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 LappĂ©, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Zombies, vampires and capitalism

Click here to access article by Margaret Kimberley from Intrepid Report.

The author examines Hollywood's mass production of films depicting blood-sucking, devouring creatures and finds that they are providing an escapist substitute for the inability of most Americans to understand the economic crises that are tormenting them. Most do not see their problems as a system problem.
...millions of people resort to frightening themselves on the big or small screen to make sense of their experiences. We can grasp a frightening world where characters must escape from gruesome deaths, because we are living those experiences on a daily basis.

Americans are not only becoming increasingly impoverished but they are also deeply delusional about the true nature of their insecurity. They still have faith in a system which will inevitably fail them, and ignorance of that fact makes for insanity of various kinds. The conscious mind says that if we have a different president, we may escape from a rotten, and completely broken system.