Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I think first we need to be clear that healing and feeling secure are two different things. Healing isn’t about getting away from uncomfortable feelings, it’s about moving right into them and feeling them fully. After we have done our work and healing has occurred we tend to notice that we feel better, but the actual work of healing begins in discomfort. That’s where the rubber meets the road on this path. Healing is when you find a part of yourself that has been acting out unconsciously over and over again throughout your life, by getting annoyed or upset or collapsing into helplessness, or by freezing up, freezing out, or freaking out. You start paying attention to how these unconscious behaviors play in yourself (either in your outward behavior or privately in your internal suffering), and you get real curious about how that is happening.” (12/09/25)
“President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei have a special relationship. Each is engaged in a crusade to make his respective country’s economy great again. Trump was all in on helping Milei win his elections earlier this year, and he has also offered the Argentines a $20 billion ‘lifeline’ as they adjust to the bumpy path to needed free-market reforms. The stakes are gigantic because the whole world is watching Milei’s embrace of free-market ‘shock capitalism,’ which so far is working. He has restored sound money (by linking to the dollar) and taken a chainsaw to the bloated state bureaucracy as he privatizes rather than nationalizes government assets. Argentina’s tragic detour into the dead end of socialism drove the nation into a half-century-long economic ditch, with poverty rates skyrocketing.” (12/09/25)
“Ten years after Donald Trump first ran for president, he stands at the helm of Titanic America. How did this happen? No factors were more pivotal than the outlooks and actions of the Democratic Party leadership. Scrutinizing them now is vital not only for clarity about the past. It also makes possible a clear focus on ways to prevent further catastrophe. Here’s the actual history that corporate Democrats pretend didn’t happen: 2016: Hillary Clinton offers more of the status quo. Her allies in the Democratic Party pull out all the stops so she can win the party’s presidential nomination. With a big assist from the Democratic National Committee, she prevails over the strong primary challenge from Bernie Sanders, but her campaign trail goes downhill from there.” (12/09/25)
“German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Tuesday that the Trump administration’s new national security strategy underscores the need for Europe to become ‘much more independent’ from the United States in terms of security policy. Merz also pushed back against the notion that European democracy needs saving. The U.S. strategy, published Friday, paints European allies as weak, while offering tacit support to far-right political parties, and was critical of European free speech and migration policy. On Monday, European Council President António Costa warned the U.S. against interfering in Europe’s affairs and said only European citizens can decide which parties should govern them. Merz, the leader of the European Union’s most populous nation and its biggest economy, said he wasn’t surprised by the substance of the strategy as it was largely in line with a lecture U.S. Vice President JD Vance gave to European allies in Munich in February.” (12/09/25)
“Vladimir Putin last week sent Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner packing, passing on President Donald Trump’s latest peace plan, and has followed up with yet more aerial assaults on Ukrainian civilians; it’s plainly time for Trump to up the economic pressure to get Vlad to the table. Absent that, the only peace Putin is interested in is the total conquest of Ukraine. Trump may grumble about Volodymyr Zelensky, but Ukraine’s president has been happy to negotiate; Putin’s the one who keeps saying nyet, even as he orders his forces to prepare for winter operations. European leaders who met Monday with Zelensky say they’re going to up their aid to Kyiv and look to further squeeze Moscow; if they follow through, Trump can surely do the same.” (12/08/25)
“Australia at midnight (1300 GMT) on Wednesday became the first country in the world to ban social media for children under 16, blocking them from platforms including TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram and Facebook. Ten of the biggest platforms were ordered to block children or be fined up to A$49.5 million ($33 million) under the new law, which was criticised by major technology companies and free speech campaigners, but praised by parents and child advocates. The ban is being closely watched by other countries considering similar age-based measures as concerns mount over the effects of social media on children’s health and safety. ‘While Australia is the first to adopt such restrictions, it is unlikely to be the last,’ Tama Leaver, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University, said.” (12/09/25)
“A planned news conference on Tuesday by Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado was canceled after a several-hour delay, a day before the award ceremony in Oslo. Machado, who last appeared in public 11 months ago, had been due to hold a traditional news conference the day before the formal award ceremony. But the lunchtime event was delayed without explanation, until the Norwegian Nobel Institute said three hours after the scheduled time that ‘it will not take place today.’ ‘María Corina Machado has herself stated in interviews how challenging the journey to Oslo, Norway, will be,’ the institute said in an email. ‘We therefore cannot at this point provide any further information about when and how she will arrive for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony.’ The institute did not specify whether the news conference would take place at a later point.” (12/09/25)
“The stock market has made gains at rates that are several multiples more than the growth of the real economy for three years running. Investor euphoria is always a sign of danger ahead, but this time there are other special factors signaling a pending crash. And of course, they all interact. Once investors head for the exits, others start bailing. I. Deregulation of Increasing Risk. Trump’s bank regulators are systematically dismantling the safeguards that were put in place after the financial collapse of 2008. That crash was caused by opaque financial instruments such as credit derivatives that allowed almost infinite amounts of leverage. When they turned out to be worthless, the collapse was also nearly infinite. In the aftermath, Congress and the regulators limited the risks that banks could take. In classic Wall Street form, the wise guys responded by creating non-banks that could do most of what banks do.” (12/09/25)
“It is hard now even for Democrats to defend illegal [sic] immigration, given that the Biden administration allowed in more than 10 million entrants. Among them were an estimated 500,000 criminals. No one believes that was wise or should ever be repeated. Worse, the message went out that there would be few, if any, deportations* and no real ICE kinetic activity beyond the border. The world’s poor, sick, both law-abiding and criminal, young and old, understood that anyone could now enter the U.S. at will. Deterrence and legality were lost. In its place, the message went out that if it was permissible to cross the border unlawfully [sic], then, by extension, it would be seen as equally fine to reside illegally [sic] as well, and perhaps further to ignore laws, on the theory that the host had sanctioned all such exemptions.” [editor’s note: * Trump still hasn’t caught up with Biden’s deportation numbers. Or Obama’s – TLK] (12/08/25)
“In recent months, the Trump administration has escalated a decades-long campaign against the Venezuelan government and people. The renewed, intensifying threats of regime change, justified through false or inflated claims that Nicolás Maduro, its president, is directing narco-terrorism against the United States, serve as a convenient pretext for deeper and more direct intervention. A recent wave of extrajudicial killings at sea, the directing of the CIA to launch covert ops inside Venezuela, the surge of US troops into the Caribbean, the reopening of a long-shuttered naval base in Puerto Rico, and the deployment of the aircraft carrier the USS Gerald Ford in the region represent striking but not surprising developments. These are little more than the latest expression of an ideological project through which Washington has long sought to shape the hemisphere in ways that would entrench US power further and protect the profits of Western multinationals.” (12/07/25)
