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

Monday, July 6, 2015

Jane Fonda on climate change

Click here to access her 12:01m interview on CBC-TV, Canada's public communications company.

I'm posting this not so much for her insights on the threat of climate destabilization, but mostly because she is a very familiar activist from my generation to demonstrate that there are still such activists who are continuing the fight against the capitalist ruling class "evil-doers". We fought them in the Civil Rights Movement, we fought them in the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, and we will still keep fighting them on the issue of climate destabilization and their war policies until our last breath.

Here below is Fonda speaking as a younger activist in 1970 expressing her political views also on CBC-TV regarding issues of that time. (I had to crank my sound system way up to hear everything.) She makes clear that capitalism was the main problem then, and capitalism is still the main problem today under-girding all major problems. Younger generations must take up this fight against such a system that will sacrifice humans, many species, and much of the life-supporting environment on the alter of profit and class power. European youth are waking up. Unfortunately, many young Americans are still enthralled with all their electronic gadgets.