Jeff Nielson has published an article well worth reading on the global financial crisis and its economic consequences. Originally published in The Street, the article explains the alternative strategy Iceland implemented to combat it’s dire situation after the financial meltdown and concludes that Iceland was not only different but right, which in turn suggests that everyone else was wrong. The following is a selection of paragraphs from the full article, which can be found here: Now in what may be the greatest economic “mea culpa” in history, we have the media admitting that this government/banking/propaganda-machine troika has been wrong all along. They have…
Support Wikileaks
Commentary
This section contains posts that comment on issues, events, and ideas of interest to the authors of this blog.
Highs and lows in debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Two recent debates on Democracy Now (here and here) regarding the BDS movement really stand out as remarkable in the history of debates on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In both of these debates, opposition to the BDS movement comes from Rabbi Arthur Waskow. While he is opposed to a BDS movement against Israel, he clearly acknowledges Israel’s flagrant violations of international law and insists that the brutal occupation of Palestinian territory must be brought to an end. For him the only question is how best to do it. Because of this common ground, there is a level of civility and mutual respect…
New ideas for addressing climate change
Bill McKibben, one of the leading environmentalists of our time. has a real talent for taking the latest developments in climate science and explaining their significance in terms that the average person can easily understand. His latest piece in Rolling Stone magazineis no exception. In it, he gives compelling, fact-based reasons for why the prospects for containing global warming are very dim. But he also presents a new idea that just might provide a glimmering of hope. McKibben suggests that the divestment campaign that helped to end the South African apartheid may provide the model for a public campaign to…
Stiglitz on economic inequality
The issue of economic inequality has been receiving quite a lot of attention in the past few months–at least in the progressive media. This is no doubt due in part to the Occupy movement and to the anti-austerity protests in Europe, which have really thrust the issues of inequality and economic justice into the spotlight. More so than at any point in the last several decades, there is a real public thirst for understanding the causes and consequences of economic inequality and what can be done to reverse it. The Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is one of several academics who have…
The sad state of affairs in Texas
The 2012 political platform of the Republican Party of Texas is available online here. The views expressed in this document are both disturbing and depressing. Below are a few highlights. 1. On Education Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind. Knowledge-Based Education –…
Alternatives to capitalism?
In this brief article first published in the Guardian, Richard Wolff, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts and New School University, discusses the amazing success of the Mondragon Corporation of Spain and its potential as a model of social organization in a post-capitalistic economy. Key differences between businesses working within the MC framework and typical corporations are (1) the democratic nature of the decision-making process within the organization and (2) the limits on income inequality between workers. Imagine all businesses in a country working within the MC framework and you have a realistic and intriguing alternative to capitalism. Here…
Singer on religious freedom
Peter Singer has penned an excellent article for Project Syndicate entitled “The Use and Abuse of Religious Freedom.” The background for the article is a recent proposal of the Party for the Animals, the only animal-rights party to be represented in a national parliament. The party has proposed a law requiring that all animals in the Netherlands be stunned before slaughter. In response to this proposal Islamic and Jewish leaders have united and spoken out in defense of their religious freedom, because their religious doctrines prohibit eating meat from animals that are not conscious when killed. But would the proposed law,…
Recent thoughts on the climate crisis
A small sample of some the important things that have been said recently on the state of the climate crisis and the failures of political leaders to address the root causes or even acknowledge the seriousness of the problem: 1. Democracy Now interview with Bill McKibben (environmentalist, author, founder of the remarkable grassroots climate campaign 350.org) 2. Approaching a state shift in the Earth’s biosphere (ground-breaking article in Nature written by over 20 environmental scientists) 3. Is humanity pushing Earth past a tipping point? (a simplified, less technical summary of the aforementioned article in Wired magazine) 4. Democracy Now interview…
Living off the grid in Costa Rica
Al Gore popularized the idea that there is one profoundly inconvenient truth about life in the developed world, namely, that it is unsustainable. His point, which is now common knowledge, is that our societies and economies are based upon the consumption of fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which in turn brings about a cascade of consequences that undermine the very lifestyles that we currently enjoy. In response to Gore, it should be noted that there is also one rather convenient truth that is easily overlooked, namely, that in certain parts of the world at least it…
Global Land Grab (by Terry Allen)
Global Land Grab by Terry Allen, senior editor at In These Times, documents and analyzes the attempts that certain countries (primarily China, India and South Korea) are making to purchase tens of millions of acres of farmland from some of the poorest countries in Africa, South American, and South Asia to grow crops for export. What is taking place is, in effect, a new form of colonialism under the guise of business transactions. Allen writes: The “new colonialism” is less like a crusade and more like an ordinary business transaction floated on a promise of “win-win.” The deal-makers include international agribusinesses, investment banks,…
Population control or population justice?
Over at the National Radio Project, another amazing example of independent media with a social conscience, there is a fascinating audio segment on the question of population control within the context of environmental sustainability (Population Control or Population Justice?). It is (one hopes) becoming increasingly clear that limitless economic expansion is not possible on a planet of finite resources and that if environmental catastrophe is to be avoided human societies need to radically overhaul their economies and abandon the fixation on economic growth. Hence the increasing interest in the concept of de-growth among ecologically oriented economists, people like Herman Daly and…
Sam Harris on racial profiling
Sam Harris is no stranger to controversy, but with his recent defense of racial profiling it seems that he has really stuck his foot on it and alienated a good deal of his former fan-base. Harris suggests that people who are (or look like they are) Muslim should receive a higher level of security screening at airport check-in counters than non-Muslims. Needless to say, this suggestion offends many secular liberals, who may approve of Harris’s spirited attack on religion in general, but not his more specific attack on Islam. To his credit, though, he was willing to engage in debate…
Does Google censor the internet?
The answer is “yes.” The evidence for this comes from a report prepared by Google itself, which will be released next week. According to the Wall Street Journal, the report shows that: Google received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world in the second half of last year to take down items such as YouTube videos and search listings, and it complied with them more than half the time, according to information provided by the company. One example of the sort of censorship Google engages in concerns a request by the Thai government to remove YouTube videos insulting the…
Dean Ornish and enlightened ethical egoism
Ethical egoism is the philosophical theory that people should always act in their own self-interest, that when faced with choices between what’s good for oneself and what’s good for others, one should always place one’s own interests first. One of the chief exponents of this view was Ayn Rand, who influenced a generation of powerful people, including Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, each of whom helped to push forward the neoliberalist agenda that has dominated social and political life since the 1980s. At the heart of neoliberalist philosophy is the idea that greed is good, not just…
Business with a conscience
Every corporation, now matter how socially or environmentally destructive, presents itself as doing something good for consumers, for communities, for the species, or even the planet. Monsanto, for instance, claims to be all about “improving lives” (though notice they don’t say whose lives) and about “meeting the needs of today while preserving the planet for tomorrow.” This overt corporate public relations bullshit (I know that you know that I don’t believe this but I’m going to pretend I do because that’s how I make a lot of money) has led to such profound cynicism that reasonable people have to wonder…
More on economic inequality and the Occupy Movement
Among mainstream or major media organizations Al Jazeera deserves credit for its attention to the issue of economic inequality. One recent opinion piece by Noam Chomsky (Plutonomy and the precariat: On the history of the US economy in decline) provides a concise overview of the causes of the growing economic inequality in the US and the disastrous consequences it is bringing about. (For more on how inequality is at the root most social evils, see this powerful lecture by Richard Wilkinson). Additionally, Chomsky’s article helps to explain just why the Occupy Movement is so important, really one of the most…
Recording everything: digital storage as an enabler of authoritarian governments
The Brookings Institution recently published a paper entitled “Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian Governments“. The executive summary reads as follows: Within the next few years an important threshold will be crossed: For the first time ever, it will become technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders—every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner. Governments with a history of using all of the tools at their disposal to track and monitor their citizens…
Democracy Now
Democracy Now News Feed
- "Dead on Arrival": Doctors Back from Gaza Describe Horrific Hospital Scenes, Decimated Health System May 3, 2024
- "This Militaristic Approach Has Been a Failure": Meet Hala Rharrit, First U.S. Diplomat to Quit over Gaza May 3, 2024
- Headlines for May 3, 2024 May 3, 2024
- "Workers Have Power": Thousands Rally in NYC for May Day, Call for Solidarity with Palestine May 2, 2024
- Amnesty Int'l: Biden Must Halt Weapon Sales to Israel After U.S. Arms Used to Kill Civilians in Gaza May 2, 2024
- Former Brandeis President on Gaza Protests: Schools Must Protect Free Expression on Campus May 2, 2024
- "People Could Have Died": Police Raid UCLA Gaza Protest, Waited as Pro-Israel Mob Attacked Encampment May 2, 2024
Augmented and bot-mediated reality
While Google’s Project Glass has recently generated quite a stir with the possibilities of augmented reality, the idea is not exactly new. In the 1990’s MIT Cyborgs carried around huge backpacks stuffed with computer hardware to remain connected to the digital world via their clunky screen-goggles. Sherry Turkle, an MIT researcher herself, discusses them in an article entitled “Always-on/Always-On-You: The Tethered Self,” which analyzes how augmented reality transforms human interaction into a world in which people are ensnared in round-the-clock digital social networks. Yet the official description for the Google’s Project Glass is just as optimistic as Turkle’s analysis is cynical: We believe technology…
Read more »