Auto.Mobile.Crisis - Alternatives of Mobility

Conference, Stuttgart, 29-31 October 2010

Against a Green or Public New Deal that does not include a radical change with the automobile society! Rerouting, conversion, alternatives to mobility are the main issues a conference for the transformation of the autmobile society - organised by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in October 2010.

more ►

Organisational shortcomings and relative disorientation: The sixth European Social Forum in Istanbul

12 July 2010 l Ulrich Brand | Conference report

 

More than 3000 people took part in the sixth European Social Forum in Istanbul, beginning of July 2010. In the centre of the European Social Forum was the topic of the crisis: the economic and financial crisis, the climate crisis, and water and energy conflicts. Critical report on the sixth European Social Forum in Istanbul (in German).

more ►

The Left in Government

9 July 2010 | Birgit Daiber l Conference report

Political activists from Latin America and Europe met for the second time in recent days at the invitation of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Brussels to discuss their experience with participation in government. At the first conference, the opinion had been unanimous: Yes, despite some disappointing results, such as those in France and Italy, the left could not resist the challenge of assuming governmental responsibility. The recent second conference was to serve to deepen the discussion. How is the left reacting to the worldwide crisis? What strategic concepts are they following? Are there political topic areas, in which the left is implementing new ideas? What about such issues as participatory justice, ecology, deepening democracy, or an alternative financial architecture?

more ►

Wilfried Telkämper - New Director of the Centre for for International Dialogue and Cooperation (RLF)

1 July 2010 | News
 

Wilfried Telkämper is the new director of the Centre for International Dialogue and Co-operation (ZID) from the 1st of July, 2010. Telkämper was working for Capacity Building International (InWEnt) during the last ten years. Telkämper was further a Member of the European Parliament For the Greens (Germany) from 1987 to 1999, and in this position active in the European Committee on Development, co-president of the parliamentary group, vice-president of the European Parliament as well as vice-president of the ACP-EU joint parliamentary assembly delegation.

more ►

Walden Bello's "The Food Wars"

28 June 2010 l Book review by Roland Kulke

In the years 2006 to 2008, food prices increased triple as compared to 2000. A consequence of this was: 75 Million people more suffer from hunger, and 125 Million people more are urged into extreme poverty. Violent hunger revolts took place in 30 countries all over the globe. Who was responsible for these disastrous developments? Walden Bello gives answers to these questions in his book "The Food Wars".

more ►

A brief history of self-management in Germany since 1968

11 June 2010 | Essay by Birgit Daiber

Once upon a time, when we did not live yet in a media democracy, when the Federal Republic of Germany was still Western Germany, when konservative still really meant konservative, when social democracy was not anymore socialist, and when the communist party was proscribed, when the U.S., the model for democracy of the post-war generation in West Germany, waged a dirty war in Vietnam. During this time a small minority of students challenged politics and it developed a youth movement practicing freedom, autonomy, and anti-autoritarian protest.

more ►

Opening of Andean office of Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Quito. Congratulations!

26 May 2010 | News
 

The regional office of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation for the Andean countries of South America is opening officially with an international seminar on the topics democracy, participation and socialism on the 2nd and 3rd of June in Quito. Speakers are members of parliament, academics and members of social movements from Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador. They will critically analyse the social transformation processes from the left in the these three countries, which all refer to the "Socialism of the Twenty-first Century".

more ►

Exhibition "Frankfurt-Auschwitz" in May and June 2010 at RLF-Brussels

11 May 2010 l News
 

The exhibition "Frankfurt-Auschwitz" by the artist Bernd Rausch was presented for the first time at the 65th anniversary of the liquidation of the so called "Zigeunerlager" in Auschwitz in August, 1944. It names the culprits, speaks about the fate of Roma and Sinti in Auschwitz and highlights the memories of victims and survivors. Pictures by the German artist Bernd Rausch speak about the effacement of individuals as well as of the community Roma and Sinti in National Socialism.

more ►

Exploring left alternatives to end poverty in the "First World"

7 April 2010 | Conference report by Nicolás Muzi

Exceeding all expectations, a critical mass of over 50 people (a milieu of left-wing social actors, academics, politicians, radical intellectuals and employees of the European Institutions) got together on 1st March 2010 to discuss a key issue of the European Left political agenda: fighting poverty in the European Union.

more ►

The Europeans Citizens' Initiative (European Commission)

31 March 2010 - Roland Kulke
 

On the 31st of March 2010 the European Commission adopted its long expected “Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the citizens’ initiative“. Advocates of the Lisbon-Treaty pointed to this element as a great step forward towards a truly citizen centered European integration. Now the following question comes up: what about the "small print”, the administrative implementation rules?

more ►

Making use of the vacuum of hegemony

24 March 2010 | Conference report by Anna Striethorst

 

“Why Seems the Crisis to Favour Rather the Right than the Left?” In March 2010, the leftist network Transform!Europe invited experts from all over Europe to Palma de Mallorca to discusses strategic options for the left during the crisis.

more ►

PIGs, alcoholics and the design flaws of the Eurozone

16 March 2010 | Roland Kulke

 

Not long ago, the columnists of the major newspapers would not in their wildest dreams have been able to imagine the events happening today. The taxpayers of the two largest European countries, Germany and France, are to help Greece out of its macroeconomic mess.

more ►

Didn’t you always suspect it? "Traditions don't need thinking"

11 March 2010 l Roland Kulke

 

You know that nasty feeling, don’t you – that emptiness in your head, when conservatives of this or that stripe start one of their diatribes? Up till now, I always thought that it was just me – that I just couldn’t take it. Now, the Süddeutsche has taught me a thing or two. That feeling is based on reality – and that reality is the lower intelligence of conservatives. Christoph Schrader in the Süddeutsche Zeitung clearly summarises the results of two research pieces: “Traditions don’t need thinking”. Accordingly, leftists are more intelligent than rightists.

more ►

On the international day of zero tolerance to female genital mutilation

6 Feb. 2010 | Lina Kaufmann

 

In December 2009, the parliament in Uganda has passed a bill banning Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), making sure, that offenders are imprisoned for 10 years or, if a girl dies throughout the procedure, are life sentenced.

more ►

10,000 Roma in Germany to be deported to Kosovo: A cold welcome

2 Feb. 2010 | Anna Striethorst and Manuela Kropp

 

During the wars in former Yugoslavia, some 130,000 members of the minority of the Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians (RAE) from Kosovo, fled. After arson attacks and expulsions during the war in Kosovo in 1999, and after the renewed flare-up of ethnic violence in 2004, no more than 35,000 of them still live in Kosovo today. For years, the German Federal Government has tried to deport a large number of the RAE refugees living in Germany to Kosovo – a total of more than 10,000 people.

more ►

For a continued emancipation of The Left (Die Linke)

17 Jan. 2010 | Birgit Daiber and Cornelia Hildebrandt

 

The old socialist model imploded in 1989. The perversion of the idea of socialism by Stalinism, the failure of planned economy, the bureaucratic paralysis of societies under the political leadership of the communist parties: not much remained of the wealth of ideas of the left’s history; humankind’s hope had been exhausted by the grey reality of actually existing socialisms.

more ►

Three days in Brussels: "Beyond the world crisis"

15 Dec. 2010 - Conference report, Birgit Daiber and Roland Kulke

 

In October 2009, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, the World Forum for Alternatives and the Transnational Institute invited a number of important leftist intellectuals and activists from around the world to Brussels for three days to discuss alternatives to the global crisis.

more ►

Negotiations of Free Trade Agreements between the European Union and Latin America

9 Dec. 2010 | Conference report by Marlis Gensler and Pablo Sánchez

 

The conference organised by Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Brussels (14/15 Nov. 2009) aimed at analysing the social, economic and ecologic impacts of trade agreements between the European Union and Latin America. Intellectuals from Universities and sozial movements presented their results from recent investigations.

more ►

From Lima to Madrid: Hearing in the European Parliament

20 Nov. 2009 | Marlis Gensler

 

Witnesses of human rights abuses by European Transnational Corporations in Latin America presented their cases in the European Parliament at the 18th of November 2009.

more ►

The European Commission - target of a gigantic lobby industry

15 Aug. 2009 - Roland Kulke

 

The liberal theory of the political system resembles the neo-classical concept of the market: If all act in their own interests, the public good will in the end emerge strengthened from the process. Of course, general rules must apply, but basically, everyone should be allowed to promote his or her own interests to their best ability. The European Parliament and, even more so, the European Commission, have become the targets of a gigantic lobby industry. Washington is the only place where more lobbyists are to be found.

more ►

Building the unsettling force: Anti-poverty conference in Louisville

21 July 2009 - Conference report, Birgit Daiber

 

“Building the Unsettling Force” was the slogan of the National Anti-Poverty Conference held from July 16 through 19, 2009, on the campus of Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky by a coalition including the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC), the Social Welfare Action Alliance (SWAA), Women in Transition, and Disappeared in America – Hiding the Poor, as well as local action groups.

more ►

Through the economic crisis by „business as usual“? Swedish EU-Presidency 2009

15. Juni 2009 - Roland Kulke

 

After the controversial Czech EU-presidency there are high expectations within the left camp regarding the new presidency. Unfortunately the programme proposal doesn't fulfill these expectations. A presidency which shows such low reform efforts even in the end of June 2009, and which pretends that the EU can sail through the current crisis by business as usual, hasn't seen the writing on the wall or doesn't want to see it.

more ►