How Seattle Voted to Tax the Rich

Source: How Seattle Voted to Tax the Rich

With permission from

http://www.counterpunch.org

by Adam Ziemkowski and Rebekah Liebermann

July 19, 2017

Photo by breakmake | CC BY 2.0

Seattle further cemented its reputation as one of the most progressive cities in the U.S. last week, when its City Council passed a law to tax the rich, sponsored by socialist City Councilmember Kshama Sawant along with Councilmember Lisa Herbold. The law places a 2.25% tax on individual incomes over $250,000 and $500,000 for married couples. It’s expected to raise as much as $175 million to fund affordable housing, education, transit, human services, and other critical needs.

Recognizing the significance of Seattle’s new tax on the rich, the Los Angeles Times reported, “a number of cities have adopted local income taxes, but no other city has solely targeted high earners and few have adopted so high a tax rate. The measure has opened the door to political warfare in the state.” Shortly before the vote, former Microsoft CEO and Seattle billionaire, Steve Ballmer, warned city officials, most of whose campaigns are financed by big business and wealthy individuals, that a tax on the rich would “drive up wages here and cause [company executives] to think about moving jobs elsewhere. That will certainly happen.”

Despite this, the City Council unanimously passed the tax on the rich and a chorus of Democratic establishment politicians sung its praises. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray declared, “Our goal is to replace our regressive tax system with a new formula for fairness, while ensuring Seattle stands up to President Trump’s austere budget that cuts transportation, affordable housing, healthcare, and social services.”

As activists in an organization, Socialist Alternative, that have been fighting to tax the rich since the Occupy movement, and which ran campaigns for Kshama Sawant in 2012, 2013, and 2015, and Jess Spear in 2014, with “tax the rich” as a central demand, this is a welcome change of tune. These are many of the same establishment politicians who voted against Sawant’s City Council proposal to fund transit through a progressive tax on business. They also rejected another Sawant initiative to reduce energy rates for working people by making big businesses like Boeing and NuCor Steel at least pay the same rate as individuals.

Those of us in the movement should be crystal clear on how this came about. We didn’t win this because Seattle’s Democratic establishment suddenly began to care about the crushing impact that decades of budget cuts and regressive taxes have had on working people and people of color in our city.

It was the growing might of our social movements that led to this major victory. The establishment may have ultimately voted ‘yes,’ but not because they genuinely support taxing the rich. Mayor Murray and establishment Councilmembers like Tim Burgess and Lorena Gonzalez voted for it because we built a powerful movement over a number of years which made their continued opposition politically unviable. During our election campaigns, Socialist Alternative members spoke with hundreds of thousands of voters at the door and on the phone, held dozens of rallies, and raised a record-breaking half a million dollars from ordinary people with the bold and unambiguous demand to “tax the rich.” It was a pillar of our 2015 campaign and we made it clear to everyone we talked to that we wanted to make big business and the wealthy elite pay to fund public needs.

Once elected to Seattle City Council, Sawant worked with activists from the Transit Riders Union on the proposal to remove a regressive sales tax and instead fund Seattle’s Metro bus system with a tax on business and a commercial parking fee increase. We lost that vote, but over the past months the Transit Riders Union, led by Katie Wilson, spearheaded the Trump Proof Seattle coalition along with the Economic Opportunity Institute, led by John Burbank. The Trump Proof Seattle coalition, of which Socialist Alternative and Kshama Sawant were a part, played the leading role in this year’s fight to win Seattle’s tax on the rich.

Our movement brought together transit and neighborhood advocates, climate justice and affordable housing activists, socialists, retirees, teachers, and unions into a coalition. It met regularly to discuss and decide on the legislation and build a campaign to win it. The coalition organized Town Halls in each district, dragging along Councilmembers and forcing them to take a position with the community watching. In Sawant’s district, she and Trump Proof Seattle held a standing-room-only rally with people clamoring to tax the rich and ready to make the sacrifices necessary to win it.

Critically, even as our movement picked up steam and corporate politicians started hopping on the tax-the-rich bandwagon, we resisted the siren song of an “easier path” to victory through collaboration with the establishment, rather than class struggle. Our movement maintained an unrelenting political independence and our activist base stubbornly refused to take establishment politicians at their word. Coalition members flooded City Council offices with emails and phone calls and packed City Hall for every discussion and vote, to demand Councilmembers’ support and to warn them not to oppose or water down the legislation. This approach effectively beat back the conservative wing of the Council, which scandalously put out a push poll to test the viability of replacing the tax-the-rich ordinance with a highly regressive “flat tax” proposal.

This model of staking out a bold demand, building a movement independent of the city establishment, and relying on our own strength to win came pretty naturally this time around. That’s not surprising. It’s the same model our movement in Seattle has used to win the Fight for 15, defeat 400% increases on low-income tenants, replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day, defeat a $160 million police precinct proposal, win $29 million of public money for affordable housing, and divest $3 billion dollars from Wells Fargo in solidarity with no NoDAPL, all in just the last few years.

Yet, Seattle’s tax-the-rich and other trailblazing victories aren’t being won in a vacuum. Ever since the economy collapsed and the banks got bailed out, ordinary people have been searching for a way to beat back attacks on their living standards and win gains to improve their lives. The Occupy movement revealed how broad and deep the anger was. Bernie Sanders showed that tens of millions were ready to rally behind a “democratic socialist” campaign taking no money from big business and calling for a national $15 minimum wage, free college education, and a political revolution against the billionaire class.

Donald Trump’s election upped the ante, and in the months after his election, millions took to the streets to defend the basic rights of immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, Muslims, unions, and workers. Ordinary people are flooding into activist organizations like Trump Proof Seattle and the Neighborhood Action Councils. Socialist organizations like Democratic Socialists of America and Socialist Alternative are also seeing a rapid increase in membership.

Many of these new activists are grappling with the question of how we can defeat Donald Trump and win victories in the face of constant attacks. Do we fight Trump and make change by accommodating ourselves to what’s acceptable to the Democratic establishment and big business? Or do we build movements that fight for bold demands and are prepared to use radical tactics, including civil disobedience?

The victories in Seattle – from the Fight for 15 to tax the rich – provide activists with clear answers to these questions. Building determined movements alongside having a voice in City Hall, Socialist Alternative’s Kshama Sawant, is a powerful combination. While we will work in unity with broader forces, including Democrats like those who ultimately voted unanimously for the tax the rich proposal, we do not put our trust in corporate politicians or limit our demands to what they or their big business backers are prepared to accept. As thousands swell the ranks of activist and socialist organizations, the Seattle model has a potential to expand and win gains around the country, if the right strategies and tactics are applied.

In Seattle, the tax-the-rich fight is far from over. The right wing Freedom Foundation has already filed a lawsuit saying the tax violates a Washington state law barring cities from taxing net income. State Republican Party Chairperson, Susan Hutchison, in a press conference where she was surrounded by red “tax the rich” placards, called for “civil disobedience” and to “forcefully resist the tax.” Tax Foundation executive Joseph Henchman complained, “If it was just about the law, it couldn’t survive, but my worry is the judges will think about other considerations.” Henchman is correct that the courts are also subject to the power and pressures of social movements, as shown over and over in U.S. history, and recently with the victory on marriage equality in the Supreme Court. Without a doubt, our movement in Seattle is ready to take our fight into the courthouses as well as back onto the streets.

In the meantime, we are not resting on our laurels. We are channelling the energy that won a tax on the rich into a bold campaign for affordable housing and rent control, and knocking on thousands of doors in neighborhoods around the city. Given our track record, the Seattle real estate lobby and political establishment are already on high alert.

More articles by:Adam Ziemkowski and Rebekah Liebermann

Time for the “International Left” to Take a Stand on Venezuela

Source: Time for the “International Left” to Take a Stand on Venezuela

http://www.counterpunch.org

by Gregory Wilpert

July 17, 2017

Venezuela is heading towards an increasingly dangerous situation, in which open civil war could become a real possibility. So far over 100 people have been killed as a result of street protests, most of these deaths are the fault of the protesters themselves (to the extent that we know the cause). The possibility of civil war becomes more likely as long the international media obscure who is responsible for the violence and as long as the international left remains on the sidelines in this conflict and fails to show solidarity with the Bolivarian socialist movement in Venezuela.

If the international left receives its news about Venezuela primarily from the international media, it is understandable why it is being so quiet. After all, this mainstream media consistently fails to report who is instigating the violence in this conflict. For example, a follower of CNN or the New York Times would not know that of the 103 who have been killed as a result of street protests, 27 were the direct or indirect result of the protesters themselves. Another 14 were the result of lootings, in one prominent case because looters set fire to a store and ended up getting engulfed in the flames themselves. 14 deaths are attributable to the actions of state authorities (where in almost all cases those responsible have been charged), and 44 are still under investigation or in dispute. This is according to data from the office of the Attorney General, which itself has recently become pro-opposition.

Also unknown to most consumers of the international media would be that opposition protesters detonated a bomb in the heart of Caracas on July 11, wounding seven National Guard soldiers, that a building belonging to the Supreme Court was burnt by opposition protesters on June 12th or that opposition protesters attacked a maternity hospital on May 17.

President Maduro

In other words, it is possible that much of the international left has been misled about the violence in Venezuela, into thinking that the government is the only one responsible, that President Maduro has declared himself to be dictator for life (when he actually confirmed that the presidential elections scheduled for late 2018 will proceed as planned), or that all dissent is being punished with prison (when a major opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, who was partly responsible for the post-election violence in 2014 was just released from prison, now under house arrest). If this is the reason for the silence on Venezuela, then the left should be ashamed for not having read its own critiques of the mainstream media.

All of the foregoing does not contradict that there are plenty of places where one might criticize the Maduro government for having made mistakes with regard to how it has handled the current situation, both economically and politically. However, criticisms (of which I have made several myself) do not justify taking either a neutral or pro-opposition stance in this momentous conflict. As the South African anti-apartheid activist Desmond Tutu once said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”

Perhaps the Venezuelan case is also confusing to outsiders because President Maduro is in power and the opposition is not. It could thus be difficult to see the opposition as being an “oppressor.” However, for an internationalist left it should not be so confusing. After all, the opposition in Venezuela receives significant support not only from private business, but also from the US government, the international right, and transnational capital.

Perhaps progressives feel that the Maduro government has lost all democratic legitimacy and that this is why they cannot support it. According to the mainstream media coverage, Maduro canceled regional elections scheduled for December 2016, prevented the recall referendum from happening, and neutralized the National Assembly. Let’s take a brief look at each of these claims one by one.

First, regional elections (state governors and mayors) were indeed supposed to take place in late 2016, but the National Electoral Council (CNE) postponed them with the argument that political parties needed to re-register first. Leaving aside the validity of this argument, the CNE rescheduled the elections recently for December 2017. This postponement of a scheduled election is not unprecedented in Venezuela because it happened before, back in 2004, when local elections were postponed for a full year. Back then, at the height of President Chávez’s power, hardly anyone objected.

As for the recall referendum, it was well known that it would take approximately ten months to organize between its initiation and its culmination. However, the opposition initiated the process in April 2016, far too late for the referendum to take place in 2016, as they wanted (because if it takes place in 2017 there would be no new presidential election, according to the constitution, and the vice-president takes over for the remainder of the term).

Finally, with regard to the disqualification of the National Assembly, this was another self-inflicted wound on the part of the opposition. That is, even though the opposition had won 109 out of 167 seats (65%) outright, they insisted on swearing in three opposition members whose election was in dispute because of fraud claims. As a result, the Supreme Court ruled that until these three members are removed, most decisions of the national assembly would not be valid.

In other words, none of the arguments against the democratic legitimacy of the Maduro government hold much water. More than that, polls repeatedly indicate that even though Maduro is fairly unpopular, a majority of Venezuelans want him to finish his term in office, which expires in January 2019. As a matter of fact, Maduro’s popularity is not as low as several other (conservative) presidents in Latin America at the moment, such as that of Mexico’s Enrique Peña Nieto (17% in March, 2017), Brazil’s Michel Temer (7% in June, 2017), or Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos (14% in June, 2017). Compare these to Nicolas Maduro’s 24% approval rating in March 2017.

Now that we have addressed the possible reasons why the international left has been reluctant to show solidarity with the Maduro government and the Bolivarian socialist movement, we need to examine what “neutrality” in this situation would end up meaning – in other words, what allowing the opposition to come to power via an illegal and violent transition would mean.

First and foremost, their coming to power will almost certainly mean that all Chavistas – whether they currently support President Maduro or not – will become targets for persecution. Although it was a long time ago, many Chavistas have not forgotten the “Caracazo,” when in February 1989, then-president Carlos Andrés Perez meted out retaliation on poor neighborhoods for protesting against his government and wantonly killed somewhere between 400 and 1,000 people. More recently, during the short-lived coup against President Chávez in April 2002 the current opposition showed it was more than willing to unleash reprisals against Chavistas. Most do not know this, but during the two-day coup regime over 60 Chavistas were killed in Venezuela (this figure does not include the 19 killed in the lead-up to the coup, on both sides of the political divide). The post-election violence of April 2013 left 7 dead, and the Guarimbas of February to April 2014 left 43 dead. Although the dead in each of these cases represented a mix of opposition supporters, Chavistas, and non-involved bystanders, in almost all of these cases the majority belonged to the Chavista side of the political divide. Now, during the most recent wave of guarimbas, there have also been several incidents where a Chavista was too close to an opposition protest were chased and killed because protesters recognized them to be a Chavista in some way.

In other words, the danger that Chavistas will be persecuted more generally if the opposition should take over the government is very real. Even though the opposition includes reasonable individuals who would not support such a persecution, the current leadership of the opposition has done nothing to reign in the fascist tendencies within its own ranks. If anything, they have encouraged these tendencies.

Second, even though the opposition has not published a concrete plan for what it intends to do once in government (which is also one of the reasons why the opposition remains almost as unpopular among the general population as the government), individual statements by opposition leaders indicate that they would immediately proceed to implement a neoliberal economic program along the lines of President Temer in Brazil or Mauricio Macri in Argentina. They might succeed in reducing inflation and shortages this way, but at the expense of eliminating subsidies and social programs for the poor across the board. Also, they would roll back all of the policies supporting communal councils and communes that have been a cornerstone of participatory democracy in the Bolivarian revolution.

So, instead of silence, neutrality, or indecision from the international left in the current conflict in Venezuela, what is needed is active solidarity with the Bolivarian socialist movement. Such solidarity means vehemently opposing all efforts to overthrow the government of President Maduro during his current presidential term in office. Aside from the patent illegality that the Maduro government’s overthrow would represent, it would also be a literally deadly blow to Venezuela’s socialist movement and to the legacy of President Chávez. The international left does not even need to take a position on whether the proposed constitutional assembly or negotiations with the opposition is the best way to resolve the current crisis. That is really up to Venezuelans to decide. Opposing intervention and disseminating information on what is actually happening in Venezuela, though, are the two things where non-Venezuelans can play a constructive role.

Gregory Wilpert is a former director of the teleSUR English website and author of Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chávez Government.

More articles by:Gregory Wilpert

G. Edward Griffin Explains The Ideological Foundation In The Battle For Freedom

Source: G. Edward Griffin Explains The Ideological Foundation In The Battle For Freedom

http://www.activistpost.com

June 6, 2017

By Vin Armani

In this video, Vin Armani discusses the ideological foundation in the battle for freedom, collectivism versus individualism, with the incredible historian and philosopher G. Edward Griffin. GRIFFIN is a writer, documentary film producer, and Founder of Freedom Force International. He is best known as the author of The Creature From Jekyll Island.

Watch the full broadcast here
Live free and succeed outside the rigged system at Counter Markets

Vin Armani is the host of The Vin Armani Show on Activist Post, TV Star of Gigolos on Showtime, Agorist entrepreneur and co-founder of Counter Markets. Follow Vin on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube. Get the weekly podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Vin is available for interviews at email Vin (at) VinArmani.com.

Finian Cunningham: Britain’s May Plays Terror Card, But It Could Be a Joker

Source: Britain’s May Plays Terror Card, But It Could Be a Joker

ww.strategic-culture.org

Finian CUNNINGHAM

06.06.2017

Britain’s May Plays Terror Card, But It Could Be a Joker

Britain’s embattled Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May is shamelessly playing the «terror card» to bolster her «strong leader» posture, just days before the general election this week.

Breaking an informal agreement with rival political parties to temporarily suspend election campaigning, May rushed to deliver a speech in front of 10 Downing Street calling for a «robust» law and order response to a «new threat terror».

May made her nationwide appeal the morning after the deadly terror attack in London on Saturday night in which seven bystanders were killed. Her grandstanding speech also attempted to tar her main rival, Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, as being «soft on terrorism».

It’s a well-worn Tory ploy of presenting the Conservative party as the strong national-security defenders, while casting others as the «enemy within». This may have worked efficaciously in the past. But in the present circumstances the trusty old terror card has become threadbare from lies and fatal contradictions.

At the weekend, all British political parties had agreed to suspend campaigning for 24 hours following the assault late on Saturday night in which three British-born jihadists launched a van and knife attack on pedestrians near London Bridge. But, in a sign of desperation, Theresa May broke ranks and appeared early Sunday morning to make her anti-terror appeal.

The latest events come at a critical time ahead of the British snap election. Since the Conservative government made the surprise call for an early election, Theresa May has seen her poll ratings collapse from a 20-plus point lead to a nail-biting margin of only a few points over Labour rival Jeremy Corbyn.

Under Corbyn’s leadership, the Labour party is campaigning on a platform that has been described as the most left-wing seen in decades. His pitch for wide-ranging socialist policies has unexpectedly rallied the British public in support. That surge has alarmed the Tories who are traditionally pro-business and advocates of neoliberal austerity policies.

The British media which is largely supportive of the Conservatives have over recent weeks been piling up negative claims against Corbyn as being «soft on terrorism». Those claims have referred to his past verbal support for groups like Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Irish republicans during the 1980s. Corbyn contends that his past support for such groups was aimed at facilitating inclusive peace talks.

But the Conservatives have been ruthlessly vilifying the Labour leader as a «terrorist sympathizer» as well as being «anti-NATO» and «soft on Russia». The latter epithet stems partly from Corbyn’s stated reluctance to order the use of nuclear weapons if he were prime minister.

The latest terror attack in London – Britain’s third deadly jihadist-related attack in three months – has given Theresa May and her embattled Tory party more ammunition to go after Corbyn, or so they would like to think.

But just like May’s gamble to call an early general election, betting that it would strengthen her government, the ploy to use the terror card might also rebound badly.

For a start Labour and other opposition parties have pointed out that the spate of terror attacks hitting Britain have been made possible by the huge public spending cutbacks that the Conservatives have implemented over several years. Corbyn countered May’s latest posturing of «strong leadership» by reminding voters that her government has reduced police force ranks by some 20,000 personnel. That reduction, he says, inevitably impairs state security, allowing would-be jihadists to organize.

Indeed media reports have documented that the jihadist who killed four people on London’s Westminster Bridge in April, as well as the suicide bomber who killed 22 at a concert last month in Manchester, and the three suspects in the latest terror attack on London Bridge were all known to the security services.

Why these suspects were not picked up in advance suggests that police services are overstretched and under-manned. Very arguably therefore, the cost-cutting Conservative government bears responsibility for security impairment. And the angry public know that.

Some commentators have gone further and said that secretive forces within the British establishment might even be allowing these terror attacks to proceed in a nefarious calculation that the public repercussions are more harmful politically to Labour’s Corbyn. Wittingly or unwittingly it allows the Conservative party to focus attention on allegations of Corbyn being a «terrorist sympathizer».

Nevertheless, as noted above, the ploy could still go badly wrong for the Conservatives. Before she took over the premiership from David Cameron, who resigned last year over the Brexit referendum, Theresa May served as the Home Secretary for five years. It was under her watch that police services incurred swinging manpower cuts, which have inevitably undermined security measures. Her latest gambit of posing as a strong leader and calling for a «tough» law and order response is in danger of sounding hollow, if not contemptible.

Also, as veteran journalist John Pilger recently reported, there is much evidence pointing to links between Britain’s spy agencies MI5 and MI6 and their clandestine involvement in cultivating homegrown jihadists to fight in British-backed wars for regime change in Libya and Syria. This covert policy of British state collusion with jihadists was conducted during May’s stint as Home Secretary. So when May piously talks about a new threat of terrorism facing Britain, it is not a difficult stretch for the public to connect this threat as being blowback from Britain’s involvement in dirty wars.

While May and her government would like to treat the terror attacks in Britain as «isolated» manifestations of «evil ideology», there is a growing public understanding that the violence assailing British streets is inextricably linked to Britain’s criminal foreign policy of sponsoring wars for regime change and consorting with proxy terror groups.

After May’s dig at Corbyn with her claim that there was «too much tolerance towards terrorism», the Labour leader hit back, saying that Britain must look critically at its relations with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf monarchies which are systematically connected to jihadist extremism.

«We do need to have some difficult conversations starting with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that have funded and fueled extremist ideology,» said Corbyn.

May’s government has in particular sought to increase weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states even while these regimes are increasingly seen as having a notorious record on human rights violations at home and abroad. The British-backed Saudi slaughter in Yemen is a particular cause of public disgust in Britain.

When Theresa May stood in front of Downing Street at the weekend and intoned that «terrorism breeds terrorism» she was inadvertently making a self-indicting statement on her own government’s appalling record. Her government and its consorting with terrorist-sponsoring Wahhabi oil kingdoms has not only wreaked havoc in the Middle East. Such a reckless criminal policy is ricocheting all over Britain’s streets. And the British public can see that, despite government and media deflections over responsibility.

The increasing awareness among the British public about Britain’s complicity in terrorism makes the once-trusty terror card an unreliable card to play. It’s not the ace that Theresa May thinks she is playing against Corbyn. Instead, it could turn out to be a bad joker.

Maduro Tells Trump to ‘Get Hands Off’ Venezuela as Tensions Rise

Go home Yankees! The USA cannot fix its own country yet it tries to dictate how other countries rule themselves. Don’t be naive: The USA is behind the fall of Venezuela. It still has not forgiven Chavez for giving the finger to the empire. Long live Chavez!

Source: Maduro Tells Trump to ‘Get Hands Off’ Venezuela as Tensions Rise

sputniknews.com

20.05.2017

Nicolas Maduro bashed his US counterpart Donald Trump telling him to stop meddling in the country’s home affairs.

© REUTERS/ Christian Veron

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Friday bashed his US counterpart Donald Trump, in a speech reported by national radio, telling him to stop meddling in the country’s home affairs.

“Get your hands out of here, Donald Trump, go home, enough of this interventionism, Venezuela has its pride,” Maduro said.

On Thursday, President Trump called the political crisis in Venezuela a “horrible problem” and a “disgrace to humanity.” He vowed to work together with other countries in the region to address this issue.

Venezuela has been in turmoil since early April when thousands of people took to the streets to protest against President Maduro, who is accused by the opposition of mismanaging the oil-rich country. More than 40 people have died in the clashes that followed.

We need to break science out of its ivory tower – here’s one way to do this

I love this cartoon. It transcends all ideologies with pragmatist solutions.

We can overcome the tyranny of inaccessible science hardware by building a movement for equity in science.

Source: We need to break science out of its ivory tower – here’s one way to do this

theconversation.com

Max Liboiron

Professor of Geography and Environmental Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland

April 25, 2017

Without hardware, there is no science. From Hooke’s microscope to the Hubble telescope, instruments are modern science’s platforms for producing knowledge. But limited access to scientific tools impedes the progress and reach of science by restricting the type of people who can participate in research, favouring those who have access to well-resourced laboratories in industrial or academic institutions.

Scientists in developing countries, grassroots community organisations, and citizen scientists can struggle to obtain and maintain the equipment they require to answer their own research questions.

The result of this exclusion from participation is that scientific research becomes ever more elitist as a small number of people decide what the worthwhile and valid projects are. For example, the relative neglect of many tropical diseases and agricultural research on African subsistence crops demonstrates that local concerns in areas with limited scientific resources are often not sufficiently addressed by global science.

Likewise, public concerns and desire for transparency around technology can also be ignored. Research on fracking has received $137 million from the United States Department of Energy. But despite vocal concerns about water pollution, no affordable technologies have been developed for communities to use to monitor their own air or water, even though access to the relevant data from industry is difficult. Locking science inside ivory and industry towers restricts what it can look like.

Open hardware

The open science hardware movement challenges these norms with the goal of providing different futures for science, using hardware as a launching point. It argues that plans, protocols and material lists for scientific instruments should be shared, accessible and able to be replicated. The fact that a lot of modern scientific equipment is a consumer product that is patented, not supplied with full design information and difficult to repair also blocks creativity and customisation.

For example, open source project Oceanography for Everyone recently crowdfunded an open conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) instrument out of frustration with the lack of low-cost instrumentation available. CTD instruments are the workhorses of oceanography research, and usually cost thousands of dollars. Oceanography for Everyone’s model achieves comparable data but costs US$300 to build, and the plans are public on GitHub. Think of OpenCTD like a really nice shirt. You could buy one for $40, or if you don’t have enough money but you do have a sewing pattern and some time, you could purchase the fabric for $5 and make it yourself, and even customise it to your needs and tastes.

Lower cost is only one goal of open science hardware. CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, pioneered an Open Hardware License to enable large-scale, open collaboration on projects. One of these, White Rabbit, is an electronic controller for precise synchronisation of signals across vast distances. White Rabbit ensures that some of the world’s largest particle accelerators are coordinated. But it’s also freely available to anyone, and has found new uses in designing smart electricity grids.

 

Members of CLEAR using hand tools to repair an open science hardware trawl (LADI trawl) for monitoring marine plastics. MEOPAR

Equality or equity?

Instruments such as OpenCTD and White Rabbit are built on the premise of equality, the idea that everyone should have access to scientific tools. Yet the ability to access such tools is only half the story: it doesn’t address the acute disparities in who is creating science in the first place. And these are enormous. In 2015, The Guardian reported that Africa produces just 1.1% of global scientific knowledge. And recent data from UNESCO indicates that only 28% of researchers globally are women. Women do not represent 50% of scientists in a single country in the world.

Attempting to address this problem, several feminist laboratories create and use open science hardware. For example, the Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research (CLEAR) is a feminist marine pollution lab in Newfoundland, Canada. And the GynePunks are a group of bio-hackers at the forefront of DIY gynaecology, based in Barcelona.

These labs are not merely bringing more women and trans scientist-inventors into science-as-usual. They prioritise equity rather than equality, recognising that when people start from fundamentally different social, economic, educational and political positions, treating everyone the same does not overcome those differences. In doing so, they transform science in terms of how research priorities are chosen and articulated, what kinds of knowledge is considered valid, and, of course, how scientific tools are made and distributed.

Equality vs. Equity. Interaction Institute for Social Change. Artist: Angus Maguire. CC BY 2.0

Beyond the lab

Particularly valuable work is being done by groups attempting to move science out of the lab and into places and frameworks where it would not usually occur.

For example, Public Lab is a US-based environmental science community founded by frustrated citizens on the Gulf Coast following the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in 2010. Getting accurate, timely and public high resolution data about local damage was impossible due to flight restrictions over the spill area and satellites are too far away to provide the same level of detail. So citizen scientists stitched together photos from cheap cameras suspended from helium balloons. The tools are open and accessible, and the research is done by and for local people without science degrees.

Public Lab volunteers mapping the Deep Horizon oil spill using a low-cost weather balloon setup that is openly documented on the Public Lab wiki. Jeff Warren/Flickr

Likewise, the work of Lifepatch, an Indonesian citizen initiative in art, science, and technology which uses low-cost methods and open tools such as webcam microscopes, is deeply rooted in Indonesian collective culture. The questions of basic, daily life and everyday needs have driven projects with local communities on river water quality, bio-recovery of soils altered by volcanic eruptions and safe fermentation practices in collaboration with local academics.

All of these projects demonstrate the value of science grounded in specific places, complex local traditions, ethics, contexts and research questions, rather than a universal science that works the same everywhere for everyone. We need to push science towards communal, bottom-up, and collaborative practices; away from territorial, proprietary, institutional, Western-dominated and individualistic practices.

This has significant implications for where science happens, who is involved, and as a result, the types of knowledge that can be produced. Open science hardware is about creating new futures for science.

The REAL New World Order

“That is not “socialism”. Socialism is “share the wealth”, not steal all of the wealth.”

Constant economic predation. Ever more reckless military acts from ever more-desperate regimes. This is the New World Order – the real one.

Source: The REAL New World Order | Zero Hedge

http://www.zerohedge.com

April 26, 2017

Written by Jeff Nielson (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL)

Regular readers are familiar with the Old World Order: the cabal of Western oligarchs who control not only our own puppet governments, but generally dictate events to most nations around the world. The vehicle used by these oligarchs to maintain their (economic) control over Western governments to keep them meek and submissive is the One

Regular readers are also familiar with this entity. The One Bank is a banking crime syndicate. Its dimensions have been previously defined in the computer modeling of a trio of Swiss researchers. The finding of that model is that by itself this crime syndicate controls roughly 40% of the entire global economy – all of the most important sectors.

What is one of the biggest problems for the One Bank? When you are a crime syndicate which controls 40% of the global economy, it becomes hard to continue to hide in the shadows.

The solution? The oligarchs resorted to the same solution they use to cover up all of the One Bank’s mega crimes: propaganda. In this case, it was disinformation. The oligarchs went and borrowed a metaphor which already existed in the extremes of conspiracy-theory writing: “the New World Order.”

They then began spreading this disinformation on a much larger scale than any of the previous conspiracy-mongering in this area. To give the disinformation a veneer of plausibility, the oligarchs of the Old World Order even allowed themselves to be (supposedly) linked to the mythological New World Order.

What is the NWO supposed to be? According to the propagandists (inadvertent and otherwise) who promote it, it is a secret socialist, one-world government being constructed “above” the level of our own pathetic puppet governments.

How do you hide if you are a crime syndicate which controls 40% of the global economy? Where do you hide? Inside a great, big lie.

Alert and intelligent readers should automatically dismiss this NWO as nothing but absurd propaganda. What has the OWO been doing, perpetually and ravenously? Stealing all of the wealth of the masses and piling it atop the own obscene hoards of the oligarchs.

That is not “socialism”. Socialism is “share the wealth”, not steal all of the wealth.

It has become so easy to fool most people with vacuous ideological labels. Barack Obama was frequently labeled a “socialist” by much of the brain-dead Right. What did Obama do for eight years? He stole from the bottom 80% of the U.S. population and gave to his Masters: the Top 0.01%. That is not socialism either. Just another reverse-Robin Hood, right-wing government: steal from the Poor; give to the (very, very) Rich.

There is no “new world order”. There is only the Old World Order, or at least this has been the case for many, many decades up until now.

There is great irony here. The Old World Order invented the myth of the “New World Order” to hide its raping-and-pillaging of the planet. But it is precisely this continuous and ever more rapacious plundering that has now resulted in the rise of an actual New World Order.

This NWO is not a crime syndicate of psychopaths like the Old World Order. Neither is it some totally ridiculous ideological contrivance like the (mythological) New World Order. The real New World Order that is coming into existence today is an association of necessity, led by China and Russia, to help the nations of the Rest of the World protect themselves from the psychopathic West, and the oligarchs in control of it.

Remember the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War? Weren’t those happy times? The “evil” Soviets had been defeated, and now we were all going to live happily ever after. China and even Russia were wooed by the West – old enemies becoming new friends.

However, when the oligarchs of the One Bank learned that Russia and China had no intentions of serving the West (i.e. the Old World Order), this new friendship quickly deteriorated. The next thing we knew, the Corporate media in the West were back to Cold War rhetoric, simply substituting “Russia” for “Soviet Union”.

Russia was first in the cross-hairs because it had never really benefitted from the new (supposed) era of cooperation between East and West. Put another way, the oligarchs had invested nothing in their faux friendship with Russia. Meanwhile, their puppets in the Corrupt West had already begun targeting nations allied to Russia.

One of the ways these puppet governments have been covering up their own campaign of naked aggression is through fabricating a massive blanket of propaganda. Every act of naked aggression by the West was supposedly a “reaction” by these fascist governments to supposed aggression from Russia’s allies or even Russia itself — or else “the terrorists” (the West’s mercenary henchmen).

It culminated when the U.S. staged a coup in Ukraine, Russia’s closest neighbour and ally. The coup was justified according to the West because the regime previously in power was corrupt. There are two obvious rebuttals to that pathetically flimsy argument.

1.  There was already an election scheduled in Ukraine in less than six months. Are the Champions of Democracy (what the Corrupt West likes to call itself) telling us that a coup d’etat is better than simply waiting for an election?
2.  If “corruption” was reason enough to stage a revolution, there would already be revolutions-in-progress all over the West itself.

After the U.S. staged that coup, demonization of Russia dramatically escalated, along with the military campaign against Syria – another Russian ally. Economic terrorism was launched against Russia’s economy. The ruble was ruthlessly attacked by the convicted currency manipulators of the One Bank. Oil prices were manipulated dramatically lower, with Barack Obama publicly boasting that this manipulation was “a part of the U.S. strategy” against Russia.

Soon, even China was targeted. China had outlived its usefulness as a (low wage) jurisdiction for Western multinational corporations. The Chinese people now wanted to be paid decent wages, so the oligarchs had already begun to shift their corporate operations to other even lower-wage jurisdictions.

The excuse for (once again) referring to China as an enemy was/is the South China Sea. While the West flexes its muscles by dropping bombs on the heads of people in Africa and Asia, the Western media has been relentlessly demonizing China for building artificial islands in essentially unoccupied waters.

Building islands or dropping bombs? Which is the more deplorable international crime? According to Western media, it is (conveniently) the “crime” of building islands.

This renewed aggression against Russia and China by the West did not spawn the Rest of the World’s “New World Order”. Instead, this aggression is the belated realization by the West’s psychopathic oligarchs of the existence of this new, world order. While the oligarchs have been busy destroying everything in sight, China and Russia were attempting to build something.

Here China has taken the lead with its Belt and Road Initiative. Loosely based upon China’s ancient “Silk Road”, it is the world’s largest project in terms of infrastructure and economic cooperation, even larger than the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II.

The Marshall Plan was an enormously successful initiative where the oligarchs actually worked on fixing all of the damage and destruction they had engineered after manufacturing World War II. In contrast, the Belt and Road Initiative is a plan to economically fortify (first) Asia and (then) the Rest of the World against the Corrupt West.

Along with this, China and Russia have constructed “parallel” economic institutions which now exist side-by-side with similar Western-based institutions. The great joke here is that while China and Russia have publicly spoken of these institutions existing in conjunction with their (corrupted) versions in the West, the oligarchs can clearly see that they are intended to replace Western-based institutions.

With which institutions would the Rest of the World prefer to do business: entities rancid with corruption like the World Bank and the IMF, or an honest broker like the Asia Development Bank?

Constant economic predation. Ever more reckless military acts from ever more-desperate regimes. The psychopathic empire of the One Bank has simply become so intolerable and so dangerous that the Rest of the World is being forced to unite as a mechanism of self-preservation.

This is the New World Order – the real one.

It really is “new”. It really does involve the “world” (except for the Corrupt West). And it really could/should lead to “order”, not the ever-worsening chaos as the One Bank regularly orders its puppet governments to destroy any nation that gets in its way.

What the New World Order is not is any sort of one-world government. What the New World Order is not is some (supposed) “socialist utopia”.

The new, world order being crafted by China and Russia is non-ideological. It is non-controlling. Another great irony here is that as Western regimes have gotten increasingly corrupt, belligerent, and simply evil, the Eastern powers have become relatively more virtuous.

Perhaps it was simply being able to observe how not to run the world (for several decades), but China and Russia have seemingly adopted the doctrine of Enlightened Self-Interest. By helping neighbouring nations and acting as honest brokers in the global community, China and Russia see the surest path to their own prosperity and security.

Another thing that the New World Order is not is perfect. As global powers, China and Russia do not resemble White Knights, merely the lessers-of-evil – much less evil. The New World Order coming into existence today is not some ideologically based pipe-dream. It is a construct of pragmatism, designed to help nations co-exist and (hopefully) prosper. In time, perhaps it will replace the United Nations – another corrupted Western institution.

The real NWO will succeed as the new “order” in the world because the Old World Order has succeeded in making itself obsolete.