2008-Jun (Oita)

Light Graffiti no1 (My works)

東京 杉並

EZLN+Buddhist (My work in Kyoto)

GRLkyoto Blog

読みのがしたメールたちの為のページ

４月までの課題にずっと追われ続けているのだけれども、世界はもっと速いスピードで変化している。図書館にいるとその変化からすっぽり取り残されているような気分になるが、いくつかのメーリングリストからは矢継ぎ早にニュースが飛び込む。そこで、読む時間のなかったメールをしばらく載せて行こうと思う。

G20 protest professor suspended

G20 protest professor suspended

A university professor who warned that bankers could be "hanging from
lampposts" during G20 protests next week has been suspended from his job.

Chris Knight, of the University of East London, told BBC Radio 4 things
"could get nasty" after ex-bank boss Sir Fred Goodwin's Edinburgh home
was attacked.

The university confirmed in a statement the professor of anthropology
had been suspended from duties on Thursday.

An investigation was being launched into his comments, it said.

The statement read: "Professor Chris Knight has been suspended from his
duties at the University of East London, pending investigation.

"In order not to prejudice this process we cannot make any further comment."
“ They [bankers] should realise the amount of fury and hatred there is
for them and act quickly, because quite honestly if it isn't humour it
is going to be anger ”
Professor Chris Knight

The professor was interviewed for BBC Radio 4's PM programme after the
home and car of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred were
attacked by vandals early on Wednesday morning.

Mr Knight, who was organising protests next week, said: "We are going to
be hanging a lot of people like Fred the Shred [Sir Fred Goodwin] from
lampposts on April Fool's Day and I can only say let's hope they are
just effigies.

"To be honest, if he winds us up any more I'm afraid there will be real
bankers hanging from lampposts and let's hope that that doesn't actually
have to happen.

"They [bankers] should realise the amount of fury and hatred there is
for them and act quickly, because quite honestly if it isn't humour it
is going to be anger.

"I am trying to keep it humorous and let the anger come up in a creative
and hopefully productive and peaceful way.

"If the other people don't join in the fun - I'm talking about the
bankers and those rather pompous ministers - and come over and surrender
their power obviously it's going to get us even more wound up and things
could get nasty. Let's hope it doesn't."

Demonstrations

There has been widespread public and political anger over a pension
payout worth about £700,000 a year to the 50-year-old former chief
executive Sir Fred.

He took early retirement from RBS last year after the bank needed a
£20bn bailout from the government.

A number of organisations and coalitions are organising protests over a
variety of issues, including the financial crisis, before and during the
G20 summit in London on 2 April.

Police have warned known activists are planning in an "unprecedented"
way and that groups active in the late 1990s are re-emerging and forming
new alliances.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/7967096.stm

"Civil War in the United States?"

Mar. 15, 2009, Commentary No. 253

"Civil War in the United States?"

by Immanuel Wallerstein

We are getting accustomed to all sorts of breakdowns of taboos. The world press is full of discussion about whether it would be a good idea to "nationalize" banks. None other than Alan Greenspan, disciple of the superlibertarian prophet of pure market capitalism, Ayn Rand, has recently said that we have to nationalize banks once every hundred years, and this may be that moment. Conservative Republican Senator Lindsay Graham agreed with him. Left Keynesian Alan Blinder discussed the pros and cons of this idea. And while he thinks the cons are a bit bigger than the pros, he was willing to spend public intellectual energy writing about this in the New York Times.



Well, after hearing nationalization proposals by arch-conservative notables, we are now hearing serious discussions about the possibilities of civil war in the United States. Zbigniew Brzezinski, apostle of anti-Communist ideology and President Carter's National Security Advisor, appeared on a morning television talk show on February 17, and was asked to discuss his previous mention of the possibility of class conflict in the United States in the wake of the worldwide economic collapse.

Brzezinski said he was worried about it because of the prospect of "millions and millions of unemployed people facing dire straits," people who have become aware "of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals without historical precedent in America."

He reminded the listeners that, when there was a massive banking crisis in 1907, the great financier, J.P. Morgan, invited a group of wealthy financiers to his home, locked them in his library, and wouldn't let them out until they all kicked in moneyfor a fund to stabilize the banks. Brzezinski said: "Where is the monied class today? Why aren't they doing something: the people who made billions?"

In the absence of their doing something on a voluntary basis, Brzezinski said, "there's going to be growing conflict between the classes and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could even be riots!"

Almost simultaneously, a European agency called LEAP/Europe that issues monthly confidential Global Europe Anticipation Bulletins for its clients - politicians, public servants, businessmen, and investors - devoted its February issue to global geopolitical dislocation. The report did not paint a pretty picture. It discussed the possibility of civil war in Europe, in the United States, and Japan. It foresaw a "generalized stampede" that will lead to clashes, semi-civil wars.

The experts have some advice: "If your country or region is a zone in which there is a massive availability of guns, the best thing you can do...is to leave the region, if that's possible." The only one of these countries which meets the description of massively available guns is the United States. The head of LEAP/Europe, Franck Biancheri, noted that "there are 200 million guns in circulation in the United States, and social violence is already manifest via gangs." The experts who wrote the report asserted that there is already an ongoing emigration of Americans

to Europe, because that is "where physical danger will remain marginal."

If Brzezinski hopes for the emergence of another J.P. Morgan in the United States to force sense upon the "monied" class, the LEAP/Europe report sees a "last chance" in the April 2 London meeting of the G20, provided the participants come forward with a "convincing and audacious" plan.

These analyses are not coming from left intellectuals or radical social movements. They are the openly expressed fears of serious analysts who are part of the existing Establishment in the United States and Europe. Verbal taboos are broken only when such people are truly fearful. The point of breaking the taboos is to try to bring about major rapid action - the equivalent of J.P. Morgan locking the financiers in his home in 1907.

It was easier in 1907.