[LAU] OT: Italian University

Ken Restivo ken at restivo.org
Thu Nov 18 17:10:26 UTC 2010


On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 01:08:01PM +0100, Philipp ??berbacher wrote:
> Excerpts from Renato Budinich's message of 2010-11-17 11:26:00 +0100:
> > Hello list,
> > sorry for the way off topic, but it's quite important...
> > 
> > Italian university may not be here anymore, as we know it, in very few
> > years. At my university in Trieste there will probably not be enough funds
> > *next year* to pay wages, let alone heating, light and toilet paper.
> > 
> > We have made this video which we would like to spread as much as possible...
> > here it is:
> > 
> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVHGFMR_N6o
> > 
> > unfortunately it was done with propietary software, but it uses CC music
> > from newgrounds.com
> > 
> > spread it!
> > 
> > cheers
> > renato
> 
> Nice video. I relayed it to the local head of student representatives,
> maybe it will help spreading it.
> 
> The whole thing looks like a contest to me, and Austria isn't far behind
> Italy.
> 
> Best regards from little Italy (aka. Carinthia/Austria)
> 

It is indeed a contest, a competition. In the USA, the relatively small group of people who have seen this coming (i.e. anti-WTO, anti-globalization protesters) have been calling it "the race to the bottom" for a few decades.

The contest is quite simple: people "compete" for the largesse of wealthy corporations. We have to "compete" by cutting wages, eliminating taxes on the rich and/or corporations, decimating government services, "privatizing" everything, slashing regulations, and ceding more and more power to corrupt businesses. It is a mad, diabolical perversion of capitalism, operating in reverse, and turning Adam Smith upon his head: instead of businesses competing in order to provide better services and products to people, it is people competing in order to provide better servitude and slavery to businesses. Ingenious, actually, in its destructiveness, much like a well-written virus.

For those of us who grew up at the beginning of this nightmare-- in the USA and UK under Reagan and Thatcher-- this is nothing new. To the rest of the world, we're sorry that this plague is spreading so rapidly and infecting you too. Welcome to our world.

OK, that's enough politics for me. It deeply saddens me that the few remaining beacons of hope that I've held are now too flickering and darkening.

-ken


More information about the Linux-audio-user mailing list