In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, as man first began to take advantage of fossil fuels, namely coal, canaries were carried down into the mines as an early-warning system. Because of their small size and fast metabolism, these little birds pass out, or even die from poisonous gas or asphyxiation long before miners feel any effects. Hence, when the canary dies, you get the hell out of the mine shaft.
Iceland is a small nation, and like most small nations, is inherently more susceptible to changes in the world environment, at least when it gets dragged down the mine-shafts of globalization.
Like the coal miner’s canary, what happened here is a forewarning of what could or will happen elsewhere, if people fail to get the hell out of the mines.
This doesn’t help those of us here in Iceland all that much. The damage has been done, and for all the harping on about Russian loans and the IMF, we need to recognize that the heyday of Viking Economics is over. Iceland will not be a international financial superpower.
Let me repeat that: Iceland will not be an international financial superpower.
Get over it.
Our waxy wings got way too close to the sun and we burned.
This may not be a bad thing. As Octavia E. Butler pointed out in her semi-prophetic Parable of the Sower:
In order to rise from its ashes
A Phoenix
First
Must
Burn.
I for one hope that we rise from our ashes.
I hope that the “New Iceland” everyone is talking about will be a triumphant thing, an affirmation of hope and reason and community, a vision of a prosperous, flourishing island, a well-balanced blend of town and country. Productive farms feeding and fueling clean cities, small scale industry supporting electric rails and new aluminum boats, sailing out to fish and trade on the wind, recycling plants turning what was once wasted into a resource, and cities bustling with the work of “knowledge factories” ,the schools and information companies. I hope for horizontal organization, from the bottom up instead of the top down. Real democracy, of the people, by the people, and for the people.
None of this is going to happen though. Not unless we make some hard choices and throw out a great many outdated and self-destructive habits.
The most damning of which is looking to Authority to solve all our problems.
Right now, the very same people who caused this crisis, either by their blind faith in the dogma of the Church of the Invisible Hand*, or by passive acquiescence to said doctrines have the unmitigated gall to don the mantle of salvation and claim that they and they alone can save us from the very reckoning they called down on us. These same people, falsely cloaked in Authority, will stand in the way of nearly every effort to build a new and better Iceland, because a new and better Iceland will have no use for them, for their cronies in big business, for their closed-door party meetings, for passing laws without debate, for musical-chair ministers and some-pigs-are-more-equal-than-others retirement schemes.
No!
Just no, damn it!
NO MORE!
No more of your vested interests. No more claiming brides as speaking fees. No more of your transparent scapegoating, kicking down hostel doors to distract us from your fraud. No more funneling the nation’s wealth into the pockets of your supporters.
You had your chance. Hell, you’ve had more than a chance. You have had chances, plural, each more pressing than the last and each more shameful.
When the canary started to sicken at the rising price of food and fuel, did you look the truth in the eye, recognize that oil is on its way out, and push for a nationwide move away from that poisonous black gold and towards sustainable domestic production?
No you did not.
You threw some crumbs to the crowds, little phrases like “bio-diesel” (imported, despite the fact it could be manufactured here) and “the hydrogen economy” (to date nothing but a pipe dream). You talked about destroying what little is left of Icelandic agriculture in favor of “cheap” imported food, instead of moving to build up agriculture, creating jobs, sustenance, and fuel in the process.
When the Housing Bubble burst, as anyone with eyes could see it would, did you move swiftly and effectively to soften the blow? No. You knelt at the alter of the Invisible Hand and hoped for the best, only taking action long after it could have had any real effect, and then only to insure the banks would pay no consequences for their predatory lending schemes.
Worse yet, when it became clear that the Banking Bubble was going to burst, you did nothing, even as the greedy few dragged the many into debt while lining your own pockets with 30 (thousand) pieces of silver. Then, to pile incompetence on inaction, you moved with misguided zeal to “save” the banks, dragging the nation down to prop up institutions that according to your own oft-stated believe in competitive markets should have been allowed to fail, taking their overpaid captains down with them.
Now you spout drivel about heavy industry, which will put the nation further in debt, whilst reaping a meager harvest of jobs and cash and a whirlwind of environmental damage. You bat your eyes like a courtesan at a tyrant to bail out our banks, and look to an organization that once tried to privatize an entire country’s water supply and sell it to Coca-Cola for advice on how to restructure. You tell people their pensions will be slashed, while using the crisis to excuse the continuation of your own embezzled “retirement” funds, and claim to investigate yourselves when you can’t even pass a law on public disclosure.
By your actions and by your inaction, you have forfeited any claim to leadership.
You who claim Authority over Iceland have failed the people time and again, and it is high time that people shook you off their backs. We don’t care how hard you work now to prop up the tottering house of cards you built.
Let it fall.
Let it burn.
Then get the hell out of our way so we can build something better from the ashes.
All the golden gilt in the world doesn’t make it any less a cage.
We’re tired of being your canary.
*If we could see the Invisible Hand of The Marketplace, it would be giving us the finger.
Iceland is a small nation, and like most small nations, is inherently more susceptible to changes in the world environment, at least when it gets dragged down the mine-shafts of globalization.
Like the coal miner’s canary, what happened here is a forewarning of what could or will happen elsewhere, if people fail to get the hell out of the mines.
This doesn’t help those of us here in Iceland all that much. The damage has been done, and for all the harping on about Russian loans and the IMF, we need to recognize that the heyday of Viking Economics is over. Iceland will not be a international financial superpower.
Let me repeat that: Iceland will not be an international financial superpower.
Get over it.
Our waxy wings got way too close to the sun and we burned.
This may not be a bad thing. As Octavia E. Butler pointed out in her semi-prophetic Parable of the Sower:
In order to rise from its ashes
A Phoenix
First
Must
Burn.
I for one hope that we rise from our ashes.
I hope that the “New Iceland” everyone is talking about will be a triumphant thing, an affirmation of hope and reason and community, a vision of a prosperous, flourishing island, a well-balanced blend of town and country. Productive farms feeding and fueling clean cities, small scale industry supporting electric rails and new aluminum boats, sailing out to fish and trade on the wind, recycling plants turning what was once wasted into a resource, and cities bustling with the work of “knowledge factories” ,the schools and information companies. I hope for horizontal organization, from the bottom up instead of the top down. Real democracy, of the people, by the people, and for the people.
None of this is going to happen though. Not unless we make some hard choices and throw out a great many outdated and self-destructive habits.
The most damning of which is looking to Authority to solve all our problems.
Right now, the very same people who caused this crisis, either by their blind faith in the dogma of the Church of the Invisible Hand*, or by passive acquiescence to said doctrines have the unmitigated gall to don the mantle of salvation and claim that they and they alone can save us from the very reckoning they called down on us. These same people, falsely cloaked in Authority, will stand in the way of nearly every effort to build a new and better Iceland, because a new and better Iceland will have no use for them, for their cronies in big business, for their closed-door party meetings, for passing laws without debate, for musical-chair ministers and some-pigs-are-more-equal-than-others retirement schemes.
No!
Just no, damn it!
NO MORE!
No more of your vested interests. No more claiming brides as speaking fees. No more of your transparent scapegoating, kicking down hostel doors to distract us from your fraud. No more funneling the nation’s wealth into the pockets of your supporters.
You had your chance. Hell, you’ve had more than a chance. You have had chances, plural, each more pressing than the last and each more shameful.
When the canary started to sicken at the rising price of food and fuel, did you look the truth in the eye, recognize that oil is on its way out, and push for a nationwide move away from that poisonous black gold and towards sustainable domestic production?
No you did not.
You threw some crumbs to the crowds, little phrases like “bio-diesel” (imported, despite the fact it could be manufactured here) and “the hydrogen economy” (to date nothing but a pipe dream). You talked about destroying what little is left of Icelandic agriculture in favor of “cheap” imported food, instead of moving to build up agriculture, creating jobs, sustenance, and fuel in the process.
When the Housing Bubble burst, as anyone with eyes could see it would, did you move swiftly and effectively to soften the blow? No. You knelt at the alter of the Invisible Hand and hoped for the best, only taking action long after it could have had any real effect, and then only to insure the banks would pay no consequences for their predatory lending schemes.
Worse yet, when it became clear that the Banking Bubble was going to burst, you did nothing, even as the greedy few dragged the many into debt while lining your own pockets with 30 (thousand) pieces of silver. Then, to pile incompetence on inaction, you moved with misguided zeal to “save” the banks, dragging the nation down to prop up institutions that according to your own oft-stated believe in competitive markets should have been allowed to fail, taking their overpaid captains down with them.
Now you spout drivel about heavy industry, which will put the nation further in debt, whilst reaping a meager harvest of jobs and cash and a whirlwind of environmental damage. You bat your eyes like a courtesan at a tyrant to bail out our banks, and look to an organization that once tried to privatize an entire country’s water supply and sell it to Coca-Cola for advice on how to restructure. You tell people their pensions will be slashed, while using the crisis to excuse the continuation of your own embezzled “retirement” funds, and claim to investigate yourselves when you can’t even pass a law on public disclosure.
By your actions and by your inaction, you have forfeited any claim to leadership.
You who claim Authority over Iceland have failed the people time and again, and it is high time that people shook you off their backs. We don’t care how hard you work now to prop up the tottering house of cards you built.
Let it fall.
Let it burn.
Then get the hell out of our way so we can build something better from the ashes.
All the golden gilt in the world doesn’t make it any less a cage.
We’re tired of being your canary.
*If we could see the Invisible Hand of The Marketplace, it would be giving us the finger.
1 comment:
Great rant. Though one teensy-weensy thing is bugging me:
"No more claiming brides as speaking fees."
Was that supposed to be 'bribes' or did I miss something huge?
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