Twitchings of a dying system

More and more people realise that money has no more value attached to it, and about its role to maintain a system of domination that enslaves the majority of mankind. Many still believe in the myth of money though, and happily accept imposed austerity by a bunch of wealthy crooks, who most likely prefer to be called banker or politician or journalist.

2012 has just begun, and real life manages to exceed some of the doomsday scenarios believers in the end of the world according to the Mayan calendar subscribe to. As last act in the old year, Obama signed off the NDAA, converting US citizens into property of the state. Any US citizen can now be taken by the military for indefinite detention.

The Stanford Prison Experiment provides enough evidence to rethink the idea of prisons at all, instead Alex Jones visions of a prisonplanet become reality. However, as world leader in the private prison industry, lobbying for more crime makes just perfect sense. NDAA doesn't even require crimes to be committed anymore - the government knows best, and doesn't need to tell anything.

So I can only hope that the brave people trying to employ the people's mic in Grand Central Station will resurface, and not end up in an infamous FEMA camp, most likely run by Serco or Wackenhut. NDAA retroactively 'legalised' the abhorrent treatment Bradley Manning received for shining a light on shameless human rights abuses conducted in the name of American people.

The wrath of inane governments doesn't end here. Julian Assange is now for more than 400 days in house arrest, a form of punishment Galileo received for daring to claim that the Earth spins around the Sun. Even before the American entertainment industry is granted extraordinary rights to force anyone on the planet to prove their innocence from 'piracy', the FBI took down megaupload, most likely the biggest file-sharing (cloud-storage) site on the internet.

Even more, the FBI convicted New Zealand's police to raid the mansion of the owners of megaupload, and seized their asset in a foreign country. Meanwhile, illegal assassination of Pakistanis (and most likely Iranians) with drones continues, not to mention the eternal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Within the US, civilians have now lost any human rights. Similar to Eastern Germany, the number of people employed by intelligence agencies exploded out of control, so now a sufficient number of criminals can be produced for the interest of shareholders in the private prison industry.

As computer processing and storage capacity also increases exponentially, the totalitarian dream of knowing everything about everyone comes closer to reality. Sharing counteracts the racketeering methods of corporatist fund raising, and thus becomes the target. Whether its information about personal interactions in public interest (Wikileaks), media (megaupload) or even chocolate (Occupy Melbourne's free chocolate stall was removed by the council guarded by ten police or so), sharing for free doesn't feed into the greed of those who want to dominate us.

Right now, the next official war (against Iran) is talked up, to distract from the last massive bailout Obama granted the banking mafia, and the massive debt crisis Europe experiences. How stupid of a population has been indoctrinated by state schools quenching creativity at its core? With about 17% illiteracy among the OECD nations it's safe to assume that current education fails essential targets.

When I grew up in Germany, my country wasn't involved in any war, and our 'laws' seemed to prevent us from engaging in first place. Without 'external' enemy, we could focus more on how we wanted our community to be. In peace, we could consider the future, the world we wanted to leave behind for our children. Worker's right and environmentalism were the main areas of activism - people occupied the site of planned nuclear reactors, were striking for better wages.

Any country involved in war needs to increase the average level of general fear to maintain their strategy of temporary insanity. Otherwise they might get called out on their blatant disrespect for human life and the murders committed in the name of freedom and democracy. Eleven years after 911 the business plan for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan becomes apparent, innocent blood spilled massively for corporate profits.

Most governments in the western world are nothing but a Muppet Show nowadays, legally souvereignity has been outsourced a long time ago. Only people can stop the corporate take-over of this planet.

Occupations of the occupy movement

It's long after the 'get a job' phase of the occupation of public space. For more than three months now, the local occupation had its ups and downs, yet is still swinging. 'Job' is quite a terrible word, and 'work' is mostly simiarly ill reputed. Gen Y and Z just love to chill and watch the world go by.



Of course, generalisations are generally wrong, and before I get accused of ageism I want to point out that I met revolutionary work horses of all ages, as well as incapable people. The level of engagement reflects personal attitudes, motivations and skills, and the proficiency of any task done depends on the right mix of those.

Before I get philosophical, I want to describe the 'roles' within occupy that seem special. To avoid people how do nothing else but decision making (also nown as leaders) this process is outsourced to the entire community effected. To allow this transition, the dominance of leadership is replaced by facilitation by the moderator team.



Facilitation is nothing new, the process of non-violent conflict resolution as described, implemented and exemplified by Marshall Rosenberg existed most likely in many society that considered themselves civilised. Humans need social contact to better organise the daily survival requirements, and if we were like wolves to each other, we would have extinguished our species long ago.

Facilitation describes the process of helping people to communicate better. It has the power to connect parties that used to kill and hate each other, and I think it even has the power to end the political economical domination that endangers the health of Mother Earth and of mankind. It's a simple process, yet requires individual skill and/or talent.



I've seen many different people in their 'role' as facilitator, with highly differing qualities. It takes only little for a 'weak' moderation team to be derailed, and many blame 'the process' for this outcome. Unless the facilitators embody the process, we cannot really decide whether the process works or not. In a way, it's their personal responsibility to be a shining example of respect and compassion for everyone, combined with good listening and communication skills.



Luckily, people get mostly inspired by example. As long as a team of five facilitators gets their act together, the magic of group flow to find consent in a GA happens easily. Dissenters can get heard, without having the impression of being forced to conform. I have experienced some fabulous examples of facilitation, and many dreadful ones. Those exposed to less inspiring examples often call for the process to be improved.

In this emerging movement many roles exist only for a short time, depending on the requirements for specific projects. Many tasks don't require special skills, or some that can be learned quite fast. We have to accept the obsolescence of most 'jobs' that exist today. Crafts and their related skills will never come out of fashion, but talking a hapless victim on the phone into a new energy supplier contract, or defending the same person against the energy corporation's 'ownership fee' when transferring a contract might not be needed in the long run.