September 25, 2011 by mike.

It’s a live feed, for as long as it lasts or as long as they loop the footage, so the activity and engagement level varies depending on what is going on at any given moment, but thought I would embed the video in case you want to plug in for a minute or two and “be present at this moment” in the Wall Street occupation.

I think it’s fair to say that the corporate media coverage of this real occupation is very slight, but they will jump and run to cover a tea party event funded by right wing plutocrats. Connect the dots, Kemosabe. Catapult the propaganda.

Posted in Financial Crimes, Eco Criminals, News, Politics, Connect the Dots | Print | 1 Comment »

August 31, 2011 by mike.

The Young Turks have an entertaining video up from a town hall meeting with Representative Hultgren.

It’s short and tells the story.

The woman asks the right question about the Bush tax cuts, prosperity and job creation. The same question could/should be asked in a broader time frame. Since 1980, the tax table has been flattened in the model that Reagan and his acolytes have wanted and if this model worked to create prosperity, where is the prosperity? Why don’t we look at the tax model that existed in the time frame that created prosperity? The Eisenhower era tax table had tremendous incentives for businesses and the wealthy to invest in infrastructure instead of facing a top tax rate of 91% (essentially confiscatory at the obscene income range). There is no incentive now for business leaders and planners to invest in their businesses when they can take huge bonuses instead and try to keep up with the Madoffs in a contest of conspicuous consumption. Fix the tax structure, fix the economy. Get the incentives right and things will turn around.

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August 21, 2011 by mike.

RSA - Ideas and Actions for a 21st Century Enlightenment

Uh-oh, it’s a marxist analysis.  Hey, can Marx have things figured out correctly from time to time?

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June 23, 2011 by mike.

It’s hard to sort the information on the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant Story, but for context, here are a couple of items to consider:

• KETV 7 in Omaha ran a story on March 31, 2011 that stated that Fort Calhoun is “one of three reactors across the country that federal regulators said they are most concerned about.”

• On June 6, 2011, the FAA issued a notice banning air flight in a 2 mile radius around Fort Calhoun.

• On June 7, 2011, there was an accident/fire of some sort at the plant.  It may have been a small matter, but like turning off the valves at Chernobyl, sometimes small matters at nuclear plants become big matters when the engineering systems develop issues.

• Business Insider has a poorly written piece (sorry, ricky, but who is OPPD?) from Jun 15, 2011 that has some good time line info and some video coverage.  OPPD is reported to have requested the video coverage not be aired.  (Omaha Public Power District) per coverage from Henry Blodget, also Business Insider story.

• Here’s an interesting story from AP that the local Olympia newspaper that covers the weakening of regulation to accommodate an aging and possibly unsafe nuclear energy industry.  (privatized profit, socialized risk model in action)

The timelines and stories, particularly the foreign coverage, do not fit together well, but the March story suggests context that Fort Calhoun is a worrisome plant.  The pictures of the plant surrounded by the Missouri River reinforce that context.  If you are interested in responsible, accurate coverage of the story, I would go with Pro Publica’s coverage.  It does not have the political edge and mission of the foreign coverage and it is likely to be more forthright that the corporate media coverage of nuclear accident stories.Another wrinkle in this story is the report that dry storage is outside the containment area and half-submerged.  True?  Maybe.  A well-informed citizenry needs to study important issues with a keen eye.  Or you can watch Fox News if you want Corporate Infotainment.

The real story, and it is being severely under-reported is that the flooding, like the tornadoes this year, is that these events are driven by global warming and climate change.  Another aspect of this story is that the nuclear industry is trying to increase its US energy future by noting the low level of greenhouse gas emissions.  But as Chernobyl made so clear, nuclear emissions are also a problem.

Posted in Eco Criminals, Financial Crimes, News, Politics, Small Foot Print, Connect the Dots, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »

June 22, 2011 by mike.

The Nation is picking up a story about a nuclear plant problem in Nebraska from news sources in Russia and Pakistan.  The story is that flood waters have created a problem for the plant and that the Obama administration has engineered a news blackout on the problem.  I don’t know which part of this story is the bigger story.

Read it at The Nation here.

There is also some buzz out there about ocean extinctions.   An Hour Ago India - DNA Daily News Analysis - has some pretty good coverage of that story.

I don’t know how worried to get about these stories.  There should be some balance between the level of worry and my ability to address the underlying problems.  Chicken Little is a cautionary tale about sounding the alarm, as is the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Chicken Little is a story that teaches courage, but maybe courage is sometimes sounding the alarm and risking ridicule?

It’s a real problem with slow-moving disasters that it’s very hard for a person to time the alarm.  I live on a particularly dangerous kind of tectonic plate that promises a large earth quake someday (think Fukushima style), but sounding an alarm is difficult to time with earthquakes.

So, a couple of alarms:

• On ocean extinctions, the timing is easier to see.  It’s time to sound the alarm.  If the oceans aren’t healthy, the planet is not healthy and the oceans are not healthy.

• Nuclear energy - not a good idea.  Not safe in the short term or the long term.  Ordering a blackout of news coverage does not change that equation.  And it is not courageous to order a news blackout, it is cowardly.

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June 5, 2011 by mike.

I posted the first 4 points about organizing here.  This is my condensed presentation of the 14 pages, the full presentation that is available here.  This website title - The End of Capitalism - suggests that the folks behind this project are thinking like I am.  I think that unfettered capitalism, free market globalism, is an abject failure.  Read and think carefully.  I think that free market energy, style, human waves of fashion and style, free enterprise are forces like weather.  They do good things if they are harnessed and fettered. Free market globalism, the elevation of the free market as an end in itself, the commodification of the natural world, the exploitation of people and nature that is a natural byproduct of unfettered, unregulated free market economy is a bad thing.  Environmental degradation, exploitation of individuals are economic activities that can be very profitable. Regulation of free markets, of globalism, runaway capitalism must happen or we face a bleak future.  There are powerful, minority forces working against regulation and for profit as the primary goal.  I hope the end of that form of capitalism is coming.

Ok, back to the Organizing Points.  I did the first four points in Part I.  I expect this will take 3 parts, so here we go:  Part II.

5.  What Does Solidarity Mean, Especially with the Immigrant Justice Movement?

A. Solidarity is not just financial or administrative support of other people’s struggles but fundamentally recognizing the ways in which we all would benefit by the successes of movements of oppressed people

B. Demonstrating an active notion of solidarity where people with privilege don’t sideline themselves but instead endeavor the difficult task of both providing and respecting other’s leadership in the movement

C. Managing the conflict between political analysis and understanding of successful movement building strategies and letting local immigrant communities set the terms of their movement

6.  What Is the State of the Struggle Today, Particularly Internationally

A. National liberation struggles are not the primary mode of struggle today because capitalist globalization has weakened the state as a means of achieving self- determination

B. “Three-way fight” politics argue that the struggle today consists of the global capitalist/imperialist ruling class (of liberal, moderate, and conservative persuasions), the revolutionary left, and the revolutionary right (al-Qaeda, neo-Nazis, etc.) See www.threewayfight.blogspot.com for background
C. Recognizing ideas about direct and participatory forms of democracy that arise from local and indigenous traditions of self-governance and self-management and the under- theorized state of the the struggle

7.  How Do We Organize Simultaneously on Local, Regional, National, and International Levels?

A.  Many activists express the desire to organize as a national or international movement, but are not certain how to make the connections.

B.  We need to continue to make connections between groups that are arising and working toward closely aligned goals.

C. We can look at various organizations that have made headway with local, regional and inter/national organizing. These include Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that is largely active on college campuses, Northeast Federation of Anarcho-communists (NEFAC) that is active in union organization in Boston and Montreal, and Project South, a Black training and leadership development group based in Atlanta, that was key to the 2007 US Social Forum.

The underlying piece at the End of Capitalism is from November 2009 so it is a little dated.  The Social Forums and events like the April 2011 Power Shift conference may reflect the current best practice for organizing simultaneously at local, regional, national and international levels.

The solutions and changes that we desire require that we work in cooperative manner.  With an open attitude toward groups whose ideas and tactics may make us uncomfortable, but whose visions and goals are closely aligned with our own.  Liberals, progressives, radicals, whatever we choose to call ourselves are not a group that likes to walk in lockstep.  We must demonstrate solidarity and resist a puritanical call for any distinct set of ideas or tactics that are mandatory or absolutely prohibited.  I would suggest in this regard that points 3. C. and 3. E. are very important to keep in mind.

We must

3. C.   Maintain relationships with other activists and groups who may not have engaged in the same tactics but who remained committed and sympathetic

3. E. Build mass movements where militant tactics can be present without dividing the movement

I don’t need to stress 3. D. about helping increase militancy because I am pretty mainstream in my radicalism.  I am in touch with enough folks who share my visions and goals and are more militant in their tactics, so 3. D. is not critical to me.

I do not feel that I can tell the more militant that their tactics are wrong.  We face police in riot gear at peaceful demonstrations as a regular event.  We can get roughed up and arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial.  We face an electoral system that is wildly degraded now by unlimited corporate money and that continues to resist the accountability of paper ballots that can be used to make sure that votes are counted accurately. In this environment, I am not certain about how we should proceed, but I think we liberals, progressives, and radicals need to proceed together, in solidarity.

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June 1, 2011 by mike.

It can be done.  The world we want is available.  Vermont has enacted a single payer medical care system.  Right here in the US, a state has established the medical system that would fix so much that is wrong with our health care system.  I think we can count on the free market medical care and corporate insurance interests to do everything in their power to make this system fail.  There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.  Is this the time?  I hope so.

Some links to read more about this experiment:

• Stephen Lendman piece at South Bay Indy Media
• Green Mountain care piece in American Medical News
• The push back will look like this WSJ piece or worse, I will let you find the worse, it’s out there

This experiment and push toward socialized medicine is a david and goliath battle.  Enacting legislation like this is radical. What does it mean to be radical?  A couple of bits to consider:

• (esp. of change or action) Relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough
• A person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims
• Of or relating to the root of something, in particular

Maintaining the roots of health care in the free market capitalism of health insurance profits, flattened tax rates, and annual CEO bonuses is not a reasonable formula for improving the health care system of the United States.  The change that is needed is radical.

Talking about commitment to a robust public option and failing to actually enact any public option is a capitulation to a health care system rooted in free market capitalism, a system that arguably profits from misery.  I want radical change.  I want a health care system rooted in an idea like Medicare for All.  Pose it as a pro-life scheme if you like.  I want fetuses to have Medicare coverage.

Is that radical?  I hope it is. I am a radical.

On to power generation:

Earth Times reports that Scotland has committed to 100% renewable energy grid by 2020.  That’s daring, courageous, and radical.  I am down with that.

The Beeb is covering the story that Angela Merkel has decided that nuclear power is not the future for Germany.  There is a strong environmental movement in Germany that has opposed nuclear energy.  The Chernobyl nuclear disaster gave that movement a lot of energy. The recent failure of planning and engineering at Fukushima has turned up the heat.  Merkel’s party lost recent elections and I think Merkel is making a politically wise and calculated decision.  The position that Merkel has staked out is radical.

What are the chances that the US could make these kind of radical decisions regarding power generation?  I make them slim to none.  American radicals live in the heart of the beast.

Che said he envied our position:  “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all – you live in the heart of the beast.” - Che Guevara

The fight does not have to be violent, unlawful, but it will be radical if it has any chance of effecting real change.  Thank you, Che, for reminding us why the struggle for radical politics is important.

One more quote from one of my heroes:

I. F. Stone- “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing—for the sheer fun and joy of it—to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it.”

It’s hump day, go get’m.

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May 30, 2011 by mike.

Tacoma activist Arthur M sent along an email and link about organizing that I think is right on.  Thanks, friend.

Here is the link if you want to read the whole article.  It’s 14 pages and I recognize that we live in a world of tweets and sparkle fingers today, so I want to tweet this article down a bit.

It’s funny, email seems so 1999 now.  I still rely on email and I do not like telephone calls or telephones, but emails seem superfluous to blogging and the resultant give and take. Now I am thinking/wondering if blogging is becoming superfluous, being replaced by more interactive social networking tools.  Not sure about that.  I am continuing to blog, but also becoming more involved in social networking stuff.

Back to Organizing.  Thanks again to The End of Capitalism for this work.  I recommend reading the whole text, but here is Part 1:

“We aren’t done, we’re not leaving, and we’re in this together.”

1. What Is Organizing?

A. How to actually organize and build lasting radical organizations, particularly in terms of maintaining radical politics while reaching beyond insular communities

B. Without a sense of why they are there or a program about which to talk with people, door knocking will yield few productive results

C. Build Dual Power, Confront State Power. Building coalitions, political infrastructure, and visionary, alternative institutions that prefigure the types of social relationships we desire — while simultaneously confronting the state, right-wing social movements, and other forms of institutional oppression. One without the other is insufficient

2. How Do We Build Intergenerational Movements? (A Challenge to Young and Old!)

A. Recognizing that the struggle is for the long haul means that no generation can or should exist in a political vacuum

B. Most people do not work in productively intergenerational groups or live intergenerational lives outside tightly circumscribed roles (e.g., teacher-student)

C. We have a responsibility to find and work with the teenage radicals who are just now becoming political conscious and active

3. What Role Do Militancy and Confrontation Play?

A. People want to not just register their dissatisfaction with the war through petitions and periodic protests but actually end it

B. Develop a strategy that incorporates a sense of direct action in line with the state of local movement

C. Maintain relationships with other activists and groups who may not have engaged in the same tactics but who remained committed and sympathetic

D. Continually expand the movement numerically, while simultaneously increasing the militancy of those prepared to take risks.

E. Build mass movements where militant tactics can be present without dividing the movement

4. What about Anti-racism and Multiracial Movement Building?

A. The left, like U.S. society in general, remains significantly divided by race, so proactive measures are needed to create multi-racial spaces

B. The relationship of race to gender to class is still a challenging one for many U.S. radicals to grasp and organize around

C. How do we build a radical power base among white people that is profoundly anti-racist to contribute to toppling white supremacy?

I think the groups that M & I are working with in Olympia are very much about 1. C. right now.  I feel good about the dual power.  More of the ten questions sometime soon.

Solidarity.

Posted in Eco Criminals, Financial Crimes, Politics, Connect the Dots, Global Warming, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »

May 28, 2011 by mike.

The Supremes gave orders to California to do something about the prison over-crowding recently.  It was a split 5-4 decision as most controversial decisions will be from the current court because there are 4 strongly conservative ideological votes on the court (alito, roberts, scalia, thomas for those tracking the justices) one swing vote (kennedy) and four liberal ? votes (breyer, ginsburg, kagan and sotomayor).  The court reflects the country these days.

This decision is really much ado about nothing. Like the Obama health care plan, tweaking the current prison system will keep bureaucrats busy, but these changes will not produce the significant change that is needed in these systems.  With health care, it is clear that the for-profit health care system needs to be forced to compete head to head with Medicare for Everyone.  Health care accounts for 17.6% of the national economy according to recent studies. That chunk of the economy is currently firmly in the “for profit” category and the folks enjoying the profits of health care are the industry captains, the chiefs and CEOs who control the economics and availability of care.  They are not giving these profits up without a fight.

Vermont threw down the gauntlet and has enacted single payer medical care.  California legislators have sent this kind of law to the governor twice and The Guvenator vetoed the legislation twice.  Hey, CA, send the legislation to Governor Brown if you are serious about this.   Anyway, the battle to focus the health care industry on health care instead of corporate profits is very interesting, but let’s get back to prison economics.

The situation with the prison industry is very similar to the health care industry situation.  We are talking about systems that have relegated their primary mission (corrections or health care delivery) to a profit mission.  Certain systems just don’t work as well in private industry as they do in a non-profit or public sector system.  Think about fire departments.  This country has experimented with for-profit fire departments and has generally decided that the profits of understaffing fire response does not work out well.  Prisons could work for public safety, for prosperous communities if they were structured correctly.  But let’s not kid ourselves, the prison system in place in the US is about social control, it is not about public safety.

Look at the racial disparity of incarceration.  Need to see a graphic?

I think the statistical evidence is clear that incarceration in the US is primarily about social control, it is not about public safety. That is the public policy foundation in this system. But the prison industry is also largely privatized by the Reagan revolution, the corporatization of the republic. If you need some particulars, look at these links:

• Private prison economics
• Three Strikes, you’re in for life
• Incarceration Nation

It’s not hard to see that prisons in the US are not about justice or public safety, they are about social control and profit, but there is another way.  Coming next.

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May 25, 2011 by mike.

Thanks to Move On.  Also, thanks to Don at Wa Liberals for sharing this video.

Disclaimer:  some other mike, not small blue mike, not mikewmd, not olymike. That’s not me in the video.  I don’t have that much hair.  But the mikes stick together, so here it comes:

You are up, Big Mike!  Break it down for us.

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