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

Monday, December 26, 2011

A Doomsday View of 2012

Click here to access article by James Petras from Counter Currents. 

The retired Professor Emeritus offers his predictions for the coming year. They ain't pretty, folks, but as his last paragraph suggests, sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better. As the anti-social tendencies of capitalism develop into their nightmarish endgames, there exists the possibility that a sufficient number of us will finally get off our asses and do something about changing the social-economic system into one that is life affirming.