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, April 19, 2012

Anarchy 101

Click here to access article by Bob Black from Eagainst. (A re-publication from The Anarchist Library.) 

A very good description of anarchism. The main problem I have with it is his view of "democracy": it is a distorted form known to much of the world as "bourgeois democracy" or as "representative democracy". Essentially they are referring to the capitalist form of electoral democracy designed to fool ordinary people into thinking that it is the real thing. It's a semantics issue among many on the left.