Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Why we are marching in Paris on September 17

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

Friday, September 16, 2011

Why we are marching in Paris on September 17

Click here to access article by Jérôme E. Roos from RoarMag.

We are mobilizing on September 17 because we know that the total cost of saving the US banking sector was higher than the total cost of WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the New Deal, the Marshall Plan and the Apollo Project, all added together and adjusted for inflation; and we know that the people are now being made to pay for that through years and years of austerity measures — while the bankers themselves are getting away unscathed.

There are many links to information about the role banks have played in the economic collapse and the way they have with impunity looked to taxpayers to bail them out and to provide them with cheap money to gamble with again. I have been covering this scene with in-depth articles for nearly the past two years. Such information informs the anger toward the mega-banks against which the protests are directed.

As I see it, such protests are long overdue in the US, but better late than never.