It is hard to convey to a population lost in the dream world of corporate media what kind of trouble they are in in this moment. The corporate Coup d'état is bringing the ‘free’ world the same oppression it inflicts up on the 3rd World, whilst taking us closer to world war every day and rapidly accelerating the systematic destruction of the planet itself. Ordinary folk must sit up, pay attention and act. Populations are stirring but we must shove the coffee pot under their noses right now!
Clearly Trump and his administration must be removed from
office for their incompetence on covid19, nepotism, the appointments of an army
of fanatics and libertines to executiveand judicial offices, abuses of power, corruption, the massive transfer
of wealth from ordinary people to the obscenely rich under the Cares Act, the
emboldening Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, the persecution of Muslims, the
failure to address murder and brutality being committed by the police, belligerent
threats of annihilation against other nations, the failure to address student
debt, pulling out of the Iran nuclear treaty, weakening of regulation on
destruction of the environment, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate,
to name a few reasons.
That being said, unlike the last umpteen administrations,
both Republican and Democrat, Trump did not start any new wars and was in fact
against more war hence his fall-out with John Bolton. We can fully expect a
resumption of US imperialism under the Democrats which will of course be
enthusiastically supported by Republicans, in congress at least. There will be
no universal healthcare system despite the country being ravaged by covid19.
There will be more deregulation of corporate activities from finance to
pollution, leading to another and possibly terminal financial crisis and
another 8 years of failure to address the burgeoning climate crisis which
threatens to end civilisation as we know it. We can also expect the continual
ratcheting up of authoritarianism as the US population rebels more and more
against their appalling economic malaise at the hands of the corporate elite
Americans seem to like to think in terms of hope, but the
reality is that hope is a luxury they can no longer afford. If they do not
overthrow the corporate state and radically address the inequalities in
healthcare, education, living conditions, working conditions, wealth, political
influence, then they are doomed to a societal death spiral accelerated by
evermore frequent appointments of fanatics and psychopaths to the Whitehouse,
leaders who will make us long for Trump again, the way we longed for Bush again
under Trump. These ruthless demagogues will have at their disposal not only the
police and military forces of state but an ever-growing movement of angry
racist hyper-masculine militias eager to express their discontent with LGTBQs,
ethnic minorities, liberals and a laundry list of groups of people they hate,
through barrels of their Glocks and AR-15s. Let's not forget of course the
increasingly violent counter-movement from the left namely Antifa, who will do
nothing to protect American society, but only to contribute to the misery,
further enrage the already disenfranchised and grease the slide into anomie and
civil collapse.
We in the UK are not merely distant observers, we already
suffer many of the symptoms of the corporate-capitalist domination we see writ
large in the US, and we too, much like Canada, will follow the US down the same
drain hole. Furthermore, the collapse of the US could see nuclear weapons come
under the control of some of the most frightening and deluded fanatics, both
religious and non-religious, in the world.
There is little to celebrate from this election but the
temporary removal of one of America's worst. The descent into destruction
nonetheless proceeds unobstructed.
Anyone who has been on Facebook of late will have encountered conspiracy theory memes around coronavirus and 5G. Having got caught up in some madness about global economy and the threat of international war a number of years ago I have come to require good sources of information, and to try to understand them well before getting on board with alarming claims. I have no desire to participate in perpetuating the foaming-at-the-mouth conspiracy theory mentality adopted by many concerning 5G and covid19. That said, I do believe that where there is credible information regarding an issue, that it should be brought to the attention of those who are concerned about that issue, and those who aren't concerned when perhaps they should be, even if just a little.
With this in mind I would like to say that I have found credible research regarding the impact on health of man-made EMFs which will include, but is not limited to: Bluetooth, Wifi, 3G mobile tech, 4G and yes 5G. For this post let's start with a paper published in the journal Pathophysiology titled "Disturbance of the immune system by electromagnetic fields-A potentially underlying cause for cellular damage and tissue repair reduction which could lead to disease and impairment."[1] whose abstract concludes with:
"...it must be concluded that the existing public safety limits are
inadequate to protect public health, and that new public safety limits,
as well as limits on further deployment of untested technologies, are
warranted."
I am currently unable to access the journal that it is published in since https://pathophysiologyjournal.com is currently overwhelmed with visitors, so I can't list the proper citation here, but the link to the pubmed listing is at the end of this article.
Already 5G and covid19 conspiracy theorists are touting this paper as proof of their beliefs, but I would urge caution in jumping to such conclusions.
The first thing to note is that, and according to [2]:"The reference values for RF radiation 10 MHz to 300 GHz were recommended in 1998 by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) to 2–10 W/m2 depending on frequency (26). This reference value protects against injuries caused by a heating effect over 1°C after an exposure of 30 min, and with a safety factor of 50."
Lennart Hardell raised the alarm that in places in Stockholm he was able to measure as much as 69 millwatts per square metre RF power, which was much higher than the ICNIRP reference values. This however needs to be put into context with the 140 Watts per square metre, on average (sometimes much higher), of non-ionizing radiation that the Sun irradiates the people of Stockholm with [3]. That is to say just walking down the street in Stockholm you are exposed to 2029 times as much heat generating radiation from the Sun as you are from the worst RF 'hotspots' in Stockholm that Hardnell et al recorded.
One thing that is fair to say is that RF exposure is increasing year on year as wireless technologies are being adopted for more and more applications, and not just mobile phones. Given that the reference values for RF radiation 10 MHz to 300 GHz were recommended in 1998 by the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), it is clear that the safety reference levels are very much overdue for revision.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19398310 [2] "Measurements of Radiofrequency Radiation with a Body-Borne Exposimeter in Swedish Schools with Wi-Fi", Lena K. Hedendahl1*, Michael Carlberg, Tarmo Koppeland, Lennart Hardell, Oncology Letters 2017(pubmed link) [3] Global Solar Atlas (website) + Stockholm 59°20'40", 18°05'01"
Did Blair express here a key motivation for the Iraq invasion? From the declassified record on the 2003 Iraq invasion published as part of the Chilcot Inquiry.
"we must galvanise
British businesses to take up opportunities in Iraq" [1].
This was just a few of months into the invasion, about 6 months after MOD policy director Simon Webb floated the idea that:
"Various ideas for replacements [for Saddam Hussein] have been aired over the years and none so far look convincing. But another Ba'athist or military dictator from the Sunni/Tikriti minority might be found with whom we could do business" - Simon Webb, UK MOD Policy Director 2001-2004 [2]
I, like many of you, am extremely unhappy with the direction that our nation and perhaps the world is heading right now, and am frustrated by what feels like far too slowly growing people's movements. People are joining us all of the time, and movements like #occupy and #ukuncut are encouraging, but then they run out of steam and we start to feel helpless again, doomed even.
The uneven distribution of wealth and power is the cause of our greatest political problems in my opinion, and I'm sure it is a widely held view amongst ordinary people. Much of the power inequality is only possible through the lack of participation by the mass of ordinary people. The ruling class have done a great job of isolating the population into ever smaller groups to prevent unity through creating apathy, in a deliberate social engineering process often referred to as atomisation. However within these 'atoms' there are millions of people literally just waiting to connect with social movements and do something good for the world, whether they know it or not. We know this, because we have all been those people.
The advent of social networking has played a tremendous part in unifying and mobilising ordinary people in push backs against ruling class policies and propaganda, but I don't think we are exploiting those tools intelligently or effectively enough.
The volume of ordinary people using sites like Facebook and Twitter is enormous, albeit largely wallowing in the meaningless junk culture of celebrity, consumerism and so forth. This is the human resource that we need to be tapping into more effectively than we are, and we need to start thinking about and coming up with ideas for achieving that.
Grasping the reality of the world we live in is often an unappealing prospect. I recall many a day, getting ready for work, and flipping channels to get away from the 'news' because it seemed so depressing. I now subscribe to many Facebook networks, and find my time line flooded each day with deeply depressing and often horrendous stories and images, as fellow activists try to raise awareness of various issues. Nonetheless, I sign as many petitions as I can, and continue to participate in discussions on these issues, but I can see why so many simply ignore the posts I share from these various groups on my time line.
So the question is how do we engage people, or at least utilise them to reach others within their networks?
One thing I have noticed is that people like sharing amusing images and comments. When we share these things, the source group is generally shown in the time line with the image/comment. So I suspect one mechanism for recruiting people to our groups is to share more amusing images comments to our groups. When others share those items to their own time lines, the groups themselves are also propagated to their Facebook friends via their time line. Anonymous groups have been enormously successful for the simple fact that they propagate lots of humour. Whether this is conscious tactics on the part of anons I don't know, but it sure works. If the image above at all influenced your decision to click and read this article in anyway then you're probably already on board with the point.
This is just one way in which we can do better, and we need to try think about other ways and perhaps learn from movements of the past. I will be glad to hear your ideas, so please, as always comment away.
I just wanted to give my thoughts on the energy
debate you currently having re:
"Energy and
Climate Change: Energy Costs (28 Nov 2013)http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-11-28a.394.0&s=speaker%3A24856#g394.3 Karen Lumley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that
what the people of Redditch want are fair and firm energy policies, in the
realization that no Government can fix international oil and gas prices,
despite what they are being told locally by the
Opposition?"
It may be the case that the government can't fix
oil and gas prices from OPEC for instance, but it certainly has influence that
it can use to keep them down. It should also be noted that the energy stock
sources are not the only costs to the consumer. The quasi-monopolistic providers
like EDF, NPower and others also add considerable cost to the consumer by way of
their ever increasing profits, and these can be challenged if we have a
government with the ethics and backbone to try. Given that for many people this
is literally a life and death issue, particularly for pensioners, it is
absolutely the right thing to do to force corporations to sacrifice profits to
the rich.
Most affordable housing has been built with
dependency on the gas/electric grids, so most people are trapped into being
consumers of these products. They are relying on people like you to deliver the
possibility of their survival since they have no other choice. My own home for
example is built with a gas flue. I cant afford to replace it with a chimney so
that I might use carbon neutral energy as an alternative to being an involuntary
gas monopolies consumer. Many other people in flats and other accommodation for
instance don't even have the possibility of replacing their flue for alternative
heating. This is the case for gas but analogous issues arise with electricity
too.
I hope you remain on the right side of ordinary
people's struggles for their lives versus the efforts of the rich to exploit
them for profit.
I don't know how true the claims are in a recent
article in The
Mirror regarding comments on IQ and wealth attributed to yourself, but I
wanted to give a few comments of my own on the matter for your consideration. I
hope that is not too presumptuous of me.
I don't know whether IQ is a particularly good
predictor of wealth, but I can see why such an assumption might be made. IQ is
certainly not a great predictor of ethical behaviour or humanity, and I think you
would find much better predictors of wealth and power in metrics of greed,
ruthlessness and selfishness should they ever be adequately measured and
calculated. Also it doesn't take exhaustive research to realise that the most
voluminous and monstrous crimes against humanity and the planet are orchestrated
by the most wealthy and powerful, not the least, and always have
been.
Claims about IQ distribution to support the
existing rich/poor disparity strike me as alarmingly eugenicist rhetoric. I hope
that such notions are not a genuine participants in your own
philosophy.
I would be glad to hear your thoughts on the matter
by reply.
Yours Sincerely,
Ian Kirwan
---------------------- Posted to Boris Johnson (mayor@london.gov.uk) 29th November 2013 ---------------------- Update: Email received from the Mayor's office; "Thank you for your interest in the work of the Mayor and the Greater London Authority, we are keen to answer your query as quickly and fully as possible. As you will appreciate, the Mayor receives a very large amount of correspondence but he is committed to responding to your query within 20 working days."
I, like a rapidly growing portion of the population, am more than unimpressed by capitalism. Before tackling the headline question I'd like to express some of the problems, both ethical and practical, that I see with capitalism as a socio-economic system.
Profit is the the prime motivating factor in capitalism. This ought to immediately raise concern, as it places profit above all other human aspirations. If profit is not your principle objective in a capitalist system then you are going to fail, unless you are very lucky, because capitalism sets everyone in the world in competition with each other, competing for profit. So any egalitarian principles such as equality, fairness, environmental concern, caring and so forth have to be at best subservient to the principle of profit. If you are not profiting then at best you are breaking even, which to maintain is akin to balancing a plate on the end of a pencil, or you are heading into bankruptcy and failure. We also should note that in a fair and equitable exchange of goods or services, there is no profit, just mutual benefit. Profit only arises when people or the environment, but not the profiteer of course, are being exploited. This is more than apparent in almost any business you can point to. Businesses are owned privately. The workforce and consumers of the business's output are exploited for the profit of the owners. This system therefore inherently favours profiteers at the cost of all else, namely humanity and the planet. We ought then to be considering what kind of society and future we are creating by rewarding greed and ruthlessness above all else.
Private ownership is another core principle of capitalism. This is another element of capitalism that deserves our attention. In a pure capitalist system everything must be privately owned, from the means of production to the planet itself. Given that profit guarantees an unfair distribution of wealth, based on ones' propensity to exploit and therefore profit, it follows that there will be an unfair distribution of ownership of the planet, which of course is already the case, and has been since long before we were born. I often liken this to joining a game of Monopoly long after it has already been won, which is the position that the vast majority of us find ourselves born into. We should also note that given the competitive nature of capitalism we are all set up in perpetual conflict, struggling for control of portions of the planet, no matter how big or small. There is no inherent levelling factor here, merely an arms race of one sort or another. An interesting departure from the game of Monopoly in capitalism should also be considered here. The game has a fixed set of rules, which players generally adhere to. However, in the real world, the more capital you have the more power you have, and given that the principle is profit, all else be damned, the most effective profiteers, selected by capitalism for their lack of ethical principle, will use their power to change the rules in their favour, and that is precisely what we see happening.
Many proponents of capitalism frequently argue that we do not live in a capitalist system, citing government regulation as the principle reason for this, as it distorts the idealised 'free market'. Capitalists argue also that the 'free market' (in quotes because it is fictional, an ideal not a reality), is the levelling factor I previously claimed not to exist. This levelling factor is often referred to as the 'invisible hand', which has rather religious implications as I'm sure you can see. Thus critics of capitalism often talk about the religion of the 'free market'. There are many reasons to dispute the possibility of such a levelling factor, some of which I have already expressed in this article. The idea that the principle of greed in the dedicated capitalist is countered by the ethical intuitions of the consumer, making choices about which of the greedy should profit most by buying their products or services is absolutely absurd. The greedy win, every time. There is no choice. Furthermore the uneven distribution of wealth also infers an uneven distribution of marketing, a naturally self distorting effect of free market ideology, thus the most greedy command the most favourable attention in the consumer population. So it is not a negative feedback system naturally controlling itself, it is a positive feedback system spiralling out of control. Some capitalists even advocate something they call anarcho-capitalism, which to me is nothing more than an oxymoron, just as anarcho-fascism or anarcho-totalitarianism are.
So what, if not capitalism? What kind of system should we be trying to operate? Many anti-capitalists call for socialism, communism or even anarcho-syndicalism. Whilst I am not, in principle, against any of these alternatives I would just like folks to think about some of the problems that conspire to poison any system. We live in a world of a hugely uneven distribution of power, legal or otherwise, and those that have such power will fight to defend if not expand that power. Generally speaking we call this group the ruling class, the establishment or the elite. They will always seek to take the levers of power in any system and control society to serve their ideologies and aspirations. This was very much the case in soviet Russia and led in no small part to the collapse of the Russian socialist revolution, aided and abetted of course by capitalist powers in the rich West, as Chomsky explains so lucidly here:
Chomsky on Lenin, Trotsky, Socialism & the Soviet Union
So for me, what is far more important than picking some idealised system is to struggle and to build movements to counter and dismantle concentrations of power. This, aside from decentralised democracy, is a core component of anarchism (please be sceptical about the description of anarchism in the link. It is but one description of anarchism, but at least presents some anarchist ideas. It may be better pursue descriptions presented by anarchist communities such as those at libcom.org). To my thinking we must apply such anarchist principles to whatever system we have and aspire to have. Capitalism inherently favours concentrations of power, not democracy, not fairness or anything else, and thus is possibly the worst of all systems because of where it inevitably leads, and anarchism is to me the only antidote, lest we all become slaves to those that accumulate the most. If anarchism is the only antidote then surely it applies equally if not more effectively to systems other than capitalism.
I would very much like to hear your views on capitalism and any alternatives, and how you see them being maintained. As always please comment below.
