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

Friday, August 11, 2017

Facing Defeat in Syria, ISIS Inexplicably Expands Globally

Click here to access article by Tony Cartalucci from New Eastern Outlook.
For ISIS – fueled by resources found only within the boundaries of its meager and shrinking territorial holdings in Syria and Iraq – to be simultaneously fighting the national armies of Syria and Iraq, backed by Iran, Russia, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and allegedly a US-led coalition including dozens of countries, all while expanding its reach worldwide, including full-scale military operations in Southeast Asia, begs belief.
Having long followed news reports in independent media and from reliable journalists regarding the sudden appearance of the well-equipped and technologically advanced ISIS army in Syria, I immediately drew some inferences about their sudden dramatic appear in the Philippines. Cartalucci provides in summary form the evidence and logic which supports the reality that ISIS is the US-led Empire's and allies' well-funded project to spread its brand of terrorism all over the world in order to justify the Empire's global military operations. 

If you are like me, you don't need to read the article. However, most Americans timidly never venture outside of corporate media, and thus they accept the ruling class's constructed "reality" as truth. Remember what that right-wing advisor Karl Rove said in a brief moment of candor?
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
He wasn't only referring to their actions as reported by independent media, but to their construction via media corporations of the "reality" of their actions.