Breaking the Growth Habit: A Q&A with Bill McKibben

from Scientific American. 

This celestial body [Earth] can no longer support the economic growth model that has driven society for the past 200 years. To avoid its own collapse, humankind must instead seek to maintain wealth and resources, in large part by shifting to more durable, localized economies—especially in food and energy production.

‘Peak Demand,’ Yes, But Not the Nice Kind

by Chris Nelder from his blog. 

As I explained in "Investment Themes for the Next Decade," the new normal will be  cycles of bumping our heads against the supply ceiling, falling dazed to the floor, rising back to our knees, then finally standing... only to bump our heads against the ceiling once more. 

The education problem is not what you think, neither is the solution

by Terry Edlin from her blog.

Firing more teachers and creating more charter schools is not going to solve the education problem if the root cause is poverty and dysfunction. If we broaden our scope and begin to think of creative ways to support our communities, and see people and resources everywhere lying fallow, we could think of a new way utilize them. The economic collapse has taken a severe toll on every sector. Tens of thousands of social workers, substance abuse and domestic violence counselors are collecting unemployment.  Can’t we come up with some way to tap the hard won skills that are trapped in their hearts and heads when we need them more than ever?

Industry interests are not in their "twilight"

Glenn Greenwald from Salon demolishes a leading mainstream propaganda piece by the Washington Post's Ezra Klein who "trumpets what he calls the 'Twilight of the Interest Groups' reflected by likely passage of the health care bill." Instead Greenwald argues:

...this bill was negotiated using the standard, secret, sleazy Beltway lobbyist/industry practices that candidate Obama frequently condemned and vowed to defeat.  And these industries extracted such huge benefits as a result of these secret deals -- a bill shaped to their liking and profit objectives -- that they are essentially in favor of it.

Time out

Why Israel Always Prevails

by Jeffrey Blankfort from Counterpunch. He provides an excellent history of many other instances of the powerful influence that Zionists have had over US government figures and policies.

Indeed, even a day after having been blind-sided by the announcement that Israel would build 1600 new and exclusively Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem, Biden was still trying. In a prepared speech, he once again bragged, this time to a Tel Aviv university audience, that he was a Zionist and that, “Throughout my career, Israel has not only remained close to my heart but it has been the center of my work as a United States Senator and now as Vice President of the United States,” a statement that should raise questions about dual loyalties and which, curiously, was omitted from all reports on his speech in the US press.

A Ruinous Meltdown

an op-ed by Bob Herbert from the NY Times. He's right, the meltdown of all public services is not being covered. It appears to me that this is what the ruling class calls "structural adjustment" that has been imposed on so many other countries by the banking elites. Of course, ruling class media doesn't want to talk about it. They continue the line that we are just in a cyclical recession and it will be "all better" in time.

Night Riders: Afghan Atrocity and American Values

by Chris Floyd from Empire Burlesque. Occasionally the real news about what is happening in our (US) Empire's latest addition, Afghanistan, leaks out in some round about way. But will most Americans who are glued into ruling class media find out about it? Somehow, I don't think so.

Transition Network.org

This is a new website dedicated to the "Transitions Initiative" (TI) movement which is hoping to develop the "Transitions Model". By listing this new website and by listing articles from this movement, as I have in the past, I am in no way endorsing the movement. But it needs to be looked at critically to see if it has potential to help ward off the coming cataclysm caused by the collision of the capitalist system with the ecological limits of our planet. 

I have a lot of doubts at present. There seems to be a large element of naiveté in their strategy. I am referring to their lack of any concern about the larger economic system, and the very powerful, ruling capitalist class. From reading their literature one wouldn't anticipate any conflicts whatsoever. Look at their article entitled, "The twelve key ingredients to the Transition model", which lists the support of local governments as one of their key ingredients. Although they assure us that "Your local authority's role will be TO SUPPORT, NOT DRIVE, your Transition Initiative; they never suggest that there might be any problems with this effort. 

I believe that this is highly problematic unless the TI plans to attempt to work within the capitalist system, in which case, the movement will hit a dead end. IMO, if this is the case, it will only permit some of us to reduce our standard of living to accommodate the needs of The Empire to devote more resources to their so-called "war on terrorism", i.e., their control over increasing areas of the earth to secure resources, cheap labor, and markets.

The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism

from Skeptical Science.  The goal of the Skeptical Science blog is to “explain what peer reviewed science has to say about global warming” and answer the most common questions and objections raised both by the well-meaning doubters and the not-well-meaning dis-informers.

To rob a country, own a bank (11:11m video)

from Real News Network. This is an interview with William K. Black who teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri — Kansas City. He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007.

The Monster in Our Midst

by Gary Brumback from Dissident Voice. 

What is this monster? It’s the corpocracy, a marriage made in Hell between “our” government and large corporations. This monster is ruling and ruining America and Americans.

There are so many telltale signs that the monster exists that it would take one billboard after another to post them. The monster’s domination, often harmful, is over every aspect of our lives. Here are some of the signs to illustrate what I’m talking about.

Is Israel an Apartheid State?

carried on Creative-i website because it is more readable than the original site. This is a summary of a legal study by Human Sciences Research Center of South Africa. It is quite a lengthy article, but quite comprehensively makes the case in the affirmative. 

Activism is Change: A View From the Struggle in Gaza

by Ramzy Baroud from Toward Freedom.

Activism should not be bound by mere personal affiliation, and nor should it unreservedly embrace or accept ideological dogmas. An activist is an ambassador to his cause; yes, he or she must be morally focused, but there should also be a willingness to serve as a unifying force, and to strategize and organize accordingly.  

Time out

This cartoon refers to a recent report here. 

At Lehman, Watchdogs Saw It All

from the NY Times. Lehman's fraudulent accounting was known by SEC and NY Fed regulators, yet they did nothing. Now the Fed is fighting to keep all oversight regulation in their control.

Obama's US Top Cop for Banks Wants Less Regulation, Echoes Republican Wall St. Pals

from Alter Net. 

If you had any doubt about the bank lobby's vice-grip on public policy, look no further than the meeting of the American Bankers Association currently taking place in Washington. In a shameless effort to curry favor with the deep-pocketed financial industry, House Minority Leader John Boenher, R-Ohio, urged lobbyists to fight hard against financial reform. And astonishingly, the nation's top bank cop, Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, actually agreed with him.

Creating our Own Credit: The Growing Movement for Publicly-Owned Banks

by Ellen Brown from Global Research. 

Money today is just a ticket, a receipt for work performed and goods delivered.　 We can fund the work we need done by creating our own credit. The real promise of publicly-owned banks is not that they can bail out subprime borrowers but that they can jumpstart the economy by creating real wealth. They can provide the liquidity to put labor and materials together, allowing the economy to build and grow. Our private, profit-driven banking sector has been bleeding wealth from the rest of the economy. Public-interest banks can transfuse the economy with the credit it needs to flourish and be productive once again.

Nuclear Power Makes No Business Sense

from Climate Progress.

Though nuclear power may seem a limited issue — related only to energy, and only one of several energy sources at that – the decision whether to pursue nuclear power may prove to be the most important decision now before world leaders.

Synergy in Security: the Rise of the National Security Complex

from Dollars and Sense. The article reveals the evolution of the military-industrial complex into what we have today.

The term “military-industrial complex” no longer adequately describes the multi-headed monster that has emerged in our times. The industrial (that is, big business) part of the military-industrial complex has become ever more deeply integrated into government—no longer simply providing arms but also increasingly offering their services on the fronts of war and deep inside the halls of government—commissioned to carry out the very missions of the DoD, DHS, and intelligence agencies. In the national security complex, it is ever more difficult to determine what is private sector and what is public sector—and whose interests are being served.