Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all

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

Monday, April 2, 2012

Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths confesses all

Click here to access article by Jonathan Owen from The Independent (UK).

"Curveball", the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, smiles as he confirms how he made the whole thing up. It was a confidence trick that changed the course of history, with Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi's lies used to justify the Iraq war.

It often takes a decade or more to find the truth about all the lies that have been used by the political operatives of the One Percent to justify their wars and their crimes against humanity. The gullibility of ordinary people to ruling class propaganda is an ongoing problem for any revolutionary movement. I think it is rooted in the long period of childhood dependency that humans require to mature. Added to this fact is the use of the period by ruling classes to indoctrinate children, most effectively in educational institutions, with their beliefs and values, and above all, respect for authority. This prepares ordinary people for an adulthood in which they too often believe what authorities tell them about reality.