Understanding Bondage

Some people heartily feel America the beautiful is the Greatest Nation on Earth, and God smiles on her prosperity and the American people.

Others feel we live in a shithole of deeply corrupt systems, with a population willfully ignorant of damages we impose on the environment and the wider world.

Happily I'm somewhere in-between.

But it is important to understand major trends & faults in our society, or risk being damaged. Thus please read these disturbing analyses of what's wrong with the USA today, which provide actionable advice:

"Thank You for Standing Up"  by Chris Hedges

"Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorships like Syria, Iran and Iraq." (written in January 2012)

"Con vs. Con"  by Chris Hedges
"The repeated argument of the necessity of supporting the “least worse” makes things worse... build alternative movements and parties to bring down corporate power or continue to watch our democracy atrophy into a police state and our ecosystem unravel... If you want to see what America will look like soon, across the country, shift your focus from the convention halls to the streets in Cleveland and Philadelphia. It is in the streets that our corporate masters will win or lose."

"A Debasing Spectacle: Behind and Beyond the Latest Quadrennial Carnival"  by Paul Street
"The quadrennial electoral extravaganza is no place to go looking for justice...  
Let’s mourn and organize."

One Man, Acting Alone?

The brutal murder of Jo Cox is a multi-dimensional outrage & horror.

As the UK seemed to lurch toward ethnic cleansing, the public murder of a young mother by a disaffected loner (?) may have shifted the tide of public opinion.

The accused killer has been announced as Thomas Mair, though in court he claimed his name to be "Death to Traitors - Freedom for Britain" ... Did his Mum ever called him that? We may never know, but the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. We're told Tommy "appears to have links to far-right groups" and also that there is great political importance in how the story is reported (The Washington Post).

I'm a supporter of the EU, and for Britain to remain. I'm wholly against targeted killings and violence.

Jo Cox may be a rallying focus against an extreme element of society who'd sacrifice anyone or all. But the story within hours was being twisted in various ways. Corporate media spin and greater forces in society were harvesting benefits from the young mum's still-warm corpse.

For example, many media sources published "news" released from the USA about extremist book purchases allegedly made the perpetrator 17 years ago (BBC link). How can a packing slip from 1999 be produced in a matter of hours "proving" the perpetrator's dark thinking? One answer is that public attention span is very short, and the Brexit vote deadline near, so the proofs needed to be generated quickly. Voilà! ? How & why could a private civil rights group in the USA have such information & evidence? Surely extremist publishers & booksellers don't share their data so easily...

Look into the inconsistencies (link) and it's easy to find explanations, but these arguments are dark as the murder, and the multiple forces of law and good and evil all become grey and difficult to discern. So much easier just to cluck at feel sad about the tragedy. Is that truly our democracy in action?

NewRepublics?

GuestAPO USA