Wikileaks Beyond Wikileaks? Saroj Giri Wikileaks’ close collaboration with big corporate media and the ‘redactions’ raise serious doubts over whether information is actually flowing freely (Michel Chossudovsky, ‘Who is Behind Wikileaks?’ Dec 13, 2010, Global Research). And yet the Wikileaks’ intervention cannot be cast away in a cynical manner – the only way to welcome it however is by saving it from Wikileaks itself, in particular from its liberal slide. Let us problematise the kind of politics or the ‘attacks on power’ which Wikileaks represents, even as stories circulate about corporate-funding and CIA-backing. Indeed one gets deeply suspicious when for example The Guardian reports that, for the hackers, ‘the first global cyber-war has begun’, ‘the first sustained clash between the established order and the organic, grassroots culture of the net’. On the other hand, for someone like Jemima Khan typical of a whole swathe of liberal supporters, Wikileaks stands for something far less dramatic. In her already apologetic piece, ‘Why did I back Assange?’, she states that it is only about ‘a new type of investigative journalism’, about freedom of information and so on. What is it really?

The New Spaces of Freedom Félix Guattari Montréal, November 1984 Translated by Arianna Bove and Noe Le Blanc We might refuse to resign ourselves to it, but we know for a fact that both in the East and in the majority of the Third World rights and liberties are subject to the discretionary powers of the political forces in charge of the state. Yet we are not so ready to admit, and often refuse to confront, the fact that they are equally threatened in the West, in countries that like to call themselves ‘champions of the free world’. This hard question, so close to the skin and pregnant with dramatic human implications, is hardly resolved if we remain at a level of statements of principle. It would be impossible to fail to recognize the fact that for a dozen years a whole bundle of rights and freedoms and a whole series of spaces of freedom continued to lose ground in Europe. If we consider what is happening to immigrants and the distortions that the right to political asylum is undergoing in France alone this fact is manifestly unequivocal. But the defeat stares us in the face even when detached from mere narrow jurisprudence, when considering the actual evolution of the ‘right’ to dispose of basic material means of survival and labor for millions of people in Europe (the unemployed, young and old people, the precarious); the ‘right to difference’ for all kinds of minorities; and the ‘right’ to effective democratic expression for the large majority of peoples. Militants might object that the conflicts related to formal juridical freedoms should not be treated on par with the conquest of new spaces of freedom because only the latter is relevant to concrete struggles (to be fair, this reaction is reminiscing of an era that has long gone). Justice never kept out of the social fray (it never stood over and above social struggles); democracy was always more or less manipulated; there is nothing, no greatness, to be expected from the realm of formal juridical freedom, whilst, on the contrary, everything is still to be done when it comes to new spaces of freedom.

Social Security and the Global Crisis Andreas Exne In 2007, few people believed that the financial turbulences in the US housing market would have any significant repercussions on the world economy, let alone that they would trigger a financial 9/11 as the failure of Lehmann Brothers 2008 was called afterwards. Even less would have argued, that the global system of capitalism headed full speed into a systemic crisis that would shatter its foundations in a way the world hasn’t seen since the interwar period in the 1930s. Though, there have been such people and we can draw on their analyses. My task here is to develop a line of thoughts concerning the challenges to social security in a time of global crisis. This task thus involves a threefold analyses: (1) what is the character of crisis, (2) which role does social security play and (3) how does the crisis influence security? All three questions relate to the question, which kind of society it is, that we actually live in.

Anarchism Demystified ">Ralph Shaw Although the anarchists are unanimous in their detestation of state-sponsored capitalism, they have divergent views on capitalism if state sponsorship is removed. To the individualists, the evil is not capitalism itself, rather it is the collusion between the state and those who own capital.

Ecuador Declares State of Emergency Amid 'Coup Attempt' BBC A state of emergency has been declared in Ecuador after President Rafael Correa accused the opposition and security forces of a coup attempt. Mr Correa was taken to hospital after being hit by tear gas at a protest. Later reports spoke of fresh violence outside as he was being treated. Troops also took over the main airport, forcing it to close. Unrest has been reported across the country.

Interview: Noam Chomsky Hicham Yezza, Ceasefire Little of novelty or substance can be added to the millions of words that have already been written or spoken about Noam Chomsky. But it’s worth repeating a couple of them, if only to underscore the sheer, breathtaking scale of his achievements. First, he is the eighth most-cited author in the world, ever. Sharing the top ten with him are: Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, Freud, Hegel and Cicero. Put simply, to ignore his work is to court ignorance and irrelevance.

Why the Feds Fear Thinkers Like Howard Zinn Chris Hedges Today I will teach my final American history class of the semester to prison inmates. We have spent five weeks reading Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.” The class is taught in a small room in the basement of the prison. I pass through a metal detector, am patted down by a guard and walk through three pairs of iron gates to get to my students. We have covered Spain’s genocide of the native inhabitants in the Caribbean and the Americas, the war for independence in the United States and the disgraceful slaughter of Native Americans. We have examined slavery, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the occupations of Cuba and the Philippines, the New Deal, two world wars and the legacy of racism, capitalist exploitation and imperialism that continue to infect American society.

Wyclef Jean for President of Haiti? Look beyond the Hype Charlie Hinton and Kiilu Nyasha, Haiti Action Committee To cut to the chase, no election in Haiti, and no candidate in those elections, will be considered legitimate by the majority of Haiti's population, unless it includes the full and fair participation of the Fanmi Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Fanmi Lavalas is unquestionably the most popular party in the country, yet the "international community," led by the United States, France, and Canada, has done everything possible to undermine Aristide and Lavalas, overthrowing him twice by military coups in 1991 and 2004, and banishing Aristide, who now lives in South Africa with his family, from the Americas.

Militarization of Central America and the Caribbean: The U.S. Military Moves Into Costa Rica Mark Vorpahl Nestled between Panama to its south and Nicaragua to its north, Costa Rica is a Central American nation roughly the size of Rhode Island. If another nation were to send Rhode Island a force of 7,000 troops, 200 helicopters, and 46 warships in an effort to eradicate drug trafficking, it is doubtful that the residents of Rhode Island would consider this offer "on-the-level." Such a massive military force could hardly be efficiently used to combat drug cartels. The only logical conclusion is that the nation whose troops now are occupying this other country had another agenda in mind that it didn't want to share.