JOHNSTONE

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They're Still Pushing The Ethnic Cleansing Of Gaza Jun 29, 2026

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Israel was founded on the premise that the country’s previous inhabitants need to be eliminated in some way. That’s all this has ever been about. It was never about October 7. It was never about Hamas. It was never about hostages. It was never about terrorism. It was never about self-defense. It was never about any of the countless excuses the hasbarists and imperial spinmeisters have offered up over the last three years to justify Israel’s monstrous abuses. It was only ever about eliminating Palestinians because of their ethnicity and replacing them with Jews. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Reading by Tim Foley.

We're Expected To Remember October 7 But Never Ask Questions About It Jun 28, 2026

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Ask why there's been so much violence in the middle east these last three years and you'll be told it's because of October 7. Ask why October 7 happened and you'll be called an antisemite. Ask what specifically transpired on that day and you'll be called a conspiracy theorist. Reading by Tim Foley.

din Jun 27, 2026

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They're designing park benches so that homeless people can't sleep on them and placing metal spikes beneath overpasses so they can't be used as shelter. Jerry Seinfeld says Palestine doesn't exist and that sometimes socks go missing in the dryer, wocka wocka ha ha ha it's funny because it's a witty observation about life's everyday little goofy goofs. Fast food wrappers blow in the wind like the leaves used to do. Duct-taped gargoyles with garbage bag wings peer down at the din of civilization as we march over the sidewalk sleepers to our Jobs, stepping over dead bodies while staring at our phones and counting the minutes til we can go home to our sofas and watch wocka wocka comedians and shovel SSRIs into our faces from large plastic bowls so the crushing beauty of our world and the knowledge of our mortality doesn't topple us like Jenga blocks and make us weep like open fire hydrants. In this din they don't want you to feel. They don't want you to think. They don't want you to hear. They keep it all CLANG, CLANG, CLANG, BUY, BUY, BUY, WORK, WORK, WORK, WOCKA, WOCKA, WOCKA, so that you can't feel your body. So that you can't hear the songs. There's bird song and whale song and heart song and lung song. There's fire song and sea song and wind song and tree song. There's ancestor song and mountain song and sun song and wolf song, and lots of others I bet; I can't hear any of them. Oh, except thought song, which blasts through my head like a sonic homeless deterrent in a shopping center alleyway, and, like them, I have nowhere else to go. ____________ Reading by Caitlin Johnstone.

The Polite Kind Of Racism Jun 24, 2026

Show notes

There are two types of racism in the west: the kind that's considered acceptable in polite liberal society, and the kind that's widely frowned upon. The acceptable type of racism is the kind which considers it fine and normal to drop bombs on Muslim families overseas. The kind which sees starvation sanctions as a minor issue whose pros and cons are assessed solely on the basis of whether they will be successful or unsuccessful in achieving regime change. The kind which views imperialist extraction from the global south as the natural order of the world, with centrists and progressives squabbling only about how evenly that plunder should be distributed among westerners. The unacceptable type of racism is the kind which affects other westerners. The kind whose consequences western liberals have to see. Reading by Tim Foley.

Blaming Ordinary People For The Ecocidal Consequences Of AI Jun 23, 2026

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There are plenty of reasons why we should all avoid using AI, but the push to offload all the responsibility for the ecological consequences of data centers onto individual users instead of just regulating AI companies is typical capitalist power-serving bullshit. Reading by Tim Foley.

True Spirituality Confronts The Abuses Of The Empire Jun 22, 2026

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A spirituality that is uninterested in ending war, genocide, poverty and injustice is a dead spirituality. If you hold your time on the meditation cushion as something separate from the weeping mother clutching a small body in Lebanon, you're wasting your time. Reading by Tim Foley.

Some Guy Broke Into My House Jun 21, 2026

Show notes

They keep saying I hate the guy because of his religion. I don't even care about his religion, I just don't like sharing my house with some random outsider who broke in here out of nowhere and took my stuff. Reading by Tim Foley.

Rumbling Jun 20, 2026

Show notes

If you can hear the whales through your glowing foot roots, then stand up. Open your mouth. Let their aria rip through you. Let it pound up and out so the others can find you. Burrrp! Now’s not the time for politeness, my love. We’re staring down mass extinction. We don’t have time to be cool. Care! It’s fine! There’s a rumbling in your belly. Can you feel it? An inner ocean, still teeming with luminescent jellyfish, dulled by a thin coat of plastic, immortal but dying anyway. For so many their foot roots have withered away somewhere in between an Uber shift and a Door Dash, and besides, their heart, rick-roll racketed by rent scam subscriptions, beats too loud and fast to hear any stupid whales. Exhausted bodies hosting ghosts running on foodless food and godless gods, too sick and tired to look up to see, to know what’s happening in our name, to understand that the cold blue eyes of the empire of whiteness stamped on our every dollar bill that we are forced to pray for fervently each night, “Please God please God Please may I pay my bills God Please may I feed my children God Please may we keep this roof God Please may you give me more money God Please oh money God Please oh please I don’t want to die Please give me your demon dollars Made from the bones of African child slaves Pressed from the meat of the babies of Gaza Printed with the oil made from the blood sacrifices of Chevron Paper gods every one I know not where they come from Or how they are made And I might die of grief if I did Just give me some more of your green demon prayer cards So that I might live Another day, Amen.” That is not you. You pray of course (we all must), but you, you hear the whales. And there are others. You can tell us by the flowers of light sprouting from our eye stalks and noggin crowns, from our bellowing war cries roaring through us giving voice to our blue mama, her rainforest hair slick with oil but beautiful still. Reading by Tim Foley.

Israelis Invade Lebanon And Then Cry Victim When Their Soldiers Get Killed, And Other Notes Jun 19, 2026

Show notes

From all this melodramatic garment-rending and victim-LARPing you'd assume the four Israelis were killed in their beds in Tel Aviv, not traveling by tank through a foreign country they'd invaded. Reading by Tim Foley.

Humans Create Empires For The Same Reason They Create Egos Jun 18, 2026

Show notes

We're basically ruled by emotional toddlers who never learned to rein in their egos. They're trying to control the planet in the same way they tried to control their access to toys and candy when they were small. Reading by Tim Foley.

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