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

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

The Real Russian Interference in US Politics

Click here to access article by Diana Johnstone from ConsortiumNews.

Those of you who suspect corporate media of disseminating fake news, now is your chance to read an article about the real interference by the US ruling class in the Russian government and their promotion of private interests to takeover the Russian economy. 
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was ostensibly a conflict between two ideologies and two socio-economic systems.

All that seems to be over. The day of a new socialism may dawn unexpectedly, but today capitalism rules the world. At first glance, it may seem to be a classic clash between rival capitalists. And yet, once again an ideological conflict is emerging, one which divides capitalists themselves, even in Russia and in the United States itself. It is the conflict between American unipolar dominance and a multipolar world.
I differ with her implication that the Cold War was not about ideology, because it was about the USSR's half-baked version of socialism, and as such, an enemy to the agenda of the US Empire's intention to become the author of a New World Order or Pax Americana, or the latest capitalist version of the "Fourth Reich". The fact that the Empire is posing considerable opposition to the resistance led by Russia and China, who currently only want a multipolar world, attests to the fact that the Empire can accept no interference in their quest to dominate the world. The simple fact is that they have no alternative. The Empire's transnational capitalist class are committed to this objective out of necessity to pay off all the enormous debts (to themselves) that their governments have incurred. Their intention is that these debts will be paid at the expense of the rest of the world much as they have been in the past.