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

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Industry interests are not in their "twilight"

Glenn Greenwald from Salon demolishes a leading mainstream propaganda piece by the Washington Post's Ezra Klein who "trumpets what he calls the 'Twilight of the Interest Groups' reflected by likely passage of the health care bill." Instead Greenwald argues:
...this bill was negotiated using the standard, secret, sleazy Beltway lobbyist/industry practices that candidate Obama frequently condemned and vowed to defeat.  And these industries extracted such huge benefits as a result of these secret deals -- a bill shaped to their liking and profit objectives -- that they are essentially in favor of it.