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 12, 2011

120 Seconds Of Gerald Celente Kicking Wall Street's Ass [2:13m video]

from The Daily Bail
Text from YouTube page: While millions of Americans are unemployed and the national debt is soaring, it seems top financial executives are far from feeling the pinch.  A recent Wall Street Journal survey estimates they'll receive a staggering $144 billion dollars in compensation and benefits this year.
I don't usually go for rants in which more heat than light is shed. but this one makes a good point about people being distracted by mainstream media.

I think that underlying the success of mainstream media in managing the minds of ordinary people is a comprehensive indoctrination apparatus provided mainly by educational institutions whose aims for its subjects are to instill obedience to authorities and to avoid instruction in independent, critical thinking. Supporting the educational institutions are the many top-down authority structures, governed and monitored by the capitalist class that pervades all other societal institutions, in order to reinforce authoritarian thinking and to punish those who stray from it.

As a result of this pervasive authoritarian influence, ordinary people regard the talking heads on TV as authorities who, like parents, have their best interests at heart and mostly tell the truth. It is hard for them to believe that these authorities mostly lie in the service of their authorities, and this process extends all the way up the chains of authorities to the ruling capitalist class.

Hence, it follows from this system point of view that we must change the engine that drives nearly all of society--the capitalist system, a system which is designed to serve a few at the expense of the many. And it is no longer only a matter of social justice, it is now a matter of human survival. This system, so addicted to the consumption of energy and materials, is fundamentally in conflict with an ecological system that can support human life and many other current life forms.

A broader question might be posed: Is the human creature, that is uniquely endowed with an advanced brain, capable of creating a system that is in harmony with the Earth's ecology, or will it just be another failed evolutionary experiment that was able to survive only for a brief moment in geological time? It is up to us to answer that question, and we must answer it soon because time is running out.