I refer to Caitlin Johnstone and her Notes from the Edge of the Narrative. It’s worth putting aside a forthcoming commentary to direct you to one of the most clear-headed English writers in the world today: Caitlin Johnstone. (Commentators frequently quote one another or hyperlink to each other’s work, but we don’t often devote a full article to advocate for a fellow journalist.) 

Johnstone’s work may be new to you, although she has a substantial following and is worthy of a wide audience. Like many forthright, no-nonsense critics of Israeli and U.S. policies, her writing lies on the far margin of political reviews. Even so, she’s prolific, determined to share her voice.

Take her recent commentary: “Offending Zionists is …” Unapologetic as ever.

Be prepared. She’ll frighten you. Embolden you. She may write what you feel but dare not utter.

Caitlin speaks directly to the reader. No grandstanding. She doesn’t use her space to show off her mastery of global affairs; although she knows her stuff. Why waste words on empirical facts or review tired arguments her readers will already know. So, like other subscribers, I don’t read Notes from the Edge of the Narrative for news or for background to any current issue. She knows we possess the bare facts—on surveillance, police brutality, corruption, daily accounts of Palestinians massacred, on modern weaponry, or the maleficence and cowardice by elected leaders.

Caitlin candidly displays her convictions, and admits her determination to write as ‘witness’, especially on Israel’s wars. ‘I won’t turn away’, she asserts. And proceeds to cut through caveats and equivocation proffered by others. Like in “Sorry if this is antisemitic…”  Too often to avoid or hedge around the egregious, alarming and career-destroying charge of antisemitism, some critics preface remarks with quotes from early Hebrew philosophers or Jewish Human Rights lawyers, or begin their critique demanding Hamas release Israeli hostages. It’s hard not to reach for any shield when increasingly, spurious charges are leveled at groups and individuals of purported antisemitism – eclipsing worldwide condemnation over Israel’s genocide itself!

How large Johnstone’s following is, I don’t know. But her forthrightness may be one reason she’s rarely quoted, even by other ‘radical’, ‘progressive’ thinkers. Take a look at her recent piece: This is Israel.

I believe Johnstone is based in Australia. Although however many thousands of miles she is from Washington, London or Tel Aviv, she is not beyond the reach of those forces engaged, openly and clandestinely, in shutting down news sources, whistleblowers, celebrities or investigative journalists who dare to counter the dominant narrative. I first found Johnstone’s work on Consortium News when she joined in attacks on UK and American authorities for their mean persecution of Julian Assange.

Writers like Caitlin Johnstone who dare to go deeper than even progressive, independent media are increasingly threatened, detained by authorities or find their subscriber system deactivated (de-banked). Their voices have become weaker, especially in the last two years when European and American powers tolerate little dissent outside the bigoted ‘liberal press’. One has to respect (and support) the skill of those critics who survive and persist: like Greenwald’s System Update, Blumenthal on The Grayzone, Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo and Consortium News launched 30 years ago by Robert Parry, or Ryan Grim, Jeremy Scahill and others on Dropsite. Caitlin Johnstone stands out at a time when courageous journalists somehow manage to survive in this vulnerable time of eroding press and any civil liberties. 

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Barbara Nimri Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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