Earlier this month Noam Chomsky published an incisive essay entitled: Plutonomy and the Precariat: On the History of the U.S. Economy in Decline*, which clearly elucidates how the extreme concentration of wealth with the 1% has transpired because our country no longer manufactures actual things — bankers, stock brokers and financiers simply manipulate the idea of money. The United States has mutated into a vastly economically stratified oligarchy, 99% of whom have almost no political power or influence in our nation’s participatory “democracy”.

In this brief excerpt, Chomsky explains how these huge shifts in our economic structure have ravaged the working class, many of whom have a pervasive sense of despair and no hope that meaningful employment will ever return:

“In the 1930s, unemployed working people could anticipate that their jobs would come back. If you’re a worker in manufacturing today — the current level of unemployment there is approximately like the Depression — and current tendencies persist, those jobs aren’t going to come back.

The change took place in the 1970s. There are a lot of reasons for it. One of the underlying factors, discussed mainly by economic historian Robert Brenner, was the falling rate of profit in manufacturing. There were other factors. It led to major changes in the economy — a reversal of several hundred years of progress towards industrialization and development that turned into a process of de-industrialization and de-development. Of course, manufacturing production continued overseas very profitably, but it’s no good for the work force. 

Along with that came a significant shift of the economy from productive enterprise — producing things people need or could use — to financial manipulation. The financialization of the economy really took off at that time.

 

On Banks

 

Before the 1970s, banks were banks. They did what banks were supposed to do in a state capitalist economy: they took unused funds from your bank account, for example, and transferred them to some potentially useful purpose like helping a family buy a home or send a kid to college. That changed dramatically in the 1970s. Until then, there had been no financial crises since the Great Depression. The 1950s and 1960s had been a period of enormous growth, the highest in American history, maybe in economic history.

And it was egalitarian. The lowest quintile did about as well as the highest quintile. Lots of people moved into reasonable lifestyles — what’s called the “middle class” here, the “working class” in other countries — but it was real. And the 1960s accelerated it. The activism of those years, after a pretty dismal decade, really civilized the country in lots of ways that are permanent. 

When the 1970s came along, there were sudden and sharp changes: De-industrialization, the off-shoring of production, and the shift to financial institutions, which grew enormously. I should say that, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was also the development of what several decades later became the high-tech economy: Computers, the Internet, the IT Revolution developed substantially in the state sector. 

The developments that took place during the 1970s set off a vicious cycle. It led to the concentration of wealth increasingly in the hands of the financial sector. This doesn’t benefit the economy — it probably harms it and society — but it did lead to a tremendous concentration of wealth.”

You can read Noam Chomsky’s essay in its entirety at TomDispatch.com

“…suffering from precarcity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. Specifically, it is applied to the condition of lack of job security, in other words intermittent or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.”

Sukhna Lake, Chandigarh

Even as the city of Chandigarh was being built, water scarcity was one of the major issues. However, the government and local citizens worked together to ward off their water woes. Today the water supply is good in the city, saving it the kind of extreme cuts and limitations most Indian metros face.

With 96.7% of household having access to tap water, recent census ranks Chandigarh at the top spot, and also ranks second in India in terms of per capita water supply of 330 liters per person per day. Although Chandigarh has been proactive about its water issues, the city is no exception to the ongoing global threat of water scarcity. While the city needs 116 Million Gallons Daily (MGd), it only has access to 87 MGd. Chandigarh takes this issue quite seriously, and is being proactive in addressing the shortfall.

Sukhna Depletion

Sukhana distributory (Sukhna choe as it is locally referred)which was tapped to create Sukhana lake, is the lifeline of Chandigarh besides being a source of water. It is a gathering spot and a favorite of walkers and joggers with its separate trails for both. It becomes the hub of activity in the evenings with boating on the lake and vendors at its entrance selling street-food, winding toys and other items.

Recent studies are projecting that Sukhna lake will shrink to 2/3 this year. Efforts are being made to restore the lake’s water by pumping water from tubewells and also desilting the lake. Areas around the lake, such as adjacent Garden of Silence, are not only an area of repose, but also reduce siltation and create awareness about lakes and wetlands.

Rock Garden Sculpture, Chandigarh

Ban on Watering Lawns & Washing Cars

Just as the summer is starting, the Chandigarh administration has prohibited the watering of lawns, washing of cars and driveways in the morning hours. Even though it is hard to monitor what goes on in the precincts of a walled ‘kothi,’ Chandigarhites believe in their city’s values, recognize its strict enforcement and, overall, consider it a good idea to obey the administration’s directives. Those few who chose to violate are cited promptly — 150 citations were issued within two days of the ban imposition.

Heavy Water Leakage

Chandigarh has the dubious distinction of very high water leakage resulting in wastage of 24% of the supply, compared to the acceptable 15% in developed countries. The main culprits are missing tap nozzles in the village community supply points. Even bringing down the leakage to 15% will reduce the supply shortfall by 10 MGd.

Recycled Water for Irrigation

Plans are afoot to build tanks to store tertiary treated water for irrigation. This can potentially make another 12 MGd of potable water available during the peak summer months. Similar ideas for building separate water connections for treated-sewage water for irrigating lawns and washing cars are also being explored as well.

An Obama-appointed federal judge, Katherine Forrest, has just ruled that the administration’s indefinite detention provisions are indeed unconstitutional, and likely violate both the 1st and 5th Amendments. The landmark ruling came as part of a lawsuit brought by seven different plaintiffs — including Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Birgitta Jónsdóttir — who are all claiming that the NDAA violates:

”…both their free speech and associational rights guaranteed by the First Amendment as well as due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”

The federal court found that the NDAA violates our Fifth Amendment right to due process rights because the statute is so incredibly vague that it is nearly impossible to know what specific behavior could potentially subject one to indefinite secret military detention.

In Salon this week Glenn Greenwald wrote about this important judicial ruling, explaining why it appears likely that the plaintiffs’ lawsuit challenging Obama’s extreme overreach will prevail:

“The court found that the plaintiffs have ‘shown an actual fear that their expressive and associational activities’ could subject them to indefinite detention under the law, and ‘each of them has put forward uncontroverted evidence of concrete — non-hypothetical — ways in which the presence of the legislation has already impacted those expressive and associational activities’ (as but one example, Hedges presented evidence that his ‘prior journalistic activities relating to certain organizations such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban’ proves ‘he has a realistic fear that those activities will subject him to detention under § 1021′).

Thus, concluded the court, these plaintiffs have the right to challenge the constitutionality of the statute notwithstanding the fact that they have not yet been detained under it; that’s because its broad, menacing detention powers are already harming them and the exercise of their constitutional rights.”

Abu Ghraib images by Fernando Botero

At Amsterdam’s busy Repair Café crowds of different people come to the community center with various items that are not working properly  — the broken objects will be repaired for free by volunteers who love to fix things, as well as teach others how to make simple repairs. The social environment the cafe creates not only enables individuals to divert waste, share their knowledge, develop skills and save resources, but also helps to strengthen local communities and foster meaningful connections among neighbors and strangers.

The DIY model was devised as a method to reduce landfill waste (although the Netherlands puts less than 3% of its municipal waste into landfills, there’s always room for improvement), and the Repair Café concept has become hugely successful since its initial inception in Holland nearly three years ago.

In order to support this sustainable venture, the Repair Café Foundation was founded to help raise $525,000 through a grant from the Dutch government and from small individual donations. Martine Postma is a former journalist and parent who helped start the Repair Café. In a recent NY Times article she offered her insight into what inspired this popular project:

“In Europe, we throw out so many things. It’s a shame, because the things we throw away are usually not that broken. There are more and more people in the world, and we can’t keep handling things the way we do.

 Sustainability discussions are often about ideals, about what could be. After a certain number of workshops on how to grow your own mushrooms, people get tired. This is very hands on, very concrete. It’s about doing something together, in the here and now.”

This simple concept has grown so popular that the Repair Café Foundation is now assisting different groups with specific information and models explaining how to help get their own local community fix-it centers started. The foundation has already gotten inquiries from France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, South Africa and Australia.

all images are via the Repair Café

Ecolocalizer belongs to a blog cooperative called Important Media, which is a community of websites devoted to news that matters. This includes everything from tips on using your crafty skills to make what you need instead of buying it new, to sustainable transportation issues, organic gardening, local activism and clean technology. We are dedicated to bringing you news and ideas on all of those issues and more.

Each week Important Media highlights a list of featured articles from across our diverse network, including interesting posts from Eat Drink Better, Green Building Elements, Crafting a Green World, Gas2, CleanTechnica and Planetsave. Please take a moment to read some of this week’s highlighted articles, and you might learn something new:

If We Label EV’s as Tax Loopholes, will Conservatives Buy Them? – Gas2

Guaranteed Basic Income Growing in Popularity – Ecolocalizer

New Guide for Appraisers Factors Energy Efficiency into Property Valuations – Green Building Elements

Climate Change will Trigger Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions – Planetsave

3 Charts Showing that Solar Power has Hit a Tipping Point – CleanTechnica

GMO Legislation Update: Monsanto Trumps Democracy in Vermont, Connecticut – Eat Drink Better

Four Eco-Friendly Colored Jeans to Wear this Summer – Feelgood Style

How to: Make Natural Fabric Dye from Turmeric – Crafting a Green World

New research from the Guttmacher Institute has found that the better educated youth are about contraceptive options and proper usage, the less likely they are to engage in risky sexual behavior. The study also found that 60% of young adults are largely ignorant about how most contraception and birth control works.

Think Progress recently offered this explanation concerning what this compelling new education research, “Young Adults’ Contraceptive Knowledge, Norms & Attitudes: Associations with Risk of Unintended Pregnancy“, has discovered about our nation’s woefully ignorant sexually active youth:

“Programs to increase young adults’ knowledge about contraceptive methods and use are urgently needed. Given the demonstrated link between method knowledge and contraceptive behaviors, such programs may be useful in addressing risky behavior in this population.

Pervasive misinformation about contraceptives — often leading to higher rates of unintended pregnancies — is one of the serious consequences of abstinence-only education programs. Sex education programs that lack comprehensive sexuality information prevent young adults from fully educating themselves about their reproductive health, their contraceptive options, and the best sexual practices to avoid potentially risky behavior.

The Guttmacher study highlights this very educational gap. Although a majority of respondents (69% of the women and almost half of the men) agreed that they were ‘committed to avoiding pregnancy’, they seem to doubt that birth control is an effective means to achieve this goal. 40% of respondents said that birth control doesn’t matter because ‘when it is your time to get pregnant, it will happen’.”

Tennessee Bans Hand-Holding & Kissing

In a related story, last month state legislators in Tennessee approved an even more restrictive change to the state’s abstinence only sex-education laws. The new restrictions would ban teachers from talking about hand-holding, kissing, or anything which they categorize as “gateway sexual activity”.

In Memphis WNC-TV reported on this story, highlighting that in their abstinence only sex education state, 61% of the region’s high school students have had sex, a rate much higher than the national average:

“In a new family life instructions bill, holding hands and kissing could be considered gateways to sex. Planned Parenthood said that allowing state government to define local sex education curriculum could backfire.

 According to a 2009 Youth Risk Behavior Study, 61% of Memphis City high school students and 27% of middle school students have had sex. That’s higher than the national average.

Planned Parenthood said these numbers are why a new sex education bill promoting abstinence is not realistic…Tennessee House Bill 3621 and Senate Bill 3310 are currently up for debate.”

Sybrina Fulton is the mom of murdered Florida youth Trayvon Martin. In honor of Mother’s Day, the grieving parent has just issued this powerful gun violence PSA to help stop the epidemic of  senseless killing in our country, especially the slaughter of our innocent children.

“This will be my first Mother’s Day without my son Trayvon. I know it will be hard, but my faith, family and friends will pull me through. On Sunday, I’m going to say a prayer for other mothers across America who share this unbearable pain. Just like me, 30,000 mothers lost their children this year to senseless gun violence. 

Nobody can bring our children back, but it would bring us comfort if we can help spare other mothers the pain that we will feel on Mother’s Day and every day, for the rest of our lives. I’m asking you to join Florida by calling up the governor of your state to re-examine similar Stand Your Ground laws throughout the nation to keep our families safe. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Happy Mother’s Day.”

Many lawmakers are now trying to repeal misguided shoot first laws across the country, as well as renewing their efforts to enact more sensible gun control legislation in the United States. For more information or to show your support for these much needed reforms, please visit: secondchanceonshootfirst.org.

We are submitting to the mug shots of an activist photographer. We are confessing to crimes against big banks IN ADVANCE, so there is a pre-criminal condition that we all share.

The disappearers come at us from two directions. Jail and big banks.  So we try to shed double light. First, we feel the humiliation of the mug-shot, feeling the gaze of the security state, en route to the retinal shot and the strip search, the scramble to be represented legally, to be heard, to be free again — but then free to do what?  Free to cause acute and articulate embarrassment, to destroy utterly the FAKE PRESTIGE OF BIG BANKS. Will someone give me an Amen?

JP Morgan Chase is the Devil, Citi and B of A complete the trinity of Evil. Tops in climate-killing investments – billions of profits for creating C02 emissions — at the same time that they give the New York Police Department direct payments to keep the non-consumers (especially non-consumers of color) lost in the prison system. The Stop Shopping Church singers spend time in the Tombs, like most Occupy workers, behind bars with the folks who are there for a much longer time, in many cases with no idea why they are there and unsure about basic legal questions.

A person can be late for something and take a short cut through the park and get caught in a sweep, god knows. The guns that stopped them were paid for by Chase, and their homes were foreclosed by Chase, and the air that we all breathe is poisoned by Chase. Here’s an idea: When we get out of here let’s take some radical songs into the posh hushed lobby of JP Morgan Chase!

Come violate the front porches of the Vampire Squids with a counter-drama from the Stop Shopping Choir. Over the summer months follow our campaign. We’ll take the theatrical stage of the bank lobbies of JP Morgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America. The art section is full of emoting actors on stages, but does Broadway have any electrical charge left?  Chase, Citibank and B of A – their lobbies are the stages of the Lake of Hellfire. Wow! That’s a show! To shout:

“You put billions into C02 emitting industries!” in a bank lobby — oh the echo comes back as the Devil’s bad gas. Come with us behind the lines. Nothing — nothing is scarier than a big bank lobby. Revolujah!

by Rev. Billy

Chandigarh Green Panorama from Palace of Assembly

Chandigarh, a city in northern India is called The City Beautiful, but I could as well call it The City Green.

The city is nestled in the foothills of the evergreen Shivalik hills, and ever since its foundation in 1952, the streets of this well-planned city have been tree-lined. This tree cover and the forested area carpet more than 35% of Chandigarh’s land area. No wonder it was awarded India’s last Indira Priyadarshini Vriksha Mitra Award, the friend of the tree prize.

The city is full of parks and themed gardens; and since I was visiting Chandigarh for the first time, my hostess informed me that these gardens are the main tourist attractions of Chandigarh. Leisure Valley, Bougainvillea Park, Hibiscus Garden, Garden of Fragrance, Botanical Garden, Smriti Upavan, Topiary garden and Terraced Garden, to name just a few. And the most unusual Sculpture Garden, called Nek Chand’s Rock Garden, is made completely out of home and industrial scrap and recycled items.

Bangle Ladies in the Rock Garden

Even the traffic circles, which are a prominent part of this well laid-out city design, are not only green but also very colorful with hordes of flowers. Private corporations maintain these and are allowed to put-up small boards with their names in return. Though it is good promotion, the signs are not a big ugly eyesore.

Chandigarh Traffic Circle (Roundabout)

The municipality is well planned, so are its daily operations and running. Laws are implemented very strictly — for example, the seat belt law, or the hard to detect and enforce cell-phone use while driving law. I did not see drivers talking on cell-phones while driving — something I have not seen so well eliminated even in Western cities. I think partly this is made possible by Chandigarh’s not being a densely crowded place.

Or is it an underlying attitude that makes such a difference? Are the inherent values of the denizens of Chandigarh such as to place greater stress on a greener environment? Two sayings that I had read to me, as I can’t read the Gurmukhi script, led me to believe so. The first was “Ik rukh, saw sukh” or “One Tree, a Hundred Comforts”.

The other that really touched my heart was: “zindagi vich do hi chhawan, ik ruhk te duji maawan” or “there are only two shades in life: one of a tree and the other of a mother”. Maybe it is the shared underlying value of  the city designed to a human scale and as  prescribed by Le Corbusier in the Edict of Chandigarh: “ The seed of Chandigarh is well sown. It is for the citizens to see that the tree flourishes”.

With his normal scathingly witty insight, Stephen Colbert has taken on the issue of North Carolina’s Amendment One and marriage equality during a recent episode airing May 9, 2012. In this political cycle, is ironic comedy the only way a poignant message can be delivered?  Watch the video and find out.