Wednesday, 14 December 2011
Monday, 5 December 2011
Wednesday, 2 November 2011
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Monday, 17 October 2011
#OccupyLSX initial statement.
Occupy London
Posted on
Posted on
At today’s assembly of over 500 people on the steps of St Paul’s, #occupylsx collectively agreed the initial statement below. Please note, like all forms of direct democracy, the statement will always be a work in progress.
1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.
3 We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.
4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.
5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.
6 We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9thNovember, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.
7 We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.
8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.
9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!
Monday, 12 September 2011
George Monbiot: Secretive thinktanks are crushing our democracy
From The Guardian 12th Sep 2011:
Free-market thinktanks may hide their funders' identities, but they reveal influence-peddling is rife in British politics.
Free-market thinktanks may hide their funders' identities, but they reveal influence-peddling is rife in British politics.
Nadine Dorries won't answer it. Lord Lawson won't answer it. Michael Gove won't answer it. But it's a simple question, and if they don't know it's because they don't want to. Where does the money come from? All are connected to groups whose purpose is to change the direction of public life. None will reveal who funds them.
When she attempted to restrict abortion counselling, Nadine Dorries MP was supported by a group called Right to Know. When other MPs asked her who funds it, she claimed she didn't know. Lord Lawson is chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which casts doubt on climate science. It demands "openness and transparency" from scientists. Yet herefuses to say who pays, on the grounds that the donors "do not wish to be publicly engaged in controversy". Michael Gove was chairman of Policy Exchange, an influential conservative thinktank. When I asked who funded Policy Exchange when he ran it, his office told me "he doesn't have that information and he won't be able to help you".
We know that to understand politics and the peddling of influence we must follow the money. So it's remarkable that the question of who funds the thinktanks has so seldom been asked.
There are dozens of groups in the UK which call themselves free-market or conservative thinktanks, but they have a remarkably consistent agenda. They tend to oppose the laws which protect us from banks and corporations; to demand the privatisation of state assets; to argue that the rich should pay less tax; and to pour scorn on global warming. What the thinktanks call free-market economics looks more like a programme for corporate power.
Some of them have a turnover of several million pounds a year, but in most cases that's about all we know. In the US, groups claiming to be free-market thinktanks have been exposed as sophisticated corporate lobbying outfits, acting in concert to promote the views of the people who fund them. In previous columns, I've shown how such groups, funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, built and directed the Tea Party movement.
The Kochs and the oil company Exxon have also funded a swarm of thinktanks which, by coincidence, all spontaneously decided that manmade climate change is a myth. A study in the journal Environmental Politics found that such groups, funded by economic elites and working through the media, have been "central to the reversal of US support for environmental protection, both domestically and internationally".
Jeff Judson, who has worked for 26 years as a corporate lobbyist in the US, has explained why thinktanks are more effective than other publicrelations agencies. They are, he says, "the source of many of the ideas and facts that appear in countless editorials, news articles, and syndicated columns". They have "considerable influence and close personal relationships with elected officials". They "support and encourage one another, echo and amplify their messages, and can pull together … coalitions on the most important public policy issues." Crucially, they are "virtually immune to retribution … the identity of donors to thinktanks is protected from involuntary disclosure."
The harder you stare at them, the more they look like lobby groupsworking for big business without disclosing their interests. Yet the media treats them as independent sources of expertise. The BBC is particularly culpable. Even when the corporate funding of its contributors has been exposed, it still allows them to masquerade as unbiased commentators.
For the sake of democracy, we should know who funds the organisations that call themselves thinktanks. To this end I contacted 15 groups. Eleven of them could be described as free-market or conservative; four as progressive. I asked them all a simple question: "Could you give me the names of your major donors and the amount they contributed in the last financial year?" I gave their answers a score out of five for transparency and accountability.
Three of the groups I contacted – Right to Know, the International Policy Network, and Nurses for Reform – did not answer my calls or emails. Six others refused to give me any useful information. They are the Institute of Economic Affairs, Policy Exchange, the Adam Smith Institute, theTaxPayers' Alliance, the Global Warming Policy Foundation and theChristian Medical Fellowship. They produced similar excuses, mostly concerning the need to protect the privacy of their donors. My view is that if you pay for influence, you should be accountable for it. Nul points.
Civitas scored 1. Its website names a small number of the donors to its schools, but it would not reveal the amount they had given or the identity of anyone else. The only rightwing thinktank that did well was Reform, which sent me a list of its biggest corporate donors: Lloyds (£50k), Novo Nordisk (£48k), Sky (£42k), General Electric (£41k) and Danone (£40k). Reform lists its other corporate sponsors in its annual review, and earns 4 points. If they can do it, why can't the others?
The progressives were more accountable. Among them, Demos did least well. It sent me a list of its sponsors, but refused to reveal how much they gave. It scores 2.5. The Institute for Public Policy Research listed its donors and, after some stumbling, was able to identify the biggest of them: the European Union (a grant of €800,000) and the Esme Fairburn Foundation (£86k). It scores 3.5. The New Economics Foundation sent me a list of all its donors and the amount each gave over the past year, earning 4 points. The biggest funders are the Network for Social Change (£173k), the Department of Health (£124k) and the Aim Foundation (£100k). Compass had already published a full list in its annual report. The biggest source is the Communication Workers' Union, which gave it £78k in 2009. Compass gets 5 out of 5.
The picture we see, with the striking exception of Reform, is of secrecy among the rightwing groups, creating a powerful impression that they have something to hide. Shockingly, this absence of accountability – and the influence-peddling it doubtless obscures – does not affect their charitable status.
The funding of these groups should not be a matter of voluntary disclosure. As someone remarked in February 2010, "secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics … it's time we shone the light of transparency on lobbying in our country and forced our politics to come clean about who is buying power and influence." Who was this leftwing firebrand? One David Cameron.
I charge that the groups which call themselves free-market thinktanks are nothing of the kind. They are public relations agencies, secretly lobbying for the corporations and multimillionaires who finance them. If they wish to refute this claim, they should disclose their funding. Until then, whenever you hear the term free-market thinktank, think of a tank, crushing democracy, driven by big business.
• A fully referenced version of this article can be found on George Monbiot's website
Thursday, 8 September 2011
Monday, 29 August 2011
Friday, 26 August 2011
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Richard Murphy: How is it tax evasion’s no longer a crime but demonstrating about tax avoidance is?
How is it tax evasion’s no longer a crime but demonstrating about tax avoidance is?
There’s a sickening dimension to today’s agreement between the UK and Switzerland that is getting to let thousands of wealthy tax criminals off the hook – without them ever being held to account or even having to admit to their crimes.
At the moment the UK government is turning this deliberate blind eye to massive, large scale, organised looting of the UK’s tax system it is also bringing criminal charges against more than thirty young people who recently took part in a in a wholly peaceful UK Uncut demonstration against tax avoidance.
They are facing criminal charges in the UK for having leaflets condemning tax avoiders when at exactly the same time the government was negotiating a deal to make sure that tax criminals were let off without ever facing the consequences of their crime.
This is a sickening indictment of the UK criminal justice system, our respect for free speech, the values of this government and the fact that we live in a society where it is now a crime to criticise the criminality that did and does pervade much of the financial services sector that deliberately promotes tax havens to facilitate crime of the sort which those using Switzerland have just been excused of.
No wonder people are angry.
They have every right to be.
We are being led by moral cowards who excuse crime whilst prosecuting those who exercise the supposed human right of free speech to criticise those facilitating it.
It’s Cameroon and Osborne who should be in the dock, not the Fortnum and Mason’s protesters from UK Uncut.
Richard Murphy.
From http://ht.ly/6bNfW.
There’s a sickening dimension to today’s agreement between the UK and Switzerland that is getting to let thousands of wealthy tax criminals off the hook – without them ever being held to account or even having to admit to their crimes.
At the moment the UK government is turning this deliberate blind eye to massive, large scale, organised looting of the UK’s tax system it is also bringing criminal charges against more than thirty young people who recently took part in a in a wholly peaceful UK Uncut demonstration against tax avoidance.
They are facing criminal charges in the UK for having leaflets condemning tax avoiders when at exactly the same time the government was negotiating a deal to make sure that tax criminals were let off without ever facing the consequences of their crime.
This is a sickening indictment of the UK criminal justice system, our respect for free speech, the values of this government and the fact that we live in a society where it is now a crime to criticise the criminality that did and does pervade much of the financial services sector that deliberately promotes tax havens to facilitate crime of the sort which those using Switzerland have just been excused of.
No wonder people are angry.
They have every right to be.
We are being led by moral cowards who excuse crime whilst prosecuting those who exercise the supposed human right of free speech to criticise those facilitating it.
It’s Cameroon and Osborne who should be in the dock, not the Fortnum and Mason’s protesters from UK Uncut.
Richard Murphy.
From http://ht.ly/6bNfW.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
The zombie of neoliberalism can be beaten – through mass direct action.
Phone hacking and police corruption represent neoliberalism's undead status, even as it marches on. Yet change is possible.
David Harvie and Keir Milburn
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011 19.30 BST
Just days after the deal that was supposed to banish it, the eurozone crisis is back. Poor growth figures put a "new" financial collapse back on the cards. The response from politicians, bankers and business leaders is more of the same – more of the same neoliberal policies that got us into this situation in the first place.
Neoliberalism no longer "makes sense", but its logic keeps stumbling on, without conscious direction, like a zombie: ugly, persistent and dangerous. Such is the "unlife" of a zombie, a body stripped of its goals, unable to adjust itself to the future, unable to make plans. It can only act habitually as it pursues a monomaniacal hunger. Unless there is a dramatic recomposition of society, we face the prospect of decades of drift as the crises we face – economic, social, environmental – remain unresolved. But where will that recomposition come from when we are living in the world of zombie-liberalism?
In the midst of such hopelessness the phone-hacking scandal seemed to offer a moment of redemption, but as the news cycle moves on we are left wondering what effect it will really have.
Hackgate cannot be treated in isolation. Since the financial "meltdown" of 2007-08 we have witnessed similar scenes, and similar outrage, around MPs' expenses and bankers' bonuses. We have witnessed not one but two media feeding frenzies around the repression of protest. The first followed the police attack on the G20 protests in 2009 and the death of Ian Tomlinson, with the second erupting around the outing of undercover police officer Mark Kennedy, leading to the unprecedented unmasking of another five undercover police officers acting within the environmental and anti-capitalist movements. The refusal of the Metropolitan police to investigate the full extent of phone hacking is, then, the third scandal revealing the political character of contemporary policing.
The phone-hacking scandal, and particularly the web of complicity revealed in its cover-up, is undoubtedly more significant than some of these other scandals, but positioning it among them allows us to raise a question that has rarely been asked: why now?
The answer is inescapable: we are living through something epochal. These scandals are part of a more general social and economic crisis sparked by the financial crisis. What's less clear is the exact nature of the relationship between crisis and scandals, and therefore the scandals' political significance.
Hackgate reveals the mechanisms of a network of corruption whose broad outlines were already understood. What we see, however, is not a distortion of an otherwise functional system but one element of a system that can only operate through such corrupt mechanisms. What we are seeing, through its moment of decomposition, are the parochial arrangements through which neoliberalism was established in the UK.
Neoliberal governance has common traits across the planet. But its instantiation in each country has been shaped by the peculiarities of that country's history. In each, a different (re)arrangement emerged between sections of the ruling class that would enable the imposition of neoliberal policies on populations that, on the whole, didn't want them.
Rupert Murdoch, and the tabloid culture he helped to establish, was central to this process in the UK, not least with the defeat of the print unions at Wapping. Other elements of that compact include a Thatcherite Conservative party and a neoliberalised Labour party, a highly politicised police force and, especially after 1986's big bang deregulation of the stock market, the dominance of finance capital. It is no coincidence each of these elements has been racked with scandal in the past few years.
Neoliberalism, however, requires more than the internal realignment of a national ruling class. Every semi-stable form of capitalism also needs some sort of settlement with the wider population, or at least a decisive section of it. While the postwar Keynesian settlement contained an explicit deal linking rising real wages to rising productivity, neoliberalism contained an implicit deal based on access to cheap credit. While real wages have stagnated since the late 1970s, the mechanisms of debt have maintained most people's living standards. An additional part of neoliberalism's tacit deal was the abandonment of any pretence to democratic, collective control over the conditions of life: politics has been reduced to technocratic rule. Instead, individuals accepted the promise that, through hard work, shrewd educational and other "life" choices, and a little luck, they – or their children – would reap the benefits of economic growth.
The financial crisis shattered the central component of this deal: access to cheap credit. Living standards can no longer be supported and, for the first time in a century, there is widespread fear that children will lead poorer lives than their parents. With the deal broken, parochial ruling arrangements in the UK have started to lose coherence.
The scandals, therefore, are symptoms not of renewal but rather of neoliberalism's zombie status. The scandals represent the zombie's body decomposing even as it continues its habitual operation. The phone-hacking scandal is not, then, as some have claimed, a British spring, the UK equivalent of the revolutions in the Maghreb or the indignants' movements in Spain and Greece. Unlike these other moments, the role of the "public" in Hackgate has largely been a passive one. But it would also be mistaken to claim this scandal alters nothing. Such a world-weary, sceptical position only reinforces the neoliberal "end of history" doctrine that change is impossible.
The scandals have revealed that which was hidden, yet such revelation is not enough to save us. What we lack is the belief ordinary people can act collectively to get some traction on the world. The only way out of the present impasse is to spark mass political action such as that glimpsed in Greece, Spain and the Maghreb, as well as the student movement in the UK. Any prospect of this reaching the level of social force needed to finish off neoliberalism is predicated on the hope that the embrace of tabloid and celebrity culture is a symptom of the powerless position neoliberalism places us in, and not its cause.
The collapse of neoliberal ideology and the revelation of the corrupt nature of contemporary policing and politics must be taken into account as we craft the political forms that can spark social movements. Left on its own, the indignation caused by Hackgate is just as likely to collapse back into the sense of impotence that pervades our situation.
David Harvie and Keir Milburn
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 August 2011 19.30 BST
Just days after the deal that was supposed to banish it, the eurozone crisis is back. Poor growth figures put a "new" financial collapse back on the cards. The response from politicians, bankers and business leaders is more of the same – more of the same neoliberal policies that got us into this situation in the first place.
Neoliberalism no longer "makes sense", but its logic keeps stumbling on, without conscious direction, like a zombie: ugly, persistent and dangerous. Such is the "unlife" of a zombie, a body stripped of its goals, unable to adjust itself to the future, unable to make plans. It can only act habitually as it pursues a monomaniacal hunger. Unless there is a dramatic recomposition of society, we face the prospect of decades of drift as the crises we face – economic, social, environmental – remain unresolved. But where will that recomposition come from when we are living in the world of zombie-liberalism?
In the midst of such hopelessness the phone-hacking scandal seemed to offer a moment of redemption, but as the news cycle moves on we are left wondering what effect it will really have.
Hackgate cannot be treated in isolation. Since the financial "meltdown" of 2007-08 we have witnessed similar scenes, and similar outrage, around MPs' expenses and bankers' bonuses. We have witnessed not one but two media feeding frenzies around the repression of protest. The first followed the police attack on the G20 protests in 2009 and the death of Ian Tomlinson, with the second erupting around the outing of undercover police officer Mark Kennedy, leading to the unprecedented unmasking of another five undercover police officers acting within the environmental and anti-capitalist movements. The refusal of the Metropolitan police to investigate the full extent of phone hacking is, then, the third scandal revealing the political character of contemporary policing.
The phone-hacking scandal, and particularly the web of complicity revealed in its cover-up, is undoubtedly more significant than some of these other scandals, but positioning it among them allows us to raise a question that has rarely been asked: why now?
The answer is inescapable: we are living through something epochal. These scandals are part of a more general social and economic crisis sparked by the financial crisis. What's less clear is the exact nature of the relationship between crisis and scandals, and therefore the scandals' political significance.
Hackgate reveals the mechanisms of a network of corruption whose broad outlines were already understood. What we see, however, is not a distortion of an otherwise functional system but one element of a system that can only operate through such corrupt mechanisms. What we are seeing, through its moment of decomposition, are the parochial arrangements through which neoliberalism was established in the UK.
Neoliberal governance has common traits across the planet. But its instantiation in each country has been shaped by the peculiarities of that country's history. In each, a different (re)arrangement emerged between sections of the ruling class that would enable the imposition of neoliberal policies on populations that, on the whole, didn't want them.
Rupert Murdoch, and the tabloid culture he helped to establish, was central to this process in the UK, not least with the defeat of the print unions at Wapping. Other elements of that compact include a Thatcherite Conservative party and a neoliberalised Labour party, a highly politicised police force and, especially after 1986's big bang deregulation of the stock market, the dominance of finance capital. It is no coincidence each of these elements has been racked with scandal in the past few years.
Neoliberalism, however, requires more than the internal realignment of a national ruling class. Every semi-stable form of capitalism also needs some sort of settlement with the wider population, or at least a decisive section of it. While the postwar Keynesian settlement contained an explicit deal linking rising real wages to rising productivity, neoliberalism contained an implicit deal based on access to cheap credit. While real wages have stagnated since the late 1970s, the mechanisms of debt have maintained most people's living standards. An additional part of neoliberalism's tacit deal was the abandonment of any pretence to democratic, collective control over the conditions of life: politics has been reduced to technocratic rule. Instead, individuals accepted the promise that, through hard work, shrewd educational and other "life" choices, and a little luck, they – or their children – would reap the benefits of economic growth.
The financial crisis shattered the central component of this deal: access to cheap credit. Living standards can no longer be supported and, for the first time in a century, there is widespread fear that children will lead poorer lives than their parents. With the deal broken, parochial ruling arrangements in the UK have started to lose coherence.
The scandals, therefore, are symptoms not of renewal but rather of neoliberalism's zombie status. The scandals represent the zombie's body decomposing even as it continues its habitual operation. The phone-hacking scandal is not, then, as some have claimed, a British spring, the UK equivalent of the revolutions in the Maghreb or the indignants' movements in Spain and Greece. Unlike these other moments, the role of the "public" in Hackgate has largely been a passive one. But it would also be mistaken to claim this scandal alters nothing. Such a world-weary, sceptical position only reinforces the neoliberal "end of history" doctrine that change is impossible.
The scandals have revealed that which was hidden, yet such revelation is not enough to save us. What we lack is the belief ordinary people can act collectively to get some traction on the world. The only way out of the present impasse is to spark mass political action such as that glimpsed in Greece, Spain and the Maghreb, as well as the student movement in the UK. Any prospect of this reaching the level of social force needed to finish off neoliberalism is predicated on the hope that the embrace of tabloid and celebrity culture is a symptom of the powerless position neoliberalism places us in, and not its cause.
The collapse of neoliberal ideology and the revelation of the corrupt nature of contemporary policing and politics must be taken into account as we craft the political forms that can spark social movements. Left on its own, the indignation caused by Hackgate is just as likely to collapse back into the sense of impotence that pervades our situation.
Friday, 12 August 2011
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Friday, 24 June 2011
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
Tom Hodgkinson: 'Give me suffering over self-esteem'.
One of the most popular lessons at the Idler Academy is ancient Greek philosophy. The author and former priest Dr Mark Vernon, who I met at Alain de Botton's Platonic school in Bloomsbury, gives the classes, and I assist.
The life of the city of Athens was a remarkable period in culture: the two or three centuries around the life and death of Socrates (469-399BC) gave us Socrates himself, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, the Sceptics, the Cynics and the Eclectics, all of whose approaches to life persist today.
The most outstanding of these philosophers was Aristotle, who lived from 384BC to 322BC. He was a pupil of Plato, who himself was a pupil of Socrates. He taught Alexander the Great for a short period, and later founded the Lyceum, a school in Athens. It is worth remembering too that the Greek word "scholia", which turned into our word for school, meant leisure, but a dynamic leisure used for self-education and the development of self-knowledge.
Aristotle was concerned with how to live well, and he used the word "eudaimonia" to describe the goal of life. This is usually translated as "happiness", but it actually has a more subtle meaning, and Dr Vernon says it should be translated as something like "flourishing" or "fulfilment". Aristotle rejects the Epicurean position which says that life should be about pleasure and the avoidance of stress. Instead, the fulfilled person should take responsibility for their own actions and contribute to society.
Misfortune and disaster, he says, are an inevitable part of life. Indeed, they are absolutely necessary, as scholar Anders Piltz puts it, "if a human being [is] to become truly human – persevering, unselfish, sympathetic, and humble – and as valuable opportunities to practise the habit of moral virtue".
I've thought about this last point a great deal and I see it as not only comforting but very sensible. Suffering is, in fact, central to life and cannot be removed. The "happiness" industry, with its bland panaceas both literary and chemical, does not get this. Without suffering, we would become deeply unpleasant people. And that is perhaps the mistake of the progressive schooling system: by concentrating on "'happiness" and "self-esteem", which I see as synonyms for "smugness" and "pride", it runs the risk of producing young people with lots of attitude but little humility.
Aristotle taught that "vita contemplativa, the contemplative life, was the best. Not for him money-getting in the market, or chasing fame in political life, or seeking pleasure. It was contemplation and the use of the mind that was important, as Piltz puts it: "It is not pleasure but intellectual speculation which is most in harmony with human nature, which more than anything else make a human being human." Aristotle was hugely influential on the intellectual life of the Middle Ages, which gave birth to the university, free schooling and the cathedrals.
What I think is particularly criminal, though, is that this elementary stuff is not taught in schools, and that includes the posh schools. Take my own education. My aspiring parents, funded by two Fleet Street salaries in the glory days before Wapping, sent my brother and me to private schools. I went to Westminster and then studied English at Cambridge. It was, pretty much, the best education that money could buy. But did I study a whit of Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans? Did I emerge from this powerhouse with even a passing knowledge of Plato's Republic? No, I did not. That sort of material had become a minor specialism, and was only taught to Classics students.
Now this is particularly ridiculous when you consider that the poets I studied, from Chaucer to Pope and Keats to Yeats, would have all been well schooled in the greats. Shelley did his own translation of Plato's "Symposium" from the Greek. In fact, I sold a copy in our shop the other day. It's a real hoot.
And the thing is, this is not difficult stuff. I spent many painful hours in the university library with The Order of Things by Michel Foucault and Of Grammatology by Jacques Derrida, as these philosophers were fashionable then. I recently ploughed through Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre. It is admittedly a great book, but does it really add much to Aristotle in its insistence on personal responsibility? Well, I now believe that the fashionable philosophers should be read in your spare time, and that the job of school and university should be to give students a proper grounding and foundation in the basics, upon which the airy stuff can be placed later. My education was all icing and no cake. But Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and the rest can be read with great ease by anybody, and they are just as relevant today as they were 2,300 years ago.
The Independent On Sunday, London 12/06/11
Monday, 13 June 2011
Monday, 23 May 2011
Friday, 20 May 2011
Friday, 29 April 2011
Friday, 1 April 2011
Monday, 28 March 2011
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Friday, 25 March 2011
Saturday, 19 March 2011
The Wayseer Manifesto lyrics
ATTENTION: All you rule-breakers, you misfits and troublemakers - all you free spirits and pioneers - all you visionaries and non-conformists ...
Everything that the establishment has told you is wrong with you- is actually what's right with you.
You see things others don’t. You are hardwired to change the world. Unlike 9 out of 10 people - your mind is irrepressable - and this threatens authority. You were born to be a revolutionary.
You can’t stand rules because in your heart you know there’s a better way.
You have strengths dangerous to the establishment - and it wants them eliminated, So your whole life you’ve been told your strengths were weaknesses - Now I’m telling you otherwise.
Your impulsivity is a gift - impulses are your key to the miraculous,
Your distractibility - is an artifact of your inspired creativity,
Your mood swings - reflect the natural pulse of life, they give you unstoppable energy when you’re high and deep soulful insight when you’re low,
Been diagnosed with a "disorder”? That’s society’s latest way to deny it’s own illness by pointing the finger at you. Your addictive personality is just a symptom of your vast underused capacity for heroic, creative expression and spiritual connection. your utter lack of repression, your wide eyed idealism, your unmitigated open mind - didn’t anyone ever tell you?! these are the traits shared by the greatest pioneers and visionaries and innovators, revolutionaries, procrastinators and drama queens, activists on the social scene, space cadets and mavericks, philosophers and derelicts, business suits flying fighter jets, football stars and sex addicts, celebrities with ADD, alcoholics who seek novelty, first responders - prophets and saints, mystics and change agents.
You know in your heart that there's a natural order to life, something more sovereign than any man-made rules or laws could ever express.
This natural order is called "the Way."
The Way is the eternal substrate of the cosmos. It guides the very current of time and space. The Way is known by some as the Will of God, Divine Providence, the Holy Spirit, the implicate order, the Tao, reverse-entropy, life-force, but for now we’ll simply call it "the Way." The Way is reflected in you as the source of your inspiration, the source of your passions, your wisdom, your enthusiasm, your intuition, your spiritual fire - love. The Way takes the chaos out of the Universe and breathes life into it by reflecting divine order. The Way, when experienced by the mind, is genius, when perceived through the eyes is beauty, when felt with the senses is grace, when allowed into the heart ... is love.
Most people cannot sense the Way directly. ... But then there are the Wayseers. The keepers of the flame. Wayseers have an unexplainable knack for just knowing the Way. They sense it in their very being. They can’t tell you why or how they arrived at the right answer. They just know it in their core. They can’t show their work. So don’t ask. Their minds simply resonate with the Way. When the Way is present, so are they.
While others are blind to it, and society begs you to ignore it, “the Way” stirs you inside. Neurological repression blocks most people’s awareness of the Way - censoring all thoughts and impulses from the unconscious is their prefrontal cortex - the gestapo of the brain - nothing which violates its socialized programming even gets through; but your mind is different. your mind has been cracked wide open to the Way - by some miraculous genetic trait, some psychotropic chemical or maybe even by the will of your very soul, your brain’s reward pathways have been hijacked - dopamine employed to overthrow the fascist dictatorship of your prefrontal cortex - now your brain is free of repression, your mind free of censorship, your awareness exposed to the turbulent seas of the unconscious - through this open doorway divine light shines into your consciousness showing you the Way. This is what makes you a Wayseer.
90% of human civilization is populated with those who’s brains are blocked to the Way. Their brains are hardwired to enforce the social programming indoctrinated since birth. Unlike you they cannot break out of this programming, because they have not yet experienced the necessary revolution of mind. These programmed people take social institutions and rules very seriously. Society is full of games programmed to keep peoples’ minds occupied so they will not revolt. These games often cause sick fixations on peculiar protocols, power structures, taboos and domination - all subtle forms of human bondage - This distinct form of madness is not only tolerated by the masses but insisted upon. The programmed ones believe in rules so forcefully they become willing to destroy anyone who violates them.
Wayseers are the ones who call their bluff. Since Wayseer minds are free to reject social programming, Wayseers readily see social institutions for what they are - imaginary games. Wayseers comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Helping those who are lost in these games and refuse to help themselves is a calling of many Wayseers. Since Wayseers are the ones who keep contact with the original source of reality - they are able to disrupt societal conventions and even governments to realign humanity with the Way.
The Wayseers are an ancient lineage. A kind of priesthood - carriers of the flame - ones "in the know." There must always be Wayseers to reform the dizzying psychotic spinning gears of society - giant mindless hamster wheels obscuring the pure blue sky, keeping humanity shackled in a darkened cage - so Wayseers are called - to shed light on the madness of society - to continually resurrect the timeless transcendent Spirit of Truth -
Wayseers reveal this divine truth by devoting themselves to the birth of some creative or disruptive act expressed through art or philosophy, innovations to shake up industry, revolutions for democracy, coups that topple hypocrisy, movements of solidarity, changes that leave a legacy, rebellions against policy, spirit infused technology, moments of clarity, things that challenge barbarity, watersheds of sincerity, momentous drives for charity
If you like The Wayseer stuff then I honestly think you will enjoy watching this video: http://thisblogbusiness.blogspot.com/2011/04/requiem-for-new-world-order.html
Everything that the establishment has told you is wrong with you- is actually what's right with you.
You see things others don’t. You are hardwired to change the world. Unlike 9 out of 10 people - your mind is irrepressable - and this threatens authority. You were born to be a revolutionary.
You can’t stand rules because in your heart you know there’s a better way.
You have strengths dangerous to the establishment - and it wants them eliminated, So your whole life you’ve been told your strengths were weaknesses - Now I’m telling you otherwise.
Your impulsivity is a gift - impulses are your key to the miraculous,
Your distractibility - is an artifact of your inspired creativity,
Your mood swings - reflect the natural pulse of life, they give you unstoppable energy when you’re high and deep soulful insight when you’re low,
Been diagnosed with a "disorder”? That’s society’s latest way to deny it’s own illness by pointing the finger at you. Your addictive personality is just a symptom of your vast underused capacity for heroic, creative expression and spiritual connection. your utter lack of repression, your wide eyed idealism, your unmitigated open mind - didn’t anyone ever tell you?! these are the traits shared by the greatest pioneers and visionaries and innovators, revolutionaries, procrastinators and drama queens, activists on the social scene, space cadets and mavericks, philosophers and derelicts, business suits flying fighter jets, football stars and sex addicts, celebrities with ADD, alcoholics who seek novelty, first responders - prophets and saints, mystics and change agents.
We are - all - the same - you know
‘cuz we’re all affected by the way -
We are - all - the same - you know
‘cuz we’re all attracted to the flame -
‘cuz we’re all affected by the way -
We are - all - the same - you know
‘cuz we’re all attracted to the flame -
You know in your heart that there's a natural order to life, something more sovereign than any man-made rules or laws could ever express.
This natural order is called "the Way."
The Way is the eternal substrate of the cosmos. It guides the very current of time and space. The Way is known by some as the Will of God, Divine Providence, the Holy Spirit, the implicate order, the Tao, reverse-entropy, life-force, but for now we’ll simply call it "the Way." The Way is reflected in you as the source of your inspiration, the source of your passions, your wisdom, your enthusiasm, your intuition, your spiritual fire - love. The Way takes the chaos out of the Universe and breathes life into it by reflecting divine order. The Way, when experienced by the mind, is genius, when perceived through the eyes is beauty, when felt with the senses is grace, when allowed into the heart ... is love.
Most people cannot sense the Way directly. ... But then there are the Wayseers. The keepers of the flame. Wayseers have an unexplainable knack for just knowing the Way. They sense it in their very being. They can’t tell you why or how they arrived at the right answer. They just know it in their core. They can’t show their work. So don’t ask. Their minds simply resonate with the Way. When the Way is present, so are they.
While others are blind to it, and society begs you to ignore it, “the Way” stirs you inside. Neurological repression blocks most people’s awareness of the Way - censoring all thoughts and impulses from the unconscious is their prefrontal cortex - the gestapo of the brain - nothing which violates its socialized programming even gets through; but your mind is different. your mind has been cracked wide open to the Way - by some miraculous genetic trait, some psychotropic chemical or maybe even by the will of your very soul, your brain’s reward pathways have been hijacked - dopamine employed to overthrow the fascist dictatorship of your prefrontal cortex - now your brain is free of repression, your mind free of censorship, your awareness exposed to the turbulent seas of the unconscious - through this open doorway divine light shines into your consciousness showing you the Way. This is what makes you a Wayseer.
90% of human civilization is populated with those who’s brains are blocked to the Way. Their brains are hardwired to enforce the social programming indoctrinated since birth. Unlike you they cannot break out of this programming, because they have not yet experienced the necessary revolution of mind. These programmed people take social institutions and rules very seriously. Society is full of games programmed to keep peoples’ minds occupied so they will not revolt. These games often cause sick fixations on peculiar protocols, power structures, taboos and domination - all subtle forms of human bondage - This distinct form of madness is not only tolerated by the masses but insisted upon. The programmed ones believe in rules so forcefully they become willing to destroy anyone who violates them.
Wayseers are the ones who call their bluff. Since Wayseer minds are free to reject social programming, Wayseers readily see social institutions for what they are - imaginary games. Wayseers comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Helping those who are lost in these games and refuse to help themselves is a calling of many Wayseers. Since Wayseers are the ones who keep contact with the original source of reality - they are able to disrupt societal conventions and even governments to realign humanity with the Way.
The Wayseers are an ancient lineage. A kind of priesthood - carriers of the flame - ones "in the know." There must always be Wayseers to reform the dizzying psychotic spinning gears of society - giant mindless hamster wheels obscuring the pure blue sky, keeping humanity shackled in a darkened cage - so Wayseers are called - to shed light on the madness of society - to continually resurrect the timeless transcendent Spirit of Truth -
Wayseers reveal this divine truth by devoting themselves to the birth of some creative or disruptive act expressed through art or philosophy, innovations to shake up industry, revolutions for democracy, coups that topple hypocrisy, movements of solidarity, changes that leave a legacy, rebellions against policy, spirit infused technology, moments of clarity, things that challenge barbarity, watersheds of sincerity, momentous drives for charity
We are - all - the same - you know
‘cuz we’re all affected by the way -
We are - all - the same - you know
‘cuz we’re all attracted to the flame -
This is your calling, Wayseer.
You’ve found your tribe.
Welcome home.
‘cuz we’re all affected by the way -
We are - all - the same - you know
‘cuz we’re all attracted to the flame -
This is your calling, Wayseer.
You’ve found your tribe.
Welcome home.
If you like The Wayseer stuff then I honestly think you will enjoy watching this video: http://thisblogbusiness.blogspot.com/2011/04/requiem-for-new-world-order.html
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Oil and Trouble
Why western governments won’t support democracy in Saudi Arabia.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 14th March 2011
Did you hear it? The clamour from western governments for democracy in Saudi Arabia? The howls of outrage from the White House and Number 10 about the shootings on Thursday, the suppression of protests on Friday, the arrival of Saudi troops in Bahrain on Monday? No? Nor did I.
Did we miss it, or do they believe that change is less necessary in Saudi Arabia than it is in Libya? If so, on what grounds? The democracy index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit places Libya 158th out of 167, and Saudi Arabia 160th(1). At least in Libya, for all the cruelties of that regime, women are not officially treated as lepers were in mediaevel Europe.
Last week, while explaining why protests in the kingdom are unnecessary, the foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, charmingly promised to “cut off the fingers of those who try to interfere in our internal matters”(2). In other parts of the world this threat would have been figurative; he probably meant it. If mass protests have not yet materialised in Saudi Arabia, it’s because the monarchy maintains a regime of terror, enforced with the help of torture, mutilation and execution.
Yet our leaders are even more at ease among the dyed beards and man-boobs of the Saudi autocracy than they were in the eccentric court of Colonel Gaddafi. The number of export licences granted by the UK government for arms sales to the kingdom has risen roughly fourfold since 2003(3). The last government was so determined to preserve its special relationship with the Saudi despots that it derailed British justice, by forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiry into corruption in the Al Yamamah deals(4).
Why? Future weapons sales doubtless play a role. But there’s an even stronger imperative. A few days ago the French bank Société Générale warned that unrest in Saudi Arabia could push the oil price to $200 a barrel(5).
Abdullah’s kingdom is the world’s last swing producer: the only nation capable of raising crude oil production if it falls elsewhere, or if demand outstrips supply. As a result, political disruption there is as threatening to the stability of western governments as it is to the Saudi regime. Probably more so, as our leaders wouldn’t get away with gunning us down in the street.
Few governments of nominal democracies are likely to survive the economic dislocation that a sustained price of $200 would deliver: like Brian Cowen they would be out on their butts quicker than you could cycle past a petrol station. You’re as likely to hear David Cameron call for the overthrow of the House of Saud as you are to hear King Abdullah call for the overthrow of the House of Lords.
But even if the regime remains unchallenged, it’s not clear that it can keep delivering. The Wikileaks cables showed American diplomats questioning the kingdom’s ability to keep raising production. One cable suggested that its reserves have been overstated by 40%(6). If so, that wouldn’t be surprising. The production quotas assigned to OPEC states are a function of the size of their stated reserves: all members of the cartel have an incentive to exaggerate them. Saudi Arabia posts the same figure as it did in 1988(7,8,9). Fact or fiction, who knows? The true condition of its oil fields is a state secret(10).
Another cable questioned the Saudi ability to keep moving the market. “Clearly they can drive prices up, but we question whether they any longer have the power to drive prices down for a prolonged period.”(11)
Western governments rely for their production forecasts primarily on the International Energy Agency. It has recently had to retreat both on its forecasts of future supply and on its mocking dismissal of those who have warned that global oil output might one day peak(12). In 2006 the IEA predicted that world oil supply would rise from 82 million barrels a day to 116 million in 2030(13). In 2008 it reduced the forecast to 106m(14), in 2009 to 105m(15) and in 2010 to 96m (by 2035)(16).
It might have to be downgraded again. The IEA’s new prediction relies on an assumption that Saudi output will rise from 9m barrels to 14.6m in 2035(17). The embassy cables report the alleged opinions of Dr Sadad al-Husseini, the former head of Exploration and Production at Saudi Aramco. “Sustaining 12 million barrels/day output will only be possible for a limited period of time, and even then, only with a massive investment program.”(18) Once Saudi Arabia has produced 180bn barrels (in about 2021) “a slow but steady output decline will ensue and no amount of effort will be able to stop it.” When the cables were released, Al-Husseini denied that he said this(19). But the figures in the report are detailed and precise.
Unlike the last British government, this one does at least admit that there might be a problem. Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, argues that “getting off the oil hook is made all the more urgent by the crisis in the Middle East. We cannot afford to go on relying on such a volatile source of energy.”(20) Partly to this end, he has published a new carbon plan(21). Some of the commitments, particularly on electricity and home heating, are better than expected. But the plan’s weakest point is transport, where it offers incentives without regulation. Huhne’s response to the oil crisis will save plenty of coal and gas, but precious little oil.
That’s not surprising when you see who else sits at the cabinet table. A fortnight ago, as the oil price was soaring, Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, proposed raising – yes, raising – the motorway speed limit from 70 to 80mph(22). George Osborne, the chancellor, has hinted that he will drop the planned rise in fuel duty in next week’s budget(23). I can understand why he wants to dampen prices, but it could also be argued that when supply is tightest fuel duty should be highest. The government also plans to introduce what it calls a Fair Fuel Stabiliser(24). This policy might be blessed with the best abbreviation since the proposed City University of Newcastle-on-Tyne was rechristened, but it’s likely to ensure that demand remains strong. There is, as yet, no government programme which will sharply reduce our craving for oil.
Oil dependency means dependency on Saudi Arabia. Dependency on Saudi Arabia means empowerment of its despotic monarchy. Forget, if you must, the trifling issue of climate breakdown. Forget the incidental matter of economic depression. An oil-dependent economy means an impregnable tyranny in Saudi Arabia. That alone should prompt us to rethink the way we travel.
www.monbiot.com
3. The figure for the whole of 2003 was 63. The figure for the first two quarters of 2010 was 116.
http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/countrydata/?country_selected=Saudi+Arabia
http://www.caat.org.uk/resources/countrydata/?country_selected=Saudi+Arabia
7. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/oil-the-power-to-shock-768113.html
10. See Chapter 4 of Matthew Simmons, 2005. Twilight in the desert: the coming Saudi oil shock and the world economy. John Wiley and Sons.
12. In 2005, the IEA’s executive director, Claude Mandil, dismissed those who warned of peak oil as “doomsayers”. He wrote that “the IEA has long maintained that none of this is a cause for concern.” International Energy Agency, 2005. Resources to Reserves: Oil and Gas Technologies for the Energy Markets of the Future, page 3. IEA, Paris.
13. IEA, 2006. World Energy Outlook. Table 3.2, Page 93.http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2006/weo2006.pdf
14. IEA, 2008. World Energy Outlook. Page 40.http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2008/weo2008.pdf
15. IEA, 2009. World Energy Outlook. Page 84. The full report is not yet available online.
16. IEA, 2010. World Energy Outlook, Executive Summary. Page 6.
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2010/WEO2010_es_english.pdf
http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/docs/weo2010/WEO2010_es_english.pdf
17. As above, Page 6.
21. http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/What%20we%20do/A%20low%20carbon%20UK/1358-the-carbon-plan.pdf
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