Ephemerality

‎If history teaches anything about the causes of revolution—and history does not teach much, but still teaches considerably more than social-science theories—it is that a disintegration of political systems precedes revolutions, that the telling symptom of disintegration is a progressive erosion of governmental authority, and that this erosion is caused by the government’s inability to to function properly, from which spring the citizens’ doubts about its legitimacy.

—Hannah Arendt, “On Civil Disobedience.” 

Neoliberalism is also a political theory. It posits that business domination of society proceeds most effectively when there is a representative democracy, but only when it is a weak and ineffectual polity typified by high degrees of depoliticization, especially among the poor and working class.

—Robert McChesney

You see, until a few weeks ago it seemed as if Wall Street had effectively bribed and bullied our political system into forgetting about that whole drawing lavish paychecks while destroying the world economy thing. Then, all of a sudden, some people insisted on bringing the subject up again.

—Paul Krugman, Losing Their Immunity. (via lorim)

(via peterwknox)

If 2,000 Tea Party activists descended on Wall Street, you would probably have an equal number of reporters there covering them. Yet 2,000 people did occupy Wall Street last Saturday. They weren’t carrying the banner of the Tea Party, the Gadsden flag with its coiled snake and the threat ‘Don’t Tread on Me’. Yet their message was clear: ‘We are the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.’ They were there, mostly young, protesting the virtually unregulated speculation of Wall Street that caused the global financial meltdown.

One of New York’s better-known billionaires, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, commented on the protests: ‘You have a lot of kids graduating college, can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here.’

Riots? Is that really what the Arab Spring and the European protests are about? […]

I interviewed one of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest organisers. David Graeber teaches at Goldsmiths, University of London, and has authored several books – most recently, Debt: The First 5,000 Years. Graeber points out that, in the midst of the financial crash of 2008, enormous debts between banks were renegotiated. Yet only a fraction of troubled mortgages have gotten the same treatment. He said:

‘Debts between the very wealthy or between governments can always be renegotiated and always have been throughout world history. … It’s when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich that suddenly debts become a sacred obligation, more important than anything else. The idea of renegotiating them becomes unthinkable.’

—Amy Goodman: Why ‘Occupy Wall Street’ makes sense (via monkeyknifefight)

(via dallowayward)

In Michigan, food stamps are worth double at farmers’ markets, which means more healthy food for low-income shoppers – and more customers for local farmers.

The program, called Double Up Food Bucks (DUFB), is a project of the nonprofit Fair Food Network. It’s a simple idea: SNAP shoppers use their benefits at a participating farmers’ market and receive tokens for an equal amount to purchase any Michigan-grown fruit or vegetable at the market. In effect, food dollars spent at farmers’ markets are doubled, up to $20 per market day. By spending $20 of SNAP benefits at the farmers’ market, the shopper comes home with $40 worth of healthy, fresh, regionally grown produce.

—A double win for fresh food - CSMonitor.com (via michaelikesit)

(via michaelikesit)