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, September 29, 2014

The TTIP Trojan horse: Selling Out Europe To US Corporate Plunder

Click here to access article by Colin Todhunter from his blog East by Northwest.
Do people in Europe want the likes of Monsanto determining policies in secretive meetings in Brussels?

Would they like Unilever, Kraft or Nestle determining what is allowed in their food? Do they want big business removing or weakening health and safety standards and undermining consumer and workers’ rights?

In other words, do they want their parliaments to be sidelined by powerful corporations that determine policies behind closed doors with bureaucrats and officials in Brussels?
The directors of the Empire are only doing what all such directors of empires do: consolidating the wealth of their subsidiary regions to serve the center of the empire. This is the result of the integration of European states into the US Empire since WWII which the working people of Europe failed to prevent. It is little late now to complain of this arrangement, but hopefully not too late to change it.