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

Thursday, July 22, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, July 22, 2021

  • Fauci Accused Of Lying To Congress About Virus Research featuring Jimmy Dore of the Jimmy Dore Show (via its YouTube channel) exposing the lies of CDC head Tony Fauci and additional commentary by Graham Elwood. Fauci deliberately lies because he knows that he has the backing of the Deep State, the informal board of directors of the capitalist ruling class which controls Congress. So, he's invulnerable, and he behaves accordingly.
  • Doctor caught on video saying opioids are not addictive featuring Rick Sanchez of RT's channel on YouTube exposing the opioids' scam (0.00m to 11:25m, only) by pharmaceutical corporations in pursuit of profits and power under the capitalist system which has devastated working classes and brought untold riches to the already wealthy. (Note: I personally know of a former social worker whose daughter has that addiction. A year ago the mother was hopeful about her daughter's progress, but a month ago I learned that she was in prison. The prognosis generally is poor for the already addicted. Also, on the same subject I recommend that you view this video (about 6 minutes) from RT entitled "Four companies near $26 billion settlement over opioid crisis". My reaction: I suspect that opioids had been marketed so heavily by pharmaceutical corporations because of CIA trafficking of heroin from Afghanistan.
  • Billionaire Funded Reporter Attacks Grassroots Healthcare Organizers features Jimmy Dore (via his YouTube channel) illustrating how Ryan Grim of the Intercept uses gaslighting (to 13:52m) to confuse most Americans about universal Medicare. My reaction: I think that Jimmy Dore is not censored by YouTube because he is so popular, and there are alternative video sites available for him to use.
In real life, billionaires don’t bring any exceptional brilliance into the political process. They bring their billions. They bring outsized stashes of cash that can distort election outcomes and safeguard their fortunes. Witness the $200 million our tech giants spent this fall on a ballot initiative to kill protections for gig workers.

And these dollars, even worse, drop a suffocating ideological wet blanket over the campaigns that Democratic Party candidates run.
  • Banks and Wall Street oppose creation of digital dollar from BRICS. My reaction: The two set of capitalists are split on the issue of the digitization of money by the Federal Reserve. I tend to think as the US ruling class becomes more and more concentrated among the owners of the Federal Reserve that the latter will win out. However in either result, this will result in the impoverishment of workers who create real wealth. The ruling capitalist class will always win, but the numbers of "owners" will be less and will be increasingly confined to the owners of the Federal Reserve, the IMF, and the World Bank (the latter two will use the digital money of the Fed). It's like the game of Monopoly where only one participant wins in the end. But long before that happens, abrupt climate destabilization will end all (or most) life on Earth unless we, the people, intervene and try to forestall this from happening.