Kaiser Chiefs: The contemporary Cassandras

 ( I'm not fond of Kaiser Chiefs)

Well, I guess that everybody will talk about the riots this week and they are right to do so. The riots are not riots. There are no riots, riots is only a question of perspective. Riots, protests and demonstrations are all the same form of destructive ( even in peace, it has a sense of destruction ) assembly due to a common disagreement by a large enough group. What is interesting to note, as always, is not the causes and articulations of the riots but rather the reactions to it.

First thing first, it has started as a protest against the police and soon enough was this element forgotten by the public and the media. It is repeated that the parents of Duggan ( the alleged dealer who got shot) asked for the rioters to not use his name as a reason to protest and I entirely back up this argument. The police should not be criticized like that on a sole unique example but it should be reminded that a dozens of people at least die each year while in custody, that the police have undercover agent provocateurs for few protests ( caught on camera but never mentioned by mainstream media) and that though we are reminded through a few documentaries every year that policemen are racists. We do not mind that newspapers put pictures of only minority ethnic people on their frontpage for the riots though. The police service has decayed in the last century and this deserves a long lasting demonstration on its own. Also, the fact that the police does not know how to calm down rioters, let them for the first few days go wild so they can afterwards use violent deadly tools does not make the police better.

Of course, I repeat weekly that it is hard to do some self-criticism especially when it implies the lost of the devil we know for a deep blue sea ( a new system, a new policing service, or anything new is scary) . I am though in the fortunate position to be a self-hating bourgeois in the style of Gramsci and Lenin ( and self-critical enough to know I have no humility when I compare myself to these genii of the 20^th century). What I observe is the main reaction to these riots as there were for any demonstration in the last twenty years in Europe: we just want to see the worst in them.

Even the 'left' media just centered there pictures and examples on the opportunistic aspect of the riots. Those are riots exploding on a sudden urge, it is normal that they have an opportunistic, unorganized, apolitical aspect. Are we really astonished at that ? The police has let the riots go for two days so we can forget the police shot a man, twice and accused the deceased of violence. They have let the media go on to say that the rioters are undisciplined and destructive so fear can run among the general population. Would it have been any political demonstration, police would have been geared up and ready to direct and hit whoever would have been problematic, knowing that an organized demonstration has in our minds more legitimacy and can overthrow a government. Harry Potter fans can overcrowd Trafalgar square when anticuts protests get kettled.

In the Guardian of Tuesday, we can see the happy well-paid bohemians of Tottenham brandishing their brooms to say: 'Yes, we'll clean up behind the rioters' to show their sense of community. On the picture, they were all whites. Those are the people not minding that much the consenting liberal approach of the s ystem. They do not care that money = poverty ( logical saying from The Culture in Ian M. Banks fictions) because they have the money to pay. What were they doing on a Thursday during the day cleaning up the streets when the rioters are required to look for jobs? What kind of system is it where economic imperialism is in theory frowned upon ( all these london bohemians vote 'labour' or 'liberal') but its consequences are ignored?

We all know that these riots have started in places where you find extremes in wealth. The rich lives next to the poor. We all know that the English government at present does not mind such extremes and indeed favors it as it means lower wages for the people owning no mean of production. We have also now more good reasons now to dislike the 'Chavs' and 'hooded youth', even as liberals. The liberals are the blind submissive population of England and this is the conclusion of these protests. When they see racism, they see horror, they do not see that misery creates racism and economic oligarchy creates misery.

We are all aware of the reasons for such riots. The BBC made an interview of a West Indian writer who's grandson was in the riot and lived there ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biJgILxGK0o&feature=youtu.be) and it is funny to see that while he explains in details the frustration of living there, his interview cannot be found anymore on the BBC website. We prefer to see the looting and make fun of it because it either reflects on how much in a consumer society we are, or how stupidly unpolitical the looters are. Doesn't it show the extent to which the society is fucked up?!

The rioters live in miserable conditions in a system that has crushed any perspective of a descent future for them. Those are good excuses for demanding for a better society, from our educated perspective. Yet, they are not educated and go loot for what they have been taught to want ( result of basic hegemony) and what do we, well educated left-wing liberal thinkers, get out of it? ' Stupid pricks looting the small shops'. If we had there balls, real empathy for their outrage, if we would have an ounce of integrity, we would go down the there with them and go for the parliament, whether with a broom in hand or a baseball bat.

I am not going to extend too much on this because all the media are against them. We all want to see only the violence under our eyes rather than the symbolic violence it stems from.

Why are you Guy Fawkes ?

Not many people will complain for the delay, but I have quite a cool explanations. I was away in Freiburg and I have put up 250 flyers up with printed masks and invitations to join the Anonymous forum whatis-theplan.org.

It took me a while to think about the subject of this article. I know that it looks most of the time as I am just writing it on the go, and I am but it is after I spent time thinking and self-reflecting and very rarely on a sudden urge. The ideas were various and I think I should start with simple questions.

• You take a chair and take out the back-support and armrests, is it still a chair ?
• There is so much emptiness that under a microscope, two fingers can never touch themselves and yet, why is it so hard to see void ?
• If you see a bird, and it starts swimming and lays eggs giving birth to fish, is it still a bird?
• If you'd have to, would you kill a sibling of yours to save two strangers?
• Is it natural for a person to change sex?
• If we make a colony on Mars, what will be our definition of a year?
• If you are like no one else, what is humanity?
• 47,9 + 32,6 =..... ? You can touch a calculator, but you can't touch the mental process that gave the answer to that question, so what comes first, your mind or your body?
• You wait. Is that active or passive?
• I speak French because it is my mother-tongue, yet I made the decision to speak Esperanto to my children. Would Esperanto have been my mother-tongue, would I have made another decision?
• Yesterday, I saw Santa Claus in an empty street and he told me a secret. Do you think this could be true?

Ok, maybe those are not simple questions and I congratulate you if think they are as you must have accumulated much more knowledge than I ever managed to. I will reformulate by the way the questions at the end of the article I think, just to make sure we are on the same wave.

So let's assume that you and I share a real world, as it is laid out under our eyes. I will ask you by the way not to assume I am too crazy when I say that the world under our eyes might not be it. I just like to nourish some doubts sometimes. I do know the objections to the doubt: 'whether or not it is an illusion or whatever, why does it matter?'. Well, I think I will make a point why doubting sometimes does matter. Maybe it is just that I think we should not ignore our past and recognize that we have been wrong quite a few times so we might as well think we can still be wrong.

But on the reality of our world, let's say that we live in it. As the poet said to the bishop:' Fuck, this hurt – now do you see it's real!'. History did good I think to forget the poet as it was just in profession that he was such, and not in mind.

So the question to ask ourselves after that one should be: why don't we make the world a better place?

Anyway, we live in a world with other people and we abide by the rules we are told by our parents, our friends and by what we see. Of course we do not exactly abide by every rule and we all adapt them to the circumstances and most of the times we act on them without reflecting on them, not even afterwards. We do reflect on negative consequences to some actions and tell ourselves maybe not to repeat them. But rarely does reflection come unto any significant habits of daily life as we take habits for granted. We have to take it for granted. Otherwise, if we applied reasoning on everything, we would probably go crazy rather quickly.

I have though yesterday come to discuss the question of death penalty with someone I had just met. This person had to write an exam where she was to make a defense of death penalty and refused herself to do so. I pointed out that this was as smart as a person in favor of death penalty refusing to write a defense against the death-penalty. Apparently though, the principle against death-penalty is morally superior enough not to be asked such a task when the belief in favor is not. The lack of self-reflection on the matter, the lack of incapacity to find the origins of this sense of moral superiority, was for me the most problematic aspect of her position.

Of course I am against death-penalty, but I do know why and that is why I can do a pretty good defense in favor, as it does not make me doubt my belief. Somehow, I am afraid that Europeans are still capable of extremism as they judge so easily and are incapable of empathy. Empathy for the devil does not mean you support his actions. It only means that you see and understand his point of view and would you be good at empathy, you would see that it is only frustration leading him, as he was only an ignored second son and not because he is inherently evil. 

This latter position is an easy one and truthful as much as the other one, it leads though to no resolution and not possibility for peace.

Anyway, I am going off my intended path. I am just amazed everyday at our capacity for judging individuals when we are so incapable of self-reflection and acting on those few self-reflections. My point from this last anecdote was that I want to try not to get common sense to hit me too often and allow long defenses for any moral arguments. The foundation for my morality is that tomorrow will be better because yesterday was worse. It is just a belief and I want to work towards that belief. I do not want to act good because of a possible punishment after death, or because I am afraid of society's punishment, or worst of all because I do not know why. I have already detailed this in one of my first posts.

I was just wondering why there is so much apathy in the world. When were the children in us killed? I do think that we are more insensible than we used to be, but we just love to lie to ourselves about it so we do not have to find the root of this problem. Of course, for example, death has become a great taboo and could be the example of the scared souls we have become, except that sending our dying off to places we do not deal with it is not sensible at all. Students in U.K.went down in the streets and the same day their tuitions fees tripled and they did not get angry. We care for our children, and yet we are fully aware that we will leave them worse off. We leave them to be kids for a while and then we tell them the dreams of youth are gone.

I am just wondering why we cannot ask for world peace anymore. Why do we have to still have weapon production when history proves that you do not need weapons to win a war? Why does starvation exist when we can travel the world faster than Earth can spin on itself? Why do we think that corruption is not surprising anymore and why are we cynics about it when it is so easy to have a political conscience. I do not really know yet. I am trying to work it out.

I will say this. I do believe that social movements changed the world for the best every time they appeared. I do want to learn from history and I will use our Christian heritage as leverage for making people feel guilty about the way they have let things go. I have joined Anonymous, which is not about anonymity as much as it is about asking for real change for a better world. If you believe blindly the mainstream media about Anonymous being only about hacking, then you are a mediocre human being blindly accepting serfdom. The hacking is the destructive ( though not physically hurting anyone, as it is a motto of the social movement) part of movement, but if the bullseye were the CIA, the FBI, other armed forces and a lot of military contractors, I am asking you this: Why have so far only eight people aged in their teens been arrested?

Teenagers, let's put an end to this myth, do not have the capacity to do serious hacking. Police just arrest people who have put out their voice to say that they want change and the ones who did not do it discreetly got publicly arrested. Adults could have been arrested in this investigation as well, but the point of the arrests were to morally pressure the whole social movement. You say the soviet union put a bad name to communism, I will ask you please to think what the future generations will think of us! Yes I am allowed to say such things, but I am not allowed to act on my believes.

Of course, I am just hoping now that out of our civilization’s ashes will come a better one. We are having increasing military budgets, declining energy productions (hence rise in food cost), and we are raging wars we cannot win. We have a deadlocked political system consenting to the owners of means of productions. We have a systemic growing unemployment with a decreasing redistribution of wealth. And we all have a delusion of grandeur, individuals, but a society that is worse off as a whole, thinking that we can survive this great historical recipe for disaster.

I just like to think about the old questions because they do not cost a thing:

• Is an object one object of the assembly of many?

• Is the universe a tiny thing in emptiness, or so big that we do not get it?

• Is any being revealed by its appearance, or the idea of it?

• Can liberty exist independently from necessity?

• Which is more important: reason or passion?

• Is Culture emancipation from Nature?

• Can Time last forever?

• Has everybody got a unique self or is the self similar to everybody?

• Are we bodies limited in a time-space coordinate or minds imagining the world, the history and that might be immortal?

• What is the difference between being passive or active?

• Is a human being’s existence the result of a series of causes or the new start of a series of consequences?

• Can a lonely individual express objective truth?

After the 90's

When was the world what it ought to be? There are so many conflicting ideas, facts that nothing makes sense and no ideal makes sense. Between the two world wars ( the one written in capital letters), there was more global exchange than there is now. There was of course less political interaction, less social interactions and less informations in general on what was going on the other side of the world. Most of the informations would travel as fast as they could, most of the time disappearing in the midst of population who had no interest in distributing the news. All was irrelevant, all was transformed.



By the end of the twentieth century, we are all link together through phones, internet, television and even newspapers. It was not their own President the French saw in 1998 for the Monicagate, it was Bill Clinton, the man from Arkansas. Informations were finally global and everybody was free to interpret it as they wished. Of course, this is the illusion of every individuals as cultural biased would always reinterpret the information, leading Clinton to be an example for Berlusconi or an unlearned lesson for Wiener.



The world, by the end of the twentieth century was also a world united to solve all the problems. It would solve the debt in Africa, eradicate the hunger, see the tyrants of the world quiet down and it was in an engaged spirit that humanity would step into its third culturally-constructed millenium. It went alright until George W. Bush won against Al Gore in the elections. It is not a question of being political, it is solely how the democratic process got overruled that was significant for the rest of the world. Its leading power was transformed into an oligarchy of lawyers and judges ready to protect their own interests.



No wonder then that a band of terrorist acted on our worldly unconscious and taught the hypocritical hyper-nation a lesson that has never been correctly learned. It was somehow looked as a selfish personal attempt at harming the United States by an extremist group. It is the slight insult that we profess and feel guilty about as soon as we leave the insulted. We did not mean to be mean, we did not mean to be destructive and we know full well that it will come back to us in unexpected way. There was though inside our brain, in the back of our thoughts a growing frustration to say how it is, say what we think even when we are not ready to admit it to ourselves.



The U.S.A. before and after the 9/11 strike, did not believe in global warming, provided minimum help to developing countries and was all in all a great power that would show such a power for good in parsimony. Even the help for developing countries was a form of blackmail and not given blindly. There was a control on the spending ( American goods only) and on the infrastructure of the country ( no competition to the American goods). The U.S.A.had always a lot to offer for the world, and when it was most expected that this generosity which would have meant that this nation no one dared to compete against could have lead by example into a better future.



We had waited and nothing came but Titanic, Godzilla and the Matrix. Those were the promises of the American dreams. It was a society as stiff as the Victorians, as stupid as lizards and though everybody knew it was just a dream, no one raised themselves against it because America was a blockbuster. Nothing could stand against it, not even the Americans. This was the dream that was slowly coming out, the frustration felt by the world but whom no one dared to think to much out loud, by fear of losing the little they had gained from it.



What a surprise 9/11 seemed to be for everybody. And yet... nothing changed. Why nothing changed is because the Americans had finally the excuse for not caring for the rest of the world. It was just about rightfully defending their interests. And who would say there is something wrong in that? Except the rest of the world, which slowly started to see that there was something wrong with the whole unraveling of this situation?



The United States at the beginning of the 20th century had this same self-centered point of view over the world, something that totally disappeared after the world war 2. They did not want to join any global organizations and Woodrow Wilson had to defend the idea of being at the center of the world with a congress that did not give a damn about the world. Obama now finds himself in the same position as the congress is asking him what the hell they are doing in Libya.



I guess that there is at the moment a global zeitgeist of protectionism of the nation as the world crumble because of a clique of rich and we just like to blame the Other. We do not have yet identified an other, but it would be interesting to see who is going to come along. The similarities with the crisis of the 1930's has not only sprung in my mind, but it the mind of a few European leaders, an example being Sarkozy who in 2010 tried to make the Gipsy's the Other and found himself in an awkward position where the population went ' hey wait a sec' : they have not done anything wrong.



Hitler found actually the perfect scapegoat as the Jews in his time where holding some of the businesses of Germany and it was understandable to be jealous with a few of them. 70% of the lawyers for example were Jews. The problem was the profession and the system, but instead of saying so, which appears too complicated and intelligent for the general population, he found the symbolic representation of a frustrating system. There is no more equivalent. The families of owners around the world have different backgrounds. Everybody is a winner in the system, except that this is only an illusion, and that comparatively there are still a majority of losers.



The common grounds for the owners of the modes of productions are that they are from old families and that someone always grow to be a winner in these families and play his cards really well. It is true that there are some losers in these families, but they are eternally take care for until a succession of generations loose the ability to play the hands they have been dealt with. It is though the exception.



The frustration of the populations over the lies of the system, and the fact that rich families are coming back on the compromises they did with humanity at the end of world war 2 and at the end of the 19th century is not going to help them, but it is because they have managed to alienate every body but the the civil servants who have still a notion of allegiance to the state. The difference between a State and a private enterprise is that the private enterprise has no guilt cleaning up on a monthly basis any elements that is not productive enough to replace it until it finds a good element. The State, by providing the security of the employment has created a sense of protection that does not provide an incentive to work. But material gain is rarely an incentive to work, except for manual labor.



I do not know again where I have started, and how I should end. I do believe that we have a tension inside us between accepting the system and playing the game, and observing that the game is rigged. It has the appearance of a game, and the people who want to play try to play it well and want to always ameliorate their cards, their chances. Most people at some point tell themselves it is what it is and we should go with the flow, otherwise we loose. It is the fear of losing that blocks any reflection for better change. Instead, we legitimize our actions by looking at our competition and finding problems in their actions. No one likes to judge oneself action or unintended consequences of thoughts. ' We have played the game so we understand why it is played'. But who thinks about who sets the rules, who thinks about what we really want and not what we have been made to think we want ?

Old story, for the English

I never thought I would agree on the a political decision with an Archbishop ( being Belgian is part of this anticlerical instinct) but the comment of the Archbishop of Westminster on the Big Society made me retract on my position. The Big Society was the English “Yes you can” of last year, a part ideology, part slogan generating ideas and debates. The opposition and the Conservative Party both outlined their points of view whilst the Liberal-Democrats stayed quite silent. The position of the libdems is understandable. The Big Society is the part of the conservatives' unenviable cuts program put forward, as it was the one that involved the least controversial ideas.



The plan is to give more powers to communities, encourage volunteering and relegate some of the government services to co-ops. Who could argue with that? People doing it for themselves, direct people helping people volunteering without any of those detached Whitehall “fatcats” involved. The conservatives partner in this dissolution Walz, the libdems, remained remarkably muted on the subject however. So do they prefer a distanced over-powerful central government preferring civil servants to engaged citizens ? It is hard to choose the later, it’s clearly more complex than simple ideology, the problem with the Big Society is in its application.



The Con-Dem coalition has started its governance by laying out their plans to cut government spendings. The Big Society is the safety-net for all the people relying on the soon-to-disappear public services. That is where we find the first problem for the creation of this Big Society. The government started by cutting public services first, posing a simple solution to those not wanting to see misery around them, get out there and help others.



It is hard to push people to be involved in their communities, so why not make it an inescapable moral obligation? Maybe an exaggeration but it's easy to see citizens will go down the road to help each other. People have already started marching down those same streets to acknowledge that the cuts are contraversial. We can say that the Big Society is slowly appearing, though probably not the way the Conservatives expected it to be.



The privatisation of the public services started under Thatcher and Cameron is following her lead. His proclaimed intention is to, when possible; transfer the power to co-operatives and mutualities. It is a better plan than to give the duty of the services to private companies driven only by the need to make profit rather than helping the collective.



Committees are preparing for a bank to help these communal organisations. The Bank funds will come from unused bank accounts. This idea is interesting. The details are yet very blurry though. The question of interests on the loans for example has not yet been debated. It would be another burden to charge interest on people trying to start a co-operative not only affecting those running the groups but for those that group provides for as well.



The transfer of powers to localities is an idea that could attract of lot of minds. Empowering localities mean that people would not feel as distanced to power as they feel now. Bristol is a good example of a local government having to decide on a controversial decision such as preferring Tesco over a co-operative. This was before the conservative pledged to back-up co-operatives. The point though is that local governments do not have to abide by the people's will until their re-election is challenged.



If the Big Society in the last months ( this article was actually written in Mars - and does not mention the resignation of the ' Architect' of the Big Society- due to lack of support from the Government - if that does  not prove the lack of faith of the Conservatives I do not know what does )  it is because Liverpool's council withdrew itself from the trial the government organised in partnership with the city and three other localities. Liverpool is led by a Labour councillor, so it might be a political decision to exit this test. The justification for not participating was that the cuts in services discouraged volunteers already on the ground. Attracting new, motivated people to the Big Society while simultaneously cutting and demotivating those already involved is not the best foundation on which to build an organisation fuelled by goodwill.



This is a point that has been outlined by a few research institutes. To build a cohesive society, there must be a balanced material equality between all its members. Equalitytrust.org is an easy to access and understand research institute proving many times this point. The most interesting graph is the one correlating social trust and equality. The countries with the greatest ratio of equality, the usual Vikings, have the greatest level of social trust. Japan has a similar level of equality of income but not of trust. The difference might lie here in the fact that Japan does not have a history of social trust and has a very competitive educational system.



Comparative researches have also been done to observe the causal sequencing of trust and equality. The people arguing against a universal welfare system say that if people do not trust each other, why should we be obliged to help everybody. This puts us in a social trap. The proof against this argument though was outlined by a thinker called Bo Rothstein. He has compared Sweden and the United States social trust and welfare systems. The decline of the welfare system in some states of the United States correlated with their decline in social trust.



It is an important part of the conservative agenda: transforming the structure of Britain to make it more similar to the American. Charity is an important part of society. The Godfather showed that is how respectability is obtained in the new world. Charity is actually a very vicious instrument of class domination. A simple example is that Eton is one of the largest charities in the United Kingdom. Except for donating the current Prime Minister, I’m not sure how it benefits more to society.



Charity might be the main aspect of the Big Society. Any donation to charities are tax deductible. That is how tax evasion, or defending tax cuts, is legitimized: it is more money to give away. As said before, it is easy to make a charity that serves only private interests. Ikea is owned by a charity for example. So it does not have to share its profit to help everybody. It’s Obligation to society is to expand and make more tax money for the state, taxes that are rarely paid due to large tax loopholes, Boots for examples headquarter’s is a Postbox in Switzerland. Charity is actually far more vicious than the loophole of the rich to escape providing for everybody. Oscar Wilde explained it a century ago. Charity is the way for rich people to satisfy their guilt over poverty. Giving makes them feel good. It is purely selfish as the reason for misery is never questioned. Charity is solving a problem in appearance. Charity is not immoral, but should never have existed. Donating is only pushing on the problem for tomorrow and that is what is never said.



A few practicable alternative societies have been provided in the last twenty decades. Most of them do insist on localism. They do also insist on a sense of community. All these programs centre their attention to prosperity and eradicating poverty. If we do not pay attention to these alternatives we will reach a real crisis. Equality is of importance as growing income disparity leads to social unrest. A theory approached for the unrest in the middle-east is that the rise in food price has made the gap in income more observable and so more shocking than ever.



Equality of health, education, transport, information should be essentials provided to everybody for charities to disappear. Tim Jackson was asked by the previous Labour government to outline a way out of the economic crisis. He presented it and the government refused to acknowledge it, it was too good a solution probably. His point was that a neo-liberal economy fed on disparities and competition. Both these elements are though destructive to a Big Society. The only alternative is a deep structural change.

Here lies the irony of it all: the conservative did provide us with the goal but are working hard at making it unreachable.

Mea culpa si non intelligis nec me

I know, my perspective on society only reflects the perspective I have on myself. Most of the criticism I put unto someone or something is only a distorted idea of a self-loathing instinct that has followed me since... I can't remember. I do not mind, this is not a self-pity call, it is only a sincere observation. Most criticism I have ever said, I have always felt there was some truth of it in me.

I will not go into a written psychoanalysis of my youth and me. It would be long, I do not have a Lacanian Master to have an imagined truth I can look for. I have only self-reflection. It is me. I have to accept that my mediocrity is at the same time my drive to be better. My admitted mediocrity is my drive to think others are mediocre. It is my drive for my pretended arrogance because I do not like to admit to myself that I could be better.

Everybody is telling me I can be better. I could have been better by now. I could have been content. What then? Would have I read science-fiction and accepted that it is only a distorted mirror to society on which we can learn ? Or would have I read only entertaining fictions and voyeuristic biographies ? Would I have accepted that life cannot change, society cannot change and live without frustration? Probably.

I know I could have been better. I know I could have had more self-discipline earlier in my life. I know I could have been more easily entertained by casual conversations. I could have found a sport or a game I would love and socialize there. I could have... But it wasn't my life and I don't know why. So I am left with all the frustration of seeing abuses of power, lack of accountability on a world scale, our self-blindness towards our self-destruction, our lack of consideration for the others, our fear of change, our contempt for a horrible world. It is only because I have self-destructed step by step my life that I feel that. 

Would have I really felt that radical change should happen and not only be advocated, I would have followed the steps of the Unabomber, this misunderstood genius of the 20^th century that everybody chose to ignore. I would have had the courage to lead the life of Henry David Thoreau. I would have burn myself on Place du Luxembourg to show that there is something clearly wrong with this world. There isn't though anything clearly wrong with this world. There is something wrong with me. 

If there was something clearly wrong this this world, what would it be ? Would it be the fact that no one is born equal in right and in chances in life ? Would it be that everybody wants to be a tiny bit better than their neighbor without knowing what better means. Is it our fear to self-reflect, to admit that it is a sad sad world. Is our problem that we do not cry in front of the news anymore ? 

No, there is nothing wrong with the world. Everybody is content with the world. Everybody has small problems with their lives and those constitutes the real challenges and obstacles of life. I blind myself from the challenges and obstacles of my life and find myself instead looking at the world and think that's my life. I am not an idealist, not more than anyone else. I am quite the opposite. I am the hight of a closet-pragmatic. I am a self-hating pragmatist. 

I spend my days reading academical articles, newspaper articles, judging the cultural outputs of the world to find myself arguing against an ignorant imagined other. There is no ignorant person. There is just people wanting to know less. And it is such a wise choice. 

This week I have to publish this article in advance, as I will be going back to Brussels over the weekend. I have this week been told that I am never more arrogant than when I feel like the lowest of the low. It is a paradox, but it only lies in the fact that I have a need to lie to myself. What would I do once I'd accept how I see myself ? Would I just make theories after theories trying to explain what is wrong and how to make myself better ? I do that already. I grow better, but oh so slowly. 

I just do not know how to kill that pretense of arrogance. I do not know how to kill that self-loathing. I need to stand up for myself. I will stop expecting anything of the world. It is not because philosophers and critiques justify my point of view that it is the right one. In the end, it is not because I have looked up to the philosophers that I should strive to be one. 

I see food price grow due to the expanding demand for fuel and meat, I see the growth of inequality due to the inherent problems of our system, I see solidarity going down the drain and I am wondering if I am not just an anachronistic dreamer. There is a path towards a simpler life for me and I do not know if I want to take it.

Help Wanted - Tomorrow's Constitution

  I am trying to write a constitution for a better world and I do not know how to do it. I have some of the fundamental ideas. Do you want to help ?

Constitution

Rights

• Everybody living on the territory is equal in rights.
• Everybody is insured equal in opportunities presented by the States.
• Everybody is insured the same standards of health.
• Everybody is insured the same standards of primary, secondary and higher education and trainings ( see articles on education).
• Everybody is insured the freedom of expression.
• Everybody is insured the freedom of association.
• Every political campaign for elections for a governing body will be solely financed by the state.
• Everybody is insured a connection to internet and will be allocated a space.
• Everybody is insured a minimum pay.
• Everybody has the right to live where they want.
• Everybody will be insured free transport.
• Everybody is insured the right to protest.

Obligations

• Every person, physical or fictional, will have their revenues proportionally taxed on a fixed rate.
• Everybody will have to go to school until they are 21 and pass the minimum curriculum established ( see article on education).
• Everybody has the obligation to vote in the general elections.
• Everybody selected for an electoral body will have to abide by the rules of this body ( see articles concerning the governing bodies).
• Everybody has the obligation to participate for a year in a community service.
• Everybody over 21 has the obligation to participate for 4 hours a week in the education of young people.
• The State holds the legitimate monopoly of violence and as such will swear to never use it.
• Economy at the national level and local level will be carefully calculated and loans will never have an interest rate.

Governing bodies

• 1. Justice system ( A.is National while B. and C. are local )

A. Constitutionnal courts

At national and local level.

• - 12 universally elected for life judges.

B. Criminal court and appellate criminal courts

• - 12 elected randomly selected jurors

. Any one selected will have to be over 21 years of age.

. Any one selected will be paid the same salary as their previous employment and will be insured a place back to their positions once their mandate runs out.

• Every procedures will be supervised by a judge elected by local officers for a period of seven years.
• Procedures will discuss and define the act in its circumstance.
• Repairment will by the individual convicted will be calculated in hours of work.
• Reasons for committing the act will be discussed and the convict will have to accept a form of help as proposed by the jury in accordance with the judge.

100. Civil Law for contentions.

• Three judges for every procedures.
• Two judges selected by the two parties among the local list.
• One Judge elected by local officers for a period of seven years.

• 2. Electoral body

At national and local level.

• 2 % of the population randomly selected
• They will vote on every law they want for 3 years.
• No one can be selected twice for the same mandate in a life time.
• Any one selected has the obligation to vote to 85% of the laws proposed by the government.
• Any one selected will have to be over 21 years of age.
• Any one selected will be paid the same salary as their previous employment and will be insured their employment once their mandate finished.

• For constitutional changes, the population will be called to vote and change will happen if 70% percent of the population has voted and if 60% of the votes are in favour of change.
• Localities will always have sovereignty over the National level, but never over the constitution.

• 3. Government

At national and local level

• A universally elected list of twenty persons.
• All campaigns will be financed by the State and with an equal threshold.
• All spaces of campaign will be provided by the State.
• No material external contributions are allowed.
• Any candidate will have to be over 21 years of age.
• Any candidate will be paid the same salary as their previous employment and will be insured their employment once their mandate finishes.
• No one can be selected twice for the same mandate in a life time.
• There will be a campaign every 5 years ending a year before the end of the previous government.
• The government can act only on passed laws.
• The government must propose laws to the parliament, if passed, the law will have later on to be scrutinized by the constitutional court to see if it is in accordance with the constitution.

• 4. Media

• Every Media is free to express all opinions.
• Any answer to a media outlet by a person with vested interest will have to be published like the article.
• Any single advertising in any media outlet will have to be uniformed to all others in the same media outlet.
• Every advertising will have to provide to a link to an Internet page.
• The web page will be providing as much informations as the customers ask. It will also provide information about the stocks, the different added values, the name of every single person involved in the production of the advertised good or service.

• 5. Education

• Nursery, primary, secondary and higher education financing will be provided by the State.
• Any institution giving core courses will be allocated a certain amount proportional to the number of students it receives.
• Primary education will be uniform all across the country and consist of:

1. First Language ( as chosen by the parents)
2. Second Language ( spoken by at least one local resident)
3. Mathematics and Logic
4. Expressive Arts
5. Sports and games
6. Natural Sciences
7. Social Sciences
8. Philosophy

• Any student, from the age of 12 to the age of 21, will be allocated a certain amount of credits it will spend for his optional education courses.
• Optional courses are four modules of 4 hours each.
• 16 hours a week will be allocated to the compulsory courses

• Compulsory courses are:

1. First Language ( as chosen by the student); Linguistic or
2. Second Language ( spoken by at least one local resident)
3. Mathematics and Logic
4. Expressive Art
5. Sports and games
6. Natural Sciences
7. Social Sciences
8. Philosophy, politics and meditation

• Any optional module can replace the 2 hours compulsory module it relates to.
• All optional modules will be presented by local citizens.
• Every local citizens will present, as an individual or a group, the course they are ready to give, to what compulsory course it affiliates, the numbers of students they are taking, and the cost of the course in credit, a threshold credit per course will be given.
• Nationally harmonised examination papers will happen every year for all secondary students in the core modules.
• Correction will be effectuated by non-local examiners.
• Evaluation will be made between the student, his course teacher and , at the student's will, his class.
• Optional Modules will be evaluated through student-selected projects and examinations on the subject of their choice.

PLEASE SEE THE COMMENTS !!

  I need to know how to work health distribution, social care, culture and everything I have forgotten....

http://typewith.me/p/tomorrow's_constitution

How did we kill the dream ?

                              Current affairs through different perspectives helps me make sense of why the world is what it is. You have circumstances, ideologies and their momentum, and the need for status quo. The need for status quo is what kills the future. What makes change impossible is our need to keep our world as it is. A few month ago, late december, a man desperate called Mohammed Bouazizi burned himself because he was so frustrate about the regime under he which he lived. Tunisia was ruled by one man and his clique and nobody thought it could change. This man was desperate and showed the whole world what desperation lead to. The population of Tunisia understood him, they got touched by him. It was beyond a political preparation, it was beyond a political will.
 
And so the revolt started.  Inspired by this revolt, already inspired by the sacrifice of one man, the Egyptians followed. The Egyptian were even more important as they all found themselves in different cities, put their religious difference aside (something that was problematic in the months in before) and go on a general strike. Supporters of the Mubarak, the leader of that country, did try to get into a fight, the police did attack them, but they resisted. Their courage inspired, just like they were themselves inspired by the Tunisian.

The domino had started in the regions: Bahrain, Jordan, Syria, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Gaza and finally Libya. In all these countries with horrible conditions, the people thought it was time for a change. A fearful change, a change that would change our perception of these Muslim. Muslim are not democrats in our imaginary. How could they rebel for something like democracy when we so carefully managed to make them our own private devils?

   It has to be noted that in Europe, with the help of big media corporations who manage to distort the language of politics to a language of managers, the right wing started stripping out rights difficultly gained and we thought about protesting. It took us time to decide and it is still possible, but there is a need to be comforted, a need for our habit to go undisturbed, we need the status quo.   Luckily, we were not the only one to need a status quo. The Arab League is a club of rich dictators representing a bit part of the Muslim world. They did not like to see the people rising against some of their members. Since September 11, the Arab world had a good other in the American, someone they could blame for their problems, just like we blamed the Muslims who can't integrate as we make things harder for them. They needed the old  world we new, they didn't want the uncertainty, especially since most of them did used violence to bring down the beginning of revolts.

The solution was simple, though the consequences not well thought off. The Arab League went to the United Nations and sacrificed one of them. Colonel Kadafi of Libya was the perfect scapegoat. He had oil, that would insure that whoever would go to war with him could expect a revenue at some point. He was crazy, so he couldn't be morally defended. So a resolution passed at the United Nations to protect the people who wanted change their fate, something honourable if we do not count the consequences.

  The European leaders in need of a diversion and the American leader needing at that time to appear strong jumped on the occasion when the Arab Leaders sat back and shut their own revolt down. Everything is back to normal. The people of the regions have lost their precedent stating that they could with perseverance change their fate. More than that, they went back to hate we Westerners who can't stop taking a moral stand because it makes us feel superior. We on the other hand do not worry about the laws passing by because the war is our interest. Everything back to normal and we lost the dream of change.

Unveiling the french veil problem

The question of the veil ( in all its forms ( niquab or burqua) and its interdiction in public spaces is the question that devides the population of France like the question on abortion is in U.S.A.. The question of the right of aborttion in USA is discussed without an historicity on the problems, something usual for the USA. My little brother pointed out to my attention that the moral compass of values of "pro-lifes", the christian churches, has only been recently considered abortion a crime.

Just like the lack of historical perspectives on the abortion question, there is an anachronistic element in the introduction against the veil. It is in the name of laicity that the interdiction is legitimized. Laicity was important in France in the 19th century as an ideology, because the church had still legal powers (e.g. over marriage) in the name of their god. The church being a bit of an ademocratic institutions, the battle against the church as hegemonic secular institutions ras rightfull. As much as atheism rights are not that defended, laicity is here used as an ideology to combat an evilized religion, not defend democraty.

So we can observed the history of the separation of the state and the church. But as much as French can defend whatever moral values they find behind their subjective opinion of laicity, they should admit that a deeply ethnocentered idea push too far can easily be seen as a violation of human rights. It's ironic that laicity has an element of trying to free people from ethnocentrism, but is used for such restricted ideas.

A solid argument, my mother's excalibur argument on the question, for the interdiction is that it is a symbole of patriarchal oppression. And in some ways it is. Families, husbands and cohorts who force women to be covered should be prosecuted for psychological harrassement. It is though also a form of symbolic violence when women are brainwashed to believe that they are inferiors or servants.

The other party has a counter-argument, individuals right. There are more women who chooses individually to wear a veil than forced to do so in our countries. More over, from my experience, and it is a shared perception, most of the musulman women I've met in the developping world where proud of wearing a veil. From the biology teacher in Thailand to the multilingual guide egyptian, intelligent women told me that they honoured their faith and didn't ask the west to come to their rescue.

This argument doesn't hold when we observed that embedded practice of oppression against women, that the veil represents, exist. So France said let's forget the right to practice a faith, let's protect women.

And what of the consequences France ? First of all, what about the limitless collateral damages of not allowing any religious signs at school? The law was passed against the veil, but not to look islamophobic, they decided it should extent to all religious signs. As an example, let's picture a sikh in France. These peacefull people believe it is forbidden to cut or shave their hair. They do then have to wear a turban hat to hide all their hair, explaining why they can be stupidly mistaken for a afghan hat. Sikhs have already abandonned their ritual knife, understanding the fear of it, but is the french government asking them to cut all their hair, or let the hair hang and be misunderstandbly stigmatised?

Another consequence that French do not want to observe is that they do present themselves as being on a crusade against Islam, but only their imagined version of Islam. They are fuelling primordialism and political racism in islamic countries by victimizing Islam. How can the west lead by example if it imposes sets of behaviors and dressings. How not to be insulted by being targeted by a governments because of a few dangerous people that shares the same faith in name only and not in practice. It is a good way to create anti-racism racism.

My final point is that all in all, it is a political decision that is only trying to look like the average voter is protected of his fears. The average voter is racist, so lets create a problem and proposes to solve it. But as much as the problem could exist maybe before, they don't tackle anything. Forcing people to behave in a certain way has no educationnal value. The veil can be a representation of oppression, but getting read of the representation only is not getting rid of the real problem. Other forms of oppression will exist as long as the social structures that feed that oppression exist.

And what about women magazines promoting a stricter body-discipline than men in the name of beauty? Women reading this message are victim of symbolic violence, but no measures has been made against it. We do tell ourselves that forbidding women magazines will not solve anorexia in top-models or the social construction of womenhood being only a beautifull object. Telling women what are the different forms of oppression and prosecuting the people forcing a symbol on them should be the solution. Restriction is no synomym of education. Also, giving them the informations so they can come to a rational conclusion was the central ideal of real laicity, not justified racism.

Remembrance day is coming slowly but surely. And for my international readers, I'll explain to youwhat gave it away. Everybody here in England is wearing a red fake puppy flower on their coat. It's been a really long time that the poppy has been a symbol of war and its consequences, but it is after a canadian officer's poem thatn their red poppy took its meaning:



In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

- John McCrae

But I am not after the poem. I am after people wearing this plastic red poppy flower. This came after a few discussions with fellow students who were either proudly wearing it,or proudly defending the charity it represents. I started as my usual devil's advocate role to point out all the effects of this charity but I got badly attacked on my arguments and it pushed me to the point where I do now believe my talk ( I might later go on my self-corruption of the mind).
To state my argument simply, if you were a red poppy, you support the war. Obviously, stated like that,people get offended and react on the defensive. "Wouldn't you support someone who got mugged?" Was the first
rgument I had to put away. I hope that you are a smart reader and I don't need to go too much in details to state how ridiculous it is. An officer is not payed to get mugged, he is pay to mug people. "But wouldn't you support a fireman who got badly burn". Well of course I would think about it. But a fireman is not payed to kill anything but fire and bees (and then again, bees will soon be an endangered species). An officer is payed to got to war, and I don't approve of most wars.
Another argument is that a soldier doesn't make the choice to go to war, he is ordered to. I even heard " the don't know they might need help afterward". But ignorance is no excuse. Ignorance is rarely an excuse, especially for someone who enlisted to the army, I would consider him an ignorant doubled by stupidity. If the army accept such unaware soldiers, why would I support the charity of the ex-army members. But talking sincerely and not taking into account the different remarks I received, noone is stupid enough to enlist to the army without knowing they have chances to come back impaired by their experience. If they are not prepared to suffer the consequence of their choice, why did they enlist?
I have been told that I'm ignoring the consequences of war by not buying a red puppy. I'm not buying one because I am aware of the consequences and I don't want to support the consequences of it because I don't want to support the origin of these consequences. The red puppy for remembrance day started as the soldiers fallen in world war one. I remember them for being the victims of one the most horrible war in history. But I'm not going to be the one who will backup the soldier who says "To you from failing hands we throw/The torch; be yours to hold it high." I don't want soldiers to go to war and I don't want them to be back hailed like heroes. Most of them are not. And the charity support the living "heroes" because we, as a society, haven't considered all the effects of war. The government, representative of the people, should be there for them. I don't know what position people put themselves in with this red puppy. They directly help soldiers who went to commit themselves to horrible actions, and blame at the same their representatives who ordered the horrible actions. They find the power to honour the soldiers, but have no will to criticize with as much a high profile war.
"Wars will always exist" was the second argument given to me by the guy who told me I was ignoring the consequences of war and being inactive. Again, are you smart enough to see how he brought up an argument against real inaction ? Real inaction is following the public with this charity that has the highest profile in U.-K. Real inaction is not willing to change humanity for the best. We can fight war. War doesn't have to be a constant in history. Supporting the consequences of war, making it the norm in our society, is showing a deep lack of will to fight this foe of humanity.

I made my point as clear as I could, I hope it did strike someone. This red puppy is a real narcotic. It gives everybody a sense of belonging, a sense of helping the one in need, a sense of pride to have people fighting for us, a sense of pity for those who are wounded. But it doesn't make us dream for a day where we wouldn't need any red poppy. It doesn't make us think that if we change the ground this poppies grow on, they might be white someday. By the way, white puppy flowers are extinct here in England - no one will support peace anymore. So I'll burn a red puppy, in remembrance of the people who fought against war.

Baudrillardian Hell

Here's an article I wrote for the student newspaper of my uni. It will be surely cut down to a meaningless article, because that's what all our world has come down to nowadays : more and more information and less and less meaning. It is a clear Baudrillardian study of students elections, but it's adaptable to every elections. I've also been asked what I mean by Baudrillardian. Well Jean Baudrillard is a thinker who wrote about how hyperreal our world is becoming. To understand how our world is imploding, I'll advise anyone who can think critically to read " Simulacra and Simulation" by the same author.

Even the least engaging student would have noted the elections going around. Though I don't know to what extent I can call it an election. Of course I can, students are voting for a representative, I can assume the countdown won't be tricked and there is more than one candidate: all the ingredients for a fair election. But there are a few problems in sight. And they are not petty.

Well, the first thing to notice is that, probably like last year, the lack of interest of the students undermine the legitimacy of this election. Last year, only 10% of the students voted for a student representative. In some countries, it's not considered a valid election if it represent only a small proportion of those concerned. Coming from a country where voting is compulsory ( Belgium), I'll confess that I like to practice whenever I can my right not to vote. But I do need a reason not to vote, other than better things to do. I'm not saying that all the non-voting students share this position, I'm only saying that there is maybe a reason why the students aren't interested.

That's when the ridicule elements of these elections sank in me. I Make most of my observations at st. matts because that's where I study. But being a small campus, it might have been easier for me to approach some candidates and observe the different flyers - sorry, I meant “manifesto”- given around and the impressive amount of propaganda posters ( ask the candidates and they will all tell you they want a greener uni). I didn't find a poster that spoke to me. Most of the posters where common orders to vote for someone I didn't know. Some insulted me for not voting for someone I didn't know: I took this one as definite proof of the partisanship of political freedom.

The pictures on the posters were also interesting. They destroyed all sense of seriousness about this election. I've seen some posters with American Presidents on it. Was it aimed at the small American community of UWE, or did it signify that they thought like American Leaders. If I was on that road, I would have been more presumptuous and associate myself with Gandhi, or Stalin. Aren't these as much to the point as any other leader? I've also seen posters showing American flags, I'm assuming they're strong patriots in the wrong country, or poster that would show the mascot of the candidates. This last one is also an intriguing trend: a person needing a mascot. It's like Ronald being invented before McDonald's.

But I am being a bit superficial here. My problem is that there is not much to say about the content of this election. All the candidates in contention for the Student Representative President position formulate the same program, as they did last year : a more representative student union, better transport infrastructures, fighting for student rights ( god forbid actually stating said rights) against uni and “ more stuff to do” ... Some did add little things, but like a candidate said “if I say too much, I'll give promises I can't keep”. The candidates have only mentioned the problems most students have. Their solution is a promise to sort it out.

I don't know much about the power of the Student Union. I can only estimate that it doesn't give out much, except for the pecuniary compensation for the heavy duties, since no one wants to fight for it in the name of some real believes or values. What these students represent are the consensus. Our choice is to vote for the one we estimate would do the best job, as a technician, as Student Representative President, not the one who stands for our values. I couldn't see anyone expressing different values, anyone being exaggerated, there's no commie, no anarchist, no tory, no crazy, no labour, no one admitting they don't care, no religious fanatic, no sexual pervert, no snob, no intellectual elitist, no one different. I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating, I hope I am, otherwise I'm just witnessing the slow death of democracy here at UWE.

French political system

The French political system is doomed to be regionnalist, elitist, technocratic and conservative.

It is simple to see that the french higher education is an elitist one. Students fight each other to be accepted in Grandes Ecoles, they are enslaved, worked till they bleed. They are taught the all the beauty of the french system, its magnificient history, how proud they can be of themselves. "Only the best can achieve it. ( Let s not give doubt on how people mature, everybody is equal in every aspect in the french system)"

Of course, the best prepared students come from cities and well-off families: since they have a standardised bacchalaureat at the end of their scolarity, which gives an illusion of equality, only the good schools prepare the students whose parents payed the fees for a good preparation.

So once in this Grandes Ecoles, the supposed elite of France get to learn a little bit more, and get offered a job in the civil service. Most of them become civil servant, having more or less important job depending on their results. Perfect working machine are ready to serve.

Then come another comic point of the french system: civil servants are pushed to be in politics. During elections, if they present them-selves, they are still paid, they have the security to find their job back if they fail. They have all the advantages possible, and political parties recruit in the civil service.

So i have already shown how elitist-educated and technocrats come to power. I still have to show why they are bound to be regionalist. Politicians in France are allowed to accumulate mandates, and they do. They all start at the bottom, building bastion in town, to then grow in region and then on nationnal level. But if they want to keep they popularity, they have to keep in mind where they come from, and satisfy their voters, and their own power in a region or in a town. Nationnal interrest, and god forbid world interrest, are not that important to a politician, except if it conflicts with its own interrest or the interrest of their voters. They are regionnalist.

So voters are important to satisfy, but it is easy to see politicians are, most of them, populist, just look at Sarkozy. Also, the fact that they are all part of the system before-hand make them able to vote for legislation so technical that they actualy don't change much the system. It is an illusion of satisfaction given to the voters who are willing to see changes. For example, a constitutionnal amendment is proposed, that would allowed citizen to ask the constitutionnal council to see the interpretation of a law,but it would be possible only in a very very specific case, therefor it will never actually happen: Illusion of change - Conservatist values.

So most the politicians are big-headed, with nationnal values, without real perspective, heartless technocrats, with only the wish to keep their power, and great at manipulating people....

Good luck France !