Vote for University of Chicago disaster capitalism, get University of Chicago disaster capitalism.

The current crisis in the UC system came up again and again at the recession conference this weekend, and not only because a certain former Duke Lit student seems to have the uncanny ability to insert himself, Where’s-Waldo-style, in the center of  every photo coming out of the student protests. How the University Works had a nice post of all this, focused on the occupation of Wheeler Hall at Berkeley and the protests at UCLA. Democracy Now has an even better video report on the protests, as well great attention to the fiscal origins of the crisis. This open letter to Chancellor Birgeneau, holding him personally responsible for the police violence on campus, is making the rounds as well.

I don’t have much to add to all this except to reiterate the necessary structural point about the emergence of the corporate university that is being made by so many. There’s something closely akin to Naomi Klein’s famous “shock doctrine” currently going on in California’s university system; a fundamentally political crisis, caused by deeply flawed governmental institutions and bad decisions going back decades, is being misrecognized as a force of nature, something we must learn to be “realistic” about as we begin to make the “tough decisions.” This is how neoliberalism does its work. As zunguzungu puts it in the link above:

This is not, however, the difference between idealism and realism, even if that’s how the media has spun it. If you heard NPR’s account of the Chancellor’s meeting this morning, for example, you’ll note that they staged it as a conversation between students demanding money and Yudof saying the money was unavailable. One voice naively demands to be given more while the other voice regretfully and knowingly informs them that it just isn’t realistic. The reason this account is wrong is the same reason the UCSB Academic Senate officially called Yudof “a cynical opportunist with no commitment to education” and voted to censure him. As they put it, “UCOP has misrepresented the real nature of the University’s financial situation…The state cutbacks, though significant, are being used as an excuse to proceed aggressively with further steps toward transforming the University from a public resource, dedicated to the education of the people of California and the pursuit of knowledge, into a profit-making enterprise, a research facility of benefit primarily to industry and beholden primarily to commercial interests.” The university keeps spending money, on lots of things. And the situation is complicated; there are real fiscal limitations to what can be done, just as part of learning to be a teacher is figuring out how to limit what you can give, out of self-preservation. But it’s how those decisions get made, what principles you use to decide how the money gets spent, that determines the difference between an educator and a businessperson. Because you don’t want to go to, or send your kids to, a school that makes its decisions based on the bottom line.

…the best example of the bad educator is the administrator who, instead of thinking of what needs to be done for the students of the UC system, capitalizes on a crisis of funding to make those students into the cash cow for making the UC profitable. The difference is not between idealism and realism but between two very different sets of priorities, between the social function of education (educating students) and the economic function of being profitable. And that was why Yudof’s ridiculous “cemetery” line was so damningly telling: to make room for a corporation, you have to bury the school first.

The current situation—and, I suppose, this very post—is also yet another instance of the status update activism I discussed in my first HASTAC post back in August. Everything I know about the student movements in California, and all the links above, came to me through Facebook and Twitter.

So what sort of person should regulate commercial media? Would your answer include any of these-

*Enthusiastic & highly active member of the Conservative party who in her debut PCC speech makes clear her allegiances to Cameron’s tribe, so press regulation under a tory government, hmm do you suppose it might favour the ruling party while allowing attacks on opponents?

*A Baroness, oh what a democratic meritocracy we have…

*A former Chief Executive of the Advertising Association of who fought to make the media more useful to advertisers (and more hostile to those without a profit motive, y’know, health & welfare of human beings and the planet kinda thing) working with another tory who also worked for News International-

Vigorous campaigns by highly organised pressure groups such as Sustain have questioned the way young people are targeted by advertisers. Then there are Ofcom’s new TV advertising rules on promoting HFSS (high in fat, salt and sugar) foods to children. These already apply to under-nines. Next year this will extend to under-16s.

The advertising of toys to children is widely believed to be the next target for campaigners and the rise of the environmental lobby means car ads are coming under scrutiny too.

So the £16bn industry is hitting back, and the AA is leading the charge. In addition to Buscombe, the AA has brought in Jonathan Collett, a veteran of both the Tory party and News International, to fill a newly created comms and strategy adviser role.

Buscombe says: ‘Political correctness makes us a diminished people: we shy away from what needs to be said. There’s a “PC creep” that has come in. We’re frightened of being misunderstood. This means private prejudices could be entrenched – the classic one is immigration.’ A pause. ‘But we’re getting off advertising.’

Ooh, she’ll be oh so effective when the tabloids stir up race hatred with migrant bashing, won’t she? Collett is being brought in by Buscombe to the PCC-

Jonathan Collett takes up his position -Director of Communications- on 23 November, having worked as head of comms at the Advertising Association for two years.Collett was formerly public affairs manager at News International. He has also been press spokesman for Michael Howard, when he was leader of the Conservative Party.

So that’s pretty well much a takeover of the PCC by advertising, Conservatives… & Murdoch? (also makes the theory that Cameron has agreed a shopping list of Murdoch wants to implement when in power in return for support from Murdoch’s media seem not so far fetched) But really, conflict of interest much? She was a partisan for -right wing- business interests and now sits in judgement on the media.

*Wealthy, this ones sort of goes without comment most of the time, in a country with a Royal Family going on about class or money is such bad manners, but status subtly informs its own biases, wealthy people by and large do not empathise with poor, sick or unemployed people. So the press coverage that attacks them will similarly continue to go unchallenged in any official capacity, added to that she has an ideological enmity for marginalised groups, it’s a perfect storm of corporate business as usual.

So the largely ineffectual PCC will be even more ineffectual under Baroness Peta Jane Buscombe, giving us less redress against bad reporting and corporate bias while at the same protecting the Conservative party, probably as it gives Murdoch most of what he wants. In fact she’s so unsuitable there are already calls for her to resign-

A lawyer who gave evidence to the parliamentary committee investigating press behaviour, today called on Baroness Buscombe, the chair of the Press Complaints Commission, to resign. He claimed she had published what were termed “extremely serious” false allegations against him.

Solicitor Mark Lewis earlier this year, in testimony to the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee, gave an account of a conversation he had with police, alleging that “thousands” of people were targeted by phone hacking.

Buscombe claimed at the weekend that police had been misquoted in oral evidence to the committee. She said: “Any suggestion that a parliamentary inquiry has been misled is of course an extremely serious matter.”

In a letter to Buscombe and to the chairman of the parliamentary committee, Lewis said today: “You have betrayed any semblance of impartiality and regrettably ought to find yourself in a position where the honourable action would be for you to resign.”

He said the discussion he had with Det Sgt Mark Maberley, from the team investigating the tabloid’s behaviour, had been witnessed by two others, including a barrister who was acting for his client at the time, one of the paper’s victims. Maberley told him there were 6,000 instances of phone hacking, although only one case had been prosecuted, involving the royal reporter Clive Goodman, who subsequently went to jail.

“I am deeply concerned that you have thought it proper to criticise my evidence to the select committee without either having the courtesy or the propriety to put the allegations to me first,” said Lewis. “I regret that your failure to act properly has compromised any veneer of impartiality that you sought to create.”

Lewis added: “My evidence was clear. DS Maberly had told me the 6,000 figure.”

Buscombe said she received a letter from Metropolitan police lawyers, which she did not publish or quote directly. She claimed that it said Maberley, who has not testified either to the PCC or to the parliamentary inquiry, was “wrongly quoted”.

She delivered her allegations while seeking to defend the Press Complaints Commission, which she chairs, at a weekend speech to the Society of Editors. The allegations were held back from a previously circulated text of her speech, and then issued as a public statement at short notice last night.

The PCC has been facing accusations of a whitewash, since it refused to accept new evidence supplied to the parliamentary committee by the Guardian and others, which alleged the News of the World was involved in more instances of phone hacking than merely the Goodman case. In a recent statement, the PCC denied that it had been “materially misled” by accepting previous assurances from the News of the World that Goodman had “acted alone”.

Begins to get a bit more sinister when you factor in she covers up for massive spying by corporations that has yet to be properly investigated (of course surveillance creates its own insurance, when you get the dirt on powerful people they are less likely to have you exposed and banged up). Murdoch, Cameron, Buscombe. The lies about Iraq will seem like the golden days of press truth at this rate.

Update: Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger resigns from PCC code committee I think like the government’s Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs the PCC is now a very lame duck. It’s a good sign, that some are not quite at the point where we give up all semblance of an informed democracy in order to venerate power and demagoguery.

Naomi Klein – A great Journalist!

She has written several books – however, her most mind blowing (I read it myself) is Shock Doctrine:

Take a brief look at what it is about – let me know if you had the same reactions!

By: Brendan Chan, Grade 11

Our society exists in a world where money is everything. Business is everything – this is a world where presidents and CEO’s provide our country with the life we all enjoy. In other words, ours is a society where Friedman’s belief of the global free trade system has been entrenched into our minds; but it wasn’t easy. Although Milton Friedman won a Nobel Prize in economics, his capitalistic ideas weren’t an easy concept to pass, especially since he lived during a time of nationalization. Eventually, Friedman had his way, and his ideas evolved into our current free trade system, where almost everything is owned by a private company. This rise of capitalism is how Friedman created an economic miracle. Yet the majority of people didn’t know the terrible and shocking truth that was the result of Friedman’s ideas.

Milton was a man who believed that having restrictions on companies only slowed them down and didn’t bring out the full potential of the profits that could be made; he had to change how people thought. He did this by using what the CIA calls “cleaning the slate,” or in other words, emptying a person’s mind. As a result of ‘cleaning the slate’, Friedman could fill vulnerable minds with his ideas.

His idea came from a psychiatric practice called shock therapy, created by Dr. Ewen Cameron. In this form of therapy, patients were heavily tortured with drugs, electricity, and sensory deprivation. They were then forced to listen to a message over and over again in order to recreate their personality. Shock therapy was so effective because even the most resistant people would eventually give up, allowing for this mentally-incapacitating form of torture to take over their minds and break their defense. One story that I would like to share is the story of Gail Kastner, a woman in the United States, who was a part of an experiment to measure the effectiveness of shock therapy. The failure resulting is explained by Gail, who says: “The CIA tried to erase and remake me. But it didn’t work.” Unfortunately, Gail lost her “life,” all her memories, and her family disowned her. “[Dr. Cameron and the CIA] did this to me,” she stated in an interview with the author of Shock Doctrine. Another person who was a victim to torture was Juan Miranda, who suffered in Argentina. “They keep you in blindfolds and a hood with your hands and legs in chains, lying down on a foam mattress all day long, in the attic of the prison. Others have their senses starved.”  These were just some of the sad cases used to create a “blank slate,” yet rather than recreating personalities, shock therapy ruined their lives instead.

“For us, the fear and disorder offered real promise,” said Mike Battles, a thirty-four-year old ex-CIA operative. There are opportunities to implement plans that otherwise couldn’t have been implemented. This idea is called the Shock Doctrine, which is how Friedman’s ideas were constituted. Shock Doctrine entails that if one applies many shocks to a country, they will eventually be too exhausted to fight back.

A prime example of this is Pinochet in Chile, and Hurricane Katrina in New  Orleans. Pinochet, a military dictator who was friends with Friedman, led a coup against the president in 1973. During his reign, he deliberately put his country into a depression by privatizing everything. When things went from bad to worse, Friedman advised Pinochet to apply more shocks. Pinochet did, this resulted in a 17% increase in unemployment, a 45% fall of the population below the poverty line, and Chile became the 8^th most unequal country according to the UN. Yet Pinochet’s depression was noted by the New York Times (a private company) as “transforming a bankrupt economy into the most prosperous in Latin America,” although only 10% of Chile had their income increase by 85%.

In New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina became the opportunity that many were waiting for. Joseph Canizaro, a wealthy land developer, said, “We finally cleaned up public housing. We couldn’t do it, but God did. I think we have a clean sheet to start again and with that comes big opportunities.” On the other side where the grass is not as green, Jamar, who lives in a shelter now, comments, “I really don’t see it as cleaning up the city. What I see is that a lot of people got killed that shouldn’t have.” Others that were affected asked “What is wrong with these people? This isn’t an opportunity. It’s a goddamned tragedy. Are they blind?” A mother replied, “No, they’re not blind, they’re evil. They see just fine.” Not only was public housing wiped out, but the natural disaster also allowed for private schools to take over; a form of capitalism. Before Hurricane Katrina, there were 123 public schools. Afterwards, there were only 4, resulting in forty-seven hundred public school teachers to be fired.

In both of these examples, rebelling or fighting back would be extremely difficult. In Pinochet’s case, 3,200 disappeared or were executed, at least 80,000 imprisoned, and 200,000 fled the country. Fear was the main reason for not fighting back, although there were some that did. Rodolfo Walsh and Orlando Letelier both exposed the crimes of Friedman, the CIA, and the military dictators the result wasn’t pretty. Walsh was burned and dumped in a river, and Letelier was blown up by a planted bomb in his car. While in New Orleans, citizens lost everything, meaning they couldn’t fight a government that was their only savior. Ironically, this is how Friedman’s capitalistic system became known as a system that every society should try and emulate.

To put this all into perspective, our praised global free trade system isn’t all that great. People have been killed, depressions were implemented, and natural disasters became opportunities. We, the people, were part of this experiment and used by various corrupt organizations to make a profit. Quoting Robin Hood, “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” This remembrance day, don’t just pray for and remember the soldiers, remember to also pray for the millions of people who died because of one idea. Remember the thousands who’ve been tortured because they fought for our rights; lastly, remember their stories and how corporate privatization still hurts so many people today. “They’re not blind, they’re evil. They see just fine.”

Michael Moore Says Capitalism Killed Newspaper Industry

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9pYp2M4444]

Documentarian Michael Moore argues that media executives have ‘killed’ newspapers by laying off beat reporters, dumbing down news coverage and endorsing “anti-education” Republican political candidates. “They’ve slit their own throats,” claims Moore. “They’ve eliminated the very people they need to read their paper.”

—–

Who are we and why do we behave the way that we do? Writer, director and producer Michael Moore has been trying to answer that question his entire filmmaking career. His latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, investigates the powerful forces behind the calamitous predicament in which countless Americans are finding themselves: losing their homes, jobs and savings to foot the bill for past spending.

What is the price that America – and the rest of the world – pays for its love of capitalism?

Michael Moore: What We’re Seeing is the End of Capitalism

The US has every characteristic of a failed state.

The US government’s current operating budget is dependent on foreign financing and money creation.

Too politically weak to be able to advance its interests through diplomacy, the US relies on terrorism and military aggression.

Costs are out of control, and priorities are skewed in the interest of rich organized interest groups at the expense of the vast majority of citizens. For example, war at all cost, which enriches the armaments industry, the officer corps and the financial firms that handle the war’s financing, takes precedence over the needs of American citizens. There is no money to provide the uninsured with health care, but Pentagon officials have told the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House that every gallon of gasoline delivered to US troops in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $400.

“It is a number that we were not aware of and it is worrisome,” said Rep. John Murtha, chairman of the subcommittee.

According to reports, the US Marines in Afghanistan use 800,000 gallons of gasoline per day. At $400 per gallon, that comes to a $320,000,000 daily fuel bill for the Marines alone. Only a country totally out of control would squander resources in this way.

While the US government squanders $400 per gallon of gasoline in order to kill women and children in Afghanistan, many millions of Americans have lost their jobs and their homes and are experiencing the kind of misery that is the daily life of poor third world peoples. Americans are living in their cars and in public parks. America’s cities, towns, and states are suffering from the costs of economic dislocations and the reduction in tax revenues from the economy’s decline. Yet, Obama has sent more troops to Afghanistan, a country half way around the world that is not a threat to America.

It costs $750,000 per year for each soldier we have in Afghanistan. The soldiers, who are at risk of life and limb, are paid a pittance, but all of the privatized services to the military are rolling in excess profits. One of the great frauds perpetuated on the American people was the privatization of services that the US military traditionally performed for itself. “Our” elected leaders could not resist any opportunity to create at taxpayers’ expense private wealth that could be recycled to politicians in campaign contributions.

Republicans and Democrats on the take from the private insurance companies maintain that the US cannot afford to provide Americans with health care and that cuts must be made even in Social Security and Medicare. So how can the US afford bankrupting wars, much less totally pointless wars that serve no American interest?

The enormous scale of foreign borrowing and money creation necessary to finance Washington’s wars are sending the dollar to historic lows. The dollar has even experienced large declines relative to currencies of third world countries such as Botswana and Brazil. The decline in the dollar’s value reduces the purchasing power of Americans’ already declining incomes.

Despite the lowest level of housing starts in 64 years, the US housing market is flooded with unsold homes, and financial institutions have a huge and rising inventory of foreclosed homes not yet on the market.

Industrial production has collapsed to the level of 1999, wiping out a decade of growth in industrial output.

The enormous bank reserves created by the Federal Reserve are not finding their way into the economy. Instead, the banks are hoarding the reserves as insurance against the fraudulent derivatives that they purchased from the gangster Wall Street investment banks.

The regulatory agencies have been corrupted by private interests. Frontline reports that Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers blocked Brooksley Born, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from regulating derivatives. President Obama rewarded Larry Summers for his idiocy by appointing him Director of the National Economic Council. What this means is that profits for Wall Street will continue to be leeched from the diminishing blood supply of the American economy.

An unmistakable sign of third world despotism is a police force that sees the pubic as the enemy. Thanks to the federal government, our local police forces are now militarized and imbued with hostile attitudes toward the public. SWAT teams have proliferated, and even small towns now have police forces with the firepower of US Special Forces. Summons are increasingly delivered by SWAT teams that tyrannize citizens with broken down doors, a $400 or $500 repair born by the tyrannized resident. Recently a mayor and his family were the recipients of incompetence by the town’s local SWAT team, which mistakenly wrecked the mayor’s home, terrorized his family, and killed the family’s two friendly Labrador dogs.

If a town’s mayor can be treated in this way, what do you think is the fate of the poor white or black? Or the idealistic student who protests his government’s inhumanity?

In any failed state, the greatest threat to the population comes from the government and the police. That is certainly the situation today in the USA. Americans have no greater enemy than their own government. Washington is controlled by interest groups that enrich themselves at the expense of the American people.

The one percent that comprise the superrich are laughing as they say, “let them eat cake.”

Ref: Counterpunch

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

<blockquote><img src=”http://english.aljazeera.net/mritems/Images//2009/10/18/2009101885120477112_8.jpg” alt=”" width=”565″ height=”300″ />
FOCUS
California ‘first failed US state’?
By Rob Reynolds in Los Angeles

More Californians rely on food handouts amid rising unemployment and state benefit cuts [EPA]

On Sunday mornings at Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in the rough-edged Tenderloin district of San Francisco, the sanctuary is always rocking to old-school gospel music.

California crisis

Video: Elderly hit hard by healthcare cuts
Video: Hard times fall on America’s Golden State
“It’s so good to come together,” Pastor Cecil Williams declares. His is a diverse congregation – white and African-American, gay and straight, young and elderly.

For four decades Pastor Williams has been an outspoken advocate for the city’s poor and marginalised. On one bright October Sunday recently, he preached a sermon on compassion and the need for social justice.

“You affirm who you are when you stand up for others in need,” Williams told his flock. “And you can say, we are going to change this old world to a new world.”

But it is a harsh new world in California these days. A state once synonymous with opportunity and prosperity, sunshine and surf, Hollywood and Disneyland have fallen on bitterly hard times.

‘Land of opportunity’

The evidence is no further away than the church basement, where free meals are prepared for homeless and hungry people such as Robert Shirley. He’s been homeless, on and off, for months, he says.

“California was the land of opportunity. You could make it out here,” Shirley says. “Hey, I’m sorry, but California is not that way any more.”

The number of meals served here has jumped 21 per cent since last year. Williams says the free kitchen’s clientele has changed drastically.

“They were people [in food lines] who were carrying briefcases, people who were dressed in suits, people who were dressed up very nicely and had been a part of the middle class”

Robert Shirley, homeless California resident
“They were people who were carrying briefcases, people who were dressed in suits, people who were dressed up very nicely and people who had been a part of the middle class,” he says.

“And we were seeing them come through the lines. And that, of course, was shocking.”

California is the world’s eighth-largest economy, but its unemployment rate is over 12 per cent – the highest in 70 years.

Millions of people lost their homes when the housing bubble burst. Millions more have been thrust into poverty by the recession.

In July, the state legislature haggled for weeks over how to close a $26bn budget gap. Instead of increasing taxes for corporations or the wealthy, the budget deal that emerged to be signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s Republican governor, ordered deep spending cuts, laying off tens of thousands of state workers.

Reduced funding for education, coupled with big tuition increases, sparked a student and faculty strike at California’s public universities. Programmes for ex-prison inmates and parolees have been slashed.

And the social safety net of healthcare and services for the poor, children and elderly – the least powerful and least vocal members of society – has been systematically shredded.

<strong>”The people that are going to be effected first and foremost will be the poor, those who are in great need,” Williams says sadly. “They are not considered to be human beings.”</strong>

<strong>State ‘abandoning its poorest’</strong>

In Pleasant Hill, a suburb outside San Francisco, I met a remarkable young woman named Amy Fedeli. Only 24-years old, she has deferred her dream of college and a career in nursing to support her 75-year-old grandmother, Margaret, and seven-year-old niece, Emilia.

She’s keeping faith with her loved ones in a state that is systematically abandoning its poorest and least powerful people.

<strong>Schwarzenegger is fighting a legal challenge against proposed cuts in elderly care [EPA]
Margaret, who suffers from a neurological disorder and mild dementia, is too frail to be left home alone while Amy goes to her job at a medical-records company.</strong>

So she attends a state-funded adult day-care programme where she gets physical and occupational therapy, health checkups, and a chance to interact with other people and keep her mental faculties sharp.

But as part of the effort to pare down the budget deficit, California has cut many programmes for the elderly poor.

New rules would limit seniors to three days a week in adult day care. That is a big problem for the Fedeli family. Without the daily care she gets at the senior centre, Amy says, Margaret might not survive for long.

“She would probably end up in a nursing home,” Amy says. “She would probably pass. She would probably die, God forbid.”

To care for Margaret, Amy would have to quit her job, leaving the little family without any income. Why has she accepted so much responsibility at such a young age?

“It’s family, that’s all I can say,” Amy says. “Your family, you stick with them – that’s all.”

State politics ‘deadlocked’

A legal challenge has temporarily halted some of the cuts to elderly care. But Schwarzenegger is trying to overturn the court ruling and re-institute the cuts.

Donna Calame, who runs a state programme that provides in-home care for seniors, told me the attitude of Schwarzenegger and the legislature makes her livid.

“For me, it’s really obscene,” she said in an interview.

“We are a rich state. I think it is because of the wealth in California that, to me, makes the choices that have been made this year so morally reprehensible.”

<strong>”Somewhere, somehow, the public good, as a concept of governance, has disappeared in this state”</strong>

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, analyst, University of Southern California
<strong>
Critics say California’s politics are so deadlocked, its government so dysfunctional, it may become the US’s first failed state.</strong>

The state legislature is hamstrung by a law requiring a two-thirds majority vote to raise taxes and pass a budget. That makes compromise practically impossible.

I asked political analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of the University of Southern California what’s wrong with California.

<strong>”What is the matter with California is, that we have become politically so polarised that we can’t agree on something that will make this state work,” Bebitch Jeffe laments.</strong>

“Somewhere, somehow, the public good, as a concept of governance, has disappeared in this state.”

The failure of California’s government has bred profound cynicism among its people.

Back at the soup kitchen, Robert Shirley has some blunt advice for the people in charge of the Golden State.

<strong>”If our politicians don’t get their heads out of their asses, this state is going to be – let’s put it this way: some of those Third World countries are going to look a lot better than California.</strong>

Ref: <a href=”http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/10/2009101881543377434.html” target=”_blank”>Al jazeera</a></blockquote>

The postmen & women who are being forced to defend their careers against a dishonest and rapacious management & government are to be applauded. What has become clear is the corporatist Neoliberals of New Labour and the bullying management have conspired to continue a backdoor process of privatisation despite public opposition and official denials. This coming strike will be a watershed moment that either successfully stalls their plans or leads to the destruction of a postal service that serves the British people rather than profits off them. What will be crucial in keeping the postal service in our hands will be the public’s support of the strikers, when the government and management see their ‘customer base’ reject their plans for exploitation it will create greater pressure for them to return and negotiate with the union.

Check out local CWU branches here. Show your support.

Check out Roy Mayall’s Blog Going Postal (ht2 Soul of a Man Under Capitalism)

As Dave Semple says-

Now it is a fight, alea iacta est. The working class, and all socialists, labourites and everyone on the Left, should stand behind the posties. Turn up to their picket lines and wish them well. As one young pluck did, bring them homebaked goods. Donate some money to the strike fund. Attend solidarity group meetings. The bottom line is this; the posties are the men and women who deliver a service we all take advantage of.

If, in our own jobs, we know about mismanagement or the government neo-liberal ideology getting in the way of efficiency, if we’re sick of being lectured at and told things which are blatantly untrue, of being bullied and cajoled into overtime we’re not getting paid for, and we ever want the support of other workers, now is our time to shine.

PS. I think it is crucial to pass on information that gives the context to the strike action, psychologically there is a tendency for people to assume all is well until something different happens or there is a change, when the event occurs and it has negative effects for the observer they will, in the absence of knowledge and context, make a judgement that the party that is presented as causing the change is to be blamed. So when a strike occurs the corporate media have an easy job making people annoyed at the strikers because people have not had the ongoing situation within the industry reported in as prominent a way, they have not read of bullying management, false statements and fraudulent negotiating stances. This combined with the false notions of balance corporate news uses as a fig leaf excuse for giving undue emphasis to the views of the powerful makes the media aspect of a strike very difficult. Or short version- if someone moans about the strike do make them read this from the London Review of Books then point out people do not like striking, it is anxious and worrying experience that costs them money, they do so because management have committed such serious abuses against them and all other means of redress have failed. The blame lies with management and the government and particularly millionaire Baron Peter Mandelson, the striking posties are the heros coming to the rescue of our postal service.

Like many businesses, the Royal Mail has a pet name for its customers. The name is ‘Granny Smith’. It’s a deeply affectionate term. Granny Smith is everyone, but particularly every old lady who lives alone and for whom the mail service is a lifeline. When an old lady gives me a Christmas card with a fiver slipped in with it and writes, ‘Thank you for thinking of me every day,’ she means it. I might be the only person in the world who thinks about her every day, even if it’s only for long enough to read her name on an envelope and then put it through her letterbox. There is a tension between the Royal Mail as a profit-making business and the Royal Mail as a public service. For most of the Royal Mail management – who rarely, if ever, come across the public – it is the first. To the delivery officer – to me, and people like me, the postmen who bring the mail to your door – it is more than likely the second.

We had a meeting a while back at which all the proposed changes to the business were laid out. Changes in our hours and working practices. Changes to our priorities. Changes that have led to the current chaos. We were told that the emphasis these days should be on the corporate customer. It was what the corporations wanted that mattered. We were effectively being told that quality of service to the average customer was less important than satisfying the requirements of the big businesses.

Someone piped up in the middle of it. ‘What about Granny Smith?’ he said. He’s an old-fashioned sort of postman, the kind who cares about these things.

‘Granny Smith is not important,’ was the reply. ‘Granny Smith doesn’t matter any more.’

So now you know.

Wankers!

Royal Mail will recruit up to 30,000 temporary staff to deal with upcoming strikes by postal workers and the Christmas rush, the service has said. The Communication Workers Union has called two nationwide strikes next week over pay, conditions and reform. The firm said it would hire twice the usual number of extra pre-Christmas staff to cut the impact of “unjustified and irresponsible” industrial action. But the CWU said managers should be talking, not “planning for failure”. The 24-hour strikes will begin on 22 October. On the first day, mail centre staff and drivers will strike. The next day it will be delivery and collection staff.

And guess what, because of the ‘crisis’ (the creators of which are currently paying themselves multimillion pound bonuses) there are lots of unemployed people and because of welfare privatisation and ‘reform’ they cannot survive for long or take work of their choice, see how that works?

In the world of academia Noam Chomsky is the most cited author alive. He talks to Inside USA about politics in the United States and this Presidential election.

Oddly I was just talking about the Shock Therapy applied to Russia in the 90’s and also hearing how a debt collector was doing so well they were eyeing up a shiny new car…

Gordon Brown is to announce the sale of £16bn-worth of assets by the government in a bid to shore up public finances. The prime minister will give details of initial sales that could raise £3bn – including the Tote, the Dartford crossing and the student loan book.

Or y’know, cancel Trident, close secrecy jurisdictions and institute both minimum living income and a maximum income, if it’s an emergency and everything… But hey I’m sure the concept of billionaires is like totally sane and everything.

PS. After all We’re All In This Together,  right?

The demise of the dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading. In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

Read the rest of the article…

Ref: The Independent

“Torturing Democracy” Excerpt #5

PBS’ “Torturing Democracy” Exposes Brutal Torture

http://torturingdemocracy.org/

Gitmo Video – Guantanamo Bay

Winter Soldier (talking truth about Iraq, Vietnam)

Winter Soldier: Hundreds of Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan Gather to Testify in Echo of 1971 Vietnam Hearings
Hundreds of veterans and active-duty soldiers of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are gathering today for the Winter Soldier hearings. The soldiers plan to give eyewitness accounts of the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, the gathering is modeled after the 1971 Winter Solider hearings organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. [includes rush transcript]

With simple materials found around the house, you too can conduct an experiment to see what has happened to the economy.

Click on image to see the video

Loose Lips

First WEAVE, now House of Ruth: Another nonprofit serving victims of domestic violence is in financial straits, thanks to a reduction in District government support. Writes Susan Kinzie in WaPo: ‘Christel Nichols, president of the House of Ruth, said she received an e-mail Monday alerting her that the agency would not get nearly half a million dollars in anticipated funding from the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, which lost money when the city’s Department of Human Services budget was reduced….Nichols said she will ask donors to fill the sudden funding gap, but she is not confident they will be able to close it in this economy. The agency might opt to scale back programs at one of its 13 sites in the city.’ Says Nichols: ‘This is the absolute worst. Even in the darkest days with the control board and the city [budget] being a disaster, we never faced anything to this degree.’

This immediate result will be more of these women will be killed by their husbands or boyfriends. The long term result is that the pattern of violence is far more likely to be handed down another generation. This may be the worst thing Fenty has done.

“The facts and Iraq’s behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction . . . These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”

– Washington’s official justification for America’s war on Iraq, announced to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003.

Then in July 2003 the US Secretary of State reiterated that there was “very strong intelligence . . . that Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons.” And there were many more unequivocal and detailed statements about the reliability, the certainty, of intelligence, notably from the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and Washington’s Dick Cheney.

At that time those of us who considered these assertions to be nonsense were shocked and chastened. After all, the leaders of the world’s largest military and surveillance machine were declaring that they had “solid intelligence” regarding a terrifying arsenal of evil weaponry that would be used by Iraq’s maniacal leader. All the intelligence gathered by thousands of US spooks and amazingly sophisticated technical devices couldn’t be wrong, could it?

Before the war on Iraq the US was spending about 50 billion dollars a year on gathering and processing information (it’s now about $70 billion), and with that sort of cash and exotic technical activity being devoted to discovering that Saddam’s “efforts to reconstitute his nuclear program have been focused on acquiring the third and last component – sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear explosion,” as we were assured, then all the official reports and announcements and New York Times’ revelations must have been true.

But they weren’t.

The whole thing was a farrago of baloney : it was tripe, hogwash, codswallop and claptrap from beginning to end. There were no nuclear, biological or chemical weapons programs of any sort. And there were no apologies, either, from the demented barbarians in Washington who lied to the world and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and wrecked their country.

And now we are being told that Iran’s nuclear program is as dangerous as the one Saddam didn’t have.

On September 25 London’s Times newspaper (among others) reported that “The West warned Iran that it will face fresh sanctions by December unless it can persuade the world of a “profound change” in its nuclear stance after the existence of its secret underground uranium enrichment plant was uncovered.”

But the plant was not “uncovered” by the West. An International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman stated that “on September 21 Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel-enrichment plant is under construction in the country. The letter stated that the enrichment level would be up to 5 per cent.” So then the Times tried to save face by claiming that “Reports from Washington [more of these generous but always anonymous sources] indicate that Iran had learnt of the West’s move and declared [the plant] formally to the IAEA.”

How fascinating. So Iran knows so much about America’s surveillance of its nuclear facilities – and the intentions of its State and Defense Departments, not to mention the White House – that just before the omniscient US intelligence agencies were about to reveal Iran’s secrets to the world they were pre-empted by the equally all-knowing Iranians.

Some other reports were also intriguing. The New York Times, ever attentive to anonymous “senior officials,” (possibly like those who caused it to believe, endorse and publicize the “intelligence” that led to the war on Iraq), carried a piece on September 26 to the effect that “officials said that they developed a detailed picture about work on the facility from multiple human intelligence sources, as well as satellite imagery. A senior official said that intelligence was regularly shared among American, British and French spy agencies, and that Israeli officials were told about the complex years ago.”

“Multiple human intelligence sources,” indeed. So the CIA has spies lurking and working in Iran’s nuclear establishment and government. Not only that, but America’s premier Intelligence Agency tells “officials” who tell reporters, and thus the world, that it has such assets. How professional, to be sure.

But if the CIA has all these sources with such amazing access, then there must be information available on the level of enrichment of uranium that is planned. Perhaps the “officials” who so generously leak highly classified information to selected reporters could indicate what it is?

The deranged Iranian President Ahmadinejad, in one of his clearer moments, said that the newly disclosed nuclear facility was not scheduled to begin operations for another 18 months and that “It’s not a secret site. If it was, why would we have informed the IAEA about it a year ahead of time?” Then Ahmadinejad said that the Agency was welcome to inspect the facility.

If it is found that the enrichment capability is in fact 5 per cent, then there will be a lot of stupid-looking people in the US and other western countries, as this is nowhere near the approximately 90 percent needed to manufacture nuclear weapons. But be assured, if this majestically hyped affair collapses into nothing because the “multiple human intelligence sources” (if they exist) are found to be fantasizing liars, and if the IAEA inspections find no evidence of weapon-grade enrichment, then those responsible for spreading the story will not confess their blunders.

The last lot of liars, under Bush, have never admitted that they deliberately led their country into an unnecessary, disastrous and fantastically costly war. And if the current bunch of war fanatics have their way this time, and persuade Mr Obama to attack Iran because they imagine it may one day be nuclear-capable, they will never admit that they made a total mess of the whole thing, either.

President Obama emphasized nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation at the UN Security Council meeting he chaired in September. He declared he had “outlined a comprehensive agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons,” adding that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty “says that all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; that nations with nuclear weapons have a responsibility to move toward disarmament.”

Quite so. Most gratifying. Majestically desirable. But the elephant in the UN room, the critical mass, as it were, whose nuclear arsenal is steadfastly ignored by all nuclear powers and the west in general, is Israel, the country that pays no attention to anything that is said by the UN Security Council regarding any of its illegal actions.

Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons. It has signed no treaty concerning their construction or control. Its uranium enrichment facilities have never been seen by any inspector, and never will be. It has no intention of “moving towards” nuclear disarmament, and Mr Obama knows this perfectly well.

But we might ask why that ever-willing “senior official” told the New York Times that intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program was not only “regularly shared among American, British and French spy agencies,” but that “Israeli officials were told about the complex years ago.”

How intriguing. Here we have three members of the UN Security Council, with nuclear capability, swapping intelligence about Iran. But why did Washington (according to the New York Times’ anonymous sources) tell Israel about it?

In fact the complex wasn’t known about “years ago”, but it’s still intriguing that Israel is well and truly in the loop about US intelligence concerning possible nuclear developments in other countries.

Why is Israel so privileged as to be informed about America’s most sensitive intelligence operations?

* * *

Iran is in the grip of a bunch of quasi-religious bigots who are as wild-eyed as they are ignorant. They are being deliberately provocative towards the western bloc, whose leaders and establishment figures regard them as pariahs and lose no opportunity to vilify them and try to make their lives difficult.

But the trouble is that when you penalize pariahs, they get back at you in ways that you might never have thought of.

The move towards inflicting penal sanctions on Iran is strong, but if these do not come about, most likely because Russia and China will veto them, then the attack option will be even more attractive. This way lies utter disaster. The world would be a much more dangerous place if the US mounted an attack on Iran.

If Israel attacked, the US would have to be party to its operation, if only because Israeli aircraft would have to fly through airspace totally controlled by America. The reaction of Muslim nations would be, to put it mildly, robust. The standing of the US around the world, which has received a bit of a boost from Mr Obama’s policies, would be dealt a final, dramatic, deadly blow from which it would never recover. The entire world would suffer.

On September 30 the UN’s chief weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, said he had seen “no credible evidence” that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Predictably, the smear campaign against him was ramped up and his pronouncement was met with vehement contradiction. We’ll eventually know who was right, however.

The leaked stories in the media about Iran’s supposed nuclear posture have been planted by US and Israeli sources. Israel is intent on hyping the supposed threat because it draws attention away from its genocidal activities in Palestine and its continuing defiant and illegal building of settlements on stolen Arab land.

There is no proof that there is an Iranian nuclear weapons’ programme.

So remember what we were told last time, during the military build-up based on “facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence,” that led to the disastrous war on Iraq.

And think, this time round, about “multiple human intelligence sources,” who are supposedly providing the same sort of “solid intelligence” about the Iranian nuclear programme. Let’s hope President Obama doesn’t read the New York Times.

Ref: counterpunch

Brian Cloughley’s book about the Pakistan army, War, Coups and Terror, is to be published in the US by Skyhorse next month. His website is www.beecluff.com.

Neoliberal enforcers mutter how it would be shame if there was a fire round ‘ere, course if you reform like we say, that fire, might never ‘appen eh? And er, y’know we can all be sitting pretty, just stop getting in the way of profit, gives the others silly ideas like. And we wouldn’t want that now would we, healthcare like, well it’s a constant & growing demand innit, ergo kerching if you get my meaning? But if some la-di-da socialised types get their ‘ands on it like you lot after that nice litttle war, well it all goes to pot, start thinking about taxing us big boys. So mind how you go and get that privatising speeded up, and er, capital might forget where it put its matches, alright?

Cut NHS costs to pay off debt, IMF warns Britain
Britain was served notice by the International Monetary Fund todaythat reforms to healthcare and pensions will be needed to repair the long-term damage to public finances caused by the global recession.

At the end of a bruising week for the prime minister, Gordon Brown, the fund rekindled memories of the spending cuts imposed on Jim Callaghan’s Labour government in the 1970s when it said the new fiscal rules promised by the chancellor, Alistair Darling, earlier this week, were not enough on their own.

The IMF is in favour of higher government spending to support activity through the most serious downturn since the second world war, but believes governments will have to take stringent steps to deal with their debt. Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s economic counsellor, said the UK and other countries running big deficits had to take measures which improved the medium-term sustainability of the debt.

Asked specifically about the UK’s financial health, Blanchard warned that action would be needed once the crisis was over. “That means reforms of the retirement system; that means reforms of the healthcare system.

This film, set in Afghanistan, Iraq and Washington, looks at President Bush’s ‘war on terror’ and the ‘liberation’ of countries where bloodshed and repression continue. In Afghanistan, Pilger investigates the claim that life has improved for the women of Iraq now that the Taliban have gone. In Washington, he interviews leading American officials, ‘neo-cons’ in the Bush regime. John Bolton, of the State Department, now the US Ambassador to the United Nations, says he regards the figure of 10,000 civilian deaths in Iraq as ‘quite low’. Breaking the Silencewon a number of awards, and was nominated for a BAFTA, a British Academy Award.

Het nieuwste boek van Naomi Klein is een thriller en wat ze beschrijft, is echt gebeurd. De Canadese journalist en activist gaat niet achter een onopgeloste moord of sekte aan. Nee, Klein schrijft over gebeurtenissen die we allemaal kennen van het Journaal.

Over New Orleans na Katrina, Sri Lanka na de Tsunami en New York na 9/11. Over Chili onder Pinochet en over Jeltsin die Ruslands parlement in brand stak. Over de junta in Argentinië en over oorlog in Irak.

Wat ze allemaal gemeen hebben, is een meervoudige shock. Eerst is er de crisis: een overstroming, staatsgreep of terroristische aanslag – shock nummer een. Dan komt de tweede shock: voordat de bange burgers weer bij zinnen zijn, worden ingrijpende economische hervormingen doorgevoerd. Die volgen een standaard recept: privatisering van overheidsdiensten, deregulering van de markt en terugdringing van overheidsuitgaven. Vaak volgt een derde shock: mensen die zich verzetten tegen de neoliberale verrassingsaanval, krijgen het zwijgen opgelegd. Soms zo hardhandig dat ze verdwijnen (Argentinië), worden gemarteld (Chili, Irak) of doodgeschoten (China).

Naomi Klein werd zeven jaar geleden wereldberoemd toen ze met NO LOGO het evangelie schreef voor andersglobalisten. Daarin liet ze zien hoe merken hun jeans en sportschoenen lieten maken in mensonterende naaiateliers. Toen de wereld wist wat een sweatshop was, waren Nike, Levi’s en de rest gedwongen om de mensen die hun ballen, broeken en schoenen naaien, fatsoenlijk te behandelen.

Het boek The Shock Doctrine, the Rise of Disaster Capitalism is ambitieuze onderzoeksjournalistiek. Klein trakteert op drie decennia, soms bloedstollende, economische geschiedenis. Het kwade genius achter het radicale vrijemarktdenken: de econoom Milton Friedman, Nobelprijswinnaar, goeroe voor neo-liberale economen en regeringsleiders. Toen Friedman eind vorig jaar overleed, 94 jaar oud, schreven kranten necrologieën als over een heilige. The Wall Street Journal noemde Friedman ‘FREEDOM-MAN’.

Leuke klankrijm, maar Kleins belangrijkste punt is dat daar niks van klopt. Kapitalisme brengt geen vrijheid. Integendeel. Omdat ongebreideld kapitalisme de meerderheid van de bevolking armer maakt, komen burgers tegen de vrije markt in opstand. En daar wordt een stokje voor gestoken. Door een alsmaar rijkere minderheid.

Klein kwam op het idee voor dit boek toen ze in 2003 Irak bezocht, vertelde ze afgelopen donderdag bij de Globaliseringslezing in het Amsterdamse Felix Meritis. Het was niet lang nadat Saddam Hoessein was afgezet en onder Amerikaans bewind werden nieuwe spelregels geschreven. Klein: ‘Terwijl Irakezen daas waren van de bombardementen, kregen ze een totaal nieuwe politieke en economische orde opgelegd.’ Een shock therapy. Ze vertelde dat haar tolk worstelde met het vertalen van maatregelen waar een Irakees geen woord voor heeft. Klein: ‘Hij wist niks van ‘privatisering’ omdat het als beleid niet bestond.’ Maar in Irak werd alles geprivatiseerd. Tot aan de oorlog aan toe. En overal verschenen Amerikaanse bedrijven om het geruïneerde land op te bouwen.

Daar zag Naomi Klein het patroon dat ze vervolgens herkende op tientallen andere plekken waar zich een crisis had voorgedaan: small government en big business vallen samen in het rampenkapitalisme. ‘Geen Amerikaans bedrijf heeft zo veel verdiend aan de oorlog in Irak als Halliburton’, zegt Klein. Het aandelenpakket van oud-Halliburton topman, vicepresident Dick Cheney, is nu miljoenen meer waard.

The Shock Doctrine zet meer dan eens de gangbare versie van de geschiedenis op zijn kop. Neem China, 1989, het bloedig neergeslagen studentenprotest op het Tiananmen-plein. Naomi Klein laat zien dat de studenten niet protesteerden tegen de communistische orde. Nee, ze verzetten zich tegen de neo-liberale hervormingen die Deng Xiaoping had bedacht, samen met, inderdaad: Milton Friedman. De communistische top zou zich enorm verrijken. En dus eisten de studenten een democratische stem om ‘nee’ te zeggen.

Tegelijkertijd laat het voorbeeld van China ook zien waar Klein minder goed in is. Ze heeft weinig oog voor gemengde motieven en toevalsfactoren. Zo maakt ze de geschiedenis minder weerbarstig dan die in werkelijkheid is. Haar wereld gaat zo een beetje lijken op een sprookje: je hebt goed en je hebt kwaad en ze zijn duidelijk te onderscheiden.

Hoe ironisch de geschiedenis kan zijn, laten diezelfde Chinese studenten zien. Amerika nodigde demonstranten uit als politiek vluchteling. Zeshonderdduizend gingen er naar de VS om te studeren, meer dan er ooit op het Plein hadden gestaan. Nu keren de meesten terug om – tweetalig en tweecultureel – succesvol zaken te doen in ultrakapitalistisch Sjanghai.

Zijn het dit soort constateringen waarbij de activist de journalist in de weg loopt? Klein: ‘De echte sprookjeswereld is wat ons door Reagan of Bush wordt voorgehouden.’