Alternatives: Community Owned Banks, Local Currencies and More
Participatory economics, or parecon, came mainly from the cumulative struggles of diverse populations trying to win liberation from capitalism. Parecon owes, in particular, to the anarchist and the libertarian socialist heritage, to the most recent experiences of the New Left of the Sixties, but also to every historical uprising and project aimed at eliminating class rule from the beginning to the present. It has learned from successes and from failures.
We as a community can create our own credit, without having to engage in the sort of impossible pyramid scheme in which we’re always borrowing from Peter to pay Paul.
You might rightly be wondering where this idea came from and if it’s feasible. North Dakota, the only state in the country with budget surpluses and a booming economy, has had such a bank for 90 years and is a primary reason why the state is in such good fiscal shape. North Dakota has the approximate population of Baltimore city – 600,000. Over the last 10 years, their state bank has returned a third of a billion dollars back to the state’s general fund to offset taxes and help with funding public sector needs and that’s in addition to its lending.
Update on the Ongoing Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico
December 26, 2010, 12:05 pm
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news,
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poison,
politics,
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science After conducting the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference for over seven months, we can now disseminate the following information with the authority and confidence of those who have thoroughly investigated a crime scene. There are many research articles, investigative reports and penetrating exposes archived at the following website. Particularly those posted from August through November provide a unique body of evidence, many with compelling photo-documentaries, which portray the true state of affairs at the Macondo Prospect in the GOM.
In 2006, a corroded pipeline leaked 200,000 gallons of oil on to the tundra in the worst leak in the history of the North Slope. The company was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to pay $20m (£12.5m) in criminal penalties and restitution.
The leak in 2009 occurred when a pipeline at the BP-operated Lisburne oil field burst, leaking nearly 46,000 gallons of crude and oily water near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. After roughly 165 days of low-temperature warnings, BP found ice in the pipe. Fifteen days later, operators discovered the rupture.
Investigators said BP operators had “failed to respond to the alarms and failed to investigate or troubleshoot the cause of the alarms” and argued that BP should have known better, as it had suffered a similar ruptures in other frozen pipelines as far back as 2001.
“We’re more concerned about the dispersant and the dispersant mixed with oil–the dispersed oil, if you will–than we are about the crude oil itself.” Tests conducted in recent months by[University of Southern Maine Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health director John] Wise’s lab, using human cell lines, show that dispersants cause cell death and DNA damage, which has been linked to cancer and reproductive problems.
Models for Developing Sustainable Food Systems
November 9, 2010, 7:10 am
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water The 10 Biggest Issues with the Global Food System and What You Can Do
It’s difficult to separate the problems into discrete categories because everything is connected. Big problems lead to seemingly smaller problems, that, when allowed to fester, become open wounds – much like the foul waste lagoons on industrial pig farms that dot our landscape, or the actual wounds on human flesh caused by antibiotic resistant staph infections, which are a direct result of the overuse of antibiotics in livestock operations.
Most of the problems in the system stem from one giant problem: Concentration of power, land, wealth, and political influence in the hands of a few large players who have gamed the system for their benefit. Here are the biggest issues, as we see them, followed by suggestions for what you can do about them.
Vandana Shiva explains the effect of GMOs on Indian agriculture—and how to promote home-grown alternatives.
The three key components of a successful small scale backyard orchard and helpful tips
Another way of thinking outside the box
B-Line launced a new venture – B-Shares, which turns a $20 donation into more than 40 meals by providing the missing link between local food sources – famers and groceries – and the nonprofits that provide meals for people in need. The missing link, of course, is transportation, and in B-Line’s case, emissions-free bicycle-based transport of food that might otherwise go to waste.
LA public art project, Fallen Fruit, started by mapping public fruit–fruit trees growing in or over public property. Since then, the interests of this Meshy project “have expanded from mapping public fruit to include Public Fruit Jams in which we invite the citizens to bring homegrown or public fruit and join in communal jam-making; Nocturnal Fruit Forages, nighttime neighborhood fruit tours; Community Fruit Tree Plantings on the margins of private property and in community gardens; Public Fruit Park proposals in Hollywood, Los Feliz and downtown LA; and Neighborhood Infusions, taking the fruit found on one street and infusing it in alcohol to capture the spirit of the place.”
News Round-Up: American Police State at Home and Imperialism Abroad
November 8, 2010, 7:37 am
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wiretapping AT HOME
Earlier this month, the United States Coast Guard upheld its self-declared status as a ‘special’ branch of the military with the ability to prosecute civilians in military tribunals. This startling declaration, unreported in the media, came in a Decision on Appeal related to the case of Lieutenant Eric Shine, a commissioned Naval officer in the Merchant Marines and a graduate of Kings Point Military Service Academy, and was penned by the Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard.
Executive Order 13544, Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council is a short document outlining the goals and scope of the order. The title gives the appearance that it only creates a Council, but buried within are detailed plans to carry out the “goals” of the Executive Order. Let’s take a closer look at the order.
A major investigation reveals the extent of America’s vast and heavily privatized military-corporate-intelligence establishment.
The US Department of Homeland Security has been spying on people who don’t like gas drilling and handing on the data to the oil companies.
The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.
Is someone out behind your house digging through your trash? Don’t worry, it is probably just the government. When Audi ran their now famous “Green Police” commercial during the Super Bowl last year, most Americans laughed it off and thought that nothing like that could ever happen in America…In 2009, the city of Cleveland has issued 2,900 tickets for trash violations, which was almost five times more tickets than in 2008. In 2010, the city of Cleveland is on track to issue over 4,000 tickets for trash violations.
It has also ruled that innocent civilians tortured and detained, even after release, have no rights for recourse against the CIA or corporations involved because litigation would jeopardize state secrets and top secret classified information critical to National Security.
President Obama’s new Executive Order on “Controlled Unclassified Information” {four page pdf} issued today builds on recommendations from open government groups and the findings of the National Security Archive’s 2006 audit of “Pseudo-Secrets” that uncovered 28 different and uncoordinated policies on marking and restricting official unclassified information.
ABROAD
A quarter of the world’s nuclear aircraft carriers will soon be in the Arabian Sea.
Update on the Disaster in the Gulf – Ongoing Dangers and Emerging Evidence
November 7, 2010, 7:45 pm
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water “We saw nothing alive above 35 feet.”
Rodney D. Soto, medical doctor for the Younger You Institute in Santa Rosa Beach, recently started testing and treating patients in relation to high levels of volatile solvents in the blood stream that he says may be linked to BP’s oil spill in the Gulf. “What I am concerned most about is a long-term effect, that won’t even show up for years, but are going to have tremendous implications in human immune system and hormonal function and brain function,” Soto said. These compounds (petroleum and dispersants) are liposoluble; meaning they have a “high affinity for fat,” Soto said. While the clinic specializes in “anti-aging and aesthetic medicine,” Soto points out that he is a medical doctor licensed in two states. He said the medical community has been monitoring the spill’s impact but has failed to develop adequate treatment methods.
The goal was to simulate a blowout or pipeline rupture in deep water. The results from these measurements show that the rising of the oil through the water column represents a kind of a “stripping” process of some of the most toxic compounds in the oil, resulting in a portion of the most toxic compounds is left in the water column.
Police State America Update: US Troops Training Cops on US Soil, Paramilitary Policing, ACLU & China on US Human Rights, and more
September 8, 2010, 6:10 am
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war A police-state uses the law as a mechanism to control any challenges to its power by the citizenry, rather than as a mechanism to insure a civil society among the individuals.
Interview with Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary US Treasury, Associate Editor Wall Street Journal, Professor of Political Economy Center for Strategic and International Studies Georgetown University Washington DC.
Concise and correct.
In late July the American Civil Liberties Union released “Establishing a New Normal” (pdf), an 18 month review of national security, civil liberties and human rights under the Obama Administration.
H.R. 5741 will give the president the authority “To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.”
Among the most extraordinary powers claimed by both President Bush and President Obama as part of the post-9/11 “war on terrorism” is the power to nullify — or ignore — jury verdicts of acquittal in federal criminal cases involving terrorism.
The First Amendment does not protect humanitarian groups or others who advise foreign terrorist organizations, even if the support is aimed at legal activities or peaceful settlement of disputes, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.
In gruesome detail, Luther described what happened to him at Camp Taji’s aid station. He thought he would receive medical care. Instead he was confined to an isolation chamber and held there for over a month, under enforced sleep deprivation, until he agreed to sign papers saying that he was ill before coming to Iraq and thus not eligible for disability and medical benefits. “They wanted me to say I had a ‘personality disorder,’” Luther told me.
In October of this year, one month prior to the November midterm elections, a special army unit known as ‘Consequence Management Response Force’ will be ready for deployment on American soil if so ordered by the President.
From terrorist attacks and hurricane evacuations to submarine base and nuclear power plant mishaps; bomb blasts, plane crashes, dirty bombs, hazmat spills, earthquakes, medical disasters and train derailments, America is on high alert. Over the past several weeks to the present, more than 35 major disaster drills are taking place throughout America. It makes one wonder what’s prompting all of these emergency exercises and planning venues. Was it confusion over Gov. Palin’s oft-quoted “drill, baby, drill?” No, it’s recognition that the Feds are leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves. States aren’t happy about this.
The shadowy design firm that was behind the infamous Hardin Montana jail is pushing to build detention camps across America, with the latest proposal centering around a fifty acre, five hundred bed facility in Italy, Texas, part of a program that many Americans fear is based around a plan to intern political dissidents in the event of a national emergency.
When the Obama administration unveils its National Security Strategy Thursday, it will be the first time a president explicitly recognizes the threat posed to the country by radicalized individuals at home.
“For the first time since 9/11, the NSS integrates homeland security and national security,” according to highlights of the plan given to CNN by a senior administration official said.
We have received documents from a military source indicating that U.S. Postal Service facilities across the country are expanding the construction of secretive criminal investigation rooms, which some fear will be used to detain American citizens in the event of a national emergency, bioterror attack or pandemic.
Moving video on the perversion of the US armed forces, and those brave men and women who strive to keep to their true duty – protecting the citizens of this land from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
HR.3534, Consolidated Land, Energy, and Aquatic Resources Act of 2010 (Reported in House – RH) will effectively render a greater amount of land as owned and/or controlled for profit, by the federal government along with minerals and water rights to now be controlled by the federal government and enforced through the BLM.
The Clear Act claims control of the oceans, Great Lakes and by extension many other waterways and freshwater resources, mineral mining, solar, geo-thermal, and gas and oil conducted on land or in the oceans, in, on or near the continental United States. This bill passed the House on August 4, 2010. All of this as a result of the BP Oil gusher; like we didn’t already have thousands of unused laws on the books to deal with this.
The federal government is training postal workers in six U.S. cities to dispense “anti-terror drugs” in the event of a biological attack, with the promise that they will be accompanied by law enforcement officers to protect them from “potentially violent crowds”.
Via: Bloomberg: Federal Reserve officials decided to reinvest principal payments on mortgage holdings into long-term Treasury securities, making their first attempt to bolster growth since March 2009 to keep the slowing U.S. economy from relapsing into recession.
Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public 7/23.
Gulf of Mexico Disaster News Round-up: “Mission Accomplished” or a Continuing Catastrophe?
August 9, 2010, 5:59 am
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technology Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said much oil had been “biodegraded by naturally occurring bacteria”.
Suddenly BP’s oil disaster is getting an unusually high amount of positive publicity. Media reports are concluding that most of the oil has disappeared. The static kill has been successful at holding back the oil pressure, and the U.S. government issued a scientific report suggesting that 75 percent of the 4.9 million barrels of oil that gushed into the Gulf as been burned, dispersed or evaporated. But even if you assume that all of the dispersed oil has been degraded, there are still an estimated 1.3 million barrels out in the environment — five times the amount of oil released during the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. People observing beaches in southern coastal states of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida say they are still covered with oil and Corexit 9500, the chemical dispersant BP sprayed to break up the oil and remove it from view. Vast areas of ocean that used to be abundant with sea life show little signs of life anywhere. Plastic bags full of dead sea birds and oil are filling landfills in the south. If millions of gallons of oil have evaporated, what are the consequences for the air quality in the Gulf? Residents have reported that in areas normally besieged by mosquitos, there is now little need for repellant. Despite the rosy reports suddenly filling the airways, damage still appears to be ongoing. There is still plenty of oil in the Gulf that cannot, and will not, be cleaned up, and that will continue to wreak damage on the environment and the economies of Gulf states.
Hiring prison labor is more than a way for BP to save money while cleaning up the biggest oil spill in history. By tapping into the inmate workforce, the company and its subcontractors get workers who are not only cheap but easily silenced—and they get lucrative tax write-offs in the process.
From environmentalists and wildlife specialists to fisherman and businessmen along the Gulf Coast the message is the same: BP is not only strangling the news of what is actually occurring in the Gulf of Mexico with the oil disaster but has co-opted key federal regulatory and oversight agencies to advance its agenda and that of its oil partners, including Halliburton, Anadarko, and Transocean…The EPA is also remaining mute on air quality reports from Venice that show that on May 7 hydrogen sulfide in the air was measured at 1192 parts per billion. Five parts per billion is considered hazardous to human health. In addition, the May 7 reports show that benzene levels in the air were measured at 5000 parts per billion, again in the health danger zone. Propylene glycol, a major component in Corexit 9500, is being measured in Gulf waters at 150 times its lethal concentration.
A total of 517,847 barrels of oil were dumped in region from 1964 to 2009, federal records show.
– Sales of shares and stocks in days and weeks beforehand
– Halliburton link, acquisition of cleanup company days before explosion
– BP report cites undocumented tampering with well sealing equipment
– Government uses disaster to push for Carbon Tax, Nationalization talk
