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sThe Current

State of Global Finance

What’s Wrong with

Anarcho-Primitivism?

Thoughts on

Change

Patriotism

Nevadais a

Wasteland

Updates&

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by Sisyphus

by Travis Haan

by CJLocke

by Arcadie

by Jake (Midnight818)

It's no secret to most people that much of the global financial clique has so much in common with each other that they resemble a family tree that doesn't fork. With rare exceptions, they are elites that wander from high-power job to high-paying job, with little oversight or serious analysis of their job performance. It's an under reported fact that the appointed ministers, central bank governors and council chairs that make up the global financial 'regulatory' framework are often corrupt, ineffectual or just plain back-wards. Unfortunately the corporate media hasn't held them to account, and therefore these people continue to stay in power, despite their countless mistakes in the past few years. Here we will take a look at some of these characters, and we can wonder just how it is that people continue to trust them. Mario Draghi is currently the President-Designate of the European Central Bank, and the active President of

the central Bank of Italy. Initially he served as Director-General of the Italian Trea-sury, where he was instrumental in the de-regulation of the Italian financial markets. Mr. Draghi's oversight of Italian economic policy at the Bank of Italy came during a turbulent period of high unemployment and structurally deficient regulation. In the 2000s, he enjoyed a position at Gold-man Sachs, and he continues to sit on the boards of several influential Italian banks. The support and accolades of the Euro-pean financial class have paid off, as Mr. Draghi will soon be rewarded by leading the European Central Bank, despite his revolving-door past and sketchy record on financial deregulation. Other members of the financial upper-class aren't necessarily subject to the 'revolving door,' but have still been shockingly inept at their jobs. It's amazing to think that these people were ever put into power - and that some of them still hold their positions despite everything.

The Current State of Global Finance #1:

Dim Bulbsby Jake (Midnight818)

Larry Summers is the chair of President Obama's National Economic Council, which advises him on current affairs and policy. Mr. Summers has long been in and out of government and aca-demia, serving in a disastrous stint as Trea-sury Secretary under President Clinton, a terrible president of Harvard University and the Chief Economist at the World Bank. Due to his record, he is perhaps one of the most dangerous people influ-encing public policy today. While heading Harvard University, this 'prominent econo-mist' used university funds for financial speculation, causing the ivy league school to lose a staggering $1 billion by 2008. At the World Bank, he famously stated that "there are no... limits to the carrying capac-ity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future. There isn't a risk of an apocalypse due to global warming or anything else. The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit, is a profound error and

one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have staggering social costs." As Treasury Secretary, he embarked on a bold yet idiotic campaign of "privatiza-tion, stabilization, and liberalization," while hailing the fall of a substantial piece of financial regulation (the Glass-Steagall Act, repealed in 1999) as a "system for the 21st century." The 'system' that he lauded broke the divisions between many types of financial products and is widely credited for largely causing the most recent economic crisis. Summers was head of the NEC until the end of 2010, and is now an adviser for a venture capital firm based in California. Timothy Geithner is the current Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. In this position, he embodies the government's positions on regulation of the economy and dealing with monetary issues throughout the country. He was ap-pointed in the early days of the Obama administration in 2009, back when

"The Current State of Global Finance" seeks to inform readers of All the Left of the incompetence of our supposed "leaders" in the face of the mon-ster they've created, the powers they are using throughout the world, and what can be done to hold them to account.

In the first part of this three-part series: Three years after the initial shock waves of the global financial crisis, the ultra-rich and super-powerful still command markets on both sides of the Atlantic. They were asleep at the switch back then, and now continue to cover for the financial sector's agenda. How everyone seems to be clueless in the regulatory sector's 'class of 2011.'

by Jake (Midnight818)

banks were receiving their 'hard-earned' government bailouts. He, along with his predecessor Henry Paulson, is most responsible for the bank bailouts that have characterized these years. While the bailouts were not a total loss - as the gov-ernment has recovered most of the tax-payer funds used - it has set a disastrous precedent in allowing the government to support reckless and insolvent firms and to condone their future bad decisions. His primary activity has not been to work to reduce joblessness at home, or to try and support the weakened middle class, but instead to support the financial kingpins, keeping them in their ivory towers. He claims that it's irresponsible to suggest weakening the influence of the financial sector "because we have to think about the fact that we operate in the broader world." Geithner continues to serve as Secretary of the Treasury in the US, and has largely stayed out of the limelight, which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. Jean-Claude Trichet is the current President of the European Central Bank. Working at the ECB since the bank's creation in 2003, M. Trichet has shown dazzling ignorance for the events hap-pening under his own watch. In 2003 he praised the soon-to-be-disastrous econ-omy of Ireland, stating that the country had "developed a transparent regulatory framework" and that their "economic recovery was grounded on far-reaching home made structural reforms," which apparently failed the country spectacu-larly just a couple of years later. In 2010 he stated that he “not believe at all” that Europe was facing a double-dip recession, and claimed that "the idea that auster-ity measures could trigger stagnation is

incorrect," proved stunningly wrong by the examples of Greece, Ireland, Spain and others, just a couple years later. Somehow this guy lasted this long at his job - but have faith, because the aforementioned Mario Draghi is coming in to replace him. What could possibly go wrong? There are plenty of others I could mention. Jean-Claude Juncker, presi-dent of the Eurogroup financial ministers meetings, claimed that Europe was doing "God's work" by forcing the austerity programs on the Greeks in secret, and stated that Greek would "simply have to" privatize a state-owned holding every 10 days to meet their targets. Evangelos Veni-zelos, the newly-minted Finance Minister of Greece, claimed there was a "strong will of the Greek people for the imple-mentation of the [austerity] programme." Mr. Venizelos apparently doesn't head near Syntagma Square - or turn on the television - very often. These people, who are supposed to be the "best and brightest" leading us out of crisis, are doing nothing of the sort. Their insider connections and lack of fore-sight are continuing to cripple the world economy. And the Left, in every country and language, must continue to hold them to account. Wherever you range on the political spectrum, the nonsensical ideas and reckless actions of these people must be challenged, lest they do any more damage to our system. The next issue of All the Left will feature the next instalment in the "Current State of Global Finance" - including a look at the push to shift others' debts to your shoulders in the "Age of Austerity."

Anarcho-primitivism is a collec-tion of complementary ideologies which critique the origins and development of civilization from an anarchist perspec-tive. The anarcho-primitivists allege that humanity lived an idyllic lifestyle as hunter-gatherers prior to the develop-ment of complex societies. What caused our purported fall from grace is a source of some debate; John Zerzan argues that it was the development of symbolic expression, while Fredy Perlman says that it was the emergence of abstract power relations. However, most of them agree that since the advent of agriculture and the increased population densities that it made possible we have become bound to technological processes that alienate us from our true nature. The only way to create a healthy, sustainable way of living, they claim, is to abolish civilization in its entirety and fundamentally rework society so that these trends cannot redevelop. "Agriculture has been and re-mains a ‘catastrophe’ at all levels, the one which underpins the entire material and spiritual culture of alienation now destroy-ing us. Liberation is impossible without its dissolution.” – John Zerzan, 1 By arguing that agriculture was where our species went wrong, Zerzan implies that we should return to pre-agricultural means of obtaining food — that is, a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Yet agriculture allows us to acquire much greater quantities of food from a given area than hunter-gatherers could secure. Estimates of how many people could live on the Earth as hunter-gatherers based on the amount of food that would be available to them suggest a carrying capacity of around 100 million (Earth's Carrying Capacity). How the global population would be reduced to this figure has not been adequately explained by any anarcho-primitivist, but I’m not sure that would be possible without starva-tion and suffering on an unheard of scale. Even if an ecological disaster resulted in the deaths of billions, those that perished would generally not include the economic elite because they have the resources and power to monopolize the remaining supplies. In all likelihood this event would be used by capital to restructure society and ensure that the class divide remains despite the enormous loss of life. “Life before domestication/agri-culture was in fact largely one of leisure, intimacy with nature, sensual wisdom, sexual equality, and health.” – Zerzan, 2 Zerzan’s understanding of the life of the hunter-gatherer is based on a preconceived ideal that ignores the more difficult aspects of their existence. Besides the dangers involved in dealing with predators without weapons of greater complexity than a spear or a bow and

What’s Wrong with

Anarcho primitivism-by Sisyphus

arrow, ailments that are easily treated with pharmaceuticals could become life-threatening illnesses. Forty percent of the world’s population (approximately three billion people) are at risk of contracting malaria and 200 to 300 million already suffer from it (What Is Malaria). Amebiasis affects 10 percent of humanity; it ac-counts for more than forty million cases of colitis and is estimated to cause 40,000 to 110,000 deaths annually (Amebiasis). 700 million people are at risk of catching schistosomiasis and over 200 million are already infected (Schistosomiasis). These and other afflictions have plagued primi-tive peoples for millennia and no natural medicines have succeeded in prevent-ing them. Most can be cured by modern medicine with little difficulty. Civilization may bring about an assortment of prob-lems, but surely it must be better than the alternative — which would entail a slow, painful death for countless millions. “Classical anarchism, for example, want[s] to take over civilization, rework its structures to some degree, and remove its worst abuses and oppressions. How-ever, 99% of life in civilization remains unchanged.” – John Moore, 3 Moore claims that anarchists would merely rework the basic structure of what he refers to as "mass society." Like many anarcho-primitivists, he views technology as single, unified whole; the bad parts cannot be separated from the good because they are all part of the same entity. Even so, in his own words “there might be some changes in socio-economic relations, such as worker control of industry and neighbourhood councils in place of the State." Capitalism is a system that is based on inequalities of wealth and power and it is reasonable to assume

that the technologies a capitalist society develops will reflect these inequalities. No technology advances unless there are people who benefit from it and have the means to manufacture and distribute it. Developing renewable energy sources would allow us to free ourselves from our crippling dependency on fossil fuels, but because these technologies conflict with the profits of established capital-ists research into these fields is largely neglected. As long as scientific research continues to be dominated by a small elite, technology will be used primarily to exploit and control. Many of the issues that anarcho-primitivists seek to address are all too real. Climate change is happening, the frequency and intensity of many kinds of extreme weather will increase, and our current culture of consumption truly is unsustainable. Nevertheless, we cannot go back in time to a period when the hu-man population was only a small fraction of what it is today. Neither do we need to follow the road-map that capital and the state have laid out for us. Malatesta wrote over a century ago that we must seek “the destruction of every political institution based on authority, and the constitution of a free and equal society, based upon harmony of interests, and the voluntary contribution of all to the satis-faction of social needs."- Moore, 4 Only once scientific research and industry have been brought under the control of the masses can the technolo-gies that we use be adjusted to meet human values.

1: Zerzan, John. Elements of Refusal pg. 87.2: Zerzan, John. "Future Primitive."3: Moore, John. "A Primitivist Primer."

4: Malatesta, Errico. "Anarchy."

When Americans complain that their government needs change they're inevitably jeered for being unpatriotic. The naysayers forget that every American president campaigns on the platform of change. No Ameri-can president has been so blatant about this than Barak Obama, who was cheered into office as a hero before he ever signed a single bill. If the president is called a hero for campaigning for change then why is the common man dismissed as traitor for doing the same? When Americans complain that their government needs change they're inevitably jeered for being ungrateful and are indignantly reminded that people in other coun-tries live in much worse conditions. But what does that prove? Does the fact that millions of Americans live com-fortable lives negate the reality that millions more are homeless, starving, overworked underpaid, in debt and

in prison? How long should we use this excuse to justify the suffering that is in America? Would it be proper to wait until the middle class is completely gone before we're allowed to com-plain? Or when that day comes will be told that we still don't have any right to complain because at least we can eat scraps? When Americans complain that their government needs change they're inevitably jeered for being lazy and are reminded of all the success stories of people who worked their way into the upper class. What gets left out of these stories though is the part where the ultra wealthy earned their riches by overworking, under-paying and overcharging those at the bottom of the corporate ladder. The rich haven't gotten rich despite the poverty around them. They've gotten rich by creating the poverty around them. These success stories we hear so

Thoughts on

Changeb y T r a v i s H a a n

often also leave out the fact that while the winners enjoy two hour lunches and early retirement, nobody works longer or harder than the fruit pick-ers, the dish washers, the janitors and burger flippers who will never be able to save enough money to enjoy the good life because the fruits of their labors are sucked up the corporate ladder and only trickle down to the oligarch's children and their children's children who will live like kings, and even though they may work hard themselves, they'll never have to worry about cutting corners to make ends meet or suffer the indignity of servile work. When Americans complain that their government needs change they're inevitably told, "You were given a tight rope to walk. It's your own fault you didn't make it across." Even if there were some truth to that point of view, I have to ask, is that what America is all about? Is that the best we can do? Is that all our fellow man deserves? When Americans complain that their government needs change they're inevitably told they're throwing out the baby with the bath water; to complain about America's shortcom-ings is to ignore the magnificent strides it's made. But isn't that just drowning the baby in the bath water? America has real problems that are hurting and killing real people when there are more than enough resources to avail-able to take care of everybody if we just used them more wisely. Our schools (and with them,

our children's futures) are being sold off to testing companies, and every teacher in America is screaming about the damage it's doing, but the gov-ernment's only response is to use the teachers as scapegoats for the failures of No Child Left Behind. America is scaling down its space program while spending billions on military rockets that kill civilians in collateral damage every month, and all the government has to say about it is, "Oops." Their response to torturing prisoners of war has been less apologetic. America says it's fighting in the name of freedom, but it's funding ethnic cleansing in Pales-tine. Millions of Americans are being slowly killed by cigarettes sold over the counter, but once a person has contracted terminal cancer they're not allowed to buy euthanasia drugs that will end their pain quickly. America is waging a costly war on drugs under the auspice that it protects people from getting addicted and ruining their lives, but drug users are sent to prison where we all know they're being beaten, raped and released with felony convictions that guarantee they'll never get a professional job. In other words, we're protecting people from shooting themselves in the foot by shooting them in the head. Today more African Americans are working as slave labor in prison sweat shops than worked in the cotton fields before the Civil War. Millions of families can't afford health care because drug com-panies inflate their prices because they know insurance companies will cover

the cost while insurance companies deny claims for any reason they can get away with. Corporations wield so much power in government that they've given themselves the legal right to claim ownership of seeds and rain. These problems aren't conspir-acy theories hatched by a small group of paranoid lunatics. These problems have been written about at length by reputable academics and have been reported extensively in the main stream media. Social activism groups have been begging politicians to take action on these problems for decades and donating money the political campaigns of politicians who promise to end these human rights abuses yet only seem to end up adding to them. These problems aren't accidental anomalies or regrettable oversights. They're the inevitable result of a faulty political system that treats political power as a commodity to be bought and sold. If the American people were some how able to convince or force their politicians to correct these prob-lems today we could expect big busi-ness to simply buy back the ground it lost in a few election cycles. If the American people hope to see the change they deserve then they need to address the root of the problem and not waste time hacking at the branches. The root of the problem is the method by which politicians get into office and the standards they're held to once they're in office. If America made the following

changes to its political system it would go a long way to ensuring that the most qualified candidates earned the highest political positions and wielded their power with integrity and ac-countability. Then, the public wouldn't need to beg their politicians to act in their best interest. They system would just work. Well, it would work signifi-cantly better than it does now. Politicians should be required to pass rigorous competency exams to run for office. The electoral college should be eliminated. All candidates should be required to run as indepen-dents. The need for campaign financ-ing should be eliminated or minimized by holding all campaigns in govern-ment-hosted venues. Campaign ads should be banned or at least be more tightly regulated for objectivity and quality of content. Lobbying should be made completely transparent to the public. Politicians should be monitored as closely and held to the same ethi-cal standards as criminals on proba-tion and the lowest ranking enlisted troops. Politicians should be automati-cally removed from office when their approval rating drops below 50%. Corruption should be legally defined and punished as treason. Politicians should not be able to accept jobs after leaving office that constitute a conflict of interest. Politicians should not recieve any special favor under the law that aren't granted to the general public. Presidential pardons should not be available to politicians convicted of corruption.

PATRIOTISMis often held up as a good thing. Those who are patriotic are seen as admi-rable people worthy of emulation; the greatest among us. This is not only incorrect but something that should be vehemently opposed by those of us on the left. Patriotism is not a virtue, but a vice and one of the worst among them. Why is this so? To put it bluntly, it’s a kind of prejudice. It is the same kind of thought that racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia come from. You may disagree, but tell me, what exactly is the difference between saying some-thing like “my country is the greatest country” or “my race is the greatest race” or “my gender is the greatest gender”? There really isn’t one. Like

so many other things, nations are just arbitrary constructions of society. This, bad as it is, is not even the root of the problem. Patriotism and its more ex-treme brother nationalism are but tools used by the ruling classes to con-trol the masses. How easy is it to whip a population into a patriotic fervour and make them do the most terrible things? A truly appalling example of this in the country of my birth, Australia, is the government’s policies on asylum seekers and refugees. What was once a smooth system of settling them in the country has become a nightmare where asylum seekers are locked up in “detention centres” for years before their claims are processed. Multiple elections and 2 prime ministers later

The Bourgeois’ Favourite Toolby CJLocke

these policies have only been esca-lated. Currently the government plans to send new arrivals to Malaysia, a country whose government is known for violating the human rights of refu-gees. The way that this has become a national issue and in fact one of the only issues that are discussed works perfectly in favour of the ruling classes to disguise their other plans. The government of John Howard used it as cover to attack workers rights and privatise public utilities. He won 4 elections on this rhetoric. This same nationalism is used to justify all sorts of things that might otherwise be impossible. Look at the nationalistic blaze that ignited in many countries over the Afghanistan and Iraq wars or, even better, look at old-er wars. World War I and II were both wars of nationalism. Although Europe has largely simmered its nationalism down, in the past it was a core part of being European. The concept of being “European” was not even a popular one then. People identified strongly with their country, not their continent. Even this is not ideal, but it has im-proved the situation to an extent. These sorts of nationalism and patriotism are not common on the left though, so why do I bring it up? It’s because there is a more subtle nation-alism that creeps on the left and this needs to be addressed. In our strug-gles against the bourgeoisie, many of us often complain that “our jobs get sent overseas” in a tone that looks to

blame those workers overseas. This is just another tool to divide us. We forget that those overseas workers are in the same boat as us. They are pro-letarians just like you and I and they engage in the same struggles as us. Fundamentally, we are not different. We should not fight to try and deprive these people of work. No. We should be joining hands with them in a kind of internationalism.

Never forget that we work-ers are a class together and we should stand that way. It is high time we threw off our national ideals and instead embraced a proletarian inter-national. Borders are, after all, only arbitrary lines on a map. Ignore them and instead embrace your comrades. United we would make the bourgeois tremble at our might.

nevada is a wasteland

by arcadiewhere are the

angry desert dwellers?

Nevada is not a state immune to criticism - our landscape is misun-derstood, our morals seemingly absent in the midst of sex, gambling and glory, and even most of the residents are reluctant to speak well of it. And I, despite being a long-time lover and advocate of the SIlver State, am finally understanding why. I’m not naive. I consider myself an opportunist; I generally see the good in any place I temporarily regard as my home. The stark, po-etic contrast of desert and mountain,

heat and frost, speaks to my soul. But it doesn’t speak to my pocket-book, or my college diploma sitting idly unframed at my parent’s house where I had to camp out last summer after unemployment skyrocketed and landed squarely on the shoulders of already-burdened families, idealistic and tired college graduates, and indi-viduals seeking retirement but instead signing up for a round of courses in an attempt of a career change. Nevada’s unemployment rate, as of June 2011, is 12.4% - the

highest in the country. The foreclosure rate can be seen firsthand by the weathered “For Sale” signs littering front lawns. Millions of dollars have recently been slashed from the university system and school districts, causing educators to pack up and ship out to other states. Small businesses are closing, leaving strip malls barren. And yet many attempts to stage a protest, form a rally or a Leftist solidarity move-ment are drowned out by blind notions of misguided patriotism. Republicanism and libertarianism runs rampant throughout the state. Suffering citizens are the very ones argu-ing against social services that allow them to scrape by and fend off threats of financial devastation. Young women and men with children and dreams of college degrees speak out against those who are actively fighting for their right to an educa-tion. Twentysomethings on unemployment and their parent’s health insur-ance refuse to acknowl-edge that their financial

struggles are a result of a society that won’t help people falling through the cracks. All I hear are people shouting; all I see are people waiting for their big break into the lives of the wealthy. That big break may never come for us Nevadans. The small minority acknowledg-ing this are once again the “radicals,” the fringe co-op leaders and writers and volunteers. We need a statewide collaboration to hold our leadership accountable for pulling us out of this collapsed mine we’re all stuck in, and there are only so many oxygen tanks to go around. It is essential to think beyond the rural mindset that plagues Nevada and start thinking toward the future. There’s a difference between a fascist dictatorship and a community that supports education, renewable energy, and commu-nity resources. I’ll never understand why the most patriotic are the very ones who complain about Big Government. Our state slogan

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, And the dry stone no sound of water. Only There is shadow under this red rock, (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

- The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot

is “Battle Born.” Some take this liter-ally and arm themselves with guns, venture out into the wilderness to hunt. But I carry my research as armor, and my hunt is a quest for innovation, for truth, for equality and for account-ability. Despite the flack Nevada gets from outsiders and inhabitants alike, I once felt at peace here. But right now I’m planning to take the high road out of here if I can’t find my place. Come spring I’ll have a second degree from the university system and once had hopes to contribute the skills I have worked hard to acquire back to the

community that supported me along the way. However, after I’ve seen the way my fellow educators, students, art-ists and scientists are treated, it seems that the values of logic and passion are placed significantly behind pride and selfishness. We are caked in the dust of the desert and a storm is drifting from over the Sierra Nevadas. Amidst that rain will we find fear, or solace? Who will be the sheltered ones, and who will be left in the cold? Who will be left when the rain washes our cities away?

updatesParticipants of All the Left are planning to send support letters and/or care packages to striking Verizon workers. A website is in the works but strikers need resources now. If you are interested in helping out with this project, join the Reddit thread: http://redd.it/jdlhj

Several American/international protests are in the works for September and October 2011. To get involved, check out:• #occupywallstreet (http://occupywallst.org)• October 2011 (http://october2011.org)• Take the Square (http://takethesquare.net)• US Day of Rage (http://usdayofrage.org)This is not a comprehensive list but can give you a starting point. All the Left is not affili-ated with any specific movement, although several of its members are involved in one or more of these events.

All the Left now has a Twitter account to outreach beyond Reddit. Please support it and follow @alltheleft.

There is also an IRC channel: #alltheleft on freenode.

If you would like an event, activity or project listed here, contact arcadie at comradearcadie@gmail.com.

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