Sudan: Oil Companies Alleged to be Complicit in War Crimes

by Miles Ashdown from Toward Freedom. 

International oil companies that support the government of Sudan wreck their havoc on the Sudanese in the pursuit of profits. The recent history of the Sudan illustrates a worst case example in the neo-liberal period of capitalism.

“We’re talking about rape, murder, torture, arson, looting, arbitrary bombing by high-altitude bombers as well as by helicopter gunships, driving people into uninhabitable areas like the swamps where many people suffered and died due to exhaustion, hunger, diseases,” said Wesselink, who worked on the ECOS report entitled “Unpaid Debt.”

Greece: Society Begins to Crack Under Harsh Measures

by Apostolis Fotiadis from IPS. 

The lives of working people in Greece are being destroyed which is causing serious deterioration of their society. But the owners of their enterprises benefit--isn't that what capitalism is all about? I think I see this happening in the US.

This culture [intimidation of workers] prevails across the country, and is tolerated only because of mounting economic uncertainties, says Klissas. "People are scared and easily manipulated. Things are getting tougher here. Most of the people put up with things that they should speak against. How can they?"

The dead sea: Global warming blamed for 40 per cent decline in the ocean's phytoplankton

by Steve Connor from The Independent.

The microscopic plants that support all life in the oceans are dying off at a dramatic rate, according to a study that has documented for the first time a disturbing and unprecedented change at the base of the marine food web.

Scientists have discovered that the phytoplankton of the oceans has declined by about 40 per cent over the past century, with much of the loss occurring since the 1950s. They believe the change is linked with rising sea temperatures and global warming.

Obama Administration In Danger Of Establishing "New Normal" With Worst Bush-Era Policies, Says ACLU

from the American Civil Liberties Union.

[The Obama Administration] has not...abandoned the 'global war' framework that was the basis for many of the last administration's counter-terrorism programs. Indeed, some of the Obama administration's policies – like the policies on indefinite detention, military commissions and targeted killings – are entrenching this framework, presenting a profound threat to human rights and the rule of law.

Capitalism and Ecological Limits, Part 2A

from The End of Capitalism. This is a must-read series of articles.

I am simply amazed at how Knight sheds so much light on how capitalism has directed the human drama to the precarious place we are in today, and doing so in a way that can be easily understood by ordinary people.

The following exchange between Michael Carriere and Alex Knight occurred via email, July 2010. Alex Knight was questioned about the End of Capitalism Theory, which states that the global capitalist system is breaking down due to ecological and social limits to growth and that a paradigm shift toward a non-capitalist future is underway.

This is the second part of a four-part interview.

US Grows Isolated on Aggressive War

by Peter Dyer from Common Dreams. 

This is a well-meaning, but, IMO, a rather naive essay on the rule of law in relation to the Empire's wars. Like politics, laws at the international level are simply war by another means. Such laws and legal systems are devised by the powerful to advance their interests and to negate the interests of their adversaries. This will remain so until all hierarchical class systems are abolished.  

The people of the Empire are growing weary of the current wars, dissent is growing while their economies are declining. Only active, organized working people all over the world can bring peace.

Legal Fund Established To Fight Imprisonment of Accused WikiLeaks Whistleblower

by Bradley Manning Support Network from Counter Currents. A very worthy project to support our heroes in the military who risk so much to keep us informed. "Support our troops!" 

The last report I read was that he was being held in a US prison in Kuwait away from legal assistance and prying eyes.  That is a very dangerous situation for anyone to be in given the history of torture in US controlled prisons in foreign lands.

...the Bradley Manning Support Network (www.bradleymanning.org) will begin accepting online donations for the legal defense of Private First Class Bradley Manning.

The Network, a grassroots initiative formed to defend and support accused whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning, has partnered with Courage to Resist, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting military objectors.

Peace Movement Adopts New Comprehensive Strategy

by David Swanson from War Is a Crime.

Last week 700 leading peace activists from around the United States met and strategized in Albany, N.Y. ...They discussed, debated, and voted for a comprehensive new plan for the coming months. The plan includes a new focus and some promising proposals for building a coalition that includes the labor movement, civil rights groups, students, and other sectors of the activist world that have an interest in ending wars and/or shifting our financial resources from wars to where they're actually needed.

Time out

The Mighty Rise of the Food Revolution

by Michael Pollan, article reproduced on AlterNet from The New York Review of Books. 

This is an excellent, in-depth, essay exploring the disparate elements that seem to be coalescing around something that the author identifies as a food movement, and he examines its potential significance for changing American culture

It makes sense that food and farming should become a locus of attention for Americans disenchanted with consumer capitalism. Food is the place in daily life where corporatization can be most vividly felt: think about the homogenization of taste and experience represented by fast food. By the same token, food offers us one of the shortest, most appealing paths out of the corporate labyrinth, and into the sheer diversity of local flavors, varieties, and characters on offer at the farmers’ market.

Put another way, the food movement has set out to foster new forms of civil society. But instead of proposing that space as a counterweight to an overbearing state, as is usually the case, the food movement poses it against the dominance of corporations and their tendency to insinuate themselves into any aspect of our lives from which they can profit.

The Gulf's Invisible Villain: Natural Gas

by Kate Sheppard from Mother Jones.

You can't see or smell the methane that poured into the ocean with the oil, but experts say it's stealthily destroying marine life.

NYT’s Ignores Documents Showing Large Numbers of Unreported Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan: “We Know All That.”

by Carolyn C from Fire Dog Lake.

The article reports on the efforts of the Empire to manage dissent following the release of the Empire's war documents by WikiLeaks. 

The willingness of the Times to further American empire building while participating in the MSM black-out of ongoing US atrocities abroad, not only endangers our safety, it diminishes our humanity. The press of the country that once declared "all men are created equal," and claimed that they possess "certain unalienable rights," now no longer seems to believe that self-evident truth. Apparently, not all deaths are equally important — some are insignificant enough to be ignored. In their coverage of our senseless, ongoing wars, The New York Times and the rest of the media perpetuate the fiction that American lives are more important than the lives of the persons in the countries we brutally invade and occupy.

American Soldiers Brainwashed with "Positive Thinking"

by Bruce E. Levine from AlterNet.

"...this is the largest, deliberate, psychological intervention in human history. . . . We don’t know when the global war on terrorism is going to end so we’re preparing to have to be engaged for a long period of time.”

BP’s Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell Policy: The Well’s Corked, But Public And Government Are Left In The Dark

by Dave Lindorff from The Public Record. 

Contrary to what is being reported in mainstream media, there are other leaks related to the primary well leak, and more may develop over time. Professor Bob Bea, of UC Berkeley, a civil engineer with years of expertise in marine oil drilling, reports:

In the time since the well was fitted with a temporary cap last week, allowing pressure to build up within the pipe, Prof. Bea says it is likely that the underground gas bubble, instead of running up the pipe, or staying put where it was in the ground, has been pushing its way along cracks and faults that lead to the surface.

Liberal Elites and the Pacification of Workers

by Michael Barker from State of Nature. 

This brilliant essay tracks the efforts of liberal elites in the US to manage opposition to the capitalist ruling class. After the often brutal clashes with Populist activists of the late 19th century and those of the socialist movements of the early 20th century, liberal elites beginning with the so-called "Progressive" era went to work devising many clever strategies to soften the opposition and to manage dissent. It is imperative for those who wish to change the system to be aware of these strategies.

Time Out

The End of Capitalism?: Crisis and Opportunity – Part 1.

 from The End of Capitalism.

The following exchange between Michael Carriere and Alex Knight occurred via email, July 2010. Alex Knight was questioned about the End of Capitalism Theory, which states that the global capitalist system is breaking down due to ecological and social limits to growth and that a paradigm shift toward a non-capitalist future is underway.

'Moscow smog may kill 100 people daily'

from Press TV.

As Moscow experiences its hottest weather in 130 year, officials say hundreds of people may lose their lives to the smog from peat fires.

The Con of the Decade Part II

by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds.  Part I is here.

In order for the con to work, however, the Power Elites and their politico toadies in Congress, the Treasury and the Fed must convince the peasantry that low tax rates on unearned income are not just "free market capitalism at its best" but that they are also "what the country needs to get moving again."

The Taft-Hartley Act Revisited

by David Macaray from Dissident Voice. 

While I have spent much of my adult life unlearning what I was taught in schools, media, and films about the history of my country, I never came across the details of this infamous attack on working people until now. I am most grateful to this author.

After WWII the US ruling class was ready to roll back the many gains that working people made during the 1930s when the economy was in shambles and working people were rioting and threatening the system. The gains were actually quite modest having been carefully crafted by the astute guidance of the FDR administration, but were seen by many in the governing class as a threat to their rule. The reaction was swift and deadly by both capitalist parties. Loyalty oaths, anti-communist witch-hunts, and anti-labor legislation were the weapons used to put working people in their subservient place.

The realization that working men and women were now wielding genuine power —power that translated into independent political and economic clout — was scaring the wits out of the Establishment. It was that fear that precipitated the legislation.

Obama's Afghanistan strategy under siege

by Gareth Porter from Asia Times Online. The author reports and comments on the recent WikiLeaks' disclosures of classified documents. 

 Among the themes that are documented, sometimes dramatically but often through bland military reports, are the seemingly casual killing of civilians away from combat situations, night raids by special forces that are often based on bad intelligence, the absence of legal constraints on the abuses of Afghan police, and the deeply rooted character of corruption among Afghan officials.

The most politically salient issue highlighted by the new documents, however, is Pakistan's political and material support for the Taliban insurgency, despite its ostensible support for US policy in Afghanistan.

Hacker Magazine Editor Says WikiLeaks is Bigger Than Julian Assange (17:00m video)

from Democracy Now broadcast. 

Amy Goodman interviews Emmanuel Goldstein (pseudonym), editor of the magazine "2600: The Hacker Quarterly". Their discussion starts off with a video excerpt from a conference featuring a segment where a government informant, Adrian Lamo, discusses his role in the recent Wiki leaks controversy. Spc. Bradley Manning is the alleged leaker. 

With the exception of people like Lamo, the interview reveals how brave people in and outside of the Armed Services are fighting for the public's right to know what is happening in the Empire's wars.

Iraq, intelligence and media manipulation – lessons from the UK

by Richard Smith from Naked Capitalism. The author rightly begins his article with this statement:

It occurred to me that this story might not get all that much mainstream air time in the US, for reasons that will become obvious.

Imperial Overkill and the Death of U.S. Empire

by Francis Shor from Foreign Policy in Focus. 

Among other things, this article shows the seamless transition of the Empire under Bush Jr to Obama. The underlying consistent force emanates from the Empire's ruling financial class and their blood-sucking banking institutions.

It's hard to imagine the persistence of a U. S. empire that relies on imperial overkill.  In fact, much evidence of a dying empire can be found on the blood-soaked landscapes invaded by the U. S. military and the mad mindscapes of imperial policymakers. From the “shock and awe” bombing campaigns unleashed on Iraq by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to the death squads fostered by the Bush and Obama administrations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the drone attacks in Pakistan, the U. S. political elite seems committed to what C. Wright Mills called “crackpot realism.” Such policies can only lead to increased resistance to U. S. hegemony.

It appears to me that Empire's ruling class is like a wounded tiger lashing out everywhere in a last desperate attempt to save itself. Of course, this tiger is a still powerful animal and can kill a lot of people before its demise.  

Only a world-wide working class that is aware of its exploitation by this class and aware of its own power, can turn developments away from death and destruction toward healthy, sustainable societies.

Time out

Big Falsehoods: An updated guide to Andrew Breitbart's lies, smears, and distortions

from Media Matters for America. 

I noticed that when the recent brouhaha over Shirley Sherrod's firing was revealed, mainstream media focused on the embarrassment of the Obama administration and NAACP. The focus, of course, should have been on the deliberate disinformation efforts of right wing media. This article, although it focuses a bit too much on Breitbart's shenanigans, helps to frame the issue on right-wing disinformation campaigns.

I believe that mainstream media's reluctance to frame the issue appropriately is because the ruling class is using right wing media to confuse working people of the US, to deflect their anger onto others and away from the economic collapse caused by finance capitalism. Such a strategy is an old one, but has been very successful. The Nazis were very good at it.

Does BP Have an ACE Up Its Sleeve on Climate Education?

by Anne Landman and Ross Wolfarth from Center for Media and Democracy. Today, boys and girls, we learn about more corporate subversion of public education in the US. After all, corporate rule depends on keeping the American public stupid and/or misinformed.

...as school budgets are being slashed and schools are increasingly desperate for resources, it is also an area ripe for corporate exploitation or influence, and that may be just what is happening.

Clueless in Afghanistan -- and Washington: The Opposites Game

by Tom Engelhardt from Tom Dispatch.

Have you ever thought about just how strange this country’s version of normal truly is?  Let me make my point with a single, hardly noticed Washington Post news story that’s been on my mind for a while.  It represents the sort of reporting that, in our world, zips by with next to no reaction, despite the true weirdness buried in it.

Climate Change, Water, and Risk

from Natural Resources Defense Council. 

Climate change will have a significant impact on the sustainability of water supplies in the coming decades. A new analysis, performed by consulting firm Tetra Tech...examined the effects of global warming on water supply and demand in the contiguous United States. The study found that more than 1,100 counties -- one-third of all counties in the lower 48 -- will face higher risks of water shortages by mid-century as the result of global warming. More than 400 of these counties will face extremely high risks of water shortages.

The Con of the Decade Part I

from Of Two Minds by Charles Hugh Smith. This astute author outlines the crime of the century.

In effect, it's a Third World/colonial scam on a gigantic scale: plunder the public treasury, then buy the debt which was borrowed and transferred to your pockets. You are buying the country with money you borrowed from its taxpayers. No despot could do better.

On Wall Street, crime pays very well

from World Socialist Web Site. 

 The report on bank bonuses only underscores the impunity with which the financial aristocracy rules over American society. Under conditions where 20 million people are out of work, wage levels are being slashed, and the social infrastructure is under ruthless attack in the name of “deficit reduction,” the lords of Wall Street and the hedge fund kings accept not the slightest restraint on their incomes and their accumulation of private wealth.

The use of such terminology to describe the financial elite is perfectly justified. Wall Street today is as haughty, rapacious, self-satisfied and parasitic as the French landed oligarchy before 1789 or the Russian Tsar before 1917. The disconnect between the billionaires and CEOs and the great majority of the American people has reached unprecedented dimensions.

 

Time out

Plunder: The Crime of Our Time [[11:02m video & script]

from The Real News Network. 

Paul Jay inteviews Danny Schlechter on his recent film by that name. Notice that Jay starts off asking the right question regarding the structural changes needed in our economic system to solve our problems, but then retreats to asking conventional questions like:  who should we vote for in the Fall elections? 

Unless we as working people can control the election process, there is no point in participating in them. Under the existing system, no one will be allowed to run for any significant office who does not support the capitalist ruling class. By boycotting elections we can demonstrate their illegitimacy.

It seems to me that it follows that what needs to be done at this point is to continue, as The Real News Network does, to report on the crimes of this class in order to break down the wall of right wing propaganda that shields this class from exposure, and their class rule from illegitimacy. Soon, at some point, we working people must build our organizations to confront this monster, criminal class.

Matthew Simmons: Lightning Rod for Gulf Oil Controversy

from Washington's Blog. This is the part of the article that is most distressing to me:

The bottom line is that the use of so much Corexit in combination with such huge amounts of oil is a science experiment, and no one knows the outcome. This might kill the Gulf. Or the Gulf might bounce back surprisingly fast.

Rob Kendall, director of Texas Tech’s Insitute of Environmental & Human Health, says:

    This is a catastrophe of enormous proportions. To me, this is the biggest environmental toxicology experiment we’ve ever conducted.

And Kim Withers, a coastal ecologist at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi notes:

    It's like the biggest science experiment ever. Unfortunately, it's a completely uncontrolled experiment.

It seems so overwhelmingly obvious to me that all oil/fossil fuel companies, because their operations have potentially enormous consequences on the environment and public health, should be under public ownership and control.
 

China Calls Our Bluff: "The US is Insolvent and Faces Bankruptcy as a Pure Debtor Nation but [U.S.] Rating Agencies Still Give it High Rankings"

from Washington's Blog. This is the part of the article that interests me most:

Indeed, as I pointed out in 2008:

So why hasn't America's credit rating been downgraded?
Well, a report by Moody's in September states:

...For reasons that take their roots into the large size and wealth of the economy and, ultimately, the US military power, the US government faces very little liquidity risk — its debt remains a safe heaven. There is a large market for even a significant increase in debt issuance."

So Japan and Scandinavia have wimpy militaries, so they got downgraded, but the U.S. has lots of bombs....

The fact that America spends more than the rest of the world combined on our military means that we can keep an artificially high credit rating. But ironically, all the money we're spending on our military means that we become less and less credit-worthy ... and that we'll no longer be able to fund our military.

This relates to an argument that I made quite some time ago that the US operates likes a super terrorist in the world with a huge military force used to intimidate world neighbors into compliance with its demands. 

It is primarily backed mostly by Western capitalists who benefit from the US Empire's hegemony and serves their interests. The developing third world led by China have great wealth, resources, and US debt which may be worthless, but must bend to the will of this Empire due to its possession of overwhelming force. Thus Western capitalists buy US paper to invest in the world's biggest bully, while China, etc, buy US paper because of similar fears and because they already hold so much US debt that they fear US bankruptcy.  It all seems like such an incredible scenario and so extremely complicated in how it will play out.

I suspect that nature will bat last, that planetary resource limits and pollution limits will have major impacts in how this world drama plays out. The only salvation for working people is that they must find a way to take control of events or face increasing disasters--wars, famine, starvation, climate change, etc.

How to create your very own terrorist state

by Tim Coles from Redress.

Tim Coles takes us through 11 steps necessary to create a “terrorist state”. Using Yemen as a case study, he argues that these steps precisely match US and British policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran as well as Yemen to grow “very poisonous seeds”, some which have ripened while others are ripening.

 

Buying Venezuela’s Press With U.S. Tax Dollars

by Jeremy Bigwood from NACLA. 

This report based on recently released Freedom of Information documents reveal how the Empire subverts the governments of the world that do not fit with the Empire's interests. Note the extensive use of NGOs with such nice sounding names.

The U.S. State Department is secretly funneling millions of dollars to Latin American journalists, according to documents  obtained in June under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The 20 documents released to this author—including grant proposals, awards, and quarterly reports—show that between 2007 and 2009, the State Department’s little-known Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor channeled at least $4 million to journalists in Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela through the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), a Washington-based grant maker that has worked in Latin America since 1962.

Aggressive US Foreign Policy Seems to be Esculating

by Ron Horn

I should be immune to the war-mongering of my government, but recent news coverage has me quite astonished. The ruling class is provoking confrontations with North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela while being bogged down in Afghanistan. Of course, war has often been used by the ruling class to deal with domestic problems, but these policies seem insane.  

Iraq war inquiry: former UN expert accuses Whitehall of cover-up

by Jamie Doward from The Observer.

The cover-ups never end. It will be many years before we know the truth, just as it took many years to uncover the contrived Tonkin Gulf incident (see this and this) used as as excuse for the US to become seriously involved in the Vietnam War.

Obama’s Economic Stimulus Plan Causing Controversy with Build America Bonds

by David Caploe PhD from Oil Price (originally from Economy Watch, but I can't find it there). 

I read this and wept. The article illustrates so many themes about what is wrong in the US that I don't know where to begin. This is clearly a stimulus plan designed by, and for, the banking industry.

Time out

Tour de France As an Illustration of Capitalist Culture

by Ron Horn.

As revealed in Bloomberg News, the Tour de France is the private property of a family who have owned it since 1940. Most of the cyclists who do the actual grueling work of competitive cycling over 20 days get peanuts compared to what the owners, who do essentially nothing, receive. However, as in other commercial sports it is necessary to motivate cyclists to compete so that a few winners do receive substantial rewards. These incentives plus the materialistic values of capitalism encourage widespread corruption such as exist in other capitalist enterprises as we've recently seen in banking and finance. 

In cycling in takes the form of drug and other artificial enhancements to boost cycling performance. There have been a number of cyclists caught doing it--so much so that the sport has become a bit tarnished. 

So far, the widely celebrated hero of Tour de France, Lance Armstrong, who has been accused by a number of friends, close acquaintances, and other cyclists of using such methods, has survived unscathed. As this recent article indicates, the accusations do not go away. 

However, just as in the rest of the capitalist world, I doubt very much that justice will prevail.
Because Armstrong has so many economic interests (corporate sponsors, the Tour de France industry, broadcasters, etc.) tied to his victories, it will be hard for anyone to pin anything on him--as it has been. On the other hand, there are so many cyclists enraged about the injustice of the issue and continue to fight back.

Gulf Oil Spill BP testimony: Officials knew of key safety problem on rig

from LA Times. 

With all the finger pointing, restrictions on journalists, corporate and government media management, and key witnesses not testifying, it may be years before the public knows what really happened. But that is the way the governing class "manages consent" and defuses dissent.

Lawyers representing the various contractors asked why certain safety and diagnostic tests were not undertaken. Two of the day's scheduled witnesses could have shed light on the issues, but neither testified. Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza — both BP managers — did not appear. Vidrine presented a medical excuse, his second, and Kaluza exercised his 5th Amendment right not to incriminate himself.

A third day of testimony was canceled after lawyers cited several reasons why they could not proceed.

June Is Fourth Month in a Row of Global Record Temperatures

from Climate Progress. A NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) report adds further support to global warming trends. Read the latest findings and weep.

Map showing how the world will warm by the early, mid and late 21st century for a medium-high emissions scenario.
IPCC 2007

The BP Oil Spill: Time to Get Unreasonable

by Brooke Jarvis from Yes! Magazine. This features an interview with activist Diane Wilson.

It was almost like seeing your own death. You cannot imagine it, but it appears to be happening. I think many people thought they really might see the end of the whole Gulf, just filling up like a river of oil, just wiping out everything. People are very, very upset about it. They don’t know what to do, because what is there to do?  They can't leave. Down here you are the 4th, 5th generation fishing or shrimping the same waters. You have a sense of place, and your identity is the place. I've been down here through I can't tell you how many hurricanes, and people don't leave even when they know a storm’s coming.

CNN anchors attack the scourge of anonymity

by Glenn Greenwald from Salon. Greenwald takes aim at CNN hypocrisy about anonymous bloggers and hits a bulls-eye. Mainstream media's use of anonymous sources has hid a multitude of lies.

Workers power in action

by Leela Yellesetty from Socialist Worker. This is part 2 of a series of 3. My posting of part 1 is here.

She summarizes the history of worker struggles against capitalism from a Marxist perspective. My only comment on this part is to add my view of what went wrong with the Russian Revolution. Her reasons are perfectly valid--the armed invasions by 14 capitalist countries and the starvation and disease resulting from the invasions (and WWI). 

But she seems to  idolize the Bolsheviks while claiming it was all Stalin's fault. Stalin was a long standing Bolshevik and did not become a dictator all by himself. 

She writes correctly about revolutions, "...what strikes you is how rapidly people's consciousness change, compared to how slowly it can move in normal times." But I argue that the consciousness of many Bolsheviks, like all revolutionaries before them, did not change in some respects. They still held to authoritarian methods of rule that preceded them under the Czars. They did not trust workers to rule themselves. They saw themselves as having an exclusive knowledge of socialism. They were the "vanguard"! Hence they immediately took power away from the Soviet worker councils and Soviet society eventually degenerated into the concentrated rule of Stalin alone.

Modernizing Henry George

by Herman Daly from CASSE.

Sacrifice of nature’s scarce services constitutes an increasing opportunity cost of growth, and that in turn means that nature must be priced, either explicitly or implicitly. But to whom should this price be paid?

                                                                *************

“Value added” belongs to whoever added it. But the original value of that to which further value is added by labor and capital, the value of scarce natural resources and natural services, should belong to everyone.

Marxists argue that capital is accumulated surplus value created by labor. Under capitalism capitalists claim this as their private property. If the Marxists are correct, then by the same reasoning as Henry George, because the capitalists did not create this stored value, they cannot legitimately lay claim to it, and it should belong to all working people.

Time out

G20-Toronto property damage is a good thing

by Denis G. Rancourt from Activist Teacher. Some thoughts from angry activists after the protests at the recent G20 meeting in Toronto.
 

A Cooperative Approach to Renewing East Kentucky

by Sara Pennington and Randy Wilson from Solutions. 

We propose that the East Kentucky Power Cooperative and their 16 distribution cooperatives launch an aggressive, well-funded, five-year energy efficiency and renewable energy initiative—called "Renew East Kentucky"—in the EKPC service area.

                                                           ************

This program could create thousands of local jobs and, by diversifying the regional energy portfolio, yield additional economic benefit to struggling families. It would work in collaboration with ongoing regional efforts in affordable housing and more recent efforts to re-tool Kentucky's workforce for green energy jobs. The proposal may serve as a road map for transition in other areas.

The only catch is...the plan would need federal dollars to launch it. And as we all know, the US government needs all this money in its unending war against "terrorists".

Anger Rises Over U.S. Tax Dollars for Settlements

from IPS news service.

There are currently half a million Israeli settlers in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank. All of the settlements are illegal under international law and are in violation of various UN resolutions.

The Unbearable Dullness of Luxury Goods

by Jamie Johnson from Vanity Fair. It's important to keep in touch with our fellow Americans of the 1% to share in their concerns and worries. Today we learn that because they have so much, it is no longer cool to display their riches.

U.S. Saudi Sale Is Said to Approach $30 Billion Including 84 F-15 Fighters

from Bloomberg News. 

All the elected representatives from my State of Washington vigorously defend Boeing Corporation whenever so-called "defense" contracts are up for consideration. They always "sell" this support to the public via corporate owned media by saying that they are supporting jobs and the economy.

This argument always seems to work because it has a small element of truth to it, and corporate media endlessly repeats the argument without allowing any kind of criticism or alternative points of view. Of course, the argument is such a shallow one.

It would only have merit if it could be argued that if corporations weren't allowed to make weapons (usually of mass destruction), they could not make anything else. No, they couldn't build high speed rail systems, build bridges, other mass transit systems, develop alternative energy systems, etc. 

Of course, they could; but next quarter's financial statements will be greatly enhanced if they sell highly profitable weapon systems while maintaining the Empire's access to cheap raw materials, cheap labor, and markets so that the ruling classes can become even richer and more powerful.

Also, although little publicized, Saudi Arabia has a terrible human rights record. But that doesn't bother our ruling class. Whereas it does bother them in states they don't like such as North Korea, China, Venezuela, etc.

Torture and ill-treatment persist, as do incommunicado detention, prolonged detention without charge, and unfair trials. There are scores of political prisoners and possible prisoners of conscience. Saudi Arabia continues to use flogging and amputations as punishments. Executions, beheadings with a sword, occur regularly and are disproportionately carried out against foreign nationals. Foreign workers are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, particularly female domestic workers, who have virtually no protection at all.

Nowhere has the discussion of political reform been more animated than on the issue of women’s rights, though there has been little real progress. Municipal elections were held in early 2005 for half the seats in the Kingdom’s municipalities, but women were excluded for participation, and proposals to allow women to drive have been shelved. Awareness of the problem of violence against women has increased as a result of the severe beating of well-known TV personality Rania al-Baz by her husband, but there have been few changes to prevent or provide redress for such violence. Suspected homosexuals have been subjected to flogging. Though there has been some improvement, freedom of expression remains extremely curtailed, and discrimination on the basis of religion is absolute. Shiites face discrimination in all walks of life, and non-Muslim foreign nationals are subjected to harassment, detention, abuse and summary deportation. Executions have been carried out for witchcraft and apostasy.

Like all their other counterparts in the rest of the US, my Washington State representatives really represent the corporations who fund their campaigns.

Summer Rerun: “Toothless Fed”

by Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism. 

This reprinted post from this website illustrates how vexed liberals are to understand the system and to defend it. IMO, they simply don't understand, or unwilling to face the facts, that the fundamental driving forces of capitalism--individual acquisition of wealth, ownership rights over wealth produced by working people, etc--result in behaviors characterized by greed, manipulation, and gaming the system so that it becomes what it is today--economic ruin with islands of wealthy people amidst seas of poor people. Thus the people running this system are perfectly "reasonable", although sociopathic.

Geithner seems like a reasonable guy. And that is what ought to trouble us. He seems to have drunk the Kook Aid by which reasonable people believe it is important to continue to demonstrate reasonableness by assuming that others with great power are also reasonable. Yet, as we’ve seen in the political sphere, that is a fatal assumption. And, I believe we’ll see the same thing in the financial sphere. The folks in charge are not reasonable. They are after profits and wealth for themselves. And, while self-interest has a long storied past as a powerful motive force for the good when it is kept in check by reason, even Adam Smith noted that the assumption that reason would keep it in check was foolish.

It's the economic system, stupid! 

The Lies That Bind: American Myth Obscures Murderous Enterprise

by Chris Floyd from Empire Burlesque.

The Empire has been exceptionally successful at indoctrinating its own citizens with the virtues of its actions and policies in spite of all the devastation they have caused.

...those who have been imbued from birth by the myth of American Exceptionalism become active collaborators in this censorship of state crime. It is actually a form of self-censorship. There is no need for the state to spend a lot of time and energy jailing or killing or silencing or even discrediting those who tell the unpleasant truth; most people, in their blind adherence to the myth, simply will not hear it.

Time out

Climate Bill, R.I.P.

by Tim Dickinson from Rolling Stone. 

This Rolling Stone article is very good at providing the details of the usual Congressional charade of dealing with issues that the public wants, but that the ruling class opposes. Thus Congress and the President must go through the motions of appearing to support something the public wants, but somehow things just don't turn out right, and then comes the blame game.
 
Liberal environmental bloggers are all over the internet commenting on this article and "wringing their hands", and looking for some kind of positive spin on it. Most of these bloggers and the environmental movement as a whole are comprised of middle class people who mean well, but are tied to the coattails of the ruling class and the system that supports them both--capitalism. They will rarely, if ever, question the system that produces this kind of theater in Washington. Some even go so far as to blame the public for the political disaster. See this.


Then they make all kinds of excuses or lame explanations as to why a climate bill is dead. See this, in which the blogger makes the following statements:

Since Obama ignored the call for direct personal involvement on comprehensive climate and energy action, one can only assume he is just not that into it.

Since team Obama sucks at messaging so badly, it's impossible to know whether any strategy would have worked.

Fundamentally, Rahm and Axelrod simply don't get global warming.

What the bloggers and much of the environmental movement don't get is that capitalism is the engine that is driving us off the cliffs of climate change, resource exhaustion, and environmental degradation.

BP accused of 'buying academic silence'

from  BBC News (US & Canada coverage).

"Our ability to evaluate the disaster and write public policy and make decisions about it as a country can be impacted by the silence of the research scientists who are looking at conditions," he said.

"It's hugely destructive. I mean at some level, this is really BP versus the people of the United States."

Another ‘Viable’ Candidate Bites the Dust …

by Sibel Edmonds from Boiling Frogs. 

Read this to find out how US foreign policy really works on behalf of the Empire as seen by this former FBI language specialist and whistle-blower extraordinaire. Or, if wish to avoid doubts about mainstream media myths, don't read it--instead continue listening to CNN, NBC, ABC, etc.

I started this piece on Bakiyev with two cases that may have appeared not related: Turkey’s Ciller & Pakistan’s Bhutto. I could have easily picked half a dozen others, but I think these two sufficed to illustrate our almost-canned foreign policy script and its implementation in countries of interest; the selection criteria and the method to ‘groom & plant’ puppet regimes: The training period in the UK or US, a complete disregard for atrocities and human right abuses, the strong partnerships with  the underground industries fully assisted and supported by our operatives..., the joint efforts in fraud and embezzlement, the unconditional protection from accountability & providing safe haven later when needed (both personal and for embezzled funds)…

Latin America: Climate Change Swing States

by Janet Redman from Foreign Policy in Focus. 

The author reports on US preparations for the upcoming climate change meeting in Mexico at the end of this year.

The United States clearly spelled out its agenda for the international climate negotiations in the strategic communications objectives  accidentally leaked in April. At the top of the list was "reinforc[ing] the perception (my emphasis) that the U.S. is constructively engaged in UN negotiations in an effort to produce a global regime to combat climate change." The document also compels the U.S. negotiating team to "create a clear understanding of the CA's [Copenhagen Accord's] standing and the importance of operationalizing ALL elements."

The Copenhagen Accord embodies all of the major political demands of the United States. Binding commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have been scaled back to a voluntary "pledge and review" process. The pledges made so far fall short of the 25-40 percent cuts by rich countries that scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say are necessary to avoid climate catastrophe. Missing those targets carries no legal consequences.

The author concludes the article with this very perceptive statement:

This climate change debate is about much more than ecological stability. Global climate treaties will determine which countries' fossil-fuel-based growth will be constrained and by how much. The resulting international agreements and domestic policies will determine the relative importance of natural resources in the global economy. Because minerals, forests, agricultural soils, and water are not spread evenly across the planet, securing access to these and other resources will be — and in many regions already are — at the center of the geopolitical struggle precipitated by climate change.

Julia Gillard, the new warlord of Oz

by John Pilger from the New Statesman. Looks like the ruling class in Australia played the same card as the US ruling class did with Obama by putting up a woman dressed in "change" drag to fool the Australian people--and it worked!

The rise to power of Australia’s first female prime minister led to hopes for political change. But early signs indicate that Gillard will do little more than protect vested big-business interests.

Iraq Withdrawal? Obama and Clinton Expanding US Paramilitary Force in Iraq

by Jeremy Scahill from The Nation. Hillary changes her tune to serve the interests of her employer--the US Empire and its ruling class.

This is a developing illustration of how the governing class "pulls the wool" over the eyes of the people in the US. Corporate media will be very instrumental in this deceit by covering the phony withdrawal as if it were real.

Using private forces is a backdoor way of continuing a substantial US presence under the cover of "diplomatic security." The kind of paramilitary force that Obama and Clinton are trying to build in Iraq is, in large part, a bi-product of the monstrous colonial fortress the US calls its embassy in Baghdad and other facilities the US will maintain throughout Iraq after the "withdrawal."

The US Military Moves Into Costa Rica

by Mike Vorpahl from Workers Action. The author looks at the recent stationing of US Naval forces in Costa Rica in the context of the Empire's strategy to maintain control over Latin America.

This begs the question, however, if such an over the top display of military muscle is needed now to combat the drug cartels, what will be done in the next few months to make their presence unnecessary? The history of such U.S. military deployments around the world suggests a more credible outcome than what the agreement states. Once the U.S. moves such massive forces into a country, they rarely move them out.

Time out

Another Senate Charade

by Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone. The author reports on just one of the games corporate reps play to pretend like they represent you.

The Shirley Sherrod firing: Once again, the Obama administration cowers before ultra-right

by David Walsh from World Socialist Web Site. 

The author zeros in on this astonishing episode where the Obama administration couldn't act quickly enough to fire and trash this heroic women because of its fear of the US right wing. I believe the episode (along with endless others--see this, this, and this) illustrates the power of the incipient fascist forces that exist in the US rather than the incident being merely a careless, ill considered act of the Administration. 

The fact that the NAACP acted likewise provides more evidence to show how this organization is so integrated with, and subservient to, the ruling class.

From stimulus to austerity: An international class-war policy

from World Socialist Web Site. The editorial lifts the veil on the "austerity" strategies of the Western capitalist classes to reveal its class war on working people. It also slams organized labor for playing along with this strategy.

The long-term aim of these policies is to eliminate the welfare state, reestablishing the competitiveness of the older capitalist powers by slashing workers’ living standards to the level of their impoverished counterparts in emerging economies like India and China. That the living standards of the world’s people are to be equalized downward, rather than upward, is an indictment of the capitalist system.

A Tax Break Nobody Needs

by Gerald E. Scorse from Dissident Voice. 

While the tax code is extremely unfair, this author focuses much too narrowly on one provision of it. And he doesn't deal with the issue of extending tax cuts to the wealthy passed during Bush's administration. 

For the most part corporations are brimming over with cash as are many rich Americans who mostly stash their millions in offshore bank accounts. But then, who writes the tax code? The corporate sponsored representatives in Congress.

Obama's War on the Internet

By Philip Giraldi from Campaign for Liberty. This former CIA agent see ominous signs that governments, including the US government, are moving in the direction of greater control over the internet in order to stifle dissent.

A recent trip to Europe has convinced me that the governments of the world have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access.

Senior EPA Analyst: "Government [Agencies] Have Been Sock Puppets for BP In This Cover Up"

from Washington's Blog. 

This excellent investigative journalist has assembled a lot of damning evidence to show that BP continues to act for the interests of its stockholders and against the public interest by using dispersants that cause some very serious health effects on cleanup workers and others near the contaminated area. 

Well, isn't that the way all corporations act? Actually most do not when their actions are so dramatically causing health risks, but when a corporation is large and powerful enough such as BP, they can and do get away with serious crimes.

Interesting, isn't it, that so little of these serious health effects have made it into mainstream news. 

Time out

Energy in Depth's Disinformation Freakshow

by Steve Horn from Center for Media and Democracy.

Energy in Depth and the gas industry are deploying spin doctors to counter a new documentary being aired nationwide on HBO. This time around, the truths unearthed about what the impacts would be of methane gas drilling into the Marcellus Shale unveiled by the film Gasland, by scientists, and by investigative journalists, are all victims of a prolific oil industry smear campaign.

Also, see this and this.

Netanyahu Brags About How Easy It Is To Manipulate The United States [8:44m video]

from Global Research. 

This is a home video featuring Netanyahu talking to a family about the Oslo Accords. The film surfaced after nine years and reveals some candid remarks that illustrates how the Israeli leadership deals with the US that provides them with yearly aid packages amounting to at least 3.5 billion dollars. 

Netanyahu: Especially today, with America. I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right correction.

And, of course, he is referring to the powerful Israeli Lobby in the US whose allegiance to Israel seems to be greater than to the US. In other words, the Lobby functions like a "fifth column" for Israeli interests. See, for example, this article published on a US Zionist website.

See also Jonathan Cook's commentary regarding the video.

All in the "Family." Global Drug Trade Fueled by Capitalist Elites

by Tom Burghardt from Antifascist Calling. The author provides more evidence that the lines separating the criminal drug rackets, the large banking institutions, and US government black operations are very thin ones.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC) state in their 2010 Annual Report that "money-laundering is the method by which criminals disguise the illegal origins of their wealth and protect their asset bases in order to avoid suspicion of law enforcement and to prevent leaving a trail of incriminating evidence," and that financial institutions, particularly U.S. and European banks are key to efforts to choke-off illicit profits from the grisly trade.

The trouble is these institutions, along with U.S. intelligence agencies, are the problem.

How to Be Maladaptive: Fourteen Tips for Mental Activities Guaranteed to Enhance your Misery during Bad Times

by Kathy McMahon from Peak Oil Blues.This therapist offers some great tips on how not to, and how to, deal with the many stresses facing us.

Those who learn about Peak Oil, climate change, and economic hard times show a series of short-lived symptoms of stress over several months, but these are normal and expected reactions to these stunning findings.  Roughly 50-60% of adults in North America are exposed to traumatic events, but only 5% to 10% develop maladjusted PTSD and related problems.  What sorts of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors promote the development of longer-term traumatic reactions? Read on:

A crying need for change

by Leela Yellesetty from Socialist Worker. A contribution from socialists as to how the future should be.

    -- We'd have real universal health care--that is, everyone gets health care for free. Period.

    -- We'd bail out homeowners instead of bankers. But why stop there? We could also take all the homeless people and put them in houses that are empty. It's not rocket science: Just put the people in the houses.

    -- We'd stop throwing away food and get it to people who are hungry.

    -- We'd end all wars and use the money for education and social services.

    -- We'd devote massive resources and scientific research to saving the environment.

Sounds good to me. But I think that she messes up on her second item. There shouldn't be any bankers in a worker run society. There would simply be democratically elected councils to approve credit to worthy worker enterprises.

The New Doom

by Max Abelson from The New York Observer. Capitalists and their agents admit that they haven't the slightest idea how to restore the economy.

"TARP, zero interest rates, trillion-dollar budget deficits, you name it, we've thrown anything we can at the system. And that has been successful to a limited extent at stopping the bleeding, but it has not really allowed the patient to get up off the table and resume a normal life again."

The Trouble With Amazon

by Colin Robinson from The Nation. Or how Amazon book selling can ultimately make you stupid. The operations of this company, like Wal-Mart, illustrates the capitalist ethic of profits über alles. Here are a few choice excerpts:

When independent bookstores were in a healthier state, staff picks and hand selling could bring attention to great books people didn't know they wanted. Now that's much harder."

The shrinking of that market share has certainly been severe. The number of independent bookstores in America has more than halved in the past two decades. The pleasure of browsing shelves stocked with care and intelligence by independent owners of stores like Midnight Special in Santa Monica, Cody's in Berkeley and the Coliseum in Manhattan is only a memory.

                                                                 ***************

Blocked at every turn in their attempts to escape this relentless race to the bottom, publishers have seen their revenues fall, forcing many to make cutbacks and concentrate more on lead titles, the blockbusters that, accountants tell them, are the most profitable component of their business. Fewer staff and falling promotion budgets mean that books by less established authors—the "mid-list"—receive ever shorter shrift.

                                                                 ***************

"If left unchecked...predatory pricing policies will devastate not only the book industry, but our collective ability to maintain a society where the widest range of ideas are always made available to the public."

EU research funds to prop up costly fusion reactor

from The Great Beyond. This report lends credence to the many skeptics of fusion power that it may be pouring huge amounts of money down the drain for a fantasy of a tremendous power source.

Time out

Spies, Spooks and More Spies

by Steve Hynd from Newshoggers. Great followup article on the recent revelations in the Washington Post about the huge spy networks and their budgets.

We can't afford to extend unemployment benefits but we can afford to pour money into a secret well of inefficiency, turf-wars and sinecures. Really?

Citizen Journalism Gets Public Involved

by Kara Santosm,Asia Media Forum from IPS. 

Although this article illustrates how ordinary people can participate in news gathering, it is extraordinarily naïve to believe that the existing corporate concentrated ownership of media will faithfully pass on the information over their airways. Corporate media must be returned to the people so that information can serve the latter's interests. Of course, corporate media likes to have citizens reporting news to them because they can cut down on paid journalists while continuing to control what is being broadcast or printed. 

Media groups, particularly the Philippines’ two biggest television networks, have embraced citizen journalism through the use of mobile phones to deliver the news.

Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks [19:34m video]

by John Ballard from Newshoggers. 

Now this is real citizen journalism and the way that people can bring down the operations of our governing classes who operate in secret. One small part of the interview has Assange telling an exceptionally interesting story about his activities in Iceland that led to much greater freedom of speech in that country. I haven't seen this reported on anywhere.

About this talk

The controversial website WikiLeaks collects and posts highly classified documents and video. Founder Julian Assange, who's reportedly being sought for questioning by US authorities, talks to TED's Chris Anderson about how the site operates, what it has accomplished -- and what drives him. The interview includes graphic footage of a recent US airstrike in Baghdad.

Why you should listen to him:

You could say Australian-born Julian Assange has swapped his long-time interest in network security flaws for the far-more-suspect flaws of even bigger targets: governments and corporations. Since his early 20s, he has been using network technology to prod and probe the vulnerable edges of administrative systems, but though he was a computing hobbyist first (in 1991 he was the target of hacking charges after he accessed the computers of an Australian telecom), he's now taken off his "white hat" and launched a career as one of the world's most visible human-rights activists.

He calls himself "editor in chief." He travels the globe as its spokesperson. Yet Assange's part in WikiLeaks is clearly dicier than that: he's become the face of creature that, simply, many powerful organizations would rather see the world rid of. His Wikipedia entry says he is "constantly on the move," and some speculate that his role in publishing decrypted US military video has put him in personal danger. A controversial figure, pundits debate whether his work is reckless and does more harm than good. Amnesty International recognized him with an International Media Award in 2009.

Assange studied physics and mathematics at the University of Melbourne. He wrote Strobe, the first free and open-source port scanner, and contributed to the book Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier.

A cooperative approach to renewing east Kentucky

by Sara Pennington and Randy Wilson from Solutions. A proposal for a five year plan which builds on an existing energy cooperative in order to stimulate the economy in this area. Such a plan could serve as a model for many other areas of the US. 

The War on Wall Street May Be Over, Guess Who Is Winning?

by Danny Schlecter from Creative-i.  The author looks at the recently passed financial "reform" bill, and the interpretation given it by the "newspaper of record".

The political environment seems grim, not only for Obama, but for all progressive change. That moment may have passed. This does not mean the public is not angry, only that’s its anger is deliberately being channeled by our media in a false direction, into bashing deficits and Dems, not the men in the shadows who are calling the shots.

The "men in the shadows" are always with us pulling the strings behind the puppet show which is called, "Democracy in America". Until we see through all the corporate media garbage and look at the real show, the real people pulling the strings, we will continue on the road to economic chaos and environmental degradation.

Big Oil makes war on the Earth

by Ellen Cantarow from Asia Times Online.

Our addiction to oil is now blowing back on the civilization that can't do without its gushers and can't quite bring itself to imagine a real transition to alternative energies.

...corporations presume that it's their right to control this planet and its ecosystems, while obeying one command: to maximize profits. Everything else is an "externality", including life on Earth. "What we conclude from the Gulf of Mexico pollution incident," says Nnimo Bassey, "is that the oil companies are out of control. In Nigeria, they have been living above the law. They are now clearly a danger to the planet."

Think of oil civilization in its late stages as a form of global terrorism.

The Roots of White Anxiety

from the NY Times. 

In this editorial from the leading newspaper of record in the US we learn that educational institutions are being attacked by various groups who feel that they are being discriminating against. With an ever increasing concentration of economic ownership by a class whose only interest is increasing profits, we will continue to see outsourcing of jobs, greater use of technology to eliminate jobs, and increasing numbers of disposable workers especially in the West.

Thus we can expect that the class that benefits from this trend will use the old divide-and-conquer strategy against working people by encouraging greater inter-group rivalries and blame.

If one realizes that technology is a legacy created by many generations of working people, then it is easy to understand that it cannot be owned and managed by the 1%, and used for their benefit. If that labor saving technology were social property--as it should be, working people would only have to work about 20 hours a week to sustain a reasonably comfortable and sustainable lifestyle.

After Training, Still Scrambling for Employment

from the NY Times. 

Read the horror stories of unemployed workers going back to school for retraining, taking on huge educational loans, and then facing more unemployment. Contrast these stories with government reports that retraining is working just fine. 

Having been employed for about five years in two state agencies, I have seen first hand how government agencies lie about statistics when it is in their interest to do so. 

Governments lies are always about protecting the interests of their managers and overseers--the ruling capitalist elites.

Time out

Iran blames US for mosque attack

by Jim Lobe from Asia Times Online. 

It may take a decade or more to reveal the truth about this incident. Right now there are a number of plausible suspicions. The author reports on some of them. 

Three years ago, ABC News, quoting US and Pakistani intelligence sources, reported that Jundallah, which was created in 2002 and carried out its first attacks three years later, had been "secretly encouraged and advised by" US officials since 2005. 

The same tactic was applied to Iraq. See this, this, and this.

Adaptation and the long view

by Kurt Cobb from his blog, Resource Insights. 

The author does indeed take the long view, but the view, though long, is terribly narrow. He sees evolutionary adaptation only in terms of technical adaptations. Such thinking, I believe, is an excellent illustration of the insular focus on contemporary issues that is permitted by the institutions of higher learning and media in the Western world governed by the system of private ownership of their economies. Such thinking diverts attention away from the real human adaptation that will lead to species and environmental destruction--capitalism.

His conclusions which follow are excellent, but there is no way that such positive adaptations can occur under this system:

The wiser course may be to return to the type of systems that have shown themselves to be more resilient through history: smaller settlements with more decentralized production of goods and services, broader participation in the growing of food and the production of goods, reliance on renewable energy such as wind and solar, and a society that designs its objects to make the full cycle from "cradle to cradle."  This doesn't mean abandoning all new technology. It means developing technology that will stand the test of time based on known principles of resilience and sustainability and will do so without risking the wholesale destruction of humanity.

Judge Rules CIA Can Suppress Information About Torture Tapes and Memos

from the American Civil Liberties Union. This ruling delivers another blow to any pretenses that the US is a nation governed by laws and that no one, or body, is above the law. The only purpose that the legal system serves under capitalist rule is to control working people.

Family education or homeschooling as a commons-based economy

by Maria Droujkova and Carol Cross from P2P Foundation. I know next to nothing about today's educational issues except that the existing system does not work for most children in the US. This essay appears to have a lot of promising, creative ideas using people power at the grass roots.

...there is a segment of education that does have the freedom, the ability, and the will to fully engage in a wide variety of educational experiments. That segment is generally called homeschooling, although we prefer the term “family education” because most of it is not schooling and does not happen at home. By now, the practice of family education has expanded and diversified so much that some of the most exciting and forward-thinking experiments in educational reform are happening as small scale models within individual families, small coops, regional support groups, and virtual networks of home educators around the globe.

PBS, George Shultz and Funny Funding

from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. The article reveals how "public television" in the US is corrupted by ruling class interests.

...it's troubling that PBS is airing a documentary funded by corporations with distinct ties to the subject of the film. In the past, PBS has rejected films for distribution based on these apparent conflicts of interest: The 1997 film Out at Work was refused because it received funding from labor unions and a lesbian group. The 1993 documentary Defending Our Lives addressed domestic violence--but one of the producers was affiliated with a support group for battered women, so PBS wouldn't air it (Extra!, 1-2/98). Even Lost Eden, a historical drama about a 19th century textile strike, was turned away because of labor funding (Extra!, Summer/90).

Laying Bare the Economic Inequalities in the American Education System

by Tony Wilsdon from Socialist Alternative. The is a review of the book,”Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education”, by Peter Sacks.

One the most important contributions of this book to the debate on education is the way Sachs has rooted the problems of education within the wider economic system. You cannot solve the growing inequalities and problems in our education system without also addressing these underlying issues of economic disparity, class and a capitalist system falling into deeper and deeper crisis. Any ‘solution’ to the educational crisis has to address the issue of families overwhelmed by poverty, often working massive numbers of hours or juggling two or more jobs, low wages and now the growing crisis of mass unemployment.

Time out

Timber piracy down – but we're not out of the woods

by Fred Pearce from New Scientist. Some encouraging news for a change, but the author suggests that some caution is necessary in interpreting the results of a study on illegal logging.

Green campaigning really does work. Illegal logging in deforestation hotspots like the Brazilian Amazon, Indonesia and central Africa has fallen by between 50 and 75 per cent in the past decade, according to a new study by the international affairs think tank Chatham House in London.

Struggling to be ‘Fully Alive’: Reports on Coping with Anguish

by Robert Jensen from Culture Change.  

The author summarizes the many responses he received after asking people to report on how they cope with the anguish of living in a world in collapse.  I was particularly moved by those who found difficulties in coping because of all the people around them who were in denial.

Rethinking the Measure of Growth

from the NY Times. 

The article provides some evidence that influential people, especially in Asia, are beginning to question increasing GDP and consumption as a worthy goals of their economies--encouraging, but may be too little, too late.