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What the World Needs Now

In looking ahead to 2008, I found myself drawn to Bill McKibben's article in Ode Magazine on What the World Needs Now. Whether it's about organizing mass actions to leverage the weaknesses of oppressive intitutions or about how to renew and create human scale economic systems, his man for all seasons is Mahatma Gandhi: "Gandhi was our scientist of the human spirit, our engineer of political courage. The other advice from the 20th century seems stale now: central planning, endless economic expansion. We’ve hardly started to explore the possibilities that spring from Gandhi’s example. We better get going." Posted: 1/2/08; 12:53:08 PM #

Ten Civil Society Victories in 2007

Robert Weissman of Essential Action and Multinational Monitor magazine lists ten great civil society victories of 2007: (1) Cultural Change on Global Warming, (2) Bank of the South, (3) Treatment for People with HIV/AIDS, (4) Thailand and Brazil Face Down Big Pharma, (5) The Billionaire’s Tax Loophole Comes Under Scrutiny, (6) The U.S. Minimum Wage Goes Up, (7) McDonald’s Agrees to Pay Tomato Pickers More, (8) School Fees Phased Out, (9) White-Collar Drug Pushers Punished, and (10) The Bush Countdown Begins. Posted: 1/2/08; 12:53:02 PM #

Humanitarianism in Crisis
	Conor Foley's article on Humanitarianism in Crisis is part of a great series at the Guardian that serves as a retrospective on 2007. Foley sees 2007 as the year in which the world finally woke up to the harm being done by many sorts of interventionist humanitarian projects. Posted: 1/2/08; 12:43:32 PM #