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

Thursday, September 5, 2013

America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy

Click here to access article by Sean Ledwith from CounterFire (Britain).

Ledwith provides a review of a recently published book by William Blum, a former US State Department employee who resigned in 1967 over his opposition to the Vietnam War. Since then, unlike so many anti-Vietnam War activists, Blum has never ceased his opposition and his activism against the US Empire and its ruling capitalist class's insane drive to rule the world while pretending to be promoting "democracy" and "human rights".
His viewpoint is that such is that ideological iron grip the US ruling class has over its population that many of them might as well have been in a coma when it comes to political awareness. As he puts it, ‘the American government has pulled off what must surely rank as one of the most outstanding feats of propaganda and indoctrination in all of history’.