Category: adventure

The Hunger Games and The Warfare State

By Joel Poindexter   Much has been written about The Hunger Games and the underlying libertarian themes in that story.

Jeffrey Tucker recently described the similarity between the fictional games and voting. Brent Railey noted just the other day the realities of the black market springing up to provide what the state can’t, or won’t, and the futility in relying on political figures for salvation. I’d like to draw attention to the allegory of the games and the modern warfare state….

A co-worker of mine suggested that another lesson is that when fighting one evil, it’s important not to become just as evil yourself; a lesson from later in the series.

…So right off the bat it’s pretty clear: An impoverished underclass, already forced to pay tribute to the government, has its youth pressed into violent service by the wealthy and politically powerful, for the entertainment and enrichment of this ruling elite. This pretty well describes the nation-state in virtually all times and all places, but it goes far beyond this.

The next similarity one finds is the way in which children are selected for the games: a draft. Each child’s name is placed in a bowl, and a representative from the Capitol draws the “winner.” There is a slight twist, one that makes the process even more similar to the actual draft. Each child may be entered additional times in exchange for greater food rations for their family.

The obvious effect is that poorer families are at greater odds of having their children selected for the games. In similar fashion, special rules applied during the draft allowed wealthy draftees to receive deferments, effectively allowing them to avoid military service. In modern times the ranks of the military are almost exclusively made up of the middle class and poor, who are promised better-paying jobs and opportunities otherwise not available at home.

While the people of most districts generally dread the “reaping,” in others, participation in the games is a coveted experience. In these districts, children, known as “Careers,” volunteer to go after training their whole lives. In very much the same way, military service is a generational endeavor. There are many soldiers now serving who can trace their family’s participation in wars going back many generations. It’s not uncommon for recruits to explain that their reason for joining was, at least in part, because their fathers and grandfathers served; “it’s just what we do.”

It continues.

The games are of course a spectacle. The players are paraded in front of adoring crowds; politicians make grand speeches, the Capitol showers praise on the children, who are costumed and trained before being sent to their deaths. Those who die have their portraits broadcast at the end of each day, in memoriam, not at all unlike the nightly news here when troops are killed in overseas combat.

One point that stands out, as Tucker notes, is that none of the participants would have any real reason to fight one another outside the arena. They are forced to do so, to adopt a base mentality and become uncivilized animals in order to survive. This is also true in virtually all wars. The people of at least one side, if not both, are pressed into service and sent to kill other people they’ve never met, and have no real quarrel with.

As with all contemporary conflicts, the games are televised, and huge profits are realized for those who organize them. Cameras are set up everywhere, ensuring that no detail goes unnoticed. Highlights are routinely played, not just of current games, but of those past…..

….There is one major deviation, to be sure. “Winners” are treated to special accommodations and never want for any material thing, unlike many of the troops who return from war with broken minds, bodies, and souls. A staggering number of returning veterans are often unable to function in normal society. Having been used up by their government, unfit to continue fighting, they’re no longer valuable and may be left and forgotten.

It’s no surprise that so many parallels exist, given that the series’ author, Suzanne Collins, was inspired when watching news reports about the wars. The two are so strikingly similar I can only hope that the millions of people, mostly teenagers, will make the same connection.

see full article HERE  http://www.stopwar.org.uk…

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Occupy Boston Builds “Camp Charlie” on State House Steps

Following Wednesday’s National Day of Action for Public Transit that saw Occupiers and unions take part in coordinated actions across dozens of cities, Occupiers in Boston flooded the state capitol and have now set up an encampment outside in protest of fare hikes and service cuts to mass transit. Occupy Boston says they will occupy the area for 10 days, or until the state government agrees to revise the budget for transit.

from Occupy Boston:   This evening, Occupy the MBTA, a working group of Occupy Boston, launched Camp Charlie, a ten day occupation of the State House steps to protest fare-hikes and service cutbacks on the MBTA. Having survived the depths of the recession, the 99% now faces additional taxes in the

State House yesterday

form of escalating T fares and the loss of essential transport routes. This is a further transfer of public wealth to the banks. These are the same institutions that were bailed out by the American taxpayer after being rendered insolvent by their own, criminal recklessness. The only debt in need of servicing is their debt to us.

In a country that lavishes four billion dollars in subsidies on the oil companies, the relentless assault on public transport could not make less sense – ethically, environmentally, or otherwise.

Camp Charlie will be a place for public debate, conversation, and outreach – a living testament to the refusal of the people to be further abused by a clutch of corporate interests, multinational banking cartels and consolidated oil interests.

All those in Boston are encouraged to join or stop by Camp Charlie! Follow @Occupy_Bostonhttps://twitter.com/#!/Occupy_Boston and @OccupyMBTAhttps://twitter.com/#!/OccupyMBTA for updates.

No service cuts!
No fare hikes!
No layoffs!
No privatization of our treasured public transit system!
A comprehensive plan for affordable and sustainable transportation that works for the 99%!

http://occupywallst.org/article/occupy-boston-builds-camp-charlie-state-house-step/

Occupy make fare free subway in NY

Occupy Wall Street Affiliates Chain Subway Gates Open For Fare Strike

Village Voice  A group calling itself the “Rank and File Initiative” claimed credit yesterday for opening up more than 20 subway stations throughout the city for free entry.

Chaining open emergency gates at stations on the F, L, R, Q, 3, and 6 lines during rush hour yesterday morning, the anonymous activists posted signs designed to resemble MTA service-change announcements that read “Free Entry, No Fare. Please Enter Through The Service Gate.”

This morning before rush hour, teams of activists, many from Occupy Wall Street, in conjunction with rank and file workers from the Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the Amalgamated Transit Union, opened up more than 20 stations across the city for free entry. As of 10:30 AM, the majority remain open. No property was damaged. Teams have chained open service gates and taped up turnstiles in a coordinated response to escalating service cuts, fare hikes, racist policing, assaults on transit workers’ working conditions and livelihoods — and the profiteering of the super-rich by way of a system they’ve rigged in their favor.

The release cites Albany’s chronic underfunding of public transit, which has led the MTA to borrow heavily just to maintain its operating budget — debt which must be serviced in part with transit fares that have gone up 50 percent over the last decade.

“This means Wall Street bondholders receive a huge share of what we put into the system through the Metrocards we buy and the taxes we pay,” the press statement reads. “More than $2 billion a year goes to debt service, and this number is expected to rise every year. If trends continue, by 2018 more than one out of every five dollars of MTA revenue will head to a banker’s pockets.”

Last night we spoke with a representative of the Rank And File Initiative, who wished to remain anonymous. He told us that teams set out in the early hours of yesterday morning, disguising their identities, to lock open gates at roughly 25 stations.

“It was three or four people to each station, so you can do the math of how many people were directly involved,” he said. Not every team was successful — one dispatched to a Bronx subway station had to abort their mission — “But everyone came safely back without getting caught, which was our first priority.”

A press release claiming credit for the action said it was carried out by activists affiliated with Occupy Wall Street, as well as by rank-and-file members of Transit Workers Union Local 100, which is currently in negotiations with the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Occupy’s public face is beginning to show itself more and more as spring carries on. The lack of a physical occupation site made it difficult for the movement to wage a public relations campaign, but it was never hibernating. Occupiers were hard at work, canvassing in low-income outer-borough neighborhoods, organizing Town Squares, preparing for their spring offensive, dealing with internal trauma and organizational difficulties, and waging policy reform initiatives like Occupy the SEC. These signs point to growing, not waning movement, and suggest that the American Autumn may become an entire year of consistent critique and political action.

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Democratic Womanism: By Alice Walker

 from her official website: http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2012/01/
Wangari Maathai: who remembered the beautiful bountifulness of her land before the colonial invaders laid waste to it and resolved to bring it back to health by planting trees.  Rest in Well Done; beloved sister of our clan.
“Traditionally capable, as in:  ’Mama, I’m walking to Canada, and I’m taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me’.  Reply:  ”It wouldn’t be the first time.” ___from the definition of “Womanist” in In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, Womanist Prose, 1983, by the author.

Democratic Womanism

You ask me why I smile
when you tell me you intend
in the coming national elections
to hold your nose
and vote for the lesser of two evils.
There are more than two evils out there,
is one reason I smile.
Another is that our old buddy Nostradamus
comes to mind, with his dreadful
400 year old prophecy:  that our world
and theirs too
(our “enemies” – lots of kids included here)
will end (by nuclear nakba or holocaust)
in our lifetime.  Which makes the idea of elections
and the billions of dollars wasted on them
somewhat fatuous.
A Southerner of Color,
my people held the vote
very dear
while others, for centuries,
merely appeared to play
with it.
One thing I can assure
you of is this:
I will never betray such pure hearts
by voting for evil
even if it were microscopic
which, as you can see in any newscast
no matter the slant,
it is not.
I want something else;
a different system
entirely.
One not seen
on this earth
for thousands of years.  If ever.
Democratic Womanism.
Notice how this word has “man” right in the middle of it?
That’s one reason I like it.  He is there, front and center.  But he is surrounded.
I want to vote and work for a way of life
that honors the feminine;
a way that acknowledges
the theft of the wisdom
female and dark Mother leadership
might have provided our spaceship
all along.
I am not thinking
of a talking head
kind of gal:
happy to be mixing
it up
with the baddest
bad boys
on the planet
her eyes a slit
her mouth a zipper.
No, I am speaking of true
regime change.
Where women rise
to take their place
en masse
at the helm
of earth’s frail and failing ship;
where each thousand years
of our silence
is examined
with regret,
and the cruel manner in which our values
of compassion and kindness
have been ridiculed
and suppressed
brought to bear on the disaster
of the present time.
The past must be examined closely, I believe, before we can leave
it there.
I am thinking of Democratic, and, perhaps
Socialist, Womanism.
For who else knows so deeply
how to share but Mothers
and Grandmothers?  Big sisters
and Aunts?
To love
and adore
both female and male?
Not to mention those in between.
To work at keeping
the entire community
fed, educated
and safe?
Democratic womanism,
Democratic Socialist
Womanism,
would have as its icons
such fierce warriors
for good as
Vandana Shiva
Aung San Suu Kyi,
Wangari Maathai
Harriet Tubman
Yoko Ono
Frida Kahlo
Angela Davis
& Barbara Lee:
With new ones always rising, wherever you look.  Recent writers for instance:
Michelle Alexander, Isabel Wilkerson, and Nancy Turner Banks, M.D.*  Whose books, read together, go a long way toward bringing us up to speed on how our declining country got this way.
You are also on this list, but it is so long (Isis would appear midway) that I must stop or be unable to finish the poem!)  So just know I’ve stood you in a circle that includes Marian Wright Edelman, Amy Goodman, Sojourner Truth, Gloria Steinem and Mary McLeod Bethune.  John Brown, Frederick Douglass, John Lennon and Howard Zinn are there too.  Happy to be surrounded!
There is no system
now in place
that can change
the disastrous course
Earth is on.
Who can doubt this?
The male leaders
of Earth
appear to have abandoned
their very senses
though most appear
to live now
entirely
in their heads.
They murder humans and other
animals
forests and rivers and mountains
every day
they are in office
and never seem
to notice it.
They eat and drink devastation.
Women of the world,
Is this devastation Us?
Would we kill whole continents for oil
(or anything else)
rather than limit
the number of consumer offspring we produce
and learn how to make our own fire?
Democratic Womanism.
Democratic Socialist Womanism.
A system of governance
we can dream and imagine and build together.  One that recognizes
at least six thousand years
of brutally enforced complicity
in the assassination
of Mother Earth, but foresees six thousand years
ahead of us when we will not submit.
What will we need?  A hundred years
at least  to plan: (five hundred will be handed us
gladly
when the planet is scared enough)
in which circles of women meet,
organize ourselves, and,
allied with men
brave enough to stand with women,
nurture our planet to a degree of health.
And without apology –
(impossible to make
a bigger mess than has been made)-
devote ourselves, heedless of opposition,
to tirelessly serving and resuscitating  Our Mother ship
and with gratitude
for Her care of us
worshipfully commit
to
rehabilitating it.
Copyright©2012 by Alice Walker
Brought to our attention by Malia, WHealthy Human Village

reblogged with thanks  from http://wammtoday.wordpress.com

‘The Free’ now Available as a Book! (+ free ebook)

March 2012

Happy to let you know ‘The Free’ is now IN PRINT, on request,  as a real ‘dead tree’ book… Just in time to take part in the ‘Occupy 2012’ movements planet wide!!


Available here: https://www.createspace.com/3702134    costs 10€, or $14, + post. (postage may be cheaper from Amazon here http://www.amazon…. )

..one lonely, abused schoolgirl occupies her own life..and sets off an explosive social and economic revolution


Also it’s Out Now as a free download for Ipad, iPhone, Sony, Kobo, Nook,, etc. Available here:http://www.mediafire.com/?9sdkp1dyhtjbiym for ePub (colour) costs nothing.


Also it’s in Kindle Stores (costs 3€)› US  › UK  https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007EHCF14


And still a free pdf download from its website here: https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/testing-downloads/ 362 page colour 100 illustrations +all info.


Hope you enjoy the adventure, and build on its ideas to exploit the inevitably coming collapse of capitalism

Best of luck to you all…..mike gilli

Would you like to HELP DISTRIBUTE the printed book? You could just tell your friends.. or ask your local bookstore to stock it by ordering through them. Or ask a library to get it.  Trade stocking details ’The Free’ ISBN 978-1466409323                   .CreateSpace. Direct Reseller Application https://www.createspace.com/pub/l/createspacedirect.do?rewrite=true Also trade distributors like http://www.ingrambook.com/retailers/orderingi.aspx(from April 2012) which unlike Createspace should take returns.  For Libraries the agent is http://www.btol.com/ts3/

ZAD cops tear gas themselves

WHEN PIGS CRY

The vache (that’s the French cops to you and me) scored a hilarious own goal last week at la ZAD protest site near Nantes: They tear-gassed themselves.

Around 100-150 cops had turned up to police a protest on Tuesday (14th) of around 40 ZAD occupiers and some local farmers whose fields were being valued. As the state and corporation Vinci press ahead with the long-awaited, and much-opposed, plan for a new international airport to be built on over 6km2 of the southern France countryside, the valuing of land for compensation agreements is one of the last remaining steps before imminent destruction.

Deciding the presence of the site riff raff (who may or may not have been planning on blocking the land valuers access to the fields…) justified riot control policing, one butterfingered cop pulled out a tear gas canister which, seconds later, inexplicably exploded behind the police line. Activists proceeded to piss themselves laughing at the sight of floundering, crying robocops while the bosses behind hogged the eye-drops. Their faces were even redder later as they struggled through muddy fields as nimble protesters gave them the run around.

The episode was the latest in the saga of the Notre-Dame des Landes airport. The airport is just one part of the meglomaniac ‘Grand Ouest’ project incorporating a new road system and the expansion of the Saint Nazaire port (“What’s climate change?”). Most land-owners have already sold their land to the government but a handful still resist, either wholeheartedly rejecting the devastating plans or just holding out for more dolla: the current offers stand at a meagre 16cents per square meter, while Vinci stands to siphon millions in public money to concrete the lot.

Some of the land expropriated by the state, meanwhile, has been re-appropriated by squatters occupying empty farm buildings and treehouses. Although a couple of squats, including the hub Les Planchettes, have been on eviction alert for several weeks ZAD inhabitants are busy with a timetable of workshops, building, riding the airwaves with the ZAD’s Radio Klaxton and planning for the upcoming True Substances week of demonstration, skill shares and action (5th – 10th March).

 

See zad.nadir.org, or get yer ass down to France for March 5th.

Occupy London evicted..next Global Spring !

BRITISH authorities moved in to evict the Occupy London tent city outside St Paul’s Cathedral over Monday night.

Occupylsx itself declared on Tuesday morning: “Globalspring is coming this may.

There were reports of people being arrested and dragged off by riot police, shouting: “Long live #occupy !”

Christian protesters praying on the steps of the cathedral were apparently violently pulled away and thrown to the ground – at the request of the church authorities.

Police blocked off the area to stop supporters getting to the scene to express their solidarity.

The move was expected by activists, following the end of legal attempts to gain extra time on the site.

Corporate media are, inevitably, keen to represent the physical removal of the camp as a defeat for the movement against neoliberalism.

But, as one Twitter comment remarked: “I wish the BBC would stop saying that the protest is now over. It’s clearly far from over…”

And Occupylsx itself declared on Tuesday morning: “Globalspring is coming this may. Still united for #globalchange and #globaldemocracy. This is just the beginning.”