Articles by Toward Freedom
We found 79 results.
After Daniel Ortega’s Victory in Nicaragua, Biden Signs RENACER Act and OAS Votes to Condemn
Julie Varughese | Toward Freedom - TRANSCEND Media Service,
22 Nov 2021
14 Nov 2021 – The “RENACER ACT-Reinforcing Nicaragua’s Adherence to Conditions for Electoral Reform Act of 2021” slaps sanctions on Ortega government officials, attempts to restrict multilateral financing to Nicaragua, monitors Nicaragua’s relationship with Russia, punishes the country for alleged human-rights violations and targets reported corruption inside Nicaragua.
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The Polar Boom: Corporations Flock to Melting Arctic for Oil and Trade Routes
Baher Kamal | Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Feb 2018
16 Feb2018 — As the global demand for fossil fuels rises and the Arctic sea ice continues to melt, multinational corporations and governments are deepening efforts to expand oil exploration and trade routes in the region. While corporations see a profit, environmentalists see a crisis.
→ read full articleEnding a Century of Ecocide and Genocide, Seeding Earth Democracy
Prof. Vandana Shiva | Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2016
Hundreds of People’s Assemblies, being organized everywhere, will make commitments to create a healthy future of food and of the planet. From the People’s Assemblies we will launch a boycott campaign, to liberate our seeds and soils, our communities and societies, our planet and ourselves, from poisons and the rule of the poison cartel.
→ read full articleColombia: A Bright Light for Peace Is Extinguished
Immanuel Wallerstein | Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
31 Oct 2016
Frankly, I do not see any way the peace accord can be saved. Colombia is now like all the other areas of unending conflict. The chaotic world situation continues unabated in what I remind you is the struggle to decide on the successor system to the capitalist system that is now in systemic crisis.
→ read full article“Unruly Equality”: A Brief History of Anarchism
Andrew Cornell | Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
26 Sep 2016
The very terms anarchy, anarchism, and anarchist are so overcoded with meanings and burdened by associations that people frequently talk past one another, or resort to awkward attempts at humor, even when attempting to discuss them in good faith.
→ read full articleAustria Elects a New Green President against the Rising Right
Rene Wadlow | Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
6 Jun 2016
There was a sense of relief among Europeans when it was announced that Alexander Van der Bellen won the election for President of Austria over his far right-wing opponent Norbert Hofer. Austria was split: 50.3% for Van der Bellen, leader of the Green Party and an active ecologist, and 49.7% for Hofer. The vote was also a rural-urban split that also reflected educational levels as well as a generation gap.
→ read full articleAnarchism’s Mid-Century Turn
Kristian Williams | Toward Freedom - TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 May 2016
Review & Response: Unruly Equality: U.S. Anarchism in the Twentieth Century, By Andrew Cornell, University of California Press, 2016, 300 pages. No matter how one feels about it, the current state of anarchism has represented something of a mystery: What was once a mass movement based mainly in working class immigrant communities is now an archipelago of subcultural scenes inhabited largely by disaffected young people from the white middle class.
→ read full articleDefying the Spies: Free Thought as Resistance in the Age of Surveillance
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
9 May 2016
A brand new study from Oxford provides empirical evidence to prove that the very fact that the surveillance state exists spreads conformity and subservience. The study examines how, following whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 about US government spying, there was “a 20 percent decline in page views on Wikipedia articles related to terrorism, including those that mentioned ‘al Qaeda,’ ‘car bomb’ or ‘Taliban.’”
→ read full articleThe Possibilities of Anti-Austerity Politics: A Spanish Drama
Immanuel Wallerstein – Toward Freedom,
9 May 2016
Is there any way that any government is able to maintain an anti-austerity policy in the middle run, amidst the pressures that reduced government real revenues are imposing on states throughout the world? As this drama plays out in Spain, the world will be watching, reacting, and drawing lessons.
→ read full articleThe Evolution of Union Co-ops and the Historical Development of Workplace Democracy
James Anderson, Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
2 May 2016
“Every worker has an equal, democratic vote at weekly meetings that decide all matters of the organization. And we are all members of the Industrial Workers of the World to protect that process so that it can’t be hijacked.”
→ read full articleLeftist Multi-Issue Activism: Possible Ideas for Going Forward
Various Authors ,Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
11 Apr 2016
We the signers of “Some Possible Ideas for Going Forward” think one high priority for progress is activists developing, discussing, and settling on priorities around which to organize multi issue activism in coming months and years. We hope this document can help inspire more conversations within groups and movements that, over time, come to a synthesis.
→ read full articleDefenders of Freedom: Why Anarchism Is Misunderstood
Greg Guma – Toward Freedom,
11 Apr 2016
Anarchists have been tarred for a century as subversives, bomb-throwers, terrorists; deluded utopians at best. But no “ism” is more misunderstood, purposely distorted or entwined with America’s traditions of self-government and free speech.
→ read full articleBad Blood: The First International and the Origins of the Anarchist Movement – A Book Review
Kristian Williams – Toward Freedom,
8 Feb 2016
Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the canonical authority of Marxism has been much less certain. Yet anarchists have not stepped forward to fill the organizational and philosophical vacuum left behind. The reasons for that failing are numerous, but among them must certainly be counted the fact that we have become accustomed to our own marginalization and have largely ceased to think in terms of mass movements and international revolution.
→ read full articleFree-Trade Treaties Are Anti-Free Trade
Immanuel Wallerstein - Toward Freedom,
24 Aug 2015
So-called free-trade treaties are about managing the protectionist interests of the various parties to these treaties. Whatever they do, the results are anti-free trade. To understand what is going on, we have to start with that, and evaluate any proposal with that in mind.
→ read full articleNew Missions for the UN and a Secretary-General to Fit
Rene Wadlow – Toward Freedom,
18 May 2015
What should be the role for the UN in dealing with the changing scene of world politics? What qualities should the Secretary-General and the leadership team around him possess? The UN system is operating in a world of much greater complexity today than when it was founded. Thus to be effective, the UN, its program and Specialized Agencies need leadership which can promote world interests without undue influence of individual states.
→ read full articleGeopolitics Is a Fluid Game: Negotiations and Their Enemies
Immanuel Wallerstein – Toward Freedom,
18 May 2015
We must always remember that geopolitics is a fluid game, and most particularly in this time of structural crisis of the modern world-system with its chaotic and rapid swings in all arenas, not least in geopolitical alignments.
→ read full articleMulticulturalism and Its Dilemmas
Immanuel Wallerstein – Toward Freedom,
2 Mar 2015
And then there are in-migrations of wealthy persons from the Global North into zones where they buy out the desirable land, raise costs generally, and force groups that had been previously there into marginal existences. This is now happening around the globe in zones that are climatically more desirable.
→ read full articleWhy NATO Is a Danger to World Peace
Immanuel Wallerstein - Toward Freedom,
24 Nov 2014
NATO and what it symbolizes today represents a severe danger because it represents the claim of western countries to interfere everywhere in the name of western interpretations of geopolitical realities.
→ read full articleFearing Political Islam: Why Arabs Betrayed Gaza
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
1 Sep 2014
Some Arab rulers continue to declare their strong support of Palestine and its cause. ‘Operation Protective Edge,’ however, has exposed beyond a doubt that such solidarity is just a mere show of words.
→ read full articleHashtag Genocide: Why Gaza Fought Back
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
18 Aug 2014
Since Israel besieged Gaza with Egypt’s help and coordination, life for Gazans has become largely about mere survival. Gazans were not allowed to venture out, fish, or farm, and those who got even close to some arbitrary “buffer zone,” determined by the Israeli army within Gaza’s own borders, were shot and often killed.
→ read full articleThe Last Days of Che Guevara: A Graphic Novel – Book Review
Paul Buhle – Toward Freedom,
21 Jul 2014
No iconic, rebellious image of anyone from the 1960s, it is safe to say, looms larger than that of Che Guevara, even today, so long past his death. Che is the one in museums, and on towels in Italy, posters in Vietnam, statues and assorted monuments in Venezuela and so on.
→ read full articleSolidarity Economies: A Guerrilla War against Capitalism
Beverly Bell and Jessica Hsu – Toward Freedom,
9 Jun 2014
[As Eduardo] Galeano, the Uruguayan writer, said: “Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance.”
→ read full articleOmar and the Israeli Checkpoint: The Essential Story That Is Rarely Told
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
3 Mar 2014
Omar is a 7-year-old boy from Gaza. His family managed to obtain the necessary permits that allowed him to cross the Erez checkpoint to Jerusalem, through the West Bank, in order to undergo surgery. On the way back, the boy and his father were stopped at the Qalanidya checkpoint, separating occupied East Jerusalem from the West Bank.
→ read full articleTen Principles to Guide the Young Activist
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
10 Feb 2014
They say people who live for a higher cause are happier than those who don’t. May you always find your happiness in alleviating the pain of others by standing up for what is right and honorable.
→ read full articleWar on the Poor in Honduras: Social Control, Gangs and the US’s Role in Remilitarizing Central America
Dawn Paley – Toward Freedom,
10 Feb 2014
Election day in Tegucigalpa kicked off on November 24th last year with the feel of a carnival, a rare sensation in a city where the vast majority of residents are faced with grinding poverty, regular gang extortion and a murder rate that is among the world’s highest.
→ read full articleBeyond Reform: It’s Time to Shut Down the World Bank
Cyril Mychalejko – Toward Freedom,
20 Jan 2014
16 Jan 2014 – The World Bank came under fire again last week when its ombudsman revealed that the bank’s investment in a palm oil project in Honduras worsened human rights abuses and violent conflicts.
→ read full articleMajor Parts of World Ignored by U.S. TV News in 2013
Jim Lobe – Toward Freedom,
20 Jan 2014
If people outside the United States are looking for answers why Americans often seem so clueless about the world outside their borders, they could start with what the three major U.S. television networks offered their viewers in the way of news during 2013.
→ read full articleA Global Contract: The Case for World Citizenship
Garry Davis and Greg Guma – Toward Freedom,
13 Jan 2014
The World Government of World Citizens, which was established in 1953, is both an extension of the individual and an expression of humanity as a whole. It grows from your sovereignty and mine as world citizens, and from our commitment to each other’s protection and survival.
→ read full articleBig Brother’s New Crystal Ball: Washington Develops Online Data Mining Program to Predict Global Political Unrest
Cyril Mychalejko – Toward Freedom,
28 Oct 2013
This initiative involves academics working at the behest of a research branch of the NSA who are using US government-collected online data to actually predict future events, such as political protests, pandemics, and economic crises—with a focus on Latin America.
→ read full articleA Corporate Coup of a Different Order: The Growing Resistance to the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Arthur Phillips – Toward Freedom,
30 Sep 2013
In February, more than four years later, President Obama claimed his to be “the most transparent administration in history.” Perhaps the least publicized example of that statement’s dishonesty is the White House’s efforts to negotiate the biggest trade agreement since the mid 1990s in near-total secrecy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, has been in negotiations since 2007.
→ read full articleWhat the Empire Didn’t Hear: US Spying and Resistance in Latin America
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
22 Jul 2013
US imperialism spreads across Latin America through military bases and trade deals, corporate exploitation and debt, and a vast communications surveillance network into the region’s streets and halls of power. Yet more than McDonald’s and bullets, an empire depends on fear, and fear of the empire is lacking these days in Latin America.
→ read full articleFarmers and Consumers v. Monsanto: David Meet Goliath
Tory Field and Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
22 Apr 2013
Monsanto has filed more than 140 lawsuits against 400 farmers and 56 small businesses for alleged violations of contract or GMO patents. One such case is currently under consideration in the Supreme Court. “Farmers have been sued after their field was contaminated by pollen or seed from someone else’s genetically engineered crop [or] when genetically engineered seed from a previous year’s crop has sprouted,”
→ read full articleA Tale of Two NGOs: In Haiti, Disaster Aid or Aid Disaster?
Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
18 Mar 2013
Three years after the deadly earthquake in Haiti, what has become of the commitments made on Red Cross billboards, the promises from telethon hosts, the moving declarations of Presidents Obama and Clinton? What has happened to the nearly $10 billion that was pledged to assist survivors and to rebuild, most of which was entrusted to the large non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that Professor Mark Schuller terms “non-profiteers”?
→ read full articleDisaster Capitalism in the Maghreb: War, Refugees and Profit in West Africa
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
11 Feb 2013
From Libya to Mali a typical story is forming, coupled with lucrative contracts and massive opportunities of all sorts. When private security firms speak of an emerging market in Africa, one is to safely assume that the continent is once more falling prey to growing military ambitions and unfair business conduct.
→ read full articleThe Empire Trapped: The US’ Unpromising Role in the New Middle East
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
8 Oct 2012
Empires don’t crumble overnight, however. A fall of an empire can be as agonizingly long as its rise. Signs of that collapse are oftentimes subtle and might not be followed by a big boom of any sort, but can be unambiguous and definite.
→ read full articleNestlé: Malevolent Corporation Capitalizes on Global Water Crisis
Maude Barlow – Toward Freedom,
1 Oct 2012
Nestlé’s goal is to shift government policy away from providing public municipal water supplies to people, and toward a dependency on bottled water to provide basic drinking water. And of course, it is about capitalizing on the global water crisis.
→ read full articleGoldcorp on Trial: First Ever People’s Health Tribunal Shows Commonalities Throughout Mesoamerica
Beth Geglia and Cyril Mychalejko – Toward Freedom,
10 Sep 2012
Our analysis is that mining companies have transnational strategies and we have to coordinate transnational struggles to confront transnational mining,” Gustavo Lozano, representative from the Mexican Anti-mining Network.
→ read full articleParaguay’s Bitter Harvest: Multinational Corporations Reap Benefits from Coup Government
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
30 Jul 2012
A look at how the coup government is opening up Paraguay to multinational corporate exploitation, from the Canadian Rio Tinto Alcan mining company to Monsanto’s seeds. As Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano said in an interview regarding the coup in Paraguay, the Lugo government tried “to bring about changes that were aimed at making the country more independent and just, but this was an unpardonable sin for the power brokers.”
→ read full articleOccupy the Dam: Brazil’s Indigenous Uprising
John Perkins – Toward Freedom,
30 Jul 2012
In the Amazonian backcountry, tribes are challenging construction of the world’s third-largest dam—by dismantling it. Here’s what they can teach us about standing up to power.
→ read full articleFighting Fire in Haiti
Alexis Erkert – Toward Freedom,
2 Apr 2012
Camp Kozbami is the fifth camp to be arsoned in two months. As landowners and the government push to close camps inhabited by those displaced by the earthquake that rocked Haiti 26 months ago, a reported 94,632 individuals are facing forced eviction. Residents of the 660 displacement camps scattered throughout the Port-au-Prince area are experiencing increasing levels of threats and violence.
→ read full articleBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement: The Power of the People at Work
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
27 Feb 2012
The issue is not about hummus, chocolate bars or Dead Sea vacations. It is about civil society taking full responsibility for its own actions (or lack of). The issue is not exactly about Israeli products either, but rather about how even a seemingly innocent decision like buying Israeli dates may enable the continued subjugation of the Palestinian people.
→ read full articleContesting Ivory Tower Housing Solutions for Haiti
Deepa Panchang – Toward Freedom,
13 Feb 2012
Deutsche Bank and the Clinton Foundation brought on board a joint team from Harvard University and MIT to help design housing strategy for the ‘exemplar’ project. John McAslan & Partners, a British architecture firm, was engaged to help design a “comprehensive community development strategy.” Yet there was no community; the Harvard-MIT design team was designing according to its own ideas, in a vacuum, from Cambridge, Massachusetts. As of October 2011, the team had spent exactly one afternoon meeting with existing residents in Zoranje.
→ read full articleHaiti: From Displacement Camps to Community
Alexis Erkert and Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
9 Jan 2012
As 2012 begins, a growing movement of displaced people and their allies in Haiti is actively claiming the right to housing, which is recognized by both the Haitian constitution and international treaties to which Haiti is signatory. Haitians displaced by the earthquake two years ago face many crises, but perhaps none worse than ongoing homelessness: 520,000 people still living in displacement camps.
→ read full articleCombating Slavery in Coffee and Chocolate Production
Jeff Nall – Toward Freedom,
9 Jan 2012
Quite simply, much of the coffee and chocolate improving our health is simultaneously jeopardizing the freedom and lives of hundreds of thousands around the world including many children. Yet most American consumers are ignorant to the mounting evidence indicating that the laborers whom they have to thank for cultivating these products are being grossly exploited, live in spiraling poverty, and, in some cases, are modern-day slaves.
→ read full articleOut of the Backyard: New Latin American and Caribbean Bloc Defies Washington
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
12 Dec 2011
The CELAC meeting comes a time when Washington’s presence in the region is waning. Following the nightmarish decades of the Cold War, in which Washington propped up dictators and waged wars on Latin American nations, a new era has opened up; in the past decade a wave of leftist presidents have taken office on socialist and anti-imperialist platforms.
→ read full articleOn Freedom and Imperialism: Arab Spring and the Intellectual Divide
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
5 Dec 2011
The so-called ‘Arab Spring’ is creating an intellectual divide that threatens any sensible understanding of the turmoil engulfing several Arab countries. Speaking truth to power is still possible, and is more urgent than ever. The fate of a nation, any nation, cannot be polarized to the terrible extent that the Arab uprisings have. On both sides of the divide, some are cheering for foreign intervention, while others are justifying the senseless murder of innocent people by dictators.
→ read full articleUS Seeks to Establish Naval Base on Jeju Island in Spite of Protests
John Lasker – Toward Freedom,
24 Oct 2011
On beautiful Jeju Island, south of the Korean peninsula, the South Korean Navy is building a base that will soon harbor some of the world’s most advanced weapons. But the mystery is: who inspired the base to be built on this island of pristine waters and stunning volcanic peaks in the first place? Peace activist Bruce Gagnon says all one needs to do is call the South Korean embassy in Washington and ask.
→ read full articleClass Warfare Indeed
Michael Parenti – Toward Freedom,
10 Oct 2011
And who knows, once we learn to talk about the realities of class power, we are on our way to talking critically about capitalism, another verboten word in the public realm. And once we start a critical discourse about capitalism, we will be vastly better prepared to act against it and defend our own democratic and communal interests.
→ read full articleLibya’s Next Fight: Overcoming Western Designs
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
5 Sep 2011
The Libya that inspired the world is capable of overcoming NATO’s stratagems, if it becomes aware of NATO’s true intentions in Libya and the desperate attempt to thwart or hijack Arab revolts.
→ read full articleGround Your Warplanes, Save the Horn of Africa
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
1 Aug 2011
“When you are hungry, cold is a killer, and the people here are starving and helpless.”
→ read full articleHope in the Andes: What Ollanta Humala’s Victory Means for Peru
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
13 Jun 2011
Ollanta is an Incan name meaning “the warrior everyone looks to.” Indeed, all eyes were on the leftist president-elect as he greeted the crowd. This election puts Humala among a growing number of leftist presidents in Latin America and offers hope to the poorest sectors of Peruvian society. The poverty rate in Peru is just over 31 percent. In Sunday’s elections, it was the impoverished rural areas that went for Humala over Kieko Fujimori.
→ read full articleNarco Violence in Mexico: Eight Theses and Many Questions
Paco Ignacio Taibo II – Toward Freedom,
4 Apr 2011
Calderón negotiated the launching of this war with President Bush, not with the then newly-arrived Obama. And he agreed in terms of a package deal with absurd conditions. The drug war has never been, nor should it be, a Mexican War. It was, and is an essentially American war generated by increased consumption of drugs on a global scale which initiated in the United States.
→ read full articleContinuing Colonialism: World Bank Funds Mining in Africa
Cyril Mychalejko – Toward Freedom,
28 Mar 2011
Dr. Aaron Tesfaye, a professor of International Political Economy and African Politics at William Paterson University, said he is not surprised by the announcement because of the economic and security implications mining and strategic metals have for industrialized nations.
→ read full articleExperiments in Democracy: Egypt, Tunisia and the US
Joseph Gainza – Toward Freedom,
28 Feb 2011
Rarely does history present us with events which resemble a scientific experiment. Events in the Middle East over the last nine years, but especially in the last month give us an opportunity to examine how best to establish democracy. Analysis of what has recently taken place in Tunisia and Egypt can be measured against the ongoing tragedies of Iraq and Afghanistan.
→ read full articleGoverning by Obeying the People: Bolivia’s Politics of the Street
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
28 Feb 2011
From across North Africa to Wisconsin, activists are navigating a new terrain of global protest and relationships with their governments. Whether in ousting old tyrants or dealing with new allies in office, the example of Bolivia holds many lessons for social movements. An illustrative dynamic is now unfolding in this Andean country where the movements hold sway over the government palace, and the leftist President Evo Morales says he “governs by obeying the people.” But sometimes the people don’t give him any other choice.
→ read full articleHaiti: Refugee Camps May Model Future Society
Elizabeth Senatus and Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
8 Nov 2010
While it should never be the case that a high percentage of the Haitian population remains living in refugee camps ten months after the earthquake, still camp residents have managed to create in a few of those camps a small-scale model of the type of future society that many would like to see. Their camps have achieved democratic participation by community members, autonomy from foreign authority, a focus on meeting the needs of all, dignified living conditions, respect for rights, creativity, and a commitment to gender equity.
→ read full articleThe Tide Has Changed in Gaza: A Musical Lesson on Humanity
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
25 Oct 2010
If one tried to fit music compositions into an equivalent literary style, Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble’s latest release would come across as a most engaging political essay: persuasive, argumentative, rational, original, imaginative and always unfailingly accessible. But unlike the rigid politicking of politicians and increasingly Machiavellian style of today’s political essayists – so brazen they no longer hide behind illusory moral façades – the band’s latest work is also unapologetically humanistic.
→ read full articleAn Alternative Environmental Future for Haiti
Aldrin Calixte and Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
4 Oct 2010
Haiti is famous around the world primarily for its problems, one being advanced ecological destruction. However, as with its other problems, citizens – with international friends and the occasional help of the government – are working to turn this around and create a healthy environment.
→ read full articleHaiti: Don’t Give Us Food, Help Us Produce
Beverly Bell and Jonas Deronzil – Toward Freedom,
27 Sep 2010
Since foreign rice has invaded Haiti, we plant our rice but we can’t sell it. The foreigners have all the possibilities: they have water, they have machinery, they have easy access to fertilizer and other inputs. They can grow their rice in quantity. The peasants, poor devils, we spend a lot to grow it, but we can’t sell it. Sometimes we have to go to the loan sharks just to get enough money to survive.
→ read full articleChris Hedges on Moral Courage
Toward Freedom – TRANSCEND Media Service,
27 Sep 2010
Chris Hedges begins this speech to the Veterans for Peace convention by saying, “Physical courage is something you see on a battlefield. Moral courage you almost never see.”
→ read full articleRebel Soldiers: Dissent Grows in the British Military
Dan Read – Toward Freedom,
6 Sep 2010
Glenton had spent the last nine months behind bars for refusing to return to Afghanistan and espousing his anti-war views. Addressing a meeting of the Stop the War Coalition after his confinement, he said it was “badge of honor to have gone to prison” and that he has “more in common with the people of Afghanistan than my own political and military leaders.”
→ read full articleLatin America: Impunity in Plan Condor’s Shadows
Marie Trigona – Toward Freedom,
28 Jun 2010
“The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect.” — Dan Mitrione, United States government security advisor for the CIA in Latin America, and instructor in the art of torture teaching techniques in Uruguay during the nation’s 1973-1985 military dictatorship.
→ read full articleEnvironment and Food in Haiti: Two Crises, One Solution
Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
31 May 2010
In this interview, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste discusses the role that agriculture can play in Haiti in addressing both the environmental and food crises. Jean-Baptiste is the Executive Director of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP by its Creole acronym) and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP). Until this year, he also sat on the international coordinating committee of Vía Campesina, a confederation of organizations of peasant, family, indigenous, and landless farmers from more than sixty countries.
→ read full articleUS Space Weapon Now Circling the Globe
John Lasker – Toward Freedom,
31 May 2010
The US space weapon X-37 is now circling the globe in relative secrecy. It is an unmanned space plane that looks like a smaller version of the Space Shuttle and was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on April 22, 2010. This new weapon poses threats to global peace and risks sparking an arms race in space.
→ read full articleHaitian Farmers Commit to Burning Monsanto Hybrid Seeds
Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
24 May 2010
“A new earthquake” is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto’s seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation’s presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.
→ read full articleThe Role of Natural Resources in Civil Wars
Phumlani Majavu – Toward Freedom,
10 May 2010
On the surface, it might look like the Congolese have no one to blame but themselves, since they are the ones doing the killing, and to an extent, this argument seems sensible. However, when we go beyond the facade, the facts tell us that foreign governments and multinational companies, greedy for the natural resources found in the DRC, are in cahoots with the militias and they too, are responsible for the plunder and the killings.
→ read full articleSOCIAL FAULT LINES: THE DISASTER OF POVERTY IN HAITI
Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
12 Apr 2010
Laura Wagner, a U.S. anthropologist who survived – barely – Haiti’s earthquake in January, writes, “Social scientists who study catastrophes say there are no natural disasters. In every calamity, it is inevitably the poor who suffer more, die more, and will continue to suffer and die after the cameras turn their gaze elsewhere. Do not be deceived by claims that everyone was affected equally — fault lines are social as well as geological.”
→ read full articleHAITI: WHERE SOLIDARITY MEANS SURVIVAL
Beverly Bell – Toward Freedom,
26 Mar 2010
Perhaps more than anything today, Haiti needs a new macro-economy, one based above all on meeting the needs of its citizens. Post-earthquake economic restructuring could include equitable distribution of resources, high levels of employment with fair compensation, local production, and provision of social services. In the meantime, what saved many during the earthquake, and what is […]
→ read full articleACTIVISM IS CHANGE: A VIEW FROM THE STRUGGLE IN GAZA
Ramzy Baroud – Toward Freedom,
18 Mar 2010
An activist is a person who feels strongly about a cause and who is also willing to dedicate time and energy towards advancing and realizing this cause. This might be my own limited interpretation of what activism means. I was born and raised in a Gaza refugee camp where the daily struggles of the community […]
→ read full articleBANNING CLUSTER BOMBS: LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS OF CONFLICTS
Rene Wadlow - Toward Freedom,
18 Mar 2010
In a remarkable combination of civil society pressure and leadership from a small number of progressive States, a strong ban on the use, manufacture, and stocking of cluster bombs will come into force on August 1, 2010 now that 30 States have ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions. The Convention bans the use, production, transfer […]
→ read full articleHONDURAS AFTER THE COUP: FEAR AND DEFIANCE
Peter Lackowski - Toward Freedom,
5 Mar 2010
"Nos tienen miedo porque no tenemos miedo." ("They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them.") This slogan was chanted by the thousands of demonstrators who defied the illegitimate de facto government imposed by the Honduran military in the protests that erupted throughout the country immediately after the after the coup of […]
→ read full articleFOLLOWING THE MINERAL TRAIL: CONGO RESOURCE WARS AND RWANDA
John Lasker – Toward Freedom,
20 Feb 2010
The Rwandan government and its military have largely been suspected by a UN Panel of Experts, human rights organizations and independent journalists, of financially supporting a number of violent militias that have destabilized the eastern Congo region to illegally traffic millions-of-dollars worth of minerals such as coltan, gold, and cassiterite. These minerals are then brought […]
→ read full articleHOW OBAMA BETRAYS REVEREND KING’S PHILOSOPHY OF NONVIOLENCE
Jeff Nall – Toward Freedom,
21 Jan 2010
Each year, many remember Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work on behalf of civil rights. Yet the most fundamental piece of his philosophical legacy, his rejection of the utility and morality of violence between individuals and nations, remains at best ignorantly obscured or at worst actively suppressed. In his 1967 book, Where Do We […]
→ read full articlePROFITING FROM HAITI’S CRISIS
Benjamin Dangl – Toward Freedom,
21 Jan 2010
US corporations, private mercenaries, Washington and the International Monetary Fund are using the crisis in Haiti to make a profit, promote unpopular neoliberal policies, and extend military and economic control over the Haitian people. In the aftermath of the earthquake, with much of the infrastructure and government services destroyed, Haitians have relied on each other […]
→ read full articleUNPREDICTABLE FUTURES: STORIES FROM WORKER-RUN FACTORIES IN ARGENTINA
Benjamin Dangl - Toward Freedom,
25 Nov 2009
Reviewed: Sin Patron: Stories From Argentina’s Worker-Run Factories, edited by Lavaca, 320 pages, Haymarket Books, 2007. Following the social upheaval in Argentina in 2001-2002 a book was published in Spanish that a lot of activists and independent journalists in the country began trying to get their hands on. It wasn’t in all of the bookstores, […]
→ read full articleREBEL WITCHES AND THE CREATION OF CAPITALISM
Alex Knight – Toward Freedom,
20 Nov 2009
Reviewed: Caliban And The Witch: Women, The Body And Primitive Accumulation, by Silvia Federici, 288 pages, Autonomedia, 2004.Silvia Federici’s brilliant Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, tells the dark saga of the Witch Hunt that consumed Europe for more than 200 years. In uncovering this forgotten history, Federici exposes the origins […]
→ read full articleTHE PLIGHT OF THE ROMA: FROM EUROPE TO CANADA
Reuel S. Amdur – Toward Freedom,
13 Nov 2009
The media have not paid enough attention to the plight of the Roma in Europe. The Roma’s living conditions are miserable, and they suffer from serious discrimination in education and employment, and attacks from racists and neo-Nazis. Because of the conditions they face in Europe, a number of Czech Roma fled to Canada in 2008 […]
→ read full articleSAVAGERY AND SILENCE IN THE FIRST WORLD
Sandy Leon Vest – Toward Freedom,
5 Nov 2009
In America – in my country – I fear we are losing the battle for our humanity. Some say we have already lost it.Deep down I think they may be right. Such is the level of violence, voyeurism and detachment displayed this October in Richmond, California, when at least two dozen students cheered, laughed or […]
→ read full articleLATIN AMERICA CENSORED: TOWARD FREEDOM EDITOR RECEIVES PROJECT CENSORED AWARD
Toward Freedom & Project Censored,
6 Oct 2008
A number of recent developments have dramatically changed the military and political landscape of Latin America. While some electoral victories in Latin America signal a regional shift to the left, Washington continues to expand its military and navy presence throughout the hemisphere. This year Toward Freedom editor Benjamin Dangl received a Project Censored Award for […]
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