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revolutionary political-economy

Rather than continuing to privatize the planet, transforming the mountains, minerals, and forests of the world into so many disposable, toxic commodities, and deforming social relations into commercial relations, a revolutionary political-economy would expand the public realm. As opposed to regulating society according to the principle of profit and exchange (which creates scarcity and poverty via practices such as the destruction of food, carried out in order to stabilize prices and maintain profits), economic production should be regulated according to its use-value. Following the maxim “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need,” food and other necessities should be decommodified (via the nationalization, or better yet the internationalization of the resources needed to generate them) and produced in order to feed people, not to generate profit.

-- Elliot Sperber

we got your missiles right here!

It is an article of faith in the West that each missile test by North Korea is a “threat” or “provocation.” But is it true? Over the last several months, India tested its Agni-2 medium-range and Agni-3 intermediate-range ballistic missiles, as well as an Agni-5 ICBM, producing only yawns of indifference. Pakistan fired an Ababeel medium-range ballistic missile, capable of delivering multiple warheads, while China and Russia both tested ICBMs. The United States, as it was roundly condemning North Korea for its tests, launched Minuteman 3 and Trident missiles. None of these tests by nuclear powers were deemed provocative. Nor was note taken of the hypocrisy of the Trump administration in expressing outrage over North Korea doing what it was doing.

Objectively speaking, there is no difference between North Korea’s missile tests and the others, although it should be pointed out that the U.S. arsenal of nearly 7,000 nuclear warheads dwarfs that of North Korea.

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The Pursuit of Happiness

And yet we, whose forebears were peasants, refugees from the British Empire, African Americans whose ancestors were shipped here as slaves, Native Americans and the myriad others who count themselves lucky to be Americans, will gather on July 4th and celebrate the mythography of the nation. Or not. We live in a modern and thoroughly malignant construction of reality where many remain in the frantic pursuit of the sugar rush of happiness. Can we instead take this holiday as a slightly belated Summer Solstice Festival, barbecue the same food and drink the same (craft) beer and begin to fully understand that property is indeed theft and the notion of linear time is the means to larceny; a festival where the erstwhile holism of the nation’s immigrant peasants and of its native peoples is celebrated as a possible gateway to our living in the universe as fully sentient beings?

-- John Davis

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our Forefathers thought of everything

* Slaves weren’t included in “We the People,” they were only the property of their owners. Because this human property, unlike a bale of cotton, could plan to run away, particular attention was paid to securing it.  “A person (the indelicate word “slave” never appeared) held to service or labor in one state…escaping to another…shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.” ( IV, sec. 2)

* To appease Southerners interested in gaining the maximum number of seats in the new House of Representatives, the Fathers of Our Country declared, in writing, that these “other persons” would each count as three-fifths of a human. ( I, sec. 2)

* Women did not have the right to vote, nor did Catholics and Jews in some states. White, Protestant, men had to own qualifying amounts of property.  Thus, only about 6% of the new nation’s population was eligible to vote in the first presidential election and only 3%, or 38,818 people actually did.

* Even those so privileged didn’t actually vote for a presidential candidate. They voted for “electors” pledged to vote for certain candidates and even then, four of the state legislatures picked those electors, not voting citizens.

* State legislatures, not citizens, chose U.S. Senators until the Constitution was amended in 1913.

-- Mike Ferner

with liberty and justice for all

Happy Fourth of July from Howard Zinn.......

“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves…and the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.”
― Howard Zinn

green grass and high tides forever!

bringin' it all back home

The Russians understand very well from agonizing experience what modern, catastrophic war on one’s homeland is like, while we in the US do not, although we are on a path to find out. It is a path of our own creation.

-- Bill Willers

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