"The gravest danger to hegemony and oppression lies at the transformational crossroads of liberation and technology". clubof.info is a mix of technopolitics commentary and radical ideas.
Due to the ongoing operation to eliminate radical anti-Russian nationalists in Ukraine, Russia is under pressure unseen since the Axis powers attacked its territory in the Second World War. The following are three decisive methods the Russian government could consider, to severely punish the NATO countries.
1. Proxy war in Ukraine
Americans have already taken the lead in making a European proxy war possible, suggesting the supply of armaments to rebels and foreign volunteers who are expected to arrive in Ukraine. They want to copy the success of foreign fighters in Afghanistan during the 1980s, believing only the Russians will suffer from this policy, but Europe could be more at risk itself. After all, this "Afghanistan" would be in Europe, and Ukraine already has a problem with armed neo-Nazis.
In fact, NATO has more reason to fear this scenario of a failed state in Ukraine than Russia.
Unlike Afghanistan, Russians are natives of this area, with large populations and families supporting Russia in parts of Ukraine. They will not be withdrawing like the Soviet Army. Returned to Russian protection, they could contribute to a strong buffer zone of sympathetic forces to help secure Russia's Ukrainian frontier. There is already the Donetsk People's Republic, DPR, and Lugansk People's Republic, LPR, able to provide Russia with mutual security against Western nationalist proxies in Ukraine. Russia could be restrictive about travel from Ukraine to Russia, but the European Union would never be so strict, having opened its doors to Ukrainian exiles and aided their travels. If Ukraine becomes a ruined failed state, filled with protracted warfare and resentment, home to many shadowy groups including local Russian proxies, Russia would be able to use Ukraine to threaten Europe, while enjoying security itself. The inevitable blockback of weapons and radical ideas into Europe from a European repeat of Afghanistan could be uncontrollable, and may result in armed insurgents seizing cities across Europe and spreading civil war and chaos. We must remember that the foreign fighters of the Afghan jihad set about trying to topple the local regimes after they returned home, for example in Algeria, being convinced of their just cause. Foreign fighters who are radicalised in Ukraine would be returning to places like Berlin and Paris.
2. Impounding ships
Russia encompasses a huge amount of land with a vast coastline, meaning potential dominance at key shipping routes, especially those icy seas along its north. It possesses a powerful navy and air forces, more than enough to interdict shipping. In retaliation for sanctions, Russia could impound all cargo ships and tankers it encounters if they belong to the countries carrying out sanctions on Russia, taking their cargo as compensation. The US already did this to Iran, and France even was bold enough to do this to Russia itself. The occasional disappearance of a tanker could produce negative economic effects and denying them passage could be just as disruptive.
With the French declaring "total economic and financial war on Russia", Russia has no reason to let any French cargo ship pass if it can intercept it. An even more aggressive option is for Russian navy vessels to actively hunt, intercept and board all vulnerable ships of the European Union and throw their cargo overboard, destroying the goods (unless they contain things that are extra valuable, such as gold!)
European countries could retaliate in a number of ways, but they would likely be too costly. Freight shipping is a notoriously cost-averse business, maintaining ageing ships often of dubious quality and crews on fairly minimal salaries, so it seems unlikely that warshups will be used for this task or assigned for protection in peacetime.
3. Turning off the gas to Europe
Russia can simply turn off the gas to Germany and instead supply its gas to China and other Asian countries. If done in combination with delaying, diverting or seizing US LNG shipments bound for Europe, this could be catastrophic to European economies, forcing them to shut down industry and even fail to keep their citizens warm.
Owing to its size and resources, Russia has proved to be invulnerable in many ways as a country, and numerous alliances have shattered when trying to take this country on.
In the political establishment and its media, there is a "baffled air of ignorance surrounding the political engagement and opinions of young people", wrote influential pro-Corbyn Labour Party activist Liam Young in a book last year titled Rise: How Jeremy Corbyn Inspired the Young to Create a New Socialism.
In the 2018 book, the author argues young people have been compelled to get involved in politics because of Conservative-led austerity measures. For such young political campaigners, the motive is personal experience, with each campaigner having their own interest in overcoming student debt, zero-hours contracts and other impacts of government policy on them.
It is tempting to believe the author of Rise, who writes that the vast majority of the young really support Corbyn unflinchingly, even if the statistics in the book seem quite limited. Unfortunately, political apathy (at least when it comes to actually rolling up our sleeves and doing anything) is still prevalent among young people. There is the possibility that many young activists represent little more than a fleeting bubble of students and social media users, whose interest in the Labour Party is chiefly experimental and will pass as quickly as it began.
On the relentless criticism of the Opposition Leader in the media, Young channels the young of the Labour Party when he writes "we were being sold lies by well-known liars". It is indeed a puzzle that the press, supposedly with their finger on the public pulse, are not able to notice their own threadbare credibility and won't try to repair it, even in our times so dominated by the scorns of social media. They seem to know nothing about how normal people think, or what it might take to convince us to agree with them. Lone individual politicians like Corbyn seem to actually have more influence on us than the entire media establishment yapping at his feet, perhaps ever since they shed the last drop of their credibility to support Tony Blair's Iraq War.
One might find a paradox in the author labelling UK mainstream media simultaneously "right-wing" (p. 28) and a "liberal commentariat" (p. 48). However, this choice can be justified if one redefines the reactionary simply as a Macron, the dull yes-man of the reigning liberal state ideology and the hammer of the populists. Whatever worm is picked by the establishment, whether Conservative or Labour, "right" or "left", to oppose the people. Perhaps such a definition helps us also understand why so many apparent supporters of human rights turn out to be NATO tankies and airstrike-supporters willing to brainlessly hurl themselves at the official enemy.
Much-needed points are made in the book regarding the relationship between young political activists and Brexit. The author stated at the time, "There should be no worry within the Labour Party concerning a conflict between its position on Brexit and its support for the young", although flip-flopping on a possible second referendum has occurred anyway since the author wrote those words. The television might want you to think otherwise, but the young were actually much more engaged in support of Corbyn in the 2017 snap general election than they were in the Brexit vote, at least Young's book argues.
Going back a few years, the author notes how young people were betrayed by Nick Clegg after he had successfully mobilised them with his promise to write off student debt. This destroyed his political career, Young claims. It cemented views among the young that politicians are all the same. Corbyn differs from this, and the difference he presents helped rekindle the interest of the young. The pragmatic approach of Miliband is gone, replaced by Corbyn's honest and consistent track record as a dissident.
More than the appeal of his underdog status, Young says Jeremy Corbyn's appeal to 18-24-year-olds rests in his desire to listen. He is receptive and caring, and will ensure the young can decide the policies affecting them rather than accepting the decrees of the "tired establishment". From Corbyn there is no condescension, preaching, or authority. In response one might argue that while such ways are indeed favoured by young people at present, they do not necessarily indicate capable political leadership. Unwillingness so assert authority in the face of numerous challenges and insults far beyond the norm could be considered a weakness, and it is possible that the onslaught of hostility against Corbyn from top individuals within the party is more than most leaders would ever tolerate. Nevertheless, the overwhelmingly gentle approach Corbyn takes clearly strengthens his appeal at least with the younger demographic, and through them he has a strong element ever rushing to his support within the party.
The participation of under-24s in the 2017 election was explained poorly by both the Conservatives and many within Labour, and the author of Rise does not forgive them for it. Explanations included the allegation Corbyn bribed students by offering to abolish their tuition fees and cancel debts, and the claim Corbyn only appealed to the liberal young intelligentsia. Such ideas are refuted by some solid statistics presented by the author. Of particular interest is the finding by Young that genuinely working-class young voters, not necessarily from liberal and student circles at all, are undeniably drawn to Corbyn. His appeal to this demographic has been authentic, or so say the book's figures. Contrastingly, Young describes how the interests of younger generations are only weakly and hastily addressed by the Conservatives and excluded from their policies.
The "tired establishment" Young describes in both the government and the opposition parties resent the youth of the country and the social media they so favour. Young believes we can see this in their attempts to forbid such influences in practice and downplay their significance in their rhetoric. Discussing Momentum, Young asserts the group's social media power intimidated the Conservative Party and prompted ill-advised copycats who have yet to demonstrate any similar reach. It is possible however that tech companies, aligned with the same liberal commentariat rejected by Young, will thwart groups like Momentum in an effort to stall the passions of "populism" in favour of fading authorities. Companies like Facebook have been pushed and shoved to become boring censors on behalf of the state and mainstream media to fulfil a highly reactionary role, muffling dissenting views and shadow-banning many. They are onboard with the same MPs and journalists whose own freedom of speech and immunity from prosecution are abused to demand censorship against other people, bemoaning the smallest squeaks of ordinary citizens at the mercy of their power.
One weakness of the book might lie in its unscientific assertions the Conservative Party's views are "dying out along with their voters". This reference to the old comes across as a poor choice. Where is the study showing a staggeringly greater proportion of 18-24 year olds hold radical or anti-mainstream views now than in any other historical period? It may be that the problem for Labour isn't a specific generation of older people who are still alive to vote, as Young seems to argue. Instead, the age issue may indicate many people turn to the political right after becoming homeowners, parents, high-rate taxpayers, pensioners or some other category the Conservatives invest quite a bit in getting votes from. There has probably always been a correlation between university education, radicalism and youth. There is also possibly a correlation between youth, unemployment and anti-Conservative views, although it is not the task of this book review to provide such a study.
The observations in Liam Young's book do not indicate some hypothetical future where people remain youthfully radical despite aging. It is hard to deny we will inevitably change, as political views do change with age. Saying old people who vote Tory will be "dying out" to be replaced with young Labour voters not only defies the simple fact people age but ignores statistics showing the population is aging. Many people of a highly conservative mindset were potentially quite radical in their youth. The Labour Party may have lost the support of such people to the Conservatives over many years, making it a valueless observation or even a weakness for Labour to be enjoying disproportionate loyalty from the young rather than the old.
Saying old people are a "dying breed" is unhelpful. We must assume we will all age and die. Just because elderly people may pass away sooner does not mean their interests and sensibilities can be dismissed in politics. The case for old people is just as strong and convincing as the case for the young. In fact, any claim of old people dying off entirely as a demographic and being unable to decisively influence future elections is an offensive absurdity, unless the author is professing to have invented some plague.
While one can sound wise by repeating the conventional wisdom that young people are the future and the old need to step aside, one can also sound wise by pointing out that the money to fund our future comes from the old. Old people would be right to feel irritated by young people trying to prematurely declare them dead and boldly assert how all the revenues collected from them may be better spent. We must remember that our country itself was inherited from older generations, including people who are literally dead, and this does not diminish it or our obligations to honour them in any way.
As painful as it is to admit it, there is a risk Labour's youth surge is not as decisive as it seems and could backfire. If we are trading in our support of older people in favour of the young, replacing seasoned supporters with a temporary wave of support from curious teens and early 20s, the surge will be transitory and ultimately fade away. If we fight out a battle between age groups, rather than focusing on common ground and compassion between as many varieties of people as possible, it will be pointlessly destructive.
Despite the subtitle of the book, "How Jeremy Corbyn Inspired the Young to Create a New Socialism", Young does not try to explain what "new socialism" is, beyond "opposition to neoliberalism" and "what the people want". Isn't it supposed to be a completed new ideology or doctrine? Since the first World Social Forum in 2001, the global left has tried and struggled to adopt a consensus-based post-Cold War socialist economic model as a strong and compelling alternative to the neoliberal capitalist monolith. Intellectual effort continues to be expended, but a contender has yet to arise from all of this conversation in utopistics. The Labour Party itself has settled more for a soft capitalist economics best described as the entrepreneurial state, with a focus on reinvigorated state-funded science, renationalisation and rejection of private sector "myths" and propaganda. This is hardly a "new socialism". Hope as we may, we are not yet in a position to pronounce the full return of socialism's name to the ideological and economic prominence it was given by so many during the previous century. It may simply never happen, although this admission should be taken as no praise for the political right.
In Rise, we are told the young were "innovating solutions to the problems we face" (p. 232). Like what? The book has argued convincingly that Labour is the best choice for young people, but it has not done anything to show young people came up with any actual political solutions, let alone a new socialism.
Young's case for reducing the voting age to 16 is sound, but it can be safely assumed that many parents will tell these young adults how to vote and are the main influence on younger voters already. This may seem bad so some, while others may argue that the amplifying effect it would have on the voices of poor families can only be a good thing for a state that has done too little for them.
The conclusion of Young's book is still convincing. Opposition to the supposed political consensus and the mainstream media are common to young people. They do want radically competing visions and parties when going to the ballot box rather than dull, risk-free compromises. Support of anti-establishment left movements by young activists has had a global impact, not because young people are somehow becoming a bigger sector of the population or more confident but because their social media skill has allowed them to punch far above their weight. There are parallels between Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US, with both of their campaigns alive with power and enthusiasm largely because of the internet.
It is worth finishing by pointing out a "new socialism" as some formal ideology is hardly even necessary in the long term. What we have now is unsustainable. Neoliberalism is a failure. This version of capitalism has unfortunately been a fountain of crisis, poverty and the tired Thatcherite refrain since the 1980s that we have no alternative. That is the only reason anyone needs to hear Corbyn out.
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Can and will there be an alternative world-system? In social science, this is what the emerging field of utopistics is for.
Use the video below to get a brief breakdown of what utopistics is about...
... or, continue reading
Utopistics is a necessary field, because of the crisis-ridden nature of our present economic system and the fact it is constructed of injustices and exploitation. Part of world-systems analysis or world-systems theory (a theory of International Relations from Immanuel Wallerstein), utopistics focuses on paradoxes and choices that will lead to the transformation of present world political and economic relations.
Current reigning economic and political theories focus overwhelmingly either on a nationalist-protectionist settlement of perceived faults and injustices in the global economy or - conversely - the neoliberal model of hyper-capitalist globalization and US political dominance. Anti-systemic movements are movements of minorities, anti-imperialists and the political left, aimed at securing a non-capitalist economic model. While their grievances against injustices and exploitation are clear, such movements are perceived to not offer a clearly defined alternative to the current neoliberal economic consensus. It is this alternative that utopistic study could produce.
It appears that parties of the political left give little heed to the works of sociologists at present and derive their ideas mainly from other prominent economists, such as Mariana Mazzucato in the case of the UK's Labour Party.
Pointing to environment-threatening "big business lobbyists" looking to exploit Brexit, grassroots campaign group 38 Degrees called on members to support its "People Powered Brexit".
Results of 38 Degrees polling show members of the public overwhelmingly voting to keep EU protections and regulations on wildlife and consumer products in place. 38 Degrees: DIY Brexit
In addition, however, those polled wanted to use the Brexit to ensure Britain does not have to comply with US treaties benefiting corporate interests over the population such as TTIP. Over 91% believed "The UK must not be subject to the TTIP trade deal between the EU and the US... if it passes before the UK officially leaves the EU. Any deal we make with the EU must not make us subject to TTIP."
Those polled favored overall mirroring EU regulation while avoiding including the UK in EU treaties. Results show people saying any new UK treaties made "should maintain current safety standards" for all products when it comes to trade.
Whistleblowers chilled by DNC deaths: The BlogWikiLeaks sources are "concerned" by the murder of a Democratic... https://t.co/rndplZEi38
The following are selections from the foremost global transhumanist publication H+ Magazine's review of Kevin Carson's book, The Homebrew Industrial Revolution (2010).
If you don't have time to read books or even reviews, at least read these few observations.
With the technology of individual creativity expanding constantly, the analysis goes, “increasing competition, easy diffusion of new technology and technique, and increasing transparency of cost structure will – between them – arbitrage the rate of profit to virtually zero and squeeze artificial scarcity rents” (p. 346)...
“The worst nightmare of the corporate dinosaurs”, Carson writes of old-fashioned mass-production-based and propertied industries, is that “the imagination might take a walk” (p. 311). Skilled creators could find the courage to declare independence from big brands...
But “as the system approaches its limits of sustainability”, “libertarian and decentralist technologies and organizational forms” are destined to “break out of their state capitalist integument and become the building blocks of a fundamentally different society” (p. 111-112)... The decentralization brought by computers has meant “the minimum capital outlay for entering most of the entertainment and information industry has fallen to a few thousand dollars at most, and the marginal cost of reproduction is zero” (p. 199). If the “transferrability” of individual creativity and peer production“to the realm of physical production” from the “immaterial realm” is a valid observation (p. 204-227), then the economic singularity means one thing clear. “Knowledge is free” shall become “everything is free”. Abolishartificial scarcity, intellectual property, mandatory high overhead and other measures used by states to enforce the privileges of monopoly capitalism, the author tells us (p. 168-170). This way, a more humane world-economy can be engineered, oriented to benefit people and local communities foremost. Everyone in the world may get to work fewer hours while enjoying an improved quality of life, and we can prevent a bleak future in which millions of people are sacrificed to technological unemployment on the altar of profit. Inspired? Go and read the full review by Harry J. Bentham at H+ Magazine
Turkish regime's "collapse" possible: The BlogDespite the triumph of the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan o... https://t.co/YoB0JvFPOQ
"What are the matters underlying this debate? There are essentially four: popular anger at the so-called Establishment and its parties; the geopolitical decline of the United States; the politics of austerity; and identity politics. All of them have contributed to the turmoil...
"There is little doubt that popular anti-Establishment anger is a strong force. It has often erupted when economic conditions are uncertain, as they surely are today. If this seems a stronger motivation now than previously, it is probably because economic uncertainty is far greater than in the past...
"anti-Establishment movements have not won out everywhere or consistently"
"The geopolitical consequences of Brexit are probably more important. Great Britain’s withdrawal from Europe deals a further blow to the ability of the United States to maintain its dominance in the world-system. Great Britain has been in many ways the indispensable geopolitical ally (or is it agent?) of the United States in Europe, in NATO, in the Middle East, and vis-à-vis Russia. There is no substitute...
"Austerity is obviously nobody’s desired policy, except for the ultra-rich who alone profit from it. The fear of increased austerity, as promised by the British government, surely contributed significantly to the move for Brexit, which was promoted as a way to reduce austerity...
"Brexit is important as a symptom but not as a cause of turmoil."
"Since the turmoil is part of a chaotic structural crisis in the modern world-system... We are not paying enough attention to the middle run, where the long-run successor world-system (or systems) will be decided, and where the decision remains dependent on what we do in the middle-run struggle."
Criminal tries to become US President: The BlogIn an obvious attempt to prop up war criminal sadist Hillary C... https://t.co/YyTKB5Nbza
The injustice of developing countries having to pay back extortionate rates of interest that emanate from sovereign debt with colonial-era roots is often rightly made due to the oppressive nature of imperialistic regimes of the time. However, one may wonder why such colonial-era debt cannot be feasibly defaulted upon? The standard argument suggests that this would ruin the country’s credit rating, lead to capital flight, devastate the country’s currency and, thereby, lead to economic and financial ruin. I argue, however, that this scenario only applies in the context of the monetary monopoly that is coercively imposed by most governments the world over through taxation laws, legal tender legislation, trade laws and financial market legislation. Under a Free Banking regime where agents would have an authentic choice of multiple monies, it may even be feasible to default on such unjust debt.
Let us consider the scenario under which a developing country was to default in its colonial-era debt. Standard arguments go along the lines of it ruining the country’s credit rating and thereby making it infeasible for them to borrow from international financial markets for the foreseeable future. This would most likely precipitate capital flight, make the country’s money (relatively) worthless for repaying debts or even internal trade and, thereby, lead to a devastating socio-economic calamity for the country’s inhabitants. Therefore, developing countries’ governments who are subject to such debts are presumed to have ‘no control’ over the status quo. This is nonsense, when examined more closely.
Firstly, these developing countries still often only accept taxes paid in their own monies that are issued by their central banks (thereby imposing a monetary monopoly). This means that the benefits of having access to and utilising multiple monies (whether they be trade benefits through having an access to a variety of exchange rates or credit market benefits through improving creditworthiness, for example) cannot be realised. This is often also reinforced through legal tender legislation (which varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in its rigidity and meaning) that can act to inhibit or even prevent the feasibility of conducting trade in multiple monies.
Imagine a system where agents actually had access to multiple monies; where they could trade, borrow, save, invest and so on in order to optimise the specificity of their individual, heterogeneous preferences accordingly. In such a scenario, developing countries’ governments could feasibly default on debt payments that have colonialist roots and, though the governments’ creditworthiness would be called into question by international financial markets, the inhabitants of that country could simply switch to other monies and continue with life rather normally even in the event of the collapse of that government’s own, issued money. Since the inhabitants would also be able to conduct trade normally and reap the trade and credit market benefits associated with having multiple monies, indigenous currencies could also be feasibly issued. Thus, it is not just in the interest of the creditor nation-states that these debt repayments are made but also in the interest of the debtor nation-states since these governments have an interest in maintaining their coercively imposed monetary monopoly regimes.
Thus, in brief, truly Free Banking that enables a genuine choice of multiple monies could feasibly allow peoples to overcome historical injustices and thereby alleviate poverty, inequality and the socially-divisive animosity that the colonialist-era plays, to this day, in perpetuating. In this sense, the historical institution of state-imposed, legally-enforced, Central Banking as opposed to freely-chosen Free Banking works to perpetuate the injustices that linger from colonialist eras. The fault lies not just with developed countries’ governments but also with developing countries’ ones, leading to animosity between various peoples and acting as a major obstacle to securing peace, prosperity and cooperation.
In a televised interview, WikiLeaks founder and political prisoner Julian Assange expressed the view that he supports Britain leaving the European Union.
In the interview, Assange broke down the different camps relating to the EU referendum, ultimately favoring the minority "left Brexit" faction in the debate.
While right wing campaigners who support Brexit want the "old empire" and right wing campaigners who oppose Brexit want the "new empire", Assange characterized left wing opponents of Brexit as reactionaries who think "another world is not really possible". This, he contrasted with the more optimistic left who do believe "another world is possible".
The phrase "another world is possible" is associated with the alter-globalization movement and the World Social Forum, attended by Latin American leaders and global sociologists and left wing academics including Noam Chomsky and Immanuel Wallerstein throughout the years. This sentiment is not necessarily against globalization, but against the negative globalization imposed by the US government and corporations on the world's poor and in favor of positive social globaliztion and mixing.
When pressed on whether he supported Brexit, Assange replied "pretty much". He judged that the British regime is using the European Union as "political cover" for human rights abuses and its subservience to the US, including during his own political persecution by the state.
UK oversees cluster bombing in Yemen: The BlogAs "hospitals, schools, markets and mosques" in Yemen were targ... https://t.co/c6kcTtRfZ6
With the final contest for the seat of United States President likely to be fought out between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the outcome will only be more continuous "corporate rule" by a hideous regime driven by endless greed.
This is the picture drawn by Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) writer Kevin Carson. Immanuel Wallerstein holds a similar position on electoral politics, viewing it as unavailing as any means of transforming the world-system.
Other political writers similarly diagnose the US "democratic" political system to be fake, much as its press freedom is a fraud and any meaningful criticisms of the regime's barbarism and war crimes are continuously redacted from newspaper and television by government cronies. The revolving door between all US corporations, "NGOs" and government departments makes them essentially fronts for the regime in Washington.
...on all the issues most fundamental to keeping us from having [human-friendly economy of small-scale] — the transportation subsidies, “intellectual property,” the global Empire and permanent warfare state — the two parties are almost indistinguishable. I don’t know — one party may give us a form of corporate rule that’s somewhat more bearable than the other. But either way it will be corporate rule, without a doubt.
Predicting none other than a continuation of endless war and the subsidizing of greedy corporations by the US regime no matter who wins the White House, Carson states of the Democratic and Republican parties respectively, "American politics isn’t divided between a Party of Working People and a Party of Big Business. It’s always been divided between two Parties of Business that serve two somewhat different but overlapping segments of the capitalist class."
Any "world government" created out of the current international system would be faced with civil war instantly, an article posted to Aral Bereux's site Dystopian News noted.
Hypothesizing that humans are still slaves to their violent instincts and territorial behavior, a short post to the site puts forward a gloomy assessment of what might happen if a powerful organization tried to make humanity clean its act up and unite under a single authority. Unstable states faced with disintegration are suggested as examples of what would immediately happen to a world government attempting to secure its authority and legitimacy in the same fashion as existing governments.
Asking the question, "Do You Want to Live in a Stateless World?", however, could be beside the point. Most political scientists agree that states are now confused, stressed by supranational influences, and failing to provide security (and jobs) for their subjects on the greatest scale seen in modern history.
In an analysis at the Pakistan-based Voice of East magazine, one author focuses on the way US military contracts enable the US to exploit Pakistan and treat it as a junior strategic partner. This has been contributing to "shaky Pak-US relations".
Most of America's allies around the world are treated with contempt by the US leadership, which considers them as puppets whose interests can be sacrificed to deal damage to US geo-strategic rivals. Pakistan is no exception to this rule, as the author states.
Addressing a recent deal for Pakistan to obtain newly modernized US F-16 fighter jets, Shahzad Masood Roomi writes, "This history of the US exploitation of Pakistan through military aid tells us that even if PAF pays the entire cost of these 8 aircraft now, there is no guarantee that these aircraft will ever reach Pakistan." According to the author, Pakistan has always historically suffered from political "strings which the Americans always attached with such military deals."
One area of continued concern to the US regime, which is proud of its technological and military monopolies across the world, would be Pakistan's nuclear deterrent. The US is also still determined to prevent Pakistan finding any common ground with Iran, including joint oil pipelines. As with much of its relations around the world, the US will continue to feel threatened by other countries (even its allies) becoming more self-sufficient or well-armed.
The author's recommendation is for Pakistan to "revamp its entire foreign policy", re-balancing economic and politics in order to achieve equal relations between states. If successful, Pakistan would no longer need tolerate having the US regime's "strategic interests served at the cost of ours".
Millennials hate capitalism and greed: The BlogIn a May 1st article appearing at the Center for a Stateless S... https://t.co/IbAyHCSixV
Rejecting both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump's promises of returning jobs to America's shores, writer Jason Farrell argued at The Radical Relay in March the globalization and automation causing jobs to disappear are too powerful to stop.
Saying both of these politicians are advocating a populist view that is unfortunately "terrible, backward, and misinformed", Farrell wrote they seem to believe America can rewind itself to 1955 with "millions of unskilled laborers with profitable production jobs".
It isn't that the goal of trying to restore purpose and work to those millions who are without either in the United States is bad, however. It is simply that present developments in economics and technology are making the goal far harder to achieve than these politicians will admit. As Farrell writes:
You can’t magically make unskilled labor “worth more” by mandating a $15 wage or pressuring companies to return their labor force to the U.S. Even if those jobs came back, they’d be automated within a few years to save costs and maintain productivity.
Bernie fans, it’s important that you understand that companies aren’t evil for doing this. To survive in a globalized marketplace they have to compete with companies from around the world with lower labor costs. Everyone has to adjust.
Trump fans, it’s important you understand that China is not evil for using those jobs to lift their population out of unfathomable poverty. As China’s own productivity and standard of living improve, many of those jobs will likely to be turned over to automation as well.
Unemployment is a crisis separate from economic growth and competition, and an attempt to repair it by mandating higher wages and trying to cut off relations with other productive economies such as China would potentially "plunge us back into a recession and boomerang back against the people you’re trying to help".
In sum, campaign rhetoric aimed at unemployed or low-paid workers contains not a solution to America's economic woes.
Not all is gloomy, however. Farrell also writes that, with the progress towards automation and competition at a truly global level, the right path would be to implement "creative ways to make education and job training more affordable".
Veterans' political views aren't special: The BlogDiscussing the undue favor shown to veterans in US politica... https://t.co/z8Sdrd5uJJ
The Catalyst thesis this blog is based on may be coming in audio form soon.
As announced at a post to the L'Ordre blog on Beliefnet, "I do indeed plan to produce an audio book version of it once I get the time, narrated in my own voice of course" (Harry J. Bentham, author).
Catalyst: A Techno-Liberation Thesis is a short educational futurist book from 2013 about how to use technology to diminish monopolies of wealth and power, and liberate millions of people from poverty-stricken, economically sanctioned or oppressed regions in which they were born. The book can currently be ordered in print or, if you love your Kindle e-reader, downloaded over Amazon.
According to Catalyst, extremely consequentially technologies involved in manufacturing will continue to get smaller, and eventually the act of one person stealing single objects like synthetic life-forms or items of micro-manufacturing atomically precise manufacturing (nanotech) equipment will be able to change the entire balance of power between countries and regions of the world.
Somewhat connecting the issues talked about by the Venus Project and transhumanists, a recent issue of TVP Magazine features an eBook mentioning longevity and resource abundance to be achieved by technology.
Authored by TVP Magazine project manager Tio, an infographic-style ebook goes over a lengthy TVP-inspired account of the history of economics. It then makes the case for a technological paradise without any of the problems of war brought about by scarcity, trade and currency. Interestingly, the free eBook, titled The Money Game and Beyond, mentions some issues important to transhumanist and futurist authors, including resource abundance and longevity achieved through science and technology. While praising the work of current developers, activists and movements towards open source solutions and decentralized governance and production, the book laments a lack of overall "design" behind such goals.
In its summary, the TVP ebook argues it would be a myth to say breakthroughs in medical science are radically extending human lifespans. In reality, "modern medicine" is simply extending lives in ways that it did not have the opportunity to do in the past, the book says. As such, the book concludes, "defeating aging will not remove poverty, wars, corruption and the like, but retiring trade (the money game) will certainly allow enormously more research on curing aging, along with solving most of the world's problem". This is part of a larger criticism of other existing scientific and political movements as simply treating "symptoms" of an ailing society rather than providing real cures targeting the fundamental causes of such ailments.
The goal of the Venus Project, mostly the work of futurist Jacque Fresco, has been to design a specific alternative society, including by constructing entire new circular cities.
US President Obama used his recent State of the Union Address to make laughable errors, issue arrogant judgments, and offend the international community.
Obama described the theory of the US economic and strategic decline - something that Britain, the European Union, most of Asia and South America, and many leading Western economists accept to be a fact - as "hot air" from political enemies.
In addition to this, Obama made rabid proclamations that the US regime is better than everyone else because it has stronger armies:
The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth, period! Period!... We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined... Our troops are the finest fighting force in the history of the world... No nation attacks us directly or our allies because they know that’s the path to ruin... people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead.
Would you believe someone who keeps saying "period"? If Obama is so sure of these statements about his country's superiority, it is strange that he feels the need to shout them out loud like Hitler. The level of contempt shown in Obama's arrogant Bush-like speech towards other countries is astonishing and should be offensive to all foreigners, not just Russian and Chinese people, who are especially degraded and cited as enemies in the speech.
To quote one character in an Isaac Asimov novel, "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". Everything in Obama's speech was about violence, and how America's violence is the most powerful. He wants to scare you.
Obama even made flat-out wrong and stupid statements in his speech, saying "Russia is pouring resources in to prop up Ukraine". Russia is still propping up Ukraine? Obama seems to have forgotten Ukraine's government was overthrown by the US two years ago, and now the failing Ukrainian government is being propped up him.
By bragging to the whole world that his country is better than others, Obama is not only sending a signal to Russia and China that his regime is unstable and possibly delusional, but is sending a deeply negative signal to NATO allies that the US looks down on them and they are inferior.
Britain's first Transhumanist Party has embraced an official study by the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) that is in line with the Transhumanists' futuristic, far-seeing value system.
The RSA study, titled "Creative citizen, creative state: the principled and pragmatic case for a Universal Basic Income", is based on a full year's research and gives solid and realistic proposals of how to implement "basic income" in Britain. Although many could easily see basic income as merely another type of unemployment benefit, it is far from this. Basic income is the idea that not only unemployed people but all citizens, including workers, should receive a sum of money from the state merely for being citizens. This sum, given unconditionally for all citizens to live on, would be used on its own or could be added to an earned income stream.
Abiding by its own principles informed by Social Futurism, the Transhumanist Party in Britain (TPUK being one of the abbreviations) expressed its support of the study and described the idea of basic income as being consistent with its own value-system. The Transhumanist Party advocates "All citizens shall have a right to sustenance, clothing, shelter, energy, healthcare, transport, education, and access to information resources."
Head of the UK's Transhumanists, Amon Twyman, offered the following commentary as published in a recent party press release:
“A new social contract is needed, involving strong educational and economic support for those who are left with no viable option of ‘earning a living’ due to rapid technological change. A UBI would provide an important part of this new social contract. The RSA’s advocacy of a UBI will help the task of the Transhumanist Party to bring about new political thinking in the UK that champions individual and social creativity.”
Basic income, as the Transhumanists argue, will free up people to pursue more enriching activities rather than devoting all their time to a job they don't like but feel compelled to attend to raise a meager income. While it is historically factual that most work was once necessary to keep society running, increases in automation are projected to put most people out of work.
Rather than waiting for "social inequality, disruption and alienation" to build up while we are celebrating the increases in automation and overall disappearance of semi-skilled work due to new computers and robots, the Transhumanist Party advocates reconstructing the individual and society now.
Fusion power plants would likely mean sole power plants feeding entire continents or countries with electricity, giving incredible political leverage to the government or company with the off-switch.
Critics of thermonuclear fusion power have therefore said alternative energy must not just be renewable. It must also be decentralized and easily shared. At Beliefnet, a post of the L'Ordre blog argues that synthetic biology is the key to developing easily shared and decentralized power sources. They will be circulated to even the poorest communities.
Some attention has been given to developing sustainable fuels using new biologically-engineered bacteria that excrete types of petroleum or diesel (see the BBC report here). Although it has not been covered much in the media, such developments have been frequently successful. However, the microbes currently need such specific feedstocks (namely sugar, which has its own problems of labor, land and cost that make it hard to sustain forever) to create difficulties in supplying the microbes. They may also not be used on an industrial scale due to fears of them escaping and contaminating the environment or being stolen for commercial gain, which probably limits their use to highly secure scientific premises.
In the past, the Beliefnet blog expressed a disbelief in the explanations above, pointing instead to the preeminence of corporate greed over global human welfare as the only reason for the failure to make the microbes available more quickly. This theory was in turn challenged by a post at Afflictor.com, which pointed instead to the idea that synthetic biologists are a marginal minority of scientists, which means a lack of human resources to develop that industry.
J. Craig Venter, the scientist-entrepreneur father of synthetic biology, has since become less interested in developing synthetic biology-based fuel and chemical industries than in medicine and longevity, although the idea of inexhaustible fuels is occasionally used in his writing and lectures.
The new Beliefnet post declared using synthetic biology to make a new fuel industry as highly promising but also potentially dangerous, stating, "It could also literally set the world on fire, if handled incorrectly, so the question of how to handle it and at the same time ensure fairness and equal development in the use of synthetic creatures as fuel sources needs to be addressed more deeply."
Anti-statist commentator and theorist Kevin Carson has once again gone after Reason for the magazine's dogmatic adherence to neoliberal ideology. This ideology plagues the publication's understandings of innovation and competition, conflating them with American chauvinism and the asinine claims to "intellectual property" advanced by corporations that lack any merit or intellect.
In an op-ed at Reason, writer Stephanie Slade appealed to the increasingly politicized 'people's Pope' Francis to "embrace capitalism" if he really wants to improve the lot of the world's poor. Commenting upon this in a response at the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS), Carson ridicules Slade's assertion that “markets and globalization have lifted billions out of poverty and lessened global inequality”, correcting Slade that what exists is not a market but a system of global expropriation, conquest and chauvinism advanced by governments.
Carson contends that Slade is as ignorant of basic economic facts as she accuses the much-praised Pontifex. The global corporate economy is no free market, he points out. Rather, it is the end result of five hundred years of what Carson calls "colonialism, robbery and enslavement". This is perhaps a reference to the theory of the capitalist world-economy advanced by historical social scientist Immanuel Wallerstein, which sees the start of the conquest of the Americas by European armies as roughly the beginning of modern-day capitalism.
Far from being based upon freedom or real innovation, current "capitalism" is based instead on ruthless ownership and protection of property by gangs of thugs and brutal armed regimes masquerading as "democracies". No-one actually earned such property, and instead such ownership can solely be traced back to criminality, racism and class antagonism, Carson implies.
In Carson's own dramatic phrasing, we may understand the historic truth as follows:
Most of the minerals, farm land and petroleum reserves of the world continue to be held by the heirs and assigns of the original robbers — a giant, bleeding, arterial wound on the body of the global South that transnational corporations feast on like vampires. So global capitalism as we know it was founded on the violation of property rights. Talk of “inviolability” amounts to the robber saying “No more stealing, starting — NOW!”
Even supposing Pope Francis' ignorance of economics is fact, Carson concludes, an economics columnist like Stepahnie Slade at a publication as respected as Reason should know better than to recycle fallacies about intellectual property being somehow responsible for freedom. In reality, intellectual property is a form of protectionism, which does nothing more than slow down and prevent innovation.
If we assume that Slade is right about capitalism uplifting a billion from poverty, it remains a fact that it could be done faster if we had removed the suffocating and retarding enforcement of intellectual property laws by states.
Synbio has been the focus of an op-ed at h+ Magazine, where it is praised as potentially carrying the salvation of humankind.
Synbio is a shorthand term for synthetic biology, which refers to a field of biology involved in sequencing synthetic genomes to create new species from scratch. It was largely developed by a team under J. Craig Venter, who also made the achievements of the Human Genome Project.
From the Harry J. Bentham-authored article:
Like our bodies, our planet is no longer a sufficient vehicle for human dreams and aspirations. The biology of the planet is too inefficient to support the current growth of the human population. We face the prospect of eventually perishing as a species if we cannot repair our species’ oft-omitted disagreements with nature over issues of sustainability, congenital illness and our refusal to submit to the cruelties of natural selection from which we evolved.
Once we recognize that the current species are flawed, we will see that only by designing and introducing new species can suffering, poverty and the depletion of natural resources be stopped. Once we look at this option, we find already a perfect and ultimately moral solution to the threats of climate change, disease, overpopulation and the terrible scarcity giving rise to endless injustice and retaliatory terrorism.
The perfect solution could only be brought to the world by a heroic worker in the fields of biotech and synthetic biology. Indeed, this revolution may already be possible today, but fear is sadly holding back the one who could make it happen.
The article blamed a culture driven by profit at the expense of human needs, for preventing solutions to scarcity, disease, suffering and resource-driven wars. In the conclusion, the piece warned that if scientists do not break free from the immense corporate and industrial pressures not to share their inventions more quickly with the global poor, "we will talk about direct action to break free the scientific gifts they refused to share".
Creator of the world-systems approach to political science, Immanuel Wallerstein, argues that anxiety-based electoral campaigns in the US and elsewhere will have no impact on the crisis of the world-system.
While noting that wise elections of more humane leaders can "minimize the pain" of the world's impoverished social classes and regions, Wallerstein stated that nothing can change the crisis of the modern world-system and the need to replace the current world order with a better one. Wallerstein terms the alternate economy he is referring to as a "post-capitalist" one, and has referred to it in past essays as a "socialist" world government of sorts.
Immanuel Wallerstein is not a radical left-wing philosopher and is actually the world's top sociologist, who sees the current world economy as unsustainable and destined to replaced by the aforementioned global alternative.
Commentating on the candidacy of Donald Trump in the US 2016 elections, as well as Bernie Sanders, Wallerstein described both of them as campaigning on the basis of "anxiety" that comes from growing global unemployment - although in their cases they focus on the US's part in it. Wallerstein characterized Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric as something that will be unavailing, with geopolitics and the forces of the world-system in the end dooming this rhetoric to fail as any kind of policy.
Wallerstein dismissed that the most Trump could accomplish through his anti-immigrant rhetoric is "there is some tightening on the entry of migrants and some tightening of welfare state expenditures for the poorest sectors of the population. There is some increased anti-minority violence within the country."
While labeling such possibilities as "negatives", Wallerstein stressed that the real battle is not about elections or who wins them, and rather we "have to fight the longer middle-run (20-40 years) battle of transforming the capitalist system into the kind of post-capitalist one that will be better and not worse than the present one. If Wallerstein's sociology is credible, the futuristic alternative would be a world where authority is diminished significantly, ownership and rent are nonexistent much as the Venus Project advocates, and the world is governed as a single human community rather than a set of protectionist nation-states.
