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

Monday, July 23, 2012

Can we talk? In a meaningful way, that is…

Click here to access article by Cecile Andrews from Seattle City Living via Energy Bulletin. 

In the fragmented, alienated societies we now live in, mainstream media owned by the One Percent has played a major role in substituting their communications for person-to-person communications that previously had been a main feature of community life. By describing an ordinary conversation she had with local workers, this author from my Seattle area explains that right-wing media has largely replaced these communal communications with communications crafted by corporations to separate and divide us. This has resulted in something like artificial communities under the control of corporations that has fractured organic communities across the country.