Support to Charlie Hebdo

Recent news: 12 people killed, among them many people involved in Charlie Hebdo, a humorous french journal with a long history following the 1968 events in France.

We should really give tribute for their fair humoristic non violent fight against all types of extreme rights, be it religious (with extremist interpretation of islam, sionism, christianity, catholics) or racist in general. It is very interesting to see that the killers, if they are islamist, did not target the islamophobes. There seem to be some kind of implicit, and sometimes explicit, alliance between all of those that fight for closure and exclusion.

It might be a coincidence but the cartoonists and journalists killed were also very involved against the religion of growth: most of them also growth critics and degrowth supporters.

Charlie Hebdo, in their way since many years in the emergence of the idea of degrowth with the cartoon an 01 http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27An_01_%28bande_dessin%C3%A9e%29 (1970's)
which made a fantastic film which everyone should see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAe6776kbQ (1973) where Cabu and wolinski participated (both were executed yesterday). Bernard Maris another executed had written many texts against growth. Charlie Hebdo invented the figure of the "degrowther" (décroissant) in their humoristic way, which participated in the emergence of the term décroissance in France.

Liberty is a fight

Francois

Bernard Maris on growth

Growth ", the most horrible word is growth ... to where? the sky? wisdom? horror? This word should be banned from the vocabulary. Growth does not mean anything. When I'm in a traffic jam, I make growth (I consume gasoline, so I grow as GDP equals consumption plus investmen, and I consume not only gasoline, but also the social security system, since it ruins my nerves). What could be the word substitute for growth? Activity. Men act, move, invent, transform. This activity is it beneficial or not for the species, that is the question.

Personally, I support the ecological stream of degrowth. After the war, liberalism triumphed by offering a way of managing violence which would be based on free trade: you should trade rather than make war. Socialists and Communists offered another contract, based on sharing, but always with material abundance in sight. We must now move towards spiritual abundance, with a contract based on intelligence and research. But socialism is still caught in the productivist maelstrom .

translation from:

Bernard Maris: Croissance », le mot le plus détestable… Croissance vers où ? le ciel ? la sagesse? l’horreur? Ce mot devrait être banni du vocabulaire. Croissance ne veut rien dire. Quand je suis dans un embouteillage, je fais de la croissance (je consomme de l’essence, donc je croîs, car PIB égale consommation plus investissement; et je consomme non seulement de l’essence, mais aussi de la Sécu, puisque je me ruine les nerfs). Quel mot substituer à croissance? Activité. Les hommes agissent, bougent, inventent, transforment. Cette activité est-elle bénéfique ou non pour l’espèce, voilà la question.

http://www.liberation.fr/economie/2012/11/07/le-socialisme-est-une-doctr...
A titre personnel, je me raccroche au courant écologiste décroissant. Après la guerre, le libéralisme a triomphé en proposant un mode de gestion de la violence fondé sur le libre-échange : on ferait du commerce au lieu de faire la guerre. Socialistes et communistes proposaient un autre contrat, fondé sur le partage, mais toujours avec l’abondance matérielle en ligne de mire. Il faut maintenant aller vers une abondance spirituelle, avec un contrat fondé sur l’intelligence et la recherche. Mais le socialisme reste pris dans le maelstrom productiviste.