Politics « Tikkunista!

2. Economic Inequality & US Politics

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: If nothing else, one major success of the Occupy movement was to move the issue of income inequality to centre stage. It seems increasing likely that it will form the basis of the Democrats attack on the Republicans in this year’s election. We start with the view from the Guardian on this political shift, offer a 13 question quiz on economic inequality in the US (quiz hint: assume things are really bad), and end by examining Romney’s assertion that the very poor have a safety net. If they do, it’s too tattered to be any use.

* America Has The Opportunity To Usher In Radical New Political Era Michael Cohen The Observer

A year ago, American politics was abuzz with talk of out-of-control government spending and rising budget deficits. A year later, that has been replaced with discussions of inequality, declining middle-class income and even class warfare. David Axelrod, a key adviser to President Obama, has even gone so far as to say that these issues are the “central challenge of our time”. He’s not necessarily wrong, but perhaps just a bit late. Indeed, since the late 1970s, the disparity between rich and poor has exploded. Over the past three decades, the top 1% of families in the US has seen its income jump by a whopping 278%; for the middle 60% of Americans, its increase in income is less than 40%. Today, that top 1% earns 21% of all pre-tax income; 35 years ago, it was around 9%.

…For decades, Republicans have successfully portrayed the bogeyman of big government as the enemy of America’s middle class. The emerging focus on America’s glaring economic disparity – and its direct and deleterious impact on the middle class – suggests that Democrats are willing to use their own bogeyman of Wall Street greed in response. Indeed, it’s quite likely that the election will be a struggle between these two conflicting views. If Democrats are successful in such an endeavour, it has the potential to make 2012 more than just another election, but one that could shift the very narrative of American politics.

* A Social Justice Quiz Counterpunch (13 questions)

Q1. The combined pay of the 299 highest paid CEOs in the US is enough to support how many median salary jobs?

45,000? 83,000? 102,325?

Q2. The median net worth of black households in the US is $2,200. What is the median net worth of white households in the US?

$4,400? $44,000? $97,000?

* Romney: “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Juan Cole Informed Comment

Romney says, “I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs a repair , I’ll fix it.”

•Nearly 47 million people were in poverty in the US in 2010, up from 37.3 million in 2007. That was the 4th year in a row in which the number of people in poverty increased. In the 52 years that poverty rates have been being published, this is the largest number ever.

•20.5 million Americans are in “extreme poverty.” That is, their family income is $10,000 or less a year for a family of 4, about half that of the poverty line.

• There were 17.2 million households or about 1 in 7 that were food insecure in the US in 2010, the highest number ever recorded. (“Food insecure” means “at risk of going hungry.”)

3. Economic Inequality & World Politics

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Other countries have faced the problem of huge income inequality. Some have won the battle against it; some are currently engaged; some are taking up arms. We look at five different countries in three different continents, and how they managed the struggle against plutocracy.

* How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’ Common Dreams

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.

* Could Ecuador Be The Most Radical And Exciting Place On Earth? Jayati Ghosh The Guardian

Ecuador must be one of the most exciting places on Earth right now, in terms of working towards a new development paradigm. It shows how much can be achieved with political will, even in uncertain economic times. Just 10 years ago, Ecuador was more or less a basket case, a quintessential “banana republic” (it happens to be the world’s largest exporter of bananas), characterised by political instability, inequality, a poorly-performing economy, and the ever-looming impact of the US on its domestic politics.

…A major turning point came with the election of the economist Rafael Correa as president. After taking over in January 2007, his government ushered in a series of changes, based on a new constitution (the country’s 20th, approved in 2008) that was itself mandated by a popular referendum. A hallmark of the changes that have occurred since then is that major policies have first been put through the referendum process. This has given the government the political ability to take on major vested interests and powerful lobbies.

The government is now the most stable in recent times and will soon become the longest serving in Ecuador’s tumultuous history. The president’s approval ratings are well over 70%. All this is due to the reorientation of the government’s approach, made possible by a constitution remarkable for its recognition of human rights and the rights of nature, and its acceptance of plurality and cultural diversity.

*Dilma Rousseff, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, and Brazil’s Growth The New Yorker (abstract of article only)

Until recently, Brazil has been one of the most uneducated, economically imbalanced countries in the world. Now its economy is growing much more rapidly than that of the U.S. Twenty-eight million Brazilians have moved out of severe poverty in the past decade. The country has a balanced budget, low national debt, nearly full employment, and low inflation. It is, chaotically, democratic, and it has a free press. Brazil operates in ways we have been conditioned to think are incompatible with a successful free society. It isn’t just that Brazil is ruled by unapologetic former revolutionaries, many of whom—including the President—were imprisoned for years for being terrorists. The central government is far more powerful and intrusive than it is in the U.S. It is also far more corrupt. Crime is high, schools are weak, roads are bad, and ports barely function. And yet, among the world’s major economic powers, Brazil has achieved a rare trifecta: high growth, political freedom, and falling inequality.

* “Walking with the Comrades,” by Arundhati Roy The Washington Post

For over a decade now, the writer Arundhati Roy has served as India’s most powerful and articulate dissident, tearing that broad consensus to shreds. Through a slew of acerbic and impassioned essays, speeches and books, Roy has attacked both the country’s religious right wing and the barons of big business, and excoriated the Indian state’s political, economic and military policy. At times, Roy’s uncompromising hostility, penchant for tendentious theses and juxtapositions, and appropriation of multiple causes have earned her as much notoriety as respect.

4. Women, Power, and Nerds

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (3)

Bird’s Eye: These articles aren’t totally aligned, but the issue of women’s power (whether between women, or opposed to male domination) runs through all four. The opening article is particularly moving, and creates the context for what follows. The 1915 ad reminds us that we are making progress, however slowly.

* Transformation And Transcendence: The Power Of Female Friendship The Rumpus

Nearly fifteen years later I get out of bed each morning and am thankful that I wasn’t so myopically committed to old, tried myths about women’s roles that I couldn’t see what was happening in that room between those three women, or what was happening in my own mind.

The Wrinklies weren’t spinsters or old maids and they were not “failures” in any way. They were free. It was I who failed to see them, until later, for who they really were: educated, hugely intelligent, fascinating, financially independent. Women who led rich lives full of meaningful work, deep and lasting friendship, sex when they wanted it, time with the beloved children of their family and friends, conversations about politics and art and literature, culture, travel to remarkable destinations where they did not journey as unconscious tourists but as guests in people’s homes and hearts. Despite these full lives they owned their own time, they owned their days. I did not. I was too busy trying to find someone who would spend the days with me, as if this would validate my presence in the world.

* Women Kick Back Against Comic-Book Sexism The Guardian

It is one of the more eagerly awaited titles due to emerge from Britain’s vibrant independent comic and graphic novel scene. But the “southern gothic” horror anthology, Bayou Arcana, is causing a stir for more than just its haunting images and storylines.

The anthology is the product of a unique experiment that brings together an all-female team of artists with an all-male team of writers – and it is an illustration of how a new generation of female artists and readers is radically changing the face of comics.

“There is a certain sensitivity that you find in women’s art that just does not appear in a lot of guys’ work,” says James Pearson, who edited the anthology, which follows the story of escaped slaves taking refuge in a swamp.

“The way that they interpret the horror has an added depth to it – and that is part of the experiment. It’s actually a really sensitive approach to quite visceral subject matter.”

* Nerds and Male Privilege Kotaku

I don’t think I’m breaking any news or blowing minds when I point out that geek culture as a whole is predominantly male. Not to say that women aren’t making huge inroads in science fiction/fantasy fandom, gaming, anime and comics… but it’s still a very male culture. As such, it caters to the predominantly male audience that makes it up. This, in turn leads to the phenomenon known as male privilege: the idea that men – most often straight, white men – as a whole, get certain privileges and status because of their gender. (Obvious disclaimer: I’m a straight white man.)

In geek culture, this manifests in a number of ways. The most obvious is in the portrayal of female characters in comics, video games and movies. Batman: Arkham City provides an excellent example. To start with, we have three of the male characters of Arkham City…Then we have three of the female characters:

Notice how the differences in how they’re portrayed and costumed? The men are fully clothed and deadly serious. They are clearly defined: the mighty hero, the ominous villains. The women are all about sex, sex, sexy sextimes. With maybe a little villainy thrown in for flavor. They may be characters, but they’re also sexual objects to be consumed.

I will pause now for the traditional arguments from my readers: these characters are all femme fatales in the comics, all of the characters in the Arkham games are over-the-top, the men are just as exaggerated/sexualized/objectified as the women. Got all of that out of your systems? Good.

Because that reaction is exactly what I’m talking about.

* Why Women Shouldn’t Be “Burdened” With The Vote: 1915 Boing Boing

This 1915 Boston Journal ad warning against the dangers of women’s suffrage lays all manner of dangers at the feet of “burdening” women with the vote, including increased taxes and divorce. It warns that extending the vote to women is a joint plot of the anarchist Industrial Workers of the World, socialists, and Mormons. Good to know that we’ve come so far in our political rhetoric.

5. Women, Head Coverings, and Choices

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (2)

Bird’s Eye: A contrast between an enlightened mother who struggles with letting her 9 year old make her own choice as to whether to wear the hijab or not, and unenlightened countries who make the choice for adult women. Two powerful and human stories lead off, and a sad political update from Al Jazeera follows up.

* Nafeesa’s Blog: Bikini Or Headscarf, The Choice Of A Nine Year Old Girl. (Thanks, Romana!)

That afternoon, as I was leaving for the grocery store, Aliya called out from her room that she wanted to come. A moment later she appeared at the top of the stairs — or more accurately, half of her did. From the waist down, she was my daughter: sneakers, bright socks, jeans a little threadbare at the knees. But from the waist up, this girl was a stranger. Her bright, round face was suspended in a tent of dark cloth like a moon in a starless sky.

“Are you going to wear that?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, in that tone she had recently begun to use with me when I state the obvious…. On the way to the store, I stole glances at her in my rearview mirror. She stared out the window in silence, appearing as aloof and unconcerned as a Muslim dignitary visiting our small Southern town — I, merely her chauffeur.

I bit my lip. I wanted to ask her to remove her head covering before she got out of the car, but I couldn’t think of a single logical reason why, except that the sight of it made my blood pressure rise. I’d always encouraged her to express her individuality and to resist peer pressure, but now I felt as self-conscious and claustrophobic as if I were wearing that headscarf myself.

* France’s Burqa Ban: Women Are ‘Effectively Under House Arrest’ The Guardian

Hind Ahmas walks into a brasserie in the north Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois. Jaws drop, shoulders tighten and a look of disgust ripples across the faces of haggard men sipping coffee at the bar.

“Hang on, what’s all this? Isn’t that banned?” splutters the outraged waiter behind the bar, waving a wine bottle at her niqab. Ahmas stands firm, clutches her handbag with black-gloved hands and says: “Call the police then.” But she decides there’s no point fighting. We cross the road to a cafe where she’s a regular. No one bats an eyelid; the boss certainly doesn’t want to lose her custom. Ahmas is breaking the law by ordering an espresso and sitting in a booth in the window. But these days she is breaking the law by stepping outside her own front door.

In April, France introduced a law against covering your face in public.Muslim women in full-face veils, or niqab, are now banned from any public activity including walking down the street, taking a bus, going to the shops or collecting their children from school. French politicians in favour of the ban said they were acting to protect the “gender equality” and “dignity” of women. But five months after the law was introduced, the result is a mixture of confusion and apathy.

* Dutch To Ban Muslim Face Veils Next Year Al Jazeera English

The Dutch minority government plans to ban Muslim face veils such as burqas and other forms of clothing that cover the face from next year. The ban would make the Netherlands, where 1 million out of 17 million people are Muslim, the second EU country to ban the burqa after France, and would apply to face-covering veils if they were worn in public.

“People should be able to look at each other’s faces and recognise each other when they meet,” the interior affairs ministry said in a statement on Friday.

The ban will also apply to balaclavas and motorcycle helmets when worn in inappropriate places, such as inside a store, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Verhagen told reporters, denying that this was a ban on religious clothing. Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam Freedom Party (PVV), which helps give the Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition a majority in parliament, has set considerable political store on getting the so-called burqa ban passed into law.

6. The Art of Protest

Feb-03-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Protests: we march down the street, wave banners, and maybe click in the little box to send a prewritten letter to a preselected recipient. Doing that is better than not doing it… but here are a few more challenging acts of protest to emulate. The Target video is a must see. Adbusters, the Canadian group who catalyzed the Occupy protests is becoming a nexus for such actions.

* 5 Acts of Creative Disruption NationofChange

• When Target spent $150,000 to support a Minnesota politician who favors anti-gay legislation, thousands of people decided to boycott the big-box chain. But instead of simply shopping elsewhere, these activists turned to the popular musical-style TV show, GLEE, for inspiration. With choreography, a catchy tune, and Target accessories as props, they took shoppers and employees by surprise.

• To draw attention to the destructive practices of Enbridge, the oil company responsible for the 2010 spill in Michigan, pranksters The Yes Men—Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum—coordinated a campaign called “MyHairCares”: In the name of the company, they requested that salons send in discarded hair to be used as an oil sponge.

* Doll ‘Protesters’ Present Small Problem For Russian Police The Guardian (Thanks, Linda)

Russian police don’t take kindly to opposition protesters – even if they’re 5cm high and made of plastic.

Police in the Siberian city of Barnaul have asked prosecutors to investigate the legality of a recent protest that saw dozens of small dolls – teddy bears, Lego men, South Park figurines – arranged to mimic a protest, complete with signs reading: “I’m for clean elections” and “A thief should sit in jail, not in the Kremlin”.

“Political opposition forces are using new technologies to carry out public events – using toys with placards at mini-protests,” Andrei Mulintsev, the city’s deputy police chief, said at a press conference this week, according to local media. “In our opinion, this is still an unsanctioned public event.”

* Occupy Education Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters (25 minute video)

For the past eight months Chilean high school students have shut down classrooms, organized massive street protests and refused to go to school. Watch this Al Jazeera report about Latin America’s most unequal education system and what young people there are doing to fight back.

Jan. 27th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 4

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: A fine quartet of pieces that arrived too late for last week. We start with a superb War Tard column on just why the US wants to attack Iran, and it’s not about nuclear bombs, but oil. The first piece in a long while that’s made sense of the oncoming war. As always, War Tard does a fine job of looking at strategies. A quick and powerful graph shows the congressional support for PIPA/SOPA the day before and the day after the Internet blackout. Meet the Preppers! A subculture with the slogan, “Armegeddon ready: are you?” And music! The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, and the Thai Elephant Orchestra produce sounds the like of which you’ve never heard. Click on.

* Why The Us Wants To Attack Iran War Tard

Iran is sitting on the fourth largest oil deposit on the planet and has huge reserves of natural gas and that’s a sweet energy prize by any account. It’s kind of like Inca gold and the Spanish Main in the 16th century… everybody wants a piece of the action. …

The interesting player here in all this is China. Though a long way from being a military superpower, its economic power is rising fast, so fast that the US and Europe fear the loss of traditional Western dominance of the global economy. The gaping weakness of the Chinese rise is energy supply. And without a credible naval fleet to protect the flow of spice, the weakness of China gets exposed… Chinese dependence on sea borne oil delivery and their susceptibility to a blockade sometime in our proxy resource war future. What the West really fears here in the global energy game of Risk, is Iran having unfettered control of its own huge energy reserves, selling those reserves outside the dollar to geopolitical rivals (China) and facilitating the rise of a pan Pacific hegemon that could contest Western dominance at some point later this century.

That’s why Iran is in the cross hairs. Their whole nuke program is symbolic of their determination not to play nice in the petro dollar chess game and the question remains, will they get Tomahawked this year because of it?

* How The Internet Blackout Affected Congressional Support For Pipa/Sopa Boing Boing

* Subculture of Americans prepares for civilization’s collapse Reuters

When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon. “In an instant, anything can happen,” she told Reuters. “And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.” Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as “preppers.” Some are driven by a fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm.

…Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a “survival center,” complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home. And she thinks that emergency could come soon. “I think this economy is about to fall apart,” she said.

* New Music Futility Closet

The 10-member Vienna Vegetable Orchestra plays instruments created entirely from fresh vegetables, including the carrot recorder, the pumpkin tympanum, the zucchini trumpet, and the bean maraca. These must be fashioned anew before each concert, because the old instruments are made into soup.

The Thai Elephant Orchestra, created by American expatriate Richard Lair and Columbia neurologist David Sulzer, improvise on drums, gongs, harmonicas, and sawmill blades. To date they’ve released three CDs.

2. Martin Luther King’s Heritage

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Like all national heroes, a lot of Martin Luther King has been pushed aside, because it might raise questions about the current national policies. We start with some other things MLK said, look at one of the two winners of this year’s Carnegie Mellon University’s Martin Luther King Day Writing Awards, and link to a powerful 10 minute film about non-violence in the Palestinian fight, and why we never hear about it.

* Ten OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said YouTube (Thanks Kofi!)

* Fighting a Forbidden Battle: How I Stopped Covering Up for a Hidden Wrong. Jesse Lieberfield

“I once belonged to a wonderful religion. I belonged to a religion that allows those of us who believe in it to feel that we are the greatest people in the world—and feel sorry for ourselves at the same time. Once, I thought that I truly belonged in this world of security, self-pity, self-proclaimed intelligence, and perfect moral aesthetic. I thought myself to be somewhat privileged early on. It was soon revealed to me, however, that my fellow believers and I were not part of anything so flattering….I was forever reminded how intelligent my family was, how important it was to remember where we had come from, and to be proud of all the suffering our people had overcome in order to finally achieve their dream in the perfect society of Israel,”

* Julia Bacha: Pay Attention To Nonviolence 10 minute video on TED.com (Thanks Gabe)

In 2003, the Palestinian village of Budrus mounted a 10-month-long nonviolent protest to stop a barrier being built across their olive groves. Did you hear about it? Didn’t think so. Brazilian filmmaker Julia Bacha asks why we only pay attention to violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict — and not to the nonviolent leaders who may one day bring peace.

3. Living in Lockuptown

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Slavery is alive and well in Lockuptown, the city of prisoners in the US, and now the second largest American city. Adam Gopnik’s stunning article from this week’s New Yorker looks at the number and way that millions are imprisoned, and at the CCA, the Corrections Corporation of America, the company that makes money from them. This is an unforgettable article. We follow this with a close examination of how the CCA shapes the law to create more prisoners, and end with Jane Jacobs, who presciently highlighted the precise moral problem with this.

* The Caging of America Adam Gopnik The New Yorker

For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

…..No more chilling document exists in recent American life than the 2005 annual report of the biggest of these firms, the Corrections Corporation of America. Here the company (which spends millions lobbying legislators) is obliged to caution its investors about the risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:

Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities. . . . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

Brecht could hardly have imagined such a document: a capitalist enterprise that feeds on the misery of man trying as hard as it can to be sure that nothing is done to decrease that misery.

* Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law NPR

Last year, two men showed up in Benson, Ariz., a small desert town 60 miles from the Mexico border, offering a deal.

Glenn Nichols, the Benson city manager, remembers the pitch….What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants. “They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community,” Nichols said, “the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate…They talked like they didn’t have any doubt they could fill it.” That’s because prison companies like this one had a plan — a new business model to lock up illegal immigrants. And the plan became Arizona’s immigration law….The law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison in a way never done before. And it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in profits to private prison companies responsible for housing them.

* Jane Jacobs and the Problem of Monstrous Hybrids Forbes

Delegating a coercive government functions like operating a prison to a private company is dangerous because the prison company has divided loyalty. The people in charge of a prison ought to be completely devoted to serving the public and the rule of law. But a private company also has an obligation to generate profits for shareholders, which can lead them to cut corners in ways that damage the rights of others. In this case, the profit motive drove a prison company to lobby for laws that would swell the prison population, harming both immigrants and taxpayers.

Jacobs calls combinations of the two syndromes—and the institutions that operate on such hybrid moral systems—”monstrous hybrids.”

4. The Rise and Fall of the €

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Hey, I hear you cry, isn’t it enough that I’m looking at Tikkunista, and now you expect me to listen to a 60 minute audio about financial policy? Well, here’s why you should. 1) It’s hugely entertaining. 2) it explains the core conflict that underlies the current crisis, and how that’s been there since the Euro was created. 3) When the € crashes, as it will, this will affect you. Knowing why this is going to happen is going to be really useful. The Vincent Browne video is what was once called “journalism”, in which a reporter tries to get real answers to hard questions, in this case why the Irish should bail out banks. The obfuscation is impeccable.

* Continental Breakup This American Life (60 minute audio)

If you’re like us, when the words “European debt crisis” pop up in the news you feel a little worried, and a little like taking a nap. Turns out, there’s a story behind this story. One that’s filled with guilt, and drama, and betrayal, and 100-year-old dreams come true. Alex Blumberg of Planet Money guest hosts.

* Vincent Browne v The ECB YouTube, 10 minutes

Vincent Browne (Irish reporter) takes on Klaus Masuch over the issue of the Irish people having to foot the bill for unguaranteed bondholders.

5. Apple, Foxconn, and Economics

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: As Apple set all-time records for profit this week, we learned that in the last quarter year Apple made more iphones made than humans made babies. The process of making them appears to be a lot less fun, however. The lead This American Life is their most downloaded podcast, and has been linked to all over the net in the past month. It’s about how Foxconn, the Chinese company, makes iStuff, and about the lives of the people who work there. Brilliantly presented (Mike Daisey does stand-up) and memorable. The Times has a follow up article, and we offer Apple’s reaction. Worth noting is that while this focuses on Apple, most other computers (Sony, HP, Dell, Samsung, etc…) are made in the same factory under the same conditions. If you need a piece for your next ideas discussion group, this might be a good one to consider.

* Mr. Daisey And The Apple Factory This American Life (60 minute audio)

Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

* Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class New York Times

Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.

A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day.

“The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.”

* Apple ‘Attacking Problems’ At Its Factories In China Telegraph

In an email allegedly sent to Apple’s 60,000 or so employees, Tim Cook, the company’s chief executive said that Apple “cares about every worker in its supply chain”. The letter appears to be in response to a series of articles in the New York Times cataloguing the company’s problems in China and divisions within Apple about how to handle the issues.

Mr Cook’s letter, which was reproduced on the website 9to5mac.com, promised that Apple would “continue to dig deeper” into problems in China and that it would “undoubtedly find more issues”. “What will not do, and never have done, is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain,” he added. “Any accident is deeply troubling, and any issue with working conditions is cause for concern. Any suggestion that we don’t care is patently false and offensive to us. As you know better than anyone, accusations like these are contrary to our values. It’s not who we are,” he said.

6. Enemies of the (Canadian) State

Jan-27-2012 | Comments (0)

Bird’s Eye: Two examples of how the Canadian Government™ (a registered trade-mark of the Conservative Party of Canada) is demonizing anyone who opposes their policies. This is wrong on so many levels… but you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t agree. There are two links through which you can share your views with the government on this policy.

* The Man Who Crushed the Keystone XL Pipeline Boston Globe

He certainly has impeccable timing. From “stop coal” protests to the Occupy encampments, something stirred in America late last year, and McKibben sensed it. “He has caught the wind of the environmental movement and will help the movement regain its footing,” says John Adams, cofounder of the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council and recipient of the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom. “He is soon to be known – if he isn’t already – as one of the top environmental leaders in the country.” Or, as Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune puts it: “He hasn’t quite broken through to the world of US Weekly and Teen Beat, but give him time. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few years from now my daughter has posters of Bill McKibben up on the wall.”

It might not even take that long. Four days after the Keystone protest, Barack Obama postponed a decision on the pipeline until 2013. McKibben promptly declared the pipeline dead, tweeting, “a done deal has come spectacularly undone!”..McKibben and his Keystone protests put a finger in this one particular dike, at least temporarily, and got an environmental cause on the Colbert Report. And that was just the beginning. America, it seems, is about to have a McKibben Moment.

* Why I’m Worried about my trip to Canada. Bill McKibbon 350.org

I’ve been visiting Canada all my life, but I’m a little worried about my upcoming trip.

In late March I’m supposed to come to Vancouver to give a couple of talks. But now I read that Joe Oliver, your country’s Minister of Natural Resources, is condemning “environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block” Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline from the oil sands of Alberta to the Pacific.

I think he’s talking about people like me.

So I’m pushing back a bit, and I need your help. Let’s tell Joe Oliver that preventing the combustion of the second-largest pool of carbon on the planet isn’t “radical” — it’s exactly the opposite. It’s rational. It’s responsible. And it’s just plain right.

Click here to sign the petition to Prime Minister Harper and Joe Oliver, and help show that Canadians everywhere are committed to stopping the oil sands.

* Prime Minister’s Office Tried to Silence Enbridge Gateway Pipeline Critic (Thanks Kyla)

The Prime Minister’s Office tried to cut funding of a registered intervenor in the Enbridge Pipeline Review, calling ForestEthics Canada an, “Enemy of the Government of Canada” and an, “Enemy of the People of Canada”, according to allegations detailed in a sworn affidavit, dated January 23, 2012.

Sworn by Andrew Frank, former Senior Communications Manager with ForestEthics Canada, and an instructor in the Environmental Protection Technology program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, the affidavit cites three senior managers with Tides Canada and ForestEthics, as well as personal email correspondence.

“Today, I am taking the extraordinary step of risking my career, my reputation and my personal friendships, to act as a whistleblower and expose the undemocratic and potentially illegal pressure the Harper government has apparently applied to silence critics of the Enbridge Northern Gateway oil tanker/pipeline plan,” says Frank. “Canadian citizens will be shocked to learn that their own government is labelling critics of the Enbridge oil tanker/pipeline project, ‘Enemies of the Government of Canada’. When a government starts labelling its own citizens ‘enemies’, it has lost its moral authority to govern.”

* Are You An “Enemy Of The Government Of Canada”? Leadnow

This week, we learned that the Harper Government is using closed-door intimidation tactics against Canadian charities. They’re trying to silence groups that question our government’s plans to push the Enbridge western pipeline and supertankers project through overwhelming local opposition, and recklessly expand the tar sands at all costs.
According to the whistleblower, a former senior communications manager for ForestEthics named Andrew Frank, the Prime Minister’s Office told Tides Canada they consider ForestEthics to be an “enemy of the Government of Canada” because of the group’s opposition to the Enbridge pipeline and tar sands expansion

Click here to tell Prime Minister Harper to stop the threats and ensure fair hearings for Canadians,

Jan. 20th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 3

Jan-20-2012 | Comments (0)

1. Followups

Bird’s Eye: We open with a fine article by Will Hutton that takes a wide range of current changes we’ve looked at in past issues, and looks at how they share the rejection of reason. Well worth the read. Two contrasting pieces follow up on last week’s education piece: in the UK “creationism” is banned from science courses (as it’s not science); in Tuscon, “The Tempest” is banned from schools because students might feel sympathy for Caliban (and extend that to contemporary victims.) Sadly, this is not from The Onion. And we end with two funny commentaries on the US election, one Stephen Colbert and one that is from the Onion.

* Now is not the time to turn our backs on Enlightenment values Will Hutton The Observer

The dynamic element on the political right across the west is giving up on the Enlightenment. No longer does it want to embrace tolerance, reason, democratic argument, progress and the drive for social betterment as cornerstones of society. Tolerance is dismissed as an indulgence and a lack of moral standards; progress is trashed as an opportunity for social engineering and a cloak to enhance state power and also as featherbedding the feckless, undeserving poor.

Reason, runs this argument, too often identifies problems that require collective rather than individual responses, amplifying the dread power of the state, and democracy means respecting opponents who have views you consider noxious. Away with the whole damn thought system! Altogether, Enlightenment values are not the reason why the west has advanced so far so fast for the last two centuries and more; rather, they are why the west’s economies are in crisis and its societies are fragmenting.

… This is very much the position of President Zuma’s faction in the African National Congress as the party celebrates its 100th anniversary. Once one of the great forces in the African liberation struggle, it is now competing with Victor Orbán in manipulating a constitution to enlarge the party’s discretionary power… An anti-Enlightenment ANC will shamelessly champion its tribe, the Zulu. Reason, democracy, the rule of law and respect for dissent are values of the declining west. Thus the ANC can cock a snook at the scientific evidence that HIV is linked to Aids. If former President Mbeki, like his successor, believes differently, that is all that matters; everybody knows that science makes mistakes and is not objective. If senior American politicians such as Rick Santorum can argue that the scientific evidence supporting climate change is “junk science” and “an excuse for more government control of your life”, then the ANC can dismiss scientific evidence on Aids.

* Richard Dawkins Celebrates A Victory Over Creationists The Observer

The Department for Education has revised its model funding agreement, allowing the education secretary to withdraw cash from schools that fail to meet strict criteria relating to what they teach. Under the new agreement, funding will be withdrawn for any free school that teaches what it claims are “evidence-based views or theories” that run “contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations”.

The British Humanist Association (BHA), which has led a campaign against creationism – the movement that denies Darwinian evolution and claims that the Earth and all its life was created by God – described the move as “highly significant” and predicted that it would have implications for other faith groups looking to run schools.Dawkins, who was one of the leading lights in the campaign, welcomed confirmation that creationists would not receive funding to run free schools if they sought to portray their views as science. “I welcome all moves to ensure that creationism is not taught as fact in schools,” he said. “Government rules on this are extremely welcome, but they need to be properly enforced.”

* Who’s Afraid of “The Tempest”? Salon

As part of the state-mandated termination of its ethnic studies program, the Tucson Unified School District released an initial list of books to be banned from its schools today. According to district spokeperson Cara Rene, the books “will be cleared from all classrooms, boxed up and sent to the Textbook Depository for storage.” Facing a multimillion-dollar penalty in state funds, the governing board of Tucson’s largest school district officially ended the 13-year-old program on Tuesday in an attempt to come into compliance with the controversial state ban on the teaching of ethnic studies.

….Another notable text removed from Tucson’s classrooms is Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest.” In a meeting this week, administrators informed Mexican-American studies teachers to stay away from any units where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes,” including the teaching of Shakespeare’s classic in Mexican-American literature courses.

* Mitt the Ripper YouTube

Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC Attacks Mitt Romney (Serial Killer)

* Obama Asks Why on Earth He Would Want To Serve Another Term Onion (Thanks, Dave!)

(Note to readers: If you hit the Onion “paywall”, you can easily circumvent it – just click the stop loading button when the entire article is visible, and you won’t get paywalled. Or just pay them. Or don’t go. Your karma.)

Citing three years of exhausting partisan politics, constant gridlock in Congress, and an overall feeling that the entire nation has “completely lost it,” President Barack Obama openly asked a campaign-rally crowd Tuesday why he’d want to serve another term as president of “this godforsaken country.”

…”I’m dead serious,” the president continued, saying that any reasonable person would have walked away the moment the Senate minority leader announced his main priority—above creating jobs and improving American health care—was to make Obama a one-term president. “I’m asking if anybody out there can come up with even one reason why I’d want to endure this unmitigated shit show for another minute, let alone through 2016. What’s in it for me, exactly? Can anyone answer that? Anyone at all?”

After a long silence during which crowd members mostly just shuffled their feet and stared at the ground, Obama said, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

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2. Economic Inequality & US Politics

6. The Art of Protest

2. Martin Luther King’s Heritage

3. Living in Lockuptown

4. The Rise and Fall of the €

5. Apple, Foxconn, and Economics

6. Enemies of the (Canadian) State

Jan. 20th, 2012 :: Year 9, Issue 3

1. Followups

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