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

Monday, December 27, 2010

The Dream Of Democracy

by Ralph J Dolan from Global Research

This Vietnam veteran sees the existing problems as due to a "global ruling class", but, so far, does not see this class in relation to a system. Hence, in his view, only the class needs to be changed. This is about as far left as progressives in this country have gone. Most do not yet see the underlying system upon which the ruling class is constructed. Still, after so many years of believing in democratic fairy tales, this represents progress among progressives in the US.
Asserting that a totalitarian political and economic ideology still dominates our world suggests that there exists a ruling class.  How can it be denied?  From country to country one sees ruling families, juntas, crony capitalism, brutal regimes, fat oligarchs amidst vast squalor, domination of the political and economic mechanisms by small, wealthy, entrenched, ruthless, privileged groups.

This is the global ruling class.  They are an elite club.  They look out for each others' political and economic interests.  They lead double lives.  They are all double agents.  They pretend to serve one master but actually serve an entirely different master.  They wear masks.  In public they sing of the glories of the idea of democratic governance, of the march toward the liberation of the human race from tyranny and oppression.  In private they ridicule such notions, despise the people and seek to manipulate the dumb masses to augment their own power, wealth and prestige.
Likewise, looking at only the prospect of removing the ruling class leaves us only with the prospect of a new ruling class.
It is true that in this vulnerable time some new tyrant may come and take the place of the old tyrant.
This concerns me. I fear the possibilities that exist if progressives in the US fail to move beyond this type of thinking. When people become desperate for change, they may go in any direction to achieve it--much like what happened during the Wiemar Republic in Germany in the 1930s.