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, September 14, 2015

Je suis Alyan?

Click here to access article by Ghassan and Intibah Kadi posted on A bird's eye view of the Vineyard
It is not uncompassionate or inhumane to ask legitimate questions when one smells a rat, and generally speaking, when Western mainstream media are having a frenzy, there is normally a huge dead rotten rat waiting to be uncovered. It is not uncompassionate and inhumane to ask questions even when the subject matter is refugees and when human suffering is so obvious. Quite the contrary indeed, if someone is using human suffering in order to score political, or even worse, financial gain, then such a culprit should be exposed.
These are my sentiments precisely! Empire media is nothing but a branch of the ruling class and they use it to manage the consent and dissent of ordinary people in support of Empire policies. This has been demonstrated over and over again: the most recent examples were the widespread media coverage of the color revolutions in Egypt and Ukraine, and the carefully managed media reports of many "terrorist" events especially in the US and most recently in Paris.