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

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Politburo uber alles

Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from OpEd News. 
The eurozone is now in fact run by an eight-member politburo. What a sterling job. This Gang of Eight is accountable to no one, except mythical Zeus with his trademark thunderbolts. In the liquid modernity era, Zeus goes by the name of the God of the Market. The only thing that matters to the Gang of Eight is what financial markets -- run by the God -- want; mere mortals, as in European voters, are at best a nuisance.

Ergo, eurozone national governments are totally meaningless. The shots are called by a troika formed by the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission (EC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). All of them gloriously unelected.
Could it be that the capitalist "politburos" really want to balkanize Europe--the better to control it? The author uses his typical sardonic writing style to suggest not only that capitalists are dropping the usual pretenses of "democratic" processes by openly using politburo-like panels to impose their interests, but may have decided to break up the European Union into something more manageable.
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