El derecho a la insolvencia

Written by Franco Berardi Bifo, 24.02.2012
Austeridad en Europa

Los fanáticos del fundamentalismo económico dicen que “el trabajador alemán no quiere pagar las facturas del pescador griego” y, mientras tanto, enfrentan a los trabajadores entre sí, llevando a Europa al borde de la guerra civil.

La entidad que es "Europa" fue concebida a raíz de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, como un proyecto para superar el nacionalismo moderno y crear una unión no identitaria basada en los principios del humanismo, la ilustración y la justicia social. ¿Qué queda de este proyecto original, después del reciente colapso financiero que ha asaltado la economía estadounidense y ha puesto en peligro a la zona euro? Desde el comienzo de la Unión Europea, el perfil constitucional de la entidad europea ha sido débilmente definido, de manera que el objetivo económico de prosperidad y las limitaciones del monetarismo financiero han tomado el lugar de una constitución. En la década de 1990, el Tratado de Maastricht marcó un punto de inflexión en este proceso. Sancionó la constitucionalización de la regla monetarista y sus implicaciones económicas: una disminución del gasto social, reducción de los costes laborales y un aumento de la competencia y la productividad. Los efectos de una aplicación intolerante de las reglas de Maastricht se hicieron evidentes en 2010: aplastando a Grecia e Irlanda y poniendo en peligro otros países, la crisis financiera mostró las contradicciones entre los deseos de crecimiento económico y estabilidad social, y la rigidez monetarista. En esta situación, las reglas de Maastricht han demostrado ser peligrosas, y la concepción global de la UE, basado en el protagonismo de la competencia económica, ha revelado su fragilidad.

 

To Do and Do Not

Written by Federico Campagna, 20.02.2012
Stuff
 
The supposed invasion of the being by the having has been a recurrent theme throughout the history of Western civilization. Long before the advent of capitalism, one’s material possessions and social status in the community were already deeply intertwined. It was not by accident that the mention of a king in the pages of the Iliad was often followed by the endless list of his possessions, as if the number of sheep and pigs one possessed helped in some way to express the personality of the individual.
 
As time went by, the crass simplicity of the lists of the Iliad, turned into a more sophisticated catalogue of belongings. As already noted by Suetonius, first, and by Sallust later, at the time of the Roman empire fashion had already entered the equation of material wealth and social subjectivity. Above a certain threshold of wealth, It wasn’t just the sheer amount of stuff that one owned that was used to define his (rarely her) social status, but it was what he owned. His possessions did not simply have to be opulent and abundant – they also had to be filtered by the whims of fashion.
 
This trend proved unstoppable even during the so-called dark ages, and when private wealth could not keep pace with a minimum level of sophistication, the Church stepped in by prodigally investing in the assertion of its hegemony over fashion. If, out of laziness, we did not want to look back to those remote times for proof, we would simply have to look at the obsession for fashionable opulence of the current Pope, Benedictus XVI, rightly considered by many as the reincarnation of a medieval Pope in present times.
 

Beirut

Written by Franco Berardi Bifo, 14.02.2012

yani

Nuovamente si spegne la luce. Quanto a lungo resteremo al buio questa volta? Mezzo minuto.

Ci sono queste brevi interruzioni dell’elettricità, nessuno ci fa caso. Ma ogni volta potrebbe essere la volta buona, you know what I mean. Yani. L’intercalare più frequente. Un attimo di sospensione. Un attimo prima.

Solo i computer non si spengono ai tavoli del bread republic, e ciascuno continua a digitare imperterrito la faccia illuminata dalla luce eterna del ciberspazio.

Mi sono svegliato presto stamattina alle sei e tre quarti in preda a un’eccitazione pericolosa, folle. Ieri sera al Time out con una siriana un indiano due palestinesi un’italiana tre libanesi una mezza inglese e mezza non so cosa a parlare dei Grundrisse, del general intellect, della poesia dell’esaurimento dell’energia fisica e psichica, e della demografia mondiale. Nessuno fa cenno a quello che sta succedendo in Siria perché tutti lo sanno benissimo. Duecento morti al giorno a un’ora di auto da qui, e la violenza pronta a esplodere in ogni istante all’angolo di strada per ragioni imperscrutabili. Come reagirà Hezbollah al possibile crollo del regime siriano? Come reagirà Israele alla possibile reazione di Hezbollah?

The Legend of a St.Entrepreneur

Written by Paolo Mossetti, 12.02.2012
Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology — where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths. Our Unification of Thoughts is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people, with one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death, and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!
- 1984 (advertisement)
 



"He lives! He lives! He lives!", those hashtags accompanying the virtual coffin of Steve Jobs seemed to repeat, like a white lie. You could have memorial candles left outside Apple stores, but #iSAD, #Thankyousteve and whatever else was trending in those hours of grief on Twitter were the true keywords following the dead, joining the endless wake where the body of the Martyr was carried from hand to hand, reduced in millions of pixels, re-tweeted from fingertip to fingertip. And as the corpse of the mahatma – “great soul” – was driven through the immaterial crowd, everybody tried to stretch a finger and make contact with him. Everyone had something to say: “You’ll be missed”, typed a 14-yr-old Chinese boy. “Gracias”, typed a Mexican girl studying in Chicago. “Merci”, typed a DJ from Senegal. 

A Riot of My Own - trailer

Written by Stefano Dorigo, 10.02.2012

Devo essermi perso, in un sonno senza sogni.
Li ho semplicemente chiusi. Gli occhi. Senza accorgermene. Accompagnando il battito del mio cuore al ritmo, intermittente, di quello del treno. Un dondolio meccanico, che appena si è arrestato mi ha riportato alla realtà. Ma siamo già qui?
Il treno è già a Chambery?

Ultima stazione. Prima di oltrepassare le Alpi e arrivare in Italia.
Finalmente potrò rivedere questo splendido paesaggio, dall’altra parte delle montagne. Per quanto tempo mi è stata preclusa la vista del versante Italiano?

Condannato una prima volta a sette anni e mezzo, con l’aggravante del “terrorismo”. Hanno così potuto utilizzare il moltiplicatore di pena del “2,5”: se ti becchi 3 anni te li moltiplicano per 2,5 cosicché alla fine prendi 7 anni e mezzo. Dopo altri nove anni dalla sentenza mi affibbiano un’altra condanna per gli stessi tipi di reato, con con l’applicazione di nove mesi in “reato continuato” … Dopo appena ventitré anni posso finalmente andare in estinzione di pena.
Ventitré.

Syndicate content