Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for World Revolution

Occupy Wall Street | NYC Protest for World Revolution

PolEco: An article on Ka Popoy Lagman on InterAksyon, in commemoration of his death last Feb 6, 2001

KA POPOY REMEMBERED | Inspiring Filipino workers 12 years after his death

By: Merk Maguddayao
February 10, 2013 7:04 AM

Friends and family commemorate the 12th death anniversary of Ka Popoy Lagman at the steps to Bahay ng Alumni in UP, where he was gunned down by still unknown assassins. BMP PHOTO

InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5

Merk Maguddayao is a cultural activist with the Sanlakas bloc and a founding member of Laya Sining. The views he expresses here are entirely his. 

Mentioning the name Popoy Lagman will draw mixed reactions from people who know him or of him.

To those he led and influenced, he was maverick master of polemics who never minced words in attacking the political follies of his party and comrades. He was fear-inspiring leader of the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB), the dreaded Manila-based communist militia known for its vigilante operations against “enemies of the masses." He was also the tireless and feisty working-class leader who fought for socialism as an alternative to capitalism.

The man headed the communist movement in Metro Manila during Martial Law and later defected from the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) after rejecting its Maoist and Stalinist orientation. He then formed an alternative Marxist movement that put premium on the emancipation of the working class and the formation of a workers-led government. He was felled down by an assassin’s bullet 12 years ago.

A dozen years hence, it is still uncertain who ordered his murder.

But for his close comrades at the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), the labor federation he formed immediately after the split from the CPP in the early 1990s, who killed him does not matter anymore.

“Hindi makakamit ang hustisya para kay Ka Popoy sa simpleng paghahanap sa kung sino-sinong pumatay sa kanya (There will be no justice for Ka Popoy in the simple search for those who killed him),” explained Victor Briz, a long-time leader of BMP from Southern Metro Manila.

“Wala tayong inaasahang pagpupursigi mula sa ating gobyerno para makamit iyan. Ang tunay na hustisya para kay Ka Popoy ay makakamit lamang sa paglaya ng uring manggagawa (We cannot rely on any effort from the government to get that. The real justice for Ka Popoy will only be achieved in the liberation of the working class),” he said.

Here lies the Filemon “Ka Popoy” Lagman’s indelible legacy in history: He fought for neither his personal nor organizational gains per se. He stood for the class interest of the Filipino workers, and the workers of the world in general. He was not content in merely serving the people, or fighting merely for the liberation of the Philippines from US imperialism, or even in simply toppling a corrupt and incompetent president only to be replaced by other members from the elite class. He pushed for socialism, a system wherein political and economic power lies in the hands of the workers.

Prescience

Despite being “abrasive, harshly polemical, and brutally frank” (as his close companions described him), and much to the chagrin of the Jose Ma. Sison-led CPP, Ka Popoy was a Filipino revolutionary with a profound ideological sharpness and sincerity. At the risk of being “disciplined,” including the penalty of death, he did not shirk from criticizing the dogmatic strategy and tactics of the CPP, and later the adventurist tendencies of the post-split ABB.

He may not have had the biggest number of followers in the Philippine Left, but history has proven that the political line of his bloc has been consistently correct and prescient. These included the participation of the Manila-Rizal unit of the CPP in the 1978 Interim Batasang Pambansa elections, when the CPP central leadership called for boycott; the participation of CPP-led forces in the first EDSA Revolution, when the CPP insisted on its militarist strategy; the campaign against economic globalization in 1990s which resulted in trade liberalization, labor contractualization, and privatization of key industries in the Philippines and which in 2007 resulted in the still-raging global financial crisis; and at the tail end of his life, the “Resign All” call in EDSA II at a time when everybody called for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to replace the beleaguered Joseph Estrada.

Spending more than 30 years in the revolutionary movement, Ka Popoy’s prescience was founded not on whims but was a result of his vigor in mastering scientific socialism and dialectical materialism, his tool of analysis in assessing local, national, and even international situations. He did not parrot or copy-paste abstract dogmas and set them as solutions for all situations.

His ideological wizardry culminated in the publication of the Counter Thesis documents that unmasked the CPP’s dogmatic and unscientific and unrealistic program of protracted people’s war and the struggle for national democracy -- a document that has never been officially answered by the CPP up to this day.

Renewal and redemption

Under Ka Popoy’s leadership, a new batch of activists were recruited to the Left after the split and a renewed call for radical change ushered in what Sonny Melencio, Ka Popoy’s long-time comrade and current chairman of the Partido Lakas ng Masa, termed as the “Second Period” in the Philippine Left.

This new batch, popularly called “Rejectionists” (or RJ, although the RJs would later further divide into more contending blocs), primarily defined themselves as revolutionary socialists, combined various forms of struggles and revolutionary tactics, and opened its doors to various forces in society, thus eschewing the sectarianism of the old.

After Ka Popoy’s death, the Philippine revolutionary movement may still be divided, and people may say that it has weakened, but the worldwide crisis of the capitalist order has worsened. As Ka Popoy predicted in 1999, “Globalization by its very nature transforms the economic turmoil in one nation into a world crisis.”

Despite the political ebb of the Philippine Left under the PNoy administration and the continuous backwardness of Philippine society, Ka Popoy's forecast offers a word of hope for those who desire for systemic change to usher in a humane world: “The first decade of the new millennium will be the eve of the socialist revolution in the era of globalization.”

Currently, the socialist movement is gaining strength in Latin America, with the establishment of socialist-led governments in Venezuela and Bolivia, the popularization of Left politics in other Latin American states, and the increasing protests in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East against the bankruptcy of the rule of the 1 percent.

The struggle for radical change might be far from over, and Ka Popoy would never have the chance to witness what he called “the Armageddon of capitalism,” but for as long as the exploitation of the many by the elite few exists, Ka Popoy’s determination and tenacity for change will continue to inspire the powerless.

PolEco: SC Urged to Reverse Ruling on Angat Dam - An article from the Freedom from Debt Coalition website

SC urged to reverse ruling on Angat Dam
Wednesday, 07 November 2012 00:00

Various cause-oriented groups, led by the Freedom from Debt Coalition, urged the Supreme Court to reverse its 09 October 2012 ruling on the sale of 246-megawatt Angat hydroelectric power plant (HEPP) by the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM) to Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-Water).

In a 10-page Motion for Partial Reconsideration, FDC, together with the Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS) Inc., Akbayan Citizen’s Action Party and Alliance of Progressive Labor said the sale of the facility violates the Philippine Constitution, particularly Article XII, Section 2.

Article XII, Section 2 of the Constitution provides that “the exploration, development, and utilization of natural resources shall be under the full control and supervision of the State.” Petitioners fear that, if traversed to its logical conclusion, the decision effectively allows wholly foreign-owned corporations to engage in the exploration, development and utilization of State-owned water and other natural resources notwithstanding the clear nationality restrictions prescribed in the Constitution. “Thus, no ‘charter change’ would be necessary to allow foreigners and foreign-owned corporations to explore, develop, utilize – and even exploit – the State’s natural resources, including water. All they have to do is follow the decision this Honorable Court in the case at bar,” the petition says.

The petitioners likewise say that the SC’s reliance on the amended build-operate-transfer (BOT) Law is misplaced. “While it is true that under the Amended BOT Law, wholly-owned foreign corporations are allowed to undertake construction, rehabilitation and development of hydropower plants, the glaring fact ignored by the decision that the instant case had nothing to do with the Amended BOT Law,” the petition says. The privatization of Angat HEPP was made pursuant to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) and not under the Amended BOT Law, the groups stressed.

The petitioners also say that the High Court “erred in its finding that the process of power generation does not amount to utilization of natural resources.” Petitioners claim that “power generation cannot operate without water. Hence, in the power generation process, water – a natural resource specifically mentioned in Sec. 2, Art. 12 – is indispensable. The operation of the AHEPP cannot be separated from the Dam Complex from which it draws its source of power.” “Very clearly, to maximize the use of the water from Angat Dam, the complex – the Reservoir, Dam, and HEPP - must be operated as an indivisible whole,” the petition says.

The petitioners likewise argue that the SC should have declared null and void the bidding process and the issuance of notice of award (NOA) to K-Water by PSALM, in consideration of the petitioners’ right to information. According to the petitioners, the High Court, instead of invalidating the bidding process and the eventual issuance of NOA to K-Water merely directed PSALM to allow petitioners access to the requested documents and records pertaining to K-Water. In its October 9 decision penned by Associate Justice Martin Villarama Jr, the Supreme Court, although allowing the sale, still partially granted the petitioners' request and ruled that the National Power Corporation should keep its controlling power over the dam’s hydropower generation, subject to the rules and regulations of the National Water Resources Board. All 14 magistrates concurred with Villarama, except for Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., who wrote a dissenting opinion. Velasco argued that the agreements “violate the Constitution,” stressing that “the use of natural resources in the operation of a power by foreign corporation is contrary to the words and spirit of the Constitution.”

“The O&M (Operation and Maintenance) is more straightforward, in that it expressly authorizes the operator, K-Water, to administer and manage non-power components, which it defines as ‘the Angat Dam, no-power equipment, facilities and installations, and appurtenance devices and structures which are particularly described in Annex 1’. While it is true, as PSALM argues, that Angat Dam itself is not being sold, the operation and management of the same is being handed to a wholly foreign corporation. This cannot be countenanced under the express limitations in Constitution and the Water Code.”

Respondents to the case are the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corp. (PSALM), Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), National Irrigation Administration (NIA), Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-Water), First Gen Northern Energy Corporation, San Miguel Corporation (SMC), SN Aboitiz Power-Pangasinan, Inc., Trans-Asia Oil and Energy Development Corporation, and DMCI Power Corporation.

Under Republic Act 9136 or EPIRA, PSALM is mandated to privatize all the assets of the National Power Corporation, including the Angat HEPP. On April 28, K-Water, a utility wholly-owned and controlled by the Republic of South Korea, submitted the highest bid, amounting to $440.8 million, among six qualified bidders. Angat Dam is the single-most important water source of Metro Manila as it provides 97 percent of the water needs of at least 12 million residents of the country’s capital and irrigates some 31,000 hectares of farms across 20 towns and municipalities in Bulacan and Pampanga.

 

PolEco: Edsa is still unfinished revolution? For whom?

According to P-Noy, Edsa People Power 1 is still an unfinished revolution, but for whom? What have Edsa 1 and Edsa 2 done for the Filipinos? What has changed since the overthrow of the dictatorship? What lessons can be learned from the Edsa uprisings?

Nothing has changed since the Filipinos had overthrown the dictator. Prices of commodities have continued to move up. Basic necessities are still hard to achieve or acquire. Majority of the people still lives in poverty. One positive lesson one can learn from the edsa uprisings was that the Filipinos can, in numbers and in unity, mount a revolution to change the political landscape of the country. But the People Power uprisings were exercises in futility, because the fruits are stolen by the elite: the leaders of the opposing party, the military leaders, and the church elite. What Edsa 1 and 2 installed afterwards are elite democracy, and not true democracy for the people. What we want are changes in the economic and political policies and laws. Curbing corruption is just part of the total change we need to happen in the government. More important than curbing corruption is to replace the laws that are not for the benefit of the masses. The oil deregulation law (law which removed government regulation on pricing of oil) must be scrapped. Epira law (law which opens the power industry to investors and manipulate the pricing based on its supply and demand) must be scrapped. The Herrera law (law which mandates that companies can hire contractuals if they deemed it necessary, based on their profits) must be replaced with one that will ensure workers' security of tenure, and not just the 5 months-5 months per company, without the benefits of a regular employee. And other laws on the security on housing, food, and clothing. Read the PDI article and tremble with indignation !!!

Aquino: Edsa is still unfinished revolution

PolEco: Pictures from the Green Democratic Socialists of Arkansas

Pictures from the Green Democratic Socialists of Arkansas - taken from the "United Left All Over The World" FB page ...

PolEco: Looking Back: Highlights of the Occupy Wall Street Movement (from the OWS website)

2011: A Year in Revolt

Posted 1 day ago on Jan. 3, 2012, 7:52 a.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

2011 will be remembered as a year of revolution, the beginning of the end for an unsustainable global system based on poverty, oppression, and violence. In dozens of countries across the Arab world, people rose up against broken economies and oppressive regimes, toppling dictators and inspiring the world to action. Popular rejection of austerity measures and attacks on worker's rights brought millions to the streets in Greece, Iceland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Chile, Wisconsin and elsewhere.
By midsummer, murmurs of "occupying Wall Street” were stirring online, and on July 14th, we registered the domain occupywallst.org and began organizing. The first New York City General Assembly was held August 2nd and the Occupation of Liberty Square began on September 17th.
Fueled by anger at the growing disparities between rich and poor, frustrated by government policies that benefit a tiny elite at the expense of the majority, and tired of the establishment’s failure to address fundamental economic inequalities, OWS offered a new solution. We built a People’s Kitchen to feed thousands, opened a People’s Library, created safer spaces, and provided free shelter, bedding, medical care, and other necessities to anyone who needed them. While cynics demanded we elect leaders and make demands on politicians, we were busy creating alternatives to those very institutions. A revolution has been set in motion, and we cannot be stopped.
As the mainstream media ignored us, we learned from other leaderless resistance movements in places like Tunisia, Egypt, and Iran to use social media and live video streaming to spread our message. We are part of a global movement that has radically democratized how information is created and shared, rendering centralized, corporate-funded mainstream media increasingly irrelevant. The rapid exchange of information allowed us to make collective decisions quickly, discuss information and ideas across the globe, mobilize effective direct actions, and document police brutality. Now more than ever, when we chant “The Whole World Is Watching!” it is not an idle threat.
Today, tens of thousands of everyday people are putting ideals like solidarity, mutual aid, anti-oppression, autonomy, and direct democracy into practice. Individuals are joining together in city-wide General Assemblies and autonomous affinity groups. Through consensual, non-hierarchical and participatory self-governance, we are literally laying the framework for a new world by building it here and now -- and it works.
The rest is history. In honor of a new year, here is a run-down of what we accomplished since then. It would be impossible to list every action or mention every place an Occupation has occurred. But let us start a new year by celebrating a few highlights of our victories -- along with a sneak preview of what's to come!

Read More...

PolEco: Hundred thousands rally in Russia against Putin and Medvedev (from the Occupy Wall Street website)

We are the 146% - Russians Refuse to be Rooked as 120,000 March in Moscow

Posted 1 day ago on Dec. 24, 2011, 12:20 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt

© Антон Тушин/Ridus.ru

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of Russians marched in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and several other cities decrying the recent parliamentary election results. In the largest series of protests since the fall of the Soviet Union 20 years ago people have united across political affiliations shouting, “We exist! We exist!”
The protests began December 4th - shortly after election results were released showing in some instances returns that totaled as high as 146% of the popular vote. Russians took to the streets, chanting, “Putin is a thief” and “Russia without Putin.” By the following Saturday, people turned out en masse (estimates range from 25,000-100,000) for a protest in Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square. It was accompanied by dozens of smaller rallies across Russia’s nine time zones.
During the election, ballot boxes were stuffed; monitors shooed away; voter registrations bought, sold, and forged; and teams of United Russia activists bussed from precinct to precinct to vote early and often, in a process called "The Carousel."
The elections were not a surprise. Last September the current President Dmitry Medvedev announced Vladimir Putin would run again for the presidency, a post that he held from 2000 to 2008 and an impossibility until a recent amendment to the Russian Constitution.
This revealed a level of cronyism, long suspected - Medvedev has been cast as “Robin to Putin’s Batman”. Some Russians now snidely refer to this political maneuvering as “rokirovka” - the Russian word for castling in chess, the move in which a rook and the king are moved at the same time, to shelter the king. This “castling move” will allow Mr. Medvedev to assume Mr. Putin’s job as prime minister after the elections March 4th - an agreement according to Putin that was reached “a long time ago, several years back.”
This announcement was understandably met with public outrage and frustration. Putin’s approval ratings went down. Vladimir Aristarkhov, a local publishing house employee, explained, “Our local version of Dr. Evil and his Mini-Me will stay in power as long as they can.” At the time there were a few small protests but nothing compared with the magnitude of crowds post-election, inspired by people-powered movements across the globe.
The demonstrations are a welcoming sign of a popular social movement organizing in opposition to the self-described "Putin regime". They also countered a long-standing belief that the only groups capable of mass mobilization in Russia are extreme nationalists.
"I guess I just got tired of whining about Putin on my blog," says Sergei, 31, an IT engineer. "I felt like I had to actually do something, something real."
As of November 2011, Russia has more Internet users than any other country in Europe, and the country's blogosphere, with about 5 million blogs and 30 million monthly readers, has become the last truly free space for political discourse in Russia's tightly controlled media.
In a departure from “business as usual” Russian national television actually covered the uprisings. Newspaper reports claimed a veteran news anchor, Alexei Pivovarov, refused broadcast if he could not cover the protests, thereby, forcing media outlets to cover the December 24th protests as well.
During a recent four and half hour radio interview Putin suggested that the protesters were being paid and ridiculed them. But Putin’s hubris and glib mockery seem to have gone a step too far. "They let the genie out of the bottle on Sept. 24,” said Ilya Ponomaryov, one of the protest organizers. A Muscovite tweeter, Aafinogen, stated that during Mr. Putin's speech the number of people signed up on Facebook for the protest December 24th rose by 3,500 people, totaling 21,500.
The December 24th demonstration in Moscow, Ралли За честные выборы (Rally For Fair Elections) or #D24, took place at Sakharov Avenue around 2pm (MSD, UTC+4) with an estimated 120,000 protesters present. “We have enough people here to take the Kremlin … but we are peaceful people and we won't do that – yet. But if these crooks and thieves keep cheating us, we will take what is ours." said activist, anti-corruption lawyer and blogger Alexei Navalny who spent 15 days in jail for his participation in demonstrations on Dec. 5th.
Blatant fraud during the Dec. 4th parliamentary elections was critical in mobilizing the middle class, who for years has remained otherwise apathetic or silent about the political climate. The rally today was larger than previous demonstrations, and along with several protests held in other cities and towns throughout Russia, indicates that this is indeed a growing protest movement. "There are so many of us here, and they [the government] are few … They are huddled up in fear behind police cordons," said former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, one of many speakers at today’s rally.
In the Pacific port of Vladivostok, demonstrators carried posters calling for Mr. Putin to be put on trial and regional MP Artyom Samsonov said the election results should be cancelled. Novosibirsk, Siberia held a rally of 800-1,500 peaceful demonstrators. About 100 marched bravely in Orenburg, on the Kazakhstan border, despite a heavy frost and temperatures of -15C. Chelyabinsk, a city in the southern Urals, held protests of about 500 under the slogan “These elections were a farce! We want honest elections!”
President Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally and long-standing member of Putin’s regime, promised those and other changes, including the restoration of direct elections for half of parliamentary seats and easing impartial rules for presidential elections, during a national address given Thursday. However, many have expressed discontent with what they perceive as false promises. "These measures are insufficient. They are intended to calm people down and prevent them from showing up at rallies.”, says Arina Zhukova, 45, who attended today’s demonstration in Moscow. Protest organizers have also made it clear that they will keep fighting for a re-election and the punishment of government officials who played a part in the recent election fraud.
A resolution to create the Moscow Voters’ Association to monitor elections for fraud was passed at today’s rally based on concerns expressed during the demonstrations December 10th, when fifty thousand people assembled in Moscow.
At today’s rally, 22 speakers were expected to attend, where the opposition addressed a politically diverse crowd. Yury Shevchuk, a Russian rock musician, told protesters to keep their dignity and avoid “competing in hatred for the authorities” by video message. Grigory Yavlinsky, presidential candidate and veteran liberal, spoke in person, calling for a free electoral system. Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet leader, was unable to attend, but sent a message of support for the protesters instead.
Russia has long been known as a hot bed of oligarchic cronyism and corruption – Putin was a member of the KGB – but until now opposition and dissent has been limited to predominantly Internet activity. However, with new insight into how national politics are cavalierly decided in secrecy, Russians are incensed. Finding inspiration in people-powered movements across the globe, they are using the virtual space they have created to capture the physical.

PolEco: Catholic Church's brand of Occupy Movement presents Manifesto

Pinoy �'Occupy' movement presents manifesto

PolEco: Catholic Church-initiated Occupy movement targets the heartless market

View this column from GMA News Online on the Philippine Roman Catholic Church's stand re the Occupy Wall Street Movement

Catholic Church-initiated Occupy movement targets the heartless market

Muisc & Arts: Metal Hammer » Blog Archive » Dave Mustaine: “The Government Is Destroying The US”

Metal Hammer » Blog Archive » Dave Mustaine: “The Government Is Destroying The US”

Dave Mustaine of Megadeth, a heavy metal band, speaks on the Occupy Wall Street Movement. Although shallow in analysis, this is a welcome development from a rocker who is beginning to see the real world. Other rock bands should also support the movement through free concerts, logistics provision, and help in encouraging others to join. Woodstock 1969 can always be revived, but this time, it's not anti-war, but anti capitalists.