sense of reality has been warped...We are like a woman who can’t admit her husband is an abuser. ‘I provoked him.’ ‘He’s got stress at work.’ ‘It was just one time.’ ‘He said he was sorry.’ You want to shake someone like this to open their eyes and see the reality of the situation. But living with someone with a damaged psyche has in turn damaged them. It is hard to emerge from." And one of the reasons it is hard to emerge from this is that the sea of toxic patriarchy in which we all live does not assist the abused in any way, it supports the abuser.
“Those of us who yearn for a ‘new story’ that transcends the binary we’ve been offered must be careful not to be gaslit. I’ve looked to Charles in the past as a beacon of sorts pointing a way out of separation. I can’t follow him here, something has gone awry and if you get it, you get it.” I feel this strongly and agree completely.
From Michelle Goldberg in NYT today:
"This is the intimate side of the cold civil war America has been stuck in for nearly a decade. Life under Trump’s presidency often felt like being trapped in an abusive relationship, with its need to be hypervigilant about the patriarch’s mercurial moods. We had to endure casual threats of violence and unceasing gaslighting, a term for maliciously undermining someone’s sense of reality that became ubiquitous only after Trump’s election. It is not surprising that this dynamic was repeated in the families of some of Trump’s worshipers."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/opinion/jan6-reffitt-fatherland.html
Thank you for this. I too was in an abusive relationship that took me too long to get out of. When trump was president I felt the same - but this time I was in an abusive relationship with my country. I’m 72. I do not think I could survive four more years. Yes, the DNC is corrupt and owned by the same masters, I don’t understand how people can think trump, who as promised to be a dictator on day 1, and who will unravel the already minuscule and inadequate protections for Earth, children, elders. . . who has promised to put corporate shills in charge of the country, and basically allow corporations to do whatever they want to people and Earth for money . . . is a better alternative? He has literally promised the destruction of the country and Earth! Yet, this is okay? People don’t seem to understand the gravity of what is at stake here. Maybe, because I’m old and I remember people who survived the Nazis (most are dead now), maybe I’m more able to envision the world trump is promising us. And I do not want it! The advantage of going for Harris is we MIGHT get a few more years to turn things around, to create the party, the political movement, and most important begin the transformations necessary to begin healing and restoring Earth for our kids and grandkids, and the species we ALL depend on. There is more at stake this year than just the fate of our country’s politics. Life is at stake. If we can maintain life then we can work to create, to transform, to evolve. If not, this experiment is over.
thank you. Fascism is real. Trump is fascist and an abuser. Russian propaganda is real and there were many Russian family backers of Elon's Twitter takeover. (and so much more going on if one is inclined to do any serious research). We are being firehosed with conspiracies and misinformation, designed to take our nation down entirely for the sake of Petro-nations. Sad state of affairs. Most discouraging. Hard to believe, which makes it so effective.
Susan, we are the same age ;-) .. it sure was a different world back then, wasn't it? Most women in abusive relationships didn't even know the relationship was abusive--it was just a part of the toxic patriarchy that we all took to be "normal"--as they say, a fish doesn't know it is in water! It took us a while to figure all that out... I totally agree with you: "The advantage of going for Harris is we MIGHT get a few more years to turn things around." I became much more excited about Harris after she chose Walz...even though I feel like RBG when she said that all 9 Supremes should be women, LOL--men have tried to run this country for 250 years, and look where we are now! I'm all for giving women a chance at it, I think women can fix most of our worst problems in 20 years...still, I really like Walz, I really like that he's a teacher, and he sure seems to exemplify the kind of "family values" that I think are important. And regardless of actual gender, he does seem to embody the generally accepted "feminine" attributes that I hold dear such as compassion, kindness, cooperation, nurturance, adaptability (more than Kamala imo) ..teachers are typically less inclined to be competitive and hierarchical since their job is to help and assist students, not compete against them. I am looking to Walz to help bring some much needed sanity to our country, in fact, my blue vote is really for him, although I will be very happy to contribute to having the first female president.
Kamala Harris is so far less bad than Trump it's ridiculous. Stein, West and (formerly) RFK, Jr. are all being supported by the GOP. (I suppose, RFK, Jr. now even more so.) I've been reading Harris' book and I believe she does care. Biden's FTC has been amazing on anti-trust (see Lina Khan), the DOJ too. We interviewed a DOJ official on our podcast who wrote "Plunder" about the crimes of private equity. Donald Trump does not give a hoo ha about breaking up monopolies or anything else. Who did he hire as his Treasury Secretary? Steve Mnuchin. "The Foreclosure King." His cabinet was and will be a den of vipers. (Oh, yes! Human! With their own views and perspectives. But who cannot be in power again.)
yes exactly
this is so obvious, yet Charles doesn't seem to get it.
I’m sad to see that Charles has become such a “ true believer” that he wears a pair of blinders. Trump is his own proud propaganda machine. The so-called Deep State is every bit as much Republican as it is Democrat. The Deep State is Corporate Control and to say Trump doesn’t pander to corporations is simply ridiculous.
utterly ridiculous.
Me too, Meryl. The handicapped man was it for me. And thank you for sharing your story; I can really feel the emotion behind your voice ❤️
Thanks, Keri! xo
Guess what? That video of him making fun of handicapped person was doctored and put together by MSM to make him look bad. It’s fake. He routinely did these weird hand gestures during his 2016 campaign, and the media spliced it together to make him look bad. I don’t have a link handy but I read an article about it a couple years ago that explained it.
That is simply untrue. He cruelly mocks people he perceives as weak. Whether it's women menstruating or ethnic minorities, pilots shot down in Vietnam or dead WW2 vets.
Yikes. I cannot fathom what shadow anyone must exist under to believe that mockery was fake. Please, step out into the sun.
Unfortunately, there seems to be no need to doctor any videos to make Trump look bad. The NY Times responded, : "“We think it's outrageous that [Donald Trump] would ridicule the appearance of one of our reporters." Trump responded in familiar fashion, issuing a series of tweets in which he admonished Kovaleski to "stop using his disability to grandstand". This is covered by snopes here: https://www.snopes.com/news/2016/07/28/donald-trump-criticized-for-mocking-disabled-reporter/
I am really shocked that you have taken up the mantle of Trump. He can’t be any of those things you want him to be. He has had many psychiatric experts describe him as “a malignant narcissist.”
This is the side he shows us all, and I cannot imagine he has a different side. He committed fraud. He is a sexual predator and I am very confused why you think he’s our guy.
These are not trumped up charges either. These are real and there’s not some deep state that’s going after the man. He is immoral and choosing to quote and adore dictators is beyond what any presidential candidate in our country should be doing.
I’am shocked that you have fallen into such a rabbit hole. I’ve been following your thought for decades because it seemed true. Once you grabbed on to RFK, you lost me. In a corrupt World you still need to make the best choice.
I have great respect for the motives of RFK Jr. He has aligned himself with Trump. I believe he is seeking what is best for the country. Having dealt with RFK personally, I think Charles must also see and respect his sincerity. Trump is a bull in a china shop, but I believe he too seeks what is best for the country -- and ultimately the world. I think the alternative is world government and totalitarianism.
Trump is aligned with Fascist dictators who actually support real totalitarianism / dictatorship such as Orban, Putin, etc. The Democrats are not doing this - not seeking to end elections or eliminate abortion rights. How have you people become so confused?
Thank you Daniel for pointing to this very obvious elephant in the room. Yes! How can anyone look past the fact that “Trump is aligned with Fascist dictators who actually support real totalitarianism / dictatorship such as Orban, Putin, etc.”
How? And why?
Trust dissolves when facts like these are omitted to make a point.
People are confused because they are being mislead by the corporate media.Many still believe what they read in newspapers or see in news broadcasts. Looks like you are one of them. And, yes, Dems are thwarting Democracy. https://elizabethnickson.substack.com/p/the-2024-cheat-and-whats-being-done
They have also politicized the justice system.
MarLS: there is a lot of Russian propaganda out there. Like, mountains of it. This started back in 2014 and then became aligned with the movement to elect Trump. Part of the fascist playbook is to make the public believe they cannot trust the MSM. Now, the MSM is corporate. They tend to not take on capitalism itself, but journalism has standards and most real journalists are serious about their work. Not so much the Far Right and MAGA propaganda/apologists at this time--that includes YouTube videos, thousands of social media accounts, Fox, Newsmax and now Russell Brand and apparently, Eisenstein (wittingly or not)
I know!!! So weird that some people see liberals as totalitarian. My experience has been the opposite. The more liberal folks (not all, obviously) that I know are all aware of the need for us all to have a day in how the government is run. It is complicated and messy, absolutely. It is also true that some voices get oppressed as others get louder. But at least there is a WAY to be heard. I know no one on the left who thinks we ought to take voting rights away from certain people, or restrict people from organizing on their own behalf and saying what they feel and believe. There has to be some sort of random limit just for the sake of sanity, but that doesn’t mean that this is totalitarian government.
They don't read or follow current events (it's low-vibe) so their beliefs about politics are based almost entirely on branding and whatever algorithmic feed they're on.
I think the same could be said about anyone voting for Biden or Kamala.
no it can't, sorry. Don't make false equivalencies.
And Kim Jong Un.
He does. He regularly field's reporters questions --lots of them. He plans to stop the War in Ukraine, tighten the border, He gave a well received speech to some economic group in New York. Many are hopeful he will honor his agreement with RFKJr. Where have you been living? Why is the media constantly attacking him, rather than explaining his platform?
Yet trump himself has said he will be a “dictator” on day one and there will never be a need for another vote. His constant admiration for Putin and others is showing us who he wants to be.
You are reading into those comments what you want to see. I don't believe real dictators announce their intentions, though in Trump's case, media works hard to push that narrative.
why wouldn't Trump be telling us exactly what he intends to do?
He’s absolutely said he would do it. I am not reading anything into a comment. He has said it, but you could read even more into it when you notice that he just sent Covid tests to Putin when our country didn’t have access to them and our own healthcare workers didn’t either. He adored the dictator model. He’s a classic narcissist.
https://rumble.com/v5fbarv-politics-isnt-the-answer-a-response-to-naomi-wolfs-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-.html
Charles, I don't know what your life is like at this moment that would lead you to write something like this, and I truly want to hold you in good faith as a longtime reader. I absolutely resonate with your main points that are necessary for leadership. But you are seriously wasting both your time and ours by suggesting Donald Trump could embody any of them... I hope that sooner than later, you are able to take some time away from the political cycle to re-ground and re-orient.
He did say he didn't expect that Trump would. Only that he thought any leader should.
True. But he did say that he he only believed T “could”, implying the other choice is futile. That is sad and I disagree very much!
He also somehow elevates Trump as "anti-establishment," whereas Harris, a woman, he implies, cannot actually truly embody compassion at all. If I read that right. He seems to lean Trump which makes sense, given RFK, Jr.
This essay is written from inside the Establishment. It still insists on naming good guys/bad guys...but just does so in a covert way. There is no way Mr Trump is the person for this job...as creating peace and compassion , without all the othering. That you are even trying to make a case for this possibility, shows a great lack of understanding human beings. We are ALL part of the establishment...like it or not. Without trying to "figure out" and control the direction of things, Life has the last word. We cannot "essay" our way out of this one.
I had this thought too. What is the "establishment?" It's just us. It's messy and Trump is not the answer. He is a danger. Wounded. and ready to hurt everyone else. Terrible.
Charles, the man is a convicted rapist. He is also many other “ists”—racist, seditionist, etc. but that’s enough for me and should be for anyone with a moral compass or spiritual aspirations. You’ve completely lost me with where you’ve gone, and I’m a bit angry but mostly really sad.
I haven't seen a shred of evidence to support any of your accusations. I've thought he's full of shit long before he ran for office, but now find the Democrats and their candidates to be more revolting and culpable of a long list of attitudes and actions I find alarming. At least Trump tends to lie about absurd stuff like the size of crowds. The Democrats lie about far more serious matters. As for where Charles has gone, smh over the judgmental, condescending comments from those who are so certain the only valid perspective it theirs.
what do you find the Democrats lying about that is more serious than making Haitian immigrants into subhumans, making up garbage on a daily basis, while their entire program is to lower taxes on the wealthy while raising taxes and eliminating social services for everyone else?
He has never been convicted of rape.
A jury of his peers found him guilty of aggressively shoving his fingers in a woman's vagina against her will.
Sexual assault, and if you’ve seen pictures of him partying with the late Epstein, you’ll see he’s got his hands all over young girls, including his own daughter. He is a miscreant.
Sorry to see where you've ended up, Charles.
He wanted to go beyond good and evil. He just became a nihilist, he took the wrong path.
Nihilism would be more palatable. This is somewhere between hypocritical and sanctimonious.
I think Charles is a sincere person. I really do.
But even most sincere people can get scammed. It happened actually to all indigenous peoples in Latin America. They just see what they want to see, not the reality.
He's scamming himself in order to get a fat paycheck
Seems like toxic rationalization and walking the line of becoming unhinged
patronising
A billionaire who has been convicted so many times of scam, targeting always the poor and the disenfranchised, convicted of rape, is not anti-establishment. Inherited hundreds of millions, uses golden dishes or whatever... your anti-establishement standards have become very awkwards.
That's adolescent thinking. You're letting yourself be taken in by rebellious impulses, like a marxist in 1917, who in the end helped set up 70 years of dictatorship.
it is a disaster that he has come to this.
And I can guarantee he won't stoop to read the comments from his audience which is turning on him. But wth, $20kpm makes up for multiple unsubscriptions.
Where does the $20K come from? RFK, Jr?
Yes, that's where he was getting it from, it's in the campaign declarations that they have to make to show who's getting paid. But it might be coming direct from Trump now, not sure.
I would like to believe it isn’t for the money. I think he is trying to be super-inclusive and coming up to the limits of a human being to be perfectly inclusive. I admire his tenacity in doing this very much, I just can’t be as inclusive as he is advocating at the moment! And I am also aware of the seductiveness of being inclusive, the safety it provides. I am a master of it myself 🙂
Obviously I can't be sure it's entirely for the money but whatever the reason I think he's dead wrong. He's defending DT on the basis of a miraculous potential change of heart that Trump is maybe going to have because he got shot or something.
This is absolute delusion, and sadly, to me the money looks like it must be playing a big role in that delusion. It's serious money. Also his frequent references to 'having a backstage pass' show that he's getting high on being close to power.
I think we can defend someone up to a point, but beyond that, they need to be called out. Fittingly, that's what CE himself should have done when RFK endorsed Trump: called him out. But 'something' stopped him, and I don't personally believe it was just a desire to be inclusive. Also 'inclusivity' shouldn't take priority over justice IMO.
A change of heart he has shown no evidence of having had. If anything he's doubled and tripled down on the maliciousness since then. Literally dehumanizing the Haitian immigrants, right out of the fascist playbook. You can see with your own eyes what kind of person DT is, he shows us every time he opens his mouth, AND in the 4 years he was president and only stoked division and hate. Never really known a 78 year old racist asshole to turn on a dime into anything CE would be proud of.
I think you have been too close to the inside comrade. Some people have gone too far. Trump cannot be reasoned with anymore than can a jaguar about to eat it’s prey. I appreciate your high and noble view, I also carry these aspirations but when the lion is about to eat your children, you make sure that lion is removed from the narrative. Come on Charles. You and Russel are acting very strangely and in times like these you could benefit from good kin to sit you down and talk some sense into you. We love you. Step away from the seduction. Be at ease.
I have been trying... I have been writing a series of essays trying to understand what happened with Charles Eisenstein and Russell Brand -- how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism. Here are the 3 articles I have written so far - if anyone emails me ( Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ), I am happy to give them a month free subscription so they can go behind the paywalls: https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/the-turncoats?r=1mhh1
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-russell-brand-and?r=1mhh1
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/libertarian-fallacies?r=1mhh1
The real thing you should try to understand is how the fear porn and manipulation of the pandemic led yourself and many like you to support outright corporate/state authoritarianism. While those you mention remained liberal.
Come on, "Vaccine paranoia"? My eyes could not roll any harder.
Maybe take your articles to your own page instead of commenting all over Charlie’s
I know! I have read them! They are wonderful! I hope you write more about it. This shit is crazzzzy and happening frequently. My yoga teacher for the last 25 years is now a Trump supporter. These times are wild! Bayo Akomolafe offers a lot of good insight here. Are you familiar with him David?
This is probably why Dr Lissa Rankin walked away from Charles a while ago. Very sad. RFK jr got to him. Or maybe $$$ did. Or both.
Thank you for your wisdom and for believing in a more conscious society 🙏 may we each do our part to embody peace consciousness. As within, so without
Sadly, people do not do the self-reflection which would allow them to compare Trump and the Establishment without the programmed reverence towards "Authority".
It's FINE when the Establishment start wars that slaughter 600,000 people, but by damn Trump tweets bad things!!
Personally, I would be supporting Stein, but I can understand why so many think Trump is more likely to actually win.
If, in the 2026 Mass Afterlife we might all have moved to very suddenly under another DNC authoritarian dictatorship, people were asked: "So, if you could go back, would you this time choose the "Malignant narcissist", or once again the group of psychopaths planning WW3 who you know KNOW kills everyone you know and love?", how many would make the same choice, and how many think "Gee, actually those mean tweets and grandiose statements were not as bad as holding my grandchild as she dies from radiation-induced cancers! :'( ".
I don't think Trump is ANY kind of saviour, and will almost certainly leave America looking worse with most of his plans - but that's not the issue. The issue is that he is LESS LIKELY TO BLOW THE ENTIRE WORLD UP than his main opponent.
That means a great deal. Even Chomsky agrees - hardly a MAGA fan.
Sorry, had to do a reality check on that one.
Noam Chomsky does not support Donald Trump. In fact, Chomsky has been a vocal critic of Trump on numerous occasions. He has often criticized Trump's policies, approach to governance, and the overall impact of his presidency on both domestic and global issues. Chomsky, known for his progressive and leftist viewpoints, sees Trump's administration as detrimental to many aspects of society, including democracy, the environment, and international relations.
Yeah I've been a consistent critic as well and I agree with all of Gnumeo's points. The MIC is in absolute full swing w the DNC, transition of neocons complete with the Cheneys. On brink of WW3 as we type
It is hilarious to me that we just read several paragraphs on how Trump could change his mind and transform but that the Cheney would finally say enough with this dangerous fool is a bridge too far.
https://rumble.com/v5fbarv-politics-isnt-the-answer-a-response-to-naomi-wolfs-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-.html
I read the other Naomi’s book, so no thanks plus today’s 9/20/24 headlines are a doozy
Ah, the old “They’re going to start WW3” line. For how many election cycles have we heard someone say that about their opponents?
I miswrote -- Dems already started WW3 with recent moves related to Ukraine. I should have written nuclear annihilation. That is a risk that continues to escalate by the day
Thanks for speaking up. You beat me and I'm sure many others to it. Chomsky is a vanishing breath of fresh air.
Chomsky was a big fan of the vaccines and government forced intervention- he’s lost his way.
He's old, directly in the covid killing group, and was terrified. So...
That doesn't change at all the brilliance of the decades of his previous work.
I was disappointed with him too over the covid fear porn reaction, but it IS understandable with a tad of compassion.
Kinda seems like you're othering Chomsky.
Thanks for posting what I was just about to post. He lost me over all that as did all leftists and others who promoted the same.
I just tapped my good friend Chat GPT for that one!
Uh-oh the AI is taking over!
🤣
I DID NOT say "Chomsky supports Trump". What I said was "The issue is that he is LESS LIKELY TO BLOW THE ENTIRE WORLD UP than his main opponent.
That means a great deal. Even Chomsky agrees - hardly a MAGA fan."
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/06/28/not-a-justification-but-a-provocation-chomsky-on-the-root-causes-of-the-russia-ukraine-war/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVesAq7eQyk
Chomsky, like many intelligent people, recognises that it is perfectly possible to despise BOTH major parties. And to see different policies. He certainly will not be "supporting Trump", but I also can't see him supporting the current US regime that has brought us closer to WW3 than the Cuban Missile Crisis... SEVERAL times in just the past 3 years.
And as K'mala is nothing but an empty air-head riding a wave constructed for her - even more than Zelensky!! - there will be a continuation of disasterous and (planetary) suicidal policies.
As I clearly said, Chomsky is not a MAGA fan - but nor is he a Demonrat fan.
as we all should
Yup, that’s my take as well. All my life voting “the lesser of 2 evils” meant Democrats. But now it’s the reverse.
https://rumble.com/v5fbarv-politics-isnt-the-answer-a-response-to-naomi-wolfs-perfect-is-the-enemy-of-.html
I like the ideas embedded here. A lot. Bit just don’t get the idea that Trump in not Establishment. That he is a figurehead of the alternative to the deep state. It’s a bit sad isn’t it when someone so misognoist and privileged is posited as the one to save you guys and change your world for the good. Not taking sides just saying from across the oceans.
Trump is Establishment - but not deep state. He is establishment because he is a billionaire who relies upon the state for his wealth, and its legal protections. Trump is NOT going to be promoting worker-ownership, free healthcare, student-loan forgiveness or anything of the sort that could actually help Americans.
At the same time, he is not deep state, the security state apparatus. Who have probably already made attempts on his life, have spied on him and his associates, filed spurious legal obstacles, and work hand-in-glove with the DNC to "Maintain the American Empire".
The sad truth is that there is so little ACTUAL democracy in the USA, it is already an authoritarian dictatorship (In truth it always was), that anyone opposed to the DNCs suicidal warmongering, can only choose the single other 'main party' to realistically have a chance.
"It’s a bit sad isn’t it when someone so misognoist and privileged is posited as the one to save you guys and change your world for the good."
Yes.
This is all mumbo jumbo - Deep State... Trump amped up the military budget and didn't do anything to "Drain the swamp." Just brought in more swamp things, like the current Supreme Court. This whole enterprise is insane, delusional.
I have been writing a series of essays trying to understand what happened with Charles Eisenstein and Russell Brand -- how the focus on "sovereignty" and bodily autonomy / vaccine paranoia during the pandemic acted as the gateway drug to Right-libertarian ideology and Trump-ism. Here are the 3 articles I have written so far - if anyone emails me ( Daniel.pinchbeck@gmail.com ), I am happy to give them a month free subscription so they can go behind the paywalls: https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/the-turncoats?r=1mhh1
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-russell-brand-and?r=1mhh1
https://danielpinchbeck.substack.com/p/libertarian-fallacies?r=1mhh1
"This is all mumbo jumbo... insane, delusional."
Quite how you go from pointing out that Trump didn't take on the deep state, to then saying the deep state must not then exist, is a leap I can't follow you over.
I'll explain what happened to Eisenstein and Brand - they remained LIBERAL, with the emphasis upon "My Body, My Choice". They also remained LIBERAL, in that they distrust enormous corporate wealth and power, and can see when the state and such corporates come together, it is never in the Public's interests.
So THEY stayed LIBERAL. What happened to YOU?
Where did all that manufactured fear porn make you leave any Liberalism behind?
Perhaps you might find it easier to examine yourself, rather than two completely different people to yourself, and rather than seeing the changes in THEM, observe the changes in yourself.
Until you follow the ancient wisdom of Know Thyself, you are probably going to get more and more confused, and offering temporary access to get more subscribers probably isn't going to help with that self analysis.
“Quite how you go from pointing out that Trump didn't take on the deep state, to then saying the deep state must not then exist, is a leap I can't follow you over.”
In the past, Charles Eisenstein himself has criticized the belief in a “deep state” running things, and associated it with paranoid conspiracy thinking of the sort he claimed to be rising above. If you don’t put Charles on a pedestal, as I don’t, his numerous inconsistencies and self-contradictions stand out clearly.
I would happily support an actual deep delving into the question of whether a deep state exists and what is its nature and constituents, but for Charles it seems to be Schrödinger’s Deep State — it exists and pulls the strings in one essay, and is merely a figment of people’s imaginations in another. It’s all down to Charles’ whims and moods of the moment.
I would appreciate it if Charles’ readership started reading him more carefully, and had a better memory for his various truth claims over time. As somebody who takes seriously what assertions and arguments individual writers put forth, I’ve noticed that Charles’ books and essays contain numerous contradictions, inconsistencies and also some factual mistakes. I think there needs to be a lot less endless “gratitude” (“thank you so much Charles for your infinite wisdom!”) and more careful weighing and considering of his various positions. Because they don’t all cohere with one another.
Of course they don't. I'm quite suspicious of people who claim THEY have It all worked out". Reality simply doesn't work that way, and only the Goddess may have absolute knowledge.
There is also a considerable gap between saying "There is a deep state of powerful individuals who attempt to arrange matters to their liking", and "There is a deep state and those bastards control EVERYTHING Zomgzz!".
One is rational, the other is paranoic thinking.
While "Conspiracy theorisising" is a made-up term to steer the public away from investigating and critiquing topics the elites would prefer to remain uninvestigated and uncritiqued, "Paranoic Thinking" can be very real indeed, and is genuinely worrisome, and not to be promoted.
What's the distinction? Take the old board game 'Illuminati'. Several powerful groups are duking it out. This is "Conspiracy theorising". However being convinced that ONE group has ALL the power, is all powerful, controls EVERYTHING - that is paranoic. It's crossed the border from reality into fantasy, and likely dangerous fantasy at that.
So this for me is not one of his inconsistencies. It is seeing there is a distinction there.
The deep state is there, but it is one among many interest groups, and is not 'all-powerful', and it is certainly not the case that everything that happens is because of this amorphous group.
I agree there's a bit too much "gratitude" often expressed on substack, although it is also sometimes genuinely meant, and also genuinely earned too.
“Of course they don't. I'm quite suspicious of people who claim THEY have It all worked out". Reality simply doesn't work that way, and only the Goddess may have absolute knowledge.”
But that is exactly how Charles comports himself, as if he has everything worked out and any criticism of his views is a failure to understand how superior his comprehension is.
The issue is not the existence of inconsistencies and contradictions in his writing. The issue is his own denial, his own refusal to acknowledge that they are there.
“There is also a considerable gap between saying "There is a deep state of powerful individuals who attempt to arrange matters to their liking", and "There is a deep state and those bastards control EVERYTHING Zomgzz!". One is rational, the other is paranoic thinking.”
Come off it. These are YOUR views — they do not constitute a position that Charles has ever clearly articulated. If he had, you could simply link to the essay or cut and paste the quotes in which he articulates this same lucid position. I’m aware of what he’s written about conspiratorial mindsets in the past, and it doesn’t match up with this. I partly agree with what you’ve written, and if that were all that Charles has said, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. It’s a clear and common sense and straightforward position. But, guess what? What you’ve written here is NOT Charles’ argument.
You might be right about that, although I comfort myself with the thought that if he did read my comment, he might well agree with it.
He's helped me formulate conceptions I was only fumbling towards, and I don't think he thinks he understands everything.
Even if he comes across that way at times.
Of course, we all know that we are right, all the time, about everything, and when we do change our minds, we actually thought that all along anyway. ;)
exactly - life is paradox and I am far more wary of people who wont allow their minds to change and shift. I can read articles such as Daniels above and actually agree with them on many levels but when I feel into the energy behind clever words it gives me different understandings - superiority and righteousness is a bitch! (I should know, I've done enough of it!)
I have the same impression as Gnumeo. I believe I've read all of Charles' essays that touch on conspiratorial thinking or the deep state. Would you please link statements he's made that you believe directly contradict one another. Also statements that give you the impression that Charles is professing to know some absolute truth when he makes these statements, rather than describing various human tendencies
Well, that's a really big task, as there are dozens of places in his writing where I've observed inconsistencies and dubious claims, but I'll try to provide a few. Here's Charles writing about Trump in 2016:
"I am willing to suspend my judgement of Trump and (very skeptically) hold the possibility that he will disrupt the elite policy consensus of free trade and military confrontation – major themes of his campaign. One might always hope for miracles. However, because he apparently lacks any robust political ideology of his own, it is more likely that he will fill his cabinet with neocon war hawks, Wall Street insiders, and corporate reavers, trampling the wellbeing of the working class whites who elected him while providing them their own sugar-coating of social conservatism.
The social and environmental horrors likely to be committed under President Trump are likely to incite massive civil disobedience and possibly disorder. For Clinton supporters, many of whom were halfhearted to begin with, the Trump administration could mark the end of their loyalty to our present institutions of government. For Trump supporters, the initial celebration will collide with gritty reality when Trump proves as unable or unwilling as his predecessors to challenge the entrenched systems that continually degrade their lives: global finance capital, the deep state, and their programming ideologies. Add to this the likelihood of a major economic crisis, and the public’s frayed loyalty to the existing system could snap."
It is true he does use the phrase "deep state" in this excerpt, but I'll come to that. The important thing to note is that Charles' dark, apocalyptic and pessimistic tone about Trump continued on in all his subsequent writings till RFK endorsed Trump. Only then did the tone drastically shift. Here's Charles writing about Trump now:
"Few people today have been more caricaturized than Donald Trump. I hate to disappoint any of my readers who demonize or lionize the man, but, having at this point something of a backstage pass, I can tell you that neither pole stands anywhere near the truth. It is almost impossible to see the real man through the fog of today’s information war.
He is not a strategic genius out-maneuvering the deep state in a match of 4D chess. Nor is he a Mussolini figure, a bigoted fascist marshaling resurgent far-right forces to elevate him into dictatorial power. He is not even particularly right-wing."
In his essay "The Conspiracy Myth" published in 2020, he writes:
".... the conspiracy myth gives narrative form to an authentic intuition that an inhuman power governs the world. What could that power be? The conspiracy myth locates that power in a group of malevolent human beings (who take commands, in some versions, from extraterrestrial or demonic entities). Therein lies a certain psychological comfort, because now there is someone to blame in a familiar us-versus-them narrative and victim-perpetrator-rescuer psychology. Alternatively, we could locate the “inhuman power” in systems or ideologies, not a group of conspirators. That is less psychologically rewarding, because we can no longer easily identify as good fighting evil; after all, we ourselves participate in these systems, which pervade our entire society. Systems like the debt-based money system, patriarchy, white supremacy, or capitalism cannot be removed by fighting their administrators. They create roles for evildoers to fill, but the evildoers are functionaries; puppets, not puppet masters. The basic intuition of conspiracy theories then is true: that those we think hold power are but puppets of the real power in the world."
It is clear from this paragraph that he does not think there is a "deep state" or Establishment in any meaningful sense of the word. Except, of course, when there is: he now tells us that the deep state will attempt to block Trump's every move and that "The Establishment" is engaged in "information warfare and various forms of cheating." Except that, when Trump lost the last election, he dismissed out of hand Trump's vehement claim that there was electoral malfeasance:
"The political defeat of Donald Trump in the 2020 election is a crossroads for the quasi-political movement grouped loosely around the QAnon conspiracy myth and, more broadly, around Trump himself. Because the man and the movement were a dark mirror for the whole of society, it is also a crossroads for society....
"At the present writing (late November, 2020) it would seem that the QAnons would have no choice but to abandon the faith. Not so. In various corners of the right wing alternative media, one may still read desperate theories about how Trump’s apparent defeat is a ploy to set up his master stroke. Even after he is deposed, even if he goes to prison, the myth will only change shape, since it is merely an outcropping of a much larger, long-established mythos, driven by repressed social and psychological forces. The same holds for Trumpism generally. It is thus important to gaze into this dark mirror and see what has been hidden..."
In context, it's clear that back then he gave no truck to Trump's charges of electoral fraud and meddling, nor did he support the Jan. 6 uprising: he presented it as delusional false belief and paranoia derived from the MAGA cult of Trump. Today, however, he takes it as a self-evident truth that the Dems regularly engage in electoral fraud. Oh, and he also said this in 2020:
"It is understandable why so many people have celebrated the defeat of Trump, a man who presided over the deliberate separation of immigrant children from their parents, who needlessly provoked Russia and China, who gave free pass to some of the worst of American’s racist tendencies, who green-lighted new levels of environmental destruction, who pushed regime-change operations in Venezuela and Bolivia, and so on."
I could go on and on, but I hope the point is clear that Charles presents claim after claim that clash with one another, and that this is a problem with his writing. It isn't that I'm not able to appreciate shades of gray or intellectual complexity, it's that he isn't willing to be clear when he changes his mind, or even to express lucid, clear and consistent positions, he wants to hold onto a kind of false profundity, a kind of enigmatic vatic quality that is more of a pose than a true reflection of profundity.
Thank you for being so detailed. I was already familiar with the passages you quote.
I'm going to respond in brief and may loop back later (or feel free to follow up w any questions or criticism).
I have tread a similar path to Charles and don't have any ties to RFK or Trump. I voted for Biden in 2020 and my whole adult life had canvassed for Dems. I'm also a female person of color by the by.
My essential response to you is that I was completely and totally propagandized. It took fully broadening my friendship circles, media sources, spiritual teachers and rallies I attended to arrive at a completely and totally different point of view regarding Trump, MAGA, deep state and how conspiracies are operating in the 3D plane of existence. Would be a book to detail all of this. Because of my own unfoldment, Charles's evolution of perspectives seems entirely natural to me and does not make me question his motives. Not that he might not be blinded -- of course it's possible and I continue to check my own biases. For me Trump is clearly a case of the lesser of two evils. Be that as it may, I will very enthusiastically vote for him (bc of my view of the alternative).
One last thing: at the time when I read Charles' Conspiracy Myth piece I did not interpret it as friends of mine did. To point out the psychological crutch that conspiratorial thinking may become does not in itself suggest that conspiracies aren't rampant. The nature of Charles' writing has been to point out pitfalls in typical frames of thinking, as every version of reality our minds conjure will inevitably entail potential blindspots. I'm not saying his own experience hasn't led him to review his attitude towards how much conspiracies are relevant to understanding reality -- my own experience the past five years certainly has prompted extensive review. I'm saying that even in the Conspiracy Myth he did not say anything that would preclude the existence of an aggregate of power (within alphabet agencies for example) that function as a "deep state" The paragraph you quoted that you regard as proof he didn't believe in a "deep state" does not come across that way to me. People at 3 letter agencies may comprise a "deep state" and ALSO be "puppets of the real power in the world." To understand/unpack that statement requires a spiritual lens which to my knowledge Charles has only touched on during calls, not in his writings
Thank your for your thoughtful reply. This is a valid point: "To point out the psychological crutch that conspiratorial thinking may become does not in itself suggest that conspiracies aren't rampant." I also agree with your further point, that, "I'm saying that even in the Conspiracy Myth he did not say anything that would preclude the existence of an aggregate of power (within alphabet agencies for example) that function as a "deep state" The paragraph you quoted that you regard as proof he didn't believe in a "deep state" does not come across that way to me. People at 3 letter agencies may comprise a "deep state" and ALSO be "puppets of the real power in the world."
However, this wasn't Charles' last word on the matter of conspiracies. Jack Adam Weber, who's recently popped up on these very comment threads, wrote a critique of Charles' Coronation essay, in which he accused Charles of indulging in conspiratorial thinking, and Charles' response was an immediate dismissal of Weber's accusation: "The other day I was amused to read a critique of The Coronation in which the author was absolutely certain that I am a closet conspiracy theorist. He was so persuasive that I myself almost believed it."
He then goes on to write: "What is a conspiracy theory anyway? Sometimes the term is deployed against anyone who questions authority, dissents from dominant paradigms, or thinks that hidden interests influence our leading institutions. As such, it is a way to quash dissent and bully those trying to stand up to abuses of power. One needn’t abandon critical thinking to believe that powerful institutions sometimes collude, conspire, cover up, and are corrupt. If that is what is meant by a conspiracy theory, obviously some of those theories are true. Does anyone remember Enron? Iran-Contra? COINTELPRO? Vioxx? Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?"
However, in the context of Covid, he seems to suggest that this isn't relevant, and what is going on in something else, not a conspiracy but merely the appearance of a conspiracy: "During the time of Covid-19, another level of conspiracy theory has risen to prominence that goes way beyond specific stories of collusion and corruption to posit conspiracy as a core explanatory principle for how the world works. Fuelled by the authoritarian response to the pandemic (justifiable or not, lockdown, quarantine, surveillance and tracking, censorship of misinformation, suspension of freedom of assembly and other civil liberties, and so on are indeed authoritarian), this arch-conspiracy theory holds that an evil, power-hungry cabal of insiders deliberately created the pandemic or is at least ruthlessly exploiting it to frighten the public into accepting a totalitarian world government under permanent medical martial law, a New World Order (NWO). Furthermore, this evil group, this illuminati, pulls the strings of all major governments, corporations, the United Nations, the WHO, the CDC, the media, the intelligence services, the banks, and the NGOs. In other words, they say, everything we are told is a lie, and the world is in the grip of evil."
And to make it clear that he himself doesn't subscribe to this notion (i.e. Weber's charge is invalid), he states: "So what do I think about that theory? I think it is a myth. And what is a myth? A myth is not the same thing as a fantasy or a delusion. Myths are vehicles of truth, and that truth needn’t be literal."
Personally, I don't find it helpful to label an Illuminati conspiracy theory a myth, an archetypical myth rather than a manifestation of paranoia. But whatever. Still, there's a problem here, the same problem I see again and again with Charles. Weber never accused him of believing in the most extreme, outlandish Illuminati conspiracy. So why bring it up? It seems that Eisenstein is incapable of addressing what the other even said. We have a person who doesn't want to be pinned down, his inability to address the actual points made by the other isn't a consequence of the difficulty of the subject matter, but it's some kind of character flaw. The first thing I noted about Charles' response to Weber is that he never addresses himself to anything Weber actually complained about, which has nothing to do with Illuminati type craziness. But Weber also often doesn't take Eisenstein at his word, he quotes certain statements Eisenstein makes and has some strong arguments against Eisenstein's various truth claims, but he keeps claiming Eisenstein also has secret intentions: "Conspiracy theorists are usually easy to identify and easy to debunk. To his credit, Charles Eisenstein is an exception, which makes his rhetoric all the more insidious. He magically mesmerizes, couching his underlying agenda and beliefs (though repeatedly claiming to “not know” anything) in a panoply of pseudo-intellectual smoke and mirrors."
I don't think this is true, about a hidden "underlying agenda," but then again, Charles is so slippery and evasive, always, how do I know? And not evasive because his thought is so complex but because he doesn't like being pinned down and doesn't like to be held to any particular position. Another poster recently described Charles as having a "solipsistic" mind, and that seems true to me.
Charles seems to believe in conspiracy and hidden deception when it suits him. But it also seems to him that he can disown this perspective when it suits him. But if it is simply his own personal preference to believe a conspiracy occurred HERE but did not occur THERE, then surely he needs to start getting specific and stop beating around the bush all the time. He's always warning people against falling into the trap of conspiracy theorizing, even though he himself believes in conspiracies when he feels like it, but doesn't feel it's fair to demand solid and detailed evidence one way or the other, and he immediately issues a solid denial when someone like Weber accuses him of conspiracy theory. There is never any willingness to meet the reader half-way: at some point, he has to stop complaining if he's being misunderstood and start accepting that much of the fault for any confusion and misunderstanding of his views lies with himself and how he typically expresses himself. The lack of clarity, precision, and consistency is in him, not his readership.
Before we can examine the question of whether a deep state exists, we need to agree on the meaning of the term. Perhaps the inconsistencies you note are merely the result of the meaning of "deep state" not being entirely clear in Charles' own mind, as it is also not in mine. I've been thinking that the 'deep state' is a term for the complex of intelligence and spook agencies of our country that run on secret budgets and can act with impunity against normal laws. The sense discussed here seems to be a conspiracy of oligarchs and alphabet agencies. Viewed this way, it could very well be a Schrödinger’s cat concept that one could suppose or deny at different moments of one's writing.
I’ll have a look. I just don’t get American politics :/
There is no deep state. There is only the state, which is plenty deep. If there actually was a "deep state" and Trump was actually against it, he would have been eliminated, neutralized, or compromised long ago.
Naked power causes the collapse of legitimacy.
Of course the Alphabets could 'take out' Trump, although he has his own long-serving security, but they need to have 'plausible deniability' for the hit.
That complicates matters extensively. It takes time and planning to build an asset like Lee Harvey Oswald, and there is always the terrible danger the plot will fail and their hand will be revealed.
And, of course, there is the high likliehood they have already tried, a few months ago.
They're not supermen, despite all the Hollywood hype. Institutionalised incompetent fuckwits sociopaths is considerably more accurate.
And again - Trump is a BILLIONAIRE, and white. Not like some Black Panther the FBI can just assassinate by busting in the door and shooting him dead.
There is DEFINITELY a deep state (Originally a Swedish concept, I believe), of networked, privately-educated sociopaths. People so powerful they can even order the POTUS never to say "Ceasefire in Gaza" - recall that conundrum recently?
Like all such groups, it will be amorphous, some people will be in, and then out, but the existence of 'highly connected networks of the wealthy and powerful' exist in every society. In our modern, overpopulated, industrialised societies, they are organised.
"There is DEFINITELY a deep state (Originally a Swedish concept, I believe), of networked, privately-educated sociopaths."
I am afraid you are confusing the amorphous, ambiguous term "deep state" for the highly theorized concept of capital. As Joel Bakan pointed out two decades ago in The Corporation, the imperatives of capital accumulation embody the ethos of the psychopath.
No - but obviously they entwine in capitalist economies.
The deep state is more concerned with the security of the state, than the oligarchs. As Putin showed, the Russian deep state had few problems with reining in the excesses of the Russian oligarchy - although undoubtedly there was considerable pushback within the Russian deep state against such policies, due to the entwinement.
But these two things CAN be separate, and studied separately.
Att the risk of being argumentative, I wouldn't necessarily agree that capital accumulation "is" psychopathic, but it certainly can be in those who seek to be 'Oligarchs', or who are utterly uncaring as to the damage their greed is causing to the other members of the community or nation. And it has become institutionalised behaviour in the West.
Gnuneo, you certainly have the right to believe in a Deep State running things. There is a legitimate debate to be had here. But Eisenstein is not consistent on this subject. For him it’s like Schrödinger’s Cat, real and powerful in one essay, a figment of the imagination in another, depending on what point he’s trying to make at a particular time.
I replied to this above, Prokopton.
Thank you for making a clear and obvious point so simply.
"Trump is Establishment - but not deep state." Mmmmmhmmm
If RFK Jr has his ear I pray he shares this essay. Vitally important on many levels.
He's busy finding dead bears to put them on bicycles. And "changing his mind" last minute.
Did you read RFK's wonderful speech explaining his decision? It is very moving.
Don't forget the whale skulls. But give the guy a break. It's just a rich kid's hobby and a rich kid's sense of entitlement that he can do whatever he wants and it will be indulged.
Frankly, having a whale skull shows how much RFK Jr. is deeply anti-establishment. He's just a random guy, like hundred of millions of Americans. It's very important such people can seize the power for protecting the poor.
He didn't change his mind. He forgot, cuz, ya know, the worm ate his brain.
He doesn't have his ear. Anymore than the King of Rohan has Saruman's ear.