Our Voices Matter
Some Thoughts About Greenberg’s
Analysis of Political Frustration in the United States, Printed Recently
in the New York Times
A few days ago I discovered an
article, relegated to the opinion page in the New York Times, that deserves
our attention because it sheds light on the disillusionment of a large
portion of the U.S. public with politicians and political parties.(1)
It is a disillusionment we discover in very similar ways in Europe and
a couple of other areas of the world, whereas it appears that in still
other regions, especially in South America and North Africa, we witness
a new popular élan and real signs of increasing hope.
This opinion piece (according
to the New York Times), which is in fact a sober account based on empirical
research, was written by a man called Stanley B. Greenberg. A fair-minded
person, it seems, who doesn’t hide his party loyalies but transcends partisanship
in order to attain an unbiased view of things. He tells us, for instance,
that he is married to Rosa L. DeLauro, a Democratic congresswoman
representing voters in Connecticut. And he lets us know that he is the
chief executive of a polling company that “works for center-left parties
in the United States and abroad.”(2)
But apparently he is more than a mere executive; he seems to be not above
doing real field work. And that, and what people told him – first-hand
experience – makes his report interesting, as he does not attempt to paint
a picture in rosy colors. No, he states what must be for him, and for the
Democratic Party, grim facts.
One thing Greenberg found out
is that the present austerity policies advocated by both Republicans and
the Obama administration to appease the financial markets are not popular.
In fact, he says,
“When we conducted our election-night
national survey after last year’s Republican sweep, voters strongly chose
new investment over a new national austerity.”(3)
He adds that “many voters prefer
the policies of Democrats to the policies of Republicans. They just don’t
trust the Democrats to carry out those promises.”(4)
Are we surprised? No. It’s the
same in Europe. People like to believe the promises of Social Democratic
leaders but when voting them into office feel they are deceived by them.
So next time quite a few of them switch to the Conservatives, and are disappointed
again. Others, of course, rise up in protest, something we have seen in
Greece, in Italy, in Spain, and even in Britain and Germany.(5)
Greenberg is very candid about
his findings, given his closeness to the Democratic Party. Close scrutiny
provided evidence that “in smaller, more probing focus groups, voters show
they are fairly cynical about Democratic politicians’ stands. They tune
out the politicians’ fine speeches and plans and express sentiments like
these: “It’s just words.” “There’s just such a control of government by
the wealthy that whatever happens, it’s not working for all the people;
it’s working for a few of the people.” “We don’t have a representative
government anymore.”(6)
According to Greenberg, “[t]his
distrust of government and politicians is unfolding as a full-blown crisis
of legitimacy” and it hurts above all those who once were perceived as
advocates of the common people, it “sidelines Democrats and liberalism.”(7)
The stark figures provided by polls are devastating.
“Just a quarter of the country
is optimistic about our system of government — the lowest since polls by
ABC and others began asking this question in 1974. But a crisis of government
legitimacy is a crisis of liberalism. It doesn’t hurt Republicans. If government
is seen as useless, what is the point of electing Democrats who aim to
use government to advance some public end?”(8)
Looking back at the age of ‘liberal’
(and, in Europe, “Social Democratic) interventionism, the age of Keynesian
policies and increasing efforts of big government to soften the effects
of a disruptive, crisis-ridden Capitalist economy through unemployment
benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, generally measures connected with the concept
of the welfare state, Greenberg does not leave us in doubt that this policy
depended on considerable economic growth rates. He is correct in his analysis.
“In earlier periods, confidence in the economy and rising personal incomes
put limits on voter discontent.”(9)
This foundation, in the real economy, of the old liberal reformist policies
has dissipated.
“Today, a dispiriting economy”
has made the fundamental contradictions of society very apparent. (10)
A recent study supplying information on the level of social justice achieved
in OECD countries put the U.S. in the worst group, together with Greece,
Turkey, Mexico, Chile, Eire, South Korea, Poland and Japan.(11)
The economic and social plight of millions of Americans, the fear and actual
experience of so-called downward mobility, the disappearance of the ‘American
dream’ have all contributed, for many decades already, to a “a well-developed
critique of government” shared by some, and a vague feeling that you cannot
trust politicians, shared by many others. And by now, in 2011, in the context
of the gravest economic crisis since the 1930s, it “leaves government not
just distrusted but illegitimate.”(12)
Talking to people, surveying
them, and evaluating polls, Stanley Greenberg found that more and more,
probably the vast majority of ordinary Americans think that things are
fundamentally wrong.
“GOVERNMENT operates by the wrong
values and rules, for the wrong people and purposes, the Americans I’ve
surveyed believe. Government rushes to help the irresponsible and does
little for the responsible. Wall Street lobbyists govern, not Main Street
voters. […] Lost jobs, soaring spending and crippling debt make America
ever weaker, unable to meet its basic obligations to educate and protect
its citizens. Yet politicians take care of themselves and party interests,
while government grows remote and unresponsive, leaving people feeling
powerless.”(13)
Greenberg adds that in a
recent Web survey of 2,000 respondents, people strongly desire politicians
who would comprehend that ordinary Americans “won’t catch a break
until we confront the power of money and the lobbyists.”(14)
And who would act accordingly. But they don’t seem to believe that any
such politicians are around, in either of the two major parties. And people
are not yet ready to say, ‘Let’s do it ourselves. Yes, we the people can
confront the power of big money, and politicians, and courts, and the lobbyists.’
Listening to Greenberg, we hear
again what the common people have known all along. Everyone who is not
entirely deluded knows that times have been getting hard. That inequality
has become more outrageous than ever. That most big corporations are flush
with cash.(15)
But they don’t invest much, and do not create a significant amount of jobs.(16)
The number of those who go to bed hungry is on the rise. The number of
the homeless, including homeless parents with kids, is on the rise. There
are more people lining up in front of soup kitchens. There are more who
lose hope.
Greenberg says the obvious: “When
presented with vivid descriptions of income inequality in America,
[many] people are deflated” – that is to say, they are merely discouraged.(17)
They
are pushed into a stance that amounts to apathy. They are giving in to
a feeling that they cannot do anything about it, rather than feeling
an urge to empower themselves, which could bring about joined action: action
that can bring real change.
“In surveys,” Greenberg says,
“they tell me that they think the politicians and the chief executives
are ‘piggybacking off each other.’
They think that the game is
rigged
and that the wealthy and big
industries
get policies that reinforce
their advantage.
And they do not think
their voices matter.”(18)
Greenberg gives us a picture
of what is. Of the moment that is now. Not of what will be tomorrow. Yes,
he is right. The fact “[t]hat government and the elite […] blithely […]
promote globalization and economic integration, while the working population
loses income, makes the frustration [of ordinary Americans] more intense.”(19)
Where will it lead? What will
happen? Especially now, as the deep economic crisis drags on…
Greenberg’s research has focused
on the political effects of the Wall Street bailout. He notes that
“[t]he public watched the elite and leaders of both parties rush to the
rescue. The government saved irresponsible executives who bankrupted their
own companies, hurt many people and threatened the welfare of the country.
When Mr. Obama championed the bailout of the auto companies and allowed
senior executives at bailed-out companies to take bonuses, voters concluded
that he was part of the operating elite consensus. If you owned a small
business that was in trouble or a home or pension that lost much of its
value, you were on your own. As people across the country told me, the
average citizen doesn’t ‘get money for free.’ Their conclusion: Government
works for the irresponsible, not the responsible.”(20)
Based on his empirical research,
Greenberg concludes that everything that ordinary Americans witnessed and
comprehended at the time “affirm[ed] the public’s developing view of how
government really works. They see a nexus of money and power, greased by
special interest lobbyists and large campaign donations, that makes these
outcomes irresistible. They do not believe the fundamentals have really
changed in Mr. Obama’s Washington.”(21)
Greenberg, being close to the
Democratic party, of course continues by asking himself and us, “What should
Democrats do?”(22)
And he comes up with a few suggestions, some of them heard many times before
but never followed up they way it could have been done.
ONE OF THESE SUGGESTIONS is that
Democrats in Congress should honestly and in a determined way fight for
legislation that would “severely limit or bar individual and corporate
campaign contributions” – which, he admits, would mean a fight with the
Supreme Court that has been stacked with Conservative judges in the past,
people in league with Big Business and bought politicians, not with the
people.(23)
Secondly, Democrats in Congres
should “make the case for public financing of campaigns”.(24)
The third suggestion is that
they should work for legislation that would “force the broadcast and cable
networks to provide free time for candidate ads.”(25)
And of course, “they must become
the strongest advocates for transparency in campaign donations and in the
lobbying of elected officials.”(26)
This amounts in fact to just
one item on the list of items that cause public concern. It all refers
to campaign finance, to the fact that on the whole, in today’s U.S. political
system, you must either be wealthy or enjoy the support of very wealthy
backers in order to run successfully for office. Few exceptions to this
rule seem to exist. In recent elections, big business routinely supported
both parties though preferences are sometimes clear. There was an unmistakable
closeness of Big Oil to politicians like Cheney and Bush, and generally
to the Republican Party. And of course, the same was observable in the
case of those corporations that are an active part of the military-industrial
complex. On the other hand, perhaps because of the Health Reform project
and the added turnover it promises, Big Pharma was leaning towards the
Democrats. And so was the nuclear industry (not just Exxelon, which is
based in Illinois, Obama’s home state).
Greenberg adds to his campaign
reform proposals a few very modest proposals. His suggestion that Democratic
members of Congress should work for legislation that would “put a small
fee on the sale of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments”
echos a similar proposal recently made by Barroso and others in the European
Union.(27) It
remains within the mainstream and will not change things in a significant
way though it is a step in the right direction. Better than nothing, so
to speak.
Another proposal might be more
far-reaching if enacted in a rigorous rather than a timid way. Greenberg
says that “[b]y radically simplifying the tax code to allow only a few
deductions, the Democrats would generate new revenue and remove the loopholes
that allow special interests to win favorable treatment.”(28)
This tax reform should include
tax increases for the very wealthy and for corporations, and a significant
lowering of direct taxes on all but luxury goods and luxury homes.
It should raise the inheritance
tax for large fortunes.
Generally speaking, Greenberg
is right when he observes that a reform agendas should be concerned
with “making government accountable to the ordinary citizen.”(29)
This would entail an increase
in the elements that favor participatory democracy and direct democracy,
in our political system.
The present way of electing presidents
is fundamentally flawed because it is indirect and it distorts the popular
vote. And the internal influence of party leaders on the selection of candidates
is still too big, despite the primaries (and also because of the costly
primaries).
‘Television democracy’ – as we
have it now, more than ever – tends to favor the manipulation of public
opinion, because it submits a mass audience to the unlimited influence
of networks ‘in a few hands,’ among them people like Murdoch who have been
linked to the most unethical practices.(30)
In many ways, Greenberg’s analysis
is clear-sighted, his intentions are laudible, his belief in the capacity
of the Democratic Party to reform itself is understandable. But can the
present Democratic Party reform itself enough to give genuine impulses
to the much needed political and economic reform in America?
My fear is that the majority
of those who are involved in that party today are too close to ‘vested
interests’ to really want real change. And that is true of the Republican
Party, as well. The Tea Party movement, judging by its rank-and-file members,
is a movement of disenchanted Americans. But it is already in the grip
and under the influence of the “fortunate few” who want things to stay
as they are.
Is there any chance then, to
overcome the kind of stalemate we have seen when Republican and Democratic
politicians in Washington kept acting like children when they were supposed
to deal quickly with the immediate problem that the government was running
out of cash?(31)
Perhaps when things look really
hopeless there is a real potential for change. Or, as Timothy Garton Ash
says, “American politics have become so hopeless that I begin to be hopeful.
From anger and disgust flow the energy for reform.”(32)
All of us who sense today the revulsion caused by the political game that
is felt by so many– and this in fact, regardless of their former Republican
or Democratic preferences – will understand this sentiment of hope
that lets him add, “if things get bad enough, this kind of political system
– shall we call it democracy? – can find sufficient inner resources to
start reforming itself […].”(33)
Perhaps, what the U.S. needs
today is a merger: of the Tea Party movement which would give up its closeness
to the Republican Party, and other grass-roots organizations, like Move
On, the NAACP, etc., who would give up their closeness to the Democratic
Party.
What we need is such a merger,
of grass-roots Republicans and grass-roots Democrats and grass-roots Independents,
against the “elite”, against the profiteers and the corrupt. Against Obama,
Bush, Kerry, McCain, Palin, Bachman, Pelosi, and so on.
FOR A NEW PARTY, a party of ordinary
Americans, a party of democratization, of grass-roots empowerment.(34)
The agenda?
The people involved would have
to decide it.
Much is possible. Much can be
imagined.
Modest proposals like: Fair
wages, fair taxes.
More far-reaching ones, envisioning
the permanent closing and dissolution of all stock exchanges in the country,
and the break-up of corporations.(35)
The break-up of the big banks
and the transformation of the pieces of the puzzle into cooperating People’s
Banks, owned by local communities (cities, counties) and controlled
democratically by the local population.
The erasure of all individual
debt up to a maximum of, say, $100,000.
The erasure of all public debt.
No interest payments and no back-payments of money owed by the federal
government, state governments, cities and counties.
The local (municipal) take-over
of the pieces in the puzzle, left over by the break-up of public utilities,
big oil and big pharma.
People who would lose money in
the closing of the commercial banks and the abolition of stocks, or due
to the debt moratorium, could be reimbursed, up to say $ 750,000, in the
form of people’s shares in public (municipal) utilities. A value that should
be non-transferrable, except to a spouse. (Transfer to other heirs excluded.)
All citizens might be accorded
a fair share in the national wealth represented by the entities resulting
from the break-up of the present big banks and other big corporations,
in the form of people’s shares.
And in order to avoid a new dynamics
of unfair concentration, such people’s shares could be declared permanently
non-transferrable. We all remember the story of the guy who sold his birth
right for practically nothing. In Europe, people on the verge of starving
sold people’s shares obtained after the privatization of industry for next
to nothing to those clever tricksters and conmen who became the new oligarchs.
Not a nice development really.
It really makes non-transferrability, that you cannot sell or give away
such shares to others, a must. In fact, even your children do not need
to inherit them; they would get their own fair share as a birth right whereas
the deceased person’s would become invalid.
There is a lot to be said against
inheritance of vast, unearned fortunes. Inheritance taxes can take care
of that. There is nothing to be said against inheriting your mom’s house,
your dad’s car, a family farm, a family business. And there is a lot to
be said against taxes, against interest payments that drive a family farm
or a family business into bankruptcy. There is a lot to be said against
unemployment and losing your home and not knowing how to feed your kids
and fill your own stomach.
So, in a grass-roots democracy,
flexible answers, required by solidarity, by the will to lend a helping
hand to those in need, should be the rule. Without exception. If there
is scarcity, don’t let the burden fall on just a few. Share. The biblical
examples exist. And so do examples in all religions we know of.
I know that much of what has
been suggested here may sound wild and too impracticable to some, and mild
and too reformist to others. I was just trying to show that we, every one
of us, can throw a lot of things into the debate, suggestions meant to
improve the lot of the vast majority of Americans. Suggestions that should
also focus on cultural issues, on educational issues, on issues like ‘Peak
Oil,’ and of course on ecological issues.
If we get something done together,
if we get a movement into full action, then the participants in such a
movement will debate, among themselves and with the rest of the population,
such questions as ‘How do we avert a catastrophic climate change?’ ‘How
do we cope with unemployment, with hunger and homelessness in America?’
‘How do we make democratic participation, and the possibility of being
heard and respected, a possibility for every one?’ So there is still time
to set up a number of fundamental goals. The basic direction, the basic
orientation must be clear. It is to give back, to each of us, the dignity
and the voice that a citizen deserves. Together, we can build a country
that lets us say, ‘This land is our land.’ ‘We have not been excluded.’
Notes
(1)Stanley B. Greenberg “Why
Voters Tune
Out Democrats”, in: The New York Times, July 30, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/tuning-out-the-democrats.html?src=me&
ref=general
(2) Stanley B. Greenberg, ibidem
(3) Ibidem
(4) Ibidem
(5) The most remarkable of these protest movements
has been the movement of the
“indignant” young and old people in Spain.
Inspired by the protesting masses that occupied the Tahir Square in Cairo
since February, 2011, they took to the streets and occupied the central
squares of many Spanish towns for weeks on end, since May 15, 2011. They
have declared openly that they distrust all politicians, shouting “They
don’t represent us!” They demand “real democracy.” And they focus on problems
such as high unemployment and increasing poverty that is spreading among
the common people.
In Greece, popular assemblies and political
debates among the indignant protesters who advocate real democracy have
taken place on the Syntagma Square in Athens, in front of the Greek parliament.
In Germany, 150,000 Stuttgarters occupied
the center of their city last fall. Many protesters appeared in front of
the Stuttgart state capitol, shouting “Liars, liars!” and tossing shoes
against the walls of the building – a sign of contempt familiar to Arab
demonstrators that the press and various television channels in Germany
had documented a while ago. Quite obviously the protesters in Stuttgart
felt contempt for the governing politicians and so they decided to make
use of this symbolic act. Quite a few of them demand better ways to ensure
citizens’ participation in public decision-making processes.
(6) Stanley B. Greenberg, ibidem
(7) Ibidem
(8) Ibidem
(9) Ibidem
(10) Ibidem
(11) Cf. [N.N.,] “Soziale Gerechtigkeit in
der OECD: Wo steht Deutschland?“, in: Change 1/2011, pp.68-69 – The journal
Change is published by the neo-liberal Bertelsmann Foundation.
(12) Stanley B. Greenberg, ibidem
(13) Ibidem
(14) Ibidem
(15) According to the economist Jack
Rasmus,
U.S.-based “corporations [are] flush with trillions in cash”. Cf. Jack
Rasmus, “How to Create 15 Million Jobs: Suggestions for a way out of
the
current economic swamp”, in: Z Magazine, February 2011.
http://www.zcommunications.org/how-to-create-15-million-jobs-by-jack-rasmus)
- Practically all colleagues of Rasmus would agree with the assessment
that most corporations in the U.S. are not cash-squeezed. They have
pocketed
enormous profits in recent years. As global players, quite a few of
them
continue to ‘repatriate’ considerable profits even now, in the middle
of
the worldwide economic crisis
(16) Rasmus notes that regardless of their
financial capacity to invest in production, U.S. capital by and large prefers
other investment (often abroad) and continues to create jobs inside the
United States at a rate that is frivolously below the number of jobs they
could be creating here. In the words of Jack Rasmus, they “refuse to hire
sufficiently to reduce unemployment [...]” in a significant way.
–
See: Jack Rasmus, ibidem.
(17) Stanley B. Greenberg, Ibidem
(18) Ibidem
(19) Ibidem
(20) Ibidem
(21) Ibidem
(22) Ibidem
(23) Ibidem
(24) Ibidem
(25) Ibidem
(26) Ibidem
(27) What Greenberg (in the New York Times)
and Barroso referred to is of course the Tobin tax, an instrument also
favored by such NGOs as Attac.
(28) Stanley B. Greenberg, ibidem
(29) Ibidem
(30) Top management personnel of Murdoch has
met repeatedly in recent months, practically in private, with the British
prime minister. Certainly not for a cup of tea and innocent small talk.
This is far more scandalous than the ‘eavesdropping scandal’ highlighted
in the media. The closeness if not intimate relationship that can be quite
generally observed between media personnel and leading politicians is a
fact that causes concern in many countries among those who care for democracy
and who reject subservience of politicians to big business. It is a well-known
fact that the ‘free’ press and television networks in Western countries
are largely owned by a few big media corporations and that the media pay
attention to the preferences of their large clients, i.e. advertising corporations
(and what they want reported and don’t want reported). This jeopardizes
unbiased reporting and subjects the general audience to the undue influence
of the economically powerful.
(31) Timothy Garton Ash has noted in
the Guardian
that in a recent poll taken on behalf of CNN, “77 % of
Americans
say elected officials in Washington behaved like ‘spoiled children’ in
the crisis over the debt ceiling; 84% disappove of the way Congress is
doing its job.” - Cf. Timothy Garton Ash, “Facing gridlock and
hysteria,
the US may yet be reformed”, in: The Guardian, Aug.3, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/03/gridlock-the-us-may-be-
reformed?INTCMP=SRCH
(32) Timothy Garton Ash, ibidem. – Timothy
Garton Ash of course is a centrist who trusts the typical Washingtonian
elite that we saw in the past, at a time when high growth rates, Keynesian
economics and big bureaucratic government did not exclude Republican and
Democratic ‘welfare state’ politics and when people like Lyndon Baines
Johnson and Nelson Rockefeller were not miles apart.
But let’s not kid ourselves, Obama and George
W. Bush, Clinton and Romney are not miles apart either. And the political
leaders of today represent the banks and generally, big business, as much
as Johnson and Rockefeller did. The difference is, today they minimize
the ‘welfare state’ because corporations pay hardly any taxes in comparison
with the 1960s and as a result of this and the wars, public coffers are
near-empty.
It is obvious that today political discourse
that rails against welfare is finding a positive echo among certain segments
of the public. This is not only due to the jealousy of self-employed people
and hard-working employees who begrudge the poor what little assistance
they get because their own life is so hard and nobody helps them. I think
that a large part of the American public is also sick of welfare because
it humiliates people, and they want job and decent lives instead.
It’s possible indeed to scrap welfare if we
eliminate the lousy wages of the working poor and see to it that every
able-bodied, mentally fit (!) jobless adult between 18 and 60 gets a decent
and decently-paid job, as well. (Of course, those in college are
joining the work force a bit later.) Why not pass laws that set a fair
minimum wage for unskilled and semi-skilled work (certainly above what
foreign car-makers pay today in the South) and mandate fair wages for skilled
work, as well? Why not enforce “repatriation” of “exported jobs”?
Why not remove barriers that harm unions? Which would matter especially
if we would get more new, grass-roots- based unions that would help us
to overcome the power of entrenched union bosses who have been too close
to corporate America and often ‘in bed’ with the political establishment.
As for seniors above 60 (or perhaps 57), they
should get a pension that allows them to retire and seek new forms of free
activity. It is obscene to make seniors depend on welfare.
(33) Timothy Garton Ash, ibidem
(34) A new party – does that sound strange?
Can it be a successful remedy, in the face of widespread distrust of ‘politicians’
and contempt for ‘politics’? We all know that Nader’s party, the Green
party, concentrating on just two key issues, environmental protection and
consumer protection, did not experience a fantastic ‘take-off.’ And
yet, the need for some alternative to things as they are in American politics
is very obvious.
Timothy Garton Ash summarizes the way in which
the leaders of the two dominant parties defend a basically flawed political
system that disempowers the population and makes alternating government
by these parties in league with banks and big business almost inevitable:
“On one thing,” he writes, “Democrats and Republicans [and here he
is referring to the professional politicians, not the voters] all agree.
In the great game of politics, there can be only two teams: Republicans
and Democrats. Ballot access regulations, for example, are stacked against
outsiders. This is a two-party political cartel: a duopoly. Yet two of
every three Americans now say they would like another choice in elections.”
(Timothy Garton Ash, ibidem.)
Perhaps it is this desire for change, felt
by at least two out of every three Americans, that can lead to a new beginning,
a better, more participative, grass-roots democracy. Timothy Garton Ash
of course has something else in mind – a technocratic, “centrist” government
stacked with so-called experts who would claim to be independent. But this
would only provide a temporary smokescreen for continued political influence
by the so-called ‘elite.’
(35) Some will say, “But can we do without
the entrepreneurial quality that Joseph Schumpeter celebrated?” Well, if
that entrepreneurial quality consists in conning consumers, sacking workers
merely in order to increase profits, and creating corporations flush with
money that don’t invest but spoil the environment and wreck peoples’ lives,
we can well do without it. Perhaps a sustainable economy, not based on
fierce competition but on cooperation, needs other talents than those of
our present myopic, profit-obsessed managers and absentee owners who tend
to disregard the social and ecological cost of their narrow-minded strategies.
I’m sure many ordinary Americans have the talents needed in a different
economy based on the principles of cooperation, solidarity and sustainability.
Or at least, they have the capacity to develop them immediately if the
need (and the chance to do so) arises.
Check...:http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/17/democracy_uprising_in_the_usa_noam
Check: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/17/democracy_uprising_in_the_usa_noam
go back to URBAN DEMOCRACY issue #
7
|
LINKS
U.S. SITES
The New
York Times
Stanley
B. Greenberg, “Why Voters Tune Out
Democrats”, in: The New York Times, July 30, 2011
backup
copy
Occupy Wall Street
www.occupywallstreet.us
www.occupyyoutube.com
http://occupyyoutube.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/#!/OccupyYoutube
Democracy Now
www.democracynow.org
We Are Change
http://www.WeAreChange.org
Chomskyon
decentralized solidarity movements
Noam Chomskyon
Occupy Wall Street protests
Z Communications AND Z mag
http://www.zcommunications.org/
M.Albert/Wilpert,
"The State
of the U.S. Left", in: Z Communications
(backup copy)
Michael
Albert,
Occupy Wall Street Entreaty &
Spanish Anarchists Interview
(Z Communications, Sept.2011)
[backup copy]
Left Forum
www.leftforum.org
Local to global.org
www.localtoglobal.org
Nathan
Schneider, "From Occupy
Wall Street to Occupy Everywhere"
(The Nation, Oct. 31, 2011)
backup-copy
Can
you remain neutral?
John
E. Jacobsen, "Wall Street Already Finding
Loopholes in Financial Reform Legislation"
backup
copy
Louise
Story, "A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives"
backup
copy
Slate.com
Readers'
comments on
Obama's
tax cut for the rich
backup
copy
Matthew Cardinale,"New
and
Old US Groups Forge Broad Alliances"
backup
copy
Libcom.org, Theses
on the global crisis
backup
copy
SPANISH SITES
AND INFORMATION
IN ENGLISH (ON SPAIN)
Democracy real YA!
http://www.democraciarealya.es
Manifesto of
Democracia real YA!
backup
copy
Inés Benítez,
"Spain:
'Indignant' Protests Heat Up Election Campaign"
(IPS news net, Oct.4,2011)
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Tito Drago,"'Indignant'
Demonstrators Marching to
Brussels to Protest Effects
of Crisis" (IPS news net, July 30, 2011)
Tito
Drago, "Spain: Streets Paved
with Evicted Families" (IPS, Oct.7, 2011)
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CHILE
Students in Chile are protesting against
the privatization of higher education that took place
under Pinochet, and against the underfinanced
public education system
(xinhua
net, Oct.20, 2011)
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GREEK SITES
To VIMAon
the general strike (Oct.19-20,2011)
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ELEFTHEROTYPIA
on the general strike
(Oct.19-20,2011)
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Athens (Greece) indymedia
http://athens.indymedia.org
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www.poesy.gr
POESY'S CALL TO JOIN
THE GENERAL STRIKE
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Mavroulis
Argyros on the general strike
(in:
Real.gr, Oct.20, 2011)
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EGYPTIAN SITES
Al Ahram Weekly
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg
Galal Nassar,
"The
Arab Spring and the crisis of the elite"
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Al MasryAlyoum.com
http://www.almasryalyoum.com
Mohamed
Azouz, Egypt govt mulls
raising workers' incentives
in bid to thwart labor strikes
Ahmad
Fouad Najem, "Forbidden"
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international
SITES
Support Julian Assange
www.support-julian-assange.com
Forum Social Mundial
www.forumsocialmundial.org
www.anticapitalistas.org
Retos anticapitalistas
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copy
Alternative web.es
www.alternativeweb.es
Esther Vivas
http://esthervivas.wordpress.com/
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copy
backup
copy (doc.file)
Z Communications AND Z mag
http://www.zcommunications.org/
documenta
11:
demokratie
als permanenter,
unabgeschlossener
prozess
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