#post-democracy

[doom-doom-doom]

Nice country you have.

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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-29/italians-outraged-after-eus-oettinger-says-markets-will-teach-them-not-vote

“Italians Furious After EU's Oettinger Says "Markets Will Teach Them" Not To Vote For Populists

(...) Between the growing animosity toward Europe, and the recent political chaos in Rome, where the country's president - under implicit orders from Europe - blocked the formation of a democratically-elected parliament just because he didn't like the Euroskeptic finance minister, one would think that Europe would keep a lower profile and certainly not say any words out of place that may further infuriate the Italians, who are not set to vote not only in a repeat round of national elections, but what is shaping up to be a nationwide referendum on the euro.

So what does Europe do? With all the grace of a drunk elephant (not to be confused with Jean-Claude Juncker) in an Italian China store, Europe uttered not one but several words very badly out of place.

And the reason why Italians are seething with growing rage aimed squarely at Europe's unelected institutions, is because European Budget Commissioner, German Guenther Oettinger, said the one thing that he should not have: that 

"the negative development of the markets will lead Italians not to vote much longer for the populists"

 according to an interview set to be published in Deutsche Welle later in the day.

Oops.

(...)

Indicating just how tone deaf Europe is vis-a-vis Italy's populist anger, even a spokesperson for the supreme bureaucrat himself, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, said that Oettinger's remark was "ill-considered."

"Juncker has been informed of this ill-considered comment, and has asked me to clarify the Commission's official position: it is up to the Italians and only them to decide the future of their country, and to no one else".

Others also scrambling to do damage control, as European Council President Donald Tusk also appealed to European institutions to respect Italian voters after Oettinger's remarks, saying "my appeal to all European institutions is please, respect the voters: we are here to serve them, not to lecture them".

By this point it was, however, too late and Italy's anger and disgust with Europe not only just hit an all time high, but likely assured that the upcoming "euro referendum" election will be a landslide.

And speaking of said election, according to Italy's LA7 TV channel, Italian parties are now considering to hold the vote on either July 29 or August 5.

And there goes every European's 4-6 week summer vacation.”

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***** / *****

[frontmezzjunkies]

Tarragon Theatre Disturbs with Post Democracy

#frontmezzjunkies reviews: #HannahMoscovitch's #PostDemocracy by @moscotweets @TarragonTheatre directed by #MumbiTindyebwaOtu @TindyebwaMumbi w/ #RachelCairns #ChantelleHan #JesseLaVercombe #DiegoMatamoros #TarragonTheatre #Toronto #tarragon2223 #TheaTO

Chantelle Han and Jesse LaVercombe in Tarragon Theatre’s Post-Democracy. – Photo by Mike Meehan. The Toronto Theatre Review: Tarragon Theatre’s Post-Democracy By Ross Playwright Hannah Moscovitch (The Russian Play) knows exactly what will get under our skin, and she delivers it swiftly in Tarragon Theatre’s complicated 60-minute play, Post-Democracy. Sounds gurgle up from below as the intense…

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[appellatedefender]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/3 Fandom: Daredevil (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Matt Murdock & Franklin "Foggy Nelson" & Karen Page & Claire Temple Characters: Matt Murdock, Franklin "Foggy" Nelson, Karen Page, Claire Temple Additional Tags: Future Fic, Dystopia, not an au, Something like this could really happen if we don't stop it, Human rights violations, Fascism, Religious Fanaticism, Reproductive Rights, Women's Rights, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Medical Procedures, Miscarriage, Hysterectomy, Forced Birth, Legal issues, Resistance, Blindness, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence

Summary: A snapshot of what a post-Roe, post-democracy United States might look like. Some people are resisting the new order. Matt, Foggy, Karen, and Claire are among them.

As the tags say, this is not an AU. This, or something like this, is where the U.S. is headed, if we don’t stop it. November may be our last chance. If you’re a U.S. citizen, vote as if your life depends on it. It does!

[laranjatoranjalaranja]

“We have to face up to the fact that there is no automatically available road to resistance and organization for artistic labor. That opportunism and competition are not a deviation of this form of labor but its inherent structure. That this workforce is not ever going to march in unison, except perhaps while dancing to a viral Lady Gaga imitation video.”

[doom-doom-doom]

No, no, no... you don’t understand. You ACTUALLY wanted Mr. Scissors for Prime Minister!

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https://www.politico.eu/article/italian-president-asks-mr-scissors-technocrat-to-form-government/

“Italian president asks ‘Mr. Scissors’ technocrat to form government

Carlo Cottarelli, a former IMF official, will face opposition from the League and 5Star Movement.

ROME — Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella on Monday asked Carlo Cottarelli to try and form a government after an attempt to forge a populist coalition failed.

Cottarelli, 64, a former International Monetary Fund senior official known as “Mr. Scissors” for making cuts to public spending, would lead a technocratic government. But he faces an uphill task getting the necessary support.

He will face staunch opposition from the two populist forces that won most votes in the March 4 election — the anti-establishment 5Star Movement and the far-right League. Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, which had previously promised its support to a government backed the president, said Monday it will vote against the new Cabinet.

Mattarella pulled the plug on 5Star-League government after rejecting the candidacy of the Euroskeptic Paolo Savona as economy minister. After both parties refused to switch Savona out, the prime minister-designate — a little-known lawyer called Giuseppe Conte — on Sunday rejected the mandate to form a new government.

After his nomination, Cottarelli said his role would be to lead Italy to new elections “after August” if he doesn’t win a vote of confidence in parliament, or in early 2019 if he does get the required support. He said his government would be “neutral” and he and his ministers won’t be candidates in the next election.

“I’ll do my best,” he told reporters, promising to present his list of ministers “shortly.”

He also said that his main task will be to draft the 2019 budget and sought to calm the markets and international investors by saying that Italy’s economic recovery is on track and the country’s public accounts would be “under control” during his tenure.

He added that Italy has a crucial role to play in Europe and its position in the eurozone is not up for discussion.

Mattarella’s move on Sunday surprised and angered both the League and the 5Stars, with the latter calling for the president to be impeached for betraying the will of Italian voters and the powers granted to him by the Italian Constitution.

Political analysts, however, said the impeachment call, made late Sunday by 5Star leader Luigi Di Maio, was most likely an early start to election campaigning rather than a serious threat.”

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***** / *****

[rodrigotelloblog]

They’ll die soon. We’ll be in charge.

[power21stcentury]

#learn power wednesdays: Thinking about post-democracy

George W. Bush and Bono in 2006. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain (from Alex De Waal’s article Designer activism and post-democracy). 

We live in interesting times. Of course, there rarely ever is a truly dull moment in history. But for those born in the relative tranquility of “the West” roughly after 1945, the current historic moment can feel deeply uncomfortable. We are currently experiencing wartime-rates of technological and social change, and existing institutions are either creaking under pressure and/ or becoming rapidly obsolescent. One of the things in need of reinventing seems to be democracy.

We have started our “week” with a quote by Colin Crouch, who coined the term “post-democracy” about ten years ago.

According to Crouch, under pressure from globalisation and economic competition, existing institutional arrangements structuring our political lives have been largely emptied of their meaning. Parties do no longer present programmes to implement, citizens disengage from politics as they do no longer feel represented, and governing elites are busy riding out their privileges while forging deals with economic interests. Crouch sees a nefarious triangle in operation, which ties together the state, the market and the corporation, with the latter prevailing over the state and the market. Luckily, we are not fully there yet - according to Crouch, democracy still has a few aces up its sleeves, such as the environmental movement or feminism. As an antidote to post-democracy, Crouch counts on a fourth force, the busy but small voices of civil society, not to abolish but to criticise, harry and expose the misdeeds and abuses of the cosy triangle (Crouch 2011).

Alex de Waal identifies another facet of post-democracy - the involvement of celebrities in policymaking and politics. As little seems to be about true content of political programmes anymore - we might have already exited the post-democratic world to arrive in a post-fact world judging for example by the Brexit campaigns and ongoing American presidential elections - branding and PR takes on an exaggerated importance. Celebrities can deliver that sought-after emotional response which creates much-needed attention in an era marked by increased indifference.

And lastly for this #learn power wednesday, Leigh Phillips at the Transnational Institute provides interesting insight on how post-democracy could work at the supra- and international level. The European Union appears as the incarnation par excellence of post-democratic governance, as it shows all the official hallmarks of a democratic institution, yet spectacularly fails Tony Benn’s democracy test.

However, while Phillips’s diagnosis of the current post-democratic malaise seems coherent, the medicine prescribed looks less convincing. It is not quite clear how a true supra- and transnational democracy should emerge as people, and existing democratic institutions remain strongly tied to a national context.

Further reading:

Colin Crouch, Post-democracy, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2005

Colin Crouch, The Strange Non-Death of Neo-Liberalism, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2011

Alex de Waal, Designer activism and post-democracy, Open Democracy, 17 May 2016

Johanna Möhring and Gwythian Prins (eds.), Sail on, O ship of State. The Fate of the Nation State, NHE, 2013

Leigh Phillips, A Global Post-Democratic Order, TNI, 2016

[clouds-of-wings]

Yo Colin, I’m happy for you, Imma let you finish, but Ingolfur Blühdorn had one of the best theoretical approaches to post-democracy of all time. OF ALL TIME!