As I keep saying, stop watching, reading or listening to “the news.” It is misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, distortion, lies and illusions, mass distraction and mass manipulation – psychological warfare, to put it in the te…
Continue readingTag: Chomsky
Writings of J. Todd Ring: ISIS and Terrorism – A Reality Check
“The responsibility of intellectuals is to speak the truth and expose lies.” – Noam Chomsky “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell According to a February 2015 Gallup poll, Americans consider the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — abbreviated as
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: A few thoughts on empathy in human beings, and other living creatures
Empathy is natural in human beings, as Jeremy Rifkin has pointed out – and with strong backing by recent scientific findings. Some human beings have more and some less; and some are sociopaths – roughly 1% (and usually, the ones who gravitate to positions of wealth and power, unsurprisingly) –
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Words and Virtue
Scott Long wrote an excellent article separating the act of supporting free speech from the act of supporting the words and images created by Charlie Hebdo. But I disagree with this one bit: “Words don’t kill…” As I said in a comment there, too many young people have lost lives
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Chomsky’s Driving Forces in US Foreign Policy
On Chomsky’s “Driving Forces in US Foreign Policy.” This talk is from last summer, but it just caught up to me now. I’ve summarized bits of the 2-hour long talk and discussion. It’s all Chomsky’s words, but the paragraphs are differently ordered under headings below: On Global Warming and Nuclear
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Chomsky’s Forward to Albert’s Realizing Hope: Life Beyond Capitalism
In full: (The book is here.) “Throughout much of the world there is growing resistance to the severe harm that has resulted from the neoliberal policies of the past generation. Latin America has progressed farthest in overthrowing this harsh regime, in recent years largely freeing itself from the grip
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century
I feel like I don’t have to read this one with all the press it’s getting. Maybe next summer. This is the gist I’ve gotten so far: Michael Rozworski wrote a piece about it recently. In brief: the basic thesis of the book is that capitalism has a tendency towards
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Ethos – a 2011 Documentary
“Our ethos is all that we currently hold to be true. It is what we act upon. It governs our manners, our business and our politics.” – Howard Zinn Directed by Pete McGrain, and hosted by Woody Harrelson, this 68 minute film explores how we got here and what to
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: On hummingbirds and genocide
I was going to write a short thought on seeing an amazing little creature in my garden just now – a humming bird no bigger than a bumblebee, which made me almost shudder with joy at the sight. But then I read more on the genocide being waged against
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On John Stuart Mill, Free Speech, and Climate Change
I got caught up in a few arguments about climate change recently that just reinforced to me, that there’s still such a strong bashlash against the entire idea that we’re unlikely to move forward quickly enough to be effective. Paper is trees! My school board is fundraising for the Philippines,
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: NAFTA, “Free Trade” and the TPP: Fast-Track To Full Corporate Rule
“Twenty years ago, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law. At the time, advocates painted a rosy picture of booming U.S. exports creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs, and economic development in Mexico, which would bring the struggling country in line with its wealthier northern
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: US government shutdown, and other fairy tales and political theatre
I’m not sure what to make of the hoopla going on in the US right now. I’m inclined to think it’s all just political theatre, as Gerald Celente calls it, designed to distract the people from the real issues – the central one being, who controls the government and the
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: The deeper reasons for the “war on drugs”
There is a deeper reason for the war on drugs, which is the central reason for the policy, even outweighing profits from private prisons and seizure of property by law enforcement officers, both of which no doubt are also significant and strong motivations for keeping the “war on drugs” going.
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Reflections on tumblr, facebook and social media
Going from specifics to depth and breadth, and from particularities to universals, here are some thoughts for your consideration, for anyone who may be interested. I’ve come to love the social networking / blogging community / window onto the web which is called tumblr. That being said, tumblr is largely
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Hedges’ Empire of Illusion
“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.” – James Baldwin Thus begins Chris Hedges‘ Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Chomsky
I think everyone should read Chomsky. He’s brilliant, yet far less dense and inaccessible as some people think. He’s a different person than you or me – well, than me for sure. He has a wealth of knowledge and an astute analysis of events pretty much from the beginning of
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Chomsky on Plutonomy and America’s Growing Precariat
Noam Chomsky chronicles the ascent of America’s Plutonomy, the ultra rich and the economic and political power they have sucked out of the American state, and their dependence on a rapidly growing American Precariat, the great unwashed now stripped of their last vestiges of either economic or political power. The
Continue readingDrive-by Planet: Palestinian hunger strike a victory for non-violent protest
The Israeli practice of holding Palestinian prisoners in so-called “administrative detention” is a violation of international law. Prisoners are brought before military judges who determine the length of detention. This can be as much as six months and can be repeated indefinitely. Administrative detention was a central issue driving
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