A good rule of thumb for life is that if the Chinese government is against it, you're probably doing something right. The latest evidence to support this axiom is the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has spread from lower Manhattan to cities around the globe, including London, Auckland, Toronto, and Rome, among many others. Terrified by OWS' viral growth, the oppressive regime controlling China is taking measures to ensure the protests don't happen there. And it's starting with the internet.
I am very grateful to have been able to take part in organizing the Contact Conference, an event that pitched itself as a working festival of innovation, a social technologies exhibitor space, and a celebration of the potential of a network culture.
And it was definitely all those things, so mission accomplished there. The energy in the room was great, the recipients of the three $1oK Innovation Awards worthy, and the four projects conceived and launched at the event exciting. (more details on those things below in Douglas Rushkoff’s letter to participants)
But that’s really only a part of the story.
The bigger picture here is that if we start from the premise that “the system is broken” or “we’re at a critical turning point’ or that “we’re in a global transition,” or any such broad sweeping statements about the functionality of our social/economic/political/environmental/technological/scientific systems, and the majority of the world’s population is either deeply dissatisfied or at the least has an itching feeling that there is something that is just not right… then the only sane choice left is to act.
Below are two eye opening reports/analyses by two of the best counterpunchers in Alexander Cockburn's and Jeffrey St Clair's stable of bomb throwers. The subject is Greece: its political/economic crisis and the myths surrounding average Greeks being the cause of its crisis.
In the first, Destroying the Livelihoods of Thirteen Million People: The Myth of Greek Profligacy, my friend Marshall Auerback, argues that the masses of the Greek people (the bottom 80% of a highly unequal income distribution) are being set up as scapegoats to pay for a neo-liberal austerity plan that aimed producing income deflation (instead of a currency devaluation) to improve export competitiveness. Auerback explains why this is really a plan of collective punishment that is guaranteed to fail while shredding what is left of Greece's social contract.
In the second, Naxos Hangs On By Its Fingernails: How Greeks Were Driven Back to the Land, Patrick Cockburn presents the reader with a micro-case study of what is happening to average Greeks (i.e. part of the lower 80%) on the island of Naxos, the largest and my favorite island in the windy Cyclades.
Chuck Spinney
Barcelona
Destroying the Livelihoods of Thirteen Million People The Myth of Greek Profligacy
by MARSHALL AUERBACK, Counterpunch, OCTOBER 24, 2011
Phi Beta Iota: One reason why the Electoral Reform and BigBatUSA endeavors are so important NOW, is because if they succeed in the USA, where Internet connectivity, cognitive surplus, and Occupy awaking have converged, the model can be scaled globally very quickly. At root this is about secular corruption. Pope Benedict XVI had a chance to use Assisi creatively but chose the low road.
Are you still a fringe candidate when you pull in more than half of all votes? Just ask Ron Paul.
Even with the establishment cringing at his libertarian leanings and his ideas otherwise radical for a Republican candidate, Congressman Paul received nearly 54 percent of the votes in an Ohio straw poll over the weekend.
The Ohio Republican straw poll was held in the Buckeye State on Saturday, and the majority of the votes cast went to the Texas congressman who continues to show both success and support in his race for the GOP nomination, despite little attention from the mainstream media.
While news outlets have largely focused in recent weeks on the surging popularity of Herman Cain, the pizzaman only raked in nearly half of what Paul got in the straw poll. Following Paul’s first place victory, Cain came in second with around 26 percent of the votes. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney received around 9 percent, giving him a third place standing. Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, came in fourth.
Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, both considered top tier candidates earlier in the race, each received less than 5 percent of the vote. In recent weeks their popularity among Republican voters has shown extreme signs of decline.
Paul’s success continues to soar, although he has still not received the same media coverage favored for other Republican hopefuls. In an interview with Alex Jones’ Inforwars last month, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura offered his support for the candidate. “Ron Paul can win. It’s out there. All you got to do is activate and get the silent voters out to vote,” said Ventura. “You have to give them a reason to see their vote.”
In a widely-expected note on the financial crisis and economic justice, Vatican officials accidently call for the establishment of a One World Global “Authority” to regulate financial markets and national governments.
After gently noting that such a project is “a complex and delicate process,” the document begins to capitalize the word, “Authority” in the most unsettling, conspiracy-launching way possible:
Phi Beta Iota: With the exception of the call for an “Authority” and complete ignorance of the alternatives to a new hierarchy, the Vatican document does not read as badly as the above critique suggests. It ends with a call for “unity in truth.” It does not address secular corruption as it should have.
A veteran U.S. State Department foreign service officer lost his security clearance and diplomatic passport this week while the department investigates him over linking to a WikiLeaks document on his blog and publishing a book critical of the government.
Peter Van Buren, who is 51 and has worked for the department for 23 years, had his Top Secret security clearance suspended indefinitely for what the department calls his unwillingness to comply with rules and regulations regarding “writing and speaking on matters of official concern.” This is according to a memo the State Department sent Van Buren.
The move is purely vindictive, according to Van Buren.
Phi Beta Iota: The class action idea is interesting. Robert Steele is pursuing discovery to acquire all emails to and from Jim Clapper, Ron Burgess, and Tish Long about his varied efforts to secure employment within DoD, as well as discovery of all emails and documents surrounding his application for both the DISL jobs across DoD and the lesser DIA jobs [Steele kept book] that were manipulated to exclude Steele from consideration. There is no question but that DIA and DOHA are in violation while DNI (and before that USDI) were complicit, the only question is how much trouble it will be to document this, and how much can be demanded in damages above and beyond loss of $1 million in lost income–including a “by name” request for Steele to be Chief Instructor for Information Operations and Intelligence at COINSOC in Iraq a few years ago where a legal contract was received from Raytheon for $276K a year, and then withdrawn after DOHA told Raytheon no to a simple SECRET clearance without a Statement of Reasons or due process–the exchanges between Raytheon and DOHA will be the starting point for the lawsuit by Robert Steele against the US Government. It will take time, but the absence of integrity in this specific series will become a matter of legal record. If $10 million can be won–half for the legal team–that will be money earned by Steele for having persistent integrity. Integrity is now back in style–DNI, DOHA, and DIA are the last to know this–and of course the Department of State E Veritate Potens.
