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

Saturday, August 25, 2018

Articles recommended for Saturday, August 25, 2018

It is the endpoint of the submission of human beings under the logics of the [capitalist] machine, the blind mechanics of endless capital accumulation and the disciplinary apparatuses. The digitalized human only exists as a set of data, and consequently all that makes up life – spontaneity, emotional experience and creativity – have vanished. Of course this is not what Google is saying, quite the contrary, but it is what happens, if you follow their ideas.

Now, the question is: Do we want to entrust our future to people with visions of that kind? Do we want to feed them with our data, see the world through their Google glasses and move around in cars that are steered by their algorithms? Or are we going to free ourselves from the Matrix they have created, in order to regain reality, our bodies and our minds?

The Fires This Time and Their Implications for Ecosocialists

Click here to access article by Richard Smith from System Change not Climate Change.
Unless we get people to start thinking about and talking about and working for a viable alternative to the market-driven collapse of civilization. Our job, as ecosocialists is to put forward a practical plan to slam the brakes on emissions, an EMERGENCY RESPONSE TO THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY. This plan has to begin with brutal honesty:
Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to recognize the reality that most of the capitalist ruling classes are thoroughly addicted to power and profits. The only way that we are going to stop them from bringing us with them in a final ecological apocalypse is for the rest of sane humanity to force the overthrow of their addictive system that supplies them with the drugs of power and profits. 

Thursday, August 23, 2018

Recommended articles for Thursday, August 23, 2018

The new normal in America and other Western societies considers anything conflicting with the official narrative on vital issues “inauthentic behavior.”

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Recommended articles for Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Associated Press has revealed that the US-backed, Saudi-led war against Yemen includes the use of Al Qaeda as a mercenary force against Houthi rebels.

This confirms as fact what was widely dismissed by Western politicians and a complicit Western media as a “conspiracy theory” since 2011.

Evidence that the US and its allies enlisted Al Qaeda and other extremist groups to wage serial proxy wars across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), from Libya and Syria to Yemen, has piled up into a mountain emerging high above the fog of disinformation behind which these wars had been fought.
The media’s obsession with this obviously unhinged and deranged US President comes at the cost of informing the American public of the horrors that are occurring in their name and with their tax dollars in countries many voters can’t even find on a map.

While CNN and a handful of other mainstream television networks carried news of the Saudi coalition missile attack on the school bus, there has been almost no follow up, leaving the public totally in the dark about the role the US played in this war crime, and in what has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

“Remember Pearl Harbor,” “Never Forget 9/11,” “Putin Did It”

Click here to access article by Hiroyuki Hamada from Dissident Voice. (I again thank an activist for alerting me to this fine article.)

After a review of the real history of the capitalist construction of the US Empire, the author concludes with these hopeful words: 
We are looking at the empire disintegrating as its economic sphere is losing its power and legitimacy while “enemies” of the empire are gaining a sphere of influence. Corporate political parties, war industry, government agencies and the rest of the imperialists are struggling to assert their own interests within the imperial framework of corporatism, colonialism and militarism, while picking fights with Russia, China, Iran and any country that defies the imperial hegemony, desperately seeking ways to metastasize for their survival. But the entire imperial order is collapsing.

We must not be a voice for the capitalist lords nor for the hitmen.  This is a time we must reach out to people like us in Russia, China, Syria, Iran, and other peoples of the planet, and people like us in our communities, with messages of peace, sharing and mutual respect. ....  We, the people of the planet, somehow must assert our desire to bring about a new era for our species ....  You might feel isolated.  But we are everywhere on this planet. We want to live as brothers and sisters.  We want to live in harmony with our planet.  We share our angles and facts for a better tomorrow for our children and their children. This is an urgent challenge of our time. Peace to us all.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Sixth Mass Extinction Ushers In Record-Breaking Wildfires and Heat

Click here to access article by Dahr Jamail from Truthout. (Thanks again goes to an activist in northwest Oregon for alerting me to this article.)
In our current mass extinction event ... rather than the CO2-caused warming coming from a volcano, it is anthropogenic (human-caused), and the climate is not just warming, it is disrupted. And this time, rather than the process taking tens of thousands of years as it did during the Permian mass extinction, humans are increasing atmospheric CO2 levels far, far more rapidly.

Whether or not humans go extinct remains to be seen ....

Project Due Diligence

Click here to access introductory remarks (which I've supplied below) and 79 minute video sponsored by the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
Project Due Diligence is a coordinated effort by a team of engineers around the world to engage the profession in performing its due diligence regarding the official reports on the three catastrophic building failures that occurred on September 11, 2001.

As engineers, we have a legal responsibility to guard the public’s safety. Given the magnitude of the building failures at the World Trade Center, which resulted in greater loss of life than any other building failure in history, it is our duty to understand the official reports and to call for further investigation if those reports are not satisfactory.

To facilitate this process of due diligence, we are giving our presentation to groups all over the world. At the conclusion of each presentation, we invite engineers to sign our petition and to join the effort to present this information to the entire engineering profession.
Nearly 17 years after the 9/11 tragedy more and more architects and engineers are coming together to challenge the official government reports (from FEMA and especially National Institute of Standards and Technology) about the collapse to the twin towers and Building 7 of the World Trade Center. 

It has been clear to me from the beginning that this was a history-making false-flag event that set in motion all the military actions of the US Empire since: the invasion of Iraq, our 17 year long military engagement in Afghanistan, the bombing and subsequent collapse of the Libyan government, the US Empire's military attempts at overthrowing the Syrian government, etc.

If you don't have the time or inclination to view/listen to all of the video presentation, I advise you to view/listen to the first 2:50 minutes, then a summary of their challenges to government issued reports about Building 7 between 36:00m and 40:25m, and finally the summary of their findings (at 72:05m till the end) that challenge the official reports about the collapse of the twin towers.

Brave New Money: PayPal, WeChat, Amazon Go - A Totalitarian World Currency in the Making

Click here to access article by Norbert Häring, a German economist, from his blog. 

This article illustrates how an old-fashioned conservative views the increasing digitization of money that is slowly creeping into our lives. Don't misunderstand me: I am also concerned about this, but I come from a different point of view. Häring, as a well-educated, well-paid upper-middle class German, has served capitalism well (which he still refers to as a "democracy"). He also has a fetish for gold which (not incidentally) started us on the path toward the promotion of privately owned banks (see video at 4:13m) together with private ownership and/or control of all of the economy, has led to widespread inequality, never-ending wars, widespread suffering, etc. 

Digitization of money, as a sub-system, can offer us a most convenient way to exchange our productivity for goods and services that we need. But when this sub-system and a general social-economic system permits not only money, but the entire economy to be owned and controlled by a tiny minority (today they are capitalists), we see the results in extreme inequality. 

On the other hand, what if we, the people, controlled the digitization of money through a general system that we created, a general system that promotes widespread participation in decision-making? We could have convenience without inequality along with many other benefits such as peace, economic security, real education (instead of indoctrination), an economy that wouldn't pose a threat to our ecosystem, leisure time to spend with others we love, boundless creativity, etc.

However, he is right when he warns us about the increasing control of money by our ruling capitalist class. This trend is another indication of their compulsive drive for total control over our lives. 

Monday, August 20, 2018

Take unprecedented action or bear the consequences, says eminent scientist and advisor

Click here to access article by David Spratt and Ian Dunlop from Climate Code Red (Australia).
“Climate change is now reaching the end-game, where very soon humanity must choose between taking unprecedented action, or accepting that it has been left too late and bear the consequences.”

Those are the challenging words from Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, for twenty years the head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and a senior advisor to Pope Francis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union.
Looking to the government "leaders" to take effective action to counter the now obvious threat of global warming is like looking to a factory foreman to reorganize the factory. Unfortunately for most Americans, the latter is how they view decision-making by the government. The capitalist ruling class has fooled most Americans into thinking that the government puppet show, which they control behind the scenes that are constructed by them, is reality.

Sunday, August 19, 2018

OMG This This This This!

Click here to access article by Caitlin Johnstone from her website. (My gratitude goes to another activist for alerting me to this fine article.)

Johnstone is one of the relatively few people in the world who sees the urgency of the situation in which we find ourselves. Her promotion of truth-telling journalism is a sound one, but it urgently needs to be supported by an organized movement committed to truth-telling. Nothing less will be sufficient to counter the power of a tiny class who are desperately acting to prevent the truth from reaching the overwhelming majority of people on our planet.

The fires this time: Implications for ecosocialist strategy

Click here to access article by Richard Smith from Climate & Capitalism.

The author has contributed so much to alerting the public to the death trajectory that capitalism is taking all of us. His strength is his study of economics which has informed his view that the capitalist system and a habitable planet are on a collision course

However, I think his present weakness is promoting the Democratic Socialists of America as offering a solution. I've always found the latter to be an inconsistent critic of capitalism and often willing to offer only token actions to counter its influence. I think that nothing less than an organized revolutionary movement can put a stop to this death spiral. The time to offer only individualistic passive solutions is at an end (for example, see this). It's time to get serious. That is why I have proposed one.

The rule of capitalist ruling classes, especially under the leadership of the US-led Empire, is built upon a mountain of lies. I have noticed an increasing frequency of deceptive reports spread by their corporate media, and likewise, an increase of efforts to censor information that expose their lies. It appears that they are desperate to protect their mountain of lies, deceptions, false-flags, psyops, etc. I am convinced that the most effective way to weaken and ultimately destroy that mountain is a movement committed to telling the truth. This will have to be organized from the ground up by people who see the urgency of taking effective action.