First thing I’d have to axe Mr J is to define what he means by “positive social change”.
At one time a lot of us considered “Integration” to be a high priority “positive social change”; however it turns out that “integration” really meant Incarceration.

It’s clear that given the dimensions of the crisis we need a Change that is qualitatively and quantitatively adequate, equal to the problems we face.
There is no pt in expending a lot of effort just to put a bandaid on the bloody mess.

I agree with Bozh — I’m not going to be holding my breath waiting for confused liberal “intellectuals” to figure out meteorological reality.

As I see it, the vast majority of US residents remain confined to a dreamworld not because their conditions of life are so wonderful, but because information about what their fellows are experiencing is so tightly and totally controlled by the Powers That Be. Key among said Powers is of course the Zionist-controlled MSM/mainstream media; Academia & the “educational system” (sic), the religion complex, labor, civic and other organizations also play roles.

So the challenge is to find or create ways to break through the blizzard of lies, through the information blackout, enable people to communicate with each other. DV of course is one really great initiative in this direction, but unfortunately fails to reach many of those most in need of, and most prepared to understand the information DV and similar sites/blogs provide.
Take the Ft Hood incident for instance. The vast majority of those who work in military and veterans hospitals don’t fit the profile of inhuman monsters. These are people who spend their working hours taking care of sick and injured fellow humans. Most have no idea what the rest of the military establishment does, or if they do they’ve never been exposed to the suggestion that many DOD activities can’t be morally justified.
Military bases nowadays are surrounded by “anti-Terrorist” measures; barriers, mazes of orange cones, multiple gates and checkpoints, which may or may not keep truckbombers out, but which certainly do keep unorthodox ideas out. Any ruckus kicked up by Code Pink or any other peacenik bunch will transpire and be extinguished without anybody on the inside paying the least attention.
You’re right, the above is not the answer to anything. My hope is to pose the question from a fresh angle.
Since the “hi-tech” means of communication are so “under control”, I’d like to suggest a fresh look at various low-tech options. Like a mass campaign to scrawl brief pithy slogans on shithouse walls?

Actually, structure of US governance and its society is crystal clear. But, it goes wihout saying that pols, clergy, psychiatrists, ‘educators’, social ‘scientists’ et al wld render these simplicities complex.
And then go on and omit to say what this complexity consists of; thus adding and insult to injury!

One cld affirm that nothing is complex in the entire universe; we sipmly don’t know ALL ab anything. And there is no shame in not knowing all we need to know.
However, the basic structure of US governance can be seen with naked eye and needs changing.
It can be changed thru education-enlightenment and second political party. Once americans establish a viable second party, the system that allowed slavery, extirpation of indigenes, nuking japan, serfdom, numerous wars, division of people into very wealthy and very poor is forever broken.

It wld be nice to obtain allies. However, i am not going to hold my breath expecting people who say God Bless America or shout USAUSAUSA to ever become my allies or respect some basic panhuman rights. tnx

1) No one who has commented so far has offered even a clue about a series of practical steps that will result in positive social change. Reason is clear: it’s very complicated, and it’s clear also that the means being used now aren’t working. Anyone disagree with that?

I disagree with your comment. My criticism and my agreement with DanE has to do with the obtuseness and obliqueness of the prose and the lack of getting to the point in a radical way. No one is arguing about the complexity of positive social change but what’s missing is a radical explanation of why it is so complex.

2) To do any better, we need to understand something differently, we need to penetrate a wall of vagueness.

Well vagueness is the problem here it your indirectness.

3) It’s clear that communicating ideas in a manner that more people can agree on good ones is of the essence of positive change.

I think if you communicated in a more direct, concise and radical manner then perhaps there could be some agreement.

4) My bottom line could perhaps be summed up in trying to explain how not to turn off all the others who could help the entire process. It does little good just to complain about how bad everything is–it only paints us into a corner where we only talk with people who have similar complaints, and nothing is done.

I have to disagree with you on this perspective. If you are chatting with people who thinks it’s great then they have no incentive to change the status quo and are probably benefiting from it. That defeats the purpose especially as the status quo is deteriorating for so many. I don’t call myself “Deadbeat” just to be humorous.

5) Anyone who knows that their existing thinking is inadequate sensibly tries to maintain an open mind toward anyone else who even conceivably might have a clue toward greater adequacy.

You are engaging in a huge fallacy to assume because of the lack of result that everyone else has no clue. What it reveals to me is your lack of radical analysis.

6) A sure way to turn off even our possible allies is to react to surface qualities and not actually understand the point they try to make. As Itried to explain in my earlier post, there’s a price to pay in making change, and the first price is to change our own thinking.

Who are these “possible allies”? The Right? The Phony Left? Without radical analysis and critique anyone could be “possible allies” thus leading to disastrous results.

I agree. I really don’t f’n understand what Jensen is trying to say which makes me suspicious. It’s seem more like a self-flagulating excercise rather than communication (or as they say — plain speak).

I’ve encountered quite a few convinced Zionists over the last three decades. One kind are the indignant ones who start berating you the minute they realize you are less than totally enthusiastic about “israel”. The other kind are the ones who want to “engage in dialog”, to hang you up in an endless “intellectual” debate. Reminds me of a favorite tactic of Bosses faced with a “Labor Dispute”. They like to invite strike leaders into the corporate offices, get the key people into a conference room, serve tea & cookies, show you some newfangled gadgets, show you pictures of their wives & kiddies, which keeps you out of touch with what’s going on out on the picket line. So the strike leaders don’t know when the busses full of scabs show up, whether it’s Pinkertons or the Nat Guard protecting the strikebreakers.
So let’s have less hypothetical blah blah, get to the point. Thank you.

Testing has amply shown 3-to-5 month-old infants choose others shown to cooperate without ever having been formally “taught” to do so. From this we can easily draw it is a basic human survival mechanism. What happens as we age, why does this facility get buried in the manipulative self-interest so common in corporate and cultural interactions?

I am starting to think that initially we are programmed to cooperate, but soon learn that the circle of people we can trust to do so unconditionally is very limited. And cooperation has a cost to the individual, especially if the altruism or bargain is not reciprocated or honoured, so we learn by hard knocks to be selective in who we will cooperate with. We also may discover we can appear to cooperate and gain by not reciprocating or find others will take advantage of us if we don’t/can’t determine who the cheaters are. Think ‘Survivor’ for children.

By the time we are adults, the school, cultural and media systems have attempted to socialize us to accept the platitudes and attitudes of our leaders (educational, religious, political, military and corporate) as valid and not requiring much critical analysis from us puny mortals. We are trained to be inquiring and creative within the limits so “reasonably” set out for us. Any who do not accept the role of compliant wage-earner , corporate apparatchik or intellectual (if outraged) commentator are soon isolated and marginalized. Think “discipline problem’.

It is not that ‘mediocre thinking’ is the problem, but that truly innovative and creative thinking is unacceptable within the standing social power constructs. Thinking ‘outside the box’ is merely a euphemism for getting people to think outside the little box normally provided for the peons, but still within the strict confines of social, political and corporate norms.

Those of us who see beyond and through the ‘thought fences’ so artfully erected around and within our cultures are shouted down, ridiculed, or worse, depending on how illegitimately authoritarian the culture. The lessons learned on all sides from the school-yard episodes played out between bullies, the bookish kid and the sycophant bystanders are reinforced on a regular basis. The black-eyes are now virtual, the jibes more subtle and PC, but the subtext comes through loud and clear. Don’t rock the elite-power boat.

And the ghost of Louis B. is alive and well. I have lost several jobs in various sectors because the bosses saw my clear, innovative thinking as challenged their power. Often not the thoughts themselves, but because I did not bring them quietly on bended knee for their vetting, to be presented to the organization as their intellectual innovations, not mine.

Asking the ‘thought slaves’ to cast off their chains means they first must recognize those chains exist. The ones I have tried to make aware look at my lowly station in life, and through the social filters they value, pronounce me a ‘voice in the wilderness’. A wilderness they do not wish to follow me into. Not understanding the power elite will throw them into that same wilderness as soon as it suits their purposes. No matter what the ‘thought slaves’ think.

Here we have another snake oil sale by slave owners and other plutos: that some wishes, hopes, basic rights cannot be said so that everybody understands them.
Of course, any ‘law’ [means that in the entire recorded history 'laws' were put together by "them" and not us] in US, if it is not written in the language that 99% of mothers speak, is too complex even to ‘glitteratti’ let alone to house people and other ‘lowlife’.

In making people evaluate as true that they are unschooled, dumb, less worthy we have another great sale. Ah yes, tell them the bigest lie u can come up with and over 10 millennia and repeated trns time did become the truth.

And tha’s why we still have lords, warlords,kings, aghas, ceos, one party systems, constitution that cannot ever be understood; it can be only interpreted. And guess by whom?
And plutos ever give up their beloved perfection? tnx

John it appears profit has stopped any real inventions so far the I-pod and flat screen TV’s is the best we can do.