We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Czechs Bank on Cooperatives for Revival

from IPS news service. 
"We are living in an exciting and scary time of a shift in the prevailing paradigm," Johanisova told IPS. "The Western Enlightenment dream (of which both capitalism and Eastern European communism are outgrowths) of eternal human material advance under the banner of reason, science and fossil fuel-powered technology is literally running out of steam."