May 2012
2 posts
WatchHere’s the interview about The Leaderless Revolution (and the Occupy Bank) on The Colbert Report on May Day, 2012
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The Leaderless Revolution on @colbertreport: →
April 2012
3 posts
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WatchSorry, this is in fact the video of the full interview. Earlier post is the short video on the 9 Principles.
WatchFull video of the Bill Moyers interview about The Leaderless Revolution.
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Agents of Change: Discussion of The Leaderless... →
Interview with Bill Moyers on The Leaderless Revolution. To be broadcast in the US over this weekend, and in New York City on April 8th.
March 2012
1 post
Bill Moyers: “It’s been a long time since I’ve... →
This video foreshadows Bill Moyers’s interview with Carne Ross about “The Leaderless Revolution” to be broadcast nationally from April 6th.
February 2012
3 posts
A new politics for a disorderly world →
This article will forever disqualify me from govt service, thx @KatrinaNation!
Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com)
Occupy Wall Street and a New Politics for a Disorderly World
Carne Ross | February 7, 2012
The global financial crisis has provoked a profound and necessary questioning of the prevailing political and economic orthodoxy. So pervasive is this disillusionment with...
Down with Leadership (frm Huffington Post)
Down With Leadership
Posted: 02/ 2/2012 2:42 pm
The Republican primaries grind on. Now that Newt Gingrich has declared his determination to fight it out until the convention in August, the year’s news “agenda” will be wholly dominated by the soap-opera arguments of the presidential contest. Though tediously drawn-out, the ritualized debates reveal little of how...
Down with Leadership! (via @HuffingtonPost) →
January 2012
6 posts
The seductive scientistic but dangerous appeal of... →
This Quantum Diaries blog is an excellent discussion of the virtues of logical positivism in science, namely the vital distinction between claims that can be tested against evidence, and those that cannot, or where the evidence does not exist.
However, logical positivism is a very dangerous framework for the study of human affairs. This is one of the fundamental assumptions of the thinking...
The Leaderless Revolution published today! Info:...
Here's a link to the interview I did this morning... →
How the mainstream will appropriate Occupy & thus...
I tweeted about this yesterday.
Looking back at the upheaval of 1968, it’s all too clear that the ideals of that short moment were appropriated by the mainstream and thus nullified. As Slavoj Zizek has observed, Che Guavara became a T-shirt logo rather than a global revolution. The words and slogans of the movement (which, like Occupy, was tellingly diffuse) became part of mainstream...
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Wanted: Recommendations for Avatars of The...
To celebrate the ideas of “The Leaderless Revolution”, I’d be really grateful for suggestions of individuals around the world who are taking action to affect political and economic circumstances directly, not by campaigning or politicking but by doing - the essence of the philosophy of the book.
Whether establishing forums of participatory democracy, cooperatives, new banks or...
Hating new year's eve: a political analysis:
I am trying to understand why I have always found new year’s eve a dismal affair. This morning, for some reason, I am in the mood to break this down.
The manufactured celebration affirms our false understanding of time, that it is all about what is past and what lies ahead, when in fact life is “about” neither. Neither past nor future exists. There is of course only the...
December 2011
9 posts
Koestler imagines a post-rationalist future
Near the end of Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon,there is an extraordinary passage:
“Perhaps later, much later, the new movement would arise- with new flags, a new spirit knowing of both: of economic fatality and the ‘oceanic sense’. Perhaps the members of the new party will wear monks’ cowls, and preach that only purity of means can justify the ends. Perhaps they will teach that the tenet is...
Revolution through Banking: The Nation →
This article describes the work and ambitions of the Occupy Wall Street working group on alternative banking.
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WatchMe discussing Occupy NYC’s work on Alternative Banking with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC last night
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The Leaderless Revolution: A new Paradigm of...
This article was posted in Huffington Post today, headed by this video (which can also be viewed here):
A new paradigm of political change:
The political methods of the 20th century are, it appears, less and less effective for the world of the 21st.
The nature of globalization is without precedent: accelerating interconnectedness, with billions of people interacting constantly in a massive,...
A further note on the UK's disastrous diplomacy
The more I think about it, the more I think that Cameron’s diplomacy was disastrously ill-planned. Whoever dreamt it up should resign. It’s basic diplomacy to prepare negotiating partners for your proposals, and assess prospects BEFORE you table. This clearly was not done.
A quick bluffer's guide to what's happened in the...
I suspect that an awful lot of people are trying to understand the dramatic events in the EU on Thursday night. And they are dramatic.
Here’s a very brief attempt to make sense of it.
The EU leaders met (this is the “European Council”) to decide new common fiscal rules. They did this to stem the collapse in confidence in the euro, following runs on sovereign debt in Greece,...
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Some thoughts on the future of Occupy Wall Street...
When a crockery store in mid-town Manhattan advertises its wares as “Gifts for the 99%”, you know that the Occupy Wall Street movement has achieved extraordinary cultural impact. At UN climate negotiations, the most vulnerable island states have talked about “occupying” Durban. Even Republicans are now talking about inequality.
But as winter draws in, and Zuccotti Park has been emptied of...
9 Ways to start a Revolution →
A Huffington Post slide-show on 9 principles of revolution, from The Leaderless Revolution.
Zizek on contemporary ideology in a...
From “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce” (Verso, 2009):
Zizek cites an anecdote about Niels Bohr: surprised at seeing a horse-shoe above the door of Bohr’s country house, a fellow scientist exclaimed that he did not share the superstitious belief that horse-shoes kept evil spirits away, to which Bohr snapped back, ‘I don’t believe in it either. I have it there because...
November 2011
9 posts
'Puts the “We” back into “Yes We Can”' -: The...
From “Books of the Year, 2011” in Scotland’s Herald (Nov 27):
“…Inspiring to read it alongside Carne Ross’s wonderful account of his journey from British WMD expert at the UN to emergent anarchist, The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Can Take Power And Change Politics In The 21st Century (Simon & Schuster, £16.99). Puts the “We” back into “Yes We Can”.”
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#OWS - Alternative Banking proposal - The Commons:...
This note was shared with members of the Alternative Banking working group of Occupy Wall Street (New York) today. It reflects our discussions in recent weeks.
The Commons: A Good Bank
112411 draft
This note has been prepared by the alternative banking working group of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. The note is for discussion with the OWS movement and more broadly.
The purpose...
The Poor, the Near Poor and You - powerful NY... →
One in three Americans lives in poverty or close to it. If the country does not change direction, more Americans will be struggling.
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The Daily Telegraph Books of the Year 2011... →
John Burnside. The surprise hit of 2011, in our house at least, was The Leaderless Revolution (Simon and Schuster, £16.99), an inspiring plea for emergent anarchism from former British WMD and sanctions expert Carne Ross. If everyone read this book, politics might begin to be about trusting each other rather than lobbies, subsidies and cynicism
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Carne Ross on The Leaderless Revolution in The... →
The Browser on The influences behind The Leaderless Revolution
Our political and economic systems are inadequate and failing. But what can we do? The author of a new book on the subject tells us what inspired his involvement in the Occupy movement and how a leaderless revolution could work
The Leaderless Revolution (US edition) at... →
“The Leaderless Revolution” will be published first in e-book form on 29 November by Blue Rider Press, a new imprint of Penguin Books. You can pre-order it here. The hardcover will be out in January.
WatchVideo and podcast of my September 2011 talk at the London School of Economics on “The Leaderless Revolution”. It’s a good summary of the arguments. More videos to come soon. Shorter ones.
'So bold, so full of incontestable truths and...
