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, May 22, 2014

Secrets, lies and Snowden's email: why I was forced to shut down Lavabit

Click here to access article by Ladar Levison from The Guardian.

A major part of the huge facade, which our capitalist master indoctrinate us into believing represents "democracy", is the rule of law. This rule of law is related to the other parts of the facade: the selection of representatives through elections, which are managed by the ruling capitalist class, to government bodies that pass the laws. Then their selected formal executive, the President, appoints the judges to preside over courts which enforce these laws. The capitalist hand is everywhere in this process of the "rule of law". Levison's experience in this "rule of law" offers a striking example of how it actually works in the real world when the interests of the ruling capitalist class are involved.
...the founder of an encrypted email startup that was supposed to insure privacy for all reveals how the FBI and the US legal system made sure we don't have the right to much privacy in the first place.