The results of the last Italian election are baffling, if not incomprehensible, to most foreign observers: as one American friend put it, a majority of Italians voted either for a comedian (Beppe Grillo) or a clown (Silvio Berlusconi). A center-left coalition won a narrow plurality in the lower house of parliament with about 29.6 per cent of the vote, barely edging Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, with Grillo’s Five Star Movement, a loose collection of citizens organizing over the Internet, gaining an astonishing 25.6 per cent, more than any single party.In all likelihood, the three-sided split spells an ungovernable chaos. It would be a mistake, though, to see Italy as a crazy farce that is entirely different from America. Our two-party system has limited the success of more radical parties, but the Italian experience illuminates phenomena that are at work in the United States, too. Are we really sure that Congress is a saner institution than the Italian parliament?
Warfare seems endemic to mankind. Nations around the world are driven by conflict. But is the impetus to war decreasing? Håvard Hegre finds statistical grounds for hope.
In my view, perhaps the most evident shortcoming is that our predictions ignore the importance of political systems – the institutions that regulate how leaders are recruited and how they make decisions. We leave this out since we have no credible forecasts for changes to political systems over the next 40 years, but it is evident that many internal armed conflicts are fought over the nature of the political system, in particular in non-democratic middle-income countries.
Perception versus reality is truly frightening. Reality is much, much worse than perception. Average worker has to work for one month to earn what the average CEO earns in one hour.
Published on Nov 20, 2012
Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is.
The idea of patenting life forms, I think, is morally repugnant and, as this case illustrates, naturally leads to grotesque outcomes like trying to control the world's food supply. Think about it: this is a kind of mythic evil.
Because we have not had proper accountability for the financial crisis, the same ethical standards continue to obtain. One can see the result in the behavior of large banks in payday loans, as well as student loans. Both demonstrate that these banks have become essentially above-the-law criminal operations.
The cycles and processes of nature are always interconnected and interdependent, and this is an excellent example of what I mean. Poisons are killing honey bees, affecting wild bees, and climate change is breaking down the stasis of our food ecology. Unless this is reversed the results will be devastating.
The sense of persecution that is part of the DNA of Christianity begins here. I have to admit this story stunned me. Perhaps like you I had seen the early Christian period as a time of persecution and martyrdom. But I spent some time looking into this, and I think Professor Candida Moss! 9; work is solid, and is destined to be the accepted view. We need to reconsider this period through a very different prism.
Politics in Washington has become far worse than the traditional partisan to-and-fro inherent in any democracy. It now presents a danger to orderly day-to-day governance of the country. Politics is no longer the art of the possible; it is bad theater. We are lurching perilously close to becoming Italy, where citizens appear to have given up on being self-governing citizens and instead have cynically chosen reality TV. Criminally implicated tycoons and comedians vie for the presidency; these candidates appeal to many Italians because they provide a diversion from a government in perpetual crisis.
Bank failures: Towards an « Icelandation » of the banking crisis’ management
In the face of this shock, our team estimates that most countries, including the United States, will approach management of the crisis in an “Icelandic style”, i.e. not to bail out the banks and to let them collapse (16). We have already had a glimpse with the liquidation of the Irish bank IBRC which has given many people ideas: “How Ireland liquidated its banking albatross in one night” headlined La Tribune (17) admiringly. This possibility seems to increasingly be the solution in the event of the banks backsliding, for the following reasons: first, it seems much more effective than the 2008-2009 bailout plans judging by Iceland’s recovery; second, countries don’t really have the means to pay for new bailouts anymore; finally, one can’t deny that it must be a big temptation for leaders to get rid in a popular fashion of part of the debts and “toxic assets” which encumber their economy.
A German by birth, he was imprisoned in Nazi camps during World War II
At the camps he was waterboarded during torture sessions
Time for Outrage became an inspiration for Occupy Wall Street movement
Jill Reilly
MailOnline, 27 February 2013
Stephane Hessel
Stephane Hessel, the concentration camp survivor who inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement has died aged 95.
Mr Hessel who was a member of the French resistance passed away overnight in Paris according to his wife.
As a spy for the French Resistance, he survived the Nazi death camp at Buchenwald by assuming the identity of a French prisoner who was already dead.
As a diplomat, he helped write the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
And at age 93, after a distinguished but relatively anonymous life, he published a slim pamphlet that even he expected would be little more than a vanity project.
But Mr Hessel's 32-page Time for Outrage sold millions of copies across Europe, tapping into a vein of popular discontent with capitalism and transforming him into an intellectual superstar within weeks.
Translated into English, the pocket-sized book became a source of inspiration for the Occupy Wall Street movement.
In the book, Mr Hessel urges young people to take inspiration from the anti-Nazi resistance to which he once belonged and rally against what he saw as the newest evil: The love of money.
This controversial, impassioned call-to-arms for a return to the ideals that fueled the French Resistance has sold millions of copies worldwide since its publication in France in October 2010. Rejecting the dictatorship of world financial markets and defending the social values of modern democracy, 93-old Stéphane Hessel — Resistance leader, concentration camp survivor, and former UN speechwriter — reminds us that life and liberty must still be fought for, and urges us to reclaim those essential rights we have permitted our governments to erode since the end of World War II.
“This slim but powerful volume answered the public's need for a voice to articulate popular resentment of ruling-class ruthlessness, police brutality, stark income disparities, banking and political corruption, and victimization of the poor and immigrants.” (The Nation )
“INDIGNEZ-VOUS! is creating the sort of stir in France Emile Zola did in 1898, when he published J'Accuse!” (The National Post )
“Like a song you hum or a film you recommend to friends, INDIGNEZ-VOUS! crystallises the spirit of the time. To buy it is a militant act, a gesture towards community and participation in a collective emotion.” (Liberation )
‘The book urges the French, and everyone else, to recapture the wartime spirit of resistance to the Nazis by rejecting the “insolent, selfish” power of money and markets and by defending the social “values of modern democracy”. (The Independent )
Also See:
Indignez Vous!/Time for Outrage! translations (FREE) – Version 1 | Version 2 (pdf)
