Crises Can Be Openings: Defeating our enduring fatalism.

This article was written by Sasha Lilley.  She’s the author of Capital and Its Discontents from which this piece was taken.   http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/99/crises-can-be-openings.html

The past several years have witnessed the spectacular unraveling of capitalism, or so it has appeared.

 

Venerated investment banks have vanished overnight, titans of industry have permanently shuttered their doors, and rich nations have lurched perilously close to default. The ideology of the free market, once seemingly unassailable, lies in tatters. While the death knell of capitalism may not yet be tolling, the crisis is undoubtedly of a different order of magnitude than anything seen in decades.

#OCCUPYWALLSTREET (A shift in revolutionary tactics.)

 

For more information see:
Adbusters: A Shift in Revolutionary Tactics
The #OCCUPYWALLSTREET Update
Search for the hashtag via Twitter. 

Definancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisationn (by Dmitry Orlov)

This post is in reference, and redirects, to an excellent article appearing at the Cluborlov blog which I highly recommend.

The talk from which the article was derived was presented at The New Emergency Conference in Dublin, on June 11, 2009.

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/06/definancialisation-deglobalisation.html

Crash & Collapse: This is more than a depression.

[UPDATE: June 1st, 2001 -- I have removed the 2 opening paragraphs (which listed my weak and boastful credentials) and have decided to let the article speak for itself -- other than that it is unchanged. This article is a few months old now but it is still relevant as the economic crisis has worsened. This is a partial account of how I see the crisis unfolding as well as where I see humanity going as a whole. And it may contain some information that you have overlooked or forgotten as the crash was gearing up. The original article with the weak opening remains unchanged at OpEdNews if you'd like to read the 2 paragraphs which I've now deleted here. Anyway, here remains the rest of the otherwise unchanged article...]

Money: derived from the Latin "moneta" which originally meant "warning" (as Juno Moneta was the goddess of warning). "When coinage was devised by the Romans, they set their mint in her temple and the goddess became the guardian of finances."

CRASH

The stock market has lost nearly a third of it's value since it's peak (14093). In the past week the DJIA has had it two worst daily downswings ever. Since Oct.1st, the market has dropped 1383 points (and counting as of 10/07/08) from 10831 to 9447. While the overall crash from the peak has happened more slowly than in 1929, the loss of value has been of a greater percentage than what took place in the initial days of that historic collapse. And, while certain computer automation techniques have been introduced to prevent more sudden single-day crashes, like the one in 1987, the markets are still plummeting and the results are the same.

Just as in 1929, the common citizen had been encouraged to invest more regularly in the stock market, right before it's peak, and now the rug has been pulled out from beneath them. Touted as the soundest, surest, most profitable investment... many average citizens tied their hopes and their retirement funds to the stock market. As before, many have already lost their life savings.

A brief socio-economic point...

Looters in New Orleans, after hurricane Katrina, were shot on sight. Looters on Wall Street were given a bailout.

Is that not the ultimate of double standards and irony? I mean come on, who needed the bailout more and who was really looting?

Anyway... here is a link to a video of a U.S. Congressman, speaking in congress, stating that members of congress were threatened with martial law if they didn't immediately pass the $850billion bailout plan.