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

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Imperial Elections

Click here to access article by Gilbert Mercier and Dady Chery from News Junkie Post

I congratulate the authors on this very literate exposé of the current president primary elections as political theater. Referring to Hillary Clinton, they write:
It was her turn. Somewhere a few wise men had decided this. The only problem was a logistical one. It was the perennial dilemma of legitimizing and celebrating this choice with a staged plebiscite. In a lame-duck season, inciting wars, chasing bogeymen, aiming at fake targets, and making victory speeches was not option. Furthermore, though the voters were not consciously aware of this, deep in their hearts they knew that she was the anointed one, and that the smoke of Rome would rise for her in the form of blue and red balloons. Therefore a year-long circus would have to be designed to turn a mirage into reality, to persuade the voters that cotton candy is a nutritious meal and that the clowns, the dancing elephants, and every act would inexorably lead to her grand finale high-wire act. Politics as spectacle would reach its apogee.
Few people on the left are covering these primaries as the carefully staged circus they are. While I admire and envy the writing of these authors (see also a previous piece entitled "The Fake Left"), I worry that the high level of sophistication of this piece will pass over the heads of more ordinary readers; and because of this, the article will likely not be re-posted on other websites whose audiences are less sophisticated. Instead our attention is diverted by the fake left into interpreting these elections at face value. Is there no real left left in America? Perhaps the authors are right in the view they expressed in "The Fake Left" article.
All writers with a desire to rattle people out of their torpor occasionally wonder if it is worthwhile to continue to try to raise their voices over the din of lies and distractions. More and more for us, such thoughts are occasioned, not by the mainstream, which predictably treats all the pronouncements from the powerful as being newsworthy, but by the fake left, which lobotomizes most of whom it touches. The increasing sophistication of this group and its rate of expansion are astounding. Its purpose is to annihilate and replace the real left, and it is making great strides in this regard.