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 510 . . . Revolutions, Start The Week, the Force of Ideas and the Power of Truth

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The following sentences are from a blog by Oguejiofo Annu which Oxzen quoted last January (Layer 426) -

http://oxzen.blogspot.com/2011/01/layer-426-tunisia-martyrs-markets.html

On January 14, President Ben Ali [of Tunisia] fled the country amid escalating violence and opposition . . .

The entire Africa and middle east is taken by surprise. Strong men and presidents are quietly sweating it out and considering their counter strategy. The commentators say this fire has the potential of blazing outside the borders of Tunisia as it moves like a forest firestorm to burn down the oppressive power structures of Africa and Middle East.

Rasta Livewire will keep you posted as this fire blazes on . . .

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Little did we dare to believe that the downfall of the tyrants in Egypt and Libya would be witnessed before the year was out.

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Revolution

The whole of this morning's Start The Week on Radio 4 was on the subject of revolution.

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks revolution. Wael Ghonim explains how social networks played a vital role in the Arab Spring. His Facebook page,'We Are All Khaled Said', which featured the death of a young Egyptian, inspired a new generation to fight oppression. Mary King, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies looks back to earlier struggles in eastern Europe, and the journalist Paul Mason explores how far the worldwide economic crisis and growing inequality lie behind the new revolutions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b90br

WAEL GHONIM
The call for a mass protest on January 25th last year - the start of Egypt's revolution - began from the Facebook page, Kullena Khaled Said. It was a page created to highlight the fate of a young man beaten to death by the police in Alexandria. But as events changed across the Arab world, it became a focus for hundreds of thousands of protestors demanding an end to Mubarak's rule. Its creator was Wael Ghonim, a Google executive, who used his knowledge of technology and the love of his country to inspire a generation of young Egyptians to demand change.

Revolution 2.0 is published by Fourth Estate.

PAUL MASON
From Tahrir Square in Cairo, to the streets of Athens, to the avenues of Madrid, to Westminster and St Paul's, 2011 saw an uprising against regimes and systems of government almost unprecedented in world history. Journalist Paul Mason visited many of the places where revolutions were 'kicking off' and spoke to many of the new generation of revolutionaries. So who are these people and how significant was the world economic crisis in triggering such widespread social and political unrest?
Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions is published by Verso.

MARY KING
In 1989 revolution spread throughout Eastern Europe, toppling the dictatorial regimes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Out of all of these countries only Romania overthrew its old regime through violent action. A lifelong advocate of peaceful protest movements and a civil rights activist with Martin Luther King, Mary King argues that armed struggle is ultimately less successful. She looks at the parallels between the recent Arab Spring and the Autumn of Nations two decades ago.

Quotes from the broadcast:

Technology has empowered people.

Media has been decentralised.

We're seeing processes of disorientation as the dominant neo-liberal economics model (globalisation) falls apart.

The degree of 'preparedness' of the people is the key to successful peaceful revolution.

The revolution in the USA is more about culture and behaviour - 'people power' - driven by the anger and the condition of the American poor and the poverty-stricken masses. (Paul Mason)

Governments are having to learn to listen, and can no longer ignore the will of the people.

Activists around the world have read the autobiography of Gandhi and have learnt the methods of non-violent struggle - from South Africa to Georgia; from the Ukraine to the Phillipines.

The revolution in Egypt was directly inspired by the Tunisian revolution. People saw what was possible! (Through direct non-violent action.)

Discontent has been driven by the breakdown of the neo-liberal economic model. (Paul Mason)

[The technology of] communication is phenomenally important for mass non-violent movements. (Mary King)

The majority of people are fed up with a world run by rich people FOR rich people.

The protests we're seeing are a reaction to the bankrupting of states.

People in some countries are finding it hard to survive due to food economics - caused by commodity price inflation and asset price inflation.

Many slum dwellers can't even afford bread and sugar.

Young people are the detonators.

Sustained long-term mass action needs established self-sustainable groups (students, unions, churches and mosques) and the use of general strikes. (Mary King)

The American civil rights movement learnt how to be effective from Gandhi.

The force of ideas will eventually prevail.

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In his autobiography (Page 47) Gandhi wrote about the power of truth amd morality :

"One thing took deep root in me - that morality is the basis of things, and that truth is the substance of all morality. Truth became my sole objective."

Also speaking truth to power . . .

In case you missed it, take a look at this previous blog about Paul Mason's book:

Layer 504 . . . Kicking Off Everywhere, Global Unrest and a Viral Revolution

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Layer 504 . . . Kicking Off Everywhere, Global Unrest and a Viral Revolution

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Paul Mason's an ace journalist who is currently the economics editor of Newsnight. This week he had a major article published in G2 called "The Revolution Goes Viral". It's basically a trailer for his new book, "Why It's Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions".

Global unrest: how the revolution went viral
The past 18 months have seen extraordinary outpourings of discontent. But what links them? In this extract from his new book, Paul Mason examines how technology has been at the heart of the global unrest, and finds parallels less with 1968, and more with 1914

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/03/how-the-revolution-went-viral

I got a call: would I do a lecture on the history of the Paris Commune for something called The Really Free School in Bloomsbury?

I turned up to the venue to find it was a squat. They had formed an ad hoc university, occupied an 18th-century townhouse in the heart of London and stuck a sign on the door saying "Journalists Fuck Off". Here was the hard core of the student protest movement . . .

The discussion buzzed: is it technology, economics, mass psychology or just the zeitgeist that's caused this global explosion of revolt?

One thing was clear: the events taking place across the world carried too much that was new in them to ignore.

There is something in the air that defies historical parallels: something new to do with technology, behaviour and popular culture. As well as a flowering of collective action in defence of democracy, and a resurgence of the struggles of the poor and oppressed, what's going on is also about the expanded power of the individual.

For the first time in decades, people are using methods of protest that do not seem archaic or at odds with the contemporary world; the protesters seem more in tune with modernity than the methods of their rulers. Sociologist Keith Kahn-Harris calls what we're seeing the "movement without a name": a trend, a direction, an idea-virus, a meme, a source of energy that can be traced through a large number of spaces and projects. It is also a way of thinking and acting: an agility, an adaptability, a refusal to accept the world as it is, a refusal to get stuck into fixed patterns of thought. Why is it happening now? Ultimately, the explanation lies in three big social changes: in the demographics of revolt, in technology and in human behaviour itself.

At the centre of all the protest movements is a new sociological type: the graduate with no future.
The financial crisis of 2008 created a generation of twentysomethings whose projected life-arc had switched, quite suddenly, from an upward curve to a downward one. The promise was: "Get a degree, get a job in the corporate system and eventually you'll achieve a better living standard than your parents." This abruptly turned into: "Tough, you'll be poorer than your parents." The revolts of 2010–11 have shown, quite simply, what this workforce looks like when it becomes collectively disillusioned, when it realises that the whole offer of self-betterment has been withdrawn.

In revolts sparked or led by educated youth – whether in Cairo or Madrid – a number of common traits can be observed. First, that the quintessential venue for unrest is the global city, a megatropolis in which reside the three tribes of discontent – the youth, the slum-dwellers and the working class.

Second, members of this generation of "graduates with no future" recognise one another as part of an international sub-class, with behaviours and aspirations that easily cross borders.
The boom years of globalisation created a mass, transnational culture of being young and educated; now there is a mass transnational culture of disillusionment.

There is a third social impact of the graduate with no future: the sheer size of the student population means that it is a transmitter of unrest to a much wider section of the population than before.

This new sociology of revolt calls to mind conditions prior to the Paris Commune of 1871: a large and radicalised intelligentsia, a slum-dwelling class finding its voice through popular culture, and a weakened proletariat, still wedded to the organisations and traditions of 20 years before. It makes the social order of the modern city highly fragile under economic stress.

Technology, social change, institutional decay had unleashed something bigger than teenage angst. If this sounds like an 18th-century version of the "death of deference" complaint, well, it was. A deep social crisis was under way, then as now. But with one big difference: today, in every garret there is a laptop.

Social media and new technology were crucial in shaping the revolutions of 2011, just as they shaped industry, finance and mass culture in the preceding decade.

The crucial concept is the network – whose impact on politics has been a long time coming.
If you look at the full suite of information tools that were employed to spread the revolutions of 2009–11, it goes like this: Facebook is used to form groups, covert and overt – in order to establish those strong but flexible connections. Twitter is used for real-time organisation and news dissemination, bypassing the cumbersome newsgathering operations of the mainstream media. YouTube and the Twitter-linked photographic sites – Yfrog, Flickr and Twitpic – are used to provide instant evidence of the claims being made. Link-shorteners such as bit.ly are used to disseminate key articles via Twitter.

Underpinning the social media is mobile telephony: in the crush of every crowd we see arms holding cellphones in the air, like small flocks of ostriches, snapping scenes of repression or revolt, offering instant and indelible image-capture to a global audience.

And in all the theatres of revolution, blogs have offered a vital resource: somewhere to link to.The ability to deploy, without expert knowledge, a whole suite of information tools has allowed protesters across the world to outwit the police, to beam their message into the newsrooms of global media, and above all to assert a cool, cutting-edge identity in the face of what WH Auden once called "the elderly rubbish dictators talk". It has given today's protest movements a massive psychological advantage, one that no revolt has enjoyed since 1968.

Suddenly, the form of today's protests seems entirely congruent with the way people live their lives. It is modern; it is immune to charges of "resisting progress". Indeed, it utilises technology that is so essential to modern work and leisure, governments cannot turn it off without harming their economies. And, as Mubarak, Gaddafi and the Bahraini royals discovered, even turning it off does not work.

Because – and here is the technological fact that underpins the social and political aspects of what has happened – a network can usually defeat a hierarchy.

The pioneer of network theory, Walter Powell, summed up the reasons for this as follows: the network is better at adapting to a situation where the quality of information is crucial to success, but where information itself is fluid; a hierarchy is better if you are only transmitting orders and responses, and the surrounding situation is predictable.

Once information networks become social, the implications are massive: truth can now travel faster than lies, and all propaganda becomes instantly flammable. Sure, you can try to insert spin, but the instantly networked consciousness of millions of people will set it right: they act like white blood cells against infection so that ultimately the truth, or something close to it, persists much longer than disinformation.

Andre Gorz's definition of revolution: taking power implies taking it away from its holders, not by occupying their posts but by making it permanently impossible for them to keep their machinery of domination running. Revolution is first and foremost the irreversible destruction of this machinery. It implies a form of collective practice capable of bypassing and superseding it through the development of an alternative network of relations. By this definition we are in the middle of a revolution: something wider than a pure political overthrow and narrower than the classic social revolutions of the 20th century.

The radicals of the 60s were able to conceive the possibility of a new mode of human existence, but technology and the balance of global forces – class, race, inter-state rivalry – militated against achieving it. In the pre-1914 [Russian Revolution] period, the freedom zeitgeist, technological progress and globalisation were aligned. Now they are aligned again.
The past 10 years have seen disruptions in the pattern of social life that mirror what happened in that era. But this time, it's happening at high velocity and across the canvas of all humanity.

2012 is already shaping up to be a very interesting year. Today President Obama announced massive reductions in United States military spending. Who says his period in office has been a complete failure? He even appears to have the military on his side on this one. It's an obvious thing for the USA to do, given their huge and unsustainable expenditure on their armed forces. But when was the last time an American president did things that were clearly necessary . . . and right?
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Layer 503 . . . Happy New Dragon Year, Five Blessings, Years of Revolutions, David Lammy, Social and Economic Policies, and Class War

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So here it is . . . Merry January 1st. And a Happy New Year!

"New Year occurs on different days in different countries following Buddhism."

"Different countries holding values and principles of Buddhism celebrate New Year on different days of a year. Basically, dates of New Year are drawn on the basis of luni-solar Buddhist calendar, which varies from one country to another. 

The Buddhist following countries of Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, and Lao have extended three days New Year celebrations. They celebrate it on the day of the first full moon of the April month of Georgian calendar. Alternatively, all Mahayan countries have their New Year celebration slotted for the day of the first full moon of the January month of the Georgian calendar. Natives of China, Vietnam, and Korea celebrate it either in the month of January or in the early part of the February month, and those belonging to the Tibet region celebrate it in the month of March."

Confused? Oh yes.

However, it seems we're heading into the Year of the Dragon.

According to the Chinese Zodiac, the Year of 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, which begins on January 23, 2012 and ends on February 9, 2013. 

Unlike the wicked, fire-breathing dragons of Western mythology, China’s celestial dragon symbolizes potent and benevolent power. Dragons are ancient, majestic, wise, and intelligent, and Dragon years are considered particularly auspicious for new businesses, marriage and children. Dragon years also tend to boost individual fortunes and the world economy.

The Year of the Water Dragon (1992, 1952 and 2012) is noted for its calm, visionary intelligence, and balance of right brain creativity with left brain logic.

If you subscribe to the dawn-of-a-new-era theory of 2012, then it’s easy to see how the influence of the Water Dragon will increase the likelihood of success for progressive movements gaining momentum all across the globe. Energy conservation and green energy-producing technologies, curtailing Global Warming, challenges to multinational corporations, attention to world hunger and the renewed health of the oceans and sea creatures will all likely fare well.

If your expectations tend more toward disaster, then you might expect tsunamis, hurricanes, monsoons and other weather extremes to be in the headlines.

But of all the Dragon years, the 2012 Water Dragon is most likely to bestow the Chinese Five Blessings of harmony, virtue, riches, fulfillment and longevity, adding even more weight to the growing belief that 2012 will be about breakthroughs, not disasters.

http://blog.californiapsychics.com/blog/2010/05/2012-year-of-the-dragon.html

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Yesterday's Guardian magazine was basically a review of -

2011: A Year of Revolutions

The last time the Guardian did a feature on "A Year of Revolutions" was 1989.

What high hopes we had back then for the countries of eastern Europe, and ultimately Russia. How little we understood that the USA had big plans for those places - and that the Shock Doctrine would ensure that formerly "socialist" and communist countries would leap from the frying pan of Soviet domination right into the fire of full-on neo-liberal Chicago-school capitalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1989

How little we suspected that these countries would quickly (with indecent, shocking and reckless haste) privatise and sell off their state assets for stupidly low prices, just as we'd done in Britain, back in the dark days of Thatch. How little we realised that with the help of American economists and "advisers" Russia would become a country fit for oligarchs, billionnaires and gangsters.

So good luck Egypt, Tunisia and Libya - may 2012 bring you real freedom, democracy and prosperity. Let's hope that lessons have been learnt.

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Last week there was an issue of G2 that also focused on the key moments of 2011, in which David Lammy MP wrote a very good piece on the Tottenham riots. He is, of course, the MP for Tottenham, and was born and bred on the Broadwater Farm estate, which gives him plenty of credibility - in my book, at least. Also - having been a junior minister in the last government, he's one of the few who seem prepared to say upfront that New Labour screwed up badly.

This is a must-read article.

How to avoid a repeat of the UK riots


For the big society to work, big business needs to share its power with a lost generation it has cast aside

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/26/uk-riots-david-lammy

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Yesterday's Guardian had a review by David Matthews of David Lammy's recently-published book -


Out of the Ashes by David Lammy


The MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, provides an excellent explanation for the 2011 riots, says David Matthews

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/09/out-ashes-riots-david-lammy-review-matthews

Part memoir, part political essay, Out of the Ashes aims to "offer a way forward for Britain" following this summer's riots. This is an ambitious task. All the indicators suggest Britain is going backwards economically, socially and politically. But David Lammy hits the ground running as the MP for Tottenham, in north London, and his book demands to be read.


Thanks to the outwardly banal, consumerist nature of the riots, David Cameron was seemingly "on trend" when he proclaimed the riots were "criminality pure and simple". 


Written off as the work of a "feral underclass", who deserved the draconian sentences they got, this supposedly criminal enterprise looked less a political problem and more one for the courts to deal with. But as Lammy reminds us throughout the book, a continual lack of education, ineffective parental guidance, poor role models, ill-discipline, unemployment and a host of social and developmental ills created the perfect storm for a riot. Yes, the rioters' behaviour was criminal. Yes, people have free will. But go to Tottenham, Hackney, Toxteth, Salford and witness the conditions people are living under. We know that poverty isn't just about a lack of money. It's about a lack of opportunity, prospects, hope. 


Failures of politics and society further up the food chain played a major part in the riots, as well as craven greed. Lammy points the finger, not just at Thatcher and Cameron, but at Blair and Brown too. This quartet has mortgaged British society, economically and morally. Riots and recession alike are their legacy to us. 


Ultimately though, it is capitalism and consumerism that are in the dock. "Consumption should supplement our relationships, not become a substitute for them," he says. He quotes a Blackberry message sent by a rioter to one of his young constituents, which in the pidgin text-speak of 21st century Britain, illustrates the flashmob mentality of many of the rioters: "What ever ends [area] your from put your ballys [balaclavas] on link up and cause havic, just rob everything. Police can't stop it." This is freedom "without any sense of duty" he argues. "Our society needs to reconnect with other important, informal regulators of behaviour. Notions of decency towards others. Pride. Shame. Admiration. Scorn."


But this prescription cuts both ways. Simply imploring our feckless youth to join the scouts or go to church to find salvation won't cut it in the current climate. Lammy knows this, which is why his coup de grace is aimed at the moneylenders, and by extension, the politicians that empowered their greed in the first place: "We cannot live in a society in which banks are too big to fail but whole communities are allowed to sink without trace." Cameron, I hope you're listening.

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I had an interesting conversation recently with a friend who still insists that New Labour did some good things, and that Blair was a capable leader who was responsible for the 1997 landslide victory.

How can I put this? NO he fucking wasn't. I've said it before and I'll say it again - Blair was/is a clever psychopath whose main achievement was his cunning plan to take over the Labour party (in cahoots with Mandelson and Brown) so that he could achieve his ego-driven aim of becoming Prime Minister. By 1997 the country was so sick of the Tories after 18 years of Thatcher/Major that a stuffed donkey could have been the leader of the Labour party and it would still have won a landslide victory. Fact.

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As the cuts bleed harder, the cruel Tory truth will emerge


In my political lifetime, I have never seen a more callous or inept crew in charge. This is no time for Labour to lose its nerve

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/30/cameron-brutal-cuts-bleed

by Polly Toynbee

The NHS by next winter will make constant headlines: the £3bn cost of disruption and privatisation will seem exorbitant as services go bust and waiting times soar. Crime is already rising, especially robbery and burglary, as youth unemployment increases and youth services vanish. With Sure Start and child literacy programmes disappearing, future trouble brews. 


The OECD's latest report on rising inequality finds the bottom 30% with just 3% of UK wealth, while the top third commands 75%. With money comes the power to sway governments to protect tax privileges and loopholes. The IFS predicts another 600,000 poor children in the next two years but shamelessly Cameron and Clegg still promise social mobility, knowing the IFS says it is already reversing. As Warren Buffet says of the class war: "My class has won."


This is no time for a Labour loss of nerve. When even Tory MPs attack crony capitalism and FT leaders warn of a corrupted capitalism that is eating itself, Ed Miliband has hit the right theme. Keep hammering the distorting political power finance wields for its meagre 7.4% of the economy. Reclaim "the state": it is not a threatening monolith but a motor for economic growth, with regulators to keep capitalism straight. "The state" is not a faceless threat: it is doctors, nurses, teachers, park keepers, police, tax collectors and apprentice trainers, all precious assets. Reclaim Blair's best heritage, when Labour's state improved life for most people, from lower crime to no waiting lists, better schools and public places, with better chances for more children. No apology needed.


This is a rich country: how that wealth should be generated, invested and shared is our choice, not iron fate.
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