Radical media, politics and culture.

Anonymous Comrade submits:

"Marxism, the Holocaust and September 11"

An Interview with Norman Geras, Imprints

Your first book was a study of the thought of Rosa Luxemburg. Do you believe that there is anything useful in Luxemburg's legacy today?


A preliminary general point here is that Rosa Luxemburg's thought falls squarely within the tradition of classical Marxism and is therefore marked by both the strengths and the weaknesses of this tradition. But, that said, yes I do believe so. Luxemburg's writings embody a clear, lifelong commitment to the struggle against social relations of exploitation and injustice, and to the specific character of this struggle as having to involve the broadest possible participatory and democratic movement. There were limitations in the way she conceived the democratic movement. Her emphasis on its necessarily pluralist content and norms ran up against the linguistic habit she shared with others of her time of talking of the party of the working class, as well as against a tendency amongst Marxists to regard Marxism itself as the theory of socialism.

"America Is A Religion"

George Monbiot, The Guardian, Tuesday, July 29, 2003

US leaders now see themselves as priests of a divine mission to rid the world of its demons


"The death of Uday and Qusay," the commander of the ground forces in Iraq told reporters on Wednesday, "is definitely going to be a turning point for the resistance." Well, it was a turning point, but unfortunately not of the kind he envisaged. On the day he made his announcement, Iraqi insurgents killed one US soldier and wounded six others. On the following day, they killed another three; over the weekend they assassinated five and injured seven. Yesterday they slaughtered one more and wounded three. This has been the worst week for US soldiers in Iraq since George Bush declared that the war there was over.

Searching For Eliyahu Gorey



By



Rob Eshelman



East Jerusalem comes alive early. The six a.m. sun hits the high, stonewalls of the Old City and castes a long shadow before the Damascus Gate. Radios from taxi cabs and passing police vehicles squawk commands to the cab drivers, already chain-smoking, and the 18-year old soldiers behind the wheels of their jeeps. A cab driver yells, “Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv” over and over, while the smell of falafel balls frying in hot oil and Turkish coffees waft through the crisp morning air.



Despite being in Palestine, some things remain the same for me – the need for a morning caffeine fix and a look at the day’s headlines. For the second consecutive day, the English language addition of Haaretz is focused on a missing Israeli cab driver, Eliyahu Gorey, suspected of being apprehended by Palestinian militants. It smacks of the same stupid sensational journalism rampant in the US: Lacy Peterson, or that child star from Colorado who we were commanded to care about.



The ride to Ramallah is bumpy and I arrive at the Qalandia checkpoint outside of the city within 30 minutes. Checkpoints – the object which so clearly illustrates the realities of Israeli occupation. From above, Qalandia would take the shape of a dumbbell. At each end of the checkpoint, massive amounts of activity. Cabs, trucks carrying goods, people trying to get to work or to see their families. In the middle, a long narrow stream of people passing nearly single fill under the gaze of young Israeli soldiers with automatic weapons.

Anonymous Comrade submits:


The following text was written on July 1st, 2003 and appeared on Giap #8, 4th Series, 07/15/2003. In the following weeks, the RIAA and a clique of Republican motherfuckers have prompted a further crackdown against file sharing and "piracy", perhaps the fiercest bombing blitz so far. Nevertheless, we believe that the record industry's "Shock & Awe" strategy is doomed to failure, no matter the casualties they inflict in the short term. Guerrilla warfare is the perpetual spanner in the works of the corporate war machine, and collective intelligence is already at work on more secure swap platforms. "Piracy" is a social thing, and it's already deeply rooted in contemporary behavior patterns. The bosses of corporate entertainment don't understand. Of course they don't: their brains no longer work; the more they get close to the trashcan of history, the more they get intoxicated by the stench.


"Lawrence of Arabia and the Fight Against Copyright"

Wu Ming 1, 01/07/2003



A few months ago Stampa Alternativa released a new booklet of their collection "Gli Euro" [The Euros: each booklet costs exactly 1 euro, t.n.]. It is a simple and agile text on guerrilla warfare which Sir Thomas Edward Lawrence (1888-1935, better known as "Lawrence of Arabia) wrote for the 14th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (first published in 1929).



Lawrence's explanation is both accurate and picturesque, and goes to the heart of the matter by reflecting on the Arab Revolt against the Turks (1916-1918), which Lawrence himself took part in instigating and directing on behalf of the British Empire.

nolympics submits


The following was published as a commentary by the Financial Times. It's written by Ali Abunimah (media watcher and co-founder of electronicintifada.net) and Hasan Abunimah.




The holes in Israel's road map



Despite the declaration of a unilateral Palestinian ceasefire with Israel, and the frequent meetings between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, the "road map" for peace is in serious trouble. This is because the Bush administration, the plan's chief sponsor, has allowed Israel to reinterpret it so that it is gutted of the elements that offered hope of progress.


Two elements distinguish the road map from the failed Oslo process. First, it requires Israel to freeze all settlement construction in the occupied territories at the outset and to remove all colonies established since March 2001. Second, the road map spells out explicitly the objective of the peace process: an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory; and two states, Palestine and Israel, living side by side.


Because Israel depends on the US for the military and diplomatic backing that allows it to continue its occupation of Arab land indefinitely, the success or failure of the plan lies in Washington's willingness to confront an Israel that remains committed to the settlements and opposed to a genuinely independent Palestinian state.

"A Nation of Assassins"

Douglas Valentine

What do you call it when George W. Bush, without provocation and based on false pretenses, sends an army to invade a foreign nation; and then, without any attempt to negotiate a surrender, effect an arrest, or put this nation's leaders on trial and present evidence of their crimes, instead puts multimillion dollar bounties on their heads, relies on collaborators and spies to track them down, and then corners them and blows them away in their homes, in their own country?

Do you call it what the Israelis, who lately have done it hundreds of times, call it? A targeted kill?

What would you call it if Saddam Hussein hunted down and killed George Bush's daughters in Texas? Cold-blooded murder?

How about calling this sort of behavior assassination?

"Panarchy: A Forgotten Idea of 1860"

Max Nettlau, (1909)


Introductory Note by John Zube


This article was signed M.N. and dated 22.2.1909. It was first published in Gustav Landauer's "Der Sozialist", 15.3.1909. Upon a suggestion by Leo Kasarnowski, the later publisher of John Henry Mackay, who identified M.N. as Max Nettlau, it was reprinted in "Der individualistische Anarchist" (The Individualist Anarchist), published by Benedikt Lachman, in Berlin, 1920, pages 410-417. It is here translated by John Zube from the German reproduction in "Zur Sache", No9 (On the Topic, No.9), produced 1985 by the Mackay Gesellschaft, Germany, editor: Kurt Zube, 1905 -1991.


The existence of this article by Max Nettlau was quite new to me and pleased me very much. I had long sought for anarchist responses to De Puydt's essay, but in vain, except within my own close circle. Alas, Kurt Zube had failed to point it out to me earlier. De Puydt's proposal, as a core requirement for a consistent anarchism, supplemented by essential conditions, forms the foundation of the autonomous protective and social communities described in Solneman's 1977 "The Manifesto of Peace and Freedom." Its English edition appeared in 1983. But already in 1930, in Kurt Zube's "Radikaler Geist", Berlin, on pages 450/51 (5th issue), appeared the related programme of Werner Ackermann' s The Cosmpoolitan Union. In "Zur Sache" the program of "The Cosmopolitan Union" is appended but I have left it out here since it has already appeared, repeatedly, in my Peace Plans series, in English, German and even in French. It is the central idea in my own two peace books, in Peace Plans 16-18 & 61-63 (German in Peace Plans 399-401), written between 1962 and 1975.

Herbert Spencer discussed similar ideas in his chapter: "The Right to Ignore the State," in "Social Statics," original edition in 1850 and Johann Gottlieb Fichte discussed individual secessionism in his 1793 book on the French Revolution. Voluntary taxation schemes are one of the preconditions or consequences for panarchies. Historical precedents for panarchism abound and go back much further (but they are NOT discussed in most history books), in the form of personal law associations, capitulations, the millet system or djemma, special courts for foreigners and consular jurisdiction). Remnants of this tradition persisted into the 20th century, e.g. in Morocco to 1955 and to our times, e.g. as personal law in civil jurisdiction, in the Middle East and Malaysia. Curiously enough, most minority groups have shown little to no interest in this form of potentially full exterritorial autonomy for all minorities that want to form their own volunteer communities. They remain addicted to territorialism -- and the atrocities that follow from it.


Panarchism provides the only framework that could, at the same time and in the same country, satisfy the rightful aspirations of all kinds of statists as well as of all kinds of freedom lovers. Since the radical freedom lovers are almost everywhere a small minority and have little chance, in the short run, to convert all the statists to their point of view, they should be the first ones to adopt this program. However, they find it very difficult to do, since they are, like most statists, stuck on the territorial model, which excludes tolerance for exterritorially autonomous volunteer communities. It is also the cornerstone for any rightful and efficient peace, defence, revolution and liberation effort, since it could turn most of the resources of any dictatorial or totalitarian regime against it and could do so without driving the regime into a corner, ready to undertake mass murderous steps. Even the worst regime has some voluntary followers and under panarchism it could retain these, as long as it satisfied them. I know of no better program to defuse and finally abolish the threat posed by ABC mass murder devices combined with popular notions on collective responsibility and enemies, all tied to the territorial model.


One of the remaining panarchistic traits, in all too distorted form, is the practice of and international law on diplomatic immunity. However, this is a bad example because its current version permits diplomats to get away with serious crimes against foreigners. That was NOT the traditional practice in law systems. But then the rulers and their followers or representatives have degrees of secrecy and immunity for their crimes.


A preliminary literature on panarchism, 11 pages, appeared in Peace Plans 66/69.


A 2 pages list of 1989 can be found in Peace Plans 920.


An extended bibliography on panarchism, on 56 pages, can be found in Peace Plans No.1540.

"Panarchy: A Forgotten Idea of 1860"

Max Nettlau

For a long time I have been fascinated by the thought how wonderful it would be if at last, in public opinion on the succession of political and social institutions, the fateful term "one after another" would be replaced through the very simple and self-evident "simultaneously."

"Down with the State!" and "Only upon the ruins of the State. . ." express emotions and wishes of many but it seems that only the cool "Opt out of the State" (No. 2 of "The Socialist") can help them towards their realization.

When a new scientific insight appears, then those convinced of it do simply proceed upon it, without wanting to persuade the old professors who do not intend to follow it or to force them to accept the new way or to slay them: Quite on their own, they will fall behind, diminish in reputation and dry up -- if only the new method is full of life. Indeed, in many cases, maliciousness and stupidity will put many obstacles in the road of the new idea. That is the reason why hard struggles must be fought for unconditional mutual tolerance, until it is finally achieved. Only from then on will everything proceed automatically, science will bloom and advance, because the necessary foundation for every progress, namely experimental freedom and free research have been achieved.

Anonymous Kumquat submits:

"The Beast of Property"

Johann Most, c. 1884


 "Among the beasts of prey man is certainly the worst." This expression, very commonly made nowadays, is only relatively true. Not man as such, but man in connection with wealth is a beast of prey. The richer a man, the greater his greed for more. We may call such a monster the `beast of property." It now rules the world, making mankind miserable. and gains in cruelty and voracity with the progress of our so called `civilization " This monster we will in the following characterize and recommend to extermination.
        

"I Was a Teen-Age Reactionary"

Doug Henwood
Bad Subjects, (February 1998)

I have an embarrassing confession to make: in 1972, I cast my first ever presidential votes -- primary and general -- against Richard Nixon, because he wasn't conservative enough. The final straw was wage and price controls, a statist defilement of the market's purity.

I wasn't always a right-winger. My eighth-grade world history teacher, who was in all other respects a classic coach-style teacher, devoted a full period one day to a sympathetic lecture on Marx. When I got home, I announced to my parents that I was now a Marxist, and, supplemented by a bit of reading, thought of myself as one for the next four years.

But sometime in my senior year in high school -- in 1970, when the world was largely in rebellion -- I had a collision with one of William Buckley's collections and Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom. Subscriptions to National Review and the American Spectator soon followed. By graduation I was a raving libertarian.

Full story is at Henwood

Anonymous Comrade submits:


"Enron-Style Management in a Dangerously Complex World"

John Chuckman

At least North Korea won't have Bush droning about fake documents for the sale of uranium from Niger. He's already played that role, and it wasn't well received. Besides, North Korea reprocesses spent nuclear-reactor fuel to extract plutonium, and they now politely inform us they have enough to build six nuclear devices. Former Defense Secretary Perry, normally a man of soft words and low blood pressure, says the US will be at war with North Korea before very long.

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