RSA Animate

I completely love these RSA animate videos. They get across the point so much more effectively than just listening to the speech. I've tried listening to the original before and it just isn't as engaging - though, that said, your mind does wander more without the animation.

Either way, it's a beautiful idea and I completely love it.

This video in particular is a favourite of mine. I generally like Zizek (though some of his ideas make him come across as a tit) and this is him at, if not his finest, then undoubtedly his clearest. The examination of the attempt to ensure that capitalism contains its own salvation is really enlightening and it does really relay how insipid contemporary consumerism has become of late.

Let us hope, though, that this new 'cultural' capitalism has opened the doors to an ethical debate which has been dead for decades.

2010: A Laffer Free Zone

One of my friends - a horrendously cheeky, incredibly intelligent woman with slightly reprehensible politics - recently made a post on today's situation and the Laffer Curve. Her argument is twofold: 1) The best way to cut the deficit is growth and 2) One of the best ways to encourage growth is to cut taxes, particularly on the wealthy. I completely agree with the first point, but I couldn't disagree more with the second.

The key point which needs to be understood here is that income inequality is the core cause of the financial crisis we face. Others have covered this in far more detail, but the case is quite simple (though I'll simplify it even more to avoid anything more than one paragraph). Incomes for the bulk of society have been held down due to political changes which occurred in the late 70s/1980s which led to the defanging of labour as a economic and political force. The economy grew (though not as quickly as before), but the vast majority of benefits accrued to the very wealthiest in society. The problem is, though, that one man's employee is everyone else's consumer. The massive amounts of wealth which were now being created for the very top had to be redirected to consumer credit to allow the standard of living to increase. This wasn't a grand conspiracy, but it is important to note that the credit which fuelled the recent consumer/housing 'boom' would have been unnecessary if this money had entered the market through wages instead of loans. Today, though, consumers are overburdened with debt - they can't borrow anymore, they're having trouble paying back what they have borrowed. That right there is the financial crisis we're experiencing.

So, cutting taxes for the wealthy would just accentuate the existing inequalities of income which fed our crisis. Furthermore, however, they will do little for our society as it is. We are not facing a situation where there is not enough money to be invested - we are facing a situation where there is so much money to be invested that a cycle of speculative booms has become a chronic issue. The wealthy in Britain are sitting on massive piles of cash, cash which they are reluctant (sensibly) to invest in the UK, so, instead they deposit it abroad. The corollary of our credit drought is Brazil's hot money crisis.

In cutting taxes for the wealthy, we don't just accentuate our social inequalities and economic troubles, we also speed up the spread of our completely unsustainable model of economic growth. Brazil, for example, is seeing banks raking the money in at the cost of 20% credit growth. This is not sustainable and it is unhealthy for the world economy to be creating more locales where a credit crisis is inevitable.

The major economic challenge of our time is to tame the beast of capital, not to offer up greater and greater sacrifices to its oily, bloodstained maw.

Broken Hopes, Smashed Windows

There was something particularly satisfying about hearing about the storming of the Millbank Tower. In the build-up to the spending review and its aftermath the right-wing press was full of smug articles proclaiming the 'responsible' acceptance by the British public of the looming austerity measures. The British, it was claimed, weren't like the infantile French or the uncontrollable Greeks - they would take their dose of medicine and doff their hats to their betters.

Where are those articles now?

The first major protest against Austerity Britain saw destruction on the streets of London, at a homeopathic level of dilution compared to the violence which is about to be inflicted on society as a whole. As made clear by many first hand accounts, this was not the normal anarchist crew acting outside of the will of the group. This was the simmering discontent of a generation, manifesting itself as broken glass, crude graffiti and cheers.

In three paragraphs, Laurie Penny gets right to the heart of the matter:

One can often take the temperature of a demonstration by the tone of the chanting. The cry that goes up most often at this protest is a thunderous, wordless roar, starting from the back of the crowd and reverberating up and down Whitehall. There are no words. It's a shout of sorrow and celebration and solidarity and it slices through the chill winter air like a knife to the stomach of a trauma patient. Somehow, the pressure has been released and the rage of Europe's young people is flowing free after a year, two years, ten years of poisonous capitulation.

They spent their childhoods working hard and doing what they were told with the promise that one day, far in the future, if they wished very hard and followed their star, their dreams might come true. They spent their young lives being polite and articulate whilst the government lied and lied and lied to them again. They are not prepared to be polite and articulate any more. They just want to scream until something changes. Perhaps that's what it takes to be heard.

"Look, we all saw what happened at the big anti-war protest back in 2003," says Tom, a postgraduate student from London. "Bugger all, that's what happened. Everyone turned up, listened to some speeches and then went home. It's sad that it's come to this, but..." he gestures behind him to the bonfires burning in front of the shattered windows of Tory HQ. "What else can we do?"

I wasn't at this protest and, as I'm stuck in Jerusalem for a while, I am unlikely to be on any future ones for some time. But I cannot help but feel that this protest is a foreshadowing of what is to come. It being the first noticeable blow to the coalition's plans for the bright, new Austerity Britain, this has set the stage for a significant confrontation. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe for one second that the next protest is going to see any such act. I don't think that it's only a matter of months until we're waving red flags in the House of Commons, but the idea that the British public do not know the word "fight" unless followed by "ze Germans" is dead.

The burning of those placards and the smashing of those windows has added a dash of tension to the otherwise oppressive sense of broken hopes and grey austerity. The coalition is unlikely to back down or compromise, but perhaps (just perhaps) this has opened the door to defeating the coalition outright. When he criticises the people in Millbank that day, Aaron Porter is living in a different world where the government is a partner for negotiation. The truth is that this government is hell bent on an ideological redrawing of this country. No number of friendly chats or witty placards can change that.

As said, "the next five years can't just be about marching on Whitehall to hear Tony Benn speak". The spending review was the declaration of a political conflict whose outcome will shape our entire society. We need to win it.

Obama's Offer and a Lack of Will

One year ago the air was virtually blue with talk of a split between Israel and the US. Biden was publicly humiliated, Netanyahu was snubbed and it looked as if Obama was starting to demand Israeli compliance as repayment for US assistance. It looked as if the metaphorical reset button which had been pulled out of his pocket in Cairo was about to be pressed.

A year later and things couldn't be more different. The US is currently offering Israel even greater levels of support in return for temporary and half-hearted compliance with international law and US demands. The US will sell Israel 20 state-of-the-art jets, provide assurances that it will silence certain UN debates. In return it will get 90 days where settlement construction in the West Bank is halted. This is, quite obviously, an awful deal from an American perspective. Unlike his predecessor, Obama is not ideologically committed to Likud policy. Unlike other presidents he does not have the luxury of treating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a sideshow. So how did he end up in this position?

A large part of the responsibility has to fall on Obama's already burdened shoulders. In a pattern that we have all become familiar with, he begins with lofty rhetoric, adopts a moderate position, unilaterally compromises when there is no partner for compromise and then proceeds to compromise on the compromise. The initial demand was for a halt to all settlement construction, then for a temporary freeze and this time - the compromise of the compromise - for a three month freeze outside of Jerusalem. This distressingly weak habit was aggravated this time around by picking the wrong issue - the Israeli government needs to stop settlement construction, but it would be very hard for any government, let alone Netanyahu's, to halt the JCBs. By picking this as a key issue Obama has forced Abbas into a position where he cannot negotiate whilst settlement construction is ongoing, leading us to the impasse we currently face.

He has forced both parties into a corner and has not given them a way out. Perhaps Obama is secretly trying to kill off Oslo, and in that case he has my support and I commend him for his excellent manipulation of the situation. If, however, he does not reject Oslo, this is incredibly misjudged. If, however, he does think that a mythical 'final status' agreement can be reached, then he is frustrating the entire process by only allowing negotiations to occur in short windows. He has given the Israeli government the ability to hold the entire process hostage, by creating a situation where Israeli far-right cooperation is required for either of the other two parties to legitimately and effectively participate in the negotiations.

Personally, I believe Obama was gambling on his initial demand for an unconditional settlement freeze. I think he believed he had a chance, a good chance, of forcing the Israeli government into at least paying lip service to this. If he had succeeded it would have established American dominance over the US government and given the Americans greater credibility down the line in forcing the Israelis into making other difficult choices. It also would have forced the settler movement into a position where it had to decide between the US alliance or continued construction. If the gamble had paid off, then the political environment would be markedly more hospitable for doves.

To defeat the settlers, however, required facing down Netanyahu and forcing him to choose between the US and the settler movement. It required will, a will Obama lacks, as well as the almost brain-dead stubbornness needed to play chicken with a blind opponent. It became a question of who would blink first and, as per usual, it was Obama.