Click here to access this 55:00m audio interview on KPFA Berkeley, California featuring David Hawkes, Professor of English at Arizona State University and author of a number of books. (Note: the following commentary is based on the first 31 minutes of listening to this interview.)
Hawkes provides the clearest explanation of concepts like objectification and alienation in relation to wage labor and money that I have ever encountered, and I highly recommend listening to his thoughtful observations--at least to the first 12:38 minutes.
However, it seems to me that he misses one fundamental fact which obscures many realities of capitalism: money, usury, and related concepts are enforced by the state which is controlled by a small class of people to serve their interests. It is this fact and its enforcement, if necessary by state violence, that is the foundation of what money is, which he insists is merely a collective illusion. Illusions about money as well as many other elements related to class power is strongly encouraged by this ruling class in order to hide the realities of social injustice. Defining money as only a "collective illusion" hides or obscures its class basis and how money is used to serve class interests.
It always makes me wonder about academics who introduce such abstract explanations into their discourse. It seems to me to be a politically safe way of providing some insights on an obscure subject while, at the same time, not disturbing any power relationships inherent in capitalist societies (or any class structured society).
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
This Is The Way Blue-Collar America Ends
Click here to access article by Sophie Quinton from The Atlantic.
The author sheds light on the job implications for Americans under globalized capitalism by examining the workforce at Rockwell Automation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The author sheds light on the job implications for Americans under globalized capitalism by examining the workforce at Rockwell Automation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
...the seven counties in southeastern Wisconsin saw a loss of 83,000 jobs, according to Vanderwalle & Associates, a Wisconsin economic strategy firm.
Many jobs disappeared altogether, as high-tech equipment replaced manual labor. The jobs that remain increasingly require applicants to present a two-year degree or a specific certification. Today, fewer than 40 percent of U.S. manufacturing employees have jobs in actual production, according to the Congressional Research Service. The loss of manufacturing jobs had devastating impact on Milwaukee.
Turkey in Turmoil: Et tu, Gul? Then fall, Erdogan
Click here to access article by M K Bhadrakumar from Asia Times Online.
The author provides some interesting connections between Turkish President Abdullah Gul and the CIA which leads him to speculate if there could be plans underway to replace Prime Minister Erdogan with a more compliant leader as what happened in Egypt. After all, isn't that a principle of our Empire directors so well expressed by former Chief of Staff to Obama and now Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel: "never let a crisis go to waste".
The author provides some interesting connections between Turkish President Abdullah Gul and the CIA which leads him to speculate if there could be plans underway to replace Prime Minister Erdogan with a more compliant leader as what happened in Egypt. After all, isn't that a principle of our Empire directors so well expressed by former Chief of Staff to Obama and now Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel: "never let a crisis go to waste".
Make no mistake, Turkey's unrest is not going to wither away. Gulen is making his epic move to bring about an "in-house" political coup within the AKP to bring Gul to the fore. Gulen has Washington's support for this "regime change" in Turkey. The Middle East situation has reached a criticality, and who rules Turkey becomes of seminal importance.
Bradley Manning Is Guilty of "Aiding the Enemy" -- If the Enemy Is Democracy
Click here to access article by Norman Solomon from RootsAction.
...the unnamed “enemy” aided by Bradley Manning’s courageous actions -- the people at the grassroots who can bring democracy to life beyond rhetoric -- are a real potential threat to [ruling class] power.
Congress to Freak Out Today Over Front Page of Wall Street Journal
Click here to access article by Pam Martens from Wall Street on Parade.
With the U.S. job market still weak, small businesses having a tough time getting loans, and Wall Street abuses still coming to light, that two of the major firms would think it appropriate to resuscitate a thoroughly discredited practice tells all one needs to know about the impact of the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.I doubt that they will "freak out". They have been just following orders given them by their masters in the One Percent who, no doubt, will take care of them. Oh, some might be voted out of office, but they will be rewarded with lucrative jobs in corporations. That's the way the system works... for the One Percent, and against us.
US health reform to slash care, leave millions uninsured
Click here to access article by Kate Randall from World Socialist Web Site.
The author collects a lot evidence about the Obama administration's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which strongly supports her disturbing headline. We will see the realities unfold after January 2014 when the bill goes into effect.
The author collects a lot evidence about the Obama administration's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act which strongly supports her disturbing headline. We will see the realities unfold after January 2014 when the bill goes into effect.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
The Tragedy of Forgotten Wisdom
Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Raging Bull-Shit.
The author does us a great service by critically examining the subject of conspiracies that One Percent propagandists disparagingly frame as "conspiracy theories" in order to deter us from examining such phenomena. He supplies some great quotes from out of the mouths of past members of the One Percent that belie this type of framing.
The author does us a great service by critically examining the subject of conspiracies that One Percent propagandists disparagingly frame as "conspiracy theories" in order to deter us from examining such phenomena. He supplies some great quotes from out of the mouths of past members of the One Percent that belie this type of framing.
Vio.Me: Self-Organization in Greece
Click here if you wish to access the source of this 21:44m video posting from Global Uprisings.
The workers at the Vio.Me. Factory in Thessaloniki, Greece have quickly grown into a symbol of self-management internationally. After going on strike and occupying their factory, on February 12, 2013 they re-opened the factory and started production under worker’s control. For many, the factory represents a new potential way forward for unemployed workers in Greece – seizing the means of production, running factories without bosses, producing only goods that are needed, and distributing them through solidarity networks.Here is a key statement from the film:
“Every extra profit we make will be given out to people who need it. Our plan is to offer help to unemployed people or others who are in great need,” says Dimitrios Koumasiouras, a worker from Vio.Me.
This film tells the story of how the worker’s re-opened the factory under self-management and looks to where the factory is headed now.
...the workers did not give up, they showed the way for a different workers movement with bottom up processes, with direct democracy, with general assemblies, unions based in the grass roots and the real struggle for workers' needs.
Turkey: the triple strike that could change everything
Click here to access article by Jerome Roos from Reflections on a Revolution.
The confluence of a public sector strike, a manufacturing strike and an investor strike could combine to bring the Turkish government to its knees.For other perspectives of what is going on in Turkey, I recommend this piece from Muftah entitled "RIP: The Turkish Model", this piece by Finian Cunningham, and two short videos posted by an activist in Turkey and one in Egypt who is following events in Turkey.
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.
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.
US Supreme Court allows police to take DNA samples of arrestees
Click here to access article by Joseph Kishore from World Socialist Web Site.
Another cornerstone in the foundation of the One Percent's construction of a police state has just been laid by their court. This author writes about the disturbing implications.
Another cornerstone in the foundation of the One Percent's construction of a police state has just been laid by their court. This author writes about the disturbing implications.
Over the past decade, the state, under the banner of the “war on terror,” has begun constructing vast databases of emails, text messages, Internet activity, financial information and criminal and medical records. There is no doubt that DNA data will be incorporated into this systematic spying operation directed at the American people.
Today’s World Environment Reflects Crisis Of Capitalist Civilization
Click here to access article by Farooque Chowdhury from CounterCurrents.
The state of today’s global environment reflects the contradiction between the ownership of the world resources by a miniscule group and billions of resource-producing, but resource-starved humans, the contradiction created by an ever accumulating economy, the contradiction between ever greedy capital owners and humanity in chains.He continues on by providing a survey of evidence of climate related disasters and corporate assaults on the environment.
United against the Troika
Click here to access article by Esther Vivas posted on the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt.
Who is the Troika?
A year ago few knew the answer to this question. We knew it by reference, to its stay in Greece, and it wasn’t good. The Troika was synonymous with austerity, adjustment and cuts, hardship, hunger and unemployment.
But it was not until the arrival in Spain of the much denied rescue, in June 2012, that the “men in black” and “Troika” became a household name. Today, a year later, people, sick and tired, are coming out into the streets to say loud and clear: “Troika, go home”.
Monday, June 3, 2013
“The machiavelian threefold game of the neoconservatives”
Click here to access article by Laurent Guyénot from VoltaireNet.
In this rather lengthy examination the author has put together well known historical facts (some not so well known), candid statements from Zionists, with sound arguments that constructs a picture of at least a well-oiled Zionist fifth column machine in the US that serves Israeli-Zionist interests. This has resulted in our prosecution of so many military adventures in the Mid-East, the commission of war crimes, and the bleeding of American treasure mostly on behalf of Israeli imperial ambitions. But, he goes even further to describe a "Zionist cabal" that is directing US policy:
In this rather lengthy examination the author has put together well known historical facts (some not so well known), candid statements from Zionists, with sound arguments that constructs a picture of at least a well-oiled Zionist fifth column machine in the US that serves Israeli-Zionist interests. This has resulted in our prosecution of so many military adventures in the Mid-East, the commission of war crimes, and the bleeding of American treasure mostly on behalf of Israeli imperial ambitions. But, he goes even further to describe a "Zionist cabal" that is directing US policy:
...it appears that a Zionist cabal is interested in a new kind of world war, one that would weaken and fragment all the enemies of Israel for decades to come, putting it in a position to surpass even the United States, who would be ruined by their ruthless military spending (just like the USSR in the 80s) and hated across the globe. Little, it would seem, stands in the way of the final phase of the Zionist plan: a thorough ethnic cleansing and the annexation of the whole of Palestine.
FBI Director Candidate Comey Complicit in “Dark Chapter” in US History
Click here to access article by Bill Conroy from The Narcosphere.
The shadow government of the US One Percent (working through their employee Obama) comes up with another shady character to head their FBI and our growing police state. Read all about it in this rather lengthy piece--that is, if you can stomach it.
The shadow government of the US One Percent (working through their employee Obama) comes up with another shady character to head their FBI and our growing police state. Read all about it in this rather lengthy piece--that is, if you can stomach it.
...we can’t expect Congress or the commercial media to do anything to delve deeper into Comey’s role in the House of Death, or to force the release of the long-buried JAT report, because to date they essentially have helped to provide cover for the cover-up.
And it is equally the case that the Obama administration, once Comey is nominated officially, will have no political incentive to air their own candidate’s dirty laundry in the House of Death mass murder.
So it seems the die is cast, and we as a nation will likely put a man in one of the most powerful posts in the nation, a position where he will make calls daily on civil rights, and life and death, without fully vetting his role in what former DEA Special Agent in Charge Gonzalez describes as one of “the darkest chapters in the history of U.S. federal law enforcement.”
Help Us Counter the ‘Dumb-ification of the Masses’- Support a Real Independent Alternative
Click here to access this appeal by Sibel Edmonds from Boiling Frogs.
She puts it very well:
She puts it very well:
We can’t have it both ways: On one hand moan and complain about the ‘dependent’ mainstream and pseudo alternative propaganda machine, but on the other hand not back and support the very few independent alternative mediums. We can’t; pure and simple.They and others like Andrew Gavin Marshall are leading the fight against "dumb-ification" of the American people. People like Bradley Manning and Julian Assange have already sacrificed so much more for us. We simply must support all of these heroes in these efforts! We are all in this together.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Political Prisoner Alert — Bradley Manning Trial: An American Hero Gets Court-Martialed On June 3
Click here to access article by Erin Lahman posted on Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle.
Manning is an American hero who made the decision to leak these classified documents as a service to the general public. He testified, “I believe that if the general public had access to the information, this could spark a domestic debate as to the role of the military and foreign policy in general.” He added, “I felt I accomplished something that would allow me to have a clear conscience.”See also this piece from RT entitled "Worldwide protests ahead of Bradley Manning's Monday trial".
June 6 is D(isinformation) Day: The “Good War” Lie
Click here to access article by Mickey Z. from World News Trust.
The author provides a very good contribution to the deconstruction of a frequent form of mythology used by media operators employed by the One Percent to glorify WWII and war in general. I would only add a few things.
First of all, Hitler was brought to power by German industrialists, most notably Fritz Thyssen (see this and this) who was a leading steel magnate. He and other industrialists were extremely concerned about Russian-inspired radical ideas that nearly brought about a revolution in Germany in 1919. With the depression hitting all Western capitalist countries in the early 1930s, he and other industrialists were again concerned about the prospect of revolution. Thus, they decided to back Hitler and the Nazi party. In other words, fascism in Germany, as is always the case, was sponsored by leading capitalists when they felt their system threatened.
2nd, after fascism gained considerable support in Germany and Italy, capitalist ruling classes were split in the other Western countries. Mickey Z. only refers to IT&T head and the Dulles brothers in the US, but there were many others in the US, Britain, and France who were very pro-Nazi. The primary source of this split was the concern among many in the Anglo-American ruling circles that Germany would become a dominant force in the capitalist world thereby threatening Anglo-American dominance, while others saw fascism as necessary to counter radical movements in their own country and that German fascism was a force that could eliminate the Soviet Union. This had consequences for the lead-up to the war and how the war was fought.
This split accounts for why early on leaders in the other Western countries were so accommodating to German demands. They very much wanted to encourage Germany to move east and dispose of their Soviet nemesis. Even after war was declared by Britain when German troops moved into Poland, there was an initial nine month period (popularly known as "the phony war") when no action was taken against Germany. The problem for the German industrialists is that they couldn't always control Hitler and the Nazis. The big mistake the latter made, probably due to overwhelming arrogance, was to move their army against the other West European countries. This was a direct challenge to Anglo-American capitalists and they responded, although rather feebly until the Russians broke the back of the German army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-43.
For more details on all this, I highly recommend that you read books by independent sources of that time: several books by George Seldes and Charles Higham's American Swastika.
The author provides a very good contribution to the deconstruction of a frequent form of mythology used by media operators employed by the One Percent to glorify WWII and war in general. I would only add a few things.
First of all, Hitler was brought to power by German industrialists, most notably Fritz Thyssen (see this and this) who was a leading steel magnate. He and other industrialists were extremely concerned about Russian-inspired radical ideas that nearly brought about a revolution in Germany in 1919. With the depression hitting all Western capitalist countries in the early 1930s, he and other industrialists were again concerned about the prospect of revolution. Thus, they decided to back Hitler and the Nazi party. In other words, fascism in Germany, as is always the case, was sponsored by leading capitalists when they felt their system threatened.
2nd, after fascism gained considerable support in Germany and Italy, capitalist ruling classes were split in the other Western countries. Mickey Z. only refers to IT&T head and the Dulles brothers in the US, but there were many others in the US, Britain, and France who were very pro-Nazi. The primary source of this split was the concern among many in the Anglo-American ruling circles that Germany would become a dominant force in the capitalist world thereby threatening Anglo-American dominance, while others saw fascism as necessary to counter radical movements in their own country and that German fascism was a force that could eliminate the Soviet Union. This had consequences for the lead-up to the war and how the war was fought.
This split accounts for why early on leaders in the other Western countries were so accommodating to German demands. They very much wanted to encourage Germany to move east and dispose of their Soviet nemesis. Even after war was declared by Britain when German troops moved into Poland, there was an initial nine month period (popularly known as "the phony war") when no action was taken against Germany. The problem for the German industrialists is that they couldn't always control Hitler and the Nazis. The big mistake the latter made, probably due to overwhelming arrogance, was to move their army against the other West European countries. This was a direct challenge to Anglo-American capitalists and they responded, although rather feebly until the Russians broke the back of the German army at Stalingrad in the winter of 1942-43.
For more details on all this, I highly recommend that you read books by independent sources of that time: several books by George Seldes and Charles Higham's American Swastika.
Defiant Turks: “this is only just the beginning” [updated posting]
Click here to access article by the ROAR Collective from their website.
It started with hundreds of peaceful protesters resisting the demolition of Gezi Park, one of the very few green spaces left in the center of Istanbul. There are plans to replace it with yet another shopping mall. The disproportionate police response to the peaceful Gezi protests has triggered a nationwide revolt within a matter of days. What we have witnessed since the early hours of May 30 is not only a display of the collective will of Istanbul residents claiming their right to the city but also a broad-based rebellion against the authoritarianism of Turkey’s conservative neo-liberal Islamist government.I also recommend this piece from Eagainst (Greece) entitled "In solidarity with the protesters in Turkey", and this piece entitled "What is Happening in Istanbul?" (added at 4pm PST)
Dark Homes: inside the world’s most expensive residence
Click here to access article by Michael Barker from Ceasefire (Britain).
One Hyde Park, in the heart of London, is considered to be the world’s most expensive residential building. Beneath the glittery surface, however, a snapshot of its owners and residents can tell us a great deal about the nature of modern capitalism.Well, actually not so much about "modern capitalism" as about modern capitalists who are mostly "absentee owners, hiding behind offshore corporations based in tax havens" and who "live in fear of contact with the rest of the world."
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