July 26, 2024

Global threat

July 26, 2024

Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border

https://aeon.co/videos/local-tensions-simmer-amid-a-potato-salad-contest-at-the-czech-polish-border

Everything’s Fine, Potatoes in Line

https://vimeo.com/952922370



Located in Bogatynia, on Poland’s southwestern border with the Czech Republic and Germany, the Turów coal mine and the adjacent Turów Power Station are responsible for thousands of local jobs and provide 5 to 7 per cent of Poland’s energy. Over the border, however, the mine is considered a catastrophe, responsible for a host of environmental issues, particularly the depletion of local groundwater.

In the short documentary Everything’s Fine, Potatoes in Line, these tensions come to something of a boiling point when Teresa Kruszyńska, a Polish woman who works at the plant with her family, decides to take the fight to a Czech potato salad contest. In his unique portrait at the nexus of food, community and local politics, the Polish director Piotr Jasiński captures the heated – and then cooled – culinary action in the Czech village of Heřmanice, as locals from both sides bicker, sing, compete and connect over the subtleties of the beloved local dish.

Director: Piotr Jasiński

25 July 2024

July 25, 2024

Tim Walz Would Make a Great Running Mate

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-07-25-tim-walz-would-make-great-running-mate/



With Kamala Harris abruptly taking Joe Biden’s place as the next Democratic nominee for president, speculation about who will be her running mate has naturally exploded. Some reporting has the choice being narrowed down to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and perhaps Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. I am neither capable of nor interested in trying to predict which one she will pick. However, I do believe there is a better choice that fits all the apparent criteria: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

First, the other contenders have some significant downsides. As David Klion writes at The New Republic, Shapiro is one of the worst Democrats in the country on the Gaza war. He supports legal prohibitions on the BDS movement, joined in the cynical Republican dogpile on University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill, repeatedly implied that all the protesters against Israel’s war are antisemites, and in general supported Benjamin Netanyahu’s psychotic violence for the last nine months. To be fair, Shapiro had also said that Netanyahu is “one of the worst leaders of all time” who is leading Israel in the “wrong direction.”

Biden’s support for Israel’s war has badly split the Democratic Party, and alienated key youth and minority constituencies. It is vital for Harris to at least paper over this crack (and, one hopes, actually force an end to the war should she become president). She seems to realize this, and sources close to her are leaking stories to reporters about how she would likely take a different tack on Gaza. Picking Shapiro would immediately reopen that wound in the party coalition. Many activists would immediately start attacking her vociferously, deflating the rare moment of party goodwill and optimism that has built up.



Sen. Kelly is not so incendiary as Shapiro, but he has one massive black mark on his record: Back in 2021, he refused to support the PRO Act, a sweeping overhaul of labor law that would make it easier to organize and add some actual punishments for companies that break the law. One of the reasons so many employers routinely infringe on their workers’ rights is that when they do, the typical punishments are tiny fines or being forced to put up a sign. Even Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) supported the PRO Act. Picking Kelly would also mean Dems have to win a special election in 2026 to keep his Senate seat, while he would otherwise not be up until 2028.

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July 25, 2024

Social dialogue: defending democracy in practice

In the face of the threat from the far right, trade unions represent democracy’s strongest supporters.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/social-dialogue-defending-democracy-in-practice



The European Parliament elections last month provided a platform for the far right and its anti-democratic agenda. Wherever the far right gets into power, workers’ fundamental rights and their unions are at risk. This trend can also be seen at national level, with trade unions undermined and attacked by political actors who see unions, collective bargaining and social dialogue as obstacles to their aims. Social dialogue is needed more than ever to safeguard and improve our democracies and welfare models. Whereas the far right seeks to centralise and monopolise power, trade unions, through social dialogue and collective bargaining, empower workers at all levels—from the shop floor to the hallways of the European institutions.

Social dialogue is a joint commitment to the foundations of democracy and the sharing of power. When people experience democracy, they truly grasp its importance. By getting together to pursue common interests—finding the right balance of priorities on which to bargain and, where necessary, taking collective action and making the necessary concessions to reach compromises—workers embed democratic practice in everyday life. By identifying what unites them in their diversity, and taking action to win concrete improvements, they gain a sense of agency and control over their lives and communities. Study after study shows that trade unionists are more likely than others to harbour pro-democratic opinions and take on active roles in contributing to civic life outside of work. Strengthening trade unionism and social dialogue is thus highly effective in protecting and strengthening democracy’s immune system. This must be the focus of European Union action for the incoming mandate.

Hard-learned lessons

Strong trade-union rights and respect for social dialogue was fundamental to mapping a way through the social and economic devastation after World War II. Having active, engaged workers, able to express their views and empowered to protect their interests through trade unions, was seen as necessary to rebuild Europe’s societies and economies, thereby strengthening its democracies. These hard-learned lessons still apply today. Our democracies are predicated on trade unions keeping governments and companies in check, through social dialogue and collective bargaining. The fair redistribution of wealth and productivity—made possible through collective bargaining—is a condition for sustainable growth and safe and peaceful societies. Most policy-makers today have once again become aware of the threat coming from unfettered capitalism, yet they have been inconsistent in countering it. Real wages are falling while companies profits are rising, despite unions’ best efforts. More needs to be done to ensure a fair distribution of the value workers create.

After decades of the practice of neoliberal ideas we know the protection of society cannot be delegated to the ‘invisible (and unaccountable) hand’ of the market. One way to regulate it is through direct intervention by the state. Governments passing laws may provide a degree of accountability but real results will depend on how social partners are involved. A more effective approach is intervention by the actors in the labour market themselves: capital and labour, employers’ organisations and trade unions. Self-regulation through collective agreements provides a democratic, efficient and dynamic way to improve working conditions. EU member states have recognised the fundamental importance of collective bargaining in the directive on adequate minimum wages and the recommendation on strengthening social dialogue.

Powerful tool.............................

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July 25, 2024

Connan Mockasin - Forever Dolphin Love 12''s (2011 and 2012)

Connan Mockasin - Forever Dolphin Love



Label: Phantasy Sound – PH13, Because Music – BEC5772813
Format: Vinyl, 12", Limited Edition, Blue
Country: UK
Released: Mar 2011
Genre: Electronic
Style: Deep House, Downtempo, Experimental, Disco

Connan Mockasin - Forever Dolphin Love (Mickey Moonlight Remix)



Forever Dolphin Love (Erol Alkan's Extended Rework Version 1)



Forever Dolphin Love (Erol Alkan's Extended Rework Version 2)



Label: Phantasy Sound – PH13RMX, Because Music – BEC5161269
Format: Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, EP, Blue
Country: UK
Released: 10 Dec 2012
Genre: Electronic, Jazz, Folk, World, & Country
Style: Deep House

Connan Mockasin - Unicorn In Uniform (Coyote Acid Mix)

July 25, 2024

Klaxons - Golden Skans + Golden Skans (Erol Alkan Spectral Remix) 2007

Label: Rinse – RINSE002SX
Format: Vinyl, 7", 45 RPM, Single, Gatefold
Country: UK & Europe
Released: 22 Jan 2007
Genre: Electronic, Rock
Style: Electro, Indie Rock



Label: Because Music – BEC5772075
Format: Vinyl, 12"
Country: France
Released: 2007
Genre: Electronic
Style: Electro, Tech House

July 25, 2024

Neoliberalism is blocking green growth

Climate change is a global challenge, yet trade rules do not allow developing countries to break with neoliberal orthodoxy.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/neoliberalism-is-blocking-green-growth



Recent election victories for leftist parties in France and the United Kingdom may herald a new era of climate policy-making in Europe. Britain’s new Labour government has ambitious plans to expand renewable-energy capacity and, although tricky coalition-building remains, the climate-sceptic far right has been thwarted in France. One hopes this momentum can be carried into the G20 ministerial meeting today in Rio de Janeiro. There, rich countries are considering Brazil’s pioneering proposal for a 2 per cent annual minimum wealth tax on the world’s billionaires. Such a tax, along with new climate-financing instruments that are expected to be announced, could support investments in green growth, climate adaptation and measures to address inequality within countries. But new investment vehicles will not suffice. As our experience with Covid-19 showed, purely market-based approaches were not enough to tackle a pandemic, nor can they help counter environmental destruction or the world’s yawning wealth gap. Even the rich world is starting to move away from the neoliberal orthodoxy of privatisation and deregulation. But as long as developing countries remain hamstrung by the old rules, they will struggle to develop their own economic models and shape their own destinies.

Global struggle

Where previously western free-trade advocates decried China’s use of protectionism and subsidies to favor strategic sectors, now these practices are de rigueur in advanced economies. The United States is pumping tens of billions of dollars into domestic electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing through the Inflation Reduction Act, using the state to stimulate investment and job creation in green sectors. But addressing climate change is a global struggle and international trade rules generally do not allow developing countries to boost their own industries in this way. For example, Indonesia—the global leader in nickel, a critical metal in EV batteries—has been punished at the World Trade Organization for pursuing an industrial strategy. Thus, while neoliberal policy prescriptions fall out of favour in developed economies, they are being repackaged in green boxes for less affluent ones. Policy-makers in high-income countries can rely on costly industrial policy levers such as tax incentives and loan guarantees, whereas developing countries have no such luxury. The latter must work out how to create jobs, reduce inequality and decarbonise their economies with a much more limited set of tools and technological capacity.

Moreover, richer countries are pushing developing countries to ‘leapfrog’ to renewables at an unrealistic pace. They fail to recognise developing countries’ need for limited fossil-fuel use in the short term, or that unfair trade rules are limiting poorer countries’ access to affordable green technology and cheap capital. Such double standards are indicative of the same power imbalances observed in recent years when wealthier countries hoarded vaccines, slashed aid budgets and failed to deliver on past climate-finance promises. This hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed. Authoritarian populists, such as the former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, the Argentine president, Javier Milei, and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have each promoted the narrative that climate policies undermine economic growth. That may be true in many cases, but only because of the trade-offs imposed by neoliberal policies. If developing countries could shape their own policies, climate investments would drive job creation and inclusive growth. Governments that are being asked to green their economies need flexible financing at concessional rates. They also would benefit from progressive national and international tax schemes that build on recent successes such as the proposal for a United Nations tax convention, an effort led by developing countries to democratise tax rules and claw control away from closed shops such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

New paradigm

The waning of neoliberalism gives developing and emerging economies a chance to co-operate on the design of a new paradigm. By devising state-led models that link green strategies with socioeconomic development, they can shield the climate agenda from attacks by authoritarian opportunists. Just as there are different types of capitalism, there are different paths to green development. Consider Mexico, a manufacturing powerhouse and oil producer which has just elected a climate scientist, Claudia Sheinbaum, to the presidency. Her administration aims to invest $13.6 billion in renewable energy, with a goal of meeting 50 per cent of electricity demand through zero-carbon sources by 2030. If done right, these efforts should promote job creation and reduce inequalities, with state-owned enterprises being leveraged to support the deployment of green technologies. The encouraging announcement of a new ministry overseeing science and innovation could also support advanced manufacturing and high-tech industries. Brazil is also well positioned to pioneer green policies for the developing world. Freed from Bolsonaro’s destabilising rule, the administration of his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is pushing sustainable development and tax reform. If it can effectively co-ordinate its industrial policy, infrastructure aims and green initiatives such as the Ecological Transformation Plan, it could power ahead with a robust green-growth agenda at home, while expanding its regional and global influence as the host of this month’s G20 meeting and next year’s UN climate conference (COP30).

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July 24, 2024

The History behind the Laughing Barrel (racist origins of attacking Kamala Harris for her laugh)

https://www.facebook.com/Blacksregion/posts/the-history-behind-the-laughing-barreldid-you-know-that-slaves-were-not-permitte/131591122302645/

Did you know that slaves were not permitted to laugh when on the plantation? White people viewed slaves laughing as a form of disrespect to them. Some plantation owners had barrels set up on the plantation and when a slave heard something funny they would have to run off to one of these barrels in order to laugh.

The slaves would stifle the noises they wanted to make by holding their heads over barrels (sometimes filled with water) to keep slave patrols and their white plantation owners from hearing them. The slaves would then go back to whatever it was they were doing.
Now you know where the phrase “a barrel of laughs” comes from.





https://x.com/Nay_Landell/status/1765400338603860213

Mother wit from the laughing barrel;: Readings in the interpretation of Afro-American folklore



Exploring the scope, diversity, and vitality of black culture, here is a fascinating collection of more than sixty articles from some of the most perceptive and authoritative commentators upon the black experience—Zora Neale Hurston, J. Mason Brewer, Sterling A. Brown, Eldridge Cleaver, Willis Laurence James, John Lovell Jr., Langston Hughes, Charles W. Chesnutt, Alan Lomax, Ralph Ellison, A. Philip Randolph, Newbell Niles Puckett, Roger D. Abrahams, and many others.

Readers cannot help coming away from this book with a new appreciation of the nature and richness of African American folklore. For those with little or no previous knowledge of this heterogeneous and spellbinding lore Mother Wit from the Laughing Barrel will be an eye-opening encounter.Drawn out of the deep, rich well of African American culture, these essays convey the import of the black folk experience for all Americans. No library or individual with a serious interest in African American folklore should fail to own this remarkable anthology.

July 24, 2024

A wall of American MAGAt female gammon from a Wisconsin Trumper focus group

spitting pure hate against Harris (including multiple assholes who said or agreed she has done nothing in her life, ignoring her being the CA AG, a US Senator, and now VP).

The biggest fool was a school teacher who said Harris would destroy the education system and Trump would protect it.



Pro tip: Project 2025 calls for the end of the Dept of Education and an explosion in private school vouchers, plus mandated christofash, white nationalist-adjacent curriculum.




Gammon is a pejorative popularised in British political culture since around 2012. The term refers in particular to the colour of a person's flushed face when expressing their strong opinions, as compared to the type of pork of the same name. It is characterised in this context by the Oxford English Dictionary as occurring "in various parasynthetic adjectives referring to particularly reddish or florid complexions". In 2018, it became particularly known as a term to describe either those on the political right or those who supported Brexit.

July 23, 2024

Reality bites: the incursion of the real into post-politics

The crisis of neoliberalism and war in Europe have left all that was solid melting into air.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/reality-bites-the-incursion-of-the-real-into-post-politics



During the decades of neoliberal hegemony, the possibility of changing the world through political action was deliberately obscured. The status quo was naturalised (as the ‘end of history’), the state was neutralised and citizens were reduced to consumers. Instead of collectively striving for a better society, neoliberal individuals satisfy their need for meaning through self-improvement. Thus, they optimise what goes into their bodies (organic versus non-organic food, veganism), what they consume (authenticity, experiences, sustainability) and what they abstain from. Bodies are toned (fitness) and altered (plastic surgery), gender redefined (non-binary) or changed (trans). The concepts and language of psychotherapy dominate individuals’ self-perception (anxiety, trauma) and public discourse (safe spaces, non-violent communication). On the battlefields of post-political society, debates rage over whether these self-optimising lifestyles should be permissible or even obligatory.

At the progressive fringe of the political spectrum, traditional left-wing critiques of the system and its imperialist practices have been radicalised into anti-national and anti-rational stances. Western critics felt that progressive activists demonised the ‘white’ demographic, while hopes for a better world were uncritically projected onto the ‘Other’, even when these recipients contradicted our own values (Islamists). The emphasis on reason in the enlightenment is undercut by the primacy of emotions. It seems what matters is no longer what objectively happens, but how it is experienced. The potential for reform—the essence of politics—is replaced by mystical symbolism. Through magical utterances, gender identities are altered, social hierarchies among identity groups rearranged and the fight against the right supposedly won. The idea of progress towards a better life—the centuries-old guiding star of progressive movements—is now seen as a misguided path leading to climate apocalypse. Even the thinking of the political apparatus and commentariat rarely extends beyond morally charged symbolism and magical incantations. ‘Clear stance against the right, clear edge against Putin, clear stance against anti-Semitism’ replace internal structural reforms and repositioning in a changed geopolitical environment.

Groupthink illusions

With the return of war to Europe, reality now intrudes into this post-political order, shattering illusions of groupthink. High inflation has forced central banks to abandon low-interest policies. The magic potion against economic downturns and debt crises is no longer available. Instead, decades of underinvestment have exposed the structural weaknesses of European economies. Fierce geo-economic competition also closes off the opportunity to export one’s way out of the crisis. In an increasingly protectionist world, securing the European home market becomes essential. Therefore, the taboo of transfer payments to stabilise southern-European debtor states will likely waver in the medium term. Despite the rhetoric of value-driven foreign and climate policies, expensive fossil fuels from authoritarian regimes are imported to reduce dependence on cheap Russian energy. To prevent expensive energy from undermining competitiveness, energy prices are subsidised. Suddenly, the two holy cows of green policy in Germany—the wisdom of nuclear phase-out and the technical feasibility of the energy transition—are up for debate.

To remain competitive, Europeans must counter American industrial subsidies (the Inflation Reduction Act) and Chinese overcapacity. The return of the primacy of national security has led not only to a renaissance of industrial policy but more generally revoked the neoliberal ban on state intervention in the economy. Confidence in the efficiency of market forces is replaced by state-managed derisking to strengthen resilience. The irresistible pressures of geopolitical competition turn free traders overnight into protectionists. After the collapse of the hope of ‘peace through interdependence’ with China and Russia, supply chains are shortened (near-shoring) and relocated to friendly states (friend-shoring). The neoliberal phase of globalisation is thus over. To finance the restoration of the deterrence capability of the western alliance, the maintenance of dilapidated infrastructure, the competitiveness of European industry and the climate and energy transition, investments will be necessary that exceed anything in recent memory. In Germany, a new consensus is emerging that the sacred cow of ordoliberalism—the debt brake—must be slaughtered. But cuts in social transfer payments will also return to the agenda. The skirmishes over who will bear the costs of these mega-investments is disrupting political-party systems across Europe.

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