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, March 10, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Thursday, March 10, 2022

  • What Doctors Say In Private About COVID Vaccines by Madhava Setty, MD from The Pulse. My reaction: Gone are the days when medical physicians had independent practices. Because medical physicians cannot afford the expensive accoutrements of x-ray machines, laboratories, etc., they work for clinics and hospitals that are owned by the ruling capitalist class who have the power via their employed "careerists" to impose negative sanctions on physicians such as taking away their license to practice. The ruling class has often used this power to prohibit physicians from expressing dissident views "for fear of retribution".
The majority of medical professionals continue to trust the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — but there has never been unanimous support, despite what the public is being told.

In my survey of physician exchanges over the last 18 months a pattern has emerged. There has been growing skepticism, which was vehemently attacked from the beginning.
  • The Great Reset Phase II: War by an anonymous author from Internationalist 360°. My reaction: This author poses a nightmare prediction for the second phase of the Great Reset--unless we act:
Therefore, the nation state model is gradually being upended by a global technocracy, consisting of an unelected consortium of leaders of industry, central banking oligarchs and private financial institutions, most of which are predominantly non-state corporate actors attempting to restructure global governance and enlist themselves in the global decision-making process.

Therefore, the future of international relations and the social, economic and political transformation which the world is presently undergoing in light of the pandemic and Russia-Ukraine conflict will not be decided through multilateralism and elected representatives of sovereign states.

Rather, it will be decided through a network of multi-stakeholder partnerships which are motivated by the politics of expediency and not accountable to any electorate or beholden to any state and for whom concepts like sovereignty and international law are meaningless.
 
Can we embrace  the old-fashioned virtues of the working class like trust, solidarity, and organize for the defense of ordinary people? Far too many of us appear to be manipulated by corporate media.

I fear for my fellow Americans, but I have faith in ordinary people throughout the rest of the world.
  • Musings from the Margins by Ajamu Baraka from Internationalist 360°. My reaction: From the global south, this is a realistic attempt to picture what is happening in today's world. And, it ain't pretty!
  • A Conversation on Grief and NTHE [Near Term Human Extinction] featuring the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist, who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout much of his prior career and retirement on the climate crisis, and Pauline Schneider, his partner, from (via McPherson's YouTube channel--52:26). [My insertion]
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