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, September 10, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020

  • Belarusian President Lukashenko Says IMF Offered A Billion USD Bribe to Impose Covid-19 Lockdown by Joaquin Flores from FRN (Fort Russ News which is based in Serbia). My reaction: "This fact can be verified using most search engines." I did this and am satisfied that the report is factual: see this, this, and this. This report is another illustration of the use of money to influence how people behave; and in this case, regarding a nation's leader. In many cases, the influence of money applies to politicians who need money to finance their candidacy in government elections, professional people who have careers to protect to support a comfortable lifestyle, and workers who want to protect their jobs that are needed for their, and their families', very survival. Concentrated wealth is promoted under capitalism. The system often leads to decisions that harm most people, but benefit their ruling classes. The system needs to be abolished and substituted for one that promotes egalitarian and thoroughly democratic societies. 
  • UK’s MSM has slavishly obeyed the govt over Covid like the docile arm of a despotic state. I know, because I was part of it by Matt Drake from RT. My reaction: Of course the same obedient-like behavior of ordinary people applies to most governments fronted by ruling classes on our planet Earth. I think that this phenomenon is a result of roughly 10,000 years of domination of ruling classes that they have obtained through various forms of violence. This experience has engendered in ordinary people a belief in the superiority of their masters, and that their "superiors" have innate abilities that we ordinary people do not have.  Many of the upper-middle-class, whose support is needed for the current ruling class of capitalists to exist, also are convinced of this through their socialization. Such propaganda is pervasive in class-ridden societies.
  • No, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Didn’t Spawn 250,000 Coronavirus Cases by Elizabeth Nolan Brown from Anti-Empire. (Note: Also see this report.) My reaction: I've recently been to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and discovered their small businesses are thriving--unfortunately their workers enjoy near minimum wages--and their economy is too, to the extent possible for small business enterprises. Such propaganda, laughable or not, is believed by many of those who follow media controlled by the ruling capitalist class.
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