Archive | June, 2013

Dear Daniel: With great satisfaction I just listened to your excellent speeches at the 8th Petrocaribe Summit. It was very just that the venue of the meeting is Nicaragua, a country that was capable of overcoming the artful blow of the empire under the government of one of the most uneducated and cynical frauds selected by the U.S. oligarchy.

To you at whose side we struggle, June 30th will mark a new stage of rebellion for us, building on what started January 25th and 28th, 2011.  This time we rebel against the reign of the Muslim Brotherhood that has brought only more of the same forms of economic exploitation, police violence, torture, and killings. […]

  Turkey has been witnessing one of the most vibrant and creative protests in its history since a group of protestors were subjected to brutal police violence a month ago in Gezi Park, Istanbul.  Primarily started as a reaction against the urban regeneration of Gezi Park, protests then proliferated in other parts of Istanbul and […]

Diyarbakir (Amed) After nearly three decades of war, Turkey’s Kurdistan region, home for an estimated 25 million stateless Kurds, warily awaits a long-lasting peace. For the last 29 years this region has been ravaged by a ferocious conflict between the Turkish army, the NATO’s second largest, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a guerilla movement […]

Dear Peace Blog — Fuck you to hell.  I thought I was giving peace a chance when I spent all those years writing in you.  About the dreams and schemes of a brave little peace activist standing up against state repression!  I wrote with a sense of hope — hope that society was making progress […]

More and more people pouring into the streets: “Free pass!”; “A R$3.20 fare is a robbery!”; “No to 3.20!”

But there is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. This movement is totally beautiful. But what matters is: What will change when everything gets back to normal?

Capitalism and real democracy never had much to do with one another.  In contrast, formal voting in elections has worked nicely for capitalism.  After all, elections have rarely posed, let alone decided, the question of capitalism: whether voters prefer it or an alternative economic system.  Capitalists have successfully kept elections focused elsewhere, on non-systemic questions […]

Brazilian Youth (Carrying Vinegar) Beginning to Rise Up! “Enough!  Brazil Has Awoken!” Viva Brazilian Democracy! Who Made the Protests Violent?  Answer: Protester Against the Fare Hike Holding a Sign Saying “Nonviolence”; Cop Scratching “Non” and Replacing It by “With” — “With Violence” #NaoEPor20Centavos: It’s Not About the 20-Centavo Hike — “Power to the People!” Rio […]

“I want you to know that once again you have ignited hope in the whole European continent.  What you have done is extremely important because what it demonstrates is that young Turks are just as capable of resisting oppression from authoritarian democratic government as Greeks, as Spaniards, as Portuguese, as Italians, as everyone.  This courage […]

  Turkey’s PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (now aka Recop Tazyik Gazdoğan, a pun on the PM’s name and the Turkish words for “truncheon,” “water cannon,” and “teargas”) issued an ultimatum at a so-called local election kickoff rally in a suburb of Ankara, which everybody knew was an attempt to counteract #OccupyGezi. Only a few hours […]

The Executive Committee of Local 3903 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE 3903) declares ourselves in solidarity with the demonstrators throughout the Republic of Turkey.

The demonstrations which began on May 31, 2013 have been entirely peaceful and speak to the conscience of vast numbers of the population of Turkey.  The Turkish government’s response to the myriad grievances against its policies has been beyond disproportionate, with security forces using armoured personnel carriers to engage in mass-arrests, firing high pressure water cannons filled with pepper-spray, and utilizing tear-gas guns to fire large projectiles.  Thousands of demonstrators have been arrested and injured, some critically.

One of the greatest horrors of the US security and policy establishment is the prospect of terrorists sabotaging critical infrastructure and key resources — the only horror greatest than that is the prospect of turning the infrastructure itself into a weapon of mass destruction.  Imagine a vast network of pipelines and storage units containing highly […]

  When Wisconsin state workers were courageously occupying the state capitol to protest Governor Scott Walker’s attack on their unions’ right to bargain, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka trumpeted a call for solidarity actions throughout the labor movement on April 4, 2011, the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, killed during the Memphis sanitation […]

The ambush on May 25 by Maoist guerrillas in the Darba Ghati valley (in the Sukma area of the Bastar region in southern Chhattisgarh), 345 kms south of the state capital of Raipur, of a convoy of provincial Congress Party leaders has shocked the Indian state apparatus.  The Z-plus and other categories of armed security […]

Speaking about the then dictator of Nicaragua, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reportedly said: “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.”  Whether or not Roosevelt actually said it in so many words is disputable, but there is no doubt that it — i.e., dictatorship is licensed in […]

Dear comrades, friends, sisters, and brothers of our movement! This is an urgent call for more active international solidarity actions with people who are fighting for their democratic rights in all cities and towns of Turkey. Prime Minister Erdogan and his government are attacking people who are trying to voice their democratic demands in all […]

The KCK (Union of Communities in Kurdistan) Executive Council said that the Gezi Park protests, which began as social resistance, have sent a message calling for a new, democratic Turkey.  The KCK called on the Kurdish people to take initiative, saying that the Kurds should fulfill responsibility by working with the democratic forces in Turkey so that the Democratic Solution Process will develop on the right track.

The KCK Executive Council stated that the social resistance around Gezi Park has an important message.  Noting that the current situation poses significant consequences for Turkey’s transition into a democratic country, the council also warned against “opportunist” approaches.  The KCK called on the democratic and working-class sections of civil society to stand against potential barriers to the Democratic Solution Process.

  1. For days now Turkey has been witnessing a genuine popular movement.  The actions and protests, which have started in Istanbul and spread all over Turkey, have a massive, legitimate, and historic character.  The most important of all is the striking change in the mood of people.  The fear and apathy has been overcome […]

“You have to stay in the square, in Taksim, until the government accepts your demands.  Don’t leave it.  [Stay] there with your peaceful demonstration, your peaceful strike, sit-in.  And I call upon women to join it on a wide scale everywhere, in the squares in different cities, not only in Taksim.  Long live the people’s […]