In loving, living memory, John Melançon 1928 – 2007
[very disorganized and the tangents need to be re-planted elsewhere but there's good stuff here]
An unabashed Milton Friedman acolyte made the point (a quotation?) that as long as exchanges are freely made between people, the net benefit has to be positive by definition.
Yes-- exactly-- but-- and there is a huge but-- there's little practical difference between a force-coerced exchange and an economic-coerced exchange. Indeed, it's the history and present of inequality to use force to back up the imposition of economic injustice.
[Note: Every Indian word is misspelled]
Rape is placed as the one crime that is perpetrated against woman, and all the other crimes and mistreatment swept under the rug.
[first woman she was talking about, mentioned repeatedly, never caught the name enough to write it down]
She is completely uncompromising in woman having their full rights
Very radical thing in India, against arranged marriage
Movement against marriage as an institution entirely
sexual harassment in the workplace, she has brought
Wisconsin IWW calls for a general strike.
I think more often where we need to start, given what we have to work with, is a targeted strike.
Instead of bringing the entire economy to a hold, how can we disproportionately reduce the revenue and profits of our most reactionary opponents?
Robert Jensen: Economics: Doing Business As If People Mattered
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/06-6
http://thirdcoastworkers.coop/2010/08/tcwc-and-yo-mamas-attend-national-...
Why Guatemalans Don’t Pay Taxes
http://www.newmaya.org/team-guate/why-guatemalans-dont-pay-taxes/
Summary:
The government has less revenue per GDP than even Haiti.
The government provides few services (has no money to do so in any case) and is known to be corrupt.
The unenlightened self-interested rich and big business of course just don't want to pay any taxes period.
The fundamental problem is no trust.
The existence of advertising indicates that systems for the flow and filtering of information are insufficient.
In software terms, it is a bug.
Companies and organizations that paid for advertising would be at a disadvantage in a world of good enough information availability.