Occuper Wall Street

jeudi 13 octobre 2011

« Ils n’étaient que quelques-uns.

Ils furent foule soudain.

Ceci est de tous les temps. »

Alors que des dizaines de milliers d’Américains manifestent leur exaspération et leur colère, nul ne sait encore si « Occuper Wall Street » constitue un moment de la politique américaine ou la promesse d’un mouvement qui la transformera.

Le rapprochement avec le Tea Party n’est pas absurde, même si les deux démarches semblent s’opposer : « Occuper Wall Street » met en cause la domination du capital et l’impuissance de l’Etat ; le Tea Party impute la crise économique à l’Etat et aux impôts. Ces deux mouvements antagonistes ont néanmoins en commun une profonde défiance à l’encontre du système politique, de l’establishment. La présidence de M. George W. Bush avait dégoûté une partie de la droite américaine du Parti républicain, jugé trop interventionniste, y compris en matière économique et sociale, et donc trop dépensier, trop étatiste. Là, avec « Occuper Wall Street », l’amertume et la colère suscitées par les tergiversations de M. Barack Obama, son centrisme, ses complaisances envers la finance, ont convaincu nombre des ses anciens électeurs que le système politique était non récupérable car contrôlé, quel que soit le parti au pouvoir, par le 1 % d’Américains les plus riches.

A l’évidence, ce dernier mouvement tire son inspiration des révoltes arabes, des manifestations espagnoles de la Puerta del Sol, des mouvements étudiants chiliens, des rassemblements israéliens contre la vie chère. Dans chacun de ces cas, les protestataires désespèrent de leur système politique, que celui-ci soit dictatorial, autoritaire ou d’apparence démocratique mais soumis au poids de l’argent. Ils n’acceptent pas que la crise économique et sociale épargne de manière ostentatoire les banques et les catégories sociales les plus privilégiées, jugées solidairement responsables de son déclenchement et de son aggravation.

Aux Etats-Unis, Wall Street sert de symbole d’autant plus tentant qu’il finance « généreusement » les deux principaux partis politiques et qu’il alimente les strates les plus élevées du pouvoir d’Etat. Au demeurant, le cœur de la spéculation américaine bat à New York, ville dont le maire multimilliardaire, M. Michael Bloomberg, a fait fortune grâce à une chaîne d’information financière.

Et puis, à un moment où le chômage atteint un niveau record depuis vingt ans, comment les manifestants new-yorkais n’auraient-ils pas à l’esprit que les multinationales américaines poursuivent une politique délibérée de délocalisations dans les pays à bas salaires ? Ainsi, selon les statistiques du ministère du commerce américain, alors que ces multinationales auraient créé 4,4 millions d’emplois aux Etats-Unis et 2,7 millions à l’étranger pendant les années 1990, les chiffres de la première décennie de ce siècle indiquent qu’elles ont supprimé2,9 millions d’emplois aux Etats-Unis, tout en en créant 2,4 millions à l’étranger (1). M. Obama affecte de comprendre le mouvement de protestation, qui, selon lui, exprimerait un sentiment de « frustration »par rapport à un système politique favorisant les tentatives d’obstruction sitôt que des intérêts puissants sont en cause. Mais, de ce système, les manifestants d’« Occuper Wall Street » jugent le président des Etats-Unis et son parti désormais complices ou coupables : « Nous avons élu Obama, expliquait l’un d’entre eux. Nous avions un Congrès démocrate [entre janvier 2009 et janvier 2011] et cela n’a pas marché. Il ne s’agit donc plus de soutenir un candidat. C’est la manière dont ce pays fonctionne qui est en cause. »

Il y a quelques mois déjà, les mesures d’austérité draconiennes prises dans nombre d’Etats américains avaient suscité un sursaut dumouvement social, notamment au Wisconsin. Il n’est nullement certain que ces colères populaires vont converger et former un mouvement susceptible de transformer la politique américaine. Toutefois, le scénario prévisible d’une année électorale a déjà été bousculé dans le bon sens.

(1) Cité par Gerald Seib, « Business Risks Becoming Target of Jobs Anger », The Wall Street Journal Europe, 11 octobre 2011.

DANS « LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE » :

• « Le procès de M. Barack Obama » (aperçu) Eric Alterman, octobre 2011 (en kiosques).
  Critiqué pour sa stratégie du compromis avec les républicains et ses mauvais résultats en matière d’économie et d’emploi, Barack Obama change de ton et propose d’augmenter les impôts des riches. Cette annonce est-elle seulement électoraliste ?

• « Au Chili, le printemps des étudiants » (aperçu) Hervé Kempf, octobre 2011 (en kiosques).
  Le Chili, pays le plus avancé sur la voie néolibérale, chancelle : aiguillonnée par les étudiants, la population exige une autre politique. Et n’hésiterait plus, dit-on, à évoquer le souvenir d’un certain Salvador Allende.

• « Indignation (sélective) dans les rues d’Israël » (aperçu) Yaël Lerer, septembre 2011.
  Tandis que les relations avec l’Egypte se tendent, les Israéliens manifestent en masse contre la dureté de leurs conditions de vie. Mais ce mouvement, qui témoigne d’un réveil inattendu de la société, n’inclut pas encore les catégories les plus défavorisées, et se refuse à prononcer le mot même d’occupation.

• « Les trois échecs de M. Barack Obama », La valise diplomatique, 3 août 2011.
  Entamé sous des auspices encourageants, le mandat de M. Barack Obama ressemble de plus en plus à une succession d’épreuves. En particulier pour les partisans du président des Etats-Unis.

• « Chantage à Washington », par Serge Halimi, août 2011.
  La querelle qui oppose le président américain et les républicains sur la dette dissimule l’essentiel : M. Obama a concédé d’emblée que plus des trois quarts de l’effort budgétaire des dix prochaines années proviendraient de coupes dans les budgets sociaux. Mais la droite en veut toujours plus.

• « M. Barack Obama déçoit Wall Street » Benoît Bréville, août 2011.
  Le 13 décembre 2009, M. Obama dénonce ces « banquiers pleins aux as » qui« n’ont toujours pas compris (...) pourquoi les Américains sont fâchés contre les banques ». Le lendemain, il accuse « les lobbys qui bloquent les réformes nécessaires pour protéger le peuple américain ». Ces saillies à répétition irritent les patrons de hedge funds, qui se détournent peu à peu du président.

• « Alchimistes de la Puerta del Sol » Raúl Guillén, juillet 2011.
  « Ce n’est pas une crise, c’est une escroquerie ! », clamaient les « indignés » madrilènes le 19 juin. Après la levée du campement de la Puerta del Sol, le mouvement se poursuit sous d’autres formes.

• « Dans l’Ohio, les emplois volés de Fostoria » (aperçu) John R. MacArthur, juillet 2011.
  Plusieurs Etats du Midwest connaissent un phénomène de désindustrialisation. Les syndicalistes en imputent une partie de la responsabilité à l’Accord de libre-échange nord-américain (Alena). L’histoire de Fostoria, ville industrielle de l’Ohio, ne les démentira pas.

• « Sursaut du mouvement social américain » Rick Fantasia, avril 2011.
  A Washington, le triomphe électoral des républicains aux élections de novembre dernier a ouvert la voie aux réductions des dépenses publiques, sans mettre en cause les baisses d’impôts. Loin de la capitale, dans des Etats de plus en plus désargentés, les gouverneurs républicains vont plus loin encore pour équilibrer leurs comptes sur le dos des fonctionnaires. Leur tentative ne reste pas sans réponse.

• « L’occasion gâchée du président Obama », par Eric Klinenberg et Jeff Manza, décembre 2010.
  Les élections du 2 novembre 2010 se sont conclues par un raz-de-marée républicain sans précédent depuis… 1938. Comment expliquer un tel retournement deux ans après l’élection triomphale de M. Barack Obama ?

• « Déroute électorale pour un président sans dessein » (S. H.), La valise diplomatique, 4 novembre 2010.
  Elu très largement en 2008 lors d’un scrutin marqué par une forte mobilisation populaire, et disposant d’une majorité confortable dans les deux Chambres du Congrès, le président Barack Obama a, depuis le 20 janvier 2009, laissé passer la chance de réformer profondément son pays en lui imprimant une direction progressiste.

• « Au Texas, le Tea Party impose son style » Robert Zaretsky, novembre 2010.
  Au Texas, la candidate du Tea party, qui associe à une combinaison détonante d’ultralibéralisme et de christianisme évangélique, une paranoïa anti-fédérale forcenée, parvient à faire passer le gouverneur républicain pour un modéré.

• « Une élection selon Michael Bloomberg » Renaud Lambert, juin 2010.
  Livrer la politique à « l’argent » au prétexte de l’en protéger, l’argument pourrait désorienter. Il semble convaincre : le milliardaire Michael Bloomberg a été élu maire de New York en 2001, puis reconduit en 2005 et en 2009.

• « La gauche américaine a oublié ses victoires », par Alexander Cockburn, février 2010.
  Sortie exsangue des persécutions maccarthystes des années 1950, la gauche progressiste et radicale américaine a connu une renaissance spectaculaire pendant les années 1960, avec le mouvement pour les droits civiques. Elle semble depuis avoir oublié son histoire.

• « Peut-on réformer les Etats-Unis ? » (S. H.), janvier 2010.
  M. Obama n’est pas M. Bush, c’est entendu ; mais ce n’est pas assez pour savoir où va l’actuel président américain et pour donner envie de le suivre. Il ne manque pas de parler, de s’expliquer, d’essayer de convaincre ; ses discours s’enchaînent, éloquents souvent. Qu’en reste-t-il ?

• « Une trajectoire financière insoutenable », par Gérard Duménil et Dominique Lévy, août 2008.
  La consommation à crédit des Américains ne pourra plus venir au secours d’une économie en panne. Or c’est grâce au crédit facile que l’économie des Etats-Unis était sortie des récessions précédentes...

• Lire également notre dossier documentaire listant les articles relatifs aux deux premières années de la présidence Obama.

TOUJOURS DISPONIBLES :

• « Crise bancaire : le casse du siècle », Manière de voir nº 119, octobre-novembre 2011.
  

  Au gré de leur expansion, les banques ont projeté dans tous les domaines de l’activité humaine leur logique, leurs intérêts et leurs pratiques. Un regard sur les ruines de l’économie mondiale inspire cependant une question qui peut sembler triviale : au fait, à quoi devaient-elles servir ?

• « Le krach du libéralisme », Manière de voir nº 102, décembre 2008 - janvier 2009.
  

  Pour comprendre les crises économiques et financières passées et présentes.

• « Demain, l’Amérique... », Manière de voir nº 101, octobre-novembre 2008.
  

  Embourbée dans deux conflits simultanés et confrontée à une crise majeure de l’immobilier et du système financier, l’Amérique réapprendrait l’humilité ?

BBC News - Unix creator Dennis Ritchie dies aged 70

Unix creator Dennis Ritchie dies aged 70

Mr Ritchie (middle) and Mr Thompson were awarded the US National Medal of Technology for their work on Unix

Continue reading the main story

Related Stories

• Steve Jobs of Apple dies at 56
• Key computer conservationist dies
• Father of British computing dies

Pioneering computer scientist Dennis Ritchie has died after a long illness.

Mr Ritchie was one of the creators of the hugely influential Unix operating system and the equally pioneering C programming language.

A vast number of modern technologies depend on the work he and fellow programmers did on Unix and C in the early days of the computer revolution.

Those paying respects said he was a "titan" of the industry whose influence was largely unknown.

The first news of Mr Ritchie's death came via Rob Pike, a former colleague who worked with him at Bell Labs. Mr Ritchie's passing was then confirmed in a statement from Alcatel Lucent which now owns Bell Labs.

Jeong Kim, president of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, said Mr Ritchie would be "greatly missed".

"He was truly an inspiration to all of us, not just for his many accomplishments, but because of who he was as a friend, an inventor, and a humble and gracious man," said Mr Kim.

Along with Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna, Mr Ritchie was one of the key creators of the Unix operating system at Bell Labs during the 1960s and 70s.

Unix's influence has been felt in many ways. It established many software engineering principles that persist until today; it was the OS of choice for the internet; it kicked off the open source movement and has been translated to run on many different types of hardware.

It was also at Bell that Mr Ritchie created C, one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. It is familiar to almost every modern-day developer.

In 1999, Mr Ritchie's influence and accomplishments won official notice when he was awarded the US National Medal of Technology - the highest honour America can bestow on a technologist.

Mr Pike said that with his passing, the world had lost a "truly great mind."

Paying tribute on his blog, Google programmer Tim Bray said it was impossible to overstate the debt his profession owed to Dennis Ritchie.

"I've been living in a world he helped invent for over thirty years," he wrote.

On Twitter, developer James Grimmelman said: "Ritchie's influence rivals Jobs's; it's just less visible."

Commencement address at Stanford University by Steve Jobs

"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. You've got to find what you love. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. Everything else is secondary."
  -- Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, in Stanford Report, 2/3/05

Dear friends,

Find what you love and do it! That is the core of a commencement address made at Stanford University by the now deceased Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and Pixar Animation Studios. One of the most unique – and most successful – businessmen ever dropped profound pearls of wisdom into our souls with this short, yet deeply inspiring speech. Thank you Steve. May we all learn to listen to our inner voice, and to find what we love and do it. Take care and may you have a wonderful day and life ahead!

With warmest wishes,
Fred Burks for PEERS and the WantToKnow.info Team

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address at Stanford University by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.

So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation – the Macintosh – a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired.

How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

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