Re: Eric X. Li: Democracy Is Not the Answer..
On 13/07/12 17:36, Flick Harrison wrote: > MP, > > Instead of just attacking me and democracy, why not say what you > think about China, the topic at hand? Are you defending their ruling > system, or just attacking straw men (i.e. people defending capitalism > here)? Do you see democracy and capitalism as inseparable evils? I don't really have anything to say about China, never been there, but think it is where iPads come from, and generally I prefer to sweep in front of my own door, before sweeping in front of others'. I defend no ruling system - especially if it is based on power over other people - and as such I attack democracy and capitalism. No, I do not think that capitalism and democracy are inseperable evils, rather I understand the two terms as two distinct angles to describe the same period in European history: one of enclosure, colonialism, suppression, enforcement of extreme laws of ownership and so on. And one of fucking people over while, miraculously, successfully, giving them the idea that they are realising, living, choosing freedom. > I said the problem in our society is not too much democracy, but too > little. How do you interpret that as a defense of capitalsm? Because although not inseperable in theory, I see the two stories referring to the same system, history, period. > How do YOU propose people govern themselves, if not by participation? > Do you agree with Li that Democracy is not the answer? I really do not understand democracy as participation, but exclusion following enslosure. Participation is a nice word, but has long since been associated with new forms of tyranny, by rather mainstream management and social scientists. Another bit of empty rhetoric. > "fascism is a mask that liberals put on whenever the scam of > democracy is about to unravel." > > That's pure nonsense. Name one important self-described liberal who > became a fascist. Even the wild conservative fantasy is closer to > the truth, that Fascism and Communism are the same thing. See, it's > right there in the name, "National Socialism!!!" Fascist tendencies in the history of democracy appear to be operated all across the spectrum, at least since 1927. Whatever can be said about Agamben's pomo musings, his empirical footnote from State of Exception reveals something relevant here: ( http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/009254.html ): "Predictably, the expansion of the executive's powers into the legislative sphere continued after the end of hostilities, and it is significant that military emergency now ceded its place to economic emergency (with an implicit assimilation between war and economics). In January 1924, at a time of serious crisis that threatened the stability of the franc, the Poincaré government asked for full powers over financial matters. After a bitter debate, in which the opposition pointed out that this was tantamount to parliament renouncing its own constitutional powers, the law was passed on March 22, with a four-month limit on the government's special powers. Analogous measures were brought to a vote in 1935 by the Laval government, which issued more than five hundred decrees "having force of law" in order to avoid the devaluation of the franc. The opposition from the left, led by Léon Blum, strongly opposed this "fascist" practice, but it is significant that once the Left took power with the Popular Front, it asked parliament in June 1937 for full powers in order to devalue the franc, establish exchange control, and impose new taxes. As has been observed, this meant that the new practice of legislation by executive [governativo] decree, which had been inaugurated during the war, was by now a practice accepted by all political sides." > You seem to be confusing my critique of China with some kind of > cheering for the Republocratocracy. Not at all. Your critique was expressly concerned with how the "Chinese system" was *not* democracy, which was somehow held up as the better system, even if flawed. I condemn them both. > I don't think you seem to understand how closely they are allied. > You argue that the world's ruling classes have a totally unified > agenda but you think China somehow doesn't fit into that? I am sure "they" fit very well into this and those running that system is part of the global elite. I don't think "they" have a *totally* unified agenda, but that from the perspective of those ruled, sanctioned, controlled and oppressed there is a lot of reason to see the agenda from above as pretty unified: against the poor - and as such rather universal: gred and the rich = good ; the poor to be preyed on. Stating that one system is bad does not entail that systems of other kinds are good (or bad or anything else for that matter). The Chinese system - entirely entwined with the rest of the global economy - only makes sense - to me - as the owners of large parts of US debt, and as such they are rather inseperable: two different elite groups that play the
Re: Eric X. Li: Democracy Is Not the Answer.
Carl: > This is exactly the kind of sleazy, power-worshipping bullshit > (h/t the late Hunter S. Thompson) that plays well at the Aspen > Institute, a hangout of Li and other pet philosphers of global > capitalism. No doubt. However, there are TWO glaring problems with your analysis -- 1) "Democracy" is the scheme that is responsible for global capitalism. All of the issues that you (and so many others raise) about the world today are overwhelmingly the direct result of "democracy." 2) "Democracy" is also the primary ideological weapon that is used *against* those who stand outside the power structures of global capitalism. It was at the heart of the 1950s/60s COLD WAR against the Soviets and it is, once again, at the heart of today's COLD WAR against China. When you pick up the cudgels of "democracy" against China (or Russia), you are inevitably joining U.S. State Department, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. You are putting yourself in league with those you appear to oppose. Quite a dilemma! The more subtle issue, of course, is how "democracy" is actually run. Under conditions of multi-party elections and mass-media propaganda shaping "public opinion," you might well claim that this is in fact not "democracy." You would be right but then the rest of your argument would lack any basis. Otherwise, you might want to take it easy on your "Confucius says . . ." In his days, BULLSHIT had a much more practical application than jousting on mailing lists. Mark Stahlman Brooklyn NY # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: stories of boats4 people
Am 14.07.2012 22:28, schrieb Geert Lovink: > <...> > > Last year, in March 2011, 63 people who had left Tripoli in the attempt > to reach the Southern shores of Italy, died after drifting for 14 days at > sea. This incident occurred during the international military > intervention in Libya and as such in meticulously surveilled waters. Nothing is not surveilled, sorry. We have to distinguish between people who have reached the coast of Italy and those who have not. Everybody who reaches the coast is safe and welcome. I dont have any reasons not to believe the state of Italy. Mama Roma. But war is war and not the first time, to put it mildly. Best, H. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: Naomi Wolf: This global financial fraud and its gatekeepers (Guardian)
Of course fraud is systemic. The British, having lost a colonial empire, created an illegal financial empire based on the City of London and run through dependencies like the Cayman islands, Jersey, Hong Kong etc. The US was forced to retaliate by setting up its own offshore system at home (Delaware, Wyoming etc).In September I am giving a keynote at a conference of Italy's Institute of Public Economists, "Corruption, tax havens and th einformal economy". My title is "The informalisation of the world economy" which is probably too polite. Nick Shaxson has a more direct description in his brilliant Treasure Islands: tax havens and the men who stole the world. Keith On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Patrice Riemens wrote: > original to: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/14/global-financial-fraud-gatekeepers > for links etc. > > > This global financial fraud and its gatekeepers # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Gernot Untergruber is stealing your content from Facebook.
I am pleased to introduce you to Gernot Untergruber - gernotuntergruber.com a translucent facebook mashup. Gernot Untergruber is an art project which aims to explore and blur the boundaries between single-person-organic, collective and virtual personalities. Gernot is a translucent social being who interacts with subjects through their modern digital lifestyles. He is half human (organic), half synthetic (silicon based). The website gernotuntergruber.com tells you stories about what is happening in the life of Gernot. He is constantly learning, developing and changing. He is defined by his thoughts, his environment, his activities and his dreams. As Gernot is an active citizen on Facebook, all his friends and their activities represent his environment. You could also be a part of Gernot. His dreams are automatically generated texts derived from information Gernot has access to: his own thoughts and activities, and the information his friends on Facebook share with him. All this gibberish is published on his website. Read more about Gernot Untergruber: http://gernotuntergruber.com/about.html A full description is available here: http://gernotuntergruber.com/static/docs/gernot_untergruber_02.pdf Connect to Gernot Untergruber on Facebook (login first): http://www.facebook.com/gernot.untergruber In the beginning of July 2012, Gernot had a burst of growth. >From that time he began to dream in images and started to make sound. Each >visitor coming to Gernot's website can trigger and control the different >sounds he makes. This auditive insight makes gernotuntergruber.com a >multi-user instrument, that can be played by people around the globe at the >same time. The auditive insight will first presented on Tuesday, 17th of July - 10.30pm MEZ To join, visit http://gernotuntergruber.com -- LOGOUT NOW! http://stupidius.net/logout Mailer-Error #42: This message was not checked for spelling and grammar mistake. (-344) # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Naomi Wolf: This global financial fraud and its gatekeepers (Guardian)
original to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/14/global-financial-fraud-gatekeepers for links etc. This global financial fraud and its gatekeepers The media's 'bad apple' thesis no longer works. We're seeing systemic corruption in banking and systemic collusion By Naomi Wolf guardian.co.uk, Saturday 14 July 2012 15.47 BST Protesters at Bank of America shareholders meeting in Charlotte Protesters outside a Bank of America annual shareholders' meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. Photograph: Jason Miczek/Reuters Last fall, I argued that the violent reaction to Occupy and other protests around the world had to do with the 1%ers' fear of the rank and file exposing massive fraud if they ever managed get their hands on the books. At that time, I had no evidence of this motivation beyond the fact that financial system reform and increased transparency were at the top of many protesters' list of demands. But this week presents a sick-making trove of new data that abundantly fills in this hypothesis and confirms this picture. The notion that the entire global financial system is riddled with systemic fraud and that key players in the gatekeeper roles, both in finance and in government, including regulatory bodies, know it and choose to quietly sustain this reality is one that would have only recently seemed like the frenzied hypothesis of tinhat-wearers, but this week's headlines make such a conclusion, sadly, inevitable. The New York Times business section on 12 July shows multiple exposes of systemic fraud throughout banks: banks colluding with other banks in manipulation of interest rates, regulators aware of systemic fraud, and key government officials (at least one banker who became the most key government official) aware of it and colluding as well. Fraud in banks has been understood conventionally and, I would say, messaged as a glitch. As in London Mayor Boris Johnson's full-throated defense of Barclay's leadership last week, bank fraud is portrayed as a case, when it surfaces, of a few "bad apples" gone astray. In the New York Times business section, we read that the HSBC banking group is being fined up to $1bn, for not preventing money-laundering (a highly profitable activity not to prevent) between 2004 and 2010 a six years' long "oops". In another article that day, Republican Senator Charles Grassley says of the financial group Peregrine capital: "This is a company that is on top of things." The article goes onto explain that at Peregrine Financial, "regulators discovered about $215m in customer money was missing." Its founder now faces criminal charges. Later, the article mentions that this revelation comes a few months after MF Global "lost" more than $1bn in clients' money. What is weird is how these reports so consistently describe the activity that led to all this vanishing cash as simple bumbling: "regulators missed the red flag for years." They note that a Peregrine client alerted the firm's primary regulator in 2004 and another raised issues with the regulator five years later yet "signs of trouble seemingly missed for years", muses the Times headline. A page later, "Wells Fargo will Settle Mortgage Bias Charges" as that bank agrees to pay $175m in fines resulting from its having again, very lucratively charged African-American and Hispanic mortgagees costlier rates on their subprime mortgages than their counterparts who were white and had the same credit scores. Remember, this was a time when "Wall Street firms developed a huge demand for subprime loans that they purchased and bundled into securities for investors, creating financial incentives for lenders to make such loans." So, Wells Fargo was profiting from overcharging minority clients and profiting from products based on the higher-than-average bad loan rate expected. The piece discreetly ends mentioning that a Bank of America lawsuit of $335m and a Sun Trust mortgage settlement of $21m for having engaged is similar kinds of discrimination. Are all these examples of oversight failure and banking fraud just big ol' mistakes? Are the regulators simply distracted? The top headline of the day's news sums up why it is not that simple: "Geithner Tried to Curb Bank's Rate Rigging in 2008". The story reports that when Timothy Geithner, at the time he ran the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, learned of "problems" with how interest rates were fixed in London, the financial center at the heart of the Libor Barclays scandal. He let "top British authorities" know of the issues and wrote an email to his counterparts suggesting reforms. Were his actions ethical, or prudent? A possible interpretation of Geithner's action is that he was "covering his ass", without serious expectation of effecting reform of what he knew to be systemic abuse. And what, in fact, happened? Barclays kept reporting false rates, seeking to boost its profit. Last month, the bank agreed to pay $450m to US and UK authorities for manipu
stories of boats4 people
Boats 4 People. Press release n°5 Link to full video: http://vimeo.com/45617472 Abbas, an Eritrean national is the only survivor of this incident, was found on Tuesday at 14:30 by a Tunisian fisherman 35 miles off the coasts of Zarzis. He was hanging onto the remains of the rubber dinghy with which he had left Tripoli around 14 days earlier with 56 people on board (20 Somalians, 2 Sudanese and 34 Eritreans), among which his older brother and two sisters. After approximately 26 hours of navigation, the boat, which was in very bad conditions, capsized and only Abbas managed to hold onto the boat, whose engine was nevertheless damaged after falling into the water. He drifted alone for fourteen days in the open sea, occasionally sighting in the distance other vessels. After finally being rescued by a Tunisian fisherman yesterday, a patrol boat of the Tunisian "Garde National Maritime" was sent out and took him on board at 15:30 at the following coordinates: 33 50.577 N, 11 32.442 E (see map). Nevertheless, this location refers only to the point were the rescue operation took place, and does not indicate the furthermost point reached by the boat, which might have been several tens of miles North of this point. Abbas was later brought to the hospital in Zarzis, where he received treatment for dehydration and extreme exhaustion. WatchTheMed: https://watchthemed.crowdmap.com/reports/view/23 Boats 4 People. Press release n°5 Zarzis, 11th July 2012: Boats 4 People: A delegation meets sole survivor of tragic incident that cost the lives of 55 A year and a few months after the "left-to-die boat" case lead to international indignation, another dramatically similar incident reveals how, despite the changed geopolitical situation, migrants keep dying in the Mediterranean sea in appalling conditions. Last year, in March 2011, 63 people who had left Tripoli in the attempt to reach the Southern shores of Italy, died after drifting for 14 days at sea. This incident occurred during the international military intervention in Libya and as such in meticulously surveilled waters. Several damning reports were released on the failures of a series of actors and a legal case was filed in France for non-assistance. Now, despite the fall of the Qaddafi regime and the end of the international intervention in Libya, Boats4People has learned during an interview conducted this morning in Zarzis, Southern Tunisia, about another tragic case that shows once again the dramatic effects of the European migration regime. Abbas, an Eritrean national who is the only survivor of this incident, was found on Tuesday at 14:30 by a Tunisian fisherman 35 miles off the coasts of Zarzis. He was hanging onto the remains of the rubber dinghy with which he had left Tripoli around 14 days earlier with 56 people on board (20 Somalians, 2 Sudanese and 34 Eritreans), among which his older brother and two sisters. After approximately 26 hours of navigation, the boat, which was in very bad conditions, capsized and only Abbas managed to hold onto the boat, whose engine was nevertheless damaged after falling into the water. He drifted alone for fourteen days in the open sea, occasionally sighting in the distance other vessels. After finally rescued by a Tunisian fisherman yesterday, a patrol boat of the Tunisian "Garde National Maritime" was sent out and took him onboard at 15:30. He was brought to the hospital in Zarzis, where he received treatment for dehydration and extreme exhaustion. Boats4People denounces once again the policy of border closure that oblige migrants to resort to dangerous means to cross the Mediterranean as well as the criminalization of assistance to migrants in distress at sea, which have de facto transformed the Mediterranean in a cemetery. In collaboration with researchers of the Forensic Oceanography project at Goldsmiths College, Boats4People will keep inquiring to determine if any measure could have been taken to avert the tragic fate of the passengers of this boat. http://www.boats4people.org/index.php/en/ # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
