Public Review

Intro to Liberation Theology / Prophetic Views of Religion














https://newtranscendentalist.medium.com/intro-to-liberation-theology-prophetic-views-of-religion-e582d1c852e5

Chart: at $5.7 million, US President Joe Biden has been the largest recipient of campaign donations from ‘the Israel Lobby’ since Israel was founded in 1948. Mr. Biden has received more than twice as much in contributions as the next largest recipient. The arithmetic is straightforward. Mr. Biden is the largest recipient of Israeli largesse and is the most avid and unflinching supporter of Israel, and against the Palestinians, in the US. Source: opensecrets.org.

Rob Urie:

Since publication of John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s ‘The Israel Lobby’ in 2007, superior public relations has served as the main explanation for the outsized influence that the nation of Israel holds over American politicians. In that telling, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and other supporters of Israel built a sophisticated and far-reaching public relations machine that promotes US politicians who support Israel and punishes those who don’t.

Conceived this way, rich supporters of Israel finance public relations campaigns whereby American politicians are (legally) bribed and coerced into giving US foreign aid to Israel. This aid is then delivered to the nation of Israel, with a preponderance of the money being spent on weapons produced by American weapons producers. To the extent that the goal of ‘the Israel lobby’ is to maximize US foreign aid to Israel, it is also maximizing funding for the American MIC (military-industrial complex).

According to data on political lobbying (charts below), the Israel lobby has spent about two percent (2%) of US foreign aid to Israel on political persuasion inside the US since 1948. In US dollar terms, this is $6 billion spent by the Israel lobby to get $280 billion in US foreign aid for Israel. And while this ratio isn’t far from what the US ‘defense’ industry and other corporate pleaders get for their ‘investment’ in American politicians, most of the money that Israel receives from the US is used to buy weapons and materiel from American suppliers.

In other words, while the ratio of money spent to largesse secured is about the same for US corporations as it is for the Israel lobby, most of the money given to Israel is ‘passed through’ to the American MIC (chart below). Compared with the money given to Ukraine, which initially included a lend-lease agreement with the US, Israel has no contractual commitment to commit national su***de (like Ukraine) in return for funding from the US. This means that Israel could in theory buy military equipment from non-US suppliers--- a threat to the US MIC.

In fact, what is put forward inside the US as ‘foreign aid’ is in many cases payments by the Federal government of the US to foreign governments for them to purchase goods and services from American providers. Rather than leaving the matter to ‘markets,’ the Federal government subsidizes US industries through so-called foreign aid. The receiving nations are on the hook to repay the loans either directly or through taking actions--- like launching wars, that the US directs them to do. With respect to Israel, the US has a mutual defense agreement, but evidence of lend-lease type constraints on Israel wasn’t found.

None other than US President Joe Biden has been the largest recipient of (legal) bribes from supporters of Israel amongst American politicians by a wide margin (chart below). That Mr. Biden describes himself as a ‘Christian Zionist’ who has previously complained that Israel wasn’t killing enough Palestinian women and children might be interpreted differently if his political career hadn’t been supported by Israel to the tune of $6,000,000. To tie this together, Mr. Biden received the most money from Israel, and he is Israel’s most reliable co-genocidalist.

Chart: Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign aid on a cumulative basis since its inception in 1948. While, depending on scale, this could reasonably imply that Israel is dependent on the US, and therefore under its control, the claim since 2007 (year that The Israel Lobby was published) or thereabouts has been that Israel controls the US through well-placed campaign contributions and lobbying. However, the total cost of campaign contributions and lobbying by AIPAC is only a small fraction of US largesse to Israel. So, why doesn’t the US control Israel? Source: cfr.org.

https://roburie.substack.com/p/the-israel-lobby-works-for-the-us

Thanks to all those who never relented to speak out against the injustice against Assange and free speech itself.....Activism works.

In 2016, a quote from Ehrlichman was the lede for an anti-drug war article in Harper's Magazine by journalist Dan Baum.

“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with ma*****na and blacks with he**in, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

— Dan Baum, "Legalize It All: How to win the war on drugs", Harper's Magazine (April 2016)

Blinken’s lies about Hamas rejecting a ceasefire reveal the Biden administration’s true intentions

The Biden administration is playing a shell game with the Gaza ceasefire that aims to trick the Democratic base into thinking meaningful action is taking place to end fighting while still allowing Israel to continue its genocidal campaign.

BY MITCHELL PLITNICK JUNE 15, 2024

https://mondoweiss.net/2021/05/bidens-opposition-to-an-israeli-ceasefire-is-nothing-new/

The NYC Anarchist Book Fair was founded in 2007. It bringing around two thousand anarchists, anarchy supporters and curious together in New York City (on Lenape land) every year since its foundation. The book fair and related events offer a space for the anarchist community, bringing together anarchx-feminists,, activists, scholars, workers, immigrants, qu**rs, trans, indigenous, artists and multi- racial individuals. It also offers an opportunity for the curious to learn about anarchism tradition, philosophy, praxis and the anti-capitalist struggle.

Each year, the NYC Anarchist Book Fair hosts over 60 exhibitors including publishers, writers, designers, artists, musicians and other activists.

https://anarchistbookfair.net/

"We live entangled in webs of endless deceit, often self-deceit, but with a little honest effort, it is possible to extricate ourselves from them. If we do, we will see a world that is rather different from the one presented to us by a remarkably effective ideological system, a world that is much uglier, often horrifying. We will also learn that our own actions, or passive acquiescence, contribute quite substantially to misery and oppression, and perhaps eventual global destruction. But there is a brighter side. We are fortunate to live in a society that is not only rich and powerful and hence, as any student of history would expect, dangerous and destructive but also relatively free and open, perhaps more so than any other, though this may change if the reactionary jingoists who have misappropriated the term conservative succeed in their current project of diminishing civil liberties, strengthening the power of the state, and protecting it from public scrutiny. For those who are wealthy and privileged, a very large sector of a society as rich as ours, there are ample opportunities to discover the truth about who we are and what we do in the world. Furthermore, by international standards the state is limited at home in its capacity to coerce. Hence those who enjoy a measure of wealth and privilege are free to act in many ways, without undue fear of state terror, to bring about crucial changes in policy and even more fundamental institutional changes. We are fortunate, perhaps uniquely so, in the range of opportunities we enjoy for free inquiry and effective action. The significance of these facts can hardly be exaggerated."

~Noam Chomsky

Socialism has never really been tried. The Soviet Union and China are more accurately considered a form of state capitalism. Socialism is about dissolving the worker-capitalist relationship. If you just replace the capitalist owner with a state bureaucracy then you really are not emancipation the working class, you are just substituting one boss for another.

Socialism would be where the workers have a democratic say in the decisions of a productive enterprise. I'm not talking about voting for politicians or political democracy, which is important, but I'm advocating for democracy at work, or economic democracy. That really hasn't been tried on a large scale....

The problem with transitioning into an economy from top down management to bottom up management of productive enterprises is that the market favors sociopathic management which narrowly focuses on profits ignoring the cost to the workers or the community. Under market forces with only stockholders at the top it makes total sense to shutdown a factory and move it overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor and laxer regulations. But if the workers controlled that decision, it would make no sense to do that.

This is why "Tankies" don't like Chomsky, and make up all kinds of lies about him to try to discredit him.

The power of the people...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Linguist, activist and social critic Noam Chomsky is hospitalized in his wife’s native country of Brazil recovering from a massive stroke he had a year ago, she confirmed Tuesday.

Valeria Chomsky said via email that her 95-year-old husband is in a Sao Paulo hospital, where she took him on an ambulance jet with two nurses once he could more easily travel from the United States following the June 2023 stroke. The couple has had a residence there since 2015.

She confirmed the details of a Monday report in the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, which said her husband has difficulty speaking and the right side of his body is affected. He is visited daily by a neurologist, speech therapist and lung specialist.

Valeria Chomsky told the newspaper that her husband follows the news and when he sees images of the war in Gaza, he raises his left arm in a gesture of lament and anger.

https://apnews.com/article/noam-chomsky-hospitalized-stroke-recovery-brazil-4fb6782abf6a7b6d0bbb30cefa05cede

John Dewey (1859 – 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.

The overriding theme of Dewey's works was his profound belief in democracy, be it in politics, education, or communication and journalism. As Dewey himself stated in 1888, while still at the University of Michigan, "Democracy and the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity are to my mind synonymous." Dewey considered two fundamental elements—schools and civil society—to be major topics needing attention and reconstruction to encourage experimental intelligence and plurality. He asserted that complete democracy was to be obtained not just by extending voting rights but also by ensuring that there exists a fully formed public opinion, accomplished by communication among citizens, experts, and politicians.

Dewey was one of the primary figures associated with the philosophy of pragmatism and is considered one of the founding thinkers of functional psychology. His paper "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology", published in 1896, is regarded as the first major work in the (Chicago) functionalist school of psychology. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Dewey as the 93rd-most-cited psychologist of the 20th century.

Dewey was also a major educational reformer for the 20th century. A well-known public intellectual, he was a major voice of progressive education and liberalism. While a professor at the University of Chicago, he founded the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he was able to apply and test his progressive ideas on pedagogical method. Although Dewey is known best for his publications about education, he also wrote about many other topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, art, logic, social theory, and ethics.

Kondiaronk (1625–1701), known as Le Rat (The Rat), was Chief of the Native American Wendat people at Michilimackinac in New France. As a result of an Iroquois attack and dispersal of the Hurons in 1649, the latter settled in Michilimackinac. The Michilimackinac area is the strait between Lakes Huron and Michigan (or, the area between Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas) in the present-day United States.

Noted as a brilliant orator and a formidable strategist, Kondiaronk led the pro-French Petun and Huron of Michilimackinac against their traditional Iroquois enemies. Kondiaronk realized the only way to establish security was to maintain a war between their enemies, the Iroquois, and the French in an attempt to keep the Iroquois occupied and the Hurons safe from annihilation. Kondiaronk succeeded in killing the peace; however, once he had secured the preservation of his people he favored a vast peace settlement. This effort concluded in what is known as The Great Peace of Montreal (1701) between France, the Iroquois, and the other Indian tribes of the Upper Great Lakes. This ended the Beaver Wars and helped open up the interior of North America to deeper French exploration and commerce. Kondiaronk made them see the advantages such a peace would bring them.

The Jesuit historian Father Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix wrote that "it was the general opinion that no Indian had ever possessed greater merit, a finer mind, more valor, prudence or discernment in understanding those with whom he had to deal". Louis-Hector de Callière, the Onontio (governor) that replaced Frontenac, was "exclusively indebted to him for ... this assemblage, till then unexampled of so many nations for a general peace". Kondiaronk contracted a fever and died in Montreal during the negotiations for the Great Peace on August 2, 1701. His body was buried at Montreal's Notre-Dame Church after a majestic funeral. Today, no trace of the grave remains. The Kondiaronk Belvedere in Montreal's Mount Royal Park is named in his honor. In 2001, he was named a Person of National Historic Significance by the Canadian government.

❝ The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying This is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows, "Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." But there is great probability that things had then already come to such a pitch, that they could no longer continue as they were; for the idea of property depends on many prior ideas, which could only be acquired successively, and cannot have been formed all at once in the human mind. Mankind must have made very considerable progress, and acquired considerable knowledge and industry which they must also have transmitted and increased from age to age, before they arrived at this last point of the state of nature. Let us then go farther back, and endeavour to unify under a single point of view that slow succession of events and discoveries in the most natural order. ❞

― Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality

https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/rousseau/inequality/ch02.htm

❝ How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! ❞

- Autobiographical dictation, 2 December 1906. Published in Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2

Dissent will not be tolerated.

Overwhelming majority of the populations of the worlds so called "Leading democracies" want to end this war in Ukraine, and yet there is almost no political will to do so. Makes you wonder of we really do live in a democracy.

https://instituteforglobalaffairs.org/2024/06/modeling-democracy-the-new-atlanticism/

Across corporate media, journalists and pundits introduced conspiracy theories to discredit the pro-Palestine student protest movement, particularly that they are funded by foreign countries or “outside agitators.”

https://fair.org/home/corporate-media-push-conspiracy-theories-to-discredit-student-protesters/

Paolo Freire, Inspired by Marxism, was critical of teachers who applied the 'banking' concept in their teaching because, as he argued, 'the more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world' (54). Thus he viewed the 'banking' approach as helping to undermine the development of a critical, questioning mind in pupils/students. Added to this, the 'banking' approach was considered to ignore students' prior knowledge (and background), understandings, skills and interests as it is underpinned by a false understanding of students as 'receiving objects' and because they just receive rather than process/challenge the information received, their thoughts and 'creative power[s]' (58) become inhibited. In this respect, the 'banking approach' prevalent in schools at the time was viewed by Freire as serving the interests of the ruling class (whom he termed the 'oppressors') who were considered to want to maintain the status quo as it 'avoids the threat of student conscientizacao'. Indeed, 'the more the oppressed (i.e. the Proletariat – to borrow from Marx) can be led to adapt to that situation, the more easily they can be dominated', become 'automatons' and 'dehumanised' (55): a not dissimilar justification for the denial of education to slaves and those freed following the abolition of slavery. In other words, by filling working class pupils/students with knowledge dictated by the ruling/middle classes, they become educated not only to understand but to accept their place/role in society without question/challenge:

The teacher's task is to… 'fill' the students by making deposits of information which he or she considers to constitute true knowledge. And since people 'receive' the world as passive entities, education should make them more passive still, and adapt them to the world. The educated individual is the adapted person, because he or she is a better 'fit' for the world. Translated into practice, the purposes of the oppressors, whose tranquillity rests on how well people fit the world the oppressors have created, and how little they question it.

https://www.beds.ac.uk/jpd/journal-of-pedagogic-development-volume-2-issue-3/key-pedagogic-thinkers-paulo-friere/

❝ One would look, in examining the Revolution's effect on class relations, at what happened to land confiscated from fleeing Loyalists. It was distributed in such a way as to give a double opportunity to the Revolutionary leaders: to enrich themselves and their friends, and to parcel out some land to small farmers to create a broad base of support for the new government. Indeed, this became characteristic of the new nation: finding itself possessed of enormous wealth, it could create the richest ruling class in history, and still have enough for the middle classes to act as a buffer between the rich and the dispossessed.

The huge landholdings of the Loyalists had been one of the great incentives to Revolution. Lord Fairfax in Virginia had more than 5 million acres encompassing twenty-one counties. Lord Baltimore's income from his Maryland holdings exceeded 30,000 pounds a year. After the Revolution, Lord Fairfax was protected; he was a friend of George Washington. But other Loyalist holders of great estates, especially those who were absentees, had their land confiscated. In New York, the number of freeholding small farmers increased after the Revolution, and there were fewer tenant farmers, who had created so much trouble in the pre-Revolution years.

Although the numbers of independent farmers grew, according to Rowland Berthoff and John Murrin, "the class structure did not change radically." The ruling group went through personnel changes as "the rising merchant families of Boston, New York or Philadelphia ... slipped quite credibly into the social status-and sometimes the very houses of those who failed in business or suffered confiscation and exile for loyalty to the crown."

Edmund Morgan sums up the class nature of the Revolution this way: "The fact that the lower ranks were involved in the contest should not obscure the fact that the contest itself was generally a struggle for office and power between members of an upper class: the new against the established." Looking at the situation after the Revolution, Richard Morris comments: "Everywhere one finds inequality." He finds "the people" of "We the people of the United States" (a phrase coined by the very rich Gouverneur Morris) did not mean Indians or blacks or women or white servants. In fact, there were more indentured servants than ever, and the Revolution "did nothing to end and little to ameliorate white bo***ge."

Carl Degler says (Out of Our Past): "No new social class came to power through the door of the American revolution. The men who engineered the revolt were largely members of the colonial ruling class." George Washington was the richest man in America. John Hancock was a prosperous Boston merchant. Benjamin Franklin was a wealthy printer. And so on.

On the other hand, town mechanics, laborers, and seamen, as well as small farmers, were swept into "the people" by the rhetoric of the Revolution, by the camaraderie of military service, by the distribution of some land. Thus was created a substantial body of support, a national consensus, something that, even with the exclusion of ignored and oppressed people, could be called "America." ❞

Chapter 5: A KIND OF REVOLUTION,
A people's history of the American revolution - Howard Zinn

https://libcom.org/article/peoples-history-american-revolution-howard-zinn

❝ We consider having a job a wonderful thing. Working people in the early Industrial Revolution regarded it as an obscenity, a fundamental attack on essential human rights and dignity. ❞

https://jacobin.com/2021/06/noam-chomsky-class-war-universal-health-care-climate-justice-denuclearization/

http://www.unemployednegativity.com/