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Rationality and the Ideology of Disconnection

Category: eBooks, Magazines, Audio Books
Description:
Rationality and the Ideology of Disconnection Series: Contemporary Political Theory Michael Taylor University of Washington pdf eBook version (not scanned). "A powerful and provocative critique of the foundations of Rational Choice theory and the economic way of thinking about the world, written by a former leading practitioner. The target is a dehumanizing ideology that cannot properly recognize that normal people have attachments and commitments to other people and to practices, projects, principles, and places, which provide them with desire-independent reasons for action, and that they are reflective creatures who think about what they are and what they should be, with ideals that can shape and structure the way they see their choices. The author’s views are brought to bear on the economic way of thinking about the natural environment and on how and when the norm of fair reciprocity motivates us to do our part in cooperative endeavors. Throughout, the argument is adorned by thought-provoking examples that keep what is at stake clearly before the reader’s mind." from the author of: Anarchy and Cooperation. London: John Wiley & Sons, 1976 Community, Anarchy and Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982 The Possibility of Cooperation (A substantially revised and expanded edition of Anarchy and Cooperation.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987 Bio: Michael Taylor (born 1942), is a political theorist and political economist who currently teaches at the University of Washington. His research interests include rational choice theory, moral motivation and game theory. Although game theory was applied in social sciences before Taylor's work, he was the first to explicitly link rationality with collective action. He sets out a theory for a rationally motivated revolution and rational cooperation. His theory specifically states that cooperation can be achieved without the intervention of the state. Rational individuals will cooperate as it will maximise their long term utility. Taylor shows this through game theory and especially the Prisoner's Dilemma supergame. (Editor and co-author) Rationality and Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Seeders: 11
Leeches: 0

The Great Depression (1993) [cpdl]

Category: Documentary
Description:
Copy Paste title: The Great Depression Digital |> directer: Jon Else, Lyn Goldfarb, Librarian | `> Eric Neudel, Stephen Stept _______| `____________ year: 1993 || | | | runtime: 420 min total, 60 min each ||infor-| |control + a|| format: avi ||mation| | || version: 1 ||wants | |control + c|| ||to be > | || CPDL ||free `> |control + v|| release no.: 00007 ||__________`|___________|| |___________><____________| _______________________________________________________ The Great Depression 1993 (339 min.) This 7-part series on the Great Depression uses newsreels, archival photographs and footage, Hollywood films, and eyewitness accounts to re-create the time, from the end of the Roaring Twenties to the outbreak of the Second World War, when economic forces, political change, and social turmoil transformed the nation. A Job at Ford's episode 1 (60 min.) Just before the advent of the Great Depression, Henry Ford controlled the most important company in the most important industry in the booming American economy. His offer of high wages in exchange for hard work attracted workers to Detroit, but it began to come apart when Ford hired a private police force to speed up production and spy on employees. After the depression hit in 1929, these workers faced a new, grim reality as unemployment skyrocketed. The Road to rock bottom episode 2 (60 min.) As the Great Depression progressed economic collapse took its toll on rural America. Crops went unsold, farm mortgages were called in by banks, hungry farmers protested, and robberies increased dramatically. The U.S. Army was called in to defend the nation's capital from veterans who were demanding that President Hoover and Congress pay a bonus for their services in World War I. The film ends with Franklin Roosevelt's landslide election to the presidency. New Deal/New York episode 3 (60 min.) In his first one hundred days in office, in a effort to stem the effects of the Great Depression, President Roosevelt created many new federal agencies giving jobs and relief to people and transforming the American landscape with public works projects. Nowhere was this transformation more apparent than in Mayor Fiorello La Guardia's New York City. Together Roosevelt and La Guardia expanded and redefined the role of government in the lives of the American people. We have a plan episode 4 (60 min.) By 1934 challenges to the New Deal came from both sides of the political spectrum. In California Socialist Upton Sinclair ran for Governor promising to turn idle land and factories into self-governing cooperatives. Sinclair's campaign ended in defeat, but one year later President Roosevelt's signing of the Social Security Act signaled America's emergence as a modern welfare state. Mean things happening episode 5 (60 min.) In the American democracy of the 1930s two visions of liberty collided as working men and women battled landowners and factory managers for the right to join a union. On the tenant farms and in the steel factories working people asserted their citizenship in the midst of great economic turmoil and a tide of government reform. To be somebody episode 6 (60 min.) Many Americans, struggling to survive the Great Depression, were determined to help build a better America through direct action in the courts, in the Congress and in everyday life. At a time when lynchings, segregation, and anti-semitism were commonplace, black heavy-weight champion, Joe Louis became a symbol of national strength. In very different ways Louis and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt challenged America to live up to its promise of justice and opportunity for people of every race and faith. Arsenal of democracy episode 7 (60 min.) By 1939 Americans were still struggling to end the Great Depression. Their dreams of peace and prosperity were celebrated at World's Fairs in New York and San Francisco, but prosperity did not come in peacetime. Millions fled the "dust bowl" states to finally find work in new defense industries. While the New Deal changed America forever, it was war that ended the Great Depression.
Seeders: 4
Leeches: 5

Democracy Now! Thursday, July 23, 2009

Category: News & Current Affairs
Description:
Today's Headlines Honduran Coup Regime Considers Zelaya Return UN: US Uncooperative on Human Rights Probes Judge: Case Against Gitmo Prisoner “an Outrage” Audit: US Embassy in Iraq Should Be Scaled Down US Toll Passes 5,000 in Iraq, Afghanistan Clinton Warns Iran of US “Defense Umbrella” in Mideast Senate Narrowly Defeats Gun Measure Study: Hundreds of NY, NJ Immigration Raids Broke Law Obama: US Can’t Insure All Americans Without Single Payer Judge: FDNY Excluded Blacks, Latinos with Biased Practices Top Banks Set Aside $74B for Bonuses Obama: Cambridge Police "Acted Stupidly" in Arrest of Harvard Scholar Henry Louis Gates In his fourth prime-time White House news conference, President Obama was asked about last week’s arrest of the famed African American scholar Henry Louis Gates inside his own home last week by a white police officer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was responding to a report of a possible burglary. Obama criticized the arrest, placing it in the context of “a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.” [includes rush transcript] Promoting Healthcare Reform, Obama Admits US Can't Insure All Americans Without Single Payer Obama devoted most of his White House news conference to defend his push for healthcare reform. He acknowledged the US won’t be able to provide healthcare insurance to every American without adopting single payer, which his administration has opposed. [includes rush transcript] Watchdog Group Sues for Disclosure of White House Meetings with Healthcare Execs President Obama spoke last night hours after a watchdog group filed a lawsuit seeking records of visits by top healthcare executives to the White House. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington says the public has a right to learn the extent that these executives are influencing the Obama administration’s healthcare policy. We speak to the group’s executive director, Melanie Sloan. [includes rush transcript] Court Rules New York Fire Department Discriminates Against Black, Latino Applicants A federal judge has determined that the Fire Department of New York City used racially discriminatory hiring practices that unlawfully prevented hundreds of qualified African American and Latino applicants from joining the department. New York City has the least diverse fire department of any major city in the nation. [includes rush transcript] "The Yes Men Fix the World": In New Film, Anti-Corporate Pranksters the Yes Men Continue to Jolt Polluters and Profiteers Anti-corporate pranksters and gonzo political activists the Yes Men are back with a new film, The Yes Men Fix the World. The movie follows Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno as they infiltrate and expose the world of big business through high-profile outrageous pranks. From ExxonMobil to Halliburton, no industry is too big for the Yes Men’s hoaxes. [includes rush transcript]
Seeders: 78
Leeches: 22

AT HOME IN UTOPIA - PBS - Independent Lens - AVI

Category: Documentary
Description:
“This was all an experiment. The people that started the experiment thought, ‘We’ll end up with heaven on earth.’” - Paul “Pete” Rosenblum * * In the mid-1920s, thousands of immigrant Jewish garment workers catapulted themselves out of the urban slums and ghettos by pooling their resources and building cooperatively owned and run apartment complexes in the Bronx. Adjacent to the newly opened subway corridor and in the midst of empty fields, they constructed the United Workers Cooperative Colony, a.k.a. “the Coops,” where they practiced the utopian ideals of an equitable and just society. AT HOME IN UTOPIA captures their epic struggle across two generations as the Coops residents experiment with breaking down barriers of race and ethnicity, and championing radical ideas that would someday transform the American workplace. Three other large communities—the Amalgamated Houses, built by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, the Sholem Aleichem Houses, built by Yiddishists, and the Farband Houses, built by Labor ZIonists —were located near the Coops. But the Coops was the most grassroots and member-driven of the Jewish labor housing cooperatives, with many of the residents practicing—and proselytizing—communists. * * A cross-post from Mininova - http://www.mininova.org/tor/2576332 [www.progressivetorrents.com] AT HOME IN UTOPIA-PBS Independent Lens-sdtv xvid
Seeders: 14
Leeches: 15

Parity Talk April-19-2009 The Nonprofit Reversal 24kbps mp3

Category: News & Current Affairs
Description:
The tragedy of our world is the fact that for as far back into history as we can remember, people have treated the for-profit model as normal and conservative one rather than placing proper emphasis on the nonprofit one. If our planet's economic system is ever going to heal and stabilize, we must realize that the nonprofit model is actually the true status quo that has been ignored. If we want an end to evil, we must make a reversal back to a nonprofit, parity-based way of life. Topics covered on this weeks show: We are in serious need to reverse the Outlook of the world the for profit model has to be replaced by the nonprofit model. Thomas propose a new economic model were both provider and clients have an open relationship and discuss their real margins for the sake of creating real value and a balanced market. Is there really anything we can do? We need to take back our own initiative and fight the fear factor. As a side note: Queen Elisabeth is the largest landowner in the world she owns one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface. For generations our forefathers have worked their arses off yet to no avail most people still have no real holdings of power and property. Why is it that? Only through real meaningful cooperation can we defeat the system that is crushing us. Are we experts? Do we have the right to talk? John argues that we do have the right because we feel its right to do so that things cannot continue any longer this way. Business marketing, reverse marketing getting ahead in business by squeezing the opposition surely there is got to be other ways? In the end nobody is really winning in the system Let’s go back to becoming parity knights and uphold the true conservative spirit of the higher ideal. The belief in a higher ideal much bigger than ourselves. Let’s face paradise is lost the good times are dead but we can get paradise back if choose so. John reads some stories from the activist’s almanac and cites some organizations that propose real change yet what can we do if those organizations have been largely hijacked by people with other ideas. The superficial dimension of people cannot cloud the fact that what lacks in the inside, so don’t be fooled by the exterior of the proposed champions of society. The illuminati for the lack of a better world are just people like all of us they are just nastier and unhappier and are not winning either. Change from within the organization is not possible it has to be a cooperative change from without. Status as the idea of holding the largest pile of money has to be made obsolete. Not everything is relative especially not human issues regarding hardship and suffering. We introduce our new forum paritycheck.org where you can find more information on these subjects and links relating to this article. Please leave a comment suggestion or just say hello. Thanks to all the honest people for listening to our show please tune in next week and keep spreading the word. You can reach us at: http://www.paritytalk.org http://www.paritytalk.com http://www.honesty.org and our new forum http://www.paritycheck.org
Seeders: 8
Leeches: 1

Democracy Now! Thursday, April 9, 2009

Category: News & Current Affairs
Description:
Today's Headlines Iraqis Rally on 6th Anniversary of Fall of Baghdad US to Join Iran in Global Talks Jailed Iranian American Journalist Accused of Spying Report: Pakistan Rebuffs US on Attacks, Requests Control of Drones Palestinian Villagers Wounded Following Settler Attack Sinn Fein Leader Condemns Gaza Siege Posada Accused of Lying on Bombing Role in New Indictment US Considers Easing Emissions Auctions Obama Establishes Office on Healthcare Reform LA Hospital Admits to “Dumping” Homeless, Mentally Ill Panel: Private Utilities Fail to Protect from Cyber Attacks NY Gov. to Propose Gay Marriage Bill Report: Obama Mulls Bonds for Toxic Securities "We Didn't Create a Paradise in Iraq; We Created a Hell" - Independent Journalist Nir Rosen on 6th Anniversary of US Overthrow of Saddam Hussein As tens of thousands of Iraqis rally in Baghdad to mark the sixth anniversary of the fall of the city to US troops, we speak to independent journalist Nir Rosen, who is just back from Iraq. [includes rush transcript] With High Unemployment, Carolinas Reel from Economic Crisis As we broadcast from Raleigh, we look at how the economic crisis has impacted the Carolinas with Chris Kromm, executive director of the Institute for Southern Studies and a writer for the blog “Facing South.” South Carolina has the second highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11 percent, just ahead of North Carolina. North Carolina Town Prints Own Currency to Support Local Business We take a look at how one North Carolina town is trying to become more self-sufficient by moving toward being able to feed, fuel and finance itself. The town of Pittsboro houses the nation’s largest biodiesel cooperative, a food co-op, a farmers’ market and, most recently, its own currency, the Pittsboro Plenty. Pittsboro is one of a number of communities across the country printing their own money in an attempt to support local business. Gun Control Advocates Call for Stricter Laws After Spate of Mass Shootings Leaves Nearly 60 Dead A spate of mass shootings across the country, from Binghamton, NY to Carthage, NC, has left at least fifty-seven people dead since March 10th. In the wake of the violence, gun control advocates are calling for stricter laws across the nation. We speak with Roxane Kolar, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence. [includes rush transcript]
Seeders: 65
Leeches: 77

Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History

Category: eBooks, Magazines, Audio Books
Description:
Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History Wobblies and Zapatistas offers the reader an encounter between two generations and two traditions. Andrej Grubacic is an anarchist from the Balkans. Staughton Lynd is a lifelong pacifist, influenced by Marxism. They meet in dialogue in an effort to bring together the anarchist and Marxist traditions, to discuss the writing of history by those who make it, and to remind us of the idea that "my country is the world." Encompassing a Left libertarian perspective and an emphatically activist standpoint, these conversations are meant to be read in the clubs and affinity groups of the new Movement. The authors accompany us on a journey through modern revolutions, direct actions, anti-globalist counter summits, Freedom Schools, Zapatista cooperatives, Haymarket and Petrograd, Hanoi and Belgrade, 'intentional' communities, wildcat strikes, early Protestant communities, Native American democratic practices, the Workers' Solidarity Club of Youngstown, occupied factories, self-organized councils and soviets, the lives of forgotten revolutionaries, Quaker meetings, antiwar movements, and prison rebellions. Neglected and forgotten moments of interracial self-activity are brought to light. The book invites the attention of readers who believe that a better world, on the other side of capitalism and state bureaucracy, may indeed be possible. Reviews: “There's no doubt that we've lost much of our history. It's also very clear that those in power in this country like it that way. Here's a book that shows us why. It demonstrates not only that another world is possible, but that it already exists, has existed, and shows an endless potential to burst through the artificial walls and divisions that currently imprison us. An exquisite contribution to the literature of human freedom, and coming not a moment too soon.” --David Graeber, author of Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology and Direct Action: An Ethnography "In these desperate, often tragic, times, we look backward, forward, even to our dreams to be able to keep imagining a world in which justice may be part of more people's lives. We look to lives lived before ours, to stories and their meanings, to strategies culled from the worlds of politics or ancient wisdoms. We look in Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and here in the United States. We are willing to entertain any new idea or revamped strategy. Staughton Lynd's life and work put him in a unique position to seek out someone like Grubacic, ask the pertinent questions, and tell the meaningful stories. Grubacic's experience perfectly compliments Lynd's. Here we have the best of a non-dogmatic Marxism listening to a most creative and humane anarchism. But this book is never weighted down by unforgiving theory. Just the opposite: it is a series of conversations where the reader feels fully present. It provides a marvelous framework for enriching the conversation that's never really stopped: about how we may make this world a better place." --Margaret Randall, author of Sandino's Daughters, When I Look Into the Mirror and See You, and Narrative of Power About the Author: Staughton Lynd taught American history at Spelman College and Yale University. He was director of Freedom Schools in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. An early leader of the movement against the Vietnam War, he was blacklisted and unable to continue as an academic. He then became a lawyer, and in this capacity has assisted rank-and-file workers and prisoners for the past thirty years. He has written, edited, or co-edited with his wife Alice Lynd more than a dozen books. Andrej Grubacic is a dissident from the Balkans. A radical historian and sociologist, he is the author of Globalization and Refusal and the forthcoming titles: Hidden History of American Democracy and The Staughton Lynd Reader. A fellow traveler of Zapatista-inspired direct action movements, in particular Peoples' Global Action, and a co-founder of Global Balkans Network and Balkan Z Magazine, he is a visiting professor of sociology at the University of San Francisco.
Seeders: 4
Leeches: 0

The Politics of Individualism - L Susan Brown (Liberalism, Feminism, and Anarchism)

Category: eBooks, Magazines, Audio Books
Description:
[ .txt file ] The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism, and Anarchism is a 1993 political science book by L. Susan Brown. She begins by noting that liberalism and anarchism seem at times to share common components, but on other occasions are in direct opposition to one another. She argues that what they have in common is "existential individualism", the belief in freedom for freedom's sake. However, she notes that in liberal works there exists also an "instrumental individualism", by which she means freedom to satisfy individual interests. Brown argues that the latter annihilates the intentions of the former because it allows individuals the "freedom" to disrupt the freedom of other individuals in its aim of achieving individual goals. On the other hand, instrumental individualism requires some degree of existential individualism to sustain itself. Next Brown looks at how these ideas of individualism were used in the liberal feminist writings of John Stuart Mill, Betty Friedan, Janet Radcliffe Richards, and Carole Pateman. She finds that the existential individualism expressed in some passages of these authors writings are effectively countered by notions of instrumental individualism contained elsewhere. Next she looks at how individualism was used by anarchists such as Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, and sees them as maintaining a consistency of existential individualism. However, she sees this as being less the case for other anarchists, including Pierre Proudhon, Peter Kropotkin, Mikhail Bakunin, and Murray Bookchin, who, rather than seeing individuals as existentially free to create their own destiny, devise other means to explain why such a society would work. For instance, she criticizes Kropotkin and Bakunin's efforts to define human nature as innately cooperative as unnecessary, seeing human nature as inexistent or as socially developed. Brown sees existentialism as a better alternative, because it allows anarchists "to shift the grounds of debate away from 'human nature' with all its attendant problems, toward a consideration of how we can create freedom for ourselves and others." 1 She next looks at the existentialist works of Simone de Beauvoir, seeing her overall notion of the world as created by human individuals as compatible with anarchism. She ends by arguing that anarchism has to be feminist or ceases to be anarchism, and those anarchists who are not feminists only compromise their commitment to anarchism by ignoring the domination of women by men. Brown argues that this is true not only for feminism, but for all forms of identity politics. Although she does not argue that feminism has to be anarchist, she does say that anarchism has much to offer feminism as a movement. The same, she says, is true for anarchism, which generally does not often take into account feminist ideas of child-raising and education. For instance, the idea of raising children existentially free from their parents and educated nonhierarchically by a community, is an area of thought not often considered by anarchists.
Seeders: 2
Leeches: 1

The Soviet Story (2008)

Category: Documentary
Description:
Personal note: I'm not uploading this because I think it's a good documentary. In fact, I think it's rather the opposite. Some of the sweeping ;; and blunt statements in the trailer and the website should raise several eyebrowes if you have a warm place in your heart for any vision of a cooperative society. As does the fact that this piece was essentially financed by the Union for Europe of Nations, which is a conglomerate of petty Nationalist and neo-fascist Groups within the European parlament. It's also noteworthy that the filmmaker apparently had to resort to corresponding with noted Holocaust denier David Irving to try and back up one of his strongest claims (i.e. that the Nazis let the soviet secret service in on their plans for the Holocaust as early as 1939). So this piece should be taken with a lot of caution. On the plus side though, the film has those other neo-fascist pigs of "Young Russia" seething with rage, and that's definitely a good thing. Russian society really needs to take a more honest look at some of its recent history. Here's what the original uploader's description says: ---------------- "The Soviet Story" is a story of an Allied power, which helped the Nazis to fight Jews and which slaughtered its own people on an industrial scale. Assisted by the West, this power triumphed on May 9th, 1945. Its crimes were made taboo, and the complete story of Europe?s most murderous regime has never been told. Until now? FILM SYNOPSIS The film tells the story of the Soviet regime. - The Great Famine in Ukraine (1932/33) - The Katyn massacre (1940) - The SS-KGB partnership [in the late 1930s the KGB was called NKVD, more info>] - Soviet mass deportations - Medical experiments in the GULAG. These are just a few of the subjects covered in the film. "The Soviet Story" also discusses the impact of the Soviet legacy on modern day Europe. Listen to experts and European MPs discussing the implications of a selective attitude towards mass murder; and meet a woman describing the burial of her new born son in a GULAG concentration camp. The Soviet Story is a story of pain, injustice and "realpolitik".
Seeders: 66
Leeches: 18

Democracy Now! Monday, October 29, 2007

Category: News & Current Affairs
Description:
Headlines for October 29, 2007 - ElBaradei: No Evidence That Iran is Building Nuclear Weapons - Turkey Refuses to Rule Out Invasion of Northern Iraq - Over 100,000 March Across U.S. Cities Against Iraq War - American Bar Association Calls for Death Penalty Moratorium - 25,000 Landless Peasants March in India - Report: Gap Kids Using Child Labor in India - Georgia Court Frees Genarlow Wilson - U.S. Soldier Blames Kidnapped Journalist for Death of Italian Agent in Iraq FEMA Admits It Held Fake Press Conference About California Wild Fires; FEMA Staffers Posed As Journalists On Tuesday FEMA staged a fake press conference Tuesday with agency staffers posing as news reporters. One FEMA staffer who pretended to be a journalist has since been promoted to become head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Forgotten Victims of the California Wild Fires: Undocumented Migrant Workers Andrea Guerrero of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium says law enforcement deported evacuees and checked identifications of evacuees fleeing fires. Costa Rican Banana Growers Form Fair Trade Cooperative Yocser Carranza Godoy. president of the worker-controlled cooperative called Coopetrabasur and the cooperative's attorney Carlos Eugenio Vargas join us in New York to discuss the banana cooperative. University of Michigan Press To Continue Publishing Joel Kovel's "Overcoming Zionism" After Initially Dropping Book Due to Right-Wing Criticism Last week the University of Michigan Press voted unanimously to continue distributing books from the London-based independent publishing house Pluto Press. The controversy began earlier this summer when the university press initially decided to stop distributing Joel Kovel's "Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine."
Seeders: 0
Leeches: 0