Seamus Heaney Dies.

The Irish Poet Seamus Heaney has passed away at 74 on August 29, 2013 in a Dublin hospital after a short illness. He was arguably the greatest contemporary Irish writer and English language poet. During his long career his work earned him countless awards and honors, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet, he never lost sight of his muse--to express in poetry the full gamut of human emotion from heroic struggle to the monotony of day to day life. He made good poetry for everyone. His metric translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf re-invigorated the first piece of English literature and introduced it to a new generation. Heaney will be sorely missed. The link to Seamus Heaney's Obituary in The Guardian can be found here.

Dmitry Orlov "Seizing the Mid-Collapse Moment"

RT -- "The War on Iran Begins...in Syria."

By Gene Ogorodov

Earlier this week RT published at op-ed by Eric Draister on the immanent US et al. direct military intervention in Syria entitled "The War on Iran Begins...in Syria." Justifiably pessimistic, Draister exposes what will inevitably be called "humanitarian intervention" as imperialistic warmongering.  I hope that this does not turn into a much broader conflict, but I believe as Draister does that a US military strike in Syria could lead down a similar path with dire consequences. 

It is notable that what might be the most significant political action in the 21st Century has gone virtually unnoticed, obfuscated by a lack of coverage and impenetrable propaganda. The Pax Americana is over, and there is nothing that bullying Syria, Iran, or China will do to preserve it. Washington needs to recognize that fact and not waist the blood and treasure of the United States fighting for the impossible. Furthermore, the US has chronic and sever internal problems that need to be addressed. 

Matthew Simmons "The 51st State: Peak Oil Denial"

MLK's Dream 50 Years On

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of the most misunderstood public figures of the 20th Century. No one will deny that he was both a great man and a good man. He inspired an entire generations of Americans to re-examine the social contract and strive to make a better world for all people, and American propaganda tells us that he succeeded in laying the foundations of that better world that we now live in. 

I will not insult the memory of Dr. King by pretending that the United States has buried the specter of institutionalized racism. This country has turned Dr. King's dream into a nightmare. As for all Americans, life is worse for African-Americans today than it was in the 1970s. Token political enfranchisement and Affirmative Action favoring middle and upper class African-Americans matters very little in the face of abject poverty and permanent economic disenfranchisement for the vast majority of African-Americans. 

Pres. Obama does not epitomize the new found freedom of the African-American community; rather, he exemplifies the new spirit of the age where political leaders sell-out the constituents for cold hard cash. (Cf. A Liberal Voice on Pres. Obama.) Dr. King was for people not profit. When we see an America that cares more about people than the bottom line, then the United States will have begun to walk towards Dr. King's Dream.

Mark Leibovich "America's Guilded Capital." (Moyers and Company)

Richard Heinberg "The End of Growth." (Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2012)

The Vanguard of the Proletariat

By Gene Ogorodov

In the past few years the United States has been playing a dangerous game. Drunk with optimism and hubris Washington has convinced itself that everything is fine. Analysts predict the continuation of the American Century well into the 22nd Century and reinvigorated prosperity at home. They imagine that the current era is just a blip on an otherwise perfect screen. But far from being fine Washington is playing a game of Russian Roulette with the sentiments and feelings of the American people.

Since the founding of the Republic the political life of the nation has remained firmly tied to the interests of the middle classes. Although 19th Century America proved to be fertile ground for the accumulation of enormous fortunes, the politicians felt themselves obliged to pander to the interests and concerns of the smaller manufactures and merchants and the professional classes.

Homeless Intelligentsia in Boston

This story has been verified by the Huffington Post. In watching this film it is important to remember that one of the key attributes of a precarious labor market is the randomness of economic misfortune. Workers are not rewarded because of skills and degrees but the caprices of the market, which changes a whole lot faster than education and experience is acquired. It is beneficial to employers to have a precarious work force because for every person with a certain skill level and education that is homeless and starving the marginal wage for a position that would require those skills drops dramatically. To put it in human terms, because there are people like Maurice Johnson employers can pay in real wages new Electrical Engineers a fraction of what they did in the 1980s and 1990s with fewer benefits and less job security. This video was posted by 60Days60Nights on Youtube.com.

Introducing PFB Edition of A Great Love by Alexandra Kollontai

By Gene Ogorodov

Alexandra Kollontai is an interesting figure that emerged out of Russian Revolutionary politics. A child of a Finish peasant and a Russian General, reared in luxury, she was an early member of the Russian Social Democratic Party that opposed both Martov and Lenin in the Bolshevik/Menshevik split who, like Trotsky, joined Lenin's Bolshevik's in the eleventh hour rising to prominence in the early Soviet Union. She shattered the glass ceiling as a Peoples' Commissar (Soviet equivalent of a Cabinet Secretary) in 1917 and Ambassador in 1923 half a century before Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, or Golda Meir became Prime Ministers in there respective countries.

How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

Matthew Simmons "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Oil Shock"

Some Thoughts on Abiotic Oil.

By Gene Ogorodov

Opponents of the Peak Oil Theory invariably turn to Thomas Gold's Abiotic Oil Theory which proposes that oil (and all other hydorcarbons) are not by products of bio-matterial. Rather, the theory suggests, oil is a naturally occurring carbon byproduct of the earth's mantle. Other than a chemical experiment at Carnegie Mellon that produced natural gas under conditions that mirrored the earth's mantle, I have no idea what to make of the theory. Gold might be right, but the conventional explanation might also be correct. Eventually scientific experimentation will show the world a likely answer. 

However, the ambiguity of the origin of oil should not give one hope that the Hydrocarbon Age will last forever. The crisis of Peak Oil is not that there will be no more oil in the future, but that current rates of consumption are unsustainable. Considering that since the early 1980's the world has consumed more barrels of oil per year than it discovered necessitates that the fears of over consumption are true. 

Matthew Simmons "Oil and Gas - The Next Meltdown?"

Whitey Bulger Convicted

Infamous Boston mob boss Whitey Bulger was convicted on 30 counts including 11 counts of murder on Monday afternoon. It has been twenty-five years since the Boston Globe first broke the story about the Boston FBI scandal where government corruption facilitated racketeering, murder and gun-running for the IRA. Now the central figure behind it is facing life in prison. Although Bulger plans to appeal, solid proof coupled with the shear number of counts make it impossible to imagine that he will ever be free again.

Jeff Rubin "Oil and the End of Globalization" (Signature Lecture)

The Numbers You Don't Hear

By Gene Ogorodov

The numbers one will almost never hear in the press in the United States are 1 in 2, 1 in 4, 1 in 5, and 3 in 100. Even the far left refuses to acknowledge these numbers. The same old Government lies. It is a well known fact that the Bureau of Labor criteria for poverty is perfectly capricious, but still their official number of 1 in 6 is considered gospel truth. Even though the facts are before the eyes of opposition journalists in the US, and ostensibly it is in their interest to crunch the numbers; it is impossible to find headlines that give these numbers their appropriate exposure.

According to EU and OECD guidelines households that have a combined income of less than 60% of the national median household income are considered to be in poverty. For 2011 the IRS reported that 50% of US households reported income of less than $34K. Since $37K was 60% of the median household income in the US in 2011 it is fair to say that according to OECD standards more than 1 in 2 people in the US are in poverty.

US Goverment Debt Greater than Global GDP

RT reported last Tuesday that a report by James Hamilton out of the University of California San Diego has estimated that the Federal Government has accumulated $70 Trillion in unofficial debt. The World Bank calculations for Global GDP for 2012 is $71 Trillion. In short unofficial US debt is virtually equal to Global GDP.  It might be feasible for the US the clear its unofficial debt by subsuming the entire planet, but considering that the official debt is $12 Trillion and rapidly rising that option would solve the US's fiscal problems. To pay its debt off the US will need send explorers like Cpts. Kirk and Picard into the nether reaches of the Galaxy to rape and pillage as of yet unknown planets or devalue the dollar to such an extent that the ratio isn't ludicrous. The RT article can be found here.

Jeff Rubin "End of Growth: How to Achieve a Truly Sustainable Future."

Introducing PLI Edition of G W F Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit

By Gene Ogorodov

Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit ranks as one of the most influential philosophical works. His mark upon the evolution of human thought was the rise and prominence of Historicism. From Aristotle to Kant philosophy depended primarily (if not at times exclusively) upon a priori conclusions, Hegel gave a posteriori arguments an equal footing in philosophical debate. The mind ceased to be an all encompassing perfectly independent organ examining itself as it was for Descartes and Kant but an evolving creature maturing with human history, and thus human history became applicable in philosophical debate.

Yet, ironically Hegel's legacy was not in an expansion of the Geist but a withering away. The Young Hegelians, viz Feuerbach and Marx, took Hegel's train of thought to its rational conclusion and united Body and Spirit as one indivisible entity in a strict Materialist world. Thus Hegel is to late 19th Century philosophy what Kant is to Hegel.

Robert Hirsch "Peak Oil: Exploring the Risk Factors"

Introducing Pine Flag Books Edition of Theories of Surplus-Value by Karl Marx

By Gene Ogorodov

Nothing shows the hard work and impressive genius of Karl Marx as well as Theories of Surplus-Value. Every academic worthy of being called an academic is intimately familiar with the work and major hypotheses of their contemporaries and most influential predecessors, and economics is a field of study no less professional than any other academic field, but few economists have gone through the Sisyphean task of describing and deconstructing every idea in the field. That is what Marx does in Theories of Surplus-Value. Only Marx, Schumpeter, and Wolff and Resnick have presented what may be truly called detailed comparisons of economic theories and theorists. However, Theories of Surplus-Value also gives an excellently detailed picture of the underlying logic behind Marxian Economics. Alongside Capital and the Grundrisse, Theories of Surplus-Value ranks as one of the most essential economic works of Karl Marx and the Marxian Tradition.

Pine Flag Books has published this seminal work in ebook format for Kindle and Nook. This edition is based on the edition published by Progress Publishers in the 1970's and edited by Gene Ogorodov.

A High-Risk Barrel (2005)

Back in the USSR

This is for Edward Snowden. Late last week he sets foot outside of Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport for the first time since his arrival back in June.