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

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Why the US doesn't talk to Iran

by Ismael Hossein-zadeh and Karla Hansen from Asia Times.

...US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East, is driven not so much by broad national interests as they are by narrow but powerful special interests - interests that seem to prefer war and militarism to peace and international understanding. These are the nefarious interests that are vested in military industries and related "security" businesses, notoriously known as the military-industrial complex. These beneficiaries of war dividends would not be able to justify their lion's share of our tax dollars without "external enemies" or "threats to our national interests."
The imperial drive of the Empire is not only driven by the narrow economic interests of the military-industrial complex, but also the whole capitalist enterprise that feeds the One Percent's addiction to profits by securing their access to resources, markets, and cheap labor. Yes, it's profits über alles--über peace, über stable communities, über sustainable economies, über a stable climate.

The military-industrial complex serves as the goon squad for the One Percent. They, like their Mafia counterparts, go around "breaking the legs" of those nations that refuse to cooperate with the criminal operations of the capitalist Empire.