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

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The International Unemployment Day

from The Economic Populist. The author contrasts the Tea Party activists of today with activists in the 1930s.
...you have to wonder if these people [Tea Party activists] know ANYTHING at all about how their unemployment insurance and social security checks came into being. I'm only guessing, but I bet they probably believe that the federal government "imposed" these new laws on the people of America. The idea that the federal government fought the concepts tooth and nail, and were forced by a nationwide grassroots movement to approve it, is probably not something that has occurred to these people.
Of course, the Tea Party activists are not from the organic grass roots--they were created by Fox News Corp. Yes, corporations are clever enough nowadays to create their own activists by exploiting the misery of working people whose minds are controlled by the TV set.  Fortunately for working people of the 1930s, TV didn't exist. The ruling class had radio stations and newspapers, of course, but nothing that had the power of TV to fill the minds of working people with distractions and disinformation. On the other hand, we have the internet.
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