[rad-green] A Worldwide Revolution Is Underway -- against austerity and corruption

*https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-worldwide-revolution-is-underway/
<https://www.truthdig.com/articles/a-worldwide-revolution-is-underway/>TRUTHDIG
         OCT 31, 2019A Worldwide Revolution Is Underway*by Amy Goodman and
Denis Moynihan
[image: image.png]
*jorge paredes / CC BY-NC 2.0*

Puerto Rico. Hong Kong. Ecuador. Haiti. Lebanon. Iraq. And now, Chile.
People are rising up around the world against austerity and corruption,
defying police forces unleashed to suppress them. Many of these mass
movements share a fierce critique of capitalism. In Santiago, Chile, more
than 1 million people flooded the streets last weekend, and mass protests
continue. There, the brutal Pinochet dictatorship from 1973-1990, during
which thousands of progressive activists and leaders were tortured,
disappeared and murdered, was followed by decades of neoliberal policies,
with rampant privatization, union busting, stagnant wages and increased
costs for education, health care, transportation and other services. Chile,
among the richest countries in South America, is also one of the most
unequal. At least 20 people have been killed during recent protests there,
further angering and emboldening the crowds.

These global protests also occur at a critical inflection point in history,
with as few as 10 years remaining for humanity to transition from a fossil
fuel economy to one powered by renewable energy. On Wednesday, Chile’s
embattled, billionaire president, Sebastian Pinera, abruptly announced that
his country was cancelling plans to host two major international summits,
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in mid-November, and the
United Nations climate summit, the 25th “Conference of the Parties,” or
COP25, in the first two weeks of December.

Carolina Schmidt, Chile’s COP25 president-designate, said, “The citizens
have expressed in a strong way their legitimate social demands that require
the full attention and all efforts from the government.”

Chile’s cancellation of the COP could be a setback for global action on
climate. But climate activists should take heart: This renewed spirit of
rebellion around the world signifies a rejection of the status quo, and
could portend accelerated, grassroots mobilization to avert irreversible,
catastrophic climate change.

“Social injustice and the climate crisis have a common root cause,” the
Climate Action Network said in a release not long after Chile’s COP
cancellation. “Climate justice and solidarity is fundamentally about the
protection of human rights and a better quality of life for all.”

The climate crisis touches everyone, first and most forcefully the world’s
poor. The mass uprising in Puerto Rico that forced the resignation of Gov.
Ricardo Rossello was the culmination of decades of frustration with Puerto
Rico’s colonial status and the more current exploitation by Wall Street
vulture funds. But the discontent was fueled by the utter devastation of
the back-to-back hurricanes Irma and Maria two years ago. “The austerity
policies that have been implemented have put the people of Puerto Rico in a
position of vulnerability. Social inequality has increased to levels that
we have never seen here,” Manuel Natal, a member of Puerto Rico’s House of
Representatives, said on the “Democracy Now!” news hour days before
Rossello’s resignation. “We need more democracy, not less democracy. We are
on the brink of a political revolution here.” Rossello’s ouster was the
first time in U.S. history that a governor was forced from office by
popular protest.

Indigenous people are also leading the way, often at the front lines,
confronting resource extraction with disciplined, nonviolent resistance.
Hundreds of indigenous and campesino social leaders in Colombia have been
murdered in recent years, simply for standing up for justice and
environmental protections.

The Paris climate agreement specifically notes the importance of climate
justice, and pledges to work “in the context of sustainable development and
efforts to eradicate poverty.” One of the enduring conflicts that has
hampered international climate negotiations has been the refusal by wealthy
nations, principally the United States, to accept the simple premise that
“polluters pay.” The United States is the wealthiest nation in human
history because, in part, it has polluted its way to the top, using cheap,
dirty power: coal-fired power plants, diesel locomotives and now, so-called
clean-burning fracked gas.

The Green Climate Fund was supposed to raise billions of dollars to finance
renewable projects in poorer countries. The fund’s pledging conference last
week fell short of its goal, primarily because the Trump administration
reneged on the U.S.’s $2 billion commitment. Australia and Russia followed
suit, refusing to make contributions.

A new study by Climate Central, a news and science organization, shows that
climate-induced coastal flooding will likely be far worse than previously
predicted, forcing between 200-600 million people, rich and poor, to flee
their homes later in the century. Climate change-fueled wildfires are now
raging across California, with hundreds of thousands of people evacuated
from their homes and at least 1 million people without power.

Popular uprisings are also spreading like wildfire, though, against corrupt
autocratic leaders, austerity and inequality. People are also flooding the
streets, globally, linking the movements against inequality with the fight
for a just, sustainable world powered by renewable energy.

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