in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
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
Thursday, April 25, 2019
Savagery and Its Promoters and Profiteers
I wrote the words "some sort of book review" to indicate that Swanson does not offer any comment on Blumenthal's book. Swanson seems to take Blumenthal's interpretations of major political events in the past several decades at face value. In fact, he soon gives up any attempt at evaluation of his arguments and starts listing all of Blumenthal's interpretations of these events.
Blumenthal apparently believes that Arab jihadists had it in for America because of misguided policies that ultimately targeted Arabs but were designed to be against the former Soviet Union. As for 9/11, well that was a tragic incident that our incompetent government allowed to happen, and that "9/11 Truthers" were taking attention "away from what the U.S. government had done to provoke those crimes and to allow them to occur." The inescapable implication of all this is that our government pursued reckless and mistaken policies against the Soviet Union using fanatics and backing countries like Saudi Arabia. If our government had not pursued such policies, all would be well in the world.
Wow!
I haven't read the book; but if Swanson's reporting is correct, I think that Blumenthal is running some sort of damage control for the Deep State's policies, and he may be employed by them to do just that. The only way that such "alternative" political analysts will be believed if they offer some form of "red meat" to the howling dogs of left-wing critics. Blumenthal appears to have done just that by his online posts criticizing US policies in Venezuela and in the Middle East. However, by characterizing US policies as only mistakes, he relieves the government of major responsibility of criminal acts. Worst of all, he impugns the work of "9/11 Truthers", the efforts of architects and engineers, to obtain the real story of 9/11! It's hard not to believe that he is, in reality, running some sort of damage control among those left-wing critics who have been exposed to evidence of major crimes, coverups, and criminal deceptions engineered by the Deep State via their government officials.