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

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, May 22, 2021

A Senate intelligence committee is to receive a report from the Department of Defense’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force next month. That has also raised public interest in the possibility of alien life breaching our skies equipped with physics-defying technology far superior to existing supersonic jets and surveillance systems.

Several other questions come to mind that beg skepticism. Why does the phenomenon of UFOs or UAP only seem to be associated with the American military? This goes back decades to the speculation during the 1950s about aliens crashing at Roswell in New Mexico. Why is it that only the American military seems privy to such strange encounters? Why not the Russian or Chinese military which would have comparable detection technology to the Americans but they don’t seem to have made any public disclosures on alien encounters? Such a discrepancy is implausible unless we believe that life-forms from lightyears away have a fixation solely on the United States. That’s intergalactic American “exceptionalism” for you!
It was the Americans under the George W Bush and Barack Obama administrations who developed and deployed the Stuxnet malware virus which crippled Iran’s nuclear industry over a decade ago. No other nation has been caught so red-handed in an act of cyber warfare.

The revelations in 2013 and later by former CIA contractor Edward Snowden documenting in devastating detail a global campaign of illegal surveillance covering the internet and telecommunications by the American National Security Agency is another astounding facet. Snowden provided the Wikileaks whistleblower site archives showing how the CIA and NSA worked with U.S. internet tech companies to illegally infiltrate the private communications of governments and citizens all around the world. Not only that but the CIA has developed techniques for falsely incriminating others with their cybercrimes.
  • YouTube Censoring Israel Coverage By Independent News featuring Jimmy Dore (from his YouTube channel) asking questions of Aaron Maté from The Grayzone regarding YouTube's rejection of an on-the-ground journalist's report from in Israel. YouTube threatens a total banishment of The Grayzone.
Selections from Godfree Roberts’ extensive weekly newsletter: Here Comes China. You can get it here: https://www.herecomeschina.com/#subscribe
Further selections and editorial commentary by Amarynth.
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