One of the gravest assaults on civil liberties by George Bush II was the idea of "free speech zones" in which protest would be allowed - in blatant violation of the right to free speech contained in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. And now these abominations on freedom have come to Canada.
For the G20 summit taking place in Toronto in late June, the Integrated Security Unit (a concretion of the Toronto Police Service, the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP have declared a "designated speech zone" for protests. This is obscene. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms declares that all of Canada is, subject to reasonable limits, a designated speech zone. The notion that only in certain areas are the people to be free to exercise their constitutional rights is antithetical to free expression. Protesters are supposed to be mollified by the fact that there will be a "live feed" to the convention centre where the high priests of capital will be meeting so that the protests will be "visible." A few monitors showing protesters does not recompense us for our lost liberty.
I was prepared to accept the idea that there might be an area in which protests would be prohibited. I wasn't happy about the idea, but I was prepared to go along with it. But the notion that the entire city, with the exception of Queen's Park, is going to be an area in which free expression is to be suppressed is intolerable. The G20 has the right to meet, but they don't have the right to meet out of sight and out of mind of the people objecting to them. Shame on the police for going out of their way to curb our liberty. What a great commitment to constitutional governance they have.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Thursday, May 06, 2010
The IMF, Structural Adjustment and Greece
The IMF and its boosters like to bill it as having 'seen the light.' Nowadays, we hear all about the IMF that has learned its lesson and is warm and cuddly. We are told that the IMF understands the importance of maintaining governance and government capacity. Why, we are even told they have a focus on poverty reduction. For a sterling example of this, you can see a discussion at enmasse.ca between me and several other posters going under the handles thwap, Rufus Polson, elmateo, Senor Magoo and A_J about the IMF, structural adjustment and whether or not Haiti should accept the loans offered by the IMF after the earthquake. You can read it here.
The notion that the IMF is not a heartless profit machine is, frankly, absurd. The conditions being imposed on Greece now prove this and put the lie to the notion that the IMF has changed from the cruel master of the 1980s and 1990s. All you have to do is look at the package of "austerity" measures that the Greek government (a quisling "Socialist Party" government at that) is trying to put through the parliament. The BBC has the details (see here and here), and the thing that is immediately noticeable is that the vast majority of the pain from these reforms is going to be felt by disadvantaged groups: the poor and the elderly.
In a crisis, the government needs to look to both its income and cost situation. Clearly, the IMF and the European Union are demanding action on the cost side of the ledger. But the government is doing almost all of its actions on this side, trying to cut expenditure without substantially increasing long term revenue. These measures don't even include a hike in income taxes, the most progressive way a government has of raising revenue. The government ought to be hiking taxes on its top income brackets to ease its balance of payments crisis, not cutting services and raising taxes that have disproportionate impacts on the poorest people in society. The government should also be raising taxes on banks and other corporations - the ones who actually caused the crisis. Instead, all there is is a one-off tax on profits and hikes in VAT (the Greek sales tax) and increased taxes on fuel, alcohol and tobacco. For the elderly, these cuts will be a double-whammy as they will see their pensions cut, and their costs rise.
The BBC also mentions privatization. Privatization is stupid at the best of economic times, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. In times like these it would be a fire sale, giving away valuable state enterprises for pennies on the Euro. Privatization represents just another way of transferring capital accrued by the people in common to the owning class. Transferring control away from democratically accountable institutions like Parliament to the kleptomanic classes that caused this problem. But this is another hallmark of the reckless profit-lust of the IMF. It seems that in their view and Naomi Klein's words, the state should be nothing more than a conveyor belt moving public money to private interests.
The IMF remains the same villain it has been for decades. What is happening now shows no indication that the IMF cares a whit about reducing poverty, in fact these actions will without a shadow of a doubt increase poverty in Greece. The IMF cannot viably claim to be new, warm and fuzzy when it is pursuing policy options that could well have been tailored to cause more poverty and misery. The IMF should just admit that it is what it is, a shill for the global capitalist class, seeking to open countries to exploitation by capital.
The notion that the IMF is not a heartless profit machine is, frankly, absurd. The conditions being imposed on Greece now prove this and put the lie to the notion that the IMF has changed from the cruel master of the 1980s and 1990s. All you have to do is look at the package of "austerity" measures that the Greek government (a quisling "Socialist Party" government at that) is trying to put through the parliament. The BBC has the details (see here and here), and the thing that is immediately noticeable is that the vast majority of the pain from these reforms is going to be felt by disadvantaged groups: the poor and the elderly.
In a crisis, the government needs to look to both its income and cost situation. Clearly, the IMF and the European Union are demanding action on the cost side of the ledger. But the government is doing almost all of its actions on this side, trying to cut expenditure without substantially increasing long term revenue. These measures don't even include a hike in income taxes, the most progressive way a government has of raising revenue. The government ought to be hiking taxes on its top income brackets to ease its balance of payments crisis, not cutting services and raising taxes that have disproportionate impacts on the poorest people in society. The government should also be raising taxes on banks and other corporations - the ones who actually caused the crisis. Instead, all there is is a one-off tax on profits and hikes in VAT (the Greek sales tax) and increased taxes on fuel, alcohol and tobacco. For the elderly, these cuts will be a double-whammy as they will see their pensions cut, and their costs rise.
The BBC also mentions privatization. Privatization is stupid at the best of economic times, killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. In times like these it would be a fire sale, giving away valuable state enterprises for pennies on the Euro. Privatization represents just another way of transferring capital accrued by the people in common to the owning class. Transferring control away from democratically accountable institutions like Parliament to the kleptomanic classes that caused this problem. But this is another hallmark of the reckless profit-lust of the IMF. It seems that in their view and Naomi Klein's words, the state should be nothing more than a conveyor belt moving public money to private interests.
The IMF remains the same villain it has been for decades. What is happening now shows no indication that the IMF cares a whit about reducing poverty, in fact these actions will without a shadow of a doubt increase poverty in Greece. The IMF cannot viably claim to be new, warm and fuzzy when it is pursuing policy options that could well have been tailored to cause more poverty and misery. The IMF should just admit that it is what it is, a shill for the global capitalist class, seeking to open countries to exploitation by capital.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
The Oil Industry is Psychopathic
In the days following the revelation of just how monumentally disastrous the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is going to be, it has emerged that the oil industry is asking the government of Canada to loosen restrictions and regulations for safety on drilling in Canada's arctic waters. Are they insane? If nothing else, did their entire PR departments take an unscheduled mass vacation? To suggest that measures to protect the environment should be loosened now, when it is becoming clear to even the most thickheaded and troglodytic supporter of offshore drilling that it represents a colossal threat to the environment, is moronic. To make the suggestion at all is verging on psychopathic.
This isn't something that I am suggesting lightly. The people in charge of the oil industry are exhibiting the classic lack of empathy and emotion that characterizes psychopaths. They are actively endangering the health and wellbeing of millions, if not billions, of people for their own gratification. When confronted, they cry crocodile tears, as the CEO of BP did after his company's heinously negligent behaviour placed one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world in peril. They don't care about other people, though as explained in the film The Corporation this is an inherent defect of the corporate form and a not so inherent defect of the system of legislative regulation of corporations in North America and western Europe. Their only motivation is profit, the basic gratification of the capitalist.
The disaster in the Gulf is as bad as it is because the gusher can't be capped. It can't be capped because the pressure is far to high. The pressure can't be reduced until a relief well is completed. And it is going to take ninety days, NINETY DAYS, to drill the relief well. So oil is going to keep pouring into the Gulf of Mexico for ninety days!! That is fundamentally unacceptable, yet there is nothing that can be done about it. Canadian regulations require that in Arctic Ocean waters, relief wells must be drilled within the same season as the main well. This sensible precaution means that if a Deepwater Horizon-type incident were to have occurred in Canada's arctic waters (touch wood that it doesn't) it would have been much more easily sealed off, because a relief well would already have been drilled and could be put into use immediately to allow the capping of the main well. If there absolutely must be drilling in arctic waters, this is at least the most sensible way of doing it.
The same-season relief well requirement is expensive though. It means the oil companies have to put in a lot of money to make sure that the relief well is finished before the end of the season. Accordingly, they don't like it. And now they want the government of Canada to scrap it. I say fuck that and fuck them. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Even now, when the oil industry has been caught with its lies on safety exposed in a spill so massive it is visible from space, they are playing a game of musical chairs over who is responsible. BP is trying to foist as much blame as it can off on other players. It remains to be seen how much of the financial burden of trying to clean up this gigantic mess is going to be foisted onto American tax payers, many of whom have had their livelihoods stripped away as a result of BPs uncaring and callous negligence, but you can bet it will be a lot. If there was any justice in this world, a fine would be levied against BP big enough to put them and their affiliates out of business forever.
The oil industry's behaviour, seeking to avoid all but the most basic repercussions of their actions, and to seek to eliminate measures that might prevent it from happening again, demonstrate the basic principle of capitalism: do whatever you have to do, no matter how down and dirty, sleazy, underhanded and hurt whoever or whatever you have to hurt to make as much money as you can. That's why I fundamentally reject capitalism. As a system of social organization, it is the embodiment of psychopathy. Greed is good. Harm is good. Responsibility and ethics are bad. Even after the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, the oil industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming into mandatory double-hulling on oil tankers. I am willing to bet that even now, after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the oil industry and their bought-and-paid-for slugs in the US Congress are going to fight tighter regulation on offshore drilling every miserable step of the way. Because heaven forfend that anything should get in the way of the almighty dollar, be it plants, animals or people. Because other things just don't count. That's the psychopathy of capitalism.
This isn't something that I am suggesting lightly. The people in charge of the oil industry are exhibiting the classic lack of empathy and emotion that characterizes psychopaths. They are actively endangering the health and wellbeing of millions, if not billions, of people for their own gratification. When confronted, they cry crocodile tears, as the CEO of BP did after his company's heinously negligent behaviour placed one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world in peril. They don't care about other people, though as explained in the film The Corporation this is an inherent defect of the corporate form and a not so inherent defect of the system of legislative regulation of corporations in North America and western Europe. Their only motivation is profit, the basic gratification of the capitalist.
The disaster in the Gulf is as bad as it is because the gusher can't be capped. It can't be capped because the pressure is far to high. The pressure can't be reduced until a relief well is completed. And it is going to take ninety days, NINETY DAYS, to drill the relief well. So oil is going to keep pouring into the Gulf of Mexico for ninety days!! That is fundamentally unacceptable, yet there is nothing that can be done about it. Canadian regulations require that in Arctic Ocean waters, relief wells must be drilled within the same season as the main well. This sensible precaution means that if a Deepwater Horizon-type incident were to have occurred in Canada's arctic waters (touch wood that it doesn't) it would have been much more easily sealed off, because a relief well would already have been drilled and could be put into use immediately to allow the capping of the main well. If there absolutely must be drilling in arctic waters, this is at least the most sensible way of doing it.
The same-season relief well requirement is expensive though. It means the oil companies have to put in a lot of money to make sure that the relief well is finished before the end of the season. Accordingly, they don't like it. And now they want the government of Canada to scrap it. I say fuck that and fuck them. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Even now, when the oil industry has been caught with its lies on safety exposed in a spill so massive it is visible from space, they are playing a game of musical chairs over who is responsible. BP is trying to foist as much blame as it can off on other players. It remains to be seen how much of the financial burden of trying to clean up this gigantic mess is going to be foisted onto American tax payers, many of whom have had their livelihoods stripped away as a result of BPs uncaring and callous negligence, but you can bet it will be a lot. If there was any justice in this world, a fine would be levied against BP big enough to put them and their affiliates out of business forever.
The oil industry's behaviour, seeking to avoid all but the most basic repercussions of their actions, and to seek to eliminate measures that might prevent it from happening again, demonstrate the basic principle of capitalism: do whatever you have to do, no matter how down and dirty, sleazy, underhanded and hurt whoever or whatever you have to hurt to make as much money as you can. That's why I fundamentally reject capitalism. As a system of social organization, it is the embodiment of psychopathy. Greed is good. Harm is good. Responsibility and ethics are bad. Even after the Exxon Valdez catastrophe, the oil industry had to be dragged kicking and screaming into mandatory double-hulling on oil tankers. I am willing to bet that even now, after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the oil industry and their bought-and-paid-for slugs in the US Congress are going to fight tighter regulation on offshore drilling every miserable step of the way. Because heaven forfend that anything should get in the way of the almighty dollar, be it plants, animals or people. Because other things just don't count. That's the psychopathy of capitalism.
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