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hydrarchist writes
"Perhaps one of the biggest evils that government-sponsored capitalism produces is artificial scarcity. Effective drugs for treating AIDS and other deadly diseases can be produced and distributed cheaply, but they aren't. Instead, scarcity is maintained by enforcing patents internationally. Similarly, scientific and cultural information could be easily archived and distributed for free to everyone, everywhere. Instead, the "content industry", from music to movie to book publishers, is trying to maintain (and increase) scarcity by lobbying for mandatory copy prevention mechanisms, flooding the market with incompatible storage devices, and demanding harsh punishment for the millions who violate its idea of "intellectual property".
The war on (some) drugs, primarily fought by the United States, is currently the biggest motor of the booming prison industry, and has led to more death and suffering than the drugs it pretends to fight. But if the billion-dollar-heavy oligarchy of content producers has its way, the ongoing war on sharing may well put thousands of "pirates" of all ages behind bars. The coming information economy with its lack of scarcity is shaking the very foundation of capitalism (or at least perceived that way), and the old industries aren't willing to adapt -- they'd rather keep us all in chains to preserve their empires. They seek power and control, not progress.
In this article, I will discuss some recent developments, and try to outline strategies for peer-to-peer developers and individuals to counteract the maneuvers of the content industry. But I do not agree entirely with Declan McCullagh who recently argued that "geeks" should stay out of the political process and spend their time coding innovative world-changing software instead.
Read the resto of this story at Infoanarchy"
hydrarchist writes " Talking bull
In the fallout from the current US stock market crash, plenty of people are taking a hammering, from corporate titans to Wall Street whizz kids. But one class stands aloof, untouched by blame: the media pundits and business gurus who have been so recklessly hyping the New Economy for a decade. Why, asks Thomas Frank, are they still riding high, seeking out scapegoats for the collapse instead of taking a long, critical look at the almighty market itself From
The Guardian
Two years of stock market collapse have done much to transform public opinion in America. The crash has rudely discredited the nation's chief executives, the heroes of the decade past. It has smashed the reputation of the accounting industry, and it has ruined the image of the superstar stock analysts, all those who worked so desperately a few years ago to invent new methods of valuing valueless companies. It has brought on one of the most severe - most well-deserved - corporate crises since the 1930s. But nothing touches the public intellectuals of the bull market. Most of the other 90s types have passed from the scene: the swashbuckling dotcom entrepreneurs have moved back in with mom, the rule-breaking CEOs are being hauled before Congress for a tongue-lashing, the day-trading pensioners who were supposed to "beat the pros" are thanking God that Social Security still exists. But many of the ones who wrote the Dow-worshipping books and who handed down all those daring pronunciamentos from the silicon heights are still cruising from one posh gig to the next.
"Yelensky's Fable: A History of the ABC"
Matthew Hart
For close to a century, anarchists have united under the banner of the
Anarchist Black Cross for the sole purpose of supporting those comrades
imprisoned for their commitment to revolution and to the ideas of anarchism.
Who would have suspected that a few men supplying boots, linen, and clothing
to deportees in Bialostock would have been the meager beginnings of an
organization that has spread throughout the globe?(1)
Recently statements
have been made, referring to the history of the Anarchist Black Cross as
mere folklore. While I admit the history of this organization seems evasive
at the surface level, a deeper search for the organization's history
uncovers a rich amount of information that is far from folklore or fairy
tales. This article is just a small amount of the history that has been
discover in just a couple of years of research. Hundreds of pages filled
with facts regarding the history of the organization is presently being
assembled by members of the Los Angeles Branch Group of the Anarchist Black
Cross Federation in hopes of one day printing this information in books,
pamphlets, etc. We present the information in hopes of bringing unity and
knowledge within the ranks of those who struggle for the support of
political prisoners throughout the world.
In the aftermath of September 11th, certain sectors of the US left buckled under ruling class pressure and turned against Noam Chomsky. His uncompromising anti-imperialism might have been acceptable during the 1980s when the Sandinistas were under Washington's gun, but in today's repressive atmosphere no quarter is given to the dissident intellectual. Of course, no quarter is asked from Chomsky, who remains fearless and principled as ever.
Tute Bianche: The Practical Side of Myth-Making (in Catastrophic Times)
by Wu Ming 1
It has become a trivial remark, even a ridiculous one, indeed, it is being made by all and sundry: in the aftermath of the demolition of the WTC and the imperial war on Afghanistan, with the amount of "collateral damages" increasing out of sight, we all have entered a new phase of social life and conflict.
This phase is heavily affected by paranoia, war propaganda, will to censorship, restriction of such civil rights as free speech, re-embellished mcCarthysm and angry mobs demanding new *berufsverboten* in the sinister light of the rhetoric on the "clash of civilizations".
Back to the home front. Another Cold War. The Empire asks for it.
The Economics of Global Empire
By Henry C K Liu, Asia Times
The productivity boom in the US was as much a mirage as the money that drove the apparent boom. There was no productivity boom in the US in the last two decades of the 20th century; there was an import boom. What's more, this boom was driven not by the spectacular growth of the American economy; it was driven by debt borrowed from the low-wage countries producing this wealth. Or, to put it a tad less technically, the economic boom that made possible the current US political hegemony was fueled by payments of tribute from vassal states kept perpetually at the level of subsistence poverty by their own addiction to exports. Call it the New Rome theory of US economic performance.
Full story is at Global Economy
Anonymous Comrade writes "European PGA Conference: A Strategies Discussion Paper 2nd European Conference of Peoples' Global Action Leiden, 31 August - 4 September 2002 Discussion Paper on Strategies for Action 2nd European Conference of Peoples' Global Action
Leiden, 31 August - 4 September 2002 Discussion Paper on Strategies for Action
Introduction
************
This document is the result of conversations at the NoBorder camp in Strasbourg, where it emerged that many people desired an emphasis on strategies during the PGA conference. This was seen as involving thought about ways to (1) continue confronting power and face the current wave of repression, (2) relate the opposition against power structures with proactive efforts to create alternatives, and (3) strengthen and widen our networks. This document is aimed at kick-starting debates on analysis and action proposals around these three key dimensions - as part of an on-going discussion, rather than an attempt to reach consensus.
hydrarchist writes"This is an edited version of comments
delivered by LBO editor Doug Henwood on his July 25, 2002,
radio show. The show is "Behind the News," Thursdays,
5-6 PM eastern U.S. time, on WBAI, 99.5 FM in New York, or on
the web.
Bill O'Reilly, host of the O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, one
of the funniest shows on TV (and not always intentionally so),
has a feature on every show called "The Most Ridiculous Item
of the Day." O'Reilly's politics are largely appalling, but
he's entertaining, and I'm going to steal this idea and begin
presenting a Most Ridiculous Item of the Week on this show. Here's
the premiere.
According to official capitalist ideology,
CEOs and other top execs deserve their enormous salaries because
they're big risk takers and because they contribute so much to
society. It's pretty well established that executive pay actually
bears little resemblance to performance - and here's an extreme
case. Neal Travis reports in today's New York Post (uh-oh,
that's my second citation in less than a minute of a Murdoch media
property - I assure you this is entirely accidental) Bob Pittman,
who's been squeezed out of a top job at the troubled media giant
AOL Time Warner, is going to leave with a $60 million-plus severance
deal. Now this is a company whose stock is off more than 80% over
the last two years - twice as much as the overall market, and
which is now under investigation by the SEC for accounting chicanery.
If you get $60 million for being part of a collossal failure,
what would the price tag be for success?
Banana writes "
'Big Brother' TV Show and Death
by Banana
In discussing [1] the report of the 'Slaughter the Pig' demonstration against one of the participants in the 'Big Brother' TV 'reality' show (Sunday Times, 21 July 2002), I asked whether the demonstrators had been paid. I also asked what lies next in the development of this horrendous shit. In particular, I mentioned that one victim of a version of the show shown elsewhere in Europe "killed themselves shortly after being 'ejected'."
from hydrarchist:
"Panic, War and Semio-Kapital"
Franco Berardi (Bifo)
Globalisation stands reframed in the dark light of the global war. This means we need
to reconceptualise the change that is taking place in the social, economic and anthropological
form of globalisation. During the past two centuries, global control was the
general techno-utopia of capitalist society and modern culture. Now, the time of global control
is over. We are completely out of this framework today. The new governing framework
of capitalism is global panic. If we want to understand what panic means we have to talk
about the ‘attention economy’ and about ‘digital labour’. This is where the source of contemporary
panic is, in the organisation of time in the digital sphere, in the relationship
between cyberspace and cybertime.
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