Page 717 – Toward Freedom

Ecuador: The Battle for Natural Resources Deepens

Raúl Zibechi October 27, 2009 Raúl Zibechi

A new indigenous uprising began in defense of water sources threatened by open air mining in Ecuador in late September. This time indigenous organizations find themselves up against a government that claims to be anti-neoliberal, a player in the "socialism of the 21st century," and one that has begun a "citizen’s revolution."

"What happened in Cochabamba in the fight for water will be dwarfed by what is about to happen in Ecuador. An uprising is coming because it is coming," affirms a convinced Carlos Pérez Guartambel, president of the Azuay Union of Community Water Systems (Unión de Sistemas Comunitarios de Agua del Azuay).1 Pérez is referring to the Water War of Cochabamba, Bolivia, a vast social insurrection that put a stop to the privatization of water and, in April 2000, began a succession of protests that brought Evo Morales to the presidency. read more

Agribusiness Versus the Omnivore: Gagging Michael Pollan

Martha Rosenberg October 27, 2009 Martha Rosenberg

Source: Counterpunch

Even if agribusiness could shut Michael Pollan up, the outspoken author of Omnivore’s Dilemma and a journalism professor at University of California, Berkeley, it still has the Los Angeles Times to contend with.

Last week, the Times blasted California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo for downgrading a scheduled Pollan lecture because it received pressure from David E. Wood, a university donor who happens to be chairman of the Harris Ranch Beef Co.

"Agribusiness gets plenty of opportunities to preach its point of view at agriculture schools such as Cal Poly, where the likes of Monsanto and Cargill fund research," the Times wrote, calling the 800-acre Harris Ranch, near Coalinga, whose "smell assaults passersby long before the panorama of thousands of cattle packed atop layers of their own manure,"–"Cowschwitz." Ouch. read more

Pipeline Renews Debate on Sea-Dumped Chemical Weapons

Matthew Berger October 27, 2009 Matthew Berger

Source: IPS News

(IPS) – On Sep. 24, a beachgoer near Swansea, Wales reported a piece of military equipment washed up on the shore. Three days later, the two members of the team that had showed up to dispose of the shell developed symptoms compatible with mustard gas – a chemical warfare agent used in the two world wars and other conflicts.

Concern over sea-dumped chemical weapons such as the mustards that washed up in Wales is growing, particularly in the Baltic Sea – the site of the dumping of 40,000 tonnes of surplus and seized chemical weapons in the years following World War II and the proposed site of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany.

Following presentations at the U.N. last week and meetings on Capitol Hill later this week, Vaidotas Verba, Lithuania’s ambassador to the Netherlands and to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, hopes to spread awareness of this sea-borne hazard and build momentum for a draft resolution to be presented at the U.N. General Assembly next fall. read more

US Workers Starved Into Military Service

Sandy LeonVest October 27, 2009 Sandy LeonVest

It was only a matter of time before the nation’s skyrocketing unemployment translated into new recruits for the most powerful military force in the world.

With the official US unemployment rate at 10 percent and climbing (that’s more than 15 million people struggling to put food on the table) and nearly double that number if you include part-time wage-earners who need full-time jobs, never mind all of those ‘discouraged workers,’ it’s little wonder that so many of the nation’s jobless are flocking into its military recruitment offices. read more

Montrealers Deliver a Fiery Message to Bush: You Are Persona Non Grata

Charlotte Dennett, Photos by Robin Lloyd October 24, 2009 Charlotte Dennett, Photos by Robin Lloyd

They threw shoes - so many shoes that hotel staff had to roll out a laundry bin onto the street to pick them all up, and even then, the bin could barely contain them all. They chanted: "Bush: Assassin! Terroriste! Criminel!" and then, at the appropriate command, hurled more shoes toward the heavily guarded entrance of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where George W. Bush was scheduled to speak.

Anti-Capitalism Goes Mainstream: New Film Opens Space for Radical Debate

Alex Knight October 22, 2009 Alex Knight

Capitalism: A Love Story, which opened in 962 theaters earlier this month, is Michael Moore's most ambitious work yet - taking aim at the root cause behind the injustices he's exposed in his other films over the last 20 years. This time capitalism itself is the culprit to be maligned in Moore's trademark docu-tragi-comic style. And by using the platform of a major motion picture to make a direct assault at the root of the problem, Moore has created space in the political mainstream for a radical conversation (radical meaning "going to the root").