Via: Guardian OnlineTeresa Forcades, the radical Catalan nun on a mission - video
Sister Teresa Forcades is one of Catalonia’s foremost political figures, but uniquely for a faith-led figure in Spain, her ideology is feminist and left-wing. Against a backdrop of continued economic contraction and austerity, she spoke to the Guardian about the need for an alternative to capitalism and criticised the misogyny of the Catholic church
Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, ‘At least 10 to 20 years.’
By then our society will be unrecognizable, the bill of rights will be something from the fabled past and you will be safe in your impoverished little lives, free from external threats.
A typical 15-minute call can cost more than $15. To speak with an incarcerated loved one for just an hour a week would cost $240 a month — and that’s on top of the regular phone bill.
Given that most incarcerated people hail from low-income communities, their families are forced to make hard choices about whether to keep in touch with their loved ones or put food on the table.
Major retailers refuse to sign Bangladesh agreement
Some of Australia’s biggest retailers have refused to sign an international agreement to improve fire safety and working conditions in Bangladesh after the country’s worst industrial accident.
Woolworths, Kmart and Target - that all have factories operating out of Bangladesh - have declined to sign the legally binding agreement, which aims to compel retailers operating in Bangladesh to improve conditions and pay for factory repairs and fire safety.
Here are few of the last paragraphs from an article on the contemporary state of work. Well worth reading the entire piece if you work for a living and give a shit about where we are headed as a society.
;The subjugatory libidinal forces that draw enjoyment from the current cult of work don’t want us to entirely conceal our misery. For what enjoyment is there to be had from exploiting a worker who actually delights in their work? In his sequel to Blade Runner, The Edge of Human, K W Jeter provides an insight into the libidinal economics of work and suffering. One of the novel’s characters answers the question of why, in Blade Runner‘s future world, the Tyrell Corporation bothered developing replicants (androids constructed so that only experts can distinguish them from humans). “Why should the off-world colonists want troublesome, humanlike slaves rather than nice, efficient machines? It’s simple. Machines don’t suffer. They aren’t capable of it. A machine doesn’t know when it’s being raped. There’s no power relationship between you and a machine. … For the replicant to suffer, to give its owners that whole master-slave energy, it has to have emotions. … . The replicant’s emotions aren’t a design flaw. The Tyrell Corporation put them there. Because that’s what our customers wanted.”
The reason that it’s so easy to whip up loathing for “benefit scroungers” is that – in the reactionary fantasy – they have escaped the suffering to which those in work have to submit. This fantasy tells its own story: the hatred for benefits claimants is really about how much people hate their own work. Others should suffer as we do: the slogan of a negative solidarity that cannot imagine any escape from the immiseration of work.
To understand work now, consider the pornographic practice of bukkake.
A far-reaching new study suggests a staggering $21 TRILLION in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put parts of Africa back on its feet – and even solve the euro crisis.
Unused Taxi Driver poster made months ago for SpokeArt’s Scorsese tribute show. The decaying mental state of a New York cabbie seen through his operator’s license.
Photographs of the Iraq War by dozens of the world’s leading photojournalists are on display at 25CPW in conjunction with BDC Founder/Director Mike Kamber’s book release Photojournalists on War.
View the show tomorrow Friday, May 17 and Sat., May 18, from noon-6pm at 25 Central Park West (@ 62nd St).
