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2002/07/31
Whose Information Society?, Communication Rights in the Information Society /The CRIS Campaign
The Information Society, we are told, is upon us. The promise is for a knowledge-based society, yielding untold dividends for education, health, development, democracy and much more. Seamless networking and knowledge flows from major centres to village hut, and back again. The reality, if current trends continue, might be very different, the dream might become a nightmare
Jim Hightower; Stop the Corporate Takeover of our Water, AlterNet 24.07.2002
Yes, the ideologues and greedheads who brought us the fairy tale of energy deregulation and the Ponzi scheme of Enron are aggressively pushing for deregulation and privatization of the world's water supplies and systems. They are determined to turn this essential public resource into another commodity for traders and speculators -- a private plaything for personal profiteering.
Time for the left to go global, The Observer 28.072002
Soon after 11th September there was much speculation about what would happen to the movement for global change. Would it die? Would it be suppressed? Would it grow even bigger? Now, almost a year on, we can answer the question: it has grown up. And, ironically, it has done so by returning to its early days. Thankfully the violence, the 'direct action' against burger bars and cafes, and the wild dreams of global revolution and a worldwide return to micro-communities have faded away. Instead we have thoughtful consideration of how to help globalisation's losers and a recognition that the movement needs to focus on what is achievable. More interesting articles in The Observer's special report section The globalisation debate. 2002/07/30
See what i found!
Teachers attack TV storylines, The Guardian 30.07.2002
Soap operas and television adverts that glorify selfish and bad behaviour are sending "da ngerous messages" to children, teachers warned today. While schools are doing a "brilliant job" in giving children moral values they are up against the "adverse influences" television brings into children's lives, say senior members of the Professional Association of Teachers (PAT). 2002/07/29
US accused of airstrike cover-up, The TImes 29.07.2002
American forces may have breached human rights and then removed evidence after the so-called wedding party airstrike that killed more than 50 Afghan civilians this month, according to a draft United Nations report seen by The Times. A preliminary UN investigation has found no corroboration of American claims that its aircraft were fired on from the ground, and says there were discrepancies in US accounts of what happened. If the findings are upheld by a second, more detailed, UN investigation, they will cause huge embarrassment to the Pentagon. 2002/07/25
Alejandro Tietelbaum; About terrorism, Sand in the Wheels (n°137), ATTAC Weekly newsletter - Wednesday 24/07/02
Therefore, the terrorism of State (or Power) has been since the oldest Antiquity and is today the main form of terrorism, aimed at preserving the established order, and individual or group terrorism is generally the response to state terrorism (and not the opposite). Individual or group terrorism is much newer. As it does not have either the material resources or the time, unlike the Power has, it is artisanal and looks for immediate results, without regards for both means and sacrifices. The messianism and the irrationality of the behaviour of its promoters and executors often bring them to be (generally unintentionally) instrument of the state terrorism. 2002/07/23
The unorthodox orthodox, The Observer Sunday July 21, 2002
They strictly follow the tenets of the Torah. They also burn Israeli flags. Alex Klaushofer meets the members of Neturei Karta in north London - the Jewish world's most outspoken critics of Zionism.
Boycott Israel!
Hilary and Steven Rose; The choice is to do nothing or try to bring about change, The Guardian Weekly Thursday July 18, 2002 The carnage in the Middle East continues. Ariel Sharon refuses to negotiate while "violence" (that is, Palestinian resistance) continues. The British government sheds crocodile tears at the loss of life while inviting Israel's prime minister, accused of war crimes, to lunch. Yet every rational person knows that the only prospect of a just and lasting peace lies in Israel's recognition of the legitimacy of a Palestinian state and the Arab world's acceptance of a secure Israel behind its 1967 borders. That is what every peace plan proposes. But how to get from here to there? Is there anything that ordinary citizens, that is, civil society, can do to move the peace process forward? One of the nonviolent weapons open to civil society to express its moral outrage is the boycott. Internationally this has been most successful against apartheid South Africa. It took many years but ultimately shamed governments and multinational corporations into isolating this iniquitous regime. The boycott called last year by Palestinian solidarity movements was against Israeli products. This too moves slowly, but only a couple of weeks ago it secured a ban on the sale of settlement-produced goods illegally labelled "made in Israel".
Michael Walzer; Can There Be a Decent Left?, Dissent Spring 2002
The radical failure of the left’s response to the events of last fall raises a disturbing question: can there be a decent left in a superpower? Or more accurately, in the only superpower? Maybe the guilt produced by living in such a country and enjoying its privileges makes it impossible to sustain a decent (intelligent, responsible, morally nuanced) politics. Maybe festering resentment, ingrown anger, and self-hate are the inevitable result of the long years spent in fruitless opposition to the global reach of American power. Certainly, all those emotions were plain to see in the left's reaction to September 11, in the failure to register the horror of the attack or to acknowledge the human pain it caused, in the schadenfreude of so many of the first responses, the barely concealed glee that the imperial state had finally gotten what it deserved. This article written by Michael Walzer are met with som e responses also published on Dissent's web pages.
The choice is not (US led) imperialism camouflaged as "war against terror" or islamic fundamentalism, we have to fight both.
Lead article; War, Islamic fundamentalism grip Middle East, South Asia, News & Letters, November 2001 The danger we face today is that of a false choice between Bush's militarism and Islamic fundamentalism, something that could not only derail the modest beginnings we have seen from the new anti-globalization demonstrations since Seattle, but also launch a new era of reaction worldwide. It is for this reason that the Left needs to fight hard to maintain its independence from all state powers and from all who offer retrogressive solutions. Too often, post-Marx Marxists have dismissed or forgotten Marx's statement in the 1844 ESSAYS on "the relationship of man to woman," where he wrote that "on the basis of this relationship, we can judge the whole stage of development of the human being." By this standard, religious fundamentalism, whether Muslim or Jewish, Christian or Hindu, is a retrogressive force that needs always to be combated, even when it seems to oppose global imperialism. 2002/07/09
Robert Fisk; A strange kind of freedom, The Independent 09.07.2002
Indeed, you have to come to America to realise just how brave this small but vocal Jewish community is. Bernstein is the first to acknowledge that a combination of Israeli lobbyists and conservative Christian fundamentalists have in effect censored all free discussion of Israel and the Middle East out of the public domain in the US. "Everyone else is terrified," Bernstein says. "The only ones who begin to open their mouths are the Jews in this country. You know, as a kid, I sent money to plant trees in Israel. But now we are horrified by a government representing a country that we grew up loving and cherishing. Israel's defenders have a special vengeance for Jews who don't fall in line behind Sharon's scorched-earth policy because they give the lie to the charge that Israel's critics are simply anti-Semite." 2002/07/04
The Rogue State, The Mirror 4th of July 2002
For 101 days, Royal Marines have been engaged in a farcical operation as mercenaries of the United States whose lawlessness now qualifies it as the world's leading rogue state. Shooting at shadows, and the occasional tribesman, blowing up mounds of dirt and displaying "captured" arms for the media, all have been part of the Marines' humiliating role in Afghanistan - a role foisted upon them by the Blair government, whose deference to and collusion with the Bush gang has become a parody of the imperial courtier. Gang is not an exaggeration. The word, in my dictionary, means "a group of people working together for criminal, disreputable ends". That describes accurately George W Bush and those who write his speeches and make his decisions and who, since their rise to power, have undermined the very basis of international law.
This anti-Chavez pro-coup figure presents the view of some of the people supporting the coup in Venezuela. Chavez, elected and supported by the masses, represents democratic socialism in South-America. So how can one say "Just about everybody in Venezuela wants to get rid of [...] Hugo Chavez"? OK, support in popularity ratings changes for most of the worlds leaders. But isn't the election results meant to be respected?
Phil Brennan; Castro Wannabe Chavez Wrecks VenezuelaNewsMax.com Tuesday, March 26, 2002 Just about everybody in Venezuela wants to get rid of Castro wannabe Hugo Chavez, the nation's far-left president, but no two people seem to be able to figure out how to dump him, who'll replace him and what to do after he's gone. In living his dream of converting Venezuela into a communist paradise, Chavez has gutted its economy, introduced a police state, intimidated the media and turned the nation into a basket case. Are we living on the same earth? Let's see what the BBC has to say about him: Profile: Hugo Chavez, BBC Sunday, 14 April, 2002 Hugo Chavez has seen his fortunes swing dramatically from success to failure and back again since his landslide victory in Venezuela's 1998 presidential election. Only last July, the leftist leader's supporters were out celebrating his re-election in the streets of Caracas, but by April 2002 the whole country was embroiled in a general strike. This admirer of Fidel Castro's Cuba and avowed anti-globalist was pushed from office on 12 April - as a result of his attempts to take control of the world's fourth-biggest oil industry. 2002/07/03
Ignacio Ramonet; The perfect crime, Le Monde diplomatique June 2002
Look again at the coup in Venezuela in April against President Hugo Chavez (1). He was quickly restored to office, but the lessons of this textbook attempt at overthrow seem not to have been grasped. Understanding them is vital if we want to avoid the fresh military confrontation now looming in Caracas. The first astonishment is the near absence of international concern about this crime against a government that has been conducting, with great respect for civil liberties, a moderate programme of social transformation — it represents the only experience of democratic socialism in Latin America. 2002/07/02
Will Hutton; Bye bye American pie, The Observer Sunday June 30, 2002
Behind the crisis in corporate America is a combination of pernicious Southern conservatism and unadulterated greed. The US faces a grave economic crisis. The confidence in the balance sheets and reported profitability of American companies has been shattered by an orgy of unprecedented corporate fraud, plunder and malfeasance that has demanded the connivance of its most reputable accounting firms, business leaders and banks. Only last week news broke of the biggest ever accounting fraud in history at WorldCom, to be followed days later of an epic accounting swindle at Xerox.
Elaine Sciolino; Radicalism: Is the Devil in the Demographics?, Global Policy Forum December 9, 2001
Well over half the populations of Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq are under 25 years old, according to the International Programs Center at the Census Bureau. In Pakistan, the number is 61 percent; in Afghanistan, 62 percent. The boom in young people coming of age in a broad swath of territory where terrorists recruit might seem to pose one of the United States' most daunting national security threats. But the picture is more complicated than that. People who study statistics say the danger posed by such bulges actually depends, sometimes in surprising ways, on how rigidly countries are governed. And the effect on feelings about America can be even more surprising. For example, the threat of instability is greater in a partly free society like Egypt than in a rigid dictatorship like Iraq. And in Iran these days, the rise of young people actually plays to, not against, America's interest in seeing that country become more democratic.
Mohammed Dahlan; We'll choose our leaders, The Guardian 02.07.2002
As long as the Israelis are against Arafat, I'm with him - whatever my reservations. Far from setting out a vision of peace, President Bush's plan for the Middle East points instead to an American decision to give up on the peace process. What has effectively been done is to transform a series of demands of the international community and international law into a series of demands to be made of Yasser Arafat. It also gives a new meaning to the word democracy, where our leaders are to be chosen by others. |
