[8 minute clip in which he answers a question and gets to the heart of the matter]
Showing posts with label Global Issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Global Issues. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
Common Sense with Dan Carlin: Shows 207 - 212 -- Reflecting on a Time of Civil Unrest
[Dan Carlin is one of my favorite independent, conservative thinkers and I appreciate his insights -- in these series of episodes he reflects on current events, including the Occupy Movement]
Show 207 - Stirring The Pot
Bringing people together is on Dan's mind today as he looks at Truth, protests, Pan-National anger and the theoretical idea of a Goldman-Sachs-like entity outing itself as the global overlord.
Notes:
1. “Tony Bennett Changes His Tune on 9/11 Remarks” by Brian Canova for ABC News (The Note), September 21, 2011.
2. “Trader Alessio Rastani To BBC: 'Governments Don't Rule The World, Goldman Sachs Rules The World' ”
3. “As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe” by Nicholas Kulish for The New York Times, September 27, 2011.
Show 208 - The Fruits of Disillusionment
Dan unveils a new streamlined show format while tackling an issue he dealt with in the last episode...the Occupy Wall Street protests.
Notes:
1. “The Tea Party loses another round” by Dana Milbank for The Washington Post, October 15, 2011.
Show 209 - A Show in Pieces
What happens when Dan meanders too far down an intellectual tangent to find his way back to the point? You get "A show in pieces"
Show 210 - Second Guessing the Navigator
Who is setting the national agenda and how do we feel about their choices? Dan discusses everything from the conflict between liberty and democracy to the ability of governments to solve social problems.
Notes:
1. “The Wrong Inequality” by David Brooks for The New York Times, October 31, 2011.
Show 211 - Tyranny of the Unwise
Is it possible that a political system based on voting and elections has less of a chance of producing wise leadership than a monarchy or dictatorship? Dan tries to look at this heretical idea with an open mind.
Notes:
1. “China mocks U.S. political model” by Patrice Hill for The Washington Times, November 9, 2011.
Show 212 - The Very Velvet Fist
What if pepper spray or other modern crowd control tools had been available during the Civil Rights era? Dan looks at the challenges the protest tactic of civil disobedience faces in a 21st Century world.
Show 207 - Stirring The Pot
Bringing people together is on Dan's mind today as he looks at Truth, protests, Pan-National anger and the theoretical idea of a Goldman-Sachs-like entity outing itself as the global overlord.
Notes:
1. “Tony Bennett Changes His Tune on 9/11 Remarks” by Brian Canova for ABC News (The Note), September 21, 2011.
2. “Trader Alessio Rastani To BBC: 'Governments Don't Rule The World, Goldman Sachs Rules The World' ”
3. “As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe” by Nicholas Kulish for The New York Times, September 27, 2011.
Show 208 - The Fruits of Disillusionment
Dan unveils a new streamlined show format while tackling an issue he dealt with in the last episode...the Occupy Wall Street protests.
Notes:
1. “The Tea Party loses another round” by Dana Milbank for The Washington Post, October 15, 2011.
Show 209 - A Show in Pieces
What happens when Dan meanders too far down an intellectual tangent to find his way back to the point? You get "A show in pieces"
Show 210 - Second Guessing the Navigator
Who is setting the national agenda and how do we feel about their choices? Dan discusses everything from the conflict between liberty and democracy to the ability of governments to solve social problems.
Notes:
1. “The Wrong Inequality” by David Brooks for The New York Times, October 31, 2011.
Show 211 - Tyranny of the Unwise
Is it possible that a political system based on voting and elections has less of a chance of producing wise leadership than a monarchy or dictatorship? Dan tries to look at this heretical idea with an open mind.
Notes:
1. “China mocks U.S. political model” by Patrice Hill for The Washington Times, November 9, 2011.
Show 212 - The Very Velvet Fist
What if pepper spray or other modern crowd control tools had been available during the Civil Rights era? Dan looks at the challenges the protest tactic of civil disobedience faces in a 21st Century world.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Andrew Grossman: The Perverse Privilege of Degradation - American Politics in the Age of Assimilation
The Perverse Privilege of Degradation: American Politics in the Age of Assimilation
by Andrew Grossman
Bright Lights Film Journal
A Final Statement of the Obvious
As Irena Salina's documentary Flow: For Love of Water (2008) has argued, at the heart of the 1947 Universal Declaration of Human Rights lies an absurd irony: amidst exhortations for citizenly rights of food, clothing, housing, medical treatment, land ownership, marriage, free expression, cultural participation, and so forth, there is no right to hygienic water, the one substance on which humans are most biologically structured and dependent. We have become so obsessed with draping the ideologies of our Lockean Constitutions in "natural" or God-given principles that we conveniently forget the liquid essence from which we're naturally and actually constituted. Salina's film uncovers Nestlé's privatizing reach into the heart and soil of the Third World, detailing the machinations of the world's largest water conglomerate as it controls aquifers and water tables, manages shantytown spigots, and effectively charges the world's most destitute citizens for the rare commodity of trickling potable water — a totalitarian outcome the United Nations, modernity's greatest democratic failure, could never have foreseen in 1947. But even such egregious exploitation is beside the point, for every post-Enlightenment declaration of human rights has swathed the dirty logistics of the social compact in mystifying rhetorical puffery. Rights are supposedly self-evident and derived innately — unless they require a revolution to secure them, in which case they were, paradoxically, never self-evident (and in fact warranted violence to conjure them into evidence). Self-evidence is a theological myth we sociologists can no longer tolerate. Rights are not rights if they can be either granted or rescinded capriciously by elected or unelected bodies; we instead enjoy merely provisional privileges (as George Carlin liked to point out), contingent upon parliamentary conciliations, bureaucratic relationships, gerrymandered voting blocs, municipal referenda, enduringly ineducable populaces, and all other deliberatively democratic mishaps that slip through a Constitution's philosophical cracks.
Jefferson, who could never bequeath to his progeny "contingent privileges," contrived instead his cannier pursuit of happiness, relegating his key term to a prepositional object and emphasizing with American braggadocio the mythology of the pursuit itself, susceptible to societal enabling or hobbling. Today, when happiness is a commodity scarcer than unchlorinated water, the vocabulary of permanence and transcendence does not poeticize a reality of evanescence and materialism, but instead does injustice to that reality. Freedom remains painfully abstract, not only indefinable but difficult to characterize phenomenologically. We can return to the puzzle Erich Fromm poses in the introduction to Escape from Freedom: is freedom a positive value (the attainment of a new state of being) or a negative one (the removal of social-moral prohibitions)? If we had no taboos against which to rebel, how would we know that we were becoming free? And even if societal prohibitions are removed and we could exist, as libertarians wish, in a "freely negative" space, material contingencies would still imbue that negativity with positive necessities — that is, we would remain unfree to abstain from consumption, labor, entertainment, a militaristic state, Maslovian needs, and so on. Rousseau was once right to say that man is freer within the constraints of society than he is within a Hobbesian deathtrap. Mainstream American politics has now regressed into such egocentricity, however, that we've arrived full circle at a paradoxical society of postindustrial amour du soi, a state in which we, so exhausted by our own communities of progress, cling to a self-interest drained of Rousseau's redemptive ingredient of natural pity. Politics becomes the art of seclusion, language becomes deafness, and all of us become sad little Robinson Crusoes.
Dreading the tragicomedy of the 2012 presidential election, Americans presently stew in a distended state of rhetorical madness: the vitriol of the right manifests as humdrum charlatanism and monosyllabic diatribes about the evils of taxation, while the left dithers according to custom. How oddly unsatisfying it is to see the rights' rival oligarchs reek of such childish desperation — poor rhetoricians, conservatives have only stasis and their own pitilessness to sell. On their best days, they might be what Nietzsche ungenerously called "antiquarian historians . . . who can rest content with the traditional and venerable uses [of] the past"2 and who have no sense of monumentality or planetary holism. But they are not even that, for their minds have no best days, only regurgitated loops of grasping, hedonistic nostalgia. Soon the nostalgia melts into infantilism, a blind worship of even the most abstract benefits of capitalism, as if they (but not we) had forgotten that seminal moment in 2008, when Alan Greenspan appeared before a Congressional hearing and publicly disavowed his — and Ayn Rand's — entire rationalist philosophy. Americans, he belatedly realized, were irrational and thus not legitimate bases on which to propound liable doctrines.
If we believe pizza salesman Herman Cain, the protestors of Occupy Wall Street are not merely irrational but are "jealous"3 of their financial betters, perhaps the most obscenely (if candidly) jejune economic analysis ever uttered by a neophyte demagogue. Cain's naiveté betrays the social function of his own financial success; as Galbraith puts it, "The ostentation, waste, idleness, and immorality of the rich [are] all purposeful: they [are] the advertisements of success in a pecuniary culture. Work, by contrast, [is] merely a caste mark of inferiority."4 Of course, conservatives must pretend that they wish everyone to climb the ladder of mobility, as long as we ascend stoically, and without bitterness, calls for social equality, or remembering that someone must clean the toilets. In practice, however, conservatives must kick out enough rungs to ensure the lastingness of their own imperiled manhood.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
by Andrew Grossman
Bright Lights Film Journal
A Final Statement of the Obvious
As Irena Salina's documentary Flow: For Love of Water (2008) has argued, at the heart of the 1947 Universal Declaration of Human Rights lies an absurd irony: amidst exhortations for citizenly rights of food, clothing, housing, medical treatment, land ownership, marriage, free expression, cultural participation, and so forth, there is no right to hygienic water, the one substance on which humans are most biologically structured and dependent. We have become so obsessed with draping the ideologies of our Lockean Constitutions in "natural" or God-given principles that we conveniently forget the liquid essence from which we're naturally and actually constituted. Salina's film uncovers Nestlé's privatizing reach into the heart and soil of the Third World, detailing the machinations of the world's largest water conglomerate as it controls aquifers and water tables, manages shantytown spigots, and effectively charges the world's most destitute citizens for the rare commodity of trickling potable water — a totalitarian outcome the United Nations, modernity's greatest democratic failure, could never have foreseen in 1947. But even such egregious exploitation is beside the point, for every post-Enlightenment declaration of human rights has swathed the dirty logistics of the social compact in mystifying rhetorical puffery. Rights are supposedly self-evident and derived innately — unless they require a revolution to secure them, in which case they were, paradoxically, never self-evident (and in fact warranted violence to conjure them into evidence). Self-evidence is a theological myth we sociologists can no longer tolerate. Rights are not rights if they can be either granted or rescinded capriciously by elected or unelected bodies; we instead enjoy merely provisional privileges (as George Carlin liked to point out), contingent upon parliamentary conciliations, bureaucratic relationships, gerrymandered voting blocs, municipal referenda, enduringly ineducable populaces, and all other deliberatively democratic mishaps that slip through a Constitution's philosophical cracks.
Jefferson, who could never bequeath to his progeny "contingent privileges," contrived instead his cannier pursuit of happiness, relegating his key term to a prepositional object and emphasizing with American braggadocio the mythology of the pursuit itself, susceptible to societal enabling or hobbling. Today, when happiness is a commodity scarcer than unchlorinated water, the vocabulary of permanence and transcendence does not poeticize a reality of evanescence and materialism, but instead does injustice to that reality. Freedom remains painfully abstract, not only indefinable but difficult to characterize phenomenologically. We can return to the puzzle Erich Fromm poses in the introduction to Escape from Freedom: is freedom a positive value (the attainment of a new state of being) or a negative one (the removal of social-moral prohibitions)? If we had no taboos against which to rebel, how would we know that we were becoming free? And even if societal prohibitions are removed and we could exist, as libertarians wish, in a "freely negative" space, material contingencies would still imbue that negativity with positive necessities — that is, we would remain unfree to abstain from consumption, labor, entertainment, a militaristic state, Maslovian needs, and so on. Rousseau was once right to say that man is freer within the constraints of society than he is within a Hobbesian deathtrap. Mainstream American politics has now regressed into such egocentricity, however, that we've arrived full circle at a paradoxical society of postindustrial amour du soi, a state in which we, so exhausted by our own communities of progress, cling to a self-interest drained of Rousseau's redemptive ingredient of natural pity. Politics becomes the art of seclusion, language becomes deafness, and all of us become sad little Robinson Crusoes.
Dreading the tragicomedy of the 2012 presidential election, Americans presently stew in a distended state of rhetorical madness: the vitriol of the right manifests as humdrum charlatanism and monosyllabic diatribes about the evils of taxation, while the left dithers according to custom. How oddly unsatisfying it is to see the rights' rival oligarchs reek of such childish desperation — poor rhetoricians, conservatives have only stasis and their own pitilessness to sell. On their best days, they might be what Nietzsche ungenerously called "antiquarian historians . . . who can rest content with the traditional and venerable uses [of] the past"2 and who have no sense of monumentality or planetary holism. But they are not even that, for their minds have no best days, only regurgitated loops of grasping, hedonistic nostalgia. Soon the nostalgia melts into infantilism, a blind worship of even the most abstract benefits of capitalism, as if they (but not we) had forgotten that seminal moment in 2008, when Alan Greenspan appeared before a Congressional hearing and publicly disavowed his — and Ayn Rand's — entire rationalist philosophy. Americans, he belatedly realized, were irrational and thus not legitimate bases on which to propound liable doctrines.
If we believe pizza salesman Herman Cain, the protestors of Occupy Wall Street are not merely irrational but are "jealous"3 of their financial betters, perhaps the most obscenely (if candidly) jejune economic analysis ever uttered by a neophyte demagogue. Cain's naiveté betrays the social function of his own financial success; as Galbraith puts it, "The ostentation, waste, idleness, and immorality of the rich [are] all purposeful: they [are] the advertisements of success in a pecuniary culture. Work, by contrast, [is] merely a caste mark of inferiority."4 Of course, conservatives must pretend that they wish everyone to climb the ladder of mobility, as long as we ascend stoically, and without bitterness, calls for social equality, or remembering that someone must clean the toilets. In practice, however, conservatives must kick out enough rungs to ensure the lastingness of their own imperiled manhood.
To Read the Rest of the Essay
Monday, December 5, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
scott crow: Black Flags and Windmills -- Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective
PM Press link for the book
'Black Flags and Windmills' TRAILER from Louisiana Lucy on Vimeo.
also a full presentation by scott crow on the ideas and experiences in the book
This is a response by Michael B. to Sara P. on the Edu email list. Sara asked him to define in greater detail his understanding of Anarchism (I will proofread and link the addresses when I have more time). There is a lot of confusion about what anarchism is, mostly because of the disnformation propagated by the corporate media--so I wanted to provide an explanation here:
Sara, :) remember this all on the fly here (no revisions) and I can explain in more detail.....
First, "libertarian" has many meanings -- are you talking about right - libertarian (think of tea party or Rand Paul: traditional american version that wants to remove drown government and privatize everything) or left - libertarian (these are traditional anarchists: earlier european version that branched off from cadre socialism and sought to bring more autonomy into individual/collective lives while realizing the potential of liberated communities). There are also many, many types of anarchism, but let me lay out some basics (I would also encourage you to watch scott crow's presentation in the video I provided http://olkyeducation.blogspot.com/2011/12/scott-crow-black-flags-and-windmills.html -- he/Common Grounds is a great example of anarchist direct action ... also notice he doesn't cap his name (why would that be?). Also I would suggest going to see April Browning's screening of Howard Zinn's The People Speaks at Natasha's. For the record Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky both claim they are left-libertarians
Short descriptions:
Anarchists do not seek complete absence of government. There is a need for basic communal structures to facilitate needed materials -- water for a large community is a good example. What anarchists do want is leadership, not leaders -- in other words a society in which we cultivate the ability of all to step up and work for the greater collective good. They also demand, yes demand, transparency of actions/processes (our occupy movement processes are coming out of anarchist collective principles) and that leadership always be held accountable. They are also opposed to privatization of basic necessities (at the least) and corporate oligarchies -- basically these types of relations rest upon infantilization and dependence of target populations, as well as the creation of elite syncophants in the government. We believe democracy doesn't come from the top, that it can only come from the people. That democracy demands the resistance to illegitimate authority (like our current two part, coroporate capitalist oligarchy)
Anarchists do not believe in complete freedom for the individual. In fact we have a lot of problem with the word "freedom" which has its origins in slave societies. Also consider what is means to be free in our consumer society -- freedom is often an illusion. Anarchists seek "liberty", for individuals and communities. They rests upon the development of "autonomy". For me, I think of autonomy in this way: autonomy = individual liberty + collective responsibility + creative learning + participatory economics. At every step of this formula is the development of individual liberty in tandem with collective responsibility. Anarchists believe that communities are best served by autonomous individuals (and this is the polar opposite of the "radical individualism" of consumer capitalism) and that autonomous individuals are best cultivated in liberated, participatory collectives/communities. If anything, Anarchists are truly the most concerned with community and the individual's role is those communities. Responsibility = ability to respond (why we hold such much value on the creative development of individuals). Capitalism seeks fragmented, alienated, anxious individuals/communities because these are people that are the most easily exploited for profits.
Anarchists are not opposed to profits. There is nothing wrong with co-ops, local markets, exchange of goods with ones neighbors. We just don't want to worship at the altar of profits or genuflect to a mythical corporate free market (we should do some readings sometime on this term).
While Chomsky http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19760725.htm and Zinn would call themselves left-libertarians/anarcho-syndicalists and I call myself an anarchist -- we are talking about the same thing (and there are videos of both claiminbg themselves as anarchists) -- and we can see what Zinn thought of anarchists in the People Speak http://youtu.be/6hUQ657XR7Y
I also view anarchism as a personal philosophy. Here is my take on it:
Anarchism is a person-centered philosophy. Its focus is on autonomy amidst the social and economic pressures of mass society for superficiality and conformism. It is our responsibility, as free and conscious beings, to create meaning out of life and to develop an authentic existence. It is also, in my opinion, in this regard, our duty to help others develop their response-ability to do the same (for me as a teacher this is the core of an anarchist pedagogy). In this anarchism is radically collective in orientation. We are cultivating autonomous, ethical and responsible individuals who care about their community. Anarchism does not discount other beings in this world... it is holistic, in the sense of recognizing that humans are just one set of beings that live and share in the development and continuation of the broader environment.
Freedom = Responsibility. Anarchism is a philosophy of freedom. It requires that we step back and reflect/reassess on what we have been doing and what effect our thoughts/actions have on the world. In this sense we are more than just individuals, we are members of larger collectives and our personal ethics always extend beyond ourselves (anarchism is not vulgar egotism). In this we can only be as "responsible" as we are "free." Response-ability, the ability for people to respond to the problems of their society and the impetus for them to care beyond themselves, is only realized by free, authentic and ethical beings. Where there is mindless conformism, shallow consumerism, or brutal oppression, you will see a breakdown in the development of response-ability (both in the ruled/rulers... or, manipulated/manipulators).
Ethical considerations are the primary questions. We all understand ethics and freedom differently, this is a given, and thus we must bring each of our understandings into play and sharpen our ideas through open/free public discourse. In this we, as individuals, as a community, as a society, and as a global ecosystem, should consider ethical questions as primary steps to building a better world. An autonomous individual is responsible to develop and consider the authenticity of their own personal lives in relation to their society. My authenticity should not be at the expense of your opportunity to realize yourself (for example, we are not bloated ticks that feed off the misery of others in order to realize some twisted sense of self).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I realize I am a deeply flawed and difficult person. This is always a work in progress and I struggle as an individual.
To realize true liberty, autonomous citizens, participatory economics, and liberated communities .... that is all I have ever dreamed of since I was a little kid.... seriously -- it is all summed up in the usage of the word: "solidarity"
Here is a great discussion of current anarchist thought (esp. cindy milstein) in relation to the Occupy Movement http://www.againstthegrain.org/program/493/id/451547/mon-11-07-11-anarchism-thought-and-streets
and once again to circle back again to scott crow -- why does the government/media/corporations fear anarchist so much?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/us/29surveillance.html?_r=1
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
This Is What Democracy Looks Like
For the Wednesday night occupiers who are watching the Hollywood version -- here is the on the streets documentary of the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle filmed by over a 100 independent media activists!
Monday, November 28, 2011
Mark Ames: How UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Brought Oppression Back To Greece's Universities
[via Danny Mayer]
How UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Brought Oppression Back To Greece's Universities
by Mark Ames
The Smirking Chimp
A friend of mine sent me this link [1] claiming that UC Davis chancellor “Chemical” Linda Katehi, whose crackdown on peaceful university students shocked America, played a role in allowing Greece security forces to raid university campuses for the first time since the junta was overthrown in 1974. (H/T: Crooked Timber [2]) I’ve checked this out with our friend in Athens, reporter Kostas Kallergis (who runs the local blog “When The Crisis Hits The Fan” [3]), and he confirmed it–Linda Katehi really is the worst of all possible chancellors imaginable, the worst for us, and the worst for her native Greece.
First, some background: Last week, The eXiled published two pieces on Greece’s doomed struggle against global financial institutions—an article [4] on how the EU and Western bankers essentially overthrew [5] the nearly-uppity government of prime minister George Papandreou, and replaced it with a banker-friendly “technocratic” government that includes real-life, no-bullshit neo-Nazis and fascists [6] from the LAOS party, fascists with a banker-friendly fetish for imposing austerity measures. One of those fascists, Makis “Hammer” Voridis [7], spent his early 20s “hammering” non-fascist students for sport. Voridis was booted out of Athens University law school after ax-bashing fellow law students who didn’t share his fascist ideology. Today, Mikaes Voridis is the Minister for Infrastructure in the “technocratic” government. Imagine Lt. John Pike [8] in leather and an 80s hairdo, carrying a homemade ax rather than a pepper spray weapon, and you have Makis “Hammer” Voridis.
We also published a powerful and necessary history primer [9]by Greek journalist Kostas Kallergis [10] on the almost-holy significance of the date November 17 [11] in contemporary Greek history. On that day in 1973, pro-democracy students at the Athens Polytechnic university were crushed by tanks and soldiers sent in by the ruling junta dictatorship, which collapsed less than a year later, returning democracy to Greece. With CIA backing, the generals in the junta overthrew Greece’s democracy in 1967, jailed and tortured suspected leftists (meaning students and union leaders), and even went the extra-weird-fascist mile by banning the Beatles, mini-skirts, long hair, along with Mark Twain and Sophocles. The student rebellion at the Polytechnic, and its martyrdom, became the symbol for Greeks of their fight against fascism and tyranny, something like the briefcase man at Tiananmen Square, or the slaughtered rebels of the Boston Tea Party. That is why, as soon as the junta was overthrown and democracy restored in 1974, Greece immediately banned the presence of army, police or state security forces on university campuses. This so-called “university asylum” law turned Greece’s university campuses into cop-free zones of “political asylum,” where no one could interfere in the students’ rights to dissent against the government.
Today, thanks in part to UC Davis chancellor “Chemical” Linda Katehi, Greek university campuses are no longer protected from state security forces [12]. She helped undo her native country’s “university asylum” laws just in time for the latest austerity measures to kick in. Incredibly, Katehi attacked university campus freedom despite the fact that she was once a student at the very center of Greece’s anti-junta, pro-democracy rebellion–although what she was doing there, if anything at all, no one really knows.
Here’s the sordid back-story: Linda Katehi was born in Athens in 1954 and got her undergraduate degree at the famous Athens Polytechnic. She just happened to be the right age to be a student at the Polytechnic university on the very day, November 17, 1973, when the junta sent in tanks and soldiers to crush her fellow pro-democracy students. It was only after democracy was restored in 1974–and Greek university campuses were turned into police-free “asylum zones”–that Linda Katehi eventually moved to the USA, earning her PhD at UCLA.
Earlier this year, Linda Katehi served on an “International Committee On Higher Education In Greece,” along with a handful of American, European and Asian academics. The ostensible goal was to “reform” Greece’s university system. The real problem, from the real powers behind the scenes (banksters and the EU), was how to get Greece under control as the austerity-screws tightened. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that squeezing more money from Greece’s beleaguered citizens would mean clamping down on Greece’s democracy and doing something about those pesky Greek university students. And that meant taking away the universities’ “amnesty” protection, in place for nearly four decades, so that no one, nowhere, would be safe from police truncheons, gas, or bullets.
Thanks to the EU, bankers, and UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi, university freedom for Greece’s students has taken a huge, dark step backwards.
Here you can read a translation [13]of the report co-authored by UC Davis’ Linda Katehi [14]–the report which brought about the end of Greece’s “university asylum” law.What’s particularly disturbing is that Linda Katehi was the only Greek on that commission. Presumably that would give her a certain amount of extra sway–both because of her inside knowledge, and because of her moral authority among the other non-Greek committee members. And yet, Linda Katehi signed off on a report that provided the rationale for repealing Greece’s long-standing “university asylum” law. She basically helped undo the very heart and soul of Greece’s pro-democracy uprising against the junta.
And perfect timing too, now that one of Greece’s most notorious pro-junta fascists is a member of the new austerity government.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary and to Access Extensive Hyperlinked Resources
How UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Brought Oppression Back To Greece's Universities
by Mark Ames
The Smirking Chimp
A friend of mine sent me this link [1] claiming that UC Davis chancellor “Chemical” Linda Katehi, whose crackdown on peaceful university students shocked America, played a role in allowing Greece security forces to raid university campuses for the first time since the junta was overthrown in 1974. (H/T: Crooked Timber [2]) I’ve checked this out with our friend in Athens, reporter Kostas Kallergis (who runs the local blog “When The Crisis Hits The Fan” [3]), and he confirmed it–Linda Katehi really is the worst of all possible chancellors imaginable, the worst for us, and the worst for her native Greece.
First, some background: Last week, The eXiled published two pieces on Greece’s doomed struggle against global financial institutions—an article [4] on how the EU and Western bankers essentially overthrew [5] the nearly-uppity government of prime minister George Papandreou, and replaced it with a banker-friendly “technocratic” government that includes real-life, no-bullshit neo-Nazis and fascists [6] from the LAOS party, fascists with a banker-friendly fetish for imposing austerity measures. One of those fascists, Makis “Hammer” Voridis [7], spent his early 20s “hammering” non-fascist students for sport. Voridis was booted out of Athens University law school after ax-bashing fellow law students who didn’t share his fascist ideology. Today, Mikaes Voridis is the Minister for Infrastructure in the “technocratic” government. Imagine Lt. John Pike [8] in leather and an 80s hairdo, carrying a homemade ax rather than a pepper spray weapon, and you have Makis “Hammer” Voridis.
We also published a powerful and necessary history primer [9]by Greek journalist Kostas Kallergis [10] on the almost-holy significance of the date November 17 [11] in contemporary Greek history. On that day in 1973, pro-democracy students at the Athens Polytechnic university were crushed by tanks and soldiers sent in by the ruling junta dictatorship, which collapsed less than a year later, returning democracy to Greece. With CIA backing, the generals in the junta overthrew Greece’s democracy in 1967, jailed and tortured suspected leftists (meaning students and union leaders), and even went the extra-weird-fascist mile by banning the Beatles, mini-skirts, long hair, along with Mark Twain and Sophocles. The student rebellion at the Polytechnic, and its martyrdom, became the symbol for Greeks of their fight against fascism and tyranny, something like the briefcase man at Tiananmen Square, or the slaughtered rebels of the Boston Tea Party. That is why, as soon as the junta was overthrown and democracy restored in 1974, Greece immediately banned the presence of army, police or state security forces on university campuses. This so-called “university asylum” law turned Greece’s university campuses into cop-free zones of “political asylum,” where no one could interfere in the students’ rights to dissent against the government.
Today, thanks in part to UC Davis chancellor “Chemical” Linda Katehi, Greek university campuses are no longer protected from state security forces [12]. She helped undo her native country’s “university asylum” laws just in time for the latest austerity measures to kick in. Incredibly, Katehi attacked university campus freedom despite the fact that she was once a student at the very center of Greece’s anti-junta, pro-democracy rebellion–although what she was doing there, if anything at all, no one really knows.
Here’s the sordid back-story: Linda Katehi was born in Athens in 1954 and got her undergraduate degree at the famous Athens Polytechnic. She just happened to be the right age to be a student at the Polytechnic university on the very day, November 17, 1973, when the junta sent in tanks and soldiers to crush her fellow pro-democracy students. It was only after democracy was restored in 1974–and Greek university campuses were turned into police-free “asylum zones”–that Linda Katehi eventually moved to the USA, earning her PhD at UCLA.
Earlier this year, Linda Katehi served on an “International Committee On Higher Education In Greece,” along with a handful of American, European and Asian academics. The ostensible goal was to “reform” Greece’s university system. The real problem, from the real powers behind the scenes (banksters and the EU), was how to get Greece under control as the austerity-screws tightened. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that squeezing more money from Greece’s beleaguered citizens would mean clamping down on Greece’s democracy and doing something about those pesky Greek university students. And that meant taking away the universities’ “amnesty” protection, in place for nearly four decades, so that no one, nowhere, would be safe from police truncheons, gas, or bullets.
Thanks to the EU, bankers, and UC Davis chancellor Linda Katehi, university freedom for Greece’s students has taken a huge, dark step backwards.
Here you can read a translation [13]of the report co-authored by UC Davis’ Linda Katehi [14]–the report which brought about the end of Greece’s “university asylum” law.What’s particularly disturbing is that Linda Katehi was the only Greek on that commission. Presumably that would give her a certain amount of extra sway–both because of her inside knowledge, and because of her moral authority among the other non-Greek committee members. And yet, Linda Katehi signed off on a report that provided the rationale for repealing Greece’s long-standing “university asylum” law. She basically helped undo the very heart and soul of Greece’s pro-democracy uprising against the junta.
And perfect timing too, now that one of Greece’s most notorious pro-junta fascists is a member of the new austerity government.
To Read the Rest of the Commentary and to Access Extensive Hyperlinked Resources
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Radio Berkman 175: Lawrence Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain Take On…the Kill Switch
Radio Berkman 175: Lawrence Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain Take On…the Kill Switch
[Recently] citizens of the Middle East and North Africa have experienced widespread shutdowns of internet access, coinciding with revolutions to overthrow national leadership. The seeming ease with which the Internet has been silenced in Libya, Egypt, and other countries has raised questions about ethical issues behind an Internet “Kill Switch,” the idea of a single point of access by which any nation’s leadership could shutdown their internet access.
In the United States, debate over so-called “Kill Switch” legislation has focused on the free speech aspect. If it were technologically possible to shutdown internet access singlehandedly who is to say that power wouldn’t be exploited as it has been abroad?
But on the other side of the coin is the question of cyber security. With so much commerce, communication, and security dependent on a loose and non-standardized network infrastructure, it could actually make sense to have an easy way to quarantine a bug or massive cyber attack.
Today, hosts Lawrence Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain are joined by Andrew McLaughlin — a former Berkman Fellow and White House Deputy Chief Technology Office — and Brett Solomon — Executive Director of Access, a global movement promoting digital freedom. Together with an audience Lessig and Zittrain take on the Kill Switch.
To Listen to the Conversation
[Recently] citizens of the Middle East and North Africa have experienced widespread shutdowns of internet access, coinciding with revolutions to overthrow national leadership. The seeming ease with which the Internet has been silenced in Libya, Egypt, and other countries has raised questions about ethical issues behind an Internet “Kill Switch,” the idea of a single point of access by which any nation’s leadership could shutdown their internet access.
In the United States, debate over so-called “Kill Switch” legislation has focused on the free speech aspect. If it were technologically possible to shutdown internet access singlehandedly who is to say that power wouldn’t be exploited as it has been abroad?
But on the other side of the coin is the question of cyber security. With so much commerce, communication, and security dependent on a loose and non-standardized network infrastructure, it could actually make sense to have an easy way to quarantine a bug or massive cyber attack.
Today, hosts Lawrence Lessig and Jonathan Zittrain are joined by Andrew McLaughlin — a former Berkman Fellow and White House Deputy Chief Technology Office — and Brett Solomon — Executive Director of Access, a global movement promoting digital freedom. Together with an audience Lessig and Zittrain take on the Kill Switch.
To Listen to the Conversation
Friday, November 18, 2011
The End of Poverty (USA: Philippe Diaz, 2008: 106 mins)
The aphorism "The poor are always with us" dates back to the New Testament, but while the phrase is still sadly apt in the 21st century, few seem to be able to explain why poverty is so widespread. Activist filmmaker Philippe Diaz examines the history and impact of economic inequality in the third world in the documentary The End of Poverty?, and makes the compelling argument that it's not an accident or simple bad luck that has created a growing underclass around the world.
Diaz traces the growth of global poverty back to colonization in the 15th century, and features interviews with a number of economists, sociologists, and historians who explain how poverty is the clear consequence of free-market economic policies that allow powerful nations to exploit poorer countries for their assets and keep money in the hands of the wealthy rather than distributing it more equitably to the people who have helped them gain their fortunes.
Diaz also explores how wealthy nations (especially the United States) seize a disproportionate share of the world's natural resources, and how this imbalance is having a dire impact on the environment as well as the economy. The End of Poverty? was an official selection at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
Diaz traces the growth of global poverty back to colonization in the 15th century, and features interviews with a number of economists, sociologists, and historians who explain how poverty is the clear consequence of free-market economic policies that allow powerful nations to exploit poorer countries for their assets and keep money in the hands of the wealthy rather than distributing it more equitably to the people who have helped them gain their fortunes.
Diaz also explores how wealthy nations (especially the United States) seize a disproportionate share of the world's natural resources, and how this imbalance is having a dire impact on the environment as well as the economy. The End of Poverty? was an official selection at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.
All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace (United Kingdom: Adam Curtis, 2011)
(Description from Top Documentary Films)
A series of films about how humans have been colonized by the machines they have built. Although we don’t realize it, the way we see everything in the world today is through the eyes of the computers. It claims that computers have failed to liberate us and instead have distorted and simplified our view of the world around us.
1. Love and Power. This is the story of the dream that rose up in the 1990s that computers could create a new kind of stable world. They would bring about a new kind global capitalism free of all risk and without the boom and bust of the past. They would also abolish political power and create a new kind of democracy through the Internet where millions of individuals would be connected as nodes in cybernetic systems – without hierarchy.
2. The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts. This is the story of how our modern scientific idea of nature, the self-regulating ecosystem, is actually a machine fantasy. It has little to do with the real complexity of nature. It is based on cybernetic ideas that were projected on to nature in the 1950s by ambitious scientists. A static machine theory of order that sees humans, and everything else on the planet, as components – cogs – in a system.
3. The Monkey in the Machine and the Machine in the Monkey. This episode looks at why we humans find this machine vision so beguiling. The film argues it is because all political dreams of changing the world for the better seem to have failed – so we have retreated into machine-fantasies that say we have no control over our actions because they excuse our failure.
Adam Curtis is a documentary film maker, whose work includes The Power of Nightmares, The Century of the Self, The Mayfair Set, Pandora’s Box, The Trap and The Living Dead.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
John Paul Lederach: The Art of Peace
The Art of Peace
On Being
John Paul Lederach describes what really happens when people transcend violence while living in it, and so find the moral imagination to live beyond it. Also, stories you've never heard in the news — from Colombia, Nepal, Tajikistan, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, and Burma.
To Listen to the Episode
On Being
John Paul Lederach describes what really happens when people transcend violence while living in it, and so find the moral imagination to live beyond it. Also, stories you've never heard in the news — from Colombia, Nepal, Tajikistan, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, and Burma.
To Listen to the Episode
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Survival of the Fittest: People Power versus a Social Darwinist agenda (1886-1937); The Global Reserve Army of Labor and the New Imperialism
As some of you know we have a reading group working their way through Ted Nace's Gangs of America: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy.
I just finished chapter 11) Survival of the Fittest: People Power versus a Social Darwinist agenda (1886-1937). It is essential reading for those trying to get a handle on the historical roots of our current labor relations. We currently face a role back through austerity measures, attacks on collective bargaining, and the global flight of corporations, to the conditions described in this chapter and, correspondingly, the chapter provides a look at the way in which earlier laborers fought back to achieve better lives and opportunities.
You can find the chapter here in the PDF for the whole book.
For a deeper understanding of the exploitation of labor on a global scale in our contemporary world, check out John Bellamy Foster, Robert W. McChesney, and R. Jamil Jonna's essay "The Global Reserve Army of Labor and the New Imperialism" in this months Monthly Review.
I just finished chapter 11) Survival of the Fittest: People Power versus a Social Darwinist agenda (1886-1937). It is essential reading for those trying to get a handle on the historical roots of our current labor relations. We currently face a role back through austerity measures, attacks on collective bargaining, and the global flight of corporations, to the conditions described in this chapter and, correspondingly, the chapter provides a look at the way in which earlier laborers fought back to achieve better lives and opportunities.
You can find the chapter here in the PDF for the whole book.
For a deeper understanding of the exploitation of labor on a global scale in our contemporary world, check out John Bellamy Foster, Robert W. McChesney, and R. Jamil Jonna's essay "The Global Reserve Army of Labor and the New Imperialism" in this months Monthly Review.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Drones on Trial: 38 Protesters Face Charges for Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks
Drones on Trial: 38 Protesters Face Charges for Disrupting Syracuse Base Used in Overseas Attacks
Democracy Now
The Wall Street Journal is reporting the CIA has made a series of secret concessions in its drone campaign after military and diplomatic officials complained large strikes were damaging the fragile U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Meanwhile, a trial is underway in Syracuse, New York, of 38 protesters arrested in April at the New York Air National Guard base at Hancock Field. The defendants were protesting the MQ-9 Reaper drones, which the 174th Fighter Wing of the Guard has remotely flown over Afghanistan from Syracuse since late 2009. "Citizens have a responsibility to take action when they see crimes being committed," said retired Col. Ann Wright, one of the 38 on trial. "And this goes back to World War II, when German government officials knew what other parts of the German government were doing in executing six million Jews in Germany and other places, and that they took no action. And yet—and they were held responsible later, through the Nuremberg trials. And that is the theory on which we are acting, that we see that our government is committing crimes by the use of these drones, and that we, as citizens, have the responsibility to act."
Col. Ann Wright (Ret.), one of the "Hancock 38 Drone Resisters" who protested the use of MQ-9 Reaper drones at the Air National Guard base at Hancock Field in Syracuse, New York, last April. Wright is a retired U.S. Army colonel and former U.S. diplomat who spent 29 years in the military and later served as a high-ranking diplomat in the State Department. In 2001, she helped oversee the reopening of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. In 2003, she resigned her State Department post to protest the war in Iraq.
Ed Kinane, one of the "Hancock 38 Drone Resisters" who protested the use of MQ-9 Reaper drones at the Air National Guard base at Hancock Field in Syracuse, New York, last April. He is a member of the Syracuse Peace Council.
To Watch the Report
Democracy Now
The Wall Street Journal is reporting the CIA has made a series of secret concessions in its drone campaign after military and diplomatic officials complained large strikes were damaging the fragile U.S. relationship with Pakistan. Meanwhile, a trial is underway in Syracuse, New York, of 38 protesters arrested in April at the New York Air National Guard base at Hancock Field. The defendants were protesting the MQ-9 Reaper drones, which the 174th Fighter Wing of the Guard has remotely flown over Afghanistan from Syracuse since late 2009. "Citizens have a responsibility to take action when they see crimes being committed," said retired Col. Ann Wright, one of the 38 on trial. "And this goes back to World War II, when German government officials knew what other parts of the German government were doing in executing six million Jews in Germany and other places, and that they took no action. And yet—and they were held responsible later, through the Nuremberg trials. And that is the theory on which we are acting, that we see that our government is committing crimes by the use of these drones, and that we, as citizens, have the responsibility to act."
Col. Ann Wright (Ret.), one of the "Hancock 38 Drone Resisters" who protested the use of MQ-9 Reaper drones at the Air National Guard base at Hancock Field in Syracuse, New York, last April. Wright is a retired U.S. Army colonel and former U.S. diplomat who spent 29 years in the military and later served as a high-ranking diplomat in the State Department. In 2001, she helped oversee the reopening of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. In 2003, she resigned her State Department post to protest the war in Iraq.
Ed Kinane, one of the "Hancock 38 Drone Resisters" who protested the use of MQ-9 Reaper drones at the Air National Guard base at Hancock Field in Syracuse, New York, last April. He is a member of the Syracuse Peace Council.
To Watch the Report
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Wall Street vs. Greece: G20 Opens as Greek PM Pushes for Referendum on Bailout and Austerity Measures
Wall Street vs. Greece: G20 Opens as Greek PM Pushes for Referendum on Bailout and Austerity Measures
Democracy Now
World leaders are gathering in Cannes for the opening of the Group of 20 summit today. On the top of the agenda is the Greece bailout and the European debt crisis. On Monday, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou angered many European leaders by announcing his support for a popular referendum—allowing the Greek people to decide if they want to accept the conditions of the $179 billion European Union bailout. After days of increasing criticism from European leaders, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is now facing calls from within his party to resign. The Greek debt scandal has also pitted U.S. banking interests against France, Germany and other European powers. "The Americans are putting immense pressure on Europe, saying, 'We will wreck your economy, if you don't wreck Greece’s economy,’" says economic analyst Michael Hudson. President Obama is "basically telling Europe, ’Don’t go the democratic route. Support Wall Street.’"
Democracy Now
World leaders are gathering in Cannes for the opening of the Group of 20 summit today. On the top of the agenda is the Greece bailout and the European debt crisis. On Monday, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou angered many European leaders by announcing his support for a popular referendum—allowing the Greek people to decide if they want to accept the conditions of the $179 billion European Union bailout. After days of increasing criticism from European leaders, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is now facing calls from within his party to resign. The Greek debt scandal has also pitted U.S. banking interests against France, Germany and other European powers. "The Americans are putting immense pressure on Europe, saying, 'We will wreck your economy, if you don't wreck Greece’s economy,’" says economic analyst Michael Hudson. President Obama is "basically telling Europe, ’Don’t go the democratic route. Support Wall Street.’"
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