Without a
doubt, the practical establishment of this world of struggle would
not succeed so completely without the complicity of all of the
precarious arrangements that produce insecurity and of the
existence of a reserve army of employees rendered docile by
these social processes that make their situations precarious,
as well as by the permanent threat of unemployment. This
reserve army exists at all levels of the hierarchy, even at the
higher levels, especially among managers. The ultimate foundation
of this entire economic order placed under the sign of freedom is
in effect the structural violence of unemployment, of the
insecurity of job tenure and the menace of layoff that it implies.
The condition of the "harmonious" functioning of the individualist
micro-economic model is a mass phenomenon, the existence of a
reserve army of the unemployed.
Mediarena 2012 - 0 views
Israel's politics of war | openDemocracy - 0 views
Bourdieu on neoliberalism - 0 views
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Economists may not necessarily share the economic and social interests of the true believers and may have a variety of individual psychic states regarding the economic and social effects of the utopia which they cloak with mathematical reason. Nevertheless, they have enough specific interests in the field of economic science to contribute decisively to the production and reproduction of belief in the neoliberal utopia. Separated from the realities of the economic and social world by their existence and above all by their intellectual formation, which is most frequently purely abstract, bookish, and theoretical, they are particularly inclined to confuse the things of logic with the logic of things.
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All direct and conscious intervention of whatever kind, at least when it comes from the state, is discredited in advance and thus condemned to efface itself for the benefit of a pure and anonymous mechanism, the market, whose nature as a site where interests are exercised is forgotten. But in reality, what keeps the social order from dissolving into chaos, despite the growing volume of the endangered population, is the continuity or survival of those very institutions and representatives of the old order that is in the process of being dismantled, and all the work of all of the categories of social workers, as well as all the forms of social solidarity, familial or otherwise.
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Latin America's Document-Driven Revolutions - washingtonpost.com - 0 views
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This article makes important points about current Latin American constitution-writing but does not examine how such constitutions were written in the first place. The ability of people to argue that the Honduran constitution supports a coup, shows the importance of knowing the history of Latin American constitutions.
Inferring the Popularity of an Opinion From Its Familiarity: A Repetitive Voice Can Sou... - 0 views
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Despite the importance of doing so, people do not always correctly estimate the distribution of opinions within their group. One important mechanism underlying such misjudgments is people's tendency to infer that a familiar opinion is a prevalent one, even when its familiarity derives solely from the repeated expression of 1 group member. Six experiments demonstrate this effect and show that it holds even when
perceivers are consciously aware that the opinions come from 1 speaker. The results also indicate that the effect is due to opinion accessibility rather than a conscious inference about the meaning of opinion repetition in a group. Implications for social consensus estimation and social influence are discussed.
A Basic Income for All | Philippe Van Parijs (2000) - 0 views
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productivity, wealth, and national incomes have advanced sufficiently far to support an adequate UBI. And if enacted, a basic income would serve as a powerful instrument of social justice: it would promote real freedom for all by providing the material resources that people need to pursue their aims. At the same time, it would help to solve the policy dilemmas of poverty and unemployment, and serve ideals associated with both the feminist and green movements.
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in 1999, the Alaska Permanent Fund paid each person of whatever age who had been living in Alaska for at least one year an annual UBI of $1,680.
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By universal basic income I mean an income paid by a government, at a uniform level and at regular intervals, to each adult member of society. The grant is paid, and its level is fixed, irrespective of whether the person is rich or poor, lives alone or with others, is willing to work or not. In most versions–certainly in mine–it is granted not only to citizens, but to all permanent residents.
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If you really care about freedom, give people an unconditional income at a level sufficient for subsistence. Productivity, wealth, and national incomes have advanced sufficiently far to support an adequate UBI. And if enacted, a basic income would serve as a powerful instrument of social justice: it would promote real freedom for all by providing the material resources that people need to pursue their aims. At the same time, it would help to solve the policy dilemmas of poverty and unemployment, and serve ideals associated with both the feminist and green movements.
The Podcast Network - 1 views
Democracy and democracy-support: a new era | open Democracy News Analysis - 0 views
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The "end of the end of history" has many architects. Today, several states (an increasingly assertive Russia and China in particular) embody alternative political models that have come to challenge any notion of liberal-democratic hegemony; others (such as Venezuela and Iran) experiment with forms of rule that too take them further away from its orbit. These models and forms face many problems of their own, but they may not be quite as unattractive - either to the people of these countries or to many observers around the world - as lingering triumphalists in the west might assume.
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There has been a tendency to focus the work of democracy-support in very practical ways: toolkits, implementation, strategy and policy. This was and remains essential; but there is also a need to reflect on the underpinnings of these practices in how democracy itself is understood in this new, testing global environment.
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The dominance of a liberal-democratic conception with an American accent is reflected in the overwhelming predominance of United States institutions, academics, journals - and ideas - in the democracy-support "industry". Again, this is not in itself a problem: all discourses of democracy are grounded in specific social-political contexts and power-relations. But the current circumstances of the kind described above - authoritarian challenges, stalled democratic transitions, discontent with democracy, deep and growing economic problems - suggest that an expanded understanding of democracy might be a route towards a healthy redefinition of democracy-support.
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This article is good in that it advocates examination of the many models of democratization/democracy. However, it does not adequately question the terms of the debate, in particularly looking more deeply at how the movement is driven and what the role of corporations and other key exploiters (members of the "capital class"?) is.
The White House - Blog Post - Latest version of SCHIP legislation published for comment - 0 views
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There are already over 200 Diigo members who read whitehouse.gov and pages like this.
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An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?" | Immanuel Kant (1784) - 0 views
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This remains one of the best texts of the permanent struggle for Enlightenment -- values that assert universal human freedom, dignity and equality. Values that include internationalism, participatory and representative democracy based. These values inform our struggleto end of political and social domination of persons and societies globally. - Zackie Achmat
Goldregen in China? - 0 views
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Irgendwie sind doch unsere Sportler hochgelobt worden. Unsere Olympioniken waren die besten, die schnellsten und die stärksten Sportler der Welt. Aber so wie es sich langsam herauskristallisiert, siehts garnicht rosig aus. Es regnet noch keine Medaillen. Der Goldregen wird wohl über China,
Israel orders house demolition | Jerusalem Post (06.08.08) - 0 views
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HRW:
"Proposals to allow the Israel Defense Forces to resume the collective punishment of house demolitions would mark a substantial step backward in Israel's respect for human rights - a return to illegality. ...Punishing people for the crimes of others is no solution to terrorism. Israel should focus on bringing to justice those who actually plan or carry out attacks."
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The demolition policy violates both Article 17 of the ICCPR and Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits all property destruction in occupied territories except as "absolutely necessary" for military reasons. They also alleged violations of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention because the demolitions are collective punishments affecting people who are not suspected terrorists.
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Jerusalem Mayor: "The demolition will serve as clear message that the families of every terrorist who goes out to attack and murder Israelis will also be harmed."
Barak and Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin have expressed support for demolishing homes of east Jerusalem Arab terrorists since they both said it was an effective tool for deterring attacks.
Sudan and the International Criminal Court: a guide to the controversy | open Democracy... - 0 views
Civil Disobedience | Henry David Thoreau (1849) - 0 views
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- "I am too high-born to be propertied,
- To be a secondary at control,
- Or useful serving-man and instrument
- To any sovereign state throughout the world." [William Shakespeare King John]
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All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
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This text is sometimes presented under the title On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Its original title is Resistance to Civil Government.
Rule of Law Index - 0 views
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Developing a more quantitatively-oriented assessment tool was deemed important because dictators often use the language of democracy to legitimize their actions. In its World Report 2008, Human Rights Watch (HRW) criticized established democracies for not doing enough to expose dubious democratic claims by authoritarian regimes.
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On Campus, the '60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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The '60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire
Strafe für Lewis und Nico - 0 views
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Das kann ja ein Fahranfänger, das is ja fahrschulreif, was sich da Lewis Hamilton der Youngster in der F1 geleistet hat. Während der Safetyphase beim Tanken in der Boxengasse, fuhr Hamilton seinem Widersacher Kimi
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