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, December 23, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, December 23, 2021

  • An email I received from John Allen: (with permission, I am quoting from his email.)

    Hi, Ron. Well it's happened. I have been terminated on Medium after over four years. It's forbidden to talk about the corruption of Big Pharma; at least on Medium. I've talked about all sorts of corruption and was suspended on Facebook for a while a few years ago. But this is a new low. I had already wanted to talk about blatant fascism tomorrow. Well this certainly is it. Is RFK Jr. going to get in big trouble about his wildly popular book? I fear for his safety. The book is hard to read as I get incensed after a few pages of reading and have to go to something else to settle down.

    People are dying because of this. Trump may have taken the blame but it goes way deeper than just a few administrations. Something I have a hard time explaining to folks that put names--like Presidents--to the system as a whole.
  • Science Should Never Shut Down Debate by Eileen Natuzzi from Brownstone Institute. My reaction: This is obvious, or should be. But the ruling capitalist class is deliberately trying to shut down debate with censorship of opposing views.
There is no moral, legal or logical argument for mandatory vaccination. The only logical argument, from a public health perspective, would be either to reduce the spread of infection or reduce the impact on health services via some other mechanism. We will explore the evidence which shows that the COVID-19 supposed “vaccines” are incapable of achieving either. 
  • 💥Fauci’s Wuhan Research Worse than Thought – New Documents Reveal featuring Jimmy Dore reading from Newsweek (of all places) an article, with sarcastic comments interjected comedian Kurt Metzger, implicating Fauci and NIH (National Institute of Health) in coverup lies--from Dore's channel on YouTube (27:55). My reaction: I wonder why Dore isn't censored off YouTube! It must be because he is described as a comedian by YouTube so that you won't take him seriously.
Why is any taxpayer-backstopped bank in the United States allowed to own anything near a trillion dollars in stock derivatives, let alone a bank like JPMorgan Chase that has admitted to an unprecedented five criminal felony counts brought by the Justice Department in the past seven years, with three of those felony counts for rigging markets.
  • Similarities of 9/11 and the Pandemic featuring Bonnie Faulker interviewing Kevin Ryan regarding the subject in an audio interview (nearly an hour)--from her weblog Guns + Butter. (Note: Here I'm breaking my rule for posting articles and interviews within one month.) My reaction: The ruling capitalist class manipulates Americans with false-flag events such as 9/11 and the current covid pandemic to instill fear in them. I've noticed over my lifetime our ruling class tries, and largely succeeds, to instill fear in Americans and manipulates them by spreading fear: the War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, the longtime obsessive concern (since WWII) for Russians being the source of all evil, the current wave of obsessive concern about Covid-19 and its variants, and the current warmongering against China all driven by reports in major media corporations.
Coming straight from President Putin, it did sound like a bolt from the sky:

“We need long-term legally binding guarantees even if we know they cannot be trusted, as the U.S. frequently withdraws from treaties that become uninteresting to them. But it’s something, not just verbal assurances.”

And that’s how Russia-U.S. relations come to the definitive crunch – after an interminable series of polite red alerts coming from Moscow. 
  • A Bit Of Economic News. By Andrei Martyanov from his weblog Reminiscence of the Future.... (Note: I will be posting articles by Martyanov on the strength of Pepe Escobar's recommendation. I believe that Escobar is among the world's top journalists, but I also believe that his recommendation is based on the interest that Martyanov has on educating Americans in the recent advances of Russia. In researching Martyanov to learn about his background, I had great difficulty. The best source I found is nearly an hour post in late October (2021) by Bonnie Faulkner interviewing Martyanov. I have high regard for Faulkner. (I normally post articles only within a month of their occurrence.) I was contributing to the support of her weblog in recent years, but I grew impatient with the lack of posts by her, and I terminated this support. Martyanov is currently a resident of the USA, but he was raised in the Caucasus in an area under the control of the Soviet Union, had a career in the Russian navy, but immigrated to the USA in the 1990s.)
  • Nord Stream 2 is a double-edged geopolitical tool by M. K. Bhadrakumar from Indian Punchline (based in India). (Note: It is important to look at the existing pipelines from Russia to Europe on the map furnished in the article to understand the text.)
  • Science Update: Climate Havoc in the Arctic featuring the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--08:53), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout much of his career on the climate crisis.
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