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, November 17, 2010

Kabul gets its own stimulus package

by Tom Engelhardt from Asia Times Online

The Empire has its own stimulus plans that don't require any debate. Read about an example of this going on now in Afghanistan. Meanwhile the ruling class at the Empire's home base are currently planning on cuts to Social Security while local jurisdictions are already slashing public services that result in layoffs of teachers, police, fireman, librarians, social workers, etc. 
While Americans fight bitterly over whether the stimulus package for the domestic economy was too large or too small, few in the US even notice that the American stimulus package in Kabul, Islamabad, Baghdad, and elsewhere in our embattled Raj is going great guns. Embassies the size of pyramids are still being built; military bases to stagger the imagination continue to be constructed; and nowhere, not even in Iraq, is it clear that Washington is committed to packing up its tents, abandoning its billion-dollar monuments, and coming home.
See also an article on the same subject by Nick Turse from TomDispatch.