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

Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Recommended Web posts for Tuesday 4/17/2018 (updated)

Listen to "Empire-Episode26-EdwardCurtin" on Spreaker.
  • The US secret plan on Damascus foiled by Elijah J. Magnier from his website. This independent Kuwaiti journalist usually has impeccable sources. The sources told him of the coordinated plans between Trump and the Russians, and the plans seem very convincing from the evidence reported after the US, British, and French missile attack on Douma (Duma), a suburb of Damascus.
  • New sinews of working class power, a review by Mark Thomas of a book entitled On New Terrain: How Capital is Reshaping the Battleground of Class War authored by Kim Moody that was posted on Socialist Review (Britain). 
Moody’s argument not only insists the working class still exists but that its structural capacity to organise and paralyse production has grown as the restructuring and consolidation of capital has created a “new terrain” for the class struggle. Such a case is highly welcome to socialists who argue that workers possess the collective power to not just challenge capital but to break it. 
This grand show [the missile attack on Syria], then, was no more than a futile gesture. After a quarter of a century of unilateral domination by the West, its three main military powers have just been down-graded. The world has returned to a bipolar situation like that of the Cold War, although the new rules still need to be defined. The Third World War will have to wait.
  • Eva Bartlett on Syria & Smear Campaign, an approximately one hour video interview with Bartlett, conducted by Nathan Stolpman of the YouTube channel "Lift the Veil", in which she responds to questions about the smears she has received from several sources, and general questions about what is going on in Syria. 
Also I should direct you to the post of the interview on Bartlett's website In Gaza where she provides a number of links most especially to other writers she respects for their honest reporting of events in Syria and the nearby region. (You may need to wait a few seconds for the video to upload on your device.)