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

Friday, October 5, 2012

More Than Skin Deep

Click here to access article by David Glenn Cox from OpEdNews. 

The author provides some concrete examples to illustrate how banksters and corporate officers are continuing their creative ways of milking the wealth produced by working people, but nowadays it is with the direct collusion of the government. 
The bank forecloses on a family and throws them out into the
street and your government goes into a partnership deal and guarantees a
profit to the bank.
If you closely examine this author's statement, you will find that it contains one major error, an error which is a deception commonly used by One Percent propagandists. It is not "your government"! In spite of their periodic election charades designed to dupe you into thinking that you have a real choice, it is the government of, by, and for the One Percent. Thus, how could one expect it to function any differently than it has?

It is very useful to know the meaning of his reference to the film Soylent Green. I don't think I ever saw the film, although I am familiar with its general theme. This time I was particularly impressed with the fact that it was released in 1973. 

Once again, this fact is another piece of evidence which proves that forty years ago many people were clearly aware of where society was heading due to the exhaustion of resources, particularly easily accessed fossil fuels, and over-population. What most of these people didn't understand at that time is that capitalism requires constant growth. What they also didn't understand is that the system skews the distribution of wealth to a small minority with the vast majority living in poverty. The latter are forced to have large families as a way to insure their survival into old age. For many, large families are their social security. Thus, such developments that the film foresaw are inevitable as long as we are plagued with this system.