We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Labor politicized or politicized labor.

Click here to access article by Jano Charbel from Mada Masr

It seems that in the Empire's Egypt asking to be paid for work is tantamount to treason.
The demands of the Suez Steel Company workers include the payment of their wages for the month of July and the payment of overdue profit-sharing. Meanwhile, workers at the Scimitar Petroleum Company have been demanding overdue bonuses and the reinstatement of several sacked workers, along with better wages and working conditions. 
The crushing of union protests and other actions by Egyptian police and army show whom these instruments of state violence really serve. Of course, behind these instruments of violence there stands the armed might of the capitalist Empire that supplies them with $1.3 billion worth of weapons and training annually.