Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere - Part Two

Notes from Paul Mason's lecture:
Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere
SOAS, London University, 10th January, 2013

http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/trustinfo/conferences.htm

The digital communications revolution is having a profound impact on the world.
[NB Clay Shirky - Here Comes Everybody]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody

In the four years since 2008 the iPhone and its Android equivalents have conquered the world. And in every student's garret there is now a wireless laptop.

There is now a sense of empowerment through connections based on trust. The trust comes from various signifiers embedded in various forms of communications and "cultural signals".

Governments and political establishments are no longer invulnerable. We all have the ability to attack their spin, lies and propaganda.

"The Counterculture of Protest" - Manuel Castells - Networks of Outrage and Hope.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Networks-Outrage-Hope-Movements-Internet/dp/0745662854/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360160507&sr=1-1

Whole populations are now "tasting freedom", enjoying the safety of cyberspace and also occupying urban spaces.

A combination of technology and economic literacy is creating a new zeitgeist. The spirit of the age is scornful of hierarchy, "discipline", "targets" and other management-speak terminology.

There is a sense of solidarity towards a kinder, more human system.

However - we can see the danger of failing to go beyond political gestures, and failing to deal with repression. There is a feeling of disorientation, and not knowing what will happen next.

It seems "indignatos" are more motivated by the need to fight fascism than they are by the need to fight poverty.

Hierarchical working class organisations have had their heyday and are in steep decline. Modern work forces us to live multiple lives, adopting multiple personalities.

Social networking skills are extremely valuable. See: Richard Sennett - The Culture of the New Capitalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture_of_the_New_Capitalism

There is collective disillusionment. These new movements are not trying to take power, as such. They have learned that power, when monopolised, is 'evil'.

There's a quest for an alternative, more civilised, more self-controlled space within capitalism. "The Way" is everything.

There is no such thing any more as "normal life". "Non-market" alternative lifestyles - previously adopted by deliberate drop-outs - are being forced on "workers".

Another factor driving change is a psychological shift towards a quest for personal liberation - in order to become "a new kind of human being". People now want freedom, informality, beauty, lack of inhibition, etc. The Internet has become a kind of "social laboratory of the self" and a "collective mental arena". This gives rise to the formation of diverse communities. There are many attempts to create utopian communities.

The political parties can't accept that the hierarchical era is over. They are completely out of touch.

These new citizens see themselves as Autonomists, not Anarchists.

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By a bizarre coincidence yesterday's blog post was published an hour before I noticed a tweet from Paul Mason giving a link to the cover article in today's Guardian G2. The above notes were also written up during the day yesterday, just before the G2 piece was about to go online.

Please take some time to read the G2 article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/05/arab-spring-global-revolution

From Arab Spring to global revolution

In an excerpt from his book Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere, Paul Mason argues that a global protest movement, based on social networks, is here to stay

Something real and important was unleashed in 2011, and it has not yet gone away. I am confident enough now to call it a revolution.

There is a change in consciousness, the intuition that something big is possible; that a great change in the world's priorities is within people's grasp. The impervious nature of official politics – its inability to swerve even slightly towards the critique of capitalism intuitively felt by millions of people – has deepened the sense of alienation and mistrust.

Social media have grown more complex. Slowly, quietly, the mainstream media have become, for many involved in activism, politics and journalism itself, a secondary source of information, while social networks have become the primary source. This, in turn, speaks to the emergence of an undeclared dual power between the world of ideas and the world of official politics.

If I could list only one and not 20 reasons why it is still kicking off, it would be the rise of the networked individual colliding with the economic crisis. Something fundamental has happened – a shift in human consciousness and behaviour as momentous as that triggered by the arrival of mass consumption and mass culture in the 1900s.

The change, as sociologist Manuel Castells argues, is one-off and irreversible, like electrification, and it will condition all politics going forward. So the challenge for traditional politics, right and left, religious and secular, is, as Castells argues, that the networked social movements actually reflect the reality of "everyday" or "normal" life better than the old hierarchical forms.

Why It's Still Kicking Off Everywhere

The journalist and writer Paul Mason recently gave a brilliant talk to a large audience at SOAS, London University - based on his book -

 

Our world is changing dramatically. The global economic crisis has given way to social crisis: corrupt and dictatorial politics enmeshed with a global financial elite - and an ever-widening gulf between the haves and have-nots. In 2011 this profound disconnect found expression in events that we were told had been consigned to history: revolt and revolution. In this compelling new book, Paul Mason sets out to explore the causes and consequences of this new wave of struggle. From London to Cairo, Wisconsin to Tehran, he charts the new forms of collective action: fluid networks of agile, Twitter- and Facebook-savvy networks of youthful protesters who understand how power works. The events, says Mason, reflect the expanding power of the individual and call for new ways of thinking about political alternatives, elite rule and global poverty.

http://shiftmag.co.uk/?p=523&oo=41439044 - This is an interesting review of the book, which includes this paragraph:

If we go back to the early 19th century, any idiot could use a printing press, but it took real skill as a writer and business owner to produce interesting, entertaining, informed and well-distributed works. Similarly, and as he should know, it takes real skill for a historian to dig through (still mainly material) archives, and real skill for a journalist to assemble facts through documents and interviews. The internet does create the social network he discusses, and it does make publication and communication not only substantially easier, but completely different in many ways than what came before. But it doesn’t lend creativity, ingenuity, or good organising skills where it didn’t exist before. No matter what the invention – the press, the railway, the telephone – it still needs people of intellect and dedication to do something remarkable with it, and his over-enthusiasm unfortunately brings to mind a quote from Alan Partridge’s recent autobiography: ‘Wikipedia has made university education all but pointless’.

Here's Paul Mason speaking on the Guardian's website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2012/jan/23/paul-mason-revolts-capitalist-realism-video



The new edition of Paul's book:

Layer 513 . . . Radical Movements, Global Protests, Visiting Japan, Occupy London and Banning Bonuses

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In yesterday's G2 Paul Mason had a two-page article - very sober and measured, as you'd expect from such a senior and serious journalist - reflecting on the future of the radical movements that came to prominence in 2011.

Global protests: where does the revolution go from here?

2011's anti-capitalist protests and Arab spring made everything seem possible. But will 2012 bring real change? The key is turning rebellion into coherent political vision

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/31/where-revolution-goes-from-here

If 2011 felt, at times, like a rerun of 1848 with stereo headphones, 2012 is already exhibiting some of the features that made 1849 a byword for reaction.

In Greece, the euphoria one could sense among the indignados camped in Syntagma Square last June has given way to an angry silence; to fragmented, anomic acts and the struggle to survive.

And the fundamental economic problems remain unsolved . . . 

As a revolutionary wave breaks, historically, it also breaks up. During the Arab spring and the winter of occupying public spaces, it was impossible to ignore the similarities between the youth across borders: the way they spoke and dressed, the social media they used, the music they listened to.

So what remains of the revolution? As the events recede and solidify it becomes clear that 2011 was, above all, a cultural revolution: a loss of fear in the dictatorships of north Africa; a loss of apathy among educated youth in Europe, Latin America and the US. And the revolution consisted of this: a mass rejection of the values dominant during 20 years of freemarket capitalism.

Freemarket patterns of wealth distribution created the most potent political meme of 2011 – which was not the Egyptian slogan "Bread, freedom, social justice" but "We are the 99%".

Today, among the activists who made 25 January happen in Egypt – and among those who turned Occupy Wall Street or UK Uncut into global brandnames – you find a common reluctance to engage in the dirty business of power; of the actual, the specific, the non-exhilarating work of community organising, of elections.

In short, 2012 may be the year the counter-culture accumulated by young people in the good years, and deployed in what one has called "the senseless beauty of rebellion" in 2011, finally has to concretise into a programme, a coherent vision. If it doesn't – as is obvious from Budapest to Cairo – there are plenty of other forces with coherence. And in times of economic crisis people turn to them.

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Charlie Brooker in Tokyo

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/charlie-brooker-tokyo-japan-games?intcmp=122

Another fairly serious and measured piece of journalism. Good one Charlie.

I'm looking forward to hearing about the culture shock Charlie experiences when he gets back to London. Everyone should visit Japan, at least once in their lifetime. Beg and borrow money if necessary in order to do it. It'll change your way of thinking - and in a good way.

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The salaryman's guide to Tokyo

Salaryman Kuzuhara-san leads Chris Michael on a tour of the hidden Tokyo where an army of office workers get to let off steam at the end of the working day

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/salarymans-guide-to-tokyo-city?intcmp=122

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Tokyo: a walk down Memory Lane - video

Omoide Yokochō - Memory Lane - developed as the eating quarter after the second world war. David Levene checks out old school Japanese delicacies such as salamander, loach and viper wine. It's all good for the stamina

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/video/2012/feb/01/tokyo-memory-lane-strange-eats?intcmp=122

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10 of the most unusual hotels in Tokyo

Tokyo has an unusual hotel to suit every taste, whether you want to spend a night in a pod hotel, at an urban onsen, or stay with a Japanese family, says Richard Smart

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/top-10-unusual-hotels-onsen-pods-tokyo

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10 of the best budget hotels in Tokyo

Tokyo has a good spread of hotels at great-value rates, from traditional ryokans to cheap and cheerful business hotels in the heart of Shinjuku, says Richard Smart

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/10-best-budget-hotels-tokyo
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Occupy London's eviction is a failure for the church, not the camp

The protesters about to be removed from the steps of St Paul's could have helped the cathedral find a compelling new narrative

by  Giles Fraser

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/31/occupy-eviction-st-pauls-cathedral

It's time for all good people to decide where they stand - with the bankers and the Establishment, or with the protestors. There's NO middle way in this.

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With a ban on bonuses, Fred Goodwin could even have kept his knighthood

Even bankers want the bonus culture outlawed. It's a conspiracy to extract money from firms that properly belongs to others

By Simon Jenkins

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/31/ban-bonuses-fred-goodwin-knighthood

Very well said, Simon. This whole fucked-up bonus culture is a massive scam, and needs to be made illegal - at least for 'bonuses' above, say, £2,000, whether in cash or shares. Better to get rid of the whole of this nasty nonsense.

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Layer 495 . . . Ethical Fluff, Destroyers of Wealth, Industrial Psychopaths, Common Treasury, Fighting the Consensus and a Serious Mass Movement

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A somewhat disappointing polemic today from Simon Jenkins - usually one of our most astute commentators (see Oxzen comment on CiF under the article).

He's absolutely right to criticise liberals for not being specific in their demands for changes in policy and legislation, and by doing so, hopefully, needle such liberals into more thoughtful and radical demands. But it's a pity he seems to be mocking some basically decent people in a similar fashion to the mass of right-wing commentators.

Not that Simon's responsible for a pretty crass headline. At least I hope he's not.

The ethical fluff of St Paul's and Rowan Williams is a liberal cop-out

Pythonesque preaching from Church of England top brass is of no practical help in this economic mess

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/08/ethical-fluff-st-pauls-rowan-williams

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George Monbiot is another must-read commentator. Yesterday's column was a classic.

The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen

Our common treasury in the last 30 years has been captured by industrial psychopaths. That's why we're nearly bankrupt

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/one-per-cent-wealth-destroyers

If wealth was the inevitable result of hard work and enterprise, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. The claims that the ultra-rich 1% make for themselves – that they are possessed of unique intelligence or creativity or drive – are examples of the self-attribution fallacy. This means crediting yourself with outcomes for which you weren't responsible. Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.


The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. 


So much for the financial sector and its super-educated analysts. As for other kinds of business, you tell me. Is your boss possessed of judgment, vision and management skills superior to those of anyone else in the firm, or did he or she get there through bluff, bullshit and bullying?


On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses's scores either matched or exceeded those of [Broadmoor] patients. In fact, on these criteria, they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders.


The psychopathic traits on which the bosses scored so highly, Board and Fritzon point out, closely resemble the characteristics that companies look for. Those who have these traits often possess great skill in flattering and manipulating powerful people. Egocentricity, a strong sense of entitlement, a readiness to exploit others and a lack of empathy and conscience are also unlikely to damage their prospects in many corporations.


The rest of us are invited, by governments and by fawning interviews in the press, to subscribe to their myth of election: the belief that they are possessed of superhuman talents. The very rich are often described as wealth creators. But they have preyed on the earth's natural wealth and their workers' labour and creativity, impoverishing both people and planet. Now they have almost bankrupted us. The wealth creators of neoliberal mythology are some of the most effective wealth destroyers the world has ever seen.


What has happened over the past 30 years is the capture of the world's common treasury by a handful of people, assisted by neoliberal policies which were first imposed on rich nations by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.


I am now going to bombard you with figures. I'm sorry about that, but these numbers need to be tattooed on our minds . . . 


Until recently, we were mesmerised by the bosses' self-attribution. Their acolytes, in academia, the media, thinktanks and government, created an extensive infrastructure of junk economics and flattery to justify their seizure of other people's wealth. So immersed in this nonsense did we become that we seldom challenged its veracity.


This is now changing. On Sunday evening I witnessed a remarkable thing: a debate on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral between Stuart Fraser, chairman of the Corporation of the City of London, another official from the corporation, the turbulent priest Father William Taylor, John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network and the people of Occupy London. It had something of the flavour of the Putney debates of 1647. For the first time in decades – and all credit to the corporation officials for turning up – financial power was obliged to answer directly to the people.


It felt like history being made. The undeserving rich are now in the frame, and the rest of us want our money back.


A fully referenced version of this article can be found at www.monbiot.com/

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Here's a remarkable piece of writing by a 16 year old who's still at school -

Ed Miliband is right to be radical

The Labour leader must stick to his instincts to inspire a generation who are acutely aware of the injustices they face

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/labour-radical-young-people-occupy

by Rory Weal

When politicians stand up for what they believe in and make politics seem capable of changing the terms of play, people sit up and listen. Yet in the haze of cynicism and pessimism that so often shrouds the political establishment the public, and young people in particular, have become disillusioned. There's often no vision of a better state of affairs, no message of hope or optimism.


Writing on Sunday in the Observer, Ed rightly talked about how it would be reckless to ignore the St Paul's protests, going on to explain why Labour needs to be tackling the "take what you can" culture that has emerged over recent decades. It's exactly what Labour needs to be doing – finding answers to the big questions, tackling injustices, and taking on the status quo. He further identified the protests as "reflecting the feeling of millions of people that the economy and country are not working for them" and David Cameron as "looking after the wealthiest 1%".


If politics doesn't have the answers, where do young people turn? The St Paul's protests are a cry of injustice from Britain's youth, as were the tuition fee protests of last year. Seeing financial speculators reap the rewards of their own failures while tuition fees soar to £9,000 a year is a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Party politics needs to empower people, and at the moment, it doesn't. If Labour is to win the support of my peers it must be optimistic and it must be radical. There is to be no room for half measures. Getting into a bidding war over who'll tackle the deficit in a slightly better way will not excite anyone, and young people, more than most, will see straight through it. Ed Miliband needs to stick to his instincts.


I fear the influence of voices in the Labour party who urge Ed to refrain; voices who say don't take on the Murdoch press, don't hold energy companies to account, don't tackle injustices in the financial sector. I urge Ed: don't listen to the doubters. Young people want to be inspired and they want to see our politics, and their country, change for the better.


Ed Miliband has shown he can take on those vested interests, but we shouldn't be afraid to fight the consensus and reshape the centre ground . . .


Young people and the public at large deserve a party that takes on established thinking and uses politics as a means to radically change Britain for the better. Ed has made a great start in laying out the rights and wrongs in society, but we must not lose momentum.


When I look around my classroom at school, I see young people caring passionately about the injustices around them, but not seeing politics as a means to address those injustices. That needs to change.


My generation want to see that optimistic vision. I know Ed does too. And if he remembers his clear message on his election as Labour leader, he has the potential to inspire a generation of young people.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/26/labour-boy-rory-weal

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Yet another excellent piece by a young man in the Guardian yesterday, about something that's happening today:

Students are fighting not just for education, but the welfare state

Our protest on Wednesday could mark the start of the resistance that breaks the coalition's cuts and privatising agenda

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/students-fighting-education-welfare-state

by Michael Chessum

Monday's announcement that the Metropolitan police may use baton rounds – similar to rubber bullets – on student demonstrators has reinforced the disenfranchisement of those planning to march: not only is our future being dismantled, but we will be violently repressed when we attempt to defend it. In using a press conference to ramp up the threat of violence, the police are precriminalising protest, making unrest more likely in the process.


The fundamentalism of the policies being pushed by the Tories, and echoed in police tactics, is rooted in desperation of the material collapse of global capitalism – and the scope of reform runs much further than the darkest years of Thatcherism. The coalition's marketisation of education and health; its criminalisation of squatting; its dismantling of youth work – all can be viewed as a completion of the Thatcher-Blair years


It has become clear to ordinary people that the political elite has run out of ideas and its agenda is born of desperation. It is in this context that movements of resistance, including the students', are appearing so dramatically and with such public support.


There are still those who view national mobilisation and local direct action as ineffective or taboo, rejecting it in favour of operational collaboration with institutions and their internal structural reviews. This model of activism looks more and more out of step with the realities of the situation that we face.


Unlike New Labour, which combined betrayal with negotiation, those now in power are wholly committed to the full privatisation of education. It is inconceivable that localised access schemes and outreach programmes, however good and well negotiated, will compensate for the vast structural inequalities of a new marketised system.


Students face an all-out battle in Wednesday's demonstration and its aftermath to derail the higher education white paper. They will have the support of academics, trade unions and, secretly, many vice-chancellors, who understand the folly of market chaos. This will mean confrontations with local university managements, as students take direct action to demand that university heads refuse to implement the white paper.


Nothing could be clearer from the past year of struggle than the ability of clear political demands to mobilise numbers in the streets. If the student movement can spell out and fight for a genuine ideological alternative to fees, debt and marketisation in education, it may well be closer to winning than many presume. In Chile and Germany long-term mass mobilisations have forced the reintroduction of free education; and the Occupy movements around the globe are shifting the discourse of dissent from market economics, a shift they have taken further into the mainstream than ever.


The government's assault on the welfare state, although rooted in class rather than age, constitutes the biggest peacetime generational betrayal in modern British history. 


All that is left to students and young people is to fight against this government – and to link our actions to the struggles of ordinary working people everywhere. The period from 9 November to the TUC day of action on 30 November may yet be remembered as the phase of resistance that began to break the government's agenda. In the process, students must prove that we are a serious mass movement, and not a one-off parade.

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Layer 494 . . . Occupations, Protests, International Solidarity, Common Spaces, Common Goals, New Possibilities, Reality Checks, Two Bills and the Tobin Tax

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We live in interesting times - when revolutions break out in autocracies, when politics a la Blair/Brown/Mandelson/Gould are said to give you cancer, when the Church of England is  forced to re-think its subservience to the City and bankers.

It's surely no exaggeration to say that the times we're living in are very much like the Sixties - with people all over the world asking questions about values, about ethics, about capitalism, about lifestyles, about democracy and about systems of government that seem only to perpetuate the status quo - to the severe disadvantage of the 99%.

Only it's much better this time around. It's no longer just students and trade unions marching on the streets of London, Paris, New York, Athens and California - it's people from right across the political spectrum joining in with the questioning and the challenging, the marches and the occupations. Middle class people also seem to be waking up to the fact that they're being screwed by the 1%.

This time around we have the Internet and the ability to talk to people around the world - for free! To have video conferences if we feel like it. We can also self-publish our thoughts and ideas, and send them at light speed around the world - and all for free!

I remember back in the sixties and seventies, teacher trade unionists complained about their managers' ability to speak with one another at any time of the day by telephone. No texts or tweets or emails or even mobile phones back then! Workers and protestors no longer need to laboriously arrange meetings in order to share thoughts or information or documents with one another.

Our voices can be heard, ARE heard, and will be heard. Even the 1% are being forced to listen - and be somewhat afraid.

For so long now the 1% have had the terms of debate entirely in their favour, as capitalist ideology, embourgeoisment and apparent material prosperity held sway. But the times they are a'changing.

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I love Gary Younge's columns from America.

Who knows where the occupations are going – it's just great to be moving

As Wall Street wormed its way into everyone's life, so Occupy protests grow everywhere: symbolic for now, but changing debate


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/06/knows-occupations-going-great-moving


It is fitting, given the nature of the bailouts and hundreds of thousands of repossessions triggered by this economic crisis, that resistance to it would at some stage become a battle over public space with the risk of mass evictions. In the last few weeks, as popular support for these mostly peaceful protests has grown, the struggle for the right to stage them at all has intensified. From Vancouver to Melbourne and Boston to Bournemouth, encampments have been raided or banned.


Their ubiquity is testament to the breadth of appeal for this broadside against the political and financial elites and the converging crises in our economies and democracies for which they are responsible. The occupy model can be replicated because in one sense Wall Street is everywhere. It has insinuated itself into the lives of every pensioner, student, parent, library user, bus passenger, public employee and homeowner. It needs no translation. Every country has one. Every town and hamlet feels its influence.


For the protesters, however, this also makes it a particularly slippery adversary. Unfettered by national boundaries, unregulated by supine politicians and unaccountable to anyone, neoliberal globalisation is a force without a face and a system without a centre, offering little in the way of identifiable, resonant, physical targets. So if Wall Street is omnipresent, it is no less elusive: it's everywhere until you try to find someone responsible for the mess we are in, and then it disappears.


The Occupy movement has provided a large tent in which a range of previously atomised struggles can now camp. It's a place where those working against war and to protect environment, library services, legal aid, public healthcare, public sector jobs (to mention just a few) have been able to find one another. Every weeknight in Nashville between 100 and 150 people meet at 7pm for a general assembly which is open to the public. Laura Wallace, who works to distribute local foods from local farms, helps moderate the meetings. "I've lived here for five years and I never knew these people were out there," she says. "It's really exciting to be part of this bigger group that comes together in a common space with a common goal."


The occupations have shifted the conversation about what the problem is. Prior to its emergence the trend was not to talk truth to power but to slur the powerless. Politicians went almost unchallenged as they variously identified the troublesome 1% as Gypsies, Muslims, asylum seekers, trade union activists or public sector employees. Now we are back to talking about the people who created this crisis and the system that sustains them.


The very things that make [an occupation] cumbersome make it authentic. Its leadership and its base are one and the same thing. No corporate money sustains it; no cable station is dedicated to promoting it, no individual speaks for it.


Those who deride it for its lack of concrete demands simply don't understand its strategic function. There is no lack of specific suggestions out there for how to democratise our institutions and confront inequalities. What's missing are real democracies, free of corporate influence, that are capable of accommodating and enacting those demands even when they have majority support. The movement exists virtually without reference to electoral politics because the problem is not programmatic but systemic. When what is both desirable and popular is no longer achievable, politics is transformed from the art of the possible to the task of creating new possibilities.


Fortunately that task has long been joined in myriad ways by people, rooted in communities and workplaces, who have been fighting foreclosures, redundancies, service cuts and tuition hikes, who refused to accept there was no alternative. The strength of the Occupy movement at this stage resides in its ability to act as both conduit and co-ordinator for those fragmented groups: a doula for a revitalised, progressive coalition.


In few places has this been as evident as in Oakland, where after a brutal raid on its camp, occupiers called for a general strike, which shut down much of the city, including the port. A friend, who had initially been reluctant to participate, decided to down tools and join the throng.


Hope where there was cynicism; solidarity where there had been suspicion. The occupations are more effective as a launch pad than a destination. Nobody knows where this is going. It's just great to be on the move.

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St Paul's, the church's reality check

The Occupy London protest has been a PR disaster for us, but Christianity started badly too. We can learn


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/06/anglican-church-reality-check-occupy


by Rev Richard Coles


Amid the shriek of comment, the thump of rolling heads, the dissonance of Renaissance polyphony and Imagine played on a ukulele, one thing is certain about the St Paul's protest camp. It is a reality check – for the City, obliged to ask why a Mongolian village has appeared amid the towers of London; for the protesters, obliged to come up with a more coherent strategy for defeating global capitalism than morris dancing; for the media, reduced to turning thermal-imaging cameras on to the camp by night.


It is also a reality check for the church, and we seem to have come off spectacularly badly. On one thing all agree: for us, it has been a PR disaster. I feel very much for the departed chancellor and dean, good and faithful servants both, yet something within me shouts, Hallelujah!


Christianity at its best has always sought a horizon beyond catastrophe. While such an outcome may seem remote at the moment, this debacle at the very least obliges us to think about where we stand in relation to the powers of this earth, and the powerless and marginalised. "What would Jesus do?" the protesters' banners ask, rhetorically.

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Two Bills

Bill Nighy seems to me to be a very good man, as well as a good actor, who's become a strong advocate for a 'Robin Hood Tax'.

A Robin Hood tax could turn the banks from villains to heroes

An EU-wide Robin Hood tax is close to becoming reality. Cameron must now tell the City to get on board


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/sep/28/robin-hood-tax-bankers-villains-heroes


video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzZIRMXcxRc


by Bill Nighy


It's a script that even Hollywood might have balked at. In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the second world war, a small band of merry men and women hatch a plan to protect the poor by taking on the world's titans of finance and making them pay their fair share to society. In the final scene Goldman Sachs transforms into the good Samaritan, generating billions to tackle the world's problems.


Sound far-fetched? Not after the European commission formally brought forward proposals for an EU-wide tax on financial transactions involving shares, bonds and derivatives. The announcement – accompanied by comments from Algirdas Semeta, the tax commissioner, linking at least some of the proceeds to fighting poverty and climate change – is just the latest sign that the Robin Hood tax (also known as the "Tobin tax") is on the verge of becoming a reality.

Bill Nighy takes Robin Hood tax to the G20

The actor, campaigner and Oxfam ambassador explains why the G20 can no longer ignore financial transaction tax at Cannes


http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/03/bill-nighy-robin-hood-tax-g20


Bill Nighy is not your usual film star. Gaunt and diffident, he turns beetroot red at the mention of his Man of the Year title (editor's special prize), awarded by GQ magazine and the idea of posing on the red carpets of the Cannes film festival fill him with dread.


But the man who played the dissolute rock star in Love Actually has arrived in the glamorous Cote d'Azur town to lobby the G20 community on the virtues of a financial transactions tax – the so-called Robin Hood tax.

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I've never seen Bill Gates as a particularly bad capitalist, and he's certainly doing his bit at the moment to help the wretched of the earth, through his own charitable foundation and through his support for the idea of a Tobin Tax.

G20: Bill Gates adds his weight to calls for Robin Hood tax

Financial transaction tax could raise £30bn to fight poverty, Gates will tell leaders


http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/03/gates-urges-g20-to-introduce-tobin-tax


Despite hostility from Britain and the US, the Microsoft founder will add weight to the growing campaign for a so-called Robin Hood tax when he tells the two-day summit in Cannes that a levy on finance would help hard-pressed rich nations to meet their aid pledges to the poor.

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Layer 489 . . . Bluesy Roots, Bad As Me, Tom Waits, Dogs' Lives, The Wire, The Hole, Faith in the City, and the St Pauls' Protests

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It's A Dog's Life

I'm back on dog duty, picking up doggie dumps on a daily basis. Coincidentally I came across this is the New York Times -

Dogs have a blissful appreciation for the simple pleasures in life. Like four-legged Zen masters, they grasp the importance of living in the moment, and along with being loyal and protective, can teach humans a lot.

Perhaps, that is, if their masters stopped setting such an anthropomorphized agenda and simply let them be dogs. Not that the canines are complaining. In many ways, a dog's life has never been so lavishly pampered, emotionally elevated or sartorially splendid.

In America alone, the pet industry pulled in $55 billion last year, despite a shaky economy that has led to a rise in animal abandonment. For those lucky dogs that still have a home, The Times reported, the perks can include rain slickers and sweaters fit for a fashion runway; gourmet dinners of pheasant and pan-seared duck; organic treats of pumpkin and yak milk; antidepressants, psychic readers and medical insurance.

Canines troubled by flatulence might benefit from the $28 "Fart & Away" aromatherapy candle. And neutered males can hope for a pair of $1,000 Neuticals, prosthetic testicles designed to help "your pet to retain his natural look and self esteem" following "the trauma associated with altering." For another $1,000 or more, a deceased animal can be freeze-dried and mummified.

That's $55 BILLION. Only in America.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/arts/music/tom-waitss-new-album-bad-as-me.html

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Here's a guy who represents the good stuff in the US of A.

Bad As Me


Tom Waits Reclaims His Bluesy Roots


by Jon Pareles 


Adrenaline and restlessness course through “Bad as Me”, Tom Waits’s new album.


At 61 Mr. Waits is acclaimed as an American marvel: a songwriter who can be smart and primal, raucous and meticulous, ethereal and earthy, bleak and comical. He has sung about drunks, tramps, carnies and killers, spinning tall tales and reeling off free-associations that somehow add up; he has also shown a vulnerable side in tender, unironic love songs. 


It’s an album of love songs, cackling contemplations of death and, most often, songs about hitting the road. “I just want to get lost,” he declares over a blurred but robust rockabilly backbeat in “Get Lost.”


There are half a dozen blues stomps, with none other than Keith Richards joining in the guitar scuffles with David Hidalgo, of Los Lobos.


Mr. Waits is cherished by his generation of musicians, as skillful songwriter and uncompromising outsider. “I identify with those guys that draw with Tabasco sauce on cardboard with a nail, outsider guys,” he said. Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles, Rod Stewart and lately Robert Plant (with Alison Krauss on the Grammy-winning album “Raising Sand”) are among the many who have covered Mr. Waits’s songs. Yet his audience, he noted, is “not just old-timers like me listening to old-timers like me.”


When Mr. Waits emerged in the 1970s, he had clearly studied Beat writers, jazz pioneers and Delta bluesmen. Now indie-rockers study him, emulating not only his rasp-and-growl vocals and spiky arrangements, but also his self-guided career path. He has never been beholden to airplay and — far more adamantly than younger bands — shuns deals with advertisers, whom he has successfully sued when they have tried to use Waits sound-alikes.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/arts/music/tom-waitss-new-album-bad-as-me.html

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Checking out the Waits album on Spotify, I remembered he did a vocal on the the album of music (and voices) from "The Wire", on a track called "Way Down In The Hole", which Tom wrote back in in 1987. Each season of The Wire used a different vocalist or band to play and sing the song, which was the title track for the entire series.

Lots of brilliant, edgy stuff on the rest of the album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ymBaAsSqDE&feature=fvwrel

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzIuUW9VUr0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVDMSndC8as&feature=related


Sound bites from the album of The Wire -

"Why would anyone ever want to leave Baltimore? That's what I'm askin'."

"We used to make shit in this country. Build shit. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket."

"You need to start looking at this world in a new fuckin' light. Start thinkin' about this shit like grown fuckin' men. Not some niggas off the fuckin corner. You heard me."

"Sell the shit. Make the profit. Later for that gangsta bullshit."

If you really want to know about gangs and drug culture, don't waste too much time with Top Boy. More of the same on Channel 4 last night. Not great. Not really very good.

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Some more points of view from the Guardian:

As our own Patrick Kingsley discovered spending a night in the camp last week, their message can't be boiled down to a 10-word marching song. "They're not interested," he wrote, "in making petty demands on a system they see as irreconcilably flawed. If anything, the camp itself is their demand, and their solution: the stab at an alternative society that at least aims to operate without hierarchy, and with full, participatory democracy. And to be fair, in its small way, it kind of works."

"There is no such thing as all the answers. The journalists do not have all the answers, no one does." Others quickly rallied to the who-needs-answers? flag. "It's pretty obvious what people want first off," declared hotairhead, "to show how damn angry and frustrated they are with the status quo and how much they want change. It will take a long time, longer even than a winter's camping on St Paul's cobbles, but this is as good a place to start as any."

"Finally, a short word in response to Ian Martin's inspired nostalgic rant in Monday's G2, which concluded, "So yeah, I'm a reactionary socialist. I want national pride in our compassion back. I want public ownership back. This country's been swindled by neo-liberalism – Thatcher and her property boom, the lying shit Blair and his 'whatever works'. I demand a refund."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/oct/27/readers-room-responses-to-g2

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St Paul's protests: faith in the City

Whether or not the old song is actually sung, 'which side are you on?' is the question that every protest poses

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/01/occupy-london-london

Having pursued ethical economics ever since the crash, an interest refreshed in a Financial Times article today, Rowan Williams is now well placed to get involved with the Occupy London debates. The protesters, meanwhile, now face a Conservative home secretary and the sub-democratic Corporation of London ranged against them. And all parties are a little clearer about which side they are on.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/01/st-pauls-seeks-new-direction

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/nov/02/occupy-london-live-coverage-of-st-paul-s-protests

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2011/nov/02/st-pauls-protests-legal-land
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Layer 486 . . . Literacy Crisis, Education, Dyslexia, Vulgar TV, China, Frozen Planet, Peaceful Protest and Resignation

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Thinking about the times we live in -

Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.

All the forces in the world are not so powerful as an idea whose time has come.

An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.

Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.

It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.

The little people must be sacred to the big ones, and it is from the rights of the weak that the duty of the strong is comprised.

The degree of civilisation is reflected by the quantity of the imagination.

An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.

The three great problems of this century; the degradation of man in the proletariat, the subjection of women through hunger, the atrophy of the child by darkness.

The ox suffers, the cart complains

 - Victor Hugo

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

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I love this story -

Reality bites: China orders crackdown on 'vulgar' TV shows
State broadcasting watchdog orders curb on dating shows and talent contests in favour of 'morality building' output

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/25/china-crackdown-on-vulgar-tv

Sick of tacky reality shows with egotistic wannabes? Tired of formulaic talent contests for shameless show-offs? If you feel the prime time schedules are packed with lowest common denominator viewing, you are not alone.

Chinese officials share your pain and have ordered a curb on popular entertainment shows. Out go sexy dating shows and lurid programmes on crime. In come art appreciation, astronomy and weekly "morality building shows".

The new edict from the state broadcasting watchdog is expected to come into force on 1 January. Provincial channels will be allowed to show no more than two entertainment shows in the "golden time" between 7.30pm and 10pm, according to a report on the Chinese NetEase website. Particular types of programmes, such as dating shows, will be strictly limited; no more than 10 talent contests will be permitted nationwide per year, and each must be of a different kind.

"The State Administration of Radio Film and Television also encourages [broadcasters] to produce harmonious, healthy and mainstream programmes, such as culture and art appreciation, history, geography and astronomy, and [those addressing] public welfare," the report added.

We can all benefit from more enlightening and more enriching programmes on television. But what's this about being 'sick of tacky TV shows'? How can you get sick of something you can easily switch off? Maybe. But you can be sick of your family or your friends watching crap, and your TV at home being dominated by the choices 'voted' for by the majority.

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Frozen Planet

Fabulous David Attenborough programme on TV this week - Frozen Planet. Stunning photography - take a look at these photos on Yahoo:

http://uk.tv.yahoo.com/photos/frozen-planet-gallery-1319709281-slideshow/frozen-planet-ep-1-photo-1319708904.html

We need many more intelligent, enjoyable and accessible documentaries - at the cinema as well as on TV.

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Read all about it: Britain's shameful literacy crisis
So rioters shunned bookshops because they didn't offer anything they wanted? That points to a debilitating exclusion from a civilised culture

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/26/britains-shameful-literacy-crisis

Deborah Orr's final 'column' in G2 made me sit up and . . . despair. "Shameful". "Crisis"?

Test and exam scores are demonstrably better than they've ever been - and yet we have a shameful crisis on our hands, according to La Orr. Shock fucking horror.

You then take a look at the 8 pages of feedback on the website (by 6.00pm - 328 comments on this article on CiF. 370 this morning) . . . and despair.

Yes - we have a problem with literacy in this country. Since the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy test scores have gone up, and enthusiasm for reading and writing has gone down. Any connection there?, we ask ourselves. More and more literacy exercises and drills, more and more didactic teaching, more and more 'booster classes' . . . and fewer children reading for pleasure; fewer children writing for their own purposes and pleasure.

Yes - there are thousands of children eagerly consuming Harry Potter, but so what? It's what the less technically able and fluent readers are reading, if anything, that we need to be concerned about. Voracious readers - those who find the passing of tests a doddle in any case - will always find books they want to read. But how do we get the less able to become 'hooked on books'?

Not by giving them more of the same drills and tests, that's for sure. Not by failing to understand the psycho-linguistics of reading, the importance of all the cueing systems and not just 'synthetic' phonics, the importance of onset and rime, etc, that's for sure. We learn to read by reading - the same as we learn to ride a bike by riding it. But first of all we have to want to read, or ride the bike.

Still, we can all have an opinion, can't we? No matter never having tried to teach literacy to a group of thirty very needy 4, 5 and 6 year olds, or a reluctant 14 year old. No matter never having studied psycholinguistics. No matter never having worked with pupils with severe learning difficulties of various sorts. Let's all just jump up and down and shout "Crisis! Shameful!" - shall we?

Of course there are teachers who are poorly trained, poorly prepared, and even some who are poorly motivated and clearly inadequate in all sorts of ways. Add to the mix a 'literacy strategy' which is no more than a return to skilling and drilling . . . and we have a big problem.

The good news is that the profession as a whole is capable of working this out for themselves and doing something about it - should the politicians and the pundits care to piss off and allow good schools and those who know what they're talking about to spread best practice, instead of having tinpot 'solutions' rammed down their throats by bureaucrats. Take a look at Finland, Canada and Denmark if you don't believe me. Learn how an education system ought to be run - for the real benefit of pupils and teachers.

Incidentally - there was an interesting programme on the radio this week that said very positive things about so-called dyslexics, who are normally seen as kids and adults with grave disabilities. It seems those with difficulties with literacy are often excellent communicators, often talented and creative in other ways, and often strong in '3D spatial reasoning ability'. Often these 'dyslexics' become brilliant in their own field, once they've discovered their true strengths and passions.

The question is - do schools enable these pupils to discover their other gifts and talents, and enable them to unleash their energy and creativity? Indeed, do schools do so for ANY of their pupils?

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Canon of St Paul's: church cannot answer peaceful protest with violence

In his first interview since his resignation, the Reverend Giles Fraser says he was unable to reconcile his conscience with the breakup of the Occupy London camp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/27/st-pauls-canon-occupy-london-camp

Fraser said he decided to resign on Wednesday when he realised he could not reconcile his conscience with the possibility of the church and the Corporation of London combining to evict the protesters from the land outside the cathedral, some of which is jointly owned with the City.

"The church cannot answer peaceful protest with violence," said Fraser, adding that it was apparent that the Corporation of London was clearer than the cathedral authorities about its desire to see the protesters moved on.

"I cannot countenance the idea that this would be about [the eviction of] Dale Farm on the steps of St Paul's.

"I would want to have negotiated down the size of the camp and appeal to those there to help us keep the cathedral going, and if that mean that I was thereby granting them some legal right to stay then that is the position I would have had to wear."

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Layer 485 . . . Canon Giles Fraser, Detonation, Resignation, Principles, St Paul's and Protests

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Further to my comment yesterday about Giles Fraser, Canon of St Paul's -

St Paul's Cathedral canon resigns

Giles Fraser quits over plans to forcibly remove Occupy London Stock Exchange protesters from outside cathedral

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/27/st-pauls-cathedral-canon-resigns

The canon chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, the Rev Dr Giles Fraser, has resigned in protest at plans to forcibly remove protesters from its steps, saying he could not support the possibility of "violence in the name of the church".

Speculation grew in the last 24 hours that Fraser, a leading leftwing voice in the Church of England, would resign because he could not sanction the use of police or bailiffs against the hundreds of activists who have set up camp in the grounds of the cathedral in the past fortnight.

Just after 9am on Thursday, Fraser tweeted: "It is with great regret and sadness that I have handed in my notice at St Paul's Cathedral."

In a statement to the Guardian, Fraser, who was appointed canon in May 2009, confirmed his resignation, saying: "I resigned because I believe that the chapter has set on a course of action that could mean there will be violence in the name of the church."

Fraser quickly became a hero figure among the Occupy the London Stock Exchange (LSX) movement, clearing police officers off the steps of St Paul's and supporting the group's right to peaceful protest after a court injunction stopped it from setting up camp in nearby Paternoster Square. He also delivered a Sunday sermon decrying corporate greed, which was seen as another sign of his endorsement of the protest.

Occupy London said it was "deeply moved" to hear of his resignation.

"He is man of great personal integrity and our thoughts are with him. He respected our right to protest and defended it. For that we are very grateful, as he ensured that St Paul's could be a sanctuary for us and that no violence could take place against peaceful protesters with a legitimate cause – challenging and tackling social and economic injustice in London, the UK and beyond."

A spokeswoman, Naomi Colvin, added: "Courage like that is really very inspiring. It reassures us that what we're doing is important. The people who have a bit of integrity, it's becoming more obvious who those people are. I hope we can do well enough to justify their sacrifices."

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Giles Fraser: the jeans and T-shirt wearing cleric of St Paul's Cathedral

Resigned canon known by fans and opponents alike as a fiercely bright, progressive and genial man unafraid to speak his mind

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/27/giles-fraser-st-pauls-profile

On the face of it, Giles Fraser is an unlikely looking cleric. Bald, jovial, worldly, ferociously bright but genial towards those within the fractious Church of England who disagree with him, his favourite form of garb is jeans and T-shirt.

It is a uniform in keeping with the 47-year-old's support for Chelsea football club and his determinedly demotic persona, though he had to change into a more conventional dog-collar and black suit when translated from his parish in Putney to St Paul's two years ago.

His family background is Jewish, and he was a teenaged Trotskyite before converting to Anglicanism at university. His doctorate comes from a thesis on the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who famously declared that God – at least in the old-fashioned sense – was dead.

Fraser, served his curacy on a rundown Midlands council housing estate and for 10 years was vicar of Putney parish church in one of the most well-heeled parts of London. He equally valued the church as the scene of the post-English civil war debates on the sort of society England should become.

He has never made any secret of his generally, leftwing, progressive views both politically and within the Church of England, where he has been a prominent supporter of the pro-gay Inclusive Church group, launched at a service in his church.

He will have realised, as some of his colleagues did not, how the cathedral chapter's attempts to close the camp down – and their over-reaction in closing the cathedral – would play in the outside world and how it would make the church appear: scared, cowed, out-of-touch and pro-establishment – the very things he consistently preaches against in sermons and broadcasts.

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Twitter

http://twitter.com/#!/giles_fraser

Giles Fraser
@giles_fraser London
Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral.

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Wikipedia is already up to date on the canon who fired himself -

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

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I'm keeping this blog deliberately short as I want to post it quickly!

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Layer 482 . . . Freefall, Stiglitz, Anti-capitalist Occupations, Eagleton, Economics, Villanelles, Douzinas, Greece, Tunisia and Gaddafi

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From BBC TV last night I learned that 600 Canadian soldiers died in 1944 in an area near Caen on the day that British and American planes bombed the city into oblivion. Obviously the bombs were not meant to kill allied troops.

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"Francis Reginald Scott, commonly known as Frank Scott or F.R. Scott, (August 1, 1899 - January 30, 1985) was a Canadian poet, intellectual and constitutional expert. He helped found the first Canadian social democratic party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and its successor, the New Democratic Party."

 - Wikipedia

"Scott's father instilled in his son a commitment to serve mankind, a love for the regenerative balance of the Laurentian landscape and a firm respect for the social order. He witnessed the riots in the City during the Conscription Crisis of 1917."

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A villanelle is a poem with only two rhyme sounds. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive stanza and form a couplet at the close. A villanelle is nineteen lines long, consisting of five tercets and one concluding quatrain.

"Dear Heather" is Leonard Cohen's eleventh studio album, released in 2004.

"Villanelle for Our Time", the album's 7th track, was recorded on the 6th May 1999, shortly after Cohen's return from the Mount Baldy Zen Center. It is an improvised jazz recitation of an F.R. Scott poem.

Villanelle For Our Time

From bitter searching of the heart,
Quickened with passion and with pain
We rise to play a greater part.
This is the faith from which we start:
Men shall know commonwealth again
From bitter searching of the heart.
We loved the easy and the smart,
But now, with keener hand and brain,
We rise to play a greater part.
The lesser loyalties depart,
And neither race nor creed remain
From bitter searching of the heart.
Not steering by the venal chart
That tricked the mass for private gain,
We rise to play a greater part.
Reshaping narrow law and art
Whose symbols are the millions slain,
From bitter searching of the heart
We rise to play a greater part. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UzvVOy0Dq8

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It's been an eventful month. 600 anti-capitalist camps have sprung up in cities around the world. Libya's civil war has raged to its end. Gaddafi has been captured and shot. The citizens of Tunisia are voting today for a new post-revolutionary government . . .

Some say there's a ridiculous number of competing parties seeking election for their candidates in Tunisia. Maybe - however - this is how an anarcho-syndicalist democratic system should work: through there being a large number of parties, or syndicates, representing every possible point of view, that must genuinely communicate, discuss, persuade, negotiate and compromise. How can this be worse than a two-party system in which both the parties espouse basically the same conservative ideology?

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Joseph Stiglitz is one of the most intelligent men on our planet. In 2009 he published a book called "Freefall - Free Markets & the Sinking of the Global Economy". (Now a Penguin @ £9.99) Stiglitz was the Chief Economist at the World Bank and won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001.

Paul Mason said this in the New Statesman -

"If anyone is going to produce a bold new economic theory and vision to guide the centre left beyond the financial crisis, it's going to be Joe . . ."

David Smith said this in The Times -

"Freefall is a spirited attack on Wall Street, the free market and the Washington Concensus."

Chuck Leddy said this in the Boston Globe -

"Freefall is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the roots of the financial crisis."

So the question you have to ask yourself is - do you NOT want to understand the roots of the financial crisis, the reasons for the banking collapse, and what should be done now and in the future?

"Freefall - Free Markets & the Sinking of the Global Economy". Penguin  £9.99

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Here's an extract from the preface of Freefall:

"In the Great Recession that began in 2008 millions of people . . . lost their homes and jobs. Many more suffered the fear and anxiety of doing so . . . A crisis that began in America soon turned global, as tens of millions lost their jobs worldwide - 20 million in China alone - and tens of millions fell into poverty. This is not the way things were supposed to be.

The Great Recession . . . has shattered illusions. It is forcing [many of us] to rethink long-cherished views. For a quarter century, certain free market doctrines have prevailed. 

This book is about a battle of ideas, about the ideas that led to the failed policies that precipitated the crisis and about the lessons that we take away from it. The battle between capitalism and communism may be over, but market economies come in many variations and the contest among them rages on. 

Managing the crisis is only my first concern; I am also concerned about the world that will emerge after the crisis. We won't and can't go back to the world as it was before.

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Terry Eagleton's another very clever guy, and a Distinguished Professor of English Literature. Hot off the press is a new book of his called, "Why Marx Was Right".
Yale University Press  £16.99

"The crisis has at least meant that the word 'capitalism,' usually disguised under some such coy pseudonym as 'the modern age,' 'industrialism' or 'the West,' has become current once more. You can tell that the capitalist system is in trouble when people start talking about capitalism. It indicates that the system has ceased to be as natural as the air we breathe, and can be seen instead as the historically rather recent phenomenom that it is . . . 

A form of social life can be perceived for what it is when it begins to break down. Marx was the first to identify the historical object known as capitalism  - to show how it arose, by what laws it worked, and how it might be brought to an end.

[As for] Marxism as a moral and cultural critique . . . Alienation, the 'commodification' of social life, a culture of greed, aggression, mindless hedonism and growing nihilism, the steady hemorrhage of meaning and value from human existence: it is hard to find an intelligent discussion of these questions that is not seriously indebted to the Marxist tradition . . .

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 This is from a major article in the Guardian G2 last Friday:

Occupy London: my nights with the St Paul's protesters
The Occupy London protesters have a kitchen, a tech-tent, a library – even a football team. But do they have any answers?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/20/occupy-london-st-pauls-protesters

by Patrick Kingsley

In the short term, I learn quickly, these guys want to stay here. I arrive on Tuesday, the fourth day of the occupation, and already the place seems staggeringly well organised – and growing fast. Estimates vary, but yesterday some say there were 100 tents lining the steps of the cathedral, and along its northern face. Today there are around 150. Tomorrow, maybe 200.

 People always impatiently ask what the occupiers' "demands" are, and why collectively they seem unwilling, or unable to provide quick-fix solutions. These questions miss the point. First, there are lots of occupiers, all from different social and political backgrounds, who understandably need time to thrash out what it is they want to achieve together. The camp gives them that time. Second, if there's one thing that does unite almost all of them, it's their rejection of capitalism – although they are wary of how they couch this. Nevertheless, a huge "capitalism is crisis" banner hangs over the entrance to the site; they're not interested in making petty demands on a system they see as irreconcilably flawed. If anything, the camp itself is their demand, and their solution: the stab at an alternative society that at least aims to operate without hierarchy, and with full, participatory democracy. And to be fair, in its small way, it kind of works.

Wail Qasim, an 18-year-old politics student: "You can go to the ballot box every five years, but politicians don't actually represent your view. So the importance of this kind of space is in the way it brings together people to open up a dialogue about building an alternative." 

Blogger Steve Maclean, 31, is slightly more pragmatic: "We're forming a space where people can come together and crystallise all of what we think. Out of this more concrete ideas can be formed."

Bear, who co-ordinates the kitchen, runs catering at festivals. He, incidentally, as he picked his way over a few crates of donated fruit, gave me the most nuanced view of what he hopes the camp will achieve: "We're not going to create the answer here, but we can effect a change by leading by example, by showing people that an autonomous, democratic community based on social rather than financial cooperation can work."

The tech team is one of 15 autonomous sub-groups at the camp, each with responsibility for a particular area. There is a group that deals with the camp's donations; there are the food, and "university" teams; the police negotiation group; legal, which has enlisted a friendly QC, in case of future trouble; recycling; outreach, which distributes flyers about the camp, and is planning a politics workshop for schools; music, art, and entertainment; a cathedral liaison team, which is tactfully dealing with its increasingly wary clergy; and a media team, for dealing with people like me.

Almost everyone's involved in something and, crucially, there's no hierarchy – or there's not supposed to be. The teams meet once a day and agree things by consensus, in a discussion "facilitated" (but not led) by a different member of the group each time. Their decisions are announced every lunchtime at a pan-camp logistics meeting – once again ideally facilitated by different people, to avoid anyone gaining too much influence. But the main meeting of the day is the general assembly. Held at 7pm, it's attended by 400-500 people and aimed at political discourse and camp strategy.

Most of the occupiers don't think this is a problem that can be solved by a few tweaks to [financial] regulation. They think it's a systemic problem not attributable to a single group. It's a problem with capitalism.

At the back of the crowd, the suit standing next to me leans in to say something. "So what answers have they got?" is what I expect him to say. After all, he's a former investment banker now studying for an MBA. But Nikita – "yes, just call me Nikita" – surprises me. "Even if they don't have a solution, people still have the right to say 'no'," he says, pausing between each word. "It's only once people start saying 'no' that we will start thinking about what the solution could be."

Sleepless at Occupy London Stock Exchange - video


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2011/oct/20/occupy-london-stock-exchange-video

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Greece's lines now are clear
The Greek elite that tried to push through policies on the back of a deficit it fuelled stands alone and accused

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/greece-lines-clear-elite

by Costas Douzinas - Professor of Law at Birkbeck College

Greece is split in two. On one side are politicians, bankers, tax evaders and media barons supporting the most class-driven, violent social and cultural restructuring western Europe has seen. The "other" Greece includes the overwhelming majority of the population. It was in evidence yesterday when up to 500,000 people took to the streets; the largest demonstration in living memory. The attempt to divide civil servants (ritually presented as lazy and corrupt) from private sector employees (the "tax evading" plumbers) has misfired. The only success the Papandreou government can boast is the abolition of the old right-left division – replaced by a divide between the elites and the people.

It is as if the Greek elites desired the debt to orchestrate the wholesale destruction of the welfare state and transfer of public assets to private hands.

The Papandreou government will stand accused of incompetence and moral cynicism. Every authoritarian regime dreams of radically changing society. This government's mission was to replace care for others with indifference, hospitality with exploitation. They failed, and now only a thick blue line separates the elite from the outraged people.

Thursday's demonstration ended tragically with the death of a trade-unionist. The last vestiges of governmental legitimacy are gone and the government will follow soon. The democratic deficit from which political systems suffer everywhere is irreversible in Greece. The responsibility of the "other" Greece is to devise a constitution of social justice and democracy for the 21st century. This is what Greece can offer to the world.

Other articles by Costas Douzinas:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/27/greece-bailout-eu-neocolonialism


Greece is standing up to EU neocolonialism


The usurious conditions of the Greek bailout reveals Brussels' colonial mindset – but Athens is showing citizens can resist

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/15/greece-europe-outraged-protests

In Greece, we see democracy in action


The public debates of the outraged in Athens are the closest we have come to democratic practice in recent European history

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/01/austerity-europe-left-alternative


Austerity? There is an alternative – a new project for Europe's left


Our initiative aims to show there is an alternative analysis of the present situation rather than the misery and injustice of austerity


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/28/hunger-strikers-greece-asylum-seekers


These hunger strikers are the martyrs of Greece


Asylum seekers willing to die in the face of expulsion after shame and exploitation bear witness to a higher truth than life

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/07/greece-protest-democracy-government


Greek protests show democracy in action


A minister described Greek civil disobedience as 'anomie' – but it is legitimately reclaiming our democracy from failed institutions

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/31/europe-depends-shared-humanity-culture


In London and Athens, protesters are rekindling the true European spirit


The idea of Europe must go back to a democracy that resists fake economic orthodoxy and false monoculturalism

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