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, August 21, 2011

You can do something about the news

Click here to access article by Djelloul Marbrook from his blog.

What is particularly interesting about this article is the perspective the author, as a former newspaper editor, provides regarding the internet as a source of information and opinion. Whereas newspaper corporations are shaking in their boots over the proliferation of blogging and social media, he sees mostly positives:
I’ve contended in this space that each social networker owns his or her own newspaper. Each Facebook page is a newspaper. In the last few weeks I have scanned the web for political, cultural and literary news and ideas, posting what interests me on my Facebook pages. The response has convinced me that more information than ever before is available, and the crocodile tears about its reliability are rooted in a sense that the mainstream media have lost control of the game. They have, and they should lose control in the onrush of this more democratic and promising technology.