Cross-posted at Taking Place
This is a long one cuz i thought that i published #3 about a month ago, but turns out it was sitting in my draft box. So here is a month-long trip around the world. Let’s get our hands dirty and take the reality tour that Global Exchange refuses to by starting at the Battle of Oaxaca, where rumors of a class uprising and an overthrowing of the government are abound.
Don’t throw away that police sheild you just stole quite yet. Cuz next we are going down to Chile where the locals teach those of us in the US how you really commemorate September 11th. Just to be safe, you may want to bring that shield along for some frequent flier miles as we hop on over to South Africa where the Cleaning Workers’ Strike started and is now being supported worldwide.
Heading north, the US has been accused of illegal mercenary operations in Somalia. The operations broke UN rulings and may also involve British “security firms”. Now over to Sudan, where the government has been indiscriminately bombing civilians. Ok, people, its time we start taking the genocide in Sudan seriously.
Pack your bags for a long bus ride over to the Ivory Coast, where the government of the country’s largest city, Abidjan, has resigned after massive protests. The protests were in response to 400 tons of toxic oil-refining waste that spilled from a ship, the Probo Koala. As of September 12th, six people had died because of the waste and more than 9,000 had gone in for medical attention.
Once again, we’re going to stop off in Lebanon. After landing in the recently re-opened airport, we see that weeks of bombing have not broken the spirit of the Lebanese people, as bloggers like Jamal Ghosn continue to share their experience with us.
Protestors in Palestine are being used as test subjects as Isreali forces have turned the weekly nonviolent protests against the construction of the Aparthied wall into a testing ground for experimental weapons. And as if the people of Palestine didn’t have enough to worry about with the persistant attacks from Isreal, civil workers are now on strike due to lost wages.
I tell ya, Palestinians just can’t get a break. Refugees in Iraq find themselves under attack with nowhere to go. But Palestians are far from the only ones without a break in Iraq. With a government of talking heads and your country’s money-maker being stolen, what can you expect? Many find themselves in the scope of some confused soldier”who are the real terrorists?”
Afghanistan isn’t doing any better as it descends into chaos. The Taliban forces are being funded by increased Opium sales. Maybe the Bush Administration should try the tactic it used back in early 2001 - pay the Taliban to fight in the War on Drugs. Not to worry. We know that the US military isn’t very good at the whole “stability” thing, so once again we send in the private contractors. At least I assume that’s why Coca-Cola moved into Kabul. Or maybe that’s just as far as they could run when they were chased out of India.
Speaking of India, lets go join the, um, celebrations? The government gave in to environmentalists demands after the start of a nationwide strike, but it wasn’t quite as simple as that. As 30,000 protestors tried to storm into the offices of London-based Asia Energy, paramilitary forces shot into the crowd killing six and injuring hundreds. The shootings sparked days of rioting ending in the government agreeing to a moratorium on open pit mining, build a monument at Phulbari in memory of the deceased and grant amnesty to all the demonstrators who broke the law during the protests.
On to more mining troubles, we find ourselves in the Phillipines, where Lafayette’s gold mine is set to poison the oceans (and the local people) with tons of natrium cyanide. Lafayette was already ordered to halt its operations last year after two mine spills, and now activists are working to preemptively stop the devastation.
We find another campaign to protect the water and the local people as we travel to Canada. Native groups are teaming up to protect the water supply against the booming oil and gas development. About 200 First Nations representatives from Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories gathered for a three-day strategic conference to talk about how to protect their local lands and water supplies from this encroaching threat.
Back down in the US, all kinds of crazy things are going on. The Bush Administration decided it would be a good idea to start up those old rusty factories that used to pump out landmines. Since all the PR funds were spent killing people, the best makeover idea that the Pentagon could come up with is to rename the landmines “networked munitions systems.” Everybody likes networks rights?
I’m hoping they’ll place those “networks” along the Indiana border to protect us from all those terrorists that are apparently trying to kill us sweet, innocent, corn-eating Hoosiers. I’m not so much afraid of the Taliban, tho, i’m more scared of the terrorists in Georgia (the state, not the country). I don’t even know how to tie the rest of this trip together, so let’s just fast-forward through our vacation slides, shall we?
The US is threatening Argentina, Venezuela, and Brazil with sanctions. The US doesn’t like losing and that’s just what we are doing with the WTO and the FTAA. So now the government is puffing up its chest and saying “stop it you big meanies.” I tell ya, don’t come knocking on the White House this Halloween. Cuz apparrently all they know to give out is ass-whoopins and sanctions.
While we’re on the topic of how much the US hates people, the immigration tinderbox may be the one thing that can end this East Coast-West Coast rivalry (cuz nothing will be left if this fire isn’t extinguished). And just then you thought the flame that Columbus lite has died down, some young buck gives it a little puff. Some White folks aren’t able to read a newspaper or walk outside to see how pervasie racism is. Instead, they need to adopt a child of color to see their own racism.
Walmart says fuck the working class, we’re goin’ yuppy. Since we can no longer put the working class in Walmart, we gotta put em somewhere. Some are building prisons to do the job, but some ain’t convinced its gonna work. Many of those arguing for more prisons are also pushing for this whole War on Drugs thing to get them there - .
Having just celebrated the anniversaries of Hurricane Katrina and September 11th, we get to see all the wonderful things we’ve learned from both experiences. For example, we learned that neither the government nor its private contractors care about actual people. We learned that governments lie and then when they are forced to face their lie, they run. And we learned that the GOP needs a new PR firm. Ok, i admit, we haven’t really learned much. But we did learn that energy companies can engauge in some sketchy pratices. Alright, also not news. What about how we learned that some companies bribe their way to political favors? Geez, don’t you forget anything. Fine, so you already knew that. Whoop-di-doo.
In animal-related news, scientists, once again, reaffirm that eating meat is a global warming issue. And speaking of meat, the horse industry lost the smackdown. Whoo!
Oh, one last thing. The fight for internet freedom has officially started.
