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Ghost Dog

Ghost Dog's Journal
Ghost Dog's Journal
April 16, 2016

Democratic socialism works well

in a well-regulated open market economy because it fosters the long-term interests of the majority of the people (including social, cultural & environmental interests), enabling them to supply to and make purchases in that market.

Corporate socialism disables people and exponentially consumes everything.

April 13, 2016

Damn right. Eg., no nuclear power station operator is, according to the accounts, insured

properly to cover possible cost consequences of serious cockups. Nor is the waste product safe storage &/recycle phase properly costed.

... Not to mention the Security bill...

April 11, 2016

Thanks, Boss. Occupying France (& beyond...). La Vanguardia

https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.es&sl=es&tl=en&u=http://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20160410/401003884977/15m-francia-nuit-debout-activismo-reforma-laboral.html&usg=ALkJrhi8UPVYP7k-eKRy1vfGwj8HKtfRgA


Place de la Republique in Paris. It's half past ten p.m. March 36. The  Nuit Debout (night stand) movement was born on 31 that month and has since imposed its own calendar. There are several thousand people and the number is increasing as the days pass. In sixty cities, similar movements; horizontal, assemblarian, peaceful and markedly social have been or are being created. In some French cities there are a handful of activists; in other hundreds, thousands in Paris, but everywhere the matter is growing. The movement's hashtag has grown from 1,000 to more than 23,000 followers in a week. And two or three times a week (yesterday for the sixth time in the whole country) there are demonstrations, some very numerous, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of young people and trade unionists in two hundred cities and towns across France against the Government's labour law, cutting workers' rights on behalf of the ideology that collapsed with the bankruptcy of the casino in 2008 but which continues to prevail.

The intuition of this movement began as a buzz that circulated in the literary circles of the left. Many interview respondents expressed timidity along with the impression that French society could explode any day.

The French is a national anguish of 30 years. A cross anguish appreciated in social movements not identified, such as the bonnets rouges of Brittany - a kind of modern jacquerie - and even conservative initiatives in line with the US Tea Party such as Manif pour Tous, and also in the over-the-top vote for the Front NationalThe challenge for the left was to collect and articulate that diffuse national anguish and insert it into the French historical series: 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871, 1944 (program of the National Council of the Resistance), 1968, and so on. What in Germany (country of failed revolutions) would be completely impossible, the French social tradition makes thinkable. A certain timidity was to be observed, weighed down by the typical Parisian fear of intellectual ridicule on mistaking their desires for reality, but there it was. And in February came Merci Patron.

The social documentary about the fate of two unemployed from a company owned by Bernard Arnault, the richest man in France, directed by François Ruffin, a journalist from the provinces (Amiens), struck a chord. His message was a "yes we can", humorously. More than 200,000 people have seen since February this irreverent Michael Moore-style documentary, and all left the theater saying the same thing: "We have to do something." The foolish Government labour bill acted as a catalyst. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. La Nuit Debout comes from there. Since late February Ruffin and Fakir magazine (circulation 7,000 copies) spread the idea of the occupation of public spaces...


http://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20160410/401003884977/15m-francia-nuit-debout-activismo-reforma-laboral.html

Plaza de la República de París. Son las diez y media de la noche del 36 de marzo. El movimiento Nuit Debout (noche en pie) nació el 31 de ese mes e impone desde entonces su propio calendario. Hay varios miles de personas y su número va en aumento conforme pasan los días. En una sesentena de ciudades se han creado, o se está creando, movimientos similares; horizontales, asamblearios, pacíficos ymarcadamente sociales. En algunas ciudades francesas son un puñado de activistas, en otras centenares, en París miles, pero en todas partes el asunto va a más. Suhashtag ha pasado de 1.000 a más de 23.000 seguidores en una semana. Y dos o tres veces por semana (ayer por sexta vez en el conjunto del país) hay manifestaciones, algunas muy numerosas, que movilizan a centenares de miles de jóvenes y sindicalistas, en doscientas ciudades y localidades de toda Francia,contra el proyecto de ley laboral del Gobierno, un nuevo recorte de derechos en nombre de la ideología que se hundió con la quiebra del casino de 2008 pero que continúa imponiéndose.

La intuición de este movimiento comenzó como un runrún que circulaba en los cenáculos de la izquierda. Muchos entrevistados expresaban tímidamente desde hace tiempo la impresión de que la sociedad francesa podía estallar cualquier día.

La de Francia es una angustia nacional de 30 años. Una angustia transversal que se apreciaba en movimientos sociales no identificados, como el de los bonnets rouges de Bretaña –una especie de jacquerie moderna– e incluso en iniciativas conservadoras en la línea del Tea Party de Estados Unidos como la Manif pour Tous, y también en el voto descarriado al ultraderechista Frente Nacional. El desafío de la gauche era recoger, articular, esa angustia nacional difusa e insertarla en la serie histórica francesa: 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871, 1944 (programa del Consejo Nacional de la Resistencia), 1968, etcétera. Lo que en Alemania (país de revoluciones fallidas) sería completamente imposible, la tradición social francesa lo hace pensable. La de los observadores era una impresión tímida, lastrada por ese miedo del intelectual parisino a hacer el ridículo tomando sus deseos por realidad, pero ahí estaba. Y en febrero llegó Merci Patron.

El documental social sobre el destino de dos parados de una empresa de Bernard Arnault, el hombre más rico de Francia, realizado por François Ruffin, un periodista de provincias (de Amiens), tocó fibra sensible. Su mensaje era un “sí se puede” en clave de humor. Más de 200.000 personas han visto desde febrero ese documental gamberro al estilo Michael Moore, y todas salían del cine diciendo lo mismo: “Hay que hacer algo”. El insensato proyecto de ley laboral del Gobierno sirvió de catalizador. Fue la gota que colmó el vaso. La Nuit Debout viene de ahí. Desde finales de febrero Ruffin y su revista Fakir (7.000 ejemplares de tirada) barajaban la idea de la ocupación de espacios públicos....

April 11, 2016

Occupy France, & beyond......

https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.es&sl=es&tl=en&u=http://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20160410/401003884977/15m-francia-nuit-debout-activismo-reforma-laboral.html&usg=ALkJrhi8UPVYP7k-eKRy1vfGwj8HKtfRgA


Place de la Republique in Paris. It's half past ten p.m. March 36. The  Nuit Debout (night stand) movement was born on 31 that month and has since imposed its own calendar. There are several thousand people and the number is increasing as the days pass. In sixty cities, similar movements; horizontal, assemblarian, peaceful and markedly social have been or are being created. In some French cities there are a handful of activists; in other hundreds, thousands in Paris, but everywhere the matter is growing. The movement's hashtag has grown from 1,000 to more than 23,000 followers in a week. And two or three times a week (yesterday for the sixth time in the whole country) there are demonstrations, some very numerous, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of young people and trade unionists in two hundred cities and towns across France against the Government's labour law, cutting workers' rights on behalf of the ideology that collapsed with the bankruptcy of the casino in 2008 but which continues to prevail.

The intuition of this movement began as a buzz that circulated in the literary circles of the left. Many interview respondents expressed timidly along with the impression that French society could explode any day.

The French is a national anguish of 30 years. A cross anguish appreciated in social movements not identified, such as the bonnets rouges of Brittany - a kind of modern jacquerie - and even conservative initiatives in line with the US Tea Party such as Manif pour Tous, and also in the over-the-top vote for the Front National. The challenge for the left was to collect and articulate that diffuse national anguish and insert it into the French historical series: 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871, 1944 (program of the National Council of the Resistance), 1968, and so on. What in Germany (country of failed revolutions) would be completely impossible, the French social tradition makes thinkable. A certain timidty was to be observed, weighed down by the typical Parisian fear of intellectual ridicule on mistaking their desires for reality, but there it was. And in February came Merci Patron.

The social documentary about the fate of two unemployed from a company owned by Bernard Arnault, the richest man in France, directed by François Ruffin, a journalist from the provinces (Amiens), struck a chord. His message was a "yes we can", humorously. More than 200,000 people have seen since February this irreverent Michael Moore-style documentary, and all left the theater saying the same thing: "We have to do something." The foolish Government labour bill acted as a catalyst. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. La Nuit Debout comes from there. Since late February Ruffin and Fakir magazine (circulation 7,000 copies) spread the idea of the occupation of public spaces...


http://www.lavanguardia.com/internacional/20160410/401003884977/15m-francia-nuit-debout-activismo-reforma-laboral.html

Plaza de la República de París. Son las diez y media de la noche del 36 de marzo. El movimiento Nuit Debout (noche en pie) nació el 31 de ese mes e impone desde entonces su propio calendario. Hay varios miles de personas y su número va en aumento conforme pasan los días. En una sesentena de ciudades se han creado, o se está creando, movimientos similares; horizontales, asamblearios, pacíficos ymarcadamente sociales. En algunas ciudades francesas son un puñado de activistas, en otras centenares, en París miles, pero en todas partes el asunto va a más. Suhashtag ha pasado de 1.000 a más de 23.000 seguidores en una semana. Y dos o tres veces por semana (ayer por sexta vez en el conjunto del país) hay manifestaciones, algunas muy numerosas, que movilizan a centenares de miles de jóvenes y sindicalistas, en doscientas ciudades y localidades de toda Francia,contra el proyecto de ley laboral del Gobierno, un nuevo recorte de derechos en nombre de la ideología que se hundió con la quiebra del casino de 2008 pero que continúa imponiéndose.

La intuición de este movimiento comenzó como un runrún que circulaba en los cenáculos de la izquierda. Muchos entrevistados expresaban tímidamente desde hace tiempo la impresión de que la sociedad francesa podía estallar cualquier día.

La de Francia es una angustia nacional de 30 años. Una angustia transversal que se apreciaba en movimientos sociales no identificados, como el de los bonnets rouges de Bretaña –una especie de jacquerie moderna– e incluso en iniciativas conservadoras en la línea del Tea Party de Estados Unidos como la Manif pour Tous, y también en el voto descarriado al ultraderechista Frente Nacional. El desafío de la gauche era recoger, articular, esa angustia nacional difusa e insertarla en la serie histórica francesa: 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871, 1944 (programa del Consejo Nacional de la Resistencia), 1968, etcétera. Lo que en Alemania (país de revoluciones fallidas) sería completamente imposible, la tradición social francesa lo hace pensable. La de los observadores era una impresión tímida, lastrada por ese miedo del intelectual parisino a hacer el ridículo tomando sus deseos por realidad, pero ahí estaba. Y en febrero llegó Merci Patron.

El documental social sobre el destino de dos parados de una empresa de Bernard Arnault, el hombre más rico de Francia, realizado por François Ruffin, un periodista de provincias (de Amiens), tocó fibra sensible. Su mensaje era un “sí se puede” en clave de humor. Más de 200.000 personas han visto desde febrero ese documental gamberro al estilo Michael Moore, y todas salían del cine diciendo lo mismo: “Hay que hacer algo”. El insensato proyecto de ley laboral del Gobierno sirvió de catalizador. Fue la gota que colmó el vaso. La Nuit Debout viene de ahí. Desde finales de febrero Ruffin y su revista Fakir (7.000 ejemplares de tirada) barajaban la idea de la ocupación de espacios públicos....

April 10, 2016

Nuit debout occupies French cities



Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Friday 8 April 2016 17.31 BST Last modified on Friday 8 April 2016 22.25 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/nuit-debout-protesters-occupy-french-cities-in-a-revolutionary-call-for-change

As night fell over Paris, thousands of people sat cross-legged in the vast square at Place de la République, taking turns to pass round a microphone and denounce everything from the dominance of Google to tax evasion or inequality on housing estates.

The debating continued into the early hours of the morning, with soup and sandwiches on hand in the canteen tent and a protest choir singing revolutionary songs. A handful of protesters in tents then bedded down to “occupy” the square for the night before being asked to move on by police just before dawn. But the next morning they returned to set up their protest camp again.

For more than a week, these vast nocturnal protest gatherings – from parents with babies to students, workers, artists and pensioners – have spread across France, rising in number, and are beginning to panic the government.

Called Nuit debout, which loosely means “rise up at night”, the protest movement is increasingly being likened to the Occupy initiative that mobilised hundreds of thousands of people in 2011 or Spain’s Indignados...

/... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/nuit-debout-protesters-occupy-french-cities-in-a-revolutionary-call-for-change

Xpost Occupy Underground
April 10, 2016

Nuit debout occupies French cities



Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Friday 8 April 2016 17.31 BST Last modified on Friday 8 April 2016 22.25 BST

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/nuit-debout-protesters-occupy-french-cities-in-a-revolutionary-call-for-change

As night fell over Paris, thousands of people sat cross-legged in the vast square at Place de la République, taking turns to pass round a microphone and denounce everything from the dominance of Google to tax evasion or inequality on housing estates.

The debating continued into the early hours of the morning, with soup and sandwiches on hand in the canteen tent and a protest choir singing revolutionary songs. A handful of protesters in tents then bedded down to “occupy” the square for the night before being asked to move on by police just before dawn. But the next morning they returned to set up their protest camp again.

For more than a week, these vast nocturnal protest gatherings – from parents with babies to students, workers, artists and pensioners – have spread across France, rising in number, and are beginning to panic the government.

Called Nuit debout, which loosely means “rise up at night”, the protest movement is increasingly being likened to the Occupy initiative that mobilised hundreds of thousands of people in 2011 or Spain’s Indignados...

/... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/08/nuit-debout-protesters-occupy-french-cities-in-a-revolutionary-call-for-change

Xpost Foreign Affairs
April 7, 2016

Nice read, thanks, but misses the point. Briefly,

It is the consumptive imperative growth-paradigm of contemporary capitalism as it operates in practice in most of the world today, and from which stems excessive energy demand, that is the overarching problem to be solved.

As an anarcho-environmental-socialist, if you will, I would not necessarily dismiss the use of nuclear fission or fusion electrical energy generation, whatever the degree of central- or decentralisation (mini-generators could be of interest), as part of a system of intelligently-designed, regulated and operated economies.

My point is that everything depends on this re-design and succesful implementation of new kinds of society.

But you say you do not care, ...

I don't care what social system builds nuclear power plants, so long as they are built
.

... apparantly assuming a priori that business-as-usual must persist, ...

My advocacy of nuclear power is about the crisis in climate change on a world that now holds six and one half billion people, many of whom who have no access to decent living conditions.


... in societies which provide for far from decent living conditions for too many.

Where you mention a preference for integrated public trsnsport systems, however, you do imply some social change.

Greetings.
April 4, 2016

Well... "public interest for your country..." ?

http://www.wired.com/2016/04/reporters-pulled-off-panama-papers-biggest-leak-whistleblower-history/

... Neither the ICIJ nor any of the reporters it’s worked with have made the leaked data public...

... Ryle says that the media organizations have no plans to release the full dataset, WikiLeaks-style, which he argues would expose the sensitive information of innocent private individuals along with the public figures on which the group’s reporting has focused. “We’re not WikiLeaks. We’re trying to show that journalism can be done responsibly,” Ryle says. He says he advised the reporters from all the participating media outlets to “go crazy, but tell us what’s in the public interest for your country.”...
April 4, 2016

Want to bet?

https://m.oddschecker.com/m/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2016/democrat-candidate



More at link... Kerry more likely than Sanders? How? Discuss...
April 3, 2016

"I'm 100% Sure" The US Presidential Campaign Is Being Tampered With

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-04-02/how-hack-presidential-election

There is a growing recognition of the increasing tail wagging the dog nature of the internet's control over election outcomes.We recently detailed "the hidden persuaders"at work showing how the internet has spawned subtle forms of influence that can flip elections and manipulate everything we say, think and do. Confirming all of this to be chillingly true is Andrés Sepúlveda, who rigged elections throughout Latin America for almost a decade. On the question of whether the U.S. presidential campaign is being tampered with, he is unequivocal - "I'm 100 percent sure it is."

Liberty Blitzkrieg's Mike Krieger excerpts a must-read Bloomberg article,

In July 2015, Sepúlveda sat in the small courtyard of the Bunker, poured himself a cup of coffee from a thermos, and took out a pack of Marlboro cigarettes. He says he wants to tell his story because the public doesn’t grasp the power hackers exert over modern elections or the specialized skills needed to stop them. “I worked with presidents, public figures with great power, and did many things with absolutely no regrets because I did it with full conviction and under a clear objective, to end dictatorship and socialist governments in Latin America,” he says. “I have always said that there are two types of politics—what people see and what really makes things happen. I worked in politics that are not seen.”

Rendón, says Sepúlveda, saw that hackers could be completely integrated into a modern political operation, running attack ads, researching the opposition, and finding ways to suppress a foe’s turnout. As for Sepúlveda, his insight was to understand that voters trusted what they thought were spontaneous expressions of real people on social media more than they did experts on television and in newspapers. He knew that accounts could be faked and social media trends fabricated, all relatively cheaply. He wrote a software program, now called Social Media Predator, to manage and direct a virtual army of fake Twitter accounts. The software let him quickly change names, profile pictures, and biographies to fit any need. Eventually, he discovered, he could manipulate the public debate as easily as moving pieces on a chessboard—or, as he puts it, “When I realized that people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to make people believe almost anything.”

Sepúlveda says he was offered several political jobs in Spain, which he says he turned down because he was too busy. On the question of whether the U.S. presidential campaign is being tampered with, he is unequivocal.“I’m 100 percent sure it is,” he says.

– From the excellent Bloomberg article: How to Hack an Election.

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Hometown: Canary Islands Archipelago
Home country: Spain
Member since: Wed Apr 19, 2006, 01:59 PM
Number of posts: 16,881

About Ghost Dog

A Brit many years in Spain, Catalunya, Baleares, Canarias. Cooperative member. Geography. Ecology. Cartography. Software. Sound Recording. Music Production. Languages & Literature. History.
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