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, March 12, 2011

Inching Towards Intervention

by Graham Usher from Al-Ahram. 

This writer provides a much broader view of Libyan events than what mainstream media in the US reports as "news".
Libya is a media as well as a ground war. Diplomats admit one of the reasons the council has moved with such unwonted speed against the Gaddafi regime is less because of verifiable events than because of domestic pressure on governments fed on media reports that describe skirmishes as "battles" and moments of armed violence as "massacres".
Of course, Western governments and mainstream media represent precisely the same interests, and are presently busy preparing their populations for intervention in Libya.
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