...what made me mourn, not only for the lost innocents in my community, but for the death of the Republic, was what began on Friday 9/9....
...those continuing reports on all the mainstream networks and their cable affiliates of "CREDIBLE but UNCONFIRMED" reports of some group of "terrorists" who were coming to somewhere in NYC in some truck or other vehicle loaded with explosives of an undetermined nature to be blown up somewhere in some crowd. One couldn't get away from these reports and they became incessant.
in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
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