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

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

The Empire Files: Examining the Syria War Chessboard

Click here if you wish to access this 23:31m video interview with Vijay Prasad directly from TeleSur.
The war in Syria is an unparalleled crisis. It has gone far beyond an internal political struggle, and is marked by a complex array of forces that the U.S. Empire hopes to command: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and more. To simplify this web of enemies and friends, Abby Martin interviews Dr. Vijay Prashad, professor of International Studies at Trinity College and author of several books.
What I really like about his commentary is the underlying thesis he develops about the illegitimacy of violent force used by the Empire, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to enforce their interests on the Middle East but which ultimately undermines all such attempts and ends in the chaos we see today. But this creation of chaos may be, as many others including myself have argued (simply enter "chaos" or "Salvador option" in one of my search boxes), in the interests of the Empire and intended by them. Pepe Escobar even refers to the Empire as the "Empire of Chaos".
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