Caitlin Johnstone
Recent articles by Caitlin Johnstone
25 May 2023
60 Minutes Australia keeps churning out war-with-China propaganda
60 Minutes Australia has been playing a leading role in saturating Australian airwaves with consent-manufacturing messaging in support of militarising to participate in a US war against China.
1 May 2023
Reminder: the media once bashed Trump for transgressing the One-China Policy the US now spits on
The US has been increasingly treating Taiwan like a sovereign nation with whom diplomatic relationships and alliances can be formed, in violation of its longstanding One-China policy that has kept the peace for decades. And I just think it's worth noting that the western media who've lately been condoning these moves became outraged at Donald Trump just a few years ago for doing the same thing to a far lesser degree.
27 April 2023
Australia pays Washington swamp monsters for war advice
Australia has been paying insiders of the US war machine for consultation on how to run the nation's military, a massive conflict of interest given that Washington has been grooming Australia for a role in its war agendas against China.
25 April 2023
New Defence Review further enslaves Australia to US war agendas
The Australian government has released the declassified version of its highly anticipated 2023 Defence Strategic Review(DSR), and the war propagandists are delighted.
3 April 2023
Australia isn't a real nation, it's a US military base with kangaroos
One of the many, many signs that Australia is nothing more than a US military and intelligence asset is the way its government has consistently refused to intervene to protect Australian citizen Julian Assange from political persecution at the hands of the US empire.
31 March 2023
AUKUS exists to manage the risks created by its existence
NATO exists to manage the risks created by its existence, Professor Richard Sakwa once wrote in an attempt to articulate the absurdity of the military alliance's provocative nature on the world stage. At some point Australians must wake up to the fact that this is equally true of AUKUS: we're told the military alliance exists for our protection, but its very existence makes us less safe.
21 March 2023
Empire-funded think tanks are not valid sources: notes from The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
ATTENTION JOURNALISTS: It is never, ever acceptable, under any circumstances, to cite think tanks funded by governments and the military industrial complex as sources of information or expertise on matters of national security or foreign affairs.
18 March 2023
It's good to be mean to war propagandists
Sydney Morning Herald editor Bevan Shields has published an article titled We are not above criticism but these attacks go too far tearfully rending his garments over criticisms his paper's three-part war-with-China propaganda series Red Alert has received from former Prime Minister Paul Keating and from ABC's Media Watch.
14 March 2023
On war with China, Australia Is caught between a rock and a Pentagon
As part of Australian media's relentless onslaught of war-with-China propaganda, the government-run Australian Broadcasting Corporation just aired a radio segment on RN Breakfast about the newly revealed details on the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, featuring two guests who are enthusiastic supporters of the deal, and hosted by another enthusiastic supporter of the deal.
10 March 2023
They work so hard to manufacture our consent because they absolutely require it
Australian media are awash with reporting on the war-with-China propaganda series by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that I've been writing about for the last few days. Which is really quite extraordinary, because it's not an actual news story.
9 March 2023
Attack of the "Pro-Ukrainian Group": notes from The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Thelatest New York Times report on the Nord Stream pipeline bombing is something else. According to NYT's anonymous US government sources, the pipelines were blown up by a pro-Ukrainian group who had no known connections to any military or intelligence agency, but somehow had all the information, skills, diving equipment and military explosives necessary to carry out such an attack.
8 March 2023
Australian media are outright telling us they are feeding us war propaganda about China
The mass media in Australia have been churning out brazen propaganda pieces to manufacture consent for war with China, and what's interesting is that they're basically admitting to doing this deliberately.
7 March 2023
No, Australia does not actually need to prepare for war with China
In the latest instance of the Australian media's deluge of propaganda geared toward manufacturing consent for war with China, Nine Entertainment-owned newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have brought together a panel of experts to assess how well-prepared Australia is for a hot war with its primary trading partner. The question of if that war is necessary or should be prepared for is left completely unexamined.
5 March 2023
US Ambassador to China: "we're the leader" of the Indo-Pacific
A recent US Chamber of Commerce InSTEP program hosted three empire managers to talk about Washington's top three enemies, with the US ambassador to China Nicholas Burns discussing the PRC, the odious Victoria Nuland discussing Russia, and the US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides talking about Iran.
3 March 2023
It Is the mass media's job to help suppress anti-war movements
In a new article titled European antiwar protests gain strength as NATOs Ukraine proxy war escalates,, The Grayzone's Stavroula Pabst and Max Blumenthal document the many large demonstrations that have been occurring in France, the UK, Germany, Greece, Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium and elsewhere opposing the western empire's brinkmanship with Russia and proxy warfare in Ukraine.
22 February 2023
Russia and China draw 'Red Lines' on their borders; US draws them on the other side of the planet
Reacting to China's announcement that it will be putting forward a proposal for a political settlement to end the war in Ukraine, theUS ambassador to the United Nations said that if China begins arming Russia in that conflict this will be a red line for the United States.
16 February 2023
Murdoch propaganda pushes Australia to double its military budget for war with China
In the latest escalation inAustralia's increasingly forceful campaignto manufacture consent for war with China,the Murdoch-owned Sky News Australia has aired a jaw-droppingly propagandistichour-long specialwhich advocates a dramatic increase in the nation's military spending.
12 February 2023
My sources corroborate Hersh's Nord Stream Report: notes from The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
My sources corroborate Seymour Hersh's report that the US was behind the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. (My sources are logic, common sense, and public statements by US government officials.)
7 February 2023
More evidence that the West sabotaged peace In Ukraine
Days after the war in Ukraine began it was reported by The New York Times that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to mediate negotiations in Jerusalem between Ukraine and Russia. In a recent interview, Bennett made some very interesting comments about what happened during those negotiations in the early days of the war.
20 January 2023
US may help Ukraine launch an offensive on Crimea
In a new article titled U.S. Warms to Helping Ukraine Target Crimea, the New York Times reports that the Biden administration now believes Kyiv may need to launch an offensive on the territory that Moscow has considered a part of the Russian Federation since 2014, even if such a move increases the risk of escalation.
12 January 2023
Western journalists are cowardly, approval-seeking losers
Research conducted by New York University's Center for Social Media and Politics into Russian trolling behaviour on Twitter in the lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election has found no evidence of a meaningful relationship between exposure to the Russian foreign influence campaign and changes in attitudes, polarisation, or voting behaviour.
5 January 2023
Awakening from the Western Narrative
Western analysts spent years warning that western actions would provoke a war in Ukraine, westerners spent four years being propagandised into hating Russia, then Russia invades and now western imperialists say the war is advancing US interests. But remember: it was an unprovoked invasion.
4 January 2023
Propaganda isn't something that only happens to others.
One of the empire's strongest assets is the widespread assumption that propaganda is something that only happens to other people.Another is the widespread assumption that propaganda only comes from other countries and other political ideologies.
2 January 2023
US Military thanks and praises retiring CNN "Journalist" for her service
The US military has been showering CNN's retiring Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr with effusive thanks and praise for her lifetime of service, giving some insight into the cozy working relationship between the media and the war machine inside the US empire.
22 December 2022
The empire is built on our closed eyes
They can't work toward peace in Ukraine because it will serve Putin. They can't work toward peace in Yemen because it will serve Iran. They can't end the occupation of Syria because it will serve Assad. They can't stop military expansionism because it will serve China.
18 December 2022
Opposing war is the first step toward moral Politics: notes from the edge of The Narrative Matrix
Forcefully opposing the warmongering and imperialism of your rulers is the very first step toward political morality. It's not the only step, but it is the first step, because if you haven't taken that step then no other ostensibly moral politics you might espouse are meaningful.
16 December 2022
NATO chief voices fear of war with Russia while US greenlights drone strikes on Russian territory
In what Antiwar's Dave DeCamp describes as a rare acknowledgment of the dangers of backing Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged a fear of something going horribly wrong and leading to a hot war between the nuclear-armed alliance and Russia.
21 October 2022
The most powerful weapon the West gave Ukraine: notes from the edge of the narrative matrix
It's pretty wild how the US is sending armoured vehicles to Haiti to help quash the exact sort of uprising it's been actively trying to create in places like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Hong Kong.