Re: <nettime> 99%? 66% is more like it

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

Hi Alex,

I couldn't agree more. To a large extend, it's the middle third that wants 
back in. For them, things have changed dramatically. In this view, the sign 
from Spanish protesters "we are not against the system, the system is 
against us" really makes sense [1]. This is also why the questions raised 
by Fran a couple of post ago, are not really addressed in these movements. 

My impression is that the wide popularity of these movements is based on 
common desire to return the system to what is perceived it's "normal 
state", i.e. the American dream in the US, some sort of welfare state in 
the EU. While they are clearly more radical elements in it, I don't think 
at this stage, they are widely supported.

But the return to "normal", ie. the 66% who do well, is unlikely to happen, 
since the geopolitics have changed over the last decade, though, as you 
write, this became widely apparent only in the great recession.

In this perspective, the international dimension of these protests seems 
very shallow. There is lots of sharing of signs and slogans, but little in 
terms of real solidarity. Not the least, because, again as Fran reminded 
us, the Western middle classes might not like what justice on global scale 
could look like. 


[1] https://99percentspace.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/the-system-is-against-
us/

--- http://felix.openflows.com ----------------------- books out now:
*|Deep Search.The Politics of Search Beyond Google.Studienverlag 2009
*|Mediale Kunst/Media Arts Zurich.13 Positions.Scheidegger&Spiess2008
*|Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society. Polity, 2006 
*|Open Cultures and the Nature of Networks. Ed. Futura/Revolver, 2005 


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org