Africa is Meat Eaten Alive by Superpowers


Renowned Kenyan lawyer and academic Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, (affectionately known as PLO) gave a riveting panel presentation at the Rwanda National Security Symposium on May 14, 2018.

This enlightened intellectual/pholospher calls it as he sees it regardless of the risks involved which I greatly respect. Africa as meat eaten alive is quite a violent metaphor for what is going on, but it is spot on. As you listen to this presentation, observe the discomfort of some members of the audience who are probably profiting handsomely from sleeping in bed with the enemies of the African continent. Professor Lumumba’s voice is a clarion call for radical change in Africa.

 

Corporate Media, Imperialism & People Power

In her interview with Zain Raza, Abby Martin discussed how being critical of the American empire has been mislabeled as Russian propaganda, her interest in a free and fair media for the people and by the people, and why the label “U.S. Empire” isn’t used more widely.

 

The Coming Collapse by Chris Hedges

The Coming Collapse

The Trump administration did not rise, prima facie, like Venus on a half shell from the sea. Donald Trump is the result of a long process of political, cultural and social decay. He is a product of our failed democracy. The longer we perpetuate the fiction that we live in a functioning democracy, that Trump and the political mutations around him are somehow an aberrant deviation that can be vanquished in the next election, the more we will hurtle toward tyranny. The problem is not Trump. It is a political system, dominated by corporate power and the mandarins of the two major political parties, in which we don’t count. We will wrest back political control by dismantling the corporate state, and this means massive and sustained civil disobedience, like that demonstrated by teachers around the country this year. If we do not stand up we will enter a new dark age.

Continue reading “The Coming Collapse by Chris Hedges”

Musings

 

dharmarain2

Practice until you see yourself in the cruelest person on Earth,
 in the child starving, in the political prisoner.
Continue until you recognize yourself in everyone in the supermarket,
 on the street corner, in a concentration camp, on a leaf, in a dewdrop.
Meditate until you see yourself in a speck of dust in a distant galaxy.
See and listen with the whole of your being. If you are fully present,
the rain of Dharma will water the deepest seeds in your consciousness,
and tomorrow, while you are washing the dishes or looking at the blue sky,
that seed will spring forth, and love and understanding
 will appear as a beautiful flower.
 ~  Thich Nhat Hanh

The Greatest Spiritual Event of Our Time, According to Rudolf Steiner by Paul Levy

bodhisattva-of-the-future-word-and-eurythmy-forces-of-the-etheric-and-astral

Almost a hundred years ago, as if peering into a crystal ball and predicting the future, spiritual teacher and clairvoyant Rudolf Steiner prophesied that the most momentous event of modern times was what he referred to as the incarnation of the etheric[ Christ. By the “etheric Christ,” Steiner is referring to a modern-day version of Christ’s resurrection body, which can be conceived of as being a creative, holy and whole-making spirit that is inspiring human evolution as it operates upon the body of humanity through the collective unconscious of our species. Involving a radically new understanding of a timeless spiritual event, the etheric Christ, instead of incarnating in full-bodied physical form, is approaching via the realm of spirit—as close as this immaterial spirit can get to the threshold of the third-dimensional physical world without incarnating in materialized form. To quote Steiner, “Christ’s life will be felt in the souls of men more and more as a direct personal experience from the twentieth century onwards.”

 

Continue reading “The Greatest Spiritual Event of Our Time, According to Rudolf Steiner by Paul Levy”

Down the Memory Hole: Trump’s Strategic Assault on Democracy Word by Word by Karen J. Greenberg

down-the-memory-hole-678x381

Consider us officially in an Orwellian world, though we only half realize it. While we were barely looking, significant parts of an American language long familiar to us quite literally, and in a remarkably coherent way, went down the equivalent of George Orwell’s infamous Memory Hole.

Continue reading “Down the Memory Hole: Trump’s Strategic Assault on Democracy Word by Word by Karen J. Greenberg”

“Making America Great Again” Assumes That It Once Was by Mark Karlin

Related image

Good interview with David Swanson highlighting his latest book, Curing Exceptionalism: What’s Wrong with How We Think about the United States? What Can We Do about It

The United States is exceptional in believing that it is exceptional. It dominates the world with its military but falls behind many other nations in standards that define quality of life. “Only in the United States can you have endless discussions of the legality of war without ever mentioning that war is illegal,” says author and activist David Swanson.

Mark Karlin: What is your working definition of the sense of United States exceptionalism?

David Swanson: What I describe in the book is a collection of beliefs or attitudes, whether or not articulated, that hold the US government, military and nation to be central to one’s identity and to be superior to and not even to be judged on the same plane with anyone else. This is a way of thinking that is not dependent on any empirical facts, but is itself observable in opinion polls and in uniquely US phenomena, such as debates over whether or not to bomb another country, or discussions of history or of public policy that assume the rest of the world does not exist. The United States destroys whole forests for the paper on which to debate what would theoretically happen if a government provided universal health care, for example, despite so many nations having actually done so.

Continue reading ““Making America Great Again” Assumes That It Once Was by Mark Karlin”

Sasha Abramsky on the Decline of Empathy and the Future of Democracy

1_xfch555eoYAIYjLmf6t-ZA

Sasha Abramsky: Jumping at Shadows

In this episode of “Scheer Intelligence,” Robert Scheer speaks with Sasha Abramsky, a journalist, professor at UC Davis and author of several books, most recently “Jumping at Shadows: The Triumph of Fear and the End of the American Dream.” Scheer and Abramsky discuss how issues like immigration and income inequality have festered in the U.S. for decades, and helped lead to Donald Trump’s election as president.

Abramsky says, “And coming back to this notion of whether or not Trump supporters are ‘deplorables,’ clearly you can’t say all 60 million-plus people who voted for one candidate share all of the same set of values. It’s too simplistic. But I think it’s fair to say that anyone who voted for Donald Trump was, at the very best-case scenario, willing to turn a blind eye to a stupendous catalog of bigotries.”

The Hemp Conspiracy

 

This new ten-minute documentary does an excellent job of educating us about the stunning amount of application that there are for hemp.

Hemp’s profusion of beneficial properties in so many fields of activity cannot be overstated. Hemp has been wrongfully maligned in recent history by the various interests that compete with hemp, usually with inferior products. We have been misled and the time has come to be properly educated about this plant, which has more medical benefits than any other natural untouched product in the world, to say nothing of its many other applications as an incredibly nutritious food, a source of fuel, textiles, home insulation, biodegradable plastics, biomass to stop soil erosion, cleaner of nuclear waste – and the list goes on and on!

 

CarbLoaded: A Culture Dying to Eat

]

This film traces the origins of our beliefs about healthful and unhealthful food. Experts from all over the world talk about the problems as well as short and long term solutions. Among the many experts in the film are authors like Gary Taubes, Mark Sisson, and Melanie Warner. Medical doctors such as David Perlmutter M.D., David L. Katz, and Timothy Noakes share insights that are certain to challenge the status quo.

Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying to Eat is a chronicle of the things it’s writer and director Lathe Poland learned after he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. He sought to find out why he got sick, because he didn’t fit the classic picture of an adult onset diabetes sufferer. He quickly learned that much of what he knew about healthy eating was based on myths or fifty year old science. In the film he searches out why Americas modern food culture is killing us. The upside? There is a lot that can be done!

In Conversation: Chauncey DeVega & Timothy Snyder

Chauncey DeVega
Timothy Snyder

Donald Trump has led America — and the world — through the looking glass. What lies on the other side is a condition of confusion and befuddlement, a perpetual moment of asking “Did that just really happen?” while knowing that the answer is always “Yes.” Because without a doubt, President Trump did in fact just say or do that extraordinary thing.

This existential confusion is by design: It is one of the primary weapons of the authoritarian. One of the ways to ground oneself, to create a defense shield against this malignant reality is to document how political, social and cultural norms are being continually broken. By carefully measuring the cartography of this new American political landscape, we will be better equipped to navigate it, and perhaps to survive it.

Continue reading “In Conversation: Chauncey DeVega & Timothy Snyder”

The Broken Brain

 

 

Broken Brain Part 2

Broken Brain is a powerful documentary series that addresses the root causes of a terrifying and growing epidemic that ranges from Alzheimer’s, dementia, brain injuries, ADHD, autism, depression, anxiety, concussions, and everything in between.

Trump’s Golden Rule of Governing by Brian Beutler

Trump-toon-1018x1024

It’s November 2013 and you’re Donald Trump. By your standards it’s a normal weekend, which means you’re sitting in the presidential suite of the Moscow Ritz Carlton fuming at Barack Obama. In part you’re fuming because you’re very racist, and in part you’re fuming because Obama publicly humiliated you more than two years ago. If you were more self-aware than a mosquito, you’d realize these were heavily intertwined sources of aggrievement.

Continue reading “Trump’s Golden Rule of Governing by Brian Beutler”

Noam Chomsky: Donald Trump is a Distraction


While Donald Trump works to distract the public, his administration is working behind the scenes to dismantle every aspect of government that benefits the people.

We gotta kick these bums out, folks!