by TimWilson
There is a huge list of different issues and challenges that progressives, the 99%, democracy and the future of freedom and justice face. But they boil down to four root problems. If we can break the impasse and make progress on any of these, serious progress could happen and it could lead to really big trickle down effects upon the other problems. Currently, the Democrats and Republicans and the Whitehouse-- the duopoly-- are throwing crumbs or promises of crumbs to constituents-- crumbs that are comparable to breaking a faucet when the problem is the water supply.
The other day, the State Department declared the Keystone XL Pipeline safe. The problem is, it used a report created by a a company working for Keystone XL.. Brad Johnson writes for the Huffingtonpost,
" The State Department's " don't worry " environmental impact statement for the proposed Keystone XL tarsands pipeline, released late Friday afternoon, was written not by government officials but by a private company in the pay of the pipeline's owner. The "sustainability consultancy" Environmental Resources Management (ERM) was paid an undisclosed amount under contract to TransCanada to write the statement, which is now an official government document. The statement estimates, and then dismisses, the pipeline's massive carbon footprint and other environmental impacts, because, it asserts, the mining and burning of the tar sands is unstoppable.The department's contractor-written Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement even says the pipeline will be safe from the climate impacts to which it will contribute."
What does this duplicity mean?
Obama has an incredible array of tools he can use to confuse us, to deceive and misdirect the media.
But you knew that. You know that the government deceives us a lot. They distort, they mislead and they outright lie.
That makes it really easy to believe just about anything anyone says about the government or any of its agencies or representatives. It includes the various departments, the military, the state department-- we know from Wikileaks and heroic whistleblowers that it is standard government policy to lie and deceive.
But that realization of government deception and duplicity also puts us at risk. Our openness to believing the worst of the government puts us at of risk being deceived by people who want to use our mistrust of government.
There are so many theories and stories that are out there that can distract us from what's really important. Even some of those theories seem important. 911 is one. The huge question is, "how did 911 happen?" It's an important question. But what do we do about it now, with our current political and justice system? Answer-- not a goddamned thing. We can dwell on it or we can choose to pay attention to issues that are higher up in the "we are fucked" hierarchy, with the hope that by getting some change happening with them, the other problems, which are really inaccessible to changing now, will become malleable and at least translucent, if not transparent later
We have a few huge problems that, by my mind, supersede all the others, and, if addressed effectively would have a systemic trickle down effect on the other, longer list of problems.
Here's my list of the core systemic problems that are enabling all the other problems- first just the list, then more details.
1- Corruption of the election process and system
2-Corporatization of politics
3- Privatization of the commons-- Shock Doctrine in America
4- Corporate Globalization
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