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

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Progressives and the Democratic Party, pt 2 (11:10m video)

from The Real News Network, an insightful interview with Jeff Cohen. Also you may want to listen to part 1 of this interview. 

Here in part 2, Cohen traces some governing class's reaction to the gains made by progressive forces during the disastrous Vietnam War. After this turbulent period the capitalist class launched a much more aggressive campaign against working people while promoting their class interests of profit, power, and privilege. 

What most people fail to understand in the US is that the two capitalist parties, Republican and Democratic, only represent, at most, different strategies to promote the interests of those who "own" the economy--the ruling class. At the very least, the two parties are designed to promote the false idea that people have real choices and that the US has a democratic system. Until ordinary people pierce the veil of these false ruling class ideas and realize that the economy is a legacy of technology and wealth inherited from previous generations of working people, nothing will change for the benefit of working people. Working people create all wealth. Capitalism is a criminal system devised to steal the wealth created by working people. In other words, capitalism is organized crime.