Fellow Occupiers, R-Love-utionaries, Real Democracy Makers, etc – there is no stress with knowing exactly what “we” want. The current mind set and/or owners of mass media are pressuring and stressing all of us to deliver our over-viewable list of demands with web-kit and press photos.

To that I say:

“no quick solutions – NOW!”

There are so many different suggestions and visions around amongst all of us and if you add our extended networks there is literally an abundance!! Right now we are talking, exchanging, seeing each other, listening, finding inspiration, sharing, inspiring others, practising democracy, sharing public space, etc, etc, etc… A r-Love-ution for Real Democracy through occupations, parties, demonstrations, General Assemblies, Talking Stick circles, etc, etc, etc. IT’S GREAT!!!

We also show that we do not accept the current financial system. Some people who come think that the solution to this are things like anti-trust laws and a Tobin tax, others think that we need a whole new system -we all know that there are various alternative suggestions, opinions etc. But still, together we do say NO to the current state of affairs – and that is something.

So continue talking, rock on and keep dancing =)

Tomorrow I will be thinking of all you who are now setting actions for a better world and a constructive evolution for ourselves and human kind. I’m joining in for the global meditation at 11.11 – hope you who read this will join in as well!

Talking Stick Circle starts at 12 at Heldenplatz in Vienna, in the evening I will be at -

Flyer by  occupyvienna.wordpress.com
Photo above by  facebook.com/pages/lets-start-a-belgian-revolution

A 30 minute Youtube-documentary I made on the 15th of October Occupy/Real Democracy/r-love-ution demonstration in Vienna. Interviews in English, subtitles in English for demonstration signs + shots from the “talking stick” circle, which started the day.

Next global R-Love-ution: 11.11.11
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=179186642163285
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctlW6vZgQuo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO8F4vuMJs4

Occupy Vienna directly occupied a big, empty house in central Vienna – Lindengasse 60 – the “Epizentrum”:
http://epizentrum.noblogs.org/
http://epizentrum.noblogs.org/post/2011/10/18/epicenter-of-a-coming-movement/ (in English)

Occupy Austria on Facebook – link collection:
http://www.facebook.com/OccupyAustria?sk=info

Film made by Susan Florries:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sflorries
http://florries.wordpress.com

Filmed on the 15th of October in Vienna by:
Volkmar Geiblinger – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XuKF_GENUw
tyc_o – http://twitter.com/#!/tyc_o // http://www.youtube.com/user/tychoAt
Lisa – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLKkh-ycwTE
livingfx – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D10BI6mzLjw
S. Florries

Interviews by Trilight Entertainment
S. Florries and Volkmar Geiblinger:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TrilightShowroom / http://trilight.eu

Distributed by Trilight Entertainment. Feel free to post this on blogs and web-pages etc which are supportive of and/or share fair information about the 99% / Occupy / Real Democracy Now / r-love-ution movements.

The various pro-democracy groups of the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Real Democracy Now, Adbusters, Anonymous, The Zeitgeist Movement, The Venus Project, etc, etc, etc. Evolver, Light Workers, Imzaia, Iparte & Awakening as One, Wayseers, etc, etc, etc. I’m not even going to start naming groups from the large variety of networks for environmental action (see also video below). And then there are an abundance of groups which are from other walks of life, religions, political camps etc – but so many of us actually feel the same: it is time for change, or rather an evolution towards societies which focuses on the basic human values that we all share: liberty, empathy, peace, cooperation, love..

Some of all the groups and networks above I’m personally a part of, although, just like many participants, I have my own ideas, and I don’t agree with everything everyone else in these group says and thinks. I find this one of the best features of our times – the diversity of thought. But I think that we all, and many more people, agree on some issues – more than anything, that much has to change. We want an end to corruption and greed, more empathy and cooperation, less wealth inequality, and so on. As well as hard core action to save the planet we live on.

Watching Occupy Wall Street lately, a feeling that I’ve had for a long time has been stirring inside me again. It is great that we are many groups, many different voices – but somehow we could gain a lot if we united and showed ourselves and the world how many we really are. Here a copy of a mail to Adbusters (who initiated Occupy Wall Street, see post here below). I just sent it away, and intend to send it to some others. It’s directed to anyone who feels interested.

Hi there you great people!

I’m sitting here in Vienna, Europe, watching and twittering about Occupy Wall Street, thinking – that what you guys do is so great, but how could we show how many we are on a global scale? I would love to be a part of a global action-event, online, something that one can do every day, that is not illegal so that many people would participate, even those with kids to think about for example. Ideas anyone? I just have this general idea/feeling =)

Maybe it is not for everyone to take to the streets. With a more than full-time job, kids, living far away from metropoles like NY where it all goes down, it can be hard from some to take part. One can “like” a page, Twitter about demonstrations – but it does not feel like enough. Personally I’m doing quite a lot of things in my life to work for social change and to spread information, but to a large extent I’m doing it on my own, in spite of being a part of several networks.
About a month before the real democracy demonstrations started I created this petition with a similar thought/feeling as what I expressed above in mind – http://www.facebook.com/pages/PETITION-Demanding-real-democracy-based-on-Human-Rights/177187548995410 . It did not really take of, it was not so well formulated I think, and a petition is somewhat lame =)

It should probably be smth more active, to do every day, just like you show up for your occupation of Wall Street every day.

The best and hugs to all of you
sincerely
Susan

Here a video on The Unnamned Movement which I posted a while ago – it fits to well to this subject:

(copyright http://www.WiserEarth.org, free to share)

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Image by Alegri Photos, for free use under this Creative Commons License.

An interesting part of the sub culture for change is Anonymous and other net hacking activity, which have done much more good than mass media wants to admit… But I always react quite strongly on the slogan of Anonymous – “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”

How about: “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forget. We might forgive, but first much has to change. Expect us.” – or smth along those lines.

Just a suggestion…

Twitter tags to follow: #OccupyWallStreet #OccupyWallSt #TakeWallSt #OurWallSt

Twitter accounts to follow: OccupyWallSt / OccupyWallStreetNYC
(there are more cities joining in, to find them do a Twitter search for “Occupy”)

To all you people out there – you have my full support – rock on! It seems like you’re doing so much good with the time, besides of course just the fact that you’re there. But I also love the work shops, culture groups, your general assemblies, the tests and development of direct democracy at meetings, etc. I find you great. Big hugs!

Just read an article in the Guardian where the IMF managing director Christine Lagarde tells Europe to bail out the banks – again. Excuse me? What? So after having bailed out our banks, and them seeing them one year later going on with business as usual, paying out massive bonuses instead of using profits to provide better conditions for the people – we should bail out the banks again?

Well.

Let me suggest a compromise to all the finance ministers and others who are meeting in Washington during this week end to discuss how to avoid a second recession:

if the banks really need more money, then pay off loans of regular people and small businesses.

In that way, you will provide more funds to the banks, and avoid the obvious risk of them putting it into pockets where they don’t do much good. You’ll get a lot of political plus points from the people, which you all know that you need. The general trust in banks is quite low to say the least, for good reasons, and I think you might be risking a deep, global crisis in trust for politicians if they go ahead with another bank bailout.

The key finding that the Edelman Trust Barometer representatives took up this year was that it is essential for businesses to align profit and purpose for social benefit. I think that one can assume that the same goes for our politicians, and bailing out the banks is not going to give the impression to the employers of the politicians, i.e. the voters, that that is what is being done. It will not build up the trust in and reputation of “the establishment”, and there are much research on the importance of both these immaterial assets showing them to be essential for a successful society on many levels. There are even those, like Matt Ridley, who suggest that trusting each other is the base of our capacity of co-operation and exchange of ideas, which in turn leads to that trust is and always was essential to our evolution into the most successful species on this planet. Besides, I really think that paying off loans of people would be much more beneficial to the global economy than a bank bailout.

I’m not an economist and there might be better solutions than the one that I have suggested here, but I think that this solution points in the right direction. On the other hand, a bank bailout like the last one could be a political and financial catastrophe at this point.

People are already taking to the streets, demanding more fairness, wealth equality, an end to corruption etc. We all remember the images from the massive demonstrations in Spain and Greece, we know what happened in Egypt and Tunisia, and what keeps happening in Syria and Bahrain. I think the message is clear – people will just not take it any more. What exactly “it” is – what we won’t take any more is up for discussion I guess, but I can assure you that another bank bailout wont turn up on any list of demands.

The people who are occupying Wall Street right now are hinting at something that might grow into a massive, world wide protest. The Occupy Wall Street movement is explicitly expressing the connection between this protest and the Real Democracy Now movement, who in their turn have set a date set for a global mass protest: the 15th of October. The Mayor of New York, Mark Bloomberg, has said concerning the Wall Street protests: “You have a lot of kids graduating college, can’t find jobs. That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here.” I think that it is great that Mayor Bloomberg recognizes and spreads the insight on the very high unemployment rates among US youth and young adults (including academics). But his choice of words, particularly one word – “riots” – is strange to me and others. Let me quote the comment that the journalist Amy Goodman from Democracy Now made on that in a great analysis on the Wall Street protests, published by The Guardian: “Riots? Is that really what the Arab Spring and the European protests are about?”

Well, I’m going to give a hint to all politicians and other policy makers who do not want any more protests – another bank bailout might make the 15th of October even more explosive than it already is. These movements are all for non-violence, but that does not mean that they do not have the means to overthrow their governments. In a democracy politicians are actually hired by the people. Remember that.

I sincerely think that many politicians and other policy makers want to do a good job for our future. That they want to be trusted and remembered as the people who saved our economy and our environment, instead of the ones who blew it – just like we all do. Somewhere I think we all realize that it of course would be great if we could align the power of all these people on the streets with the power of all those “in power”, and make the world a better place. For the first time in history, we have to do it – otherwise, we might mess up our world so badly that we cannot live here any more.

I believe that the power of the human survival instinct and capacity for love and compassion will prevail if we just open up to it, and I believe that we will. If we need to overthrow some of our leaders, systems and “old ways of doing business” on the way, then so be it. But I think that it would be preferable if this process could happen calmly, without so much fights and anger. Starting another round of bank bailouts now would be like throwing large amounts of gasoline into a forest fire – the anger of the people will explode. Is that what we want right now – anyone of us?

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Image: I don’t know who created this image, but it is literally all over the internet, so I have assumed that it has been made for free public use, at least for non-profit publications like this one. If this is not the case, please tell me.

But even if he seems a really nice person, he can at times come over as a bit too sarcastic and too sure of the truth of his own world view. His atheism is  just as much faith-based as any other faith to me, and his failure to see that (or at least communicate that he realizes that if he does), is sad to see.

As a film maker I once had the great honour of making an interview with the distinguished mathematician and theoretical physicist Sir Roger Penrose and he told me that “we are far, far away from a theory of everything”. As I see it, we are still stumbling around, trying of grasp the extent of the complexity of our existence and life itself. We do not (yet) understand the underlying functions of reality, and since we don’t, it is dangerous to assume that one knows anything at all. There are many things that seem “proven” which turns out to be utterly wrong in the end since we do not yet completely understand the forces of nature, and definitely not the nature of existence. One can get certain results and assume that the findings point to a certain underlying process. Yet eventually, it turns out that they had nothing or little to do with that process, but with something completely different, or at least a bit different, and then new questions arises. And that is the beautiful process of finding things out.

I love science and the scientific approach. But I think that there limits to how far one can use science to really understand reality. There are even respected theoretical physicists who argues that we might not even have nor be able to develop neither the mind capacity nor the computer strength to ever do so.

Facts can be deceiving, even more so our interpretation of those facts. Just the neurological discoveries in the last 20 years on how much our memories, emotions, beliefs, etc affects our perception of reality says much about our ability to be “objective” – and here again, we don’t yet really know how these processes affects our experience of existence. Statistics, the base of much (most) science, can be so deceiving – just how one asks a question influences the answer – no matter if one researches on human behaviour or the reactions between chemical components. Besides, we have the measurement problem – not only people but also objects, physical processes, etc could be effected by the measurement process itself.

And then where are we really?

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WIKI on Memetics:

“Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins‘ 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a “unit of culture”—an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc. which is “hosted” in one or more individual minds, and which can reproduce itself from mind to mind. Thus what would otherwise be regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief is seen memetically as a meme reproducing itself. As with genetics, particularly under Dawkins’s interpretation, a meme’s success may be due to its contribution to the effectiveness of its host. Memetics is notable for sidestepping the traditional concern with the truth of ideas and beliefs.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics

I join in with the one event and choose love over fear in my life =)

When newspapers like Swedish www.DN.se describe people who question the official story of 9/11 as paranoid conspiracy theorists who does not understand what happened on 9/11, and therefore make up stories, one hesitates to go out and say – well, I’m one of those people. What can I say, like so many others I’m just not completely convinced by the official story. But most of all I just do not understand why there should not be a more thorough, official investigation into an event that in so many ways has shaped the last ten years of our history (see quote from Marketwatch here below for some of the points of criticism on the earlier commission).

DN continues with implying that the groups which bring up questions on 9/11 even threatens the general trust in the democratic process, and thus democracy itself. Well, I can agree on that trust is endangered by all twist and turns around this event, but that is not solved by mocking the people who question the official story. I also think that DN and other media outlets which makes similar statements threaten the trust in the democratic process, as well as in the media, with their arrogant attitude in this matter.

I don’t pretend to know what happened on 9/11, but there are a lot of unanswered questions – enough to motivate a second commission on the matter. I know, and know of, many others from all walks of life who think the same – something which in itself motivates a new, legitimate commission/process of law on the matter. Preferably this should be a very public process, so that we can get to the bottom of this together as a global community. It should be lead by a much more diverse set of commissioners than the last one, as well as allow witnesses from all the mayor 9/11 groups to come forward. It is also very important that the investigation gets more funding than the last one, so that it really can get to the bottom of this once and for all.

I don’t pretend to know how buildings should fall or what is really in the dust from the WTC towers, but I’d like to see all the scientists, engineers as well as other experts and witnesses who wants to present evidence which contradicts the official story get to do so in a due process of law of some kind. Let’s just get all the facts together and get it over with so that all of the millions of people around the world who doubt the official account of 9/11 (yes, millions, there are 10 million just in NY, see quote from Marketwatch below) can come to rest, and maybe even get back some trust in their elected officials. How hard can it be?

I don’t pretend to know anything at all as a matter of fact – I have a Socratean attitude to life. But one thing I am quite sure of when it comes to 9/11:

DN:s description of the people working hard to reach out with alternative versions of the events on that day does not fit on any of the people on the list here below – the witnesses in the Toronto Hearings. If you want to see their faces and read more about the Toronto Hearings, a four day long sponsored by the International Centre for 9/11 studies which ended today, click on the link below. All testimonies were aired live on webcam and are now available online here – http://www.ustream.tv/channel/thetorontohearings and a properly filmed version as well as an official report will come out soon.

I think that the people on this list and others who wants more clarity in this question deserve respect, no matter what the truth of the matter is. And I think that it is very important for the democratic process that there are people who demand more facts, official investigations and openness about this event, which has had such massive consequences for all of humanity, get to be heard and respected. It worries me that these people get treated with such disrespect and mockery, and I think that such an attitude is really damaging for the social bonds of humanity. We need these bonds now, most of all to work better together to solve our economical crisis and more importantly our multifaceted environmental crisis, a most urgent matter which will require cooperation on all levels of society on a global scale.

It surprises me that an event like the Toronto Hearings does not, as far as I can tell, even get mentioned in the media with the exception of two Canadian newspapers (1 – click here, 2 – click here) and Marketwatch. Nobody else has written about it, not even mockingly… And yet, according to the Marketwatch article “opinion polls show that nearly half of New Yorkers continue to doubt the official account of 9/11: that’s 10 million people”. They are not alone, and like Marketwarch continues to write:

“It’s not hard to understand why.

Military billions justified by 9/11 continue to deplete a fragile world economy – yet persistent doubts plague the official story while governments and the media remain silent.

The 9/11 Commission, run by White House insider Philip Zelikow, was resisted for 441 days until 2003 – then given a paltry $15 million to investigate the largest tragedy in American history (the Challenger space shuttle investigation cost $175 million.)

When the 9/11 Commission Report finally appeared in 2004, Harper’s cried fraud, referring to “a series of evasive maneuvers that infantilize the audience, transform candor into iniquity, and conceal realities that demand immediate inspection and confrontation.”

Since then an international body of qualified independent researchers has taken up the slack.

The resulting mass of evidence has never before reached the mainstream media, and is so vast that it must be released in stages.

The first round of evidence to be presented has been meticulously screened for accuracy by the international group of academics running the Toronto Hearings.

Sponsored by the International Center for 9/11 Studies, this initial offering from scholars, scientists, engineers, military officers, and political scientists will be read into the historical record from September 8-11, 2011 at Ryerson University.”

Witnesses in the Toronto Hearings – http://torontohearings.org/witnesses/

Evidence will be presented to a panel by the following expert witnesses who have confirmed their attendance. Other witnesses may attend and the list below will be updated accordingly.

Mike Gravel is a former U. S. Senator and was a 2008 Presidential Candidate. He coauthored and sponsored the act that created the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights. Senator Gravel served on a number of important committees such as the Joint Committee on Congressional Operations, the Special Committee to Study Secret and Confidential Government Documents, and the United States Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Recently, he has campaigned for a citizens commission to investigate the events of September 11, 2001.

Cynthia McKinney is a former US Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President of the United States. She is the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House. McKinney is amongst the first prominent Americans calling for a new and independent investigation into the events of September 11, 2001.

Lance DeHaven-Smith is a Professor in the Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. A former President of the Florida Political Science Association, he is the author, coauthor, or editor of 15 books on topics ranging from religion and political philosophy to Florida government and politics.  Dr. deHaven-Smith’s articles on State Crimes Against Democracy have set the stage for widespread study in this important new field.

Peter Dale Scott : Born a Canadian, Peter Dale Scott is a former English professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a former diplomat and a poet.  He is known for his anti-war stance and his criticism of U.S. foreign policy dating back to the Vietnam War.  He spent four years with the Canadian diplomatic service. He retired from the UC Berkeley faculty in 1994.  He is the author of numerous books, and his books on deep politics, including ”The Road to 9/11,” have been highly influential among those investigating the events of September 11, 2001.

David Ray Griffin is an American retired professor of philosophy of religion and theology. He is the co-founder of the Center for Process Studies, a research center of Claremont School of Theology which seeks to promote the common good by means of the relational approach found in process thought.  More recently, Griffin has published a number of books on the subject of the September 11 attacks.  Dr. Griffin’s books and presentations have been among the most important contributions to the 9/11 truth movement. He is a two time Nobel Peace Prize nominee and was named among the New Statemans’ 50 People Who Matter Today.

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Ottawa. He is Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He has acted as an economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has worked as a consultant for international organizations including the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and the World Health Organization. He has written books that highlight the historical relationship between the US government and Al Qaeda.

Barbara Honegger has served as White House Policy Analyst and Special Assistant to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy.  For over a decade, she was Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, the science, technology and national security affairs graduate research university of the U.S. Department of Defense.  Prof. David Ray Griffin has said of her groundbreaking investigative work on the Pentagon attack that “it will transform the discussion of what happened on 9/11.”

Paul Zarembka is Professor of Economics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He spent two years as a senior research officer for the International Labor Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.  Since 1977, Zarembka has been general editor of the hardback series Research in Political Economy, publishing work typically from a marxist perspective.  He has held a Fulbright Teaching Award to the Academy of Economics, Poznan, Poland.  Zarembka was editor of Frontiers in Econometrics (1974) that included a chapter that became the principal citation for Daniel McFadden’s Nobel Prize in Economics.  He is editor of The Hidden History of 9-11 (first edition by Elsevier Press; 2008 expanded edition by Seven Stories Press).

Jay Kolar is a freelance writer in Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  As a film studies instructor, he has taught courses in film analysis and mass media at Lane Community College, the University of Iowa, and University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA).  His specialization in French Film theory, semiotics, and close structuralist analysis of film alerted his critical response to the events of 9/11/2001, forcing him to examine more closely the available 9/11 footage and subsequent releases of bin Laden and alleged hijacker “Last Will and Testament” martyrdom videos. He authored “What We Now Know about the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers” and its Update in The Hidden History of 9-11, edited by Paul Zarembka (first edition by Elsevier Press; 2008 expanded edition by Seven Stories Press).

Jonathan Cole is a Professional Engineer licensed in New Hampshire and Florida, with 28 years of experience.  For more than 10 years he has been the head of a mid-sized engineering firm with some 25 employees. In addition to designing large-scale engineering projects, he has performed services as an expert witness in his field. He volunteers his services for Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, in his capacity as a board director.  Recently, his experiments related to the thermite theory of destruction for the WTC have become very influential among independent investigators.

David Chandler is known for his 9/11 videos and his success in getting NIST to admit free-fall acceleration for WTC building 7.  He is a graduate of Harvey Mudd College and has an MA from Claremont Graduate University, and an MS in mathematics from Cal Poly, Pomona.  David’s article, WTC7: NIST Admits Freefall focuses on significant errors and incandescence in the final NIST report on the collapse of tower 7 and includes excerpts from a technical briefing held by NIST on August 26, 2008. During this briefing, questions were put to the panel by Chandler.  David’s videos related to the destruction of the WTC have made significant inroads in educating the public about the problems with the official investigations.

Laurie Manwell  is a PhD candidate in Behavioral Neuroscience and Toxicology at the University of Guelph. She has published research on the effects of drugs on learning, memory, behavior, information processing, self-esteem, emotion, motivation, cellular and molecular biology, and most recently on political psychology and democracy (American Behavioral Scientist).  Her recent article was part of a special issue of six articles on State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs) published in the February 2010 edition of American Behavioral Scientist.

Niels Harrit : After teaching Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen for forty years, Professor Harrit retired to devote his time to seeking truth and justice.  He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in the best scientific journals available and his most recent paper, “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the WTC Catastrophe” has become a topic of great interest in the international community.  Professor Harrit now gives presentations on 9/11 to enthusiastic audiences around the world.

Richard Gage, AIA, is a San Francisco Bay Area architect and a member of the American Institute of Architects. He has been an architect for over 23 years and has worked on most types of building construction, including numerous fire-proofed, steel-framed buildings. Since founding Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) in 2006, Gage has presented Blueprint for Truth all over the world, and he has appeared on radio shows and television spots.  AE911Truth now includes nearly 1,500 licensed and degreed architects and engineers who are calling for a new investigation into the events at the World Trade Center on 9/11/01.

Graeme MacQueen received his Ph.D. in comparative religion from Harvard University and taught in the Religious Studies department of McMaster University for 30 years. He became founding Director of the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster, after which he co-directed peace-building projects in Sri Lanka, Gaza, Croatia and Afghanistan.  He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters as well as four books. He has written four research articles on 9/11 and is a recognized authority on the eyewitness testimony related to the destruction of the WTC.

Kevin Ryan: Through his work at Underwriters Laboratories (UL), Ryan began to investigate the tragedy of September 11^th, 2001.  He was fired by UL, in 2004, for publicly asking questions about the WTC investigation being conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).  Ryan has served as co-editor of the Journal of 9/11 Studies, and a member and/or director of a number of 9/11 truth groups.  Additionally, Ryan has co-authored several books and peer-reviewed scientific articles on the subject.

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Image by: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Truther-Girls/373568871489

Image above by Toronto Hearings

In the search for reasons behind the behaviour of the wild rioters in the UK, I’m missing the issue of the vast environmental destruction of our planet, even in articles that contain a deeper social analysis (for more, a Swedish article here, an Austrian article here). Talk about kids feeling that they have no future. Why should they care about the laws of “the grown ups” – about anything – when they are being told that they, or at least their future children, might not have a future at all – not even a shitty one.

I don’t condone violence, but I am trying to understand how the rioters feel, and why they feel that way. Personally I am fortunate enough to have an education, I am able to buy organic foods and spend my time working for a sustainable future. I have my own company. I live in a country that is quite a bit safer than the UK, on many levels. I have many means to set actions towards a better future for us all. What I wonder is, if one is in the kind of life situation that most of the rioters are in, what does one feel that one can do about it all?

On top of that there are so many conspiracy theories flourishing about our leaders and “the elite”, maybe exaggerated and simplified interpretations of events, although some are probably at least partly true. Thus it might be easy to think that they deliver the “whole truth”, or at least get the impression that we do not have trustworthy leaders in the world. To have trust in society is vital to feeling like a part of it. The people rioting see what most of us see – widespread corruption, lack of political leadership, lack of honesty, etc. And a very messed up economical system. At the same time they are bombarded with commercials which make one believe that happiness, love (or at least sex) and respect comes with an I-Phone and nice trainers.

And they don’t even have the money to get that I-Phone. Even if they would, that would not earn them much respect from the surrounding society. They have no education nor any realistic prospects of getting one, many of them probably don’t even have the vocabulary to express themselves in a way which will make others listen properly. On top of this, they are told there is no fish in the sea, the earth is warming up, ices are melting, many animals are dying out, we are starting to have problems with our honey bees disappearing, and even the rainforests are still being cut down, even if that was supposedly the one thing that the world leaders agreed upon to stop doing in Copenhagen.

Two girls who participated in the riots has said to the BBC that this is all about “showing the rich and the police that we can do what we want”, so well, their anger seem to be directed at the “establishment”. But many people, including political leaders, say that there is no reason, no cause behind these riots. Well, maybe in one sense – I’m not sure that many of these rioters can properly analyse themselves, their situation, what they really feel and why. I mean come on, how many of us can do that really? And it can definitely get harder under pressuring living circumstances. One should not underestimate people just because of their background or even their behaviour, but still, considering that they are attacking their own neighbourhoods to show the rich what they can do, the logic behind it all seem a bit vague. (Since I wrote this, it has turned out that many where rioting in other neighbourhoods than their own, but it was still poor, not rich neighbourhoods). Many sociologists talk about displaced aggression and so on (see the article under the first link above), and I can only agree – I think there is much to that thought.

But maybe it is also like my husband just pointed out – they are taking after the leaders of the world. The rioters see how “the elite” are robbing resources from each other (oils wars etc) and how they (just like many grown ups) seem to just go on destroying our “neighbourhood” (i.e. the whole planet) even if we face disastrous consequences already – so why shouldn’t the rioters do the same? Like Titus Petronius said in Satirae “Qualis dominus, talis et servus” -  “like master, like men”. That is a thought to at least consider.

In the end – the rioters are simply very angry, and under that anger lies frustration and a very genuine despair. I’m also worried about that they don’t seem to care about much, not even about themselves. And unfortunately they have many reasons to harbour all of those feelings.

I read an article in the Guardian today about people starting to point fingers in the blame games around these riots. And one can really ask, who’s fault is it? The politicians, in the UK, in the world? The rioters? Their parents? The oil industry? The media? Commercial interests? The “elite”? Or all of us? It is really a good question.

The Prime Minister of the UK, David Cameron, says that:
“For me, the root cause of this mindless selfishness is the same thing that I have spoken about for years. It is a complete lack of responsibility in parts of our society, people allowed to feel that the world owes them something, that their rights outweigh their responsibilities, and that their actions do not have consequences.”

I must say that more than selfishness, I think that this is about desperate people acting desperately, admittedly in a mindless way. I think that it is quite pointless, or at least not very fruitful, to point fingers at anyone in the mess that the species called homo sapience has created for itself.

When it comes to talking about taking responsibility, it seems more reasonable to me to not only talk about but also act upon the responsibility that all of humanity has right now (although maybe particularly those who’s life situation facilitates acting upon current matters in society):

Setting actions to make things better – for all of us, the planet we live on and all the beings that we share it with.

Image by alegriphotos.com, offered for free under this Creative Commons license.