May 2

Greeks protest their government's austerity measures, May 2011

Excerpt from The New Internationalist Magazine: 

Last October the far-right party Chrysi Avgi, also known as Golden Dawn, won its first seat in Athens city council. Since then it has held several anti-immigrant rallies in areas with large migrant communities. Fascist activists are also alleged to have carried out random revenge attacks on innocent migrants after a Greek man was stabbed to death in central Athens in March.

‘I never come out of the house during the night, because I’m afraid of the fascists,’ says Abolzar Jalily. ‘I came from Afghanistan to be safe.’ Jalily left his home after receiving death threats because he worked as an interpreter for foreign forces. Now he faces a fresh threat from a violent fascist movement operating with near impunity in downtown Athens, where Jalily lives with his family.

‘In one attack the fascists killed some refugees and injured more than 150 people. They beat them very badly and they could not go to the police because they would do nothing for them,’ he says.

Tania, a Bulgarian immigrant who has lived in Greece for 10 years, says she is too afraid to travel downtown after hearing stories about Albanians being randomly attacked. ‘There are some fascist organizations that are trying to blame foreigners for many things that happen here, one is taking their [Greeks’] jobs.’

Conditions for migrants in Greece are likely to deteriorate further. The new austerity measures will mean greater penury for those who are already last in line for state support and living wage jobs.

‘I am a single mum and I have no help from the government,’ explains Tania, who is a maths and physics graduate, but works as a cleaner and nail technician. If you are a foreigner here, you have no social services to help you.’

Sound familiar? Far right candidate Marie Le Pen garners 6 million French votes in the latest national election. Alabama, Arizona, and other states implement punitive anti-immigration laws. All of this has the effect of diverting our attention away from the looming debt crisis that will consume us all.  How quickly we forget. 

Pundits and politicians like to send up the Greek example as one to be avoided. Here is an excerpt from ABC news intended to enlighten us.

 Why is Greece in debt?

Like any state (or person, for that matter), it spent more money than it took in. After the switch to the euro, the traditionally strong Greek public sector saw wages rise to ultimately unsustainable levels. To compound this, the retirement age in the country is low (by Western standards) and benefits are generous.

But that alone is not enough to sink an economy.

Mass tax evasion, on the other hand, can certainly do the trick. And it did in Greece. When people and businesses don’t pay their taxes, it limits revenue. So when the money inevitably ran out, Athens turned to European banks for loans. Soon, the government was borrowing billions and those debts, like subprime mortgages in the United States, were often repackaged as complex commodities  and sold off around the continent. Everyone, especially banks in France and Germany, wanted a piece. Now they have it.

They had help. From wiki: (Goldman is being criticized for its involvement in the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis. Goldman Sachs is reported to have systematically helped the Greek government mask the true facts concerning its national debt between the years 1998 and 2009.[71] In September 2009, Goldman Sachs, among others, created a special credit default swap (CDS) index to cover of high risk of Greece's national debt.[72] The interest-rates of Greek national bonds have soared to a very high level, leading the Greek economy very close to bankruptcy in March and May 2010 and again in June 2011.[73] Lucas Papademos, Greece's new prime minister, ran the Central Bank of Greece at the time of the controversial derivates deals with Goldman Sachs that enabled Greece to hide the size of its debt.[74] Petros Christodoulou, head of Greece's debt management agency began his career at Goldman Sachs.[74] Mario Monti, Italy's new prime minister and finance minister, who heads the new government that took over after Berlusconi's resignation, is an international adviser to Goldman Sachs.[74] So is Otmar Issing, former board member of the Bundesbank and the Executive Board of the European Bank.[74] Mario Draghi, the new head of the European Central Bank, is the former managing director of Goldman Sachs International.[74] António Borges, formerly head of the IMF's European Department is a former vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.[74] Peter Sutherland, former Attorney General of Ireland is a non-executive director of Goldman Sachs International. Karel van Miert, former EU Competition Commissioner is an ex-international adviser to Goldman Sachs.[74] These ties between Goldman Sachs and European leaders is an ongoing source of controversy.[74] )

Why does Europe — indeed, the world — care so much about Greece’s debts?

One of the perceived perks when Europe got together on a single currency (Greeks, for instance, gave up the drachma for the euro) was that a strong Europe could prop up an individual state in a time of need. But what’s happened is that Europe itself has become too weak, in the aftermath of the global financial meltdown, to bite the bullet on a country like Greece. A default would shatter otherwise monetarily strong countries like Germany. The Germans, like the Americans, would be left with a host of “too big to fail” banks ready to do just that. 

Here's Forbes on the global debt bomb.  

It is critical that we remember how we got here. We can't be blinded by big numbers. We can't scapegoat the 'immigrant" as the walls of our institutions collapse around us. They didn't create this monster. They didn't benefit from it. The pigs who did are being driven to work where they continue to push this horrific system to the breaking point.  And most of us live in the false sense of security that it won't effect us. It has, it is, and it has only just begun. The very same forces and institutions that are foreclosing on homes are foreclosing on countries. The "bond vultures " as they are known in the trade will be paid. An example:

 In the past three months, US asset managers Loomis Sayles and BlackRock, Swiss private bank Julius Baer, French asset manager Natixis, German investment fund StarCap and Luxembourg-based Ethenea Independent Investors were among a raft of funds to have bought Greek sovereign debt in the secondary market.

Between them, they acquired around €150m (£133m) of Greek debt, public filings on Bloomberg show. Market sources said there is still a lot of activity in Greek debt, despite the crisis, with data from public filings just the tip of the iceberg.

On average, Greek debt is trading at around 50% of face value, but markdowns are smaller for short-dated bonds and larger for longer-term debt. If bonds are redeemed at par as part of a second bail-out, vulture funds may as much as double their money, debt traders said. The Telegraph. 

In plain English:  These vultures win if the government pays the bond holders at face value. The government is desperate to satisfy these bond holders demands because if they don't, if they default, it takes them out of the system for the future. But lets name it. There is no "government entity" that pays as we are witnessing. It is the Greek people who are out the money. They will sacrifice jobs, pensions, health care so that these vultures can feed. The profits of these vultures is at the expense of the Greek citizenry. It is of course perfectly legal. It is what capitalism is all about.

This is one tiny trade. Imagine when the calls come in ( the bonds are due) to retire the outstanding debt ( bonds) that is on the books. The Economist publishes a debt clock here.  This indicator of where the 40 trillion dollars of debt is located only identifies the numbers on the books.  

Read the story of the 300 trillion dollars worth of derivitives here.  No one knows who holds these instruments nor,  how they will be cleared. 

OWS organizers bristle when outsiders tell them what they might want to focus on, what are the issues to be addressed, and what they might propose to alleviate the problems.  They want to keep the movement amorphous, open and horizontal. May Day is over. The "black block"  has wreaked its havoc, peaceful demonstrators have made their presence felt,  and nothing, nothing has been done to alleviate the problem. Turn away, leave it to the bankers to be the only ones who know how this game is played, and we will be consumed by their greed.  We have to get smarter. We have to do the hard work of averting  this disaster. It isn't going to happen as a result of a one day protest. We have to build a new economy. 

Freedom

Freedom, Rights, Privilege

Phyllis Schlafly continues to head the Eagle Forum, a radical conservative "think tank" , that is part of the chorus of hard right reactionaries. One paragraph from their home page sets the tone:
"We oppose all encroachments against American sovereignty through United Nations treaties or conferences that try to impose global taxes, gun registration, energy restrictions, feminist goals, or regulation on our use of oceans."

At the 2010 Eagle Forum Collegians Summit, Chris Horner, was featured reading from his latest book,"Power Grab: How Obama's Green Policies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America". He throws a lot of language against the wall and waits to see what will stick. The freedom concept, and loss thereof, seems to get a lot of traction if the q/a part of the program is any indicator. It was in this forum that Ms Schlafly interrupted the proceedings to make the following point: "I use a 200 watt light bulb on my desk. I don't want to use those squiggly things that have no light. I can't hardly find a 200 watt light bulb in the stores anymore. I want the freedom to use the lightbulb I chose. I am losing my freedom".

It boils down to that. Of course within that silly example is the demand that she be allowed to burn whatever energy she wants and no socialist government agency is going to tell her she can't.

Carrie and I had a two hour drive the other day and we talked about this issue. This loss of freedom thing. We then proceeded to list freedoms we had lost.
I can't raise a pig in my backyard.
I can't drive 100 mph.
I can't water my lawn during a drought.
I can't walk my dog without a leash and I must pick up his poop.
I can't park a trailer, boat, or RV, in my driveway.
I can't buy a bottle of booze till I am 21.
I can't quit school till I am 16.
I can't dump my sewage in the gutter.
I can't run a business out of my garage.
I can't leave my children unsupervised.
I can't spray DDT in my garden.
I can't ride my bike on the sidewalk.
I can't grow marijuana.

I no longer can play music as loud as I want.
I can't let my lawn go to weed.
I am not allowed out of the ward if I have typhoid.
I can't wear cut offs to school.
I am not allowed to walk bottomless in public.
I can't cut down a tree in the park.
I can't dam the spring, or poison the well.

All of the above are freedoms I once had and were sacrificed for the common good. To those on the right, who give voice to a new "contract with America" the idea of common good does not extend to any limitations on their freedom. They are shredding the social contract that limits the rights of say a farmer to poison my food source, or exploit stoop labor, or butcher a "mad cow". They would drill for gas without consideration of the impact on ground water. They would manufacture a defective product and bear no responsibility for the consequences. They retain the right to exploit any and all resources regardless of the impact on the rest of us.

The most maddening element of this practice is that the exploiters are able to rally the very people they are going to singe in the name of protecting their freedoms.

I think the key to forming an opinion on all of this is to ask yourself not what freedoms you fear losing, but which freedoms you want your neighbor to have.

World of Work

You know a problem is getting "serious" when the NYT does a feature on its front page, American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation. The story is a profile of the agonies of 2008 Colgate grad Scott Nicholson, the unemployed millennium gen, solid son of the solidly middle class. The latest example of an economy gone bad. Comments attached to the piece
and the letters to the editor that followed, give him and his family a pretty swift ass kickin. He appears self indulgent and his family enable him.

No one in this story, or the related comments, challenges any of the basic premises underlying Scott's predicament. He must be thankful for any job offer. He must get out of the house. He might move to Europe where the job possibilities might be better. Scott must get better at becoming a wage slave to a system that doesn't need or want him.

During the same week Alternet picked up a story from Psychotherapy Networker / By Mary Sykes Wylie, appropriately titled: Has the American Dream Become our Nightmare?

That title could be thought to be the first of a set of fundamental questions that needs to be asked and answered. Other questions that we all have to ask include: How might Scott spend his days in ways that don't make the rest of our lives materially worse? What is it that we need, if anything, that Scott might help us acquire? How might Scott evaluate what he really needs? What are Scott's lifetime ambitions; where does he want to be, with whom, and how many of his ambitions involve money? Obviously none of the answers to these questions or even how to pose them were part of Scott's education.

Colgate senses the angst in their graduates. Their response in justifying $54.000 in annual costs to attend include assisting the host community by buying up buildings and placing University offices within them, publishing studies that demonstrate the Colgate grads do better salary-wise then many peers, and bringing back Alumna with a job to share their experiences as a demonstration of "you too can do it." In this case the alum is a vp at MTV.

What Colgate might do: They could rethink their curriculum in terms of 21st century reality. They could sponsor teach-ins on the most critical issues of the day. They could assist their students in conceiving of and moving into a world that was sustainable, ethical, and elegant. They could strengthen their career counseling department. To be effective they have to anticipate the world their graduates are going to enter. The university could provide transitional housing for grads while they determined their next moves. They could incubate entrepreneurial alternatives to traditional job searches. The university might provide goods and services: health care, senior activities, child care, food service, art activities, to their neighbors, enriching the entire community. Any number of grads might be part of the delivery mechanism. Most importantly the university is going to have to become the well spring of alternatives to a system that is so fundamentally broken.

The best example of what is required is exemplified by the award winning documentary film, TEE Shirt Travels, embedded here.

Filmed in Zambia, this film explores the unintended consequences of western do-gooders shipping second hand clothing to a nation in "need". In the process we wiped out their indigenous textile industry and created a nation of re-sellers. It is heartbreaking. And just when you think you can't stand it any more you have the testimony of the stated dream of an unbelievably hard working Zambian young man. His ambition is to have a car. We have shortened the distance between the continents. We have shortened the timeline of civilization.

The Bell Tolls

It's a Start


















I could hear it in his voice, the angst was palpable. My son called to tell me that he had just registered his son in kindergarden. He is in the midst of a book launch, otherwise happy as he could be. This brought him down. "Nothing has changed." "Same concrete block building, same drab colors, same florescent lighting, and that same authoritarian voice instructing us that we had to take this event seriously, brought it all back home." He and millions of others are beginning the process of handing their children off to the state. My grandson is about to be segregated from people not his age. He is about to enter the company of 20-30 other children and told to be quiet. He will be told to suppress his natural curiosity about his sexual identity. He will be fed horrible things at lunch. He will be introduced to the first phases of a curriculum guaranteed to dull and deaden the natural process of his acquisition of knowledge.

He is being conditioned to become a productive citizen, able to "compete" in the world's race for power and wealth. In the process he will be bullied, insulted, and graded. He will learn to compete against his fellow students. He will pass or fail.

What's the problem? We all went through it. We survived. We did OK. These arguments for the system are the best we can do. Or we can point to the failure of all previous attempts at reform. Or suggest there are no alternatives. Or, when alternatives do pop up i.e. home schooling or charter schools, we see to it that they are state certified. The issue isn't that some of us survive the system. The issue is what would we be if we grew in a truly supportive system that placed students needs first? Who might we have become? Super teachers write on this subject. Here is one you might want to consider.
One of the cruelest events in this mean season is the annual public humiliation of parents waiting, camping, suffering whatever it takes, to get their child placed in one or another magnet school. And for most of those who fail to get their child in the "better" school? They passively accept their fate as second class citizens. Tax paying citizens, paying for schools their children can't attend. An argument against the value of magnet schools was posted by a teacher in the NYT recently.




The more fundamental questions that are rarely asked or discussed would challenge the entire enterprise. Coming out of WW2 scholars questioned the role of public education in the formulation of mind sets that could create such horrors.
We might ask the same of our current reality. We could begin questioning a system of world organization that has half of the occupants of the planet living in poverty. I believe that it is just such an awareness that motivates most parents to try to secure an edge for their children in what they perceive of as a cruel world.

Times are tough and getting tougher for college students. As the protests begin it is evident that students have accepted the efficacy of their educational institutions. It is more access that they are demanding. Not alternatives.

When students struck Columbia U. in 1968, I and others offered an alternative in the form of what became the University of the Street. A qualified success it did however lead to the establishment of The Open University in America. A short term version of the same process, the matching of students and teachers and letting them run is taking place now. By the time persons reach their majority they can and do create alternatives. It is with the children that we are so frightened. What if we are wrong? Will this decrease their chances to get into Yale? How will they be socialized?



I inhaled Ivan Illich. This radical (ultimately defrocked) priest authored Deschooling Society in 1974. His ideas are summarized here.

He called for "convivial education". A system very similar to the processes of an open university available to everyone. Young and older. His ideas continue to be discussed. An excerpt from the above; "The importance of convivial institutions is recognized in the sustaining of community - but social capital, because it is also linked to economic advancement, can be easily co-opted in the service of non-convivial activities (as the involvement of the World Bank in promoting the notion may suggest)".

He is also criticized for not being more specific about how we might implement alternatives.

Imagine. A group of say 10 parents decides to pull up to 20 students from the system. These same parents advertise for a pair of "teachers" who are going to become the primary guides in this newly formed learning community. In today's employment environment it should be easy to find qualified and willing candidates. The parents raise 100K. The parents acquire access to space throughout their community. They pool their resources: computers, books, AV equipment, tools, work sites for situational learning, food, vehicles, Parents are asked to participate to the extent they are comfortable. One fear the parents are going to have is that couldn't agree on what the knowledge base for their children might look like. They must come up with a set of objectives that governs them all. They must seize control of this process. They must take responsibility. There is no way around it. When they assemble their working document then they contract with the guides. The group meets regularly. They fine tune. They grow. Now imagine thousands of similar groups. They have 6 months to get organized before they hand over their kids.

Bread upon the waters

The world, well the NY fooderati, went a little nuts in November 2006 when Jim Lahey produced the following YouTube video:

Jim Lahey
(note; this video has but 450k hits while Guru Josh is screaming with 60 million)

Why would someone give away a prized recipe? Won't this hurt his business? It didn't hurt the NY Times which had more pass alongs of the print article for weeks following its publication than any other current story. And it appears that Sullivan Street Bakery is doing fine in its new location.

I think this move on Jim's part is important at many levels: It really works and takes away most of the excuses one might have for not rolling one's own bread, It is an example of the "new commons" where more and more evidence rolls in that sharing has become a new mode of affordable sustainable behavior, It is a critical part of a movement to take responsibility and DIY when it comes to nutrition.

You don't need an expensive pot to cook this bread in. Amazon has a casserole on sale for 60 bucks.


The recipe can be modified in many ways. I knock off my favorite from Amy's Bread by changing the flour mix to include a cup of corn meal, and two cups of semolina as a substitute for 3 cups of "all purpose". I soak two cups of raisins in 4 cups of water overnight, drain two cups of raisin flavored water off, and use it to moisten the dough. I then grind in a palmful of fennel seeds, and let the mix rise for 18 hours as directed. I roll out the dough into a flat rectangle and press the drained raisins along the surface, roll it up, wait for the second rise and plop the roll into the hot pot. This is but one variation. Different flour mixes and flavorings recipes abound.

Jim carries on. I read of his new pizza joint
and I hope it is a success. I know his bread recipe can be adapted to pizza.