greek governance exceedingly fluid about now...,

Video - Greek military and police had joined riots earlier this summer.

AthensNews | Tuesday's changes in top roles of the country's military had been scheduled since early October, were not extraordinary and were based on objective criteria, the defence minister said on Wednesday, responding to intense opposition party criticism.

Opposition parties had reacted with outrage to the sacking of the country's military chiefs, calling it a bid to stack the armed forces with party loyalists before a possible government collapse over the country's debt crisis.

Speaking to an Athens radio station, Panos Beglitis said that the army, navy and air force chiefs of staff and the chief of the general staff had completed their term in their individual posts and were thus replaced.

He also underlined that the procedure could have taken place in August but was postponed as a result of the crisis in the southeastern Mediterranean, referring to Turkey's threats against Cyprus over the latter's decision to begin drilling for hydrocarbons.

Beglitis accused opposition parties of hypocrisy and petty party politicking.

He also pointed out that the outgoing military leadership was appointed in August 2009 by the previous New Democracy government, just before the Octover 4 general elections, in what he said was a move unprecedented in the country’s postwar history.

In a surprise move, on Tuesday evening the defence minister replaced the country’s top brass. An extraordinary meeting of the Government Council of Foreign Affairs and Defence (Kysea), which comprises the prime minister and other key cabinet members, accepted Defence Minister Panos Beglitis' proposal that the following changes be made to army, navy and air force and the general staff:

* General Ioannis Giagkos, chief of the Greek National Defence General Staff, to be replaced by Lieutenant General Michalis Kostarakos
* Lieutenant General Fragkos Fragkoulis, chief of the Greek Army General Staff, to be replaced by lieutenant general Konstantinos Zazias
* Lieutenant General Vasilios Klokozas, chief of the Greek Air Force, to be replaced by air marshal Antonis Tsantirakis
* Vice-Admiral Dimitrios Elefsiniotis, chief of the Greek Navy General Staff, to be replaced by Rear-Admiral Kosmas Christidis

Governments have exerted tight control over the armed forces since the collapse of the junta in 1974. Army chiefs are often selected on the basis of party loyalty as part of a deeply-entrenched system of political patronage.

The move to replace the military chiefs may have also been hastened by a Greek protest at austerity measures that halted a major national parade last week.

The annual military parade in the northern city of Thessaloniki is one of the most symbolic events in Greece's political calendar and it was the first time it had been cancelled.

Opposition reactions

The decison drew strong reaction from opposition parties. Main opposition New Democracy (ND) defence spokesman Margaritis Tzimas spoke of "an undemocratic act which is directed against national interest", adding that "at the time when the Pasok government is collapsing, it is proceeding with ... changes in the leadership of the country's armed forces". He said that his party would not accept the decisions.

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) called on the minister and the government to give clear explanations to the people on why they replaced the armed forces leadership under these conditions.

The Popular Orthodox Rally (Laos) termed the appointments "politically indecent and morally unacceptable" and added that "a few hours before the government's fall, the leadership of the armed forces has been broken up in its entirety."

Lastly, a Radical Left Coalition (Syriza) official said it was unacceptable for the defence minister to decide on such an important issue at a time when the government is facing collapse.

dayyum..., papandreou picked up the soap

Globe and Mail | George Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister, has, if nothing else, succeeded in provoking Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and other European leaders into almost threatening to expel Greece from the euro zone – not that there is any known procedure for doing so. Their previous insistence that the euro could never be withdrawn from a country may have encouraged the Greeks to think they could drag their feet on structural reform and austerity – or worse, march and riot.

The response to Mr. Papandreou’s now abandoned referendum proposal has had some influence on Greek politicians. The Minister of Finance, Evangelos Venizelos, openly dissented. But the changed position of Antonis Samaras, the leader of the New Democracy, the main opposition party, which is traditionally regarded as conservative, is more significant. He has taken an unconstructive stance toward the government’s quasi-insolvency and the attempts of the euro zone group to deal with it. Yesterday, however, Mr. Samaras – who happens to have been a roommate of Mr. Papandreou at an American university – has proposed a transitional national-unity government, with a cabinet largely composed of non-partisan “technocrats,” to manage the restructuring of the country’s government and economy.

Mr. Papandreou reacted to this idea with stony silence, pending a doubtful vote of confidence on Friday, but his mutability has been amply demonstrated in the past few days. Mr. Samaras has now shown some welcome, and overdue, flexibility. The Greek people, it seems, do not want to lose the use of the euro and go back to the drachma – still less do they wish to suffer from a run on the Greek banks, if those banks’ large holdings of Greek government bonds become nearly worthless.

Among the few people who spoke favourably of Mr. Papandreou’s ill-timed, short-lived referendum idea was Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who, in speaking to the House of Commons finance committee, said (in answer to a question) that painful economic restructurings need broad democratic support – which is quite true. Inept as the Greek Prime Minister has been (unless there is method in his madness), he may have helped build consensus.

The prospect of economic shock therapy, to paraphrase Samuel Johnson, concentrates the mind wonderfully. Greece may yet co-operate.

levels of symbiotic cooperation previously unknown...,

Hotspots in the top right triangle, which compares all gene transfer events, shows microbes that live in the same niche more readily exchange genetic material. Looking at antibiotic resistance genes (bottom left triangle), however, paints a more complex and nuanced portrait of genetic transfer. (Nature)

Wired | Researchers have discovered an underworld of genetic exchange among bacteria, one more vast than previously imagined.

A comparison of thousands of bacterial genomes from around the world found genes flowing easily between species separated by hundreds, even thousands of miles. Whether the bacteria were related or not didn’t matter — a fascinating phenomenon on its own, but disturbing when the genes involved could turn pathogens into drug-resistant superbugs.

“We should have done this study and asked these questions five years ago,” said microbiologist Eric Alm of MIT, leader of a study published online Oct. 30 in Nature. “The significance was off the charts.”

Bacteria readily exchange DNA between closely related species, and much less frequently across unrelated lineages. This so-called horizontal gene transfer fuels adaptation, allowing for rapid adjustments to local pressures. Its full extent, however — especially in bacteria associated with humans, including those in our bodies, where bugs outnumber cells by 10 to 1 — are unknown.

To get a global picture of horizontal gene transfer, Alm, two graduate students and other collaborators compared 2,235 different bacterial genomes. “I was hoping to find five to 10 examples of recent gene transfers,” he said. “My students came back in a week with 10,000 different genes that had been transferred.”

The researchers compared transfers in several ways: first by the microbes’ genetic similarities, and then by geographic distance separating the locations of their collection. Neither followed a predictable pattern, but patterns did emerge when the researchers analyzed ecological niches.

Instead of swapping genes with microbes genetically related to them, or near them, bacteria seem to be swapping with microbes fulfilling similar roles. Alm’s team also found that genes especially important to humans — those found in our stomach flora, for example, or genes conveying antibiotic resistance — are particularly good at long-distance swaps.

In the future, Alm hopes to look more closely at gene transfer in virulent microbes, such as those that cause meningitis. Tracking genes that are especially likely to flow could help identify new disease-battle targets. Alm also wants to find out exactly how business is conducted in what he called a genetic “black market.” DNA can travel on dead cell fragments, viruses, and other sub-cellular vehicles, and the exact routes remain unknown.

“It could be almost anything,” he said. “We have no idea. I would love to know.” Fist tap Dale.

an educated mind depends on a properly trained behind...,

Video - A word about corporal punishment

Royal Society | Understanding how societies resolve conflicts between individual and common interests remains one of the most fundamental issues across disciplines. The observation that humans readily incur costs to sanction uncooperative individuals without tangible individual benefits has attracted considerable attention as a proximate cause as to why cooperative behaviours might evolve. However, the proliferation of individually costly punishment has been difficult to explain. Several studies over the last decade employing experimental designs with isolated groups have found clear evidence that the costs of punishment often nullify the benefits of increased cooperation, rendering the strong human tendency to punish a thorny evolutionary puzzle. Here, we show that group competition enhances the effectiveness of punishment so that when groups are in direct competition, individuals belonging to a group with punishment opportunity prevail over individuals in a group without this opportunity. In addition to competitive superiority in between-group competition, punishment reduces within-group variation in success, creating circumstances that are highly favourable for the evolution of accompanying group-functional behaviours. We find that the individual willingness to engage in costly punishment increases with tightening competitive pressure between groups. Our results suggest the importance of intergroup conflict behind the emergence of costly punishment and human cooperation. Here's the full paper.

the return to feudalism

Synearth | The consumption of fossil fuels took about 200 years to go through the first half of the supply. The second half will disappear much faster because the energy consumption per person keeps increasing. Market forces keep driving this consumption continuously upward.

The fossil fuels not only supplied our energy, they supplied most of the raw materials for the production of goods for our society. Imagine a world without our current plastics, many of our drugs, current construction materials (like asphalt and paint), clothing material and the list goes on. Virtually the entire chemical production system will have to be reinvented to cope with these changes. This new system is likely to be based upon biochemistry.

The transformation of the infrastructure to satisfy future needs will be even larger than the infrastructure created from 1800 to the present. It took 200 years for our old system to evolve. We do not have that much time for the future reconstruction. A realistic estimate is about 50-100 years.

There is another lesson from history. This lesson is that the more complicated that governments or societies become, the greater is the strain upon the resources available to that ruling body. All of the ancient empires fell because of this problem. The Egyptian, Sumerian, Greek and Roman empires are examples. They all became larger or more complicated than their resources could sustain. This problem is now facing the entire world not just a single government.

Cooperation

In order to transform the infrastructure of the world, the governments of the world (at least the major governments) are going to be forced into scientific cooperation as never before. There may be healthy competition between the scientists of various countries but the “best” work must be shared by all the countries. To do otherwise is to invite more wars. The monopolization of resources and new technology must be avoided at all cost. There are no “free market” entities that can accomplish projects of these magnitudes. Research and development must be conducted on a “wartime” basis like the Manhattan Project. Time is the enemy.

Whatever the new infrastructure is going to be, it must stay in balance with nature. The systems proposed here attempt to sustain carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and water “neutrality”. This should help prevent us from killing ourselves. Doing nothing to create a new infrastructure will guarantee that most of humanity will die in a struggle for survival.

The route to overcoming the loss of fossil fuels will eventually involve the politics of many countries. It is sad to say that this may be the greatest impediment to success. Programs enormously larger than the space programs and the Manhattan Project will be involved. Research and development will require worldwide cooperation. Financing these endeavors is beyond the scope of private enterprise or a single government. Mankind may not be capable of such cooperation. Nationalism may destroy success.

The outline presented here for creating an exhausted fossil fuel world infrastructure is certainly not the only one possible. More ingenious solutions may exist. The route to these solutions must not be decided upon by political or economic methods but by scientific ones. Politicians are not likely to accept these restrictions of their power. Business leaders are also not good choices for directors of such projects. Military leaders would be problematic also.

The time allowed to complete a restructure of our old infrastructure will be measured in decades and not centuries. An overarching program of this magnitude has never been attempted. Such things are accomplished in Science Fiction but not in the real world. The end result of doing nothing is to return to the feudalism of the past. Living in a new world based upon the old paradigm of “one man, one mule, one plow, one gun” is not a happy consideration.

It is hoped that mankind will begin to take action now to replace our entire fossil fuel based system. This not only decreases global warming, it actually preserves some of our irreplaceable resources. Population control will also have to be initiated. Population expansion is limited by the resources from the sun.

consent needed for debt repayments

Video - Michael Hudson: Peoples of countries indebted without their consent should refuse to repay odious debts

MichaelHudson | PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Washington. In Europe, people in many countries are saying no to paying for the crisis and bailing out banks. And to a large extent leading the way have been people in Iceland, who have said no at the ballot box and on the streets. Now joining us to talk about that is Michael Hudson. He teaches economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Thanks for joining us again, Michael.

MICHAEL HUDSON, PROF. ECONOMICS, UMKC: Thank you, Paul.

JAY: So you have colleagues you’re in touch with in Iceland a lot. What’s going on there now?

HUDSON: Well, as many people know, there was a bank failure, and Iceland’s currency plunged and then sort of fell off the pages in the paper. What people don’t realize is that what happened in Iceland has been used as a test case for what’s happening in Greece and what’s happening in Europe, and maybe what happens in the United States. When the three big crooked banks failed, they were sold out to vulture banks, basically, at $0.10 on the dollar. The vulture banks came in and are moving to begin evicting huge amounts of Icelanders from their homes. Ninety percent have their own homes. Three hundred thousand Icelanders have moved to Norway to get work. The country’s been plunged into a depression. Earlier this week, the Social Democratic prime minister gave a speech saying, essentially, we want to give away the country and the banks. They’re backing me. I’ve given the country away to the banks. Now, what do the population do [incompr.] the public opinion polls show that the fascist party there–they call themselves Social Democrats, but they call them fascists–have a 10 percent approval rating. That means a 90 percent disapproval. What they did was get together outside of Parliament with about 20 huge oil drums, and at the point where the prime minister began to speak in Parliament, they all begin banging the huge oil drums and any other noise makers they had in order to make it impossible to hear even the speech, so that any recording of the speech would have this huge din of noise going on. And they did that for the same reason that the people in Occupy Wall Street are gathering. They’re there to say, look, whatever deal this right-wing reactionary prime minister lady makes with Europe, we’re not going to obey it. As soon as we can throw these thieves out of power, we’re going to come in and we’re going to have another government, and we’re not going to pay, because if a government gives away to–the country to foreign bankers and foreign creditors and we don’t have a say in it, that’s not democracy. That’s [crosstalk]

JAY: Right. So they had a referendum about whether or not to do this, you know, use public money to pay off and bail out the banks. They voted no. Then what happened? I mean, it sounds like a lot of this is happening anyway.

HUDSON: The referendum was not whether to pay off the banks. The prime minister, again, had wanted to pay off Gordon Brown in England and the Dutch government–nothing to do with banks at all–for Icesave debt that the governments had to pay and did pay to bail out their own banks. The prime minister, Sigurdardottir, wanted to pay the money to finance England and Netherlands, essentially doing their own bank bailout, for which Iceland didn’t owe a penny. And the president, who normally is like a notary public and has to sign off, says, wait a minute, if we’re going to agree to pay debts that are going to plunge the economy into a decade of depression and force most Icelanders to leave the country to find work, they at least get to vote on it. That’s international law. So they voted no. And then the government said, oh, let’s have another vote, and finally a year later put the referendum again. The people voted no again. That referendum was against bailing out Gordon Brown and the British Labour Party and the Dutch government. It had nothing to do with the banks. This is yet another bank giveaway. The Social Democratic Party, not only in Iceland but throughout Europe, is basically the party of the bank lobbyists. And the other people are saying, wait a minute, we want an election to throw these guys out. They’ve been bought out. They’re crooks. And the government says, we’re not going to let you vote. Whatever we say, we’re going to do. There is no democracy here. And that’s why–.

JAY: And is there a party in Iceland that reflects this that isn’t going to be a right-wing alternative that does the same thing, or another form of right-wing alternative, if you want?

HUDSON: In the past, the only alternative to the Social Democrats were the neoliberal party that gave away the store to the banks to begin with. So they’re in the process of founding a new party. But without letting people vote, when you stop, when you just suspend voting and you won’t let people have any voice in government, no party can function, because there’s no vote, no chance to have a ballot. So the government is–essentially, the Social Democrats have imposed the dictatorship in Iceland that they’re trying to impose in Greece under the socialist government there and in other social democratic governments throughout Europe.

JAY: Thanks for joining us, Michael.

HUDSON: Thanks.

the achilles heel of the eurozone

LATimes | The Greek drama is heightening by the day. Last week, Europe's leaders came up with a $180-billion rescue package for its most troubled member, Greece. Like previous efforts, the plan combines bailout funds with demands for continued austerity in an attempt to isolate Greece and leave the rest of Europe economically intact. This week, in response, a call by Greece's prime minister for a national referendum on the proposal surprised the world.

The referendum may accelerate the inevitable fall of the Greek government. And it only emphasizes that a belief in the latest deal as a "Euro success story" — that it solves Greece's problems and prevents a larger Eurozone crisis — is pure fantasy. Whatever the referendum results turn out to be, we are still heading toward the unraveling of an economically united Europe, a union that, despite its many downsides, is in the best interests of the continent's countries — rich and poor — and the global economy.

That the European Union finally recognizes the need to push forward on Greece's solvency problem is a positive development, even though the latest fix basically amounts to providing it with some new breathing room. Greece's payments on its debt principal will be postponed, and interest rates will be lowered. This might, in 2013, begin to bring its deficit under control. The price, though, will include a very high unemployment rate. And, most significantly, the underlying problem of an economy without growth has not been addressed.

Greece lacks both an industrial base and the widespread availability of technology. It simply can't be productive enough to compete with neighbors such as Germany, France or the Netherlands. It's in deep recession and doesn't have the resources to grow out of it, even with an easing of its still-enormous debt level.

Most of the austerity measures and reforms in place — and calls to continue or increase them — won't work. Raising taxes in a society distinguished by flagrant tax evasion has only boosted the shadow economy. Wage and pension cuts are further reducing tax receipts. Worse, these measures are depressing both demand and retail sales, resulting in more unemployment and civil disturbances.

A quarantine of the disaster isn't possible. Europe's banks and nations are too closely entwined. Financial institutions in the Eurozone have made large loans to Greece's government and private sector, as well as to other distressed European nations.

The core European banks hold hundreds of billions of euros in debt issued by Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain, all struggling nations. Banks within these nations hold tens of billions more. Add in losses at the European Central Bank, where incoming President Mario Draghi is providing only lukewarm support for an active role by the bank. Greece still could collapse, provoking a rush to the exits that would trigger bank insolvencies across the continent.

The effects extend beyond Europe. The U.S. and Japan would not be immune from the turmoil. And at least two-thirds of lending to emerging markets originates in European banks. If European institutions start calling back these loans, markets around the globe will be destabilized.

Greece’s bailout referendum gambit: grave error or glimpse of greatness?

Toronto Star | Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s call for a referendum on a massive bailout package has all but swept away hopes of finally stemming his country’s massive debt crisis.

Now it looks like his own government will be pulled under by the same current.

A man who spent a decade fighting for the prime minister’s post, and whose name carries the resonance of America’s beloved Kennedys in his own country, Papandreou shocked political allies and enemies alike with his call to take the European bailout plan to the voters.

Some see the referendum call as a reckless move by a cornered politician who refuses to shoulder the legacy of brutal cost-cutting measures. Others charge it is a brilliant, gutsy strategy designed to silence his critics and ultimately garner the support the bailout needs to be successful.

Is Papandreou saving his career at the expense of the global economy — or is that the only way to save it?

Now his government is teetering on the verge of collapse. It faces a confidence vote at the end of this week.

Stock markets swooned and European leaders scrambled following Monday night’s Greek bombshell, which threatens to undo 18 months of negotiations by the European Union to ease the debt emergency.

Working deep into the night last week, eurozone countries agreed to a package to cut Greek’s public debt by half and strengthen banks’ balance sheets to guard against a continentwide banking crisis.

“The summit last week was to deal with the uncertainty in the eurozone . . . and this grenade is thrown in just a few short days later,” groused Lucinda Creighton, Ireland’s minister of European affairs.

With the EU deal now in doubt in the fast-moving political situation in Athens, world leaders face the possibility of a disorderly debt default by Greece, which could spread financial chaos to other countries such as Spain and Italy.

That would in turn raise the possibility of another global banking calamity that could prompt a repeat of the 2008 recession. Also at stake is the future of Greece within the EU, the credibility of the euro as a 17-nation currency and, in the worst scenario, the survival of the half-century-old EU itself.

Antonis Samaras, leader of Greece’s opposition New Democracy Party, hissed that his party would never accept “reckless adventurism.”

“Mr. Papandreou, in his effort to save himself, has presented a divisive and extortionate dilemma,” Samaras said.

Papandreou said that he needs wider political backing for deep spending cuts tied to the new €130 billion aid deal.

He wanted Greek voters “to take a position, to see the choice before us in its starkness, hoping they will back the lesser of two evils, instead of letting irate reactions in the streets dominate the debate,” one adviser to the prime minister told The New York Times.

greek prime minister wins backing for referendum

Guardian | 8.20am: So what happened at last night's cabinet meeting? We know that it ran for seven hours (after starting late), finally finishing at 3am Greek time (1am GMT).

According to government spokesman Ilias Mossialos, government ministers expressed "total support for the initiatives taken by the prime minister." That doesn't exactly chime with the growing mood of opposition among the Pasok party yesterday.

George Papandreou's office has released a statement, showing the prime minister insisted that the Greek people must give their approval to the next stage of austerity:

The referendum will be a clear mandate and a clear message in and outside Greece on our European course and participation in the euro.

No one will be able to doubt Greece's course within the euro.

Only if you win, though, Prime Minister....

According to Associated Press, Papandreou also insisted that the rules of democracy must be observed:

We will not implement any program by force, but only with the consent of the Greek people.

This is our democratic tradition and we demand that it is also respected abroad.

8.00am: Good morning, and welcome to another day of drama in the European debt crisis.

We said yesterday that George Papandreou had a history weathering political crises. Well, the great survivor has done it again – after a marathon cabinet meeting, he has persuaded his cabinet that Greece should indeed hold a referendum on the eurozone rescue plan.

We'll be following all the developments from Greece, where the parliament is expected to start debating a confidence vote this afternoon.

World leaders are also heading to Cannes, ready for the G20 which begins on Thursday. Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and other key players are due to meet with Papandreou late tonight to discuss the situation.

Global Economy Threatened As World Oil Production Stalls For Seventh Year

ASPO | An array of energy experts gathered in front of the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today to criticize the agency for what they called “dangerously unrealistic” oil and natural gas production forecasts. Calling for "truth in energy," they delivered a letter to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu seeking greater transparency in how the agency formulates its energy projections and urging development of a plan to address the growing possibility of near-term oil supply disruptions and persistent, long-term oil shortages.

“Despite rising demand and a large increase in oil prices, world oil supply has been on a plateau; it has stayed relatively constant since 2005,” said Robert L. Hirsch, co-author of The Impending World Energy Mess. “Simultaneously, production from existing world oil fields is declining at a high rate. Both of these developments are unprecedented, yet DOE and EIA [Energy Information Administration] have dismissed them as not being of major concern.”

Hirsch added, “Many oil production analysts believe that in a relatively few years, total world oil production will go into decline. That may sound like we have time to react, but our 2005 study for the DOE clearly demonstrated that we now have essentially no time to effectively react. This is because of the huge amount of oil consumed worldwide and the fact that a relatively few percent oil production decline will be difficult, expensive and time-consuming to make up.”

“The Department of Energy’s optimistic forecasts for future supply are dangerously unrealistic,” said Jim Baldauf, president and co-founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas-USA (ASPO-USA). “The risk/benefit ratio is out of balance. If these exuberant predictions are wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic. We need to be conservative in planning for the future. We can’t bet America’s economy and national security on Pollyanna predictions.” Baldauf added, “We are not running out of oil. But we appear to be running out of oil that we can afford.”

the 99% have lost out beyond occupy wall street's wildest imagining..,

Video - an exploration of the inordinate power that corporations exercise in our democracy.

truthout | "Property is theft," French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon famously declared in 1840 - a judgment clearly shared by many of those involved in the occupations in the name of the 99 percent around the country, and especially when applied to Wall Street bankers and traders. Elizabeth Warren also angrily points out that there "is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody." Meaning: if the rich don't pay their fair share of the taxes which educate their workers and provide roads, security and many other things, they are essentially stealing from everyone else.

But this is the least of it: Proudhon may have exaggerated when, for instance, we think of a small farmer working his own land with his own hands. But we now know that he was far closer to the truth than even he might have imagined when it comes to how the top 1 percent really got so rich, and why the 99 percent lost out. The biggest "theft" by the 1 percent has been of the primary source of wealth - knowledge - for its own benefit.

Knowledge? Yes, of course, and increasingly so. The fact is, most of what we call wealth is now known to be overwhelmingly the product of technical, scientific and other knowledge - and most of this innovation derives from socially inherited knowledge, at that. Which means that, except for trivial amounts, it was simply not created by the 1 percent who enjoy the lion's share of its benefits. Most of it was created, historically, by society - which is to say, minimally, the other 99 percent.

Take a simple example: In our own time, over many decades, the development of the steel plow and the tractor increased one man's capacity to farm, from a small plot (with a mule and wooden plow) to many hundred acres. What changed over the years to make this possible was a great deal of engineering, steelmaking, chemistry and other knowledge developed by society as a whole.

Another obvious example: Many of the advances that have propelled our high-tech economy in recent decades grew directly out of research programs financed and, often, collaboratively developed, by the federal government and paid for by the taxpayer. The Internet, to take the most well-known example, began as a government defense project, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), in the 1960s. Today's vast software industry rests on a foundation of computer language and operating hardware developed, in large part, with public support. The Bill Gateses of the world might still be working with vacuum tubes and punch cards were it not for critical research and technology programs created or financed by the federal government after World War II.

The iPhone is another example: Its microchips, cellular communication abilities and global positioning system (GPS) all flowed from developments traceable to significant direct and indirect public support from the military and space programs. The "revolutionary" multi-touch screen was developed by University of Delaware researchers financially supported by the National Science Foundation and the CIA. It is not only electronics: of the 15 modern US-developed "blockbuster" drugs with over $1 billion in sales, 13 received significant public research and development support.

But taxpayer-financed government programs (including, of course, all of public education!) are only the tip of the iceberg. And here we are not talking rhetoric, we are talking the stuff of Nobel prizes. Over the last several decades, economic research has begun to pinpoint much more precisely how much of what we call "wealth" society in general derives from long, steady, century-by-century advances in knowledge - and how much any one individual at any point in time can be said to have earned and "deserved."

Recent estimates indicate, for instance, that national output per capita has increased more than twentyfold over the 200-plus years since 1800. Output per hour worked has increased an estimated fifteenfold since 1870 alone. Yet the modern person is likely to work each hour with no greater commitment, risk or intelligence than his counterpart from the past. The primary reason for such huge gains is that, on the whole, scientific, technical and cultural knowledge has grown at a scale and pace that far outstrips any other factor in the nation's economic achievement.

A half-century ago, in 1957, economist Robert Solow showed that nearly 90 percent of productivity growth in the first half of the 20th century alone, from 1909 to 1949, could only be attributed to technical change in the broadest sense. The supply of labor and capital - what workers and employers contribute - appeared almost incidental to this massive technological "residual." (Solow received the Nobel Prize for this and related work in 1987.) Another leading economist, William Baumol, calculated that "nearly 90 percent ... of current GDP [gross domestic product] was contributed by innovation carried out since 1870."

The truly central and demanding question is obviously this: If most of what we have today is attributable to knowledge advances that we all inherit in common, why, specifically, should this gift of our collective history not more generously benefit all members of society? The top 1 percent of US households now receives far more income than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. The richest 1 percent of households owns nearly half of all investment assets (stocks and mutual funds, financial securities, business equity, trusts, nonhome real estate). A mere 400 individuals at the top have a combined net worth greater than the bottom 60 percent of the nation taken together. If America's vast wealth is mainly a gift of our common past, how, specifically, can such disparities be justified?

a simple three item agenda...,

oftwominds | There are really only three ways to cripple Wall Street's democracy-killing concentration of wealth and power: take our money out of Wall Street and the TBTF banks, eliminate private money from elections and abolish Wall Street's dealer, the Federal Reserve.

There are only three things--and only these three--that will cripple Wall Street's democracy-killing concentration of wealth and power:

1. Transfer the 99%'s money out of Wall Street and the Too Big To Fail Banks

2. Remove campaign contributions from our democracy in a way that the corporate legalist lackeys in the Supreme Court cannot overturn, i.e. entirely publicly financed elections

3. Abolish Wall Street's dealer, pusher and protector, the Federal Reserve.

My reasoning is very simple:

Everything else people want to see happen cannot happen if:

1) Wall Street and the SDI (systemically dangerous institutions) a.k.a. too big to fail banks, control most Americans' financial assets and debts

2) The Federal Reserve exists to enable and protect the SDI's wealth and power via Primary Dealers, the discount window and other pusher/dealer mechanisms

3) Wall Street and the other SDIs can use the billions of dollars they skim from our accounts, IRAs, 401Ks and pensions to buy political influence and protection from regulation and competition.

Therefore these are the necessary foundations of any real change.

treasury secretary up for auction and goldman sachs the highest bidder...,

Video - David DeGraw, Bill Black and Dylan Ratigan discussing Occupy Wall Street and prosecution of banking fraud.

is the environmental crisis caused by the 7 billion or the 1%?

The Grist | The United Nations says that the world's population will reach 7 billion people this month.

The approach of that milestone has produced a wave of articles and opinion pieces blaming the world's environmental crises on overpopulation. In New York's Times Square, a huge and expensive video declares that "human overpopulation is driving species extinct." In London's busiest Underground stations, electronic poster boards warn that 7 billion is ecologically unsustainable.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich's bestseller The Population Bomb declared that as a result of overpopulation, "the battle to feed humanity is over," and the 1970s would be a time of global famines and ever-rising death rates. His predictions were all wrong, but four decades later his successors still use Ehrlich's phrase -- too many people! -- to explain environmental problems.

But most of the 7 billion are not endangering the earth. The majority of the world's people don't destroy forests, don't wipe out endangered species, don't pollute rivers and oceans, and emit essentially no greenhouse gases.

Even in the rich countries of the Global North, most environmental destruction is caused not by individuals or households, but by mines, factories, and power plants run by corporations that care more about profit than about humanity's survival.

No reduction in U.S. population would have stopped BP from poisoning the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Lower birthrates won't shut down Canada's tar sands, which Bill McKibben has justly called one of the most staggering crimes the world has ever seen.

Universal access to birth control should be a fundamental human right -- but it would not have prevented Shell's massive destruction of ecosystems in the Niger River delta, or the immeasurable damage that Chevron has caused to rainforests in Ecuador.

Ironically, while populationist groups focus attention on the 7 billion, protestors in the worldwide Occupy movement have identified the real source of environmental destruction: not the 7 billion, but the 1%, the handful of millionaires and billionaires who own more, consume more, control more, and destroy more than all the rest of us put together.

In the United States, the richest 1% own a majority of all stocks and corporate equity, giving them absolute control of the corporations that are directly responsible for most environmental destruction.

we really need a widespread, bottom-up social movement

Stanford | Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich still sees runaway population growth as a threat to the planet, but is hopeful that humans can avoid the first catastrophic collapse of a global civilization.

The United Nations projects that world population will reach 7 billion this month and could top 10 billion by the end of the century.

In his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich warned of the threat of unchecked human population growth. Over the past four decades, the book has brought attention to the question of how many individuals our planet can sustain.

As we approach Oct. 31, the United Nations' symbolic day of 7 billion, Ehrlich discusses post-Population Bomb growth with the Stanford News Service.

Global population has more than doubled since you wrote The Population Bomb. What major consequences of that growth do we see today?

We are seeing climate disruption leading to rising food prices, loss of biodiversity, deteriorating ecosystem services, increased chances of vast epidemics and nuclear resource wars and a general reduction in the odds of avoiding the first catastrophic collapse of a global civilization.

Have any of your prescriptions from The Population Bomb been followed to success in the last 40 years?

There has been a cheering reduction in birth rates, but sadly not far enough in rich countries such as the United States and Australia, and not sufficiently widespread.

Will the additional 2 billion people projected to arrive by 2050 have the same environmental impact as adding the last 2 billion?

No, they won't. People are smart. Farmers didn't first till marginal soils where water was scarce, but rather the most productive, well-watered soils they could find. To support 2 billion more, it will be necessary to farm ever poorer lands, use more dangerous and expensive agricultural inputs, win metals from ever-poorer ores, drill wells deeper or tap increasingly remote or more contaminated sources to obtain water, and then spend more energy to transport that water ever greater distances. All this will require vastly more energy than is now used. As a result, the next 2 billion people probably will do disproportionately much more damage to our life-support systems than did the last 2 billion. Of course, if humanity got serious about protecting the environment, and now especially the atmosphere, the next 2 billion could do less damage.

Sometimes we hear reference to a "cluster bomb" of growth rather than a "population bomb." What does this mean?

Sadly, this howler slipped through the refereeing system at Science, the world's premier science journal, in a recent issue on population. The "cluster bomb" focuses on the population plight of a cluster of poor countries that struggle with rapid population growth and increasing hunger, without looking at the role of rich countries in worsening that plight. More importantly, it doesn't look at the role of wealthy countries in contributing to the most important population-related problems that are global: climate disruption, toxification of the entire planet, the possibly insurmountable challenge of transitioning rapidly away from fossil fuels, looting of the seas, and increasing the risks of pandemics and nuclear war.

How do you respond to the statement that we should focus on overconsumption, not population growth?

Most of humanity's environmental problems trace to too much total consumption, but that consumption is a product of population size and per-capita consumption. Population and consumption are no more separable in producing environmental damage than the length and width of a rectangle can be separated in producing its area – both are equally important.

Can individuals with high per-capita consumption make a difference by changing their behaviors, or do we need to look to systematic changes?

Individual changes can help, but we really need a widespread, bottom-up social movement such as the one which Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere (MAHB) is trying to generate. The MAHB is an outfit you can join if you want to help figure out how society can avoid a collapse. Political action is essential.

cities doing it right; respecting occupy's right to free speech and assembly

Video - Putting Occupy Wall Street into perspective

Washingtonsblog | Given all of the police brutality in Oakland, Denver and New York City (here, here, here, here, here, here and here), it is important to give credit to the cities which are respecting the protesters’ rights to free speech and assembly.

As Occupy Orange County reported Wednesday;

Late last night after a 5 and-a-half hour marathon city council meeting [in Irvine, Orange County, in Southern California], in which 72 speakers took the floor to express the need for the Occupy OC Tent Village to be accepted as a form of free speech, the city council passed an emergency motion to add the needs of “The 99%” to their official agenda. This was a feat which, according to one more conservative Councilman, he had never seen in 7 years of service.

The council members each spoke in turn to the civility, articulateness and peaceful process represented by the Irvine Occupation , at contrast with the several other Occupational Villages in California, which were, at that very moment being tear-gassed. The general sentiment of the officials being: “This is quite clearly the model. And the occupation most in tune with city needs.”

One councilman stated clearly, “I disagree with most of what you’re saying. But you’ve clearly shown that this is an issue of free speech. So if you need to sleep on our lawn,… by all means,… sleep on our lawn.”

Shortly after, a motion was brought to the council to grant license to the occupiers to occupy the public space overnight citing the unusual form of the movement. (Another first in council history.)

It was then passed unanimously to the sound of thunderous applause.

Shortly thereafter, the City Council was invited to attend the General Assembly of the People. (Which takes place each night in the Occupation Village at 7:00 PM.)

On a personal note,… I myself was stopped by the Mayor on my way up the hall, when he said, “You know what concerns me?” “What’s that”, I asked. Expecting him to cite a civil code. “Do you have enough blankets? Or should I get you some?” He asked.

And while they might not be as respectful of the Constitution (even when they disagree with the protesters’ beliefs) as Irvine, other cities have at least handled the protests better than the cities who have sent in the riot police.

For example, AP notes, in a story entitled “Occupy Wall Street: Many Cities Leaving Protesters Alone“

occupy richmond converts rightwing blogger...,

Video - Rightwing blogger's Richmond Occupy Wall Street conversion experience.

VARight | Going perhaps a bit undercover I wandered down to Kanawha Plaza in downtown Richmond this afternoon to get a few pictures and gauge the people of whom I have been so critical first hand, up close and personal.

It was a cold and rainy afternoon with a snow storm moving in to our west and north. Pellets of sleet intermittently mixed with the light drizzle and the temperature hovered in the low 40′s. Cold and nasty.

I expected exactly what I had heard and seen on the news. Trash, filth, drugs, human excrement and terrible odors. And obnoxious people demanding handouts.

In fact, that is what I went down there to document.

But a strange thing happened on the way to expose these greedy freeloaders for the vermin we believe them to be.

When I drove by yesterday, the tents and signs and scraggly people confirmed my impression of the place. From the outside looking in, everything appeared to be exactly as I had seen in the media and read on the internet.

But that was on the outside looking in.

I parked the car, put 50 cents in the meter, and headed into the modern day version of Sodom and Gomorrah.

And I was stunned at what I saw.

There were tents, hand painted signs, almost child-like art work in poster paint reminiscent of the 60′s. Love. Peace.

I was politely greeted by several as I snapped pictures and looked around. I came upon a medical tent and was greeted by a young African-American man named Chris. I asked him a few questions and then asked his permission to record him as he gave me the grand tour. I really hadn’t expected to find a clean camp, let alone a medical tent – one of two!

There are supply rents with clothes, food and gloves. The port-a-pottys were at the far end of the park, away from the food area and they had hot food available all the time. 24 hours.

Chris told me about their “PA” system as a few people walked by shouting “Mic Check!” Chris explained that they use this system to make announcements around the camp. One makes the announcement and the others repeat the message around the encampment. An efficient system to say the least.

He also explained the Democratic Government they had established. To pass “legislation” requires 90% approval.

I spoke with a young woman who was in the Legal Tent. I didn’t ask her name or “qualifications” but she did tell me that the group applied for a permit 9 days ago and had heard nothing.

By biggest problem with this movement has been their disregard for the law. But it seems that they are at least making an effort to comply with the law and the City of Richmond is actually dragging their feet. I have no reason to believe this woman was not being truthful, which means that the City and local media has been less than candid about the Occupy Richmond group’s efforts to do things the right way.

Shame on Mayor Jones. While I criticized Jones earlier today in a post for not evicting the scofflaws who refuse to abide by the law and obtain the proper permits, it seems that the criticism of Jones was deserved, but not because he failed to remove this group who is unlawfully assembled, but because his administration has failed to either approve or disapprove the permit.

My camp guide Chris, speaking for himself (and not the group) said he believed that the Richmond TEA Party should be refunded their money. The Public Park is free.

data on oil speculation shows that more traders are betting on higher prices.

Telegraph | Releasing 60m barrels of reserves was meant to dampen the high price of $113 per barrel, attributed to lost ouput from war-torn Libya and worries that the Arab Spring could spread to more oil producers.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) made no secret of the fact it was worried that oil above $100 was unsustainable and damaging to the global economy.

Since then, the world's financial outlook has considerably worsened and about 430,000 barrels of Libyan oil have returned to the market.

Surely, amid the doom and gloom, plus extra production, the natural direction of oil ought to be down?

However, the price, though volatile, has remained stubbornly above the $100 level. And last Monday, Brent crude even returned to the $113 per barrel level seen before the emergency release of supplies.

Data on oil speculation also shows that more traders are betting on higher prices. At the end of last week, data from the US Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed an increase in long positions in oil futures.

From a macro viewpoint, such continued support for oil doesn't appear to make sense given the number of predictions that the world is on the brink of another recession, tipped over the edge by a volatile eurozone.

From America to Europe, countries are struggling with sovereign debt. And even China is not immune, with demand for oil at its lowest level so far this year.

There is no doubt that the pace of consumption is slowing. Opec, the cartel of producers, the IEA, the Energy Information Agency and numerous companies all say the economic downturn is taking its toll on world oil demand.

This leaves the most plausible explanation for such high prices as tight supply, counteracting the economic gloom.

According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the extra culprits on top of Libya's lower output are North Sea maintenance and pipeline attacks in Nigeria.

Its analysts refer to "a string of supply shocks affecting Libyan, North Sea and Nigerian light sweet barrels. Some of the recent supply losses may reverse in the next few months, but only a global double-dip recession will be able to remove medium-term tightness in the seaborne crude oil markets."

Angola, a recent addition to the Opec cartel, has not been producing anywhere near the 1.85m barrels it pumped last year, with technical problems at some fields.

And Adam Sieminski of Deutsche Bank also mentions "slower than expected ramp-up of new production and unplanned outages" from non-Opec producers.

There is a similar picture in America, where stockpiles of its benchmark WTI crude are remarkably low. This has turned out to be a function of lower imports rather than increased consumption.

While supply remains problematic, only one thing is going to cause a collapse in prices – even lower demand in the face of a full blown economic crisis. It appears that the market is not pricing this in just yet.

the class war has begun...,

Bonus Army veterans on the U.S. Capitol lawn in 1932. 

NYMag | During the death throes of Herbert Hoover’s presidency in June 1932, desperate bands of men traveled to Washington and set up camp within view of the Capitol. The first contingent journeyed all the way from Portland, Oregon, but others soon converged from all over—alone, in groups, with families—until their main Hooverville on the Anacostia River’s fetid mudflats swelled to a population as high as 20,000. The men, World War I veterans who could not find jobs, became known as the Bonus Army—for the modest government bonus they were owed for their service. Under a law passed in 1924, they had been awarded roughly $1,000 each, to be collected in 1945 or at death, whichever came first. But they didn’t want to wait any longer for their pre–New Deal entitlement—especially given that Congress had bailed out big business with the creation of a Reconstruction Finance Corporation earlier in its session. Father Charles Coughlin, the populist “Radio Priest” who became a phenomenon for railing against “greedy bankers and financiers,” framed Washington’s double standard this way: “If the government can pay $2 billion to the bankers and the railroads, why cannot it pay the $2 billion to the soldiers?”

The echoes of our own Great Recession do not end there. Both parties were alarmed by this motley assemblage and its political rallies; the Secret Service infiltrated its ranks to root out radicals. But a good Communist was hard to find. The men were mostly middle-class, patriotic Americans. They kept their improvised hovels clean and maintained small gardens. Even so, good behavior by the Bonus Army did not prevent the U.S. Army’s hotheaded chief of staff, General Douglas MacArthur, from summoning an overwhelming force to evict it from Pennsylvania Avenue late that July. After assaulting the veterans and thousands of onlookers with tear gas, ­MacArthur’s troops crossed the bridge and burned down the encampment. The general had acted against Hoover’s wishes, but the president expressed satisfaction afterward that the government had dispatched “a mob”—albeit at the cost of killing two of the demonstrators. The public had another take. When graphic newsreels of the riotous mêlée fanned out to the nation’s movie theaters, audiences booed MacArthur and his troops, not the men down on their luck. Even the mining heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean, the owner of the Hope diamond and wife of the proprietor of the Washington Post, professed solidarity with the “mob” that had occupied the nation’s capital.

The Great Depression was then nearly three years old, with FDR still in the wings and some of the worst deprivation and unrest yet to come. Three years after our own crash, we do not have the benefit of historical omniscience to know where 2011 is on the time line of America’s deepest bout of economic distress since that era. (The White House, you may recall, rolled out “recovery summer” sixteen months ago.) We don’t know if our current president will end up being viewed more like Hoover or FDR. We don’t know whether Occupy Wall Street and its proliferating satellites will spiral into larger and more violent confrontations, disperse in cold weather, prove a footnote to our narrative, or be the seeds of something big.

What’s as intriguing as Occupy Wall Street itself is that once again our Establishment, left, right, and center, did not see the wave coming or understand what it meant as it broke. Maybe it’s just human nature and the power of denial, or maybe it’s a stubborn strain of all-­American optimism, but at each aftershock since the fall of Lehman Brothers, those at the top have preferred not to see what they didn’t want to see. And so for the first three weeks, the protests were alternately ignored, patronized, dismissed, and insulted by politicians and the mainstream news media as a neo-Woodstock for wannabe collegiate rebels without a cause—and not just in Fox-land. CNN’s new prime-time hopeful, Erin Burnett, ridiculed the protesters as bongo-playing know-nothings; a dispatch in The New Republic called them “an unfocused rabble of ragtag discontents.” Those who did express sympathy for Occupy Wall Street tended to pat it on the head before going on to fault it for being leaderless, disorganized, and inchoate in its agenda.

Despite such dismissals, the movement, abetted by made-for-YouTube confrontations with police, started to connect with the mass public much as the Bonus Army did with a newsreel audience. The week after a Wall Street Journal editorial claimed that “no one seems to care very much” about the “collection of ne’er-do-wells” congregating in Zuccotti Park, the paper released its own poll, in collaboration with NBC News, finding that 37 percent of Americans supported the protesters, 25 percent had no opinion, and just 18 percent opposed them. The approval numbers for Occupy Wall Street published in Time and Reuters were even higher—hitting 54 percent in Time. Apparently some of those dopey kids, staggering under student loans and bereft of job prospects, have lots of parents and friends of all ages who understand exactly what they’re talking about.

blame the parasitic government for not thoroughly regulating the parasitic banks...,

Video - A fast, easy, free, and non-violent way to drive the big banks out of their greedy little minds is sitting in your mailbox right now.

WSJ | People are increasingly fearing the divisions within, even the potential coming apart of, our country. Rich/poor, black/white, young/old, red/blue: The things that divide us are not new, yet there's a sense now that the glue that held us together for more than two centuries has thinned and cracked with age. That it was allowed to thin and crack, that the modern era wore it out.

What was the glue? A love of country based on a shared knowledge of how and why it began; a broad feeling among our citizens that there was something providential in our beginnings; a gratitude that left us with a sense that we should comport ourselves in a way unlike the other nations of the world, that more was expected of us, and not unjustly—

"To whom much is given much is expected"; a general understanding that we were something new in history, a nation founded on ideals and aspirations—liberty, equality—and not mere grunting tribal wants. We were from Europe but would not be European: No formal class structure here, no limits, from the time you touched ground all roads would lead forward. You would be treated not as your father was but as you deserved. That's from "The Killer Angels," a historical novel about the Civil War fought to right a wrong the Founders didn't right. We did in time, and at great cost. What a country.

But there is a broad fear out there that we are coming apart, or rather living through the moment we'll look back on as the beginning of the Great Coming Apart. Economic crisis, cultural stresses: "Half the country isn't speaking to the other half," a moderate Democrat said the other day. She was referring to liberals of her acquaintance who know little of the South and who don't wish to know of it, who write it off as apart from them, maybe beneath them.

To add to the unease, in New York at least, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance. If you are a New Yorker, chances are pretty high you hate what the great investment firms did the past 15 years or so to upend the economy. Yet you feel on some level like you have to be protective of them, because Wall Street pays the bills of the City of New York. Wall Street tax receipts and Wall Street business—restaurants, stores—keep the city afloat. So you want them up and operating and vital, you don't want them to leave—that would only make things worse for people in trouble, people just getting by, and young people starting out. You know you have to preserve them just when you'd most like to deck them.

Where is the president in all this? He doesn't seem to be as worried about his country's continuance as his own. He's out campaigning and talking of our problems, but he seems oddly oblivious to or detached from America's deeper fears. And so he feels free to exploit divisions. It's all the rich versus the rest, and there are a lot more of the latter.

Twenty twelve won't be "as sexy" as 2008, he said this week. It will be all brute force. Which will only add to the feeling of unease.

Occupy Wall Street makes an economic critique that echoes the president's, though more bluntly: the rich are bad, down with the elites. It's all ad hoc, more poetry slam than platform. Too bad it's not serious in its substance.

There's a lot to rebel against, to want to throw off. If they want to make a serious economic and political critique, they should make the one Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner make in "Reckless Endangerment": that real elites in Washington rigged the system for themselves and their friends, became rich and powerful, caused the great cratering, and then "slipped quietly from the scene."

It is a blow-by-blow recounting of how politicians—Democrats and Republicans—passed the laws that encouraged the banks to make the loans that would never be repaid, and that would result in your lost job. Specifically it is the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie's Franklin Raines and James Johnson, took actions that tanked the American economy and walked away rich. It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.

The story is a scandal, and the book should be the bible of Occupy Wall Street. But they seem as incapable of seeing government as part of the problem as Republicans seem of seeing business as part of the problem.

peak natural resources message introduced to occupy wall street...,

Video - Talib Kweli addresses Occupy Wall Street

PostCarbon | Recently, we sent filmmaker Ben Zolno to New York to bring the “end of growth” message to Occupy Wall Street. While the global Occupy movement is right to name inequity and lack of opportunity for what they are—unacceptable and un-American—addressing these alone cannot fix an economic system that is fundamentally unsustainable.

Below is Ben’s story of what he learned in New York as he hand-delivered 100 copies of PCI Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg’s The End of Growth to #OWS participants. We hope to send Ben back to New York soon so that he can further the critical work of spreading literacy around the dwindling resources that run our economy.

Meet Beth. She just dropped out of NYU $50,000 in debt because, with job prospects so dire, she doesn’t want to dig a deeper hole for herself.

Meet Brian. He’s software engineer from Minnesota who knows his job is entirely dependent on a growing economy, so he’s planning on leaving tech to focus on back-to-the-land basics.

Meet David. David is an environmental science professor disgusted to see his university selling the “growth-lite” paradigm to his Sustainable MBA students.

On my first day in New York, I met Beth, Brian, David and many others…and quickly learned Occupy Wall Street is the hub for highly intelligent, educated citizens who have been brought to the edge by a sense of desperation.

Desperate for change. Desperate for work. Desperate for answers.

While I enjoyed the dialogue and learned a lot, I heard many solutions that didn’t take the big picture into account. Instead, most demand their "fair share”--higher taxes on the rich, more corporate responsibility and, of course, Goldman Sachs schemers sent to the slammer. All valid, if you're looking at the current injustices of the system, but I found little examination of the system itself.

And so, I teamed up with Post Carbon Institute to spread the word. The real story is that our economic system requires infinite inputs, on a planet with finite resources. It's just not physically possible to continue this way. Sooner rather than later we’re going to run out of the resources that maintain our growth.

Thus, most "solutions" of equity and accountability will actually make things worse--by increasing participation, increasing growth, speeding up the train's path toward ultimate destruction of the planet we depend on to further our quantity and quality of life.

We must now broaden the questions beyond, "How can we make sure we all get our fair share in this system," to include: "How do we make sure we all get our fair share in the new system--a lower-carbon system--and how do we handle this transition?” Also, “What economic change can we create, and what default changes must we learn to accept?"

I shared these questions with hundreds of Occupiers, and stood patiently while they went through the usual phases: confusion, denial, anger and acceptance. Ultimately, they each walked away with a good grasp on this new perspective, grateful to have a copy of The End of Growth to explore and share.

OCCUPY is the new national discourse. This moment is permeable, yearning for an honest exchange of ideas. Good ideas can push the movement forward into territory never seen before; bad ones could mean the end of the movement. Now is the opportunity to use the energy of passionate, intelligent people to make an all-hands-on-steering-wheel turn away from out-of-control consumption and toward a path of conscious sustainability.

This is why I’ve proposed to go back. I want to continue inserting Post Carbon Institute’s message into the discussion. I’m currently hammering out details of my proposal with PCI. If we can swing it, I will give more seminars, like this impromptu speech that got 40 people engaged. I will talk to the press more, which is waiting to spread coherent messages like the quote I gave to Fox Business News. Working with Occupy Wall Street’s Education and Empowerment Group, I'll help start ecological/economic education groups. I'll present the ideas to the General Assembly and stay engaged until "the end of growth" becomes part of the national dialogue. Thanks and stay sane.

the clampdown gets uglier by the minute...,

DailyMail | A tense standoff between Occupy Denver protesters and authorities near the Colorado Capitol erupted Saturday with a surge of demonstrators being met with police force that included pepper spray and rubber bullets.

The clash came as Occupy Wall Street protesters and state officials in Tennessee squared off for a third consecutive night Saturday, even though a local judge has refused to jail demonstrators who have been arrested and said the state lacks the authority to set a curfew on the property.

In Denver, some supporters of the Occupy movement, marching with a group of about 2,000, tried to advance up the Capitol steps.

In San Diego, police arrested a similar number of people who occupied the Civic Center Plaza and Children's Park for three weeks.

In Nashville, magistrate Tom Nelson has said there's no legal reason to keep demonstrators who have been arrested behind bars and he has released them after each arrest.

He has refused each night to sign off on arrest warrants for more than two dozen people taken into custody.

Protesters were galvanized by the friction between state officials and Nelson.

'My heart has been here all along, but the arrests gave me the momentum to come," said Vicki Metzgar, 61, director of a Nashville Public Schools science and math initiative who joined the protests Saturday.

'This plaza belongs to us, not the politicians.'

dear officer..,

A Message to All Police Officers From Occupy Wall Street from CollapseNet.com on Vimeo.

Brokeback America | I don't want to kill you. I don't even want to wound you. I admire your courage and the commitment you've made to help others, often at risk of own your life. I hope you won't come for me, because if you do, one of us will die. It may be you.

I've done nothing wrong. I don't intend to. But the government which you serve has passed too many laws, and I am sure to accidentally break one, some day. And that same government is systematically destroying the unalienable rights which our Constitution says may not be infringed — very specifically, my right to keep and bear arms.

I am not some wacko lunatic, but I can no longer stand idly by, while decent people are systematically enslaved by an out-of-control government. I cannot allow a corrupt judiciary to use its power to destroy my rights and my country. That government and that judiciary has begun to use you to arrest and kill people just like me — people who believe that the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights mean what they say.

You don't know me, but you see me every day. I may be a businessman, a truck driver, an executive. I could be a housewife or a salesman. But I am armed, as Americans have been for over 250 years, and I am determined to keep the freedoms which only an armed people may retain. With a rifle, I can hit a man-sized target at 800 yards. At shorter distances, in the blink of an eye, I can hit a head-size target with a rifle or a handgun. I don't wear a uniform. I don't drive a marked car. I don't wear camouflage. I could be your own secretary, or your barber. I might be the guy who delivers your bottled water, or the parcel delivery lady. You don't know who I am, or what arms I have, and you never will. I am tens of millions. I am America.

But I know you. I know your uniform, your car, and your work schedule. I know where you work, and where you live. And that is good for you, because not only am I no threat to you, so long as you do the job for which you are hired, I am also prepared to assist you when you are threatened by real criminals. There aren't many of me left, you may think, but believe me, there are many, many more than you can imagine. When the chips are down, we are the ones who are truly on your side.

On your side, that is, so long as you honor your Oath. We are on your side if you are one of the majority of peace officers who are not corrupt and who have not sold out to the socialists and communists — freedom betrayers who will do anything, say anything to destroy the America our fathers and grandfathers bequeathed us.

No, I am no threat to you, but your bosses in government don't see it that way. They think that I, and my arms, are a threat to them, and they are planning to send you for me, just as they've sent armed, dangerous officers on select little missions for years, taking out targeted individuals. On their orders, you may succeed in murdering me for my beliefs. Or you may not.

Whether or not you succeed in murdering me, as federal agents murdered Vicki Weaver and her young son in Idaho; or as those same federal agents murdered 81 men, women and children at Waco, Texas; there will be others who will rise up in my memory, as I now rise up in honor of the innocent lives taken by the jack-booted thugs and black-clad imitation ninjas who think it is fun to murder Americans — who have somehow become convinced that it is their job to murder Americans!

I am prepared to die, honoring my sacred Oath as an American, to defend and protect the Constitution of the united States of America. Are you prepared to die to violate the Oath you took?

Reward for the Identity of the Police Officer Who Shot Marine Vet Scott Olsen

Video - detailed video coverage of the unprovoked police assault on Occupy Oakland.

Washingtonsblog | A generous friend is offering a $5,000 reward for the identify of the policeman who shot Scott Olsen.

The officer can likely be seen in publicly available videos (see this and this). But his badge and face are not visible.

Similarly, Anonymous is already leaking names and information of officers in the Oakland P.D., but it is still difficult for outsiders to identify the shooter.

As such, the tip will likely have to come from someone within the Oakland Police Department or the other law enforcement agencies present at the protest.

Do your force proud and stand up for liberty … identify the shooter.