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, October 29, 2011

Someone Got Rich and Someone Got Sick

Click here to access article by Chip Ward from TomDispatch. (As usual at this website, you will need to scroll down to the article.)

This writer does what I often try to do: link the degradation of people with the degradation of the environment by the same system of capitalism which turns everything into a commodity to be bought, sold, rented, exploited to satisfy the addiction of the 1% to wealth and power.
The fact is: we won’t free ourselves from a dysfunctional and unfair economic order until we begin to see ourselves as communities, not commodities.  That is one clear message from Zuccotti Park.
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