Toban Black

[via Bouphonia]
(Click to enlarge)

That image…
is a metaphor for the divisions that separate the ‘First’ ‘World’ from the ‘Third’ ‘World’
and
it captures the ultimate dream of people who seek to profit without accountability for the consequences of their enterprises

Surbordination and exploitation are the lowest common denominators there.

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By Andy Singer

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James Shelley on the From My Bottom Step blog -
“Car-less in London, Ontario” : The richness of life post the automobile

(Some people are bound to think I’m quibbling about petty details, but I’m going to point out that
I don’t use the word “soul,” myself.)

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In London, England

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Maris Zivarts on the fifty car pileup blog -
“Life outside the cage”

An exerpt -

“There is a feeling of exposure on a motorcycle. You experience all the elements around you. You are more sensitive to everything you pass.

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(Photo by Amanda Graham)

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Jeremy Seabrook (in Victims of Development - p. 166) –

“We are … subject to multiple dispossessions, precisely in the private lives to which we believe we have retreated, the shelter from a public realm which becomes increasingly incomprehensible and threatening beyond our control.”

“Individuals are supposed to take responsibility, not only for their own actions, but also for socially induced evils, like poverty and unemployment, and even for all the tribulations that life itself brings: it is now regarded as the duty of the individual to take care of sickness, loss, old age and infirmity, which have become other people’s business opportunities.”

“Individuals, especially women, have absorbed, secretly, privately, unspeakable burdens of social shame, disgrace and sorrow.”

(The photo is by “Tomms” — who has a blog here.)

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By Andy Singer

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“Set your watch to ‘me’ time”

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PHEW!

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The cartoon is from StudioBendib

Here’s another Bendib cartoon about Obama -
(“When the party’s over …”)

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A few related posts at this blog -
- Is Obama a radical superhero?
- Superheroes and supervillians
- “Change we need”
- Soft drinks (and hard drugs?)

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A photo posted by Paula Kirman -

One word from Obama

By Stephanie McMillan

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Here are some other posts about transportation issues -
http://tobanblack.net/blog/?tag=transportation

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Of course, car drivers don’t alway ‘veg out’ (in one way or another) after they reach their destinations,
but some sort of zombie-like relaxation often is what people are rushing towards, isn’t it?

In fact, aren’t people more apt to want to tune out like that after rushing around in cars?

(This isn’t to say that people can’t think and watch TV at the same time, however.  And it’s over the top to say that people who do rush toward some form of passive relaxation are headed “to nowhere.”)

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There are more related posts here -
http://tobanblack.net/blog/?tag=urban-sprawl

More images
which capture the hopes that some have invested in Obama -

(Photo by Alejandra Guerrero)

Obama as a cartoon character

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(Photo by Andre W)

At one of many rallies

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by Stephanie McMillan

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Paul Street (in this article) -
well before the recent U.S. federal ‘election’ -

“There’s more than ‘a dime’s worth of difference’ between [Obama and McCain], not because the centrist Democratic contender is progressive (he’s corporate-neoliberal and imperial) but because the Republican standard-bearer and party is so dangerously far right.  Once, again, as in 2004, this isn’t ‘Coke’ (the Democrats) v. ‘Pepsi’ (the Republicans): it’s corporate-neoliberal Coke versus arch-authoritarian and messianic-militaristic Crack.”

After that there’s a footnote that leads to this article -
“Kerry is Coke, Bush is Crack,” ZNet Magazine (March 2004)

In that 2004 ZNet article, Paul Street (the same author, evidently)
wrote this about the Bush jr. administration -
“It is the American imperial plutocracy on crack cocaine, smoked with a Christian fundamentalist pipe and cooked on an at-least partially fascist stove.”

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I find that language about hard drugs (’crack’) and soft drinks (’coke’) catchy, but is it valid?

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(Photo by Lois Stavsky)

The Great White Hope!

… or so some (neo)liberal would have us believe

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Some people seem to think that Obama will bring radical change –
single-handedly!

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(From here)

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Andrew Gebhardt (in this article) -

“Many hope an Obama presidency will provide the antidote. In his historic campaign, ‘hope’ has been, unsurprisingly, the mot juste, along with ‘change’ and some other feel-good sentiments.”

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By Stephanie McMillan

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By and large, I think this is a great overview and critique of some very prominent mainstream perspectives on mainstream society, but I also think that there are rougher spots in it that could use some ironing out -

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Carl Finamore on ‘union’ institutions in the United States -

“Never before has the half-century decline of American labor revealed itself more clearly than in the last several weeks.

Largely relegated to the sidelines, national union officials are making little effort to interject independent working-class solutions into the current debate of how to resolve the enormous social crisis affecting millions.”

“Uncritical political acceptance of capitalism became the norm within most unions as the alliance with the Democratic party deepened, especially since those pesky radicals were mostly gone.

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