Prospa B2B DJ Seinfeld on Rinse FM 2024-05-01
2 hours ago
Thursday 3 November 2011
Timothy Leary on the Wall Street Occupation Movement
The Function of Post-Democratic Government
The primary function of a free society in the post-democratic age is the protection of individual freedom from politicians who attempt to limit it.
This individual-freedom movement is new to human history because it is not based on geography, politics, class or religion. It has to do with changes, not in the power structure, not in who controls the police, but in the individual's mind. It is a "head" revolution: a consciousness-raising affair.
Questioning Authority and Thinking for Yourself
This cultural meme involves intelligence, personal access to information, an anti-ideological reliance on common sense, mental proficiency, consciousness raising, street smarts, intelligent consumerism-hedonism, personal communication skills. The meme is not new. Countercultures go back at least as far as Hermes Trismegistus, and include Socrates and Sappho, Voltaire and Thoreau, Gurdjieff and Ginsberg.
But the rapid spread of this mutational meme from 1960 to 1990 was due to the sudden mass availability of neurochemical and electronic technology. Chemicals and screens spraying electronic information into eyedrums and earballs, activating brains. Suddenly, youth all over the world are wearing jeans and listening to John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance." The individuality meme that swept American youth during the 1960s has infected the world. The McLuhan epidemic keeps spreading.
The signs of this awakening are always the same. Young minds exposed to electronic information suddenly blossom like flowers in the spring. The June 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square were a classic replay of Chicago 1968 and Kent State 1970.
Power, Mao said, comes from the barrel of a gun. That may have been true in the industrial past, but in the cybernetic 1990s the very notion of political power seems anachronistic, kinky, sick. For the new breed, the concept of "political power" is hateful, evil, ghastly. The idea that any group should want to grab domination, authority, supremacy or jurisdiction over others is a primitive perversity - as loathsome and outdated as slavery or cannibalism.
It was not the Berlin Wall of concrete and guard houses that protected the "evil empire"; it was the electronic wall that was easily breached by MTV. McLuhan and Foucault have demonstrated that freedom depends upon who controls the technologies that reach your brain-telephones, the editing facility, the neurochemicals, the screen.
Mass Individualism Is New
This sudden emergence of humanism and openness on a mass scale is new and revolutionary.
In tribal societies, the role of the individual is to be a submissive, obedient child. The tribal elders do the thinking. Survival pressures do not afford them the luxury of freedom.
In feudal societies, the individual is a serf or vassal, peasant, chattel, peon, slave. The nobles and priests do the thinking. They are trained by tradition to abhor and anathematize openness and thinking for yourself.
After the tribal (familial) and feudal (childlike) stages of human evolution came the industrial (insectoid) society, where the individual is a worker or manager; in later stages, a worker-consumer.
In all these static, primitive societies, the thinking is done by the organizations that control the guns. The power of open-minded individuals to make and remake decisions about their own lives, to fabricate, concoct, invent and reinvent is severely limited.
Youth had no power, no voice, no choice.
The post-political information society does not operate on the basis of obedience and conformity to dogma. It is based on individual thinking; scientific know-how; quick exchange of facts around feedback networks; high-tech ingenuity; and practical, frontline creativity. The society of the future no longer grudgingly tolerates a few open-minded innovators. The cybernetic society is totally dependent on a large pool of such people, communicating at light speed within and without geographical boundaries. Electrified thoughts invite fast feedback, creating new global societies that require a higher level of electronic know-how, psychological sophistication and open-minded intelligence.
This cyber-communication process is accelerating so rapidly that to compete in the world information marketplace of the 21st century requires the navigational skills of change-oriented, innovative individuals who are adept in communicating via the new cyber-electronic technologies.
The new breeds are simply much smarter than the old guard. They inhale new information the way they breathe oxygen. They stimulate each other to continually upgrade and reformat their minds. People who use cyber technology to make fast decisions on their jobs are not going home and passively letting aging, close-minded politicians make decisions about their lives.
The emergence of this new open-minded caste in different countries around the world is the central historical issue of the last 40 years.
Excerpted from Timothy Leary, "The New Breed" (KnoWare, 1990); revised, Chaos and Cyber Culture (Ronin, 1994).
Published with permission of the Leary Estate.
Article edited by Michael Horowitz and Lisa Rein.
Wednesday 2 November 2011
jamesrbuk James Ball
One question, since I'm getting abuse today anyway: what exactly does a case relating to alleged sex offences have to do with free speech?
One question, since I'm getting abuse today anyway: what exactly does a case relating to alleged sex offences have to do with free speech?
Julian Assange loses bid to block extradition to Sweden
Tom_Morgs Tom Morgan
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange loses High Court bid to block extradition to Sweden
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange loses High Court bid to block extradition to Sweden
davidallengreen David Allen Green
Translation of article by detained Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah
I did not expect that the very same experience would be repeated after five years, after a revolution in which we have ousted the tyrant, I go back to jail?
The memories of being incarcerated have returned, all the details, from the skills of being able to sleep on the floor with eight colleagues in a small cell (2 x 4 meters) to the songs and discussions of the inmates. But I am completely unable to remember how I secured my glasses while asleep. They was trampled upon three times in one day. I realize suddenly that they are the very same pair I had when I was jailed in 2006, and that I am imprisoned, now, pending investigation under similar flimsy accusations and reasons of that incarceration, the only difference is that we have exchanged State Security prosecution with military prosecution: a change fitting to the military moment we are living.
The previous time, I was joined in detention by 50 colleagues from the Kefaya movement, but on this occasion I am alone, together with eight wrongly accused, the guilty is as wronged as the innocent.
As soon as they realized that I was from the "Youth of the Revolution" they started cursing at the revolution and how it failed in "sorting out" the Interior Ministry. I spent the first two days only listening to stories of torture by the hands of the police that is not only adamant on resisting reform, but is seeking revenge for being defeated by the downtrodden, the guilty and the innocent.
From their stories I discover the truth of the great achievements of the restoration of security. Two of my colleagues are seeing jail for the first time, simple youth without a grain of violence and their accusation is? Forming a gang. Indeed, Abu Malik alone is an armed gang unto himself. Now I understand what the Interior Ministry means when it reports that it has caught armed gangs. I congratulate us for the restoration of security then.
In the following few hours, sunlight will enter our always dim cell, we read creative Arabic engravings of a former colleague, four walls from floor to ceiling covered in Quran, prayers, supplications, thoughts and what appear to be the will of a tyrant to repent.
The next day we discover in the corner the date of the inmate's execution and we are overwhelmed by tears.
The guilty plan on repenting, but the innocent do not know what to do to avoid a similar fate.
I stray from them in the radio, listening to the speech of his Excellency the General inaugurating the tallest flag in the world, one which will certainly enter the record books. And I wonder: Was the inclusion of the name of the martyr Mina Daniel as one of the instigators in my case also a record in audacity? On the basis of it not being sufficient for them to be first to kill the victim and to walk in the funeral but also to spit on the corpse and accuse it of a crime?
Or perhaps this cell can win the record of the number of cockroaches? My thoughts are interrupted by Abu Mailk: "I swear to God Almighty, if the wronged was not absolved, this revolution will not succeed."
The third day, 1/11/2011
Cell 19, Prison of Appeal, Bab Al Khalq
Alaa Abdel Fattah (@Alaa)
Translated by Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi from the Arabic version that appeared in the Egyptian newspaper Shorouk on November 2nd 2011.
Via
FatherBob FatherBob
My friends,Ghost Productions, their doco about Rowland S Howard "Autolumeniscent" reviewed 10pm tonight ABC1 Margaret/David
After giving the use of his mobile kitchen to the #OccupyMelbourne crew, Father Bob now tweets about Roland S. Howard. Respect!
My friends,Ghost Productions, their doco about Rowland S Howard "Autolumeniscent" reviewed 10pm tonight ABC1 Margaret/David
After giving the use of his mobile kitchen to the #OccupyMelbourne crew, Father Bob now tweets about Roland S. Howard. Respect!
Attack on French satirical paper Charlie Hebdo
The offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo have been destroyed by a petrol bomb, French police say.
It comes a day after the publication named the Prophet Muhammad as its "editor-in-chief" for its next issue.The magazine said the move was intended to "celebrate" the victory of an Islamist party in Tunisia's election.
Charlie Hedbo's editor is quoted as saying: "We no longer have a newspaper. All our equipment has been destroyed."
A single Molotov cocktail was thrown at the offices of Charlie Hebdo during the night and a large amount of material in the office was destroyed, police said.
There have been no reports of injuries.
Charlie Hebdo's website has also been hacked with a message in English and Turkish attacking the magazine.
The magazine was criticised by Muslims in 2007 after reprinting the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that caused outrage around the Islamic world.
@'BBC'
Netanyahu trying to persuade cabinet to support attack on Iran
Netanyahu and Barak recently persuaded Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who previously objected to attacking Iran, to support such a move.
Although more than a million Israelis have had to seek shelter during a week of rockets raining down on the south, political leaders have diverted their attention to arguing over a possible war with Iran. Leading ministers were publicly dropping hints on Tuesday that Israeli could attack Iran, although a member of the forum of eight senior ministers said no such decision had been taken.
Senior ministers and diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency's report, due to be released on November 8, will have a decisive effect on the decisions Israel makes.
The commotion regarding Iran was sparked by journalist Nahum Barnea's column in Yedioth Ahronoth last Friday. Barnea's concerned tone and his editors' decision to run the column under the main headline ("Atomic Pressure" ) repositioned the debate on Iran from closed rooms to the media's front pages.
Reporters could suddenly ask the prime minister and defense minister whether they intend to attack Iran in the near future and the political scene went haywire.
Western intelligence officials agree that Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear program. Intelligence services now say it will take Iran two or three years to get the bomb once it decides to (it hasn't made the decision yet ).
According to Western experts' analyses, an attack on Iran in winter is almost impossible, because the thick clouds would obstruct the Israel Air Force's performance.
Netanyahu did not rule out the possibility of the need for a military action on Iran this week. During his Knesset address on Monday, Netanyahu warned of Iran's increased power and influence. "One of those regional powers is Iran, which is continuing its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran would constitute a grave threat to the Middle East and the entire world, and of course it is a direct and grave threat on us," he said.
Barak said Israel should not be intimidated but did not rule out the possibility that Israel would launch a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "I object to intimidation and saying Israel could be destroyed by Iran," he said.
"We're not hiding our thoughts. However there are issues we don't discuss in public ... We have to act in every way possible and no options should be taken off the table ... I believe diplomatic pressure and sanctions must be brought to bear against Iran," he said.
Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon said he preferred an American military attack on Iran to an Israeli one. "A military move is the last resort," he said.
Interior Minister Eli Yishai has not made his mind up yet on the issue. In a speech to Shas activists in the north on Monday Yishai said "this is a complicated time and it's better not to talk about how complicated it is. This possible action is keeping me awake at night. Imagine we're [attacked] from the north, south and center. They have short-range and long-range missiles - we believe they have about 100,000 rockets and missiles."
Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor said he supports an American move against Iran. In an interview to the Walla! website some two weeks ago Meridor said "It's clear to all that a nuclear Iran is a grave danger and the whole world, led by the United States, must make constant efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The Iranians already have more than four tons of 3-4 percent enriched uranium and 70 kgs. of 20 percent enriched uranium. It's clear to us they are continuing to make missiles. Iran's nuclearization is not only a threat to Israel but to several other Western states, and the international interest must unite here."
Former Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said he feared a "horror scenario" in which Netanyahu and Barak decide to attack Iran. He warned of a "rash act" and said he hoped "common sense will prevail."
On Tuesday, Barak said at the Knesset's Finance Committee that the state budget must be increased by NIS 7-8 a year for five years to fulfill Israel's security needs and answer the social protest. "The situation requires expanding the budget to enable us to act in a responsible way regarding the defense budget considering the challenges, as well as fulfill some of the demands coming from the Trajtenberg committee," he said.
Zvi Zrahiya, Jonathan Lis, Barak Ravid and Amos Harel @'Haaretz'
adrianblomfield adrianblomfield
Worth remembering that US officials in Sept admitted supplying #Israel with bunker buster bombs. Might be useful for an #Iran strike
Schizophrenia: 100 years of bad treatment
Imagine for a minute what life might have been like if you'd been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1911. Shunned by society, you would have been treated with fear and suspicion by many.
With no known cure, you would be subjected to treatment by trial and error, some of which would have gruesome side-effects. Detained by the state, you could expect to be monitored by overworked, underpaid staff and going to church might have been suggested as a way to calm your chaotic mind.
A lot has changed in the 100 years since the term "schizophrenia" was first coined, but perhaps not quite as much as you might think. People living with schizophrenia still experience many of the same problems today.
In 1910, Winston Churchill summed up contemporary attitudes when he wrote to the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, arguing for the mass sterilisation of people with severe mental illness.
Churchill warned that the "feeble-minded and insane classes" constituted a "danger which it is impossible to exaggerate", and that "the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed."
While views like these are no longer part of mainstream debate, the stigma and discrimination people with schizophrenia still face can be worse than the symptoms of the illness itself. Sensationalist media reporting has helped paint a picture of "schizos" who are wild, dangerous and need to be controlled.
In truth, violence is not a symptom of schizophrenia and people who have it are far more likely to harm themselves than anybody else. The vast majority of those affected live very ordinary lives, managing their symptoms through a combination of medication and, if they're lucky, talking therapies.
While huge advances in treatment have been made since the early 1900s when "cures" included raising patients' body temperature by injecting them with sulphur and oil, things haven't progressed anywhere near as fast as they have for physical illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.
Treatment today can still be a long and draining process of trial and error to find the right medication, which can last for years. While the drugs may dull symptoms, the side effects can include rapid weight gain, heart problems, loss of sex drive and a greater risk of developing diabetes. The effects of medication, along with lifestyle factors, mean people with schizophrenia die up to 20 years earlier than the rest of us, mostly from preventable physical illness.
Too often, people with severe mental illnesses are fobbed off with drugs alone. There are plenty of other treatments proven to work, but a poll by my organisation, Rethink Mental Illness, found just 16% of people who have schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are getting access to all the treatment recommended by Nice for their diagnosis.
One of our activists, David Strange – who developed paranoid schizophrenia while completing his doctorate at Oxford – was offered nothing but medication for 10 years after first being diagnosed. When he finally made it to the top of the waiting list for cognitive behavioural therapy last year, it changed his life. He still experiences frightening auditory and visual hallucinations, but it has helped him learn to engage with them and challenge what they say.
Although the conditions found in the old "lunatic asylums" are a far cry from inpatient care today, there are some striking similarities.
In 1908, manic-depressive Clifford Beers published an account of his experiences of institutionalisation. In it he describes crowded wards staffed by staff too busy and stressed to properly communicate with patients. For many who have experienced inpatient care in 2011, his observations will be depressingly familiar.
As for the suggestion that church might be the answer to mental illness, this advice was recently given to one of our supporters by a nurse and it wasn't an isolated incident. Our members have told us countless similar stories of inconsiderate or ignorant comments. These words reveal the stigma and misunderstanding that still surrounds mental illness, sometimes even among health professionals.
To mark the unhappy 100th birthday of the term "schizophrenia", Rethink Mental illness will be launching a campaign on Tuesday asking people to send a clear message to government that people with schizophrenia deserve a better deal in every area of their lives.
Rachel Whitehead @'The Guardian'
With no known cure, you would be subjected to treatment by trial and error, some of which would have gruesome side-effects. Detained by the state, you could expect to be monitored by overworked, underpaid staff and going to church might have been suggested as a way to calm your chaotic mind.
A lot has changed in the 100 years since the term "schizophrenia" was first coined, but perhaps not quite as much as you might think. People living with schizophrenia still experience many of the same problems today.
In 1910, Winston Churchill summed up contemporary attitudes when he wrote to the prime minister, Herbert Asquith, arguing for the mass sterilisation of people with severe mental illness.
Churchill warned that the "feeble-minded and insane classes" constituted a "danger which it is impossible to exaggerate", and that "the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed."
While views like these are no longer part of mainstream debate, the stigma and discrimination people with schizophrenia still face can be worse than the symptoms of the illness itself. Sensationalist media reporting has helped paint a picture of "schizos" who are wild, dangerous and need to be controlled.
In truth, violence is not a symptom of schizophrenia and people who have it are far more likely to harm themselves than anybody else. The vast majority of those affected live very ordinary lives, managing their symptoms through a combination of medication and, if they're lucky, talking therapies.
While huge advances in treatment have been made since the early 1900s when "cures" included raising patients' body temperature by injecting them with sulphur and oil, things haven't progressed anywhere near as fast as they have for physical illnesses such as cancer and heart disease.
Treatment today can still be a long and draining process of trial and error to find the right medication, which can last for years. While the drugs may dull symptoms, the side effects can include rapid weight gain, heart problems, loss of sex drive and a greater risk of developing diabetes. The effects of medication, along with lifestyle factors, mean people with schizophrenia die up to 20 years earlier than the rest of us, mostly from preventable physical illness.
Too often, people with severe mental illnesses are fobbed off with drugs alone. There are plenty of other treatments proven to work, but a poll by my organisation, Rethink Mental Illness, found just 16% of people who have schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are getting access to all the treatment recommended by Nice for their diagnosis.
One of our activists, David Strange – who developed paranoid schizophrenia while completing his doctorate at Oxford – was offered nothing but medication for 10 years after first being diagnosed. When he finally made it to the top of the waiting list for cognitive behavioural therapy last year, it changed his life. He still experiences frightening auditory and visual hallucinations, but it has helped him learn to engage with them and challenge what they say.
Although the conditions found in the old "lunatic asylums" are a far cry from inpatient care today, there are some striking similarities.
In 1908, manic-depressive Clifford Beers published an account of his experiences of institutionalisation. In it he describes crowded wards staffed by staff too busy and stressed to properly communicate with patients. For many who have experienced inpatient care in 2011, his observations will be depressingly familiar.
As for the suggestion that church might be the answer to mental illness, this advice was recently given to one of our supporters by a nurse and it wasn't an isolated incident. Our members have told us countless similar stories of inconsiderate or ignorant comments. These words reveal the stigma and misunderstanding that still surrounds mental illness, sometimes even among health professionals.
To mark the unhappy 100th birthday of the term "schizophrenia", Rethink Mental illness will be launching a campaign on Tuesday asking people to send a clear message to government that people with schizophrenia deserve a better deal in every area of their lives.
Rachel Whitehead @'The Guardian'
SOPA: Hollywood Finally Gets A Chance to Break the Internet
As promised, here’s the first installment of our closer review of the massive piece of job-killing Internet regulation that is the Stop Online Piracy Act. We’ll start with how it could impact Twitter, Tumblr, and the next innovative social network, cloud computing, or web hosting service that some smart kid is designing in her garage right now.
Let’s make one thing clear from the get-go: despite all the talk about this bill being directed only toward “rogue” foreign sites, there is no question that it targets US companies as well. The bill sets up a system to punish sites allegedly “dedicated to the theft of US property.” How do you get that label? Doesn’t take much: Some portion of your site (even a single page) must
- be directed toward the US, and either
- allegedly “engage in, enable or facilitate” infringement or
- allegedly be taking or have taken steps to “avoid confirming a high probability” of infringement.
If an IP rightsholder (vaguely defined – could be Justin Bieber worried about his publicity rights) thinks you meet the criteria and that it is in some way harmed, it can send a notice claiming as much to the payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal etc.) and ad services you rely on.
Once they get it, they have 5 days to choke off your financial support. Of course, the payment processors and ad networks won’t be able to fine-tune their response so that only the allegedly infringing portion of your site is affected, which means your whole site will be under assault. And, it makes no difference that no judge has found you guilty of anything or that the DMCA safe harbors would shelter your conduct if the matter ever went to court. Indeed, services that have been specifically found legal, like Rapidshare, could be economically strangled via SOPA. You can file a counter-notice, but you’ve only got 5 days to do it (good luck getting solid legal advice in time) and the payment processors and ad networks have no obligation to respect it in any event. That’s because there are vigilante provisions that grant them immunity for choking off a site if they have a “reasonable belief” that some portion of the site enables infringement.
At a minimum, this means that any service that hosts user generated content is going to be under enormous pressure to actively monitor and filter that content. That’s a huge burden, and worse for services that are just getting started – the YouTubes of tomorrow that are generating jobs today. And no matter what they do, we’re going to see a flurry of notices anyway – as we’ve learned from the DMCA takedown process, content owners are more than happy to send bogus complaints. What happened to Wikileaks via voluntary censorship will now be systematized and streamlined – as long as someone, somewhere, thinks they’ve got an IP right that’s being harmed.
In essence, Hollywood is tired of those pesky laws that help protect innovation, economic growth, and creativity rather than outmoded business models. So they are trying to rewrite the rules, regulate the Internet, and damn the consequences for the rest of us.
Watch this space for more analysis, but don’t wait to act. This bill cannot be fixed; it must be killed. The bill’s sponsors (and their corporate backers) want to push this thing through quickly, before ordinary citizens get wind of the harm it is going to cause. If you don’t want to let big media control the future of innovation and online expression, act now, and urge everyone you know to do the same.
Corynne McSherry @'EFF'
Political Shift Seen in Rally in Pakistan
Mr. Khan assailed the leaders of both parties — President Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif — as creatures of the status quo, and he has been a loud and frequent critic of Pakistan’s alliance with the United States, saying it was motivated by money.
The size of the crowd that Mr. Khan drew in Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab and a traditional stronghold of the Muslim League-N, surprised his opponents and made an impression on political analysts.
Mr. Khan, 58, has languished on the political sidelines for years, and his political party, Tehreek-e-Insaf, or Justice Party, has no seats in the current Parliament. But his popularity has soared recently as voters, especially younger ones, have grown disillusioned with the establishment parties. A survey conducted by an American polling organization, the Pew Research Center, found in June that Mr. Khan had become the most popular political figure in the country.
After the crowd gave him a rousing welcome at the rally on Sunday evening, Mr. Khan threw out challenges to both Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif on the question of personal integrity, urging them both to disclose their assets or face civil disobedience...
Continue reading
Salman Masood @'NY Times'
All things being equal
Simon McKeon says the Occupy movement has valid grievances and business has only itself to blame for the disdain in which it is now being held.
A corollary is that the tacit social contract has broken down; it no longer holds that if you study hard and work hard there will be an opportunity for you to prosper, to explore your potential in a world where a key determinant of the quality of existence is where you happen to be born.
At its core, the Occupy movement is about equality of opportunity. This is not an ideological position. It is an unassailable principle that has nothing to do with the hackneyed, misleading political language of left and right. And it is one worthy of support, no matter what your view might be about the comportment of the protesters, or of the authorities and police who have forcibly removed them from various places, including Melbourne and Sydney.
Simon McKeon, Australian of the Year and executive chairman in Victoria of Macquarie Group, is here in The Zone to discuss the genesis and implications of the Occupy movement. He is the first repeat guest in The Zone; he was here last year upon his appointment as chairman of the CSIRO. As the full transcript of our interview, as well as a short video (both at theage.com.au/opinion/the-zone) show, he shares some of the concerns behind the movement. He remains a steadfast believer in individual freedom and markets, and clearly feels something important is happening.
McKeon sees the situation against the historic backdrop of a massive transfer of wealth from the West to the East. He also believes people are rightly concerned about what has happened since the global financial crisis in 2008, a near-catastrophic collapse sparked by the behaviour of Wall Street banks and a failure by US regulators to do other than generate unsustainable bubbles in the prices of homes and financial instruments.
''[The Occupy people are saying] we are very, very, very grumpy about the fact that at the same time as Western governments are tightening their belts because of the difficult outlook, they have been pump-priming the corporate sector because of all the trouble it got into over these past few years.
''It's just not fair for the ordinary citizen to have to stomach, and something has got to change because we seem to be paying a price for something we didn't do.''
McKeon, who has used his time as Australian of the Year to promote corporate philanthropy, argues business has only itself to blame for the disdain in which it is now being so publicly held. It makes him sad, as he sees so much good work being done by so many companies, and believes that with marginal effort business could turn critics into advocates.
''As I said many, many times this year - and [Harvard Business School Professor] Michael Porter, the world's foremost business academic, makes the point much more profoundly - business has been on the nose for a long time. Survey after survey after survey asks all sorts of different questions but the results are essentially the same. The community as a whole is not convinced that business operates in the way that it ought.
''My message has been a very broad one. It is simply that business itself, particularly larger businesses, are massive institutions with all sorts of resources.
''There are many, many opportunities that are also fundamentally in the company's interests, not as starkly obvious as giving away 1 per cent of net profit after tax, but using the resources of the company to be directly connected to community need, whether it's employee volunteering, whether it is putting some departments to work in the times of the year when they are not operating at peak level, whether it's actually just a bit of public generosity from time to time from these very well-paid CEOs.''
Unemployment in parts of Europe is around 20 per cent, with youth jobless rates double that. The issues occupying the occupiers are far more acute elsewhere in the world than they are in Australia, yet the pressures clearly do exist here.
They are evident, for example, in the sharemarket, where there are concerns about executive salaries continuing to far outstrip average wage rises, notwithstanding profits or share prices. The supposed link between executive pay and performance appears more rhetorical than real.
In recent days, sufficient shareholders in several big public companies have rejected boards' remuneration reports, triggering a newly introduced procedure that would cause a spill of board positions, should a similar vote occur next year.
The sentiment driving the Occupy movement throughout the industrialised world has been fuelled by facts such as these, which refer to US figures but are reflected in the broad in many places:
■Unemployment has not been higher since the Great Depression.
■Corporate profits are at record highs, financially and as a proportion of the economy.
■Wages are at an all-time low as a percentage of the economy.
■Inequality in wealth and income is close to an all-time high.
■The earners with the highest salaries get a higher part of national income than they have for about 90 years.
The protests are broad-based. It is unjust to describe them as some sort of socialist attack on capitalism. Consider this from The Economist, the world's foremost pro free market publication: ''Even if the protests are small and muddled, it is dangerous to dismiss the broader rage that exists across the West. There are legitimate and deep-seated grievances.''
Or this from The New York Times, also hardly a Trotskyite newspaper: ''On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity. The initial outrage has been compounded by bailouts and by elected officials' hunger for campaign cash from Wall Street, a toxic combination that has reaffirmed the economic and political power of banks and bankers, while ordinary Americans suffer.''
Simon McKeon believes the protesters have overwhelming community support to voice their anger, but not necessarily to remain for extended periods in public spaces.
''The protesters really ought to have known deep down that they were on borrowed time … As to the actual way in which they were driven out, as a Melburnian I was shattered to see those images broadcast worldwide with police horses stomping in the close vicinity of humans. That was really shocking and confronting and I'm glad the fallout was limited to what it was in terms of physical injury.''
He argues that the only long-term solution to the erosion of workers' relative financial welfare is education and training, given the surging competition from developing economies. ''We have to invest in training and education, and we kid ourselves that we do. We actually underspend the OECD average by 25 per cent in education.
''We need an education revolution, but actually it's not happening. We are a very lucky country; we ought to be able to afford the cost of that extra training.''
There is abundant evidence the greatest gains in freedom and wealth in modern history have been delivered by democracy and markets. But there can be no prosperous Wall, Collins or Pitt streets without healthy backstreets.
Overall, the Occupy movement is not about breaking down the system, it is about breaking into and adjusting a system that is no longer providing a fair go. It is about equality of opportunity, rather than equality of outcome, and ought to be embraced as a collective opportunity for us to ask the paramount ethical question: is this right?
Michael Short @'The Age'
[WHO] Simon McKeon, Australian of the Year and bank executive chairman
[WHAT] The Occupy movement has valid concerns, and business needs to change
[HOW] Business should increase its community involvement; government should boost education
The Occupy movement that has spread from a park near Wall Street to hundreds of cities around the world has valid, fundamental grievances. It does not need to have a list of policy prescriptions - the movement is the message. It is an expression of a smouldering sentiment that the system we have evolved to facilitate freedom, opportunity and justice is instead delivering unfairness. A corollary is that the tacit social contract has broken down; it no longer holds that if you study hard and work hard there will be an opportunity for you to prosper, to explore your potential in a world where a key determinant of the quality of existence is where you happen to be born.
At its core, the Occupy movement is about equality of opportunity. This is not an ideological position. It is an unassailable principle that has nothing to do with the hackneyed, misleading political language of left and right. And it is one worthy of support, no matter what your view might be about the comportment of the protesters, or of the authorities and police who have forcibly removed them from various places, including Melbourne and Sydney.
Simon McKeon, Australian of the Year and executive chairman in Victoria of Macquarie Group, is here in The Zone to discuss the genesis and implications of the Occupy movement. He is the first repeat guest in The Zone; he was here last year upon his appointment as chairman of the CSIRO. As the full transcript of our interview, as well as a short video (both at theage.com.au/opinion/the-zone) show, he shares some of the concerns behind the movement. He remains a steadfast believer in individual freedom and markets, and clearly feels something important is happening.
McKeon sees the situation against the historic backdrop of a massive transfer of wealth from the West to the East. He also believes people are rightly concerned about what has happened since the global financial crisis in 2008, a near-catastrophic collapse sparked by the behaviour of Wall Street banks and a failure by US regulators to do other than generate unsustainable bubbles in the prices of homes and financial instruments.
''[The Occupy people are saying] we are very, very, very grumpy about the fact that at the same time as Western governments are tightening their belts because of the difficult outlook, they have been pump-priming the corporate sector because of all the trouble it got into over these past few years.
''It's just not fair for the ordinary citizen to have to stomach, and something has got to change because we seem to be paying a price for something we didn't do.''
McKeon, who has used his time as Australian of the Year to promote corporate philanthropy, argues business has only itself to blame for the disdain in which it is now being so publicly held. It makes him sad, as he sees so much good work being done by so many companies, and believes that with marginal effort business could turn critics into advocates.
''As I said many, many times this year - and [Harvard Business School Professor] Michael Porter, the world's foremost business academic, makes the point much more profoundly - business has been on the nose for a long time. Survey after survey after survey asks all sorts of different questions but the results are essentially the same. The community as a whole is not convinced that business operates in the way that it ought.
''My message has been a very broad one. It is simply that business itself, particularly larger businesses, are massive institutions with all sorts of resources.
''There are many, many opportunities that are also fundamentally in the company's interests, not as starkly obvious as giving away 1 per cent of net profit after tax, but using the resources of the company to be directly connected to community need, whether it's employee volunteering, whether it is putting some departments to work in the times of the year when they are not operating at peak level, whether it's actually just a bit of public generosity from time to time from these very well-paid CEOs.''
Unemployment in parts of Europe is around 20 per cent, with youth jobless rates double that. The issues occupying the occupiers are far more acute elsewhere in the world than they are in Australia, yet the pressures clearly do exist here.
They are evident, for example, in the sharemarket, where there are concerns about executive salaries continuing to far outstrip average wage rises, notwithstanding profits or share prices. The supposed link between executive pay and performance appears more rhetorical than real.
In recent days, sufficient shareholders in several big public companies have rejected boards' remuneration reports, triggering a newly introduced procedure that would cause a spill of board positions, should a similar vote occur next year.
The sentiment driving the Occupy movement throughout the industrialised world has been fuelled by facts such as these, which refer to US figures but are reflected in the broad in many places:
■Unemployment has not been higher since the Great Depression.
■Corporate profits are at record highs, financially and as a proportion of the economy.
■Wages are at an all-time low as a percentage of the economy.
■Inequality in wealth and income is close to an all-time high.
■The earners with the highest salaries get a higher part of national income than they have for about 90 years.
The protests are broad-based. It is unjust to describe them as some sort of socialist attack on capitalism. Consider this from The Economist, the world's foremost pro free market publication: ''Even if the protests are small and muddled, it is dangerous to dismiss the broader rage that exists across the West. There are legitimate and deep-seated grievances.''
Or this from The New York Times, also hardly a Trotskyite newspaper: ''On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity. The initial outrage has been compounded by bailouts and by elected officials' hunger for campaign cash from Wall Street, a toxic combination that has reaffirmed the economic and political power of banks and bankers, while ordinary Americans suffer.''
Simon McKeon believes the protesters have overwhelming community support to voice their anger, but not necessarily to remain for extended periods in public spaces.
''The protesters really ought to have known deep down that they were on borrowed time … As to the actual way in which they were driven out, as a Melburnian I was shattered to see those images broadcast worldwide with police horses stomping in the close vicinity of humans. That was really shocking and confronting and I'm glad the fallout was limited to what it was in terms of physical injury.''
He argues that the only long-term solution to the erosion of workers' relative financial welfare is education and training, given the surging competition from developing economies. ''We have to invest in training and education, and we kid ourselves that we do. We actually underspend the OECD average by 25 per cent in education.
''We need an education revolution, but actually it's not happening. We are a very lucky country; we ought to be able to afford the cost of that extra training.''
There is abundant evidence the greatest gains in freedom and wealth in modern history have been delivered by democracy and markets. But there can be no prosperous Wall, Collins or Pitt streets without healthy backstreets.
Overall, the Occupy movement is not about breaking down the system, it is about breaking into and adjusting a system that is no longer providing a fair go. It is about equality of opportunity, rather than equality of outcome, and ought to be embraced as a collective opportunity for us to ask the paramount ethical question: is this right?
Michael Short @'The Age'
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So whatever your vice of choice, light it, pop it or drink it, and then indulge in a little war -- on drugs.
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The use of psychiatric medications by troops and their spouses soared 42 percent between 2005 and 2009, while anti-anxiety pill prescription rose a startling 72 percent. And thousands of soldiers are sanctioned to pop a cocktail of pills, despite deathly serious side effects: Accidental fatalities due to multi-drug usage has nearly tripled since 2001.
Photo: U.S. Navy SEALS Blog
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Winston who is the father of Kurt Riley was shot in the head and arm this morning (01.11.11) at his home in Kingston 8. Music News understands Winston Riley is currently being treated at hospital.
Winston has being plagued with a series of violent attacks. He was shot in August this year and later stabbed in September. The police are investigating all the incidents.
Winston Riley produced General Echo's hugely influential The Slackest album in 1979, and he went on to launch the careers of Sister Nancy, Buju Banton, Cutty Ranks, Lone Ranger, and Frankie Paul.
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