Toban Black

Geert Lovink (in his book Zero Comments) criticizing promises about radical change on and around the Internet -

“Despite all the talk, the Internet has not delivered the revolution it promised. Societies adapt to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) but do not change in a fundamental way and prove remarkably flexible in staying as they are” (p. xxvii).

“Despite a new generation of applications, the spectacular rise of the Internet population, and increased user involvement, most of the topics facing the Internet remained much the same: corporate control, surveillance and censorship, intellectual property rights, filtering, economic sustainability, and governance” (p. x).

“How can libertarian techno-celebrities continue to sell dream worlds about freedom and leveling the fields without being scrutinized? There is little indication that they will shut up or even face serious opposition. There seems to be a never-ending demand among geeks and entrepreneurs for salvation. We can only repeat so often that the Web is not a place apart” (p. xxvii-xxviii).

Annalee Newitz at AlterNet- “[Two] Myths About the Internet That Refuse to Die”
“The Internet will not magically bring the world together”

“Since I started writing this column in 1999, I’ve seen a thousand Internet businesses rise and die. I’ve watched the Web go from a medium you access via dial-up to the medium you carry around with you on your mobile. Still, there are three myths about the Internet that refuse to kick the bucket. Let’s hope the micro-generation that comes after the Web 2.0 weenies finally puts these misleading ideas to rest.

Myth: The Internet Is Free

This is my favorite Internet myth because it has literally never been true. In the very early days of the Net, the only people who went online were university students or military researchers — students got accounts via the price of tuition; the military personnel got them as part of their jobs. Once the Internet was opened to the public, people could only access it by paying fees to their Internet service providers. And let’s not even get into the facts that you have to buy a computer or pay for time on one.

I think this myth got started because pundits wanted to compare the price of publishing or mailing something on the Internet to the price of doing so using paper or the United States Postal Service. Putting a Web site on the Net is “free” only if you pretend you don’t have to pay your ISP and a Web hosting service to do it. No doubt it is cheaper than printing and distributing a magazine to thousands of people, but it’s not free. Same goes for e-mail. Sure it’s “free” to send an e-mail, but you’re still paying your ISP for Internet access to send that letter.

The poisonous part of this myth is that it sets up the false idea that the Internet removes all barriers to free expression. The Internet removes some barriers, but it erects others. You can get a few free minutes online in your local public library, maybe, and set up a Web site using a free service (if the library’s filtering software allows that). But will you be able to catch anyone’s attention if you publish under those constraints?

Myth: The Internet Knows No Boundaries

Despite the Great Firewall of China, an elaborate system of Internet filters that prevent Chinese citizens from accessing Web sites not approved by the government, many people still believe the Internet is a glorious international space that can bring the whole world together. When the government of a country like Pakistan can choose to block YouTube — which it has and does — it’s impossible to say the Internet has no boundaries.

The Internet does have boundaries, and they are often drawn along national lines. Of course, closed cultures are not the only source of these boundaries. Many people living in African and South American nations have little access to the Internet, mostly due to poverty. As long as we continue to behave as if the Internet is completely international, we forget that putting something online does not make it available to the whole world. And we also forget that communications technology alone cannot undo centuries of mistrust between various regions of the world.”

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A related post - “Online connections and disconnections”
The January 26th update toward the bottom of the post is the most relevant part.

Paul Gilroy on “nonracial humanism” -

“The pursuit of liberation from ‘race’ is an especially urgent matter for those peoples who, like modern blacks in the period after transatlantic slavery, were assigned an inferior position in the enduring hierarchies that [racism] creates. However, this opportunity is not theirs alone. There are very good reasons why it should be enthusiastically embraced by others whose antipathy to race-thinking can be defined, not so much by the way it has subordinated them, but because in endowing them with the alchemical magic of racial mastery, it has distorted and delimited their experiences and consciousness in other ways. They may not have been animalized, reified, or exterminated, but they too have suffered something by being deprived of their individuality, their humanity, and thus alienated from species life. Black and white are bound together by the mechanisms of ‘race’ that estrange them from each other and amputate their common humanity. Frantz Fanon … observed this dismal cycle through its effects on the lives of men: ‘the Negro enslaved by his inferiority, the white man enslaved by his superiority alike behave in accordance with a neurotic orientation.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., another influential pathologist of ‘race,’ whose work counterpoints Fanon’s own, was fond of pointing out that race-thinking has the capacity to make its beneficiaries inhuman even as it deprives its victims of their humanity.”

from Between Camps: Nations, Cultures, and the Allure of Race (p. 15)

(Those hyperlinks were added by me, of course, and I’ve removed Fanon and King citations that are in the original text.)

(I’ve replaced the word “raciology” with “racism” (in the square brackets). The two words aren’t equivalent, but the one I’ve used here is more straightforward–especially for people who haven’t read Gilroy’s book.)

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Those statements from Gilroy can be difficult to follow, but I think that the message the he is conveying is important.

As Gilroy indicates here, there is only one human race, and anyone caught up in racism — whether as victims or as supporters of racism — is cut off from this common humanity. Racial separations aren’t biological; they’re human creations that only will continue to exist for as long as we reproduce them. Skin tones, hair textures, facial features, and so on, aren’t racial differences; those bodily characteristics are far more superficial than that.

Christopher Weber in ColorLines - “Toxic Pesticides Threaten Urban Communities of Color”

Exerpts -

“As scientists refocus on pesticides in urban areas, they’re discovering that the effects of these poisons are particularly marked in communities of color. While this may be news to scientific researchers, it is no surprise for activists, who for years have been laboring to raise awareness of the swath of allergy, illness, and risk created by pesticides.”

“Scientists have yet to fully document such race-based patterns of exposure, and they are split on a key point: whether race or income level plays a greater role in determining a person’s exposure. Researchers contacted for this story, most with prestigious academic appointments, often referred to activists as better sources on this subject. Several acknowledged, however, that they believe that people of color do suffer a greater toll from pesticides than whites.

There’s little doubt that people of color are being exposed to toxic chemicals via insecticides, fungicides, and rodenticides.”

“‘There are still some researchers out there who argue that people of color are inherently inferior — for example, James Watson’s controversial comments about Blacks” explained Janean Dilworth-Bart, an assistant professor of human development and family studies …. ‘But pollutants like pesticides are pervasive, especially among low-income and ethnic minority kids. Therefore, group differences in test scores…may actually be due, in part, to exposure to toxic substances in the environment.’”

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The original article is a lot longer.  I don’t think that it covers those injustices well, but the writer does offer more information about pesticides and related issues.

Here’s a Wikipedia page where you can start to read more about the injustice issues discussed in the experts I’ve posted above -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_justice

A blog post from Jenny - “Too Many People?”

Jenny addresses how population growth and associated environmental consequences are interconnected with other issues — particularly social injustices.

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Related statements from Johann Hari about overpopulation -

“After studying the evidence, I am left in a position I didn’t expect. Yes, the argument about overpopulation is distasteful, often discussed inappropriately, and far from being a panacea-solution — but it can’t be dismissed entirely. It will be easier for 6 billion people to cope on a heaving, boiling planet than for nine or 10 billion — and we will only get there by freeing women to make their own reproductive choices. To achieve this green goal, it’s necessary to mix some oestrogen into the environmentalist palette.” [Read more →]

Johann Hari in The Independent - “Why bananas are a parable for our times”

“For a hundred years, a handful of corporations were given a gorgeous fruit, set free from regulation, and allowed to do what they wanted with it. What happened? They had one good entrepreneurial idea – and to squeeze every tiny drop of profit from it, they destroyed democracies, burned down rainforests, and ended up killing the fruit itself.

But have we learned? Across the world, politicians like George Bush and David Cameron are telling us the regulation of corporations is ‘a menace’ to be ‘rolled back’; they even say we should leave the planet’s climate in their hands. Now that’s bananas.”

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That’s just the conclusion of the article. I recommend the rest of it.

“My Cubicle”

“People feel powerless and cut off from the ‘bigger’ forces that govern our lives. At no other time in recent decades have people felt more disconnected from government, large institutions, and the media conglomerates. Multinational manufacturers and retail chains limit choice and diversity in what we eat, wear, and consume. Educational authorities and media experts deplore the activities and entertainment that most people enjoy. Bureaucrats and government officials waste tax revenues, enact frivolous legislation, and declare unwanted wars. In the face of powerlessness and detachment from public life, large segments of the population have become alienated from politics, disillusioned with the democratic process, and absorbed with self-interest and private concerns.”

David Trend in his book Everyday Culture (2007), p. 2-3
(I don’t mean to recommend that book, which I’m not going to comment on)

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Most people don’t see how much power they already have. The prevailing order — the international markets, the industrial production and distribution systems, the mainstream media, and so on — all are based on ongoing support from populaces who allow themselves to be continuously remade into subordinated masses (of consumers, workers, spectators, etc). Rather than uniting to re-make our world, people usually just try to find places for themselves in and under the status quo. [Read more →]

Kelpie Wilson at truthout - “Peak Oil and Politicians”

Although the entire article is worth reading, here are some exerpts -

“The oil industry and its political supporters have done everything they can to tone down the message that oil is a finite resource and that we will run out of it some day. Why would they do that? To further the short-sighted, short-term pursuit of profit. In 2004, Shell finally got caught in a lie about the size of its oil reserves. The company had inflated the stated size of its oil reserves to keep stock share prices high because who wants to invest in a company - or an industry - that is going the way of the dinosaurs?

Since 1956, the world economy has proceeded under a sort of oil company spell that has woven the illusion all around us that oil depletion is so far into the future that we don’t need to worry about it. That belief was essential to support the aim of an endlessly growing economy.”

“It has somehow been ‘not polite’ to talk about limits to growth. Today, despite skyrocketing oil prices, most politicians still avoid the term “peak oil.” Most of the media still treat peak oil advocates with skepticism, using epithets like ‘fringe’ and ’so-called’ to describe peak oil theory. [Read more →]

Richard Heinberg at his Postcarbon.org blog - “It’s Happening” (April 25th)

“There is a surreal quality to the experience of seeing the unfolding of unpleasant events that one has predicted. Plenty of times over the past few years I’ve said, ‘I want to be proven wrong!’ Who in their right mind would wish to see economic collapse and famine? But it was obvious that, given the direction our society is headed, these must be the consequences. Now, with oil at $117 a barrel, the US economy teetering, and food riots erupting in Haiti, Egypt, and Asia, one could perhaps gain some satisfaction in saying ‘I told you so.’ But what faint compensation that would be. We are all going to have to share the bitter fruits of our society’s century-long growth binge, whether we have criticized it or participated wholeheartedly. The only silver lining is the possibility that now, at last, as the trends (Peak Oil, the failure of growth-based economics, the failure of industrial agriculture, climate chaos, and so on) are becoming so starkly clear, policy makers will begin seriously to contemplate a Plan B (or C, as Pat Murphy insists). For those of us who have been lobbying in that latter direction for some while, this is no time to let up, but rather the ideal moment to redouble our efforts.”

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Of course, the price of oil has continued to rise since Heinberg posted that.

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More than anything else, Heinberg’s post is about world “peak oil.”

To my knowledge, Richard Heinberg’s writing on “peak oil” is the most important analysis out there on the subject of oil depletion. I say that without reservations (though I don’t agree with everything that Heinberg has said in those writings).

Julian Darley’s book High Noon for Natural Gas offers a much more thorough perspective on natural gas (as opposed to oil) supplies, however.

Heinberg and Darley both offer constructive suggestions rather than just pointing out problems. That constructive perspective — which those two begin to offer — is incredibly important right now.

A collection of article links (posted a few days ago) at The Energy Bulletin - http://www.energybulletin.net/44608.html

Stephen Foley in The Independent - “Is The World About To Be Running On Empty?”
“As evidence emerges of dwindling oil reserves, the price of crude hits $135 a barrel”

“In France, fishermen are blockading oil refineries. In Britain, lorry drivers are planning a day of action. In the US, the car maker Ford is to cut production of gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles and airlines are jacking up ticket prices. Global concerns about fuel prices are reaching fever pitch and the world’s leading energy monitor has issued a disturbing downward revision of the oil industry’s ability to keep pace with soaring demand.

Yesterday’s warning from the International Energy Agency sent the price of a barrel of oil to a new record for the 13th day in a row. The latest high - $135 for a barrel of light sweet crude - was reached in New York barely five months after the price hit $100. Experts in London and on Wall Street predict that prices will rise to $200, regardless of the protests of consumers and the complaints of politicians. It is simple economics, they say: supply and demand. The former is short, the latter growing.

Consumers are feeling the pinch in almost every area of their daily lives. The pain is felt most obviously at the pumps. In Britain, the price of petrol has risen to an average of 114p for a litre of unleaded - £5.15 per gallon. In the US, where drivers pay much lower prices, gasoline is more than $4 (£2) a gallon. Beyond that, energy bills are rising for households across the globe, hitting the poorest the hardest. British Gas, the nation’s biggest gas and electricity supplier, is mulling further price rises, on top of the 15 per cent average increase it introduced in January. [Read more →]

Faith D`Aluisio and Peter Menzel in The Washington Post - “A Full Plate Today, Uncertainty Tomorrow”

Exerpts -

“The world is used to hearing about hunger in the context of Darfurian refugees or crop failures and famine in sub-Saharan Africa. But now we’re facing something different. Large swaths of humanity can no longer be assured that the foods they’re eating today will be available tomorrow at prices they can afford — or available at all. This is not, in fact, as silent a tsunami as a World Food Program official suggested.

Sit down, as we do, with just about any family in the developing world, for whom eating traditional foods is still the norm, and get ready for a surprise: The family’s shopper (usually a woman) can tell you within an ounce or two exactly how much of each foodstuff she needs to buy to feed her family. And she could, at least until recently, tell you within a few cents what each item should cost and the expected total bill. We’ve experienced this in dozens of places — the third floor of a five-floor walkup in Cairo, a subdivided shack in the Philippines, rural China and Guatemala, a Papuan jungle, the Ecuadorian Andes and sub-Saharan Africa. Susana Mendoza, of Todos Santos de Cuchamaton in Guatemala, tallied up her large family’s week’s worth of food in a matter of minutes.”

To many “in the developing world … food expenditures can represent 60 to 80 percent of a family’s spending.” [Read more →]

Sharon Astyk on the ownership and distribution of industrial foods -

“Almost all of our food problems have to do with access, not absolute quantities of food. But then again … that’s always the case - since the end of the last century, famine has virtually always been a result of access issues. Even the famous 1980s Sahel famine occurred while Ethiopia and Eritrea were exporting substantial quantities of food. Saying that this is ‘just’ bad policy doesn’t get us very far - because the bad policies we’re talking about - rationing food by price, globalization of agriculture, over-reliance on fossil inputs, growing inequity, powerful corporate interests whose profits come ahead of feeding people, heavy consumption of meat and oil or food-based oil substitutes by the rich - are very powerful forces, heavily institutionalized and hard to counteract. They aren’t so much policies, as expressions of our deepest social inequities. ” [Read more →]

Russell Mokhiber at Corporate Crime Reporter - “Corporations Bad for Public Health”

“You hear that cigarettes are bad for public health.

And that asbestos is bad for public health.

And that guns are bad for public health.

And that pollution is bad for public health.

That junk food is bad for public health.

But you rarely hear that corporations themselves are bad for public health. [Read more →]