Laughing with a mouth of blood

The Wall Street gang must really be partying these days. Profits and bonuses are as high as ever as these super-rich takers were able to use trillions of dollars of below-market government loans to get themselves through the crisis they created. The rest of the country is still struggling with high unemployment, stagnant wages, underwater mortgages and hollowed-out retirement accounts, but life is good again on Wall Street.

Their world must have gotten even brighter last week when Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department may have to restrain its prosecutors in dealing with the big banks because it has to consider the possibility that a prosecution could lead to financial instability. Not only can the big banks count on taxpayer bailouts when they need them; it turns out that they can share profits with drug dealers with impunity. (The case immediately at hand involved money laundered for a Mexican drug cartel.) And who says that times are bad?

It’s hard to know where to begin with this one. First off, we should not assume that just because the Justice Department says it is concerned about financial instability that this is the real reason that they are not prosecuting a big bank. There is precedent for being less than honest about such issues.

When Enron was about to collapse in 2002 as its illegal dealings became public, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who was at the time a top Citigroup executive, called a former aide at Treasury. He asked him to intervene with the bond-rating agencies to get them to delay downgrading Enron’s debt. Citigroup owned several hundred million dollars in Enron debt at the time. If Rubin had gotten this delay, Citigroup would have been able to dump much of this debt on suckers before the price collapsed.

The Treasury official refused. When the matter became public, Rubin claimed that he was concerned about instability in financial markets.

It is entirely possible that the reluctance to prosecute big banks represents the same sort of fear of financial instability as motivated Rubin. In other words, it is a pretext that the Justice Department is using to justify its failure to prosecute powerful friends on Wall Street. In Washington, this possibility can never be ruled out.

However, there is the possibility that the Justice Department really believes that prosecuting the criminal activities of Bank of America or JP Morgan could sink the economy. If this is true, then it makes the case for breaking up the big banks even more of a slam dunk, since it takes the logic of too big to fail one step further.

Just to remind everyone, the simple argument against too big to fail is that it subsidizes risk-taking by large banks. In principle, when a bank or other company is engaged in a risky line of business, those who are investing in the company or lending it money demand a higher rate of return in recognition of the risk.

However, if they know that government will back up the bank if it gets into trouble, then investors have little reason to properly evaluate the risk. This means that more money will flow to the TBTF bank, since it knows it can undertake risky activities without paying the same interest rate as other companies that take on the same amount of risk. The result is that we have given the banks an incentive to engage in risky activity and a big subsidy to their top executives and creditors.

If it turns out that we also give them a get-out-of-jail free card when it comes to criminal activity, then we are giving these banks an incentive to engage in criminal activity. There is a lot of money to be gained by assisting drug dealers and other nefarious types in laundering their money. In principle, the laws are supposed to be structured to discourage banks from engaging in such behavior. But when the attorney general tells us that the laws cannot be fully enforced against the big banks, he is saying that we are giving them incentive to break the law in the pursuit of profit.

Our anti-trust laws are supposed to protect the country against companies whose size allows them inordinate market power. In principle, we would use anti-trust law to break up a phone company because its market dominance allowed it to charge us $10 a month too much on our cable. How could we not use anti-trust policy to break up a bank whose size allows it to profit from dealing with drug dealers and murderers with impunity?

As Charles Johnson notes in The Clean Water Act Vs. Clean Water, asking the government for help is generally counterproductive, especially when it comes to addressing ecological concerns. Unfortunately, Johnson is also right in saying that market anarchists don’t talk about environmental concerns as much as they should. Many libertarians are right to see through the greenwashing propaganda used to support government legislation and corporate marketing, but end up also ignoring the real issues at hand. Free Market Environmentalism is certainly accurate in its analysis that protecting property rights is a core issue, as the violation of property rights contributes to most environmental degradation around the world. My fear is that this analysis is, more often than not, only used as a way to promote free market claims instead of highlighting the major issue here: environmentalism and property rights go hand and hand. Therefore every libertarian who cares about property rights should also care about environmental destruction, our increasing dependency on oil/fossil fuels, etc.

Land theft continues to be an issue, and environmentally careless corporations are seemingly above the law when it comes to property rights. The government is useless, completely catering to corporate interests—which is why libertarians should, once again, turn to radicalism as a means of getting things done. Addressing environmental concerns doesn’t mean advocacy for governmental policy—it means advocacy for action! Civil disobedience, grass roots organizing, and nonviolent direct action.

That’s exactly what’s happening in response to the southern extension of the Keystone XL pipeline stretching from Oklahoma to the Texas gulf coast.  People around the country are quitting their jobs and moving to east Texas, joining what many consider the most important environmental campaign happening right now. Tar Sands Blockade, “a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and organizers using nonviolent direct action to physically stop the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline,” has effectively delayed construction for over a month now, using a variety of tactics.

Stopping a multinational corporation from building a pipeline obviously isn’t easy, but that’s not to say the campaign isn’t winnable. TransCanada has reacted to the blockade with a “whatever it takes” sentiment in continuing the construction, with typical carelessness towards personal safety and legality. This has included employing torture tactics on blockaders:

Two blockaders who locked themselves to construction equipment in East Texas – Shannon Bebe and Benjamin Franklin – were subjected to pepper spray, arm-twisting, chokeholds and multiple uses of tasers to get them to unlock themselves.

The tree village where the main action is taking place currently is the equivalent of a police state; the tree sitters are subjected to 24 hour police surveillance by at least 5 to 7 officers at all times, with bright flood lights facing them. This has made direct support extremely difficult, and they’ve been denied food and water on several occasions. Oh, and if you were wondering who’s paying the cops to be around day and night, it isn’t the local sheriff’s department— it’s TransCanada! The foreign company has actually hired off duty officers for $30 an hour to police the tree village. Despite the emotional trauma the tree sitters endure, they remain confident. Two have stated they will stay blockading under these conditions “as long as it takes” and another jokingly, “until I die”.

TransCanada acquired the land through threat of eminent domain, bullying landowners into signing contractual agreements. They have also claimed “common carrier” status, an interesting legal loophole:

Common carrier status is granted by the Texas Railroad Commission, and allows corporations the power to seize private property by eminent domain. But in Texas, all TransCanada had to do to apply as a common carrier was simply fill out a government form for a permit, known as the T-4 form, and check a box labeled “common carrier.”

This claim was disputed in court, which actually ruled against TransCanada, concluding that the permit was not sufficient grounds for eminent domain. They haven’t had to deal with this yet, however, since most of the residents signed contracts.  Now blockaders are trespassing on “TransCanada’s property”, which they have used as grounds to file several lawsuits. A recent legal suit used the term “eco-terrorists” to describe the blockaders:

Under the auspices of nonviolent direct action, the Defendants, all of whom are members of, affiliated with, or acting under the banner of the Tar Sands Blockade group, have engaged in acts of eco-terrorism through their coordinated, orchestrated and ongoing unlawful conduct and have trespassed on Keystone’s property, have interfered with construction of Keystone’s pipeline and/or threatened additional interference with construction of Keystone’s pipeline in an attempt to deny Keystone use of Keystone’s valid right of way.

Just to be clear, there is nothing good about this pipeline. This is a foreign company building a for-profit export pipeline, exposing the environment to the risk of water contamination, likely to destroy more jobs than it creates, and is openly violating the rights of indigenous peoples and American land owners. Not to mention the likelihood of a spill is seemingly inevitable, “According to TransCanada the Keystone 1 pipeline was predicted to spill once every seven years. It spilled 12 times in its first year and it has spilled more than 30 times over its lifetime.” Tar Sands has also been doing most of their own media coverage because of the police state that surrounds the blockade, most journalists are denied entry or arrested:

Allow us to paint the full picture of what’s happening here: we’ve got a multi-national corporation that has come into Texas, expropriated private land by eminent domain, and hired local law enforcement as a private security force to set up an occupied police state at the tree blockade. They’ve been employing torture tactics, charging peaceful protestors with trumped up felonies, and have orders to handcuff anyone, including New York Times journalists, who attempt to get close enough to even cover the story.

The interesting thing about Tar Sands is it’s diverse group of activists— from tea party conservatives defending property rights, to ex-Obama supporters betrayed by the approval of the pipeline, and radical environmentalists who more or less do these sorts of actions for a living. As they approach nearly 40 days of resistance, the campaign continues to grow in awareness and membership. In writing this article I hope to at least make one thing clear to libertarians: we can and should engage ourselves in the environmental movement. Environmentalism is radicalizing in a libertarian way—more mainstream activists are realizing the ineffectiveness of government and turning to direct action. Both libertarians and environmentalists can agree on the alternative solutions, like Johnson suggests, “stop caring so much about what’s legal and what’s illegal, consider some countereconomic, direct action alternatives to governmental politics, and perform some Guerrilla Public Service.”

My support for this campaign brings to mind an inspiring Camus quote, “If we are to fail, it is better, in any case, to have stood on the side of those who choose life than on the side of those who are destroying.” Win or lose, the Tar Sands campaign is part of something bigger. A tree sitter’s report from day 37 captures this sentiment perfectly:

While I am confident that our new friends in the trees are well aware of the situation they have put themselves into, I can’t in good conscious let their sacrifice be taken for granted by those who haven’t experienced state repression firsthand. In the coming weeks as we see our friends in the trees facing extreme thirst, starvation, isolation, and lawsuits at the hands of these police, it is my hope that we can indeed unmask the state’s monopoly on violence against us and begin to finally understand the scope of the power structures we are resisting so that we may move forward towards a livable world. And perhaps then may we learn what it means to fight for our lives.

 Environmental action has never seemed as urgent or important to me until the Tar Sands campaign, happening roughly two hours east of the DFW metroplex where I live. Visiting once on a weekend between school and helping with the blockade has been a truly humbling experience that I wish everyone could be a part of. There are many ways to participate in the blockade. Blockaders need the love and support of anarchists and libertarians alike, they face horrible amounts of injustice at the hands of the state for simply doing what’s right.

The transitional phase of the crisis: From restructuring to rebellion
Day by day, the wind of revolt sweeping regions of Africa and the Middle East is increasingly felt. One country after another appears in the headlines of international press; the issue always the same: conflicts between protesters and the police or para-state thugs of every local, usually totalitarian, regime. Despite all the efforts by global spectacle to conceal the proletarian nature of the uprisings and over-emphasize their internal contradictions, presenting the events just as a political “movement for democracy” or as political confrontations between the supporters of such and such politicians in the region, the obvious truth cannot actually be concealed: class is against class. The proletarians use stones, Molotov cocktails and sticks, the cops are fully armed and so scared that they shoot and kill indiscriminately. The proletarians occupy buildings, block roads and burn cars, they burn down prisons, releasing the inmates, and they sabotage infrastructure. Capital gets prepared to impose even harsher dictatorship. It will not be easy for the transitional regimes to stabilise themselves, as they will not be able to meet any of the major standard-of-living demands of the insurgents. Egypt and Libya are, so far, the most serious manifestations of this insurrectionary phase of the crisis. Egypt is important because of its economic and geopolitical significance within the global inter-capitalist competition and Libya, not only because of its significance as an oil-producing country, but also because the state rapidly lost control of the situation, which has caused panic worldwide.

The current accumulation regime is the result of the first restructuring which took place in the ’70s and ’80s; its crisis is the flip-side of the success of this restructuring. It is the deepening of neoliberalism itself which produced this historical crisis, because capitalism is a contradictory system of social relations. No matter how stable each mode of accumulation appears externally, it carries the development of its internal contradictory dynamics within, which eventually leads to the outbreak of the crisis. The achievement of the restructured capitalism, namely the triumph of the subsumption of the entire life of the proletariat under capital has made the reproduction of the proletariat (and of capitalism altogether) desperately dependent on the ups and downs of the economy, i.e. more vulnerable to the crisis than in any previous historical period. In the present historical moment we are in a transitional phase of the global capitalist crisis that erupted in 2008 and is still developing. In this transitional phase, global financial capital is trying to skip its direct devaluation through the imposition of the draconian second phase of the restructuring across the planet. The consequences of this effort are visible everywhere, but they differ in terms of the intensity and the quality of the attack against the proletariat, which depend on: a) the position of each state within the global capitalist hierarchy, b) the already achieved progress of the first phase of the imposed restructuring and mainly c) the history of class struggle in each region. Across the world (excluding China) the restructuring means the reduction of the direct and indirect wage (pensions, benefits and public services); it means the becoming illegitimate of the wage demand; it also means the increase in the prices of essential goods, which is due both to the objective mechanism of the crisis and the fact that certain factions of capital clearly speculate with food prices. A result of this gambling is that the most undervalued part of the proletariat has literally no longer anything to eat: “Prices have risen so much that if I buy a few lemons for my sore throat, I will be bankrupt for the whole month” said a worker in the Ministry of Transport in Egypt.

Amidst the storm of the economic crisis, the state subsidies for the survival of the surplus workforce disappear and the result is the proliferation of informal labour and poverty. Proletarians have no other option but to work (mostly informally) in order to survive and at the same time, as a result of the crisis, they find it impossible to find a job or have an income that would cover the cost of the reproduction of their labor power. Proletarians demand their survival, so they demand the lowering of food prices, wage increases and jobs. Their demands desperately request from capitalists to save capitalism itself. When demanding stable employment and “decent” wages, proletarians in fact say to capitalists: “you need us, without us there is no extraction of surplus value, there is no capital”. Capital on the other hand responds that it cannot afford the survival of the proletariat, and makes it clear that a (significant) part of the latter is useless (in terms of value) and, most important, that the desired recovery does not include any re-integration of this over-abundant part of the proletariat; it follows that these proletarians structurally form a surplus population. Historically, then, the wage demand is produced as both necessary and (structurally, not cyclically) a dead-end. The uprising of this surplus, and thus without future, proletariat is confronted with the clearest, the most cruel form of capitalist domination, the police. It is precisely the fact that the exit from the crisis, from the capitalist point of view, does not include this surplus proletarian population which makes the police the general form of current capitalism.

Proletarians, all over the world, experience their precarious situation as suffocating, its context defined by poverty and ghettoization. The most striking examples are Frontex (the EU border police), the respective military and police that has been deployed in the U.S. border with Mexico, the wall in Palestine, the guarded by the army camps of workers in China, the gated communities in Latin America and their equivalent, the favelas, vast slums, and of course the Greek version of this situation, the 12.5 km fence in the borders with Turkey. The entire planet is slowly but definitely becoming an apartheid ruled space; modern bantustans are constructed for the working class. This urban repression makes proletarians suffocate and negates a basic capitalist condition, that of the free sale of labor power. In Cairo, this type of urban planning was implemented at a rapid pace over the past decade. The dictatorship of value and economy as a whole, in all regions of Africa and the Middle East that now see the proletarian uprising, has the political form of a dictatorial democracy. The reason that these riots have alarmed capitalists around the world is that democratic dictatorship, totalitarianism, is now the fantasy of the bourgeoisie in the more developed countries as well, since this seems to be the only way to enforce the second phase of the restructuring.

The demonstrations and riots started in all these countries from the field of reproduction and the question is whether the turmoil will encompass the field of production of value, the epicenter of capitalism, as well. The strikes that followed the fall of the socialist dictator Mubarak seem to point towards this direction and capitalists eagerly look at that corner of the world having their finger on the trigger, since “El Dorados” suddenly became traps for capital in volatile regions whose future is highly uncertain. The “huge competitive advantage” became, almost overnight, “an unmanageable risk”. Subcontracting, tourism, construction, the textile industry but above all oil and trade routes (Suez and the Gulf) are now met with the fire of proletarian uprising. After Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, where the insurgency is still ongoing, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, Iraq and Algeria kill proletarians in their attempt to forestall the uprising.

The regime in Greece is also trying to operate proactively, against the upcoming revolt: on the one hand it prepares for the formal imposition of some form of dictatorship (perhaps through elections) and on the other it seeks to direct reactions towards a populist-nationalist right-wing or left-wing (as a second scenario) road. The functionaries of the global financial capital, who temporarily hold the Greek state power, now try to quickly sell off state property, following their success in reducing the wages. This sell-off is nothing but an attempt to valorize capital which is trapped in (mainly) the Greek and European financial system and is in an immediate danger of massive devaluation. On the other hand, proletarians oppose this sell-off because they understand that it means even greater reduction in the indirect wage and the deteriorating of living conditions in general; they refuse to pay tickets and tolls, they occupy buildings, they try to reduce the effects of crisis by making as much noise as they can, but so far only in the sphere of circulation and reproduction. The strikes in sectors affected by the restructuring do not correspond to the intensity of the attack; they are nothing other than the spending of the last mediation capacities of the unions.

Both the probable strategies of the Greek bourgeoisie cut both ways. The imposition of a dictatorship in Greece will possibly cause the virus of rebellion to cross the Mediterranean, with all the implications something like that would have for other European countries. On the other hand, the deceleration of the restructuring is likely to question the participation of the Greek state in the politically unified Europe, something that will relegate it to the third zone of capital. This development would seriously jeopardize the interests of a major faction of the Greek bourgeoisie

For the proletarians who live in Greece, there is only one road, whichever scenario is implemented: the increasingly radicalised class struggles. Probably, the unions will not call soon for a 24-hour general strike, like today, but the class struggle fronts will multiply as time passes; and the eruption of insurgency cannot be postponed much longer. The demand-oriented struggles of the proletariat, focusing on the existence of wage and being against the general deterioration of living standards, through their development and their objective failure, will be led to a rupture with their revendicative content. This rupture is already announced in cases like that of Keratea and will appear as a distinct event in any localized conflict. The content of ruptures makes political unification of the struggling proletarians and thus effective mediation of conflicts impossible. For example, the repression which the “we will not pay for the crisis” social movement will probably be faced with could bring the conflict to the point of putting in danger the very existence of present means of transport. The development of the dynamics of ruptures can never be completed and stabilized in “working class gains”; it can only be the beginning of the historical revolutionary process

amodernmanifesto:

The election rallies of the mis-named “conventions” of the twin parties of Wall Street are over.

The Tea Party-dominated Republicans have gone sharply to the right. Is supporting the Democrats the way to fight the rightward shift in US capitalist politics?

Many who consider themselves leftists or even socialists reply “yes”. Let us look at the record.

On foreign policy, there is no difference except some rhetoric. Both parties supported the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Both seek to crush Iran and return that country to its subservient status Washington enjoyed when Iran was under the Shah.

Both seek to return Cuba to a United States-controlled semi-colony. Both want to roll back the anti-imperialist gains in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, and push against the growing steps toward more independence in the rest of Latin America.

Both want to preserve as much control over the Arab world as possible in the face of the Arab Spring, and are working around the clock toward that end. Both supported the NATO assault on Libya.

Barack Obama, as well as Mitt Romney, supports giving Israel a free hand in its oppression of Palestinians.

continuum:

A criminal investigation into the collapse of the brokerage firm MF Global and the disappearance of about $1 billion in customer money is now heading into its final stage without charges expected against any top executives.

About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006.

(Source: azspot)

… All we know is that Congress — under pressure from Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and other big drone peddlers — directed the Federal Aviation Agency earlier this year to open up civilian air space to thousands of them by 2015. And, in their wisdom, our loosey-goosey lawmakers provided no regulation of who can have drones, how many, or for what purposes.

So prepare to be pestered and monitored, for police agencies and corporate interests are said to be abuzz about getting their own. The first ones are expected to be used for high-altitude surveillance, which is worrisome enough. But consider this: A Texas sheriff’s office that has already bought a “ShadowHawk” drone says it might outfit the little buzzer to fire tear gas and rubber bullets.

No worries, though. The drone industry’s lobbying group has drafted a two-page code of conduct urging purchasers to “respect the privacy of individuals.”

How nice. Only, it’s a voluntary code — and totally unenforceable.

humanformat:

Can genetically engineered foods help feed the hungry? Are anti-GMO activists and over-zealous environmentalists standing in the way of the hungry being fed?

The hope that GMO foods might bring solutions to malnutrition and world hunger was never more dramatically illustrated than when Time magazine ran a cover story titled “Grains of Hope.” The article joyfully announced the development of a genetically engineered “golden rice.” This new strain of GM rice has genes from viruses and daffodils spliced into its genetic instructions. The result is a form of rice that is a golden-yellow color (much like daffodil flowers), and that produces beta-carotene, which the human body normally converts into Vitamin A.

Nearly a million children die every year because they are weakened by Vitamin A deficiencies and an additional 350,000 go blind. Golden rice, said Time, will be a godsend for the half of humanity that depends on rice for its major staple. Merely eating this rice could prevent blindness and death.

The development of golden rice was, it seemed, compelling and inspiring evidence that GM crops are the answer to malnutrition and hunger. Time quoted former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: “Responsible biotechnology is not the enemy, starvation is.”

Shortly after the Time cover story, Monsanto and other biotechnology companies launched a $50 million marketing campaign, including $32 million in TV and print advertising. The ads, complete with soft focus fields and smiling children, said that “biotech foods could help end world hunger.”

Other ad campaigns have followed. One Monsanto ad tells the public: “Biotechnology is one of tomorrow’s tools in our hands today. Slowing its acceptance is a luxury our hungry world cannot afford.”

Within a few months, the biotech industry had spent far more on these ads than it had on developing golden rice. Their purpose? “Unless I’m missing something,” wrote Michael Pollan in The New York Times Magazine, “the aim of this audacious new advertising campaign is to impale people like me — well-off first-worlders dubious about genetically engineered food — on the horns of a moral dilemma … If we don’t get over our queasiness about eating genetically modified food, kids in the third world will go blind.”

The implication of the ads is that lifesaving food is being held hostage by anti-science activists.

In the years since Time proclaimed the promises of golden rice, however, we’ve learned a few things.

For one thing, we’ve learned that golden rice will not grow in the kinds of soil that it must to be of value to the world’s hungry. To grow properly, it requires heavy use of fertilizers and pesticides — expensive inputs unaffordable to the very people that the variety is supposed to help. And we’ve also learned that golden rice requires large amounts of water — water that might not be available in precisely those areas where Vitamin A deficiency is a problem, and where farmers cannot afford costly irrigation projects.

And one more thing — it turns out that golden rice doesn’t work, even in theory. Malnourished people are not able to absorb Vitamin A in this form. And even if they could, they’d have to eat an awful lot of the stuff. An 11-year-old boy would have to eat 27 bowls of golden rice a day in order to satisfy his minimum requirement for the vitamin.

I’m sure that given enough time and enough money, some viable genetically modified (GM) crops could be developed that contain more nutrients or have higher yields. But I’m not sure that even if that were to happen, it would actually benefit the world’s poor. Monsanto and the other biotech companies aren’t developing these seeds with the intention of giving them away. If people can’t afford to buy GM seeds, or if they can’t afford the fertilizers, pesticides and water the seeds require, they’ll be left out.

Poverty is at the root of the problem of hunger. As Peter Rosset, director of Food First, reminds us, “People do not have Vitamin A deficiency because rice contains too little Vitamin A, but because their diet has been reduced to rice and almost nothing else.”

And what, pray tell, has reduced these people to such poverty and their diets to such meager fare? In the words of the British writer George Monbiot:

The world has a surplus of food, but still people go hungry. They go hungry because they cannot afford to buy it. They cannot afford to buy it because the sources of wealth and the means of production have been captured and in some cases monopolized by landowners and corporations.

The purpose of the biotech industry is to capture and monopolize the sources of wealth and the means of production …GM technology permits companies to ensure that everything we eat is owned by them. They can patent the seeds and the processes which give rise to them. They can make sure that crops can’t be grown without their patented chemicals. They can prevent seeds from reproducing themselves. By buying up competing seed companies and closing them down, they can capture the food market, the biggest and most diverse market of all.

No one in her right mind would welcome this, so the corporations must persuade us to focus on something else … We are told that … by refusing to eat GM products, we are threatening the developing world with starvation, an argument that is, shall we say, imaginative …

Read full article.