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

Sunday, August 27, 2017

The Statue Removal Debate

Click here to access article by Stephen Lendman from his website. (Updated at 9 AM Seattle time.)

Contrary what you have been led to believe in history classes, the American Civil War was not because northern capitalists loved African-Americans and wanted to free them. They merely regarded them as another source of cheap labor. They were as racist as the southern plantation owners who were the ruling class of the South. Also the southern plantation owners resented the heavy duties, which benefited northern manufacturers, imposed on many imported products from Britain and other European countries which they wanted to buy. Instead they were forced to buy such products, some of which were inferior, from the North.

History has always been written by the victors, but the northern victors were not troubled by the racism of the South or the erection of statues of southern heroes. We need to remove the propaganda in their history classes as well as the statues of Southern racist heroes. They both serve their descendants which are our present capitalist ruling class. However we are not victors or their descendants--we are the subjects (def. under "people") of the present ruling class. Hence this will not be done in either case if we continue to allow this tiny class to rule us.

There is far more at stake now than either statues or propaganda-loaded history lessons. We must now become victors to insure our survival. You see, the present ruling class is pursuing actions that will cause all humans to become extinct either through nuclear wars or the destruction of the natural environment that supports all human life. They are daily causing this destruction through their compulsive drive to exploit all of nature for more profits and power. And our gang of capitalists want to cut other gangs out of this endeavor, and they will risk everything including us to be the dominant exploiter of both humans and nature. Consequently we now have no other choice: either we study and accomplish a revolution or we will perish from our Mother-Earth.

As an added bonus we will then be able erect our own statues to our heroes and rewrite history according to our memories of it (personally I want to see statues of Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Bradley (Chelsea) Manning), and Seymour Hersh). Meanwhile destroying statues does not, in any way, remove the many evils caused by our current masters. 

Class, our assignment for this coming week will be to study revolution, and the following week's lesson will be to put what we have learned into practice. Our objective is to create an egalitarian society maintained and ruled by all of us in harmony with nature, and for the benefit of everyone. Now get to work.