marmar
marmar's JournalDr Vandana Shiva - International Permaculture Day 2012
Published on May 6, 2012 by IntPermacultureDay
Jude Fanton of the Seed Savers Network interviews Dr. Vandana Shiva, environmental activist, seed freedom campaigner and founder of NAVDANYA and RFSTE.
Vandana says about her work: "Over the past three decades I have tried to be the change I want to see. When I found that dominant science and technology served the interests of powerful, I left academics to found the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, a participatory, public interest research organisation. When I found global corporations wanted to patent seeds, crops or life forms, I started Navdanya to protect biodiversity, defend farmers' rights and promote organic farming."
Who's afraid of Kirchner's oil nationalization?
from the Asia Times:
Who's afraid of Kirchner's oil nationalization?
By Cyrus Bina
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner at a press conference on April 16 announced the seizure of a 51% control in oil company YPF and reasserted Argentina's control over its oil deposits.
The key phrase in this spectacular act was "recovery of sovereignty and control". YPF was Argentina's longtime national oil company, whose assets, including oil deposits, were owned by the Argentinian public until 1993. In 1999, YPF was taken over by Repsol, Spain's once national oil company. The YPF oil reserves amounted to two-thirds of Repsol's ownership of oil reserves before re-nationalization.
On April 26, Argentina's Senate voted 63 to 3 confirming the takeover. The expropriation bill was taken up by the lower house of Argentina's Congress and passed by 207 to 32 on May 3. This bill is the latest in the carefully considered series of socioeconomic reversals against the 1990s' happy-go-lucky privatizations, known as neoliberalism, in Latin America and elsewhere in the world.
.....(snip).....
Argentina's economic default of the early 2000s was indeed a mixed blessing: it painfully revealed the tip of the neoliberal economic orthodoxy - long before the crisis of neoliberalism (and this malicious economic philosophy) tended to suffocate the world - and, at the same time, created wisdom for emerging from this mess by 2003 with the election of Nestor Kirchner. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NE08Dj05.html
Noam Chomsky: Plutonomy and the Precariat (On the History of the U.S. Economy in Decline)
from TomDispatch:
Plutonomy and the Precariat
On the History of the U.S. Economy in Decline
By Noam Chomsky
The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead -- because victory won’t come quickly -- it could prove a significant moment in American history.
The fact that the Occupy movement is unprecedented is quite appropriate. After all, it’s an unprecedented era and has been so since the 1970s, which marked a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society, and not always in very pretty ways. That’s another story, but the general progress was toward wealth, industrialization, development, and hope. There was a pretty constant expectation that it was going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times.
I’m just old enough to remember the Great Depression. After the first few years, by the mid-1930s -- although the situation was objectively much harsher than it is today -- nevertheless, the spirit was quite different. There was a sense that “we’re gonna get out of it,” even among unemployed people, including a lot of my relatives, a sense that “it will get better.”
There was militant labor union organizing going on, especially from the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). It was getting to the point of sit-down strikes, which are frightening to the business world -- you could see it in the business press at the time -- because a sit-down strike is just a step before taking over the factory and running it yourself. The idea of worker takeovers is something which is, incidentally, very much on the agenda today, and we should keep it in mind. Also New Deal legislation was beginning to come in as a result of popular pressure. Despite the hard times, there was a sense that, somehow, “we’re gonna get out of it.” ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175539/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_a_rebellious_world_or_a_new_dark_age/
Dark Ages America: Kansas abortion bill would allow doctors to lie to patients
from AlterNet:
Kansas Pushing "Most Dangerous Anti-Abortion Bill" in the Country, Would Let Doctors Lie to Patients
From Addictinginfo.com, some good consolidated information on a sweeping anti-choice bill which has just cleared the Kansas house and is headed to the state Senate, just another front in the war on women--which is really a war on families and all individuals affected by reproductive health.
Some of its provisions:
• A measure that significantly limits abortions in the third trimester.
• A provision that bans women from claiming abortion insurance coverage and services on their taxes.
• Doctors are hereby ordered to tell women that abortion causes breast cancer, which is a damned lie.
• Doctors are also shielded from lawsuits if they withhold critical health information from pregnant women that could cause them to decide to have an abortion. In other words, they don’t have to tell women about the health of the fetus they carry and don’t have to tell women about any problems with the pregnancy.
Obviously, the end result here verges on a total ban, by the kind of legislative chiseling-away at rights and escalation of state-sanctioned harassment that we've frequently described here at AlterNet. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/927388/kansas_pushing_%22most_dangerous_anti-abortion_bill%22_in_the_country%2C_would_let_doctors_lie_to_patients/
Who's afraid of Kirchner's oil nationalization?
from the Asia Times:
Who's afraid of Kirchner's oil nationalization?
By Cyrus Bina
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner at a press conference on April 16 announced the seizure of a 51% control in oil company YPF and reasserted Argentina's control over its oil deposits.
The key phrase in this spectacular act was "recovery of sovereignty and control". YPF was Argentina's longtime national oil company, whose assets, including oil deposits, were owned by the Argentinian public until 1993. In 1999, YPF was taken over by Repsol, Spain's once national oil company. The YPF oil reserves amounted to two-thirds of Repsol's ownership of oil reserves before re-nationalization.
On April 26, Argentina's Senate voted 63 to 3 confirming the takeover. The expropriation bill was taken up by the lower house of Argentina's Congress and passed by 207 to 32 on May 3. This bill is the latest in the carefully considered series of socioeconomic reversals against the 1990s' happy-go-lucky privatizations, known as neoliberalism, in Latin America and elsewhere in the world.
The brunt of the Thatcherite period of transvestite politics and war, dubbed as the Iron Lady Era, and the recklessness of the generals in charge in the 1980s and assorted civilian governments, hostage to neoliberal economic policies throughout the 1990s, made Argentina a basket-case between cannibalistic policies on the one hand, and the plight of capital flight on the other. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NE08Dj05.html
Noam Chomsky: Plutonomy and the Precariat (On the History of the U.S. Economy in Decline)
from TomDispatch:
Plutonomy and the Precariat
On the History of the U.S. Economy in Decline
By Noam Chomsky
The Occupy movement has been an extremely exciting development. Unprecedented, in fact. There’s never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations it has established can be sustained through a long, dark period ahead -- because victory won’t come quickly -- it could prove a significant moment in American history.
The fact that the Occupy movement is unprecedented is quite appropriate. After all, it’s an unprecedented era and has been so since the 1970s, which marked a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society, and not always in very pretty ways. That’s another story, but the general progress was toward wealth, industrialization, development, and hope. There was a pretty constant expectation that it was going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times.
I’m just old enough to remember the Great Depression. After the first few years, by the mid-1930s -- although the situation was objectively much harsher than it is today -- nevertheless, the spirit was quite different. There was a sense that “we’re gonna get out of it,” even among unemployed people, including a lot of my relatives, a sense that “it will get better.”
There was militant labor union organizing going on, especially from the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations). It was getting to the point of sit-down strikes, which are frightening to the business world -- you could see it in the business press at the time -- because a sit-down strike is just a step before taking over the factory and running it yourself. The idea of worker takeovers is something which is, incidentally, very much on the agenda today, and we should keep it in mind. Also New Deal legislation was beginning to come in as a result of popular pressure. Despite the hard times, there was a sense that, somehow, “we’re gonna get out of it.” ........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175539/tomgram%3A_noam_chomsky%2C_a_rebellious_world_or_a_new_dark_age/
Goldman Sachs: Impoverishing Truck Drivers
from Dissent magazine:
Goldman Sachs: Impoverishing Truck Drivers
Todd Gitlin - May 7, 2012 11:35 am
Much attention was paid when, in March, a derivatives trading executive at Goldman Sachs accused the investment bank of abandoning its proper mission: serving clients first. When he went to work at the firm twelve years ago, Greg Smith maintained, Goldman’s culture “revolved around teamwork, integrity, a spirit of humility, and always doing right by our clients.” But now, he said, the company sustains a “toxic and destructive” environment. For its part, the company had commissioned a Business Principles and Standards Report that recommended “a constant focus on the reputational consequences of every action we take. In particular, our approach must be: not just ‘can we’ undertake a given business activity, but ‘should we.’ ”
Goldman Sachs is an investment bank, of course, but it is also an owner of enterprises. As its website proudly declares, “Goldman Sachs is one of the largest infrastructure fund managers globally, having raised more than $10 billion of capital since the inception of the business in 2006.” Goldman Sachs Infrastructure Partners owns 51 percent of a company called SSA Marine, which, with its affiliates, operates more container shipping terminals than any other company in the world.
In this capacity, Goldman Sachs is not just an employer of bankers but an employer of truck drivers who drive unloaded goods out of the ports. Except that, in a ruse to avoid paying benefits to these drivers (and taxes to state and federal governments), they are not classified as employees at all—rather, as “independent contractors.” More of the nation’s 110,000 port truck drivers work for SSA Marine than for any other firm.
Since trucking deregulation began under President Jimmy Carter, trucking rates are no longer set by the federal government. They are set by companies like SSA Marine, which are not unionized and which relentlessly cut costs. One way to do so is to avoid paying benefits. This is neatly done if one’s truckers are not classified as employees. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/atw.php?id=752
'bailout parties no longer have a majority...to vote for measures that plunder the country'
(Bloomberg) Greece’s Syriza party leader Alexis Tsipras, charged with forming a government, told his pro-bailout counterparts they must renounce support for the European Union- led rescue if there is to be any chance of forging a coalition.
Tsipras said he expected Antonis Samaras of New Democracy and Evangelos Venizelos, the former finance minister who leads the Pasok party, to send a letter to the EU revoking their pledges to implement austerity measures by the time he meets with them tomorrow to discuss forming a coalition. Samaras said he would not do so, and would support a minority government if necessary.
“The bailout parties no longer have a majority in parliament to vote for measures that plunder the country,” Tsipras told reporters in Athens today after receiving the coalition-building mandate from President Karolos Papoulias. “There will be no 11 billion euros ($14 billion) of additional austerity measures; 150,000 jobs will not be cut.”
Political wrangling after the inconclusive May 6 election has reignited European concerns over Greece’s ability to hold to the terms of a second, 130 billion-euro rescue. Parliament is split down the middle on the two bailout deals negotiated since May 2010, as the country at the epicenter of the debt crisis again risks exit from the euro. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-08/greek-government-mandate-passes-to-syriza-after-samaras-fails.html
Rahmbo takes aim at pensions
from the Chicago Tribune:
SPRINGFIELD -- Mayor Rahm Emanuel took his case for reining in soaring pension costs to state lawmakers today, saying change is needed or Chicago's "quality of life will suffer."
Emanuel called for implementing a pause on cost-of-living increases for 10 years to allow the six systems "to catch its breath." He called for boosting employee contributions 1 percent each year for five years and offering employees of limited type of choice of retirement plans.
"The day of reckoning has arrived," Emanuel said, saying taxpayers, retirees and employees want politicians to be honest and "level with them" about the problems.
A rare step for a Chicago mayor, Emanuel personally pitched his ideas for cutting costs to a House pension panel. It's an approach that his immediate predecessor, Richard M. Daley, had not taken, though he made a variety of appearances over the years. ............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-rahm-emanuel-illinois-pensions,0,6926697.story
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