A MOLLY POINT OF VIEW:
PREDICTABLE AND OTHERWISE PART 1:
For many years I have held a rather heretical (in the usual lefty point of view) opinion. I personally believe that we are living in a post capitalist society that is better described as "managerial" rather than "capitalist". This is, of course, a moot point, and I recognize that no society is purely dependent on only one mode of production and exchange. The inclusion of exchange is important to differentiate my point of view from merely another 'historical materialist' point of view, one that is solely focused on prouction and neglects to one degree or another the world of consumption.
I'll leave the justification of this opinion for another time.What is important here is just like an idealized "capitalist" society has its periodic crises somehow connected to "overproduction" so does managerial society has its own cycles.of crisis. The business cycle, of course, never followed the rule book laid out by Marx in Capital . When Marx wrote his magnum opus in the most free trade society in the world at the time of its maximum free trade existence ie its closest approach to an ideal "capitalism" it was at least seeminly possible that history would follow the schemata that Marx laid out.
There was, however, a fly in the soup.History didn't march to a Marxist drumbeat. This was amptly demonstartrated by Eduard Bernstein in the early years of the 20th century ( see Evolutionary Socialism ). The proletariat was not forced into increasing poverty. So-call "intermediate strata' did not disappear and instead multiplied. The force of monopoly went so far and then settled into a dynamic balanceas new economic opportunities opened up. The Leninist incantations of ìmperialism`failed to explain the fact that the workers found that they could improve their position by both trade union and political ways.The marxist left was left with a theory of price that always failed to either predict or explain the cost that a commodity fetched on the market (free, semi-free or stateized).
In the end there was a business cycle that was more of less controlled (abolished ? ) by state management- both the authoritarian communist and the Keynesian methods. What was left was a society that continued to have periodic crises. Only some of these were classically economic. Others were very much social/political as various underclasses would rebel against their managerial overlords. Of course the eruptions of such rebellion was not wholly predictable, but I seemed to have found a least a crude periodicity of such rebellions in both the so-called capitalist world and in the state socialist world as well. The period was anywhere from 7 to 10 years, and it would often be demonstarted in the state socialist societies not as open rebellion but rather as economic crises, presumably due to somewhat "passive rebellion" on the part of workers and consumers.
Thyere was also the fact that no economic system in history has been pure. The state socialist societies existed only because of an underground capitalist black market that made said societies livable. Feudalism contained elements of both capitalism (the merchants) and managerial rule (many of the monastic orders). Our present society wavers between a managerial system and a capitalist one with the caveat that the decision to adapt prouction and consumption to the rules of the market lies with managers, especially those of the state, the managerial class par excellance.
Next time: Recent rebellions.
Molly'sBlog
A blog devoted to anarchism, socialism, evolutionary biology, animal behavior and a whole raft of other subjects
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
AGRICULTURE:
BREAKING THE ANTIBIOTIC ADDICTION:
For many years it has been a common practice to add antibiotics to food animal rations (poultry, pigs and to a lesser extent cattle). The rationale is that said antibiotics, even if they are in too low a concentration to actually treat any disease, act as growth promoters leading to btter and faster slaughter weights. The mechanism whereby they do this is unclear. It may be by suppressing the growth of pathogenic bacteria, by treating subclinical infections or by promoting the growth of mutualistic bacteria.
No matter what the mechanism there is a downside to this common practice ie the promotion of bacteria that are resistant to not just common antibiotics but also to such "last choice" therapeutics as vancomycin or methicillin.This is because these antibiotics are similar to those used as "growth promoters" in animal feed. The sub-optimal concentrations of such additives is almost gauranteed to promote antibiotic resistant bacteria.This connection has been amply demonstrated in the scientific literature of the last decade.
The demonstration of the promotion of resistant bacteria is now a matter of major concern in public health. This means that various jurisdictions are trying to curb this use (misuse ?) of antibiotics or to ban it entirely. The Swedish example of a total ban is instructive. While there was an initial drop in productivity during the 1986 ban on growth promotant antibiotics the deficit in production was soon made up as farmers paid attention to other facters of production such as hygiene, reduction of stress and other management practices such as "all in all out". The present opinion is that antibiotics have no benefit as growth promoters if of producion are optimized. This has been the experience of Sweden.
The latest country that has opted for a total ban is Denmark, and an editorial (page 440) and article (pages465-466) describe how another country, Denmark, is in the process of such a ban. The articles describe how the ban was faciliated in that Danish farmers are almost all members of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. I do not wish to oveemphasize the role of this body, but it undoubtedly a major factor in the elimination of food additive antibiotics in Denmark.
The actual article in Nature (June 2012, Vol 486,pp 465-466) tells how the ban was implimented, and gives proof of the harm done by sub-therapeutic antibiotics, and it also describes how the argument from production is false . If a person is farming as they should, with proper feed, housing, disease treatment and nutrition then antibiotics add NOTHING to production. In other words if you are a good farmer antibiotics will add nothing to your operation.Do I have to say it again ?
BREAKING THE ANTIBIOTIC ADDICTION:
For many years it has been a common practice to add antibiotics to food animal rations (poultry, pigs and to a lesser extent cattle). The rationale is that said antibiotics, even if they are in too low a concentration to actually treat any disease, act as growth promoters leading to btter and faster slaughter weights. The mechanism whereby they do this is unclear. It may be by suppressing the growth of pathogenic bacteria, by treating subclinical infections or by promoting the growth of mutualistic bacteria.
No matter what the mechanism there is a downside to this common practice ie the promotion of bacteria that are resistant to not just common antibiotics but also to such "last choice" therapeutics as vancomycin or methicillin.This is because these antibiotics are similar to those used as "growth promoters" in animal feed. The sub-optimal concentrations of such additives is almost gauranteed to promote antibiotic resistant bacteria.This connection has been amply demonstrated in the scientific literature of the last decade.
The demonstration of the promotion of resistant bacteria is now a matter of major concern in public health. This means that various jurisdictions are trying to curb this use (misuse ?) of antibiotics or to ban it entirely. The Swedish example of a total ban is instructive. While there was an initial drop in productivity during the 1986 ban on growth promotant antibiotics the deficit in production was soon made up as farmers paid attention to other facters of production such as hygiene, reduction of stress and other management practices such as "all in all out". The present opinion is that antibiotics have no benefit as growth promoters if of producion are optimized. This has been the experience of Sweden.
The latest country that has opted for a total ban is Denmark, and an editorial (page 440) and article (pages465-466) describe how another country, Denmark, is in the process of such a ban. The articles describe how the ban was faciliated in that Danish farmers are almost all members of the Danish Agriculture and Food Council. I do not wish to oveemphasize the role of this body, but it undoubtedly a major factor in the elimination of food additive antibiotics in Denmark.
The actual article in Nature (June 2012, Vol 486,pp 465-466) tells how the ban was implimented, and gives proof of the harm done by sub-therapeutic antibiotics, and it also describes how the argument from production is false . If a person is farming as they should, with proper feed, housing, disease treatment and nutrition then antibiotics add NOTHING to production. In other words if you are a good farmer antibiotics will add nothing to your operation.Do I have to say it again ?
Sunday, July 22, 2012
INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT:
NOTES FROM THE BALTIC ANARCHIST GATHERING:
Almost two months have passed since the Baltic Anarchist Meeting (http://www.bam2012.org/) was organised in Tallinn of Estonia 25th-27th of May, but only now I had time to write some impressions. I haven't come across any other reports yet, but I hope they will show at some point up as I missed many of the discussions.
All countries in the Northern part of the Baltic Sea have an active anarchist movement, but for unclear reasons, connections are not very good. This was the first ever meeting, which attempted to increase links between the movements in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Sweden. Tallinn was a logical place for such a meeting, as it is accessible from all directions - the only drawback is the visa requirement for Russians, due to which Russian participation was eventually rather small (fewer people than from other countries in the region), and no workshops were organised by Russian guests besides my talk on anarchism in Russia.
The anarchist movement in Estonia is rather small. It revolves around the Punamust (Red and Black) Movement /http://www.punamust.org/forum/), the infoshop in Tartu (http://www.araamat.org) and the Social center Ülase12 in Tallinn (http://www.ylase12.org/index.php. Eventually there were more Finnish at the meeting than Estonians, during discussions it sometimes had to be pointed out to the Finnish that they were slipping into internal topics of the Finnish scene, not so interesting for the rest of the participators. Apparently Estonian politics is still characterised by bitterness towards Russia and the Soviet regime, and it is hard to advance anything anti-capitalist in Estonia. The BAM was organised during the meeting of the NATO Parliamentarian Assembly in Tallinn. Although Estonia has taken relatively heavy casualities in Afghanistan (9 killed from a population of 1,340,000), there is not much of any visible opposition against the war. NATO is considered as the guarantor of Estonian independece against the Russian threat.
However, the good side of the small size of the movement is that it is not considered as a threat, and thus the meeting could proceed with much less police harrassment than there would have been in Russia, or even Sweden and Finland. There are not many other open threats either, as Estonian fascists are not interested in attacking anarchist events. There was some unease, as a biker club which has a space next to the social center Ülase12 which was used as a night place was having a party at the yard, and some Nazis were expected to show up at the party, which made some guests quite nervous. But eventually there were no problems.
My presentation opened the event on Friday evening. It was followed by a presentation of different anarchist initiatives in Finland. The last lecture of Friday evening was Gabriel Kuhn's "What is Anarchism: a movement, a lifestyle, an ethic?".
Hopefully I am not making too much violence by attempting to summarize Gabriel's point, but basically he was juxtaposing "anarchism as a movement" against "anarchism as a philosophy/lifestyle/ethic". In his opinion, the first position was promoted in the book "Black Flame: the revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism" by Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, which did not take into account tendencies such as ancient Daoism, Middle-Age heretics or indigenous peoples' lifestyles. Apparently this juxtaposition dates back to this David Graeber's 2002 work http://newleftreview.org/II/13/david-graeber-the-new-anarchists, perhaps via this article by Wayne Price: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/wayne-price-the-two-main-trends-i..... However, as with all such attempts to categorize anarchists, it is quite a relevant question how many anarchists in the end identify themselves with any of the two categories proposed by Graeber, Price or Kuhn.
Saturday was launched by an energetic demo against the parliamentarian assembly of NATO (some photos here: https://avtonom.org/news/estoniya-v-tallinne-anarkhisty-proveli-demonstr...). Authorities had banned marches through the old city of Tallinn, however, we went there anyway and they did not care at all. Only at the very end of the demonstration did a few plainclothes police, or secret service operatives, come to take photos. After the march, there was a demonstration at Tammsaare Park in the very center of the city - but this was attended only by BAM participators, and some guy from a one-person sect with mixed Trotskist and Stalinist politics. I saw one of their posters in the city center against NATO assembly, but only in Russian language - although the guy himself was Estonian, apparently he had no hope of convincing the Estonian majority.
It was a bit unclear to me why many of the local anarchists wanted to stick to a black bloc style, although no property destruction was intended or desirable, and as there are at most 5 anarchist activists around in Tallinn, the authorities know them very well anyway. There is not much of anything "left" in Estonia besides a few anarchists, the war in Afghanistan is only one of the many raised by them alone, so they could easily skip all the fetishist barrage and try to be as accessible as possible to local people. Guests of the conference were for sure even more clueless, afraid of TV cameras for reasons beyond my comprehension etc. Maybe due to lack of briefing, but in my opinion it is pointless to waste hours to brief people before an action without any ambitious goal to disturb anything.
What followed were discussions on anarchism in Lithuania and anarchism in Sweden, but these I missed. At the last panel discussion on popularising anarchist ideas in the Baltic region, I joined in the very end when it was already approaching midnight, and most of the people except slow Finnish folks had already phased out. A local anarchist hang-around considered discussion to be mostly bullshit, so he demonstratively poured a bottle of beer over his head. He was politely asked to mop up the floor, which he did - a cultural shock for the Russians, who expected him to be beaten up.
All discussions were conducted in English only, without translations. This could have limited Russian participation, as unlike other countries in the region, the quality of English teaching in Russian schools is rather bad.
The last day, Sunday 27th, began with the presentation "Soccer vs. The State" by Gabriel Kuhn, on the grassroots struggle against control and commersalization, which is as long as the sport itself. He recently published a book with the same name, where you may read more on detail of the topic. This was followed by "How to be and remain a feminist activist" by Dagmar Kase. I did not know that Tallinn, although a relatively small city of 416,000, has such thriving feminist and queer communities, including a local Ladyfest (in Finland there has not been a Ladyfest since 2009).
Following discussions on fighting Fascism in the Baltic region (by Lithuanians) and non-verbal communication I missed, I only came around for the party, at which point many had left already.
It is a good question, how much you may get from such events, more than just socialising. All languages of the region are mutually unintelligible and with exception of Russian, relevant only locally, so there may not be much of any cooperation in field of political work which in conditions of such a modest scale of the movement mostly revolves around publishing and propaganda only.
I liked the gathering overall; the schedule was well-thought out and not too late, with a good balance between different types of events, and the food was excellent. I especially appreciated, that although many of the local anarchists came from a subcultural background, no gig was organised - in Russia and expecially in Finland, often 80-90% of the organising effort are put on the concerts which do not interest me anyway. There were few enough participators (maximum one hundred) to have a cosy atmosphere, where everyone could participate in everything and make some personal contacts as well. At bigger events, one often ends up hanging with only the people you knew before.
Article slightly edited by Anarkismo.net - first published on avtonom.org
NOTES FROM THE BALTIC ANARCHIST GATHERING:
Impressions from the Baltic Anarchist Meeting 2012
Impressions from the Baltic Anarchist Meeting 2012
Almost two months have passed since the Baltic Anarchist Meeting (http://www.bam2012.org/) was organised in Tallinn of Estonia 25th-27th of May, but only now I had time to write some impressions. I haven't come across any other reports yet, but I hope they will show at some point up as I missed many of the discussions.
All countries in the Northern part of the Baltic Sea have an active anarchist movement, but for unclear reasons, connections are not very good. This was the first ever meeting, which attempted to increase links between the movements in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Sweden. Tallinn was a logical place for such a meeting, as it is accessible from all directions - the only drawback is the visa requirement for Russians, due to which Russian participation was eventually rather small (fewer people than from other countries in the region), and no workshops were organised by Russian guests besides my talk on anarchism in Russia.
The anarchist movement in Estonia is rather small. It revolves around the Punamust (Red and Black) Movement /http://www.punamust.org/forum/), the infoshop in Tartu (http://www.araamat.org) and the Social center Ülase12 in Tallinn (http://www.ylase12.org/index.php. Eventually there were more Finnish at the meeting than Estonians, during discussions it sometimes had to be pointed out to the Finnish that they were slipping into internal topics of the Finnish scene, not so interesting for the rest of the participators. Apparently Estonian politics is still characterised by bitterness towards Russia and the Soviet regime, and it is hard to advance anything anti-capitalist in Estonia. The BAM was organised during the meeting of the NATO Parliamentarian Assembly in Tallinn. Although Estonia has taken relatively heavy casualities in Afghanistan (9 killed from a population of 1,340,000), there is not much of any visible opposition against the war. NATO is considered as the guarantor of Estonian independece against the Russian threat.
However, the good side of the small size of the movement is that it is not considered as a threat, and thus the meeting could proceed with much less police harrassment than there would have been in Russia, or even Sweden and Finland. There are not many other open threats either, as Estonian fascists are not interested in attacking anarchist events. There was some unease, as a biker club which has a space next to the social center Ülase12 which was used as a night place was having a party at the yard, and some Nazis were expected to show up at the party, which made some guests quite nervous. But eventually there were no problems.
My presentation opened the event on Friday evening. It was followed by a presentation of different anarchist initiatives in Finland. The last lecture of Friday evening was Gabriel Kuhn's "What is Anarchism: a movement, a lifestyle, an ethic?".
Hopefully I am not making too much violence by attempting to summarize Gabriel's point, but basically he was juxtaposing "anarchism as a movement" against "anarchism as a philosophy/lifestyle/ethic". In his opinion, the first position was promoted in the book "Black Flame: the revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism" by Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, which did not take into account tendencies such as ancient Daoism, Middle-Age heretics or indigenous peoples' lifestyles. Apparently this juxtaposition dates back to this David Graeber's 2002 work http://newleftreview.org/II/13/david-graeber-the-new-anarchists, perhaps via this article by Wayne Price: http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/wayne-price-the-two-main-trends-i..... However, as with all such attempts to categorize anarchists, it is quite a relevant question how many anarchists in the end identify themselves with any of the two categories proposed by Graeber, Price or Kuhn.
Saturday was launched by an energetic demo against the parliamentarian assembly of NATO (some photos here: https://avtonom.org/news/estoniya-v-tallinne-anarkhisty-proveli-demonstr...). Authorities had banned marches through the old city of Tallinn, however, we went there anyway and they did not care at all. Only at the very end of the demonstration did a few plainclothes police, or secret service operatives, come to take photos. After the march, there was a demonstration at Tammsaare Park in the very center of the city - but this was attended only by BAM participators, and some guy from a one-person sect with mixed Trotskist and Stalinist politics. I saw one of their posters in the city center against NATO assembly, but only in Russian language - although the guy himself was Estonian, apparently he had no hope of convincing the Estonian majority.
It was a bit unclear to me why many of the local anarchists wanted to stick to a black bloc style, although no property destruction was intended or desirable, and as there are at most 5 anarchist activists around in Tallinn, the authorities know them very well anyway. There is not much of anything "left" in Estonia besides a few anarchists, the war in Afghanistan is only one of the many raised by them alone, so they could easily skip all the fetishist barrage and try to be as accessible as possible to local people. Guests of the conference were for sure even more clueless, afraid of TV cameras for reasons beyond my comprehension etc. Maybe due to lack of briefing, but in my opinion it is pointless to waste hours to brief people before an action without any ambitious goal to disturb anything.
What followed were discussions on anarchism in Lithuania and anarchism in Sweden, but these I missed. At the last panel discussion on popularising anarchist ideas in the Baltic region, I joined in the very end when it was already approaching midnight, and most of the people except slow Finnish folks had already phased out. A local anarchist hang-around considered discussion to be mostly bullshit, so he demonstratively poured a bottle of beer over his head. He was politely asked to mop up the floor, which he did - a cultural shock for the Russians, who expected him to be beaten up.
All discussions were conducted in English only, without translations. This could have limited Russian participation, as unlike other countries in the region, the quality of English teaching in Russian schools is rather bad.
The last day, Sunday 27th, began with the presentation "Soccer vs. The State" by Gabriel Kuhn, on the grassroots struggle against control and commersalization, which is as long as the sport itself. He recently published a book with the same name, where you may read more on detail of the topic. This was followed by "How to be and remain a feminist activist" by Dagmar Kase. I did not know that Tallinn, although a relatively small city of 416,000, has such thriving feminist and queer communities, including a local Ladyfest (in Finland there has not been a Ladyfest since 2009).
Following discussions on fighting Fascism in the Baltic region (by Lithuanians) and non-verbal communication I missed, I only came around for the party, at which point many had left already.
It is a good question, how much you may get from such events, more than just socialising. All languages of the region are mutually unintelligible and with exception of Russian, relevant only locally, so there may not be much of any cooperation in field of political work which in conditions of such a modest scale of the movement mostly revolves around publishing and propaganda only.
I liked the gathering overall; the schedule was well-thought out and not too late, with a good balance between different types of events, and the food was excellent. I especially appreciated, that although many of the local anarchists came from a subcultural background, no gig was organised - in Russia and expecially in Finland, often 80-90% of the organising effort are put on the concerts which do not interest me anyway. There were few enough participators (maximum one hundred) to have a cosy atmosphere, where everyone could participate in everything and make some personal contacts as well. At bigger events, one often ends up hanging with only the people you knew before.
Article slightly edited by Anarkismo.net - first published on avtonom.org
Related Link: https://avtonom.org/
PERSONAL:
DRIVING AROUND WINNIPEG:
It's a quick trip from the Slav Rebchuk bridge and the missing "People Before Profit" sign to Selkirk Avenue, the main drag of Canada's second poorest neighbourhood. That's Winnipeg for you. This burg can't even be the winner in a competition for bad.
Anyways it's an east turn down Selkirk to Main Street, and the first block shows where the 'People Before Profit' sign may have gone. Yup it's up in BIG LETTERS on the local headquarters of the goddamn Communist Party. Now the commies have been many things in their regretable history, and "thief" is one of the minor insults that could be thrown their way. But there it is in big red letters for all to see.This slogan has also been present for years (decades ?), but it only becomes apparent when the entering North End sign disappears.
I don't know whether to congratulate or laugh at the commies plunking their head office down in thne middle of a decidedly non-proletarian neighbourhood. To say that it has been useless in signing up the lumpen proletariat would be understating the case.Most cemetaries do a far more lively business than these souls nostalgic for the days of Moscow gold. I do a lot of driving back and forth in this city, and the only sign of life that I have ever seen at Commie HQ is that once they cut the grass/weeds in their yard.Never in hundreds of passes have I seen a person enter, leave or merely hang around this particular mausoleum to an idea past its best before date.
Not that I am at all displeased by this. As the subtitle of this series of vignettes says, "may they never rise from the dead". A resurgence of sympathy for organizations involved in the cover-up of the greatest atrocities in history would be the death certificate of any radical opposition.
But then we sail past this monument to an unlamented past, and head out to "Pharmacy Row" on Main Street. Makes you wonder why a neighbourhood with the highest concentration of addicts in the city also has the highest concentration of drug stores.Heading north now, and we leave the dreaded North End behind.
DRIVING AROUND WINNIPEG:
It's a quick trip from the Slav Rebchuk bridge and the missing "People Before Profit" sign to Selkirk Avenue, the main drag of Canada's second poorest neighbourhood. That's Winnipeg for you. This burg can't even be the winner in a competition for bad.
Anyways it's an east turn down Selkirk to Main Street, and the first block shows where the 'People Before Profit' sign may have gone. Yup it's up in BIG LETTERS on the local headquarters of the goddamn Communist Party. Now the commies have been many things in their regretable history, and "thief" is one of the minor insults that could be thrown their way. But there it is in big red letters for all to see.This slogan has also been present for years (decades ?), but it only becomes apparent when the entering North End sign disappears.
I don't know whether to congratulate or laugh at the commies plunking their head office down in thne middle of a decidedly non-proletarian neighbourhood. To say that it has been useless in signing up the lumpen proletariat would be understating the case.Most cemetaries do a far more lively business than these souls nostalgic for the days of Moscow gold. I do a lot of driving back and forth in this city, and the only sign of life that I have ever seen at Commie HQ is that once they cut the grass/weeds in their yard.Never in hundreds of passes have I seen a person enter, leave or merely hang around this particular mausoleum to an idea past its best before date.
Not that I am at all displeased by this. As the subtitle of this series of vignettes says, "may they never rise from the dead". A resurgence of sympathy for organizations involved in the cover-up of the greatest atrocities in history would be the death certificate of any radical opposition.
But then we sail past this monument to an unlamented past, and head out to "Pharmacy Row" on Main Street. Makes you wonder why a neighbourhood with the highest concentration of addicts in the city also has the highest concentration of drug stores.Heading north now, and we leave the dreaded North End behind.
Labels:
Communist Party,
Main Street,
personal,
Selkirk Avenue,
Winnipeg
Monday, July 16, 2012
ENVIRONMENT:
A TASTE OF SHELL GAMES TO COME IN THE ARTIC:Shell Loses Control Of Arctic Drilling Rig In Alaskan Harbor
By Climate Guest Blogger on Jul 16, 2012 at 12:23 pm
![discoverer](http://web.archive.org./web/20121114114550im_/http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/discoverer-300x172.jpg)
Photo: Teresa Derrick-Laxfoss
Royal Dutch Shell’s preparedness to drill offshore in the harsh and remote Arctic Ocean this summer has been called into question by a series of recent events.
Over the weekend, the company’s drilling rig, the Noble Discoverer, appears to have come dangerously close to running aground near Dutch Harbor, where Shell’s fleet has been assembled. The Noble Discoverer is one of two dozen ships Shell plans to send into some of the most challenging conditions on the planet. According to the US Coast Guard, the vessel slipped anchor and drifted within 100 yards off shore before being pulled back into deeper water by a Shell tugboat.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
The vessel‘s anchor failed to hold and the 514-foot ship began drifting, but its movement was halted when tug boats were called in to assist, Coast Guard spokeswoman Sara Francis told the Los Angeles Times.Although Shell and the Coast Guard asserted there was no evidence of grounding, onlookers — including longshoreman David Howard and Dutch Harbor captain Kristjan Laxfoss — contradicted this account, saying the vessel was not moving and appeared grounded: “There’s no question it hit the beach. That ship was not coming any closer. It was on the beach.”
“We don’t know exactly what happened yet. We do know that the vessel’s anchor didn’t hold, they began to drift, they let out more anchor chain to slow that drift and called for immediate tug assistance,” Francis said.
Petty Officer Sarah Francis said winds of 27-35 miles per hour likely led to the ship drifting — conditions that are benign compared with the hurricane-force gales, 20-foot swells, and dynamic sea ice the Discoverer could encounter off the North Slope where the company plans to drill offshore.
Pete Slaiby, vice president of Shell Oil in Alaska, noted both the Discoverer and Kulluk drilling ships will be secured by an 8-point anchor system when operating in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.
The incident immediately follows the Coast Guard’s refusal to certify Shell’s oil spill response barge, the Arctic Challenger, because of concerns about the fire protection system, wiring, and piping on the 37 year-old vessel. The Coast Guard also expressed doubts about the barge’s ability to withstand harsh Arctic storms. The containment barge is essential to the fleet as it is designed to deliver oil spill response equipment to the five drilling sites. Without it, Shell would not have access to the equipment necessary to contain an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean.
In addition to the extreme and unpredictable weather, there is an alarming dearth of infrastructure necessary to mount a large-scale response effort off the North Slope. As detailed in the Center for American Progress report, Putting a Freeze on Arctic Ocean Drilling: America’s Inability to Respond to an Oil Spill in the Arctic, the area lacks roads, railroads, a permanent Coast Guard facility, a major port, or sufficient infrastructure to house and feed a large influx of people. As a result, Shell has said that its oil spill response efforts will be largely self-contained. The fact that the company is experiencing problems with this equipment before even reaching the drill sites raises serious concerns about their contingency plan.
Shell’s flotilla will continue to wait in Dutch Harbor – 1,000 miles south of the proposed drilling sites; the closest major port to the North Slope – while unexpectedly heavy sea ice prevents them from making the voyage to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.
Slaiby, Shell’s VP in Alaska, recently told CNN that the company’s proposed exploration in the Arctic will be the “most complex, most difficult wells we’ve drilled in company history.”
Kiley Kroh is the Associate Director of Ocean Communications at the Center for American Progress.
CANADIAN LABOUR:
WILDCAT STRIKERS DEFY UNION AND COMPANY IN NEWFOUNDLAND:
Up to 1,000 workers have gathered near the road to Vale's Long Harbour construction site in eastern Newfoundland this morning, as a wildcat labour dispute enters day five.
Some employees have turned around, and many have joined in the protest, but there has also been a steady flow of traffic past pickets to the site.
There was a rally-like atmosphere along the sides of the road to Long Harbour on Monday morning. Speakers addressed the crowd, composed mainly of workers who decided not to report to work on the site.
Electrician Kevin Slaney addresses workers gathered near the road to Long Harbour on Monday morning. (Adam Walsh/CBC)Portable toilets were erected at the location. Microphones have been set up for speakers to address the crowd. Some picketers were playing the guitar.
The Long Harbour site generally has up to 2,000 employees a day working on it.
According to the security guard at the gate, some people are working, but there is no count available as of yet.
The illegal strike was triggered by about 100 crane operators last Thursday. Those now gathered near the Long Harbour road represent a number of unions.
Vale was granted a court injunction last week preventing workers from blocking the road to the site.
On Sunday, the umbrella organization representing all 16 trade unions at the Vale site urged wildcat strikers go back to work.
Gus Doyle, president of the Resource Development Trades Council, said the unions do not support the illegal strike.
"We have a collective agreement in place — they want the collective agreement to be opened up and changed, and that's not in the cards,” Doyle said Sunday.
Long Harbour"I’ll just use my own kids as an example," he said. "I mean, a child will ask you something and they have an answer in mind, and if you don't give it to them, then you're wrong, and that's the case here today."
Doyle insisted that Long Harbour would be open for business Monday.
But workers have continued to express dissatisfaction with the company and their union representation.
In an address to workers near the site Monday morning, electrician Kevin Slaney called for Doyle to resign.
Workers are upset with wages and how the company is interpreting the collective agreement on issues such as travel and living allowances.
French says he cannot pick sides, but he's asked the the provincial justice department to review what action the government could take.
The construction site is covered by a special work order, and under that legislation, strikes or lockouts are prohibited.
Some employees have turned around, and many have joined in the protest, but there has also been a steady flow of traffic past pickets to the site.
There was a rally-like atmosphere along the sides of the road to Long Harbour on Monday morning. Speakers addressed the crowd, composed mainly of workers who decided not to report to work on the site.
![Electrician Kevin Slaney addresses workers gathered near the road to Long Harbour on Monday morning.](http://web.archive.org./web/20121114114550im_/http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/topstories/2012/07/16/nl-slaney-kevin-20120716.jpg)
The Long Harbour site generally has up to 2,000 employees a day working on it.
According to the security guard at the gate, some people are working, but there is no count available as of yet.
The illegal strike was triggered by about 100 crane operators last Thursday. Those now gathered near the Long Harbour road represent a number of unions.
Vale was granted a court injunction last week preventing workers from blocking the road to the site.
On Sunday, the umbrella organization representing all 16 trade unions at the Vale site urged wildcat strikers go back to work.
Gus Doyle, president of the Resource Development Trades Council, said the unions do not support the illegal strike.
"We have a collective agreement in place — they want the collective agreement to be opened up and changed, and that's not in the cards,” Doyle said Sunday.
Doyle insisted that Long Harbour would be open for business Monday.
But workers have continued to express dissatisfaction with the company and their union representation.
In an address to workers near the site Monday morning, electrician Kevin Slaney called for Doyle to resign.
Workers are upset with wages and how the company is interpreting the collective agreement on issues such as travel and living allowances.
Province looking at options
Meanwhile, Labour Minister Terry French says he's very disappointed that many workers at the Vale construction site in Long Harbour continue to stay off the job.French says he cannot pick sides, but he's asked the the provincial justice department to review what action the government could take.
The construction site is covered by a special work order, and under that legislation, strikes or lockouts are prohibited.
The $3.6-billion Long Harbour plant will process nickel concentrate extracted from the Voisey’s Bay mine in Labrador. It's scheduled to open in 2013.
Labels:
Canadian labour,
labour,
Newfoundland,
strike,
Vale.,
wildcat strike
Sunday, July 15, 2012
ANARCHIST LITERATURE:
NEW BOOK FROM ARTHUR J. MILLER:
Good old A.J.. Here's a collection of his working class writings in book form. Always relevant over the decades. Here's the plug...
FW Arthur J. Millerhas a new book entitled 'Upon The Backs Of Labour';essays from a working class writer that help organize, agitate and emancipate our Fellow Workers.
Copies available through Tacoma IWW for $15.00 USD plus &1.50 for shipping for a total of $16.50 (What about Canada ?-Molly)Please send cheques or money orders to Tacoma IWW c/o McNair, 3702 Hund St. NW #17, Gig Harbor, WA 9835-8202.
The Tacoma GMB is beginning an effort atn publishing IWW books, pamphlets, leaflets and blasts for sale to help build a working people's library and research center in the Pacific Northwest. We have available original Wobbly FWs McLean and Gilbert Mews, a Wobbvly writer from a few dfecades ago.
Help us get our library launched so that workers can read about our struggle.
NEW BOOK FROM ARTHUR J. MILLER:
Good old A.J.. Here's a collection of his working class writings in book form. Always relevant over the decades. Here's the plug...
FW Arthur J. Millerhas a new book entitled 'Upon The Backs Of Labour';essays from a working class writer that help organize, agitate and emancipate our Fellow Workers.
Copies available through Tacoma IWW for $15.00 USD plus &1.50 for shipping for a total of $16.50 (What about Canada ?-Molly)Please send cheques or money orders to Tacoma IWW c/o McNair, 3702 Hund St. NW #17, Gig Harbor, WA 9835-8202.
The Tacoma GMB is beginning an effort atn publishing IWW books, pamphlets, leaflets and blasts for sale to help build a working people's library and research center in the Pacific Northwest. We have available original Wobbly FWs McLean and Gilbert Mews, a Wobbvly writer from a few dfecades ago.
Help us get our library launched so that workers can read about our struggle.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
DRIVING AROUND WINNIPEG:
PERCEPTUAL EXPECTANCY
As you drove over the Slaw Rebchuk bridge from downtown Winnipeg to the North End you were greeted for years by the "Welcome To The North End: People Before Profit" sign on the roof of the Nippon Auto building at the north foot of the bridge. For years this somewhat incongrous sign on the roof of an auto body shop (whose owners must certainly be quite concerned about profit) set the tone for the neighbourhood where so much of Winnipeg's radical history came to pass. Nobody seemed to know how long it had been there. In my own memory for many years.
Nobody knows how it came to be placed on the roof, though last November when the "People Before Profit" part was eliminated the owners of Nippon Motors claimed that this tag-on had been painted by vandals. On a dark and non-stormy night I presume. The official explanation was that the slogan was removed in the process of re-roofing the business.Some how I don't think so, but the intent was plain whether done by itself or in the process of putting on a new roof. Gotta bump that anti-capitalist slogan after all, though I would be utterly amazed to hear that the literary gem on the rooftop lost Nippon Motors a single cent of business.
Here we are however. The slogan disappears in November. Through the next few hundred times I drive north over the bridge I fail to notice anything amiss. In other words my brain was registering the whole two phrases while only one was still on the roof. This is an amazingly persistant illusion.
Finally one day in February my fact checker must have been on as I headed up into the North End. "What The Hell ?". The "People Before Profit" part is missing. Where the hell did it go ? Having done roofing in my youth I was fairly certain few people would be insane enough to be up on a roof in Winnipeg in February. Which leaves me with the question of when exactly was the "ideological rectification" done.
All that being said, however, the case of Nippon Motors' roof came up again when a few weeks ago Winnipeg Free Press columnist Colleen Simard wrote a piece implying that the offending phrase was still up. This really threw me into a tailspin. Had it really been put back up? Nope. The 'socialist-speak' was as absent as ever. For all I know Simard still is seeing the illusionary "People Before Profit" every time she heads north on Salter. Just like I did for months.
What this is called is "visual expectancy". This functions as both addition and subtraction. Details that are no longer present i a situation, image, etc. have their blanks filled in by a brain attuned to the "grand picture". This is addition. The most famous instance of subtraction is the inability of many subjects in one experiment to see a gorilla in the background of images whose foreground is a major item of interest.
Fill it in or erase it. The brain can do both. Both abilities for illusion actually have survival value, and it is little wonder that they have been selected for over millions of years of evolution. I wonder if other animals have the same capacity for illusion. I also wonder if there are any people or anyone in an "altered state" who has to suffer the full impact of being unable to filter out the irrelevant and add the missing details. If there are I feel sorry for them.
PERCEPTUAL EXPECTANCY
As you drove over the Slaw Rebchuk bridge from downtown Winnipeg to the North End you were greeted for years by the "Welcome To The North End: People Before Profit" sign on the roof of the Nippon Auto building at the north foot of the bridge. For years this somewhat incongrous sign on the roof of an auto body shop (whose owners must certainly be quite concerned about profit) set the tone for the neighbourhood where so much of Winnipeg's radical history came to pass. Nobody seemed to know how long it had been there. In my own memory for many years.
Nobody knows how it came to be placed on the roof, though last November when the "People Before Profit" part was eliminated the owners of Nippon Motors claimed that this tag-on had been painted by vandals. On a dark and non-stormy night I presume. The official explanation was that the slogan was removed in the process of re-roofing the business.Some how I don't think so, but the intent was plain whether done by itself or in the process of putting on a new roof. Gotta bump that anti-capitalist slogan after all, though I would be utterly amazed to hear that the literary gem on the rooftop lost Nippon Motors a single cent of business.
Here we are however. The slogan disappears in November. Through the next few hundred times I drive north over the bridge I fail to notice anything amiss. In other words my brain was registering the whole two phrases while only one was still on the roof. This is an amazingly persistant illusion.
Finally one day in February my fact checker must have been on as I headed up into the North End. "What The Hell ?". The "People Before Profit" part is missing. Where the hell did it go ? Having done roofing in my youth I was fairly certain few people would be insane enough to be up on a roof in Winnipeg in February. Which leaves me with the question of when exactly was the "ideological rectification" done.
All that being said, however, the case of Nippon Motors' roof came up again when a few weeks ago Winnipeg Free Press columnist Colleen Simard wrote a piece implying that the offending phrase was still up. This really threw me into a tailspin. Had it really been put back up? Nope. The 'socialist-speak' was as absent as ever. For all I know Simard still is seeing the illusionary "People Before Profit" every time she heads north on Salter. Just like I did for months.
What this is called is "visual expectancy". This functions as both addition and subtraction. Details that are no longer present i a situation, image, etc. have their blanks filled in by a brain attuned to the "grand picture". This is addition. The most famous instance of subtraction is the inability of many subjects in one experiment to see a gorilla in the background of images whose foreground is a major item of interest.
Fill it in or erase it. The brain can do both. Both abilities for illusion actually have survival value, and it is little wonder that they have been selected for over millions of years of evolution. I wonder if other animals have the same capacity for illusion. I also wonder if there are any people or anyone in an "altered state" who has to suffer the full impact of being unable to filter out the irrelevant and add the missing details. If there are I feel sorry for them.
Labels:
Nippon Motors,
North End,
personal,
psychology.,
slogans,
Winnipeg
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
![](http://web.archive.org./web/20121114114550im_/http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zrmY11_PpZg/T_4zdkhBq5I/AAAAAAAAKvE/EZSwYbzwy-4/s1600/cat113.jpg)
MOLLY'S BACK !!
Well, it's been a long drought here in Mollyland, but I'd like to announce my return the world of blogger. I'm still active in reporting up to date news over at my Facebook account, but it's about time I added a little more personal comment. This blog will be the outlet for same. Let's see what develops.
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