March 1, 2013

Disaster Capitalism, Chicago-style

Disaster Capitalism, Chicago-style

Thursday, 28 February 2013 10:44
By Kenzo Shibata, Jacobin Magazine | News Analysis


In public policy circles, crises are called “focusing events” — bringing to light a particular failing in government policy. They require government agencies to switch rapidly into crisis mode to implement solutions. Creating the crisis itself is more novel.

The right-wing, free market vision of University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman informed the blueprint for the rapid privatization of municipal services throughout the world due in no small part to what author Naomi Klein calls “Disaster Capitalism.” Friedman wrote in his 1982 treatise Capitalism and Freedom, “When (a) crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around”

In Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine, she explains how immediately after Hurricane Katrina, Friedman used the decimation of New Orleans’ infrastructure to push for charter schools, a market-based policy preference of Friedman acolytes. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was the CEO of Chicago Public Schools at the time, and later described Hurricane Katrina as “the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans.” Duncan is of the liberal wing of the free market project and a major supporter of charter schools.

There aren’t any hurricanes in the Midwest, so how can proponents of privatization like Mayor Rahm Emanuel sell off schools to the highest bidder?

They create a crisis. ............................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/14846-disaster-capitalism-chicago-style

March 1, 2013

Robert Parry: The Neo-Confederate Supreme Court

from Consortium News:


The Neo-Confederate Supreme Court
February 28, 2013

Exclusive: The Right’s desperation over U.S. demographic changes has spread to the U.S. Supreme Court where its five Republican partisans appear ready to tear up the most important part of the Voting Rights Act and thus clear the way for suppressing the votes of minorities, reports Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry


If white rule in the United States is to be restored and sustained, then an important first step will be the decision of the five Neo-Confederate justices on the U.S. Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act, a move that many court analysts now consider likely.

The Court’s striking down Section Five of the Voting Rights Act will mean that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting – mostly in the Old Confederacy – will be free to impose new obstacles to voting by African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities without first having to submit the changes to a federal court.

This green light to renew Jim Crow laws also would come at a time when Republican legislatures and governors across the country are devising new strategies for diluting the value of votes from minorities and urban dwellers in order to protect GOP power, especially within the federal government.

Already, the Republicans’ aggressive gerrymandering of congressional districts has ensured a continued GOP majority in the U.S. House of Representatives although Democrats outpolled Republicans nationwide in Election 2012. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/02/28/the-neo-confederate-supreme-court/

February 28, 2013

Bill Moyers Preview: Fighting Creeping Creationism

http://vimeo.com/60578287


Preview: Fighting Creeping Creationism
February 26, 2013

From the time he was a high school senior in his home state of Louisiana, 19-year-old anti-creationism activist Zack Kopplin has been speaking, debating, cornering politicians, and winning the active support of 78 Nobel Laureates, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New Orleans City Council, and tens of thousands of students, teachers and others around the country. On this week’s Moyers & Company, the Rice University history major joins Bill to talk about fighting laws and voucher programs that let publicly-funded creationist curriculum in the back door.

“We need to be teaching evolution and embryology and the big bang theory… They’re good, established science,” Kopplin tells Bill. “We’re not going to do what we need to really make the advances to keep our way of life and ensure the survival of the human race if we don’t teach our students science.”

Also on the program, journalist and historian Susan Jacoby talks with Bill about the role secularism and intellectual curiosity have played throughout America’s history, a topic explored in her new book, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Free Thought.


http://billmoyers.com/episode/preview-fighting-creeping-creationism/

February 28, 2013

Unlocking a movement: Mass incarceration reaches epic proportions in ‘the land of the free’

from the Detroit Metro Times:


Unlocking a movement
Mass incarceration reaches epic proportions in ‘the land of the free’

By Curt Guyette
Published: February 27, 2013


There are certain statistics that should make people gasp with horror and seethe with outrage.

Here is one of those numbers: 716.

Why that figure in particular? Because it represents the number of people per 100,000 who are behind bars in the United States. To even begin to understand the full, tragic significance of what that number represents, it has to be put in context. It is not enough to know that America, the supposed freedom-loving nation that we are, leads the world when it comes to the rate of incarceration. Compare that rate to communist Cuba, which jails 510 people per 100,000, or Iraq, where the number is 115. Or how about Germany, where the number is 80 prisoners per 100,000 people, or Finland, where it is only 60.

In terms of the sheer numbers of people who are locked up, the United States is also the unfortunate leader. By far. With about 2.2 million people locked up overall, the U.S. prison population far exceeds that of every other country on the planet, including China, which has four times as many people as America. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/news/news-hits/unlocking-a-movement-1.1450366

February 28, 2013

Our Food Is Being Hijacked by Monopolizing Corporations

Truthout talked with Wenonah Hauter about her exposé on how the food industry is becoming a dangerous monopoly of corporate interests.

Mark Karlin: One of the fascinating points you detail in your book is how the "natural foods" marketplace has: 1) become dominated by a few big chain stores (of course "Whole Foods" leads the pack) and distributors; and 2) many of the items that they sell are no more natural than a conventional chain supermarket, just more expensive. Can you elaborate on that?

Wenonah Hauter: Over the past 20 years, Whole Foods Market has acquired its competition, including Wellspring Grocery, Bread of Life, Bread & Circus, Food for Thought, Fresh Fields, Wild Oats Markets and others. Today the chain dominates the market because it has no national competitor. Over the past five years its gross sales have increased by half (47 percent) to $11.7 billion, and its net profit quadrupled to $465.6 million. One of the ways it has achieved this profitability is by selling conventional foods under the false illusion that they are better than products sold at a regular grocery store. Consumers falsely conclude that these products have been screened and are better, and they are willing to pay a higher price.

The distribution of organic foods is also extremely concentrated. A little-known company, United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) now controls the distribution of organic and natural products. Publically traded, the company has a contract with Whole Foods and it is the major source of these products for the remaining independent natural food stores. This relationship has resulted in increasingly high prices for these foods. Small manufacturers are dependent on contracts with UNFI to get their products to market and conversely, small retailers often have to pay a premium price for products because of their dependence on this major distributor. Over the past five years, UNFI's net sales increased by more than half (55.6 percent) $5.2. billion. Its net profit margin increased by 88 percent to $91 million.

Mark Karlin: We have this great national myth of the family farmer putting food on our table. What's happened to the family farmer as the consumer food industry continues to shift to a few behemoth corporations?

Wenonah Hauter: Ever since the Reagan Administration pulled federal anti-trust cops off their beat, the federal government has been allowing giant mergers between competitors. As a result, massive consolidation has taken place in the food industry, giving the meatpackers, grain companies, food processing conglomerates and the grocery industry unprecedented economic power. These companies stand as a bottleneck between fewer than a million farmers and more than 300 million consumers. They lower the prices that farmers receive and increase the prices that consumers pay, keeping more of the profits for themselves. ...........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/14783-our-food-is-being-hijacked-by-monopolizing-corporations

February 28, 2013

The Real Story Behind the Crash and Burn of America's Managerial Class

Barbara and John Ehrenreich: The Real Story Behind the Crash and Burn of America's Managerial Class
How the rise and fall of the professional-managerial class has impacted the last hundred years.

February 19, 2013 |


Every would-be populist in American politics purports to defend the “middle class,” although there is no agreement on what it is. Just in the last couple of years, the “middle class” has variously been defined as everybody, everybody minus the 15 percent living below the federal poverty level; or everybody minus the very richest Americans. Mitt Romney famously excluded “those in the low end” but included himself (2010 income $21.6 million) along with “80 to 90 percent” of Americans. The Department of Commerce has given up on income-based definitions, announcing in a 2010 report that “middle class families” are defined “by their aspirations more than their income (…). Middle class families aspire to home ownership, a car, college education for their children, health and retirement security and occasional family vacations”—which excludes almost no one.

Class itself is a muddled concept, perhaps especially in America, where any allusion to the different interests of different occupational and income groups is likely to attract the charge of “class warfare.” If class requires some sort of “consciousness,” or capacity for concerted action, then a “middle class” conceived of as a sort of default class—what you are left with after you subtract the rich and the poor—is not very interesting.

But there is another, potentially more productive, interpretation of what has been going on in the mid-income range. In 1977, we first proposed the existence of a “professional-managerial class,” distinct from both the “working class,” from the “old” middle class of small business owners, as well as from the wealthy class of owners. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/barbara-and-john-ehrenreich-real-story-behind-crash-and-burn-americas-managerial-class

February 27, 2013

NY-on-the-Gulf: The Warmer World of 2200

NY-on-the-Gulf: The Warmer World of 2200

Posted on Feb 27, 2013
By Tim Radford, Climate News Network

This piece first appeared at Climate News Network.


LONDON—Some like it hot but most like it not: higher temperatures and rising humidity could seriously affect the capacity to work in a future world, according to scientists at Princeton University, US.

John Dunne and colleagues from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration looked at data from recent decades and projections of future temperature rise.

They report in Nature Climate Change that they estimate that environmental heat stress has reduced labour capacity to 90% in the peak months in the last few decades. By 2050, they estimate, this capacity could be reduced to 80% as workers gasp and perspire in the heat.

If carbon dioxide emissions continue at the highest projection, then by 2200 in the hottest months, future humans will struggle to deliver even 40% of their present productivity. For those people who tend to swelter in high summer right now, it will eventually be just far too hot to trot. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/ny-on-the-gulf_the_warmer_world_of_2200_20130227/

February 27, 2013

Barbara and John Ehrenreich: The Real Story Behind the Crash and Burn of America's Managerial Class

Barbara and John Ehrenreich: The Real Story Behind the Crash and Burn of America's Managerial Class
How the rise and fall of the professional-managerial class has impacted the last hundred years.

February 19, 2013 |


Every would-be populist in American politics purports to defend the “middle class,” although there is no agreement on what it is. Just in the last couple of years, the “middle class” has variously been defined as everybody, everybody minus the 15 percent living below the federal poverty level; or everybody minus the very richest Americans. Mitt Romney famously excluded “those in the low end” but included himself (2010 income $21.6 million) along with “80 to 90 percent” of Americans. The Department of Commerce has given up on income-based definitions, announcing in a 2010 report that “middle class families” are defined “by their aspirations more than their income (…). Middle class families aspire to home ownership, a car, college education for their children, health and retirement security and occasional family vacations”—which excludes almost no one.

Class itself is a muddled concept, perhaps especially in America, where any allusion to the different interests of different occupational and income groups is likely to attract the charge of “class warfare.” If class requires some sort of “consciousness,” or capacity for concerted action, then a “middle class” conceived of as a sort of default class—what you are left with after you subtract the rich and the poor—is not very interesting.

But there is another, potentially more productive, interpretation of what has been going on in the mid-income range. In 1977, we first proposed the existence of a “professional-managerial class,” distinct from both the “working class,” from the “old” middle class of small business owners, as well as from the wealthy class of owners. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/economy/barbara-and-john-ehrenreich-real-story-behind-crash-and-burn-americas-managerial-class

February 27, 2013

'Obey': Film Based on Chris Hedges' 'Death of the Liberal Class'

Published on Feb 24, 2013

British filmmaker Temujin Doran has released a new movie that is based on the book "The Death of the Liberal Class" by Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges. The film, titled "Obey," explores the rise of the corporate state and the future of obedience in a world filled with unfettered capitalism, worsening inequality and environmental changes.

Warning: Viewers may find some of the clips in the film disturbing.

February 25, 2013

Chris Hedges: Rebels Stand Alone

from truthdig:


Rebels Stand Alone

Posted on Feb 24, 2013
By Chris Hedges


I was in the Swiss village of Begnins outside Geneva shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. I spent three days there with Axel von dem Bussche, a former Wehrmacht major, holder of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross for extreme battlefield bravery, three times wounded in World War II, and the last surviving member of the inner circle of German army officers who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

I was reminded of my visit with von dem Bussche, whom I was interviewing for The Dallas Morning News, by the 70th anniversary of the execution of five Munich University students and their philosophy professor who were members of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany. The BBC last week interviewed the 99-year-old Liselotte Furst-Ramdohr, who hid leaflets for the group in her closet and helped make stencils used to paint slogans on walls. The six White Rose members managed to distribute thousands of anti-Nazi leaflets before they were arrested by the Gestapo and guillotined. The text of their sixth and final set of leaflets was smuggled out of Germany by the resistance leader Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, who was arrested in 1944 and hanged by the Nazis in January 1945. Copies of the leaflets’ language were dropped over Germany by Allied planes in July 1943. Furst-Ramdohr, who was widowed during the war when her first husband was killed on the Russian front, also was arrested by the Gestapo. She was imprisoned but eventually released.

The White Rose has been lionized by postwar Germans—one of its members, Alexander Schmorell, was made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church last year, and squares and schools in Germany are named for the resisters—but in the BBC interview Furst-Ramdohr curtly dismissed the adulation of the group.

“At the time, they’d have had us all executed,” she said in speaking of most Germans’ hatred of resisters during the war. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_courage_to_resist_20130224/