Thursday, July 26, 2012
Into the Transnational...
Something old and something new, something material and something post-imperial for Uplink issue 26, The Postcolonial Action Thriller Issue (in PDF format, or HTML version, main page here).
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
LieBOR Update
Ellen Brown has this excellent writeup of the massive damage caused by the banksters' LieBOR scam. Maybe Slorgzilla is indulging in unfounded optimism, but after four years of economic collapse, mass immiseration, pain and despair, it does seem like something tipping-pointish this way comes.
The pension funds, municipalities, and nation-states swindled for years by the banksters are b beginning to realize they've been swindled, and are finally fighting back. As William K. Black, fraud investigator extraordinaire, might have said, all's well that ends with perp walks and RICO convictions.
More on the potential of democratically-owned, democratically-run banks in the next video (under construction)...
The pension funds, municipalities, and nation-states swindled for years by the banksters are b beginning to realize they've been swindled, and are finally fighting back. As William K. Black, fraud investigator extraordinaire, might have said, all's well that ends with perp walks and RICO convictions.
More on the potential of democratically-owned, democratically-run banks in the next video (under construction)...
Sunday, July 22, 2012
To All Documentary Filmmakers, Everywhere
Dear Documentary Filmmakers:
As a media teacher (my day job), I would love to watch your film and teach it to my class.
But I can't. That's because I am broke and cannot afford even the cheapest of paid streaming options.
Just like 99% of the people on this planet.
A reminder: WE ARE NOT BILLIONAIRES.
If you want to reach your audience, post a free version on Vimeo, Rutube, Youku, Youtube or some other free video service. Or put a low-res version on a torrent site and let us download it, 5K per second.
On the other hand, if you see your role as being the privileged courtier of the 1% and their pet foundations, then by all means, continue with your copyright fundamentalism. We won't be able to watch your film, and consequently, we will not care about whatever it is that you have to say.
As the sports fans like to say, the ball is in your court.
Yours sincerely,
-- Member of the 99%
As a media teacher (my day job), I would love to watch your film and teach it to my class.
But I can't. That's because I am broke and cannot afford even the cheapest of paid streaming options.
Just like 99% of the people on this planet.
A reminder: WE ARE NOT BILLIONAIRES.
If you want to reach your audience, post a free version on Vimeo, Rutube, Youku, Youtube or some other free video service. Or put a low-res version on a torrent site and let us download it, 5K per second.
On the other hand, if you see your role as being the privileged courtier of the 1% and their pet foundations, then by all means, continue with your copyright fundamentalism. We won't be able to watch your film, and consequently, we will not care about whatever it is that you have to say.
As the sports fans like to say, the ball is in your court.
Yours sincerely,
-- Member of the 99%
Friday, July 20, 2012
Huzun, the Plutomerican Remix
Orhan Pamuk provides a wonderful description of the magical, tantalizing quality of 'huzun' -- that sorrow-drenched nostalgia peculiar to Istanbul, which expressed both the sublimity of Istanbul's status as the phantasmal gateway between Europe and Asia, the pain of failed Turkish modernizations, and a helpless anger at the decrepitude of the Ottoman Empire, whose multiple and contradictory legacies were and are as indigestible for post-Ataturk Turks as the Romanov legacy was and is for Russians.
The American decline is triggering something similar. Huzun is everywhere these days, from our best television series (David Simon's "The Wire" is Baltimore huzun, and "Treme" is huzun a la Nouvelle-Orléans) to our best videogames (Sony Santa Monica's "God of War" is the huzun-inflected Greek mythology epic). It's even appearing on that last bastion of unfettered neoliberal overlordship, namely broadcast TV, in the form of cooking shows and the appearance of that strange new figure, the professional chef who is the honest, hard-working cultural laborer - the dialectical inversion of blowdried game-show hosts and platitudinous TV pundits.
I felt the educational version of "huzun" today while applying for my food stamp benefits at a local community college. (For those unfamiliar with the hellishness of the US welfare state, food stamps are administered inside "workfare" programs. The benefits are minimal, and you have to document your work-search, never mind the fact that millions of Americans are doing the same thing. Still, they're better than absolutely nothing. The only bright side is that the people who run these programs are personally very kind and helpful. They're just not given adequate resources to truly help people -- serious Federal money for job retraining, education spending, and emergency make-work programs.)
The campus looks beautiful on the outside, but inside, the lack of funding for maintenance and repairs was obviously taking its toll. Scratched paint, dented surfaces, cheap plastic furniture, and constant battles to maintain minimal funding for programs which can make a real difference in people's lives.
It may be too late to reverse course for this empire, which seems bound and determined, like some vast, distorted doppelganger of its Middle Eastern client dictatorships, to commit continental-size economic suicide. But perhaps the developmental states of the world can learn from our mistakes: don't pour your resources into military superweapons or playgrounds for your elites. Put them into basic schooling and community colleges.
Like the great author he is, Pamuk never says so outright, but huzun is really the lingering curse of empire. The glory, wealth and power won through violence revenges itself on later generations, condemning them to centuries of misery and subalternity. Only economic, social and political democracy can exorcise huzun, and the first step is acknowledging the imperial past (still a sore point in contemporary Turkey).
My country, o my country. What have we let Wall Street do to you?
The American decline is triggering something similar. Huzun is everywhere these days, from our best television series (David Simon's "The Wire" is Baltimore huzun, and "Treme" is huzun a la Nouvelle-Orléans) to our best videogames (Sony Santa Monica's "God of War" is the huzun-inflected Greek mythology epic). It's even appearing on that last bastion of unfettered neoliberal overlordship, namely broadcast TV, in the form of cooking shows and the appearance of that strange new figure, the professional chef who is the honest, hard-working cultural laborer - the dialectical inversion of blowdried game-show hosts and platitudinous TV pundits.
I felt the educational version of "huzun" today while applying for my food stamp benefits at a local community college. (For those unfamiliar with the hellishness of the US welfare state, food stamps are administered inside "workfare" programs. The benefits are minimal, and you have to document your work-search, never mind the fact that millions of Americans are doing the same thing. Still, they're better than absolutely nothing. The only bright side is that the people who run these programs are personally very kind and helpful. They're just not given adequate resources to truly help people -- serious Federal money for job retraining, education spending, and emergency make-work programs.)
The campus looks beautiful on the outside, but inside, the lack of funding for maintenance and repairs was obviously taking its toll. Scratched paint, dented surfaces, cheap plastic furniture, and constant battles to maintain minimal funding for programs which can make a real difference in people's lives.
It may be too late to reverse course for this empire, which seems bound and determined, like some vast, distorted doppelganger of its Middle Eastern client dictatorships, to commit continental-size economic suicide. But perhaps the developmental states of the world can learn from our mistakes: don't pour your resources into military superweapons or playgrounds for your elites. Put them into basic schooling and community colleges.
Like the great author he is, Pamuk never says so outright, but huzun is really the lingering curse of empire. The glory, wealth and power won through violence revenges itself on later generations, condemning them to centuries of misery and subalternity. Only economic, social and political democracy can exorcise huzun, and the first step is acknowledging the imperial past (still a sore point in contemporary Turkey).
My country, o my country. What have we let Wall Street do to you?
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
LieBOR as the Dimon Tax
How much did the bankster steal? Yves Smith gives this conservative estimate, but warns that this is just the tip of the derivatives iceberg.
So how far down does the iceberg go?
We already know the banksters used LieBOR as the rocket fuel to power their lunatic derivatives scams. But Nomi Prins and Paul Craig Roberts point out that after the 2008 crash, the banksters have been forced to game the bond market in an attempt to keep the neoliberal financial bubble afloat.
The implications are staggering.
The banksters constantly whine about how a Tobin tax on speculation would be a hindrance on the wondrousness of the free market. But they themselves indulged in a global pigopoly to systematically fleece municipalities, governments, pension funds and savers -- or what we should start calling, in honor of JP Morgan's Overlord of Theft, the "Dimon tax".
So how far down does the iceberg go?
We already know the banksters used LieBOR as the rocket fuel to power their lunatic derivatives scams. But Nomi Prins and Paul Craig Roberts point out that after the 2008 crash, the banksters have been forced to game the bond market in an attempt to keep the neoliberal financial bubble afloat.
The implications are staggering.
The banksters constantly whine about how a Tobin tax on speculation would be a hindrance on the wondrousness of the free market. But they themselves indulged in a global pigopoly to systematically fleece municipalities, governments, pension funds and savers -- or what we should start calling, in honor of JP Morgan's Overlord of Theft, the "Dimon tax".
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Social Decay
How bad are things getting for the US middle class?
Class sizes in neoliberal Detroit (US per capita income: $50,000) are now beginning to exceed those of West Bengal, India (Indian per capita income: $1,200).
Meanwhile, the banksters continue to steal trillions and buy off politicians for billions.
Class sizes in neoliberal Detroit (US per capita income: $50,000) are now beginning to exceed those of West Bengal, India (Indian per capita income: $1,200).
Meanwhile, the banksters continue to steal trillions and buy off politicians for billions.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
The Three Europenny Opera
[Sung to tune of Mack the Knife:]
"Oh Eurocapital/
it has teeth, dear/ and it shows them /
on LieBOR screens..."
After destroying Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus, Euroliberalism plunges its knife into Spain.
In other news, Maher Arar weighs in on the state of the Syrian Revolution against one of neoliberalism's lesser tyrants.
"Oh Eurocapital/
it has teeth, dear/ and it shows them /
on LieBOR screens..."
After destroying Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Cyprus, Euroliberalism plunges its knife into Spain.
In other news, Maher Arar weighs in on the state of the Syrian Revolution against one of neoliberalism's lesser tyrants.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
LieBOR
Only Hideo Kojima's "Metal Gear Solid 4" saw it coming - the moment when the sheer scale of neoliberalism's fraud, crime, greed and lunacy overwhelmed the total system which spawned it.
Short version of the story: LiBOR sets world interest rates for trillions of financial assets, and practically every large US-EU bank in the world was skimming micro-pennies on those rates, like the rotten criminal gangster mafia they indeed are.
Matt Taibbi has this stinging takedown here of the LieBOR cartel.
Max Keiser, Stacy Herbert and Reggie Middleton have more juicy details here.
Yves Smith covers the derivatives angle with this smashing post.
Short version of the story: LiBOR sets world interest rates for trillions of financial assets, and practically every large US-EU bank in the world was skimming micro-pennies on those rates, like the rotten criminal gangster mafia they indeed are.
Matt Taibbi has this stinging takedown here of the LieBOR cartel.
Max Keiser, Stacy Herbert and Reggie Middleton have more juicy details here.
Yves Smith covers the derivatives angle with this smashing post.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
4th of July Song
One of the most important tasks for the post-Occupy world is to rethink, reconfigure, and refunction the mainstream media forms of the neoliberal era -- and specifically, those of the 1960s counter-culture, which were neoliberal to their core.
I can't sing worth a lick, but at least I can write.
For What Its Worth (with apologies to Buffalo Springfield):
I can't sing worth a lick, but at least I can write.
For What Its Worth (with apologies to Buffalo Springfield):
There's something happenin' here
what it is, is crystalline clear
there's an Empire with guns over there
tellin' me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, shabab,
what's that sound
everybody look what's goin down
there's battle lines being drawn
The one percent plundered too long
the ninety-nine are speaking our mind
getting so much resistance from
neoliberal swine
it's time we stop, hey
what's that sound
everybody look what's goin down
Quite a haul for Wall Street
they stole trillions without missing a
beat
but there's five billion cellphones
online
MP3s and screens -- this is our time
it's time we stop,
hey what's that sound
everybody look what's goin down
Neoliberalism cuts deep
the bad sleep well, the 99 percent
bleed
they start by privatizing the state
till there's nothing at all... left to
devastate
we better stop
hey what's that sound
everybody look what's going down
Monday, July 2, 2012
SNAP, Crackle, Pop
Today I applied for foodstamps.
There's a little story to go with this.
In the early to mid 2000s, I was a broke, unemployed PhD with massive student loans, in a profession with no future in this dying Empire (literature). After the credit cards ran out, I went on foodstamps. I had to report regularly to a caseworker, show up for make-work volunteer positions. I swung a hammer at Habitat for Humanity construction sites.
I distinctly remember that the social service office back then was full of refugees from Katrina. Plain-spoken, ordinary folks who had lost everything. The invasion of Iraq had just turned sour, but not one of us suspected that a financial hurricane of Wall Street fraud was about to obliterate the US middle class.
Back then, I got a reprieve by going back to grad school. Worked myself to the bone becoming the best possible media researcher I could be. I survived on the pittance of grad loans.
In 2009, the loans ran out. So I lived on less. Not less as in less luxury or less entertainment, but less food. Less clothing. Less of everything.
Now it's 2012. I have yet another PhD. I'm still broker than hell. I owe even more in student loan debt. The job market is broken, just like the entire economy.
So it's back to foodstamps. And Habitat will soon enjoy the services of the most over-educated nailsmith of all time.
There's a little story to go with this.
In the early to mid 2000s, I was a broke, unemployed PhD with massive student loans, in a profession with no future in this dying Empire (literature). After the credit cards ran out, I went on foodstamps. I had to report regularly to a caseworker, show up for make-work volunteer positions. I swung a hammer at Habitat for Humanity construction sites.
I distinctly remember that the social service office back then was full of refugees from Katrina. Plain-spoken, ordinary folks who had lost everything. The invasion of Iraq had just turned sour, but not one of us suspected that a financial hurricane of Wall Street fraud was about to obliterate the US middle class.
Back then, I got a reprieve by going back to grad school. Worked myself to the bone becoming the best possible media researcher I could be. I survived on the pittance of grad loans.
In 2009, the loans ran out. So I lived on less. Not less as in less luxury or less entertainment, but less food. Less clothing. Less of everything.
Now it's 2012. I have yet another PhD. I'm still broker than hell. I owe even more in student loan debt. The job market is broken, just like the entire economy.
So it's back to foodstamps. And Habitat will soon enjoy the services of the most over-educated nailsmith of all time.
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