The sun is setting in the West (tags)
The West's misjudgement also applies to the course of the war, where the Russian army is advancing again after the failed counter-offensive in Ukraine. There is a shortage of weapons, ammunition and soldiers. The strategy of wearing down the West seems to be working. In the US, the Biden administration is already encountering difficulties in mobilizing further war credits.
The difference between wanting to and being able to (tags)
The war has exacted an enormous price in terms of human lives, destruction, economic and political collateral damage in Ukraine, in the EU and worldwide. Its continuation would further increase the horrors.The war has changed shape: it has become a proxy war and a war of world order between the West and Russia.
The Looming War Against China (tags)
In the United States, in the wake of Ronald Reagan's tax cuts for the wealthy & state-undermining deregulation, & Bill Clinton's "Third Way" takeover by Wall Street, there was an equally devastating shift of wealth & income to the finance, insurance & real estate (FIRE) sector. The "Third Way" was financial capitalism that made its profits by exploiting & indebting industry and labor.
The military will not solve a single problem (tags)
Solidarity could also be understood and implemented differently: as a concept that reduces violence and aims at protecting human lives in concrete terms. This includes not only refugee aid, humanitarian aid & all conceivable diplomacy. It is also important to examine whether social resistance measures planned for the short term make sense in this highly escalated situation.
Qualitative Break: Why a Radical Critique of Work is Necessary Today (tags)
Capital has increasingly decoupled itself from directly expended labor and accumulation is now taking place predominantly on the level of financial markets... In large parts of the Global South, the majority has long since been declared ‘superfluous.’
Beware the Anti-China Sentiment Pushing Us Towards Another Cold War (tags)
If the United States can’t learn to cooperate with China, our future will be one of constant escalation of wars and threats of wars and all that comes with them—including massive refugee flows, environmental destruction, and rising poverty.
The UN Charter must be the heart and coul of any new peace architecture (tags)
The Ukrainian war will also end one day, and we will have to strive again for a new peace order to "save future generations from the scourge of war." A peaceful and fair world for the soon to be 10 billion inhabitants of the earth, 9 billion from the 'Global South', must be built on the principles of the UN Charter. The UN Charter must therefore be at the center of every peace movement.
When everything tips over (tags)
So it's high time for the left to break out of its shock paralysis, to start politicizing knowledge again and to develop its own models and approaches that are both bigger and smaller than the warning about the end of humanity. First, by taking into account the economic structures.... And on the other hand, by going into the painstaking, everyday detail work.
Authoritarian Capitalism (tags)
The banks and auto corporations were bailed out and rescued and the ensuing public debt was invoked in order to cut public expenditures on health care, education, pensions, and public salaries. Furthermore, a new race to the bottom has started.
NY State Senate, Assembly Fail to Pass Taxpayer and Debt Crises Protection Legislation (tags)
S4747/A2970 Bill Champions Vow to Pass Debt Relief Legislation Within Next Year
Why China wont replace the US as hegemon. Chaos instead of hegemony (tags)
China's growth is also running on credit; the People's Republic is similarly indebted to the descending Western centers of the world system. This trend toward de-dollarization can only be properly understood against the backdrop of the imperial descent of the United States.
Brazil's Lula travels to China and calls to end US dollar dominance (tags)
“Why can’t a bank like that of the BRICS have a currency to finance trade relations between Brazil and China, between Brazil and other countries?" he continued. "It’s difficult because we are unaccustomed [to the idea]. Everyone depends on just one currency".
UN Charter: Negotiations! and Good wars, bad wars? (tags)
The seriousness of the escalating conflict over NATO's expansion to Russia's borders, which has now led to war, has been clear to all involved since at least 1994. Russia has repeatedly warned that admitting Ukraine and Georgia to NATO would violate its elementary security.
Journalism is in denial about itself & China's Mediation (tags)
If you live on a powder keg, you have to avoid sparks. Therefore, especially in crises, truthful, trustworthy communication and respectful communication in society is more important than ever. The fourth estate in the state is failing now - as it has in recent crises.
The final system question Parts 1 and 2 (tags)
The enrichment elites of the West in particular have been trying for decades to extend their influence to the whole world. That is their declared concept. The worldwide "final victory" has been part of capitalism and imperialism from the very beginning.
Reflections on the Political Crisis and Right-wing Populism (tags)
The policies of neoliberal globalization have driven an enormous strengthening of transnational corporations and finance capital, and at the same time the division between rich and poor, between the top "1%" and the rest of the "99%"[28].
Utopias and Dystopias and Cooperation with China (tags)
Joe Biden and his foreign policy team are in many ways still entrenched in the Cold War era, and his administration has generally taken a far more antagonistic stance toward China than Obama.
The geopolitical confrontation between China and the West and Peace logic (tags)
The main issue is monopolarity or multipolarity. And this also raises the question of geopolitical hegemony. In other words, whether Western interests will remain supreme and Western value systems will therefore be of universal significance?
Russia's war in the mirror of western international law nihilism and propaganda (tags)
With Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine and the Western response, the world may be headed in leaps and bounds toward the nuclear abyss: The escalation dynamic is gaining speed. More and more conventional weapons are being moved by the West to Ukraine.
Question sanctions and The cry of the poor (tags)
In Germany, we tend to moralize and romanticize in politics. This prevents us from taking a sober view of world events. We fail to recognize that the U.S. is ruthlessly asserting its own interests, against enemy and friend. The interests of the EU and the U.S. have long since ceased to coincide.
Only a progressive tax revolution can stop the climate collapse (tags)
There is an urgent need for a pluralistic opening of the economic sciences, so that the argumentative dispute about the ethically correct interpretation of market-competitive interaction relations and the status of market logic again becomes a normal part of economic discourse.
Opportunity instead of crises and End this madness! (tags)
Almost no one asks what an economic policy looks like that no longer subordinates everything to economic growth: How to reduce the debt mountain to a reasonable level without GDP growth? How can pensions be secured without GDP growth and employment be guaranteed?
Opportunity instead of crises and End this madness (tags)
History teaches that major course corrections usually emerge from crises. However, far-sighted economists and politicians should start thinking today about how to shape a future without debt crises, without ecological and social exploitation, and without compulsive growth.
We need a real debate on the Ukraine war (tags)
The longer the war in Ukraine continues, the greater the risk of a nuclear accident or incident. And given the strategy of U.S. President Joe Biden's administration to "weaken" Russia through large-scale arms shipments. The United States and NATO are in a proxy war with Russia.
The war in Ukraine and the consequences for the world economy (tags)
The Corona pandemic already shows that a rethink of trade policy is needed and that the neoliberal form of globalization is not fit for the future. Large-scale investments in renewable energies and a fair design of trade agreements would be advances that benefit everyone.
Waging war or building bridges (tags)
"NATO is de facto at war with Russia and using Ukraine as a tool to do it." And further, "Everything about NATO is hypocrisy. They declare themselves the 'peace alliance,' but their history is nothing but war.
US: Domestic political gridlock and The Ukraine War (tags)
The Ukraine War: In Asia, Africa, and the Arab world, the prevailing view is that Europe is heading for disaster - and that the international order is falling apart. In much of Asia, Africa & the Middle East, the reaction to the war in Ukraine has been restrained. It is resounding silence.
War as crisis accelerator (tags)
Opportunistic parts of the German left are already sorting themselves into NATO supporters and cheerleaders of hollow Western values, who are peddling the stale bourgeois-liberal ideology one last time before the Western states also sink into barbarism.
Destrosying what is destroying the planet? (tags)
The decisions of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow are a disaster. They seal the course for a drastic and irreversible heating of the earth, which threatens the survival of hundreds of millions of people and countless animal and plant species.
We are part of the universe and the earth and must live in accordance with the laws of the universe as well as the earth. The most basic law is the realization that we share the planet with other beings and that we have a duty to care for our common home.
The Humanity Simulation (tags)
"Everything faded into mist. The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth" - George Orwell. "The struggle of the people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting" - Milan Kundera. Erasing, obliterating is an essential element in building the money machine and the illusion of democracy.
Capitalist dilemmas and The Greed for More (tags)
The overexploitation of nature did not remain without resistance. However, these were ignored by both the left and the right. The "requirements of shipping and agriculture" destroy original functions of the floodplain landscapes. "And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find,maybe we should change the system"
Our World is Not For Sale! (tags)
People's Global Action (PGA) was organized in a decentralized way by movements from all parts of the world. But we had no staff and no fixed funding. Everything was through crowdfunding. People were inspired by what PGA stood for, which was, first, the rejection of capitalism.
Life Lies of the Islands of Prosperity (tags)
The embarrassing secret of the 'Western' model of society and development is that it only works under very specific political and economic, ecological and social conditions. Preconditions that lie essentially outside this model and are hidden or made invisible by the social actors of its glorifying preservation. '
Resistance against Agropoly (tags)
Food sovereignty remains the most important political program of the strongest international movement to date for a transformation of the food system: away from the agropoly of a few corporations. Tina Goethe is a sociologist and responsible for the area of the right to food at the Swiss organization Bread for All.
Why capitalism compels renunciation and we could work less (tags)
How much human and natural resources are squandered on taxation, trade and advertising, how much on labor administration, justice, police, prisons, armaments, military? How many people work overtime without end, suffer heart attacks and burnout, wear themselves out in the brutal competition?
Easing into a New Normality of the Crisis (tags)
With the intertwining of the Corona and economic crises, massive distribution struggles are already looming. Society, in a collective effort to prevent illness, has downsized its economic activity. This collective decision must not serve to enrich a few. The radical taxation of the great fortunes is indispensable.
COVID-19 and Catastrophe Capitalism (tags)
The scale of the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences on world accumulation are unprecedented, with the global economic costs still increasing. At the end of March, some three billion people on the planet were in lockdown or social-distancing mode.36
Capitalism, Coronavirus and the Road to Extinction (tags)
The only way to ‘re-embed’ our economies and save our lives from ecological collapse is by intervening in the very heart of the beast: land and human beings need to be taken out of the market. The beast is not tameable; it needs to be killed.
What was thought to be temporary has remained until today. Snowden warns of a similar process in the context of a real crisis. Surveillance is accepted The virus is dangerous. But the destruction of our rights is fatal because it is permanent, Snowden believes.
Chaos.Thbe New Age of Revolutions (tags)
The End of the Megamachine brings to light the roots of the destructive forces threatening the future of humankind today. Dismantling Western progress mythologies, Scheidler shows how the logics of endless capital accumulation have devastated both human societies & ecosystems
Solidarity is not a Business (tags)
Private charity is the result of neoliberalism. Real services of general interest need global solutions... Ensuring that school buildings and education are intact is not a private responsibility, but a public one. It would be a mistake not to always insist on this public responsibility.
Philippines – Duterte 2 Years on: Destructive, Divisive, and Despotic (tags)
When Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency in 2016, some even among the left toyed early on with the idea that a “maverick” president could just be what the country needed to stir things up, and jolt us from almost 30 years of elite-dominated rule.
PHILIPPINES: Call for a National Conference Against Dictatorship (tags)
Since he assumed office, President Rodrigo Duterte has still failed to fulfill his promise to “provide for those who have little”: Workers still continue to receive low wages and experience job insecurity because he has failed to fulfill his vow to end contractualization.
Philippines: Rodrigo Duterte’s One-Man Revolution and the CPP (tags)
Rodrigo Duterte’s authoritarian vision is no way forward for the Philippines.
Energy for tomorrow, 15 pp (tags)
“The time of cheap and abundant energy comes to the end. It is the beginning of the transition of the fossil era to a post-fossil age, a transition which will be in the same measure fundamental and decisive as it was the by fossils imprinted industrial revolution of about more than 200 years ago”.1
Walden Bello runs for senator of the Philippines, pushes reforms in governance (tags)
Rep. Walden Bello resigned from Congress on March 19, 2015, because he could no longer support a hypocritical good governance policy under which President Aquino went after his political enemies but protected his corrupt cronies. His resignation was also an act of protest at the president’s refusal to accept command responsibility for the Mamasapano tragedy. He felt that his voluntary stepping down was the ethical thing to do since his party Akbayan, of which he was the principal representative in the House of Representatives, maintained its support for Aquino.
Statement of Solidarity With the People and Government of Greece (tags)
The following statement is issued by various progressive individuals and organizations from many parts of the world, but mostly in Asia-Pacific. A copy of the statement has already been sent to Syriza's international department.
PHILIPPINES: Statement on International Women’s Day (tags)
The Philippines Should Stop Being US’s Pawn and Warfront
Philippine Women’s Coalitions Launch 18 Days of Activism against Violence (tags)
On the eve of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (VAW), which marks the start of the 18 Days of Activism Against VAW, women’s groups held a press conference and rally in front of the US Embassy. The coalitions announced today that they unite in focusing on the call for justice for Jennifer Laude during this 18-day campaign period which starts on November 25, and will sustain the campaign until justice is served.
Inequality and Liberal Democracy: A Disturbing Association (tags)
How do we bring fundamental reforms about at a time when organized minorities and disorganized, quiescent majorities appear to be the norm in both the North and the South?
No to US Militarism in the Philippines and Asia-Pacific! (tags)
“To achieve enduring peace in the region, Asia must be de-militarized; its maritime waters assigned mainly for commerce; and its disputed territories declared as regional commons and war-free zones.”
The WTO pushes through bad deal; Developed countries and TNCs are the big winners (tags)
The 9th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) pushed through a Bali Package in the final hours, extending the Conference to December 7, but at the cost of the developing countries, the poor and the hungry.
The "ABCs of Alternatives" published in May 2013 includes chapters on democratization, globalization criticism, global social rights, good work, Keynesianism, knowledge commons, liberation pedagogy, no person is illegal, peace, rebellion, redistribution and the WSF,
Our Proposal for Changing the System and not the Climate (tags)
The capitalist system has exploited and abused nature, pushing the planet to its limits, so much so that the system has accelerated dangerous and fundamental changes in the climate.
End the WTO and the Stop the new wave of Free Trade Agreements (tags)
Call to action of the Indonesian People's Movement Against Neocolonialism-Imperialism toward Bali WTO Ministerial meeting on 3-6 of December 2013
Climate Space: Rethinking Strategies to Fight For Our Future (tags)
Open call to join the Climate Space at the World Social Forum in Tunisia, March 26-30, 2013
Philippines: Where does the FOI campaign go from here? (tags)
Today, we close our people’s campaign for the passage of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill in the 15th Congress. We have, to the extent that our capacities and limited resources permitted, exhausted all avenues that we thought were open to us to get positive, decisive action from the leaders of the House of Representatives and from President Aquino no less.
Philippines: Coalition Clamor for the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill (tags)
Still enough time for FOI – if House leadership supports it. With only nine session days remaining before Congress adjourns for a long election break, members of the Right to Know Right Now Coalition are reminding members of Congress that they still have enough time to pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill even without the prodding of Malacanang.
Aaron Swartz's Suspicious Death (tags)
media
Women’s rights: Turning point in India, triumph in Manila (tags)
Women’s rights have been in the forefront of international concern over the last few weeks.
World Social Forum Free Palestine (tags)
Palestine
Mothers, Caregivers, Occupiers demand answers from candidates (tags)
A multiracial group of mothers, children, other caregivers, occupiers, women and men, older people and youth, held a Speakout and Protest outside the Republican Party Headquarters in Burbank, California on Monday, October 15th, the eve of the second presidential debate. .
Rio+20: Asian Movements’ Statement on the Green Economy (tags)
We are movements and organizations from Asia, waging struggles on various fronts and arenas to defend our rights, resist policies and projects that cause harm and destruction, and to fight for immediate priorities and demands, as well as profound transformation of our societies. Fight for Our Future! No Price on Nature!
Filipino Women March against US Military Expansion in the Philippines and the Pacific (tags)
On the occasion of the International Women’s Day 2012, we, Filipino women declare in strongest terms possible, our opposition not only to increased presence but to U.S. military presence per se on Philippine soil.
Double-talk on FOI: Philippine gov?t long on promises, short on political will (tags)
On President Aquino?s Open Governance Partnership (OGP) ON 20 SEPTEMBER 2011 in New York, President Benigno S. Aquino III will deliver the keynote address at the Open Government Partnership (OGP) forum dubbed ?The Power of Open: A Global Discussion?. The conference brings together governments and representatives of civil society, industry, academe, and media. The panels will discuss the role of openness in improving government responsiveness and accountability, fighting corruption, and creating efficiencies, innovation and growth.
Philippines Anti-Bases Movement: Time to Assert National Sovereignty Once Again (tags)
With pride as a people, we commemorate a historic national event this coming September 16, the rejection of the US military bases twenty years ago
PHILIPPINES: Our Failed Labor-Export Policy (tags)
The impacts of disasters occurring in other parts of the world, from Libya to Japan, have perhaps been communicated more drastically to the Philippines than to other countries. Whether it is the tragic trilogy of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear fallout in Japan or the civil war in Libya, external crises are swiftly transformed into internal crises for our country, as thousands of families are pushed into poverty and economic hardship when their breadwinners are dislocated and repatriated back to the Philippines, where jobs offering decent wages are scarce.
The Arab Revolutions and the Democratic Imagination (tags)
The Arab democratic uprisings have brought a rush of nostalgia to many people who staged their own democratic revolutions years earlier. As they watched events unfold in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Al Jazeera and CNN, that feeling of “all that is solid melting into thin air,” as Marx would have put it, returned to many of those who went to the barricades during the original People Power Revolution in the Philippines in 1986.
World March of Women in the Philippines (tags)
Today, women in the Philippines and all over the world gather in different places and spaces to show our collective strength and make our collective voice heard as we speak out our sufferings, challenges, triumphs and aspirations. Our voices are joined together as we resist the abuses and marginalization wrought upon us by economic policies that discriminate against giving women productive employment, just wages and benefits at the workplace, and opportunities for livelihood and income; by societies that allow, or even promote, violence to be committed against women with impunity; by governments and public institutions that turn a blind eye to the human rights of women.
Sexual Prey in the Saudi Jungle (tags)
He was an officer in the Saudi Royal Navy assigned to the strategic Saudi base of Jubail in the Persian Gulf. She was a single mom from Mindanao, in the Philippines, who saw, like so many others, employment in Saudi Arabia as a route out of poverty. When he picked her up at the Dammam International Airport in June, little did she know she was entering, not a brighter chapter of her life but a chamber of horrors from which she would be liberated only after six long months.
G20: A Threat to Peoples’ Economic and Political Rights! (tags)
The G20 and its global economic agenda are an affront and a threat to people’s rights and welfare. The detention and deportation of Filipino activists from Seoul and the harassment and intimidation of a number of other activists at the hands of Korean immigration authorities are manifestations of the undemocratic and anti-people nature of the G20 and further exposed the illegitimacy of this group of self-proclaimed caretakers of the global economy.
“House of Numbers” Exposes the Faillings of the“HIV/AIDS” Myth (tags)
Brent Leung’s 2009 AIDS documentary, “House of Numbers," shows both sides of the controversy over whether the so-called Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) actually causes AIDS. Leung got interviews with scientists, journalists and other experts on both sides, and showed that even within the HIV/AIDS mainstream the scientists are not anywhere as unified on key questions about AIDS as they pretend to be when they present themselves to the public. The film is available in two versions from Leung’s Web site, http://www.houseofnumbers.com: the basic theatrical version and a deluxe edition containing two discs' worth of additional material, some of which will be shown at the next meeting of H.E.A.L.-San Diego, Wednesday, October 6, 7 p.m. at the Activist Center, 4246 Wightman Street in City Heights. Please call (619) 688-1886 for more information.
PHILIPPINES: New Economics for a New Administration (tags)
The dominant feature of the Arroyo administration was pervasive corruption, but its most destructive legacy in the long term will probably be its policy failures. The ascent to power of a new president, backed by a new Congress, provides the opportunity for a fundamental shift in policy in order to end poverty and re-launch the Philippines on the road to development.
The Global Political Awakening and the New World Order (tags)
"The global debt crisis, which is beginning in Greece, and spreading throughout the euro-zone economies of Spain, Portugal, Ireland and ultimately the entire EU, will further consume the UK, Japan and go all the way to America.[50] This will be a truly global debt crisis. Government measures to address the issue of debt focus on the implementation of ‘fiscal austerity measures’ to reduce the debt burdens and make interest payments on their debts. ‘Fiscal austerity’ is a vague term that in actuality refers to cutting social spending and increasing taxes. The effect this has is that the public sector is devastated, as all assets are privatized, public workers are fired en masse, unemployment becomes rampant, health and education disappear, taxes rise dramatically, and currencies are devalued to make all assets cheaper for international corporations and banks to buy up, while internally causing inflation – dramatically increasing the costs of fuel and food. In short, ‘fiscal austerity’ implies ‘social destruction’ as the social foundations of nations and peoples are pulled out from under them. States then become despotic and oppress the people, who naturally revolt against ‘austerity’: the sterilization of society."
Climate Justice, Not Growth Mania (tags)
"In green capitalism, the bio-crisis is at the center of the growth strategy. The Green New Deal represents a kind of ecological inversion of Kennedy's famous sentence: Ask not what you can do for the environment but what the environment can do for you..."
Call to Action: Funk the War 9: Bad Romance (tags)
Come to Washington DC on March 19th to protest 7 years of war and occupation! Make a ruckus with DC SDS and Funk the War!
Disaster Capitalism Headed to Haiti (tags)
worker exploitation follows disaster
Journalism, Redistribution and Social Generosity (tags)
"The earth does not belong to people; people belong to the earth." (chief Seattle)> Nature is not a free good, external or sink but our living mother and basis for future human life. Alternative economics and community centers could lead us out of the dystopia of imperial wars.
As 10 years ago, there is again resistance against the chaotic, polarizing destructive power of the markets and against the false alternatives of the governments. A globally democratized climate justice requires turning away from the status quo and the "imperial lifestyle."
U.S. IMPERIALISM IN THE PHILIPPINES (tags)
After more than a century of brutal colonization of the Philippines, U.S. troops continue to battle Moro insurgents and the New People's Army guerillas to protects its investments, support the bloody oligarchs headed by the Arroyo clique, and preserve its neocolonial stranglehold. The U.S. public should wake up to demand that Obama stop its support of the Arroyo regime and withdraw U.S. troops. E. San Juan's two books might help inform the US public of what's going on in the Philippines today.
Miguel d'Escoto's Last Address as President of the 63rd UN General Assembly (tags)
A new world is possible and a new economics is necessary! As prejudice and narcissism can be gradually overcome, breaking the chains of profit worship, monopoly capital and empire building can bring hope and a new day for all people.
US nuclear-powered carrier entry to Manila violates Philippine Constitution (tags)
US nuclear-powered carrier entry to Manila violates ASEAN Treaty The following manifestation was made by Rep. Walden Bello of the Party-list Akbayan! on the floor of the House of Representatives of the Philippines on August 13, 2009. It was prepared by Herbert Docena of Focus on the Global South.
Attac France on the Stiglitz Report (tags)
If the world really lives through a systemic crisis, solutions must also be sou9ght on this plane. Regrettably the mandate limits the commission to reform the international monetary system. The UN is the only institution with a democratic legitimacy.
Capitalism's Crisis and our Response by Walden Bello (tags)
Walden Bello is a sociologist and author in the Philippines and leader of the Global South. More articles are available at www.focusweb.org.
Global Day of Action: We Will Not Pay for Your Crisis March 28 Berlin (tags)
Dominance of the profit logic and economization of all areas of life must be ended. Capitalism cannot solve global problems like poverty, insecurity, climate change, destruction of the environment, wars and dismantling democracy-it causes them!
Hope in Common, by David Graeber (tags)
We seem to have reached an impasse. Capitalism as we know it appears to be coming apart.
Philippine social movements storm US Embassy (tags)
Philippine social movements hit G-20 summit’s exclusivity, call for a new and democratic world order
PHILIPPINES: Suspend US Military Deployments to Mindanao (tags)
A broad coalition of NGOs, social movements, and political parties from Mindanao and the rest of the country today called for all US military deployments in Mindanao suspended pending the conclusion of a fair and thorough probe by lawmakers.
"The negotiations in the NTO changed into a battle of the developed countries for their mammoth corporations over the market opening of developing countries. Access to education, health care, water-and energy-supply and telecommunciations should be human rights."
Joint Statement on the 34th G8 Summit in Tōyako, Hokkaidō, Japan
Manufacturing a Food Crisis (tags)
Tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a 60% ncrease in the price of tortillas. How on earth did Mexicans, who live on the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place?
Rediscovering the Arusha Declaration and Abandoning the NGO Model: (tags)
Selma James and Andaiye chart a path from the 60s to Tomorrow
Two prominent international women's movement leaders visited Los Angeles in December as a part of a special North American tour. Selma James of London and Andaiye of Guyana spoke to a packed room at the Southern California Library on what we can learn from the past and present of autonomous socialist organizing in the Global South. Both women organize with the Global Women's Strike, which calls for recognition of and payment for all unwaged work, and an end to the twin terrors of poverty and war. The Strike's signature event is an annual work stoppage on International Women's Day, March 8.
Photo by Sidney Ross-Risden: right to left — Selma James, host Margaret Prescod, and Andaiye
The CPP-NPA-NDF “Hit List” - a preliminary report (tags)
It is essential to understand the real scope of the assassination policy of Left activists pursued, after the 1992 crisis, by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), its military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA) and its politico-diplomatic arm, the National Democratic Front (NDF).
Bali: A Missed Opportunity (tags)
The gap between the urgent threat of global warming and the collective will to do something about it has never been greater. The recently concluded Conference on Climate Change in Bali was a grand opportunity to act. Instead, it was another missed opportunity. Unfortunately, the United States played a very negative role, standing in the way of consensus at every turn. And unfortunately, the rest of the world thought that seducing the US into a new agreement on climate action was top priority, resulting in a Bali Roadmap that was very sketchy.
Film Night at Flor y Canto: March 2003-September 2005 (Part 2 of 2) (tags)
To mark the five-year anniversary of the Eagle Rock Peace Vigil, here is a list of films shown at Flor y Canto over a two-and-a-half year period. These almost-weekly screenings were an outgrowth of the Eagle Rock Vigil. (Links to the rest of this list can be found below in "comments.")
The Gap and Black Friday (tags)
Building a New Global Movement The Observer's Dan McDougall described their garment shop as, "smeared with filth, corridors flooded with excrement from a flooded toilet." The workers recounted threats and beatings from management to keep their nimble fingers moving.
Annapolis Hypocrisy Hides Occupied Palestine Reality (tags)
Sham peace process denies Palestinians what they want most.
The Post-Washington Consensus: The Unraveling of a Doctrine of Development (tags)
Neoliberal globalization is a desperate and unsuccessful attempt at overcoming the crises of overaccumulation, overproduction and stagnation.
Campesino Activist Assassinated in Brazil by Syngenta's Hired Thugs (tags)
Brazil's Movement of Landless Workers & La Via Campesinos activist camp attacked by hired assassins after protesting Syngenta's GMO/GE biotech crop monopolies..
The War on Working Americans - Part II (tags)
Part II of how American workers are losing out.
Reviewing Linda McQuaig's "It's the Crude, Dude" (tags)
War, oil, Iraq, Big Oil, global warming and more in one package.
Call to Action: Oct. IMF/World Bank protests (Eng./Sp.) (tags)
Disrupt the IMF and the World Bank meetings: Washington DC, October 19-21, 2007 A Desbaratar las Reuniones del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) y el Banco Mundial!
Confronting U.S. Empire: Reviewing Filipino American Insurgent Intellectual Production (tags)
This new intervention by internationally renowned Filipino scholar E. SAN JUAN, Jr. signals a renewed self-reflection by the Filipino American community and the entire diaspora of nearly 10 million Overseas Contract Workers.
G4 process is undemocratic, No WTO deal in Potsdam! (tags)
Trade ministers of the G4 countries (the European Union, the United States, Brazil and India) are meeting in Potsdam, Germany, this week try to stitch together a trade deal to which each of them could agree.
International Day of Direct Action against Climate Change and the G8 Friday 8th June 2007 (tags)
We all know the terrifying statistics: a million species extinct by 2050, 19 of the 20 hottest years on record since 1980, Greenland and Antarctica melting, droughts, floods, famines … the G8 have had over 30 years to address climate change and only succeeded in providing trillions in subsidies to the very industries that are destroying our planet and our future.
Protests at IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings – a Prelude to October (tags)
News roundup of protests at IMF/World Bank spring meetings in April - and onward to October!
A Review of John Ross' Zapatistas (tags)
Review of Zapatistas' struggle for autonomy and freedom.
An Appeal to Philippine President Arroyo (tags)
Stop agrarian violence and killing of farmers! Implement agrarian reform in contentious landholdings!
Thai Military Leaders Stage Military Coup (tags)
In Thailand, military leaders have staged a bloodless coup, suspending the constitution and declaring martial law. We go to the capital Bangkok to get reaction on the ground.
Filipinas in Lebanon treated like ’modern-day slaves’ (tags)
FINDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL MISSION TO LEBANON: Filipina overseas workers in Lebanon are being treated like “modern-day slaves,” this was the main finding of Filipinos who had just arrived from Lebanon as part of an international civil society and parliamentary delegation.
Tracing a Trail of Destruction: Report from Lebanon, August 13, 2006 (tags)
BEIRUT, Lebanon - The wounds of war were evident shortly after we crossed the Syria-Lebanon border at 1130 in the morning on August 12. At Haissa, about three kilometers from the Dabboussiyeh border crossing, we come across the ruins of a bridge hit by Israeli war planes just the day before. Villagers tell us 12 people were killed and 10 wounded, all civilians.
CALL FOR GLOBAL ACTIONS AGAINST IMF/WORLD BANK, SEPTEMBER 14-20 (tags)
Mobilization for Global Justice (MGJ) has endorsed the following call, written and distributed by Jubilee South, a coalition of social movements throughout the Global South who are resisting illegitimate debts and IMF/World Bank policies. The statement calls on people worldwide to take action in their own communities against the IMF/World Bank the week of September 14-20, while the institutions meet in Singapore.
Killing season in the Philippines (tags)
The escalating repression taking place now in the Philippines is no coincidence. Twenty years since the end of the dictatorship and three "people's power" uprisings later, Philippine society is hugely polarized.
Help Us with a Book about Indymedia (tags)
This book would not attempt to be the definitive statement on Indymedia. Rather, it would be an overview of some of the triumphs and struggles of the network over the past five-and-a-half years. Its entries would range from dramatic, stream-of-thought, first-person pieces to more analytic chapters on the meaning of Indymedia. The book, while thoughtful, would avoid being overly academic and would be graphic/picture heavy. For full proposal, see: http://www.indybook.org
July 15 No G8 International Day of Action Against Climate Change (tags)
July 15th will be an International Day of Action Against Climate Change. As G8 energy ministers promise trillions in new subsidies to the industries destroying our planet and our future, we will take action to shut them down! This is a call for autonomous, decentralized actions appropriate for your town, city, or bioregion. Use this international day of action to support local struggles against oil refineries, gas pipelines, strip mines and coal-fired power plants. Disrupt the financial backers of the fossil fuel industry. Host teach-ins to spread sustainable post-petroleum living skills. Find a weak point in the infrastructure of resource exploitation and throw a literal or symbolic wrench in the works. Visit your local polluters and give 'em hell!
"Capital Travels Freely - Why Not People!" (tags)
For May 1, 2006, "A Day Without An Immigrant", Women Say "Capital Travels Freely - Why Not People!" A massive movement of grassroots women and men, workers and students, on the streets in the US is demanding that their work be counted and that this be reflected in what they are entitled to.
HOSTILE TAKEOVER - THE CORPORATE CONTROL OF SOCIETY AND HUMAN LIFE (tags)
HOW PREDATORY GIANT CORPORATIONS DESTROY SOCIETY AND PEOPLE
Help Restore Dignity and Water in the Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans (tags)
Over seven months have passed since Katrina destroyed New Orleans and levee failures inundated the Big Easy. Much of New Orleans is well along the road to recovery. The French Quarter is once again crawling with tourists and the banking district is up and running. However, if you travel just a few miles east of downtown--to the other side of the Industrial Canal—you find yourself in a neighborhood that does not look much different than it did in September. There are no businesses operating, no schools in session, no electricity, no FEMA trailers, and no RUNNING WATER.
The Libertarian Anarchist Antiauthoritarian Forum in Athens, Greece, May 4-7, 2006 (tags)
Libertarian, Anarchist and Antiauthoritarian Forum, in Athens
Call for Direct Action Against World Bank and IMF Meetings (tags)
Come to Washington, DC April 22-23 to take direct action against the World Bank and IMF
Global Women's Strike/LA Action Highlights Katrina & Other Global Warming Survivors (tags)
“Everything was calm. I had just gone from the sofa into the kitchen. That’s when the water came gushing in. I saw my little dog, Queenie, struggling to get up on the sofa. I grabbed her up, but the water kept rising; it was up to my neck by the time we got out...” - Gloria Brown, Katrina survivor.
CLOSING HAITI'S "OPEN VEINS" - RENE PREVAL'S IMPOSSIBLE MISSION (tags)
Exposing the lies and deception in the corporate media
VENEZUELA'S BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION - ITS PROMISE AND PERILS (tags)
A review of the Bolivarian Revolution achievements and the threat to Hugo Chavez from the U.S.
Open Letter to United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) From Mobilization for Global Justice (tags)
Congratulations on organizing a very large demonstration in Washington, D.C. the weekend of September 24-25. The numbers and the resulting media coverage and visibility were indeed impressive. Having said that, we would like to share with you some fundamental political concerns of ours with: • the manner in which the mobilization was called, • what was and what was not included in the political message, • and how that was reflected in the way in which the organizing for the demonstrations happened on the ground.
E. SAN JUAN's NEW BOOK ON CLASS STRUGGLE IN THE GLOBAL CULTURAL FRONT (tags)
E. SAN JUAN's new book of essays, Working Through the Contradictions: From Cultural Theory to Critical Practice (Bucknell University Press), engages with, among other things, the problem of cultural revolution in the Philippines and the plight of the Filipino Overseas Contract Workers, the 10 million Filipino diaspora, around the world. Without revolutionary theory, as Lenin said, there cannot be any revolutionary praxis. This is a small contribution to the formation of that theory in practice.
CAFTA, written by and for investors, extends NAFTA to Central America. The lessons from 10 years of NAFTA-job losses, food insecurity are repressed. CAFTA may be voted on soon. Call your reps toll free 1-866-340-9281
Economic Growth as Myth and Sickness by Marc Batko (tags)
We are called to be subjects, to struggle for equal opportunities and the minimum essentials of life. Our gifts and talents, hidden, ignored or buried by the neoliberal steamroller, can be rediscovered as we reclaim self-determination.
The Fifth World Social Forum (tags)
In the debates hardly any doubt existed in Porto Alegre that this alternative solidarian economy cannot be an island in the furious ocean of the capitalist world market. Thisalternative economy needs state assistance.
This Is What Free Trade Looks Like (tags)
On March 4, Flor y Canto brings you "This is What Free trade Looks Like" a new film by the Activist Media Project Los Angeles. It takes a Global South perspective on Free Trade in order to contextualize the increasingly fierce resistance movements emerging around the world today.
All Out for April 16th, 2005! Washington DC A Better World is Under Construction N (tags)
Were you at the first A16 demonstration against the IMF and World Bank in Washington, DC in 2000? Come back once again to challenge these illegitimate institutions and their plans for a world of unbridled greed! Did you miss out on the first mass protests against the IMF and World Bank? Now's your chance to be part of the second A16! The Mobilization for Global Justice is calling for all those interested in helping to construct a mass movement against neo-liberalism and the devastation it is wreaking on the world to converge on Washington, DC from April 15th-17th. Come help us celebrate the successes of our movement, which in the past five years has not only put these institutions on the defensive and on the run, but has begun construction of the new world that has for so long been in all our hearts. For fliers to distribute in you community, logistical information, meeting times and updates e-mail mgj@riseup.net or visit www.globalizethis.org . GET INVOLVED! IT’S A BLAST!
Boycott the Democratic Party for Single Payer Health Care. (tags)
It is time to send the Democratic Party a clear and concise message that we the American public will not vote for any Democrats or write checks for any Democrats or volunteer for any Democrats until Presidential Candidate Senator John Kerry, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and the majority of elected Democrats as well as elected delegates to the National and state conventions swear an oath to make the "single payer universal health care system" the official health care plank in the Democratic party platform and campaign making the "single payer universal health care system" a central part of all Democratic party communications to the American public leading up to the 2004 elections.
Draft Proposal for a Continental Anti-Authoritarian Anti-Capitalist Network (tags)
On this tenth anniversary of the emergence of the Zapatistas from the Lacandon jungle, we call for the formation of a continental anti-authoritarian anti-capitalist network for North America. Our movements for liberation and freedom have met many challenges and our resistance continues to grow. It is now time to organize ourselves better through a de-centralized continental network of anti-capitalists
Fascism, Farm Subsidies and Suicide (tags)
As the fascists in the White House celebrate the success of the tragedy they helped make happen on 9/11 (September 11, 2001) on this day September 11, 2003, Lee Kyung-hae, a Korean farmer (who has been put out of business in Korea by cheap imports from the U.S. Global Economic Dictatorship) lies dead in a hospital morgue in Cancun, Mexico.
Call to Action from the Global South: June 2003 WTO Ministerial in Sacramento (tags)
We, the undersigned organizations representing the peoples of the South, call on concerned individuals and organizations especially those within the United States to join us in the global popular protests against the Sacramento Ministerial meeting.
Demands regarding the invasion, occupation and 'reconstruction' of Iraq (tags)
This statement will be presented to the "Iraq and the Global Peace Movement: What next?" conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, 19-21 May and at the peace and anti-war movements events during the G8 in late May.
"The System is always Fair", the Cat says to the Mouse (tags)
"Behind closed doors, the WTO negotiated GATS, an agreement on liberalization of services. Health conglomerates all over the world can steal solvent patients. The existential necessity water could soon be much more expensive." Trans. from German
Focus on the Global South website hacked (tags)
website hacked - a random event?
Fighting back against the debt: Today on Radio IMC-LA (tags)
“Those who are forcing our governments to find ways to repay the debt are planning our own life and our own death.... We need to stand up at least as forcefully and as purposefully as those people who every day work to ensure that this unjust and illegitimate debt will be repaid.” --Miguel Gil, Dominican Republic
IPPN Executive Committee Statement (tags)
"The progressive movement must stand firm at this dangerous time in opposition to the scapegoating of Arab and Islamic people, in support of basic civil and democratic rights, and for a U.S. foreign policy which is about justice, fair trade, environmental sustainability and a raising of the living standards of all people, especially those in the countries of the Global South."
The Cielo di San Francisco and Who IS Affected By These Actions (tags)
One of the organizers of the Portland picket of the Italian cargo ship the Cielo di San Francisco explains who was affected by that action and why they chose that target.