Crisis of Capitalism

Analysis of the current crisis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsEUs0xK5KY&feature=related

Occupy everything

Firstly, apologies for the massive delay in posting. You may remember the heady days of yore, when first there started to be delays in posting ? Then, erupting from the mire would another post arise, heady with the fumes of contrition and apology and laden with evermore internecine excuses for the absence. And I think none of us ever believed those excuses - I know I certainly did not. I always suspected there was something more, going on, an agenda behind the scenes. I remember how the excuses I would read when I consulted these amaniacals just would not ring true : 'busy with renos', 'on holiday', 'not much happening', 'not miserable enough to write' etc etc etc . "Hmmm, I thought to myself, this fellow's up to summat or I'm a Dutchman".

Well, it would appear as if I will have to start eating large quantities of Edam cheese, riding my bike a lot, and jumping over dykes, because I investigated myself thoroughly in light of these suspicions, and it appears that the excuses were genuine. Apart from assembling the most ridiculously camp Halloween costume in the world (Ever!), the last few months have literally been renovating, studying, riding my bike, eating lots of cheese and generally being quite happy, with the odd bit of failing-to-visit-Bristol/Aberdeen thrown in. The word mundane has had to be re-defined to describe my existence to the extent that I believe its been withdrawn from service for some maintenance. But you should'nt take my word for it, I had to dig deep before the evidence of the extent of is ennui did become apparent: I have started a blog about my Phd! This sister blog is not an amusing series of anedotes about how it has taken three months to write a thirty minute seminar presentation, nor observations on how I dont understand linguistics - deixus, pragmatics, morphology, phonemics, epiglottal labial fricatives and the like - to the point where I have been doubting whehter I should use language (or indeed communication of any means). No, this new blog is merely a series of descriptions of academic papers I have been reading. I had become ridiculously happy with an existence that I will tag here as 'The New Monasticism'. Having coined this phrase, I fully expect to see it appear in the lifestyle pages of 'serious' broadsheets within the year.

But withdrawing from the world doesnt mean its not there, and recent trip to London made me re-think my Benedictine approach. I was recently invited to attend a research seminar in light of my new role as a burgeoning PhD. The seminar was a blur of brilliance and a competely new experience for me, having previously only been an undergraduate sitting through three hour lectures on 'The Reflective Practitioner'. In those previous experiences, a somnabulance would fill the room very quickly and I would spend a lot of time estimating how long it took to install the ubiquitous white tiles of the suspended ceiling, and how many rats were crawling along the ductwork above our heads right now, before drifting off to sleep at minute 20. This seminar was different - it was as if a massive pllow fight had occured, and the pillows had exploded, filling the room with feathers - a constant Brownian motion of ideas/possibilities/models and hypotheses. All of The Really Big Names (RBN) in my field (people who's work I have read for three years and had just totally excited me) were present, and THEY had asked ME questions about my research, describing it as 'really interesting' and 'timely'. I was 'vibed' to say the least. As the seminar wound down, the collected RBN gathered, chatting and joking, making plans for the evening. To my surprise, one RBN turned to me, asking what my plans might be. I gulped - I had just been addressed, albeit using the name 'Mark', by a legend, a star , who has actually been published. Hesitantly, and trying hard not to cry, I mentioned that I had planned to go to the Occupy St Pauls demonstration, just down the road, and find out for myself what it was all about. A quick consult, and the assembled glitterati of research - the entire constellation of RBN in the field of adult second language learning - declared it a good plan. So with no further ado, all three of us trooped out into the balmy night air of London, in search of civil disobedience.

I will not here retread descriptins of what the Occupy movement is - anyone, even those engaged in 'The New Monasticism' should be aware of not only the vents, but also the essential arguments. I will also not here indulge in a vain-glorious description of how accurate are the essential tenets of Civilisation Why? /Apolcalypse How? and Evolution When? , it is enough to state categorically that it should be obvious to anyone that global capitalism is breaking down, just as every previously designed complex system of control of human society has eventually collapsed. ANd faced with this reality, the merits, or otherwise, of the current paradigm may be a subject of discussion for some people, but viewed for me, these arguments dont really amount to what we historical anthropologists call 'a hill of beans'. Arguments about how we 'fix' capitalism are completely irrelevant and short sightedly relative - for example, feudalism and Maoist Communism, in their time, did feed enormous amounts of people, did result in technological innovation, and apart from hideous human rights violations, did enable a kind of stability for many people throughout their existence. Their designers did have a vision - an ethical position, whether we like that position or not. What matters though, is that when, for various reasons, the jig was up and the system stopped working - in the form of mass famine, plague and misery for too many of the people, a new system had to arise. And from that, what really matters is at we have a debate over what should replace the failing system, so that something worse does not occur. For example, Stalinism, Mugabe and the Aztecs all replaced previoulsy faltering systems. Fortunately in these times, we have a little more influence than the hoi polloi of previous societies, so what I was really interested in was whether Occupy had something to say about replacement, or whether they were just 'agin'.

My own position, I have to confess was ambivalent. Having been a campaignng member of the Far Left Militant Tendency in my youth, and throughout my twenties, a certain revolutionary fatigue is probably part of my make-up. So, viewing the television images of the Occupy camps, witnessing the didigereedoos, home made placards, dread-locks and gas masks, a part of me shared the cynical view of at least one friend, that the Occupy people were 'the usual suspects'. However, RHB's re-engagement with alternative perspectives over the last few years has been compelling, and I found the Occupy Wal street statement compelling, accurate and much more truthful than the ridiculous edge-of-a-clfff negotiations of Europena finance ministers.

In the company of the RBN, I strolled along the Embankment in London to St Pauls, but when we got there, I made my excuses because I wanted to talk to the protestors on my own. I walked into the middle of the tent area and just looked round. There were concentric rings of people, clearly differentiated. On the edges of the square a row of policemen adopted pose not dissimilar to their demeanor during soccer matches - active watching, but not 'poised'. Inside this ring of police, groups of tourists took photographs but mainly didnt enter the area where the tents were. The local coffee shops were doing a roaring trade - ironically the centre of capitalism had gained another money spinning tourist attraction. Suited City types walked purposefully along, between the police and the tents, some muttering as they passed, others ignoring the activity around them in the way only Londoners can do. Inside the tented are there were a few vegetarian kitchens, guitar players, and lots and lots of people milling around, many of them dressed like New Age types - dreadlocks, quilted jackets and Tibetan style hats. Absolutely nothing was happening.

Afetr a few minutes, I approached a group who were sat down on camp chairs outside a tent and asked if I could sit. We started to chat.

Two hours later, I had to leave as I was staying at Brent Cross that night on the other side of the city. But I left very reluctantly. Its impossible to provide a 'snapshot' of what the Occupy protestors stand for, because, as they themselves said, their views are not all the same. Because of this, the accustation has been made that they are just 'agin' but apart from the fact that there's plenty to be 'agin' about, this does not mean there is no focus. If you are driving a car and the radiator is about to explode, there are number of alternative courses of actions you can take - many of them legitimate - get out and walk, abandoning the car, call rescue services, fix the radiator with ahrd boiled eggs or buy a new car. THere are many differnet courses of action yuou can take. What you dont do is just keep driving because it should be apparent your car will explode if you dont do something. The Occupy people I spoke to were cohesive in that they believed that although it is apparent to some what I have believed for a long time - that capitalism is broken - they believe that its not apparent to enough, or many, or the majoority just how broken it is. This radiator cannot just be replaced, in fact the whole car has reached a point where its increasingly dangerous to drive. And to extend this further, you cant afford a new car. So the point of their protest is to highlight this.

I suspect that among our politicians, busily engaged in bail outs, quantitative easing, stimulus packages and the like, many of them also know the car is toast. But because admitting this necessarily involves a relinquishing of power, privelige and money, they are extrememly reluctant to admit this publically. Other politicians who are ideologically-emotionally attached to the current system wont even admit to themselves just how bad things really are. Others still, opposed to the current system on ideological grounds have deterministic solutions. They have convinced themselves that they (and only they) 'know' the 'answers'. Its hard for me to decide which breed of politician is worse, but what is remarkable, encouraging and inspiring, is that the the Occupy people, even amid their various agendas, want to arrive at a solution through consensus. They know that they dont know all the answers. If I can characterize these protesters, it is that they are, among all the people I have met, the ones who can be most accurately described as democrats.

Maxim Power Station

Reply recieved from the Liberals:

"Hello,

Thank you for your recent email regarding the proposed Maxim Power coal plant.

The Liberal Party shares your grave worry that the Maxim plant is attempting to skirt the recently announced federal greenhouse gas regulations for coal-powered electricity by going operational before the regulations are to take effect in 2015.

While our Party remains concerned that these regulations alone will not do enough to reach our stated goal of generating 70 percent of Canada’s electricity from zero-emitting sources by 2020, which is essential in order for us to reach green house sas reduction targets, no party should be allowed to skirt these regulations.

The Liberal Party will be asking the Minister of the Environment to close loopholes in the regulations to prevent companies from trying to avoid these new emission rules, while also advocating greater federal investments in renewable energies and green technologies we so urgently require to put us on the path towards sustainability.

Thank you once again for your email. If you have any further questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Kirsty Duncan, MP

Etobicoke North"

One of the huge ironies of all major political parties is that Canada could over about half its populated space, be completely self sufficient (and very low emission) in terms of power production, despite being such an energy hungry place today, not by 2020.

Extreme Yoghurt Knitting

A friend has a friend, a sometime wit and poet, and a definite sceptic, who describes our street as populated with yoghurt knitters. He arrives at this characterization because on the surface, the street festivals and local focus that make this road 'the friendliest street in Hull', the organic wholefood store at the end of the street, several adult inhabitants (who really ought to know better) who sport rapidly balding dreadlocks and wear bright waistcoat and the diverse demographic of the street can, to the lazy observer, lead one to the wrong conclusions. The impression my fiend's friend is trying to convey is that the street is populated with wooly minded, feeble hippies, actionless peaceniks and spineless potheads lost in a world of Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, but not really people who engage with the real world. Having smirked grimly once (out of politeness) at a dinner party when hearing the appellation, subsequent repetitions - and my increasing knowledge of my neighbours - make our poet's inaccuracy more flagrant. and so every time my friend's friend quoth his witticism, I grew more irritated. I felt like causing a flaming row at his gentle dinner-party-banter-no-harm-meant-just-a-smug-superiority-complex-in-development witticism, delivered as it was in a grisly Glaswegian accent that carried his class credentials as 'authentic working' therefore presenting a definitive, condescending judgement on our street.




Nurses, drug counsellors, teachers in the hardest of Hull's inner city schools, carpenters, chefs, unemployed, music promoter, retired postman, retired docker, car mechanic, scaffolder. And yes, musicians, artists, students and other bohemians in our street, but also Congolese, Polish, Hungarian and Canadians. And there is also what we actually do together when we work as a community - it does not usually involve sitting round in a 'Healing Circle' banging First Nations drums and channelling our energies. As last week has shown, usually we graft, on this occasion, a pooling of collective resources to paint, and fix up some issues on the exterior of our houses. As the most experienced scaffolder present (ie I had actually done it before), my main job was putting the scaffold up and down at the end of each day, as unfortunately it was a mobile tower and therefore impossible to secure. But by the end of the week, I was just supervising the dismantling a little bit, as a team of rugged, hairy arsed scaffolders emerged. No hippies here, just brilliantly professional, pleasant, hard-hard-hard working people who it was a pleasure to spend time with. And at 10 metres at full height, this was no picnic - it was dangerous (inherently), physically very demanding and often posed difficult problems to solve. We became so professional we even had, in the tradition of all scaffold crews, tough nicknames - Largey, Bristol Lil, Rooster, Russ, Gash and The Gaffa.



My friend's friend is actually a great laugh most of the time. But his cynical take on our street reflects a cynicism that often passes in England for humour. Its not a cynicism about one's personal fortunes, or the weather, or perhaps politicians, but an ugly oneupmanship usually directed broadside at one's peer group. Laughing at, as opposed to with, other people is a national obsession, and if you mention it (as a unpleasant but characteristic cultural trait) to people living here, the aggressive defence is to describe their bitter humour as 'banter' or 'just taking the piss, a bit', and to claim that 'you cant take a joke'. I understand where the origins of this 'humour' arise. So many enterprises, especially community initiatives attempted in the UK are slow, waddling failures that as a self defence mechanism its better to develop a hardened scepticism than enthusiastic endorsement. So it becomes easier to snipe from the sidelines, passing it off as 'banter' than to try something very difficult.

The Ride of Hope 2: The True Story

Forest trails can be excellent - no cars, no people. But watch out for hornets - not only hurty, but positive evidence of genetic hacking carried out by "Them".







Before revealing the truth behind this year's Ride of Hope, I should like to just clarify something. Lindisfarne AKA Holy Island - and I dont mean the late 1970's folk/rock band - mean the geographical location - is crap. If there are ever moves launched by the islanders, or anyone else for that matter, to have that place recognised as a World Heritage Site, I will launch an immediate Facebook campaign with the emphasis on 'against'. For those that dont know what Lindisfarne is, the best description I can provide is that it is a small heap of mud, slightly (but not dramatically enough to be interesting) off the shore of Northumberland, created by the monotonous deposition of tidal silt, and is a place made famous because

Top to bottom: Landscape near the Cheviots, The Bridge of Death near the Infamous 68, The best cycling cafe in the world. Also pictured is a mysterious forest, and the picture of Skarra emerging is a re-enactment of the most exciting thing that happened to us on Lindisfarne.











long ago some monk decided to live there. The best thing I can say about Lindisfarne is that on a daily basis, high tide floods the causeway connecting it to the mainland, making the 'island' inaccessible. It truly is a dull place.






The same cannot be said of the rest of Northumberland, which is by and large pretty spectacular, populated with great people, superb cycling cafes and even better cycling. For a few days we revelled in single track roads that motorists, in their eternal rush to be somewhere, have largely forgotten.



We climbed across the Cheviots, thighs burning as we dragged bikes laden with full panniers up hills that looked impossible, then swooped down the same hills in a fraction of the time they took to climb - an exhilirating, if too brief, reward for the hours of ascent. We argued constantly, befitting an agglomeration of two of the finest brains to have taken this route at this particular time, Liverpool Football club versus Manchester United, will Beyonce quit showbusiness, will it or wont it rain?








As usual, after the first day, the rest of the planet faded and the only thing that mattered was ride- eat- shower-eat- sleep. 'Its a hunter-gatherer existence' I reflected on one gentle section 'doing comes before thinking, and pragmatics way before reflection' then another bloody hill hit and the brilliant pain took over. QED. For a time everything was great. Then we hit the National Cycle Network route 68 after a brilliant, ascent, and descent of the Cheviots.



The UK's national cycle network is a great idea : hundreds of cycle friendly, often car free routes - old railway lines, small country lanes, forgotten paths - which, according to the smiling faces on the website, you can either use as the basis of long distance cycle journeys, pop to your local shops, have stress free daily commute or take your family for a fun day of relatively safe cycling.











The website certainly supports this characterisation of NCN routes - helpful little lanes and by-ways, dingling through the dells and immensely grateful for their rediscovery, gently unfolding in just the right way to allow smiling families in jeans and other leisure wear to enjoying an active, but not too strenuous day out.

The World's best cycling cafe, is near Barrowburn. And that is really the truth. AT the bottom of a very fast ten mile descent, very rarely visited by anyone except cyclists we had a good chat here with other local cyclists, and got some good advice based on their local knowledge. Advice we subsequently completely ignored.








Not so The Infamous 68. It snarls and dips, grinds and rasps, up ascents that Hillary would shirk, and through switchbacks that the latter stages of the Amazon would disown as "too



complicated". Discarded cycles lay on the side of the 'path', mewling pathetically. Snags of lycra clothing hang in the vicious brambles that grew from uncomfortably at mid-chest level to dangerously at eye level and launch attacks your face,, shoulders, arms and back, while thorns, thistles, and worst of all, nettles attempt to make your legs stop working. And these are not the only tricks up its sleeve: at one point it disappears completely into a series of fields cresting a hill, and later three fords wait at the bottom of rutted mountain bike paths that I would argue, only an expert in extreme sports should contemplate. Then there are the gates ..............the eternal fricking gates.

Despite these torments, Skarra and I dont give up, pressing on to our destination of that evening - the little town of Wooler - via the path instead of, as we had been advised the previous day, abandoning the path and using the parallel main highway instead. And it is with an enormous sense of achievement that we finally arrive in Wooler.

"Wow" I enthuse to Skarra "Eighteen miles like that, and with full panniers!! I dont think many other road cyclists get through that you know !"

Skarra nods his head "I know that not many other road cyclists get through that: remember what that local cyclist, Steve, told us last night? He said - and I quote - "You'd have to be stupid to ride that final section to Wooler on a road bike. Really, really stupid. In fact, we've been campaigning to get the route taken off the NCN. They dont call it the Infamous 68 for nothing. No, its just an invitation to ruin your bike and break something. God, the idiots that try it!!!". Then he said...."


"Ok" I interrupt him " I get the picture, we were warned by Steve. But how did we know Steve was not just spinning a yarn - scaring the tourists?"

As a reductionist, Skarra is nothing of not pendantic, and once started on a track, feels the need to investigate it all the way.

"Well, all the other cyclists also said it in the cyclists cafe - the one in Barrowburn that is the best cyclists cafe in the world that we said we'd never forget - and then there's the guide books, the warnings that were posted and those two Dutch cyclists covered in blood that we met who had just tried it from the other direction. Plus...."
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"Ok, ok" I concede " fair enough. That second ford was cool though......"

And we're off again, discussing the ride - gears chosen, riding positions preferred, water strategies - all completely boring to anyone listening, but for me, the whole point of riding - total absorption in solving a problem without the burdensome daily drag of normal life, politics, position and awkward human interaction that is often described as 'thinking'.

The technical details of cycling are not something that this blog will investigate, there are other much better blogs that cover cycling for that. But while preparing for this ride, an article on rainment for cycling did come to my attention, which I would like to share. It is an extraordinary article from the normally excellent Independent newspaper's cycling section, and what is particularly interesting is the recommendation within re footwear. I can only be grateful I didnt follow this piece of advice.

RIP Jack Layton

A note to mark the passing of Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, the last political party I ever voted for. For a change, here was a politician who had some genuine intelligence, some humanity and principals. See :

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1042988--jack-layton-dead-at-61?bn=1


for an obituary.

Two Items on the agenda

THe first being that the sweep came, saw and passed - the chimney that is. Actually, one very irritating thing about the locals is that so many of them say 'chibley', not chimney. At first, when stopping random strangers on the street to discuss the condition of my stack, I thought they were being cutesy , doing 'baby talk' for comic effect. However, baby talk is usually not cute anyway, its just incomprehensible babble, often irritating. The number of times I have been encouraged to listen and try to decipher - usually by a preening adult - the vital revelation a child is anxious to impart only to discover that I've lost ten minutes of my life conforming that circular objects filled with air can be classified as "balls", are incalculable. But as I progressed down the street discussing chimneys and wood burning stoves renovations with anyone who would listen, I arrived not only at the hardware store, but also at the conclusion that the mispronunciation of 'chimney' as 'chibley' is indeed a local effect. This discovery, accompanied by the inappropriate wearing of maxi dresses made want to leave Hull. I should immediately point out that I was not wearing maxi dresses inappropriately, but that Hull is, like many English cities, and I am risking prosecution for underexaggeration here, religious in its adherence to fashion following, and the maxi dress is, for females, the new religion. Unlike the cardigan, I can see how the concept of the maxi dress is imagined - an elegant summer item, lightly swathing the wearer in waterfalls of draping fabric: very attractive- and in fashion shoots, it works very well. But in reality, it only works on certain body shapes in certain fabrics, and in the cheap clothing/bad food capital of the UK, where over-made-up is the norm ans subject to a constant North Easterly, the actual effect on the street is that a stroll to our local shops is like walking through an open air canvas tent factory, staffed by pantomime dames shouting "chibley", during a gale.

The remedy is of course to get away, and the second annual Ride of Hope beckons. But here, a bombshell must be revealed. Cheek to Cheek's Second Annual Ride of Hope will not now be occuring in the Welsh Border regions. This year the ride will bring Hope to Northumberland. AN approximation of the route can be found here.
View Larger Map

I say approximation because this year we have dispensed with the official national cycle network and are striking out on our own, deciding on exact routes on a nightly basis. The reasons for this are many, but one primary reason is that our planned route to Bristol took us through the southern Welsh valleys for at least a day. The Southern Welsh valleys are attractive landscapes, to an extent, but they were also the site of the mining industry of Wales. Great people definitely (judging by the friends I have who derive from the Welsh Valleys), inspirational music for sure(in the form of the classic male voice choirs) and an early site of British Socialism, but the area is scattered with ex-mining villages, museums and all the reminders that this was an area where communities were destroyed by political motivations, not economic or environmental changes. Having lived most of my life in areas similarly affected, and living somewhere now where much the same processes are occurring, and finding the British political landscape deeply depressing, I wanted to go somewhere less recently affected. Northumberland, while not immune to the vagaries of modern politics, is much more remote. It is literally 'getting away from it all'

Finally, on a happy note, I can report that this year's annual plunge into the mire of depression has been successfully negotiated. I know this because a week ago, during a routine conversation re cats, in the middle of a sentence about Toshack's latest exploits (lying round all day, chasing Cheeky Monkey, miaowing frequently), I suddenly noticed that I was blubbing uncontrollably about being a failure, and immediately following said blub, I felt much better. "Hang on" I asked myself, "Better?". "Yes" the other me replied, "Better".

A quick review of the commensurate day revealed that I did indeed feel 'better' having been unblissfully unaware for several weeks that I actually felt 'worse'. Walking to the local store now did not require seventeen checks of the front door to ensure it was locked when leaving the house, and furthermore, that the trip was not now conducted under urgent notice, with a pounding heart as a 'must do' at an exact pre-determined time, failure to accomplish the objective of which (buying milk) would be cataclysmic, but success of which would be grandly ticked off on my 'to do' list under "#3. 14:35hrs. Buy Milk". Walking, riding, talking, going to the toilet or indeed any process involving planning on a higher or lower cognitive functional level no longer resulted in a slow motion sensation that one's brain was full of slow setting chocolate, and the endless writing of lists referred to no longer include as objective #1: 'Get up'.


So now its back to normal - being scared of buttons, watching wasps hunt caterpillars, having long conversations with cats and obsessing about ear hair. Time has once again become a friendly ocean that I bob around in, with a few distant islands as reference points, not a raging torrent full of rocks waiting to smash you to smithereens, and people have, for the most part, become human again, not a series of active malicious thoughts. Once out of a depression, my own overwhelming feeling is one of relief, often associated with relief that I didnt accomplish certain things. This summer that has mainly been that I didnt yet get round to building a fire in my 'chibley', or buy RHB a floral maxi dress.