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Globalization

We Need Domestic & Internat’l Regulations To Prevent Outsourcing

June 22, 2015 Miriam Shestack, www.inthesetimes.com ,
By Miriam Shestack for In These Times - When corporations can move, workers and politicians and communities become very worried and skeptical about applying any workplace regulations or environmental regulations, because companies openly claim that they will move the jobs overseas in the face of greater regulation. This undermines the ability of American workers to demand a safe workplace or good wages. Every time jobs are moved overseas, this undermines the ability of the American working class to fight for any kind of positive change. That’s because unions no longer have the union dues to affect the political system and workers and communities are careful to not say anything negative or do anything that might threaten their jobs. The other part, of course, is that both corporations and politicians have worked very hard to place production and pollution in communities that have the least ability to resist.

Critical Issue: Future Of Global Governance, End Of The Nation State?

May 12, 2015 Margaret Flowers, www.clearingthefogradio.org , , ,
Clearing the FOG speaks with two guests from the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts – Boston about the current direction that global governance is taking. Senior fellow Harris Gleckman authored a response to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Redesign Initiative which was released in 2010. In brief, the direction proposed by the WEF would give a stronger role to multinational corporations and reduce the role of the nation-state. Maria Ivanova, co-director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability, will discuss governance systems with respect to environmental issues around the world that function well and those that do not. The future of global governance is the major question of the century. Maria Ivanova is an international relations and environmental policy scholar specializing in governance and sustainability. Her research and policy work focus on global environmental governance and the performance of international environmental institutions. She has worked on issues such as financing for the environment, US foreign environmental policy, and sustainability on campuses and in organizations.

The World Has Reached Peak Plutocracy

April 27, 2015 Soren Ambrose, www.ipsnews.net , , ,
Parents in despair because they can’t pay the fees at the privatised neighbourhood school… Families left without healthcare because the mining company that pollutes their river also dodges the taxes that could pay for their treatment… Women getting four hours of sleep a night as they try to balance caring for their families and homes with earning income… Workers paid so little by employers that they’re suffering malnutrition.Whole communities thrown off their land to make way for a foreign company… These are just a few of the reports I’ve heard from my colleagues in recent months. We see people frustrated by the surge in the power of the plutocrats. Plutocracy is a society or a system ruled and dominated by a small minority of the wealthiest. The rich have always been powerful; some element of plutocracy has been present in all societies.

Newsletter: Austerity, Debt & Environmental Degradation

April 4, 2015 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , , , , , ,
Last week, we wrote about the epidemic of neoliberalism. This week, as major protests erupt in Canada, Mexico and Belgium, we discuss its sister, austerity. In neo-liberal economics, wealth is funneled to the top through increasing privatization of the public and cuts to social services. This can only occur if those who are not at the top are subjected to austerity measures. Those at the bottom are squeezed, suffer financial insecurity and the inability to meet basic needs. Rather than these realities weakening our ability to stand up we must stand together in solidarity to take care of each other and build our power in the struggle. People are becoming more aware that their individual struggles are against system-wide problems and are seeing that when the people are united, they can win. Let’s keep building solidarity and unity of action so the muscle of people power grows.

How The 1 Percent Stays On Top

April 4, 2015 George Lakey, www.wagingnonviolence.org , ,
By the end of the 20th century, some imagined that the 1 percent had obtained all they could want — after all, their level of wealth and power was beyond fabulous. Now that their deindustrialization of the country had hollowed out the working class and many people had turned to elections and given up their most powerful weapon, nonviolent direct action, surely the 1 percent could relax. As we now know, however, the 1 percent did not ease up; they knew what Gandhi also believed: The best defense is an offense. The 1 percent took even more power and wealth while most progressive movements (except for LGBT activists) played defense and cried in their beer. The next national use of shock and awe might be a new Republican administration early in 2017. But there is time to get ready to turn their move to our advantage.

Regime Change In Detroit

March 27, 2015 Thrasher, www.planeideas.blogspot.com , ,
There were no loud explosions nor chaos in the streets,troops did not flood the avenues and enclaves of the city. A manifesto was not distributed by air drop nor was there a state of martial law issued. A coup took place in Motown a ' regime change' in the post industrial rust belt has been installed. In the post industrial era of America political, cultural, and economic realities are unlike anything our country has experienced. The very fabric of life in this era is altered by the forces of technology and the global marketplace. Traditional platforms of interaction with elected officials has been fundamentally altered. The State has now replaced the local elected legislatures ( city councils) and the core of power.

Capitalism Is Just A Story And Other Dangerous Thoughts

March 27, 2015 Alnoor Ladha and Martin Kirk, www.occupy.com , ,
Our system of modern capitalism is just one story; it is not the only one there is. It’s not inherent within us. It isn’t some inevitable expression of predefined Human Nature. It was invented by human beings and so human beings can change it. But in order to get there, we first have to engage in some "dangerous thinking." Those in power have always told us to beware of ideology. There is a strong inference that it represents a warping of our pragmatic ability to get things done by whatever means necessary. But that’s just plain wrong. And a necessary distraction, of course. Ideology is the set of ideas and ideals we all must hold to operate in the world. It is not a weakness of those who don’t agree with us.

Wave Of Disruption Sweeping In To Challenge Neoliberalism

March 25, 2015 Jonathan Dawson, www.theguardian.com ,
I have always been attracted to the notion that disruption to powerful systems comes not from the heart of the empire, but from the margins. This idea first fired my imagination while I was learning about the role of the monasteries of the early Celtic church, located on the wild and windswept fringes of western Europe, in reseeding the continent with art, literacy and a love of learning that had been eclipsed by the dark ages. Today, I sense a similar wave of disruption sweeping in from various marginal corners of our globalised system, a mosaic of localised responses weaving into what begins to look like a new narrative to challenge the dominant neoliberal hegemony.

Newsletter: Praise For The Radicals

March 22, 2015 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, www.popularresistance.org , , , , , , ,
In his recent article, “The Dance of Liberals and Radicals”, the liberal Robert Kuttner writes, “No great social change in America has occurred without radicals, beginning with the struggle to end slavery. Causes that now seem mainstream began with radical, impolite and sometimes civil disobedient protest.” We at Popular Resistance share the view that there need to be people and groups who see the bigger picture, who fight for what is not on the table and who are willing to put their bodies on the line to make change. Those are the people we try to lift up in our daily coverage of the movement because they are rarely recognized and are usually lacking in resources. Yesterday we marched in Washington, DC for Spring Rising with our friends in the peace and Black Lives Matter movements.

World Social Forum: Building Alternative Forms Of Globalization

January 29, 2015 Thomas Ponniah, www.rabble.ca ,
The greatest progressive innovation of our century -- to this point -- has been theWorld Social Forum (WSF). In the book Another World is Possible: popular alternatives to globalization at the World Social Forum,William Fisher and I first contended that the World Social Forum represented the beginning of building a new left and a new global civilization, grounded by a desire for participatory, radical democracy. There have been a number of insightful interpretations of the World Social Forum process: it embodies resistance to globalization, it represents the latest struggle against imperialism, it manifests the power of identity, it is an insurgency against patriarchy and other forms of hierarchical discrimination, and it represents the "movement of the multitude."

One Party Planet: An Analysis Of Today’s World

November 20, 2014 James Wan, www.roarmag.org ,
There is plenty of rightful outrage at corruption, endemic poverty and systemic exploitation, yet from most political discussions to mainstream media debates, and from well-meaning ethical consumerist actions to celebrity-sponsored charity campaigns, there appears to be an implicit acceptance that what we’re doing on a broad scale is basically fine. The problem, apparently, is that we need to do it a little better, tweak it here and there, or add something else on top. It is well-known that workers’ rights in many places are systematically trampled on; that a billion people are chronically malnourished even though we produce enough food to feed the world one and a half times over; that the governments of developing countries lose at least $1 trillion each year through tax havens; that levels of greenhouse gas emissions are accelerating despite an apparent commitment from world leaders to decrease them; that the richest 1% of the world own half of all global wealth; and that, according to World Bank figures, 80% of the world’s population live on less than $10/day while 60% live on less than $5.

Popular Resistance Newsletter: Link Arms We Are All Connected

November 9, 2014 Staff, www.PopularResistance.org , , , , , ,
For five days in a row this week a federal agency was blockaded by protesters, delaying workers, sending a strong message of demands and resulting in scores of arrests. Did you hear about the blockades in the corporate, mass media? The blockades were just a driveway's distance from CNN, just around the corner from NPR and in a mass media center, Washington, DC. Do you wonder why they did not report that there were blockades outside of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)? The protests were because FERC has been rubber stamping fracked gas infrastructure permits without considering the environmental and health impacts, especially ignoring climate change, and ignoring the views of the communities. Gas companies are very big advertisers in the mass media. . . . Each of the issues raised that day impact all of us and all of the issues we work on: climate change, war and militarism, media corruption, Internet access and global trade. Other days brought in the issues of the corrupt corporate duopoly and a government bought and paid for by big corporations and the wealthy; and the racially unfair impact of environmental toxicity and other issues. There is power in recognizing how our issues are connected. Working together we are stronger. Challenging the system and seeking transformative change is the only way we will create the change that is needed.

The Protests, Occupations And Uprisings Changing Our World

November 4, 2014 Parthena Xanthopoulou-Dimitriadou, www.roarmag.org , ,
The outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 has been considered, by many, a turning point in the ways we come to understand our world. Established worldviews and fixed mindsets are confronted with the rapidly changing interrelations between the social, the political and the economic domain. These developments pose a challenge to our daily social experiences, as well as to academic social analysis, while at the same time giving birth to new opportunities for social change. In thinking about these developments, the latest book by Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Social Movements and Globalization, comes as a careful dissection of some of the most intriguing concepts relevant to the economic and political processes of the last century and the enduring desire for social transformation. Flesher Fominaya provides us with a master compilation of all that catches our attention, grasps our interest and urges our understanding.

Indian Journalist Offers Harsh Critique Of Globalization

October 28, 2014 Amitabh Pal, www.progressive.org , , ,
Sainath is pessimistic about India’s new government, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with its combination of neoliberal economics and rightwing nationalism. He predicts that it will gut the social programs that the previous center-left government put into place, such as a rural job program that provides employment to a member of each rural family for 100 days a year. “The upper class, industry, and landlords hate the scheme, since it provides a floor wage,” he said. “Joseph Stiglitz [the Nobel Prize-winning economist] recently told me that Modi can’t hope to expand the economy while at the same time lowering wages.” Sainath says Modi intends to “reform” the financial sector, which would open up India to the very calamity that took down Wall Street.

Critical Moment To Stop Rigged Trade Agreements

August 10, 2014 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.PopularResistance.org , , , ,
As elections get closer, Democratic Party leaders in Congress are getting the message out to inside-the-beltway activists groups that they are unifying to support giving President Obama some form of Fast Track. Recent letters from member of Congress to the President indicate support for trade with particular stipulations, but the overall message is to continue negotiating. Washington advocacy groups believe that they must also show support for Fast Track or they will find themselves without access or influence. Rather than kowtowing to the usual ‘on the table’ threat from the corrupt bi-partisan Congress, the movement needs to tell them that the only thing on the table is a complete transformation from the failed global trade that rigs profits for big business at the expense of the ecology of the planet and the necessities of the people. It is time to declare the TPP, TAFTA and the Services agreements as dead, develop a new approach to trade and begin to renegotiate past trade agreements like NAFTA that are doing ongoing damage to the economy, planet and people.
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