2010-05-07 David Korten, Agenda for a New Economy. The revolt against Wall Street, Around the world.
CONTENTS
(1) KORTEN, AN ORGANIZER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AGAINST WALL STREET
(2) CITIZENS OF ICELAND REVOLT AGAINST WALL STREET
(3) CITIZENS OF GREECE REVOLT AGAINST WALL STREET
(4) CANADIANS – – ??
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(1) KORTEN, AN ORGANIZER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AGAINST WALL STREET
If you only have time for one thing, make it this: http://essentialsharingdocs.blogspot.com/2010/04/david-korten-agenda-for-new-economy.html
These are incredibly interesting times (she says AGAIN!). When you piece together what is happening in Iceland (item #2 below), Greece (item #3), in the U.S. (above video link) and elsewhere, we are in the midst of a Revolution. Authors, artists and activists have been working the ground for decades. The “Battle in Seattle” (1999) against the World Trade Organization (WTO) is part of it.
The above video with David Korten’s clear and rational analysis calls on people to join the revolution against Wall Street. On one hand it seems so wild! On the other hand it is matter-of-fact, full of common sense and necessity.
David Korten is one of the speakers at the Tikkun Conference in June in Washington that I told you about (email sent April 21). I am attending and I fully expect to join the march on the White House – “Stop the Corporate Takeover of America” (and of Canada and the world). Until today when I stumbled on this video I did not appreciate Korten’s role. After watching the video I think that the Revolution is further advanced, it has coalesced more than I thought.
It is as though the Americans have stepped back 237 years in history – to the Boston Tea Party.
Correction: I suppose it is the WORLD that is replaying what happened more than 200 years ago. The Americans weren’t the only ones fighting to overthrow exploitative financial lords in the latter half of the 1700’s, just as today it is not only the Americans who are fighting to overthrow Wall Street and the corporations. Iceland, Greece, India – – – Wall Street in the guise of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
I can truly KNOW how those revolutionaries felt then, because I feel the excitement myself today. The confident excitement that comes with hearing a voice that resonates with your own, of knowing that there is a huge awakening in process. It is also the nervous excitement of the unknown – where will this take us? When I see all the great work that is being done by so many people, on so many different fronts, I have faith that we are moving to a “new economy” as David Korten puts it.
From “The Post-Corporate World”, Korten, 1999, P. 27:
“When the modern corporation brings together the power of modern technology with the power of massed capital, it also brings together the scientist whose self-perceived moral responsibility is limited to advancing objective instrumental knowledge and the corporate executive whose self-perceived moral responsibility is limited to maximizing corporate profits. The result is a system in which power and expertise are delinked from moral accountability, instrumental and financial values override life values, and what is expedient and profitable takes precedence over what is nurturing and responsible.
As Hobbes aptly demonstrated, it all follows logically from the premise that life is accidental and meaningless – a story that denies life meaning, denies life respect, and absolves us of responsibility for the harm our actions may cause. Yet this is not our natural predisposition, which leads to the stressful and morally disorienting psychological conflict . . . “
I was taught that the American Revolution was fought over the issue of taxation without representation. I do not remember mention of the role of The British East India Company that had been granted a monopoly interest in tea by the British Government (the Hudson Bay Company another example of monopolies granted by the Government back then). The Government and the monopoly companies worked together to further enrich the rich, through laws and taxation that favoured the exploiters, at public expense. When the British East India Company got into financial trouble, the British Government bailed it out in one way and another.
From wikipedia: “The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history …. The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. . . . The crisis escalated, and the American Revolutionary War began near Boston in 1775.”
Korten is an organizer along with others, today, of the Revolution in America against the Government working with Wall Street. The American Supreme Court decision in January 2010 which gave corporations a wide-open door to fund political campaigns was a flash-point that shifted the Revolution upward to the next gear.
I would not have noticed the parallels in Iceland and in Greece to the current situation in the U.S. except for thinking that David Korten’s books provide a better understanding of the financial crisis in Greece than what I am hearing in the media. Korten is the author of, among other publications:
- “When Corporations Rule the World” (1995, revised 2001)
- “The Post-Corporate World, Life after Capitalism (1999)”
- “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community” (2006)
- “Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth” (2009)
- (The main messages of the books are on http://www.davidkorten.org/ .
- There is a good piece by Korten at: http://www.feasta.org/documents/feastareview/korten.htm )
The media may lead you to get nervous about those people in Iceland and in Greece who are refusing to bow in serfdom to the banks and financial institutions, refusing to be yoked by debt that is not of their creation. Korten does an excellent job of explaining how the currency speculators operate, with no conscience for the outcomes of their actions. He makes the absurdities and shams of our evolved economic system abundantly clear, along with its dead-end destination. Iceland’s small population makes the story starkly obvious.
“ a large portion of voters viewed the deal as an unfair result of their own government’s failure to curtail the recklessness of a handful of bank executives, including those who expanded operations to seduce British and Dutch customers with generous returns from online savings. . . . As it stands, the deal would apparently require each Icelander to pay around $135 a month for eight years – Such a burden is even harder in a small country where unemployment has surged to about 9 percent in January, inflation is running at about 7 percent annually, and the economy continues to shrink following the 2008 financial crisis.” (written prior to the volcanic eruption)
Who wouldn’t be outraged? WHY would anyone agree to pay for the folly? It truly is serfdom, a movement of money uphill from people who work to produce goods and services of honest value, to those whose work adds absolutely nothing that is of value. They bid up the dollar value of real estate – there is no gain in actual productivity. The litany of transgressions is long.
The coverage of the financial crisis in Greece talks of the vulnerability of other European countries. Britain is one that is in deep water. You will see in the next report that the situation in Iceland also places a big strain on Britain.
The people in Governments and in the Corporations who have worked with each other to create these situations are ( @*#&^%$ you choose the word). The people in Iceland nor in Greece are the authors of their misfortunes. Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, ideologues, self-interest, … de-regulation.
The people in Iceland took to the streets. The people in Greece, the people in Thailand. People in the U.S. are preparing to do the same. Now is the time to stand firmly behind people like David Korten. They have well-thought-out proposals for breaking up the power of the banks, and so on. Welcome to the Revolution!
(2) CITIZENS OF ICELAND REVOLT AGAINST WALL STREET
Iceland financial crisis: Voters reject debt repayment plan
In a nationwide referendum Saturday, more than 90 percent of voters have resoundingly rejected a $5.3 billion plan to pay off Britain and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the Iceland financial crisis.
Demonstrators in Reykjavik, Iceland, held signs Saturday as voters lined up to cast ballots in a referendum on whether to support a $5.3 billion plan to pay off Britain and the Netherlands for debts incurred during Iceland’s financial crisis.
By Ben Quinn, Correspondent / March 7, 2010
London
After more than a year of watching helplessly as the Iceland financial crisis caused their government to collapse and their economy to crumble, many Icelanders woke up Sunday feeling that they finally had something to celebrate.
With more than 98 percent of the ballots from Saturday’s nationwide referendum counted, more than 90 percent of voters have resoundingly rejected a $5.3 billion plan to pay off Britain and the Netherlands for debts spawned by the collapse of an Icelandic Internet bank.
But while the poll may at last have delivered a sense of empowerment for some of the 316,000 inhabitants of a country regarded as Europe’s worst casualty of the 2008 financial crisis, others are waiting to see if the result might even jeopardize its fragile recovery.
“Usually referendums and elections give politicians guidance for where to go next,” said Prof. Thórólfur Matthíasson, an economist at the University of Iceland. “This referendum does not help much.”
Voters not worried about IMF, EU
On the basis of results coming in Sunday, many voters appear to have paid little heed to warnings that without the debt repayment agreement, Iceland will be unable to raise loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or succeed in a bid for fast-track membership of the European Union.
On the other hand, a large portion of voters viewed the deal as an unfair result of their own government’s failure to curtail the recklessness of a handful of bank executives, including those who expanded operations to seduce British and Dutch customers with generous returns from online savings.
Some, including members of the smaller Left-Green party in Iceland’s ruling coalition, have even sought to portray the referendum as vote for a Plan B for the country to go it alone without IMF support.
However, many voters are thought to have been motivated more by opposition to the tough terms of the deal imposed by Britain and the Netherlands, rather than the idea of repayment itself.
$135 a month for eight years
As it stands, the deal would apparently require each Icelander to pay around $135 a month for eight years – the equivalent of a quarter of an average four-member family’s salary.
Such a burden is even harder in a small country where unemployment has surged to about 9 percent in January, inflation is running at about 7 percent annually, and the economy continues to shrink following the 2008 financial crisis.
Despite the potentially grave repercussions of Saturday’s vote, which in the short term could jeopardize Iceland’s credit ratings, the message coming from the government was for calm.
Government appeals for calm
“This result is no surprise,” said Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, whose government is hopeful of reaching more favorable terms with Britain and the Netherlands for the repayment of the debts stemming from when the two larger countries’ stepped in to guarantee deposits their citizens held in the failed Icelandic internet bank, Icesave. “Now we need to get on with the task in front of us, namely to finish the negotiations with the Dutch and the British.”
There was little immediate reaction Sunday from London and The Hague, apart from an insistence by the British government that it was committed to getting its $3.5 billion back.
Speculation is rife though that a new agreement will be unveiled in weeks, and that the British and Dutch have already offered less stringent repayment terms.
Indeed, Professor Matthíasson points out that the overwhelming “no” vote has to be seen in the context of the ongoing talks.
“The Dutch and the UK have said that they would continue with negotiations after the referendum as if it had not happened,” he added. “The implication of that declaration is that people could vote ‘no’ without having to think of any bad consequences. And so they did. Will the referendum have a lasting impact economically? It depends on if the UK and the Netherlands choose to make a fuss about it or not.”
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(3) CITIZENS OF GREECE REVOLT AGAINST WALL STREET
Mainstream media reports I have seen make it look as though Greek citizens let the Government rack up a bunch of debt and now the citizens don’t want to pay for it. The reports on Iceland do a somewhat better job of explaining the true nature of the financial servitude that “Wall Street” is attempting to assert.
Max Keiser states the challenge: http://essentialsharingdocs.blogspot.com/2010/05/max-keiser-on-greek-economic-crisis-by.html
By Helen Skopis of Athens International Radio 104.4 FM
Max Keiser radio interview with Greek journalist Helen Skopis of Athens International Radio discussing the Greek economic Crisis, the IMF and the situation of the Eurozone.
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(4) CANADIANS – – ??
There are many Canadians already engaged in the revolution against corporate takeover, as elsewhere. There are many working on the foundations for “what comes next”.
We have a lot to contribute. Should we fail in our potential, my sense is that it will be because of ignorance – – there aren’t enough people who have the information that is necessary to know what is happening and to inform action.
I repeat the link to Korten’s talk. It is a good primer. http://essentialsharingdocs.blogspot.com/2010/04/david-korten-agenda-for-new-economy.html