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, January 28, 2013

The Great Dismal: "What we speak becomes the house we live in."

Click here to access article by Phil Rockstroh posted on Uncommon Thought Journal.

Because his writing is loaded with metaphors and obscure references, I always find his writing challenging. However, I always come away with gems of insight poignantly expressed. I was especially moved by this paragraph: 
...the fate of the earth's biosphere and its capacity to sustain human life is being subjected to an unfolding, desperate campaign -- craven as it is noxious -- in its intentions, scope, and side affects, by the elite of an arrogant order to maintain their grip on privilege and power. By propaganda and coercion, they proceed, with cult-like conviction, on a course of catastrophic folly involving a race to secure and exploit the remaining resources of our ecologically taxed planet (the only planet available to us). If their agendas remain unchecked, the biosphere will be rendered unviable to our species.