Devinder Sharma – India

Linked with mindfully.org, with Food policy and Globalization, and with Indian Food Policy IFP.

Devinder Sharma is an Indian journalist, writer, thinker. He is well-known and respected for his views on food and trade policy. Trained as an agricultural scientist, Sharma has been the Development Editor of the Indian Express, the largest selling English language daily in India at that time. He quit active journalism to research on policy issues concerning sustainable agriculture, biodiversity and intellectual property rights, environment and development, food security and poverty, biotechnology and hunger, and the implications of the free trade paradigm for developing countries. He has been a Visiting Fellow to the International Rice Research Institute, in the Philippines; Visiting Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia, Norwich/UK; and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge/UK … (full text).

He says: … « Before 1995, it was not a dead world, we had seen trade for the last 10,000 years and trade is always between equal partners. Today’s model tells us whether you have surplus or no surplus, you must buy. But that was not the pattern earlier. All this is owing to misplaced priorities. There is no frontal attack on eradicating poverty. We are trying to remove poverty by trade. Somebody someday will stand up and say this is not what we want. People’s voice is the ultimate power to attaining equality and justice. Today it’s the dream of a few companies which is controlling the global agenda. I am sure people would understand and the process has already begun, and now we realize the strength in numbers. (full interview text, Jan. 07, 2004).

Displacing farmers: India Will Have 400 million Agricultural Refugees, Neoliberal Reforms Wreak Havoc.

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Devinder Sharma – India

… His recent works include, three books: GATT and India: The Politics of Agriculture; GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair; and In the Famine Trap. Among the forthcoming titles is Keeping the Other Half Hungry, an incisive analysis of how the globalisation is accelerating the process of marginalisation of farmers in the Third World … (full text). See his Bio on Food-Security.

Famine as commerce, August 2002.

World Food Summit 2002 — The hungry will have to wait, July 06, 2002.

Bt cotton fiasco — Pushing farmers into a `booby’ trap, Nov 14, 2003.

GM Food and Hunger, a view from the South, Nov. 01, 2003.

Charity In The Name of Science, Nov. 25, 2003.

India’s New Farm Policy SERVING THE AMERICAN INTEREST, July 2000.

Dr Sharma criticised: Unless we bring out a price structure – a structure of our own, we cannot bail out Indian farmers from the prevailing crisis, said Dr Devinder Sharma of Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, New Delhi … and:
In the name of ‘rising productivity,’ the total scenario is being mechanised. By 2050, there will be only robots in the world to perform the works which are presently handled by human beings. In the name of green revolution, the money power of rural areas have been taken to urban areas … (full text, December 20, 2007).

Continuer la lecture de « Devinder Sharma – India »

Viviana Elisa Díaz Caro – Chile

Linked with Derechos Chile.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Since 1976, when her father was kidnapped by the Chilean Armed Forces, Viviana Díaz has never stopped looking for him. Along with the Association of Relatives of Disappeared Political Prisoners, she broke the wall of silence that tried to hide the facts from the world and from Chilean society’s conscience. Her constant claims and protests saved uncountable lives from the claws of the Chilean dictatorship. Her fight for justice reached its highest point with the capture of General Pinochet, in London, in 1998 … (1000 peacewomen 1/2).

She says: … « We would give our own lives in order to know what happened to our missing relatives and to make the executioners assume their responsibility » …

She says also: … “On September 11, 1973, my life changed for ever. That morning my father left the house and never came back. I was 22 years old. I believe that the love and the happiness he gave us in my childhood and afterwards, gave me the strength to live life with the intensity that I have » … « When we claimed that our relatives were being tortured they said: That does not happen in Chile. Three months after the disappearance, the president of the Supreme Court suggested that I write a book because as he said: You have a great imagination » …

And she says: … « Until ´78, we still believed in the possibility that they were alive, but then the rest of 15 farmers that had been shot were discovered. They had been left in a limekiln where they had been incinerated. Then I sensed that I would never see my father alive. As those in power erased all the tracks after them they condemned us to live with the uncertainty of not knowing what had actually happened. A lot of people could not understand us and asked: But if you already know that they are dead, why do you look for them? Because we want to know what happened and we want the military forces to be held responsible for their acts and because we do not want those terrible deeds to be repeated  » …

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Viviana Elisa Díaz Caro – Chile

She works for the Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos (Association of Relatives of Disappeared Political Prisoners).

… One cold dawn in May 1976, Víctor « Chino » Diaz, trade union leader and under-secretary of the Communist Party, was taken by force from his place of refuge. They tied his hands behind his back. One of his eyes had closed up. His lower lip was swollen as a result of the blows he had received and he could only breathe with difficulty. He had spent the last three years living clandestinely, far from his adored family. Since then they have never stopped looking for him.

While she was studying pedagogy at the University of Chile, the political activity of Viviana Diaz was sporadic, although she participated in the presidential campaign dedicated to Salvador Allende in 1970.

The first time was difficult. The ‘powers that be’ denied that he had been arrested.

The search for their dear disappeared relatives brought families together. They met each other in the penitentiaries, the jails and the hospitals and joined together in their fight. Thus was developed the first Committee for Peace and in 1975 the Association of Relatives of the Detained and the Disappeared (the AFDD) was given a name. Our aim was to find out where our dear ones were kept and save their lives.

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Index July 2008

Howard L. Fuller – USA

Linked with The Black Alliance for Educational Options BAEO.

He is college administrator; school administrator; founder … (full long bio and work).

… While well-known in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as a long-time proponent of better educational opportunities for the city’s minority student population, and as a high-profile superintendent of the city’s public schools from 1991 to 1995, Fuller also has achieved national stature for his forceful and eloquent advocacy of fundamental education reform … Since 1995, Fuller has been a distinguished professor of education at Milwaukee’s Marquette University, where he also is the founder/director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning. Prior to his tenure as Milwaukee schools superintendent, he served in a number of public service positions, including director of the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, and dean of general education at the Milwaukee Area Technical College. He has received numerous awards and recognition over the years, including three Honorary Doctorate Degrees. When the third annual symposium for emerging black leaders convened in Milwaukee in early March this year (2001), it was attended by more than 600 educators and activists from 35 states. At the opening session on March 2, Fuller delivered a passionate speech on « The Continuing Struggle of African Americans for the Power to Make Real Educational Choices » … (full text, including an abbreviated version of his speech on the same page).

His video: Dr. Howard Fuller – Black Alliance for Educational Options, 9.17 min, Added October 10, 2006.

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Howard L. Fuller – USA

Read: No Child Left Behind: A Debate on the Privatization of Education, March 12, 2004.

He says: … « I never realized back then, as they obviously did, the importance of having choices for my education. Today I am fighting to make sure that children from low-income and working-class families in Milwaukee, indeed all over this country, have the same opportunity. The term “choice” is often misunderstood by well-meaning people or distorted purposefully by people who want to discredit it. Choice is often equated only with vouchers. Vouchers are indeed one form of parental choice—a very important form. However, parental choice involves more than just vouchers. It means providing families with the .capacity to choose from a wide range of learning environments » … (full text, fall 2002).

Community Voice or Captive of the Right? A Closer Look at the Black Alliance for Educational Options, not dated.

He writes: … In fact, since 1965 Wisconsin taxpayers have spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help students attend private, religiously affiliated colleges. More than $100 million in taxes supports tens of thousands of children at private day care and in child development centers, many religiously affiliated. More than 100 public high school students are taking taxpayer-financed courses this year at religiously affiliated colleges and universities. They do so under a 12-year-old state program that was expanded in 1991 to include private universities. If students may use taxes to attend religiously affiliated colleges and early childhood programs, why haven’t our constitutional pillars crumbled? Because these students and their parents do so voluntarily, with no state coercion … (full text, June 12, 1998).

Find him and his publications on answer.com; and by oogle-search, with other Howard Fullers, on Google Book-search.

He writes also: … After hearing and seeing decades of philosophizing about the need to protect the traditional public school system’s funds and institutional prerogatives, and looking past the expressed concerns about a Jeffersonian separation of church and state, it is clear that the real issue in America is not choice—it is who has it! … (full text,

Google download-book: Picky Parent Guide: Choose Your Child’s School with Confidence, 464 pages, 2004.

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Danilo Dolci – Italy (1924 – 1997)

Danilo Dolci (Sesana, June 28, 1924 – Partinico, PA, December 30, 1997) was a social activist, sociologist, popular educator and poet. He is best known for his opposition against poverty, social exclusion and the Mafia on Sicily and is considered to be one of the protagonists of the non-violence movement in Italy. He became known as the « Gandhi of Sicily » … Antimafia: Dolci became aware of the stranglehold of the Mafia upon the poor in Sicily. He did not attack the Mafia at first but he did come up against them at once challenging their monopoly of water supply with the project of the Iato River dam. Later he became too well-known in Italy and abroad to be dealt with without too much adverse publicity. He began his crusade against the Mafia by claiming that government officials were receiving help in their elections from Cosa Nostra. Rather than making his accusations only in Sicily, he would travel to Rome to participate before the Antimafia Commission to ensure that his worries about the Mafia in Sicily were heard. His willingness to stand up to the Mafia in his quest to improve the living conditions of Sicilians helped him to gain the confidence of the locals … Legacy: Dolci has been proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize, denounced by the Cardinal Archbishop of Palermo; he has won the support of many Communists and some Jesuits, been threatened by the Mafia, and been prosecuted for obscenity by the Italian government for his book Inchiesta a Palermo (Report from Palermo). Dolci was a great writer. His books are remarkable accounts of the society he surveys, and their accuracy and insight have helped to give a realistic basis to any schemes for improvement. Above all he has given a voice to the abandoned, forgotten, despairing, nameless, suffering people of Sicily. Unforgettably he enabled peasants and fishermen, mothers and prostitutes, street urchins, outlaws and bandits, police and mafiosi to tell their stories … (full long text).

The Obituary for Danilo Dolci, by Andrew Gumbel, Jan 1, 1998.

Danilo Dolci, Vivid Voice Of Sicily’s Poor, Dies at 73, by JOHN TAGLIABUE, December 31, 1997.

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Danilo Dolci – Italy (1924 – 1997)

Danilo Dolci by Jaclyn Welch; by Frank Walker; by Vincenzo Salerno.

He said: « I had never heard the phrase ‘conscientious objector’, … and I had no idea there were such persons in the world, but I felt strongly that it was wrong to kill people and I was determined never to do so » … (full text).

The website Danilo Dolci.com.

The video: Danilo Dolci, 5.00 min, added March 25, 2008.

He said also: « It is senseless to speak of optimism or pessimism. The only important thing to remember is that if one works well in a potato field, the potatoes will grow. If one works well among people, they will grow. That’s reality. The rest is smoke » … (Ohio Citizen.org).

Hutchinson encyclopedia article about Dolci, Danilo.

Sanctity is hard to explain—even when it is present. Saints have often been impossible people who undertook impossible tasks and succeeded in highly improbable ways. Such a one is Danilo Dolci, a 41-year-old Italian who for 14 years has headed a volunteer movement designed to lift a few Sicilian villages out of a squalor unmatched in Europe and to raise the inhabitants from the torpor of despair. Dolci (TIME, April 9, 1956) has been proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize, denounced by the Cardinal Archbishop of Palermo; he has won the support of many Communists and some Jesuits, been threatened by the Mafia, and been prosecuted for obscenity by the Italian government for his book Report from Palermo … (full text, April 08, 1966 ).

Dolci and the Mafia, May 12, 1977.

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Michael Albert – USA

Linked with Amy Goodman – USA, with Parecon and Aspirations,

with Mandisi Majavu – South Africa, with Participatory Economics, with again Alternative Economy, with the parecon idea, with ParEcon – A Participatory Economy, with Which Way Venezuela, with the London Project for a Participatory Society LPPS, with Social Reports 2005 and  with Life After Colonialism. Michael Albert (born April 8, 1947) is a longtime activist, speaker, and writer, is co-editor of ZNet, and co-editor and co-founder of Z Magazine. He also co-founded South End Press and has written numerous books and articles. He developed along with Robin Hahnel the economic vision called participatory economics. Albert identifies himself as a market abolitionist and favors democratic participatory planning as an alternative. During the 1960s, Albert was a member of Students for a Democratic Society, and was active in the anti-Vietnam War movement … (full text).

Michael Albert is one of the nation’s leading authorities on political economy, U.S. economic policies, and the media. A veteran writer/activist, he currently works with Z Magazine and the website Znet.

He says: … « Capitalism is a horrific system. Capitalism is a system that breeds an environment in which dignity is robbed, in which people are out—nice guys finish last, in the words of a famous American baseball coach, or in my more aggressive formulation, garbage rises, meaning it’s a competitive environment in which you care about others, you suffer. If you violate others, you advance. It’s an environment in which there’s about 30 million poor people. There’s about seven million homeless people and seven million empty hotel rooms. There’s war, and so on. And the question for me was always, starting right at the beginning in 1968, ‘67: what do we replace it with? If we’re about changing this fundamentally, then we have to be about not just better values, people controlling their own lives, equity, justice, diversity, solidarity, we have to be about institutions that would make those values real. So parecon or participatory economics is a model » … « Yes, and it’s not a brilliant choice, I’m told. It’s an economic system, a set of institutions to accomplish production and consumption and allocation, stuff that makes up economics, and to do it in a way that the act of doing it gives people control over their lives, gives people solidarity with others, gives people an equitable share of the social output, gives people a range of options that’s fulfilling » … (full long interview text, April 17, 2007).

His personal website with cooking recipes and photos.

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Michael Albert – USA

His videos with Michael Albert:

… In an article entitled “Which Way Venezuela?” published in a recent issue of Znet.org, Michael Albert writes that Hugo Chavez became President of Venezuela “largely due to the ravages of neoliberal reforms in the 80s and 90s … the Venezuelan poverty rate had reached 50% … the aim and promise of Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution was to not only eliminate rampant, raging, poverty, but to attain a new economic and social system consistent with the highest standards of human fulfillment and development” … (full text, July 25, 2008).

Albert’s memoir, Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism (ISBN 1583227423), was published in 2007 by Seven Stories Press.

And as Google download book: Parecon: Life After Capitalism, by Michael Albert, 311 pages, 2003.

Venezuela’s path, Nov. 06, 2005.

Find him and his publications on BSF Audio Library, on Zmag.org/Parecon; on Z Communications; on Google Video-search; on Google Book-search.

David Schweickart versus Michael Albert, Nov. 2, 2006.

… Not surprisingly we began compulsively trying to develop, advocate, and win support for a new type economy. But why would anyone, we asked ourselves, like one economy, such as parecon, and not like some other economy, such as capitalism or what’s called market socialism or centrally planned socialism? Robin and I decided the only sound grounds for judging economies was to determine whether they fostered values we liked. So we had a problem. What were our values? What were the values a good economy should promote by its operations? And that’s what the first part of the book, Parecon, is about … (full long text).

Continuer la lecture de « Michael Albert – USA »

Bruce Fein – USA

Linked with the American Freedom Agenda AFA, with Liberty, and with Kucinich gets his day.

Bruce Fein is a lawyer in the United States who specializes in constitutional and international law. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and his father was the famous Louis Fein who pioneered the internet and electronics for spy planes. His father spent much of his career at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. Under President Ronald Reagan, Fein served as an associate deputy attorney general from 1981 to 1982 and as general counsel to the Federal Communications Commission. He received his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1972. In March 2007, he founded the American Freedom Agenda AFA with Bob Barr, with David Keene and with Richard Viguerie. Notable published writings by Fein include articles advocating the impeachment of former U.S. president Bill Clinton and current U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney and president George W Bush … Fein has authored numerous articles on constitutional issues for The Washington Times, for Slate.com, for The New York Times, for Legal Times, and is considered an authority on civil liberties. In 2008 he was nominated to receive the World Peace award for his efforts in civil liberties … (full text).

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Bruce Fein – USA

Watch his video: Bruce Fein on Revised FISA Legislation, 3.30 min, added October 09, 2007.

… He expressed disappointment with the lack of any real pushback against presidential power by Congressional Democrats. « The Democrats in Congress have done absolutely nothing to tell the president he is not a king and we do not live in a monarchy. They are allowing him to trash the Constitution because most of them know nothing about the Constitution and are concerned only with making headlines about minor issues and getting themselves reelected » … (full text).

Notes from the Non-Impeachment Hearings, July 27, 2008.

… In sum, the CSRT decreed Parhat was an enemy combatant because he was trained to fight Chinese government oppression by an ETIM leader whose organization might become hostile to the United States and may have used a training camp provided by Taliban. If President Bush had his way, Parhat would remain imprisoned indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay for emulating the American Minutemen at Concord and Lexington. He would be denied access to the Great Writ of habeas corpus to challenge the legality of his detention. But the Supreme Court repudiated the President in Boumediene v. Bush (June 12, 2008), offering Parhat an assured habeas corpus avenue to freedom. The CSRT’s outlandish enemy combatant finding has already been voided by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Parhat v. Gates … (full text, June 30, 2008).

… “The primary and chief purpose of government is to make us free to develop our faculties and to pursue what Jefferson called happiness,” said Bruce Fein, chairman of the American Freedom Agenda, during a discussion for the Cato Institute … (full text, July 3, 2008).

Fein argues, the history of the persecution of the Tamil people « easily justifies Tamil statehood, with boundaries to be negotiated, » and points out, « The Declaration of Independence proclaims: « [W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce [a people] under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security » … (full text).

BRUCE FEIN’S PLEA FOR YOUR EVIDENCE.

… Fein currently writes weekly columns for THE WASHINGTON TIMES and CAPITOL LEADER, and a bi-weekly column for the LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER devoted to legal and international affairs … (full text).

Impeach Cheney, The vice president has run utterly amok and must be stopped, June 27, 2007.

Continuer la lecture de « Bruce Fein – USA »

Prabhu Guptara – India and Switzerland

Linked with The World Future Council.

Professor Prabhu Guptara (born 1949 in Delhi, India) is an authority on the impact of technology on globalization, on strategy, on knowledge management, on corporate social responsibility, on comparative and cross-cultural ethics, and on management and leadership issues Widely known as a speaker and broadcaster, he is or has been Chairman, Director or Board Member of various companies and organisations. As Executive Director, Organisation Development, at Wolfsberg – The Platform for Business and Executive Development (a subsidiary of UBS, one of the largest banks in the world), he is responsible for the Wolfsberg Think Tanks on a wide variety of market and global issues. A Freeman of the City of London, and of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, and Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development; he is Fellow: of the Institute of Directors, of the Royal Commonwealth Society, and of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts Commerce and Manufactures; and Member: Executive Board, IFB Institute of Management, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland; International Advisory Council, Development Alternatives, India; Member of the International Advisory Panel for the Tomorrow’s Global Company Report by Tomorrow’s Company, U.K. … (full text).

… He has written for Financial Times, The Guardian, and The Times, and enjoys being a judge for international competitions in the fields of fiction, poetry, and executive development. Prabhu is a Hindu follower of Jesus. He and his wife Philippa have four children and reside in Switzerland. ( full text).

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Prabhu Guptara – India and Switzerland

4 Videos: he interviews Michael Jackson, Chairman of Shaping Tomorrow, England, April 30, 2007: Part 1, 4.40 min; part 2, 2.36 min; part 3, 2.00 min; and part 4, 2.06 min.

His video: Conflicts of Interest, 7 min, February 01, 2005, (he talks about how the charging of interest exacerbates the difference between the rich and poor).

Future Event: Talking on « The World Financial System and the Institutionalisation of Greed », Thursday, October 9th 2008, 6pm, St Stephen’s Church, St Stephen’s Avenue, Bristol BS1 1EG,  £5 pay at the door. Reserve place by email.

His Blog: Renaissance: Insights for Action in Today’s World.

His official website.

Professor Prabhu S. Guptara is Chairman of the Career Innovation Group, acting as a thought-leader for the Group and building links with individuals and organisations around the world. His role in Ci is one of the external activities he undertakes as Director of Executive and Organisational Development for the Wolfsberg Executive Development Centre, a subsidiary of UBS AG … (full text, see also the homepage of career innovation ci).

He says: … « Developments such as sub-prime crisis and growing defaults in loans and credit card repayments in the US are the result of jungle competition among the global financial giants. On the contrary, the situation in the Indian banking industry is largely healthy » … (full text).

Continuer la lecture de « Prabhu Guptara – India and Switzerland »

Danny Schechter – USA

Linked with Congress, banks and home owners.

Danny Schechter, nicknamed « The News Dissector, » is a television producer, independent filmmaker, blogger, and media critic who writes and lectures frequently about the media in the United States and worldwide … Schechter worked as a civil rights worker and communications director of the Northern Student Movement, and worked as a community organizer in a War on Poverty program. Schechter also served as an assistant to the Mayor of Detroit in 1966 … Schechter is also the executive editor of MediaChannel.org, for which he is the « blogger-in-chief » and writes a nearly-3000-word daily blog entry on media and society … (full text).

(He is an) Emmy-winning journalist and filmmaker whose latest project takes a look at the growing problem of debt in America. The new film is called « In Debt We Trust: America Before the Bubble Burst. » The film opens in select cities this month and next. Here now, a scene from « In Debt We Trust. » (full interview text).

He says: … « When I started to make this film people asked me, what are you doing a film about debt about? Nobody’s gonna be interested in that. Nobody wants to talk about money. This doesn’t affect anybody. What we’re seeing now is that this is one of the leading economic crises in our society. Two million Americans face foreclosure in their homes. Millions of people are straddled with debt. Credit cards started basically as a luxury; they became a necessity, and now they’re a noose for many people in our country. College students leaving school with $30,000 in debt; people unable to pay their bills » …

His Homepage, with his bio, with music and activism, and with more films and videos.

Audios and videos with Danny Schlechter on DemocracyNow. More on the same web, July 17, 2008.

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Danny Schechter – USA

Listen his audio-interview by Tavis Smiley, April 12, 2007, or read its transcript.

He writes: … Yes, Jay asked me to write because my film « In Debt We Trust » (InDebtWe Trust.org)–released in a final updated form in 2007, not 2006– was being promoted as important by KPFK. One of my concerns has been that when the film played in LA, none of the press there, mainstream or « alternative » bothered to review it or write about it. The issue was thought too obscure. Now its at the center of a global economic meltdown. The issues I raised, considered « alarmist » by some, later led to the ongoing financial crisis. That fact that it was ignored does not make my reporting inaccurate. If anything I understated the calamity to come even as I was exposing subprime lending, a subject that most of our « all around » muckrakers ignored. Others have called me prescient but not the former news editor. He knew better!
… (full text, July 6, 2008).

Homeowners ‘March’ Against Foreclosure, July 23, 2008.

His interview with Amy Goodman: … … « And South Africa, they will—I’m hoping that this film Viva Madiba will be seen in the United States eventually and in other countries around the world. It’s not just about him. It’s about the struggle of a people for freedom, a struggle that they prevailed on, and a time when so many progressive battles have been lost. And so, I think we need to respect what he’s done and try to learn from it. And that, to me, is the reason I’ve been involved in all of this. I think there are lessons in the South African struggle that apply here in the United States: non-racialism, non-sexism, unifying a people of all groups, working with labor, working with church and other progressive people, building a coalition that can win. I think that those are some of the lessons from South Africa that’s inspired me » … (full text, July 17, 2008).

Freddie Mac, When Are You Coming Back? July 14, 2008.

Continuer la lecture de « Danny Schechter – USA »

Rebecca Johnson – England

Linked with Women in Black worldwide, with The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, with Global Action, and with Britain’s new nuclear abolitionists.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Rebecca Johnson is a feminist, peace activist and citizen diplomat, whose work on disarmament negotiations prompted government diplomats in 1996 to call her ‘civil society’s ambassador’. While living at the Greenham Women’s Peace Camp (1982-87), she co-founded the Aldermaston Women’s Camp(aign) in 1985, extending the resistance to US and Soviet nuclear weapons to the UK nuclear programme and Trident. She currently directs the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy and is a member of the international steering group of Global Action to Prevent War … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

She says: « My passions are women and peace ».

While her present research priorities (2005) are WMD, space weaponisation and international security, Rebecca Johnson has authored numerous articles and reports on the United Nations system and multilateral disarmament and negotiations, notably the NPT and CTBT; civil society; and British defence policy, and gives papers and lectures on these subjects to a wide range of UN and other international conferences, seminars and meetings … (full text).

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Rebecca Johnson – England

She works for (Women in Black WiB) for justice, against war, for the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, and for Global Action to Prevent War.

Find her and her publications on The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy.

Dr Rebecca Johnson combines her job as director of an internationally-renowned think tank with voluntary campaigning with various grassroots anti-nuclear and women’s groups. The youngest of eight children born into the Hutterian Society of Brothers, Rebecca was raised in North Dakota, USA and Sussex, England. After studying physics, philosophy and politics, her travels took her to Japan, where she became involved with a radical group of feisty Japanese lesbian feminists and never looked back!

She arrived at the US Airbase at Greenham Common on August 9, 1982 and ended up living at the Women’s Peace Camp for the next 5 years, during which she campaigned for the removal of nuclear weapons from Europe, danced on the missile silos, occupied the air traffic control tower, took President Reagan to court, painted cruise missile launchers while they were on military exercises and poured blood, paint and porridge on cluster bombs and other munitions at the nearby US base at Welford, for which she was brutally beaten by US soldiers and then imprisoned by the UK courts.

Continuer la lecture de « Rebecca Johnson – England »