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

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Court sanction of AT&T-Time Warner merger strengthens corporate grip on news and entertainment

Click here to access article by Barry Grey from World Socialist Web Site.

Read this article to learn about the increasing tendency of capitalists to concentrate ownership in ever fewer hands, a tendency that affects every profit-making enterprise. However, the effects of this merger will further undermine, along with the termination of internet neutrality, any efforts by independent journalists to bring accurate information to ordinary people. Instead, the merger will result in more propaganda that justifies ruling class policies that create precarity among ordinary people at home and never-ending wars abroad. 
Coming just one day after the termination of net neutrality, the legal requirement that Internet service providers treat all communications as equal and not discriminate against websites, the federal court ruling sets the stage for the further consolidation of monopoly control over the Internet, social media, television, films and news outlets, and the suppression of oppositional points of view.