First up is Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson’s take on the meetup of the Most Powerful Leaders of the World ™ (or, as per @theLemniscat ‘the US and its closest lapdogs’) at the awesomely luxurious Bavarian Castle at Schloss Elmau, where the lackeys serving the Elites even wear Lederhosen and knee socks.
Oh, there were great demonstrations ahead of the G-7, especially in Munich.
even a rumble with the cops including noxious gases…
But oh, my, once protestors arrived in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the closest they could get to the Schloss was a gate…faraway from the luxury doin’s. The tens of kilometers of high security fencing meant bidness! They were also outnumbered two to one by police. (overkill?)
So, bless their hearts, a bunch of them took to the hills to see if they could find a back way in; trouble was, then there was a mountain between them and the Elite Party. Dayum.
Some indicated that they’d head to the Bilderberg Conference near Vienna that starts today; ‘that’s where the big guns go’, says the Guardian.
But back to The Wrap-up Jamboree! On the final day of the conference came:
‘Obama lambasts Putin: you’re wrecking Russia to recreate Soviet empire!
Revanchism! Dastardly Putin Revanchism! We’ll never invite you to our Party Hardy again if you double down on Ukraine! (stamps foot…twice)
‘Obama urges Greeks to make ‘tough political choices’ to resolve debt crisis’
“US president sends clear warning to Athens to compromise with creditors over debt deal, while also calling for flexibility from the international community”
Really,what he’d meant was that Syriza should be flexible, as in: bend over and take it. On second thought, perhaps he’d meant ‘flexible’ like the Elite Leaders in Martin Rowson’s cartoon (who are they? Harper and Juncker?) Ooooh, and a threat to Tsipris:
“At the weekend, the commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, angrily accused Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, of reneging on a promise to deliver a fresh reform programme after Athens’ efforts at compromise were rejected.”
“A report by the rating agency Moody’s heightened fears that Greece was heading for a eurozone exit after it forecast a near €5bn (£3,7bn) loss of deposits in May. A run on its banks could be the prelude to the imposition of capital controls to stem a further outflow of funds.”
““Everyone at the table wants Greece to stay in the eurozone,” said Merkel. “But as I said … we have rules.”
Rule #1: Don’t give in to those goddam socialists. Period. It would set a bad precedent.
‘G-7 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuel use by end of century’
Well, yeah; in 85 years there likely won’t be many fossil fuels left within reach, eh? But no time like the present to ‘begin to ‘reduce global greenhouse gas emissions at the upper end of a range of 40% to 70% by 2050, using 2010 as the baseline’. How much higher will the ocean be by then; will there be any polar ice still extant? Yes, she is being lauded by some as ‘a climate hero’. Will they push moar Green Capitalism? How about pushing for a renewable energy Manhattan-style project NOW, and funding it? Or Obama reversing his ‘all of the above’ false energy solutions including deep water drilling in the Gulf and Alaska, tarsands mining in Wyoming…just to name a few. But speaking of climate change and hot air…
But here’s Angela on reducing poverty (same link):
“Merkel also announced that G7 governments had signed up to initiatives to work for an end to extreme poverty and hunger, reducing by 2030 the number of people living in hunger and malnutrition by 500 million.” How might they start? Writing off debt in Greece, Italy, Spain, and the Sub-saharan African nations, then throwing the IMF and WB off the train. Ending the monetary rule by Central Banking and corporations…just to name a few. Oh, and how about ending wars of choice that create massive diasporas with their attendant homelessness, hunger, thirst, and medical crises?
Moar Merkel from RT:
“German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she believed international conflicts can be solved in cooperation with Russia. “We have several negotiation formats in which Russia takes part,” she said at a media conference. “International crises can be solved with the Russian Federation.”
(nice she noticed, but said ‘Russia’, not the Evil Putin’, oh, no…)
“However, she said that sanctions against Russia would remain in place until the ceasefire between Kiev’s forces and anti-government fighters in Ukraine holds. “We are also willing, if it is necessary, but which is not what we want, to toughen the sanctions if the situation requires us to do so.” She added that no specific measures to toughen the sanctions have been discussed at the summit.”
14:42 GMT:
“At the same time, the communique says G7 nations “commend and support the steps the Ukrainian government is taking to implement comprehensive structural reforms and urge the Ukrainian leadership to decisively continue the necessary fundamental transformation in line with IMF and EU commitments.”
It goes on: “We reaffirm our commitment to working together with the international financial institutions and other partners to provide financial and technical support as Ukraine moves forward with its transformation. We ask the G7 ambassadors in Kiev to establish a Ukraine support group. Its task will be to advance Ukraine´s economic reform process through coordinated advice and assistance.”
Yes, this is what Ukraine’s ‘necessary fundamental transformation in line with IMF and EU commitments’ looks like just about now. Maidan 3.0 of the non-astroturf sort? Ooopsie.
But now that ya know what the Empire and its lackeys have in store for you and the planet (or kinda sorta do), whaddaya say: let’s give ‘em all the clap! ‘C’mon kids!
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
David Harvey, “Listen, Anarchists!”
http://davidharvey.org/2015/06/listen-anarchist-by-david-harvey/?utm_content=buffer6b855&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Long form. Worth reading. Intellectual history of academic Marxism from 1969 onward and its dialog with other movements. Points to what has to be done to institutionalize politicized areas of thought. Good issues to ponder.
thank you for harvey’s ‘food for thought’ essay, tarheeldem. i’m half-way through, and am not finding it very ‘digestable food’ given that i may not have the intellectual heft required (as in: most of the authors, and a few of the philosophers, at least in the contexts he uses, are unfamiliar to me. others here may find it an easier read, of course. graeber i know, of course, but not that particular 2002 book harvey references.
but my stars; i had no idea that geographers were so key in grasping either social or political politics. a few ideas in his essay resonated well, the struggles within i have a slight idea about, having read early on this essay and others at anticapitalist initiative back in the day. i know some consider themselves ‘anarchosyndicalists’, and no matter how many times i googledy-bing that term, i simply cannot absorb its designation.
i’ll add this naked capitalism commenter generated post: By Tony Wikrent
“Mackinder’s theory is bullshit. His theory completely ignores the crucial roles of human knowledge in the forms of technology, and of systems of belief.” i haven’t read it, dunno if i will. bread day here, and other RL issues take precedence.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/if-you-are-not-building-a-nation-then-what-the-fuck-are-you-doing.html#comment-2455746
hope you and miz thd are doing well, and enjoying all of your real life home and community projects. we’re experiencing a not-biblical but very awesome deluge here. ;-)
WTF? : Short answer for Bush and BS (Bush Shadow) 0bama (or Poppy’s 2016 Janus-pick JEBillary) – Company-building.
the answer *might be* capitalistic reasons for the US Imperium but what do i know? ;-) CIA seems to be just a tool to accomplish the same goals. as are USAID, national endowment for democracy for some™ and other purportedly ‘democracy project’ ngo’s funded by the same folks: you and me.
unless, of course, at the end of a hard day, ‘n feelin’ rode hard ‘n put up wet: i’m not grokking your meaning. ;-)
I understand your difficulty. Unless you have been exposed to some of these geographers, you are sure what they are talking about. I had to read David Harvey’s Explanation in Geography in 1969 or so and William Bunge’s Theoretical Geography. Excellent examples of hiding critical thought in academicism. I’ve read what I could find of theirs ever since. They are helpful in interpreting control of spaces and use of spaces so that maps and aerial photos and the relationships between locations can tell lots about power relationships.
The critique of Mackinder was spot on as to the ideological frame of empire he was operating out of.
RL was daughter and grandson visiting last weekend. We had a great time with a 5yo.
i confess that i’m more familiar with *inner geography*, but the notion of geography in real life practice (be it anarchist philosophy, marxist, or a meld of both) is interesting, even if i can’t imagine what either or both look like.
several parts of harvey’s essay made me laugh, including the marxists positing that ‘the environmental considerations’ were petite burgeois, and that he was *almost* tempted to draw some of the silliest conclusions about
individual anarchy being…tra la la…. but then he did. ;-)
can’t promise i’ll finish it given…time.
but oh: five-year-olds and their constant questions and insatiable curiosity! such an age of development! our daughter’s family may come at the end of july, three chirren under ten, and one special one who needs all the love grammy and grandpa have to give him.
i confess, i’m not entirely sure anyone actually read this post, or listen to boots riley’s excellent anti-capitalist rant.
Most of Simon Stone / David Harvey is buried behind academic pay-walls, but these beasties occasionally crawl out of their burrows to bite each other.
http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2011/03/31/the-straw-man-critique-of-neoliberalism-in-cambodia/
“One of the primary myths that Thavat seems content to perpetuate is the idea that neoliberalism is nothing more than a top-down juggernaut, imposed from somewhere ‘outside’ on seemingly hapless and unwitting states.”
“Despite Thavat’s problematic assumption of a sweeping dispersion of a ‘pure’ or ‘paradigmatic’ neoliberalism that has supposedly been slapdash blanketed over Cambodia in my work, I follow the single most important idea geographers have lent to theories of neoliberalism, which is to acknowledge that ‘neoliberalism’ itself is an abstraction. The discourse of neoliberalism proceeds in such a way that it conceals the geographical variations and contingencies that necessarily exist between different political economic contexts.”
Think locally, act academically, I guess. What else is new?
well, holy hell, if your avatar isn’t a flash from the past, jacob freeze! welcome to the café!
it would seem that much of academia a well as academic essays are written to refute *other* academic deconstructions of one’s original theses. and i had no idea that geographers were so prevalent in economics of any sort.
the idea that there are both internal and external *geographies* of neoliberalism.seems about right, eh? my favorite lines/prhases (of the third i’ve read) because of their pithy imagery are:
“…it simply means that neoliberal ideas write a cheque for society that the people can never cash. Why? Because neoliberalism allows elites to informally manage the process of marketisation, which effectively gives them unofficial license to asset strip society as former communal and state holdings are sold to the private market…”
an good gracious, i’m so glad that you took advantage of tarheeldem’s links, and know what the hell it’s all about (as opposed to say…moi.) ;-)
i want to hunt for a piece of music, but it’s too early here to play sound; mr. wd is still sleeping, which is highly unusual, so i’ll shhhhh for now, and add it later if i can find it.
don’t be a stranger, darlin’ brother of mine.
on edit: