Government

The Lies Behind This Trans-Atlantic Trade Deal

December 7, 2013 George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com Educate! Corporatism, Government, TAFTA

No longer able to keep this process quiet, the European commission has instead devised a strategy for lying to us. A few days ago an internal document was leaked. This reveals that a "dedicated communications operation" is being "co-ordinated across the commission". It involves, to use the commission's chilling phrase, the "management of stakeholders, social media and transparency". Managing transparency should be adopted as its motto. The message is that the trade deal is about "delivering growth and jobs" and will not "undermine regulation and existing levels of protection in areas like health, safety and the environment". Just one problem: it's not true. From the outset, the transatlantic partnership has been driven by corporations and their lobby groups, who boast of being able to "co-write" it.

One More Week To Tell Congress “No” To Fast Track TPP

December 6, 2013 Staff, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Government, TPP

TPP negotiators are meeting in Singapore from December 7 to 9 to attempt to complete the text of the TPP agreement. As the year ends, pressure is growing to both finish the TPP and to pass Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority in Congress. If the President is given Fast Track, then he can sign the TPP and Congress will have a limited time to read the agreement before they are required to vote up or down on it. Fast Track has been used historically to pass trade agreements that would not survive under Congressional scrutiny. Congress only has one more week in session this year, the week of December 9. So far our pressure to stop the TPP has been working. Close to 200 members of Congress have expressed opposition to Fast Track. We must keep the pressure on (because you know that the corporate lobbyists are) to send Congress home with a clear message that they must not give up their responsibility under the Constitution to oversee commerce and they must go through the process of understanding the full implications of the TPP before they vote on it. That means that they must oppose Fast Track.

Mexico: One Year Anniversary Of President Marked With Protests

December 4, 2013 Staff, www.revolution-news.com Resist! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Human Rights, Police abuse

This 1st day of December 2013 celebrated the one year anniversary of President Enrique Peña Nieto and one of the reasons that many unhappy citizens with this victory, as well as many of us don’t support the energy and economic reforms again took to the streets to demonstrate peacefully. However through different twitter accounts we can see that it was not so peaceful. The people said that the arrests were arbitrary and were even undercover cops and that while some leaked members were damaging public property the police of the city stopped only girls.

Call For Aid, Solidarity With Anti-Frackers In Romania

December 4, 2013 Mort, www.beforeitsnews.com Resist! Corporatism, Energy, Environment, Fracking, Government, Police abuse

After facing strong opposition from local community and from a strong national movement of support, Chevron had to scale down activities in Pungesti. Until last night, when the assault started at 5 AM! Police and CHEVRON joined forces to dismantle the local resistance group camped right on the field where Chevron plans to explore for shale gas. After 2 months of resistance, 40 people were beaten, arrested on their own land and taken to the nearest town for further investigations. The Spokesperson from the Jandarmerie cannot be reached, the media does not have access at the site, and the road to Pungesti is blocked by Chevron equipment and Police intervention cars. Children cannot go to school at this point. The road is also blocked for anyone else, the villagers cannot go to work, the press is kept kilometers away from Pungesti.

Activists To US Negotiator Of Toxic Trade Treaty: Bully

December 3, 2013 Staff, www.dcmediagroup.us Resist! Government, Health Care, TPP

A dozen activists at the U.S. Trade Representative Building in Washington, DC today demanded to see Stan McCoy, the lead negotiator of the intellectual property rights section of the trade treaty called the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). While McCoy, the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Intellectual Property and Innovation, wouldn’t meet with the protestors, a USTR staff member listened to their concerns about secrecy surrounding TPP negotiations, its preference for corporate interests and McCoy’s “bullying” tactics. The delivery of the petition and protest at the USTR Building was part of an International Day of Action Against Toxic Trade Agreements to stop the progress of TPP negotiations. It coincides with the first day of World Trade Organization meetings in Bali, Indonesia. TPP negotiations will take place at the end of those meetings. The Flush The TPP! Campaign coordinated the petition effort.

Seattle WTO Collapsed 14 Years Ago: Lessons For Today

December 2, 2013 David Solnit, www.popularresistance.org Strategize! Finance and the Economy, Government, TPP, Wars and Militarism, WTO

On Dec 3, 1999 the 1%'s plan for how to run the global economy collapsed in Seattle, amidst teargas in the streets and jails full of hundreds of people from North America's newly emerging global justice movement. The World Trade Organizations negotiations had collapsed in failure as a result of a week of mass direct action and protest in the streets that shut down the entire first day of the WTO Ministerial on November 30 together with the refusal of Global South countries--under pressure from strong movements at home--refusal to comply with the plans of the elites in the rich countries. 14 years later, the value of looking back is to see how people power can work and to pull lessons for today. The best analysis of the week long street/info battles was written by Paul deArmand; Black Flag Over Seattle, later republished as part of Networks and Netwars by the RAND Corporation.

Fracking Executive Confirms: Homeland Security Thinks Fracktivists Are Terrorists

December 2, 2013 Texas Sharon, www.texassharon.com Educate! Corporatism, Fracking, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) currently uses the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), a consolidated database maintained by the Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) of identifying information about those known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity in order to facilitate DHS mission-related functions, such as counterterrorism, law enforcement, border security, and inspection activities. It’s shocking to think that young families, pregnant women and retirees who don’t want to live next to a heavy industrial plant that will decrease their property value, diminish their quality of life and emit hazardous air pollutants that compromise their health would be considered terrorists. But what is more shocking is that Grawe has inside information about who is on the DHS watch list!

Attempts To Silence Environmentalists Continue

November 30, 2013 David Suzuki, www.ecowatch.com Educate! Climate Change, Corporatism, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Energy, Environment, Government

Early November marked the 18th anniversary of the tragic murder of outspoken writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight colleagues by the Nigerian government. Saro-Wiwa and the others had waged a long campaign to stop multinational oil company Royal Dutch Shell from drilling in the lands of the Ogoni people in the Niger delta. Nigerian military harassed and intimidated members of the Ogoni community for years because they opposed Shell’s drilling program. Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues defended their communities and local environment from a notoriously toxic industry. In November 1995, a special court established by the military government illegally detained and tried them on spurious charges. Convicted without due process, they were executed 10 days later, despite enormous international outcry.

Under Cover Of Thanksgiving, SEC Postpones “Final” Lobbying Ethics Rule

November 28, 2013 David Sirota, www.pando.com Educate! Corporatism, Finance and the Economy, Government

When the federal government quietly releases something in the din of Thanksgiving week, it usually means it’s something bad – something lawmakers are legally required to disclose, but something they really don’t want the public to know about. And when the agency releasing the information is the famously corrupt Securities and Exchange Commission, “bad” is likely too weak a word. In fact, you can almost a guarantee something truly hideous is happening. This week, as much of America heads home for Thanksgiving, the SEC stealthily inserted a couple ofparagraphs into the federal register. And while the disclosure is shrouded in esoteric language as a way to say “nothing to see here! move along!” there’s plenty to see here – and we shouldn’t move along. As the Project on Government Oversight reports, the SEC is postponing a new ethics rule. That’s no big deal, right? Wrong.

What Localities and States Can Do About Drones

November 21, 2013 David Swanson, www.warisacrime.org Organize! Drones, Government, Surveillance, Wars and Militarism

Charlottesville, Va., passed a resolution that urged the state of Virginia to adopt a two-year moratorium on drones (which it did), urged both Virginia and the U.S. Congress to prohibit information obtained from the domestic use of drones from being introduced into court, and to preclude the domestic use of drones equipped with "anti-personnel devices, meaning any projectile, chemical, electrical, directed-energy (visible or invisible), or other device designed to harm, incapacitate, or otherwise negatively impact a human being," and pledged that Charlottesville would "abstain from similar uses with city-owned, leased, or borrowed drones."

African Women Embrace Politics, Offer Hope For Reform And Progress

November 12, 2013 Jo Erickson, www.mintpressnews.com Create! Elections, Government, Women's Rights

This policy of quotas applies to women, youth representation and minorities. It has been adopted by many African countries, including former war-ravaged Rwanda, and Zimbabwe, which continues to be led by the controversial Robert Mugabe. With the introduction of women into African politics, expectations of an end to the “old style” of African politics have emerged, based on the belief that adding women in government may help to resolve past conflicts and cultural differences that have plagued African politics for decades. Rwanda is proving that women in politics works. Twenty years after the genocidal civil war that killed 800,000 in a three-month period, Rwanda is now the first and only nation that has elected the world’s first female-dominated legislature.

Time is Running Out To Save The Post Office

November 9, 2013 David Morris, www.commondreams.org Resist! Commons, Government, Post Office

In July 2011 the United States Postal Service (USPS) management announced it would rapidly close 3600 local post offices and eventually as many as 15,000. And shutter half the nation’s mail processing centers. A frenzy of grassroots activity erupted as citizens in hundreds of towns mobilized to save a treasured institution that plays a key and sometimes a defining role in their communities. Only when Congress appeared ready to impose a six month moratorium on closures and consolidations that December did USPS management agree to a voluntarily moratorium of the same length. That moratorium ended in May 2012. Rather than proceed with closings, management embraced a devilishly clever new strategy.

The 99%’s Deficit Proposal

November 8, 2013 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Create! Education, Finance and the Economy, Government, Health Care, Housing, Wars and Militarism, Worker Rights and Jobs

This report puts forward evidence-based solutions that will re-start the economy and avoid placing financial burdens on future generations. For the most part these ideas are not new. They are well accepted by economists and are consistent with the views of super majorities of Americans on key issues. Further, more than three-quarters of U.S. citizens say the country’s economic structure is out of balance and “favors a very small proportion of the rich over the rest of the country.” They are right. The solutions to our economic crisis are evident but they are blocked by those who profit from the status quo and control elected officials through the corrupt U.S. political system and its money-based elections. The elites in Washington, DC seek to erase deficits that were caused by increases in war and military spending, tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, the increased cost of health care, as well as bank bailouts, and increased costs and lost revenue from the economic collapse.

International Community Demands New Direction, Transparency At Fukushima

November 7, 2013 Green Shadow Cabinet Fukushima Sub-committee, www.popularresistance.org Resist! Environment, Fukushima, Government, Health Care, Nuclear Energy

Members of the Green Shadow Cabinet Fukushima subcommittee and allies deliver a letter signed by more than 150 organizations and individuals from across the globe and petitions signed by more than 150,000 people to the United Nations today calling for a new direction in the management and clean-up of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. As more information is revealed about the ongoing crises at Fukushima and the difficulties faced by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the Japanese public and the global community recognize that the situation requires immediate and independent intervention. TEPCO has failed to demonstrate competence in managing the situation, and they continue to place profits before safety. TEPCO is cutting corners and mistreating workers, which is adding to the deterioration of the situation. They have also shown themselves to be untrustworthy hiding information about serious problems at Fukushima.

Indigenous Nationhood Movement Has Arrived Online

November 6, 2013 Staff, www.warriorpublications.wordpress.com Create! Environment, Government, Indigenous Rights, Sovereignty

A new website is calling for Aboriginal nations to move away from the Indian Act and towards autonomy and traditional governments. Siku Allooloo is part Haitian, part Inuk, and now living in New York. She was part of a group of Native and non-Native people that drafted principles for the Indigenous Nationhood movement that were released this morning. “To be able to see how far and wide the movement stretches, I find it affirming,” Allooloo says. “When you can see the amount of collective support… and that’s what I hope people get out of this site.”

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

Daily movement news and resources