CULTURE & HISTORY

DR JUNE TERPSTRA—This article is an update of the article I wrote in 2008 titled “Hollow Women of the Hegemon”.  It is about the hollow women, the stuffed women, who help the hollow men who are devoted to profit, power, plunder and pollution.  The word, hegemon, is used to identify the class, state or group with the most power that is responsible for the dissemination of dominant power group’s ideas, systems and practices that most benefit those in power and those who rule for them.  Since WWII the US government and its corporate elites reached the top position in the world.  Their ascendency was the result of being the most violent and aggressive military with the most weapons of mass destruction and hence The Hegemonic force in the world.  The most fundamental mission that the US Hegemon faces is how to maintain power.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Earth is our home. It’s what we’re made for. The earth went through a lot to give you life. Sparks had to catch, oceans had to freeze, billions of cells had to survive endless disease, all of these amazing things had to happen just right to give you life. You belong here. You are as much a creation of the earth as the air you breathe. You may feel like a singular organism but you’re actually as much a singular organism as one of the many billions of organisms that make up your body. You and earth are one. And because you evolved on earth, you are perfectly adapted to earth and it is perfectly adapted to you. It yearns for your breath as you yearn for its breeze on your face.

LEON NEYFAKH—What researchers have found is that there are techniques for changing a culture that appear to work, but they are not always the obvious ones. Doing so in a way that produces lasting results, but doesn’t involve destroying the  group entirely, requires finesse, subtlety, and patience. It also requires a certain suspension of optimism about human nature. To really change how a group of people thinks and behaves, it turns out, you don’t need to change what’s inside of them, or appeal to their inner sense of virtue. You just have to convince them that everybody else is doing it.

ERIC SCHECHTER—The fact that we are ruled by the rich wouldn’t be so bad if they were actually unified, like in conspiracy theories such as the Illuminati. At least then the handful of people at the top would say to each other, “we few who secretly own this world should take steps to preserve it, so that we and our children can continue to live in luxury on our ill-gotten gains.” No such luck. They are not unified. Each one of them would gladly stab another in the back and steal his stuff if given the opportunity. Each one of them is saying to himself, “I just want to make a quick buck; I’ll leave it to someone else to clean up the mess.” And so the mess keeps getting worse. In particular, the oil companies (like the tobacco companies) knowingly lied for decades about the ill effects of their product.