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, January 7, 2017

Pushing for a Lucrative New Cold War

Click here to access article by Gareth Porter from ConsortiumNews
The New Cold War promises untold riches for the Military-Industrial Complex, causing hawks inside the Obama administration to push for more hostilities with Russia, as in a Syrian case study dissected by Gareth Porter....
The case study was:
Airstrikes by the United States and its allies against two Syrian army positions Sept. 17 killed at least 62 Syrian troops and wounded dozens more. The attack was quickly treated as a non-story by the U.S. news media; U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) claimed the strikes were carried out in the mistaken belief that Islamic State forces were being targeted, and the story disappeared.
Referring to the military-industrial faction in the capitalist ruling class, Porter's conclusion was that "those people had the power and the audacity to frustrate the will of the President of the United States."

Well, of course they had the power and thus there was no audacity involved in their decision. Porter, like most Americans, refuses to believe that anything other than the official government is in charge of what the government actually does.

I think what the case study indicates is that the ruling class directors are frustrated and disorganized due to the failure of their strategies--the support of their terrorist army (ISIS) and other proxy armies (Syrian Kurds)--to bring down the Syrian government because of Russia's support of the Syrian government. That is why their corporate media continue to issue so many outrageously unbelievable lies. Trump's election (and the failure of their candidate Hillary Clinton) and their media's continuing overt opposition to his administration is another indication of their disorganized state--something which we have not seen since they were thwarted in their attempts to bring down the Cuban government in 1961.