The democratic clock turned back
Financial markets rallied last week when the Greek prime minister, George Papandreou, announced he was dropping plans for a referendum on the terms of his country's bailout. Bond dealers liked the idea that the government in Athens could soon be headed by Lucas Papademos, a former vice-president of the European Central Bank. Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy think Papademos is the sort of hard-line technocrat with whom they can do business. Silvio Berlusconi's long-predicted departure as Italy's prime minister will no doubt be greeted in the same way, particularly if he is replaced by a government of national unity headed by another technocrat, Mario Monti. A former Brussels commissioner, he is seen as someone who could be relied upon to push through the European Union's austerity programme during the next 12 months, watched over by Christine Lagarde's team of officials from the International Monetary Fund. From the perspective of the financial markets, this makes perfect sense.
William Pfaff: American Government’s Indifference to Popular Protest
American Government’s Indifference to Popular Protest Posted on Oct 5, 2011 By William Pfaff The obvious is not easily seen when you don’t want to see it. The Wall Street sitdown, and the copycat sitdowns elsewhere in the U.S., were suddenly discovered by the mainstream press last weekend (rather against its own inclinations, it seems, since the uprising of “Indignation”—“los indignados” in Spain where it all started—has in one way or another been going on in Spain, Portugal, France and Israel since the summer began). The Wall Street affair was initially ignored by press and politicians for two reasons, so far as I can see.
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The joyous freedom of possibility. Dissent can be personal, collective, creative — whatever you want it to be. Revolt can be physical or spectral, a blackspot on a corporate logo or a digital mindbomb posted online. Edit a billboard, speak to a friend.
Occupy the Web Hackathon - Occupytogether- Eventbrite
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Cole Stryker: How to Write a Book About Anonymous
When I first posted a link to my new book's Amazon page on the website 4chan, the first response was, "Kindly kill yourself immediately." The discussion descended into unprintable threats and accusations from there. It wasn't unexpected. 4chan, a notorious online gathering place for pranksters, and the pseudo-politically minded "hacktivist" group called Anonymous that was born on the site, regularly antagonize those who discuss their subculture.
Net Neutrality Is Under Attack ... Again
Al Franken writes: "I've said that net neutrality is the most important free speech issue of our time. It's true. If Republicans have their way, large corporations won't just have the loudest voices in the room. They'll be able to effectively silence everyone else.
Who are the 99 percent?
(Ramin Talaie - BLOOMBERG) “I did everything I was supposed to and I have nothing to show for it.” It’s not the arrests that convinced me that “Occupy Wall Street” was worth covering seriously. Nor was it their press strategy, which largely consisted of tweeting journalists to cover a small protest that couldn’t say what, exactly, it hoped to achieve. It was a Tumblr called, “We Are The 99 Percent,” and all it’s doing is posting grainy pictures of people holding handwritten signs telling their stories, one after the other. “I am 20K in debt and am paying out of pocket for my current tuition while I start paying back loans with two part time jobs.” These are not rants against the system.
AnonOps Communications
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About - Occupy Connect
OccupyConnect is a tool created by and for the growing “occupy” movement around the world. It’s a place where we can meet each other, stay connected with each other, and discover ways to support each other. OccupyConnect doesn’t represent any one occupation or working group -- and it doesn’t represent the movement as a whole.
Anonymous Book to Amazon: Hacktivist Authors Cozy Up to the Fire
Gregg Housh and Barrett Brown’s book about Anonymous, the online activism collective known for digital protests and acts of civil disobedience, has been sold to Amazon Publishing editorial director Julia Cheiffetz. According to the notice on Publishers Marketplace, Anonymous: Tales From Inside The Accidental Cyberwar was “pitched as Barbarians at the Gate for the digital era” and tells “the story of the ordinary people who became hacker-activists and successfully brought down government agencies and multinational corporations around the world.” Anonymous recently secured local notoriety by releasing the personal data of pepper spraying New York City Police officer Anthony Bologna. Given the subject matter of their book it’s interesting that Mr. Housh and Mr.
The biggest threat to Western values
The paranoid style in politics often imagines unlikely alliances that coalesce into an overwhelming threat that must be countered by all necessary means. In Clash of Civilizations, Samuel Huntington conjured an amalgamated East - an alliance between "Confucian" and "Islamic" powers - that would challenge the West for world dominance. Many jihadis fear the Crusader alliance between Jews and Christians. They forget that until recently, historically speaking, populations professing the latter were the chief persecutors of the former. Now Anders Breivik has invoked the improbable axis of Marxism, multiculturalism and Islamism, together colonising Europe. As he sees multiculturalism as essentially a Jewish plot, Breivik has managed to wrap up the new and old fascist bogies in one conspiracy: communists, Jews and Muslims.
