We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Saturday, May 6, 2017

The Horror! The Horror! (parts 1 and 2 of 3?)

Click here to access part 1 and this link to access Part 2 of a series of articles by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform
I’m constantly amazed by the ability of those in power to create a narrative trusted by a gullible non-critical thinking populace. Appealing to emotions, when you have millions of functionally illiterate, normalcy bias ensnared, iGadget distracted, disciples of the status quo, has been the game plan of the Deep State for the last century. Americans don’t want to think, because thinking is hard. They would rather feel. For decades the government controlled public education system has performed a mass lobotomy on their hapless matriculates, removing their ability to think and replacing it with feelings, fabricated dogma, and social indoctrination. Their minds of mush have been molded to acquiesce to the narrative propagandized by their government keepers.
Quinn makes many good points about the gullibility of Americans and the adept skills by what he calls the Deep State to manufacture the consent and dissent of Americans. The Deep State serves the interests of the transnational capitalist class who control the US-led Empire regardless of who occupies the White House or Congress. However, I don't agree with everything he writes.

First. his reference to the "Deep State" is based on Mike Lofgren's views in his book (of the same title). Although I have not read his book, I have read some of Lofgren's articles and find his conception of the "Deep State" much too vague and as only a relatively recent phenomenon in the US. Read my commentary posted in this piece regarding his concept.

Second, his reference in Part 2 to the Fourth Turning as some kind of explanation for our current state of affairs. This book apparently sees history as running in cycles. Thus, we shouldn't worry about the extinction of humans due to the degeneration of capitalist rule into a nightmarish nuclear Armageddon or worry about the destabilization of our climate and the resulting destruction of our habitat. It's just another historical cycle that humans will live through.