April 2012 - Page 4 of 6 - Toward Freedom

Believe me, you don’t want the state having the power to strip your clothes off. And yet, it’s exactly what is happening

In a five-four ruling [last] week, the supreme court decided that anyone can be strip-searched upon arrest for any offense, however minor, at any time. This horror show ruling joins two recent horror show laws: the NDAA, which lets anyone be arrested forever at any time, and HR 347, the “trespass bill”, which gives you a 10-year sentence for protesting anywhere near someone with secret service protection. These criminalizations of being human follow, of course, the mini-uprising of the Occupy movement. read more

Brazil’s Landless Movement: Without Firing an Arm, We Created a Revolution

Ilda Martines de Souza and Beverly Bell April 11, 2012 Ilda Martines de Souza and Beverly Bell

“We take the land from one hand and put it in the hands of a thousand... landowners would only use this land for cattle, and now we produce beans, milk, food, for the entire population.” – Ilda Martines de Souza, a leader of Brazil’s landless farmer movement.

Leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China

The South Challenges Globalization

Samir Amin April 10, 2012 Samir Amin

The increased strength of emerging countries of the South confronts the challenges of contemporary globalization.

Egypt’s Looming Economic Shock Doctrine

Sharif Abdel Kouddous April 9, 2012 Sharif Abdel Kouddous

Source: The Nation

Egypt is teetering on the edge of an economic crisis. Cast adrift in a deepening political quagmire over the past fourteen months, the economy has now reached a critical juncture, as the country faces the pressing challenge of financing a large budget deficit as rapidly dwindling foreign currency reserves threaten to crack apart an already fragile situation.

Yet, more than a year after the launch of a revolution driven in large part by economic grievances, the budgetary and fiscal proposals being considered to secure external financial assistance are geared more towards furthering Mubarak-era policies than to promoting social justice. read more

Eyes on the Prize: MLK’s Lessons for Occupy

Valerie Schloredt April 9, 2012 Valerie Schloredt

At the time of his death, Martin Luther King Jr. was planning a campaign around economic injustice—including a mass encampment of poor people in Washington, D.C.

‘War on drugs’ has failed, say Latin American leaders

Jamie Doward April 9, 2012 Jamie Doward

Source: The Guardian

A historic meeting of Latin America’s leaders, to be attended by Barack Obama, will hear serving heads of state admit that the war on drugs has been a failure and that alternatives to prohibition must now be found.

The Summit of the Americas, to be held in Cartagena, Colombia is being seen by foreign policy experts as a watershed moment in the redrafting of global drugs policy in favour of a more nuanced and liberalised approach.

Otto Pérez Molina, the president of Guatemala, who as former head of his country’s military intelligence service experienced the power of drug cartels at close hand, is pushing his fellow Latin American leaders to use the summit to endorse a new regional security plan that would see an end to prohibition. In the Observer, Pérez Molina writes: “The prohibition paradigm that inspires mainstream global drug policy today is based on a false premise: that global drug markets can be eradicated.” read more

Month: April 2012

How the US uses sexual humiliation as a political tool to control the masses

Brazil’s Landless Movement: Without Firing an Arm, We Created a Revolution

The South Challenges Globalization

Egypt’s Looming Economic Shock Doctrine

Eyes on the Prize: MLK’s Lessons for Occupy

‘War on drugs’ has failed, say Latin American leaders