Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Kyrgyzstan’s "Rose Revolution": Washington, Moscow, Beijing and the Geopolitics of Central Asia--Part 2

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

Friday, May 28, 2010

Kyrgyzstan’s "Rose Revolution": Washington, Moscow, Beijing and the Geopolitics of Central Asia--Part 2

by F. William Engdahl from Global Research. The author is an expert on the Great Game that governing classes like to play on the world stage. Clearly the most important area of the world where this game is being played is in Eurasia. That is why the Empire has so much invested there in terms of military and political forces. Engdahl supplies the details of this game.

As you read the article, notice how all the players in this game are strategizing to gain control of the regions mineral and energy resources.

What is especially important for us ordinary people to understand from all this is that we have reached a point in human history where such games can no longer be tolerated. Human ingenuity has enabled a small section of the human population to play these games at the expense of the rest of us. We fight and die in the wars that they create. We also pay with our jobs, pensions, future opportunities of our children when their games go wrong. They don't pay, or at least, not very much--more in the nature of pocket change that they gamble with.

Likewise the environment in which we exist has become increasing threatened by their rapacious exploitation of earth's resources to the point where it appears likely that it will be unable to continue to support human and other life forms if the damage continues. As I and many others see it, there is really no alternative for us than to begin to replace this domineering rule by elites with rule by us--we, the people, of the earth.

If you take the long view of human history, this would not really be such a startling change. The feudal and industrial phases where elites have ruled constitute only a very small period in this long history--less than 2% for the history of most of humanity. For most of human history humans governed their affairs in a highly participatory manner with the welfare of all being very important for survival. We must return to this kind of arrangement.

Of course, we can't exactly duplicate earlier participatory arrangements because we live in a very different world. But we must, if we are to survive, re-design our societies to eliminate rule by minorities who exploit the rest of us and the earth to serve their addictions to power and wealth.