Multiple crisis and catastrophe (tags)
The official self-image of bourgeois society remains strangely untouched by crises. They are understood as improbable and short-lived interruptions of what are actually successful processes. Disruptions and crises are denied, are considered technical and, through a variety of individual measures, if not solvable, then at least postponable into the future.
Postmodern consciousness is completely absorbed in the present, the point of the now, indeed is eager to be absorbed in it - a state of affairs that manifests itself in the fact that all thought and action relates solely to it: There is the present - and nothing else. Or to be more precise: there is the present of the now (which continues indefinitely) and the past presents.
Trust in Institutions and the War Dividend (tags)
Even if almost no one wants to admit it, our “system” is obsolete, and for this reason it is now morphing into a “closed system” – totalitarian in nature. It is equally clear that the few who continue to benefit materially from the capitalist system (the 0.1%) are willing to do whatever it takes to prolong its obsolete existence. Debt is issued from one door and purchased from another.
Qualitative Break: Why a Radical Critique of Work is Necessary Today (tags)
Capital has increasingly decoupled itself from directly expended labor and accumulation is now taking place predominantly on the level of financial markets... In large parts of the Global South, the majority has long since been declared ‘superfluous.’
Climate catastrophe and `freedom of consumption' (tags)
It is not five to twelve, but five past twelve, as philosopher Slavoj Žižek writes. The fact that climate change is a fact (the details may well be debated) and poses a serious threat to humanity is something that the last fool should have realized by now.1 It is also clear that the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases must be radically and rapidly reduced.
The end of the "Golden Age" of cqapitalism and the rise of neoliberalism (tags)
The rise of the neoliberal world economic system marked by the dominance of financial markets – whose financial superstructure collapses over us – resulted from the radical economic crises of the early 1970s that seized nearly all western industrial countries.
Car Plants Are Making Medical Equipment - And Things Should Stay That Way (tags)
The time has come for progressive nationalization and socialization. This includes the financial sector, because only if we gain control over the financing of socially necessary areas of production will it be possible to ensure that we as a society can plan our future.
The pace of business rationalization has accelerated to such an extent that in the core sectors of world market production, fewer and fewer workers are needed despite growing output of goods. Thus, the development of productive power has reached a point at which it makes absolutely more labor superfluous in each period.
Inflation in the Age of Finance Capitalism (tags)
The shift of profit-striving from the real- to the financial-economy lowered economic growth Unemployment and atypical jobs soared. The welfare state was weakened. At the same time, financial wealth grew exorbitantly (the DAX increased 14-fold since 1988).
The inflation debate and The inflation conundrum (tags)
If inflation is the result of a distributional conflict, it can be deliberately stopped by governments. Governments could skim off the higher profits through a tax in order to subsidize energy costs for consumers. Governments could also raise taxes (on the rich).
Against the cannabilism of capital (tags)
Spiral downward and No exit! (tags)
The austerity dictates imposed on the Eurozone are only exacerbating the crisis they are supposed to be fighting. The austerity measures are leading to a collapse in domestic demand.
Making yourself comfortable in capitalism (tags)
"Whoever has a wife should behave as if he had none, ... whoever buys as if he were not the owner, whoever makes use of the world as if he did not use it" (1 Cor 7:29f). Paul is speaking here to people who were "called" as slaves into the messianic church (1 Cor 7:21).
Myths of the Crisis and Enemy Images in the Media (tags)
The Ukrainian ambassador was quoted in the FAZ as saying: "All Russians are now our enemies". This rhetoric is classic enemy image cultivation... This homogenization is so pre-Enlightenment and always wrong.
US: Domestic political gridlock and The Ukraine War (tags)
The Ukraine War: In Asia, Africa, and the Arab world, the prevailing view is that Europe is heading for disaster - and that the international order is falling apart. In much of Asia, Africa & the Middle East, the reaction to the war in Ukraine has been restrained. It is resounding silence.
Destrosying what is destroying the planet? (tags)
The decisions of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow are a disaster. They seal the course for a drastic and irreversible heating of the earth, which threatens the survival of hundreds of millions of people and countless animal and plant species.
Ecosocialist strategy: industrial restructuring (tags)
The findings of international climate research and the IPCC are clear. World society is heading for tipping points that will abruptly change the earth and climate system. As a result, several billion people will lose their previous livelihoods in a few decades.
A good future beyond the market and the state (tags)
In the midst of a blindly globalized society, we are atomized workers and consumers divided by competition, who are in contact with each other primarily through monetary and labor relations and only exceptionally and temporarily represent common interests. We become increasingly helpless...
The true costs of capitalist wealth (tags)
What drives the capitalist mode of production is the endless compulsion to increase abstract wealth, or, put more simply, the compulsion to turn money into more money... Society is richer than it knows, because it does not take all kinds of wealth factors into account in GDP.
The Last Stage of the Middle Class (tags)
Money capital is fleeing into the speculative financial markets because investments in new factories have become unprofitable. While growing parts of society are impoverished or even impoverished outside of production, only a simulative accumulation of capital through financial bubbles takes place...
Promoting Sustainable Economics (tags)
The protagonists of neoliberal globalization seek to fight the devastations – for which they bear responsibility – by the same means that cause the devastations. Now is the time to seize the opportunity and build up economic policy pressure to enforce the development of an economic order that is sustainably oriented...
System Transformation or Barbarism (tags)
Overcoming capital is thus a necessity for survival. Consequently, the climate question is not a question of burden sharing, it is not a question of social security. The global exploitation process of capital, in which resources and energy are burned to make more money...
We only live in half a democracy (tags)
The machine used in the production process counts more in the constitution than the working person who created this machine in the first place. As a result, the employees in the production process are hopelessly inferior to the capital owners. That is the legal situation. But it doesn't have to stay that way.
The 1.5 target calls for an eco-socialist revolution (tags)
The only responsible way forward is the IPCC's P1 scenario, which envisages rapid and radical interventions in existing production, transport and consumption structures, i.e. a massive industrial transformation and deconstruction in the main capitalist countries (15ff.).
The Virtues of a 28-hour Week: Work less, pollute less (tags)
The number of workers is growing faster than the amount of work available. We live in a society where work is poorly distributed. Three days off for every four days worked could be liberating. The goal would be increased well-being, gaining time and losing a kind of consumption not really synonymous with pleasure.
Is Green Growth the Solution? (tags)
Just as every millimeter of social progress must be fought for against capital interests, the protection of nature and climate must also be won against the rulers. In these struggles lies the future of the planet.
Capitalist dilemmas and The Greed for More (tags)
The overexploitation of nature did not remain without resistance. However, these were ignored by both the left and the right. The "requirements of shipping and agriculture" destroy original functions of the floodplain landscapes. "And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find,maybe we should change the system"
With a plan against the climate crisis (tags)
Quality and enjoyment would be the new maxims, and the true wealth would be free time. Admittedly, a change in consciousness would remain necessary, and many a convenience in lifestyle would have to be abandoned in favor of the ecosystem. However, the standard of living could be raised significantly through free time.
Workout. The Crisis of Labor and the Limits of Capitalist Society (tags)
The Third Industrial Revolution represents a qualitative break in the history of productivity growth. This is because microelectronics facilitated a radical reorganization in production overall such that labor lost the central importance that it previously had and the application of knowledge became the main force.
The present crisis means that, to a degree previously undreamt of, ever-greater numbers of human beings will simply be declared “superfluous.” The much-invoked “new role of the state” has not the slightest chance of recreating a 1960s style social welfare capitalism, with full employment and a rising standard of living.
Climate Crisis and Social Transformation in the Age of Corona (tags)
The temporary moratorium on economic activity in large parts of the world has done nothing at all to change the fundamental logic of the capitalist mode of production, which is driven by the end-in-itself motion of endlessly reproducing abstract wealth, represented by money.
Capitalism as the religion of indebtedness and debt (tags)
In capitalism, the fundamental social relation is neither exchange nor production. Rather, it is debt that dominates and supersedes every other way of recognizing and valorizing the measure between people. Those who have money are creditworthy, manifesting the sign of God's grace.
Alternatives to capitalism: Buen vivir (tags)
Capitalism is seen primarily as a system of institutional and racist oppression, and it implies a way of life that sees nature only as a raw material to be exploited. The claim is thus to break with the capitalist mode of production and life in order to create "other forms of life."
What does socialism mean in the 21st century? (tags)
"Socialism" should be much more than a mere buzzword. In light of the fact that current capitalism is in the process of destroying our planet and our prospects for a free, democratic, and good life, "socialism" must become a genuine systemic alternative.
Why capitalism compels renunciation and we could work less (tags)
How much human and natural resources are squandered on taxation, trade and advertising, how much on labor administration, justice, police, prisons, armaments, military? How many people work overtime without end, suffer heart attacks and burnout, wear themselves out in the brutal competition?
Many Crises-One System: Counter Power in Catastrophe Capitalism (tags)
A revolution does not come out of nowhere, but emerges from the struggles in the here and now. The point is that we can only fight for social or ecological progress against capitalist principles.
Climate crisis and social transformation in times of corona (tags)
Companies go bankrupt, workers are laid off, and because the sources of income dry up, millions of people can no longer even buy the most basic necessities... What counts is whether the things produced can be sold on the market and make a profit.
COVID-19 and Catastrophe Capitalism (tags)
The scale of the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences on world accumulation are unprecedented, with the global economic costs still increasing. At the end of March, some three billion people on the planet were in lockdown or social-distancing mode.36
When Wealth Destroys Wealth: Inverse Capitalism and its Limits (tags)
Ever-increasing real estate prices was an illusion. The boom that the US stock markets have experienced in recent years deserves the name fracking boom. Fictitious capital put the US economy back on the growth track.
The chances of the Corona crisis (tags)
Public debt only became a problem after the bank bailouts...Crises cause fear and reinforce deep-seated anxieties.. The market under capitalism is not an efficient distribution mechanism, but a means to enrich private corporations at the expense of society and its environment.
Climate crisis and social transformation in the age of Corona (tags)
Material wealth in the form of useful things and utilities is only a means subordinated to the objective of capital accumulation and is sacrificed when that objective can no longer be achieved… Without the state, capitalist society would fly apart immediately.
Corona, capitalism and nature (tags)
"Radical reforms are needed. The policies of the last forty years must be reversed. The government must play a stronger role in the economy. It must no longer regard public services as costs but as investments. Redistribution is back on the agenda."
On the Power of Money: Three by Eugen Drewermann (tags)
Only faith (as in a religion), the "invisible hand," the "law" of the "free" market can judge everything. State interventions can only be annoying. The market itself is allegedly "social". Everyone acts according to his advantage. The system is not social but criminal and unjust.
Economics in the times of the coronavirus (tags)
Most people’s thinking is determined by the development of the Covid-19 crisis, the return of “the hour of executive power” (Gerhard A. Ritter), i.e. state of exception legislation, and the fears which it evokes as well as the economic measures in response to the health crisis.
Don't Panic. Solidarity. Read (tags)
Some experts are sure that the only thing that will stop the virus permanently is for everyone to stay at home for a few weeks. Model China. The drastic quarantine has obviously worked, if you believe the Chinese government, the number of inflected people is decreasing.
Capitalist conditions are characterized by the fact that there is no rationality in society as a whole that coordinates the interests of the many and the overall direction of social development.
11-point Plan for a New Socialism (tags)
The break with the old neoliberal and new authoritarian policies becomes a necessity in the face of the multiple crisis. An impending economic slump would exacerbate this situation.
From Punitive Tariffs and Trade Conflicts to Economic War (tags)
Trump's punitive attacks on several trading partners, above all China, are changing suddenly into a destruction of the multilateral structures of the world market. With "America first," the president wants to restore the past hegemony. The wrecking ball is not the only model!
The Gigantic Chasm Between Democratic Rhetoric and Capitalist Reality (tags)
When we lose the idea of community and solidarity, we lose our capacity for collective action.
Herbert Marcuse: The One-Dimensional Man (tags)
"Manipulation of needs" is one of the control instruments. Rulers change needs through manipulation. False needs are needs imposed from above like production and consumption of useless things. The need for freedom no longer exists in developed capitalist countries.
Why Choose Nut Milk Over Cows' Milk (tags)
Nut milks have no animal fat, carcinogenic female hormones, salmonella, listeria, antibiotics. They are not derived from animal slavery, suffering, and murder. They help to reforest the planet, use much less human labor, water and energy in production.
Crisis Regulation in Global Capitalism (tags)
The globalization euphoria waned with the 1997 Asian crisis. Hundreds of billions were needed to bailout bankrupt banks. The US with its high solvent demand stabilized the world economy for a long time. The US could become indebted in its own currency.
Post-capitalist Perspectives (tags)
Capitalism is winning to death. The exit from the overheated machine of capitalism represents an enormous challenge. We cannot avoid the question about common property in the search for alternatives.Can greater social equality be achieved without changing property relations?
Capital as Climate Killer (tags)
The growth pressure of the world economy makes a resource-sparing social order only possible beyond capital. The seeming rationality of capitalist goods production serves an irrational end-in-itself - the multiplication of capital.
The System Question as a Survival Question (tags)
A fundamental social alternative to the permanent capitalist chaos is sought. A rational social discourse on system alternatives would be an antidote to populism and to the irrational identity-mania that spreads. The public discusses headscarves while late capitalism sinks in crisis
Work and Digitalization and A Corpse Governs Society (tags)
On the 2018 Day of Labor, many were worried. No one can deny digitalization affects work. Artificial intelligence greatly changes professions and whole branches. Well-paid jobs become scarcer. Rebuilding the social state seems necessary. Capitalism's blind flight through history is ending.
The Market is a Universal Totalitarian Religion (tags)
The market accepts and rejects like a Calvinist God. The market only promises itself. Its highest good is the economic boom. The market theocracy makes this side into something otherworldly. The cult of money and the commodity eclipses all its predecessors.
State Investments and the Public Sector (tags)
The public infrastructure is something positive, even from a business perspective. it is a kind of advance concession, increases the entrepreneurial production potential and lowers the production costs. If state investments are trifling, this will have negative long-term effects
The Future as Transformation (tags)
There is no future with present-day capitalism. Capitalism stands for a movement of endless profit-making. Only a radical breach with the capitalist accumulation dynamic can nurture the hope of a reasonably tolerable future for human civilization on this planet.
Capitalism Criticism 2.0 (tags)
"Capitalism contains crisis as rain clouds contain rain" (Jean Juares, 19th century socialist). Profits increase in the neoliberal model, not investment (Nicolas Krowall). The competitive pressure drives businessmen to reduce investments in labor and wages.
Survival instead of Profit (tags)
Capital is a powerful machine of commodification. Since the capitalist market economy became autonomous and "separated" from society, capital has only functioned according to its own laws, the impersonal laws of profit and accumulation.
Limits to Growth Published Forty Years Ago (tags)
The MIT scholars under Dennis Meadows came to four core conclusions: 1) there are limits to economic growth on finite planet, 2) the economy and population are growing exponentially, 3) exceeding limits will lead to collapse and 4) collapse could be avoided by turning from growth
"Train to Zakopane’ Starring Tanna Frederick World Premiere at Jewish Film Festival (tags)
Henry Jaglom’s film “Train to Zakopane” starring Tanna Frederick will have its World Premiere at the Jewish Film Festival on Saturday, April 29 at the Laemmle Theatre in Beverly Hills. The film is based upon true events that occurred in the life of Jaglom’s father as he crossed Poland on a train in 1928. Anti-Semitism was, at that time, rife in much of Europe, especially in Poland.
Attempt the Impossible! Theses for a New Left Majority (tags)
The Brexit vote and the American presidential election have dramatically accelerated the crises of classical neoliberal policy. The exit from neoliberalism can only succeed in a social movement and cannot only be a matter of a government or of the parties.
SAG-AFTRA video game performers on strike (tags)
In the early morning of Friday, the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced a strike against a dozen video game entertainment corporations, including Electronic Arts Productions, Inc., Disney Character Voices, Inc. and Warner Brothers Games, Inc.
Sylvia Opens October 13 at Odyssey Theatre; Tanna Frederick Stars (tags)
Tanna Frederick stars in "Sylvia"
The Digitalization of Labor (tags)
Robots and algorithms are ready to automate many activities like the manufacturing robot Baxter... John Maynard Keynes dreamt of a future in which the work week of his grandchidren would by only 15 hours.
The Social State Benefits All of Us (tags)
The social state can on ly fulfill expectations when financed on a broad and just basis. The social state must be adjusted to do justice to the pressing challenges.."The social state is the greatest cultural achievement in the 20th century"
NPR's Marketplace: The Voice of Loanshark Capitalism (tags)
The Los Angeles based show Marketplace is NPR's voice of Wall Street banksters, hedge fund billionaires
Criticism of Market Theory and Market Ideology (tags)
Market fundamentalists cling to the myths of the self-healing market and corporate beneficence..The real market economy functions very differently than the fantastic notions of the theoretical market economy. Maximum individual profit does not agree with social welfare.
TTIP: Trifling Economic Advantages at the Cost of Democracy and the Public Interest (tags)
TTIP represents a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state. Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO describes the TTIP as “secret tribunals” where only “foreign investors” can sue. Frank Bsirske of the German Verdi service union said the TTIP is a “black box” transferring sovereignty.
Venezuela Plans to Double Oil Production (tags)
Venezuela
Monsanto's Land Grab in Ukraine (tags)
Ukraine
Oil Prices: What Goes Around Comes Around (tags)
oil
Global Shale Gas and the Anti-Fracking Movement (tags)
Water Contamination. The evidence strongly suggests that fracking poses serious dangers to workers, communities, and the natural environment with particularly severe impacts in terms of water contamination and access. Fracking just one well can use between 2 million to 5.6 million gallons of freshwater
Low Oil Prices: Boom or Bust? (tags)
oil
The US government faces a revenue crisis after giving billions to banks and big corporations. Billions are saved through automation, labor-saving technology and workers working at home. The neoliberal model promotes profits and speculation, not investments and job creation.
Economics is Onesided and Reactionary (tags)
The homo oeconomicus cannot be our hope and is not desirable or future-friendly. The economic benefits to the capitalist entrepreneur are in contradiction to nature and to the person..We face completely oversized financial markets that have uncoupled from the real economy creating value.
Capitalism and Its Crisis Proclivity (tags)
The liberal economists of the 19th century claimed no crises could occur in capitalism since every supply creates its demand. On the other hand, Marx and Engels recognized early on the causes for crises in capitalism. The contradictions of the accumulation process lead to crises.
Neoliberalism forms a free entrepreneur out of the oppressed worker, an entrepreneur of himself. Everyone is a self-exploited worker of his own enterprise. Everyone is master and servant in one person. The class struggle is also changed into an inner struggle. One problematicizes oneself...
The industrial countries practice a lifestyle of non-sustainability and consume the resources of the earth too quickly. This is true for energy, raw materials and metals. Still the knowledge of oil's finiteness cannot be evaded. We should use this time to develop alternative energy infrastructures.
Self-Determination Means Market Determination (tags)
We face the continuing dissolution of traditional types, forms and rules, not a new type, a new form or a new rule... What was once called estrangement or objectification should appear as workers' own interest. .. Karl Polanyi spoke of a dis-embedded economy.
The "Great Transformation" of the 21st Century (tags)
An end of the Great Crisis is not insight at the beginning of the 21st century... The regime of finance-market driven accumulation has not brought forth any new formation of capitalism capable of development.
Mayor Garcetti Supports Musicians’ Listen Up! Campaign (tags)
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti joins the American Federation of Musicians in calling on film production companies to end their practice of offshoring film scoring jobs.
Ukraine
Uranium Madhouse unleashes The Duchess of Malfi in Hollywood (tags)
Uranium Madhouse revives John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi in a provocative new production. Playing at the Theater Asylum Lab in Hollywood select dates from May 23 through June 1.
TTIP: International Mega-corporations prevent social and ecological globalization (tags)
In the reality of international monopolist competition, narrow economic profit interests dominate to the disadvantage of broad prosperity gains. Protection of foreign mega-investors before indirect expropriation leads to a dispossession of nation state democracy.
CASTORIADIS. THE MEANING OF SOCIALISM .pdf (tags)
http://is.gd/EQUALITY
NATO's propaganda outlet for progressives - The Guardian's board members (tags)
It is completely disingenuous for anyone to suggest that the Guardian reports on Edward Snowden's revelations are much more than a carefully managed propaganda exercise deployed in the internal power struggle of the US-Anglo elite about how best to manage their declining global power and influence. Likewise, it is absurd to suggest that the Guardian editors are implementing a "publish and be damned" policy, as Guardian writer Glenn Greenwald has suggested, when it is inconceivable that their editorial policy on publishing Edward Snowden's material will not have been closely coordinated on the basis of the Board's relations with colleagues in the British government, in British intelligence and in the US-Anglo corporate sector.
Best And Worst Country And Corporate Recyclers (tags)
As a UN environmental report urges vegan diet for the protection of Mother Earth, some countries are doing better than others.
Criticism of Market Theory and Market Ideology (tags)
Market fundamentalists cling to the myths of the self-healing market and corporate beneficence..The real market economy functions very differently than the fantastic notions of the theoretical market economy. Maximum individual profit does not agree with social welfare.
Less Growth = More Happiness (tags)
The question about alternatives to the dominant western model of life and greowth becomes increasingly urgent together with the looming-or already occurred-surpassing of Peak Oil. New measurements of prosperity include life satisfaction, access to health care and education
The exodus from the casino capitalism producing ever faster and ever deeper crises cannot succeed without a broad and powerful democratic base. Parliamentary democracy is urged to finally take up the struggle around the primacy of politics
May 5th is the birth date of Karl Marx, one of humanity’s most influential theorists.
The film industry is the way? (tags)
If there was an indicator to measure the degree of sovereignty, autonomy and independence of a nation, the development of the local film industry would certainly have a great weight in it.
Erich Fromm on Karl Marx (tags)
The capitalist production method makes a few persons absurdly rich while the others hardly have enough to survive. Capitalism also makes people unfree and unhappy because their access to their true needs is blocked.
Neoliberalism was the Godfather of the Financial Industry (tags)
Keynesianism was replaced by neoliberalism that guided the fallow investment capital into speculation.The development of social systems and the rise of real wages contributed to social peace and stabilizing the economic upswing by strengthening mass consumption.
Incentive package attracts TL 5.5 bln in investment in 40 days (tags)
Turkey has received 480 project proposals worth TL 5.5 billion since the introduction of a new incentive package on June 19 designed to attract both foreign and domestic investment to the country.
SF IMMIGRANT FILM FESTIVAL: CALL FOR ENTRIES 2012! (tags)
Works in Narrative, Animated, and Documentary Short, regardless of the original production format, and the date when it was completed, are considered. Submissions should be not longer than 30 minutes.
Democracy, risk and liability are turned upside down when trillions bailout the banks and workers, pensioners and unemployed must pay the bill. We live from those who say No to corruption, to the state reduced to a trough or errand boy for the banks (Bill Moyers).
URANIUM MADHOUSE IGNITES EARLY BRECHT COMEDY (tags)
Early Brecht comedy, re-imagined for the 21st century, explores the allure of camaraderie in wartime and celebrates the vitality and loyalty of brotherhood.
The Systemic Causes of the Crisis (tags)
The crisis is 30 years old, not 4 years old. The causes of the crisis can be found in the real goods-producing economy, not in the financial markets. The wildly proliferating financial markets did not drag the industry into crisis but kept alive the industry through credit-financed demand.
Diversionary's "Next Fall": Fun and Thought-Provoking (tags)
"Next Fall," playing through March 25 at Diversionary Theatre in University Heights, San Diego, is a sometimes funny, sometimes wrenching, sometimes thought-provoking play in which an auto accident involving one member of a Gay male couple provokes confrontations between his partner and his blood family and triggers a series of flashbacks highlighting the conflict of faith between the victim, a devout born-again Christian, and his non-believing lover.
So much crisis was never analyzed with a crisis-conditioned satisfaction guarantee! Instead of seeking culprits, we must seek the systemic causes of the indebtedness dynamic. These gigantic debt mountains were necessary to keep capitalism functioning. Fewer and fewer workers can producer more and more goods in an ever-shorter time.
The Twilight of Capitalism (tags)
Those who defend more capital will be the instrument of destruction of capitalism.
Jrnal of Aesthetics & Protest- editorial towards occupying everything (tags)
Issue 8 of the Journal of Aesthetics & Protest is out. Our forward, recently written but conceived in the afterglow of the 2009/2010 UC occupations looks into the broad strategy of occupying everything.
America's Illegal Chemical Weapons Stockpile (tags)
chemical weapons
Neoliberalism as Greatest Error in the History of Economic Thought (tags)
Efficiency and prosperity can only be realized on capitalist markets when the economic system is bound in a social order under the primacy of politics. Democratic legitimated politics and the provision of public goods is derived from the "anatomy of market failure."
Seven Billion ... And Rising (tags)
The world’s population surpassed 7 billion on October 31. But except for perhaps the anti-family planning lobby, this was a milestone that few were in a mood to celebrate.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, Engels, and the Theory of Socialism (tags)
The theoretical foundations of socialism as put forth by Frederick Engels in his book Anti-Dühring are still valid today and schould for the basis of the OCW movements around the world.
The crisis is 30 years old, not three years old. The causes of the crisis should be tracked down in the real goods-producing economy, not in the financial markets. The financial markets were keep alive up to the collapse of the speculative bubble by credit-financed demand.
Stagnation as a Trend-Life with Satiated Markets, Stagnating Economies and Reduced Work (tags)
45 years ago JKGalbraith was shocked at the public squalor alongside private affluence. In 2008-10 trillions were given to banks and Wall St. so private losses became public losses. By relieving corporations of taxes, neoliberal supply side strategy worsens growth and employment.
U.S. House of Representatives: Stupid? Crooks? or Stupid Crooks? (tags)
Some of our representatives are just plain dumb as box of shale. They may even believe that American oil can be sold at Mom and Pop's Gas-It-Up.
Prosperity without Growth (tags)
Production cannot increase forever. For the developed economies of the western world, prosperity without growth is a necessity and not a utopian dream any more. See the links to five free Internet books..
The U.S. is More Greek than Greece (tags)
Deficit economies were organized mainly by finance capital. The expansion of this credit-financed mass demand went along with the expansion of the financial sector. Trillions of dollars and Euros were pumped in the stabilization of financial markets.
The World Social Forum (Feb 6-11, 2011) (tags)
"Another world is possible," Susan George declared at Porto Alegre. 80,000 activists came to Dakar. The world has changed, not only through the financial crisis that showed the market often causes more problems than it solves. The WSF has become a source of hope for a just world.
The End of the Long 20th Century (tags)
The US no longer has the necessary financial means to maintain its worldwide military machine (which now drives the US deeper in indebtedness to the international financial markets). The failure of the Project for a New American Century shows the US has not succeeded in subjecting the world
The End of the "Golden Age" of Capitalism and the Rise of Neoliberalism (tags)
"The central point is that the financial sphere has the potential of developing into an autonomous subsystem of the whole economy with an enormous capacity of self-expansion..Like cancer, it has no internal control mechanism. It can only be brought under control by external interventions"
Engels on Capital and Surplus Value (tags)
Review of the chapters on Capital and Surplus Value in Engels' book Anti-Dühring showing the contemporary relevance of Marxist theory.
The Shortwave Report 11/12 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 2 files- broadcast and slow-modem streaming. Free to rebroadcast. China, Netherlands, Germany, Cuba, and Russia.
KÊNE PATTERNS AND GREEK PATTERNS (tags)
In the profundities of the Brazilian jungle it does survive the old Greek pictorial culture?
Life after the Peak: Capitalism and the Market Economy (tags)
All over the world there are experiments with renewable energy, solidarity economies and non-profit economic forms. A growth acceleration law will be absurd when fossil energy runs out. We will need a growth de-acceleration law.
Key US City Acts to Avoid 'Dirty' Tar Sands Fuel (tags)
Press Release
Human Rights Before Trade Rules (tags)
Bread for the World shows that a fundamentally different trade and economic policy oriented in human rights is possible and very necessary. Many rich countries subsidize their farmers so their foodstuffs can be produced below the real costs and sold cheaply on the world market.
The sociologist Dr. Atilio Boron, professor of political theory at the University of Buenos Aires, is an internationally known radical political author. UNESCO awarded him the “International Jose Marti prize” on July 17, 2009
PRODUCTION OF ALCOHOL COMBUSTIBLE FOMENTS SLAVERY IN BRAZIL (tags)
Brazilian advertising campaign on the benefit of the alcohol in the exterior hides what the industrial of the section make to their employees inside of Brazil.
Descent Into Barbarism: The US and NATO Wage War on the World (tags)
"In our time, war, it seems, has already begun. The US oligarchy and its NATO allies are waging a veritable war on the world: killing, disappearing and incarcerating millions of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan – a war that is expanding into Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Horn of Africa, with the militarisation of sea lanes and oceans (see Chossudovsky, www.Globalresearch.ca) and the setting up of “forward projecting” military and missile bases in every continent (see Rozoff, ditto). On top of ordinary poverty and misery, the world is truly seeing another historic descent into barbarism. Given this war-mongering dynamic, the growing US antagonism with Iran, Russia and China is far from an idle threat. It is the logical next step for a deeply illogical economic system. But history is not inevitable. We are not necessarily programmed to repeat its horrors. A combination of global communications among citizens and political and social consciousness may be enough to prevent a military conflagration and overthrow the misrule of the oligarchy. What is needed is a) a widening of the recognition that capitalism as a system of social production is finished; and b) the case has to be confidently made that an alternative is very possible."
Ten Years After Seattle (tags)
We must develop a new strategy for the movement. Neoliberal policy destroys the idea of the public. Neoliberalism privatizes and instrumentalizes production, communication, language and emotions. We should prepare for a long phase of barbarism and violence.
SOLUTIONS TO OUR PROBLEMS: BE REAL, DON’T LIVE IN A DREAM AND ACT (tags)
The US & the rest of the western countries know what the solution is to the worsening environmental problem the world is facing today: drastic reduction in consumption, period! Walk, take the bus, sell your car for scraps, boycott fast food, wear cotton or better yet reduce your wardrobe to few pieces, use old newspaper to wrap food products, drink out of glass jars, don't watch tv. Read instead or entertain your family by singing or playing a guitar or banjo, go to the library instead of movies, have a 6 hr. workday and 4 day workweek....etc!!!
Vetelca: The story of the first ever Bolivarian maquila factory (tags)
* This report originally appears in issue #57 of Venezuelan anarchist newspaper El Libertario www.nodo50.org/ellibertario [website in Spanish, English & other languages]. It is a detailed examination of the events behind the mobile telephone manufacturer Vetelca, in which the notion of a socialist industrial production model in Venezuela is unmasked.
The Rules of the Game, Not the Players (tags)
In the last three decades, the financial markets have grown much faster than production.. The respective players (whether public or private) are not the problem but the rules of the game.. The goals and means of production must be redefined
Planned Economy Instead of Chaos Economy (tags)
For years US imports have doubled US exports. For 10 years China has contributed $2 billion a day to finance US consumerism. Trade policy in the WTO, GATT and NAFTA have led to mass unemployment. Part time work for all and/or unconditional basic income could humanize society and assure dignified life.
Capitalism Criticism 2.0 (tags)
Marx identified the falling rate of profit and the self-destruction of competition as contradictions of capitalism. Wages do not keep up with investments in machinery. Speculation and the explosion of the financial markets were encouraged by deregulation and higher profits.
Last Dance for Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism reaches its inner limit and strangulates itself and the environment. Increasingly effective measures lead to fewer and fewer workers producing ever-greater quantities. The real economy becomes an appendage of speculation bubbles.
We Fight Capitalism, Not the Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism is a social system, not a natural law. Capitalism has proven it cannot end wars, prevent crises or make possible a good life for all people. Instead of solidarity, the capitalist social system teaches us envy and egoism. Now those who privatized the state cry for state bailout packages.
THE DEVIL HAS A SISTER To Shock & Roll Amsterdam Fringe Fest (tags)
September ’09 Amsterdam Fringe Festival to Present Hollywood Surrealist Playwright John Sinner Directing the World Premiere of The Devil Has A Sister American Playwright JOHN SINNER World Premiere Production "THE DEVIL HAS A SISTER" "CRITIC'S CHOICE" For Amsterdam Fringe Festival Upcoming September's Amsterdam Time Out!!!!
Los Angeles' surrealist theatre and creator John Sinner’s Theatre Revelation in the world premiere of Sinner’s theatrical extravaganza The Devil Has A Sister at the Melkweg in Amsterdam for 4 performances on the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th of September 2009. Sinner's production will bring will be a “hallucinatory” mix of gothic drama, screwball comedy, horror, violence and music hall singing and dancing to the Melkweg stage.
Youth Sing and Dance for Human Rights Education (tags)
A stage filled with youth, from ages 2 years of age to 17, will not only sing and dance their hearts out for their audience, but they will also entertain them with skits that educate their audience about human rights, in a one-of-a-kind Broadway production of “Annie Jr.”, on Saturday, August 8, at 6:00 p.m. at the Francis Wilson Playhouse Theater. In addition to an awe-inspiring evening, proceeds go to Youth for Human Rights Florida, a group dedicated in promoting the education of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights to children and adults, to make a better world.
Health complaints linked to former NASA site in Downey - Injured Workers Fight For Healthc (tags)
Dozens of film workers at the Downey studio which was built on a highly toxic radioactive dump have been seriously injured and the developer Stuart Lichter is fighting to prevent being held responsible for their injuries
Are Mexican Workers ‘stealing our jobs’? (tags)
The Crisis in the Mexican Auto Sector
For the Resumtion of the Class Struggle! (tags)
The economic crisis which has crashed down on society has already had and for a long time will have disastrous consequences for the lives of the masses, as every worker can see in his daily life or her work. The bourgeois economists themselves admit it: they do not know what the causes of the crisis are – satisfying themselves by blaming the greed of the bankers or excessive financial deregulation – and they do not know when it will end and give way to the long-awaited “economic recovery”. The current crisis is the crisis of the capitalist mode of production, incapable of stopping itself, forced to produce always more commodities, at a certain point it comes up against the limits of the market.
It is not a conjunctural crisis (tags)
"instinct is the hereditary knowledge of a specific program of life"
Swine-flu outbreak could be linked to Smithfield factory farms (tags)
Research indicates the significant role played by factory farming in the latest outbreak of swine flu virus. Smithfield Foods operates immense hog raising factory farms in Perote, Mexico where close conditions encourage contagious bacterial diseases and viruses to rapidly breed and proliferate.
Capitalism's Crisis and our Response (tags)
Walden Bello delivered this speech at the Conference on the Global Criusis in Berlin, Marc h 20-21, 2009.
Albert Einstein was a socialist (tags)
Famous physicist Albert Einstein wrote the essay entitled "Why Socialism?" for the first issue of left-wing magazine "Monthly Review" (May 1949).
The Misery of the WTO: For a Reinvention of World Trade (tags)
The crisis of the WTO has two causes: a lack of trust and an ideological prejudice. A lack of trust exists because the countries of the North judge trade with two standards: free trade for the South and protectionism for their own economies.
(A) Book & Video Fair of Caracas (tags)
* Call to the First Libertarian Print and Audiovisual Documentary Fair of Caracas. D O C U M E N T (a) November 2009.
Capitalism and Nature: Elmar Altvater (tags)
The capitalist formation of society is characterized by growth fetishism, the notion that boundless growth is socially necessary. Capitalism is historical. "If its beginning is certain, its end is also certain."
It’s Time to Grow Again! Let Hemp Loose.-Production buried by past needed now in America (tags)
"Hemp is anti-microbial and highly resistant to insects. It NEVER requires the use of herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
Hemp, unlike cotton, does not deplete the soil of nutrients. This makes it cheaper to produce, eliminates groundwater pollution due to pesticide run-off, and curtails farming community exposure to toxic and cancer-causing products.
Growing hemp reduces our dependence on petroleum products such as petrochemical fertilizers. Currently 15,000 lakes in the US are so contaminated by toxic agricultural runoff that NOTHING can live in them.
Hemp paper requires less chemical processing and can be whitened without producing dioxins. Unlike wood pulp paper, hemp does not harden, yellow, or crack with age. "......Boulder Hemp Initiative Project
I believe that the only way out of our current economic and environmental woes is through expansion to the moon.
Recession Raises the Question of Meaning (tags)
The facade of a sound world suddenly crumbles. Are the funds available to the productive economy or are they sinking in the swamp of a degenerate global financial- and economic system? An economy that prioritizes human needs and nature is primarily regional.
The world today is undeniably chaotic — war, abject poverty, and unimaginable wealth exist side by side. In an attempt to explain the current social turmoil, some have resorted to religion and apocalypse, while others place the blame on the few bad apples that held positions of power as the economy slid into destitution. And then there are those who blame conspiracy, immigrants, or a society-wide lack of morality. All of the above explanations seem to be missing a crucial ingredient. A simple observation should be central to any explanation of the current economic crisis: There are huge surpluses (or overproduction) of houses, cars, food stuffs, and many other products that millions of people desperately need, but cannot afford to buy. This is the essence of the problem.
On the Financial Crisis in the 20:80 Society (tags)
The question is how we deal with the 20:80 society, not whether the 20:80 society is coming because the development is irreversible. In the long-term, work will disappear.. Jobless growth has become the normal condition.The end of work can be a great leap for humanity.
Obamanomics: Why the Stimulus Plan Will Not Revive the Economy (tags)
This article was published in: The Independent, Dec 12, 2008.
Good Paragaph from Socialists re Auto Crisis (tags)
The socialists had one of the most incisive single paragraphs I have read about the auto crisis.
The global crisis is a crisis of capitalism (tags)
It is time for the workers and the poor in the Philippines to prepare for the worse the moment its government keeps on repeating the mantra that the economic fundamentals remain good and thus there is little to worry about effects of the global recessionary trend. The world found itself in the present mess precisely because of such blind faith in neoliberal fundamentalism.
The Grand Illusion-Mega-Bubble World Economy (tags)
Self-righteousness is really the grand illusion. The global North consumes the resources of the global South. We are literally devouring the future. Given resource scarcity and climate change, the world economy as a whole is a bubble economy, a monstrous bet on an impossible future.
Part 2- World Capitalist Crisis (tags)
We expect more of the use of cheap labour in the less developed countries like China and India in order to produce cheap raw materials and semi-manufactured consumer products for the imperialist countries and thereby maximize imperialist profits. In fact the US capitalist are hell bent on transferring high paying industries to the third world and even already cheap service industries like call centers and car assemblies and other production lines in a vain attempt to cut jobs, paying insurances and other workers benefits that the people are demanding in the face of the capitalist made crisis.
AJLPP Analysis on the Current World Capitalist Crisis (tags)
The capitalist bailout rammed into the US Congress has infused into the banks more than $ 500 B out of the $ 700 appropriations. But despite the huge infusion to the capitalist system, the crisis marched on with impunity. The Alliance-Philippines (AJLPP) believes that the latest unraveling of the “free market” dogma, the ultimate exposure of the failed concept of “neoliberal globalization” and the gravity of the current level of the economic and financial crisis of the imperialist powers headed by the US is now totally exposed to the whole world. But this phenomenon must be explained and understood and should not be feared. We must act to face this crisis with renewed determination and readiness to struggle for the people and to change this rotten system.
Why Socialism? (by Albert Einstein) (tags)
This essay was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).
Pulling the plug won't mean the end of the world; there is an alternative. Let's do a Kevorkian on this rotten system.
CUBA: Besieged by hurricanes (tags)
We had hardly recovered from the emotional impact and material damages caused by the unexpectedly strong winds of hurricane Gustav on the Isla de la Juventud and Pinar del Rio, when news were received of sea floods caused by Hanna. Then, the worst news of all: that the very intense hurricane Ike, turning southwest under pressure from a strong anti-hurricane system located north of its course, would strike heavily over 625 miles throughout the national territory.
De-Acceleration or Globalization 2.0 (tags)
"The wondrous global division of labor came about in which threshold countries lend money to the US to buy Chinese or Indian products..Must cut-flowers from Africa be promoted in Europe?..With de-acceleration, globalization will catapult fewer jobs around the globe.
Is Cygnet's "The Receptionist" Subversive? (tags)
Cygnet Theatre's "The Receptionist," playing on the company's Rolando stage in San Diego until August 31, disguises itself as an innocuous sex comedy — but as the play progresses author Adam Bock slips in potentially subversive material. See this play and monitor it for yourself.
Full Speed Against the Brick Wall (tags)
Massive capital has streamed into the raw material sector and crude oil. When we leave the market to speculators, panic rules. The economy falls into a double crisis-out of scarce raw materials and energy and falling profit rates and mass demand.
Hunger, The Silent Tsunami (tags)
Rice, the main food for nearly half of the world's population, costs twice as much as in December. The economic policy of the World Bank forced on countries on account of neocolonial trade relations is responsible for the unproductivity, not only the traditional small farmer system.
Hunger, GMOs and Speculation (tags)
Like many other countries, Kenya provided its own staple foods until the 1980s. Today the country imports 80% of its food. To buy up the entire grain harvest of the US, only $120 billion is needed-a small amount for speculators on currency market
World Bank president Robert Zoelick compared the food shortage to the Old Testament's "seven plagues" but forgot to mentionthe eighth is the World Bank itself. The World Bank insists on agricultural production for export, not for the local supply of the population.
V.P. Candidate wants U.S. ethanol production cut to feed poor (tags)
A recent report prepared by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization identified 22 nations that are threaten by the global food crisis; riots, due to food shortages are now occurring in most of these poor countries. To prevent the escalation of the present world food crisis, Stewart Alexander, Vice Presidential Nominee for Socialist Party USA, wants a freeze or a roll back on U.S. ethanol production to the levels prior to December 2007.
The Seven Energy-Related World Crises (tags)
The market is not total, absolute and self-healing but a tool helpful after we decide what kind of society we want. The state has a social nature and can't be only a power and security state or treasure chest for the super-rich and special interests.
World Bank and IMF Policies Caused Food Crisis (tags)
The IMF changed its economic direction and took a market radical neoliberal economic course at the beginning of the 1980s with the rise of monetarism. Hunger inthe world can only be overcome with long-term sustainable strategies, not with the short-term horizon of Wall Street.
Why Is Oil More Expensive? (tags)
The reason for the high price of oil is that specualtive capital after the eruption of the US real estate crisis in the summer of 2007 now wreaks its havoc in the oil- and other raw material sectors. Workers have a world to win whose contours can hardly be defined.
World Food Crisis Threatens Rich Nations (That's Us), Too (tags)
Unless we act fast for a global consensus on the price spiral, the social unrest induced by food prices in several countries will conflagrate into a price contagion, leaving no country-developed or otherwise-unscathed.
Exponential Growth: A Dogma to be Overcome (tags)
Energy will become more expensive and unaffordable for a large part of humanity. If the american way of life is non-negotiable, the Iraq war will be the prelude and not the end of resource wars. The name of the sickness is exponential growth.
Conversion of rice fields created rice shortage (tags)
In the Central Luzon plains, Nueva Ecija is unique. In this farming province, the biggest rice producer in this region, you see rows upon rows of rice paddies. But it had more rice lands before the phenomenon of land conversion in the late 80s. The large landowners converted their lands to non-agricultural use so these would not fall under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law enacted in 1988. Land conversion was also necessitated by population rise and the urbanization of many towns of the province.
Hold the Bush administration accountable - no more nukes! (tags)
We need to Implement the directives of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and to end the Bush Doctrine of refurbishing our nuclear arsenal to support plans for wars of aggression around the world.
Peak Oil - True or False (tags)
Both sides of the peak oil argument.
Peak Oil: The Global War for Oil (tags)
Despite optimistic estimates, the market seems to accept peal oil since the rich oil companies are not investing in new refineries. The 150-year American expansion explains the military option. Speculation caused the tenfold increase of a barrel of oil from $10 (1998) to $100 (2008).
US Patents for HIV AIDS and Patent for CURE (tags)
Here it is the proof... along with this there is thirty years of documentation of the developement and distribution of AIDS as will as who worked on the project..just google the patents...
ENERGY-SOUTH AFRICA: Food Security Hobbles Biofuel Strategy (tags)
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 18 (IPS) - Worried that it may be seen as insensitive to the food needs of Africa, the South African government, which is facing a general election in 2009, has chosen food security in framing a biofuel policy.
A redirection toward regenerative sources of energy is our ownly option. A conversion of energy production and a change of our way of life are indispensable. Energy autonomy is only possible with smaller units and democratic procedures of self-determined energy policy.
New Energy Bill- Working People will Pay (tags)
The Democrats and Republicans have made it clear that they are the corporate parties and they only represent the interests of the capitalists and the billionaires. The new energy bill is another long term payment plan that will be required of working class people while the billionaires continue to collect.
Morgan Stanley Issues Full US Recession Alert (tags)
Morgan Stanley has issued a full recession alert for the US economy, warning of a sharp slowdown in business investments and a perfect storm for consumers as the housing slump spreads. Under the conservative definition, man is the servant of money. Long live alternative economics!
Venezuela: The economic tug of war between revolution and counter-revolution (tags)
A recent report from Datanalisis (1) [the Venezuelan statistical service] revealed what already many people knew and suffered from. Scarcity of basic foodstuff is becoming intolerable. This study established that milk, beef and sugar have become very difficult to find. Other products like chicken, cooking oil, cheese, sardines and black beans are also very scarce. The analysts who compiled the report interviewed 800 people in some 60 different shops, supermarkets and markets, both in the private sector and the public distribution network, Mercal. 73,3% of the places visited had no milk powder for sale. 51,7% no longer had refined sugar, 40% had no cooking oil, and 26,7% no black beans, a basic staple in Venezuela. Two thirds of the shoppers declared that they experienced food scarcity to one degree or another in the shops where they usually buy. Queues of a few hours, sometimes up to four hours, to buy some milk are no longer the exception. This is reminiscent of the situation in Chile when wholesale economic sabotage was used against the left-wing Popular Unity government of the 1970s. Without giving in to the panic stories and exaggerated reports of the right-wing media, we must understand that this is a serious situation. The bosses have even threatened to extend this situation into the first quarter of 2008, especially because of the uncertainties related to the questions of private property included in the new constitutional reform. They are grabbing the revolution by its throat.
Venezuela: another coupe in the works? (tags)
On Monday, November 5th, the campaign for the constitutional reform referendum in Venezuela was stepped up with the call by retired general Baduel for a NO vote. General Baduel was a close collaborator of Chávez and remained loyal to him during the April 2002 military coup which briefly ousted him. In July of this year he resigned from his position as Defence Minister and retired from active military office. His attacks on the constitutional reform are part of a concerted campaign by the ruling class to prevent it from being approved in a referendum which will take place on December 2nd. The amendments to the 1999 Venezuelan revolution were announced by Chávez after his election victory in December 2006 with the stated aim of bringing the Constitution into line with "Socialism of the 21st century". They were then formally proposed by Chávez in July, discussed throughout the country and passed with a whole series of modifications and additions by the National Assembly on November 2nd.
The Myth of “Co-Management” in Venezuela: Reflections on Alcasa and Invepal (tags)
* With a lot of rhetoric and propaganda the Chavez administration has advanced different examples of co-management which, they claim, demonstrate their desire to transform Venezuela’s relations of production. A compañero from Europe visited us recently and got to know two of the most celebrated cases: Alcasa and Invepal. Here is the report he prepared for El Libertario # 51 about the actual working conditions in the country’s most “important” co-managed businesses.
No matter what they say, the bourgeois cannot escape the fact that Marx's ideas still hold water after all these years. His analysis of the capitalist system, its laws and contradictions are as relevant today as they were 150 years ago. The serious journals of capitalism confirm this.
The Future of Work-driven Society (tags)
When less and less time needs to be spent working for a living in Western industrialised countries, this partial freedom of gainful occupation is increasingly becoming a problem for those dismissed. The vision of working less and living longer is a utopia that is also realistic.
The Coupon Clippers Get A History Lesson From One Of Their Own (tags)
Bourgeois theoreticians take measures to assure their class that the present crisis will pass. "Do not panic" is the message. Good times will return and the robbery can go on. Time for a history lesson.
David Walker, comptroller general, warns of impending crisis (tags)
Learn from the fall of Rome, the US is warned. There were striking similarities between America's current situation and the factors that brought down Rome including declining moral values, an over-confident and over-extended military and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.
NeoCon 'Plan Africa' Oil Manifesto (tags)
“Along with Latin America, West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest growing sources of oil and gas for the American market. African oil tends to be of high quality and low in sulfur, making it suitable for stringent refined product requirements, and giving it a growing market share for the refining Centers on the East Coast of the U.S.” “National Energy Policy Report” Office of the Vice President Richard Cheney May 16, 2001
Fight GMO/GE Biofuels with Moratorium! (tags)
Call for an immediate moratorium on EU incentives for agrofuels, EU imports of agrofuels and EU agroenergy monocultures
For the deaf who won't listen... (tags)
World cereal production is on track to reach a record level in 2007. In spite of this, supplies will be barely adequate to meet increased demand, boosted by the development of the biofuels industry...
The Market is a Universal Totalitarian Religion (tags)
Money replaces God and has become our new religion, a universal totalitarian religion that never existed before.. Commodification of goods is more important than the goods themselves.
Workers Know All About Capital Accumulation, Don't We? (tags)
It is within the pages of the main Bourgeois journals that we find the strongest confirmation of Marx's economic writings.
Cost of Solar Power Equal to Coal Now (tags)
The development at a South African University of a process to manufacture panels made with a much better material (CIGS) that generates electricity from sunlight at a lower cost than the silicone photo voltaic panels is what has been hoped for for decades. Solar power is no longer too expensive compared to coal plant generation.
Brazil: The "brake" is COPOM. (tags)
The logic of the the Growth Acceleration Program opposes classic economists as Michael Kalecki and John Keynes. The GAP that does not contain a expansionist monetary politics is not the GAP, is the anti-GAP, as, by the way, the last act of the Copom made clear.
Capitalism and Corruption (tags)
Until recently, the bribes paid by German firms abroad were deducted from the corpor-ation tax as operating expenses..The neoliberal dogma doesnt need any religion since it makes capitalism into a religion.. The cult of abstract riches cannot replace morality Mergers and takeovers are central.
Growth in justice, opportunity and environ-mental caring requires identifying blind spots and abandoning myths. Economists must learn to subtract. The state must control the market so everybody shares in wealth and increased productivity.
The Nature of The Jevons Paradox (tags)
The Jevons Paradox is a multiple intersection of several issue threads including economics, peak oil, global warming, social movements, and the philosophy of science
Building Bridges Radio:Lights,Camera & No Unions; Restaurant Workers Fight Job Segregation (tags)
WBAI's Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report presents this 29 minute radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON WEB LINK BELOW
Communistic persistences in the course of human history (tags)
What characterizes the manufacturing division of labour? The fact that a partial worker doesn't produce any commodities; that only the partial workers' common product becomes commodities
Outing Bono in Australia (tags)
3.5Mb 96kps Stereo 5 Minutes "Bono's Creed of Greed" - one of several songs being developed for distribution and presentation at his concert tour of Australia. Bono is supporting the production of a videogame that simulates an invasion of Venezuela, and the Venezuelan solidarity network is not impressed.
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Documentary "Dare Not Walk Alone" will be Appearing in October at... (tags)
...The CT Film Festival ~ "Dare Not Walk Alone" Documentary. Director: Jeremy Dean. We all know about Selma and Birmingham, but it is a little-discussed fact that St. Augustine, Florida was the center of great civil unrest and was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1967. The effects of this conflict are still very apparent in today's St. Augustine, where although it is not official, segregation and prejudice still hover over the lives of many African-Americans.
FILIPINO TECH-VOC GRADS END UP WITH LOW PAY (tags)
Technical vocational courses supply the pool of skilled reserve labor that services multinational firms which transferred the labor-intensive part of their production processes to low-wage countries like the Philippines according to the militant labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU).
Oil Robbery by Law: The Economic Invasion of Iraq (tags)
The US does not rob Iraq of its oil. The emphasis is on sharing. Production Sharing Agreements are long-term agreements between oil corporations and coil states. Richard Perle once said solidarity means countries agreeing with the US.
In the Stagnation Trap: Capitalist Development (tags)
Demands for a different distribution and re-distribution, for economic democracy and social regulation opposing market radicalism must be in the foreground. Crisis and opportunity are represented by the same Chinese letter.
South Central Farm: A community Outreach (tags)
An essay regarding the South Central Farm and how it is helping to ease gang and inter-ethnic tensions. Also addresses the farm's ability to allow the community to interact with Chicano and Mexican culure, despite the fact that the farm is not anywhere near Mexico.
about the riot in the french banlieue
The genre of entertainment films about war and the military is described as mili-tainment Presenting war as entertainment means ignoring intellectual analysis tohighlight emotional war stories.
Why Are Gas Prices So High? (tags)
A Primer on Oil: Past, Present, Future of Oil and Gas in the United States
It’ no accident that many people are finding a rekindled interest in the writings of Karl Marx; the international assault of workers wages and benefits, continued warfare, and economic instability in general are causing a revival of the buried and slandered ideas of Marxism. Many of these concepts offer tremendous insight about the origins and workings of capitalism, and thus the causes of many of society’s current problems. Needless to say, involved are immense implications for anybody interested in becoming an activist. A “Marxist” is someone who accepts some of the key points about history and society first explained by Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels, and elaborated further by the writings of Lenin, Trotsky, and many others (Stalin, Mao, etc are Marxists in name only). Unfortunately, one cannot learn about these ideas by going to college, aside from the many biased and bastardized versions of the subject. The following is a brief explanation of some of the more important concepts of Marxism.
Psychology of a Guaranteed Income (tags)
The main obstacle to a guaranteed income seems to be psychological, the envy triggered by another's good fortune.. People will always work since boredom becomes overwhelming.
Life is More than Capital (tags)
Ulrich Duchrow and Franz Hinkelammert focus on the mis-developments in the third world where privatization of the water supply led to higher prices. international conglomer-ates made profits and paid no local taxes.
The Land Needs a New Vision (tags)
In capitalism, production is for the market instead of for satisfying needs..The postulate `Work as cheap as possible and at the worst possible conditions' leadsus back to the 19h century. We are far removed today from the watchword More Time for Living and Loving'.
DVD TO RAISE FUNDS FOR GRENADA HURRICANE RELIEF (tags)
GRENADA: THE MAROON SPIRIT, a new documentary film by Pumpkinhead Production Company to donate portion of sales to Grenada Maroon Fund
Pension schemes and the labor market are in an irreconcilable opposition. This schizoid argumentation has long sunk into mass con-sciousness..A society with the highest productivity of world history chains seniors to production longer than in the Middle Ages.
Hardly anyone today dares financing the social state by cutting the armament budget.. The fat years are over! Three cheers for dis-possession! Expropriation instead of representation!
A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words - Shackles - Womankind Enchained - (tags)
Early 2004 I became aware of a few alarming reports about the existence of a highly active slave trade within and around Iran. I began researching the issue and soon found out that not only the barbaric and tragic problem of human trafficking and slavery exists in Iran, but that the criminal mullah’s regime profits on the sacrifice of defenseless young Iranian women and men. Based on my research, and also on the testimony of a few survivors of this heinous practice, I wrote a screenplay for a feature film entitled: - Shackles - Womankind Enchained - with the objective of shocking the world while shaming and exposing the bastards involved in this savage practice.
The total commercialization of the world has triumphed..A dynamic of growth withdrawal could be initiated through a few simple measures..Internalizing costs would drastically change our societies..Democratic local initiatives are realistic.
A People's History of UC Weapons Lab Management (tags)
Over the past several decades students and faculty of the University of California, often in tandem with nuclear disarmament NGOs in California and New Mexico, have conducted a series of campaigns to end the UC's involvement in nuclear weapons research, design, testing, and production at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories. These campaigns represent an important contribution to the global nuclear abolition movement, which historian Lawrence Wittner has described as "the largest, most dynamic international citizens' movement of modern times."
Free Trade Endangers Jobs Worldwide (tags)
Free strade in agriculture means export orientation and mass production instead of giving priority to food security and qualitatively high-grade regional food production.
Paul Samuelson Attacks a Dogma (tags)
The best-known economist of the world doubts that shifting services to india and buying cheap goods from China bring advantages to Americans when the income of workers falls through foreign competition. The rich North will lose its monopoly profits under the conditions of globalization.
SUPER TERRORISTS! 'Pollywood Studios' Latest Production (tags)
The Jordan bombing publicity has Pollywood (as in Pentagon's Hollywood) written all over it. Pollywood's favorite theme, after "THE NATION AT WAR" is "TERRORIST MASTERMINDS." The favorite script always stars a single villain, who is turned into a bogey man of superhuman proportions.
Consumer Shock at the Pump (tags)
Life was disrupted when the world faced the first oil price crisis in the winter of 1973. People in the southern US are experiencing this today.. Around a quarter of US production was lost through the hurricane.
LA's Downtown Indie-Movie Production Studio Opens to Outside Vendors (tags)
LA' s downtown downtown budget production studios is now seeking outside vendors to locate within the facility to make one-stop shopping for filmmakers a reality.
Security is political not military, the UN has emphasized. The US strategy to secure the Iraqi oil supply with military action is an illusion.
The SHORTWAVE REPORT 9/23/05 ¡LISTEN GLOBALLY! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio. With times and freqs for listening at home. 2 files- broadcast and slow-modem streaming. Free to rebroadcast. China, Netherlands, Cuba, and Russia.
Oil Price-Fixing (Gasp)? Of Course There's Oil Price-Fixing! (tags)
Tidy concepts like competition and free markets don’t apply in this industry, where the executives of each company know everything about the “competition” without even asking, and where the government is happy to let them suck the profits out of the public’s pockets like crude from a gusher.
Bush Threatens Los Angeles (tags)
In an effort to divert attention from Bush's murder of tens of thousands of Americans in New Orleans, the CIA produced a new tape for Bush's "Al-Qaeda Show", threatening to murder the people of Los Angeles.
A Second Economy: Overcoming the Hurricane of Unemployment (tags)
"One of the problems since the so-called turn of 1989 is that the market is regarded as an ultimate natural law. The whole world was required to transform their economies into market economies.."
Magical Mysterious 1967 (tags)
Nobody could have predicted 1967 in 1966. It seemed to come out of the clear blue sky. But it didn’t. It had been germinating for a long, long time. And there is no reason to think that if we couldn’t see it coming in 1966 that we would see it coming now.
Chaves, the Environment and the Indigenous (tags)
Is Chavez making good on his promises? Has Chavez moved to get the illegal miners out of Indigenous lands yet?
Permaculture and Peak Oil (tags)
Peak Oil and Permaculture explains the dynamics of the impending peak in global oil production and the implications for Australian society. Declining energy availability will spell the end of global economic growth and the consumerist culture it supports.
Eleven Arguments for a Basic Income (tags)
Social logic is more future-friendly than profit logic. With the end of cheap oil and the dollar crash on the horizon, a basic income would make the future human rather than predatory Social Darwinism, winner-takes-all, hire-and fire and right of stronger could be dinosaurs.
Student Statement Opposing UC-Bechtel Bid (tags)
The Regents of the University of California have announced a partnership with the Bechtel Corporation in their bid to manage the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The students of the UC oppose this partnership and the UC’s continued involvement in the design and production of nuclear weaponry.
Opposing the European Rage of Privatization (tags)
Telecommunications, postal service, gas and transportation were the first public sectors that fell victim to the rage of unbridled liberalization..A drastic structural change of the state has occurred from a producing to a guaranteeing state.
Arctic Wildlife Refuge, Los Angeles and Peak Oil (tags)
What's the connection between the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Los Angeles? The answer is peak oil. President Bush wants to open up ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) to oil drilling and it has everything to do with the fact that we are at the global peak in oil extraction. Peak oil is the start of the age of ever declining oil extraction. This is very significant to Los Angeles because it could be argued that Los Angeles is one of the most oil-addicted places on earth - the birthplace of freeway suburbs, and home to thousands of big-box stores which carry products that traveled thousands of miles to reach us. In the article below, Kenneth Deffeyes brings to our attention the fact that the debate over ANWR is missing the big issue, the issue of peak oil. On April 10th in Venice, the Post Carbon Institute presents Options and Actions for a Post Carbon Los Angeles, with local community activists presenting projects addressing these issues.
Every search for alternatives must question the "great narratives" of the free market, efficiency, competition and entrepreneurship. Economic laws could be analyzed as social constructions and economic models as social models.
Mex/CA Cotton workers & cancer (tags)
Corporate cotton, rio agua theft, pesticide exposure and worker cancer, loss of indigenous culture in maquiladoras, Chiapas/Oaxaca impacts of NAFTA/WTO/PPP/etc..
The End of Suburbia: Film Review (tags)
The documentary predicts that, as less oil is pumped fromthe ground and prices surge upward, property values of suburban homes will plummet.. The documentary postulates that the answer to the coming oil shortage resides in new urbanism.
Bush seems to have learned the same thing as former president Reagan from the histori-cal experience of the 1930s.. What helps are tax cuts and cuts in social spending.
The predicted consequences of global warming are manifest.. In 2050 England will be half under water.. Production shifts to low-wage countries. Instead of preventing this shift, politics still urges all people to adjust to the little group of egoists.
Stepan Workers Organize with UE in Anaheim, (tags)
FIELDSBORO, N.J.
The SHORTWAVE REPORT 12/10/04 ¡LISTEN GLOBALLY! (tags)
A 30 minute review of news and opinion recorded from a shortwave radio. 2 files- broadcast quality (13.3MB) and quick download (3.3MB). With times and freqs for listening at home. Free to rebroadcast. Netherlands, China, Russia, and Cuba.
On the Inefficiency and Danger of Nuclear Power (tags)
If follow-up costs of nuclear energy production were included,k nuclear energy would be the most expensive form of energy, not the cheapest. Coming generations will worry about problems produced by present generations in their short-sightedness.
E-Day: The Collapse of the Oil Lie (tags)
For a long time the oil market has functioned according to the laws of the monopoly game with players in Riad, Washington and Houston.. Only 50% of the necessary oil will be available in 8 years in 2012..
When the social contract, the social compromise between labor and capital, is scorned, people become wolves to one another.. The dance around the golden calf is already a disaster..
The biggest Brazilian gold mine belongs to a US company (tags)
Serra Pelada gold mine, in the Amazonian State of Para, one of the main Brazilian gold producers, was bought by the US mining company Phoenix Gems, which paid 40 millions dollars to exploit 100 hectares. The contract of an important part of Serra Pelada mine’s shares, was subscribed last June 5th between a cooperative of "garimpeiros" (Brazilian gold searchers) and the US Company Phoenix Gems.
The Icy Normality of Hunger (tags)
"World agriciulture in its present state of development could feed 12 billion persons.. The daily silent genocide of hunger that occurs in icy normality is not a fate. People are responsible.. For Rousseau, there was no natural law of capital.."
[PFMPE] the commandments of men (tags)
Requires Bush, as purported messenger of God, to provide God's message on central banking.
Peak Oil - Possibly the Most Important Issue of Our Time (tags)
Post-peak oil production, or “Peak Oil” is possibly the most important issue of our time. The decline of oil production and the increase in demand is at or near a critical threshold. It will shake the foundations of human life on planet Earth.
The Anarchist Case for Moderation: Television, Computers, and a Post-Capitalist Future (tags)
"I recently exchanged views with the editors of a certain counter-cultural magazine about the (de)merits of computers, and of the internet... The point of contention involves whether the internet is as alienating as television... Television is pure reception. The internet, on the other hand, allows for both reception and transmission. And therein lies the internet’s most pernicious feature... "
"What is the position of a thoughtful revolutionary to be with regard to technology?..."
Peak Oil, a plea to learn about it, teach, and press for responsible leadership (tags)
Post-peak oil production, or “Peak Oil” is possibly the most important issue of our time. The decline of oil production and the increase in demand is at or near a very critical threshold. It will shake the foundations of human life on planet Earth
Capitalism is Killing Free Trade (tags)
Are libertarians going to allow their ideology to do their thinking? What good does it do for libertarians to go into denial and to call me, patronizingly, names?
Mad Cow and the Crisis in Food Production (tags)
Mad Cow
San Joaquin Valley barren fields (tags)
When traveling through the vast San Joaquin Valley, one cannot help but noticing all the barren fields devoid of life. What happens to soil ecosystem biodiversity when exposed to UV radiation with no cover?
"Growth, prosperity, free trade, liberal world economy and international division of labor are all ideologically charged terms. They re-flect veiled interests more than a search for truth. The starting-point for an alternative econmics is an ideology-critical position."
Growing Panic at BushCo (tags)
The cost of making it flow could produce an economic crisis in the US. And it is this - rather than the daily killing of young American soldiers - that lies behind the Bush administration's growing panic. Washington has got its hands on the biggest treasure chest in the world - but it can't open the lid.
Oil, War & A Growing Sense Of Panic In The US (tags)
Don't Tell Me That America Would Have Invaded Iraq If Its Chief Export Was Beetroot
Perle Urges Bush To Initiate Nuclear Holocaust In N. Korea (tags)
Richard Perle, formerly code named "MEGA" and the former Pentagon official and an architect of the Bush administration's strategy to topple Saddam Hussein, said President Bush should consider bombing North Korea's nuclear production facilities if diplomatic efforts fail to convince Pyongyang to disarm.
the_multitude_connected :: call to participate (tags)
September 2nd -4th. The multitude connected is an experimental meeting of hackers, activists and artists to build a public virtual space based upon real time exchange of audio/video information among different geolocalizations. Eco-base: La Rabida (Southern Spain)
Ending The Good Times - Exporting America’s High-Wage Jobs (tags)
The growing ability of U.S. employers to substitute cheaper foreign labor for U.S. labor is putting pressure on U.S. wages and salaries. On April 26 the New York Times reported that the real earnings of those in the top ten percent fell 1.4% over the last year. The real weekly pay for the median worker fell 1.5 percent.
Ignored looting indicative of US disinterest in WMD (tags)
All of Iraq, from factories and mansions to government ministries, party headquarters, and military installations is being picked clean by looters. Why is there no US concern that critical evidence of WMD is being lost and destroyed?
Terror and Energy Security (tags)
The US will need 6 million more barrels of oil every day by 2020..Both the supply and the security of the US would be helped far more if energy savings and promotion of regenerative energy were vigorously emphasized. Translated from the German
BUSH PRODUCTION TEAM - BRAVO (tags)
There were times when even the most astute viewer might have thought that he not only understood the the script but also passionately believed he was telling the truth.
[PFMPE] Promising Prosperity, and Delivering Perpetually Multiplied Indebtedness (tags)
Since banking-imposed instability and maldistribution of wealth paved the way to pretend central banking was a solution for banking-imposed instability and maldistribution of wealth, we have a century of the Democrat and Republican parties, tied to the purse strings of the instrument of multiplying indebtedness they ostensibly founded on our behalf.
Socialist Planning -- Liberation from the Market (tags)
The following is written by the Maoist political economist Raymond Lotta. It is excerpted from a larger discussion on http://2changetheworld.info where Ray posted a series of comments called "Socialist planning vs. Market Socialism."
How Revolution Can Overturn Consumer Society (tags)
The following was written by political economist Raymond Lotta -- as part of a longer analysis of "Socialist Planning vs. Market Socialism." It was posted as part of the debate over revolutionary strategy in the General Discussion forum of http://2changetheworld.info
English Actors Bring Shakespeare To Life (tags)
To celebrate their 10th Anniversary, English student Theatre Company, Imago, have been travelling across America with their show, William Shakespeare's The Tempest. It arrives in Los Angeles on 14th August.
Why Socialism? By Albert Einstein (tags)
Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition.
TO PERSIST IN ERROR IS DIABOLICAL (tags)
TO PERSIST IN ERROR IS DIABOLICAL
7/15 8 PM: KPFK Asian Pacific Islander Radio Collective production meeting (tags)
**Next KPFK Asian Pacific Islander Radio Collective (API-LA) production meeting **Monday, July 15, 8:00 PM **Arts in Action-Los Angeles, 1919 W. 7th St. 4th floor (between westlake and Bonnie brae near MacAthur Park) **For more information, contact: Lee Siu Hin (626)695-3405
On Open Source Code, Computers and the Revolution (tags)
The following are excerpts from the debate on http://2changetheworld.info – the website dedicated to a discussion of the Revolutionary Communist Party,USA’s Draft Programme and issues of revolutionary strategy.
A-CLIP Collaborative Movie Project (tags)
A-clip III: "On Urban Geography: Utopia and Control" A-clip Berlin invites you to create a part of a film network between Los Angeles, New York City and Berlin. We are here in the US to collect and to produce new urban-political shorts and bring them to main-stream cinema houses in Europe and vice versa. The dead-line for new clips is June 6. There will be several meetings in April and May and a screening in LA of all new clips at June 15.
ARTS IN ACTION - SILKSCREEN WORKSHOP (tags)
At the Grand Opening of the ARTS IN ACTION Center, people were invited to "pull" their own Silkscreen T-shirts.
World Social Forum Agenda (tags)
The list below, from the World Social Forum Website is a break-down of the four topics of conversation to be addressed at the WSF
Here is what artist/writer Ken Ehrlick has been doing in response to 9/11
Leter on runaway production (tags)
In a buildup to this Sunday Dec. 2nd's runaway production rally at,, 1PM, at the Hollywood Bowl (subject to venue change, so check website or further postings)
CalArts Panel on War Politics and cultural Production (tags)
Some of CalArt's proffessors lecture this wed. on what might make for an amazing discussion
Eating More Veggies Can Help Save Energy (tags)
f humans switched from a meat-based diet to a plant-based one, the world's petroleum reserves would last 260 years, as opposed to 13.
People rising up to take back our power!!!
People rising up to take back our power!!!
THE END OF DR. LAURA'S TV CAREER? (tags)
The following press release from StopDrLaura.com cites the halt of production and other signs that Dr. Laura’s TV show will soon be gone once and for all.