"If we continue puzzling financial wealth with human flourishing, we are damned as species. Does it ring the bell!"

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Isaac Newton, Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675

Dark Age Ahead

Written by Jane Jacobs
 

About the Book

A dark age is a culture’s dead end. In North America, for example, we live in a virtual graveyard of lost and destroyed aboriginal cultures. In this powerful and provocative book, renowned author Jane Jacobs argues convincingly that we face the coming of our own dark age.

Throughout history, there have been many more dark ages than the one that occurred between the fall of the Roman Empire and the dawn of the Renaissance. Ten thousand years ago, our ancestors went from hunter-gatherers to farmers and, along the way, lost almost all memory of what existed before. Now we stand at another monumental crossroads, as agrarianism gives way to a technology-based future. How do we make this shift without losing the culture we hold dear—and without falling behind other nations that successfully master the transition?

First we must concede that things are awry. Jacobs identifies five central pillars of our society that show serious signs of decay: community and family; higher education; science and technology; governmental representation; and self-regulation of the learned professions. These are the elements we depend on to stand firm—but Jacobs maintains that they are in the process of becoming irrelevant. If that happens, we will no longer recognize ourselves.

The good news is that the downward movement can be reversed. Japan avoided cultural defeat by retaining a strong hold on history and preservation during war, besiegement, and occupation. Ireland nearly lost all native language during the devastations of famine and colonialism, but managed to renew its culture through the steadfast determination of its citizens. Jacobs assures us that the same can happen here—if only we recognize the signs of decline in time.

Dark Age Ahead is not only the crowning achievement of Jane Jacobs’s career, but one of the most important works of our time. It is a warning that, if heeded, could save our very way of life.

"An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it."
- Mohandas K. Gandhi

"A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion."
- Mohandas K. Gandhi

“All oppression creates a state of war.”

- Simone de Beauvoir

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” 

- Frederick Douglass

Are Liberals Pathetic?

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted December 7, 2009.

Sterile posturing and cowardice have hollowed out the liberal cause.

Liberals are a useless lot. They talk about peace and do nothing to challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to organize, universal health care and a host of other socially progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama -- as if he reads them -- asking the president to come back to his "true" self. This sterile moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made America’s liberal class an object of public derision.

I am not disappointed in Obama. I don’t feel betrayed. I don’t wonder when he is going to be Obama. I did not vote for the man. I vote socialist, which in my case meant Ralph Nader, but could have meant Cynthia McKinney. How can an organization with the oxymoronic title Progressives for Obama even exist? Liberal groups like these make political satire obsolete. Obama was and is a brand. He is a product of the Chicago political machine. He has been skillfully packaged as the new face of the corporate state. I don’t dislike Obama -- I would much rather listen to him than his smug and venal predecessor -- though I expected nothing but a continuation of the corporate rape of the country. And that is what he has delivered.

"You have a tug of war with one side pulling," Ralph Nader told me when we met Saturday afternoon. "The corporate interests pull on the Democratic Party the way they pull on the Republican Party. If you are a ‘least-worst’ voter you don’t want to disturb John Kerry on the war, so you call off the anti-war demonstrations in 2004. You don’t want to disturb Obama because McCain is worse. And every four years both parties get worse. There is no pull. That is the dilemma of The Nation and The Progressive and other similar publications. There is no breaking point. What is the breaking point? The criminal war of aggression in Iraq? The escalation of the war in Afghanistan? Forty-five thousand people dying a year because they can’t afford health insurance? The hollowing out of communities and sending the jobs to fascist and communist regimes overseas that know how to put the workers in their place? There is no breaking point. And when there is no breaking point you do not have a moral compass."

I save my anger for our bankrupt liberal intelligentsia of which, sadly, I guess I am a member. Liberals are the defeated, self-absorbed Mouse Man in Dostoevsky’s "Notes From Underground." They embrace cynicism, a cloak for their cowardice and impotence. They, like Dostoevsky’s depraved character, have come to believe that the "conscious inertia" of the underground surpasses all other forms of existence. They too use inaction and empty moral posturing, not to affect change but to engage in an orgy of self-adulation and self-pity. They too refuse to act or engage with anyone not cowering in the underground. This choice does not satisfy the Mouse Man, as it does not satisfy our liberal class, but neither has the strength to change. The gravest danger we face as a nation is not from the far right, although it may well inherit power, but from a bankrupt liberal class that has lost the will to fight and the moral courage to stand up for what it espouses.

Anyone who says he or she cares about the working class in this country should have walked out on the Democratic Party in 1994 with the passage of NAFTA. And it has only been downhill since. If welfare reform, the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, which gutted the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act -- designed to prevent the kind of banking crisis we are now undergoing -- and the craven decision by the Democratic Congress to continue to fund and expand our imperial wars were not enough to make you revolt, how about the refusal to restore habeas corpus, end torture in our offshore penal colonies, abolish George W. Bush’s secrecy laws or halt the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of American citizens? The imperial projects and the corporate state have not altered under Obama. The state kills as ruthlessly and indiscriminately in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan as it did under Bush. It steals from the U.S. treasury as rapaciously to enrich the corporate elite. It, too, bows before the conservative Israel lobby, refuses to enact serious environmental or health care reform, regulate Wall Street, end our relationship with private mercenary contractors or stop handing obscene sums of money, some $1 trillion a year, to the military and arms industry. At what point do we stop being a doormat? At what point do we fight back? We may lose if we step outside the mainstream, but at least we will salvage our self-esteem and integrity.

I learned to dislike liberals when I lived in Roxbury, the inner-city in Boston, as a seminary student at Harvard Divinity School. I commuted into Cambridge to hear professors and students talk about empowering people they never met. It was the time of the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Spending two weeks picking coffee in that country and then coming back and talking about it for the rest of the semester was the best way to "credentialize" yourself as a revolutionary. But few of these "revolutionaries" found the time to spend 20 minutes on the Green Line to see where human beings in their own city were being warehoused little better than animals. They liked the poor, but they did not like the smell of the poor. It was a lesson I never forgot.

I was also at the time a member of the Greater Boston YMCA boxing team. We fought on Saturday nights for $25 in arenas in working-class neighborhoods like Charlestown. My closest friends were construction workers and pot washers. They worked hard. They believed in unions. They wanted a better life, which few of them ever got. We used to run five miles after our nightly training, passing through the Mission Main and Mission Extension Housing Projects, and they would joke, "I hope we get mugged." They knew precisely what to do with people who abused them. They may not have been liberal, they may not have finished high school, but they were far more grounded than most of those I studied with across the Charles River. They would have felt awkward, and would have been made to feel awkward, at the little gatherings of progressive and liberal intellectuals at Harvard, but you could trust and rely on them.

I went on to spend two decades as a war correspondent. The qualities inherent in good soldiers or Marines, like the qualities I found among those boxers, are qualities I admire -- self-sacrifice, courage, the ability to make decisions under stress, the capacity to endure physical discomfort, and a fierce loyalty to those around you, even if it puts you in greater danger. If liberals had even a bit of their fortitude we could have avoided this mess. But they don’t. So here we are again, begging Obama to be Obama. He is Obama. Obama is not the problem. We are.

Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The Compulsion to Win and Its Threat to Human Survival

by Gordon Fellman, Brandeis University
 
This book builds from the proposition that until now most encounters have been organized so that the point of them is to overcome the other. This is true for the most part of relations between men and women, parents and children, whites and non-whites, leaders and publics, rich and poor, labor and management, athletic teams, business firms, advanced societies and developing societies, straight and gay, tall and short, well and ill, and so on.

I call this assumption that one must strive to overcome or submit to being overcome, the basis of the adversary paradigm. It also applies to humans' relations to nature which, like people, has been constructed as an enemy to be overcome.

The ultimate expression of the adversary tendency is murder, and that collectively is war. War has usually been fought with the maximum technology available. The use of atomic bombs in 1945 suddenly and drastically cast adversarialism in a new light. For the first time in the history of warfare, it became possible, indeed likely, that in using maximum technology in all-out confrontation, overcoming the other would necessarily also mean overcoming the self; i.e., homicide became inextricable from suicide.

The threat of massive destruction by nuclear devices was complemented by another form of technological assault, the industrial degradation of the environment to the point of numerous deaths and severely damaged systems of land, water, and air needed for survival. The human tendency toward adversarialism has become incarnated in objective processes which neither created nor defined adversarialism but rather came to represent it in stark, terrifying ways.

Historically, alongside the adversary paradigm and in secondary relation to it is the mutuality paradigm, based on the mutuality assumption that the other can be a friend, a colleague, an ally. Religious notions of community and love flow from this paradigm, even if they are ordinarily undercut by the adversary organization and practices of organized religion. Political systems idealize mutuality in official documents like constitutions and in politicians' rhetoric but contradict it in their behavior. The same is true in most if not all other institutions such as education and the family.

My claim is that in order to survive adversarial forms of onslaught, including the ethnic and religious strife which appears to be replacing the one over-arching conflict of the Cold War, mutuality will need to become the primary governing paradigm in human affairs and in humans' relations with the environment, inverting the historic and continuing condition where adversarialism is primary and mutuality, secondary.

My analysis attempts to provide a useful vocabulary for what I see as fundamental crises, indeed survival issues, on our planet today. It is a contemporary version of the timeless contrast between competition and cooperation. I find that in the speaking and teaching I do on this topic, people pick up the words and concepts I use and employ them immediately, and most effectively.

The central innovation of my presentation is my analysis of adversarialism and mutuality as coming in both normative and compulsive or pathological forms. By the adversary compulsion, I mean something beyond ordinary competition in sport, business, or any other social context. I mean an addiction, a drivenness that subordinates other considerations to a passion, indeed an obsession, with "winning." It is this compulsion that, for example, defines the destructiveness of political systems that forsake the political possibility of resolving real societal problems, in favor of destroying the other candidate, the other party, the other program, no matter what it may be.
I also identify a mutuality compulsion. Including in mutuality the ideas of empathy, recognition of the full humanness of the other, caring, nurturing, support, and love, I see mutuality that denies adversary inclinations as compulsive, just as I see adversarialism that denies mutuality inclinations as compulsive. Based on denial of essential parts of the self, each form of compulsion works against the possible reconciliation of humans and nature to each other in ways that can enhance human survival and well-being.

The book goes on to deconstruct both compulsions. I claim that people tend to project upon others qualities they have been taught they can not and must not face in themselves. Hence the other becomes the repository of the selfish, dirty, violent, lustful, failed, immoral parts of oneself that one denies, and as well, the nobler, communal, loving, caring parts of the self that extend beyond immediate friend and family relations and which most people feel are beyond their capacity to realize. In both cases one assumes that one ought not or can not achieve what is implied in one's desires.

Survival requires what I call reappropriation of the full range of qualities that the self is. In a chapter called "Reappropriation of the Self," I offer an analysis of the extent and nature of what can be reappropriated.

I also claim that a more fully mutualistic society is already at hand, but in minor form that is difficult to recognize until it is identified. Most people are familiar with mutuality in some contexts but so far fail to see their proliferation, their connections, and the possibility of a freer organization of society based on mutuality as its premise rather than adversarialism. In three chapters on "Seeds of Mutuality," I examine old seeds in old institutions, new seeds in old institutions, and new seeds in new institutions.

The book nears its end with an analysis of what I see as the major alternative to the destructiveness of the endless adversary relations with which we are currently saddled: globalism -- recognition of the globe as the primary unit of loyalty. I see a global culture already emerging in outline form in political values, language, economy, music, religion, and more. My goal is to analyze and to move beyond analysis in offering hope in the form of visions of mutuality and actions to help bring it about.

Believing that films speak to and reveal major concerns and phenomenological definitions of character, issues, and tendencies in a society, I illustrate many major points by way of interpretations of major motion pictures including High Noon, The Godfather, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, Rambo, Silence of the Lambs, and Strangers in Good Company. This use of films is in the tradition of Erik Erikson's work on the films Wild Strawberries and The Childhood of Maxim Gorky and is an alternative to the more conventional analysis of literature in such contexts. Some popular music lyrics are used to illustrate points about adversarialism and mutuality in popular culture beyond film. Numerous contemporary issues and events, such as reproductive rights, criminal justice, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, also are examine closely to elucidate and extend the analysis.

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

“Young boys collected plastic bottles from a polluted river in Jakarta, Indonesia”

La moneda social ECO

El ECO crea una economía accesible a todas las personas y más responsable hacia los recursos y la vida en la Tierra.

Hace dos semanas comenzaron a circular los billetes de ECO en Tarragona y a nivel virtual comenzó a funcionar la Red ECO en todo el país, e incluso se han registrado personas de otros países. Poco a poco la gente lo va conociendo y entendiendo y algunos comienzan a probar esta forma de intercambio de servicios y productos.

El 12 de diciembre haremos la presentación oficial en la Feria del Consumo Responsable en la Rambla Nova de Tarragona.

La moneda social no tiene interés y por eso es más económica: cuando pedimos un crédito a un banco normal acabamos pagando casi el doble con los años, en ECOs el crédito es gratuito. Y también es más ecológica: con moneda normal es más rentable talar árboles y explotar a las personas para poner el dinero en el banco, donde a causa de los intereses crece artificialmente más rápido que los árboles; los ECOs al no producir intereses nos ayudan a tener una actitud más responsable con las personas y el medio.

¡Ya hay más de 80 servicios y productos que se pueden pagar con ECOs!

A este ritmo vamos a superar por mucho los 100 que teníamos previstos para fin de año. Muy pronto tendremos disponible el servicio de compartir coche desde nuestra web, para que las personas puedan organizar sus viajes compartidos a trabajar, estudiar o de vacaciones; el programa ayuda a encontrar gente que quiere compartir viaje e incluso calcula el dinero y el CO2 ahorrados.

Estés donde estés fomenta el intercambio en tu comunidad. En la web www.xarxaeco.org encontrarás en la columna derecha los siguientes vínculos: "Registrarme en la Red ECO", "Lista de Servicios en ECOs" y otras opciones. Puedes registrarte gratuitamente, el sistema te pedirá que ofrezcas al menos dos servicios o productos . Puedes tomar ideas de: "Ver qué servicios puedo ofrecer en la Red" o de la "Lista de Servicios en ECOs" que ya existen. Hay gente que ya consiguió trabajo en ECOs haciendo diseño gráfico, traducciones, reparaciones, venta de verdura ecológica y dando clases.

Nadie debería ser marginado del sistema monetario por no ser un "cliente rentable" como ocurre en el sistema actual.

En la Red de Intercambio no se requiere realizar ventas para empezar a comprar ya que es un sistema de ayuda mútua, como un intercambio de favores, una economía alternativa, más justa a la que todo el mundo tiene acceso, a diferencia de la economía "bancaria" donde las instituciones financieras deciden quién está dentro del sistema y quién no es un "cliente rentable".

Todos tenemos algo valioso que ofrecer a los demás, tengamos trabajo o no, estemos en listas de deudores morosos o no. La Red ECO permite un intercambio transparente y sin "costes bancarios" en euros, que son tan escasos en épocas de crisis. A la gente que no usa internet o móvil, la atendemos personalmente en puntos definidos para informarles y que hagan sus ofertas y búsquedas de servicios.

Te cuento una experiencia personal. Hace unos días le arreglé el ordenador a una mujer que está en la Red ECO. Aunque insistía en pagarme en euros, le cobré en ECOs. ¡Sentí una sensación increíble! Aparte de vivirlo como alguien que ayuda a un amigo, sentí que empezábamos esa una cadena de favores. Estaba diciendo con acciones "no me preocupa el dinero", lo que quería es aportar algo al lugar donde vivo y animar a esa persona preocupada porque creía que había arruinado el ordenador de su amiga.

A su vez ella se quedó sorprendida de no necesitar el dinero "escaso" para esto y ahora tendrá motivos para hacer algo por otra persona con ese mismo espíritu generoso que el ECO facilita. Y así los ECOs se convierten en una pequeña ayuda para devolver sentido a nuestros lazos de comunidad, tan degradados a veces.

Espero que si quieres participar o ayudar a extender la iniciativa a otros lugares, tengas una muy buena experiencia intercambiando, y en cualquier momento si tienes alguna duda o dificultad, por favor contáctanos.

Al usar ECOs consigues:

• Un 20% de beneficio al pedir el cambio en ECOs.

• Ahorrar euros: cuanto más usamos la moneda social, más euros nos quedan libres para otros gastos.

• Ahorrar uniéndote al grupo de Compra Conjunta de Xarxa ECO.

• Generar un consumo y un turismo más responsables.

• Subvenciones y préstamos sin interés a entidades y asociaciones para apoyar iniciativas sociales, culturales y medioambientales.

• Apoyar el autoempleo y el comercio local, que crean muchos más puestos de trabajo que las grandes cadenas.

• Hacer rendir un 20% más tus ingresos ahorrándote los elevados costes de tarjetas y otros productos financieros.

• Ayudar a construir una economía local más fuerte y respetuosa con el medioambiente.

• Participar en la Red de Intercambio ECO. Encontrarás cada día nuevos productos y servicios de otros usuarios de la Red. No necesitas vender para empezar a comprar: es un sistema económico de ayuda mútua.

• Usar ECOs desde el móvil e internet. Apúntate en www.xarxaeco.org o en el Restaurant La Corriola.

• Unirte a 14.000 usuarios de la Red de Grupos de Intercambio del mundo. Desde tu cuenta en la Red tus ECOs sirven en 300 ciudades de todo el mundo

Las políticas de la ecología social

«El municipalismo libertario pretende reanimar las posibilidades latentes en los gobiernos locales ya existentes y transformarlos en democracias directas» según Janet Biehl

En un mundo en el que más que nunca se dejan sentir los efectos de la acumulación y depredación capitalista global sobre el medio ambiente y las estructuras sociales, y con un sistema de partidos absolutamente desacreditado, ante la falta de otras alternativas tangibles, vuelven a cobrar fuerza ideas que, como las de Bookchin, intentan buscar maneras inmediatas de actuar y transformar la sociedad, sin renunciar a lo principal: un mundo sin jerarquías, reparto igualitario de la riqueza, producción descentralizada y a escala local, y capacidad de decisión irrenunciable sobre nosotros y nuestro medio.

La propuesta del municipalismo libertario se hace más necesaria y urgente si cabe en estos momentos. Después de que la izquierda institucional se apropiara de las propuestas sobre la participación política puestas sobre la mesa desde mediados de los noventa, y de que las convirtiera en una mera renovación retórica de la representación política incrustada en el establishment, las ideas de Bookchin representan un referente teórico muy importante para la construcción de un antagonismo político desde las realidades y los conflictos locales.

En el presente libro, que incluye una entrevista con Bookchin, Janet Biehl —una colaboradora del autor— nos presenta de manera sintética el conjunto de ideas que conforman el pensamiento de Bookchin en torno al tema del municipalismo libertario. Su estructura es el de un manual divulgativo, cuyo objetivo es abrir el debate y esbozar una serie de propuestas de actuación para empezar a desarrollar formas de participación directa efectiva a escala municipal.

Murray Bookchin (Nueva York 1921-Burlington 2006), es uno de los principales referentes en la actualización teórica y práctica del movimiento libertario. Comunista en su juventud, con claras posturas antiestalinistas desde un principio, en 1939 sería expulsado del Partido Comunista. Activo trotskista durante los años 40, después de la huelga de General Motors de 1948 Bookchin se decantaría por el socialismo libertario, realizando importantes aportaciones, en las que intentó adaptar la tradición libertaria a los nuevos tiempos, cruzándola con la preocupación por la ecología y la explotación de recursos. Fundador del Instituto para la Ecología Social de Vermont, fue profesor en el Rampo College de Nueva Jersey, y publicó libros que adelantaban muchos de los problemas que hoy son ineludibles: The problem of Chemicals in food, Our Synthetic enviroment, Crisis in our Cities, Ecologist and Revolutionary thougt y Towards a Liberatory Technology

Janet Biehl. Anarquista norteamericana, se ha convertido en las últimas décadas en uno de los referentes imprescindibles para el conocimiento del municipalismo libertario. Estrecha colaboradora de Bookchin desde mediados de los años 70, juntos elaboraron entre los años 1987 y 2000, la revista Green Perspectives, de la que se publicaron 30 números. Además del libro que ahora presentamos, Janet Biehl ha publicado numerosos artículos y ha sido entrevistada sobre cuestiones relacionadas con el municipalismo libertario o el ecofeminismo

Más información y noticias en: www.viruseditorial.net

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
- Soren Kierkegaard

Abaixo o mistério da poesia
- António Gedeão

Enquanto houver um homem caído de bruços no passeio
e um sargento que lhe volta o corpo com a ponta do pé
para ver como é;
enquanto o sangue gorgolejar das artérias abertas
e correr pelos interstícios das pedras,
pressuroso e vivo como vermelhas minhocas despertas;
enquanto as crianças de olhos lívidos e redondos como luas,
órfãs de pais e de mães,
andarem acossadas pelas ruas
como matilhas de cães;
enquanto as aves tiverem de interromper o seu canto
com o coraçãozinho débil a saltar-lhes do peito fremente,
num silêncio de espanto
rasgado pelo grito da sereia estridente;
enquanto o grande pássaro de fogo e alumínio
cobrir o mundo com a sombra escaldante das suas asas
amassando na mesma lama de extermínio
os ossos dos homens e as traves das suas casas;
enquanto tudo isto acontecer, e o mais que se não diz por ser verdade,
enquanto for preciso lutar até ao desespero da agonia,
o poeta escreverá com alcatrão nos muros da cidade:

ABAIXO O MISTÉRIO DA POESIA.

PORTUGAL: RECORDISTA NA DESIGUALDADE

Na lista dos países com maior fosso entre ricos e pobres Portugal vem em 5º lugar. A classificação é feita pelo Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD). Do ponto de vista da desigualdade só Hong Kong (1º), Singapura (2º), EUA (3º) e Israel (4º) estão em situação pior do que Portugal. O coeficiente de Gini que o PNUD atribuiu a Portugal foi de 38,5 (numa escala em que zero representa a igualdade absoluta e 100 a desigualdade absoluta). O PNUD afirma que os 10% mais pobres da população portuguêsa detêm apenas 2% do rendimento nacional, ao passo que os 10% mais ricos detêm 29,8% do mesmo.
A notícia está em Yahoo Finance .
http://resistir.info/

Uma greve postal na Grã-Bretanha é guerra interna

por John Pilger

A luta dos trabalhadores dos correios é tão vital para a democracia quanto qualquer outro acontecimento nacional dos últimos anos. A campanha contra eles faz parte de uma mutação histórica dos últimos vestígios de democracia política na Grã-Bretanha para um mundo corporativo de insegurança e guerra. Se os corsários privatizadores que agora dirigem o Post Office puderem vencer, a regressão que hoje afecta as vidas de todos acelerará o seu ritmo. Um terço das crianças britânicas vive agora em famílias de baixo rendimento ou empobrecidas. A um em cada cinco jovens é negada a esperança de um emprego decente ou educação.

E agora o governo Brown está a uma montar uma "liquidação" de activos e serviços públicos no valor de £16 mil milhões [€18,16 mil milhões]. Não igualada desde a transferência da riqueza pública de Margaret Thatcher para uma nova elite brutal, a venda, ou roubo, incluirá a ligação ferroviária do Túnel sob o Canal, pontes, o banco de empréstimos a estudantes, campos de jogos escolares, bibliotecas e conjuntos habitacionais públicos. A pilhagem do Serviço Nacional de Saúde e da educação pública já estão a caminho.

O ponto em comum é a adesão às exigências de uma minoria opulenta e criminosa revelada pelo colapso de 2008 da Wall Street e da City de Londres, agora resgatada com centenas de milhares de milhões em dinheiro público e ainda não controlada nem com uma única condição restritiva imposta pelo governo. A Goldman Sachs, que desfruta de uma ligação pessoal com o primeiro-ministro, está para dar aos empregados um recorde de pagamento individual médio e pacotes de bónus de £500 mil [€567.568]. O Financial Times agora apresenta um serviço chamado "Como gastá-lo"

Nada disto tem de prestar contar ao público, cujo ponto de vista foi expresso na última eleição de 2005. O New Labour venceu com um apoio que mal chegou a um quinto da população adulta britânica. Para cada cinco pessoas que votaram Trabalhista, oito não votaram de todo. Isto não foi apatia, como pretenderam os media, mas uma greve por parte do público – tal como os trabalhadores postais que estão hoje em greve. As questões são em linhas gerais as mesmas: a intimidação e hipocrisia do poder, contagiosas e não democráticas.

Desde que chegou ao gabinete, o New Labour tem feito o seu melhor para destruir os Correios como uma instituição pública altamente produtiva e avaliada com afeição pelo povo britânico. Não muito tempo atrás, postava-se uma carta em qualquer lugar do país e ela chegava ao seu destino na manhã seguinte. Havia duas entregas por dia e colectas aos domingos. O melhor da Grã-Bretanha, que é a vida comum assumida num sentido de comunidade, podia ser encontrado na agência de correios local, desde as Terras Altas até às montanhas Pennines e as áreas pobres dos centros das cidades, onde pensões, complementos de rendimento, benefícios para a infância e benefícios de incapacidade eram retirados, e os idosos, os inaptos, os incapazes de exprimir-se e os perturbados eram tratados humanamente.

Na minha agência local dos correios, no Sul de Londres, se uma pessoa idosa deixasse de aparecer no dia da pensão, ele ou ela teria uma visita da administradora da agência, Smita Patel, muitas vezes com géneros alimentícios. Ela fez isto durante quase 20 anos até que o governo encerrou esta "tábua de salvação do contacto humano", como a denominou o deputado local do Labour, juntamente com mais de 150 outras agências locais londrinas. Os executivos dos Correios que confrontaram a ira da nossa comunidade numa igreja local – não sabíamos que a decisão já fora tomada – não estavam sequer conscientes de que as Patels faziam um lucro. O que importava era a ideologia, a agência tinha de ir-se. A menção de serviço público trazia confusão às suas caras.

Os trabalhadores postais, tendo este ano duplicado os lucros anuais para £321 milhões [€364 milhões], tiveram de ouvir as lições enganosas de Peter Mandelson, uma figura duplamente desgraçada surgida das trevas do New Labour, acerca da "modernização urgente". A verdade é que o Royal Mail oferece um serviço de qualidade à metade do preço dos seus rivais privatizados, o Deutsche Post e a TNT. Ao lidar com nova tecnologia, os trabalhadores postais têm procurado apenas serem consultados acerca do seu trabalho e o direito de não serem abusados – como o trabalhador postal que foi agredido pelo seu administrado, a seguir demitido enquanto era promovido; e o carteiro com 17 anos de serviço e sem uma única queixa em seu nome que foi despedido sumariamente por deixar de usar o seu capacete de ciclista. Observe o frenesi com que o seu carteiro agora faz as entregas. Um homem de meia-idade tem de correr grande parte do seu caminho a fim de manter um tempo pré-estabelecido e irrealista. Se ele falhar, ele é castigado e mantido no seu lugar pelo medo de que milhares de empregos dependem do capricho de administradores.

Os negociadores do Sindicato dos Trabalhadores em Comunicação (Communication Workers Union, CWU) definem os executivos como intransigentes e com uma agenda oculta – assim como o Conselho Nacional do Carvão (National Coal Board) mascarou o objectivo estritamente político da Thatcher de destruir o sindicato dos mineiros. O papel de jornalistas colaborativos também permanece o mesmo. Mark Lawson, que pontifica acerca de assuntos pseudo-intelectuais para a BBC e o Guardian e recebe muitas vezes mais do que a remuneração de um trabalhador postal, vociferou uma diatribe estilo Sun em 10 de Outubro. Palrando acerca do triunfo do email e de como o serviço postal era um "espectador" da Internet quando, de facto, ele demonstrou-se como beneficiário comercial, Lawson escreveu: "O resultado [da greve] decidirá se Billy Hayes da CWU será, como [Arthur] Scargill, recordado como alguém que presidiu a destruição da indústria que ele tinha intenção de representar".

O registo histórico torna claro que Scargill e os mineiros estavam a combater contra a destruição maciça de uma indústria que fora planeada há muito por razões ideológicas. Os inimigos dos mineiros incluíam as forças mais subversivas, brutais e sinistras do estado britânico, ajudadas por jornalistas – como o colega de Lawson no Guardian, Seumas Milne, documenta no seu trabalho memorável, O inimigo interno (The Enemy Within). Os trabalhadores postais merecem o apoio de todas as pessoas honestas e decentes, às quais se recorda que podem ser as próximas na lista se permanecerem silenciosas.

O original encontra-se em http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=552

Este artigo encontra-se em http://resistir.info/

Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dangerous Minds Deer Hunting with Jesus: Joe Bageant

Richard Metzger interviews Joe Bageant, author of the (excellent!) book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War. Joe offers insight into American redneck culture and tries to explain Birthers, tea baggers and how Republicans have become so infernally adept at convincing working class Americans to vote against their own self-interest, like now, with the health care debate. Do not miss this one. Furthermore do not miss Deer Hunting with Jesus, it’s essential reading if you want to understand the deeply ingrained psychological complexities that make up modern America, whether you are American yourself or not.

Joe Bageant: Corporations, government are dehumanizing us

Dear Joe,

After 56 years or so of watching the "powers that be" in operation, I have come to the conclusion that slowly, but surely, big corporations and the government are dehumanizing us.

I can recall a time when those who dealt with employee relationships were called "personnel departments and employees were referred to by name. The first step was to take away our names and give us "employee numbers", (under the guise of simplifying accounting procedures) so that we would no longer be thought of as a real person. Then it was to change the corporation department that deals with employees from the "personnel department" to the "human resources" department, which takes away our humanity altogether. With time and constant hearing of ourselves referred to in this manner we've come to accept it when we should be screaming at the top of our lungs against it. Even our media, whom I truly believe are on someone's propaganda payroll, refers to us in this manner.

Continue reading "Corporations, government are dehumanizing us" »

Servidumbres del trabajo

José Manuel Naredo - Configuración y crisis del mito del trabajo

Con el advenimiento del capitalismo disminuyen las posibilidades de obtener botín mediante "hazañas" bélicas o cinegéticas, "a la vez que aumentan, en radio de acción y facilidad, las oportunidades de realizar agresiones industriales (o financieras) y acumular propiedad por los métodos cuasipacíficos de la empresa nómada". Por lo que, desde este punto de vista, no anduvo desencaminado Benjamín Constant (1813) cuando señaló que "la guerra y el comercio no son más que dos medios diferentes de alcanzar el mismo fin: el de poseer aquello que se desea". Siendo directamente medible, en el capitalismo, el botín alcanzado en las "hazañas" (que se vincula al prestigio social) a través de la riqueza pecuniaria acumulada.

Cuando en una sociedad como la nuestra se asocia la respetabilidad de los ciudadanos a su nivel de riqueza, se desata entre éstos una lucha por la "reputación pecuniaria" que crea un estado de insatisfacción crónica generalizada. Pues, como ya Veblen advirtió, dada la naturaleza del problema, es evidente que está fuera de toda posibilidad que la sociedad pueda lograr un nivel de riqueza que satisfaga los deseos de emulación pecuniaria que se han desatado entre los ciudadanos. Si a esto se añade que, con la llamada "sociedad de consumo" se han ampliado y complicado sobremanera las necesidades elementales que reclamaba la supervivencia y encarecido la posibilidad de hacerles frente, tenemos que, al decir de Illich (1992), el homo economicus ha hecho las veces de eslabón intermedio en la transfiguración de la naturaleza humana desde el homo sapiens hacia el homo miserabilis: "al igual que la crema batida se convierte súbitamente en mantequilla, el homo miserabilis apareció recientemente, casi de la noche a la mañana, a partir de una mutación del homo oeconomicus, el protagonista de la escasez.

La generación que siguió a la segunda guerra mundial fue testigo de este cambio de estado de la naturaleza humana desde el hombre común al hombre necesitado (needy man)". La racionalidad parcelaria desplegada trajo consigo la irracionalidad global, así como la paradoja de que la economía, en vez de combatir la escasez, favorece los procesos que se encargan de agravarla y extenderla por el mundo. Escasez que no sólo alcanza a los "bienes" y al dinero u otros tipos de "activos", ¡sino hasta al propio trabajo!. Lo que hace que los individuos estén dispuestos a inmolar su vida al trabajo (penoso y dependiente) con más ahínco que antes. A la vez que se acentúa la jerarquía y la dominación dentro del propio mundo del trabajo, al promover y privilegiar constantemente aquellas tareas que, por ser fuente de "botín", están más vinculadas a la adquisición de la riqueza que a la producción (material) de la misma.

Así, la máquina no ha conseguido liberar a los hombres de las servidumbres del trabajo, sino que éste sigue siendo una fuente importante de crispación que alcanza tanto a los parados, como a los ocupados, y hasta a la llamada por Veblen “clase ociosa”, cada vez más embarcada en la carrera de la “competitividad” y esclavizada por insaciables afanes de acumular poder y dinero, que llevan al presente 'darwinismo' empresarial a hacer del crecimiento una necesidad para la supervivencia.

Primeras Jornadas por el Decrecimiento en Logroño

Janine M. Benyus - Biomimicry : Innovation Inspired by Nature

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Biomimicry-Janine-M-Benyus/?isbn=9780060533229

This profound and accessible book details how science is studying nature’s best ideas to solve our toughest 21st-century problems.

If chaos theory transformed our view of the universe, biomimicry is transforming our life on Earth. Biomimicry is innovation inspired by nature – taking advantage of evolution’s 3.8 billion years of R&D since the first bacteria. Biomimics study nature’s best ideas: photosynthesis, brain power, and shells – and adapt them for human use. They are revolutionising how we invent, compute, heal ourselves, harness energy, repair the environment, and feed the world.
Science writer and lecturer Janine Benyus names and explains this phenomenon. She takes us into the lab and out in the field with cutting-edge researchers as they stir vats of proteins to unleash their computing power; analyse how electrons zipping around a leaf cell convert sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second; discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they’re sick; study the hardy prairie as a model for low-maintenance agriculture; and more.

Globalization takes the best and leaves the rest.
-Susan George

"En defensa del decrecimiento. Sobre capitalismo, crisis y barbarie"

Carlos Taibo

La crisis en curso apenas ha suscitado otras reflexiones que las que se interesan por su dimensión financiera. De resultas, han quedado en segundo plano fenómenos tan delicados como el cambio climático, el encarecimiento inevitable de los precios de las materias primas energéticas que empleamos, la sobrepoblación y la ampliación de la huella ecológica. En este libro se intenta rescatar esas otras crisis, y hacerlo con la voluntad expresa de identificar dos horizontes de corte muy diferente. Si el primero lo aporta un proyecto específico, el del decrecimiento, que cada vez es más urgente sea asumido como propio por los movimientos de resistencia y emancipación en el Norte opulento, el segundo lo proporciona un grave riesgo de que, en un escenario tan delicado como el del presente, gane terreno un darwinismo social militarizado que recuerde poderosamente a lo que los nazis alemanes hicieron ochenta años atrás. En la trastienda se aprecia, de cualquier modo, la necesidad imperiosa de contestar el capitalismo en su doble dimensión de explotación e injusticia, por un lado, y de agresiones contra el medio natural, por el otro.

Carlos Taibo es profesor de Ciencia Política en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Entre sus últimos libros cabe mencionar Rapiña global (Punto de lectura, Madrid, 2006), Sobre política, mercado y convivencia (Los Libros de la Catarata, Madrid, 2006; en colaboración con José Luis Sampedro), el volumen colectivo Voces contra la globalización (Crítica, Barcelona, 2008; en colaboración con Carlos Estévez), 150 preguntas sobre el nuevo desorden (Los Libros de la Catarata, Madrid, 2008) y Neoliberales, neoconservadores, aznarianos. Ensayos sobre el pensamiento de la derecha lenguaraz (Los Libros de la Catarata, Madrid, 2008).

Carlos Taibo - Los libros de la Catarata

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.

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

By Robert Fisk The Independent

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.

The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.

Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

Follow resistance to Monsanto across the whole world with one simple clic on the region of your choice. A country by country location guide to the GMO invasion.

COMBAT-MONSANTO - Building a world free from Monsanto

Welcome to the new international version of combat-monsanto.org. Now it’s easy for you to view our articles in English, Spanish and French. Our work is going global and citizens of the world can now see the true face of Monsanto.

Within these pages you will find alternative information about Monsanto and the firm’s products: GMO and Roundup, and also bovine growth hormone and Agent Orange.

In the “Protest” section you will find reports from many concerned NGOs and details of their activities. “A world of protest” keeps you informed on protests against Monsanto worldwide.
Finally “The Monsanto System” reveals the firm’s shady methods, describing how it infiltrates public bodies and how it puts scientists under pressure. It also provides a guide to decoding and understanding Monsanto’s propaganda aimed at the public.

Most of these articles precis the information revealed in the documentary “The World According to Monsanto”, an in-depth investigation by the journalist Marie Monique Robin. You can buy the “World According to Monsanto” book and DVD on this website.

De la dioxina a los OGM
Una multinacional que les desea lo mejor

Una crítica demoledora sobre la actividad de la multinacional norteamericana Monsanto, la empresa líder en la producción de alimentos transgénicos (OGM).

«Todos los ciudadanos del mundo deben tomar conciencia de lo que está ocurriendo con la alimentación» (Marie-Monique Robin).

COMBAT-MONSANTO - PARA QUE EL MUNDO DE MONSANTO NUNCA SEA EL NUESTRO

Con una destacada presencia en más de 46 países y unos beneficios impresionantes, Monsanto se ha convertido en la empresa líder de los organismos genéticamente modificados (OGM), así como en una de las compañías más controvertidas de la industria mundial por la fabricación de PCB (piraleno), devastadores herbicidas (como el agente naranja durante la guerra de Vietnam) o la hormona de crecimiento bovino (prohibida en Europa).Desde 1901, fecha de su fundación, la empresa de Missouri ha ido acumulando infinidad de procesos penales debido a la toxicidad de sus productos, aunque hoy se presenta como una empresa de «ciencias de la vida» reconvertida a las virtudes del desarrollo sostenible. Gracias a la comercialización de las semillas transgénicas (más del 90% del mercado mundial), Monsanto no sólo controla una parte importante de la alimentación mundial y la forma en que se produce, sino que pretende extender su poder sobre las formas de vida tradicionales de una parte importante del planeta.Basándose en documentos inéditos, testimonios de afectados y víctimas, campesinos, reconocidos científicos y destacados políticos, El mundo según Monsanto reconstruye la génesis y desarrollo de este gigante industrial, la primera productora mundial de semillas, una empresa que según declaran sus responsables «sólo quiere nuestro bienestar».

Marie-Monique Robin es periodista, documen-talista y directora de cine. Premio Albert-Londres (1995) por sus trabajos de investigación, ha realizado reportajes para los principales canales de televisión de Francia y otros países siempre sobre temas de interés y contenido social. Autora de varios libros, ha rodado más de 50 reportajes en todo el mundo y ha sido premiada en varios festivales de cine documental. Consultora y experta en varios juicios abiertos en América Latina y Europa, sus polémicas y rigurosas investigaciones han suscitado el interés mundial y han sido soporte para muchos procesos penales.

The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective

Edited by Philip Mirowski

Edited by Dieter Plehwe

What exactly is neoliberalism, and where did it come from? This volume attempts to answer these questions by exploring neoliberalism’s origins and growth as a political and economic movement.

Although modern neoliberalism was born at the “Colloque Walter Lippmann” in 1938, it only came into its own with the founding of the Mont Pèlerin Society, a partisan “thought collective,” in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1947. Its original membership was made up of transnational economists and intellectuals, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and Luigi Einaudi. From this small beginning, their ideas spread throughout the world, fostering, among other things, the political platforms of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the Washington Consensus.

The Road from Mont Pèlerin presents the key debates and conflicts that occurred among neoliberal scholars and their political and corporate allies regarding trade unions, development economics, antitrust policies, and the influence of philanthropy. The book captures the depth and complexity of the neoliberal “thought collective” while examining the numerous ways that neoliberal discourse has come to shape the global economy.

A formação da mentalidade submissa

por Vicente Romano [*]

O entretenimento

Entreter significa compensar durante um lapso de tempo, as debilidades e carências emotivas e sentimentais. O entretenimento apela aos défices emocionais que, de vez em quando, todos nós temos. É disso que vive esta indústria. Porque o objectivo último do entretenimento maioritariamente proporcionado pelos media de hoje não é o postulado ético da coexistência entre povos e etnias e culturas, mas é antes o de ganhar dinheiro com programas que exploram os mais primitivos instintos (sexo e violência). Quando a aspiração de toda a construção cultural consistiu ao longo dos séculos em refrear e sofisticar estes instintos, hoje em dia, o direito do mais forte limita-se, ao potenciá-los, a contradizer todo o património de avanço cultural e político nos direitos humanos.

Enquanto jogo lucrativo com as emoções de terceiros, o entretenimento torna-se, na realidade, uma questão política determinada pelos meios que se utilizem para o disseminar. Quem diariamente se distrai com o assassinato, a morte, a fraude, a violência bruta, aprende que o direito do mais forte e que o individualismo egoísta prevalecem sobre os direitos humanos, a solidariedade e a cooperação e aprende ainda que a melhor maneira de responder às opiniões contrárias é partir a cara àqueles que as expressem. O simplismo e a rudimentaridade dos punhos, em vez da complexidade e diversidade das opiniões, da força dos argumentos racionais, produz mirones cínicos e não cidadãos democratas, dotados de consciência crítica e sentimentos solidários.

O entretenimento e a diversão das grandes massas das populações e a organização perversa dos seus tempos livres, converteram-se numa das indústrias mais lucrativas e prósperas dos nossos dias. Aproveitando-se das forças produtivas mais modernas, as novas tecnologias da informação e da comunicação, como costumam ser designadas, gera-se uma ampla oferta de organização do tempo livre, entendido como tempo de ócio, de não trabalho. Mas, isto em nada significa que este seja um tempo efectivamente à nossa disposição, ocupado com actividades organizadas e dirigidas por nós mesmos. O que se passa é que esta indústria utiliza, na projecção dessa e doutras ilusões, todas as formas de cultura popular: histórias, desenhos animados, discos, cassetes, jogos de vídeo, programas de rádio e de televisão, cinema, revistas ilustradas, acontecimentos desportivos, concertos e festivais de pop e de rock, fascículos, livros promovidos pelos reclames comerciais, etc., etc. Existe uma enorme quantidade de produtos para iludir as pressões e angústias da vida quotidiana, para a evasão através do jogo e do entretenimento, para tentar, enfim, satisfazer esperanças e desejos secretos.

Esta exploração interessada das necessidades humanas de entretenimento, de descanso, de distensão cumpre uma outra função importante: abstrair da sua realidade as grandes massas da população, algo que deve entender-se também no âmbito da manipulação ideológica e da formação da mentalidade submissa. E, não obstante, encontra-se muito arreigado o mito de que a diversão e o lazer são neutrais, carecem de pontos de vista orientados e existem à margem dos restantes processos sociais. No fim de contas, que pode ter de mal seleccionarmos o programa que mais nos agrade, a estância balnear que a carteira nos autorize, ou os video-jogos com que se entretêm os nossos filhos, enquanto nos poupam, aliás, a ter de aturá-los e responder às suas perguntas? Se dermos, porém, uma olhadela, ainda que superficial, aos conteúdos, não tardaremos em descobrir o negócio da violência que se empenha em projectar a ilusão de um "oeste selvagem", nas fitas de cowboys, por exemplo. Um "oeste" que já por volta de 1875 bem tinha desaparecido, mas de que ainda hoje continua a alimentar-se a fábrica de sonhos de Hollywood. Ou o negócio do terror, do sexo, da pornografia, a chirichia das revistas cor-de-rosa ou os supostos debates (magazines) da hora da sobremesa. A própria guerra e a morte são convertidas em diversão. Quem pára o suficiente para pensar no sentido existente por trás do facto de que as pontes e edifícios que voam pelos ares, os choques de comboios, os saltos do décimo andar, os voos supersónicos do Super-Homem, etc., etc., equivalem apenas a uma burla estética? Hoje em dia, aluga-se inclusivamente público para jogos e concursos junto de lares de terceira idade, escolas primárias ou faculdades. Há adultos, jovens ou crianças, que por dez euros ou um simples lanche e um sumo, estão dispostos a rir ou aplaudir de cada vez que a produção os mande fazer uma coisa ou a outra.

Vivemos a cultura do simulacro.

A cultura popular já não é feita pelo povo. Como salienta Herbert Schiller, "a rede da cultura popular que relaciona entre si os elementos da existência e que fixa a consciência geral daquilo que existe, do que é importante, do que está reciprocamente ligado, converteu-se, primordialmente, num produto manufacturado". Esta cultura, que pode perfeitamente designar-se por "cultura dos media", impregna a mentalidade e contribui decisivamente para a formação da opinião da maioria, uma vez que esta não dispõe, na verdade, de qualquer outra fonte de informação. A UNESCO estima que, hoje em dia, 85 por cento dos serviços culturais do mundo são veiculados pelos meios de massas, especialmente pela televisão. Os seus conteúdos e programas proporcionam reiteradamente a quem os vê chaves interpretativas e hierarquias de valores na nossa sociedade, bem como indicações sobre como proceder para atingir o sucesso e a felicidade, como educar os filhos, como deve o casal fazer amor, etc., etc. Estes materiais formam, doutrinam, estimulam a ambição e o lucro pessoais e propagam a ideia de que a natureza humana é imutável. Negam, enfim, a viabilidade de outras formas de organizar a vida e a coexistência humanas.

O êxito da indústria do entretenimento assenta nas expectativas do público. O espectador espera do televisor o prazer, a diversão, o desafogar das tensões, da mesma forma que da máquina de lavar espera roupa limpa e do frigorífico alimentos frescos. Ao mesmo tempo que subsistem, bem longe desta indústria, aquilo que são as naturais necessidades de lazer e de actividade livre das dos seres humanos e das grandes massas populacionais por eles constituídas, necessidades que ainda não se precisaram devidamente e que qualquer programa político emancipador deverá ter bem em conta.

The Princeton Guide to Ecology

Edited by Simon A. Levin

Stephen R. Carpenter, H. Charles J. Godfray, Ann P. Kinzig, Michel Loreau, Jonathan B. Losos, Brian Walker & David S. Wilcove, associate editors

The Princeton Guide to Ecology is a concise, authoritative one-volume reference to the field's major subjects and key concepts. Edited by eminent ecologist Simon Levin, with contributions from an international team of leading ecologists, the book contains more than ninety clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics within seven major areas: autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecosystem services, and biosphere management. Complete with more than 200 illustrations (including sixteen pages in color), a glossary of key terms, a chronology of milestones in the field, suggestions for further reading on each topic, and an index, this is an essential volume for undergraduate and graduate students, research ecologists, scientists in related fields, policymakers, and anyone else with a serious interest in ecology.

• Explains key topics in one concise and authoritative volume


• Features more than ninety articles written by an international team of leading ecologists


• Contains more than 200 illustrations, including sixteen pages in color


• Includes glossary, chronology, suggestions for further reading, and index


• Covers autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecosystem services, and biosphere management
  

Simon A. Levin is the George M. Moffett Professor of Biology and a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Princeton University, where he directs the Center for BioComplexity. He is the author, editor, or coeditor of many books, including the Encyclopedia of Biodiversity. Among his many awards are the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences and the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences.

What Have We Done to Democracy?

Of Nearsighted Progress, Feral Howls, Consensus, Chaos, and a New Cold War in Kashmir

By Arundhati Roy

While we're still arguing about whether there's life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By "democracy" I don't mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are.

So, is there life after democracy?

Attempts to answer this question often turn into a comparison of different systems of governance, and end with a somewhat prickly, combative defense of democracy. It's flawed, we say. It isn't perfect, but it's better than everything else that's on offer. Inevitably, someone in the room will say: "Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia... is that what you would prefer?"

Whether democracy should be the utopia that all "developing" societies aspire to is a separate question altogether. (I think it should. The early, idealistic phase can be quite heady.) The question about life after democracy is addressed to those of us who already live in democracies, or in countries that pretend to be democracies. It isn't meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It's meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy -- too much representation, too little democracy -- needs some structural adjustment.

The question here, really, is what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasized into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximizing profit?

Is it possible to reverse this process? Can something that has mutated go back to being what it used to be? What we need today, for the sake of the survival of this planet, is long-term vision. Can governments whose very survival depends on immediate, extractive, short-term gain provide this? Could it be that democracy, the sacred answer to our short-term hopes and prayers, the protector of our individual freedoms and nurturer of our avaricious dreams, will turn out to be the endgame for the human race? Could it be that democracy is such a hit with modern humans precisely because it mirrors our greatest folly -- our nearsightedness?

Our inability to live entirely in the present (like most animals do), combined with our inability to see very far into the future, makes us strange in-between creatures, neither beast nor prophet. Our amazing intelligence seems to have outstripped our instinct for survival. We plunder the earth hoping that accumulating material surplus will make up for the profound, unfathomable thing that we have lost. It would be conceit to pretend I have the answers to any of these questions. But it does look as if the beacon could be failing and democracy can perhaps no longer be relied upon to deliver the justice and stability we once dreamed it would.

Arundhati Roy was born in 1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives. She has worked as a film designer and screenplay writer in India. Roy is the author of the novel The God of Small Things, for which she received the 1997 Booker Prize. Her new book, just published by Haymarket Books, is Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers. This post is adapted from the introduction to that book.

Tomgram: Arundhati Roy, Is Democracy Melting?

So you, as a citizen, want to run for a seat in the House of Representatives? Well, you may be too late. Back in 1990, according to OpenSecrets.org, a website of the Center for Responsive Politics, the average cost of a winning campaign for the House was $407,556. Pocket change for your average citizen. But that was so twentieth century. The average cost for winning a House seat in 2008: almost $1.4 million. Keep in mind, as well, that most of those House seats don't change hands, because in the American democratic system of the twenty-first century, incumbents basically don't lose, they retire or die.

In 2008, 403 incumbents ran for seats in the House and 380 of them won. Just to run a losing race last year would have cost you, on average, $492,928, almost $100,000 more than it cost to win in 1990. As for becoming a Senator? Not in your wildest dreams, unless you have some really good pals in pharmaceuticals and health care ($236,022,031 in lobbying paid out in 2008), insurance ($153,694,224), or oil and gas ($131,978,521). A winning senatorial seat came in at a nifty $8,531,267 and a losing seat at $4,130,078 in 2008. In other words, you don't have a hope in hell of being a loser in the American Congressional system, and what does that make you?

Of course, if you're a young, red-blooded American, you may have set your sights a little higher. So you want to be president? In that case, just to be safe for 2012, you probably should consider raising somewhere in the range of one billion dollars. After all, the 2008 campaign cost Barack Obama's team approximately $730 million and the price of a place at the table just keeps going up. Of course, it helps to know the right people. Last year, the total lobbying bill, including money that went out for electoral campaigns and for lobbying Congress and federal agencies, came to $3.3 billion and almost 9 months into 2009, another $1.63 billion has already gone out without an election in sight.

Let's face it. At the national level, this is what American democracy comes down to today, and this is what George W. Bush & Co. were so infernally proud to export by force of arms to Afghanistan and Iraq. This is why we need to think about the questions that Arundhati Roy -- to my mind, a heroic figure in a rather unheroic age -- raises about democracy globally in an essay adapted from the introduction to her latest book. That book, Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers, has just been published (with one essay included that originally appeared at TomDispatch). Let's face it, she's just one of those authors -- I count Eduardo Galeano as another -- who must be read. Need I say more? Tom

How Transnational Corporations Damage the World's Poor (New Updated Edition)

John Madeley is a best-selling author, journalist and broadcaster, specialising in economic and social development issues, notably international trade, transnational corporations, food and agriculture, aid and human rights. He is the author of many books, newspaper articles and other publications. Based in Reading, he keeps in trim with medium-distance cycling.

About the Book
Transnational corporations are one of the most important actors in the global economy, occupying a more powerful position than ever before. In their persistent battle to increase profits, they have increasingly turned to the developing world, a world that holds many attractions for them. But what is their impact on the poor?

Now in its second edition, Big Business, Poor Peoples finds that these corporations are damaging the lives of millions of poor people in developing countries. Looking at every sector where transnational corporations are involved, this vital book is packed with detail of how the poor are affected. The book exposes how many of the natural resources of developing countries are being ceded to transnational corporations and how governments are unwilling or unable to control corporations who answerable to no one but their shareholders. The author argues that transnational corporations have used their money, size and power to influence international negotiations and that they have taken full advantage of the move towards privatisation to influence the policies of governments. Sovereignty, he concludes, is passing into corporate hands and the poor are paying the price. But people are fighting back. Citizens, workers, communities, are exposing the corporations and looking for alternatives.

The first edition of this path-breaking book put the issue of transnational corporations and the poor firmly on the agenda. This second edition contains significant new and updated material and is an essential read for anyone who wants to know more about the effects of corporate power on the poor.

La décroissance - Un nouveau projet politique

Paul Ariès

La gauche et la droite partagent le même bilan écologique effroyable.

Les deux idéologies ont fait durant le 20e siècle de l'environnement la variable d'ajustement de leur système au nom de leur foi dans le productivisme et le "toujours plus". Ces deux modèles sont en faillite au regard de l'effondrement environnemental actuel. La droite et les milieux d'affaires entendent profiter d'un nouveau rapport de force qui leur est plus favorable pour payer aux pauvres la facture environnementale.

La gauche est aphone incapable de marier la justice sociale et les contraintes de la nature. Entre ceux qui prônent avec Hulot de "polluer un peu moins pour pouvoir polluer plus longtemps" et ceux qui entendent avec Claude Allègre et Florence Parisot "polluer pour pouvoir dépolluer" en augmentant toujours plus la croissance, la production, la consommation et les emplois l'objection de croissance n'est-elle pas la véritable alternative pour les pays riches ? Un livre qui dépasse le domaine des seuls constats pour faire des propositions concrètes.

Un livre qui envisage la construction d'une nouvelle pensée politique de la décroissance. L'auteur ne cache pas les risques : il fait aussi état des débats et des polémiques parfois vives. Un ouvrage indispensable pour tous ceux qui ne veulent plus "développer en rond".

La Bourse ou la vie

Responsable(s) : Damien Millet & Eric Toussaint

Animée par le Comité pour l’annulation de la dette du tiers-monde, une collection qui travaille à l’émergence d’alternatives qui puissent briser la spirale infernale de l’endettement par l’établissement de modèles de développement socialement justes et écologiquement durables.Constitution d’un fonds de développement démocratiquement contrôlé par les populations et alimenté par l’annulation de cette dette ; rétrocession des biens mal acquis ; taxation des transactions financières ; établissement d’une nouvelle architecture économique et financière internationale ; réforme radicale de la logique de l’OMC ; contrôle des marchés financiers ; suppression des paradis fiscaux, etc. Autant de questions traitées par cette collection.