#MondayRoundup! Here’s what the Corporatocracy was up to last week…
By: Paul Magee Berry
Tags: Palestine, Propaganda, War, Social Justice, United States

This is our “#Monday Roundup” edition in case you missed any news last week. Here are the headlines…

Every Friday, we spotlight one of our favorite indie journos who is working to expose the hard truths of the US Corporatocracy. These are the revolutionary journalists who make us ask, “Why aren’t we all freaking out about his?!”

We call it #FreakoutFriday, and last Friday, we shined the spotlight on indie journo Abby Martin (@AbbyMartin). Abby’s a citizen journalist, probably best known for her online documentary series the Empire Files. But her first major foray into video activism was a daily news show called “Breaking the Set”.

If you aren’t familiar with Breaking the Set, you should at least check out the final show from 2015, where Abby and her producer, indie journo Anya Parampil (@anyaparampil) look back over the various stories and topics they covered on the show.

Later that year, Abby launched the Empire Files, a weekly documentary program, that’s become a standard for Global Rights activists. The weekly format gives Abby more time to dig deeper into complex topics that we all need to know about like regime change wars, the rigging of US elections, and other such fuckery by the US Corporatocracy.

Abby has also produced a feature-length film; just-released last May. It’s called Gaza Fights For Freedom. And it’s a stunning documentary about the plight of the Palestinian people under Apartheid rule by Israel. You can watch the film online for just $6. It’s well worth it: It’ll break your heart– but we promise– you’ll also be deeply inspired by the incredible courage of the Palestinina people. Watch it, you’ll see…

Last Thursday, we explored how good ole Uncle Sam uses mass propaganda to mould our thoughts and thinking. It’s pretty scary stuff. And it goes way deeper than most of us think (pun intended…).

The patterns of thinking that we develop over the course of our lives are sorta like a deepening self-hypnosis… And unless we develop our own skills of self-inquiry, then the patterns of thinking imposed upon us can ultimately blind and bind us.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges (@ChrisLynnHedges) recently wrote about this phenomenon. He was writing about how “mass protests can [just] be empty political theater.” How “we can use them to make us feel good about ourselves; to make us feel like we’re advancing the process of change.” But are we just fooling ourselves?

Indeed, the whole system is rigged against us by the upper class elites. And most of us don’t even know it. We’re “the sucker class”, as General Smedley Butler once put it. We spotlighted General Butler last week in our #WhistleblowerWednesday series. By the time he retired, General Butler was the most decorated Marine in US history.

Reflecting on his retirement, he wrote that “War is a Racket!”. He said, “I was [just] a gangster for capitalism…a high-class muscle man” for the corporate elites. He said that throughout his career, he “helped rapehalf a dozen countries in Central [and South] America [all] for the benefit of Wall Street…”

Of course, the Corporatocracy’s wars-for-profit continue to this day… Last Tuesday we reported on the latest coup: in Bolivia, where the CIA helped overthrow that country’s democratically elected President Evo Morales.

Most everyone knows that the Bolivian coup is about stealing that country’s resources to profit the corporate elites and nothing more. Those who can’t see it and those who don’t care are just stuck in old patterns of thinking. They’re in a rut of self-destruction and can’t see that they’re stuck. So it’s our job to wake them up, as Abby Martin might say. And as Chris Hedges and General Butler have showed us, we must do so with great humility…

And clarity: we no longer live in a representative democracy. The US has been transformed into a corporate plutocracy. And the only real power the working class has in a corporate plutocracy is mass economic activism. Indeed, mass organized boycott is the only political will that has ever effectively challenged such entrenched and monied power.

It was the Salt and Textile boycotts that Gandhi organized in the 1900s to help win India’s independence from Britain. It was the mass strikes and picket lines that helped US workers in the 1930s win a 40-hour work week, overtime pay, and collective bargaining for labor unions. It was the bus boycotts and restaurant sit-ins in the 1960s that helped Black Americans win Civil Rights reforms. It was the Salad Boycotts and Grape Boycotts in the 1960s and 70s that helped win Economic Justice for Migrant workers. And it was the divestment boycotts in the 1980s that finally forced an end to Apartheid in South Africa.

We’re not saying don’t vote and don’t protest. As Chris Hedges says, “protests can be the beginning of political consciousness..but protests can also be empty political theater.” So, we’re saying we must combine our voting and protest with mass organized boycott like the great revolutions before us have done. And won…

If you want to learn how all of us in the work of Global Justice can join together in strategic boycott and force this corporatocracy to the people’s bargaining table, to end all this injustice, warmongering and corruption, and to help save our planet– you can check out our ABOUT Page and listen to our first podcast. And if you want to get involved, please fill out the “contact” form at the top/right of the Home page– or you can email us at info@wakingjustice.org. We’d love to hear from you.