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, December 6, 2016

Picking a War with China

Click here to access article by John Pilger from Consortiumnews.com
A study by the RAND Corporation – which, since Vietnam, has planned America’s wars – is entitled, War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable. Commissioned by the U.S. Army, the authors evoke the Cold War when RAND made notorious the catch cry of its chief strategist, Herman Kahn — “thinking the unthinkable”. Kahn’s book, On Thermonuclear War, elaborated a plan for a “winnable” nuclear war against the Soviet Union.
Today, his apocalyptic view is shared by those holding real power in the United States: the militarists and neoconservatives in the Executive Branch, the Pentagon, the intelligence and “national security” establishment and Congress.
This independent Australian journalist and now filmmaker of  "The Coming War on China" has not spent two years making the film for merely sensational reasons. In this article he carefully builds his case for making the film: the US Empire is on a collision course with China, and the prospects for nuclear war are likely. For some reason his emphasis is on the Empire's buildup for war with China, but the same applies for Russia as well. Thus these two nations are increasing their cooperation to confront what they see as a likely contest with the Empire. 

The Empire's capitalist director-emperors have been largely hidden from public view by meeting in various "think tanks", issuing their commands and policies to their subordinates in government and in their secret (from US citizens) agencies like the CIA, NSA, FBI, etc. The Empire's directors, who have been constructing their world empire at least since WWII and are now facing the powerful adversaries of China and Russia, are determined to eliminate them from interfering in their project of world domination. Like addicts in the final stages of addiction, our capitalist masters are pursuing this insane project by contemplating dangerous actions that will be lethal to themselves.

The only problem is that the self-destructive actions of our capitalist masters are likely to have horrendous consequences for the rest of humanity as well. We are now facing twin threats of extinction: the more immediate one of a worldwide nuclear holocaust and a more distant one of climate destabilization which will render the Earth unfit for human habitation.  

Thus it is imperative that we who believe in social justice, equality, and an economy that serves all the people must rapidly organize our forces to end class riven societies once and for all. There has never been more reason to begin organizing a revolution, and to construct societies that can live in peace internally, in relations with each other, and in harmony with nature.