Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) says we need to spend the next three-plus years reforming our labor unions and building toward a general strike in 2028.

I like it.

✊ https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/11/rip-jane-mcalevey/#organize

#Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateAction

Men Are Reacting To Women Refusing To Date, Marry, Have Sex, Or Birth Children With Them Until Women's Rights Are Equal

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/men-reacting-women-refusing-date-153245009.html

"The best way to show the importance of taking away women's rights is to make sure men are affected as much as possible alongside them. Fuck the patriarchy.“

#HumanRights #Abuse #Women #StrikeBack #Patriarchy #Fascism #misogyny #Capitalism #Idiocracy #Gender #Power #Autonomy #Oppression #Resistance #48Movement

42 UNSC resolutions calling for justice in Palestine have been vetoed, 38 by the US alone. The blood-stained hands of the US symbolize their complicity in enabling Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza—turning a blind eye to war crimes while funding and arming oppression.

#usa #europe #eu #genocide #germany #israel #palestine #zionism #FreePalestine #capitalism

I hate to say it, but … The road to a peaceful world will probably be a violent one.
Not because those who want peace want violence.
But because those who have power over others won’t give it up peacefully.
(Nor will those who hoard capital let it lose its value without a fight.)
So otherwise peaceful people will have to defend and protect themselves -
To have a chance to build a better peaceful world.
#anarchism #capitalism #solarpunk

Extraordinary interview:

https://realprogressives.org/mnc-podcast-ep/episode-303-real-resources-real-power-with-fadhel-kaboub/

Prof Kaboub's work centers on *non-neocolonial* economic development in Africa. (He's a native of Tunisia.)

Interview topics: Gaza genocide, US election, BRICS, China's economic development, world trade and currency, Africa's economic potential. The scope of his understanding is... I don't have the words - just spend the hour!

#Africa #Colonialism #RealResources #Power #GlobalSouth #Currency #MMT #China #BRICS #Capitalism #War #Gaza

"If you don’t believe in the state, or if you don’t associate enlightenment notions with the American project, then rolling back democratic protections for working people simply doesn’t matter. If America itself is immoral, then who cares what the governing apparatus looks like? If all commerce is driven by forces out of our hands, then there’s nothing we can do anyway.

Politics, which is fundamentally the forming of a society, itself becomes immoral. The wielding of authority, which is essential to a democratic polity, is indistinguishable from authoritarian abuse. The New Democrat project of the 1980s, which turned human choices into Gods we called “technology and globalization,” succeeded wildly, because we had been conditioned to believe in them. Markets became monopolies, economists became priests, and cultural attitudes are the only real stakes in elections.

And that brings me back to the learned helplessness of the Democrats. The reason the anti-monopoly movement is interesting is because we are a break from this attitude. It’s not that we are fighting Bork, it’s that we are fighting the whole notion of anti-politics itself, the idea that protest and marginalized communities are the only mechanisms for moral legitimacy. We are saying that morality is shaped by politics through the state itself."

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/on-the-democratic-partys-cult-of

#USA #Neoliberalism #DemocraticParty #Antitrust #Capitalism #Monopolies #Oligopolies

🛑 Business As Usual will lead to our demise. 🛑

Sooner or later, perhaps within years, certainly within a decade or two, the fragile and tenuous structure of our complex modern industrial society will break down. It won’t take much — overlapping natural disasters, collapse of the marine food web, an even worse pandemic, serious supply chain disruption, a major crop failure — some of these, or maybe all at once, and everything falls apart.

That’s not an outcome we should welcome. It can only lead to widespread suffering and starvation, with millions and possibly billions of human deaths.

If we are to have any hope of avoiding such a catastrophic societal collapse, we must rapidly reduce the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. But that will never happen as long as capitalism remains in charge.

So capitalism must go. The system must be changed.

Those at the top, however, will not give up easily. They will have to be forced to surrender, to step down and relinquish their power. The only way I can see that happening, short of violent revolution, is through a critical mass of people agreeing that it’s time for ACTION, then joining together for coordinated civil disobedience at a level never seen before.

The primary tactic is a prolonged general strike.

But it must be carefully thought out, every step meticulously organized. This would start with activists and neighborhood leaders meeting up and developing practical plans, locating resources, evaluating areas of strength and also of weakness.

Community groups could then begin stockpiling food and basic supplies and organizing voluntary systems of local/regional assistance, whether with transportation, health care, or finances, in preparation for the strike.

And when it begins:

⦿ No one goes to work

 ⦿ No one buys anything

 ⦿ No one pays any bills

If a wide-scale action like this could last at least a month, or even better two or three months, then I think we *might* have a chance of getting our demands met.

We’re at an inflection point, a moment of decision: either stay with capitalism and face disaster, or do whatever is necessary to bring about degrowth.

#Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateAction

Reasons To Hate Capitalism #167 - Capitalism kills, but its killers never go to jail #capitalism #anticapitalism

[thread] Brendan Carr

* lawyer
* served as member of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 2017+
* appointed by Trump
* authored chapter in Heritage Foundation's Project 2025
* Carr proposes "reining in Big Tech" as main goal for FCC
* Nov 2024 Trump selected Carr to lead FCC

#BrendanCarr #HeritageFoundation #Project2025 #FCC #NetNeutrality #censorship
#Trump2 #GOP #fascism #authoritarianism #disinformation #Christofascism
#capitalism #corporations #billionaires #libertarianism

More than 140 banks worldwide have "pledged" to cut emissions associated with their lending and investments to almost zero by 2050.

But meanwhile...
___________________________________

Less than a hundred miles from where world leaders are discussing how to meet their climate pledges, BP is drilling for gas. The project, a sprawling gas field off the Azerbaijani coast, could inject more than 1 billion metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere, striking a major blow to efforts to slow global warming.

BP has said it intends to invest heavily in new oil and gas fields in the coming years. But it would be unable to pursue these dirty projects without billions in support from big banks. Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, along with a number of other banks, all helped BP raise more than $5 billion last year.

Since May 2021, global banks committed to "Net-zero" have poured almost $1 trillion into companies pursuing expansion of oil and gas projects that would push the world beyond its survivable limits. Taken together, these projects would produce almost seven times the annual emissions of the U.S.
___________________________________

FULL STORY -- https://grist.org/accountability/net-zero-banks-raised-1-trillion-for-fossil-fuel-giants/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Economics #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

If you're a supporter of Business As Usual — and especially if you're an investor in oil and gas — there's good news! 🙄
_________________________________

One year after world leaders made a splashy promise to shift away from fossil fuels, countries are burning more oil, natural gas, and coal than ever before, researchers said this week.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are on track to reach a record 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024, a 0.8 percent increase over 2023 levels, according to new data from the Global Carbon Project.

It’s a trend that puts countries farther from their goal of stopping global warming.
_________________________________

FULL STORY -- https://archive.ph/4zcDX

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange
#Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

Musk, money and #misinformation fuelled the #USelection https://rabble.ca/columnists/musk-money-and-misinformation-fuelled-the-us-election/

#capitalism #democracy #media #usa #uspol

I see how it works. Allow #Israel to flatten #Gaza #Lebanon and parts of #Syria then profit on the rebuilding. Uh-huh. Isn’t #capitalism a wonder! From AL Monitor (Trump) “…chose his longtime friend and real estate investor Steve Witkoff as his special envoy to the Middle East. Trump praised the pro-Israel Jewish businessman, saying that he ‘will be an unrelenting voice for peace’ in the region. Given his experience in real estate and business background, Witkoff might be well-placed to help negotiate deals involving the US helping to rebuild cities in the region that have been devastated by war…” #IsraelHamasWar #IsraelWarCrimes

“There is “no sign” of the transition away from burning fossil fuels that was pledged by the world’s nations a year ago, with 2024 on track to set another new record for global carbon emissions.” As long as it makes the super rich even richer the world will burn! #ClimateCrisis #Capitalism

Albert Einstein (1949): "Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population. Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.

The situation prevailing in an economy based on the private ownership of capital is thus characterized by two main principles: first, means of production (capital) are privately owned and the owners dispose of them as they see fit; second, the labor contract is free. Of course, there is no such thing as a pure capitalist society in this sense. In particular, it should be noted that the workers, through long and bitter political struggles, have succeeded in securing a somewhat improved form of the “free labor contract” for certain categories of workers. But taken as a whole, the present day economy does not differ much from “pure” capitalism."

https://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism/

#Socialism #Capitalism #WageSlavery

https://substack.com/@simplicius76
Long subscribed to Simplicius, as I wish you to do as well.

“The real truth always looks implausible.”
F.M. Dostoyevsky

#politics #Russia #ukraine #US #britain #deepstate #capitalism #NATO #europe #vassalage and other.

It’s obvious that a second Trump administration will be worse in almost every conceivable way from what a Harris administration might have been.

But let's not fool ourselves into believing that a Harris victory would have been *good* for our climate and environment. We've been going in the wrong direction for at least 20 years under Presidents from both parties — and there's no reason to think that Kamala Harris would have charted a different course.

SEE ➡️ https://archive.ph/VnlWF

When it comes to our climate and environment, we can't blame either the Democrats or the Republicans. We have to blame both. We have to blame capitalism.

🧵 1/3

#Politics #History #Economics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

In the six years between 2016 and 2021, according to data published in the most recent Circularity Gap Report, the global economy consumed 582 billion tonnes of materials — nearly as much as the 740 billion consumed in the *entire* 20th century.

REPORT ➡️ https://www.circularity-gap.world/2024

That’s very bad! But I wonder, do you think the world has been doing better since 2021? 🤔

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that global consumption has NOT declined during the past three years. In fact, the level almost certainly has increased. But let’s just say it has remained steady.

If that’s true, it means another three years of the world annually consuming ~97 billion tonnes of materials. So the total over the past nine years is now at least 873 billion tonnes — or about 18% MORE than all the materials consumed in the entire 20th century!

Driven by capitalism’s incessant demand for profits at any cost, we are consuming ourselves to death. But who cares about that? As long as billionaires keep getting richer, that’s all that matters, right?

Business As Usual must go on.

#History #Economics #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

"The satisfaction of Tetler’s book does not then rest on its reconstruction of the importance of ‘not-capital’ to Marx’s mature theory (although that is certainly still there). Instead, it rests upon an ingenious structure in which, through the lens of ‘not-capital’, Tetler addresses the ‘blind spots’ within one theorist’s position by drawing upon the position of the theorist who follows (138). What results is not quite a value theory battle royale, so much as an intricate dialectical progression, which takes us from Roman Rosdolsky, Mario Tronti and Toni Negri (chapter two), to Chris Arthur (chapter three), Moishe Postone, Wertkritik and John Holloway (chapter four), before eventually arriving at a ‘critique of capitalist society’, which comprises a Postonian ‘critique of labour’, an ‘open Marxist’ conception of ‘capital as class struggle’, and a Neue Marx-Lektüre inspired ‘monetary theory of value’ (chapter five). What makes Tetler’s arrival at this composite position satisfying, however, isn’t simply that our route is so skilfully crafted. Rather, it’s that – in a Marxist field oversaturated with hackneyed labels, slogans and -isms, in which movements and schools might be readily dismissed or adopted with little care, attention, or, most frustratingly, justification – the dexterity and deliberation that Marx’s Not-Capital demonstrates is so unusual."

https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/21758_marxs-not-capital-labour-and-the-contemporary-critique-of-political-economy-by-benjamin-tetler-reviewed-by-will-berrington/

#Marx #CriticalTheory #Capital #Labour #Capitalism

(2/2) Washington Post reference for my claim about the #Jan6 disrupters above the fold.

"A majority of the people arrested for Capitol riot had a history of financial trouble

Trail of bankruptcies, tax problems and bad debts raises questions for researchers trying to understand motivations for attack"

No paywall https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/02/10/capitol-insurrectionists-jenna-ryan-financial-problems/ #Capitalism #GameOver

(1/2) This describes 99% of #Jan6 'insurrectionaries' the #ProgLibs 'left' insisted on ridiculing, disenfranchising.; Calling the fucking be I on. They are NOT Left or friends of it

"America is now at the stage of the game of Monopoly where it's obvious who has won because they own everything, but you have to keep going round and round the board while they drain the last of your money from you.

This is the point where some people choose to flip the board.' -@draftexcluder #Capitalism #GameOver

The United Nations — founded by and controlled by the world’s most powerful capitalist countries — will NOT save us from climate and environmental collapse.

All we’ll ever get from them and our so-called leaders is a lot more “blah, blah, blah.” Words, not actions.

What our biosphere will get is more chemicals poisoning the land and sea, more plastic waste, more cars, more roads, more forests chopped down, and more droughts...
_________________________________

The Amazon Basin is responsible for around 15% of all fresh water discharged into the oceans and 13% of the planet’s biodiversity. But the rivers in the world’s largest tropical rainforest are drying up. Their waters have dropped to record lows this year.

This is all happening, scientists warn, at a point when the biome has lost 18% of its forest cover, reducing its capacity to absorb and store carbon. The Amazon is now approaching the point of no return, while global temperatures are set to break the annual heat record for the second consecutive year.
_________________________________

FULL STORY -- https://sumauma.com/en/infografico-o-terrivel-ressecamento-da-amazonia/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

What do you think happens when a UN climate conference is hosted by a petrostate — a country like Azerbaijan whose economy relies heavily on oil and gas?

Turning over a new leaf? Acknowledging it’s time for capitalism to end? Mea culpa?

Ha-ha, no.
_________________________________

A senior official at the COP29 climate change conference in Azerbaijan appears to have used his role to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals.

A secret recording shows the chief executive of Azerbaijan's COP29 team, Elnur Soltanov, discussing "investment opportunities" in the state oil and gas company with a man posing as a potential investor.

"We have a lot of gas fields that are to be developed," says Soltanov.

As well as being chief executive of COP29, Soltanov is also the deputy energy minister of Azerbaijan and is on the board of Socar, Azerbaijan's state energy firm.
_________________________________

FULL STORY -- https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crmzvdn9e18o
SEE ALSO -- https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/fossil-gas/cop-is-for-oil-deals/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #COP29

..pt 3

#mastodon servers with their #500characterlimit is reproducing the corporate model of restricting communication and reducing it to 1 liner impression statements that would never threaten the establishment or lead to grassroots organizing

and server masters are wannabe twitter/X executives for imposing such a rule, while allowing huge corporate media a/v material

#Capitalism is accelerating #Extinction

@sidereal @dirtwizard666

The usa will #vote for who will give the murderers the weapons of death tomorrow.

Either way #Palestine will pay the price. #genocide apparently matters less than the cost of groceries.

Libs will sleep well if their queen #kamala is elected. Brown babies should have known better.

#warpigs one and all. Fuck the usa, the dept of war, the dems and republicans, the #billionaires, all of it.

#freepalestine #notanotherbomb #capitalism #politics #israel #votingdoesntchangeanything

Below is an excerpt from an absurdly hopeful article about plans for developing “green concrete” to keep up with the AI-driven data center building boom.
_________________________________

The United States is home to more than 5,000 data centers today, and the Department of Commerce forecasts that number to grow by around 450 a year through 2030.

Concrete is a major ingredient in data center construction — and is also a major contributor to climate change, accounting for around 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Data centers use so much concrete that the AI building boom is wrecking tech giants’ commitments to eliminate their carbon emissions.

Last year, Microsoft’s carbon emissions jumped by over 30%, primarily due to the materials in its new data centers. Google’s greenhouse emissions are up by nearly 50% over the past five years. As data centers proliferate worldwide, Morgan Stanley projects that data centers will release about 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 each year by 2030 — or about 40% of what the United States currently emits from all sources.
_________________________________

In a masterpiece of greenwashing, the article tries to put a happy face on everything, with section headings like these:

😃 “1,000 Companies Working on Green Concrete”

😃 “Better Cement Through Chemistry”

😃 “Software Takes on the Hard Problem of Concrete”

😃 “Cement Plants That Capture Carbon”

😃 “A Sustainable Foundation for the Information Age”

And somehow, oblivious to the crazy irony, this article actually touts AI itself as part of the solution!! 🤦‍♂️

➡️ https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-concrete

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Greenwashing

Why are we making products that last 3-5 years when we could be making products that last 30-50 years?

You know why. And I hope you know what it means, too.

#capitalism #politics #climatecrisis

Over 20 years ago I wrote a book where I argued new information technologies might bring about a quantitive change (things done quicker) but changed little qualitatively about society; the new information economy was still capitalism.

Little (apart from relatively marginal things like Mastodon) has changed that argument.

Despite the promises of the internet utopians, we live in an information capitalism that often feels like a C19th economic system....

#technology #capitalism #economics

It is frankly absurd that people's food is grown thousands of miles away and transported across the world to various locations. Such a method of production, done only to swell corporate coffers, is quite obviously prey to interruption, if not destruction, by all kinds of foreseeable disasters.

But if the world is arranged to benefit corporations then those who allow this will always end up paying the price when it all goes to shit.

#capitalism #climatechange

Capitalist civilization is inherently unstable, out of balance with its environment and will inevitably collapse. People who danced around in forest glades by moonlight thousands of years ago knew the truth of this and yet we do not.

We are not the inevitable progress of the human race but we might be the final examples of it. And we shall deserve to be for our ignorance and arrogance.

#environment #climate #capitalism #politics #anarchy

#mentalillness #mentalhealth #UBI #NoBillionaires #livingwage #wagetheft #capitalism

They are the worst, scariest monsters you can possibly imagine. And they’re real.

#Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #JustStopOil

"Democracy Dies in Darkness"

—Motto of the post-American newspaper, "The Washington Post," which is owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Dies_in_Darkness

#maga #capitalism #washingtonpost #1932

When on the internet, all I want to do is read text, see images, and watch videos. That tech existed 20 years ago. All commercial #webdevelopment since then has intentionally had the goal of making that harder. It has accomplished little else other than providing the ability to order things.

#Capitalism did not create the internet (c.f. ARPANET) and it is seemingly incapable of improving it. I'm not sure how it got to be in charge.

Humans, rise

#opensource #linux #fediverse

In rural #Massachusetts are such unmanned kiosks. No one is watching. There are just goods for sale and a money pot to make change. For a brief moment, you get the feeling that you're no longer living in the future.

I very, very much prefer this reality; I'm exhausted.

#capitalism #NewEngland

Brummet contrasts the US government’s response to the hurricane relief efforts in places like Cuba, in particular, which although is often in the direct path of hurricanes, it historically has had very few hurricane related deaths.

The day before Hurricane Ian hit Cuba in 2022, 50,000 people were evacuated and taken to 55 shelters. By October 1, less than five days after Hurricane Ian’s landfall, 82% of the residents of Havana had their power restored. In contrast, over 100 people died in Florida as a result of the same hurricane, with many blaming delayed evacuation efforts.

Cuba has “drastically lower rates of deaths from hurricanes than we do here in Florida,” says Brummet. “And then when the storm has passed, it’s a priority for the government that everyone’s home is given attention, is repaired.”

In the US, “this is not even imaginable,” Brummet claims. “People are often permanently displaced because their homes are destroyed and they aren’t given the resources to repair them. With all the wealth that we have in the United States, we could prioritize making sure that our communities are safe from storms, that people are evacuated, and that where a storm does hit, that people’s needs are met and they can have their homes rebuilt and their lives can continue.”

#compare #hurricanes #USA #capitalism #Cuba #socialism #government #humanism

#UN #wealth #humanity #capitalism #imperialism #oligarchy #finance #debt #money #power #blackrock #vanguard #deepstate #banksters #poverty

“A few years ago when they were coming in en masse, we had to let family units in. People kept coming in and after a while we noticed the kids were the same, but the parents were different. They were recycling the kids,” one Border Patrol source told The Post.

“I hate thinking about it because there were thousands of kids and who knows where they all ended up,” the source explained.

Authorities say it’s not clear what is happening to the children once they are smuggled into the US — but many are vulnerable to being exploited for child labor and child sex trafficking.

#USA #US #american #migrants #slavery #children #trafficking #capitalism