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

Tuesday, June 1, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Tuesday, June 1, 2021

The irony of course is that capitalism was supposed to offer something different. It was meant to offer a life of more leisure and free time. Technology was supposed to advance in ways that would bring public holidays every month, possibly even every week. Luminaries like economist John Maynard Keynes dreamt of a 15-hour work week by 2030. Yet capitalism has produced the exact opposite. Its effect has been to preserve and extend work. It has also created problems in the content and meaning of work.
  • 💥Israel, a Beachead in the Middle East by Stephan Gowans at the Institute for the Critical Study of Society (ICSS Marxist). This is a best post. (Note: This is a webinar featuring a talk by Gowans via YouTube arranged by this Oakland, California Institute. Gowans' talk begins after the introduction at 03:59m and ends at 58:36m followed by a Q&A. (I recommend the talk only because he has recently done extensive research on Israel which resulted in a book.)
One US military leader has called Israel “the intelligence equivalent of five CIAs.” An Israeli cabinet minister likens his country to “the equivalent of a dozen US aircraft carriers,” while the Jerusalem Post defines Israel as the executive of a “superior Western military force that” protects “America’s interests in the region.” Arab leaders have called Israel “a club the United States uses against the Arabs,” and “a poisoned dagger implanted in the heart of the Arab nation.”

In his latest book, Israel, A Beachhead in the Middle East, Stephen Gowans challenges the specious argument that Israel controls US foreign policy, tracing the development of the self-declared Jewish state, from its conception in the ideas of Theodore Herzl, to its birth as a European colony, through its efforts to suppress regional liberation movements, to its emergence as an extension of the Pentagon, integrated into the US empire as a pro-imperialist Sparta of the Middle East.
  • Colombia: “The Government Murders with Impunity because the U.S. Empire is Behind it.” by Carlos Aznarez from  Internationalist 360°. (Note: This is a report of the US's major beachhead in South America to police that continent for any nation that aspires to become independent.) My reaction: This is another instance where the well-indoctrinated American people, many of whom are struggling to survive, ignore such a report--if they are exposed to it at all.
  • The Yenisey River sheds its icy coat from RT via YouTube. My reaction: More evidence of global warming that is currently threatening human species (and most others). Isn't it ironic to see a Wikipedia entry on this river in Russia's Siberia before which YouTube warns you about Russian influence in a quote from a corrupted Wikipedia entry?
  • Means of Extinction: Conspicuous Consumption featuring Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--3:20m) who has focused on the climate crisis. My reaction: Because McPherson is a physical scientist and not a social scientist, he is not aware that capitalism, and its propaganda machine of advertising, constantly exhorts people to consume unnecessary products to promote profits and power for the capitalist ruling classes. Thus capitalism has caused the climate crisis which McPherson argues with much evidence that abrupt global warming will result in the extinction of humans and most other species inhabiting the Earth. That is precisely why capitalists are now energetically exploring other planets in the hope of migrating there after they have spoiled the Earth for humans.
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