One of the biggest challenges for a developing anti-imperialist, at least in my experience, is learning to differentiate between those who actually want to end the oligarchic empire and those who just want the empire to act a bit more cosmetically nice than it does.
These are two COMPLETELY different positions, especially because the latter is pure fantasy: you cannot have a globe-dominating unipolar power structure that doesn't use violent force to maintain that world order. Yet the two often wind up moving in overlapping circles.
I've never had trouble knowing what my own position is toward the empire, but I've often struggled figuring out who shared that position. There was a long unfolding process of going "Ohh, we're not on the same page at all. You want entirely different things from what I want."
Most of the sectarian fighting you see on Left Twitter splits along those lines: those who want to end the oligarchic empire, and those who want the oligarchic empire to be a bit nicer. These two positions are ultimately irreconcilable, so those factions will never get along.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Caitlin Johnstone ⏳

Caitlin Johnstone ⏳ Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @caitoz

1 Jun
Disconcerting how all the main players in the new US military/UFO narrative are consistently (A) saying it could be ETs and (B) still saying that if it is ETs they may pose a threat. This makes no sense and smells like a very nasty op. Makes no sense for real ETs to be dangerous.
No it isn't. What could a civilization that much more advanced than our own possibly want from us? What could they stand to gain by hurting us? What could we have that they couldn't make for themselves?
To say nothing of the fact that a species which managed to advance that far beyond our level must surely have matured beyond the psychotic murder-and-steal value system humanity is currently at. Otherwise they'd have killed themselves off long ago.
Read 6 tweets
30 May
The Screams Of A Dying Empire

"Ana Kasparian's infamous Young Turks tantrum about Aaron Maté was the screams of a dying empire."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-screams-…
Some want to dismantle the imperial slaughter machine and create a harmonious world; others just want the imperial slaughter machine to give them healthcare. These are two entirely different positions. It's not strange that these factions feud—it would be strange if they didn't.
US progressives who smear The Grayzone and other anti-imperialist media never have any other equally anti-imperialist media that they promote and uphold as good. This is because they are imperialists.
Read 5 tweets
30 May
America's solution to the PR crisis caused by the horrific consequences of its military interventionism has been to switch to sanctions, blockades, and proxy wars where violence is outsourced to other powers so they take the blame as the preferred method of imperial slaughter.
Syria is a perfect example of all of this. The US power alliance absolutely demolished that country by arming jihadist proxy forces and then sanctioning the hell out of it to keep it from rebuilding, all with the goal of eventually toppling Damascus, but hardly anyone knows this.
The number of westerners who know Obamacorp destroyed Syria is far smaller than westerners who know Bushcorp destroyed Iraq. Yes it's not always as effective (Saddam's dead while Assad is still there thanks to Russia's direct intervention in 2015), but the PR fallout is far less.
Read 5 tweets
29 May
Israel Narrative Management Is Getting Incredibly Desperate And Brazen

"They're blowing up entire press offices and arresting Palestinian journalists. This is narrative management at its least subtle."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/israel-narra…
The National Director Emeritus for the Anti-Defamation League has announced on Twitter that he is cancelling his subscription to The New York Times, accusing the outlet of "blood libel" against Jews.
According to Foxman, this is what constitutes the advancement of the ancient antisemitic canard known as blood libel: humanizing the children who've been killed by Israeli military explosives.
Read 19 tweets
28 May
When you're losing control of the narrative.
Israel is now holding 13 Palestinian journalists in "administrative detention".
rsf.org/en/news/israel…
This is after deliberately destroying more than 20 Palestinian media outlets in Gaza. This is narrative control at its least subtle.
theintercept.com/2021/05/18/gaz…
Read 4 tweets
28 May
If Moscow hadn't intervened in Crimea in 2014 and Syria in 2015, the US wouldn't have begun training us all to hate Russia in 2016.
At some point Russia and China both realized that if they don't start taking bold action to prevent the US empire from absorbing the entire world, they're going to slowly see their allies and trading partners disappear until they've got no choice but to join. That's all this is.
If Russia would've just let the US do its thing with the Ukraine coup and the proxy war to topple Damascus, there never would've been a Russia panic. But then Russia would've eventually found itself surrounded by a sea of hostile empire and forced to relinquish its sovereignty.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(