Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not | Truthout
by: Deena Stryker, The South Africa Civil Society Information Service | News Analysis
An Italian radio program's story about Iceland’s on-going revolution is a stunning example of how little our media tells us about the rest of the world. Americans may remember that at the start of the 2008 financial crisis, Iceland literally went bankrupt. The reasons were mentioned only in passing, and since then, this little-known member of the European Union fell back into oblivion.
As one European country after another fails or risks failing, imperiling the Euro, with repercussions for the entire world, the last thing the powers that be want is for Iceland to become an example. Here's why:
Five years of a pure neo-liberal regime had made Iceland, (population 320 thousand, no army), one of the richest countries in the world. In 2003 all the country’s banks were privatized, and in an effort to attract foreign investors, they offered on-line banking whose minimal costs allowed them to offer relatively high rates of return. The accounts, called IceSave, attracted many English and Dutch small investors. But as investments grew, so did the banks’ foreign debt. In 2003 Iceland’s debt was equal to 200 times its GNP, but in 2007, it was 900 percent. The 2008 world financial crisis was the coup de grace. The three main Icelandic banks, Landbanki, Kapthing and Glitnir, went belly up and were nationalized, while the Kroner lost 85% of its value with respect to the Euro. At the end of the year Iceland declared bankruptcy.
Contrary to what could be expected, the crisis resulted in Icelanders recovering their sovereign rights, through a process of direct participatory democracy that eventually led to a new Constitution. But only after much pain.
Geir Haarde, the Prime Minister of a Social Democratic coalition government, negotiated a two million one hundred thousand dollar loan, to which the Nordic countries added another two and a half million. But the foreign financial community pressured Iceland to impose drastic measures. The FMI and the European Union wanted to take over its debt, claiming this was the only way for the country to pay back Holland and Great Britain, who had promised to reimburse their citizens.
Protests and riots continued, eventually forcing the government to resign. Elections were brought forward to April 2009, resulting in a left-wing coalition which condemned the neoliberal economic system, but immediately gave in to its demands that Iceland pay off a total of three and a half million Euros. This required each Icelandic citizen to pay 100 Euros a month (or about $130) for fifteen years, at 5.5% interest, to pay off a debt incurred by private parties vis a vis other private parties. It was the straw that broke the reindeer’s back.
What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.
Of course the international community only increased the pressure on Iceland. Great Britain and Holland threatened dire reprisals that would isolate the country. As Icelanders went to vote, foreign bankers threatened to block any aid from the IMF. The British government threatened to freeze Icelander savings and checking accounts. As Grimsson said: “We were told that if we refused the international community’s conditions, we would become the Cuba of the North. But if we had accepted, we would have become the Haiti of the North.” (How many times have I written that when Cubans see the dire state of their neighbor, Haiti, they count themselves lucky.)
In the March 2010 referendum, 93% voted against repayment of the debt. The IMF immediately froze its loan. But the revolution (though not televised in the United States), would not be intimidated. With the support of a furious citizenry, the government launched civil and penal investigations into those responsible for the financial crisis. Interpol put out an international arrest warrant for the ex-president of Kaupthing, Sigurdur Einarsson, as the other bankers implicated in the crash fled the country.
But Icelanders didn't stop there: they decided to draft a new constitution that would free the country from the exaggerated power of international finance and virtual money. (The one in use had been written when Iceland gained its independence from Denmark, in 1918, the only difference with the Danish constitution being that the word ‘president’ replaced the word ‘king’.)
To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens. This document was not the work of a handful of politicians, but was written on the internet. The constituent’s meetings are streamed on-line, and citizens can send their comments and suggestions, witnessing the document as it takes shape. The constitution that eventually emerges from this participatory democratic process will be submitted to parliament for approval after the next elections.
Some readers will remember that Iceland’s ninth century agrarian collapse was featured in Jared Diamond’s book by the same name. Today, that country is recovering from its financial collapse in ways just the opposite of those generally considered unavoidable, as confirmed yesterday by the new head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde to Fareed Zakaria. The people of Greece have been told that the privatization of their public sector is the only solution. And those of Italy, Spain and Portugal are facing the same threat.
They should look to Iceland. Refusing to bow to foreign interests, that small country stated loud and clear that the people are sovereign.
That’s why it is not in the news anymore.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
The Secret of Oz - Winner, Best Docu of 2010 v.1.09.11
The world economy is doomed to spiral downwards until we do 2 things
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
OWS: Out of Zuccotti Park and Into the Streets
OWS: Out of Zuccotti Park and Into the Streets
In his Washington Post column, Eugene Robinson writes that while Occupy Wall Street protesters may no longer occupy Zuccotti Park, they are still prominent in the national psyche. He says the movement has only just begun.
Demonstrators staged a “day of action” Thursday, following the eviction of their two-month-old encampment this week. The idea was, well, to occupy Wall Street in a literal sense -- to shut down the financial district, at least during the morning rush hour.
For the most part, it didn’t work. Entrances to some subway stations were blocked for a while, and traffic was more of a mess than usual. But police turned out in force, erecting barricades that kept protesters from getting anywhere near their main target, the New York Stock Exchange. Captains of commerce may have been hassled and inconvenienced, but they weren’t thwarted.
There was some pushing and shoving, resulting in a few dozen arrests. Coordinated “day of action” protests were held in other cities. They did not change the world.
A big failure? No, quite the opposite.
Read Eugene Robinson's entire column at the Washington Post.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Berkeley police yank hair of female professor and students at Occupy Cal
UCB English Professor Celeste Langan (1st woman pulled) offers out her wrists and tells police they can arrest her -- they yank her out by the hair and do the same with two students. The police were intent on destroying the Occupy Cal encampment tents. Later in the video, a woman is pinned to a bush and being batoned, and a man trying to rescue her gets beaten by police.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Veterans March For Occupy Wall Street
Veterans March For Occupy Wall Street — And It's Like Nothing You've Ever Seen Before
Linette Lopez and Robert Johnson | Nov. 2, 2011, 5:39 PM
Teachers, auto workers, nurses and more have had their chance to show their support for the ideals of the Occupy movement.
Today, veterans had their turn.
There is no perfect way to describe what it looked like, we can only say that their demonstration was serious and somber unlike any other.
This was not a party with music and cheering, their signs were not funny either, this was a true march in protest. After all, these men and women are soldiers.
As they made their way to Zuccotti Park, the feeling was tense. People who watched from their offices did not smile or laugh, they stared and whispered quietly to each other.
And then the veterans took the human microphone. Like their steps, their voices rang in perfect time. The occupiers stood in silence, only opening their mouths to repeat what the soldiers said.
When one Navy veteran addressed Zuccotti Park he put it very simply: "If you continue to assemble in peace and solidarity, justice will come to pass. We are the 99%."
The march started at the Vietnam Memorial on Water Street.
The press could not blend in during this march. The vets stayed in strict formation, moving in time through the streets without saying a word.
All types of vets were marching — A former soldier was pushing his daughter in a stroller.
The veterans stopped, faced the press and gave a speech. "We are veterans and we are the 99%. We swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. We are here to support the Occupy movement."
Friday, November 4, 2011
Durham protesters speak out against Duke Energy's rate hike
Durham protesters speak out against Duke Energy's rate hike
By Kosta Harlan | November 3, 2011
Durham, NC - Over 60 protesters marched on Durham City Hall here, Nov. 2, where the Public Utilities Commission was holding a hearing about Duke Energy's proposed 18% rate hike. After rallying outside, 200 people packed the two-hour hearing in City Hall to speak out against the rate hike.
The march kicked off at the newly-renamed People's Plaza, where Occupy Durham has had an encampment over the last several weeks. 40 people rallied before marching through downtown Durham, chanting "No hike, No way! Duke Energy, we won't pay!" and "Money for jobs and education, not for greedy corporations!"
Outside the Public Utilities Commission hearing, a press conference organized by North Carolina WARN (Waste Awareness & Reduction Network) brought together speakers from numerous community organizations and businesses in the area. Rafael Estrada, speaking as a member of the Occupy Durham movement at the press conference, stated, “We want to point out how obscene it is for a corporation that had record profits of $1.3 billion in 2010 to ask for a rate increase of 17% in 2011. This increase means a hard blow to all residents in the state and it would be especially harmful to those that are mostly affected by corporate greed: those below and near the poverty line, the unemployed and the undocumented."
Duke Energy claims the rate hike is necessary to "begin recovering $4.8 billion in investments made since 2009 to modernize our electric system and comply with state and federal emissions regulations." But according to their own statements, 75% of the increase would go to capital investments. This means the public is footing the bill for the foundation of future profits for Duke Energy. Duke Energy's profits went up 23% in 2010 alone, to $1.3 billion.
Alissa Ellis is an unemployed mother who is active with Occupy Durham and helped lead the rally outside the hearing. Ellis told Fight Back!, "It is important to educate people about what big greedy corporations are doing because most of the public is in the dark."
Ellis continued, "It is important for the city of Durham to show to the commission that we don't support this increase. We are a broad coalition of people, we are the 99%, and the 1% shouldn't be allowed to push us around anymore and take our money."
Duke Energy is also facing heat due to a planned merger with Progress Energy. The merger would result in the country's largest utility - an enormously powerful monopoly - valued at $65 billion.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Protect Occupy Baltimore
UPDATE: CITY DEFERS OCCUPY BALTIMORE PERMIT REQUEST
OCCUPATION CALLS FOR PUBLIC SUPPORT
Occupy Baltimore has been peacefully gathering in McKeldin Square on the corner of Pratt & Light Streets since October 4th, 2011. Today marks the start of the fourth week of the encampment. Early last week, after pressure from the Baltimore City police department and the department of parks and recreation, Occupy Baltimore filed an application for a permit to continue the encampment indefinitely.
On Monday, Occupy Baltimore received word that the Department of Parks & Recreation Department has not approved their permit application, and instead suggested a compromise that would allow Occupy Baltimore to continue to occupy McKeldin Square indefinitely without a permit during the daytime hours, but limit overnight presence to a maximum of 2 people, and restrict the encampment as a whole to a smaller corner of the Square. The city has asked for an answer to the proposed deal by Wednesday Oct 26th and stated that if Occupy Baltimore agrees, they will not be removed from the park for failing to obtain a permit. Should Occupy Baltimore refuse to comply with the requests to limit the overnight presence, then the city "has the right to terminate these special accommodations," though no specific date for termination has been announced. In preparation for any possible intervention by the city, Occupy Baltimore participants are issuing a general call for all allies to join the encampment starting tonight to support and protect the group sustaining the occupation at McKeldin Square.
Over the course of the past three weeks, Occupy Baltimore has begun a directly democratic dialogue, and considering their peaceful and respectful assembly, the group requests that the city allow them to maintain this peaceful democratic space, as city government counterparts have in Philadelphia and Washington DC. Representatives of Occupy Baltimore, assisted by the Maryland chapter of the ACLU, are currently in discussion with the Department of Parks and Recreation about possible negotiations on the proposed deadline and the overnight stay limitations. These limitations present a clear concern for the Occupation, which has a complex and pre-existing infrastructure, including dedicated teams for media, food, direct action, outreach, security, and other working groups that require consultation and consideration, as well as physical space onsite.
Occupy Baltimore is committed to maintaining a vibrant, safe space in McKeldin Square as the movement continues to grow an organic infrastructure of democratic representation, arts, culture, and Political debate while still allowing the public to pass through McKeldin Square, and inviting them to join in the occupation and associated activities.
Occupy Baltimore recognizes that their requests are outside of the box for the city's existing permit system, but encourages the city to work alongside peaceful and respectful demonstrators to create a legal space where all voices can be heard.
The Occupation remains hopeful that the City of Baltimore will continue to work with the movement in the coming days and weeks to ensure the continued existence of this peaceful gathering. Participants state, however, that they are closely monitoring police presence in the area as the city's deadline approaches. They encourage supporters to maximize presence in the Square starting today, and continuing throughout the week, should the authorities decide to clear the area on or after the Wednesday, October 26 deadline.
For more information, or to schedule a time to visit the occupation movement in Baltimore, please visit www.occupybmore.org
Immunity and impunity in elite America
Immunity and impunity in elite America
The top one per cent of US society is enjoying a two-tiered system of justice and politics.
As intense protests spawned by Occupy Wall Street continue to grow, it is worth asking: Why now? The answer is not obvious. After all, severe income and wealth inequality have long plagued the United States. In fact, it could reasonably be claimed that this form of inequality is part of the design of the American foundation - indeed, an integral part of it.
Income inequality has worsened over the past several years and is at its highest level since the Great Depression. This is not, however, a new trend. Income inequality has been growing at rapid rates for three decades. As journalist Tim Noah described the process: "During the late 1980s and the late 1990s, the United States experienced two unprecedentedly long periods of sustained economic growth - the ‘seven fat years’ and the ‘long boom’. Yet from 1980 to 2005, more than 80 per cent of total increase in Americans' income went to the top one per cent. Economic growth was more sluggish in the aughts [the first decade of the new century], but the decade saw productivity increase by about 20 per cent. Yet virtually none of the increase translated into wage growth at middle and lower incomes, an outcome that left many economists scratching their heads."
The 2008 financial crisis exacerbated the trend, but not radically: the top one per cent of earners in the US have been feeding ever more greedily at the trough for decades.
Inferiors and superiors
In addition, substantial wealth inequality is so embedded in US political culture that, standing alone, it would not be sufficient to trigger citizen rage of the type we are finally witnessing. The American founders were clear that they viewed inequality in wealth, power, and prestige as not merely inevitable, but desirable and, for some, even divinely ordained. Jefferson praised "the natural aristocracy" as "the most precious gift of nature" for the "government of society". John Adams concurred: "It already appears, that there must be in every society of men superiors and inferiors, because God has laid in the… course of nature the foundation of the distinction."
Not only have the overwhelming majority of those in the US long acquiesced to vast income and wealth disparities, but some of those most oppressed by these outcomes have cheered it loudly. Americans have been inculcated not only to accept, but to revere those who are the greatest beneficiaries of this inequality.
In the 1980s, this paradox - whereby even those most trampled upon come to cheer those responsible for their state - became more firmly entrenched. That's because it found a folksy, friendly face. Ronald Reagan, adept at feeding the populace a slew of Orwellian clichés that induced them to defend the interests of the wealthiest. "A rising tide," as one former US president put it, "lifts all boats". The sum of his wisdom being: It is in your interest when the rich get richer.
Implicit in this framework was the claim that inequality was justified and legitimate. The core propagandistic premise was that the rich were rich because they deserved to be. They innovated in industry, invented technologies, discovered cures, created jobs, took risks, and boldly found ways to improve our lives. In other words, they deserved to be enriched. Indeed, it was in our common interest to allow them to fly as high as possible, because that would increase their motivation to produce more, bestowing on us ever greater life-improving gifts.
Gratefulness for the leadership
We should not, so the thinking went, begrudge the multimillionaire living behind his 15-foot walls for his success; we should admire him. Corporate bosses deserved not our resentment but our gratitude. It was in our own interest not to demand more in taxes from the wealthiest but less, as their enhanced wealth - their pocket change - would trickle down in various ways to all of us.
This is the mentality that enabled massive growth in income and wealth inequality over the past several decades without much at all in the way of citizen protest. And yet something has indeed changed. It’s not that Americans suddenly woke up one day and decided that substantial income and wealth inequality are themselves unfair or intolerable. What changed was the perception of how that wealth was gotten and so of the ensuing inequality as legitimate.
Many Americans who once accepted or even cheered such inequality now see the gains of the richest as ill-gotten, as undeserved, as cheating. Most of all, the legal system that once served as the legitimising anchor for outcome inequality, the rule of law - that most basic of American ideals, that a common set of rules are equally applied to all - has now become irrevocably corrupted and is seen as such.
While the founders accepted outcome inequality, they emphasised - over and over - that its legitimacy hinged on subjecting everyone to the law’s mandates on an equal basis. Jefferson wrote that the essence of America would be that "the poorest labourer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favoured one whenever their rights seem to jar". Benjamin Franklin warned that creating a privileged legal class would produce "total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections" between the rulers and those they ruled. Tom Paine repeatedly railed against "counterfeit nobles", those whose superior status was grounded not in merit but in unearned legal privilege.
Definition of tyranny
After all, one of their principal grievances against the British king was his power to exempt his cronies from legal obligations. Almost every founder repeatedly warned that a failure to apply the law equally to the politically powerful and the rich would ensure a warped and unjust society. In many ways, that was their definition of tyranny.
Americans understand this implicitly. If you watch a competition among sprinters, you can accept that whoever crosses the finish line first is the superior runner. But only if all the competitors are bound by the same rules: everyone begins at the same starting line, is penalised for invading the lane of another runner, is barred from making physical contact or using performance-enhancing substances, and so on.
If some of the runners start ahead of others and have relationships with the judges that enable them to receive dispensation for violating the rules as they wish, then viewers understand that the outcome can no longer be considered legitimate. Once the process is seen as not only unfair but utterly corrupted, once it’s obvious that a common set of rules no longer binds all the competitors, the winner will be resented, not heralded.
That catches the mood of the US in 2011. It may not explain the Occupy Wall Street movement, but it helps explain why it has spread like wildfire and why so many Americans seem instantly to accept and support it. As was not true in recent decades, the American relationship with wealth inequality is in a state of rapid transformation.
It is now clearly understood that, rather than apply the law equally to all, Wall Street tycoons have engaged in egregious criminality - acts which destroyed the economic security of millions of people around the world - without experiencing the slightest legal repercussions. Giant financial institutions were caught red-handed engaging in massive, systematic fraud to foreclose on people’s homes and the reaction of the political class, led by the Obama administration, was to shield them from meaningful consequences. Rather than submit on an equal basis to the rules, through an oligarchical, democracy-subverting control of the political process, they now control the process of writing those rules and how they are applied.
Writing laws
Today, it is glaringly obvious to a wide range of those in the US that the wealth of the top one per cent is the byproduct not of risk-taking entrepreneurship, but of corrupted control of our legal and political systems. Thanks to this control, they can write laws that have no purpose than to abolish the few limits that still constrain them, as happened during the Wall Street deregulation orgy of the 1990s. They can retroactively immunise themselves for crimes they deliberately committed for profit, as happened when the 2008 Congress shielded the nation’s telecom giants for their role in Bush’s domestic warrantless eavesdropping programme.
It is equally obvious that they are using that power not to lift the boats of ordinary Americans, but to sink them. In short, Americans are now well aware of what the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Illinois’s Dick Durbin, blurted out in 2009 about the body in which he serves: the banks "frankly own the place".
If you were to assess the state of the union in 2011, you might sum it up this way: rather than being subjected to the rule of law, the nation’s most powerful oligarchs control the law and are so exempt from it; and increasing numbers of Americans understand that and are outraged. At exactly the same time that the nation’s elites enjoy legal immunity even for egregious crimes, ordinary Americans are being subjected to the world's largest and one of its harshest penal states, under which they are unable to secure competent legal counsel and are harshly punished with lengthy prison terms for even trivial infractions.
‘Two-tiered justice system’
In lieu of the rule of law - the equal application of rules to everyone - what we have now is a two-tiered justice system in which the powerful are immunised, while the powerless are punished with increasing mercilessness. As a guarantor of outcomes, the law has, by now, been so completely perverted that it is an incomparably potent weapon for entrenching inequality further, controlling the powerless, and ensuring corrupted outcomes.
The tide that was supposed to lift all ships has, in fact, left startling numbers of Americans underwater. In the process, we lost any sense that a common set of rules applies to everyone, and so there is no longer a legitimising anchor for the vast income and wealth inequalities that plague the nation.
That is what has changed, and a growing recognition of what it means is fuelling rising citizen anger and protest. The inequality under which so many suffer is not only vast, but illegitimate, rooted as it is in lawlessness and corruption. Obscuring that fact has long been the linchpin for inducing Americans to accept vast and growing inequalities. That fact is now too glaring to obscure any longer.
Glenn Greenwald is a former constitutional and civil rights litigator and a current contributing writer at Salon.com. He is the author of two New York Times bestselling books on the Bush administration's executive power and foreign policy abuses. His just-released book, With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful (Metropolitan Books), is a scathing indictment of America's two-tiered system of justice. He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism.
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