ecosocialism

By Gary Engler - rabble.ca, August 25, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

For the numerous readers who asked: “But what can we do?” after reading my “10 reasons to smash capitalism,” here are ten ways we can build a better economic system:

10. We can elect governments that represent people rather than corporations. This will require serious electoral reform and include laws to make it clear corporations are not people and therefore cannot participate in the political process. A government representing all the people would regulate corporations to ensure socially responsible behaviour and transform psychopathic capitalist monstrosities into democratic, social enterprises that benefit all.

9. We can build communities and organizations that encourage solidarity, compassion and altruism. These will include worker, consumer, housing and producer cooperatives, as well as institutions of government. People must always remain vigilant, especially while capitalism continues to exist, about the pervasive power of greed to destroy these communities and organizations.

8. We can promote and build a democratic economy in which social ownership replaces private ownership of communities’ means of livelihood. The people who work in them and the communities in which they are located should control economic enterprises.

7. Since authentic freedom for any of us can only come when all of us are free we must create enterprises, communities, forms of governance and institutions that respect the rights of everyone and encourage the creativity of all. Socially useful individual enterprise should be encouraged but everywhere people work together we must create effective forms of democratic decision-making to promote creative input from all involved.

6. Everywhere we work we can organize in ways that become the building blocks of a new, democratic economy. Sometimes this will be through existing unions but often we will create new organizations that defend our day-to-day interests while self-consciously preparing to replace capitalist minority rule with democratic social control of all enterprises.

By Jay Burney - Climate Connections, August 25, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

System Change is needed. Without that, positive impacts on climate change will be a pipe dream.

The United Nations is gearing up for the COP 20 Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru in December of this year, and the  UN Climate Change Conference/COP21, to be held in Paris, France in late 2015. A primary goal of the Paris Climate Summit is to ratify a new legal agreement aimed at stemming climate change.

Many people across the earth are concerned UN efforts and these summits will come up far short of any meaningful goals.  This Inside Climate News article, MIT Study: Climate Talks on Path to Fall Far Short of Goals details some of the concerns.

In preparation for the Paris Summit, on 23 September of this year, the United Nations will hold a one day session on Climate Change.  This will garner significant press attention as world leaders including business and political mouthpieces continue to posture for “business as usual” solutions geared toward the potential 2015 legal agreement.

Preceding the one day UN session are two significant events in New York City that you can participate directly in. The Peoples Climate March will be held on Sunday Sept 21, 2014. Organizers are predicting that this will be the largest Climate March in history. Although organizers have not created any demands per se for the goals of the March they feel that press and media attention will go a long way toward establishing public support for change.

Suggestions on how to chip away at the empire in the Empire State this September:

By Panagioti - Earth First! Newswire, August 22, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

As the days of action surrounding the UN climate talks in NYC get closer, the internal sparks are already starting to fly with debates over who is annoyingly liberal, who is fronting with empty militant rhetoric, who is affiliated with Zionism and who is pro-Palestinian, which unions might be down and which are most likely to sell out the planet for promise of a few jobs, etc…

This is a call to resist the temptation of spending long nights trolling the internet on the above topics in the following month. Rather than scroll through endless posts, tweets and comments, wracking your brain to aim your limited characters with precision*, why not occupy your thoughts with questions such as these:

• Where can I sign up to resist the Rockaway gas pipeline under construction right now in NYC?
• How can I get to Albany to join growing opposition to increasing oil train traffic through communities there?
• Who do I talk to about planning an action against a proposed gas plant in Orange County?
• When’s a good time to take action in solidarity with small farmers against the monster power lines proposed across the Hudson Valley?
• Is there a community garden in Manhattan that I can help defend, and maybe pitch a tent in?
• What about organizing in response to tar sands barges on the Hudson River?
• And, why the f**k haven’t they shut down the Indian Point Nuke plant yet?

With a month to go, now is the time to start figuring out meaningful participation that can build momentum beyond of a march-and-go-home scenario.

At its August 2014 General Membership Branch Meeting, held Thursday, August 7, 2014, the Bay Area IWW endorsed this event:

West Coast People's Climate Rally in solidarity with the historic September 21 NYC event called by 350.org and hundreds of local and national environmental, trade union and social justice organizations across the country.

All Out for Sun., September 21, 12 Noon – 5 PM at Oakland's Lake Merritt Park Amphitheater

The Amphitheater is at the end of Lake Merritt near 12th Street &, Lake Merritt Blvd, Laney College, and the Lake Merritt BART Station.

This historic Sept. 21 NYC protest will lead up to the UN Climate Summit of world leaders. Tragically, more inaction or inadequate action can be expected. We want to show the world that the climate crisis can no longer be ignored, that the planet earth is burning, that massive & unprecedented measures must be taken now to assure humanity’s future.

The People’s Climate March is shaping up to be one of the largest climate justice mobilizations in history, with organizers of the march setting a goal of getting a half million people to demonstrate in NYC. For additional information visit peoplesclimatemarch.org

While people all over the country are mobilizing for New York, a multitude of activists will undoubtedly be available to join us in Oakland. Let's make the  West Coast Solidarity action a great success...

• For a world with an economy that works for people and the planet
• For a world safe from the ravages of climate change
• For a world with good jobs, clean air, water and healthy communities

To endorse this event, visit endorse@BayAreaSept21.org

By Don Fitz - Climate and Capitalism, July 15, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The world has over half a century of experience with programs that claim to help nature or feed the planet while they do the opposite.  The twin crises of the early 21st century are economic and ecological collapse.  Should we increase production to create more jobs and accept horrible environmental damage?  Or, should we protect a livable world at the cost of causing more unemployment?

An increasingly popular answer is the “Green New Deal” (GND): create “green jobs” in order to jump start the economy.   But the GND might not provide long term employment and could cause major environmental harm.  Digging beneath the surface appearance of the GND requires exploring its family tree: the Green Revolution, Green Capitalism and the Green Economy.

The Green Revolution

As capitalism spread across the globe, hunger and starvation spread with it.  Hoarding food and selling it to those who have plenty has always been more profitable than sharing food with those who need it.

By the middle of the 20th century, agribusiness decided that new plant varieties could be the focal point of a “Green Revolution” that would “feed the world.”  According to Stan Cox, dwarfing genes “allowed the plant to divert less energy to making stems and leaves and allowed the farmer to apply much more nitrogen fertilizer without making the plants get too tall and fall over.”  But these new varieties required pesticides and were more vulnerable to diseases. [1]

For at least 10,000 years, humans have been using “open pollination” seeds which could be gathered and planted the next year.  The Green Revolution also promoted hybrid seeds, especially for corn.  But hybrid seeds did not reproduce traits sought by farmers.  Those who use them must return to the seed company each year.  Hybrids fostered agricultural dependency.

One of the best summaries of the effects of hybrid corn is in Carmelo Ruiz’ story of Henry Wallace, the agrarian progressive who was Franklin Roosevelt’s Secretary of Agriculture.  According to Ruiz, “Among the most celebrated attributes of hybrid corn is the ease with which it can be harvested by machine.”  Huge fields with “genetic uniformity created a dream situation for pests.” [2, p 10]  As with dwarf varieties, this generated a need for pesticides.  Rapid growth as well as pesticide destruction of the soil’s natural fertility created a need for fertilizers.

A huge increase in output resulted: “between 1950 and 1980, US corn exports were multiplied times 20.” [2]   Results also appeared in increased farming costs, impoverishment of family farmers, and further concentration of wealth in agriculture.

Was this truly the price that had to be paid in order to “feed the world?”  Is it possible that the same yield increases could have occurred if research had gone in another direction?  Ruiz quotes geneticist Richard Lewontin as concluding, “Virtually no one has tried to improve the open-pollinated varieties, although scientific evidence shows that if the same effort had been put into such varieties, they would be as good or better than hybrids.” [2]

Research focused on developing hybrids because they were part of an overall agenda to concentrate capital.  Proponents of the Green Revolution identified a real problem (hunger), but they trumpeted a solution friendly to big business which created as many problems as it solved.  Meanwhile, a low-tech solution was ignored.