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, June 20, 2012

Democracy and Universal Values Or, Something Like That

Click here to access article from Bear Canada (China).

I have just discovered this article and website. While perusing the website, I found a number of interesting articles many of which are re-framing world issues from a Chinese point of view and often done so in a very amusing way. Frequently I found myself bursting out in laughter. Although I could find no "About" section to indicate where it is based, there is much evidence that the website is based in Shanghai, China. Possibly it is a website of someone from China who is presently located abroad.

As I mentioned, there are so many interesting and amusing articles here, but I will am posting this one because it was the first I discovered. It represents an effort to deconstruct American exceptionalism. There are many other similar articles on this site, and many which present an interesting Chinese point of view on world issues. One can learn much from foreign views that rarely, if ever, make it into US media.