February 2011 Blog Posts (5)

Watching the videos below, and exploring the additional materials and links, is a primer for understanding how seemingly powerless activists organize and affect widespread change.  One caveat is understanding elitism and the irony of democracy;  that changing status quo from one ruling class to another does not necessarily improve all conditions or eliminate oppression and corruption […

Toxic Textiles? Are the sales personnel of Germany's clothing retailers at risk of being poisoned? The textiles they sell are contaminated with highly toxic chemicals. The chemical PCP (Pentachlorophenol), which is prohibited in Germany, is applied to garments to protect them during transport to Europe. Other hazardous pesticides used in the cultivation of cotton in Asia have also been found in textiles. A camera crew picks up the trail in…

Early in 2008, workers at a government-owned textile factory in the Egyptian mill town of El-Mahalla el-Kubra announced that they were going on strike on the first Sunday in April to protest high food prices and low wages. They caught the attention of a group of tech-savvy young people an hour's drive to the south in the capital city of Cairo, who started a Facebook group to…