Harby For President!

What to do when the bogus political choice for your country is between Wall Street's candidate of the Vampire Squid and Wall Street's Vampire Squid, Jr.? Why, vote for a real tentacled space alien of malign intent! We hereby nominate Harby the Reaper.

Apparently, the Harbster resigned from the rEApers after the implosion of one of their videogames. But science fiction's loss is America's gain!

Candidate Harby has all the crucial qualities to be President of this dying Empire: no compunction about killing, booming loudspeaker-voice, twin laser cannons, and an armored carapace the size of the Sears Tower. Heck, why bother to elect someone to run an unconstitutional war machine, when you can elect the war machine itself?

Harby also has terrific slogans: "Nothing Says Democracy Like Twin Laser Cannons", "No Child Left Unhusked", "50,000 Years of Successful Galactic Colonialism", and "Our 3 Colors Are Still Better Than Your 2 Party State".

Tomorrow: a May Day surprise!

Ypsilanti Vampire

Believe it or not, those two words have a profound historical connection. Read Peter Linebaugh's stupendous Ypsilanti Vampire May Day. Yes, it's long, but well worth it -- if we're going to take back our planet, we have to know its history.

And The Children Shall Lead Them...

Children, the most vulnerable members of any society, are also on the front lines of the battle against the insanity of neoliberalism. Check out Education Radio for terrific podcasts and interviews with teachers, reformers and students battling the Neoliberal Beast.

Supervillains Loot The Treasury

SIGTARP's latest report sums up the cost of coddling banksters. It isn't pretty. Contrary to the whisper campaign of the banksters, which claimed that the Treasury made money on the bailout, the public was indeed swindled:

"Taxpayers are still owed $118.5 billion." (page 5)

But it's all good, because the assets of the largest five cesspools of bankster crime -- JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs -- swelled from $6.1 trillion (43% of GDP) before the 2008 crash to $8.5 trillion (56% of GDP) today.

That's right -- the most irresponsible, speculation-mad, too-big-to-fail banksters of all time got free money from you, the humble taxpayer. Not one of their executives went to jail for their crimes. And to top it off, they promptly went back to their speculative games, on an even bigger scale.

By the blog-power invested in me, I hereby christen these five the Legion of Doom, and declare them to be sworn enemies of the 99Percent. Scorn ye their emissaries, nonviolently protest at their board meetings, and let the public naming-and-shaming begin!

The Czech Comrades Kick It Off

Prague just witnessed its biggest demonstrations since the Velvet Revolution (news wrap-up is here). Outstanding!

And there's even this musical interlude.

And yes, the blog posting will be daily from now on.

The Great Downpression

This summer, we'll be entering Year 5 of the Great Downpression. While the tape-worms of Wall Street get to refinance at 0.25% rates of interest and haul in record bonuses, the real economy continues to go to hell. America's youth are being pulverized by a catastrophic job market:

 

1 in 2 new graduates are jobless or underemployed

And things are no better for us middle-aged graduates. I've been applying for positions like mad, and there's nothing out there, absolutely nothing. Sure, a few grads still get that lucky phone call. But the ranks of that blessed pool grow fewer each year. 

In my own field, communications, I'm starting to see the telltale signs of impending collapse, which I remember all too well from the meltdown of the humanities in the early 2000s: routine positions are now attracting well over four hundred applications.

Every day, I have to gather all my mental strength to keep going. 

Every day, I focus on the one cup of coffee I can afford (soon even this will be a memory). 

 

Every day, I sift through videogames and media I can no longer afford to purchase, trying to keep up-to-date via fansites and fan walk-throughs. 

Every day, I focus on my writing and research, trying to quell the hunger pangs of living on one meal a day.

Occasionally I find some gem -- a Kenyan music video, a Russian rap song -- which speaks truth to power, and empowers the truth. And this somehow keeps me going, and inspires me to keep writing these words, these words which are all I have, these words which are unknowable, these words sent to an address unknown, these words which are a life-raft.

Occupy May Day

What to do when you have 2 degrees but you're still dead broke, with no job, no future, and nothing but debt-chains to show for your hard work?

Since there's no party which fights for our interests, we'll just have to throw our very own party in the streets.

Signage is here. Plans are here and here.

Goodbye Iberocolonialism, Hello Paranazilla!

For centuries, Argentina's elites despoiled their own country as the junior partners of British colonialism, American neocolonialism, and latest of all, Wall Street neoliberalism and Euroliberalism.

Until the revolt of December 2001, when the long-suffering people of Argentina decided they'd had enough of bandit politicians and bandit oligarchs.

Say hello to Paranazilla, Latin America's newest developmental state. Its beating heart: YPF, the nation's energy provider sold off to Euroliberalism in the 1990s, and just renationalized by President Kirchner. Argentina now has the resources to protect itself from foreign predators, and to finance domestic industrialization.

Banksters Repentant

See? That $11 trillion Federal bailout for the 1% and the complete lack of criminal indictments for the worst financial train robbery in human history worked after all. The Bank of America has decided to reform, and wants your valued input!

Anti-neoliberal Franchises Don't Die...

...just multiply:

God of War: Ascension.

The neoliberal slaves begin to cast off their chains!

Not A Curse

In the jailhouse of neoliberalism
the cellphones shine
like more fortunate galaxies

Antineoliberal Antidotes

Reverend Billy leads us debt-serfs through the Valley of the Shadow of Student Debt.

And then there's this exorcism of Blythe Masters, the financier who invented the CDS. Away with the demons of rehypothecation!

Class War Has No Class

Ah, yes, forgot to mention this little gem. Last year, that pack of lice-infested reptiles otherwise known as the Rethuglican Congress gutted one of the minor subsidies which kept grad education somewhat affordable:

Grad Students to Lose Federal Loan Subsidy

Because it's just so much more important to finance trillion dollar failed colonial wars and trillion dollar failed bankster scams which benefit a tiny elite of plutocrats and Koch Bros./Halliburton oiligarchs than to invest in the future, right?

Not that things get any better once you graduate. Jobs? What jobs? There are no jobs. More on this later...

From Prozac Nation To Suicide Nation

California kicks graduate students -- the people who become the scientists, doctors, teachers, programmers, and professionals of tomorrow -- in the teeth:

CSU may pull cash grants to half its grad students

Total savings: a measly $90 million.

Why? So that Wall Street thieves can steal trillion dollar bailouts and warlords can wallow in trillion dollar taxpayer-funded boondoggles against nonexistent enemies.

Since the 1990s, we've gone from Prozac Nation to Suicide Nation, where no civic institution is left standing and no carotid artery is left unsliced.

On the bright side, by forcing those professionals of the future to take on Federal loans at 6% rates of interest, they're creating a vast pool of immiserated debt-serfs with literally nothing to lose but their debt-chains.

Dear CSU graduate students: as a fellow grad student in the Illinois state system, please don't blame yourselves for this insanity. You and me and all other Americans, we've got to change this.

Fight. Think. Write. Live.

Shouts Out To CD Projekt

In a world broken to its core, it's all the more important to celebrate works of digital art which showcase the best of what our species can do.

Case in point: Polish developer CD Projekt hits it out of the park with Witcher 2 -- medieval swords, sorcery, and political intrigue done right. A top-notch story drenched with Polish postcolonial history (the games are based on the fantasy fiction of prominent Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski), deep role-playing elements, superb music, set design and models, and excellent voice-acting make this the greatest role-playing videogame since Square's Final Fantasy 12.

It's noteworthy that studios in Poland, a semi-peripheral economy, were able to create the greatest zombie thriller of the past few years -- Techland's Dead Island (profiled here) -- and now the greatest role-playing videogame since 2006. This is a hopeful sign for the nations of the global semi-periphery and for the BRIC nations, which are all powering up their digital media industries at a very fast clip.

Heiner Saw It Coming

Here's Heiner Mueller's 1977 Hamletmachine, that grim forecast of the decades of neoliberal barbarism to come. Ophelia is a symbol of the revolution which didn't happen, the rebellion which Hamlet betrayed:

5

WILDSTRAINING / IN THE FEARSOME ARMAMENTS / MILLENIA

Deep sea. Ophelia in wheelchair. Fish wreckage corpses and body-parts stream past.

OPHELIA: While two men in doctor’s smocks wrap her from top to bottom in white bandages. "Here speaks Electra. In the Heart of Darkness. Under the Sun of Torture. To the Metropolises of the World. In the Names of the Victims."

That was fiction. Here's the neoliberal reality:

Just when Fatima Bouchar thought it couldn't get any worse, the Americans forced her to lie on a stretcher and began wrapping tape around her feet. They moved upwards, she says, along her legs, winding the tape around and around, binding her to the stretcher. They taped her stomach, her arms and then her chest. She was bound tight, unable to move. Bouchar says there were three Americans: two tall, thin men and an equally tall woman. Mostly they were silent. She never saw their faces: they dressed in black and always wore black balaclavas. Bouchar was terrified. They didn't stop at her chest – she says they also wound the tape around her head, covering her eyes. Then they put a hood and earmuffs on her. She was unable to move, to hear or to see. (Special report: Rendition ordeal that raises new questions about secret trials Ian Cobain, The Guardian, April 8, 2012)

(Bouchar was the wife of a Libyan exile fighting against the Qaddafi dictatorship. The British government handed Bouchar and her husband over to Qaddafi's thugs in exchange for access to Libyan oil.) It's amazing how even the smallest torture-cell of the total system replicates the doom of the total system: the packaging of human beings into products, as if they were commodities on an assembly-line. And note the special touch of the hood and earmuffs: this was not so much to terrorize their victim. This was the bad conscience of the torturers, who knew very well they were mistreating another human being. They simply could not bear to look into their victim's eyes.

Anti-neoliberal Antidote

MV Bill tears up the mic. BRICS in da house!

A Message from The Makers of Class Defect 3

Looks like OnepercentWare, the studio responsible for the recent Class Defect 3, a popular role-playing science fiction videogame which outraged fans with its horrible ending, is has finally listened to its fans after all. Here's their statement, helpfully translated from its original corporatese:

OnepercentWare

Class Defect 3

An official press release went out today announcing how we are re-purgatorizing the Class Defect 3 post-release driblet schedule to provide a more flushed-down-the-drain experience for franchise serfs (also called “players”). For many of you serfs, the “Extended Slug” will help answer your meaningless questions about why you, the franchise serfs, exist solely to enrich us, the 1%, your lords and masters. Oh and it’s at no cost to you serfs, because you're too *^&% stupid to know that you only get what you pay for. Whoops, is this mike on? Testing, testing...

Here is a mini FAQ-U to help franchise serfs understand what the Class Defect 3: Extended Slug is and isn’t:

What can franchise serfs expect from the Extended Slug DLC?

For franchise serfs who want more colors in the Class Defect 3 endings, the DLC will offer extended colors that provide additional tones and deeper palettes to the conclusion of Commander Shepard’s completely meaningless journey.

Are there going to be more/different endings or ending DLCs in the future?

No. OnepercentWare strongly believes in the endings of Deus Ex – er, Class Defect 3 – all of which praise and glorify the once and future omnipotence of the 1%, who will rule forever and ever and ever. The extended cut DLC will add a few cut-scenes to the existing endings (a small matter of galacticide and the complete destruction of everything the series ever stood for, matters of no import to you serfs), but no further ending DLC is planned.

What is OnepercentWare adding to the ending with the Extended Slug DLC?

OnepercentWare will expanding on the endings to Deus Ex – er, Class Defect 3 – by creating additional cut-scenes. The goal of these new scenes is to showcase the full glory and munificence of the eternal rule of the 1%.

When will the Extended Slug DLC be available?

Currently the Extended Slug DLC is planned for this summer, no specific date has been announced at this point.

Why are you releasing the Extended Slug DLC?

Though we remain committed to the rule of the 1% and are proud of the choicelessness we inflicted on franchise serfs in the main game, we are aware that there are some serfs would like more glorification of the 1% in Class Defect 3. The goal of the DLC is not to provide a new ending to the game, rather to offer serfs additional reasons to grit their teeth and sacrifice their wallets, their dignity and their very lives to the almighty 1%.

Will there be more Class Defect 3 DLC?

More ways to fleece our serfs are constantly being devised and we will release information at a later date.

So there you have it. Are we proud of our role in serving the 1% and the game which certifies its genocide-stained rule? Hell yes. Are we going to change the ending of the game? No. Do we appreciate the passion and listen to the feedback delivered to us by you serfs? After selling 3 million copies of a videogame which kicks you serfs in the teeth and smears your choicelessness and misery all over your serf faces, we're laughing so hard that it's really, really hard to stop. But we always do, because then it's time to deposit your money in our banks. Which we own. Well, time to hit our yachts again. Enjoy your broken economy, collapsing infrastructure and falling real wages, suckers!