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

A Union of Capital

from New Left Project. The article features an interview with a Dutch socialist who explains how European capitalist elites have hyjacked any element of democratic process to rule over European economy--in their interests, of course.
...it involves a process of ‘depoliticisation’. So the decision to make Greece’s workers pay the bills run up by the tax-dodging rich and their allies in Wall Street ceases to be seen as a vicious attack on the working class and comes to be defined as an unavoidable policy based on technical details beyond the understanding of mortal man or woman.