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

Monday, November 22, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Monday, November 22, 2021 (shortened version because of time limitations)

  • Episode 242: The Vanden Bossche Interview featuring an interview with a world-renowned immunologist and epidemiologist conducted by Del Bigtree. (Note: I don't normally post lengthy posts such as this one, but the questions asked by Bigtree in the first half-hour impressed me.)
  • Vaers Whistleblower features an interview with whistleblower. An interview with Deborah Conrad, a hospital physician’s assistant by Del Bigtree via YouTube (1:05:50), a post which is a shortened version of the longer video posted on The Highwire's website. (Note: Conrad is no longer employed by that hospital organization.) My commentary follows: 
I did diligent research on Bigtree, Conrad, and associated others. I discovered findings that connected with mildly disturbing to disturbing information regarding Bigtree's background, his lawyer Aaron Siri, and Epoch Times Newspaper. I didn't like the religious and conservative background of Bigtree, and I was quite disturbed to find information regarding Siri as follows:

Prior to founding Siri & Glimstad, Mr. Siri was a litigation attorney at Latham & Watkins for over five years. Before Latham, Mr. Siri clerked for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel (Aharon Barak) from 2004-2005 where he advised the Chief Justice of relevant American, English (including Commonwealth Countries), and International Law precedents for cases of first impression, including the implications of Israel’s planned removal of its citizens from the Gaza Strip/West Bank.
 
I don't recall what my online research led me to Epoch Times, but I was quite disturbed reading the numerous anti-communist articles on it. I've also, in the past, examined this newspaper for real and found it full of anti-communist propaganda.

However, I also ran into a post by Jefferey Jaxon, investigative journalist (see the next post) which really impressed me, particularly the last paragraph as follows:

When the media circles its wagons to collectively protect one specific product made by a notoriously untrusted Big Pharma industry the public must question why. When both the media and its small, exhaustively cited stable of “experts,” try and force an idea of “settled science” while stifling debate, the public must demand transparency. When the safety of a profitable product from previously criminal manufacturers can no longer be questioned, the scientific community must call out the lack of proper safety studies.
 
I decided to ignore the negative signs and to respect people whose other characteristics and politics disturbed me. I thought I must practice what I have preached: to respect all of those whose politics I didn't like, my mild tendency to ignore them, and thus decide to take them seriously by actively listening to them in order to pursue the truth. 
This post, by an old-fashioned conservative, illustrates how we should not be blinded by ideology to disrespect anyone's views, specifically Unz's views. He correctly assesses the independence of both journalists, that is, both Greenwald and Assange intended to function as true journalists. Once again, we are offered a non-ideological perspective on these two journalists by an old-fashioned conservative, Ron Unz, who is partly, if not solely, concerned with the truth. 
 
We see the multi-billionaire Pierre Omidyar tried to corrupt Glenn Greenwald with his money, and Greenwald was not going along with Omidyar's well-concealed motive. Greenwald was not corruptible. This could be a revelation of the grand strategy of the rich ruling class who have corrupted so many journalists employed in media corporations and with controlling heads of other institutions. With awareness of Assange's integrity, they didn't even try to corrupt him.
 
And although he is too charitable to say so, I think Greenwald must have realized that his colleagues probably considered him a dangerous threat to their own job security. By a very wide margin, he was the most prominent journalist on Omidyar’s payroll, and perhaps at some point his argument that Russiagate was indeed a ridiculous hoax might carry the day in the public arena. But if the naive billionaire eventually concluded that he had been hoodwinked, he might grow angry at the legions of his well-paid yes-men who had spent years participating in that deception, and perhaps cancel their generous sinecures.
 
I have just read all of Unz's article and partially listened to video #3 presented in his article. I will extend this commentary in a future post after I have viewed this third video and have further thought about Unz's lengthy article. I now expect that his article will have a profound effect on my thinking, but time is running out today to express my thoughts.
  • The Rittenhouse Verdict by Glenn Greenwald via Rumble (49:43) explaining as a lawyer that the verdict was just in the Rittenhouse case in spite of corporate media's bias. My reaction: This court case was another illustration that one should not listen to the fake "woke" interpretation of news from media corporations to learn about major events. I explicitly wrote "fake 'woke' ... news" because I firmly believe that the ruling capitalist class via their media corporations intentionally prepare their newscasts on the basis of the fake "woke" perspective. I will argue this in the future based on real future events which will illustrate this phenomenon. The ruling class is, once again, cynically wounding people up and causing divisions among the public for their self-serving interests mostly to divert attention from their own crimes. This phenomenon has nothing to do with civil rights or racist considerations, but has much to do with the ruling class's tendency to manipulate the public purely for their political interests.
  •  The Art of Media Warfare by Fernando Buen Abad Domínguez from Internationalist 360°. My reaction: This appeal applies to the American people. We have suffered from media manipulations like no other people to exploit the rest of the world for the benefit of our masters in the ruling capitalist class. Because they have shared some of this loot with us, we have gone along far too long.
We must ensure that every coup attempt, destabilizing, demoralizing or manipulative action (economic, military or financial) financed by the CIA or its planetary network of accomplices, is immediately reversed and returns to them like a boomerang that explodes in their faces. We need vaccines against bourgeois ideological viruses, and we need a method of symbolic production that advances in the territory of critical, emancipatory, anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist thought.