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

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Tech Companies And Their Love Affair With NSA and CIA

Click here to access article by Wolf Richter from his blog Testosterone Pit.

Hey guys! Surveillance is good for the economy, good for jobs, and protects us! Or so our One Percent masters would have us believe.
Surveillance of billions of people around the world, grabbing their data, all their data, every last bit, where they went to dinner, who they met there, what they ate, and who they ended up spending the night with – if both have a smartphone – is hard work. But it’s the bread and butter of an entire US industry, a vibrant one that is hiring and creating jobs, with lots of startups, and with companies like Google and Facebook that are loaded with money and can buy some of these startups for eye-popping amounts, in cool laid-back places like San Francisco and Silicon Valley, or in Boston, or anywhere.