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

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Escalating the Risky Fight with Russia

Click here to access article by Robert Parry from ConstortiumNews.com
The neocons and their liberal-interventionist chums never seem to think through one of their “regime change” schemes. It’s enough that they wrote the plan down in some op-ed article or reached a consensus at a think-tank conference. After that, all there is to do is to generate the requisite propaganda, often accompanied by intelligence “leaks” and maybe some heartbreaking photos of children, to rile up the American people so they can be easily herded into the next slaughterhouse.

We’ve seen this pattern play out over and over again, from Iraq to Libya to Syria to Ukraine. You could even go back to the 1980s and the project for arming Afghanistan’s mujahedeen and a collection of international jihadists led by Osama bin Laden, a project enthusiastically supported by both Republicans and Democrats.
I keep wondering how much longer my fellow Americans will allow themselves to be so "easily herded into the next slaughterhouse" by our masters in the capitalist ruling class.

Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out if our masters are split into two camps: one under the incoming Trump administration that wants to cozy up to Russia in a strategy to split Russia from China (as argued by F. William Engdahl); or two, (more of the same) the continuation of past policies of aggressively waging a new cold war against both Russia and China. Either way, we are in for more austerity and fake news and views at home, wars abroad, and increasing destabilization of our climate. 

Obama's recent signing of the Pentagon budget bill promises more of the same as reported in this article by Bill Van Auken from World Socialist Web Site. It also includes funding for more sophisticated weaponry for the Empire's proxy forces that are trying to bring down the Syrian government, and our ruling class's effort to crack down on alternative websites that present views and analysis that our masters don't like.
[The bill] includes a provision known as the “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act,” which represents a plan to build up the propaganda arm of the US government. In the name of creating a new government agency to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining United States national security interests,” it establishes the framework for directing propaganda against the American people and cracking down on anyone who challenges or exposes the crimes of the US government.