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, March 3, 2012

Saudi Arabia’s Free Pass

Click here to access article by Serge Halimi from Le Monde Diplomatique.

Nothing reveals more about the hypocrisy of the One Percent's media than they way write reports about Saudi Arabia compared to countries like Syria, Iran or Libya under Gaddafi. Because there is nothing good to say about Saudi Arabia, mainstream media simply report nothing unless it's about oil supplies. (Here is a rare exception that probably got no further than the NY Times.) After all, Saudi Arabia supplies the One Percent with its drug of choice--fossil fuels.
Saudi Arabia’s record is no better than Iran’s when it comes to respect for human rights. Yet the international community always manages to overlook the Wahhabi monarchy. Could this be connected with Saudi Arabia’s status as top oil-producing country and trusted ally of the US? Saudi Arabia can intervene in Bahrain, crush democratic protests there, execute 76 people in 2011 (including a woman accused of “sorcery”), threaten to execute a blogger who posted an imaginary conversation with the Prophet on Twitter, sentence thieves to amputation, announce that rape, sodomy, adultery, homosexuality, drug trafficking and apostasy are to carry the death penalty, and nobody except the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights seems to care.