thenatureofmind

David Graeber: After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep

In an essay penned shortly before his death, David Graeber argued that post-pandemic, we can’t slip back into a reality where the way our society is organized — to serve every whim of a small handful of rich people while debasing and degrading the vast majority of us — is seen as sensible or reasonable.

"At some point in the next few months, the crisis will be declared over, and we will be able to return to our “nonessential” jobs. For many, this will be like waking from a dream.

The media and political classes will definitely encourage us to think of it this way. This is what happened after the 2008 financial crash. There was a brief moment of questioning. (What is “finance,” anyway? Isn’t it just other people’s debts? What is money? Is it just debt, too? What’s debt? Isn’t it just a promise? If money and debt are just a collection of promises we make to each other, then couldn’t we just as easily make different ones?) The window was almost instantly shut by those insisting we shut up, stop thinking, and get back to work, or at least start looking for it."

David Graeber: After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep

 

 

David Graeber speaks at Maagdenhuis Amsterdam in March 2015. (Guido van Nispen / Wikimedia Commons)

Occupy 2.0

Occupy 2.0 Demands Worksheet

Please read, discuss, copy and pass along. Check those things you agree with, put an X beside those you don’t agree with. Write in those you want that are not here. Pass it on....

Government:

1. End the militarization of police. No military equipment or military type equipment to be used by police. No pepper spray, mace, rubber bullets, tear gas or ultra sound equipment to be used against citizens exercising their constitutional rights to redress grievances by the government. 
2. The complete restoration of the protections of the 1st amendment. The end of restrictions on protests and the end of harassment of protesters by police. Police have no role as to when and where people may exercise their 1st amendment rights.
3. End the direct hiring of returning soldiers from war zones into the police force. If a soldier is hired, require a minimum 2 year training period in which their understanding of police duties and how those duties differ from military duties are learned and their progress approved by their superiors.
4. All police budgets to be subject to the same constrains as schools, medical care and hospitals. When school budgets are cut, police budgets will be cut. 
5. The establishment of a citizens truth commission to allow citizens to bring forth their stories of mistreatment at the hands of the police and courts and lawyers to represent them to redress their grievances. 
6. The restoration of the protections of the 4th amendment with respect to illegal search and seizure. An end to searches of citizens or their effects without a court order.
7. An end to spying on US citizens. An end to tapping of phones and computer communications of US citizens. 
8. End the racially based “stop and frisk” in all its forms throughout the country, 
9. Repeal the Patriot Act.
10. The establishment of a basic universal income. 
11. End the foreign wars that are draining the economy
12. Close most of our foreign military bases
13. The restoration of the constitutional war making power to the congress. No war actions to be allowed without a congressional declaration of war. 
14. Cut the military budget in half
15. End the attacks on our unions by reinstating the Taft-Hartley Act.
16. Allow ALL citizens to form unions based on a simple majority vote. 
17. Prosecute union busting in all of its forms. 
18. Appoint a national commission to completely re-write the tax code, no politicians or corporate lobbyists allowed. Remove the industry written loopholes. Craft it to favor small businesses and not large businesses. 
19. Do everything that needs to be done to make starting and running a small business as easy as possible with special loan programs and mentorship programs specifically for small businesses. 
20. Re-instate and re-write the Glass-Steagall act to prevent bubbles in the economy and prevent recessions and depressions.
21. Close the CIA and appoint a special prosecutor with a large team of investigators to uncover the illegal actions of the CIA and prosecute the criminals. Prosecute all who violated the Geneva convention on torture. Document and prosecute all illegal activities of the CIA since it’s inception. The CIA now represents an illegal unrestricted 4th branch of government that is a threat to our freedoms. It was originally chartered to gather information. It has become an illegal army making war wherever and whenever it wants without the declaration of war by the congress. 
22. An end to torture, REALLY!
23. Close Guantanamo and give it back to the Cubans.
24. A constitutional amendment to ban unlimited campaign contributions.
25. A real congressional code of ethics preventing any Senator or Representative from voting on a measure affecting one of their campaign contributors.
26. Restoration of the equal time law that specifies that all broadcast media must provide free equal time for any partisan broadcasts.
27. Eliminate the so called “political debates” being run by for profit media organizations. Have them run by non political non-profit organizations. Allow all registered candidates to participate. 
28. The establishment of special government channel(s) like C-span for public political debate. ALL candidates would have free air time and would not be allowed to buy air time on the non-government channels thus eliminating the largest political campaign expenditure significantly reducing the need for large sums of money in politics.
29. Close the capital building to lobbyists. 
30. No lobbyist shall be eligible to run for elected office for 10 years after their last paycheck.
31. No congressperson or senator shall become a lobbyist for 10 years after leaving congress.
32. The acceptance of anything from a lobbyist, even a meal shall be grounds for expulsion from the congress.
33. No bill shall be presented to congress that is not written in the congress by paid congressional personnel. 
34. End the US government war against Julian Assange and Pvt. Bradley Manning. Reward the whistle blowers.
35. End the government secrecy policies and allow the citizens to know what is really going on in government. Publish the Warren Commission report. After 50 years we deserve to know the truth.
36. End the war on illegal immigrants. No person is illegal. 
37. An end to the economic blockade of Cuba.

Environment:

37. Craft environmental policy based on science and not on corporate propaganda
38. End all fossil fuel subsidies. 
39. Stop the Tar Sands project. The negative environmental consequences of this project will affect every man woman and child on this planet. It must stop
40. Ban fracking in the entire US. It is a dirty polluting technology. Concentrating any energy in this technology delays the finding of alternative energy sources.
41. Treat alternative energy the same way we undertook the space race and the national highway system. Give it top priority.
42. Allocate money and create jobs retrofitting the older buildings in the US to make them energy efficient. 
43. Tax cars based on size: the larger the car the higher the tax. Encourage the driving of smaller cars.
44. Tax gas to the same level as Europe so that people will buy smaller cars.
45. End strip mining

Economy:

46. Tax money earned through investment at the same tax rate as real labor. 
47. Restore the top tax rates to their levels in the 1950’s.
48. Our monetary system was devised over 100 years ago before the advent of computers. Create a national commission with the best of our economists and ordinary citizens (no politicians, no lobbyists) to address the problems and inequities in our monetary system. Eliminate the Fed or Federalize it.
49. Nationalize the Banks and create many local banks which will serve local communities. Too big to fail: too big to exist.
50. Allocate money and create jobs fixing the decaying infrastructure of the US
51. Allocate money and create jobs building a nationwide high speed train system.
52. Allocate money and create jobs building better local mass transit systems. Get people out of their cars.
53. Create a WPA type project to get people back to work rebuilding the decaying infrastructure and refurbishing our public parks and creating new green spaces.

Health Care:

54. Institute a single payer health care system guaranteeing health care for all. Decouple health care from employers. Free health care for all.
55. Examine drug company pricing and allow the selling of generic drugs when necessary to lower the cost of medicines.
56. Restore the patent system to its original time frames and not allow extensions.
57. Make the “drug problem” a health issue not a police issue. Set up centers where drug addicts can get the drugs they need at low cost and provide support services for health and for drug rehabilitation. Use Portugal’s program as a model.
58. Legalize non-addictive drugs: marijuana and psychedelics

Education:

59. Free education at all of our state universities and community colleges. Make a college education affordable to all students.
60. Free teachers’ education. Pay teachers what they should be paid. Make sure that our children are getting the best education possible.
61. The establishment of a special schools act that will use government money to address the inequality of education. All schools to be funded at the same level and that level to be determined by studying those schools of countries that have the highest standard of education. Use the lessons learned to determine curricula and to address the need of students to be able to have a marketable skill upon graduation. Forget testing, put the money where the students are.

The Prison State of America

Prisons employ and exploit the ideal worker. Prisoners do not receive benefits or pensions. They are not paid overtime. They are forbidden to organize and strike. They must show up on time. They are not paid for sick days or granted vacations. They cannot formally complain about working conditions or safety hazards. If they are disobedient, or attempt to protest their pitiful wages, they lose their jobs and can be sent to isolation cells. The roughly 1 million prisoners who work for corporations and government industries in the American prison system are models for what the corporate state expects us all to become. And corporations have no intention of permitting prison reforms that would reduce the size of their bonded workforce. In fact, they are seeking to replicate these conditions throughout the society.

The Prison State of America

Bernie Sanders: A Threat to American Democracy

David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show'

America is a country that is now utterly divided when it comes to its society, its economy, its politics. There are definitely two Americas. I live in one, on one block in Baltimore that is part of the viable America, the America that is connected to its own economy, where there is a plausible future for the people born into it. About 20 blocks away is another America entirely. It's astonishing how little we have to do with each other, and yet we are living in such proximity.

There's no barbed wire around West Baltimore or around East Baltimore, around Pimlico, the areas in my city that have been utterly divorced from the American experience that I know. But there might as well be. We've somehow managed to march on to two separate futures and I think you're seeing this more and more in the west. I don't think it's unique to America. 

David Simon: 'There are now two Americas. My country is a horror show' | The Observer.

The Pathology of the Rich

Six Things Nelson Mandela Believed That Most People Won't Talk About

In the desire to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s life — an iconic figure who triumphed over South Africa’s brutal apartheid regime — it’s tempting to homogenize his views into something everyone can support. This is not, however, an accurate representation of the man.

Mandela was a political activist and agitator. He did not shy away from controversy and he did not seek — or obtain — universal approval. Before and after his release from prison, he embraced an unabashedly progressive and provocative platform. As one commentator put it shortly after the announcement of the freedom fighter’s death, “Mandela will never, ever be your minstrel. Over the next few days you will try so, so hard to make him something he was not, and you will fail. You will try to smooth him, to sandblast him, to take away his Malcolm X. You will try to hide his anger from view.”

Six Things Nelson Mandela Believed That Most People Won't Talk About | ThinkProgress.

Pension Theft: Class War Goes to the Next Stage

In the past two days we've seen a federal judge rule that Detroit can go bankrupt, putting its workers' pensions in jeopardy, and we have seen Illinois' Legislature vote for substantial cuts in its retirees' pensions. Undoubtedly these two actions are just the tip of the iceberg. We have opened up a new sport for America's elite: pension theft.

The specifics of the situations are very different, but the outcome is the same. Public employees who spent decades working for the government are not going to get the pensions that were part of their pay package. In both cases we have governments claiming poverty, and therefore the workers are just out of luck.

Before getting to the specifics of these cases, it is worth dealing with a couple of points. First, there has been a huge media campaign to trumpet the generosity of public-sector pensions. The Washington Post once ran a major front-page article on public pensions in which its poster child was a former official in a small California city who was getting a pension of more than $500,000 a year. 

Pension Theft: Class War Goes to the Next Stage | MichaelMoore.com.

Chris Hedges: Let’s Get This Class War Started

“There are only two or three human stories,” Willa Cather wrote, “and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.”

The seesaw of history has thrust the oligarchs once again into the sky. We sit humiliated and broken on the ground. It is an old battle. It has been fought over and over in human history. We never seem to learn. It is time to grab our pitchforks.

Chris Hedges: Let’s Get This Class War Started - Truthdig

Extreme Wealth Deadens Honesty, Empathy and Rationality in Many

As we try to grasp the reasoning behind cuts to life-saving programs while billion-dollar incomes and trillion-dollar profitsare being made, we must understand that extreme wealth deadens parts of the brain. Empathy and honesty go first. Then rationality, as evidenced by some of the outlandish excuses given by the very rich for their abuses.

Extreme Wealth Deadens Honesty, Empathy and Rationality in Many.