Layer 537 . . . A Summer of Sport, and a New Beginning

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After four years of regular blogging Oxzen has needed a sabbatical and some time off to refresh, reflect and take stock. It's been an interesting few months. 2012 has been an interesting year.

So what's been occurring?

As far as Oxzen is concerned, since the beginning of April - a great deal of watching television. March was glorious, warm and sunny, but the rain began at the start of April. It rained almost daily throughout April, May, June and July. The wettest spring and summer on record in Britain.

Not that I'm complaining. I'd had some vague idea that the summer of 2012 was going to be glorious and I'd spend day after day sitting and walking in endless sunshine. However, in many ways it was fortunate there was little possibility of spending a lot of time outside. It's been an amazing television summer.

From the beginning of April, and even before that, it was necessary to watch the many hours of live televised coverage of the Leveson Enquiry.

http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveson_Inquiry

"The first part will examine the culture, practices and ethics of the media. In particular, Lord Justice Leveson will examine the relationship of the press with the public, police and politicians."

This enquiry turned out to be a fascinating carnival of scumbags and professional liars, all rehearsed to the nth degree by their highly paid advisors and spin doctors to find every possible way of avoiding giving truthful answers to the Enquiry's questions, and if all else failed, to simply say, "I can't remember" and "I don't recall".

Leveson was supposed to examine the culture and the ethics of our media, but the use of  words like "culture" and "ethics" in relation to the majority of our predominantly nasty, supine and obsequious media is quite amusing. For "culture" read "the habitual practice of distorting the truth and whenever possible distracting the nation from anything that really matters in our national life". For "ethics" read "willingness to lie, distort, trivialise and smear; tendency to spread alarm, confusion, mystification and fear".

Throughout this spring and summer the government of Great Britain has stuck doggedly to Plan A, with all the obvious and predictable consequences. The 'rolling back' of the State and the trashing of public services has made an appalling and unnecessary economic depression even worse than it already was. The Labour party is not wrong to say that the Tories have been cutting "too far and too fast", but they are very wrong and very guilty in their collusion with the very notion that our public services should have been cut AT ALL.

Any economist with half a brain (ie those who resisted the nonsense of the neo-conservatives and the Friedmanite Chicago School) understands that in a time of recession and a failure of the private sector to invest in the British economy you need to spend MORE on public services and not LESS if you wish to avoid deflating the economy and prevent a recession from turning into a depression. For fuck's sake - we learned that lesson back in the 1930s, thanks to Keynes and Roosevelt.

For some months now we've even had the International Monetary Fund - never a hotbed of progressive liberalism - gently nudging Cameron, Osborne and Clegg towards a Plan B, and the engagement of some common sense in their economic policies. For 'common sense' read 'lack of willful stupidity and ignorance'. Even the IMF, which runs the whole globalised economy hand in glove with the World Bank, recognises that the last thing the world needs is for one its important engines of finance and potential economic growth (ie GB PLC) to crash even further into depression at a time when the worldwide economy needs reflation and growth.

What the IMF may not recognise, however, is that Cameron and Osborne, and their little chum Clegg, are acting out of an ideological conviction that cares little for world stability and economic growth. The limits of their ambitions are to ensure the prosperity of the City of London's financial institutions, and therefore of themselves and all their fat cat chums -  protected, supported and even further enriched in the face of the shitstorm that's already happening.

Contrast this with the more sensible and honest conservative leaders of Europe and the USA (i.e. Merkel and Obama) who have a real concern with the proper long-term functioning of the international capitalist system. For fuck's sake - these European conservatives are even implementing a Tobin Tax on financial transactions. Obviously our Tories will have nothing to do with this tax since it's something their pals in the City have told them they must never do.

Meanwhile the banking scandals have continued, with Barclays being busted for their criminal manipulation of Libor, RBS busted for helping drugs cartels to launder money, and now Standard Chartered busted for their well-paid assistance to Iran to avoid financial restrictions and sanctions. Ethics? In Britain? In Westminster and the City of London? Don't make us laugh.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/25/brand-osborne-is-over-recession

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Now where was I? Oh yes - the summer of television.

Euro 2012 took place between June 8th and July 1st. England, as expected, were pathetic, and were knocked out as soon as they came up against a decent team. Spain, as expected, were the winners, beating Italy 4-0 in the final.

http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuro/index.html


Wimbledon took place between 25th June and July 8th, and ended with Roger Federer's record-breaking win over Andy Murray. Roger's a phenomenon, and almost an honorary Brit. We love his decency, self-control, thoughtfulness, modesty, and of course his brilliance.

http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/about_aeltc/index.html


The Tour de France took place between June 30th and July 22nd. Bradley Wiggins and Chris Frome rode brilliantly, and finished in first and second places. Mark Cavendish, the other star member of the first British team to win the Tour, was also phenomenal - even though his team's support for sprint finishes was necessarily minimal, since winning the General Classification was the stated aim of the team. However, Cavendish was strong enough and fit anough by the end of the tour to win a sprint finish immediately before the final Time Trial (won by Wiggins by a mile) and also able to win for a record 4 times in a row on the final sprint-finish stage on the Champs Elysees.

http://www.letour.fr/indexTDF_us.html


And finally - the Olympics. The games took place between 27th July and 12th August. Having been drawn into compulsive watching of the Olympics four years ago by the Beijing opening ceremony, it was anticipated that these 2012 Games in London would also be addictive and compulsive. And so it turned out.

http://www.london2012.com/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/08/london-2012-beautiful-utopian-collective-dream

Bearing in mind that Oxzen is not a sports fanatic, usually watching very little in the way of live football, cricket, athletics, etc, and doesn't subscribe to any premium sports TV channels - it's been a very odd and very enjoyable summer. And there's still 10 days of the paralympics to come. In short, it's been distracting, fascinating, refreshing, relaxing, often exciting, and a lot of fun.

I was about to write something about last night's abysmal and embarrassing Olympics closing ceremony, but on reflection I won't. No point in ending this particular piece on a negative and sour note.

Laters.

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Random tracks of the day, thanks to Media Player:

Papa's Got A Brand New Bag - James Brown
Turn, Turn, Turn - The Byrds
Happiness is a Warm Gun - John Lennon/Beatles
Blues to Elvin -  John Coltrane
Work  -  Bob Marley

Layer 521 . . . Greek Tragedies, The Gods of Speculation, and the Markets

Oxzen has written previously about the world being run by "the markets" (meaning run by the people who control the vast majority of the wealth) and the fact that individual governments seem unable, playing by the current rules of capitalism and globalisation, to do anything except bow down to the power of "the markets". This is true even for massive entities such as the governments of the USA and the EU, which are afraid, very afraid, of "the markets".


This week "the markets" are back in the news, along with their Provisional wing, the credit rating agencies.

Moody's blues: George Osborne's wooing of the rating agencies turns sour

Osborne has been lavishing expensive gifts on the credit rating agencies. But now they have shown their capricious side

by Larry Elliott

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/14/moodys-george-osborne-rating-agencies

Credit downgrade alert leaves George Osborne in a political fix

Inflation may be falling but the chancellor has only few options open to him after Moody's credit warning

by Larry Elliott

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/14/credit-downgrade-george-osborne-political-fix

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As Greece stares into the abyss, Europe must choose

The way out of the financial crisis faced by Greeks requires a choice about what kind of Europe we want

by Maria Margaronis

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/12/euro-crisis-stake-greece-identity-europe

As I write, the Greek parliament is preparing to vote on the bond swap agreed with the country's private creditors and on the new deal with the EU and the IMF, which would lend the country €130bn in exchange for cuts that slice the last little bits of flesh from the economy – including a 22% reduction in the minimum wage and 150,000 public sector job losses by 2016. Without the deal, Greece will default by March; with it, the country will sink into a still deeper depression, with no end in sight. In a televised effort to rally the country behind yet more austerity, the finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, laid out a blunt choice between sacrifices and worse sacrifices, humiliation and still deeper humiliation, if Greece should default and leave the eurozone.

It's not clear, though, how many people were listening. Exhausted by interminable cliffhangers and last chances, many Greeks have turned off the terrorist soap opera of the TV news and are trying as best they can to get on with their lives. The misery to which Athenians have been reduced – the soup kitchens, the homelessness, the depression and suicides, the rising tide of poverty that's swallowing the middle class – is now a staple of the features pages. It's harder to describe the sense of pervasive breakdown that gets under the skin; the feeling of disorientation and lost identity that comes with the collapse of the assumptions people lived by and the stories they told themselves about the future and the past.

When you ask people on the street if they would rather Greece went bankrupt than submit to further measures, many now point out that it is already bankrupt, that public sector workers have gone unpaid for months, that hospitals have no supplies, that the poor are being wrung dry in order to pay the banks.

Why, then, have large sections of the Greek elite clung so hard to the fantasy that a new loan deal can "save" the country? The obvious answer is that default is a black hole and an enormous risk. No one can predict what suffering a default might bring. Another is that the current crop of politicians built their careers in the system that is now unravelling, based on oligarchies, clientelism and corruption; they've proved unwilling to make the reforms that might, in a different global climate, have revived both Greece's economy and its democracy.

The deeper reasons, though, may be cultural and political. The crisis has intensified old splits in Greek society. You can see it in the polls, which show support ebbing from the centre to the edges of the political spectrum, and especially to the fragmented left. You can see it, too, in the historical parallels people reach for in a vain attempt to name this unprecedented nightmare. Protesters chant slogans from the dictatorship of 1967 to 1974, comparing the deal's Greek enforcers with the CIA-backed junta. Both left and right talk about a new German occupation – an understandable reference given that Germany is calling the shots and that Greeks last queued at soup kitchens in the 1940s, but one that can edge into racism or crude exaggeration, as in a recent headline that read simply "Dachau". Both those tropes call up the silent ghosts of the Greek civil war, which launched the cold war in Europe and outlawed the Greek left for the next 30 years. In this story, the west plays the part of the repressive imperial interloper.

For the liberal centre, this is populist anathema. To them Europe is still Greece's heartland and its hope, the only guarantor of liberal capitalism, human rights and democracy.

The trouble with historical metaphors is that they can obscure the present: what's really at stake here is not Greece's identity but Europe's. All eyes are fixed on Athens, but the way out of the crisis requires a choice about what kind of Europe we want. The one we have now, with its deep structural inequalities and its rigid adherence to a failed economic ideology, protects neither democracy nor human rights. Stiff-necked and punitive, it prefers to eat its children.

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Shame on Europe for betraying Greece

Capitalism is triumphant as EU states sacrifice the Greek people in a desperate attempt to appease the gods of speculation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/14/europe-betraying-greece

by William Wall

The behaviour of the EU states towards Greece is inexplicable in the terms in which the EU defines itself. It is, first and foremost, a failure of solidarity.

The "austerity package", as the newspapers like to call it, seeks to impose on Greece terms that no people can accept. Even now the schools are running out of books. There were 40% cuts in the public health budget in 2010 – I can't find the present figure. Greece's EU "partners" are demanding a 32% cut in the minimum wage for those under 25, a 22% cut for the over 25s. Already unemployment for 15-24-year-olds is 48% – it will have risen considerably since then. Overall unemployment has increased to over 20%. The sacking of public sector workers will add to it. The recession predicted to follow the imposition of the package will cause unbearable levels of unemployment at every level.

In addition the "package" demands cuts to pensions and public service pay, wholesale privatisation of state assets – a fire-sale, since the global market is close to rock bottom – and cuts to public services including health, social welfare and education. The whole to be supervised by people other than the Greeks. An entire disciplinary and punishment system.

When we casually use a term like "bailout", it is important to remember that it is not people who are being bailed out, or at least not the Greek people. The bailout will not save a single Greek life. The opposite is the case. What is being "bailed out" is the global financial system, including the banks, hedge funds and pension funds of the other EU member states, and it is the Greek people who are being ordered to pay – in money, time, physical pain, hopelessness and missed educational opportunities. The relatively neutral, even stoic, term "austerity", is a gross insult to the Greek people. This is not austerity; at best it is callousness.

On top of this callousness, we must remember that the strategy itself is nonsense. Every intelligent observer is agreed that cuts do not produce growth. The highest rate of growth in the EU at present is in Poland where massive public investment is driving the economy. GDP is declining or barely moving among the "austerity" nations, including the UK.

In essence, this crisis is a failure of the EU states to show solidarity in the face of an onslaught from the financial markets. At first glance this seems to be a very simple fight. In one corner you have nation states, which have the wellbeing of their citizens as their raison d'être; in the other you have global capitalism as represented by the financial markets, which has the wealth of a tiny few as its raison d'être. But the nation state has, for a considerable time, identified itself with those same markets. States have agreed to see themselves as economies rather than societies. More recently we have been led to believe that the market alone can provide everything the citizen needs and much more efficiently than the structures that the citizens normally rely on and which they have, over generations, erected as protections against the revenge of the market.

This is the triumph of capitalism, that it has persuaded the world that capitalism is the world.

It has led to the undoing of 200 years of struggle between ordinary people and the super-rich. Trade unions didn't appear overnight, they were a response to exploitation. Their defeat has led to the ubiquity of precarious, and now free, labour. Workers are not protected in their workplace by capitalists, they are protected by the laws won by struggle against the capitalist. A sweatshop in China is a direct assault not just on the rights of the Chinese worker but on those of workers in, for example, the UK. Socialist internationalism and solidarity were conceived as a way of defeating that ploy. Old people do not die in the streets not because charity has saved them but because 200 years of struggle has brought us the old age pension and public health. The privatisation of those services is a return to the 19th century. None of this public good would have been won if people had identified with the super-rich of 1812. Now that we have been brought to such an identification, we stand to lose them all over again.

Now we see capitalism at its most triumphant. Greek police beat Greek people in order to impose the will of the banks and hedge funds. The EU member states, including Ireland, are the middleman, the quislings of capital. Rather than reach out a hand of solidarity, we say, "better them than us". As if the global markets will choose to pass on Ireland once Greece has been destroyed. Solidarity is not just compassion for one's fellow man; it is also materialist self-interest. One for all and all for one. We stand or fall together. There is strength in unity.

Instead we have decided to sacrifice the Greek people to the market in the hope that our sacrifice will appease the gods of speculation. We condemn them to misery and poverty to keep Standard & Poor's off our backs. But we have miscalculated. Firstly, the communist left currently stands at 42% in the polls, Pasok at 8%. Pasok (the leading party in government) will vanish and a combination of real leftwing parties will win the next election. They will not bend the knee and put their necks on our block.

It seems to me now that Greece will withdraw from the euro and default on its debt. Who knows what will happen to it then, but it can hardly be much worse than what we want from them, and at least it will be something of their own choosing. The speculators will then take a little time to consider which of the other economies to bet on. Perhaps then the Irish government will regret its lack of solidarity. Whatever happens, our behaviour and that of our EU compatriots has been shameful.

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Greece and the return of the economic 'death spiral'

The lesson of 2008 was that stimulus prevented a new Great Depression. Without similar drastic help, Greece will now default

by David Blanchflower

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/13/greece-return-economic-death-spiral

During the latter part of 2008, central bankers around the world worried secretly that the death spiral was approaching. The concern was that it was too late to stop economies crashing. In the event, concerted international action on both monetary and fiscal policy prevented collapse – although they did get pretty darn close to the precipice.

In the UK, then Chancellor Alistair Darling had only a few hours notice that the Royal Bank of Scotland was about to fail. The fear was that cash machines around the world would close, banks would fold and stock markets would tank within hours. This was a once-in-100-year shock: in my view, without such unprecedented intervention, unemployment rates in the US and Europe could well have risen to over 24% – which is where they are already in Greece and Spain.

Stimulus worked, simple as that.

On 9 February, the Hellenic statistical authority, which is Greece's central statistical office, published data on the labor market and industrial production (pdf), which suggests the Greek economy is headed over the cliff. This is a Great Depression for Greece and its 11 million inhabitants.

Without reforms to its product and labor markets, alongside the introduction of a fully-functioning tax system with enforced compliance, Greece has no future and is headed to inevitable default.

The only issue is, how disorderly will it be? It's not so much that the Greeks won't pay, it's that they can't. Greece remains uncompetitive.

For all the deals being signed in Athens and Brussels, the Greek people have worked out that they have no hope; protest and social unrest now looks a rational option to the ordinary people who are bearing the cost to bail out European banks. Cuts in the minimum wage right now are probably not very smart politics.

Greece does still have a card to play – which is "one down, all down". An exit from the euro would result in a depreciated drachma, which would potentially give a much needed boost to tourism. And that sounds better than all other alternatives currently on offer. There is still time for Germany's Angela Merkel to get out her cheque book; but otherwise, it's all over – and quite possibly very quickly.

This really is what a death spiral looks like.

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And talking of tragedies - I give you the Sun newspaper/rag.

The front page yesterday had to be seen to be believed:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4127833/Whitney-Houston-death-Bath-tub-where-star-died.html

It's worse than on the website.

"Whitney's Death Bath - the First Images."

The bath in the photograph is still filled with the actual water in which tragic Whitney died. The bath photo shares the page with a photo of Whitney looking . . . somewhat . . . drowned.

Just when you think the bottom of the barrel has been well and truly scraped already . . .


But wait!

Also on the website -

40-stone Brenda is Britain’s fattest woman

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4130131/40-stone-Brenda-is-Britains-fattest-woman.html

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I have to end this blog with something good and decent and inspiring.

Robby Krieger: soundtrack of my life

The former Doors guitarist talks about discovering rock'n'roll, blues and jazz and his memories of recording with Jim Morrison

Interview by Hermione Hoby

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/29/robbie-krieger-soundtrack-my-life

Still love that Crawlin' King Snake by the wonderful John Lee Hooker.

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Layer 364 . . . Zen, Enlightenment, Sralick, Rooney, Philosophers, Meditation, Shock Doctrine, Spending Cuts and French Uprising

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Taking a Break

The prodigal has returned, seemingly fortified by tropical sunshine, wonderful food, large amounts of human intercourse, time to reflect, mental stimulation, spiritual refreshment, soul satisfaction, cheap whisky, good (live) music, the Buddha's blessing, and freedom from everyday chores and worries. We'll see how he gets on with the chopping wood and carrying water from now on.

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Time to turn our attention to Wayne Rooney. This boy's in deep trouble. Letting go of adolescence is seemingly even harder when you have shitloads of money, a cosseted existence, and happen to kick a ball by way of making a living.

Not that he really needs to make a living, as such, any longer. He's already got more money stashed away than several developing countries have in their central reserves.

It seems his 'advisers' are encouraging him to break away from Sralick - Big Daddy Ferguson, His Ferginess - and decamp to somewhere even more delightful and profitable, like . . . Manchester (City). Or possibly Chelsea. Fair enough, you might think. You can't really imagine Wayne's world transferring itself to more exotic places where they don't parliamo Laddish Northern English, let alone Scouse.

Oxzen is going to do the decent thing and contact Wayne in order to advise him to break away from his current advisers. These are the people - his agents and hangers-on - who have their own personal and financial reasons to get Wayne to further feather his already over-feathered nest, to the detriment of all else.

Oxzen is prepared to take Wayne on a sabbatical to Kyoto, and walk in silent meditation with him down the Walk of the Philosophers. Wayne is possibly a decent kid who just needs a decent break, and a chance to reflect on his fucked-up life. He needs to soak in the atmosphere of the autumn and let it work directly on his spirit. He needs to open his eyes to the reds, yellows and oranges of the Japanese maples, gaze at the koi carp swimming lazily in their pools of fresh, clear water, consider the harmony and beauty of the gardens and the temple architecture, completely cleanse his mind, his soul and his spirit - and meditate on what the fuck's it all about anyway.

Does his ego really need all that money, that adoration, that fame, that pressure, that adrenaline, that 'excitement'? Does he really need his enormous ego?

Has his spirit ever touched base with reality, other than the pseudo-reality of football and lad-culture? Does his actually have a spirit?

Has his soul ever found self-expression, apart from kicking balls and scoring goals? One day it will need to. Maybe that day could be now - particularly since he's currently playing like a turkey.

Yes - Wayne needs a break. He needs to get away - and not just from Man U.

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Zen
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I had an interesting conversation recently about the 'mysteries' of Zen, and about the apparent difficulties of reaching Zen enlightenment. Do you need to spend years studying Buddhist texts and participating in temple rituals, or being tutored by spiritual masters, as well as meditating and reflecting on koans, etc?

The answer is - of course not.

Or - maybe. It all depends - on the person, their attitude, their history, their minds sets and their approaches to life and to learning.

In fact we're all born as Zen beings. We immediately do things spontaneously and instinctively; we live in the Now. We don't worry about & preoccupy ourselves with the past, or obsess about the future. We don't have rampant egos and we're not mentally, socially and spiritually fucked up. Our spirits are free, pure and untainted. We spend large amounts of our time-rich days in states of relaxation, reflection and meditation. We wake, we look around, we observe, we listen, we eat, we drink, we smile, we laugh, we find the world is full of awesome and wonderful things, and we sleep. All we need is love. Plus nurturing and protection.

Somewhere along the line we lose it. There's plenty of reasons why. There are failures to love, nurture and protect us. We become brainwashed, and we often need to struggle for survival in so-called realities created by those who are powerful, greedy and selfish. Sometimes our own parents are all of those things. In the past our lives were governed by the whims, violence and greed of feudal kings and warlords. Gradually our societies transformed into governance by royal families, elective dictatorships and political parties run by professional politicians who are too lazy, too stupid and too self-interested to change anything for the benefit of the masses instead of the elites. We become frustrated, and bent out of shape.

How, in the face of all of these things, do we return to states of grace, and cultivate the many virtues? How do we shed so much mental and emotional baggage and find Zen enlightenment?

As I say - it all depends on the person. Reading books on Eastern thought and wisdom might help - but then again it might not. Some might find the Tao Te Ching helpful, whilst others won't. Some will enjoy the many books of Alan Watts and D.T. Suzuki, whereas others might not.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._T._Suzuki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao_Te_Ching

Some people undoubtedly benefit from joining a community of people who are seeking greater enlightenment. Others prefer to walk the pathway alone.

Some people have a mind that is intuitive and instinctual, and grasp immediately the essentials of Zen and the Tao. Some people find it easy to meditate, and others don't. Some people find it harder to deal with destructive emotions than others. Some try to intellectualise their way towards enlightenment - which is never going to work.

The only certainty is that there's no avoiding the need to develop spiritual intelligence if we aim to become three-dimensional people and live meaningful and purposeful lives.

    Knowing others is wisdom;
    Knowing the self is enlightenment.
    Mastering others requires force;
    Mastering the self requires strength;
    He who knows he has enough is rich.
    Perseverance is a sign of will power.
    He who stays where he is endures.
    To die but not to perish is to be eternally present.

(Tao Te Ching chap. 33, tr. Feng and English)

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Today's The Day

Today we find out what Osborne, Cameron and the coalition have in mind for us in the way of austerity and cutbacks. We've had the bonfire of the quangos. Now it's the rest of our public services.

For the Conservatives, this is not a financial crisis but a long-awaited opportunity

In a classic example of 'disaster capitalism', the cuts are being used to reshape the economy in the interests of business – and to trash the public sector

by George Monbiot

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/18/conservative-financial-crisis-opportunity

Public bodies whose purpose is to hold corporations to account are being swept away. Public bodies whose purpose is to help boost corporate profits, regardless of the consequences for people and the environment, have sailed through unharmed. What the two lists suggest is that the economic crisis is the disaster the Conservatives have been praying for. The government's programme of cuts looks like a classic example of disaster capitalism: using a crisis to re-shape the economy in the interests of business.

In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein shows how disaster capitalism was conceived by the extreme neoliberals at the University of Chicago. These people believed that the public sphere should be eliminated, that business should be free to do as it wants, and almost all tax and social spending should be stopped. They believed that total personal freedom in a completely free market produces a perfect economy and perfect relationships. It was a utopian system as fanatical as any developed by a religious cult. And it was profoundly unpopular. For a long time its only supporters were the heads of multinational corporations and a few wackos in the US government.

In a democracy under normal conditions, those who were harmed by abandoning public provision would outvote those who gained from it. So the Chicago programme couldn't be imposed in these circumstances. As the Chicago School's guru, Milton Friedman, explained, "only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change". After a crisis has struck, he added later, "a new administration has some six to nine months in which to achieve major changes; if it does not act decisively during that period, it will not have another such opportunity."

The first such opportunity was provided by General Pinochet's coup in Chile. The coup was plotted by two factions: the generals and a group of economists trained at the University of Chicago and funded by the CIA.

Pinochet used the crisis he had created to imprison, torture or kill anyone who dissented. The Chicago School policies – privatisation, deregulation, massive tax and spending cuts – were catastrophic.

The result was a massive increase in unemployment and the near-eradication of the middle class. But the very rich became much richer, and the corporations, scarcely taxed, deregulated and fattened on privatised assets, became much more powerful.

By 1982, Friedman's prescriptions had caused a spectacular economic crash. Unemployment hit 30%; debt exploded. Pinochet sacked the Chicago economists and started re-nationalising stricken companies, whereupon the economy began to recover. Chile's so-called economic miracle began only after Friedman's doctrines were abandoned. The Chicago School's catastrophic programme pushed almost half the population below the poverty line and left Chile with one of the world's highest rates of inequality.

But all this was spun by the corporate media as a great success. With the help of successive US governments, similar programmes were imposed on dozens of countries in which crises ensured that the population was unable to resist. Other Latin American dictators copied Pinochet's economic policies, with the help of mass disappearances, torture and killings. The poor world's debt crisis was used by the IMF and the World Bank to impose Chicago School programmes on countries that had no option but to accept their help. The US hit Iraq with economic shock and awe – privatisation, a flat tax, massive deregulation – even as the bombs were still falling. After Hurricane Katrina wrecked New Orleans, Friedman described it as "an opportunity to radically reform the educational system". His disciples immediately moved in, sweeping away public schools while the residents were picking up the pieces of their lives, replacing them with private charter schools.

Our crisis is less extreme, so, in the UK, the shock doctrine cannot be so widely applied. But, as David Blanchflower warned yesterday, there's a strong possibility that the cuts programme will precipitate a bigger crisis: "it's a terrible, terrible mistake. The sensible thing to do is to spread [the cuts] over a long time." That's another feature of disaster capitalism: it exacerbates the crises on which it thrives, creating its own opportunities.

So we shouldn't wonder that 35 corporate executives wrote to the Telegraph yesterday, arguing, just as Milton Friedman used to do, for a short, sharp shock, before the window of opportunity closes. The policy might hit their profits for a while, but when we stagger out of our shelters to assess the damage, we'll discover that we have emerged into a different world, run for their benefit, not ours.

See also Oxzen Layers 299, 285, 280, 202, 197, 188, 187, 169, 168, 167, 165, 137, 130, 129, 112, 109, etc.

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Vive La France - Liberte, Egalite & Fraternite

Thank goodness there's at least one country in the world where there's a tradition of chopping the heads off arrogant fat cats and would-be rulers who tell the people to eat cake if there's no bread available.

France's future is fighting back

Teenagers' involvement in the strikes may prove to be a tipping point for Sarkozy, and for France

by Philippe Marliere (and see also his other articles in the Guardian for reality checks.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/19/france-future-fighting-back

Nicolas Sarkozy dreamed of a glorious destiny. His Gallic brand of neoliberal policies would sell the "American dream" to a mistrustful population. Things have not gone according to plan. Sarkozy wanted to be the French JFK; today he looks more like Louis XVI awaiting trial in 1793. He may escape the guillotine, but his presidency is now under siege.

The French are deeply unhappy with the way they have been governed, but their main grievance is about pension reform, which is seen as a cynical ploy to make ordinary people work more for inferior entitlements, while bailed-out bankers and the rich get tax rebates and continue to enjoy the high life. Over the past month, five national demonstrations have gathered together an estimated average of 3.5 million people per action day. The latest, on Saturday, was a big success and another is scheduled for today.

The movement is popular: 69% of the nation back the strikes and demonstrations; 73% want the government to withdraw the reform. And high school pupils have now joined the fray. Over 1,000 high schools are on strike as the youngsters take to the streets to protest against mass unemployment and the raising of the retirement age. The government has patronisingly labelled them as "manipulated kids", but these comments have backfired and served only to galvanise the young, who have hardened their resistance and taken further interest in the reform. When interviewed by the media, pupils come across as articulate and knowledgable. Parents worry about their children's future, so they will not stop them from striking.

In France, strikes and demonstrations are seen as a civilised and effective way to enact one's citizenship. Students are expected to join marches from an early age, receiving by the same token a "political education". France's youth have always scared governments because of their radical potential. Student demonstrations of late have been invariably popular because people know that the young have been badly hit by unemployment over the past 30 years.

University students are preparing to strike as well. Sarkozy, like Louis XVI in 1789, does not seem to have grasped how volatile the situation has become. He should know better. Since May 1968, all governments have been forced on the ropes every time youngsters have entered a social movement. This time it could prove crucial in helping to reach a tipping point; a stage in the conflict where the balance of power switches from the government toward those opposing the pension reform.

Lorry and train drivers are also starting strike actions.

How can the current situation be interpreted? Undoubtedly, the rebellion seems durable and runs deeper than the question of pensions. The reform has triggered a web of collective actions that are now spreading fast. Discontent is fuelled by low incomes and unemployment, but also by the impact of the crisis on people's daily life, the arrogance of the Sarkozy presidency, corruption cases and police brutality.

There is a sense of moral outrage at the imposition of a neoliberal medicine to cure an illness caused by the same neoliberal policies. The French are not hostile to reforms: they just demand those that redistribute wealth and allocate resources to those who need it the most. Any comparison with May '68, however, may be hasty. Then, France was experiencing a period of economic prosperity. Today, events occur in the context of a deep economic depression. This is why the political situation is potentially explosive. Radicalised workers and youngsters are forcing the unions to up their game. The normally toothless Socialist party has pledged to return the retirement age to 60, should it come back to power in 2012.

One can envisage two possible scenarios. Opposition to the reform hardens, in which case Sarkozy may have to water it down or even withdraw it. This would mark the first major popular victory in Europe against the post-2008 neoliberal order. Alternatively, Sarkozy stays put and imposes a deeply unpopular reform, in which case the political price to pay for the incumbent president would be very high, should he decide to run again in 2012.

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Spending review: Ya-boo won't work.

Alan Johnson has laid out the basics of an alternative to cuts. It's a solid enough start – but now the real fight begins

by Polly Toynbee

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/19/yaboo-wont-work-labour-response-forensic

. . . here begins a lost decade of low growth and high unemployment, bequeathing the next generation public squalor and irreparable social problems.

His plan expects exports to grow twice as fast as imports fall. So far, as these 35 captains of industry know well, despite a 25% devaluation in the pound, exports stubbornly flatline as every country cuts its own consumer demand while dreaming that beggar-my-neighbour exports will help them escape.

If this famous 35 sincerely expect that brilliant outcome, these chief executives from M&S to Carphone Warehouse, from Asda to BT, could prove their faith by pledging between them to arrange the employment of a million people about to be thrown out of work in both public and private sectors next year. That could be their contribution to saving a fortune from the rising Department for Work and Pensions budget. They could also sign a promise to invest in growth, starting tomorrow, all the considerable sums they have hoarded – to the despair of economists. Why are they hoarding so much instead of investing? Because they fear the coming cuts, along with the VAT rise, are about to send consumer demand, jobs and house prices plummeting further in a downward spiral, causing the deficit to rise, not fall.

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Layer 363 . . . Creativity, Workshops, Philosophy, Malmesbury, Enlightenment, Meditation, Spiritual Intelligence, Shock and Awe Finances

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Workshops and Beyond

I was looking in this guy's workshop the other day. He had a lot of stuff in there. Workbenches, tools galore; wood, saws, metal sheets, lathes, screws, nails, brackets, wire, socket sets, paints, brushes, electric drills, tins and bottles of chemicals, reference books - the whole of the kit any working man or practical man would use for making, mending, repairing and generally creating.

In certain communities and families it's just a given that a man needs a workshop or a shed in order to do his man things - a place and a space where he can lose himself in peace, organise his stuff to suit himself, and have his thoughts to himself.

I sometimes wonder whether I did my son a big disservice by never having a proper workshop. It turns out he's a practical guy, and potentially a creative guy - someone who enjoys using his hands as well as his imagination. By not offering him an 'apprenticeship' of time messing about in a workshop he never got into the habit of being creative with various tools and materials. He can apply himself to it if he has to, but it's not like a habit or a way of living.

The fact that my own dad didn't have a proper workshop until after I'd left home probably meant that I didn't have a grounding in using tools in a creative way either. And there was no way that this was ever going to happen at school. Though we did have token woodwork and metalwork 'lessons', it was always a question of following specific instructions given by the teacher - never an opportunity to work in any creative or self-directed way. It was only in the 5th form that we could develop our own projects, which in my case resulted in very fine backrest for my Modded-up Lambretta.

Considering didatic teaching methods in subjects like metalwork and woodwork might help to understand the effects of didactic teaching right across the curriculum. How does anyone get into the habit of thinking and doing things creatively unless we have daily practice of thinking and working creatively? Is it any wonder that so few of us habitually think creatively, or live life creatively? Is it any wonder so few acquire the habit of lifelong learning and a love of learning for its own sake?

Maybe it used to be different for girls, assuming they had a mother, at least, who was able to teach various sorts of creative skills with fabrics and wools, needles, scissors and pins. In a sense, too, kitchens have always been creative workshops for families who cook with basic ingredients, and approach food and eating with imagination and enjoyment. Unfortunately this didn't happen for me and my sister - family meals were matters of meat and two veg, simply and unimaginatively boiled, roasted and fried. Not that my mum was to blame for that - having grown up in a household where food was limited in availability in the shops, and the family was too big for the kitchen to function as a creative workshop.

What we should really be doing with our kids is letting them loose with piles of wood, metals, paper, paints, vegetables and meats and allowing them to experiment and invent to their hearts' content. Apart from being somewhat messier, wouldn't that be better than letting them fill their time with TV and computer games? These things have their place in modern life, but the place ought to be a lot smaller.

In some ways my favourite creative machine when I was a kid was my bike. My parents clearly trusted me to ride it safely because they did me the enormous favour of allowing me the freedom to roam far and wide, in town and country. What better way to investigate the wider world beyond your own backyard, street, estate and town? Cycling used to be, and it still is, the best way to discover new places and to experience them to the full.

In terms of home workshops, there are so few people who still work creatively with their hands that it's not surprising that they're ceasing to exist - at least as a separate basement, loft, attic, outbuilding or shed. These days people would rather invest in a so-called summerhouse or a basic storage shed than build a workshop. The nearest we tend to get at home to spending time in a workshop or a studio is to surround ourselves with computers, creative software, routers, webcams, printers, hard drives, amplifiers, speakers, books, paper, post-its, newspapers, magazines, notebooks, pinboards, file boxes, scissors, paper cutters, pens and pencils.

Careful though - if you don't have the space for a separate 'office' you could easily create quite a lot of mess and untidyness, and find yourself living in a workshop or studio rather than a 'home'.

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Moving to Malmesbury

As readers will have noticed on the label, Oxzen is concerned with "Enquiries into philosophy . . . "

Malmesbury bids to become UK's first 'philosophy town'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/18/malmesbury-philosophy-town

The quiet Wiltshire market town of Malmesbury is hoping to capitalise on an increasing interest in thinking and become known as the UK's first "philosophy town".

Planned "philosophy town" events include a festival of history, ideas and philosophy and an all-night examination of enlightenment.

Philosopher Angie Hobbs believes the time is right for a "philosophy" town.

"I think people are hungry for this stuff," she said. "We've got ourselves in such as mess in the world – the environment, the banking crisis, the whole issue of fairness.

"Philosophy may be able to help a bit. We don't have all the answers but we can help the debate."

"It's OK to dabble. Don't be scared. There are a lot of people thinking we really need this because we've got into such a mess not using human reason to its full potential."

Michael Cuthbert, head of the philosophy town project, believes that radio programmes such as Radio 4's In Our Time and Moral Maze, and the rise in popularity of the work of thinkers such as Alain de Botton, showed the time was ripe for a philosophy destination.

"People are more loose in their loyalties and more questioning. They want to grapple with big ideas," he said.

He enthuses about initiatives such as the walking route – professional philosophers will walk alongside participants or meet them in the pub for a debate at the end of the day.

"There's a link between philosophy and walking – from the professor pacing up and down to the great pilgrimages."

Finn Spicer, a Malmesbury resident and part of Bristol University's philosophy department, agreed there was a growing hunger for philosophy.

"And why shouldn't Malmesbury be a centre for that?" he said. Spicer believes it is a thoughtful kind of town where people care about ideas.

"In cafes you do overhear conversations about serious matters and want to chip in."

Fortifying himself with a pint of Pigswill ale in the Whole Hog pub before heading off for a Hobbes lecture was business consultant Jon Gundry.

"You don't have to be a full-time philosopher to like hearing ideas and experiencing argument," he said.

Catherine Doody, the Malmesbury councillor who holds the tourism brief, said: "It would be amazing if we could become another St Ives or Stratford. This is a vibrant community interested in what happening here and elsewhere."

Did she have any personal philosophical thoughts? "You live the best way you can and look after others and enjoy life."

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The Philosopher's Walk in Kyoto is the name given to a 2km-long path through north-eastern Kyoto which covers five significant temples and two shrines.

http://www.japaneselifestyle.com.au/travel/kyoto_philosophers_walk.htm

http://www.cyclekyoto.com/philosophers-walk

"Walking Meditation" is a traditional method of calming the mind and bringing stillness to its ceaseless and often non-productive thinking. We all experience this when we walk alone or with a silent companion, especially in peaceful and beautiful places where we can re-connect with nature.

Meditation is concerned with the personal, the spiritual and the metaphysical. Philosophy, on the other hand, is concerned with ideas, the intellect, politics, government, ethics, morality and so on.

Meditation is concerned with the transcendental and the spiritual. Philosophy addresses practical issues of how we live as individuals and as societies.

The European Enlightenment was a movement which embraced science and rational thought as a means building a better world. Reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority, instead of blind faith or obedience to the church, the monarchy, the Pope, God, custom & tradition, etc.

To Buddhists and Hindus, however, 'enlightenment' refers to a unique and personal experience which wholly transforms the individual. It is a spiritual state in which the individual transcends desire and suffering and attains Satori or Nirvana. Bodhi is achieved through individual meditation by ridding oneself of false beliefs and the hindrance of passions.

What we need is for every town and community to transform itself into both a place of philosophy and of enlightenment. I'll happily live in the first place that achieves this.

See Layers 223, 39, 178, etc.

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Meanwhile, here in Dumb Britain, we stumble on in states of ignorance, fear, greed, cupidity and stupidity.

Shock and awe finances

No public service cuts are needed. Our plan to deal with the deficit is all about jobs, revenue and growth

by Mark Serwotka

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/17/finances-cuts-public-services-welfare

When George Osborne  sits down in the Commons on Wednesday after announcing the comprehensive spending review, he will have set out a package of cuts that will fundamentally undermine the welfare state. Yet there does not need to be a single penny cut from public services – or a single job lost.

These cuts are unavoidable, we are constantly told. Our economy is in a mess. Public spending has been running out of control. The country has "record debts". In what amounts to the political equivalent of shock and awe, the government has drilled this narrative into us so we simply accept our fate. But none of this is true. Our situation has nothing to do with public spending. The collapse in the finance sector, due to greed, caused a sharp recession and higher unemployment, tax revenues shrank dramatically, and the welfare bill increased.

In making cuts, the government is making a political choice, not responding to "record" debt. Research by my union shows that, between 1918 and 1961, the debt was more than 100% of GDP. Osborne's budget papers put the current debt at 53%. Between 1918 and 1961 different choices were made. We established the NHS and welfare services, built council houses, developed state education and pensions, and invested in industry.

Instead, Osborne is choosing to realise a long-held ambition to rid the rich and powerful of the burden of the welfare state. The way we pay benefits to those in need, how we get people back to work, our ability to collect the tax that funds healthcare, education and other vital services for millions of people – no corner of government will be spared the axe.

The cuts threaten to reintroduce Victorian levels of poverty and inequality. The coalition has used the notion of "fairness" as cover for a new division of people into the deserving and undeserving poor, and a demonisation of those receiving welfare.

Our pamphlet, There Is an Alternative: The Case Against Cuts in Public Spending, sets out what could be done instead. We outline a strategy to deal with the deficit by investing to create jobs, raise revenues and generate economic growth. We can also tackle the £120bn a year in tax that is evaded, avoided or not collected, and use the £850bn we hold in nationalised banking assets to work in our interests.

The government is attempting to make us choose who should suffer the most as it tries to generate a sense of inevitability about its draconian cuts. We must not allow ourselves to be divided: the public from the private sector; those in work from those out of work; British nationals from migrants. Unity can be built if we grasp that there does not need to be a single cut in anyone's public services, jobs or benefits.

Trade unions have often worked alone to defend their members from cuts. Now we are building new alliances – nationally and locally – with other unions, pensioners, charities and others to defend jobs and the services our members take pride in delivering. We are planning the most widespread popular movement for many years.

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