The remedies on offer are well known. Reduce budget deficits by
cutting spending [...]. Cut
taxes at the top and deregulate business [...]; and make hiring and firing
easier.
It is increasingly accepted that these policies are not
working in the current environment. But less widespread is the
recognition that there is also plenty of historical evidence showing
that they have never worked. The same happened during the 1982
developing world debt crisis, the 1994 Mexican crisis, the 1997 Asian crisis, the Brazilian and the Russian crises in 1998, and the Argentinian crisis of 2002.
All the crisis-stricken countries were forced (usually by the IMF) to
cut spending and run budget surpluses, only to see their economies sink
deeper into recession. Going back a bit further, the Great Depression
also showed that cutting budget deficits too far and too quickly in the
middle of a recession only makes things worse.
[...]
So, if the whole history of capitalism, and not just the experiences of the last few years, shows that the supposed remedies for today's economic crisis
are not going to work, what are our political and economic leaders
doing? Perhaps they are insane – if we follow Albert Einstein's
definition of insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results". But the more likely explanation is that,
by pushing these policies against all evidence, our leaders are really
telling us that they want to preserve – or even intensify, in areas like
welfare policy – the economic system that has served them so well in
the past three decades.
For the rest of us, the time has come to choose whether we go along with that agenda or make these leaders change course.
Do
we want a society where 50% of young people are kept out of work in
order to bring the deficit down from 9% of GDP to 3% in three years? [...] Where a tiny minority
(often called the 1% but more like the 0.1% or even 0.01%) control a
disproportionate, and increasing, share of everything – not just income
and wealth but also political power and influence (through control of
the media, thinktanks, and even academia)?
Consider the state of affairs in Spain,
which is now the epicenter of the crisis. Never mind talk of recession;
Spain is in full-on depression, with the overall unemployment rate at
23.6 percent, comparable to America at the depths of the Great Depression,
and the youth unemployment rate over 50 percent. This can’t go on — and
the realization that it can’t go on is what is sending Spanish
borrowing costs ever higher.
In a way, it doesn’t really matter how Spain got to this point — but for
what it’s worth, the Spanish story bears no resemblance to the morality
tales so popular among European officials, especially in Germany. Spain wasn’t fiscally profligate — on the eve of the crisis it had low debt and a budget surplus.
Unfortunately, it also had an enormous housing bubble, a bubble made
possible in large part by huge loans from German banks to their Spanish
counterparts. When the bubble burst, the Spanish economy was left high
and dry; Spain’s fiscal problems are a consequence of its depression,
not its cause.
Nonetheless, the prescription coming from Berlin and Frankfurt is, you guessed it, even more fiscal austerity.
This is, not to mince words, just insane. Europe has had several years
of experience with harsh austerity programs, and the results are exactly
what students of history told you would happen: such programs push
depressed economies even deeper into depression. And because investors
look at the state of a nation’s economy when assessing its ability to
repay debt, austerity programs haven’t even worked as a way to reduce
borrowing costs.
[...]
The Continent needs more expansionary monetary
policies, in the form of a willingness — an announced
willingness — on the part of the European Central Bank to accept
somewhat higher inflation; it needs more expansionary fiscal policies,
in the form of budgets in Germany that offset austerity in Spain and
other troubled nations around the Continent’s periphery, rather than
reinforcing it. Even with such policies, the peripheral nations would
face years of hard times. But at least there would be some hope of
recovery.
What we’re actually seeing, however, is complete inflexibility.
Well, Janis Joplin would have been seventy last Saturday, January 19; and to commemorate the occasion,TIME LightBox posted a set of rare pictures by Elliot Landy, which, as Holly George-Warren rightly points out in the accompanying text, offer a documentation of the singer's manyfacets.
For me, Janis was first and foremost an outsider –back in her hometown her class mates threw stones at her and called her 'nigger-lover' – and yet she gained admiration and respect internationally; she was a singer whose expressiveness, ability and intellect could make even the strongest word of praise sound as mere understatement; a woman artist who relied on artistry rather than conventional accounts of femininity – and neither did she fit in the latter, nor did she want to; and last but not least, she was a landmark countercultural icon, whose status remains unmatchable to this day.
"There's a fire inside of every one of us," she sang inKozmic Blues, one of her classics and a great favourite of mine; and I suppose one cannot but wonder what contemporary music wouldsound like if her fire hadn't been put out so early and so tragically. One thing's for sure though; if Janis had been able to celebrate her 70th birthday three days ago, she most certainly wouldn't have done it sitting in some goddam chair watching TV.
Time keeps movin' on Friends they turn away I keep movin' on But I never found out why I keep pushing so hard the dream I keep tryin' to make it right Through another lonely day
Dawn has come at last Twenty-five years, honey just in one night, oh yeah Well, I'm twenty-five years older now So I know we can't be right And I'm no better baby And I can't help you no more Than I did when just a girl
But it don't make no difference babe, no, no And I know that I could always try It don't make no difference babe, yeah I better hold it now I better need it, yeah I better use it till the day I die, whoa I
Don't expect any answers dear For I know that they don't come with age, no, no Well, ain't never gonna love you any better babe And I'm never gonna love you right So you'd better take it now, right now
Oh, it don't make no difference babe And I know that I could always try There's a fire inside of every one of us You'd better need it now I get to hold it, yeah I better use it till the day I die
Don't make no difference babe, no, no, no And it never ever will I wanna talk about a little bit of loving ya I get to hold it babe I'm gonna need it now I'm gonna use it
Don't make no difference babe Ah hon I hate to be the one I said you're gonna live your life And you're gonna love your life Or babe, someday you're gonna have to cry Yes indeed, yes indeed, yes indeed Ah baby, yes indeed
I said you, you're always gonna hurt me I said you're always gonna let me down I said everywhere, every day, every day And every way, every way Ah honey won't you hold on to what's gonna move I said it's gonna disappear when you turn your back I said you know it ain't gonna be there When you wanna reach out and grab on
"The rise of racism and fascism in Europe is a clear and present danger – nowhere more so than in Greece," argues the UK-based organization Unite Against Fascism in its statement of support to the Athens Antifascist City day of protest. A major demonstration followed by a concert will be taking place this Saturday, 19 January 2013, in the center of Athens, in opposition to racism and neo-Nazism.
Greece has unfortunately seen the electoral rise of aneo-Nazi party, as well as ahorrifying increase inracist violenceagainst migrants; at the same time, it has also seen migrants being rounded up and detainedthrough massive and discriminatory police operations. And just two days ago, a 27-year old Pakistani was attacked as he was riding his bicycle, and was stabbed to death; as Amnesty International argued, this "is a result of the Greek
authorities' continuing failure to take decisive action against
racially-motivated violence."
A clear and firm public stand against racism and fascism is of vital importance both inside and outside of Greece; and thus, the Athens Antifascist City mobilization has attracted significant international support. 19 January has now become a global day of protest in many cities all over Europe, North and South America, and Australia; further details are available through the following links:
I first came across this photograph in The Big Picture blog of The Boston Globeback in November, and I still can't get it out of my head; it seems to me that one doesn't often see such a strong depiction of the most tender, and, simultaneously, the harshest aspects of the human condition.The picture was taken by Bernat Armangué on 18 November 2012, while he was covering the war in Gaza for the Associated Press. It portraysa Palestinian man kissing the hand of a dead relative in the morgue of Shifa Hospital. TIME selected it as the best photograph of 2012, and TIME LightBox includes the following insightful reflection by Bernat Armangué:
Covering a conflict has never been a pleasure, but since I became a
father a year ago, war has become even harder to cover. This day was
particularly complicated; 11 members of the Daloo family had been killed
when an Israeli missile struck the family’s two-story home in Gaza
City, and I spent most of the day taking pictures of bodies being pulled
out from beneath the rubble. I took this picture at the end of the day.
The morgue was crowded and very noisy. Behind me, a few journalists
were filming and taking pictures of four dead children of the Daloo
family. In front of me, a group of men that had just stormed into the
room were facing the cruel reality of discovering the dead body of a
loved one. Everything was happening very fast, but I remember seeing a
teardrop falling over the inert hand and whispering “ma’a salama”
(goodbye in Arabic). I’ve always thought that war brings out the best
and the worst in humans. To me, this was a sad and tender moment of
love.
Jacques Audiard's new film Rust and Bonetells the beautiful, harsh, and unpredictable story of the relationship between Stéphanie, an Orca whale trainer who loses both her legs in an accident, and Ali, an estranged single father and a former boxer down on his luck. It seems to me that one cannot praise enough the stunning and yet discreet direction of Jacques Audiard, and the perceptiveness of the script he wrote together with Thomas Bidegain; and neither can the naturalness and magnitude of the performances offered by Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaertsbe emphasised enough. Simply put, the film displays the kind of quality one rarely comes across in any field of art.
Rust and Bone is a case where the artistic form serves its contentwith integrity and precision. And in the course of doing so, it stands gender stereotypes and conventional accounts of disability on their heads, while it also puts forward questions of social responsibility and personal accountability. It is a film about the long and hard process of standing up while all hope is lost, about becoming not only strong enough, but vulnerable enough as well, so as to be capable of loving, caring, and sharing.
