Capitalism

by Alex Jensen / Local Futures In 2015, a major study of 24 indicators of human activity and environmental decline titled “The Great Acceleration” concluded that, “The last 60 years have without doubt seen the most profound transformation of the human relationship with the natural world in the history of humankind”. [1] We have all seen aspects of these trends, but to look at the study’s 24 graphs together is to apprehend, at a glance, the totality of the monstrous scale and speed of modern economic activity. According to lead author W. Steffen, “It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In a single lifetime humanity has become a planetary-scale geological force.” [2] ...

by Jen Moore / Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Stories of bloody, degrading violence associated with Canadian mining operations abroad sporadically land on Canadian news pages. HudBay Minerals, Goldcorp, Barrick Gold, Nevsun and Tahoe Resources are some of the bigger corporate names associated with this activity. Sometimes our attention is held for a moment, sometimes at a stretch. It usually depends on what solidarity networks and under-resourced support groups can sustain in their attempts to raise the issues and amplify the voices of those affected by one of Canada’s most globalized industries. But even they only tell us part of the story, as Todd Gordon and Jeffery Webber make painfully clear in their new book, The Blood of Extraction: Canadian Imperialism in Latin America (Fernwood Publishing, November 2016). ...

by David Fleming and Shaun Chamberlin This originally appeared in Local Futures What follows are some excerpts from the late David Fleming’s Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2016). The excerpts have been chosen by the book’s editor, Shaun Chamberlin . Extensive references are given in the dictionary itself, but are omitted here. Localisation. Localisation stands, at best, at the limits of practical possibility, but it has the decisive argument in its favour that there will be no alternative. ...

By Rog Community On Monday, 6th of June at 03:15 AM, the security company Valina stormed into the Rog Factory, which is formally owned by the Municipality of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The plan was to secure the place and turn it into a building ground, all according to the gentrification vision of the mayor of Ljubljana, Zoran Janković. Despite the violent and brutal approach of the security, the community of the Rog Factory won that war, managed to defend the place and around noon, the demoralized security forces had to leave the premises. Within the hour, barricades were erected around the area, heavily protecting the main entrance, as it is expected there will be another attempts of eviction in the coming days, possibly with the help of police forces. ...

By Rapid Response Network Today, Haitian garment workers are going on strike to demand 500 gourdes ($7.94 for 8 hour work day)! This follows last Thursday’s (5/11) work stoppage and shut down of the SONAPI Industrial Park in Port Au Prince. From that action, union organizer, Telemarque Pierre, was fired without reason from his position at Premium Apparel factory, which produces for Gildan, and owned by Clifford Apaid. In a statement shared with the RRN, organized workers said: ...

By Stephanie McMillan / One Struggle This essay originally appeared in Idées Nouvelles Idées Prolétariennes. Featured artwork by Stephanie McMillan Individualism is the ideology of competition, of capitalism. It consists of prioritizing one’s perceived immediate personal interests above collective interests, and being blind to the fact that one’s long-term personal interests actually correspond to the interests of the whole. This leads people to behave in ways that are detrimental to the collective, and ultimately to each individual as well. ...

Editor’s Note: This video was streamed live on May 14, 2015, by TRTV Show Real Talk. Deep Green Resistance volunteers transcribed the dialogue, published here. Mark: Hello, hello, and good evening and welcome to transition radio live from the land of enchantment: Silver City, New Mexico. My name is Mark Angelo Cummings. Lynna: And I’m Lynna Arielle Lopez, and I’ll be your hostess. Mark: Yes, and I am your host, hostess. Gender, what is gender? ...

By Kim Hill / Deep Green Resistance Australia Naomi Klein’s latest book, This Changes Everything, is based on the premise that capitalism is the cause of the climate crisis, and to avert catastrophe, capitalism must go. The proposed solution is a mass movement that will win with arguments that undermine the capitalist system by making it morally unacceptable. This premise has many flaws. It fails to acknowledge the roots of capitalism and climate change, seeing them as independent issues that can be transformed without taking action to address the underlying causes. Climate change cannot be avoided by building more infrastructure and reforming the economy, as is suggested in the book. The climate crisis is merely a symptom of a deeper crisis, and superficial solutions that act on the symptoms will only make the situation worse. Human-induced climate change started thousands of years ago with the advent of land clearing and agriculture, long before capitalism came into being. The root cause—a culture that values domination of people and land, and the social and physical structures created by this culture—needs to be addressed for any action on capitalism or climate to be effective. ...

By Vincent Kelley / One Struggle I recently saw an Aquafina® bottle sitting on a table at my workplace. Its label read: “New! ECO-FINA Bottle™, 50% less plastic (*on average vs. 2002 bottle).” To start, it is ridiculous that PepsiCo, the producer of the Aquafina® brand, would lay any claim to social consciousness by offering a “greener” choice than its competitors. Pepsi drains aquifers in India [1], knowingly includes carcinogenic coloring in its soft drinks [2], and adopts racist hiring practices [3], just to name a few of the corporation’s psychopathic behaviors. This psychopathology, of course, is not unique to Pepsi—it is the modus operandi of the corporation itself as a legal-economic entity. [4] ...

By Joshua Headley / Deep Green Resistance New York As a socially conscious person situated within the heart of global industrial civilization, I often experience, directly and indirectly, injustices on a daily basis. A week ago, the NYPD (via two plainclothes officers) murdered a 16-year-old boy, Kimani Gray, firing 11 shots – hitting him 7 times in total; 3 in the back, 4 in the front. Monday night a large crowd began a vigil that would kick-off a week full of protest in the neighborhood – the night culminated in trash being thrown into the streets to slow down the riot police, glass bottles being thrown at officers from rooftop buildings, and the NYPD entering numerous apartments without warrants. Following that night (and for every day since) the East Flatbush neighborhood has been under military-style occupation with no less than three riot police on every single corner for more than 30 blocks. By Wednesday, the NYPD had declared the neighborhood a “Frozen Zone,” essentially affirming martial law by limiting press access and arresting anyone who did not precisely follow police instructions. One week later, tensions are still as high as ever, and justice has yet to be served. ...