The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Noam Chomsky reflects on the changing global power dynamic in 2008, arguing that there are three power systems in the world today - North America, Europe and North East Asia, with Asia showing the most economic dynamism of all. Concurrently, some of the most exciting democratic experiments are taking place in Bolivia. Japan and China and some oil producing countries have been sustaining the United State's economy for a long time, but its not clear how much longer they will continue to do...
Saliem Fakir -
In the glare of the international audience, we are being treated with Obama-mania. It is a wonderful and exciting media spectacle.
Barack Obama is undoubtedly a new breed of leader – everybody has been watching. He has already made history and may well make further history if he is elected the President of the United States.
It is easy to be captivated by Obama. He has traversed where no black person in the US has been able to go before. Obama is the story of the American dream coming...
Consumer advocate and corporate critic, Ralph Nader, is running for the American White House again, but his campaign, together with those of other independent candidates has been largely blacked out by major news networks. Amy Goodman interviews Nader, arguing that there is little analysis of Obama's and McCain's policies in the mainstream media. Nader rises to the challenge offering a robust critique of wide ranging issues, including foreign policy considerations. See Part two of the...
While we here at SACSIS are not impressed by Barack Obama's foreign policy stance on the Middle East and Cuba, we acknowledge that the nomination of the first black candidate as the Democratic presidential hopeful is a watershed moment in American and indeed world politics; and bring you his famous 'Yes We Can' speech immortalized in song by a production of the Black Eyed Peas. Related Reads: Obama at Aipac, Obama Goes Over the Top, Who is Barack Obama?
Saliem Fakir -
There is no doubt that we live in an uncertain period. Since 9/11, the world has changed. Global governance is in flux and generally speaking, the outcome of our transforming world is still unknown.
The conventional source and centre of power is beginning to shift. This centre of power largely an alliance between the United States (US) and Europe, which Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt aptly called Empire, is what we have come to accept as the de facto world in which we live, by which we...
Danny Schechter -
Everyone has a memorable moment or special date that marked their political lives. For me, it was April 27, 1994, the day of South Africa’s first democratic election when a disenfranchised majority chose Nelson Mandela as its new president. To those that fought so many years against apartheid, it was a political miracle, seen almost a biblical moment ushering in a new Rainbow nation.
I had a front row seat 14 years ago inside the Mandela campaign, making an insider film that...
