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, April 8, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, April 8, 2021

  • 💥Glenn Greenwald: Why American Journalism Sucks featuring Jimmy Dore (via his YouTube channel--19:31m) interviewing Glenn Greenwald regarding the deterioration of American journalism as a profession. This is a best post. My reaction: Greenwald attacks mostly the Democratic Party, but he doesn't know that the capitalist ruling class has completely taken over the political party, which has traditionally favored working people, in order to convince most Americans of the validity of their news coverage. But he offers the crucial insight that the ruling class uses their control over careers to control any potentially dissident journalists.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and an assortment of high-profile figures and policymakers are pushing for unregulated gene-editing technologies, the rollout of bio-synthetic food created in laboratories, the expanded use of patented seeds and the rollback of subsidies and support for farmers in places like  India.

These neoliberal evangelists despise democracy and believe that state machinery and public money should only facilitate the ambitions of their unaccountable mega-corporations.
  • What is Australia’s Problem with China? by Brian Berletic from his weblog Land Destroyer Report. My reaction: Berletic exposes that the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire is engaging in an information war to cover up their opposition to China's rise.
In late January 2021, NATO think tank, The Atlantic Council, published a paper termed, The Longer Telegram, which sets out a proposed strategy for the United States to achieve domination of the world, a strategy which focuses on China as the main obstacle to that domination, with Russia now considered an “irritant.” It is the fantasy of megalomaniacs who sit in dark rooms dreaming of world power and achieving it using any means necessary, including world war.

It is in essence a propaganda document designed to not only proclaim a new world war, the American war against China, but to try to justify this war. It describes a China that does not exist except in the fantasies of these right wing ideologues.
  • The Real Reason We’re Still In Afghanistan featuring Lee Camp, an online comedian, in a 6:40m YouTube video, parodying why Trump was countermanded in a peace deal when Trump ordered it at the beginning of his administration. (Note: Camp in his parody reveals that some other entity, probably the Defense Department, rules America more than the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, that is, the president.) My reaction: This experience demonstrates that the Defense Department answers to the ruling US capitalist class over which they control. This, in my opinion, is not necessarily bad because Trump with his impulsive personality was more likely to use nuclear weapons than the ruling class.
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