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, November 5, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, November 5, 2021

  • Florida Now Has Lowest Covid Rates In Nation! featuring Jimmy Dore and Max Blumenthal from Dore's channel on YouTube (14:48). My reaction: This was a surprise to me. The ruling class, via their control of media and the Democratic Party, must do a better job of distorting statistics or else admit to their efforts at distorting data and the use of pro-pandemic propaganda.
  • Hear the Suppressed Voices of the Vaccine Injured featuring Ben Swann from Sovren covering the highlights of the hearing at the "U.S. Senate building in Washington DC where vaccine-injured spoke about their experience and the tens of thousands of others who are being 'erased' by politicians and social media". My reaction: I'll bet you didn't learn of this government hearing from corporate media.
... after five weeks, I had to quit a job where my requirement was supposedly to help people living in poverty, living with mental illnesses, with traumatic brain injuries, with developmental disabilities, get job ready, get their job profiles and interview skills up to speed, and to get them jobs ....
  • Why Democrats Lost In Virginia Is Painfully Obvious featuring Jimmy Dore exposing the meaninglessness of the US government as providing any kind of "democracy", the electoral system, and corporate media from Dore's channel on YouTube (27:59). My reaction: I wonder when Dore gives up on his efforts to expose the ruling capitalist class and their stranglehold on the US nation. I think we will all be strangled to death by our masters much before he ever succeeds.
Their ability to display ideological cohesion at the expense of a reflexive process of dialogical thinking is remarkable but not surprising: establishment liberals do see themselves as the centre of political enlightenment. If they appear vainglorious and self-righteous it is because they are part of a power structure that produces and perpetuates these character traits. Those who entertain the possibility of failure are side-lined as bearers of bad news, the centre-stage is reserved for those who project confidence and a sense of moral superiority. As to considering opposing viewpoints, that is entirely optional.
That’s why I use the word “miracle” sometimes. Because if you really grasp how fucked things are and still hold out hope that we can change things in time to save the world, you’re basically holding out hope for a miracle. You might not use that word, but you’re hoping for something to happen that on paper is impossible.

So what do we do? The only thing we can do in such a situation: work tirelessly to spread awareness. To spread awareness to other people, and to spread awareness within ourselves. To facilitate awakening, collectively and as an individual. It’s the only thing that ever leads to healthy change.

Do that with everything we’ve got, and do it for its own sake with the full allowance that it could easily not be enough, and who knows. We just might get our miracle.
Israel is doing what any colonial power does. It expands at the expense of the native population. The onus is not on colonial powers to behave themselves, but on the rest of the world to hold them accountable.
 
My reaction: Actually this entity is a colony of largely right-wing European Jews settled in Palestine thanks to the power of the then US-British Empire (read chapter 3 of Stephan Wertheim's Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy) after WWII.  The colony was designed to serve the former Empire in order to police the Middle East. In 1967, after it proved its loyalty to the Empire, Israel was admitted to the now de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire. 
  • Japan’s Energy Policy and its Significance for Russia by Petr Konovalov from New Eastern Outlook. My reaction: Here we see a national interest emphasized over the planet's interest in reducing carbon-emitting fuel. That is better than what we see in the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire: a family's interest--jobs and careers--via a corporation's interest of profitability. Although this author's take is morally a little better, and Russia's interest in pursuing a multipolar world and defending against the Empire's obsessive drive to dominate all nations (also see my "best post" here) of the planet might be a moral excuse for pursuing a national interest. But, either way, the planet is going to get more inhospitable for all life-species despite any COP meetings.
Outside of the above vital consideration, I learned from reading the article a lot about carbon emissions. For example, this one about hydrogen power:
 
Indeed, hydrogen does not pollute the environment when used. However, the environment is polluted during hydrogen’s production: surprisingly, most of the hydrogen produced in the world comes from the same oil and coal. Other ways of producing hydrogen on an industrial scale are not cost-effective yet. Thus, to avoid processing hydrocarbon fuel on its territory, Japan will have to pay a lot of money to other countries, and only later receive the finished product. In the eyes of the United Nations, this may absolve Japan of responsibility for air pollution. Still, it will not make the number of harmful substances in the Earth’s atmosphere any less.

The following posts are selected by Brad Fredricks (and his reactions, commentaries, etc.) for this website:
A man from Florida, actually the Governor of the State with the current lowest COVID-19 infections, is suing the Biden administration over the latest White House Executive orders mandating vaccinations.

Normally headlines about a man from Florida are followed by insane stories that seem far-fetched, however, we are in a totally inverted reality where everything is backward.
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