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

Monday, August 1, 2011

The US debt ceiling deal

Click here to access article by Patrick Martin from World Socialist Web Site. 

This author provides the gruesome details of the current class war on US citizens that are largely missing from mainstream media.
The initial impact of the cuts will be on the social infrastructure of education, public housing, mass transportation and environmental protection, as well as the Medicaid program for the poor, disabled and blind. In the longer term—in other words, as soon as the 2012 elections are safely past—the cuts will begin to be felt by the more than 50 million elderly covered by Medicare.