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, June 16, 2013

Clarity in Wealth

Click here to access article by Michael Barker from his blog Thoughts of a Leicester Socialist

The author describes how the British self-help gurus are doing a booming business serving Britain's rich in order to help them cope with their conflicted and empty lives.
With the ongoing crisis of capitalism, corporate and political elites are now flocking to self-help consultants (like Smart and his friends) in a desperate bid to bring meaning to their otherwise predatory and destructive lives. In turn, in exchange for thousands of pounds, Smart and his congenial colleagues then help the ruling class feel good (or better) about leaching off the rest of society: while the corporate media preach confusion to the rest of us, misinforming us that the solutions to our very real problems actually lie within ourselves, and not within anything silly like socialism.
These practitioners also seem to be doing well in the US judging by all the many programs in which they are featured on PBS--the US government mandated TV network devoted to information and cultural programs designed by and for the One Percent. And, for all those working wage slaves and unemployed, there is an abundance of TV programs on corporate media that provides them with religious gurus that essentially function the same way: keeping the masses thinking that the many problems they experience living in a capitalist society lie only within themselves, and the solutions likewise.