by DGR News Service | Dec 3, 2021 | Climate Change, Culture of Resistance, Human Supremacy, Indigenous Autonomy, Indirect Action, Lobbying, Mining & Drilling, The Problem: Civilization, The Solution: Resistance
Editor’s note: You don’t have to be indigenous to love the land you live on but it certainly gives moral authority. And in the fight against settler colonialism gives a much greater legitimate claim to virtue. They don’t even follow their own rules. Broken Treaties.
Indigenous Peoples bear the brunt of environmental inaction — and sometimes action. The Narwhal speaks to three women on what they hope to address at the UN climate change summit in Glasgow
Nuskmata wants to combat myths about mining in Canada.
This is one of her goals at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow.
Nuskmata, mining spokesperson for Nuxalk Nation, spoke to The Narwhal from her home in British Columbia prior to leaving for the summit, also known as the 26th annual meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP26) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
She said she wants to centre solutions around Indigenous governance and emphasize how Indigenous Peoples are bearing the burden of climate policies, even well-intentioned ones like switching to electrification and renewable energy — that still requires mining precious metals, she said.
“You can’t be sacrificing Indigenous Peoples and clean water in order to get solar panels,” she said.
“It’s not just swapping out oil and gas. It’s about changing the system so that it’s sustainable for everybody.”
Nuskmata is one of many Indigenous delegates at COP26 determined to pursue Indigenous solutions, along with debunking myths and adding context to Canada’s global commitments.
She said she also hopes to deliver a message that mining “is not a green solution” to the climate crisis.
At COP26, the more than 100 countries in attendance will update their 2015 Paris Agreement commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, intended to meet the urgent need to limit global warming to 1.5 C. This will require profound changes, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a sobering report in August which found Earth could exceed the 1.5 C warming limit by the early 2030s if we don’t curb emissions. To stay below 2 C warming, countries have to meet net-zero emissions around 2050, the report found.
Already in Scotland, nearly all countries have signed a deal committing to end deforestation by 2030, including Canada — though logging here is seen as renewable and therefore not affected by the deal. Delegates have pledged $1.7 billion in funding to Indigenous Peoples, recognizing the critical role they play in forest conservation.
On Monday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to cap and then cut emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector, repeating one of his 2021 campaign promises. But according to a new report from Environmental Defence Canada and Oil Change International, oil and gas producers only have vague commitments that rely on carbon-capture technology.
Some critics say COP26 is excluding Indigenous leaders from key parts of the international discussions. Regional Chief of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations Terry Teegee said in a public statement “there is a noticeable failure to include First Nations while negotiating the collective future of our planet internationally and locally.”
Read the full article at The Narwhal.
Banner image: Nuskmata is one of three Indigenous women The Narwhal spoke to about the message they’re bringing to COP26 in Glasgow.
Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal
by DGR News Service | Oct 5, 2021 | Repression at Home, The Problem: Civilization, Worker Exploitation
This post includes sections on: can capitalism be reformed, proposed reforms, do reforms protect capitalism, why reforms won’t work, and capitalism undoes reforms that benefit ordinary people.
This post is critical of reforms because they mostly protect capitalism in different ways and get in the way of building transformational mass movements. But I also do not completely discount them, as I think they might have a positive part to play in moving us towards ending capitalism.
This article is from the blog buildingarevolutionarymovement.
Can capitalism be reformed?
The obvious answer is no. But its more complicated than that. It depends what you mean by reform and timescales. If the question means can capitalism be reformed long term to meet the needs of ordinary people, then no way. If you mean when capitalism gets out of control can it be reformed so things are a bit less unequal to quieten demands for system change, then quite possibly, such as the 1930s in the US and the post-war decades in the UK.
Twenty-first-century capitalism may be less profitable but the corporate elite are clearly securing massive profits. These could be redistributed in workers wages, or from tax increases to fund a welfare state to meet everyone’s needs, unlike the substandard social safety net we currently have. I do think redistributive reforms are possible but it will require pressure from mass movements, which do not currently exist.
The Tory response to Covid could be seen as a reform and it certainly shows what’s possible. It contradicts the neoliberal claims that if we leave things to the free market and everything will be fine. I more see this as crisis response, with the Tories needing to balance the demands of the public to meet their basic needs and capitalists demands to keep the economy running. Extending the job retention or furlough scheme in the Spring and Winter was due to pressure from unions and business leaders, but there has not been a strong demand from the left. The question now is how will the government deficit be paid for – tax rises or more austerity. We’ve still not recovered from the last round of austerity by the coalition government following the 2008 financial crisis. Austerity now would continue the process of rolling back postwar gains related to benefits, more NHS privatisation and the welfare support for the most vulnerable (see the final section of the post for more on this).
Proposed reforms
Many reformist capitalists do not support the neoliberal form of capitalism – extreme inequality and corporate power – that we live under at the moment. They want a ‘fairer’ or ‘more equal’ form of capitalism. There are no shortage of proposals to reform capitalism, these include Robert Reich, David Korten, Thomas Piketty, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge University, Dominic Barton, the global managing director of McKinsey & Company, Ray Dalios, George Soros, Joseph Stiglitz.
Then there are different names for a better capitalism: decent capitalism, responsible capitalism, inclusive cap, stakeholder cap, ethical capitalism, conscious capitalism, Economic Dignity, Common-Good Capitalism.
In the UK, Ed Miliband when he was the leader of the Labour Party (2010-2015) wanted to introduce a proper industrial strategy to introduce national and regional investment and to bring in controls over the excesses of corporate behaviour. The Corbyn project presented itself as democratic socialist but due to the limits of global neoliberalism, could have only moved us towards social democracy. The current Tory government are looking to copy past Labour Party policies with their ‘levelling up’ rhetoric, although it seems unlikely they will follow through.
The UK left-leaning think tank Institute for Public Policy Research came out with its 10 point plan for a better Britain in 2018: Reshaping the economy, Securing good pay and good jobs, Improving the private sector, promoting competition and protecting consumers, Increasing public investment, Strengthening the financial system, Tackling wealth inequality, Fair and simple taxes, Environmental sustainability, Devolution. It’s likely that Theresa May when Prime Minister was sympathetic to some of these ideas.
Do reforms protect capitalism?
Mostly yes. Many on the radical left argue that fighting for reforms maintains capitalism by making it more stable or profitable.
Nate Hawthorne has a more nuanced understanding. He describes in this post that reforms help capitalism function, he gives the example of extending credit to companies so they can operate. This could be broadened to include all the things that governments do that make the economy and business environment easier for companies to operate in and make profits.
Nate also describes the importance of the spreading of ‘capitalists class consciousness’ to ensure capitalist system stability. Capitalists will have ‘boss-consciousness’ related to their employees in their business but some will be more focused on increasing their personal wealth over the long term interests of the capitalists class. Reforms can limit the excesses of some self-serving capitalists. This is called the ‘corporate compromise’ by Young et al in Levers of Power: How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do About It. The book describes how the creation of US legislation goes through a process of being generally agreeable to difference corporate interests to ensure the stability of capitalism [1]. It describes how Barak Obama worked very hard to keep the capitalist system stable so it worked for the business world as a whole [2]. And that Donald Trump violated the corporate compromise because he advanced certain business interests over others [3].
Reforms also prevent social unrest by doing just enough to stop it from boiling over. This relates to movements, campaigns, street protests, demonstrations and riots. Examples of this would be the US civil rights laws in the 1960s or the poll tax riots in 1990 in the UK.
Reforms have also saved capitalism from revolution by giving mass movements what they demand to quiet them down. The example here would be the New Deal in the US in the 1930s following a mass movements of trade unions, socialists and communists. [4]
As well as reforms protecting capitalism from itself, greedy capitalists or mass movements, reforms are also used to protect capitalisms profits in the form of anti-trade union laws. (for more information on this see a summary in the final section of this post).
Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression in the 1930s, several factors combined to saved capitalism: Keynesian economic theory; mass movements demanding state support and welfare reform; and the economic stimulation generated during the war and the rebuilding after. Richard Wolff asks an important question: has the systematic crushing of the left over the last forty years taken away one of the important mechanisms for protecting capitalism? [5]
Why reforms won’t work
There are several ways to think about this. First, if reforms are achieved that benefit ordinary people but you leave the capitalists in power, they will always undo or roll back any gains for ordinary people (see the next section for more details). The capitalists can’t help themselves. So reform is not enough and we need to end capitalism. [6]
Second, the mid-twentieth century reforms were achieved because of a combination of rebuilding after the war resulting in a high demand for labour, powerful working-class movements, the increasing profitability of capitalism with capitalist classes willing to share some of their profits, and British capital could not move abroad as it does now so had nowhere else to go. There is also an argument that the threat of communism from the Soviet Union put pressure on western elites and states. [7]
Third, currently, the left is so weak and corporate power so dominant that we’re not winning any reforms. This is the ‘structural power’ argument. [8]
Fourth, some on the left advocate a gradualist strategy through reforms to ending capitalism and creating a socialist society. There is a lot to unpack in future posts on this point but I do think that a rupture with capitalism will be required, a revolution.
Capitalism undoes reforms that benefit ordinary people
Since the 1980s the current form of capitalism, neoliberalism has been rolling back the gain that ordinary people made through the 20th century. Using the four categories from the previous post on these gains I will briefly describe how they have been undone.
First, what is privatisation? It is the selling off of publicly owned services, industries and institutions so they become privately owned and run. In the UK it started with the steel industry in the 1950s, then in the 1980s, Thatcher sold off a large number of public institutions, industries and services. Council housing was sold off in the 1980s through the right to buy scheme. The public services campaign group We Own It gives a great history of the privatisation of different publicly owned services, industries and institutions in Britain.
Parliamentary reform
Paul Foot in The Vote: How it was won and it was undermined, provides an excellent history of success of electoral reform up to the early 20th century. And then how it was undermined for the rest of the century. The continuing struggle for electoral reform is ongoing and important to weaken the Tories and open things up for the radical left.
Worker’s Rights
See a summary of the UK government anti-trade union legislation from 1980-1999 here and from 1979-2010 here. Since 2010 there has been the Trade Union Act 2016 [9], and then further restrictions since that act during related Covid.
Education
Stephen Ball in The Education Debate describes how since the 1980s schools have been remodelled on commercial and industrial institutions. He argues that neoliberalism has changed the British education system through four key mechanisms: top-down performance management, greater competitiveness and contestability, choice and voice, measures to strengthen the capability of public servants to deliver improved public services. Here is a summary by Ball of neoliberal education policy in Britain from 1979-2010 under the Tory’s and New Labour. And here is the We Own It perspective on Academy schools.
Social Welfare
The most recent reform of the welfare system was The Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. A 2019 report by Frank Field MP, Heidi Allen MP and Feeding Britain called The ‘Other Britain’ and the failure of the welfare state, found that the welfare system is failing the most vulnerable. They list the key issues to be:
- benefit freeze – claimants no longer get an annual increase in line with inflation so have less and less to live on
- Universal Credit, issues include 5-week wait and advance payments, third party deductions and old social loans, sanctions, Work Capability Assessments
- Medical assessments and Personal Independence Payments (PIP)
- No recourse to public funds for migrants
- Jobcentres are unsupportive and uncaring
- The gig economy and the working poor cannot afford to cover their outgoing so need food banks
- Problem Debt due to low pay force people into high-cost debt
The increasing use of food banks in the UK is another clear indication that the welfare state is failing: “In 2019/20 approximately 1.9 million people used a food bank in the United Kingdom, around 300 thousand more than the previous year.” [10]
The NHS is a key institution of Britain’s welfare state. We Own It has identified three ways the NHS is being undermined:
- creating competition so private companies provide services funded by taxpayers;
- the reorganisation of the NHS so regional commissioning groups allow local NHS service contracts to be managed by private companies;
- the Tory governments have reduced the level of funding, which could make people think a publicly owned NHS isn’t working and so the private sector might be seen as a solution.
Endnotes
- Levers of Power: How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do About It, Kevin A. Young, Tarun Banerjee and Michael Schwartz, 2020, chapter 2
- Levers of Power, page 131
- Levers of Power, page 133
- https://lithub.com/howard-zinn-how-fdr-forestalled-a-second-american-revolution/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bT8f72s2uU
- Crisis and Openings: Introduction to Marxism – Richard D Wolff, 130 min, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9Whccunka4
- AskProfWolff: A Critique of Robert Reich, 4 min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNRyDa79ygA; Understanding Marxism: Q&A with Richard D. Wolff, 35 min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU-AkeOyiOQ; How Reaganomics Killed America’s Middle Class, 54 min https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdCNGkZoIZw&t=3004s; Crisis and Openings: Introduction to Marxism – Richard D Wolff, 129 min, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9Whccunka4
- see conclusion of https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/12/27/the-tragedy-of-corbynism-a-postmortem. Also http://libcom.org/blog/reform-possible-22122011and http://libcom.org/blog/reform-possible-reformism-guaranteed-22122011
- Levers of Power: How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do About It, Kevin A. Young, Tarun Banerjee and Michael Schwartz, 2020
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_Union_Act_2016 and https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/15/trade-unions-conservative-offensive-decades-strikes-labour
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 19, 2017 | Lobbying
by Center for Biological Diversity
TUCSON, AZ— President Trump’s border wall threatens 93 endangered and threatened species, including jaguars, ocelots, Mexican gray wolves and cactus ferruginous pygmy owls, according to a new study by the Center for Biological Diversity.
The study also found that 25 threatened or endangered species have designated “critical habitat” on the border, including more than 2 million acres within 50 miles of the border.
“Trump’s border wall is a disaster for people and wildlife alike,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center. “It could drive magnificent species like the jaguar and ocelot to extinction in the United States.”
The new study identified all threatened, endangered and “candidate” species (those being considered for protection) that have ranges near or crossing the border. These include 57 endangered species, 24 threatened species, 10 species under consideration for protection and two species of concern, golden and bald eagles. Construction of Trump’s 1,200-mile wall — along with related infrastructure and enforcement — will have far-reaching consequences for wildlife, including cutting off migration corridors, reducing genetic diversity, destroying habitat, and adding vehicles, noise and lights to vast stretches of the wild borderlands.
“The border wall won’t be effective at stopping people seeking a better life from getting to this country, but it will destroy habitat and divide wildlife populations,” Greenwald said. “Building a wall across the entirety of the border would cause massive damage to one of the most biologically diverse regions in North America and would be a boondoggle of the highest order.”
The sections of border wall that have already been built have had a range of negative effects on wildlife, including direct destruction of thousands of acres of habitat, indirect impacts from noise and light pollution, and division of cross-border wildlife populations like bighorn sheep and jaguars. The border wall would cut through the Cabeza Prieta, Buenos Aires and several other national wildlife refuges, along with Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Big Bend National Park and many other natural areas that, besides acting as corridors for wildlife, are national treasures.
Last month the Center and Congressman Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member of the House Committee on Natural Resources, sued the Trump administration over the proposed border wall and other border security measures, calling on federal agencies to conduct an in-depth investigation of the proposal’s environmental impacts.
The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, is the first targeting the Trump administration’s plan to vastly expand and militarize the U.S.-Mexico border, including construction of a “great wall.”
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 4, 2017 | Building Alternatives, Strategy & Analysis
by Helena Norberg-Hodge / Local Futures
While we mourn the tragedy that fear, prejudice and ignorance “trumped” in the US Presidential election, now is the time to go deeper and broader with our work. There is a growing recognition that the scary situation we find ourselves in today has deep roots.
To better understand what happened—and why—we need to broaden our horizons. If we zoom out a bit, it becomes clear that Trump is not an isolated phenomenon; the forces that elected him are largely borne of rising economic insecurity and discontent with the political process. The resulting confusion and fear, unaddressed by mainstream media and politics, has been capitalized on by the far-right worldwide.
Almost everywhere in the world, unemployment is increasing, the gap between rich and poor is widening, environmental devastation is worsening, and a spiritual crisis—revealed in addiction, domestic assaults, and suicide—is deepening.
From a global perspective it becomes apparent that these many crises—to which the rise of right-wing sentiments is intimately connected—share a common root cause: a globalized economic system that is devastating not only ecosystems, but also the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
How did we end up in this situation?
Over the last three decades, governments have unquestioningly embraced “free trade” treaties that have allowed ever larger corporations to demand lower wages, fewer regulations, more tax breaks and more subsidies. These treaties enable corporations to move operations elsewhere or even to sue governments if their profit-oriented demands are not met. In the quest for “growth,” communities worldwide have had their local economies undermined and have been pulled into dependence on a volatile global economy over which they have no control.
Corporate rule is not only disenfranchising people worldwide, it is fueling climate change, destroying cultural and biological diversity, and replacing community with consumerism. These are undoubtedly scary times. Yet the very fact that the crises we face are linked can be the source of genuine empowerment. Once we understand the systemic nature of our problems, the path towards solving them—simultaneously—becomes clear.
Trade unions, environmentalists and human rights activists formed a powerful anti-trade treaty movement long before Trump came on the scene. And his policies already show that he is about strengthening corporate rule, rather than reversing it.
Re-regulating global businesses and banks is a prerequisite for genuine democracy and sustainability, for a future that is shaped not by distant financial markets but by society. By insisting that business be place-based or localized, we can start to bring the economy home.
Around the world, from the USA to India, from China to Australia, people are reweaving the social and economic fabric at the local level and are beginning to feel the profound environmental, economic, social and even spiritual benefits. Local business alliances, local finance initiatives, locally-based education and energy schemes, and, most importantly, local food movements are springing up at an exponential rate.
As the scale and pace of economic activity are reduced, anonymity gives way to face-to-face relationships, and to a closer connection to Nature. Bonds of local interdependence are strengthened, and a secure sense of personal and cultural identity begins to flourish. All of these efforts are based on the principle of connection and the celebration of diversity, presenting a genuine systemic solution to our global crises as opposed to the fear-mongering and divisiveness of the dominant discourse in the media.
Moreover, localized economies boost employment not by increasing consumption, but by relying more on human labor and creativity and less on energy-intensive technological systems—thereby reducing resource use and pollution. By redistributing economic and political power from corporate monopolies to millions of small businesses, localization revitalizes the democratic process, re-rooting political power in community.
The far-reaching solution of a global to local shift can move us beyond the left-right political theater to link hands in a diverse and united people’s movement for secure, meaningful livelihoods and a healthy planet.
Republished with permission of Local Futures. For permission to repost this or other entries on the Economics of Happiness Blog, please contact info@localfutures.org
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 17, 2017 | Movement Building & Support, Strategy & Analysis
by Vincent Emanuele / Z Communications
Tonight, I attended a town hall meeting featuring John Zody, the utterly uninspiring and banal Chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party. The meeting was as informative and inspiring as it was frustrating and sad. Without doubt, the Indiana Democratic Party is in serious trouble. In a county that’s 48% people of color, less than five of the 65 folks in attendance were black or brown.
Honestly, I actually feel bad for the party and its die-hard supporters. That’s no bullshit. They’re so fractured and disorganized it’s almost unbelievable. For instance, the so-called leaders of the Lake County Democrats were too busy drinking Budweisers at the VFW bar to even pay attention to what most of their constituents were saying. That’s the level of respect the Democratic Party gives its people.
Mark Lopez, the top aide for Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN), spent the night walking around the room, making sly remarks under his breath, and shaking hands with the local drunks and criminals who operate the party at the county level. If you don’t know the history of the Democratic Party in Chicago or Lake County, Indiana, please, do some research.
At this point, I’m convinced that anyone who thinks they’re going to reform the Democratic Party is not only wrong, they are completely out of touch with reality. The Democratic Party resembles a walking zombie that doesn’t even realize it’s dead yet. That’s how bad tonight was, at least in terms of what people should expect for the future of the Indiana Democratic Party.
However, and this is a very important distinction, the people who attended tonight’s meeting, particularly the women in the room, had very interesting things to say about organization, values, vision and the future. They want a serious platform and they’re willing to work for it. They made tonight’s meeting worthwhile and interesting.
That being said, my frustration with the Left is limitless. To be clear, if the Left had its shit together, it could control entire swaths of this country, including places like Northwest Indiana. The people are ready. They want to organize. You know what I heard people say throughout tonight’s event? “How can we organize? How do we create grassroots organizations? Where are the tools and resources?”
In other words, the things that people were asking of Zody and the Democratic Party – resources, vision, money, manpower – should be provided by the Left. Those things will not come from traditional unions. In fact, as time moves along, I have less and less faith that organized labor will do a damn thing for the people of Indiana. After all, in 1962, Indiana was the third most unionized state in the country. Today, those unions are in shambles.
In many ways, unfortunately, they are part of the problem. The unions who operate in Indiana do not educate or organize their members, yet they badger those who voted for Trump. That’s not a winning strategy. I heard several people tonight talk about ignorant “hillbillies” and union members who “don’t get it.” In the meantime, instead of organizing their members and helping local community groups, unions in the Hoosier state wasted millions of dollars trying to elect centrist Democrats like Evan Bayh and John Gregg.
Undoubtedly, we need new institutions and we need to build them now. That’s the sort of work that gets me excited. And yet, I’m willing to work with local progressive Dems, for strategic reasons, but on our terms, not theirs. There is, for lack of a better term, a power vacuum in Northwest Indiana.
The Republican Party sure isn’t going to fill it. Black and brown people in the sate of Indiana aren’t going to all the sudden turn conservative. And after tonight, I’m more than convinced that the Democratic Party isn’t going to fill the gap. So, who, or what, will? That’s the question activists and organizers must answer, and soon.
Yes, right now, we have plenty of people in the streets. But these actions remind me of 2006-2008, when people were overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush regime. Yes, we were anti-Bush, but we never created alternatives to the Democrats or the major NGOs, many of whom continue to influence and/or control the major demonstrations taking place against Trump.
In many ways, I liken the Left’s current dilemma to someone thinking about getting back into good physical shape. You don’t go to the gym and expect to bench press 300lbs without years of laying a solid foundation. You don’t go to jiu jitsu practice expecting to successfully grapple black belts in your first couple years. These things take time.
We need to build a solid foundation and that becomes very difficult if we’re beholden to news cycles. My advice: stop watching the news. Stop paying attention to the day-to-day madness of the Trump regime. Sit back, read, think, reflect and learn. That’s the only way we’ll stop making the same mistakes we’ve made for decades.
People want to act, and that’s great. But if those actions aren’t tied to something larger, more substantive, they’ll be fruitless in the long-term. I fully understand everyone’s sense of urgency, but I’m starting to think that level of anxiety is extremely unhealthy and rather unproductive.
We need activists to operate with less emotions and urgency, and with more focus, which requires discipline, education and time. We don’t have time, but we can engender discipline and a radical political education.
Vincent Emanuele is a writer, journalist and activist who lives in Michigan City, Indiana. He hosts “Meditations and Molotovs” which airs every Monday @1:00pm(CST) on the Progressive Radio Network (prn.fm) and can be reached at vincent.emanuele333@gmail.com
