As indicated in the article, this piece has been republished from the magazine The Nation which in at least the last decade has represented archetypical political liberal views on the problems facing ordinary people, the 99 Percent. The Nation along with other left-liberal media outlets have a record of being used indirectly by the CIA to promote ruling class propaganda. Using this method the CIA and other ruling class organizations funnel money to foundations who, in turn, use the money to fund these left/liberal media. Such money constrains the way such media directors treat subjects that are regarded as threatening to ruling capitalist class interests.
This piece, I will argue, could be, or is a particularly insidious, subversive piece; and as such serves the counterrevolutionary interests of the capitalist ruling class.
We are seeing, in addition to severe economic problems, climate crises in the form of extreme weather appearing everywhere in the world. Therefore, the propaganda organs of the ruling class are working overtime to contain opposition to a system which is causing both. I believe this piece provides an excellent example of propaganda used by their highly trained propaganda experts to contain this growing consciousness of climate destabilization and economic issues and their relationship to the capitalist system. To do this in media reporting, they first must attain credibility and then divert people in directions which do not threaten their beloved system. This article, I believe, does both.
To obtain credibility, a pro-capitalist author often references popular figures on the left, and generally seeks to demonstrate that the author understands activist formulation of problems and their protests. Here we see early on a reference to David Graeber who has been so frequently identified (mostly by himself) with the Occupy Movement. The author then references other local action groups and leaders who are working on community organizing projects that are mostly connected to the New Economy Coalition. Here he refers to one such leader of an organization that seems to offer a model of what activist organizations should emulate:
...she told her Power Shift listeners, that the kind of work going on in the “new economy” or “solidarity economy” movement—with things like cooperatives and worker-owned businesses, community-development financial institutions, community land trusts, local agriculture and community-owned renewable energy, as well as efforts to reconceive corporations and redefine economic growth—is challenging the dominant and unsustainable corporate capitalist system. And not simply rejecting that system, she emphasizes, but “creating new economic institutions that are democratic and participatory, decentralized to appropriate scale so that decisions are made at the most local level that makes sense and, rather than only prioritizing one thing—the maximization of profit—prioritizing people, place and planet.”"Challenging the...capitalist system" by "efforts to reconceive corporations"--never transforming the system into a new one from the existing one in which a few people can literally "own" the economy--is as far as this article goes. The emphasis is on local community projects mentioned earlier in the quote. If such activist projects start there as a first step in raising people's consciousness, then they could serve revolutionary ends to transform capitalism into one that serves all of the people--but this is never stated.
And, once again, we see the obligatory "non-violence" theme ("non-violent" actions are mentioned three times) is included as one of three essential elements in their program. You see, the Empire's capitalist class places the means of violence central to their rule, and that is precisely why they command by far the largest military in the world, militarized police forces, and the largest prison system in the world. And, of course, they fear violence being used against them.
The first is resistance: saying “no” to a corrupt, oppressive, extractive system, whether through legislation and litigation, at one end of the spectrum, and nonviolent direct action or mass protests at the other. The second is “replacement”: creating the alternatives, which can itself be a form of resistance, as Rachel noted. And the third essential piece is resilience.Because of a lack of information on these organizations, I do not wish to impugn their activities or the motives of their leaders, only the way their actions are reported in liberal media such as The Nation. (However, organizations that are extolled by liberal media should raise some questions about them.) This type of reporting about activist organizations serves to divert attention away from system change onto reformist measures and non-violent community organizing, activities which capitalist control agents can manage and contain.
