Thursday, November 24, 2011

Interesting takes on the extended GFC and the occupy movement

As Europe lurches towards its crisis, youth unemployment in Spain is already 50% and American kids graduate in deep debt with little prospect of a job, no-one is confidently predicting the future. I liked this story in The Guardian and the perceptive comments below it, both pro- and anti-. Two comments that impressed cut-and-pasted here:


From Joe McCann:
Something most people do not understand about the form of capitalism we have.
The central idea is that all wealth should be extracted from the general population and handed over to a tiny "capitalist class", as supposedly they can more "efficiently" apply that wealth as capital. It's a similar idea to Soviet state capitalism - except in our instance, it's a social class confiscating property and not the state. And yes they have been confiscating your property and wealth, with a little trompe l'oeil.
Of course what the capitalist class really do is apply the capital to buying big houses and private jets, gated compounds, armed guards.
We've been duped into a system that just makes most of us poorer and poorer.
In the US in 1960, a single average wage was all it took to support a family, buy a house and a car, and not live in poverty. Supposedly we're wealthier than we've ever been. When you take rubbishy hi-tech gadgets out of the equation we're worse off than 1960. Though our rich are outrageously better off than they've ever been. How in a democracy can the majority chose a path that makes their live worse.
Our elites are just as bad as Mummar Gaddafi when it comes to screwing their own people.

From 'Raffine':
Public demonstrations still seem to have an effect in nations where civil society is restricted or non-existent (see the "Arab Spring") and in France (in the form of the general strike), but this political style is pretty much exhausted in the USA, almost to the point of becoming a cliché. The declining significance of street protests is made worse when organizers promise more than they can deliver, in this case occupying Wall Street. Until what happens? The closing of the DJIA? What Graeber purports to be one of the signs of the fall of the American empire, the tribal drumbeats echoing through the canyons of lower Manhattan, is nothing more than a local spectacle; meanwhile, for criminal banksters and feral traders (like the USB thug Kweku Adoboli) it's back to business as usual.
The anarchist vision apparent in this commentary ("This is why protesters are often hesitant even to issue formal demands, since that might imply recognising the legitimacy of the politicians against whom they are ranged") is no substitute for a real political theory of how the widespread change its author envisions might be actualized. Hardt and Negri suffice for the sound bite imagination of the well-meaning demonstrators; the rest of us can still hope for something more profound.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

City of Sydney Council.

Dear Council and Councillors
With regard for the Development consent at Victoria Road, Potts Point which is the address of The Golden Apple Brothel. This Brothel, when you pay by Credit Card shows Bistro.
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Development/DAsOnExhibition/DASearch/Detail.aspx?id=1026426
Council should upon looking at this application remove the approval for the existing Bistro/Hotel/Brothel that currently exists and bring this into the new code that Council instrumented sometime ago.
When you look at the news report some time ago you do start to wonder if the examination of the brothel/Sex premises is tested on a regular basis.
These properties that are under the Sex premises restricted premises should be tested for health thou the above development application by website is showing more an update than say for Porkies on the main drag of Kings Cross showing the green lights that we learnt about in Underbelly as paying protection money to the authorities.
I have noticed that the army of protection surrounding this industry at Kings Cross/Potts Point has by the television show explained that the area is needing more public opinion.
Like the development consent for 169 Victoria Road Potts Point does not mention the revoking of the Brothel license thereby confirming that this development will be something that could be detrimental to the area.







Acts of love too filthy for brothels
By Sean Nicholls and Anne Davies
June 27 2003



Dirty deeds . . . Porky's strip club had to clean up its spa. Photo: Adam Pretty
Related:
You can't do that here: push to take the X out of the Cross

Four Kings Cross strip clubs could have their brothels shut down after raids by council inspectors discovered dirty spas and breaches of health and fire regulations.
The orders yesterday by Sydney City Council come just days after the council declared a freeze on new sex industry premises entering Kings Cross.
The council said the clubs - Porky's, Stripperama, Love Machine and Playbirds - had 21 days to respond to the notices outlining plans to revoke the consents for their brothel activities.
The four clubs were given permission to operate brothels by South Sydney Council in 1999. But since City of Sydney took over responsibility for Kings Cross, it has increased scrutiny of sex premises.
Two weeks ago council officers accompanied the police officers on an operation targeting underage sex workers and illegal migrants.
Thank you for allowing this to be considered and could the clubs along Darlinghurst Road be tested for drug raids as an event of part of holding the Sex Premises license. See the Showgirl exercise I believe was just a considering matter to the public as a publicity stunt 2 people charged in May 2011.
When I have seen other clubs on the strip, that don’t do drugs come under fire. Council should be answerable to the public for opening up the Underbelly’s of the past.
Hell relationship, I go to brothels
Regards,
David Bank

The Editor said...

While I agree brothels should clean their spas etc (shudder! - does anyone actually use them?), these raids are nothing more than the old push to kill the Cross, as if making it the only suburb in Sydney without brothels has any logic to it.

The excuse for the raids - "targeting underage sex workers and illegal migrants" - is nonsense. You'll notice they never find any. It's no different from their raids on the sex shops - always looking for "child porn" and splashing that across the papers but they never find any. That didn't stop them throwing a young gay shop assistant into jail for selling X-rated videos that are legal to buy in NSW if you get them from Canberra. Its just a middle-class morals campaign driven ultimately, I suspect, by real estate interests.

As for the Golden Apple - quite a reputable brothel I gather - putting 'bistro' on credit card receipts, that's just to protect erring hubbies from being busted by their wives.

Anonymous said...

Don't go to the Love Machine. total scam of a place. sleazy, money grubbers. They should shut it down. It caused me not to go to other joints like in KC! So instead of going to two or three, one crappy one and got out quick