Talk:Represent The People

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET
September 17th 2011 -- Is America Ripe for a Tahrir Moment?

Links and notes (potentially) related to main article. Figure out where to insert later. Might fold into main article or jump to separate article.

The hope is for the main article's underlying theme to eventually lead into a discussion of strategies and tactics people can use to

- recognize the benefits of organizing at the community level

- refashion local and regional economies to directly benefit the long-term interests of the people who live there (as opposed to, for instance, a transnational entity with no interest in the community beyond the "value" it is motivated to extract)

- build healthy communities while warding off any kind of Balkanization (self-imposed or imposed by other means)

- understand the reasons why "business as usual" (ie: the globalized neoliberal economic policies imposed by the "developed world's" primary institutions and planners) is collapsing, and how people at the community level might respond

Upcoming Actions / Events -- National

• Occupy Wall Street | September 17th | #OCCUPYWALLSTREET | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

A worldwide shift in revolutionary tactics is underway right now that bodes well for the future. The spirit of this fresh tactic, a fusion of Tahrir with the acampadas of Spain, is captured in this quote:

The antiglobalization movement was the first step on the road. Back then our model was to attack the system like a pack of wolves. There was an alpha male, a wolf who led the pack, and those who followed behind. Now the model has evolved. Today we are one big swarm of people.

—- Raimundo Viejo, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain

• OCTOBER 2011: "Join us in Freedom Plaza starting October 6th (2011)!"

October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions.

Environment; Climate Change

• Peak Oil and a Changing Climate (article)
• Peak Oil and a Changing Climate (video)

The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world's supply of oil runs out? Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and the other scientists, researchers and writers interviewed throughout “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” describe the diminishing returns our world can expect as it deals with the consequences of peak oil even as it continues to pretend it doesn’t exist. These experts predict substantially increased transportation costs, decreased industrial production, unemployment, hunger and social chaos as the supplies of the fuels on which we rely dwindle and eventually disappear.

• Silence is Deadly

"Phase out of emissions from coal is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over. There is no practical way to capture the CO2 emitted while burning oil, which is used principally in vehicles."

--Jim Hansen

• Should the U.S. Approve TransCanada’s Massive Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline?

• Tar Sands Action

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What will a post collapse society look like?

Relocalization; Degrowth; Peak Oil; Economic Collapse

• Dmitry Orlov: Peak Oil Lessons From The Soviet Union

Dmitry Orlov, engineer and author, warns that the US's reliance on diminishing fuel supplies might be sending it down the same path the Soviet Union took before it collapsed. Orlov, who was an eyewitness to the collapse of the Soviet Union, asserts that run-away debt and national bankruptcy will lead the US to its demise, just as it did for Moscow. "As oil becomes more expensive and scarcer, the US will no longer be able to finance its importation and the economy will hit a wall. Sixty percent of all of our transportation fuels are imported—a lot of that is on credit. A large chunk of the trade deficit is actually in transportation fuels. When those stop arriving because of our inability to borrow more money, then the economy is at a standstill."

• Degrowth – What Can We Learn from Cuba?

Only Cuba provides a decent standard of living for its people without consuming more than its fair share of (global) resources.

• Green Life Eco Fest - March 22, 2011 - TALK: "The Twilight of the Antipodes and the Cultural Flip"

The Twilight of the Antipodes and the Cultural Flip (Power point presentation from talk.)

Comment from viewer: "Very good synthesis, and honest, radical views. Think for a second about a future where you have to unlearn consumerism, bike around more and recycle your plastic bottles. Then ponder a future where the only reliable forms of transportation available are boats, horses and your feet! :D That's what I mean by an honest view on the current collapse. We're very far from sustainabilty, and it's time we get a clear picture. No matter how ridiculously scary."

• Dmitry Orlov – Seizing the Mid-Collapse Moment

Dmitry Orlov, author of Reinventing Collapse:The Soviet Example and American Prospects, explored the question “What is it that we are looking at here, and what can we do about it?” He believes that there is not much hope for a global financial system and economy, nor should there be given the huge problems it is causing with the environment. If this is the case, then what can people do, in terms of coping with financial collapse, creating community resilience, and re-skilling for the new, local, self-reliant, highly manual age that is coming?

• Dmitry Orlov – Seizing the Mid-Collapse Moment

Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation (Orlov's notes and power point slides.)

Finance

• Picking the Bones of US Public Economy

Rob Johnson: Financial institutions planning to use crisis to privatize and monopolize.

EDITOR NOTES: This topic is crucial for people to understand. The same forces whose antics brought the global economy to its knees while accumulating unimaginable "paper" wealth are scooping up every tangible asset they can get their hands on while prices for those assets are cheap and before their currency becomes worthless.

• CFTC Commissioner: "A Hair Trigger Away from Economic Calamity"

- Wall Street lobbyists trying to slow down trading regulations and defund Commission

- Massive spikes in price of food, oil, natural gas and silver cannot be the result of supply and demand

- For regulations to be effective, there has to be political will and proper resources

- Regulator gets "around 100 visits from finance reps for every one from community advocates"

• Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda: How Corporations Destroyed US Democracy Through Propaganda

Summary: The people of the US have been subjected to the most costly, unparalleled, 3/4 century propaganda effort by corporations in order to expand corporate rights, limit democracy and destroy the unions. This two part radio broadcast explores the history From WWI to Reagan.

Credits: Producer: Maria Gilardin tuc@tucradio.org

• Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda versus Freedom and Liberty

From Publisher: This compelling book examines the twentieth-century history of corporate propaganda as practiced by U.S. businesses and its export to and adoption by other western democracies, chiefly the United Kingdom and Australia.

Praise:
"A uniquely important work on the 'ideal of a propaganda-managed democracy."

--Noam Chomsky

"Illuminates how big business propaganda, waged by PR experts, subverts democracy and ensures corporate dominance."

--John Stauber, coauthor of Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry

"A unique study of the growth and development of corporate propaganda in western democracies. . . . Timely, and useful for anyone concerned about the influence of methods of mass persuasion in undermining democracy."

--Elaine Bernard, Harvard University Trade Union Program

• Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, is an analysis of the news media as business. The title derives from the phrase “the manufacture of consent” that essayist–editor Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) employed in the book Public Opinion (1922).