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

Monday, May 17, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Monday, May 17, 2021

  • James Patrick with CJ Hopkins on the Covidian Cult featuring CJ Hopkins, who currently lives in Berlin, in interview (a little over an hour) from Ovalmedia's channel on YouTube. (Note: This starts at 1:06hr.) My reaction: I can't stand the smile on Patrick's face; but if you can get past this, I highly recommend listening to Hopkin's comments.
I love this author because he documents, which I can learn from, so many of his historical arguments, and because his understanding of history is most similar to mine compared to others identified currently identified as "investigative historians" (I've yet to find his credentials, but he clearly knows history). But we part company as to whether the Democratic and Republican parties matter in the fake democracy such as ours. Furthermore, Zuesse is an unapologetic devotee of FDR which I am decidedly not.
 
Roosevelt was a strange capitalist in that he didn't make his millions (today that would be billions) during his lifetime, but lived off of investments that he inherited from his early ancestors from Holland. He himself was an avid follower of ancestry, and he described an ancestor whose wealth was obtained through the China trade, or in other words, he may have engaged in drug trafficking
 
His neighbors, the Astors, Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts, were far richer. But he grew up with them and attended the same schools as them: Groton, a private prep school, and Harvard. However, possibly adding to his character was his coming down with polio just when started a career in politics. FDR later established the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation. Corporate media cooperated with him to ignore his affliction which confined him to a wheelchair.
 
Thus, when he was attacked by a political adversary because of his support for government programs to help the poor in the Great Depression, he once said that he was "saving capitalism". And, he did.
  • The Hidden History of Zionism by Ralph Schoenman, a book by this author presented online from Middle East Archive. (Note: Or you can buy this book for $15 or $16.)