anti-globalization
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.
Stuff white people smash
Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent
Reading AK Thompson's book Black Bloc, White Riot kept bringing to mind one particular memory from the Summit of the Americas protests in Quebec City a decade ago.
G20 Reading Week
Location
Welcome to G20 Reading Week!
What happened in Toronto and why do we need to fundraise?
The World Social Forum: Canadian contexts and questions
Ten years ago this month, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the World Social Forum erupted onto the global scene. Conceived in the heat of the surging anti-globalization movement, it summoned activists from around the world to gather in a spectacular festival of alternatives to neoliberal globalization. The World Social Forum quickly became a beacon and a magnet, attracting a stunning array of social forces who shared unequivocal opposition to neoliberalism, but who were otherwise exceedingly diverse -- in their demographic make-up, organizational forms, cultural expressions, geographic roots and reach, strategies, tactics and discourses.
Washington IMF/World Bank Protests
Introduction
On April 16, 2000 approximately 30,000 activists converged on Washington D.C. as part of a direct action against the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank meetings occuring that weekend.
History and Context
Following on the perceived success of the Seattle protests in November 1999, the then fledging anti-globalization movement set its sights on the policies of the IMF/World Bank, which activists said promoted poverty in developing nations and global inequality between nations by forcing poor nations to adopt free market reforms and other neo-liberal policies in order to qualify for loans.
The Event
Bhopal survivors tour 2009
Location
One of the longest-standing fight for justice by survivors of an industrial disaster waged against a transnational corporation, the Bhopal struggle epitomizes the worst abuses of globalization and the challenges involved in holding corporations accountable.
The Union Carbide Chemical Disaster in Bhopal, India has killed more than 23,000 people due to a catastrophic gas leak and ongoing water contamination in this central Indian city. This year marks the 25th Anniversary of the horrific night in 1984 when a toxic cloud of methyl isocyanate enveloped the sleeping city. The Anniversary is a celebration by Bhopal survivor groups and their allies of 25 years of courage in the face of corporate crime.