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

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Coming to America: Running From the School of the Americas

Click here to access article by Laura Schleifer from The Leftist Review. 

She author fills in American ignorance with knowledge about the pervasive role of the C.I.A.-run School of the Americas in subjecting Latin Americans to the rule of the Empire.
In Latin America, the role the United States has played in war, dictatorship, manufactured poverty, and human rights abuse is common knowledge. Yet, the vast majority of U.S. citizens have no idea of the existence of the SOA/WHINSEC, and in fact usually assume that the belief in the existence of such a place must be a conspiracy theory, upon hearing of it for the first time.
Yet, her conclusion about simply according immigrants to the US the rights of citizenship is fine, but very limiting. Working on that objective is only treating the symptom, not the cause of the diseased state of affairs for immigrants who, because of the neo-liberal policies of the Empire, have been forced to leave their homes and communities. Nothing less than the dismantlement of the Empire's ruling class and their system must be accomplished before there is peace and justice anywhere in the world.

See the latest activist notice against SOA.