knowledges – battles – structures – consciousnesses

humanity tries to become concious of it’s place – videos with some analogy:

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Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany

Published on Zcomm, by Peter Maass and Laura Poitras, Oct, 12, 2014.

The National Security Agency has had agents in China, Germany, and South Korea working on programs that use “physical subversion” to infiltrate and compromise networks and devices, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

The documents, leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also indicate that the agency has used “under cover” operatives to gain access to sensitive data and systems in the global communications industry, and that these secret agents may have even dealt with American firms. The documents describe a range of clandestine field activities that are among the agency’s “core secrets” when it comes to computer network attacks, details of which are apparently shared with only a small number of officials outside the NSA.   Continuer la lecture de « Core Secrets: NSA Saboteurs in China and Germany »

Poverty must be challenged

Publishd on Evening Times, by Stewart Paterson, Oct 10, 2014.

NEXT week is Challenge Poverty Week and an opportunity to highlight the problems and seek achievable solutions. The problems are many and with poverty comes a load of related social issues that form a spiral of decline and a cycle of poverty. Poor health leads to a life expectancy of people born in the most deprived areas more than 10 years lower than those in the most affluent. In Glasgow it is characterised by 1.7 years off your life for every stop on the west to east train line from Jordanhill to Bridgeton.   Continuer la lecture de « Poverty must be challenged »

Freedom vs. Stability: are Dictators Worse than Anarchy? *

Published on Spiegel Online International, a commentary by Christiane Hoffmann, Oct 8, 2014.

  • Although there is always reason to celebrate the toppling of an autocrat, the outcome of the Iraq war and the rise of Islamic State have demonstrated in horrific terms that the alternative can be even worse.
  • In mid-April 2003, German author Hans Magnus Enzensberger published a piece in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which he celebrated the fall of Saddam Hussein. He wrote of his « deep, » even « triumphant » joy upon learning of the end of Iraq’s brutal dictatorship. The article was also full of derision and mockery for the skeptics who warned against the wisdom of US President George W. Bush’s invasion.   Continuer la lecture de « Freedom vs. Stability: are Dictators Worse than Anarchy? * »

Syria: Siege of Kobane / Kobani

Published on Frontline.in, by VIJAY PRASHAD, October * 2014.

The fate of half a million people in Kobane hangs in the balance as Islamic State fighters try to capture the Syrian city. If they take Kobane, the Islamic State will have control over the entire length of the central span of the Turkish-Syrian border … //

… Why has Daesh put so much of its firepower and its fighters into the fight against the city of Kobane? Over the course of the past two years, Daesh has tried to capture as much territory as possible towards the Turkish border. Turkey has, despite its claim to close its border posts, been—for reasons to be explored below—lax with its border posts.   Continuer la lecture de « Syria: Siege of Kobane / Kobani »

Big Banks Face Another Round of U.S. Charges

Published on New York Times, by BEN PROTESS and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG (and with Jenny Anderson and Matthew Goldstein), Oct 6, 2014.

The Justice Department is preparing a fresh round of attacks on the world’s biggest banks, again questioning Wall Street’s role in a broad array of financial markets … //

… The charges will most likely focus on traders and their bosses rather than chief executives. As a result, critics of the Justice Department might view the cases as little more than an exercise in public relations, a final push to shape the legacy of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who was blamed for a lack of criminal cases against Wall Street executives.   Continuer la lecture de « Big Banks Face Another Round of U.S. Charges »

Banned TED Talks

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SYRIZA Rising: What’s Next For The Movements In Greece?

Published on ZNet (first on ROARMAG), by  Antonis Broumas and Theodoros Karyotis, Oct 4, 2014.

… Left-Wing Bureaucracy and the State:

In theory, the communist left relates with the state in instrumental terms. The conquest of the bourgeois state is presented as a necessary evil on the road to workers’ power. This approach, however, is immersed — even on a purely theoretical level — in a series of contradictions. Even in its most sophisticated versions it fails to address the issue of the dialectic relation between the vanguard party bureaucracy and the autonomy of the world of labor, or the possibility of achieving a transition towards an egalitarian society, when there is such disparity between the means employed and the goals proposed.   Continuer la lecture de « SYRIZA Rising: What’s Next For The Movements In Greece? »

Scotland's Referendum: Some lessons for Quebec … and Canada

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin no. 1043, by Richard Fidler, Oct 3, 2014.

Superficially, the 55-45 victory of the No forces in Scotland’s referendum September 18 was a clear rejection of independence. The Yes forces won a majority only in the four poorest and most deprived of the nation’s 32 local divisions, although a class breakdown of the vote would show a majority of the working-class voted for independence.   Continuer la lecture de « Scotland's Referendum: Some lessons for Quebec … and Canada »

emerging economies: arrested development

Published on The Economist, Oct 4, 2014: The model of development through industrialisation is on its way out.

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS ago Shenzhen was a tiny fishing village just over the river from British Hong Kong. Its inhabitants, like most Chinese, lived in poverty. In 1978 the average income in America was about 21 times that in China. But in 1979 China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, chose Shenzhen as the country’s first special economic zone, free to experiment with market activity and trade with the outside world. Shenzhen quickly found itself at the leading edge of Chinese economic development, using the same model as Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong itself had done at earlier stages.   Continuer la lecture de « emerging economies: arrested development »

… Europe Is Crumbling Into Collapse

Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Oct 2, 2014.

… Yves here. The word “collapse” may seem overwrought when applied to Europe, but cold-blooded, clear eyed colleagues who have good connections and have spent a bit of time there recently say things that are broadly similar to Ilargi’s take. Despite the conventional wisdom that the cost of a Eurozone breakup is catastrophically and thus will never take place, that confidence may prove to be the currency union’s undoing. Ideological rigidity about austerity is leading to policies that are crushing large swathes of the population. And Europe, unlike the US, had enough of a tradition of popular revolt that that uprisings, either on the street or in the ballot box, are real possibilities, as the sudden rise of the anti-EU right shows.   Continuer la lecture de « … Europe Is Crumbling Into Collapse »

Fed Whistleblower Carmen Segarra, Snowden, and the Closing of the Journalistic Mind

Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, Sept 29, 2014;

… Now you might say, isn’t this media firestorm a great thing? It’s roused Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown to demand hearing. The Fed has been toadying up to Wall Street for years. Shouldn’t we be pleased that the problem is finally being taken seriously?   Continuer la lecture de « Fed Whistleblower Carmen Segarra, Snowden, and the Closing of the Journalistic Mind »

Beyond 2015: Is Another Development Possible?

Published on The Bullet, Socialist Project’s E-Bulletin no. 1040, by Benjamin Selwyn, Sept 28, 2014.

A we near 2015, the United Nations (UN) will probably set new objectives on behalf of the global community to supersede the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs are held largely by the UN, the World Bank and many anti-poverty campaigners, which I label here the anti-poverty consensus, to have been a success. According to the UN, The First MDG – the objective of halving world poverty between 1990 and 2015 – was achieved already in 2010 … // Continuer la lecture de « Beyond 2015: Is Another Development Possible? »