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

Monday, January 6, 2014

Activists accuse World Bank of deadly dealings in Honduras

Click here to access article by Kate Woodsome from GlobalPost

I get reports almost daily from independent journalists and human rights workers about raping, murdering, and pillaging by police, military, and paramilitary forces in Honduras and Guatamala to support the interests of US and Canadian corporations. I rarely see news of this reported in US media, and when it is, it is framed very carefully using words like "alleged" and "activists accuse" as we see in this headline. Nevertheless, this report is much better at providing some factual content which exposes the neoliberal role of the World Bank in service to North American corporations at the expense of Honduran farmers.