Growing Beyond Growth
When democracy is not determined by economic power, it is possible to imagine alternatives to “growth” and “austerity.”
Apologies to Mexico: The Drug Trade and GNP (Gross National Pain)
Dear Mexico,
I apologize. There are so many things I could apologize for, from the way the U.S. biotech corporation Monsanto has contaminated your corn to the way Arizona and Alabama are persecuting your citizens, but right now I’d like to apologize for the drug war, the 10,000 waking nightmares that make the news and the rest that don’t.
You’ve heard the stories about the five severed heads rolled onto the floor of a Michoacan nightclub in 2006, the 300 bodies dissolved in acid by a servant of one drug lord, the 49 mutilated bodies found in plastic bags by the side of the road in Monterrey in May, the nine bodies found hanging from an overpass in Nuevo Laredo just last month, the Zeta Cartel’s videotaped beheadings just two weeks ago, the carnage that has taken tens of thousands of Mexican lives in the last decade and has terrorized a whole nation. I’ve read them and so many more. I am sorry 50,000 times over.
A Post ‘Arab Spring’ Palestine
Will the Arab Spring serve the cause of Palestine?” is a question that has been repeatedly asked, in various ways, over the last year and a half. Many media discussions have been formulated around this very inquiry, although the answer is far from a simple “yes” or “no.”
Trans-Pacific Partnership: NAFTA on Steroids
Source: The Nation
While the Occupy movement has forced a public discussion of extreme corporate influence on every aspect of our lives, behind closed doors corporate America is implementing a stealth strategy to formalize its rule in a truly horrifying manner. The mechanism is the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Negotiations have been conducted in extreme secrecy, so you are in good company if you have never heard of it. But the thirteenth round of negotiations between the United States and eight Pacific Rim nations will be held in San Diego in early July.
Why Europe’s Laws on Vacations Are Better
Source: Truthout
We work ourselves to death, while people in other countries take holidays, get family leave and have paid sick time during vacations.
Imagine this: You work 25 hours a week at the McDonald’s in Cairo, New York, and have finally earned two weeks of paid vacation. You set out on a bike trip. On the first day in the saddle, you hit a pothole and crash, cracking your collar bone. You sit on your couch for the rest of your vacation watching the Tour de France. Tough luck.
Unless you worked for McDonald’s in Europe. If you did, you would be entitled to a fully paid do-over, according to a June 21 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest court in Europe (whose rulings must be followed by all member states). This court ruled that all European workers are entitled to their full vacation after they have healed:
Mexico: From the “Perfect Dictatorship” to the Imperfect Democracy
Source: Americas Program
If Mexico’s electoral authorities confirm the preliminary vote, Mexico will have gone from a “perfect dictatorship” to an imperfect democracy,with the return to power of the party that ruled for 71 years almost without rivals.
The numbers reported by the preliminary system show that the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Enrique Peña Nieto, garnered 38.1% of the vote, followed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) with 31.6%. The conservative National Action Party of President Felipe Calderón trailed at a distant third with 25.4%.