by Jiwan Kshetry
Corporations wiping out large chunks of biodiversity and killing people with impunity in Honduras and Brazil in collusion with the corrupt state machinery, are being rewarded for their contribution to ‘clean development’ as are those throwing hundreds into abject poverty and total unemployment in India. At the end, however, their projects are not ‘clean’ with no net gain for environment in terms of carbon emission. In its march from one triumph to another, global capitalism brutally preys upon the poorest, weakest and the most vulnerable.
We are an inclusive company that respects and celebrates the diversity and human rights of its employees, customers and communities. But we never stop trying to improve as a company, employer and member of the community.
A corporation concerned about the human rights of the employees, customers and communities, isn’t that something we are desperately looking for?
That was how Miguel Facusse, arguably the most powerful businessman in Honduras responded to the news that he was being awarded with CEAL International Award by Business Council of Latin America (CEAL).
Now juxtapose the noble words of Facusse with these words from the ‘unidentified’ kidnappers who threatened the MUCA (Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán) journalist Karla Zelaya on 23 October 2012 after kidnapping her: “This time you’re lucky. We’re not going to kill you because you’re worth more to us alive than dead.”
The association of these people to Facusse is the open secret in Honduras as is the collusion between the Facusse’s militia and the state’s security forces, particularly after the 2009 coup-de-tat that deposed the democratically elected president. According to the Front for Popular National Resistance (FNRP), this new act of violence happened after two more campesinos or peasant farmers were killed over the weekend and three more were found buried in Farallones, lands belonging to Miguel Facussé.
The news coming from Honduras over the past few months is equally horrifying as indicated by these two reports (here and here) from Amnesty International. After brutal murder of campesino leader Margarita Murilo on 27 August, another leader Juan Angel Lopez Miralda met with the same fate on 11 November this year.
After all, how long could have they tolerated Murilo—a survivor of twenty-two days of detention and torture in the 1980’s and life-long fighter against the oppressive state—who dared say this after disappearance of her son in 2009: “If the army took my son to deter me, it was very poor judgment on their part. I’ve been in struggle for twenty-five years; I’m not going to abandon it.”
Obviously, the state was forced to deter her by taking her life itself. Even though Facusse and his corporation are not mentioned in the AI reports, there is no doubt as to either the motive or the mechanism of her elimination.
With thousands of hectares of lands in Bazo Aguan region itself and more elsewhere, Facusse has every reason to eliminate anyone who advocates the rights of the creatures who claim to be the rightful owners of the same land. Himself having been the economic advisor for one of the Honduran past presidents and counting another past president as his own nephew, there is literally nothing Facusse cannot do in Honduras.
There is no dearth of people like Facusse in this world where capitalism rules the roost. If we look closely, every developing country and economy has its own shares of Facusses who not only decide who wins and who loses in elections but also can depose or oust those who refuse to play by their rule after gaining power. Indeed, these super-wealthy tycoons—with opaque business activities and capability to both make and break rules and governments—in the under-developed countries, are the equivalents of the wealthy and powerful multinational corporations in the developed countries and economies.
The neo-liberal theologians would like us to believe that these people who value their own wealth-gathering much more than lives of hundreds to thousands of paupers out in the communities are a transitory phenomenon before rule of law comes to fruition in these modernizing societies. In other words, we should bear with plutocracy and mass pauperization for the sake of capitalist economic development that will somehow lead us into more prosperous if not egalitarian societies.
Is that the truth, after all? Let’s draw some similarities between Facusse’s Dinant corporation and Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes (V&M), a joint venture of French Vallourec Group (with more than 23,000 employees, sales of $5.3 billion in 2012, 78% generated outside Europe, according to Compay’s site) and German Mannesmannrohren-Werke AG.
To start with, contempt and disregard for human rights is equally strong in both. As Facusse’s militia shoot the peasants in Honduras point blank and leave them to rot in the fields before police can take their body, V&M poisons the lands to clear the natural vegetation in Brazil for its vast eucalyptus plantations. As the usual fruits—the means of livelihood—and the underground water sources disappear, people in small towns like Minas Grais are forced into hunger and misery all the same. Those who dare to raise a finger at V&M here are killed as mercilessly as those challenging Dinant in Honduras are.
The similarities, however, do not end there. Both the companies are now beneficiaries of a supposedly noble initiative from Kyoto protocol intended to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emission. While Dinant’s palm trees are used to produce supposedly ‘renewable’ bio-fuels, V&M’s eucalyptus are used to make ‘renewable’ coal. They trade off their carbon credits to other big industrial polluters thereby receiving huge amount of money under the ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ of the UN and the World Bank. At the end however, both the biofuel and coal go on to be burnt thereby emitting the greenhouse gases.
Net outcome: as people keep being killed or stifled in Brazil and Honduras, profits for corporations like Dinant and V&M keep rising exponentially, the biodiversity being irrecoverably damaged in both the supposedly noble sources of clean development.
As Clive L Spash articulates in a well-researched article titled ‘The brave new world of Carbon Trade‘:
The pervasiveness of the greenhouse gas emissions, strong uncertainty and complexity combine to prevent economists from substantiating their theoretical claims of cost-effectiveness. Corporate power is shown to be a major force affecting emissions market operation and design. The potential for manipulation to achieve financial gain, while showing little regard for environmental and social consequences, is evident as markets have extended internationally and via trading offsets. (…) I conclude that the focus on such markets is creating a distraction from the need for changing human behavior, institutions and infrastructure.
As fortunes of people like Facusse multiply overnight, the real sufferers of the whole fiasco live in abject poverty and increasing marginalization. As their fellow citizens face brutality of the forest rangers from V&M and other big companies, the Brazilian middle class is pre-occupied by something else. Apparently, the Rousseff administration’s sellout to the corporations is too little for them: 142,000 of them recently signed a petition on the White House Website asking ‘president Obama’ to take a stand against the ‘Bolivarian Communist expansion in Brazil promoted by the administration of Dilma Rousseff’.
That tells a lot about why the plight of indigenous people in Brazil, Honduras and elsewhere rarely makes it to the mainstream media even as the street protests against leaders like Brazil’s Rousseff and Venezuela’s Maduro receive a round-the-clock coverage.
But even as the mainstream media works day and night to manufacture consent for the neo-liberal economic order and the resulting political order thereby obfuscating the reality, not everybody has abandoned the poor and the downtrodden. Plight of these people in Brazil and Honduras has been retold vividly in the 2012 documentary ‘The Carbon Rush’ directed by social justice organizer and activist Amy Miller. The documentary was shown as the part of recently concluded Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival in Kathmandu (KIMFF), leaving the audience flabbergasted.
The documentary brilliantly captures the misfortune of the victims of some more projects under the so called clean development mechanism including the one in India which snatches the livelihood of the rag-pickers. As a big company moves on to produce energy from the garbage (the amount of energy produced being minimal as air pollution reaches intolerable levels with use of incinerators in residential areas) it is also bestowed with monopoly in recycling the recyclables from the garbage forcing the already poor people into a vicious cycle of abject poverty and total unemployment.
So, what is in the store for these people duped by their states and hounded by the wealthy? The smart and educated people in India may not have exactly petitioned the US president the way their Brazilian counterparts did but their attitude about the economic and social malaise of the society is also basically the same. The only solution to the crushing poverty and rampant unemployment is, for them, to let the wealthy corporations exploit the natural resources even faster—thereby transforming this planet into unlivable garbage dump even earlier than it would otherwise become—so that more jobs are created. The living conditions of the workers and the plight of the displaced people is the luxury that the state cannot afford to ponder over at this point of time.
It is then no wonder that after Narendra Modi came to power in India with a promise to ‘development’, his government is now going to depend on the ‘utmost good faith’ of the polluting industries to control pollution rather than strict laws enforced by the state.
So, when will this mad rush to seek solution of every problem in endless economic growth end? As the wealth gap widens between the rich and poor leaving the wealthy few increasingly beholden to the remainder of the rapidly depleting natural resources in the planet, how many more millions of people will have to suffer before the illusion of mankind’s invincibility over the nature crashes?
Miguel Facusse is already over 90 and still wants to gather wealth at the cost of thousands of Honduran lives. But, will the fragile ecosystem of the planet survive for another 90 years without a major disruption? Even if it does not survive, Facusse will be long gone by then having left a disastrous track record of swallowing up entire genera and multiple species of flora and fauna in the South American continent for his palm plantations. Likely, the V&M’s owners will also be gone by that time contributing to loss of an even large chunk of biodiversity in the planet for their eucalyptus plantations. But who can blame them? They are neither the biggest nor the last culprits in the whole sordid saga.
These people will be remembered especially for one reason though: as they tore through the ecosystem speeding the degradation of the most bio-diverse parts of planet earth, they were being paid for precisely the opposite of that, in other words, they were getting rewards instead of punishments for their crimes.
Author is a Kathmandu-based freelance writer who regularly blogs at South Asia and Beyond.
addressing just the “carbon” scheme/scam portion of the post, here’s Piers Corbyn
(aside from the glaring fact that carbon is the 6th most abundant element in the universe, not just at. nbr 6), yet nature somehow allowed this common but terribly toxic element in as the very foundation of life itself!)
FACT The world – using real data – is not warming
– and has not been doing so for 18 years. Even under fraudulent UN-MetO-NOAA manipulated data the world is not warming. See weatheraction.com/docs/WANews14No11.pdf and links in Article about BBC-MetO charlatan John Hammond’s Science Denialist claims, in WeatherAction blog bit.ly/1xKYPrJ (sec3).
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted global warming would impact winters. “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms,” IPCC stated quite plainly in its 2001 Third Assessment Report. IPCC’s prediction has two components: (1) global warming will cause milder winters and (2) global warming will cause a decline in heavy snowstorm events. These two predictions are clear and unequivocal. BOTH HAVE FAILED TOTALLY
http://www.weatheraction.com/
The president told his end-of-year press briefing: «We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States… That’s not who we are. That’s not what America is about».
With sinister hint, Obama vowed that the US would retaliate. «We will respond, we will respond proportionally, and in a place and time that we choose».
http://nsnbc.me/2014/12/28/us-thought-control-goes-into-loop-over-sony-hollywood-hack/
The new Gulag, where rehabilitation is slavery.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_prison_state_of_america_20141228/
Sorry, I must write in Croatian
Dok USA i zapadnoeuropski anglosaksonci ne propadnu,nema boljeg sutra za porobljene zemlje Istočne Europe. Nažalost,mi u svojim redovima imamo jako puno petokolonaša koji nas za šaku dolara isporučuju na pladnju kolonizatorima.
A naš narod je priprost i velika većina uopće ne shvaća zašto Hrvatska propada. Naši političari u NATO i EU zarađuju ogroman novac i imaju sve moguće privilegije. Svi su miljunaši sa par godina službe.To je legalna korupcija. Jedini posao im je da slušaju gazde,klimaju glavom i svom narodu dijele,otkaze,dižu poreze,uvode nove poreze,paušale i davanja.
I to je u svim kolonijama isto.
Unfortunately, what Jiwan Kshetry described are not aberrations of capitalism in practice, they are the very essence of the practice and the “philosophy” behind capitalism. This also is:
UK Citizens Warned Over Hazardous Fake Vodka on Sale
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20141229/1016378420.html
“…The new warning was issued after 166 bottles of the counterfeit spirit were seized from three stores in Luton by Trading Standards officers. Another raid on an illegal factory in Derbyshire resulted in the seizure of 20 thousand empty bottles, filling equipment and empty cans of anti-freeze, the newspaper adds…”
вот так
Oil jobs bloodbad in the US:
There “Is” Blood: Energy Services Firm Civeo Cuts Headcount 45% & Guidance By 30%, Suspends Dividend.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-29/there-blood-energy-services-firm-civeo-cuts-headcount-45-guidance-30-suspends-divide
Saker,
frankly your blog is starting to become boring.
As much as I appreciate your work, I must say that many articles you put on your blog are just pieces of obvious propaganda.
One of the worst things I read about was Vrazalic’s article about “Socialism”. Obviously she (?) has no idea what she was writing about. Her writing was a confused mix of half-knowledge, experience and the lack of education in Marxism. Even the simple concepts of Socialism and Communism she got wrong.
Frankly I don’t mind that this blog attracts a lot of people from the political right. I do read those sources too (and I disagree), but at the same time their analysis covers only the “Erscheinungsebene” – how things appear to be – but not how they are and how they function.
Right now we are close to 1914: two capitalist blocs (USA/EU/NATO) and the weaker one and not yet formed one (RU+China) are battling for power. Neither is going for a “better world” for the planet. I do have “feelings” for the Russian part – but I cannot side with them, because they too have nothing to offer for the rest of the planet. And only answers for the planet can solve the issue.
What amazes me is that nobody gets the fact that we are in a deep, deep and maybe final crisis of capitalism. Like: the game and its logic might be finally ending. It is not the “brave worker” that storms the Winterpalais and erects the red flag – it is the system that dies by its own logic: capitalism has become too productive for itself. Understand its implications!
As long as people pointing fingers at the other side (aka: “world-terrorist USA” or “Putin=dictator) they cannot see what really drives the political realm.
Taking Mr. Adam Smith seriously and his “invisible hand” – all I can say is that we ALL are puppets to forces we (yet) do not understand or control. We need to take control. The Soviets tried, but failed, because they were “too early”. No computers, no means for a planned economy, too backward and their “real mission” was just to modernize Russia but not to free people from the logic of value production. Maybe spending time, resources and a lot of self-searching might create a way out of this. Maybe re-vistiting Marx and re-interpreting him again. Maybe just being very unhappy about what is going on, checking our means as mankind and interfacing with others.
2015 will most likely show again that we have to revisit out past and update our assumptions. I do hope that Syriza in Greece will win the elections. Why? Simply because it will prove: they will not be able to change things, because under the given set of rules, NOBODY can change things! Therefore we need to change the rules! It is about revolution (=changing the rules) – but without macho revolution fetish. It just needs to be done, not because “I am so great” or “my tool is bigger then yours” but because we need to find a way that we all can live and develop our abilities which do differ. The beauty of men is that we grow more and more different – which means having different understandings about how things are – hence new ideas about solving problems.
The issues are (most important are on top):
A. Can we finally create a concept that works of a (dynamic) planned economy. At least we now have the tools for it (computers)!
B. Are we able to re-visit the issue of the concept of “property”
C. Do we understand that social rights and individual rights are BOTH needed? No more: fuck freedom of speech as long as we have enough to eat or vice versa!
2015 is the year were it counts. And most of all: you count! Your wisdom, your stupidity,
ME
This former rabbi turned orthodox Christian is aware of the Vineyard but doesn’t agree with its views on Medvedev.
“…perhaps there was an “Atlanticist” slant and a “pro-West” bent in Medvedev’s foreign policy, but the valley has been filled and the crooked has been made straight….”
Details here
At the impersonal global level capitalism ceases to be capitalism and acts more like trans-national Socialist state entity shearing the capital from those it preys upon leaving them with subsistence poverty.
I’m not going to get into climate change, because very wisely Saker has banned the subject.
But, I think one of the core studies of capitalism and how it has co-opted the urge towards mitigation of climate change is Richard Smith’s analysis of the Failure of Green Capitalism:
Green Capitalism: The God That Failed – by Richard Smith (updated Truthout version)
In the same way that the word “organic” seems to have been taken over by agri-business and is now useless as a mark of food quality, the concept that corporations through the right incentives can make a positive contribution to the bio-sphere turns out to be a lost cause too. You can’t take the greed out of the corporation.
By the way, I would note that there are some good corporations in this world, and their ownership is what makes the difference. Genuine co-ownership of the collective enterprise by all its participants makes a world of difference to the way in which that enterprise acts. See Marjorie Kelly’s work on the Ownership Revolution for more collateral. Ownership and control are the two elements to regulate wisely in this world of affairs, and then beneficial things flow from this.
At the supra national level capitalism is no longer traditional capitalism in support of free individual initiative. Rather, trans-national capitalism has no loyaty to person or country, it serves no value system or national traidtions. It plays a similar role as that we see in a socialist economy extracting from the host nation as much as possible for the benefit of an anonymous elite directive group.
The person who wrote in Croatian I will try and translate this. I took Serbo-Croat at university some 30 years ago.
I was there this summer and he/she is so right There is not a single thing of value that is owned by the people of former Yugoslavia. The Empire has bought it up at 20 cents on the dollar.
The translation The day USA and Western European Anglo-Saxons fail, there will not be a better tomorrow for the occupied robbed lands of Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, in our country we hasve many fifth columnists who for a handful of dollars are selling us out to the colonizers. . Majority of our people are politically simplistic and do not understand why Croatia has collapsed. Our politicians in NATO and the EU are earning huge sums money and have every possible privilege. Most of these politicians became millionairs aftert one or two years of service. They have created legal corruption. Their only job is to listen to the boss, nodding their heads while they layoffs, increase taxes, introduce new taxes to their own people, taking lump sum benefits forthemselves.
And it is the same in all the colonies.
To pillage a foreign nation takes collusion between the existing gov and the “democracy creating” invaders. For time memorial the best technique is to bring the savages to God. In the countries where Catholicism is prevalent, half the work is already done. I’m not talking about real Christianity, even if I do hesitate to use the term, as diluted as it is.
http://www.sott.net/article/290668-Space-success-Russia-launches-new-Angara-space-rocket
President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday oversaw the successful test-launch of Russia’s newest heavy-class Angara rocket, a rare piece of good news in a week dominated by the economic crisis.
The president oversaw by video link the launch of the Angara-A5 from Plesetsk in northern Russia at 0557 GMT, saying the new rocket would allow the country better protection.
A fine article– hair-raising and very sad.
But it is such a pity that people can’t see through the Global Warming hoax.
Here’s a scientific film. —https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov0WwtPcALE
Here’s science w tables & graphs
http://www.globalresearch.ca/global-cooling-is-here/10783
Dear ME or Anonymous: I know of a book you would like: What Then Must We Do? by Gar Alperwitz.(sp?)
Take a look at it on Amazon; it’s about the whole co-op, local community empowerment movement.
You’re right of course– it’s the whole capitalist system that has to come down. Michael Hudson in his book The Bubble and Beyond talks about all the early criticisms of capitalism and the suggested reforms and how all those reforms got stamped out– until today we have the most pernicious version of capitalism ever– a sort of Robin Hood in reverse. Mike mentions the obvious: that there’s no such thing as an unplanned economy. If govt doesn’t plan it, the banksters and huge corporations do.
Since you think some of the articles presented here aren’t worthwhile perhaps you can suggest ones that ARE worthwhile for us either individually or as a suggestion for Saker to pick up.
Cheer up; an awful lot of people are as disgusted w this immoral system as you are & we may yet figure out what to do about it.
Re: Russia. A the very least it’s a brake on any final victory by the Satanic US. With any luck maybe it’ll collapse before it wins. Regards.
Thank you Vuki & Anonymous Croatian. It’s always helpful to hear the personal experieces of those in other countries. Because our media lies to us it is especially helpful to hear your story.
I am sorry that my country is such a villain. We are trying to figure out what to do about it.
I see two posts and one reference to climate change here. Saker, can you please weed out any posts with references to Global Warming?
I have followed the subject for 35 years now and if this blog is going to descend into tabloid conspiracies and sensationalism it is going to lower the tone of everything and reduce its overall credibility.
Whatever your view on AGW, it doesn’t belong here and is counter-productive.
Greetings from cold France:
From the blog of Yanis Varoufakis:
Greece is about to give European democracy a chance
Posted on December 30, 2014
Democracy: Something is amiss in our Europe.
When the constitutional process of a proud European democracy seemed to be leading, quite properly, to elections (as was the case in Greece since the Fall), the European Commission, various governments and the commentariat-at-large intervened, presenting the prospect of elections (the crowning moment of the democratic process) as a disaster-in-the-making; as a calamity to be avoided at all cost.
When the elections became inescapable, the same power brokers began to lecture the citizens of this small, proud nation on how to vote. And when these voters seemed eager to vote differently, European Union authorities began to warn any new government that might emerge that it should consider itself a caretaker of the agreements that the previous government had struck with the European Union – that any thought of re-negotiating them should perish instantly.
Is this what our dreams of Europe have come to? Has Europe come to a point where elections are seen as a problem, rather than the source of solutions? Have Brussels-based government appointees grown so stupendously arrogant as to imagine that they can tell electorates how to vote? Have we reached a point when a people is told that if they vote in a government that seeks to renegotiate an asphyxiating international loan agreement, they face non-functioning ATMs within days?
There is, indeed, something amiss in our Europe and Greece, the proverbial canary in the mine, has brought it to the surface. Europeans from Helsinki to Lisbon and from Dublin to Cyprus must now make it their collective business to resuscitate that which once inspired us: a penchant for democracy.
UNQUOTE
Rgds
Mario Medjeral
“Corporations wiping out large chunks of biodiversity and killing people with impunity in Honduras and “Brazil in collusion with the corrupt state machinery”.
I think you must read more about Brazil before you say that.
Mr Kshetry perhaps forgot to mention his own country – the fact that Maoist insurgency in Nepal has killed about 15000 civilians. The socialism is dead if there is no meaningful conclusion out of this. India environment is an issue, but last two decades has been huge. If Nepal had tried it, instead of killing civilians, they would be one of the finest countries in this part of the world.
There’s a lot of bullshit about Brazil in this article. Many environmentalists in Brazil supported Marina Silva (and many didn’t), an ex-environmental minister and a new darling of the Financial Times. Environmental rethoric in Brazil is being hijacked exactly by the neo-liberal people who couldn’t care less about the environment but find it expedient to use the rethoric to score points against Dilma Roussef. Deforestation in Brazil is now much less than it was when Marina was in charge, from 2003 to 2008; and in 2014 was the lowest on record, apart from 2012, and this is the work of the present government.
they don’t like referendums either
Nothing new, yet another ignorant socialist propagandist equating capitalism with preying on the poor. I’m sure socialism will work, if you just get another shot at trying, with a fresh bunch of psychopath socialist elite dictators. Right? If it has never worked, despite endless numbers of destroyed countries, the true believer draws the conclusion that it worth trying again. And again.
Realize that what you call capitalism is really socialism or fascism. Free market capitalism is NOT what we see in action in the west, however much you would love that to be the case. It is simply not true. Big government, central planning, extreme taxation etc is hardly anything but pure socialism. You are embarassingly ignorant or simply dishones. Please get educated.
@Mario Medjeral,
Greetings and agree with you from the frozen northeast of Euskal Herria (maybe you and I are not so far apart).
Yes, they are already threatening and trying to scare people again, as occurred when Papandreou tried to hold elections and finished out of the way and replaced by technocrats.
The problem is that people are not stupid, people may be frightened at that time about what could happen, but not now after several years of slavery. After all, what they have to lose? The IMF denied the funds? What about that new fund of BRICS? Alternatives to the group of gangsters are beginning to take shape.
In Greece began the idea of democracy and may be in Greece begins the awakening of the people and bring the beginning of the end of this mafia business called EU.
Spain will follow in the election of the new year that begins.
It is not wrong to be united, especially when threatened by a hegemon, but you have to break the chains.
Fuera la mafia!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruEUCwVgHdk
To the Croat
I am Croatian just so you know.
Croatia today is what happens when you cesead the right to think for your self.At that point every lie sounds like truth.Than again everybody sees the writing on the wall and thay all try to protect their interests without understanding that neighbour pays.
For Croats,Why would anybody buy shares in a bancropt company.That is what EU and US is.
Croat living in Canada.(another fascist state).
Now for my own coment.Yes,I am the Croat.
I love reading the comments sometimes more than articles.That is the first thing I go to.
I like to get a picture of who is reading this.So now I drop the bomb.(I am not a troll).
Is Putin Antychrist.(give it some thought.)
Now his actions will prove one way or other.
Are powers that be preparing the armagedon.
Is Gog and Magog (Russia and China).
It would be such a shame if they were.
It is Christianity being attacked.
I came upon this gem. It reminded me of the GULag economic structures of the USSR.
The Prison State of America
Prisons employ and exploit the ideal worker. Prisoners do not receive benefits or pensions. They are not paid overtime. They are forbidden to organize and strike. They must show up on time. They are not paid for sick days or granted vacations. They cannot formally complain about working conditions or safety hazards. If they are disobedient, or attempt to protest their pitiful wages, they lose their jobs and can be sent to isolation cells. The roughly 1 million prisoners who work for corporations and government industries in the American prison system are models for what the corporate state expects us all to become. And corporations have no intention of permitting prison reforms that would reduce the size of their bonded workforce. In fact, they are seeking to replicate these conditions throughout the society.
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/the-prison-state-of-america/
In Greece… A coalition,and a divided nation.
The same in Germany,Britain and many other countries.
Britain kept the Pound rather than use the Euro,it knew what was about to happen.
The EEC was an economic barrier free trade group which then became a union as EU.
I believe the EU was hijacked by the US and the EURO was created to dissolve national sovereignty thereby placing all the power in Brussels.
As we can see,a country joins the EU,joins Nato and all political and military decisions are made in Washington.
Look at the pressure put on the previous leaders of Greece,that is no democracy,as soon as there is talk of leaving the EU and bringing back the Drachma,all hell breaks loose.
If ever a true leader emerges in Greece they could return to the Drachma and buy back(nationlize) all those privatized national assets.
BUT… present day leaders only talk of re-negotiating,so you can bet the deals are done already,so Greek youth will continue to have their future destroyed by the ‘haves’.
cheers.
capitalism and poor: our town council made it not only a crime to be poor but a crime to help the poor. Looks like there is going to be a big fight. The What Would Jesus People have been feeding the homeless for 20 years in a small park near where many find shelter. Recently the council decided to ban this–after finding a church for a while nearby which is now being turned into upscale apartments, the WWJD folks are faced with jail terms just to walk their talk.
Ultimately, this is a moral/economic issue and I find myself agreeing with the Croat.about this current state of affairs in the world ( zeitgeist) being an attack on Christianity but also must add that this is an attack on universal principles that work across all cultures to keep human society functional. Resist, resist resist.(
I receooend a very good, unique article which contains new insight: http://sprottglobal.com/thoughts/articles/can-petrodollar-survive-low-interest-rates/
Greetings from France -1deg:
elsi said…
@Mario Medjeral,
Greetings and agree with you from the frozen northeast of Euskal Herria (maybe you and I are not so far apart).
Vivimos cerca de Auch, unas 3 horas de la frontera.
Saludos
Mario Jose Medjeral
Well, Putin and Russia can rest for a while, has emerged a new monster that threatens….the radical left! …. OMG! …. We are notified from every television ….. from JP Morgan ….. they, the greeks will be withdrawn all funds …… Greece will have to leave the euro… will be chaos ….. panic in the markets … Oh, really? Do not tell me that finally fear will change sides? You, banksters, you have permission to start committing suicide, we do not care, as you just gave them all those who committed suicide, hopeless, in Greece.
People of Greece come on, all with SYRIZA to sweep the polls on January 25, without fear, with hope, yes, you can!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXR-quLd8C0
Part one:
I know many suffer in this world. I am interested in local economies and this is my take on the political discussions going on here. We need to regain control of our small communities to survive. They are the building blocks that make up the nation. Start with the cells in the body to eliminate the national cancer. Regain what was lost and force the center to comply.
To understand what a local community is like, you must start by imagining it does _not_ exist. Look at the alternative, that is your point of reference. If you want a road, you must build it yourself. Better to cooperate with the neighbours and build the road for a fraction of the cost. To be exact, the road is not a cost, it is a longterm _investment_ and everybody can use it. The new road makes trade och social life possible. One thing leads to another and soon there is a marketplace, a church, a school and hopefully a doctor. All these projects pay off and perform better than any modern company, profits are in thousands of percent, but we don’t see it, we only think local taxes are too high. The church and the marketplace are information centrals, making it possible to quickly find a farmhand or a horse, for instance. Money starts rolling and young people meet and get married. Regional trade is the next step and specialized workers can move in. A blacksmith and a shoemaker, perhaps a tailor. This happened to a large extent in Europe a long time ago, but in the Americas it happened mostly in the 19th century (?), so I guess this is best understood in the new world. In the US, this was when international capitalism had not taken over.
Capitalism bleads us dry, but it is not european. Better to say it is an elite idea and the elite took control of its subjects before it started looting other countries. Empire always starts at home. If the Brits or the Americans had not been domesticated, there would have been no empire.
Europeans traditionally lived in extended families on farms. 10-20 individuals could live on a small farm. All hands were needed to survive and all had a place in the collective. Old women knitted socks and told stories and young children ran errands. Old men gave advice. All were needed. All had an interest in the success of the farm and they shared. On three small farms in a village there lived altogether 60 individuals and the local council was powerful and did not take orders from the government until the end of the 19th century, when the government took over the judicial functions of the council and until the 1920s, when farmers were allowed to cruelly kick out their parents, sisters and brothers. I am lucky enough to have seen the remnants of this system. Though it was partly deformed, it still had soul, and I also saw that in a book of Gabriel Marcia Marquez.
Part two:
During the industrial revolution, young farm boys started working in factories and they did not like what they saw. Gone was the safe collective. This is, imo, one of the reasons for the success of socialist ideas in Europe. A way to revive the past.
Humans have lived in collectives for millennia and our strange age is young. Experts say our bodies and minds were formed during the stone age. Todays environment does not suit us at all.
During a part of the european-asian stone age, there was peace and sometimes abundance, especially for those who had access to rich sea food. It is estimated people worked for about four hours a day. What did they do when they were free? I imagine they had a rich cultural life. Sang songs, told stories and studied the nightsky. They had art, religion and feasts. Whatever system we live under today, capitalism or socialism, my hunch is we would have been better off if we had lived like some of our ancestors several thousand years ago. They had community, peace and culture. We cannot completely recreate a lost age and we should not, this is a new age, but we must do what we can to preserve what is beneficial for us. One way to do that is to remind people of what we have lost.
Anonymous said, “Realize that what you call capitalism is really socialism or fascism. Free market capitalism is NOT what we see in action in the west, however much you would love that to be the case. It is simply not true. Big government, central planning, extreme taxation etc is hardly anything but pure socialism.”
It makes me wish we didn’t have the labels “capitalism, socialism, fascism” at all, since everyone seems to use them to mean something different. If we didn’t have the labels maybe we would actually describe what we think is desirable– and find out that we disagree hardly at all.
I will wade in only regarding “big govt”: It is important to specify what PART of govt you want to be smaller. Social Security? Prosecution of fiscal fraud? Derivatives regulation?
@Mario Medjeral,
Auch, Bugarach….un lugar con mucha energía….
Estoy realmente cerca…. hace tiempo que quiero darme una vuelta por ahí…cualquier día de estos…cuando mejore un poco el tiempo… en primavera quizás.
Saludos para ti y tu familia!
Urte Berri On!
What an expansive and informative post. It is simply unbelievable that those who run Obama and Congress have gone this far with a scheme so reckless. There is about zero public support for this in the United States but the rulers could care less what the public thinks. It’s all about stupid people with entirely too much power.
Reposted at ukrainewar.info
Here is another wonderful post by Pepe Escobar at AsiaTimes.com:
Russia, China mock divide and rule
http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-02-231214.html
Sanctuary One
though doth protest too much
The absolute scam of AGW should be freely discussed because it is the hammer that is being wielded to crush humanity
Carbon is the basis of all life on Earth- period
You are a carbon based life form, I am a carbon based life form
I breathe out carbon, trees and plants take that carbon in and emit oxygen
AGW nonsense will do absolutely nothing to address the many very real issues facing the survival of our species and all species on this planet
“You studied this for 35 years”
sounds like an appeal to authority
which for me, personally, is a complete turn off
No one’s authority is appealing.
The AGW meme needs addressing because it is a huge tool of plunder on so many levels and if that isn’t pointed out- we are in dire, dire straits.
I really wonder at the push to make certain topics taboo….
Modern Global capitalism and socialism both play the same role.
Socialism is the inevitable result of modernity’s public/private dicotomy: “public” (i.e. government) wealth exists for the common good, while “private” property is that which exists for private indulgence, that which an owner can do with as he pleases. Given this understanding, it’s no wonder that many think that a society will become more virtuous the greater the fraction of wealth that is under government control, and that a small ratio of public to private wealth is a sign of selfishness.
The public/private split is itself the direct result of what modernity, not without reason, considers its great accomplishment: the separation of persons from their social roles. In the modern world, such fortunes of land, men, and other resources belong not to individuals but to corporations–governments or businesses. The person who administers them is a civil servant/employee of the corporate owner. His actual property is just the tiny house and salary the corporation gives him in compensation for his work.
This system has its advantages, especially from the point of view of Weberian rationalization. The corporation can appoint/elect the most talented administrator and fire incompetent ones without being hindered by property and inheritance law.
The disadvantage is less obvious but no less real: property loses its social function. Once it was an expression of one’s social role; now it has no social function whatsoever. It functions only as an incentive; it exists only to serve its owner’s material needs, desires, or caprices. The very meaning of “mine” changes. It has changed so thoroughly that we now recklessly project our novel ideas of property onto past ages.
The feudal arrangement seems evil and inhuman, because we imagine that when a feudal lord said that some land or its inhabitants were “his” that he meant the same thing as a man means today when he says a television set is his, i.e. that it exists solely for his pleasure, and he can smash it to bits if he feels like it.
Premodern man meant no such thing. He had no “private property” in this sense. What he had was a trust: something entrusted to him by his ancestors, something he was bound to pass on unspoiled to his descendents. Not only did he not think of “his” people the way we think of inanimate objects we own, he didn’t even think of inanimate objects the way we do. The land and the estate owned him as much as he owned them.
Anonymous, thank you for such a thoughtful post on the 3d. I’m also struck simply by how little takes place in the home now, and how few are the family activities. The can eat together & do recreation– that’s about it. It used to be a place of production and educating kids & a place to pass on specialized knowledge. It seems by comoarison to have become rather impoverished. I also think it puts a great strain on relationships– having to get everything from just one other adult instead of being surrounded by a community. In Mexico at the village level I was far more socially immersed; seems much healthier.
Something I found wonderful– about how science grows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hEIf-NMu8Y&list=PLjH9zd48xmP9J_4Jah1IHBzmWwEFOG4mJ&index=15
Regards
About the only thing Marx got wrong about capitalism was the belief that the working class would overcome it but then history isn’t over is it? There are still plenty of communist socialist, and anti-capitalist and capitalilsts who are not only recognize the need to revolutionize social relations but personal one’s as well. Capitalism just doesn’t deliver the goods-we need a post capitalist world Call it what you like but that begins with a well needed re-distribution of wealth and a new way to create surplus value and what we do with it. DEMOCRACY might be a good start.
RR