Vieux Cordelier

2014/12/05

War to the Horizon

Tom Engelhardt writes about how there is War to the Horizon.

To summarize: 13 years later, the War Party is ascendant. It controls Congress. The president is visibly, if with his usual reluctance, placing his bets on war. The military is riding high. The end of all calls for serious Pentagon budget cuts is clearly in sight. And more of the same is undoubtedly in the works, no matter who wins the 2016 election.

That’s the “new” Washington. Peacetime? A fantasy creation of lefties, libertarians, and noodle heads. Peace? A dirty word that no self-respecting politician would be caught using.

Meanwhile, the war hawks are crying out for more. At the moment, all the pressure in Washington is focused on the ramping up of its various wars and crises. Iraq War 3.0 and Syria War 1.0 are to expand. Afghanistan seems again to be a war on the rise. The pressure is increasing to make Cold War 2.0 ever hotter and to ensure that negotiations with Iran over a nuclear deal will prove less than fruitful. Drone wars are ongoing. Special forces ops are raiding away. Thirteen years later, we are yet again floating on what seems to be a rising, not ebbing, tide of war and the one qualification for a new secretary of defense is that he or she be a hot, not a cold, warrior.

Emphasis Mine

Engelhardt considers war to be an option under Capitalism. Instead, it is a neccessity to protect and take-over markets. The invisible hand is really that of the drone pilot or the bommer pilot.

However, the intensity of war is an indication of the troubles Capitalism is currently going through. But it is troubled enough to risk open war with either Russia or China yet.

2014/12/03

Incredible Populist Positions in Podemos' "Economic Manifesto"; Populism Explained

Mike Shedlock is aghast at the Incredible Populist Positions in Podemos' "Economic Manifesto"; Populism Explained.

If Spain abandons the euro and adopts anything close to this platform, expect a complete collapse in the Spanish economy.

These populist ideas are taking hold for the simple reason the burden of the euro crisis is falling on the average worker, while the banks, the bankers, and the political classes were bailed out.

It should be no wonder that with each passing day, radical left and radical right parties attract voters.

Eventually, there is going to be a revolt in Spain, Greece, or Italy. Podemos is a strong candidate to lead the opening salvo.

Emphasis Mine

That radicalisation is occurring is undisputed. Even Shedlock argues for the burden to fall upon the well-to-do.

But this will not happen without a strong movement based in the working class. A right-wing radicalisation would only serve to secure the status quo.

2014/12/02

The re-emergence of debtors' prison

Cathy O'Neill comments on The re-emergence of debtors' prisons.

This sense that "everyone is screwed" creates solidarity among poor whites and poor blacks, and especially young people. The Ferguson protests have been multi-racial, for example. And if you’ve read The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, you'll recognize a historical pattern whereby political change happens when poor whites and poor blacks start working together.

Emphasis Mine

This is why racism is so vitally important to the Capitalists: it keeps the oppressed fighting among themselves. You have to remember who the real enemy is.

In Hebron, Palestinian women face down daily settler home invasions

Juan Cole writes that In Hebron, Palestinian women face down daily settler home invasions.

While a Ma'an reporter was sitting in her home, two Jewish settlers with New York accents carrying automatic assault rifles accompanied by armed Israeli soldiers walked across the roof and climbed into the family courtyard. They entered the room where the interview was taking place and gesticulated at different parts of the home, discussing how to re-arrange the dwelling after they forced the al-Atrash family out.

None of the four intruders seemed at all perturbed by the presence of the family matriarch, her three children, or even the Ma'an journalists on the scene.

Emphasis Mine

This is racism at its most causal. The sensitivities, propriety, and privacy of the oppressed are no concern to the oppressors. They can just walk into any home without invitation and hesitation to invade the privacy and propriety of the women's and children's quarters.

United States: Feeding the homeless banned in 'war on giving'

Jessica Hansen-Weaver writes United States: Feeding the homeless banned in 'war on giving'.

An October report from the National Coalition for the Homeless, Share No More: The Criminalization of Efforts to Feed People in Need, has documented a dramatic rise in city ordinances aimed at restricting individuals and groups from feeding people who are experiencing homelessness.

Capitalism cannot solve the problem of homelessness. It can only try to suppress it.

And in suppressing homelessness, Capitalism wants turn everyone into self-centred individuals for Capitalism despises solidarity among the lower classes. Solidarity is the beginning of resistance.

Back in 2009, I commented on Food Not Bombs Battles City Government - and Wins. This has been an ongoing war.

Geddes on methods

Dan Little reviews Geddes on methods.

It emerges that what Geddes has in mind for testing mid-level causal hypotheses is largely quantitative: isolate a set of cases in which the outcome is present and examine whether the hypothesized causal factor varies appropriately across the cases.…

Emphasis Mine

One hypothesis that could be tested is whether a Bolshevik Party is necessary for a successful Communist Revolution:

Country	Year	Party?	Success?
Russia	1905	No	No
Russia	Feb 1917	Yes	No
Russia	Nov 1917	Yes	Yes
Germany	1919	No	No
Hungary	1919	No	No
Italy	1920	No	No
China	1949	No	Yes
Vietnam	1954	No	Yes
Cuba	1959	No	Yes

As Little noted, the problem with a quantitative approach to comparative politics is the small number of cases that one has access to. In this case, I came up with nine (9) cases. Even these are dubious because I have not rigourously defined what a Bolshevik Party is, and how one can classify a revolutionary leadership as such.

Even the success factor is somewhat vague as a revolution goes through several phases:

Dual power (as is the case in Venezuela)
Insurrection
Civil War
Intervention
Reconstruction

At what point is a revolution successful? And not all revolutions go through these stages.

2014/12/01

A glut of oil?

A glut of oil?.

So here’s the basic picture. The current surplus of oil was brought about primarily by the success of unconventional oil production in North America, most new investments in which are not sustainable at current prices. Without that production, the price of oil could not remain at current levels. It’s just a matter of how long it takes for the high-cost North American producers to cut back in response to current incentives. And when they do, the price has to go back up.

Emphasis Mine

So much for the invisible hand of the market. The economic incentives for new oil production from more ecological environments (oil sand; oil shale; tight oil; deep water oil) are not currently there at the present moment. And this production cost does not include the environmental costs.

Most of the recent glut appears to be due to some geo-political stability. However, the excess production can be gone once instability returns in such places as Libya, Nigeria, and Iraq. And, of course, the elephant in the room is Saudi Arabia where an oppressive government is sitting on a very big time bomb.

The the predictions of peak oil back in 2004/2005 were pre-mature. As the price of oil goes up, the more difficult oil can be extracted economically (if one ignores environmental costs).

In our industrial civilization that heavily relies on motor vehicles, such a rise in costs affects economic growth which is the golden calf of the Abbott Government.

On the negative side, the lower prices are affecting the Bolivaran Revolution in Venezuela. Lower national income is beginning to affect the social programs of the government. So, it is not all bad from the Capitalist's point of view. Temporary economic pain in order to destroy an alternative to Capitalism.

2014/11/29

American Drones KIll 28 Innocent People for Every "Bad Guy"

Ted Rall writes that American Drones KIll 28 Innocent People for Every “Bad Guy”.

As a frequent critic of U.S. government policies, I’ve sometimes worried that Obama might sic one of his killer air robots on me. Thanks to Reprieve, I feel relieved. Even if Obama targets me, after all, it’s likely I’ll be reported killed multiple times while remaining alive and well…while hundreds of random people walking the streets get blown up willy-nilly.

Obama’s remote-control drone murderers are the embodiment of evil in the 21st century: careless, alienated, remote, bloodless. They also symbolize contemporary political culture: arrogant, corrupt and stupid.

Emphasis Mine

The US military kills 28 innocent people for every terrorism suspect! If that is not a war-crime, I do not what is.

No wonder the US government does not want to subscribe to the International Criminal Court: most of the high officials in the US government and military would awaiting trial.

Yet as Malcolm X said, the media has made us hate the oppressed and love the oppressor. Most of the reporting is about how these drone strikes are keeping us safe. Legality is reserved for those in control. Indeed, there is a means and residency test on legality: you have to have sufficient income and reside in the right place to be able afford the nicety of legality.

So much for the Capitalist promise of equality before the law.

100K Homeless in Gaza face severe Flooding, Cold as UN Declares State of Emergency

Juan Cole reports on 100K Homeless in Gaza face severe Flooding, Cold as UN Declares State of Emergency.

“The flooding is exacerbating the already dire humanitarian situation in Gaza caused by blockade and the unprecedented destruction from the latest Israeli offensive,” the UN agency said in a post on its Facebook.

The agency, which is already massively stretched due to the summer’s conflict, said that it was “providing emergency fuel to supply back-up generators for pumping stations, portable pumps, municipalities, water, sanitation and health facilities.”

The brutality of the illegal Israeli blockade is adding to the misery of the Palestinians as it is meant to. The whole Israeli policy is make Palestinian so miserable so that they flee Greater Israel forever and never come back, thereby making Greater Israel ‘Arab-Frei’.

Economists vs Politicians

Mark Thoma posts excerpts from Chris Dillow's post on Economists vs Politicians.

Dillow posits three (3) reasons for the growing distance between economists and politicians:

Academic idealism and isolation
Public self-absorption
Media complicity
…Political journalists have been complicit in creating a hyperreal bubble of mediamacro which perpetuates witless ideas (such as conflating the economy with the deficit) to the exclusion of such good ones as might exist.

Or, the fourth reason could be that economics is currently not useful in maintaining the status quo. The economists are failing in their ideological duty in creating plausible reasons for the current economic and political regime.

Instead, they are looking at the facts and finding reasons to criticise neo-liberalism. How dare they? Next thing, you know, they will be quoting Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

The fear of freedom

Seth Godin highlights The fear of freedom.

We live in an extraordinary moment, with countless degrees of freedom. The instant and effortless connection to a billion people changes everything, but instead, we're paralyzed with fear, a fear so widespread that you might not even notice it.

We have more choices, more options and more resources than any generation, ever.

At present, this subjective freedom is only available for those with the objective reality of sufficient cash.

But it does highlight the mental contraints that workers operate under. We have our freedom of action severely circumscribed at work through regulations, policies, fiats, decrees, etc. We cannot make a move without consulting our managers and they, in turn, consulting their managers, ad finitum.

As we enter a Communist society, we are going to face this fear of freedom. It was the same fear that slaves faced after emancipation. “How do we fend for ourselves?” Our minds have been crippled by this dependency on the bosses for making decisions that rightfully should have been ours.

It is the private ownership of the means of production that gives the bosses the legal and moral to make these decisions. Take these means of production into our own hands, and we take responsibility for our lives through making decisions and living with our mistakes.

It is only then that we can grow as human beings with full adult responsibility in our lives, instead of being cowering children asking for some more.

Ferguson erupts -- anti-racist protesters demand justice

Barry Sheppard reports that Ferguson erupts -- anti-racist protesters demand justice.

Even the staid corporate New York Times editorialised: “Mr. McCulloch’s announcement sounded more like a defense of Officer Wilson than a neutral summary of the facts …

“For the Black community of Ferguson, the killing of Michael Brown was the last straw in a long train of abuses they have suffered daily at the hands of the local police …

“The police are justifiably seen as an alien, occupying force that is synonymous with state-sponsored abuse.

The case resonates across the country in New York City, Chicago and Oakland because the killing of young Black men by police is a common feature of African American life and a source of dread for Black parents from coast to coast.

Emphasis Mine

As usual, the mass media is distorting the truth and turning the rest of us into racists:

It defies common sense to believe that unarmed Brown, who was some distance away from Wilson, turned to run at a cop firing a hail of bullets at him. The fact that much of the media has given Wilson national TV time to spout this nonsense is nauseating.

It was an illustration of African American revolutionary Malcolm X's warning about the media in the most violent of all the “advanced” capitalist countries: “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Emphasis Mine

Sheppard concludes that:

It is clear the protests are unlikely to quickly die down and the anger has the potential to spark a mass struggle against the racist violence that marks capitalist America.

Until the white people see themselves as human beings in common with black people, this struggle will eventually be extinguished by white fear of loss of entitlements under a racist society. Then another atrocity occurs, and the same cycle of violence and hand-wringing comes into play again and again.

Black people can present all of the arguments and facts they like, but racism is not to going to be seriously challenged until white workers seek a common cause with all workers against the Capitalists. And you can be bloody sure that the Capitalists are going to pull out all stops to make sure that never happens.

Remember we are neither black nor white, we are all human beings!

2014/11/28

Challenging the globalisation of indifference: Pope Francis meets with popular movements

Judith Marshall, from Steelworkers Humanity Fund reflects on Challenging the globalisation of indifference: Pope Francis meets with popular movements

After the three days in Rome with the popular movements, the Pope, then has continued to take the church into the centre of the ideological battle grounds of neoliberalism, firm in his determination to make the contemporary church walk with the poor and excluded and discarded. The popular movement participants have returned to their organisations and the day to day struggles for land, housing and work. The moments of dialogue in Rome have served to strengthen the convictions of both the church and the popular movements that these are the right battles to be fighting.

The problem with the Catholic Church's stance is that Communism and Socialism are still anathema. Membership of a Communist party is grounds for excommunication.

So the Church wants the luxury of criticising Capitalism without proposing an economic and political alternative.

2014/11/26

Ted Rall: They Shoot White People Too, Don't They?

Ted Rall reminds people that They Shoot White People Too, Don’'t They?

There is considerable evidence that white privilege won’t protect you from being beaten or otherwise abused when you fall into the clutches of white (or black) cops. In 2000 I was roughed up by an LAPD motorcycle cop for no apparent reason, other than the fact that he didn’t like the cut of my jib. (He charged me with jaywalking, which as a New Yorker I do often, but wasn’t doing then.)

In the United States, local law enforcement has a license to kill — and if they use it, the odds are, nothing will happen to them. Black or white, the smartest course of action when you fall into their clutches is with deference and courtesy, including when declining to answer questions, which is your right.

Although white people are less likely to be killed by the police without good reason, we are not immune. We should shed this stupid idea that we are safe because we are white.

The pain and suffering of non-whites is our pain and suffering because we are all human beings.

Who Will Wind Up Holding the Bag in the Shale Gas Bubble?

Yves Smith asks Who Will Wind Up Holding the Bag in the Shale Gas Bubble?

Even though OilPrice reported that US rig count had indeed fallen as oil prices plunged, John Dizard at the Financial Times (hat tip Scott) gives a more intriguing piece of the puzzle: the degree to which production is still chugging along despite it being uneconomical. The oil majors have been criticized for levering up to continue developing when it is cash-flow negative; they are presumably betting that prices will be much higher in short order.

Emphasis Mine

Anyone who thinks that Capitalism is inherently rational should ponder the fact that the investors are pouring money into businesses that are losing money and will lose money for the foreseeable future.
Yet the laws of motion for Capitalism compels them to behave in this manner. Capital must be invested in order to be reproduced. Since Capitalists compete against each other, they must join in the frenzy lest someone succeeds more than they do. Thus, bubbles are born.
The individual Capitalist is no longer a maven of industry or an originator but rather a financial investor. The era when the former was king has long past as noted by Lenin back in 1917.
The extremely low interest rates encourage very large leverage on investments. That is, an investment has very small percentage that is actually the investor's own money while the rest is borrowed. So the investor stands to lose a small amount of money with the possibility of very large returns because of the low interest rates.
It is 2007/08 all over again.

2014/11/25

Reynolds punctures the 'great Australian silence'

John Rainford argues that Reynolds punctures the 'great Australian silence'.

Reynolds is one of a pioneering group of historians, anthropologists and others who have transformed our understandings of traditional Aboriginal society and the relationship between Indigenous and settler Australians.

In his latest book, he provides evidence that supports his contention that it was the war of conquest fought against Aboriginal people that made the nation, not the 1915 ill-fated invasion of Turkey.

Conflict came within weeks of the foundation of Sydney and was apparent on every frontier for the next 140 years.

Yet while the large-scale killing of Warlpiri people by police at Coniston in Central Australia in 1928 can be used as a convenient date to mark the end of officially endorsed killing, the brutality has never ended.

This is the brutal reality of a settler society such as Australia, USA, or Israel. The indigenous population is subjected through genocide and their land is expropriated by the settler elite. Yet all settlers bears the guilt of this atrocity because we have benefited from the crime.

It is at an unconscious level that most white Australians condone this ongoing violence against Aborigines. They do not have to do themselves, just merely accept the system that does it for their benefit.

We cannot be truly free of the guilt of the past until we overthrow this racist system and reform ourselves so that we become human beings rather than black-fellow and white-fellow.

2014/11/24

Mark Latham's fantasies of a middle-class 'utopia'

Phil Shannon reviews Mark Latham's fantasies of a middle-class 'utopia'.

The centrepiece of Latham’s alternative, “minimalist” politics is government by experts. Expert bodies would take charge of fiscal policy, climate change policy and other areas of government dereliction.

Such old-hat technocratic solutions, however, would only further blow out what Latham justly deplores as Australia’s “democratic deficit”. Experts are not ideology-free and would themselves be elite members of the Bubble — only minus any democratic accountability.

Latham is right to say the current system is broken but it is the capitalist form of democracy — economic rule by the rich, political rule by their class buddies — that is the problem.

The ideologues of Capitalism are facing a crisis of legitimacy. They are smart enough to realise that people seeing that Capitalism is not working for them. The ideologues want us to believe that this is not real Capitalism, the political system is corrupted by money, etc.

But no Capitalist will go as far to admit that Capitalism has run its historic course and must be replaced by something better.

Filmmaker: Israel's ethnic cleansing must stop

Filmmaker: Israel's ethnic cleansing must stop.

In a move that surprised many — and symbolises Israel's growing isolation and global opposition to its crimes — former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr has publicly declared his opposition to Israeli policies of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

…

And is not just high-profile former politicans like Carr who are discovering the truth about Israeli apartheid and history of ethnic cleansing. Many Israelis are not taught the history of genocide and dispossession through which the Israeli state was created.

Like many people who grow up in colonial-settler societies — such as Australia — learning the truth can be a shock.

Similar to the Israeli film-maker, Lia Tarachansky, I have been on a long journey from being a pro-Zionist, racist, white Australian. It has involved study, meeting Palestinians and Aborigines, learning about the hidden history, and a lot of self-reflection.

I used to write letters of support to the Israeli embassy, hand out pro-Israeli flyers at University, speak in support of Israel when I could.

But then there was the case of the cold-blooded murder of a twelve year-old boy in the arms of his father. I could not understand how the Israelis could so blatantly lie about what happened: how it was the father's fault. Probably, I would have believed that it was a mistake, and the IDF would be profoundly sorry that it had happened.

The arrogance of the IDF spokes-people was such that they could sell any lie to the people.

I wrote a letter to the Israeli embassy expressing my disgust at what had happened, and to say that I could no support Israel. Their reply repeated the same lies and they said that they were sorry to lose my support.

This is a journey that all workers have to make. It is not easy. It is hard on one's ego to find out that one has been lied to so blatantly over a long time. And all of those authority figures that one trusted are all part of this sordid economy of lies and omission.

How professionals think

Dan Little looks at How professionals think.

Little posits three (3) models about how actors arrive at their choices and behavior:

Little examines a paper

…that appears to show that a certain segment of white-collar professionals (bankers) make very different decisions about their actions depending on the “frame” within which they deliberate (link). If they are thinking within the everyday frame of personal life and leisure, their actions are as honest as anyone else’s. But if they are prompted to think within the frame of their professional environment, their actions become substantially less honest. That professional environment is the large international bank.

Emphasis Mine

Littke concludes that:

These findings suggest that we should explore further the notion that actors possess distinct mental frames that they can take up or put aside readily, and that lead to very different kinds of behavior when confronting the same kinds of problems. Further, we should consider the possibility that these frames are highly portable and contingent: the actor can be led to choose one frame or the other, with important behavioral consequences. This finding seems to point in the same direction as ideas advanced by Kahneman and Tversky in much of their work together, including Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.

Emphasis Mine

My own take on Little's reading this paper is that it is a refutation of the Capitalist lie that all people are naturally greedy and that Capitalism is the best system that harnesses this so-called 'innate greed'.

This paper gives me hope that we can truly build a Communist society because people will tend to adapt their behaviour and expectations of norms to fit that society. This also means that a Communist society has to be built through continual agitation and propaganda until the people accept that acting in these new ways a better society can be built.

2014/11/23

Protests against closure of 150 Aboriginal communities

Alex Salmon reports on Protests against closure of 150 Aboriginal communities in Western Australia.

Amnesty International released a statement urging the Western Australian government not to forcibly evict Aboriginal people from the communities, as demolishing houses and denying indigenous people the right to practice their culture is a breach of human rights and international law.

Tammy Solonec, a human rights lawyer working with Amnesty International, slammed the hypocrisy of Western Australian Premier Colin Barnett for admitting that closing the communities will be traumatic for the people involved, while continuing a policy that will force indigenous people to break their connections to land and culture and force them to move to larger towns where they will have greater exposure to drugs, alcohol, violence and crime.

Destruction of a people's culture is considered to be genocide under international law.

But, if Australian Governments followed international law, they would admit refugees, restore Aboriginal land rights, not go to war in Iraq or Afghanistan, recognise the rights of the Palestinians to their own state. Such laws only applies to the official enemies of the US, not to its client states.

So why should workers fight for the right of Aboriginal communities to stay together on their ancestral land? It is about the rights of communities to determine their own future. It is about respecting the culture of others.

It is these things that will make a Communistic society viable.

Scott Morrison narrows the meaning of 'refugee'

Jay Fletcher writes that Scott Morrison narrows the meaning of ‘refugee’.

It is these millions of people who suffer while Australia enforces a racist closed-borders policy. “Draining the pool” in Indonesia may force this suffering further from Australia’s shores, but it still exists and it is growing exponentially worse.

However, the fight at home is still urgent. A bill drafted by Morrison would make changes to the Migration Act and the Maritime Powers Act that, former PM Malcolm Fraser said, would “enshrine in law the mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees who flee to our country to escape persecution, torture and death”.

The ASRC [(Asylum Seeker Resource Centre)] has made one of more than 5000 submissions to the Senate inquiry being held on the bill. The advocacy and support centre said the bill will, “see the Minister give himself an unprecedented level of power to make life or death decisions about individual asylum seeker cases, without court oversight”.

In a briefing explaining the big changes proposed in the bill, the ASRC said: “The Bill narrows the meaning of refugee, ignoring previous court decisions and stacking the odds against refugees.

This xenophobia of the Australian working class against refugees prevents them from developing their political consciousness on internationalism. Unfortunately, this is very entrenched in the psyche.

But this does not mean that the party should give up or minimise its stance on racism and acceptance of refugees. It is vital for a Communist society to be anti-racist and accepting of all who seek help and refuge. A Communist cannot operate otherwise.

What this does mean that each party member has to wage their own internal war against racism and xenophobia. By recognising such a struggle, we can help others on their journey to being ant-racist and anti-xenophobic.

It will be this journey that transforms us into workers ready for a Communist society because we will regain our humanity and practice seeing the long-term. This is in contradistinction to the rabid racism and alienation we are forced to consume to under Capitalism.

2014/11/22

Masaccio: Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay

Yves Smith comments on Masaccio: Piketty Shreds Marginal Productivity as Neoclassical Justification for Supersized Pay.

One of the main agendas of neoclassical economics is to give Panglossian defenses of the current order a veneer of intellectual legitimacy. If our system is the result of individuals and businesses behaving in logical ways, at least in the minds of economists, surely the outcome is inevitable, and therefore virtuous, or else those operators would do things differently. The Big Lie in all of this is that neoclassical economics takes power completely out of the equation. While it does assume selfishness, in that everyone is out or himself to maximize his utility, it also assumes atomized actors who lack the power to influence markets. …

…

One widely repeated bit of propaganda in the US is that how much people earn reflects their worth in an economic sense. Given how important business is in American society, maintaining this belief is critical to maintaining legitimacy; otherwise, more and more people would see corporate executives not as captain of enterprise but individuals by luck or connivance, got in a position where they could exploit a system that gives them control over assets and cash flows with perilous little in the way of controls over them (there is a vast literature on principal/agent issues in large corporations).

Emphasis Mine

Masaccio concludes:

Neoliberals have convinced the vast majority of our fellow citizens that they and they alone are responsible for their fates. They took risks and they lost, but it was their choice. I can hear Rick Santelli ranting in the background. At the same time, neoliberals insisted that governments everywhere bail out the filthy rich and their corporations, especially their financial corporations, and governments obliged. So, we screw the productive members of society and reward the slugs, all in line with neoliberal theory.

Neoclassical economics undergirds the neoliberal project. Piketty slashes at a piece of that foundation with his attack on marginal productivity. What now is the justification for the absurd compensation of the filthy rich? Tort law failed to deal with the sins of the bankers. Why aren’t they in jail? One more block pulled from the Jenga pile of vicious ideas so beloved of the rich and their government agents.

Emphasis Mine

This was all explained by Marx over 160 years ago. The ruling class creates a superstructure to maintain control. And part of that superstructure lies in the sphere of ideas.

One of those ideas is neo-liberalism. It is not the only one maintaining control. There are also ideas about religion, gender, sexuality, the need for a hierarchical society, etc.

And let's not forget that naked force is also part of the superstructure. When ideas fail, the guns come out. Arguments are then won with bullets, not words.

We must tread carefully when confronting the Capitalists. They got where they are by being utterly ruthless. Each bomb dropped in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Somalis, Iran, Afghanistan is a warning to all the subject peoples of the world that they mean to stay in business for as long as possible.

Aboriginal disadvantage worsens

Peter Boyle writes that Aboriginal disadvantage worsens.

The PM insulted the indigenous people by repeating the lie that Australia was just bush before invasion:

Abbott's insults can be understood as part of a disgusting attempt to justify this deepening racial oppression. It perpetuates the racist idea that Aboriginal people are inconsequential, sub-human and their conditions a result of their supposed inferiority.

Green Left Weekly has explained in some detail how the worsening conditions in Aboriginal communities can be traced back to racist cuts to essential services and the funding of Aboriginal-run community organisations by the Coalition government and its ALP predecessors.

That and the fact that Australian governments have refused to deliver real land rights and impose a strong regime of job quotas on private and public employers to address more than two centuries of racial oppression. That's the truth about the shamefully growing gap.

Emphasis Mine

Ordinary workers most likely work and travel with indigenous people everyday. Yet the white-fellows still subscribe to the subjective lies about black-fellow inferiority despite on the objective reality they see daily.

It is very hard to break this stranglehold of Capitalist subjectivity. It is being reinforced daily through our culture: portrayals in the media, opinions of the bosses and overseers.

Standing up to this endemic racism can be economically devastating through loss of job and home. It can also be fatal if one confronts a violent racist.

Maybe the solution for the time-being is to be a guerilla anti-racist.

An Israeli-Arab Spring? 1.6 mn Palestinian-Israelis are Marginalized, Angry and Defiant

Emile Nakhleh ponders An Israeli-Arab Spring? 1.6 mn Palestinian-Israelis are Marginalized, Angry and Defiant.

As Israel moves to exclude Palestinian parties from parliament,

As Israeli politics moves to the right and the state becomes more Jewish and less pluralistic and inclusive, the Palestinian community, which constitutes over one-fifth of the population, feels more marginalised and alienated.

In response to endemic budgetary, economic, political, and social discrimination, the Arab community is becoming assertive, more Palestinian, and more confrontational. Calls for equality, justice, and an end to systemic discrimination by “Israeli Arab” civil society activists are now more vocal and confrontational.

Emphasis Mine

The Arabs within Israel are now increasingly viewing themselves as an indigenous population rather “Israeli Arab”:

Recent events clearly demonstrate that the Arabs in Israel are no longer a quiescent, cultural minority but an “indigenous national” minority deserving full citizenship rights regarding resources, collective rights, and representation on formal state bodies.

Nakhleh is pessimistic about a peaceful solution:

If violence and continued discrimination are part of Israel’s long-term strategy against its Arab minority to force Arab emigration, it is unlikely that the government would implement tangible initiatives to improve the condition of the Arab minority.

Accordingly, communal violence in Israel would increase, creating negative ramifications for regional peace and stability and for U.S. interests in the eastern Mediterranean.

Emphasis Mine

Let's call Israel's policies for what they are: genocide. The State of Israel aims for the removal of all indigenous populations from its illegally acquired territories.

That people could think that either Israel or the US would be embarrassed by such a description are sorely mistaken. The US was built through genocide as was any settler society (including Australia). One does not reject the foundations without severely affecting the stability of the whole structure.

It is up to workers to educate themselves on these matters and confront the horrific origins of the current Capitalist society and their place in it. It also means that workers will have to confront their own compliance with and benefiting from this state of affairs.

Guilt and shame can be major road-blocks to reconciliation and redemption.

Why the big four banks should be nationalised

John Rainford argues Why the big four banks should be nationalised.

Australia managed its way through the GFC in better shape than most countries thanks to the Keynesian counter-cyclical economic policies that were implemented here and in China.

In Australia these included unlimited guarantees of bank deposits and wholesale funding. This led to the big four banks that were too big to fail getting bigger.

One result of the GFC has been that banks around the world have been required to lift their capital adequacy requirements so as to ameliorate the effects of any future economic downturn.

The big four in Australia have resisted this because it takes capital away from their dodgy investments and reserves it as part-insurance against future losses. They have threatened to claw back any increase in money reserves they will be required to hold by raising interest rates.

Several countries are debating the issue of breaking up large banks. A better idea would be to nationalise them.

I am rather embarassed to say that, despite Rainbird's article, the party's policies on Nationalisation are completely lacking. This is worrying because the Socialist Alliance are campaigning, in part. in the Victorian State Elections on Why the car industry should be nationalised.

The tenor of Rainford's article seems to be that the banks are treating the regulators with contempt. Although this is true, I do not see how we can appeal to workers by taking this approach.

Regulation, to most workers (especially in the non-privileged strata), are continually oppressed by regulation. They are hassled by ticket inspectors, parking inspectors, police, HR people, Real Estate agents, local councils, etc. They spend the whole day avoiding breaking some regulation or impost.

Treating regulators with contempt is not a crime with most workers. It is an attitude born of long and frustrating experience.

That people are actively trying to avoid regulations and paying fines is also not seen as a crime. It may unjust that the bigger fish can do this more easily, but the principle is not in question.

I think the question of nationalisation should be approached in a similar way to that made in Why the car industry should be nationalised by emphasising the benefits to workers.

I do not mean just economic benefits but the political and societal benefits of workers controlling their own lives rather than living at the whim of others.

2014/11/21

What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change

What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change.

Two (2) of the engineers who worked on Google's RE<C project write that:

As we reflected on the project, we came to the conclusion that even if Google and others had led the way toward a wholesale adoption of renewable energy, that switch would not have resulted in significant reductions of carbon dioxide emissions. Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach. So we’re issuing a call to action. There’s hope to avert disaster if our society takes a hard look at the true scale of the problem and uses that reckoning to shape its priorities.

Emphasis Mine

They had realised that even if the project had succeeded, it would not be enough to stop global warming as we have already passed the safety limit of 350ppm of CO₂. The amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere means that the Earth will keep warming for the next 100 years.

That realization prompted us to reconsider the economics of energy. What’s needed, we concluded, are reliable zero-carbon energy sources so cheap that the operators of power plants and industrial facilities alike have an economic rationale for switching over soon—say, within the next 40 years. Let’s face it, businesses won’t make sacrifices and pay more for clean energy based on altruism alone. Instead, we need solutions that appeal to their profit motives. RE<C’s stated goal was to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, but clearly that wouldn’t have been sufficient to spur a complete infrastructure changeover. So what price should we be aiming for?

Emphasis Mine

What a damming indictment of Capitalism? The survival of the human race is not profitable!

The real problem is how to convince workers that Capitalism needs to be overthrown. Even if workers could understand all of the scientific and engineering papers, they would still be reluctant to take action because they feel safer in what they know than with what might be. This is only natural.

It does not help that these pleas for action are coming from the privileged stratum of society. The workers are right to mistrust these collaborators. Past experience in various struggles has shown where the interests of these collaborators lie.

2014/11/18

Mike Treen: A critique of crisis theory

Mike Treen has A critique of crisis theory.

There is no natural end to Capitalism:

But there is no final crisis in this system — other than a descent into nuclear war, or barbarism arising from the sort of ecological winter or runaway ecological collapse that capitalism appears to be preparing for us. Short of such a disastrous outcome, the system will continue to carry on with its booms and busts until it is overthrown and replaced.

That can only be carried out by a conscious social and political force, by a class that is not bound to the system by material interest. That is why the working class is the only class that can overthrow this system. It is the only class not bound by property and profit to its perpetuation. It is the only class with the numbers and social power, if organised, if conscious enough, to effect this outcome and bring about real majority rule.

Feudalism had to end because the Capitalists needed the Serfs to become Workers. Otherwise Capitalist expansion could not take place.

The ruling class of a Socialist society already exists: the Proletariat. There is no need to transform the workers into something else. They only need to seize power.

As for crises, Treen remarks that:

Marx had identified the essence of the periodic crises of capitalism as crises of overproduction very early on, even in the Communist Manifesto in 1848.

Treen contrasts this idea of Marx with two (2) competing theories of Capitalist crises: tendency of the rate of profit to fall (TROPF); and the Keynesian idea of under-consumption.

I have fallen into the trap of treating over-production and under-consumption as being synonomous.

Treen rejects the idea of a fiat currency:

I think that is a big mistake. Ultimately, all non-commodity money — that is, token money and credit money — must have a relationship to a real money commodity like gold. This is true whether a formal gold standard exists or not. This lawful economic relationship still exists and therefore continues to be the underlying cause of crises of overproduction.

This is because the exchange of commodities is the basis of all Capitalist economic activity. When the exchange happens, the commodities have equal value. Because real money commodity can be exchanged for all other commodities, it because the basis of universal valuation.

Treen encourages all of us to study Marxist Crisis Theory:

I think we all should pay respect to the founders of scientific socialism and give this issue of crisis theory the attention and importance it deserves. We cannot leave it to others, to so-called experts.

I am not an “expert” on this stuff. It has been a continuing interest of mine, because it is important that we understand it and because it is important we understand who we are, what our role is, what we expect will happen to this system, who the agent of social change is going to be, and what the prospects are for making that happen in the world today. Those are all issues we can begin to address.

Longest Continuous Period of War In American History

Barry Ritholtz writes about the Longest Continuous Period of War In American History.

Ritholtz writes that this endless war and unceasing alarms is weakening the US Republic through the corrosion of the legal and political system. He writes that it is a cynical attempt to garner power and to distract the populace from the real problems:

But — underneath the ever-changing marketing and branding campaign — it’s really just the good ‘ole military-industrial-and-banking complex consolidating their power and making money hand over fist.

It is in the interests of the Capitalists to preserve their power: both in the objective realm of physical force, and in the subjective realm of ideas. Since they are a minority, they must delude or subject the majority to their whims. They do not rule by consent—but by force and delusion.

The inherent danger of continuous wars, as the Spartans found out, is that your enemies learn how to fight you. Sparta was able to dominate their part of Greece for hundreds of years due to their reputation and mystique—they actually did very little fighting.

It was only with the conquest of Athens that the Spartans entered upon a period of continuous warfare. After a period of time, Sparta's enemies began to lose their fear of her and began to work out how to defeat her.

With defeat came the revolt of the subject peoples and slaves. This further undermined the Spartan war economy. Then Macedonia swept in to conquer all of Greece. Despite attempts to free herself, Sparta became a subject state of Macedonia, then Rome, then Byzantium, then Istanbul.

The three (3) Russian revolutions (1905, February 1917, and November 1917) came on the back of great military defeats. The German revolution of 1919 came with defeat in WWI. Military defeat is sometimes a catalyst for social revolution as the ruling class has lost its mystique of superiority and invincibility.

With this latest Capitalist crisis, war is probably seen as the only way to maintain power. But it is a dangerous one as it can hasten the demise of the ruling class.

2014/11/17

Israel moves to exclude Palestinian parties from parliament

Jonathan Cook reports that Israel moves to exclude Palestinian parties from parliament.

The Israeli parliament has voted overwhelmingly to suspend Haneen Zoabi, a legislator representing the state’s large Palestinian minority, for six months as a campaign to silence political dissent intensified.

Zoabi has not endeared herself to the Hebraic-speaking Israelis. She has criticised the latest assault on Gaza, has called the Israeli Air Force pilots terrorists, and the Israeli Army the equivalent of the violent Islamic State group.

There are other measures being considered to expel Zoabi from parliament and from Israel, as well as excluding Palestinians altogether from parliament. The rabid racism of the Israeli state cannot contemplate the existence and therefore the opinions and feelings of the oppressed Palestinians.

This is all part of the genocidal mind-set that the Zionists now operate under. Since their recent defeats in Gaza and Lebanon, the Zionists must plunge ahead into this madness. There is no way they can admit that they are wrong.

Aeyal Gross, a constitutional law professor at Tel Aviv University, warned that the Knesset’s treatment of Zoabi was “paving the way towards fascism and tyranny”.

The Hebraic-speaking Israelis should remember the Nuremburg Laws that gradually stripped the German Jews of their rights, livelihoods, political representation, among other things. Gross is right to be terrified of what is happening.

Mumia: Real threat not Ebola, but capitalist health care

Mumia Abu-Jamal argues that the Real threat not Ebola, but capitalist health care.

This is not about the Ebola crisis, it is about the US health care crisis, made possible by a flawed business model that prioritises profit above all other things: even life itself.

Consider this: when [Thomas Eric] Duncan first entered Texas Presbyterian Hospital, he was interviewed by a screener, prescribed antibiotics, and sent home.

The screener was, more likely than not, not a medically-trained health care professional but a receptionist, perhaps armed with a checklist to cover. Chances are, she was perhaps the lowest-paid staff, until one considers the janitorial workers.

This business model, one followed by most institutions in the US, is now exposed as ineffective, dangerous and the least health-conscious.

That was a business decision, driven by the bottom line, of money — not life.

Emphasis Mine

The US has been lucky so far in that Ebola does not seem to have entered the population at large. As Mumia points out, this luck will not last given that the US health system is driven by profit alone.

Even this scare will not change the stance of the US health providers. Nor can the government force them to change. The bitter resistance to Obamacare is testament to the political power of the US health system.

But an Ebola outbreak is a disaster waiting to happen in the US. The lack of free, universal health-care means that the poor and undocumented will become the most affected because they are effectively denied access to health-care. Thus, Ebola will probably become established in the under-class.

This will lead to more discrimination and harassment of the poor and undocumented as Xenophobia runs amok in the ensuring panic. There will be little challenge to the US health care system despite its obvious failings.

2014/11/16

Opening the way to modernization

Cuba plans to focus on renewable energy sources (RES) as Opening the way to modernization.

Cuba currently produces 96% of its electricity through the use of fossil fuels. This statistic reveals that this is an economy highly dependent on imports with expensive production costs. For this reason, the Council of Ministers approved the Future Development of Renewable Energy Sources and the Efficient Use of Energy Policy on June 21, drawn up by the Governmental Commission charged with this task and responsible for exploiting the full potential of the country’s renewable energy sources.

The gist of the policy is to use alternative sources, such as:

Sugar Cane biomass
Wind
Solar
Hydropower

Coupled with the development of these alternative sources, there is also a drive to energy efficiency:

The increased use of the RES and the efficient use of energy are as comprehensive and transversal as the main aims of the country’s long term development plans, which are all directly linked.

The aim of this policy is:

The magnitude of this policy can be appreciated in the table of information below, but this is only one element in understanding the scope of the policy. Cuba is planning to generate 24% of its electrical energy, through RES, by 2030, which will result in a saving of more than 1.3 million tones of fossil fuel or approximately 780 million dollars per year.

This also shows the under-development of the Cuban in comparison with an advanced economy such as Germany. The figures quoted in If Germany Drops Coal, can the Industry Survive? are that …about 45% of Germany’s electricity comes from burning coal and for RES to account for around two thirds of supply within two decades.

This disparity will probably mean that Cuban industrial development will be impeded by having a greater reliance on fossil fuels when more advanced economies have substantially lessen theirs. And this will make it more difficult to catch up.

Why the car industry should be nationalised

The Socialist Alliance gives its reasons on Why the car industry should be nationalised.

The Socialist Alliance calls for the nationalisation of the vehicle industry under worker and community control, to save jobs and to begin the process of converting the industry to make public transport vehicles or other products.

Nationalisations are not likely to happen without significant industrial action and other forms of action from workers and their organisations.

Unions in the manufacturing sector and the union movement generally should take up the nationalisation demand — as a response to economic crises and a step towards a different form of economy — as some unions did in the past.

Here, the Party is using the economic crisis to advance the political consciousness of the workers. The workers need to understand that they can control their own destiny. And, they have the power to do so.

Michael Hoexter: Naomi Klein's "Hard-Money" Ideas Undermine Her Laudable Climate Action Goals

From Yves Smith, there is a repost of Michael Hoexter: Naomi Klein’s “Hard-Money” Ideas Undermine Her Laudable Climate Action Goals which is a review of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (TCE).

Hoexter derides Klein's attempt to use the profits from the Carbon-extraction industries (Coal, Oil, Gas, etc):

Of course, this is well-meaning economic freestyling on a number of different levels made to serve Klein’s, all-too-typical Left and liberal, preference to reduce economics to a simple morality play of victimizers and victims. For one, even within the terms of Klein’s stated policy preferences, Klein skims over that what she is proposing is akin to a complicated carbon tax, though Klein seems to think that this will be simply a matter of “taking” the fossil fuel industries’ ill-gotten gains as punishment. Klein seems to believe that fossil fuel companies will still continue to exist and function to a degree, generating profit and revenues, to in turn supply the money for climate action. In reality, not only would there be legal complexities in terms of corporate accounting and governance associated with such government actions but also the economic behavior of these companies and the fossil fuel sector overall after such fining or taxing is not explained in TCE.

Hoexter is correct in saying that a correct understanding of the role of money in the social-political system is essential for effective political action. This is why Marxist theory (which he also derides) is essential for the growing of the political consciousness of the working class.

This is not an issue to be left to our “betters”. We have to spend the time and effort really understand what Marx was writing about when he described the laws of motion for Capitalism.

My understanding of money is that it is a commodity just like any other. Its value derives from what be exchanged for it. This seems to be in contrast to the fiat currency view expressed by Hoexter.

The Rojava revolution's radical democracy

A brief interview with Saleh Muslim Mohamed about The Rojava revolution's radical democracy is posted in Links magazine.

We have, in essence, developed a democracy without the state. That is a unique alternative in a region plagued by the internally conflicted Free Syrian Army, the Assad regime and the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

Another way of referring to this concept of democratic confederalism or democratic autonomy is radical democracy: to mobilise people to organise themselves and to defend themselves by means of peoples armies like the Peoples Defence Units (YPG) and Women's Defence Units (YPJ). We are practicing this model of self-rule and self-organisation without the state as we speak. Other people will speak of self-rule in theory, but for us, this search for self-rule is our daily revolution. Women, men, all strands of our society are now organised. The reason why Kobane still stands is because we have built these structures.

This is a different kind of Democracy:

Democratic autonomy is about the long term. It is about people understanding and exercising their rights. To get society to become politicised: that is the core of building democratic autonomy. In Europe you will find a society that is not politicised. Political parties are only about persuasion and individual benefits, not about actual emancipation and politicisation. Real democracy is based on a politicised society.

Emphasis Mine

For a Socialist Revolution to occur, the workers must be sufficiently polticised. They must that what happens in their daily lives in a political context.

This is very difficult to do in a society where politics is disparaged and derided. Political consciousness is vital to a healthy society. One can not delegate decisions about one's life to others.

And people should realise that all of our social interactions are mediated by politics. How we see and feel about the world influences what we do in the world.

Michael Hudson: Putin's Pivot to Asia

Yves Smith comments on Michael Hudson: Putin’s Pivot to Asia.

Michael Hudson says that:

The most important way in which they’re coming together is reflected in Mr. Putin’s announcement that Russia is setting up its own bank clearing house system independent of the so-called SWIFT system. When you transfer funds from one bank to another, or when any bank uses U.S. dollars, it has to go through the SWIFT clearing house system in the United States.

Right now the only country that’s not part of this is Iran. To Russia, this has tipped America’s hand. It showed that what U.S. Cold Warriors really want is to break up Russia and China, and to interrupt their financial and banking services to disorient their economies. So Russia, China and Iran — and presumably other Asian countries — are now moving to establish their own currency clearing systems. To be independent of the SWIFT system and the U.S. dollar, Russia and China are denominating their trade and investments in rubles and yuan instead of the dollar. So what you’ve seen in the last few days in Beijing is a rejection of the dollar standard, and a rejection of American foreign policy behind it.

Emphasis Mine

The actions of the Capitalist State are designed to protect their own Capitalists. In the fierce competition between Capitalists, the politcal reality shapes the economic sphere.

The SWIFT system was originally conceived as a neutral entity. However, the interests of US Capitalists have undermined this neutrality by turning it into a political weapon against the official enemies.

It is this politicisation of the SWIFT system that has prompted the emergence of an economic competitor, not purely economic considerations. Here we the example of how politics and economic decisions are intertwined.

This will not change under a Socialist or Communist system. Then, the political decisions will, openly, drive the economic decisions.

2014/11/15

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.

2014/11/12

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.

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.

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!

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.

2014/11/08

Understanding and Overcoming America's Plutocracy

Jeffrey Sachs opines about Understanding and Overcoming America's Plutocracy.

Despite the results of the recent mid-term elections in the USA, Sachs writes that:

The evidence is overwhelming that politicians vote the interests of their donors, not of society at large. This has now been demonstrated rigorously by many researchers, most notably Princeton Professor Martin Gilens. Whether the Republicans or Democrats are in office, the results are little different. The interests at the top of the income distribution will prevail.

Emphasis Mine

Sachs is beguiled by the illusion that the Capitalist State can be bent to the will of the people, even though he has evidence clearly before him that it serves the interests of the Capitalists. Thus, he moans about the recent trend of politics in the USA.

Sachs hopes that the people will rescue the Capitalist State from itself:

Is there a way out? Yes, but it's a very tough path. Plutocracy has a way of spreading like an epidemic until democracy itself is abandoned. History shows the wreckage of democracies killed from within. And yet America has rallied in the past to push democratic reforms, notably in the Progressive Era from 1890-1914, the New Deal from 1933-1940, and the Great Society from 1961-1969.

All of these transformative successes required grass-roots activism, public protests and demonstrations, and eventually bold leaders, indeed drawn from the rich but with their hearts with the people: Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Yet in all of those cases, the mass public led and the great leaders followed the cause. This is our time and responsibility to help save democracy. The Occupy Movement and the 400,000 New Yorkers who marched for climate-change control in September are pointing the way.

Emphasis Mine

The three (3) periods cited by Sachs do, indeed, correspond to times of great radical movements: rise of radical trade-unionism (IWW, CIO); communist revolutions in Russia, Italy, Germany, Hungry, Romania; Youth Revolt and the Anti-Vietnam movement. All of these periods called into question the validity of the Capitalist system. Under such an existential threat, the Capitalist State responded by granting sufficient reforms in order to drain these movements of their momentum.

Though hugely unpopular with the ruling class, those leaders saved the system from itself. Sachs is calling for popular movements to be again subverted by the ruling class in order to save the system.

Barak Obama was supposed to be such a leader. His modest reform of affordable health care is unlikely to last as long as his presidency. He will leave no legacy. Richard Nixon left a far greater reformist legacy than Obama will leave.

Sachs has forgotten the largest mass mobilisation in history occurred in February 2003 (almost twelve (12) years ago)—ten (10) million people marched against the war in Iraq. And yet the war went ahead again.

The ruling class know that the workers are defenceless and leaderless. That is why they are so blatant in their attacks.

Until the workers expand their consciousness to see that the Capitalist system will always have it for them, these crises will continue.

2014/11/05

Australia: How and why the Gough Whitlam government's far-reaching reforms were won

Jim McIlroy opines about Australia: How and why the Gough Whitlam government's far-reaching reforms were won.

These reforms were the reactions to the radicalisation of the masses:

However, it is important to emphasise that the Whitlam victory occurred on the crest of a wave of popular mass struggles — most centrally the anti-Vietnam War moratoriums — and the rise of a new youth radicalisation that began on the university campuses and spread to broad layers of society from the 1960s to the early 1970s.

This upsurge also involved the new wave of women's liberation, the growing Aboriginal rights movement, the start of gay liberation and the modern environment movements. The youth revolt also challenged traditional authority roles in the family, education, morality, culture and politics.

…

In Australia, the anti-war movement grew from a small minority to a mass movement expressed in the Moratoriums of 1970 and 1971. General anti-war sentiment gradually increased to become a large majority by the time of the 1972 election.

It was in this tumultuous social context that the Whitlam Labor government came to power, carried on a huge wave of popular demand for real change.

As Capitalism has shown time and time again, it can co-opt these movements into the mainstream where they can be safely defused. Radicals are turned into reformist then into bureaucrats. From the barricades to the warrens of the bureaucracy. This has happened with the environmental, feminist, and Aboriginal radicals. They now fill in forms to get funding to keep going on. Thus, the slow grinding down of youthful vigour into middle-age malaise begins.

McIlroy writes that there are three (3) important lessons from the Whitlam Era:

First, that progressive change is possible — if we could afford free education in 1974, for instance, we surely can now.

Second, that the corporate elite will not accept any challenge to its interests, however mild. It will violate democracy to protect its interests.

And third, that the Labor Party is not an appropriate vehicle to achieve social change. Faced with a challenge to its mild reformist agenda in the mid-70s, Labor capitulated.

The problem with the ALP since its very beginnings was that it was not a party of the working-man but of a would-be petite burgeoisie. Their dream was not of an international working class, but of owning their own little business.

McIlroy concludes that:

We should remember the progressive gains from Whitlam's government, but remember they were not handed down but won by the struggles of ordinary people. And we can win them again — and more — in the future.

We now need to accelerate the vital task of building an alternative political movement to eventually challenge the status quo of big business rule, and to struggle for a socialist society.

Fierce Entanglements require Dialogue: Israeli-Palestinian conflict rooted in their different stories about the World

Donald Ellis argues that Fierce Entanglements require Dialogue: Israeli-Palestinian conflict rooted in their different stories about the World.

The goal of conflict resolution is to moderate and bridge these incommensurate realities. Political solutions by leaders and elites, necessary as they are, do not directly redress subjugation, inequality, and oppression. Decisions that emerge from political leaders and elites become directives that are “sold” to the masses. Issues and solutions do not emerge naturally from the conflicting parties and the more resolutions reflect political accommodations and elite interests the more remote they are from the population.

The fundamental problem with this type of argument is that common ground can be achieved between the genocidists and their victims. The State of Israel wants no less than the complete obliteration of the Palestinians by whatever means necessary.

The Zionists have never accepted nor will accept a two state solution in the former British Mandate of Palestine.

The mere existence of Palestinians de-legitimises the State of Israel. They have claims that recognised under international law. They have rights due to them as human beings.

By denying Palestinians their claims and rights, the Zionists act outside of the law of nations and states.

Those with great power refuse to see the rights and claims of the powerless. This is why justice requires the overthrow of systems that permit such outrages.

2014/11/04

Feminism and Exclusion from Power

In Rebecca Solnit blog post, “The War Is Over (If You Want It), Feminism and Men”, she writes that:

The highest powers in the country [USA] have begun calling on men to take responsibility not only for their own conduct, but for that of the men around them, to be agents of change.

In my initial assessment of this post, I disagreed by writing that:

This war can not be won by participating in the current power structure because misogyny is the key to power. In order to have power in a Capitalist, one must be a misogynist. Becoming a feminist excludes one from power.

This is because of the fundamental authoritarianism of male culture: violence. Women see the direct violence violence through rape, murder, domestic violence, pornography, sexual harassment, office politics, slurs, glances. But there is also the hidden violence under which men live their lives.

Violence among males starts early with bullying, abuse, punishment, masculinisation. This is mainly violence for violence's sake. The message is that you can be hurt no matter what you do or say. It is important to know that violence can be inflicted and you are powerless to stop it.

Indeed, during my school years, corporal punishment was seen as a way of taming the wild beasts that we boys were seen as. This could be administered by almost anyone: parents, elder siblings, teachers, police, priests, nuns, and even total strangers. It was okay as long as there was seen to be taming the wildness or beastliness of the boys.

Looking back now, the degree of beastliness seemed to be determined by class and ethnicity. Aboriginal boys got the worst no matter how well behaved they were. And their parents believed that they deserved it. No wonder the boys turned into men with no belief in decency or society. They had been beaten into beasts.

We, of the lower orders and paler complexions, fared somewhat better. Yet, we were turned into beats. I know of two (2) boys from my youth who murdered their fathers. There was always a tension within the neighbourhood about there would be one beating too far, and an orgy of violence would erupt.

This is the sheer terror of living in a violence-saturated world. One small mistake could be your last. So, you become cautious and predictable.

And this leads to the problem of alcohol during our adolescence: the reactions are intensified and the violence becomes deadly. Mistakes are truly fatal.

Yet, this problem of hidden violence does not disappear in adulthood. I am still threatened with rape or serious injury if I get too uppity. I am more adept at avoiding it. It is a part of my life.

What can I do about it? One thing I could do is join the power structure. I could become a dispenser of violence. This would take the edge off being a victim.

And I would be rewarded for doing so. I get access to more social status, more power, more credibility, more money, more sex, and better health.

So, why don't I? If I did, I would have to become someone I truly hate. I remember almost all of that abuse I suffered. I hate the perpetrators for doing that. I understand why they did it—they were trying to survive. It was them or me. Sensibly, they chose me.

In order to be a male feminist, one has to stand outside of the power structure and be seen as being weak. Therefore one becomes a target.

Those in power are not going to seriously weaken the basis of their power. It is up to we outsiders to do that for them.

2014/11/03

The War Is Over (If You Want It), Feminism and Men

Rebecca Solnit argues strongly that The War Is Over (If You Want It), Feminism and Men.

The situation as it has long existed needs to be described bluntly. Let's just say that a significant number of men hate women, whether it's the stranger harassed in the street, the Twitter user threatened into silence online, or the wife who's beaten. Some men believe they are entitled to humiliate, punish, silence, violate, and even annihilate women. As a consequence, women face a startling amount of everyday violence and an atmosphere of menace, as well as a host of smaller insults and aggressions meant to keep us down. It's not surprising, then, that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies some men's rights groups as hate groups.

In this context, consider what we mean by rape culture. It's hate. Those sports-team and fraternity rapes, the ones that sometimes result in young men swapping phone videos that they never seem to recognize as evidence of felonies, are predicated on the idea that violating the rights, dignity, and body of another human being is a cool thing to do. Such group acts are based on a predatory-monster notion of what masculinity is, one to which many men don't subscribe but that affects us all. It's also a problem that men are capable of rectifying in ways women are not.

Emphasis Mine

Here is where the real time War on Terror should be waged. It should be waged against the terrorism that afflicts women everyday and every hour of the day. Terror forms their lives.

This war can not be won by participating in the current power structure because misogyny is the key to power. In order to have power in a Capitalist, one must be a misogynist. Becoming a feminist excludes one from power.

We must change the system to overcome this misogyny. An inclusive political system is the basis for an anti-rape culture.

Israel's Gaza defeat a sign of Palestinian strength

Raul Bassi writes that Israel's Gaza defeat a sign of Palestinian strength.

Israel's July-August war on Gaza, under the pretext of Operation Protective Edge to counter Palestinian rocket fire, demonstrated why it will never defeat the Palestinian resistance.

As in Vietnam, the resistance in Gaza has to resort to war in the tunnels. This tactic is dictated by the overwhelming superiority of the occupying forces and the technical capabilities of the indigenous people.

Egypt is not North Vietnam nor China in this analogy. But the Gazans appear to be able to get sufficient support via the ordinary Egyptian and other Arabs in order to keep the tunnel networks open and operational.

I imagine that the Israeli offensive has exposed the blind-spots of their intelligence services because Hamas knows which tunnels were not discovered during the offensive. This will prove vital during the next Israeli offensive. And the one after that.

With each battle, Israel is slowly losing the war because Hamas learns more and more about the deficiencies of the IDF and associated intelligence services.

Hamas's popularity is based on the fact it has to date proven to be a useful instrument of resistance.

Israel may be able to kill large numbers of people, inflict tactical defeats, weaken Hamas' military capacity and destroy Palestinian infrastructure. But they will never be able to defeat the Palestinian peoples' resistance to colonial occupation.

After nearly seventy (70) years, it would have been obvious that the solution to the Palestinian problem for Israel is a political one. But is not easy for colonial powers to understand this. It took England 400 years to leave most of Ireland.

Take Kurdish freedom fighters off terrorist list

Sue bolton says “Take Kurdish freedom fighters off terrorist list”.

There are two reasons to support the Kurds of Kobane. One reason is humanitarian: to prevent a massacre. The other reason is to protect and defend the building of an alternative society which should be a beacon for all left and progressive people in the world.

Unfortunately for the Kurds, their unacknowledged homeland, Kurdistan, is occuppied by four other states:

Iran
Iraq
Syria
Turkey

Turkey has been waging genocide against the Kurds. This is largely unreported in the West unless there is a terrorist attack in Istanbul.

Because Turkey is an important NATO ally (US client), this is tolerated in the West. Genocide is only wrong if it is done by official enemies. And since before 9/11, the PKK has classified as a terrorist even as it tries to defend against the genocidal attacks of the Turkish state.

This level of oppression calls for a new and substainable society in which everyone participates. This leads to progressive measures in governance and social norms:

The Kurds in Syria are building a society that should be a model for the Middle East — a society where the rights of minority religions and minority ethnic groups are protected, and where there is a revolution in women's rights. The US doesn't want to support the Kurds in Rojava because it is using sectarianism to keep compliant governments in power in various countries in the Middle East.

Once again, we see Capitalism relying on divise means to maintain power.

Bolton lists the demands of the Socialist Alliance as:

Arms for the defenders of Kobane.
Opening the border with Turkey and an aid corridor for Kurds.
End Turkish support for IS.
Remove the PKK from Australian terrorist list: they are freedom fighters not terrorists

Video gamers on the feminist frontline

Jemma Nott writes that Video gamers on the feminist frontlines.

A fierce debate over women’s participation in video game culture has erupted online. Known as “GamerGate”, it is a battle over power and sexism in video games.

Women now represent nearly half of those who play video games, and the traditional gamer identity is being challenged. The problem of sexism in video games is part of a wider problem of misogyny in society, and in the same way misogyny is being confronted in parliament or at universities, it is also being confronted in gaming.

The women critics have been threatened with rape and death, but not the men critics. This is the same traditional response of all patriarchal societies to threats—whether in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, Nigeria, DRC, UK, USA, etc.

What is lost is that GamerGate is just a widely publicised version of something that has been happening since feminism began — patriarchal society feeling threatened by the concept of cultural equality.

Men have been given a small space to rule over as compensation for loss of power in the rest of their lives: workplace, politics, culture. Like a rat defending their last bit of rotting cheese, men will fight tooth and claw to defend that rather than go after the big cheese in the elite's fridge. It is safer to do so.

We need to overcome what divides us as workers (racism, sexism, homophobia) before we can concentrate on overthrowing Capitalism. Capitalism needs sexism in order to survive.

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