JOHNSTONE
JOHNSTONE is a podcast featuring readings of articles by Caitlin Johnstone. The readings are usually performed by her co-writer Tim Foley. The show brings her written commentary on politics, media, and current events into audio form. Each episode adapts one or more of her published pieces for listeners.
Episodes
Using AI Instead Of Writing Turns Your Brain Into Cheez Whiz
Writing is thinking. Writing is the practice of sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of your own consciousness and transforming your thoughts and feelings into coherent, logical expression.
Reading by Tim Foley.
When The Gates Of Tech Dystopia Snap Shut
The trapper is patiently pacing us into accepting mass surveillance, unfettered artificial intelligence advancement, militarized robots, police drones, digital currencies, propaganda, censorship, and the AI-assisted manipulation of the flow of information.
And then, when the time is right, the gate will come crashing down.
Reading by Tim Foley.
If The Truth Is A Threat To Israel, Then Israel Should Not Exist
Israel is so evil that it’s actually illegal for Israelis to tell the truth about it.
Benjamin Netanyahu has just ordered Israel’s military, its attorney general, and its security agency Shin Bet to investigate and prosecute the soldiers who anonymously shared their experiences in the Gaza Strip with the award-winning investigative documentary “NAZA”.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Advanced Technology Will Not Save Us
"The plot hole in techno-utopianism is that technologies don’t emerge in a vacuum: they are always controlled by somebody, and those somebodies always wind up being the people who control everything else."
Reading by Tim Foley.
They're Setting Up AI Surveillance To "De-Radicalize" Classrooms In Gaza
A US-based nonprofit is planning to use AI surveillance to check for "hateful" speech about Israel inside classrooms in the genocide-ravaged Gaza Strip.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Pentagon To Live Stream Firing Squad Execution - A Poem
The Pentagon plans to live-stream
the firing squad execution
of the Fort Hood shooter,
and my head is so very heavy,
and everything is covered in the ashes
of a burning planet.
I found the corpse of a water spirit
down by the creek where my parents live.
She used to play with me when I was small.
She was tangled in plastic
and mail-order clothes,
and someone had torn off her wings.
She would have
It Took A Live-Streamed Genocide To Punch Through The Wall Of Western Apathy
All of a sudden the idea that our bombs are killing people in the middle east was no longer a vague abstraction sitting in the periphery of our awareness. It was a reality hitting us right in the guts in the middle of the day while we casually scrolled our phones, forcing us to run to the toilet to vomit up our lunch.
Reading by Tim Foley.
No One Gives A Fuck About October 7
No one cares. They used to, but then Israel spent three years showing the world why October 7 happened in the first place. After witnessing the cruelty and savagery of the state of Israel, people get it now. Everyone understands.
Reading by Tim Foley.
You Are Morally Obligated To Oppose Genocide And Apartheid Regardless Of Your Religion
Ever since the UK Green party's "Zionism is racism" motion we've been seeing this narrative circulating that Jews are somehow exempt from the basic human duty to oppose genocide and apartheid, just because support for Israel happens to be common among the Jewish community.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Zionism Is OBVIOUSLY A Racist Ideology
On Sunday the UK Greens adopted a motion asserting that Zionism is a form of racism, defining the ideology as "an ethnonationalist political project."
Reading by Tim Foley.
Meditations On The Botched Execution Of Christa Pike
Reading by Tim Foley.
They're Still Trying To Rehab Biden's Genocidal Image, And Other Notes
"Stop. He’s a genocidal monster. That’s his only legacy. End of story."
Reading by Tim Foley.
Being Forcefully Pro-Palestine Weeds The Terrible People Out Of Your Life
Being Forcefully Pro-Palestine Weeds The Terrible People Out Of Your Life by Caitlin Johnstone and Tim Foley
Meditations On The Botched Execution Of Christa Pike
Pike committed a horrific violent crime as a young woman after a life of nightmarish abuse. She was physically and sexually abused by her mother's live-in boyfriend, was raped by a neighbor when she was eleven, and attempted suicide at the age of twelve.
And now she is on a respirator in a hospital as doctors fight to save her life, presumably so that the state of Tennessee can try to kill her ag
Saying You Listen To AI Music Is Like Saying You Have An AI Girlfriend
"When you’re talking about human interaction, which is what art is at its very nature, it absolutely does matter if there’s someone on the other end of it."
Reading by Tim Foley.
AI Won't Solve Humanity's Problems Because Our Problems Aren't Caused By Lack Of Intelligence
It’s an absolutely specious claim that artificial superintelligence will benefit everyone. Humanity’s problems are not caused by a lack of intelligence, our problems are caused by greedy plutocrats like Zuckerberg. It’s like a serial killer telling us we can stop serial killing by making serial killers smarter.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Empire Psychosis
The bread was designed in a lab to be furiously addictive, and the circuses track your preferences to serve you up all your favorite performances.
Empire psychosis keeps us in a constant state of distraction and escapism, always scrambling to avoid the here and now like we're trying to climb out of our own skins.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Tech Plutocrats Cannot Lead Us Into A Healthy Future
Transhumanism. Space colonization. Virtual reality. ASI. Immortality. These are all visions which revolve around escape. Escaping from the human condition. Escaping from our planet. Escaping from reality. Running, running, running away in a mad scramble to get anywhere but here.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Under Capitalism It_s Legal For Employers To Steal From Employees
Doordash has reached a historic $131.5 million settlement to repay workers in New York City for wages the food delivery app stole from them over the last four years, which sounds like a big win for the little guy if you don't think about it too hard.
Reading by Tim Foley.
It's Good To Bully Celebrities About Palestine
I strongly disagree with the idea that it's unhelpful to bully celebrities about their position on Palestine. On the contrary, I think we should bully them more.
Reading by Tim Foley.
The Real Danger Of AI Is That It Is Run By Evil Warmongers
The most obvious and imminent threat right now is not that artificial intelligence will outsmart us and escape our control, it’s that it is being fully controlled by humans who are stupid and evil.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Some Words About This Whole Caitlin Johnstone Project
Some Words About This Whole Caitlin Johnstone Project by Caitlin Johnstone and Tim Foley
I Still Believe Humanity Is Headed For A Mass Awakening
I still believe humanity is headed toward a mass awakening, as unfashionable as that is to admit here in the late 2020s.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Assange Returns To Public Commentary, And Other Notes
"Not everyone will remember it but there was a time when this was almost impossible to imagine."
Reading by Tim Foley.
Mike Huckabee Is The Most Evil Person In The Trump Administration
"This is a Trump-appointed US government official knowingly lying to the public so they will continue to support Israel’s US-backed abuses of the Palestinian people."
Reading by Tim Foley.
Debunking The Claim That Macklemore Has A _History Of Antisemitism_
As American rapper Macklemore becomes a frontline for renewed mainstream discourse about Israeli atrocities in Gaza, Israel apologists have been falling all over themselves to circulate the demonstrably false narrative that the artist has a history of antisemitic behavior.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Macklemore's Tour Cancellation Shows Why Celebrities Don't Criticize Israel
American oligarchs kicking an artist off a tour for supporting Palestine is a very in-your-face illustration of why mainstream culture is so vapid and fake these days.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Awakening To The Truth On Every Level
Awakening To The Truth On Every Level by Caitlin Johnstone and Tim Foley
Western Civilization Is A Phony Pop Star
Western liberal democracies are like a narcissistic wife beater who postures as a sensitive he/him feminist on social media. Like a pop star who makes a show of fighting the power and defending the marginalized while supporting Israel.
Our society isn't what it pretends to be.
Our entire civilization sustains itself through an endless river of blood, sweat and tears from the global south while
No, We_re Not Having The _It_s Not Genocide_ Conversation Anymore
It's so undignified how Zionists keep trying to resurrect the "stop calling it a genocide" conversation about Gaza when every relevant human rights group on earth says that's exactly what it is.
The latest effort to revive this long-dead debate comes in the form of a letter signed by 5,000 high-profile Israel supporters like Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, Zionist megadonor Haim S
There's No Good Reason Why Poverty Should Still Exist
We have more than enough resources to care for everyone, if we would only redesign our systems to advance the interests of humanity over the interests of capital.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Three Major Revelations About The Gaza Holocaust In The Israeli Press
The Israeli press has published three significant revelations about the Gaza holocaust, reporting (1) that Benjamin Netanyahu concealed advanced knowledge of the Hamas attack on October 7, (2) that Israel rejected a Hamas offer to release all civilian hostages immediately after October 7, and (3) that according to an IDF drone operator, the Israeli military was intentionally firing on civilians th
Oh My God Shut The Fuck Up About "Antisemitism"
“Antisemitism” watchdog groups are flipping the fuck out about hip hop artist Macklemore saying “Free Palestine” while opening for Ed Sheeran, and the western press are of course helping to spin this ridiculous nonsense as a massive scandal.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Israel Is Destroying Evidence Of Genocide In Gaza
You don’t generally look at construction equipment and think of it as a tool for genocide, but in occupied Palestine that’s exactly what this machinery is used for. They use it to knock down homes. To bury their victims. To conceal the evidence.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Liberal Zionists Are Evil Shitbags
In a recent appearance at the Hampton Institute, Hillary Clinton stated that Benjamin Netanyahu's "first and foremost" offense is the damage he has done to Israel and its reputation.
Reading by Tim Foley.
For A Westerner, Opposing The Empire Is The Only Path To Dignity
"For us, opposing that river of blood is the only path to a respectable life. We have no control over the fact that right now we live in a society that is fueled by a system of imperialist extraction propped up by the barrel of a gun, but we can control our response to that reality."
Reading by Tim Foley.
CIA Veteran Gloria Steinem Has Died
CIA veteran Gloria Steinem has died.
She helped Langley win the Cold War
while women remain blacksited and broken
raining teeth from bloody mouths
like the reds in Pinochet’s torture camps.
In this CIA civilization
women
slap name tags over baby vomit stains
smiling ear to ear for chortling customers
who shovel cheesecarbs into their faces
while she juggles dishpans and breast pumps
and goes hom
Hey Americans! Escape Debt By Going To War With Iran!
Today in dystopia, war pundits have begun suggesting that the US could recruit sufficient troops for a ground invasion of Iran by offering young Americans debt forgiveness in exchange for enlisting.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Supporters Of Capitalism Are Victims Of Their Own Cognitive Biases
People who believe capitalism is working out great are just sloppy thinkers who've fallen victim to survivorship bias and the just-world fallacy.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Israeli Officials Promote Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories About Israel
Israeli officials have spent recent days circulating antisemitic conspiracy theories, with Benjamin Netanyahu boasting that he manipulated the United States into war with Iran, and Itamar Ben-Gvir sharing an AI video of Palestinians being sent to Nazi-style concentration camps.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Today In Dystopia: ICE Robots And Pentagon Puppets
Today in dystopia, a Pentagon employee has published a McCarthyite list of suspected leftists and socialists who can now be tracked with the help of an interactive map.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Unsedated And Undeterred
Reading by Tim Foley.
You're A Terrorist If You Resist Genocide Or Mass Surveillance, And Other Notes
In this dystopia, mass surveillance is now so normalized that you can be designated a terrorist for helping people avoid being surveilled.
Reading by Tim Foley.
All It Takes Is One Crack In The Lie We've Been Sold
You start pulling on one thread and then the whole thing unravels. Maybe you start with the Iraq war lies. Maybe 9/11. These days for a lot of folks it's Palestine.
You keep pulling on that thread, uncovering more and more uncomfortable truths, until eventually you discover that pretty much everything you've been taught about your world was a lie.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Don't Let The Values Of This Dystopian Society Shape How You Live Your Life
According to the rules of our dysfunctional society, you are inadequate unless you've become a productive gear-turner for capitalism and obtained enough wealth to consume products at large volume.
Reading by Tim Foley.
It's Obnoxious For Westerners To Criticize The Targets Of The Western Empire
It's crazy this even needs to be said, but if you are a westerner your ONLY job is to oppose the abuses of the western empire. Not Iran. Not China. Not Russia, Cuba or North Korea.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Our Entire Civilization Is Run By Oligarchs And Empire Managers - And Other Notes
The Wall Street Journal has a new article out titled “The Hidden Debt That Apple Owes to the CIA,” subtitled “Without CIA funding that helped keep NeXT afloat in the ’80s, Steve Jobs might not have made a triumphant return to Apple — and the iPhone might not have its foundational operating code.”
All the top tech giants have deep ties to the CIA. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon. Facebook and Ins
"What Radicalized You?"
I dunno man maybe it was all the wars based on lies or the corporate ecocide or the live-streamed genocide or the people sleeping on sidewalks while billionaires become trillionaires or the plundering of the global south or the mass surveillance or the police drones or the Israeli torture prisons or the IDF rape dogs or the starvation sanctions or the proxy wars or the acts of nuclear brinkmanship
Today In Dystopia: Burning Books For Israel, Burning Books For AI
Today in dystopia they're really going after books. A library in Sydney has removed the book "How to Sell a Genocide" by Adam Johnson from its shelves after Zionists complained about its criticisms of Israeli mass atrocities in Gaza.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Today In Dystopia: "We Have Cameras Everywhere In That Town"
Today in dystopia, police have been wrongfully arresting people based on faulty information from AI-assisted Flock surveillance footage instead of actually investigating the evidence of the crime.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Let Your Love For This World Both Fill You With Joy And Compel You To Action
Love and cherish our world. That's the secret to remaining both (A) deeply happy and (B) well-informed about the dystopian abuses of the empire.
Reading by Tim Foley.
We All Know This Civilization Is Doomed, But They Keep Telling Us Everything's Normal
Life in the 2020s comes with so much dissonance and dysphoria because everyone knows this civilization is doomed, but it's not being acknowledged by any of our mainstream institutions.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Capitalism Trains Us To Blame Each Other For Systemic Abuses
Our minds have been carefully groomed to accept the imperial status quo as normal and healthy, and to see every failure of the system as a failure of the individual.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Today In Dystopia: Flock Camera Tyranny And Sam Altman Surveillance
"That's right kids, welcome to the future, where the sky is filling with AI police drones while the planet burns."
Reading by Tim Foley.
If We Could See Everything, It Would Radicalize Us All Instantly
The only thing keeping the heads of the oligarchs and empire managers attached to their necks is the limitations of human perception.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Joe Biden Should Be Dying Of Cancer In The Hague
I've seen a lot of people on social media expressing sadness and grief at the news of Biden's situation, and I agree it is very sad that this is happening. Joe Biden shouldn't be sitting at home dying of cancer, he should be sitting in a cell at The Hague dying of cancer.
Reading by Tim Foley.
There Is Beauty Everywhere. Even In Dystopia. Even In Armageddon
One point I will always adamantly insist on is that it’s entirely possible to live a joyful and exuberant life in the midst of this abusive dystopia.
Reading by Tim Foley.
ALL Mainstream Western Institutions View Palestinian Lives As Worthless
"I mean, it is a bit rich watching a BBC reporter act shocked and offended by somebody saying they think Jewish lives are worth more than Palestinian lives."
Reading by Tim Foley.
"I'm Not Political" Just Means "I Support Status Quo Politics"
"I don't do politics" means I support genocide. It means I support war. It means I support injustice and exploitation. It means I support ordinary people getting poorer and sicker while the biosphere dies and the billionaires turn into trillionaires. It means I support our headlong plunge into mass extinction and dystopia.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Let's Stay Human
They're trying to make us worse. These billionaire generative AI corporations reap profits by making us worse human beings.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Anthropocene
We can make a home here.
In these ruins.
In this shattered civilization
full of walking autopsies
where every twinkle in the night sky
is an Elon Musk satellite.
Life can still thrive here.
Even in the Anthropocene.
Even in the middle
of secular armageddon.
There is still moss
in the cracks of the parking lot.
There are still pigeons
roosting in the rafters.
We can make a nest here, too,
out of
Trump Inherited Peace Deals But Torched Them For More War
We're seeing more US airstrikes on Iran, joint US-Saudi strikes in Iraq, surging military escalations between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, and Israeli drone strikes in Lebanon, all just in the last couple of days. The middle east is becoming more and more of a powder keg, and it all could have been so easily avoided.
Reading by Tim Foley.
How To Be An Empire Propagandist
If you want to help the western empire administer war propaganda, one of the best ways to do this is to pretend the violence of empire-targeted governments happens in a vacuum, completely divorced from western imperial agendas.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Have I Mentioned It's Great That Lindsey Graham Is Dead?
Lindsey Graham's funeral was today, and as I watch all the worst people in the world express their grief at the loss of their dear darling friend, I find myself awash with gratitude that this particular warmonger lived a shorter life than such creatures often do.
Reading by Tim Foley.
We're Being Plunged Into Dystopia When We Could Be Living In Paradise
It's not just all the war, injustice, ecocide and dystopia that hurts. It's knowing it didn't have to be this way. It's knowing what could have been.
Reading by Tim Foley.
'Earth's Greatest Enemy' Delivers A Penetrating Insight Into The Heart Of Our Dystopia
There's a powerful new documentary out called Earth's Greatest Enemy by Abby Martin about the ecocidal abuses of the US war machine, and it addresses the most pressing existential hurdles we face as a species like nothing I've seen before.
Reading by Tim Foley.
There Will Be Times, Oh My Child, When It All Seems Hopeless
There will be times,
oh my child,
when it all seems hopeless.
When the trees all have QR codes
and the bank boys and balrogs
are holding all the cards.
When your refrigerator tells you
"THE IRANIAN PEOPLE YEARN FOR FREEDOM"
and your electric shaver can smell
if you've been reading Parenti.
When you're on a first-name basis
with the police surveillance drones
and your colonoscopy screen
in th
De-Normalize Israel
Basically we've got two choices: we either aggressively denormalize Israel or we watch our society become more and more Israeli.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Not Even Israelis Are Willing To Die For Israel
Israelis are happy for Americans to die for Israel, but they are unwilling to put their own lives on the line for the Zionist project.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Trump Is NOT A Reluctant War President
One of the dumbest popular narratives you see today is the idea that Zionists persuaded a reluctant Trump to start a war with Iran after he was re-elected, like they were chasing him around going "Would you like to bomb Iran?" like the guy from Green Eggs and Ham while he yelled "Not in a box! Not with a fox!" until he eventually caved in.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Revolutionary Optimism Takes Practice
Revolutionary optimism is a skill that you learn over time. Like any other skill, it takes practice to get good at it. Like any other skill, it can seem very difficult when you first start trying.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Where The Real Romance Begins
Our culture tells us that you do what you need to do to get the girl, and then once you’ve got her you just sort of coast along taking each other for granted until one of you dies. Because all the stories end before the real romance begins.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Trump Killed Those US Troops In Jordan
They were killed by the oligarchs and empire managers whose decisions sent them to die in yet another middle eastern war based on lies, and who will never lose a wink's sleep over it.
Reading by Tim Foley.
They're Launching A New COINTELPRO For The 21st Century
The Trump administration has announced a renewed crusade against "far-left terrorism," which sounds okay if you don't know that the word "terrorism" only ever means "behavior which goes against the agendas of the western empire."
Reading by Tim Foley.
Oh For The Day When The Bombs Stop Falling
Oh for the day
when the bombs stop falling.
When the humans stop biting
and stabbing each other
and spraying everything
with blood and oil.
When the men remove
their iron breastplates
and stand tender and vulnerable
in their original beauty.
When the women retrieve
their tongues
from the lead-lined jars
in the basement
and sing feral and free
beneath the streetlights.
When we release the eels
Liberals Have Relaxed About Trump Because They Trust Him To Keep The Wars Going
Have you noticed how the liberal establishment hasn't been nearly as emotional and outraged about Trump's second term as they were about his first? Now that he's the president who bombed Iran, the entire western political/media class is cool with him.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Trump Supporters Are Pathetic Cucks, And Other Notes
Being a Trump supporter in 2026 is like staying best friends with a man who stole your wife. He's deceived and betrayed you at every turn and you're still swinging from his nuts? That's cucky, humiliating behavior.
Reading by Tim Foley.
Lindsey Graham
Caitlin and Tim discuss the importance of emotional maturity in the struggle against the empire.
Well, At Least Lindsey Graham Is Dead
The only positive thing about the Iran war heating up again is that Lindsey Graham won’t be around to enjoy it.
Reading by Tim Foley.
It's A Race Between Revolutionary Consciousness And The Implementation Of Police Robots
The story of humanity in the 21st century is the story of a race between revolution and the technologies designed to prevent it. A race between the awakening of collective consciousness to the urgent need for revolutionary change on one hand, and the technological ability to quash a people's rebellion on the other.
We're all in this race, whether we realize it or not. We'd better pick up the pace
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