Here’s a remarkable video from *faircompanies, a Spanish website focused on voluntary simplicity and sustainable living.
It’s the story that might be called Occupy Lakabe, the saga of the occupation of an abandoned village in the hills of Northern Spain that began three decades ago and has blossomed into a exemplary community, showing that a different way of living is not only possible but desirable.
Medieval Spanish ghost town now self-sufficient ecovillage
It’s a utopian fantasy- discover a ghost town and rebuild it in line with your ideals-, but in Spain where there are nearly 3000 abandoned villages (most dating back to the Middle Ages), some big dreamers have spent the past 3 decades doing just that.
There are now a few dozen “ecoaldeas” – ecovillages – in Spain, most buil[t] from the ashes of former Medieval towns. One of the first towns to be rediscovered was a tiny hamlet in the mountains of northern Navarra.
It was rediscovered in 1980 by a group of people living nearby who had lost their goats and “when they found their goats, they found Lakabe”, explains Mauge Cañada, one of the early pioneers in the repopulation of the town.
The new inhabitants were all urbanites with no knowledge of country life so no one expected them to stay long. At first, the homes weren’t habitable so they lived 14 in a large room. Slowly they began to rebuild the homes and the gardens.
When they first began to rebuild, there was no road up to the town so horses were used to carry construction materials up the mountain. There was no electricity either so they lived with candles and oil lamps.
After a few years, they erected a windmill by hand, carrying the iron structure up the hill themselves. “Even though it seems tough and in some ways it was, but you realize you’re not as limited as you think,” says Mauge. “There are a lot of things people think they can’t do without a lot of money and there’s never been money here.”
In the early years, they generated income by selling some of their harvest and working odd jobs like using their newfound construction experience to rebuild roofs outside town. Later they rebuilt the village bakery and sold bread to the outside world.
Their organic sourdough breads now sell so well that today they can get by without looking for work outside town, but it helps that they keep their costs at a minimum as a way of life. “There’s an austerity that’s part of the desire of people who come here,” explains Mauge. “There’s not a desire for consumption to consume. We try to live with what there is.”
Today, the town generates all its own energy with the windmill, solar panels and a water turbine. It also has a wait list of people who’d like to move in, but Mauge says the answer is not for people to join what they have created, but to try to emulate them somewhere else.
“If you set your mind to it and there’s a group of people who want to do it, physically they can do it, economically they can do it. What right now is more difficult is being willing to suffer hardship or difficulties or… these days people have a lot of trouble living in situations of shortage or what is seen as shortage but it isn’t.”
From our own experience going back a few decades, we can say that we lived life at its fullest when we had the least cash and the most friends, all working toward common goals.
Austerity’s getting a bad rap these days, because the term has been coopted by economists to signify the sacrifice of the common good for the sake of private profits.
For Buckminster Fuller the desideratum was synergistic emphemeralization, which he defined as the art of doing more with less. With human communities, the process occurs when we rely more on community and less on commodity, finding the infinite variety of richness that comes from interaction with others in pursuit of common, mutually enriching goals.
So our hat’s off to the people of Lakabe for giving us a glimpse of what’s possible now.
From Salvatore Babones, originally published in Australian Options Magazine and reprinted in Truthout:
Over the past forty years, America has become much more politically correct with regard to gender and sexualiy. Men do not openly display calendars featuring topless models on their office walls, and public gay bashing is now considered inappropriate, even in Republican circles. But gender and sexuality are issues that transcend social class. Even rich, powerful men have gay children – or may be gay themselves. Even rich, powerful men have wives.
On every other issue, America – or at least American politics – has swung violently to the right. The more social class is involved, the further to the right America has swung. Poverty was once a social disease to be cured; it is now an individual crime to be punished. Put it down to individualism, conservatism, neoliberalism, or whatever -ism you want, America is now the world’s greatest reactionary force.
Unfortunately, all the evidence is that the rest of the world is following America down the road to perdition. Nowhere are national health insurance schemes, access to free education, and old age pensions being expanded. Nowhere is the world moving forward. Everywhere the social gains of the twentieth century are either being eroded, or destroyed.
Though he retired in 1988, Tony Lepore returns to duty for 10 days every holiday season for a command performance as the Dancing Cop of Providence, Rhode Island, drawing crowds and smiles as he directs traffic.
In an age when police are becoming militarized and increasing distant from the communities they’re supposed to serve, it’s refreshing to see an officer accomplish his very serious purpose with elan and delight.
From ROAR Magazine and the Syntagma Multimedia Team, signs of hope emerging from the misery being inflicted on the people of Greece by the global banking systems and their minions in government:
The program notes:
ROARMAG.org presents: ‘Utopia on the Horizon’, a documentary for those who chose to struggle.
In May 2011, hundreds of thousands of Greeks swarmed into Syntagma Square in Athens to protest against the firesale of their country, their labor rights and their livelihoods to corrupt domestic elites and foreign financial interests.
In a matter of days, a protest camp was set up — organized on the principles of direct democracy, leaderless self-management and mutual aid — providing a glimpse of utopia in the midst of a devastating financial, political and social crisis. On June 28-29, during a Parliamentary vote on further austerity measures, the state finally responded with brutal force, eventually evicting the protesters from the square and crushing the radical potential of their social experiment.
A year later, Leonidas Oikonomakis and Jérôme Roos — PhD researchers at the European University Institute and co-authors of the activist blog ROARMAG.org — returned to Athens to speak to activists involved in the movement and the occupation of Syntagma Square, as well as WWII resistance hero Manolis Glezos. What follows is this dramatic portrait of a country veering on the brink of collapse; and the people who chose to struggle in order to build a new world on the ruins of the old.
Manolis Glezos, articulate and insightful at age 90, is Greece’s most famous hero from the World War II resistance to Nazi occupation, immortalized in the Greek heart by his daring 30 May 1941 capture of the Nazi flag installed over the Parthenon a month earlier.
The huge influx of corporate cash and a deceptive ad blitz convinced California voters to go against their own interests and defeat Proposition 37, which would’ve required the labeling of food derived from genetically modified organisms.
The gutted news media failed to report on the true scale of deception involved in the campaign, and the source of the paychecks for all those “experts” who appeared in the corporate-sponsored ad blitz. The corporateers won, and handily.
Here in Berkeley, neoliberal Mayor Tom Bates, who rolls over the instant he hears a corporateer’s or a real estate developer’s wallet open, win reelection, but two of his pet measures didn’t.
One, Measure S, was designed to “cleanse” the streets of the homeless, the victims of neoliberalism, by barring them from sitting or lying on the city’s sidewalks. Measure S was defeated by a narrow margin, losing by 1,055 of a total of 33,767 votes cast.
The mayor’s second major proposal, Measure T, would have gutted a citizen-crafted plan for the city’s shoreline region, allowing high-rise development in hopes of attracting “synthetic biology” and other corporate startups spawned by would-be billionaire scientists from the university up the hill.
The measure went down to defeat by 123 votes of a total of 31,611 votes cast.
For complete results from local races, see the Alameda County Registrar of Voters web page and click on “open all categories.”
The deal’s still not done, and the bailout cash remains in limbo, but the coalition finance minister is pledging his Troika troth. But one coalition partner remains firm that it won’t sign off on draconian labor measures beloved of the Men in Black from the North. And the leader of the party currently topping the polls adds a sharp jab. The finance minister fainted, while Prime Minister Antonis Samras sings a choruzs of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”
The Troika’s ready to send in the clowns er technocrats, preapproved by Berlin and Paris, while bondholders say they ain’t a-takin’ no more haircuts. And extension rumors continue.
There’s really bad news for small business and the self-employed, a higher tax rate and the loss of almost all exemptions [gotta pay those bondholders], long-term jobless are left without healthcare, Fitch blesses bank mergers, while the fainting minister cancels a bankster meet.
A major invesment advisory group warns the loss of Coke may reduce Greece to Third World status [really], more strikes are underway, both Syriza and the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn are campaigning in the Big Apple, while the Golden Dawn boss says he’s not a Nazi.
And a Greek television show greets a legislator beaten by a Golden Dawn member with a clown in boxing gloves. Really.
Finance minister swears fealty to Troikarchs
There’s still no done deal, but, by gosh and by golly, Yannis Stournaras is gonna get it done, and just the was the Lords of Money like it.
After all, he’s a man after their own hearts — and, presumably, their help in finding a cushy landing spot after his political careers lies in smoking ruins.
From Agence France-Presse:
Greece will stand by extra reform efforts thrashed out with international creditors, the finance minister said on Thursday, despite resistance to more austerity from within the ruling coalition.
Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras said the government was “pressing on” and that the new measures would be introduced in parliament next week.
The deal is required for Greece to meet demands by its EU-IMF creditors and unlock a 31.2 billion euro ($40.5 billion) installment of rescue loans.
“We do not have any more room (for delay),” said Stournaras, who briefly visited hospital earlier in the day and was diagnosed as suffering from fatigue and a viral infection.
He said Prime Minister Antonis Samaras “is certain that all (coalition) lawmakers will give their consent, especially lawmakers of the calibre of Fotis Kouvelis,” referring to a junior coalition leader who opposes deeper labour reform.
The increasingly outspoken head of the smallest player in the three-party coalition has drawn a line in the sand, and he’s not crossing it — at least for now.
It’s the Troikarch’s austerian impositions on the Greek working class that are the stone in his shoe.
Greek Labor Minister Yannis Vroutsis said negotiations with troika were ongoing on Thursday as objections by the Democratic Left, the coalition’s junior partner, to labor reforms proposed by foreign creditors continued to pose an obstacle to a final rubber stamp on the deal. In comments to Parliament’s internal affairs committee – as Kathimerini online reports -, Vroutsis said the three parties in the coalition had done their best to minimize the social impact of the austerity measures and called on lawmakers to await the outcome of a Euro Working Group meeting in Brussels where Greece is topping the agenda.
The executive committee of Democratic Left was to reconvene at 5.30 p.m. on Thursday to discuss the thorny issue of labor reforms once again. Although party officials concede that the new agreement on labor reforms achieved by Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras is ‘’improved’‘, they believe that outstanding issues must still be resolved.
Party spokesman Nikos Tsoukalis said Democratic Left’s stance ‘’represents something different in the political scene and sets out the limits to the negotiation.’‘ Finance minister Yannis Stournaras, for his part, rebuffed reports that the controversial labor reforms would be revoked.
And when the meeting ended, the announcement followed, one certain to upset Samaras.
The center-left Dimar party, the smallest in the government’s three-party coalition, announced it will vote against the labor reform agreed to with the Troika of creditors; the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF. The reforms are part of a package of austerity measures needed to release a new bailout.
“We are asking the Troika to withdraw these proposals,” said party representative, Sakis Papathanasiou, in a TV interview. The government announced it has ended negotiations with the Troika on the austerity program
The standoff puts Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, in a difficult position since his finance minister has publicly rejected any changes before the reforms are put to the Greek parliament. A rejection by Democratic Left could put the programme at risk since centre-left Pasok, the second largest party in the coalition, could face defections without Mr Kouvelis’ support.
“Let’s hope everything will be OK at the end,” said a senior government official.
Number one party weighs in
Number one in current public opinion polls, and the left’s alternative to hacks of Pasok.
Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras delivers his latest rebuke of the the government’s submission to the Troikarchs.
From Athens News:
Pressure takes its toll on finance minister
It’s gotten so intense that bodies are dropping.
Literally.
From Keep Talking Greece:
Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Stournaras was rushed to hospital on Thursday morning after he suddenly fell uneasy. According to Greek media, doctors diagnosed ‘overworking’ and a virus infection. Stournaras did not stay in the hospital. Doctors advised him to take a day off.
A discussion in the parliament scheduled for today has been postponed.
He’s puttin’ on a happy face, and hoping folks buy it.
From Al Yunaniya:
Antonis Samaras argued: “The negotiation continues, I will not back down… I know very well what is at stake today for the country. For three months now, every day, we are changing the image of Greece. And we are negotiating under the most difficult circumstances to get the country out of the recession.
We already have changed many original proposals by troika on labour and other issues as well. And he negotiation continues. The only criterion for me is Greece and its future. I will not back down on this responsibility. And I do not want to think what would happen if I do not keep my hands firmly on the wheel. I look only forward, seeking the greatest possible unity. Greece will be saved by those of us who will dare.”
Sources say the Prime Minister said that the final deadline for agreement amongst political parties should be reached by Thursday.
Send in the technocrats, German- and French-approved
Them what’s got the gold make the rules, and the latest shot called by the folks to the North and West is a task force of the World’s Finest Technocrats™ summoned to invade the country and instruct Greeks in The Rules™.
From ANSA:
International experts and consultants supported by France and Germany could be brought in to help the Greek government, sources said Thursday.
Those two European allies are prepared to help Athens “regain the confidence of investors,” a high-ranking source told ANSA.
Meetings have been ongoing this week to find a solution to Greece’s debt woes and clear the way for billions more in euro aid.
One of the top eurobanksters proposed another haircut for those folks holding Greek bonds, a proposals greeted with some relief in Greece.
One only problem.
The folks who hold the bonds aren’t having it.
From Capital.gr:
European authorities have not contacted the International Institute of Finance about plans to let Greece buy back its bonds at current market prices to reduce it debt level, IIF Managing Director Charles Dallara said during a press briefing Wednesday, says mninews.
According to the report, the IIF, which helped negotiate the private sector involvement in Greece’s restructuring, would not be in favor of such a deal, Dallara said.
European Central Bank Executive Board member Joerg Asmussen recently floated the idea of the Greek government using borrowed funds to buy back its own sovereign debt from financial markets at current depressed prices in order to reduce its debt ratio.
“At the moment it looks like Greece’s debt level will rise to well above the target of 120 percent of GDP by 2020,” Asmussen said. “Thus, one has to consider elements that could make it possible to achieve that goal. One possibility would be buying back debt.”
“The best use of any additional available Eurozone-related funds to cover that [financing] gap would be to help take down the interest charges of Greek debt, not use the funds for market based buy backs which after all do not address the heart of the problem today,” Dallara said.
There’s a new flat tax for that will mean a lot of grief for the self-employed and small businesses, already reeling from the impacts of the crash and reduced demands for their services and goods.
Not only does the measure raise taxes for the lowest-paid, but it also strips away most of their deductions.
From ANSAmed:
A flat tax rate of 28% is set to apply in Greece to all those who are self-employed and to enterprises. The new tax bill, as daily Kathimerini unveiled today, includes radical changes in the taxation Continue reading →
Leading off tomorrow night’s event will be Bob Meister, president of the Council of UC Faculty Associations [CUCFA] and Professor of Political and Social Thought at UC Santa Cruz. Click on the image to enlarge:
Debt is a permanent feature of most of our lives. Yet the socialization of risk debt represents isolates individuals, locking us in the private misery of our dealings with banks and creditors. Medical debt, student debt, consumer debt, foreclosures — these social forms mark so many personal failings and moral obligations, we are told. Debt, in other words, not only insures our continued servitude to the corporate pursuit of dwindling private profits. It also serves to alienate us from one another, and foreclose the possibility of collective resistance. Debtors’ Assemblies, then, are a first step in fighting back to reclaim our stolen futures. Please join us Wednesday, October 24th from 5-6 in front of California Hall for the first in a series of weekly Debtors’ Assemblies to learn more about the many forms of debt and discuss ways to resist debt’s claim upon our lives. Robert Meister will speak briefly at the beginning of the first assembly.
From Robert Skidelsky, Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University and Fellow of the British Academy:
In rich societies over the last three decades, mean incomes have been rising steadily, but typical incomes have been stagnating or even falling. In other words, a minority – a very small minority in countries like the United States and Britain – has captured most of the gains of growth. In such cases, it is not more growth that we want, but more equality.
More equality would not only produce the contentment that flows from more security and better health, but also the satisfaction that flows from having more leisure, more time with family and friends, more respect from one’s fellows, and more lifestyle choices. Great inequality makes us hungrier for goods than we would otherwise be, by constantly reminding us that we have less than the next person. We live in a pushy society with turbo-charged fathers and “tiger” mothers, constantly goading themselves and their children to “get ahead.”
The nineteenth-century philosopher John Stuart Mill had a more civilized view:
“I confess I am not charmed with the ideal of life held out by those who think…that the trampling, crushing, elbowing, and treading on each other’s heels, which form the existing type of social life, are the most desirable lot of human kind….The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back, by the efforts of others to push themselves forward.”
From SUNY labor economist Lisa Krall, via The Daly News:
Perhaps the real question of progress is not how to forge a new energy frontier, but how to forge a different model of economic organization and purpose, a model that isn’t predicated on never-ending growth and a belief that there are no real biophysical limits.
Today’s America has become a surveillance state on a scale never before seen, with local law enforcement effectively merged with super-secret federal agencies in an unprecedented effort to sniff out the slightest scent of dissent.
One result, as we’ve seen in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been the merger of law enforcement efforts through federally created “fusion centers” and programs which bring local law enforcement officers [including the University of California campus cops] together with the notoriously brutal Israeli border police to learn how to beat protesters into submission.
Hell, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department is even getting its own drone, though presumably not equipped with Hellfire missiles.
When Boston Police Spy on Free Speech, Democracy Suffers
By Nancy Murray, Education Director, ACLU of Massachusetts at 9:51am
Psst! Check out this super-secret Boston Police “intelligence report”:
Local activists have been trying to get ‘celebrity guest speakers’ (Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon) for the March 24th demonstration, but at this time it appears that they have been unable to book any of these speakers for their event.
But some well-known speakers will be there. According to this intelligence report,” compiled by the Boston police under the heading “Criminal Act–Groups-Extremists,” among them will be Cindy Sheehan and a “BU professor emeritus/activist” whose name is redacted–it was the late Howard Zinn.
Under what interpretation of the US and Massachusetts Constitutions can the non-violent First Amendment activity of groups like Veterans for Peace and United for Justice with Peace be routinely classified as a criminal act?
If you have glanced at the US Senate subcommittee report on fusion centers that came out earlier this month, you may not be surprised to hear that Boston’s fusion center has been collecting dubious “intelligence” and violating civil liberties in the process.
Fusion centers were set up in the aftermath of 9/11 to facilitate the sharing of “terrorism-related” information among local, state, and federal law enforcement and private entities. But the Senate subcommittee report finds that the nation’s 70 or so fusion centers (the exact number is in dispute–DHS, which contributed the seed funding for the centers, doesn’t know how many exist today) have not uncovered a single terrorist plot.
Indeed, the spying centers have produced “nothing of value,” and instead needlessly duplicate the “more efficient information-sharing process already in place between local police and the FBI-led Terrorist Screening Center.”
Their output is often, in the words of one government official, “a bunch of crap.”
Much of it is also “potentially illegal,” according to the US Senate report, because it falls foul of federal privacy regulations and Department of Homeland Security guidelines that forbid the routine monitoring of groups and individuals unless there is reason to suspect them of criminal activity.
And yet we now know that the BRIC, local and state police and the FBI have worked together to monitor and create “intelligence reports” on groups and individuals where there is no demonstrated link to crime or terrorism. There are indications that these illegal reports have been shared around the country, just how widely we don’t know.
Given the secrecy surrounding the “information-sharing” surveillance systems that have been erected since 9/11 and the lack of any accountability mechanisms, we can’t determine exactly where reports generated by the BRIC end up. Inaccurate information could have found a permanent home in a myriad government–and even private–databases, with harm to lives that can never be repaired.
The documents we received in response to our lawsuit demonstrate that the BRIC cannot effectively police itself.
According to the BRIC’s guidelines, “intelligence reports” that do not reference criminal activity should be destroyed after 90 days. And yet we obtained reports that should never have been written in the first place and were still being retained after five years. Why should it take an ACLU/NLG lawsuit to highlight the BRIC’s failure to enforce its own rules?
We know the political surveillance revealed in these documents wastes scarce tax dollars and police resources that would be better focused on building community trust and solving actual crimes.
And we know that political spying is bad for democracy.
You can view this videotape to hear some of the peace activists who have been monitored by the police or questioned about their personal beliefs talk about the “chilling impact” such surveillance can have on such core American values as freedom of expression and assembly.
Today, we are calling on the Boston Police to cease the routine surveillance of peaceful protests and the monitoring of individuals who take part in them.
16 October 2012, Nikon D300, ISO 3200, 60 mm, 1/8000 sec, f2.8
Civil sidewalks. Sounds like a good idea, right? People should be civil to each other when they share the sidewalks, no?
So voting for civility on the sidewalks sounds like a good idea.
Ah, but what does it really mean?
It’s simply that Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, at the direction of the business community, wants a law that bans folks from sitting or lying on sidewalks.
It’s all about ridding the streets of homeless people, though the Occupy folks would also qualify under the mayor’s measure, which Berkeley voters will decide on during the November election.
From Cunning Hired Knaves, written in the wake of the reelection of Hugo Chavez:
For the popular classes of Venezuela, the words ‘sovereignty’ and ‘independence’ are inconceivable without other words, such as justice, equality, freedom, struggle, democracy, and –yes- socialism. In Ireland, by contrast, ‘sovereignty’ and ‘independence’ amount to little more than catchwords bandied about by ruling elites to justify one more raid on all that is held in common. Is your community being stripped of its public services? Excellent: one more step towards getting our sovereignty back! Has your mother been moaning in agony on a hospital trolley for the last twenty four hours? Wonderful: her sacrifice will see us on the road to independence once again! Have your home help hours been cut? Excellent: your helplessness at home is a solid indicator of our sovereignty regained! Are you fleeing the fear of shame and deprivation in search of a job in Canada or Australia? Marvellous: we value our independence too highly to have you depending on us.
Costa Mesa Mayor Proposes To Shut Down Soup Kitchens To Deal With Homeless Problem
Kind of reminds us of another anti-homeless move happening right here in Berkeley, pushed by our own corporate-friendly mayor Tom Bates and to be decided on by Berkeley voters next month, as noted in this MSNBC headline:
One of the few items on this year’s ballot we can wholeheartedly endorse is Proposition 37, the California ballot measure requiring labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms.
With that in mind, here’s a plea from Food & Water Watch featuring some familiar faces:
“What makes you think you have the right to know?” asks Danny DeVito in a witty, ironic public service announcement by the political action committee sponsored by consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch in support of Proposition 37. California’s ballot initiative to label genetically engineered foods. A diverse, all-star cast joins DeVito in the “Right to Know” PSA, including Bill Maher, Dave Matthews, Jillian Michaels, Emily Deschanel, John Cho, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, KaDee Strickland and Kristin Bauer van Straten.
A very important meeting tonight in Berkeley will confront some of the most important issues of the day, both for folks concerned about the future of the University of California and for the world.
A creation in chalk spotted on the wall of a ventilation shaft for the downtown Berkeley BART [rail transit] system on Shattuck Avenue in the heart of downtown Berkeley:
1 October 2012, Nikon D300, ISO 450, 60 mm, 1/30 sec, f7.1
And a detail. . .
1 October 2012, Nikon D300, ISO 250, 60 mm, 1/30 sec, f7.1
The nation’s only Independent Senator, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders makes excellent political sense. Here’s the latest session of Thom Hartmann’s weekly RT Town Hall with Sanders.
What we found truly insightful were Sanders’ comments on Social Security and the unprecedented power of intimidation handed corporations in the Citizens United decision. The result: “It is not Congress which regulates Wall Street. . .but Wall Street which regulates Congress.”
But what we found especially interesting was the insight Sanders provoked, the recollection that what Sanders is saying was once mainstream Democratic Party discourse in the 1960’s. While Sanders is a social democrat by inclination, he’s alienated from the Democrats and has carved out a niche for himself speaking common sense. He can do this because he’s not linked to the cowering Democratic Party and because he lives in a state with a small, independent-minded population.
Listening to Sanders is a sad reminder of just how far the Democrats have shifted to the Right, driven by their dependence on corporate and bankster funds in campaigns where 30-second broadcast commercials rule.
Lydon Johnson waged a War on Poverty, and Bobby Kennedy campaigned for the presidency on a peace and social justice platform. Now we have administrations which stack their cabinets with banksters and corporateers [consider Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture, the Man from Monsanto].
Alexis Tsipras, leader of Greek leftist coalition Syriza leader, in an interview by Eduardo Febbro for the Argentinian newspaper Página/12, translated by Cunning Hired Knaves blogger Richard McAleavey:
My generation entered politics as a very small force in the universities and colleges when there was a near complete hegemony of neoliberalism, when there were economic growth rates that were huge but at the same time abstract and when the examples of the good life were those of super-consumerism. Now we are in a different reality. Today, in Greece, half of young people between 24 and 35 have no job. They are condemning that generation to live a lot worse than their parents, they are condemning them to live without dreams. What we can give and say to this generation is that in its consciousness it has to recover hope within struggle. In order to rebuild those destroyed lives a better future has to be built, there is no other way. Social justice and dignity are two very important things for a generation that wants to win its future back.
