WATCH: The Limits of the Web in an Age of Communicative Capitalism

Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies

December 5, 2013

Thirty Years After the U.S. Invasion of Grenada, the First Neoliberal War

Zero Anthropology

October 28, 2013

by Maximilian Forte

U.S. forces in Grenada in 1983

This past Friday, October 25, marked the 30th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. There were many meanings and consequences of that invasion, not just for Grenada itself, or for the wider Caribbean region (including the increased militarization of the region in the aftermath, the importation of U.S. national security doctrine, and the scandalous collaborationism embodied by Dominica’s then Prime Minister, Eugenia Charles, and Barbados’ then Prime Minister, Tom Adams–and the advent of the Caribbean Basin Initiative), but also meanings and consequences for the onset of the “new world order” of the post-Cold War period which was just a few years away. (From a personal perspective, the revolutions in Grenada and Nicaragua, where I spent months in the 1980s, formed an important foundation of my own development and impelled me in certain directions with my own studies.) →

Fording the River: Co-opting Indigenous Peoples

New on WKOG: “It’s a White Man’s World” – Your Exclusive Daily Dose of Reality. Raw. Unedited. Uncomfortable.

Video | “God’s Taunt” – Bill McKibben’s Sermon on Job 38: 1-11 and Matthew 19: 16-22 from Sunday, April 28, 2013

by Forrest Palmer, WKOG Collective

July 22, 2013

In this video, it is very fitting that McKibben goes to Riverside Church. The best way to get validation in Amerikkka, still sadly the most powerful nation in the world, is to align yourself with the two most hallowed of individuals: Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus. So, he is in Riverside Church, which is a Christian establishment and it is one where Martin Luther King Jr. made one if his most famous (and at the time he gave it, most infamous) speeches concerning Amerikkka and its continuous use of violence across the globe. So, this speech is most appealing to not just the liberals and leftists in Amerikkka, but also the general Amerikkkan population which is comprised of the bulk of the middle of the road citizenry. This is a sound decision by McKibben since in the pantheon of admired people within the history of this country, King and Jesus are above reproach: one due to his ACTUAL deification and the other through his historical deification. I will let you decide which one is which.

The speech is very reminiscent of King and Jesus because it is very general in terms of the problem whereas the individual doesn’t have to look at his actions. Jesus said that you can basically do whatever you want as long as you accept him as your personal savior and, as the conduit for sacrificing for all your earthly sins, you will be okay. So, the individual behavior never needs to be analyzed because it can always find some type of absolution. In the same vein, King’s speech at Riverside Church speaks of the state violence that is ongoing across the Earth and absolves guilt from the general populace with nary a reference to the number of jobs that are either directly due to the military industrial complex or DEPENDENT upon its continuation. The individual aspect of how the daily lives of Amerikkkans are inextricably ATTACHED to wars of empire isn’t touched by King, which can leave the bulk of Amerikkkans who are for “justice” in alliance with him.

As an illustration of how this can be so delusional in regards to actually dealing with any true solutions without acknowledging or even KNOWING the truth, King once said that how can there not be enough water for everyone when the world is 70% water. It is something that everyone can agree with and feel good about because it is so generalized what kind of heartless individual would be against it since there is enough water for everyone. But you look deeper at the problem and you realize that only 3% of this water is freshwater. And then you dig deeper and you see that we only have access and live off approximately 1% to 1.5% of all the water on Earth. Then you see that this is the amount of water that billions of people need to survive on the planet. Only then, can you start to deal with the problem no matter how overwhelming it may be to the person who is basing his analsyis and possible solutions off the truth.But, this has never and will never play into the narrative of the Amerikkan lifestyle itself being analyzed to ANY degree. Therefore, in the happily every after fairy tale of King’s analysis, Amerikkka’s exorbitant amount of resource usage can continue unabated while ALSO including all the rest of the people on Earth.

Fast forward a little over 40 years and McKibben also cloaks himself in this analysis based off general terms in order to make his message palatable to the masses and also lets the ones who he must answer to (neoliberal capitalist institutions) know that ultimately he isn’t a threat. No mention of the everyday usage of polluting resources at the individual level and how he or she is the culprit as well as the fossil fuel companies.

What is most scandalous in this speech is his use of the non-anglos as a verbal prop to show some type of solidarity between the victims who supply all of the West with resources and the congregation of this church. Thereby he is intimating that the solution is the same for them as it is for the members of this church: curtailing the power of the fossil fuel industries. Notice I said CURTAILING because the resources supplied by the same victims he said are in allegiance with the members of this church will STILL have to be taken advantage of in accordance with the historical legacy of Western domination of the Global South. From the moment these people go up in the morning until they go to bed at night, their lives will be totally fueled off the dehumanization of those where the resource wealth resides, be it non-renewable or renewable resources, which in all honesty are in LESS abundance than non-renewable ones and FAR, FAR, FAR from truly being renewable.

In the speech, McKibben compares the seminal thought of the civil rights movement which is that the arc of history always bends towards justice and the LIMITED amount of time that is necessary to end the practices that are causing climate change. This assumes the supposition that McKibben and the green leaders actually have a plan of any sort that is based on a reality of actually stopping this madness in ANY timeframe, be it short or long term. Most disturbingly, just like King, McKibben and the audience believe that the arc of history can continue to bend towards justice, with justice being defined as the continuation of white privilege and the inclusion of as many other people as possible. It is ludicrous, but as stated previously, the generalities of the problem and lack of discussion on his proposed solutions are done to replicate the physical phenomena of running in place: a lot of movement, but not going anywhere.

The arc of history doesn’t bend towards justice. This is a fallacy to allow those on top to believe they can kick the can down the road and it will one day be taken care of by the next generation who will have learned from our mistakes. Well, the next generation is HERE for climate change. There is no more tomorrow or room for stating of the problem from the leaders with no mention of the solution. The ultimate goal is ZERO CARBON EMISSIONS. Period. This can either be done by CHOICE or by FORCE. Yet, everyday that people like McKibben and the horde of false green prophets continue to lie to the masses, that choice is QUICKLY turning into what will ultimately be done by force. Simple as that.

FP

Video | “God’s Taunt” – Bill McKibben’s Sermon on Job 38: 1-11 and Matthew 19: 16-22 from Sunday, April 28, 2013

Essential Summer Reading | Managing Democracy, Managing Dissent

Democracy was once considered a dangerous new idea and a threat to ruling elites. It brought to mind fearful images of oppressed masses demanding social and political equality. Fast forward to today and democracy is a key method by which the inequality and injustices of capitalism are legitimated and popular consent engineered. Despite the fact that capitalism can tolerate neither equal access to decision-making or truly open dissent, and in fact prioritises profit-making above all social or environmental concerns, we are nonetheless persuaded to believe that capitalism is, or at least can be, democratic. Now a new book – published by Corporate Watch* – uncovers how this contradiction is sustained, and the anti-democratic rule of capitalism protected. →

Under Empire, All Life is Imperiled

One Year On

Counterpunch Weekend Edition May 24-26, 2013

by JAVIER SETHNESS CASTRO

The Silent Death of the American Left

Counterpunch

Weekend Edition May 24-26, 2013

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

Power Shift Away From Green Illusions

“The modern environmental movement has rolled over to become an outlet for loggers, energy firms and car companies to plug into. It is now primarily a social media platform for consumerism, growth and energy production – an institutionalized philanderer of green illusions. If you need evidence, just go to any climate rally and you’ll see a strip mall of stands for green products, green jobs and green energy. These will do nothing to solve the crisis we face, which is not an energy crisis but rather a crisis of consumption.”

Truthout

April 8, 2013

Interview by Steve Horn

Greenwashing from Coast to Coast

Exxon After Arkansas

Counterpunch

by SASHA ROSS

Capital-driven Civil Society

Originally published on State of Nature, May 19, 2008.

Republished by Michael Barker with additional links.

by Michael Barker

“It is the more subtle support that democracy manipulators provide to progressive activist organizations that are the most important yet least understood part of their activities.”

According to, the once progressive, now neo-conservative commentator, David Horowitz, Professor Stephen Zunes is a member of a select group of leftist activists that he refers to as The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America (2006). Horowitz is infamous for co-founding the Center for the Study of Popular Culture – which has been ominously renamed as the David Horowitz Freedom Center. More recently though, in 2005, this Center launched DiscoverTheNetworks, an online project that has been accurately referred to as “Horowitz’s Smear Portal”. The relevance of this background is found in the fact that I have also assessed Zunes’ connections to the International Center for Nonviolent Conflict (where he chairs the board of academic advisors). While both I and Horowitz have criticised Zunes’ background and affiliations, needless to say Horowitz’s “Smear Portal” attacks Zunes for very different reasons than my own. [1] Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that DiscoverTheNetworks approach to investigating Zunes is very similar to my own, as it identifies the “individuals and organizations that make up the left and also the institutions that fund and sustain it”. The crucial difference, between these two parallel analyses, however, is that I criticise the Left in an attempt to strengthen it by causing it to reflect on the elite manipulation and co-option of civil society, while DiscoverTheNetworks simply aims to undermine the Left. [2] →