Hello readers, didn't mean to be posting this many articles by Paul Rosenberg, and the link to this article showed up in a Google Alert for Hyman Minsky. It turned out to be an interesting piece of political economy. I happen to agree with his observation of defense mechanisms, and I would take it a bit further to a characterization of cultural and even an ontological dysjunction that has plagued human kind for millennia. It surfaces as well in the distinction between appearance and being, and between micro and middlin' reproduction of cosmologies.

Friends, this is a bit different than what is usually posted here, and I believe that she captures an essence of what is revolutionary about #OWS. Hannah Arendt and others have described the political culture of the pre-revolutionary period for what became the United States in a similar manner. In the actions against magistrate courts and sheriffs relative to property seizures the gathered people would interrogate these officials and then they discussed what would be an appropriate response.

Readers, While the title of this article is a bit muddled, by it seeming to include resistance to socializing change, the intent of the article is very clear. What Hedges is describing is that a socializing movement is about forward cultural change, and that process is established and sustained by inches, not by celebrity status or waiting for the white knights to come charging upon the scene and into the fray. If you study socializing movements and periods of rapid technological change this is how they actually succeed in transforming a community, a society, or a nation.

http://www.blackcommentator.com/381/381_democracy_charter_odell_guest_sh...

Note: The Democracy Charter, written by long-time civil rights, peace, and labor activist Jack O'Dell has been provided to BlackCommentator.com by Michael Zweig, Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of Economics, State
University of New York, Stony Brook, NY.

Zweig writes the following about O'Dell:

BILL MOYERS: There's a long tradition in America of people power, and no one has done more to document it than the historian, Howard Zinn. Listen to this paragraph from his most famous book: "If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top.

Tadit Anderson on March 20th, 2007 at 10:29 am | 0 Replies

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/5000-years-of-empire/1474 May 10, 2006

Much attention has been given recently to the prospect of collapse, catastrophe, and decline. Are these fears reasonable? What is likely and not-so-likely? Which concerns should take top priority? And what should we do?