A picture of Spain's protests
anti-capitalist protest
Ten reasons not to talk -- or listen -- to CSIS
Over past months, reports have multiplied of Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) visits to the homes and even workplaces of people working for social justice. In addition to its longstanding and ongoing harassment and intimidation of indigenous peoples, immigrant communities, and others, the spy agency has become much more visible in its surveillance of movements for social justice.
Toronto communities prepare for the G8 and G20 summits
The leaders of the G20 countries, along with their central bank governors, the IMF, World Bank and the EU will be in Toronto in five weeks, on June 26-27, 2010. That's nearly 20,000 delegates, 15,000 armed police and 5,000 media personnel all descending to make it a very hot June weekend, indeed.
Pride Toronto has been moved from its original location but the tourists will also be here, as will thousands of protestors, activists and delegates. The real question is: will Toronto's residents and long-term social movements join them?
Drop the fees
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On February 1, the Drop the Fees campaign begins, supported by the Canadian Federation of Students. Marked with large marches, demonstrations and protests, the campaign continues throughout the year.
Fair trade coffee
This fantastic workshop created by Oxfam Canada and the Vancouver Fair Trade Coffee Network outlines everything a facilitator needs to know to put on an amazing workshop. The guide includes agendas for either one or two hour workshops. Add in multimedia clips to make the session come alive! The workshop covers:
Facilitator tips
Detailed agendas with discussion questions
Multiple handouts
Evaluation sheets
Food not Bombs
Food not Bombs is a vegetarian and vegan collective that serves free meals. Independent chapters exist all over the world and make their own decisions through consensus and are composed of volunteers. Food that would have otherwise gone to waste is donated by groceries and bakeries, local gardens or even through dumpster diving and then cooked into delicious meat-free meals. The group works nonviolently against poverty and war, giving food to anyone who is hungry.
History
Occupations, capitalism, and a 99 per cent solution
Occupy Wall Street and occupations around the U.S. and Canada are a radically new response to an old problem. The old problem is capitalism, a system that entitles wealthy minorities to direct economies for their private profit. What is radically new is seeing the alternative as the right of all to participate as equals in the decisions that affect their lives.
Occupy Wall Street: Lessons from anti-globalization protests
I can't help but compare the Occupy Wall Street protests to the movements that sprang up against corporate globalization at the end of the 1990s, most visibly at the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle. Like today's protests, those demonstrations were also marked by innovative coalitions among students, trade unions and environmentalists.
Here are the things I think today's activists are doing better than we did back then. We chose summits as our targets: the WTO, the International Monetary Fund, the G-8. Summits are transient by nature, and that made us transient too. We'd appear, grab world headlines, then disappear. After the 9/11 attacks, it was easy to sweep us away completely, at least in North America.
Naomi Klein speaks at Occupy Wall Street
I was honoured to be invited to speak at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday night. Since amplification is (disgracefully) banned, and everything I said had to be repeated by hundreds of people so others could hear (a.k.a. "the human microphone"), what I actually said at Liberty Plaza had to be very short. With that in mind, here is the longer, uncut version of the speech.
I love you.
And I didn't just say that so that hundreds of you would shout "I love you" back, though that is obviously a bonus feature of the human microphone. Say unto others what you would have them say unto you, only way louder.
Occupy Wall Street asks the big economic questions
"We Are The 99 per cent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 per cent," say the Occupy Wall Street protesters. This grassroots protest started on Wall Street, but is now spreading far and wide among folks who just can't take it anymore.
The realization that something is deeply wrong in the economy is palpable: inequality, constant crisis management, poverty. It's a very long list of everything we never wanted in an economic system.
