Feature Archives

In the past year the price of food has risen sharply, creating food crises and starving the global poor. Contrary to claims made by policy makers, the crisis has been caused by three decades of neo liberalism, American industrial agriculture, the World Bank with its structural adjustment policies, economic speculations on food and oil prices, and the diversion of arable land to bio-fuel production.

Japanese police continue to escalate repression against protesters of the Group of 8 Summit, part of a growing trend of human rights suppression in Japan. Police in full riot gear are supported by the Japanese Army, called the Self Defense Forces (SDF). Air and sea missions near the summit are being carried out in a joint deployment of the SDF and the US military.

On July 12th, global demonstrations against the Church of Scientology were held. In San Francisco, the demonstration took place at 701 Montgomery Street. Anonymous, the group organizing the demonstrations, is charging the Scientology Church for corruption, racism, homophobia, practices that cause death, abuse of their followers, and harassment of their critics.

On July 1st, Starbucks announced that it will be closing 600 stores. Starbucks has been expanding for the past two decades and in many cases bought out other chains resulting in stores located within blocks or even on the same block as each other. Consumers in San Francico and New York have been vocal about the urban blight created by a Starbucks on every corner. The IWW Starbucks Workers Union responded to the closures saying they are deeply troubled that management's numerous missteps are resulting in more serious hardships for baristas, bussers, and shift supervisors. Starbucks has a history of anti-union activity and the IWW held a global day of action against Starbucks on July 5th.

In the lead up to the G8 Summit in Japan from July 7th through 9th, Japanese authorities have arrested domestic activists and have detained numerous foreign independent media journalists and anti-G8 protesters. At least six independent journalists and ten academics have been detained by Japanese immigration officials in the past weeks, including Andrej Grubacic, professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco.

Police arrested eight protesters on June 29, as 1,500 people marched against the G8 Summit in Tokyo's fashionable Shibuya and Shinjuku districts. Japan's security budget for the G8 Summit is at least $283 million, topping the $186 million Germany spent to host the summit of the world's most powerful "democratic" nations.

Under the guise of the "War on Drugs," the Mexican Army has increased its presence around the Zapatistas autonomous municipalities in La Garrucha — the last place Subcomandante Marcos was seen. On June 4, a convoy of 200 army, state and local police tried to enter La Garrucha under the pretext of “looking for marijuana plants,” but were turned away by Zapatista men, women and children armed only with machetes and stones.

While the violence surrounding drug cartels in Mexico causes great alarm in Mexico and abroad, the targeting of Zapatista communities in the “War on Drugs” is equally alarming.

anarchist writes, "To everyone who read that Greenspace lost a window to "anarchists" and cringed:
This incident is not representative of the greater revolutionary struggle or anarchists in general. One person claiming their inconsequential vandalism with a communique, especially does not represent the tactfulness and potency that most anarchists act with – both in our contribution to existing social conflicts, and even more so, in our autonomous actions."