Archive | September, 2021

Wind, solar, and batteries are already the cheapest source of electricity and an aggressive shift to clean energy makes more economic sense than a slow one, according to a new study. However, an enormous lobbying effort is underway to block climate policy in the $3.5 trillion budget bill under consideration.

The Museum of Neoliberalism, which this month welcomes back visitors, is a brave undertaking, full of ironic and hilarious twists and takes, deploying a wicked Orwellian double-think to mock and expose neoliberal marketing and branding.

Amidst all of the sensible and sane cries to eliminate nuclear weapons, we are caught in a self-sustaining, self-reinforcing feedback loop. Call it the Death Spiral of Human Annihilation.

Agriculture—especially industrial agriculture requiring chemical inputs—is cause and victim of these changes. Cultivation patterns such as mono-cropping, with heavy reliance on groundwater and chemical inputs, have reduced the food sovereignty of poor countries and generated growing environmental problems.

The Washington Post has a piece on the current deportation of Haitian migrants from the U.S. and how it is charged with racism.

While the framework of “vectoralism” proposed by McKenzie Wark in Capital is Dead: Is This Something Worse? proves inadequate for understanding contemporary political economy, the concept of value chains developed by Intan Suwandi (Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism) offers a promising alternative.

On 13 July 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted a landmark resolution on the prevalence of racism and for the creation of an independent mechanism made up of three experts to investigate the root cause of deeply embedded racism and intolerance.

Shielding the Western elite from justified rage.

When it comes to rejecting the Second Law of Thermodynamics, only fools would rush in where Engels feared to tread.

The spectacle of violence against Haitians at the U.S.-Mexico border needs to be seen in light of ongoing U.S. imperialism in Haiti.

The AUKUS despite being coined a security partnership, is a nuclear arms deal aimed at increasing pressure against China and should be cause for concern.

In January 2020, as the Verizon settlement was being worked out, the city released the NYC Internet Master Plan, which declared: “The private market has failed to deliver the internet in a way that works for all New Yorkers.”

Australia’s Defence Policy explained – Utopia

As the Pentagon drives a hi-tech arms race to maintain its global military superiority, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is the man at the center. Behind The Headlines’ Dan Cohen investigates how the U.S. empire’s drive to control the world using Silicon Valley technology creates the possibility of a devastating war.

In ‘Socialism and Ecology’ and ‘Ecology and the Labour Movement’, Raymond Williams is arguing the case for a political convergence. Socialism and the labour movement on the one hand, and the ecological or environmental movement on the other, should join forces and both be transformed in the process.

The latest county-level trials could boost rooftop solar power generation over the next five years but new business models are needed to make them successful.

The origins of the first Cold War have been hopelessly blurred in the histories. We can watch this time. It is occurring before our eyes.

The scientific consensus is clear that human activities are primarily responsible for global climate change, and that the climate crisis now represents the greatest threat to human civilization and nature.

Named AUKUS, the partnership was announced together with a bombshell decision: The United States and UK will transfer naval nuclear-propulsion technology to Australia.

The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia have formed an alliance called “AUKUS” to create, in the words of Australia PM Scott Morrison, “a partnership where our technology, our scientists, our industry, our defense forces are all working together to deliver a safer and more secure region that ultimately benefits all.”