Saturday, June 23, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
noted. 06/22/2012
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Future legends – The New Inquiry
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Michael Sandel is justly worked up about how “markets crowd out morals” and undermine social norms, but that’s because the view that markets are wise and fair collective-action problem-solvers has come to seem like common sense. But markets don’t solve for human flourishing necessarily; they solve for capitalist control. They process power differentials neutrally, with no mechanism for diminishing them, and ignore all human desires that have no money backing up their urgency or sincerity. Also, market propaganda shouldn’t blind anyone to the fact that markets are designed and shaped through laws (so called good governance) meant to protect the interests of the already powerful; markets aren’t manifesting some transcendent law unto themselves.
- Closer to the truth about markets and technology are the warnings of conservative “futurists” like George Gilder and Alvin Toffler, who as Graeber points out, helped convince politicians that in the second half of the 20th century that “existing patterns of technological development would lead to social upheaval, and that we needed to guide technological development in directions that did not challenge existing structures of authority.” Technology needed to yield consumer goods that could placate the otherwise disenfranchised; it shouldn’t empower such people to be able to have more of a say about the shape of the society in which they are embedded.
- Instead of pursuing the inconvenient discoveries that might make everyone’s lives better, corporations have chosen to prefer technologies that enhance social control — surveillance, drones, social media, etc. — the developmental equivalent of prioritizing guard labor over productive labor. “Basic research now seems to be driven by political, administrative, and marketing imperatives that make it unlikely anything revolutionary will happen,” Graeber claims, arguing that research conclusions are more or less preformatted by the expectations of funders.
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Thursday, June 21, 2012
noted. 06/21/2012
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Obama Administration Sets New Deportation Record to Appease GOP | MyFDL
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It's Official: Obama Has Deported More Than A Million Unauthorized Immigrants | Mother Jones
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That's right, Obama is on the verge of deporting more undocumented immigrants in a single term than Bush did his full eight years in office.
Despite the administration's stated focus on unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, more than half of those deported had no criminal records, 54 percent to 46 percent. But that number doesn't convey what percentage of removals categorized as criminal include serious or violent offenses as opposed to minor ones.
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Documents raise questions on treatment of detainees - CNN.com
- a detainee was killed by an unnamed sergeant who walked into a room where the detainee was lying wounded "and assaulted him ... then shot him twice thus killing him," one of the investigating documents says. The sergeant than instructed the other soldiers present to lie about the incident. Later, the document says an unnamed corporal then shot the deceased detainee in the head after finding his corpse.
- no senior officials have been held to account for the widespread abuse of detainees. Without real accountability for these abuses, we risk inviting more abuse in the future," the ACLU said in a statement.
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Accountability for Torture (in Britain) - NYTimes.com
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The British government has decided to pay former detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, tens of millions of dollars in compensation and conduct an independent investigation into its role in the mistreatment of prisoners.
The United States still operates the Guantánamo camp, with no end in sight. None of the truly dangerous terrorists there have been brought to justice, while many prisoners are still held who never should have been. The government not only refuses to come clean on this ignoble history, but it is covering up the Bush administration’s abuses by denying victims a day in court.
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Contrary to public statements, Obama admin fueled conflict in Yemen - WikiLeaks - Salon.com
- The Obama administration supplied emergency arms shipments to Saudi Arabia to aid the Saudis’ attacks on a Northern Yemeni rebel group late last year, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks — a revelation that is directly at odds with a public statement at the time by the top State Department spokesman, who flatly insisted that the U.S. had no military role in the conflict.
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Analysis: Obama embraced redefinition of ‘civilian’ in drone wars: TBIJ
- Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.
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Excellent series of investigative reports from TBIJ on Obama's drone war program.
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U.S. resumes Bahrain arms sales despite rights concerns | Reuters
- "The government of Bahrain has yet to respect the Bahraini people's legitimate demands, or to hold accountable its own police and military officers for arresting, torturing and killing Bahraini protesters," Leahy said.
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U.S. Prepares to Continue Egypt Military Aid Amid Dispute - Bloomberg
- Congress requires Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to certify that Egypt is promoting freedoms and rights before it will release aid. Clinton can sidestep the restriction by using a waiver to release all or a portion of the funds on national security grounds.
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FDL Book Salon Welcomes Medea Benjamin, Drone Warfare: Killing By Remote Control | Book Salon
- The Obama administration, after all, is engaging in assassination when the president or the CIA serves as the judge, jury, and executioner. The administration has also largely dispensed with extraordinary rendition – moving terrorist suspects to a third country for interrogation and torture – in favor of targeted assassinations by drone. As Benjamin argues, this move dispenses with many of the legal problems of rendition. But it has raised a host of ethical questions about U.S. conduct overseas, particularly when the victims of drone attacks are U.S. citizens as was the case with Anwar al-Awlaki, the cleric killed by drone in Yemen, not to mention his 16-year-old son killed in a subsequent drone attack.
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Domestic drones could enhance surveillance but infringe on privacy | PRI.ORG
- As part of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, signed into law by President Barack Obama in February, the Federal Aviation Administration is required to write new rules for expanding the use of U.S. airspace by domestic drones.
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Monday, June 11, 2012
noted. 06/11/2012
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Shanghai stock market closes with a spooky echo of Tiananmen Square - latimes.com
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Whether a cosmic joke or coincidence -- or as some wags suggested, an act of God -- the Shanghai stock market index fell 64.89 points on Monday, which happened to be June 4, the 23rd anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square.
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Saturday, June 9, 2012
noted. 06/09/2012
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The Coming Insurrection (comité invisible) | The Anarchist Library
another Tiqqun-related piece. This one made waves in 2009 when it made its way to the U.S. and Glenn Beck shit his pants over it. It's a good read. The Invisible Committee allegedly includes some former members of the Tiqqun collective.
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- print version here: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11879
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Bloom Theory (Tiqqun) | The Anarchist Library
Probably the first Tiqqun you should read.
Lays out their contemporary situationist take on modern alienation and the revolutionary potential of its realization/transcendence.-
- here's a good critique of this piece: http://serbianballerinasdancewithmachineguns.com/post/1245886356/a-critique-of-the-theory-of-bloom-by-tiqqun-power
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- here's a new printed translation which I really want but haven't had a spare ten bucks for a little while: http://littleblackcart.com/Theory-of-Bloom.html
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super mellow and introductory, but doesn't skimp on serious thought.
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- see also: http://crimethinc.com/books/work.html
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Goodreads | Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists
Friday, June 8, 2012
noted. 06/08/2012
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Unions to city: Stop Right 2 Dream Too fines
- AFSCME Local 88, which includes many Multnomah County workers, and International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 28 also joined the solidarity pledge and donated funds to Right 2 Dream Too.
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Hall Monitor | Hall Monitor | Portland Mercury
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R2D2 has managed to keep up by raising cash from sympathetic Portlanders and diverting money that otherwise would help pay the group's food and utility bills. The fine money has been placed in an escrow account while they try to persuade the city to waive the penalties. But as the fines increase, that's been more and more difficult for the group to manage.
"They're a little bit behind," Wright says, "But they're trying to find more money."
And what will Wright do if they can't keep up—or if the city takes steps to seize his land?
"We'll have to pay the fines," he says. "It's a nice piece of property, and I'm not going to give it away. And they'd have to go back to living under the bridges, in doorways, and getting kicked by police."
That possibility—that Wright, and not Portland cops, would clear the site—has loomed quietly over the entire arrangement. It's not something anyone likes to talk about.
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Thursday, June 7, 2012
noted. 06/07/2012
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McDonald was charged with second-degree murder after the melee outside the Schooner Tavern that occurred when Schmitz's group taunted McDonald's companions, who were black, with racist and homophobic slurs and a woman smashed a glass in McDonald's face, leaving a cut that required 11 stitches.
McDonald then stabbed Schmitz in the chest with a pair of scissors or a knife. He died at the scene.
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