robphoenix-blog

[robphoenix-blog]

[robphoenix-blog]

“It does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism led to another form of enslavement of the working -class, but we have to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed.” –Chris Hedges

Richard Wolff responds to quote about Marxism: A quote was sent to me and this is a quote from a very famous writer. It says the following: that in this age of bankrupt capitalism, we’re going to have to return, this writer believes, to the work of Karl Marx, who was a critic of capitalism, and therefore, has insights we need to build on. But the quote also associates with Karl Marx the following: he advocated violence and he worshipped the state as a utopian mechanism to lead to a better society. And the questioner wanted me to comment about this representation of Marx.

So let me do that. I am not going to shy away EVER on this program from talking about Marx and Marxism. The Cold War is over. The great enemy, the Soviet Union, is gone. There wasn’t much justification for ignoring and denying the importance of Marx, even when that wasn’t true, but now that we are basically 20 years out from our ‘Cold War struggle’ there is absolutely no justification. Marx was an important thinker in the world – the work he wrote and the items he put out have been influential in the world and no mature thinker can afford to ignore what that’s about. It’s not a question of agreeing with it. It’s a question of learning what has to be said by someone who is critical of the system.

Because Marx has had an enormous influence across the world, in every country, we have the following obvious situation: Marx, born in Germany, lived most of his adult life in Great Britain. A theorist who died in 1883 has now been picked up and has been found to be interesting, important & insightful. Cultures as varied as Scandinavia, China, South Africa, Ecuador, and you fill in the blank (because it’s in every other country in the world) have been influenced. So if all this influence has happened, then you can be sure that Marx and Marxism have been interpreted in radically different ways.

By the way, the same is true, for example of Islam – how it is interpreted in one country by one group of Muslims is different from how it has been interpreted in other countries by other groups who are also Muslim, who also read the Qu’ran, who also take Mohammad very seriously but who interpret Islam very differently. The same is true of Christianity, right? There are Protestants & Catholics who disagree and Baptists & Methodists have their disagreements and so on.

The same is true of Marx. If you wish to represent Marx or Marxism, you are therefore confronted with something that only ignorance would allow you to deny. Namely, you’ve got to decide which of the interpretations you find persuasive. There aren’t too many people who on one Sunday go to the Catholic service, the next Sunday the Baptist service, the next Sunday the Quaker service, right? People choose whichever one they were either born into or find persuasive and so it is with Marx.

Now to answer the question: Were there interpreters of Marx & Marxism who advocated violence? Yes. Were there interpreters of Marx & Marxism who worshipped the state in the way this quotation suggests? Yes. But here comes the problem dear friends – there were people who interpreted Marx to not be in favor of violence and to not worship the state. I, for example, as someone who has read Marx and takes Marxism very seriously and has benefited enormously in my understanding of what’s going on by virtue of that study, I don’t interpret Marx in that way at all. I don’t think he endorsed violence. I don’t think he worshiped the state. There is a reason, by the way, that Karl Marx never wrote a book or an article about the state. He didn’t worship it. That wasn’t his idea. His idea was that you have to change the economic system. You have to change the way the system works, not the way the government works. He saw the government more shaped by the system than the other way around. That’s where he focused himself.

The point is not to persuade you of my particular interpretation – but to understand that any quotation such as the one sent to me, that acts as though you can say ‘Marx believed X, you got it?’ is the same as saying ‘I’m going to talk to you about religion’ and then begin to talk to you about, let’s say, Roman Catholicism and act as if it were the only one. That’s not true. It is one, for sure. But it’s not the only one. And the interpretation of Marx as having something to do with state-worship or violence is an interpretation, but it isn’t the only one and shouldn’t be dealt with as if it were.

Source (with audio if you prefer to listen than read)

[robphoenix-blog]

The Connection Between the Diet Aristocracy and Big Food / Big Pharma

The report is another in a long chain of scathing indictments against the corrupt corporate state that has turned a mostly healthy populace into a sickly and obese society that has become disgustingly dependent on the pharmaceutical-psychiatric-medical machine that has long neglected unprofitable preventative care measures in favor of profitable standard medical protocols that address symptoms in the short term so as to make people patients for life.

You’ll note that Simon, in her study, points to her friend Marion Nestle, a writer and author and long-time antagonist of Big Food, and a dissector of all things food politics unless it indicts government as one of the culprits. Make no mistake – both Simon and Nestle are statists to the core. Neither of them have challenged how the Big Food corporate state became so omnipotent in the first place. The entire world of food politics in which they live, breathe, and swim is littered with the carcasses of government policy and dictocrat decrees. Still, they refuse to acknowledge the depth of the food politics for which they claim expertise, and they consistently maintain a position that their roles are to influence and change policy. Yes, policy = politics. They are self-declared politicians and they make a financial living off of politicking.

On page 23 of the report, Simon describes how the annual AND meeting was akin to a junk food industry showcase. Then she goes on to say the “positive” aspects of the annual meeting were the folks hawking “Meatless Mondays” and the American Cancer Society. The American Cancer Society is another corrupt satellite of the government-pharmaceutical-medical establishment, and its mother ship, Big Cancer, is another quasi-governmental machine that profits immensely off of keeping people sick and uninformed. Apparently, while carefully studying the AND’s long list of Big Food and pharmaceutical sponsors, Simon neglects to mention the similar sponsors of the American Cancer Society. Additionally, Meatless Monday is a statist concept with government-public health influence, and various local governments often try to ram this down the throat of their local constituency.

Source : The Connection Between the Diet Aristocracy and Big Food / Big Pharma

[robphoenix-blog]

Israel Admits To Giving Ethiopian Women Birth Control Shots

A government official has for the first time acknowledged the practice of injecting women of Ethiopian origin with the long-acting contraceptive Depo-Provera. Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu has instructed the four health maintenance organizations to stop the practice as a matter of course. The ministry and other state agencies had previously denied knowledge or responsibility for the practice, which was first reported five years ago. Gamzu’s letter instructed “all gynecologists in the HMOs not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.” Gamzu also instructed physicians to avail themselves of translators if need be. Gamzu’s letter came in response to a letter from Sharona Eliahu-Chai of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, representing several women’s rights and Ethiopian immigrants’ groups. The letter demanded the injections cease immediately and that an investigation be launched into the practice. About six weeks ago, on an Educational Television program journalist Gal Gabbay revealed the results of interviews with 35 Ethiopian immigrants. The women’s testimony could help explain the almost 50-percent decline over the past 10 years in the birth rate of Israel’s Ethiopian community. According to the program, while the women were still in transit camps in Ethiopia they were sometimes intimidated or threatened into taking the injection. “They told us they are inoculations,” said one of the women interviewed. “They told us people who frequently give birth suffer. We took it every three months. We said we didn’t want to.”

[robphoenix-blog]

One man has been shot dead and over 400 people injured in fresh clashes in the Egyptian city of Port Said. The death toll has risen to 48 as violence on the streets of Egypt continues for the fourth day in a row. January 27, 2013

18-year-old Abdel Rahman Farag was killed by a gunshot wound to the chest, the city’s head of hospitals told Reuters. More than 416 people suffered from teargas inhalation, while 17 sustained gunshot wounds, he said.

Thousands of people turned out for the funerals of 35 rioters who were killed in Port Said on Saturday. The mourners shouted,”There is no God but Allah, and Morsi is God’s enemy” after praying for the dead at the city’s Mariam Mosque. Teargas was fired in the vicinity and gunfire was heard nearby. Emergency vehicle sirens were also heard, a witness told Reuters.

Thousands of demonstrators also gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Sunday. Protesters threw petrol bombs at riot police who were firing teargas.

Rallies have been taking place in Cairo, Alexandria, Suez and half a dozen other places, many of which have become violent. Protesters have taken to the streets in greater numbers following Saturday’s death sentence verdicts over a stadium stampede last February. 

Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed El-Beltagy has urged Egyptian authorities to “step in with full strength!”

Protests reach back to Friday when nine people were killed in a separate demonstration against of the Islamist Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.

The outbreak of violence is a consequence of Saturday’s sentencing of 21 people to death for their role in the deaths of 74 people at a soccer stadium riot and stampede last year.

Spectators were trampled and eyewitnesses saw some thrown off balconies following a match between Al Ahly and local team al-Masri.  But many eye witnesses reported police of playing a role in the deaths. The sentencing was reportedly followed by the immediate deaths of two policemen.

About 18 prisoners in Suez police stations managed to escape during the violence, a security source reported. Approximately 30 police weapons were stolen. Soldiers have taken up positions at important state facilities, including the local power and water stations, administration buildings, banks and courts.

Protests have been spreading throughout Egyptian cities since Thursday, prior to the sentencing. Opponents of Morsi have been gathering to mark the second anniversary on Friday of the beginning of the revolution that led to Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow.

Infuriated protesters report that Morsi has betrayed the economic and representative goals of the previous revolt.

“None of the revolution’s goals have been realized,” protester Mohamed Sami told Reuters.

Bel Trew, who is on the ground in Cairo, said, “There’s a lot of anger toward the president – this started just at the end of last year when he pushed through what was seen as an unpopular constitution drafted by an Islamist dominated constituent assembly. People also say that he has not made any of the changes that were called for during the January 25 revolution two years ago, so he’s really lost quite a lot of legitimacy on the streets.”

“Right now here in the capital there are clashes raging between protesters and security forces on the…lots of tear gas in the air here in down-town Cairo. Rocks have also been exchanged.”

“Security have increased their presence around government buildings, as the focus of the anger here for protesters is very much against Morsi’s administration… the situation in Egypt really descends into a bit of a crisis”

Source

[robphoenix-blog]

Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, by Aaron Swartz

Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves. The world’s entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You’ll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.

There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. Everything up until now will have been lost.

That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to children in the Global South? It’s outrageous and unacceptable.

“I agree,” many say, “but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it’s perfectly legal — there’s nothing we can do to stop them.” But there is something we can, something that’s already being done: we can fight back.

Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.

Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by the publishers and sharing them with your friends.

But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral — it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.

Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who can make copies.

There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.

With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we’ll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?

Aaron Swartz July 2008, Eremo, Italy

[robphoenix-blog]

Is Fracking Bad?

Yes, for several reasons. What is fracking? The technical, or "correct" name for fracking is "hydraulic fracturing," and it's a method of obtaining gas. Here's a few reasons why it's bad.

To start with the process needs millions of gallons of water that could be put to better use. The water is transported to the fracking site and mixed with hundreds of chemicals, many of them poisonous. Then the mixture is sent down wells that have been made to reach down to shale rock formations until it creates enough pressure to fracture the rock, so that gas is released. The air can be polluted from methane, natural water supplies can be contaminated from the mixture used to create the fractures, and earthquakes can be caused from the fractured rock.

This is just a brief example of how bad this is. The other question is : why do we even need this way of obtaining energy? What about all the alternative methods for energy creation? That should probably be asked a lot more, because seeing as it's now 2013 and several alternative options look like they're worth pursuing, we seem to be stuck in some type of timewarp.

Why do we need to be so dependent on these insane methods? Oil, petrol and gas should be being phased out altogether, but instead we find that governments and corporations are just carrying on as normal. Well, why not try putting some real money into cleaner energies? Is it because the oil and gas barons have become so powerful that governments just get paid off to let things carry on as normal? How many patents and alternative options for energy have they bought up in order to keep things as they currently are? How much of the environment needs destroying until enough people take notice?

Going into alternative energies here will only draw away from the main point : fracking isn't good, and it can cause a lot of damage to the environment that leads to things like contaminated drinking water, contaminated air, and unstable ground that's prone to earthquakes. As a species, in the year 2013, if this is one of the best options we can come up with for a way of getting energy, maybe we should also start seriously thinking that Elvis is still alive and flying around the moon at night in a UFO. (yes, that sounds crazy, but that's the point, because the first part of the sentence does too.)

A great animation that explains the fracking process and the problems involved is here : What goes in and out of hydraulic fracturing

If you want to look further into this, here's some more links :

Fracking - Food & Water Watch

Another Bad Week for Fracking - Clean Technica

Hydraulic Fracturing FAQs - Gasland

Fracking debate draws Yoko, Lennon and Sarandon to rural battlegrounds - The Guardian

Fracking for shale gas gets green light in UK - The Guardian

[robphoenix-blog]

[robphoenix-blog]

[robphoenix-blog]

Human Awareness in the Modern World

Awareness is life, but there's a huge difference in levels of awareness when it comes to us as a species. What we're aware of defines who we are and how we perceive things, what we know and what we don't, how well we can help others, how well we can live our lives, and so on. So why isn't it spoken about more, and why don't we use it more collectively?

If you look at the way the world is set up, you have governments and corporations that seem to be trying to limit the awareness of the public, and you could even say that the only way they've ever been able to have the power they've had has been because they've consistently been more aware of how the world works than most others.

Then you have protesters, activists, meditators, spiritual and religious people, journalists, writers, scientists, and so on, trying to expand awareness and then in turn help others with what they've learnt. Some help others by trying to be an example in the way they live their lives, some spend time trying to help others with information, some mix both things up and try to do both.

So people often say love is the key, and obviously it is, but awareness in general is also key to being able to do what we do.

It's hard to even approach this subject because it's bigger than I can personally deal with properly at all, and most of us can only know a fraction of what it means to be truly aware simply by being Human, (think of several types of animals for instance. They're capable of naturally sensing things in ways none of us are. They can see different parts of the visual spectrum, hear on different levels, sense movement/vibrations at long distances, and so on.) but it's always worth a try incase it helps or inspires others to think about it more.

I often tell myself the main thing I try to do is "raise awareness" of various things, and I still think that's right. I know I can only do it to an extent, but every bit clearly helps when you look around the world and see the state things are in for so many of us.

So governments and corporations seem to maintain themselves by limiting the awareness of others. If they didn't, if everyone was aware of what reality is to a decent enough extent, well any centralized power system would clearly be completely different, that seems obvious. Maybe the world would instead operate on a decentralized power system. A freer Humanity working together without most of the problems we see today. But how exactly do they limit awareness? Here's a few examples.

Education

As we grow older and learn more about the world, the lack of what we were taught at school, college, university, etc, becomes a lot clearer. Especially school, the one place almost all of us have to go through as we grow up, and the place that's supposed to give us plenty of the information we need to understand life better.

What do they teach us? What we really need to learn, or what governments and corporations think we should learn? Did you get taught about the details of nutrition properly at school? Did you get taught about corruption all over the world and about the parties responsible for it? Did you get taught that the system educating you seems to be primarily bothered about getting you into a job so you can help a company/corporation make more profit and pay taxes to the government? Of course not!

There's just so much we could've been taught at school that we weren't that looking back at a certain point it just seems like it was a sham. Ok, some people go through school and end up doing exactly what they wanted to do, and that's great, I'm happy for those people. That's unless they turned into/turn into corrupt corporate bosses or politicians. Maybe a few of them will end up being good corporate bosses or politicians! We can always hope I guess....

The main thing though is that we didn't get taught nearly enough about the things that would've really helped us learn more about the world and ourselves. The system makes sure of this. If you think this is wrong and I'm going into conspiracy territory here, just think about this simple question : what good does it do for governments and corporations to have a population well aware of the mess they're making of our species, our environment, our planet? It doesn't help them at all. The education system is a reflection of this.

Food and Drink

This is where things get ugly quickly, and I can only scratch the surface. To describe this in detail would require a book, or several books. But a few things can be pointed out. Food and drink is increasingly becoming processed and devoid of the natural vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc, that we need to function properly. It's becoming more processed, more GMO filled, more harmful because the additives haven't been tested properly, due to the fact that the food safety administrations are increasingly tied to the corporations that need their food to be tested before being.....unleashed, on the public.

Why is this so? Simple most of the time : $$$. All you have to do is spend some time researching to see that the way many people eat messes up their bodies, which in turn messes up their brain functions, then their thoughts and awareness. You can't have a mind that works properly if your body is "surviving" on junk.

Some things that can be researched to get a quick idea are : monsanto, aspartame, trans-fats, genetically modified foods, health effects of refined sugar, levels of omega-6 in foods.

The Spectacle

To begin here I'll try to point out what the spectacle I'm referring to actually is, with a quote from Guy Debord, writer of Society of the Spectacle :

"The spectacle is the existing order’s uninterrupted discourse about itself, its laudatory monologue. It is the self-portrait of power in the epoch of its totalitarian management of the conditions of existence."

The way mainstream media seems to be almost a mind control device for so many people is another way of looking at it. Mainstream news is often false, or not focused on what it should be focused on. Adverts are constantly trying to sell you things that you don't even need, governments repeatedly talk about and focus on the "economy" (I sometimes think of it as Empty-COn-NO-MoneY.) when people are starving, dying in wars and the environment is under constant assault.

Think of tv programs in general. What real variation is there, especially in fiction, drama, etc? I mean in terms of originality. Not very much, unless you only watch the most risk-taking science fiction, or something of a similar nature. Not many things "think outside the box" on tv today. It's almost like the same thing is repeated. Hardly any real variation, instead it's usually slight variations on the same themes.

Same for music. What real difference is there in so much "chart" music? The charts are a joke and they have been for a long time. They mostly consist of a bunch of corporate "bands" competing for the top spot in sales figures. If you want to listen to original music you won't often see it in the charts because the record companies don't want to take the risk. They want something that will appeal instantly and get enough of an audience that's used to the same thing. (Same with tv companies usually wanting viewers quickly, not a slow building audience for something original.)

The spectacle is kind of like the distracting of so many people. The same thing repeated, churned out again and again, so governments and corporations can carry on making money in a static system and keep so much control. A system that gives the illusion of change but hardly any genuine, real change. This is despite the fact that if they carry on like they are doing there'll be nobody left to control or make money from, because we'll become extinct unless things change.

The economy can't carry on "growing" like they want it to, unless we move off the planet and into space to get resources from other planets. This is a fact, not speculation, one that almost all of us can see.

So one big aspect of the spectacle could be seen as the diversion of the awareness of billions of people, from what they should be aware of, and on to other things that Gov-Corp peddles out constantly via the media.

A link for further reading : Society of the Spectacle - Guy Debord

Fear

Fear sticks you in a certain mindset, and limits your ability to see beyond that mindset. Fear is the root cause of so many problems, and leads to delusion, anger, greed, and many other variations of those things.

That's why when you come back to the idea that love is the key, well yes, is definitely is if it helps to eradicate fear. Something that helps us to be peaceful with others and look after and care for them, to have respect, to share, to keep expanding our knowledge, the ability to be mindful of what's happening, the ability to be aware.

Without fear our minds aren't as scattered, and we can have one of the main things we need to maintain our awareness and not fall back into states of ignorance : concentration.

This will hopefully be expanded on in the future. If not, hopefully what's here can help a few people think about this more.

[robphoenix-blog]

A different way of looking at how the sun and other planets travel through space.

Found via Ye Olde False Flag, and @RoadrunnerA

[robphoenix-blog]

TrapWire tied to anti-Occupy Internet-spy program

How do you make matters worse for an elusive intelligence company that has been forced to scramble for explanations about their ownership of an intricate, widespread surveillance program? Just ask Cubic, whose troubles only begin with TrapWire.

Days after the international intelligence gathering surveillance system called TrapWire was unraveled by RT, an ongoing investigation into any and all entities with ties to the technology has unturned an ever-increasing toll of creepy truths. In only the latest installment of the quickly snowballing TrapWire saga, a company that shares several of the same board members as the secret spy system has been linked to a program called Tartan, which aims to track down alleged anarchists by specifically singling out Occupy Wall Street protesters and the publically funded media — all with the aid of federal agents.

Tartan, a product of the Ntrepid Corporation, “exposes and quantifies key influencers and hidden connections in social networks using mathematical algorithms for objective, un-biased output,” its website claims. “Our analysts, mathematicians and computer scientists are continually exploring new quantification, mining and visualization techniques in order to better analyze social networks.” In order to prove as such, their official website links to the executive summary of a case study dated this year that examines social network connections among so-called anarchists, supposedly locating hidden ties within an underground movement that was anchored on political activists and even the Public Broadcasting Station [.pdf].

More here : TrapWire tied to anti-Occupy Internet-spy program - RT News

[robphoenix-blog]

[robphoenix-blog]

Space Portals

Apparently space portals aren't so science-fiction after all, and are actually real, according to NASA...

NASA THEMIS spacecraft and some European probes seem to be detecting portals that are magnetic, and which open and close several times a day. They're linked from the Earth's magnetic field and go all the way to the Sun, over 90 million miles away. The whole idea of it is explained in this video :

The text of the video and some other info is on this page : Hidden Portals in Earth's Magnetic Field

Other links for reference :

THEMIS - Understanding Space Weather - NASA

Heliophysics - Studying the Sun-Earth Connection - NASA

[robphoenix-blog]

The Science of “Intuition”

"The word intuition comes from the Latin intuir, which appropriately means ‘knowledge from within.’ Until recently, intuition, like consciousness, was the sort of thing that self-respecting scientists stayed clear of, on penalty of being accused of engaging in New Age woo-woo rather than serious science. Heck, even most philosophers — who historically had been very happy to talk about consciousness, far ahead of the rise of neurobiology — found themselves with not much to say about intuition. However, these days cognitive scientists think of intuition as a set of nonconscious cognitive and affective processes; the outcome of these processes is often difficult to articulate and is not based on deliberate thinking, but it’s real and (sometimes) effective nonetheless."

Source : The Science of “Intuition” - Brain Pickings

[robphoenix-blog]

The Spot-and-Shoot Game: Israeli female soldiers kill by remote control

It is called Spot and Shoot. Operators sit in front of a TV monitor from which they can control the action with a PlayStation-style joystick.

The aim: to kill.

Played by: young women serving in the Israeli army.

Spot and Shoot, as it is called by the Israeli military, may look like a video game but the figures on the screen are real people – Palestinians in Gaza – who can be killed with the press of a button on the joystick.

The female soldiers, located far away in an operations room, are responsible for aiming and firing remote-controlled machine-guns mounted on watch-towers every few hundred metres along an electronic fence that surrounds Gaza.

Source : The Spot-and-Shoot Game: Israeli female soldiers kill by remote control - Sabbah