Month: May 2010
Can Elections Restructure Sudan for Peace?
There are elections in countries with well-worn political structures, such as the recent elections in the United Kingdom. There, elections serve as a certain circulation of the elites and modest changes in policy.Then there are elections in countries that have not known multi-party elections in many years, where there are few existing political structures but a willingness to use violence for political ends and where the consequences of the elections are not clear. Such was the case with the April 11 elections in Sudan.Omar al-Bashir
The Greeks Get It
Here's to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out.
The Most Important Part of Going to the U.S. Social Forum: Coming Home
Source: Z Communications
The most important part of going the U.S. Social Forum is how we come home from it. This is true because the Social Forum is only valuable insofar as it helps us build a strong grassroots base at home that is capable of winning demands, gaining, power, and ultimately changing the way institutions work. If most of the value of the Social Forum will be realized back at home, we should approach the Social Forum with that in mind: We should be talking to each other now about how this massive event in Detroit will help us go home stronger than we were before. What skills and strategies can we pick up and take home to others? How can we ensure that the Social Forum injects momentum into the daily political struggles we are engaged in?
It’s Up To You: Civil Resistance Needed to Combat Climate Change
James Hansen could have quietly enjoyed his reputation as one of the leading authorities in the world on global warming and its consequences. Instead, he set out to prevent the transition to that hostile planet on which his grandchildren would someday live. His efforts ranged from providing testimony before Congress and speaking before other powerful political groups, through condemnation of the Kyoto Protocol and the cap-and-trade, to facing a year in prison for civil disobedience while protesting mountain-top coal mining. James Hansen
Haitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds
"A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.Farmer Jonas Deronzil