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

Saturday, March 5, 2016

The West and Syria: the corporate media vs. reality

Click here to access article by Ian Sinclair from Open Democracy UK

Read the article to see how Sinclair reaches the following conclusion:
...the government prefers to treat the public like mushrooms – keeping them in the dark and feeding them bullshit. And with our supposedly crusading, disputatious, stroppy and difficult fourth estate unable or unwilling to report basic facts and to connect some very simple dots, what chance does the general public have of ever gaining even a basic understanding of what the West is doing in Syria?
What Sinclair doesn't seem to be aware of is that the Empire's ruling transnational capitalist class must always (as always) keep people in the dark when their actions are clearly criminal. Corporate media coverage of reality is always used as the first line of defense against ordinary people whose support must be obtained for capitalists to have their way in the world at the expense and lives of ordinary people.