Political Activism on the Web
Sun Review April 7, 2001

Need an opportunity to voice your concerns about the WTO, animal rights, poverty, or any other issues, but don't want to chain yourself to a tree? Welcome to the World Wide Web, where you can point and click your way from couch potato to cyber-savvy political activist. I enlisted the help of local political luminary Wolf Depner to bring you these sites.

"The Nation" (www.thenation.com), Wolf's favourite source for news, is sure to satisfy your urge for interesting articles with tempting titles such as "Our Mobsters, Ourselves". The site also features a fine directory of people, organizations, non-profits, agencies, books and other resources relating to the worlds of politics, economics and culture.

Canadian political zine "The Straight Goods" (www.straightgoods.com) has everything you need to know about the upcoming Quebec City Summit of the Americas including the issues and protest activities surrounding it. Check out the Dummy's Guide to Quebec City Protest, and links to other Summit-related websites such as Operation Quebec Printemps 2001 (www.oqp2001.org), a coalition aimed at organizing actions for the Summit and raising awareness about neoliberal globalization, the Anti-Capitalist Convergence / Summit of the Americas Welcoming Committee (www.quebec2001.net), and the Peoples Summit (www.peoplessummit.org), which takes place just before the official Summit.

A good Canadian source on the WTO can be found at wtoaction.org. Following in the footsteps of the successful Cross-Canada Caravan to Seattle and its online version wtocaravan.org, this site continues to engage people in opposing trade agreements such as the WTO and FTAA.

Visit the Council of Canadians (www.canadians.org) for a fresh perspective on current social and economic debates affecting our lives. Founded in 1985, The Council of Canadians is Canada's pre-eminent citizens' watchdog organization, comprised of over 100,000 members and 50 chapters across the country.

If you need a central place to post times and locations of protests and meetings, or if you're not sure where to start protesting, Protest.Net (www.protest.net) is the place to be. You can browse through events by issue such as Animal Rights, Environment, Globalization, Immigration, Media and more. Since June 1998 protest.net has listed 78662 events and there are currently 4869 upcoming events listed on their calendars.

If you don't have time to write more letters protesting injustice, check out the Progressive Secretary (www.progressivesecretary.org). The Progressive Secretary will write and send letters based on which issues you're concerned about.

And finally, guess what they're against at McSpotlight (www.mcspotlight.org).

Questions or comments? E-mail inge@ingenius.bc.ca or visit www.ingenius.bc.ca/webwoman.