The Largest Minority

October 24th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

“You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches, and say you’re making progress.”
– Malcolm X

Another Election Day approaches and I’m reminded of something the late Pakistani dissident, Eqbal Ahmad said about Noam Chomsky in the book, Confronting Empire (2000): “He (Chomsky) has never wavered. He has never fallen into the trap of saying, ‘Clinton will do better.’ Or ‘Nixon was bad but Carter at least had a human rights presidency.’ There is a consistency of substance, of posture, of outlook in his work.”

But along came 2004…when Chomsky said stuff like this: “Anyone who says ‘I don’t care if Bush gets elected’ is basically telling poor and working people in the country, ‘I don’t care if your lives are destroyed’.” And like this: “Despite the limited differences [between Bush and Kerry] both domestically and internationally, there are differences. In a system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes.”

Standing alongside Chomsky was Howard Zinn, saying stuff like this: “Kerry, if he will stop being cautious, can create an excitement that will carry him into the White House and, more important, change the course of the nation.”

Fast forward to 2008 and Chomsky sez: “I would suggest voting against McCain, which means voting for Obama without illusions.” And once again, Howard Zinn is in agreement: “Even though Obama does not represent any fundamental change, he creates an opening for a possibility of change.” (Two word rejoinder: Bill Clinton)

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October 8th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

I hardly write about my daily life here, but I’d like to share something that happened last night as I was out for a midnight bike ride. By the way, night riding is quite enjoyable and I encourage everyone who doesn’t live in Torrance, CA to try it. Not only does the underfunded local roadway have more nooks and crannies than an English muffin, but the police are constantly on the prowl for murderous bike riding gang members, apparently.

As some of you may know from at least one previous post, I’ve developed a habit of getting stopped by the police about every other week while out on my bike. Unfortunately, this continued harassment is a quasi-curfew imposed on young males which I’ve grown used to.

So during the usual Q&A with the police, it finally hit me how scripted the whole interaction is. There are 5 questions they always ask me and they ALWAYS come along in the following order: What are you doing out? Where do you live? Ever been to prison? You on probation? And finally, Got any dope or weapons on you? Then they leave.

The last question is almost thrown in there for comic relief and the cops usually say it in an almost teasing manner. You can never really tell when a cop is joking, but since all the officers who’ve asked me that question actually wait for me to give a respectful response before they agree to leave me alone, I’m inclined to think that it’s at least half-serious. What are they thinking? “Well, I didn’t get him on the previous questions, but maybe I’ll get him on this one!” Who the hell answers, “Yes”?

It seems like the ultimate exercise in futility - like in the movies when all your bullets bounce off Superman, so in desperation you throw your gun at him (not that I’m comparing myself to Superman, but I have been known to change costumes in telephone booths). You’ve already given up and this is your last ditch effort before you say goodbye. You know it and I know it. No one would ever say yes. Let’s drop the pretense.

Still, there must be some percentage of people who do answer: “yes, I do indeed have weapons and drugs on me officer” or they’d stop asking everyone this absurd question. Right? Anyway, the whole scripted affair and pointless line of questioning, where officer and suspect are simply going through the motions, left me a bit irritated with the charade of the system. Then I remembered I had recorded the presidential debates so I sped home to watch them.

October 6th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

This is the Pathfinder column from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil is the super-fuel. Nothing else does all the things oil does, from heating, fuel, plastics, food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and clothing. It has the highest energy conversion rate of any fuel and it constitutes 40 percent of global traded energy and 90 percent of transport (Financial Times, 4 January, 2004). But aside from its contribution to global warming, it’s also running out.

Or so we are told. Despite the record rise of oil recently, this is mainly speculator-driven and not due to any real shortage of oil. What is running out is cheap oil. In fact the world has only used 15 per cent of known reserves, with at least another 20 per cent recoverable by today’s technology (BBC Online, 21 April 21, 2004). Though pundits talk about hitting peak oil, estimates for this turning point range from already to as far away as 2050. As supply diminishes and prices rise, more expensive options like the Canadian and Venezuelan tar sands, with capacities rivaling Saudi Arabia, will become profitable to extract. But the rise in costs will be mirrored by a rise in the price of everything dependent on oil, and for the world’s poorest billion people, this could be a sentence of death by starvation, with a likely proliferation of food rioting, instability in liberal democracies and an upsurge in the ruling class’s faithful stand-by, fascist repression. Meanwhile, as the stakes rise, so do the international tensions. Oil is already determining many countries’ domestic and foreign policy, and few people doubt its role in recent wars. Governments are increasingly jumpy. Oil production plants, and bottleneck sea-lanes, are particularly susceptible to guerrilla attack, and with no in-house reserves Europe or America could be reduced to chaos in weeks (New Scientist, 28 June). Worse still, the ruling elites’ increasing inability to keep their oil-starved military up to scratch may make wars more likely rather than less, as weakened capability could provoke opportunistic pre-emptive attacks by rivals.

Socialism faces a rather different problem. It is predicated on communal sharing and participation, which in turn rely on the fact of material sufficiency. Should anything threaten this sufficiency, the basis of socialism itself would be threatened. Today, for example, over 50 percent of world rural populations have no access to electricity (UNDP World Energy Assessment, 2000). Though not a problem to capitalism, which doesn’t care about non-effective, i.e. non-paying demand (for more on this see page 19, this will be of the first importance in socialism. Even allowing for waste reduction in the west, that electricity must be found.

There is no single alternative to oil, so a suite of alternatives will have to be employed. Of the non-renewables, gas won’t last much longer than oil, and coal, the chief source of electricity globally, though there is up to 250 years worth at present usage, is dirty stuff to burn. Carbon capture technology may mitigate this, but is at an early stage.

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October 2nd, 2008 by Manila Ryce

Obama and McCain both voted to fuck us over with this latest attempt to protect the rich (as if FISA wasn’t enough), but that’s not what’s really surprising given the record and policies of these criminals. What is surprising is that Dennis Kucinich still cares about the common worker but insists on calling himself a Democrat.

Anytime an armchair political expert argues that Nader would be more effective as a Democrat I point to Dennis Kucinich, that scrappy little leftist who’s consistently silenced and neutered by his own party. Time to lose those shackles brother and enact some real change. Drop your support for that corporate shill we all know you hate, stop taking orders from Pelosi, and join your counterpart below. You know you want to Dennis. Walk into the light already.

September 15th, 2008 by evmonk

This short doc I produced was selected for air by Current TV and premiered on the network over the weekend.

Politicians have promised universal health care for generations, but more Americans than ever before remain uninsured and in constant fear for their health. Millions of the uninsured are young college grads like Justine and her boyfriend Brian, who are caught off guard when a serious illness strikes. The Ithaca Health Alliance runs a free clinic in Ithaca, NY to care for those whom the health insurance system has left behind.

We started working on this piece about Justine, Brian and the Ithaca Health Alliance almost a year ago, and it was the first documentary project I ever worked on despite airing after some others. Many of the rough edges and growing pains - which almost derailed the project on a couple occasions - are evident, and Current’s highly-edited and sentimental version leaves out a lot of the more compelling research and interviews we did for the piece. But hopefully it succeeds in shedding a tiny bit of light on the heart-breaking problem of health care in this country.

September 8th, 2008 by Manila Ryce

The one thing that fascist administrations, both in the US and Colombia, still shouldn’t do is piss off the courts. The judiciary could give a fuck about the rest of us, but lay a finger on their power or salary and even a largely unchecked executive is bound to run into some confrontation.

Two Colombian courts have issued orders against right-wing terrorist President Alvaro Uribe and several government ministers and officials to be jailed for three days for failing to enforce a legal ruling that raised the wages of nearly 150 judicial employees. Around 30,000 officials are now on strike to demand higher wages. The ruling came after the staff had made a court appeal, arguing that the deadline for the president and government to act passed in February.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has overturned Uribe’s three-day prison sentence, ruling the regional court does not have jurisdiction over the chief executive. The court determined that the president can only be investigated by Congress and sanctioned by the Senate under the constitution.

This is merely one of the most recent clashes between the executive and judiciary branch. Judicial investigations into the involvement of paramilitary leaders with Uribe’s allies in Congress have led to constant intimidation of the judicial branch by President Uribe himself. The presidents of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Council, the Constitutional Court and the State Council met a UN delegate late last week to denounce what they have called “the threat to judicial independence” and “attacks of the executive branch”.

source

September 1st, 2008 by D.C.

I have been following the Georgian conflict, as I am sure many of you have, and aside from the actual physical conflict there has been little attention paid to the cyberattacks that occurred prior to the Russian invasion. Tech analysts have stated that it does not appear to be sponsored by the Russian government even though it originated from somewhere in Russia. It has been pegged as an amateur attack because if Russia had wanted to stop the Georgian government from communicating they would have attacked their radio and television broadcasting capability. Instead, only websites were targeted which makes experts believe the attacks were carried out by ‘paramilitary or militia-like organizations.’

While it is unsure whether this attack was sponsored by Russia or was done by independent entities, the fear of far more sophisticated cyberattacks has been heightened. In a recent Reuters article The U.S. Air Force General, Gene Renuart, asked what kind of cyberattack would lead to war:

“Is it degree? If you affect so many millions of people or so many millions of dollars or so many organizations, does that constitute a legal act of war?”

Renuart poses a very interesting question that high-tech countries such as the United States and Canada have to consider. Since most necessities are ran on computer systems, such as power grids, banking systems, air traffic and telecommunications (I have to use Live Free or Die Hard as an example here). But, what would constitute an act of cyber-war? It is not an easy question to answer because it can often be very hard to pinpoint where the attack is originating. An attacker could make it appear that a cyberattack was occurring within one country but actually coming from a totally different one.

Aside from pinpointing the attackers, Renuart’s original question is also noteworthy. What amount of damage would be designated as enough to go to war over? It is not an easy question to answer, and if warfare is soon to take to the cyber-battlefield rather than the physical battlefield, it would be important to specify the ‘acts of war.’ At this point it seems that we are still unsure of how to approach this new type of cyber-warfare, and so I think more attention needs to be paid to cyberattacks such as the one on Georgia.  What would be the minimum damage from a cyberattack that you think a country should go to war over?

Source

August 22nd, 2008 by Manila Ryce

This is a pretty significant societal marker. Now gay couples can join the rest of us in expressing their love with store-bought, commoditized affection

Hallmark added the cards after California joined Massachusetts as the only U.S. states with legal gay marriage. A handful of other states have recognized same-sex civil unions.

The language inside the cards is neutral, with no mention of wedding or marriage, making them also suitable for a commitment ceremony. Hallmark says the move is a response to consumer demand, not any political pressure.

“It’s our goal to be as relevant as possible to as many people as we can,” Hallmark spokeswoman Sarah Gronberg Kolell said.

Hallmark’s largest competitor, American Greetings Corp., has no plans to enter the market, saying its current offerings are general enough to speak to a lot of different relationships.

Hallmark started offering “coming out” cards last year, and the four designs of same-sex marriage cards are being gradually released this summer and will be widely available by next year. No sales figures were available yet.

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