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

Social democrats win Greek regional elections amid mass abstention

by Robert Stevens from World Socialist Web Site.  
This means that nearly two in three Greek voters did not vote for a candidate in the second round.
This mass abstention is a particularly clear sign of growing discontent with “official” politics, as it is illegal not to vote in Greece. Such levels of abstention reveal a pronounced level of disgust with both PASOK and ND, who are equally reviled and viewed as proponents of austerity and social misery.
The Greeks know how to cope with the election circuses that their ruling class use to create political legitimacy for a capitalist party, whichever one they are allowed to vote for.