Capitalism

The East India Company: The Original Corporate Raiders

March 5, 2015 William Dalrymple, www.theguardian.com Educate! Capitalism, Imperialism, India, United Kingdom (UK)

It was at this moment that the East India Company (EIC) ceased to be a conventional corporation, trading and silks and spices, and became something much more unusual. Within a few years, 250 company clerks backed by the military force of 20,000 locally recruited Indian soldiers had become the effective rulers of Bengal. An international corporation was transforming itself into an aggressive colonial power. Using its rapidly growing security force – its army had grown to 260,000 men by 1803 – it swiftly subdued and seized an entire subcontinent. Astonishingly, this took less than half a century. The first serious territorial conquests began in Bengal in 1756; 47 years later, the company’s reach extended as far north as the Mughal capital of Delhi, and almost all of India south of that city was by then effectively ruled from a boardroom in the City of London.

Judge May Consider Necessity Defense In Flood Wall Street Case

March 4, 2015 Alex Elefson, www.indypendent.org Resist! Capitalism, Flood Wall St., Law, People's Climate March

The group of protestors called the Flood Wall Street 11 may soon be able to argue in court that their acts of civil disobedience were legally justified due to the imminent threat that global warming poses to the safety of the planet. During the first day of the trial in Manhattan criminal court on Monday, the judge signaled that he might consider hearing their argument. The group plans to use the necessity defense, which provides justification for breaking the law in order to avoid imminent harm. The defendants pled not guilty to charges of disorderly conduct for participating in the Flood Wall Street demonstrations that occurred in Lower Manhattan on September 22, the day after the historic People’s Climate March. Thousands of people occupied the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street to protest the financial institutions bankrolling projects that contribute to global warming.

World’s Biggest PR Firm Quits American Oil Lobby

February 21, 2015 Connor Gibson, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Capitalism, Energy, Marketing, Oil & Gas

Perhaps you heard the good news—the world’s largest public relations firm, Edelman, just spun off an advertising subsidiary so that it could show a commitment to not aiding the denial of climate change science. The Guardian explains how American Petroleum Institute’s (API) contracts with Edelman were so massive—tens of millions of dollars—that it was up to 10 percent of the PR giant’s income. or years, Edelman has managed multi-million dollar contracts with the API, using its Blue Advertising subsidiary to help API run commercials selling fantasies to people: that oil and gas are our only viable, plentiful, “AMERICAN” sources of energy. In the saga that led Edelman to dump the lobbyists at API, Greenpeace had a small role to play: we infiltrated a commercial shoot, run by Edelman’s Blue advertising arm for API.

Lawsuits Claim Missouri Towns Jail Poor People For Profit

February 11, 2015 Carey Gillam, www.news.yahoo.com Resist! Capitalism, Ferguson, Mass Incarceration, Prison

Ferguson, Missouri and a second St. Louis suburb are being accused in separate lawsuits of operating a "debtors' prison scheme," illegally jailing poor people who are unable to pay traffic tickets or fines tied to other minor offenses. The lawsuits, filed on Sunday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis by 20 black residents, allege that officials in Ferguson and neighboring Jennings have routinely been abusing and exploiting impoverished individuals to boost city revenues. The plaintiffs are seeking class-action status for the cases. The plaintiffs claim the money they are told they owe is often arbitrarily modified, and the individuals are frequently kept locked in a cycle of jail time and indebtedness to the municipal courts as late fees and surcharges are added to initial fines.

The Crises Are Urgent, So Let’s Slow Down

February 7, 2015 Hénia Belalia, www.truth-out.org Organize! Capitalism, Civil Rights, Colonialism

Wise sister and civil rights organizer George Friday, once told me that "There are two paces to organizing for change: the speed with which our systems are collapsing and the slow intentional time that is necessary for deep movement building." Too often, the anxieties about the world's problems lead to a hasty rush for solutions in which the slow time is compromised for the sake of moving actions, campaigns and institutional agendas forward. In that space, the complexities of systemic oppressions are overlooked, and the very inequalities that we are fighting to abolish continue to play themselves out. With every excuse to deal with the micro aggressions later, because the crises of environmental and social degradation must take precedence, the same folks are made expendable and sacrificed.

Postal Workers Oppose Staples-Office Depot Merger

February 7, 2015 APWU, www.apwu.org Resist! Capitalism, Labor Unions

The American Postal Workers Union announced today that the 200,000–member organization will “vigorously oppose” the merger between Staples and Office Depot. “We will urge the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to block this monopolistic and unlawful merger now, just as they did 17 years ago,” said APWU President Mark Dimondstein. “And we call on Congress to weigh in with the FTC and the Department of Justice to stop it. “A Staples takeover of Office Depot would lead to higher prices for consumers and store closings that would affect employees and customers alike,” Dimondstein said. “There are new grounds to block this combination as well,” he added.

3 Things We Need to Do To Rise Up & Defeat Corporatocracy

February 6, 2015 Bruce E. Levine, www.alternet.org Strategize! Capitalism, Corporatism, Socialism

Transforming the United States into something closer to a democracy requires: 1) knowledge of how we are getting screwed; 2) pragmatic tactics, strategies, and solutions; and 3) the “energy to do battle.” The majority of Americans oppose the corporatocracy (rule by giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials); however, many of us have given up hope that this tyranny can be defeated. Among those of us who continue to be politically engaged, many focus on only one of the requirements—knowledge of how we are getting screwed. And this singular focus can result in helplessness.

Malcolm X Was Right About America

February 4, 2015 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com Educate! Capitalism, History, Malcolm X

Malcolm X, unlike Martin Luther King Jr., did not believe America had a conscience. For him there was no great tension between the lofty ideals of the nation—which he said were a sham—and the failure to deliver justice to blacks. He, perhaps better than King, understood the inner workings of empire. He had no hope that those who managed empire would ever get in touch with their better selves to build a country free of exploitation and injustice. He argued that from the arrival of the first slave ship to the appearance of our vast archipelago of prisons and our squalid, urban internal colonies where the poor are trapped and abused, the American empire was unrelentingly hostile to those Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth.” This, Malcolm knew, would not change until the empire was destroyed.

Students Force 16 Universities To End Sweatshop Contracts

February 3, 2015 Julia Wang and Morgan Currier, www.portside.org Resist! Capitalism, Student Activism

United Students Against Sweatshops has successfully pressured 16 colleges and universities to end their contracts with VF Corp – owner of Jansport, North Face, and Vans – over the company’s refusal to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a legally-binding agreement between brands and unions – now signed by over 180 brands and retailers – that holds the promise of putting an end to mass fatality disasters in the garment industry VF Corporation, the largest maker of branded apparel in the world, is the parent company of popular brands including the North Face, Vans, Jansport, Timberland, and 32 others. In Bangladesh, VF Corporation sources from 90 factories, employing over 190,000 garment workers.

Corporate Criminal Dollars Should Be Out Of Politics

January 27, 2015 Corporate Crime Reporter, www.corporatecrimereporter.com Strategize! Campaign Finance, Capitalism, Corruption

Some citizen activists want to get money out of politics. Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota) wants to take a baby step — get corporate crime money out of politics. Ellison has introduced legislation — the Protect Democracy from Criminal Corporations Act — that would limit campaign expenditures by corporations that break the law. “Five years ago today, the Supreme Court decided corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections,” Ellison said. “Some of the resulting $700 million raised by SuperPACs in 2014 came from companies that conspired to defraud the federal government or committed other felonies involving dishonesty or a breach of trust."

Peter McLaren: Putting Radical Life In Schools

January 26, 2015 Paul Street, www.truth-out.org Strategize! Capitalism, Education, Privatization, Student Activism

"School reform" has a very bad reputation among left thinkers and activists for some very good reasons in the neoliberal era. Captive to corporate-backed school privatization activists, contemporary "school reform" sets public schools, teachers, and teacher unions up to fail by blaming them for low student standardized test scores that are all-too unmentionably the product of students' low socioeconomic status and related racial and ethnic oppression. Its obsession with test scores assaults imagination and critical thinking, narrowing curriculum and classroom experience around the lifeless task of filling in the correct bubbles beneath droves of authoritarian multiple-"choice" questions crafted in distant, sociopathic corporate cubicles.

Education Spending Linked To Economic Outcomes

January 26, 2015 David Sirota, www.ibtimes.com Educate! Capitalism, Education

Private equity investor Stephen Schwarzmann is generally a believer in the power of money, a trait that has netted him billions of dollars worth of that useful commodity. But when it comes to education, Schwarzman says more money is not necessarily a fix for ailing American public schools. Speaking Friday at a World Economic Forum event called “Business Backs Education,” the Blackstone Group CEO was asked by International Business Times if he supports raising more money for education through President Barack Obama’s new proposal to increase capital gains taxes or through other proposals to end special “carried interest” tax exemptions for Wall Street financiers.

#ReclaimMLK Protests Begin On Rev. King’s Real Birthday

January 15, 2015 Staff, www.PopularResisitance.org Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Capitalism, militarism, MLK, Police abuse, Racism

The #BlackLivesMatter movement is seeking to reclaim the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in protests across the nation with the hash tag #ReclaimMLK. People are not focusing on his "I Have a Dream" speech but instead on his challenge to the United States as the "greatest purveyor of violence in the world" as well as his criticism of capitalism. When King was murdered he was preparing to lead an occupation of Washington, DC -- Resurrection City -- as part of the Poor People's Campaign. King had already shown himself to be a powerful organizer and mobilizer of people in the Civil Rights movement, but at the end of his life he had taken on other big causes and was mobilizing people to challenge capitalism and militarism. Since his death both of those issues have gotten worse and much of the world and many thousands in the United States are organizing to challenge them. King described three interlocking evils: "the sickness of racism, excessive materialism and militarism."

Communities Should Provide Internet Service, Not Monopolies

January 15, 2015 Corynne McSherry, www.eff.org Educate! Capitalism, Internet, Monopoly

Community broadband, properly deployed and managed, can give at least some of us an alternative to typical broadband duopoly. Take Chattanooga, Tennessee. Chattanooga’s's local power utility operates a fiber optic Internet service that currently offers a 1 Gigabit speed package (1,000 Mbps) for just $69.99/month. For most of us that would be a 50x speed increase or better. Many fiber services are also symmetrical, offering the same upload speed as download speed. There are a variety of models for community broadband. One particularly attractive model is called "open access." Under an open access model, the local municipality might be the owner of the fiber infrastructure, but agrees to lease access to the system to anyone on non-discriminatory terms. This opens up the possibility of having many local ISPs competing for your business over the same fiber infrastructure and drastically reduces the cost of Internet service.

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