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, December 6, 2011

System, not consumers, the big green problem

Click here to access article by Simon Butler from Green Left (Australia).

This essay appears to be a rebuttal to, and a critique of, Ted Trainer's comments from an earlier interview carried in Green Left in which he declared that “the main problem group is not the corporations or the capitalist class … The problem group, the key to transition, is people in general.”