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

Saturday, December 18, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Saturday, December 18, 2021

Calling lockdowns the worst public health catastrophe in human history is not unreasonable, and many who have studied the implications of lockdowns on human health and the global economy echo this sentiment.

The phrase seems to have been coined by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD., a professor of both medicine and economics at Stanford University.
  • Fauci Responds To RFK Jr.’s Book featuring Jimmy Dore, a straight guy, interviewing and an impersonator (Mike MacRae) of Anthony Fauci, CDC's czar, from Dore's channel on YouTube (07:22). My reaction: This is hilarious!
... far too often, the facts don’t even matter. In a heavily conditioned society, way too many folks choose to believe what they are told/taught/programmed to believe. Don’t take my word for it. Just take a look around. How/why does that happen? I’ve written about this before yet, it sadly remains relevant and timely, so here we go again.

In his book, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon: The Emotional World of Farm Animals, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson writes: “I was told by some New Zealand sheep farmers that sometimes a particularly smart lamb will learn to undo the latch of a gate, evidently not an uncommon skill, and the sheep farmer then worries that the lamb might teach his less clever companions to do the same.”

Masson asked the farmers: “What do you with sheep who can undo the latch?”

“We shoot them,” came the reply, “so they can’t pass on their knowledge.”
 
My reaction: The moral of this story is ... be sure to pass on your knowledge and critical thinking!
  • Glenn Greenwald: This is How They STOLE Your DEMOCRACY! featuring Russell Brand, a British comedian, and includes a commentary by Glenn Greenwald (with occasional comments by Brand) from Brand's channel on Rumble (with audio version). My reaction: This is where Greenwald and I part company. The "democracy" that has been tolerated by the ruling capitalist class is, and has always been, mostly fake. But now they are taking this largely fake democracy away from us.
Guardian journalist Stephanie Kirchgaessner was aware of the spying long before it was made public. Yet rather than blowing the whistle, publishing a huge scoop, or even simply notifying Assange privately, she instead chose to write highly dubious articles insinuating that he was an agent of Russian malfeasance.
  • Architects and Engineers: Solving the Mystery of Building 7 - w/ Ed Asner featuring Asner and various architects and engineers in a 2015 video explaining that 9/11 was an impossibility as anything other than a controlled demolition--from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. My reaction: Yes, Architects and engineers have also suffered censorship. Apparently this video has been restored on YouTube--for how long is anyone's guess.
The British government has historically maintained that the United Kingdom is only ever “four meals from anarchy” – meaning that the country would descend into widespread disorder, rioting and protest if stores were to run out of food for more than a day. While there is little to no indication of that happening in the U.S., hunger is on the rise, and with it political disenchantment. What form that will take remains to be seen. Globally, however, the situation is as grave as it has been in living memory, and it seems inconceivable that there will be no political ramifications to the shortages. If so, it could make the Arab Spring look mild by comparison.
  • The Persecution of Julian Assange featuring Chris Hedges and his guest Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, in an interview from RT's channel on YouTube (27:05).
“We want ‘war fighters’ – whether they be cyber specialists, drone pilots or infantry soldiers – to be stronger, faster, more intelligent, more resilient and more mobile to overcome the environment and the adversary. … As technology has become more sophisticated our thinking has become more focused on the machine rather than the person, but this needs to change if we are going to be effective in the future”, the paper says.
Foreign aid was revered by the Washington establishment, and the World Bank epitomized the arrogance of the financial masters of the universe (at least in their own minds and press releases). The World Bank, heavily subsidized by US taxpayers, profited from every debacle it spawned. The more loans the bank made, the more prestige and influence it acquired. After a profusion of bad loans to Third World governments helped ignite a debt crisis, I warned in a 1985 Wall Street Journal piece that expanding the World Bank’s role “would be akin to appointing Mrs. O’Leary’s cow as chief of the Chicago Fire Department.”

I was astounded at how many despots the World Bank was propping up.
The new German coalition government headed up by Chancellor Olaf Scholz is only one week in power but already the signals are pointing to Berlin being more amenable to U.S.-led NATO hostility towards Russia.
Many westerners trying to make sense of the events in the “dark continent” of Africa have many barriers standing in the way of their minds and reality. This must be the case, for without such filters of spin proclaiming Africa’s problems to be self-induced (or the consequence of Chinese debt slavery), we in the west, might actually feel horrified enough to demand systemic change. We might come to recognize that the plight of Africa has less to do with Africa and more to do with an intentional program of depopulation, and exploitation of vital resources.
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