Aug 10

“Each capitalist as an independent master of his enterprise is free to manage it at his will, to produce what he thinks profitable or to close the shop when profits are failing. Contrary to the careful organization within the factory there is a complete lack of organization in the totality of social production. The rapid increase of capital through the accumulated profits, the necessity to find profits also for the new capital, urges a rapid increase of production flooding the market with unsaleable goods. Then comes the collapse, reducing not only the profits and destroying the superfluous capital, but also turning the accumulated hosts of workers out of the factories, throwing them upon their own resources or on meagre charity. Then wages are lowered, strikes are ineffective, the mass of the unemployed presses as a heavy weight upon the working conditions. What has been gained by hard fight in times of prosperity is often lost in times of depression.” Anton Pannekoe

Capitalist crisis in a nutshell

Jul 20

“I was caught in a rainstorm last week. I was sitting in my car watching the rain fall on my windshield. I see rain different from you. I see the rain as the tears from the people who are suffering and I need to help them throughout these economic crises. I am here to help those who are hurting.”

Jimmy McMillan, Rent Is Too Damn High Party

from an interview with isidewith.com on his presidential campaign

Jul 16

“My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” Barack Obama, at a meeting with bankers in 2009

As the author of this article says: “Next time he should get out of the way.”

Guardian: Obama himself has never challenged the kind of rapacious capitalism he is desperate to associate with his opponent

Thanks again to Critical Reading

Just a couple of months into his presidency he called a meeting of banking executives. But instead of representing the interests of those who voted for him and had been hardest hit by the crisis – the poor, union members, black people and Latinos – he sided with those who funded him and precipitated the crisis: “I’m not out there to go after you,” he told them. “I’m protecting you.”

As one of the bankers told Ron Suskind inThe Confidence Men: “The sense of everyone after the meeting was relief. The president had us at a moment of real vulnerability. At that point, he could have ordered us to do just about anything and we would have rolled over. But he didn’t – he mostly wanted to help us out, to quell the mob. And the guy we figured we had to thank for that was [Treasury secretary] Tim [Geithner]. He was our man in Washington.” This is what makes Democratic attacks on the business record of Republican presumptive nominee Mitt Romney so difficult to swallow. While their substance is sound and their target deserving, the source makes them hypocritical and opportunistic. The poor do not have “a man in Washington”. Romney deserves to be taken to task. However, it’s not a task the Democrats can credibly undertake since they have been complicit in the very practices for which they criticise him.

May 31

SYRIZA Platform!

Main points of SYRIZA proposals

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Ημερομηνία: 09/05/2012
Συγγραφέας: left.gr

THE EXIT FROM THE CRISIS IS ON THE LEFT

1. Creation of a shield to protect society against the crisis

• Not a single citizen without a guaranteed minimum income or unemployment benefit, medical care, social protection, housing, and access to all services of public utilities.

• Protection of and relief measures for indebted households.

• Price controls and price reductions, VAT reduction, and abolition of VAT on basic-need goods.

2. Disposal of the debt burden

The national debt is first and foremost a product of class relations, and is inhumane in its very essence. It is produced by the tax evasion of the wealthy, the looting of public funds, and the exorbitant procurement of military weapons and equipment.

We are asking immediately for:

• A moratorium on debt servicing.

• Negotiations for debt cancellation, with provisions for the protection of social insurance funds and small savers. This will be pursued by exploiting any available means, such as audit control and suspension of payments.

• Regulation of the remaining debt to include provisions for economic development and employment.

• European regulations on the debt of European states.

• Radical changes to the European Central Bank’s role.

• Prohibition of speculative banking products.

• A pan-European tax on wealth, financial transactions, and profits.

3. Income redistribution, taxation of wealth, and elimination of unnecessary expenses

• Reorganization and consolidation of tax collection mechanisms.

• Taxation of fortunes over 1 million euros and large-scale revenues.

• Gradual increase, up to 45%, of the tax on the distributed profits of corporations (SA).

• Taxation of financial transactions.

• Special taxation on consumption of luxury goods.

• Removal of tax exemptions for ship owners and the Greek Orthodox Church.

• Lifting of confidentiality for banking and merchant transactions, and pursuit of those who evade taxes and social insurance contributions.

• Banning of transactions carried out through offshore companies.

• Pursuit of new financial resources through efficient absorption of European funds, through claims on the payment of German World War II reparations and occupation loan, and finally via steep reductions in military expenses.

4. Productive social and environmental reconstruction

• Nationalization/socialization of banks, and their integration into a public banking system under social and workers’ control, in order to serve developmental purposes. The scandalous recapitalization of the banks must stop immediately.

• Nationalization of all public enterprises of strategic importance that have been privatized so far. Administration of public enterprises based on transparency, social control, and democratic planning. Support for the provision of Public Goods.

• Protection and consolidation of co-operatives and SMEs in the social sector.

• Ecological transformation in development of energy production, manufacturing, tourism, and agriculture. These reforms will prioritize nutritional abundance and fulfillment of social needs.

• Development of scientific research and productive specialization.

5. Stable employment with decent wages and social insurance

The constant degradation of labour rights, coupled with embarrassing wage levels, does not attract investment, development, or employment.

Instead, we are calling for:

• Well-paid, well-regulated, and insured employment.

• Immediate reconstitution of the minimum wage, and reconstitution of real wages

within three years.

• Immediate reconstitution of collective labour agreements.

• Instigation of powerful control mechanisms that will protect employment.

• Systematic opposition of lay-offs and the deregulation of labour relations.

6. Deepening Democracy: democratic political and social rights for all

There is a democratic deficit in the country. Greece is gradually being transformed into an authoritarian police state.

We are calling for:

• The restoration of popular sovereignty and an upgrade of parliamentary power within the political system:

• Creation of a proportional electoral system

• Separation of powers

• Revocation of ministerial immunity

• Abolishment of economic privileges for MPs

• Real decentralization to create local government with sound resources and expanded jurisdiction.

• The introduction of direct democracy and institutions of self-management under workers’ and social control at all levels.

• Measures against political and economic corruption.

• The solidification of democratic, political, and trade union rights.

• The enhancement of women’s and youths’ rights in the family, in employment, and in public administration.

• Immigration reforms:

• Speeding up the asylum process

• Abolition of Dublin II regulations and granting of travel papers to immigrants

• Social inclusion of immigrants and equal rights protection

• Democratic reforms to public administration with the active participation of civil servants.

• The demilitarization and democratization of the Police and the Coast Guard. Disbandment of special forces.

7. Restoration of a strong welfare state

Anti-insurance laws, the shutdown of social services, and the steep fall in social expenditures under the Memorandum have turned Greece into a country where social injustice reigns.

We are in need of:

• An immediate rescue of the pension system, to include tripartite financing and the gradual consolidation of separate pension fund portfolios into one public, universal system of social insurance.

• A raise in unemployment benefits until the substitution rate reaches 80% of the wage. No unemployed person is to be left without unemployment benefits.

• The introduction of a guaranteed minimum income.

• A unified system of comprehensive social protection covering the vulnerable social strata.

8. Health is a Public Good and a social right

Health care is to be provided for free and will be financed through a Public Health System. Immediate measures include:

• Support and upgrades for hospitals. Upgrade of health infrastructures of the Social Insurance Institute (IKA). Development of an integrated system of first-level medical care.

• Covering the needs of medical treatment in both personnel and equipment, in part by stopping lay-offs.

• Open and cost-free access to medical treatment for all residents in the country.

• Free pharmaceutical treatment and medical examinations for low-income pensioners, the unemployed, students, and those suffering from chronic diseases.

9. Protection of public education, research, culture, and sports from the Memorandum’s policies

With regards to education, we are calling for:

• Consolidation of universal, public, and free education, including coverage of its urgent needs in infrastructure and personnel at all three levels.

• Compulsory 14-year unified education.

• Revocation of the Diamantopoulou Law.

• Assurance of self-government for Universities.

• Preservation of the academic and public character of Universities.

10. An independent foreign policy committed to the promotion of peace

The capitulation of our foreign policy to the desires of the U.S. and the powerful states of the European Union endangers the country’s independence, peace, and security.

We propose:

• A multidimensional and peace-seeking foreign policy.

• Disengagement from NATO and closure of foreign military bases on Greek soil.

• Termination of military cooperation with Israel.

• Aiding the Cypriot people in the reunification of the island.

Furthermore, on the basis of international law and the principle of peaceful conflict resolution, we will pursue improvements in Greek-Turkish relations, a solution to the problem of FYROM’s official name, and the specification of Greece’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

The incumbent economic and social system has failed and we must overthrow it!

The economic crisis that is rocking global capitalism has shattered the illusions. More and more, people understand that capitalist speculation is an inhuman organizational principle for modern society. It is also widely acknowledged that that private banks function only for the benefit of the bankers, harming the rest of the people. Big business and bankers absorb billions of euros from health care, education, and pensions.

An exit from the crisis requires bold measures that will prevent those who created the crisis from continuing their destructive work. We are endorsing a new model for the production and distribution of wealth, one that will include society in its totality. In this respect, the large capitalist property is to be made public and managed democratically along social and ecological criteria. Our strategic aim is socialism with democracy, a system in which all will be entitled to participate in the decision-making process.

We are changing the future; we are pushing them into the past!

We can prevail by forging unity and creating a new coalition for power with the Left as a cornerstone. Our strength in this endeavour is the alliance of the People: the inspiration, the creative effort, and the struggle of the working people. With these, we will shape the lives and the future of a self-governed people.

Now the vote is in the hands of the People! Now the People have the power!

In this new election, the Greek people can and must vote against the regime of the Memoranda and the Troika, thus turning over a new page of hope and optimism for the future.

For Greece and for Europe, the solution is with the Left!

Original Article

May 29

David Harvey: 'The financial crisis is an urban crisis' - video

love the bit about China’s urbanization

May 13

French leftist Melenchon to challenge Right-wing Le Pen for the seat in her home town

Boom - this is how it’s done. Some guts in electoral politics

French left-wing party leader Jean-Luc Melenchon says he will run for the same seat as far-right rival Marine Le Pen in the forthcoming parliamentary polls.

Mr Melenchon says he will stand in the working-class town of Henin-Beaumont, near Calais, where Ms Le Pen resides.

Apr 4

Pensioner shoots himself at Greek Parliament, refuses to 'search for food in garbage'

servile-masses-arise:

“A 77-year-old Greek man has committed suicide in central Athens by the nation’s parliament, shooting himself with a handgun in apparent financial desperation.

Eyewitness reports say that the man shouted “So I won’t leave debts for my children” before turning the gun on himself. ”

This is so tragic.

The future of Greece is scary to imagine. I’ve also, however, been terribly distressed by the pension cuts. How can one say that a society is functioning properly, that an economy and a state is serving people properly, that a democracy is truly functioning for the benefit of the people when someone who has worked for DECADES is ROBBED by pension cuts?

What can one say to a retired Greek worker who has slaved away their entire life to live out their last years in peace and security, when the pension fund evaporates on the world market?

It’s just gone?

Your government was “irresponsible”?

Your people are “lazy”?

You all “deserve” this austerity?

Bullshit.

This is punishment. It’s absolutely despicable.

Not only have the fruits of their labor been robbed from them for decades, owned and controlled by profiteers and gamblers, but now their dignity - their humanity - is being dragged through the mud. The older generation, whose sweat and blood literally passed society on to our generations, is being left to wither and die in squalor.

What disrespect.

I should be ashamed at every inch of ground ceded to an austerity campaign.

We all should at least feel the shock and alarm of dispossession.

No cuts. No fly-by-night operations slowly and secretly stealing all that’s good in our society. No compliance with outright calls to disposes the people for the preservation of a sick system.

I pray that I do not spend my life working and fighting for a better future for all children only to kill myself in dispare at the sight of our society.

I will remember this man in Greece who died just today.

I will remember the woman in Italy, who jumped from her apartment window just yesterday when her pension was cut by 25%, from 800 euros to a mere 600. How can one live with dignity on such a meager sum?

This is disrespectful, inhumane, and unjust. It is wrong, and we all know it to be wrong.

In his suicide note, the man alluded to a day when young Greeks will take up arms against their government and hang their leaders in the street like the fascists of days gone by.

Are our democracies so inept, so distant and ineffective that they must be directly resisted? Renewed? Violently destroyed?

These are grave and serious questions.

These suicides, however, express with horrifying clarity how grave and serious these times are. We must remember with solemn clarity all the horrors of the collapse of our system.

I, personally, am tired of talking and writing.

I will continue, of course, to talk and write with friends and comrades and people in general online and elsewhere…

But now we must organize and act.

I must organize and act

I’m sick of it.

…

haha…

It’s like the famous Howard Beele speech from the movie Network:

“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take it anymore!”

Organize.

Let’s get this shit going.

The time is now and we have to act.

…It’s clearer to me know than it has ever been before: what will we give to our children? Will I be able to face my children in my old age, and honestly say that I’d done my best to give them a good world to live in?

It comes from a feeling.

I knowing

Not just in your head

but in your gut

In your heart

We must act.

We must

The steadfast determination to respond to the suffering and injustice.

Grounded in knowing it.

We must respond.

Mar 25

Green energy won’t save the earth without social change

Why don’t the new sources replace the old? York identifies two key reasons: the inertia of a huge existing fossil-fuel infrastructure, and the power and influence of the coal and oil corporations.

“The failure of non-fossil energy sources to displace fossil ones is probably in part attributable to the established energy system where there is a lock-in to using fossil fuels as the base energy source because of their long-standing prevalence and existing infrastructure and to the political and economic power of the fossil-fuel industry.”

Nov 10

Communist Auto Worker Explains Capitalism & Racism

A clip from the film “Finally Got The News” which features Black autoworkers involved in the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM)

The End of Empire

Dismantle oppression. Deepen democracy. Destroy tyranny.