Talk:Represent The People

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Additional Research Notes; Follow-Up

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET
September 17th 2011 -- Is America Ripe for a Tahrir Moment?

Links and notes (potentially) related to main article. Figure out where to insert later. Might fold into main article or jump to separate article.

The hope is for the main article's underlying theme to eventually lead into a discussion of strategies and tactics people can use to

- recognize the benefits of organizing at the community level
- refashion local and regional economies to directly benefit the long-term interests of the people who live there (as opposed to, for instance, a transnational entity with no interest in the community beyond the "value" it is motivated to extract)
- build healthy communities while warding off any kind of Balkanization (self-imposed or imposed by other means)
- understand the reasons why "business as usual" (ie: the globalized neoliberal economic policies imposed by the "developed world's" primary institutions and planners) is collapsing, and how people at the community level might respond

Upcoming Actions / Events -- National

A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:
The antiglobalization movement was the first step on the road. Back then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people.
—- Raimundo Viejo, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain
October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions.

Militarism; War Profiteering

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. War is not the answer. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Beyond Vietnam: A Call to Conscience | Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Veteran New York Times correspondent Chris Hedges has covered conflicts in Bosnia, El Salvador and Israel. Tune in for this thought-provoking lecture based on his best selling book that argues life is lived most intensely in times of war, often with tragic consequences.
As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the mass of invoices, receipts, contracts and email correspondence – submitted as evidence to a court in upstate New York – provides a unique glimpse into a world in which the "war on terror" became just another charter opportunity for American businesses.
China just launched a refitted Ukrainian aircraft carrier from the 1990s on its first test run -- and that’s what the only projected "great power" enemy of the U.S. has to offer for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, the U.S. Navy has 11 aircraft carrier task forces to cruise the seven seas and plans to keep that many through 2045. Like so much else, when it comes to the American military, all comparisons are ludicrous. In any normal sense, the United States stands alone in military terms. Its expenditures make up almost 50% of global military spending; it dominates the global arms market; and it has countless more bases, pilotless drones, military bands, and almost anything else military you’d care to mention than does any other power.

Environment; Climate Change

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Children of Chernobyl
Recordings from The New Emergency Conference: Managing Risk and Building Resilience in a Resource Constrained World.
The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs out? Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and the other scientists, researchers and writers interviewed throughout “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” describe the diminishing returns our world can expect as it deals with the consequences of peak oil even as it continues to pretend it doesn’t exist. These experts predict substantially increased transportation costs, decreased industrial production, unemployment, hunger and social chaos as the supplies of the fuels on which we rely dwindle and eventually disappear.
"Phase out of emissions from coal is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over. There is no practical way to capture the CO2 emitted while burning oil, which is used principally in vehicles."
--Jim Hansen

Nuclear Meltdowns

1. Part ONE
Instead of honoring its victims at this time Chernobyl is referenced to minimize the impact of Fukuchima. Supposedly only 35 people died. The World Health Organization and the IAEA, whose mission is to promote nuclear power, claim that "there is no scientific evidence of increases in overall cancer incidence or mortality rates or in rates of non-malignant disorders that could be related to radiation exposure from Chernobyl." That the reality on the ground is very different comes to life in a book, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment.
2. Part TWO
The extensive section on health effects in this book offers a whole new view of the consequences of radiation induced disease. Yes, there are cancers to specific organs, many thyroid cancers caused by Iodine 131 and 129 but there are also diseases that affect body systems such as the whole endocrine system, not just the thyroid, or the immune system, the respiratory and the reproductive systems. - Also a brief explanation of "half life" "hot spots" and why background radiation is different from radiation from nuclear processes.
3. Part THREE
This program presents the consequences of the Chernobyl explosion on the environment. How has the radiation affected - and continues to affect air, water, the soil, plants and animals. How does radiation move, disperse, bio-accumulate and enter the food chain. Specific examples are from studies on rivers and lakes, wild and domestic animals, birds, fish, fungi, bacteria, viruses, studies that show that they were all affected, in varying degrees, but without exception.
4. Part FOUR
This last episode presents important information on the plight of the children of Chernobyl who - to this day - need vacations in uncontaminated areas to detoxify their bodies from some of the embedded radioactive substances that they absorb in every day life, substances such as cesium, cobalt, thorium, plutonium etc. Also explained is the danger of contaminated food, and how to set up ongoing projects, under control of local communities, to deal with the persisting radiation and find methods to measure the burden of internal radiation.

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What will a post collapse society look like?
Google Voice / Google Text Fun

Misrouted call to unsuspecting Google Voice mailbox:

+1425xxxxxxx Add - Bothell, WA
8/23/11 10:44 AM 65 minutes ago
And I'm calling For the Mario and ready. Actually the Auto Club beat Speedway, I'm interested in getting some driving time for my brother, around October 15th. Time Frame in, fontana, california possible. My mobile number is (425) xxx-xxxx. And it is. I'm calling from Seattle, Washington. Thank you. No. 00:35
Call Text more? Transcript useful?

Texted reply to caller, and caller's response:

Me to +1425xxxxxxx Add - Bothell, WA
8/23/11 11:47 AM 2 minutes ago
Me: Hello! Thank you for your inquiry about driving time. Due to the unfolding economic collapse driven by peak oil we ask folks to refrain from driving. -xoxo 11:41 AM
+1425xxxxxxx: Ok thanks, all the best 11:47 AM
Call Text more?

Relocalization; Degrowth; Peak Oil; Economic Collapse

Eight-part video series uses simple math to demonstrate why unfolding catastrophes involving global finance, peak oil, climate change and severe natural resource depletion are underway now.
Dmitry Orlov, engineer and author, warns that the US's reliance on diminishing fuel supplies might be sending it down the same path the Soviet Union took before it collapsed. Orlov, who was an eyewitness to the collapse of the Soviet Union, asserts that run-away debt and national bankruptcy will lead the US to its demise, just as it did for Moscow. "As oil becomes more expensive and scarcer, the US will no longer be able to finance its importation and the economy will hit a wall. Sixty percent of all of our transportation fuels are imported—a lot of that is on credit. A large chunk of the trade deficit is actually in transportation fuels. When those stop arriving because of our inability to borrow more money, then the economy is at a standstill."
Only Cuba provides a decent standard of living for its people without consuming more than its fair share of (global) resources.
The Twilight of the Antipodes and the Cultural Flip (Power point presentation from talk.)
Comment from viewer: "Very good synthesis, and honest, radical views. Think for a second about a future where you have to unlearn consumerism, bike around more and recycle your plastic bottles. Then ponder a future where the only reliable forms of transportation available are boats, horses and your feet! :D That's what I mean by an honest view on the current collapse. We're very far from sustainabilty, and it's time we get a clear picture. No matter how ridiculously scary."
Dmitry Orlov, author of Reinventing Collapse:The Soviet Example and American Prospects, explored the question “What is it that we are looking at here, and what can we do about it?” He believes that there is not much hope for a global financial system and economy, nor should there be given the huge problems it is causing with the environment. If this is the case, then what can people do, in terms of coping with financial collapse, creating community resilience, and re-skilling for the new, local, self-reliant, highly manual age that is coming?
Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation (Orlov's notes and power point slides.)

Community

Inherent within the challenges of peak oil and climate change is an extraordinary opportunity to reinvent, rethink, and rebuild the world around us.
- Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook.
Transition PDX: Recovery Zone on 08/24/11
- Program: Recovery Zone | Air date: Wed, 08/24/2011 - 11:00am - 11:30am
- Short Description: Transition PDX working for sustainability and ecological resilience.
We live in an oil-dependent world, and became this dependent in a very short space of time, using vast reserves of oil in the process – without planning for when the supply is not so plentiful. The Transition Movement began in 2005 in Totnes in the UK with a vote by the town council to work toward energy independence and a sustainable future. The idea spread quickly. There are now over 300 communities recognized as official Transition Towns in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Italy and Chile.[1] Host Stephanie Potter will be speaking with David Johnson and Jim Newcomer who are with the Transition PDX here in Portland, Oregon. Johnson is also on the Board of Transition US[2] and serves as a Transition Trainer. Transition PDX is loosely organized into a network of groups comprised of people coming together to overcome the challenges of peak oil, economic stagnation and the climate crisis, and to explore how the transition model can be applied in the Portland area to create thriving neighborhoods.
City Repair is an organized group action that educates and inspires communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live.

Finance

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Inside Job (2010) is a documentary film about the late-2000s financial crisis directed by Charles H. Ferguson. The film was screened at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May and won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Ferguson has described the film as being about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption."[3] In five parts, the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis. Inside Job was well received by film critics who praised its pacing, research, and exposition of complex material.
Rob Johnson: Financial institutions planning to use crisis to privatize and monopolize.
EDITOR NOTES: This topic is crucial for people to understand. The same forces whose antics brought the global economy to its knees while accumulating unimaginable "paper" wealth are scooping up every tangible asset they can get their hands on while prices for those assets are cheap and before their currency becomes worthless.
- Wall Street lobbyists trying to slow down trading regulations and defund Commission
- Massive spikes in price of food, oil, natural gas and silver cannot be the result of supply and demand
- For regulations to be effective, there has to be political will and proper resources
- Regulator gets "around 100 visits from finance reps for every one from community advocates"

Propaganda

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CIA's "Facebook" Program Dramatically Cut Agency's Costs
Summary: The people of the US have been subjected to the most costly, unparalleled, 3/4 century propaganda effort by corporations in order to expand corporate rights, limit democracy and destroy the unions. This two part radio broadcast explores the history From WWI to Reagan.
Credits: Producer: Maria Gilardin tuc@tucradio.org
From Publisher: This compelling book examines the twentieth-century history of corporate propaganda as practiced by U.S. businesses and its export to and adoption by other western democracies, chiefly the United Kingdom and Australia.
Praise:
"A uniquely important work on the 'ideal of a propaganda-managed democracy."
--Noam Chomsky
"Illuminates how big business propaganda, waged by PR experts, subverts democracy and ensures corporate dominance."
--John Stauber, coauthor of Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry
"A unique study of the growth and development of corporate propaganda in western democracies. . . . Timely, and useful for anyone concerned about the influence of methods of mass persuasion in undermining democracy."
--Elaine Bernard, Harvard University Trade Union Program
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is an analysis of the news media as business. The title derives from the phrase “the manufacture of consent” that essayist–editor Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) employed in the book Public Opinion (1922).

Social Control Through Fear & Hate

From Report: As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the Islamophobia network will be working overtime. The anniversary could be manipulated to ratchet up the nonexistent threat of Sharia and warn of apocalyptic dangers stemming from Muslims living in America.[4]
Selected Quotes From Report
From Page 2: A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam—in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.
Full Report: Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America
Related Article: New report maps the roots of Islamophobia: A new report traces the flow -- and funding -- of anti-Muslim ideas >> In a 140-page report released Friday, researchers at the Center for American Progress have traced the origins of rising Islamophobia in the United States to what they call a "small, tightly networked group of misinformation experts guiding an effort that reaches millions of Americans through effective advocates, media partners, and grassroots organizing."

Industrial Food

Food, Inc. is a 2009 American documentary film directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Robert Kenner.[5] The film examines corporate farming in the United States, concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and employees.
  • Food INC | Subtitulado Español - (Full-length documentary -- with Spanish subtitles -- available on Vimeo as of 26 August 2011.)
Super Size Me is a 2004 American documentary film directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock, an American independent filmmaker. Spurlock's film follows a 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 2003 during which he eats only McDonald's food. The film documents this lifestyle's drastic effects on Spurlock's physical and psychological well-being, and explores the fast food industry's corporate influence, including how it encourages poor nutrition for its own profit.
The World According to Monsanto is a 2008 documentary film directed by Marie-Monique Robin. Originally released in French as Le monde selon Monsanto, the film is based on Robin's three-year long investigation into the US agricultural giant Monsanto corporation's practices around the world.[6] The World According to Monsanto is also a book written by Marie-Monique Robin winner of the Rachel Carson Prize (a Norwegian prize for female environmentalists), [7] the book was translated to many languages.
The World According to Monsanto is a documentary first aired on French television (ARTE – French-German cultural TV channel). It was produced by French journalist and film maker Marie-Monique Robin. It's unlikely you'll see this documentary on American television. The gigantic biotech corporation Monsanto is threatening to destroy the agricultural biodiversity which has served mankind for thousands of years.

References

  1. ↑ Transition Initiatives Directory
  2. ↑ Transition United States: Bringing a new world to life.
  3. ↑ "Charlie Rose Interviews Charles Ferguson on his documentary 'Inside Job'", February 25, 2011
  4. ↑ Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America -- Conclusion
  5. ↑ Severson, Kim. "Eat, Drink, Think, Change." The New York Times. June 3, 2009.
  6. ↑ The World According to Monsanto IMDb Page
  7. ↑ The World According to Monsanto
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