The Digital Dispatch

From NOEBIE.net

Revolution

David Cay Johnston on Inequality’s Looming Disaster

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From an interview with economics journalist David Cay Johnston:

We will either, through peaceful, rational means, go back to a system that does not take from the many to give to the few in all these subtle ways, or we will end up like 18th century France. And if we end up in that awful condition, it will be the bloodiest thing the world has even seen. So I think it’s really important to get a handle on this inequality.

Read the full interview. “Bloodiest thing the world has seen”: David Cay Johnston on inequality’s looming disaster – Salon.com.

Don’t Surrender! A Report From Turkey

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Turkish Journalist Ece Temelkuran writes at New Statesman.

My friend, who was completely uninterested in politics until six days ago, had never been in conflict with the police before. Now, like hundreds of thousands of others in Turkey, she has become a warrior with goggles around her neck, an oxygen mask on her face and an anti-acid solution bottle in her hand. It is like a civil war between the police and the people. Yet nobody expected this when, six days ago, a group of protesters organised a sit-in at Istanbuls Gezi Park to protect trees that were to be cut down for the governments urban redevelopment project.

In Taksim Square, on the building of Atatürk Cultural Center, some people are hanging a huge banner. There are only two words on it: “Don’t surrender!”

READ MORE: People have killed their fear of authority – and the protests are growing.

Taksim Olayları

Today’s Must Read: A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse

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“Submitting oneself to labor discipline—supervision, control, even the self-control of the ambitious self-employed—does not make one a better person. In most really important ways, it probably makes one worse. To undergo it is a misfortune that at best is sometimes necessary. Yet it’s only when we reject the idea that such labor is virtuous in itself that we can start to ask what is virtuous about labor. To which the answer is obvious. Labor is virtuous if it helps others.”

Read the Full Article: A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse | David Graeber | The Baffler.

The Spirit of Port Huron Endures

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The Port Huron Statement was completed fifty years ago today. It remains a visionary document, and a call to continue the unfinished work of my generation.

Let us rededicate ourselves to this work, so that The Psalmist’s words may be true:

“Justice shall flourish in those days, a profound peace from sea to sea and to the ends of the earth.”

Another world is possible.

★ ★ ★

Full Text of The Port Huron Statement

What The Port Huron Statement Still Has To Say – Commentary from Tom Hayden

Earlier Posts on Port Huron:

The Port Huron Statement at 50

More On The Port Huron Statement at 50


West Coast Port Shutdown

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Thousands of activists began to gather in the early morning hours today to protest at ports along the West Coast of the United States. Events are planned throughout the day from San Diego to Seattle.

You can follow what’s happening live on Twitter @occupytheport. You can also follow the #D12 hashtag for reports and comments from the community at large.