Darrell G. Moen, Ph.D.

Transborder Citizens’ Movements: Challenging Pax Americana
Fall Semester
Tsuda College: Thursday 1:00-2:30,
English 3 Seminar in International Relations Faculty

Hitotsubashi University: Thursday 10:40-12:10,
Oral Skills 3 in Social Sciences Faculty

With increasing U.S. military interventions and continuing U.S. support for military/authoritarian regimes and opposition to democracy in the Third World, many American citizens began questioning the legitimacy of the postwar U.S. role as the world’s policeman, and started forming grassroots-based organizations in the 1960s as innovative responses to the frequently asked question, “What can I do?” This proliferation of citizens’ movements has recently coalesced in a mutual search for world peace, and an end to poverty and social injustice. Connections are being made by activists worldwide between local and international struggles as well as between the movements themselves, with a focus of attention on the interdependence of states and the power of people united at the grassroots to effect structural changes. We will see that these new social movements and grassroots-based organizations, with a transborder perspective, are one of the most promising developments of the current era. They recognize that the interests of the majority of people living in the Third World coincide with the interests of the majority of First World inhabitants. Read the rest of this entry »

Postwar U.S. Foreign Policy and the Third World: An Anthropological Perspective
Tsuda College: Thursday, 1:00-2:30
English 3 Seminar, 2 credits
Hitotsubashi University: Thursday, 10:40-12:10
English Oral Skills 3, 2 credits

Description: We will examine the postwar era of Pax Americana from the perspective of the Third World majority and discuss issues of racism and ethnocentrism, militarism and human rights, and development and modernization. We will look at specific examples of U.S. military interventions and support for military regimes in the Third World and relate those examples to Japan’s role in the postwar geo-political picture. We will reassess the notion of “Third World development” based on Western cultural and socio-political assumptions, and examine the associated environmental destruction and cultural disruptions, focusing on the U.S.-Japan-Southeast Asia nexus. Read the rest of this entry »

The idea that travel can be educational and positively influence international affairs motivated the first Reality Tour in 1989. Reality Tours was founded on the principles of experiential education and are intended to educate people about how we, both individually and collectively, contribute to global problems. We then suggest ways in which we can contribute to and facilitate positive change. Global Exchange’s Reality Tours are not designed to provide immediate solutions or remedy the world’s most intractable problems, nor are they simply a brand of voyeurism.

Reality Tours offer participants an opportunity to journey to other countries to examine a situation firsthand. This gives the individual the chance to understand the issues beyond what is communicated by the mass media. By joining us on one of these delegations, a participant will have the chance to learn about unfamiliar cultures, meet with people from various walks of life, and establish meaningful relationships with people from other countries. Most significantly, Reality Tours endow participants with a new vantage point from which to view and affect US foreign policy. We hope to also prompt participants to examine related issues in their own community and society.

For over 15 years we have promoted alternative, educational travel as a way to replace feelings of apathy with deeper understanding and a sense of empowerment. Relationship building is essential to this transformation. Thus every tour seeks to establish people-to-people ties through introducing participants to individuals and communities that most travelers would never meet on their own. These ties, in many cases, are the result of building symbiotic programs between host communities and Global Exchange. We aspire to facilitate new relationships between these contacts and our new participants, be they individuals, universities, or membership associations.

Today we offer a variety of educational programs that address contemporary political, economic, environmental, and cultural issues around the world. Read the rest of this entry »

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 1st July 2003

It is old news, I admit. Two hundred and fifty-one million years old, to be precise. But the story of what happened then, which has now been told for the first time, demands our urgent attention. Its implications are more profound than anything taking place in Iraq, or Washington, or even (and I am sorry to burst your bubble) Wimbledon. Unless we understand what happened, and act upon that intelligence, pre-history may very soon repeat itself, not as tragedy, but as catastrophe.

The events which brought the Permian period (between 286 and 251 million years ago) to an end could not be clearly determined until the mapping of the key geological sequences had been completed. Until recently, palaeontologists had assumed that the changes which took place then were gradual and piecemeal. But three years ago a precise date for the end of the period was established, which enabled geologists to draw direct comparisons between the rocks laid down at that time in different parts of the world.

Having done so, they made a shattering discovery. In China, South Africa, Australia, Greenland, Russia and Spitsbergen, the rocks record an almost identical sequence of events, taking place not gradually, but almost instantaneously. They show that a cataclysm caused by natural processes almost brought life on earth to an end. They also suggest that a set of human activities which threatens to replicate those processes could exert the same effect, within the lifetimes of some of those who are on earth today. Read the rest of this entry »

From Michael Albert and Znet

For those of you who feel that having a viable, worthy anticapitalist economic vision would help us answer questions about what we want as well as help us orient our activism — I need your help.

The vision that is seeking visibility is participatory economics, called parecon for short.

Parecon is getting growing international coverage, as it now begins to appear in different languages.

For example, international invitations to speak on parecon are well beyond my means to accommodate. In Sept. and Oct. I am going to Italy, Turkey, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Italy again, and probably England, and possibly also Norway and Finland…and the venues for these talks are diverse and the audiences large. Later there may be trips to South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Korea, and so on. Interviews with left and also even mainstream media occur, articles appear, reviews are published, etc.

In contrast, parecon’s visibility in the U.S. is rather minimal despite its having had a much longer tenure here. There are virtually no visible U.S. reviews, public discussions, talks, etc.

In other words, in many parts of the world those who administer movements, determine the content of periodicals, set up speaking events — and incredibly even those who hand out major awards — are propelling parecon into visibility. But in the U.S. those who administer movements, determine the content of periodicals, and set up speaking events are either doing nothing positive for parecon or are actively rejecting efforts for parecon to gain visibility.

So what’s the solution? Read the rest of this entry »

July 26, 2004

Dear friends and supporters of Food First,

The message put forward by Food First’s founders — that hunger is caused neither by scarcity nor by “overpopulation” — was prescient for its time and life-changing for many readers. Some of you became long-term Food First members and donors. Many of you have carried our message forward to challenge the policies and ideas that create and reinforce hunger and its root cause, inequality. Together, our influence has been tremendous. Read the rest of this entry »

From Global Exchange Fact Sheet (http://www.globalexchange.org/)

1. The WTO Is Fundamentally Undemocratic
The policies of the WTO impact all aspects of society and the planet, but it is not a democratic, transparent institution. The WTO rules are written by and for corporations with inside access to the negotiations. For example, the US Trade Representative gets heavy input for negotiations from 17 “Industry Sector Advisory Committees.” Citizen input by consumer, environmental, human rights and labor organizations is consistently ignored. Even simple requests for information are denied, and the proceedings are held in secret. Who elected this secret global government?

2. The WTO Will Not Make Us Safer
The WTO would like you to believe that creating a world of “free trade” will promote global understanding and peace. On the contrary, the domination of international trade by rich countries for the benefit of their individual interests fuels anger and resentment that make us less safe. To build real global security, we need international agreements that respect people’s rights to democracy and trade systems that promote global justice.

3. The WTO Tramples Labor and Human Rights
WTO rules put the “rights” of corporations to profit over human and labor rights. The WTO encourages a ‘race to the bottom’ in wages by pitting workers against each other rather than promoting internationally recognized labor standards. The WTO has ruled that it is illegal for a government to ban a product based on the way it is produced, such as with child labor. It has also ruled that governments cannot take into account “non commercial values” such as human rights, or the behavior of companies that do business with vicious dictatorships such as Burma when making purchasing decisions. Read the rest of this entry »