Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times columnist and author of Ship of Fools and Enough is Enough, spoke last night at #OccupyDameStreet as part of the ongoing #OccupyUniversity program, on the need for democratic reform in Ireland and the shape such reform might take. #OccupyUniversity is a series of public workshops and lectures hosted outdoors at the #OccupyDameStreet camp site and speakers have included Harry Browne, Anthony Coughlan, Sinéad Kennedy, Conor McCabe, Helena Sheehan, Michael Taft, Gavin Titley and many others.
Details of recent and future #OccupyUniversity events can be found at http://www.occupydamestreet.org/occupy-university and on the #OccupyUniversity blog at http://occupyuniversitydublin.tumblr.com/.
Georg R. Baumann says:
November 19, 2011 at 2:00 pm
The democratic Illusion – CORPORATISM – legislates our future
Prof. Joseph Stiglitz recently wrote about the OWS movement on Project Syndicate and his observation that corporations use their money to influence the direction of politics, to amplify their view as he said, while at the same time the police would not allow him to use a megaphone to address the OWS protestors.
This surreal situation has lead to the human microphone, where the crowd amplifies the words of a speaker. When I saw it for the first time, I had to smile, what an ingenious and simple way to circumvent the obnoxious and repressive methods the establishment started to apply.
So far, within two months of the OWS existence, more than 1,000 people had been arrested across the United States. We saw pictures and videos of people being pepper sprayed without any reason, beaten and kicked into the head while already on the ground, a brawling police force unleashed in New York and other places.
The initial tactics of media and establishment, which is essentially the same, was ignorance. Journalists would not report on the movement, or just write a few lines, but the obvious tactic was ignorance, let the hippies blow of steam, have a party and go home.
They did not go home, they stayed, and more came, and while the USA is testing their hypersonic missiles, delivering death and destruction to any point of their choosing on this planet, with 2400 miles per hour, so conveniently called PGS, prompt global strike, this movement spread around the world faster than hypersonic missiles can take out all the spots where people started to gather.
X X X X
For the past three years I described the events as a global heist, and since a few weeks, I changed my description into coup d’état for good reasons. This term was on my mind since many months, but I am rather careful in my choice of descriptions, and insist on enough evidence before I title something that strong.
By now, there is no doubt left in me, this is all about the grand area doctrine in a changing world, the securitisation of raw materials, resources, energy and water to exercise control, global domination.
What Jo Stiglitz described concerning corporations getting laws for cash, it is not a phenomenon exclusive to the USA, the very same counts for Europe, and more than likely the Rest of the World. It is a direct effect of the Globalization unleashed. The engineered attack on the global economy is part of a much larger plan that is executed.
The global economic meltdown, which is devastating for the 99% and a slush fund for the 1%, is only a milestone in the whole development that is unfolding, and here we can already see a clear pattern of this plan evolving, to name a few:
The disenfranchisement of a voting majority (referendum cancelled or refused!)
The expropriation of the middle class
The enforcement of 2. by unelected technocrats substituting elected governments
The abolition of liberties and citizens rights
The dismantling of sovereign state powers
The attack on constitutional foundations (Lisbon Treaty)
The legal trickery to extend powers to technocrats
The confiscation of peoples assets
The privatization of essential resources
The constant propaganda to deflect and steer public perception
Naturally, this list is longer and more complex but I just highlighted 10 for the sake of an argument.
When discussing these events in my peer groups, I am always asked, what I would think we should do as immediate first steps, and strangely enough, my opinion has not changed since three years, on the contrary, it got even stronger over time, the four major points of my thoughts are:
1. Shut down global financial markets
1.1
Market Makers are the driving force of ever so more toxic financial derivative products to hit the market, this never stopped, on the contrary, Goldman Sachs, Barclay Cap, Deutsche Bank and others are very active in the segment of risk fraud, using captured politicians to take full advantage of the wild west the globalized financial industry has turned into.
1.2
None of the proposed and weak measure that came out of Bank for International Settlement are sufficient or timely enough to tackle the core problems, but this is not astonishing, they are part of the problem. Basel II, Basel III proposals will not change the situation to get worse, they are on a way too long timescale and do not go deep enough to address the rotten core of Banking.
1.3
The last time the markets shut down was the week after 9/11. The world does not stop producing food and goods, the world does not stop to rotate by shutting down these sick markets. Within two weeks all these problems can be addressed and the markets can open again.
2. Break up Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank etc.
2.1
etc. here stands for institutions that hold asset portfolios in the trillions, Deutsche Bank alone stands at round about 2.5 trillion, this is one major cause of the problem and known since a long time, too big too fail can be dealt with quickly and efficient. Break them up into smaller entities that are not allowed to hold assets portfolios greater than 500 billion for example.
2.2.
Separate Investment Banking from Retail once and for all.
2.3
Close allbanks that are insolvent, this will be the majority of banks as we know them, re open banks that operate on the grounds of social finance, social banking.
3. Close all HFT markets
3.1
By their very nature, they are designed for execution fraudulent activities, rigging markets by using highly developed algorithms who not only take advantage of Nano second latencies on data lines, but most of all are designed to artificially create demand that does not exist on the purpose to drive prices up before the markets open. This is just one of many examples of their activities, but should highlight that this is a guaranteed profit they create with these methods, they can’t loose!
3.2
Volatility is their game, and the algos are used to create a high volatility wherever it suits them, this is one reason for the global commodity scam, they create artificial scarcity.
3.3
The inequality of HFT means not only artificial demand and scarcity but it is clear that this only increases what we came to know as cyber war. I happen to know one guy who is at the front of these development and I can tell that these chaps are miles ahead of any regulatory institution that would attempt to keep them in the leash, it is impossible. Again, HFT markets by their very design are generating guaranteed and fraudulent profits, manipulating sucking dry the real economy, exercise too much control on global resources and commodities.
4. Delete all global fraudulent debt
4.1
Not only do we need to acknowledge that these bits and bites were created by means of fraud, not only do we need to delete all that debt, but equally we need to delete private household debts to a very large amount.
4.2
Use the EIB, European Investment Bank, this requires no treaty changes at all, to kickstart and stimulate growth for purposes of infrastructural programs.
4.3
Textbook economics is no longer sufficient to address the global problems that are ruining the lives of millions of people. To state that someones liabilities are another ones asset is text book economics and does not apply in this situation anymore. It would be the same as stating, now that we have reached peak Oil, all we can do is use the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis to fill the inevitable gap, because textbook chemistry tells us that the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis has proven that we can create synthetic fuel, but it is inefficient and can not fill the gap that is increasing by an ever growing demand, hence it is just that, text book chemistry.
X X X X
These 4 steps would allow to 1. Intercept the momentum and 2. Regain decision power over rapacious markets that are scavenging the globe.
What speaks against such interception is the established corporatism that is sold to the public as democracy, the latter does not exist anymore. It has been substituted by a system of Lobbies that write laws, use captured and spineless politicos without vision and responsibility. We have more than enough evidence over the past 60 years how these giant corporations act, the list is long and leaves no doubts.
In a world of resource scarcity and climate change, we need to address the inequalities that increased multifold, the gap between rich and poor, it increased tremendously in the past three years alone!
Banks need to be disemboweled, markets need to be restructured, societies rebuild on values that are best expressed by mutual and global respect and responsibility for all creation.
The alternative is evident, it brings us back into fascist scenarios, control states, and will increase death and starvation, perhaps bring even more war on a scale no one wants to imagine, the immanent danger has become real.
THIS IS OUR PLANET…. OCCUPY IT!
Best
Georg