Surviving Capitalism (Not) : How the West Extends its Control Over Journalism Worldwide

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, July 31, 2016

How the West Extends its Control Over Journalism Worldwide

Click here to access article from The New Atlas (based in Bangkok, Thailand).

This offers a lot of food for thought. It's directly about the power of "Western" nations to impose their perspectives on the rest of the world; but by extension, given that we live in class structured nations, it is more about the management of minds or thoughts of subordinate populations by powerful/wealthy people. But the unknown author doesn't go to this extension, nor does he/she seem to see that we all live in class-structured societies. Instead, he reaches the conclusion that journalism (or the management of peoples' minds) should serve local governing/powerful people based in nations.

Then there is the psychological fact that humans are quite easily seduced by wealth and the power that accompanies wealth. And capitalism along with cheap fossil fuels has greatly promoted the concentration of tremendous wealth into a relatively few owners of capital. The seduction factor in human nature has led many humans to accept, and adapt to, all kinds of inequality; and in this historical era, to serve the interests of powerful capitalists.

Unfortunately, power very much acts like a drug or aphrodisiac that drives people who have it to commit all kinds of crimes to gain more power. There is never enough power for people, especially those with sociopathic tendencies, who easily become addicted to it. This results in wars where competing powerful people seek to gain more power. And the effects of wars especially in this era of frightful mega-weapons is becoming unthinkable.

This thought process has long ago led me to my political position. The only solution, as I see it, is to construct societies governed by radical bottom-up authority structures in which ordinary people in small groups of about 8-12 deliberate issues in face-to-face situations. They delegate people, who can be quickly recalled, to represent their views at the next governing level, and so on. This arrangement would require that all people are educated to the best of their abilities and that societies should be much smaller than they are now. Whether this arrangement would be still possible anymore given the need to radically reduce our use of fossil fuels which makes possible so much leisure time to become educated is debatable.