Labor Joins Occupy Detroit In Solidarity March

I joined a march through Detroit today, along with several labor unions, and the protesters from Occupy Detroit. (see: Unions rally with Occupy Detroit) It was the first time I did a march. It felt a little surreal to chant the slogans I had heard so many times on LiveStream. It was like stepping through the fourth wall. But it felt good. And it felt sad, too -- so many good people, hard-working people, the people who build and maintain our society are on their knees, brought low by a regressive tax system, and offshoring of jobs under the spectre of free trade, which is anything but free. Free-trade cost Detroit its prosperity. Free-trade, offshoring, and bad tax policy cost the United states its broad, inclusive prosperity. That and corrupt government bought by incompetent, criminally venal corporate management.

Things will change, though. They have to. Folks are getting up off their knees, and they are angry. The question is, how much worse will the economy and the environment get before the country -- the entire country -- stands up and boots corporations and corrupt politicians out of our government.

Here's some pics:

The labor march -- union members, occupiers, sympathetic citizens -- arrives at Grand Circus Park, Detroit

Marchers gather at the base of the Hazen Pingree statue to hear speeches from labor leaders and occupiers.

Occupier Art

Sandwiches prepared by volunteers and given to anyone who was hungry.

A quote from Hazen Pingree, a visionary, progressive, four-term Detroit mayor and twice Michigan governor. He was one of the first to warn against unfettered corporate influence in the public sphere. A plaque on  a statue of Pingree in Grand Circus Park, where the occupiers are camped reads: “The citizens of Michigan erect this monument to the cherished memory of Hazen S. Pingree. A gallant soldier, an enterprising and successful citizen, four times elected mayor of Detroit, twice governor of Michigan. He was the first to warn the people of the great danger threatened by powerful private corporations. And the first to awake to the great inequalities in taxation and to initiate steps for reform. The idol of the people. He died June 18, MDCCCI, aged 60 years.”

Signs left behind by marchers, and preserved near the fountain.

The campsite.

"Comfort" -- protesters provide food, blankets & clothing to homeless as well as occupiers.

"This is what peaceful revolution looks like."

Chalked on the fountain: "Superman never made any money saving the world from Solomon Grundy"

One Occupier

I met an occupier named Martin (not his real name -- he deserves a little privacy). He camps at OccupyDetroit. He always liked camping, he said. Now maybe he doesn't have a choice. I did not ask a lot of questions, but he told me a few things. Martin has lived in many places: Alaska, California, Florida, North Carolina, and now Michigan. He looked young and fit. I would be surprised if he was over thirty. He struck me as smart and personable.

He spoke of family members who died of unfortunate afflictions. He seemed to flinch a little at their recollection, as though the memories sting. These deaths affected the stability of the family he grew up in. His father disappeared and he and his mother moved into an uncle's place. The uncle was one of a set of triplets, two of whom subsequently died.

He told me he does not drink. He can't. He did and it did not work out for him, and now he doesn't. He's seen a lot ugly things in his life. He's seen people fall down and stay down -- people close to him. And my impression was that he does not want to be one of them. He said he'd like a job; that he lost his identification documents; that he is trying to reacquire these documents so he can get a job. For now, he is a camper at OccupyDetroit.

Martin stands as one of the troops, peacefully -- quietly -- breaking down the barricades of injustice for the rest of us. He shivers in the dark through cold nights, he shakes off the rain when the wind blows it in his face and there is nothing to do but duck, and he waits for the sun to shine again, and bring a little warmth into his external existence. Martin is not lost -- he is young, and vigorous, and sharp -- but the rest of us will be lost if we do not create a society that offers a guy like Martin a little help to get on his feet. I think if help were offered, he would take it and thrive. And probably return the favor. We need that society now.

Severn Suzuki Speaks Truth To Power

(UN Earth Summit, 1992)


Give this speech a listen. 
It's a child's perspective on a dying planet.
If it doesn't give you chills, or make you cry, 
you are already dead...



Now, do something...

• Inform others: acquire and share knowledge
• Inspire others: live cleaner and smaller
• Create better government: support real leaders
• Shame poor government: protest peacefully, persistently, loudly

Right-Wing Reactionaries Lie, Then and Now

Situationist leaflet in Denmark.^[73]
(Wikipedia)

Back in the 1950's, following the insanity of WWII, and influenced by Dadaism and Surrealism, the French filmmaker and political theorist, Guy Debord, (Howls for Sade [1952], and  Society of the Spectacle [1972]) initiated a movement called, Situationist International, which is outlined in wikipedia here.

Below, I excerpt some passages from that Wikipedia entry I think are relevant to current complaints against modern Western society enumerated by participants in the "occupy wall street" movement. (Go ahead, take a swipe at wikipedia, and me for using it, now -- let's get that out of the way).

I am certain the references to Marx will make the right wingers who stumble errantly on this page wither with rage. That's not my intention, but it can't be helped, reactionaries will be reactionary, after all.

Anyway, here are the excerpts:

With their ideas rooted in Marxism and the 20th century European artistic avant-gardes, they advocated experiences of life being alternative to those admitted by the capitalist order, for the fulfillment of human primitive desires and the pursuing of a superior passional quality. For this purpose they suggested and experimented with the construction of situations, namely the setting up of environments favorable for the fulfillment of such desires. Using methods drawn from the arts, they developed a series of experimental fields of study for the construction of such situations, like unitary urbanism and psychogeography.

They fought against the main obstacle to the fulfillment of such superior passionate living, identified by them in advanced capitalism. Their theoretical work peaked with the highly influential book The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord. Debord argued in 1967 that spectacular features like mass media and advertising have a central role in an advanced capitalist society, which is to show a fake reality in order to mask the real capitalist degradation of human life. To overthrow such a system, the Situationist International supported the May '68 revolts, and asked the workers to occupy the factories and to run them with direct democracy, through workers' councils composed by instantly revocable delegates.

...

The Situationists played a preponderant role in the May 1968 (Paris) uprisings,^[41] and to some extent their political perspective and ideas fueled such crisis,^[41][42][43] providing a central theoretic foundation.^{[44][45][46][47][48][49]} While the SI's member count had been steadily falling for the preceding several years, the ones that remained were able to fill revolutionary roles for which they had patiently anticipated and prepared for. Incredible as it may seem, the active ideologists (“enragés” and Situationists) behind the revolutionary events in Strasbourg, Nanterre and Paris, numbered only about one or two dozen persons.^[50]

...

The situationist theory of the spectacle is a development and application of the Marxist concepts of commodification, reification and alienation.^[62]

...

The spectacle is the unified, ever-increasing mass of image-objects and commodified experience detached from every aspect of life, fused in a common stream in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished.^[62]

...

To survive, the spectacle must maintain social control and effectively handle all threats to the social order. Recuperation, a concept first proposed by Guy Debord,^[65] is the process by which the spectacle intercepts socially and politically radical ideas and images, commodifies them, and safely incorporates them back within mainstream society.^[65] More broadly, it may refer to the appropriation or co-opting of any subversive works or ideas by mainstream media. It is the opposite of détournement, in which conventional ideas and images are commodified with radical intentions.^[65]

...

The situationists observed that the worker of advanced capitalism still only functions with the goal of survival. In a world where technological efficiency has increased production exponentially, by tenfold, the workers of society still dedicate the whole of their lives to survival, by way of production. The purpose for which advanced capitalism is organized isn't luxury, happiness, or freedom, but production. The production of commodities is an end to itself; and production by way of survival.

The theorists of the Situationist International regarded the current paradigm of work in advanced capitalist society as increasingly absurd. As technology progresses, and work becomes exponentially efficient, the work itself becomes exponentially more trivial. The spectacle’s social function is the concrete manufacture of alienation. Economic expansion consists primarily of the expansion of this particular sector of industrial production. The “growth” generated by an economy developing for its own sake can be nothing other than a growth of the very alienation that was at its origin.

...

Debord argues that in advanced capitalism, life is reduced to an immense accumulation of spectacles, a triumph of mere appearance where "all that once was directly lived has become mere representation".^[85][86] The spectacle, which according to Debord is the core feature of the advanced capitalist societies,^[87] has its "most glaring superficial manifestation" in the advertising-mass media-marketing complex.^[88]

...

By 1972, Gianfranco Sanguinetti and Guy Debord were the only two remaining members of the SI. Working with Debord, in August 1975, Sanguinetti wrote a pamphlet titled Rapporto veridico sulle ultime opportunità di salvare il capitalismo in Italia (English: The Real Report on the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy),^[60] which (inspired by Bruno Bauer) proported to be the cynical writing of "Censor", a powerful industrialist. The pamphlet argued that the ruling class of Italy supported the Piazza Fontana bombing and other covert, false flag mass slaughter for the higher goal of defending the capitalist status quo from communist influence. The pamphlet was mailed to 520 of Italy's most powerful individuals. It was received as genuine and powerful politicians, industrialists and journalists praised its content. After reprinting the tract as a small book, Sanguinetti revealed himself to be the true author. In the outcry that ensued ^[61] and under pressure from Italian authorities Sanguinetti left Italy in February 1976, and was denied entry to France.

Worth a ponder, at least, right? I found out about this movement by chance while doing a little research for another endeavor related to contemporary art. I stumbled on a link to Situationist International in an entry that describes "Culture Jamming," which I arrived at via "Contemporary Art." A strange attractor kind of serendipity going on there I think.

It appears the Situationists had the whole media advertising, broadcast TV, disinformation funnel figured out. And they figured it out sixty years ago. Corporations in the US, and politicians owned by corporations for that matter, do take provocative, unsettling imagery, and wash away with money all of the negative impact -- think of mountaintop removal, deep ocean drilling, hydro-fracking, global warming, corporate campaign contributions, and religion trumping science in schools with creationism. And then think of how these topics are laundered for popular consumption: clean coal, energy independence, domestic jobs, natural climate change, First Amendment guaranteed free speech, an equally valid, competing scientific theory. Bullshit. Not one of these things bring any good at all. And the crazy Situationists saw it coming. We are being manipulated. And not for the better. Not for our better, anyway. We are being manipulated so we lie down and go to sleep while corporate thugs steal our money and futures, and destroy our planet.

Beware though, the Situationist International page has the word "Communism" on it, which pretty much rules it out as a contributor to modern US political dialectic. If you dare to mention Marxism, Communism, or even Socialism -- maybe especially Socialism -- the right-wing, reactionary, pseudo-libertarians will turn red, scream, and blow you down with gobs of spit sprayed at you along with their epithets, including parabolic references to Hitler and Fascism; references which the uninitiated will find baffling and unintelligible. You need a secret decoder ring to figure out what the hell these automatons are talking about. Their logic always tunnels through the disinformation sewer back to Nazi Germany, though...or Stalinism, or Castro's Cuba (all bad places and times). And when your eyes glaze over with confusion and dismay, your screeching interlocutor will insist you learn your history, Pal. They always throw in a patronizing diminutive like, "Pal," just to unnerve you a bit. Or, is that an unconscious tick of hot-tempered, Hitler-loving reactionaries everywhere? I am not sure. Maybe you can tell me. Learn your history, Pal.

For the record, I am too old and cynical to think Communism could ever deliver a fair and equitable society, but I do think Marx and Engels were pretty smart -- smarter than me, anyway. They had a lot of seemingly prescient ideas. Finally, I don't think Socialism is as bad as the US right-wing corporatists would have one believe, nor do I think it is executed flawlessly anywhere. But where Socialism is practiced, or more precisely, social democracy is practiced, I think it delivers a more socially just version of capitalism where people are not kicked to the curb and left to die if they are too old, sick, or mentally unraveled to earn a decent, living wage -- or, if economic conditions induced by the incompetence of corporate leadership precludes the possibility of earning a living wage. And social democracy, where it's been practiced so far at least, delivers societies where 99% of the wealth is not controlled by a corrupt 1% of the population.

So, you right-wing, reactionary, corporatist flunky, before you start calling me silly names like fascist, communist, socialist, Marxist, or even social democrat -- I'm not. Yet. I still believe fair and honest competition -- real capitalism -- works best for everyone. But take out the fair and honest, and you lose me, and a lot of other folks. The Situationists are back.

Peace & Love.

Cover of film The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord, 1973
(Wikipedia)

Look out. A Goldman Economist Offers A Plan To "Fix" the Economy

Sven Jari Stehn

A Goldman Sachs economist, Sven Jari Stehn, has definitely jumped the shark, or expects the US to. The audacity of this plan is exceeded only by the insanity of it. And guess who picks up the tab, via increased cost of living and devaluation of savings? You guessed it: the same wage-earners who picked up the tab for the financial industry's previous boondoggles and extortion of the middle class. Increased inflation wacks the working hardest because they expend more of their income on commodities like food and fuel, and because they lack sophisticated investments to hedge against inflation. Cheers, Sven. I hope this brilliant plan works out for you. And I hope you never have to work for a living.

But with an overload of pessimism already in the market, the Fed's "Twist" announced last week-in which it plans to swap out $400 billion of short-term government debt on its $2.8 trillion balance sheet and buy-longer-duration Treasurys-also has dampened enthusiasm for fundamental economic growth.

The Treasury market is sending the message that inflation, in particular the healthy kind that comes from growth, is dead for now as the central bank commits to a zero-interest rate policy for at least the next two years.

"One source of inflation is a healthy economy running at full tilt and companies exercising pricing power over the consumers of their goods and services," Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx in New York, wrote in his daily market analysis.

"A 10-year note yielding less than 2 percent signals that Treasury buyers do not think such a scenario will play out until 2021 at the earliest," he continued. "That means little domestic earnings growth through the cycle and even less in the way of a recovery in domestic labor markets. Hard assumptions to justify owning equities, to be sure."

That idea of generating positive inflation has gained prominence recently as forecasts for gross domestic product growth come down and the Fed advances its idea to drive down borrowing costs from already near-record lows.

Over the weekend, Goldman Sachs economist Sven Jari Stehn released a bold proposal that would entail a joint effort between the Fed and Congress.

Washington, under Stehn's plan, would embark on an aggressive stimulus program using government debt. The Fed then would crank up the printing presses and simply monetize the debt away once growth has reached a desired level. 

It's a dangerous plan that risks inflation, particularly when the headline rate is at 3.6 percent and the core rate-stripping out food and energy-is at 1.8 percent, near the Fed's desired range of 2 percent. The controlling of inflation is half of the central bank's dual mandate, so the idea is representative of how desperate the market is of creating growth.

"Combining fiscal stimulus with a change in the Fed's targeting regime and further purchases of Treasury securities would be a powerful device to enhance the credibility of the Fed's commitment to push up prices," Stehn wrote in a research note. "Such cooperation would be a radical but highly effective tool: fiscal policy would accumulate additional public debt and the Fed would inflate it away."

Fed's 'Twist' Pulling Down Bond Yields-Are Stocks Next?