Sunday, June 6, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Week 13: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week Post by Sunday at midnight.
Post by Sunday at midnight.
This is my editorial about U.S. beef that I discussed in class:
06-17-2008
Test Every Cow to Ensure Safety
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2010/05/198_26015.html
This was my video interview about it on Arirang TV:
06-14-2008
"Candlelight of Malcontent",
http://www.arirang.co.kr/Tv2/InFocus_Archive.asp?PROG_CODE=TVCR0104&view_seq=510&Page=9&sys_lang=Eng
This is my editorial about U.S. beef that I discussed in class:
06-17-2008
Test Every Cow to Ensure Safety
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2010/05/198_26015.html
This was my video interview about it on Arirang TV:
06-14-2008
"Candlelight of Malcontent",
http://www.arirang.co.kr/Tv2/InFocus_Archive.asp?PROG_CODE=TVCR0104&view_seq=510&Page=9&sys_lang=Eng
Monday, May 24, 2010
Week 12: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
This is the link to the original article on the "raw material regime" of fluoride by Bryson/Griffiths:
http://biostate.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-fluoride-in-us-water-us-militarys.html
It has some of my commentary in brackets as an introduction, and some additional pictures.
There are updates to this story over the past several years in the 'comments'--so read to the bottom of that link.
I chose fluoride for analysis of raw material regime first because it is a particularly clear example of a legitimated raw material regime. (Oil, which we will talk about next, or narcotic drugs, are still raw material regimes, though with less legitimation.)
Particularly for most of the world's population, it is important to understand what is mean by a 'regime' of a material: a culturally legitimate and culturally accepted raw material use by institutions, governments, etc.
It is hardly a stable material regime if everyone thinks it is illegitimate.
So the legitimacy (particularly the (sold) legitimacy around fluoride and micro-level habit) is an important variable explaining their durability--or their change.
Below is some of Bryson's first investigative article, summarized:
Human exposure to fluoride has mushroomed since World War II, due not only to fluoridated water and toothpaste, but to environmental pollution by major industries from aluminum to pesticides: fluoride is a critical industrial chemical.
The impact can be seen, literally, in the smiles of our children. Large numbers of U.S. young people--up to 80 percent in some cities--now have dental fluorosis, the first visible sign of excessive fluoride exposure, according to the U.S. National Research Council. (The signs are whitish flecks or spots, particularly on the front teeth, or dark spots or stripes in more severe cases.)
Less-known to the public is that fluoride also accumulates in bones --"The teeth are windows to what's happening in the bones," explains Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University (N.Y.). In recent years, pediatric bone specialists have expressed alarm about an increase in stress fractures among U.S. young people. Connett and other scientists are concerned that fluoride --linked to bone damage by studies since the 1930's-- may be a contributing factor. The declassified documents add urgency: much of the original proof that low-dose fluoride is safe for children's bones came from U.S. bomb program scientists, according to this investigation.
Now, researchers who have reviewed these declassified documents fear that Cold War national security considerations may have prevented objective scientific evaluation of vital public health questions concerning fluoride.
"Information was buried," concludes Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, former head of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, and now a critic of fluoridation. Animal studies Mullenix and co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the early 1990's indicated that fluoride was a powerful central nervous system (CNS) toxin, and might adversely affect human brain functioning, even at low doses. (New epidemiological evidence from China adds support, showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and diminished I.Q. in children.) Mullenix's results were published in 1995, in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal. [The Nazis and the Soviets were known to put high levels of flouride in prison camp water because they knew then that it made the prisoners less mentally capable, more tractile, and docile.]
During her investigation, Mullenix was astonished to discover there had been virtually no previous U.S. studies of fluoride's effects on the human brain. Then, her application for a grant to continue her CNS research was turned down by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where an NIH panel, she says, flatly told her that "fluoride does not have central nervous system effects."
Declassified documents of the U.S. atomic-bomb program indicate otherwise.
An April 29, 1944 Manhattan Project memo reports: "Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride [UF^6] may have a rather marked central nervous system effect.... It seems most likely that the F [code for fluoride] component rather than the T [code for uranium] is the causative factor."
...
This is the link to the original article on the "raw material regime" of fluoride by Bryson/Griffiths:
http://biostate.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-fluoride-in-us-water-us-militarys.html
It has some of my commentary in brackets as an introduction, and some additional pictures.
There are updates to this story over the past several years in the 'comments'--so read to the bottom of that link.
I chose fluoride for analysis of raw material regime first because it is a particularly clear example of a legitimated raw material regime. (Oil, which we will talk about next, or narcotic drugs, are still raw material regimes, though with less legitimation.)
Particularly for most of the world's population, it is important to understand what is mean by a 'regime' of a material: a culturally legitimate and culturally accepted raw material use by institutions, governments, etc.
It is hardly a stable material regime if everyone thinks it is illegitimate.
So the legitimacy (particularly the (sold) legitimacy around fluoride and micro-level habit) is an important variable explaining their durability--or their change.
Below is some of Bryson's first investigative article, summarized:
Human exposure to fluoride has mushroomed since World War II, due not only to fluoridated water and toothpaste, but to environmental pollution by major industries from aluminum to pesticides: fluoride is a critical industrial chemical.
The impact can be seen, literally, in the smiles of our children. Large numbers of U.S. young people--up to 80 percent in some cities--now have dental fluorosis, the first visible sign of excessive fluoride exposure, according to the U.S. National Research Council. (The signs are whitish flecks or spots, particularly on the front teeth, or dark spots or stripes in more severe cases.)
Less-known to the public is that fluoride also accumulates in bones --"The teeth are windows to what's happening in the bones," explains Paul Connett, Professor of Chemistry at St. Lawrence University (N.Y.). In recent years, pediatric bone specialists have expressed alarm about an increase in stress fractures among U.S. young people. Connett and other scientists are concerned that fluoride --linked to bone damage by studies since the 1930's-- may be a contributing factor. The declassified documents add urgency: much of the original proof that low-dose fluoride is safe for children's bones came from U.S. bomb program scientists, according to this investigation.
Now, researchers who have reviewed these declassified documents fear that Cold War national security considerations may have prevented objective scientific evaluation of vital public health questions concerning fluoride.
"Information was buried," concludes Dr. Phyllis Mullenix, former head of toxicology at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston, and now a critic of fluoridation. Animal studies Mullenix and co-workers conducted at Forsyth in the early 1990's indicated that fluoride was a powerful central nervous system (CNS) toxin, and might adversely affect human brain functioning, even at low doses. (New epidemiological evidence from China adds support, showing a correlation between low-dose fluoride exposure and diminished I.Q. in children.) Mullenix's results were published in 1995, in a reputable peer-reviewed scientific journal. [The Nazis and the Soviets were known to put high levels of flouride in prison camp water because they knew then that it made the prisoners less mentally capable, more tractile, and docile.]
During her investigation, Mullenix was astonished to discover there had been virtually no previous U.S. studies of fluoride's effects on the human brain. Then, her application for a grant to continue her CNS research was turned down by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where an NIH panel, she says, flatly told her that "fluoride does not have central nervous system effects."
Declassified documents of the U.S. atomic-bomb program indicate otherwise.
An April 29, 1944 Manhattan Project memo reports: "Clinical evidence suggests that uranium hexafluoride [UF^6] may have a rather marked central nervous system effect.... It seems most likely that the F [code for fluoride] component rather than the T [code for uranium] is the causative factor."
...
Monday, May 17, 2010
Week 11: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
1. China's political regime of choosing Genetically Modified Cotton being Challenged
2. This story continues our discussion of the politics of particular material choices and how institutional politics (combined with various forms of individual habit and organizational habit combined with laws and cultural legitimacy in an open ended way) create a contentious political arena of consumptive infrastructure of some choices, over others, supported (and defended and challenged) both politically and economically by institutions, cultural actors, and laws.
It seems that what I said in class was only part of the story. This story discusses Monsanto's GM-cotton in China and ignores that China has its own GM-patents for cotton.
I will put brackets ("[]"] around the words state, science, finance, and consumption to highlight institutional politics working together or against each other in any form of regime materials in their consumptive use category.
This article is about the politics within the category of textiles.
-----------------
Scientists call for GM review after surge in pests around cotton farms in China
Farmland struck by infestations of bugs following widespread adoption of Bt cotton made by biotech giant Monsanto
picture: Workers unload bags of picked cotton, Xinjiang, China
Workers unload bags of picked cotton from fields in Korla, China's far west Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images
[SCIENCE] Scientists are calling for the long-term risks of GM crops to be reassessed after field studies revealed an explosion in pest numbers around farms growing modified strains of cotton.
The unexpected surge of infestations "highlights a critical need" for better [CHOICES OF] ways of predicting the impact of GM crops and spotting potentially damaging knock-on effects arising from their cultivation, researchers said.
Millions of hectares of farmland in northern China have been struck by infestations of bugs following the widespread adoption of Bt cotton, an engineered variety made by the US biotech giant, Monsanto.
Outbreaks of mirid bugs, which can devastate around 200 varieties of fruit, vegetable and corn crops, have risen dramatically in the past decade, as cotton farmers have shifted from traditional cotton crops to GM varieties, scientists said.
Traditional cotton farmers have to spray their crops with insecticides to combat destructive bollworm pests, but Bt cotton produces its own insecticide, meaning [LEGITIMATION STORY] farmers can save money by spraying it less. [However, testing that legitimation story of this material regime, farmers can spray even more in some studies I have seen reported on this.]
But a 10-year study across six major cotton-growing regions of China found that by spraying their crops less, farmers allowed mirid bugs to thrive and infest their own and neighbouring farms.
[CONSUMPTION, competition from other consumptive regime choices in food, politically challenging the GM-cotton regime] The infestations are potentially catastrophic for more than 10m small-scale farmers who cultivate 26m hectares of vulnerable crops in the region studied.
The findings mark the first confirmed report of mass infestations arising as an unintended consequence of farmers using less pesticide – a feature of Bt cotton that [LEGITIMATION STORY CONNECTED TO THE REGIME CHOICE] was supposed to save money and lessen the crops' environmental impact. The research, led by Kongming Wu at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, is published in the US journal, Science.
"Our work highlights a critical need to do ecological assessments and monitoring at the landscape-level to better understand the impacts of GM crop adoption," Dr Wu told the Guardian.
[DELEGITIMATION STORY FROM OTHERS WANTING DIFFERENT MATERIAL CHOICES IN THE CATEGORY:] Environmental campaigners seized on the study as further evidence that GM crops are not the environmental saviour that manufacturers have led farmers to believe.
"This is a massive issue in terms of the environment, but also in terms of costs for the farmer. The plan with GM crops was to reduce costs and environmental impact, but neither of these things seem to be happening, because over time, nature takes its course, and that was bound to happen. The supposed benefits in yield can be cancelled out by unintended consequences like this," said Kirtana Chandrasekaran, a food campaigner at Friends of the Earth.
[SCIENCE / CONSUMPTION] In the past decade, farmers in India and elsewhere have noticed that herbicide-tolerant GM crops have developed resistance to pesticide sprays, again reducing the benefits of the crops, Chandrasekaran said. "Reliance on GM is not sustainable. We need to get back to using local varieties of crops that are adpted to the conditions, and develop an integrated system of pest management."
While many countries around the world have embraced GM crops, they have never taken root in Britain, where [SUBPOLITICS] multinational companies have faced protests and vandalism to crop trials in recent years. Britain's large-scale field trials of herbicide-tolerant GM crops in 2003 found changes in herbicide use had an impact on weeds and insects that might also affect country wildlife.
Dr Wu's team monitored insecticide use from 1992 to 2008 at 38 farms throughout the six northern Chinese provinces of Henan, Hebei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong and Shanxi. They also kept records of mirid bug populations at the farms between 1997 and 2008.
Before switching to [THE CHOICE OF] GM cotton, farmers used more broad-spectrum insecticides to kill bollworms and other pests. But as more farmers began growing Bt cotton, their use of sprays declined, leading to a steady rise in pests, including mirid bugs.
Over the decade-long study, cotton farms flipped from being a grave for mirid bugs to a source of the pests, where populations grew rapidly and then spilled out to feed on a variety of flowering crops in neighbouring farms.
Bt cotton is modified to produce a natural insecticide that is made by a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis. The toxin specifically targets bollworms, which can devastate cotton yields.
Additional reporting by Celia Cole
BT cotton timeline
1990: Cotton plants genetically engineered to produce enough Bt toxin (derived from the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium) to be protective against insects
1996: First Bt cotton varieties, known as Bollgard Cotton in US, introduced commercially by Monsanto, and Delta and Pine Land Company
1997: China begins cultivating Bt cotton, increasing area of the crop planted to 1.8m hectares worldwide
2003: Britain's large scale field trials of herbicide tolerant GM crops. Showed that changes in herbicide use had an impact on weeds and insects that might also affect country wildlife hectares worldwide
[REGIME] 2009: 49% of cotton production worldwide is Bt cotton, or 16m hectares [AND ONE CORPORATION OWNS MOST OF GM varieties, Monsanto]
[STATE VARIATION IN REGIME] 2010: No GM crops grown commercially in the UK. Spain is the biggest grower in Europe, but there are also significant amounts of crops grown in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Portugal.
---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/13/gm-crops-pests-cotton-china
Other stories where you can follow the "SSFC" (state, science, finance, and consumption) institutions in implementing or challenging a particular material regime choice:
[articles below show the importance of legitimacy/delegitimacy 'talk' around a regime as a common way groups maintain or undermine particular choices]
1.
GMO threat summary vs. USDA quick putsch to let GMO corps/crops do without ANY regulation!
author: repost, Center for Food Safety
Main GM crops are SOY, CORN, COTTONSEED, and CANOLA. DESPITE recent Austrian Government Study Confirming Genetically Modified (GM) Crops As a Threat to Human Fertility and Health Safety, Bush regime pressures a quick putsch in its waning days for COMPLETELY unregulated Frankencrops/GMOs that produce drugs and other pesticides/herbicides in your food without your consumer knowledge, without labels, etc. This is despite huge documented heath problems. A book by author Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette, distributed to members of congress last year, documents 65 serious health risks of GM products, including similar fertility problems with GM soy and GM corn: Offspring of rats fed GM soy showed a five-fold increase in mortality, lower birth weights, and the inability to reproduce. Male mice fed GM soy had damaged young sperm cells. .... US farmers reported sterility or fertility problems among pigs and cows fed on GM corn. India has documented fertility problems, abortions, premature births, other serious health issues, including deaths, in buffaloes fed GM cottonseed.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/11/382690.shtml
2.
Monsanto Exerts Monopoly Control: Farmers Face 50% Roundup Glyphosate Price Hike
08:55 Apr-11 (2 comments)
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/04/374499.shtml
3.
France bans Monsanto GM-corn, Brazil allows GM-corn & peasants destroy greenhouse/fields
05:45 Mar-30
Asterisks (***) show how GM crops [can be] a criminal mafia enterprise. When it comes to health, their local economy, and the health of their environment ...the Brazilian state lost its legitimate jurisdiction when it makes an unsustainable decision to be bribed....Brazilian peasants knew it, taking back jurisdiction immediately:
[1] "On March 7th--International Women's Day--dozens of Brazilian women occupied a research site of the U.S.-based agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, destroying the greenhouse and experimental plots of genetically-modified (GM) corn. Participants, members of the international farmers' organization La Vía Campesina, stated in a note that the act was TO PROTEST the Brazilian government's decision in February to legalize Monsanto's GM Guardian® corn, which came JUST WEEKS AFTER the French government PROHIBITED THE CORN DUE TO ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN HEALTH RISKS."
[above, NOTE DIFFERENT STATE POLITICAL REGIMES AROUND THE SAME MATERIAL]
[2] La Vía Campesina held passive protests in several Brazilian cities against Swiss corporation Syngenta for ongoing impunity for murder of Valmir Mota de Oliveira. Mota was was assassinated last October during these the third occupation of Syngenta's ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTAL SITE for GM soybeans. Brazil already has a high number of land activist murders, THOUGH Mota's was THE FIRST during an occupation organized by La Vía Campesina, and the first in Brazil ON THE PROPERTY OF A MULTINATIONAL AGRIBUSINESS" where corporate hired thugs went out and killed him. ---- More news on criminal activities of GM corporations in asterisks, summarized at close of article.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/374059.shtml
1. China's political regime of choosing Genetically Modified Cotton being Challenged
2. This story continues our discussion of the politics of particular material choices and how institutional politics (combined with various forms of individual habit and organizational habit combined with laws and cultural legitimacy in an open ended way) create a contentious political arena of consumptive infrastructure of some choices, over others, supported (and defended and challenged) both politically and economically by institutions, cultural actors, and laws.
It seems that what I said in class was only part of the story. This story discusses Monsanto's GM-cotton in China and ignores that China has its own GM-patents for cotton.
I will put brackets ("[]"] around the words state, science, finance, and consumption to highlight institutional politics working together or against each other in any form of regime materials in their consumptive use category.
This article is about the politics within the category of textiles.
-----------------
Scientists call for GM review after surge in pests around cotton farms in China
Farmland struck by infestations of bugs following widespread adoption of Bt cotton made by biotech giant Monsanto
picture: Workers unload bags of picked cotton, Xinjiang, China
Workers unload bags of picked cotton from fields in Korla, China's far west Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images
[SCIENCE] Scientists are calling for the long-term risks of GM crops to be reassessed after field studies revealed an explosion in pest numbers around farms growing modified strains of cotton.
The unexpected surge of infestations "highlights a critical need" for better [CHOICES OF] ways of predicting the impact of GM crops and spotting potentially damaging knock-on effects arising from their cultivation, researchers said.
Millions of hectares of farmland in northern China have been struck by infestations of bugs following the widespread adoption of Bt cotton, an engineered variety made by the US biotech giant, Monsanto.
Outbreaks of mirid bugs, which can devastate around 200 varieties of fruit, vegetable and corn crops, have risen dramatically in the past decade, as cotton farmers have shifted from traditional cotton crops to GM varieties, scientists said.
Traditional cotton farmers have to spray their crops with insecticides to combat destructive bollworm pests, but Bt cotton produces its own insecticide, meaning [LEGITIMATION STORY] farmers can save money by spraying it less. [However, testing that legitimation story of this material regime, farmers can spray even more in some studies I have seen reported on this.]
But a 10-year study across six major cotton-growing regions of China found that by spraying their crops less, farmers allowed mirid bugs to thrive and infest their own and neighbouring farms.
[CONSUMPTION, competition from other consumptive regime choices in food, politically challenging the GM-cotton regime] The infestations are potentially catastrophic for more than 10m small-scale farmers who cultivate 26m hectares of vulnerable crops in the region studied.
The findings mark the first confirmed report of mass infestations arising as an unintended consequence of farmers using less pesticide – a feature of Bt cotton that [LEGITIMATION STORY CONNECTED TO THE REGIME CHOICE] was supposed to save money and lessen the crops' environmental impact. The research, led by Kongming Wu at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, is published in the US journal, Science.
"Our work highlights a critical need to do ecological assessments and monitoring at the landscape-level to better understand the impacts of GM crop adoption," Dr Wu told the Guardian.
[DELEGITIMATION STORY FROM OTHERS WANTING DIFFERENT MATERIAL CHOICES IN THE CATEGORY:] Environmental campaigners seized on the study as further evidence that GM crops are not the environmental saviour that manufacturers have led farmers to believe.
"This is a massive issue in terms of the environment, but also in terms of costs for the farmer. The plan with GM crops was to reduce costs and environmental impact, but neither of these things seem to be happening, because over time, nature takes its course, and that was bound to happen. The supposed benefits in yield can be cancelled out by unintended consequences like this," said Kirtana Chandrasekaran, a food campaigner at Friends of the Earth.
[SCIENCE / CONSUMPTION] In the past decade, farmers in India and elsewhere have noticed that herbicide-tolerant GM crops have developed resistance to pesticide sprays, again reducing the benefits of the crops, Chandrasekaran said. "Reliance on GM is not sustainable. We need to get back to using local varieties of crops that are adpted to the conditions, and develop an integrated system of pest management."
While many countries around the world have embraced GM crops, they have never taken root in Britain, where [SUBPOLITICS] multinational companies have faced protests and vandalism to crop trials in recent years. Britain's large-scale field trials of herbicide-tolerant GM crops in 2003 found changes in herbicide use had an impact on weeds and insects that might also affect country wildlife.
Dr Wu's team monitored insecticide use from 1992 to 2008 at 38 farms throughout the six northern Chinese provinces of Henan, Hebei, Jiangsu, Anhui, Shandong and Shanxi. They also kept records of mirid bug populations at the farms between 1997 and 2008.
Before switching to [THE CHOICE OF] GM cotton, farmers used more broad-spectrum insecticides to kill bollworms and other pests. But as more farmers began growing Bt cotton, their use of sprays declined, leading to a steady rise in pests, including mirid bugs.
Over the decade-long study, cotton farms flipped from being a grave for mirid bugs to a source of the pests, where populations grew rapidly and then spilled out to feed on a variety of flowering crops in neighbouring farms.
Bt cotton is modified to produce a natural insecticide that is made by a soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis. The toxin specifically targets bollworms, which can devastate cotton yields.
Additional reporting by Celia Cole
BT cotton timeline
1990: Cotton plants genetically engineered to produce enough Bt toxin (derived from the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium) to be protective against insects
1996: First Bt cotton varieties, known as Bollgard Cotton in US, introduced commercially by Monsanto, and Delta and Pine Land Company
1997: China begins cultivating Bt cotton, increasing area of the crop planted to 1.8m hectares worldwide
2003: Britain's large scale field trials of herbicide tolerant GM crops. Showed that changes in herbicide use had an impact on weeds and insects that might also affect country wildlife hectares worldwide
[REGIME] 2009: 49% of cotton production worldwide is Bt cotton, or 16m hectares [AND ONE CORPORATION OWNS MOST OF GM varieties, Monsanto]
[STATE VARIATION IN REGIME] 2010: No GM crops grown commercially in the UK. Spain is the biggest grower in Europe, but there are also significant amounts of crops grown in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Portugal.
---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/13/gm-crops-pests-cotton-china
Other stories where you can follow the "SSFC" (state, science, finance, and consumption) institutions in implementing or challenging a particular material regime choice:
[articles below show the importance of legitimacy/delegitimacy 'talk' around a regime as a common way groups maintain or undermine particular choices]
1.
GMO threat summary vs. USDA quick putsch to let GMO corps/crops do without ANY regulation!
author: repost, Center for Food Safety
Main GM crops are SOY, CORN, COTTONSEED, and CANOLA. DESPITE recent Austrian Government Study Confirming Genetically Modified (GM) Crops As a Threat to Human Fertility and Health Safety, Bush regime pressures a quick putsch in its waning days for COMPLETELY unregulated Frankencrops/GMOs that produce drugs and other pesticides/herbicides in your food without your consumer knowledge, without labels, etc. This is despite huge documented heath problems. A book by author Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette, distributed to members of congress last year, documents 65 serious health risks of GM products, including similar fertility problems with GM soy and GM corn: Offspring of rats fed GM soy showed a five-fold increase in mortality, lower birth weights, and the inability to reproduce. Male mice fed GM soy had damaged young sperm cells. .... US farmers reported sterility or fertility problems among pigs and cows fed on GM corn. India has documented fertility problems, abortions, premature births, other serious health issues, including deaths, in buffaloes fed GM cottonseed.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/11/382690.shtml
2.
Monsanto Exerts Monopoly Control: Farmers Face 50% Roundup Glyphosate Price Hike
08:55 Apr-11 (2 comments)
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/04/374499.shtml
3.
France bans Monsanto GM-corn, Brazil allows GM-corn & peasants destroy greenhouse/fields
05:45 Mar-30
Asterisks (***) show how GM crops [can be] a criminal mafia enterprise. When it comes to health, their local economy, and the health of their environment ...the Brazilian state lost its legitimate jurisdiction when it makes an unsustainable decision to be bribed....Brazilian peasants knew it, taking back jurisdiction immediately:
[1] "On March 7th--International Women's Day--dozens of Brazilian women occupied a research site of the U.S.-based agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, destroying the greenhouse and experimental plots of genetically-modified (GM) corn. Participants, members of the international farmers' organization La Vía Campesina, stated in a note that the act was TO PROTEST the Brazilian government's decision in February to legalize Monsanto's GM Guardian® corn, which came JUST WEEKS AFTER the French government PROHIBITED THE CORN DUE TO ENVIRONMENT AND HUMAN HEALTH RISKS."
[above, NOTE DIFFERENT STATE POLITICAL REGIMES AROUND THE SAME MATERIAL]
[2] La Vía Campesina held passive protests in several Brazilian cities against Swiss corporation Syngenta for ongoing impunity for murder of Valmir Mota de Oliveira. Mota was was assassinated last October during these the third occupation of Syngenta's ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTAL SITE for GM soybeans. Brazil already has a high number of land activist murders, THOUGH Mota's was THE FIRST during an occupation organized by La Vía Campesina, and the first in Brazil ON THE PROPERTY OF A MULTINATIONAL AGRIBUSINESS" where corporate hired thugs went out and killed him. ---- More news on criminal activities of GM corporations in asterisks, summarized at close of article.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/03/374059.shtml
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Week 7: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
How many industrial technologies--authorized, claimed safe, etc.,--do you know that cause damage to 7 million people (3 million children in neighboring countries alone), unpredictably? And continue to fail on a regular basis without much being done to change the "organized irresponsibility?" Beck's "risk society" is usefully illustrated with some videos about nuclear power generation. So I wanted to post some films about Chernobyl this week that I recommend.
Chernobyl helps illustrate both the social and material aspects of Beck's "risk society" concept as well as potentially providing a way for us to discuss the heightened levels of subpolitical, regular-political, and economic pressures toward more ecologically sound choices of materials and technologies (which is known as "ecological modernization").
There are four films recommended. Three are short.
The third film in the list is long: it is a six part Russian documentary on Chernobyl with English dubbing, minute by minute, leading up to the accident. It is about one hour total viewing time).
1.
Greenpeace video on Chernobyl [for a Beck-like 'subpolitical' view of the accident, from an activist organization) [5 min]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_8frR0IpE
2. [graphic image warning, genetic deformities]
Chernobyl Decay and Deformed, 3 min 13 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&feature=related
3.
Disaster at Chernobyl part 1 of 6, 2 min 54 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEgkGNO-sQ
A U.S. documentary, minute by minute of the official story, with interviews of the still surviving people; Part 1 from Discovery Channel documentary. It has Russian subtitles, English off-voice, and Russian dialogues.
it continues:
Disaster at Chernobyl part 2 of 6, 8 min 42 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe_sD7bPSvg
(follow other links at the website for the rest)
4.
Inside the Chernobyl Reactor - Now (film footage from 2006)
Take a look at conditions inside the reactor where the hastily built sarcophagus (cover) over the reactor is falling apart and requires constant maintenance. (The melted bit is radioactive uranium-graphite sludge mixture that melted together then leaked out of the containment vessel cracks during the explosion, and then burned its way down through multiple floors, coming to look like (to some people's view) an "elephant's foot"). Its very rare to have video footage from inside the sarcophagus
"Sarcophagus" is perhaps a poor name for Chernobyl's hasty containment walls. That word implies something completed, that the accident is dead and finished. However, Chernobyl's accident is very much alive, right now--and will be alive for thousands of years. "Vampire" is the word that comes to mind for me about the Chernobyl accident. Why? Because the word "vampire" implies something that is temporarily blocked though very much alive and waiting to get out and attack people from its coffin. The Chernobyl vampire will be nearly immortal compared to humans that created it and upon us it will continue to prey for thousands of years. The vampire will will live longer than any human government that has ever existed, longer than any durable spoken or printed language, longer than this version of our human species.
Something I summarized from Elena's website--from her "subpolitical" view about Chernobyl, with direct links about Elena's motorcycle ride through the 'dead zone' with pictures:
5.
CHERNOBYL BIKE TOUR OF THE DEAD ZONE, WITH PICTURES
Ghost Town - Introduction .
My name is Elena. I run this website and I don't have anything to sell. What I do have is my motorbike and the absolute freedom to ride it wherever curiosity and the speed demon take me.
" Usually, on this leg of the journey, a beeping geiger counter inspires to shift into high gear and streak through the area with great haste. The patch of trees in front of me is called red - or 'magic" wood. In 1986, this wood glowed red with radiation. They cut them down and buried them under 1 meter of earth. The readings on the asphalt paving is 500 to 3000 microroentgens, depending upon where you stand. That is 50 to 300 times the radiation of a normal environment. If I step 10 meters forward, geiger counter will run off the scale. If I walk a few hundred meters towards the reactor, the radiation is 3 roentgens per hour - which is 300,000 times normal. If I was to keep walking all the way to the reactor, I would glow in the dark tonight."
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter1.html
And remember, this is only with 10% of the radiation estimated escaping:
"Only a very small amount of the radiation inside of there had so far actually escaped. More then 90% is still under sarcophagus. I heard with all the concrete they put down, the construction became heavy. Some day it may fall down, get in subterranean waters and leave Europe with no water."
Elana's background, father nuclear physicist
If I tell someone that I am heading to a "dead zone"... the best case response is; "Are you nuts?"
My dad used to say that people are afraid of a deadly thing which they can not see, can not feel and can not smell. Maybe that is because those words are a good description of death itself.
Dad is nuclear physicist, and he has educated me about many things. He is much more worried about the speed my bike travels than about the direction I point it.
My trips to Chernobyl are not like a walk in the park, but the risk can be managed. I always go for rides alone, sometimes with pillion passenger, but never in company with any other vehicle, because I do not want anyone to raise dust in front of me.
I was a schoolgirl back in 1986 and within a few hours of the accident, dad put all of us on the train to grandma's house. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough away to keep us out of reach of the big bad wolf of a nuclear meltdown.
The Communist government that was in power then kept silent about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their preciously stupid labor day parade and it was then that ordinary people began hearing the news of the accident from foreign radio stations and relatives of those who died. The real panic began 7-10 days after accident. Those who were exposed to the exceedingly high levels of nuclear radiation in the first 10 days when it was still a state secret, incuding unsuspecting visitors to the area, either died or have serious health problems.
...
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter2.html
How many people died of radiation? No one knows - not even approximately. The official casualty reports range from 30 to 300,000 and many unofficial sources put the toll over 400,000.
The final toll will not be known in our lifetime, and maybe not our childrens either.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter5.html
The day after the accident, this place on the bridge provided a good view of the gaping crack in the nuclear containment vessel that was ruptured by the explosion. Many curious people came here to have a look and were bathed in a flood of deadly x-rays emanating directly from the glowing nuclear core.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter22.html
Belorussia is a separate country. PLEASE NOTE, the neighbouring country suffered more then the country where disaster taken place. Radiation has international nature and don't need invitations or visas to travel. The evil dark wind of that day carried 70% of Chernobyl's heavy radiation into the neighboring country of Belorussia.
As we travel northward, we begin to grasp the immensity of the total area that was poisoned, and will still be poisoned in the year 2525.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/land-of-the-wolves/chapter28.html
Farms in Ukraine.
By territory Ukraine is a bit bigger then France and in history books it was called a bread basket of Europe.
It is because in Ukraine is 40% world supply of black earth.
Soil is good here, put a stick into this soil and it will grow.
Now, this bread basket flavoured with wormwood [Chernobyl radiation] and no one want to buy food products made in Ukraine.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/land-of-the-wolves/chapter30.html
How many industrial technologies--authorized, claimed safe, etc.,--do you know that cause damage to 7 million people (3 million children in neighboring countries alone), unpredictably? And continue to fail on a regular basis without much being done to change the "organized irresponsibility?" Beck's "risk society" is usefully illustrated with some videos about nuclear power generation. So I wanted to post some films about Chernobyl this week that I recommend.
Chernobyl helps illustrate both the social and material aspects of Beck's "risk society" concept as well as potentially providing a way for us to discuss the heightened levels of subpolitical, regular-political, and economic pressures toward more ecologically sound choices of materials and technologies (which is known as "ecological modernization").
There are four films recommended. Three are short.
The third film in the list is long: it is a six part Russian documentary on Chernobyl with English dubbing, minute by minute, leading up to the accident. It is about one hour total viewing time).
1.
Greenpeace video on Chernobyl [for a Beck-like 'subpolitical' view of the accident, from an activist organization) [5 min]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u_8frR0IpE
2. [graphic image warning, genetic deformities]
Chernobyl Decay and Deformed, 3 min 13 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvAJ_u3Q0Hw&feature=related
3.
Disaster at Chernobyl part 1 of 6, 2 min 54 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEgkGNO-sQ
A U.S. documentary, minute by minute of the official story, with interviews of the still surviving people; Part 1 from Discovery Channel documentary. It has Russian subtitles, English off-voice, and Russian dialogues.
it continues:
Disaster at Chernobyl part 2 of 6, 8 min 42 sec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qe_sD7bPSvg
(follow other links at the website for the rest)
4.
Inside the Chernobyl Reactor - Now (film footage from 2006)
Take a look at conditions inside the reactor where the hastily built sarcophagus (cover) over the reactor is falling apart and requires constant maintenance. (The melted bit is radioactive uranium-graphite sludge mixture that melted together then leaked out of the containment vessel cracks during the explosion, and then burned its way down through multiple floors, coming to look like (to some people's view) an "elephant's foot"). Its very rare to have video footage from inside the sarcophagus
"Sarcophagus" is perhaps a poor name for Chernobyl's hasty containment walls. That word implies something completed, that the accident is dead and finished. However, Chernobyl's accident is very much alive, right now--and will be alive for thousands of years. "Vampire" is the word that comes to mind for me about the Chernobyl accident. Why? Because the word "vampire" implies something that is temporarily blocked though very much alive and waiting to get out and attack people from its coffin. The Chernobyl vampire will be nearly immortal compared to humans that created it and upon us it will continue to prey for thousands of years. The vampire will will live longer than any human government that has ever existed, longer than any durable spoken or printed language, longer than this version of our human species.
Something I summarized from Elena's website--from her "subpolitical" view about Chernobyl, with direct links about Elena's motorcycle ride through the 'dead zone' with pictures:
5.
CHERNOBYL BIKE TOUR OF THE DEAD ZONE, WITH PICTURES
Ghost Town - Introduction .
My name is Elena. I run this website and I don't have anything to sell. What I do have is my motorbike and the absolute freedom to ride it wherever curiosity and the speed demon take me.
" Usually, on this leg of the journey, a beeping geiger counter inspires to shift into high gear and streak through the area with great haste. The patch of trees in front of me is called red - or 'magic" wood. In 1986, this wood glowed red with radiation. They cut them down and buried them under 1 meter of earth. The readings on the asphalt paving is 500 to 3000 microroentgens, depending upon where you stand. That is 50 to 300 times the radiation of a normal environment. If I step 10 meters forward, geiger counter will run off the scale. If I walk a few hundred meters towards the reactor, the radiation is 3 roentgens per hour - which is 300,000 times normal. If I was to keep walking all the way to the reactor, I would glow in the dark tonight."
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter1.html
And remember, this is only with 10% of the radiation estimated escaping:
"Only a very small amount of the radiation inside of there had so far actually escaped. More then 90% is still under sarcophagus. I heard with all the concrete they put down, the construction became heavy. Some day it may fall down, get in subterranean waters and leave Europe with no water."
Elana's background, father nuclear physicist
If I tell someone that I am heading to a "dead zone"... the best case response is; "Are you nuts?"
My dad used to say that people are afraid of a deadly thing which they can not see, can not feel and can not smell. Maybe that is because those words are a good description of death itself.
Dad is nuclear physicist, and he has educated me about many things. He is much more worried about the speed my bike travels than about the direction I point it.
My trips to Chernobyl are not like a walk in the park, but the risk can be managed. I always go for rides alone, sometimes with pillion passenger, but never in company with any other vehicle, because I do not want anyone to raise dust in front of me.
I was a schoolgirl back in 1986 and within a few hours of the accident, dad put all of us on the train to grandma's house. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough away to keep us out of reach of the big bad wolf of a nuclear meltdown.
The Communist government that was in power then kept silent about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their preciously stupid labor day parade and it was then that ordinary people began hearing the news of the accident from foreign radio stations and relatives of those who died. The real panic began 7-10 days after accident. Those who were exposed to the exceedingly high levels of nuclear radiation in the first 10 days when it was still a state secret, incuding unsuspecting visitors to the area, either died or have serious health problems.
...
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter2.html
How many people died of radiation? No one knows - not even approximately. The official casualty reports range from 30 to 300,000 and many unofficial sources put the toll over 400,000.
The final toll will not be known in our lifetime, and maybe not our childrens either.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter5.html
The day after the accident, this place on the bridge provided a good view of the gaping crack in the nuclear containment vessel that was ruptured by the explosion. Many curious people came here to have a look and were bathed in a flood of deadly x-rays emanating directly from the glowing nuclear core.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/chapter22.html
Belorussia is a separate country. PLEASE NOTE, the neighbouring country suffered more then the country where disaster taken place. Radiation has international nature and don't need invitations or visas to travel. The evil dark wind of that day carried 70% of Chernobyl's heavy radiation into the neighboring country of Belorussia.
As we travel northward, we begin to grasp the immensity of the total area that was poisoned, and will still be poisoned in the year 2525.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/land-of-the-wolves/chapter28.html
Farms in Ukraine.
By territory Ukraine is a bit bigger then France and in history books it was called a bread basket of Europe.
It is because in Ukraine is 40% world supply of black earth.
Soil is good here, put a stick into this soil and it will grow.
Now, this bread basket flavoured with wormwood [Chernobyl radiation] and no one want to buy food products made in Ukraine.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/land-of-the-wolves/chapter30.html
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Week 4: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
NOTE:
To those who joined from the ESII course, remember the readings ARE IN THE Ewha Central Library Reserve. Two of you weren't in class on Friday to get the handout that I made for you of Schnaiberg's Chapter 5. That was an important lecture. I suggest you both make an appointment with me to catch up on this issue.
A topic that came up in lecture was comparing Korea to the treadmill model. Some students wanted to read what I read about the scale of dependence on the Korean economy in international trade (instead of its own consumers, which is the treadmill model). Therefore, I repost that article this week.
(Note that this is different from a treadmill model since the 'citizen/labor/consumers' are outside a single state/monopoly capital arrangement, and its hard to see how the could affect Korean state or corporate interests through Schnaiberg's idea of the treadmill (which depends on all competing in a single polity).
(Schnaiberg's model of what is responsible for environmental damage is entirely a model of internal consumers supporting this system. It falls apart if you expect to blame Korean consumers or any domestic consumers for what their chaebol are doing internationally.
(I will discuss other critiques of Schnaiberg in a short introduction before the film we watch next week. Some critiques are mentioned in the Buttel reading. Look at its chart for a change of how Schnaiberg has been arguing over the years, which makes breaks the original internal state model of the idea.)
The film we watch is Who Killed the Electric Car. It has some treadmill elements though is a case of "cooperation and conflict" which highlights some of the limitations of [1] "abstract" additions and withdrawals as well as his [2] abstract issues of all government levels cooperating in the treadmill, or [3] all monopoly capital cooperating in the treadmill, etc., or [4] the issue whether it has to actually be more environmentally degradative as it expands, or [5] whether all citizens support such a model actively or passively as Schnaiberg argues.
To summarize the below article, it indicates that instead of 92% of production going overseas, that 92% is combined imports and exports, instead of just exports as I thought.
This serves as a correction to what I said. Another correction: there were places mentioned that are more extreme like Malaysia, Taiwan, and other countries.
In the Korea Times:
link to the image showing the expansion of dependence on international trade from 2001 to the present, from 57% to 92% now. Source: Statistics Korea
11-11-2009 18:34
92 Percent of [Import and Export Combined] Economy Linked to External Trade
By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
Imports and exports made up 92.3 percent of the Korean economy last year, breaching the 90-percent mark for the first time.
Economists warn this could lead to the economy being harmed by external factors due to the country's dependence on the sector.
According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Wednesday, the ratio of exports and imports to national income was 92.3 percent last year, a record high.
Exports accounted for 45.4 percent, with imports claiming 46.9 percent.
The ratio of trade to national ['national'? meaning entirely domestic organizations of production/consumption?] income hovered between 50 and 70 percent until 2007, but suddenly jumped by over 20 percentage points last year.
Some economies depend more heavily on trade than Korea.
Singapore saw its ratio record 361.7 percent last year, followed by Hong Kong with 348.4 percent. [Though these are city states; Korea is a rather sizable territory being compared unfairly with a city-state; Korea is in its own class in other words, and should be left out of comparisons to these formations of city-states. Compare Korea better with these countries below:]
Among other Asian countries, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan also had higher ratios than Korea.
Dependence on trade is inevitable for a small economy such as Korea that has to export goods and services.
However, the trend can incur problems.
"Export-led growth is known to incur such side effects as increasing volatility from overseas shocks, a withering domestic market, and decreased job creation," said Kim Bae-keun of the Bank of Korea.
He added that export-led growth worsens trade terms, while advances in technology on the domestic market increase both consumption and real income.
Korea, for example, saw its economy shaken amid the global financial crisis last year.
The won-dollar rate breached 1,500 won per greenback as the Korean currency faltered.
The outlook for the fourth quarter and next year is also negative as falling demand from the country's export markets mars economic recovery.
In the case of Hong Kong, the World Bank estimates the economy to contract by 3 percent this year due to a high dependency on trade.
The Japanese economy, meanwhile, depends only 31.6 percent on trade, with its domestic market sufficiently developed. [Average GNP per capita in Japan is almost twice that of Korea's, so more purchasing power.]
The government has been pondering ways to develop the domestic market [though doing this in a 'treadmill' fashion according to the below]. It is especially focusing on [how to consolidate] the services industry, such as education, medicine and law.
"Our economy fluctuated too much due to outside shocks," Strategy and Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said last week.
"Changing the structure of the economy is not an easy task, but it can't be delayed any longer," he said, adding that further deregulation [i.e., allowing larger units] was needed in the services sector. [i.e., toward monopoly capital preferment which leads to the greater difficulty in the first place? Schnaiberg's critique of the 'treadmill' model of an alliance support for growth is that it fails to deliver the social equity it promises and instead it leads to instability socially and environmentally instead of is a way out.]
chizpizza@koreatimes.co.kr
---
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/11/123_55306.html
2.
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Treadmill Politics? An analysis of Samsung's bias on the four powers of the state's developmental policies toward greater monopoly capitalism
3. I post this to get a picture about Samsung's position within the Korean state. Does it fit the treadmill model? It's additionally a book recommendation for those who want to find it.
--------------------
[Column] A society between freedom and servitude: Boycott Samsung
Hong Se-hwa, Planning Editor
The book “Thinking About Samsung (Samseong-eul Saenggakhanda)” by attorney Kim Yong-cheol is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the Republic of Korea of today.
In particular, it shares the way in which state organizations have contorted themselves miserably in the face of Samsung, South Korea’s largest chaebol.
When the Samsung management scattered about a slush fund of astronomical proportions, government organizations repaid the debt of gratitude by covering up all manner of illegalities and improprieties.
The autonomy of a modern state “ruled by the authority of law” came crashing down. The fact that so many calls for direct action through a Samsung boycott campaign have erupted, chiefly through the Internet newspaper Pressian, can be attributed first and foremost to the rage citizens feel about being betrayed by the state.
Samsung’s was not delegated power through an election, but it has already taken the nation in its grip. Former president Roh Moo-hyun’s remark that “Power has gone over to the market” was not far off from the sense that his own administration was also under Samsung’s control. Public prosecutors and special prosecutors, the National Tax Agency and the Financial Supervisory Service, the National Assembly and the judiciary - all have betrayed the people’s expectations for the realization of law and justice in the face of Samsung’s authority [in developmental direction toward more subsidization and discriminative policies that support only monopoly capitalism expansion].
All have negated their own reasons for being. And by issuing a special pardon for an individual conglomerate head, former Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee, President Lee Myung-bak clearly demonstrated the thesis presented early on in critical national theory, namely that “the state is the steward of capital.”
Once a thief has successfully committed an act of thievery without consequence, he grows bolder. Without a doubt, the illegalities and improprieties of Samsung’s management, their accounting manipulation, tax evasion and labor exploitation will be even more untrammeled in the future. The only source left for the power to contend with the omnipotence of Samsung, a conglomerate that does not even have a labor union, lies with the consumer. Awakened citizens, however small their number, are ready to accept financial loss and inconvenience.
Every time they waver, they will ask themselves, “Do I want to pass on this rotting society to my children?” And every time they find themselves pursuing some small convenience today, they will remind themselves that it will rebound as a heavy chain of servitude for their children and their younger siblings.
The deciding factor that determines where a community lies in a capitalist society, between freedom and servitude, is the check on the power of business by civil society and the power of balance. Ultimately, it depends on the understanding of capital by the worker who produces and the citizen who consumes, and the way in which they behave accordingly. For, as I have already stressed, the authority of capital loses its footing when the worker stops producing and the consumer stops consuming. Just as there is no such thing as a free lunch in a capitalist society, so we cannot obtain freedom of its own accord. Whether as an individual or an organization, we must pay the price of inconvenience and difficulty if we are to aspire to freedom.
In a so-called “Good Country for Doing Business,” namely one where the state serves businesses rather than businesses serving the national economy, direct action by citizens such as a Samsung boycott could easily be denounced as “anti-business” or even “anti-society” and “anti-state.”
But this then begs the question of who is more anti-society or anti-state than the management at Samsung, who make sport of the nation and persist in prohibiting labor unions. [Schnaiberg argued that monopoly capital prefers labor unions. Hmm. A problematic point I think in the treadmill model of smooth workings of organized labor and organized monopoly capitalism?]
A European laborer once asked, “If Samsung disallows unions, why don’t you respond with a boycott?” And, indeed, if the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) were truly “militant,” the Samsung boycott should have taken place a long time ago. Such a campaign would be a blessing in disguise for Samsung as well, allowing it become a brand corresponding to the “global economy” everyone is talking about.
History evolves when we wage real battles. I will start myself by making a vow, as someone who has always emphasized modernity. Let us not talk of the labor movement, welfare and distribution while skirting the battle with the power of capital, and with the power of Samsung at the apex of that. Let us not talk of social progress or the maturity of democracy, ecology, gender equality, true education or minority rights. They are mere alibis.
The views presented in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Hankyoreh.
---
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_opinion/411971.html
NOTE:
To those who joined from the ESII course, remember the readings ARE IN THE Ewha Central Library Reserve. Two of you weren't in class on Friday to get the handout that I made for you of Schnaiberg's Chapter 5. That was an important lecture. I suggest you both make an appointment with me to catch up on this issue.
A topic that came up in lecture was comparing Korea to the treadmill model. Some students wanted to read what I read about the scale of dependence on the Korean economy in international trade (instead of its own consumers, which is the treadmill model). Therefore, I repost that article this week.
(Note that this is different from a treadmill model since the 'citizen/labor/consumers' are outside a single state/monopoly capital arrangement, and its hard to see how the could affect Korean state or corporate interests through Schnaiberg's idea of the treadmill (which depends on all competing in a single polity).
(Schnaiberg's model of what is responsible for environmental damage is entirely a model of internal consumers supporting this system. It falls apart if you expect to blame Korean consumers or any domestic consumers for what their chaebol are doing internationally.
(I will discuss other critiques of Schnaiberg in a short introduction before the film we watch next week. Some critiques are mentioned in the Buttel reading. Look at its chart for a change of how Schnaiberg has been arguing over the years, which makes breaks the original internal state model of the idea.)
The film we watch is Who Killed the Electric Car. It has some treadmill elements though is a case of "cooperation and conflict" which highlights some of the limitations of [1] "abstract" additions and withdrawals as well as his [2] abstract issues of all government levels cooperating in the treadmill, or [3] all monopoly capital cooperating in the treadmill, etc., or [4] the issue whether it has to actually be more environmentally degradative as it expands, or [5] whether all citizens support such a model actively or passively as Schnaiberg argues.
To summarize the below article, it indicates that instead of 92% of production going overseas, that 92% is combined imports and exports, instead of just exports as I thought.
This serves as a correction to what I said. Another correction: there were places mentioned that are more extreme like Malaysia, Taiwan, and other countries.
In the Korea Times:
link to the image showing the expansion of dependence on international trade from 2001 to the present, from 57% to 92% now. Source: Statistics Korea
11-11-2009 18:34
92 Percent of [Import and Export Combined] Economy Linked to External Trade
By Yoon Ja-young
Staff Reporter
Imports and exports made up 92.3 percent of the Korean economy last year, breaching the 90-percent mark for the first time.
Economists warn this could lead to the economy being harmed by external factors due to the country's dependence on the sector.
According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, Wednesday, the ratio of exports and imports to national income was 92.3 percent last year, a record high.
Exports accounted for 45.4 percent, with imports claiming 46.9 percent.
The ratio of trade to national ['national'? meaning entirely domestic organizations of production/consumption?] income hovered between 50 and 70 percent until 2007, but suddenly jumped by over 20 percentage points last year.
Some economies depend more heavily on trade than Korea.
Singapore saw its ratio record 361.7 percent last year, followed by Hong Kong with 348.4 percent. [Though these are city states; Korea is a rather sizable territory being compared unfairly with a city-state; Korea is in its own class in other words, and should be left out of comparisons to these formations of city-states. Compare Korea better with these countries below:]
Among other Asian countries, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan also had higher ratios than Korea.
Dependence on trade is inevitable for a small economy such as Korea that has to export goods and services.
However, the trend can incur problems.
"Export-led growth is known to incur such side effects as increasing volatility from overseas shocks, a withering domestic market, and decreased job creation," said Kim Bae-keun of the Bank of Korea.
He added that export-led growth worsens trade terms, while advances in technology on the domestic market increase both consumption and real income.
Korea, for example, saw its economy shaken amid the global financial crisis last year.
The won-dollar rate breached 1,500 won per greenback as the Korean currency faltered.
The outlook for the fourth quarter and next year is also negative as falling demand from the country's export markets mars economic recovery.
In the case of Hong Kong, the World Bank estimates the economy to contract by 3 percent this year due to a high dependency on trade.
The Japanese economy, meanwhile, depends only 31.6 percent on trade, with its domestic market sufficiently developed. [Average GNP per capita in Japan is almost twice that of Korea's, so more purchasing power.]
The government has been pondering ways to develop the domestic market [though doing this in a 'treadmill' fashion according to the below]. It is especially focusing on [how to consolidate] the services industry, such as education, medicine and law.
"Our economy fluctuated too much due to outside shocks," Strategy and Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said last week.
"Changing the structure of the economy is not an easy task, but it can't be delayed any longer," he said, adding that further deregulation [i.e., allowing larger units] was needed in the services sector. [i.e., toward monopoly capital preferment which leads to the greater difficulty in the first place? Schnaiberg's critique of the 'treadmill' model of an alliance support for growth is that it fails to deliver the social equity it promises and instead it leads to instability socially and environmentally instead of is a way out.]
chizpizza@koreatimes.co.kr
---
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/11/123_55306.html
2.
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Treadmill Politics? An analysis of Samsung's bias on the four powers of the state's developmental policies toward greater monopoly capitalism
3. I post this to get a picture about Samsung's position within the Korean state. Does it fit the treadmill model? It's additionally a book recommendation for those who want to find it.
--------------------
[Column] A society between freedom and servitude: Boycott Samsung
Hong Se-hwa, Planning Editor
The book “Thinking About Samsung (Samseong-eul Saenggakhanda)” by attorney Kim Yong-cheol is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the Republic of Korea of today.
In particular, it shares the way in which state organizations have contorted themselves miserably in the face of Samsung, South Korea’s largest chaebol.
When the Samsung management scattered about a slush fund of astronomical proportions, government organizations repaid the debt of gratitude by covering up all manner of illegalities and improprieties.
The autonomy of a modern state “ruled by the authority of law” came crashing down. The fact that so many calls for direct action through a Samsung boycott campaign have erupted, chiefly through the Internet newspaper Pressian, can be attributed first and foremost to the rage citizens feel about being betrayed by the state.
Samsung’s was not delegated power through an election, but it has already taken the nation in its grip. Former president Roh Moo-hyun’s remark that “Power has gone over to the market” was not far off from the sense that his own administration was also under Samsung’s control. Public prosecutors and special prosecutors, the National Tax Agency and the Financial Supervisory Service, the National Assembly and the judiciary - all have betrayed the people’s expectations for the realization of law and justice in the face of Samsung’s authority [in developmental direction toward more subsidization and discriminative policies that support only monopoly capitalism expansion].
All have negated their own reasons for being. And by issuing a special pardon for an individual conglomerate head, former Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee, President Lee Myung-bak clearly demonstrated the thesis presented early on in critical national theory, namely that “the state is the steward of capital.”
Once a thief has successfully committed an act of thievery without consequence, he grows bolder. Without a doubt, the illegalities and improprieties of Samsung’s management, their accounting manipulation, tax evasion and labor exploitation will be even more untrammeled in the future. The only source left for the power to contend with the omnipotence of Samsung, a conglomerate that does not even have a labor union, lies with the consumer. Awakened citizens, however small their number, are ready to accept financial loss and inconvenience.
Every time they waver, they will ask themselves, “Do I want to pass on this rotting society to my children?” And every time they find themselves pursuing some small convenience today, they will remind themselves that it will rebound as a heavy chain of servitude for their children and their younger siblings.
The deciding factor that determines where a community lies in a capitalist society, between freedom and servitude, is the check on the power of business by civil society and the power of balance. Ultimately, it depends on the understanding of capital by the worker who produces and the citizen who consumes, and the way in which they behave accordingly. For, as I have already stressed, the authority of capital loses its footing when the worker stops producing and the consumer stops consuming. Just as there is no such thing as a free lunch in a capitalist society, so we cannot obtain freedom of its own accord. Whether as an individual or an organization, we must pay the price of inconvenience and difficulty if we are to aspire to freedom.
In a so-called “Good Country for Doing Business,” namely one where the state serves businesses rather than businesses serving the national economy, direct action by citizens such as a Samsung boycott could easily be denounced as “anti-business” or even “anti-society” and “anti-state.”
But this then begs the question of who is more anti-society or anti-state than the management at Samsung, who make sport of the nation and persist in prohibiting labor unions. [Schnaiberg argued that monopoly capital prefers labor unions. Hmm. A problematic point I think in the treadmill model of smooth workings of organized labor and organized monopoly capitalism?]
A European laborer once asked, “If Samsung disallows unions, why don’t you respond with a boycott?” And, indeed, if the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) were truly “militant,” the Samsung boycott should have taken place a long time ago. Such a campaign would be a blessing in disguise for Samsung as well, allowing it become a brand corresponding to the “global economy” everyone is talking about.
History evolves when we wage real battles. I will start myself by making a vow, as someone who has always emphasized modernity. Let us not talk of the labor movement, welfare and distribution while skirting the battle with the power of capital, and with the power of Samsung at the apex of that. Let us not talk of social progress or the maturity of democracy, ecology, gender equality, true education or minority rights. They are mere alibis.
The views presented in this column are the writer’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those of The Hankyoreh.
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http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_opinion/411971.html
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Week 3: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week Post
Post by Sunday at midnight.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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