From lukeshore at yahoo.com  Mon Apr  2 21:51:30 2012
From: lukeshore at yahoo.com (Luke Shore)
Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2012 14:51:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [OccupyComms] (no subject)
Message-ID: <1333403490.31352.YahooMailMobile@web45904.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

<a href="http://msshu.com/book/xuanhuanxiaoshuo/20110801/02efpk.html"> http://msshu.com/book/xuanhuanxiaoshuo/20110801/02efpk.html</a>
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From lukeshore at yahoo.com  Tue Apr  3 10:25:11 2012
From: lukeshore at yahoo.com (Luke Shore)
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2012 03:25:11 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [OccupyComms] Email Hacked-Delete Suspicious Messages
Message-ID: <1333448711.6067.androidMobile@web45901.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>

Hello everyone,
The security on my email was compromised yesterday, if you have received any suspicious emails then please don't open them. I have resolved the issue now.
Apologies,
Luke Shore

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From standingstonesblog at hotmail.co.uk  Wed Apr  4 20:30:13 2012
From: standingstonesblog at hotmail.co.uk (Standing Stone)
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 21:30:13 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] Occupy Bath - Move Your Money video
Message-ID: <BLU156-W237B038654FFEA93E55B1188320@phx.gbl>


Hi Occupiers,

Occupy Bath have just finished compiling a video of our Move Your Money event in Bath last weekend - Occupiers dressed as moneybags! 

You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WR5gWbo1tI

Standing Stone



Standing Stone's Blog: http://standingstonesblog.blogspot.co.uk/
 		 	   		  
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From standingstonesblog at hotmail.co.uk  Wed Apr  4 22:04:08 2012
From: standingstonesblog at hotmail.co.uk (Standing Stone)
Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2012 23:04:08 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] Visions for Change Event (Bath People's Assembly
Message-ID: <BLU156-W284BDC0A8D3BE00749C3D288320@phx.gbl>


Hi Occupiers,

Bath People's Assembly is putting on an event on the 28th April - Visions for Change: Inspiration for a better Bath and beyond. We've invited all of the other campaign groups in Bath (local, national and global) to get together under one roof for a day to present their ideas and later on see how they work together. Occupy Bath will be one of those attending.

The facebook event has just gone live - if you know anyone who wants to come, please send them the link or invite them: https://www.facebook.com/events/424624930886624/

More info and a poster on the website http://www.bathpeoplesassembly.org/

Standing Stone



Standing Stone's Blog: http://standingstonesblog.blogspot.co.uk/
 		 	   		  
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From occupymcr at hotmail.co.uk  Wed Apr  4 23:32:58 2012
From: occupymcr at hotmail.co.uk (Occupy MCR)
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 00:32:58 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] Info from Occupy Manchester
Message-ID: <SNT126-W15DB7461D9E7A67C952740FD320@phx.gbl>


Hello
Occupy Manchester are planning an art action which will take place in 
Piccadilly Gardens in the City from 2pm on #12M in solidarity with the 
Occupy movement global day of action.We are constructing a Monster of Money Madness whose tentacles will 
wrap around  the many areas effected by the current inequality being 
felt globally.  The interactive artwork will highlight issues 
including; the environment, democracy, banking, militarism, poverty, 
health & housing.Through outreach we are inviting individuals & groups, friends and 
families, to contribute to the artwork on #12M by expressing the damage 
the madness is doing to them, their area of expertise, or interest, and to 
suggest ways to combat it.We hope that this art work  will  provide a common & creative space for 
people to come together on #12M to express & share their thoughts, 
ideas,  fears & solutions.Anyone interested in taking part in Manchester can contact us on
occupymcr at hotmail.co.uk or just come down on the day!We would also like to invite Occupy groups around the UK and the World to take part, by 
emailing us something which we can print out to stick on the monster, 
for example; a picture, photo or poster. Or you can send us 
instructions for something to be painted or drawn on it on your behalf, for 
example; a message, symbol or simple picture. We will post photos of the monster and the event and are hoping to Ustream it, details to follow.Peace, solidarity and love 
Mich - Occupy Manchester Comms Working Grouptwitter @occupyMCRhttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Manchester/380456078636480?ref=tshttp://www.occupymanchester.org                     http://occupymanchester.wordpress.com/

 		 	   		  
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From info at occupybrighton.co.uk  Mon Apr  9 16:05:16 2012
From: info at occupybrighton.co.uk (OccupyBrighton-Info)
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:05:16 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] European council comes to Brighton.
In-Reply-To: <0c260526-f64f-450c-9345-00d67aff3134@email.android.com>
References: <CAM7m6-BkYA25T4W-eULsptzO8sqD37YQczzSiWC72q+=6mY5GA@mail.gmail.com>
	<0c260526-f64f-450c-9345-00d67aff3134@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <4F8308BC.6040709@occupybrighton.co.uk>

http://occupybrighton.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=11

We have set up a space at the Occupy Brighton Forum for organising, 
discussing and highlighting the issues around the European Conference 
later this month in Brighton.

If anyone is coming down and wants to meet up, organise an event or find 
good locations to stay please feel free to use this forum as a point of 
contact.

The plan our end seems to be to try and help out as much as possible by 
pulling together resources,  putting together groups with similar 
interests and help maximize the impact and publicity of any events.

Unless there is already one, we plan to turn over the website to 
resource center for the week of the conference and together with the 
forum provide a nice space with useful info for everyone from the 
public, to the media to the protestors.

So help us spread the word, but even more we want to hear from any 
'experts' on the issues, audio/video/text interviews and the like and 
put them together so we can have some articles giving informed 
explanations of what they are up to and what needs changing.

Thanks for you time, hope you are all well and hope some of you can make 
it down to Brighton to meet and greet our leaders from around Europe.



If you have not heard yet the conference is from the 18th-20th April, 
probably with some sort of statement on the 20th. This will mean the 
last days to put pressure on them to change anything and when the most 
media attention will be on it, will be the 18th-19th. Which are a Wed/Thurs.




Occupy Brighton info wrote:
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17364817
>
>
> Next month Brighton is to host a major European summit.
> The Council of Europe will decide whether to accept a substantial 
> rewriting of the European Convention on Human Rights to allow national 
> courts more powers.
> Five hundred delegates from the Council of Europe's 47 member states 
> are expected to attend the conference.
>
> I can't seem to find the exact date but would like to invite everyone 
> down for the event.
>
> We have a forum at the occupybrighton.co.uk 
> <http://occupybrighton.co.uk> website we can use to plan any actions.
>
> If anyone can help find out exactly when and where they will be 
> arriving and meeting then we can make sure there is someone to welcome 
> them.
>
> Feel free to spread the word, it would be especially good to get the 
> word out to our European friends.
>
> Unfortunately we don't have a camp at the moment but we can plan a pop 
> up camp.
> -- 
> Jon
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OccupyComms mailing list
> OccupyComms at email-lists.org
> https://www.email-lists.org/mailman/listinfo/occupycomms

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From Levitin at Occupy.com  Thu Apr 12 02:57:15 2012
From: Levitin at Occupy.com (Michael Levitin)
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:57:15 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [OccupyComms] Covering the Brighton Conf for Occupy.com
In-Reply-To: <4F8308BC.6040709@occupybrighton.co.uk>
References: <CAM7m6-BkYA25T4W-eULsptzO8sqD37YQczzSiWC72q+=6mY5GA@mail.gmail.com>
	<0c260526-f64f-450c-9345-00d67aff3134@email.android.com>
	<4F8308BC.6040709@occupybrighton.co.uk>
Message-ID: <1334199435.8378.YahooMailNeo@web160303.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Hello from NYC! We would love to provide coverage in some way of the conference happening in Brighton next week... sounds like serious organizing efforts have gone into this and a broad array of voices will be there. Would someone want to get in touch and commit to sending something of a written (and/or filmed or photographed) dispatch from the event? Framing it against the backdrop of upcoming May Day actions in London and across Britain may be the natural angle, but really anything you see fit to talk about -- and however you'd like to reflect on what's being talked about, developments in the movement, issues particular to the Brighton region, etc? -- would be great. Look forward to hearing some specifics and getting someone on board to file this piece! Best regards,

Michael
Occupy.com



________________________________
 From: OccupyBrighton-Info <info at occupybrighton.co.uk>
To: Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>; LondonInternationalCommission at groupspaces.com; InterOccupy <info at interoccupy.org>; internationalprotest at groupspaces.com; "<occupycomms at email-lists.org>" <occupycomms at email-lists.org>; squares <squares at lists.takethesquare.net> 
Cc: corporationswg at gmail.com; occupylsxevictionlegal at gmail.com; welfareolsx at gmail.com; malevitin at yahoo.com; lsx-occupy-environment-group at googlegroups.com; olsx.indymedia at gmail.com; occupylondonga at gmail.com; lawandlegalreformworkinggroup at hotmail.co.uk; olsxinternalcommunication at gmail.com; occupylondon at groupspaces.com; lsxcampeconomics at gmail.com; tech at occupylsx.org; financeolsx at gmail.com; tentcityuniversity at gmail.com; press at occupylsx.org; educationwgolsx at googlegroups.com; outreach at occupylsx.org; lobbyolsx at gmail.com 
Sent: Monday, April 9, 2012 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: [OccupyComms] European council comes to Brighton.
 

http://occupybrighton.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=11


Next month Brighton is to host a major European summit.
The Council of Europe will decide whether to accept a substantial
      rewriting of the European Convention on Human Rights to allow
      national courts more powers.
Five hundred delegates from the Council of Europe's 47 member
      states are expected to attend the conference.

I can't seem to find the exact date but would like to invite
      everyone down for the event.

We have a forum at the occupybrighton.co.uk website we can use to plan any actions.

If anyone can help find out exactly when and where they will be
      arriving and meeting then we can make sure there is someone to
      welcome them.

Feel free to spread the word, it would be especially good to get
      the word out to our European friends.

Unfortunately we don't have a camp at the moment but we can plan a
      pop up camp.
-- 
Jon 


_______________________________________________
OccupyComms mailing list OccupyComms at email-lists.org https://www.email-lists.org/mailman/listinfo/occupycomms 
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From artbyandyc at aol.com  Sat Apr 14 22:04:53 2012
From: artbyandyc at aol.com (Andy Cropper (personal email))
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:04:53 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [OccupyComms] Nationwide Public Consultation About Lobbying ends
 Friday April the 20th.. more details in Email
Message-ID: <8CEE8A1C0C722AB-25F0-124DE@webmail-d001.sysops.aol.com>


****Please Share Far and Wide****
Want to air your views about your perception of Political Lobbying and its abuses and relationships to MPs and the UK Government, directly to the UK Government? Well you can do so by going to this link here - http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/proposals-register-lobbyists - the nationwide public consultation ends Friday April the 20th

There was a meeting discussing what has so far been proposed by the Con-Dems that can be read on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/groups/OccupyBritain/doc/336390216420870/  

if you can't read the Facebook link there are also these 3 document types online
 
 .doc file - http://artbyandyonline.com/UnlockDemocracy/UnlockDemocracy.doc
 
 .rtf - http://artbyandyonline.com/UnlockDemocracy/UnlockDemocracy.rtf
 
 . wps - http://artbyandyonline.com/UnlockDemocracy/UnlockDemocracy.wps

You want your say to be heard by those in Whitehall?? well this is one way to do it

****Please Share Far and Wide****


Andy Cropper 
Painter/Artist
12 Parkfield Place
Highfield
Sheffield
UK
S2 4TH

personal email : artbyandyc at aol.com
business email: andy at artbyandyonline.com
t:   + (0) 114 255 2037
w:  www.artbyandyonline.com
Fb: www.facebook.com/artbyandyonline
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From artbyandyc at aol.com  Sat Apr 14 22:59:26 2012
From: artbyandyc at aol.com (Andy Cropper (personal email))
Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:59:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [OccupyComms] Fwd: [OccupySheffield] Nationwide Public Consultation
 About Lobbying ends Friday April the 20th.. more details in Email
In-Reply-To: <8CEE8A1C0C722AB-25F0-124DE@webmail-d001.sysops.aol.com>
References: <8CEE8A1C0C722AB-25F0-124DE@webmail-d001.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <8CEE8A95F34FA0B-25F0-1298C@webmail-d001.sysops.aol.com>



****Please Share Far and Wide****
Want to air your views about your perception of Political Lobbying and its abuses and relationships to MPs and the UK Government, directly to the UK Government? Well you can do so by going to this link here - http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/news/proposals-register-lobbyists - the nationwide public consultation ends Friday April the 20th

There was a meeting discussing what has so far been proposed by the Con-Dems that can be read on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/groups/OccupyBritain/doc/336390216420870/ ; 

if you can't read the Facebook link there are also these 3 document types online
 
 .doc file - http://artbyandyonline.com/UnlockDemocracy/UnlockDemocracy.doc
 
 .rtf - http://artbyandyonline.com/UnlockDemocracy/UnlockDemocracy.rtf
 
 . wps - http://artbyandyonline.com/UnlockDemocracy/UnlockDemocracy.wps

You want your say to be heard by those in Whitehall?? well this is one way to do it

****Please Share Far and Wide****


Andy Cropper 
Painter/Artist
12 Parkfield Place
Highfield
Sheffield
UK
S2 4TH

personal email : artbyandyc at aol.com
business email: andy at artbyandyonline.com
t:   + (0) 114 255 2037
w:  www.artbyandyonline.com
Fb: www.facebook.com/artbyandyonline

 
_______________________________________________
OccupySheffield mailing list
OccupySheffield at email-lists.org
https://www.email-lists.org/mailman/listinfo/occupysheffield

 
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From artbyandyc at aol.com  Sun Apr 15 21:43:07 2012
From: artbyandyc at aol.com (Andy Cropper (personal email))
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:43:07 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [OccupyComms] Court rules that Tory NHS Bill was a violation of
 2010 Manifesto - the actual/legitimate court findings themselves have been
 included in the page
Message-ID: <8CEE967E11E8D61-100-1DEA4@webmail-m023.sysops.aol.com>

Wow! Court rules that Tory NHS Bill was a violation of 2010 Manifesto - the actual/legitimate court findings themselves have been included in the page

 http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/wow-court-rules-that-tory-nhs-bill-was.html
 
 The exact wording of paragraph 85 is shown below.
 
 ?From the evidence it is clear that the NHS reforms were introduced in an exceptional way. There was no indication prior to the White Paper that such wide-ranging reforms were being considered. The White Paper was published without prior consultation. It was published within a very short period after the Coalition Government came into power. It was unexpected. Consultation took place afterwards over what appears to us a very short period considering the extent of the proposed reforms. The consultation hardly changed policy but dealt largely with implementation. Even more significantly the Government decided to press ahead with some of the policies even before laying a Bill before Parliament. The whole process had to be paused because of the general alarm at what was happening



Andy Cropper 
Painter/Artist
12 Parkfield Place
Highfield
Sheffield
UK
S2 4TH

personal email : artbyandyc at aol.com
business email: andy at artbyandyonline.com
t:   + (0) 114 255 2037
w:  www.artbyandyonline.com
Fb: www.facebook.com/artbyandyonline
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From standingstonesblog at hotmail.co.uk  Tue Apr 24 20:58:54 2012
From: standingstonesblog at hotmail.co.uk (Standing Stone)
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:58:54 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] Visions for Change
Message-ID: <BLU156-W48A8B18DE59E8349B1EB4A88260@phx.gbl>


Hey Occupiers,

"Visions for Change" events are all the rage in the Occupy and People's Assembly communities right now - both the Bath People's Assembly and Occupy Norwich are holding these events in the next week or so. 

The basic idea is to hold public events and invite all of the active groups (like Occupy, Greenpeace, Transition, residents associations etc.) in the area under one roof for a day to give talks and/or take part in discussions. This will firstly be an educational excercise, and secondly will enable different groups to network with each other and find ways in which they can work together on similar campaigns and projects. 

The Bath event is on 28th April (this Saturday) at the Friends' Meeting House, York Street (near the Abbey) and has a Facebook event page https://www.facebook.com/events/424624930886624/ and more info on the Bath People's Assembly website http://www.bathpeoplesassembly.org/#events

The Norwich event is on 1st May at the Playhouse meeting room, 42 ? 58 St. George?s Street, Norwich, NR3 1AB - more info here: http://occupynorwich.org/main/?p=806

Occupy Bath will be at the Bath event and the BPA are in contact with Norwich - we'll be reporting back on how things go. In the meantime, if you think it's a good idea, start one up in your town/city! And come along to one of these events if you can!

Solidarity and good luck with all of your forthcoming events,

Standing Stone

Standing Stone's Blog: http://standingstonesblog.blogspot.co.uk/
 		 	   		  
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From marknbarrett at googlemail.com  Wed Apr 25 06:58:04 2012
From: marknbarrett at googlemail.com (Mark Barrett)
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 07:58:04 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] Fwd: [Assemblies] London Call for Global Dialogue
In-Reply-To: <e1b402db45098191e64a29b088a51566.squirrel@fruiteater.riseup.net>
References: <CA+bwTCfi15tki00BfRggHiNd-y_ZcX8hLBtopW=R2qHy=EvKGQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<e1b402db45098191e64a29b088a51566.squirrel@fruiteater.riseup.net>
Message-ID: <CAM7m6-AHmdHW7Z0MX0TU-bNeez5LV1kNpuryHG9rtqGRHt+a-g@mail.gmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Hello London International,

from the Global Call group, from the global assemblies (they are taken
every 2 Saturdays) we have developed a manifesto and collected a big list
of global claims (from the assemblies that have sent it to us)...

You can see all of the info in www.globalmay.org. And obviously, if you
vote the claims that you like, it will be wonderful.

The objective is to summarize all of the things that WE want in 8-9-10
points...

Best regards,

> International Statement
>
> *This statement from Occupy London?s International Outreach Working Group
> to create global dialogue reached consensus at the General Assembly by St
> Paul?s Cathedral in November 2011.*
>
> ? ?- Our global system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust,
> ? ?driven by profit in the interest of the few.
>
>
> ? ?- An economic system based on infinite growth, but which relies on
> ? ?finite resources, is leading humanity and the environment to
> destruction.
> ? ?As long as this system remains in place, people of the world continue
> to
> ? ?suffer from an increasingly unfair share of income and wealth.
>
>
> ? ?- We seek a global system that is democratic, just and sustainable. The
> ? ?world?s resources must not go to the military or corporate profit, but
> ? ?instead go towards caring for people?s needs: water, food, housing,
> ? ?education, health, community.
>
> *
> *An international, global collaboration has started, and is working on a
> statement that will unite the occupy movements across the world in their
> struggle for an alternative that is focused on and originates from people
> and their environment.
>
> Press release: http://occupyLSX.org/?p=733
>
> http://occupylsx.org/?page_id=2851
> El texto esta en ingles, encuentras la traduccion en espanhol debajo:
>
> This list publishes texts endorsed by people's assemblies. It is moderated
> by a global working group, committed to providing noise-free, reliable,
> and transparent communication infrastructure for the movements. The list
> is only one aspect of our communications work. Posts communicated here
> will also be published on a number of global sites and will be available
> as an RSS feed and global newswire. Assembly-endorsed political statements
> published here will be re-published at
> http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/category/statements/
>
> Our next weekly global Mumble meeting will be Monday at 1730 BST / 1830
> CET / 1230 EST. Email pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.net if you want to
> know more, want to help, or are part of a group working on international
> communication. And if there is no group working on international
> communication in your movement - start one!
>
>>>>>>>>>
> Esta lista publica mensajes refrendados por las asambleas populares. Lista
> moderada por un grupo de trabajo global, dedicada a ofrecer una
> infrestructura de comunicacion libre de ruido, confiable y transparente
> para el movimiento. La lista es solo una parte de nuestra labor
> comunicativa. Los mensajes enviados seran publicados en diferentes paginas
> globales y estaran disponibles via RSS y en una pagina mundial de
> noticias.
>
> Nuestra proxima reunion de mumble sera; este proximo lunes a las 18:30
> hora central de Europa (GMT +1). Email: pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.net.
> Eres bienvenido, si quieres saber mas o sientes que puedes ayudar o si
> eres miembro de un grupo de Comunicacion Internacional. Y si no hubiera un
> grupo de comunicacion en tu asamblea lo puedes innaugurar tu!
> _________________________________________
>
> Assemblies mailing list
> Assemblies at lists.takethesquare.net
> for unsubscribe/etc:
> https://lists.takethesquare.net/mailman/listinfo/assemblies or
> Assemblies-owner at lists.takethesquare.net


From ternuros at gmail.com  Wed Apr 25 09:42:27 2012
From: ternuros at gmail.com (Dr. TR. Rojas-D)
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 11:42:27 +0200
Subject: [OccupyComms] London Call for Global Dialogue
In-Reply-To: <CAM7m6-AHmdHW7Z0MX0TU-bNeez5LV1kNpuryHG9rtqGRHt+a-g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CA+bwTCfi15tki00BfRggHiNd-y_ZcX8hLBtopW=R2qHy=EvKGQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<e1b402db45098191e64a29b088a51566.squirrel@fruiteater.riseup.net>
	<CAM7m6-AHmdHW7Z0MX0TU-bNeez5LV1kNpuryHG9rtqGRHt+a-g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CADQYSVtPz_4fHHJLQqtWdYAxqZ=i9_ahDqthSGxHoz+RgNv7Pg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi all,
The link to the texts referred by the Global Call group are the manifesto:
http://www.globalmay.org/blog/item/95-globalmay-manifesto-template-v3.html
*Needles to say that you can adapt the text of this manifesto to the local
particularities of your assembly, group, country, city, village, it belongs
to all of us, is a live doc, not trying to impose anything.*

*The manifesto contains a list of demands that have been collected during
these months of WGs coordinating for May2012. There is no intention to
impose all or a part of these demands to any person or assembly. Please
take those that you consider valid. Everyone can help by introducing more
content, adding demands to this thread: *
http://www.globalmay.org/component/easydiscuss/a-collection-of-common-global-demands-from-where-to-start-building-from-the-may12-manifesto.html?Itemid=146

London Calls for global dialogue, well May'12 is an excellent opportunity
to hear the call :)

Please Spread
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 8:58 AM, Mark Barrett
<marknbarrett at googlemail.com>wrote:

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Hello London International,
>
> from the Global Call group, from the global assemblies (they are taken
> every 2 Saturdays) we have developed a manifesto and collected a big list
> of global claims (from the assemblies that have sent it to us)...
>
> You can see all of the info in www.globalmay.org. And obviously, if you
> vote the claims that you like, it will be wonderful.
>
> The objective is to summarize all of the things that WE want in 8-9-10
> points...
>
> Best regards,
>
>  International Statement
>>
>> *This statement from Occupy London?s International Outreach Working Group
>> to create global dialogue reached consensus at the General Assembly by St
>> Paul?s Cathedral in November 2011.*
>>
>>    - Our global system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust,
>>    driven by profit in the interest of the few.
>>
>>
>>    - An economic system based on infinite growth, but which relies on
>>    finite resources, is leading humanity and the environment to
>> destruction.
>>    As long as this system remains in place, people of the world continue
>> to
>>    suffer from an increasingly unfair share of income and wealth.
>>
>>
>>    - We seek a global system that is democratic, just and sustainable. The
>>    world?s resources must not go to the military or corporate profit, but
>>    instead go towards caring for people?s needs: water, food, housing,
>>    education, health, community.
>>
>> *
>> *An international, global collaboration has started, and is working on a
>> statement that will unite the occupy movements across the world in their
>> struggle for an alternative that is focused on and originates from people
>> and their environment.
>>
>> Press release: http://occupyLSX.org/?p=733
>>
>> http://occupylsx.org/?page_id=**2851 <http://occupylsx.org/?page_id=2851>
>> El texto esta en ingles, encuentras la traduccion en espanhol debajo:
>>
>> This list publishes texts endorsed by people's assemblies. It is moderated
>> by a global working group, committed to providing noise-free, reliable,
>> and transparent communication infrastructure for the movements. The list
>> is only one aspect of our communications work. Posts communicated here
>> will also be published on a number of global sites and will be available
>> as an RSS feed and global newswire. Assembly-endorsed political statements
>> published here will be re-published at
>> http://www.peoplesassemblies.**org/category/statements/<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/category/statements/>
>>
>> Our next weekly global Mumble meeting will be Monday at 1730 BST / 1830
>> CET / 1230 EST. Email pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.**net<pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.net>if you want to
>> know more, want to help, or are part of a group working on international
>> communication. And if there is no group working on international
>> communication in your movement - start one!
>>
>>
>>>>>>>>>>  Esta lista publica mensajes refrendados por las asambleas
>> populares. Lista
>> moderada por un grupo de trabajo global, dedicada a ofrecer una
>> infrestructura de comunicacion libre de ruido, confiable y transparente
>> para el movimiento. La lista es solo una parte de nuestra labor
>> comunicativa. Los mensajes enviados seran publicados en diferentes paginas
>> globales y estaran disponibles via RSS y en una pagina mundial de
>> noticias.
>>
>> Nuestra proxima reunion de mumble sera; este proximo lunes a las 18:30
>> hora central de Europa (GMT +1). Email: pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.**
>> net <pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.net>.
>> Eres bienvenido, si quieres saber mas o sientes que puedes ayudar o si
>> eres miembro de un grupo de Comunicacion Internacional. Y si no hubiera un
>> grupo de comunicacion en tu asamblea lo puedes innaugurar tu!
>> ______________________________**___________
>>
>> Assemblies mailing list
>> Assemblies at lists.**takethesquare.net <Assemblies at lists.takethesquare.net>
>> for unsubscribe/etc:
>> https://lists.takethesquare.**net/mailman/listinfo/**assemblies<https://lists.takethesquare.net/mailman/listinfo/assemblies>or
>> Assemblies-owner at lists.**takethesquare.net<Assemblies-owner at lists.takethesquare.net>
>>
>
>


-- 

Doctora por la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (PhD)
M?ster en Gesti?n de Sistemas Integrados (IMS - SHEQ)
Innovadora Social por el Instituto del Banco Mundial (WBI)
GT Extensi?n Gij?n Toma la
Calle<http://www.facebook.com/groups/167907269942762/>
COMUNICACI?N ESTATAL DE ASAMBLEAS 15M
http://comunicacionestatal15m.tomalaplaza.net/
Take the Square International
http://takethesquare.net/
Peoples Assemblies Network (PAN)
http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/newswire/
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From marknbarrett at googlemail.com  Wed Apr 25 18:56:23 2012
From: marknbarrett at googlemail.com (marknbarrett at googlemail.com)
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 18:56:23 +0000
Subject: [OccupyComms] What is to be done next by Zizek
Message-ID: <1976595460-1335377379-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-844271203-@b3.c4.bise7.blackberry>

In case you missed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/24/occupy-wall-street-what-is-to-be-done-next
Sent from phone


From alma.segundo at gmail.com  Thu Apr 26 14:04:35 2012
From: alma.segundo at gmail.com (Alma Segundo)
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:04:35 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] London Call for Global Dialogue
In-Reply-To: <CADQYSVtPz_4fHHJLQqtWdYAxqZ=i9_ahDqthSGxHoz+RgNv7Pg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CA+bwTCfi15tki00BfRggHiNd-y_ZcX8hLBtopW=R2qHy=EvKGQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<e1b402db45098191e64a29b088a51566.squirrel@fruiteater.riseup.net>
	<CAM7m6-AHmdHW7Z0MX0TU-bNeez5LV1kNpuryHG9rtqGRHt+a-g@mail.gmail.com>
	<CADQYSVtPz_4fHHJLQqtWdYAxqZ=i9_ahDqthSGxHoz+RgNv7Pg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJ6-wC85g2R9wS0UzyurNOpapbZhboAt2+pyBcu676GPBni+5A@mail.gmail.com>

Congratulations! Great text! ;)
Mac

On 25 April 2012 10:42, Dr. TR. Rojas-D <ternuros at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> The link to the texts referred by the Global Call group are the manifesto:
> http://www.globalmay.org/blog/item/95-globalmay-manifesto-template-v3.html
> *Needles to say that you can adapt the text of this manifesto to the
> local particularities of your assembly, group, country, city, village, it
> belongs to all of us, is a live doc, not trying to impose anything.*
>
> *The manifesto contains a list of demands that have been collected during
> these months of WGs coordinating for May2012. There is no intention to
> impose all or a part of these demands to any person or assembly. Please
> take those that you consider valid. Everyone can help by introducing more
> content, adding demands to this thread: *
> http://www.globalmay.org/component/easydiscuss/a-collection-of-common-global-demands-from-where-to-start-building-from-the-may12-manifesto.html?Itemid=146
>
> London Calls for global dialogue, well May'12 is an excellent opportunity
> to hear the call :)
>
> Please Spread
> On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 8:58 AM, Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> Hello London International,
>>
>> from the Global Call group, from the global assemblies (they are taken
>> every 2 Saturdays) we have developed a manifesto and collected a big list
>> of global claims (from the assemblies that have sent it to us)...
>>
>> You can see all of the info in www.globalmay.org. And obviously, if you
>> vote the claims that you like, it will be wonderful.
>>
>> The objective is to summarize all of the things that WE want in 8-9-10
>> points...
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>>  International Statement
>>>
>>> *This statement from Occupy London?s International Outreach Working Group
>>> to create global dialogue reached consensus at the General Assembly by St
>>> Paul?s Cathedral in November 2011.*
>>>
>>>    - Our global system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust,
>>>    driven by profit in the interest of the few.
>>>
>>>
>>>    - An economic system based on infinite growth, but which relies on
>>>    finite resources, is leading humanity and the environment to
>>> destruction.
>>>    As long as this system remains in place, people of the world continue
>>> to
>>>    suffer from an increasingly unfair share of income and wealth.
>>>
>>>
>>>    - We seek a global system that is democratic, just and sustainable.
>>> The
>>>    world?s resources must not go to the military or corporate profit, but
>>>    instead go towards caring for people?s needs: water, food, housing,
>>>    education, health, community.
>>>
>>> *
>>> *An international, global collaboration has started, and is working on a
>>> statement that will unite the occupy movements across the world in their
>>> struggle for an alternative that is focused on and originates from people
>>> and their environment.
>>>
>>> Press release: http://occupyLSX.org/?p=733
>>>
>>> http://occupylsx.org/?page_id=**2851<http://occupylsx.org/?page_id=2851>
>>> El texto esta en ingles, encuentras la traduccion en espanhol debajo:
>>>
>>> This list publishes texts endorsed by people's assemblies. It is
>>> moderated
>>> by a global working group, committed to providing noise-free, reliable,
>>> and transparent communication infrastructure for the movements. The list
>>> is only one aspect of our communications work. Posts communicated here
>>> will also be published on a number of global sites and will be available
>>> as an RSS feed and global newswire. Assembly-endorsed political
>>> statements
>>> published here will be re-published at
>>> http://www.peoplesassemblies.**org/category/statements/<http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/category/statements/>
>>>
>>> Our next weekly global Mumble meeting will be Monday at 1730 BST / 1830
>>> CET / 1230 EST. Email pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.**net<pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.net>if you want to
>>> know more, want to help, or are part of a group working on international
>>> communication. And if there is no group working on international
>>> communication in your movement - start one!
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>  Esta lista publica mensajes refrendados por las asambleas
>>> populares. Lista
>>> moderada por un grupo de trabajo global, dedicada a ofrecer una
>>> infrestructura de comunicacion libre de ruido, confiable y transparente
>>> para el movimiento. La lista es solo una parte de nuestra labor
>>> comunicativa. Los mensajes enviados seran publicados en diferentes
>>> paginas
>>> globales y estaran disponibles via RSS y en una pagina mundial de
>>> noticias.
>>>
>>> Nuestra proxima reunion de mumble sera; este proximo lunes a las 18:30
>>> hora central de Europa (GMT +1). Email: pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.**
>>> net <pan-owner at lists.takethesquare.net>.
>>> Eres bienvenido, si quieres saber mas o sientes que puedes ayudar o si
>>> eres miembro de un grupo de Comunicacion Internacional. Y si no hubiera
>>> un
>>> grupo de comunicacion en tu asamblea lo puedes innaugurar tu!
>>> ______________________________**___________
>>>
>>> Assemblies mailing list
>>> Assemblies at lists.**takethesquare.net<Assemblies at lists.takethesquare.net>
>>> for unsubscribe/etc:
>>> https://lists.takethesquare.**net/mailman/listinfo/**assemblies<https://lists.takethesquare.net/mailman/listinfo/assemblies>or
>>> Assemblies-owner at lists.**takethesquare.net<Assemblies-owner at lists.takethesquare.net>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Doctora por la Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (PhD)
> M?ster en Gesti?n de Sistemas Integrados (IMS - SHEQ)
> Innovadora Social por el Instituto del Banco Mundial (WBI)
> GT Extensi?n Gij?n Toma la Calle<http://www.facebook.com/groups/167907269942762/>
> COMUNICACI?N ESTATAL DE ASAMBLEAS 15M
> http://comunicacionestatal15m.tomalaplaza.net/
> Take the Square International
> http://takethesquare.net/
> Peoples Assemblies Network (PAN)
> http://www.peoplesassemblies.org/newswire/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OccupyComms mailing list
> OccupyComms at email-lists.org
> https://www.email-lists.org/mailman/listinfo/occupycomms
>
>


-- 
Mac
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From canthefbiseemymail at yahoo.co.uk  Wed Apr 25 22:23:20 2012
From: canthefbiseemymail at yahoo.co.uk (nicola dodgson)
Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2012 23:23:20 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [OccupyComms] [oh15] What is to be done next by Zizek
Message-ID: <1335392600.82444.BPMail_high_noncarrier@web171505.mail.ir2.yahoo.com>



Anyone available & up for joining a specific one of many actions on M15 please let me know- have plan, lack people to make happen ;)

Bob


------------------------------
On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 19:56 BST marknbarrett at googlemail.com wrote:

>In case you missed: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/24/occupy-wall-street-what-is-to-be-done-next
>Sent from phone



From marknbarrett at googlemail.com  Fri Apr 27 06:44:39 2012
From: marknbarrett at googlemail.com (Mark Barrett)
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2012 07:44:39 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] Keynes' Faustian Bargain
Message-ID: <CAM7m6-BAWifDwT4w=w2zUbPc8-XDbaB00qZghkt+h6s67RvAQg@mail.gmail.com>

*From Faust to Frankenstein*
*Markets alone should not determine our conception of what is desirable*
Rowan Williams
23rd April 2012
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2012/04/from-faust-to-frankenstein
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What Money Can?t Buy by Michael Sandel (Allen Lane, ?20, 26th April)

How Much is Enough? by Robert Skidelsky & Edward Skidelsky (Allen Lane,
?20, 19th June)

Should people be paid for donating blood? In the United States, there is a
mixed economy of free donation and the sale of blood through commercial
blood banks. Predictably, most of the blood that is dealt with on a
commercial basis comes from the very poor, including the homeless and the
unemployed. The system entails a large-scale redistribution of blood from
the poor to the rich.

This is only one of the examples cited by Michael Sandel, the political
philosopher and former Reith Lecturer, in his survey of the rapidly growing
commercialisation of social transactions, but it is symbolically a pretty
powerful one. We hear of international markets in organs for transplant and
are, on the whole, queasy about it; but here is a routine instance of life,
quite literally, being transferred from the poor to the rich on a
recognised legal basis. The force of Sandel?s book is in his insistence
that we think hard about why exactly we might see this as wrong; we are
urged to move beyond the ?yuck factor? and to consider whether there is
anything that is intrinsically not capable of being treated as a commodity,
and if so why.

The examples related show that in practice there is virtually nothing that
has not somewhere or other (usually but not exclusively in the USA) been
packaged as a commodity and subjected to ?market? principles. Sandel lists
a variety of schemes?some of which, thank God, never got beyond the
drawing-board, some of which have become relatively uncontroversial?for
marketing people?s time, health, legal liabilities and lifespan. From the
almost innocuous practice of paying someone else to stand in a theatre
queue for you, through the nakedly rapacious business in employers taking
out high-level insurance policies on their employees? lives so that they
enjoy a ?return? on their death far in excess of what the bereaved family
might expect, to the ghoulish trade in purchasing life insurance policies
for the terminally ill (and waiting impatiently for them to die, hoping
there will not be some medical breakthrough that secures a few more years
for them)?this is a world that at first reading seems completely surreal.
Yet it is manifestly a projection of a philosophy that has already taken
over vast tracts of our social life in the ?developed? world.

It is a philosophy that regards any imaginable object or transaction as
capable of being exchanged for measurable material. It is the philosophy
that has radically distorted how we view public services and education for
the last few decades; and it has had an extraordinarily easy run, all
things considered. But what Sandel does, by taking some of the most
grotesque instances of market exchange, is to prod us into asking whether
we have any reason for drawing a line between what is and what isn?t
exchangeable, what can?t be reduced to commodity terms. He quotes the
reasonable and even eloquent apologias offered by financial metaphysicians
for these practices so as to remind us that, once the principle of
universal exchangeability is granted, we are going to have to work hard to
establish any exemptions. If?to take the most extreme example?my bodily
life is a thing that I own, like a car or a computer, what exactly is there
that makes it unacceptable for me to offer it on the market, or for someone
else to offer me a measurable profit in return for it?

The Book of Revelation is seldom quoted in studies of economics, for many
reasons; but when we read of the fall of Babylon the Great (or imperial
Rome), with all its variegated commerce, the climax to the list of its
trading enterprises may strike us with a new force. The city
trades?according to the old translation?in ?the souls of men.? Sandel?s
picture is of a modern Babylon, where, to use yet another biblical phrase,
the question, ?What shall a man give in return for his life?? has been
provided with a possible actuarial answer.

For most of us, I suspect, the instinctive revulsion for the more extreme
cases itemised here is still strong; but, given the skill and
sophistication of apologists for the universal commodification of life, we
need to do better than instinct alone. Sandel hints at the risks we run in
not working out our objections, but the reader may be left feeling that
there is another book to be written spelling this out a bit further?and
perhaps also helping us see what it is that makes some things appropriate
for the category of commodity. It is manifestly true, as he says, that all
this demonstrates that markets are corrosive of morality to the extent that
they define what is humanly desirable strictly in terms of material profit.
But what might be needed to fill out the positive alternative?

The clue is perhaps in this assumption of exchangeability. The effect of
this is exactly what Marx defined as the dissolution of everything that
seemed fixed and settled in itself: ?All that is solid melts into air, all
that is holy is profaned,? in the famous axiom of the Communist Manifesto.
And, to stay with the categories of the early Marx for a bit longer, this
result can be characterised as ?alienation??but not only of the labourer
from the products of labour. Sandel is describing an alienation of the
subject from the body, of the will from the material world. What is lasting
and ?real? is the abstract ego, independent of its physical nature, its
environment, even its actual history. The fundamental model being assumed
here is one in which a set of unconditioned wills negotiate control of a
passive storehouse of commodities, each of them capable of being reduced to
a dematerialised calculus of exchange value. If anything could be called a
?world-denying? philosophy, this is it.

And it is the protest against such a denial of the world that animates a
crisp and pungent book by Robert Skidelsky, celebrated biographer of
Keynes, and his son, the philosophy professor Edward Skidelsky.
Intriguingly, their intellectual guiding star is not Marx or even Keynes
but Aristotle: we are repeatedly brought back to Aristotle?s bafflement at
the idea that money itself could be regarded as a sort of agent or a sort
of life-form, let alone a self-explanatory goal for human activity. The
starting point is the rueful acknowledgement that Keynes, for all his
acumen as an analyst, was an indifferent prophet. His 1928 jeu d?esprit on
?Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren? (published in 1930)
envisaged a situation in which growth had come to a full stop because we
had arrived at an economic position where security and comfort for most
people had been attained. There would be simply no need to increase our
economic activity. That this now seems like a voice from another planet
simply reminds us how deeply we have become committed to a model of growth
that has long since stopped asking ?what for?? And if we have stopped
asking this, it is not surprising that so many of the vehicles of ?growth?
fashionable in the last decade or so have absolutely nothing to do with
consolidating shared well-being, whether in any one particular country or
across the globe. They have been, once again, essentially abstract matters,
the piling up of indices of status for a small minority.

The Skidelskys write of a ?Faustian bargain? presupposed by Keynes and many
like him: allow capitalism to thrive for the time being and it will deliver
a sustainable level of security for all, despite its rapacious and
ruthlessly competitive aspects. Then, when this level has been reached, it
can be honourably retired, and our convivial and co-operative motives can
be allowed to have full play. But Faustian bargains have a history of
turning out badly. ?Capitalism, it is now clear, has no spontaneous
tendency to evolve into something nobler,? write the Skidelskys. ?Left to
itself, the machinery of want-generation will carry on churning, endlessly
and pointlessly.? We have moved from Faust to Frankenstein. And one of the
many virtues of the Skidelskys? study is that it makes it very clear how
eccentric all this is in the broader light of human history and culture. We
are the first civilisation to treat monetary accumulation as an absolute
goal, and it has obscured the whole of our discourse about shared
well-being, or the ?common good.? Politics is trapped in discussion about
efficiency and the maximising of choice; the west, at least, is dominated
by the assumption that the state exists to protect choice and to do so by
protecting financial competitiveness in every sphere?Philip Bobbitt?s
?market state,? as he set out in The Shield of Achilles (2007). On the day
I write this, the education secretary has announced an initiative to hand
over some responsibility for A-level examinations to the universities, and
the public reaction to and discussion of this has been cast almost entirely
in terms of whether this will guarantee a ?more competitive workforce.?
That education could have some value other than improving profits seems to
be unthinkable. But the Skidelskys firmly remind us that it is we who are
the oddities in terms of cultural and moral history in so shrinking the
range of political discourse.

?The idea of the good life no longer forms part of public discussion in the
western world.? That is a strong statement, but it is not, in the context
of the book?s argument, anything to do with facile nostalgia. Although we
regularly speak as though government had no interest in ?paternalistic?
directiveness, the truth is, of course, that every administration continues
to invest in highly directive moralising, about health issues and the
limits of acceptable public speech, for example. But this is not predicated
on the basis of a three-dimensional picture of what a good life might look
like; it is defended on the grounds of protecting generalised liberties.
The state must be neutral beyond these limits, and this entails neutrality
about financial rapacity and the promotion of acquisitiveness by various
means.

Belatedly, this has come to appear rather thin, and statistics which
suggest no significant increase in the self-reporting of happiness over a
period of material growth have begun to tell. Indeed, the statistics
suggesting an inverse correlation between happiness and economic inequality
might worry us even more. And so government and commentators have turned
their attention to how happiness might be secured and maximised, exploring
various measures of happiness. But the Skidelskys, in a particularly
mordant and acute chapter, dismantle this in short order. The good life, in
classical, medieval and oriental philosophies, is not a life in which we
are guaranteed happy feelings, but one in which we ?have reason to be
happy??one, that is, where our circumstances are such that we are in tune
with our environment and have liberty in that environment consistent with
the sort of beings we are. The argument is paralleled in a later chapter on
?Elements of the Good Life,? where the authors note the degeneration of our
thinking about health into an obsessive passion for unceasing improvement,
rather than simply settling for being in reasonable working order in
whatever way our age and circumstances allow. The deep anxieties about
ageing that surface again and again in our culture are probably the most
obvious sign of this. And, though the Skidelskys don?t say this in quite
these terms, the social effect of this anxiety is to marginalise and demean
the elderly in a variety of damaging ways, to encourage a set of public
images and stereotypes suggesting that normative humanity is young and
hyperactive.

The list of elements in the good life??basic goods,? not reducible to other
terms?is a sensible and realistic one, including an interesting section on
?personality,? defined as ?the ability to frame and execute a plan of life
reflective of one?s tastes, temperaments and conception of the good.? The
Skidelskys explicitly warn against elevating this into a principle of
autonomy that can trump all other considerations, and rightly they
emphasise not some maximal capacity to realise individual choices but
rather the freedom to secure ?private space? for reflection. A robust
defence of private property?heavily indebted to Catholic social
thought?follows from this, raising the crucial question of how to establish
fairness in respect of property. But what is so intriguing in this bit of
the argument is the assumption that the good life is in some degree
?contemplative??that is, it requires the space in which I can scrutinise
myself, learn something of self-criticism and thus, potentially, of irony.
And for a habit of ironic self-awareness to be generated, we need some
concept or image of what is normatively human that does not simply become
an oppressive stereotype?a good myth, you might say; we need the saint or
hero to illustrate what the well-lived life might look like. This in turn
requires, as the authors indicate without too much elaborating the point, a
doctrine of the cardinal virtues?another bit of revived Aristotelianism.
What are the habits and practices that will educate our passions and allow
us to shape a credible narrative of the self, understood against the
backdrop of some idea of what the ?excellence? of human nature might
consist in?

The basic question is how we most seriously and honestly turn our scrutiny
on ourselves and how we become able to bear that scrutiny. In more
traditional words, we need some vocabulary that evokes both repentance and
absolution. The opposite is what the American novelist Walker Percy
identified as the characteristic style of the late-modern consciousness, a
blend of sentimentality and cruelty. And the Skidelskys are prescient in
stressing that a focus on happiness as a goal in itself is completely
inimical to any practice that involves clear and compassionate
self-knowledge. The underlying imperative?if we hold on to the image of a
?contemplative? good?is to find the time to look at things, including my
own history and circumstances, patiently and clearly; to give them what
Simone Weil famously described as ?attention.? A world in which every
object is instantly capable of being rendered in terms of what it can be
exchanged for is one in which there is nothing worth looking at for itself,
a world systematically ?de-realised.? And that is what we are threatened
with: Sandel?s examples converge with the Skidelskys? thesis in putting
before us a possible world of absolute commodification. If we want to
resist this intelligently, we need doctrine, ritual and narrative: sketches
of the normative, practices that are not just functions, and stories of
lives that communicate a sense of what being at home in the environment
looks like?and the costs of failure as well. Self-knowledge is not, in this
framework, a matter of introspection, sifting over one?s emotional states;
it is a capacity to assess, to measure oneself, a capacity on which both
comedy and tragedy ultimately depend. Not the least problem with the
commodified world is that its assumed picture of human subjectivity allows
nothing to be either absurd or harrowing. Did the financial masters of the
universe before the collapse of recent years ever find anything absurd?

So it should not be too surprising that both these books end with a
slightly more than sidelong glance at religious language as one of the
sources for resistance. Doctrine, ritual and narrative are the basic
currency of religion; whether or not you believe the doctrines or find the
rituals viable or tell the stories, it may be important to grasp what it is
that these things conserve in human existence. To argue that one of the
main social advantages of religion is that it preserves a rationale for
finding some things funny is a bit counter-intuitive; but it is no more
eccentric than the recognition that without a vivid sense of what is,
non-negotiably, due to the dignity of any and every person, we shan?t find
some things outrageous either. Solemnity, apathy and triviality are the
default settings of a lot of current cultural discourse; which suggests
that a reinfusion of the comic and the tragic is a basic aspect of what we
need. Much more could be said about how the languages of faith contribute
to this?but at least the door is opened in both these studies to seeing
religion as something other than just a set of failed explanations or
incomprehensible taboos. And religious qualms around some high-profile
public questions (euthanasia, abortion) are best understood as arguments
rooted in a deep aversion to anything that encourages us to think of our
bodies as a form of property. The non-religious person may not share the
believer?s convictions or conclusions on these issues; but it is important
that even the non-believer grasp that arguments based on the right to do
what I like with what I ?own? need some hard scrutiny in a world where
commodification has become so much the prevailing trend.

The Skidelskys? final chapter offers some bold and lucid proposals about
what the state can do to rein in the fever of reductive economism and toxic
acquisitiveness, including firmer restrictions on advertising, some form of
progressive consumption tax (a version of the old sumptuary laws) and a new
approach to the global economy that will reduce the dependence of
developing economies on export-led growth (implying a higher dependence in
developed countries on local production, a point with major implications
for the renascence of manufacturing and food production). I offer no
detailed comment on these proposals (though it is clear that without some
such structures the overall transfer of wealth from poor to rich countries
in one form or another will continue), but remark only that it is not
enough to claim that the state must be neutral in such matters: it is, as
we have seen, quite prepared to be paternalistic about some supposed goods;
why not others?

These are two deeply provocative and intellectually suggestive books.
Sandel?s risks having its positive argument rather drowned in narrative
detail, and the Skidelskys? might have benefited from more analysis of the
particular forms of power encoded in conspicuous consumption: rows of
noughts on a bonus figure are in one sense economically useless, but
symbolically effective in securing status. There is a brief summary of what
is meant by ?positional? goods which bears on this, but might have been
built on further. We need a louder reminder of our continued susceptibility
to magical thinking. But these are quibbles. The overall impact of these
studies, amply researched and presented with exemplary clarity, is weighty
indeed?little less than a wake-up call to recognise our desperate need to
rediscover some intelligible way of talking about humanity, interiority,
mutuality and?to use the word again?irony, before we are submerged in
barbarism; a barbarism whose chief victims will, as ever, be the poorest,
in the west and in the whole globe.
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From englishrepublican at yahoo.com  Sun Apr 29 13:04:14 2012
From: englishrepublican at yahoo.com (English Republican)
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2012 06:04:14 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [OccupyComms] [Occupy London] Keynes' Faustian Bargain
In-Reply-To: <CAM7m6-BAWifDwT4w=w2zUbPc8-XDbaB00qZghkt+h6s67RvAQg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAM7m6-BAWifDwT4w=w2zUbPc8-XDbaB00qZghkt+h6s67RvAQg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1335704654.52064.YahooMailNeo@web113101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Mark,
?
Can you explain the point of this?
?
Fraternally,
?
Michael


________________________________
From: Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>
To: "occupylondon at groupspaces.com" <OccupyLondon at groupspaces.com>; "<occupycomms at email-lists.org>" <occupycomms at email-lists.org>; Politics and Spirit Network <politicsandspiritnetwork at yahoogroups.com>; realdemocracynow <realdemocracynow at groupspaces.com> 
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2012 7:44 AM
Subject: [Occupy London] Keynes' Faustian Bargain

From Faust to Frankenstein
Markets alone should not determine our conception of what is desirable? 
Rowan Williams
23rd April 2012
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2012/04/from-faust-to-frankenstein
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
??????????????? 
What Money Can?t Buy by Michael Sandel (Allen Lane, ?20, 26th April)

How Much is Enough? by Robert Skidelsky & Edward Skidelsky (Allen Lane, ?20, 19th June)

Should people be paid for donating blood? In the United States, there is a mixed economy of free donation and the sale of blood through commercial blood banks. Predictably, most of the blood that is dealt with on a commercial basis comes from the very poor, including the homeless and the unemployed. The system entails a large-scale redistribution of blood from the poor to the rich.

This is only one of the examples cited by Michael Sandel, the political philosopher and former Reith Lecturer, in his survey of the rapidly growing commercialisation of social transactions, but it is symbolically a pretty powerful one. We hear of international markets in organs for transplant and are, on the whole, queasy about it; but here is a routine instance of life, quite literally, being transferred from the poor to the rich on a recognised legal basis. The force of Sandel?s book is in his insistence that we think hard about why exactly we might see this as wrong; we are urged to move beyond the ?yuck factor? and to consider whether there is anything that is intrinsically not capable of being treated as a commodity, and if so why.

The examples related show that in practice there is virtually nothing that has not somewhere or other (usually but not exclusively in the USA) been packaged as a commodity and subjected to ?market? principles. Sandel lists a variety of schemes?some of which, thank God, never got beyond the drawing-board, some of which have become relatively uncontroversial?for marketing people?s time, health, legal liabilities and lifespan. From the almost innocuous practice of paying someone else to stand in a theatre queue for you, through the nakedly rapacious business in employers taking out high-level insurance policies on their employees? lives so that they enjoy a ?return? on their death far in excess of what the bereaved family might expect, to the ghoulish trade in purchasing life insurance policies for the terminally ill (and waiting impatiently for them to die, hoping there will not be some medical breakthrough that secures a few more years for
 them)?this is a world that at first reading seems completely surreal. Yet it is manifestly a projection of a philosophy that has already taken over vast tracts of our social life in the ?developed? world.

It is a philosophy that regards any imaginable object or transaction as capable of being exchanged for measurable material. It is the philosophy that has radically distorted how we view public services and education for the last few decades; and it has had an extraordinarily easy run, all things considered. But what Sandel does, by taking some of the most grotesque instances of market exchange, is to prod us into asking whether we have any reason for drawing a line between what is and what isn?t exchangeable, what can?t be reduced to commodity terms. He quotes the reasonable and even eloquent apologias offered by financial metaphysicians for these practices so as to remind us that, once the principle of universal exchangeability is granted, we are going to have to work hard to establish any exemptions. If?to take the most extreme example?my bodily life is a thing that I own, like a car or a computer, what exactly is there that makes it
 unacceptable for me to offer it on the market, or for someone else to offer me a measurable profit in return for it?

The Book of Revelation is seldom quoted in studies of economics, for many reasons; but when we read of the fall of Babylon the Great (or imperial Rome), with all its variegated commerce, the climax to the list of its trading enterprises may strike us with a new force. The city trades?according to the old translation?in ?the souls of men.? Sandel?s picture is of a modern Babylon, where, to use yet another biblical phrase, the question, ?What shall a man give in return for his life?? has been provided with a possible actuarial answer.

For most of us, I suspect, the instinctive revulsion for the more extreme cases itemised here is still strong; but, given the skill and sophistication of apologists for the universal commodification of life, we need to do better than instinct alone. Sandel hints at the risks we run in not working out our objections, but the reader may be left feeling that there is another book to be written spelling this out a bit further?and perhaps also helping us see what it is that makes some things appropriate for the category of commodity. It is manifestly true, as he says, that all this demonstrates that markets are corrosive of morality to the extent that they define what is humanly desirable strictly in terms of material profit. But what might be needed to fill out the positive alternative?

The clue is perhaps in this assumption of exchangeability. The effect of this is exactly what Marx defined as the dissolution of everything that seemed fixed and settled in itself: ?All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned,? in the famous axiom of the Communist Manifesto. And, to stay with the categories of the early Marx for a bit longer, this result can be characterised as ?alienation??but not only of the labourer from the products of labour. Sandel is describing an alienation of the subject from the body, of the will from the material world. What is lasting and ?real? is the abstract ego, independent of its physical nature, its environment, even its actual history. The fundamental model being assumed here is one in which a set of unconditioned wills negotiate control of a passive storehouse of commodities, each of them capable of being reduced to a dematerialised calculus of exchange value. If anything could be
 called a ?world-denying? philosophy, this is it.

And it is the protest against such a denial of the world that animates a crisp and pungent book by Robert Skidelsky, celebrated biographer of Keynes, and his son, the philosophy professor Edward Skidelsky. Intriguingly, their intellectual guiding star is not Marx or even Keynes but Aristotle: we are repeatedly brought back to Aristotle?s bafflement at the idea that money itself could be regarded as a sort of agent or a sort of life-form, let alone a self-explanatory goal for human activity. The starting point is the rueful acknowledgement that Keynes, for all his acumen as an analyst, was an indifferent prophet. His 1928 jeu d?esprit on ?Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren? (published in 1930) envisaged a situation in which growth had come to a full stop because we had arrived at an economic position where security and comfort for most people had been attained. There would be simply no need to increase our economic activity. That this
 now seems like a voice from another planet simply reminds us how deeply we have become committed to a model of growth that has long since stopped asking ?what for?? And if we have stopped asking this, it is not surprising that so many of the vehicles of ?growth? fashionable in the last decade or so have absolutely nothing to do with consolidating shared well-being, whether in any one particular country or across the globe. They have been, once again, essentially abstract matters, the piling up of indices of status for a small minority.

The Skidelskys write of a ?Faustian bargain? presupposed by Keynes and many like him: allow capitalism to thrive for the time being and it will deliver a sustainable level of security for all, despite its rapacious and ruthlessly competitive aspects. Then, when this level has been reached, it can be honourably retired, and our convivial and co-operative motives can be allowed to have full play. But Faustian bargains have a history of turning out badly. ?Capitalism, it is now clear, has no spontaneous tendency to evolve into something nobler,? write the Skidelskys. ?Left to itself, the machinery of want-generation will carry on churning, endlessly and pointlessly.? We have moved from Faust to Frankenstein. And one of the many virtues of the Skidelskys? study is that it makes it very clear how eccentric all this is in the broader light of human history and culture. We are the first civilisation to treat monetary accumulation as an absolute
 goal, and it has obscured the whole of our discourse about shared well-being, or the ?common good.? Politics is trapped in discussion about efficiency and the maximising of choice; the west, at least, is dominated by the assumption that the state exists to protect choice and to do so by protecting financial competitiveness in every sphere?Philip Bobbitt?s ?market state,? as he set out in The Shield of Achilles (2007). On the day I write this, the education secretary has announced an initiative to hand over some responsibility for A-level examinations to the universities, and the public reaction to and discussion of this has been cast almost entirely in terms of whether this will guarantee a ?more competitive workforce.? That education could have some value other than improving profits seems to be unthinkable. But the Skidelskys firmly remind us that it is we who are the oddities in terms of cultural and moral history in so shrinking the
 range of political discourse.

?The idea of the good life no longer forms part of public discussion in the western world.? That is a strong statement, but it is not, in the context of the book?s argument, anything to do with facile nostalgia. Although we regularly speak as though government had no interest in ?paternalistic? directiveness, the truth is, of course, that every administration continues to invest in highly directive moralising, about health issues and the limits of acceptable public speech, for example. But this is not predicated on the basis of a three-dimensional picture of what a good life might look like; it is defended on the grounds of protecting generalised liberties. The state must be neutral beyond these limits, and this entails neutrality about financial rapacity and the promotion of acquisitiveness by various means.

Belatedly, this has come to appear rather thin, and statistics which suggest no significant increase in the self-reporting of happiness over a period of material growth have begun to tell. Indeed, the statistics suggesting an inverse correlation between happiness and economic inequality might worry us even more. And so government and commentators have turned their attention to how happiness might be secured and maximised, exploring various measures of happiness. But the Skidelskys, in a particularly mordant and acute chapter, dismantle this in short order. The good life, in classical, medieval and oriental philosophies, is not a life in which we are guaranteed happy feelings, but one in which we ?have reason to be happy??one, that is, where our circumstances are such that we are in tune with our environment and have liberty in that environment consistent with the sort of beings we are. The argument is paralleled in a later chapter on ?Elements of
 the Good Life,? where the authors note the degeneration of our thinking about health into an obsessive passion for unceasing improvement, rather than simply settling for being in reasonable working order in whatever way our age and circumstances allow. The deep anxieties about ageing that surface again and again in our culture are probably the most obvious sign of this. And, though the Skidelskys don?t say this in quite these terms, the social effect of this anxiety is to marginalise and demean the elderly in a variety of damaging ways, to encourage a set of public images and stereotypes suggesting that normative humanity is young and hyperactive.

The list of elements in the good life??basic goods,? not reducible to other terms?is a sensible and realistic one, including an interesting section on ?personality,? defined as ?the ability to frame and execute a plan of life reflective of one?s tastes, temperaments and conception of the good.? The Skidelskys explicitly warn against elevating this into a principle of autonomy that can trump all other considerations, and rightly they emphasise not some maximal capacity to realise individual choices but rather the freedom to secure ?private space? for reflection. A robust defence of private property?heavily indebted to Catholic social thought?follows from this, raising the crucial question of how to establish fairness in respect of property. But what is so intriguing in this bit of the argument is the assumption that the good life is in some degree ?contemplative??that is, it requires the space in which I can scrutinise
 myself, learn something of self-criticism and thus, potentially, of irony. And for a habit of ironic self-awareness to be generated, we need some concept or image of what is normatively human that does not simply become an oppressive stereotype?a good myth, you might say; we need the saint or hero to illustrate what the well-lived life might look like. This in turn requires, as the authors indicate without too much elaborating the point, a doctrine of the cardinal virtues?another bit of revived Aristotelianism. What are the habits and practices that will educate our passions and allow us to shape a credible narrative of the self, understood against the backdrop of some idea of what the ?excellence? of human nature might consist in?

The basic question is how we most seriously and honestly turn our scrutiny on ourselves and how we become able to bear that scrutiny. In more traditional words, we need some vocabulary that evokes both repentance and absolution. The opposite is what the American novelist Walker Percy identified as the characteristic style of the late-modern consciousness, a blend of sentimentality and cruelty. And the Skidelskys are prescient in stressing that a focus on happiness as a goal in itself is completely inimical to any practice that involves clear and compassionate self-knowledge. The underlying imperative?if we hold on to the image of a ?contemplative? good?is to find the time to look at things, including my own history and circumstances, patiently and clearly; to give them what Simone Weil famously described as ?attention.? A world in which every object is instantly capable of being rendered in terms of what it can be exchanged for is one in
 which there is nothing worth looking at for itself, a world systematically ?de-realised.? And that is what we are threatened with: Sandel?s examples converge with the Skidelskys? thesis in putting before us a possible world of absolute commodification. If we want to resist this intelligently, we need doctrine, ritual and narrative: sketches of the normative, practices that are not just functions, and stories of lives that communicate a sense of what being at home in the environment looks like?and the costs of failure as well. Self-knowledge is not, in this framework, a matter of introspection, sifting over one?s emotional states; it is a capacity to assess, to measure oneself, a capacity on which both comedy and tragedy ultimately depend. Not the least problem with the commodified world is that its assumed picture of human subjectivity allows nothing to be either absurd or harrowing. Did the financial masters of the universe before the
 collapse of recent years ever find anything absurd?

So it should not be too surprising that both these books end with a slightly more than sidelong glance at religious language as one of the sources for resistance. Doctrine, ritual and narrative are the basic currency of religion; whether or not you believe the doctrines or find the rituals viable or tell the stories, it may be important to grasp what it is that these things conserve in human existence. To argue that one of the main social advantages of religion is that it preserves a rationale for finding some things funny is a bit counter-intuitive; but it is no more eccentric than the recognition that without a vivid sense of what is, non-negotiably, due to the dignity of any and every person, we shan?t find some things outrageous either. Solemnity, apathy and triviality are the default settings of a lot of current cultural discourse; which suggests that a reinfusion of the comic and the tragic is a basic aspect of what we need. Much more could be
 said about how the languages of faith contribute to this?but at least the door is opened in both these studies to seeing religion as something other than just a set of failed explanations or incomprehensible taboos. And religious qualms around some high-profile public questions (euthanasia, abortion) are best understood as arguments rooted in a deep aversion to anything that encourages us to think of our bodies as a form of property. The non-religious person may not share the believer?s convictions or conclusions on these issues; but it is important that even the non-believer grasp that arguments based on the right to do what I like with what I ?own? need some hard scrutiny in a world where commodification has become so much the prevailing trend.

The Skidelskys? final chapter offers some bold and lucid proposals about what the state can do to rein in the fever of reductive economism and toxic acquisitiveness, including firmer restrictions on advertising, some form of progressive consumption tax (a version of the old sumptuary laws) and a new approach to the global economy that will reduce the dependence of developing economies on export-led growth (implying a higher dependence in developed countries on local production, a point with major implications for the renascence of manufacturing and food production). I offer no detailed comment on these proposals (though it is clear that without some such structures the overall transfer of wealth from poor to rich countries in one form or another will continue), but remark only that it is not enough to claim that the state must be neutral in such matters: it is, as we have seen, quite prepared to be paternalistic about some supposed goods; why not
 others?

These are two deeply provocative and intellectually suggestive books. Sandel?s risks having its positive argument rather drowned in narrative detail, and the Skidelskys? might have benefited from more analysis of the particular forms of power encoded in conspicuous consumption: rows of noughts on a bonus figure are in one sense economically useless, but symbolically effective in securing status. There is a brief summary of what is meant by ?positional? goods which bears on this, but might have been built on further. We need a louder reminder of our continued susceptibility to magical thinking. But these are quibbles. The overall impact of these studies, amply researched and presented with exemplary clarity, is weighty indeed?little less than a wake-up call to recognise our desperate need to rediscover some intelligible way of talking about humanity, interiority, mutuality and?to use the word again?irony, before we are submerged in
 barbarism; a barbarism whose chief victims will, as ever, be the poorest, in the west and in the whole globe.

--?

Friendly reminder: please keep these mailing list discussions to a minimum as they reach a lot of people. Instead you can email working groups and individuals directly, or use the Occupy London forum at occupylondon?.?info

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From marknbarrett at googlemail.com  Mon Apr 30 11:53:53 2012
From: marknbarrett at googlemail.com (Mark Barrett)
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:53:53 +0100
Subject: [OccupyComms] [Occupy London] Keynes' Faustian Bargain
In-Reply-To: <1335704654.52064.YahooMailNeo@web113101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
References: <CAM7m6-BAWifDwT4w=w2zUbPc8-XDbaB00qZghkt+h6s67RvAQg@mail.gmail.com>
	<1335704654.52064.YahooMailNeo@web113101.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAM7m6-Do37hqYiq0LRdH1V5PjeBBwpVztOC+VBhnwFAzHMw-6Q@mail.gmail.com>

Hello Michael

>Mark, Can you explain the point of this?
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2012/04/from-faust-to-frankenstein

Rowan Williams asks questions like 'what is growth for ?' and says 'how
deeply we have become committed to a model of growth that has long since
stopped asking ?what for?? And if we have stopped asking this, it is not
surprising that so many of the vehicles of ?growth? fashionable in the last
decade or so have absolutely nothing to do with consolidating shared
well-being, '

'The Skidelskys [one of the books he is reviewing) write of a "Faustian
bargain" presupposed by Keynes and many like him: allow capitalism to
thrive for the time being and it will deliver a sustainable level of
security for all, despite its rapacious and ruthlessly competitive aspects.
Then, when this level has been reached, it can be honourably retired, and
our convivial and co-operative motives can be allowed to have full play and
' But Faustian bargains have a history of turning out badly. ?Capitalism,
it is now clear, has no spontaneous tendency to evolve into something
nobler,?  .. ?Left to itself, the machinery of want-generation will carry
on churning, endlessly and pointlessly.? We have moved from Faust to
Frankenstein. And one of the many virtues of the Skidelskys? study is that
it makes it very clear how eccentric all this is in the broader light of
human history and culture. We are the first civilisation to treat monetary
accumulation as an absolute goal, and it has obscured the whole of our
discourse about shared well-being, or the ?common good.? '

and

'Both these books end with a slightly more than sidelong glance at
religious language as one of the sources for resistance. Doctrine, ritual
and narrative are the basic currency of religion; whether or not you
believe the doctrines or find the rituals viable or tell the stories, it
may be important to grasp what it is that these things conserve in human
existence.

Williams makes the claim, following the Skidelskys' work that the present
(capitalist) system focuses exclusively on 'want-generation' and that this
is a failed paradigmatic position that needs overturning in order to move
towards a world where, instead of everything being commodified what makes
for the good life is embraced.

Williams posits things like interiority, contemplation, mutuality, ritual,
doctrine, narrative, convivility and co-operation as being necessary for
this.

He also, in my view speaks interestingly about alienation in Capitalism
both from the usual Marxist point of view relating to alienation from one's
own labour but also in a more spiritually interesting way about the subject
under capitalism being alienated from its own body. We are after all a
class driven society, perhaps intellectual vs non (as exemplified by splits
in Occupy to some extent) being the main dividing line more even than
financial or social. John Macmurray the philosopher used to speak of the
need for a new kind of 'freedom in the modern world' based on an embrace of
the emotional or bodily gut feeling of what we individually and
collectively really wanted. Of how the religious and artistic ie individual
and shared heart, body and soul) strands of western history were
perennially prostituted to the scientific-legalistic (ie intellect,
abstract, ego based and manipulative) and i think he was right.

Are these things not crucially important for Occupy to consider ?

Love and solidarity

Mark


On 29 April 2012 14:04, English Republican <englishrepublican at yahoo.com>wrote:

>  Mark,
>
> Can you explain the point of this?
>
> Fraternally,
>
> Michael
>
>   *From:* Mark Barrett <marknbarrett at googlemail.com>
> *To:* "occupylondon at groupspaces.com" <OccupyLondon at groupspaces.com>; "<
> occupycomms at email-lists.org>" <occupycomms at email-lists.org>; Politics and
> Spirit Network <politicsandspiritnetwork at yahoogroups.com>;
> realdemocracynow <realdemocracynow at groupspaces.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, April 27, 2012 7:44 AM
> *Subject:* [Occupy London] Keynes' Faustian Bargain
> **
>  *From Faust to Frankenstein*
> *Markets alone should not determine our conception of what is desirable*
> Rowan Williams
> 23rd April 2012
> http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2012/04/from-faust-to-frankenstein
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> What Money Can?t Buy by Michael Sandel (Allen Lane, ?20, 26th April)
>
> How Much is Enough? by Robert Skidelsky & Edward Skidelsky (Allen Lane,
> ?20, 19th June)
>
> Should people be paid for donating blood? In the United States, there is a
> mixed economy of free donation and the sale of blood through commercial
> blood banks. Predictably, most of the blood that is dealt with on a
> commercial basis comes from the very poor, including the homeless and the
> unemployed. The system entails a large-scale redistribution of blood from
> the poor to the rich.
>
> This is only one of the examples cited by Michael Sandel, the political
> philosopher and former Reith Lecturer, in his survey of the rapidly growing
> commercialisation of social transactions, but it is symbolically a pretty
> powerful one. We hear of international markets in organs for transplant and
> are, on the whole, queasy about it; but here is a routine instance of life,
> quite literally, being transferred from the poor to the rich on a
> recognised legal basis. The force of Sandel?s book is in his insistence
> that we think hard about why exactly we might see this as wrong; we are
> urged to move beyond the ?yuck factor? and to consider whether there is
> anything that is intrinsically not capable of being treated as a commodity,
> and if so why.
>
> The examples related show that in practice there is virtually nothing that
> has not somewhere or other (usually but not exclusively in the USA) been
> packaged as a commodity and subjected to ?market? principles. Sandel lists
> a variety of schemes?some of which, thank God, never got beyond the
> drawing-board, some of which have become relatively uncontroversial?for
> marketing people?s time, health, legal liabilities and lifespan. From the
> almost innocuous practice of paying someone else to stand in a theatre
> queue for you, through the nakedly rapacious business in employers taking
> out high-level insurance policies on their employees? lives so that they
> enjoy a ?return? on their death far in excess of what the bereaved family
> might expect, to the ghoulish trade in purchasing life insurance policies
> for the terminally ill (and waiting impatiently for them to die, hoping
> there will not be some medical breakthrough that secures a few more years
> for them)?this is a world that at first reading seems completely surreal.
> Yet it is manifestly a projection of a philosophy that has already taken
> over vast tracts of our social life in the ?developed? world.
>
> It is a philosophy that regards any imaginable object or transaction as
> capable of being exchanged for measurable material. It is the philosophy
> that has radically distorted how we view public services and education for
> the last few decades; and it has had an extraordinarily easy run, all
> things considered. But what Sandel does, by taking some of the most
> grotesque instances of market exchange, is to prod us into asking whether
> we have any reason for drawing a line between what is and what isn?t
> exchangeable, what can?t be reduced to commodity terms. He quotes the
> reasonable and even eloquent apologias offered by financial metaphysicians
> for these practices so as to remind us that, once the principle of
> universal exchangeability is granted, we are going to have to work hard to
> establish any exemptions. If?to take the most extreme example?my bodily
> life is a thing that I own, like a car or a computer, what exactly is there
> that makes it unacceptable for me to offer it on the market, or for someone
> else to offer me a measurable profit in return for it?
>
> The Book of Revelation is seldom quoted in studies of economics, for many
> reasons; but when we read of the fall of Babylon the Great (or imperial
> Rome), with all its variegated commerce, the climax to the list of its
> trading enterprises may strike us with a new force. The city
> trades?according to the old translation?in ?the souls of men.? Sandel?s
> picture is of a modern Babylon, where, to use yet another biblical phrase,
> the question, ?What shall a man give in return for his life?? has been
> provided with a possible actuarial answer.
>
> For most of us, I suspect, the instinctive revulsion for the more extreme
> cases itemised here is still strong; but, given the skill and
> sophistication of apologists for the universal commodification of life, we
> need to do better than instinct alone. Sandel hints at the risks we run in
> not working out our objections, but the reader may be left feeling that
> there is another book to be written spelling this out a bit further?and
> perhaps also helping us see what it is that makes some things appropriate
> for the category of commodity. It is manifestly true, as he says, that all
> this demonstrates that markets are corrosive of morality to the extent that
> they define what is humanly desirable strictly in terms of material profit.
> But what might be needed to fill out the positive alternative?
>
> The clue is perhaps in this assumption of exchangeability. The effect of
> this is exactly what Marx defined as the dissolution of everything that
> seemed fixed and settled in itself: ?All that is solid melts into air, all
> that is holy is profaned,? in the famous axiom of the Communist Manifesto.
> And, to stay with the categories of the early Marx for a bit longer, this
> result can be characterised as ?alienation??but not only of the labourer
> from the products of labour. Sandel is describing an alienation of the
> subject from the body, of the will from the material world. What is lasting
> and ?real? is the abstract ego, independent of its physical nature, its
> environment, even its actual history. The fundamental model being assumed
> here is one in which a set of unconditioned wills negotiate control of a
> passive storehouse of commodities, each of them capable of being reduced to
> a dematerialised calculus of exchange value. If anything could be called a
> ?world-denying? philosophy, this is it.
>
> And it is the protest against such a denial of the world that animates a
> crisp and pungent book by Robert Skidelsky, celebrated biographer of
> Keynes, and his son, the philosophy professor Edward Skidelsky.
> Intriguingly, their intellectual guiding star is not Marx or even Keynes
> but Aristotle: we are repeatedly brought back to Aristotle?s bafflement at
> the idea that money itself could be regarded as a sort of agent or a sort
> of life-form, let alone a self-explanatory goal for human activity. The
> starting point is the rueful acknowledgement that Keynes, for all his
> acumen as an analyst, was an indifferent prophet. His 1928 jeu d?esprit on
> ?Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren? (published in 1930)
> envisaged a situation in which growth had come to a full stop because we
> had arrived at an economic position where security and comfort for most
> people had been attained. There would be simply no need to increase our
> economic activity. That this now seems like a voice from another planet
> simply reminds us how deeply we have become committed to a model of growth
> that has long since stopped asking ?what for?? And if we have stopped
> asking this, it is not surprising that so many of the vehicles of ?growth?
> fashionable in the last decade or so have absolutely nothing to do with
> consolidating shared well-being, whether in any one particular country or
> across the globe. They have been, once again, essentially abstract matters,
> the piling up of indices of status for a small minority.
>
> The Skidelskys write of a ?Faustian bargain? presupposed by Keynes and
> many like him: allow capitalism to thrive for the time being and it will
> deliver a sustainable level of security for all, despite its rapacious and
> ruthlessly competitive aspects. Then, when this level has been reached, it
> can be honourably retired, and our convivial and co-operative motives can
> be allowed to have full play. But Faustian bargains have a history of
> turning out badly. ?Capitalism, it is now clear, has no spontaneous
> tendency to evolve into something nobler,? write the Skidelskys. ?Left to
> itself, the machinery of want-generation will carry on churning, endlessly
> and pointlessly.? We have moved from Faust to Frankenstein. And one of the
> many virtues of the Skidelskys? study is that it makes it very clear how
> eccentric all this is in the broader light of human history and culture. We
> are the first civilisation to treat monetary accumulation as an absolute
> goal, and it has obscured the whole of our discourse about shared
> well-being, or the ?common good.? Politics is trapped in discussion about
> efficiency and the maximising of choice; the west, at least, is dominated
> by the assumption that the state exists to protect choice and to do so by
> protecting financial competitiveness in every sphere?Philip Bobbitt?s
> ?market state,? as he set out in The Shield of Achilles (2007). On the day
> I write this, the education secretary has announced an initiative to hand
> over some responsibility for A-level examinations to the universities, and
> the public reaction to and discussion of this has been cast almost entirely
> in terms of whether this will guarantee a ?more competitive workforce.?
> That education could have some value other than improving profits seems to
> be unthinkable. But the Skidelskys firmly remind us that it is we who are
> the oddities in terms of cultural and moral history in so shrinking the
> range of political discourse.
>
> ?The idea of the good life no longer forms part of public discussion in
> the western world.? That is a strong statement, but it is not, in the
> context of the book?s argument, anything to do with facile nostalgia.
> Although we regularly speak as though government had no interest in
> ?paternalistic? directiveness, the truth is, of course, that every
> administration continues to invest in highly directive moralising, about
> health issues and the limits of acceptable public speech, for example. But
> this is not predicated on the basis of a three-dimensional picture of what
> a good life might look like; it is defended on the grounds of protecting
> generalised liberties. The state must be neutral beyond these limits, and
> this entails neutrality about financial rapacity and the promotion of
> acquisitiveness by various means.
>
> Belatedly, this has come to appear rather thin, and statistics which
> suggest no significant increase in the self-reporting of happiness over a
> period of material growth have begun to tell. Indeed, the statistics
> suggesting an inverse correlation between happiness and economic inequality
> might worry us even more. And so government and commentators have turned
> their attention to how happiness might be secured and maximised, exploring
> various measures of happiness. But the Skidelskys, in a particularly
> mordant and acute chapter, dismantle this in short order. The good life, in
> classical, medieval and oriental philosophies, is not a life in which we
> are guaranteed happy feelings, but one in which we ?have reason to be
> happy??one, that is, where our circumstances are such that we are in tune
> with our environment and have liberty in that environment consistent with
> the sort of beings we are. The argument is paralleled in a later chapter on
> ?Elements of the Good Life,? where the authors note the degeneration of our
> thinking about health into an obsessive passion for unceasing improvement,
> rather than simply settling for being in reasonable working order in
> whatever way our age and circumstances allow. The deep anxieties about
> ageing that surface again and again in our culture are probably the most
> obvious sign of this. And, though the Skidelskys don?t say this in quite
> these terms, the social effect of this anxiety is to marginalise and demean
> the elderly in a variety of damaging ways, to encourage a set of public
> images and stereotypes suggesting that normative humanity is young and
> hyperactive.
>
> The list of elements in the good life??basic goods,? not reducible to
> other terms?is a sensible and realistic one, including an interesting
> section on ?personality,? defined as ?the ability to frame and execute a
> plan of life reflective of one?s tastes, temperaments and conception of the
> good.? The Skidelskys explicitly warn against elevating this into a
> principle of autonomy that can trump all other considerations, and rightly
> they emphasise not some maximal capacity to realise individual choices but
> rather the freedom to secure ?private space? for reflection. A robust
> defence of private property?heavily indebted to Catholic social
> thought?follows from this, raising the crucial question of how to establish
> fairness in respect of property. But what is so intriguing in this bit of
> the argument is the assumption that the good life is in some degree
> ?contemplative??that is, it requires the space in which I can scrutinise
> myself, learn something of self-criticism and thus, potentially, of irony.
> And for a habit of ironic self-awareness to be generated, we need some
> concept or image of what is normatively human that does not simply become
> an oppressive stereotype?a good myth, you might say; we need the saint or
> hero to illustrate what the well-lived life might look like. This in turn
> requires, as the authors indicate without too much elaborating the point, a
> doctrine of the cardinal virtues?another bit of revived Aristotelianism.
> What are the habits and practices that will educate our passions and allow
> us to shape a credible narrative of the self, understood against the
> backdrop of some idea of what the ?excellence? of human nature might
> consist in?
>
> The basic question is how we most seriously and honestly turn our scrutiny
> on ourselves and how we become able to bear that scrutiny. In more
> traditional words, we need some vocabulary that evokes both repentance and
> absolution. The opposite is what the American novelist Walker Percy
> identified as the characteristic style of the late-modern consciousness, a
> blend of sentimentality and cruelty. And the Skidelskys are prescient in
> stressing that a focus on happiness as a goal in itself is completely
> inimical to any practice that involves clear and compassionate
> self-knowledge. The underlying imperative?if we hold on to the image of a
> ?contemplative? good?is to find the time to look at things, including my
> own history and circumstances, patiently and clearly; to give them what
> Simone Weil famously described as ?attention.? A world in which every
> object is instantly capable of being rendered in terms of what it can be
> exchanged for is one in which there is nothing worth looking at for itself,
> a world systematically ?de-realised.? And that is what we are threatened
> with: Sandel?s examples converge with the Skidelskys? thesis in putting
> before us a possible world of absolute commodification. If we want to
> resist this intelligently, we need doctrine, ritual and narrative: sketches
> of the normative, practices that are not just functions, and stories of
> lives that communicate a sense of what being at home in the environment
> looks like?and the costs of failure as well. Self-knowledge is not, in this
> framework, a matter of introspection, sifting over one?s emotional states;
> it is a capacity to assess, to measure oneself, a capacity on which both
> comedy and tragedy ultimately depend. Not the least problem with the
> commodified world is that its assumed picture of human subjectivity allows
> nothing to be either absurd or harrowing. Did the financial masters of the
> universe before the collapse of recent years ever find anything absurd?
>
> So it should not be too surprising that both these books end with a
> slightly more than sidelong glance at religious language as one of the
> sources for resistance. Doctrine, ritual and narrative are the basic
> currency of religion; whether or not you believe the doctrines or find the
> rituals viable or tell the stories, it may be important to grasp what it is
> that these things conserve in human existence. To argue that one of the
> main social advantages of religion is that it preserves a rationale for
> finding some things funny is a bit counter-intuitive; but it is no more
> eccentric than the recognition that without a vivid sense of what is,
> non-negotiably, due to the dignity of any and every person, we shan?t find
> some things outrageous either. Solemnity, apathy and triviality are the
> default settings of a lot of current cultural discourse; which suggests
> that a reinfusion of the comic and the tragic is a basic aspect of what we
> need. Much more could be said about how the languages of faith contribute
> to this?but at least the door is opened in both these studies to seeing
> religion as something other than just a set of failed explanations or
> incomprehensible taboos. And religious qualms around some high-profile
> public questions (euthanasia, abortion) are best understood as arguments
> rooted in a deep aversion to anything that encourages us to think of our
> bodies as a form of property. The non-religious person may not share the
> believer?s convictions or conclusions on these issues; but it is important
> that even the non-believer grasp that arguments based on the right to do
> what I like with what I ?own? need some hard scrutiny in a world where
> commodification has become so much the prevailing trend.
>
> The Skidelskys? final chapter offers some bold and lucid proposals about
> what the state can do to rein in the fever of reductive economism and toxic
> acquisitiveness, including firmer restrictions on advertising, some form of
> progressive consumption tax (a version of the old sumptuary laws) and a new
> approach to the global economy that will reduce the dependence of
> developing economies on export-led growth (implying a higher dependence in
> developed countries on local production, a point with major implications
> for the renascence of manufacturing and food production). I offer no
> detailed comment on these proposals (though it is clear that without some
> such structures the overall transfer of wealth from poor to rich countries
> in one form or another will continue), but remark only that it is not
> enough to claim that the state must be neutral in such matters: it is, as
> we have seen, quite prepared to be paternalistic about some supposed goods;
> why not others?
>
> These are two deeply provocative and intellectually suggestive books.
> Sandel?s risks having its positive argument rather drowned in narrative
> detail, and the Skidelskys? might have benefited from more analysis of the
> particular forms of power encoded in conspicuous consumption: rows of
> noughts on a bonus figure are in one sense economically useless, but
> symbolically effective in securing status. There is a brief summary of what
> is meant by ?positional? goods which bears on this, but might have been
> built on further. We need a louder reminder of our continued susceptibility
> to magical thinking. But these are quibbles. The overall impact of these
> studies, amply researched and presented with exemplary clarity, is weighty
> indeed?little less than a wake-up call to recognise our desperate need to
> rediscover some intelligible way of talking about humanity, interiority,
> mutuality and?to use the word again?irony, before we are submerged in
> barbarism; a barbarism whose chief victims will, as ever, be the poorest,
> in the west and in the whole globe.
>
>    --
>
> Friendly reminder: please keep these mailing list discussions to a minimum
> as they reach a lot of people. Instead you can email working groups and
> individuals directly, or use the Occupy London forum at occupylondon .
> info<http://e.groupspaces.com/click/23e7o-2lnj1-20ckc8r3cv?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.occupylondon.info%2F>
>
> You receive this email as a member of the Occupy London Groupspace<http://e.groupspaces.com/click/23e7o-2lnj1-20ckc8r3cv?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgroupspaces.com%2FOccupyLondon%2F%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgroup-listmail%26utm_term%3Dgroup-listmail-64715>.
> Manage your group membership<http://e.groupspaces.com/click/23e7o-2lnj1-20ckc8r3cv?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgroupspaces.com%2Fmy%2Faccount%2F%3Futm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgroup-listmail%26utm_term%3Dgroup-listmail-64715>or
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> .
> ****
>



-- 
Apathy is Dead !
http://www.flickr.com/photos/solarider/5254770064/#/photos/solarider/5254770064/lightbox/
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From anna at schoolofcommoning.com  Fri Apr 27 08:22:08 2012
From: anna at schoolofcommoning.com (Anna Betz)
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:22:08 -0000
Subject: [OccupyComms] [democracy now] Keynes' Faustian Bargain
In-Reply-To: <CAM7m6-BAWifDwT4w=w2zUbPc8-XDbaB00qZghkt+h6s67RvAQg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAM7m6-BAWifDwT4w=w2zUbPc8-XDbaB00qZghkt+h6s67RvAQg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJzBuDL9U0Ab67WF2GyTpz0u_pH-B19NyEmzW-+d5uoPRHGdxg@mail.gmail.com>

>
> Dear friends in Occupy,


I would like to draw your attention to an important and exciting
development happening in London in May which will have no doubt much more
wide reaching consequences.

We would welcome you to register for one or more of the seminars outlined
here: http://www.schoolofcommoning.com/content/overview-seminar-series

If you want to understand more about the connection between Occupy and the
Commons you can watch this event which took place at OWS:
http://thefutureofoccupy.org/2012/03/10/james-quilligan-presents-the-commons-in-a-way-that-really-shifts-our-understanding-and-empowers-us-to-reclaim-what-is-ours/

We also started a crowdfunding campaign and would love for Occupy to
contribute to the planned e-book.

in solidarity

> You are subscribed as anna at schoolofcommoning.com
>
> Manage your subscriptions<http://e.groupspaces.com/click/23e7p-2j76e-1gvzxt4144?u=http%3A%2F%2Fgroupspaces.com%2Fmy%2Fsubscriptions%2F%3Fe%3Danna at schoolofcommoning.com%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgroup-listmail%26utm_term%3Dgroup-listmail-42386&notrack>|
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-- 
*Anna Betz*
*www.schoolofcommoning.com*
Tel: 0208 9899940
 mob: 07731 584358
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From crismaza12 at yahoo.com  Fri Apr 27 10:09:27 2012
From: crismaza12 at yahoo.com (Cristina Maza)
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2012 10:09:27 -0000
Subject: [OccupyComms] Artistis planning direct actions in May?
In-Reply-To: <CAJzBuDL9U0Ab67WF2GyTpz0u_pH-B19NyEmzW-+d5uoPRHGdxg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1335521346.70745.YahooMailClassic@web164503.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>

Hi Everyone! Sorry for being so out of the loop these days. I know after the planning meeting a few weeks ago that everyone has been busy at work planning for all of the events in May.?
Unfortunately, I have exams and 3 essays due on the 1st so I have been unable to focus on planning new and exciting activities for what is going to be a spectacular and highly visible month of activities and actions!?
I wanted to get in touch because I am really interested in writing about some of these May actions for my blog?http://izrazdealternmundo.wordpress.com/?
If ?any group that is planning on staging direct actions-especially those that involve street theatre and or any other artistic endeavours that is new and controversial, and would like to gain some publicity for the action just drop me an email and we can set up a meeting!?
Best wishes,?Cristina?

--- El vie, 27/4/12, Anna Betz <anna at schoolofcommoning.com> escribi?:

De: Anna Betz <anna at schoolofcommoning.com>
Asunto: Re: [democracy now] Keynes' Faustian Bargain
Para: RealDemocracyNow at groupspaces.com
CC: "occupylondon at groupspaces.com" <OccupyLondon at groupspaces.com>, "<occupycomms at email-lists.org>" <occupycomms at email-lists.org>, "Politics and Spirit Network" <politicsandspiritnetwork at yahoogroups.com>
Fecha: viernes, 27 de abril, 2012 10:21

Dear friends in Occupy,
I would like to draw your attention to an important and exciting development happening in London in May which will have no doubt much more wide reaching consequences. ?

We would welcome you to register for one or more of the seminars outlined here:?http://www.schoolofcommoning.com/content/overview-seminar-series

If you want to understand more about the connection between Occupy and the Commons you can watch this event which took place at OWS:?http://thefutureofoccupy.org/2012/03/10/james-quilligan-presents-the-commons-in-a-way-that-really-shifts-our-understanding-and-empowers-us-to-reclaim-what-is-ours/

We also started a crowdfunding campaign and would love for Occupy to contribute to the planned e-book.?
in solidarity

-- 
Anna Betz 
www.schoolofcommoning.com
Tel: 0208 9899940
?mob: 07731 584358
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??





	
	  


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