The Greanville Post & Cyrano's Journal Newsletter
"Defusing stupidity wherever it pops up" / Vol 28. No. 43 July 13, 2010
SPECIAL EDITION: THE METHANE BOMB IS UPON US • RUDDERLESS IN AN OCEAN OF TROUBLES • ENVIRONMENTALISTS' PASSIVITY
FROM THE EDITOR—
The Wages of Pseudo Leadership
The United States no longer has true leadership, if by that we understand a government whose honest intent (leave the question of ineptitude and cowardice aside for a second) is to serve the people. Instead, America has a refined simulacrum, a carefully orchestrated public relations exercise faithfully implemented to fool the masses, with the combined support of the entire political class and the corporate media, something we might aptly call, "pseudo leadership". Although history is not lacking for examples of demagogy, illegitimate rulers, and bad to awful leadership, this new era, characterized by spin doctors and photo-ops, is qualitatively different in the astonishing level of cynicisn and professionalism the Big Lie has managed to attain. Dissembling has become the chief rule of syntax in our public discourse. How do we know we have "pseudo-leadership"? Because we live in a formal democracy (look it up) where the citizenry must constantly petition those in power to redress obvious grievances, and, to add insult to injury, seldom get any satisfaction for their troubles.
As a result, and quite literally, we have arrived at a point when the world is dying from lack of good leadership. There's a desperate vacuum of leadership at all critical levels of human governance. A leadership that is brave and moral and well informed; a leadership that refuses to cater to the petty and grasping and backward in men's souls, that can't be bought for cheap bribes or seduced by the rewards of careerism and self-aggrandizement, and which pushes for higher ground where the human family at last can be united, leaving behind the stupidly destructive era of chauvinist loyalties. Such leadership—glowing rhetoric aside—we do not have. In fact, we don't even come close, such is the state of decay and cynicism permeating this system.
I'll be writing a more complete treatment of this topic in the near future. Meanwhile, those of you who might want to send comments or ideas directly to my attention can do so here.
Welcoming Anthony Marr and Gui Rochat
Our editorial core has been recently expanded to admit two wonderful activists and thinkers, Anthony Marr and Gui Rochat. Born in China, based in Vancouver, Canada, Dr. Anthony Marr has an extensive background in activism related to defending the earth and its non-human inhabitants. Marr, whose training is in physics, and who has worked as a field geophysicist and an environmental technologist, was recently appointed Science and Ecoanimal Editor for The Greanville Post and Cyrano’s Journal Online. Marr is the founder of Heal Our Planet Earth (HOPE ); and author of the book OMNI-SCIENCE and the Human Destiny (2003). He also wrote Homo Sapiens! SAVE YOUR EARTH from Mass Extinction due to Global Warming. The keynote post for this edition, The Methane Bomb Will Wipe Out All Life as We Know it, is a must-read-and-act presentation by Marr on this topic, with a preface by me. We feel honored to have Anthony on board.
With a distinguished Gallic ancestry and born on Java (Dutch East Indies), and later educated in the Netherlands (Groningen University, Medicine) and Lebanon (Beirut's American University, Experimental Psychology) Gui Rochat, a well-known expert in art and antiques and cultural historian now living in New York, has spent much of his life as a genuine cosmopolitan, seeing life firsthand in the First, Second, and Third Worlds and drawing important political lessons from such experiences. These insights inform his compelling critiques of the "freemarket" system, and American culture in general, which, for good or for ill, constitute the current dominant world paradigm. For several years now Gui has proved to be a valuable ally in bringing to our readers and fellow editors consistently high quality materials worthy of our mission. Gui will be now serving as Senior Editor for The Greanville Post and Cyrano’s Journal Online. We are fortunate to have Gui as a member of the team, or "L'equipe", as he might say.
Welcome, both.
—Patrice Greanville
Roam around
If you visit our sites prompted by one of the links below, do stick around a while and roam! We post articles 24/7 and there's always something new likely to catch your eye. Well, "Without further eloquence, here we go again".
"All men are equal, but the true value of a man lies in his moral behavior, not his class." —Leveller proverb, First English Civil War (1647)
THIS ISSUE'S SELECTIONS
The Methane Bomb Will Wipe Out All Life as We Know It / Anthony Marr
MUST READ
UNFETTERED INDUSTRIALISM fueled by the sociopathic values of capitalism has managed to mortally wound the biosphere in less than 300 years, a mere instant in geologic time scales. Now, as laid out by Anthony Marr in this must-watch-and-act presentation, humans’ almost total indifference to environmental health and its consequences has detonated a crisis of truly incalculable lethal proportions. The predicament we face—of our own making— can be summed up in three words: The Methane Bomb...
http://www.greanvillepost.com/?p=6816
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