Friday, January 30, 2004

World Social Forum FEATURED ARTICLES - A Global Peace Movement Revival, By Tom Hayden - Post-Marx From Mumbai, By Tom Hayden - The New American Century, By Arundhati Roy, The Nation QUOTE OF THE DAY "Sometimes I think we face a wilderness of compassion in this country. But when I think of the many voices that have tried, in this court, to clamor for the works of mercy rather than the works of war, I feel at home, I feel grateful, and I feel a deep urge to be silent and listen to the cries of those most afflicted, -- their cries are often hard to hear -- but when we hear them, we're called, all of us, to be like voices in the wilderness, raising their laments and finding ourselves motivated to build a better world." - - Kathy Kelly (co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness & 3 time Nobel Peace Prize nominee) From her statement last Monday in Columbus, Georgia upon being sentenced to 3 months in prison for crossing onto the property of Ft. Benning last November to protest against the School of the Americas. Her entire statement to the judge is posted at:   http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0128-12.htm KNOW YOUR HISTORY - JANUARY 30th 1956 -- US: As Martin Luther King, Jr. stands at the pulpit, leading a mass meeting during the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, his home is bombed. By chance, King's wife & 10-week-old baby escape unharmed. Later that night, 1000 angry African Americans assemble on King's lawn. When King appears on his devastated front porch, he tells them: "If you have weapons, take them home. . . . We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence . . . We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us." King's speech lifts the nonviolent protest movement to new levels of effectiveness. 1963 -- South Vietnam: 30 soldiers die when five US helicopters are shot down over the Mekong Delta. 1964 -- South Vietnam: New military junta takes over. Part of US plan to save democracy. 1968 -- Vietnam: Viet Cong & North Vietnamese launch Tet offensive. The Tet offensive begins in South Vietnam; Vietcong & North Vietnamese troops strike at targets across South Vietnam, reaching even the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon. Often cited as a turning point in American public support for the war. American troops peak at 542,000 during this year. 1976 -- George Herbert Walker Bush becomes the 11th director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency RHINO HERE: Earlier this month, activists from around the world converged on Mumbai, India to participate in The World Social Forum (WSF). Organizers of the WSF, in their Charter Of Principles, describe the event as "an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo- liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centered on the human person". You can read the entire WSF Charter Of Principles at: http://www.wsfindia.org/charter.php Today's blog offers insights from 2 WSF participants. In the 1st two articles, progressive activist & author, Tom Hayden explains how the Iraq occupation offers a perfect example of the shrub gang's doctrine of right-wing market fundamentalism versus the standard religious fundamentalism prominent in the region. "In this context" he says, "Paul Bremer is understood not only as point man for the U.S. government, but as managing director of Kissinger & Associates, which represents a secret list of U.S. multinational corporations with long-term stakes in the region." In Hayden's  2nd piece, written at the close of the forum, he provides a history of the WSF, what it has meant to progressives worldwide, and what the future outcomes may be. Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE is an article by Arundhati Roy, which was adapted from her January 16th speech to the opening plenary of the World Social Forum. Ms. Roy lives in New Delhi, India. She's author of "The God of Small Things" and "Power Politics." Additional reports and news on the 2004 WSF are available at: http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/eventos/1.html A Global Peace Movement Revival By Tom Hayden, AlterNet, January 19, 2004 MUMBAI, INDIA - Natalia Ablova faces a tough challenge in her campaign against the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Ablova, who looks like any friendly middle-American in her plain dress, shoulder-length hair and reading glasses, is opposing the Iraq occupation on the streets of Kyrgistan, the only Central Asian country where such protest is permitted.  "There is no chance for participatory democracy in our region," she laments. But last year, she led 30 human rights groups to the U.S. Embassy to denounce the invasion. Far from being alone, Natalia Ablova is complicating the Bush administration's war planning and its status as the sole superpower. On this March 20, the first anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when the White House expected throngs of cheering Iraqis in the streets, there will be masses of jeering protestors like Natalia Ablova around the world instead. Last year, four to five million people protested in over 600 cities globally. This year the numbers are unpredictable, but opposition to the war has increased among the general public, affecting the American presidential campaign and keeping the United Nations at a distance. This week Natalia Ablova is attending a "General Assembly of the Global Anti-War Movement," one of the many planning sessions provided space for the tens of thousands attending the World Social Forum. Instead of weakening or fragmenting the global justice movement, the war in Iraq has prompted a peace movement heavily influenced by the anti-globalization analysis of the forum... MORE AT: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17595 Post-Marx From Mumbai By Tom Hayden, AlterNet, January 27, 2004 MUMBAI, India. - The World Social Forum successfully channeled the energies of global justice and anti-war forces last week, while continuing to struggle toward a positive alternative that gives meaning to the phrase, "another world is possible." The Forum was born in opposition to the entire alphabet soup of neo-liberal institutions like the WTO, IMF and World Bank, and the imposition of those neo-liberal policies by force in Iraq. It serves as a crucial outreach venue, or space, for action networks like Our World Is Not for Sale, which has led recent campaigns in Cancun and Miami against proposed trade agreements. In addition, the Forum has touched a deep chord of global solidarity, as shown by the enthusiastic dancing, chanting and marching through Mumbai's streets at the close of this year's event. It is a rare achievement to bring together cosmopolitan intellectuals from the New Left Review with traditionally voiceless Dalits (untouchables), Adivasis (indigenous), and Brazil's landless movement. The Forum seemed to realize, however awkwardly, that it cannot create a better world and once again leave out the Dalits or Adivasis, or demand that they change their cultural traditions as a condition for participating. In turn, the Dalits and Adivasis seemed to know from experience that there is another world filled with potential friends who support their survival. The result was a solidarity that went beyond the usual speeches and resolutions, a solidarity - between the privileged and the damned, between people who might have inhabited different planets yet whose fates are inter-connected - that seemed too fragile to maintain, yet too precious to give up. The fact that the Forum, which originated in Brazil, could plant itself in the center of South Asia was an achievement in itself. The WSF organizers plan to return to Porto Alegre, Brazil, next year as the controversial deadline for concluding the Free Trade Zone of the Americans (FTAA) nears. The following year, the WSF expects to meet in Africa, perhaps in Egypt... MORE AT: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID?675 8:00:01 AM    comment

The New American Century The New American Century By Arundhati Roy, The Nation, January 22, 2004 In January 2003 thousands of us from across the world gathered in Porto Alegre in Brazil and declared - reiterated - that "Another World Is Possible." A few thousand miles north, in Washington, George W. Bush and his aides were thinking the same thing.  Our project was the World Social Forum; theirs, to further what many call the Project for the New American Century. In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side of imperialism and the need for a strong empire to police an unruly world. The new missionaries want order at the cost of justice. Discipline at the cost of dignity. And ascendancy at any price. Occasionally some of us are invited to "debate" the issue on "neutral" platforms provided by the corporate media. Debating imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it? In any case, New Imperialism is already upon us. It's a remodeled, streamlined version of what we once knew. For the first time in history, a single empire with an arsenal of weapons that could obliterate the world in an afternoon has complete, unipolar, economic and military hegemony. It uses different weapons to break open different markets. There isn't a country on God's earth that is not caught in the cross hairs of the American cruise missile and the IMF checkbook. Argentina's the model if you want to be the poster boy of neoliberal capitalism, Iraq if you're the black sheep. Poor countries that are geopolitically of strategic value to Empire, or have a "market" of any size, or infrastructure that can be privatized, or, God forbid, natural resources of value - oil, gold, diamonds, cobalt, coal - must do as they're told or become military targets. Those with the greatest reserves of natural wealth are most at risk. Unless they surrender their resources willingly to the corporate machine, civil unrest will be fomented or war will be waged.  In this new age of empire, when nothing is as it appears to be, executives of concerned companies are allowed to influence foreign policy decisions. READ IT ALL AT: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17644 "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 6:51:16 AM    comment

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