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, April 8, 2022

Posts that I especially recommend for Friday, April 8, 2022

I've decided to handle lengthy posts like I handled yesterday's posts: listen to a part of it to get the overall theme of the post. I was mistaken as a special article that I recommended for your attention. You see, I have a rather good nose for where the post is going; but after listening to the whole discussion following my daily posts, I concluded that I should not have included this article with the other recommended posts. Let me explain.
 
I noticed that this discussion was a kind of commiseration among the group which was largely made up of Mint Press news analysts. I fault the founder Mnar Adley for this mistake. Although she was of Middle East ancestry and was influenced by her ties with this latter culture, she was clearly influenced by her formative years in the USA. This culture was This culture was in the form of overwhelming influences by the capitalist ruling class that went out of its way to discourage any socialist ideas. I am speaking especially of the rich Marxist influences that are suppressed in American culture. 
 
I encountered this in my formal education at a major university on the west coast following my one year experience at a small progressive college. At the latter institution I found myself surrounded by "red-diaper babies" and their ideas. I filed away their ideas but I subsequently found that these ideas explained much of what is occurring in the political world. This experience encouraged me to seek out Marxist literature in the vast collection of the library located at the major university. I discovered that such ideas are explained much better than conventional explanations of major geopolitical events. In the balance of my formal education, I pursued such ideas and was a serious student of sociology. 
 
However, my chosen path was not easy. I readily discovered that my new understanding of geopolitical and other sociological events was not welcome by other students and, to my shock, even by my professors. But in my nearly obsessive search for truth, I pursued Marxist ideas anyway in spite of this opposition. I experienced loneliness throughout my formal advanced education and was getting accustomed to it. Having graduated with a BA in sociology, I saw major difficulties in the post-graduate years ahead, and decided to pursue a post-graduate program that prepared me for a reasonably lucrative job. 

What consisted of this Marxist education in the USA? I learned that a capitalist society was fractured into different classes: a tiny ruling class which imposed their values and perspectives on those classes below them, followed by the upper middle class of highly trained specialists, and a middle class comprised of small to middle sized businesses, and the vast majority were lumped into the working class. And, I studied throughout my adult years the use of propaganda everywhere in order to cohere the adult population into subscribers and supporters of capitalist interests. 

This lengthy explanation was to explain how my life's education and experiences have differed from that of the great majority of ordinary Americans, and an explanation for my error in recommending this article. Nearly all Americans are exposed to this conventional upbringing while living in the USA, and it's very difficult to avoid it. 

In my post formal education years, I read widely and some of this reading consisted of histories written by people who experienced it. Thus, I arrived at the lengthy exposition of my political orientation as expressed in my articles entitled "Countdown to 'Full Spectrum Dominance'" and "Fake leaders and ineffective movements".
 
Regarding my opposition to yesterday's post entitled "Cancel Culture and Polarization in the Age of COVID: How To Agree To Disagree", I discovered this was all about their experience of losing friends and relationships with family members as a reaction to their very realistic views. In short, it was about commiseration. In contrast, I have lived this experience all my life and was accustomed to it. Their actual knowledge of the way the de-facto US/British/Zionist Empire works cannot be explained by the cultural influences of US culture. Thus, the enlightened employees of Mint Press News are losing friends and family members from those that have been indoctrinated by the ubiquitous (def.) propaganda received while living in the USA, and they are suffering because of this loss. 
  • Twitter IS “State-Affiliated Media” by Australian Caitlin Johnstone with her American husband, Tim Foley, also reading the script (07:47) in the audio section of her article, but you may miss supporting examples, illustrations, etc.)--from her weblog.
The biggest news of today’s cycle is the wild admission by the Pentagon, U.S. media, etc., that the U.S. has in fact employed a “strategy” of outright lying and making up fake intelligence to ‘combat Russia’. [see here]
  • Edge of Extinction: Maybe I'm Wrong [I hope] features the views and analysis of Prof. (retired) Guy McPherson, an independent scientist (via his YouTube channel--08:36), who has fearlessly focused his attention throughout much of his prior career and retirement on the climate crisis.
at
Labels: