The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Chris Hedges -
Raul Hilberg in his monumental work “The Destruction of the European Jews” chronicled a process of repression that at first was “relatively mild” but led, step by step, to the Holocaust. It started with legal discrimination and ended with mass murder. “The destructive process was a development that was begun with caution and ended without restraint,” Hilberg wrote.
The Palestinians over the past few decades have endured a similar “destructive...
In an extensive interview, Numsa’s general secretary, Irvin Jim, talks to Fazila Farouk of SACSIS about Numsa’s current strike, alliance politics as well as its United Front and Movement for Socialism. In response to a question about building greater solidarity between the middle class and the poor, Jim argues that Numsa’s movement for socialism is not only for people who are “red”. He says that the middle class has a right to live the kind of life that it...
Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor, joins Democracy Now! from Gaza where he has been treating hundreds of victims wounded in Israel’s ongoing assault, including young children. Dr. Gilbert says hospitals are operating without electricity, water and proper medical supplies, but adds: "As a medical doctor, my appeal is don’t send bandages, don’t send syringes, don’t send medical teams. The most important medical thing you can do now is to force Israel to stop...
John Oliver is priceless in this episode of Last Week Tonight where he talks about America's income inequality, wealth concentration amongst the elites and the racial discrepancy in wealth distribution. US President Barack Obama famously identified income inequality as the defining challenge facing his country at the end of 2013, but quickly backtracked on the assertion, after Democrats appeared to be split on the issue. Needless to say, Obama’s spineless response to the pressure from...
Society has changed dramatically, says New York Times journalist James Risen, as he comments on the freedoms that have been ceded to national security since 9/11. The great sin of Barack Obama has been to normalise the War on Terror - to take something that was an ad hock series of emergency panicked moves by Dick Cheney and George Bush and normalise them.
Part of that is the approach to the press and the development of false narratives, such as the narrative of Iraqi weapons of mass...
Stephen Greenberg -
Just before the 2014 national elections, the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) announced a plan to redistribute 50% of commercial farm land to farm workers as part of ongoing efforts to redress historical imbalances in the country. The objectives of the plan are laudable: to deracialise the rural economy; to democratise the allocation and use of land by race, gender and class; and (less clearly) to support “production discipline” for food security and food...
