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Watch this documentary! It’s only 48 minutes long, a very heartfelt and inspirational documentary of the Zapatista movement of poor indigenous Mexicans against capitalism.
[This is only one person’s perspective, and not meant to be an authoritative report. Other SDSers, especially womyn and trans folks are encouraged to step up and write about No War, No Warming. -ed.]
“War Pollutes Our Democracy; Sexism Militarizes Our Bodies”
26 members of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) blocked traffic next to the House of Representatives Monday morning, October 22, as part of No War, No Warming, which drew hundreds to the Capitol. Traffic was stopped on Independence Ave. for over an hour. After the initial wave of 27 people was pulled off the street by cops, a second wave, which included minors, jumped into the street and linked arms, halting traffic once again. The goal of the protest was to dramatize that Congress has failed to stop the war and failed to address global warming, and to show that the two issues are deeply connected by Oil.
Nearby, polar bears rapped, giant Condaleeza and giant Bush danced, Iraq Veterans Against the War staged a Blackwater mission, Billionaires for Bush whined, a bike brigade did Critical Mass, and Oil Change International demonstrated for the “Separation of Oil and State.” 61 were arrested overall.
The most fun part was in prison, when we integrated the holding cell across gender (or perceived gender) lines. Starting on opposite sides of the room based on what gender the cops considered us, we sneakily inched together over the course of hours, until we ended up in a big circle and had a meeting! The power dynamic was flipped and the cops were stunned.
Everyone is out of jail, healthy and safe.
“No War! No Warming! Resistance! is Forming!”
some good coverage:
Democracy Now! video coverage (requires Realplayer)
Youtube video #1 (skip the weird 1:00 intro)
more pics: Read the rest of this entry »
By William M. H. Kötke
13 September, 2007
Countercurrents
The planetary elite are compelled to continue on their path of growth leading toward planetary domination. The international bankers through their control of the industrial world’s privately owned central banks maintain a tether on the money system through their control of the U.S. dollar as the currency of international trade. One important mechanism that allows this is that the largest item in international trade – oil – is sold in dollars. In order to insure the continuance of the dollar economy, they must be able to choose which currency oil is sold for or control the oil – or both. The center of the empire, the U.S., is maintained by debt as the petrodollars and other dollars come into the U.S. at the rate of at least two and a half billion per day (purchasing U.S. government bonds) in order to continue the cycle, which keeps the empire and its military power expanding As the elite carry out their strategies of domination they are racing against time. The monster trends of Peak Oil and energy exhaustion, climate change which will severely disrupt the seasons of growth in the food supply system, the weakness of the dollar and ecological collapse are pursuing them. An exponentially growing world population with growing material consumption based on dwindling resources and a dying planet won’t work, but they have no other option to maintain their power and profit.
Seeds of Change
As the industrial system spins toward exhaustion, seeds of change are sprouting at the base. The people at the base are not revolting in order to take the power that the elite have but are revolting to take power over their own lives. Read the rest of this entry »
“Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision”
by Barbara Ransby
2005 University of North Carolina Press
Just kept getting better as it went on. The writing style was not my favorite, the author seemed overly interested in teasing out categories or labels to apply to Baker’s life, rather than telling the bare facts. A more serious complaint is that the book spends hundreds of pages in Baker’s early life and upbringing, only to speed through the most politically interesting part of her life, in the Black Freedom Movement of the 50s and 60s. I’m sorry, but I can never get enough information about SNCC.
Nevertheless, it’s a good book, makes very useful points about radical democratic movement-building and education (that the role of the organizer is to bring people together and ask tough questions, and help nurture people to determine their own strategy and vision), and shows that Ella Baker above all others was the true mentor and parent of our grassroots organizing struggles today.
Declaration of Independence from Oil
July 4, 2007
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the people to rid themselves of a government which has abandoned the sound principles upon which it was founded and that increasingly threatens their lives and liberties for the sake of the Oil Industry, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are born with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. That when a long train of abuses and lies, pursuing invariably the same Middle Eastern Oil, threatens to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these American Citizens, along with the rest of the Peoples of the World. The History of the Government of the United States since the Second World War, fully exposed under the current King George II, is a history of repeated Imperial Adventures, all having in direct object the establishment of an Empire of Oil, founded upon a domestic Tyranny over these States, and a Colonial relationship with all peoples living in petroleum-rich areas of the Earth. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid audience. Read the rest of this entry »
The End of Capitalism 
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