Ireland to waste 30 billion euros in bailing out pointless bank

As a commenter explains under the extremely brief BBC news note, that is the cost of two years of public healthcare. All commenters agree: let it fall, use public money in public investment to generate much needed jobs instead. 

You are probably familiar with this image already: in yesterday's class war pan-European protests a demonstrator crashed this truck, representing the burden of Anglo Irish Bank to the Republic of Ireland, against the Parliament's gates. The incident has become known as cementgate, and is generating a number of silly jokes involving the words concrete and gate, as well as others such as constructive protest, crash, foundations, etc.

But the issue is much more serious: why should a state bail out a private bank? If anything it should nationalize it or, alternatively, just let it fall. Most business do not have the heavy state protection some banks do, nor see even a fraction of the absurdly high profits and disparate salaries for their managers. And most business, unlike banks, contribute to the real and not just the speculative economy.

Ireland is one of the European countries worst affected by the budget crisis, along Greece, Latvia and Hungary, all which are under IMF intervention (with the only result that their recession has aggravated many levels since then). I imagine that the least they can do is to waste 30 billion in a useless bank.

Can anyone tell me what do banks contribute to the real economy? I can't find a single idea, specially since they do not even issue loans anymore. 

Let them fall, all the banks except the public ones (which are the ones issuing money and which can lend directly to the public and even make a benefit from that).

European protests, Spain's general strike

In a general strike that has been delayed for all the summer by the duopolistic unions UGT and CC.OO., finally Spaniards had yesterday occasion to vent their anger and frustration and go on strike.

It was, it seems, a massive success, considering the appeals to demobilization and police violence by the entrenched institutional actors. Unions estimated the impact in 71.7%, with some media reporting a rounded up figure of 75%. Even the minister of labor had to admit that the impact was of 100% in the automotive sector, with air carrier Ryanair also canceling all its flights and some key services such as trash collection generally paralyzed.

 

Southern Basque Country

CNT picket in Bilbao

In the Southern Basque Country the impact was smaller, as the major unions did not join the strike, disgruntled by passive and manipulative attitude of the Spanish union duopoly. However in Navarre, the impact was similar to that of Spain with 74% of workers joining according to Gara and the airport completely paralyzed. Reports from industrial areas in the Western Basque Country, talk of some key industries paralyzed and industrial areas nearly stopped, as well as a total blockade of the harbors of Bilbao and Pasaia. Non-industrial sectors however were only mildly impacted.

Catalan Countries

Reports from the Catalan Countries tell of strong following in general and riots in Barcelona. With demonstrations in the thousands in many cities (Barcelona, Sabadell, Tarragona, Valencia, Lleida, etc.) and some arrests.

Fire barricade at Barcelona

Closing Mercavalencia at dawn

Asturias

In Xixon (Gijón) the walkout was generalized, with few incidents. The demo was called by Corriente Sindical de Izquierdas (CSI), SUATEA and CGT but was boycotted by institutionalist unions UGT, CC.OO. and USO, who were accused of making secret pacts with the patrons and government, trying to demobilize popular anger.

Aragon

The reports also talk of a general success, not just in Zaragoza but also in Teruel and other towns. They also talk very bad and  of the attitude of UGT-CC.OO, who posed for the photo and then left in most pickets. Combative unions in this country were CGT, Sindicato Obero Aragones (SOA) and CATA.

Closing El Corte Inglés, more images at NoblezaBaturra

There are also reports of police charges and arrests.

Andalusia

I could only find reports so far on Málaga, telling of irregular impact but stopping the key sectors. The demo was of several thousands.

Castile

The most important city by large is Madrid, which was strongly affected by the General Strike according to La Haine.

While the "official" UGT-CC.OO. demo gathered some 500 people, the alternative one called by other unions (CGT, Solidaridad Obrera, etc.) was massive (photos).

Very symbolically, regional public TV Telemadrid cut its emission, reminding somewhat of the impacting cut of TVE in the quasi-mythical general strike of 1988, which was a massive success.

While the unity and strength of genuine labor-unionism was an important element, the violence of police was another one. Police did not only charge against pickets, including the bycicle picket, but there are reports of seven live ammunition caskets being found after a specially violent charge in Airbus-EADS Getafe.

Madrid

Another city where the strike had major impact was Valladolid.

Valladolid

In Salamanca instead the reports tell of low following. 

Salamanca

Elsewhere in Europe

There was a call for protests and demos to take place around Europe yesterday and I am aware of such protests in Ireland, Portugal, Italy and several Central European countries, however in the wealthy central bloc of the EU the impact of this call for mobilization seems to have been pretty low or nil, excepting the central demo at Brussels. 

Brussels

Dublin (Parliament gates)

Brief Analysis

Combative labor unions clearly made gains both in charisma and unity yesterday in the State of Spain, while traditional subsidized unions seem to have tried to make a posse strike instead to save their face before a growingly angry working class, which massively joined the strike in spite of all.

Much remains to be done at European level, which, in my understanding, is a key level of organization if we want to stop and reverse the offensive of Big Capital.

Some relevant links: CGT, CNT, Solidaridad Obrera, Rojo y Negro, La Haine.

Update: according to Cuestionatelotodo ("questioneverything") the sectorial impact was:

• Metal 74%
• Wood 59%
• Construction 70%
• Chemical 80%
• Textile 77%
• Mining 100%
• Air transport 82%
• Road transport 78%
• Sea Transport 90%
• Urban transport 85%
• Markets 90%
• Public education 60%
• Private education 32%

By autonomous communities:

• Andalusia 76.8%
• Asturias 87%
• Balearic Islands 72%
• Canary Islands 70%
• Cantabria 70%
• Castile-Leon 72.3%
• Castile-La Mancha 80.2%
• Catalonia 80%
• Valencian Country 78%
• Extremadura 70%
• Galicia 80%
• Madrid 76%
• Murcia 72%
• Navarre 74 %
• Western Basque Country 30%
• La Rioja 71%

On strike

General Strike tomorrow

Labor unions have called a General Strike of 24 hrs. in the state of Spain tomorrow, September 29th. While I have my reservations, I will join it and therefore Leherensuge will be idle tomorrow. I won't reply to comments either. 

The most representative unions in the Basque Country, ELA and LAB, which organized a separate national strike in June, declared weeks ago that they will not back the strike, because it has been unprepared and the Spanish unions have not counted with them. Another reason is that they argued that tomorrow there would be a Europe-wide strike and there is nothing like that (they lied). Other state-wide unions have joined the strike also critically.

However I am of the opinion that not one day but many of general strike are needed in order to put the State, Big Capital and EU against the ropes. So I am not renouncing to the opportunity to adhere to this strike, even if I am strongly critical of the subsidized Spanish union duopoly and I strongly suspect that the main motivation they have is to demobilize workers, rather than actually present battle against Big Capital and their administrators in Madrid and Brussels. 

________

On a separate note:

Leherensuge will be discontinued in October 1st. Two new blogs: will take its place that day:

• For what they were... we are
• For what we are... they will be

This follows the plan I have already outlined in the past, with a slight delay. The strike is another reason to delay it a few days more (avoiding confusion), even if the new blogs are ready, I believe. 

A final post will formalize the change. Leherensuge will remain online as archive and, at least for some time comments will be allowed.

Please make preparations for the replacement: bookmark, follow and/or update your feeds. Thanks. 

100 million Indians strike against liberalization

Besides French, Indians also went to general strike yesterday, with the main goal of blocking the growing prices of basic products, specially food and oil, and of stopping the sale-out of public companies.

While the figure is high, we should remember that India has some 1 billion inhabitants of which maybe half are actual workers. On the other hand, the wide spread of irregular economy and mafioso pressures of the capitalist class surely also influenced the outcome. So I admit it is difficult to judge if this figure represents a mere 20-30% of strikers (still a major figure, specially for such a large and heterogeneous country) or it is in fact a much larger fraction of the regular workers.

Whatever the case it seems that the impact was very irregular with maybe 99% success in communist-ruled states of Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura and variable impact in other states. In Delhi and Mumbai, the strike was only apparent in the absence of rickshaws, whose drivers massively seconded the walk out. Other affected states were Manipur, Assam, Maharastra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.

Sources: Insurgente, People's Daily, The Jakarta Post. The information I found is not too precise anyhow, so complementary accounts and links are welcome.

Strike journey paralyzes France and London

Workers in the French Republic have gone today on general strike in opposition to Sarkozy's plans to cut pensions and rise the minimum retirement age. The date has been chosen in order to make the greatest effect on the parliamentary debate to happen this autumn. School teachers also went on strike yesterday in protest for mass cuts in public education, suppressing 7,000 jobs.

About 60% of workers did not go to work today in the Northern Basque Country (left: demo at Baiona/Bayonne). Meanwhile official and union sources disputed if the mobilizations across the republic reached 1.1 million of 2.7 million.

Besides pensions, the issue of racist mass deportations of European citizens of Roma ethnicity has also been present in the massive protests.

Meanwhile, in London, subway workers have walked out against some 800 job cuts. The strike has been rather strong and has caused major difficulties in the English capital today.

Sources: Berria, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, BBC (links: France, London) [British media seem to be hiding the London Tube strike]

Time for a Worker Party in the USA?

That is what In Defense of Marxism and their friends of Socialist Appeal believe: that time is ripe for a mass party of Labor [at IDOM, at SA]. Hence they have launched the Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor.

It is difficult to judge from the distance but when I see stuff like what is happening to the working class and in general all residents in the Gulf of Mexico with the US government (a Democrat government that raised mass support in the last elections!) as corrupt and detached from its own people as to let them be poisoned and their whole social and environmental fabric destroyed only to help Big Oil corporations and how this big lie (added to the others) is slowly raising awareness and what is still powerless rage but can easily become in powerful collective action and organization, I'd dare say that they may well be right.

It is surely too early to plan or even dream of a revolution taking place in the USA. Class consciousness, while growing, is still too diffuse and Big Capital really seems in power, if not really anymore in control of the situation. But it is certainly the kind of context that strongly calls for sowing the seeds and nurturing the saplings that one day soon may become the forces driving such a necessary change ahead. The situation is certainly ripe, in the USA, in Europe and probably in many other places for the formation and/or strengthening of the instruments of class struggle and eventually class power: true total democracy.

This context was addressed quite well by Alan Woods recently: while the unions would want "social peace" and negotiate some sort of inter-classes sharing of wealth and living conditions, as was possible to some extent in the past (only in the developed world), this is not possible in the current conditions of radical adjustment that Capitalism is going through. In the present context and for the foreseeable future, Capital will only be able (and willing) to squeeze more and more, without any compassion, the working classes in order to foot the bill of their luxurious lifestyle and wealth-based power structure.

However I do not know if this appeal is "the right one", that's up to you to judge, or even if the Marxist-Leninist concept of political organization makes any sense in the context of Late Capitalism (Toyotism). I do agree although with the consideration that unions should have a central role however and that, ideally at least, the class organization should be one. Albeit one radically democratic.

UN whitewashes the ecocide and genocide of Shell in Niger Delta

If BP is insulting and harming the US people and clearly manipulating the US government, go figure what can happen in a much poorer country like Nigeria!

But what about the United Nations? It seems that Royal Dutch Shell, the second largest company of the world and one with a very murky past (specially remembered for its support of the Apartheid regime in South Africa), is also perfectly able to buy its favors.

This is what Black Agenda Report denounced a few days ago: that the study by the UN Environmental Program, paid by Shell, blames locals and the guerrilla for 90% of polution and spills in the Delta Region, once known as Biafra. However it seems that it has backtracked and claims now that no official report is due until next year.

Whatever the case the situation in the Niger Delta, denounced by AI, may be even worse than that of the Gulf of Mexico, at least in many aspects.


The true scope of Niger River Delta pollution is catastrophic, with the equivalent of 9 to 13 million barrels of oil fouling the waterways, farmlands and mangrove forests of Africa's largest wetland. That's at least twice as much oil as escaped in the recent Gulf of Mexico disaster, thus ranking Nigeria and Shell as the number one oil polluters in the world (Glenn Ford at Black Agenda Report).

70th anniversary of the murder of Leon Trotsky

Lev Davidovich Bronstein, best known to history as Leon Trotsky, was murdered today, 70 years ago in Mexico City by Catalan Stalinist Ramón Mercader, who infamously used a pickaxe for the crime (and almost failed).

Trotsky led, together with Lenin and other bolsheviks, the Russian Revolution which, for the first time in history, brought a party of the Working Class to power. He was particularly relevant in organizing the Red Army, which became able to withstand not just the reactionary White forces but also the invading armies of Western powers that landed at several locations at the Russian coasts in support of the reaction.

It was also responsible however for the eventual destruction of the Anarchist Free Territory in Eastern Ukraine, one of the two almost successful Anarchist large-scale socio-political experiences in the 20th century (the other was the revolutionary zone in Catalonia and Eastern Aragon during the Spanish Civil War).

But surely Trotsky is best remembered as the main leader of the genuine Revolutionary Bolshevik faction after the death of Lenin, which was eventually defeated by the nationalist and fascistoid tendency lead by Stalin. As such, Trotsky was expelled from the party and exiled. Trotsky first had to go to the remote Alma Ata (now Almaty in Kazakhstan), then to Turkey, France, Norway and eventually Mexico, after European authorities decided they did not want such a revolutionary leader in their territories.

In Mexico he was hosted by the famous couple of revolutionary artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Soon after breaking with Rivera, he moved to his final residence a few blocs away, where the infamous Mercader found and killed him.

Trotsky and US trotskyists in Mexico, 1940, soon before his death

As disillusion grew on Stalin's authoritarian and criminal tendencies, Trotsky became the main reference for genuine Leninism, which was often also called Trotskyism. The current was formalized in 1930 as the Fourth International. This current however has been often marred by schisms and sectarianism, although has also inspired many genuine revolutionary leaders such as Che Guevara.

Crucial concepts in Trotskyism are that the revolution should be permanent and international, that Stalinist USSR was not a genuine but a deformed or degenerated workers' state. Nowadays some Trotskyist sectors favor the creation of a new Fifth International, idea now promoted by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

For further reading on Trotsky and Trotskyism, you may find useful Trotsky.net and the commemorative series at In Defense of Marxism.

Indian Maoists seen from within

I just stumbled on a Spanish translation of an essay published in March in English but that was unknown to me until now.

You may have heard from the Maoist guerrilla of India (also called Naxalites) and maybe even know that they have gained the hearts of many adivasi (tribals) in the Eastern part of the country through their opposition to predatory mining. You may have heard that India is since some time ago considering them the biggest threat to the state (above Islamic Fundamentalists and secessionist movements in Kashmir or the NE) and that there is some sort of low intensity war being waged in parts of India between the guerrillas and the state.

But probably you, like myself, know very little about what is really going on. Specially from the viewpoint of the guerrilla.

Therefore this essay, rather a first person report from inside the Maoist ranks, by acclaimed author Aundhati Roy, is a must-read. It was published almost simultaneously in British newspaper The Guardian with the title Gandhi but with guns and in the Indian magazine Outlook with the one of Walking with the comrades.

A very interesting read indeed. I include here a few fragments to entice you to read the whole story:

When a country that calls itself a democracy openly declares war within its borders, what does that war look like? Does the resistance stand a chance? Should it? Who are the Maoists? Are they just violent nihilists foisting an outdated ideology on tribal people, goading them into a hopeless insurrection? What lessons have they learned from their past experience? Is armed struggle intrinsically undemocratic?

...

We passed the house of the Superintendent of Police (SP), which I recognised from my last visit. He was a candid man, the SP: “See Ma’am, frankly speaking this problem can’t be solved by us police or military. The problem with these tribals is they don’t understand greed. Unless they become greedy, there’s no hope for us. I have told my boss, remove the force and instead put a TV in every home. Everything will be automatically sorted out.”

...

The first converts, the village chiefs and big landlords (...) were conferred the status of Dwij, twice-born, Brahmins. (...) As part of the Hindutva drive, the names of villages were changed in land records, as a result of which most have two names now, people’s names and government names. Innar village, for example, became Chinnari. On voters’ lists, tribal names were changed to Hindu names. (Massa Karma became Mahendra Karma.) Those who did not come forward to join the Hindu fold were declared ‘Katwas’ (by which they meant untouchables) who later became the natural constituency for the Maoists.

...


I looked around at the camp before we left. There are no signs that almost a hundred people had camped here, except for some ash where the fires had been. I cannot believe this army. As far as consumption goes, it’s more Gandhian than any Gandhian, and has a lighter carbon footprint than any climate change evangelist. (...) Should I write a play, I wonder—Gandhi Get Your Gun? Or will I be lynched?

...

KAMS [the Maoist women organization, with 90,000 members] campaigns against the adivasi traditions of forced marriage and abduction. Against the custom of making menstruating women live outside the village in a hut in the forest. Against bigamy and domestic violence. It hasn’t won all its battles, but then which feminists have?

...

A lot of the rape and bestial sexual mutilation was directed at members of KAMS. Many young women who witnessed the savagery then joined the PLGA and now women make up 45 per cent of its cadre.

...

Comrade Sumitra joined the PLGA in 2004, before the Salwa Judum began its rampage. She joined, she says, because she wanted to escape from home. “Women are controlled in every way,” she told me. “In our village, girls were not allowed to climb trees; if they did, they would have to pay a fine of Rs 500 or a hen. If a man hits a woman and she hits him back she has to give the village a goat. Men go off to the hills for months together to hunt. Women are not allowed to go near the kill, the best part of the meat goes to men. Women are not allowed to eat eggs.” Good reason to join a guerrilla army?

...

And what Chairman Mao said about the guerrillas being the fish and people being the water they swim in, is, at this moment, literally true.

...

When the Party is a suitor (as it is now in Dandakaranya), wooing the people, attentive to their every need, then it genuinely is a People’s Party, its army genuinely a People’s Army. But after the Revolution how easily this love affair can turn into a bitter marriage. How easily the People’s Army can turn upon the people. Today in Dandakaranya, the Party wants to keep the bauxite in the mountain. Tomorrow, will it change its mind? But can we, should we let apprehensions about the future immobilise us in the present?

...


I think of what Comrade Venu said to me: they want to crush us, not only because of the minerals, but because we are offering the world an alternative model.

Zaragoza-Brussels march for social rights

It began last Saturday and it's expected to reach Brussels on September 27 after many journeys varying from 17 to more than 50 kilometers, mostly through France.

People who wish to join for whatever length is asked to write to marchaabruselas@gmail.com, including name, mail address, telephone and journeys planned to take part in, or calling to telephone +34-679213259. Marchers are expected to bring their luggage, shoes, basic aid kit and sleeping utilities (sleeping bag, tent). A van accompanies the march to take care of luggages and people who need to rest.

The slogan is "March to Brussels. Against labor reform, for social rights" and one for the callers is anarcho-syndicalist union CGT, a splinter of the historical CNT (they mention other organizations but I have not been able to find out yet).



More photos and info (in Spanish) at CGT (includes detailed schedule and other info) and Rojo y Negro (photos).

From the second site:

We march against the spoliation of working classes and the destruction and privatization of the public sector in all Europe.

We march against Labor Reform and social cuts in the State of Spain.

We march against the Spanish government and the rest of European governments, who reduce salaries to public employees, freeze salaries, freeze pensions, increase VAT equally for the rich and the poor.

AND ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE, we march because taxes are not being raised for the rich, fiscal paradises are not being destroyed, submerged economy is not being persecuted, tax fraud is not being attacked, no responsibilities are demanded to those who have caused the crisis, no embargoes nor prison are being applied against bankers, speculators and billionaires who are taking the public money.

Yet another labor activist murdered in Colombia. Yet another mass grave found.

Germán Restrepo, 58, president of the packagers' union was murdered yesterday in the city of Medellín, where he lived and worked.

He is the last one of a long list of labor unionists murdered in Colombia in the last years: 547 since 2002, 32 in 2010 alone.

As denounced by the president of Unitary Workers' Central (CUT), Tarsicio Mora, many of those crimes remain without any investigation at all.

Medellín, the second largest Colombian city, remains one of the most dangerous places in the country, with death squads and criminal gangs acting impunely.

Source: Agencia de Prensa Rural[es]


Another mass grave found in the Colombian NE

The same site reports that yet another mass grave has been discovered in the department of César, near the Venezuelan border. 140 bodies were recovered,, mostly women, all them victims of the paramilitary terror that plagues the country with the consent and support of the state.

It is estimated that some 140,000 people have been victim of paramilitary terror only in this department. This figure does not include displaced persons.

Anarchists Against the Wall

I've just now come to know of this nonviolent movement of Israeli anarchists and other anti-Zionists against the wall of shame that Israel has set to enforce apartheid in Palestine.



Looks promising, specially as they have been growing slowly but steadily along the years. With the many differences, I can hint to a parallel with the antimilitarist struggle we held in the 1980s and early 1990s against conscription in the state of Spain, which was a total success.

The keys of the success were, I understand: nonviolence, pedagogy, grassroots organization and the fact that the system was so rotten and delegitimized that it was relatively easy to pull it down. Of course people went to jail for that... but that was part of the plan.


Similarly the state of Israel and its apartheid and criminal genocide is morally bankrupt and it is just a matter of time until it falls.

This kind of struggle is what is needed in order to mend the wounds. It is important, I think, that the lead is being taken by people with no religion when it is that farce of religious sectarianism what is used as pretext for apartheid and colonization.

I am glad that it is expanding more and more.

Read more at: Anarchists Against the Wall and Ilan Against the Wall.

The killing fields of Colombia

As one fascist president takes over his equally fascist predecessor in Colombia, one of the largest mass burials known to exist in the country is being unearthed at La Macarena, just 200 km south of Bogota. Some corpses are still fresh.

The Colombian paramilitary forces, promoted by the state in their fight not against the guerrilla but against the civilian dissidence (human rights' activists, leftist politicians, labor unionists...) and heavily involved in traffic of cocaine and its cheap derivative: crack, have murdered maybe 50,000 civilians, many of them social activists but many others mere random peasants used for training and then presented sometimes as guerrillas in the scandal of the false positives.

In many cases, the paramilitary forces used random peasants as victims for training their new recruits. The gangs' rookies had to disembowel and dismember these innocent people as means of initiation and training. They were also expected to do the same kind of hyper-violence when taking over a village, so peasants learned to fear them.

The new president, J.M. Santos, former minister of defense, is tainted with that blood and we can hardly expect any solution under his leadership, which represent only the continuity of mafias, death squads, generalized repression and the domination, under the shadowy protectorate of the USA, of the old oligarchic families, to which he belongs.

Source: La Haine.

See also this previous post.

Louisiana oil disaster: the more I read/watch, the more pessimistic I am

In theory they have capped it and that's about it. In practice it is extremely worrisome that they are systematically falsifying, hiding, photoshopping the truth.

Like this bubbling methane seep captured yesterday by one of BP ROVs but hidden by something as simple as darkening the image:



It's just an example. There's a lot more really depressing and hidden-under-the-carpet stuff at Florida Oil Spill Law and Alexander Higgins' blogs. You have to like research journalism though.

It is also worrisome, beyond the immediate disaster the consequences that the lack of a grassroots political organization of the working class can carry: millions of people are being affected by this, including not just the disaster as such but criminal mismanagement at all levels, directly affecting health and jobs, as well as the whole ecological balance of one of the most diverse seas on which these rely and where is the response?

There is only limited response because there are not class organizations beyond unions and sectorial activist groups in the USA. As some member of the fishing community of Louisiana put it already months ago: "we are expendable". It only matters to pretend that everything is under control and to minimize losses to the big corporations.

Even if the doomsday scenario forecast by several people of the oceanic bottom ripping off and causing a huge tsunami and releasing cataclysmic amounts of usually frozen methane to the atmosphere fails to happen (I really hope so), the damage caused by corporate interests is already immense and will grow in the following months as the remainder and future residues of oil and corexit poison spread around. This should warrant people going out to the streets in protest at least every other weekend... but nobody is mobilizing this anger and frustration and the corporative masters and their politician and judiciary minions do as they please therefore.

Money, debt, magic...

The Chaotist current (a rare esoteric school of thought of the second half of the 20th century) provided me with some useful tools to understand the nature of Reality and how magic (or magick as they spell it) is nothing but the ability to persuade others as in the case of publicity (or of course the more classic but otherwise similar case of illusionism). In this sense it is a useful break up with the dominance of rationalism and materialism in modern thought helping us, once you get pass their esoteric formalisms, which are nothing but a cover up, a misleading cue and/or an elaborate joke, to understand the deep reality behind mere objectivism. That is the mental or subjective reality and the social reality that arises from the interaction of these subjectivities.

Another contemporary current that heavily dwelt in the importance of subjectivity but from a Marxist and more rationalist and revolutionary perspective, was Situationism. That's the kind of forces that LSD and the like liberated, I guess.

Maybe the most important concept I appropriated from Chaotism is that of godform, which, as I understand it, means some concept believed by many to be true, turning to have some sort of life of its own, not being fully controllable by anyone in particular. Typical cases of godforms are, of course, gods or equivalents such as Yaveh, Vishnu, Zeus, Allah, 'God' (Deus), Buddha, Tao, Baron Samedi, Pachamama, Yemaya, etc.

Regardless of their values and connection with aspects of reality or interactions between them, what really imbues them of a life of sorts is the belief of their followers. They feed on faith and die off when people stops believing in them.

Ideologies are also godforms, again regardless of their goodness or evilness: they feed on faith and can die off if people stops believing in them. Only the most powerful magi (some prophets, messiahs, caliphs, popes, buddhas, ayatollahs, master propagandists or great revolutionary leaders) can have some control over them, however, human life span is rather brief, while that of godforms transiting the social continuum can be much longer (though eternal is just an exaggerated claim).

But the godform of our time above all others is Money. As everyone with a critical mind who has studied Economics (as I did for some time) knows this discipline is not any science but a doctrine and dogma. Of course, it has some scientific elements of sorts, nothing can exist against the daily reality check, but these are just tools for the main objective of the discipline that is to create a cult around certain school of economics, namely liberalism.

Money as such is merely a token of debt, which by virtue of its token nature can be circulated more easily than merchandises. I produce something with my recognized work and I get paid in said tokens, which represent social debt in my favor which I can the spend in things I need or desire. It requires some historical developments such as social and economical complexity and private property, but otherwise it is that simple. Either it is a consensus valuable item, such as cows, salt, shells or gold, or it is guaranteed by the power of social organization itself, namely the state, in which case it can be perfectly a paper note or even a mere accountancy annotation on a register, which is what you use nowadays when you write down a check or pay with a debit card.

But their token or merely accountancy nature makes control of money, such an important social and economic tool, a key resort of power. You can gain control of money by accumulating it but the real power is in issuing it. There are two ways of issuing money: physically creating it, which is normally a privilege of the state (though historically often subcontracted to private minters), or virtually creating it by means of accountancy magic (i.e. lending well beyond what one has, a privilege of banks mostly). The differences between the various types of effective money supply are typically called M1, M2, M3 and by other similar names (M1 means physical cash plus "real" accounts while M3 means the whole amount of virtual money circulating in accountancy annotations). M3 can be many times M1, as you can see in this graphic for the Eurozone (the USA does not anymore publish M3 figures, surely to hide some grave economic facts caused by over-printing and over-lending by the Fed):

There are much worse cases than EU, indeed, specially in regard to disparate growth of M3 in comparison to M1 and M2. As the exclusive components of M3-M2 are almost never in the hands of common people (as well as most of M2-M1), the disparate growth of this kind of virtual inflationary money supply generally means that the elite becomes richer while the commoners lose.

But maybe more important than all these esoterisms of the Economic "science" it is the fact that bankers can lend money they do not own (they lend on account of your deposited money) and that gives them key control over all the monetary flux, specially if they act with some consensus (oligopoly) and have the complicity of the states, much more if they meet regularly at global level (Davos, Trilateral Commission, etc.) and have secretariats and offices to ensure that their wishes come true (IMF, OCDE, World Bank, etc.).

Where do I want to go? Actually I mostly wanted to introduce a couple of economic articles published at Global Research:

Zoltan Zigedy writes from Hungary on the debt trap imposed by the IMF to his country (and so many others - I recently mentioned India for example)

For decades, left critics of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have maintained that the IMF is merely a tool for enforcing the interests of financial elites, especially those in the US. Predictably, this view has been scornfully dismissed by those in power and their media lackeys who posture the institution as the benefactor of needy countries. The persistent history of the IMF’s extortionate funding, linked to austere cuts in social spending, is simply dismissed as pressing fiscal responsibility on countries lacking the spine to address their profligacy. Such are the myths that sustain faith in global capitalism.

But a close look at the IMF in action reveals the politics lurking behind its high-sounding mission statements. Read the whole article...

It is painfully ironic that Hungary, the poster child of EU and IMF draconian deficit contention policies and former socialist bloc recycling to capitalism is subject to such a extortion by the imperial financial oligarchy.

Naturally this is raising nostalgia for communism because, whatever the faults and limitations of the old system, nobody ended up begging in the streets or having to live on welfare for lack of jobs.

It reminds me when, 21 or 22 years ago, I went on a visit to the European Parliament with people of the movement against the Leizaran highway (as unpaid and informal journalist for an alternative news agency). Besides of our host, we were welcomed and briefed by some liberal MEP who said that EU was ready to welcome specifically Hungary "if they adopted democracy". I had to ask an uncomfortable question: what if Hungary adopted democracy but kept a socialist economic system? He replied that in that case they could not enter EU because blah blah market economy blah blah.

I had to ask, you know. I was barely 20 but I knew already that it was not a matter of mere formal democracy.

The other article, by Ellen Brown, is quite curious because it is an apology of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia... before it was privatized.

The bank was created with zero capital and a small loan from the government on the quite reasonable belief that central banks are backed by the whole wealth of the country (i.e. by the moral authority of the government as social organizer and representation). It was the only bank with zero capital, yet it worked perfectly well (what illustrates well the virtual and faith-based nature of money).

But woe! The bank not only lent at low rates to private financiers, as most central banks do, but it also lent to the general public at similarly low rates and kept a reputation as "the people's bank" until its privatization 15 years ago. Of course, that's considered "socialist" by Thatcherian/Reaganist standards but it's what used to work and therefore it is being demanded again.

Indian economy seen from Mexico

Economist Alejandro Nadal writes in La Jornada (found at La Haine) about the Indian miracle, its horrors and limitations. I translate here the whole text because I feel it is very worth reading.

The economy of India keeps high rates of growth since some years ago and for many it is an example to follow. It is said that the experience of the subcontinent is evidence that Neoliberalism can work. Reality is very different: the evolution of Indian economy is a pathological process that feeds on social inequality and environmental destruction.

India kept a modest growth after independence in 1947. The project of industrialization sustained a reduced but stable expansion (4%) between 1950 and 1980. The income per capita increased an average of 1.3% yearly in that period. The commercial balance remained with a permanent deficit and the economy was closed to the trade and capital flows.

The global debt crisis in the 1980s submitted India to the dictates of the International Monetary Fund and in the 1990s neoliberal style reforms were imposed, what meant a radical turn in economic policy. In the last ten years India had an average annual growth of 6.8%. International press has presented this as an economical miracle.

In these years inequality and poverty have worsened in India. Today 42% of that country's people (1.173 billion) lives with less than one dollar per day. 75% lives with two dollars a day and the economic model is not going to revert such an unequal structure.

In spite of the growth rates of 6-7%, the increase of formal unemployment in India is minimal and does not go beyond a yearly 1% growth. By the way, that means that economic expansion is built on most important productivity increases. This is related to the strategy of orienting investment towards exports, what requires bringing salary costs down to minimums in order to be able to compete. For that reason the rationalization of productive chains is accompanied of strong cuts in employment.

In spite of the miracle in growth rates, India keeps a chronic deficit in its external accounts and needs to finance it. For that purpose it has chosen to receive capital flows, both in form of direct foreign investment as portfolio investments (short term capital). But this implies an enormous cost: macroeconomic policies must respect game rules that have nothing to do with the needs of the Indian people.

Monetary policy is dominated by the need to attract capital to the Indian economic space. This implies keeping high interest rates. Besides, only the privileged ones have access to credit, all this imprinting a regressive hue to distribution of wealth by privileging the active portfolio of the wealthiest strata and deepening inequality. That is why it is irrelevant: what matters is to keep the flow of capital that allows financing the external deficit.

All this implies that India has now the highest reserves in history (some 230 billion dollars). In this it resembles China, but the difference is that the latter has a huge surplus in its trade balance while India suffers a chronic deficit. Indian reserves are not such: they are a resource that can evaporate at any moment.

Fiscal policy is ruled by the dogma of balanced budget and, as capital owners must not be incommoded in order not to affect investments, the fiscal balance is achieved cutting social expenditure and reducing the amount of resources for environmental preservation.

The opening to foreign investment is done by giving concessions to extractive, lumber and touristic industries. This causes the expropriation of the lands in which the minerals are found (iron in Chattisgarh, bauxite in Orissa, etc.) or which are covered by dense forests, which are easily accessible commercial wealth. Many of those lands are the home of aboriginal peoples or adivasi (Sanskrit word meaning first inhabitants of the forest). The adivasi are less than 8% of Indian population but they are 40% of the people deprived from valleys, hills and river basins. The cession of their lands to the megacorporations in extractive and touristic industries is one of the most violent traits of the neoliberal miracle in India.

Economist Amit Badhuri, professor emeritus of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, has described this process as predatory growth. It must be said it is not any metaphor: it is in effect a complex economical and political process in which the losers give their way of life to a growth that privileges only a few and cannot raise the level of life of the majority.

The parallel with Mexico is extraordinary. Actually the only different thing are growth rates. All the rest is identical: the same model, the same injustice.

Oaxaca: police attacks civilians at San Juan Copala

The communities in resistance of the Triqui people or Oaxaca, Mexico, whose uphill struggle against the paramilitaries of UBISORT, supported by the state, was mentioned here before on two occasions, denounced yesterday that the state police has attacked the people of San Juan Copala, murdering two young sisters: Selena and Adela Ramírez López, 18 and 15 years old respectively. Two men are also reported missing: Alfredo Martínez and Hipólito Merino.

The attack happened at noon (12:15 local time) when groups of heavily armed UBISORT militias and state policemen entered the autonomous village of San Juan Copala, taking the town hall by force.

Earlier, on July 26th, UBISORT paramilitary groups shot for hours against the village, injuring María Rosa Francisco, 35, when she went for wood. She is still missing. They also killed dozens of domestic animals.

On July 29th, Anastacio Juárez, brother of the leader of UBISORT Rufino Juárez, was murdered. The murder bears, according to the locals, the signature of an guvernamental execution, as there are precedents in which high leaders of repression have been murdered so they cannot speak in court and this serves also to rally the paramilitary bandits and to criminalize the popular movement that has been so far strictly nonviolent.

By 14:20 yesterday, the state police left the town but the paramilitaries are still entrenched in the town hall.

Full communications at La Haine (in Spanish).

Haitians protest against occupation. One shot while police just looks

Batay Ouvriye (Workers' Struggle in Kreyòl) reports from Haiti, via La Haine[es], of the demonstration against the occupation on July 28th, called by them and other organizations. Simultaneously NGOs from the USA and Brazil protested in New York, Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.


The demonstration, which consisted on some 100 activists, split in three groups: a picket before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, another picket blocking traffic and yet another dedicated to information via pamphlets and graffiti.

The demo culminated with the burning of a Brazilian flag which enveloped a US banner (photo above).

When the demo was ending, a government paramilitary arrived and shot one of the demonstrators without the police doing anything about it.

Another demo of Batay Ouvriye with some 150 participants and similar slogans went through Cap Haitïen.

More photos HERE (PDF document).

Haiti has been under "international" occupation since 2004, when a joint US-French operation kidnapped the legal and highly popular President Bertrand Aristide, of socialist tendency, and deported him to Africa. In 2010, a mysterious and devastating earthquake destroyed the capital precisely when the US Navy was making a drill for an invasion of Haiti in case of a natural disaster (what a coincidence!). Immediately the USA sent a whole army to re-occupy the country in what was possibly a maneuver to displace Brazil from the area (related to the protectorate treaty with Colombia, the coup in Honduras and the more recent de facto occupation of Costa Rica).

The popular Fanmi Lavalas party of the legitimate President Aristide has been illegal ever since the 2004 invasion, what has caused widespread abstention in elections and a total delegitimization of the current puppet government of René Preval.

Could the Louisiana catastrophe had been prevented by a unionized workforce?

That is what In Defense of Marxism seems to think and to me their arguments are self-evident:

Much is said in the news about the disastrous situation that now exists in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Deepwater Horizon explosion. An ecological disaster of gigantic proportions has been created by the profit motive, which is what drives the BP executives. However, were the company to be thoroughly unionised, with workers’ representatives controlling every level of safety, this disaster could have been averted.

Amidst the acres of newsprint about the Deepwater Horizon blowout little has been said about those who are most affected - the BP workforce.

The mood in Sunbury, in the BP head offices, is a mixture of denial and anxiety, expressed in a bitter gallows humour and blunt cynicism. Long-term employees have had several decades of management cock-ups, re-organisations, cut backs, more re-organisations, and more cut-backs. Everywhere, whether in the office decor or the lines on people’s faces, are the symptoms of 20 years of lucrative deals at the top which eventually have brought this company to its knees. Nobody - nobody - is surprised at what has happened. Every long term employee knows what lies behind this disaster. Since the 1990s the company has been running on thin air, vital services have been outsourced, and quality, like the pipelines, has decayed. "The new paradigm", the Thatcherite policy of cutting to the bone and outsourcing to the cheapest bidder, has turned into the old paradigm - long hours, poor quality, insecurity and stress.

Read full article at IDOM.


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Update (Jul 25): You may also want to read this article of similar content at RandomPottins: If they had listened to workers, maybe there'd have been no disaster, and BP would not need to be "buying" scientists. (Suggested by Joe, at comments).