Page 145 – Toward Freedom

US: Native Americans Take Power

Stephanie Woodard January 17, 2019 Stephanie Woodard

THEY WENT LOW—VERY LOW—AND SHARICE DAVIDS WENT TO WASHINGTON.After a congressional campaign marred by a local Republican official’s racist and mean-spirited Twitter threat to send the Ho-Chunk Nation tribal member back “to the reservation,” the good people of Kansas voted to send Davids to Congress instead. Davids, a Democrat, ousted a four-term Republican incumbent by campaigning on equality, including for LGBTQ Kansans like herself.

Davids, a professional mixed martial arts fighter and licensed lawyer, put it this way in a campaign ad that showed her working out and kicking a punching bag: “It’s 2018, and women, Native Americans, gay people, the unemployed and underemployed have to fight like hell just to survive. It’s clear Trump and the Republicans in Washington don’t give a damn about anyone like me or anyone who doesn’t think like them.” read more

India: Mass Action and Modi

Thomas Crowley January 17, 2019 Thomas Crowley

Source: Jacobin

On January 8 and 9, millions of workers in India launched a general strike, disrupting key industries, blocking train lines and highways, and participating in rallies and demonstrations denouncing the anti-worker policies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The strike was the third of its kind since the BJP came to power in 2014, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi serving as the perfect avatar for the party’s program of neoliberalism and strident Hindu nationalism. It is likely the last such strike before the next national-level elections, slated for April and May. read more

The State of Social Movements in Latin America: An Interview with Raúl Zibechi

Jeff Abbot January 16, 2019 Jeff Abbot

The indigenous and African American communities know perfectly well that regardless of who is elected their situation will not change unless they themselves change. The only alternative they have is to strengthen their autonomy, their capacity to organize, and their capacity to make decisions. Naturally this process brings us beyond the immediate and what occurs in the electoral process. To me this is a very important question, because it places us in a situation where the political agenda is not being made by those in power, but rather the people.

A Dream Deferred: MLK’s Dream of Economic Justice is Far From Reality

Jessicah Pierre January 16, 2019 Jessicah Pierre

King foreshadowed that if we maintain our exploitive economic and political systems, then we’d get not only racial apartheid, but economic apartheid as well. And unfortunately, that is exactly where we’re heading without systemic change.

How the Yellow Vests are Reinventing French Politics

Raphael Mimoun and Sarah Freeman-Woolpert January 14, 2019 Raphael Mimoun and Sarah Freeman-Woolpert

While the movement has unleashed a tidal wave of discontent and anger throughout France, it also has the potential to re-invent French politics as a participatory process, putting ordinary citizens back in control.

Standing Rock inspired Ocasio-Cortez to run. That’s the power of protest

Rebecca Solnit January 14, 2019 Rebecca Solnit

Source: The Guardian

Press on for what you believe in – a young woman’s election to Congress shows climate activism can have unforeseen results

It’s hard right now to remember how hot it was last August on the long sandy beach where the Colorado River meets the Green River in southern Utah. I was a few days into a rafting trip through Cataract Canyon with a bunch of young climate activists, and one of them, Will Munger, was telling me that since his months at the Standing Rock resistance camp, he had been encountering young Native people whose experiences at the protest site had encouraged them to dream of new possibilities and take actions that might otherwise have seemed out of reach. read more