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, October 22, 2016

“The Solution Must Hurt Capital”: an Interview with Tamás Krausz

Click here to access article from LeftEast.

This largely Balkan and eastern Europe based website features an interview with Hungarian historian Tamás Krausz who remarks on the state of the political left in Hungary. It is not an attractive picture. However, once again my attention was drawn to the importance of the control of media for propaganda purposes.
Orbán’s secret does not consist merely of the fact that he has installed an authoritarian regime that uses nationalist-populist rhetoric to blame Brussels for Hungary’s problems. .... Through his politics of concentration of power, Orbán has managed to gain control of virtually all electronic media. With an arrogance reminiscent of Goebbels, he has set about an ideological reshaping of the entire Hungarian society, and it appears that indeed the majority of Hungarian society has turned into adherents of nationalistic and xenophobic policies.
Agents of the US-led Empire and their capitalist allies everywhere are excelling at this. Compared to Empire propagandists, the worldwide left seems to be at a tremendous disadvantage; and the results do not bode well for the billions everywhere who hunger for real democracy, peace, and social justice. It seems like Empire propagandists have successfully worked their magic everywhere: Poland, Ukraine, now in Syria, and the use of propaganda by NGOs in color revolutions in other countries.