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, March 4, 2018

How far can the Americans be pushed?

Click here to access article by Ghassan Kadi from A bird's eye view of the Vineyard. (Added a relevant quote by the author at 9:40 AM Seattle time.)
... after the petro-dollar loses its world dominance, and this doesn’t seem very far away, a time will come when it will become virtually impossible to keep propping up the American economy with quantitative easing (aka printing money). And as America loses its economic stature, its only remaining prowess and might will be in its nuclear arsenal. The question is this. If America is imposing sanctions and bans right left and centre right now, and for no good reason at all, will a much more desperate America use its nuclear power to restore its dominion?
Such questions have been troubling me for some time. With all I know about the desperate, sociopathic ruling class, I can't reach any other conclusion but that they will risk all in their determination to rule the world and to salvage their huge run-up of debts. They are totally addicted to the drugs of power based on concentrated wealth that capitalism has supplied them with. Anyone who has had any experience with addicts knows that they are likely to engage in desperate acts while under the influence of drugs.

We are now witnessing the end games that they are engaging in by converting every ounce of information into self-serving propaganda, subverting nations, activating military operations all over the world, and issuing bellicose threats to nations that stand in the Empire's way. 

Nobody likes to be lied to, but the information that the ruling class's media corporations are spreading are riling all sorts of honest and aware people from right to left on America's political spectrum (which is mostly skewed to the right). We see almost daily articles by Paul Craig Roberts and Pat Buchanan, who are on the right of the spectrum, American libertarians like Ron Paul and James Corbett, and numerous liberals (people who believe that only reforms are needed to the capitalist system) who are all extremely troubled by the lies and other aggressive acts of the Empire's transnational capitalist ruling class.

I think that only the American people can stop them, but I don't hold much hope for this to happen given that so many Americans believe their lies while others who know that they are lying, but due to capitalist indoctrination of individualism, are mostly preoccupied with their who own security concerns.