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, May 7, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, May 7, 2021

  • Viral CIA Recruitment Video Features "Cisgender Millennial" Who Says "I Am Unapologetically Me" from Forbes' YouTube channel. My reaction: If you want to see an example of "woke" propaganda using identity politics, view this as a prime example from the US's Deep State and its prime subversive agency, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). I don't know if it is over-the-top as propaganda because they've received a lot of flack or ridicule from some minor news shows, Fox's Tucker Carlson, Lee Camp, and of course Jimmy Dore. Even Newsweek magazine has expressed doubts about it. (Here is an exposé of the real CIA that Oliver Stone has done.) However, the Deep State doesn't use ineffectual propaganda. They have likely tested this on American audiences and determined that much of the American public was susceptible to its message. It must be emphasized for our gullible fellow-Americans that the CIA is engaging in such subversive activities today as illustrated in a recent report by Bernard, a German blogger. This CIA recruitment ad is further evidence--if you need some--that the ruling capitalist class today considers the general American public as enemies to be manipulated.
  • USAID admits to Venezuela regime change fraud by Anya Parampil from The Grayzone. (Note: I've just found that if I access YouTube videos directly from independent websites that I receive an error message. But if I access them directly from YouTube, I succeed. Thus if you access this video from the "Watch on YouTube" caption on the lower left-hand corner, you will succeed.)

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Wednesday, May 5, 2021 (abbreviated)

  • This Biden Proposal Could Make the US a “Digital Dictatorship” by Whitney Webb from her weblog Unlimited Hangout. (Note: A caption summarizing the article reads this: "A 'new' proposal by the Biden administration to create a health-focused federal agency modeled after DARPA is not what it appears to be. Promoted as a way to 'end cancer' this resuscitated “health DARPA” conceals a dangerous agenda.")
This is a comprehensive and lengthy article on one citizen's efforts to become rich and powerful (influential) under the capitalist system. He is now, arguably in control of the UN's World Health Organization as their top funder. This tells the fascinating story of how to become rich in capitalist USA and become a part of the Empire's ruling class. Here are a few excerpts from the lengthy article:
 
Gates’ ethic was never a collaborative, social one in which a community worked together to improve a collective asset. It was not the mindset of the scientist seeking knowledge. Instead it was antisocial and competitive—the mindset of the capitalist. 
 
But, you say, he deserves accolades, at least a pass, with what he has done in his philanthropy work. The authors write:
 
Well, it’s worth observing that the Foundation operates with what is effectively a large public subsidy. Tim Schwab of the Nation—whose name will recur, since he has produced some [of] the best critical journalism on Gates and the Foundation—says that money is exempt from tax because it belongs to a charity, and has to be seen as “money that otherwise would have gone to the US Treasury to help build bridges, do medical research, or close the funding gap at the IRS (which has resulted in fewer audits of billionaires).” As law professor Ray Madoff said to Schwab: “when they get significant tax benefits, it’s also our money.” 
 
The authors sum up their article with these words:
 
... he is part of a small class of elites who are able to bypass democracy, and does embody many aspects of contemporary society that need to change. The decision of individual billionaires to be useful is better than pure self-regard, but ultimately billionaires should not exist in the first place. Bill Gates is richer than 140 different countries. This is too much concentrated wealth and power and it makes a farce of democracy. The question of how the huge resources of the modern world are used to meet our broad social needs should be decided on democratically, not by the whim of a rich person.

Let Gates jet off into the sunset.
  • 💥Glenn Greenwald & Richard Medhurst featuring Greenwald, candidly explaining, to his host Medhurst using Rokfin (to avoid censorship), how he has grown-up politically through his experiences with US journalism, his experience with Edward Snowden, his more recent experience while living in Brazil, and his following reports regarding Wikileaks and Julian Assange. As a result of these experiences, he views journalism as practiced by media corporations as serving "intelligence" services and their employers in the Deep State, the directorate of the ruling capitalist class. He even comments how the Deep State uses "woke" ideology as a weapon. This is a best post. (Note: It is apparent that alternative platforms to YouTube have not thoroughly mastered YouTube technology. The interview starts at about 18:06m and lasts till 125:06m, thus the entire interview lasts about one hour and seven minutes. But, it is well worth listening to the interview!)
  • 💥Intersectional Torturers from the weblog of Australian Caitlin Johnstone who provides us with an audio and written version. This is a best post. My reaction: This article points to an amoral CIA and its fake use of identity politics ("woke"--def.) to manipulate ordinary Americans to strengthen support for the US capitalist ruling class. 
  • Cracks in Northern Ireland? by Kenneth Surin from CounterPunch. (Note: I hesitated to include this article because most Americans are not interested in news and analysis of foreign countries. However I believe Surin's analysis is correct, and Brexit's impact might not be limited to Irish politics. This could be further evidence of the unraveling of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire which includes wavering, critically important Europe.)

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Tuesday, May 4, 2021

At first, having done some research on "Henele" who is a naturopathic physician, I decided not to post this interview on my website; but after reading the entire transcript of the interview, I felt that "Henele" was making a sincere effort to investigate the pandemic which others of my posts weren't asking the appropriate questions, were ignoring discrepancies, and having a too narrow of focus. I personally was frustrated last summer after learning from a very sociable person that she knew of no one who was afflicted with Covid-19 in our town of 12,000, but she qualified her position by saying that she knew of hospital statistics in a nearby large city that many people have come down with Covid-19 illness. Then I kept noticing reports of doctors being pressured by health authorities to declare the coronavirus reason for someone dying, and hospitals being offered money incentives to diagnose deaths due to Covid-19 illnesses. 
 
I had in an early career with a state Department of Rehabilitation directly experienced the gross inflation of numbers of "rehabilitations" to justify higher budgets and was pressured to "play along with the game". After a while and learning that this was the same situation in many states, it disturbed me so much that I ended up quitting an entire career that I had trained for.
 
My suspicion is that the ruling capitalist class, for various reasons, intentionally brought about this pandemic. They first created Covid-19 illness and somehow spread it in China, their number one enemy. The concentration of ownership in private enterprise and the concentration of the medical professions (no longer can doctors afford to set up a private practice) under chains of authority (bureaucracy) that physicians can be easily controlled. 
And he follows this caption with the first paragraph as follows:
 
One of the primary plagues of corporate journalism, which I have documented more times than I can count, just reared its ugly head again to deceive millions of people with fake news. When one large news outlet publishes a false story based on whispers from anonymous security state agents with the CIA or FBI, other news outlets quickly purport that they have “independently confirmed” the false story, in order to bolster its credibility (oh, it must be true since other outlets have also confirmed it). 
  • Recognizing Lies about Latin America: Seven Tips by Laura Wells from Dissident Voice. My reaction: She immediately starts with a false assumption: "A focus on lies about Latin America is important because we do care about how the US treats other people ...". Unfortunately, that is not true. Being focused on surviving and otherwise distracted, Americans mostly ignore how the government treats other people in foreign lands. They mostly believe what their told by the "talking heads" on major TV stations. But her advice on detecting lies is spot-on.

Monday, May 3, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Monday, May 3, 2021

  • World’s Most Tyrannical Regime Can’t Stop Babbling About “Human Rights” from the weblog of Australian Caitlin Johnstone who provides us with an audio and written version. My reaction: This is another obvious expression of the "woke" phenomenon referred to in yesterday's Escobar post. The following paragraph sums up the use of "human rights" by the agents of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire.
In Imperialist Brain Worms World, “human rights” is nothing other than a propaganda weapon to be used for building antagonistic international coalitions, manufacturing consent for invasions and regime change ops, and spinning the dominant narrative in support of starvation sanctions and world-threatening cold war escalations. It’s just mass-scale concern trolling of the most destructive and malignant sort imaginable.
  • The Criminalization of Dissent by CJ Hopkins, a major satirist, from his weblog Consent Factory, Inc. (Note: Hopkins is an American playwright, novelist and political satirist currently living in Germany.)
... in “New Normal” Germany, if you dissent from the official state ideology, you are now officially a dangerous “extremist.” The German Intelligence agency (the “BfV”) has even invented a new category of “extremists” in order to allow themselves to legally monitor anyone suspected of being “anti-democratic and/or delegitimizing the state in a way that endangers security,” like … you know, non-violently protesting, or speaking out against, or criticizing, or satirizing, the so-called “New Normal.”
 
Naturally, I’m a little worried, as I have engaged in most of these “extremist” activities.
 
Hopkins is serious. And, he discovers this phenomenon in the USA, the center of the transnational capitalist Empire.
Russia is a great nation with an important place in European history and culture. Washington’s policy is to expel Russia from Europe in order to secure its own domination of the rest of the continent. 

Sunday, May 2, 2021

Posts that I especially recommend for Sunday, May 2, 2021

  • Biggest Cover-Up Since Iraq Exposed by Journalist Aaron Maté and featuring Jimmy Dore,  exposing the lies related to the coverup of the official OPCW investigation of chemical weapons used by the Syrian government against their own people. (Note: Aaron Maté has especially devoted lot of work in uncovering this major censorship story. Read this, this, and this for starters, only a part of which I posted many articles on my website.) My reaction: the concentration of ownership of corporations of the US/Anglo/Zionist Empire has gone on so long that the CIA and other secretive "intelligence" agencies have over the past 75 years completely turned US, other foreign media corporations, and even some UN agencies toward serving the agenda of world conquest by the Empire. This is understandable when you've seen Bill Gates, as a top funder of the UN's World Health Organization (notice how this is reported in US media corporations--often their reporting is only listed by governments.), overwhelmingly adopt measures advocated by Gates with the latter billionaire influencing the coverage of international media corporations.
  • 💥Brave New Cancel Culture World by Pepe Escobar from "The Saker" weblog. This is a best post. (Note: You should be familiar with the terms "woke revolution" (see this and this) and "cancel culture" (see this and this).) My reaction: I commonly consider the first term as meaning "to wrap yourself in virtue" which implies a fake ethical position, and a corollary of that is "cancel culture" which is used to mean that you don't have to listen to anybody if they offend you, and in order to justify censorship or the allegation of "fake news). The ruling class uses the latter term to shame those they consider "anti-vaxxers", to justify the denial for such people to access to private and public services, and to censor opinions that differ from what the ruling class approves. I consider both terms to be useful for the ruling class to justify their policies of self-serving virtue and intolerance of those opposing their diktats (def.).