A transformation of some fundamental process or structure within a society.
I had just finished reading Bill McKibben’s new novel, Radio Free Vermont: A Fable of Resistance, when I stumbled upon Bill Gates’ blog, http://www.gatesnotes.com, which I had not looked at for quite a while. I have to admit, I had been rather miffed at the overconfident elitist strategy Gates pursued at the Paris Climate Change … More Bill Gates or Bill McKibben: You Do the Math
On the Necessity of the Inconceivable to Engage the New Great Transformation Most of us who have lived through the decades since World War II understand the advancements of the industrial age to be the essence of human progress. First, we lived in an energy-driven mechanical world involving a series of innovations and new “labor-saving” processes … More The Radical Turn
Timing rules. Change waits for no machine. When I bought that apple coring machine, I expected to prepare and process our apple crop in record time. We had a somewhat smaller crop this year, but preparing the apples for storage in freezer or “canning” them in Ball jars is both very labor-intensive and slow. The … More Rotten Apples: Nature Overcomes Machine
Think about all the struggles over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and all the “repeal and replace” negation and obscurantism. Think about Obama’s hopeless attempts to compromise with a racist Congress. Think about the many years during which all the Congress could do was to implement their racist policies of saying NO to anything the … More Bait and Switch: Un-Healthcare Insurance and Impoverished Budgets
All basic infrastructure in Puerto Rico is down and remains nearly out. Hurricane Maria made a direct hit on the U.S. colonial territory, whose people are American citizens, mas o menos. Maria obliterated Puerto Rica’s electrical grid, destroyed homes, schools, hospitals, and most facilities and supply lines of all kinds. The third record hurricane in … More Puerto Rican Jubilee
It is not easy for America to sort it all out when police openly commit widespread racial profiling of Black lives and gratuitous violence on Black bodies, and so many white folks fail to object to the fact or even acknowledge it. It is not easy for America to sort it all out when the … More Take a Knee for Me
They’ve got all the weapons; they’ve got all the money…It‘s all there. ~ John Lennon[1] Political elections can have powerful cultural effects when infused with growing fear, deep anger, resentment of economic and social injustice, and racism. Diverse forms of social instability follow the displacement and ruined hopes for more and more people. The economic … More Antifa: Fascist Violence and Violence Against Fascism
Today, we live in a world of illusion more than ever before. We cannot be certain where much of the ‘information’ we are exposed to comes from or how accurate it may be. The lie is the new normal. Deception has grown as politicians and corporate CEOs ignore calls for transparency. We must do our … More Transparency, Transgressions, Bots, Trolls and Hackers
Trump is not merely rolling back countless federal programs that attempt to protect society from the ravages of unrestrained extractive corporate capital and industrial consumerism. He is going one worse. Think of the premise of his actions and the way he frames those actions in claiming to “make America great again.” That premise is that … More Overcoming the Trumping of Democracy to Restore the Commonwealth
Humanity is entering a New Great Transformation like no other. This transformation is not the first, but it may be the last. That will depend on human action and whether we act quickly, both globally and locally. Perhaps the first great transformation was the discovery and control of fire, according to renowned biological anthropologist, Richard … More Dangerous Transitions in the New Great Transformation
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 