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

Monday, September 21, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Monday, Sept. 21, 2020

  • The War on Populism: The Final Act by CJ Hopkins from his weblog Consent Factory, Inc. Note: Hopkins, an exceptional American satirist who is currently living in Berlin, uses a type of satire, parody, to lampoon the ruling class's war on populism, or what I think is the working class, or a section of it known to members of the ruling class as "deplorables"(because they refuse to follow their orders). He does this by way of an industry that he knows so well--a Hollywood production of a film (in three acts).
So, it appears the War on Populism is building toward an exciting climax. All the proper pieces are in place for a Class-A GloboCap color revolution, and maybe even civil war. You got your unauthorized Putin-Nazi president, your imaginary apocalyptic pandemic, your violent identitarian civil unrest, your heavily-armed politically-polarized populace, your ominous rumblings from military quarters … you couldn’t really ask for much more.  
OK, the plot is pretty obvious by now (as it is in all big-budget action spectacles, which is essentially what color revolutions are), but that won’t spoil our viewing experience. The fun is in watching Bruce, or Sigourney, or “the moderate rebels,” or the GloboCap “Resistance,” take down the monster, or the terrorists, or Hitler, and save the world, or democracy, or whatever.
  • The End of Reality? by Edward Curtin from his weblog Behind the Curtain. My commentary follows:
Curtin, who is well read, discusses today's use of technology by the ruling capitalist class as a problem that he doubts that we can overcome. Technology, which has taken off especially in the late 1800s until today, is now an advanced tool that can be used to make our lives richer in meaning or it can be used to give the ruling class greater weapons to control us. The ruling class, which (almost by definition) controls technology as well as nearly everything else, and has established a powerful empire, obviously uses the option of control to secure their privileges of wealth and power, as well as the system that delivers this wealth and power--capitalism. They do this by configuring "reality" for us by rewriting history, daily doses of propaganda via their media corporations, and imposing their views on any institution that uses ideology as a prop to educate and/or entertain. The directors of this new US/Anglo/Zionist Empire have been doing this in a dedicated and systematic fashion over the decades since WWII. Now, and many decades later, it is no wonder that Curtin doubts whether we ordinary people can overcome this mind-bending experience.
  • How to Save the Library--Questions for Corbett featuring James Corbett and Richard Gage, founder and president of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, in a discussion about censorship and the altering of information that major corporations like Google and Facebook are engaged in. (Posted on James Corbett's website.)
at
Labels: , , , , ,