The Situationists and the Occupation Movements (1968/2011)
Ken Knabb
One of the most notable characteristics of the “Occupy” movement is that it is just what it claims to be: leaderless and antihierarchical. Certain people have of course played significant roles in laying the groundwork for Occupy Wall Street and the other occupations, and others may have ended up playing significant roles in dealing with various tasks in committees or in coming up with ideas that are good enough to be adopted by the assemblies. But as far as I can tell, none of these people have claimed that such slightly disproportionate contributions mean that they should have any greater say than anyone else. Certain famous people have rallied to the movement and some of them have been invited to speak to the assemblies, but they have generally been quite aware that the participants are in charge and that nobody is telling them what to do.
If This Analysis Is Correct, A Great Depression Is All But Inevitable
George Monbiot
I stumbled out into the autumn sunshine, figures ricocheting around in
my head, still trying to absorb what I had heard. I felt as if I had
just attended a funeral: a funeral at which all of us got buried. I
cannot claim to have understood everything in the lecture:
Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu Theory and the 41-line differential equation
were approximately 15.8 metres over my head {1}. But the points I
grasped were clear enough. We’re stuffed: stuffed to a degree that
scarcely anyone yet appreciates.
Professor Steve Keen was one of the few economists to predict the
financial crisis. While the OECD and the US Federal Reserve foresaw a
“great moderation”, unprecedented stability and steadily rising wealth
{2, 3}, he warned that a crash was bound to happen. Now he warns that
the same factors which caused the crash show that what we’ve heard so
far is merely the first rumble of the storm. Without a radical change of
policy, another Great Depression is all but inevitable.
Turn the World Upside Down:
From Occupation to Revolution
John Spritzler
If OWS decides explicitly that its goal is revolution, it would transform the OWS movement. It would be a qualitative leap and set the agenda for the coming years: a national and international conversation about how to make a revolution and what a post-revolutionary society can be like. If OWS does this, then folding the tents in the heart of winter (or losing them to a police raid) won’t matter because the revolutionary strategy can be carried out even without them. What OWS will gain is what does matter: a whole new level of consciousness, determination, and ties to the community and each other internationally.
But what exactly does it mean to make revolution our goal? How is that different from what OWS is already doing? Does it mean picking up a gun or smashing more windows or attacking the police? No it does not. It means doing what is discussed below.
The Third Republic of Movements: Considerations on the alternative and the constituent conflict in Italy
Francesco Brancaccio, Alberto De Nicola, Francesco Raparelli
Following the events of October 15th the main challenge the Movement faces is to avoid being pressed in the grip of simplification and strict dichotomy, and at the same time to preserve its open and varied nature. We believe this risk has been outlined better than elsewhere in the editorial by Piero Ostellino published by Corriere della Sera. Ostellino uses the riots that took place during the demonstration to worn that there is no possibility of transforming the present beyond the choice between civil war or respectful reform of representative democracy and of the capitalist market rules
Tertium non datur. Even radical conflict, when it comes onto the scene, is bound to follow one of these two paths sooner or later, leaving behind any ambition to modify social relations.
Knowledge Against Financial Capitalism Conference
Barcelona, Spain, December 1-3, 2011
A Conference organized by MACBA (Museo del Arte Contemporaneo de Barcelona) & SCEPSI (Scuola Europea per l’immaginazione sociale)
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The conference is intended to elaborate the lessons of the first year of the European uprising against financial dictatorship, and to imagine a future free from the dogmas of capitalism.
December 1st Thursday
17.00: Myriam Rubio of MACBA introduces the Conference.
18.00: Franco Berardi: Right to insolvency, how to disentangle present potency of the general intellect from the dogma of financial capitalism
19.00: Mark Fisher & Alexandra Odette Kipriotaki sul tema: A different timestate zone of being
20.00: Francesco Salvini: Knowledge commons, notes for collective project of research on knowledges, conflict and crisis in Europe
21:00: Discussion.
December 2nd Friday
17.00: Federico Campagna: Recurring dreams: Debt and fascism.
18.00: Francesca Martinez Tagliavia:
19.00: Andrew McGettigan: The process of financialisation of higher education
20.00: Pedro Leytao:
21.00: Rock the Cradle, video by Ernie Larsen & Sherry Millner, Occupy Wall Street New York City
December 3rd, Saturday:
10.30: Valerio Monteventi.. Italian political catastrophe in the framework of the European crisis, and the emergence of a new movement.
11.30: Amador Fernandez Savater: 15-M: una política del cualquiera
12.30: Conclusion: What if Capitalism is dead?
Autonomy of knowledge self organization of the general intellect. The European School for Social Imagination (Scepsi): politics in the age of post-democratic governance and the creation of the institution of common knowledge.
Tepco Detects Nuclear Fission at Fukushima Dai-Ichi Station
Bloomberg News
Tokyo Electric Power Co. detected signs of nuclear fission at its crippled Fukushima atomic power plant, raising the risk of increased radiation emissions. No increase in radiation was found at the site and the situation is under control, officials said.
The company, known as Tepco, began spraying boric acid on the No. 2 reactor at 2:48 a.m. Japan time to prevent accidental chain reactions, according to an e-mailed statement today. The detection of xenon, which is associated with nuclear fission, was confirmed today by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, the country's atomic regulator said.
Stop Arbitrary Detentions in Turkey
Jadaliyya Reports
The international public has so far been oblivious to the so-called “KCK operations” carried out in Turkey by Prime Minister Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party for the past two years. Under the guise of “fighting terrorism,” the Erdogan government has been using the judiciary, the police, and the media to penalize all civic activism in support of rights demanded by Kurdish citizens in Turkey. The “KCK operations” in particular have been deployed to spread fear amongst activists, to silence public dissent, and to normalize the arbitrary arrest of citizens. Ironically, the Erdogan government’s suppression of dissent and of democratic politics has visibly intensified at a time when “Turkish democracy” is being hailed as a model for the Arab world.
Greek Referendum Roadshow Hits Cannes
Mihalis Panayotakis
As the Greek Prime Minister is already in Cannes to meet with the G20 leaders and “discuss” the prospect of a referendum on the rescue package, I’ll try to outline some possible outcomes originating from Papandreou’s decision, and hopefully start a discussion on the dynamic of the current situation as a whole…
Let me start with four presuppositions:
I still believe that Papandreou’s game is aimed internally at Greece and that he will fold tonight under G20 pressure (basically Merkozy).
The Trouble With Binary Thinking
John Michael Greer
Last week's post here on The Archdruid Report discussed the magical
implications of getting out from under the influence of the mass media
and popular culture, and thus from the dumbing-down effects these things
exert on the mind. That's a crucial step, but it's only a first step,
because as soon as you extract all that thaumaturgy from your mind,
something is going to fill the resulting void.
Entire industries exist to see to it that what fills the void is simply
another version of what you tried to get rid of. The sorry fate of the
so-called Voluntary Simplicity movement of a few years back makes a good
case study of the way these industries work. It was a bad move right at
the beginning, to be sure, that the founders of the movement watered
down Thoreau's original and far more powerful phrase "voluntary poverty"
so that it didn't frighten their middle-class target audience. As soon
as the idea began to attract attention, that first mistake became the
opening wedge that admitted a series of marketing campaigns that pitched
supposedly "simpler" consumer products to a mostly privileged audience
at steep prices.
The Party of Wall Street Meets Its Nemesis
David Harvey
The Party of Wall Street has ruled unchallenged in the United States for far too long. It has totally (as opposed to partially) dominated the policies of Presidents over at least four decades (if not longer), no matter whether individual Presidents have been its willing agents or not. It has legally corrupted Congress via the craven dependency of politicians in both parties upon its raw money power and access to the mainstream media that it controls. Thanks to the appointments made and approved by Presidents and Congress, the Party of Wall Street dominates much of the state apparatus as well as the judiciary, in particular the Supreme Court, whose partisan judgments increasingly favor venal money interests, in spheres as diverse as electoral, labor, environmental and contract law.
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