Are we too demoralized to protest?
By Bruce E. Levine
Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with this kind of inflammatory remark, millions of U.S. citizens who came to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive. Thus, the focus of U.S. liberation psychology need not be on U.S. citizens gaining consciousness of injustices, as many of these injustices are already in plain sight. Instead, U.S. liberation psychology must focus on how we can be made whole again, so as to regain strength to fight for ourselves and our communities.
Fundamentalist Consumerism and an Insane Society article link
By Bruce E. Levine
Erich Fromm, 54 years ago, concluded: "Man [sic] today is confronted with the most fundamental choice; not that between Capitalism or Communism, but that between robotism (of both the capitalist and the communist variety), or Humanistic Communitarian Socialism. Most facts seem to indicate that he is choosing robotism and that means, in the long run, insanity and destruction. But all these facts are not strong enough to destroy faith in man's reason, good will, and sanity. As long as we can think of other alternatives, we are not lost."
Notes on Anarchism article link
By Noam Chomsky
[Originally published in For Reasons of State (1973)]
I am a fanatic lover of liberty, considering it as the unique condition under which intelligence, dignity and human happiness can develop and grow; not the purely formal liberty conceded, measured out and regulated by the State, an eternal lie which in reality represents nothing more than the privilege of some founded on the slavery of the rest; not the individualistic, egoistic, shabby, and fictitious liberty extolled by the School of J.J. Rousseau and other schools of bourgeois liberalism, which considers the would-be rights of all men, represented by the State which limits the rights of each -- an idea that leads inevitably to the reduction of the rights of each to zero. No, I mean the only kind of liberty that is worthy of the name, liberty that consists in the full development of all the material, intellectual and moral powers that are latent in each person; liberty that recognizes no restrictions other than those determined by the laws of our own individual nature, which cannot properly be regarded as restrictions since these laws are not imposed by any outside legislator beside or above us, but are immanent and inherent, forming the very basis of our material, intellectual and moral being -- they do not limit us but are the real and immediate conditions of our freedom.
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