Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Colombia Nationwide Strike Against 'Free Trade,' Privatization, Poverty

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

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Colombia Nationwide Strike Against 'Free Trade,' Privatization, Poverty

Click here to access article by Sarah Lazare from Common Dreams.

The people of the Empire's thoroughly militarized client state in South America are fighting back against a broad range of neoliberal attacks on their economy and well-being. The author provides many details.

Protesters are levying a broad range of concerns about public policies that devastate Colombia's workers, indigenous, and Afro-Colombian communities.

Incidentally, it must be observed how similar Columbia is to Egypt in that both countries' military establishments have been joined at the hip to the Pentagon through the massive supply of military equipment and elaborate training junkets.

More recently, US aid seems to be going to Columbia to train other countries' soldiers in methods which would not be allowed in the US (see this and this).

Wherever corporate-backed free trade policies are promoted, you will find the US military or secret "security" agencies engaged in one way or another. Of course, this is nothing new about the role of the US military. As Gen. Smedley Butler wrote back in 1935, “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers."