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, April 9, 2012

To Undo the Folded Lie: Resisting Palliatives in an Age of Oligarchic Excess and Anthropocene Age Devastation

Click here to access article by Phil Rockstroh from Dissident Voice.

This highly skilled wordsmith uses some unusual metaphors and concepts which had me going to Answer.com and re-reading parts until I fully understood their profound messages. It was worth it. The author has some words of advice for those of us that are totally aware of living in the midst of societal disintegration caused by the death throes of capitalism--it is a time of peril and promise. He concludes the essay with this positive advice:
...construct within yourself an authentic inner structure, as outwardly you do your part to help imagine and to create new political and cultural models. In short, act as if the inevitable collapse has already occurred.