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

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

More unemployment and less security

Click here to access article by Pete Dolack from Systemic Disorder

I frankly wouldn't bother reading the first part where Dolack points to forecasts presented to us by the capitalist-backed International Labour Organization, an agency of the UN. Such agencies will always fudge the numbers to protect the system. The numbers are useful, but only to capitalists who are constantly looking for cheap labor, larger markets, and bigger profits. The system only exists to supply profits to private "owners" of socially produced wealth instead of what a system should be doing: supplying the needs of all the people who democratically control the means of production and decide what those needs are.

However, I highly recommend the second part where Dolack supplies data and analyses by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney from their book The Endless Crisis where one can learn about the true impacts in the developing advanced stage of capitalism known as neoliberalism. 

Much like the passengers on the Titanic we can resign ourselves that the capitalist captain and officers know what they are doing and can be trusted, or we can look to Foster and McChesney and many others who are telling us that we are headed straight toward the icebergs of widespread poverty, nuclear conflagration, and climate destabilization. We simply must take control of the Earth's ship and steer a safe course to save the ship and all its passengers. Our only salvation is mutiny!