Hillary Clinton and Political Hypocrisy

Since Thuesday the 6th of December 2011, the Secretary of State of the USA, Hillary Rodham Clinton, is in Geneva giving talks about the beauty of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.

 

“Today, I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world today. In many ways, they are an invisible minority. They are arrested, beaten, terrorized, even executed….I am talking about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time….The Obama Administration defends the human rights of LGBT people as part of our comprehensive human rights policy and as a priority of our foreign policy. In our embassies, our diplomats are raising concerns about specific cases and laws, and working with a range of partners to strengthen human rights protections for all.”

Is that why the government she represents uses tear gas, pepper spray and other “non lethal weapons” against peaceful demonstrators who want justice and equality in her country? Is this why students at University of California San Diego (among many others) got peper sprayed for denouncing corporate greed and student debt?

At this point we can see how pathetic the discourse of a senior US official is. I call this “political hypocrisy”, nothing new.

The Obama administration has a “comprehensive human rights policy” she says, seriously? The same administration that inaugurated seven new military bases in Latin America the first month of its mandate? The same administration that has extended Bush era’s war policies in Afganistan, Iraq and Pakistan (to cite only a few)? Are we talking about the same administration that murders dozens of civilians around the world every day with its drone strikes , air strikes, raids, unconstitutional and illegal interventions and detentions?

Political hypocrisy disgust me.

When I see and hear such things I can’t help but wonder: ” do theses people have any integrity, any small part of humanity inside them?” I asked myself this question many times because I really couldn’t understand how people can act in such inhumane manner. I now think that the problem does not come from the lack of humanity of a single person, nor of a single corporation or government. This isn’t the result of a couple of conducts put together. In fact, it is the opposite. This is the result of a fundamentally inhumane system. A system that rewards greed and self interest at the expense of human dignity. A system that has no conductor, no pilote, no chief. Of course that the United States of America have more impact on the world than Switzerland, the same is true for Novartis compared to the old herborist living down the street. But this doesn’t mean that Switzerland has no impact on the world, the same is true for the old herborist living down the street.

During his conference on international law the other night at the University of Geneva, Stephane Hessel said that the 21th century knows a triangle of power. On one end there are the governments which do all these kind of crazy and inhumane things. Then, there are the financial and economic forces who are internationalized and independant from single states. Finally there are citizens who have to assume their responsibility to denunce what their governments do that they do not accept. Civil society is the only force left today that can influence for the good this triangle of power.

We the 99% have the moral obligation, the duty if you will, to expose our governments, to protest, denunce and resist the atrocities that they are conducting in our names, with our money and our passive consent. Each and every person can bring a significative impact on our world by organizing and participating in the struggle. “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.” said the Dalai Lama.

We are the 99% and we must stop giving our silent consent to a fundamentally inhumane system. We must  stand-up, speak up and put an end to these atrocities.

 

The system is global and so are the problems we are facing today. Problems such as the financial crisis, such as violations of human rights or the climate crisis cannot be solved in one country. Governments are not showing any sign of progress, sometimes they don’t even show a willingness to make things better. It is why time has come for a global social movement to act before it is too late. Today, not tomorrow we need to stand together and unite in face of a fundamentally inhumane global system.

Our vision at Occupy Geneva is to lead a transformation to a fair and respectful world where societies choose to adopt a system that rewards solidarity and integrity instead of greed and the pursuit of self-interest. And as part of a global social movement, Occupy Geneva aims to unite and empower all people who share the same concerns about today’s failed system and contribute to building together an alternative system based on fundamental human values.

“It does not matter what country we live in, who our leaders are, or even who we are. Because we are human, we therefore have rights. And because we have rights, governments are bound to protect them.”

We agree with you Mrs. Clinton, but we actually mean it.

Quotes of Hillary Clinton are taken from the transcript of her speech made in Geneva Swtizerland the 6th of December 2011 and available here.

A Truly Global Movement

 

Today, Asmaa Mahfouz who is an Egyptian activist and a founder of the April 6 Youth Movement wrote an article called “From Tahrir Square to Liberty Plaza, the occupation continues” in The Guardian news paper. She explains the “kinship ties” between the Arab Spring and the Occupation movements around the globe.

About her visit to Occupy Wall Street she writes : “ I instantly recognized the same spirit of spontaneous revolt against governments that neglect the needs of the large mass of their people in favor of small elites”. I also share this vision. When I switch from participating to the general assembly at Occupy Geneva camp to an online video conference with a couple of cities from around the globe, I too feel that “same spirit of spontaneous revolt”…

It is probably hard for outsiders and even for some participants to realize the extent in which our movements are synchronized. This is something that we are working on but what is truly amazing is that even without coordination, we are synchronized. In my opinion, what the global movement needs now is to show the world that we have a clear common vision.

As Asmaa puts it “ It is a long road towards freedom, but our transnational activist coalitions have the potential to change local as well as foreign policies, if we work together.”

    

The question is, how? We have a lot of platforms which help us to comunicate, support each other, coordinate actions, mobilize on a global level…but how are we going to coordinate the whole global movement and not simply isolated actions?

Communication experts would say there are two way to have a global image. First manner is to have a global “brand” which is the same everywhere and which adapts its image in each country/region to best suit the target groups (classic example would be Coca Cola). The second, is to have a global “brand” which then declines in to sub-brands that promote the global one in different ways (an example would be P&G for the global brand and Pampers or Pringles as sub-brands). Now what is the common thing with both models ? They are both “Top-Down” models. The global image comes from above and then declines into local ones. The harder alternative would be a “Bottom-Up” model. That would be local entities defining themselves as unique entities who then have a common global vision.

Wait, isn’t this exactly what happened with the global occupation movements? Different movements have popped-up around the world influencing others to do the same but each with their own local identity. I think that occupiers of Tahrir have their own identity and local demands but that at the end of the day they have the same spirit and intentions as occupiers of Liberty Plaza, Frankfurt, Taipei, London, Paris, Zurich, Montreal, Lubiana, Washington DC, Geneva and the rest.

What we need now is to define clearly what those intentions are, what our vision of the future is and how we want to achieve it together because united we shall stand and divided we’ll fall.

 

International Coordination Efforts within Occupations

                                   

 

There are several ways that we use for communication and coordination between occupations around the globe.

Audio/video onferences have a variety of participants every time in total we have connected with : Madrid, Frankfurt, London, Washingdon DC, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, Lubjiana, Zurich, Bern, Bruxelles, Nice (Anti-G20 international camp), Italy, Orange County, Oakland and I’m probably missing some. Theses video conferences have been organized and facilitated by people from Avaaz.org . They are broadcasted live on OccupyConnect website and available to everyone live and also afterwards. Each time participants take notes and they are also publicly available here.

The Occupy Connect conferences have been truly enriching every time.

http://takethesquare.net/
 website is one of the best platforms occupations have currently. A lot of people around the world collaborate on this platform. Mainly using mailing lists, divided into themes, this platform allows occupiers to collaborate on various issues such as technical problems shared by occupations around the world, global mobilizations, official channels of communication between General Assemblies, …

Our challenge today is to concentrate a maximum amount of occupations in a structured manner in a smaller number of platforms so that our efforts do not go to waste. To do that, a lot of people around the world are working not only on technical issues but also on the structure of theses platforms.

One thing is common to all our platforms : transparency. Every individual can have access to our channels and our archives, we apply total transparency.

What lessons can we draw for our governments and institutions ?

 

 

Dan Hind responds to a critic from the “political mainstream”

I consider Dan Hind as one of the most articulate thinkers about the occupation movements. He is a must-read for everyone participating in occupations.

Here’s the link to his blog where you’ll find the latest article ” Ed Miliband and The Political Mainstream” from November the 6th 2011.

“We don’t need a movement that stretches beyond politics, we need a movement that stretches the boundaries of politics so that they include meaningful discussion of things that matter.

We all need to act to secure a public status as political beings.” Dan  Hind.

Now the question concerning us is : Considering the objective structural conditions in Geneva ( especially the direct participation voting system with popular initiatives), how do we articulate this idea at Occupy Geneva?

The popular initiatives system in Switzerland gives the illusion that the people decide about the future of the country. But this system has many problems: most initiatives concern minor issues such as the construction of a new road here or there meanwhile the political elite decide about the fondamental issues such as the regulations of banks, immigration policies, welfare, workers rights etc…

Furthermore considering Theory of Deliberation of the great german philosopher Habermas, public opinion is made up through deliberation (process of open debate between citizens with equal rights) using language for true communication and social coordination whereas the political decisions are made by politicians who use language as a strategic weapon to manipulate and influence. The consequence for Habermas is that politicians make the decisions while being conscious of public opinion.

This is why the occupation movements are so important : they insist on the process of deliberation (the role of General Assemblies) to stimulate public opinion about things that are essential for the whole of civil society but that politicians have made their own. “We are the 99%” represents this idea in my opinion, civil society is claiming back what has always been his own : politics.

There is two ways of defining politics, said a young representative of the Chilean students movement in a recent conference at the University of Geneva: The first one is the “classic political system” where politics are the domain of political parties and politicians and the only thing that people can do is vote, this is a top-down view of politics. The second is a bottom-up view of politics, where people decide through debate and deliberation what should be done. The second view considers every decision about society to be part of politics whereas the first monopolize what is politics in the hands of the “political elite”.

Occupy Wall Street Demands with french Subtitles

 

Finally Here – An Occupy Wall Street Anthem

Solidarity Message From Zuccoti Park