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, November 3, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Tuesday, November 3, 2020

  • Assange and the Empire by Paul Edwards from CounterPunch. This is a best post because of my commentary which follows:  
The post is more about the defeat of "Trumpism", an embarrassing reminder of earlier capitalist rule, than it is about Assange. What will triumph in the election will be a slicked up version of capitalism that is soon to be naked, fascist-capitalism. Edwards tries to sooth our feelings by claiming that ...
... it’s undeniable that more people have more exposure to more sound data than was ever conceivable before, and in spite of Capitalism doing all it can to pollute all information streams, more Americans are more aware, if dimly, that Exceptionalist notions they’ve been schooled to embrace are somehow desafinado, as the bossa nova song had it: out of tune.
But, in the paragraph before he admits the fact that "Americans have not had the mental or psychological capacity to take it [the many crimes of the Empire] in and act on it." This was because they were seduced to believe in the fascist credo that "there is no such thing as society--there are only families" as Thatcher revealed so bluntly to the embarrassment of the ruling capitalist class. The slicked-up version of fascist-capitalism has since WWII used this theme to subvert any notion of class struggle. 
No, I will take no comfort in his observations that although we have access to more information than ever before because we chose to ignore it out of "moral cowardice". I disagree. Fascist-capitalists saw our human weakness: a preference for the more powerful motive-force of striving for one's family rather than for a more abstract just society. They exploited this weakness, and their control of our jobs/careers, which the system of capitalism delivered to them, to successfully counter any notions of revolutionary social justice among the great majority of humans.
And I take no comfort in his claim that we are a failing empire. We humans are a failed species. We will all go down to ignominious defeat by our failure to defeat capitalism. We are destined to disappear on this very unique planet Earth because of capitalism's mantra--limitless growth on a finite planet. We will disappear as a species, along with many others because we have under capitalism destroyed natural conditions on the planet that supports humans, that is, if we don't disappear earlier in a nuclear mushroom cloud.
  • RFK, Jr.: Why The Defender featuring RFK, Jr. in a 2:28m video from his website Children's Health Defense. (My reaction: If he keeps telling the truth, he will be assassinated like his father and uncle.)
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