"I did not come here to argue. I am here to tell you, if possible to convince you, and hopefully, to stop you, from pretentiously imposing yourselves on Mexicans."

It is quite possible that this hypocrisy is unconscious in most of you. Intellectually, you are ready to see that the motivations which could legitimate volunteer action overseas in 1963 cannot be invoked for the same action in 1968. "Mission-vacations" among poor Mexicans were "the thing" to do for well-off U.S. students earlier in this decade: sentimental concern for newly-discovered poverty south of the border combined with total blindness to much worse poverty at home justified such benevolent excursions. Intellectual insight into the difficulties of fruitful volunteer action had not sobered the spirit of Peace Corps Papal-and-Self-Styled Volunteers.

Ivan Illich tells off a group of CIASP volunteers at their annual convention

Charity vs Solidarity

On charity, mutual aid, and class struggle:

A definition of solidarity I’ve heard is that it’s about providing concrete support to an oppressed group so that they can more easily use their own power to change the conditions of their lives. As I understand it, solidarity is about working with people who are struggling for their own liberation in a way that means my future gets bound up with theirs.

On the other hand, charity is about me feeling good, assuaging guilt, feeling like I’m doing something about injustice but without actually threatening the status quo. Charity doesn’t really cost me anything, especially my self-image as being someone who’s down with the struggle and on the side of the oppressed. With charity I don’t have to acknowledge my privilege in a situation, and in the case of work in New Orleans, I don’t have to take responsibility for the fact that my family and I have materially benefited, historically and presently, from the racism that bludgeoned the south long before the hurricane. With charity, I don’t have to connect the dots between sudden catastrophes like Katrina, and the perhaps slower but very similar economic devastation happening in poor communities and communities of color, every day, right here, in my city. And most importantly, with charity, I don’t have risk that what I’m doing might truly transform society in such a way that white folks like me may not end up on top anymore, because charity actually reinforces existing relationships of power.

On Neoliberal Globalization

The poor complain; they always do,
But that's just idle chatter.
Our system brings rewards to all,
At least to all who matter.

- Canadian economist Gerald Helleiner

Animal Bedding Mixture

The internet is a wonderful thing:

An animal bedding mixture is disclosed herein. The animal bedding mixture includes a bedding material and a bedding material additive. Bedding material is preferably straw, sawdust, sand or recycled manure solids. The bedding material additive is preferably 60-99% by weight absorbent clay powder, 0.1 to 35% by weight chlorite salt, and 0.01-35% by weight sodium bisulfate or sodium percarbonate. The bedding material additive of the present disclosure is inert when dry and neither germicidal or acidic. However, when the additive is exposed to moisture, such as animal urine, the sodium bisulfate will acidify the liquid, causing the formation of hypochlorous acid and chlorine dioxide. Hypochlorous acid and chlorine dioxide are very powerful, broad spectrum germicides that have proven efficacy against E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and other micro-organisms commonly found in animal bedding.

An exchange with an anarcho-capitalist

Says an enlightened commentator:

Private property is dependent on the existence of the State.
Without a state, who is to say that fancy car of yours isn't MY fancy car? [sic; cars are actually personal property]
Why do you think the state even exists in the first place? Without capital, there is no reason for the state to exist.

Says the anarcho-capitalist

The lock on it, the car alarm that will go off and the bullet in my chamber all disagree with who's what is really who's.

Says me:
The anarcho-capitalist's point doesn't actually rebut the original argument. What if the other guy is holding the gun instead? Is he suggesting that possession of property simply boils down to whoever can marshal the most force in defending or taking it? If that's the case, all we have then is rule by warlords and a tyranny of the strong over the weak.

At some point people would need to agree to collectively defend and protect the notion of private (non-personal) property, which seems philosophically contradictory, to say nothing of the impracticality of a landlord asking his tenants to defend his exclusive ownership of their building (possibly with their own lives) while still paying rent and yet without granting them any actual ownership stake in exchange. I'd almost say that sounds like feudalism.

Ultimately, it comes down to the difference between personal and private property, where the latter is property used solely by people who don't own it (e.g., a factory or office), and the fruits from such use flow back to the owners. It's one thing to actually live in the building you own. It's another to extract money from people who need to use it (e.g., to live there) simply because you already possessed the wealth to buy it in the first place; i.e., to use capital as a wealth-yielding instrument in and of itself, requiring no actual labor on your part and no direct (personal) involvement with said asset. The former case constitutes personal property while the latter constitutes private property.

As one of the 95% who do not own for a living, which would risk your life for — your home, or your corporate employer's office park? This reasoning can show how the essence of capitalism is impossible without the centralized threat of violence, whether on the part of the state or private-sector enforcers.

Skinned and Gutted Dogfish + Aluminum Foil + Lemon Juice + Salt

Electrochemical reanimation!

Louis CK is brilliant

Gulf of Mexico: Oil Ocean Zone

Is the BP Gusher Unstoppable?

Outsourcing unit to be set up in Indian jail

An example of the great divergence between the theory and actual practice of neoliberalism; long live the free market:

(From BBC News).

No charge for a security viewer window!

High pressure concrete-filled blast doors:

The door is constructed with an envelope of 3/16 inch steel plate - but after you hang it in place, you fill it with concrete - no forms necessary - the skins are in place. This construction method keeps the door relatively light for installation - and once it is filled with cured concrete, it has a lot of dense mass between you and whatever fallout is outside your shelter. It also helps to prevent anyone from using a cutting torch to gain access through the door because concrete doesn't "burn."

The Free Market Solution

A city in California is now charging people $300 per call for 911 access.:

Tracy residents will now have to pay every time they call 9-1-1 for a medical emergency.

But there are a couple of options. Residents can pay a $48 voluntary fee for the year which allows them to call 9-1-1 as many times as necessary.

Or, there's the option of not signing up for the annual fee. Instead, they will be charged $300 if they make a call for help.

"A $300 fee and you don't even want to be thinking about that when somebody is in need of assistance," said Tracy resident Greg Bidlack.

Residents will soon receive the form in the mail where they'll be able to make their selection. No date has been set for when the charges will go into effect.

This is of course the inevitable free-market Libertarian answer to the question: “Why should I let those politicians spend my hard-earned tax money on services that overwhelmingly benefit poor people?”

It's the "pay only for what you use" model. Well, congratulations, free-marketeers, now you can rest easy knowing that the homeless will now be truly dying on the streets instead of wasting your hard-earned income.

Political Myths We Live By

Here's an excellent itemization of the tacit assumptions that many people hold about our political situation, from Z Magazine:

It includes such very important points as

8. Public opinion is made by the public. (The Public Opinion Fallacy)

It isn't. It is made for the public by a process of selective filtering and re-framing on the part of the owners, managers and employed commentators of the corporate media. Corporate think tanks and PR machines also play important public opinion-forming roles, often behind the scenes. The important ideological and manipulative work of all these ‘pundits' is to keep public discourse within the tight parameters and limited concepts of allowed official discourse. The purpose is to manufacture consent for the decisions and policies of the ruling elites. There is no conspiracy involved here, it is a ‘natural' part of the system and works largely by cultural osmosis and conformity.

and

10. Economically, this is a Free Market Society. (The Free Market Fallacy)

There is no free market and never has been, even under the rule of the deregulating, neo-liberal state. A completely free market system would self-destruct in no time. Because it can, by definition, only care for its individual vested interests and not for the good of the whole system, capitalism needs constant saving from itself by the state. The capitalist state has always been there to massively support, gently oversee, subsidize and bail out the capitalist economy in countless ways, not only in times of crisis. Corporate and middle class welfare is actually its main game. The state helps capital privatise the profits and socialise the costs. It provides the physical infrastructure, educational development of the ‘human capital' and picks up the immense social, health and environmental costs of the latter's wrecking balls. All this happens whether the state is neo-liberal or social democratic (Keynesian) in nature.

Dennis Kucinich Answers Questions

Queenie's in trouble!

"We have triumphed over the unprincipled dissemination of facts."

A very clear discussion of the current heath care plans

Healthcare Napkins:

Healthcare Napkins All

View more documents from Dan Roam.

Brazil TV host turned politician 'ordered killings to boost ratings'

This is could almost be the plot of a David Cronenberg film.

From The Guardian:

A Brazilian politician who fronts a popular television crime show is being investigated for allegedly ordering a series of executions in a bid to boost his ratings.

Wallace Souza, a former police officer who used his lunchtime television slot to rail against the violence sweeping the jungle city of Manaus, is suspected of commissioning at least five murders to prove his claim that the region is awash with violent crime.

"Manaus can no longer live with this wave of crime," Souza, 50, frequently told the audience of his daily show Canal Livre. "Nowadays everyone is killing."

In a 2008 speech at Manaus's local parliament, Souza boasted that Canal Livre enjoyed complete editorial freedom and was conducted with "journalistic responsibility".

But prosecutors in the remote Amazon city say the politician's actions went far beyond the call of journalistic duty, accusing Souza of links to drug trafficking, death squads and organised crime, and possessing illegal arms.

"Our investigations indicate that they went as far as creating facts," Thomaz Augusto Correa, the local police intelligence chief, told a Brazilian news channel. "Crimes were committed in order to create news for the group and for the programme."

How Different Groups Spend Their Day

See this excellent summary of different demographics' daily activities, presented in the style of those Histograph of History maps:

How Different Groups Spend Their Day