The long-running tragic epic of Greece’s slide towards economic ruin and social breakdown is into its latest cyclical act. Commentators from across the traditional right-left political spectrum have described the Eurogroup deal forced on the Greeks as a ‘coup’ and ‘impossible’, but somehow the seemingly inevitable Grexit has been pushed back once again.
This interview with Greece’s radical (and now out of office) finance minister gives an insightful window into the secretive power dynamics at the heart of the Eurozone and international financial projects. Read the transcript >>
Buddhist meditation is rooted in the principle of cultivating non-attachment. But in recent years corporate culture has been adapting and assimilating the principles of mindfulness to use as mental tools to increase productivity. Michelle Goldberg explores the meeting of American capitalism and Eastern spirituality.
Speaking in the late 1980s, Noam Chomsky offers a still highly-relevant and succint breakdown of the reality of democracy as practiced, or engineered, in most western liberal states.
The people of the United Kingdom today have the opportunity to vote for their next government. Some have suggested this election has precipitated further descent into apathy and cynicism and will confirm the end of the long-standing British two-party system of representative democracy.
A few postcards from beyond the polling booths…
George Monbiot makes a sharp critique of the political situation in Britain, arguing that the serious issues which really need addressing seem to be subject to a code of silence by most of the parties, in a kind of unspoken systemic complicity.
Photographer Denise Felkin went to meet some of the human beings behind the statistic that over a third of the registered electorate don’t vote. Her portrait series “I’m not voting because…” explores the social and political context for high abstention.
Attempting to mobilise these silent masses, the Vote or Vote None campaign encourages people to use their ballot paper to state that none of the candidates meet their approval. arguing that that this is the route to galvanising and renewing the political system.
A more tactile approach is taken by Samantha Moyo who urges all parties to Turn Up and Hold Hands – asking “Which politician is using the word love? Which politician is spending time in non-formal attire with the communities they wish to represent? Which politician is owning up to their mistakes?”
Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch’s media minions appropriate the spirit of Marvin Gaye and Cassetteboy to jump on the election hype bandwagon… (to good effect, although we wouldn’t recommend believing; click play to view)
The inter-connected systems of global civilisation are now so vast and complex that we, as in we of the developed and growing western world, have no real idea what goes into making our consumption-based lifestyles possible.
In the mainstream media, the phrase ‘The Middle East’ has become shorthand for conflict, destruction and fundamentalism.
A group of photographers fed up with being commissioned to cover extreme people and situations, decided to collaborate on creating a forum for imagery showing life in Middle Eastern countries in a more ‘normal’ light.
The Instagram feed @everydaymiddleeast is the result. Founder Lindsay Mackenzie speaks about the story behind the collective and their vision. Read more >>
Lewis Bush uses photography to explore how capitalism applies the principle of ‘Stacking’ across contexts, from supermarket shelving to wealth-focused housing and the new architecture boom in the City of London. View the images >>
Deep ecologist, writer and radical activist Derrick Jensen reflects on the relationships between human beings and the natural world, weaving through diverse topics whilst exploring how and why western civilisation has come to decimate the earth’s eco-systems.
The wheel of unceasing war has come full circle in Iraq with the United States Air Force bombing Islamic State targets in Tikrit, twelve blood-soaked years since first doing so during the 2003 invasion.
Meanwhile, a report, entitled ‘Body Count’ has been published estimating that the casualties of conflict in Iraq during this time comes to ‘over a million people’.
The populations of the USA, UK and other western actors in the war are for the most part insulated from this horrific reality. The authors of the report argue that more widespread public understanding is the essential pre-requisite to policy change. For those willing to be informed, watch this Democracy Now report >>
(note this clip features some distressing footage rolling while the voices speak)
South Central LA, known mostly for gangsta hip-hop and riots, is not perhaps the place you would expect a gardening revolution. However, fed-up with the absence of good produce and observing how ubiquitous fast-food drive-bys create poor community health, Ron Finlay started growing food on the ragged strip of pavement outside his house. Then he started encouraging others to do the same.
A movement has emerged and here he outlines his vision for a world where cities are fertile and all citizens have direct access to free fresh food.
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It took several years for the issue of global climate change to translate from fringe environmentalist concern into collective mainstream consciousness. But the shift from knowledge to effective response has so far been tentative and often abortive, despite a steady diet of worrying data and horrifying projections from climate scientists. This sobering map shows the projected impact of tipping-point effects on cities around the globe (read more here)
The scale of the problem, the well co-ordinated obstruction by vested interests (the pseudo-scientific climate-change denial movement seems to be funded in various ways by the right-wing business lobby) – and the overwhelming difficulty of responding collectively to a global issue all throw up question marks as to whether humanity can rise to the challenge.
Another wave of movement is needed – and may be emerging. This article suggests some in influential positions are putting their energies into the climate change response. Read more >> .
Recent years have seen the visionary South American plant medicine ayahuasca acquire a growing reputation as a powerful catalyst for healing and transformation.
American shaman Hamilton Souther apprenticed with traditional ayahuasca healers in Peru and has spent many years working in the Amazon with the visionary plant. Back in the States, he discovered that cannabis could be used in a similar way for shamanic healing – and then took the work to a whole other level, using internet streaming technology to conduct global journeying and healing ceremonies with large numbers of people.
This interview by Zoe Helene with Souther explores his meeting with the spirit of the cannabis plant and his way of working with plant medicines using mesas,icaros (medicine songs) and other ‘shamanic technology’
Surveillance and the 21st-century technologies of state power are elusive subjects to illustrate…
Trevor Paglen‘s images portray the operation centres of the NSA and other government agencies, creating luminous metaphors of the web of control. See more >>
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Robert Frank’s classic book The Americans was a seminal piece of work in a variety of ways.
In this essay, George Cotkin explores how Frank’s photographic expression was fundamentally aligned with the literary vision of Beat writers (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs et al) and their “sustained critique of the barrenness of American culture,” overlapping with “a vision of renewal and rebirth”.
As part of his thesis, Cotkin suggests that Frank saw and portrayed Black Americans in the Fifties as living an embodied form of existential freedom that far surpassed the experience of the theoretically freer White American “walking dead”…
It takes a long time for the privileged to become aware of their own privileges. For others around them it tends to be obvious what’s going on.
This incisive piece by Matt Zoller Seitz is searingly honest about the realities of being white in America (and probably most other WASP democracies), and how society is structured to maintain racially-based privilege. Read the article >>
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Charlie Hebdo offices, Paris, 7th January 2015.
Another sudden intensification in our evolving multi-dimensional global conflict.
A few perspectives…
The western mainstream almost unanimously responded to events as a barbaric and failed attack on freedom. The massive, instant #JeSuisCharlie grief&solidarity movement appeared to uphold and defend the core liberal values (or rhetoric) of free speech and democracy. This cry was swiftly taken up by global politicians of all stripes – although a wide-angle shot shows their united ‘leadership of the march’ in Paris as a photo-op set-up in an empty street.
It has mostly been left to Muslim and peripheral voices to interrogate the depth causes of the attacks and suggest responsibility might lie with the West’s own violence towards the Arab and Muslim world. Or that they were part of a Jihadist ‘false-flag’ strategy to radicalise European Muslims through “sharpening contradictions” – or even that this actually had nothing to do with religion, free speech or the clash of civilisations, but should be seen as a message from the dispossesed.
Meanwhile, in the quiet spaces, human beings (of liberal, Muslim, Jewish, secular and many other origins, sometimes mixed) have been reflecting on the internal and worldly challenges catalysed by the situation and meditating on the question “How do we respond?”
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Postcard: image & text based missive sent to friends by travelers. Babylon: (1) capital of Babylonia in 2nd century B.C, often considered the first city. (2) Rastafarian term for capitalist civilisation. Liberation:the process of seeking and embodying freedom for, and by, all peoples
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