This is a solemn moment in America. Things have gotten quite serious. We're on the verge of losing not only democracy but the battle to leave a viable ecosystem for future generations. And I'm talking about the near, not distant, future.

Many of us are in denial about how serious our circumstances have become. I've had seemingly intelligent people ask me, what's so wrong with the status quo? People don't want to face unpleasant facts. We bury ourselves in unreality and distractions, we obsess over trivialities and shout down anyone who tries to harsh our mellow. How dare they try to wake us up!

We Americans have some unsavory facts to face and some wrenching changes to make, and soon, if our species is going to make it.

Our way of life is absolutely unsustainable.

We've known this for a long time. The environmental movement goes back at least as far as the early sixties. Silent Spring, the famous, ground-breaking environmental science book by Rachel Carson was published in 1962. The Earth Day movement started in 1970. Still the masses sleep. To many of us, if it ain't happening this week or next, it ain't happening.

Our entire culture is steeped in fantasy, denial and ignorance. Many, if not most, Americans are oblivious to how the Military Industrial Complex dominates our society and warps our democracy (just as Eisenhower warned).

Too many of us don't know our own history, and much of what we think we know is false. We've been lied to, propagandized, bamboozled and hustled. It's not surprising that so many of us don't understand class, race or privilege.

Don't be put off by the title of the following video. This is an important and extremely well done must-see video for every American citizen, in my humble opinion.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLgIIjnpZyU]

People need to be educated. That's up to us. Here's a handy tool for dispelling myth and revealing truth, Howard Zinn's phenomenal rendition of our actual history. Download a free copy of the real story of America, A people's history of the United States by Howard Zinn:

mobi format
https://libcom.org/library/peoples-history-of-united-states-howard-zinn

.pdf format
http://www.thegoyslife.com/Documents/Books/A%20People's%20History%20of%20the%20United%20States-%20Howard%20Zinn.pdf

Americans, perhaps understandably, do NOT want to look in the mirror and see with any clarity the horror of what we've become: war bringers and torturers, destroyers of worlds, worshipers of mammon.

We bomb the innocent. We start bogus wars on purpose. We sell democracy and justice to the highest bidders. We vote against our own interests or not at all. We tolerate corruption and criminality at the highest echelons of society. We punish the poor and exalt the rich. We ignore the scientific consensus on climate change, ocean acidification, rainforest destruction, non-renewable resource depletion and fossil fuel addiction. We ignore the many ways in which our society has gone terribly wrong – from the prisons to the schools to the halls of congress.

Too many of us are blind to the faults of Capitalism, Wall Street, Militarism, the Supreme Court, Congress and modern western culture. We treat politics as though it were just another game, just another team sport. We unquestioningly accept the propaganda and lies of the mainstream/corporate media. The world is going to hell in a handbasket, capitalism and our vaunted 'American way of life' are despoiling the world and making it unfit for human habitation and we just want to pretend it's not happening.

Bill Moyers is one of the brightest lights that still shine amidst the darkening death-spiral of American journalism. He's a liberal but hardly a radical. What he has to say about the present state of America and the world should alarm us all, but again, too few of us are paying attention. Let's change that.

[video:https://youtu.be/pFYb4gKEFl4]

Six media conglomerates control virtually all the information in the American mainstream, and the propaganda they ply us with 24/7 has been refined and optimized. Among other things, Americans have been brainwashed to hate socialism for all they're worth without understanding the first thing about it. There's a reason the billionaires hate it and have used their disinformation machine to make us hate it. It's not good for billionaires. But it can be very good for people.

In the following important video, Bill Moyers interviews Paul Krugman on the subject of Thomas Piketty's blockbuster book titled, Capital in the 21st Century. This is well worth your time. It clarifies the urgency of the moment and emphasizes the criticality of what we do now. This too, again imho, that should not be missed by any American citizen.

What the 1% Don't Want You to Know

[video:https://youtu.be/QzQYA9Qjsi0]

It takes an open mind and a sufficient understanding of scientific reality to realize that our way of life is absolutely unsustainable. Not a little unsustainable, not somewhat unsustainable or in need of a few tweaks here and there – but absolutely unsustainable and in desperate need of a major overhaul. We are at the end of the road for the old ways. A massive paradigm shift has been coming for decades, but if we can't hurry it along, if we can't manage to be more receptive and responsive, the chances are increasingly good that we'll kill ourselves off. Which of those things is it better to pull for? Change or no change? A paradigm shift or extinction?

Some people scoff at the word 'revolution' because they've been programmed that way, but it's a fine word to describe what's needed and what's coming. Not all revolutions are violent and this one won't be, that's ridiculous. This is strictly and explicitly a political revolution, a peaceful and legal uprising – but an uprising nonetheless. Those of us who see the writing on the wall are going to attempt to turn American democracy to the people's and humanity's needs and best interests. As Bernie says over and over, it can only work if we rise up by the millions. Young people have little choice and everything to lose. They are the ones who will suffer most from our failure to turn it all around. We need for them to turn up at the polls and cast their votes for Bernie Sanders, a new way forward and a hopeful future for generations to come.

We have one last chance to rise up and make the necessary changes to assure the continuation of civilization and our species. Some call this hyperbole, and I suppose that gives them comfort, but it's not. Our present circumstances are scary as hell. The prospect of the continuation of life on earth, at least for humans, could hardly be more precarious. When the smartest and best informed among us become alarmed, it's time to sit up and take notice.

Reversing global warming will take a World War II level of mobilization. It is the work of tens of millions, not hundreds of thousands. 

Van Jones

"America has no functioning democracy at this moment." ~ Jimmy Carter

As Carl Sagan and Noam Chomsky attest, we've become a culture that celebrates ignorance and distrusts intellectuals, and as a consequence, many of us don't know what the hell is going on. Why on earth would we want to pay attention to what the smartest people on the planet have to say?

If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality.

Stephen Hawking Says We Should Really Be Scared Of Capitalism, Not Robots

So Hawking, no doubt one of the smartest people alive, advocates wealth redistribution. How radical! But he's smart and he's right and he's not alone. Radical problems require solutions.

Here's another smart but hardly radical person saying radical things about the present circumstances. We ignore the smartest among us at our peril.

President Jimmy Carter: “The United States is an Oligarchy with unlimited political bribery.”

Of the politicians we are presented with for the coming elections, only Bernie Sanders represents a break from the past. Only Bernie is not beholden to the Big Money interests. Only Bernie has the judgment and clarity of vision to lead us into a tricky and dangerous future. Bernie Sanders is the only one calling for us to rise up and fight back against the greed-crazed billionaires who are driving us off the fossil fuel cliff.

[video:https://youtu.be/pUzJqvsN5_4]

[video:https://youtu.be/eXZk5gVa--0]

Mother Nature's not giving us any second chances.

Bernie is right. We can only fight back if we rise up by the millions. If we don't, we lose. Mother Nature's not giving us any second chances. This one's for all the marbles. If Exxon wins, we're sunk.

I see it as the task of any liberal or progressive to try to wake people up. We need a critical mass of people who are awake and paying attention if we're going to save ourselves from our unfortunate tendency toward planetary destruction. Maybe we won't be able to in the end. But we can't know that. We have to try.

Some people think that supporting Bernie is a risk, but it's a risky universe. There is no safe bet. We need to be fearless and take a chance on doing something profoundly good. We need to at least try to turn things around.

It's obvious that a great awakening is taking place. But time is running out for climate change and many other of the problems we face.

NEWSFLASH! Bernie Sanders has now accumulated more individual donations at this point in the race than any candidate in history.

“Brothers and sisters, now is not the time for thinking small.”

 

Sen. Bernie Sanders