CITIZENS COUNTER-PROPAGANDA

CHRIS HEDGES—All of the utopian promises of globalization have been exposed as lies. Allowing banks and corporations to determine how we should order human society and govern ourselves did not spread global wealth, raise the living standards of workers or implant democracy across the globe. The ideology, preached in business schools and by pliant politicians, was a thin cover for the rapacious greed of the elites, elites who now control most of the world’s wealth.

Australia is facing a bushfire season of horrendous proportions due to climate change. Scientists know what needs to be done in order to halt the steady increase in greenhouse gases but this cannot occur under the capitalist system dominated by short-term profit and the outmoded division of the world into rival nation states. Governments around the world are unable to agree on an international plan and to offer anything more than cosmetic measures.

ANDRE VLTCHEK—What is exported are primitive beats and computer-generated images, falsely described as films. It is that toxic food, sold in chain eateries. It is the plastic cartoon production of soulless movies for children, as well as theme parks which are destroying the imagination and ability to dream.

These kinds of government-sanctioned, targeted assassinations — along with kidnappings, terrorism, assaults, sexual violence, firings, evictions and other forms of brutal intimidation — are routine in Colombia and have been for decades

ERIC ZUESSE—The basic distinction is class, not ethnicity. The cause of all these wars — not only international but also civil conflicts — is the unlimited greed of the wealthiest. Ethnicity is merely used by them in order to expand their own wealth.