Great. Have we learned nothing from the financial crisis? Bravo, politicians. (Why don’t we just get rid of them?)

Please note that the news about the rejection of the transaction taxis is quite hard to find. G8 concluding that they are angry of Iran and N. Korea is so much more important.

P.S. What about the change Obama was promising? Anybody seen it?

S&C used to be our Bible. What we watched on TV screens were our lives. Yes, we were just like them. And our stories were just like theirs. We were educated, had great jobs, paid for our own luxury, we looked good, had enormous fun and we shagged gorgeous men (Really! I was so offended when Playboy commented on my book: “Is it at all possible that all those men were that gorgeous?” Yes, they were!). We were completely independent. And mesmerised with our lives. We were experiencing the probably best phase of our lives. And S&C was an affirmation for it all.

This was 12 years ago. Many things have changed since then. Towards the end, the series wasn’t as true, cheeky, crispy and fun as it was it the beginning. The first S&C movie came to cinemas and, although we were glad to see our old friends, we were disappointed. And now the 2^nd part? I’m not sure. I’m even wondering if we should go to see it. I’m afraid it will be everything but empowering.

First of all: Sex is not what it used to be. The S&C sex, that is. The S&C sex was about freeing a new form of female sexuality. Sexuality which was in the same time our weapon and our shield. Sexuality as the ultimate proof of the newly conquered independence in all aspects of our lives. Unfortunately, the sexuality we freed back then has quickly turned against us. The moment we turned female sexuality into a mean for achieving a goal, somebody else used it for their own purposes: To earn money. In no time, our society has became overly sexualised and pornographised. Fashion copies SM styles. Music spots look like soft porn. School kids are watching hard core on their phones. Media is bombarding us with the new image of a woman, a über-sexualised, über-natural sex doll. She is created by using styling, plastic surgery and Photoshop. She fills us (both women and men) with craving for unreachable, constructed “perfection” and makes us spend billions trying to buy it.  She is turning women into objects. Again. Our grandmothers and mothers fought against this – how did we, the S&C generation, allow it to happen?

And then there was shopping. They spent fortune shopping. And they had enormous fun shopping. So had we. Shopping was symbolising the connection between our financial independence and our newly freed sexuality. We were buying (with our own money) sexy stuff that made us feel great about ourselves. And that helped us manipulate the world which is known to be easily manipulated by attractive looks. But hen came the financial crisis. And made it very clear to us that we became hostages of our own consumption. We worked to consume, we identified with the consumed, and we searched for fulfilment where it couldn’t be found.  It all became painful when we realised that the consumerist attitude reflected on other aspects of our lives. We were consuming men, relationships, friendships. Ourselves. And then came the threat of an environmental catastrophe. It is not fun paying for stuff which you know will burry you one day. No, we don’t shop any more.

S&C showed us how fantastic a friendship can be. A constructed family. Four friends, all obsessed with themselves and their tightest circle. Four friends and their never-ending search. For love, for the perfect relationship, for THE man, for happiness… The search lasted for 12 years. And it goes on. It used to be cute. It’s not anymore. Because it is a product of the individualisation which is ruining our society. One of the biggest lessons we were supposed to learn from the financial crisis is that globalisation made us all interdependent. We cannot be solely focused on ourselves anymore. If Greece crashes, Europe crashes. Same is with women. We cannot live our emancipation alone. There are African women sold to our men as sex workers. Indian women are sewing our jeans for $16 a month. And there are many gorgeous East European girls who, of lack of alternative to support themselves, accept traditional gender roles. They are willing to trade their youth and beauty for financial security. Having a beautiful East European wife who keeps her mouth shut and is satisfied with a gift of designer shoes became sort of a trend: Viennese businessmen travel to East Europe searching for wives. Scared of losing their “competitive advantage”, many West European girls are giving up emancipation.

Yes, the world has drastically changed in the 12 years since S&C first became a symbol of our emancipation. The financial crisis revealed a deeper crisis – our whole system is in crisis. In order to survive, we have to rethink everything anew: The economic system, the values, the priorities. To be able to inspire us again, S&C would have to drastically change. And here an idea: Now that it is clear that we have reached the limits of the male world order, how about offering a new alternative? A female, solidary, cooperative, humanistic world order.

I know – it is too much to wish from a US TV-series-turned-film.

But please, allow me to dream.

Buy a certain Gucci bag and 25% of the retail price will go to UNICEF (for the trick, check out the small letters: only if you buy it between 16 November and 31 December). Kate Spade’s new collection is featuring those cute mittens and hats, all hand-made by women in Bosina. Those women get $7 pro piece, which is, according to Spade, double of what they normal wages. Oh how nice! The small letters say: It is a day’s work to knit such a hat. Its retail price is $85. Is it great help, is it fair, should we really be proud to make people earn $7 a day, only 500km from here? How about teaching them to fish instead of giving them a (small) fish? Roberto Coin, jewellery designer is helping CARE. A percentage of every package of Pampers goes to some charity (sorry, no details, am not into diapers). If you subscribe to The Economist, they will plant a tree for you. And you can even watch your tree online….

The trick is new: they are trying to make us feel better about spending money on unnecessary, overpriced stuff and keep the vicious circle of consumerism alive by promising that our action will benefit someone. Instant clearance of consciousness. Instant great feeling. Of course, the ones that benefit the most are the corporations. Rich getting richer. The effect is sad: we are deep into learning to hand over our responsibilities, decisions, even feelings, to the corporations. We only need to consume and everything else will be taken care of. This distances us even further from the actual problem. We don’t need to understand what is going on, and why. We don’t have to consciously decide to help someone, we don’t have to chose whom and why. Gucci/Economist/Spade will take care of that. And nothing changes. Gucci keeps on making millions, we keep on slaving to afford a Gucci bag and women in Bosnia keep on living in poverty. But hey, now we feel good about it! Thank you Gucci/Economist/Spade/Pampers.

Felber will speak again on Monday at 17h at the TU (University of Technology).

I must say: congratulations to this great agenda! It makes the movement move away from being only about the education to being about the system in general. Because, hey, if the system was not about the corporations/profits/moneymaking but the people, high quality education would not be in question. The protest is expanding throughout Austria and support comes from unions (metal/textile/food workers) and political parties (Grüne/Green & SPÖ/Social Party Austria), as well as the Upper Chamber of Employment. If you want to support, want to listen to the speeches, or are just curious, take a look at the agenda at http://unibrennt.at/?cat=8&lang=en

Here the information on speakers:

Corinna Milborn

Christian Felber

Robert Misik

And here a few pictures from yesterday. Check out my favourite banner: “Rich parents for everyone!”

At the same class, many students were protesting against the freedom and spontaneity so untypical for the lectures at the Vienna University. The professor tried to teach through opening her students’ minds, and making them experience the lessons, not learn them by heart. Quite few people in the class didn’t like this.

But surprise, surprise! The past few days, we learned that there is something that moves them, after all. And – now they are fighting for more freedom!

Since five days, the University of Vienna is under siege by its students. The dissatisfaction began with the transition form the old system (Mag.) to BA and MA system. Apparently, the new system is more restrictive and unfair. Yesterday’s demonstration in Vienna was attended by somewhere between 10.000-50.000 people. The demonstrations expanded to Graz, Salzburg, Linz. And hey, they are loud and determined. And they know what they want. They want more freedom in their curricula, they want a free entry (which I do not agree with. I think one should prove they really want and are able to study. By letting everyone study everything, you crowd the universities and thus decrease the quality of education). They want to be freed from fees. They want 50% of women employed at the university (YES!). They want no discrimination. They want better, transparent financing of the academic system (true, if we have billions to rescue banks, why are we stingy with our most strategic area – education?). And a more transparent, democratic system. For a complete list please go to: http://unibrennt.at/?cat=8&lang=en (Have patience with the site, it is currently very slow.)

Yes, we have been bitching long enough about this new generation being too passive, completely apolitical and unwilling to demonstrate. I am happy and proud (hey, this is the second time in a week that I am proud to be also-Austrian!!!) that Austrian students showed that this is not necessarily true. I hope they will make a change (since Obama didn’t really)  and inspire the older generation to openly and loudly articulate their dissatisfaction. Because this world is what we make of it.

I am off to the demonstration.

This amount makes out 4 payment rounds for 410.000 employees at those very same companies. But these employees are still being fired or made to work “Kurzzeitarbeit” – basically working a bit less for much less money.

All together ¾ of earnings are being paid out instead of invested or kept in the company. Every second company paid more to the share-holders in the crisis year 2008 than a year before.

Noticing anything wrong?

But let’s get serious here. The discussion about the removal of male chest-hair is not a discussion about a beauty norm or personal preference. It is a discussion about manipulation, about distraction, about consumerism, about fake liberty. In today’s world, when we are rapidly tuning towards living in “The Brave New World” or “Matrix”, the discussion about male body hair is a very important discussion.

Men depilating their body-hair is yet another step towards continuously blurring boarders between sexes. With the identities of the sexes invisible and roles completely androgynous, the natural fundament of our society will be crashed. When men are no longer men and women are no longer women, one more fundament, one more orientation, one more natural-law will have disappeared. And nothing new will come to replace it. While men used to be strong, hairy and concerned with how to win the next battle and secure the survival of their family, now they are slim, smooth and concerned with which bottle of skin conditioner to buy. Something is foul here.

And then there is this pathologic need to “take things into our hands” which the post-modern society managed to train us into. Just as the neo-liberal capitalistic system managed to free us from all traditional values and rules in order to establish greed as the only valuable rule, it managed to make us feel free and responsible to reshape every single aspect of our being. It is that self-realisation aspect in which it is not the nation, the social class or the education that are responsible for our success and our life-stories – it is only and exclusively us and how we manage ourselves and our lives. The neo-liberal capitalism gave us the right, which has then unfortunately turned into a painful obligation, to construct and shape every single aspect of our existence, including our body hair. While this can be liberating and fun, it can also be frustrating and exhausting. And here’s the real danger – concerned with shaping ourselves and our lives, we cannot be concerned with shaping the world we live in.

Taking things into your hands can turn into a problem, when the “things” are not important and when the re-shaping process turns into a process of enslaving instead of liberating. Look at what happened with women: For generations, feminists have been fighting against treating women as objects which can be shaped and used however men, or the society, wants it. Unfortunately, today women have turned into objects more then they have ever been. They are literally blackmailed by the existence of a new virtual woman presented by the media: the Bimbo. She is airbrushed, siliconised and liposucted, über-naturally slim and toned, with huge breasts, plumped lips, not a trace of cellulites, body-hair, brain or any other natural “imperfections”. The appearance of Bimbo resulted with naturally beautiful women feeling frustrated, insecure and unhappy. It resulted in a rocketing rise in eating disorders, deaths through anorexia, plastic surgeries and of course, bought cosmetic products and services. But what is even worse, it resulted in women wasting an incredible amount of time and energy on their looks. And we all know that today, more then ever, there are more important things to be occupied with than looks.

And because half of the market cannot be enough, now it is men’s turn to become victims. Have their ego crashed and have them waste money on cosmetics and have them waste their time figuring out the newest depilation techniques! Sheep like that are much easier to manipulate. The male Bimbo is already a reality. Open any magazine and you will find a six-packed, completely shaved, wrinkle and grey-hair-free Ken smiling at you, selling you one of the newest products.

Finally, there is the hidden agenda to create a complete dissatisfaction with anything we are born with. Because if you are unsatisfied with everything you are born with, and if you believe you must take things into your hands to change it and shape it the way magazines told you it should be, you will be a fantastic consumer of cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and various services such as waxing, hair colouring and breast-enhancing. It seems to work. Today, leaving anything untouched and unchanged seems like a proof of failure or weakness. And being  unhappy with yourself is good: self-secure and strong people might rebel. We seem to be safe from this: After you’ve spent 10 hours in the office, 2 in the gym and 1 reading about the newest diet, you will not have the capacity to notice the socio-economic system crashing, rich getting richer and the environment being poisoned to the point of no return. And even if you do, you will be way too tired to try and change anything.

This is why male body hair is important: To learn to love ourselves just the way we are. And to start working on improving the world rather then our unimportant little asses.

Bush destroyed a whole country of 27 millions inhabitants, killed hundreds of thousands (some estimate million) of people, all under pretence that proved to be false and just to occupy the oil fields (which were sold out to foreign investors last week). And as a reward, he is now happily retired on a ranch in Texas.

The investment bankers who invented toxic derivates and created the crisis which took millions of jobs and destroyed lives of millions of people are stealing again (look at what is happening with the oil price). The only punishment for the created crisis was sending Madoff to prison for 150 years. This was obviously just a symbolic act – other hundreds of thousands of same thieves are still stealing and earning their million-dollar bonuses.

Why is it that if I go and steal or destroy someone’s home and kill their family, I would immediately end in a prison? And those who do the same crime, but on a much larger scale get rewarded?

How can it be that the politicians, the ones who should serve and protect us, are the only group of people with a total immunity? Why are there absolutely no consequences to their wrong-doing? Shouldn’t they be the ones who should be especially critically observed and especially punished if they betrayed the people who elected them and gave them power?  Why are we accepting this? When I start a job, I sign a contract – if I am not fulfilling what I promised to or if I am stealing from the company that I signed a contract with, they will fire me, even prosecute me. Why do we treat our leaders differently?

What happened to the promised regulations of the financial markets? Where were the protesters at the G8? Why are we not able to get up and force the change? Are we already totally lobotomised?

Yeah, summer is here, let’s enjoy it. After all, we have more interesting topics to thing about. For instance, what did MJ look like when he died?

Should this be strange? Every other person in our fantastic western society is on legal drugs: antidepressants. We don’t need cocaine, opiates or cannabis anymore – we have soma. And we even get it for free – they are covered by the health/social security. “Mine are very weak” said a friend few days ago, “they are for kids and teenagers.” Great, so now we even started legally drugging our kids and teenagers.

We should urgently start exporting antidepressants to the developing world. We get to earn money and they don’t have to “produce and use” synthetic drugs. A win-win situation par excellence.