Source: Waging Nonviolence

by Randall Amster
January 27, 2010

A number of commentators have questioned the accepted logic that disasters bring out the worst in people, directly challenging the pervasive “looters run amok” imagery often perpetuated by the media and held out by lawmakers as a rationale for military occupation. Having done relief work following Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina, I have found that people are more likely to work together – even if only out of necessity – when severe hardship strikes. In fact, it is precisely the isolation and individualism of ordinary daily life that tap into our worst instincts, while the removal of these impediments can actually liberate our better qualities. Read the full story

Fuente: Linksunten Indymedia

por Colectivo “pequeñas hermanas”
6 de octubre, 2009

El pasado 6 de Octubre, dos años después del Fraude que decidió la aprobación del Tratado de Libre Comercio con EEUU, se realizó una Caminata Popular por la Dignidad en la Zona Sur de Costa Rica. Más de 150 activistas marcharon desde la entrada del Territorio de Térraba,  hasta el centro del cantón de Buenos Aires. Paso a paso se fue recorriendo el camino de 13 kilómetros. Distintas comunidades en todo lo ancho, largo y profundo del sur enfrentan luchas contra la expansión piñera, la construcción del  “P.H. Diquís”, la construcción del aeropuerto internacional en el territorio de Finca 9, los planes de construir marinas e implantar granjas industriales de atún en el Golfo Dulce y a favor de la ley de la Autonomia Indígena. Read the full story

Weather is becoming extreme. By extreme, we mean heat is suffocating when it’s hot, rain turns into floods, forests and crops into deserts. Disease is spreading, life essentials like food and water are becoming scarce and human life itself is in the edge of extinction.

We are trying to find a way to survive: to guarantee a succession of our insignificant but (sometimes) wonderful human acts, to continue our potential of creation despite our tendency to destroy. Yet because this destructive selfishness has trumped collective action, we are dooming our chances in favor of the unsustainable capitalist system. Survival, like everything else in our society, is for sale for those who are able to afford it. And so, we are just delaying what would be inevitable if we don’t offer different solutions. The rich live in comfort, for now, while the rest are already dealing with the problems of global warming.

“These issues like climate change that seem abstract to many people are affecting people like me today,” said Jihan Gearon, a Diné (Navajo) and African American from Arizona who works as a Native Energy Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. Read the full story

by Robert C. Koehler
October 29, 2009

“What is seen with one eye has no depth.”

I’m thinking, as I ponder the wisdom of Ursula LeGuin, that American culture is at the end of what it can accomplish with its single-eyed vision. For all our material progress, for all our ability to dominate just about anything or anyone we encounter — this is our history, our manifest destiny — things are falling apart in every sector of society.

What’s left of the media can’t stop selling us our own desperation and anxiety. We keep piling on more of the same — more troops in Afghanistan, more surveillance cameras in our neighborhoods — but it isn’t working. Could it be that we’re not seeing the world the way we need to see it? Read the full story

Renuncia a la nacionalidad chile y da “por terminado todo dialogo con la república de chile y le declaramos la guerra, desde hoy 20 de octubre de 2009 en adelante”
por Coordinadora Mapuche Arauco Malleco
20 de octubre, 2009

COMUNICADO PÚBLICO

Comunicamos a la opinión pública nacional e internacional lo siguiente:

Dado que no ha existido ninguna señal del gobierno de poner fin a las fuerzas represivas en nuestras comunidades, hemos tomado una decisión como Coordinadora Mapuche Arauco-Malleco. Manifestamos públicamente nuestra renuncia a la nacionalidad chile, y declaramos territorio de la nación autónoma mapuche desde río Bío bío al Sur, a partir del reconocimiento explícito que el Estado hace sobre su existencia en el Tratado de Tapihue de (1825) Art. 19. Read the full story

Ecuador: Se profundiza la guerra por los bienes comunes

por Raúl Zibechi
19 de octubre de 2009

A fines de septiembre se registró un nuevo levantamiento indígena en Ecuador, esta vez en defensa del agua, amenazada por la minería a cielo abierto. Las organizaciones indias se enfrentaron ahora a un gobierno que se proclama antineoliberal, partidario del “socialismo del siglo XXI” y que impulsa una “revolución ciudadana.”

“Lo que pasó en Cochabamba con la guerra del agua, va a resultar miniatura al lado de lo que se viene en el Ecuador, se viene un levantamiento, porque se viene”, afirma convencido Carlos Pérez Guartambel, presidente de la Unión de Sistemas Comunitarios de Agua del Azuay1. Su punto de referencia es la Guerra del Agua en Cochabamba, Bolivia, una vasta insurrección social que revirtió la privatización y dio inicio, en abril de 2000, al ciclo de protestas que llevó a Evo Morales al gobierno. Read the full story

All Communities Deserve Healthy Food, by Meredith Stern (justseeds.org)

by Will Allen
October 19, 2009

Autumn has arrived in the Northeast. The leaves are turning colors, the days are getting shorter, and the weather has a hint of the chill to come. It’s a time of change in many ways. Our nation is grappling with the daunting challenges of health care and global warming. Another change is coming as well. It’s called the good food revolution. By bringing locally grown, organic, nutritiously rich food to a table near you, the good food revolution can help us tackle these larger societal issues, and benefit us all.

We need a revolution in our food delivery system because the global $3.2 trillion processed-food industry is undermining our health and significantly contributing to our carbon footprint.

Let’s take a quick look at how produce in Massachusetts makes it to our grocery store shelves. Quite likely it was picked in California’s Central Valley, the mother of all breadbaskets. The produce journeyed across the country from the field to the wholesaler to a retailer and finally to your dinner table. Total travel time, about 12 to 14 days. Read the full story

Sustainable Growth, by Meredith Stern (justseeds.org)

by Jessica Irvine
October 16, 2009

The official photo gallery of Elinor Ostrom, joint winner of this year’s Nobel memorial prize in economics, says it all. In one picture, she stands behind a lectern in a tie-dyed T-shirt, gesticulating wildly with her right arm. In another, she squats for a portrait in traditional Nepalese garb in an otherwise male group studying local irrigation systems.

It is no coincidence the same year that brought us the global financial crisis brought us the first female winner in the prize’s 41-year history. Economics is changing.

Once considered the domain of men in tweed jackets constructing abstract models of the world, a new breed of economics, fermenting for a couple of decades, burst into the spotlight recently thanks to greedy Wall Street types who carelessly exposed the pitfalls of a loosely regulated free market. Read the full story

Una educación infantil encaminada hacia un mundo justo y sostenible

Emancipation (Emancipación), por Meredith Stern (justseeds.org)

por Marta Pascual
6 de octubre, 2009

La Tierra está llena. No quedan lugares ignotos que nos permitan soñar con territorios vírgenes. Hemos tocado –y sobrepasado- los límites de nuestro planeta y nos corresponde aprender a vivir dentro de esos límites. Un aprendizaje ineludible en el que la infancia y la educación infantil pueden servir de sugerente punto de partida. En el comienzo de la vida es más fácil distinguir las necesidades esenciales y disfrutar de una vida sencilla. Se podría soñar con una infancia que se convirtiera en movimiento social y desenmascarara al mundo adulto, exigiéndole un cambio radical. La grave crisis ecosocial, que esa infancia vivirá con mayor virulencia, hace necesario este cambio. Read the full story

Education is a Right, by Meredith Stern (justseeds.org)

Students find real-world solutions when they learn from their community, not just their textbooks.

by Daniel Fireside
September 9, 2009

Jaydon Serrano pushes back and forth in his swivel chair, his back against a wall of blinking sound equipment. “I’m a little nervous and excited,” says the second-grader.

“You’ll do great,” says his mom, Ida Martinez.

It’s his turn to rehearse now, and the teacher asks him to read from the script in his hand. It’s a description of his class trip to an arts education center in Villa Victoria, a sprawling public housing complex in Boston’s South End, filled mostly with Puerto Rican residents, including many of Jaydon’s classmates. His delivery is smooth; He’s been practicing for a while, but one word trips him up. “What does ‘affordable’ mean?” he asks his mom. Ida helps him sound it out and defines it. “I didn’t used to know that word, but now I do,” he says with satisfaction. Read the full story