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 29, 2015

Outernet: The Information War on a Whole New Level

Click here to access article by Ulson Gunnar from New Eastern Outlook.

Given the historical burden of promising an abundance of civil rights to ordinary citizens, the Empire's capitalist system's inevitable tendency to fascism must always be offset by efforts to carefully manage what their citizens are able to access as information about their world. Hence such methods like censorship chosen by military dictatorships are avoided by capitalist directors in favor of managing (or "manufacturing") consent of their subjects, in addition to 24/7 surveillance, by controlling information. This article examines the latest effort called the "Outernet" by our masters to do just that, and many people are falling for the ruse.
Thus the "great equalizer" Karim claimed Outernet is, is in fact yet another channel of Western government and corporate propaganda, giving those who already monopolize vast territory amid the information war, yet another weapon to use against unsuspecting minds. The only real feature that makes Outernet different from cable television or the Internet, is the fact that it is broadcast from a satellite, and thus difficult to block in a targeted country, and receivable by whomever the US State Department takes pilfered tax dollars and buys receiver sets for.