The Politics of Disimagination and the Pathologies of Power. By Henry A. Giroux, Truthout This piece first appeared at Truthout. You write in order to change the world knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that [writing] is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way peoples see it, and if you alter even by a millimeter the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” - James Baldwin The Violence of Neoliberalism We live in a time of deep foreboding, one that haunts any discourse about justice, democracy and the future.
The political, economic, and social consequences have done more than destroy any viable vision of a good society. The celebration of violence in both virtual culture and real life now feed each other. At the same time, America’s obsession with violence is reinforced by a market society that is Darwinian in its pursuit of profit and personal gain at almost any cost.
America’s Plunge Into Militarized Madness The Rise of the “Disimagination Machine” Toward a Radical Imagination. MAN. The President of Perpetual War. The President of Perpetual War Posted on Jan 25, 2013 By David Sirota Four years into his presidency, Barack Obama’s political formula should be obvious. He gives fabulous speeches teeming with popular liberal ideas, often refuses to take the actions necessary to realize those ideas and then banks on most voters, activists, reporters and pundits never bothering to notice—or care about—his sleight of hand. Whether railing on financial crime and then refusing to prosecute Wall Street executives or berating health insurance companies and then passing a health care bill bailing out those same companies, Obama embodies a cynical ploy—one that relies on a celebrity-entranced electorate focusing more on TV-packaged rhetoric than on legislative reality.
Never was this formula more apparent than when the president discussed military conflicts during his second inaugural address. The lines generated uncritical applause, much of it from anti-war liberals who protested against the Bush administration. Why Martin Luther King Jr. Might Have Been Offended By Barack Obama’s Second Inauguration. Msnbc tv: Bashir: Happy Birthday, Dr. King. If you think we're done with neoliberalism, think again | George Monbiot. ‘The demands of the ultra-rich have been dressed up as sophisticated economic theory and applied regardless of the outcome.' Illustration: Daniel Pudles How they must bleed for us.
In 2012, the world's 100 richest people became $241 billion richer. They are now worth $1.9 trillion: just a little less than the entire output of the United Kingdom. This is not the result of chance. The rise in the fortunes of the super-rich is the direct result of policies. Here are a few: the reduction of tax rates and tax enforcement; governments' refusal to recoup a decent share of revenues from minerals and land; the privatisation of public assets and the creation of a toll-booth economy; wage liberalisation and the destruction of collective bargaining. The policies that made the global monarchs so rich are the policies squeezing everyone else. Before I go on, I should point out that I don't believe perpetual economic growth is either sustainable or desirable. In the US, mass child killings are tragedies. In Pakistan, mere bug splats | George Monbiot. "Mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts … These tragedies must end.
And to end them, we must change. " Every parent can connect with what President Barack Obama said about the murder of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut. There can scarcely be a person on earth with access to the media who is untouched by the grief of the people of that town. It must follow that what applies to the children murdered there by a deranged young man also applies to the children murdered in Pakistan by a sombre American president.
These children are just as important, just as real, just as deserving of the world's concern. Yet there are no presidential speeches or presidential tears for them, no pictures on the front pages of the world's newspapers, no interviews with grieving relatives, no minute analysis of what happened and why. The wider effects on the children of the region have been devastating. Obama does not kill children deliberately. How To Win The War For Your Mind. Brandon Smith, Contributor All battles, all wars, all fistfights and bar brawls, all conflicts in every place and in every time (except those conflicts in which both sides answer to the same puppeteer) begin and end as battles of the mind. No struggle is determined on strength of arms alone.
In fact, the technologically advanced adversary with all his fancy firepower is often more vulnerable than his low-tech counterparts. This fact is, of course, counterintuitive to our Western manner of thinking, which teaches us to believe that the man with the bigger gun (or the bigger predator drone) always wins. Sadly, we have had to suffer through multiple defeats and overdrawn occupations in Asia to learn otherwise. One of the great unspoken truths of our era is the reality that the modernization of warfare has changed little the manner in which wars are won.
Do Not Fear Hypothetical Dangers Fear is the weapon of choice when it comes to totalitarian proponents. Do Not Be Seduced By Gifts Sources :