Wakeup Call for Business Community?

From the very heart of the business community comes the magazine cover of the year. Get it, Big Oil?

Time for Real Resistance to Neoliberalism: Education, Coordination, Cooperation Leadership

Isn't it time to begin real resistance - actions and strategies beyond rallies and marches, beyond petitions for this or that worthy cause and letters to MPs and the editor, beyond conferences and discussion groups, beyond Facebook and Twitter? Isn't it time for all progressives to come together in a coordinated effort to start a real (non-violent) revolution against Neoliberalism? Every single issue with which progressives are concerned from climate change to income inequality can be traced directly to neoliberal policy, which of course is no simple set of practices but a tenaciously pernicious ideology that has penetrated the very fabric of our daily lives and that has been so thoroughly naturalized as a result that most people living inside the bubble fail to see the walls of the bubble. And many who do happen to recognize it, though well-intentioned, seek only reform within the neoliberal systems themselves, not real transformative change. There is a difference between reform and revolution, although reform can certainly serve revolution. While this may seem initially to be primarily an amoral economic issue, it is in reality a fundamentally moral issue that affects peoples everyday lives. More than an economic solution is thus required.

The only outstanding question in my mind is how to bring about a meaningful transformation on such a large and sprawling issue and thus what strategies to choose that yield real practical outcomes -  something beyond feel good satisfaction. How do we begin?  Coordination and cooperation with other progressive groups to generate real political power is the only viable strategy in my opinion - no easy task - though lots of solidarity generating things along the way to that strategic goal can still be implemented.  For that unprecedented communication to happen we need leadership from each progressive group - certainly not an easy achievement since each group has its vested interests. But if enough people in the rank and file of those groups call for such coordination and cooperation,  it just might happen. Identifying groups and constructing an all-embracing communications network is an obvious first step.

The other key factor is educating one's own people on the importance of understanding what neoliberalism is, how it works, and why it's necessary to concentrate efforts on it. One of the main failures of the progressive movement besides its insularity is a lack of focus - too many fires burning in different locales. We need one giant bonfire. You can't get help from your own organization if its members, staff and rank and file,  don't know what you're talking about.

In bringing together several youth progressive groups from across the country, PowerShift has led the way providing, that is, whatever excitement and momentum that has been generated can be sustained meaningfully and turned into real pragmatic strategies. My fear, however, is that PowerShift 2012 will be just like the Take Back Democracy Conference, a similar worthy event - that is, nothing more than another self-satisfying, insular feel good progressive bubble event. Prove me and all the other discouraged progressives out there wrong.

Addendum:

Apparently the Council of Canadians convene a summit of 50 progressive organizations in September - which at first blush looks like a powerful gesture in the right direction. It would be useful to know what actually happened at that summit.

The citizen as consumer, as a mere "marketing target."

http://tinyurl.com/9nu7j9c

Under a neoliberal regime such as ours, anything - including your very soul - can be commodified. (Ask those members of the evangelical church to which OGL apparently belongs.) The very concept of consumer assumes a market. Yet we've naturalized the concept so unconsciously no one questions the term and the ideology on which it sits. This is where the Canadian mainstream media has failed us the most.  I'm trying hard to remember any occasion when a mainstream Canadian journalist has used the term "neoliberal." Coyne, Gardner, Ibbitson, Simpson and the rest of the so-called centre and centre right guys, for example, actually admire economists like Don Drummond, a former bankster, who is a classic neoliberal if there ever was one. Until the mainstream press steps outside the neoliberal bubble, awareness of the real source of our our woe remains moot.

"Human beings can be considered subject to commodification in contexts such as genetic engineering, social engineering, cloning, eugenics, social Darwinism, Fascism, mass marketing and employment. An extreme case of commodification is slavery, where human beings themselves become a commodity to be sold and bought."- Wikipedia

Mock Democracy

Budget Implementation Bill To Be Studied By 9 Committees: via HuffPost http://huff.to/QGcI1W Big f.. .king deal. As if this sham process makes one damn bit of difference, but, hey, all those parliamentarians have to do something since real debate is impossible. Might as well have a make work project. It'll keep them busy and make them feel good. Lots of press coverage after meetings, etc. Good stuff, don't ya know. Pure mock parliamentarian democracy. Representational government under first past the post is failing us miserably.

Canadians Much Deeper in Debt

Canadian households are much deeper  in debt, Statscan says. Canadians’ credit is now at the same level it reached just before the housing bubble burst in the U.S. and Britain - that is 163%. Given a stagnant, no growth global and domestic economy squeezing the average household, not to mention falling housing sales of 15% this past year, there is every possibility of an implosion of some sort.

And who is fundamentally responsible? Banksters and their neoliberal enablers in government like Flaherty. Remember, banksters are in the debt business, and debt makes the house of cards economy move under neoliberal policy. Any crisis in household or housing debt is a thus a crisis in the economy in general.

Yes, banksters make their money on your debt.  And of course the deeper in debt you are, the more money they make.  Ever notice that the only question a bankster asks you when you borrow money is "can you manage the payments" when in conscience the first question should be "do you  really want to go this much in debt."  Why? Because the first so-called obligation for a financial corporation operating on the uneven playing field of  neoliberalism is to its shareholders - alas, not you.


http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/showlink.aspx?bookmarkid=2KJJVDE4L9O4&preview=article&linkiwww.pressdisplay.com

Economic Implosion is only one Factor in Our Demise

With no rebound in sight, there’s never been a slump like this - The Globe and Mail

The focus here is on the usual neoliberal casino economics of financialization, not the real, industrial economy. And an important context for such a continuing set of stagnant global economic conditions is glaringly absent in this limited analysis. It's much worse than what is suggested here.

Add to the mix the following: 1) the reality of peak oil - oil being the major energy driver of the economy - 2) potential water wars and 3) global food crises, both these largely because of climate change resulting from global warming, about which we continue to do nothing significant, 4) environmental and, when possible, reparation costs necessitated by the irreparable destruction caused by global warming.

Fantasize if you must that some technological innovation will come along and save us all, but the reality is no alternative energy source or distribution infrastructure is imminent, and there is certainly no political will on the part of either corporations or governments to change or abandon the current neoliberal practices in place.

Get ready.

Why Chris Hedges Believes That Serious Revolt Is the Only Option People Have Left | Alternet

Why Chris Hedges Believes That Serious Revolt Is the Only Option People Have Left | Alternet


"It is no more morally justifiable to kill someone for profit than it is to kill that person for religious fanaticism. And yet, from health companies to the oil and natural gas industry to private weapons contractors, individual death and the wholesale death of the ecosystem have become acceptable corporate business.

...

You do not fight tyrants because you are going to win. You fight tyrants because they are tyrants. Yes, we do not have the tools or the wealth of the state. We cannot beat it at its own game. We cannot ferret out infiltrators. The legal system is almost always on the state's side. If we attempt to replicate the elaborate security apparatus of our oppressors, even on a small scale, we will unleash widespread paranoia and fracture the movement. If we retreat into anonymity, hiding behind masks, then we provide an opening for agents provocateurs who deny their identities while disrupting the movement. If we fight pitched battles in the streets we give authorities an excuse to fire their weapons.

All we have, as Vaclav Havel wrote, is our own powerlessness. And that powerlessness is our strength. The survival of the movement depends on embracing this powerlessness. It depends on two of our most important assets -utter and complete transparency and a rigid adherence to nonviolence, including respect for private property. This permits us, as Havel puts it in his 1978 essay "The Power of the Powerless," to live in truth. And by living in truth we expose a corrupt corporate state that perpetrates lies and lives in deceit.

This attempt to "live within the truth" brings with it ostracism and retribution. Punishment is imposed in bankrupt systems because of the necessity for compliance, not out of any real conviction. And the real crime committed is not the crime of speaking out or defying the rules, but the crime of exposing the charade."