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, September 21, 2014

Like a Dull Knife: The People’s Climate “Farce”

Click here to access article by Quincy Saul from TruthOut.

In this article Saul advises people "to bear in mind the potential dangers and drawbacks of such an endeavor" of which he suggests some. He also offers suggestions about how the event could be useful.

I think that if all people do is gather in mass in New York and march through the city with a lot of corporate embedded NGOs, then it will be all for nothing. But to the extent that The People's Climate March raises peoples' consciousness of the seriousness of climate destabilization, then it could be promising if afterwards people at the grassroots build organizations to confront the goliaths of capitalist ruling classes along a series of battlegrounds--control of media, government, education, and most important of all, the economy.