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

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Posts that I especially recommend today: Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020

  • Trump Isn't the Worst President, But He is the Most American by Nicky Reid from his weblog Exile in Happy Valley. (My reaction: Like Reid, I can't tell which is the worst candidate for president. However, I haven't voted for president and other candidates for federal offices since the late sixties when the Deep State of the ruling class assassinated so many people who opposed the direction the country was going. I think that this practice illustrates that elections don't matter in capitalist nations that pretend to be "democracies".)
  • This is powerful by Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 ~ 2018 RIP) from Adbusters (based in Canada).
  • Liberalism: the two-faced tyranny of wealth from Organic Radicals (based in Seattle, but international). (My reaction: "Liberalism", as used here and by most non-Americans, is used as a synonym for capitalism. Actually it is the ideology which tries to sell the system of capitalism as the best system.)
  • Record High Greenland Ice Sheet Melt by Paul Beckwith from his weblog. (Note: I've had difficulty accessing his article for the past several weeks. I found that copying the address of his website and pasting it in another tab most helpful.)