New Economic Perspectives has the article MMT and Social Movements.  If you can get through the following excerpt, I ought to give you a bronze medal.  If you actually read the article, you get silver.  If you read the discussion in the comments, you get gold.  If you come away from this with the hint of an understanding of what this conversation is all about, you get platinum.  These rewards are all virtual and you are on the honor system in specifying the level of award you claim.

The Nature of Social Movements

Since relying upon the historicist political ideology is a core source of oppression, pausing to examine the actual dynamics of progressive social movements is worth their description. When I researched this process, for historical examples, for theoretical statements which seem to satisfy adequacy, applicability, validity, and reliability relative to my direct experience doing community organizing, the best summation I found was in “Beyond Revolution,” by Daniel A. Foss and Ralph Larkin (1986). The core statement they made was in a somewhat dense paragraph, found on page 143:

“The difference between a social movement and episodic dissidence is that it builds upon itself in a process of intensification, wherein the hegemonic (dominating) ideology (world view) is rendered problematic (challenged) by dissidents. This “reinterpretation of reality” provides the subjective basis for further- and more drastic- action. As social reality is reinterpreted in the struggle, movement participants attempt to reclaim those aspects of human subjectivity that have been alienated from themselves as part of their socialization to positions of social subordination. So long as these three aspects of a social movement are a mutually reinforcing totality – intensification of a conflict, reinterpretation of social reality, and the redefinition of the self and its capacities – a social movement is ongoing. Their fragmentation signals the point of the incipient decline has been reached, Such phenomena must be viewed as a whole, since there are often temporary defeats and retreats within the process of intensification of a social movement, as well as phases of overt conflict alternating with cultural (or subjective) intensification” from Foss and Larkin, Beyond Revolution (1986).

The most effective social movement of the 20th century at least in the US was the US Civil Rights movement. It is also offered as a historical model worth emulating, though its interpretation most often focuses upon the oratory of Martin Luther King Jr. The actual back-story closely fits Foss and Larkin’s description in “Beyond Revolution” of a social movement. Martin Luther King Jr. was himself a participant in training for community organizers that was offered by the Highlander Folk School, later known as the Highlander Research Center. The training offered there was led by Myles Horton and Septima Clark. Prior to the establishing of the national significance of the US Civil Rights movement the Highlander Folk school “trained” some 40,000 people who were distributed mostly across the southern states.

I claim at least gold and perhaps a tad of platinum for myself.

Here is a very interesting interview, 3-17-2014 Voice of Russia Interview with Field McConnell, that was buried in one of the links in my previous post Boeing wins patent on uninterruptible autopilot system.

OK, so now have I gone completely wacky to be following this trail and presenting it to you?

I know this sounds wacky, but I decided to Google it anyway.  Here are a few of the hits that I read or watched.

Something called Homeland Security Newswire had the article Emergency landing round-up: Boeing wins patent on uninterruptible autopilot system published 4 December 2006.

New technology can be activated by the pilots, government agencies, even on-board sensors; not even a tortured pilot can give up control; dedicated electrical circuits ensure the system’s total independence

The UK Daily Mail had the article New autopilot will make another 9/11 impossible published 3 March 2007.

The so-called ‘uninterruptible autopilot system’ – patented secretly by Boeing in the US last week – will connect ground controllers and security services with the aircraft using radio waves and global satellite positioning systems.

After it has been activated, the aircraft will be capable of remote digital control from the ground, enabling operators to fly it like a sophisticated model plane, manoeuvring it vertically and laterally.

A threatened airliner could be flown to a secure military base or a commercial airport, where it would touch down using existing landing aids known as ‘autoland function’.

After it had landed, the aircraft’s built-in autobrake would bring the plane safely to a halt on the runway.

Boeing insiders say the new anti-hijack kit could be fitted to airliners all over the world, including those in the UK, within the next three years.

Then I found the CNN report Remote Controlled Autopilot Boeing Patent.

So what’s wrong with these reports? Snopes has nothing to say about this.

If you keep looking you run across things like the story from Before It’s News MH370 $MultiBillion Patent Passengers: Pilot Warned About Crisis, Gagged, Speaks Out.  I guess the only thing to keep in mind is that Faux Noise makes up stories all the time that millions of people believe.  That doesn’t mean that this one is necessarily untrue.

Obviously we ought to check the US Patent Office to even see if there truly is such a patent.  7,142,971 System and method for automatically controlling a path of travel of a vehicle.

The method and system for automatically controlling a path of travel of a vehicle include engaging an automatic control system when the security of the onboard controls is jeopardized. Engagement may be automatic or manual from inside the vehicle or remotely via a communication link. Any onboard capability to supersede the automatic control system may then be disabled by disconnecting the onboard controls and/or providing uninterruptible power to the automatic control system via a path that does not include the onboard accessible power control element(s). The operation of the vehicle is then controlled via the processing element of the automatic control system. The control commands may be received from a remote location and/or from predetermined control commands that are stored onboard the vehicle.

Assignee: The Boeing Company (Chicago, IL) , Filed: February 19, 2003

2017/06/04

Disabled the link to the U.s. Patent office above because of suspected malware at the link.

I found the link to this video on Max Keiser: Financial War Reports blog in the article U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson: we should be applauding Russian action in Ukraine and Crimea…

Alan Grayson may be right, but this is sure to be fodder for his political opponents. You can tell from the comment by the person who made this video clip. I almost wish he had been a little more cautious in his words, but then that would not have been Alan Grayson.

One of the commenters posted a substantial excerpt from a 2002 article Big Oil and US Foreign Policy.

I don’t know anything of the provenance of these blogs, so there is no guarantee that goes along with any of this. Of course I will take the C-SPAN excerpt as reliable until proven otherwise.

There is the Reuters article I quoted in a previous post Exxon says pursuit of Ukraine Skifska block on hold that does corroborate some of the remarks about the oil.

Naked Capitalism has the article Bengt-Ake Lundvall: The Portuguese Manifesto Sends a Message to Europe’s Elite That Austerity Has Failed and “Project Europe” Must be Rethought.  I’ll leave you with the final words of the article.

Q: That means that a debt restructuring operation in Portugal is not sufficient, you need a Euro-wide initiative?

A: As I said in the beginning a debt restructuring could result in a shake-up of the current economic and political order. But what is needed is a radical rethinking of the relationships between economic integration on the one hand and political and social integration on the other hand. We would need European leaders who were honest on the fact that economic integration without political and social integration leads to growing inequality and to instability. One important signal could be to call for a time-out for economic integration while Europe starts to establish some elements of a common fiscal and social investment policy. It could begin with modest measures related to minimum income and unemployment support. European-wide programs aiming at upgrading the skills of the low skilled, labor market flexicurity and modern open education systems would send signals to all Europeans that Europe from now on would build it competitiveness on competence and not on low wages. Green investment plans would show that Europe takes into account also the survival of the coming generation.

Q: Is it politically feasible in the present European context?

A: As I see it, what appears to be feasible now brings us closer to the end of the European project. Therefore the only possible strategy is to ask for what seems to be out of reach. We know that history offers us surprises from time to time. Let us hope for a positive surprise.

Maybe there are some good ideas here for fixing what ails us in the U.S.

Here, I have saved you the trouble of looking up flexicurity.