Occupation of Wall Street: ‘Only time will tell which of the above two tendencies can capture popular imagination and become dominant in the near future. Also, at this point it is a matter of speculation if the protesters manage to get large numbers of people angry enough to, say, storm Wall Street, or just degenerate into a tourist curio (much like our parliament square campers) who have the feel-good factor of ‘protest’ but offer no means of self-empowerment or solutions to changing the present state of things.’
One of These Things Just Doesn’t Belong Here: ‘People like Maddow and Schultz can make all the noises they want about “green jobs” and “walking softly on the earth.” But it’s simply incompatible — as incompatible as matter with anti-matter — with the mid-twentieth century economic model of the Hoover Dam, the Interstate and the Detroit auto industry celebrated by people like her and Schultz.’
Venezuela From Below: This is in reality the old idea that somehow the liberation of the oppressed and exploited can be brought about from above by enlightened leaders controlling the state. What we see in the case of the Bolivarian Movement, on the other hand, is how these “revolutionary cadres” in control of the state work to coopt and control social movements. A self-managed socialist society is not likely if it isn’t a conquest won by self-managed mass organizations of the oppressed and exploited. Thus self-management has a dual character: self-management of struggles for change, and self-management of the gains won through struggle.
International Statement of Solidarity with Cuban Anti-Authoritarians: ‘Our Cuban comrades’ only sin is that they have the effrontery to contemplate (and change) their reality without waiting for promises from the Nanny State or Capital’s siren songs. They believe in a fuller life, in a community where the unhindered growth of each is the precondition and measure of the unhindered growth of all.’
More Secret US Drone Bases: ‘Instead, researchers are working on a number of software packages to take the “remote control” out of the picture and let the robots decide on their own who to lob missiles at. Researchers say this would be an important development because the robots would decide who to murder much faster than CIA targeters are liable to.
The Postville Immigration Raid: Not recent news, but worth watching. The war on migrants is one of the more disgusting aspects of state thuggery in the modern world.
Thicket & Thorp 