Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Jailed for Marching in Oakland: What it means for you and your children.

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, February 1, 2012

Jailed for Marching in Oakland: What it means for you and your children.

Click here to access article by Beth Seligman from East Bay (Oakland, CA, USA).

Here is a snapshot of the ongoing class war being waged by Occupiers in Oakland, California. You will see the naked fist of capitalist fascism applied to crush dissent, brutalize and intimidate any who oppose the One Percent's rule of society.

Will the rest of us cower, return to our homes, turn on the boob tube, let our minds go back to sleep, and fail this challenge that previous generations faced and fought in the name of social justice (the Populist Movement, union organizing activists of the 1930s, Women's Suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam Anti-war Movement, etc? Okay, so they didn't overturn the exploitative system of capitalism, but they achieved many social gains that we have enjoyed and that are now being threatened.

However, now there is much more at stake. Capitalism with its addiction to profits, growth in production and consumption is now coming up against the limits of a finite planet. Those who rule over, and benefit from, this system have no compunctions about using their vast instruments of violence to take what they want from others, even from their own citizens, in order to feed their addiction. Now there is so much more to fight for: not only social justice, not only a dignified existence for the 99 Percent, but a planet that can sustain human life.