Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Earth Day and the Real Inconvenient Truth

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

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Earth Day and the Real Inconvenient Truth

from Shareable.

This economic system is cordoned off from citizens like a celebrity. It's coddled. It shoplifts. It has bodyguards. It's addicted not to coke, but to growth. It gets drunk and crashes not cars, but entire economies. We’re excluded from the political process to the degree that we have no more chance of having a real impact than of getting lunch with Lady Gaga.

With the crowds, celebrity worship, token acts, and all the ecofabulous crap being showcased, Earth Day reproduces consumer culture faithfully in all its boring glory. And in the process does little for, if not undermines, the citizenship needed to care for each other and the earth.