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?
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What would make you start a revolution - living under a dictatorship, having your freedom of expression threatened, slavery, hunger, corporate hegemony? This clip provides some interesting viewpoints making the case for and against revolutions. "The possibility that it might succeed," is Canadian novelist, Margaret Attwood’s whimsical response to the question. "Revolutions betray themselves and eat their own children,” says Oxford Professor, Stein Ringen in his...
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
Minister Trevor Manuel referred to debates on the size of deficits as an illusionary delusion, asking South Africans to focus on the effectiveness and quality of spending. Underlying this perspective is an important assumption that tough choices in economic policy have placed us in a better position.
Today, we have more money, and are able to responsibly increase the deficit, because of these choices, argues Minister Manuel. Assessing the record of government in this manner is however, an...
Rebecca Solnit -
In December, reports surfaced that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson pushed his Wall Street bailout package by suggesting that, without it, civil unrest in the United States might grow so dangerous that martial law would have to be declared. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), warned of the same risk of riots, wherever the global economy was hurting. What really worried them wasn't, I suspect, the possibility of a lot of people thronging the...
The Real News Network (TRNN) reports that protests are on the increase as a result of economic hardship emanating from the global financial meltdown. TRNN reports that there is a growing consensus that global elites are not qualified to handle the world's problems, leading to massive demonstrations against elites. On 1 February 2009, government representatives and corporate executives returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Associated Press reported "The world's...
Saliem Fakir -
The impact of the power revolution is most felt in the way in which the new steam and electrical technologies transformed human life in general – forever, so to speak. One thing fed another, producing a cacophony of innovation and redefining the very nature of abundance.
What industrialisation and the power revolution have unleashed for the west has become the dream of not only of one power, but many powers who feel they have been excluded from its magic and capacity to bring seemingly...
The 2009 Sundance Film Festival took place from 15-25 January in the United States. The festival profiles independent film makers and alternative issues. This year the festival honoured Howard Zinn, political scientist and co-author of "Voices of a People's History of the United States." Robert Redford, Marissa Tomei, Josh Brolin and Woody Harrelson read excerpts from his book at the festival. To view their recitals, watch the clip on this page. The book constructs the lives...
