YET another outstanding piece of journalism from JOHN PILGER:
The Assange arrest is a warning from history
By John Pilger
14 April 2019
The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years.
That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for "democratic" societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention...
For rest of article click HERE(or goto: johnpilger.com)
I'm not trying to advertise these books nor am I suggesting they might be better than other publications on similar themes. I don't suppose I'll be reading them myself anytime soon either even if they fell into my hands for free. What interests me here above all are the issues they address and the general tone of how those issues are examined as implied in the titles:
Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto
Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work
So far as I can tell, these books appear to analyse in practical terms precisely what for several decades I've intuitively 'known' would become reality. Perhaps I've 'known' it all my adult life, at least since I began reading Sci-Fi and wondered about such issues - of future technologies within the realms of realistic possibility. Now such a future must surely look imminent to everyone.
By future, I mean mid-term... the future I can easily imagine as possible instead of zooming into unpredictable and fanciful notions that are beyond the grasp of most people. What's apparently being examined here, though, will be within most people's grasp even if they think it's unlikely - it certainly wasn't within most people's imaginative range back when I was a teen and 'secretly' dreaming these kinds of developments... of 'knowing' they were inevitable if also unlikely to transpire in my lifetime. So mid-term to me means within the next 100 to 200-years. I remember reading that Chekhov 120-years ago had said (to the effect) how he believed it would be another ~200-years before civilisation reached the kind-of amenable position implied in those titles. I guess I share that view, give or take 100-years..
But these books (and increasingly others like them)... I think without reading more than provided by the 'look-inside' option on Amazon... show that the seeds for this 'reality' are already - and unstoppably - beginning to germinate. Voila!
The first book is not yet publicly available, but below I've just copied their Amazon covers and summaries. I probably won't read them, as I say, though I'm sure they're extremely interesting and look into many fascinating aspects of an inevitable future that hadn't occurred to me - as well as a few that have, and perhaps even a few that struck me as inevitable all those decades ago when I was a teen. But the fact such books now exist and have been positively, even enthusiastically, reviewed by experienced commentators with proven integrity and insight, is enough to give me that sense of satisfaction one gets from accurately intuiting something profound and universal... hardly to mention a renewed optimism for an amazing future even if I won't be around to enjoy it. See also FREEDOM
Swipe for 'Demand Full Automation'
The following is nicked from Amazon:
Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto
By Bastani
"The first decade of the twenty-first century marked the demise of the current world order. Despite widespread acknowledgement of these disruptive crises, the proposed response from the mainstream remains the same. Against the confines of this increasingly limited politics, a new paradigm has emerged. Fully Automated Luxury Communism claims that new technologies will liberate us from work, providing the opportunity to build a society beyond both capitalism and scarcity. Automation, rather than undermining an economy built on full employment, is instead the path to a world of liberty, luxury and happiness. For everyone. In his first book, radical political commentator Aaron Bastani conjures a new politics: a vision of a world of unimaginable hope, highlighting how we move to energy abundance, feed a world of nine billion, overcome work, transcend the limits of biology and build meaningful freedom for everyone. Rather than a final destination, such a society heralds the beginning of history. Fully Automated Luxury Communism promises a radically new left future for everyone."
&
Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work
by Srnicek & Williams
"Neoliberalism isn't working. Austerity is forcing millions into poverty and many more into precarious work, while the left remains trapped in stagnant political practices that offer no respite. Inventing the Future is a bold new manifesto for life after capitalism. Against the confused understanding of our high-tech world by both the right and the left, this book claims that the emancipatory and future-oriented possibilities of our society can be reclaimed. Instead of running from a complex future, Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams demand a postcapitalist economy capable of advancing standards, liberating humanity from work and developing technologies that expand our freedoms."
HOW To:
Create yer own WEBSITE
(I needed help to get this one off the ground)
First get Dreamweaver, which I think can be downloaded for free. Then log into
https://cp1.freehostingeu.com/beta/login/?next=start¬ice=login
You'll get a client ID and an email as below...(ignore the word 'purchasing'... it's free):
Thank you for ‘purchasing’ a web hosting with Free Hosting EU.
Hosting Information
Hosting Package: FREE Hosting Plan
Client ID: *******
Login email: zoneidle@gmail.com
Password: the one you have used upon registration
Domain Names
If you have purchased domains registration/transfer or you have existing domains, please add them inside your Domain Manager section. Additionally, you should set the following name servers for all domains, except for the domains that have been registered with us.
Nameserver 1: ns1.freehostingeu.com
This is what you get when you open Dreamnweaver
You can see how I've filled the blanks to Configure Server. There's the password, of course, but just to make certain no-one reading this can log onto and change this site I've blanked my 7-digit 'Client ID' which is followed by the email address (minus the @gmail.com) as shown: ie, *******_zoneidle
The story 'Fired' can be seen loaded on-screen, Also loaded into Dreamweaver so far when this shot was taken is the home page 'index' with associated jpg 'image' links that load automatically when you load or create a page. These can be seen in the file list right of screen. By copying the filling-in of 'Configure Server' as shown in the above shot.... which is tricky when directed from text.... the setting-up should be dead easy, hassle free and quick.
So GOOD LUCK
"Sixteen years on from the start of the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq, further evidence has emerged that the war was planned years before the attack took place."
SEE Neil Clark's 29th March article HERE and below some relevant twitter entries plus on the (ominously similar???) brexshit lead-up....
There's also some great youtubes by Arab-American journalist Rania Khalek on Iraq, Syria, Libya, Venezuela.... so if you want the truth of what's ACTUALLY going on then take a look. For starters why not try:
ie: Venezuela
..May 19 >
