PSYCHOLOGY – PSYCHOANALYSIS: “What It’s Like Inside Our Minds” / The School of Life / Alain de Botton ☮

It’s remarkably hard to imagine what it might be like inside our minds. But doing so helps us to see that the real task of thinking should involve throwing a spotlight on our elusive vague thoughts.

PROGRESSIVE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: “Donald Trump’s Greatest Allies are the Liberal Elites” / truthdig / Chris Hedges / 03.05.2017 ☮

The liberal elites, who bear significant responsibility for the death of our democracy, now hold themselves up as the saviors of the republic. They have embarked, despite their own corruption and their complicity in neoliberalism and the crimes of empire, on a self-righteous moral crusade to topple Donald Trump. It is quite a show. They attack Trump’s “lies,” denounce executive orders such as his travel ban as un-American and blame Trump’s election on Russia or FBI Director James Comey rather than the failed neoliberal policies they themselves advanced.

Where was this moral outrage when our privacy was taken from us by the security and surveillance state, the criminals on Wall Street were bailed out, we were stripped of our civil liberties and 2.3 million men and women were packed into our prisons, most of them poor people of color? Why did they not thunder with indignation as money replaced the vote and elected officials and corporate lobbyists instituted our system of legalized bribery? Where were the impassioned critiques of the absurd idea of allowing a nation to be governed by the dictates of corporations, banks and hedge fund managers? Why did they cater to the foibles and utterings of fellow elites, all the while blacklisting critics of the corporate state and ignoring the misery of the poor and the working class? Where was their moral righteousness when the United States committed war crimes in the Middle East and our militarized police carried out murderous rampages? What the liberal elites do now is not moral. It is self-exaltation disguised as piety. It is part of the carnival act.

Continue reading . . .

PROGRESSIVE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: “Pres. Correa: Fighting Poverty and Foreign Domination” / Empire Files / Abby Martin ☮

After 10 years and three terms, Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa’s time in office has ended. Under his administration Ecuador made far-reaching economic and social gains, despite having inherited a country on the brink of collapse.

In one of his last interviews before leaving office, Abby Martin talks to him about his legacy, his critics, and the struggle ahead for Ecuador and beyond.

From commenting on Trump and the global crisis of inequality, to addressing CIA plots and opposition in his own country, hear Correa’s last words as President to the people of Latin America and the United States.

PROGRESSIVE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: “Arkansas Wants to Ban Howard Zinn Books from Public Schools” / Secular Talk / Kyle Kulinski ☮

Republican Arkansas state Sen. Kim Hendren introduced a bill to the state legislature that will ban the works of historian Howard Zinn from any schools that receive public funds.

PROGRESSIVE INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM: “Resistance in the Age of Trump” / RT America / On Contact with Chris Hedges ☮

On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges discusses successful strategies for resistance in the age of Trump with activist and attorney, Kevin Zeese. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil looks at how Republican lawmakers are attempting to quell demonstrations across the US.