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

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Bernie, Bakken, and Electoral Delusion: Letting Rich Guys Ruin Iowa and the World

Click here to access article by Paul Street from CounterPunch.

Street exposes the shallowness of the "Bernie" campaign which has played the American left-liberal activists for fools. The level of political consciousness and maturity of American activist has slowly and steadily deteriorated over many decades since the 1930s when activists really challenged the ruling class. 

Our masters are very clever. After WWII during the McCarthy period they purged the left of any true radicals from every institution, refilled them with "right-thinking" people. Then they went on to concentrate media and entertainment into the hands of a few who loyally served the capitalist class by feeding the public with information to dumb down, distract, and divert attention away from real issues to phony ones, and managed elections so that only people suited to serve them could win. As a result most Americans nowadays have the political consciousness of eight year old kids who, inspired by comic book heroes, look passively to political heroes to deliver them from evil. (Sorry for the sarcasm--I'm in a bad mood today.)