Transformation of politics

 the 21^st century will be the century of the common people

I have seen signs

the end of the world

as we know it

has begun

Don't panic

it might look terrifying

on the surface

but inside every

human being

a choice

Earth is calling

Sky is calling

God is calling

Creation is calling

Wake up, wake up now!

Generate the capacity for love

for compassion in your heart

Now is the time

to yield to the call of growth

and unlimited love

to all that life is

So wake up

wake up now

The ideologies of the old school of politics, media, monetary systems, corporations , and all known structures are in a state of transformation. They are crumbling and now is the ideal time for reform on all levels, if we seize this moment.

I am sure we can get sustainable change in our world if we use the concept of globalization in our advantage to push for changes in a joint effort locally and globally.

Iceland is in many ways an ideal place for experimental work in this regard, being a country with only 316.000 souls living there yet our society is among the most developed in the world. With a tiny bureaucratic body compared to similar societies, we can move radical change much quicker through our system.

Right now we are doing an experiment in this regard with the Icelandic modern media initiative, also known as IMMI.  The concept behind immi was to take an international form of legislation used to benefit the big corporations known as tax havens. Tax havens are created by pulling together all the best legislation from around the world to create secrecy to hide financial transactions and funds, to create shady companies, a cozy swindle haven.

We wanted to use the same concept to create a transparency haven. 

We went on a quest to find all the best possible laws from around the world to ensure freedom of expression, information and speech. By basing our laws on legislation that has already proven to be strong enough to withstand attacks from those that want us to live in a world with less flow of information about the darker side of politics, international corporations, war and oppression, we are also supporting the laws in those countries we are basing our legislation on and it will also make our laws stronger in the global context.

The immi proposal is already having an impact globally, there has been much dialogue all over the world as a result of this proposal, about the reality of freedom of information in a world where information doesn’t have any borders any more and the same applies to the legal firms that specialize in gagging journalists and media firms, they don’t have any borders either.

No one believed immi could be pulled through the icelandic parliament with such overwhelming support, all the MPs present and members of the government voted for it. I was sure it would pass – it just had everything going for it and by going with the flow following my intuition all the way through with it – it is becoming a model mps and people who are passionate about freedom of expression all over the world are using, to push for reform in their own countries. My aim is to make it into the International modern media initiative. Because everyday the freedoms we want to protect with immi are eroding in our world at an alarming rate. Here in Italy you are witnessing the end of the freedom of media with a new set of laws on whistleblowers. I have been asked by journalists and organizations from Italy if there is anything I can do to help. And I am wreaking my brain,  how can I possible help this ancient culture with such incredible people who have put their mark on the history of the world. You surely have the manpower, the passion and the heart to make reform happen. There is no copyright on immi. Feel free to use it.

It is rare that generations and so many individuals get such an opportunity to transform the world as we know it. The big question is how do we transform it?

It is obvious that we are running out of planet, many people have lost the vital connection to our environment, most of humanity don’t comprehend cause and effect of lack of sustainability anymore and many of us feel lost, displaced and lonely. All the structures we thought would take care of us, be it systems, ideologies, religion, politics or institutions are failing big time. 

Something big is happening

Gaia has regained her consciousness

her way of surviving

An image

growing in my mind

of a whole universe of possibilities

to make the invisible seen,

the impossible possible

to be part of

this movement

of awakening

To learn to listen to our mother’s voice

through her infinite creations

To trust,

to be trusted

I keep making the picture bigger

so I won't lose myself

Earthquakes move through me

volcanic eruptions of insight

as the revolution

of silent changes

of daily rituals

begins

To follow my intuition as a politician makes a lot more sense to me then the rivalry and manipulations of left or right ideology. The right and wrong  ideology  of the old  world has simply outgrown itself. No longer do we have strong parliaments with a direct link between the general public and decision maker. We have so called professional politicians that are far removed from the reality most of us live in. Parties and politicians are often in an unhealthy marriage with corporations and corruption is thriving in the political arena all over the world. Many governments and politicians talk about transparency yet the process of politics and laws is shredded in secrecy.

When everything collapsed in Iceland in 2008 I sensed that within this crises was to be found an incredible opportunity for change. Many others sensed this as well and grassroots movements appeared out of thin air with the aspiration for real change for a society based on integrity, compassion and equality where the general public should and could be able to help co-create society.

As a result of an attempt to have the grassroots groups work together on larger issues and of course to join hands in protests and pressure for change I helped create a political movement February 2009. Its chief agenda was to bring forth democratic reform, such as people being able to call for national referendum and to be able to vote for individuals not only parties. We also are aware of that no matter who you place in a corrupt system in thrones of power, even fine individuals get corrupt with power and the fear of loosing power.  In order for profound change to be possible those of us inside parliament have to behave like activists by changing the traditions and revealing the unwritten rules of power. Information will set you free. Now once we have the information what are we going to do with it? What sort of world do with want to live in and are we ready as individuals to put the time energy and effort into creating the blueprint of the future?

The 21^st century will be the age of us, the common people, where we will come to a profound understanding that in order to live in the reality we dream of, we have to participate and help co-create that reality. But how?

Yet again an Icelandic experiment might be an answer. All nations have done this at some point. We are going to rewrite our constitution. Usually it is the elite that writes the constitutions, we however have managed to make sure that the general public will take part in both the dialogue about what should be in our constitution and to vote on each new constitutional law before the parliament has its final say. This is fundamental in order to ensure that the constitution writing will be a part of a broad dialogue and consensus on what we agree on as a nation should be the foundations of our society. If this experiment works for us I strongly recommend that all nations will follow suit if the constitution is not something you know by heart and has a profound meaning towards the future. Perhaps we can once that process is over make a constitution together for the world – in Bhutan for example they put in their constitution that they would have instead of GDP measure, happiness measure. The annual growth of happiness.

The concept of gross national happiness (GNH) was developed in an attempt to define an indicator that measures quality of life or social progress in more holistic and psychological terms than gross domestic product (GDP). I think every constitution on our planet should include something about the importance of happiness among its nations. I hope ours will.

The real value I see in the rewriting of constitutions is the dialogue between people in each country and this platform of co-creation.

The root of most of our problems as humanity on this planet comes from greed and hunger for power. We have war upon war upon war and we all know in our hearts that war is always about these elements. How do we counterbalance this and all the lack that seems to be all over our world. We all know that there is enough food, land and water in our world for everyone. Yet starvation, war, conflict, disaster and hatred seem to be the only thing we get to know about other nations on a regular news basis.

In order to counterbalance this we must change our monetary systems. Fractional reserve banking is creating money out of thin air and in the end the bubble always burst and who ends up paying? The motto of the banksters has always been; privatize the profit, socialize the losses. So why do we let them get away with it? Is there really no alternative? Well I got news for you, there are many alternatives, there is never just one way of doing things. But those in power tend to want to maximize their own profits at the cost of those they are supposed to be serving. Explore new monetary solutions, there are plenty of models to explore. I encourage you to see Money as dept, the Money masters, the secret of Oz and Capitalism, a love story.

I might be a dreamer, but I am not the only one. Everyday I come across people who have the same dreams, who want to do something both locally and globally. We as humanity almost stopped the Iraq war, because we worked together globally through the internet, wrote articles, took to the streets, organized events and rallies.

If there is something we have to make sure stays under the guardianship of nations not corporations then it is the following, water companies, energy companies, social welfare, education and health systems. 

We have made everything so complex and grand, perhaps it is time to return to more simple ways, more self sustainable ways, we can do that by learning from each other, by helping each other locally and globally and by remembering that we as individuals can change the world.

A year and a half ago, I was temporary unemployed, single parent, living below the so called poverty line, with the simple goal in my heart of figuring out how I as an individual could help create a sustainable future for the next seven generations, how to make this planet smile from within, how to co-create my society.

During my life I have been given many difficult lessons, death and great loss has been my companion and I have lost many dear friends and relatives to various modern social ills. I chose to use these difficulties to make me stronger and more compassionate towards the difficulties of others, I chose to make me more humane. It has not been easy yet I wouldn’t change a second of it. It has made me into me and I am content with how I have developed.  Needless to say: no one really believed I could be where I am today. It is not a fairy tail though but a story I co-created in partnership with my society.

First of all it is not as hard as one imagines to create a political movement. Most people have seen that left and right politics doesn’t have any meaning anymore. To create political movement based on common agenda such as  a youth party to focus on issues young people find to be important is something I would like to see happening.

My political movement was based around democratic reform because that was what was the most needed in our country at this time. Get ordinary people into power who have no political training and who will stay only for a short period of time in power. Because no matter what they will tell you: power corrupts and disconnects people from the reality other citizens live in.

We created the Movement 8 weeks before elections, we had no money, no one knew us, yet we got more then 7% of the vote at the general elections.

One of the reason why it is so important for groups to get representatives into places of power, is that it is a lot easier to get media attention on the cause, and it is handy to be able to confront or talk with ministers and other mps about important issues without delay.

When I was working as an activist one of the hardest challenges was to get the attention from both the media and the people in power to the cause, getting some changes implemented was nearly impossible. Now that I am getting a better understanding on how things work within the legislative body I have much better chance to help other activists and the general public to get attention and even legislative changes and resolutions on issues they are concerned about.

The key is to apply pressure and changes from within the system during pressure building from outside. What might seem impossible now might be quite possible tomorrow because we are experiencing very rapid changes on all levels. So I encourage you to start to make the blueprint for the future you want to live in, to be passionate about your cause and to believe that everything is possible, failings might turn into tomorrow successes.

It is important to learn the game the people in power play in order to keep their place of power.

But the most important part is if you have a chance to work within the belly of the beast to not become like them but to listen to your heart, to listen to your intuition and to be impeccable with your word. And finally not care at all if you loose that place of power. I don’t care if I am out of work tomorrow, I am only focused on what I can do today. It gives me incredible freedom to follow the flow of this very moment.

Finally here is a poem that sort of explains why I co-produced the Collateral Murder Video published by WikiLeaks during Easter this year. You should look at this video no matter how hard it is to experience the lack of humanity displayed there and then look up another video with a speech from the soldier who discovered the children in the van. He wrote to us and wanted to do something for the children, he has stepped forward with incredible courage and compassion to mend for what he was part of during this ongoing war. Helping making this video with awful war crimes, available to everyone who dares to see our world with its many wounds was my Cry from the Heart in action. I hope it will inspire you to work for peace, work with compassion in our world.

Cry from the Heart

Tears run impulsively

bitter sea of colossal grief

cluster-bomb in my heart

for every life taken

Who are we to act like a force of nature

Self destruction the distinctive human trait

Revenge

abort the revenge

Fear not the Arabs

Fear not the "Terrorists"

Fear not the Communists

Fear not the tree huggers

Fear the triangle of righteous doom

Fear the glorification of the apocalypse

Fear the mass consumerism

Fear the leaches who suck in and spit out

this planets resources

Doomsday in the heart

Doomsday in the mind

as the Inconvenient truth

about the destruction

the genocides

the mutilations

the endangered species

flow out like 1000 wounds

Will it heal

Will this heart ever beat again

this heart of hope

for humanity

As it heads towards glorious self destruction

yet again

part II

Despair

rivers of despair

wounds

oceans of pain

Patriarch

Matriarch

ism

ism

ism

Means nothing to me

nothing at all

Flesh, blood, earth, dirt, gravel, sand

and that single yellow flower on that highland hearth

drowned in the silt of greed

But this time

the times are changing

Into a dream of universal

equality

Please

don't look the other way

We are the same

I feel the pain

I feel the hope

This eternal ethnic bond

with each grain of sand

each grain of blood

infusion of humanity

Please let me be you

Feel your pain

Feel your healing

But what are we

Aliens on this Earth

Parasites

Are we controlled by the external or internal parasite

of duality

of Heaven and Hell

Who made this hell

Who can undo what has been done

Only you, only me, only us

Related links:

IMMI (the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative)

http://immi.is/?l=en&p=intro

The Wizard of Oz (video)

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D22TlYA8F2E

The Money Masters (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv-ZCj1_HHI

Money as Debt (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oeqZVTCFzg

Capitalism, a Love Story (video)

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/capitalism-love-story/

FLOW: For the Love of Water (video)

http://www.documentarywire.com/flow-for-the-love-of-water

The Story of Stuff (video)

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-story-of-stuff/

Icelandic Modern Media Initiative and WikiLeaks (video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCmjmDXp7TI&feature=fvw

Collateral Murder: video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0&feature=channel

WikiLeaks' Collateral Murder: U.S. Soldier Ethan McCord's Eyewitness Story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kelmEZe8whI

BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales

"From the information that goes with this video at Youtube:
This was the most emotionally disturbing video I have ever done!
A flight over the BP Slick Source where I saw at least 100 Dolphins in the oil, some dying. I also photographed a Sperm Whale covered in oil all around it's blow hole.
Please spread this around the world. Send me any links to places it gets posted so I can follow.
I want to piss off the world. Who will answer for these gentle creatures?"

I encourage everyone to watch this to the end and once you are done spread this and take action. The USA government has put a ban to reporting about this incredible disaster - right now all reporting is under the same rules as reports from wars they inflict on other nations, goes through their filters and is heavily restricted.

For the Love of Water

Please watch this important film about privatization of water and if this is shocking to you, please join those that are trying to stop this insanity and grand theft at such great prize for humanity.

Text from the YouTube site: "How Did A Handful Of Corporations Steal Our Water? Water is the very essence of life, sustaining every being on the planet. 'Flow' confronts the disturbing reality that our crucial resource is dwindling and greed just may be the cause

Irena Salina's award-winning documentary investigation into what experts label the most important political and environmental issue of the 21st Century - The World Water Crisis. Salina builds a case against the growing privatization of the world's dwindling fresh water supply with an unflinching focus on politics, pollution, human rights, and the emergence of a domineering world water cartel.

Interviews with scientists and activists intelligently reveal the rapidly building crisis, at both the global and human scale, and the film introduces many of the governmental and corporate culprits behind the water grab, while begging the question "CAN ANYONE REALLY OWN WATER?"

Beyond identifying the problem, FLOW also gives viewers a look at the people and institutions providing practical solutions to the water crisis and those developing new technologies, which are fast becoming blueprints for a successful global and economic turnaround."

Max Keiser interviews Birgitta Jonsdottir about the blackmail against Iceland

From the blog of Mike "Mish" Shedlock

"Icelandic citizens have overwhelmingly spoken. They do not care for the bailouts. They also rightfully believe the Icesave proposal was blackmail, as without it inclusion in the EU would be delayed.

Thus, it's good to see some hardball from someone in the Icelandic parliament. Hopefully Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir will be rewarded for her arrogance and removed in the next election.

The citizens of Iceland think "no means no", so does Birgitta Jonsdottir, and so do I. Best wishes to Iceland."

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Birgitta Jonsdottir at Red Ice Radio

An hour long interview with Birgitta Jónsdóttir at Red Ice Radio about the current situation in Iceland, IcesLave, the soft revolution in Iceland and how grassroots groups can band together in order to put pressure within establishments such as parliaments.

Icelandic mini doc about the financial crises

I made this mini doc a year ago... explaining the reasons behind the total financial meltdown, trying to explain why the Icelandic people are so angry and how they made history by uniting against injustice faced by the government and the financial elite 

Icelandic financial crises [HQ]

by Birgitta Jonsdottir (videos)

11:08

Iceland

An island in the North Atlantic oceans

Iceland - Nest for about 320.000 people

Iceland - Same size as the state of Kentucky

Iceland - Colony of Denmark until 1945

Iceland - Best known for the singer Bjork

Iceland - Also known for being the nation who elected the first woman in the world to be a president

Iceland - also known for strange and mystical landscape
Iceland - also known for its pristine nature

Until September 29th 2008 very few people cared for Iceland or even knew about it - however that was all about to change because
Iceland’s limited legacy changed from mystery to being the first country in the world to literary experience the bankruptcy - the total meltdown of corporation capitalism

When you google Iceland today you will get more information about the financial crises that brought one of the best off nations in the world to its knees
Unemployment has shot from less then 1% to 10% since October 2008

What happened one might ask in awe – how is it possible that all the newly privatized banks (6 years ago the nation owned all the major banks) got basically bankrupt and the nation had to take them back with debt beyond comprehension

No one knows yet the exact number of our national debt in the aftermath of the greatest financial blunder in the history of our world

Who is to blame for the fact that almost 70% of all companies are going under?
Who is to blame for us being driven back for decades?
Who is to blame for the fate of all the people who are loosing their savings, their homes, their work, their lives?

Birgitta guest at the Keiser Report

Keiser speaks to Birgitta Jonsdottir, leader of The Movement in the Icelandic Parliament.

Birgitta guest at the Alex Jones Show

It is time for the people of the world to join hands and start a real resistance towards the ocialization of Private debt. The Icelandic people are ready to say NO in a national referendum to taken on private debt left over by the banksters who brought the country to its knees in 2008 - will your nation be the next? Rise up against this injustice - there is no power in the world as mighty as the power of the masses.  

Heroin-Economic Detox

Author: Birgitta Jónsdóttir of Hreyfingin (The Movement)

Financial Crisis, Iceland, International Politics
Comparisons between Ireland and Iceland abound, but as recent events there show, the public response has been more vociferous to the injustice of the Icesave bailout. However, as political activist, poet, editor and member of the Icelandic parliament Birgitta Jónsdóttir shows here, Iceland is also like Ireland in that it is a small Island with a political elite that is far too close to a corrupt financial establishment.

Iceland founded Althing, the national parliament, in 930, making it one of the oldest parliamentary institutions in the world. Icelanders were free until 1262 but then we were submitted under the Norwegian Monarchy that lasted until 1400, after that we were ruled by Denmark and full independence wasn’t our reality until 1944. In order to understand Icelandic politics one has to compare it to nations who have claimed freedom from colonists. In many ways Icelandic politics are still coloured by legislation and functions of the old Monarchy. Our constitution is basically a copy/paste of the Danish constitution and it had become redundant a long time ago. Iceland’s population consists of only 320,000 people. This, of course, means we are a clan-based society which has resulted in nepotism of a high degree in politics.

The nation finally realised last year that a separation of the three branches of government is a mere illusion. Iceland is a state of political party leaders. It is subject to the dictatorship of a handful of political leaders. The separation of the three branches of government is disregarded, Althing has no power whatsoever. It’s merely a processing and handling institution for the executive power (the cabinet) and the appointment of judges is subject to the whims of those in power.

The financial meltdown
As a result of the total financial meltdown, old demands of increased democratic reform have been rekindled with more fervour then ever before. The country had not seen a government without the Independence Party for 18 years straight. The Independence party gradually shifted into neoliberal policies and the Progressive Party eventually became so weak that any chance of voice or reason was thwarted by what some consider as bribes, when it came to, for example the privatisation of the national banks a few years ago. As a result of the three banks collapsing, each earmarked to different political party, the Social Democrats, the Independence Party and the Progressive Party, a wave of anger erupted and resulted in a revolution a few months later. No other country was hit as dramatically as Iceland when the global financial crises hit the world in 2008. The staggering debt has left the country hovering at the edge of debt moratorium. Going from being classified as the 5th richest country in the world to a debt moratorium is leaving little room for maintaining the same social structure as before. The nation has to face either spending all its GDP in paying interest on foreign debt (in many cases originating from private debt rolled over to taxpayers) or claiming debt moratorium.

The public and the power of change
A left government has never ruled in Iceland, not until the pots and pans revolution in January 2009 drove the meltdown government from power. The Social Democrats were a part of that government but after the elections in April 2009 the Left Green Movement and a new political movement created shortly before the elections from a coalition of grassroots movements originated from the demand for social reform called the Civic Movement were considered the true winners of the election. The left parties could for the first time in Icelandic history form a majority government; and so they did. The name the government chose for itself was “Nordic welfare government”. That sounded like music to the ears of many Icelanders who had dreamed of living at times when left values were the core values of society. However it might have been a grave mistake for the SDA and LGM to take on running an economic program through the iron fist of the IMF, which indeed bases its program on everything *but* left values. It might have been a grave mistake to clean up the mess after the heroin economics practiced in Iceland for the last decade or so by the neoliberals of the Independence Party.

Is left really left?
The Social Democratic Alliance was created in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of 1999 as an alliance of the four left-wing parties that had existed in Iceland up till then: the Social Democratic Party, the People’s Alliance, the Women’s Alliance and the National Movement. The parties then formally merged in May 2000. The merger was a deliberate attempt to unify the entire centre left of Icelandic politics into one party capable of countering the right-wing Independence Party. The initial attempt failed however as a group of Althing representatives rejected the new party’s platform - which was inspired by that of Tony Blair’s New Labour Party - and broke away before the merger. They founded the Left-Green Movement, based on more traditional socialist values as well as environmental issues. Some MPs and Ministers from the Social Democratic Alliance have been heavily criticised for being more to the right then the neoliberals in the Independence Party.

The Left Greens have been criticised for abandoning all its major pre-election promises, such as being opposed to the application for EU membership. However, most of the Left Green MPs voted in favour of application last summer. The SDA said before elections that they were not willing to form a government with anyone unless they would support EU application. They also promised to help pave the way for more multinational heavy industry, mostly aluminium smelters for notorious corporations such as Rio Tinto. There has also been heavy criticism on this government for passing a budget that will erode many of the core values of the Icelandic welfare system, such as equality in health and education. The most banal poison pill this government decided to swallow was the Icesave bill. The way the left-wing government handled this case of transferring private debt to the taxpayers of Iceland has been a total failure from day one. First of all they refused to accept assistance from foreign experts in handling contracts for nations in a similar situation as Iceland. They did nothing to bring attention to the fact that the IMF program was blocked by the UK and Dutch governments and other EU member states.

The SD dream of being part of the EU family could be thwarted if they didn’t do as they were told at the dramatic ECOFIN meeting in November 2008. The £3.4 billion payout agreed upon to roll over to taxpayers is against the will of 70 per cent of the nation. Just the interest payments of the Icesave bailout will suck up income tax from 80,000 taxpayers in Iceland every year for at least seven years.

It will place Iceland in the same position as developing nations who spend all their GDP paying interest of foreign debt typically created by dictators. The reason why this is such a hot potato in Iceland is that the government has still not made enough effort to freeze the assets of the people responsible for this unbearable debt. The people responsible are still living in luxury while we now have three per cent of the nation relying on churches and independent welfare organisations to feed them. And it is only going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

The Minister of Health Ogmundur Jonasson resigned recently because of the way his government handled the Icesave saga with, according to him, intolerable tendency to secrecy and emotional blackmail. The neoliberals are to blame for the mess in Iceland. All extremes in politics tend to have terrible results for the nations whom are naive enough to elect that sort of power to govern their social structure. Perhaps it really is time for those that claim to be left parties in Iceland to have a long hard look at what is really left of the left wing politics in their parties. The trend for confusion as to what are left wing policies within the Social Democratic Alliance is contributed to largely by seeking inspiration from the British Labour Party during the era of Blair. It created a deep impact on left policies and politics in Iceland. The opinion of many people is that the Blair leftism has very little to do with left wing policies. Perhaps now is the time in Iceland to look beyond traditional political lines and seek some sort of consensus on what all parties need to work together towards in order to pull us out the mess we are in.

Iceland politics in major political crises
One of the nosiest cries for change during the times of the revolution in January 2009 was for social reform such as the possibility for the general public to call for a national referendum. Another one was to be able to vote in a similar fashion as they vote in Ireland, a single transferable voting system. The nation also wants to have a general constitutional convention for the people, not the politicians. All the parties promised, pre-election, to listen to these demands yet all of the bills proposed by the government are still collecting dust in committees. There is turmoil in all the political parties; power struggles have made their mark on all the parties. The Left Green Party in on the verge of loosing some its key MPs if they carry on sacrificing their ideals and policy in order to hold on to power. There are two towers battling for idealistic power within the party and today it doesn’t look like they will be able to keep it together for much longer. All this political turmoil is quite natural in a total meltdown and crises like the island is going through. There will be without doubt a few new government coalitions before the dust has settled. The financial meltdown was much more then just a financial shock for the island nation. It revealed in a shocking way the deep-rooted problems of nepotism and the weakness of parliament.

What next?
As I am writing this article (5th of January 2010) historical events have been unfolding yet again on the island.

The Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson chose to listen to the 23 per cent of the nation who signed a petition calling on him to put the state guarantee for £3.4 billion to be paid to the British and Dutch governments to a national referendum. The bill was passed through the parliament with a narrow vote on December 30, 2009 after months of acrimonious debate, tainted with secrecy and dishonesty on the part of the government. Every day throughout the debate, new controversial information would emerge and documents would leak on a regular basis to local media or wikileaks. Finally, the people of Iceland have a chance to have something to say about their fate. On January 5th 2010 the Icelandic president had the courage, backed up by his nation, to place the interest of the people before that of the banks.

On 1st of February the report from a Special Investigation Commission established by the Icelandic Parliament will be published. The Commission’s mandate has been to seek the truth relating to the events leading to, and the causes of, the downfall of the Icelandic banks, and related events. The head of the committee said to the press last August that no other committee in our history would have to bring the nation as bad news as the committee he chairs. Speculation is that many political leaders and politicians from all parties will have to face the blues except the Left Greens and the Movement. This could mean that there would have to be general elections again this year. Many fear that the Independence Party will regain its strength on the political arena - they are already gaining following in polls. One thing is for sure - these are interesting times in Iceland, politically and socially. The nation seems to be awakening to its responsibility of co-creating the social structure it wants to live in. The nation has been forced to rethink its values and morals, consumerism is no longer the core value. However, values of self sustainability, family and compassion are emerging as the cornerstones in our society.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir is a party group chairperson for The Movement (Hreyfingin), a member of the Icelandic parliament, activist and a poet.

This article was originally published in the most recent issue of the Scottish Left Review (issue 56, Jan 2010). The SLR is a monthly political journal which explores Scottish and International politics from a radical perspective. They have invited contributions from left-wing activists in a number countries, including Ireland, to see how the left is responding in similar situations. There will be at least one of these contributions published per issue throughout 2010.

Cry from the Heart

from a series of poems i wrote a few years ago - thinking of war and war again - internal and external.

part I

Tears run impulsively
bitter sea of colossal grief
cluster-bomb in my heart
for every life taken

Who are we to act like a force of nature
Self destruction the distinctive human trait

Holocaust created
not once
but NOW

Revenge
abort the revenge

The USA, the UK and Israel
Holy triangle of doom

Their bloody footprints left in
Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iran, Tibet, Tchechenia, Cuba, Columbia, Nicaragua, Venezuela

Fear not the Arabs
Fear not the "Terrorists"
Fear not the Communists
Fear not the tree huggers
Fear the triangle of righteous doom
Fear the glorification of the apocalypse
Fear the mass consumerism
Fear the leaches who suck in and spit out
this planets energy

Doomsday in the heart
Doomsday in the mind
as the Inconvenient truth
about the destruction
the genocides
the mutilations
the endangered species
flow out like 1000 wounds

Will it heal
Will this heart ever beat again
this heart of hope
for humanity
As it heads towards glorious self destruction
yet again


part II

I feel your pain
I feel your pain
I feel your pain

Bombs, limbs, blood, tears, death, grief, anxiety, hatred, revenge, bullets, spit, split, tormented, crippled, infested, pain, fear

Bombs, limbs, blood, tears, death, grief, anxiety, hatred, revenge, bullets, spit, split, tormented, crippled, infested, pain, fear

I feel your pain
I feel your pain
I feel your pain

in my marrow


part III

Despair
rivers of despair
wounds
oceans of pain

Patriarch
Matriarch
ism
ism
ism

Means nothing to me
nothing at all

Flesh, blood, earth, dirt, gravel, sand
and that single yellow flower on that highland hearth
drowned in the silt of greed

This time
the times are changing
Into a dream of universal
equality

Please
don't look the other way
We are the same

I feel the pain

I feel the hope
This eternal ethnic bond
with each grain of sand
each grain of blood
infusion of humanity
Please let me be you
Feel your pain
Feel your healing

I move with her breath
within this planets womb

What are we
Aliens on this Earth
Parasites
Are we controlled by the external or internal parasite
of duality
of Heaven and Hell
Who made this hell
Who can undo what has been done
only you only me only us


part IV

I feel your pain
I feel your pain
I feel your pain

compassion, hope, joy, love, peace, light, abundance, oneness,
compassion, compassion, love, joy, rejoice
compassion, hope, joy, love, peace, light, abundance, oneness,
compassion, compassion, love, joy, rejoice

I feel your hope
I feel your hope
I feel your hope

magnifying

in my marrow


Living dead or alive

Every day I think about
all these people
dead or alive
So far away
yet so close
Missing them
–a state of mind

My desire for touch
is purly physical
To run fingers through thick hair
To hear familiar voices

I don't fear death
I fear the fact I don't fear it

I fear to be living dead
the walls close in around me
Six feet under in the daily routine

I fear to be living dead
That I cease to see the beauty
all around me
and the fact that life is
a countinious
miracle machine

You are the system change

honesty the virtue
we want to see
as above so below
the result from the moral financial system collapse

we want a system transformation

NOT
system adjustment

heads of state abuse your honesty as their shield of lies
for the sake of protecting

you

what are you waiting for
the streets are empty
and silent

of
you

be the system change

Save the people of Iceland!

Save the people of Iceland!

Posted using ShareThis

Open Letter: Support Iceland Against the Financial Blackmail of the British and Dutch Governments and the IMF

Birgitta Jónsdóttir is a spokesperson for The Movement. January 5, 2010 is a historical day for Icelanders. The Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson had a tough decision to make, and difficult choices to make. To listen to the 23% of the nation that signed a petition calling on him to put the state guarantee for 5.4 billion dollars to be paid to the British and Dutch governments to a national referendum. Or to ignore the nation and sign the bill for the government, after the bill had been passed through the parliament with a narrow vote on December 30, 2009 after months of acrimonious debate, tainted with secrecy and dishonesty on the part of the government. Every day throughout the debate, new information would emerge and documents would leak to local media or wikileaks. Yesterday, the people of Iceland finally had a chance to have something to say about their fate, because if the state guarantee is accepted it will mean that Iceland will become like a third world country, spending its GDP largely on paying interest on foreign debt. Last summer, a bill for a state guarantee was passed that had a significant meaning not only for Iceland, but also for other nations around the world facing the same problems of private debt being forced on taxpayers. The bill included a reasonable and fair way of handling the interest and the debt: Icelanders would pay, but only a certain percentage of their GDP, and if there were to be another financial black hole, they would not pay during that time. Thus it comes as no surprise that the Dutch and British governments reacted so swiftly with a condemnation of Iceland’s citizens for having the audacity to think they have the right to exercise their democratic rights in deciding for themselves what is in the best economic interests of their nation. Let’s also put this debt into perspective: 320.000 people live in Iceland, each and every person on the island, including children and the elderly, the disabled and the poor, would have to pay around $30,000 under the bill. The danger if Icelanders will accept this enormous burden is that the entire welfare system would simply collapse with no money to run it. On January 5th the Icelandic president had the courage, backed up by his nation, to place the interest of the people before that of the banks. Of course there has been an incredible spin by the government controlled media, attacking the nation and the president for this simple and fair demand. The UK and Dutch media were also full of misleading news, saying the nation had demanded not to pay, and that we would become isolated and there were even suggestions that the British navy should flex its muscles against this nation which has no military. As if the terrorist act they imposed on us was not enough during the darkest hour of our crises to bring us further down! The spin is failing because people around the world are finally starting to hear our side of the story, and other suppressed nations have perhaps seen this as a sign that they can also rise up against the corpocracy in our world where those with the money have as a rule always won. Let’s hope the nation will not been coaxed into fear of isolation and let’s hope the people of the world will join in this experiment of letting the interest of the peoples rise above the interests of banks, corporations, and international bullies such as the IMF. We need your support. I will soon issue a comprehensive report on the entire Icesave saga. Love and rage from Iceland Birgitta Jónsdóttir Party group chairman for The Movement in the Icelandic Parliament

Icelandic perspective of weather

EU, IMF Revolt: Iceland and Latvia May Lead the Way

Ellen Hodgson Brown, J.D.

www.webofdebt.com/articles

December 7, 2009

Total financial collapse, once a problem only for developing countries, has now come to Europe. The International Monetary Fund is imposing its “austerity measures” on Iceland and Eastern Europe, with Latvia the hardest hit of the “Baltic Tigers.” But these are not your ordinary third world debtor supplicants. Historically, the Vikings of Iceland repeatedly repulsed British invaders; and Latvian tribes repulsed even the Vikings. If anyone can stand up to the IMF, these stalwart northern warriors can; and today they might even find an ally in each other.

Dozens of countries have defaulted on their debts in recent decades, the most recent being Dubai, which declared a debt moratorium on November 26, 2009. If the once lavishly-rich Arab emirate can default, more desperate countries can; and when the alternative is to destroy the local economy, it is hard to argue that they shouldn’t. That is particularly true when the legal grounds for imposing the creditors’ claims on the government are highly questionable. Both Iceland and Latvia have been saddled with responsibility for private obligations to which they were not parties. Economist Michael Hudson writes:

“The European Union and International Monetary Fund have told them to replace private debts with public obligations, and to pay by raising taxes, slashing public spending and obliging citizens to deplete their savings. Resentment is growing not only toward those who ran up these debts . . . but also toward the neoliberal foreign advisors and creditors who pressured these governments to sell off the banks and public infrastructure to insiders.”

Eva Joly, a Norwegian-French magistrate hired to investigate the Icelandic bank collapse, calls it blackmail. As a condition for receiving IMF loans and membership in the European Union, Iceland is being required to endorse an agreement in which it would reimburse Dutch and British depositors who lost money in the collapse of IceSave, an offshore division of Iceland’s leading private bank. But these are not debts the government is legally bound to assume; and Joly warns that succumbing to the EU’s demands will drain Iceland of its resources and its people, who are being forced to emigrate to find work.

Iceland’s economy contracted by 7.2% during the third quarter, the biggest fall on record. Latvia forecasts a 17.5% decline in the economy this year, with major cutbacks in public spending. As in other countries squeezed by neo-liberal tourniquets on productivity, employment and output are being crippled, bringing these economies to their knees.

The cynical view is that that may have been the intent. Instead of helping post-Soviet nations develop self-reliant economies, writes Marshall Auerback, “the West has viewed them as economic oysters to be broken up to indebt them in order to extract interest charges and capital gains, leaving them empty shells.”

But Iceland and Latvia could call the bluff of the IMF and EU, following the lead of Argentina in 2001. In the face of dire predictions that the economy would collapse without foreign credit, in 2001 it defied its creditors and simply walked away from its debts. By the fall of 2004, three years after a record default on a debt of more than $100 billion, the country was well on the road to recovery; and it achieved this feat without foreign help. The economy grew by 8 percent for 2 consecutive years. Exports increased, the currency was stable, investors were returning, and unemployment had eased. “This is a remarkable historical event, one that challenges 25 years of failed policies,” said economist Mark Weisbrot in a 2004 interview quoted in The New York Times. “While other countries are just limping along, Argentina is experiencing very healthy growth with no sign that it is unsustainable, and they’ve done it without having to make any concessions to get foreign capital inflows.”

To find the money for its remarkable development, Argentina did not need foreign investors. It issued its own money and credit through its own central bank. Earlier, when the national currency collapsed completely in 1995 and again after 2000, Argentine local governments issued local bonds that traded as currency. Provinces paid their employees with paper receipts called “Debt-Cancelling Bonds” that were in currency units equivalent to the Argentine Peso. The bonds canceled the provinces’ debts to their employees and could be spent in the community. The provinces had actually “monetized” their debts, turning their bonds into legal tender.

Issuing and lending currency is the sovereign right of governments, and it is a right that Iceland and Latvia will lose if they join the EU, which forbids member nations to borrow from their own central banks. Latvia and Iceland both have natural resources that could be developed if they had the credit to do it; and with sovereign control over their local currencies, they could get that credit simply by creating it on the books of their own publicly-owned banks.

In fact, there is nothing extraordinary in that proposal. All private banks get the credit they lend simply by creating it on their books. Contrary to popular belief, banks do not lend their own money or their depositors’ money. As the U.S. Federal Reserve attests, banks lend new money, created by double-entry bookkeeping as a deposit of the borrower on one side of the bank’s books and as an asset of the bank on the other.

Besides thawing frozen credit pipes, credit created by governments has the advantage that it can be issued interest-free. Eliminating the cost of interest can cut production costs dramatically. For a discussion of some new technologies that could make even small countries self-sufficient, see David Blume, Alcohol Can Be a Gas.

For the full text of this article, see www.webofdebt.com/articles.

Ellen Brown is a California attorney and the author of eleven books, including “Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System and How We Can Break Free,” available in English, Swedish and German. Her websites are www.webofdebt.com and www.ellenbrown.com.