The tendency to invoke a national security framework in discussions of climate change can lead to misguided and opportunistic policies centered on greenwashed imperialism.
On Monday, January 7th the Tar Sands Blockade participated in a national day of action against the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline in which they occupied space in the lobbies of both the Keystone headquarters and TransCanada headquarters in Houston, Texas.
Source: In These Times
In the late 1990s, in one of many chapters in the Colombian government’s decades-old dirty war with leftist guerrillas, more than 15,000 people in the northern region of Curvaradó were forced from their land. First came the army, they recall. And they told us to leave. ‘Don’t be afraid of us,’ the soldiers said. ‘Be afraid of those that follow us.’
Those that followed were las mocha cabezas—the beheaders—paramilitary death squads fighting as the military’s proxies. Thousands fled their massacres, bombardments and executions.
Who might have imagined, when 2012 was dawning, that the failures of capitalism – especially as seen through inequality which is crescendoing like a bottle rocket -would become standard dinner-table conversation in the US? Motley Occupiers around the country achieved that.
Source: In These Times
Reporting on the final U.S. presidential campaign debate, on foreign policy, The Wall Street Journal observed that “the only country mentioned more [than Israel] was Iran, which is seen by most nations in the Middle East as the gravest security threat to the region.”
The two candidates agreed that a nuclear Iran is the gravest threat to the region, if not the world, as Romney explicitly maintained, reiterating a conventional view.
On Israel, the candidates vied in declaring their devotion to it, but Israeli officials were nevertheless unsatisfied. They had “hoped for more `aggressive’ language from Mr. Romney,” according to the reporters. It was not enough that Romney demanded that Iran not be permitted to “reach a point of nuclear capability.”
Source: New Left Project
In this often personal interview, renowned linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky outlines a libertarian perspective on work and education, arguing that freedom is the root of creativity and fulfillment.
Michael Kasenbacher: The question I would like to ask is what is really wanted work? Maybe we could start with your personal life and your double career in linguistics and political activism? Do you like that kind of work?
Noam Chomsky: If I had the time I would spend far more time doing work on language, philosophy, cognitive science, topics that are intellectually very interesting. But a large part of my life is given to one or another form of political activity: reading, writing, organising, activism and so on. Which is worth doing, it’s necessary but it’s not really intellectually challenging. Regarding human affairs we either understand nothing, or it’s pretty superficial. It’s hard work to get the data and put it all together but it’s not terribly challenging intellectually. But I do it because it’s necessary. The kind of work that should be the main part of life is the kind of work you would want to do if you weren’t being paid for it. It’s work that comes out of your own internal needs, interests and concerns.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019