Michael Barker
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Articles by Michael Barker
Blowing up Nonviolent Pipelines
Andreas Malm’s now famous book How to Blow Up a Pipeline (Verso, 2021) had its origins in the activist-author’s frustration with mainstream distortions concerning the history of working class struggles. But in challenging those who impose misleading nonviolent narratives upon the processes of social change – a task that I too sought to undertake in my own book On Nonviolence (2025) — Malm goes too far and ends up offering up his own problematic political shortcuts.
The Role of Meiotic Drive in Chromosome Number Disparity Between Heterosporous and Homosporous Plants
1 Introduction Across vascular land plant lineages, there is great diversity and disparity of genome size and chromosome number (Table 1). Specifically, flowering plants have smaller average nuclear genomes and lower chromosome numbers than most pteridophytes (ferns and lycophytes; Figure 1), a pattern that is correlated with a difference in reproductive mode (Wagner and Wagner 1979; Klekowski and Baker 1966; Leitch and Leitch 2013; Nakazato et al. 2008).
The Coronation Letters: **Letters from Master Manipulator to Apprentice Anarch** (AI-generated)
Michael Barker · Follow 6 min read · -- *An Epistolary Novella Inspired by “Coronation Unveiled”* I made a little novella using Microsoft Copilot AI. It satirically exposes some of the insidious communication strategies with which we must grapple today. My intention for this AI-generated novella is to honour C.S. Lewis by shamelessly imitating the formula of The Screwtape Letters, in a similar spirit to the original writing, to address a slightly different kind of foe.
Racism in the Life of Farage: From Enoch Powell to Reform UK
Nigel Farage has always been a bigoted posh boy with the gift of the gab. Raised in the rolling hills of Downe on the outskirts of London — a village most famous for its association with Charles Darwin — Farage attended Eden Park Preparatory School in the 1970s. His wealthy parents then paid for his attendance at one of South London’s most prestigious old boys’ clubs, Dulwich College.
Morrisons launches Aldi and Lidl price match
Morrisons has become the latest retailer to launch a price match against Aldi and Lidl on key lines. From Monday 19 February, signage in Morrisons stores and online will highlight which everyday essential products are price matched to either Aldi or Lidl, depending on which is cheaper. More than 200 items feature in the scheme, including 100% British chicken fillets, which will be sold this week at £6.49 per kilo.
Naomi Klein in the Tracks of Her Double
Marxists understand what it’s like to have liberal intellectuals and hostile media pundits distort their ideas as if “refracted through a funhouse mirror”. Similarly in Naomi Klein’s book, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World (2023), the bestselling writer explains what it has been like to have her progressive ideas fed “into a bonkers blender” so they can be delivered to a mass audience as far-right “thought-puree” by her would-be doppelganger, Naomi Wolf.
The Political Power of Conspiracies
The promotion of illusionary conspiracies remains a vital means by which the ruling-class throws sand in the eyes of ordinary people – a history taken up in Colin Dickey’s enlightening book Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy(2023).
The Force of Nonviolence: a Marxist Take on Judith Butler’s Ethico-Political Bind
The world was already a complicated enough place before I read The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind (Verso, 2020). And while Judith Butler’s book aims to bring clarity to one of the most troubling issues facing humanity, it does the opposite. In summary Butler’s philosophical intervention only serves to occlude reality, confounding clear-thinking on matters of life and death.
Philanthropic Violence in Nigeria
Murder is something that comes easily to capitalists, and their political system is caked with the blood of ordinary workers whose lives fall apart under the hammer blows of oppression. In the eternal quest for cheap oil and colossal profits, power-hungry elites drain our planet of its living sap, justifying their destruction of our environment and our lives with a brazen cynicism that remains foreign to the ranks of the working-class.
Behind the Hate: Who is Andrew Tate
Andrew Tate is a predatory capitalist who has a divine mission to save the world: if men will simply follow his lead and “man-up” they can escape The Matrix and become extremely wealthy at the same time.
Occult Knowledge in Russia
As the birthplace of Communism, Russia is a land of contradictions. In October 1917, Russian society broke from its feudal yoke to embrace the democratic ideals of socialism. But after this short-lived victory, events soon took a deeply undemocratic turn under Joseph Stalin’s authoritarian hand. But Stalin’s toxic legacy lingered well past his death and beyond Communism’s official collapse in 1989.
Waging War on Medicine: From Nixon to Trump
Cancer Wars Distrust of corporate profiteering by ordinary people has always been a sensible reaction when it comes to maintaining their own longevity; and this explains why alternative cancer treatment like Laetrile managed to assert a firm hold on the public imagination.
Military Conspiracies and QAnon’s Fascist Roots
Remote Reviewing Returns Following on from the CIA’s early removal of themselves from psi-research in the mid-seventies, throughout the early 1980s one of the central characters in overseeing the US militaries excitable remote reviewing experiments was the late Brigadier General Albert Stubblebine III (1930-2017) – a man who was the commanding general of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command from 1981 to 1984.
Revolutionary Struggle in Iran: Conspiracies, Enemies, and Friends
Millions of Iranians are fighting for their lives and their futures as part of a revolutionary wave that has the potential to overthrow the Islamic dictatorship that has dominated their lives since 1979. As one author put it, this mass movement sweeping across Iran “is about much more than the abolition of misogynistic dress codes: it is about equal rights, full autonomy over one’s own body, access to jobs, health care and an independent life.
Virginia Supreme Court: Arbitration Clauses in Trusts Are Not Enforceable Against Beneficiaries | JD Supra
In Boyle v. Anderson, No. 210382 (Va. April 14, 2022), the Supreme Court of Virginia addressed an emerging topic in trusts and estates: whether a settlor can require that trustees and beneficiaries submit any disputes to arbitration, rather than allow them to proceed through litigation. This type of clause could be referred to as a “donative arbitration clause,” because it exists in a will or trust agreement, as opposed to a more conventional contract between parties.
Do Cars Dream of an Electric Future?
Power station, Imperial Valley. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. It is no surprise that capitalism, a system that prioritises private profit before all else, is destroying our planet. And it is no surprise that the very same corporations that have overseen this destruction are now pretending that they care. This grotesque phenomenon is clearly illustrated by the ongoing contortions being displayed by the global automobile industry with their newly professed obsession in selling us electric cars.
British Columbia hospital union wins end to contracting out
By Michael Barker September 9, 2021 VANCOUVER, British Columbia — “We never gave up hope,” said Ratna Tithh, a dietary aide at St. Paul’s Hospital here. Her union, the Hospital Employees’ Union, had just succeeded in reversing the bosses’ contracting out of food provision and cleaning jobs at British Columbia’s public hospitals. On Aug.
A Mistaken Take on Revolutionary Strategy, the Case of 1905
Capitalism is drenched from head to foot in the blood of the working class. This is one reason why socialists believe that if we are to rid ourselves of this murderous system then we must mobilise the full weight of our class against all our oppressors: mass revolutionary struggle is the order of the day. At the same time, we must acknowledge that the capitalist class will use always use violence to defend their pernicious system from democratic accountability.
Why Kindness is Not Enough
Marxists tend to have a realistic view of humanity. We believe that history is replete with examples demonstrating that our species strongest instinctual urges move us in the direction of cooperation not violence. At the same time, we understand that a small clique of self-centred individuals, the ruling-class, use their power to undermine our ability to work together.
In California, It’s Time to Revisit Your "Pay-When-Paid" Contract Clause | JD Supra
In California, the "pay-when-paid" contract language typically found in general contractor’s subcontractor agreement may no longer be enforceable. A contract provision requiring a subcontractor to wait until the general contractor concluded its litigation with the owner before it could seek payment on a payment bond was held unenforceable as against public policy in a recent appellate court decision, Crosno Construction, Inc. v.
Ethics beneath the skin
The big interview | Ethical business | Health Anna Turns 21st July 2020 Ethical entrepreneur, author and regenerative farmer Liz Earle has always been naturally inquisitive.
Back to the future
The big interview | Environment & ethics | Organics | Price Michael Barker 14th July 2020 The Covid-19 crisis has given us all food for thought, but for Carolyn Steel, that sense of reflection is more profound than for most. The 60-year-old author and passionate advocate of a radically changed food system brought out her new book, Sitopia, exactly as the lockdown was being announced.
Paul Hawken’s Spiritual Business
admin Nov 13, 2012 Non-Profit Industrial Complex Swans Commentary November 5, 2012 by Michael Barker According to his Web site, best-selling author Paul Hawken “has written six books” — many of which outline in considerable detail how corporations should promote a green or environmentally sustainable form of capitalism.
A Crisis Looming for Organic Food? → Your Weekly Organic Insider - Organic Insider
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6.3.2020 100% Non-GMO (Photo courtesy of The Coalition of Immokalee Workers) All of us at Organic Insider are distraught over yet another senseless killing. For us to see tangible change in this country, we must vote people into office — on local, state and national levels — who enact policies that embody compassion, respect, love and unity.
By Jim Cornall Verified, Adrienne Smith Verified, Danielle Masterson Verified, Michael Barker, Max Goldberg Verified
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Organic Insider
COVID-19 Planning: Is It Time to Nationalize Big Pharma?
Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair Pharmaceutical corporations make billions providing drugs to help improve some people’s lives, in much the same way that privately-run hospitals provide care to those who can afford to pay. But Big Pharma is not a caring industry. Big Pharma has done some truly despicable things over the past hundred years or so. This is why Big Pharma and the management of our health should not remain in the hands of huge corporations.
COVID-19: How Big Pharma and Big Philanthropy Consume the World
Photograph Source: DLR German Aerospace Center – CC BY 2.0 Under capitalism, disease is an immensely profitable industry, and huge pharmaceutical corporations excel at extracting enormous amounts of wealth from our public health. Of course, big pharma would have us believe that without their investments in scientific research, millions of people would not benefit from the dizzying array of drugs they sell us, but the truth is far less savoury.
Boris Johnson Must Learn Lessons From Italy: People Before Profit! - CounterPunch.org
Most people know that we cannot trust Boris Johnson and his government to take the correct measures to protect the safety of the working-class.
Self-Defense in the Civil Rights Movement: the Lessons of Birmingham, 1963
Hope is the fuel upon which working-class movements for social change draw their core strength. But hope divorced from solid organizing leads no-where. So, if we are to continue to propel our class forward it is vital that we learn the full lessons of how our sweetest victories are seized from the hands of our oppressors.
Why Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis is Wrong About Labor Anti-Semitism
The Tories strategy for ‘hiding’ their deep-rooted racism involves them perpetuating gratuitous acts of racism so regularly that they are effectively normalised. Nothing to report here apparently. Yet the corporate-owned, Tory-supporting media can’t stop discussing Labour’s alleged racism, which has them furiously salivating over Jeremy Corbyn’s covert anti-Semitism.
Eating and ethics
The big interview | Organics | Eating & drinking Nina Pullman 14th November 2019 When Geetie Singh opened the UK’s first organic pub in 1998, Tony Blair was Prime Minister, Britney Spears was in the charts and a new website called Google had just been registered in California.
Greta Thunberg in Review
Last December, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Poland, elite decision-makers from across the world once again cosied-up to discuss how they might stop the destruction of our planet. Their lacklustre objective at this Conference being to simply implement the totally inadequate capitalist plans that were previously enshrined in the Paris Agreement that they first ratified in 2016.
Combatting Surveillance Capitalism: An Orwellian Lesson in History from Ford to Google
Close scrutinization of the daily lives of workers has always played an important role in enabling capitalists to squeeze greater profits from their workforce. The relentless surveillance of employees, whether it be on the factory floor or in the workers’ homes, was something that the anti-Semitic industrialist, Henry Ford, was proud to have honed to a fine managerial art. This history is well-established.
Recent Cases of Interest to Fiduciaries January 2018 | JD Supra
Updated: May 25, 2018: JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations.
Maryland Enacts New Statute of Limitations for Breach-of-Trust Actions | JD Supra
JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations. This Privacy Policy describes how JD Supra, LLC ("JD Supra" or "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses and shares personal data collected from visitors to our website (located at www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") who view only publicly-available content as well as subscribers to our services (such as our email digests or author tools)(our "Services").
The “Dogs” of Democracy: Chuka Umunna Versus the Labour Membership
For the Labour Party to be able to represent its hundreds of thousands of members, these members must be able to exert some form of democratic influence over the selection of elected Labour officials. At select times (not now), even Blairites like Chuka Umunna agree with such sentiments.
How Corbyn’s Critics Use the Accusation of Anti-Semitism as a Weapon to “Embarrass the Left”
Ongoing accusations that a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour government would present an existential threat to the future of Jewish peopleis one obvious example of how misplaced accusations of anti-Semitism are being used as a weapon by critics of Corbyn.
Building for a Socialist Brexit
In recent years the Tories have been carrying through a veritable bonfire of workers’ rights, environmental protections and human rights. This is really nothing new, and few on the left would disagree that the Tories have plans to ignite further bonfires in the near future. The matter of what to do with regards the results of the EU referendum results is however far more divisive.
Child Rape and the Roots of Political Anger: Grooming Gangs in Context
Ordinary working-class people are rightly appalled by the prevalence of all forms of sexual abuse. Every year tens of thousands of adults and children suffer from sexual violence, predominantly at the hands of violent men, often family members. And every year thousands of people, especially those living in Britain’s poorest communities, suffer disproportionate injustice at the hands of the State.
Recent Cases of Interest to Fiduciaries | JD Supra
JD Supra is a legal publishing service that connects experts and their content with broader audiences of professionals, journalists and associations. This Privacy Policy describes how JD Supra, LLC ("JD Supra" or "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses and shares personal data collected from visitors to our website (located at www.jdsupra.com) (our "Website") who view only publicly-available content as well as subscribers to our services (such as our email digests or author tools)(our "Services").
Imperial Crusaders For Global Governance
(Swans - April 20, 2009) The International Crisis Group was set up in 1995, and describes itself as an "independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation," which works "through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict." Taking issue with this misleading self-description, Diana Johnstone described the Crisis Group as a "high-level think tank supported by financier George Soros...
Tory Profiteering in Russia and Putin’s Debt of Gratitude
Low and behold, Tory toffs love to profit from Russian affairs. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Somerset Capital Management Fund has £57 million invested in the blacklisted Russian Sberbank – a company which is subject to EU and US economic sanctions. Then there is Sir Roderic Lyne — a recent board member of the Petropavlovsk plc (one of the largest producers of gold in Russia), who in earlier years served as the private secretary to John Major for foreign affairs, defence and Northern Ireland.
BOBJ BI Suite 4.1 - Upgrade Experience and New Features
Recently ComeritLabs updated one of our servers running the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 suite to BI 4.1 SP1. This update to the application suite provides enhancements with the System Configuration Wizard, SAP Jam, SAP HANA Business Layer Wizard, and with OLAP integration for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio. In this blog, we take a quick look at what we learned...
What the New Tax Law Means for Individuals and Closely Held Business Owners
President Trump intends to sign into law H.R. 1 (the act), [1] the most comprehensive change to the Internal Revenue Code since 1986. The text of the act numbers nearly 500 pages. What follows is a brief summary of some of the key provisions that affect individuals and closely held business owners.
BOBJ BI Suite 4.1 - Upgrade Experience and New Features
Recently ComeritLabs updated one of our servers running the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence 4.0 suite to BI 4.1 SP1. This update to the application suite provides enhancements with the System Configuration Wizard, SAP Jam, SAP HANA Business Layer Wizard, and with OLAP integration for SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio. In this blog, we take a quick look at what we learned...
Letter — Join the National Popular Vote Compact | Trumbull Times
As people left the polls on Election Day, I’m sure they took for granted that no matter which voting district they live in their vote would matter, and the candidates who received the most votes in each race would be declared the winner. That’s the way it works for virtually all the elected officials in the United States, except for one: the President of the United States.
Letter — Tesoro has the right experience for Trumbull | Trumbull Times
As an MBA and managing director of a mid-sized nonprofit, my professional life largely consists of balancing budgets: minimizing expenses, maximizing revenues, and creating surpluses whenever possible. Trumbull’s current budget, passed by the Republican majority, includes two short-sighted tricks to balance. The first is a $1.8 million withdrawal from the general fund.
The Fiction of Kurt Andersen’s “Fantasyland”
Kurt Andersen is the author of the “instant best-selling” book Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire—A 500-Year History (Random House, 2017) – a problematic volume which deserved the more suitable subtitle Why America’s Elites Can’t Think! This much is clear from reading Andersen’s 13,000 word essay (as adapted from Fantasyland) that was featured in the September issue of The Atlantic.
The Fiction of Kurt Anderson’s “Fantasyland”
Kurt Anderson is the author of the “instant best-selling” book Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire—A 500-Year History (Random House, 2017) – a problematic volume which deserved the more suitable subtitle Why America’s Elites Can’t Think! This much is clear from reading Anderson’s 13,000 word essay (as adapted from Fantasyland) that was featured in the September issue of The Atlantic.
A “New Dawn” for Fascism: the Rise of the Anti-Establishment Capitalists
Photo by Mark Dixon | CC BY 2.0 The world rests on a precipice. On the one hand is institutionalized exploitation and imperialist violence. The well-being of humanity continues to be severely hampered by the priorities of a small unstable capitalist class, who would prefer that the rest of us – those who must engage in a daily struggle to purchase the essentials for living (like food and a roof over our heads) – remain unorganized as a cohesive class.
How Alternative Dispute Resolution Promotes Injustice
Alternative Dispute Resolution is a blanket term referring to non-litigious methods of resolving legal disputes. Mainstream media and legal commentary endorse these alternatives as providing win-win, power balancing situations for all parties involved, whether corporate citizens, or natural persons.
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