1% Graffiti

http://odetocapitalism.com/2012/01/23/1-graffiti/

SICK and SICKER: Essays on Class, Health and Health Care

http://susanrosenthal.com/sick-and-sicker

Excerpt from the book (p.2):

Reducing income inequality in the United States would save as many lives as would be saved by eradicating heart disease or by preventing all deaths from lung cancer, diabetes, motor vehicle crashes, HIV infection, suicide and homicide combined.

Even greater benefits would flow from eliminating class inequality entirely. 

CONTENTS

• Introduction 
• Inequality: The Root Source of Sickness 
• Engels and the WHO Report 
• Mental Illness or Social Sickness? 
• The Myth of Scarcity 
• The US and Canada: Different Forms of Medical Rationing 
• The Fight for Medicare in Canada 
• Assembly-Line Medicine 
• Health Care or Damage Control? 
• The Lessons of Chile

Susan Rosenthal : Mental Illness or Social Sickness?

http://susanrosenthal.com/articles/mental-illness-or-social-sickness

A society based on exploitation and oppression must portray its victims and rebels as sick or deviant. Instead of correcting the social sources of sickness, psychiatry extracts the individual from society, splits the brain from the body, severs the mind from the brain and drugs the brain.  Continue reading...

Green Is the New Red: An Insider's Account of a Social Movement Under Siege

http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100839230

By Will Potter

At a time when everyone is going green, most people are unaware that the FBI is using anti-terrorism resources to target environmentalists and animal rights activists. The courts are being used to push conventional boundaries of what constitutes "terrorism" and to hit nonviolent activists with disproportionate sentences. Some have faced terrorism charges for simply chalking slogans on the sidewalk.

Like the Red Scare, this "Green Scare" is about fear and intimidation, using a word—"eco-terrorist"—to push a political agenda, instill fear and silence dissent. The animal rights and environmental movements directly threaten corporate profits every time activists encourage people to go vegan, to stop driving, to consume fewer resources and live simply. Their boycotts are damaging, and corporations and the politicians who represent them know it. In many ways, the Green Scare, like the Red Scare, can be seen as a culture war, a war of values.

Will Potter outlines the political, legal, extra-legal, and public relations strategies that are being used to threaten even acts of nonviolent civil disobedience with the label of "terrorism." Here is a guided tour into the world of radical activism that introduces the real people behind the headlines and tells the story of how everyday people are being prevented from speaking up for what they believe in.

"Will Potter unveils this complex movement with its virtues and its flaws, the courage of a few and the false bravado of others. I see this book as the definitive overview of the genesis of what is emerging as the most important social movement in human history – the war to save ourselves from ourselves." --Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

"If we are to survive capitalism's death grip on our discourse and on our lives, it will be in great measure due to the work of people like Will Potter. His courage and integrity, which set him apart from most journalists, are evident throughout this important book, and throughout all of his other crucial work. Thank you, Will Potter." --Derrick Jensen, author of Endgame and many other books

"Part history, part action thriller and courtroom drama, part memoir, Green is the New Red plunges us into the wild, unruly, and entirely inspirational world of extreme environmental activism. Will Potter, participant-observer and partisan-reporter, is the perfect guide, unpacking with wit and skill the most elusive concepts—his discussion of 'terrorism' as myth and symbol is the finest I've ever read. He takes us inside the first moments of a movement in the making—idealistic, hopeful, deeply human in its aspirations and its oh-so-human failings—and he reports brilliantly on a ruling power willing to hollow out any sense of authentic democracy in its futile attempt to maintain dominance, privilege, and their arid version of reality. Green is the New Red is an indispensable book that will change the way we think about commitment, the limits of protest, and the possibility of radical change." --Bill Ayers

Raymond Tallis: Aping Mankind

Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity

In a devastating critique Raymond Tallis exposes the exaggerated claims made for the ability of neuroscience and evolutionary theory to explain human consciousness, behaviour, culture and society.

While readily acknowledging the astounding progress neuroscience has made in helping us understand how the brain works, Tallis directs his guns at neuroscience’s dark companion – “Neuromania” as he describes it – the belief that brain activity is not merely a necessary but a sufficient condition for human consciousness and that consequently our everyday behaviour can be entirely understood in neural terms.

With the formidable acuity and precision of both clinician and philosopher, Tallis dismantles the idea that “we are our brains”, which has given rise to a plethora of neuro-prefixed pseudo-disciplines laying claim to explain everything from art and literature to criminality and religious belief, and shows it to be confused and fallacious, and an abuse of the prestige of science, one that sidesteps a whole range of mind–body problems.

The belief that human beings can be understood essentially in biological terms is a serious obstacle, argues Tallis, to clear thinking about what human beings are and what they might become. To explain everyday behaviour in Darwinian terms and to identify human consciousness with the activity of the evolved brain denies human uniqueness, and by minimising the differences between us and our nearest animal kin, misrepresents what we are, offering a grotesquely simplified and degrading account of humanity. We are, shows Tallis, infinitely more interesting and complex than we appear in the mirror of biologism.

Combative, fearless and always thought-provoking, Aping Mankind is an important book, one that scientists, cultural commentators and policy-makers cannot ignore.

Julian Baggini: The Ego Trick - What Does it Mean to Be You?

http://grantabooks.com/page/3012/The-Ego-Trick/1540

Are you still the person who lived fifteen, ten or five years ago? Fifteen, ten or five minutes ago? Can you plan for your retirement if the you of thirty years hence is in some sense a different person? What and who is the real you? Does it remain constant over time and place, or is it something much more fragmented and fluid? Is it known to you, or are you as much a mystery to yourself as others are to you? With his usual wit, infectious curiosity and bracing scepticism, Julian Baggini sets out to answer these fundamental and unsettling questions. His fascinating quest draws on not only the history of philosophy, but also anthropology, sociology, psychology and neurology; he talks to theologians, priests, allegedly reincarnated Lamas, and delves into real-life cases of lost memory, personality disorders and personal transformation; and, candidly and engagingly, he describes his own experiences. After reading The Ego Trick, you will never see yourself in the same way again.

Chaos and order, 2008 Galvanised wire, 60x60x60cm

Ultimo Project Studios: Barbara Licha - Finalist of Willoughby Sculpture Prize 2009

In my sculpture I (http://lichabarbara.wordpress.com/) try to create the conditions of human experience where we are surrounded by constant expansion of information and a multitude of tasks. I use the wire line, almost suspended in space, to suggest human fragility, feeling of isolation and contemplation.