Vows To My Readers And Patrons

Monday, 14 September 2020, 5:14 am
Opinion: Caitlin Johnstone

I promise to work in the highest interest, not my self interest.

I promise never to say anything that I don't believe is true.

I promise I will always do my best to learn what is true.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it, without dishonestly equivocating or mitigating what I have to say.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it regardless of whether it will make me unpopular.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it regardless of whether it will make me lose patrons.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it even if I'm the only person in the world who sees it that way.

I promise not just to speak the truth, but to speak it as loudly as possible and get it heard by as many people as possible.

I promise to do everything I can to make sure my voice remains an effective weapon against the machine, protecting it as best I can from smears, misunderstanding and misrepresentation.

I promise that as long as I am at this gig I will keep all my online content completely free to read.

I promise that as long as I am at this gig I will keep all my online content completely free to re-publish.

I promise I will never accept money to write about a certain topic or write about a subject a certain way.

I promise that my work will remain uninfluenced by my patrons or by a desire to gain more patrons.

I promise my patronage will remain free of incentives or tiered access; everyone has the same access to all my work regardless of whether or not they support me.

I promise that giving me money for the work I do comes with no strings attached in any direction; if you fund my work you do it solely because you want to support what I'm doing, not because you'll get any material benefits in return.

I promise that if I ever receive a Pulitzer I will livestream myself destroying it.

I promise to always choose courage over silence.

I promise to always keep learning.

I promise to always keep growing as a person.

I promise my views will change.

I promise to remain as dedicated to my inner work as I am to my outer work.

I promise to be truthful not just with you but with myself as well, to the fullest extent that my own degree of consciousness permits.

I promise to be honest and forthcoming about my failures to the fullest extent that my own degree of consciousness at the time permits.

I promise I will always fact check against my cognitive biases, even when I desperately, desperately, desperately want something to be true.

I promise to always dissemble those biases once seen.

I promise to keep honing my craft and striving to ensure that my work is always of a better quality than it was the year before.

I promise to always read and consider feedback from my readers.

I promise that I will do my best to engage people who approach me in good faith as often as I have time to do so.

I promise that I will never become one of those snooty blue-checkmark types who only pays attention to the opinions of the people they want to impress.

I promise that I will always direct my work to the people, never to high-profile individuals who I want to like me.

I promise to punch up and kiss down.

I promise to want for you whatever you want for me.

I promise to always stand on my own and never align my work with any particular faction or clique.

I promise to always do the very best I can with what I have available to me on any given day.

I promise to do everything I can to push toward life and away from death.

I promise to do everything I can to help protect the future of humanity in the most efficacious ways I can think of.

I promise to stick it to the bastards at every opportunity.

I promise to never forgive that which continues, or to forget that which the bastards could do again.

I promise to never stop fighting as long as there's a fight to be fought.

I promise that as long as you're in this thing with me, then I'm in this thing with you.

© Scoop Media

Caitlin Johnstone

Rogue journalist

Caitlin Johnstone is a 100 percent crowdfunded rogue journalist, bogan socialist, anarcho-psychonaut, guerilla poet and utopia prepper living in Australia with her American husband and two kids. She writes about politics, economics, media, feminism and the nature of consciousness. She is the author of the illustrated poetry book "Woke: A Field Guide For Utopia Preppers."

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