For a European Spring

DON’T OWE! WON’T PAY!

From October 7th to 14th, the Global Week of Action against Debt and IFIs will be celebrated worldwide. This week’s fight was established in the World Social Forum at Nairobi in 2007, to denounce the injustice of foreign debt on peripheral states and the submission policies imposed by multilateral agencies like the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank.

Since the housing bubble burst and triggered the financial crisis, debt has become our worst nightmare and the perfect excuse for financial powers to impose the ultra-liberal reforms they have been after for some time in order to ensure a higher rate of capital transfer from low and middle class incomes to high ones.

As with the people of Latin America, Africa or Asia since the 80′s, debt has become financial power’s instrument of mass domination to also subjugate European democracies. Since the Maastricht Treaty for the adoption of the Euro, the treaties signed by our governments (such as the Euro Pact and the Financial Stability Pact) granted increasing monetary, fiscal and budgetary power to unelected bodies such as the European Commission or the European Central Bank, which is a direct usurpation of sovereignty.

The most blatant interference of these organisms in our sovereignty occurred last year with the shameful constitutional reform to prioritize debt repayment over people’s rights, without any social consultation. To make matters worse, a new blow to our fragile democracy is being prepared by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which will subject us to the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and its sadly famous Structural Adjustment Programmes that devastated the economies of poor countries for decades. Theft of popular sovereignty has made clear that democracy is incompatible with capitalism.

This is why we claim that debt is illegitimate. As in peripheral countries, debt has been induced by financial powers to subdue populations to their private interests. In addition, most of Spanish public debt has been subscribed to benefit a small elite in detriment of the majority. The clearest example is seen in the bank rescue, which has meant more than 215,000 million euros to the public treasury, to which we must add the 100,000 million bailout fund that the EU has made available for Spanish banks and which the State is the ultimate guarantor. Private debt becomes public debt and we are all made to pay, never benefiting from it, rather the contrary, for debt payment implies a huge drawdown of resources that ensure basic rights such as health, education, pensions or decent wages.

Therefore, from the Citizen Debt Audit Platform (PACD), we have started a citizen debt audit process to demonstrate the illegitimacy of debt, to repudiate its payment and demand civil and criminal liability for those who generated it. We call on all people to join this process and hit the streets this week, specially on the October 13th, global day of action against debt(http://www.globalnoise.net/) to defend our sovereignty and shout out loud and clear: DON’T OWE! WON’T PAY!

The activities planned for this week in different cities are available on the web: http://www.auditoriaciudadana.net, Facebookhttp://www.facebook.com/AuditoriaCiudadanaDeuda and Twitter: @AuditCiudadana
via: http://acampadabcninternacional.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/pacd-manifest-global-week-of-action-against-debt-and-ifis-2012/

Dear all,

In order to facilitate the meeting’s organization, we should start working on three aspects:

• General call and meeting objectives:  A text that will function as starting point and as a analytical frame. We can work on it on a pad and discuss it on the next mumble meeting on Friday 5th.
• Program and contents: We have established a first deadline for proposals next Monday 8th October. After that, we will have some time to close details. We are trying to have a first draft of the contents for next week. You will find below a guide trying to clarify each space of discussion. The forms will be updated athttp://99agora.net/workshops/
• Logistics: We will acept accommodation requests until the 15th of October, please fulfill this form as soon as you can: http://99agora.net/workgroups/logistics/
• Communication of the event: We have uploaded the banners in the websitehttp://99agora.net/workgroups/communications/ and we have a FAQs with the main points translated in several languages: http://99agora.net/, a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/99agora/401517693234391 with an event http://www.facebook.com/events/479227915441298/permalink/479227928774630/ and a Twitter account: @99_agora here we will post the news.

PROGRAM GUIDE

We believe that in the actual context of restriction of, implementation of austerity measures and financial bail-outs that are deployed through the whole Europe but affect particullary the countries of the European periphery (the so-call PIIGS)  there is a growing need of meeting, coordinating and working together with other groups and collectives beyond the local and national scales.

Therefore, the intention of this encuentro is to create a space in which we can share the stories and histories of different experiences (in round tables), to generate analitical and propositional mechanisms (workshops) and coordinate possible common actions and interventions for the next months (working groups).

• Round tables will gather around the three working-areas (debt, rights and democracy) and will consist in a check-in round of 15-minutes (aprox) followed by discussion and debate. To propose an intervention in the round tables we need to receive: title of the intervention, the person or group that is going to lead it (inlcuding webs or other information) and a summary of it (no more than 150 words). The tables will be organized by related topics with a maximum of two per axis.
• The workshops are practical spaces with specific objectives and methodologies. To coordinate the workshops we need to know: the title of the workshop, who is going to lead it, the methodology (presumptions and objectives), the approximate length and minimun and maximun number of participants.
• The working groups will be made on site based on the composition of the workshops and round tables. Their task will be to collect the proposals produced in the different panels and workshops. An action& coordination plan will be suggested and discussed at the general assambly on Sunday.

Text read at Neptuno Square (next to the Congress of Spain) on September 29th

http://coordinadora25s.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/texto-leido-en-la-plaza-de-neptuno-a-las-20h/

We come back on #26s and on saturday #29s we’re surrounding the Congress again

Source: coordinadora25S

Next September 25th we will surround the Spanish Congress to rescue it from a kidnapping that has turn this institution into a powerless one. A kidnapping of popular sovereingty perpetrated by the Troika and the financial markets, and executed under the blind eye or the cooperation of most of the political parties. Parties that have betrayed their election programs, their voters and all the citizens, not fulfilling their promises and contributing to their progressive impoverishment.

We surround the Spanish Congress after more than a year of intense mobilizations through all social networks, having realized that democracy is not possible when those institutions that claim to be its representatives move themselves by interests that are not those of the majority. Because we have nothing at all to discuss with the powers-to-be that have systematically proved to be blind, deaf and mute when confronted with concrete, fair and just equality and social justice demands. We surround it to rescue politics from an unsustainable and leeching economic règime, such as it is Capitalism.

We surround the Spanish Congress because we want to step forward to social mobilization, placing the focus on the recovery of citizen’s sovereignty and power. This is, democracy. We’ve grown many struggle structures, spaces for sharing and discussing both on the Internet and the public squares, at the neighborhoods and workplaces, and we’ve achieved iniciatives that we want to continue developing on a grassroots base, with no false shortcuts and step by step. Because we believe that the time for a few deciding for the rest is long gone; because opposed to those that want to steal our future, we have the means and collective intelligence to decide and build the society we want; because we need no false brokers, but resources and collective tools that actively encourage the political involvement of everybody in the common issues.

We surround the Spanish Congress this 9/25 to tell those who allegedly command us that we’ve had enough, that we’ll not comply with their unjust dictates like paying their debt, and we’ll defend the collective rights: housing education, healthcare, labour, democratic participation, public wealth. To start a process that stripe of their inmunity those who are responsible for this crisis, to judge the gamblers that created this situation instead of rewarding them.

On September, 25, we’ll demonstrate around the Spanish Congress because we want to retake responsibility over our own future and stop accepting more impositions. To tell those who hold Democracy hostage that their time for leaving is now, and to demand the destitution of this Government as a first step, because we are here to liberate Democracy with a new constituent process. An open process of direct participation in which we determine and set in motion the necessary political institutions, participation tools and legal and political resorts that we need to guarantee that collective decisions ate fully effective. A sustained constituent process which collective definition starts, but doesn’t end, on September 25.

To rescue the Congress is to deliver an invitation to other social movements to organize and join, such as public employees fighting for public services in diverse “tides” and other equality and social justice struggles. It means our refusal to accept fear, impotence and disorientation that grow from the reduction of all politics to economics and its deadly consequences such as fascism, xenophoby, racism or sexism. And to look for a collective solution.

We invite everybody who want to join us in surrounding the Spanish Congress next September 25, to cry “enough!” and continue this path to rescue Democracy and sovereignty.
We want rights, democracy, justice and freedom for all the people.
We’ve taken so much, and we’re not afraid.
We’ll meet this 25S… and far beyond!

Students and their supporters throughout the Canadian province of Quebec are celebrating the ousting of Liberal Premier Jean Charest, the promise of the withdrawal of Bill 78 and most importantly the freeze in tuition fees. This victory comes after six months of student strike involving more than 190 000 students.

Quebec students who already paid the lowest tuition fees across North America were faced with a 75% tuition fee increase. Even if the planned increase had gone ahead, Quebec students still would have pay less than in any other Canadian province. Why? Quebec students have a strong tradition of fighting for free education since the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s. And if you fight you can win!

During the six month –long strike many the demonstrations held on the 22^nd of each month reached up to 500 000 protesters. However, it was the roughly180 local unions organised in CLASSE which carried the fight from day to day shutting down the Port of Montreal, ministerial meetings and nearly all classes in post-secondary education across the province.

In the face of state repression, the use of tear gas, shock grenades, the arrest of thousands of protesters, and riot police in college corridors, students didn’t buckle but instead called upon workers and the neighbourhoods to join in nightly pots and pans protests, the casseroles. Charest’s unpopular Bill 78 acted as a catalyist for the student movement to turn into a popular movement.

But student protesters were not only campaigning against tuition fees. Time again, they argued that Finance Minister Raymond Bachand’s provincial budget of 2011-2012 would cut public and accessible healthcare, hydroelectricity and education.

Over the last nine years in power the Liberals have pursued to restructure society in the interest of the rich. Tax cuts for corporations have gone hand in hand with increasing the retirement age to 67. After trade unions suffered a blow in 2005 it was announced that student fees were to increase. As the ‘sacred cows of Quebecoise society’ came under attack students engaged in a ‘general strike’, causing significant economic damage to the provincial government. This meant that the elections were a referendum on the student movement and dominated by two topics: tuition fees and student debt.

With full privatisation looming, students did not want to see a repeat of their 2005 strike, which saw them go back to class empty-handed. Students have learnt some important lessons. They are organising on a departmental/faculty basis, which has strengthened the overall organisation of the strike. This has also helped them to hold their unions and executives to account.

The high point of the ‘Quebec Spring’ has been the 350,000-strong demonstration in Montreal on May 22. Following the biggest student demonstration ever, students called for a week of economic disruptions, bringing inner cities’ traffic to a standstill while also mobilising 30,000 parents in support of the students’ demands. The two largest public sector unions also called their membership on to the streets for the mobilisation.

The looming summer break did not succeed in breaking the strike either. Instead students continued to carry their message into the streets and to the election rallies.

While the mainstream media continuously claimed that the liberal government had “extended a hand” by offering students an “increased bursary and loan programs”, the government was intent on breaking the movement time again. Premier Jean Charest said: “The decision has been made and we will not back down”. This only strengthened the determination of student strikers, and led them to forge new alliances. Students organised solidarity with locked-out Rio Tinto Alcan workers and with hundreds of Aveos employees who recently lost their jobs.

Protests also saw environmentalists and students come out together. They stormed the top floor of a conference centre in which Charest was to unveil further details of his ‘Plan Nord’, a mining plan which will see a 1.2-million-square kilometre stretch of indigenous land be sold off to big business.

At the same time, other students stormed a meeting of the federal Immigration minister Jason Kenney, best known for his anti-gay and anti-immigration stances.

This display of resistance has inspired activists far beyond the provincial borders of Quebec. The question is whether the newly elected nationalist government will stick to its promises and whether students will continue to be part of the fight for a different kind of society. Another Quebec is possible! Another world is possible!

by Mark Bergfeld

[EN] [ES] 

An expanding network of concerned individuals known as Occupy Monsanto has emerged over the past 8 months staging numerous protests at companies connected to the global trade of genetically engineered foods, also known as GMOs. The network announced today that on September 17, 2012 protests will begin for an entire week in St. Louis, home of the Monsanto Corporation, and across the US including California where voters will decide if they will label GMOs this election and worldwide in Argentina, Canada, Germany, India, Philippines, and other countries where concern over GMO impact on the environment and human health is growing.

The protests will vary in size and nature but are unified in pushing back GMO food into the lab from which it came. An interactive map with times, dates and locations of the 60+ protests can be found at http://occupy-monsanto.com/genetic-crimes-unit/.

Occupy Monsanto means to confront the industrial agriculture system head-on. Some protests could result in widespread arrests of people who choose to engage in non-violent civil disobedience. Despite the peaceful nature of these planned protests, organizers are concerned about surveillance of Occupy-Monsanto.com by the US Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement agencies worldwide. Nevertheless Occupy Monsanto protests will feature costumes made of bio-hazmat protective gear that can also protect against pepper spray from police who have routinely attacked occupy protests in the past year.

“There is something wrong when a chemical manufacturer, the same company who made Agent Orange, controls the US food supply,” says Jaye Crawford, a member of the Genetic Crimes Unit in Atlanta, Georgia that has planned a week of events. Info: http://occupy-monsanto.com/atlanta-gcu-schedule-of-events/.

“Wall Street and the American political elite have underestimated and even ignored our potential to effect rational policy change on GMOs which would include labeling for GMOs and restrictions on GMO cultivation,” says Gene Etic an anti-GMO campaigner based in Washington, DC. “If Occupy Monsanto’s anti-GMO actions are successful, after September 17 the media and increasingly more voters will ask tough questions about these experimental GMO crops especially within the context of the Presidential election, as that office holds the power to determine American food policy,” says Etic.

“People are stirred by the evidence that GMO foods compromise human health,” says Rica Madrid, a member of the Genetic Crime Unit of Occupy Monsanto. “Politicians and their sponsoring corporations ignore public outcry over GMOs to protect huge profits over health. Since GMOs’ introduction to the food supply in the mid 1990’s, food allergies have expanded according to Center for Disease Control data,” says Madrid.

“By purchasing influence via massive campaign donations, Monsanto ensures the essential duties of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are neglected. One example of this corporate coup is President Obama’s appointment of Michael Taylor, former Monsanto Vice-President and legal council for the chemical company, to head the FDA’s food safety efforts despite his obvious conflict of interest,” says Ariel Vegosen, a member of the Genetic Crimes Unit. She adds, “Monsanto is the biggest maker of genetically engineered crops so it must be stopped before it is too late to shift to healthy organic agriculture practices as a result of widespread genetic contamination by GMOs. ‘Coexistence’ as defined by the USDA of Organic and GMO crops is a myth.”

“At the US State Department it’s apparent Monsanto has duped leaders in Africa to ask the US for foreign aid in the form of GMO technology and equipment,” says Monsanto shareholder Adam Eidinger who last year walked from New York to the White House in Washington, DC with hundreds of other food activists to demand labeling of GMO foods. “The generous use of US tax dollars, endorsed by the likes of rock-star Bono and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a former legal council for Monsanto, is actually another taxpayer funded subsidy for Monsanto’s pesticide and herbicide hungry crops.”

Occupy Monsanto will be heard at the offices and facilities linked in the GMO food system. In St. Louis a major anti-GMO conference will take place in the same location as the ’12th International Symposium on GMO Safety.’ A lead organizer of the conference is Barbara Chicherio who believes, “Monsanto’s push to control agriculture and what people are eating poses a great threat not only to consumers in the US, but to farmers and communities throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.” Info on the conference is at http://gmofreemidwest.org/.

Media may arrange interviews with Occupy-Monsanto.com by contacting Adam Eidinger at 202-744-2671 or write to gmo@Occupy-Monsanto.com Visit http://Occupy-Monsanto.com for more information and to see video and photos of protests from earlier this year. All images and video are available for free and unrestricted use by members of the media.

[ES]

[ES] http://monsantostop.wordpress.com/occupy-monsanto-17s/
[EN] http://www.occupymonsanto360.org/
[EN] http://occupy-monsanto.com/genetic-crimes-unit/
[EN] http://takethesquare.net/2012/09/04/over-60-protests-to-target-frankenfood-corporations-on-ows-anniversary-occupymonsanto/
[EN]  http://s17nyc.org/2012/09/11/madrid-stopmonsanto-17s-occupymonsanto/

Link to the Twitter campaign: http://wp.me/p2C384-t

[List of local meet-ups below, if you don't see your city/town listed, pick a place, post it here so we can list it and promote! You have the power!!]

We’re inspired by the Quebec student strike and the popular uprising in Quebec against Law 78 and the Charest government, so …

On Wednesday, May 30, starting at 8pm, people from coast to coast to coast all over Canada are showing solidarity by banging pots and pans everywhere!

This will be the first of many casseroles nights across Canada. Once Quebec student students stop the tuition hike and Law 78, we’re all going to Stop Harper together!

*

Nous sommes inspiré(e) par la grève étudiante et le mouvement populaire du Québec contre la loi 78 et contre le gouvernement Charest.

Mercredi le 30 mai, à partir de 20h, les gens de partout au Canada montreront leur solidarité en faisant entendre un tintamarre de casseroles, joyeux oui, mais qui symbolisera aussi notre colère et notre exaspération.

Ce sera la première de plusieurs soirées de tintamarre à travers le Canada. Une fois que nous aurons atteint la victoire quant à la hausse des frais de scolarité et que la loi 78 sera abrogée, nous pourrons aussi stopper Harper ensemble!”

https://www.facebook.com/events/420350397995306/

Ver Casseroles Night in Canada en un mapa más grande

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyCanada

5 Easy Ways to Help With Casseroles Night in Canada:

1. Invite all your friends on Facebook to this event, and your local one.

2. Text, Phone and Talk to all your friends, family, co-workers and neighbours – tell them about May 30 8pm.

3. Create a local Facebook event for your local meet-up location. Post the details here we’ll try to list them all!

4. Share this inspiring video that’s already gone viral: http://vimeo.com/42848523

5. Make a poster to promote your local May 30 Casserole gathering – use the red square and pots and pans creatively. Put this poster up in your window and all over your neighbourhood.

6. Tweet about May 30 using the hashtag #CasserolesNightInCanada

*

Moyens faciles pour promulguer les Soirées Casseroles au Canada:

1. Inviter vos ami/es sur facebook

2. Téléphoner/texter vos ami/es, voisin/es, colleagues au sujet du 30 mai

3. Créer un évenement facebook pour votre coin, et afficher les co-ordonnées ici

4. Partager ce vidéoclip inspirant, déjà devenu viral: http://vimeo.com/42848523

5. Dessiner une affiche pour votre évenement locale, et les afficher dans le coin

6. Tweeter le 30 mai: #CasserolesNightInCanada
_____

Local Casseroles Meet-Ups:

- Bridgewater, Nova Scotia:
http://www.facebook.com/events/240813742694496/

- Calgary: Calgary’s Red Square, 8 Avenue at 1 Street SW
http://www.facebook.com/events/417557621621975/

- Cumberland, BC: Meet at Corre Alice Gallery – casserole is joining with book launch that starts 7pm: http://www.thecumberlander.ca/go1228e/Surrealist_Book_Launch_at_Corre_Alice_Gallery_May_30

- Halifax: Victoria Park, May 30, 8PM https://www.facebook.com/events/356301801101923/

- Hamilton: Gore Park 8pm May 30
https://www.facebook.com/events/240793812696923/

- Kamloops, BC: This will start 5pm May 30 http://www.facebook.com/events/398477186871477/

- Kelowna, BC: At the Sails downtown 8pm http://www.facebook.com/events/469083733106977/

- Kingston, ON: Skeleton Park, May 30 8pm

- Kitchener-Waterloo, ON: Kitchener City Hall, May 30, 8PM.https://www.facebook.com/events/285866524843697/

- Lethbridge, Alberta: https://www.facebook.com/events/356254727774887/

- London, ON: “So in London, Ont. we will be doing a cacerolazo tonight (Sunday) and perhaps Tuesday as well. Wednesday Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians is speaking — so perhaps we should we step outside from that event with our pots & pans for 15 minutes.”

- London, ON #2 TUESDAY MAY 29 https://www.facebook.com/events/296714847085116/

- Matane, Gaspésie, QC: http://www.facebook.com/events/394096323963088/

- Moncton, NB: Event info here https://www.facebook.com/events/391338430907267/?notif_t=plan_user_invited

- Montreal + Quebec, see the map at http://goo.gl/maps/R3oF

- Niagara/St Catherines May 30 7:30pm http://www.facebook.com/events/314188628662357/

- Oshawa, ON: 8pm May 30 at King St & Centre St http://www.facebook.com/events/161299047334798/

- Ottawa 8pm May 30 converging on the cannel. Also, a city-wide solidarity rally May 29, on the eve of Casseroles Night in Canada http://www.facebook.com/events/315269238547721/

- Providence Bay, ON: On the boardwalk 8pm May 30

- Regina: Meet up 8pm in front of Safeway on 13th Ave:
https://www.facebook.com/events/298097263617021/

- Saskatoon, May 30 Meet at Rotary Park http://www.facebook.com/events/339899092748052/

- Sudbury, May 30 pm Meet in front of Cranky Joe’s http://www.facebook.com/events/276526045778538/

- St John’s, Newfoundland: Harbourside Park, 8PM, May 30https://www.facebook.com/events/340765122662392/

- Tatamagouche, NS 8PM, May 30, Meet in front of Fables bar, 259 Main Sthttps://www.facebook.com/events/370473613013954/

- Toronto: Dufferin Grove Park (875 Dufferin St.) 8pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/391104920936260/?notif_t=plan_user_invited

- Vancouver: Vancouver Art Gallery (at Hornby) May 30 8pm:http://www.facebook.com/events/389560671090202/

- Victoria: Centennial Square, meet up May 30, 7pm, http://www.facebook.com/events/387070784673188/

- Winnipeg, MB Meet up May 30, 8PM, Manitoba Legislative Building, 450 Broadway, Winnipeg https://www.facebook.com/events/105793619562147/

- Winnipeg 2, THURSDAY May 31 7PM – West Broadway Neighborhood Centre field on Young Street. Just south of Young and Broadway. https://www.facebook.com/events/208570245930346?ref=bookmark

*Send us the info and we’ll list your local meet-up!

The process begins pointing at Rodrigo Rato (second vice president of Spanish government and Minister of Economy between 1996 and 2004) and plans uncover the bad management of politicians and bankers responsible for the crisis, proposing to end with the impunity of their acts and behaviour.