Critical Mass of Consciousness
These are interesting times we live in.
We are currently being presented with some momentous decision points concerning government and economics, so it is becoming more and more important for people, the masses, to understand what is happening at the foundational level.
If we continue passing through these crises largely unaware and misinformed (Hello, Teabaggers) we could go the way of the Weimar Republic (totalitarian fascism). That is what ignorance could bring.
On the other hand, this is also a golden opportunity for us to take an evolutionary step in a much more positive direction, but in order to accomplish that we must have some basic understanding of the actual forces involved. We need to attain a critical mass of consciousness about what is currently happening.
Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007) provides excellent background on this subject, and here’s a few more recent discussions on the latest events…
- “Austerity Does Not Produce Prosperity” by Robert Kuttner
- “The Greeks Get It” by Chris Hedges
- “Euro-Bankers Demand of Greece” by Michael Hudson
July 4th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Could this lead to the next revolution…?
Do we need a Referendum For A New Democracy?
Are you concerned about the future of democracy? Do you feel democracy is under attack by extreme greed in countries around the world? Are you sick and tired of: living in fear, corporate greed, growing police state, government for the rich, working more but having less?
Can we use both elections and random selection (in the way we select government officials) to rid democracy of undue influence by extreme wealth and wealth-dominated mass media campaigns?
The world’s first democracy (Athenian democracy, 600 B.C.) used both elections and random selection. Even Aristotle (the cofounder of Western thought) promoted the use random selection as the best way to protect democracy. The idea of randomly selecting (after screening) juries remains from Athenian democracy, but not randomly selecting (after screening) government officials. Why is it used only for individual justice and not also for social justice? Who wins from that? …the extremely wealthy?
What is the best way to combine elections and random selection to protect democracy in today’s world? Can we use elections as the way to screen candidates, and random selection as the way to do the final selection? Who wins from that? …the people?