| Recent and Breaking |
- My cut of DAN's Call to Action: DAN Declaration
"Our resistance is diverse in content and expression, and we fiercely affirm that it will remain so.
We are rooted in a belief that a desirable, just world is one directly controlled by the people."
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- Paul Hawken's telling of Skeleton Woman
"Skeleton Woman has been brought up from the depths. She has regained her eyes, voice and spirit. She is about in the world and her dreams are different. She imagines a world where children do not live on streets; she believes that the right to self-sufficiency is a human right; she imagines a world where the means to kill people is not a business but a crime, where families do not starve, where fathers can work, where children are never sold, where women cannot be impoverished because they are mothers and not whores. ... Hers are deep dreams from slow time. She is patient. She will not be quiet or flung to sea anytime soon."
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- Leonard Peltier on Globalisation
" Indigenous Peoples of the Americas have been experiencing globalization for over 500 years, and we can tell you from personal experience, that globalization is nothing short of genocide.
But we are creating our own kind of globalization now. It is the globalization of resistance. And we can unite ourselves across the globe in order to protect our unique ways of life, our lands, and our peoples from being forced into the global culture dictated by the rich and powerful and benefiting only their pockets. It is a culture that holds no value for life and its beauty. We can find our commonality while keeping our identities.
We must stop the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank from dictating our futures, and we will."
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- Africa: The Cost of ''Adjustment''
"In Africa it is we, the women, who are the first victims of the structural adjustment programmes which have led to a sharp fall in public expenditure. Far less has been spent on education and health, a situation further aggravated by the devaluation of the CFA franc in 1998 which pushed up the cost of social services. As schools become less accessible, children's education becomes the preserve of the privileged few, while with a female population that is 70 per cent illiterate, health education doesn't go far. The mortality rate is also higher among women, who have to give birth in clinics far away from their homes.
The social cost is enormous. Poverty is spreading rapidly, in the towns and the rural areas."
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- At ZDnet, Robin Hahnel's Let's Review Globalism (April 8, 2000)
To reply and comment, go to Let's Review Globalism at Deja.com
"For almost 20 years an accelerating process many of us now call corporate sponsored globalization has been changing the way the international economy operates. Under the title "neoliberalism" multinational corporations have succeeded in rewriting the rules governing international trade and investment ever more to their liking. But the question, of course, is whether these changes are to the liking of the rest of us."
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- For Your Files: Maquiladoras
"The export processing zones, or free trade zones, those production enclaves with enticing tax advantages designed to attract foreign investors, are also rights-free zones as far as workers are concerned. In Latin America these zones are better known as maquiladoras, or maquilas. Exploitation, of the mainly female workforce, is the rule rather than the exception."
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Item1: IMF is denying press passes to ALL COMMUNITY RADIO STATIONS etc.
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| To the Heart of the Matter |
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Global Poverty in the Late 20th Century by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa author of The Globalization of
Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, TWN, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997.
The late 20th Century will go down in World history as a period of global impoverishment marked by the collapse of productive systems in the developing World, the demise of national institutions and the disintegration of health and educational programs. This "globalization of poverty" --which has largely reversed the achievements of post-war decolonization--, was initiated in the Third World coinciding with the onslaught of the debt crisis.
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- At Zdnet again, a book by Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert Looking Forward; Participatory economics for the 21st century
"Looking Forward describes how work could be organized efficiently and productively without hierarchy; how consumption could be fulfilling and equitable; and how participatory planning could promote solidarity and foster self-management while still "getting the job done." Looking Forward offers practical and humane vision for a truly participatory economy."
"Growing inequality. Rampant homelessness. Voracious militarism. Crime. Cultural commodification. Ecological dissolution. Alienation. Addiction. These are the coin of modern capitalism, evident in every city in the United States. We believe a new economy can be built that embodies humane values and functions efficiently. "
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