Surviving Capitalism (Not) : 200,000 Climate Protesters Won’t Stop Corporate Agenda at UN Summit

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

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

200,000 Climate Protesters Won’t Stop Corporate Agenda at UN Summit

Click here to access article by Nick Fillmore from Common Dreams.

I don't think that political protests, by themselves, have ever conclusively proven that they can stop the ruling capitalist class from doing what they want to do--enhance profit and power opportunities for their class. Appealing to hard-core members who make up the real decision-makers of capitalist classes that are limited to moral or rational arguments will accomplish nothing. That is because these people are thoroughly addicted to the drugs of power and wealth which their system of capitalism delivers to them.

It will now take a global effort by the rest of humanity to save themselves from these drugged-out, suicidal ruling classes. Protests can be a part of this effort by raising consciousness among the world's Ninety-Nine Percent about the dreadful consequences of resigning ourselves to further capitalist mauling of our planet, and thereby promote grassroots actions to overthrow the rule of capitalist elites and replace their suicidal system with a sustainable system.

(In addition to arguments and links presented by Fillmore against capitalists' favorite method of carbon pricing to pretend they are dealing effectively with climate destabilization, I recommend additional sources such as this, this, and this.)