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, September 13, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, Sept. 13, 2020

The essay barely skims the surface of what is wrong about journalism as practiced in mostly capitalist countries. The author's very treatment of this subject betrays his bias toward capitalism and the capitalist ruling class. His views are summed up in two sentences near the end of the essay: 
... journalists have power, the power and the money of the institution behind them. Assange has no institution behind him. Indeed, the institutions are all against him. A media which used him up has abandoned him.  

This begs the question of what kind of basic "institution [is] behind them" (the critics of Assange, that is, most journalists)? The fundamental institution behind most journalists is capitalism and the morality of capitalism that Margaret Thatcher, a total sociopath, revealed to the embarrassment of her masters in the ruling class:   

...there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families.
Constrast this moral code with that of Caitlin Johnstone.

Upper-middle-class people who serve the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire are rewarded for on-the-job behaviors that supports the moral code illustrated by brainwashed Thatcher, but are unemployed if they behave according to Johnstone's moral code. Unfortunately, most journalists conform to their boss's expectations which conform to the ruling class's moral code because they need to protect their well-paid careers to support their families. Thus, all institutions (education, media, and entertained) controlled by capitalists insure their rule by indoctrinating their working classes according to capitalist morality.