The Free

Climate-lethal US frack-gas arrives in Spain via Gas Natural Fenosa

Gas Natural’s Ribera Del Duero Knutsen lifted a cargo at Sabine Pass on 9-July and delivered it to Cartagena, Spain on 21-July

Leer en castellano AQUÍ twitter.. #NoAlFrackGasDelTrump..

Early on 21st July a giant Liquid Natural Gas Tanker (LNG) appeared out of the mist in Cartagena harbour. Nothing surprising, you may say. Only that it was the 1st of hundreds of GNF’s Frack-Gas cargoes from the USA.

on twitter.. #NoAlFrackGasDelTrump..

Frack-Gas is the same as normal gas, only that it’s up to 3 times more lethal than coal for the climate. Because extracting it requires fracturing shale in thousands of small wells with ultra toxic chemicals causing massive methane leaking.(see footnote 1)

Now by Trump’s executive order all pretence at methane control, climate change mitigation, water or environmental protection have been abolished in a toxic mix of false patriotism, corruption and insatiable greed. (see footnote 2)

Due to lack of control, hidden subsidies and free money there is a glut of frack gas in the US. The plan is to force it on Europe, even at a massive loss and with incalculable climate damage, as part of their trade and arms war against Russia, which supplies 30% of European gas.

A whole range of liquefaction plants are being rushed into operation in Louisiana and Texas, until now three huge lines are in operation in Sabine Pass, with whole sections devoted to Spain’s Gas Natural Fenosa and Shell who have perhaps foolishly signed 20 year ‘pay up whether you take the gas or not’ contracts.

Cheniere will deliver the first US LNG cargo to Klaipeda, Lithuania from Sabine Pass in the second half of August.

Continue reading “Climate-lethal US frack-gas arrives in Spain via Gas Natural Fenosa”

LOS ANGELES NEIGHBORHOOD SELF-DEFENSE STOPS COPS

By John Parker

shared from tmb3-org.com/— Tonight in my neighborhood I witnessed yet another example of the police as the occupying force in Black and Brown communities.

About 10:30 p.m., I was alerted to the situation when my dog barked — because cops were outside our window. There were nine cop cars in front of my house and my neighbor’s house, with about 13 cops in my neighbor’s yard.

In a later conversation with my neighbor’s grandson, D’Andre Coleman, I found out what had happened. D’Andre , who is about 28 and Black, was going to his car, parked in front of his house, to get his shoes. As he was putting them on by his car, another car rolled up to him and flashed a light in his face, so he knew it was the police. The cop asked if it was his car and he said it was. She asked again and he repeated that it was. When he began walking back to his house, she told him he couldn’t leave. He asked her if he was being detained and she didn’t answer, so he continued to walk.

Without warning and before he could reach his porch steps, the cop got out of the car, ran towards him and pulled on his leg, making him trip and hit his head on the mailbox. He managed to get into his house, but the cop and another cop pulled him out, handcuffed and detained him in the driveway.

Then the sergeant cop said to D’Andre Colman: “It’s all fun and games until I shoot you. Then they have to call for backup.” The lieutenant cop was standing there and heard the sergeant but said nothing.

When I saw the cops outside, I went over to my neighbor and heard the young man’s grandmother, Edith Simpson, distressed and angry, trying to explain to the cops her concern. She said she’s seen many Black young men shot by the cops in the funeral parlor where she works, so she was concerned about her grandson in handcuffs who had just been assaulted.

I told my neighbor I’d get help from the other neighbors, and I went and got my son Sekou and also our Harvard Blvd. Block Club president, Joe Crosby, who then got others to stand in our neighbor’s yard even though the cops were trying to get us to leave.

We repeatedly told the cops that the person they had in handcuffs lived here, in our neighborhood, and it was his car. He even had the keys to the car in his pocket. Their excuse was that he was suspected of stealing the car.

So, we asked, now that they knew who he was, why were they still here and why was he still in handcuffs?

The fact is they wanted to escalate the situation and probably arrest him. If it were not for the community coming out to show “we ain’t havin’ it“ that would have happened.

Finally, after about 30 to 40 minutes and lots of insults hurled their way, the cops let him go. D’Andre emphasized to me: “If it wasn’t for everyone coming out, I’d be dead because there were a lot of cops refusing to de-escalate, which is part of the problem.”

The cops didn’t care about any legal rights or laws they were breaking. Not only did they threaten to kill D’Andre Coleman, they also searched his car with no warrant. D’Andre told me: “While I was on the porch, I saw them searching my car and I told them, when I was in handcuffs, that I did not consent to that. Later, I found things from my glove compartment and trunk on the floor and seat of my car.”

As for cops standing around and watching injustice happen during this and many other incidents of police terror, D’Andre commented to me: “If you simply watch someone get pushed and fall off a cliff without helping, then you might as well have been the one pushing.”

D’Andre noted that the police have gotten worse in our community: “Having it happen here, it’s unnerving and unsettling. I live here and they [cops] live 30 miles away.”

It really is a frightening thing when 13 trigger-happy cops are targeting a young Black or Brown person. But, most importantly, we gathered as many people as possible together to show solidarity and “discourage” the cops’ rabid instincts.

This victory was a good education in solidarity and the power of communities coming together in self-defense against these pigs. Our block club is now in the process of organizing a rapid response network for any future violations by the cops, and the family is getting legal help from Justice Warriors for Black Lives organizer Nana Gyamfi.

Edited for mb3-org.com

Los Angeles neighborhood self-defense stops cops

the War Starts Here … Camp 2017

Potzehne, Germany:the War Starts Here Camp 2017

From the 31th of july to the 6th of August the War-Starts-Here camp will set up in Potzehne (close to Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt,Germany). For several years now the War-Starts-Here camp has brought together lots of different people close to the modern and important military training site in Germany.

The “Gefechtsübungszentrum Heer”, abbreviated as GÜZ. Antimilitarist discussions as well as practical resistance left a persistent mark on both the participants of the camp and the surrounding region.

We gather to gain and share knowledge about wars and their preparation, to figure out the situation we are living in and to analyse its internal relationships. Perspectives in emancipatory movements are highly diverse – and so are the views on military and war.

This in mind, we want to further develop common ideas of resistance, strengthen the local antiwar-initiatives grown over long years and also discuss our differences respectfully. It seems highly important to us, that we make a step towards the locals and talk with them about their experiences…and maybe more…

For this year’s camp we build on last year’s main issues. The motto “Krieg.Macht.Flucht.” is still up-to-date, saying “war causes flight” while making use of the ambiguous German word “Macht” (translating both as “makes”/”causes” and “power”).

This time our focus will be the development of common anti-militarist and anti-racist perspectives of resistance. Let’s overpower our powerlessness – the camp in Potzehne wants to provide a space for that. We want to have discussions at a horizontal level with everyone sharing our radical refusal of the global destructive circumstances.

Training, exercise, preparation and export – war starts here! We want to make this deadly site publicly visible, since it is of crucial importance to war preparation. Through various antimilitarist actions we want to disturb the “normal” operation on the GÜZ, let’s mark, block, and sabotage this full-speed-running machinery of war!

The camp is self-organized and thus, in its existence, shape and impact depending on active participation. Do not miss anything you haven’t helped to organize! Together we create a social counter project: From a society deeply infiltrated by authoritarian structures, let’s set sails towards Utopia.

Our acceptance has limits: nationalist, antisemite, islamophobic, racist and sexist attacks happen much too often. Exclusions based on characteristics as clothing, age or use of language happen much too often.

We are trying to be aware of, question and change our own socialized way of thinking and our behavior and we expect everybody to do the same.

More information concerning the arrival, the program and the complete call out you can find on:
war-starts-here.camp/

Since 1978 CEO Pay Has Soared by ‘Outrageous’ 937%

Worker Wages Flat but New analysis shows how corporate bosses rake in huge salaries and bonuses as inequality continues to soar … by Jake Johnson, staff writer 16 Comments

(Photo: Fibonacci Blue/Flickr/cc)

Wages for most American workers have remained basically stagnant for decades, but a new report published on Thursday by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) shows that the CEOs of America’s largest firms have seen their pay soar at a consistent and “outrageous” clip.

“Simply put, money that goes to the executive class is money that does not go to other people.”
—Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute

Between 1978 and 2016, CEO pay rose by 937 percent, EPI’s Lawrence Mishel and Jessica Schieder found. By contrast, the typical worker saw “painfully slow” compensation growth—11.2 percent over the same period.

Mishel and Schieder also note that CEOs of “America’s largest firms made an average of $15.6 million in compensation, or 271 times the annual average pay of the typical worker.”

“While the 2016 CEO-to-worker compensation ratio of 271-to-1 is down from 299-to-1 in 2014 and 286-to-1 in 2015, it is still light years beyond the 20-to-1 ratio in 1965 and the 59-to-1 ratio in 1989,” the report observes. “The average CEO in a large firm now earns 5.33 times the annual earnings of the average very-high-wage earner (earner in the top 0.1 percent).”

(Image Credit: Economic Policy Institute)

EPI’s report is just the latest on an ever-expanding list of analyses documenting America’s staggering income inequality, which is the worst in the industrialized world. In March, the economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman labeled the U.S. inequality crisis—the massive gap between the wealthiest and everyone else—”a tale of two countries.”

“For the 117 million US adults in the bottom half of the income distribution, growth has been non-existent for a generation, while at the top of the ladder it has been extraordinarily strong,” Piketty, Saez, and Zucman wrote.

Mishel points out that the vast disparity between CEO pay and average worker compensation, which EPI documents annually, “is a major driver of inequality.”

“Simply put, money that goes to the executive class is money that does not go to other people. Rising executive pay is not connected to overall growth in the economic pie,” Mishel argues. “We could curtail the explosive growth in CEO pay without doing any harm to the economy.”

EPI proposes several policies that would curtail executive pay and potentially put more money into the pockets of workers, including “higher marginal income tax rates at the very top” and higher taxes for companies with high CEO-to-worker pay ratios.

The Trump administration, however, has indicated that it intends to do precisely the opposite. President Donald Trump’s proposed tax policies, a recent analysis found, would provide massive cuts for the rich while hiking taxes for many middle class families.

For this reason—and simply because of “history and greed”—Mishel told The Guardian he “fully expect[s] CEO compensation to escalate in the near future.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

‘The Free’, original 1986 edition. now a free download

Recently a few people have asked for the original version of The Free in digital form so I took in the old book and the German version and had them scanned. This is the result. the scan wasn’t too good and I had to go through it all, fiercely resisting the temptation to improve the text, hopefully I haven’t missed too many typos.

https://thefreeonline.wordpress.com/testing-downloads/

The Free (original short 1986 and 1990 edition) PDF 151 pages

The Free (original short 1986 and 1990 edition) Epub 1.6mb

‘This short, original version is the same tale but darker and more violent, focusing less on revolution and more on guerilla struggle’.

.Dr Daniel P. Jaeckle, author of ‘Embodied Anarchy in Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘The Dispossessed’ said this of the first version of The Free

I should add that the 1986 version has its own interest. It does not often engage in ideological statements, it ends with the more realistic deaths of some characters as opposed to the more romantic ending of the 2007 version, and the speed of the narrative is compelling. I encourage those who can find the 1986 version to read it as well.

from Imagining an Anarchist Revolution: M. Gilliland’s The Free

REVIEWS of original version

Continue reading “‘The Free’, original 1986 edition. now a free download”

Eco-villages… Tamera.. Future Blueprint or Escapist Adventure_

Thousands of inspiring ecovillages are being set up around the world. We travel with Jamie to Tamera for a critical look at a Portuguese permaculture Utopia

Photo by Laura Pazo (CC BY-NC-SA)

Yes, it has free love, vegan food, Wi-Fi and a low carbon footprint. But it also has unchallenged assumptions, ramshackle housing and a questionable belief system, finds social media analyst Jamie Bartlett.

by Jamie Bartlett As the sun rises over the Portuguese countryside, I find myself standing in a circle on top of a hill with a group of strangers, grasping hands, eyes shut. We are gathered around a collection of enormous stones, a candle, a ceramic bowl filled with water, and a crystal. A woman in white robes is humming, and we are trying to stop the war in Syria using our thoughts in an exercise called the Ring of Power.

I’m at the eco-village of Tamera, which is a two-hour train journey from Lisbon. More than 20 years ago, a band of Germans arrived here with little money and an ambitious plan to create what they called a “healing biotope,” a template of how humanity could live in harmony with themselves, their fellow humans and the environment.

The Ring of Power was one of the items on the agenda for the forty of us outsiders. Every several months, Tamera allows visitors to live here for a few days and learn how it works. It cost us €350 each to attend, plus €30 each per day for food and accommodations.

Tamera is split into two sites. On the western side is the Campus, where visitors stay. It has a bar, café, kitchen, eating area, cultural center, bookshop, guest house, male and female dorms and auditorium. On the eastern side are the 150 full-time Tamerians. They reside in small villages of 20 to 30 residents — who range from babies to octogenarians — who inhabit caravans, huts, yurts and shacks. The whole place has the feel of a half-finished holiday campsite.

The visitors are mostly well-off Westerners dissatisfied with what the modern world offers and looking for more meaning. Tamera is the brainchild of psychoanalyst Dieter Duhm. He’d been involved in the 1968 left-wing student movements but was confused by their failure to transform the world.

Like other ’68ers, Dieter concluded it wasn’t the material world that needed reshaping, it was the mental one. He came to believe that unresolved sexual desire, jealousy and a lack of trust were the reasons for our problems. Dieter, his partner (and a self-described medium) Sabine Lichtenfels, and a handful of others founded Tamera in 1995. Continue reading “Eco-villages… Tamera.. Future Blueprint or Escapist Adventure_”

Errekaleor is Alive!, the Epic Struggle of a Self-managed and Anticapitalist neighborhood.

we share an interesting interview with Estitxu Villamor, by Adrián Almazán for 15-15-15.org/webzine/ on the situation of Errekaleor, neighborhood of Vitoria.

Let’s start with the history of the Errekaleor neighborhood. In what year was it built? What kind of population lived in it and what was its role in the struggles of the city?

Errekaleor is a working district that was built in 1959 to house the workers who came from the whole peninsula to the factories of Gasteiz. This is a time when there is a very strong industrialization in the city and many workers come with their families.

The city grew and this type of labor districts were created, away from the center of the city. This, in particular, is built by a cooperative of the bishopric, totally on the periphery, without any services (the neighborhood initially comprised of the houses and a church), so that the life of the workers was reduced to the work and did not have the possibility of organize themselves in the workers’ struggle.

Even so, because of their workmanship, neighbors were very close and organized from the outset. Very involved in the workers’ struggle and in the defense of their own neighborhood, they themselves built a cinema, a bar and a grocery store; Also through their struggle they got the city council to equip them with services such as the social center, nursery, … Continue reading “Errekaleor is Alive!, the Epic Struggle of a Self-managed and Anticapitalist neighborhood.”