I am impressed at the spontaneous outpouring of civic pride aimed at cleaning up the mess. (although this too may be performance art). But I don't recall any city coming together so quickly to say: This is not us; we are not like that. And volunteers turning out en masse to clean up the mess. A good sign. Social cohesion.
Mike, did you see any of the clean up activity? And did it look authentic and not staged for the media? arthur From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of michael gurstein Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 10:14 AM To: 'Keith Hudson'; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Riot as Performance Art Yes for sure, the situation in Athens is very significant not the least because it signals that the people in the streets "are made as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore"... and good for them. Why the general population should be made to suffer while the banksters and corrupt polliticians and business people get off unscathed is beyond my understanding. The problem is that at this point there are no credible alternatives conceptually or politically to the disastrous neo-liberal "matrix" that we find ourselves trapped inside. The irony of course is that Papendreiou (sp) who has (or had) a lot of street cred as a fairly radical economist and progressive politician is the one who has to impose the hurt (mostly not of his causation). That it is him and not one of his right wing colleagues who is being called out by the people in the street signals that the old paradigm is essentially bankrupt and about to topple but no one has any idea of what (apart from possible chaos) will replace it. Which brings me back to the "riots" in Vancouver which to my mind signal not very much at all except that the (still) largely privileged young people in N Am are also disengaged from an older paradigm of action/consequences (posing with face exposed for pictures commiting criminal acts). Exactly what their paradigm is (perhaps something similar to the "we are no longer afraid" paradigm of the young people in the Middle East but this time without any political content) is not clear, but that we are in extremely volatile and unstable times economically, politically AND culturally is to my mind very clear. M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Friday, June 17, 2011 12:50 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: Riot as Performance Art The one riot that needs to be watched -- and taken very seriously -- is that which is going on in Athens right now. Greece is now very close to a default which could ripple disastrously through to several large French and German banks (which have bought Greek eurobonds) and thence to American banks which have largely sold insurance to them (credit default swaps). This week-end might see the beginning of the same sort of panic that occurred at the tail-end of 2007 and, if anything, could be far worse. Keith Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/06/
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