Everyday Justice magazine - Sisters of Mercy %

April 2025

Articles from Mercy:

The cultural battle advances (Ana Siufi, RSM; Institute Justice Team)
Critical Considerations: What’s going on with tariffs? (Karen Donahue, RSM)
Water extractivism in Palestine (Marianne Comfort; Institute Justice Team)

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The cultural battle advances

Ana Siufi, RSM; Institute Justice Team

Argentina has a far-right president who presents himself as a defender of “freedom” and follows leaders like Trump, Musk, and Netanyahu, making political decisions marked by violence, authoritarianism, and cruelty. Some youth and other social sectors, disappointed with traditional parties, feel represented by Milei and continue to support him.

For 15 months, he has misruled by controlling the legislative and judicial powers, dismantling essential state institutions and agencies, increasing the unpayable foreign debt with the IMF, destroying the national industry, favoring dubious business deals for the wealthy, handing over territories to extractive corporations like never before, depriving the working class of food, medicine, and other rights, and impoverishing the middle class while fiercely repressing their peaceful protests. All of this is justified by the major disinformation media, which tout the wonders achieved while concealing the socio-economic devastation, as they are funded by the plutocracy that wields power.

Everything is serious, but I want to reflect on what some analysts point out: the cultural revolution plan is an attempt to alter people’s worldview, instill humanist values, and reshape our deepest identity into disvalues that fracture the social fabric, undermine the ability to think independently, and diminish the feeling of being an inclusive and supportive community.

We describe it as a cultural battle because, through their speeches, propaganda, and actions, they assault and attempt to replace: solidarity with cruelty and hatred towards the poor; an attitude of openness to foreigners with discrimination and border closures; respect for life with the idolization of the Market; a sense of community with egocentrism and patriarchal hierarchization; awareness of the common good and shared resources with the absolutization of private property; love and inclusion with hatred for the different and the discarding of minorities; reflection and creativity with mindlessness and the repetition of slogans; awareness of labor rights with newly legalized slavery; faith in work with an immoral pursuit of profit; the valuation of human rights with their validity only for privileged sectors, excluding others deemed subhuman; and the search for memory, truth, and justice with the destruction of monuments or organizations and the false narrative of the military dictatorship.

It gives us hope to know that popular support for this policy is drastically decreasing and that the numerous peaceful mobilizations in the streets throughout the country are driven by a sense of community, democracy, and ethics as expressed in slogans such as: ALL IN DEFENSE OF THE RETIREES; THE HOMELAND IS NOT FOR SALE; THIS GOVERNMENT SHAMES US; DIGNITY IS NOT NEGOTIABLE…

The government responds with slander, violent repression, and the judicialization of protest. It thus demonstrates both its weakness and the impossibility of subjugating, with impunity, those motivated by non-negotiable values. I hope this ethic influences the opposition politicians! It is up to the Mercy community to stand by this struggle in the streets, raise awareness, educate in the communities, and encourage an eco-spirituality that defends life, freedom, equality, and peace.

May the Spirit continue to illuminate our path as a people and grant us the courage to fight, the unity to organize, love for nonviolent resistance, and honest leaders to restore independence and democracy.

Critical Considerations

What’s going on with tariffs?

Karen Donahue, RSM

On April 2, 2025, Liberation Day, Donald Trump announced his sweeping tariffs plan and sent the global economy into a tailspin. Markets fluctuated wildly as governments, businesses and consumers struggled to make sense of the president’s response to what he sees as the exploitation of the U.S. by the rest of the world. Two recent articles, one posted on the Foreign Policy in Focus website and the other on Common Dreams, put the tariffs question into a broader context and provide some helpful insights on how to respond.

Geostrategic analyst Imran Khalid notes that Trump sees trade as a zero-sum game, one country’s gain is another’s loss. He does not understand the complexity and interdependence of the modern global economy. For example, vehicles manufactured in the U.S. contain many imported components which will be subject to tariffs. These increased costs will be passed on to consumers, significantly raising the sticker price of a new car.

Global response to Trump’s tariff plan has been critical. Some countries are already contemplating retaliatory tariffs that could be devastating, especially to U.S. agriculture and put additional pressure on already struggling rural communities.

Iza Camarillo, Research Director for Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, places the tariff controversy within the larger context of corporate globalization. She says that trade agreements such as NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) and its successor USMCA (US Mexico Canada) prioritize corporate interests “that made offshoring easier, gutted environmental protections, and prioritized investor rights over worker rights.”

These agreements also hindered the capacity of governments to support domestic industries, raise labor standards or enforce environmental protections as these measures were seen as impediments to free trade. The result has been stagnant wages, shuttered factory towns and rising income inequality leading to widespread pain and frustration among U.S. workers. She warned that “trade justice requires more than poorly designed tariffs. It demands systemic reform: binding labor rights, climate protections, resilient supply chains, and democratic accountability. Trump offers none of that.”

Water extractivism in Palestine

Marianne Comfort; Institute Justice Team

Lina Fattom recently spoke with Mercy Global Action and the rest of the UN Extractivism Working Group regarding women’s struggles in Palestine, especially as they relate to water access and extractivism. The video can be viewed by clicking here.

Lina Fattom is a Palestinian human rights lawyer who trained in the U.S. and specializes in public and private international law and corporate litigation, as well as cross-border arbitration and negotiations. She recently served as director of the Innovative Private Sector Development Project, formerly served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team, and previously worked as a human rights attorney with Amnesty International, an advisor with Al-Haq to the Norwegian Refugee Council and Oxfam, and manager of the Diaconia IHL Center in Jerusalem. She currently serves as a director on the board of PALTEL and directs projects to develop enterprises in Gaza and the West Bank.