The West likes to pose as the moral authority for the whole world. The West overran the world for years with disastrous and illegal wars. Glyphosate is the Agent Orange of our time. The US accused Vietnam of attacking one of its warships. But this attack was a fiction.
A Partial Privatization of Justice (tags)
On www.socialeurope.eu, Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO warns that the TTIP is a secret tribunal where only foreign investors can sue. The TTIP brings a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state by creating a parallel private arbitration system with irrevocable decisions.
BRICS: Support for Putin (tags)
Brazil, India, China and South Africa protested against Australia's proposal to exclude Putin from the upcoming G20 meeting. China was formally neutral in the vote on the Crimea resolution. India spoke of "legitimate Russian interests."
What's Left for the Left? Building a Blue-Green Coalition (tags)
To build a strong electoral base for the Left, Green Party activists can build coalitions to pass ranked choice voting in cities throughout LA County, elect Greens to every non-partisan office - from neighborhood council to union leadership - and strategically support anti-war progressive Democrats running for state and federal office. From the ground up, we must build a diverse Green Party to protect our planet beyond the age of empire.
"Manufacturing Dissent": the Anti-globalization Movement is Funded by the Corporate Elites (tags)
"How is the process of manufacturing dissent achieved? Essentially by "funding dissent", namely by channelling financial resources from those who are the object of the protest movement to those who are involved in organizing the protest movement. Co-optation is not limited to buying the favors of politicians. The economic elites --which control major foundations-- also oversee the funding of numerous NGOs and civil society organizations, which historically have been involved in the protest movement against the established economic and social order. The programs of many NGOs and people's movements rely heavily on both public as well as private funding agencies including the Ford, Rockefeller, McCarthy foundations, among others. The anti-globalization movement is opposed to Wall Street and the Texas oil giants controlled by Rockefeller, et al. Yet the foundations and charities of Rockefeller et al will generously fund progressive anti-capitalist networks as well as environmentalists (opposed to Big Oil) with a view to ultimately overseeing and shaping their various activities."
All Cards on the Table: For a Social Ecological New Deal (tags)
The neoliberal and fossilist finance market capitalism has become a discontinued model. With his New Deal, Roosevelt introduced state pensions, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage, reduced working hours and strengthened unions.
The Great Chance: Basic Guaranteed Income (tags)
How else should the economy and society become more sustainable without a partial turning away from the growth society of more and more? The de-acceleration of work and life is necessary. A basic income could initiate both.
Why Is Oil More Expensive? (tags)
The reason for the high price of oil is that specualtive capital after the eruption of the US real estate crisis in the summer of 2007 now wreaks its havoc in the oil- and other raw material sectors. Workers have a world to win whose contours can hardly be defined.
“Green” capitalism: German Greens adopt new economic programme (tags)
Germany’s Green Party recently agreed to a new economic programme, published under the title “The Green free-market economy.” The programme paper was developed by prominent party figures under the auspices of the party’s parliamentary faction leader Fritz Kuhn, heralding the free market as the guardian angel of the environment—and their own wallets. Every line of this document reflects the class outlook of the upper middle class—those owning medium-sized businesses and the better-off self-employed—by glorifying the market and private property, while simultaneously expressing the authors’ fear of mounting social inequalities. The entire document is characterised by a continuous “on the one hand...and on the other hand” type of argument.
Czech Greens enter right-wing government (tags)
Following the Czech parliamentary elections of June 2 and 3, the Green Party is now preparing to join the right-wing government of the arch-conservative Citizens Party (ODS). The Greens have now entered an Eastern European parliament for the first time, with Strana Zelenych (SZ) receiving 6.3 percent of the vote. Clearly, the Green Party in Prague is beginning its political odyssey at the point it left off in Germany—as a governing party; but this time no longer in alliance with the Social Democrats, but instead with politically conservative and right-wing parties.
Worldwide Wars and Anti-Military Options (tags)
The author suggersts three reasons for the nerve-wracking calm in Germany: 1) objective and very cruel mass unemployment, 2) self-stigmatization and 3) people don't think there is anything to share. At the end he urgers: Be IMI-Instinctively Mainstream Ignoring.
German Greens, Conservatives draw closer together (tags)
Last week, the conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and the free-market liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) started official talks aimed at forming a new coalition government in the state of Baden-Württemberg, after elections were held there at the end of March. Both parties aim to agree on a coalition pact by May 6. The state’s premier, Günther Oettinger (CDU), made this announcement two days before the CDU’s parliamentary faction was due to meet. The CDU had previously held two meetings each with the FDP and the Green Party to assess the possibilities of forming a coalition government. The discussions with the Greens signified yet a further convergence between the two parties and will undoubtedly be viewed in the not-too-distant future as a preparation for the first CDU-Green state government.
The Shortwave Report 4/27/01 !LISTEN GLOBALLY! (tags)
A Weekly 30 minute review of news stories and opinions recorded from a shortwave radio. (13.6mb/mp3) Radio Netherlands, Deutsche Welle, Spain, China, Cuba. Foot and Mouth, nuclear power in Germany, Nigeria, Ethiopia, US arms sales, Mexico, Columbia, FTAA, US in Panama.