Apocalypse Now for Capitalism?

Capitalism in an apocalyptic mood

The current global financial crisis is symptomatic of a capitalist growth model driven by financial speculation that is disconnected from the stagnant real economy, argues Walden Bello.

An apocalyptic mood has seized the highest levels of global capital as the global financial system continues to implode. This implosion is but the latest financial crisis to wrack global capitalism. Financial crises are inevitable since capitalist growth has increasingly been driven by speculative bubbles such as the housing bubble in the United States. The increasingly uncontrolled financial gyrations stem from the increasing divergence between an expansive financial economy and a stagnant real economy. This "disconnect" stems from the persistent stagnationist trends in the real economy owing to overproduction or overcapacity. The search for profitability is capitalism's driving force, and increasingly, significant profits can only be obtained from financial speculation rather than investment in industry. This is, however, a volatile and unstable process since the divergence between momentary financial indicators like stock and real estate prices and real values can proceed only up to a point before reality bites back and enforces a "correction." The bursting of the US housing bubble is one such correction, and it is leading not only to a recession in the US but to a global downturn owing to the unprecedented level of integration fostered by corporate-led globalization. It will not be easy to restore dynamism by fostering another speculative bubble, for instance, by resorting to "military Keynesianism."...

Real Reasons for War: Major Media Speak Out

" ... highly revealing one-paragraph excerpts of key media articles on the nature of war today. These powerful articles expose the lies, false pretexts and real motivations behind war. ... "

wantoknow.info

UBUWEB

UbuWeb Vu: Kenneth Goldsmith

The very first book was a book of almost concrete poetry, and this is very interesting because this is where UbuWeb really begins. There is a couple in Florida that run something called the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive for Concrete and Visual Poetry based in Miami Beach. They began collecting Russian Constructivists. And when that market heated up and got too hot, they kind of followed the leads of typography from the Russian avant-garde into mid-century moves that were made in concrete poetry and visual poetry. They began collecting this stuff, really at a time when nobody was interested. And they amassed this enormous collection of perhaps fifty thousand pieces of concrete poetry, visual poetry, sound poetry, and text-based works.

As an artist who worked in language, they had bought a piece of mine and invited me down to install it in Miami. This is 1989. I had known about text art in the art world alla Lawrence Wiener, Jenny Holzer, this type of thing, but I had no idea there was this whole other world of poetry that was being used in a visual way. It was called concrete poetry and I knew nothing about it. So going down to meet them in Miami was an absolute eye-opener for me. I was astonished, there was a whole world of visual word-based work I had never known before, and I subsequently became hooked on it. I began trolling used bookstores in New York for little books of concrete poetry of which there were just dozens and dozens. Nobody was interested in this stuff at the time, so I just began making a collection of this stuff through local bookstores, and this in turn leads to UbuWeb.

Alaska village sues over global warming

Lawyers for the Alaska Native coastal village of Kivalina, which is being forced to relocate because of flooding caused by the changing Arctic climate, filed suit in federal court here Tuesday arguing that 5 oil companies, 14 electric utilities and the country's largest coal company were responsible for the village's woes.

The suit is the latest effort to hold companies like BP America, Chevron, Peabody Energy, Duke Energy and the Southern Company responsible for the impact of global warming because they emit millions of tons of greenhouse gases, or, in the case of Peabody, mine and market carbon-laden coal that is burned by others. It accused the companies of creating a public nuisance.

In an unusual move, those five companies and three other defendants — the Exxon Mobil Corporation, American Electric Power and the Conoco Phillips Company — are also accused of conspiracy. “There has been a long campaign by power, coal and oil companies to mislead the public about the science of global warming,” the suit says. The campaign, it says, contributed “to the public nuisance of global warming by convincing the public at large and the victims of global warming that the process is not man-made when in fact it is.”

Kivalina, an Inupiat village of 400 people on a barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and two rivers, is being buffeted by waves that, in colder times, were blocked by sea ice, the suit says. “The result of the increased storm damage is a massive erosion problem,” it says. “Houses and buildings are in imminent danger of falling into the sea.”

The estimated cost of relocating the village is up to $400 million, the suit says...

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US Air Force blocks access to blogs

The Air Force is tightening restrictions on which blogs its troops can read, cutting off access to just about any independent site with the word "blog" in its web address. It's the latest move in a larger struggle within the military over the value -- and hazards -- of the sites.  At least one senior Air Force official calls the squeeze so "utterly stupid, it makes me want to scream."

Until recently, each major command of the Air Force had some control over what sites their troops could visit, the Air Force Times reports. Then the Air Force Network Operations Center, under the service's new "Cyber Command," took over.

[ ... ]

Stringent regulations, read literally, require Army officers to review each and every item one of his soldiers puts online, in case they leak secrets. And in televised commercials, screensavers and fliers, troops are told that blogging is a major security risk -- even though official sites have proven to leak many, many more secrets. Now there's the Air Force's argument, that blogs aren't legitimate media outlets -- and therefore, shouldn't be read at work.

But this view isn't universally held in the military. Many believe blogs to be a valuable source of information -- and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, at home and abroad. Gen. David Petraeus, who heads the U.S. effort in Iraq, has commended military bloggers. Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who replaced Petraeus as the head of the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, recently wrote (in a blog post, no less) that soldiers should be encouraged to "get onto blogs and [s]end their YouTube videos to their friends and family."

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