From Carl Sagan to Radical Women
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isease of Capitalists
At least since December of last year governments around the world, some
better than others, have been preparing for the novel coronavirus;
while in the United States
“the for-profit medical industry has been practically ensuring that more people catch the virus and more die from it.”
“As with other disasters and emergencies,” capitalists capitalize on misery, thus worsening the worst.
“… Like other epidemics before it, coronavirus is a threat compounded by capitalist greed and callousness. ”
“Capitalists will always trade tomorrow’s welfare for today’s dollar — evidenced by “global warming” and “nuclear proliferation”— “if we let them.”
“Now is the time to mobilize unions and community organizations and small businesses to insist on immediate and effective action to protect public health.”
Sagan’s 1995
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oreboding
Highlighted in Bay Area United against War Newsletter
“I have a foreboding (a generation forward) of an America—
- when the United States is a service and information economy;
- when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries;
- when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues;
- when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority;
- when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what is true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.
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umbing down of America is most evident in
- the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media,
- the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less [nanoseconds],
- lowest common denominator programming,
- credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially
— a kind of celebration of ignorance.”
Astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astro-biologist, author, creator
of popular science, communicator of science in astronomy and other natural
sciences — Carl Edward Sagan (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996)
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rgued a “now-accepted hypothesis — high surface temperatures of Venus
can be attributed to … the greenhouse effect”
Opposed U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s “multibillion-dollar project to
develop a comprehensive defense against nuclear missile attack (the “Strategic
Defense Initiative” or “Star Wars” program, March 1983) on the grounds that such
a construction
“…would seriously destabilize the USA/USSR ‘nuclear balance’” and prevent “progress toward nuclear disarmament”
“…could easily” and far less expensively be defeated “through decoys and other means”
…Failed to meet required level of perfection
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agan on science and spirituality:
“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.”
“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. “When we recognize our place in an immensity of light-years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life — then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual.”
Sources
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter reposted from Radical Women “Coronavirus,
Epidemics and Capitalism: The Bugs Are in the System” [“Radical Women supports
and recommends this thoughtful analysis of the novel coronavirus by our sister
organization, the Freedom Socialist Party. The statement raises excellent
demands to protect workers, women, the poor, and people of color being
scapegoated for the crisis.”] March 2020 https://www.bauaw.org/2020/
March 2020 Highlighted in Bay
Area United against War Newsletter
https://www.bauaw.org/2020/
Wikipedia
Carl Sagan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan
Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights
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