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Revolution

World Ignoring Revolutionary Kurds In Syria

October 13, 2014 David Graeber, www.theguardian.com ,
The autonomous region of Rojava, as it exists today, is one of few bright spots – albeit a very bright one – to emerge from the tragedy of the Syrian revolution. Having driven out agents of the Assad regime in 2011, and despite the hostility of almost all of its neighbours, Rojava has not only maintained its independence, but is a remarkable democratic experiment. Popular assemblies have been created as the ultimate decision-making bodies, councils selected with careful ethnic balance (in each municipality, for instance, the top three officers have to include one Kurd, one Arab and one Assyrian or Armenian Christian, and at least one of the three has to be a woman), there are women’s and youth councils, and, in a remarkable echo of the armed Mujeres Libres (Free Women) of Spain, a feminist army, the “YJA Star” militia (the “Union of Free Women”, the star here referring to the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar), that has carried out a large proportion of the combat operations against the forces of Islamic State.

35 Years Since The Triumph Of The Sandinista Revolution

July 26, 2014 Chuck Kaufman, www.upsidedownworld.org , , , ,
July 19, 2014 marks the 35th anniversary of the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. On that day, the Sandinista troops led by the nine commanders of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) entered the capital city of Managua where they were greeted by hundreds of thousands of jubilant Nicaraguans. The triumphant guerrillas found a country in ruins. The previous ruler of the country, dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, had bombed the cities during the final offensive. When he fled the country two days earlier, he took not only the caskets containing his parents’ remains, but all the money in the national treasury as well. The Sandinistas were left with no money and a $1.9 billion international debt. Despite these handicaps, the Sandinistas set up a nine member National Directorate and five member Junta de Reconstrucción as the executive branch, and a Council of State which included political parties and popular organizations as the legislature. They launched an ambitious and revolutionary political program.

Americans Consensus: Fix The Corrupt System

July 5, 2014 Patrick Caddell, Bob Perkins, and Scott Miller, www.huffingtonpost.com , , ,
July 4, 1776: In the shadow of the hangman's noose the signers of the Declaration of Independence ended their document that would change the world with these words -- "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor." July 4, 2014: In a different but no less significant crisis, the American people are being summoned to reclaim that first Revolution. The challenge of this moment is to redeem the promise of America, to revitalize the American Dream and to restore the People's rightful place as the sovereign rulers of America. Let's be blunt: America is in trouble. We are in danger of losing the American dream. That's not just the opinion of the three of us. It's the conviction of most Americans. Over the past six months, we have conducted an intense national research project among likely voters of all parties, and we are releasing the results now, for Independence Day, 2014. The battle lines of the new political order are emerging. When presented with the proposition that "the real struggle for America is not between Democrats and Republicans but mainstream America and the ruling political elites," over 66% of voters agree.

Most Patriotic Float: Activists, Whistleblowers And Muckrackers

July 4, 2014 Rivera Sun, www.PopularResistance.org , ,
Activists, whistleblowers, and muckrakers received an unexpected honor when Love-In-Action Taos marched in the Arroyo Seco Fourth of July Parade. Love-In-Action's Unsung Heroes procession, joined by members of CODEPINK Taos, featured five giant puppets of Rosa Parks, Sadako Sasaki, Amy Goodman, Dolores Huerta, and Winona LaDuke; over seventy prayer flag banners honoring those who work for social change, large banners and signs, and informational fliers to hand out to the crowd. To the marchers surprise, they were awarded a prize for "Most Patriot" by the Arroyo Seco Merchants Association - a decision that brought whoops of joy and tears to their eyes. It is rare that activists, whistleblowers, and muckrakers are acknowledged for the important roles they play in our society. As the Rolling Rebellion for Real Democracy kicks off, Love-In-Action Taos was honored to march in support of the long lineage of change makers who have stood up for democracy and social justice throughout US history.

A World Without Nations?

July 4, 2014 Steven Colatrella, www.21stcenturycosmopolis.blogspot.it , ,
What would a world without national borders look like? Steven Colatrella has put forward a draft constitution that seeks to define the 21st Century Cosmopolis. He defines this as what he hopes will become a discussion about what the future could be. His vision is for: "A Civilization based on Self-Governing Cities and Townships, Cooperative Self-Governed Workplaces and Public Finance, Sustainable Agriculture and Renewable Energy and Universal Access to Citizenship, Income and Subsistence. And how we can start it up now and already have in many places." Hhe explains how urban areas and community assemblies have been common throughout efforts to transform government. He points out how recent occupy protests were named after cities -- Occupy Denver, Occupy DC, Occupy Oakland or after communities, Occupy Wall Street. And how this has been a long term experience, e.g. the Paris Commune, the Soviets of revolutionary era Russia (Soviet means "Council") had local worker councils in cities. He sees the urban area -- the cosmopolis -- as a natural organizing entity.

Why It’s Way Too Soon To Give Up On The Arab Spring

June 30, 2014 Juan Cole, www.latimes.com , , , , ,
Three and a half years ago, the world was riveted by massive crowds of youths mobilizing in Cairo's Tahrir Square to demand an end to Egypt's dreary police state. We watched transfixed as a movement first ignited in Tunisia spread from one part of Egypt to another, and then from country to country across the region. Before it was over, four presidents-for-life had been toppled and the region's remaining dictators were unsettled. The young Arabs who made the recent revolutions are ... distinctive: substantially more urban, literate, media-savvy and wired than their parents and grandparents. - Some 42 months later, in most of the Middle East and North Africa, the bright hopes for more personal liberties and an end to political and economic stagnation championed by those young people have been dashed. Instead, some Arab countries have seen counterrevolutions, while others are engulfed in internecine conflicts and civil wars, creating Mad Max-like scenes of postapocalyptic horror. But keep one thing in mind: The rebellions of the last three years were led by Arab millennials, by young people who have decades left to come into their own. Don't count them out yet.

Should Citizens Have A Right To Rebel?

June 26, 2014 Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, www.theatlantic.com , , ,
Thailand’s Red-Shirt and Yellow-Shirt factions don’t agree on much, but they do have one thing in common: invoking Section 69 of the now-suspended Thai Constitution, which grants citizens a “right to peacefully resist any act committed to obtain powers to rule the country by means not in accordance with the modus operandi as provided in the Constitution.” For years, during the slowly escalating crisis of protests and political polarization that eventually precipitated Thailand’s recent coup, leaders of ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s ruling party warned against elite plots to subvert the democratic process—an outcome for which the “right to resist” served as a shield. Meanwhile, opponents of Thailand’s former government also invoked the provision, arguing that the real interruption of the constitutional order occurred with the hijacking of national institutions by a harsh and subversive majoritarian populism—one machinated from afar by the exiled billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra and his allies.

Rising People-Powered Movement Is Transforming The World

June 24, 2014 Margaret Flowers, www.kosmosjournal.org , , , ,
On a snowy weekend in January, activists for social, economic and environmental justice from across the United States gathered in a Chicago union hall to plan a Global Climate Convergence: ten days of action from Earth Day to May Day. Many of these activists had never focused on the climate crisis before, being mired instead in fighting battles that loomed more immediately in their lives. Who has the capacity to worry about climate change when your community is hungry, cold, without shelter, lacks health care or is being poisoned? During that weekend meeting, we transcended the barriers that typically lead to working in narrow silos and treading water while the oceans literally and figuratively continue to rise around us. We stepped outside of our particular areas of advocacy, connected our struggles, and forged a collective effort to take action together this spring and beyond. The rallying cry was that the time has arrived to join hands and change course.

People’s Social Forums Planned Across Canada

June 24, 2014 Ana Collins, www.peoplessocialforum.org , , ,
Indigenous histories teach us that we are all part of an intricate creation; where all beings carry their own bundle of gifts and responsibilities to creation. Our bundles help us at all times of our existence and give us tools in order to live a sustainable and fulfilling life. Creation is formed in a universal order that facilitates balance, interconnections, and happiness for all life. Essentially, creation is based on a relationship-making structure to maintain that balance and mino bemaadziwin: good way of living. The Peoples’ Social Forum, to be held in Ottawa, August 21-24, 2014, is about relationship building, bringing people together who don’t usually work together but who might be working on common causes, changing the nature of future relationships, honouring treaties, changing the structure of how things are done on this land, and respecting the teachings that the land has for us.

Want To Change The World? Read This First

June 23, 2014 Richard Heinberg, www.postcarbon.org , , ,
History is often made by strong personalities wielding bold new political, economic, or religious doctrines. Yet any serious effort to understand how and why societies change requires examination not just of leaders and ideas, but also of environmental circumstances. The ecological context (climate, weather, and the presence or absence of water, good soil, and other resources) may either present or foreclose opportunities for those wanting to shake up the social world. This suggests that if you want to change society—or are interested in aiding or evaluating the efforts of others to do so—some understanding of exactly how environmental circumstances affect such efforts could be extremely helpful. Perhaps the most important key to grasping the relationship between the environment and processes of societal change was articulated by American anthropologist Marvin Harris (1927-2001). From the very beginning of efforts to systematically study human societies in the 18th and 19th centuries, it had been clear that there were strong correlations between how societies obtain their food (whether by hunting and gathering, horticulture, agriculture, animal herding, or fishing), and their social structures and beliefs about the world.

Open Source Revolution Will Conquer The 1%

June 20, 2014 Nafeez Ahmed, www.theguardian.com , ,
Former CIA officer Robert David Steele: "The preconditions of revolution exist in the UK, and most western countries. The number of active pre-conditions is quite stunning, from elite isolation to concentrated wealth to inadequate socialisation and education, to concentrated land holdings to loss of authority to repression of new technologies especially in relation toenergy, to the atrophy of the public sector and spread of corruption, to media dishonesty, to mass unemployment of young men and on and on and on." So why isn't it happening yet? "Preconditions are not the same as precipitants. We are waiting for our Tunisian fruit seller. The public will endure great repression, especially when most media outlets and schools are actively aiding the repressive meme of 'you are helpless, this is the order of things.' When we have a scandal so powerful that it cannot be ignored by the average Briton or American, we will have a revolution that overturns the corrupt political systems in both countries . . . "

Representative Democracy Is Not Working, What Will?

June 17, 2014 Jerome Roos, www.roarmag.org ,
We may be at the beginning of a great transformation in how humans govern themselves. There is certainly a need for change as what currently exists is not working. Recently there have been reports about how government no longer represents the people but represents a small minority of the wealthy (see these three reports here, here and here). Academics are beginning to describe the United States as an oligarchy, plutocracy or managed democracy. We have highlighted how representative democracy often does the opposite of what super-majorities of the people want (and this and this). The people see this lack of representation and turn off -- half do not register to vote and in most elections tiny minorities of registered voters bother to vote.

Then They Came For The Revolutionaries

June 17, 2014 Bel Trew, www.foreignpolicy.com , , , , , ,
Every night when Egyptian activist Mohamed Kamel goes home, there is a man outside his building who follows him until he enters the doorway. The figure doesn't speak; he doesn't leave his post. He just keeps watch. "I smile at him and tell him, 'Please do come up and have dinner with me,'" said the 38-year-old, Cairo-based high school manager. "What else can I do?" Kamel is part of April 6 Youth Movement, a revolutionary group founded in 2008 to support striking industrial workers. Its members, estimated by the organization to number in the tens of thousands, were also a driving force behind the 2011 revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak. But now, despite having supported the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, the group finds itself under fire from the military-backed government in Cairo. Last week, an Egyptian court outlawed the movement after a lawsuit accused it of espionage and tainting the image of the state. The group's most prominent voices, meanwhile, have been thrown in jail. In December, founder Ahmed Maher, 32, and Mohamed Adel, 25, were sentenced to three years in prison for participating in an illegal rally and allegedly assaulting a police officer.

Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement Fears New Military Rule

June 14, 2014 Louise Osborne, www.occupy.com , , , ,
In a quiet cafe in Cairo’s hip Zamalek quarter, Ahmad Abd Allah sits on a sofa hunched over a laptop. A shisha pipe in hand, the 34-year-old types quickly, peering intensely at the computer screen. His mobile buzzes and he picks it up distractedly, his eyebrows furrowed as he types a message before taking another puff on the pipe. “We’re having a protest tonight,” he explains, adding that around 5,000 youth are expected to attend the demonstration despite the threat of arrest and imprisonment under Egypt's new anti-protest law. Allah is a member of the April 6 Youth Movement that was instrumental in ousting dictator Hosni Mubarak three years ago. Now, the rush of those heady days has faded to disappointment. On June 8, former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was inaugurated as Egypt's president, a position he won by a landslide in a vote that many viewed as a sham – and others saw as a victory of stability over freedom. The resurgence of the military in Egypt has also made Allah and his fellow youth activists outlaws. In the run-up to the late May election, an Egyptian court banned the April 6 movement on charges of espionage and defaming the government – what Allah says are trumped up excuses to silence the opposition. “It’s crazy," he said.

Commonbound: New Economy For A New Society

June 14, 2014 Aaron Cantu, www.truth-out.org , , ,
I landed at "CommonBound: Moving Together Toward a New Economy" in Boston, Massachusetts with the dilemma of having to critically report on a movement in which I've wanted involve myself for years. The conference was organized by the New Economy Coalition, a nonprofit with its own small full-time staff that works to connect people across the country operating in the "new economy" - worker-owned businesses and cooperatives, credit unions, community land trusts and other "post-capitalist" endeavors - in the hopes that this widespread structural rearrangement can form the backbone of a social, political and economic revolution. Certain aspects of the "new economy" are not so new: living in harmony with the environment, for example - an oft-repeated value among the 700 people who attended the conference last weekend - is hardly a new idea to many indigenous cultures (some of which were represented prominently at CommonBound). And even in a Western context, Karl Marx praised the federation of worker cooperatives under the 1871 Paris Commune as a vision of "'possible' communism," which was strikingly similar to CommonBound’s vision of a decentralized, worker-owned economy facilitated by friendly municipal and state governments.
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