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 2, 2011

Beyond Golf, Gentlemanly Ways President Obama Can Court the Rich

Click here to access article by Jamie Johnson from Vanity Fair. 

Here Johnson makes the point that pleasing the ruling class ("patrician class") is very important in order to attain and keep an influential position in their fake democracy.
Pundits in Washington have characterized President Obama’s decision to participate in a bipartisan “Golf Summit,” a friendly round of 18 holes that included Vice President Biden and Republicans John Boehner and John Kasich, as a conciliatory effort to reach across the aisle and embrace congressional opponents. But what if the president had an even more strategic political goal in mind? It’s possible that the carefully staged outing was designed not only to present him as a fair-minded, bipartisan leader but to remind rich campaign contributors that he’s a fan of upper-class pursuits, too.