The Wimpiest Revolution with the Biggest Impact?

The anti-globalization revolution of 1999 snd 2000 seemed stillborn in its aftermath. After successfully shutting down some sessions of the World Trade Organization(WTO meeting in the Battle of Seattle in 1999, subsequent protests in Quebec and Genoa were curtailed by massive military style police crackdowns that kept protestors out of sight and earshot of delegates, and overrode freedom of speech. Police chiefs around the world were mindful of the fate of Seattle's police chief at the time, ignominy and dismissal. Then the September 11 attacks came and the press declared the anti-globalization movement dead in the wave of sympathy for the victims and the anti-revolutionary mood. Indeed subsequent anti-globalization efforts were pale and small. Even some progressive and leftist pundits declared the efforts of the young anti-globalists shallow and unsustainable .

But the Battle of Seattle coincided strangely with the end of the power, even the decline, of the era of ever more encompassing and powerful, international, neo-liberal trade agreements. No agreement was reached in Seattle, even though the the meetings eventually convened, and some blamed the protests and the lame duck Clinton's too peaceful response to them. Since then the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs(GATT), WTO and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have suffered repeated failures and losses of influence. though the failure of Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) dubbed NAFTA on steroids by its nemesis Maude Barlow, who just recently was appointed as the UN's Senior advisor on water, actually faltered in 1998, its successful David character, Maude Barlow of the Council of canadians, was a major influence and intellectual supporter of the following year's anti-globalization movement. Poor Latin American and other countries saddled with huge debts, and forced to abandon social programs following IMF bailouts with strings attached, rebelled against further interventions in spite of their continued need. And now some declare the decline of global capitalism as we know it.

Was the massive international globalization structure fragile in some way. Was it near a tipping point in 1999?

The unprecedented, 10 million strong, global 2003 protests ahead of the Iraq war looked and felt like the anti-globalization protests. Again, the impact seemed minimal and even protestors were demoralized when their efforts did not stop the invasion. But would US and world public opinion have swung so massively against the war later if the predictions of trouble ahead implicit in the protests and the support and limelight it gave to the small minority of investigative reporters criticizing the reasons for the war and the war's conduct in the face of the huge US public relations propoganda machine, without the seemingly ineffectual protests.

One wonders if the ancient Romans poo pooed the impact of the early Barbarian sackings as the attackers withdrew.

US election thoughts

As an international observer, I wonder if the international viewer ratings for the US election will surpass the Oscars or the soccer World Cup or whatever the record is until now.

Robert F. Kennedy and Greg Palast

In 2004 on the morning of election day, Palast listed states and counts of votes which were already discounted or suppressed totalling in the millions. Fortunately he and Robert F Kennedy are proactive issuing a 7 page comic book (linked to below the article above) "stealing back your vote", so voters can actively secure their vote, and do more than shake their heads.

When major scary things are happening, many are in denial as in 2004. Democrats, in my view, seem to accept they have to win a cushion of 5-10% of votes to counter the suppression, rather than fight back vigorously and use the "c" word, conspiracy, which you can't use in polite company and get invited back to the cocktail party. They are fighting more vigorously this year, but the form of "the crunch", when and if it comes, is always different and surprising, and that is when we may see if Obama, unlike Gore and Kerry in 2000 and 2004, is a street fighter (or not). Someone should send him an emergency bullhorn. :>

Michael Moore, working for Dem legislature candidates in Michigan expressed some of this: in Friday on Democracy Now:

Michael Moores feeling:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/31/academy_award_winning_filmmaker_michael_moore

MICHAEL MOORE: Right, yeah, I know. It seems that—it seems to feel like the Republicans aren’t going to have a very, very good time on Tuesday night. And she’s, of course, obviously, one of the extreme cases of why they’re in deep, deep trouble.

But I have no sense of optimism, as I sit here. You know, way too many times in the past, we’ve gotten far too giddy way too soon. And I am just not going to succumb to that feeling right now. I mean, I hope. I hope it all looks good on Tuesday, but for many reasons, there is a chance that McCain will win on Tuesday. And we have to operate with that attitude in mind, because—I mean, let’s face it. People on our side usually aren’t as driven to involve themselves in a political process that they view, somewhat cynically, as not having operated in the best interests of the people. And so, they’re not often as—often—not as much as the other side is motivated to go to the polls, whereas the other side, under, you know, strict orders from, they believe, the voice of God that’s in their head telling them that they must go to the polls and vote for these good people or remove the heathens that are in violation of whatever it is they’re listening to in their head. So, I’m telling you, I think that’s pretty powerful. They’ve been very successful at it. They’ve always been well funded. They’re very smart about it. They are committed. They are up at the crack of dawn, and they will be on Tuesday. Trust me. We have not lived under the Republicans for twenty of the last twenty-eight years by their side being a bunch of slackers. That’s not the case. So they will be out in full force. And I don’t think we need to wake up on Wednesday with that feeling that we all know too well, that—you know, “Woah, what happened? What happened?” I just—I think that’s happened one too many times.

political affiliations, isolation and attachment, health: Interesting survey or secondary data topic

Are affiliates of right wing or social Darwinist parties more lilkely to suffer from certain chronic preventable illnesses or risky habits like smoking than left leaning affiliates. Does a philosophy that stresses individualism and personal responsibility and personal wealth accumulation (philosophically or in Buddhist terms isolation and attachment) lead to the isolation and guilt over personal faiure associated with some illnesses. If so, in the US one could offer health insurance based on long term political membership and have degree of risk predictability.

Some related observations:

- lots of lefties smoke, drink and overeat too
- poverty is mostly associated with ill health, 2 exceptions being risk of car accidents and alcohol consumption; right wing views are associated positively with wealth I seem to recall
- are right wing views associated with fatalism and disbelief of the research showing that lifestyle changes (or collective/legislative/enforcement against hazards like pollution) can affect health?

ranked choice polling could lead to ranked choice voting

Could polls which say "how would you rank the candidates if your vote would always count eg you could vote green or libertarian and you did not have to fear the most worst if you did not vote for the least worst". Unlike proportional, ranked choice or instant runoff voting leads to a near majority for the winner. at least as a second or third or 4th choice and could be the real way to foster "radical" (in the Harry Belafonte sense) change we can believe in and alternative parties. Excellent Wikipedia entry here.

LHC why can't we just observe collisions in space?

Physicists - please answer my question:

too much noise? - we need 300 feet of rock? could it be done on an asteroid or the moon with a little tube collecting cosmic particles and sending them into a drilled chamber- could we have spent 8 billion developing a satellite and detector that couldl filter out the noise and detect lots of particles?

Because the safety argument that it happens anyway in upper atmosphere assumes it happens at the same concentration - if we are concentrating collisions to any degree beyond that the safety argument, that it happens every day in upper atmosphere falls short.

population crash movement - moratorium on childbirth

It is politically unacceptable to talk about powerful incentives to discourage childbearing, as filmmaker Nina Paley noted in discussing her powerful 2002 animation. The Stork.

Three or four decades ago programs to give $50 to desperately poor third world women to be sterilized became the textbook case of uninformed non-consent. Population control also became associated with racism, genocide and eugenics, for example see this discussion. Zero population growth was a popular movement in the 1970s (if only more had listened), but who is calling for a committed movement to stop or greatly curtail all childbirth for a generation, given our global warming and mass extinction reality. It certainly beats wars, disease, famines and runaway global heating as an outcome even if it precipitated its own economic and elder care crises. As a near senior citizen, I would gladly forgo better medical and financial care and die happy if I knew major measurable steps to save the environment were under way. And I think a lot of young people are prepared to put off or forgo the pleasures and pains of family life, of a traditional human life, for one or 2 generations to save the world, no less than those who fought the Nazis, if enough women signed on, It could cause a bit of credible, measurable real demographic and economic collapse, but also fairly immediate environmental and social advantages would happen simultaneously. In a decade or 2 the next generation could begin to live like happy, non-violent pirates in the ruins and booty of the now emptier cities and towns as beautiful savannas and jungles reclaimed some of what they yielded before to sprawling housing and farms. A few maverick environmentalists continue to bring up population collapse as a very good thing.

Governments like Canada continue to tout 19th century policies that encourage population and economic growth, But I think the criticisms about racism can be overcome by rolling out the campaign to the vastly greater resource-consuming developed countries first. If France, the US, Canada Australia and so forth lead the way with cobwebs on the maternity wards, and making the short term economic and lifestyle sacrifices, then the rational objections to reintroducing vigorous population control measures everywhere would fall away. A lot of health resources go into maternity, so maybe I would even not have to give up some of cheaper, more cost-effective medical attention as I age.

Dirty Canadian Tar Sands kill ducks and the climate

My Brother on Afghanistan and Kipling

What the heck is going on in Britain? Coal and national ID

the story

and an opinion

Well, people said Brown was worse than Blair, that Blair did a deal to pursue regressive policies to get Brown's support when he ran for party leader or something like that as I recall. Ominous that it is announced at the Adam Smith Institute which was behind Margaret Thatcher's privatization and eighties version of the ownership society. I remember a speech circulated in the Saskatchewan civil service where I worked under right wing Grant Devine's government by someone from the Adam Smith Institute. He was touting the public stock offerings in BOAC and other British privatizations of public corporations.

And a national ID program with fingerprints and biometrics beyond anything the US neocons can practically hope for and targeting non-Europeans? Do they really think the existence of the EU covers this return to old racist treatment of non-white immigrants and citizens? British progressives should say, you mean by non-European, non-white. I have a sneaking suspicion the ID card may stop at the 1st phase, non-Europeans, bowing to human rights concerns at the point where it affects whites.

A friend of mine was an Iranian refugee going to high school in Britain in the 80s while waiting for his parents to be allowed to leave Iran. He was very glad when his parents finally were able to escape to the US and he was able to leave Britain, where he said it got worse every year under Margaret Thatcher's politically motivated policies tightening restrictions on the immigrant population.

How to cancel Real's Rhapsody

Go to help A-Z , cancel my account and phone the number which is 1-866-597-5465 and tell the nice customer service people you want to cancel. There is no online way to cancel and I could find no other link for cancellation except buried deep within help. Earlier today, I tried via the "edit account" and a screen offered a subscribe button for a service I already had! Needless to say I did not push the button and turned to the help instead, so maybe another screen after the subscribe button offered a way to cancel, though the customer rep said you could only cancel by phone.

Real should be ashamed of themselves. BTW I got 4 months of a total of 6 months of $15 bills refunded by taking the 5 extra minutes to escalate to a supervisor, which was appreciated. I had offered to forgo the refund if they would provide an obvious way for everyone to cancel online, but of course the help dept could not do that.

A quick search revealed others on real networks own support thread with similar problems:

from Mar 2007

Another thread on Rhapsody as recent as Dec. 2007 discussed the ethics of the lobster trap cancellation policy, easy to sign up for free trial, but very hard to find your way out.

Finally this amusing investigation in PC World by Tom Spring included an attempt to cancel Rhapsody account and another real product, both of which proved difficult.

A representative of RealNetworks, told him it was an single mistake . When he showed them it happened twice they promised to investigate both incidents,

Very good - investigations underway; only problem is Spring's article is dated December 22, 2006.

Suddenly, Buy Nothing Day makes sense to mainstream

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/23/BUBETG17L.DTL

KCBS had stories covering Buy Nothing Day

and a book about The Corruption of Consumerism
Benjamin Barber, author of "Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole," on American capitalism.

More media coverage here:
http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/news.php

Suddenly, after An Inconvenient Truth etc., Buy Nothing Day makes sense to the mainstream.

In a weak economy, even questions about its impact, which was ridiculed in the past are less evident. I think it may be time to raise the issue of high market and retailers expectations and what would be a non-damaging and sustainable economy with some stability for average workers: more emphasis on simple, basic, durable goods made relatively locally, of a quality that lasted long enough that a higher price was accepted? Didn't we have at least a partial economy sort of like that 60 or so years ago? I remember when people began to decry "planned obsolescence" in the 1950s, particularly in connection with toys and automobiles.

Regret re lost opportunity to stand up

I was analyzing results for a health survey for an eastern North American regional government. My 2 co-workers and I complained vociferously to the survey manager about a standard procedure that was putting young and/or female survey respondents at risk. If the respondent was not at home or did not have time for the long survey, the questionnaire was left for them to be sealed in an envelope for later pickup by the survey field person. But the survey contained sensitive questions about sexual behavior for all respondents in the household over 15 as I recall. From comments of the field personnel, my co-workers found out some fathers had ripped open the envelopes and read their daughters' answers, leading to "dire" consequences for the girls. The manager brusquely cut off the discussion, citing cost and the need to maintain high levels of response. And none of us even escalated it as far as i know. So we do not know if anything was done (possibly other divisions of it were alerted) or what the impact was of the ill-advised procedure. I was sole support to my wife and 2 teen agers on contract in a tight market and felt the manager would fire me if I pursued it. I had been enthusiastic about the project early on, working through Christmas drafting the report outline, but I already felt disheartened re a conflict with the manager over ensuring that the report would have statistically strong useful content, a problem I had encountered in government before with managers who buried or altered my substantive reports because they wanted risk-free, bland results. None of those cases had direct risks of harm to people.

Because I am outspoken at work in government and corporate jobs, I generally have never, aside of this case, had a serious ethical dilemma because people doing questionable things know from the outset not to put me in the loop, And my career has likely underperformed, partly because of that.

The Aleuts - quiet Columbuses

I learned in U of British Columbia in the 60s from a very conventional anthropology professor whose actions and observations may be considered colonial these days , Wilson Duff, about a simple historical fact that really poses yet another devastating question about the myth that America was discovered by Europeans in the 15th century "AD". He was showing artifacts he had "collected" from an ancient site in the Queen Charlottes. There were small Japanese carvings. Wow, I thought, but he was nonchalant. He said there has always been trade of small goods along the entire Pacific rim via the Aleuts. Say what?

So if I am an enterprising ancient Siberian trader, say in 500 BCE, and i had the money and motivation, without sailing across uncharted waters I could easily accompany my bag of trade goods to Mexico. And who is to say it did not happen? Almost certainly, Japanese and other Asian art was influenced by Native American art and vice-verse.

Nobunaga, 3 strikes and why the Iraq war so deadly now?

A speculation as to why the Iraq war has become so deadly:

A Japanese TV drama(dorama) told the story of how Nobunaga, the brilliant, ruthless leader who broke down the Japanese code of chivalry which had prevented anyone from uniting Japan operated. A nobleman received the honorary title "jar breaker" for single handedly running into the courtyard of a castle under siege and breaking the water jar holding the only precious water for the castle. When his story was presented to Nobunaga, he was unimpressed, and humiliated the nobleman by asking the low born but fierce warrior Hideyoshi why breaking the water jar was a mistake. "The castle's eventual fall was assured . Breaking the water jar merely made the defenders fight with more reckless ferocity, causing unnecessary losses for our troops."

Three strikes laws attempt to make the streets safer at enormous human and financial cost, swelling the prison population. While many believe they protect the public, the laws may make police work more hazardous by increasing the number of suspected criminals desperate not to be caught.

The pervasive and accurate perception by Iraqi insurgents that they may be tortured or rendered to unknown, uncontrolled centres where powerful, effective techniques, developed over the last half century by US psychologists, will break them down, may make them fight far more desperately and increase the suicidal ferocity factor, even among fighters not technically suicide bombers. Wouldn't any insurgent rather die than be captured alive under the circumstances?

Now is the time to demonstrate and make waves

If you demonstrated in 2003, if you did not, the opportunity to have an impact now is greater than ever. Politicians and the media have stuck their necks out a bit. They need coaxing encouragement and continued committed visible passion against the direction of the Bush adminstration that they can point to so they can listen a bit less to the legions of pro-war lobbyists enticing them to do less, not to make waves to ensure steady donations to their campaigns and war related jobs for their constituents.

When Nixon resigned, war opposers, even though on the brink of citory on the military industrial complex, population control, the environment and a whole range of fronts instead heaved a sigh of relief, got jobs, got married let up. 4 years later the Reagan revolution was in full swing.

Demonstrate this weekend in Washington, or in labour supported local demonstrations elsewhere write letters get active in your own way, don't get establishment jobs, don't have more kids yet and let the politicians and media and the powerful interests for war and against the planet pushing them not to rock the boat know we are not the pushovers we were back in the mid 70s and they are facing a determined opposition in for the long haul.

GPL 3, Stallman and Torvalds

Recent article asserts that the Novell deal will push some who opposed GPL 3 towards its adoption with its stronger restrictions which would have stymied the Novell Microsoft deal.

I am not really up to speed on all this, but at the 1997 or 98 LinuxWorld in San Jose I attended out of curiosity, both Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds participated in the panels and at the time, Linus seemed so with it and in tune with the excitement, whereas Stallman seemed stodgy and foreboding, warning the community not to get carried away with corporate and user friendliness buzz.

The years since have borne out RS's warnings in spades, IMHO. What happened at VA Linux and other companies, to me, means that they might have avoided a whole ugly roller coaster and distraction and just slowly and modestly built their businesses in an organic gradual way if they had heeded his warnings.

Stallman's vision and criticisms are more comprehensive and skeptical about doing business and about globalcorporations than most, though not dogmatic; he gave an example in the '98 panel of IBM as a corporation that had taken a helpful approach to free software and Gnu Linux.

Paul Robeson Memorial Fair Trade Border Concerts and Festivals

A concert in memory of Paul Robeson's cross border concert in 1952 which attracted 40,000 to hear the famous Bass who was forbidden in the blacklist era from crossing the border was planned by the Canadian Auto Workers in 2002, though I cannot find an after the fact report.

Now seems an opportune time to plan peaceful cross border music festivals for summer of 2007 at Vancouver, Windsor, Buffalo, San Diego, Tucson, El Paso etc. aimed to push the newly elected more liberal US congress and Canadian Liberal and NDP politicians with a little more wind in their sails, to dismantle NAFTA, GATT and WTO as they exist in favor of a fair trade set of rules. It is one possible action to push the newly resurgent "liberals" in both countries to do something real and lasting in reponse to the expectations of their supporters, something that I think would also consolidate their transient success, as conservatives and Republicans I know have grave doubts about NAFTA etc.. For that reason my suggestion would be to focus solely on trade issues.

Such artists as Michael Franti, Kanye West, Neil Young, Bonnie Raitt, WIllie Nelson come to mind, but surely people willl think of many others. Sponsors could be Global Exchange, Council of Canadians, unions like CAW, etc.

Shouting and persuading

A couple of nice debates
:
Alice Walker at a Code Pink event just before Oct. 5 2006 rallies(paraphrase):

There will be shouting at the upcoming rally, and I can't bear shouting. I know Dennis (Bernstain) says this is a time for shouting. Well some of us are constitutionally built for shouting and some of for persuading. We have to have peace within to make peace outside.

Ghandi's grandson described conversation with Arafat some years ago:

ARUN GANDHI: I told Mr. Arafat, I said, suppose you were to go there and lead this half a million people, men, women and children, in a march to Palestine, and no armaments or anything, just say that we are coming back to live in peace and harmony in our homeland, can the Israelis kill so many people and live with their conscience? I said the whole world would wake up and stop this action.

Getting to test a new generation of weapons.

Many causes of the battle but one outcome is that sponsors of the proxy armies test their new weapons and tactics in a place where their own populace is not at risk, as the opponents did in Spain in the 30s. Thankfully this writer's work is free of charge for now.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1219457.ece

Beautiful, horrible Beirut elegy by Robert Fisk

Posted on Lebanese blogger site. Best of Robert Fisk, sometimes chilling and scary portrait of middle Eastern militants, as he did elsewhere with Arafat, Bin Laden and Dustum, with uncanny ability to describe what it is like for people on the other end of the gunsights, the beauty of the place and the horror of what is happening and has happened. Be sure to read last paragraph and listen to the song.

I like the comment of the (Lebanese?) person who posted it:

At Sunday, July 23, 2006 1:17:27 AM, Hilal Chouman said...

arch.
although i may oppose him in some political opinions, i liked the way he presented the scenes.. as if it is afilm..
i consider it a very nostalgic piece