#museleum

3: A song that reminds you of summertime

Hmm there are a few, Summer Breeze by Seals & Crofts, Dead Beat Summer by Neon Indian, and Summer of Love by the B52s are the first that came to mind :) 

12: A song from your preteen years

In my preteen years i was obsessed with Michael Jackson, one of my favourites by him is You Rock My World. It has an awesome music video complete with a dance fight. 

13: One of your favorite 80’s songs

Mirror in the Bathroom by The English Beat, who i saw last month and died. 

22: A song that moves you forward

A Message to You Rudy by the Specials. And Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard by Paul Simon  ^^ 

I can't put this under a read more - I apologize!

On neoliberalism:

"Neo-liberalism" is a set of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years or so. Although the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of neo-liberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.

"Liberalism" can refer to political, economic, or even religious ideas. In the U.S. political liberalism has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive compared to conservative or Rightwing. Economic liberalism is different. Conservative politicians who say they hate "liberals" -- meaning the political type -- have no real problem with economic liberalism, including neoliberalism...

But the capitalist crisis over the last 25 years, with its shrinking profit rates, inspired the corporate elite to revive economic liberalism. That's what makes it "neo" or new. Now, with the rapid globalization of the capitalist economy, we are seeing neo-liberalism on a global scale.

A memorable definition of this process came from Subcomandante Marcos at the Zapatista-sponsored Encuentro Intercontinental por la Humanidad y contra el Neo-liberalismo (Inter-continental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neo-liberalism) of August 1996 in Chiapas when he said: "what the Right offers is to turn the world into one big mall where they can buy Indians here, women there ...." and he might have added, children, immigrants, workers or even a whole country like Mexico."

The main points of neo-liberalism include:

THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating "free" enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers' rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this is good for us, they say "an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone." It's like Reagan's "supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics -- but somehow the wealth didn't trickle down very much.

CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply -- again in the name of reducing government's role. Of course, they don't oppose government subsidies and tax benefits for business.

DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminsh profits, including protecting the environmentand safety on the job.

PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. Although usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs.

ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF "THE PUBLIC GOOD" or "COMMUNITY" and replacing it with "individual responsibility." Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security all by themselves -- then blaming them, if they fail, as "lazy."

Around the world, neo-liberalism has been imposed by powerful financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. It is raging all over Latin America. The first clear example of neo-liberalism at work came in Chile (with thanks to University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman), after the CIA-supported coup against the popularly elected Allende regime in 1973. Other countries followed, with some of the worst effects in Mexico where wages declined 40 to 50% in the first year of NAFTA while the cost of living rose by 80%. Over 20,000 small and medium businesses have failed and more than 1,000 state-owned enterprises have been privatized in Mexico. As one scholar said, "Neoliberalism means the neo-colonization of Latin America."

In the United States neo-liberalism is destroying welfare programs; attacking the rights of labor (including all immigrant workers); and cutbacking social programs. The Republican "Contract" on America is pure neo-liberalism. Its supporters are working hard to deny protection to children, youth, women, the planet itself -- and trying to trick us into acceptance by saying this will "get government off my back." The beneficiaries of neo-liberalism are a minority of the world's people. For the vast majority it brings even more suffering than before: suffering without the small, hard-won gains of the last 60 years, suffering without end.

more:

Neoliberalism is commonly perceived as referring only to the realm of the economy. But the pursuit of neoliberal measures in the realm of the economy also requires an appropriate restructuring of the polity. The reason is as follows.

Neoliberal measures include, above all, an opening of the economy to free cross-border movements of capital, including, in particular, finance capital. In a country that is open to such free movements of finance capital, if the state pursued measures that are disliked by finance, then finance would pull out of the country and move elsewhere; and, since such movements can be quite large, the economy would find itself in an acute crisis. In a neoliberal economy, therefore, the state is forever caught in the attempt to retain “the confidence of the investors” in the economy (a euphemism for keeping finance capital happy). For this it has to bow to the caprices of globalised finance capital (with which domestic big capital is closely integrated) and adopt only such measures as finance likes, that is, measures that promote its interests.

This fact itself constitutes a negation of democracy. In a democracy the state is supposed to pursue policies that benefit the people, who are sovereign and on the basis of whose electoral verdict the government is formed. But if the government elected by the people must follow policies that are not in the interests of the people but in the interests of finance capital, then we have a negation of democracy. What is more, as long as the economy remains open to capital flows, that is, committed to the neoliberal paradigm, no matter who comes to power, the same policies must be followed to prevent a capital flight and to keep the economy solvent. Hence, when it comes to economic policies that crucially affect their lives, the people’s choice in elections becomes irrelevant, for no matter who they vote for, they get the same policies, whose essence is to keep finance capital happy.

Neoliberalism + activism/identity

Neoliberalism is the dominant economic and cultural system of our time. It is a system that positions the market as the answer to everything. Any problem is supposed to be best addressed—most effectively and efficiently—through the market. Neoliberalism positions the move of previously public functions into the private sphere of the market as an unequivocal good and unquestionable common sense. As a corollary, any barriers to the workings of that market (and barriers to the flow of capital) should be eliminated through various kinds of deregulation. Proponents of neoliberalism advocate deregulation even if that deregulation requires (or has required in practice) an increasing regulation on the movement of peoples. And neoliberalism, while promising unparalleled freedom and unstoppable growth, exacerbates all kinds of inequalities around the globe. Neoliberal ideology displays a special genius at making lopsided growth, wealth for a few, and immiseration for many more, seem sexy, progressive, and “modern.”

This positioning of neoliberalism as more progressive than conservative regulation, and as the wave of development and the future, means that activist projects can become vehicles for neoliberal policies rather than for social change that will actually challenge the distribution of wealth and power in contemporary societies. “Neoliberalism is,” as Gérard Duménil and Dominique Lévy write, “a predatory system:” it is predatory on the liberatory energies our movements have generated, the resistant identifications we shape, the resources we might access, and the radical openness to alternative futures that (appears to be a common desire) across progressive movements.[1]

LGBT and disability movements have not been immune to these dangers. Neoliberal cultural and economic forces have unevenly mainstreamed LGBT and disability movements. For example, activism on behalf of same-sex marriage often positions gay people as the perfect neoliberal subjects. Because neoliberalism depends on private solutions to all problems, “the family” takes on an increasingly important role as the provider of goods and services like caring labor for those who are young or elderly. Some gay marriage advocates have happily embraced the idea that gay people will take up these responsibilities for their newly formed families without asking anything more of the government than the right to marry. Such narrow campaigns for gay marriage do not support the right to develop a multitude of different kinds of relationships that might provide caring labor, nor do they support social responses, such as government-supported day care, to the question of who is to provide labor. In other words, when gay marriage is promoted in neoliberal terms, gay marriage activists are willing to accept and even promote privatized understandings of the need for care in exchange for mainstream “acceptance” of gay relationships. And as both LGBT and disability movements have, in different ways, accepted this type of mainstreaming and “gone to market,” as Alexandra Chasin has put it, they have narrowed their political vision and sacrificed commitments and solidarities that formerly defined them.[2] The desire to be different (to, for example, form caring relationships that do not follow the model of heterosexual marriage), is sacrificed to the hope for political acceptance and market solutions. As a result, solidarity with all those who persist in doing things differently is also undermined.

I don’t agree with some writers who argue that the LGBT movement has always been all about respect and recognition, while neglecting redistribution (and social justice more broadly). But the mainstream movement at the turn of the century definitely has been, and I want to make a few points about that fact.[3] First, with the now-measurable recognition “we” have in fact achieved, LGBT people don’t always face an easily identified homophobic power like “the state” or “the family;” we are, rather, a necessary and material part of the contemporary world. Second, our recognition and flexible incorporation into that world comes with the expectation of privatization and consumption, the wedding planners and registrations at Bloomingdale’s morphing into private retirement plans and jointly owned condos furnished by Design Within Reach. Third, and perhaps most interestingly given what have often been parallel histories,[4] the good queer subject of mainstream representation is now the one most distanced from disability, from embodied differences that might make a gay person visibly different from the mainstream or that might require care beyond what any individual “family” can provide, or that might require changes to social structures—whether the physical structures of the built environment or the relational structures of marriage and family—rather than assimilation into those structures...

In the United States queers can be denounced, in part, because of their unwillingness to go along with the “reasonable” domestic agenda of gay marriage. Association with the unruly aspects of queerness (and the specter of multiple partners or uncontrolled relationships) is used to hurt gay marriage campaigns...

More on neoliberalism and identity politics:

The more far-sighted elements of the New Zealand state, universities and the business class saw the need to deflect the potential dangers arising from the growth of new social movements, especially those with a Maori base. There was a conscious attempt to bring on board elements of these groups, to embrace and fuse identity politics into a new liberal Establishment, and to foster the growth of a ‘brown middle class’ and a ‘brown bourgeoisie’ (Ferguson, 2000, p. 34).The election of the Fourth Labour Government in 1984 marked a conscious and dramatic shift in government policy regarding Maori, woman and various ‘minority’ groups. Feminism, biculturalism and identity politics were embraced and actively promoted by the state. This reconfiguring of the ideology and practice of the New Zealand state partly represented a synthesis of various forces. Elements of the New Zealand capitalist class, as well as state bureaucrats and intellectuals, recognised that the agitational, and at times violent, response of the previous National Government to elements of the new social movements, was a strategy that would only exacerbate divisions in New Zealand society. 

And more:

As a result, a political agenda gained strength among lesbian/gay movements that focuses on legal reforms to the exclusion of long-term or deeper social change. The people who staff and lead the largest lesbian/gay organizations sometimes pay lip service to long-term, deeper change, but in practice they follow a purely reformist agenda, because of the weight of money and social pressure behind it. It has won significant support among big political parties, particularly social democrats, greens and left-liberals, including parties in many recent or current Western European governments. In social-democratic parties in particular, the adoption of reformist pro-gay positions has been part of a far-reaching social transformation of these parties, which without exception have taken a greater distance from their traditional working-class base. David Paternotte’s article in this volume describes in detail how this process took place in the Socialist Party of French-speaking Belgium.

Lesbian/gay rights have also been picked up by the European Union, particularly since they were written into the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam. The European Union’s leaders, some of whom would like to turn the EU into a great power, need to foster some sort of European identity. But what can the ‘European identity’ consist of? Not a strong labour movement and welfare state — even though these are European traditions; the EU’s Lisbon Agenda aims at retooling them in the interest of greater competitiveness in the global economy. One kind of answer that is taking shape consists of a series of human rights principles that don’t actually cost money, such as secularism, opposition to the death penalty, decriminalization of abortion and formal elimination of antigay discrimination. All of these have been useful lately in distinguishing Europe from the US (at least from the ‘red states’ that formed George W. Bush’s electoral base in 2000 and 2004) as well as from the Muslim world. So in a sense gay rights are part of the democratic decoration that is on offer to Europeans while their markets are forced open and many of their social protections stripped away.

This has gone together with some positive results, such as the striking down of anti-gay laws in a couple of EU countries and pressure to equalize same-sex and heterosexual ages of consent. Eastern European countries where lesbian/gay movements are still mostly weak have been put under pressure to eliminate their discriminatory legislation, with some success. But meanwhile the same centre-left political forces that have backed these reforms have taken part – more or less hesitantly, more or less shamefacedly – in an assault on poor people and minorities.

This is not of great concern to the layer of middle-class or middle-class-identified lesbian/gay people, who are making their careers or hoping for careers inside mainstream businesses and institutions. Many of these people would like to be able to pursue their careers in mainstream companies and institutions while being open about their same-sex relationships, but for the rest prefer to minimize differences between them and middle-class straights. So the kind of gay agenda they support is limited to pursuing anti-discrimination measures, with ‘gay marriage’ as its keystone. An increasingly visible minority identifies with the secular right that is defined as ‘liberal’ in continental Europe — a significant proportion of Dutch lesbian/gay leaders now identify with the right-liberal VVD party, and there have been similar developments in a country like Denmark — or forces even further to the right — as in Italy, where the openly gay Enrico Oliari of the post-fascist National Alliance hoped (in vain) to become Berlusconi’s Secretary of State for Emancipation.

Partnership laws are in this sense double-edged. Only the rise and strength of lesbian/gay movements have made them possible. Yet they are rarely lesbian/gay organizations’ first priority or initiative. And in the forms that existing European centre-left governments have accepted partnership laws and pushed them through, they are also measures that fit into a vision of gay life in which gays become monogamous, moral and well-regulated and are squeezed into the straitjacket into a broader ‘pro-family’ agenda. Furthermore same-sex couples are supposed, by supporting each other financially, to contribute to the neoliberal privatization of social responsibilities.

Also great:

yepyepyep

so pretty ;;;u;;; the colour makes your eyes pop *o*