protests and riots

(updated Fri 12.11.)

I'm writing something about Wednesday's protests and riots, here's a reading list of stuff I liked:

Spending cuts: the fightback begins by John Harris

"What happened on Wednesday afternoon was not some meaningless rent-a-mob flare-up, nor an easily-ignored howl of indignation from some of society's more privileged citizens. It was an early sign of people growing anxious and restless, and what a government pledged to such drastic plans should increasingly expect."

Student protest: we're all in this together by Nina Power

"It was a protest against the narrowing of horizons; a protest against Lib Dem hypocrisy; a protest against the increasingly utilitarian approach to human life that sees degrees as nothing but "investments" by individuals, and denies any link between education and the broader social good."

Inside the Millbank riots by Laurie Penny.

"It's scary, isn't it?" I ask. The boy shrugs. "Yeah," he says, "I suppose it is scary. But frankly..." He lights up, cradling the contraband fag, "frankly, it's not half as scary as what's happening to our future."

Browne's Gamble Stefan Collini in th London Review of Books

"But while it may be true that the present system embodies an unnecessary pretence that all institutions called universities perform the same set of functions, it is no good deluding ourselves that simply leaving 18-year-old applicants to cash in their vouchers at a university of their choice will lead to a more intelligently conceived provision of diverse, high-quality institutions. It may just lead to a few private jets and a lot of Ryanairs."

Oxford Education Campaign Facebook page







Flickr groups and tags:

Anglia Ruskin Student Union
tag "studentmarch"
Protests ... group






Oh, and here is LibDem leader Nick Clegg speaking about tuition fees before the election:





Tweet

shock doctrine

I've read an interesting extract from Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine. Her thesis is that the current brand of neoliberal / globalized capitalism thrives not so much on freedom but on disasters which create a "clean slate" and often suspend democratic process and human rights, giving the swift commercial operator a unique chance to move in.

Click Shock Doctrine for extracts, an interview with the author, and more.

PS: In other news, while I was looking for the shock doctrine page, I found the Guardian headline: "Buying sex could become a crime"

I couldn't help thinking that this would make a large number of marriages illegal ...

neoliberalism

I've been wondering for a while why this new type of capitalism we see eating away our public services and infrastructures is spreading so aggressively now (while it wasn't happening, say, in the 60s and 70s). Last week George Monbiot published a comment that answered some of my questions:

How the neoliberals stitched up the wealth of nations for themselves

And this week he showed a nice example of how a private/public funding initiative (PFI) wrecked a hospital that would have needed 30 million pounds of public money for refurbishment. Now it needs 30 million pounds every year to service the debt to the private investors. Madness or what ?


This great free-market experiment is more like a corporate welfare scheme

Oh well. I'm wondering how long this whole bubble will last before it all ends in tears ...