Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Five Things American Youth Will Do To Change the World in 2012

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, March 9, 2012

Five Things American Youth Will Do To Change the World in 2012

Click here to access article by Mikayla McDonald from John Perkins.Org.

Youth in America is objectified and sold as a product. Its materiality is assigned incredible monetary value. Yet the intangible merits of youth – its passion, its energy, its idealism, its creativity – are dangerous to the status quo, and we are therefore repressed whenever our rebellious acts move past “cute” or “iconic”. We are one of the most manipulated populations in the United States: our forms are idealized while our mental attributes are belittled and devalued.