I've often affirmed the existence of a worldwide anti-globalization movement that shares the same anti-consumerism values. Today's Firedoglake features an appeal by a Turkish political analyst and blogger, Gurkan Ozturan, that confirms what I had intuited at the time of the Gezi protests and Brazil's demonstrations against the expenses conntected to the World Football Cup, and a trend among unemployed young European professionals away from the cities toward abandoned villages.[tag]
The Turkish document could have been written by Occupiers in any part of the world, which is why I am including it in this article. The global 1% buys the same fashions and jewelry, the same yachts and automobiles, but the 99% is increasingly turning away from that culture rather than aspiring to imitate it. As the US Congress doubles down on accusations of foul play by Russia, in an effort to justify a new Cold War or even a hot one (the appointment of a new Secretary of Defense points in that direction, as Pepe Escobar documents on OEN today), a new world is trying to rise from what may be global ashes.
Here's the call for support from Turkey, too late for Americans to do anything concrete, but worth following:
"In the aftermath of the #OccupyGezi protests, a group had occupied an unused space and turned it into a Community House in Istanbul's Kadikoy district. Officially, it is the second place that has been occupied in Turkey, right after Gezi Park itself. For some time, the house had been targeted by the authorities and faced eviction. One more notification has just arrived to the squat house recently and informs of eviction to begin at 10 a.m. on December 5th, on Friday.
The occupiers have issued a public statement calling for solidarity and support from all friends, inviting them for a defense of the house at 9 a.m.
The statement follows:
"We, who revolted to prevent concretion of our lives one and a half years ago, are people who do not look alike but suffer from the same grievances.
There is a house in our neighborhood whose door is open to anyone. A publicly owned abandoned place that we brought into use, a place where everyone can pull up a chair and catch their breath, join in a deep conversation while having some tea, a place that belongs to all of us. This house was brought into being by the contribution and labor of thousands of people up until now, as a place where everyone can cook and eat together, that has a library, darkroom, carpenter's shop, swap market, as a place for everyone who is willing to talk, discuss and produce.
We are the residents who embrace the ones who go down under alive and come out dead, whose heads with gas canisters, whose infant bodies with bullets, whose dark bodies with bombs smashed into pieces, as our own neighbors. We are your neighbors, who long for soil among piles of concrete and thus create gardens, who protect disaster assembly areas for the coming earthquake from concretion, who discuss their desires regarding our neighborhood, who take it to the streets wearing bathrobes, stinking of lack of water during shortages or who keep watch in our parks and streets against any quarrel.
We heard that they will come to shut our doors down. Those tyrants who have taken an oath to sell everything that is beautiful and everything that lives; every drop of water, every tree and every shadow, they will attempt to wreck our house on us. We invite everyone whose hearts beat with ours to our Community Center/Squat to defend our common space that we are in existence all together, shoulder to shoulder on Friday, the 5th of December, at 9 a.m.
This house belongs to all of us, let us defend it together.
CAFERAGA SOLIDARITY
Meeting:
Date: 5th of December, Friday, 9 a.m.
Address: HacÄ ± Ã...žukru sok. No. 24"
When it comes to foreign affairs, both the mainstream and alternative media essentially cover only government to government news, but there are protest movements and organizations everywhere, and Americans seeking fundamental change should realize that only an international people's movement can bring down the Behemoth
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