Zarganar speaking at the birthday celebration of detained democracy leader Min Ko Naing
Humor has always been a major tactic used to illustrate truth in Burma. It comes as no surprise then that after his release, political prisoner and well-known comedian Zarganar has unleashed an onslaught of jokes aimed at Burma’s “new” government. When asked what he thought about President Thein Sein’s efforts at national reconciliation, he said it was like “applying make-up to a paralyzed old woman and sending her out into the street.” Zarganar’s point is a significant one—how much can you dress up something to look like democracy when it is still a broken military system?
There has been a lot of discussion about whether Burma is finally on the path to reform, now that Aung San Suu Kyi is free, and a parliament is in place. However, it is important to look beyond the facade and see the big picture. The major reason why the National League for Democracy and many ethnic groups did not support the 2010 election was because of the new Constitution. Amongst other undemocratic problems, the Constitution is far from democratic and was drafted so that the military has broad and vague powers, and is free from parliamentary control. Moreover, the eruption of conflict in Northern Burma as well as in Eastern Burma is largely because ethnic groups feel that they do not have equal rights in this “new” government.
I am a lousy singer. Lots of enthusiasm, but little talent. That’s why I like singing in groups. I can participate with enthusiasm and the people listening don’t need to don ear muffs.
Recently, I have had a little video on auto replay on my computer. The production values are not prime time ready. In fact the images are literally shot from the hip on a tiny hidden camera (I know I should not sound so awed, but at a time when most people have little cameras on their cellphones or smart devices—I am so behind the times that my spellchecker still wants to turn the word cellphone into cellophane). The action opens at the beginning of a foreclosure auction in a typical courtroom—this one at the State Supreme Court in downtown Brooklyn. People are sitting in the benches and up front a woman sits behind a low bench and begins the process of selling someone’s home—a building on Fulton Street being foreclosed by a company with a money-dream name of Instant Capital.
And then a rupture in business as usual—voices; not of auctioneers or buyers or gavel-whackers, but of people. They implore, they entreat, they demand, they sing:
Portuguese trade unions on Thursday began a week of protests against the government’s austerity policies, in a prelude to a general strike scheduled for November 24.
Palestinians prisoners suspended their three-week hunger strike on Monday, as Israeli Prison Authorities agreed to end the use of solitary confinement for prisoners.
Freeport-McMoRan’s miners in Peru launched a hunger strike on Monday, hoping to pressure the government to resolve a labor dispute 19 days into a walkout at the Cerro Verde copper mine.
Nick Turse has published a revealing overview of the dramatic proliferation of US Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Unmanned Aerial Systems entitled “Inside our drone base empire.” As Turse, a senior editor of Alternet.org, writes:
They increasingly dot the planet. There’s a facility outside Las Vegas where “pilots” work in climate-controlled trailers, another at a dusty camp in Africa formerly used by the French Foreign Legion, a third at a big air base in Afghanistan where Air Force personnel sit in front of multiple computer screens, and a fourth at an air base in the United Arab Emirates that almost no one talks about.
And that leaves at least 56 more such facilities to mention in an expanding American empire of unmanned drone bases being set up worldwide. Despite frequent news reports on the drone assassination campaign launched in support of America’s ever-widening undeclared wars and a spate of stories on drone bases in Africa and the Middle East, most of these facilities have remained unnoted, uncounted, and remarkably anonymous — until now.
On a gray Saturday morning on the 8th of October, Trafalgar Square came alive with colors, chants and songs as people from all walks of life and communities came together on the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War in protest against Britain’s involvement in the conflict. The rally was organised by the Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the British Muslim Initiative, as well as groups ranging from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to the Free Shaker Ahmed and Close Guantanamo campaigns. It showcased short films, comic exhibitions, live music performances and speeches from notable activists and journalists. More than 2,000 people attended, including students, artists, trade unionists, academics, armed forces veterans and military families.
The keynote speakers were Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP for Islington North and the head of the Stop The War Coalition, award winning Australian journalist John Pilger, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and the British MP and vocal anti-war activist George Galloway. They made their points, but it didn’t go much further than that.
In an effort to stop Greece’s parliament from voting for further austerity measures today and tomorrow, the Greek people have effectively shut the entire country down, as part of the 48-hour general strike. As Timereports:
The strikes have shuttered government offices, public services, shops and even bakeries. Taxi drivers walked off the job, as did air-traffic controllers (though they shortened their work stoppage from 48 hours to 12).
Unfortunately, as has been common in past demonstrations in Greece, some protesters broke windows of storefronts and clashed with the police, throwing rocks and molotov cocktails at them.
More than 500,000 people gathered last Saturday in Madrid; around 350,000 in Barcelona; 20,000 in Alicante; 100,000 in Santiago de Compostela; another 100,000 in Valencia. Altogether, there were more than a million people in the streets in almost a hundred Spanish cities. In Madrid and Barcelona, the demonstrators finished the day by squatting empty buildings to help families that lost their homes because they couldn’t pay the mortgage. In New York that night, 10 to 20,000 people gathered in Times Square.
Occupy Wall Street marchers watch from the pedestrian walkway as hundreds of their comrades take to the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge on October 1.
Even as Occupy Wall Street shapes the public conversation about high finance, political corruption, and the distribution of wealth, it has also raised anew questions about how resistance movements in general should operate. I want to consider one of the matters that I’ve thought about a lot over the past month while watching the occupation and its means of making its presence felt on the streets of New York and in the media.
“Diversity of tactics,” in the context of political protests, is often treated as essentially a byword for condoning acts of violence. The phrase comes by this honestly; it emerged about a decade ago at the height of the global justice movement, especially between the 1999 demonstrations that shut down a WTO meeting in Seattle and those two years later in Quebec. While all nonviolent movements worth their salt will inevitably rely on a variety of tactics—for instance, Gene Sharp’s list of 198 of them—using the word “diversity” was a kind of attempted détente between those committed to staying nonviolent and those who weren’t.
A prophetic sign from Occupy Boston (albeit with a mispelling of Gandhi).
Remembering the agonies I went through when the tanks moved in on Tiananmen Square in June, 1989, I was relieved that most (I wish it were all) of the protestors who make up today’s amazing Occupy movement do not intend to occupy the symbolic spaces they are in indefinitely. This struggle is not about particular pieces of real estate but the institutions that may be associated with them—iconically, of course, Wall Street. And it would be a bad strategy—it’s always bad strategy—to hold on to symbols, especially when they make you an easy, concentrated target.
The movement has empowered youth (and others) in their hundreds of thousands to demonstrate in some 1,500 locations in 82 countries, creating in the process a beautiful culture of consensus decision making. But that was the easy part.
Now it is time to overturn and replace the obnoxious institutions and behaviors that have (at last) brought us together. For this, I think, three things will have to happen. Read the rest of this article »
“Bring five friends with you next time,” announced Ashley Bohrer, 23, beaming with pride at Occupy Chicago’s Monday afternoon General Assembly (GA), “and have them bring five friends with them!” This is how Occupy Chicago (or perhaps better recognized by its Twitter hashtag #OccupyChi) is growing through social networking – both in person and via digital media. Bohrer, a graduate student at DePaul University working on a Ph.D. in philosophy, has been with the occupation since nearly the beginning.
“I’m upset. I’m angry. I have a personal story—like most of the people here—it’s different but I have massive student debt. I have a job but I live below a living salary.” Bohrer is animated and articulate as our conversation is interrupted numerous times by others seeking interviews, other activists sharing updates about their committee work, and people stopping by thanking her and Occupy Chicago for their presence.
As the local manifestation of the global occupation movement—see Occupy Together—sparked on Wall Street, Occupy Chicago has been at it almost just as long. Monday, October 17 marked Day 25 of an ongoing presence in front of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank at Lasalle and Jackson in Chicago’s financial district. Over the weekend, after having been told it could not keep a permanent camp at the bank, the GA agreed to relocate its occupation—while maintaining a regular presence at the bank—to Grant Park. At the corner of the park known as Congress Plaza (Michigan and Congress), nearly 2,300 Occupy Chicago supporters rallied in support of the movement. The Chicago Tribune, recounting the events of the evening, reported that 175 people were arrested on a municipal ordinance violation that states Chicago Parks close at 11 p.m.
Nick Turse has published a revealing overview of the dramatic proliferation of US Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Unmanned Aerial Systems entitled 
On a gray Saturday morning on the 8th of October, Trafalgar Square came alive with colors, chants and songs as people from all walks of life and communities came together on the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan War in protest against Britain’s involvement in the conflict. The rally was organised by the Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the British Muslim Initiative, as well as groups ranging from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to the Free Shaker Ahmed and Close Guantanamo campaigns. It showcased short films, comic exhibitions, live music performances and speeches from notable activists and journalists. More than 2,000 people attended, including students, artists, trade unionists, academics, armed forces veterans and military families.
More than 500,000 people gathered last Saturday in Madrid; around 350,000 in Barcelona; 20,000 in Alicante; 100,000 in Santiago de Compostela; another 100,000 in Valencia. Altogether, there were more than a million people in the streets in 
