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, November 30, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Tuesday, November 30, 2021

A broader framework of disorder exacerbates this fragmentation. Nation-state actors have declared their “right” to assassinate persons anywhere in the world thought to be “enemy combatants” by secret evidence, without trial or any due process of law. Big money influences how laws are made in nearly every country, industrial-military complexes encourage a war mentality, and mass media propaganda encourage seeing the world as full of enemies and security threats. The capitalist system cultivates both egoism and an unlimited expansionist economic model that has wrought havoc on our finite planet with its multiple intersecting, delicately balanced ecosystems. Unless the people of Earth take charge through a true democratic system more powerful than multinational corporations, big money, global private banking, or militarized imperial nation-states, our planet has little hope for a transformed future.
... do not expect anything dramatic to happen in the New York courtroom. One has to suspect that a tale of Mossad running a major spy ring in the US using a pedophile and young girls might just be too much for some folks in power to tolerate and they have made sure that that aspect of the story will never see the light of day. That is the real story that is being conveniently covered-up. Israel yet again spies and Washington denies.
It should be obvious to everyone that humanity is headed down a dark path if worldwide public speech is regulated by monopolistic oligarchs with a vested interest in preserving the status quo and a steadily increasing alignment with government institutions. If every platform people flock to in large numbers becomes subjected to iron-fisted establishment narrative management, it will greatly hinder humanity’s efforts to become a conscious species that has a truth-based relationship with the world.
On November 11 Filippo Grandi, the head of UNHCR, issued a plea for greater assistance from rich countries, saying that “the international community must redouble its efforts to make peace, and at the same time must ensure resources are available to displaced communities and their hosts.” Unfortunately most of the international community couldn’t care less about refugees, as evidenced by reaction to recent agonising events such as Poland’s inhumane treatment of the thousands attempting to enter from Belarus, whose President is quite as cruel and pitiless as the Polish authorities who have repelled so many of them.
China is imposing harsh regulations on private education, big tech, and billionaires. The new Cold Warriors in the U.S. government and media call these moves authoritarian, leftward tyranny, and bad for business.

But Chinese president Xi Jinping calls it part of a “common prosperity” agenda to create a more equitable society on the road to building socialism.
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