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, March 31, 2011

A Scandal [4:38m video]

Sen. Bernie Sanders giving the corporations hell in the US Senate

He is one of the few people in Congress who really care about social justice in the US. The only problem is that he is a social democrat. He believes that capitalism can be regulated with a dash of social welfare thrown in despite all that has been happening during the past 40 years: the dismantling of social supports while corporations have grown like a cancer that has pretty much taken over the body politic.