To think that I was one of those deeply ill-informed people who thought that ‘resistance’ was merely the the ratio of the potential difference across an electric component to the current passing through it.
Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I was so wrong:
RESISTANCE means saying no. No to contempt, arrogance and economic bullying. No to the new masters of the world: high finance, the countries of the G8, the Washington consensus, the dictatorship of the market and unchecked free trade. No to the quartet of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. No to hyper-production. To genetically modified crops. To permanent privatisations. To the relentless spread of the private sector. No to exclusion. No to sexism. No to social regression, poverty, inequality and the dismantling of the welfare state.
No to the abandonment of the South. No to the daily deaths of 30,000 poor children. No to the destruction of the environment. No to the military hegemony of a sole superpower. No to “preventive” war, to invasion, to terrorism and to attacks on civilians. No to racism, anti-semitism and islamophobia. No to draconian security measures. No to a police state mentality. No to dumbing-down. To censorship. To media lies. To manipulative media.
Resistance also means saying yes. Yes to solidarity between the six billion inhabitants of this planet. Yes to the rights of women. Yes to a renewed United Nations. Yes to a new Marshall plan to help Africa. Yes to the total elimination of illiteracy. Yes to an international campaign against a technology gap. Yes to an international moratorium that will preserve drinking water.
Yes also to generic medicines for all. To decisive action against Aids. To the preservation of minority cultures. And to the rights of indigenous peoples.
Yes to social and economic justice. And a less market-dominated Europe. Yes to the Porto Alegre Consensus. Yes to a Tobin tax that will benefit citizens. Yes to taxing arms sales. Yes to writing off the debt of the poor nations. Yes to banning tax havens.
To resist is to dream that another world is possible. And to help build it.
Got that? Good. Excellent. Carry on.
Oh, Margeret!
Someone be a dear and go loosen that author’s tinfoil beanie.
What the fuck is hyper-production? And “an international moratorium that will preserve drinking water”? Preserve it from what? I was under the impression that the main problem with drinking water is that far too many people don’t have it. (This number is falling of course due to improved technology, but we won’t go into that).
So the message is no to single superpower and all their nasty capitalist ways except for their money which is needed for the African Marshall plan.
Incidentally it would be interesting if anyone has the figures but I guess the ammount of aid the US has pumped into Africa since WW2 far exceeds anything spent on the Marshall plan.
And David, you forgot to quote the bit where he calls for “a less market dominated Europe”. Absolutely. That’s just what we need. Presumably amongst everything else we should subsidise those poor starving French farmers a little more.
Update: Oh, actually you did quote it. It’s still priceless, however.
Oh yes I forgot the message is no to Islamophobia but yes to womens rights. Do these people even understand
the basics of what they are waffling on about ?
“the abandonment of the South”? Huh?
Obviously not Muslim, then.
“The South” refers to Less Developed or Third World countries.
These are the same yahoos trying to “help” poor 3rd world citizens by warning about the “dangers” of GM food, the “evils” of electricity and clean, running water.
It’s pretty easy and cheap to howl about the evils of the modern world to some poor subsistence farmer whose primary goal is feeding their family when you’re a pampered white socialist from one of the most advanced nations in the world. These are the same idiots screaming at Nike for their “sweatshops”. Like it or not, Nike probably provides that worker a decent wage for that part of the world. What’s their solution, that Nike pack up and leave ’em with nothing but the warm fuzzy feeling that they’ll remain cute, indigenous people?
And free trade advocates are the heartless bastards? We’re the only ones advocating an improved quality of life for the poor of the world.
“No to a police state mentality. No to dumbing-down. To censorship. To media lies. To manipulative media.”
-Amen
So, if I may sum up:
The answer to everything is talking. And dreaming. And talking about dreaming. And dreaming about talking.
OK then. When’s lunch?
Umm, I wonder how does numbnuts square all of his extemely heavy-handed socialist utopia crap without the necessity of the police state and a state controlled media. And what in the world is his plan to take down the world’s only superpower, which not only has the world’s largest economy but also has the world’s most powerful military? My guess; he doesn’t have a plan. He’s just another Marxist addled gasbag in a long line of Marxist gasbags.
What about extracting sunbeams from cucumbers? Dang, I knew they left something out.
“Yes also to generic medicines for all.”
No prozac for you then luv,
“Yes to taxing arms sales.”
Whats the point – half the arms sold in the world are made by government owned French,Russian and Chinese manufacturers. Talk about going round in circles
Getting rid of trade, commerce and all that hyper-production (not to mention preserving minority cultures, and keeping out that imperialist allopathic medicine) is certainly going to push childhood deaths up. But isn’t beating 30,000 a day a rather modest target?
Is this part of the Idiotarian Manifesto?
TWG
My favorite is the “technology gap”. To the millions who starve under Mugabe and elsewhere, those with no or little running water and sanitation, too little food, AIDS, no medicine and who knows what else : you can all take comfort in knowing our “progressives” do worry about your conspicuously painful lack of e-mail and high-speed Internet access.
Let it be known some of us have their priorities straight.
Yes to solidarity between the six billion inhabitants of this planet.
Anyone study group theory?
Solidarity with this Philosopher King perched at the top of course.
I presume the nut also wants these:
Iraq: yes to 40000 civilians killed in Iraq in 2003, 40000 in 2004, 40000 in 2005 and on and on until Saddam croaks. Then either somewhat less or more than 40000 killed by one of Saddam’s sons every year until he croaks and so so on.
Afghanistan: ditto and the full scope of sharia of the Religion of Peace.
How lovely – I suppose the idea is for the followers of the RoP to add multiples to the 100 million killed in a century by the followers of the Religion of Marx.
This guy isn’t dreaming. The earthly paradise he is writing about is being created by his good chum, Venezuelan hard man Hugo Chavez. And it’s killing Venezuela.
The only way is to OVERTHROW the capitalist regime that enslaves us, i mean that’s really obvious, only in a world where everybody is treated with RESPECT, with no WAR, and no GREED, can humanity leave HAPPY FOREVER.
Rejoice my brothers, when finally we are all freed from the Americano-Sionist babilonian system that treats us like numbers and not like individuals with really important differences, then only we will be freed from EVIL. (start chorus all together….)
No frankly i wonder how people can still listen the sort of crap the Moore-Monbiot-Klein-Ramonet churns out. Sounds like a 15 Year old japanese pop star crying her heart out.
To decisive action against Aids.
Um, you mean like “keeping it in your pants,” for a start?