Democracy

Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, lashed out against the CIA on March 11 in a sharply worded 45-minute speech that took other Senators by surprise. President Barack Obama’s appointee to head the CIA, John Brennon, issued a denial a few hours after Feinstein’s speech, virtually charging her with lying. It is no wonder that her speech was a bombshell. Feinstein has a well-earned reputation of being little more than a shill for the CIA, NSA and other spy agencies over the years.

Shuhada Street was the major thoroughfare, and bustling, principle commercial centre, in the Palestinian town of Hebron in the south of the Israeli occupied West Bank. Today, the street is all but deserted, an empty place of boarded-up houses and shuttered shops. On February 25, 1994, a Zionist settler from Kiryat Arba, Baruch Goldstein, shot dead 29 Palestinian civilians and injured 125 more during morning prayers in Hebron's Ibrahimi Mosque.

All political forces in Spain are now straining to adjust to the huge 1 million to 2 million-strong March for Dignity demonstration in Madrid. On March 22, the march greeted the protest columns that had converged on Spain's capital from 12 outlying cities and towns over the previous week. The enormous success of this initiative is still sinking in. How come an initiative that began outside the mainstream union confederations, the Workers Commissions (CCOO) and the General Workers Union (UGT), could mobilise so many people and eventually force them to declare their support?

Cuba & Its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion By Arnold August Fernwood Publishing January 2013 288pp, C$29.95 Surrounded by emerging participatory democracies unshackling themselves from US hegemony, Arnold August writes that Cuba is a laboratory for people-powered politics.

The United Nations general assembly voted on March 27 ― with 100 votes for, 11 against and 58 abstentions ― to not recognise the results of the March 16 referendum in Crimea. In the poll, most voted for the territory to leave Ukraine and join Russia. The resolution was put by Ukraine and sponsored by the United States, the European Union and other Western powers, including Australia.

The Venezuelan opposition and much of the media use the term “peaceful protests” to distinguish gatherings of protesting students and other young people from the more violent actions by opponents of President Nicolas Maduro's government -- including vandalism and shootings carried out by those outside of the university community. “Peaceful protests”, however, is a loaded term that serves to plant doubts about the intentions of the Maduro-led Chavista government.

A public meeting organised by the Queensland Civil Liberties Network was held at Brisbane City Hall on March 24, the second anniversary of the election of the Queensland Liberal National government. Speakers included Indigenous elder and long-term activist Sam Watson; union and community activist Bob Carnegie; QLD President of the Australian Lawyers Alliance Michelle James; Sisters Inside activist Debbie Kilroy; Queensland Council of Unions president John Battams and Civil Liberties Council spokesperson Terry O’Gorman.

A new documentary film Radical Wollongong, produced by Green Left TV, will premiere in Wollongong in early May, followed by screenings in other cities and regional centres. The film features activist participants from Wollongong's radical history of strikes and community rallies, from miners’ struggles to Aboriginal justice and environmental protection. Co-producer John Rainford gives some background to the first coalminers associations, setting up Wollongong with its reputation as a city of militants. ***

What is really going on in Venuezuela since January. An important antidote to the corporate media attacks on Venezuela, its democracy and popular revolution.

The news below is mostly accumulated from recent coverage at Venezuela Analysis, asides from the first report from Prensa Latina. Venezuela Analysis is the best English-language source of news and analysis on Venezuela, its popular revolutionary process and the media war against the country and its democracy.

Venezuelan students who support the Bolivarian Revolution speak out against recent oppositional violence, and urge the nation's youth to think for themselves in the midst of the media-backed polarisation.

With Newmont-Buenaventura set to resume building operations at the controversial Conga mine site this year, the Peruvian government has passed a new law granting legal immunity to security personnel who injure or kill protesters. The promulgation of Law 30151, which was officially gazetted on January 14 after being signed by President Ollanta Humala, indicates the state and its transnational corporate backers are planning an expanded campaign of repression against Peruvian communities resisting their neoliberal development model.