The Largest Minority

October 6th, 2008 @ 2:44pm by Manila Ryce

Saturday Night Live’s summarized version of the vice presidential debate starring Jason Sudeikis as Joe Biden, Queen Latifah as Gwen Ifill (plus 20 pounds), and Tina Fey as Sarah Palin (minus 20 pounds).

October 6th, 2008 @ 11:21am by Manila Ryce

This is the Pathfinder column from the October 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oil is the super-fuel. Nothing else does all the things oil does, from heating, fuel, plastics, food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and clothing. It has the highest energy conversion rate of any fuel and it constitutes 40 percent of global traded energy and 90 percent of transport (Financial Times, 4 January, 2004). But aside from its contribution to global warming, it’s also running out.

Or so we are told. Despite the record rise of oil recently, this is mainly speculator-driven and not due to any real shortage of oil. What is running out is cheap oil. In fact the world has only used 15 per cent of known reserves, with at least another 20 per cent recoverable by today’s technology (BBC Online, 21 April 21, 2004). Though pundits talk about hitting peak oil, estimates for this turning point range from already to as far away as 2050. As supply diminishes and prices rise, more expensive options like the Canadian and Venezuelan tar sands, with capacities rivaling Saudi Arabia, will become profitable to extract. But the rise in costs will be mirrored by a rise in the price of everything dependent on oil, and for the world’s poorest billion people, this could be a sentence of death by starvation, with a likely proliferation of food rioting, instability in liberal democracies and an upsurge in the ruling class’s faithful stand-by, fascist repression. Meanwhile, as the stakes rise, so do the international tensions. Oil is already determining many countries’ domestic and foreign policy, and few people doubt its role in recent wars. Governments are increasingly jumpy. Oil production plants, and bottleneck sea-lanes, are particularly susceptible to guerrilla attack, and with no in-house reserves Europe or America could be reduced to chaos in weeks (New Scientist, 28 June). Worse still, the ruling elites’ increasing inability to keep their oil-starved military up to scratch may make wars more likely rather than less, as weakened capability could provoke opportunistic pre-emptive attacks by rivals.

Socialism faces a rather different problem. It is predicated on communal sharing and participation, which in turn rely on the fact of material sufficiency. Should anything threaten this sufficiency, the basis of socialism itself would be threatened. Today, for example, over 50 percent of world rural populations have no access to electricity (UNDP World Energy Assessment, 2000). Though not a problem to capitalism, which doesn’t care about non-effective, i.e. non-paying demand (for more on this see page 19, this will be of the first importance in socialism. Even allowing for waste reduction in the west, that electricity must be found.

There is no single alternative to oil, so a suite of alternatives will have to be employed. Of the non-renewables, gas won’t last much longer than oil, and coal, the chief source of electricity globally, though there is up to 250 years worth at present usage, is dirty stuff to burn. Carbon capture technology may mitigate this, but is at an early stage.

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October 5th, 2008 @ 3:47am by Manila Ryce

It’s taken awhile for me to get this Denver footage out, but there will be more to come soon. It’s old, but the message still stands.

On August 27th in Denver, CO during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, the Nader campaign held an “Open the Debates Super Rally” in which Rosa Clemente, Sean Penn, Tom Morello, and Ralph Nader spoke to an audience of 4,000 people. Before the event, Iraq Veterans Against the War led a march towards the Pepsi Center where the Democrats were holding their convention. This is footage from that day.

October 3rd, 2008 @ 10:05am by Manila Ryce

October 2nd, 2008 @ 4:52pm by Allison Kilkenny

That’s right — from the people who wiretap your phones and are praying for a government bailout comes the TOTALLY fair and nonpartisan vice presidential debate!

Of course, this isn’t your League of Women Voters, tired, outdated debate! This baby is organized by the Commission on Presidential Debates, the group run by Paul Kirk (D), who has lobbied on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry, and Frank Fahrenkopf (R), the nation’s leading gambling lobbyist.

But since Kirk is a Democrat and Fahrenkopf is a Republican, the Commission HAS to be nonpartisan, right? Well, it is, unless of course you’re a candidate representing Independents, or the Green party, or you’re poor, or anti-corporation. Then you can’t get into the debates to save your life.

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October 2nd, 2008 @ 12:34pm by Manila Ryce

October 2nd, 2008 @ 12:54am by Manila Ryce

Obama and McCain both voted to fuck us over with this latest attempt to protect the rich (as if FISA wasn’t enough), but that’s not what’s really surprising given the record and policies of these criminals. What is surprising is that Dennis Kucinich still cares about the common worker but insists on calling himself a Democrat.

Anytime an armchair political expert argues that Nader would be more effective as a Democrat I point to Dennis Kucinich, that scrappy little leftist who’s consistently silenced and neutered by his own party. Time to lose those shackles brother and enact some real change. Drop your support for that corporate shill we all know you hate, stop taking orders from Pelosi, and join your counterpart below. You know you want to Dennis. Walk into the light already.

September 29th, 2008 @ 9:27am by Allison Kilkenny

Despite the importance attached to these Presidential debates, the format of the corporately-sponsored bickerfest remains remarkably tame.The debates are hardly in the vein of town hall meetings, John McCain’s bread and butter, and the format he particularly prides himself on. As we learned from Jim Lehrer’s scolding, these debates exist on the opposite end of the debating spectrum where the candidates stand - formal and rigid - behind podiums and refuse to make eye contact with one another.

If we’re to believe that Presidential debates aren’t just another area of the country for the Democrats and Republicans to repeat their stump speeches, then this whole thing must be an exercise in democracy, or something. Except, third party candidates aren’t allowed into the debates ever since the nonpartisan Women League of Voters was ousted by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

In 1988, the Commission was formed by Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. and then-Republican National Committee Chairman Frank H. Fahrenkopf Jr. The Commission is adorably called “nonpartisan.” Actually, the opposite is true. Though Democrats and Republicans are represented in the group, that means the Commission is partisan toward the interests of Democrats and Republicans. Independents are all but shut out of their meetings.

The new Commission immediately began soaking up donations from mom and pop businesses like Anheuser-Busch and Phillip Morris, and the independence of the debates virtually evaporated overnight.

The sovereignty of the debates is all but gone now, and they are now an exclusive club where the Democrats and Republicans hoard the power of the media between themselves. When Ross Perot managed to scare the shit out of the establishment in 1996, the Commission claimed Perot didn’t have a “realistic chance of winning,” which is the same argument they are now using to keep Nader out of the debates.

Third parties can bust their asses to get 15% of the national polls and hope that they can then get on a nationally-televised debate. However, even then, most surveys don’t list third party candidates as an option, and the media begins the shut-out of thirty party candidates early in the season. Without media coverage, third party candidates are doomed to anonymity. And without media coverage, there’s no chance of getting their 15%.

What we are now left with is an icy, formal debate stylized as a modern Orwellian Hate Week where Obama and McCain will rail against various enemies to our state — something about Osama hiding in a cave…somewhere…probably Afghanistan. Maybe Pakistan. Maybe France. Throughout, the two candidates rarely engage one another, and the audience isn’t even permitted to clap, heckle, or should they feel the need, protest the illegal wars.

That is, if one can even get into the debate. A student at Tennessee Tech University told me the Belmont University debate is being held at the Curb Event Center, which seats 5,500, a much higher capacity than the 500, or so, which is the new cap on attendance. Of that 500, only 50 students are being let in from a waiting list. The rest is reserved for media and those connected enough to score tickets.

Students should take solace in the possibility that they won’t miss much. Between silencing the public and shutting out third party candidates, the Commission on Presidential Debates has done a fine job of breeding dissent from the Presidential debates.