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, January 16, 2011

Israel’s right-wing future

by Lawrence Davidson from Redress
Lawrence Davidson analyses the growth of fascism in Israel, arguing that this process “did not begin ... with 1967 and the taking of the occupied territories. It did not even begin in 1917 and the Balfour Declaration. It began with the very inception of Zionism.”