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Viva Palestina aid convoy enters Gaza

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!

FAX OR CALL JERRY BROWN – ALL DAY, MONDAY JULY 27TH
DEMAND ALL CHARGES BE DROPPED AGAINST FRANCISCO TORRES!
FREE THE SF8!

Dear friends,

We are asking that you phone and fax CA Attorney General Jerry Brown on Monday, July 27th demanding that he drop the charges against Francisco Torres, the last of the SF8 still facing prosecution. Brown knows there is no case against Francisco, but he needs to get the message from people all over the country.

**In order for this fax campaign to be a success, we need you to help spread the word and take a few minutes to make the call and send the fax. Please send as many individual faxes as possible. We want to flood his office! And please also send us an email when you have done so at FreetheSF8@riseup.net

**You can print out and use the attached letter to fax and/or use the phone script below, all to Jerry Brown’s office.

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by Richard Pithouse – The South African Civil Society Information Service
19 June 2009

Vast amounts of cash and political energies that could have been directed towards meeting the basic needs of people living in intolerable conditions have been wasted on stadiums for 2010.

From the Communist Party across to the corporate spin-doctors and down to the Development Committees in the shack settlements, more or less everybody in South Africa speaks the language of development. In some ways this is a good thing. It indicates a hard won agreement that the realities of inequality in our society are so cruel and perverse that any social project can only be credible if it will ameliorate these divisions and the suffering they cause.

But one of the key problems with this consensus is that it carries a degree of authoritarianism while lacking a clear content. The result is that it is simultaneously difficult to be against development without seeming anti-social and to know exactly what counts as development. And as soon as we are all supposed to line up in support of some concept that is not clearly defined elites are able to define that concept to their advantage. When the rich are at their most rampant they tend to take the view that supporting development requires the removal of the barriers that limit their right to accumulate. They argue that everyone will benefit from their wealth as it trickles down. But we all know that in reality this approach to development results in the poor getting poorer precisely because of the manner in which the rich are getting richer.

[Read the article | h/t]

Patrick Bond, Pambazuka News, 9 July 2009

cc flickr.com

A couple of Nobel prize-winning economists are giving major talks in Johannesburg this week. Many in civil society hope the visits by two of global capitalism’s best-known critics can pull local economic policy debates further leftwards, towards meeting social needs, not market dogmas and corporate profitability.

Without wanting to prejudge, I just don’t think such expectations will be fulfilled. The ideas for which Muhammad Yunus and Joseph Stiglitz won the Nobel Peace Prize and the Economics Prize in 2006 and 2001 respectively are simply not sufficient for these tumultuous times.

[Read the article]

Related:
Let’s make South Africa the first country to eradicate poverty, says Professor Yunus

Bangladeshi banker Yunus: Global economic crisis can lead to positive social change

Stiglitz Blames Crisis on Inflation Targeting, Business Day Says

Stiglitz recording now available

The Wits Faculty of Humanities, the Wits Business School, the Department of Trade and Industry, the Initiative for Policy Dialogue based at Columbia University and the Financial Times hosted a public lecture by Nobel Laureate Prof. Joseph E. Stiglitz on 8 July entitled The financial crisis and the implications for the discipline of economics. Click here to listen to a recording of the talk.

July 14, 2009, 11 pm, Cairo

The Viva Palestina US caravan has received a permit to allow the group passage through the Rafah gate and into Gaza after spending 10 days in Cairo trying to overcome a series of bureaucratic delays.

The American convoy is mobilizing to carry busloads of supplies to the people of Gaza on Wednesday, July 15, and expects no further delays to their humanitarian mission because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already confirmed that all 200 delegates have satisfied all technical requirements required for travel.

[Read more]

Gaza kids protest closure of Rafah crossing