Thousands of Venezuelans protested in the capital Caracas to demand the Supreme Court overturn a “blacklist” blocking key opponents of President Hugo Chavez from running in elections.

He responded. While most Americans settled into a relaxed Independence Day weekend, Barack Obama tried to quiet mounting criticism from supporters over his decision to back a new White House spying bill. In an unprecedented letter released on the afternoon of July 3, Obama addressed the thousands of supporters who organized a large protest on his social networking portal.

Noting that he expected to take his “lumps” and “be held accountable,” Obama respectfully defended his surveillance reversal. While maintaining that immunizing companies accused of illegal spying undermines deterrence and “accountability for past abuses,” Obama said he now backs legislation granting the right to give immunity (and other executive powers) because it provides a “real mechanism for accountability” via future investigations. The explanation ran 852 words–more than double the length of his original statement announcing support for the spying bill on June 20–and then campaign policy aides continued the discussion for over an hour with visitors on Obama’s site (pictured at right). The unusual exchange sparked an intense debate over the weekend, as activists and bloggers questioned whether it heralded a more interactive political era, or a reminder that double talk can spread on any medium.

On Sunday night, the protest group released its official reply, collaboratively edited through a wiki and representing some of the 19,000 members. It pressed Obama to take his fight against immunity to the Senate floor this week. Since Obama’s letter said he still wanted to “strike” immunity from the bill, the group urged him to take charge:

We ask that you back up your words with action by addressing your constituents on the floor of the Senate with the same oratorical power you used in Philadelphia to lay out your vision of a ‘More Perfect Union.’ The American people have just as much right to know of the dangerous precedent this Congress would be setting by granting retroactive immunity to [companies that spied] on law-abiding citizens as we did to relearn of segregation and Jim Crow. The arm of government oppression reaches far and wide, Senator, and we must beat it back on whatever front we find it.

The Senate begins debating the spying bill again on Tuesday. Obama arrives in Washington that day to address a Hispanic convention.

The protest group has not only become a huge force on Obama’s site–it is now double the size of any other user-created group and its traffic slowed the campaign’s server last week–it has also swiftly asserted itself in the broader spying debate. Organizers have been covered and quoted repeatedly in the mainstream media, including a New York Times profile of founder Mike Stark, tapping the interest in online organizing to amplify a civil liberties message. The group’s wiki even includes a “proposed strategy” to “fan the flames of coverage by making the novel outreach approach a story in its own right,” levering media attention to recruit more members for lobbying Congress. Over the weekend, it began spinning off local networks to target individual senators through a “ fifty state strategy.” Now there are Facebook groups for constituents to pressure senators McCain, Feinstein, Klobachar, Coleman and Alexander–along with a page for “Wisconsinites” to “thank” Senator Feingold for defending civil liberties. The group decided to focus on other senators after discussing how to broaden the effort beyond Obama. Over 3,500 members converse through an e-mail listserve on the campaign’s social networking platform, with hundreds of messages a day. In fact, the group has begun moderating participation to limit topics and exclude certain tactics, such as attempts by activists to halt campaign fundraising in retribution for Obama’s position on spying.

By simultaneously growing its membership, mission and ambition, the spying group exhibits the characteristics of a successful net movement. MoveOn began with the single objective of fighting Clinton’s impeachment, but evolved to tackle other issues that resonated with its members. The protest against the spying bill began last month by urging Obama to change his vote. After quickly drawing him (and his senior staff) into a dialogue, however, it is nimbly shifting its focus to Obama’s role in the immunity floor fight–an easier request on common ground–while launching campaigns to target senators with constituents recruited through MyBarackObama.com. Even if the Democratic Congress completes its capitulation on surveillance policy, the anti-spying group will still be the largest organizing network on Obama’s site. With 6,000 more activists than the top-down “Action Wire” group, which the campaign created for official pushback, the group might even function as a supportive but aggressive counterweight to the campaign’s traditional message. If Obama is not confronting McCain on other constitutional issues, for example, members could organize media or social network efforts to do it for him. If the campaign is not correcting the media for distorting factual statements by Gen. Wesley Clark, the members could rally a truth squad overnight.

Obama excelled by appealing to the public appetite for movement politics, rather than typical campaigns. And unlike campaigns, movements are animated by ideas, policies and values–not blind allegiance to a single person. If Obama is lucky, he will continue to benefit from these energized, sophisticated activists who support his candidacy while they press his hand, and use his campaign platform to mobilize turnout while organizing causes beyond his election. The spy group’s open letter reminded Obama of this collective dynamic. “As you have said time and again Senator, ‘we are the ones we have been waiting for,’ and we are here, working to bring about real change in Washington.”

For at least the past two days the military has placed a cordon around the village of Nilin, imposing what it calls a “closure” and preventing people from entering or leaving. Nilin is the latest village to join a small but growing protest movement that organisers say is supposed to remain non-violent, but which often involves stone throwing.

The military said the closure was a direct response to the protests. “There have been riots in the past few weeks and there is a closure now,” said a military spokeswoman. She said three Israeli soldiers and five border policeman had been injured in recent protests and that a closure had been imposed since Sunday morning. Villagers said Nilin had been closed for four days.

A major demonstration is planned for Thursday this week, but villagers say they have been told the Israeli military cordon will remain as long as the demonstrations continue.

Dozens of protesters, both Palestinians and foreigners, have also been injured, some seriously, when troops and policeman have fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the crowds. In the most recent incident, on Sunday, one soldier and 50 demonstrators were injured.

Protests have recently started against the building on the village’s farmland of a stretch of the barrier that will place 2,500 dunams (250 hectares) of Nilin’s farmland on the “Israeli” side, an area of the West Bank which here has been used to build several Jewish settlements, including Hashmoniim. Two other settlements, Nili and Na’ale, have also been built to the east of the village and the people of Nilin fear they will soon be surrounded and cut off. All settlements in the occupied territories are illegal under international law.

“Our land will be divided into small cantons,” Salah Khawaja said before the latest Israeli military operations. Khawaja, 40, is one of the organisers of the village protests and works as an administrator in a medical organisation.

“People in this area were totally dependent on agriculture but now they are imposing a transfer and migration policy on us in a very harsh way. Everyone can see the quantity and quality of land they are going to confiscate,” he said.

In 1948, at the time of the creation of the state of Israel, the village had around 57,000 dunams of land, he said. It now has around 10,000 and will have even fewer when the latest part of the barrier is finished.

Khawaja has already spent a quarter of his life in an Israeli jail. He was picked up in the mid-1980s just before the first Palestinian intifada when he was a student activist at the leading university on the West Bank, Birzeit, where he led protests against the Israeli occupation. Now 20 years have gone by - including the terrible violence of the second intifada, with its suicide bombings and tough Israeli military raids - and Khawaja is once again leading protests. This time he belongs to a group called al-Mubadara, the Palestinian National Initiative, led by Mustafa Barghouti, a doctor and politician who argues in favour of non-violent protest.

“The first message is to say to Palestinians that any inch of our land that we can preserve is quite an achievement,” said Khawaja. “We demonstrate to strengthen our connection with the land, a connection that we feel slipped away since the intifada because we were living under the illusion that the agreements with the Israelis would solve all our problems.”

So at midday on a recent Friday, instead of going to the mosque, Khawaja and hundreds of his neighbours walked out onto their farmland to pray under the shade of their olive trees. A few hundred yards away Israeli troops fired the occasional round into the air to deter protesters from getting too close.

Among the crowd was Asad Amir, 54, who spent more than 20 years working as a labourer in Israel and used the money to buy and farm in the village. His land will soon be completely cut off by the barrier. “We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Coming here is the least we can do but the stronger side are always going to win.”

Akram Khawaja, 24, a recently-graduated computer engineer, was also praying with the crowd. “It’s not easy to get our land back this way, but it’s the safe way to act and to show the world that we do believe in non-violence. We’re struggling to get our rights.”

The villagers say they feel overlooked by the Palestinian political leadership, who do not attend the increasing frequent protests. Although there is stone throwing, the protest organisers say they have tried to discourage that and instead arrange gatherings where the crowd uses hand-held mirrors to reflect the sun in the faces of soldiers and settlers across the barrier, or where they bang household pots and pans and blow whistles loudly within earshot of the nearby settlement.

But across the Palestinian territories the influence of the armed groups over all forms of protest remains strong and efforts to maintain a non-violent movement have proved extremely difficult and have rarely won a broad following. Many Palestinians argue it is futile, others are put off by the risk of injury or arrest.

“We believe we have no other alternative than peaceful protest,” said Khawaja. “We believe popular resistance should be a national strategy, but it is not easy to convince others. It’s much harder than you think to convince people to come on a peaceful procession. Civil action takes time and a lot of education.”

Normally, I would turn and flee. But we were both playing roles in a training exercise for demonstrators preparing for Monday’s G8 summit in Hokkaido in northern Japan, and my own face was covered by a menacing revolutionary scarf.

Thousands of protesters have marched, danced and drummed their way through the streets near a highly secured hotel on the remote Lake Toya where the leaders will meet.

For many people, the focus has already shifted from Gordon Brown’s stance on climate change and the contents of Carla Bruni’s wardrobe to the students, farmers, trade unionists and anarchists trying to disrupt proceedings.

Japan, where such protest training camps have never been set up before, is taking the threat very seriously: it has deployed 40,000 armed police across the country and is spending £142 million on security.

The police have arrested three demonstrators after angry scuffles, including the disc-jockey on a mobile protest float.

The protesters have been carefully planning their response in a rural camp in nearby Tobetsu.

The programme covers direct action workshops, protest tactic discussions, legal advisory training, puppet making, football tournaments and drumming sessions.

In the guise of a Western protester, The Telegraph infiltrated the camp, which adheres to a strict “no media” policy.

It was a 20-minute walk through green fields backed by mist-shrouded mountains and drizzly skies. But as the string of colourful tents came into view, a car could also be seen in the distance, manned by plain clothes police keeping a watchful eye on proceedings.

The camp was set in the grounds of a former school, where flourescent anti-G8 banners fluttered in the breeze and a large sign read: “Alternative village.”

Inside a reception tent, two Japanese activists slouched on a sofa, handed out a list of rules and politely asked for a daily Y1,500 (£7) donation to help run the camp.

About three quarters of the protesters are Japanese from a variety of backgrounds, including trade unionists, farmers, activists, and the Japanese Communist party.

Many of them are students, but there were plenty of older Japanese citizens as well, including Hiroshi Tsuchira, 71, a retired airport worker.

“Life is difficult for people in Japan and I have never been to march this big before but it is important for people to hear our voice,” he said. “Our future will not be good if it lies in the hands of the G8 leaders.”

Other activists came from San Francisco, London and Nantes.

They included people from charities like Oxfam and more riotous protesters from a French anarcho-syndicalist commune.

“We are protesting against a structure of capitalism that has been created by the G8 summit,” said Nakata-san, a political science student from Tokyo. “We want to create our own ideal system in this campsite community.”

Despite its anarchic credentials, the campsite offers a perfect template of Japan’s renowned organisational skills. Neat piles of placards, T-shirts and recycling bins line the entrance, while leaflets offer advice on protest etiquette.

Japanese bamboo flute music is as prominent as punk rock on the internal sound system, which also broadcasts sudden and surreal messages: “Will volunteers please help peel vegetables for dinner!” or “Rave party in the gym at 5pm!”

The gym is a vast space filled with piles of anti-G8 banners and brightly coloured protest “puppets” – including eight wooden creations on sticks emblazoned with skulls on one side and the faces of G8 leaders on the other.

And there are many meetings. After a long discussion about colour-coded washing-up bowls and whether sheets should be used with futons, the cultural differences suddenly came to light.

“Is there nothing else to talk about?” muttered Sarah, a straight-talking activist who spent two months travelling overland to Japan from London. “I’m stunned.”

Beneath the veneer of domesticity, serious training sessions are under way for the 1,000 protesters at three camps near Lake Toya.

One teaches how to avoid arrest. “It was hands on, direct and practical,” said James, a 19-year-old Cambridge undergraduate. “It’s useful for people who want to go to these protests and make an impact without getting arrested.”

From intricate diagrams of where to stand in a crowd to stunts like dressing up as clowns, the discussions are painstakingly detailed.

For protesters who need to sleep, there are tents or, for an additional fee, three neatly organised rooms, equipped with futons and blankets.

And for those too hungry to continue training on behalf of the world’s poor, there are delicious vegan meals of curry, risotto, seaweed salad and fresh fruit prepared by a “food collective” that also works around the clock to make fresh hemp bread from cannabis seeds.

Late arrivals were disappointed to learn that they had missed the last of the direct action workshops laid on over previous days. They were masterminded by Lisa Fithian, an American activist - and so fearful are the Japanese authorities over the risk of disruption to the summit that she was reportedly only allowed into the country on condition that she left before the summit had even begun.

However, there’s good news in all this. Really. What’s the good news? Following the collapse of the American Empire, there will be a rare window of opportunity for radical reform where progressive, pioneering people like NaturalNews readers can play a significant role in creating what I call The Next Society.

What is The Next Society? It’s the one that replaces the United States of America after the failure of this current system. It happens all the time through world history, of course: Failed attempts at living in community are replaced by new attempts. Democracy was one such attempt, and I still think Democracy could work. Too bad we don’t one operating in the United States today. Instead, we only have the illusion of Democracy that’s controlled by hacked voting machines, a corrupt media, and a corporate-controlled government agenda that, at every step, works against the interests of the People.

The USA experiment was a fun ride, no doubt. Especially the last couple of decades, filled with cheap money, cheap blow, cheap politicians and expensive medicine. We’ve drugged, snorted and consumed our way through trillions of dollars borrowed from other countries! The rest of the world, it turns out, has subsidized America’s addiction to excess in every form: Excessive food, excessive pharmaceuticals and excessively large vehicles designed to dominate excessively crowded highways that ultimately lead to nowhere.

Just remember this: The rest of the world is tired of funding America’s consumer culture. And the free money from China, Japan, the Middle East and other regions that have subsidized America’s consumption habit by purchasing worthless U.S. Treasury IOU notes are about to put an end to their practice of following good money with bad. The inevitable result of all this, of course, is that the U.S. dollar will soon be abandoned by the world (and its oil trade exchanges), and mainstream America is going to wake up one morning and find that all their bank savings deposits (which are unwisely held in U.S. currency, by the way) are utterly worthless.

Following all that, however, what should we do to create a new society that can offer substantial improvements over the one that just collapsed?

(If you smell something burning, by the way, don’t panic. It’s just Rome.)

Creating The Next Society

When the United States of America collapses like the Roman Empire under the weight of its debt, disease and disastrously devolving dollar, there will be an opportunity to create a new society governed by new rules. I believe that evil corporations, corrupt government regulators and the U.S. Patent Office should be among the first to be placed on the chopping block.

Under an economic reboot scenario, Big Pharma’s control over the media, the FDA and the medical profession will collapse, and the People, having witnessed their life savings lost in the economic collapse, and finally realizing their health was stolen by a fraudulent industry working in collusion with their own corrupt government (which lied to them the whole time), will not be amused. Armed with video cameras, duct tape and a healthy dose of outrage, they will storm the offices of drug companies and the Food and Drug Administration. They’ll drag the CEOs into the streets, wrap them in cocoons of duct tape and pummel them with rotten fruit. (Or, if all this goes down in an airport, they’ll stab them with TSA-approved plastic forks…)

Cultural revolutions are not always a pretty thing, but they are often part of a Cathartic process through which a society to vents its anger at an institution that has committed horrible atrocities against the human race (watch some of the post-Nazi films from WWII if you want to see what this social “venting” really looks like).

In time, I have every confidence that the reign of censorship and intimidation we’ve seen conducted by the FDA will abruptly end, and the campaign of chemical intoxication of the world population by Big Pharma will be brought to a sudden end. In its place, we will have the opportunity to build a new society based on free speech, respect for nature, and a philosophy of creating abundance through health rather than generating profit from disease. We can engineer a new society that rewards disease prevention, encourages healthy consumer choices, and informs consumers about the true benefits of herbs, vitamins, nutritional supplements and naturopathic modalities.

A list of things to outlaw in The Next Society

I have a long list of laws to recommend be implemented in that new society. They include the banning of all advertising of processed foods, cigarettes, and pharmaceuticals, the ending of all subsidies on sugar and corn, the outlawing of factory farming practices, the establishment of true Free Speech for nutritional supplement manufacturers, and the building of a Big Pharma Holocaust Museum that documents the terrible chemical atrocities that have been committed against the human race by the drug companies throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

I would also work to outlaw the poisoning of land, water and air through the outlawing of all chemical pesticides, for example. Genetically-engineered crops, of course, would also be banned outright. (Goodbye, Monsanto, DuPont, ADM and all the other chemical-pushing num-nuts of our modern world…)

In that future society, conventional medicine will be virtually irrelevant. Sure, we’ll need a few surgeons on staff at the hospitals to handle the emergency room visits from all the corporate CEOs being dropped off tall buildings by angry mobs, but more than 95% of the doctors pushing pills today will find themselves irrelevant, unneeded and out of work.

This will be a day to celebrate our new health freedom, and it will be a day that the death rate will begin to plummet. Longevity will be improved, quality of life will take a leap forward, and our nation can once again begin to experience real progress that leads to abundance and happiness. Good health, of course, is the key to all this. And good health is simply incompatible with today’s system of monopoly medicine and corporate greed, where profits take precedence over human health.

Why we cannot change medicine by appealing to the tyrants

Some people, of course, believe that the way to change medicine and win back a few freedoms is to appeal to the FDA by filing petitions and posting comments on the FDA’s website. If you wish to file a comment with the FDA, that’s fine with me, but please note that I’m increasingly seeing that as a useless exercise in forcing FDA criminals to simply hit the delete button a few more times as they trash all the comments they don’t want to read.

We are not going to solve the FDA’s criminal behavior problem by appealing to the FDA, folks. Filing a bunch of public comments to the very criminal organization that’s the root of this problem is not a productive way of solving the problem. It’s like begging Hitler to stop killing the Jews. Tyrants don’t listen to reason. They’re too busy following all the disturbing voices in their own heads to listen to anyone else.

The more immediate way to solve this problem (and many others) is to get the Dept. of Justice to simply march into the FDA offices and start making arrests. Slap a pair of handcuffs on the top FDA decision makers, charge them with crimes against humanity, hold a public trial and toss them into federal prison for the rest of their lives. Topple the FDA / Big Pharma conspiracy, and you end the reign of censorship and tyranny that has been orchestrated by these people to prevent you from having access to nutritional supplements that make pharmaceuticals obsolete!

Should the Dept. of Justice fail to actually pursue justice in this context (which it has so far ignored, so I’m not holding my breath), then all we have to do is wait for the coming economic collapse to strike Washington, then insert ourselves into the dialog when it comes time to rebuild a new society that might actually be sustainable.

The American Empire, let’s face it, is teetering on the edge, like it can’t wait to leap into the gorge and become another chapter in the history books of the world. What chapter is that? History 101: The American Empire: 1776 - 2012 (or whatever the year happens to be).

Keep in mind that this whole fraudulent system of fake money, fake medicine and fake Democracy is a house of cards rattling on top of a shaky table. And when it comes tumbling down, that will be a crucial time for all of us in the natural health community to join together and help create a new society that values human life, Mother Nature and freedom of speech over corporate profits.

Which reminds me of this: Perhaps the most important improvement we need to make in our future society is to deny corporations the rights of individuals.

Reign in the domination of corporations

In other words, we need to take away from the corporations those rights that should be reserved for individuals. Corporations, for example, should have no right to Free Speech, nor to contribute to political campaigns, nor to own radio and television broadcast channels. These rights should be reserved solely for individuals or benign non-profit organizations that seek no profits.

It is time to seriously rethink the foundations of capitalism, because if there’s anything we’ve learned in the last few years, it’s that a greed-focused economy ultimately does more harm than good to the People. This is reflected quite accurately in the fact that the more the drug companies can keep people sick and diseased, the more profits they generate. Thus, sickness = profits.

This is what modern capitalism has given us. Sickness = profits.

Capitalism without ethics is nothing more than a con, and far too much evil has taken place today behind the curtain of the corporation. It’s time to hold individual people responsible for their actions and stop giving people the legal right to hide behind a fictitious legal construct while their actions destroy the lives of billions of people.

This is one area, by the way, where I disagree with Libertarian philosophy: The free market cannot solve everything, folks. Greed is not a good motivation upon which to base the entire economy of a nation. It’s time we started to bring in ethics and compassion for all living things. Entrepreneurism combined with ethics is powerful and positive. Wouldn’t it be cool if top CEOs were paid salaries based on the number of people they helped instead of the number of people they swindled? Extracting money from consumers by selling them useless, toxic products should not be considered “success.” (And I’ll single out Merck, Proctor & Gamble, Monsanto and other similar corporations as ones that I consider to be profiting from poison…) We need to start measuring success in more ways than one-dimensional dollars. Raping the planet and calling it “productivity” is a philosophy doomed to collapse.

Be part of the revolution of ideas

America today is a nation of amnesiacs. We have collectively surrendered our power to corporations and governments, and then we express disgust when we discover that our individual liberties have been overwritten by the very institutions we put into power.

I pray that someday we will have the courage to realize that it is we who have fabricated these institutional illusions, and they only exist as fictitious projections of society’s rules that we’ve come to think of as real, like the white lines painted on roadways designed to keep you in your lane. But in reality, there are no lanes, there are no corporations, and there are no governments. These only exist as agreements on paper, and as widely-shared hallucinations that define the constructs of modern society. They can be gone in an instant, and replaced in the next instant, if the whole nation simply comes to its senses and achieves a new level of collective consciousness.

It is time that we stopped appealing to corporations and governments for bits and pieces of freedom and, instead, stood in our own power as free citizens, organized, empowered and informed. It is time we started asking, “Is there a better way to organize a society? Is there a societal construct based on individual liberties that can provide freedom, health, abundance and sustainability without the centralization of power that inevitably leads to corruption?”

I think there is. And I think it’s time we started talking openly about how to put that system into place when the opportunity comes.

Be part of the revolution. Start thinking, and then talking, about The Next Society and how it might be organized. Start with the principles of individual liberty, freedom of religion, freedom of speech and respect for nature, then build from there. Soon, you may very well get the opportunity to see some of your ideas become reality.

I personally believe it is time to base our society on the power of the People, as in a true Direct Democracy where there are no Congresspeople or Senators. The People should vote directly on laws, ending corporate influence and lobbyists. Let’s end the IRS, the failed War on Drugs, the secret military prisons, the private Federal Reserve, the era of monopoly medicine and global military imperialism. Let’s end secretive government and Presidential executive orders. Let’s end patent protection for genes, seeds and medicines, declaring all such patents to be public property. Let’s give birth to a new society founded on individual liberties, sustainable living and progress focused on the greater good rather than obscene individual wealth.

Let’s take back our nation from the corporate and government criminals who are currently running it!

Now, those are just my ideas. You may not agree with them all, and in fact I hope you don’t! What we need are YOUR ideas (and other people’s ideas) to be part of the conversation in creating The Next Society. It will soon be time to put the new ideas on the table, throw out the old ideas, and create a new society. Consider: What hasn’t worked? What has worked? What makes sense today that didn’t make sense in 1776? (Like internet voting, for example, which eliminates the entire need for the U.S. Congress, since the whole idea of “representatives” was based on the need for remote representation of people living in far-off places without connectivity…)

Does our tax system currently work? Do you like the IRS? If not, what would work better? (The Flat Tax, perhaps?) Does voting work? Not very well. Instant Runoff Voting works much better. Why not implement that in the Next Society? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-ru…

You get the point. This is a time to voice your ideas. Refuse to remain silent. Do not be timid in these times, or you shall certainly find yourself living under a new tyranny with a different name.

The Next Society will soon arrive, and it is up to us to decide what to make of it. (And get ready for a wild ride as we witness the historical collapse of the American Empire…)

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About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guides, and books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of super bright LED light bulbs that are 1000% more energy efficient than incandescent lights. He’s also a veteran of the software technology industry, having founded a personalized mass email software product used to deliver email newsletters to subscribers. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. Known by his callsign, the ‘Health Ranger,’ Adams posts his missions statements, health statistics and health photos at www.HealthRanger.org

Socialist Worker | Gordon Brown says we must all take a wage cut – but up to 800,000 local government workers are set to walk out over pay. Gordon Brown, chancellor Alistair Darling, and Bank of England governor Mervyn King lined up last week to deliver pious lectures on why workers must accept wage cuts to help stop inflation.

But it is not wages that are pushing up prices. The cost of food has risen by 8 percent in a year and utility bills are up 10 percent. The energy companies are threatening rises of up to 40 percent this autumn.

The only way for us to keep food on the table is to fight back against the government’s pay limits.

Shell tanker drivers struck this month and won a 14 percent pay rise over two years. They showed that workers have the power to beat both bosses and Brown.

This week local government workers also voted for strikes. That means in the weeks to come hundreds of thousands of workers could strike a blow for all those struggling to get by.

The battle lines are being drawn and striking back is the best defence we have against the attacks on our living standards.

The following should be read alongside this article:
» Unison result boosts fightback over pay
» Health workers reject ‘shoddy’ below-inflation deal
» Inflation: the poor pay more
» Do wage rises push up prices?
» Case studies: how does inflation affect you?

The hauliers plan the go-slow action from 2pm.

They are expected to start at junction 31, near Castleford, and head westwards to junction 26 south of Bradford.

The route will take the protest along a notoriously congested section of the motorway system, including the M1/M62 junction near Leeds.

One of the organisers, trucker Rob Sweeting, told BBC Radio Leeds: “Hopefully somebody will listen to us - the Government.”

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: “West Yorkshire Police has been in discussion with the organisers of the protest and our partners in the Highways Agency and comprehensive plans are in place to minimise disruption, ensure public safety and deal effectively with any potential problems.

“We will continue to closely monitor the situation.

“Our primary aim is to ensure the continued free flow of traffic on the motorway while allowing lawful, peaceful protest to go ahead.

“Anyone found breaking the law will face prosecution.”

Three auto plants — one each from Nissan, Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen’s subsidiary Sociedad Espaola de Automviles de Turismo — said they were suspending operations for lack of spare parts.

And some gasoline stations in Madrid and the northeastern Catalonia region already have run out of fuel.

Vendors at Mercamadrid, Madrid’s sprawling wholesale market, warned of shortages of fruit, vegetables and meat this week if the strike continues.

Truckers say diesel costs have risen 36 percent in one year to more than $7 a gallon.

The protester, the first fatality of the stoppage, was knocked down by a van at a picket line outside the wholesale market in Granada, the Interior Ministry said.

The ministry said the van driver, who has been detained, accelerated and hit the man when protesters began to throw stones after he tried to drive past the pickets.

The death prompted the suspension of a second day of talks between the government and truckers’ representatives.

In a similar protest in Hong Kong, truckers were driving slowly to disrupt traffic and protest rising fuel costs.