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, February 28, 2016

Syria: Peace and Victory

Click here to access article by Navid Nasr from Global Independent Analytics.

Nasr argues against the concerns expressed by others (see this and this) that the recently ceasefire agreement concluded by Russia and the US was a mistake, that Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and their sponsored terrorist armies would simply take advantage of it. It appears that "Plan B" is the outcome most preferred by the US, and Nasr reminds us that this plan represents a strategy that has also been favored by the Empire throughout recent decades:
It should be noted that partition is, and has been for a while now, a central part of U.S. foreign policy strategy for dealing with the recalcitrant “regimes” and inconvenient population groups.

Whether it is Sudan, Yugoslavia, Serbia itself, Macedonia, Ukraine, Russia, China, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen or Iran, the methods, and the eventual (or hoped for) outcome of partition vary only slightly. In some cases direct military intervention is required, but in most cases local proxies will do nicely, whether armed militias or "civil society" types.