Radical media, politics and culture.

NorthStar Anarchist Collective, FRAC writes:

"Voting: The Great American Hoax"

Dispencer

Direct democracy vs. electoral politics, an anarchist look at voting by Dispencer, who is a member or the Northstar Anarchist Collective in Minneapolis, and has been in Anti-Racist Action since 1998. (A response to "Beyond Voting," by Chris Crass in Clamor, Communique 42.)]

It is inevitable. As an Anarchist you will always encounter people who will want to engage you in debate on the topic of voting. It may be a co-worker, or perhaps a friend, a fellow activist, or a stranger on the street. Most Anarchists know that they do not believe in the capitalist system, or in the electoral process. We believe that the system is built to have the illusion of freedom while keeping a boot firmly on the throat of the lower- and working-classes, and particularly, people of color in the US and worldwide.

Rachel Shabi and John Hooper write:

"Genoa: Now, The Reckoning"
Rachel Shabi and John Hooper, The Guardian

[In the summer of 2001, Italian police launched a brutal raid on protesters at the G8 summit in Genoa after they had returned to their sleeping quarters. Among 62 injured were various Britons, some of whom have still not recovered. Finally, more than 60 officers are being called to account in court. Rachel Shabi and John Hooper report.]

On Saturday night, July 21 2001, Richard Moth and his girlfriend Nicola Doherty left their friends in a Genoa bar because she was feeling tired and wanted an early night. The two London care workers were among vast numbers of people demonstrating at that year's G8 summit. Protesters against corporate globalisation had been following the leaders of the world's major industrial nations to their annual meetings in different parts of the globe since 1998. But this was a gathering on a scale unlike anything that had preceded it. The organisers put the numbers at 200,000; the police said there were 100,000. And it had turned ugly. Even though — or perhaps because — there were 20,000 police in Genoa, including reinforcements drawn from all over Italy, the summit protests became a bloody battleground.

midwest unrest writes:


"Fight or Walk: The Chicago Transit Fare Strike"

Midwest Unrest


The purpose of this article is to help us discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our fare strike campaign in Chicago, as well as to help groups in other cities who want to organize around transit issues. When we first decided to do this campaign, there wasn’t much to read on how other people had organized fare strikes. Hopefully this can be useful to other groups who want to use similar tactics.

Four More Years of Bush Makes the World Anxious

Timothy Heritage, Reuters

PARIS — The rest of the world will be watching with anxiety when President Bush is inaugurated Thursday for a second time, fearing the most powerful man on the planet may do more harm than good.

Many world leaders, alienated by Bush's go-it-alone foreign policy and the U.S.-led war in Iraq, would have preferred him to lose the U.S. election last November. Since his victory, they have been urging him to listen and consult more.

Jelloul writes:

Juan Cole's"Lebanon-like solution" is: put aside 20% of seats in parliament for the Sunni Arabs:

If elections are held in January, I see only one way to avoid disaster. This would be some sort of emergency decree by the current government that sets aside, say, 20% of seats in parliament for the Sunni Arabs. This procedure would seat Sunni Arab candidates in order of the popularity of their lists and in order of their rank within the lists on which they run. But the results would essentially be "graded on a curve." In a way, this procedure is already being followed for women, who are guaranteed 30% of seats. This solution is Lebanon-like and is not optimal, but it might be the best course if long-term sectarian and ethnic conflict is to be avoided. Remember, the first thing the new parliament will do is craft a permanent constitution. You want Sunni Arabs sitting at that table, or else.

No Mr Cole, a Lebanon-like non-sectarian solution is: leave 50% of seats for Sunni Iraqis — including Sunni Kurds.

kernow writes:

"The Challenge of the New Right"

David Garcia, Precarity Forum Provocation #2

This began off list when I engaged Patrice Riemens in discussion. As this meeting is taking place in the Netherlands I think that it is important to learn the lessons of the rise of the new european right. Unlike the mainstream centrist parties the new european right has made significant political capital out of the fact that the globalised free market has losers as well as winners even in the rich countries. In doing so they have outflanked the old political parties, moving with great effectiveness to exploit the dislocations and insecurities created by the global free market to re-ignite the old mix of racism and xenophobia.

"The Provocation of Precarity"

Patrice Riemens

History has it that when Margaretha of Parma, who was regentess of the Low
Countries on behalf of her brother the Spanish king Philipp II, asked the
Dutch nobility to get tough on their protestant-turning populace, their
retort was that they hardly could do so, given "the precarity of their
position and authority". So the people stood fast, and the nobles were
'precarious'. This was the late sixteenth century.


In the early twenty first century, however, precarity has become a greatly
more common situation, as ever larger number of people are hit by a
not-so-silent 'revolution of the reaction' against the welfare state and
all the promises of long term security it used to stand for. Today,
socialism is for the rich (think tax breaks and 'corporate welfare'),
while the public at large partakes in the thrills of the 'risk society'.
Just read the Wall Street Journal and become convinced that taxes suck big
time and solidarity stinks to high heavens.

"Thatcher Must Stay Away from Africa"

Zimbabwe Herald

The ordinary British, French, German, Belgian,
Portuguese and Spanish man or woman did not benefit
from the colonies.


In fact, they were expected to die for them when
troops were sent out to crush resistance from
"natives" who felt semi-slavery was not that wonderful
an option.


The people who benefited, Cecil John Rhodes and his
ilk, were those who guided the process and made sure
they won the commercial rewards, looting Africa and
the pockets of their metropolitan taxpayers.

20 Amazing Facts about Voting in the USA

Did you know....?

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies:
Diebold and ES&S.

Evoting

Diebold

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or
oversight
of the U.S. voting machine industry.

Common Dreams

Evoting

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are
brothers.

Company

Landes

Kamonpan writes:

Tsunami’s Double Victims: A Tidal Wave of Discrimination

One of the most striking contradictions in the response to the tsunami’s aftermath on the Andaman coast — the periphery of a periphery — is the treatment of the Burmese migrant workers in Thailand. Hundreds died, an estimated 2,500 are among the missing. Yet these losses have gone unreported in the official government count in Thailand. The many injured and homeless survivors are being excluded from relief aid, treated like human trash. The Thai Action Committee for Democracy in Burma has called for special centers to be set up to help these discriminated victims of the Great Wave’s fury. [1]

Pages