Capitalism puts profits first, but an ecological society will serve humanity-- an Interview with Fred Magdoff (a "best post")

Click here to access this interview from Truthout.

What would a truly just, equal and ecologically sustainable future look like? Why would it require a change in our economic system, namely the end of capitalism? Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams answer(s) these questions in Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation. Suffused with radical hope, this book can be yours with a donation to Truthout!

Is a world possible based on equitable needs, empathy and sustainable economics? Two authors believe so -- and that it would require the end of capitalism: Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams, who co-wrote Creating an Ecological Society. In this Truthout interview, Magdoff -- a professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont -- shares his vision of how we could move toward such a world.

Magdoff's articles have been frequently published in the Monthly Review, a longtime socialist journal. He is a professor emeritus of plant and soil science at the University of Vermont and co-author of the new Monthly Review Press book Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation.
 
Fred Magdoff demonstrates in this interview that he is a very wise man as illustrated in this paragraph in a partial answer to the question "In summary, what would an ecological society look like to you?"

It will be critical to operate in ways that maintain an egalitarian and democratic society. Transparency and openness need to be maintained. There are a variety of methods to help make that happen, such as simple processes for recall of unsatisfactory persons in positions of authority and regular rotation of positions within economic units and within social structures, such as community, regional and multi-regional councils. Continuing efforts will take place in schools and society at large to encourage pro-social traits needed in a cooperative society -- cooperation, reciprocity, sharing, empathy, treating all people equally and fairly (no favoritism) -- and to work to minimize the expression of traits emphasized and rewarded by capitalism (especially, greed, selfishness and individualism) and to eliminate the deep scourges of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination and oppression.

In the last lengthy sentence he poses what I believe to be a major hurdle to overcome by any revolutionary movement that attempts to replace capitalism with what is truly a social-system: individualism that is laced like fabric throughout the culture of capitalism. That is why I believe that any effective revolutionary movement must emphasize a pro-social prefigurative component (see mine here and here in my revolutionary proposal) in order to provide training and experience to create a totally new human being to preserve this new social system.

Identity politics: dead end for student activism

Click here to access article by Miriam Padilla from Freedom Socialist. 

Padilla, a student at Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington, writes about her experience with activist groups on campus.

...the divisiveness that I have seen on campus has been one of my most disappointing experiences in college.

Many campus groups claim to be in solidarity with other organizations and struggles, but in reality they act more like exclusive social clubs. They think we should stick within our own circle of the persecuted — Chicanos with Chicanos, Blacks with Blacks, etc. This makes no sense to me. You can’t truly be in solidarity if you intentionally isolate yourself. Many students of color care about radically changing things. We all need to seek out each other and organize in one big circle. That’s often just not happening.

How Far the Cult of the Individual?

Click here to access article by Phil Dahl-Bredine from Americas Program.

Many people in the US and Canada have much to learn from our indigenous neighbors to the south.

The communal democracies of these indigenous communities may be the only thing that could save Oaxaca’s lands from this new and vigorous onslaught of the cult of the individual and corporate gain.

...the occidental world has lost its ability to understand community and “communality”. The cult of the individual, the hero, the rich man, and private, personal ownership has permeated our consciousness without our understanding its ultimate consequences.

Read the article to find out how they live solidarity and community.

Business Elites Are Waging a Brutal Class War in America

Click here to access an extract from a book by Noam Chomsky posted on Infoshop News.

This is an excerpt from the just released 2nd edition of Noam Chomsky’s OCCUPY: Class War, Rebellion and Solidarity, edited by Greg Ruggiero and published by Zuccotti Park Press. Chris Steele interviews Chomsky.

In this excerpt Chomsky provides a range of insights on the class war and why we are losing it. His main weakness as indicated in this piece is that he is very light on any insights about winning it. Still, it must be acknowledged that he has contributed so much to understanding the class war over the past four decades. It is now up to us to build on his insights in order to create a winning strategy to win this war and to secure our very survival.

Resisting Tear Gas Together

Click here to access article by Ian Alan Paul from Jadaliyya. 

The author provides a very thought-provoking take on the use of tear gas in protests by authorities, and the responses by the protestors as we have recently witnessed in Turkey. The former try to infect the air with poisonous chemicals where protestors come together, and the latter to sustain their protests must draw on the most basic of human qualities: caring for each other and protecting their space. Is it too dramatic to frame this as a battle between the forces of death versus the forces of human life? In any case, the author also provides some very useful information about this new field of battle that seems to be characterizing the class war that is raging across various parts of the globe. (See this and this for other war fronts.) 

The global uprisings of the last decade, from the US to Spain to Egypt and now Turkey, all have taken this form of organizing against the conditions of vulnerability and precarity. These were not movements shaped by marches or speeches, but rather centered themselves on the construction of occupations and encampments, producing the contexts in which new relationalities and ways of being-together in the world could unfold. The people’s uprising that is currently taking place across Turkey is expressive of this collective desire, and perhaps need, to be together and care for one another in the shared space of the common that Gezi Park came to be for so many in Turkey. This collective practice amounted to a refusal to simply “care or fight for ourselves,” but rather to fundamentally begin “caring and fighting for each other.”

Ireland and the Basque Country: Massive Flight (Emigration) or General Strike?

Click here to access article by James Petras from his blog.

This retired American sociology professor examines worker responses to the aggressive neoliberal campaigns to dismantle Europe's system of social supports for working people and to burden European governments with debts that must be paid by sacrificing workers. To do this he visited and studied developments in Ireland and Spain and found two very different responses.

To learn first-hand about the capitalist crisis and the workers’ responses, I spent the better part of May in Ireland and the Basque country meeting with labor leaders, rank and file militants, unemployed workers, political activists, academics and journalists. Numerous interviews, observations, publications, visits to job sites and households - in cities and villages -provide the basis for this essay. 

What he learned was that in Ireland the classic divide and rule strategies of the ruling One Percent were effective causing thousands of talented young people to emigrate; whereas in Spain, particularly in the Basque country where independent working class organizations have developed over a long period, workers are staying and fighting back. 

The infirmary of Social Solidarity Thessaloniki

Click here to access article which features an interview with Serafía Kalamítsou, 37, a paediatrician and an anarchist working in a self-organized medical project in Greece. It is from Anarkismo.net via Infoshop News.

We have not started the project to save our soul with charity work, but see ourselves as a political project with a clear objective. Our main goal as SKS is to show that solidarity work and structures can succeed by organizing solidarity to overcome the problems caused by the economic crisis. Solidarity means more than just a helping hand. Solidarity structures may then have a great effect, when solidarity is part of our consciousness, not only for our patients, but also for their families, and the neighborhoods in which they live. During such a process, it is made clear that supportive structures can be created not only in the health sector, but in all the other areas of our lives also. This process of awareness is very difficult to set in motion. If we are here to stay however, if we only create a functioning health centre, our work has been for nothing. We are successful when we manage to make the SKS part of a general movement with the goal of social self-management and solidarity not only in the city, but also throughout the country.

Intimacy versus Capitalism, Montreal

Click here to access article by Cindy Milstein from her blog, Commons Not Capitalism. 

For readers in the US and elsewhere who have been unable to follow the events in Quebec because of a media news blackout, this is another report which I think captures the spirit of this youth led revolt in that Canadian province against austerity policies resulting in dramatic increases in university tuition. Let me explain some of the terms in her article that may be unfamiliar to you:

• Grand Prix--see this, this, and this.
• Bill 78 specifically targets the massive student assemblies and mobilizations in order to break the growing strike and destroy the power of the student union. One member of the Quebec political opposition used the term “Loi Fuck” to refer to the blunt and draconian tool that outlaws public assembly, imposes harsh fines for strike activity (even tacit support), and effectively makes organizing an arrestable offense. The bill also gives more power to the police in enforcing student protest. Indeed, during the last many weeks of escalating street demos, police have repeatedly preempted demonstrations with CS gas, sound grenades, “blast disperser” grenades, and rubber bullets. 
• cassaroles--saucepans. See this for how they are used as an expression of opposition.

The author explains how intimacy can be, and is, powerful as illustrated in Montreal. She obviously is not referring to sexual intimacy, but the bonds that can be formed when the people have become so disturbed by the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" imposed by capitalist authorities that they are willing to "take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them".

So on this night 49, filled with the warm radiant heat of a summer night, made hotter still by so many people continuing to turn out illegally to march, and the warmth of the bonds we feel when we do so, I’m overcome by the actually existing fact that people can and do act along the lines of an “economy” of gifting and mutual aid and solidarity, backed by the intimacy and love created in our spring uprisings, despite all that capitalism does to beat the life out of us.

See also this, this, and this.

What Me Worry? The rise of the surveillance state and what we can do about it

A 32:54n video presentation by Scott Crow sourced from Infoshop News.

I highly recommend this to all activists and people thinking about becoming activists. The speaker is a longtime activist who knows of what he speaks.

A presentation from scott crow at the Law and Disorder conference in 2012. It covers the 'War on Terror' giving some historical background on repression of previous political movements from COINTELPRO, political prisoners (past and present) and the current security state and how current political movements can effective fight back.

Bradley Manning story inspires play by National Theatre of Wales

Click here to access article by Alex Needham from The Guardian. 

With US media constantly referring to US troops used to invade other countries as "soldier warriors" and heroes, I and many others regard resistance people such as Bradley Manning as the real heroes of our age. Bradley fought on behalf of the 99 percent by helping to expose the lies of the One Percent. By doing so he risked so much, and has undergone horrendous punishment for his services to us. We simply must support our heroes! 

Here is are lyrics to a great new song to celebrate Bradley and our other heroes:

For Bradley Manning
When Bradley comes marching home again Hurroo, hurroo
When Bradley comes marching home again Hurroo, hurroo
We’ll charge the war makers with their crimes
Put ‘em in the dock, make them pay for those crimes
When the peace is won and Bradley comes marching home

For Molly Ivins
When Molly comes marching home again Hurrah, hurrah
When Molly comes marching home again Hurrah, Hurrah
We’ll win the peace, just you see
The world will have a chance to be free
When the peace is won and Molly comes marching home

For Dr. King
When Martin comes marching home again Hurray, Hurray
When Martin comes marching home again Hurray, Hurray
We’ll put our conscience to the test
And lay the war machine to rest
When the peace is won and Martin comes marching home

When Bradley comes marching home again Hurray, Hurray
When Bradley comes marching home again Hurray, Hurray
We’ll start with a truce, don’t you see
No more war, that’s the key
When the peace is won and Bradley comes marching home

The Empire Strikes Back

Click here to access article by David Glenn Cox from OpEd News. 

This guy throws literary acid on the lies of the Empire in order to reveal the truth. And he concludes this essay with the greatest truth of all:

The message is clear, money is power, but there is another message which is not so clear, that there is strength in unity. The average American has more in common with a Los Angeles gang member than they do with any government official. You have more in common with a peasant worker in Juarez Mexico than you do with a Wells Fargo executive and even more in common with an Afghan fighter hiding in the mountains of North Waziristan. They know well that the empire means them no good, the empire wants only to exploit them and to use them and when finished, to dispense with them.