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, June 22, 2013

Shhh! Let's have an international trade meeting and not tell anyone

Click here to access article by Curt Petrovich from Canadian Broadcasting Company.  

Even this mainstream Canadian TV and radio broadcasting company has qualms about the secrecy surrounding Trans-Pacific Partnership meetings. Their recent meetings held in Vancouver, British Columbia were so secret that activists were unable to find the location to hold a teach-in nearby.
...the three-day negotiating session of the TPP that was held in Vancouver recently. And which the federal government had no intention of even mentioning until it was leaked, after the fact, by news media in Peru.
Well, at least that is better coverage than what you find in the US where such meetings are rarely, if ever, mentioned in mainstream media.