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
Thursday, October 10, 2013
What National Debt? US Taxpayer Dollars Continue to Flow to the World’s Despots, Torturers & Human Target Practice Fields …
This is a rant, but a rant born of frustration from an informed person who has put so much of her life into exposing the truth about our deceptive and thoroughly corrupted government. She could be enjoying a life of blissful leisure, instead like Sisyphus she keeps on toiling up the proverbial mountain desperately trying to move the boulder of complacency and ignorance up to the summit of light.
In this piece she points to where our ruling class lawmakers should be looking to cut back on expenditures: expenditures that kill, maim, and torture people, ordinary people like ourselves except that most of them happen to live in foreign lands. But, of course, the lawmakers are employed to watch out for their One Percent employers' interests--not our interests such as maintaining a decent lifestyle, educating our kids, supporting ourselves in retirement, securing adequate health care, etc. All of our interests are now under attack. The directors of the One Percent are using the scare tactic of a government shutdown to get us to accept these attacks.
Meanwhile, far too many of us refuse to ask important questions and look for alternative sources of information; and instead, insist on maintaining the comfort of conformity to the views of the authorities. Too many of us are such good little Germans.
I can identify with her frustration because I deal with it myself nearly everyday.