From Friday Essay:
I’d like to offer some brief notes, consisting of four titles, on the recent occupation movement. Many are incomplete ideas born of frustration and joy, but it’s best to strike while the iron is hot rather than mourn mistakes later, or both.
Catalepsy/Seizure: cat·a·lep·sy (ktl-ps)
n. A condition that occurs in a variety of physical and psychological disorders and is characterized by lack of response to external stimuli and by muscular rigidity, so that the limbs remain in whatever position they are placed
‘Katalipsi‘- the term the current Greek movement uses to describe ‘occupation’ is perhaps better thought of through the term ‘catalepsy’ or ‘seizure’. Seizure has two meanings- the first implies capture- of the enemy base, of a hostage, of government, or indeed of Power itself.
But it also carries this second meaning- a seizure as a fit, a convulsion of the body politic, a form of violent immobility in which muscles seem to wrench away from each other. It is this second sense that gets lost in the anglophone concept of ‘occupation’- the notion of a ‘catalepsy’ itself.
It's already been pointed out that while UK movements try to copy the ‘memetic form’ of a social movement, they certainly lack any of the radical withdrawal of labour or disruptive capacity of the Greek occupations or Egyptian uprisings. A square outside St. Pauls might be occupied, but the Greek Finance Ministry is seized. Note what David Graeber says here; “reclaim it [non-public space], camp out, and use it as a base to start doing other things”. The ‘occupation’ as used here; basically just sitting in a space, be it public or private, is to a certain extent an irrelevance - the space is being used as an organizing place to plan other activities which pose the real threat to hegemonic power relationships. Not simply being in a space, but the active organization of a space as a tactical device- occupation or seizure need to be, and can be, so much more. They can be the catalepsy of the body politic.
In the following short clip from the 1969 occupation of Tokyo university, this logic is taken to an extreme (indeed, one to which to which it is questionable whether today’s occupations need go), but the effect is powerful- the entire political system and the life support of the city itself is fastened to the fate of a few hundred square meters in one city, a catalepsy of the metropolis as its organs seize up:
The Folly Of Gaddafi's Execution
Evil is expunged, not in anger, not in blood, but in court.
Mikhail Gorbachev Says Uprisings Signal an Emerging New World Order
“The world needs goals that will bring people together,” he said. “Some people in the United States were pushing the idea of creating a global American empire, and that was a mistake from the start. Other people in America are now giving thought to the future of their country.
The big banks, the big corporations, are still paying the same big bonuses to their bosses. Was there ever a crisis for them? . . . I believe America needs its own perestroika.”
Occupy LA Jeff Dowd "Big Lebowski" Oct 15 2011
Jeff "The Dude" Dowd, the real-life inspiration behind the cult classic movie, "The Big Lebowski," appears at Occupy Los Angeles for the October 15, 2011 global day of action against corporate greed. Dowd lives up to his reputation fully with a discursive explication of the Occupy Wall Street movement, as seen through the interpretive lens of his tortoise-shell shades.
Costas Panayotakis, Author, Remaking Scarcity-The Autograph-10-19-2011
http://www.presstv.com/Program/205608.html
In this edition of the show Susan interviews Costas Panayotakis, the author of Remaking Scarcity.
He talks about why the young Americans are occupying Wall Street and why there will be a new movement against the government in the United States.
His latest book Remaking Scarcity is a powerful challenge to the current economic orthodoxy.
It asserts the core principle of economic democracy, that all human beings should have an equal say over the priorities of the economic system, as the ultimate solution to scarcity and ecological crisis.
Athens Demonstration Photos From Spiegel Online
Greece Riots: Athens Erupts Again
Greek sociologist discusses "deathbed of democracy" as 50,000 protest austerity
Interview from RT. Shortly after it was announced the new austerity measures were passed by the government.
Orson Welles Narrates Kafka’s Parable, “Before the Law”
"No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it."
Max Keiser: 'Greece economic crisis, sinister plot' [PressTV]
People in Greece are right to revolt against the banking system which is committing massive fraud in the country, an economic critic tells Press TV.
In an interview with Press TV, Max Keiser, financial journalist from Paris, commented on the latest developments regarding the economic crisis in Greece.
Shocking Police Behaviour OccupyMELBOURNE!
Occupation of DC Shuts Down Citibank
A group of 40 protesters marched to the Citibank, a subsidiary of Citigroup, at 14th and G Streets NW this morning to protest the announcement of the seventh consecutive quarter of massive profits by Citigroup while the economy continues to collapse. Upon the arrival of the protesters, the bank shut down. Six protesters including a video team remained inside the building.
Anonymous - Financial emitter, financial liquid, qualitative change inevitable
It is quite evident that the source of the money (emitter) is infinite, whereas money is virtual value, and the source of money is limited only by the physical representation, which is also largely a virtual, digital form. Whereas the financial emitter is infinite, and money represent access to real values, not infinite values, the financial emitter must not represent the ownership, whereas that represents total ownership. The financial emitter must not have access to real values, directly or indirectly, and this must be under highly rigorous, and wide societal control, and an abuse of the financial emission needs to be very seriously punished, as far as this endangers the society and justice in aggregate. Inasmuch as the financial emitter is infinite, the content of the financial emitter is completely virtual, whereas any financial quantity in proportion to the content of the financial emitter is zero. Therefore the financial value may manifest only outside the financial emitter in the context of real economic processes, under the rigorous conditions constituted by the financial system. Inasmuch as the financial emitter is infinite, it does not have mathematical sense or meaning, which is manifestation of its total virtuality, which means that the financial emitter is cultural value without quantitative meaning. Mathematical and societal manifestations of financial emitter are the subject of the financial system, which generates the emission, absorption, credibility, stability, justice, security and value of virtual financial medium. Financial emitter, financial system and financial medium are inseparable realities. The financial system is cultural value. Economic value is the ownership of financial medium, thus the financial quantity in the form of ownership. Ownership is the fundamental economic value, not a financial medium. Skills, knowledge and abilities are the real ownership. Ownership of financial medium is potential ownership, seeing that the financial medium is virtual value. Annihilation of ownership of skills, knowledge and abilities is slavery. Total ownership is empire.
The argument that the money is the blood of the economy is completely erroneous and misleading, and is just another ideological indoctrination. Economic exchange is essentially independent of money and the ownership is the fundamental economic value. Blood circulations are balanced systems, in which the blood does not lose the balance of the volume, the volume adapts the growth of the organism, the blood is distributed to all evolutionary dependent components of the organism in a balanced manner, and it does not lose its stable functionality, despite external influences. The Western financial system does not meet even one of these properties. In terms of a flow of the fluid, the current financial system is essentially unstable and self-destructive, in particular as a result of the interest accumulation in the volume of the liquid, which is multiplied by the completely wrong basic distribution of the fluid, distribution blocking, and also due to the fact that the financial fluid, especially in highly virtual environment of financial enterprises, stimulates the growth of financial enterprises without restriction, leading to the local accumulation of the fluid - of the potential ownership, instead, to allow all the necessary functions of societal organism, evolutionary dependent on financial medium, not just economic. The purpose and function of the blood is supply, not the growth stimulation. Unlimited local growth is a malignancy. One of the forms of treatment of malignant tumors is the restriction of blood supply. The opposite may have deadly impact.
Real economic process is a fundamental societal necessity. The body politic is not just economic article, because it bears a substantial societal, social and cultural role, as well as other non-economic tasks, without which a stable real economic process in advanced specialized society is not possible. Currently the role of the body politic is reduced to a work service, representing the overall degeneration of society, and leading to competition between work services by reducing the price of work, to the economic capacity migration, and unemployment.
These facts do not represent any political affinity, but the basic undeniable reality.
Private ownership of the financial emitter and accounting emission of the money by banks are the greatest deceptions in history.
Many are indoctrinated by the idea that there is no other better system than capitalism, and manipulated to the tolerance of substantial injustice and parasitism, and they don't see that the capitalistic free market is an illusion, totally manipulated. Capitalism is not a free market. Free market is not capitalism. Capitalism is not a societal system, but the financial system, whose purpose is totalitarian domination. Democracy is the political system that doesn't have anything common with capitalism...
JULIAN ASSANGE AT OCCUPY LSX - ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
Why Many Cells Are Better Than One: Limited Decision-Making Ability of Individual Cells Is Bolstered in Masses
Researchers from Johns Hopkins have quantified the number of possible decisions that an individual cell can make after receiving a cue from its environment, and surprisingly, it's only two.
'Flash Robs' Vex Retailers
Retailers this holiday season are preparing to protect themselves against a new group of unwanted visitors: swarms of teenagers and young adults who plot via Twitter, phone texts and Facebook to descend on stores and steal merchandise.
Flying Spaghetti Monster: Futurama sighting
This isn’t the first FSM sighting on the show.. could it be that there are some Pastafarians on staff? How do I get a job there?
How Friends Ruin Memory: The Social Conformity Effect
We are so eager to conform to the collective, to fit our little lives into the arc of history, that we end up misleading ourselves.
John K. Vance; Uncovered LSD Project at CIA
John K. Vance, 89, a member of the Central Intelligence Agency inspector general's staff in the early 1960s who discovered that the agency was running a research project that included administering LSD and other drugs to unwitting human subjects...
Invisible Pink Unicorns
“Invisible Pink Unicorns are beings of great spiritual power. We know this because they are capable of being invisible and pink at the same time.
Conquering an Infinite Cave
There’s a jungle inside Vietnam’s mammoth cavern. A skyscraper could fit too. And the end is out of sight.
