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

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Peddling War to Children

by Robert C. Koehler from Common Dreams.

About preparing children to go to war for the Empire:
...nobody in the gaming industry, or the media that covers it, evinced a concern about that, or noted that Six Days in Fallujah and all the other war games that children and adults play are merely sophisticated e-versions of cowboys and Indians: the dance of good and evil played out in a consequence-free context. The good guys are always “us” and the bad guys of the moment are often merely our victims.