JOHNSTONE

"The most worthwhile spiritual teachings don't actually teach you any new knowledge. Rather, they direct your attention to aspects of your own experience that you'd previously overlooked or hadn't paid much attention to. They get you questioning your unquestioned assumptions about very fundamental components of your experience like your sense of self, your means of perception, and the workings of your own mind. The most skillful teachers therefore don't require you to trust them or take anything they say on faith, because you can immediately examine everything they're pointing your attention toward for yourself in your own experience." ~ Margaret Tetherwood

Western empire managers do not actually believe that there is anything "abhorrent" or "horrific" about attacking a hospital - at least not one which provides services to Palestinians or other populations who are not favored by the western empire. Reading by Tim Foley.

I want a free Palestine and a free mind, a free heart and a free world. I want the oceans teeming with life and the air full of plant sex and dragonflies. I want a society where nobody needs to work but most people want to, except for the occasional eccentric dude (and there will always be the occasional eccentric dude), but he will have a flute and a story to tell. I want to write essays that open eyes and poems that open hearts and fan the flames of a revolution that will open the iron fist of the empire. I want to make something so beautiful that people will want to destroy it, until they recognize it's just a mirror of the beauty that hides choked back within themselves. I want a fiftieth birthday party with a somber accordion player and his weeping wife who plays the saw, and I want everyone to drink ambrosia cocktails out of teapots and tell each other things they've never told anyone else before. I want to hand out unconditional flowers at Flinders Street station and be happy with however they're received. I want to smack that smirk right off Matthew Miller's face and release a swarm of shrieking male cicadas into the press gallery. I want to wink at the moon and have her wink back, and then never tell a living soul about it and just keep it a secret between me and her. I want to dance with sincerity, all my psychic armor on the floor like clothing on a night of torrid lovemaking. I want to sing through the soles of my feet and let the earth roar through me like a primordial bagpipe.  I want to snort up the beauty of the world like a Hollywood producer off a hooker's tits at 3 AM. I want to greet everything that comes into my senses with a wet, gooshy love, and I want to be wide open to letting it all love me right back. I want to meet everything that arises with brand new eyes, and with more awe and reverence than if I was meeting Actual Biblical Yaweh. I want plastic to be a controlled substance and for magic mushrooms to be in supermarkets. I want everyone to realize how pervasively we've been lied to, and how badly we're being screwed over, and what a beautiful world we could all have if enough of us saw it as possible. I want my species to stop living in its head and to finally come back home to Mother Earth. I want a free Palestine and a free mind, a free heart and a free world. Thank you in advance, Love Caitlin. Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.

A new report from the Israeli outlet Haaretz titled "IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive" confirms what independent outlets like The Grayzone and Electronic Intifada have been getting smeared as antisemitic conspiracy theorists for saying this entire time: that many of the Israeli deaths on October 7 were the result of an IDF policy of deliberately firing on their own people to prevent them from being taken hostage by Hamas. Reading by Tim Foley.

Saying democracy is in jeopardy in America is like saying beach front properties are in jeopardy in Wyoming. Your country is run by a few billionaires and government agencies. You don't get a real vote, and even if you did you're all propagandized anyway. It's not a real thing. Reading by Tim Foley.

Let's allow the cruelty of the world to break our hearts, kind friend. Let's weep together at the shredded and emaciated bodies in Gaza, and at their mocking, cackling tormenters. Reading by Tim Foley.

There is nothing natural about this. The way things are. The way we are living. If this was the natural and healthy way for human society to exist, it wouldn't require mountains of propaganda spin to keep it going. Reading by Tim Foley.

So much abusive bullshit hides behind the false modesty of "This issue is too complicated for me to understand." Reading by Tim Foley.

Everyone's acting shocked and outraged at the Supreme Court ruling that Donald Trump and other former presidents are largely immune from criminal prosecution, as though presidents getting prosecuted for their crimes is something that's been happening this entire time. Reading by Tim Foley.

Ehud Olmert: "The entire Israel Air Force relies completely on American aircraft: fighter planes, transport planes, refueler planes and helicopters. All of Israel's air power is based on the American commitment to defend Israel. We have no other reliable source for essential supplies of equipment, munitions and advanced weapons that Israel cannot manufacture on its own." Reading by Tim Foley.