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 17, 2011

The Struggle for Syria

Click here to access article by Joseph Massad from Al Jazeera. (Joseph Massad is Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University in New York.)
Those who see the Syrian popular struggle for democracy as having already been hijacked by these imperial and pro-imperial forces inside and outside Syria understand that a continuation of the revolt will only bring about one outcome, and it is not a democratic one....
This assessment of current Syrian events makes so much sense given everything else we know about US foreign policies in the region--both overt and covert. Apparently the US-friendly Oman ruling family's sponsorship of this media source has not yet limited the opinion pieces that they allow to be published.