Libertarian Municipalism: An Overview

by Murray Bookchin, 1991, from Social Ecology.

Capitalism’s “grow or die” imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other–nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society, or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.

Post-Peak Oil Reality Trumps Right Wing Trend

by Jan Lundberg from Culture Change.

Now the post-peak oil age is staring us in the face, with the Great Recession signaling the end of bubble prosperity. There is no consensus on how things will play out -- whether a Depression, total collapse or prosperous green technotopia -- or when.

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As we cannot control collapse that must stem largely from the loss of cheap, abundant energy -- a process already begun -- it is time to put our "political" energy into building local economies and forming our family-neighborhood tribes for the tough future and eventual sustainable culture ahead.

EU Demands Canada Completely Overhaul Its Intellectual Property Laws

by Michael Geist from his blog. You won't read about this in Canadian newspapers.

Late last year, a draft of the European Union proposal for the intellectual property chapter of the Canada - EU Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement leaked online.  The leak revealed that the EU was seeking some significant changes to Canadian IP laws.  Negotiations have continued and I have now received an updated copy of the draft chapter, complete with proposals from both the EU and Canada.  The breadth of the demands are stunning - the EU is demanding nothing less than a complete overhaul of Canadian IP laws including copyright, trademark, databases, patent, geographic indications, and even plant variety rights.

On Pop Clarity: Public Intellectuals and the Crisis of Language

by Henry Giroux from Truthout. Some deep thoughts about the role of intellectuals in our society, the use and misuse of language, and corporate media.

KFC's Bacon Sandwich On Fried Chicken "Bread" Starts Killing People Nationwide April 12

from The Consumerist. The IPad is not the only hot, must-have item out there. Be the first one on your block to get one of these. This is not an April Fools joke!

The Decline: the Geography of a Recession (time lapse video)

from the American Observer. View this unusual graphic showing unemployment growing over the past three years.

A Spotlight on the Invisible Faces and Hands of Agriculture

from Civil Eats. 

The harsh reality for farmworkers also includes little to no access to healthcare, poor occupational safety and frequent accidents on the job without healthcare support from the employer. There’s also considerable exposure to toxic chemicals while working in the fields, which creates more health concerns. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that women farmworkers face additional problems such as poor access to children services, and sexual harassment and assault in the workplace.

Timeout for the basketball playing dog (video)

Seeing is believing.

Short-Term Medicaid Rate Hike Breeds Long-Term Concerns

from The Washington Independent. Be prepared for more disillusionment (assuming you had any illusions) as the new health care bill goes into effect over the next ten years.

High-stakes Eurasian Chess Game: Russia’s New Geopolitical Energy Calculus

by F. William Engdahl from Voltaire. Engdahl is an astute observer of the new Great Game that the ruling classes of the great powers are fond of playing at the expense and lives of the rest of us. We need to keep informed of these games as we work toward a decentralized world free of such criminal elites.

New START Treaty and old superpower policy

from Voltaire. The authors reveal the reality that lies behind the hoopla about the new treaty with Russia that is advertised as limiting nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the US and Israel, with its own stockpile of weapons, crank up the propaganda against Iran's nuclear industry.

“We Are in a Cabal... Five or Six Players ... Own the Regulatory Apparatus. Everybody Is Afraid to Regulate Them"

from Washington's blog. Why do you think that everyone is afraid to regulate them? The people behind these blood-sucking institutions are the ruling class. Congress, the President, Supreme Court, etc. are all political theater to distract us. It's a kind of April Fools joke played out every day of the year. The people acting in this political theater are essentially employees of the people who own and run the big banks, especially the biggest one of all--the Federal Reserve. Really! And there are no Santa Claus and Tooth Fairies either! It's time we all grew up.

...a bevy of bailed-out firms, including Citigroup, JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, formed a new lobby calling itself the Coalition for Business Finance Reform. Its goal: to stand against heavy regulation of "over-the-counter" derivatives....

Tipping Point

from The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability. I have only read the summary (the first four pages), but it looks to me like a very important document that attempts to shed more light on what we may expect to happen with declining fossil energy supplies and climate change. The emphasis appears to be on peak energy. The complete report is a 45 page pdf type document.

We are at the cusp of rapid and severely disruptive changes. From now on the risk of entering a collapse must be considered significant and rising. The challenge is not about how we introduce energy infrastructure to maintain the viability of the systems we depend upon, rather it is how we deal with the consequences of not having the energy and other resources to maintain those same systems. Appeals towards localism, transition initiatives, organic food and renewable energy production, however laudable and necessary, are totally out of scale to what is approaching.

Greeks say austerity steps 'unfair'

from Al Jazeera. 

Three quarters of Greeks think that government plans to cut the country's huge budget deficit are "socially unfair" because they are aimed at low-income earners, a poll has showed.

North Americans need to understand the various meanings of the word "socialism", especially when used in the European context. In North America the word is frequently used as a propaganda buzz word, almost a curse word, with little other meaning except that it has something to do with government involvement. But in Europe, because socialism often carried the connotations of social/economic justice, the word has often been adopted by capitalist and even fascist parties in order to provide a veneer of legitimacy to European governments. 

In Greece the ruling party is labeled as socialist, but is in fact a capitalist party that has promoted some limited welfare type programs. Most politically aware people identify such parties as "social-democratic" to distinguish them from genuine "socialist" parties in the Marxist sense, i.e, parties which promote extensive public ownership of the economy that is managed by working people. Social-democratic parties may also support government ownership of a few important industries, but the private ownership class is always the politically dominant class in such countries.

U.S. Recants Claims...

from Washington's Blog. The full headline for the article is: U.S. Recants Claims that Detainee Who Was One of the Main Sources for the 9/11 Report, and Repeatedly Tortured, Was Involved in 9/11 or Even Al Qaeda

The Bush administration's story is unraveling.

Anticapitalism and Climate Justice

from Climate and Capitalism.

The current crisis raises the urgent need to change the world from below and do so from an anticapitalist and radical eco-socialist perspective. Anticapitalism and climate justice are two struggles which must be closely linked.

...a movement able to challenge the dominant discourse of green capitalism, recognising the impact and the responsibility of the current model of capitalist production, distribution and consumption and linking the global climate threat with everyday social problems is URGENT [my emphasis].

Western Civilization and the Economic Crisis: The Impoverishment of the Middle Class

by Andrew Gavin Marshall from Global Research. 

Globalization has led to the formation of a truly global economy, where states have less influence in global economic factors, and increasingly the world economic system is controlled by a powerful minority of banks, international financial institutions, and corporations. This process has been facilitated by the major nations of the world, primarily the United States, and it has in turn led to the formation of a truly global ruling class. David Rothkopf refers to this global class as the ‘Superclass’ and has concluded that it is a class consisting of roughly 6,000 individuals, roughly one member of the ‘Superclass’ for every one million people.

Bitter Laugh (2:19m video and script)

by Chris Floyd from his blog. He captures the raw feelings of tragedy for those working people who are enticed, or forced due to economic circumstances, to go to war for the interests of the governing class.

The criminal NSA eavesdropping program

by Glenn Greenwald from Salon. 

That means that all 3 federal judges to consider the question have concluded that Bush's NSA program violated the criminal law  (FISA).  That law provides that anyone who violates it has committed a felony and shall be subject to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each offense. 

I can hardly wait to see Bush locked up--hopefully in Guantanamo. ;-)

Obama’s Afghan visit: laying down the law to a US puppet

by David Walsh from the World Socialist Web Site. Walsh takes on the media spin regarding the visit.

One of the principal aims of Obama’s trip was to lay down the law, gangster-style, to Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the latter’s recent flirtations with China and Iran. Karzai traveled to Beijing and Tehran in the last few weeks, and he also received a visit from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.