Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

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Jeffrey Epstein, Woody Allen, and Noam Chomsky went out to dinner one night.

There's no punchline, that's just something that happened.

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Of course, nothing that comes out about Epstein himself will ever be as significant as the first fact that powerful intelligence agencies use kids as sex slaves to manipulate our society with blackmail.

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Anti-China propaganda needs to be opposed ferociously. US military encirclement of China is rapidly increasing and the floodgates are being opened to pour weapons into Taiwan as quickly as possible, and it's getting almost no resistance anywhere. People barely know it's happening.

The propaganda campaign against China needs to be opposed right now because it's a threat right now, and also because otherwise when the time comes to actually send out the war ships the public will just consent to it, since the war propaganda went unchallenged that whole time. After a certain point a propaganda narrative can gain enough momentum that there's simply no resisting it. We can't just ignore this.

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The US alliance is indisputably encircling Russia and China in ways it would never permit itself to be encircled. The only way to defend this discrepancy is to say "Well it's okay when we do it because they are Bad Guys while we are Good Guys," which is an infant's understanding.

Believing that "democracies" should be allowed to do things that "autocracies" shouldn't be is just subscribing to an adult-sounding iteration of the "Good Guys vs Bad Guys" plotline of every children's cartoon. It can't withstand an instant of critical thought.

Even if you do subscribe to an infantile "Good Guys vs Bad Guys" worldview, all facts in evidence say the US should be considered the latter. Russia and China haven't spent the 21st century killing people by the millions in wars of aggression, for example. Russia and China haven't been strangling entire nations around the world with economic warfare for the crime of disobedience. Russia and China haven't been circling the planet with hundreds of military bases in order to rule the world. Russia and China haven't been plotting to destroy any nation which disobeys them. Only the US is doing these things.

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A great question to ask someone is "What conspiracy theory do you think might be true?" If they struggle to come up with even one, then that means they don't question anything. If they don't question anything, they're not thinking at all.

If you believe The Official Story about everything that happens, then you're not thinking, you're repeating. If the only thing you question is the questioners, then you're not an individual with your own mind, you are enforcer of the status quo. You're as much a separate person with your own thoughts as a car radio speaker is separate from the sound of the disc jockey.

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The contradictions and hypocrisy of the empire are so in-your-face right now it sometimes barely feels worthwhile to point it out. But it needs to be pointed out every time, because the majority of people still manage not to see it.

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I think it's probably a good thing when our idols get knocked off the pedestals we put them on. Chomsky. Bernie. The Dalai Lama. It's not healthy to elevate others to a lofty status above ourselves instead of seeing them as normal human beings who are as capable of error as anyone else.

Our entire culture — movies, schoolbooks, religions etc — tells us to always be looking for heroes. Tells us to look outside ourselves for celebrated leaders who will show us where to go. And I just think that's a terrible dereliction of duty — of our duty to find the truth for ourselves.

One of the worst mistakes you can make is neglecting your responsibility to cultivate a truth-based understanding of reality for yourself. People hand off that responsibility to journalists, pundits, "thought leaders", teachers, preachers and gurus, but to do this is to neglect a very sacred duty. As Terence McKenna said, “You have to take seriously the notion that understanding the universe is your responsibility, because the only understanding of the universe that will be useful to you is your own understanding.” Don't pass off that responsibility to someone else.

You are the sole authority over your own understanding of the world. You've no business abdicating that authority because someone else is speaking about something with a confident and authoritative tone. Find out the truth for yourself. Place blind faith in no one when it comes to understanding reality, including me obviously.

It's disempowering to have idols on pedestals, because they create the false impression that the solution to our problems exists somewhere outside ourselves. In reality no one individual will ever solve the massive problems humanity now faces. It's going to take all of us.

Truth doesn't exist in some other person; it's for you to sort out for yourself. Revolution isn't hiding in some celebrated hero; it's going to have to come from within us. Enlightenment doesn't exist in some lofty future state; it's here presently and just needs to be recognized.

The healthy way to relate to famous figures is to relate to them as anyone else: if they say something useful then use it, if they say something unhelpful then don't. You never need to elevate them so high that there's an expectation that they'll always get everything right, or that you feel a sense of disappointment or betrayal if they get something wrong.

It's disempowering to put people on pedestals, and it's no fun to be on the pedestal either. I always cringe a bit when I see someone constantly praising me as a person instead of focusing on the specific merits of my work on a case by case basis, not because I have a problem receiving compliments but because I know they're going to have to knock me off that pedestal one day. Anyone who's sincerely interested in truth will eventually have to knock some idols off of pedestals, because keeping them there inevitably becomes an obstacle to your own understanding of what's true. The whole relationship is just deeply unpleasant for everyone involved.

Hero stories keep you looking for heroes outside yourself. Idols keep you looking for truth outside yourself. Gurus keep you looking for enlightenment outside yourself. It's good to make use of all the knowledge and wisdom that exists in the world, but don't let it get you digging for treasure in the wrong place.

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

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Stress, anxiety and depression are on the rise, and they have been for years. Studies have found that increases in cost of living have a lot to do with this deterioration in mental health, while others have linked it to widespread social media use, and the financial and social stressors ensuing from government Covid restrictions certainly haven't helped.

What nobody seems to be doing any research at all into investigating is the possibility that all these mental health problems have something to do with the fact that we are ruled by tyrants who are squeezing the working class harder and harder while continually pounding people's minds with mass-scale psyops.

William Gibson said “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” And speaking from personal experience this is fantastic advice; I've found that many of the problems I had previously ascribed to flaws in myself and necessary difficulties that are built into the nature of human living quickly disappeared from my life at the same time assholes did.

But even more worthwhile than pointing out that a lot of your assumed mental health problems have more to do with being surrounded by assholes is considering the possibility that you are in fact ruled by assholes. By tyrants who are making life needlessly difficult for ordinary people while psychologically abusing them into thinking their situation is normal and appropriate.

A popular socialist YouTuber called Second Thought has a good new video out called "You're Not Immune To Propaganda" which examines the subject from a different angle than you might be used to. Second Thought emphasises the mundane, everyday nature of propaganda in our society as opposed to the shinier, better-known instances of its use like the consent-manufacturing for the Iraq invasion; the way it manipulates our understanding of who we are and what our values should be so that we will blame our struggles on ourselves instead of the neoliberal systems of oppression that are crushing people's spirits throughout western civilization.

Think about the consequences it would have on mental health to continually be bombarded with messaging that you need to keep working like a machine under whatever conditions your employer sees fit to provide, for whatever compensation your employer sees fit to offer, and that if you can't thrive in this soul-crushing environment the problem lies with you and not the system which permits such an exploitative relationship. Then consider the possibility that this is exactly what's happening.

This nonstop propaganda messaging is further bolstered by the just-world fallacy, a cognitive bias which causes people to incorrectly assume that if anything bad happens to someone it's because they deserved it. This common glitch in human reasoning arises because of people's need to feel like they're in control of their lives; they get that feeling of control by espousing the fallacious belief that as long as people always make good common sense decisions, nothing bad will ever happen to them. As a Twitter follower named Joe Ligato recently pointed out to me, this fallacy would cause people to blame themselves for problems in their lives that actually exist because of exploitative systems.

Some people wonder why mental health conditions are so bad, while I marvel at the fact that they're not much worse. It's actually amazing anyone's functioning at all in a civilization that's ruled by exploiters and abusers who dominate the world using mass-scale psychological manipulation. It's a testament to human resilience that anyone is sane. When everyone's mind is always being pummeled with messaging that you're deficient if you can't thrive under our oppressive systems, that you're flawed if you don't look, think and act a certain way, that poverty is normal and acts of mass military slaughter are acceptable, it's a wonder we don't all snap.

When everyone's consciousness is being continually warped and twisted to suit the agendas of the powerful and keep us all thinking, speaking, working, shopping and voting in ways that advance their interests, it's surprising we're not seeing more suicides, more mass shootings, more substance abuse, more clinical depression and anxiety. In a totalitarian dystopia that's held together by mass-scale psychological abuse, it's entirely reasonable that people are finding themselves overwhelmed with despair, alienation, depression and anxiety.

Everything seems phony, meaningless and needlessly difficult because it is. This isn't a statement about human nature or life as it naturally exists, it's a statement about the artificially constructed systems we live under currently. Systems that were built by people and are being maintained by people. Systems which can be changed and restructured by people, too.

In the meantime, please be gentle with yourself. If you're struggling to get by, don't heap extra problems upon yourself by beating yourself up about it. If you're feeling deficient because you can't live up to the standards of success and worthiness you're using, maybe take some time to consider whom those standards might benefit. If they're the sort of standards that would help turn the population into productive gear-turners of the capitalist machine, they're probably not the best gauge with which to measure your success as a person.

There's no real reason life needs to be this difficult. There's no reason we can't provide for everyone while technological advancement gives us all more and more free time. There's no reason we can't learn to live in collaboration with each other and with our ecosystem instead of in competition for the benefit of a few abusers at the top. All that's required is for enough of us to decide we're not going to take it anymore.

Times are hard, and they're getting harder, but we can turn this thing around. Please be kind with yourself in the meantime.

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Featured image via Adobe Stock.