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

Friday, July 16, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, July 16, 2021

As the 99.2 percent figure gets recycled in newspaper and magazine articles and on television, many Americans may come to accept it as a scientific fact. They will assume it is based on accurate data provided by the government or a peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal, rather than an article by a news agency that reads more like an opinion piece than anything else. ....
 
Boy, talk about a case of false advertising disguised as science-based journalism. It would be helpful if the CDC would publish the data to back up the AP analysis.
 
What, media corporations such as AP don't have fact-checkers? (cynical question)
A 20-YEAR trail of patent applications concerning the virus responsible for Covid-19 proves it is neither new nor the result of a jump from animals to humans, an inquiry has been told.

Instead, the patents show that a natural virus, harmless to humans, was subjected to numerous laboratory modifications which ‘weaponised’ it, such that it could become the basis of a marketing campaign for tests and vaccines which are of questionable value to the public health, but which have proved to be a financial bonanza for drug companies.
As early as 1993, US News & World Report was accurate in describing the Finders case as one viewed “through a glass, very darkly.” As I wrote in the introduction to this series, the more one peers into the Finders case, the more one sees that what we have available to us in terms of hard evidence is at best fragmentary; however, what evidence we do have available is damning enough that it deserves to be reckoned with.
CRT is now as informative a term as “family values” or “diversity” or “Black lives matter” or “socialism” or “common good” or “tolerance” or “social justice” or “freedom of speech” or… you get the idea. These terms are weapons. Whether you vibe with them or not, you use them as disingenuous weapons — without a hint of concern about the accuracy or deeper meaning. They are straw men in a bigger game of distraction and denial. While the Fake News swirls and mesmerizes, those in charge gain more power and more wealth. Same as it ever was.

Are there some on the Right who are using anti-CRT rhetoric to mask their racist tendencies? Of course. Are there some on the Left using their pro-CRT rhetoric to mask their fascist tendencies? Of course. But most of those talking about CRT right now are uninformed dupes. They’re regurgitating the talking points of their TV network or social media platform of choice — without a hint of concern about the accuracy or deeper meaning. It’s virtue signaling yet again.  [my emphasis]
In today’s world, the principal contradiction is between imperialism and humanity. Giant multinational corporations are fleecing the globe for their own interests, forming international networks of monopoly capital through the geographic expansion of corporate power. This has involved transferring parts of production, commercial, and financial service to peripheral countries in search of cheap labor. Super-profits are being reaped through a production system based on the enormous wage differentials that persist between the Global North and the Global South. If these rules of exploitation are broken by any country, imperialist powers use a discourse of humanitarianism to justify: military buildups and threats of war; the carrying out of actual military interventions; economic sanctions and blockades; political interference in the elections of other countries; and the launching of “color revolutions”.
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