Episodes
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Can we “confront reality on reality’s own terms?”
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Thursday Jan 23, 2020
Here’s what the Corporatocracy is up to today, January 23, 2020...
Yesterday, one of our fave indie journos, Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) published a really good article called “How To Be A Mentally Sovereign Human”. She explains why “Most people believe that they are truly free thinkers [but] Most people are wrong.” It’s an instructive essay on what the great Noam Chomskey (@noamchomskyT) meant when he famously said, “The general population doesn't know what’s happening and it doesn't even know that it doesn't know.”
Caitlin’s essay is instructive because she digs into the how-and-why of Chomskey’s observation as only she can- with great heart, wit, piercing intelligence, and such inspired prose:
“We all showed up naked, slimy and clueless in a world of inexplicable sensory input we couldn’t make head or tail out of. We were then taught what’s what by people who showed up under the exact same circumstances a blink of an eye earlier.
“The amniotic fluid is barely washed from our tiny naked bodies before we find ourselves in a marriage and a day job, staring down at a small pair of eyes looking up to us for guidance.
“This is not a good environment for developing mental sovereignty, the ownership and authorship of your own cognitive relationship with life…”
She’s like one of those great Indian sages who give profound insight in seemingly simple phrasing. In a nutshell, her core message in all her work:
“To attain a truly self-sovereign mind, you need to put truth above all else in every waking moment. You need to constantly dedicate yourself to learning what’s true and what’s real, and to living in alignment with the truth that has been discovered.”
That’s pretty much the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the teachings of Ramana Maharshi all in two lines. Not kidding...
In a future podcast, we’ll explore those classic texts in more depth, including various approaches to meditative practice, as well as the science on it (the psychology, biology and even physics on its legitimacy is fascinating and quite convincing). But for now, we wanna stick to Caitlin’s advice in her article (which we highly recommend reading). And we’ll offer a specific example of how her advice can/should be applied by all of us in the work of Global Justice, including us fans of indie-journos as well as the indie journos and leading activists themselves...
First then— one of Caitlin’s main ideas is that to be a competent activist in this age of great urgency and mass propaganda:
“It means wanting to know the truth about what’s really happening in your world, and how it contrasts with what you’re being told to believe about what’s happening in your world by confident-sounding voices on the screens that you see.”
Here’s a not-so-obvious example of what we think she means. The video below features Guardian reporter George Monbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) and climate activist Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg). We love Greta of course and have covered her tireless activism multiple times before. And we greatly respect George’s work as a journalist on #ClimateBreakdown and mass species extinction. But we think their video below– though obviously well intentioned– is a huge missed opportunity and a good example of what Caitlin warns about re: our “[living] in various degrees of untruth, accepting unexamined assumptions as true because it is much easier and more comfortable than confronting reality on reality’s own terms.”
So, just for a quick experiment, please check out George and Greta’s brief video below and see if can pick out any “degrees of untruth” which might make its overall message “easier and more comfortable” than confronting reality on “reality’s own terms.”
Did you come up with any? If so, let’s compare notes… Here’s our take: we found four big ideas in their script:
- A mass extinction of species is underway; “up to 200 species are going extinct every day”. And “our climate is breaking down…”
- And even though forests can protect wildlife diversity and “massively reduce climate change,” we’re destroying forests faster than ever: “tropical forests are being cut down at the rate of 30 football fields/minute”. So, what should we do?
- “It’s simple,” Greta says “we need to protect tropical forests.” But we spend a 1000X more on fossil fuel subsidies than nature-based solutions. [And] “this is your money, your taxes,” Greta reminds us. So (again) What should we do?
- George says we need to vote for politicians who will (a) end [fossil fuel subsidies] and (b) pay for reforestation and rewilding projects. (Again,) “It is that simple,” George says...
And checking their claims on the problems we face, we agree with the first three: a mass extinction of species is now underway- we’re losing up to 200 species of wildlife everyday. We’re at the brink of runaway climate change. And a leading solution to help reverse both crises is to reverse global deforestation. So everything holds up there...
But we weren’t clear on how ending fossil fuels would reverse global deforestation. We get that we need to move to renewable energies and end fossil fuel consumption. But they didn’t explain how to reverse global deforestation, which is pretty much their whole argument in the video on reducing climate change and ending mass species extinction. They did mention planting more trees, but that doesn’t reverse ongoing global deforestation; it’d be like using a tea cup to bail water from a boat while waves are crashing upon it...
George deflected: “it’s simple,” he said, “we need to vote for [politicians who will end [fossil fuel subsidies] and [invest in reforestation and rewilding projects].
Ok, but is it really so “simple” as just voting for the right politician? George is a Brit, and the UK just held a critically important election for their new prime minister. We follow George’s work, and we followed that entire election as well. George would agree that the Labour Party’s Jermey Corbyn was definitely the candidate who would have fought for the solutions that George and Greta suggest. But Corbyn lost that election by an historic landslide. And as George well knows, Corbyn lost because the billionaire-owned media that dominate public opinion in the UK were unrelenting in their vicious smears of Corbyn. He didn’t have a prayer.
And– sidebar– if you know how critical the petrodollar system is to the profitability of BigBanks, BigOil, and BigDefense- and the fact that the billionaires who own controlling shares in those industries also control pretty much all BigMedia and all levers of democratic reform in the West– then you know that it is– at the very least– spectacularly naive to advise people that “voting” will change things.
At worst, it’s downright deceptive. Indeed, as George well knows, his own employer, the Guardian was one of the worst offenders, smearing Corbyn as anti-semitic.
Still, even if by some miracle Corbyn had survived the billionaire smear campaigns against him and somehow won the election; and if by another miracle, he’d somehow convinced enough conservatives in the Tory party– which is pretty much owned by BigBanks and BigOil– to actually pass new legislation to transition fossil fuel subsidies to restoring forests, he knows full well that those industries also own the Judges and thereby the Courts. Such legislation would be tied up in the courts for years, even decades… It’s as Pulitzer Prize winning indie journo Chris Hedges (@ChrisLynnHedges) has said: western politics can no longer bring about the kinds of radical reforms that are needed– “nonviolent rebellion is the only way to stop the ruling elites.”
Nor can joining “the amazing protest movements fighting for nature around the world” that Geroge advised. As Hedges further explains, as long as street protests are about “venting anger, frustration and rage, all legitimate, [but] without alternative structures to challenge power,” then we will never succeed.
All that said, what’s most surprising to us about George and Greta’s video, is the fact that they’re both vegetarians. And therefore, both would likely know that the main reason our forests are being burned at such high rates are to clear lands to graze farmed animals and to grow feed crops for farmed animals. BigMeat&Dairy is the #1 cause of global deforestation– Geroge and Greta must know this. Over 60% of all lands now used by humans are used to farm animals for food. And independent academic research has shown that if just half (41%) of those graze lands were returned to native forest, the restored forests would sequester more carbon than has been put into the atmosphere by humans since the beginning of the industrial age (~1750)!
That’s HUGE! So why wouldn’t George and Greta lead with that? George said in his tweet above that “the video is...an extraordinary success, and still getting massive play.” But what real success is being made? The video basically tells people to vote in a system that’s rigged to protect the power and profits of the corporate elites. It accomplishes little else than reinforcing belief that we should continue to vote and protest a system that is specifically rigged to resist such activism.
Isn’t that what Einstein called “the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?” We wonder what extraordinary success that video could be achieving if both Greta and George were actually doing what Caitlin advises: “confronting reality on reality’s own terms.”
Is it “easier and more comfortable” as Caitlin puts it, to avoid challenging others about the reality of our rigged system of government? Or their food habits..? Giving up meat and dairy for healthier plant-based alternatives is the single-most effective change an individual can make to impact both climate change and mass species extinction.
Pulling it all together: as Chris Hedges says, “Rebellion is the only way to stop the ruling elites” from destroying our planet. And the ruling elites he refers to are not politicians or Kings- they’re billionaire shareholders in multinational corporations across mutually reliant industries. The companies they control are all variously invested in each others success- they invest in each others stock and appoint their people to each others boards of directors. And over the past half century, they have overtaken western democracy. The reality that we must confront is that western democracy has been transformed into a corporate plutocracy. And the only real leverage the working class has in such a plutocracy is mass organized boycott.
The weakest industry among this “Corporatocracy” is BigMeat&Dairy, and it’s also the most strategic. It’s the one industry we can impact most with our consumer choices– to fight both climate change and mass species extinction. PLUS, it’s the one industry the one industry we can impact most with our consumer choices to challenge the entire power structure of the Corporatocracy.
Here’s some intel we all should know: BigMeat&Dairy (BigMAD) is a leading driver of profits for both BigPharma and BigChemical: 18 of the Top 20 BigPharma Products are medicines that treat diseases associated with animal-based foods. It’s similar for BigChem– its primary profits are derived from global sales of fertilizers and pesticides to grow feed crops for farmed animals (e.g., about 70% of all grain grown in the US is used as feed for farmed animals).
Further, all three industries– BigMAD, BigPharma and BigChem– are massive consumers of fossil fuels. Petrochemicals are the core building blocks for most pharmaceuticals made by BigPharma, as well as the fertilizer and pesticide products made by BigChem. So a mass organized boycott (MOB) of BigMAD would substantially reduce demand for fossil fuels. And remember– global sales of fossil fuels are the engine of the petrodollar system. Ultimately then, a sustained “MOB” against BigMAD could finally force BigBanks to the bargaining table.
For those seeking a nonviolent path to legitimate revolution, they’ll find that the only leverage that’s ever affected real change against such entrenched and monied power is mass organized boycott: it was Gandhi’s Salt and Textile boycotts that helped win India’s independence from Britain in the 1900s. It was the mass strikes and picket lines that helped US workers in the 1930s win a 40-hour work week, overtime pay and collective bargaining for labor unions. It was the bus boycotts and restaurant sit-ins in the 1960s that helped Black Americans win Civil Rights reforms. It was the Salad Boycotts and Grape Boycotts in the 60s and 70s that helped win Economic Justice for migrant farm workers. And it was the divestment boycotts in the 1980s that finally forced an end to Apartheid in South Africa.
When we dedicate ourselves to learning “what’s true and what’s real” about the current state of our world, a grim even terrifying reality emerges about the power structures that oppress us and constrain our understanding. If we stay with it though, the good news emerges too. The good news is that we already have all the power we need to save ourselves and our planet. A sustained MOB of BigMAD will totally transform us, the Corporatocracy, and our planet. We just need to “dedicate ourselves to it and live in alignment with it.”
If you want to learn how all of us in the work of Global Justice can join together in strategic boycott and force this corporatocracy to the People’s bargaining table– to end all this injustice, and corruption, and to help save our planet– you can check out our ABOUT page and listen to our first podcast.
You can sign up to get your free #DailyWakeUpCall delivered right to your inbox each day. Just fill out the quick form at the Top/Right of the home page. And each morning – by 4:20 AM ✊🏽 – we’ll email you a link and quick description of the podcast for that day…
And if you want more info on how you can get involved in the Waking Justice project, you can email us at info@wakingjustice.org - We’d love to hear from you.
We’re running out of time, y’all... Join us... Peace.
Comments (0)
To leave or reply to comments, please download free Podbean or
No Comments
To leave or reply to comments,
please download free Podbean App.