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

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Wednesday, April 28, 2021

  • mRNA vaccines: Pros and cons by Dennis Etler from CGTN, (Note: I post this from a credible source in the interest of balanced reporting.) My reaction: "It seems that many people are highly skeptical of this and other new technologies." People are skeptical because they have been lied to consistently about important events. And, when the ruling class puts so much fear, uses fake statistics (from PCR tests, bribe hospitals, pressure doctors to claim patients died for Covid-19, etc.), and with billionaires behind the promotion of mRNA vaccines, there are sound reasons to be suspicious.
  • Do Vaccines Make Us Healthier? by Children's Health Defense Team from their The Defender weblog. (Note: This article consists of a 14:31m video review of medical research.)
Iranian missile technology as top strategic deterrence. Now that’s the shadowplay that turns Vienna into a sideshow.
  • When Did the “Cold War” End? Part III by Vladimir Acosta from Internationalist 360°. (Note: Because our institutions will rarely tell the truth, I always like to inform people of a true history. This article reports on the period from the fall of the Soviet Union, and is an accurate piece of history as you will ever find.)
There is much to be learned about this story that Harris doesn't mention. It is the story of the human species whose failure to adapt to the web of life on our quite exceptional planet will cause our species, along with many others, to become extinct within decades. Sadly, it is much too late to do anything to prevent this from happening.
 
It is also a story of capitalism, a system that promotes the accumulation of wealth within families who use all manner of sociopathic weapons to accumulate their wealth: violence, bribes, deception, etc. And with wealth comes power and control. In the latter stages of capitalism that we are in now, we find wealth/power consolidated in very few hands, and, like their ancestors, capitalists will do everything they can to enhance their wealth/power: the use of mainly deception, bribes, and their control over careers. But these weapons don't assure success for capitalists in every situation. Then they, like their ancestors, can rely on the use of outright violence that stems from their overwhelming control over military and police. Have noticed that government spending on the military has gone up substantially every year? 
  • Science Update: Human Population Growth features Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist who has focused on the climate crisis, from his YouTube channel in a 6:06m YouTube video. My reaction: Notice he says roughly at 02:36m "too many rich people like those from the United States and Japan and western Europe and the so-called First World--that's what brought us to the brink. That's what brings us this mess that we're in right now." Aren't all these countries a part of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire that practice thoroughly a capitalist system? And he wrongly includes under the heading "rich people" all the people in these countries. I forgive him because he is a biologist--not a social scientist nor much less, a socialist social scientist.