Month: May 2005

Fewer cheese-rollers injured than usual .

Update
And the article is pretty damn funny too. You crazy Brits.

Couple of weeks back, I wrote about the march by folk in the Kennedy Road informal settlement, who protested with other residents of their ward here in Durban to unseat their ANC (previously Democratic Alliance, and National Party before that) councillor. A full article’s up at the Voice of the Turtle, co-written with the estimable Richard Pithouse. So here’s an update. The ANC responded valiantly and bravely to criticism last week, calling one of the community leaders at 4pm to tell him that he’d been summoned to a meeting at 7pm. The community rocks up at 7 on the dot, and are told to wait outside because the ANC is caucusing. The ruling party caucuses, and then invites the informal settlement residents in. “No,” they say. “We’re caucusing too.” “Sorry,” says the ANC. “We’ve got some very important people in here. You can caucus later.”

Continue reading “The ANC’s Winter of Discontent”

The French have told Chirac et al to fuck off. “In the final count, the “no” won by a clear 2 million votes, 55 % from the left (from the Socialist Party and left) and 45 % from the right (including the UMP, the UDF and the National Front). Seventy five per cent of industrial workers and 66% of employees, voted no.”, says Nick Bullard, who has just returned from the vin rouged celebrations in Paris.

Continue reading “55% Non!”

The anti-corporate globalisation movement has a friend at BadCorp.org. There’s a helpful “Corporate Shitlist” and a solid “Who owns whom” database. Good times and straight talk here.

Just in case the nice people at Private Eye decide they don’t want to remark on this, I’d like to offer the following observation on similarity. Exhibit A: Steven Berkoff, thespian, man frequently typecast as a vaguely European psychopath.
Exhibit B: Pascal Lamy, former European trade negotiator, now head of the World Trade Organisation.

Not a few folk have been trying to cash in on Star Wars fever to further their campaigns. MoveOn have their Save the Republic soapbox. Best to date, though, is one following in the footsteps of The Meatrix . Grocery Store Wars is chock full of puns for those strong with The Force. For those who’ve been untouched by Star Wars, it has visual gags far funnier than a cheap short film about vegetables has any right to. Star Wars and organic food. Who could ask for anything more? Well, me. If you’re going to bring down the military-industrial-food complex, it’s going to take a little more than picking up organic food off the shelves. It’s like shopping in the Death Star. But, at the end of the day, it’s a movie funded by the Organic Trade Association. Clearly a bunch of trekkies. [Via Tom.]

It’s not stalking. It’s being prepared.

The Newsweek fiasco vindicates Naomi Klein’s sensible thoughts on torture – the bodies subject to misinformation and disorientation aren’t only the ones living the horrors in Abu Ghraib. But only one blogger has had the courage to speak the difficult truth. That blogger is Medium Lobster. Quoth: Continue reading “Disinformation and pitchforks”

George Galloway has been busy doing what he’s good at – pissing people off. In style too. At the U.S. Senate. I don’t think I could imagine more delightful testimony short of Jon Stewart being summoned. For instance: Continue reading “George Galloway Did Not Happen”

I don’t want to become a documenter of Thabo Mbeki’s mots justes , not least because I’d be kept very busy thus. But given my activities over the past week, here’s one too priceless to let pass. Continue reading “The Logic of Protest”