Step by step, capitalism’s shotgun marriage with democracy since 1945 is breaking up. (p. 64)
▻https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii87/articles/wolfgang-streeck-how-will-capitalism-end
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“All out” together, on 1 February! & Teaching Sunak and his government a lesson! | #Workers_Fight workplace #bulletin #editorial
▻https://www.union-communiste.org/fr/workers-fight-workplace-bulletin-editorials/all-out-together-on-1-february-teaching-sunak-and-his
#United_Kingdom“All out” together, on 1 February!
The government and their ranting fellow “class warriors” in the media are at it again, spitting their fury against strikers.
These hypocrites claim that pupils are in danger of being deprived of education because of the threatened strikes; or that patients will die because of a few 1-day strikes by nurses or ambulance workers. They just can’t help themselves: they’re unable to disguise their deep class hatred for workers and poor people. Or their blind ignorance of the world the rest of us live in.
Neither do they take any responsibility for the situation they’ve created! The crisis in the NHS is not a sudden collapse. It’s been a slowly evolving catastrophe, totally predictable and one which health workers have been warning of for many, many, years. The #crisis in schools has the exact same history!
But now, with new data from the Office for National Statistics, the idea that wages have “risen” and that inflation is falling (despite the persistent huge gap) is going to be held up as yet another reason to refuse to yield to the demands of striking #workers.
In passing, it’s worth noting that yes, private sector wages, in some cases, rose. Certain private bosses, for instance in the car industry (BMW Oxford, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Nissan, etc...) had already agreed to give “#inflation plus” pay rises for the 2nd year of 2-year pay-deals, so they stuck to their agreements and paid up (even up to 16%!), fearful that their workforces might #strike! Unlike the government and its groupies, they know how to avoid industrial action and anyway, these pay rises were already factored-in to their balance sheets.
Today, in the case of the public sector, it is the whole of the country’s “public” who are de facto, the workers’ paymasters. Yes, otherwise known as “taxpayers”! And if the public had a say, it would surely offer all the key workers currently trying to fight for their livelihoods, the inflation-proof pay rises they need!
What’s more it would demand that the #government stop the rot it’s causing to these services immediately - and, for example, reverse the planned cuts in the railways. As one rail worker put it, “they could pay me another 50% - I don’t care, but I’m on strike to fight the closure of ticket offices, the refusal to put guards back on trains and the unsafe cuts in conditions for every category of maintenance worker!”
The public, if it was in charge, would find a solution to the 165,000+133,000 vacancies in the #NHS and #social_care, by offering a generous “welcome-back” to all those who left the country due to Brexit - an estimated 330,000 - as well as a welcome to the migrant workers and refugees who risk their lives in “small boats” to reach these currently unwelcoming shores!
In fact two things are needed to solve the public sector crisis: sure, an overturning of this government, that should go without saying. But what’s also needed is for the current fight for livelihoods to be turned into the “class war” which the bosses and politicians, unlike the union leaders, already recognise it is...
If that’s to happen, strikers will have to start taking their own initiative and above all, bring all sections and unions to fight together as one force!
Teaching #Sunak and his government a lesson!
In the end, teachers voted overwhelmingly - by 90% - to strike, despite the doubts of their own union officials! And turnout, at 53%, easily beat the legal threshold, despite ballot papers getting lost due to the postal strike!
The good news is that the first strike day is called for 1 February, the same day that 100,000 civil service workers - and now also train drivers - will be on strike. And this is the same day too, that the TUC has called a “day of action” against the government’s latest anti-strike law. Maybe the TUC has finally found its teeth...
However the current anti-strike laws, which set legal thresholds, have prevented the most low-paid of all teaching staff, the teachers’ assistants, from joining the strike. These TAs make up as much as 28% of school workforce today and are used and abused as (very much cheaper) substitutes for teachers. Their conditions are so bad that at the beginning of the school year there were 40,000 TA vacancies!
In fact the #teachers themselves aren’t only fighting over wages - although the 5% offer comes on the back of falling pay; in real terms they’ve lost 23% (by RPI) since 2010. Today schools are expected to find this 5% “pay rise” from their existing budgets. This means that to pay teachers, schools have to take money from elsewhere, by cutting jobs, cutting building maintenance, and cutting equipment expenditure. Already they’ve been cutting the courses they offer to pupils. They received no increase in funding between 2015 and 2020, and since then only 5% - far behind inflation. Already 1 in 5 school buildings are in urgent need of repair, with the risk of collapse rated “critical”!
Sunak, who has cancelled his deluxe trip to Davos this year, must definitely feel a little rattled at this point of the strike wave: the polls show that 51% of the public support the teachers’ strikes, but only 21% support his government.
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US is reestablishing a new Inquisition using Russia-Ukraine crisis ...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/14289759US is reestablishing a new Inquisition using Russia-Ukraine crisis as excuse: Global Times editorial
#US is #reestablishing a #new #Inquisition using #Russia #Ukraine #crisis as #excuse #China #politics
...
"It is not up to Washington to decide who stands “on the wrong side of history.” The US cannot forcibly pin the label that belongs to itself to someone else. As a netizen commented under the AP’s tweet, “Us drinking panadol for your own headache is not something we’ll be doing.” The US is the one that triggered the conflict and is the biggest hidden hand behind the curtain, who has made the Russia-Ukraine crisis where it is today. To shirk its responsibility and seek its own interests, Washington concocted a new charge for those who haven’t condemned Russia to set up a new moral (...)
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Crisis Text Line, from my perspective | danah boyd | apophenia
▻http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2022/01/31/crisis-text-line-from-my-perspective.htmlPassionnant. Les questions que se pose danah boyd sur les questions éthiques liée à l’activité d’aide et de conseil par texto avec des personnes en grande difficulté mentales (appels à l’aide en situations de crise, voire de suicide). Comment et faut-il utiliser les données que constituent ces échanges ? Que veut dire « consentement » quand on a affaire à des personnes en situation de crise psychologique ? Comment former les conseillers qui répondent aux personnes en difficulté ? Peut-on trouver des patterns dans les échanges qui permettent de prioritiser les réponses en fonction de l’urgence détectée par algorithme ? Enfin, comment financer l’activité des organisations bénévoles et hors marché quand les entreprises et l’Etat ne donnent pas les moyens réels de remplir des missions sociales pourtant nécessaires ?
Un très long texte, honnête dans son positionnement, ouvert dans ses questionnement, et bien loin des réponses en noir & blanc.
Like everyone who cares about Crisis Text Line and the people we serve, I have spent the last few days reflecting on recent critiques about the organization’s practices. Having spent my career thinking about and grappling with tech ethics and privacy issues, I knew that – had I not been privy to the details and context that I know – I would be outraged by what folks heard this weekend. I would be doing what many of my friends and colleagues are doing, voicing anger and disgust. But as a founding board member of Crisis Text Line, who served as board chair from June 2020 until the beginning of January 2021, I also have additional information that shaped how I thought about these matters and informed my actions and votes over the last eight years.
As a director, I am currently working with others on the board and in the organization to chart a path forward. As was just announced, we have concluded that we were wrong to share texter data with Loris.ai and have ended our data-sharing agreement, effective immediately. We had not shared data since we changed leadership; the board had chosen to prioritize other organizational changes to support our staff, but this call-to-action was heard loud and clear and shifted our priorities. But that doesn’t mean that the broader questions being raised are resolved.
Texters come to us in their darkest moments. What it means to govern the traces they leave behind looks different than what it means to govern other types of data. We are always asking ourselves when, how, and should we leverage individual conversations borne out of crisis to better help that individual, our counselors, and others who are suffering. These are challenging ethical questions with no easy answer.
What follows is how I personally thought through, balanced, and made decisions related to the trade-offs around data that we face every day at Crisis Text Line. This has been a journey for me and everyone else involved in this organization, precisely because we care so deeply. I owe it to the people we serve, the workers of Crisis Text Line, and the broader community who are challenging me to come forward to own my decisions and role in this conversation. This is my attempt to share both the role that I played and the framework that shaped my thinking. Since my peers are asking for this to be a case study in tech ethics, I am going into significant detail. For those not seeking such detail, I apologize for the length of this.
Most of the current conversation is focused on the ethics of private-sector access to messages from texters in crisis. These are important issues that I will address, but I want to walk through how earlier decisions influenced that decision. I also want to share how the ethical struggles we face are not as simple as a binary around private-sector access. There are ethical questions all the way down.
#danah_boyd #Crisis_Text_Line #Santé_mentale #Algorithmes #Formation #Données_médicales
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#Lesbos : A #mental_health #crisis beneath the surface
https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/9d1cf2f5f99ce792db85f3e09c83a26a931fe55f.jpeg A mental health crisis among asylum seekers from the former #Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos is worsening. InfoMigrants has learned that in the new tent facility, even young #children are receiving psychiatric treatment and medication to deal with ongoing #trauma.
In the new Lesbos tent camp, 17-year-old Nour from Syria says that when Moria went up in flames in September, she asked her mother to leave her there to die.
Like a growing number of children and young people in the migrant camps, Nour is taking antidepressants.
Long-term effects on children
In the weeks following the destruction of the Moria camp, almost all of the unaccompanied minors – children traveling without a parent or guardian – were transferred off the island. But many children were also left on Lesbos, as well as the other hotspot islands.
And according to Greg Kavarnos, a psychologist with the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) working with asylum seekers on Lesbos, children are among those most at risk of suffering long-term mental health effects.
“Children are resilient and can bounce back, but they are also at a stage when they’re developing their character and their personality,” Kavarnos told InfoMigrants.
“If they have to go through traumatic experiences at this age, these will then shape their personality or their character in the future, leading to long-term problems.”
“We’re creating a generation of children that are going to be reliant on psychiatric medication for the rest of their lives.”
Children in the camp are increasingly feeling a sense of resignation. Seeing their parents trapped and unable to make decisions or take action, they become hopeless, Kavarnos said.
“If at eight years old a child has already resigned itself, what does that mean when this child becomes 12 or 16 years old? If at eight years old or 10 years old a child has to take psychiatric medication in order for the symptoms to be held at bay, what’s this going to mean later?”
When a psychiatric problem arises as a result of trauma, if the trauma is not successfully dealt with, the psychiatric problem then becomes chronic, according to Kavarnos.
“So, what are we doing? We’re creating a generation of children that are going to be reliant on psychiatric medication for the rest of their lives.”
Karima, from Afghanistan, is also on antidepressants and has trouble sleeping. Most of her family, including her granddaughters, aged two and three, were in a boat from Turkey that sank in the Aegean. They were rescued and brought to Lesbos. For about two years, they lived in the Moria camp.
Karima’s son; Rahullah tells us: “It was a very bad situation. ... People died, they drank, they killed each other. We didn’t sleep. So now we have mental problems, all of us, just because of Lesbos.”
Rahullah’s sister F., the mother of the two little girls, became so unwell that she cut herself, says another of her brothers, a softly-spoken law graduate. F.’s husband was murdered in Afghanistan.
Another young asylum seeker in the camp, Ahmad*, is 25. He travelled alone from Afghanistan to Greece. He says that he has twice attempted suicide, and if it hadn’t been for his friends, he would have gone through with it and succeeded in killing himself.
Removal the only solution
The International Rescue Committee, which provides mental health support to asylum seekers on Lesbos, tries to help migrants with counseling and medication. But according to IRC senior advocacy officer Martha Roussou, while some people do improve, “the only durable solution is to remove them from the traumatic space they are living in.”
No matter how much medication or psychotherapy you give a person, “if they’re constantly being traumatized by their experiences, you’re always one step behind," said Greg Kavarnos.
“I can’t do anything for the ongoing trauma, the threats of violence, the inability to access simple facilities. I can’t say to the person, ‘it’s okay, things will get better,’ because I don’t know if things will get better for them.”
*Ahmad is an assumed name
If you are suffering from serious emotional strain or suicidal thoughts, do not hesitate to seek professional help. You can find information on where to find such help, no matter where you live in the world, at this website: ▻https://www.befrienders.org
In Greece, a suicide-help line can be reached by telephone at this number: 1018. You can also find more information here: ▻http://suicide-help.gr
►https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/28086/lesbos-a-mental-health-crisis-beneath-the-surface
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Dr. Michael Hudson: Economic Lessons for 2020
▻https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/dr-michael-hudson-economic-lessons-for-2020Despite low unemployment rates and a rising stock market, 3 out of 4 economists are expecting a recession by 2021. We are already facing a #crisisofpoverty and economic precarity, where 140...
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World economy is sleepwalking into a new financial crisis, warns Mervyn King | Business | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/20/world-sleepwalking-to-another-financial-crisis-says-mervyn-king
▻https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5c4905976b350c556874a1d63ee85475779083bd/0_188_3500_2099/master/3500.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-aliAs the climate crisis escalates…
… the Guardian will not stay quiet. This is our pledge: we will continue to give global heating, wildlife extinction and pollution the urgent attention and prominence they demand. The Guardian recognises the climate emergency as the defining issue of our times.
Our independence means we are free to investigate and challenge inaction by those in power. We will inform our readers about threats to the environment based on scientific facts, not driven by commercial or political interests. And we have made several important changes to our style guide to ensure the language we use accurately reflects the environmental catastrophe.
The Guardian believes that the problems we face on the climate crisis are systemic and that fundamental societal change is needed. We will keep reporting on the efforts of individuals and communities around the world who are fearlessly taking a stand for future generations and the preservation of human life on earth. We want their stories to inspire hope. We will also report back on our own progress as an organisation, as we take important steps to address our impact on the environment.
More people in France, like you, are reading and supporting the Guardian’s journalism – made possible by our choice to keep it open to all. We do not have a paywall because we believe everyone deserves access to factual information, regardless of where they live or what they can afford.
We hope you will consider supporting the Guardian’s open, independent reporting today. Every contribution from our readers, however big or small, is so valuable. Support The Guardian from as little as €1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
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« The Roots of Boeing’s 737 Max Crisis: A Regulator Relaxes Its Oversight » by Natalie Kitroeff, David Gelles and Jack , New York Times, 27.07.2019
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/27/business/boeing-737-max-faa.html #management #crisis #vestedInterests #software #complexity -
Ebola cases pass 2k as crisis escalates (▻https://www.nature.com/art...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/9160680Ebola cases pass 2k as crisis escalates
HN Discussion: ▻https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20104591 Posted by howard941 (karma: 10584) Post stats: Points: 153 - Comments: 85 - 2019-06-05T14:18:02Z
#HackerNews #cases #crisis #ebola #escalates #pass HackerNewsBot debug: Calculated post rank: 130 - Loop: 364 - Rank min: 100 - Author rank: 46
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Psychology’s Replication Crisis Is Real (▻https://www.theatlantic.co...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/8120999Psychology’s Replication Crisis Is Real
Another big project has found that only half of studies can be repeated. And this time, the usual explanations fall flat.
HN Discussion: ▻https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18577079 Posted by zwieback (karma: 3853) Post stats: Points: 160 - Comments: 79 - 2018-12-01T15:15:08Z
#HackerNews #crisis #psychologys #real #replication
Article content:
[1]Read: Online bettors can sniff out weak psychology studies.
But other intuitions were less accurate. In 12 cases, the scientists behind the original studies suggested traits that the replicators should account for. They might, for example, only find the same results in women rather than men, or in people with certain personality traits. In almost every case, those suggested traits proved to (...)
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We’re Measuring the Economy All Wrong - The New York Times (https:/...
▻https://diasp.eu/p/7719307We’re Measuring the Economy All Wrong - The New York Times | #inequality #finance #unemployment #economy #statistics #crisis #reductionism
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The Left Needs to Care About the #Opioid #Crisis
Progressives should learn from the past to respond to the overdose epidemic.In 2016, around 64,000 people in the United States died of an overdose—more deaths than from gun homicides or traffic accidents. Overdose is now the leading cause of death for people under 50 in this country.
Overdose is a political crisis.
Overdose is a social-justice issue.
People who use drugs must be at the center of our response.
Organize across race and class.▻https://www.thenation.com/article/the-left-needs-to-care-about-the-opioid-crisis
#drogues #big_pharma #usa -
#South_Africa needs a new public debate
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/04/south-africa-needs-a-new-public-debateEconomic and political crises typically encourage new avenues for conceptualizing a reordering of society. This is because they open up spaces in the realm of discourse due to the discrediting of traditional narratives and systems of thought. If that is generally the case, it is interesting to note that one could hear a pin drop…
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The #crisis around #Lake_Chad
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/02/the-crisis-around-lake-chadThe world’s most extensive humanitarian crises is currently playing out in northeastern #Nigeria and around Lake Chad. About three million people have been displaced, seven million are dependent on food #Aid, half a million children are malnourished and 14 million children without schooling. Tomorrow in Oslo, Norway, jointly with Germany, Nigeria and the United Nations,…
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The world already had a refugee #crisis
▻http://africasacountry.com/2016/01/the-world-already-had-a-refugee-crisisOn December 16, 2015 Jordanian police stormed a makeshift camp of Sudanese #refugees located in central Amman outside the offices of the United High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They rounded up some 800 men, women and children and forced them into a detention center, beating those who resisted and later reportedly using tear gas. The […]
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Unrest in #Khorog. Please use this map to report any incident / clashes / needs that you can observe or that you have heard of
▻https://crowdmap.com/map/khorog2014
#Tadjikistan #crowd_map #carte #cartographie_participative
C’est mon très cher ami @StéphaneHenriod qui s’en occupe... vous le trouvez sur twitter sous @shenriod
Si des personnes peuvent aider... n’hésitez pas à contacter Stéphane, qui écrit sur twitter :
#crisismap of #Khorog : ▻https://crowdmap.com/map/khorog2014 Please report any picture, observation... that helps monitoring what’s going on
cc @reka —> je pense que Stéphane serait prêt à écrire un article sur @visionscarto... ça serait même une personne idéale pour le blog !
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Lara Hernández: «No somos la generación perdida, somos la generación a la que le han robado el futuro» - Público.es
▻http://www.publico.es/politica/519945/lara-hernandez-no-somos-la-generacion-perdida-somos-la-generacion-a-la-que-lNo somos una fuga de cerebros porque ocupamos empleos precarios, no puestos de élite en investigación
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Este es un momento en el que el bipartidismo tiene miedo. Es un modelo caduco y defiende el mismo proyecto político. El bipartidismo es una forma de organizar el poder que garantiza que aquellos que no se presentan a las elecciones nos estén gobernando. Y esos que no se presentan son el poder económico y la oligarquía financiera: Repsol, Iberdrola, Banco Santander, BBVA...
Esto que se produce a través del bipartidismo se está empezando a destapar. Se está empezando a ver que hay unos hombres con corbata sentados en los consejos de administración que son quienes están manejando los hilos.
(…)
Mientras, por otro lado, se oculta mediáticamente al verdadero agente corruptor, que es el poder económico. Nosotros tenemos que salir de este teatro señalando al responsable de la crisis, porque al final, lo importante es qué proyecto de país están planteando el PP y el PSOE. Y ellos están planteando una salida neoliberal a esta crisis que busca recomponer el mapa político. Por eso es importante señalar que los dos partidos trabajan al servicio de la banca.
(…)
Porque, como decía al principio, se inicia un ciclo electoral más amplio. Y cuando miras a lo que está pasando en Alemania, con la gran coalición entre la CDU y los socialdemócratas, es como tener una bola del futuro en la que podemos ver lo que puede pasar en España. Estamos asistiendo a la preparación de un pacto. Están abonando el terreno para un gran pacto entre PP y PSOE después de las Generales. Esto demuestra que el proyecto de la socialdemocracia, del capitalismo del rostro humano, es un proyecto fracasado.
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Depression Era
▻http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles19/3057655/projects/9771007/5c71df34e6f91d54851dedef5e35af6c.jpgThe Depression Era project is a #collective of photographers, artists, researchers, writers, architects, journalists and curators formed in 2012, recording the Greek crisis through images and texts. It was originally inspired by the photographic program of the Farm Security Administration, which was designed to capture the impact of the Great Depression on the American people (1935-1944)[1].
▻http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles19/3057655/projects/10115443/e6f432c4e775a1340ae4c7e1685b8a2e.JPG
The Depression Era project aspires to portray a historical turning point; to reflect characteristic events and situations pertaining not only to the economic but also to the political, social, ideological, moral and aesthetic crisis: to depict the emerging #landscape of the #recession and its consequent, rapid, unraveling transformations of Greek society. It is an artistic #archive in-progress, a collective work experiment and redefines the terms and conditions of the artistic production and free expression of public discourse.
▻http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles19/3057655/projects/9976299/5984ef807c314832e36d6e1be9e5c382.jpg
In this complex and charged political and social context, we are compelled to take a stance. The Depression Era is not a news project, nor a photographic #documentary of #poverty – as the FSA was to a great extent - but gives to each photographer the freedom to create according to her own personal style and determine his own perspective of things so that the collective work may comprise a multifaceted image of the situation.
The Depression Era team hosts photographers and writers with different approaches. Each is bound to undertake the examination and photographic depiction of a specific subject so as to contribute a meaningful piece to the puzzle of a collective narrative. The end result reveals and records, sheds light on and signifies a situation that concerns all of us; expresses an opinion; and discovers a new reality that trascends the self-fulfilling prophecy of the constant crisis.▻http://depression_era.prosite.com/183823/i-m-a-g-e-s #photography #Greece #depression #crisis #grece #crise #Dream #images #athens #Acharnon #Burnout #poverty #documentary @reka
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Non-crisis France:
▻http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/09/non-crisis-france #Germany #crisis #Europe#S&P wasn’t really assessing French default risk, it was slapping the French on the wrist for not being sufficiently committed to dismantling the welfare state. #France is really, really not #Spain
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Georges #Soros explains that the deciding factor in how Europe’s financial #crisis will end is whether or not #Germany will change its attitude toward #debt:
“Only Germany can initiate the process because, as the country with the highest credit standing, it is in the driver’s seat. If a debtor country tried to do it would merely aggravate its own position. Admitting and correcting mistakes is never easy. In this case there is no shame attached to it because the situation was so complicated that it boggled every mind. Doing it would earn Germany the long lasting gratitude of the rest of #Europe. Failure to do is much worse. It has created a nightmare in which the victims of the current policies have to live in their waking lives. Now that the euro crisis has ended, Germany has emerged victorious. But it is a Pyrrhic victory that would be better to avoid”
▻http://www.georgesoros.com/interviews-speeches/entry/the_future_of_europe
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La Grèce : la fermeture du l’ERT est à retirer selon une décision dans la Haute Cour Administrative - l’ERT continuera avec un programme réduit.
▻http://orf.at/stories/2187581/2187582
Das höchste griechische Verwaltungsgericht hat die Schließung des öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunksenders ERT für nichtig erklärt. In einer einstweiligen Verfügung ordnete das Gericht am Montag den Weiterbetrieb des Senders an, bis über eine geplante Neuordnung des staatlichen Rundfunks entschieden sei. Zeitgleich einigte sich auch die Regierung in Athen in der Causa ERT auf einen Kompromiss.
[...]
Handfeste Regierungskrise
Samaras hatte am vergangenen Dienstag ohne Zustimmung seiner Bündnispartner die sofortige Schließung von ERT mit seinen drei TV-Kanälen sowie diversen regionalen und nationalen Radiostationen verkündet und den Sendebetrieb einstellen lassen. Er begründete die Entscheidung, durch die rund 2.700 Menschen arbeitslos wurden, mit der Intransparenz und der Verschwendung bei dem Sender. Die entlassenen ERT-Mitarbeiter legten mit Unterstützung der Gewerkschaften Beschwerde gegen die Schließung ein.
#Grèce #Griechenland #Greece
#ERT #TV #Radio #media #Medien#crise #Krise #crisis - #gouvernement #Regierung #government
