Brazilian Spring: a general panorama and some perspectives
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Brazilian Spring: a general panorama and some perspectives
[Mass protests have been taking place in all the major cities of Brazil for the past week, beginning with a demand to reduce bus fares and expanding into a mass movement that demands improvements in all public services, health, education, and working peoples’ rights.
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The End of Lethargy in Brazil
Our country was at the forefront of social and political struggles in the 1980s, and succeeded in preventing the introduction of neoliberalism in Brazil, so that Latin America’s “lost decade” was, for social movements and popular politicians in our country, exactly the opposite.
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Turkey: A De Facto End to the Hegemony of the Coup of September 12, 1980
Maybe we are not organized, but we are neither apolitical nor without ideology. We were only afraid, because we are the daughters and sons of a generation, killed and tortured to death just before and after the military coup of September 12, 1980 in Turkey. But, we have now learned that cowards die many times…
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Are Conservative Evangelicals Hampering Anti-Trafficking Efforts?
Human trafficking is an issue so entirely abhorrent, it seems that it would be impossible to inappropriately address it. And yet a forthcoming paper (to be published in by Dr. Hebah Farrag, Richard Flory and Brie Loskota) argues that often religious organizations fail to get the job done right.
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Creating a Transcontinental North American Working Class Movement
Richard Roman and Edur Velasco Arregui. Continental Crucible: Big Business, Workers and Unions in the Transformation of North America. Halifax & Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2013. 148 pages. References. Index. Paperback. Price: $19.95 CAN.
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The Persecution of the Mexican Miners
Napoleon Gómez. The Collapse of Dignity: The Story of a Mining Tragedy and the Fight Against Greed and Corruption in Mexico. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc., 2013. 344 pages. Photos. Index. $26.95 U.S. / $36.00 CAN / Kindle $11.99.
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Occupy Taksim Gezi Park
The on-going resistance to the remodeling of Taksim Square in Central Istanbul, Turkey took on a new more militant form on Monday evening when bulldozers arrived at the park and began demolishing some parts of the Gezi Park’s wall and removed nearby trees. Taksim Solidarity, the resistance movement whose members were at a regular meeting…
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Taksim Solidarity press release, June 5, 2013
To the Government of the Republic of Turkey and the Public Citizens have been expressing their democratic outrage in Taksim Istanbul and all around the country against the insensitivity of the government for the public concern about the de-facto destruction of the Taksim Gezi Park that took place around 10 PM on May 27th. We…
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Getting There
Michael Albert, Jessica Azulay, and David Marty Occupy Strategy Volume 3 of Fanfare for the Future Woods Hole, MA: Z Books, Z Participatory Society Series, Fall 2012 Print edition, $15, available from ZCommunications (or all 3 volumes for $30)
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Chicago teachers again lead the way: Union reformers are re-elected
Hats off – again – to Chicago’s smart, courageous teachers and the union leadership they’ve re-elected, from the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE), including Karen Lewis as Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president.
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Greek children starve – and teachers are blamed for the crisis
The union representing Greek secondary school teachers has asked for messages of support. The Greek government has banned its strike and other public employee unions have come out in support of the teachers. Mary Compton’s newly-reconfigured website about teachers’ global resistance to neoliberalism’s destruction of public education has the information about the strike and how/where…
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Mexican Teachers Rebel Against Government's Educational Reform
Mexican teachers, particularly in the south of the country, have joined a regional rebellion of rank-and-file teachers that erupted in violence in late April. In the state of Guerrero the offices of all three major political parties were vandalized and set afire to protest their support for the educational reform passed by congress and the…
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Human Rights and the POSCO Struggle
One of the most inspiring examples of people fighting back against the predations of international capital is taking place in the Jagatsinghpur district of the Indian state of Orissa (also spelled Odisha).
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Yoo hoo to the AFT and NEA: Support the Garfield teachers, for real
Teachers at Garfield HS in Seattle, Washington are re-launching the MAP test boycott of the spring test with a press conference at which they will announce important developments. Garfield teachers are concerned that because evaluations are directly tied to the spring version of the test, the district will not give the same leeway for their…
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Students fighting for their future – and ours – in Santiago, Newark, Chicago
Student protests in defense of public education as a right are spreading across the globe. The courage young people are showing is remarkable, as they confront governments who do the bidding of bankers while pretending to put “students first.” Student protests in Chile have resumed, with between 80,000 – 150,000 young people taking to the…
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The Indiana University Student Strike
The Indiana University (IU) student strike of April 11-12, 2013, was an important milestone in new student activism.
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How to understand that "fawning interview" with Bill Gates – look to the World Bank
In her informative blog, Diane Ravitch refers, correctly,to a “fawning interview” with Bill Gates. I think we have to move beyond these visceral reactions to understand why this is occurring. And to do that, we have to look at the international picture. I’ve been told that when I discuss this international picture, it sounds like…
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Nicaragua Notes: The Watchmen, the Hunters and Gatherers, the Street Vendors
The Watchmen In Managua one finds uniformed guards in front of the banks, in the shopping malls like Metro Centro, in the grocery stores, and anywhere else there is likely to be substantial amounts of money. These men have the status bestowed by a uniform and the authority commanded by carrying a pistol. One could…
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Teachers are guilty of "labour terrorism"?
Teachers are guilty of “labour terrorism”? Sounds too ridiculous to take seriously?
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Towards meaningful solidarity? Union democracy too?
As readers of New Politics and/or my new book probably know, I’m not bashful about criticizing the politics and policies of the international confederation of teachers unions, the Education International (EI). So what does it mean that the EI has just published my blog about what EI should be doing – but isn’t?
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Notes on teacher unionism in the UK – same struggle as here
Preamble: Last weekend I spoke at the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) in Liverpool, the UK’s largest teachers union. Largest in Europe too, I think. (NUT – correct me if I’m wrong, please.)
