Surviving Capitalism (Not) : US Major Funder of Saudi War on Yemen: American Activist

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 17, 2017

US Major Funder of Saudi War on Yemen: American Activist

Click here to access article from Tasmin News Agency (Iran).

A prominent anti-war activist based in California highlighted the US support for the war crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and said Washington is “the major funder” of Riyadh’s bombardment of civilians in the Arabian Peninsula country.

“The United States is playing a very important role in supporting Saudi Arabia in these war crimes,” Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan said in an interview with the Tasnim News Agency.

“Saudi Arabia plays a pivotal role in the region in making sure the oil keeps flowing to the United States, so in response, the US is allowing the Saudi murderous regime to perpetrate these crimes against the Yemeni people,” she added.

The fact that most Americans have taken to the streets over feminist issues and anti-Trump demonstrations shows the power of the ruling class directorate to guide Americans away from concerns over the wars that Americans are supporting in so many parts of the world and onto social identity issues. Simultaneously it illustrates how another prominent anti-war leader's influence can be so effectively neutralized by the directorate's opinion-shapers in media corporations. This situation also illustrates that most Americans listen to and believe the talking heads on TV and are convinced by corporate provided information that reverberates throughout social media. (Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky remains a classic study of this phenomenon.)