Thursday, October 27, 2011
WHY DO THE OCCUPIERS SO PREOCCUPY OUR MASTERS?
Ray Cassin October 24, 2011
THE City Square has mostly been noted as one of Melbourne's less successful public spaces. Crowds just don't throng there as they do to Federation Square or Bourke Street Mall. Then briefly, for a week, that all changed. About 100 protesters, a diminutive Melbourne outcrop of the ''Occupy'' protests that began in New York last month and have since mushroomed across the world, set up camp in the square. Some Melburnians actually chose to enter their city's notoriously dud space, and did so without the lure of free entertainment or an oversized, illuminated Christmas tree. The campers came to make a point. And other people came to hear it, or at least to gawk at them. No one was assaulted or obstructed in the course of their daily business. In truth, Occupy Melbourne didn't occupy very much, except public space. It didn't block Swanston Street or Collins Street. Nor did it threaten anyone, though some cafe and bar owners complained that their business had suffered because of the new presence in the square. This complaint, if true, suggests that Melbourne's vaunted cafe culture is not quite the pinnacle of urban sophistication it is sometimes claimed to be. Elsewhere in the world, watching the local street politics unfold is just one thing you might do while lingering over an espresso. But here, apparently, people who hawk short blacks and flat whites can't imagine that a politicised street carnival on their doorstep might be a business opportunity, with happy sippers to be found at least among the gawkers, if not the campers. So the campers antagonised local business, though not the kind of business they had in mind. Occupy Melbourne, like its international counterparts, is directed against corporate greed and the increasing disparities of wealth that have resulted from economic deregulation. The rage of the ''Occupiers'' - though ''rage'' seems like crazy hyperbole when applied to the less-than-strident lot who colonised our square - is a reflection of the fact that since the global financial crisis of 2008 none of the perpetrators has been held to account, though the livelihoods of ordinary people have become ever more precarious, or disappeared entirely. That, grossly oversimplified, was the point of the ''Occupation''. And if you believe the square's whiney cafe proprietors and Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, a week was more than enough time in which to make it. ''They've made their point and should move on'' was the message, and last Friday Victoria Police heeded it. The campers were evicted by police behind riot shields - the public order response team, to use the official euphemism - with mounted colleagues and the dog squad assisting. There were some bleeding heads, and drifts of pepper spray, without which no riot is complete these days. Except that it wasn't a riot, was it? It was a group of people sitting around and talking. Or it was until Doyle decided that a week is time enough to make a point. One imagines him in Colonel Kilgore mode as the riot police moved in: ''I love the smell of pepper spray in the morning … smelled like victory.'' Occupy Melbourne is not, of course, unique among the world's Occupations in having attracted the ire of civic authorities or in having been subjected to what Assistant Commissioner Stephen Fontana described as ''minimum force''. The early days of Occupy Wall Street were a rash of clashes between police and protesters. And yesterday, Occupy Sydney was pushed out of Martin Place, where the harbour city's campers had been doing their sitting and talking. Whether it was necessary to use force to move them on, however, is another question. People whose idea of changing the world begins with sitting around and talking are usually open to negotiations about voluntary relocation. Occupy Melbourne, for example, intends to pitch a new camp at the weekend, in Treasury Gardens. No baristas and bartenders to annoy there, and they can chat with the public servants over a sandwich at lunchtime. It's where the Occupiers might have been willing to go earlier, if they had been asked. So the Occupiers will decamp, and, provided the state government and the city council can get past their fear of revolution or whatever it was that brought about last week's bizarre overreaction, there will be no further wielding of minimum force. After all, we still believe in free speech and assembly, don't we? Well, we certainly think we do. But when I hear people who ought to know better insisting that a week is long enough to make a point, I wonder how deeply rooted our belief in these basic liberal freedoms really is. Occupy Wall Street and other Occupations around the world may have had some unsolicited intimate moments with their local constabularies, but they continue. And they continue simply because the Occupiers want to keep Occupying. In most of the countries with which we like to compare ourselves it is accepted that protest movements will either become absorbed into the political mainstream, and thereby transform it, or will gradually wither. That is the dynamic of democracy. Here, however, the notion of democratic debate has become so impoverished that people who have been sitting and talking for a week can be told their time is up.
Ray Cassin is a senior writer.
Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/why-do-the-occupiers-so-preoccupy-our-masters-20111023-1meem.html
THE City Square has mostly been noted as one of Melbourne's less successful public spaces. Crowds just don't throng there as they do to Federation Square or Bourke Street Mall. Then briefly, for a week, that all changed. About 100 protesters, a diminutive Melbourne outcrop of the ''Occupy'' protests that began in New York last month and have since mushroomed across the world, set up camp in the square. Some Melburnians actually chose to enter their city's notoriously dud space, and did so without the lure of free entertainment or an oversized, illuminated Christmas tree. The campers came to make a point. And other people came to hear it, or at least to gawk at them. No one was assaulted or obstructed in the course of their daily business. In truth, Occupy Melbourne didn't occupy very much, except public space. It didn't block Swanston Street or Collins Street. Nor did it threaten anyone, though some cafe and bar owners complained that their business had suffered because of the new presence in the square. This complaint, if true, suggests that Melbourne's vaunted cafe culture is not quite the pinnacle of urban sophistication it is sometimes claimed to be. Elsewhere in the world, watching the local street politics unfold is just one thing you might do while lingering over an espresso. But here, apparently, people who hawk short blacks and flat whites can't imagine that a politicised street carnival on their doorstep might be a business opportunity, with happy sippers to be found at least among the gawkers, if not the campers. So the campers antagonised local business, though not the kind of business they had in mind. Occupy Melbourne, like its international counterparts, is directed against corporate greed and the increasing disparities of wealth that have resulted from economic deregulation. The rage of the ''Occupiers'' - though ''rage'' seems like crazy hyperbole when applied to the less-than-strident lot who colonised our square - is a reflection of the fact that since the global financial crisis of 2008 none of the perpetrators has been held to account, though the livelihoods of ordinary people have become ever more precarious, or disappeared entirely. That, grossly oversimplified, was the point of the ''Occupation''. And if you believe the square's whiney cafe proprietors and Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, a week was more than enough time in which to make it. ''They've made their point and should move on'' was the message, and last Friday Victoria Police heeded it. The campers were evicted by police behind riot shields - the public order response team, to use the official euphemism - with mounted colleagues and the dog squad assisting. There were some bleeding heads, and drifts of pepper spray, without which no riot is complete these days. Except that it wasn't a riot, was it? It was a group of people sitting around and talking. Or it was until Doyle decided that a week is time enough to make a point. One imagines him in Colonel Kilgore mode as the riot police moved in: ''I love the smell of pepper spray in the morning … smelled like victory.'' Occupy Melbourne is not, of course, unique among the world's Occupations in having attracted the ire of civic authorities or in having been subjected to what Assistant Commissioner Stephen Fontana described as ''minimum force''. The early days of Occupy Wall Street were a rash of clashes between police and protesters. And yesterday, Occupy Sydney was pushed out of Martin Place, where the harbour city's campers had been doing their sitting and talking. Whether it was necessary to use force to move them on, however, is another question. People whose idea of changing the world begins with sitting around and talking are usually open to negotiations about voluntary relocation. Occupy Melbourne, for example, intends to pitch a new camp at the weekend, in Treasury Gardens. No baristas and bartenders to annoy there, and they can chat with the public servants over a sandwich at lunchtime. It's where the Occupiers might have been willing to go earlier, if they had been asked. So the Occupiers will decamp, and, provided the state government and the city council can get past their fear of revolution or whatever it was that brought about last week's bizarre overreaction, there will be no further wielding of minimum force. After all, we still believe in free speech and assembly, don't we? Well, we certainly think we do. But when I hear people who ought to know better insisting that a week is long enough to make a point, I wonder how deeply rooted our belief in these basic liberal freedoms really is. Occupy Wall Street and other Occupations around the world may have had some unsolicited intimate moments with their local constabularies, but they continue. And they continue simply because the Occupiers want to keep Occupying. In most of the countries with which we like to compare ourselves it is accepted that protest movements will either become absorbed into the political mainstream, and thereby transform it, or will gradually wither. That is the dynamic of democracy. Here, however, the notion of democratic debate has become so impoverished that people who have been sitting and talking for a week can be told their time is up.
Ray Cassin is a senior writer.
Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU
This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/why-do-the-occupiers-so-preoccupy-our-masters-20111023-1meem.html
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
DEFENCE INDUSTRY: KEEP PAYING US OR THE ECONOMY DIES
By Spencer Ackerman
October 26, 2011
Defense giant Lockheed Martin had a totally sweet quarter, raking in $700 million and looking forward to the same this time next year. So it raises eyebrows when Lockheed’s anointed mouthpieces predict mass economic disaster if Congress touches the defense budget.
On Tuesday, the aerospace industry put out a report saying that chopping the defense budget would put over a million Americans out of work. Cuts that could total up to a trillion dollars over 10 years would “devastate the economy and the defense industrial base and undermine the national security of our country,” said Marion Blakeley, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, which sponsored the report.
But while Blakeley’s group paid for research to draw that dire conclusion, some of her members reported a sunnier economic outlook to their shareholders. In its third-quarter earnings report, also released Tuesday, Lockheed – manufacturers of the F-22 and F-35 jets — told investors to expect that as long as Congress passes President Obama’s next defense budget, ”the Corporation expects 2012 net sales to be flattish as compared to 2011 levels, and that consolidated 2012 segment operating profit margin will remain at approximately 11 percent.” Boom: another $700 million in earnings, on its way.
While there’s no doubt that defense cuts will mean job losses, there’s also no doubt that a report prepared for an industry so reliant on defense cash will paint a stark picture of what happens if that cash is threatened. Congressmembers looking to get reelected pay attention, since fighting for defense money as a jobs program is easier than making a case for what a sensible, appropriately funded defense strategy ought to be. That’s the problem with reports like these: They make it easy to ignore structural economic and defense problems and imply that all will be well if the cash keeps flowing.
To see the report’s breathlessness, check out its methodology. (.pdf) The aerospace report draws a straight correlation between lost jobs and lost sales (the result of lower defense budgets for orders). But defense firms concerned about losing jobs have, like all businesses, other options for preserving them, like dipping into their earnings.
And those earnings, as evidenced by the third-quarter disclosures, are up. Lockheed’s $700 million net quarterly earnings are up sharply from its $56 million haul this time last year. Boeing’s net income during that time was $1.09 billion, up from $837 million. General Dynamics? $652 million in net earnings this quarter, slightly up from its $650 million last year.
Meanwhile, Lockheed paid CEO Robert Stevens $19.1 million in 2010. Boeing’s Jim McNerney made$19.7 million.
In other words, defense cuts won’t, by themselves, force firms to fire people. Companies will surely be stressed by the revenue loss, but their bright economic pictures give them some options.
Then there are some dubious assumptions in the report. It says job-providing “modernization” cash is 45 percent of the $550 billion annual defense budget, but as defense gadfly Winslow Wheeler emails, the Congressional Budget Office puts it at 29 percent. (.pdf) Wheeler adds that the study presumes a cost of $130,000 per lost job: “One seasoned observer opined to me that the total for salary, materials, etc. should be about twice that.”
Nor does the association report actually address the defense manufacturing base that so alarmed Blakeley. It drew its million-job-loss total from “across the breadth of the U.S. economy,” into ripple-effect industries like finance, health care and “retail trade, leisure and hospitality services.” Meanwhile, the structural effects of the shifting defense industrial supply chain go unstudied.
Now: America’s defense industrial base — the engineering and manufacturing sector of the economy that ensures the U.S. can build warships, planes and missiles — is in the midst of a decades-long globalization that policymakers have yet to come to terms with. A recent report from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) warns that the U.S.’ influence over that supply chain suffers from a key vulnerability: “its dependence upon relatively large defense procurement budgets.” (.pdf) Cut the budget too deeply, and the economic effects could cascade: the most expensive military program in history, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet family, is built in eight countries.
In fact, CNAS warns that engineering “large-scale, high-technology projects” domestically is a “dying art,” since “many of the nation’s best young people tend to avoid ‘old’ manufacturing industries — including the aerospace sector — opting instead for what seem to be more exciting (and potentially much more lucrative) prospects in startup ventures and ‘cutting-edge’ firms that appear to be at the technological frontier.”
In other words, it’s not just the prospect of declining defense budgets that ravage the most important nodes of the defense industrial base. On the low-pay end of the spectrum, it’s the fact that manufacturing plants have moved to low-wage places like China — which also erodes U.S. engineering know-how. On the high end, defense firms now have to compete with Apple, Google, Facebook and anything Y Combinator funds for bright tech engineers. All that is a problem that extends way beyond defense budgets, and into fundamental questions of how the U.S. structures its economy and values work.
And assume for a moment that all the aerospace industry’s lost-jobs estimates are accurate. Notice that’s an economic argument, not a national security argument. The explosion in defense spending since 9/11 was predicated on an emergency — all financed by borrowed money, contributing to the fiscal mess that cuts are meant to fix — that’s receding. U.S. troops will be out of Iraq on December 31; the Afghanistan war is beginning its own drawdown. Arguing for military spending primarily as a stimulus measure begs the question of why less capital-intensive industries — road repair, anyone? — shouldn’t get their own big checks from the government.
The answer — at least, one that ex-Defense Secretary Robert Gates proposed — isn’t to look at the military as a big jobs program. It’s to ask what the country wants defense strategy to be. If the U.S. is faced with the necessity of cutting defense, then it makes sense to ask what missions ought to be scaled back or jettisoned. In a series of reports this year, the most recent of which came out on Tuesday, the doves at the Project on Defense Alternatives have at least attempted that, even if not all their ideas are good ones. The aerospace industry? Not so much.
It’s natural for defense cuts to raise anxiety in a military-industrial complex that’s reaped a decade of cash windfalls. And it’s just as natural for defense companies to cherry-pick arguments to support their revenue. That’s all in the game. But unless they’re also willing to accept big tax hikes to finance their continued desired spending, then it’s hard to see how reports like this get around Winston Churchill’s (or maybe Sir Ernest Rutherford’s) famous aphorism: “Gentlemen, we have run out of money. Now we have to think.”
Photo: U.S. Navy Aviation
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF AGAINST TEAR GAS
February 3, 2011
With Iranian authorities increasingly using tear gas against
democratic protesters, it’s important to know how not to be afraid, and
how to defend against its use.
What to bring if you anticipate tear gas: (1) a bandana or paper towel soaked in lemon juice or cider vinegar, stored in a plastic bag; (2) swimming goggles or similar eye protection; and if desired (3) a glove to allow you to pick up a hot tear gas canister and throw it back at your attacker. Do not wear contact lenses if you anticipate a tear gas attack. The gas will destroy them.
The best defense against tear gas is a gas mask, but if you don’t have a mask there are still steps you can take to minimize damage from tear gas. If you think you might encounter tear gas you can soak a bandana or paper towel in lemon juice or cider vinegar and store it in a plastic baggie. You can breathe through the acidified cloth for several minutes, which should give you sufficient time to get upwind or reach higher ground.
Goggles are a great thing to have. You can use tight-fitting swim goggles if chemical safety goggles aren’t available. Don’t wear contacts anywhere you might encounter tear gas. If you are wearing contact lenses, immediately remove them. Your contacts are a loss as is anything else you can’t wash. You can wear your clothes again after you wash them, but wash them separately that first time. If you don’t have goggles or any sort of mask, you can breathe the air inside your shirt, since there is less air circulation and therefore a lower concentration of the gas, but that is counterproductive once the fabric becomes saturated.
What to bring if you anticipate tear gas: (1) a bandana or paper towel soaked in lemon juice or cider vinegar, stored in a plastic bag; (2) swimming goggles or similar eye protection; and if desired (3) a glove to allow you to pick up a hot tear gas canister and throw it back at your attacker. Do not wear contact lenses if you anticipate a tear gas attack. The gas will destroy them.
The best defense against tear gas is a gas mask, but if you don’t have a mask there are still steps you can take to minimize damage from tear gas. If you think you might encounter tear gas you can soak a bandana or paper towel in lemon juice or cider vinegar and store it in a plastic baggie. You can breathe through the acidified cloth for several minutes, which should give you sufficient time to get upwind or reach higher ground.
Goggles are a great thing to have. You can use tight-fitting swim goggles if chemical safety goggles aren’t available. Don’t wear contacts anywhere you might encounter tear gas. If you are wearing contact lenses, immediately remove them. Your contacts are a loss as is anything else you can’t wash. You can wear your clothes again after you wash them, but wash them separately that first time. If you don’t have goggles or any sort of mask, you can breathe the air inside your shirt, since there is less air circulation and therefore a lower concentration of the gas, but that is counterproductive once the fabric becomes saturated.
First Aid
First aid for eyes is to flush them with sterile saline or water until the stinging starts to abate. Exposed skin should be washed with soap and water. Breathing difficulties are treated by administering oxygen and in some cases using medication that are used to treat asthma. Medicated bandages can be used on burns.About.com http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemicalweapons/a/teargasexposure.htm
Freedom Manual – Tear Gas http://freedommanual.blogspot.com/2009/12/tear-gas.html. Contains extra tips on how to defend against tear gas and pepper spray, along with warnings for people with health issues who should stay away from potential tear gas attacks.
http://iranchannel.org/archives/772
THE GILLARD CABINET AND MINISTERIAL TITLES
Some of these job titles are pretty interesting.
GILLARD MINISTRY
Prime Minister
Hon. Julia Gillard MP
Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer
Hon. Wayne Swan MP
Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government
Hon. Simon Crean MP
Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations and Leader of the Government in the Senate
Senator Hon. Chris Evans
Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth
Hon. Peter Garrett AM, MP
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate
Senator Hon. Stephen Conroy
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Hon. Kevin Rudd MP
Minister for Trade
Hon. Dr Craig Emerson MP
Minister for Defence and Deputy Leader of the House
Hon. Stephen Smith MP
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
Hon. Chris Bowen MP
Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Leader of the House
Hon. Anthony Albanese MP
Minister for Health and Ageing
Hon. Nicola Roxon MP
Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
Hon. Jenny Macklin MP
Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
Hon. Tony Burke MP
Minister for Finance and Deregulation
Senator Hon. Penny Wong
Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Senator
Hon. Kim Carr
Attorney-General and Vice President of the Executive Council
Hon. Robert McClelland MP
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Manager of Government Business in the Senate
Senator Hon. Joe Ludwig
Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism
Hon. Martin Ferguson AM, MP
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
Hon. Greg Combet AM, MP
[The above ministers constitute the cabinet]
GILLARD MINISTRY
Prime Minister
Hon. Julia Gillard MP
Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer
Hon. Wayne Swan MP
Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government
Hon. Simon Crean MP
Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations and Leader of the Government in the Senate
Senator Hon. Chris Evans
Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth
Hon. Peter Garrett AM, MP
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate
Senator Hon. Stephen Conroy
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Hon. Kevin Rudd MP
Minister for Trade
Hon. Dr Craig Emerson MP
Minister for Defence and Deputy Leader of the House
Hon. Stephen Smith MP
Minister for Immigration and Citizenship
Hon. Chris Bowen MP
Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Leader of the House
Hon. Anthony Albanese MP
Minister for Health and Ageing
Hon. Nicola Roxon MP
Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
Hon. Jenny Macklin MP
Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities
Hon. Tony Burke MP
Minister for Finance and Deregulation
Senator Hon. Penny Wong
Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Senator
Hon. Kim Carr
Attorney-General and Vice President of the Executive Council
Hon. Robert McClelland MP
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and Manager of Government Business in the Senate
Senator Hon. Joe Ludwig
Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism
Hon. Martin Ferguson AM, MP
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
Hon. Greg Combet AM, MP
[The above ministers constitute the cabinet]
Sunday, October 23, 2011
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