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

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Because domestic issues have predominated in the last six months, I've been concentrating on those subjects to the neglect of foreign events. In this post I hope to make up for that shortfall. 

Note: I updated today (Wednesday, Oct. 7) the article by Webb to link it to The Last American Vagabond for your convenience.)
 
There has been a great deal of controversy over claims that Kary Mullis, the creator of the PCR technology that is being widely used to test for so-called ‘cases’ of COVID-19, did not believe the technology was suitable for detecting a meaningful presence of a virus. 
Those making these assertions were attacked and ‘fact checked’ (deemed inappropriate by propagandists) by news outlets claiming that Mullis’ comments had been taken out of context. 
So when a video surfaces with Mullis talking about the efficacy of the technology it is worth paying close attention to what he is saying.
  • And a Plague Shall Cover the Land of Trump by Brendan O’Neill from Anti-Empire. My reaction: The author points to the dominant capitalist ruling class and its method derived from the Middle Ages to shape the views held by ordinary Americans via their media corporations:
And there you have it, in terrifying black and white, in explicit Biblical writ: if Trump stays in power, America will be visited by floods, fires and plagues; death will come to your door; pestilence will be visited upon the land. This pre-modernism among those who fancy themselves as modern – as enlightened and ‘woke’ – is striking. It speaks to their own profound inability to come up with a vision for the US that might inspire voters, so instead they must invoke a PC version of Leviticus and warn people that if you don’t choose us then you will be consumed by hellfire and disease. And it confirms what they find so distasteful about so-called Trumpworld – the fact that it has dared to question expert authority, pushed aside the liberal elites who believe that they are the only people sensible enough to rule, and propagated the apparently outrageous idea that ordinary people (eurgh) have something to contribute to the discussion about how we deal with Covid-19 and other crises. 
This is what lurks behind the irrational, anti-Enlightened treatment of Covid as a metaphor for the sicknesses of 21st-century America – the desperation of the bruised old elites to regain their authority over a people whom they view as too dumb, vulgar and destructive to govern their own lives. Now that’s sick.
  • The Battle for Hope in the Anthropocene by Jethro Gauld from Scientist Warning. (Note: For the record, I view the extinction of humans and most other species as inevitable. But, in the time remaining, I continue working on my weblog in the hope that humans will end the last stage of capitalism--transnational or neoliberal fascism.)
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