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Author Topic: Ecosocialism II
M. Spector
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posted 09 January 2008 06:39 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Successor to this closed thread.

Want to know what ecosocialism is?

I recommend this 24-page pamphlet, Confronting the Climate Change Crisis: An Ecosocialist Perspective (.pdf format).

It's a compilation of articles and essays put together by a Canadian ecosocialist and recent-rabble-rouser, and serves as a great introduction to the concept of ecosocialism. Best of all, it's free to read on-screen, or you can print it out at your own expense.

Topics include:

• Exploding the myths of ‘carbon offsets’
• The ‘emissions intensity’ hoax
• Ottawa’s fraudulent global warming plan
• Barriers to a capitalist solution?
• Five challenges for ecosocialists in 2008
• Ecosocialism and the fight against global warming
• Appendix: Bolivia and Cuba call for radical action to stop global warming

[ 12 April 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Boom Boom
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posted 09 January 2008 08:17 AM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There are three ecosocialist groups on Facebook if anyone wants to have a continuing dialogue besides here on babble. Just type ecosocialism into the FB search engine. I think I might still be a member of one of these groups but I haven't checked recently. One of these groups is closely aligned with the global Greens.

[ 09 January 2008: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]


From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 14 February 2008 08:11 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Savage Capitalism: The Ecosocialist Alternative
- from the British group Socialist Resistance
quote:
Our strategic approach will be governed by the following guidelines:

• We seek to build a broad ecosocialist, anti-capitalist, current in the labour movement and the left, among young people and among environmentalists, including the Greens.

• We fight to win the labour movement to campaigning against environmental catastrophe as a central concern and priority.

• We fight to win environmentalists and youth to an understanding that ecological sanity is incompatible with capitalism and that an eco-friendly world means socialism.

What does it mean to call Socialist Resistance ‘Ecosocialist’?

To define ourselves by the term ‘ecosocialist’ does not mean dropping our commitment to anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism, feminism and the rights of the oppressed, anti-racism, and so on.

Nor does it mean a radical version of the Green Party: rather it is a recognition that capitalism cannot solve the problems posed by climate change and global warming as, by its very nature, it is based on production for profit not need, regardless of the impact on the planet.


[ 27 October 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 01 April 2008 09:05 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Can Capitalism Survive Climate Change?
by Walden Bello
quote:
The prevailing assumption is that the affluent societies can take on commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions but still grow and enjoy their high standards of living if they shift to non-fossil fuel energy sources. This assumption extends to the method of reduction, namely that the mandatory cuts agreed to multilaterally by governments will be implemented within the country according to a market-based system, that is, the trading of emission permits. The subtext is: techno-fixes and the carbon market will make the transition relatively painless and – why not? – profitable, too.

But many of these technologies are decades away from viable use. In the short and medium term, relying on a shift in energy dependence to non-fossil fuel alternatives will not be able to support current rates of economic growth. Also, the trade-off for more crop land devoted to biofuel production means less land on which to grow food and therefore greater food insecurity globally.

Clearly, the dominant paradigm of economic growth is one of the most significant obstacles to a serious global effort to deal with climate change. But this destabilizing, fundamentalist growth-consumption paradigm is itself more effect rather than cause.

The central problem is a mode of production whose main dynamic is the transformation of living nature into dead commodities, creating tremendous waste in the process. The driver of this process is consumption – or more appropriately overconsumption – and the motivation is profit or capital accumulation: capitalism, in short.

It has been the generalization of this mode of production in the North and its spread from the North to the South over the last 300 years that has caused the accelerated burning of fossil fuels and rapid deforestation, two of the key man-made processes behind global warming.
….

The goal must be the adoption of a low-consumption, low-growth, high-equity development model that results in an improvement in people's welfare, a better quality of life for all, and greater democratic control of production.

The elites of the North and the South will not likely agree to such a comprehensive response. The farthest they are likely to go is for techno-fixes and a market-based cap-and-trade system. Growth will be sacrosanct, as will the system of global capitalism.

Yet, confronted with apocalypse, humanity cannot self-destruct. It may be a difficult road, but the vast majority will not commit social and ecological suicide to enable the minority to preserve its privileges.


[ 06 April 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 01 April 2008 09:36 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks for the top link, M. I have downloaded it and I will read it over. But for a moment, I would like to address a quoted item in your last post:

quote:
... a progressive comprehensive climate strategy in both the North and the South must reduce growth and energy use while raising the quality of life of the broad masses of people. This will mean placing economic justice and equality at the center of the new paradigm.

The transition must be one not only from a fossil-fuel based economy but also from an overconsumption-driven economy.

The goal must be the adoption of a low-consumption, low-growth, high-equity development model that results in an improvement in people's welfare, a better quality of life for all, and greater democratic control of production.



What does that mean? How would I know a "high-equity development model" if I saw one?

From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
ElizaQ
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posted 01 April 2008 09:47 AM      Profile for ElizaQ     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks for the info and links M. Spector. Though I both like you and dislike you right now. I need to get some actual work done! In giving the pamphlet and site a brief scan, and nodding my head over and over at many of the points it brought me back to when to my academic days when studying ecology, ecological ecomonics and the theories of steady-state economies. Got waylaid by other issues, though I see from the pamphlet they are connected.
My interest is in the political and social aspects connected with yes, capitalism and it's 'endless growth' model' vs basic ecological principles (which makes endless growth impossible, in the way it's conceived now) and whatever overarching political and social structures are needed to bring true 'sustainability' about.
I can see much similar discussion here. So thank you. I have much reading to do, but an unthank you because now I have to decide whether to spend the day reading or cleaning the house and planting seeds.

From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 01 April 2008 10:17 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
What does that mean? How would I know a "high-equity development model" if I saw one?
I think he's talking about social equity, rather than equity in its financial sense, if that's what's bothering you.

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 01 April 2008 11:20 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I think he's talking about social equity, rather than equity in its financial sense, if that's what's bothering you.

I suppose what is "bothering" me, if anything, is an inability on the part of the left to articulate a culture that isn't consumer capitalism based. It is not a specific criticism, because I can't do it either. But I know we must find a way to compete with the allure of shopping and television.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 22 April 2008 08:32 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Speaking at the United Nations yesterday, Bolivian president Evo Morales proposed 10 commandments to save the planet, life and humanity:

1. Putting an end to the capitalist system
2. Renouncing wars
3. A world without imperialism or colonialism
4. Right to water
5. Development of clean energies
6. Respect for Mother Earth
7. Basic services such as human rights Treat basic services as human rights
8. Fighting inequalities
9. Promoting diversity of cultures and economies
10. Living well, not living better at the expense of others

- Thanks to Climate and Capitalism

More detail on Morales's speech

[ 24 April 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Michael Hardner
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posted 22 April 2008 09:12 AM      Profile for Michael Hardner   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
"Who will bell the cat ?"

(I never hear that expression any more.)

Also, this doesn't make sense:

"Basic services such as human rights "

Rights aren't services and services aren't rights. Our rights are attributes that we, as a society, decide that we all have individually, and as a group, when we're born.


From: Toronto | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
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posted 22 April 2008 09:58 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Hardner:

"Basic services such as human rights "

Rights aren't services and services aren't rights. Our rights are attributes that we, as a society, decide that we all have individually, and as a group, when we're born.


Perhaps the translation is faulty and the meaning is that basic services should be considered rights - things like water, health-care, and education, for example.

[ 22 April 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 22 April 2008 10:35 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks, Rosa, I think you're right.

The Spanish says "Servicios básicos como derechos humanos."

If we put an implied verb in front of that meaning "to consider", it would have the meaning you suggest.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 22 April 2008 12:58 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Hardner:

Also, this doesn't make sense:

"Basic services such as human rights "


Morales probably means social services the likes of which, for example, were once privatized in Chile by the U.S.-backed Pinochet dictatorship.

eta: Although I think RosaL and M Spector gave better, more inclusive explanations

[ 22 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 22 April 2008 01:41 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
A "right" is something which can be enforced, even when the state would prefer not to provide that right.

"Rights" differ from "slogans" in that there is an actual place in which a citizen may appear, and successfully demand that the right be observed.

Social rights, such as several on Morales' list, have been absent from "capitalist" Constitutions.

A movement has existed for quite a while to change that. It ranges from Cass Sunnstein of harvard Law School
to the Constitutions of South Africa http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/96cons2.htm.

In these cases, a legal framework exists to enforce the articulated rights, at least to some extent.

This is different from the Soviet style Constitutions of old, which sounded great, but had no enforcement mechanism whatsoever.

Even Bob Rae's government supported a "Social Charter" to add to the traditional procedural and political freedoms in the Charter as it is.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 22 April 2008 02:59 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
This is different from the Soviet style Constitutions of old, which sounded great, but had no enforcement mechanism whatsoever.

They had freely accessible child care services and affordable housing in 1930's Moscow, a time when we in the west were still using backhouses and shying away from visits to the doctor because our grandparents couldn't afford medical bills.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 22 April 2008 03:33 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Oh lordy...let's try and stay on the topic of ecosocialism, okay?
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 23 April 2008 02:38 PM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
On the topic of ecosocialism:

In the earlier thread on this topic Michelle gave an excellent introduction to the ecosocialist conception of land and resources and how this differs from the standard capitalist worldview. Also in that thread sknguy proclaimed that an ecosocialist system would need to "resolve man's status and relationships within the environment in order to function." Additionally Michelle quoted from a yahoo.com discussion that "there is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change." I'd like to offer my input on what is entailed in the massive social change needed to resolve man's relationships within the environment inherent in the ecosocialist conception of land and resources (though I may be straying into the territory of green anarchy, anarcho-primitivism and similar ideas). I hope those contributors to this discussion to whom I have referred above do not object to my references.

Ownership of land and resources is central to capitalism and its accompanying individualist worldview. Individual consumption and accumulation of land and resources in capitalism over-uses the earth's wealth but how is this to be undone?

In my opinion it will not be undone through the socialist removal of private ownership of land and resources if the reality of private control over land and resources remains; it remains through state bureaucratic control, through exclusive private and semi-private homes and lands (and lives), and through the administrative hierarchies of state/business enterprises. In this way past and existent socialist states emulate capitalist accumulation and consumption. To me ecosocialism demands a rejection of the individualist worldview (with its attendant over-consumption) and its replacement with a communal worldview and restoration of local non-monetised communal means of production.

As mentioned in the Wikipedia entry on ecosocialism capitalist globalization has worked to eliminate non-monetised communal means of production through removing access to the resources that sustain ordinary people across the globe. Restoring that access requires not only removing private ownership of land and resources but also de-linking resources and land from private control altogether (which socialist states have failed to do thus far).

Ecosocialism for me requires a communal approach, not just to property ownership, but also to our understanding of space. Truly communal space and communal relations with the environment reverse the capitalist/individualist worldview's flawed understanding of those relations which has inflicted terrible harm on the earth to derive individual benefit and feed individual accumulation and consumption.

What is demanded is taking on a communal view of society and the environment, rejecting the life-model of consumption, abandoning it and building a new model; a semi-nomadic communal model built on non-monetised communal means of production. It is essential that the concept of ownership as a right to maintain exclusive space (or an exclusive relationship with the environment) be destroyed; to fail at this would mean that the individual basis of society remains, its consumptiveness will not be diminished, and the earth, as Michelle stated in the previous thread, is doomed.

Any thoughts?


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 23 April 2008 07:09 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I am in substantial agreement with what you say.

You clearly have done some reading on this topic beyond what has appeared in babble threads. If you haven't read him yet, Joel Kovel has much to say about the communal aspects of ecosocialism. His book is The Enemy of Nature. In addition he has written and spoken often about the kind of transformation required to make a radical change in our relationship to nature. Here's a taste:

quote:
Ecosocialism is no more a purely economic matter than was socialism or communism in the eyes of Marx. It needs to be precisely the radical transformation of society — and human existence — that Marx envisioned as the next stage in human evolution. Indeed, it must be that if we are going to survive the ecological crisis. Ecosocialism is the ushering in, then, of a whole mode of production, one in which freely associated labour produces flourishing ecosystems rather than commodities.

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 24 April 2008 06:59 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
DRAFT: FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES ONLY
How to participate in preparing the Final Draft

The Second Ecosocialist Manifesto

“The world is suffering from a fever due to climate change, and the disease is the capitalist development model.” — Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, September 2007

Humanity’s Choice

Humanity today faces a stark choice: ecosocialism or barbarism.

To the barbarities of the last century — 100 years of war, brutal imperialist plunder and genocide — capitalism has added new horrors. Now it is entirely possible that the air we breathe and the water we drink will be permanently poisoned and that global warming will make much of the world uninhabitable.

The science is clear and irrefutable: climate change is real, and the main cause is the use of fossil fuels, especially oil, gas, and coal. The earth today is significantly hotter than it was a few decades ago, and the rate of increase is accelerating.

Left unchecked, global warming will have catastrophic impacts on human, animal, and plant life. Crop yields will drop drastically, leading to famine on a broad scale. Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced by droughts in some areas and by rising ocean levels in others. Chaotic, unpredictable weather will become the norm. Epidemics of malaria, cholera and even deadlier diseases will ravage the poorest and most vulnerable members of every society.

The impact will be most devastating on those whose lives have already been ravaged by imperialism many times over — the people of Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and indigenous peoples everywhere. Climate change has justifiably been called an act of aggression by the rich against the poor.

Ecological destruction is not an accidental feature of capitalism: it is built into the system’s DNA. The insatiable need to increase profits cannot be reformed away. Capitalism can no more survive limits on growth than a person can live without breathing.

Under capitalism, the only measure of growth is how much is sold every day, every week, every year – including vast quantities of products that are directly harmful to humans and nature, commodities that cannot be produced without spreading disease, destroying the forests that produce the oxygen we breathe, demolishing ecosystems, and treating our water and air as sewers for the disposal of industrial waste.

Capitalism has always been ecologically destructive. From power plants in the U.S.A. to the forests of Indonesia; from tar sands in Canada to oil wells in Nigeria, the global drive for profit has caused untold damage to nature.

In our lifetimes, these assaults on the earth have accelerated. Quantitative change is giving way to qualitative transformation, bringing the world to a tipping point, to the edge of disaster. A growing body of scientific research has identified many ways in which small temperature increases could trigger runaway effects – such as rapid melting of the Greenland ice sheet or the release of methane buried in permafrost and beneath the ocean – that would make catastrophic climate change inevitable.

If capitalism remains the dominant social order, the best we can expect is unbearable climate conditions, an intensification of social crises and the spread of the most barbaric forms of class rule, as the imperialist powers fight among themselves and with the global south for continued control of the world’s diminishing resources. At worst, human life may not survive.

Capitalism is the primary enemy of nature, including humanity. Abolishing it has never been more urgent.

Capitalist Strategies for Change

The world is awash with strategies for contending with ecological ruin, including the ruin looming as a result of the reckless growth of atmospheric carbon. The great mass of these share one common feature: they are devised by and on behalf of the dominant global system, capitalism.

It should not surprise that the same system which drives the ecological crisis also sets the terms of the debate about the ecological crisis. For capital commands the means of production of knowledge as much as of atmospheric carbon. And just as it would be inconceivable for capital to awaken and turn itself into an ecologically rational system of production, so must it pretend to be able to heal the wounds it has inflicted on the earth. Accordingly, its politicians, bureaucrats, economists and professors send forth an endless stream of proposals, all variations on the theme that the world’s ecological damage can be repaired without disruption of the free market and of the system of accumulation that commands the world economy.

But a person cannot serve two masters, here, the integrity of the earth and the profitability of capitalism. One must be set aside, and since money rules our world, the needs of mere nature – and therefore of human survival — will be deferred under capital so that accumulation may continue. There is every reason, therefore, to radically doubt the established measures for checking the slide to ecological catastrophe.

And indeed, beyond a cosmetic veneer, essentially equivalent to the plantings in the atria of corporate headquarters, the reforms over the past thirty-five years have been a monstrous failure. Individual improvements do of course occur. Yet these inevitably become overwhelmed and swept away by the ruthless expansion of the system and the chaotic character of its production.

One fact can give an indication of the failure: in the first four years of the 21st Century, global carbon emissions were nearly three times as great per annum as those of the decade of the 1990s, despite the appearance of the Kyoto Protocols in 1997.

Kyoto employs two devices: the “Cap and Trade” system of trading pollution credits to reach certain reductions in emissions, and projects in the Global South--the so-called “Clean Development Mechanisms” (CDMs)--to offset emissions in the industrial nations.

These instruments all rely upon market mechanisms, which means, first of all, that atmospheric carbon directly becomes a commodity, hence under the control of the same class interest that created global warming in the first place. Capitalists are not to be compelled to reduce their carbon emissions but in effect, bribed to do so, and in this way, allowed to use their power over money to control the carbon market for their own ends, which needless to say, include the devastating exploration for yet more carbon resources. Nor is there a limit to the amount of emission credits which can be issued by compliant governments under the control of capital.

When we add to this the literal impossibility of verification or of any uniform method of evaluation of results, it can be seen that not only is this regime incapable of rationally controlling emissions, it also provides an open field for evasion and fraud of all kinds, along with the neo-colonial exploitation of indigenous people as well as their habitat. As the Wall Street Journal put it in March, 2007, emissions trading "would make money for some very large corporations, but don’t believe for a minute that this charade would do much about global warming." The Journal called the carbon trade "old-fashioned … making money by gaming the regulatory process."

And yet this worthless system remains the chosen path. All of the U.S. Democratic Party presidential hopefuls affirmed the Cap and Trade model in a recent debate. And in December, 2007, at the Bali interim climate meetings held to prepare the way for the replacement of Kyoto, which expires in 2012, opened the way for even worse abuses in the period ahead. Bali avoided explicit mention of the drastic goals for carbon reduction put forth by the best climate science (90% by 2050); it more or less completely abandoned the peoples of the South to the tender mercy of capital, giving jurisdiction over the process to the World Bank; and made offsetting of carbon pollution even easier. In sum, Bali was an orgy of neoliberalism, as no fewer than 300 corporations registered as NGOs in to gain access to the trough of pollution credits.

A tremendous world-wide radical response to the predatory system of climate regulation, and to all aspects of the life-threatening ecological crisis, is underway. It has made itself felt at Bali and elsewhere, with the simple, and life-affirming principle that the only rational and just solution to the climate crisis is to keep carbon in the ground in the first place.

Beyond the great range of valuable interventions proposed by this “movement of movements,” one singular and overarching perspective is beginning to be discussed: that in order to affirm and sustain our human future, a revolutionary transformation is needed, in which all particular struggles are to be seen in the light of a greater struggle against capital itself. This larger struggle cannot be merely negative. It must announce a different kind of society, and this we name ecosocialism.

Stop Capitalist Ecocide! The Ecosocialist Alternative

Capitalist attempts to solve the ecological crisis have failed: only a profound change in the very nature of civilization can save humanity from the catastrophic consequences of climate change.

The ecosocialist movement aims to stop and reverse this disastrous process. We will fight to impose every possible limit on capitalist ecocide, and to build a movement that can replace capitalism with a society in which common ownership of the means of production replaces capitalist ownership, and in which the preservation and restoration of ecosystems will be a fundamental part of all human activity.

In other words, ecosocialism is an attempt to provide a radical civilizational alternative to the capitalist/industrial system, through an economic policy founded on non-monetary criteria: social needs and ecological equilibrium. It combines a critique of both “market ecology,” which does not challenge capitalism, and of “productivist socialism,” which ignores the earth’s natural limits.

The aim of ecosocialism is a new society based on ecological rationality, democratic control, social equality, and the predominance of use-value over exchange-value. These aims require both democratic planning that will enable society to define the goals of investment and production, and a new technological structure for humanity’s productive forces. In other words: a revolutionary social and economic transformation.

Emancipation of gender is integral to ecosocialism. The degradation of women and of nature have been profoundly linked throughout history, and especially the history of capitalism, in which money has dominated life. To defend and enhance life, therefore, is not just a matter of restoring the dignity of women; it also requires defending and advancing those forms and relations of labor that care for life and have been dismissed as mere “women’s work” or “subsistence.”

In order to stop the catastrophic process of Global Warming before it is too late, we must introduce radical changes in:

1. the energy system, by replacing the fossil fuels that are responsible for the greenhouse effect (oil, coal) with clean eolic and solar, sources of power;

2. the transportation system, by drastically reducing the use of private trucks and cars, replacing them with free and efficient public transportation;

3. present consumption patterns, which are based on waste, inbuilt obsolescence, and conspicuous competition.

To avoid endangering human survival, entire sectors of industry and agriculture must be suppressed (nuclear energy, armaments, advertising), reduced (fossil fuels), or restructured (automobiles) and new ones (solar energy, ecologically-sound agriculture) must be developed, while maintaining full employment for all. Such a change is impossible without public control over the means of production and democratic planning. Democratic public decisions on investment and technological change, must replace control by banks and capitalist enterprises in order to serve society’s common good.

Far from being “despotic”, planning is the whole society’s exercise of freedom: freedom of decision, and liberation from the alienated and reified “economic laws” of the capitalist system, which has controlled individuals’ lives and death, and locked them in what Max Weber called an economic “iron cage.”

The passage to ecosocialism is an historical process, a permanent revolutionary transformation of society, culture and attitudes. This transition will lead not only to a new mode of production and an egalitarian and democratic society, but also to an alternative way of life, a new ecosocialist civilization, beyond the reign of money, beyond consumption habits artificially produced by advertising, and beyond the unlimited production of commodities that are useless and/or harmful. It is important to emphasize that such a process cannot begin without a revolutionary transformation of social and political structures based on the active support, by the vast majority of the population, of an ecosocialist program.

To dream and to struggle for a green socialism does not mean that we should not fight for concrete and urgent reforms now. Without any illusions about “clean capitalism,” we must try to win time and to impose on the powers that be — governments, corporations, international institutions — some elementary but essential changes:

• drastic and enforceable reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases,
• free public transportation
• taxation on polluting cars,
• progressive replacement of trucks by trains
• shifting of war spending to the ecological reconstruction of homes and workplaces.

These, and similar demands, are at the heart of the agenda of the Global Justice movement and the World Social Forums, a decisive new development which has promoted, since Seattle in 1999, the convergence of social and environmental movements in a common struggle against the system.

Global Warming will not be stopped in conference rooms and treaty negotiations: only mass action by the oppressed, by the victims of ecocide can make a difference. Third World and indigenous peoples are at the forefront of this struggle, fighting polluting multinationals, poisonous chemical agro-business, invasive genetically modified seeds, and so-called “bio-fuels” that put corn into car tanks, taking it away from the mouths of hungry people. Solidarity between anticapitalist ecological mobilizations in the North and the South is a strategic priority.

This Manifesto is not an academic statement, but a call to action. The entrenched ruling elites are incredibly powerful, and the forces of radical opposition are still small. But those forces are the only hope that the catastrophic course of capitalist “growth” will be halted. Walter Benjamin defined revolutions as being not the locomotive of history, but as humanity reaching for the emergency breaks of the train, before it plunges into an abyss.
-----

Also available in .pdf format


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 24 April 2008 10:32 AM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
They had freely accessible child care services and affordable housing in 1930's Moscow, a time when we in the west were still using backhouses

Your defence of Stalin is noted, but not taken seriously.

The Soviet Union in the 1930's was primitive beyond belief.

Even into the 1980's, "affordable housing" in Moscow meant two families of four sharing a one bedroom apartment.

The rest of the USSR was far worse, comparable to the worst of native reserves in Canada.

Even Soviet apparatchiks admitted that housing was one of the biggest failures of the regime.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
sknguy
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posted 24 April 2008 11:12 AM      Profile for sknguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We have a habit of removing ourselves from nature. As though we were never a part of nature. Don’t lose site of the fact that we are a part of nature, and that we need to normalise our relationship with it again. Removing ourselves is part of what gives us license to exploit.

We can resolve that capitalism needs to be replaced. And whatever replaces it will ultimately be an expression of our cultural needs. We can blame a lot of our problems on capitalism, but it’s really our culture that created it. A change in culture is central, and it’s entirely possible that capitalism could find expression in some other form if our worldview isn’t effected.

But, even if capitalism is removed from our relationship with the environment, what of other capitalist items? What of things like time and thought? What about knowledge and effort, how will these be treated? Thinking like a capitalist had to begin from somewhere. Whether the seeds of capitalism started by transforming thought and time into property, or whether it was simply more Earthly things, I can’t say. But I don’t think it would be wise to allow capitalism to express itself here either.

I'm still reading through the things you linked, as well as your manifesto M Spector. So, sorry if I've overlooked what may have been dealt with. Thanks for the post.


From: Saskatchewan | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michael Hardner
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posted 25 April 2008 05:12 AM      Profile for Michael Hardner   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
We have a habit of removing ourselves from nature. As though we were never a part of nature. Don’t lose site of the fact that we are a part of nature, and that we need to normalise our relationship with it again. Removing ourselves is part of what gives us license to exploit.

We can resolve that capitalism needs to be replaced. And whatever replaces it will ultimately be an expression of our cultural needs. We can blame a lot of our problems on capitalism, but it’s really our culture that created it. A change in culture is central, and it’s entirely possible that capitalism could find expression in some other form if our worldview isn’t effected.

But, even if capitalism is removed from our relationship with the environment, what of other capitalist items? What of things like time and thought? What about knowledge and effort, how will these be treated? Thinking like a capitalist had to begin from somewhere. Whether the seeds of capitalism started by transforming thought and time into property, or whether it was simply more Earthly things, I can’t say. But I don’t think it would be wise to allow capitalism to express itself here either.

I'm still reading through the things you linked, as well as your manifesto M Spector. So, sorry if I've overlooked what may have been dealt with. Thanks for the post.


I agree that capitalism in its present form must be replaced, but it must be replaced with something that is new. Excessive central planning will not solve problems any more than it did in the USSR.

I contend that capitalism can be changed by addressing some of its faults: its closed and secretive nature, its focus on short term profits.


From: Toronto | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 25 April 2008 10:29 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:

The rest of the USSR was far worse, comparable to the worst of native reserves in Canada.

Even Soviet apparatchiks admitted that housing was one of the biggest failures of the regime.


Not nearly the failure in housing that existed in Canada in the 1930's-40's and ongoing today. Apartments are still affordable in Russia, even in Moscow.

My mother came to Canada from England in 1946 and said Northern Ontario looked as if the war and rationing had occurred here and not the country she'd left by comparison. Lots of English war brides were amazed that many parts of Canada still had ditches along main gravel roads, outhouses, severe housing shortages and lots of nothingness for as far as the eye could see. Even England, which survived blitzkrieg for one year, was more developed than 98 percent of this country after years and years of political conservatism.

My parents helped out a single woman and her children situated across the street from the VLA shack where they lived. For years she'd had to prop up the east side of the house with bits of scrap wood and anything she could find. A strong westerly would cause the one and half story shack to rock back and forth. Roof leaked and was colder'n a witches' elbow in winter. They went to the bathroom through a hole in the floor. Northern Ontario was a real thirdworld backwater for a very long time, Jeff. We still have northerners living in third world conditions across much of our North today. Canada is world renowned for its abuse of indigenous people, and the feds haven't done a helluva lot to redeem themselves in the mean time.

Muscovites were able to see doctors and have their kids looked after in public daycares(see industrialization of Russia post 1928) at a time when thousands of Canadians were riding the rails looking for work, and R.B. Bennett's government tried to hide thousands of unemployed Canadians in the work camps of Northern B.C. And tens of thousands of migrant farm workers in the U.S. packed up and left for California's farm collectives at a time when laissez-faire capitalism had run its course in North America.

[ 25 April 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 27 April 2008 03:54 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Fidel and Jeff House, what part of "let's try and stay on the topic of ecosocialism" do you not understand?

Jeff House, you will stay out of this thread from now on, as you've contributed nothing of value on the subject. Fidel, you have to learn not to let yourself get baited so easily.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 27 April 2008 04:09 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Michelle, we have two people in the thread who are encouraging drift, I do understand, and here in what is supposed to be a thread about ecosocialism. House begins frothing at the mouth when even the root of the word is mentioned. And Hardner apparently wants us to believe that the western world should continue to operate by supply and demand rules until we're at a point where we're eating money, because we'll have stripped global resources bare and be choking on our own pollution a lot more than we are today. They'll say anything other than actually let go of what was a colossal cold war era lie.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 27 April 2008 04:25 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
I contend that capitalism can be changed by addressing some of its faults: its closed and secretive nature, its focus on short term profits.

And as a socialist, I contend that the profit motive must be pared way back beyond what's currently required to ensure the global casino economy doesn't collapse. Debt-driven capitalism dependent on growth is the problem.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Michael Hardner
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posted 27 April 2008 08:04 AM      Profile for Michael Hardner   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So what is to replace it ? Large scale central planning has been tried, and it doesn't work.
From: Toronto | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 27 April 2008 11:24 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
So what is to replace it ? Large scale central planning has been tried, and it doesn't work.

That's a matter of opinion, Michael. You're referring to the Soviet Union which lasted 70 years and nearly endured an extended cold war waged against it by about two-thirds of the remaining world. Aspiring capitalists within the Soviet system decided in the late 1970's that they just wouldn't invest technological research and development or in new infrastructure of what some people say resembled a capitalist economy but which was basically an industrial model for state socialism. It wasn't so much that central planning failed as a certain Soviet elite decided not to maintain the system. The result was a top down revolution, and some large percentage of the Soviet people bought into western propaganda for middle class consumption based on consumerism.

Here in Canada, our governments used our nationalised Bank of Canada to fund important social programs and infrastructure from 1938 to 1974. There was no runaway inflation during that time period. And our national debt was well under $20 billion dollars after using the Bank to climb out of the depression, fund Canada's war effort, and funding all sorts of new programs and public infrastructure during that time.

What did not work was deregulated banking and finance in the U.S. and Canada after a 30 year experiment in laissez-faire capitalism ended in the 1929 stock market crash and a failure of leave it to the market ideology here in Canada. And the feds had to bail out our big six banks several times since starting down the road of loosening the rules for banks in the 1980's. Brian Mulroney handed the remainder of money creation powers in Canada to the big six in 1991, and that was a huge bailout for banks which were incurring losses in the casino economy then and continuing to do now. The question begs answering, why would our stoogeocrats borrow private banks at high interest when it can borrow from its own bank at less than one percent interest? Because that worked from 1938 to 1974. They're trying to tell you and I what works and what doesn't work, Michael. Apparently you don't believe socialism can work. I do, and if there was ever a time when our governments need fiscal elbow room for spending on green infrastructure and investing in people, it's now. Because this watered-down version of planned and enforced impotence isn't working for the second or third time in a row in the same hemisphere.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 19 September 2008 06:30 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sometime babbler and ecosocialist Ian Angus will be interviewed on the Redeye Show on Vancouver's Co-op Radio 102.7 FM, sometime during the program, which starts Saturday morning at 10 PDT, on the topic of Climate Change and the Election.

You can listen on the web.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 20 September 2008 09:09 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Listen HERE now.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Brian White
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posted 20 September 2008 09:36 AM      Profile for Brian White   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think George bush is trying it (large scale central planning) right now to correct failings in the holy free market before the holy free market collapses altogether.
(and of course he is trying to help the higher ups on the social ladder).
The higher ups had the best information, they spun it to make it look good for years, and the lie got just too big to continue with. Its another enron, it is systematic of the system that when the liars and the lie is big enough the liars get help from the king of laisse faire.
george the second.
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Hardner:
So what is to replace it ? Large scale central planning has been tried, and it doesn't work.

From: Victoria Bc | Registered: Jan 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 21 September 2008 08:46 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Canada’s Election and the Climate Crisis: Five Parties, No Solutions
by Ian Angus.
quote:
For the environment, there’s good news and bad news in Canada’s current federal election campaign. Good news: for the first time ever, climate change is a central issue in the political debates. Bad news: despite much sound and fury, none of the major political parties is proposing effective measures for dealing with the climate change crisis....

Now, with a recession looming, the Conservatives are fighting this election as the “party of free enterprise, free markets and free trade” — which means returning to their previous anti-environmental positions. Harper demagogically promises to defend economic growth, while charging that the Liberals “jeopardize our economic growth with new taxes and threaten to impose new trade barriers in their Green Shift Plan.”...

The opposition

Polls show that the environment and climate change still rank very high as voter concerns, so the Tory policy shift offers an opportunity for the opposition parties to mobilize that concern in support of a strong pro-environment program. Unfortunately, none of them proposes effective measures for dealing with the crisis....

All four mainstream opposition parties — Liberals, New Democrats, Bloc Québécois and Greens — have embraced the currently trendy economic theory that the way to fight global warming is to “put a price on carbon.” Corporations and consumers emit greenhouse gases, the theory says, because doing so doesn’t cost them anything. If government imposes a cost, companies and individuals will seek alternatives — they will try to reduce or eliminate their emissions in order to reduce their costs.

The Liberal Party is the prime defender of this approach. The cornerstone of its election program is the “Green Shift Plan,” which they say will “shift Canada’s tax system away from income and towards pollution.” They promise to phase in a $40 per tonne tax on greenhouse gas emissions over four years, and to reduce corporate and personal income taxes by an equivalent amount. As a result, businesses will be “encouraged to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases they emit into the atmosphere,” while consumers will be motivated to insulate their homes and find other ways to make less use of fossil fuels.

The Liberals say they will begin the tax shift immediately. They also promise an emissions trading scheme for corporations, including caps on emissions — but say it “will take several years to build.”

The New Democratic Party argues, correctly, that the main effect of the Liberal tax plan will be higher prices for working people. Instead, the NDP wants to launch a cap-and-trade program quickly. They have provided few details about their program, but they have made positive statements about the Western Climate Initiative, under which several provinces and U.S. states propose to regulate emissions while allowing corporations to continue polluting by purchasing emissions credits from the government, other corporations or Third World countries.

The NDP website says its plan is “in line with” a similar scheme implemented in Europe. It is silent on the fact that the European system has produced windfall profits for energy companies while having no effect at all on emissions.

The Green Party and Bloc Québécois propose variants on the two main themes. The Greens want a cap-and-trade program for large corporations, combined with a shift from income taxes to carbon taxes for consumers. The Bloc favours cap-and-trade, organized on a province-by-province basis.

Will market solutions work?

There is much more than this to each party’s program, and each party promises a different set of reforms and subsidies. But underneath those variations in style and detail, the opposition parties are united in seeking to use capitalist methods to solve a problem that is inherent in capitalism. “Putting a price on carbon” — directly through taxes or indirectly through a cap-and-trade scheme — means depending on the magic of the market to reduce emissions.

At best, that’s wishful thinking.

Consumers can only make significant emissions cuts if affordable low-emission alternatives are actually available, which they are not. In practice, the main effect of pricing carbon (directly through a tax or indirectly through emissions trading and regulations) will be to increase the prices of essential products for which there are no alternatives — especially food, transportation and housing. Workers and farmers, already hit by declining real incomes, will have to tighten their belts until those magical new products arrive, if they ever do.

As for corporate polluters, it’s hard to believe that anyone who follows the business news can still claim that markets and “price signals” are an efficient way to get good results....

The plans proposed by Canadian political parties all rely on self-reporting by the polluters, for whom lying is often the lowest-cost option. Even if they are caught, investigations, trials and appeals can win them years of delays....

Cutting wages. The tried and tested corporate method of dealing with higher costs is to shift the burden onto workers, directly through pay cuts and longer hours, or indirectly by outsourcing work to countries where wages are lower.

Gaming the system. Every corporation employs teams of lawyers and accountants to figure out how to get around regulations and avoid paying taxes. These scam artists are undoubtedly already working on legal ways to minimize the impact of any emissions policy — without actually reducing emissions, of course.

Passing the costs on to consumers. If the increased costs imposed by carbon taxes or trading can’t be evaded, corporations will increase prices. The only barrier to such increases is competition, and the biggest polluters have very few competitors.

Shifting investments elsewhere. Capitalists don’t just need profits — they need a rate of profit that matches or exceeds the rate they can make elsewhere. If the carbon rules cut into their profits, they will move their money elsewhere, to other industries or other countries. If that happens, just watch how fast the politicians back down!

In short, big industry will do everything in its power to block or minimize any restrictions on business-as-usual — and they will do their utmost to avoid or delay complying with laws that do get passed. Pro-capitalist economic models never take those factors into account.

But that isn’t the biggest problem with the programs of the opposition parties.

Even if their programs are implemented exactly as proposed, and even if there is 100% compliance, and even if the regulations and “price signals” produce the promised results, emissions will not come down fast enough to head off dangerous climate changes....

Declare a climate emergency!

...A government that really wanted to deal with climate change would declare a Climate Emergency. It would learn from the experience of World War II, when Ottawa forced through a radical transformation of the entire economy in a few months, with no lost jobs or pay cuts.

Internationally, it would campaign for a tough global climate treaty with teeth, focusing on cutting rich industrial nations’ emissions and transferring clean technology to the Global South.

Regardless of what happens in international negotiations, Canada must unilaterally adopt a goal of a 60% overall emissions reduction by 2020, and a 90% reduction by 2030. Those reductions can be achieved through government measures such as these:

• Set hard, rapidly declining ceilings on emissions produced by the largest companies. Expropriate any company that doesn’t comply.

• Put all power industries under public ownership and democratic control. Begin phasing out coal-fired plants immediately and stop building new ones. Invest heavily in non-fossil fuel sources such as solar, wind, tidal and geothermal.

• Stop all new development in the Tar Sands and rapidly phase out existing operations, including restoring of the land as closely as possible to its previous condition.

• Redirect all military spending and the federal budget surplus into public energy-saving projects such as expanding mass transit and retrofitting homes and office buildings. Former tar sands workers and redeployed soldiers can play key roles in this effort.

• Retool auto plants to focus on building mass transit, wind turbines and other green technologies.

• Expand and upgrade transit systems so that all urban residents can use them easily. Make all public transit free.

The climate crisis will not respond to modest goals and incremental tinkering — what’s needed are emergency measures to drive current greenhouse gas emissions towards zero as rapidly as possible. Unfortunately, in this election, modest goals and incremental tinkering are the best that Canadian politicians are offering. There is no sign that any party recognizes how serious the problem actually is, let alone that emergency action is needed.



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
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posted 21 September 2008 09:09 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The NDP website says its plan is “in line with” a similar scheme implemented in Europe. It is silent on the fact that the European system has produced windfall profits for energy companies while having no effect at all on emissions

The NDP is not silent about it, nor are European leaders silent about a one percent increase in European CO2 emissions. European cap and trade wasn't expected to reduce emissions this much during setup phase. It's taken years to setup, and it is realized now that there were too many permits issued. A U.S. cap and trade scheme is expected to work even sooner because more data exists about the state of U.S. industries in general, or so it is claimed.

Fred Krupp(Environmental Defense Fund) said no air pollution problem in the world has ever been solved by a tax. Legal limits are needed and for governments to enforce them. Political will to enforce the law is another thing altogether.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 22 September 2008 06:29 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
It’s hard to see what evidence there is to support this new found enthusiasm for emissions trading. The biggest experiment in the field so far, the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), has yet to show any evidence of seriously tackling the problem of climate change. With the second phase due to start in 2008, carbon emissions aren’t going down, industries aren’t switching to clean energy technology and, so far, the scheme’s guiding principles seem to have been “polluter profits” rather than “polluter pays”.

The lack of discernible results to date lead to the conclusion that the ETS has been designed on the basis of its ideological compatibility with the free market rather than for its effectiveness in achieving urgently needed cuts in carbon emissions….

The first phase has been a disaster. One of the main problems of the scheme is that every stage of its design and implementation has been subjected to intensive industry lobbying….

Under sustained corporate lobbying, almost all EU governments made huge over allocations of permits to industry in the first phase. In 2005, the first year of trading, the relevant industries across Europe emitted 66 million tonnes less than the cap that had been allocated. This meant that the cap was effectively meaningless as it had not forced any net reductions. A preliminary analysis of the 2006 data shows that 93% of the 10,000 installations covered by the ETS emitted less than their allotted quota — in all, 30 million tonnes less than the total EU-wide allocation.

Successful corporate lobbying also meant that permits were allocated free of charge to industry in the first phase. But companies have been passing on the “cost” to consumers anyway. A study by UPS Investment showed that the first round of the ETS has added 1.3 euro cents to each kilowatt hour of electricity sold. This sounds negligible until you consider that the German minister for the environment estimated that the four biggest power providers in the EU — Eon, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW — had profited between AU$14.4 billion and $19.2 billion from passing on the imaginary cost of the first phase of the ETS onto consumers….

Yet free allocations to fossil-fuel-intensive industries continue — providing a huge subsidy to the heaviest polluters. In “Implications of announced Phase 2 National Allocation Plans” from the journal Climate Policy, Dr. Karsten Neuhoff (from the Cambridge University faculty of economics) and his co-authors conclude that “the level of such subsidies under proposed second phase NAP is so high that the construction of coal power stations is more profitable under the ETS with such distorted allocation decisions than in the absence of the ETS”….

This enormous sum of money generated by these Kyoto-style trading schemes has not gone to the companies and communities that are taking action on clean energy and energy reduction projects. Rather, it is going to big, industrial polluters, which are then at liberty to reinvest the profits into the expansion of their operations….

As far back as 1991, there were plans proposed for an EU-wide carbon tax, but the lack of political support and the vogue for all things market-related meant that they were stifled. However, in February 2007, a study by economist Robert Shapiro, who was undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton administration, stated that carbon taxes are “much less vulnerable to evasion and market manipulation” than cap-and-trade systems.

Whereas carbon taxes provide “a more stable and transparent system for consumers and industry alike”, cap and trade systems are “much more complex to administer” and “produce much greater volatility in energy and energy-related prices”.

Across the world, other economists and political scientists are coming to similar conclusions….


[Kevin Smith is a researcher with Carbon Trade Watch.]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 22 September 2008 08:08 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I believe European CO2 emissions are said to have risen 1% over 1990 levels during the course of last year.

How much have Canada's CO2 emissions risen since 1993? Canada's Record(pdf)

And, what reason do we have to trust the Liberals? Liberals did a wonderful job of shovelling money to rich people and corporations over twelve years while CO2 emissions went through the roof.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 23 September 2008 04:06 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
And, what reason do we have to trust the Liberals?

None, but unless I missed something, no one in this thread said otherwise.

I generally agree with the articles posted by M Spector suggesting no party is willing to promote the kind of changes necessary to deal with the climate crisis. I think this speaks more to the nature of our political system than the specific parties participating in it though, the magnitude of change required is revolutionary, not incremental; if it is to be achieved at all it won't be through electoral politics.


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 23 September 2008 07:30 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The National Center for Public Policy Research is handing out "emissions credits" printed on toilet paper at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Montreal today, to symbolize the failure of the Kyoto Protocol and the futility of emissions trading schemes.

Under the European Union's "CO2 Emissions Trading Scheme," companies are allotted credits that allow them to emit a fixed amount of carbon dioxide. Companies that reduce their carbon dioxide output, and thus don't use all of their credits, can sell them to companies who are exceeding their C02 allotments.

As the flawed Kyoto treaty is all but dead, emissions credits aren't likely to be of any value in the future.

"Emissions credits aren't worth the paper they're printed on," said David Ridenour, Vice President of The National Center, "Unless, of course, that paper happens to be toilet paper." - December 2005



quote:
Despite all the favourable publicity being given to carbon trading, the European Commission reported that emissions from the major industrial users throughout the European Union actually rose by 1 to 1.5 percent in 2006. The “commitment” made by the EU leaders to cut emissions by 20 percent by 2020 is empty rhetoric.

In 2005, two markets came into operation that followed from the agreement to cut greenhouse gases made by most of the world’s nations—barring the United States and Australia—at the Kyoto climate summit of 1997. One is the European Emissions-Trading Scheme (ETS) organised by the European Union; the other is the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).

The EU worked out the maximum number of tonnes of carbon dioxide that each of member states should produce. On this basis, each country gave out carbon credits or allowances to all its major corporations and organisations, ostensibly equivalent to the amount of emissions each would produce. Any company producing fewer emissions than its agreed-upon quota could sell some of its allocated credits on the market, supposedly a financial incentive to find ways of reducing emissions.

Given the pressure from industry, it was hardly surprising that the European Commission “miscalculated” and gave out too many credits. However, it took until the beginning of 2006 for this to be realised and for the price of carbon allowances to collapse. Before this happened, many corporations were able to sell credits and enjoy a free handout.

According to reports in the Guardian (June 2), the six UK electricity-generating companies “stood to earn some £800m in each of the three years of the scheme” and UK oil companies “were also poised to make a lot of free money: £10.2m for Esso, £17.9m for BP and £20.7m for Shell.” How much European companies actually gained has not been made public, but the effect has certainly been to encourage widespread corporate enthusiasm for carbon trading. - Source


quote:
It turns out that a quick review indicates that real EU-25 CO2 emissions have increased more than the US since, say, 2000, by a third as much (133.1%) in fact.

If my numbers are right, that means +177.7 MMT for the EU-25 in 2005 Cf. 2000, as compared to the US's +133.5 MMT 2005 over 2000, per the Energy Information Administration numbers (I have only just done this and do not know how it holds for older baselines, e.g., 1997 being the only potentially relevant year).

And oh, dear, even without the EU-10, the EU-15, "Old Europe" – a smaller economy than the US's – increased emissions by 161.67 MMT to the US's 133.5 over the same period; that is our climate hectors have increased real emissions more than the US’s, in real terms, by 21%.

So there is no need to rely on the "in percentage terms" qualifier when noting that Europe's emissions have risen faster than the US's (as Kyoto defines Europe). Instead, it appears that Europe's emissions (as Kyoto defines Europe, and certainly as Europe defines Europe, including for these purposes) have not only increased much faster than the US's but also that the EU has increased CO2 emissions much more than the US. - Source



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 23 September 2008 11:26 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by It's Me D:

None, but unless I missed something, no one in this thread said otherwise.

I generally agree with the articles posted by M Spector suggesting no party is willing to promote the kind of changes necessary to deal with the climate crisis.


I think that's true of the only two political parties who've ruled from Ottawa for the past 140 consecutive years in a row. I based my opinion on their records as the government of Canada.

I can't say that I know exactly what the NDP record on the environment will be until they've actually governed for a number of years. But I do know that the NDP is a Canaidan political party advocating environmentally friendly policies for the longest period of time. They've called for higher taxes and royalties on oil and gas exports for decades, long before the Liberals most recent twelve year stint in Ottawa when greenhouse gas emissions soared as Chretien-Martin, Manley, and Dion sold our environment to Exxon-Imperial and friends in the fossil fuel business.

So, no, the attempt here to equate the NDP with those two old line parties and their established records on the environment doesn't make a lot of sense.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 24 September 2008 04:54 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I think that's true of the only two political parties who've ruled from Ottawa for the past 140 consecutive years in a row. I based my opinion on their records as the government of Canada.

I can't say that I know exactly what the NDP record on the environment will be until they've actually governed for a number of years. But I do know that the NDP is a Canaidan political party advocating environmentally friendly policies for the longest period of time. They've called for higher taxes and royalties on oil and gas exports for decades, long before the Liberals most recent twelve year stint in Ottawa when greenhouse gas emissions soared as Chretien-Martin, Manley, and Dion sold our environment to Exxon-Imperial and friends in the fossil fuel business.

So, no, the attempt here to equate the NDP with those two old line parties and their established records on the environment doesn't make a lot of sense.


Fidel seriously, take it easy In comparison to the two old line parties the NDP is light years ahead; I agree they are the only party in Canadian politics that is serious about the environment.

It is in comparison with the reality of what needs to be done to save the world that the NDP comes up short; it has to, it is competing in the arena of electoral politics in Canada! The change that is really needed is on a magnitude that the NDP cannot dare to contemplate.

A platform to save the world would need to go something like this: end private ownership and ban cars, spend many trillions of dollars (seriously) on railways, require all communities to derive ALL the goods needed by their citizens within 100 KM (requiring massive investment), etc etc. The attendant social changes would be enormous and revolutionary, they would require at least the level of force that Lenin's revolution required because few would willingly do what needs to be done.

The NDP cannot, and should not call for this but this is what needs to be done to save the world; in comparison to this sort of action plan the NDP DOES look like the other electoral parties, if it wants to win seats then that isn't a bad thing!

As you are so found of saying: Capitalism or a habitable planet, we can't have both... The NDP HAS TO promise both.


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 24 September 2008 05:25 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
they are the only party in Canadian politics that is serious about the environment.

Which is to say there is no party in Canada serious about the environment which is really too bad because what is serious is how badly were fucked if the news released over the last two days is any indicator.


quote:
Capitalism or a habitable planet, we can't have both... The NDP HAS TO promise both.

You mean lie? Why not if power is the goal, I guess.

From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 24 September 2008 06:38 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by It's Me D:
The NDP cannot, and should not call for this but this is what needs to be done to save the world...
So who will call for saving the world? Please tell me so I can vote for them.

Do you not agree that the world needs to be saved? Do you not agree that it is probably already too late anyway, so waiting for someone to step up to the plate in the distant future is essentially to surrender to the destruction of the planet?


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 24 September 2008 06:55 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Which is to say there is no party in Canada serious about the environment which is really too bad because what is serious is how badly were fucked if the news released over the last two days is any indicator.

quote:
So who will call for saving the world? Please tell me so I can vote for them.

Do you not agree that the world needs to be saved? Do you not agree that it is probably already too late anyway, so waiting for someone to step up to the plate in the distant future is essentially to surrender to the destruction of the planet?



I thought I had made this clear already but to reiterate in the interest of clarity:

I believe that if the world can be saved from the environmental disasters of our own making it will not be through electoral politics. I believe that this system is incapable of offering the magnitude of change that is necessary. I have gotten the impression in the past that FM agrees with me on this but I'm not always sure

So in answer to your question as to who you should vote for to save the world Spector my answer is that it isn't that easy; there is not and will never be such a choice on the electoral ticket. That doesn't mean saving the world is impossible but it does mean that it isn't easy: revolutionary action is required.

Do I see such a revolution as likely to happen? Yes. Will it happen in time to save the world? Maybe not, but if we make this the focus of our efforts then maybe so.

Since this is the ecosocialism thread I figured the ideas I have stated here would be welcome; if even here they are seen as beyond the pale then maybe it is already too late

All that said, if you are going to vote in this federal election I think you should consider the NDP as they offer the most for the environment; not enough to save the world, but more than the other electoral options. Sorry if this last enrages you FM


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 24 September 2008 07:15 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Don't you think it's time somebody injected this sense of urgency into the electoral system - particularly during an election when a lot of people are paying attention? Instead of rearranging the deck chairs, shouldn't one of the deck hands be pointing to the bow and yelling "Iceberg"?

With the fate of the planet in the balance, what sense does it make to say of the NDP - or any other party - that they "cannot, and should not call for this". If the solution is political, it should be part of what passes for politics in this country.

I agree that a social and economic revolution, with the consent and participation of the vast majority of the population, is what is needed, but who is going to popularize those ideas and in what forum? Is there really any alternative to putting ecosocialism on the political agenda in this election?


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 24 September 2008 07:44 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
if you are going to vote in this federal election I think you should consider the NDP as they offer the most for the environment; not enough to save the world, but more than the other electoral options

Is voting NDP like offering a starving man a marshmallow? "It's light, it has no nutrition, and it will only aggravate the hunger pains, but, HEY! It's something."

If that's your solution why vote at all?


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 24 September 2008 07:53 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I agree that a social and economic revolution, with the consent and participation of the vast majority of the population, is what is needed, but who is going to popularize those ideas and in what forum? Is there really any alternative to putting ecosocialism on the political agenda in this election?

That is just the point, the consent is not there and there isn't time to "popularize those ideas"; the whole system is designed to keep this from happening, at the rate we are going the world will be long over by the time we start working to save it and that isn't good enough. You have to choices, to play the old game that you know if rigged against you so that you cannot win, or to start a new one, with new rules, that you can win.

quote:
With the fate of the planet in the balance, what sense does it make to say of the NDP - or any other party - that they "cannot, and should not call for this". If the solution is political, it should be part of what passes for politics in this country.

With the fate of the planet in the balance what sense does it make to say that we should put our hopes in the old game of electoral politics which we know very well to be incapable of saving said planet?

The NDP could adopt the necessary platform sure, they'd be rewarded for such a bold move with electoral oblivian of the sort which is currently reserved for the Communist Party. Try and push the NDP in that direction all you want, if you succeed you'll just doom them at the polls and change will be even further away. Its a no win game.


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 24 September 2008 07:55 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Is voting NDP like offering a starving man a marshmallow? "It's light, it has no nutrition, and it will only aggravate the hunger pains, but, HEY! It's something."

If that's your solution why vote at all?


You have become so obsessed with partisan bashing The NDP is no solution in my view, I have said it multiple times in this thread alone:

THE SOLUTION WILL NOT BE ACHEIVED BY VOTING

That is as clear as I can make it FM, if you still don't understand what I am saying then I cannot help you.


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
ElizaQ
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posted 24 September 2008 08:07 AM      Profile for ElizaQ     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by It's Me D:
That is as clear as I can make it FM, if you still don't understand what I am saying then I cannot help you.

I'm with you on this It's me D and I think I understand what you are saying. I was involved in electoral politics at one time until I realized that depending on that to 'Save Us' was not a good place to spend all my energy. I don't think any party has policies or and outlook that will save us. It's a matter of which is the best to at least help a little. The changes needed aren't going to be done from the top down, at least not quickly enough, the old ways are too engrained in the system and fighting to get them into any party consciousness is an uphill battle.
For me it is a matter of where I put my energy and I've chosen the grassroots local level. Will it be enough? Have no idea, but the only think we have right now is hope.
I will vote, but it's with the understanding that in terms of environmental stuff, it's really not going to change much.


From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 24 September 2008 09:25 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by It's Me D:
You have to [sic] choices, to play the old game that you know if [sic] rigged against you so that you cannot win, or to start a new one, with new rules, that you can win.
False dichotomy.

There is no sign of "a new one, with new rules" coming along any time soon, so unless you are a hopeless sectarian, you have to work with what is there. If a "new one, with new rules" is to be started, who is to say it won't arise out of the "old game"?

What if Hugo Chavez had said "I'm not going to play that electoral game" and instead of running for President on a radical platform he had decided to head for the hills and start a new game with new rules? There would today be no prospect of a Bolivarian revolution, the right wing parties would be in full control of Venezuela, and Chavez would be as isolated as the FARC.

I'm not saying revolution can come to Canada through the ballot box. But I am saying that if you are going to play any kind of political game - new or old - you have to be prepared to tell the truth about what is happening and what is to be done. Anything less is a capitulation to reformism.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 24 September 2008 09:31 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
ElizaQ:

quote:
I don't think any party has policies or and outlook that will save us. It's a matter of which is the best to at least help a little. The changes needed aren't going to be done from the top down, at least not quickly enough, the old ways are too engrained in the system and fighting to get them into any party consciousness is an uphill battle.

Very true, especially about the needed changes not coming from the top down; changing party consciousness is hard, changing people's consciousness is hard too. In all cases it is an uphill battle but thankfully that battle does not have to be won before radical action can be taken, it can be won afterwards (and it will be easier to win afterwards as well, if we can remove some of the superstructure that is designed to make the battle to change consciousness so impossible).

quote:
For me it is a matter of where I put my energy and I've chosen the grassroots local level. Will it be enough? Have no idea, but the only think we have right now is hope.

Well said, hope is all we have; however I haven't given up hope, I have just awakened to the fact that hope will not be found in electoral politics. People still give me reasons to hope

quote:
I will vote, but it's with the understanding that in terms of environmental stuff, it's really not going to change much.

I feel the same way, it is sad but we are given a chance to vote so I won't waste it, even though in the big picture it doesn't seem to mater.

[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 24 September 2008 09:38 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Spector:

quote:
What if Hugo Chavez had said "I'm not going to play that electoral game" and instead of running for President on a radical platform he had decided to head for the hills and start a new game with new rules? There would today be no prospect of a Bolivarian revolution, the right wing parties would be in full control of Venezuela, and Chavez would be as isolated as the FARC.

Chavez didn't play by the rules himself; he tried a number of unorthodox strategies to build the Bolivarian Revolution and did not, to my knowledge, feel that he had to participate in the existing political system to build his revolution. Chavez did work to create a new game, bringing the masses to the forefront in a way they hadn't been before. He appealed directly to the people and bypassed the gatekeepers of electoral politics. Then he got into power and changed the game; now it is possible for the Revolution to win.

quote:
I'm not saying revolution can come to Canada through the ballot box. But I am saying that if you are going to play any kind of political game - new or old - you have to be prepared to tell the truth about what is happening and what is to be done. Anything less is a capitulation to reformism.

Tell the truth and the gatekeepers shoot you down; so yes, tell the truth, face the electoral consequences (which will be devastating) and then move on from the old arena to the streets.

Also I'd watch out slinging statements like "capitulation to reformism" around while simultaneously promoting the obsolete electoral theatre of Canadian politics where even reformism is seen as radical; you might end up with egg on your face

[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 24 September 2008 09:47 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
There are huge changes coming to our planet in the very near future. Changes of the sort that will make a lot of people open to a lot of ways of thinking and behaving that at present they don't even consider. Changes of the sort that politicians are going to be scrambling for ways to respond. As things stand now, political parties will all be unprepared to lead anyone towards the necessary solutions - not the least of which is getting rid of capitalism.

It takes more than empty "hope". Those with knowledge and foresight have a responsibility now to make preparations to deal with the coming crises - not just personally but politically. Policies that challenge the rule of capitalism must be advanced and discussed now, while there is still time (assuming there is still time).

Right now, politics in this country is electoral; if you shun that, you are cutting off the only opportuinity available to communicate with the people who are going to have to come to the same understanding you have, if a radical change in society is ever to be accomplished.

It's socialism or barbarism, folks. Right now, my money's on barbarism, 'cause the socialists aren't doing anything while the barbarians are destroying our planet.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 24 September 2008 09:56 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by It's Me D:
Chavez didn't play by the rules himself; he tried a number of unorthodox strategies to build the Bolivarian Revolution and did not, to my knowledge, feel that he had to participate in the existing political system to build his revolution. Chavez did work to create a new game, bringing the masses to the forefront in a way they hadn't been before. He appealed directly to the people and bypassed the gatekeepers of electoral politics. Then he got into power and changed the game; now it is possible for the Revolution to win.
Um, you left out the part where Chavez ran in elections and got elected to power. If that isn't "participating in the existing political system to build his revolution", then nothing is.

If you'd been in Venezuela when Chavez was running for President, would you be standing on the sidelines saying, "we need a revolution, so there's really no point in electoral politics"?

Where is Canada's Chavez? Don't you think we need one? Or do we just keep rearranging the deck chairs?


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 September 2008 10:04 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Venezuela also has an advanced electoral system, MMP, and have had three national referendums since Chavez was elected.

The NDP's motion to restart the study on electoral reform was cancelled by Liberals and Tories both in May of 2007.

Meanwhile Canadians are still stuck with voting "strategically" for the same party who allowed greenhouse gas emissions to soar as they sold the environment to Exxon-Imperial and fossil fuel industry between 1993 and 2006.

The NDP represents real and radical change in Canada compared to what Canadians have become used to over the last 140 consecutive years in a row of the same-old same-old. Liberal, Tory, it's the same same tired old story in Ottawa.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
ElizaQ
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posted 24 September 2008 10:28 AM      Profile for ElizaQ     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
There are huge changes coming to our planet in the very near future. Changes of the sort that will make a lot of people open to a lot of ways of thinking and behaving that at present they don't even consider. Changes of the sort that politicians are going to be scrambling for ways to respond. As things stand now, political parties will all be unprepared to lead anyone towards the necessary solutions - not the least of which is getting rid of capitalism.

It takes more than empty "hope". Those with knowledge and foresight have a responsibility now to make preparations to deal with the coming crises - not just personally but politically. Policies that challenge the rule of capitalism must be advanced and discussed now, while there is still time (assuming there is still time).



I agree for the most part with most of this, but not with your characture that the 'hope' being mentioned is just empty or that preparing personally isn't also preparing politically. For instance me working at organizing community food cooperatives and barter exchange systems within a community as well as working on basic ecological literacy that goes beyond just theory to the practical is personal AND political preparation because it doesn't just include me.

quote:

Right now, politics in this country is electoral; if you shun that, you are cutting off the only opportuinity available to communicate with the people who are going to have to come to the same understanding you have, if a radical change in society is ever to be accomplished.


I wouldn't call it shunning. It's a matter of priority of where to put ones energy. I could spend oodles of time directly involved and 'talking' and theorizing' and 'convincing' or I could spend my time actually creating and setting the foundations both in thought process and in actual physical systems. Things that can provide the evidence beyond just theory of where we need to go if the electoral system gets to the point where they want to do more then just listen.

And it's not cutting off the only group of people that have to come to that understanding. Electoral politics is always and dance between 'the people' and the 'people taking on leadership roles for the people.' If enough of 'the people' don't get it, then they're not going to trust the 'leadership people' either. Same the other way around, in order to get leaders in there that 'get it' they have to have support from people that 'get it'.

quote:

It's socialism or barbarism, folks. Right now, my money's on barbarism, 'cause the socialists aren't doing anything while the barbarians are destroying our planet.[/qb]

I'm not that hopeful that we're going to be able to get through whatever is coming without barbarism and I mean more then just calling the current mindset and people barbarians. It's gonna be rough. I don't doubt that at all. I do believe though that we're going to need as many people on the ground, dealing and creating ways different ways of actually living as we're going to need people at the electoral level. I don't discount the arena at all. It's just not to me, the one and only priority.

[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: ElizaQ ]


From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 24 September 2008 10:57 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Spector:

quote:
Um, you left out the part where Chavez ran in elections and got elected to power.

Right, and you left out everything else which IMV is more important.

quote:
Right now, politics in this country is electoral; if you shun that, you are cutting off the only opportuinity available to communicate with the people who are going to have to come to the same understanding you have, if a radical change in society is ever to be accomplished.

An incredibly limited and counterproductive view of Canadian society and the potential of communication. How can you trust the MSM to get your message across when the message is the antithesis of the power structure that supports them? Eliza replied well to your limited view, it deserves repetition:

quote:
For instance me working at organizing community food cooperatives and barter exchange systems within a community as well as working on basic ecological literacy that goes beyond just theory to the practical is personal AND political preparation because it doesn't just include me.


Eliza:

quote:
I do believe though that we're going to need as many people on the ground, dealing and creating ways different ways of actually living as we're going to need people at the electoral level. I don't discount the arena at all. It's just not to me, the one and only priority.

Well said again although I see the creation of new ways of living as a project for society at large, for the masses; it is a project which has already begun even though it hasn't yet reached the discourse of electoral politics. In some ways the changes in the way regular people live have been forced by increasing costs of living, in others people have begun to change their ways by choice through a conscious realization of what the future holds. All this however is far too little however as the masses do not have the power in this Country that they would need to bring about a new way of life for our whole society. The masses must take that power and I still do not believe that this will be achieved through electoral politics; certainly not by electoral politics alone.

Spector I know you are an admirer of Chavez, I respect him as well, foremost because he is committed to putting the power to save the world in the hands of the masses through a radical transformation of power structures in Venezuela. I do not believe any of our political parties here in Canada have the will to do this, even the NDP; if I'm wrong and the NDP does have this will then they are wise not to make it public as it runs contrary to the entire structure of the arena in which they seek victory.


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 24 September 2008 11:25 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
THE SOLUTION WILL NOT BE ACHEIVED BY VOTING

There is no need to yell.

I suppose what's confusing me, D., is you seem to be speaking from both sides of your mouth although that may be a misperception on my part.

I guess what I hear from you is support for voting NDP on one hand and agreement with me that partisan politics will never solve the problem, on the other. So maybe I am confused.


quote:
Spector I know you are an admirer of Chavez, I respect him as well, foremost because he is committed to putting the power to save the world in the hands of the masses through a radical transformation of power structures in Venezuela. I do not believe any of our political parties here in Canada have the will to do this, even the NDP; if I'm wrong and the NDP does have this will then they are wise not to make it public as it runs contrary to the entire structure of the arena in which they seek victory.

I agree. Chavez was always fairly clear where he was going. The NDP does not represent the sort of change being advanced in Venezuela and other nations to the south.

From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 24 September 2008 12:09 PM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Sorry, didn't mean to yell

quote:
I guess what I hear from you is support for voting NDP on one hand and agreement with me that partisan politics will never solve the problem, on the other. So maybe I am confused.

I suppose that might be confusing; here is my opinion on voting:

We each have a vote (except the young which is shameful), its one of few little tidbits of voice given to the people in this Country (I say voice as opposed to power because voting provides the masses negligible power over our lives and our shared future); still, we have a vote.

Since we have a vote we have to decide how to use it; should it be cast for a political party? should it be spoiled? Should it sit unused? The second and third option are pointless in Canada as no matter how much hand-wringing occurs over low voter turn-out the reason is always presumed to be apathy as opposed to protest; in Canada not voting or spoilling one's ballot is the equivalent of not having a vote. That leaves only one option, voting for a political party.

This is where my earlier statement that I would vote NDP comes in. I am not advocating that others vote NDP, stockholm, fidel and others do plenty of that. I've just decided to cast my vote for the party I see as offering a tiny "marshmellow-like" bit of progress. Will it be enough to save the world? Absolutely not, and I have been unequivocal about that.

I have considered that voting may be seen as my supporting electoral politics but realized that not voting will not be registered as a condemnation of the system either; damned either way.

So yeah, I am voting NDP, I don't think it will solve anything but I ask you; why not vote?

[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]

[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 September 2008 01:38 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

I agree. Chavez was always fairly clear where he was going. The NDP does not represent the sort of change being advanced in Venezuela and other nations to the south.

Great, so all we have to do is achieve Venezuelan levels of grinding poverty after a series of corrupt U.S.-backed oliocracies - elect a socialist leader in protest - have him survive at least two CIA-fomented military coups - and then we can finally tell Exxon-Imperial and friends to shove off.

The problem is, our two stoogeocratic old line parties are still struggling to win even 24% of the eligible vote each. However, they are still able to achieve plutocracy with old line party coalition. As someone's already said, why did Harper even force this election when he has enjoyed full support of the Liberal Party on all of the important conservative votes pushing the rightwing agenda in Ottawa?


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 24 September 2008 03:40 PM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
So yeah, I am voting NDP, I don't think it will solve anything but I ask you; why not vote?

Because it won't solve anything?

I will be voting and I do know, as you do, that it won't solve anything. But it does provide an opportunity to participate in an event of mass futility.

quote:
Great, so all we have to do is achieve Venezuelan levels of grinding poverty after a series of corrupt U.S.-backed oliocracies - elect a socialist leader in protest - have him survive at least two CIA-fomented military coups - and then we can finally tell Exxon-Imperial and friends to shove off.



I got some bad news for you, Fidel. That oil price spike that we saw when gas hit almost $1.50 a liter before settling back to $1.20, is going to push a lot of Canadians into poverty. That financial mess south of the border, it is going to push a lot more North Americans into grinding poverty. And in the meantime, that oil spike is literally starving people in much of the rest of the world where oil above $100 a barrel just isn't affordable and we all eat oil for dinner.

And climate change, once it really sets in, will kill, literally, billions. The perfect storm of energy depletion, climate change, and water scarcity will combine to undermine our carrying capacity for the world's population and North Americans will not be immune from the conseunces.

And that is in large part because for so long as the grinding poverty was restricted to them, we were okay with it. We still are.

Even today, with the writing so clearly on the wall, our choice is more of the same with the inevitable catastrophe rather than changing our ways. In fact, politicians aren't even allowed to talk about lest they lose votes.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 24 September 2008 04:23 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It's very hard to have a discussion when people keep shifting their ground.

I started out by objecting to this statement by It's Me D:

quote:
The NDP cannot, and should not call for this but this is what needs to be done to save the world...[my emphasis - MS]
The "this" he refers to is the kind of radical change necessary to save the world from ecological disaster - i.e., a sort of ecosocialism. I objected because I see no reason why someone who supports such a project, as I do, would oppose having it embraced and put forward before the public by the NDP (or, as it later turned out in the discussion, any electoral political party).

I find it bizarre that people who acknowledge the need for revolutionary action to save the world don't think it should be mentioned in an election campaign by Canada's major party of the left.

Instead of an explanation, I got lectures about the limits of electoralism, as if there were some obvious alternative at this point in time (i.e., on the one hand you have the federal electoral process, and on the other you have....um, nothing, really).

So it seems to me that talking about the obvious limitations of electoral politics ("the system is rigged", "can't play by old rules", "the solution will not be achieved by voting", etc.) is being used as an excuse for complete political inaction. That's what I mean by "shunning" electoral politics.

It's nothing to do with "priorities" because the higher priority is what? Organizing community food cooperatives and barter exchange systems is an admirable endeavour, but it is not making the revolution either. It's not even political action in any kind of sense that builds mass support for social change.

In my opinion, it's nothing short of criminal for people who supposedly are aware of the magnitude of the problem and the impending crises to argue that the NDP should not be putting forward what is unarguably the necessary radical program for the planet's survival.

quote:
Originally posted by It's Me D:
Spector I know you are an admirer of Chavez, I respect him as well, foremost because he is committed to putting the power to save the world in the hands of the masses through a radical transformation of power structures in Venezuela. I do not believe any of our political parties here in Canada have the will to do this, even the NDP; if I'm wrong and the NDP does have this will then they are wise not to make it public as it runs contrary to the entire structure of the arena in which they seek victory.
There you have it in a nutshell - abject capitulation to reformism, the exact opposite of what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela. He saw beyond the limitations of the electoral arena and was not afraid to put forward a radical project before the voters of Venezuela that would show them the way to transcend mere electoralism and begin to make real changes in society.

[ 24 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 September 2008 04:31 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In Canada, the income distribution of the real middle class support base sits somewhere between 88th and 92nd percentiles, according to Jim Stanford. Once they start feeling the pinch, the two old line party plutocracy is in trouble, even with "first past the post." They're already hurting for phony majorities and reduced to coalition power sharing in Ottawa. Right now the oligarchs and their political hirelings are trying to figure out how they can convince a petty bourgeois middle class support base to accept reduced standards of living while maintaining grips on power in Ottawa and Washington.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 24 September 2008 04:35 PM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
In my opinion, it's nothing short of criminal for people who supposedly are aware of the magnitude of the problem and the impending crises to argue that the NDP should not be putting forward what is unarguably the necessary radical program for the planet's survival

I hope you're not including me in that rant because I really wish they would put it forward. But they won't! If they did, I would not only vote for them, I would give them money and devote my time to their efforts.

But the NDP talks from both sides of its body. From its head it talks about a real need to address climate change and from its arse it blows hot air about bringing down gas prices to benefit all the assholes in hummers, F-150's and SUVs.

Instead of talking about a radical program, it instead wastes breath on an industry, market solution that is not at all a solution.

People will not accept a radical agenda unless they appreciate the weight of the problem and no one but scientists, sporadically reported, are sounding the alarm. The NDP is still obsessed with 1970s consumerist politics: An industry farmed chicken in every non-stick pot and three cars in every driveway.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 24 September 2008 07:01 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What a crock! If we'd listened to the NDP in the 1980's, we wouldn't be dealing with the Liberals' having given away our environment to Exxon-Imperial and friends today.

Both the Ontario NDP and federal NDP have laid out plans for green economy and sustainable energy that make the two old line parties appear to be still thinking in terms of 1950's level consumption and expansion, even though their dwindling electoral support has dropped off from cold war era levels.

What you people really mean to say is, after 140 years worth of Liberal and Tory rule in Ottawa, 85% percent Canada's our oil and oil byproducts will be coming from dirty-filthy tar sands extraction in just a few years' time.

If world-wide levels of conumption were made fair and equal, then Canadians' consumption levels would have to drop by something like 75% while those in desperately poor countries rise to bare subsistence levels.

That's a non-starter for any political party in Canada. We don't have the infrastructure or the planning setup to switch to a dynamic and constantly modernizing green economy. A large part of our GDP is energy and fossil fuel exports to the U.S., which will increasingly include dirty tar sands oil. We'll also run out of conventional natural gas reserves sometime early next decade. All those big homes built during the bubble years will become very expensive to heat and maintain. Change is coming and along with it, changes to the political landscape in this country. If the two old line parties are finding it difficult now to win phony-majority rule, what will it be like in 2012 or 2016? Change is coming either way.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 25 September 2008 04:58 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I find it bizarre that people who acknowledge the need for revolutionary action to save the world don't think it should be mentioned in an election campaign by Canada's major party of the left.

I've said several times that the NDP can adopt an ecosocialist platform if it has the will to do so, I have also called that will into question AND yes, I have also stated the obvious electoral consequences of taking that position: oblivion. Since I do not suggest that real solutions will arise from the electoral arena I wouldn't be bothered by the NDP being wiped from the scene, perhaps then it could be refashioned into a real force for change; however if the NDP wishes to succeed in Canadian electoral politics it is as I said: it cannot, and should not, adopt an ecosocialist platform. If the NDP takes power and introduces the sort of reforms of the political system which Chavez has instituted in Venezuela then it can then adopt such a platform without it being a totally self-defeating move. There is no inconsistency in my position on this despite your desperate efforts to paint such into my comments.

quote:
Instead of an explanation, I got lectures about the limits of electoralism, as if there were some obvious alternative at this point in time (i.e., on the one hand you have the federal electoral process, and on the other you have....um, nothing, really).

quote:
It's [everything but voting] not even political action in any kind of sense that builds mass support for social change.

No alternative to electoral politics? Are you sure you are a socialist at all Be my guest, put your all into electoral politics; slam your head repetitively into that wall. For those of us who do acknowledge the magnitude of the problem and of the necessary solution and would like to make some progress as opposed to achieving nothing and feeling we've done our part (hey, we voted NDP, don't blame us!) there are plenty of alternatives. Working with groups at the community level, with municipalities who remain the most participatory level of government; building consciousness and will amongst the people, making concrete steps towards the future we need to see; preparing for a non-electoral takeover of power (which isn't something I am allowed to elaborate on here on Babble I believe). I agree government commitment is needed, I am not putting the onus on the individual (and I heard a great interview on this subject with Mr Monbiot last evening); however government commitment is not going to be achieved under the status quo, power must be taken by the people for that to happen.

quote:
In my opinion, it's nothing short of criminal for people who supposedly are aware of the magnitude of the problem and the impending crises to argue that the NDP should not be putting forward what is unarguably the necessary radical program for the planet's survival.

In my opinion it is nothing short of criminal for people who supposedly are aware of the magnitude of the problem and the impending crises to assert that all we can do is vote for one of the electoral parties and then sit on our hands waiting to be saved. Its downright disgusting to see such a "capitulation to reformism" on your part.

quote:
There you have it in a nutshell - abject capitulation to reformism

One of the two of us supports the status quo of electoral politics and it isn't me. Anyone reading the thread can see for themselves who is promoting the strategy of capitulation so stop misrepresenting me without any evidence.

On a lighter note all this calling each other out for "capitulation to reformism" is making me nostalgic for the old days. Leftist discussion always goes this way, no matter how close our views are relative to the rest of the population when you put two leftists in a room they'll inevitably find a way to disagree with enough passion to start up a two-person sectarian conflict. Although if we WERE in one room I am sure we'd get along much better; a joint would also help defuse the conflict


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
ElizaQ
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posted 25 September 2008 06:28 AM      Profile for ElizaQ     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
[QB]It's very hard to have a discussion when people keep shifting their ground.

I find it bizarre that people who acknowledge the need for revolutionary action to save the world don't think it should be mentioned in an election campaign by Canada's major party of the left.



By people I'm going it assume you mean more then ItsmeD. I didn't say anything along those lines.
Here's a question. Have you been working with the NDP to get this expressed. To change it in this direction. If so, how is that work going?
I think it wouldn't be wonderful if they would talk about it. Wish they would. Don't see it happening though at least not this election, it's to late for that.

quote:

Instead of an explanation, I got lectures about the limits of electoralism, as if there were some obvious alternative at this point in time (i.e., on the one hand you have the federal electoral process, and on the other you have....um, nothing, really).


No not lectures, just some attempts at explanation. That you don't see some of the alternatives given as anything important doesn't mean they are nothing.

quote:

So it seems to me that talking about the obvious limitations of electoral politics ("the system is rigged", "can't play by old rules", "the solution will not be achieved by voting", etc.) is being used as an excuse for complete political inaction. That's what I mean by "shunning" electoral politics.

It's nothing to do with "priorities" because the higher priority is what? Organizing community food cooperatives and barter exchange systems is an admirable endeavour, but it is not making the revolution either. It's not even political action in any kind of sense that builds mass support for social change.



Really? You're really sure about that? First off on a purely base level, working at ensuring people actually have food to eat and will continue having good access to food IS a priority. Our food system is in trouble with some of the things that are potentially coming down the line eating and getting reasonably priced food to people is going to be important. We have to start seriously looking at it now and set the foundations to deal with what is likely coming. The change in this realm does not happen over night. You can't just wake up one day and go, 'oh damn, food' let's change.

The way that we eat and how it's produced, the base systems, are political. It's also something that can get to the masses because everyone eats. It's one thing that all people have in common. When people start really looking into what they eat and where it comes from, it's probably one of the most politicizing issues that I've ever come across. Start by talking about a tomato and you can take people almost anywhere in the political realm that you want to go. Want to talk on a meta level about imperialism, capitalism or widespread ecological issues with people that in most other cases would never even broach the subject or see the connection to their daily lives? Start with the beans and bananas from south America they buy in the store. I've been working at consciousness raising in many different mileus for almost twenty years now and I wish I figured out the food connection a heck of lot sooner.

Take a look at the growing awareness about 'local' food. Is it at the mass level yet? No, but it sure is growing like crazy, both in urban mileus and rural ones. In my area the demand actually outweighs the supply right now. The farmers market pretty much sell out each week and in talking to the people that actually grow the produce they say that they don't actually have enough in the ground to meet the desire.

Food cooperatives may be a simplistic term because it's about much more then that. It's not only about organizing a space for the food to come to but about working at supporting a more localized economy, the establishment of new smaller scale growers, working with established farmers in creative ways, dealing with general food and health policies and bylaws at the municipal level on up to the Federal, establishing systems to get good healthy food to people at lower income levels, teaching people the skills to grow their own food, dealing with local environmental issues, ecological building and production, establishing community seed banks, establishing community currencies and exchange systems, dealing with transportation issues, community cooking and foodsaving programs, the best being where seniors who have these old skills teach younger people and on and on. Through all of this 'politics' is at it's core and it does change how people operate and think about their most basic of daily lives.

I can see how all of this awareness is building part of a base for a jump when the crunch comes.
Is it the whole solution? No of course not, but changing how we eat, produce and supply our food is going to be part of the social change needed. It's one of our most basic necessities of life.


From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 25 September 2008 06:52 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Very well said ElizaQ, there is lots we can do that is more significant than just voting NDP and waiting for the Party to save the day. Local consumption planning is starting to become mainstream in small town Nova Scotia; if citizens, municipal politicians, and adminstrators keep working for it we may have a sustainable alternative to our current consumption patterns ready to go when/if the political will for such ever surfaces at the Federal level. I too am curious how Spector is doing with building that will in Federal politics; I hope he's having more success than is apparent as an observer anyway
From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 25 September 2008 06:58 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Even if the goal is an ecosocialist society, we must remember that this is not relevant during the initial stage, because people do not usually lend their support to what they construe as abstractions, but rather mobilise behind real changes in their everyday life. Therefore it is important to support concrete demands from the public which go against the capitalist logic. Political parties do not necessarily have to be the driving force, but people who put forth concrete demands from their own experience.

We cannot mobilise people for an ecosocialist revolution now, but instead we begin with making concrete and direct demands to those in charge in order to decrease global warming. For instance, if a government does not support international climate treaties, the first priority is to remove the government since it ignores climate science, and replace it with one that does not, even if it is a bourgeois one.

In Australia, mobilisation from the people achieved exactly that. Through demonstrations, gathering upwards of 150 000 people, the Liberal government, who had not signed the Kyoto treaty, was replaced. This represented progress even though the replacement was a right-wing Labor government.

We must hence fight for concrete local demands, as in Ecuador where the indigenous people stopped oil companies pumping up the oil, or like the Parisians demanding free public transportation, or peasants in Brazil fighting deforestation of the rain forest. All such demands are important and must be supported. With every victory we have to put forth new demands in a dynamic process, which increasingly challenges the capitalist logic.


Michael Löwy

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
ElizaQ
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posted 25 September 2008 07:28 AM      Profile for ElizaQ     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Umm.. M.Spector that article pretty much supports everything I've been saying.

" Even if the goal is an ecosocialist society, we must remember that this is not relevant during the initial stage, because people do not usually lend their support to what they construe as abstractions, but rather mobilise behind real changes in their everyday life. Therefore it is important to support concrete demands from the public which go against the capitalist logic. Political parties do not necessarily have to be the driving force, but people who put forth concrete demands from their own experience."

Yep pretty much what I work on. Setting up the personal experience and the demand at higher levels follows.


From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 25 September 2008 07:56 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Like I said before, my objection is to this thesis, put forward by It's Me D:
quote:
The NDP cannot, and should not call for this but this is what needs to be done to save the world...
That's completely incompatible with what Michael Löwy is saying.

I still haven't seen you disagree with It's Me D on that point.


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
ElizaQ
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posted 25 September 2008 08:33 AM      Profile for ElizaQ     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
Like I said before, my objection is to this thesis, put forward by It's Me D: That's completely incompatible with what Michael Löwy is saying.

I still haven't seen you disagree with It's Me D on that point.


I haven't disagreed because overall I see her point as being pretty similar to Lowy's. She's put a lot more context behind that quote. If the current NDP was to suddenly take on an ecosocialist mandate, it would be wiped out. It doesn't have the populist backing.
That doesn't discount some of the environmental things it is pushing for and something is better then nothing. It's a start.

quote:
Even if the goal is an ecosocialist society, we must remember that this is not relevant during the initial stage, because people do not usually lend their support to what they construe as abstractions, but rather mobilise behind real changes in their everyday life. Therefore it is important to support concrete demands from the public which go against the capitalist logic. Political parties do not necessarily have to be the driving force, but people who put forth concrete demands from their own experience.

We cannot mobilise people for an ecosocialist revolution now, but instead we begin with making concrete and direct demands to those in charge in order to decrease global warming. For instance, if a government does not support international climate treaties, the first priority is to remove the government since it ignores climate science, and replace it with one that does not, even if it is a bourgeois one.


Lowy here states quite explictdly that political parties don't have to be the driving force but that the it's the people "from their own experience' that makes the demands on them. If there isn't that 'life experience' to make the demands from then it's only abstract and he states people don't mobilize on abstractions. I totally agree.

What both D and I have been saying is that working on those grassroots 'life experiences' that by nature challenge the in grained systems then there are places where people can make concrete demands on the political parties. The NDP or whomever.
It's not about political disengagement it's about engaging politically on different levels.

It's not going to do one whit of good if the NDP suddenly puts out a complete eco-socialist platform right now because most people won't know what the heck they're talking about and any good that they can do right now is wiped out because they don't get into office.
That doesn't mean though, that as Lowy says, that you don't make concrete demands based on socialist principles in steps.


From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 25 September 2008 09:55 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
ElizaQ can you be my spokesperson? You seem to have a knack for expressing most of what I'm trying to say without being quite so confrontational.

I'm disappointed by Spector's apparent decision to ignore me from now on I generally find him to be one of my favorite babblers to talk too. Election time seems to make everyone here a little crazy though...


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 25 September 2008 11:05 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Löwy said:
quote:
For instance, if a government does not support international climate treaties, the first priority is to remove the government since it ignores climate science, and replace it with one that does not, even if it is a bourgeois one.
Incredibly, ElizaQ said:
quote:
Löwy here states quite explictdly that political parties don't have to be the driving force but that the it's the people "from their own experience' that makes the demands on them. If there isn't that 'life experience' to make the demands from then it's only abstract and he states people don't mobilize on abstractions. I totally agree.
How difficult is it to see that Löwy is saying the first priority is to remove a government that ignores climate science and replace it with one that doesn't? He's talking about electing a different party to power - "even if it is a bourgeois one". He specifically refers to the election of the Labour party in Australia.

By what stretch of the imagination does this imply that "political parties don't have to be the driving force" or that the NDP should not advance an ecosocialist alternative for fear of losing votes?

Löwy is saying the exact opposite! He's talking about what ecosocialists have to do today while we're waiting for the revolution to happen. He's not standing on the sidelines like a sectarian purist, telling us to ignore electoral politics, but showing us how to turn it to our use. Löwy would be the last person to agree with D that "The NDP cannot, and should not call for [ecosocialist solutions]."

Your interpretation is bizarre; but I must say, you are a great spokesperson for It's Me D (who identifies as male, BTW).


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
ElizaQ
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posted 25 September 2008 12:58 PM      Profile for ElizaQ     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by M. Spector:
Löwy said: How difficult is it to see that Löwy is saying the first priority is to remove a government that ignores climate science and replace it with one that doesn't? He's talking about electing a different party to power - "even if it is a bourgeois one". He specifically refers to the election of the Labour party in Australia.

Obviously just as difficult for you to see that he supports what I'm saying as well. I will be voting for the NDP on this very principle. Get the Cons out. As I stated several times now, at least having a party, the NDP, in there means that there is a party that supports climate science and other base environmental issues. It's not an either or thing.

quote:

By what stretch of the imagination does this imply that "political parties don't have to be the driving force"

Um...because he says it. I was using his words.

quote:
Political parties do not necessarily have to be the driving force, but people who put forth concrete demands from their own experience.

We cannot mobilise people for an ecosocialist revolution now, but instead we begin with making concrete and direct demands to those in charge in order to decrease global warming.


He talks about people making demands from their own 'experience' and gives several examples of people working from their experience and making demands. Getting the labour party into power is only one example. He also uses other examples about more local issues:

quote:
We must hence fight for concrete local demands, as in Ecuador where the indigenous people stopped oil companies pumping up the oil, or like the Parisians demanding free public transportation, or peasants in Brazil fighting deforestation of the rain forest. All such demands are important and must be supported.

quote:

Löwy is saying the exact opposite! He's talking about what ecosocialists have to do today while we're waiting for the revolution to happen.

He's not standing on the sidelines like a sectarian purist, telling us to ignore electoral politics, but showing us how to turn it to our use. Löwy would be the last person to agree with D that "The NDP cannot, and should not call for [ecosocialist solutions]."




Neither D or I have suggested ignoring electoral politics altogether nor are we talking about just standing on the sidelines. Far from it.
What we have said is that in order to get electoral politics to the point where it will start adopting eco-socialist principles you have to build a political base on issue or people's life experience where such demands can be made from.

This doesn't mean that it's not important to have people hounding the parties at the policy level to change. It's NOT one or the other. It's just as important for people to be working at other political levels to build the foundations of real physical change at other political levels.

In all those example that Lowry gave there were people active in whatever community building the necessary mass to make the demands at the electoral level. They didn't just pop into existence one day.


I also think its a misinterpretation to say that Lowry is saying what to do while we wait for the revolution. He's talking about how to work towards a revolution. If that's what he is saying then I totally disagree with him on that point. Revolutions just don't happen out of no where. They are built. He says:

quote:
With every victory we have to put forth new demands in a dynamic process, which increasingly challenges the capitalist logic.

That's not waiting for it to happen that's moving towards it happening one victory at a time.

You've still missed the context of D's quote. He isn't discounting that the NDP 'could' adopt the principles you want, just that if they did it all now, like instantly, like this election, that it wouldn't work. Why? Because they don't have enough of a base populous that would support them. They don't have enough people making those 'demands' that Lowry talks about to go entirely eco-socialist. Without that support, the votes, they wouldn't get in. So any good that they can do NOW, with policies that they have in the present, would be for naught.
Do you honestly think that if the NDP came out tomorrow with a completely revamped eco-socialist policy statements that they would be elected?
Realistically, they wouldn't.
That's the only point.


quote:

Your interpretation is bizarre; but I must say, you are a great spokesperson for It's Me D (who identifies as male, BTW).

I apologize for the gender mixup. I didn't know an automatically put she because I have two female friends that go by D. Honest mistake.

We have many issues facing us, most of which are connected with climate change. I think maybe the problem here is that your just discounting the myriad of different things that have to be addressed. That you seem to be dismissing the issue or food and food production as not 'political' enough and just some sort personal thing is actually rather distressing. Our industrial capitalist food system is actually directly connected with our climate and other environmental issues. We go through a lot of oil to get our food. How we live day to day, the houses we live in, the buildings we work in all are connected with climate change. Those things can be dealt both at the upper levels of Federal politics and also down at a community level.

I'm also quite aware that in the situation we are now that we are not going to stop climate change outright. The wheels are in motion. How this effects us remains to be seen. We have to prepare for the change that is coming and one of those major changes is going to be entirely around our food supply. This will entail a lot of social change, not all of which can come just from the top down. Without being able to feed people that really precludes having any real revolution.

I actually look at lot at Cuba and it's example. The changes that it had to go through in it's systems in order to support it's revolution show us a lot. Cuba had to de-industrialize and de-capitalize it's food system rapidly because of outside forces. Overnight access to things like industrial fertilizer, equipment and oil disappeared and there system now largely organic. They are also eons ahead on adapting principles of permaculture to day to day living. It's not perfect but we can learn a lot from how they've managed to do it.

[ 25 September 2008: Message edited by: ElizaQ ]


From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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posted 30 September 2008 04:11 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Trying to implement some sort of Stalinist forced march to sustainability (The patriotic Mr. Stakhanov keeps HIS lights off all the time, be like him...but if you don't the Green Police will break your fingers so you can't turn them on again...) will either fail - or work only in the worst way possible - that is, we're definitely meeting our emissions targets because we collapsed civilization. Sorry, but there's no other effective way to go about this than by convincing a majority of people that things have to change.
From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 30 September 2008 05:00 PM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Really? So people need their fingers broken to obey traffic lights? We need goons to kneecap people who just won't obey any of our nation's laws? If we didn't have brownshirts everyone would be snorting cocaine?

What a stupid argument. Law, not persuasion, is the only effective tool for directing social policy and changing behaviour. That is why we are a nation of laws rather than a nation of persuaded volunteers.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
ElizaQ
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posted 30 September 2008 05:16 PM      Profile for ElizaQ     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:
Trying to implement some sort of Stalinist forced march to sustainability (The patriotic Mr. Stakhanov keeps HIS lights off all the time, be like him...but if you don't the Green Police will break your fingers so you can't turn them on again...) will either fail - or work only in the worst way possible - that is, we're definitely meeting our emissions targets because we collapsed civilization. Sorry, but there's no other effective way to go about this than by convincing a majority of people that things have to change.

Where on earth did that come from? Was somebody in this thread even suggesting such a thing? *scratches head*


From: Eastern Lakes | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
Noah_Scape
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Babbler # 14667

posted 30 September 2008 06:34 PM      Profile for Noah_Scape     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Obviously a vital topic, judging by the number of replies... where else but Babble? - hurray!!

I just have to say that "RENEWABLE ENERGY" represents a serious threat to the capitalist/anti-social people because the act of adding coal every day to a power plant creates an extra layer of profits behind the scene where they make money off the coal supply.

It is a bit like 'the monthly bills' that we pay for heating, for phones, cable TV - things that could just be set up and used for very little cost but instead we allow private corporate groups to make bundles of money off of them.

There is a better way..finding the CHEAPEST way to do things, not the most expensive!!

So, I love the idea of Ecosocialism.

Natural Law - accepting the fact that everything we have originally came from something the earth provided, and the earth has to suck up all we discard including air pollution, especially that most basic element, carbon. The cheapest price is the way to go, but no price at all where a cost in incurred is not right either... carbon taxes are a good thing.

But you all knew that... I just want to say I agree.


From: B.C. | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Publicfinance
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Babbler # 14979

posted 01 October 2008 02:52 PM      Profile for Publicfinance        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Evo Morlaes said at the United Nations:

1. Putting an end to the capitalist system
2. Renouncing wars
3. A world without imperialism or colonialism
4. Right to water
5. Development of clean energies
6. Respect for Mother Earth
7. Basic services such as human rights Treat basic services as human rights
8. Fighting inequalities
9. Promoting diversity of cultures and economies
10. Living well, not living better at the expense of others

Give me a break this guy is a reformed coca farmer. Clean Energy? This countries only source of foreign capital comes form its natural gas resources. LOL putting an end to the capitalist system? And replace it with what, Soviet brand Communism? This clown doesnt even understand no PURE capitalist society even exists, even the US is highly mixed, with plenty of socialist leanings. Who is next to address the UN Robert Mugabe?


From: White rock | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
Publicfinance
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Babbler # 14979

posted 01 October 2008 03:12 PM      Profile for Publicfinance        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Second Ecosocialist Manifesto

“The world is suffering from a fever due to climate change, and the disease is the capitalist development model.” — Evo Morales, president of Bolivia, September 2007

WHAT DOES THIS GUY KNOW? He's a small time coca farmer that won an election in a dirt poor backwater in the middle of nowhere, South America. What does he mean the World is suffering from a fever due to climate change? Whre is the current suffering due directly to Global Warming? The global temperature is up less than 1 degree since 1900. How is his little landlocked republic Bolivia suffering from Global Warming?

His ally and hero is Hugo Chavez who is as bad a so-called climate pirate as there is (by Global Warming theorists definition). Most of his countries wealth is derived from oil exports and he literally GIVES oil away to his citizens so they can drive the hell out of their cars. The last time I looked gas was 3 cents a liter

The last time I was in venezuela the air pollution was awful, traffic terrible and public transit a joke (mostly ancient buses that belched black diesel smoke not unlike a steam engine). I wonder what we'd all be driving around in if gas was 3 cents a liter here. I dont think there would be a single hybrid on the road, let alone a toyota corolla.

"Ecosocialsts" should choose carefully their role models more carefully, Chavez is a big-mouthed, mentally challenged bully that will, in time , run his country into the ground when there aren't any business left to "nationalize"


From: White rock | Registered: Feb 2008  |  IP: Logged
Noah_Scape
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posted 04 October 2008 09:07 PM      Profile for Noah_Scape     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I thought this was a "left-wing" forum? Why are you here? Evo Morales cannot cure the smog in one term in office, but that don't make him a failure and it sure doesn't mean socialism won't work.
By the way, doesn't the USA economic failures, and government bailouts, put an end to your trickle up economics? Capitalism is a freak, it punishes people unless they are the small elite wealthy group at the top.

Go find a forum for your types eh.


From: B.C. | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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Babbler # 5594

posted 04 October 2008 09:57 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:
Trying to implement some sort of Stalinist forced march to sustainability (The patriotic Mr. Stakhanov keeps HIS lights off all the time, be like him...but if you don't the Green Police will break your fingers so you can't turn them on again...) will either fail - or work only in the worst way possible -

People in Stalin's Soviet Union rarely complained about natural gas or electrics not working. That didn't happen until capitalist reforms of the 1990's when people from Khyrgystan to Ukraine were burning furniture in communal bon fires to keep warm. Free markets were really for the benefit of rich people not us ordinary slobs.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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Babbler # 8273

posted 05 October 2008 11:43 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Climate change -- the case for public ownership
quote:
The reality is that no fossil fuel corporation can be convinced to stop expanding and making profits and instead invest its wealth in a wholesale conversion of its operations to a renewable energy-powered, sustainable industry. At the same time no capitalist government is going to be either willing or able to constrain corporations’ rights to make profits in order to drastically reduce emissions.

In other words, the only way we can make use of the massive corporate wealth that isn’t in the hands of the people is with a revolutionary struggle that institutes a government which acts in the interests of people and the planet and puts control of all sectors of the economy in the hands of ordinary working people.

The real question is what needs to be done to achieve this? There does not need to be a contradiction between what we call for today in terms of immediate measures to combat global warming and building the movement for revolutionary change. Arguing for the nationalisation of polluting industries, to be placed under the democratic control of ordinary people, is essential to constructing a movement capable of halting climate change.



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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Babbler # 5594

posted 05 October 2008 04:36 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The reality is that no fossil fuel corporation can be convinced to stop expanding and making profits and instead invest its wealth

That's true. Multinational Energy companies don't want to sell less oil, gas, or hydroelectric power to the U.S. They only want to sell more and more and at the highest prices possible. Those people don't want conservation or efficiency, or even a strong national energy plan.

The Liberals handed Canada's environment to Exxon-Imperial and friends with NAFTA, and have propped up the Conservatives' multi-billion dollar tax giveaways to profitable fossil fuel companies. We need a national energy plan written by Canadians not corporate America. And we have to make corporate polluters pay for cleaning up toxic messes left behind. We need the NDP for starters.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
sknguy
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posted 10 October 2008 11:30 AM      Profile for sknguy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think that government, as a central authority, needs to be dissected and operated as independent component agencies. Health Care, education, the environment, the legal system, the military, etc. can all function as independent agencies. And that the administration of such responsibilities shouldn’t be administered through political institutions. I would like to see a dismantling of politically competitive institutions, like our electoral systems. These only serve to encourage ideological conflict and competition. And, whether we acknowledge it or not, conflict and competition are core social institutions.

I also think that we need to relieve people from this preoccupation with economy and wealth. One of the ways we can do that is by engaging people in the actual governance of Canada. I think that for too long the importance of family, community and the environment have been displaced by our obsessions with economy. This obsession has skewed our perceptions of what’s important. To not properly address the importance of the environment, for example, such as this poster had done:

quote:
Originally posted by Publicfinance:

I wonder what we'd all be driving around in if gas was 3 cents a liter here. I dont think there would be a single hybrid on the road, let alone a toyota corolla.

Is essentially saying to our children, grandchildren, future generations and the environment “you can go f*** yourselves”. We have no personal accountability. Our mindset, and worldview, imposes no accountability upon ourselves. I don’t know how we can begin to rebuild that accountability except to make ourselves more responsible for our personal governance and become more responsibly involved in government.

We relinquish our responsibilities for our actions to our politicians and the laws that “they” make. We’ve allowed the responsibility to govern ourselves to be forfeited to our political institutions. And I think its important for people to take back that responsibility. Society needs to be more involved as a functioning part of its governance. Have something more than simply casting a ballot invested in personal governance. We need to held accountable. And we need to be more responsible.

I'm sorry that I can't find quotes or articles to post that can support many of the things I post here at Babble. Part of it is my culture, part of it is being unaware of where to find things. I'm also preoccupied with economy as any person and I find this distraction utterly frustrating.


From: Saskatchewan | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
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posted 10 October 2008 11:44 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Publicfinance:
The Second Ecosocialist Manifesto

WHAT DOES THIS GUY KNOW? He's a small time coca farmer that won an election in a dirt poor backwater in the middle of nowhere, South America.

.... Chavez is a big-mouthed, mentally challenged bully


Well, your moral character is clear, anyway.


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Doug
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Babbler # 44

posted 11 October 2008 10:08 AM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
Really? So people need their fingers broken to obey traffic lights? We need goons to kneecap people who just won't obey any of our nation's laws? If we didn't have brownshirts everyone would be snorting cocaine?

That's exactly my point. We generally don't need the police to enforce those rules constantly because there's a level of social consensus about them. We're not at that point with the climate change issue yet, and government isn't going to be able to just impose it.


From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 18 October 2008 08:06 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The following is from Greg Palast’s foreword to How the Rich are Destroying the Earth by Hervé Kempf.
quote:
So why the hell shouldn’t the rich destroy the planet? After all, it’s theirs. They own it. We all live on it, true, but we’re just renting space from the Landlords of our piece of earth, our air, our water.

The Landlords do what they want with their property. To get at their gold, they dump arsenic in our drinking water; to get at their oil, they melt our polar caps and barf soot into our lungs.

Hervé Kempf, being French, is really upset about this. But many Americans applaud it. We call these resource rapists “entrepreneurs” — it’s the only French word most journalists know — and drool over their rewards on re-runs of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

It’s a weirdly perfect day to be writing an introduction to Kempf’s J’accuse. The United States Supreme Court has just let Exxon off the hook for shitting oil all over the Alaskan coastline with the crude that poured from the tanker Exxon Valdez. Years back, I investigated that eco-horror for the people that lived on the slimed beaches, the indigenous Chugach of Alaska.

What I found was that the oil would have never touched the coast if the company had surrounded the ship with a rubber barrier immediately after it ran aground. That’s exactly the kind of barrier the oil shipper swore, before the spill, that it would have at the ready – right on the island where the ship hit. But they didn’t. Exxon lied — under oath — then lied again in writing, and then lied again to cover up the fact that they’d placed no oil spill equipment on the island. Ten months before the spill, at a secret meeting of the executives of the world’s largest oil companies, Exxon’s top brass vetoed a plea from their own vice president in Alaska to buy the oil spill containment equipment. Exxon didn’t want to spend the money.

The savings to Exxon in safety equipment not purchased ran into the billions. The damage to our planet was inestimable. The damage to the Alaskan people can be measured in bankruptcies and suicides.

And that’s what Kempf is telling us: Ecological destruction is a profitable business.

He busts the myth that somehow there is no connection between the black oil in the water and the black ink on the bottom line.

In the USA, we continue to pretend that destroying our planet is somehow the result of working-class vices, like driving to work or not recycling our juice bottles. Saving the planet, we are told, is the work of our enlightened rulers. After all, British Petroleum has painted all its gas stations green.

Kempf dissents. He explains that you can’t have a grossly consuming over-class without driving the underclass to desperation. Raise the price of oil to over $100 a barrel, and the poor of Indonesia will cut down forests for fuel to cook their food.


Source

[ 18 October 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 23 October 2008 07:51 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Here is part of a radical program for social transformation, developed during the recent Asia-Europe People’s Forum in Beijing. Only the "environment" portion is quoted here, but there is much more to the program:
quote:
• Introduce a global system of compensation for countries which do not exploit fossil fuel reserves in the global interests of limiting effects on the climate, such as Ecuador has proposed.

• Pay reparations to Southern countries for the ecological destruction wrought by the North to assist peoples of the South to deal with climate change and other environmental crises.

• Strictly implement the “precautionary principle” of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development as a condition for all developmental and environmental projects.

• End lending for projects under the Kyoto Protocol’s “Clean Development Mechanism” that are environmentally destructive, such as monoculture plantations of eucalyptus, soya and palm oil.

• Stop the development of carbon trading and other environmentally counter-productive techno-fixes, such as carbon capture and sequestration, agrofuels, nuclear power and ‘clean coal’ technology.

• Adopt strategies to radically reduce consumption in the rich countries, while promoting sustainable development in poorer countries

• Introduce democratic management of all international funding mechanisms for climate change mitigation, with strong participation from Southern countries and civil society.



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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posted 23 October 2008 08:11 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Its an interesting list, I'll take more time to read through it. I just noticed this however,

quote:
• Stop the development of carbon trading and other environmentally counter-productive techno-fixes, such as carbon capture and sequestration, agrofuels, nuclear power and ‘clean coal’ technology.

I'm curious how they lump all these things together as "techno-fixes". I'd either define "techno-fixes" as technological attempts to sustain our use of fossil fuels or technological find alternatives to fossil fuel dependency. This list appears to include both, yet if that is their intent I'm not sure why wind, solar, or tidal energy are not derided as well. If they removed nuclear from the list it would certainly help to clearly define what a "techno-fix" is supposed to be.

Anyway its just a quibble; hopefully when I have a chance to read their site the reasoning for this list will become clear.


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 23 October 2008 08:26 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I doubt they intended to deride all forms of technology; obviously technology is going to have to radically change. They listed "environmentally counter-productive techno-fixes", which would not include wind, solar, and other renewable energy technologies.
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
It's Me D
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Babbler # 15152

posted 23 October 2008 10:21 AM      Profile for It's Me D     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I doubt they intended to deride all forms of technology; obviously technology is going to have to radically change. They listed "environmentally counter-productive techno-fixes", which would not include wind, solar, and other renewable energy technologies.

I guess it is a question of how environmentally counter-productive a technology is; obviously they've made some sort of judgment here. There are environmental impacts of all forms of technology and I guess their thinking is that those they've listed are the ones where they feel the damage caused outweighs the potential benefit. Personally I wouldn't be so quick to put nuclear power in this category but I know many babblers would disagree with me. My concern is that their overall list does not include enough points that would result in decreased energy demand to simply rule out all these options for energy generation; it comes off as unrealistic. Either some more massive cuts to energy demand are needed in the list (my preference), or nuclear should be dropped from the list of environmentally counter-productive "techno-fixes". But I would be happy if someone else had a better solution!

Also I have now had the chance to read the whole list and it is quite impressive; indeed so much so that I cannot possibly make mention of all the points where I straight-up agree with their program. I'll just mention of few points I loved and one area (off-topic for ecosocialism, sorry) where I had some concerns:

quote:
- Invest massively in improved energy efficiency, low carbon emitting public transport, renewable energy and environmental repair

quote:
- Promote regional economic co-operation arrangements, such as UNASUR, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), the Trade Treaty of the Peoples and others, that encourage genuine development and an end to poverty.

quote:
- Phase out the pernicious paradigm of industry-led development, where the rural sector is squeezed to provide the resources necessary to support industrialization and urbanization

I just wanted to single out these three points because they are so great and because even though they aren't in the environmental list they clearly have an impact on the environment.

quote:
- Establish public enterprises under the control of parliaments, local communities and/or workers to increase employment

- Improve the performance of public enterprises through democratizing management - encourage public service managers, staff, unions and consumer organizations to collaborate to this end

- Introduce participatory budgeting over public finances at all feasible levels


I very much support the thrust of these three points, and as a public administrator myself I work towards them in the limited manner possible; that said I am concerned about the emphasis on administration democratizing the management of public enterprises. Don't get me wrong I support the ends described, but there are two reasons I am concerned: 1) much of the resistance to citizen participation in public sector decision-making comes not from administrators but from elected officials concerned their racket is being usurped by the people at large, 2) much of the present support amongst public administrators for collaboration outside government is badly misguided towards the co-option of government by the private sector (clearly not the intent of this point but perhaps an unintended consequence). Both these issues could be solved however, so they don't undermine the project if the problems are acknowledged.

[ 23 October 2008: Message edited by: It's Me D ]


From: Parrsboro, NS | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
Lard Tunderin' Jeezus
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Babbler # 1275

posted 23 October 2008 11:02 AM      Profile for Lard Tunderin' Jeezus   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
One of the most frightening things I've seen lately is the Dr. Frankenstein's of the 21st century bragging about the monsters they plan to unleash. Check out Craig Venter and Drew Endy in Esquire magazine's '75 most influential people in the world'.
From: ... | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged

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