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

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Two Acts of Terror, Only One Investigation

Click here to access article by Dave Lindorff from CounterPunch.

The writer is very correct in pointing out a different kind of terrorism: that which derives from a tiny ruling class, the One Percent, that is addicted to profits over the safety of its citizens. And, relying on their government agencies to police their operations is like the proverbial fox guarding the hen-house. Just look at their record.

The One Percent's banking regulatory agencies totally failed to prevent the devastating (for the 99 Percent) recent economic collapse. Then afterwards, their Department of Justice have failed to prosecute any banksters for wrongdoing. Their Congress failed to stop the banksters from robbing our treasury to bail out their banks. Their food related agencies both at the state and federal level do very little to insure our food safety. Corporations are allowed to tamper with our food using the latest biotechnology without even allowing citizens to know which foods are affected. There is currently a huge problem with leaking storage tanks filled with dangerous nuclear wastes in various sites across our country, and there is no place to store it safely. Such sites are disasters waiting to happen. (For example, see this.)

However, there is one major problem with his article--it advocates the usual futile liberal remedy:
Until we Americans wake up and insist that our elected officials and the regulatory bureaucrats they appoint, actually act in the public interest and not in the interest of the moneyed corporate elite (booting out those that betray us), we will increasingly all pay the price as plants blow up or leak toxic gas, as oil and gas companies wantonly pollute our water tables with carcinogenic toxins, and as nuclear power plants dump isotopes into our environment, all in the interest of profits. [my emphasis]