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, January 20, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, January 20, 2022

  • The Supreme Court Blocks OSHA’s Mandatory Vaccine or Vaccine/Test Rule for Employers with 100+ Employees from JDSupra. My reaction: I have found virtually nothing in the alternative media about the important judgment by the Supreme Court on the Osha case. It would take a Constitutional lawyer to figure things out regarding the ruling. It appears to me that the ruling changes nothing as briefly explained in this post. Private employers have permission to institute policies regardless of their size, but it leaves in place medical facilities' options to require existing policies. It seems to reaffirm state's rights to determine such basic human rights, and completely ignores the Nuremberg Principles.
Once upon a time, there was a government so paranoid about its hold on power that it treated everyone and everything as a threat and a reason to expand its powers. Unfortunately, the citizens of this nation believed everything they were told by their government, and they suffered for it.   
Coronavirus and Covid-19 are but one focal point, among others to expose this truth. We could also focus on the obscene inequality of American capitalism where tens of millions of workers and their families are facing poverty, unemployment, hunger and homelessness while the system lavishes its oligarchs.

We could also focus on the countless wars and deaths that US imperialism has inflicted on the planet over decades – all to satiate its voracious corporate profits. That’s pathological right there.
The beat went on and on like a broken record until some time in 2013… when something changed. 
China, and to an extent Russia have demonstrated that America can be rebuffed, and their example has emboldened other countries to make choices it couldn’t before.
Julian Assange once said that if wars can be started by lies, they can be stopped by truth. Assange suffered immeasurably, with Britain and America taking him away for revealing facts about US war crimes in Iraq, while notorious Iraq War liar Tony Blair was knighted.

“Sir” Tony Blair may now be paraded around as a model citizen of the United Kingdom and the West, an appropriate display of the “values” our civilization now represents. Be a spreader of lies and violence like this goblin, and you will be honored. Happen upon evidence of a war crime by the state, or even by a foreign regime the UK has allied itself to, and you will be punished.
The smearing of critics of Israel as anti-Semitic serves to deflect attention away from the crimes against Palestinians. But it may also make real anti-Semitism (the right-wing fascist variety) more respectable and legitimate—and thus even more deadly. 
On December 24, 2021, Libya was supposed to hold a popular vote for the country’s first president, but it never did. If “outside players” had not interfered in the general elections, these would have been held long ago, Libyans and many observers believe. However, the US, which has a direct interest in establishing its stable position of influence in the country, is well aware that if the voting were to take place now, Libyans would likely support the candidacy of Khalifa Haftar or Saif Gaddafi, which clearly contradicts Washington’s intentions.

Therefore, the West made every attempt to disrupt it, and an important tool for this was the return of Stephanie Williams from the US to the position of head of the UN mission, after which the situation in Libya has changed dramatically with the establishment of practically an external government by the United States through the UN program.
As we traveled through Ethiopia, BT News met with Minister of Education Dr. Berhanu Nega, of the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice party and a former political prisoner of the TPLF and Minister of Culture and Sport Kejela Merdasa of the Oromo Liberation Front, to get their views on Ethiopia's current political moment, the nation’s political future, and why the US has offered such strong support for the regime change attempts by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front or TPLF.
at