Saturday, June 30, 2018
Hegel & Early Modern Philosophy - Adrian Johnston Interview (part 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtqH509dkeQ
Friday, June 29, 2018
As Interest in Democratic Socialism Surges, Ocasio-Cortez Explains to Colbert What a 'Moral' Economy Would Look Like
"I believe that in a
modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to
live."
Since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's stunning
primary win over Rep. Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday, interest in
democratic socialism—the label Ocasio-Cortez unabashedly uses to describe her
platform and political outlook—has surged exponentially, prompting corporate
TV networks to feature segments on the term and driving a record-breaking
membership boost for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
In an interview on "The
Late Show With Stephen Colbert" Thursday night, Ocasio-Cortez—who is one
of DSA's 42,000
members—was given a chance to explain the core principles of democratic
socialism to an audience
of millions.
"I believe that in a
modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to
live," Ocasio-Cortez told Colbert, who claimed that democratic socialism
is "not an easy term for a lot of Americans."
"So what that means is
healthcare as a human right," Ocasio-Cortez explained.
"It means that every
child, no matter where you are born, should have access to a college or trade
school education if they so choose it. And, you know, I think that no person
should be homeless if we can have public structures and public policies to allow
for people to have homes and food and lead a dignified life in the United
States."
While democratic socialism may
not be an "easy term" for Republicans and corporate
Democrats, a large percentage of Americans appear to have no problem with
the label.
Sen. Bernie Sanders
(I-Vt.)—who has self-identified as a democratic socialist for decades—is by far
the most
popular politician in the country, and polls have shown that Democratic
voters prefer socialism over capitalism.
In an attempted takedown of
Ocasio-Cortez's ambitious progressive agenda, Fox News host Sean Hannity inadvertently
demonstrated why many Americans view democratic socialism favorably,
particularly during a time of staggering inequality, soaring
healthcare costs, environmental degradation, and falling
wages.
"Many are hailing Cortez
as a rising star on the political landscape, but in reality, her views, her
policy positions are actually downright scary... Look very carefully,"
Hannity ominously warned in a Wednesday night segment. "This is the
future, this is the modern Democratic Party."
The camera then proceeded to
show a list of widely
popular proposals like Medicare for All as well as basic, humane
principles like "Women's Rights" and "Support Seniors."
As Vice summarized,
"Sean Hannity accidentally made a great argument for socialism."
Aaack! New Analysis Shows Superbugs Lurking on Three-Fourths of U.S. Supermarket Meat
"The public shouldn't
have to wait until 100 percent of the bacteria found on meat on supermarket
shelves are untreatable by antibiotics before the FDA takes strong
action."
A new analysis offers alarming
findings as many Americans get
ready to fire up their grills for the 4th of July—nearly 80 percent of
supermarket meat was found to
have antibiotic-resistant bacteria, also known as superbugs.
That's according to the
Environmental Working Group (EWG), which sifted through over 47,000 tests of
bacteria on supermarket meat, including beef, chicken, pork, and turkey,
undertaken by the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System in 2015,
the most recent year for which the data is available.
"Consumers need to know
about potential contamination of the meat they eat so they can be vigilant
about food safety, especially when cooking for children, pregnant women, older
adults or the immune-compromised," said report author Dawn Undurraga, a
nutritionist with the Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy organization.
The high levels, the report notes, call into question the effectiveness of the
FDA's 2013 guidance calling
for reduction in the use of use of antibiotics to make livestock grow
more quickly.
Undurraga noted that "the
government still allows most producers to give highly important antibiotics to
healthy animals to compensate for stressful, crowded, and unsanitary
conditions," which are rampant on factory farms. "These non-treatment
uses are counter to WHO recommendations, and create a breeding ground for
antibiotic-resistant bacteria."
EWG also says the FDA
continues to downplay the data, even as warnings about the threat of antibiotic
resistance increase at the national and global level.
According
to the WHO, such resistance remains "one of the biggest threats
to global health, food security, and development today," and warns the
crisis "is rising to dangerously high levels in all parts of the
world."
EWG's new analysis shows that
three in four bacteria on the grocery store meat samples were resistant to at
least one of the 14 antibiotics tested. The group stressed that being resistant
to just one is cause for concern, as genes that confer the trait of antibiotic
resistance can transfer from one bacterium to another.
Specifically, the federal
testing detected antibiotic resistant bacteria on: 79 percent of ground turkey;
71 percent of pork chops; 62 percent of ground beef; and 36 percent of chicken
breasts, legs, things, or wings.
"Now is the time for the
federal government to get medically important antibiotics out of factory
farms," Undurraga wrote.
Alongside the analysis, EWG
also sent a letter (pf)
to the FDA, which warned that "there are alarming and growing numbers of
superbugs in supermarket meat," and called on the agency to take urgent
action to live up to its mission.
"Voluntary guidance is
not enough," the letter states. "The public shouldn't have to wait
until 100 percent of the bacteria found on meat on supermarket shelves are
untreatable by antibiotics before the FDA takes strong action. If the FDA waits
for this serious threat to become a true national health crisis, the FDA will
have been negligent in its mission of 'protecting the public health ... by
ensuring the safety of our nation's food supply.'"
In the absence of such action,
EWG points consumers to a short guide to
help avoid superbugs, which includes tips such as being aware of misleading
labeling, choosing organic meat, and using safe practices in the kitchen.
A Leak Prosecution That Didn’t Happen
Secrecy News
Posted on Jun.28, 2018 in Inspector general, Intelligence, Leaks by Steven Aftergood
Government prosecutors have
been aggressively pursuing suspected leakers of classified information:
Reality Winner, accused of
disclosing a document “information relating to the national defense” to a news
outlet, changed her plea this week from “not guilty” to
“guilty.”
Former FBI agent Terry J.
Albury likewise pleaded guilty last April to unauthorized retention
and disclosure of national defense information.
Former Senate Intelligence
Committee security officer James A. Wolfe was indicted this
month for allegedly lying to the FBI in the course of a leak investigation.
And also this month, Joshua
Adam Schulte was indicted for
allegedly disclosing national defense information to a certain “organization
that purports to publicly disseminate classified, sensitive, and confidential
information.”
But not every leak results in
an official leak investigation. And not every leak investigation produces a
suspect. Nor is every leak suspect prosecuted.
In its latest semi-annual report, the Office of the Intelligence
Community Inspector General describes one recent case of an acknowledged leaker
of classified information who was allowed to resign without prosecution.
The IC Inspector General
“substantiated allegations that an ODNI cadre officer disclosed classified
information without authorization, transmitted classified information via
unauthorized means, and disclosed classified information to persons not
authorized to receive it.”
“During a voluntary interview,
the ODNI cadre officer admitted to transmitting classified information over
unclassified (internet) email to recipients not authorized to receive
classified national security information.”
But the matter was resolved
outside of the criminal justice system.
“The U.S. Attorney’s Office
for the Eastern District of Virginia declined prosecution. The officer, who was
retirement eligible, retired before termination,” the IC IG report said.
No other details about the
episode were disclosed. But the case illustrates that a variety of responses to
leak incidents are available to the government short of criminal prosecution.
A House bill to authorize
intelligence spending for FY 18 and 19 (HR 6237), introduced yesterday, would require expanded
reporting to Congress on unauthorized disclosures of classified information.
Week-long Immersive Course with David Harvey on Marx and Capital in NYC Aug 6-11
by David Harvey
Marx and Capital: the Book the Concept, the History
David Harvey
The People’s Forum, 320 W 37th Street, New York, NY
Monday, August 6 through Friday, August 10, 6:00-8:00pm and Saturday, August 11, 10:00am -1:00pm
Sliding Scale: $25 - $50
The People’s Forum, a new movement space for working-class and marginalized communities, is thrilled to announce our inaugural program, a week-long immersive course, Marx and Capital: the Book, the Concept, the History, with David Harvey.
This course will explore all three volumes of Marx's Capital. The architecture of Capital as a book reflects his concept of capital as value in motion. He viewed capital as a loosely coupled ecosystem of diverse parts powered by the search for profit or surplus value. The three volumes of Capital construct different windows from which to study the evolution of this ecosystem. By putting the three volumes together we can build a more workable and realistic model of the evolutionary trajectory of capital over time and space.
This course’s instructor, David Harvey, is a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His substantive interests lie in the study of urbanization and uneven geographical development of capitalism at a variety of scales, from local to global. He has also engaged in a project to illuminate and make more accessible an understanding of Marx's Capital.
Please apply here. We are prioritizing applications of people from low-income and/or other marginalized communities. If you have questions, please email The People's Forum Education Coordinator, Karen Zhou, karen.z@peoplesforum.org.
If capitalism ended, what would replace it?
BY GEORGE EATON
Four possible economic
futures, from luxury communism to exterminism.
The Marxist theorist Fredric
Jameson observed in 1994 that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world
than to imagine the end of capitalism”. By this, he meant that environmental
apocalypse appeared more likely than the triumph of a systematic economic
alternative. This unremittingly sober view, also adopted by the New Left
Review’s Perry Anderson and the late cultural theorist Mark Fisher, became
known as “capitalist realism”.
In recent years, a succession
of authors have championed an alternative vision. Paul Mason’s PostCapitalism (2015) and
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams’s Inventing the Future (2015) both
argue that technological advancements will render most work unnecessary and
could liberate humans – sustained by a state-funded universal basic income – to
pursue true freedom.
Aaron Bastani’s
forthcoming Fully Automated Luxury Communism (January 2019) will
occupy similar terrain, asking: “What if, rather than having no sense of the
future, history hadn’t really begun?”
When I interviewed David
Graeber, the US anthropologist and author of anti-work manifesto Bullshit
Jobs (2018), he too argued that, within 50 years, “we’ll definitely have a
system that isn’t capitalist”. But he added the proviso: “It could be something
even worse.”
During a recent visit to the
V&A’s “The Future Starts Here” exhibition, I stumbled upon a book
that artfully examines this possibility. In Four Futures (2016),
Peter Frase, an editor at Jacobin magazine, offers alternative
visions of liberation and oppression. Like others, he assumes that technology
will make human labour obsolete, but crucially, he adds, “who benefits from
automation, and who loses, is ultimately a consequence not of the robots
themselves, but of who owns them”. Class inequality – and the existential
challenge of climate change – both mean that technology may not usher in a
utopian society.
Frase’s book is neither a
prophecy nor mere fantasy, rather it is a work of “social science fiction”: an
attempt to “explore the space of possibilities in which our future political
conflicts will play out”.
The first scenario is one of
equality and abundance: communism. Technology has enabled the transition to a
post-work and post-carbon future, and traditional class divisions have withered
away. But Frase warns that status hierarchies will persist. He cites Cory
Doctorow’s 2003 novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, in which “debates
are resolved not by who has the most money, but by who can acquire the highest
social status”. China’s “social credit system”, which ranks citizens according
to their behaviour, and the West’s tyranny of social media likes and retweets offer
glimpses of this future.
The second scenario, which
most closely resembles the present, is that of “rentism”: hierarchy and
abundance. Though the material conditions for luxury communism exist, new
technologies and patents have been monopolised by an extractive elite. Human
labour, Frase suggests, may endure since “having power over others is, for many
powerful people, its own reward”.
But rentism is still
predicated on the resolution of climate change. Should environmental
degradation persist, Frase writes, we face two possible futures. One is
socialism: equality and scarcity. In an ecologically constrained world, the
state is empowered to radically overhaul infrastructure, and there is a fair
distribution of risks and rewards. Labour is progressively reduced but so is
consumption: sustainable socialism, rather than luxury communism.
The barbarous alternative is
that of “exterminism”: hierarchy and scarcity. As the rich seek to monopolise
space and resources in the face of eco-apocalypse, the bulk of humanity is ever
more marginalised. Frase makes the haunting observation that “the great danger
posed by the automation of production… is that it makes the great mass of
people superfluous from the standpoint of the ruling elite”. Rather than
neglecting or imprisoning the poor, why not simply eliminate them? Humanity’s
past and present both render this possibility disturbingly large. Unmanned
drones and “killer robots” will allow individuals to distance themselves from
future genocides (and plenty require no such inducement).
Which of these futures
prevails, Frase emphasises, ultimately depends on human agency. Four
Futures is a resounding corrective to technological determinism of all
kinds. Men and women will continue to make their own history – if not in circumstances
of their choosing.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Life on a moon of Saturn?
Scientists find evidence of complex organic molecules from Enceladus
Discovery indicates Saturn's
moon meets critical requirements for life
June 27, 2018
Southwest Research Institute
Using mass spectrometry data
from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scientists found that large, carbon-rich
organic molecules are ejected from cracks in the icy surface of Saturn's moon
Enceladus. Scientists think chemical reactions between the moon's rocky core
and warm water from its subsurface ocean are linked to these complex molecules.
"We are, yet again, blown
away by Enceladus. Previously we'd only identified the simplest organic
molecules containing a few carbon atoms, but even that was very
intriguing," said SwRI's Dr. Christopher Glein, a space scientist
specializing in extraterrestrial chemical oceanography. He is coauthor of a
paper in Nature outlining this discovery. "Now we've found organic
molecules with masses above 200 atomic mass units. That's over ten times
heavier than methane. With complex organic molecules emanating from its liquid
water ocean, this moon is the only body besides Earth known to simultaneously
satisfy all of the basic requirements for life as we know it."
Prior to its deorbit in
September of 2017, Cassini sampled the plume of material emerging from the
subsurface of Enceladus. The Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) and the SwRI-led Ion
and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) made measurements both within the plume
and Saturn's E-ring, which is formed by plume ice grains escaping Enceladus'
gravity.
"Even after its end, the
Cassini spacecraft continues to teach us about the potential of Enceladus to
advance the field of astrobiology in an ocean world," Glein said.
"This paper demonstrates the value of teamwork in planetary science. The
INMS and CDA teams collaborated to reach a deeper understanding of the organic
chemistry of Enceladus' subsurface ocean than would be possible with only one
data set."
During Cassini's close flyby
of Enceladus on Oct. 28, 2015, INMS detected molecular hydrogen as the
spacecraft flew through the plume. Previous flybys provided evidence for a
global subsurface ocean residing above a rocky core. Molecular hydrogen in the
plume is thought to form by the geochemical interaction between water and rocks
in hydrothermal environments.
"Hydrogen provides a
source of chemical energy supporting microbes that live in the Earth's oceans
near hydrothermal vents," said SwRI's Dr. Hunter Waite, INMS principal
investigator who also was a coauthor of the new paper. "Once you have
identified a potential food source for microbes, the next question to ask is
'what is the nature of the complex organics in the ocean?' This paper
represents the first step in that understanding -- complexity in the organic
chemistry beyond our expectations!"
"The paper's findings
also have great significance for the next generation of exploration,"
Glein said.
"A future spacecraft
could fly through the plume of Enceladus, and analyze those complex organic
molecules using a high-resolution mass spectrometer to help us determine how
they were made. We must be cautious, but it is exciting to ponder that this
finding indicates that the biological synthesis of organic molecules on
Enceladus is possible."
Story Source:
Materials provided by Southwest Research Institute. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.
Journal Reference:
Frank Postberg, Nozair
Khawaja, Bernd Abel, Gael Choblet, Christopher R. Glein, Murthy S. Gudipati,
Bryana L. Henderson, Hsiang-Wen Hsu, Sascha Kempf, Fabian Klenner, Georg
Moragas-Klostermeyer, Brian Magee, Lenz Nölle, Mark Perry, René Reviol, Jürgen
Schmidt, Ralf Srama, Ferdinand Stolz, Gabriel Tobie, Mario Trieloff, J. Hunter
Waite. Macromolecular organic compounds from the depths of Enceladus. Nature,
2018; 558 (7711): 564 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0246-4
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
What’s Wrong with Privatizing Public Lands
A new book tackles a Grand
Canyon-sized debate.
by Mrill Ingram
June 26, 2018
It was a warm, still August
evening in 2007 when dozens of families camping on Basswood Lake in Minnesota’s
Boundary Waters Canoe Area area heard motors and loud bangs. For hours into the
night, two boats carrying men firing semi-automatic weapons and letting off
fireworks motored up and down the lake, hurling abuse and
expletives at campers. The swearing, gun-toting men landed at one camp and told
the campers they were going to kill and rape them. They later vandalized a
water gauging station and stole a canoe and other equipment.
Among other things, the men
yelled at campers to “get off our land.” Subsequent reporting described the incident as fueled by lingering
resentment among residents of Ely, Minnesota, over the
creation of the public wilderness in the late 1970s. One of the
ringleaders, Barney Lakner, was sentenced to three years in prison. He
was again detained in 2014, after ramming a conservation
officer’s snowmobile while illegally joyriding in the Boundary Waters,
flaunting the rules against motorized vehicles.
Lakner is not alone in
harboring a festering rage over public lands. As the 2016 armed occupation of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge makes crystal clear, where there’s wilderness, there’s a fight.
In his new book, In
Defense of Public Lands: The Case against Privatization and Transfer (Temple
University Press), Steven Davis, political science professor at Edgewood
College in Madison, Wisconsin, takes on the “privatizers.” His book is an
even-handed and thorough look at public lands in the United States. Although
public support for wilderness, national parks, and other public lands is high, Davis is rightly concerned that these open
spaces—from national parks like Yosemite to county-owned lands—face serious
threats.
The sentiments that led to the
Sagebrush Rebellion and Wise Use Movement are not in the past, Davis tells us.
In his first chapter, “Public Land and its Discontents,” Davis details how,
since the gains of the Tea Party in 2010, those against public lands have the
support of a large number of office-holders in state and federal legislatures.
“What was previously seen as the intemperate agitation of fringe activists is
now the standard stuff of political platforms, floor debates, and campaign
speeches,” he writes.
The Republican Party’s 2012
platform, for example, stated, “Congress should reconsider whether . . .
federal government’s enormous landholdings and control of water in the West
could be better used for ranching, mining, or forestry through private ownership.”
And since 2010, conservative
lawmakers have introduced proposals to open all national parks, forests, and
wildlife refuges to roads and motors; to require the government to transfer,
without sale, thirty million acres of their holdings; to sell all lands in the
Rocky Mountains states to the highest bidder; to shield timber sales from any
kind of public or environmental review; and to prevent the creation of any new
wildlife refuges. Many of these initiatives are based on template legislation
created by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.
With Donald Trump in office,
lawmakers have doubled down on efforts to open public lands to extractive
industries and corporate development. The Department of the Interior under the
direction of Ryan Zinke has openedtwo million acres of land in two national
monuments in Utah and overseen the largest lease sale ever (10.3 million
acres) of Alaskan federal lands for oil and gas extraction.
State lands are even more
vulnerable. Utah Senate candidate Mitt Romney recently applauded Trump’s decision to shrink Utah’s
national monuments and has argued for more state control over federal public
lands, saying, “I think the state would do a better job because we care so
deeply.”
In Wisconsin, Republican
Governor Scott Walker has sold dozens of parcels of state-owned lands,
sometimes to political supporters, and without real public process. Davis also
describes an insidious “soft privatization” of state-owned public lands, in
which state budget crises are used to shift priorities toward
revenue-generating ventures like resorts, golf courses, and convention centers.
“Some states, such as Wisconsin under Governor Scott Walker, have entirely
zeroed out their state park budget lines, forcing them to rely on revenue
alone,” he writes.
The book provides with a brief
history of public lands in the United States, and describes the various
government agencies charged with their administration and protection. David
then systematically defangs the arguments of privatizers. He resists rhetorical
soapboxing, and does the hard work of laying out arguments of the opposition,
examining them in light of a wealth of ecological, historical, and economic
data.
Davis describes arguments from
privatizers who see science-based environmental management as a “moral crusade”
and “utopian,” and who would argue that even the Grand Canyon needn’t have
special status because “any place so special would be better protected by
selling access, which, because of the scarcity of places like it will be worth
a lot.” He exposes their profound distaste for political process, and their
misplaced faith in market-based economics.
“Without a better, healthier
environment,” he writes, “what they have left to offer the American public is
pretty thin gruel: the bitter medicine of “market discipline,” a lot of “No
Trespassing” signs, and $300 tickets for Disney’s “Yellowstone Experience.”
Yet Davis does not glorify
public lands management. “It would be a grave error if . . . the complicated
and decidedly mixed record of public management was sugar-coated and its
failures, fiascos, and disastrously bad decisions were overlooked,” he writes.
A list of failures includes overgrazing, clear-cutting, predator “control”
programs, and massive water projects.
Davis acknowledges that public
land management agencies have struggled to balance professionalism and
“scientific management” with openness to diverse clientele, local knowledge,
and citizen participation. This criticism is found on the left as well as the
right. As David Harvey has notably written, “control over the resources of others, in the name
of planetary health, and sustainability of preventing environmental
degradation, is never too far from the surface of many western proposals for
global environmental management.”
Looking at customer
satisfaction surveys, scientific evaluations of agency management, and the
accountability of public land agencies, however, Davis puts forth a convincing
argument that “because they are public and thus ultimately accountable
entities, these same agencies were slowly, and not without great difficulty,
pulled in the direction of openness and responsiveness.”
In other words, public land
agencies do a pretty good job.
When public lands and
wilderness advocates first appealed to state and federal governments to protect
the Boundary Waters Canoe area in 1909, much of the once-massive upper-Midwest
forests lay in shambles. Davis quotes William Shands’s book on the history of
Wisconsin’s northern woodland in the late 1920s:
“The whole world of northern
Wisconsin was on fire in those years. You could choose a high point in any one
of today’s ranger districts and see miles of cut-over, burned-over land. Tree
stubble and smoldering slash littered the landscape.”
Wilderness advocates around
the turn of the century managed to rescue a portion of boundary waters region
from further logging. Defenders of the boundary waters organized again during
the 1960s and 1970s, after an unregulated tourist industry had inundated the
area with retreats, seaplanes, and motorboats. The area, although it is
designated as a federal wilderness and is the most visited park in the
country, continues to be threatened by proposals to open new
mining operations.
The clean lakes and lush
wooded islands that Barney Lakner screamed about as “his land,” in other words,
have been repeatedly rescued from ecological ruin resulting from unmitigated
private and corporate extraction. Although not perfectly managed, the Boundary
Waters have thrived in the context of science-driven decision-making and public
participation.
This is, as Davis
acknowledges, a messy, political process. It is also a progressive strategy:
rational, discursive, and science-based. In a world full of tempestuous and
ahistorical opinionating, this is a welcome relief.
Davis argues that the
maintenance of public lands is integral to a well-functioning democracy. They are
one way that citizens of the United States can work together to uphold
“collective values” and celebrate the potential of collaborative,
future-looking stewardship.
In making this connection,
Davis’s book offers an important and timely contribution toward both protecting
precious natural and cultural heritage as well as a progressive political
process itself.
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