Tony Abbott refuses to order Royal Commission into Commonwealth Bank

Jim McIlroy writes that Tony Abbott refuses to order Royal Commission into Commonwealth Bank …despite the clear recommendation of a landmark Senate inquiry into financial planning scandals at the CBA.

Susan Price, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Summer Hill in the upcoming NSW state elections, said, "This scandal underlines the importance of the Socialist Alliance's call for the big banks to be nationalised under workers' and community control.

"Australia's Big Four banks are making massive profits from ripping off the people, while facing minimal public scrutiny. The CBA was a publicly-owned bank, until the Hawke-Keating Labor government privatised it in the early 1990s.

"We need to campaign for the CBA and other big banks to be placed in public hands, and to be run in the interests of the people. Any profits could be used to help fund education, health and public transport — not pouring into the pockets of the super-rich as they are now," Price said.

This objective will not be achieved outside of a Socialist Revolution, but it has value in raising people's consciousness about considering the limitations of Capitalism in providing social benefit.

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Hedges and Wolin on How New-Style Propagandizing Promotes Inverted Totalitarianism

Yves Smith comments on Hedges and Wolin on How New-Style Propagandizing Promotes Inverted Totalitarianism.

Younger readers may not recognize how radical the transformation of public discourse has been over the last 40 years. While there were always intellectuals who were largely above consuming much mass media, as well as political groups on the far right and left that also largely rejected it, in the 1960s and well into the 1980s, mass media shaped political discourse. … Local newspapers were much more influential in their markets then than now, but they seldom deviated much from the national middle of the road, pro-middle class sentiment. The sort of fragmentation that this interview mentions is in part a result of the Karl Rove strategy of focusing on hot-button interests of narrowly-sliced interest groups, along with media fragmentation which has made it easier to target, as in isolate, them.

Emphasis Mine

The “Inverted Totalitarianism” refers to controls on the foreign populations, rather than the domestic one.

Fragmentation of the subject classes has always been in place for class societies. This fragmentation has taken the form of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and the like.

And in any class society, the lower classes have to be kept in line through a combination of force and propaganda. The ratio changes depending on need.

I think this piece is a reaction to the narrowing of the elite through the economic crises of the past twenty (20) years. The controlling class is being shed as no longer necessary. And former members want to return to the good old days (for them).

Maybe, they should realise that their interests lie with the workers now, not the Capitalists. They should shape their political consciousness appropriately.

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Encroaching Tides (2014)

Union of Concerned Scientists warn about Encroaching Tides (2014).

By 2045, many coastal communities are expected to see roughly one foot of sea level rise. The resulting increases in tidal flooding will be substantial and nearly universal in the 52 communities analyzed.

One-third of the 52 locations would face tidal flooding more than 180 times per year. Nine locations, including Atlantic City and Cape May, New Jersey could see tidal flooding 240 times or more per year.

A growing proportion of these floods would be extensive, and as floods reach farther into communities, they would also last longer. Flood-prone areas in five of the mid-Atlantic communities studied could be inundated more than 10 percent of the time.

All because of Climate Change!

Most of these communities would have to be abandoned by the time babies born today are having their own babies.

And it is too late to stop this sea-level rise. What we urgently need to do is to stop it from getting much worse.

Denial is not going stop people from losing their homes and communities.

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If Germany Drops Coal, can the Industry Survive?

Jake Richardson asks If Germany Drops Coal, can the Industry Survive?

Germany is looking into cutting its use of coal power, at the same time that it is cutting out nuclear. If it does, there could be a ripple effect because Germany is a major player in the European energy market. A Berlin-based journalist said that Germany’s emphasis on renewables is already impacting electricity markets in Poland and the Czech Republic. (Denmark is also exploring how it might go coal-free, but even sooner.)

Germany is also phasing out nuclear power in favour of renewable energy. However, the biggest challenge to a 100% renewable energy generation is the storage of energy:

One advantage of solar and wind power is that it doesn’t take as long to construct these kinds of renewable plants. Energy storage for renewables is not close to catching up to renewable electricity production, but it does seem to be picking up some steam, so to speak.

But, in Australia, we going in the reverse direction thanks to the Conservative government. Gains are being wound back in favour of coal.

This is a consequence of having a Capitalist system: profit trumps survival everytime!

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Wall Street gets what it wants

Seth Godin bemoans the idea that Wall Street gets what it wants.

Wall Street thinks it wants industrial-style reliable incremental growth, the stuff they got accustomed to getting from General Electric, General Mills and General Dynamic. But in fact, what they invested in this time is changing the world.

The world is going to change with or without this public company. It's bumpy for us along the way, though, because we trusted the companies that are now owned by people who want something else.

Godin forgets that Capitalism has its own laws of motion. One of those laws is reproduction of Capital. Capital has to be reproduced through profits. And Capital will go where it can reproduce the fastest.

The individual Capitalist is a slave to this law. If they do not follow the law, they will be extinguished as a Capitalist.

Godin can gush all he wants about the new economy, but Capitalism has to alienate the worker from the product of their labour in order to function. The mechanisation of work is an imperative either through rote or automation.

Godin's vision cannot be obtained until the workers wrest control of the means of production from the Capitalists. In other words, the workers have to push through a Socialist Revolution.

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