Category: Education

Discussion of the UK Media Landscape & Future Prospects for Left Media (Worth watching even if you don’t live in the UK)

~ 21st Century Poet ~ Leave a comment

If I get the time I may add my comments here, but in short: Getting serious union support (money) for left media is a great idea. The more unions are democratized and the more radical they become, the greater chance there is of that happening.

The thing that’s missing is an organized left. Could Momentum be turned into an activist movement that doesn’t just advocate for the Labour Party but actually pushes politicians from the left? If so, could they be useful enough to everyday people (I mean actually useful, like providing actual help) that they would join up and grow the left? As an outside (far outside) observer, I would guess not. How could they change that? Or maybe the most left in that organization could branch off and try to start something that tries to go in the direction just described. Right now if Momentum members threw a pound in the pot every month they could fund a lot of left media. See how that works?

Yes, there is an irony, or maybe more specifically a catch-22: In order to have a large effective left media, people have to be educated about politics and more specifically they need to have a solid basis for an analysis. And in order for people to be educated in that manner it greatly helps to have a thriving left media.

A thriving left media can be built out of a thriving radical movement, but we don’t have that. At the moment, all over the world, the left continues to be atomized and essentially refuses to organize itself and unite under one flag. There is a little movement in the right (correct) direction in some countries, but viewed optimistically, the most you could say is that it is nascent. If you listen to left media and left orgs, you can hear brief mentions of the necessity of the left to be an organized international force, but that is putting the cart before the horse because the majority of the left in most countries think they can stay in their own lanes and just get together for protests and specific events – and even worse, there is a conventional wisdom that permeates the left that assumes building a unified left under one flag (say a party or something like a better IWW) is not only not necessary, but is a bad idea. I have no problem with a diversified left, but one that isn’t as organized and unified as capitalists are worldwide can never hope to win, let alone put up a credible fight. When we are faced with actual extinction, not being organized and unified is not an option.

To tie up this non-comment comment, an organized unified left could easily fund left media. Not only that, but a media that is organized and unified worldwide could more easily share information, knowledge, resources, and would definitely help build the left and the movement we need.

Q&A Session with Arundhati Roy at SOAS

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Disappearing World Forum Q&A Session with Arundhati Roy, held at the Brunei Gallery, SOAS, 2013

One could write a never-ending book about all that is contained in and around this event so it will be difficult to write anything short here. I could say something romantic about ugliness and beauty, about the drama of our existence, of exploiter and the exploited, of greed and resistance to that greed. Or about the possibility that we humans are flawed in our very DNA and evolution and may never be capable of collective peace and goodwill to all. I could say history is never in the past. I could say ideology is profound, especially when it has almost unlimited power driving it into plastic labile minds. I could say capitalism is a fundamental threat to the survival of almost all living things – especially humans. I could say corporate neoliberal rule is designed to exacerbate the logic of capitalism which is ceaseless accumulation and the commodification of all things. Or I could focus on the institution and histories and ideologies and power relations that brought those specific questioners there at that particular time. Or I could focus on Arundhati and all she is representing and all the superlatives that would flow from there. All of the strength, intelligence, elegance, beauty, all of the eloquence, patience, and fortitude. Or I could point out her seeming prescience about our current state of affairs, which was actually a clear-eyed left analysis that has been on the right (correct) side of history for generations, along with common sense ideas like fairness, justice, right and wrong…and feelings, like passion and empathy. Well, the never-ending book won’t start now, so here ends this bit of thought and feeling, digitized, and published for those few who will come across it.

Earthships. Think outside the box. Positive futures. [video]

~ 21st Century Poet ~ Leave a comment

In many ways, the idea and reality of earthships is the ultimate object lesson.  Earthships were developed to answer key problems we face as a species in a consumer capitalist society and now they exist as a model for dealing with some of its waste in a sustainable, life affirming way.  Mike faced serious opposition in bringing his vision into reality.  Some of that struggle is detailed in the documentary Garbage Warrior. It gives a glimpse into how reactionary and punishing the establishment can be in the form of city and state forces when they are faced with anything outside the status quo.

Though he has made amazing progress in New Mexico and all over the world, the fact remains that poor people and many working people in the so-called developed world still lack the resources to do it for themselves.  It seems that lesson is becoming more and more clear to him, especially after the last manufactured crisis and his experiences in Haiti.  He has developed a much lower cost alternative, but the barriers to achieving even a low cost earthship remain too high for most people and there is still overwhelming state resistance to these ideas.

It’s important to understand the connection between the state and corporations.  As our lives become more corporatized and privatized every day, corporate control over states increases, and vice versa.  That guarantees resistance to projects like earthships will grow because the corporation – and increasingly the state – will see them as a direct threat to corporate profit and taxes.

That understanding and knowledge has to go hand-in-hand for anyone involved or interested in alternatives to consumer capitalism.  You cannot simply withdraw into alternative communities because there is no escape in the long term from the totalizing logic of capitalism.  In fact, regardless of what you’re interested in, if you’re interested in you and your children and their children continuing to live, you will have to confront those forces.

The logic of capitalism commodifies everything.  Increasingly, we can see the absurd and horrific endpoint of that logic in corporations buying up and controlling the thing we cannot live without: water.  They have been taking over utilities, and then selling the water we should own collectively back to us.  Bechtel tried it in Bolivia with pure neoliberal tactics.  Detroit, ravaged by neoliberal high-finance, is shutting off water to its most vulnerable populations.  And now water is under attack in Ireland, again through corporate led neoliberal tactics.   The other side of this coin is the poisoning of our water by corporations involved in fracking and other heavy industrial projects.

Corporate capital is the most powerful force that has ever existed in history and we have to fight it if we hope to sustain any practices that inherently challenge its domination.  This is a system that will not hesitate to cut off your source of life if it deems you a non-productive consumer.  It is a system that is actively working to make citizens into helpless consumers and eliminate humans from the production process or move location and employ de facto slave labor to increase profit.  They did it through states using legal mechanisms like NAFTA, and now the TPP/TTIP is the next stage in that process.  We can see how this decimated whole cities like Flint and Detroit, and now that same logic will work to eliminate the low paying service jobs it left in its wake.

Brilliant ideas like the earthship are beautiful and practical, but they are doomed to reservations and individual projects for people with wealth and education if we don’t organize to fight the domination of corporate capital in all aspects of our lives.

If you don’t know, now you know [#Ferguson][@bellaeiko][Please RT]

~ 21st Century Poet ~ 4 Comments



Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

I recommend watching the whole thing, but if you don’t have the time or the patience, start at 00:49:00. It gets better and better. It’s not about whether you agree or disagree with everything people are saying. It’s about understanding, but there is a whole lot of truth here. And then even if you can’t empathize, you can sympathize – and then you can support and ideally get involved. If you think this doesn’t affect you because you’re not black or poor, you might want to think harder.

Bella had to leave (you can bet she’ll be back), but there are other livestreamers and posters who will probably start broadcasting and posting later today. Here are their twitter handles:

@bassem_masri
@argusnewsnow
@anonopspro
@Rebelutionary_Z
@STLAbuBadu
@stlouisx50

Bella Eiko was responsible for the video and conversation above. If you want to contribute to her efforts, this is her paypal address: Bellaeikomedia@me.com

“…more & more individuals & groups are now considered excess, consigned to zones of abandonment, surveillance & incarceration.” – Giroux

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“What has emerged in this new historical conjuncture is an intensification of the practice of disposability in which more and more individuals and groups are now considered excess, consigned to zones of abandonment, surveillance and incarceration.”
– Henry A. Giroux

CEO of Netflix Reed Hastings calls for abolishing school boards

~ 21st Century Poet ~ 2 Comments

It seems we have another entitled neoliberal corporate CEO jumping on the privatize public schools bandwagon. That particular wagon is already packed full of partying millionaires and billionaires who figured out there are trillions to be made by eviscerating public institutions and funneling those tax dollars into their own pockets. The irony here is that over the years many school boards have been run by business (or pro-business) people and they have done a relatively poor job of listening to the people they are supposed to “represent.” Obviously. Of course Hastings doesn’t acknowledge that, but if his call for abolishing school boards were to come to pass, any hope for parents (or anyone else who cares about actual education) to have a voice would be obliterated. This is just one line of attack in the corporate war on parents, teachers, children, and democracy itself.

It’s part of the neoliberal corporate capture of government institutions and really every aspect of our lives, from work to water, school to energy, healthcare to retirement, food to government. Everything. The corporations want to profit from everything and they want total control of the state – and that includes you.

In this particular case, the very least you could do would be to send an email to netflix alerting them you know what hastings is doing and you will cancel your membership if he is not fired. Better yet: send an email and cancel your membership. Even better: cancel your membership and learn more about neoliberalism and how it is being used by corporations to stamp-out what’s left of democracy around the world. The best you could do: start organizing with people you know to fight it.

Perhaps if we stopped watching so much TV and used some of that time to work with other people fighting this corporate takeover, we might have a chance – and we might even feel like fulfilled, engaged, citizens, instead of bloated, alienated, addicted, depressed consumers. Well, the truth is I see little chance of that happening. I usually say I have no hope, but I guess there must be a remnant of hope somewhere because I’m taking the time to write these words. The evidence is in my friends, and it doesn’t look good. It’s up to all of us.

P E A C E

Information on the nefarious machinations of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

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From techrights.org:

The Gates Foundation was described as a shell for tax avoidance by philanthropist and accounting expert, Sheldon Drobny. Techrights has collected evidence that shows the same and will organize it here. Through the foundation, Bill, Melinda and Microsoft maintain pharmaceutical patent investments, tobacco investments, investments in alcoholic beverages, petroleum investments, investments in experimental and controversial crops, and even investments in news/media. Gates need not even pay tax, though he keeps control of the assets and uses that control to influence private and public policy. Money talks and politicians can in turn be persuaded to buy from Microsoft. This dependence/lock-in cascades down to businesses and homes, creating a revenue stream that would not exist in a free market. Gates is also able to bring public money to himself through energy and public health policy. As Gates has diversified, his corrupting influence has spread to other portions of the economy.
Click here to go to techright.org’s collection of articles On the Gates Foundation


Click here to read L.A.Times piece, “Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation”

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $472 million (so far) on higher education. Why many in academe are not writing thank-you notes.
Click here to read, The Chronicle of Higher Education’s, “The Gates Effect” By Marc Parry, Kelly Field, and Beckie Supiano

Gore Vidal, writer’s perspective: Smithsonian Institution (1999)

~ 21st Century Poet ~ Leave a comment

This is classic Gore all the way. A video in which Vidal names the 1%, calls for the legalization of drugs, excoriates the prison pipeline, and wonders, why, after terrorizing so many, we haven’t been bombed yet.

P.S. If you’re not patient, “fast forward” past the introductions.