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, November 2, 2012

Occupy is the Latest Generation (Know your history)

Click here to access article by Mickey Z. from World News Trust

Along with Mickey Z. and many others I have a strong hunch that the current lull in radical political activity has a lot to do with the false history which the historians and ideologues employed by the One Percent continue to propagate. In spite of the huge growth in profits and the concentration of wealth by the One Percent and the stagnation, if not decline, of wages and benefits for the 99 Percent and the continued sinking into the quicksand of debt, there is a persistent belief among many of the latter that things will return to a mythical past if only they work and try harder. This strategy employed by the One Percent to distort our memory about history acts to dis-empower us. Mickey Z. implores us to know our true history.
A society purposefully and relentlessly conditioned by corporate propaganda is a society quite receptive to the alluring appeal of the “good old days” (GOD). Like all myths, the mere existence of the GOD illusion makes other myths easier to swallow.
If the GOD invention is accepted as accurate, the wars fought, the businesses started and subsidized, the legislation passed, the culture created, and the leaders elected during the GOD get a free ride on their coattails. We become a nation of people gazing backward for innocence lost rather than looking ahead with lessons learned.