"The Right to the City"

“One step towards unification of these struggles is to focus on the right to the city as both a working slogan and a political ideal, precisely because it focuses on who it is that commands the inner connection that has prevailed from time immemorial between urbanization and surplus production and use. The democratization of the right to the city and the construction of a broad social movement to enforce its will is imperative, if the dispossessed are to take back control of the city from which they have for so long been excluded and if new modes of controlling capital surpluses as they work through urbanization processes are to be instituted.” (David Harvey)

In response to gentrification and displacement of low-income people from their traditional urban neighbourhoods, Right to the City was formed in 2007 and has sought to make an impact in questions of housing, urban land, community development, civic engagement, and criminal justice, among others. The Marxist geographer David Harvey devotes his political activity to this organization.

In March 2010, a report was released by the United Nations expressing concerns over forced evictions leading up to major sporting events, which are more publicized than gentrification and displacement in places like New York City:

[i]“I am particularly concerned about the practice of forced evictions, criminalization of homeless persons and informal activities, and the dismantling of informal settl
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'Truth' is only true from a certain perspective



As I turned on the television this morning (April 5th, 2004), I was just in time for a ‘Live News Event’ on CNN, with President George W. Bush speaking in North Carolina. His speech was supposed to be about job creation or jobs in general but I only caught the part where he was talking about 9/11 and ‘the terrorists’.

“These killers don’t have any values,” the President was explaining. “They hate free societies … They hate freedom and the things we love.” And in the end he assured us that “we will do what is right”. I was stunned. How can I keep seeing these lame explanations day after day, and even worse, how can some people believe it?
First of all, the fact that these terrorists killed themselves for a ‘cause’ shows that they have quite strong values (I am not implying that their values are “good”). Second of all, the Palestinians (terrorists) in the ‘occupied’ territories’ and the ones living in refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria want exactly what Mr. Bush said they did not want: freedom. The fact that nobody at CNN questioned those erroneous comments of the President, such as Al-Queda “no longer has safe-haven in Afghanistan” (although they do indeed have support in terms of followers and fighters), shows how the media is there to “serve the interests of the state” (Chomski, 1989) and not to give plain and unbiased facts to the general public.
Thus this paper will look at how media dist
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I seem to be part of the “lost generation”; the generation of too much knowledge and of a lost cause. I say we blame our parents and grandparents for the environmental decay of our planet, for the decay in our morality and/or our addiction to consumerism. Blame them for all this shit: the famine in the world, the wars, our addiction to drugs and “the good life”, it’s all their fault. Why not?
I’m angry, helpless and hopeless. What the fuck!? Why am I here? And what the fuck am I suppose to do?
That was easy … now I am free of guilt and ready to go bannanas! “In support of Mummia Jammal, run up on you fucking pigs with the heaters and all” (I like that line from Jedi Mind Tricks). Most people can’t connect the dots. Why can't everyone see the lies that the main stream media is throwing out?
I watch the news: people blowing up in Afghanistan, kids mutilated by bombs in Iraq, more kids starving all over Africa, Native Indians without potable water in Canada and yet even more kids sleeping underneath the Gardiner Expressway here in Toronto. I wipe the tears of my face, clench my teeth and swear to do something about it then, I roll a “post” and try to drown my thoughts with it.
You see … our parents knew everything. They knew what do to. Their life was easy: they knew they had to get an education, a job then, a family and with that life was complete (so they thought); or they knew they had done their ‘duty’. With my generation it’s all different. We d
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Schooling: A Capitalist Indoctrination

The specialization of ones own diverse abilities has become, at least from what I've seen here in America, a way of life now as the school system increases based on capital, but decreases based on intellectual, intelligent learning towards those going to school, in what used to be, for the path of higher learning. Why is it that one chooses to only specialize towards one goal, despite the vast possibilities of learning much more? Is there not a sense of merely educating your mind towards all, rather than towards a simple goal of an entirety of life? What we face today are universities pumping out workers for self-beneficial reasons in the name of capital.

I cannot help but wonder where exactly this nation is heading when I see hardworking students entering college to learn, but then come out as debt-riddled workers leaving without a true goal in mind, due to the goal being achieved already & now just ready to be partaken upon. Whether the student is paying to go to college, or has already paid to go, & is merely working already to pay the state back after getting a nifty loan for a possible 4 year degree, the problem is dead center of it all, the students are paying to learn or for what they learned. Is there not a better way of handling this? I never seemed to understand the concept of paying to make a better of yourself, when the payments brought forth is used as the limitation of how much you better yourself.

Th
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This is not intended to be an article. This is a request for help. Between June 25th and June 27th Toronto will be the host of the G8 meeting. Our so-called leaders will be meeting to further debate and work towards their failed plan for the New World Order. As usual our money (taxpayers) will be spent on their luxurious accomodations, their bullet-proof limos and thousands of riot police. Basically our money will be used to subdue us.
We can no longer tolarate the status-quo. We must act and act accordingly. The main goal is to take back our streets and not allow the meeting to take place. Due to the fact that what I say here may reach the hands of some who would like to stop us from succeeding, I cannot give too many details here. If anyone is interested please contact me and more details are available.
We need to unite and we need to work together. Anyone who is willing to dedicate their time and put their well-being on the line is encouraged to come to Toronto and participate in stoping this upcoming event. I am looking for people who are not into destroying private property but who want to stop this meeting from happening. I am not interested in anarchists; there should be as little violence as possible, although if the riot police want to engage in nasty confrontations we shall be ready.
"The people united will never be defeated!"

Mr. Happy (dope_31@hotmail.com)
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Transformative Critique: Directional Measures and Laws on Property Rights

Like what the typical Trotskyist “transitional” critic would say, the list of directional measures preceding the Basic Principles is not as exhaustive as it should be from a social-abolitionist perspective, and may not be as exhaustive as it could be from even a proletocratic perspective. Some of the measures look like they could easily fit into the principles.

Consider one particular measure raised by Mike Macnair in his book on revolutionary strategy – for some reason as an “immediate” measure but tied to his background as a legal academic:

Abolition of constitutional guarantees of the rights of private property and freedom of trade.

While this looks like it could easily fit into the maximalist program of social labour, there is an element of subtlety that makes it only directional but nevertheless nothing less than directional: constitutional guarantees. For example, Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone of the magazine Dollars and Sense: Real World Economics noted in 2006 that the Venezuelan government engaged in similar measures to the one enacted by the Paris Commune on cooperatives:

[i]In a more typically confrontational example, displaced workers first occupied a sugar refinery in Cumanacoa and restarted it on their own. [b]The federal government then expropriated the property and turned it over to cooperatives of the plant's workers. The owners' property rights were
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Participatory Socialist International?: Critique of Michael Albert and Hugo Chavez on Internationals



CARACAS – In late November 2009, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez addressed the International Encounter of Left Parties by making an announcement: that “it is time to convene the Fifth International, and I dare to make the call, which I think is a necessity. I dare to request that we create my proposal.” Agreeing to the proposed establishment of “the Fifth Socialist International as a space for socialist-oriented parties, movements and currents in which we can harmonize a common strategy for the struggle against imperialism, the overthrow of capitalism by socialism” were, among others: the ruling Movement Towards Socialism in Bolivia, the Proposal for an Alternative Society in Chile, and the recently strengthened Socialist Alliance in Australia (resulting from the revolutionary liquidation of the Democratic Socialist Perspective). Even the ruling party, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV), affirmed this resolution in its First Extraordinary Congress held a day after.

Things were not entirely smooth, however. Delegates from the mass reformist parties Die Linke in Germany and the Parti de gauche in France “expressed interest in the proposal but said they would consult with their various parties.” A representative from the ruling Brazilian reformist party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), said the Sao Paolo Forum was sufficient. Many Communis
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"Stalin indeed looked forward to profiting from an Anglo-German conflict. In a letter of September 7 [1939] to Georgii Dimitrov, the head of the Communist International, Stalin wrote that 'we are not against' a war between capitalist states in which they 'would weaken each other.' Hitler, nolens volens [aka unwillingly], was on his way to destroying the capitalist system. Poland, Stalin added, was just another 'bourgeois fascist state,' and 'What would be wrong if in the destruction of Poland [as a bourgeois state] we spread the socialist system to new inhabitants in new territories?'"
(Alfred Erich Senn. Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above. New York: 2007. p. 21.)

"We do not only recognize, but we also give full support to the principle of self-determination, wherever it is directed against feudal, capitalist and imperialist states. But wherever the fiction of self-determination, in the hands of the bourgeoisie, becomes a weapon directed against the proletarian revolution, we have no occasion to treat this fiction differently from the other 'principles' of democracy perverted by capitalism."
(L. Trotsky. Between Red and White, Chap. IX. 1922.)

All too often we see many Communists and Anarchists oppose imperialism (specifically social-imperialism, which shall be my focus) based on "national" grounds. That is, that the disappearance of a state automatically constitutes "imperialism." This is the logic used when, for example, the Soviets moved into east
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[SIZE=2]Literature is an important communication medium whose analysis can provide a deeper understanding of the interests, lives and perceptions of those who read and write it.

I say “read and write” because I think that mode, degree and focus of the consumption of literary works is perhaps more important than the actual creative process – that is, the ideas and perceptions which cause someone to write a piece of literature, as well as the method and character of that production. When journalists report on issues, it is a lot more meaningful (in regards to the study of literature as a cultural phenomenon, at least), for instance, what papers are being read rather than the specifics of what is being reported. An unpopular journalist may indeed provide a much clearer, honest expression of the issue s/he discusses, but if their articles are largely being ignored, they can only provide a valuable asset to understanding the issue, not the character of literature in society.

Subsequently, I would say this of literature: while it is a very real expression of the lives and thoughts of those who write it, I would be wary of investing much trust in the medium in general. History, for instance, is almost uniformly understood through the eyes of specific historians and authors who documented their own ideas. It is for this reason that ancient and classical history especially suffer from a very narrow perspective provided solely from a few
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Dear Friends,

After some political developments in Andhra Pradesh the Central UPA government led by Congress(I) declared at midnight on 10th[SIZE=3] December 2009,, without consulting any of the concerned, more particularly without taking into confidence the people of Andhra Pradesh, that the process for formation of separate Telangana statewould be initiated. As a reaction to this,through out Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra regions of the statewe are witnessing a wide spread emotional out burst[FONT=Arial]. Through out the country also demands for separate Bodoland, Goorkha land, Vidarbha, Bundelkhand, Kurg, Sourashtra, Mithilanchal, Haritpradesh, Purvanchal etc.,have come to the fore again. All the political parties are trying to u
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