September 2011 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Re: [P2P-F] Ecological and economic limits and overshoot
by Michel Bauwens 15 Sep '11

15 Sep '11

Dear Ben, I hope you don't mind sharing your conversation, as it might generate more 'collective intelligence' and resources. your ideas are very close to those of the p2p community, for the idea of relocalization production, I think you could have a very productive conversation with Sam Rose, you may also want to connect with the Open Manufacturing mailing list (a bit too technical for me, but perhaps more useful to you). See also: http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Manufacturing and http://p2pfoundation.net/Product_Hacking for more info, and even more: http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-Manufacturing and http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-Hardware. Interesting initiatives that come to mind are Open Source Ecology, Appropedia, and a recent good example, the Nutrient Dense Project. This is now not just an 'idea', but an already active frontier! Kevin Carson has written the best book for far on local manufacturing, the Homebrew Revolution. The money situation is very complex, with some successes, many failures and a plethora of projects in between, see http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Money. I recommend reading Thomas Greco's latest book on this, especially for local credit commons, but it is a sprawling field and I'm not confident about what will work in this area. I like Bernard Lietaer integrative position on four levels of intervention which includes the global, and Ellen Brown, because her policy proposals are immediately applicable to countries in crisis (so thomas = local, Ellen = national, lietaer = global). Most advanced thinking is from the metacurrency project and jean-francois noubel, but I'm not sure they have anything actually actionable. Bitcoin works but is very problematic in its scarcity-based design. In general, it's good to learn to distinguish mere distribution of capitalist practice (more players, more participation, but the same game) and distributed projects that really change the rules of the game. On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 12:36 PM, ben zand <benzand57(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Wow, I did not expect such a comprehensive reply. It has greatly helped my > research, paper, and vision for the future. I personally see a conflict > brewing between the economic elite who will fight to death to maintain power > and the populous base who make up the productive economy. While they may win > in the short term with plans to take advantage of the shocks that the end > cycle of our current paradigm produce. But I believe they can only restrict > human potential so much before it breaks free and tries to creates a better > world for itself. With the mass production/distribution likely facing severe > interruptions in the coming years, I see a whole layout of possibilities for > economic life to again be the directive and part of the individual. > Personally, I am studying for a degree in engineering to focus on the best > ways to socialize production and return it to the local level. Of course, > this cannot be done with all aspects of a complex modern economy but if a > community has a base of production, it is not beholden to outside interests > and only deals with them if it is in mutual cooperation and benefit. This > may be a bit idealistic but we need to have some vision toward which we are > working for instead of this fascination with growth and materialism. I > believe this base should include at least some food production, flexible > manufacturing capacity to take advantage of local resources and produce as > much is practical within the area. > > So I am interested if you have any thoughts, or can point me toward leaders > in this area, on the lowest hanging fruit and easiest markets to localize. > Also, any tools or organizations that you think are most needed. Of course > a modular system for local currencies which can be adopted with ease to the > needs of each community seems to be the most important to accelerate this > movement. But there needs to be more to organize the new local producers > into networks within and across the global and most importantly to educate > about the means to reach the end goal. > > > On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 6:03 AM, Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net>wrote: > >> thanks for helping Ben, in cc, with this important question: >> >> < first question: Is it possible, or do you know of resources and data I >> can look at, to maintain the exponential growth the economic structures >> require? Id appreciate any other reflections or ideas you have about how >> this relatively short-term scenario could possibly play out. > >> >> part of my own answer is below with recommended resources >> >> Ben, see >> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/p2p-practices-as-condition-for-the-next-long-… >> >> In this paper, I draw on Kondratieff wave theory and Carlota Perez to >> describe the near and longer future scenario, >> >> basically: >> >> Sudden system shock makes previous system inoperable >> >> 15 years of crisis, deleveraging of debt, etc .... >> >> New wave based on new principles, which could/should include substantive >> p2p practices >> >> However, the underlying biospheric and civilisational crisis may very well >> complicate things substantially, this may very well be the last wave of >> capitalism >> >> Sam, I remember you place the congruence of ecological crisis in 2030, do >> you have any sources on that? >> >> Michel >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> >> Date: Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 4:57 PM >> Subject: Re: Student Paper >> To: ben zand <benzand57(a)gmail.com> >> >> >> Dear Ben >> >> thanks for that email and I pretty much agree with your summary of the >> world situation, >> >> not sure though where I can find these data, >> >> but here is a summary by Ted Trainer: >> http://p2pfoundation.net/Radical_Implications_of_a_Zero_Growth_Economy >> >> (see also below, I"m adding stuff as I think of it) >> >> and this is probably quite important: >> http://p2pfoundation.net/Planetary_Boundaries >> >> >> "The following points drive home the magnitude of the overshoot:* * >> >> 1. *If the 9 billion people we will have on earth within about 50 >> years were to use resources at the per capita rate of the rich >> countries, annual resource production would have to be about 8 times >> as great as it is now. * >> 2. * If 9 billion people were to have a North American diet we would >> need about 4.5 billion ha of cropland, but there are only 1.4 billionha of cropland on the planet. >> * >> 3. * Water resources are scarce and dwindling. What will the situation >> be if 9 billion people try to use water as we in rich countries do, while >> the greenhouse problem reduces water resources. * >> 4. * The world’s fisheries are in serious trouble now, most of them >> overfished and in decline. What happens if 9 billion people try to eat >> fish at the rate Australian’s do now? * >> 5. * Several mineral and other resources are likely to be very scarce >> soon, including gallium, indium, helium, and there are worries about copper, >> zinc, silver and phosphorous. * >> 6. * Oil and gas are likely to be in decline soon, and largely >> unavailable in the second half of the century. If 9 billion were to >> consume oil at the Australian per capita rate, world demand would be >> about 5 times as great as it is now. The seriousness of this is >> extreme, given the heavy dependence of our society on liquid fuels. * >> 7. * Recent 'Footprint' analysis indicates that it takes 8 ha of >> productive land to provide water, energy, settlement area and food for >> one person living in Australia. (World Wildlife Fund, 2009.) So if 9 billion >> people were to live as we do about 72 billion ha of productive land would be >> needed. But that is about 10 times all the available productive land >> on the planet. * >> 8. * The most disturbing argument is to do with the greenhouse >> problem. It is very likely that in order to stop the carbon content of the >> atmosphere rising to dangerous levels CO2 emissions will have to be >> totally eliminated by 2050 (Hansen says 2030). (Hansen, 2009, >> Meinschausen et al., 2009.) Geo-sequestration can’t enable this, if only >> because it can only capture about 85% of the 50% of emissions that come from >> stationary sources like power stations."* >> >> >> some sources to check: >> >> http://p2pfoundation.net/Energy_Scenarios >> >> http://p2pfoundation.net/Powerdown_Scenarios >> >> http://p2pfoundation.net/Sustainable_Shrinkage >> >> I recommend you take a look at 'overall policy frameworks', see >> >> Introduction: >> >> - On the Necessity of Mediation for Economic and Social Transitions<http://p2pfoundation.net/On_the_Necessity_of_Mediation_for_Economic_and_Soc…>. >> Christian Arnsperger. >> - Christian Arnsperger <http://p2pfoundation.net/Christian_Arnsperger>: >> The Concept of Transition<http://p2pfoundation.net/Concept_of_Transition>. >> [38]<http://eco-transitions.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-transition-first-look-at-co…> >> >> >> Ways to organize P2P-Commons oriented proposals in a coherent whole: >> >> 1. The Five Capitals Model<http://p2pfoundation.net/Five_Capitals_Model> >> 2. Seven Acupuncture Points for Shifting to Capitalism 3.0<http://www.ottoscharmer.com/docs/articles/2009_SevenAcupuncturePoints5.pdf>. >> Otto Scharmer. >> 3. David Korten: Seven Global Sources of Dysfunction and their >> Corresponding Corrective Actions<http://p2pfoundation.net/Seven_Global_Sources_of_Dysfunction_and_their_Corr…> >> 4. Christian Arnsperger: Six Framework Conditions for Global Systemic >> Change<http://p2pfoundation.net/Six_Framework_Conditions_for_Global_Systemic_Change> >> 5. The New Economy Working Group<http://p2pfoundation.net/New_Economy_Working_Group>, >> with David Korten<http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Policy?title=David_Korten&action=edit&red…>, >> Nine Action Clusters<http://neweconomyworkinggroup.org/about-us/ten-action-clusters>and Three >> Defining System Conditions<http://neweconomyworkinggroup.org/about-us/our-working-premise> >> 6. 11 Structural Problems of the Current World System<http://p2pfoundation.net/11_Structural_Problems_of_the_Current_World_System> >> >> >> That's it for today! >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 12:36 AM, ben zand <benzand57(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Great. Again I deeply appreciate your time and efforts for humanity. And >>> I do not expect any complete answers as I think that is beyond the scope of >>> any one mind to comprehend with he interweaving complexities of today. I am >>> beginning my paper by looking at the economic realities which >>> drive the world and determine possibilities. Which in itself, I feel, is one >>> of the root problems of humanity. Developed countries have become infatuated >>> with growth and economic measures as the goals for society. This obviously >>> isn't going to create a benevolent world as each country competes for >>> exponential growth in a limited planet. Now it seems the United States, the >>> engine and absorber, of economic growth has reached its limits >>> of consumption as the population cannot service much new added debt, which >>> allowed it to maintain this position. The globalist appear to look toward >>> China and the developing world as the next engine after the next black swan >>> induced market crash depresses the economy and destabilizes the U.S.'s >>> position. In any plan to create new structures for the future of humanity, >>> we must first roughly understand the environment in which they will be >>> created and the palpability of these new possible changes. >>> >>> So first question: Is it possible, or do you know of resources and data I >>> can look at, to maintain the exponential growth the economic structures >>> require? Id appreciate any other reflections or ideas you have about how >>> this relatively short-term scenario could possibly play out. >>> >>> Ben >>> >> >> > -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Re: [P2P-F] Center for a Stateless Society » Commentary
by Michel Bauwens 15 Sep '11

15 Sep '11

sounds like our good mutualist friend, Kevin Carson, would write this .. On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Bryan Hugill <bryan.hugill(a)gmail.com>wrote: > In case you haven't already seen this, I think you'll enjoy reading this > commentary :) Especially the final two paragraphs: > > "Domestically, I think Wikileaks, The Pirate Bay, Anonymous and Bitcoin’s > first essay at an encrypted currency were the first weak tremors of what > will become a 9.0 earthquake shaking all authoritarian hierarchies to their > foundations. What emerges, in the aftermath of the long series of > earthquakes, will be decentralized and networked, and largely beyond the > control of whatever remains of the hollowed out states and corporations. > > Regardless of all the powers asserted in Executive Orders, “National > Security Doctrines” that sound like a Thousand Year Reich, and corporate > attempts to put the entire world under a DRM Curtain, their authoritarian > claims will ultimately be about as efficacious as the edicts of the Emperor > Norton." > Cheers, > Bryan > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Center for a Stateless Society» Commentary <bradspangler(a)gmail.com> > Date: 14 September 2011 02:37 > Subject: Center for a Stateless Society » Commentary > To: bryan.hugill(a)gmail.com > > > ** > Center for a Stateless Society » Commentary <http://c4ss.org> > <http://fusion.google.com/add?source=atgs&feedurl=http://feeds.feedburner.co…> > ------------------------------ > > Reflections From Airstrip Two<http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/c4sscommentary/%7E3/h5AQbVc0VeE/8312?utm_s…> > > Posted: 12 Sep 2011 10:09 PM PDT > > During the recent memorial of the September 11 attacks, I heard a lot of > discussion by people remembering where they were and how they felt when they > first heard news of the attack on the World Trade Center. I remember it > very vividly myself. > > I was awakened by my clock radio while the local morning DJs were still > excitedly discussing the plane impact on the first tower. Before long, > another plane hit the second tower. It became pretty clear then that the > first one hadn’t been an accident, and that some sort of terrorist attack > was underway. > > My first thought wasn’t fear of the terrorists. I didn’t think “Oh, my God > — what will they do next?” I didn’t fear for my safety or that of my loved > ones. My first thought was that federal law enforcement and the > intelligence community would drag out their Christmas list of police state > legislation that they didn’t get passed after the Oklahoma City bombing, and > that Congress would probably rubber stamp it. My second thought was that > George Bush would get a blank check for any war he wanted, anywhere in the > world, in the name of fighting terrorism; “terrorism” would replace the > previous fig leaves of “International Communism” and “narcotrafficking” as > an all-purpose justification for attacking any country that looked crossways > at global corporate rule. After that, my thoughts turned closer to home. > “Another wave of attacks like this,” I thought, “and my red card from the > I.W.W. will get me a bunk with the other ‘subversives’ being detained > without charge.” > > The next several weeks, with the flag-waving and hysteria, struck me as > unbridled lunacy. Americans, as usual in wartime, stopped exercising the > skepticism of authority that is our defining feature and instead began > acting like Good Germans. When Tom Daschle said “there’s no daylight > between us and President Bush,” and Dan Rather said “tell me where to line > up, Mr. President,” I wanted to spit on the floor. When USA PATRIOT > passed, I wondered if the formal powers conferred on Bush were greater than > those in the Reichstag Enabling Act. > > Over the past ten years, if the clampdown hasn’t been as nightmarish as I > feared, it’s still been massive: the whole security-industrial complex > around Homeland Security, the TSA and their contractors; USA PATRIOT, > warrantless wiretapping, and the use of “national security letters” for > purposes entirely unrelated to terrorism; the wars all over the globe, and > the doubling of “Defense” spending; extraordinary rendition and torture at > Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, Baghram and CIA black sites all over the world. It’s > like the Paul Verhoeven version of Starship Troopers — with “Freedom fries” > for all. > > There has been an enormous ratcheting upward of state power — sufficient to > cause one email correspondent, the leader of a prominent libertarian > organization, to express private despair that human liberty might be on the > way to being extinguished in a new Dark Age of totalitarian barbarism. > > I’m more optimistic. I don’t think the state will become any less > authoritarian in its intent or policies, but its grasp will weaken faster > than its reach extends. There is a breathtaking future in people taking > advantage of new technical possibilities for rendering the state’s laws > unenforceable and living as we want below its radar. > > In the purely military realm, I have a hunch that the possibilities for > cheap anti-ship missiles capable of taking out aircraft carriers (and other > comparatively cheap “assassin’s mace” weapons with ROIs of 100,000% in terms > of the value of the targets they take out) will continue to stay several > steps ahead of attempts to counter them. If so, agile networked asymmetric > war will acquire the same kind of generational advantage over the Sole > Remaining Superpower’s legacy forces that the U.S. had over the Soviet bloc > thirty years ago. > > Domestically, I think Wikileaks, The Pirate Bay, Anonymous and Bitcoin’s > first essay at an encrypted currency were the first weak tremors of what > will become a 9.0 earthquake shaking all authoritarian hierarchies to their > foundations. What emerges, in the aftermath of the long series of > earthquakes, will be decentralized and networked, and largely beyond the > control of whatever remains of the hollowed out states and corporations. > > Regardless of all the powers asserted in Executive Orders, “National > Security Doctrines” that sound like a Thousand Year Reich, and corporate > attempts to put the entire world under a DRM Curtain, their authoritarian > claims will ultimately be about as efficacious as the edicts of the Emperor > Norton. > You are subscribed to email updates from Center for a Stateless > Society» Commentary <http://c4ss.org> > To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now<http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailunsubscribe?k=OHa3H4WPTKOd7NTpoTjJmIT…> > . Email delivery powered by Google Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago > IL USA 60610 > > -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Moebius Noodles: a crowd-funded, open educational resource for young math
by Maria Droujkova 14 Sep '11

14 Sep '11

I thought people here might be interested in this project. It is a join effort by several communities: Math Future (connected with P2PU), Natural Math, and other math groups. We are building a Creative Commons book and support site for parents who want to enjoy math with their young kids. We need to raise $6200 in a week to launch the project, and we are doing it with the support of people like you, with the crowd-funding site http://tippingbucket.org/ The project, starting with the book, will build a community providing peer-to-peer support for parents in ways not currently available elsewhere. >From responses from our pilot tests with local math clubs and online parent classes, we expect users of Moebius Noodles to significantly change their approach to early education and their very definition of what mathematics means. We start with the existing parents’ needs and wishes which we have studied and analyzed. We address those, but take them to the next level of mathematical sophistication. *Please contribute to the Moebius Noodles fundraising campaign, and spread the word on your blogs and sites about helping to create open and free materials for the youngest mathematicians! <http://tippingbucket.org/>* Why are we doing it and why do you care? 1. There are very few materials and no community support for smart math for babies and toddlers. Just try to find anything that is not about counting or simple shapes! Mathy parents create opportunities for their own kids, of course. But without support and resources, it’s very hard even for the rocket scientist mothers and fathers. We want to change that! 2. Peer-to-peer learning, research and development groups in mathematics education need a process for crowd-funding their projects. We are the trailblazers for other fabulous communities that want to make open and free math materials with the support of their members, such as the group developing materials for learning mathematics through music, the play math network, and the math circle problem-solving depository project. 3. We are creating OERs – Open Educational Materials. It means people can access, use, modify and share the materials for free. Imagine the project you support translated into any language in the world, and used freely to support young kids everywhere! 4. The activities are sustainable in many senses. You can use everyday household items and recycle materials for Moebius Noodles games. 5. If you are a parent or teacher who loves arts and crafts but is afraid of math, the book will help you teach your kids mathematics through your talents. If you are a math or science geek who envies other families always doing neat art projects, the arts-math bridge in the book goes both ways! *Secret Rewards (not shown on the site) * *Pledge $5 or more – Point.* You will be recognized as an official SUPPORTER on our site, PLUS you will receive a limited-edition hand-numbered Moebius Noodles thank-you card with your very own Fibonacci number. *Pledge $13 or more – Interval.* You will be recognized as an official MATH MAKER on our site, receive a Moebius Noodles card, PLUS a PDF copy of the book, PLUS participant access to our online support community. *Pledge $34 or more – Square.* All of the above, PLUS one souvenir page of notes taken down during our brainstorming and planning sessions, PLUS a printed copy of the book. *Pledge $89 or more – Cube. * All of the above, PLUS you can put a two-line dedication by one of the games or stories in the book, with your family name(s) and a brief message to the world. *Pledge $233 or more – Tesseract.* You will be recognized as an official PATRON OF MATH MAKERS on our site, PLUS receive one PDF copy and two printed copies of the book, PLUS a secret message with your or your child’s name will be an example in one of the games, PLUS you will get behind-the-scenes access to our work to observe, in detail, the process of making the book. * Pledge $610 or more – Infinite-Dimensional Space Master.* Everything included in the Tesseract level, PLUS you will have the power to influence the contents, look and feel of the book, PLUS the authors will design a custom math activity around your child’s interests, name it after your child and include it in the book. Cheers, Maria Droujkova 919-388-1721 http://www.naturalmath.com/blog/moebius-noodles-fundraiser/ Make math your own, to make your own math

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CIA threaten journalists exposing 9/11 cover-up
by David Rose 14 Sep '11

14 Sep '11

http://www.secrecykills.com/ Ex-Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke Accuses CIA Of Trying To “Flip” 9/11 Hijackers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl6w1YaZdf8 CIA Threats of Federal Prosecution Delay 9/11 Documentary http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1109/S00293/cia-threats-of-federal-prosecu… Wednesday, 14 September 2011, 12:30 pm Recent threats by the CIA prompt two freelance journalists to delay an investigative podcast naming CIA analysts complicit in obstruction of key pre-9/11 intelligence. The podcast will present revelations from former top US government personnel, including Richard Clarke, Pasquale D’Amuro, Bob Baer, and Mark Rossini, who echo concerns of former 9/11 Commission Chair Thomas Kean. On Thursday, the CIA threatened the journalists behind Who Is Rich Blee? with possible federal prosecution if their investigative podcast reveals the names of two CIA analysts at the center of a pattern of obstruction and mishandling of intelligence that many feel would have stopped the 9/11 attacks. Like FBI agent Ali Soufan and Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer before them, the podcast team, including John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski, are being subjected to intimidation and censorship by government officials over blowing the whistle on the true story surrounding two alleged 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. The podcast originally scheduled for September 11th release presents a narrative of how three CIA analysts working under Richard Blee, the long unknown former head of CIA’s Bin Laden Station, deliberately misled their colleagues and withheld key intelligence from FBI and the White House regarding the presence of two known Al-Qaeda operatives in the U.S. Four government investigations into CIA handling of pre-911 intelligence included personal details of the two CIA analysts and their actions. Nowosielski and Duffy deduced the identities of the two as yet unnamed CIA employees from internet research based on details provided from these and other open sources. When the producers used their full names in interviews, interviewees offered no correction. The CIA response provided the final confirmation. In project updates posted at SecrecyKills.com the producers announced the delay of the podcast and posted background of a complicated case that involves dozens of violations of protocol, intimidation, and incidents of obstruction by the CIA, with the two yet named CIA analysts at the center of many of them. Author and expert on the subject, Kevin Fenton, documents 35 such incidents between January 2000 and September 11th in his book, Disconnecting the Dots: How 9/11 Was Allowed to Happen. Pulitzer-prize winner Lawrence Wright, interviewed for the podcast, told producers the actions of one of the unnamed CIA analysts still employed at CIA amounts to obstruction of justice in the FBI’s criminal investigation of the deaths of 17 seaman aboard the USS Cole. The producers are not the first subject to government censorship over this case. Last month The New York Times reported on CIA efforts to censor an autobiography by Ali Soufan, a front-line FBI counter-terrorism special agent. Prior to 9/11, Soufan was interested in Mihdhar and Hazmi because of links to the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. The CIA censored references to a passport photo of Mihdhar the CIA had withheld from Soufan, despite three written requests. Scott Shane of the New York Times reports today that, "Mr. Soufan accuses C.I.A. officials of deliberately withholding crucial documents and photographs of Qaeda operatives from the F.B.I. before Sept. 11, 2001, despite three written requests, and then later lying about it to the 9/11 Commission." Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer, interviewed for the podcast, was himself intimidated, demoted and smeared by the Pentagon after he came forward to the 9/11 Commission with details of how, on three occasions, unnamed DoD officials prevented his Able Danger operation from meeting with the FBI prior the attacks. In 2000 the Able Danger data-mining program placed Mohammed Atta in a Brooklyn terrorist cell but had also placed Hazmi and Mihdhar in a San Diego cell, the epicenter of intrigue around Alec Station’s Rich Blee, Tom Wilshere and the two as yet unnamed subordinates who themselves repeatedly withheld intelligence from the FBI. Though Shaffer was interviewed by 9/11 Commission’s Director Philip Zelikow and staffer Dieter Snell, the Commission left any mention of Able Danger from its final report. In the planned podcast, 9/11 Commission Chair Tom Kean is asked about a scant footnote to Chapter 6 of the 9/11 Report referring to an intelligence cable, seen by 50 at the CIA, but prevented from reaching the FBI. For Kean the incident was not a case of bungling or intel ‘stovepiping’: “Oh, it wasn’t careless oversight. It was purposeful. No question about that in mind. It was purposeful.” Whereas Kean explains it as a penchant for secrecy, Richard Clarke, the former head of counter-terrorism at the Bush White House, goes farther suggesting malfeasance and the possibility of illegal CIA-led domestic spying activity. Comments by Clarke released in a video in August led to a formal statement from George Tenet, Cofer Black and Richard Blee, and a response from the producers. “This was perhaps the closest U.S. intelligence got to foiling the 9/11 plot,” explains Nowosielski, “but instead of stopping the attack, the CIA stopped intel on two high-value targets from getting to the right people, repeatedly. And still the CIA protects the individuals responsible by intimidating those who simply want to know the truth behind a shocking and possibly criminal pattern of obstruction” In an email Thursday the CIA warned Nowosielski he could be subject to prosecution under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, a law intended to apply to government employees who violate their security clearance and never used to convict journalists. The producer’s online response: “The Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics states that ‘journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know’ and should ‘be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable.’ The day that journalists' exposés of wrongdoing within government agencies require the approval of those government agencies before release, that is the day that transparency and accountability are lost.” John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski, both graduates of Chicago’s Columbia College Film School, produced the critically acclaimed 2006 documentary "9/11: Press for Truth."

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thrive .. the greatest conspiracy documentary of all time?
by Michel Bauwens 14 Sep '11

14 Sep '11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OibqdwHyZxk&feature=share UFO's + energy + people power = p2p version of conspiracy attitudes, with an emancipatory aspect -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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we need another kind of rationality
by Michel Bauwens 14 Sep '11

14 Sep '11

intriguing essay: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/funding-and-guidance/funding-opportunities/3672/centr… -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Fwd: SchwartzReport, recommended daily newsletter, sample
by Michel Bauwens 14 Sep '11

14 Sep '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: SchwartzReport <webmaster(a)schwartzreport.net> Date: Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 1:17 PM Subject: SchwartzReport To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com <https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=6ZQXER…> <http://www.facebook.com/schwartzreport> <http://twitter.com/schwartzreport1> *Wednesday, September 14, 2011* *Airbrushing History, American Style*<http://www.clinecenter.illinois.edu/airbrushing_history/> SCOTT ALTHAUS and KALEV LEETARU - University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign *I am an historian, and this sort of thing is really vile. These are the acts of Orwellian cowards who know they have screwed-up in a major way, and want to hide it from history, while self-righteously and piously flaunting around history's stage. There is a constant lack of moral and ethical awareness in these people. You can see a perfect example of it in Dick Cheney's book. This is not a new document and we now see with better hindsight confirming its findings and expanding on them. This is geopolitics at a psychiatric level. Scott Althaus is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and a faculty affiliate of the Cline Center for Democracy. He is currently writing a book on the relationship between media coverage of war and public support for war. Kalev Leetaru is Coordinator of Information Technology and Research at the Cline Center for Democracy; Chief Technology Advisor to the Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Science; Center Affiliate of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications; and affiliated with the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. He has worked extensively with web and data mining and recently completed a book manuscript titled Content Analysis: A Data Mining and Intelligence Approach. * Key Findings There are at least five documents taking the form of White House press releases that detail the number and names of countries in the "Coalition of the Willing" that publicly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At one time, all five of these documents were archived on the White House web site. Today, only three of these five documents can still be accessed in the White House archives. One of the missing lists was removed from the White House web site at some point in late 2004, and the other was removed between late 2005 and early 2006. These two "missing" lists represent earlier and smaller lists of coalition members. The text of three of these five documents was altered at some point after their initial release, even though in most cases the documents still retained their original release dates and were presented as unaltered originals. These alterations to the public record changed the apparent number of countries making up the coalition, as well as the names of countries in the coalition. Some of these alterations appear to have been made as long as two years after the document's purported release date. Of the five documents, only two appear to have remained unaltered after the date of their initial release. These are the only two of the five that could be authentic originals. However, we find no evidence that either of these press releases was distributed broadly to the media through normal electronic channels. Two versions of the coalition list dated March 27, 2003 can be currently accessed on the White House web site. Both claim that there were 49 countries in the coalition, but one lists only 48 by name, omitting Costa Rica. The revision history of this document shows that Costa Rica's name was removed retroactively at some point in late 2004, after the Costa Rican Supreme Court ruled that continued use of its name on the list was a violation of Costa Rica's constitution. Taken together, these findings suggest a pattern of revision and removal from the public record that spans several years, from 2003 through at least 2005. Instead of issuing a series of revised lists with new dates, or maintaining an updated master list while preserving copies of the old ones, the White House removed original documents, altered them, and replaced them with backdated modifications that only appear to be originals. AIRBRUSHING HISTORY, AMERICAN STYLE Legacies are in the air as President Bush prepares to leave the White House. How future historians will judge the president remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: future historians won't have all the facts needed to make that judgment. One legacy at risk of being forgotten is the way the Bush White House has quietly deleted or modified key documents in the public record that are maintained under its direct control. Remember the "Coalition of the Willing" that sided with the United States during the 2003 invasion of Iraq? If you search the White House web site today you'll find a press release dated March 27, 2003 listing 49 countries forming the coalition. A key piece of evidence in the historical record, but also a troubling one. It is an impostor. And although there were only 45 coalition members on the eve of the Iraq invasion, later deletions and revisions to key documents make it seem that there were always 49. The Bush White House seems to have systematically airbrushed parts of the official record regarding its own history. How extensively White House documents have been rewritten is anyone's guess, but in the case of the coalition list, the evidence is clear that extensive revision of the historical record has occurred. Deletions of original documents are easy to spot if you know where the originals were supposed to be. But we would never know about the revision history of documents presented by the White House as originals were it not for the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization devoted to documenting the changing face of the Internet. By taking broad snapshots of Web content every few weeks or months and then noting when documents have been modified or deleted, the Internet Archive allows us to retrace the history of revisions and deletions that were made to the various documents purporting to record the official coalition list. Modifications to the historical record by the Bush White House began in the opening days of the Iraq invasion and continued through at least the end of 2005. Many of these changes involve adding or deleting countries from the coalition list and then presenting the latest change as if it were the original list. One of the lists issued by the White House on March 21, 2003, identified 46 countries in the coalition, including the United States. At some point between April 7 and April 29, 2003, this list was updated to add Angola and Ukraine, bringing the total number of coalition countries up to 48. But instead of issuing a new list with a new date, the White House took the unusual step of retroactively revising the original March 21 press release, without indicating that the document had been modified from its original form. The "new" March 21st list of 48 coalition countries was still available on the White House web site as recently as August 2005, but by April 2006 its URL yielded only an empty page. Not a missing page: the document remains in the White House archive. Only its contents have been deleted. Today, no official press release mentioning fewer than 48 coalition countries appears in any publicly-searchable website maintained by the White House. Another list of 49 coalition countries - which adds the country of Tonga to the previous list of 48 - was issued by the White House at some point on or before April 13, 2003. This list remained unchanged in the White House archive until 2004, when it was temporarily removed from public view. By November 3, 2004 the list had been restored to the archive, but with two important changes. The revised list now included only 48 countries. Costa Rica, which had objected that its original inclusion was a mistake on the part of the Bush White House, no longer appears on this revised coalition list. The revised list also carried a new publication date: March 27, 2003, more than a year and a half before the revisions were made. At some later point, this revised and backdated list was modified once again by changing the number of coalition countries back to 49, even though the document lists only 48 by name. Two versions of what appear on first glance to be the same document now reside in the White House web archive, both dated March 27, 2003. One version claims 49 countries and names 49, including Costa Rica; the other claims 49 countries but names only 48, omitting any reference to Costa Rica. Updating lists to keep up with the times is one thing. Deleting original documents from the White House archives is another. Back-dating later documents and using them to replace the originals goes beyond irresponsible stewardship of the public record. It is rewriting history. The confusion caused by these documents is so great that even popular websites like Wikipedia are now promoting this "revised" history. Wikipedia's discussion of the coalition includes a screen capture of the March 21st, 2003 press release [2] after it had been revised to increase the number of members from 46 to 48. Since the date was not changed when the number of countries was revised, Wikipedia's entry for the document claims it is the original March 21st release. Thus, in many ways the White House's revised version of history has already begun propagating across the Internet. Our evidence suggests the troubling conclusion that major changes to the public record of the United States were not isolated events. We see instead a pattern of revision and removal from the public record that spans several years, from 2003 through at least 2005 in the case of the coalition lists. More troubling is that these changes were made in secret. Instead of issuing a series of revised lists with new dates, or maintaining an updated master list while preserving copies of the old ones, the White House removed original documents, altered them, and replaced them with backdated modifications that only appear to be originals. We are not suggesting that these deletions and revisions are the result of official policy decisions by senior officials in the Bush administration. The pattern we uncovered might be evidence of a whitewashing campaign to intentionally alter the documentary record, or of inappropriate archival practices that treat electronic documents as placeholders rather than historically specific elements of the governmental record. But whether by design or neglect, the result is the same: the removals and revisions of White House documents distort the historical record of what our government has said and done. We cannot tell how extensive was the White House effort to erase traces of recent American history. We cannot know whether changes are being made in these final weeks of the Bush administration that might forever alter the documentary trail of our nation's past. But this much is clear: Key documents for understanding American history have been quietly revised and deleted, at the hand of our own government. If there is a silver lining, it is how difficult it has become in the digital age to remove traces of what used to be called a "paper trail". The original coalition lists were distributed so widely and stored in so many locations that changing the "originals" housed in White House archives only affects those who rely on the official records. If the official records prove unreliable, then scholars and journalists may have an increasingly difficult time confirming the government's version of reality. One sad legacy of this outgoing administration is that it may have shifted the public burden of preserving our nation's history onto the shoulders of private citizens. WHY SMALL CHANGES TO AN OLD LIST ARE IMPORTANT TODAY One might ask why seemingly minor changes to a five-year-old list are so important: Why does the changing of a few countries and numbers warrant our attention? The list itself is only part of the story. Of greater concern is the extensive effort over a period of years that reshaped the historical record of the Iraq invasion, and removed from public view evidence that might be used to piece together the original facts. Since the coalition list was originally issued more than five years ago, it is important to clarify its historical importance at the time of the Iraq invasion. Five years ago, the United States found itself facing international resistance to the idea of preemptively invading a sovereign state. By detailing the countries making up the "Coalition of the Willing," this list was an important part of the Bush administration's argument for the invasion. It suggested that there were numerous other nations supporting the American military action: not the United States acting alone, but a coalition of nations from around the globe forming together to defeat an enemy purported to threaten the world. The list of coalition members figured prominently in discussions of the invasion as it was underway. It remained an important topic throughout the early post-invasion period of the Iraq War, and was at the center of a disagreement between John Edwards and Dick Cheney during the! 2004 Vice-Presidential debate. In this way, the number and names of coalition allies played an outsized role in helping to vindicate the American military action against Iraq. The evidence in our analysis does not tell us why the White House went to such effort to modify seemingly innocuous information contained in the coalition list documents. But the extent of White House effort to alter the contents of this list suggests greater cause for concern beyond the five documents in our analysis. If so much energy was focused on reshaping the names and number of coalition countries, one can only imagine what might have been done to higher-profile or more sensitive content on the White House web site. Our study is the first to demonstrate that the factual content of press releases was revised and backdated in ways that made the revised documents appear original. But our study is not the first to note unusual content changes to the White House web site. In December 2003, the Washington Post noted that the U.S. Agency for International Development had removed from its website the transcript of an interview with its head, Andrew S. Natsios, in which he told ABC's Nightline that the total cost to the American public of the Iraq war would be only $1.7 billion. The same article noted that the headline of one of President Bush's speeches had been revised after the fact to insert "Major" into the title "President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended." It also detailed a wide range of redactions and changes on other agency sites under the administration's control. Eleven months later one of the coalition lists was removed from the White House website after a controversial exchange between Dick Cheney and John Edwards in the Vice-Presidential Debate on October 5, 2004. A few news reports noted the disappearance of the list (these are discussed later in our analysis) but failed to follow up when the list was finally restored to the site. Our analysis shows that the replacement list was a country lighter and backdated more than a year earlier. In years since, occasional attention has been given to edits in other portions of the White House web site. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics noted late last year that during a discussion of whether the White House Office of Administration was subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, the corresponding White House page was suddenly changed from saying the agency was subject to FOIA to stating that it was exempt. Unlike the lists in our analysis, the text in question came from an informational web page that did not purport to be an original document. Until now, each of these incidents appeared to be a one-time edit or deletion. Seen in isolation, each of these incidents could have a reasonable explanation. But the pattern we find has not been noticed before, and it is much harder to explain away. We find clear evidence that the White House not only altered informational web pages, but altered important documents in the public record. The trail of edits, deletions, and backdated revisions spanned a period of at least two years. All were focused on the contents of an historically important list used by the Bush White House to vindicate its decision to invade Iraq. In this way, our analysis is not the story of small changes to an old list. It is more importantly the story of how key facts from the historical record of the Iraq invasion were reshaped, an effort that continued for years after the invasion had ended. If the same sort of reshaping was also done to other parts of the public record maintained on the White House web site, then the scope of the problem could be much larger. *Post Comment » <http://www.schwartzreport.net/addcomment.php?id=9330>* *Census: US Poverty Rate Swells to Nearly 1 in 6*<http://news.yahoo.com/census-us-poverty-rate-swells-nearly-1-6-142639972.ht…> HOPE YEN - The Associated Press *Twenty two per cent of children in the United States live in poverty; the largest percentage of any industrialized nation in the world. How can anybody live with that? The economic and war policies we have followed in the post-Clinton years, Republican and Democrat alike, have proven a disaster. You have to be enthrall to ideology to want to continue them. They are a nightmare that will never end until we change to rational humane national and international policies and programs. We are suffering from a national bout of insanity, and self-destruction. The election of 2012 is going to determine whether we return to being a country or continue as an asylum. I cannot get over these figures, and what they say about our national character. I guess I should not be surprised given the cheering the other night when it was noted that Gov. Perry had put to death 234 people. Those cheering I hope to God do not represent America. Because if they do, we're not a society, we're a mob. * WASHINGTON -- The ranks of U.S. poor swelled to nearly 1 in 6 people last year, reaching a new high as long-term unemployment woes left millions of Americans struggling and out of work. The number of uninsured edged up to 49.9 million, the biggest in over two decades. The Census Bureau's annual report released Tuesday offers a snapshot of the economic well-being of U.S. households for 2010, when joblessness hovered above 9 percent for a second year. It comes at a politically sensitive time for President Barack Obama, who has acknowledged in the midst of his re-election fight that the unemployment rate could persist at high levels through next year. The overall poverty rate climbed to 15.1 percent, or 46.2 million, up from 14.3 percent in 2009. Reflecting the lingering impact of the recession, the U.S. poverty rate from 2007-2010 has now risen faster than any three-year period since the early 1980s, when a crippling energy crisis amid government cutbacks contributed to inflation, spiraling interest rates and unemployment. Measured by total numbers, the 46 million now living in poverty is the largest on record dating back to when the census began tracking poverty in 1959. Based on percentages, it tied the poverty level in 1993 and was the highest since 1983. The share of Americans without health coverage rose from 16.1 percent to 16.3 percent - or 49.9 million people - after the Census Bureau made revisions to numbers of the uninsured. That is due mostly because of continued losses of employer-provided health insurance in the weakened economy. Congress passed a health overhaul last year to address rising numbers of the uninsured. While the main provisions don't take effect until 2014, one aspect taking effect in late 2010 allowed young adults 26 and younger to be covered under their parents' health insurance. Brett O'Hara, chief of the Health and Disability Statistics branch at the Census Bureau, noted that the uninsured rate declined - from 29.3 percent to 27.2 percent - for adults ages 18 to 24 compared to some other age groups. The median - or midpoint - household income was $49,445, down 2.3 percent from 2009. Bruce Meyer, a public policy professor at the University of Chicago, cautioned that the worst may yet to come in poverty levels, citing in part continued rising demand for food stamps this year as well as "staggeringly high" numbers in those unemployed for more than 26 weeks. He noted that more than 6 million people now represent the so-called long-term unemployed, who are more likely to fall into poverty, accounting for than two out of five currently out of work. Other census findings: -Poverty rose among all race and ethnic groups except Asians. The number of Hispanics in poverty increased from 25.3 percent to 26.6 percent; for blacks it increased from 25.8 percent to 27.4 percent, and Asians it was flat at 12.1 percent. The number of whites in poverty rose from 9.4 percent to 9.9 percent. *-Child poverty rose from 20.7 percent to 22 percent.* -Poverty among people 65 and older was statistically unchanged at 9 percent, after hitting a record low of 8.9 percent in 2009. *Post Comment » <http://www.schwartzreport.net/addcomment.php?id=9331>* *College Grads Behind Increase in Bankruptcy Filings*<http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/09/13/institute_for_financial_literacy_…> GREG HOWARD - Slate *This is the hard evidence of the increasingly desperate plight of the American middle-class.* College graduates represent the fastest growing demographic of consumers who have filed for bankruptcy over the past five years, according to a new report out Tuesday. Wait, really? Our high school guidance counselors always told us that a college degree guaranteed financial success down the road. Not necessarily so, according to the survey by the Institute for Financial Literacy, which found that wealthier, more educated households are driving the recent spike in bankruptcy filings. 'We’re told that if you do go and get advanced education, you’re going to be almost guaranteed this economic success,” Leslie Linfield, the group’s executive director, told the Washington Post, which got an early look at the report. Linfield added that the recession proved that 'higher education was no guarantee that you weren’t going to be at risk.” The percentage of debtors with bachelor’s degrees rose from 11.2 percent to 13.6 percent between 2006 and 2010, and debtors with graduate degrees increased from 4.9 percent to 6.7 percent. In the same span, there was a decline in the percentage of bankruptcy filers who didn’t finish college, though they still accounted for about a third of all bankruptcies, the Post reports. The Institute for Financial Literacy also found sharp changes in the ages of consumers filing for bankruptcy. While the number of consumers between 18 and 34 who have filed since 2006 has fallen 31 percent, the amount of people 55 and older who have filed has increased 25 percent. Linfield said that although credit cards and unsecured loans are generally what cause most people to file, hefty mortgages and falling home values are also contributing to the current rise in bankruptcies. More than 70 percent of bankrupted consumers blame their current troubles on being overextended in credit. Still, Linfield thinks we may have seen the worst of it as the number of bankruptcies across the board is beginning to drop. Research from the American Bankruptcy Institute supports Linfield’s hunch, reporting an 11-percent drop in August bankruptcies from a year ago as consumers are learning to embrace the shock, slowing down their spending to balance their personal funds. *Post Comment » <http://www.schwartzreport.net/addcomment.php?id=9332>* *Fox News' Paranoid Alternate Universe*<http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/fox-news-paranoid-alternate> ADAM SERWER - Mother Jones *This is how effective the disinformation campaign on the Right has become. This truly is a parallel universe.* Two-thirds of viewers who say Fox News is the news source they trust most believe discrimination against whites is as big a problem as discrimination against minority groups, according to a study released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution and the Public Religion Research Institute. The number, 68 percent, is an exact reversal of the percentage of black people in the same poll who say that discrimination against whites is not as big a problem as discrimination against minorities. The study was based on polling conducted by PRRI.* The Brookings/PRRI study uses "reverse discrimination"-an unfortunate term that suggests a difference in kind, not in degree-to describe anti-white discrimination. Nevertheless, the revelations about the views of consumers who most trust Fox News are disturbing: Among Americans who say they most trust Fox News, 26 percent say reverse discrimination is a critical issue, nearly twice as many as say discrimination against minority groups is a critical issue (14 percent). At the other end of the spectrum, only 8 percent of Americans who most trust public television say reverse discrimination is a critical issue, compared to 27 percent who say discrimination against minorities is a critical issue. The financial crisis wiped out 20 years of minority wealth gains, and minority incarceration and unemployment rates are far higher than those of whites, but white Americans have nevertheless become more receptive to the idea that whites face as much discrimination as minorities. While the numbers for those who trust Fox News are much higher, a majority of whites in the study, 51 percent, also say they believe discrimination against whites is as big of a problem as discrimination against minorities. That's despite relatively low levels of interaction between whites and minorities. According to the study, "More than 8-in-10 Americans report having a conversation with an African-American person at least once a day (43 percent) or occasionally (40 percent)." Most of these exchanges, apparently, involve black people callously turning down whites applying for jobs or home loans. Nevertheless, while opinions of Muslims and immigrants vary by age and political perspectiv! e, demographic groups surveyed expressed positive impressions of African Americans across the board. (Otherwise, they might be racist or something.) When it comes to Muslims, the study shows that the funders of the more than $40 million Shariah panic industry are getting their money's worth. Although two-thirds of Americans say that Muslims are not trying to establish Shariah law in the US, "[o]ver the last 8 months agreement with this question has increased by 7 points, from 23 percent in February 2011 to 30 percent today." The number of Republicans who buy that Muslims are trying to establish Shariah law in the US is up 14 points since August 2011, from 31 percent to 45 percent. Fox News is a crucial outlet for fomenting Shariah panic. According to the study, "There is a strong correlation between trusting Fox News and negative views of Islam and Muslims," as "[n]early 6-in-10 Republicans who most trust Fox News believe that American Muslims are trying to establish Shari'a law in the U.S.," and 72 percent of "Fox News Republicans" agree that Islam is "at odds with American values." If you're a Republican, you're more likely to think that white people are as discriminated against as minorities and that American Muslims represent a fifth column trying to subvert the Constitution. But if you're a Republican who watches Fox News, then you're far more likely to believe those things, thanks to a steady media diet of racial resentment and Muslim-baiting paranoia. *Post Comment » <http://www.schwartzreport.net/addcomment.php?id=9333>* *Since When Is It a Crime to Be Poor?*<http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/nickel-and-dimed-afterword> BARBARA EHRENREICH - Mother Jones *This is how to create social revolution. * I completed the manuscript for Nickel and Dimed in a time of seemingly boundless prosperity. Technology innovators and venture capitalists were acquiring sudden fortunes, buying up McMansions like the ones I had cleaned in Maine and much larger. Even secretaries in some high-tech firms were striking it rich with their stock options. There was loose talk about a permanent conquest of the business cycle, and a sassy new spirit infecting American capitalism. In San Francisco, a billboard for an e-trading firm proclaimed, "Make love not war," and then-down at the bottom-"Screw it, just make money." When Nickel and Dimed was published in May 2001, cracks were appearing in the dot-com bubble and the stock market had begun to falter, but the book still evidently came as a surprise, even a revelation, to many. Again and again, in that first year or two after publication, people came up to me and opened with the words, "I never thought…" or "I hadn't realized…" To my own amazement, Nickel and Dimed quickly ascended to the bestseller list and began winning awards. Criticisms, too, have accumulated over the years. But for the most part, the book has been far better received than I could have imagined it would be, with an impact extending well into the more comfortable classes. A Florida woman wrote to tell me that, before reading it, she'd always been annoyed at the poor for what she saw as their self-inflicted obesity. Now she understood that a healthy diet wasn't always an option. And if I had a quarter for every person who's told me he or she now tipped more generously, I would be able to start my own foundation. Even more gratifying to me, the book has been widely read among low-wage workers. In the last few years, hundreds of people have written to tell me their stories: the mother of a newborn infant whose electricity had just been turned off, the woman who had just been given a diagnosis of cancer and has no health insurance, the newly homeless man who writes from a library computer. At the time I wrote Nickel and Dimed, I wasn't sure how many people it directly applied to-only that the official definition of poverty was way off the mark, since it defined an individual earning $7 an hour, as I did on average, as well out of poverty. But three months after the book was published, the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC, issued a report entitled "Hardships in America: The Real Story of Working Families," which found an astounding 29 percent of American families living in what could be more reasonably defined as poverty, meaning that they earned less than a bare-bones budget covering housing, child care, health care, food, transportation, and taxes-though not, it should be noted, any entertainment, meals out, cable TV, Internet service, vacations, or holiday gifts. Twenty-nine percent is a minority, but not a reassuringly small one, and other studies in the early 2000s came up with similar figures. The big question, 10 years later, is whether things have improved or worsened for those in the bottom third of the income distribution, the people who clean hotel rooms, work in warehouses, wash dishes in restaurants, care for the very young and very old, and keep the shelves stocked in our stores. The short answer is that things have gotten much worse, especially since the economic downturn that began in 2008. Post-Meltdown Poverty When you read about the hardships I found people enduring while I was researching my book-the skipped meals, the lack of medical care, the occasional need to sleep in cars or vans-you should bear in mind that those occurred in the best of times. The economy was growing, and jobs, if poorly paid, were at least plentiful. In 2000, I had been able to walk into a number of jobs pretty much off the street. Less than a decade later, many of these jobs had disappeared and there was stiff competition for those that remained. It would have been impossible to repeat my Nickel and Dimed "experiment," had I had been so inclined, because I would probably never have found a job. For the last couple of years, I have attempted to find out what was happening to the working poor in a declining economy-this time using conventional reporting techniques like interviewing. I started with my own extended family, which includes plenty of people without jobs or health insurance, and moved on to trying to track down a couple of the people I had met while working on Nickel and Dimed. This wasn't easy, because most of the addresses and phone numbers I had taken away with me had proved to be inoperative within a few months, probably due to moves and suspensions of telephone service. I had kept in touch with "Melissa" over the years, who was still working at Walmart, where her wages had risen from $7 to $10 an hour, but in the meantime her husband had lost his job. "Caroline," now in her 50s and partly disabled by diabetes and heart disease, had left her deadbeat husband and was subsisting on occasional cleaning and catering jobs. Neither seemed unduly afflicted by the recession, but only because they had already been living in what amounts to a permanent economic depression. Media attention has focused, understandably enough, on the "nouveau poor"-formerly middle and even upper-middle class people who lost their jobs, their homes, and/or their investments in the financial crisis of 2008 and the economic downturn that followed it, but the brunt of the recession has been borne by the blue-collar working class, which had already been sliding downwards since deindustrialization began in the 1980s. In 2008 and 2009, for example, blue-collar unemployment was increasing three times as fast as white-collar unemployment, and African American and Latino workers were three times as likely to be unemployed as white workers. Low-wage blue-collar workers, like the people I worked with in this book, were especially hard hit for the simple reason that they had so few assets and savings to fall back on as jobs disappeared. How have the already-poor attempted to cope with their worsening economic situation? One obvious way is to cut back on health care. The New York Times reported in 2009 that one-third of Americans could no longer afford to comply with their prescriptions and that there had been a sizable drop in the use of medical care. Others, including members of my extended family, have given up their health insurance. Food is another expenditure that has proved vulnerable to hard times, with the rural poor turning increasingly to "food auctions," which offer items that may be past their sell-by dates. And for those who like their meat fresh, there's the option of urban hunting. In Racine, Wisconsin, a 51-year-old laid-off mechanic told me he was supplementing his diet by "shooting squirrels and rabbits and eating them stewed, baked, and grilled." In Detroit, where the wildlife population has mounted as the human population ebbs, a retired truck driver was doing a brisk business in raccoon carcasses, which he recommends marinating with vinegar and spices. The most common coping strategy, though, is simply to increase the number of paying people per square foot of dwelling space-by doubling up or renting to couch-surfers. It's hard to get firm numbers on overcrowding, because no one likes to acknowledge it to census-takers, journalists, or anyone else who might be remotely connected to the authorities. In Los Angeles, housing expert Peter Dreier says that "people who've lost their jobs, or at least their second jobs, cope by doubling or tripling up in overcrowded apartments, or by paying 50 or 60 or even 70 percent of their incomes in rent." According to a community organizer in Alexandria, Virginia, the standard apartment in a complex occupied largely by day laborers has two bedrooms, each containing an entire family of up to five people, plus an additional person laying claim to the couch. No one could call suicide a "coping strategy," but it is one way some people have responded to job loss and debt. There are no national statistics linking suicide to economic hard times, but the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline reported more than a four-fold increase in call volume between 2007 and 2009, and regions with particularly high unemployment, like Elkhart, Indiana, have seen troubling spikes in their suicide rates. Foreclosure is often the trigger for suicide-or, worse, murder-suicides that destroy entire families. "Torture and Abuse of Needy Families" We do of course have a collective way of ameliorating the hardships of individuals and families-a government safety net that is meant to save the poor from spiraling down all the way to destitution. But its response to the economic emergency of the last few years has been spotty at best. The food stamp program has responded to the crisis fairly well, to the point where it now reaches about 37 million people, up about 30 percent from prerecession levels. But welfare-the traditional last resort for the down-and-out until it was "reformed" in 1996-only expanded by about 6 percent in the first two years of the recession. The difference between the two programs? There is a right to food stamps. You go to the office and, if you meet the statutory definition of need, they help you. For welfare, the street-level bureaucrats can, pretty much at their own discretion, just say no. Take the case of Kristen and Joe Parente, Delaware residents who had always imagined that people turned to the government for help only if "they didn't want to work." Their troubles began well before the recession, when Joe, a fourth-generation pipe-fitter, sustained a back injury that left him unfit for even light lifting. He fell into a profound depression for several months, then rallied to ace a state-sponsored retraining course in computer repairs-only to find that those skills are no longer in demand. The obvious fallback was disability benefits, but-catch-22-when Joe applied he was told he could not qualify without presenting a recent MRI scan. This would cost $800 to $900, which the Parentes do not have; nor has Joe, unlike the rest of the family, been able to qualify for Medicaid. When they married as teenagers, the plan had been for Kristen to stay home with the children. But with Joe out of action and three children to support by the middle of this decade, Kristen went out and got waitressing jobs, ending up, in 2008, in a "pretty fancy place on the water." Then the recession struck and she was laid off. Kristen is bright, pretty, and to judge from her command of her own small kitchen, probably capable of holding down a dozen tables with precision and grace. In the past she'd always been able to land a new job within days; now there was nothing. Like 44 percent of laid-off people at the time, she failed to meet the fiendishly complex and sometimes arbitrary eligibility requirements for unemployment benefits. Their car started falling apart. So the Parentes turned to what remains of welfare-TANF, or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. TANF does not offer straightforward cash support like Aid to Families with Dependent Children, which it replaced in 1996. It's an income supplementation program for working parents, and it was based on the sunny assumption that there would always be plenty of jobs for those enterprising enough to get them. After Kristen applied, nothing happened for six weeks-no money, no phone calls returned. At school, the Parentes' seven-year-old's class was asked to write out what wish they would present to a genie, should a genie appear. Brianna's wish was for her mother to find a job because there was nothing to eat in the house, an aspiration that her teacher deemed too disturbing to be posted on the wall with the other children's requests. When the Parentes finally got into "the system" and began receiving food stamps and some cash assistance, they discovered why some recipients have taken to calling TANF "Torture and Abuse of Needy Families." From the start, the TANF experience was "humiliating," Kristen says. The caseworkers "treat you like a bum. They act like every dollar you get is coming out of their own paychecks." The Parentes discovered that they were each expected to apply for 40 jobs a week, although their car was on its last legs and no money was offered for gas, tolls, or babysitting. In addition, Kristen had to drive 35 miles a day to attend "job readiness" classes offered by a private company called Arbor, which, she says, were "frankly a joke." Nationally, according to Kaaryn Gustafson of the University of Connecticut Law School, "applying for welfare is a lot like being booked by the police." There may be a mug shot, fingerprinting, and lengthy interrogations as to one's children's true paternity. The ostensible goal is to prevent welfare fraud, but the psychological impact is to turn poverty itself into a kind of crime. How the Safety Net Became a Dragnet The most shocking thing I learned from my research on the fate of the working poor in the recession was the extent to which poverty has indeed been criminalized in America. Perhaps the constant suspicions of drug use and theft that I encountered in low-wage workplaces should have alerted me to the fact that, when you leave the relative safety of the middle class, you might as well have given up your citizenship and taken residence in a hostile nation. Most cities, for example, have ordinances designed to drive the destitute off the streets by outlawing such necessary activities of daily life as sitting, loitering, sleeping, or lying down. Urban officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about such laws: "If you're lying on a sidewalk, whether you're homeless or a millionaire, you're in violation of the ordinance," a St. Petersburg, Florida, city attorney stated in June 2009, echoing Anatole France's immortal observation that "the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges…" In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually intensified as the weakened economy generates ever more poverty. So concludes a recent study from the National Law Center on Poverty and Homelessness, which finds that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with the harassment of the poor for more "neutral" infractions like jaywalking, littering, or carrying an open container. The report lists America's 10 "meanest" cities-the largest of which include Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Orlando-but new contestants are springing up every day. In Colorado, Grand Junction's city council is considering a ban on begging; Tempe, Arizona, carried out a four-day crackdown on the indigent at the end of June. And how do you know when someone is indigent? As a Las Vegas statute puts it, "an indigent person is a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive" public assistance. That could be me before the blow-drying and eyeliner, and it's definitely Al Szekeley at any time of day. A grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington, DC-the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Phu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972. He had been enjoying the luxury of an indoor bed until December 2008, when the police swept through the shelter in the middle of the night looking for men with outstanding warrants. It turned out that Szekeley, who is an ordained minister and does not drink, do drugs, or cuss in front of ladies, did indeed have one-for "criminal trespassing," as sleeping on the streets is sometimes defined by the law. So he was dragged out of the shelter and put in jail. "Can you imagine?" asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Szekeley. "They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless?" The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, leading to the arrests of several middle-aged white vegans. One anti-sharing law was just overturned in Orlando, but the war on illicit generosity continues. Orlando is appealing the decision, and Middletown, Connecticut, is in the midst of a crackdown. More recently, Gainesville, Florida, began enforcing a rule limiting the number of meals that soup kitchens may serve to 130 people in one day, and Phoenix has been using zoning laws to stop a local church from serving breakfast to homeless people. For the not-yet-homeless, there are two main paths to criminalization, and one is debt. Anyone can fall into debt, and although we pride ourselves on the abolition of debtors' prison, in at least one state, Texas, people who can't pay fines for things like expired inspection stickers may be made to "sit out their tickets" in jail. More commonly, the path to prison begins when one of your creditors has a court summons issued for you, which you fail to honor for one reason or another, such as that your address has changed and you never received it. Okay, now you're in "contempt of the court." Or suppose you miss a payment and your car insurance lapses, and then you're stopped for something like a broken headlight (about $130 for the bulb alone). Now, depending on the state, you may have your car impounded and/or face a steep fine-again, exposing you to a possible court summons. "There's just no end to it once the cycle starts," says Robert Solomon of Yale Law School. "It just keeps accelerating." The second-and by far the most reliable-way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor succumbs to racial profiling, but whole communities are effectively "profiled" for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor. Flick a cigarette and you're "littering"; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you're displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect. And don't get grumpy about it or you could be "resisting arrest." In what has become a familiar pattern, the government defunds services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Generate no public-sector jobs, then penalize people for falling into debt. The experience of the poor, and especially poor people of color, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks. And if you should try to escape this nightmare reality into a brief, drug-induced high, it's "gotcha" all over again, because that of course is illegal too. One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today, exactly the same number of Americans-2.3 million-reside in prison as in public housing. And what public housing remains has become ever more prison-like, with random police sweeps and, in a growing number of cities, proposed drug tests for residents. The safety net, or what remains of it, has been transformed into a dragnet. It is not clear whether economic hard times will finally force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment. With even the official level of poverty increasing-to over 14 percent in 2010-some states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty, using alternative sentencing methods, shortening probation, and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missing court appointments. But others, diabolically enough, are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of "crimes," but charging prisoners for their room and board, guaranteeing they'll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt. So what is the solution to the poverty of so many of America's working people? Ten years ago, when Nickel and Dimed first came out, I often responded with the standard liberal wish list-a higher minimum wage, universal health care, affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation, and all the other things we, uniquely among the developed nations, have neglected to do. Today, the answer seems both more modest and more challenging: If we want to reduce poverty, we have to stop doing the things that make people poor and keep them that way. Stop underpaying people for the jobs they do. Stop treating working people as potential criminals and let them have the right to organize for better wages and working conditions. Stop the institutional harassment of those who turn to the government for help or find themselves destitute in the streets. Maybe, as so many Americans seem to believe today, we can't afford the kinds of public programs that would genuinely alleviate poverty-though I would argue otherwise. But at least we should decide, as a bare minimum principle, to stop kicking people when they're down. *Post Comment » <http://www.schwartzreport.net/addcomment.php?id=9334>* *The SchwartzReport is a daily publication provided free of charge by schwartzreport.net Portions Copyright 2001 - 2011 by Nemoseen Media * -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Fwd: Journal of Community Currency Research
by Michel Bauwens 14 Sep '11

14 Sep '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 2:26 PM Subject: Journal of Community Currency Research To: econowmix(a)googlegroups.com, opencc(a)googlegroups.com, gtmonnaie(a)gtmonnaie.be http://www.ijccr.net/IJCCR/IJCCR_Home.html ... for disseminating knowledge about community and complementary currencies around the world This peer-reviewed journal aims to provide a common forum for informed articulation and debate of empirical, critical and theoretical research on community currencies. We seek to bridge the gaps in knowledge, practice and communication which exist between community currency 'activists' and 'academics'. -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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slow business manifesto
by Michel Bauwens 14 Sep '11

14 Sep '11

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/slow-business-a-manifesto.php dear Sepp, I'm excerpting the above on sept 27, but it dates from 2009, I thought perhaps you could contact the author on our behalf, and ask him how his initiative has evolved since? so that we can publish an update? thanks, I'm looking for a bit of extra assistance before I'm off for 20 days, Michel -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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village based enterpreneurial peer networks
by Michel Bauwens 14 Sep '11

14 Sep '11

http://p2pfoundation.net/Village_Capital Hi Sepp, thanks for looking into this! -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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