new view of the political crisis

I still see the future as an array of inter-related collapses which have all begun. Climate and environmental harm are the most important in terms of creatures affected over time. Then, for humans, peak oil is the next most serious issue.

Then I've tended to see economic and political collapse as the next most important.

The political is very important though because it is what those of us who want to help make the future better will be up against.

But, since almost a year ago, I've gradually realized I have never fully understood what has been happening to politics in the US.

I thought the biggest factor driving the cultural and political decline was simple mass ignorance, worsened by hyper-consumerism.

But events have not unfolded in the way I expected since 2008, the year the financial collapse I long anticipated happened.

The complete lack of reform of the injustices that caused the meltdown have shocked and horrified me.

So has the amazing spectacle of what Obama turned out to be -a corporatist and oligarch even worse than Bush!

And then came Citizens United last year!

...All of these, and many other signals are pointing to much more than just ignorance and distraction of the population. Instead they are exposing a much more aggressive agenda of those with lobbying and campaign power and wealth than I ever would have imagined before 2008.

I now realize the most cynical on the left have always beeen right for my whole lifetime and we have now begun to live their ultimate nightmare!

Ralph Nader, Naom Chomsky, Amy Goodman, and all the voices of the radical left since before the sixties foretold all this, but I never took them as seriously as I should have.

So, where am I going now?

Well, I am beginning to learn the names of more of these people, and to study what they have written over the many years. Since they foretold what is happening, I hope they can maybe predict or at least hint at what all the next stages are going to be.

I have just made two new links to my starting points for this new self-education:

First, here are many online lectures from Michael Parenti available courtesy of the excellent website TUC Radio: "Michael Parenti is among the nation's best informed progressive speakers. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University in 1962 and has taught at colleges in the US and abroad. He lectures around the country and discusses the problems of American democracy, US foreign policy, and the invented reality of the media.":

Michael Parenti Archive

Then there are the hundreds of articles available online from "The Monthly Review -An Independent Socialist Magazine", which has been published since 1949:

The Monthly Review -archives

I've just begun to read and listen to articles on these sites but maybe in the future I can point out here ones I especially found informative.