| #1- October 15th 2000 | no price |
Towards the end of September in Prague and other cities of the world, days of direct action and mobilisation took place around the meeting of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Found (IMF).
We have all seen on TV, in the news, or in the internet the images that arrived from Prague. Demonstrators came from all around Europe and blocked the congress centre of Prague where the WB/IMF met, and several times challenged the police. Just like in the past months in London, Seattle, Melbourne among other places, a movement (agitation) composed by different individuals have taken action to try to stop this crazy race towards the ongoing exploitation of human beings and animals, and the environmental disaster. Instead of just telling what happened during those days of mobilisation we prefer to spread the causes of the protest.
Più che fare la cronaca di queste giornate di mobilitazione preferiamo cercare di diffondere le ragioni della protesta.
We
mainly fight against capitalism, and more specifically against its current
definition: neoliberalism. Neoliberalism being all the politics and processes
directed to control the social life and maximise the profits of the rich (less
than 1000 companies in the whole world)
In the last 10 years, since Reagan and Thatcher, neoliberalism has become the dominant political and economical faith, adopted globally by all the right wing governments, as well as by those of the traditional left-wing. Of course the multinationals have invested big amounts of money in public relations to deride every measure that could be an obstacle for the "free" market.
On the other hand they draw attention to the lowering taxes of the rich (and their companies), the end of environmental and labour measures and the destruction of the welfare state (schools, medicine, social security). The results are visible to everyone, and have been the same everywhere: the economical and social inequalities have increased sharply, the conditions of the nations have become worse and worse for the poorest, a disastrous environmental situation and ever increasing profits for the rich. A typical case of neoliberal democracy is that of the Unites States, where 0.25% of the population, which consists of the richest Americans, give 80% of the donations for the electoral financing, and the contributions of the companies represent 10 times more than those of the workers.
The ones interested are of course the rich.
Since a culture needs communication, there is the need of associations, libraries, public schools, street associations, social spaces, trade unions, etc in which the citizens can participate. But neoliberalism with the market as it's only value, fights strongly against these realities; it doesn't want citizens, it only wants consumers, it doesn't build centres to socialise it creates shopping centres. The expected result, which is achieved in many cases is apathy, the giving up of everything and a strong sense of impotence and submission.
They impose the idea that in this kind of society there is no alternative.
The imaginary society of the world of public relations is the one proposed to us by TV, or the one that takes place in shopping centres, in the big cities; it is composed by Mc Donald's Blockbuster, Warner village, cars that drive by themselves in nature, and worse. Reality is very different, and the more we go to the south of the world the worse it gets. This movement of opposition to neoliberalism is usually called "antiglobalisation movement" by the media, where globalisation is presented by them as the natural expansion of the free markets. In reality it is quite different; Globalisation is the result of the politics of the strong countries (the USA being the first of them all) that have a tendency to impose general agreements to the nations of the world to facilitate the domination over local economies by the multinationals and the rich, without them having to make themselves accountable in any way, for their actions.
The result of all this is codified by the WT and it's norms, that cancel any kind of measure (social or environmental) that the people of various nations of the planet have achieved throughout many years of fights and resistance. Because of this one of the best slogans is "Our resistance will have to be multinational, as the capital is. In front of the uncertain, full of anxiety, empty and polluted life that we are forced to live, and of the deep uneasiness of this society, we continue to think, that this can't be the only possible world.
The future is unwritten.
Choose a well lighted part of your house, put there a very big vase, and put plenty of fresh soil in it.
It is the creation of your little orchard. According to the size of your vase, of your taste and of the season, put the seeds. Making a little orchard is a lot easier and more fun than it seems, you only have to pay attention to the phases of the moon, and take 5 minutes of your day.
Producing your own fruits and vegetables comes with many advantages.
In this times where supermarket (and markets as well) sell genetically modified products, or, even better full of poisons (commonly known as pesticides), to think about your own alimentary health can't harm you. You only have to think that with the help of agreements between multinationals and governments lots of seeds and plants (for example: ¾ of the world Soya, and 1/3 of the planets maize) have been introduced in the world market that are sold to us as healthy and nutritious (and specially pretty) food even though the sellers in many cases ignore where it comes from and it's quality.
Besides many of this "biotechnological" plants are used as farm food. So the meat, already totally full of hormones and many other different harmful stuff, is also fed with genetically modified food. So by all sorts of different ways this things always end up in our dishes.
To eat our own products, grown and controlled by us it's a little step towards our physical well being.
But to cultivate and biologically produce allows us to avoid helping that economy, controlled by a few multinationals that drive the world, pollutes, desertifies, poisons, exploits and kills workers and animals.
It's right to think about this things because they have to do with the health, life and environment of all of us.
Eat
vitaminised shit, eat concentrated shit, eat delicious shit and pay for it,
Eat shit with proteins it's the future's food
LA POLLA RECORDS
To talk today about Palestine is maybe a bit difficult, because of the situation that has been created. In a few years a real civil war where the Palestinian people is paying the highest price in dead and wounded.
The Oslo agreement " the principles declaration", the so called "peace" negotiations started after the years of Intifada, September 13th 1993, have revealed themselves as Israeli expansion and construction of installations in Palestine.
Israel and it's protectors have done everything they can to push away any possibility of a real independence for Palestine throughout this years.
And the Palestinian response? The political leadership of Arafat has misunderstood his people so badly that everywhere there are Palestinians there is unhappiness and uneasiness that many times takes the form of open rebellion.
And what is happening this days is a very clear example. Palestinians have been victims of every government -Arabs and not- under whose jurisdiction they have lived.
Because of this, we think it's important to discuss with this people and about this land, so we can understand which are the economical, political and strategic disorders that are being drawn in the near future of the Middle East.
Our solidarity with the Palestinian people and all the people fighting for freedom, continues to be important, we invite everyone to participate in solidarity mobilisations for the people who refuse to bent to the superpower of the new and old world order.
For
the younger generations: whoever is interested in knowing the history of this
people, and its long fight against one of the strongest military and economical
forces of the world, there is available material (videos, photos, documents)
in the following address:
http://www.tmcrew.org/int/palestina
A4 NEWSBOT c/o LAURENTINOKKUPATO Via Giuliotti,8 - 00143 Roma Italia