1.

The title of the socialist novel 'News from Nowhere' by William Morris refers to Thomas More's 'Utopia'. The root meaning of 'utopia' is 'no place' or 'nowhere'. Both books deal with the concept of an ideal society.

The reasons for my change of word centre around the immediacy of the word 'here'. It is now becoming increasingly obvious that capitalism - the money system - causes rather than solves most of our problems locally and globally, and I think that people are increasingly wondering where we go from here.  This means 'what do we do now?'

Socialism has cogent answers to this question, which involve wonderful possibilities - however a frequent reaction to these is that socialism is 'a nice idea but it'll never work'. I have been told the etymology of the word 'utopia' on several occasions by people more skeptical than me about human potential – in triumphant tones – as if this proves that such an ideal is inherently unattainable. - Of course it doesn't. – And although there may be a suggestion of impossibility, the meaning can just as well be taken as a challenge to develop our cultural ideal and to make it come true.

We are conscious beings who can make plans. This clearly involves having ideas – so why not seek and choose the most ideal?? Are we that afraid of disappointment that we will miss the chance our appointment?? Seeking and choosing are part of creating the future. Establishing socialism is a big job – but so is continuing with capitalism. Conditions are presently worsening globally; poverty and war are increasing due to capitalist forces. The majority are either destitute, in jails or detention centers, or being imprisoned into doing work that they do not want to and/or in a way that they do not want to do it.

  This occurs because capitalism is geared only to maintain ownership by a minority and to generate financial profits for them. Any benefits of capitalism that come to the rest of the people are incidental, or short term bribes of some sort to get us to comply. The benefits of work done by the people are due to our own hard work. These benefits we can have anyway – but without having to make profits for masters, without spending our lives paying for/making weapons and fighting in their wars, without being over worked and over stressed because of financial situations, and without all the errors that are caused by this. – And without forever seeing good things go under because they do not make enough money/cannot compete with giant corporations.  We can have all the benefits of our work – and more when we have real autonomy; when we have our birth right to take equal part in decision making in a system which is geared to enable us to develop and share our wisdom to benefit our communities.

Not only this - If we just consider the wasted work in capitalism, it is clear that socialism is highly likely to be a lot easier. For example; vast human resources are spent on organizing finances alone – more again on protecting capitalist interests and more on expanding them. This 'protection' and expansion frequently involves bombing people and bombing their homes, services and the infrastructure of their countries which they have taken time and energy to build. Other methods that are used also cause the devastation of communities and the environment – not the reverse. Due to financial factors, resources of all sorts are misused, abused and wasted. It is the point of socialism that people can do what they democratically decide to do with resources as communities. It will be up to us to judge what is good for our health and for a healthy society.

2.

I guess that William Morris has a well developed sense of paradox, because in his novel 'News from Nowhere' the news is coming from somewhere . – And although the place is fictional, to the extent that it functions as a device for expressing knowledge of humanity and the world and is accurate prophecy, it is also factual. Plus, the news, whatever its value, is actually coming from him - and beyond that, from all that made him socialist. I am aware that world socialism as a full manifest has not yet happened (at the time of writing) – and is thus, as such, presently inexistent - however, it does exist as an idea or set of ideals. – And although we may have an idea that is (in some senses at least) impossible, we may have an idea which is possible. Any idea or ideal may be more or less possible, and more or less good or true - but it does exist, in the same kind of way that awareness of facts exits as awareness of facts, and as imaginary things exist as imaginary things.*

Of course mistakes are made, and they can be made in scientific analysis as well as in the arts of invention. Not all thought / feeling and the expression there of is entirely accurate about the world or entirely helpful in its effect on it – but, it is one of the qualities of thoughts and feelings that they can self correct. This put another way is us learning. I must add here that I believe that this process of learning would be much facilitated by the full democracy that socialism provides. The present system keeps errors locked into place.

I have spent some time here acknowledging our mental/emotional life as part of reality because all human culture is produced by perceptions / ideas / passions etc., in action. There are obviously causes for our mental / emotional states, but I think that it is fair to say that in an important way, having the idea of a previously non existent thing is where it starts. Certainly our life as it is would not exist without mental and emotional activity having been and continuing to be part of the process. In other words; thoughts and feelings are essential to cultural development. As well as being involved in sensing, they are also involved in response. They are an indispensable creative force.

If you now want to say 'well that is stating the obvious' then you must also acknowledge that socialism cannot be dismissed on the grounds that it is an 'just' an idea – and moreover – if it is an idea that we like (a 'nice' idea) it needs to be seriously considered, and, especially if the alternatives are not so nice, why not at least try to make it work? Clearly some ideas take longer than others to achieve their full potential, but even if there were not so much at stake, unless there is absolute evidence that it can not work (which I don't believe that there will ever be) surely we have to keep trying to make it happen. It might even come about sooner, and work better than we have had reason to believe and have imagined so far.

3

Ideas are real and they influence the reality of the world all the time. If we do not study them the more ruthless and selfish/fearful elements of humanity will use them to control us. If we don't bother with our best ideas then it should be no surprise to us that our lives are not how we would like them to be.  - And neither is socialism 'just an idea' or 'idealistic' in the sense that it might be described as 'merely a vision', for example. It is one of my points that the visionary is essential to our lives, and I'm sure that it contributes to socialism, but it is a tenet of socialism that it is made using the full strength of scientific understanding and historical evidence.

Studying how societies have come to be as they are, assessing future potential, becoming aware of what we truly want and being creative all work together and are actually all part of understanding the situation now, i.e., what is going on and what is possible now . This is an ongoing process of finding out what is good in our lives, what needs to be changed and why, and what changes can be made and how. We get on with it and we learn by getting on with it. We do this all the time – we just have to apply it to the big political picture; to the systems that form structures around us.

How many people must have thought 'flying is a nice idea – but it'll never work'?? – And going to the moon - that's a nice idea……………of course it didn't work until people believed it to be possible, and tried, and didn't give up. Certainly, the necessary conditions have to exist for success – but we are also part of making those conditions. The process of trying itself involves further developments. With regard to technology; there is already sufficient technology for a world of free access to exist.  The fact that technology is not stopping us brings us to the core of doubt about the viability of socialism – which seems to be lack of faith in our own goodness; in our own intelligence and kindness as a species. We appear to have come to doubt our abilities to work together, to invent and improve our lives without an elite who own the bulk of resources, and the means of production and distribution - without a ruling class.

The campaign of indoctrination (both more and less conscious) has been very successful up to now in getting people to believe that the class system and the money system that maintains it are 'normal' and 'best' and even the only possible way of life. Just by being there and being legitimised - being accepted and assumed to be good - the capitalist system has a psychological effect. The majority are made to feel inferior, incapable of responsibility, a danger to each other and themselves and thus in need of leaders. Why else would we be in need of people who own and control so much more than us? – Why else should others control our lives? - Dictating what jobs will be available, what we will produce and how, where it will go, and in many ways where and how we live? Only so that a minority can continue to own us and use us to make profit??

The church as part of the ruling establishment has helpfully added that we are 'evil' unless we accept the supremacy of 'god' as defined by them – which is, oh, how similar to the ruling class! - A pre-ordained, unquestionable elite, before whom we feel ashamed, from whom we must beg forgiveness for our errors (often wrongly defined as such by its law, and largely caused by its law) and to whom we must give our lives in service. This wouldn't, by any chance, be to get us into a subservient and obedient frame of mind would it? The deceptive influence of what I would like to call 'capitalist establishment religion' moves around in time and space casting a malaise into the psyche - and even when people lose interest – when it seems to be gone – still the effects persist.

So the propaganda is subtle and all pervasive in some ways; the acceptance of the capitalist system by the majority (al-be-it without anything like full consciousness) is self maintaining; it is passed on to children. Within this, the effects of capitalism, such as family and community breakdown, environmental problems, war and the perversion or denial of democracy all set people against each other. Animosity and prejudice are perpetuated and exacerbated by most of the media. I think that these effects are both convenient for the capitalist class and are deliberately produced and used.  Certain groups are supported and others deprived and attacked. Some are praised and others condemned. Divide and rule.

Capitalist forces set up conditions in which we are more and more alienated from each other, trust is increasingly lost and isolation also makes people feel fearful so they are more susceptible to the propaganda – and the same forces produce the hatred, cruelty and violence which seem to prove it to be true. It is actually a vindication of human nature that despite all this, still there is kindness and cooperation between people, care for the beauty of nature and longing for its sensible and sustainable management. I believe that there is much more of this than is evident. It often cannot show itself and be active because it is mired in a system that not only does not facilitate it – but actively and profoundly prevents it.

Of course people have various faults and unfortunate vulnerabilities  – we are a 'work in progress' in terms of genetic and cultural evolution. Rulers, however, are not inherently, or by virtue of practice any more morally developed. In fact such power tends to be corrupting rather than the opposite. Mistakes are made on a grand scale and have terrible affects on the lives of many others - sometimes affecting millions or even billions of people. A cursory glance at history I think would not be deceptive if it left us with the impression that rulers usually are or become the most untrustworthy and violent of people. - But capitalism encourages the worst in all of us rather than the best.

4

What is capitalism?

The drive for financial profits that causes and condones the abuse of people and of all nature.

The inordinate power of minority groups of owners – including owners of the media - that perverts democracy.

The competition between them and/or their desire to increase their ownership and power that leads to war.

The pressures that the majority are under to get money just to survive, that corrupts our morality; diverting us from our true wishes for our selves and from creating healthy communities.

The truth is that the capitalist system makes things harder – not easier. It wastes vast amounts of resources, whilst keeping a huge proportion of the world's population malnourished and without the most basic services or human rights – which includes the opportunity to help themselves. It is the main cause of the crime and unemployment that it condemns. It pushes us into methods of production and lifestyles that are destroying our own environment – and thus will destroy us. It causes separation, dysfunction, depression, addiction and despair and the very self doubt and suspicion of others that makes us think that we are not capable of freeing ourselves and living peacefully together.

The good that occurs in the capitalist system is incidental to its purposes or occurs despite them. The good that occurs in the capitalist system is because of the goodness of people and of all nature. It is a bad system in which people struggle to do some good. Goodness comes out of capitalism only because of the goodness of life that is still existing although trapped within it. Capitalism damages life as it builds up, for as long as it is sustained, and presents us with an apocalyptic future. In a key sense, capitalism is never sustained because it is always unsustainable. It just grows like a cancer and kills its host – and thus itself as it does so. Capitalism does not prioritise healthy life and respect for the natural wealth of the earth that sustains us, so as soon as it begins it tends to harm life in every way, including psychologically.

As capitalism continues to smash or make unavailable to most so much that is of real worth, to answer the social breakdown that it causes by imprisoning more and more people, to orchestrate mass famine, war and total climate disaster – so it also continues to tell us that socialism will rob us of our quality of life, that it is dangerous and that it will end in catastrophe…………..that socialism cannot work…………….that it can never exist…………that it is an ideal that is doomed to failure………..that it is 'idealistic' - the implication being that it is 'too idealistic'………….that it is not worth believing in or fighting for.

Two other extracts from the article which I posted extracts from yesterday, with comment.

'Meanwhile, the persistent western calls for "humanitarian intervention" into the Darfur region of Sudan sets up another possibility for military engagement to deliver regime change in another Islamic state rich in oil reserves.'

This situation, however, is very different in a number of ways to the situation in Somalia I think there is a case for intervention in Sudan where the government – that happens to be Muslim (or at least claims the name) has been supporting and colluding with a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing. Stresses over water due to global warming are a large contributing factor in a place where Muslims and Christians used to live peacefully together. However intervention should be purely on humanitarian grounds and should not only be military, but involve as much negotiation as possible. It should be for the purpose of saving people from suffering attacks and deprivation, for facilitating and ensuring that people can return to their homes and that they are recompensed as much as possible. Any intervention should also facilitate as much as possible: democratic choice, reconciliation between all parties and just peace agreements. A presence might be maintained whist the people require it to ensure that these agreements are honored – but any further intervention to should be at the request of the people.

The big Q. is - is this how a U.S. intervention force – or even a U.N. force would manage things? Or would they be deposing a government not with the intentions mentioned above, but rather with the intention to install another government which is agreeable to the global capitalist exploitation of resources as in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq etc.....? - Perhaps with a few people saved from slaughter to make it look good. These same people of course, along with most of the other people of the country would, as in similar set ups in other countries, be left deprived and malnourished.  

'No evidence has been found however to link the Niger Delta resistance groups to international terror networks or jihadists.'

I think that it is quite likely however that these conditions will produce such a link. - And due to the oversimplified and misguiding capitalist propaganda about terrorism so amplified by 9/11 - this will be used to try to get even more support for using military force. Escalation - great for the arms trade.

In context of the blog ref. to be added: capitalism destroys communities ( and soon after – all life on the planet)

Even if there were no supply and pollution problems with using oil powered transport, we would still have to reduce it considerably to recover healthy communities. – That is thriving communities – where people work together more, know each other better and are more mutually supportive. More self sufficient communities, with a variety of skills and projects means less travel or transport is necessary; they are also more interesting, stimulating (in good ways) and safe for everyone, especially for children growing up. They engender more empathy with others, more affinity with place, more appreciation of the abundance of nature, and more awareness of how we have to work sustainably with nature to provide for ourselves. Too much centralization of production and services, and living too far away to walk or cycle to work and to recreational areas, is unhealthy 'physically' and 'psychologically'. It erodes and suffocates our personal health, it breaks up families, it breaks up communities, it breaks up our sense of unity with nature - it wastes time. We have to reclaim all the richness and joy of sharing the experience of life.

It is understandable that someone coming home in a car – or in any other transport, after a days work and a tiring and probably stressful journey both ways (on their own probably) will get out of the car or etc, go straight into the house and collapse. It takes a big part in the interrelating causes why people often don't even know their nearest neighbors very well, and have no energy for making a beautiful garden, for instance. How lovely it is to stop and pass the time of day with someone who really cares about us – and who we really care about – and to make a real home – to help to make a good place to live. There is an art to friendship that we don't get to practice enough. Going out on a Friday night and getting hammered as soon as possible is not it.

a touch of dylan

go out

in car

go work

get paid

fill car

go back

(in car)

get in

eat food

go out

get drunk

get laid

maybe,

don't remember

get dead

is that it?

no wonder the vandals took the handle

                         at least it's a bit of a larf

The devastation of environments both directly by taking too much, by pollution and indirectly by global warming is completely interlinked with the capitalist system. Excessive private ownership, and the financial profit priority (to achieve more ownership) heavily weigh the actions of men and women away from the care of the environment and of each other. As indicated before in the companion piece (posted yesterday) - there are enough global resources of materials and human energy for everyone to have a healthy life – if they are properly used.

i.e. if they are not wasted, for example

by burning too much oil  

or in wars to get the oil

[in this car dominated society – we have cars instead of communities –

and pollute the whole earth whilst we're at it]

or in transporting business people who do nothing but move money around

or in all the man and woman hours that are locked into bureaucracy – into managing money

I'd like to magine what we can do

with all that time to directly help each other and to care for our communities and our planet

People can organise their lives in a healthy way if they are not slaves to getting money

and if they are not trapped by the structures created by the things that they have bought

People do not have to be over worked so they cannot do their best  

People do not have to work at antisocial and/or polluting jobs

but can sustainably produce things that people really need for a healthy and happy life

Resources can be directed into setting up sustainable communities globally

in which the care of children is a priority – and in which parents are supported in this

in which orphans and abandoned children are safely adopted 

where there is sufficient sex education and help with birth control

where optimum population numbers considering availability of resources are used as a sensible guide

Suddenly environmental and social justice for all can be seen to be not only possible but perfectly natural.

Why doesn't the news start every day with the really important things that we need to know? With; 'Ran Tan Tan!    Approximately 25,000 people, mostly children died today of poverty including starvation and lack of clean water supplies. Approximately 60 million are expected to die in the coming year of the same causes. Also – in a related incident, approximately 15 more species were made extinct and we are still heading fast for complete climate disaster! Ran Tan Tan!  - And now for the rest of the day's news……..'

In the subsequent studio discussions which should be happening daily about this horrific state of affairs and about solutions - it would soon become obvious in a world which can potentially supply the needs of everyone; that capitalism ( which is increasingly rampant and world controlling) is the cause. Ah……………….is that why it's not in the news daily? To even acknowledge the full horror of the truth would be seen as a direct challenge – an attack. And who would dare to question capitalism itself – that is honoured as the necessary guiding principle – like a god? A false god I hasten to add – if god means good. Who would dare to question the master's privileges of ownership and money power; the monopoly that consequently confers the monopoly of decision making? With most of the worlds wealth – that is – land, sea, air, resources and labour controlled by just a few – with their own populist media outlets, democracy is bound at least in some ways to be a façade. But it is one that has convinced the majority so far. Still capitalism is accepted as a worthy system to be protected. Still it is regarded in the 'main stream' as at best wacky and at worst dangerously insane to suggest a world without it.

So the rulers are not held accountable. They are not faced with the sufferings that result from the system that they espouse and endorse. Rather, the feeling is that we should bring them more offerings, and not only should we accept them committing genocide by their wars and by the pollution and decimation of our amazingly beautiful planet, but that we should wave to them cheerily as they do so.

The casualties concomitant with capitalism are a sort of guilty secret. – And even more of a guilty secret is the thought; 'well it's unfortunate – but with stresses over resources and problems with the waste products, not least global warming gasses*, it is just as well for all those people to die – so the planet is a better place for us.' Even; '- so we can carry on having a high global warming gas emitting lifestyle' or; 'there's more air for us (to pollute)'

THIS IS ANOTHER REASON WHY IT SHOULD BE IN THE NEWS EVERY DAY!

Surely we cannot fully consciously accept a system which relies on such tortuous processes of culling. The indirect culling of the financially poor by the financially rich – and not even a humane death – the horrors of war, starvation, malnutrition and disease, often after watching your children or your parent's die of the same. Surely, especially with all our developments of science/medicine/technology we can manage ourselves better than that – we can create a better system than that???????????

A system in which material resources and life are wasted in war, bureaucracy and the unnecessary and damaging manufacture and use of products.

So much wasted energy – much of which is causing unnecessary and disastrous warming the planet.

The only way that it will not be completely wasted is if we learn in time that it is in every other way a waste of life.

Do we really want to let market forces force us through all the permutations of error, only to tell us as we run out of time, that actually, not only the best, but the only way to live is according to democratic principles in the context of common ownership, of localities, of the planet, of technology and materials and to produce goods not for private financial profit but to meet people's needs. This is socialism. 'The only way to live' here means; 'for all people to have the health, including the moral health to fully enjoy life – this being inextricably linked with stopping the destruction of the living environment and reversing it'. Billions of people are suffering from the effects of this phase of global capitalism and billions more will suffer, and the human race may face extinction using the market forces method to find this out.

The French oil company Total is one of the biggest foreign investors in Burma. It has been propping up the violent and oppressive regime there for years. It has even used army-imposed forced labour to construct a gas pipeline accross the country.

People in Britain have been protesting outside Total garages and offices all week with demos in places like Bradford, Oxford, and London - For more information - Cardiff Anarchist Network

As the media's attention span wanes, and a spectacle-weary public grows tired of seeing South East Asians getting battered and shot on primetime TV, a full-scale state and military backlash against Burma's people is underway. Demonstrators are being routinely rounded up, put in prison, and quite probably tortured, and monks are being beaten and murdered.

Source Cardiff Anarchist Network 

In February 2007 the White House announced the formation of the US African Command (AFRICOM), a new unified Pentagon command center in Africa, to be established by September 2008. This military penetration of Africa is being presented as a humanitarian guard in the Global War on Terror. The real objective is, however, the procurement and control of Africa's oil and its global delivery systems.

The most significant and growing challenge to US dominance in Africa is China. An increase in Chinese trade and investment in Africa threatens to substantially reduce US political and economic leverage in that resource-rich continent. The political implication of an economically emerging Africa in close alliance with China is resulting in a new cold war in which AFRICOM will be tasked with achieving full-spectrum military dominance over Africa.

AFRICOM will replace US military command posts in Africa, which were formerly under control of US European Command (EUCOM) and US Central Command (CENTCOM), with a more centralized and intensified US military presence.

It is in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa that the US military force is most rapidly increasing, as this area is projected to become as important a source of energy as the Middle East within the next decade. In this region, challenge to US domination and exploitation is coming from the people of Africa—most specifically in Nigeria, where seventy percent of Africa's oil is contained.

People native to the Niger Delta region have not benefited, but instead suffered, as a result of sitting on top of vast natural oil and natural gas deposits. Nigerian people's movements are demanding self-determination and equitable sharing of oil-receipts. Environmental and human rights activists have, for years, documented atrocities on the part of oil companies and the military in this region. As the tactics of resistance groups have shifted from petition and protest to more proactive measures, attacks on pipelines and oil facilities have curtailed the flow of oil leaving the region. As a Convergent Interests report puts it, "Within the first six months of 2006, there were nineteen attacks on foreign oil operations and over $2.187 billion lost in oil revenues; the Department of Petroleum Resources claims this figure represents 32 percent of 'the revenue the country [Nigeria] generated this year.'"

Oil companies and the Pentagon are attempting to link these resistance groups to international terror networks in order to legitimize the use of the US military to "stabilize" these areas and secure the energy flow. No evidence has been found however to link the Niger Delta resistance groups to international terror networks or jihadists. Instead the situation in the Niger Delta is that of ethnic-nationalist movements fighting, by any means necessary, toward the political objective of self-determination. The volatility surrounding oil installations in Nigeria and elsewhere in the continent is, however, used by the US security establishment to justify military "support" in African oil producing states, under the guise of helping Africans defend themselves against those who would hinder their engagement in "Free Trade."

The December 2006 invasion of Somalia was coordinated using US bases throughout the region. The arrival of AFRICOM will effectively reinforce efforts to replace the popular Islamic Courts Union of Somalia with the oil industry–friendly Transitional Federal Government. Hunt warns that this sort of "support" is only bound to increase as rhetoric of stabilizing Africa makes the dailies, copied directly out of official AFRICOM press releases.

 Outside of a select audience, reaction in the United States has barely even registered. First of all, Africa is one of the least-covered continents in US media. And when African nations do draw media attention, coverage typically centers on catastrophe, conflict, or corruption, and generally features some form of benevolent foreign intervention, be it financial and humanitarian aid, or stern official posturing couched as paternal concerns over human rights. But US military activity on the continent largely goes unnoticed. This was recently evidenced by the sparse reporting on military support for the invasion of Somalia to rout the Islamic Courts Union and reinstall the unpopular warlords who had earlier divided up the country. The Pentagon went so far as to declare the operation a blueprint for future engagements.