"Remembering Arthur Kinoy"

Stanley Aronowitz, September 29, 2003

Arthur Kinoy, best known as a leading civil rights attorney during the zenith of the protest phase of the movement during 1960s, and as a law professor who taught for some 20 years at Rutgers University, died in September 2003. He was 82 years old and lived in Montclair, New Jersey.

"Tribute to Edward Said"

Mustafa Barghouthi

It is with heartbreaking sorrow that the Palestinian National Initiative
announce the tragic death of Edward Said who passed away today after eleven years fighting leukemia. At this time our thoughts and love are with his family. We wish them strength and courage and assurance that Edward will be a man forever remembered not only for his incredible achievements but for his remarkable qualities as a friend. Though words may do little at such a time to assuage the pain and grief something must be said to pay homage to a man and a life we should truly celebrate.

A man with great courage and clear conviction Edward Said was a shining light in a confused world. As a true intellectual giant, Said inspired all fields with his accomplishments. The passion which infused his intellectual abilities presented him as a man with clear visions to be greatly admired, trusted and respected.

Though his beliefs and commitments presented him with many challenge his statements and many testimonies of outrage at the hypocrisies, contradictions, and indignities so rife in the world gave him the integrity and honesty for which he was renowned.

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great personal sorrow that we inform you of the death of Edward W. Said, today, the 24th of September, 2003, at approximately 4 p.m. EST. Edward had been very ill for the past couple of weeks and last night he was re-admitted to the hospital (he had been released last week and was thought to be recovering). However, it was not to be and this afternoon, he was taken off the respirator and died shortly thereafter. For us -- and we know for the entire academic community as well as everyone who had believed in Palestinian sovereignty, not to mention the self-determination of oppressed and exploited people worldwide -- this is a loss that will never be overcome.

Meera Sethi

Resource and Communications Officer

Cultural Pluralism and the Arts

University of Toronto at Scarborough

1265 Military Trail

Scarborough Ontario M1C 1A4

416-287-7136

cpa@utsc.utoronto.ca

website: citd.utsc.utoronto.ca/cpa/

Libertarian Social Forum

Saint-Ouen (Paris), France, Nov 11-16

No government, left nor right, can or wants to question
capitalism. No government, today or tomorrow, will protect us
from job losses, from the spread of temporary employment, from
miserable wages, from the attacks on social protection, from the
dismantling of public services, from security-obsessed policies
or from racist laws.
The liberalist system which is being promoted by the bosses is
responsible for so much misery and revolt that it requires an
openly Police State.

"Reverse Engineering Freedom"

Geert Lovink and Florian Schneider, Makeworlds #3

During a noborder camp in a small town in Romania a young guy passes
by. He works for a corporation that manufactures hardware for
brand-name electronics companies near the border to Hungary and Serbia.
He tells the story of an unsuccessful attempt to unionise the workers of
this factory. About 3500 Romanians are employed there for a wage of
eight dollars for a twelve hour working day. Their dispute was not
about salary. The workers' discontent grew out of despair -- how were
they to overcome the powerless position they were in as an outsourced
post-industrial reserve army, fully exposed to the fluctuations of
just-in-time production while forced to be graceful for the privilege
of having a job in the first place? His story ended as it happens
every day around the globe. Snared within the boundaries of the local,
the struggle of the Romanian workers didn't have a chance to be
recognized. Irrespective of whether the free lunch includes desert, a
few extra dollars are thrown into the pay cheque, or health insurance
is part of the salary package, management will not hesitate to fire
all those who start a union within the factory. It's a vicious circle.
Every attempt to self-organize leads to nothing but an affirmation of
and increase in the power of a corporation that operates globally and
constantly blackmails workers in Romania, Scotland or Singapore with
threats to close down the factory site and move production to China or
Mexico.

"Conquest by Convergence: The Case Against Elite Convergence"

Paul David Collins

"Among one of the most absurd and irrational myths circulated by the orthodoxy of political science is the concept of elite convergence. According to this hopelessly flawed view, the problems of injustice and inequity that destabilize societal order are remedied when opposing factions of the ruling class arrive at an agreement. In truth, elite convergence is the covert galvanization of democracy's enemies. Whether they are in agreement or in discord, a pack of wolves will always devour their quarry. Likewise, the assumption that individual liberties are now safe because its foes no longer quarrel amongst themselves is a self-immolating delusion."

Full story: http://newworlddisorder.ca

"The Ong's Hat Mystery Revealed"

An Interview with Joseph Matheny

"The Incunabula catalog is a culture jam, created by culture jammers. There is no 'group' that existed previous to 1987, at least not as described in the brochure. 4 people got together in the 80s and 90s and put those documents together. NONE preceded their existence. However, many legends and synchronicities have occurred since. That is beautiful and indicative of a responsive universe."

Full story: http://newworlddisorder.ca"

no wto, uk writes "NO WTO PATENTS, NO COPORATE CONTROL
UK Solidarity Action with Cancun WTO Protests

Protesters occupy Bayer offices in Humberside

On Friday 12th September to coincide with the WTO talks in Cancun, a group of 15 concerned citizens occupied a Bayer office and stopped work there, to demonstrate against the corporatisation of health and agriculture, and the impact of WTO patent laws on agriculture and medications. This solidarity action took place for 2 reasons.

First, WTO drug patents laws which are to be reinforced in the next couple of years will mean that countries like India, Brazil and Thailand who make cheap versions of essential drugs will have to buy them at inflated prices from large multinational pharmaceutical companies. Bayer Pharmaceuticals is one such company.

Second, patenting of rice, maize, and other basic crop genes means that small-scale farmers in both the developing world and the rich west are no longer allowed to save seeds. Instead they will be tied into spending large amounts on buying seeds and pesticides from agricultural multinationals such as Bayer CropScience. As a result, farming for many of the world’s poor will become unsustainable and the trend towards large scale corporate farming enhanced.

Anna Quay one of the participants voiced her concerns:

“WTO patent laws, whether they concern drugs or plants are in the interests of large multinationals and rich nations. Their impact will be to increase world inequality, poverty, lack of access to cheap life-saving drugs, and wipe out opportunities for local subsistence farming.”

Photo to follow

For more information see:
http://www.tradeobservatory.org
www.iatp.org The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
http://www.citizen.org/trade/
http://www.focusweb.org/
http://www.ifg.org/ International Forum on Globalisation"

"Latin Bishops Launch Broadside against Free Trade Area"

Raul Pierri, Inter Press Service (IPS)

MONTEVIDEO, Sep 4 (IPS) -- The Free Trade Area of the Americas
(FTAA) looks less like a true regional integration project than
a ''neo-colonialist'' plan that will make poor communities even
poorer and will not respect national sovereignty, said the Catholic
bishops of the members of South America's largest trade bloc.
''What we condemn is that the only aim of the project is to increase
trade flows, regardless of whether or not it devastates everything
and everyone in its path,'' the secretary-general of the bishops'
conference of Uruguay, Bishop Pablo Galimberti of the southern
Uruguayan city of San Jos, told IPS on Thursday.

nolympics submits

"Todos Somos Lee"

By Writers Block

A few thousand of us maybe. No more. The crowd snakes through Cancun, a neo-liberal paradise lost. Of the 600,000 people who live here fully two-thirds are transient laborers. Like a large proportion of the world’s population they exist in the twilight zone of mobile capital, industrial tourism and ecological catastrophe.

At the WTO fortification; a fence ten foot high reinforced by a matrix of steel and concrete a crowd assembles. Behind the fence, thousands of cops. The farmers electrify the mood. The Mexican campensinos push a table displaying a collection of diverse corn strains, alter-like, and are lead by one who carries a basket of kernels on his back. They say that the transgenic agenda of the WTO will mean the end of all this.