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How Propaganda Conquers Democracy

Nicolas J S Davies Consortium News; Nation of Change
America’s “managed democracy” has devolved into “inverted totalitarianism,” concentrating power and wealth in the hands of a small ruling class more efficiently and sustainably. Is this a basic test of democracy for the citizens of any country?

MLK’s Radical Vision Got Distorted: Here’s His Real Legacy on Militarism & Inequality

Geoff Gilbert Salon
In the address, Dr. King implored the necessity for the nation to undergo a “radical revolution of values,” explaining, “We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Faced With Land Seizures, Defiant Nebraskans Vow to Halt Keystone XL

Nadia Prupis Common Dreams
Landowners from Nebraska's York and Holt counties last week filed suit against TransCanada to stall or even stop construction of the Keystone XL pipeline through their state. On Tuesday, they continued to call on President Barack Obama to veto the project altogether.

What Would Martin Say?

Yohuru Williams The Progressive
King saw the goal of education as more than performance on high-stakes tests or the acquisition of job skills or career competencies. “To save man from the morass of propaganda,” King opined, “is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.” The notion that privatization can foster equality is fiction.

The Origin of the Pegida Movement

Tomasz Konicz ZNet
Pegida's so-called “extremism of the middle”: is an expression of the dominant capitalist ideology, with its legitimization of all forms of exclusion, being driven to its mostly extreme, racist form. The whole situation will get really dangerous when parts of the elites start to see this as a viable political option in order to preserve power.

The “Selfless Friendship” of Cuba’s Solidarity Groups

Stephen Kimber CounterPunch
For a decade and a half, small, dedicated, disparate, sometimes competing groups of political activists in the United States and around the world demonstrated, lobbied, lettered, conferenced, tribunaled, cajoled and hectored in a seemingly quixotic quest to win the release of five imprisoned Cuban men.

‘Solidarity Forever’ Written 100 Years Ago, Today

Jonathan Rosenblum Labor Notes
“Solidarity Forever” echoes symbolically this Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. Dr. King’s last sermon was delivered in Memphis during the sanitation workers strike, a strike in which he acted not just as a civil rights leader but also a union leader. He even called for a general strike of black workers and students in Memphis.