Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Playing Nice?

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, April 13, 2012

Playing Nice?

Click here to access article by Andrew McLemore from the Fort Worth Weekly [Texas].

The headline refers to FBI's aggressive questioning of environmental activists to make sure they were "playing nice".

The FBI has labeled ecoterrorism as the top domestic terror threat since at least 2005. That puts “highly destructive ecoterrorists” above “hate-filled white supremacists,” “violence-prone anti-government extremists,” and “radical separatist groups” — descriptions from a 2009 FBI press release on the agency’s website.

The political operatives of US capitalists are indoctrinating their enforcers to believe that environmentalists are mostly "terrorists"--today's version of the old bogyman, "commies". Clearly, as many people realize that there are severe threats to the environment by the increasing use of fossil fuels and other hazardous practices, they are becoming activists who protest against these activities. However, since capitalism cannot survive without growth from the use of relatively cheap fossil fuels, such activists are a real threat to the system. Hence, the aggressive use of FBI agents to intimidate protestors.