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feb 182012
Story missing from our media: Iceland’s on-going revolution
An Italian radio program’s story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. We may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.
As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here’s why:
Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. In 2003 all the country’s banks were privatised, and in an effort to attract foreign investors, they offered on-line banking whose minimal costs allowed them to offer relatively high rates of return. The accounts, called IceSave, attracted many UK and Dutch small investors. But as investments grew, so did the banks’ foreign debt. In 2003 Iceland’s debt was equal to 200 times its GNP, but in 2007, it was 900 percent. The 2008 world financial crisis was the coup de grace. The three main Icelandic banks, Landbanki, Kapthing and Glitnir, went belly up and were nationalised, while the Kroner lost 85% of its value with respect to the Euro. At the end of the year Iceland declared bankruptcy.
Lees het hele artikel over Ijsland op http://newsnetscotland.com
Money plays a significant role in people’s lives, and yet little experimental attention has been given to the psychological underpinnings of money. We systematically varied whether and to what extent the concept of money was activated in participants’ minds using methods that minimized participants’ conscious awareness of the money cues. On the one hand, participants reminded of money
were less helpful than were participants not reminded of money, and they also preferred solitary activities and less physical intimacy. On the other hand, reminders of money prompted participants to work harder on challenging tasks and led to desires to take on more work as compared to participants not reminded of money.
In short, even subtle reminders of money elicit big changes in human behavior.
Money Makes People Less Socially Focused
Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution
To be published in April 2012 by Verso Books. Available for pre-order on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uknow.
Long before the Occupy movement, modern cities had already become the central sites of revolutionary politics, where the deeper currents of social and political change rise to the surface. Consequently, cities have been the subject of much utopian thinking. But at the same time they are also the centers of capital accumulation and the frontline for struggles over who controls access to urban resources and who dictates the quality and organization of daily life. Is it the financiers and developers, or the people?
Rebel Cities places the city at the heart of both capital and class struggles, looking at locations ranging from Johannesburg to Mumbai, and from New York City to São Paulo. Drawing on the Paris Commune as well as Occupy Wall Street and the London Riots, Harvey asks how cities might be reorganized in more socially just and ecologically sane ways—and how they can become the focus for anti-capitalist resistance.
Wat tien jaar na 9/11 duidelijk is geworden, is dat het pathos van die dagen– ‘niets zal hetzelfde zijn’; het pathos van de historische breuk – inderdaadprecies dat was: pathos. 9/11 is de gelegenheid gebleken voor het bestendigenen vooral intensiveren van politieke en economische ontwikkelingen die al op de grens van de jaren zeventig en tachtig zijn ingezet.
In this 26-minute talk, philosopher Gerald Allan Cohen offers a wonderfully eloquent critique of capitalism. His critique revolves around common defenses. He suggests that even the existence of people who have earned their riches legitimately and through their own wit and work do not justify a system of private property. He contests the idea that we are all better off under capitalism compared to other economic systems, suggesting that capitalism retards the human potential of workers nefariously and by design. And he disagrees with the claim that economic inequality is inevitable. Economic inequality, he contends, will someday be seen as an injustice. Capitalism was an important stage, he concludes, and one that we need to outgrow.
I recommend that everyone take a listen, though I’ll admit it starts off kind of goofy:
Bron: Sociological Images
dec 182011
In zijn onderzoekende reisverslag speurt M.A. Littler naar mogelijke verbanden tussen politiek, outlaw-cultuur, alternatieve media, spiritualiteit, kunst en filosofie. Op zoek naar radicale en alternatieve invullingen van de samenleving in de eenentwintigste eeuw spreekt hij met Noam Chomsky, professor aan MIT, dr. Mark Mirabello, gespecialiseerd in de geschiedenis van de outlaw, de anarchistische schrijver en zanger Ramsey Kanaan, folkzanger Will ‘The Bull’ Taylor en auteur Joe Bageant. Allen verwoorden ze de huidige scepsis in Amerika, en dagen ze de status quo uit. De geïnterviewden zaaien twijfel over de Amerikaanse tradities die blindelings geaccepteerd worden. Zo legt Chomsky de zelfdestructieve kracht van het kapitalisme uit en pleit hij voor een maatschappij die alle hiërarchie bevraagt. De autoriteiten moeten hun eigen bestaan verantwoorden en zijn nooit vanzelfsprekend. Het sociale, economische en politieke systeem is niet gebeiteld in steen en moet altijd met scepsis worden benaderd, vindt ook de regisseur. Kriskras reizend door Amerika knoopt M.A. Littler de academische wereld, utopisme, anarchisme, geglobaliseerd kapitalisme en radicale filosofie aan elkaar. Zo maakt deze ‘agnosticus van alles’ een ronde langs mensen die onze tijd proberen te duiden, een tijd waarin we worden gehersenspoeld door bedrijfs- en politieke propaganda. M.A. Littler verwacht geen gemakkelijke antwoorden, maar biedt wel alternatieven voor onze huidige maatschappij.
Pay per View op Idfa TV
