Surviving Capitalism (Not) : The Struggle As The Women We Are: Communiques From The Zapatistas

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

Saturday, July 18, 2015

The Struggle As The Women We Are: Communiques From The Zapatistas

Click here to access article by the Zapatistas from Upside Down World.

The article provides an illustration of how the indigenous people in the Chiapas region of Mexico are empowering women as well as men, and constructing bottom-up authority and radical egalitarian political structures to defend their lands and people from the predations of capitalist agencies. In this region activists are fully conscious of the necessity of empowering all people so that the truth expressed in the slogan "the people united can never be defeated" can be fully realized. A "united people" requires that all, or most, people are educated in the realities of existing power structures as well as being empowered themselves within activist organizations.

Meanwhile, read in a Nation report how the people in Central America are fighting back against exploitation of their lands by US and Canadian corporations and interference in their political affairs by US agencies. Better yet, read a piece from Latin American in Movement entitled "7 Reasons to Scrap the $1 Billion Aid Package to Central America". This is another US "aid" bill which would actually worsen conditions for ordinary people in Central American countries while strengthening the existing dictatorships.