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

Monday, March 19, 2012

The ICNC Role in the Arab Spring

Click here to access article by Stuart Bramhall from her blog The Most Revolutionary Act. 
(This is the last of five posts about the American godfather of nonviolent resistance, Gene Sharp, and the role of CIA and Pentagon-funded foundations and think tanks in funding and promoting nonviolent resistance)
There is much food for thought in this piece, specifically about the extent of US manipulation of events in the MENA region. My own view is that the insurrections began spontaneously, but were quickly infiltrated and influenced by political operatives of the Empire. I can't believe that they were instigated by the operatives. But, clearly these operatives have been behind all the other "color revolutions" on states bordering the Empire that had some level of discontent to build on: Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine, Libya, etc, and now in Syria.