The New Resistance: UK Style
The New Resistance: Argentina Style
Referred to as occupied or recuperated factories, worker-run factories, grass-roots cooperatives, factories under worker control, self-organized and self-managed factories or democratic workplaces, the recovered factories of Argentina are a concrete economic alternative to corporate capitalism. Read More.
Haiti: History teaches us that the trail of imperialism can be overcome from within
An Interview with Jean-Bertrand Aristide by Peter Hallward
Popular Liberation Without Being Led
'The emergence of the people as an organised public force... It was a grass-roots movement, not a top-down project driven by a single leader or a single organisation.'
This interview explains how the people of Haiti liberated themselves whilst confronted with enormous constraints.
A Giant step for Humankind: Made in Haiti
Find out more about Toussaint L'Ouverture -The Haitian Spartacus
Find out more about Jean Jacques Dessalines
'The emergence of the people as an organised public force... It was a grass-roots movement, not a top-down project driven by a single leader or a single organisation.'
This interview explains how the people of Haiti liberated themselves whilst confronted with enormous constraints.
A Giant step for Humankind: Made in Haiti
Find out more about Toussaint L'Ouverture -The Haitian Spartacus
Find out more about Jean Jacques Dessalines
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The $17 Billion Debt: Why France and USA Must Pay
Were it not for slavery and ruthless imperial exploitation, modern Europe and the United States - and global capitalism, itself - would not have existed. In that sense, all of the developed nations are fundamentally indebted to the formerly colonized world. But Haiti's bill includes a very explicit $17 billion directly extorted by France (and the U.S.). Read More...
The Wonderful World of Corporate Disney
To underscore this essential Disney law, narrative resolution in each film defends and reinforces the status quo. Nothing is resolved until the preferred social order is in place. No one lives happily ever after until the chosen one rules... In contrast, villains–who almost exclusively exhibit antisocial behavior and violence–suffer calamity or death: Elites are attractive, benevolent, good, and successful; villains are misshapen, treacherous, evil, and cannot win. The rest of the Disney world is undifferentiated, passive, dependent on elite gratuity, and largely irrelevant except as narrative fodder. Read more.
As a child growing up in the 1970’s Friday could be identified with a 2D fireworks display that preceded an hour of a ‘wonderful world’ that called itself Disney. It had a certain charm and entertainment value that served to reflect the celebration that school pupils and employees alike shared, and still do. A celebration, no matter how short lived that embraces the autonomy from the oppressive nature of the master and servant. A feel good story to compensate for the previous five days. As John Lydon once possibly overstated “…so when you leave school, your only future is getting married. And by the time you're about 29 you got two kids, and you just wanna commit suicide.” Bleak, but for many a reflection of reality and for many more, even bleaker. The Myth of Sisyphus, as Camus proclaims, reflects the absurdity of many a life. Disney, in particular, is directly responsible for both the economic and cultural absurdity that shapes the repetition of life and its monotony. By proposing themselves as a cultural deity they also condemn many to an existence of subjugation.
They are of course not alone and the exclusive hegemonic club to which they belong is much more powerful as a consequence. This group takes advantage of the debt and dependency of many a countries population by constructing a division and thus a disunited mass. Disney, however, fulfils a very manipulative role as it provides the ‘feel good’ to those who it shares the responsibility for emasculating. It does this by taking advantage of the divisive nature of each society. The slavish reality of conforming to a corporate hierarchical existence in which the lucky ones have a two day rest before returning to their privately controlled rat runs. Then five days follow of doing what they are told to enable a minute group to maximise their profits. There is no need to read Marx to experience this but it helps to understand it.
In ‘Hard Work: Life on Low Pay’ by Polly Toynbee the description above is a relative luxury compared to the ‘hidden workers’ who endure two shifts a day or hold down two jobs to pay the rent and feed their kids. Walk around any railway station and look past the throngs of people dashing to their next train and observe those picking up the rubbish, clearing the tables in the feeding factories or cleaning away the remnants of bodily waste. Those who wake up almost every morning to the same nightmare that even alcohol and heroin would struggle to diminish. Attached to this nightmare is the instruction to smile, to be polite and obliging to what the postmodernists call ‘consumers’. As long as the customer is satisfied – everything is all right. De-humanisation and reductionism has become the passage of our species.
My eldest daughter reads in an article that the most expensive bottle of nail varnish is $130,000. It takes up to fifteen years for the hidden workers to earn a comparable amount whilst their slave masters wrap it up in tinsel and bury it in their wives and/or mistresses stockings. These hidden workers or ‘invisibles’ are at the bottom of the rung but no less important are the ‘aspirationals’. Those who believe, one day, they too will be able to coat their nails in gold. Why they believe it is though the true genius of the corporate club. Work harder; think only of number one, conform and play by the rules and higher income and status will follow. Break the rules and you only have yourself to blame. Their oppression is just as real. The only difference is that it is disguised by 3+ bedrooms, a couple of cars and a garden. They wear a suit and tie instead of rubber gloves and have a pension plan instead of an increasingly reduced state support system. They will die on average ten years later. They too are pawns in the corporate ‘crime’ and they will be the victims of greater hyperbole, of which Disney stands proud. Corporate hegemony at its most potent.
This artificial reality or ‘Disney world’ has the’ invisibles’ in their rubber gloves with the ‘aspirationals’ paying through the nose to ensure that the rubber gloves do not sit dormant. While Snow White chokes on a poison apple, the ‘aspirationals’ choke on the price of keeping up with their middle class expectations and the ‘invisibles’ are choked from cradle to grave. The thrill seeking rides are the measure of our human zoo. Queuing for hours for a two minute journey, usually at a high speed, and with a tendency for being sandwiched by gravity. In the background, just like at the railway station, the rubber gloves maintain their own momentum.
Disney, of course, no longer represents a highlight at the end of the working week. On multi-channel media it smothers like a lead blanket via ‘Movies’; ‘Kids’; ‘Entertainment’; Music; and many other satellite and cable options. Its domination of the US media puts it top of the pile, having deposed Time Warner, in terms of its influence and omnipotence. Western culture has absorbed it. Many work for it and many more are anaesthetised by it. I suggest that Disney’s role in ‘wonderful’ depends upon how economically or culturally dependent on them one is. For the ‘invisibles’ I very much doubt it. For the ‘aspirationals’ the nature of their age, gender and level of education will be crucial. For the corporate masters, absolutely. Corporate Disney and the exclusive club to which it belongs are the creators and reinforcers of global capitalism. Look closer next time – they are not all what they seem!
They are of course not alone and the exclusive hegemonic club to which they belong is much more powerful as a consequence. This group takes advantage of the debt and dependency of many a countries population by constructing a division and thus a disunited mass. Disney, however, fulfils a very manipulative role as it provides the ‘feel good’ to those who it shares the responsibility for emasculating. It does this by taking advantage of the divisive nature of each society. The slavish reality of conforming to a corporate hierarchical existence in which the lucky ones have a two day rest before returning to their privately controlled rat runs. Then five days follow of doing what they are told to enable a minute group to maximise their profits. There is no need to read Marx to experience this but it helps to understand it.
In ‘Hard Work: Life on Low Pay’ by Polly Toynbee the description above is a relative luxury compared to the ‘hidden workers’ who endure two shifts a day or hold down two jobs to pay the rent and feed their kids. Walk around any railway station and look past the throngs of people dashing to their next train and observe those picking up the rubbish, clearing the tables in the feeding factories or cleaning away the remnants of bodily waste. Those who wake up almost every morning to the same nightmare that even alcohol and heroin would struggle to diminish. Attached to this nightmare is the instruction to smile, to be polite and obliging to what the postmodernists call ‘consumers’. As long as the customer is satisfied – everything is all right. De-humanisation and reductionism has become the passage of our species.
My eldest daughter reads in an article that the most expensive bottle of nail varnish is $130,000. It takes up to fifteen years for the hidden workers to earn a comparable amount whilst their slave masters wrap it up in tinsel and bury it in their wives and/or mistresses stockings. These hidden workers or ‘invisibles’ are at the bottom of the rung but no less important are the ‘aspirationals’. Those who believe, one day, they too will be able to coat their nails in gold. Why they believe it is though the true genius of the corporate club. Work harder; think only of number one, conform and play by the rules and higher income and status will follow. Break the rules and you only have yourself to blame. Their oppression is just as real. The only difference is that it is disguised by 3+ bedrooms, a couple of cars and a garden. They wear a suit and tie instead of rubber gloves and have a pension plan instead of an increasingly reduced state support system. They will die on average ten years later. They too are pawns in the corporate ‘crime’ and they will be the victims of greater hyperbole, of which Disney stands proud. Corporate hegemony at its most potent.
This artificial reality or ‘Disney world’ has the’ invisibles’ in their rubber gloves with the ‘aspirationals’ paying through the nose to ensure that the rubber gloves do not sit dormant. While Snow White chokes on a poison apple, the ‘aspirationals’ choke on the price of keeping up with their middle class expectations and the ‘invisibles’ are choked from cradle to grave. The thrill seeking rides are the measure of our human zoo. Queuing for hours for a two minute journey, usually at a high speed, and with a tendency for being sandwiched by gravity. In the background, just like at the railway station, the rubber gloves maintain their own momentum.
Disney, of course, no longer represents a highlight at the end of the working week. On multi-channel media it smothers like a lead blanket via ‘Movies’; ‘Kids’; ‘Entertainment’; Music; and many other satellite and cable options. Its domination of the US media puts it top of the pile, having deposed Time Warner, in terms of its influence and omnipotence. Western culture has absorbed it. Many work for it and many more are anaesthetised by it. I suggest that Disney’s role in ‘wonderful’ depends upon how economically or culturally dependent on them one is. For the ‘invisibles’ I very much doubt it. For the ‘aspirationals’ the nature of their age, gender and level of education will be crucial. For the corporate masters, absolutely. Corporate Disney and the exclusive club to which it belongs are the creators and reinforcers of global capitalism. Look closer next time – they are not all what they seem!
The Inspirational Abolitionist
History, is too often written by the oppressors for the oppressed. Thomas Clarkson's role in the abolition of slavery in Britain has been overlooked and usurped by the William Wilberforce lobby. Clarkson's essay played a major part in influencing Wilberforce and others to take up the anti slavery cause and yet the Tory politician got his name in the history books. This essay is a crucial and profound part of Britain's past and yet virtually no one knows that it exists. Our intention is to put this right. Please find An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species [1786].
Robin Blackburn interview: What really ended slavery?
Why did Britain abolish slavery?
Robin Blackburn interview: What really ended slavery?
Why did Britain abolish slavery?
Still a War To Win
The idea that the world has rid itself of slavery is at best delusional. The evidence is everywhere but is most acute in Africa; Asia and Latin America. Western governments and media largely ignore it or deny it but the evidence is damning. A liberationist and emancipatory agenda must confront it's existance head on and unite globally if people are truly to be free.
Following on from his expose of Dubai (see below), Johann Hari explores the Foxconn factory in Shenzen, Southern China and reveals Capitalisms totalitarianism and its associated crimes. CLICK We'll never know the names of all the people who paid with their limbs, their lungs or their lives for the goodies in my home and yours.
Following on from his expose of Dubai (see below), Johann Hari explores the Foxconn factory in Shenzen, Southern China and reveals Capitalisms totalitarianism and its associated crimes. CLICK We'll never know the names of all the people who paid with their limbs, their lungs or their lives for the goodies in my home and yours.
Chinese Overworkers Dying for Western Technology Consumers
The Dylan Ratigan Show
THE PROBLEMS OF EMPIRE
John Pilger: “Resisting the Empire”: Documentary Filmmaker John Pilger on Struggles for Freedom in Israel-Palestine, Diego Garcia, Latin America and South Africa.
The renowned investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger has spent the better part of his life documenting American empire and the resistance it has met. Pilger has made over fifty documentaries and is the author, most recently, of "Freedom Next Time: Resisting the Empire," which looks at ongoing struggles in Afghanistan, Diego Garcia, India, Palestine, and South Africa. Pilger joins Democracy Now for the hour to play excerpts of his documentaries and speak of the struggles he has covered.
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Eduardo Galeano - Uruguayan Novelist and Journalist
Interview with Eduardo Galeano. Democracy Now spends the hour with one of Latin America’s most acclaimed writers, Eduardo Galeano. The Uruguayan novelist and journalist recently made headlines around the world when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave President Obama a copy of Galeano’s classic work, The Open Veins of Latin America. Eduardo Galeano’s latest book is Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone. We speak to Galeano about his reaction to the Chavez-Obama book exchange, media and politics in Latin America, his assessment of Obama, and more.
Depleted Uranium: A Gift to the Oppressed
American use of DU is "A crime against humanity which may, in the eyes of historians, rank with the worst atrocities of all time." US Iraq Military Vets "are on DU death row, waiting to die." . "I'm horrified. The people out there - the Iraqis, the media and the troops - risk the most appalling ill health. And the radiation from depleted uranium can travel literally anywhere. It's going to destroy the lives of thousands of children, all over the world. We all know how far radiation can travel. Radiation from Chernobyl reached Wales and in Britain you sometimes get red dust from the Sahara on your car."
The speaker is not some alarmist doomsayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world. Read More...
The speaker is not some alarmist doomsayer. He is Dr. Chris Busby, the British radiation expert, Fellow of the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Medicine and UK representative on the European Committee on Radiation Risk, talking about the best-kept secret of this war: the fact that by illegally using hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) against Iraq, Britain and America have gravely endangered not only the Iraqis but the whole world. Read More...
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The Dark Side of Dubai
Synthetic City Built by Slaves: Every evening, the hundreds of thousands of young men who build Dubai are bussed from their sites to a vast concrete wasteland an hour out of town, where they are quarantined away. Until a few years ago they were shuttled back and forth on cattle trucks, but the expats complained this was unsightly, so now they are shunted on small metal buses that function like greenhouses in the desert heat. They sweat like sponges being slowly wrung out.
Exploiting Human Beings...A Global Disease? Not too long ago, at one corner of the Lucky Gardens roundabout, a ship container was suddenly placed there. At about the same time, large pipes appeared in the roundabout itself indicating some work needed to be done there.
The container, it turned out, was meant to house workers. In full view of passing motorists, these foreign workers lived, ate and slept in this small container. They hung their clothes up to dry outside their little home and in the evenings, sat around the tiny triangular plot of land that bordered that roundabout chatting and relaxing. How they relaxed was a mystery since they were continually stared at by everyone passing by. The big question for me however was, where do they go to the bathroom? There were no visible waterbearing pipes, no signs of toilets nor power cables.
One night the entire cabin and its inhabitants disappeared. The neighbourhood must have complained. Whatever work they were supposed to have done was never even started.
It begged the question: who would do such a thing, house workers in a box with no amenities for decent human living. What sort of employer could be so inhumane? What made them move in the end?
It made me wonder what sorts of deprivations migrant workers everywhere are forced to endure and what could they do about it? Then I found this story below about Dubai which actually has more foreign workers than their own people. I don't know if we'll ever get to that situation but there have been predictions that there will be 5 million migrant workers in Malaysia by 2015. Large numbers of workers who have to suffer inhumane conditions will surely lead to restiveness. The only way to avoid that is to look at the experience of other countries and institute protective measures and better conditions for them now.(And of course ensure that our own workers also enjoyed good working conditions.)
My husband sat next to an Indonesian worker returning home on the plane once. When he asked him what was his experience working in Malaysia like, the man answered, shaking his head "Kejam banget, Pak, orang Malaysia."
Having seen that dismal cabin that served as housing for those workers, I am inclined to believe him.
Exploiting Human Beings...A Global Disease? Not too long ago, at one corner of the Lucky Gardens roundabout, a ship container was suddenly placed there. At about the same time, large pipes appeared in the roundabout itself indicating some work needed to be done there.
The container, it turned out, was meant to house workers. In full view of passing motorists, these foreign workers lived, ate and slept in this small container. They hung their clothes up to dry outside their little home and in the evenings, sat around the tiny triangular plot of land that bordered that roundabout chatting and relaxing. How they relaxed was a mystery since they were continually stared at by everyone passing by. The big question for me however was, where do they go to the bathroom? There were no visible waterbearing pipes, no signs of toilets nor power cables.
One night the entire cabin and its inhabitants disappeared. The neighbourhood must have complained. Whatever work they were supposed to have done was never even started.
It begged the question: who would do such a thing, house workers in a box with no amenities for decent human living. What sort of employer could be so inhumane? What made them move in the end?
It made me wonder what sorts of deprivations migrant workers everywhere are forced to endure and what could they do about it? Then I found this story below about Dubai which actually has more foreign workers than their own people. I don't know if we'll ever get to that situation but there have been predictions that there will be 5 million migrant workers in Malaysia by 2015. Large numbers of workers who have to suffer inhumane conditions will surely lead to restiveness. The only way to avoid that is to look at the experience of other countries and institute protective measures and better conditions for them now.(And of course ensure that our own workers also enjoyed good working conditions.)
My husband sat next to an Indonesian worker returning home on the plane once. When he asked him what was his experience working in Malaysia like, the man answered, shaking his head "Kejam banget, Pak, orang Malaysia."
Having seen that dismal cabin that served as housing for those workers, I am inclined to believe him.
The Tarnac Nine
Who are the Tarnac Nine?
The Coming Insurrection: This book is signed in the name of an imaginary collective. Its editors are not its authors. They were content merely to introduce a little order into the common-places of our time, collecting some of the murmurings around barroom tables and behind closed bedroom doors. They’ve done nothing more than lay down a few necessary truths, whose universal repression fills psychiatric hospitals with patients, and eyes with pain. They’ve made themselves scribes of the situation. It’s the privileged feature of radical circumstances that a rigorous application of logic leads to revolution. It’s enough just to say what is before our eyes and not to shrink from the conclusions.
Interview with Julien Coupat. Julien Coupat, 42, was arrested by anti-terrorist police in November 2008 and his lengthy detention without charges being filed had become highly controversial. His arrest was part of a wider swoop on members of what Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie described as an “anarcho-autonomous” movement that had been under surveillance by domestic intelligence services for months beforehand. Coupat, the last of the 10 suspects arrested in November to remain in custody, has always said he was innocent but he is still under investigation for organised, terrorism-related destruction of property.
The Coming Insurrection: This book is signed in the name of an imaginary collective. Its editors are not its authors. They were content merely to introduce a little order into the common-places of our time, collecting some of the murmurings around barroom tables and behind closed bedroom doors. They’ve done nothing more than lay down a few necessary truths, whose universal repression fills psychiatric hospitals with patients, and eyes with pain. They’ve made themselves scribes of the situation. It’s the privileged feature of radical circumstances that a rigorous application of logic leads to revolution. It’s enough just to say what is before our eyes and not to shrink from the conclusions.
Interview with Julien Coupat. Julien Coupat, 42, was arrested by anti-terrorist police in November 2008 and his lengthy detention without charges being filed had become highly controversial. His arrest was part of a wider swoop on members of what Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie described as an “anarcho-autonomous” movement that had been under surveillance by domestic intelligence services for months beforehand. Coupat, the last of the 10 suspects arrested in November to remain in custody, has always said he was innocent but he is still under investigation for organised, terrorism-related destruction of property.