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, July 13, 2013

What’s Next for the Egyptian Revolution

Click here to access article by Shamus Cooke from Workers Action
...many pundits see only tragedy in the recent events of Egypt, rejecting any optimistic possibility. They argue that the recent events in Egypt are purely the machinations of foreign powers — again, there is evidence to partially legitimize this claim. But this analysis ignores the revolutionary X factor — the Egyptian people and the continuation of the revolution.
The author provides a different perspective on the revolutionary potential of the Egyptian people than what is widely seen across liberal and left circles in the West. Like few other people in recent memory, Egyptians are undergoing a number of revolutionary experiences that are providing them with a series of concrete lessons in real power politics in contrast to the contained and managed politics as interpreted by dumbed-down ruling class media that commonly occurs in capitalist "democracies".