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Sara S
12-13-2013, 06:13 PM
Icelanders Overthrow Government and Rewrite Constitution After Banking Fraud
- No Word From US Media
https://guardianlv.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Icelanders-overthrow-government.jpg

Can you imagine participating in a protest outside the White House and forcing the entire U.S. government to resign? Can you imagine a group of randomly chosen private citizens rewriting the U.S. constitution to include measures banning corporate fraud? It seems incomprehensible in the U.S., but Icelanders did just that. Icelanders forced their entire government to resign after a banking fraud scandal, overthrowing the ruling party and creating a citizen’s group tasked with writing a new constitution that offered a solution to prevent corporate greed from destroying the country. The constitution of Iceland was scrapped and is being rewritten by private citizens; using a crowd-sourcing technique via social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter. These events have been going on since 2008, yet there’s been no word from the U.S. mainstream media about any of them. In fact, all of the events that unfolded were recorded by international journalists, overseas news bureaus, citizen journalists and bloggers. This has created current accusations of an intentional cover up of the story by mainstream U.S. news sources.

An “iReport” on CNN, written by a private citizen in May 2012, has questioned the reasons why this revolution has not been widely covered in the U.S., suggesting that perhaps the mainstream media is controlled by large corporate interests and thus has been unwilling to report on Iceland’s activities. That report is currently making its way around social media. CNN today placed a statement on its website saying: “We’ve noticed this iReport is being shared widely on Facebook and Twitter. Please note that this article was posted in May 2012. CNN has not yet verified the claims and we’re working to track down the original writer.” It is interesting to note that CNN’s European version, CNN Europe, already covered the story of the protests and the government’s resignation, leading many to question why CNN would now need to “look into” the claims.

Besides CNN Europe’s own coverage of the scandal, the events in Iceland were widely covered by international media and are easily verified by a simple search on Google which leads to a variety of reputable international news sources that ran numerous stories on the Icelandic revolution. A whole documentary has been made on the governmental overthrow called Pots, Pans and Other Solutions, and now, the conversation is focused on whether or not the citizens’ actions actually worked to make Iceland a more equitable nation.

To understand the enormity of what happened in Iceland, it’s best to draw parallels between the initial banking fraud that caused Iceland’s economy to collapse and the banking fraud in the U.S. that caused the mortgage crisis six years ago...>more
https://guardianlv.com/2013/12/icelanders-overthrow-government-and-rewrite-constitution-after-banking-fraud-no-word-from-us-media/


And Second:
Four Iceland bank executives jailed

Former CEO Hreidar Mar Sigurdsson was given a five-and-a-half sentence and former chairman Sigurdur Einarsson was sentenced to five years.

Magnus Gudmundsson, the head of the Luxembourg unit, and the bank’s second-largest shareholder, Olafur Olafsson, both were sentenced to three-and-a-half years.

They were indicted in February 2012 by Iceland's Special Prosecutor investigating the nation’s economic collapse.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1212/492500-four-iceland-bank-executives-jailed/

podfish
12-14-2013, 07:58 PM
It's an interesting story, but I'll take what's probably a familiar position for me by now. It's not easy to frame it as a coverup. I've heard bits and pieces of Iceland's role in the banking problems since 2007, a lot of it related to how huge the (four, IIRC) Icelandic banks were relative to their economy and how distorted that made their position in the country's politics. The fact that Iceland was one of the few places to hold their financial sector responsible was never hidden either - I'd heard of that too. I also don't see many other sources (of the few I've scanned) that take the slant that Liberty Voice did. There's been two big changes in government there, and as far as I can tell from a quick search they've been as well covered as any other international news has been. Do you see any coverage about Italian politics unless Berlusconi is involved? and even then, if it's just him and not him and some bunga bunga?? And Italy's a bit bigger a world player than Iceland. I suspect the term Libor doesn't mean anything to most Americans. We just don't encourage our media to cover things like that very well.
I read it differently - I find it hopeful news instead. Smaller countries seem to reflect changes in popular opinion quicker than one this size, and the same forces that got Sigurdardottir elected right after the 2008 crisis, and now shaped the election that got Gunnlaugsson to promise mortgage reform may be shaping the issues at our own next elections. (No, I don't have those names or agenda at the top of my head... I found it pretty easily on U.S. and Euro news sites).
So I do agree with the admiration for what they're doing - I just don't buy into the implication that our corporate-government alliance is hiding a major revolution from us. Iceland's always been interesting, and ignored by most of us. Do you remember that they grew a new island a few years ago?? That was even cooler than rewriting a constitution.