Surviving Capitalism (Not) : An American Fall

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

Thursday, October 13, 2011

An American Fall

Click here to access article by Steven Fake from ZNet.

This lengthy article provides a good overview of the Wall Street protests and their current impact on all segments of US society.

I found the description of how mainstream media (in the "Media Propaganda section) attempts to shape their coverage to de-legitimatize the movement particularly useful. The author also correctly pointed out that the business press has been covering the events much more "sympathetically", and I would say, more accurately. Why do you think this is?

Because the "business press", or as I would say, the ruling class press, is not directed toward mainstream society, but to its constituents, the ruling class and its supporters. Hence, it is much less contaminated by self-serving political propaganda. This class needs accurate information in order to secure itself from any outside threats. This does not mean that their information is always accurate because their material interests and values all reduce their ability to see the significance of what is happening in the real world.

I have a minor complaint to make regarding one of his comments:

One can only hope that the use of consensus does not become a road block – consensus is a nice goal to aim for in any group decision-making, but it should rarely be a rigid requirement and can sometimes act as an impediment to timely or democratic results.

This adds some confusion to what consensus is, and the function it serves. Most activists have gone far beyond the notion that consensus means 100% agreement. It can be any percentage beyond majority rule. Consensus is only another tool to insure that everyone has an equal opportunity to influence decisions. It is critically important that everyone feels that the structure under which decisions are made is fair, that the structure itself was an outcome of equitable participation, and that there is a participatory way of changing or modifying the structure. Activists completely reject all the fake democratic processes of formal political decision making as now exists in Western societies.