Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The mask of our democracy is falling:” A letter from Brazil

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

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

The mask of our democracy is falling:” A letter from Brazil

Click here to access the letter by Franco A., a Brazilian student posted on Truth is Beaver (France), following which is an interview with another Brazilian student in France.

You may have recently noticed news about civil protests in Brazil--that Wall Street-celebrated rising capitalist country. In this article, which is actually a letter to this French group who maintain the website, the Brazilian writer gives his version of what is happening. It seems very similar, although with Brazilian characteristics, to what is happening in many other parts of the globe where citizens are infuriated by their local capitalist elites whose policies and actions are clearly revealing the appearance of class war.

This is happening precisely because capitalist ruling classes all over the world are being confronted by planetary limits to exploitation, and now see the necessity of stealing from the poor, and even the middle class. Running out of opportunities to exploit nature's gifts, the parasite of capitalism is now feeding more aggressively on its host--society.