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

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

MSNBC Dylan Ratigan show [9:27m video]

In this show's episode we see the host leading a discussion with David DeGraw of Amped Status and William Black, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri and a former prosecutor of miscreants during the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980s

I post this to illustrate how the liberal wing of ruling class media is attempting to confine the significance of the Occupy Wall Street movement within "acceptable" limits of discussion. They do this by supplying ample doses of outrageous sentiment combined with framing the issues as simply criminal behavior that needs to be prosecuted. They refuse to see such behavior as an integral part of a system which rewards a few people with so much wealth and power. Thus, they don't want you to see that the solution is systemic. Instead, they want to divert attention away from such an insight onto simple criminal behavior that needs to be prosecuted.