Still confused about the economic crisis?

So are we.
Here is some recent confusion:

The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Taking Greenspan at his word, we can surmise that one of the goals of the ruling elites is to even the global playing field by reducing the wages of hard-working Americans, by now in a desperate race to the bottom. No more discretionary income, no more annual trips to the beach. Instead, as a wage slave, chained to an ever-turning wheel of mis-fortune, stands the American worker – oblivious to the hidden hand of events even as it operates right in front of his nose.

A Banana Republic by 2012? Obama's Budget
"President Obama has presented the most irresponsible budget in US history. His fiscal year 2010 budget projects federal spending of $3.5 trillion and a federal deficit of $1.75 trillion. In other words, 50 percent of the government’s budget consists of red ink. "

Redistributionist, and That’s Just Fine

“Over the past two or three decades, the top 1 percent of Americans have experienced a dramatic increase from 10 percent to more than 20 percent in the share of national income that’s accruing to them,” said Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget director. Now, he said, is their time “to pitch in a bit more.”

Graham: Nationalizing Banks Should Be On The Table

A.F.L.-C.I.O. to Support Nationalizing Banks

Obama Code

George Lakoff wizard of semantics and psychoganda reveals his Obama Code.
Worth the read. Seems like we finally have a guy who can combat the right wing nut jobs that brought us to disaster.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Obama’s War on Terror May Resemble Bush’s in Some Areas

WASHINGTON — Even as it pulls back from harsh interrogations and other sharply debated aspects of George W. Bush’s “war on terrorism,” the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for other major elements of its predecessor’s approach to fighting Al Qaeda.

The Obummer Administration is sadly on the rise.

read more at NYT

Chicago art parade update

Chicago Art Parade Participation Details
Version is excited to announce the first annual Chicago Art Parade!

The Chicago Art Parade is a point of combustion. A flash moment of synergy, prosperity, and participation amongst Chicago's multi-faceted art communities. Doers, thinkers, subculture advocates and the mainstream masses alike will converge in an act of solidified networks. The most immodest proposals, creations, and collaborations will traverse Chicago's disclosed and eclipsed spaces.

Date: May 1, 2009

PARAMETERS
Nothing wider than 9'
No confetti, streamers, or anything left behind.

WHAT TO INCLUDE:Link
Contact Info
Detailed description of concept
Initial drawings or renderings
Number of participants
Description of set up needs.

EMAIL SUBMISSIONS TO
chicagoartparade@gmail.com

Visit: http://chicagoartparade.com
PROPOSALS DUE MARCH 15TH.

Obama tired of your mutherf*%ing shit

president speaking in pottymouth are from his audiobook.



and a Techno Zuendli remix

First Greece Now Iceland

Iceland's government topples amid financial mess
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Iceland's coalition government collapsed on Monday after an unprecedented wave of public dissent, plunging the island nation into political turmoil as it seeks to rebuild an economy shattered by the global financial crisis.

Economic collapse fuels bitter protests in Iceland
ICELAND: Riot police rescued the Prime Minister, Geir Haarde, from his official limousine after it was surrounded by protesters.

Demonstrators, enraged by the Government's handling of the financial crisis, banged on the car with drink cans and pelted it with eggs. Bodyguards tried to keep them away before riot police arrived to clear a path.

Come to our version festival meeting Jan 25

January 25, 6:30pm :: Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S Morgan St

An art parade, temporary housing structures, independent contemporary art space networking, one day only exhibition formats, video sweat lodges, an artist run art fair, a reincarnation of the depression era Public Works of Art Project, a social networked free public school, impressive musical performances, boring theoretical nonsense, the revamping of a local community center, mapping projects, a design agency for social movements, and korean polish bar-b-qing are just a few of the projects and phenomena we will present during Version>09 : Immodest Proposals April 23 to May 2, 2009.

You are cordially invited to join us for an informal presentation and meeting about this years Version. It takes place Sunday January 25, 6:30pm at Co-Prosperity Sphere, 3219 S Morgan St. If you plan on attending please email edmarlumpen(at)gmail.com so we know how much pizza to order.

C-PS location:
http://www.lumpen.com/CPS/location.html

Please re-broadcast this transmission to any interested parties.

a call for proposals will be issued after this meeting.

/// small print //////

Version is co-produced by Public Media Institute which puts out Proximity Magazine, produces the Select Media Festival and manages the experimental cultural center, Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Version focuses on cutting edge art, media, technology and social movements. It combines the visual and performing arts with social activism and creative uses of new technologies. It explores new aesthetic movements, strategies, and interventions for improving artist run culture.

Each Version features more than 100 projects and initiatives and 300-400 participating cultural workers, over 10-16 days.

Past Version themes include dark matter, digital commons, utopian and dystopian uses of technology, parallel art worlds, desire, and insurrection. Last year's Version: http://www.versionfest.org

Image: One of many planned projects

Littlesis

Some new media art fags might remember Josh On’s politically astute and generatively exciting TheyRule.net. His site allows visitors to visualize connections between people who are on multiple boards of fortune 500 companies. Users of the site can conduct and upload their own research to create their own power maps of elite players.

But this concept has finally taken wings in this age of broken dreams and political corruption. Proximity’s Managing Editor, Mairead Case, just informed us that her buddies officially launched LittleSis.org.

It’s the opposite of Big Brother: a wiki-based tool for conducting and sharing power structure analysis of the American elite, or, as they are fond of calling it: “an involuntary Facebook for the ruling class.”

From the site:
LittleSis brings transparency to influential social networks from Wall Street to Washington. The site is an involuntary facebook of powerful Americans, collaboratively edited by an online community of analysts.

Profile pages catalogue important relationships between politicians, CEOs, financiers, lobbyists, and other important folks. By tracking everything from board memberships to campaign contributions, family ties to government contracts, LittleSis opens up elite networks for public inspection. Why do this? Because whether you like them or not, they play a crucial role in shaping public policy; they make decisions that affect our lives in profound ways.

1 in 5 are on hunger strike in guantanamo

rebloggin::

About one-fifth of the people being held at Guantánamo Bay are on hunger strike. According to a report in the UK Times newspaper, they are starving themselves as a form of protest to attract the attention of Barack Obama, who has said he plans to close the facility -- but has not said when or how. Most of the hunger-strikers are being force-fed through tubes.

Of the 248 inmates inside the detention facility, 44 are refusing food — but 33 of those are receiving nutrition with tubes that are forced up their noses and into their stomachs. On election night, according to one official, news of Mr Obama’s win spread across the prison facility even though no inmates had access to television that evening, and chants of “Obama! Obama! Obama!” erupted throughout the complex.

Human rights groups claim the total number of hunger strikers is higher than officials say. Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer for the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, says that more than 70 men held at the US base in Cuba are refusing to eat. She cited reports from visiting lawyers.

According to one official, most inmates are now well informed about what is happening in the outside world through a combination of watching Arabic news programmes and meetings with civilian lawyers and the International Red Cross, who are allowed to visit the facility. Most are aware of Mr Obama’s pledge to close the prison, which received its first inmates seven years ago this week. Asked why so many were on hunger strike and why the number was increasing, an official said: “This is the seventh anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees, and a week today is the inauguration of a new president. Hunger striking is an acknowledged form of protest.”

One in five Guantanamo Bay detainees is on hunger strike (Times Online UK,)

Not a surprise

Poll: Majority Rates Bush as One of America’s Worst Presidents

U.N. group charts new course against piracy

UNITED NATIONS - Twenty-four nations pledged Wednesday at a U.S.-led meeting to better coordinate their efforts against Somali piracy in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

For nice interactive map and photo tour visit msnbc