You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2008.
Student Power and the Sit-in at Evergreen
written by SDSers and sit-in particpants Brendan Maslauskas Dunn, KTeeO Olejnik, Brooke Stepp, and Jamie Hellerman
May 30th marked the 10th day of the sit-in of Evergreen State College administrator Art Costantino’s hallway. Students are demanding the immediate reinstatement of Olympia SDS and have recently added the additional demands that Kelly Beckham, an SDSer be offered her job back as well as compensation for time lost, and a change in the process by which student groups lose their RSO (Registered Student Organization) status that is determined by those most affected, the students and members of these organizations.
The banning of SDS as a student group is an indication of the current political climate at The Evergreen State College, one that has been increasingly suppressing student dissent, which includes the aiding of law enforcement agents in the arresting of students, the handing over of student records to law enforcement agencies, punishing students for their political beliefs and activities. Read the rest of this entry »
PRINT and DISTRIBUTE to your Chapter, Campus and Community!
The SDS News Bulletin working group is proud to bring you our fourth issue, the best yet. From front cover to articles to action reports to poetry to art, we loaded this issue up for maximum Dangerousness, and once again you made it all possible by sending in your work, thoughts, ideas and love.
Now here’s the result:
Print Version
Online Reading Version
(You will need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to view the PDF file, which is FREE software you can download Here)
Enjoy! and Distribute widely!
Send us your stuff to be published in Issue 5: sds.bulletin@gmail.com
Want to join the bulletin working group? Get involved by signing up for our email listserv: http://groups.google.com/group/sds-news-bulletin
-The SDS News Bulletin Working Group
Two stories on CNN.com today show how the deepening oil crisis is sending the addicted US government searching in desperation for more petroleum to come to market, as prices have broken records every day for the last week.
While Congress votes to cut off sending more oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Bush is in Riyadh pleading with the Saudis to increase production, and being outright denied (see below). Though CNN doesn’t say it, the reason the Saudis won’t do it is most likely that they simply can’t. If Matthew Simmons’ book Twilight in the Desert is correct, Saudi Arabia has no more spare capacity, and therefore can no longer be called on to increase supply when the market gets tight. The US is up the creek without a paddle.
No small fix here or there is going to be anything but a drop in the bucket as this crisis develops. $4-per-gallon gasoline will be remembered as amazingly cheap in a few years, and $100-per-barrel crude oil might never be seen again.
The only solution to this crisis is to create an economy that does not rely on oil, or fossil fuels of any kind for that matter. We can accomplish it by focusing on meeting human needs above the interests of corporations and governments, who are the real petroleum consumers. One positive first step would be to abandon the $3 trillion War against Iraq and use those resources to provide universal health care and universal higher education in the US, the most backwards industrialized nation. Likewise, the smart money is on dropping ethanol and other so-called biofuels like the dead weights they are, and once again making all those millions of tons of corn and other grains available for hungry people to eat.
Common sense forever evades a junkie government.
…
Saudis rebuff Bush’s request to pump more oil
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/16/bush.saudi.arabia/index.html
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) — Saudi Arabia Friday rebuffed President Bush’s request to immediately pump more oil to lower record prices, saying it does not see enough demand to increase production.
President Bush walks with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh Friday.
The Saudis said they would increase production if customers demanded it, Steven Hadley, Bush’s national security adviser, said.
Bush is spending much of the day in closed-door meetings with King Abdullah, the Saudi ruler.
Friday’s visit was Bush’s second trip to the kingdom this year, coming as oil prices reached a new record high Friday of more than $127 a barrel. When he traveled to Riyadh in January, his request for the Saudis to pump more oil was also rejected.
Oil prices were just below $100 a barrel in January, and Americans were paying an average of $3.06 for a gallon of gasoline. They were paying $3.78 on Friday, following more than week of record highs every day. Read the rest of this entry »
Excerpts from Democracy Now!, May 6, 2008.
[Kevin Phillips, author of “Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism”, surveys the economic crisis facing U.S.-dominated global capitalism – including peak oil, the collapse of the Dollar, rising food costs, and the growing dominance of the banking and credit industries. This is fairly radical stuff coming from a former GOP strategist.]
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think is one of the most serious signs of this overall global crisis of American capitalism?
KEVIN PHILLIPS: Well, not to single out just one, I have an approach I use to say that normally when a country is—United States is—heading into a recession, there are one or two, sometimes three, factors that you worry about. But at this point in time, the American economy, you can think of it as being kind of in a shark tank, and there are like six or seven sharks, and you don’t usually see anything like that number. Read the rest of this entry »
“The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power”
by Daniel Yergin
1991 by Free Press
Yergin’s classic book The Prize surveys a sweeping history of oil, and its storied relationship to War, Geopolitics, and Imperial ambitions. The strengths of the book are its thoroughly detailed accounts of events such as World War II, The Arab Oil Embargo, and the various European/American meddlings in the Middle East region. No other book takes such a comprehensive view of oil’s geopolitical history, and at 800 pages this book actually seems short for such a major topic.
On the other hand, there are some severe limitations to Yergin’s analysis. Yergin tells the story of oil from a mainstream/dominant perspective, which means the entire history is in the words of capitalists, heads of states, diplomats, etc.; in a word, the story of oil is told from the perspective of imperialism. Read the rest of this entry »
http://www.chycho.com/?q=oil_us_dollar_euro
Update April 30, 2008: Iran dumps U.S. dollar for oil trades – “Iran, OPEC’s second-largest producer, has stopped conducting oil transactions in U.S. dollars.”
In the last eight years implementing the plans for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) designed “to promote American global leadership” has backfired.
To accomplish PNAC’s goals, all threats needed to be eliminated. From the onset, the United Sates earmarked two countries as mortal enemies: Venezuela and Iran. With Venezuela, it is well documented that the CIA attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government of Chavez. And with Iran, the United States continues to use it as a scapegoat for its failures in Iraq. These cold war tactics however are proving to be US’s undoing.
The United States is hemorrhaging from every orifice, and oil prices can be used to measure the rapidity of its demise. Read the rest of this entry »
“The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”
by Naomi Wolf
2007 Chelsea Green
Naomi Wolf’s short, straightforward book is a warning that the prospects for fascism emerging in America are real and growing. She lays out 10 steps that governments take in order to concentrate power and stifle dissent, on the road to fascism, all of which are underway in the good ol’ US of A.
1. Invoke an External and Internal Threat
2. Establish Secret Prisons
3. Develop a Paramilitary Force
4. Surveil Ordinary Citizens
5. Infiltrate Citzens’ Groups
6. Arbitrarily Detain and Release Citizens
7. Target Key Individuals
8. Restrict the Press
9. Cast Criticism as ‘Espionage’ and Dissent as ‘Treason’
10. Subvert the Rule of Law
This issue is obviously incredibly relevant today, and I happen to agree that fascism is an imminent threat in the US. But I wasn’t terribly impressed by this book. Read the rest of this entry »
The End of Capitalism 
Recent Comments