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, December 31, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Thursday, December 31, 2020

There are various things the filmmakers haven’t figured out, including, of course, the fact that there are powerful social and economic interests invested in identity politics. But that will come.
  • Who Is Bill Gates? (part 1 of 4 parts) by James Corbett from his website. Corbett is a Canadian who lives in Japan. (Note: This is first part podcast lasts about two hours and focuses on a billionaire, top funder of the UN's health agency (the World Health Organization), and one of our successful capitalist masters. I've only will listened to 20 minutes of this video, and already I am impressed.) This series promises to be best posts--Part Two / Part Three / Part Four.
Perhaps some reputational damage has been inflicted on the experts who warned that the real threat of the coronavirus was overreacting, or worse, racism, and on the elite activists who advanced a deeply unpopular police abolition agenda ahead of national elections, and on the scientific establishment that declared “white supremacy” to be “a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19”. 
But those costs are marginal compared to the material and political gains. If you are one of the people or organisations which repeatedly got the coronavirus wrong, abetted wanton political violence and destruction, or once again misread the American electorate, odds are very good that your funding streams, political influence, institutional power and leverage over your fellow Americans are going increase over the next four years of the Biden administration.
  • The American Money Tree: The Untold Story of US Aid to Israel by Ramzy Baroud from Mint Press News. My reaction: Israel plays an important part in securing the Middle East for the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire. They deserve the annual billion dollar reward for their services, that is, in the eyes of the directors of the Empire. Spending this money on useless eaters like ordinary Americans such as universal health care, forgiveness of student debt, and to sustain them through this official pandemic is always a wasted effort, that is, in the eyes of our masters in the transnational ruling capitalist class of the Empire.
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