IV464 - September 2013

In case you thought we now live in a “colorblind country” where justice is equal and fair for all — the view of the 5-4 Supreme Court majority that gutted the Voting Rights Act — the Black and white responses to the murder of Trayvon Martin should put that delusion to rest.

Hundreds of thousands turned out last September 11 to demand independence for Catalonia. Some decided to surround the Caixa, form a human chain around the largest bank in Catalonia and third largest in Spain, to demand not only independence from Spain, but from capitalism.

The 2011 earthquake and tsunami brought untold devastation and loss to people in Japan. [1]Close to 19,000 are dead or missing; 150,000 residents from the Fukushima area were forced to flee, and most have yet to return to their homes, while the environmental and social loss of the nuclear disaster is still only beginning to be calculated.

We know about heroes of social justice and liberation who come “organically“ from the movements: Nelson Mandela. Rosa Parks, Ella Baker and Martin Luther King, Jr. Eugene V. Debs. Chico Mendes. Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. Heroes of grassroots resistance in Palestine, in the Philippines, in Central America and so many other struggles, those with names we know and so many more we don’t.

The new political season is looking complicated for the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA), which is concluding today, Wednesday, August 28, its summer university in Port-Leucate (Aude). Two weeks after launching a national financial appeal, the party has raised only 4,000 euros. But its presidential candidate in 2002 and 2007, Olivier Besancenot, remains confident. "We have started a new life after a difficult period," he says. Besancenot was interviewed by Raphaelle Besse Desmoulières for Le Monde.

This radio interview was transcribed and published on the blog Syria Freedom Forever on 7 September 2013.

Following the August 14 crackdown on supporters of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, we asked Gilbert Achcar a followup on the explosive turn of events. His response, sent August 19, follows.

Gilbert Achcar is the author of the newly published The People Want. A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising (University of California Press, September 2013). His previous books include The Arabs and the Holocaust. The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives (2010). He was interviewed by phone on August 6, 2013 by David Finkel of the ATC editorial board

This statement was published as the editorial in the 3 September 2013 issue of Socialist Action.

The history of economic development is littered with attempts to correct the “mistakes” of development policy. The preferred method was to add new elements to the agenda. This approach led an ever increasing scope of issues included in policy discussions, ranging from environmental concerns to focalization of social policies.