When the people can "mash-up"

There’s a lot of talk these days about how mash-ups are getting more usable for ordinary folks and how that means a more democratic use of the Internet (full disclosure: my company is in this space), but no one writing about the phenomenon is thinking about how this “power” can be extended to the truly powerless.

Think about the famous work that’s been done around mapping crime and disease. It shows a great inequality, right? Well, surely if the disempowered could easily use the same technology we’d see a lot more injustices “mashed-up” and displayed for the world, and those communities themselves, to see.

Christianarchy is here!

My personal weblog that links Christian anarchism with non-violence and social justice.

Help End Poverty

The Facts—

The world’s mountains cover about one-fourth of the planet’s land surface and are home to 10 percent of its population. They are a sanctuary for an extraordinary web of plant and animal life and a source of water for all of the world’s major rivers.

Yet mountain people, the guardians of these valuable mountain resources, are among the world’s poorest, hungriest and most marginalized populations. Indeed, many of the more-than-800 million chronically undernourished people in the world today live in mountain areas.

“Eradication of Extreme Poverty” is, in fact, the number-one priority of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals for the world community. Unfortunately, as of 2004 in Nepal for instance, the U.N. has categorized this Goal as “far behind.”

In cooperation with our Partner Organizations, The Mountain Fund is dedicated to achieving the Millennium Development Goals at the grassroots level.

About The Mountain Fund—

The Mountain Fund is a global coalition of grassroots non-profit and non-governmental organizations devoted to eliminating the causes and symptoms of poverty in developing mountain cultures around the world. The Mountain Fund works to increase the capacity of these small organizations by providing marketing, publicity, organizational consulting and valuable networking tools. The Mountain Fund also provides financial, administrative and technical assistance to its Partner Organizations.

Bush's Batting Averages

Let’s see how he’s been doing so far, domestically…

President George W. Bush’s stats (2000-present):

5 million Americans have slipped into poverty Almost 7 million have lost their health insurance Avg. household income of middle class families has fallen $1,300 3 million workers have lost their pensions 3 million manufacturing jobs lost in U. S. Home foreclosures are at an historical record high in the U. S. Personal savings rates for middle class incomes has dropped BELOW zero percent Number of American college graduates have fallen 5% (2004-2007) Entry-level wages in the American job market have fallen by 3-5% Currently, we are seeing the lowest middle class income rates since 1929 (during the Great Depression)

(Source: Historian and activist Thom Hartmann, 9-18-2007.)

In any other job, he’d been fired long ago.

The Pitfalls of Neoliberal Capitalism

This is a paper I wrote for my “Visions of a Good Society” class. A general overview of my opinions about modern capitalism and where I think society should be headed.

Stephen Moore’s Bullish on Bush articulates the neoliberal argument that the economic policies of George W. Bush are strengthening America’s economy and citizens by creating an “ownership society” in which the state does not interfere with commerce, and in which all members would prosper by owning a piece of the corporate pie. This approach to the problem of the elusive “good society” is an alluring one, with promises of a car in every driveway and a chicken in every pot; however, Moore’s focus is narrow, and fails to mention the serious drawbacks of relying on laissez-faire capitalism to solve societal ills.

The main shortcoming of the neoliberal position is its excessive emphasis on the individual and the concept of personal wealth, to the detriment of community and the goal of mental wellbeing. Modern capitalism has led American society to its present state of hyper-commercialism, extreme consumerism (at the cost of the environment), and social isolation. The neoliberal policies of the last two decades have focused on cutting social programs (what Moore designates “handouts,”) and creating economic policies that favor economic growth and the creation of wealth (Bush’s “hand up,” according to Moore.) Social programs for the less fortunate are not seen as aid in overcoming economic obstacles out of one’s control, but as excessive government interference that only creates an unhealthy dependence on the state.

The neoliberal position does not emphasize equality, a necessary consideration if our society is to be fully just and democratic. When the “compassionate conservative” discusses equality, he or she is typically referring to a supposedly existing equality of opportunity to own capital, which is perhaps an admirable goal, but a false reality at present. Most low-income Americans would, ostensibly, benefit financially from the opportunity to own capital, but there are currently inequalities in access to resources such as the means of production and advanced financial options like stocks and bonds. Furthermore, these inequalities actually benefit those who own the means of production, for capitalism thrives on an oppressed underclass of laborers who must remain fairly destitute and desperate for employment if their exploitation as workers is to be continued. Therefore I do not believe that the ruling class actually wishes to remedy these inequalities by providing increased access to wealth, but rather to further that elusive dream in the minds of the working class in order to ensure their continuing adherence to the capitalist system.

Another inherent flaw in capitalist logic rests in the mistaken belief in the self-regulation of the market; this fetishism of capital is nearly a religion for neoliberal thinkers. By shifting the responsibility for the welfare of all the citizens of a state onto the shoulders of a deified market, the neoliberal position insists that economic policies alone will provide wealth for the masses, if capitalism is only allowed to run free without government intervention. This outlook falsely attributes agency to a system that is, in fact, very much regulated by federal and independent organizations, groups composed of people who make choices about issues such as interest rates, budgets, development programs, loans, and currency value. To say that we should allow capitalism to regulate itself is really to argue that we should allow a select group of wealthy elites to manage the financial policies for the entire country, and this plutocracy is not an example of the free, universally prosperous and democratic society that Moore and other conservatives would have us believe they espouse. This vision does not seem especially well-equipped to confront social issues such as poverty.

The issue of poverty, often thought to be somehow eradicated in the mostly prosperous United States, seems to be a non-issue for neoliberal thinkers. Their philosophy holds that poverty is not a socially constructed phenomenon, nor is it one out of an individual’s control—if one wishes to be wealthy, one simply works hard, hoards earnings, and ultimately achieves. The current system may seem highly effective and productive to those at the top of the financial pyramid, but I am wary of such faith in unregulated market forces to simultaneously reward the industrious and punish the lazy. For every rags-to-riches, American-dream success story, in which hard work and determination allow a low-class individual to “pull himself up by the bootstraps” and achieve material prosperity, there is a “rags-to-rags” counterpart in which hard work, often manual labor, proves ultimately fruitless for a working-class family, the employed-but-struggling are ineligible for decreasing social programs, and the cycle of generational poverty remains unbroken. Therefore, I find Moore’s blithe rhetoric and complete espousal of free-market capitalism somewhat problematic, most notably his belief in the “trickle-down” effect, whereby wealth created for the investing class ultimately leads to benefits for the middle class, and presumably the lower classes, whom he rarely deigns to mention. Representing the neoliberal position on wealth and poverty, Moore endorses the idea that an ownership society will help all members of society, and that wealth generated for elites will find its way to the lowliest American.

To further examine the problems inherent in this rhetoric, Moore and other neoliberal analysts assume that the drive to accumulate wealth is a universal, or at least universally American, goal. By listing, “freedom, opportunity, and prosperity,” as fixed variables, as historically American ideals, Moore surreptitiously projects the goals of the upper classes onto the American public. While it may be true that all people desire some level of financial security and material well-being, I do not believe that every American wishes to be part of the class of capitalists that owns corporate stock. Prosperity is a socially defined trait that is not compatible with the desires of all Americans. Moore, however, does not question this assumption, but rather touts this supposedly universal drive to hoard money as a healthy cure-all for various social ills.

I believe the conservative response to poverty is largely ineffective, even detrimental, as is often the case when operating under the assumption that ignoring problems somehow solves them. Moore’s casual dismissal of social ills like poverty leads me to believe that, regardless of the actual situation, neoliberals will attempt to gloss over the negative trends with complex economic explanations. For example, Moore and other conservative economists might point to statistics showing an increase in GDP per capita, never mind that the wealth is concentrated in the top financial tier, never mind the increase in other variables such as homelessness, unemployment, and families applying for federal aid.

However, I realize that the liberal approach to poverty—increasing government spending for social programs—also has its downfalls. The limitations of a bureaucratic system become frustrating realities when individuals navigate the complex procedures of procuring welfare benefits, for example, or seeking emergency care at state-run health care facilities. The solution to issues of poverty may not depend exclusively on the state; however, I believe that the state should not leave low-income citizens to fend for themselves in a world ruled only by “market forces,” monetary policy, and capitalist logic.

Based on what little I know of the communitarian position, I believe that it would, theoretically, be the best suited to confront the issue of poverty. Small, tightly-knit community groups tend to view such problems as sickness, homelessness, and poverty as problems facing not individuals, as postulated by the neoliberal position, but as issues facing the whole community, and deserving of a community-based response and remedy. The model response would be a combination of voluntarism and mutual aid to help families and individuals out of poverty, bolstered by more efficient state programs. It would be ideal if the state could provide anti-poverty funds to all communities, and each community would utilize the budget as each saw fit. This idea is similar to Etzioni’s explanation of the process of “devolution” as outlined in Next—greater freedom of the community to solve the economic and social problems in a highly specific and local context. Admittedly, such a model would only work on a fairly small scale. But it is with this flexibility and creativity that poverty should be treated, and only with this issue in the forefront of an economic system can it someday be eradicated.

Can Well-Being Be Measured?

July 18, 2007

Our stereotypes of wealth and poverty develop at a young age, and are deeply entrenched in our minds. Roughly speaking, to be wealthy is to have more resources, which it to enjoy a higher quality of life. To be wealthy is to be well. To be poor, on the other hand, is to lack, which is to do, well…poorly. Generally speaking, most would agree that they are better off having more as opposed to less.

But sometimes more evolved cultural values emerge from poverty. In the poorest regions of the world, members of communities are often more interdependent, and in closer contact with each other. Family is more important, as is religion and spirituality.

Never have I witnesses a greater sense of community than during the past two months while living in Harlem. At night and on weekends, the streets of Harlem come alive. Fire hydrants blast water on heat evading kids. Music blares. The streets are filled with people of all ages playing sports of all kinds, the sidewalks consumed by game upon game of cards and dynamos. People eat, drink, dance and play. On Friday and Saturday nights especially, the blocks of Harlem transform into a vibrant, ad hock festival.

Many would say that this behavior is precisely the result of poverty and, therefore, is the evidence of a less desirable well-being. They blast fire hydrants because they have no air conditioning. They dance in the streets because they have no disposable income to go to clubs. And they are in the streets to begin with because they can’t afford beautiful, comfortable homes in which to spend their time. Is this apparently heightened sense of community indicate a higher well-being, or is it the evidence of a lower quality of life?

While growing up in the suburbs south of Toronto, I witnessed no such festival atmosphere, no such exhibition of community and togetherness in the neighborhoods in which I lived. At midnight on any Friday night in the suburban streets of Toronto or anywhere else, the streets are empty.

I’m not saying that Harlem has it right and the suburbs have it wrong. I believe that both sides of this contrast possess characteristics that are essential to the well-being of any population. I’m simply raising the question that perhaps measuring well-being is more complicated than we typically think.

A report recently surfaced in Quebec, Canada, indicating that the province’s workforce is less productive than those of many of its provincial counterparts, most notably Ontario and Alberta, the country’s wealthiest provinces. Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard criticized Quebecers as being “lazy,” imploring them to work harder to build a thriving economy. Bouchard and many others draw the immediate conclusion that, if individual productivity is lower, the province is worse off. The data on Quebec’s worker productivity were sound, however, such measures of a population’s well-being are hopelessly incomplete. As most Canadians know well, Quebecers value family and social interaction more than other regions. What Bouchard called “laziness” is, in fact, a cultural value: spending time with friends and family, experiencing food and wine, enjoying the arts, and being social.

This is not to conclude that Quebec could not afford to be more productive. There are, obviously, many benefits, both societal and otherwise, to higher economic productivity. But before we criticize Quebec for its laziness, we should consider the cultural and other non-economic factors that comprise Quebec’s well-being. The United Nations’ Human Development Index, widely used to compare and contrast standards of living between countries across the globe, integrates literacy, life expectancy, education and gross domestic product (GDP) into its formula. This is a good start, but still fails to measure certain aspects of well-being, such as those concluded in the Harlem vs. suburbs exercise. How close do citizens feel to their neighbors, how much use do they make of their neighborhood and how interwoven is their community?

Perhaps reducing well-being to one universal formula is impossible, because different populations would disagree with the very indicators upon which the formula is based. Harlem would perhaps value community and open block parties more than the suburbs, which would place privacy and personal security at a higher importance. But at the very least, we must use more diverse indicators to measure and understand well-being. The suburbs may enjoy higher rates of employment, but if they come second to the inner-city on community indicators, who’s better off?

Poor in the U.S.? It's Clearly Your Own Fault...

Just “get married and work longer hours,” said Rep. Jack Kingston, a Republican from Georgia. While the House was debating increasing the minimum wage, Kingston said raising the minimum wage would do nothing for poor Americans. Instead, if people marry and work longer hours, “they would be out of poverty,” he said. “It’s an economic fact.” As usual the Republicans would like to reduce every problem to idiotically simple dualistic terms and get home in time for dinner. In fact, Representative Kingston was angry that the Democrats wouldn’t let him cut out of work early and leave for home on Thursday instead of Friday. Clearly, he says, “the Democrats don’t care about families.” because they expect him to stay at work and serve the constituents who elected him.

The Real Economic Facts

In 2005 the poverty level for a single adult was considered to be $9,570. A person who works 40 hours per week at minimum wage would earn $9,888 before taxes. After taxes are deducted, a full time minimum wage job in the US would put a single individual officially below the poverty level. Working more hours, even if it’s feasible for the worker, usually isn’t an option since employers who only pay minimum wage tend to discourage their workers from working overtime so they don’t have to pay them time and a half. Certainly the more wage-earners in a household the better off all living there will be, so the Representative is right about that, but if both mom and dad work full-time who takes care of the kids? They are supposed to be married and raising kids, the Republicans say. Also then you need to deduct the cost of reliable child care, a significant expense, from their combined income. Millions of people are already living in extended families and makeshift collectives to try and make ends meet and they still can’t do it. Skyrocketing housing costs, utility costs, fuel costs and healthcare costs mean that millions live in poverty, and millions more live on the edge of it. As the Republicans’ pro-big business agenda continues to squeeze the middle class out of existence more and more people who had a tenuous grip on middle class comfort are falling into poverty.

In my adopted city of Chicago, a recent report compiled by an advocacy group put the homeless population of Chicago at a whopping 73,000 people between July of ‘05 and June of ‘06. There are more than 21,000 people sleeping on the streets every night, and more in shelters or in temporary housing. The report, by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, was the first to take into account people who are technically homeless but not on the street, such as people temporarily bunking with friends and family. Bouncing from couch to couch can impact these peoples’ ability to find work or to keep a job, especially if they are dependent on public transportation. Of those 73,000 homeless 24,600 are children. There are more than 9,000 children sleeping on the streets in Chicago every night. There is currently a battle being waged by our local utilities to be allowed to increase prices as much as 55%, if they win you can expect the number of homeless and hungry in Chicago to skyrocket even higher.

In New York City, 1 in 7 households face “food insecurity”. In the last two years they have seen a 17% increase in need for food assistance for people in NYC. Not just in families below the poverty line either. Static wages, job loss, and increases in cost of living are causing employed, previously financially stable people to look to charities and food pantries to supplement their food supplies. Since they can’t control things like rent increases, utility increases, gas and transportation costs, or inflation the first place that people usually cut back on their spending is the food budget, the one expense they have some control over. But school lunch and public assistance programs are getting cut to pay for the war in Iraq, and schools are serving cheap and nutritionally deficient food so the families who depend on those programs to give their children at least one solid meal a day are paying for those programs with their children’s health.

Judging Worth on Income

Americans have always reviled their poor. People usually don’t outright declare their belief that the poor deserve to be poor (unless they’re Republicans) but it’s always there in the way poverty is handled in this country. Work is equated with worth, and if you don’t work, well then you must be somehow deficient or lazy. The “working poor” are disdained, but tolerated because hey, at least they’re trying. The truly destitute are just worthless in American society.

So why do we hate our poor? It goes back to the very beginning of this country and the first settlers. The Puritans were persecuted in Europe for their religious beliefs so they came here, and brought with them the fervent Protestant ideas of one John Calvin, a 16th century Protestant Reformer who had radical ideas about God. He believed that as a result of Predestination poor people were poor as punishment from God, and by being poor they had been marked by God for their flaws, and should be outcast from society for their failings. Predestination states that God has already decided the fate of each person, and that nothing which person that does will affect the outcome. God decided at the beginning of time who he would save and who would not be saved, and the Puritans and other Protestant groups believed that God showed his favor by bestowing success and material wealth. People who prospered had been blessed by God and were therefore good, people who were poor were marked by God and therefore bad.

Now some of you who are quick on the draw are already seeing the contradiction of Predestination, how can an individual have God-given free will if that person’s life has already been decided upon by God? The Puritans (and other like groups) believed that salvation of the soul was entirely decided upon by God, an individual’s actions whether good or bad would not impact whether or not the individual would be saved by God. In the Puritan view God controls everything and is ultimately responsible for all outcomes, but those who are godly use their free will to choose to cooperate with God’s plans, and so they are given grace and work in conjunction with God. They are then rewarded with material success as a sign of their cooperation with the will of God. The ungodly use their free will to choose to not cooperate with God, and he punishes them with misfortune. Ultimately, God still is control of everything, but the individual still chooses whether or not to cooperate with God’s plan.

While we claim a separation of Church and State in the US we can never really separate ourselves from the religious beliefs of the founders of the country because their beliefs framed the entire system we have in place today. Even if we no longer consciously think of poverty in Calvinist religious terms, we still make the same fundamental assumption that poverty is the mark that a person has some sort of moral failing. They are either lazy, or spend what money they have on sin, or are sexually promiscuous, or something. It is their own fault they are poor and our society allows for little other discussions of the root causes of poverty.

Change is Still Possible

We need to change the framework of the debate about poverty. The number of Americans living in poverty is only going to increase in coming years as we recover from the cost of the Iraq war and the cost of having the Bush administration in the White House for eight years. Our society treats the poor as inherently inferior persons because, after all, if they weren’t inferior they would be wealthier. People who have always been poor tend to believe what society tells them, that they are poor because it is their own fault. The middle class people who are falling out of middle class into poverty come into it without that belief, and with the advantages of a certain sense of entitlement and usually a certain level of education.

Hopefully these people can be the catalyst to reframe the debate about poverty. Until we change the nature of the debate and recognize that people are poor as a result of market forces, the economy, and other outside factors and not as a result of their effort or their worth they will continue to suffer. And in a country with the resources that this country has, that is beyond disgraceful.

A Challenge

Has anyone looked around them lately? What do you see? Has anyone asked themselves lately if they’re actually 100% or at least close to 100% happy in their daily real lives? Since I don’t know even half of you, or probably even a quarter of you personally, the cool thing about this group is that somehow, I do know all of you through someone else. Through this group and this project we are showing the world in a simple, logical way that we as human beings are all connected. Yes the internet (a non-human form of contact) is our means for exposing this phenomenon as probably true, however the essence of the experiment is to PROVE TO PEOPLE THAT WE ARE ALL CONNECTED. Therefore, as many of you have probably already realized the most basic deduction one can make from this realization, is that if we can all be connected via the internet then we are all essentially connected as a people, end of story, bottom line. We all also share some other common knowledge: We know that first and foremost we are all human beings, we know that we all have feelings, we know that we are all biological organisms, we know that we are all innately creative, compassionate and caring individuals.

Some of us also know that there is something about our physical environments right now that is destructing us as a people. The evidence is all around us: there is historical evidence that conclusively shows our societal patterns as merely replications and mutations of the exact same patterns which existed in EVERY SINGLE SOCIETY THAT HAS COLLAPSED BEFORE US; there is tangible evidence available to each and everyone of us that the majority of our global population lives in poverty while a very few of us live in luxury – even in the western world, the dichotomy between rich and poor has grown so drastically that people of the “middle class” are now experiencing oppression on a regular basis; we have evidence that our forms of entertainment are serving to purposefully and intentionally desensitize us to extreme violence, extreme injustice and blind us to the dangers of extreme power. Have you ever stopped to question these things?

What’s even scarier to me, is that we are a collective global people have come to think it is common place and “socially acceptable” that our friends and family members are suffering because of our inaction – and let’s be honest even if we personally feel we are not suffering from any type of affliction, disease, oppression or any of the other atrocities which are happening everyday in the world around us, as members of this group and as citizens of the information age, we know that even though these things are not being physically experienced by ourselves, they are in fact being physically experienced by SOMEONE YOU PROBABLY KNOW INTIMATELY, LOVE and CARE FOR. The thing is, once you have been smacked in the face with this realization I believe you too will see clearly how important it is to take action.

And, the cool thing about action is that it is most effective when it has a powerful force behind it. Historically, when it comes to any type of action for change, the most powerful movements were those which were rooted in collective, unified, organized, goal oriented action. Moreover, the most successful movements for change within past societies and generations are those which have been led by everyday citizens who came together under the unified goal of change and peacefully and purposefully used the tools, systems and means available to them to bring about the change they wanted. Unfortunately, almost every society before us, and even some that exist today, have used violence to achieve their ends. I do not believe this is necessary in a truly democratic society. Actually, its really not at all because its against the laws as they exist right now.

Do me a favor: ask yourself what kind of future you want to live in: Does it involve personal wealth? does it involve being a mother or a father? does it involve being a family member of any type? does it involve you spending your free time as you wish, and having the financial means necessary to do so? Does it involve wanting to live in physically beautiful places? Now based on your image of your perfect future that you’ve now constructed in your imagination, ask yourself if you think that future is possible if our global village continues on its current path. If the future of your private dreams is not available to you then you should probably do something about that, hey?

Lets face it: by the collective us of western society not demanding: 1. the Ultimate transparency of our governments (within the restraints of logical reason of course); 2.complete disparity between our institutions and our governments; and, 3. Respect for the land that we live on the peoples that we share it with, we have served to disappoint and disrespect the people, principals and ideals the New World was founded on. Moreover, our passivity in the political process to date is only serving to detrimentally and exponentially propagate our problems as a society. We have only ourselves to blame. And when I use the expression that we’re not demanding these things from our governments I only mean to say: Because we are blatantly choosing to not hold those in power accountable for their actions (which in a democratic society, the idea is the people keep their governments in check, not the other way around), we as a people have then by definition given up our democratic rights through inaction. Which subsequently, logic says inaction = guilt. Guilt even for the international human sufferings we think we do not cause or have influence over. If we actually believe in freedom its time we friggin stand up for it, because face it people, just because we live in a place where we have “all the comforts of modern life” doesn’t mean we are living freely.

I realize I am raising very controversial issues by sharing these ideas, but that’s great. I’m not here to try to tell you what to do. I don’t have all the answers. I’m 22 years old and I’m scared of what will happen to my future if I don’t share what I know with everyone around me. The unfortunate situation of our world is that even our access to information is constantly being regulated, controlled and manipulated so that certain powers that be can keep an eye on us and therefore use that information to keep us wherever it is we need to be for them to continue to gain power. We as a people are being watched, patrolled and herded like cattle where-ever our governments tell us and it scares me – bottom line. I am not trying to spark some massive violent political uprising – what myself along with some very dear friends of mine – are trying to do is give you information that will shock you deeply enough so that you will be forced to question the world around you. If you start to question the world around you, you will be forced to act I’m sure about it. Also, if you’re wondering what sparked my passion to write this, among many other things you should definitely check out the movie zeitgeist (www.zeitgeistmovie.com). I have no attachments, affiliations or am otherwise involved in this project at all, although I %$** well would like to be and am looking into it.

Furthermore, to be clear, the only action I’m talking about is passive, non-violent and simple. If we actually ARE living in democratic countries (which I currently question if we are), then we have the tools and means available to us to create change with little disruption to our lives as we know them. Remember, there’s safety in numbers and ultimate transparency will set you free: If a big enough group of us acts together in various but collective, cohesive and transparent movements we cannot be persecuted, charged or otherwise be held liable for our actions according to the fundamental meaning of living in a free, democratic society (side bar: the rule of engagement in this case being the actions in the name of change must be checked by and within the confines of the law as it currently exists at the time if they are to be meaningful and lasting. if you don’t like the laws you should probably change them. guess what you live in a democratic free society – you can). Therefore that means that taking political action and actualizing societal change in the 21st century, especially in a western democratic, internet-based society, should never have to be violent, complicated or beyond your personal means regardless of your age, sex, race, creed or any other orientation by which you choose to define yourself. Do me a favor…investigate that idea. If you realize I am speaking truth its that easy, please for don’t %@*%@*$ let anyone tell you differently. one easy, passive, law-abiding thing I was thinking we could all do together is vote – what do you think about that? neat idea hey? we should probably also keep each other informed and figure out if who we vote for really represents what we want in our future. sounds simple I hope. Id hate to hear this is really more complicated because im not sure if i have time for such big complications right now. I’m a very busy young student, with a demanding part time job, a boyfriend, a wide social circle, a loving family and many other things I wish to attend to in my life. If this movement gets complicated it would really %%#% with my whole program right now.

I’ve almost reached the end of my speal and well, If you are still not convinced, if you’re saying “give me a break, this girl thinks we’re not living in free societies – she’s another crazy hippie, fundamentalist yahoo,”, thats PERFECT! That means you will question what I’m saying…what do they call that? A catch 22 or something…either way you’ll probably do what i want, is all im saying. All I want is for you to question and get invovled ;). The point is: If you don’t believe me when I say that we are living in an absolutely crucial time in history and that the time for action is NOW, then I want you to do something for me. If you’re intrigued at all, please try this little exercise.

I want you to use this website: http://www.etymonline.com and look up TWO words: 1. DEMOCRACY (the socio-political state that operates most western countries, also known as the world super powers, all us good guys in the G8 or whatever) and 2. FASCISM. Then I want you to compare these definitions to your experiences in your daily life. Maybe make a sort of a list, write democracy and fascist state at the top (oooh wait, I’m feeling a lesson plan coming on – educators are you picking up the potential i’m throwing down right now?). Then list different life experiences you’ve had which fall under each category as you understand it after reading that word. Ok, done that? Great! Now look at your list. Ask yourself why, if we are living in a democratic country, do I have any life experiences listed at all under the fascist column? Ask yourself how you feel about that – if you so dearly value the idea of being a free thinking, free choosing, free roaming citizen, are you not at least a little bit interested in at least exploring this idea further?

So that’s it for now my friends…that’s all I’ve got to say for now. I hope I got you asking some questions. I hope you don’t understand everything I’ve said because then you will ask me questions. $$%*, I’m still asking questions and I hope I will be until I’m old and grey and shrivled. I want you to ask your friends questions. I want you to ask your teachers, elders and parents questions. And you should DEFINITELY ask your bosses, superiors and government officials close to you questions. And 100% for god’s sake ask the friggin internet questions, but make sure you dont accept every answer it spits at you – critical thinking is crucial to this processes and i’m pretty sure every individual is capable of critical thinking. How do I know this for sure? We all do it everyday, yup, you do it every day. its how you make decisions – its the deduction or reduction of an amount of information until it fits into your personal world and then becomes what you know as your truth. when something becomes truth you act on it (consciously and unconsciously) and therefore you might say that critical thinking has the possibility to manifest things from your subconsicous to your conscious and into your life (quantum phsyiscs, can you hear me?! cognitive behavioral therapists unite!) Eventually when you are seeking truth you will find it if you look…or at least I think so.

And ps: If you like to question things, I just want you to think of the important role living in a democratic society plays in your ability to do that.

Today, over 27,000 children died around the world

Today, over 27,000 children died around the world

• by Anup Shah

Around the world, 27–30,000 children die every day.

That is equivalent to:

• 1 child dying every 3 seconds
• 20 children dying every minute
• A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every week
• An Iraq-scale death toll every 15–35 days
• 10–11 million children dying every year
• Over 50 million children dying between 2000 and 2005

The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. In spite of the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.

Phil Harvey combines adult entertainment with philanthropy

STROLL down the dusty streets of Awasa, a town in southern Ethiopia, and you might find a billboard advertising condoms with the catchy slogan: Value your life! Superior protection. Were you driving along a highway in Toronto, Canada, you might have seen another poster, this one showing a middle-aged woman peering down into her husband’s glowing boxer shorts with the cheery message: Put a party in your pants! The sexual pleasures of the rich may seem a far cry from the family-planning and AIDS-prevention problems of the African poor. But both the ads and the products they promote are intimately connected through Phil Harvey.

Mr Harvey is both one of the world’s leading purveyors of adult entertainment and a big supplier of contraceptives to the developing world. His PHE group, which includes Adam & Eve, America’s biggest mail-order and online retailer of sexual toys and pornographic films, is a market leader in an industry which some estimate to be worth more than $10 billion a year. Yet as president of DKT International, he also leads a non-profit group that specialises in distributing condoms, pills and other forms of birth control in some of the poorest parts of the world. …

it's about time

this website claims to be doing something we should’ve done years ago.

Kiva - microloans online - an social innovation

Kiva is an awesome way to support entrepreneurship in developing countries. It directs microloans (eg. a loan of $100) directly to individuals who need them. That money is then repaid as the entrepreneur establishes their business, which I believe serves to empower the individuals who are using the money and makes sure it is being used in appropriate ways.

Check it out. This organization has received a lot of positive media attention and is quite reputable.

It is a prime example of social innovation!

http://www.kiva.org/

What are Biofuels all about

Quick guide: Biofuels What are biofuels?

Biofuels are any kind of fuel made from living things, or from the waste they produce.

This is a very long and diverse list, including:

wood, wood chippings and straw pellets or liquids made from wood biogas (methane) from animals’ excrement ethanol, diesel or other liquid fuels made from processing plant material or waste oil In recent years, the term “biofuel” has come to mean the last category – ethanol and diesel, made from crops including corn, sugarcane and rapeseed.

Bio-ethanol, an alcohol, is usually mixed with petrol, while biodiesel is either used on its own or in a mixture.

Pioneers such as Henry Ford and Rudolph Diesel designed cars and engines to run on biofuels. Before World War II, the UK and Germany both sold biofuels mixed with petrol or diesel made from crude oil; the availability of cheap oil later ensured market dominance.

Ethanol for fuel is made through fermentation, the same process which produces it in wine and beer. Biodiesel is made through a variety of chemical processes.

There is interest in trying biobutanol, another alcohol, in aviation fuel.

Are biofuels climate-friendly?

In principle, biofuels are a way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional transport fuels.

More Quick Guides Burning the fuels releases carbon dioxide; but growing the plants absorbs a comparable amount of the gas from the atmosphere.

However, energy is used in farming and processing the crops, and this can make biofuels as polluting as petroleum-based fuels, depending on what is grown and how it is treated.

A recent UK government publication declared that biofuels reduced emissions “by 50-60% compared to fossil fuels”.

Where are biofuels used?

Production of ethanol doubled globally between 2000 and 2005, with biodiesel output quadrupling.

Brazil leads the world in production and use, making about 16 billion litres per year of ethanol from its sugarcane industry.

Sixty percent of new cars can run on a fuel mix which includes 85% ethanol.

The European Union has a target for 2010 that 5.75% of transport fuels should come from biological sources, but the target is unlikely to be met.

The British government’s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation requires 5% biofuels sold at the pump by 2010 to be biofuels.

In the US, the Renewable Fuels Standard aims to double the use of biofuels in transport by 2012.

What are the downsides?

From the environmental point of the view, the big issue is biodiversity.

With much of the western world’s farmland already consisting of identikit fields of monocultured crops, the fear is that a major adoption of biofuels will reduce habitat for animals and wild plants still further.

Asian countries may be tempted to replace rainforest with more palm oil plantations, critics say.

If increased proportions of food crops such as corn or soy are used for fuel, that may push prices up, affecting food supplies for less prosperous citizens.

The mixed picture regarding the climate benefit of biofuels leads some observers to say that the priority should be reducing energy use; initiatives on biofuels detract attention from this, they say, and are more of a financial help to politically important farming lobbies than a serious attempt to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

There are few problems technically; engines can generally cope with the new fuels.

But current technologies limit production, because only certain parts of specific plants can be used.

The big hope is the so-called second-generation of biofuels, which will process the cellulose found in many plants. This should lead to far more efficient production using a much greater range of plants and plant waste.

Slideshow: A Global Community for Change

You can now watch a short slideshow to learn more about The Mountain Fund: Who We Are & What We Do…

• Just click HERE!

Launch Graphic: Fair Trade

This is a launch test and is my first piece of graphic journalism on and for rethos. Feedback greatly appreciated! Li Li

“What Will Save Us” c. Li Li 2007

Medical Camp Moves Mountains in Nepal

Kathmandu, Nepal Oct 28, 2007

The October 11-24, 2007 “Moving Medical Camp”, organized by The Mountain Fund, in cooperation with “Karing for Kids – Nepal”, served over 1000 patients in seven villages.

The 25 member medical team which is composed of US, UK and Nepali Doctors and Nurses, as well as Nepali translators, visited 7 villages in the remote Rasuwa District on the Tibetan border, and just finished giving free medical care to over 1000 indigenous Tamang inhabitants of the area.

The medical team included OBGYN, Pediatric, Optometric and General Medicine practioneers. Over 225 eye patients received glasses and vision assistance. (A more detailed report will follow this press release.)

The Medical Team included, Michael Falcone, Dr. Beth-Hall Thompson, Tu Mach, Dr. Dorothy Kammerer-Doak, Susie Rivard-Dibenedetto, Shelly Ogle, David Diaz, Robert Doak, Lindsey Mahlstedt, Ann McCollum, Kerry Flint, Christina Quack, Peter Korpi, Katie Korpi, Puskar Gurung, Sudhir Lama, Dr. Alish Prajapati, Teja Raut, Sudha Dhungana, Kopila Lama, Phurbu Tamang, Dipendra Shrestha, Dipendra Lama, Nima Tamang and Jimyang Lama. Special thanks to Dr. Alish Prajapati who was our official medical host from Nepal.

Much thanks to Mountain Hardwear for the Space Stations that were used as portable clinic buildings and Phillips Environmental for the PETT toilet systems.

About The Mountain Fund: Our mission is to organize grassroots non-profit and non- governmental organizations from a diversity of disciplines, and to support and coordinate these organizations’ efforts to eliminate poverty, its causes and symptoms, in developing mountain communities around the world.

Website: http://www.mountainfund.org

About Karing For Kids – Nepal: Karing for Kids – Nepal is a partner within The Mountain Fund, and has operated a Mother-Child Health Clinic in Goljung, Rasuwa, Nepal since the late 1990’s.

Website: http://www.karingforkids.org

The Mountain Fund Scott MacLennan email: mtnfund@mountainfund.org

One Person

Some friends of mine just returned from ten days in South Africa. They visited a number of villages and homes for AIDS orphans, hoping to find some way to help alleviate the severe poverty and sickness that has invaded that region of our world. I don’t think any of them was prepared for the enormity of the situation. It was overwhelming.

We gathered last night to hear their stories. Several of them spoke of the sense of hopelessness they felt early on in the trip. What am I doing here? How can I make a difference? Who do I think I am?

How can one person make a difference in a world that is so full of pain and so void of resources?

My friend Scott is a big guy. He was walking in a village one day and saw 20 or 25 kids in a group not far away. Not knowing what to do but feeling like he had to do something, he ran toward the kids, waving his hands and yelling. They scattered and Scott fell down on the ground, pretending to be unconscious.

Slowly the kids began to creep toward him. Who was this crazy white man? He’s huge! He has red hair! When they got within a few yards he jumped up and resumed yelling and chasing. They scattered, he fell down. They crept back, he jumped up, they scattered, he fell down, they crept back, each time a little closer. Some of them were even brave enough to touch him before he jumped up.

The next morning as Scott walked back into the village the children shouted, “Big Show! Big Show!” Apparently American wrestling stars are popular in South Africa, too. (http://www.wrestling-caricatures.com/id73.html)

Survival of the fittest is a necessary ethos in that part of the world. If food is available, you had better grab all you can get because you don’t know when or where your next meal is coming from.

“We learned pretty quickly that if you give a little kid a plate of food you better watch over him,” Scott said. “Because the bigger kids will try to steal it from him.”

One day Scott handed a plate of food to one of the smaller children. The older kids ran toward him. “Big Show, take picture! Take picture!”

“They love having their pictures taken,” Scott said. “I had my camera with me, but I knew what they were doing. They were trying to get my attention away from this little guy so they could steal his food. I just laughed and said, ‘In a minute.’ My little friend ate very slowly, but I watched over him until he finished every bite.”

How can one person make a difference? One person at a time.

God knows what that little orphan will find to eat today. But at least on that day his belly was full.

Each of my friends’ stories shared a similar theme. It was the one on one contact that allowed them to make a difference. Solve the problem? No, that will take generations. But can one person make an impact? Absolutely. One person at a time.

A couple of years ago, Scott and I volunteered to serve at an arts camp for youth in Poland. He taught a drama workshop and I taught a guitar workshop, two 90 minute sessions per day for a week. Toward the end of the week Rafal, the camp director, encouraged us to share our life stories with the teens in our workshops.

The story of my teenage years isn’t very flattering. My heroes were the rock and pop musicians of the 60s and 70s. I emulated their behavior to the nth degree, including recreational drug use. At the end of a bad LSD trip I woke up in the hospital, my right ankle broken and my left shoulder blade shattered. Family, friends and faith helped me get back on my feet, one day and one relationship at a time.

Natalia was one of my Polish guitar students. She adored 70s rock and roll and each day she asked, “Can you teach me The Doors?” or “Can you teach me Deep Purple?” I obliged by showing her the chords to Smoke On The Water. She worked diligently and I will never forget her squeal of delight when she finally mastered the progression.

“I play Deep Purple! I play Smoke On The Water!”

The last night of camp there was a huge banquet and bonfire. Scott and I were preparing to leave for Warsaw where we would catch our flight home when Rafal approached me. “Someone would like to share something with you.”

Natalia was with him. She handed me a letter she had written and said to me in her broken English, “I have friend in Warsaw. Each time I visit her apartment, she asks if I want to smoke marijuana. Before I came to camp I thought, ‘Next time I visit my friend I want to try it.’ But after I heard your story, I changed my mind. Thank you, Richard.”

“You see, Richard,” Rafal put his arm around me; “even in your fifties you can make a difference.”

“Thank you, Rafal,” I grinned. “I’m 46.”

There is a lot of pain and suffering in the world. Kids in South Africa steal food to ease the hunger pains. Teens in Poland (and America) take drugs to ease the emotional pains. How can one person make a difference? One person at a time.

One dollar at a time.

These trips weren’t financed by some big philanthropist or a foundation grant. The money came from average, middle class people who have modified their financial behavior in order to make a difference. One day at a time, one person at a time, one dollar at a time.

Ray Kroc was a struggling milk shake machine salesman when he stumbled across the possibility of duplicating the original McDonald’s restaurant. Years later someone asked him how he was able to build it into an international franchise. “One French fry at a time,” he said.

Imagine the impact we could have on poverty and homelessness if we applied the same principles to philanthropy. We could change the world.

Copyright © 2007 Richard M. Potter. All Rights Reserved.

Corpwatch

For current, up to date and referenced articles about corperations, globalisation etc. go to corpwatch.org

Buy Nothing Day

November 23 in the USA and Canada, November 24 internationally This November, environmentalists, social activists and concerned citizens in as many as 65 countries will hit the streets for a 24-hour consumer fast in celebration of the 15th annual Buy Nothing Day, a global cultural phenomenon that originated in Vancouver, Canada.

Featured in recent years by the likes of CNN, MSNBC, Wired, the BBC, USA Today, The Age and the CBC, the international event has been gaining mainstream momentum as the climate crisis drives average people to seek out greener alternatives to unrestrained consumption.

Timed to coincide with one of the busiest shopping days on the US retail calendar, as well as the unofficial start of the international holiday-shopping season, Buy Nothing Day has taken many shapes, from relaxed family outings, to free, non-commercial street parties, to politically charged public protests. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending.

In past years, street activists have proven particularly imaginative in their celebrations, bringing zombie marches, credit-card cut-ups, and shopaholic clinics to malls and public squares in an effort to expose the environmental and social consequences of First World over-consumption.

Kalle Lasn is the co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation, the organization responsible for launching Buy Nothing Day as a yearly, global event. He explains that while most participants used to see the day simply as an escape from the marketing mind games and frantic consumerism that have come to characterize modern life, the focus has since shifted in light of the new political mood surrounding climate change.

“So much emphasis,” he notes, “has been placed on buying carbon offsets and compact fluorescent lightbulbs and hybrid cars that we are losing sight of the core cause of our environmental problems: we consume far too much.”

“Buy Nothing Day isn’t just about changing your routine for one day. It’s about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment. With over six billion people on the planet, it is the responsibility of the most affluent – the upper 20% that consumes 80% of the world’s resources – to set out on a new path.”

-http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/view.php?id=403

On Revolution: How and Why?

I’ve been thinking on this topic for a long time, close to ten years in fact, and done a lot of reading, a lot of thinking, and a lot of writing on and about it, but until now I’ve never actually laid out my ideas for the real nuts-and-bolts “how” of moving to a post-capitalist economy. This isn’t that complete article, but it’s a start; spurred by a couple posts I saw on here on Rethos ((http://rethos.com/news/view/683-Alternatives-to-capitalism and http://rethos.com/news/view/309-Capitalism-and-Inequality-If-Only-Time-Could-Tell-) ) about the nature of capitalism and inequality, alternatives to it, and how to make those alternatives a reality.

Lately it seems like it’s become popular for rich people to tell us how much they dislike inequality, just look at Bill Gates and his much-publicized efforts to support “development” around the world. Not that it’s a new phenomenon, really. Rockefeller, Carnegie, and other titans of the 1900’s-era “Robber Baron” capitalist class did much the same thing. Thing is, even as those men publicly demonstrated their desire to “give back” by building public libraries and such, they continued to violently abuse working-class people who dared to form unions and demand things like living wages, weekends, shorter workdays, and things of that sort. While the nature of the software industry means that Bill Gates hasn’t ever had to be as overtly murderous as Carnegie (whose empire was built on Coal and Steel), I find it a bit hard to believe that he’s really as dedicated to the cause as he claims to be; if only because any meaningful reduction in global poverty would directly undermine the capitalist system which he and others like him rely upon to supply them with such obscene wealth in the first place. Let me explain.

Capitalism requires poverty. Period. It requires poverty since it relies on economic coercion of the majority through the threat of poverty or starvation in order to force people to accept the low-paying jobs that form the basis of the capitalist pyramid. Rich people don’t need jobs making Nikes. And that’s before you even touch the fact that the profit system itself is based on systematic theft. For example:

Say I work in a shoe factory making shoes. In the course of a day the wealth I create is equal to the value of the number of shoes I produce minus the cost of materials and overhead (the value-added which my labor creates). Now that’s all wealth that I created and, by all rights, should own. In capitalism, however, the owner of the factory or workshop appropriates the vast majority of that added value and pays me some lesser amount, and it is that act of theft that creates profits for the owners since my labor becomes just another cost and they become free to appropriate (ie steal) all of the surplus value that my labor created. They do this by leveraging the fact that the means of production are owned by a minority to force the working majority to work for the owners instead of simply working for themselves. In other words, inequality – the fact that a minority owns most of the worlds wealth – is a vital and indispensable element of capitalism. Without that inequality the entire wage system would collapse.

Ordinary people, given free access to the means of producing wealth, could self-manage their own production without bosses or hierarchies, there are literally thousands of worker-owned businesses around the world that are doing it already. Existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth are the only thing standing in the way of the immediate and virtually instantaneous abolition of capitalism. All that is required is for us as a society to (1) recognize that humans do not own the earth because we did not create it and that therefore anyone who claims to own land is nothing more then a thief and (2) for us to realize that the accumulated wealth and technology of the planet – what Kropotkin termed the “common heritage of humanity” – also belongs to everyone. Not to capitalists, not to governments, but to all of us.

And no, that’s not a ‘communist’ argument. Notice that I’m not arguing that we should turn over control of the worlds wealth to the worlds governments and expect them to run things in the interest of the people. Anarchists denounced such plans as lunacy years before the Bolsheviks ever seized power in Russia and the massive failure of Marxism there just proved us right.

Instead I’m arguing for an entirely different approach to property and ownership, a model where no one owns the land but local communities take stewardship responsibility and have oversight powers over all businesses that operate within their borders. where factories, firms, stores, etc are all self-managed by the employees without a managerial class and decisions are made on the shop floor, democratically, by the people who work there. where the market actually becomes a meaningfully free market – one that is not constrained by the massive barriers to entry that accompany an economy based on private ownership of the means of production. An economy where how much you make in a year directly depends on how much wealth your labor creates – not on how much wealth you can extract from the labor of others or how little is left after the boss steals all the profits from your work. A society, in short, without significant institutionalized inequality – something that can never be achieved in a capitalist system.

the next big step forward is not armchair philosophy but to actually develop working alternatives. For me, the growing movement towards worker-owned non-hierarchical and self-managed businesses is a massive step in the right direction because it provides a glimpse of a better way to organize our production. What I’d really like to see is that movement growing and taking things to the next level – setting up credit unions that would provide bridge loans to workers seeking to purchase the businesses where they work and convert them into collectives, providing legal support and know-how to one another, really build it into a movement. Why is it that all over america skilled workers are being put out of work and factories left empty as manufacturing jobs get exported? Why not have the unions and the workers simply buy the factories from the corporations that are abandoning them in favor of cheap labor elsewhere, convert them into non-hierarchal self-managed worker-run collectives, and let the people who work there continue to work there but without the bosses?

In Argentina this is actually happening – after the massive economic collapse in 2001 thousands of factories all over the country were shut down as capital fled abroad and millions were pushed into unemployment, but instead of sitting on their #$*@@ and moaning about it the workers there broke back into their old workplaces, started the machinery back up, and kept right on working – only for themselves instead of their former bosses. Now, six years in, many of those new collectives have turned around and used the profits from their businesses to actually buy the factories and infrastructure from the bosses and are 100% legal.

My questions are

(1) why was it illegal in the first place? The fact that private property laws would force skilled workers into unemployment while the means of production sit vacant is such an incredible indictment of capitalism it’s almost beyond words. Far from being criminals, those workers are heroes and through their labor they helped prevent one of the worst economic crisis in south american history from spiraling out of control and wiping out the economies of the entire region. They are heroes in every sense of the word.

2) Why aren’t we doing this here? How many factories and businesses have been closed since the passing of NAFTA and the creation of the WTO as “american” corporations have fled abroad looking for easy access to slave labor maquiadoras? Why in the world are we letting all of that infrastructure – which was often built at public expense through massive corporate welfare – simply rot while workers starve? It’s insane.

The revolution is here, right now, we’ve just got to get off our *#$*# and actually make it happen. Capitalist Globalization is a massive threat to working people, but it’s also an opportunity. old-school radicals used to dream of the day they’d seize the means of production from the capitalist class and envisioned it happening through a massive global revolution. That revolution never materialized, but today we have an opportunity to make their vision a reality without ever even having to kill anyone. The capitalists are literally throwing away those same means of production, abandoning them in favor of cheaper labor elsewhere. There’s nothing in the world to stop local communities from using their powers of eminent domain to turn those factories over to the workers who’ve always worked in them and letting those people convert them into collectives. It’d be better for local economies – just think of all the countless communities across America that are slowly dying as the factories that powered their local economies are shut down. It’d be better for the workers – #$%$ getting “retrained” and taking lower-paying jobs in the service sector! And, frankly, it’d even be better for America as a whole because it would revitalize our economy and reverse current economic trends that show millions of working-class people sliding deeper and deeper into poverty every year.

It’s not a cure-all solution, the State would still exist and the existing land-ownership structures would still be in place, but it would be a major blow against the power of corporate capitalism. It’d be a hell of a lot harder for top-down corporations to attract talented recruits if young people looking for jobs could instead sign on with a worker-owned business where they would be treated with dignity and respect as an equal among equals instead of being a mere “human resource”. And as that movement grew it would re-shape other aspects of our society too – the experience of living and working without hierarchy is incredibly empowering, and a healthy, empowered, secure public is a lot less likely to accept authoritarian bullshit from the government. Authoritarianism requires fear, after all, and it thrives in times and places where the economy is in shambles and people are scared. So no, it’s not the end cure. But then old-school radical ideals of a single massive revolution that would fix everything all at once were never particularly realistic to begin with. Revolution is a process, change is constant. We can’t make all the changes we’d like to see at once. But we can at least make a start. So why not start now?