Tag: dkpol

Dagens citat: Revolutionens vildveje

Peter Kropotkin om, hvordan det alt for ofte går umiddelbart efter en “revolution” – fra hans bog The Conquest of Bread:

In several large towns the Commune is proclaimed. In the streets wander scores of thousands of men, and in the evening they crowd into improvised clubs, asking: “What shall we do?” and ardently discuss public affairs. All take an interest in them; those who yesterday were quite indifferent are perhaps the most zealous. Everywhere there is plenty of good-will and a keen desire to make victory certain. It is a time when acts of supreme devotion are occurring. The masses of the people are full of the desire of going forward.

All this is splendid, sublime; but still, it is not a revolution. Nay, it is only now that the work of the revolutionist begins.

Doubtless there will be acts of vengeance. The Watrins and the Thomases will pay the penalty of their unpopularity; but these are mere incidents of the struggle—not the revolution.

Socialist politicians, radicals, neglected geniuses of journalism, stump orators—both middle-class people and workmen—will hurry to the Town Hall, to the Government offices, to take possession of the vacant seats. Some will decorate themselves with gold and silver lace to their hearts’ content, admire themselves in ministerial mirrors, and study to give orders with an air of importance appropriate to their new position. How could they impress their comrades of the office or the workshop without having a red sash, an embroidered cap, and magisterial gestures! Others will bury themselves in official[Pg 19] papers, trying, with the best of wills, to make head or tail of them. They will indite laws and issue high-flown worded decrees that nobody will take the trouble to carry out—because revolution has come.

To give themselves an authority which they have not they will seek the sanction of old forms of Government. They will take the names of “Provisional Government,” “Committee of Public Safety,” “Mayor,” “Governor of the Town Hall,” “Commissioner of Public Safety,” and what not. Elected or acclaimed, they will assemble in Boards or in Communal Councils, where men of ten or twenty different schools will come together, representing—not as many “private chapels,” as it is often said, but as many different conceptions regarding the scope, the bearing, and the goal of the revolution. Possibilists, Collectivists, Radicals, Jacobins, Blanquists, will be thrust together, and waste time in wordy warfare. Honest men will be huddled together with the ambitious ones, whose only dream is power and who spurn the crowd whence they are sprung. All coming together with diametrically opposed views, all—forced to enter into ephemeral alliances, in order to create majorities that can but last a day. Wrangling, calling each other reactionaries, authoritarians, and rascals, incapable of coming to an understanding on any serious measure, dragged into discussions about trifles, producing nothing better than bombastic proclamations; all giving themselves an awful importance while the real strength of the movement is in the streets.

All this may please those who like the stage, but it is not revolution. Nothing has been accomplished as yet.

And meanwhile the people suffer. The factories are idle, the workshops closed; trade is at a standstill. The worker does not even earn the meagre wage which was his before. Food goes up in price. With that heroic devotion which has always characterized them, and which in great crises reaches the sublime, the people will wait patiently. “We place these three months of want at the service of the Republic,” they said in 1848, while “their representatives” and the gentlemen of the new Government, down to the meanest Jack-in-office received their salary regularly.

Tænk blot på komissærernes magtovertagelse efter den russiske revolution i 1917, og et tilsvarende forløb i alle andre revolutioner, som jeg kan komme i tanker om. Løsningen er, mener Kropotkin, at revolutionens “ledere”, hvis der er nogen, må tage ansvar for hele folkets velbefindende frem for at fokusere på deres egen betydning:

We must recognize, and loudly proclaim, that every one, whatever his grade in the old society, whether strong or weak, capable or incapable, has, before everything, THE RIGHT TO LIVE, and that society is bound to share amongst all, without exception, the means of existence it has at its disposal. We must acknowledge this, and proclaim it aloud, and act up to it.Affairs must be managed in such a way that from the first[Pg 21] day of the revolution the worker shall know that a new era is opening before him; that henceforward none need crouch under the bridges, while palaces are hard by, none need fast in the midst of plenty, none need perish with cold near shops full of furs; that all is for all, in practice as well as in theory, and that at last, for the first time in history, a revolution has been accomplished which considers the NEEDS of the people before schooling them in their DUTIES.

Juletræet i Kokkedal – i den store verden

Sagen dækkes nu på hjemmesiden opendemocracy.net. Det er ikke ligefrem gavnligt for Danmarks i forvejen flossede omdømme:

The rich repertoire of exclusionist politics, cultural homogeneity, anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances [in Denmark] are only temporarily silenced under the effects of the crisis.

Unsurprisingly the story was soon co-opted and amplified by most of the populist right wing voices in the country. The Muslim members of the housing association board became the living evidence of what they, the ignored whistle-blowers, had predicted a long time ago. This version of events duly legitimized a new round of debate on value politics and cultural differences, the incompatibility of Islam with western, Christian values and Muslims’ undemocratic and intolerant ‘nature’. The story was also used as proof of how Muslims in the west misuse democratic rules when they finally get involved in democratic organs – and operate to replace Christian traditions with Islamic ones.

This logic was clearly and immediately underscored by the Danish People’s Party (DPP), whose spokesman on immigration and integration, MP Martin Henriksen, declared that ’this is the sign of a cultural clash between the Danish and the Muslim culture that has been there a long time – and if we do not fight back, we will lose even more of our own culture’, warning that this is what happens when ‘they [Muslims] get the majority’. To tackle the case itself, the DPP suggested passing a law regulating how housing associations decide on matters of Danish values and traditions. The party also bought the residents a free Christmas tree and organized a public meeting with Danish Christmas cookies and gløgg.

On his blog, another DPP MP, Søren Espersen, criticised the people who were ‘trying to minimize the event’ – the same who denied the worrying ‘problems’ of ‘the Ramadan dinner, the Muslim veil […] and the halal meat debate’. For Espersen, the build-up of these situations must be an indication of the gravity of the situation – a problem of which, of course, only the DPP had grasped the full importance.

[…]

Revealing in this respect was an article published by the tabloid Ekstra Bladet only a few days after the Christmas tree incident. The story reported the follow finding: ‘90 percent of those applying for Christmas help are Muslims’. The piece reported that 20 out of 22 applications for Christmas help in a Church Salvation Army district in Northern Jutland came from persons with clear Muslim names. The link with the Christmas tree story was explicit and the underlying assumptions very clear: why should these people get our Christmas help, when they refuse to celebrate the holiday and attempt to abolish it? Shouldn’t we rather help our Danish Christians?

Why doesn’t anybody stand up to these discourses?

The most worrying aspect of this controversy was the total lack of response from the other side. This national debate, triggered by a minor local decision, shows how difficult it is for voices that oppose culturalist logics to generate any significant counter-debate on these issues. Concerned about the negative reactions that this would produce among the public opinion and their potential voters, the people’s representatives prefer to silence these concerns, hoping to contain the echo and keep away from discussing value politics for as long as possible. Those who violently oppose non-western immigration could make their point – extensively. And the voices that should have contradicted them were nowhere to be heard.

Suk, og hvor har de ret.

Politiet tog mine ting – hvor skal jeg gå hen og klage?

Modkraft.dk har interviewet Aritz Alberdi Arabadaza, der har mistet alle sine ting, da politiet kørte 50 hjemløses ejendele på Forbrændingen.

Fra Modkrafts artikel om Aritz:

Aritz Alberdi Arabadaza kommer fra Baskerlandet og er taget til Danmark for at finde arbejde.

Ligesom de godt 30 andre, der fik taget deres ejendele, overnatter og spiser han inde på hjemløsecaféen Grace i Stengade, der er lige ved siden af parken.

Artiz Alberdi Arabadaza hænger som mange andre sine ting i træerne i parken på Nørrebro, fordi de ikke må have dem opbevaret på hjemløsecaféen.

Men meget tyder på, at det nu bliver svært for ham at arbejde i Danmark.

Han havde en jobsamtale i dag (fredag, red.), men kan ikke få arbejdstilladelse uden sit pas.

– Hvor skal jeg gå hen for at klage? Hvor kan jeg få hjælp nu, siger han fortvivlet og forklarer, at ingen fik nogen information om, hvor tingene ville blive taget hen.

Politiet ville simpelthen ikke lytte på nogen protester fra de tilstedeværende.

Er det virkelig så anerkendt, at hjemløse er anden rangs mennesker, at man uden videre har lov at køre deres ejendele på forbrændingen? Kunne man forestille sig en lignende fremgangsmåde over for folk, der er mistænkt for at snyde i skat? Folk, der sover på gaden og/eller opbevarer deres ejendele i en park gør i det mindste ikke skade på andre.

Nej til forbud mod omskæring af drenge:

Rune Engelbreth Larsen rammer hovedet på sømmet:

Når spørgsmålet om et forbud mod drengeomskæring på den anden side ikke er helt så enkelt, skyldes det naturligvis en række yderligere overvejelser, der også, men ikke kun har at gøre med den årtusindlange tradition, idet et forbud vil få andre uoverskuelige følger, der ikke er begrænset til arealet af den pågældende drengs forhud.

Det er jo ganske indiskutabelt, at drengeomskæring vil fortsætte i stort tal illegalt efter et forbud, og at de hygiejniske forhold i givet fald næppe altid vil være optimale. Og går det galt, risikerer man, at ofrene ikke kommer på hospitalet, fordi det ville afsløre familien bag det ulovlige indgreb. Selv meget beskedne komplikationer kan med andre ord blive mange gange forværret.

En del muslimer og jøder ville utvivlsomt forlade Danmark i tilfælde af et forbud, hvilket kan tilfredsstille nogle, som hverken bryder sig om jøder eller muslimer. Men dermed er resultatet jo igen et andet end det tilsigtede (retten til selv at bestemme som voksen og myndig, om man ønsker medicinsk unødvendige indgreb foretaget eller ej), for nu foretages indgrebet bare uden for landets grænser.

Og hvordan skal forbudet håndhæves? Enhver jødisk og muslimsk familie vil selvfølgelig være under mistanke, og skal muslimske og jødiske drengebørn så tvangstjekkes af læger, eventuelt i følgeskab med politifolk og sagsbehandlere? Og hvad hvis de skjuler deres religiøsitet – hvor megen mistanke skal myndighederne have om den ‘forkerte’ religiøsitet, før de kan tvinge bukserne af drengene? Hudfarve? Etnicitet?

Læs bare det hele.

Man gyser ved tanken om brigader af socialrådgivere af politifolk, der drager ud i de jødiske og muslimske hjem og trækker bukserne af drengebørnene – som det i øvrigt også er sket for pigebørn i familier af somalisk herkomst. En slags institutionaliseret seksuel krænkelse eller i hvert fald ydmygelse, som forbuddet ville legitimere.

Ideen om et forbud er velment, men ikke gennemtænkt.

Næstved Kommune og Amy-sagen

Adventures and Japes siger det, der skal siges:

The borough council decided to put her in a group home. [Børne- og kulturdirektør i Næstved Kommune]  Per B Christensen said the following:-

“Her problems are too much for a foster family to handle.

She needs to be placed with professionals who can distance themselves emotionally.”

Bear in mind, psychologists are saying that’s exactly what she doesn’t need in their professional opinion. (Because it is emotional neglect and it will scar her beyond repair.)

That Per B Christensen can say of an 11 year old child who has been traumatised by rejection and physical abuse that what she really needs is to be brought up by strangers who will never love her shows how inhuman Per B Christensen is. How dare Per B Christensen? How DARE he dress up saving money as meeting a vulnerable child’s needs? What sort of man is Per B Christensen? I don’t know if Per B Christensen has children or nieces/nephews but I sincerely doubt that if any of them were traumatised before their teens that he would recommend that they be institutionalised because their needs were too great.

The borough council have also banned Amy from seeing her sister and the foster parents she was thriving with. This is sheer vindictiveness.

Du kan følge Politikens dækning af sagen her.

Tanke om rugbrødsreformen

Regeringens plan om at lade overførselsindkomsterne regulere efter inflationen og ikke efter reallønnen i samfundet vækker harme hos mange socialt bevidste, fordi det vil udhule værdien af disse. Konsekvensen er, at arbejdsløse og pensionister kommer til at sakke endnu mere bagud i forhold til resten af samfundet.

Men. Virkeligheden er, at Danmark ud fra et økologisk og globalt synspunkt forbruger alt for meget, har for stort CO2-udslip og gør et langt større indhug i de globale energi- og råstof-ressourcer, end befolkningen på fem millioner berettiger os til. Hvis Danmark ønsker at følge en økologisk og klimamæssigt bæredygtig udvikling de næste 10-15 år – og det ville ærligt talt være en rigtig god idé – vil reallønnen komme til at falde, mens priserne stiger uændret. Og så vil overførselsindkomsterne, hvis den nye regulering fastholdes, faktisk vokse hurtigere end den almindelige løn.

Klima-aftrykket og ressourcernes fundamentale endelighed tilsiger faktisk, at Danmark kommer til at skære ned på forbrug, realløn, levestandard, velstand – kald det, hvad I vil. Den globale udvikling kan meget let komme til ganske ufrivilligt at pålægge os en sådan “forbrugsjustering”. Tricket bliver efter min mening og fra et humanistisk perspektiv at gøre det, så alle sikres og ingen bliver fattige. Dette er ikke, hvad jeg mistænker regeringen for at være ude på, men betydningen af den aktuelle skattereform blegner måske alligevel ved sammenligningen.

Eller også gør den ikke. Brug gerne kommentarfeltet til at fortælle, hvad (om noget) der er galt med ovenstående betragtninger.

Stephen King: Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake!

Forfatteren Stephen King, som du måske har hørt om (hvis du ikke har læst nogen af hans bøger har du med sikkerhed set en film, der er baseret på én), har et indlæg i The Daily Beast, hvor han brokker sig over, at folk som ham ikke skal betale meget mere i skat.

Det er værd at læse, ikke mindst i lys af tidens hyldest også af en bestemt, afdød dansk rigmand :

Most rich folks paying 28 percent taxes do not give out another 28 percent of their income to charity. Most rich folks like to keep their dough. They don’t strip their bank accounts and investment portfolios. They keep them and then pass them on to their children, their children’s children. And what they do give away is—like the monies my wife and I donate—totally at their own discretion. That’s the rich-guy philosophy in a nutshell: don’t tell us how to use our money; we’ll tell you.

The Koch brothers are right-wing creepazoids, but they’re giving right-wing creepazoids. Here’s an example: 68 million fine American dollars to Deerfield Academy. Which is great for Deerfield Academy. But it won’t do squat for cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where food fish are now showing up with black lesions. It won’t pay for stronger regulations to keep BP (or some other bunch of dipshit oil drillers) from doing it again. It won’t repair the levees surrounding New Orleans. It won’t improve education in Mississippi or Alabama. But what the hell—them li’l crackers ain’t never going to go to Deerfield Academy anyway. Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.

Here’s another crock of fresh bullshit delivered by the right wing of the Republican Party (which has become, so far as I can see, the only wing of the Republican Party): the richer rich people get, the more jobs they create. Really? I have a total payroll of about 60 people, most of them working for the two radio stations I own in Bangor, Maine. If I hit the movie jackpot—as I have, from time to time—and own a piece of a film that grosses $200 million, what am I going to do with it? Buy another radio station? I don’t think so, since I’m losing my shirt on the ones I own already. But suppose I did, and hired on an additional dozen folks. Good for them. Whoopee-ding for the rest of the economy.

At the risk of repeating myself, here’s what rich folks do when they get richer: they invest. A lot of those investments are overseas, thanks to the anti-American business policies of the last four administrations. Don’t think so? Check the tag on that T-shirt or gimme cap you’re wearing. If it says MADE IN AMERICA, I’ll … well, I won’t say I’ll eat your shorts, because some of that stuff is made here, but not much of it. And what does get made here doesn’t get made by America’s small cadre of pluted bloatocrats; it’s made, for the most part, in barely-gittin’-by factories in the Deep South, where the only unions people believe in are those solemnized at the altar of the local church (as long as they’re from different sexes, that is).

I guess some of this mad right-wing love comes from the idea that in America, anyone can become a Rich Guy if he just works hard and saves his pennies. Mitt Romney has said, in effect, “I’m rich and I don’t apologize for it.” Nobody wants you to, Mitt. What some of us want—those who aren’t blinded by a lot of bullshit persiflage thrown up to mask the idea that rich folks want to keep their damn money—is for you to acknowledge that you couldn’t have made it in America without America. That you were fortunate enough to be born in a country where upward mobility is possible (a subject upon which Barack Obama can speak with the authority of experience), but where the channels making such upward mobility possible are being increasingly clogged. That it’s not fair to ask the middle class to assume a disproportionate amount of the tax burden. Not fair? It’s un-fucking-American is what it is. I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share. That our civics classes never taught us that being American means that—sorry, kiddies—you’re on your own. That those who have received much must be obligated to pay—not to give, not to “cut a check and shut up,” in Governor Christie’s words, but to pay—in the same proportion. That’s called stepping up and not whining about it. That’s called patriotism, a word the Tea Partiers love to throw around as long as it doesn’t cost their beloved rich folks any money.

Læs det hele!