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, September 19, 2015

Corbyn’s Dilemma

Click here to access article by William Bowles from Investigating the New Imperialism.

Bowles uses a play on initials throughout most of his essay to highlight the Christ-like adoration of Jeremy Corbyn, Britain's new Labor leader, who, according to his supporters, will deliver them from the evil of capitalism. 
I’m really torn writing this, for on the one hand, Jeremy Corbyn’s (JC) sudden materialisation in the midst of a rampant, Victorian-style imperialist England, like Doctor Who landing in the Tardis, it’s difficult  not to join in the euphoria currently sweeping through what’s left of the left in England...and bow down before JC, an almost Christ-like apparition right in the middle of the gangster capitalists in Armani suits who rule us. 
By initially quoting from a warning issued by an 1885 socialist activist, William Morris, he goes on to argue that this warning is as true today as it was in 1885. British political activists have since then not heeded this warning; instead they followed leaders who promised that by working within the system of capitalism they could gradually overturn it and achieve socialism.