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

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Those Reuters Sources

Click here to access article by Bernhard from Moon of Alabama

The author provides an excellent illustration of how mainstream news services violate basic standards of journalism by providing news items from government sources that cannot be verified. 

Could it be that both mainstream media corporations and the government are owned and controlled by the same One Percent ruling class? Could it be that big media serves primarily as propaganda organs of the ruling class to manage the consent and dissent of citizens? Thus when citizens informed by such media go to the polls on election day to vote on candidates selected by capitalist controlled political parties and funded by industrial and financial institutions, can we believe that we are participating in a meaningful democracy?