Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Jump Starting the First Amendment

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, July 10, 2010

Jump Starting the First Amendment

from Counterpunch.

The tired argument that the suspension of a free press and/or free speech is sometimes necessary in the name of national security is quickly exposed as little more than a mask for the true underlying motive which is not national security, but national greed.

With reference to the last "national" in this quote, I think it would be more accurate to replace it with "ruling class", or better yet, replace "national greed" with "ruling class security". Whenever a document such as a constitution gets in the way of what a ruling class wants to do, they simply ignore or work around it. Hence, there is no point in expressing moral outrage over such commonplace events as this unless it is to demonstrate the real nature of class governance.

Liberal writers such as this cannot envision a thoroughly democratic society, and therefore, a classless society such as we would have under Inclusive Democracy and the other alternatives listed on this blog.