Price rises are provoking revolt in yet another country. This time, it is Indonesia, the price hike concerns fuel, and the revolt takes the form of rallies and strike action. The unfolding events in Indonesia can be seen as just a new round in a series of workers’ struggles for better living standards, against a state and a capitalist class that tries to make profits by keeping wages as low as possible, by destroying the forest and undermining the livelihoods of the people.Meanwhile, German protestors are joining the continuing protests in Turkey.
in the time remaining, to help us understand how the man-made system of capitalism will lead to the extinction of our human species, and so many others.
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