Reflections on Macromania
His smile was beginning to annoy me. Here are some of the reasons why – and why we shouldn’t be seduced:
Admiring Jupiter — the king of gods — is perhaps a little like admiring the Paris of Baron Haussmann. One can marvel at the length and openness of Haussmann’s boulevards as readily as at the sumptuous façades that loom aloof above them. But one’s enjoyment of the overarching harmony of urban Paris cannot run riot in good conscience when one knows, as Benjamin did, that there was a sinister repressive dimension to the city planning of a man they called l’artiste-démolisseur. Indeed, for one reason or another, it was within the framework of the puissant prefect’s boulevards that all ‘[t]he institutions of the bourgeoisie’s worldly and spiritual dominance were to find their apotheosis.’1
His deepest desires notwithstanding, no such apotheosis seems likely to occur on the watch of Emmanuel Macron, who has ascended to the Élysée — or descended from Olympus — at precisely the time when ‘[c]apitalism…
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Asbestos Alert – Crisis is Looming
Health and Safety Legislation is not ‘Red Tape’ – or unnecessary bureaucracy as David Cameron has claimed, as he boasted he intended to remove it. Removal of vital health and safety legislation, cuts to public funding and an inability to keep building regulations were factors leading to the Grenfell fire which shocked so many of us. But for that awful tragedy, many of us would still be unaware of the risks caused by ‘Red Tape’. It is imperative that professional expert advice and adequate funding is made available for public buildings, homes and workplaces to be safe.
Now is not the time for complacency. The biggest killer in the workplace is asbestos.
In June, Unite reported that the Conservative Brexit negotiations could put the safety of children, workers and parents at risk of mesothelioma as a result of weakening of health and safety legislation.
Unite, the UK’s largest union, has…
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Climate change, Trump & Rex Tillerson
“… this company, it has now been documented, knew about climate change as far back as the seventies. According to a groundbreaking investigation by InsideClimate News (nominated for a Pulitzer Prize), Exxon did its own cutting-edge empirical research, taking CO 2 samples off its oil tankers and building state-of-the art climate models that predicted the coming changes such as sea-level rise. It also received warnings from its own senior scientists, including James Black who was categorical in his reports to his employer about the ‘general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels.’ He also wrote that ‘man has a time window of five to 10 years before the need for hard decisions regarding changes in energy strategies might become critical.’ That was in 1978.“By the time Rex Tillerson took over the job of general manager of the central production division of Exxon USA, these facts had long been known in the company, including the uncomfortable one about how little time remained. Despite this, ExxonMobil has since then lavished more than $30 million on think tanks that systematically spread doubt through the press about the reality of climate science. Mobil (before its merger with Exxon) even took out its own full-page ads in the New York Times casting doubt on the science. ExxonMobil is currently under investigation by the attorneys general of New York, California, and Massachusetts for these alleged deceptions. Because of this campaign of misinformation, promoted by the entire fossil fuel sector, humanity lost key decades when we could have been taking the actions necessary to move to a clean economy—the same decades in which ExxonMobil and others opened up vast frontiers for oil and gas.”
“Within days of taking office, he pushed through the Dakota Access pipeline, cutting off an environmental review and against the powerful opposition of the Standing Rock Sioux. He’s cleared the way to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta, which Obama rejected in part because of the climate impacts. He has issued an executive order to roll back Obama’s moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands, and has already announced plans to expand oil and gas drilling on the Gulf Coast. He’s also killing Obama’s Clean Power Plan. And as the administration rubber-stamps new fossil fuel projects, they’re getting rid of all kinds of environmental regulations that made digging up and processing this carbon less profitable for companies like ExxonMobil.”
Does Corbyn have a Messiah Complex?
A blog by Christopher James Stone.
I had an email the other day from an associate, bemoaning Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at Glastonbury, saying that he was acting like some kind of a Messiah for all those white, middle class kids, using the Grenfell tragedy for political point scoring and saying he has a “Messiah Complex”. Here is my reply:
What do you want me to say?
Let’s go back to the beginning. Remember, Corbyn only got onto the leadership ticket because a couple of Labour establishment figures thought we needed a proper debate and agreed to include a left winger. This is because the Labour Party had been transformed under Tony Blair into a centralised neo-liberal party in which constituencies no longer got to choose who their candidate was. They were mainly Blair loyalists parachuted in from central office. But once Corbyn was on the ticket it galvanised the membership in the Labour Party who wanted…
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