Truth! FTW!

[SquidInk]

"I know that the stupidity and greed of Irish politicians has a lot to do with this: they should never, ever have joined the euro. They suffered with low interest rates, a false boom and a massive bust. But look at your response to them: what they are being told as their government is collapsing is that it would be inappropriate for them to have a general election. In fact commissioner Rehn here said they had to agree to a budget first before they are allowed to have a general election. Just who the hell do you think you people are. You are very, very dangerous people indeed: your obsession with creating this European state means that you are happy to destroy democracy, you appear to be happy with millions and millions of people to be unemployed and to be poor. Untold millions will suffer so that your euro dream can continue. Well it won�t work...
...

But it's even more serious than economics, because if you rob people of their identity, if you rob them of their democracy, then all they are left with is nationalism and violence. I can only hope and pray that the euro project is destroyed by the markets before that really happens." - source

Blinking brilliant, Nigel!

Nigel sounds like the American populists think they sound. Only Nigel is not an unwitting finger puppet for the corporate class, so he actually speaks more truth in a few minutes than all of the world's bankers, commissioners, and politicians have spoken in decades.

The Euro-skeptics? Awesome. Where is the equivalent American movement?

edit: fixed youtube embed - Dale

[SquidInk]

The more I read about Mr. Farage, the more I like him. A plane wreck? Well... that's a benchmark of sorts these days.

Mr Farage, was pulled semi-conscious from the wreckage with blood running down his swollen face after the light aircraft crashed upside down at Hinton-in-the-Hedges airfield, near Brackley, Northants.

Amazingly the politician, who is contesting Speaker John Bercow’s seat in Buckingham, walked away from the crash with only minor head injuries.

The aircraft was pulling a purple and yellow Ukip banner which allegedly got caught up in the tail fin of the aircraft when it took off just after 8am. The banner carried the slogan "Vote for your country - Vote Ukip". - source

It seems as if Ukip is a kind of UK Tea Party - only, they have a coherent message, and a charismatic speaker.

[Linnea]

That was awesome! Seems we would do well to pay attention to what is happening in Europe these days.

Similarities in the US? All I can think of is Elizabeth Warren - organizing the Consumer Protection Agency? In conjunction with this - there is the looming specter of 'foreclosuregate' - and the pending revelation the banksters and financiers have totally destroyed the economy.

Matt Taibi - Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/ne ... how_page=0

Where we'll go from there is anyone' guess.

Riots?

[SquidInk]

Wow. Taibi.

Riots? Maybe.
But something tells me the Americans will sleep right through their cues.

The "masses" might have rioted long ago if they had realized the degree to which they have been had - and they have been had to an unimaginable degree. The wealth of ten generations - honestly earned, carefully saved, dutifully invested - is gone. And all in the name of profit for a handful of "businessmen".



The thing to remember (imho) is this: corporate criminals use economic bubbles, like the housing bubble, as cover for massive looting operations. The general idea being that a "prosperous" middle class will never riot.

Now we have the greatest heists in human history obscured by inconceivable ponzi scheme bubbles (whose "value" exceeds total planetary GDP), and we have seen consolidation of everything into the hands of a few.

Welcome to capitalism's end game. The business model calls for constant expansion. As the voices of dissent are silenced, the exploitation of all resources (including labor) will certainly be kicked up a notch or ten.

Drill baby drill.

Riots? I dunno. I think we need to imagine something brand new - a new motive, a new method, a new model. Let them have their "economies".

edit: fixed youtube embed - Dale

[Linnea]

Did you follow the link in the above article to an excerpt to Taibbi's recently published book...

Griftopia

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/222206

Exclusive Excerpt: America on Sale, From Matt Taibbi's 'Griftopia'

Our cash-strapped country is auctioning off its highways, ports and even parking meters, finding eager buyers in the Middle East.

This has been going on for a while now.

You say there may be a way to survive without/despite these 'economies'?

[HB3]

Just watched this. Wow!

[SquidInk]

Just watched this. Wow!

What kind of "wow"?

"Wow", this guy is ridiculous?
"Wow", this exposes the systemic double standard you've been exposing for years? (:D)

A different kind of "wow"?

[HB3]

The good kind.

[Linnea]

...from rkmoore email list 11/04/10

Once upon a time there was a difference between the two parties, with the Democrats representing workers, and the Republicans representing big business. In those long-gone days, campaigns really meant something, and votes were counted by hand. Today both parties represent Wall Street (despite retaining their old rhetoric), campaigns are coordinated deceptions, and we have no idea whether or not the voting machine outputs have anything to do with how we voted.

Perhaps the Tea Party wasn't as effective as it seemed. But the hyped media coverage of the Tea Party leads us to believe that the Republican victories were 'real', even if they were actually a voting-machine fabrication. We'll never know for sure. Real or not, the 'victories' have already been used as an excuse by Obama to move further into Bush territory, under the guise of 'reasonable compromise'.

It's interesting that Bush never saw any need to compromise, and yet the Democrat-controlled Congress endorsed all of his actions. Strange, isn't it, how the 'realities of politics' change depending on which party is in power.

If we look objectively at government policies over time, we see an ongoing Wall Street agenda, with complete continuity regardless of which party seems to be in power. Meanwhile we are stuck in identification with our two We-group-parties, each fearing the other, and blaming the other for the agenda.

rkm

[SquidInk]

The good kind.

Cool, we all agree.

If we look objectively at government policies over time, we see an ongoing Wall Street agenda, with complete continuity regardless of which party seems to be in power. Meanwhile we are stuck in identification with our two We-group-parties, each fearing the other, and blaming the other for the agenda.

Yeah, Linnea, I think RKM says it well. Interesting though, that a country like France, which has 15 political parties (I think) currently representing the people can be "played" the same way. That gives me little faith in an emergent "third party solution" here. It also proves, quite ominously, the scalability of the effect and mentality Farage spoke out against.

I would still like to understand more about Ukip, in the the greater context of UK politics. Guess I need to dust off my google goggles and find out.

[Linnea]

I think we may have to experience a complete economic bust - we are already there, but have not yet experienced the full consequences - before we will despair, retreat - and begin anew, in some fashion. Back to the caves? But with new technology and information systems?

[SquidInk]

You say there may be a way to survive without/despite these 'economies'?

We have an opportunity. Let them have their economies - the ones they have corrupted, and rigged. We can have a new arrangement - of our own design, and we won't invite them. I'm reminded of something I read recently:

The Men Who Stole the World
By Lev Grossman

A decade ago, four young men changed the way the world works. They did this not with laws or guns or money but with software: they had radical, disruptive ideas, which they turned into code, which they released on the Internet for free. These four men, not one of whom finished college, laid the foundations for much of the digital-media environment we currently inhabit. Then, for all intents and purposes, they vanished.
...

What's striking about the pirate kings is that they've been much less successful in the straight world than they were as pirates. An anarchic worldview coupled with brilliant code doesn't travel as well as you'd think in the bean-counting world of legitimate commerce. Good code empowers users by giving them choices and options, but empowered users aren't necessarily good for business. What you need to hit it really big in legitimate commerce is an authoritarian sensibility that limits users to doing what you want them to. - source

These ideas aren't limited to "code", they can be applied universally. The open source movements are showing us how to do it. They are showing us the benefits and the challenges. And most importantly open source philosophy is showing us, by evoking a radical response from the Establishment, that it has real potential.

Ask yourself: would a class 1 civilization be more likely to embrace a social system in which information is open, free (as in liberty), and widely distributed - or a system in which "an authoritarian sensibility limits users to doing what you want them to".

This drive to limit users to a certain highly efficient usage pattern is behind much of what we see as psychotic corporate behavior. The guys in the Time article were just kids - and they instinctively new a better way. That gives me a little hope - a little, a very little.

Related:

showthread.php?threadid=43508

showthread.php?threadid=43507

[SquidInk]

Here's a good example of what's possible, imho:

The domain seizures by the United States authorities in recent days and upcoming legislation that could make similar takeovers even easier in the future, have inspired a group of enthusiasts to come up with a new, decentralized and BitTorrent-powered DNS system. This system will exchange DNS information through peer-to-peer transfers and will work with a new .p2p domain extension.

In a direct response to the domain seizures by US authorities during the last few days, a group of established enthusiasts have started working on a DNS system that can’t be touched by any governmental institution.
...

To limit the power governments have over domain names, a group of enthusiasts has started working on a revolutionary system that can not be influenced by a government institution, or taken down by pulling the plug on a central server. Instead, it is distributed by the people, with help from a BitTorrent-based application that people install on their computer.

According to the project’s website, the goal is to “create an application that runs as a service and hooks into the hosts DNS system to catch all requests to the .p2p TLD while passing all other request cleanly through. Requests for the .p2p TLD will be redirected to a locally hosted DNS database.” - source

I seem to remember this metioned before as part of a solution...

Could we stay 'alive' on P2P networking? - source

Ha! Linnea FTW - but I'm catching up. This is still a little to abstract for me. I need a picture. I would love to be technical enough to host a server or something.

[SquidInk]

I might vote for Mr. Farage (if it were possible).

More about UKIP:



For some reason this sounds entirely different to me than the American conservative/libertarian message. It sounds more... what's the word... reasonable.

Edit-updated old youtube embed tags to [yt]. -Dale

[Riddick]

What, me re-embed?

If you're wondering why this post even exists, would you believe an embedding issue in this thread was subsequently fixed in much better fashion...

Nobody does it better than Dale!