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 20, 2014

Final Solutions: Human nature, Capitalism, and Genocide

Click here to access this review (reviewer is Neil Faulkner) of a new book by the above title authored by Sabby Sagall posted on CounterFire (Britain).
Sabby Sagall, a former senior lecturer in sociology at the University of East London and a lifelong revolutionary activist, was prompted to write Final Solutions by the approaching sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in 2005. He was persuaded to expand the remit to genocide in general, and the result, seven years in the writing, is a comprehensive survey of relevant Marxist and Freudian theories along with four excellent case-studies covering the Native American, Armenian, Nazi, and Rwandan Holocausts.
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