HAPPY MARX'S BIRTHDAY!

THE BIG NEWS ON ALTERNET THESE DAYS...

Is Antonia Juhasz' new book, in which she discusses how "the Bush administration has implemented a particularly radical model of corporate globalization by which it has teamed overt military might -- full-scale invasion -- with the advancement of its corporate globalization agenda." It's important that the Bush administration be discussed as an epiphenomenon of recent trends in corporate globalization.

THE ONLY WAY THEY'LL MAKE POT LEGAL

... is if capitalism really starts to die... see, keeping pot illegal is about CAPITALIST DISCIPLINE... that's why the corporations drug-test... if pot were legal, the corporate elites fear, you wouldn't be happy with your life as a robot working for Burger King...

(yeah, they were talking about this at a party...)

TODAY'S LITERARY THOUGHT

'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

JUAN COLE'S BLOG AND GASOLINE PRICES

Nearly $50 last night filling up the tank at the local Citgo... a new record... price/gal. $3.48.9... In other news, Juan Cole's blog has a new entry on gas prices... pretty informative tho' inconclusive...

GREENHOUSE GASES SHOWED STEADY RISE IN 2005

and that was the year when Kyoto became "law" for a hundred or so nations! See here...

I really have no sympathy for the procapitalist "Left" which thinks that regulating the existing system is going to amount to much against global warming...their "carbon credits" scheme has collapsed, probably because, as is suspected, "...EU governments, of which at least 15 are on track to exceed their eventual Kyoto targets, are being too generous in awarding permits to their industries rather than the latter being unexpectedly successful in cutting pollution." If you want to change social habits, you have to restructure society, not just regulate polluters through some half-baked "credit" scheme.

WHAT, ME WORRY?

AFTER MORE THAN THREE YEARS OF COMBAT AND NEARLY 2,400 US MILITARY DEATHS

in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map, a study released Tuesday showed.

When I was at Ohio State I remember reading that there were two types of undergraduate -- those in the middle class, who were there to party, and those working their way up from poverty, who were elated to be there and who would do everything the teaching associates and professors wanted them to do. It looks from the results of this poll that the middle class is still there to party.

DISTRICT PROVIDES HOLIDAY TO SAVE ON GAS MONEY

see here... this will be occurring more and more as gas prices go up and up, and students will be happier and happier...

perhaps we will see a final defeat for the old mythology that presumes that people (i.e. the working class) will learn nothing without coercive schooling...

BIODIVERSITY LOSS ACCELERATING

Read here, especially where the article concludes: "'Reversing this trend is possible, as numerous conservation success stories have proven,'" Steiner said.

This is perhaps true for a little while, on a local level, in places where the resource-developers have somewhere else to go. But when you have a global society that runs on a paradigm in which the world is merely a collection of "natural resources" and in which the duty of each individual is to "compete" to use them up, then environmentalism is dead. (Hint: change the paradigm through revolutionary action!)

Same story in the BBC... and here is an article in Gristmill to explain why it's important.

HERE COMES THE FLOOD?

Dollar starts the big slide against major currencies... Keith from Housing Panic is of course panicking... remember, this was supposed to be the force that got the US out of Iraq... It's not as if Russ Feingold's arguments against the war are going to accomplish this withdrawal, as Congress is now merely a proxy for a transnational capitalist class that has chosen to downgrade the US as an asset anyway... Russ said, "More important, though, is the fact that our current Iraq policy is making the United States weaker, not stronger." Like they care! And the "peace movement" is sold out to the Democrats. So we are left with currency crash as the force ending the war.

As for the home front, currency decline will further raise prices on America's most necessary import, oil...

TODAY'S PROTEST WILL BE AN EXAMPLE FOR PROTESTS TO COME

Here's a possible example:

June 6, 2006

A Day Without Elites

maintain poverty -- reinforce debt slavery -- fight endless war at taxpayer expense -- hoard the wealth for ourselves -- keep world-society consuming 85 million barrels of oil every day -- accelerate the destruction of ecosystems -- intensify global warming

MARCH AND PROTEST

On June 6, 2006, commemorating a special number all Skull and Bones members are proud of, all CEOs of major corporations, billionaires, leading politicians, war profiteers, major figures in the consent media industry, bankers, members of the Trilateral Commission, and currency speculators will "take the day off," and go on protest marches through working-class neighborhoods in major cities chanting "We want your labor" and "neoliberalism forever"... Fortune 500 corporations will be shut down for the day, and there will be a total boycott by the elites placed upon small producers. There will be major protests in New York City, culminating in a rally at Wall Street, in Davos, Switzerland, culminating in an impromptu meeting of the World Economic Forum, and in Monte Rio, California, culminating in a men-only rally at the Bohemian Grove campground.

NOW WHO SAYS THE ELITES AREN'T UNITED?

thanks to Gregory for passing this on: Bush challenges hundreds of laws...

now it should be obvious at this point that if Congress had any respect for its own laws it would at least threaten to impeach the President if he broke any of those laws... the question at hand, however, is whether anyone even cares for appearances anymore, or is it enough just to have the class position necessary for the attainment of political office... After all, laws only mean something for what famous slumlord Leona Helmsley called the "little people"...

and if you want to go to May Day, please consult Polizeros...

CUBA, BOLIVIA, VENEZUELA SIGN TRADE AGREEMENT

See here... this is of course not ecosocialism, which I imagine will have to wait until the world is in a further state of degradation... but it does indicate a world in increasing disarray...