20 years ago, the day after the infamous NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was signed, the EZLN, The Zapatista Army of National Liberation, emerged from the jungles of Chiapas, Mexico and inspired the world-wide anti-globalisation movement.
Brand has brought the idea of revolution of consciousness to millions of people who would never otherwise have been exposed to it. This rare and unexpected boon should be seized upon by activists who actually are working on serious models for fair, just and humane societies.
There’s an historic level of animosity right now towards Labour in Scotland. Many are simply seething. Many will never forgive them for siding with the ConDems and taking a leading part in the establishment’s Project Fear. Jones acknowledges much of this, but fails to concede his own negative part in that outcome.
Resistance, Wolin and Saul agreed, will begin locally, with communities organizing to form autonomous groups that practice direct democracy outside the formal power structures, including the two main political parties. These groups will have to address issues such as food security, education, local governance, economic cooperation and consumption. And they will have to sever themselves, as much as possible, from the corporate economy.
UK: Protesters cry and condemn the Met as they clear ‘Occupy Democracy’ for the visit of the President of Singapore
On 11 November [1975] – the day Whitlam was to inform Parliament about the secret CIA presence in Australia – he was summoned by [Governor] Kerr. Invoking archaic vice-regal “reserve powers”, Kerr sacked the democratically elected prime minister. The problem was solved.
The widening chasm between rich and poor is traceable to the policies that were adopted in 2008. That’s why things are so fu**ed up, it’s because the “surge in paper wealth, fueled by the trillions of dollars pumped into the financial system by central banks via zero interest rate and “quantitative easing” policies.”
In other words, it’s all deliberate. Robbing the poor and giving to the rich is all part of the plan.
At eighteen minutes past six on Sunday evening, as soon as the Sun had set, police closed in to break up a group of peaceful protesters sitting together in solidarity on the lawns of Parliament Square. Beneath the helpless gaze of Nelson Mandela, one protester after another was manhandled and forcibly dragged from the neck by encircling gangs of policemen – not because their protest was deemed illegal, but because the tarpaulin they were sitting on is classified as “sleeping equipment” by the Met, and is consequently, since the 2011 Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act, banned from the gardens of Parliament Square.
I have no regrets – in fact, I am pleased to have expelled the US ambassador, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and to have closed the US military base in Bolivia. Now, without a US ambassador, there is less conspiracy, and more political stability and social stability. Without the International Monetary Fund, we are better off economically.
Donnachadh McCarthy went to Parliament Square yesterday to address a peaceful rally about the failings of British democracy. The intimidatory, violent and inflammatory police reaction only confirmed everything he had to say – as did the dignified restraint of the Occupy Democracy protestors.
“The U.S.-led Western alliance that portrays itself as a champion of democracy, rule of law and human rights within individual countries, acts from directly opposite positions in the international arena, rejecting the democratic principle of sovereign equality of states enshrined in the UN Charter and trying to decide for everyone what is good or evil.”
In truth, Jones is part of an Oxbridge, Guardian/Observer/Independent/New Statesman/BBC niche on the ‘liberal-left’ of the Establishment. It is acceptable because it indeed does not offer the kind of radical perspectives needed to question the very foundations of the status quo.
