Professor Richard D. Wolff: This four part course provides a working foundation in the core concepts of Marxian economic theory – necessary and surplus labor, labor power, surplus value, exploitation, capital accumulation, distributions of the surplus, capitalist crises, and the differences between capitalist and other class structures. In addition, these core concepts will be systematically used to understand current social problems (including political and cultural as well as economic problems). The goal is to enable students to apply Marxian economics in their own efforts to analyze society and to strategize politically today.

Palestine / Israel Links

The ruined village Palestinians will never forget

For many Palestinians, Lifta is a symbol of the Nakba, literally the “catastrophe”, of 1948 in which 700,000 people were dispossessed. It embodies their longing for their land, and their bitterness at their continued refugee status. It is, wrote Palestinian author Ghada Karmi in a letter to the Los Angeles Times, “a physical memory of injustice and survival”.

Bob Geldof preaches about Africa to Israel, breaks the boycott and fails to recognise the plight of Palestinians courtesy of apartheid and occupation. Hypocrite.

Can’t handle the truth or anything close to the truth : Israeli Culture Minister storms out of film, calls it too pro-Palestinian
The Israeli police are ramping up arrests and attacks against Palestinian children.

Targeting of children is nothing new in West Bank villages like Nabi Saleh and Bil’in. This afternoon, Israeli police raided the house of 8 year-old Ali Siyam in the Occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
…
Siyam’s arrest comes days after Israeli soldiers broke the arm of a 9-year-old Palestinian child in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. Soldiers, in violation of Israeli army rules of conduct, fired a tear gas canister directly at the child from a range of ten meters. Another 14 year old child was injured from a tear gas canister before the demonstration was over.

Israeli forces raid Information Center again, director Siyam summoned and detained
Netanyahu asked Canada PM to thwart G8 support for 1967 borders
British PM removes his name from list of Jewish National Fund patrons – time constraints?

In its last open letter to Cameron, sent two weeks ago, Stop the JNF characterized the JNF’s British Park in Israel as one that was planted “in order to cover over the remains of the Palestinian villages of Ajjur and Zakariyya, destroyed in 1948, and to prevent the original population and their descendants from returning.”

Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Sarah Colborne said in a statement that Cameron’s decision “reflects the fact that it is now impossible for any serious party leader to lend their public support to racism.” She added: “The Jewish National Fund plays a critical role in facilitating the continued dispossession and suffering of Palestinians.”

Palestinian state: Still gearing up for the UN in September
Nakba: Why did Israeli historians whitewash an artillery attack?
What Opening Rafah Means & Doesn’t Mean
Group of 12 Israeli settlers severely beat elderly Palestinian shepherd – any arrests? unlikely.
Free software campaigner Richard Stallman cancels Israel lectures due to Palestinian pressure
This was the week of Netanyahu’s speech before Congress; if, utterly unlikely as this may be, there is anyone in the world who failed to notice that he was lying, then Wednesday’s official ceremony unveiling the new settlement here in East Jerusalem should be enough to remove the veil.
Police use tasers against J’lem demonstrators : The activists accused police of using excessive violence and of allowing settlers to abuse them after they were detained.
Jewish Settlers Severely Beat Elderly Palestinian Shepherd in Nablus

One of my favourite contemporary thinkers, Slavoj Zizek, expounds on apocalypse via capitalist degeneracy.

The downside about being declared the messiah is that they generally come to a sticky end

‘CIA response to Assange assassination FOI on Scribd.com:

This is a final response to your 11 October FOI Act request for all copies of all records current or previous plans to assassinate Julian Assange. The CIA can neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of records responsive to your request. The fact of the existence or non-existence of requested records is currently and properly classified and is protected from disclosure. Therefore your request is denied.’

Related Links

Good Manners in the Age of WikiLeaks

Palestine / Israel Links

Ask your government to speak up against Adnan’s expulsion from the only home he has and against the demolitions in Silwan.
Statement in Support of Targeted Activists : Al Shabaka
Hamas leader expects more aid convoys to come to Gaza
Guest Media Alert – Tilting Towards Israel – Journalist Jonathan Cook Reveals The Bias In ‘Balance’ On Israel-Palestine
PLO Report Documents Palestinian Deaths, Home Demolitions and Settlement Expansion in 2010
Shin Bet: Disclosing number of detainees who haven’t seen lawyer compromises security
Israeli forces raid Madaa during children’s classes, director Jawad Siyam arrested
Two Israeli airstrikes target Gaza
Gaza Youth : Don’t distort our speech!
Another activist arrested; intimidation of leftists on the rise
Leftists: Probe against us ‘McCarthyism’ : Yisrael Beiteinu’s motion to probe funding of left-wing rights groups expected to pass Wednesday.
WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of collapse
The Director of Silwan Community Center, Jawad Siyam, arrested

Wikileaks Links

Anonymous starts declaring war on countries
WikiLeaks’ Most Terrifying Revelation: Just How Much Our Government Lies to Us
Why Journalists Aren’t Standing Up for WikiLeaks
Blogging WikiLeaks News & Views, for Day 38

US memo: Iranian hard-liners blocked nuke deal
Clucky business: Wikileaks : Argentinian CG thanks KFC for addicting Chinese to chicken wings 09SHANGHAI170
Is Wikileaks more dangerous than the alternative?
Proof the Wikileaks University of Melbourne Post Office Box is operational

Other Links

How the Kremlin Harnesses the Internet
No Value in Any Influenza Vaccine: Cochrane Collaboration Study
Business: your handy guide to railing against the internet
44 Journalists Killed in 2010/Motive Confirmed

This film is a powerful exposes of the way vulnerable countries are ruthlessly farmed by empire and its mercantilist consorts, assisted by the World Bank and IMF, to the detriment of local people and environment.

Don’t just sit stunned after watching, get out there and challenge the corporations and countries who enslave people for venal gain. Spread the word, make this film viral!

From Paul Kelly:

The basis of Rudd’s stance is a rejection of American decline and faith in American renewal. “By any rational measurement, US global power will remain unchallenged for the first quarter of the current century and arguably for much of the second,” he says. Rudd argues that US leadership “must nonetheless be deployed in a policy environment that is more interconnected, complex and contested than at any time since 1945″.

The new era, he says, is “no longer hot war, no longer cold war”. It is, on the contrary, a period of “an extraordinary complex peace”.

Confident in his reading of Obama, Rudd says the US will not return to unilateralism (a historic trait recently exemplified by Bush) or seek the “wholesale redesign of the global order” (attempted unsuccessfully by Woodrow Wilson) but will adopt a pragmatism that seeks to “renew the existing institutions of global governance from within”. He sees this as Obama’s project.

Rudd interprets Obama’s America as “acting as the pivotal power within the system rather than simply railing at the system from without”. Moving to his central proposition, Rudd argues that the US cannot lead alone but must be supported by a “new driving centre of global politics and global economics”. He means the G20, a group of developed and developing nations far more representative than the major-power Group of Eight. “This I believe is the current direction of the Obama administration,” Rudd says.

Understand what Rudd is really saying. For all his praise of US power, the G20 begins to recognise the relative decline of the US and the West. It is about a sharing of power to create better global outcomes. The group comprises France, Germany, Britain and Italy along with the European Union; from South America it has Brazil and Argentina; the Asian members are Japan, China, India, Indonesia and South Korea; the rest are Australia, Canada, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey and the US. It testifies to the reality of a more multipolar world. While arguing that the US will stay No.1, Rudd believes power is shifting from the West to East Asia and other power centres.

This penetrates to the essence of his vision: the need to reform global institutions and arrangements. Rudd is a dedicated multilateralist in the Labor tradition of H.V. Evatt, Gough Whitlam and Gareth Evans. He says the system created at San Francisco and Bretton Woods at the end of World War II has been static while the globe has been transformed. It is no longer functioning or legitimate. He warns that the global financial architecture has reached a tipping point.

The Oz government is offering to receive online policy suggestions which contribute to their Future Directions paper to be released early next year.

Some of the themes to be explored include:

• What does the digital economy encompass?
• How do we maintain the same ‘civil society’ we enjoy offline in an online world? (this is the post that touches on the issue of filtering and we welcome your feedback about the issue in response to this post)
• Is there a benefit for the digital economy from open access to public sector information?
• Does Australia’s regulatory framework need tweaking to enable a vibrant digital economy in Australia
• How can the digital economy respond to environmental concerns?
• What should Australia do to ensure that our businesses and citizens have the necessary skills to participate fully in the digital economy?
• How can we measure the success of Australia’s digital economy?

Perhaps tellingly, the associated Conroy media release doesn’t include the bracketed explanation re web filtering.

As ever, the Fringe is cynical. Yet hopefully, this blog consultation initiative won’t serve merely as online placation to the overwhelming groundswell of valid dissension against and criticism of Conroy’s ill-considered web censorship plans. In other words, scream as loud as you like, people, we hear you – look, we published all your comments, but nanny knows best.

That the government apparently wishes to make online society like our ‘civil’ society indicates little has been learned on their part hitherto in this debate about the nature of the internet itself. The ever-present hunger for control is self-evident.

The new list of Filter Fallacies invoked by defenders of net censorship is an excellent starting point for people wishing to challenge the Conroy Doctrine.

For example,

The Conroy Fallacy: That if you are against the filter, you are for child pornography.

or

The Hamilton Fallacy: That censoring the Internet is just like censoring other media

UPDATE

Law enforcement agencies have been disempowered with the ‘Labor Government’s recent removal of $2.8m from the increased funding for OCSET (The Australian Federal Police’s Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team)’, the implausible implication being that web filters will be relied upon by government to take up the slack.

The Labor plan to censor the internet is in shreds with Telstra and Internode refusing participation in Conroy’s flawed closed prototype trials.

Senator Conroy’s office could not explain why it was telling people that the trials would not involve actual customers, which would give little indication of the real-world impact of the filtering plan.

Senator Conroy himself has consistently dodged questions about his policy in Parliament.

“How on earth could you conduct a ‘live’ trial if there are no customers to assess?” Opposition communications spokesman Nick Minchin said.

“The minister also continues to be deliberately vague and cryptic about the definition of unwanted content and now he is unable to clarify how this so-called live trial will be conducted, even though he wants it to start before December 24.”

The Greens today called on the Government to abandon its internet filtering trial, saying it was flawed and doomed to failure.

…

Senator Ludlam said in a phone interview he believed Labor would drop the mandatory filtering policy in the new year once the now scaled-back trials were completed.

He said the Government could not abandon it now “without losing significant political face”.

APC critiques Conroy’s new blog

UPDATE Dec 10

Conroy has not revealed why the trials will not involve actual customers.

Mind maps of Conroy’s flawed net censorship policy and fallout if it’s implemented.

OCAU Internet filtering WIKI - a vast compendium of links on a timeline.

Conroy gets a blog bashing over his net censorwall.

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) has raised concerns about the effectiveness of a new Federal Government digital economy blog in policy development.

If you have submitted a legitimate comment to the new DCBDE Blog and it hasn’t been published, go to Filtering Fallacies and voice your concern.

Three terrific articles on Spiked discussing the censorwall saga – Danu Poyner’s ‘Digital Natives’ take on censorious Kevin, with a history of the current netviral protest against Rudd’s paternalistic ambitions to nobble the big WWW, Kerry Miller’s Liberal tyranny on the World Wide Web which examines the extent to which Clive and the Hairshirts in tandem with the reactionary Catholic Labor Party right wing have hijacked the agenda, and Guy Rundle’s Tear down Australia’s Great Firewall Reef. Guy summons thoughts of Bertrand Russell and Voltaire, when he says “freedom of speech has to be defended against the equation of its use with the small amount of criminal behaviour conducted within it, and against the moralising notion that consensual adult images and activities should not be freely accessible lest they cause ‘harm’.”

It comes down to numbers now. Kevvie will lose face if he drops the silly policy, not just here but worldwide – perhaps most importantly in Asia, where they take things like that very seriously. At present he’s riding high in the polls. Should the issue reach the house, there’s no guarantee some of the moralistic wankers and technological retards in the Liberal Party may not cross the floor. Turnbull has been very very quiet on the issue, though of course, in politics, timing is everything.

McNamara quoted the wise words of Bob Carr in 1997:

“I think people are ready to grasp the argument that the unsustainable growth in population numbers is degrading our planet and that Australia must begin to think of itself as a country with a population problem. Let’s throw away for all time the notion that Australia is an empty space just waiting to be filled up. Our rivers, our soils, our vegetation won’t allow that to happen without an enormous cost to those who come after us.”

Showing he missed Carr’s central point, McNamara went on to say:

The key to achieving a sustainable Australian population in the 21st century is population distribution – adopting policies which encourage and support population growth in areas where it can be supported sustainably, and discouraging it in those places where it can’t.

We hope the Federal Government notes well the plight of our region, with plans by the old Maroochy Shire Council to increase its population by 63% by the year 2020, and acts to prevent such lunacy. Stopping the ill-conceived and environmentally devastating Traveston Dam would be a significant indication of the Government’s good intentions also. Population growth in the already environmentally stressed-to-the limit south east corner of Queensland must be discouraged.

An economic strategy based on reducing population generally across Australia and encouraging same must be prepared – ‘smarter and smaller’ needs to become our catchcry. Increased education and parity of wages for women, removal of baby bonuses, encouraging older people back into the workforce, adequate funds for academic research untied to needs of existing industry in order to create new industries down the track, support for innovative brain-based, non-polluting industries, and more apprenticeships would all help.

The Federal Government might also examine the success of the Noosa strategic plan with its population cap and international recognition by UNESCO with a view to using it as a model for communities across Australia.

In 2003/04, foreign investment totalled $1,059,345m – and 30.8% of Whorestralia’s total enterprise equity was owned by foreigners, with the United Stupids heading the list at 32% of total foreign ownership, followed closely by the United Kooks at 30%. By the end of the December 2006 quarter, foreign investment increased to $1,433,466m.

That’s an gigantic 35.3% increase in foreign investment in just 3 years. Why did the rodent add more sugar by removing CGT for foreign equities investors last December?

Nett Whorestralian foreign debt has risen from $390,565m in 03/04 to a disturbing $521,161m at the end of Dec 06. The vast majority of foreign debt is implicated in the private sector, with a disgraceful increase from $385,490m in 03/04 to $518,841m in Dec 06.

Whorestralia’s total liabilities at the end of 2006 were a staggering $900,258m.

So what use has the concurrent resource boom during the past 3 years been to Whorestralia? It is clear that much of the profits therefrom have been expropriated overseas, leaving the Whorestralian economy beholden.

Team Rodent has patently been very busy selling us out.

Who wouldn’t like to have been a cashed up Chinese investor this year, rolling in US dollars, eager to drop them into cheap physical resources as the United Stupids economy sags under the weight of precarious hedge and subprime mortage funds and a tenuous bond market?

And where better to invest than in relatively insulated CGT free rich Australian resources at bargain basement prices – particularly uranium (Citic has been buying up more SAU this week), gold and zinc.

Kiss goodbye to your birthright treasures, fellow Whorestralians – and don’t expect to reap any of the proceeds of the fire sale in additional community services in this election year – Howard’s mudslingers need every cent to artificially deflate the trade deficit, to buy more crappy US jet fighters and electioneering pork. And as for you pathetic, whinging Whorestralian mortgagees, get ready to wear another interest rate rise you have to have, trust me, it’s for your own good,.

Lindsay Tanner is demonstrating already that Labor is committed to reducing wasteful expenditures and trimming sleazy Howard pork. Of particular note are much needed funding slashes to the virulent, profligate government propaganda machine, tax deductability of cronies’ political donations and curtailment of organisational perks.

LINDSAY TANNER MP

SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCE

LABOR’S $3 BILLION SAVINGS PLAN

Federal Labor today announced a massive savings plan to cut out $3 billion of Howard Government waste.

These $3 billion in savings across the 4 years of the federal budget will put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates.

Labor’s savings plan includes:

· Saving $394 million by scrapping the Howard Government’s extreme work laws;

· Cutting $350 million worth of Howard Government political advertising; and

· A $395 million cut in the use of consultants in the Commonwealth public service.

A Rudd Labor Government will use its $3 billion savings plan to cut wasteful spending and increase investment in productivity drivers like education, skills and infrastructure.

Complacency and lack of discipline by the Howard Government has allowed unnecessary spending to flourish. Splurges of taxpayers dollars on political advertising and high cost consultants are proof of that fact.

If introduced today, Labor’s savings would save $3 billion over the Budget estimates period. Labor will continue to pursue savings options, and make further savings announcements prior to the election.

This sensible and disciplined savings plan will put downward pressure on inflation and interest rates. Labor’s savings include and build on the $1 billion of savings announced in November 2006

2 March 2007

SUMMARY OF LABOR’S SAVINGS

Figures in $million 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 Total
Limit FTB (B) to those who earn under $250,000 7.5 7.5 7.5 22.5
Withdraw Australia’s contribution to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 88.0 88.0
Remove tax deductibility for political donations 9.5 11.6 21.1
Remove surplus funding due to WorkChoices 53.5 138.2 141.7 61.4 394.8
Fold Invest Australia functions into Austrade 23.5 23.5 23.5 70.5
Reverse 2006 Budget measure for on-line electronic authentication 4.0 12.6 9.1 25.7
Abandon Medibank Private sale and associated sale costs 12.0 12.0
Reverse increase in MP’s printing allowance 2.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 17.0
Require industry to fund the Financial Literacy Foundation 5.3 5.4 10.7
Streamline government advertising and eliminate political propaganda 50.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 350.0
Abolish Prime Minister’s Community Business Partnership 2.0 4.3 6.3
Use centralised telephone services and websites to advise on aged care availability and save uncommitted Carelink funds 13.7 13.7
Require industry not taxpayers to fund the Do Not Call Register 4.0 10.1 7.6 6.2 27.9
Partially reverse 2006-07 Budget decision giving extra running costs to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 4.5 8.5 8.9 9.4 31.3
Reverse 2006-07 budget decisions to increase Australian Securities and Investment Commission funding 19.3 36.7 36.8 37.0 129.8
Defer Access Card for further examination 145.0 157.0 302.0
Abolish Carrick Institute awards and reduce Institute funding 5.4 10.7 10.7 10.7 37.5
Absorb the cost of the Future Fund advisory unit 0.4 0.7 0.7 0.7 2.5
Reduce spending on non-Defence related recruitment agencies 7.0 15.8 15.8 15.8 54.4
Reduce spending on consultants 56.5 112.9 112.9 112.9 395.2
Reduce spending on political opinion polls/market research 7.5 15.0 15.0 15.0 52.5
Reverse December 2006 decision to create Digital Australia and increase ACMA funding 2.9 7.0 5.9 6.2 22.0
Remove funding to employers to promote WorkChoices under the Employer Advisor Program 12.5 12.5
Remove December 2006 funding increase for the PM’s Nuclear Energy Taskforce 3.9 3.9
Improve purchasing and administration arrangements of Commonwealth air travel 6.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 52.5
Reduce funding for the National Capital Authority 1.0 3.5 3.5 3.5 11.5
Reduce duplication in tax administration by abolishing the Inspector-General of Taxation 2.2 2.2 2.2 6.6
Extend Centrelink compliance campaign – ‘Keeping the system fair’ 51.8 53.4 55.0 160.2
Redirect 2006-07 budget measure to increase Australian Taxation Office funding to compliance activity to produce larger compliance dividend 7.0 62.1 175.7 235.7 480.5
Re-introduce the voluntary Student Supplement Scheme saving money in youth allowance and AUSTUDY 34.7 31.3 28.1 94.1
Reverse December 2006 decision for National Training Centre for Aerial Skiing 2.5 2.5
Close Nauru and Manus Island detention centres 10.0 27.0 27.0 27.0 91.0
Total # 275.4 943.1 994.8 789.4 3001.2
# Labor’s November savings announcement included $125 million arising from the proposed withdrawal of Australian troops from Iraq. Following questioning in estimates, no clarity was given of the Government’s actual funding in the forward estimates. Although the Government has no exit strategy from Iraq, it has not provided forward estimates of the cost of troop deployment beyond 30 June 2007. Labor will withdraw Australian combat troops from Iraq, but it is difficult to estimate the savings from the withdrawal of troops because of the lack of transparency relating to these costs in the forward estimates, as well as the fact that the precise timing of the withdrawal will be subject to the stage that the combat troop rotation has reached and negotiations with the United States and Iraqi Governments on a staged withdrawal. Therefore the savings from the withdrawal of combat troops cannot be included in this savings package.

My goodness, what will the aerial skiers say?