Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Beware: Widespread Mission Creep Underway in Libya

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

Friday, April 1, 2011

Beware: Widespread Mission Creep Underway in Libya

by Joshua Holland from AlterNet.

It's rather startling, even to a cynic like me, at the rapid pace which the ruling class is proceeding in changing this Libyan adventure from a humanitarian mission.

Consider the bait-and-switch. The U.S. role in the intervention was sold to the American people as a very limited one: we'd help enforce a no-fly zone. In his speech on Monday, Obama said that "broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake."

But now in fact, it is "regime change". And that, of course, means change to a regime that promotes "our national interest". Which, of course, means the interest of the capitalist ruling classes who rule the Empire.