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

Sunday, March 27, 2016

A Crisis With No Capitalist Way Out

Click here to access this book review by Ron Jacobs from CounterPunch.

Jacobs reviews a new book by John Smith (I wonder if this is a real name or a pseudonym) entitled Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century.
The world is in crisis.  Capitalism, currently the only economic system in existence, is the cause of this crisis.  It is a crisis that impoverishes millions more every year while enhancing the wealth of the rarefied few who conspire with politicians to make it so.  It is a crisis that manifests itself in endless and meaningless wars.  It is a crisis that dismantles schools, hospitals, roads, and other infrastructure in the name of private profit.  Most ominously, it is a crisis which diminishes the health of the earth’s ecosystem, undoing an already fragile environment in order to squeeze meaningless dollars from that which gives all earthly species life.

This is the premise of John Smith’s newly-published work....