At the Jadaliyya website, Linda Herrera interviews Aly El-Raggal, an activist in the ongoing Egyptian revolution of ideas and action.
This Egyptian activist discusses the new ideas that are being developed by Egyptians to move their revolution forward.
Generation Rev, the revolutionary generation that has overtaken the world stage, whether in Tahrir Square or on Wall Street, has arrived at a critical juncture. This group of twenty-somethings has been experimenting for five to six years with novel ways of doing politics. They are known for horizontal organizing, persistent civil disobedience, and networking and mobilizing across lines of difference—ideological and otherwise—all of which have been greatly facilitated by new media and mobile communication tools. In Egypt, this generation contributed in no small measure to the success of the first stage of the revolution, namely the toppling of the President/Dictator Hosni Mubarak. But in this post-Mubarak period, young politicized Egyptians are being put to the test about how to achieve their democratic aspirations. As Gen Rev, and indeed all groups of society, encounter obstacles and setbacks, they are grappling with questions about how to move forward.
Click here to access article from IndyBay.
This brief article reports on a movement in San Francisco that is temporarily occupying vacant housing and hotel units. The author advises that the movement needs to develop the current occupying strategy further:
If the nation-wide “Occupation” movements intend to become a social force with the strength to reshape the course of history, they would do well to consider occupying not merely sidewalks and parks, but to begin actually taking the spaces that allow people to live and operate with dignity. With over 50,000 homes in foreclosure in California and hundreds of thousands going through the process across the country, it is only rational for any social struggle to support and encourage people to stay in their homes in defiance of eviction notices and to begin using vacant buildings for our own purposes. With increasing rents and rising tuitions, a property that was abandoned when the banks could no longer profit from it would be put to better use as a social center or free school.
Click here to access article by Ana Sofia Suarez and Shimri Zameret from RoarMag.
Inspired by protests from Tunis to New York, activists and people’s assemblies have collaborated on a vision for a new global governance.
Click here to access article by David Malone from his blog, Golem XIV.
Did you know that the EU has its own riot police that can operate in any European country but is answerable directly to none of them? No I didn’t either.
They are called the European Gendarmerie Force (Eurogendfor) . They are based in Italy but funded and staffed by six signatory nations who are France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Portugal and Romania. However, according to the Treaty which established Eurogendfor they can operate in any EU country and are available to others who invite them to do so. The country which invites them in is refered to as the ‘Host’.
Click here to access article from Associated Press via Huffington Post.
For weeks, water has coursed down key rivers from northern Thailand in a slow-motion catastrophe, overwhelming a national system of dams and dikes. Several days ago, floods transformed Ayutthaya into one of the country's worst disaster zones, navigable in some districts only by boat.
Images of calamity in Ayutthaya and elsewhere have fed fears that skyscraper-filled Bangkok could be engulfed by the weekend. Panicked residents of the capital cleared supermarket shelves to hoard bottled water and dried noodles, while luxury hotels packed sandbags around their perimeters.
This latest catastrophe caused by extreme weather is affecting wide areas in southeast Asia. It has received very little coverage in US mainstream media. Could it be that the mad pursuit of profits under capitalism is hazardous not only to economies, but also to the planet's stability? Is it becoming all too obvious? The thought control agents of the one percent, also known as mainstream media, can't allow you to even consider such thoughts.
Click here to access article by Matt Taibbi from RollingStone.
His advice relates to the demands of Wall Street Occupiers which he anticipates will be developed in due time. Unfortunately, his demands are only for reforms to a system which is essentially a criminal enterprise, a system that is designed to satisfy the addiction of a tiny group of people to profit and power. His suggested list of demands are like asking organized crime syndicates to act nicer and play fair.
Taibbi is another example of mainstream media's toleration of liberal dissent--and, Rolling Stone is clearly and safely within mainstream media. Rolling Stone magazine is a limited liability corporation apparently 100% owned by Jann Wenner, the founder. Journalists for the magazine and website carefully avoid any attack on the capitalist system itself or engage in any radical political polemics.
If you accept the need to change the governing system of capitalism, then a list of demands must relate to goals which only a thoroughly democratic and equitable system could provide. Some examples that I can think of: 100% employment for all able bodied people, guaranteed income for those unable to work, 4 hour work days/20 hour work weeks, free universal health care, free education as far as people can go based on competence, nationalization of the Federal Reserve, return homes to those who have been evicted due to foreclosure, dismantlement of all foreign military bases.
Click here to access article by Jim O’Reilly from his blog, Comments on Global Economy.
This, and other commentaries by this blogger, are quite significant given his background. O'Reilly is another example of a solid member of the (real) middle class who, while pursuing a career in banking and finance, became disillusioned with the ongoing attacks on working people by the governing class. He knows this class from the inside while serving under them, and with this knowledge he writes:
This glittering Valhalla doesn’t give two shits for Greater Reading [poverty stricken areas of the Northeast US] but it does immensely care about foreign policy. While often thought of as “US policy” or “US national interests” nothing could be further from the truth. Only the interests of Park Avenue are in play. And what are those interests? They’re really only two: 1) expand global markets in order to maximize corporate profits and 2) continuously grow and revel in the ever higher glory and grandeur of great power, Rome being the obvious model. The Three P’s: profit, power, prestige. We can see how this foreign policy has played out historically since the end of World War II, from Korea to Vietnam to Latin America and throughout the Middle East. Millions have died but no group in history has ever risen to greater power.
Click here to access article by Danny Lucia from Socialist Worker.
Using a lot of sarcasm, this author points out the difficulties the ruling class is having in relationship to the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. And, he offers this realpolitik gem as an antidote to the phony offerings of sympathy by the (less than) one percent:
...the One Percent has an old saying: If you can't beat them, beat them up....
Click here to access article by Pepe Escobar from Asia Times Online.
The US government expects an unsuspecting world to believe that a washed-up car salesman in Texas was tasked by a select intelligence arm of the Iranian government to fish for anyone who looked like a Mexican drug gangster and then order them a US$1.5 million hit on the Saudi ambassador in Washington - in the meantime promising them unfettered access to "tons of opium".
After all, wouldn't it be useful to distract attention from all those annoying demonstrators? (sarcasm)
See also this article by Gareth Porter entitled, "FBI account of 'terror plot' suggests sting." The author provides compelling evidence and arguments that this latest "terror plot" was another contrived sting operation designed to scare the American public and possibly to justify war actions.
And, if you still haven't had enough, read Glenn Greenwald's commentary entitled, 'The “very scary” Iranian Terror plot'. He captures the spirit of Orwell when he writes, "...after all, U.S. government accusations = Truth."
Click here to access article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya from Dissident Voice.
This courageous, independent journalist who risked his life covering the recent events in Libya provides us with a geo-political epiphany regarding the Empire's recent history and future agenda in the Middle East and Africa. He ties together so many bits and pieces of information that I've come across in the past decade to form a coherent picture that explains so much that has happened, and likely will happen in this area.
This piece, along with so many others, urgently calls for the setting at the top of our agenda the replacement of all class structured societies with egalitarian, grass-roots participatory societies. If we fail to do this, unending wars, civil strife, uprooting of populations, refugee camps, economic and environmental devastation will be our future.
Click here to access article, a joint statement from the First of May Anarchist Alliance and The Utopian from The Utopian.
...we should strive to convince the movement that the problem in the US today is not just Wall Street or the corporations or the fact that the economic system is somehow being "gamed" or "rigged" by tricky selfish individuals. We need to explain that the cause of the crisis is the capitalist system itself, a system in which production is carried on only when it results in profits, the vast majority of which go to the tiny elite that runs the country. Correspondingly, we should work to persuade the movement that its ultimate aim should be the radical democratization of our entire society, in other words, a revolution in which the vast majority of people seize control of the economy and the country as a whole from the rich and disperse power and direct control of all aspects of social life as widely as possible. As a result, we should propose and support radical demands that both point in this direction and unite the broadest sectors of the population.
I couldn't agree more except to argue that political education along these lines should be THE focus (not direct action) of activist activity--effective direct action will naturally flow from a politically educated movement.
The American people have been fed so many lies for so long that they see the world through very cloudy lenses. Many people are beginning to question these lies and are beginning to see that the realities of their daily lives clash with the myths of the media propaganda machines. They are ready to look at alternative explanations to better understand the destruction of their lives.
Likewise, as we build the movement, the subtle, and not so subtle attacks from mainstream media need to be dealt with so that this media becomes completely discredited. Simultaneously, activists need to establish alternative media to wean people away from mainstream media so that a vital revolutionary consciousness can be created.
Click here to access article by Steven Fake from ZNet.
This lengthy article provides a good overview of the Wall Street protests and their current impact on all segments of US society.
I found the description of how mainstream media (in the "Media Propaganda section) attempts to shape their coverage to de-legitimatize the movement particularly useful. The author also correctly pointed out that the business press has been covering the events much more "sympathetically", and I would say, more accurately. Why do you think this is?
Because the "business press", or as I would say, the ruling class press, is not directed toward mainstream society, but to its constituents, the ruling class and its supporters. Hence, it is much less contaminated by self-serving political propaganda. This class needs accurate information in order to secure itself from any outside threats. This does not mean that their information is always accurate because their material interests and values all reduce their ability to see the significance of what is happening in the real world.
I have a minor complaint to make regarding one of his comments:
One can only hope that the use of consensus does not become a road block – consensus is a nice goal to aim for in any group decision-making, but it should rarely be a rigid requirement and can sometimes act as an impediment to timely or democratic results.
This adds some confusion to what consensus is, and the function it serves. Most activists have gone far beyond the notion that consensus means 100% agreement. It can be any percentage beyond majority rule. Consensus is only another tool to insure that everyone has an equal opportunity to influence decisions. It is critically important that everyone feels that the structure under which decisions are made is fair, that the structure itself was an outcome of equitable participation, and that there is a participatory way of changing or modifying the structure. Activists completely reject all the fake democratic processes of formal political decision making as now exists in Western societies.
Click here to access article by Naomi Klein from The Nation.
...let’s treat each other as if we plan to work side by side in struggle for many, many years to come. Because the task before will demand nothing less.
Let’s treat this beautiful movement as if it is most important thing in the world. Because it is. It really is.
Click here to access article by Margaret Kimberley from Black Agenda Report.
The author is absolutely correct in criticizing the Occupy Wall Street activists for ignoring Democratic leaders in their latest protest in which they targeted the homes of Republican leaders.
The Occupy Wall Street protesters held a march, dubbed the millionaire’s march, to demand that the rich pay their fair share of taxes. They marched past the New York City homes of billionaire David Koch, News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch, and Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase. For some strange reason, they did not march past the offices of the Democratic governor.
Democratic party leaders are currently trying to adopt the Occupiers by issuing statements in sympathy with them in order to gain votes in next years election. (See this.) Once again, we see these fake populists trying to pretend that they are on the side of ordinary workers. This is especially galling after nearly three years of the Obama administration, the party of "change and hope", that has seamlessly continued ruling class policies after the retirement of their previous agent, George Bush, Jr. (See this.) Hopefully, the protestor's march was only an oversight and not a disturbing a lack of political maturity among the activists.
Click here to access article by Suzanna Andrews from Vanity Fair.
For me this lengthy piece about Elizabeth Warren's clashes with the Obama administration and the ruling class that all administrations serve, illustrates how this class is losing the support of the middle class.
First, let me make clear what middle class really means in contrast to the way it is deliberately misused in mainstream media who see everyone who are not homeless as middle class. The middle class consists of all the managers, educators, highly trained technicians, and other professionals who keep the capitalist machine going and who have benefited from their services to the machine and the less-than-one percent who own the machine.
Warren was a good little working class girl who eventually grew up to know too much about the ruling class.
Warren decided to investigate the reasons why Americans were ending up in bankruptcy court. “I set out to prove they were all a bunch of cheaters,” she said in a 2007 interview. “I was going to expose these people who were taking advantage of the rest of us.” What she found, after conducting with two colleagues one of the most rigorous bankruptcy studies ever, shook her deeply. The vast majority of those in bankruptcy courts, she discovered, were from hardworking middle-class families, people who lost jobs or had “family breakups” or illnesses that wiped out their savings. “It changed my vision,” she said.
Unlike a growing number of others of her class, she still believes in the system and is planning to run for a US Senate seat from Massachusetts apparently thinking that it can be changed by working within the system. She definitely has more to learn.
Many middle class people have been severely hurt by the recent economic collapse through no fault of their own, and are extremely worried about the future prospects of their children. They see the system functioning in a thoroughly corrupt fashion and only want to restore it to some semblance of fair play. Many do not see the inevitable course that such a self-serving system takes as it strives to satisfy the addictions of a small class of people to power and wealth.
During the past 300 years this criminal class has literally gotten away with murder and mayhem in so many imperial wars, exploitation of workers, and lies to such an extent that they have become both completely corrupt and arrogant. Most middle class people simply don't understand how addiction works: the addict ultimately can never get enough of their drugs. They will brook no opposition and are willing to destroy societies in order to obtain them.
Click here to access article by Robert Oak from The Economic Populist.
The author is referring to recent reports from the National Foundation for American Policy. I was unable to find much independent information about this organization. Here are some remarks about NFAP from the author:
Probably the most debunked economic fiction spinner of them all, the NFAP, is used. The NFAP is also these very multinational's personal white paper spin machine.
This report provides more evidence that the middle class in the US is being abandoned by the ruling class, and thus, is increasingly losing their support. This is a dangerous development for the ruling class.
Click here to access article, a transcript and videos of a speech by Slavoj Žižek.
Yesterday at noon, this blog's trusty mentor, the Slovenian philosopher-scholar Slavoj Žižek, spoke at Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street protests are being held.
This is a sample of the kind of political consciousness raising that is occurring in Zuccotti Park, NY City, where Occupy Wall Street protests are being held.
Click here to access article from Solidarity Economy. It is a transcript of a speech by SACP (South African Communist Party) General Secretary Blade Nzimande at the Launch of the Red October Campaign, October 2 2011
The major lessons from our Red October Campaign include the fact that we must not just satisfy ourselves by becoming professional critics, permanent protestors and lamentors in the face of the many challenges facing our country. But that [it] is essential for the working class to take the lead on concretely what is to be done, through concrete actions and campaigns!
Although there are some different issues confronting working people in South Africa than here in the US, there are also many common ones. We must compare notes with activists all over the world in order to raise our level of political consciousness and improve our knowledge about effective strategies and tactics as we engage in our own class war which is a part of a global class war. And, we must not be deterred from using some sources of information simply because the political operatives of the governing class disapprove of them.
It is probably premature to consider any campaigns here in the US. We are presently building our political consciousness, our political structures, and our political power. Once we have accomplished that, we can move on to campaigns. However, to prepare for the future some people who are further along in their political development can benefit by looking at the experiences of activists in other countries.
Click here to access article from Solidarity Economy. The article is an extract from the preface to a book by this name that is a compilation of essays edited by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker.
Camila, who lives in Cuba, holds a degree in sustainable development from the University of Berkeley, California. She is a professor at the Centre for Studies on the Cuban Economy at Havana University, and her works have been published both in Cuba and outside the island. She is also, incidentally, the daughter of Chilean-Cuban journalist and author Marta Harnecker and her late husband, Manuel "Red Beard" Piñeiro, who headed revolutionary Cuba's state security and intelligence service for many years.
Again, we have much to learn from the experience of other activists across the globe.
The rationality that drives a cooperative, as with all forms of genuine self-management, is the necessity for a group of people to satisfy common needs and interests. It is based on the recognition that they share collective interests that correspond to some degree with their own individual interests, and that it is collective action that allows them to pursue these interests most effectively. This, together with the recognition that all its members are human beings with the equal right to participate in decision-making, results in democratic management in which the cooperative members decide not only who the leaders are and how revenues should be allocated, but also how to organise the process of production: what is produced, how and for whom.
Click here to access article by Peter Certo from Foreign Policy in Focus.
At every stage of the process, then—extraction, manufacture, and market—Apple’s business practices have hurt the people on whom the company relies for its prosperity.
This article provides another antidote to the extravagant praise heaped on Jobs by mainstream media. (See also my commentary on Jobs in yesterday's article.)
Click here to access article by Brendan Fischer from The Center for Media and Democracy.
The New Yorker reports on a conservative multimillionaire's successful efforts to buy North Carolina's elections, and a report from campaign finance reform groups describe how an elite group of donors have laundered unlimited contributions to presidential campaigns.
The points made in this article are probably obvious for many politically aware people, but still there are many Americans who naively believe in the capitalist version of democracy which, of course, is designed to hide the real truth. There has never been a genuine democracy in the US or any other significant country simply because the capitalists have ruled the world since the land owning aristocratic class lost the world to this new class back in the 17th and 18th centuries.
During the latter class wars this new class used democratic rhetoric to enlist the support of working people and farmers to aid them in their class war against the aristocracy. After victory they were saddled with these democratic principles and have had to maintain a fake version to assuage the yearning of working people for the real thing.
In the early history of capitalist rule they very carefully limited voting to owners of property. They gradually extended voting rights to other populations only under considerable pressure and after they mastered the arts of election management through their money and their control over all sub-systems in societies.
Any system is by definition a "group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements forming a complex whole." Think of capitalists as the central nervous system of society. After winning their wars, they became the central nervous systems of their particular societies.
As a class controlled social system under the control of substantial owners of economic property, capitalists have inserted their influence and control over all other subsystems: education where indoctrination of market values is always present and history is always presented from their point of view, media where news is shaped to reflect the interests of the governing class, the legal system where laws are made and/or interpreted to support their interests, and the electoral system where two capitalist parties control who runs for office and who gets elected by funneling money and resources to those who best serve their interests.
This liberal article focuses only on elections and only superficially.
It was great to be away on a kayaking adventure with some wonderful people from mostly the Northwest, but also from Austin, Texas and Denver, Colorado.
I returned home with numerous aching muscles, but with my mind cleansed of all the tension that accumulates when spending so much time trying to understand all the social-political problems of the world.
Click here to access article by Chris Hedges from Truthdig.
I've been looking for reports that capture the true spirit of the Wall Street Occupiers. This is one of the very best because it really does clarify why the governing class is in trouble. Activists there are creating effective modes of people decision making, and this can be quite intoxicating. People feeling their power, feeling that each individual is important, and working out ways to promote the best ideas so that the larger assembly can act on them. This is what democracy looks like. And once people become addicted to such power, it is very difficult to go back to "business as usual".
These protesters have not come to work within the system. They are not pleading with Congress for electoral reform. They know electoral politics is a farce and have found another way to be heard and exercise power. They have no faith, nor should they, in the political system or the two major political parties. They know the press will not amplify their voices, and so they created a press of their own. They know the economy serves the oligarchs, so they formed their own communal system. This movement is an effort to take our country back.
Click here to access article by William Lloyd George from Upside Down World.
Natalia Amado, a student leader, says they are not rebels. “We are not just protesting for the sake of it,” she says untying a colourful flag from her back. “Colombia needs decent public education so the masses can attend universities, it is their right.” She added that the introduction of profit-making universities would mean that the public universities would be neglected and important subjects like humanities would most likely be dropped for business-minded studies. “This would really damage our society,” she says.
In an otherwise good report on a neo-liberal attack on higher education in Columbia, I don't understand why this alternative news source parrots the words of mainstream propagandists. In this case I'm referring to the use of the word "reforms" in the title and throughout the article. Here is a standard definition of the word "reform":
Noun
- A change for the better; an improvement.
- Correction of evils, abuses, or errors.
- Action to improve social or economic conditions without radical or revolutionary change.
The writer instead uses a newspeak definition of the word commonly used by ruling class media to obscure measures which benefit their class at the expense of working people, or in other words, that benefit the one percent to the disadvantage of the 99 percent. Whenever you see the word "reform" used by ruling class media, you must assume that it is bad for you.
Click here to access article by Noam Chomsky from Truthout.
In these troubled waters, the Jeju base would host up to 20 American and South Korean warships, including submarines, aircraft carriers and destroyers, several of which would be fitted with the Aegis ballistic-missile defense system.
For the United States, the base’s purpose is to project force toward China – and to provide a forward operating installation in the event of a military conflict. The last thing the world needs is brinksmanship between the U.S. and China.
You won't see any news of this in US ruling class media. While our schools, welfare, and community programs are being slashed to the bone, guess where all the money is going? More military bases to insure that the Empire's ruling class can rule supreme!
After the conclusion of WWII in the Pacific, the Korean people who suffered so much under Japanese colonial rule desperately wanted total independence. Instead, what they got was US hegemony who used former Japanese political operatives and their Korean collaborators to serve US imperial interests. That was what the Korean War was all about. If you wish to know more about this little understood war, I highly recommend that you read at least volume one of the two volumes entitled, The Origins of the Korean War by Bruce Cumings.
By Ron Horn.
So far I have found two articles which offer some insights on this question: iDolatry — obituary for a capitalist revolutionary and Let's Talk About Steve Jobs Because Everyone Else Is (Written in August shortly after his resignation.) The first focuses on his performance as a capitalist driving force in the ongoing creation of new products to pump up markets, the second offers some insights on Jobs as a cultural icon. I would like to develop the individualist theme further.
A social system under a class rule always puts the stamp of the latter's interests on all parts of the system. Both articles show how Jobs has served the interests of the ruling class and why he has been idolized by mainstream media. Mainstream media is directly controlled by this class and at all times reflects their values and points of view.
The same idolatry with which mainstream media portrays Jobs also, of course, pertains to their extravagant praise of Microsoft's Bill Gates. Both are seen as individual heroes who almost single-handedly created the products of their respective corporations, when in fact they were created and accomplished by the efforts of so many thousands of people engaged in their enterprises.
Under capitalism there are basically two types of people: winners and losers. To be sure their are gradations of each; and people are constantly encouraged to compare their individual achievements with those of their peers to motivate them to compete ever harder to become a winner, and by doing so, to enrich those who "own" the enterprises in which people do their productive work.
The idolatrous recognition given to successful individuals of capitalist enterprises serves to justify the enormous material rewards that all winners of this system produces. Thus, the same idolatry is given to investor Warren Buffet who only knows how to enrich himself off the productivity of others. Capitalist cultural operatives constantly use this theme to hammer home their thesis that all people who thrive under capitalism do so because of their individual efforts, and thus, are deserving of so much wealth. People who fail to succeed in this system are "losers" and likewise deserve nothing.
On the other hand, all the adverse social and environment damage caused by the heroes of capitalism and their enterprises is completely ignored by media propagandists. The exploitation of working people, the destruction of whole communities through the exporting of enterprises to cheap labor areas of the world, and the spoliation of the environment are all often hidden or denied.
Click here to access article Research Institute for European and American Studies.
The Papandreou regime, acting as the agent for the Troika, has been methodically destroying the livelihoods, hopes, and longer term prospects of millions of people, who have suddenly discovered themselves under foreign, mainly German, occupation yet again.
The article makes some interesting points about the parallels with the earlier history of German occupation during WWII when capitalist countries were engaged in a war of inter-capitalist rivalry and dominance, and uses the parallels to compare today's neo-liberal policies of the integrated capitalist empire with those of the Third Reich--not much difference.
(Note the correct use of the word "reform" in quotation marks.)
Click here to access article by MJ Rosenberg from Political Correction.
There is one foreign aid program that is not on the chopping block — not Obama's, and not House Republicans or Senate Democrats. And it happens to be the largest single foreign assistance program of them all: $3.5 billion in aid to Israel. As the Times puts it, defending this particular program shows that "even in times of austerity, some spending is inviolable."
NOTICE: Because I encountered lengthy internet access problems this morning, I have only one posting.
Click here to access article by David Malone from his blog, Golem XIV.
The author examines the current plan formulated by the Western capitalist ruling class called the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) to find what it is really all about:
The trick is that the money paid will now not be a ‘bail out’ it will be an ‘investment’. We won’t be bailing out the banks, they’ll be bailing us out (with money we have given them and to asset strip the Greek people – but we won’t talk about that will we). We will have all been pulled through the financial looking glass. And better yet, the amount of return will not be simply what the banks could get by forcing Greece to flog its ‘assets’ today, but will be the whole future income from those assets as well. Rather than give Greece what it needs or even just force it to sell what you want as payment of its debts, even better is to force the nation and its people in to a long term debt peonage.
