For three long decades, neoliberal capitalism pitilessly savaged the planet, blighting billions of human lives and wrecking entire continents for the sake of a tiny oligarchic elite.
But beginning in the late 1990s, resistance movements began to emerge. In the beginning, they were tiny -- a handful of protests here, a scattering of workers there. But the resistance grew and grew. The handful turned into an armful, armfuls into gatherings, gatherings into crowds.
All across the planet, working people fought back -- and began to win victories.
One of the most significant of these victories was the construction of mighty developmental states. These were peaceful, democratic revolutions which took back national economies bankrupted by predatory foreign neoliberal elites and from their no less predatory comprador underlings.
The first group of developmental states emerged around 1999 or. Their most obvious manifestation: the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China), trillion-dollar behemoths who are rapidly becoming the leading engines of the world economy.
But the story doesn't end there. The next generation of developmental states is emerging, born out of geopolitical necessity and ongoing struggles for human dignity and social justice. Here are some snapshots of the process:
Bangladesh: Al-jazeera: Bangladeshi labourers demand more pay
Egypt: In These Times: In Egypt, Arab World’s ‘Largest Social Movement’ Gains Steam Among Workers
Indonesia and Turkey: Antara: President arrives in Turkey
Monday, June 28, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Israelo-apartheid Commits Suicide
The Young Turks' moderator, Cenk Uygur, rips the mask off the rotting, zombified shambles of the US Empire and shows just how hideous its worm-eaten visage has become: "US Citizen Executed In Israeli Flotilla Raid?"
Israelo-apartheid's goons shot 19-year-old Furhan Dogan, an unarmed aid worker on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, four times in the head in international waters. Why? Dogan and his fellow passengers were trying to deliver desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the 1.5 million people of Gaza locked down by a cruel and illegal Israeli blockade.
Dogan was born in the US and has an American passport. Israel murdered a US citizen. And contrary to Israel's pathetic attempts to smear the Freedom Flotilla, attempts so obviously and outrageously untrue as to border on clinical psychosis, Dogan was neither an al-Qaeda agent nor a suicide bomber. He was a US citizen engaged in the most honorable thing any human being can ever do -- peacefully upholding the human rights of other human beings.
Dozens of eyewitnesses aboard the ships confirm Israeli forces opened fire on Dogan and the other unarmed aid workers from helicopters. The attack occurred in international waters, and targeted ships flagged in Turkey, the US and other EU countries. This was no rogue operation, it was approved by the highest levels of Israel's government. As such, this was not just an outright massacre, it is an act of open war by Israel on Israel's *own allies*.
But the business of an increasingly deranged and doomed US Empire is empire, which means it will do nothing to restrain its increasingly deranged and doomed puppet state (Israel gets $3 billion in cash from the US every year -- not loans, straight up cash). Here's the official US response to the murder of nine defenseless aid workers and the Mafia-style shooting of an American citizen in the head: the events were a tragedy requiring investigation.
But there are powerful social forces which *will* restrain Israel, forces which have consigned settler colonialism in all its forms to the trash heap of history. First of all, Israel has run out of regional enemies: it's at peace with Egypt and Jordan, Syria doesn't want war, and Hezbollah in Lebanon simply wants to be left alone. Second, the EU is in no mood to kowtow to Wall Street banksters or US imperial gangsters, while Turkey is a regional superpower and growing stronger by the day. There will be bigger and better Freedom Flotillas, and the blockade of Gaza will be defeated.
Israelo-apartheid's goons shot 19-year-old Furhan Dogan, an unarmed aid worker on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, four times in the head in international waters. Why? Dogan and his fellow passengers were trying to deliver desperately needed humanitarian supplies to the 1.5 million people of Gaza locked down by a cruel and illegal Israeli blockade.
Dogan was born in the US and has an American passport. Israel murdered a US citizen. And contrary to Israel's pathetic attempts to smear the Freedom Flotilla, attempts so obviously and outrageously untrue as to border on clinical psychosis, Dogan was neither an al-Qaeda agent nor a suicide bomber. He was a US citizen engaged in the most honorable thing any human being can ever do -- peacefully upholding the human rights of other human beings.
Dozens of eyewitnesses aboard the ships confirm Israeli forces opened fire on Dogan and the other unarmed aid workers from helicopters. The attack occurred in international waters, and targeted ships flagged in Turkey, the US and other EU countries. This was no rogue operation, it was approved by the highest levels of Israel's government. As such, this was not just an outright massacre, it is an act of open war by Israel on Israel's *own allies*.
But the business of an increasingly deranged and doomed US Empire is empire, which means it will do nothing to restrain its increasingly deranged and doomed puppet state (Israel gets $3 billion in cash from the US every year -- not loans, straight up cash). Here's the official US response to the murder of nine defenseless aid workers and the Mafia-style shooting of an American citizen in the head: the events were a tragedy requiring investigation.
But there are powerful social forces which *will* restrain Israel, forces which have consigned settler colonialism in all its forms to the trash heap of history. First of all, Israel has run out of regional enemies: it's at peace with Egypt and Jordan, Syria doesn't want war, and Hezbollah in Lebanon simply wants to be left alone. Second, the EU is in no mood to kowtow to Wall Street banksters or US imperial gangsters, while Turkey is a regional superpower and growing stronger by the day. There will be bigger and better Freedom Flotillas, and the blockade of Gaza will be defeated.
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