Mass Global Action Blogsphere

Bursts, Ruptures and Floods

(Suren Moodliar) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:32:43 -0700

Short note: Today, I parsed my way through 2 decades of Globe and Herald coverage of the Boston Water and Sewer Commission in addition to some on the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority. Not fun! But some themes seem to repeat themselves: these are public entities with massive responsibilities and oversized mandates; the main instances of media coverage occur in cases of failure; and, the Boston Harbor clean up will be with us for a long time. In the case of the Herald, almost all coverage is simply critical and/or cynical. Howie Carr, as one would expect, has nothing positive to say about these non-private entities... Whiffs of scandal, a burst pipe, a backup...these set fingers flying across keyboards...

Rove's Retirement

(Suren Moodliar) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 08:46:29 -0700

To write that Bush's brain is about to retire would be an anachronism: surely it did that a long time ago. Today we read that Karl Rove is about to retire and write a book on the Bush presidency. This is not something that I either welcome or disdain; like other uber-strategists, Dick Morris or James Carville, Rove embodied the amoral ethos that one should win at any cost. Constituencies are simply there to be activated and wielded for the benefit of this or that campaign.

Continue reading "Rove's Retirement"

The Partnership

(Suren Moodliar) — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 10:59:32 -0700

Several election cycles ago, there was a Washington flap over whether or not China was a "strategic partner" of the United States. Echoing old racist language, National Review labelled the Clinton administration's self-characterization of its China policy, "inscrutable." By the time of 2000 US presidential election campaign, candidate George W. Bush rejected the idea of a partnership, framing China instead as a competitor. In a matter of months, with Bush now at the helm of the American government, China and the US were taken to the brink of confrontation over the downing of a US airplane allegedly in Chinese airspace. That was then!

Continue reading "The Partnership"

Before Strategizing, or If Youre So Smart, Whats the Answer?

(Suren Moodliar) — Thu, 31 May 2007 23:36:19 -0700

Neither smart nor filled with answers, I humble myself here by thinking aloud about antiwar strategy. I also want to clearly state some of starting points. My first departure point may reduce my readership by half! It is that masses of peopleself-organizing networks and communitiesmostly acting independently of the parties remain among the most decisive forces for ending and preventing wars. Yes, masses of people, not well-positioned elites, not savvy strategists, not self-sacrificing organizers, but ordinary folks reacting to their sense of what's right and wrong remain the bellwether.

Continue reading "Before Strategizing, or If Youre So Smart, Whats the Answer?"

Cindy Sheehan's Challenge

(Suren Moodliar) — Wed, 30 May 2007 23:10:36 -0700

Writing as someone who has helped organize events that featured Cindy Sheehan, I want to support her declaration concerning the Democratic Partys relationship to the antiwar project. I also want to extend my sympathy to and express my solidarity with Cindy Sheehan and the tens of thousands of grassroots organizers who are the fabric of the antiwar movement. In reviewing the first wave of responses to the Resignation Statement (RS), I have come to ask more questions about the state of our movement.

Continue reading "Cindy Sheehan's Challenge"

Workers to Kennedy: No to Guest-Worker Programs

(Suren Moodliar) — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:18:03 -0700

Earlier today, fretting under the weight of a report that Senator Ted Kennedy was in a meeting with George W. Bush and Republican lawmakers to discuss immigration reform, Kim Foltz and I departed from our usual workday to join a delegation organized by the Anti-Displacement Project (A-DP, Springfield, MA), the Irish Immigration Center and the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition (Boston, MA) to visit with the senior senator's staff. There was a single, consistent theme to the meeting: migrants rights are workers rights. Here's a decidedly idiosyncratic account of the action.
Continue reading "Workers to Kennedy: No to Guest-Worker Programs"

Blogging Again?!

(Suren Moodliar) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 14:42:38 -0700

The more than 2 million viewers of Web anthropologist Michael Wesch's "Machine is Us/ing Us" learn that a new blog is born every half second! For Mass Global Action and, no doubt, hundreds of other activist groups, the utility of the blog form as a means of communication and therewith a gateway for challenging the ruling ideas has yet to be established.

Continue reading "Blogging Again?!"

Kissinger, Milosovic and Justice Deferred

(Suren Moodliar) — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 17:15:02 -0800

On the same day that Mass Global Action joined with nearly 50 other protestors, from the Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, to protest Henry Kissinger and his troupe of war criminals at the Kennedy Library in Boston, we learnt of the death of Slobodon Milosovic. While the death of the Balkan Butcher leaves us cold, we can't help notice the curious symmetry by which the powerful cheat justice. If death was Milosovic's escape, it is the hipocrisy and indifference to international law of the US political establishment that allows Kissinger, Haig, and Clark to go untried for their crimes.

Continue reading "Kissinger, Milosovic and Justice Deferred"

Time to Celebrate: Record 793 Billionaires

(Suren Moodliar) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 17:21:38 -0800

Forget about soaring trade deficits, volatile energy prices, and assorted attempts to inflame religious civil wars! Forget also about the slowest economic recovery in recent US history. Forbes magazine reports that the number of billionaires around the world has soared by 102 to 793! Cumulatively our billionaires are now worth $2.6 trillion. Interestingly, the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) help explain this 15% surge in the numbers.

Programmed to Cooperate?

(Suren Moodliar) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 16:42:25 -0800

Not too long ago, anthropologists and other scholars looked to primate behavior to gain insights into human nature. Chimpanzees, assorted other apes and even monkeys, after all, are closely related to human beings and so it was assumed that common behaviors between them and us are probably hard wired into our genes. Feminists soon showed how the selection of species for study was used to justify theories concerning the sexual division of labor. Later, especially as scholars began to merge insights from evolutionary theory and genetics, claiming causal connections between behaviors and "human nature" came to be seen as simplistic at best. Recent studies of capuchin monkeys--whatever intention of researchers--have served to justify the current dominant economic system. Now come 2 chimpanzee studies published in Science (journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science) suggest that a propensity for altruistic behavior and cooperation may help explain human evolutionary success!

Winter Break

networking@massglobalaction.org (Jason Pramas) — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 00:59:00 -0800

Hi folks,

Just an FYI that we'll be taking a much-needed Winter Break for a month. We'll be doing some housecleaning virtually and in our non-virtual office, and just kickin' back after a busy year.

We'll be back in mid-January--rested (more or less) and ready to blog.

Have a good holiday!

Cheers,

Jason
MGA

Nestlé versus Franklin County, ME

(Suren Moodliar) — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 19:18:52 -0800

The $67 billion corporation that cajoled, coerced, bamboozled and otherwise convinced medical establishments and mothers around the world to spurn breastfeeding in favor of risky infant formula, is taking on Franklin County in Maine.

Continue reading "Nestlé versus Franklin County, ME"

Closed Meetings Close Democracy

networking@massglobalaction.org (Jason Pramas) — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 10:25:00 -0800

An open meeting law being pushed by Common Cause and the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association is running into the type of difficulties that have proved all too common in the latest session of the Massachusetts Legislature.
Continue reading "Closed Meetings Close Democracy"

Reflections on the National Day of Mourning

networking@massglobalaction.org (Jason Pramas) — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 19:18:00 -0800

I had occasion to spend this year's National Day of Mourning (Thanksgiving) at my cousin's house in N. Attleborough, MA. And while it was pleasant enough--food plentiful and tasty, light conversation, cute kids running about--anytime spent south of Boston always makes me think of one of the nastier episodes in American history. King Philip's War. Participating, even half-heartedly, in a holiday glorifying the start of the European conquest of North America, in the same region where many of the war's most intense battles were fought sends a chill through the very core of my being.
Continue reading "Reflections on the National Day of Mourning"

Turning the Tide in Holyoke

(Jonathan Leavitt) — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 09:34:20 -0800

A grassroots campaign to turn back the privatization of the Holyoke Wastewater system was successful during the November 8th election, winning 57% of the vote in a non-binding referendum question.

Now some City Councilors are taking the next step by filing the motion below which calls for the termination of the privatization contract. If this is implemented it would be as a result of the determination of elected officials such as Helen Norris as well as the on-going work of a grassroots organization called Holyoke Citizens for Open Government, both of which have fought back against the mayoral led privatization steamroller.

Continue reading "Turning the Tide in Holyoke"