This weekend, thirty seconds of video surfaced in which veteran DC reporter Helen Thomas, in a snippet of an informal interview, is asked about her views on Israel. In the uproar that’s followed, the 89-year-old Thomas has announced her retirement, ending a career that spans back to President Eisenhower and opening a literal front-row seat to Fox News.I
in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
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