Call for the World Social Forum Free Palestine, Nov. 2012 in Brazil

Posted on January 19, 2012 by StopTheWall Campaign

Occupied Palestine is part of every free heartbeat in this world and her cause continues to inspire solidarity across the globe. The World Social Forum Free Palestine is an expression of the human instinct to unite for justice and freedom and an echo of the World Social Forum’s opposition to neo-liberal hegemony, colonialism, and racism through struggles for social, political and economic alternatives to promote justice, equality, and the sovereignty of peoples.

The WSF Free Palestine will be a global encounter of broad-based popular and civil society mobilizations from around the world. It aims to:
1. Show the strength of solidarity with the calls of the Palestinian people and the diversity of initiatives and actions aimed at promoting justice and peace in the region.
2. Create effective actions to ensure Palestinian self-determination, the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the fulfillment of human rights and international law, by:
a) Ending Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
b) Ensuring the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
c) Implementing, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
3. Be a space for discussion, exchange of ideas, strategizing, and planning in order to improve the structure of solidarity.

Exactly sixty-five years after Brazil presided over the UN General Assembly session that agreed upon the partition of Palestine, Brazil will host a different type of global forum: an historic opportunity for people from all over the world to stand up where governments have failed. The world’s people will come together to discuss new visions and effective actions to contribute to justice and peace in the region.

We call on all organizations, movements, networks, and unions across the globe to join the WSF Free Palestine in November 2012 in Porto Alegre. We ask you to join the International Committee for the WSF Free Palestine, we will establish as soon as possible. Participation in this forum will structurally strengthen solidarity with Palestine, promote action to implement Palestinian’s legitimate rights, and hold Israel and its allies accountable to international law.

Together we can raise global solidarity with Palestine to a new level.

Palestinian Preparatory Committee for the WSF Free Palestine 2012

Secretariat members:
· PNGO – Palestinian NGO Network
· Stop the Wall – Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign,
· OPGAI – Occupied Palestinian Golan Heights Advocacy Initiative

· Alternatives represented by:

Alternative Information Center,
Teacher Creativity Center

· Ittijah

· General Union of Palestinian women

Coordination office:

PNGO – Palestinian NGO Network
Tel: +970 2 2975320/1
Fax: +970 2 2950704
E mail: samahd@pngo.net

Faecesbook and faecesbook-binders!

alternatively, there's one other slot where you could shove your credit card... with similar results!

Epoca modernităţii spectrale (The Age of Ghost-modernism): Falimentul noului liberalism utopic şi democratizarea post-corporatistă a economiei inechităţii

de Bogdan V. Lepădatu, Doctor în Sociologie (SNSPA)

Învaţă, Cunoaşte-te pe tine însuţi, Schimbă-te...

Învaţă de la oameni, Cunoaşte-i, Schimbaţi Împreună Lumea!

Descriam, cu ocazia acordării titlului mai sus-menţionat, epilogul post-modernităţii prin epitetul de "modernitate spectrală" – în sensul halucinaţiilor de coşmar, aşa cum au fost ele induse de agenţiile comunităţii corporatiste Occidentale actorilor sociali, transformaţi în resurse umane, simple piese de schimb alienate de spirit critic prin intermediul reţetelor "ştiinţifice" de "pâine şi circ", de genul marketing, management (al subalternilor şi mai ales a percepţiei acestora) etc. etc.

Subliniam astfel golirea programatică de semnificaţie şi conţinut a epocii curente (o virtualitate spectrală, lipsită de orice urmă de virtute!) pentru a confirma oportunitatea şi, mai ales, necesitatea schimbării calitative (revoluţionară!) a paradigmei vetuste a noului liberalism utopic.

Statul corporatist – o entitate fascistoidă, cu faţă neoliberală – a transformat, prin intermediul unor rețele de agenții corporatiste bine coordonate, fosta entitate suverană, legală şi constituţională a statului într-o agenţie pentru "colonizare mentală" (Koensler), având drept scop îndeplinirea obiectivelor geopolitice ale Complexul Militar-Industrial. . O analiză a relațiilor dintre 43.000 de corporații transnaționale a identificat un grup relativ restrâns de companii, în mare parte aparținând domeniului bancar, având o capacitate disproporționat de mare de influențare a economiei globale.

Astăzi, Cruciada (post-liberală a...) Globalizării Occidentale împarte lumea, după modelul centru-periferie, într-o așa-zisă "comunitate internaţională" – formată din societăţile financializate ale Complexului Militar-Industrial, integrate unui sistem de pieţe (virtuale) libere de controlul societăţii civile şi... "restul lumii"!

Falimentul economic al comunităţii de societăți "dezvoltate", poluarea mediului înconjurător sau încălzirea globală – generată din obsesia creşterii economice, ipotecând viitorul întregii umanităţi pentru profitul unor elite sociopate periculoase – denotă faptul că a venit vremea trezirii urgente din hiperinflaţionistul Vis American (care nu ştie măcar face diferenţa între un miliard şi un bilion!).

Astfel, "globalizarea“ modelului occidental nu este un efect mecanic al legilor economice sau tehnologiei, ci este produsul politicilor puse în aplicaţie de un ansamblu de agenţi şi instituţii şi rezultatul aplicării regulilor create în mod deliberat pentru servirea unor scopuri specifice (Pierre Bourdieu, 2001). De aceea, a sosit timpul ca acest lucru să fie înţeles de toţi cei care consideră că nesupunerea civică şi Ocupaţia agenţiilor corporatismului neoliberal sunt singurele modalităţi viabile de revoluţionare socială a sistemului injustiţiei sociale, de eliberare şi emancipare a societăţii civile de sub apartheidul globalizării Occidentale, dar si din hiperrealitatea (Baudrillard) specifică capitalismului post-industrial.

Băsescu, Antonescu, Ponta ş.a. sunt doar nişte figuranţi locali, urmaşii lui "Dracula" din telenovela "NATO ţie, dă-mi-o şUE", produsă de Pentagon, regizată la Hollywood şi filmată, în timp hiperreal, de FOX News şi CNN, la marginile Europei, pentru reducerea costurilor prin utilizarea mâinii de lucru ieftină... Doar că, această schemă de pacificare socială aducând, prin intermediul cucerilor revoluției din știință și tehnologie, rețetele romane de "pâine și circ" la hiper-realitățile mediatizate de agențiile de presă ale corporațiilor multinaționale nu poate preveni la nesfârșit procesul conștientizării acestei stări de fapt.

Este util de rememorat faptul că mişcările de "Ocupaţie" (nesupunere civică) sunt contranaraţiuni care aruncă mănuşa provocării falimentarei metanaraţiuni a neoliberalismului corporatist. Atrăgând atenția asupra deficitului flagrant de etică și echitate se vizează demontarea mecanismului doctrinar al injustiţiei sociale capitaliste, care rezistă intemperiilor istorice şi încercărilor de emancipare socială, de mai bine de cinci secole.

Dezmoșteniții clasei de mijloc, principalii agenți ai Mişcării sociale de Ocupaţie, vor trebui să conștientizeze acest fapt inoculând Mișcare de "virușii" grupurilor de interese, aparatele de partid ce dau sistemului capitalist aparența unui sistem democratic. Aceste partide (de USLaşi, PeDofiLi sau Socialişti "Conservatori"!), compromise definitiv şi irevocabil, încearcă să-şi nege apartenenţa chiar în consiliul de administraţie, nu doar în acţionariatul sistemului capitalist din România.

Trăgându-şi comisioane fabuloase din privatizarea activelor sociale, care ar fi putut să ne asigure tuturor un trai decent şi un sistem public (adică unul care permite accesul universal la sănătate şi educaţie!) dacă nu ar fi fost furate, aceste elite oportuniste sunt tocmai motivele care împiedică resuscitarea spiritului critic al societăţii civile.

Folosind tehnici de prozelitizare cultistă, aceste agenţii neoliberale au abolit spiritul critic al unei populaţii şcolită în fast-food-ul educaţional al Procesului "Bolognese". Doar că, nemaiputând să o mituiască pentru a-i cumpăra tăcerea, fabricarea acelui aşa-zis consens paradigmatic, în contextul transgresiunilor Contractului Social, a devenit acum mult mai dificilă. Falimentul Visului American al ignoranţei egoiste, care alcătuieşte, prin intermediul poliţistului ucigaş al planetei, NATO, aşa-zisa "comunitate internaţională" de economii financializate – a nu se confunda cu Organizaţia Naţiunilor Unite (ONU)! – anunţă că sistemul inegalităţii şi inechităţii sociale a intrat in metastază.

Reţetele de pacificare prin Depolitizare, Distragerea atenţiei şi Divertisment (de la manele la telenovele, fotbal sau MTV) operaţionalizează acelaşi "management al percepţiei" (implementat în arii atât de diverse pe cât sunt reţelelele sociale sau cele mass-media, ori în domeniul militar în care este implementată strategia Războiului Continuu) au transformat imaginea societăţii dintr-o clepsidră (în care "clasa de mijloc" păzea clasele bogate de ameninţarea claselor sărace!) într-o sticlă (de tip boxbeutel!) de cognac, în care "dopul" plutocraţiei constituind o fracţiune de procent (0,1%, şi nu 1% cum este mediatizat) apasă asupra "restului lumii" (dezmoşteniţi ai clasei de mijloc, datornici aflaţi la un salariu distanţă de faliment, săraci şi fără de speranţă, depuneri reziduale, "viermii - inepţi, inculţi şi ciumpalaci" (de)căzuţi la fundul acestei "sticle".

"Adunarea Generală" a Societăţii Civile oferă oportunitatea decodificării metanaraţiunii neoliberalismului fascistoid, pentru auditarea modului în care acest tip de raţionalitate mărginită este alienat de gândirea critică şi codificat axiomatic în scopul legitimării şi perpetuării sistemului exploatării capitaliste. Este de aceea necesară renunţarea imediată la politicile de creştere economică, a căror amprentă ecologică criminală ameninţă viitorul întregii umanităţi şi revenirea la politici sustenabile, salarii decente şi democratizarea societăţii printr-o taxare progresivă, care să pună capăt inechităţii şi inegalităţilor sociale. Gigi Behehecali nu poate fi taxat la fel cum este taxat muritorul de foame!

Este necesară şi renunţarea la apucăturile de "necrofilie culturală" (Simon Schama) de către cei care mai cred încă în zeităţi supranaturale sau în sângele "albastru" (ha-ha, oare ce grupă de sânge are acesta?) ale "aleşilor" Domnului-Zeu pe Pământ... lăsând în grija lor să rezolve ceea ce nu poate fi rezolvat decât prin mobilizare socială, gândire critică şi curaj!

În fine, este necesară identificarea abuzurilor paradigmei privatizărilor de tot felul, renaţionalizarea activelor sociale care ne dau calitatea de cetăţeni (sănătatea, educaţia, resursele naturale) şi introducerea unor politici de redistribuire, necesare recuperării ontosului afectiv comunitar şi nu numai.

Mult succes!

From the Monroe Doctrine...

... to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)...

... "created by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, along with the Alliance for Progress, one of the first programs under USAID's responsibility. Just two year after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the Alliance was intended to foster the economic development in Latin-American countries, to reduce popular pressure for change through left-wing policies. According to Stephen Streeter, for example, in Guatemala the Agency's programs aimed to conquer peasants' and workers' "hearts and minds", moving them away from the guerrillas. [...] USAID's programs' primary motivations, clearly established in the Foreign Assistance Act, were to advance the foreign policy goals of the United States, above all national security."

 

The USAID's Fabrication of Democracy

by Rafaela Pannain

The position of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in the American foreign policy field shapes its strategies for exporting democracy. Thus, in order to draw some conclusions about its efficacy, it is crucial to understand USAID’s democracy promotion programs within the context of how they are developed both inside and outside the agency. Beyond the complex relations among different bureaus and groups inside USAID, its work is also determined by the relation the agency has established with other important agents of the American Foreign Policy field, especially the State Department and the Congress. Since 1990, the bureaucratic structure of USAID has been submitted to several restructuring plans, which had as a consequence an important reduction of its personnel and missions. Despite USAID’s continuous loss of autonomy, the organization has managed to survive in a very hostile environment thanks to different strategies. Successfully advocating the importance of democracy promotion programs can be understood as one of them. Therefore, the analysis we propose of the development and implementation of these programs points first to the importance of the motivations of USAID as an organization in relation to others. Secondly, we highlight that, due to the limited autonomy of the agency, its programs also reflect the interests of the Congress, which is responsible for the allocation of most of the agency budget, as well as those of the State Department.

The Ghost-Modern American Dream: Circling the Meta-narrative Drain

Yet another newscast for the willfully blind Fakebookers, ogling with Google Goggles and Twittering one-liners while choosing to ignore the corporate agencies' financialising of politics, society and the rest of XXIst century ghost-modern narratives...

America In Decline

by Noam Chomsky, August 5, 2011

“It is a common theme” that the United States, which “only a few years ago was hailed to stride the world as a colossus with unparalleled power and unmatched appeal is in decline, ominously facing the prospect of its final decay,” Giacomo Chiozza writes in the current Political Science Quarterly.

The theme is indeed widely believed. And with some reason, though a number of qualifications are in order. To start with, the decline has proceeded since the high point of U.S. power after World War II, and the remarkable triumphalism of the post-Gulf War ’90s was mostly self-delusion.

Another common theme, at least among those who are not willfully blind, is that American decline is in no small measure self-inflicted. The comic opera in Washington this summer, which disgusts the country and bewilders the world, may have no analogue in the annals of parliamentary democracy.

The spectacle is even coming to frighten the sponsors of the charade. Corporate power is now concerned that the extremists they helped put in office may in fact bring down the edifice on which their own wealth and privilege relies, the powerful nanny state that caters to their interests.

Corporate power’s ascendancy over politics and society—by now mostly financial—has reached the point that both political organizations, which at this stage barely resemble traditional parties, are far to the right of the population on the major issues under debate.

For the public, the primary domestic concern is unemployment. Under current circumstances, that crisis can be overcome only by a significant government stimulus, well beyond the recent one, which barely matched decline in state and local spending—though even that limited initiative probably saved millions of jobs.

For financial institutions the primary concern is the deficit. Therefore, only the deficit is under discussion. A large majority of the population favor addressing the deficit by taxing the very rich (72 percent, 27 percent opposed), reports a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Cutting health programs is opposed by overwhelming majorities (69 percent Medicaid, 78 percent Medicare). The likely outcome is therefore the opposite.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes surveyed how the public would eliminate the deficit. PIPA director Steven Kull writes, “Clearly both the administration and the Republican-led House (of Representatives) are out of step with the public’s values and priorities in regard to the budget.”

The survey illustrates the deep divide: “The biggest difference in spending is that the public favored deep cuts in defense spending, while the administration and the House propose modest increases. The public also favored more spending on job training, education and pollution control than did either the administration or the House.”

The final “compromise”—more accurately, capitulation to the far right—is the opposite throughout, and is almost certain to lead to slower growth and long-term harm to all but the rich and the corporations, which are enjoying record profits.

Not even discussed is that the deficit would be eliminated if, as economist Dean Baker has shown, the dysfunctional privatized health care system in the U.S. were replaced by one similar to other industrial societies’, which have half the per capita costs and health outcomes that are comparable or better.

The financial institutions and Big Pharma are far too powerful for such options even to be considered, though the thought seems hardly Utopian. Off the agenda for similar reasons are other economically sensible options, such as a small financial transactions tax.

Meanwhile new gifts are regularly lavished on Wall Street. The House Appropriations Committee cut the budget request for the Securities and Exchange Commission, the prime barrier against financial fraud. The Consumer Protection Agency is unlikely to survive intact.

Congress wields other weapons in its battle against future generations. Faced with Republican opposition to environmental protection, American Electric Power, a major utility, shelved “the nation’s most prominent effort to capture carbon dioxide from an existing coal-burning power plant, dealing a severe blow to efforts to rein in emissions responsible for global warming,” The New York Times reported.

The self-inflicted blows, while increasingly powerful, are not a recent innovation. They trace back to the 1970s, when the national political economy underwent major transformations, ending what is commonly called “the Golden Age” of (state) capitalism.

Two major elements were financialization (the shift of investor preference from industrial production to so-called FIRE: finance, insurance, real estate) and the offshoring of production. The ideological triumph of “free market doctrines,” highly selective as always, administered further blows, as they were translated into deregulation, rules of corporate governance linking huge CEO rewards to short-term profit, and other such policy decisions.

The resulting concentration of wealth yielded greater political power, accelerating a vicious cycle that has led to extraordinary wealth for a fraction of 1 percent of the population, mainly CEOs of major corporations, hedge fund managers and the like, while for the large majority real incomes have virtually stagnated.

In parallel, the cost of elections skyrocketed, driving both parties even deeper into corporate pockets. What remains of political democracy has been undermined further as both parties have turned to auctioning congressional leadership positions, as political economist Thomas Ferguson outlines in the Financial Times.

“The major political parties borrowed a practice from big box retailers like Walmart, Best Buy or Target,” Ferguson writes. “Uniquely among legislatures in the developed world, U.S. congressional parties now post prices for key slots in the lawmaking process.” The legislators who contribute the most funds to the party get the posts.

The result, according to Ferguson, is that debates “rely heavily on the endless repetition of a handful of slogans that have been battle-tested for their appeal to national investor blocs and interest groups that the leadership relies on for resources.” The country be damned.

Before the 2007 crash for which they were largely responsible, the new post-Golden Age financial institutions had gained startling economic power, more than tripling their share of corporate profits. After the crash, a number of economists began to inquire into their function in purely economic terms. Nobel laureate Robert Solow concludes that their general impact may be negative: “The successes probably add little or nothing to the efficiency of the real economy, while the disasters transfer wealth from taxpayers to financiers.”

By shredding the remnants of political democracy, the financial institutions lay the basis for carrying the lethal process forward—as long as their victims are willing to suffer in silence.