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 15, 2011

The limits of objectivity: Qatari rulers reassert control over Aljazeera

Click here to access article by A.E. Souaiaia from OpEd News.

This article essentially announces what many others have sensed during the past several months--Al Jazeera has ceased to exist as an independent Arabic news source.

This morning I was surprised to find a video on their site entitled, "The US and the new Middle East: The Gulf" with a descriptive sentence following it that reads "Fault Lines travels to Bahrain and asks why the US backs democracy in one Arab country, but not another." Hence, I was intrigued to find out what kind of spin they put on this subject. I wondered if the reporter didn't spin it well enough because the video doesn't function on my computer.