Robert Scheer and Chris Hedges - on Class Struggle

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_and_robert_scheer_on_class_struggle_20111101/

Posted on Nov 1, 2011

Robert Scheer: I’m talking to Chris Hedges ... I want to say, you’ve played an incredible role in getting people to not focus so much on the electoral possibilities, the leading party, and to take their concern to the street. And long before there was any of this Occupy L.A. or New York or any other movement, Wall Street, somebody else who did it—and it really impressed me, I reread his article—is Joseph Stiglitz. Back in April, in Vanity Fair of all places, [he] had a statement. I’d just like to begin by reading something he wrote then, because people say oh, where did this come from, and it came from this website, or something—and quoting Stiglitz, he said: “The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.” Are we at that moment now?

Chris Hedges: Yeah. We are.

Robert Scheer: And are they getting the message, or is it just too late?

Chris Hedges: No.

Robert Scheer: No.

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Noam Chomsky - Speaks to Occupy: If We Want a Chance at a Decent Future, the Movement Here and Around the World Must Grow

By Noam Chomsky, AlterNet

Posted on November 1, 2011, Printed on November 2, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152933/noam_chomsky_speaks_to_occupy%3A_if_we_want_a_chance_at_a_decent_future%2C_the_movement_here_and_around_the_world_must_grow

It's a little hard to give a Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture at an Occupy meeting. There are mixed feelings that go along with it. First of all, regret that Howard is not here to take part and invigorate it in his particular way, something that would have been the dream of his life, and secondly, excitement that the dream is actually being fulfilled. It’s a dream for which he laid a lot of the groundwork. It would have been the fulfillment of a dream for him to be here with you.

The Occupy movement really is an exciting development. In fact, it's spectacular. It's unprecedented; there's never been anything like it that I can think of. If the bonds and associations that are being established at these remarkable events can be sustained through a long, hard period ahead -- because victories don't come quickly-- this could turn out to be a very significant moment in American history.

The fact that the demonstrations are unprecedented is quite appropriate. It is an unprecedented era -- not just this moment -- but actually since the 1970s. The 1970s began a major turning point in American history. For centuries, since the country began, it had been a developing society with ups and downs. But the general progress was toward wealth and industrialization and development -- even in dark and hope -- there was a pretty constant expectation that it's going to go on like this. That was true even in very dark times.

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Mira Luna - Local Money Creates Wealth Outside the Bubble

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 by Shareable.net

http://shareable.net/blog/local-money-creates-real-wealth-outside-the-bubble

by Mira Luna

Ever since the crash several years ago, Americans have felt precarious about the nation's economy and the value of its currency. Money seems to take inconceivable, abstract, and even magical forms, traveling around the world at lightening speed with little oversight and obvious mismanagement

We have little control over it — the value of our currency is tied to conditions well beyond our control. It moves in directions that most of us are vehemently opposed to. We trusted that the banks, Congress, the Federal Reserve, corporations and Wall Street are managing money responsibly on our behalf, particularly with retirement funds and mortgages, but lately that trust has been broken. In response, local currencies have drawn interest from Occupy and other economic resistance groups to create an alternative to state-controlled money.

Since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 there has been a relative monopoly on money issuance by private banks through the Federal Reserve, which has drawn criticism from groups like the Monetary Reform Institute. For most of America's history, citizens used local currencies to meet their needs through local business, which often produced their own money. Before the Civil War, there were thousands of local currencies, and during the Great Depression they made a comeback, with hundreds of currencies used by the unemployed in particular.

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Dean Baker - Occupy the European Central Bank

The European Central Bank is responsible for the wreckage that has overtaken the Eurozone, economist says.

Dean Baker

Al-Jazeera, 01 Nov 2011 09:04

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/11/2011111815133102.html

In the last month, people from around the country and around the world have picked up on the Occupy Wall Street theme of retaking the country from the wealthy. Insofar as this sentiment gathers force in Europe, there is probably no place better for people to plant themselves than on the steps of the European Central Bank (ECB).

More than any other institution, the ECB is responsible for the economic wreckage that has overtaken the European economy. In the years when housing bubbles were building across the much of the eurozone and the United States, the ECB looked the other way. Its position at the time was that these bubbles and the huge imbalances they created were not its concern. Its concern was keeping the inflation rate at two per cent.

This single-minded obsession with the inflation rate, at a time when the economies of the eurozone and the world were on the edge of disaster, is akin to Kodak insisting that its business line was photographic film at a time when digital photography was exploding. Competent business people adjust their business plans when the world changes. In the same vein, competent central bankers reorder their priorities when the economic situation requires changes.

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Nigel Morris - World Faces Years of Social Unrest as Economies Falter

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 by The Independent/UK

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/world-faces-years-of-social-unrest-as-economies-falter-6255401.html

by Nigel Morris, Ben Chu

The international economy is on the brink of a deep new economic crisis that could cost millions of jobs around the globe and trigger mass social unrest, the world's most powerful nations were warned yesterday.

As the leaders of the G20 countries prepare for emergency talks on averting a return to worldwide recession, the United Nations' International Labour Organisation (ILO) issued a grim forecast of the social effects of the continuing economic crisis.

The UN agency warned that it could take until 2016 for global employment to return to the levels of three years ago – and that anger could erupt on the streets of Europe and other continents as a result.

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Terra Daily - Painkiller overdose 'epidemic' strikes US

Terra Daily, November 1, 2011

http://www.interndaily.com/reports/Painkiller_overdose_epidemic_strikes_US_999.html

The United States is facing an epidemic of lethal overdoses from prescription painkillers, which have tripled in the past decade and now account for more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

The quantity of painkillers on the market is so high that it would be enough for every American to swallow a standard dose of Vicodin every four hours for one full month, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The unfortunate and in fact shocking news is that we are in the midst of an epidemic of prescription drug overdose in this country. It is an epidemic but it can be stopped," said CDC chief Thomas Frieden.

"Now the burden of dangerous drugs is being created more by a few irresponsible doctors than by drug pushers on street corners."

The CDC Vital Signs report focused on opioid pain relievers, including oxycodone, methadone and hydrocodone, better known as Vicodin, which have quadrupled in sales to pharmacies, hospitals and doctors' offices since 1999.

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Robert Reich - Greeks' Choice — and Ours: Democracy or Finance?

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 by RobertReich.org

http://robertreich.org/post/12200736000

by Robert Reich

Which do you trust more: democracy or financial markets?

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou decided in favor of democracy yesterday when he announced a national referendum on the draconian budget cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding from Greece in return for bailing it out.

(Or, more accurately, the cuts Europe and the IMF are demanding for bailing out big European banks that have lent Greece lots of money and stand to lose big if Greece defaults on those loans – not to mention Wall Street banks that will also suffer because of their intertwined financial connections with European banks.)

If Greeks accept the bailout terms, unemployment will rise even further in Greece, public services will be cut more than they have already, the Greek economy will contract, and the standard of living of most Greeks will deteriorate further.

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Naomi Wolf - We May Be Witnessing the First Large Global Conflict Where People Are Aligned by Consciousness and Not Nation State or Religion

By Naomi Wolf, Al Jazeera English

Posted on November 1, 2011, Printed on November 2, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/152932/we_may_be_witnessing_the_first_large_global_conflict_where_people_are_aligned_by_consciousness_and_not_nation_state_or_religion

America's politicians, it seems, have had their fill of democracy. Across the country, police, acting under orders from local officials, are breaking up protest encampments set up by supporters of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement - sometimes with shocking and utterly gratuitous violence.

In the worst incident so far, hundreds of police, dressed in riot gear, surrounded Occupy Oakland's encampment and fired rubber bullets (which can be fatal), flash grenades and tear-gas canisters - with some officers taking aim directly at demonstrators. The Occupy Oakland Twitter feed read like a report from Cairo's Tahrir Square: "they are surrounding us"; "hundreds and hundreds of police"; "there are armoured vehicles and Hummers". There were 170 arrests.

My own recent arrest, while obeying the terms of a permit and standing peacefully on a street in lower Manhattan, brought the reality of this crackdown close to home. America is waking up to what was built while it slept: Private companies have hired away its police (JPMorgan Chase gave $4.6m to the New York City Police Foundation); the federal Department of Homeland Security has given small municipal police forces military-grade weapons systems; citizens' rights to freedom of speech and assembly have been stealthily undermined by opaque permit requirements.

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Kamran Mofid - Global Crises are Spiritual: A Time for Awakening

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 by Share The World's Resource (STWR)

http://www.stwr.org/economic-sharing-alternatives/global-crises-are-spiritual-a-time-for-awakening.html

In modern economic thinking, greed and selfishness are upheld as guiding the ‘invisible hand’ of the market and are therefore exempt from moral consideration. It is time for us to redefine our values and build a just economy for the common good

by Kamran Mofid

Many sages, philosophers and theologians throughout history have reminded us that there are two forces at work in society, the material and the spiritual. If either of these two is neglected or ignored they will appear to be at odds with one another: society will inevitably becomes fragmented, divisions and rifts will manifest themselves with increasing force and frequency

It is clear that this is exactly what has happened today. We have a situation of disequilibrium and disharmony. Only the reawakening of the human spirit will save us from our own worst extremes. Physical wealth must go hand in hand with spiritual, moral and ethical wealth.

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Linda A. Johnson - Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo Has Cancer-Causing Chemicals, Group Says

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2011 by the Associated Press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/johnson-johnson-baby-sham_n_1069123.html

by Linda A. Johnson

TRENTON, N.J. -- Two chemicals considered harmful to babies remain in Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo sold in the U.S., even though the company already makes versions without them, according to a coalition of health and environmental groups.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has unsuccessfully been urging the world's largest health care company for 2 1/2 years to remove the trace amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals – dioxane and a substance called quaternium-15 that releases formaldehyde – from Johnson's Baby Shampoo, one of its signature products.

Johnson & Johnson said it is reducing or gradually phasing out the chemicals, but did not respond directly to the campaign's demands.

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