Banking on revolution

From Hadley Gustin's aticle in The Minnesota Daily:

...Alternatively put, the most powerful international bankers discovered long ago that they could hold entire nations hostage to their perpetual greed by deceptively convincing political authorities to endorse the consolidation of immeasurable power within a central bank.

Last Thursday, the spirit of economic dissent bubbled up again, this time in Greece. Like the earlier demonstrations in the United Kingdom and the United States, this one was specifically targeted toward the banking industry in light of Greece's economic collapse.

The Los Angeles Times recounted: “Police fired tear gas and clashed with demonstrators in Athens after some 50,000 people finished a peaceful march against cutbacks intended to fix the country's debt crisis. The violence lasted about 30 minutes when scores of youth hurled rocks, red paint and plastic bottles near parliament. Windows were smashed at the Finance Ministry's General Accounting Office.”

It is deplorable to see national regimes further devastate the socioeconomic conditions of their people by cutting jobs and expenditures that benefit them. In regard to Greece, the government will be curtailing civil service jobs and salaries instead of lowering the boom on its central banks responsible for sinking the nation into a sea of unmanageable debt now worth trillions.

This pattern of campaigns against central banks is no coincidence. It represents the beginnings of what will no doubt become a worldwide revolution. With almost every nation in dire financial straits, more will follow the example of protesters in London, Pittsburgh and Athens to resist the bankers jeopardizing their very livelihood...

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A history of humor in human rights advocacy

The use of humor in human rights activism is no new phenomenon with examples of it dating back to Norwegian popular resistance in World War II. Ranging from thought-provoking to humiliating, comical to satirical, humor can be manifested in such a multitude of ways that it has often been the venue of action for many human rights practitioners. Although at first thought it may seem that organizations using humor in their advocacy are doing so only for attention and publicity, this is certainly not true. The experiences of numerous years of humor have brought a deeper understanding of the effects it can have in advocacy.

Majken Jul Sørensen wrote a MA dissertation piece on the use of humor in non-violent resistance, highlighting the rise in interest regarding the dynamics of humor as an advocacy tactic. Sørensen's interviews with members of the Otpor organization have illuminated the more complex dynamics of humor. This Serbian student resistance organization utilized numerous humorous acts to help bring down Slobodan Miloševic. When asked why they chose to use humor, former Otpor members cited the ability for humor to change a culture of apathy and fear into one of solidarity. In fact, Sørensen identifies three dynamics of humor in human rights activism: facilitating outreach and mobilization, facilitating the building of a resistance mentality, and turning oppression upside down.

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This is how we stop Blackwater for good

There's finally a bill to stop private, for-profit companies like Blackwater from waging war in our name with little regard for anything beyond their bottom line.

More than 22,000 mercenaries are operating in Iraq and Afghanistan, and these unaccountable hired guns have shot civilians and participated in torture at Abu Ghraib and other detention facilities.

The Stop Outsourcing Security Act, just introduced by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, would prohibit hiring private mercenaries like Blackwater to perform tasks traditionally done by the military.

Sign our petition to urge your representative to co-sponsor the Stop Outsourcing Our Security Act.

Recent Congressional hearings have painted a dismal picture of Blackwater's operations. Employees stole hundreds of weapons meant for Afghan national police. They billed the U.S. government for a prostitute. They created a shell company called "Paravant" so they could keep getting government contracts after they trashed the Blackwater name.

But Blackwater is just the poster child for all that's wrong with hiring mercenaries for our military tasks. Contractors waste billions of taxpayer dollars while engaging in legally and ethically questionable activities. And when they commit morally repugnant acts like the killing civilians, they're doing so on our dime and in our name.

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US government rescinds 'leave internet alone' policy

Strickling speaking, the Naughties are dead

By Kieren McCarthy, The Register

The US government's policy of leaving the Internet alone is over, according to Obama's top official at the Department of Commerce.

Instead, an “Internet Policy 3.0” approach will see policy discussions between government agencies, foreign governments, and key Internet constituencies, according to Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, with those discussions covering issues such as privacy, child protection, cybersecurity, copyright protection, and Internet governance.

The outcomes of such discussions will be “flexible” but may result in recommendations for legislation or regulation, Strickling said in a speech at the Media Institute in Washington this week.

The new approach is a far cry from a US government that consciously decided not to intrude into the internet's functioning and growth and in so doing allowed an academic network to turn into a global communications phenomenon.

Strickling referred to these roots arguing that it was “the right policy for the United States in the early stages of the Internet, and the right message to send to the rest of the world.” But, he continued, “that was then and this is now. As we at NTIA approach a wide range of Internet policy issues, we take the view that we are now in the third generation of Internet policy making.”

Outlining three decades of internet evolution - from transition to commercialization, from the garage to Main Street, and now, starting in 2010, the “Policy 3.0” approach - Strickling argued that with the internet is now a social network as well a business network. “We must take rules more seriously.”

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Using non-military tactics to prevent genocides

Director of the Mass Atrocity Response Operations Project, Michael C. Pryce, spoke in Blaustein last Wednesday about America's failure to prevent genocide.

Pryce, a former professor of Conflict Resolution at the US Army War College spoke of his time overseas as a marine and the profound effect this had on his worldview.

“I got to know a lot about war crimes in Kosovo and Bosnia,” he said.

Though Pryce comes from a military background, he believes that America has failed to prevent violence in other nations because of our inability to anticipate the future as we are constantly, “looking backwards.”

Pryce believes that the root of the problem is the classic planning design that the military continues to fall into when taking on foreign conflict.

“We tend to plan in a military paradigm,” he said, “friend vs. enemy.”

At the bottom of Pryce's design is a basic reconstitution of these military standards to a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities inherent to bringing an outside force into a native conflict.

“A given genocide will be comprised of perpetrators, victims, interveners and others,” he said.

The friend vs. enemy paradigm falls apart in these situations, a phenomenon that must be addressed according to Pryce in order to affectively create a plan that will have any positive effect.

“One of the most important things to consider is that improvisation is dead,” he said.

Pryce has a direct plan of attack concerning genocide, though not in the typical militaristic sense.

“We have to shift the planning paradigm,” he said. “We have to rely on predominantly non-military actions to prevent mass atrocities.”

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