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
Monday, February 24, 2014
US non-interferences in the affairs of Ukraine and Venezuela
"The more things change, the more they stay the same." You thought along with most other people that the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union would usher in an era of peace. Of course, the Soviet Union posed a deeper threat to capitalist elites because it offered another form of a ruling class which did not permit direct private ownership of the economy. However, as you can see, the Cold War was much more about dominance between ruling classes.
Now what we are seeing is the winner of that contest becoming even much more aggressive in pursuit of world domination. This writer suggests in the last paragraph that the US Empire may be overreaching in its latest subversive actions in Ukraine and Venezuela. I go even further: I think that this aggressiveness is creating a very dangerous world.
Such contests continue to threaten humanity with never-ending wars, even nuclear annihilation. As long as human beings permit ruling classes to exist, we will never rid the world of these threats. And, with nuclear weapons that now exist in many parts of the world, it seems to me that the threat of a nuclear holocaust grows ever worse.