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, June 17, 2018

The corporate media’s world of illusions

Click here to access article by Jonathan Cook of Nazareth from is blog. 

Cook uses the metaphor that was so well illustrated in the film Matrix to explain why we in the West are so brainwashed about the issues between Israelis and Palestinians.
The conclusion from this is that the way to change our societies fundamentally for the better depends on a change in our consciousness, on liberating ourselves from false perspective, on stepping through the door.

If we remain in a world of illusions, of false hierarchies of virtue, oblivious to the role of power, we will continue to be Neo living in his dream world.
 
Of course, the "Great Western Narrative" applies to not only the issues in occupied Palestine, but to a number of other issues that the Empire's ruling capitalist class are so concerned with. Having walked through the door of the illusions created by the Great Western Narrative, Cook knows so well what is really happening in this corner of the world.