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, June 5, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, June 5, 2021

Joe Biden’s asked US intelligence to investigate the origins of the deadly disease, and RT’s investigative journalist and No BS host Ben Swann is doing the same. He’ll be talking to political commentator Einar Tangen in Beijing, law professor Elaine Fahey and Nicolas Wade, one of the first journalists to report on the possibility of the Wuhan “lab-leak”.
The only thing I object to in this post is Romanoff's statements that imply that "Jews" are responsible for media propaganda that comprises a lie attached to a truth. He violates his own thesis that media propaganda is a lie attached to a truth. He seems to equate Zionists with Jews, but clearly not all Jews are Zionists. 
 
Jews were first identified with leftist Jews after the Russian Revolution by fascists in Western capitalist circles, most notably by pro-capitalist Nazis but also including major capitalists like Henry Ford. Clearly Jews, like any other ethnic group, have beliefs across the political spectrum from right (fascist-capitalists) to left (communist-socialists). Otherwise, his arguments are correct: capitalist propagandists mix truth with falsities in order to defend and advance their class interests.
Elite institutions in the past and doubtless still today have been major playgrounds for intelligence services. The history of the modern nation-state generally, not just the USA, seems to suggest that national unity — and therefore elite safety — is regarded by elites as achievable only through careful management and often suppression or diversion of dissent. Far more resources are typically committed to this than many citizens, drilled in the propaganda of democracy, realize or care to concede. [my emphasis]
 
and Macleod goes on to write:
 
A recent MintPress investigation explored how Bellingcat acts to launder national security state talking points into the mainstream under the guise of being neutral investigative journalists themselves.

Newly leaked documents show how Bellingcat, Reuters and the BBC were covertly cooperating with the U.K.’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) to undermine the Kremlin and promote regime change in Moscow.
 
He names names of graduates of Kings College that are hired to key positions in media corporations like Reuters, BBC, and CNN. 
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