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

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Reports: Obama pushing for cuts to Social Security, Medicare

Click here to access article by Glenn Greenwald from Salon. 

The author, once again, provides a corrective to the narratives spun by mainstream media's portrayal of the US budget crisis. 
For months, the standard narrative among progressive commentators was that Republicans were outrageously exploiting the debt ceiling deadline to impose drastic entitlement cuts on a resisting and victimized Democratic President (he's weak in negotiations!), but...the driving force behind these cuts is the President himself, who is pushing for even larger spending cuts than the GOP was ready to accept....
This is another illustration of the "good cop, bad cop" theme that mainstream media likes to use to confuse ordinary Americans.