Autonomy & Solidarity
A New Strategy for the Popular Movement in Oaxaca?
Homosexual men have significantly lower personal incomes than heterosexual individuals
Homosexual men have significantly lower personal incomes than heterosexual individuals
from e! Science News, October 29, 2008.
A new study in the Canadian Journal of Economics provides the first evidence on sexual orientation and economic outcomes in Canada. The study found that gay men have 12 percent lower personal incomes and lesbians have 15 percent higher personal incomes than heterosexual men and women. Christopher S. Carpenter of The Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California Irvine used data from the Canadian Community Health Survey which includes standard demographic questions as well as self-reports on sexual orientation.
Like previous patterns found in the U.S. and the U.K., results show that gay men have significantly lower personal incomes than similarly situated straight individuals, while lesbians have significantly higher personal incomes than straight women.
It’s Their System, They Broke It, And We’re Not Paying To Fix It.
THE ECONOMY GOES INTO CRISIS
We are watching the greatest financial crisis since 1929 unfold before our
eyes. Even if they manage to shore up their system for the moment, there
is no doubt that a serious international downturn in the economy is
getting underway. As this situation begins to impact the lives of our
families and communities, we must understand and prepare to deal with what
the crisis will mean to us:
1.Financial bailout for the rich: Governments everywhere have responded to
the crisis of financial institutions by pouring hundreds and hundreds of
billions of dollars into various bail-out packages for the rich. For
years, they have been telling us no money exists for decent wages, proper
housing, schools or health care and, certainly, no money to ensure that
poor people on assistance can pay the rent and eat properly. Now we see
that this was all a lie. When the banks and corporations are in trouble,
a Niagara Falls of public money suddenly becomes available to them. Don’t
tell us, when we lose our jobs and can’t pay our rent or put food on the
table, that ‘we can’t spend our way out of a recession’. Government must
start spending for us as they have for corporate interests.
2.Get ready for ordinary people to feel the crunch: This downturn is
unfolding in a context where EI and welfare systems have been cut back
Migrant workers reap bitter harvest in Ontario
Migrant workers reap bitter harvest in Ontario: Women in particular find themselves vulnerable to violence and intimidation
by Evelyn Encalada Grez, Toronto Star, October 28, 2008.
I had to pick up Laura at the apple farm with two police officers. We left the farm in such haste that Laura's belongings were scattered in various plastic bags.
It was a rescue mission more reminiscent of a crime scene. She could not leave without lovingly saying goodbye to each of the women with whom she had shared that awful crammed bunkhouse.
When she was ready, she turned to me and said: "Let's go." We walked together, Laura on crutches and in much pain, tears flowing down her face, tears that quickly became contagious.
The tall, white, male police officers were shocked. They had no clue that migrant women lived and worked in their community, let alone what some had to go through to earn a living producing food that ended up on our kitchen tables. One of the officers said "apples are never going to taste the same again."
Laura's crime was to have been injured at work. She lost her balance, fell off a tractor and her legs were crushed by its wheels. As soon as she regained consciousness after her first surgery, an official from the Mexican consulate in Toronto started harassing her.
Bolivia: Congress Approves Referendum on Constitution
By Ben Dangl , October, 24 2008, Z Net
After months of street battles and political meetings, a new draft of the Bolivian constitution was ratified by Congress on October 21. A national referendum on whether or not to make the document official is scheduled for January 25, 2009.
"Now we have made history," President Evo Morales told supporters in La Paz. "This process of change cannot be turned back...neoliberalism will never return to Bolivia."
If the constitution is approved in the January referendum, a new general election will take place in December of 2009.
Leading up to Congress's approval, Morales participated in sections of a march from Caracollo in Oruro to La Paz, a distance of over 100 miles and involving an estimated 100,000 union members, activists, students, farmers and miners.
The march took place to pressure opposition members in Congress into backing the constitution and referendum. When marchers arrived in La Paz they packed the center of the city to historic levels. Some media outlets said the march, which stretched 15 kilometers, was the longest one ever in the capital.
"Those who have been kicked out to the chicken coop, those who have been hidden in the basement, are jailed no more," Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said of the approval of the constitution, according to the Associated Press.
Social Movements Against the Global Security Architecture!
A Critique of the Militarisation of Social Conflict and the Securitisation of Everyday Life
Gipfelsoli from Interactivist
Recent unrest due to food price hikes, protests against rising energy costs, visions and realities of a climate crisis and growing concerns over scarce resources, in conjunction with the continued turmoil of financial markets, are creating a sense of insecurity for a neoliberal regime in severe crisis. The G8 states and their allies are seeking to contain these conflicts and the evident accumulation crisis of the global economy through market-orientated solutions in order to restore economic growth whilst calls for more state intervention in the regulation of financial markets are rife. At the same time, the 'war on terror' serves to justify ever-more militarisation of all spheres of life. Wars are waged to secure new markets, transport routes and resources. New techniques of governance are emerging within a logic of waging war against who- or whatever cannot be made profitable.
The Murder of Brad Will: The Rule of Impunity
October 22, 2008 By John Gibler, Indypendent , Z Net
On October 27, 2006, Brad Will stood on Juarez Avenue in the municipality of Santa Lucia del Camino, Oaxaca, Mexico. He was filming a violent clash between armed, civilian-clad municipal police and officials and members of the Oaxaca Peoples' Popular Assembly, or APPO.
Brad traveled to Oaxaca in early October 2006 to report on the protest movement led by the state teachers union that sought to oust governor Ulises Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, after his failed attempt to beat and arrest striking teachers during a June 14 pre-dawn raid.
Brad stood amongst the APPO protesters and other journalists, filming down the length of Juarez Avenue where the armed officials were firing at the protesters. Brad was shot and fell to the ground, his camera still running and having recorded the sound of the shot that hit him. Brad was shot from straight on, just below the chest, and yet his killer does not appear in the camera frame at the moment of the gunshot. Brad died on the way to the hospital. He had been shot twice.
Upping The Anti: is looking for new editors and advisory board members
**Please forward Widely**
Upping The Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action is looking for new editors and advisory board members.
Position descriptions and application procedures are included below.
Published twice a year, Upping the Anti is dedicated to publishing radical theory and analysis about struggles against capitalism, imperialism, and all forms of oppression. We publish theoretical and critical articles, interviews, and roundtables. Upping the Anti also publishes book reviews where activists assess new writing on and about the Left. Back issues can be read at http://uppingtheanti.org
If you have any questions, please contact us at uppingtheanti@gmail.com
Applications are due November 30, 2008
In solidarity and struggle,
The Upping The Anti Editorial Committee
-------
CALL OUT FOR ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS
We are currently seeking new advisory board members.
The Upping The Anti advisory board is an exciting body that brings together a network of committed radicals across North America. As a member of the advisory board, you will help to shape the content of Upping the Anti by participating in story meetings and reviewing and editing submissions. You will develop and discuss ideas, gain writing and publishing skills, and produce a publication aimed at strengthening our movements.
“Must the Molecules Fear as the Engine Dies?” * Notes on the Wall Street “Meltdown”
Dear Midnight Notes Friends,
The breakdown of the Wall Street financial machine makes the task that we outlined in our June meeting more urgent. In June we planned to rethink Midnight Notes in view of the restructuring of the accumulation process and class relations carried out through the neoliberal turn and Structural Adjustment. We can now define this project more precisely: what do the current crisis and restructuring of the financial system imply for us as we join the rest of the world in the dog house of structural adjustment in the twilight of the American empire?
Olmert Admits Israel Must Withdraw
Olmert Admits Israel Must Withdraw
by Jesse Rosenfeld, The Real News Network, October 14, 2008. (Found via The Dominion Daily Weblog)
Israel/Palestine- Ehud Olmert passes leadership of the Kadima Party to Tzipi Livni and leaves a challenging legacy. In comments he made during an interview with Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, Olmert admits Israel must withdraw from areas of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and even the Golan Heights, an area at the center of the Israeli-Syrian dispute.
The Canadian Election and the War in Afghanistan
Michael Skinner
Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, attempted to remove questions about Canada's role in Afghanistan from debate during the election campaign by announcing the combat role of the Canadian Forces will end, in 2011, if he is re-elected as Prime Minister.
But let's be clear about what the current combat role entails. Many Canadian political and military leaders claim the current counterinsurgency war will help bring stability, development, democracy, and the liberation of women to Afghanis, which will in turn make Canadians and the people of the world safer. However, Canada is participating in a counterinsurgency war using tactics prohibited by international law. Canada is also participating in a global American-led war with obscured geopolitical and economic objectives. Canadian political leaders have put us in this position to curry favour with the United States and benefit a small minority of Canadians – primarily investors in Canada's military industrial complex, the extractive industries, construction, transportation, communications, and other industries that can profit from war.
None of the Canadian political parties has produced a clearly focused foreign policy that most people – and not just people on the left – in Canada and Quebec can support in good conscience.
