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

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Heroes All Around US!

Click here if you wish to access the Aloe Blacc website on which this 6:38m video was posted.
Heroes all around us! What’s in your garden? I was visiting the Community Coalition one morning in “South Los Angeles” couldn’t find a decent grocery store or restaurant for breakfast. Plenty of vacant lots full of trash but no vegetables.
For those of my readers in foreign lands, you need to know that South Central Los Angeles is one of many urban deserts in the US where people try to live, people who elites regard as throw-away or disposable people.