The Silent Violence Against Women Worldwide
We need to place an emphasis on the universality of violence against women, and the ways in which the broader system of domination based on subordination and inequality are inter-related.
Month: November 2012
Should Chiapas Farmers Suffer for California’s Carbon?
Source: Yes Magazine
A California proposal would offset the state’s climate-altering emissions by paying for forest conservation in Chiapas. Could there be unintended consequences in a region with a history of human rights abuse and land grabs?
“We are not responsible for climate change—it’s the big industries that are,” said Abelardo, a young man from the Tseltal Mayan village of Amador Hernández in the Lacandon jungle of Chiapas. “So why should we be held responsible, and even punished for it?”
China’s Transformation: A Southeast Asian Perspective
Source: Foreign Policy in Focus
China’s once-in-a-decade leadership transition will have major implications for China’s neighbors in Southeast Asia. Given this, it might be worthwhile to review the changing understanding of the momentous developments in China on the part of people in our region, using my generation—the so-called “baby boomers”—as an example.
Many in my generation in Southeast Asia came of age during the tempestuous years of the Mao era, when China was seeking to assert itself as a revolutionary beacon and undergoing the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Many were radicalized by the twin forces of the Vietnamese struggle for national liberation against the United States and China’s bid for revolutionary leadership in the third world.
The Petraeus Legacy: A Paramilitary CIA?
Source: The Nation
While much of the media focus on l’affaire Petraeus has centered on the CIA director’s sexual relationship with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, the scandal opens a window onto a different and more consequential relationship—that between the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command. In a behind-the-scenes turf war that has raged since 9/11, the two government bodies have fought for control of the expanding global wars waged by the United States—a turf war that JSOC has largely won. Petraeus, an instrumental player in this power struggle, leaves behind an agency that has strayed from intelligence to paramilitary-type activities. Though his legacy will be defined largely by the scandal that ended his career, to many within military and intelligence circles, Petraeus’s career trajectory, from commander of US military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to the helm of the CIA, is a symbol of this evolution.
Community Corridor: Halting the Rise of Pipeline Infrastructure with Creative Radical Resistance
In a recent series of direct actions resisting the path of the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas, environmental activists have deployed ingenious configurations of tree-houses, platforms, ropes and banners erected and organized in an almost ‘Ewok-style’ resistance. These eco-warriors were able to delay for two days loggers clearing the right-of-way for the Keystone XL pipeline.
Greece Between Austerity and Fascism
Source: Indypendent
ATHENS, Greece — The European Union has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. But it is today’s Greek anti-fascist movement that deserves an award for doing what European states have so far failed to do — confronting the rise of violent neo-Nazi movements on the continent.
Although fascism is not new in Greece, it has seen a resurgence in the Golden Dawn party, which won 18 parliamentary seats in the last election. Some polls indicate that approximately half of Greek police support Golden Dawn and that the party enjoys legitimacy in wide social circles. Police sometimes even refer crime victims to Golden Dawn for follow-up on law enforcement and citizen protection.