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

Saturday, October 26, 2013

The Coming Grand Bargain: “We’re All Neoliberals Now”

Click here to access article by Shamus Cooke from Workers Action

The author provides an historical understanding of the class war which brought many benefits to working people who fought capitalists in factories and on the streets all across the US. 
How was the U.S. social compact formed? Like all social policy, it was a reflection of power, specifically the balance of forces between the corporate and working classes in the U.S. In the 1930s and 1940s, massive strike waves led to an ever-larger unionized workforce that repeatedly flexed its muscles by demanding living wages, health care, and other social programs.
But, as so frankly admitted by one of America's outspoken billionaires, Warren Buffet, “there’s class warfare, all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” So, now that we have lost so many battles in this war, we are now going to "suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". But, is the war over? Stay tuned, or better yet, stay active and informed.