APPEALS TO CONSCIENCE

ED CURTIN—While the United States has long been a hotbed for sexual scandals and media, FBI, and CIA exposure of the sexual lives of those they wish to destroy, today, when sex is a staple of the media where it is presented and discussed openly as if one were discussing another consumer product, the use of sexual blackmail and sexual muddling as a political tool of the “deep-state” propaganda apparatus is unmentionable, even as its significance is enhanced by electronic spying and the loss of privacy.

Peter Joseph is the founder of the Zeitgeist Movement, a grassroots, worldwide organization that advocates an alternative economic system based on sustainability, cooperation and human need. His most recent book, ‘The New Human Rights Movement,’ delivers a startling exposé about the violent oppression that defines our economic order, while issuing an urgent call for global activism to unite to replace it. Abby Martin sits down with Joseph to talk about the contradictions and crises of capitalism and what he advocates to save the future of the planet from catastrophe.

WILLIAM J ASTORENo, I’m not saying the president is a military wannabe; I’m not saying the president is a poseur. What I’m saying is that the president, whether he knows it or not, is blurring the vitally important distinction between a democratically-elected, thoroughly civilian, commander-in-chief and the military members the president commands in our — the people’s — name.

MICHAEL F. DUGGAN—Humankind is a runaway project. With a world population of more than 7.3 billion, we are a Malthusian plague species. This is not a condemnation or indictment, nor some kind of ironic boast. It is an observable fact. The evidence is now overwhelming that we stand at a crossroads of history and of natural history, of nature and our own nature. The fact that unfolding catastrophic change is literally in the air is undeniable. But before we can devise solutions of mitigation, we have to admit that there is a problem.

KRISTINE MATTIS—Americans and other first-world citizens have the notion that their happiness, their desire for comfort, their want of cool gadgetry, their egos, their power, and their careers are more important than life itself. As a result, even the most environmentally-minded middle class people are too tied to their creature comforts (a.k.a., consumer excesses) that they still rank among the biggest consumers and polluters. Americans often deride others for living beyond theirmeans(meaning their financial abilities), but no one ever worries about living beyond our needs,which is perhaps the fundamental cause of our suicidal path as a species.