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Culture jamming

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Anti-consumerism

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Anarchism

History Outline

Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication)^[1]^[2] is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements^[3] to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It attempts to "expose the methods of domination" of mass society.^[4]

Culture jamming employs techniques originally associated with Letterist International, and later Situationist International known as détournement. It uses the language and rhetoric of mainstream culture to subversively critique the social institutions that produce that culture. Tactics include editing company logos to critique the respective companies, products, or concepts they represent, or wearing fashion statements that criticize the current fashion trends by deliberately clashing with them.^[5] Culture jamming often entails using mass media to produce ironic or satirical commentary about itself, commonly using the original medium's communication method. Culture jamming is also a form of subvertising.^[6]^[7]

Culture jamming is intended to expose questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture, and can be considered a reaction against politically imposed social conformity. Prominent examples of culture jamming include the adulteration of billboard advertising by the Billboard Liberation Front and contemporary artists such as Ron English. Culture jamming may involve street parties and protests. While culture jamming usually focuses on subverting or critiquing political and advertising messages, some proponents focus on a different form which brings together artists, designers, scholars, and activists^[8] to create works that transcend the status quo rather than merely criticize it.^[9]^[10]

Origins of the term, etymology, and history

The term was coined by Mark 3000 of The Upstairs Burned and Mark 3000 in The Fascist States in a Flint Michigan fanzine called Death and Gravey in 1981. Subsequently, it was mistakingly attributed to being created in 1984 by Don Joyce^[11] of American sound collage band Negativland, with the release of their album JamCon '84.^[12]^[13]^[14] The phrase "culture jamming" comes from the idea of radio jamming,^[13] where public frequencies can be pirated and subverted for independent communication, or to disrupt dominant frequencies used by governments. In one of the tracks of the album, they stated:^[13]

As awareness of how the media environment we occupy affects and directs our inner life grows, some resist. The skillfully reworked billboard... directs the public viewer to a consideration of the original corporate strategy. The studio for the cultural jammer is the world at large.

According to Vince Carducci, although the term was coined by Negativland, culture jamming can be traced as far back as the 1950s.^[15] One particularly influential group that was active in Europe was the Situationist International and was led by Guy Debord. The SI asserted that in the past, humans dealt with life and the consumer market directly. They argued that this spontaneous way of life was slowly deteriorating as a direct result of the new "modern" way of life. Situationists saw everything from television to radio as a threat^[16] and argued that life in industrialized areas, driven by capitalist forces, had become monotonous, sterile, gloomy, linear, and productivity-driven. In particular, the SI argued humans had become passive recipients of the spectacle, a simulated reality that generates the desire to consume, and positions humans as obedient consumerist cogs within the efficient and exploitative productivity loop of capitalism.^[10]^[17] Through playful activity, individuals could create situations, the opposite of spectacles. For the SI, these situations took the form of the dérive, or the active drift of the body through space in ways that broke routine and overcame boundaries, creating situations by exiting habit and entering new interactive possibilities.^[10]

The cultural critic Mark Dery traces the origins of culture jamming to medieval carnival, which Mikhail Bakhtin interpreted, in Rabelais and his World, as an officially sanctioned subversion of the social hierarchy.^{[citation needed]} Modern precursors might include: the media-savvy agit-prop of the anti-Nazi photomonteur John Heartfield, the sociopolitical street theater and staged media events of 1960s radicals such as Abbie Hoffman, Joey Skaggs, the German concept of Spaßguerilla, and in the Situationist International (SI) of the 1950s and 1960s.^{[citation needed]} The SI first compared its own activities to radio jamming in 1968, when it proposed the use of guerrilla communication within mass media to sow confusion within the dominant culture.^{[citation needed]} In 1985, the Guerrilla Girls formed to expose discrimination and corruption in the art world.^[18]

Mark Dery's New York Times article on culture jamming, "The Merry Pranksters And the Art of the Hoax"^[13] was the first mention, in the mainstream media, of the phenomenon; Dery later expanded on this article in his 1993 Open Magazine pamphlet, Culture Jamming: Hacking, Slashing, and Sniping in the Empire of the Signs,^[19] a seminal essay that remains the most exhaustive historical, sociopolitical, and philosophical theorization of culture jamming to date. Adbusters, a Canadian publication espousing an environmentalist critique of consumerism and advertising, began promoting aspects of culture jamming after Dery introduced founder and editor Kalle Lasn to the term through a series of articles he wrote for the magazine. In her critique of consumerism, No Logo, the Canadian cultural commentator and political activist Naomi Klein examines culture jamming in a chapter that focuses on the work of Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada. Through an analysis of the Where the Hell is Matt viral videos, researchers Milstein and Pulos analyze how the power of the culture jam to disrupt the status quo is currently being threatened by increasing commercial incorporation.^[10] For example, T-Mobile utilized the Liverpool street underground station to host a flashmob to sell their mobile services.

Tactics

Culture jamming is a form of disruption that plays on the emotions of viewers and bystanders. Jammers want to disrupt the unconscious thought process that takes place when most consumers view a popular advertising and bring about a détournement.^[16] Activists that utilize this tactic are counting on their meme to pull on the emotional strings of people and evoke some type of reaction. The reactions that most cultural jammers are hoping to evoke are behavioral change and political action. There are four emotions that activists often want viewers to feel. These emotions – shock, shame, fear, and anger – are believed to be the catalysts for social change.^[20] Culture jamming also intersects with forms of legal transgression. Semiotic disobedience, for example, involves both authorial and proprietary disobedience,^[21] while techniques such as coercive disobedience comprise acts of culture jamming combined with a demonstration of the retaliatory actions (legal consequences) handed down by the ruling apparatus.^[22]

The basic unit in which a message is transmitted in culture jamming is the meme. Memes are condensed images that stimulate visual, verbal, musical, or behavioral associations that people can easily imitate and transmit to others. The term meme was coined and first popularized by geneticist Richard Dawkins, but later used by cultural critics such as Douglas Rushkoff, who claimed memes were a type of media virus.^[23] Memes are seen as genes that can jump from outlet to outlet and replicate themselves or mutate upon transmission, just like a virus.^[24]

Culture jammers will often use common symbols such as the McDonald's golden arches or Nike swoosh to engage people and force them to think about their eating habits or fashion sense.^[25] In one example, jammer Jonah Peretti used the Nike symbol to stir debate on sweatshop child labor and consumer freedom. Peretti made public exchanges between himself and Nike over a disagreement. Peretti had requested custom Nikes with the word "sweatshop" placed in the Nike symbol. Nike refused. Once this story was made public, it spread worldwide and contributed to the already robust conversation^[26] about Nike's use of sweatshops,^[25] which had been ongoing for a decade prior to Peretti's 2001 stunt.

Jammers can also organize and participate in mass campaigns. Examples of cultural jamming like Perretti's are more along the lines of tactics that radical consumer social movements would use. These movements push people to question the taken-for-granted assumption that consuming is natural and good and aim to disrupt the naturalization of consumer culture; they also seek to create systems of production and consumption that are more humane and less dominated by global corporate late capitalism.

Past mass events and ideas have included Buy Nothing Day, virtual sit-ins and protests over the Internet, producing ‘subvertisements' and placing them in public spaces, and creating and enacting ‘place jamming' projects where public spaces are reclaimed and nature is re-introduced into urban places.

The most effective form of jamming is to use an already widely recognizable meme to transmit the message. Once viewers are forced to take a second look at the mimicked popular meme they are forced out of their comfort zone. Viewers are presented with another way to view the meme and are forced to think about the implications presented by the jammer. More often than not, when this is used as a tactic the jammer is going for shock value. For example, to make consumers aware of the negative body image that big-name fashion brands are frequently accused of causing, a subvertisement of Calvin Klein's 'Obsession' was created and played worldwide. It depicted a young woman with an eating disorder throwing up into a toilet.

Another way that social consumer movements hope to utilize culture jamming effectively is by employing a metameme. A metameme is a two-level message that punctures a specific commercial image but does so in a way that challenges some larger aspect of the political culture of corporate domination. An example would be the "true cost" campaign set in motion by Adbusters. "True cost" forced consumers to compare the human labor cost and conditions and environmental drawbacks of products to the sales costs. Another example would be the "Truth" campaigns that exposed the deception tobacco companies used to sell their products.

Following critical scholars like Paulo Freire, Culture jams are also being integrated into the university classroom "setting in which students and teachers gain the opportunity not only to learn methods of informed public critique but also to collaboratively use participatory communication techniques to actively create new locations of meaning." For example, students disrupt public space to bring attention to community concerns or utilize subvertisements to engage with media literacy projects.

Examples

Groups

Criticism

Some scholars and activists, such as Amory Starr and Joseph D. Rumbo, have argued that culture jamming is futile because it is easily co-opted and commodified by the market, which tends to "defuse" its potential for consumer resistance. A newer understanding of the term has been called for that would encourage artists, scholars and activists to come together and create innovative, flexible, and practical mobile art pieces that communicate intellectual and political concepts and new strategies and actions.

Racial profiling

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Racial profiling or ethnic profiling is the act of suspecting, targeting or discriminating against a person on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality, rather than on individual suspicion or available evidence.

^] Racial profiling involves discrimination against minority populations and often builds on negative stereotypes of the targeted demographic. Racial profiling can involve disproportionate stop searches, traffic stops, and the use of surveillance technology for facial identification.

Racial profiling can occur de jure, when the state has policies in place that target specific racial groups, or de facto, when the practice may occur outside official legislation.

Critics argue that racial profiling is discriminatory, as it disproportionately targets people of color. Supporters argue that it can be an effective tool for preventing crime but acknowledge that the practice should be closely monitored and must be used in a way that respects civil rights.

Academic debate

The subject of racial profiling has sparked debate between philosophers who disagree on its moral status. Some believe that racial profiling is morally permissible under certain circumstances, whereas others argue it is never morally permissible.

Justifications

Those who argue in favor of racial profiling usually set some conditions for the practice to be justified. The profiling should be fair, evidence-based and non-abusive. Proponents of racial profiling generally argue that, if these conditions are met, it can be an efficient tool for crime prevention because it allows law enforcement to focus their efforts on groups that are statistically more likely to commit crimes.

The most influential defense of racial profiling comes from Mathias Risse and Richard Zeckhauser. Risse and Zeckhauser provide a consequentialist analysis of racial profiling, weighing the benefits and costs against each other. They conclude that racial profiling is morally permissible because the harms done to the search subjects are fewer than the potential benefits for society in terms of security. Moreover, the (innocent) subjects themselves also benefit because they will live a safer environment overall.

Risse and Zeckhauser conclude that the objections to racial profiling are not rooted in the practice per se but in background injustice in our societies. Instead of banning racial profiling, they argue, efforts should be made to remedy racial injustice in our societies.

Consequences

Opponents of racial profiling have claimed that those who support racial profiling grossly underestimate the harms done by racial profiling and fail to recognize how the practice can exacerbate racism.

Adam Omar Hosein argues that racial profiling may be permissible under certain circumstances, but the present circumstances (in the United States) make it unjust. The costs of racial profiling for black communities in the U.S. are much higher than Risse and Zeckhauer account for. Racial profiling can make targeted individuals assume they have an inferior political status, which can lead to an alienation from the state. This can make racial profiling turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy when an individual is more likely to commit a crime because they are perceived as a criminal.

Hosein also points to an epistemic problem. Arguments in favor of racial profiling are based on the premise that there is a correlation between belonging to a specific racial group and committing certain crimes. However, should such a correlation exist, it is based on data that is skewed by previous racial profiling. Because more subjects of a certain racial group were targeted, more crime was registered in this group. It is therefore epistemically unjustified to assume that this group commits more crime.

Canada

Accusations of racial profiling of visible minorities who accuse police of targeting them due to their ethnic background is a growing concern in Canada. In 2005, the Kingston Police released the first study ever in Canada which pertains to racial profiling. The study focused on the city of Kingston, Ontario, a small city where most of the inhabitants are white. The study showed that black-skinned people were 3.7 times more likely to be pulled over by police than white-skinned people, while Asian and White people are less likely to be pulled over than Black people. Several police organizations condemned this study and suggested more studies like this would make them hesitant to pull over visible minorities.

Canadian Aboriginals are more likely to be charged with crimes, particularly on reserves. The Canadian crime victimization survey does not collect data on the ethnic origin of perpetrators, so comparisons between incidence of victimizations and incidence of charging are impossible. Although aboriginal persons make up 3.6% of Canada's population, they account for 20% of Canada's prison population. This may show how racial profiling increases effectiveness of police, or be a result of racial profiling, as they are watched more intensely than others.

In February 2010, an investigation of the Toronto Star daily newspaper found that black people across Toronto were three times more likely to be stopped and documented by police than white people. To a lesser extent, the same seemed true for people described by police as having "brown" skin (South Asians, Arabs and Latinos). This was the result of an analysis of 1.7 million contact cards filled out by Toronto Police officers in the period 2003–2008.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission states that "police services have acknowledged that racial profiling does occur and have taken [and are taking] measures to address [the issue], including upgrading training for officers, identifying officers at risk of engaging in racial profiling, and improving community relations". Ottawa Police addressed this issue and planned on implementing a new policy regarding officer racially profiling persons, "the policy explicitly forbids officers from investigating or detaining anyone based on their race and will force officers to go through training on racial profiling". This policy was implemented after the 2008 incident where an African Canadian woman was strip searched by members of the Ottawa police. There is a video showing the strip search where one witnesses the black woman being held to the ground and then having her bra and shirt cut ripped/cut off by a member of the Ottawa Police Force which was released to the viewing of the public in 2010.

China

The Chinese government has been using a facial recognition surveillance technology, analysing physiognomical output of surveillance cameras to track and control Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in China's Western province of Xinjiang. The extent of the vast system was published in the spring of 2019 by the NYT who called it "automated racism". In research projects aided by European institutions it has combined the facial output with people's DNA, to create an ethnic profile. The DNA was collected at the prison camps, which are interning more than one million Uyghurs, as had been corroborated in November 2019 by data leaks, such as the China Cables.

Germany

In February 2012, the first court ruling concerning racial profiling in German police policy, allowing police to use skin color and "non-German ethnic origin" to select persons who will be asked for identification in spot-checks for illegal immigrants. Subsequently, it was decided legal for a person submitted to a spot-check to compare the policy to that of the SS in public. A higher court later overruled the earlier decision declaring the racial profiling unlawful and in violation of anti-discrimination provisions in Art. 3 Basic Law and the General Equal Treatment Act of 2006.

The civil rights organisation Büro zur Umsetzung von Gleichbehandlung (Office for the Implementation of Equal Treatment) makes a distinction between criminal profiling, which is legitimate in Germany, and ethnic profiling, which is not.

According to a 2016 report by the Interior ministry in Germany, there had been an increase in hate crimes and violence against migrant groups in Germany. The reports concluded that there were more than 10 attacks per day against migrants in Germany in 2016. This report from Germany garnered the attention of the United Nations, which alleged that people of African descent face widespread discrimination in Germany.

A 2017 statement by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Rights after a visit to Germany states: "While the Basic Law guarantees equality, prohibits racial discrimination, and states that human dignity is inviolable, it is not being enforced." and calls racial profiling by police officials endemic. Recommendations include legal reform, establishing an independent complaint system, training and continuing education for the police, and investigations to promote accountability and remedy.

Ethiopia

Ethnic profiling against Tigrayans occurred during the Tigray War that started in November 2020, with Ethiopians of Tigrayan ethnicity being put on indefinite leave from Ethiopian Airlines or refused permission to board, prevented from overseas travel, and an "order of identifying ethnic Tigrayans from all government agencies and NGOs" being used by federal police to request a list of ethnic Tigrayans from an office of the World Food Programme. Tigrayans' houses were arbitrarily searched and Tigrayan bank accounts were suspended. Ethnic Tigrayan members of Ethiopian components of United Nations peacekeeping missions were disarmed and some forcibly flown back to Ethiopia, at the risk of torture or execution, according to United Nations officials.

Israel

In 1972, terrorists from the Japanese Red Army launched an attack that led to the deaths of at least 24 people at Ben Gurion Airport. Since then, security at the airport has relied on a number of fundamentals, including a heavy focus on what Raphael Ron, former director of security at Ben Gurion, terms the "human factor", which he generalized as "the inescapable fact that terrorist attacks are carried out by people who can be found and stopped by an effective security methodology." As part of its focus on this so-called "human factor", Israeli security officers interrogate travelers using racial profiling, singling out those who appear to be Arab based on name or physical appearance. Additionally, all passengers, including those who do not appear to be of Arab descent, are questioned as to why they are traveling to Israel, followed by several general questions about the trip in order to search for inconsistencies. Although numerous civil rights groups have demanded an end to the profiling, the Israeli government maintains that it is both effective and unavoidable. According to Ariel Merari, an Israeli terrorism expert, "it would be foolish not to use profiling when everyone knows that most terrorists come from certain ethnic groups. They are likely to be Muslim and young, and the potential threat justifies inconveniencing a certain ethnic group."

Mexico

The General Law on Population (Reglamento de la Ley General de Poblacion) of 2000 in Mexico has been cited as being used to racially profile and abuse immigrants to Mexico. Mexican law makes illegal immigration punishable by law and allows law officials great discretion in identifying and questioning illegal immigrants. Mexico has been criticized for its immigration policy. Chris Hawley of USA Today stated that "Mexico has a law that is no different from Arizona's", referring to legislation which gives local police forces the power to check documents of people suspected of being in the country illegally. Immigration and human rights activists have also noted that Mexican authorities frequently engage in racial profiling, harassment, and shakedowns against migrants from Central America.

Sri Lanka

Ethnic Sri Lankan Tamils traveling from the Northern Province and Eastern Province in Sri Lanka have to compulsory register with the Police and mandatory carry a police certificate as per the Prevention of Terrorism Act and emergency regulations if found not living in the house in the certificate they could be arrested. In 2007 Tamils were expelled from Colombo. The move to expel these people drew wide criticism of the government. The United States Embassy in Sri Lanka condemned the act, asking the government of Sri Lanka to ensure the constitutional rights of all the citizens of the country. Norway also condemned the act, describing it as a clear violation of international human rights law. Their press release urged government of Sri Lanka to desist from any further enforced removals. Canada has also condemned the action. Human rights groups, Local think tank and other observers have termed this act as "ethnic cleansing".The media group said that this type of act reminds people of what "Hitler did to the Jews", and the Asian Center of Human Rights urged India to intervene.

Spain

Racial profiling by police forces in Spain is a common practice. A study by the University of Valencia, found that people of non-white aspect are up to ten times more likely to be stopped by the police on the street. Amnesty International accused Spanish authorities of using racial and ethnic profiling, with police singling out people who are not white in the street and public places.

In 2011, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) urged the Spanish government to take "effective measures" to ethnic profiling, including the modification of existing laws and regulations which permit its practice. In 2013, the UN Special Rapporteur, Mutuma Ruteere, described the practice of ethnic profiling by Spanish law enforcement officers "a persisting and pervasive problem". In 2014, the Spanish government approved a law which prohibited racial profiling by police forces.

United Kingdom

Racial issues have been prevalent in the UK for a long time. For example, following the Windrush influx of immigrants from the Caribbean and West Indies following the Second World War, racial tensions began to flare up in the country - see the Notting Hill Race Riot. The most recent statistics from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford in 2019 show that people born outside of the UK made up 14% of the UK's population or 9.5 million people. Black Britons make up 3% of the population and Indian Britons occupy 2.3% of the population with the remainder being largely EU or North American migrants.

An increase in knife crime in the capital in recent decades has led to an increase in police stop and search powers. However, there are concerns that these powers lead to discrimination and racial profiling with statistics showing that there were 54 stop and searches for every 1000 black people compared to just 6 for every 1000 white people. Following social dissatisfaction and claims of institutional racism, the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities published The report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities in 2021, finding overall that there was no institutional racism in the UK. The report and its findings were criticised by many including the United Nations working group who argued that the report 'attempts to normalise white supremacy' and could 'fuel racism'.

United States

In the United States, racial profiling is mainly used when referring to the disproportionate searching of African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, Native Americans, and Pacific Islander Americans along with other visible minorities. According to an American College of Physicians study, 92% of Blacks, 78% of Latinxs, 75% of Native Americans, and 61% of Asian Americans have "reported experiencing racial discrimination in the form of racial slurs, violence, threats, and harassment." Racial profiling has roots in slavery and has grown with the rise of urbanization, conflated with gentrification. The US harbors a sense of fear and danger in people of color through the uncontested use of racial profiling in day-to-day interactions - from personal implicit biases, overt and covert racist laws and practices, and discriminatory law enforcement agencies. Sociologist Robert Staples said that racial profiling in the U.S. is "not merely a collection of individual offenses", but rather a systemic phenomenon across American society, dating back to the era of slavery. "At the root of the emergence of the modern Anglo-American police was the problem of changing social relations and conditions arising from industrialization and urbanization," says sociologist Dr. Tia Dafnos. This is exemplified in the large wage and generational wealth gaps and workplace and housing discrimination that exists between the White and non-White populations. Racial profiling in policing institutions is not new, either. The modern American police force has taken inspiration and structure from slave patrols and as a result we observe that people in minority populations report high rates of unfair treatment by courts, unreasonable arrests and frisking, and hesitancy to call the police in times of need out of fear of discrimination. The US Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure, was extended after a run of controversial court cases in the 1960s in which people of color were facing higher rates of frisking and intimidation. This extension says that police must obey the law while enforcing it. Although the Supreme Court has claimed continued adherence to objectivity in the face of Fourth Amendment cases, American police employ racial profiling with harmful consequences. Recent incidents of racial profiling, often in mundane situations like traffic stops, have resulted in unnecessary violence and deaths. Data suggest that "African American and American Indian/Alaska Native women and men are killed by the police at higher rates" than their White counterparts, and Latinx men are killed at higher rates than White men. African American men are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police than White men. Unlawful and wrongful death in the cases of George Floyd and Sonya Massey have been attributed to extreme racial profiling and met with social media outburst and growing attention towards the Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name movements. The Terry vs. Ohio court case of 1968 allows police officers to stop an individual or vehicle without probable cause if they think and individual is committing a crime or about to commit a crime (needs reasonable articulable suspicion), has also led to countless incidents of racial profiling in the US. Most of the time, it is hard to racially profile when you can't even see in the car, relating to the Driving while black phenomenon that draws from data that supports that people of color disproportionately experience police shootings, traffic stops, searches, and arrests.

Total liberation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Total liberation, also referred to as total liberation ecology or veganarchism, is a political philosophy and movement that combines anarchism with a commitment to animal and earth liberation. Whilst more traditional approaches to anarchism have often focused primarily on opposing the state and capitalism, total liberation is additionally concerned with opposing all additional forms of human oppression as well as the oppression of other animals and ecosystems. Proponents of total liberation typically espouse a holistic and intersectional approach aimed at using direct action to dismantle all forms of domination and hierarchy, common examples of which include the state, capitalism, patriarchy, racism, heterosexism, cissexism, disablism, ageism, speciesism, and ecological domination.

History and key concerns

Discussing "total liberation" in 1961's The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon emphasized a link between psychological and social freedom. He said: "Total liberation is that which concerns all sectors of the personality." Third World movements, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization and African National Congress, subsequently used the term to signify a rejection of compromise with colonizers.

Also in the 1960s, a new era of anarchist struggle was distinguished by its adoption of a range of concerns such as feminism, anticolonialism, queer liberation, antispeciesism, and ecology that were previously of little or no concern for most anarchists. More specifically, the involvement by anarchists in the animal and earth liberation movements was in part characterized by the rising popularity of veganism within radical circles, something that has been grounded in concerns for both animal rights and environmentalism as well as the formation of direct action groups such as the Hunt Saboteurs Association, Earth First!, the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front.

Moreover, a commitment to total liberation, beyond its emergence from the historical development of the anarchist movement, is also typically grounded in a concern for contemporary schools of political thought such as intersectionality, antispeciesism, ecofeminism, deep ecology and social ecology.^[9] As David Pellow summarises:

The concept of total liberation stems from a determination to understand and combat all forms of inequality and oppression. I propose that it comprises four pillars: (1) an ethic of justice and anti-oppression inclusive of humans, nonhuman animals, and ecosystems; (2) anarchism; (3) anti-capitalism; and (4) an embrace of direct action tactics.

The concept of total liberation began to be used by anarchists during the 1990s in an explicit attempt to clarify important connections between all forms of oppression and to situate the often isolated political movements against them within a single overall struggle. The editors of No Compromise signed their summer 1998 editorial, "For total liberation!"

In February 1999, animal rights activists organized a Total Liberation Conference in Boca Raton, Florida, featuring speakers from the American Indian Movement and MOVE. Earth First! journal announced: "To make change, we must band together. Join MOVE, the Anarchist Black Cross Federation, American Indian Movement, Animal Liberation Front Supporters, Food Not Bombs and others at this important conference."

On January 10–11, 2004, anarchists in Erie, Pennsylvania held a Total Liberation Fest featuring hardcore punk sets and speakers including Ashanti Alston, Russell Means, Rod Coronado, and Ramona Africa. A few of the attendees formed a band called Gather and wore "Total Liberation" shirts modeled on well-known "Animal Liberation" shirts worn by the band Earth Crisis. Gather member Eva "Genie" Hall has explained what total liberation meant to the band: "We simply wanted to be clear that we weren't a single-issue band and that we believed in animal, earth, and human liberation. For us, that meant anarcha-feminism and the end of patriarchy; it meant acknowledging that a "vegan revolution" doesn't challenge the problems with modern totalitarian agriculture; it meant that we were aware that consumerist choices about our diets wouldn't lead to a magical downfall of oppressive capitalist systems; and it meant acknowledging the horrible costs of imperialism/globalization and industrial civilization. 'Total liberation' was our way of talking about 'intersectionality,' I suppose."

In 2013, Warzone Distro, a "zine creating and distributing project focused on anarchy, insurrection and anti-civilization" was created with Total Liberation as its core inspiration. Warzone Distro provides free zine PDF's on veganism, straight edge and insurrectionary anarchy, while also including vegan individualist and nihilist perspectives as well.

In his 2014 book The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century, American philosopher Steven Best argues for the necessity for disparate social movements to embrace the concept:

The global capitalist world system is inherently destructive to people, animals and nature. It is unsustainable and the bills for three centuries of industrialization are overdue. It cannot be humanized, civilized or made green-friendly, but rather must be transcended through revolution at all levels–social, economic, political, legal, cultural, technological, moral, and conceptual. We must replace single-issue approaches and fragmentary struggles with systemic battles and political alliances. In the most encompassing terms, these clashes address the war against humans, animals and the earth, and must combine in a politics of total liberation. We must link the liberation of humans to other animals to the planet as a whole. We need to build a revolutionary movement strong enough to vanquish capitalist hegemony and to remake society without crushing lodestones of anthropocentrism, speciesism, patriarchy, racism, classism, statism, heterosexism, ableism, and every other pernicious form of hierarchal domination.

Active Distribution published an anonymously-authored book on Total Liberation in 2019. Insisting that "animal and earth liberation are no less integral to the new revolutionary mosaic" than human liberation, the volume explored the praxis of total liberation as exemplified in MOVE, the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts, the 2008 Greek insurrection, and the Rojava Revolution.

In 2022, Green Theory & Praxis Journal published a Total Liberation Pathway which involved "an abolition of compulsory work for all beings".

Anarchism and animal rights

The anarchist philosophical and political movement has some connections to elements of the animal liberation movement. Many anarchists are vegetarian or vegan (or veganarchists) and have played a role in combating perceived injustices against animals. They usually describe the struggle for the liberation of non-human animals as a natural outgrowth of the struggle for human freedom.

Veganism and anarchism

Veganarchism is the political philosophy of veganism (more specifically animal liberation) and anarchism, creating a combined praxis as a means for social revolution.This encompasses viewing the state as unnecessary and harmful to animals, both human and non-human, whilst practicing a vegan lifestyle. Veganarchists either see the ideology as a combined theory, or perceive both philosophies to be essentially the same. It is further described as an anti-speciesist perspective on green anarchism, or an anarchist perspective on animal liberation. Vegan anarchist subcultures promote total liberationism, which seeks to unite the fragmented movements for human, animal and earth (ecosystem) liberation into a larger and stronger movement.

Corporate welfare

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_welfare

Corporate welfare is a phrase used to describe a government's bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment for corporations.

The definition of corporate welfare is sometimes restricted to direct government subsidies of major corporations, excluding tax loopholes and all manner of regulatory and trade decisions.

Origin of term

The term "corporate welfare" was reportedly coined in 1956 by Ralph Nader.

Alternative adages

"Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor"

Believed to have been first popularised by Michael Harrington's 1962 book The Other America in which Harrington cited Charles Abrams, a noted authority on housing.

Variations on this adage have been used in criticisms of the United States' economic policy by Joe Biden, Martin Luther King Jr., Gore Vidal, Joseph P. Kennedy II, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dean Baker, Noam Chomsky, Robert Reich, John Pilger, Bernie Sanders, and Yanis Varoufakis.

"Privatizing profits and socializing losses"

"Privatizing profits and socializing losses" refers to the idea that corporations want to reserve financial gains for themselves and pass along losses to the rest of society, potentially through lobbying the government for assistance. This practice was criticized in the Wall Street bailout of 2008.

By country

United States

Background

Subsidies considered excessive, unwarranted, wasteful, unfair, inefficient, or bought by lobbying are often called corporate welfare. The label of corporate welfare is often used to decry projects advertised as benefiting the general welfare that spend a disproportionate amount of funds on large corporations, and often in uncompetitive, or anti-competitive ways. For instance, in the United States, agricultural subsidies are usually portrayed as helping independent farmers stay afloat. In actuality, the majority of income gained from commodity support programs has gone to large agribusiness corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland, as they own a considerably larger percentage of production.

Alan Peters and Peter Fisher, Associate Professors at the University of Iowa, have estimated that state and local governments provide $40–50 billion annually in economic development incentives, which critics characterize as corporate welfare.

Multiple economists have considered the 2008 bank bailouts in the United States to be a form of corporate welfare. U.S. politicians have also contended that zero-interest loans from the Federal Reserve System to financial institutions during and after the financial crisis of 2007–2008 were a hidden, backdoor form of corporate welfare. The term gained increased prominence in 2018 when Senator Bernie Sanders introduced a bill, singling out Amazon and Walmart in particular, to require a company with 500 or more employees to pay the full cost of welfare benefits received by its workers.

Comprehensive analyses

Independent

Daniel D. Huff, professor emeritus of social work at Boise State University, published a comprehensive analysis of corporate welfare in 1993. Huff reasoned that a very conservative estimate of corporate welfare expenditures in the United States would have been at least US$170 billion in 1990. Huff compared this number with social welfare:

In 1990 the federal government spent 4.7 billion dollars on all forms of international aid. Pollution control programs received 4.8 billion dollars of federal assistance while both secondary and elementary education were allotted only 8.4 billion dollars. More to the point, while more than 170 billion dollars is expended on assorted varieties of corporate welfare the federal government spends 11 billion dollars on Aid for Dependent Children. The most expensive means tested welfare program, Medicaid, costs the federal government 30 billion dollars a year or about half of the amount corporations receive each year through assorted tax breaks. S.S.I., the federal program for the disabled, receives 13 billion dollars while American businesses are given 17 billion in direct federal aid.

Huff argued that deliberate obfuscation was a complicating factor.

Good Jobs First has a Subsidy Tracker database.

United Kingdom

In 2015, Kevin Farnsworth, a senior lecturer in Social Policy at the University of York published a paper in which he claimed that the government was providing corporate subsidies of £93 billion. This amount includes the role of the government in increasing trade, tax relief for businesses that invest in new plants and machinery (estimated by Farnsworth at £20 billion), not charging fuel duty on fuel used by railways or airlines, green energy subsidies, a lower corporation tax rate for small companies, regional development grants and government procurement for businesses (which Farnsworth suggests often favours British businesses even when these are not the best value option available). However, The Register wrote that Farnsworth's figure for tax relief for investment was incorrect and that he had made mistakes in his calculations, noting that he was not an accountant. It also stated that not charging businesses taxes under certain circumstances (when the reliefs applied) was not the same as giving them a subsidy. Fuel duty is not charged on airlines due to the Convention on International Civil Aviation (a UN agency) which specifies that aeroplanes should be exempt from fuel duties.

Political discussion

In 2015, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would "strip out" the £93bn of "corporate tax relief and subsidies" Farnsworth referred to and use the proceeds for public investment. Corbyn did not say which specific policies he would change. The Guardian wrote the policy "sounds wonderful, but careful scrutiny of 'corporate welfare' shows that it includes capital allowances designed to persuade companies to invest, regional aid to boost growth in rundown parts of the UK, and subsidies to keep bus and rail routes open – none of which Corbyn would presumably like to see stopped."

Canada

The New Democratic Party in Canada picked up the term as a major theme in its 1972 federal election campaign. Its leader, David Lewis, used the term in the title of his 1972 book, Louder Voices: The Corporate Welfare Bums.

The Reform Party and its successor the Canadian Alliance were known for opposing most business subsidies, but after their merger with the Progressive Conservative party, they dropped their opposition.

India

It was observed by The Wire that the effective tax rate was low for the larger corporations which meant companies making smaller profits are competing in an unequal environment against bigger companies with substantial taxation benefits, with the gap in effective tax rates widening over the years. Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi criticised this practice, saying:

"Why is it that subsidies going to the well-off are portrayed in a positive manner? Let me give you an example. The total revenue loss from incentives to corporate tax payers was over Rs 62,000 crore... I must confess I am surprised by the way words are used by experts on this matter. When a benefit is given to farmers or to the poor, experts and government officers normally call it a subsidy. However, I find that if a benefit is given to industry or commerce, it is usually an 'incentive' or a 'subvention'."

Culture of life

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_life

A culture of life describes a way of life based on the belief that human life begins at conception, and is sacred at all stages from conception through natural death. It opposes abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment (also known as the death penalty), studies and medicines involving embryonic stem cells, and contraception, because they are seen as destroying life. It also promotes policies that "lift up the human spirit with compassion and love." The term originated in moral theology, especially that of the Catholic Church, and was popularly championed by Pope John Paul II; it has been widely used by religious leaders in evangelical Christianity as well. The philosophy of such a culture is a consistent life ethic.

In the United States, secular politicians such as George W. Bush and Kanye West have also used the phrase. In 2004, the Republican Party included a plank in their platform for "Promoting a Culture of Life".

Catholic Church

Issues included in a Culture of Life
Promotion of	Opposition to
Agape love and charity	Abortion
	Unjust wars
	Capital punishment
	Murder and suicide
Motherhood, fatherhood, Matrimony, chastity, fidelity Virtue	Contraception Human sterilization
Organ donation	Euthanasia
	Human cloning
Adult stem cell research	Embryonic stem cell and fetal research

The expression "culture of life" entered popular parlance from Pope John Paul II in the 1990s. He used the term in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus annus, and then more fully expanded upon it in the 1995 encyclical Evangelium vitae ("Gospel of Life"):

In our present social context, marked by a dramatic struggle between the "culture of life" and the "culture of death", there is need to develop a deep critical sense, capable of discerning true values and authentic needs.

In the encyclical, the pope noted that even those who were not Catholic "can appreciate the intrinsic value of human life." He also issued "a pressing appeal addressed to each and every person, in the name of God: Respect, protect, love, and serve life, every human life! Only in this direction will you find justice, development, true freedom, peace and happiness!"

John Paul linked this to Catholic teaching, which believes every person is created in the image and likeness of God and is intimately loved by God.The Church, then, must build a culture of life that values each person as a person, not for what they own, do, or produce. It must also protect every human life, especially those that are threatened or weak. The doctrine had foundations in earlier church teaching such as Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae, which articulated the Church's position defending life from conception to natural death, disapproving medical procedures harming an unborn fetus, which the Church holds to be a person with an inviolable right to life. Catholic hospitals and medical institutions will not perform such procedures.

Following the promulgation of Evangelium vitae, advocates of a culture of life founded the Culture of Life Foundation in the United States to promote the concepts behind the Pope's encyclical. Pope John Paul II recognized and blessed the foundation in 1997.

United States politics

Evangelium vitae has been described as the Catholic academic Christopher Kaczor as the "magna carta for the pro-life movement." Evangelicals and others have also adopted the phrase.

Abortion

On October 3, during the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign, then-Texas Governor George W. Bush, a Methodist, cited the term during a televised debate against then Vice President Al Gore. Bush expressed concerns that Mifepristone, then newly approved as an abortifacient pill, would encourage more women to terminate their pregnancies; whereas his goal was to make such terminations rarer:

Surely this nation can come together to promote the value of life. Surely we can fight off these laws that will encourage doctors or allow doctors to take the lives of our seniors. Sure, we can work together to create a culture of life so some of these youngsters who feel like they can take a neighbor's life with a gun will understand that that's not the way America is meant to be.

Leonard Mary of The Boston Globe said that Bush had directly borrowed his language from John Paul II, viewing this as a deliberate strategic attempt to gain political support from "moderate" Catholics voters (while not coming out so strongly against abortion rights that it would alienate pro-choice voters). Some voters believed that only the Republican Party would build a culture of life in the United States, and this helped Bush win. Some Catholics, criticized Bush for apparent inconsistency between his support of a culture of life and his strong support for the death penalty, which Catholic doctrine permits where there is no other means for society to protect itself. As Governor of Texas, Bush repeatedly authorized executions of convicted murderers.

Kristen Day, the executive director of Democrats for Life of America, says that "achieving a culture of life cannot be done by simply voting Republican." Day says that "to be truly pro-life, we must support a broad spectrum of issues including worker's compensation, minimum wage, and education assistance for displaced workers", as well as addressing poverty, including a livable wage and health care. Day says that Republicans should broaden their definition of a culture of life beyond simple opposition to abortion, and that to achieve a true culture of life that members of both parties will be needed.

The 2004 Republican National Convention adopted a platform with a plank titled "Promoting a Culture of Life." The platform's anti-abortion stance included positions on abortion; access to healthcare despite disability, age, or infirmity; euthanasia; assisted suicide; and promoted research and resources to alleviate the pain of the terminally ill.

Other issues

The phrase "culture of life" was also invoked during the Terri Schiavo case of March 2005 when the phrase was used in support of legislative and legal efforts to prolong the life of a woman in an persistent vegetative state. It has also been used to promote providing inexpensive medical care for people in impoverished countries.

Following the Boston Marathon bombing, the Catholic bishops of Massachusetts opposed the death penalty for terrorist bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, citing the need to build a culture of life.^[55] In their statement, they cited a 2005 document by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, A Culture of Life and the Penalty of Death, which said "no matter how heinous the crime, if society can protect itself without ending a human life, it should do so."

A growing culture of life in the United States, one that took the protection of life more seriously, led to the rapid adoption of infant safe-haven laws in the early 2000s. Under these laws, mothers can leave their newborn children in places such as hospitals, police stations and fire stations, without being criminally charged with child abandonment.

Culture of death

Pope John Paul II also used the opposing term "culture of death" in Evangelium vitae (April 1995):

In fact, while the climate of widespread moral uncertainty can in some way be explained by the multiplicity and gravity of today's social problems, and these can sometimes mitigate the subjective responsibility of individuals, it is no less true that we are confronted by an even larger reality, which can be described as a veritable structure of sin. This reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable "culture of death". This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency.

He argued that there was "a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another." Those who are ill, handicapped, or just simply threaten the well being or lifestyle of the more powerful thus become enemies to be eliminated. John Paul said he saw this as applying both between individuals and between peoples and states.

He added his belief that every time an "innocent life" is taken (dating back to the time of Cain and Abel) that it was "a violation of the ‘spiritual’ kinship uniting mankind in one great family, in which all share the same fundamental good: equal personal dignity." Any threat to the human person, including wars, class conflict, civil unrest, ecological recklessness, and sexual irresponsibility, should therefore be regarded in his opinion as part of the "culture of death."

Without morals, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said, "it is the strong who decide the fate of the weak," and "human beings therefore become instruments of other human beings... We are already on that road: for what else is the termination of millions of lives in the womb since the Abortion Act was introduced, and embryo selection on the basis of gender and genes?"

Wider usage

Advocates of a culture of life argue that a culture of death results in political, economic, or eugenic murder. They point to historical events like the USSR's Great Purges, the Nazi Holocaust, China's Great Leap Forward and Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge as examples of devaluation of human life taken to an extreme conclusion. The term is used by those in the consistent life ethic movement to refer to supporters of embryonic stem cell research, legalized abortion, and euthanasia. Some in the anti-abortion movement, such as those from the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, have compared those in the abortion-rights movement to the perpetrators of the Nazi Holocaust. They say that their opponents share the same disregard for human life.

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Monday, August 12, 2024

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