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, December 14, 2016

Broken Promises: The Structural Legacy of Capitalist Democracies

Click here to access article by James Petras from his website.

Unless you have been sound asleep the last eight years, I recommend that you skip many of the initial paragraphs that the retired professor of sociology devotes to a review of all the lies of Obama and the promises of President-elect Trump. Start at the sub-heading "The Structural Basis of Capitalist Democracy" to get to the real interesting part of his argument which begins as follows:
Under capitalist democracies, Presidents put on the appearance of ‘talking to real folks’ while skillfully working for the biggest capitalists and bankers.

When ‘capitalist democracy’ is under threat and discredited, the search for populist demagogues kicks in.