Radical media, politics and culture.

El Kilombo writes

"Dialogue with the Philosopher Toni Negri:
The Defeat of the United States is a Political Defeat”

Veronica Gago, for Argentina’s Pagina/12


Translation By: www.elkilombo.org

The Italian philosopher Toni Negri analyzes the United States’ invasion of Iraq as a “defeat.” He spoke to Pagina/12 from the recuperated Hotel Bauen, expounding an auspicious perspective for Latin America and criticizing the “traditional” European left.

The Italian philosopher and militant Toni Negri is in Argentina for a second time. He is arriving from a trip to Chile and is now headed to Brazil. After having launched a worldwide polemic with his book Empire, about the end of the age of classical imperialism, he is now convinced that we find ourselves in an anomalous period for Latin America because it has finally ceased to be “the back porch” of the United States. From the Argentine crisis in 2001 to the current crisis in Brazil, passing through the failed coup in Venezuela and the Andean revolts, Negri reads a profound continental change capable of giving way to a multilateralism that will dispute North American pretensions toward an imperialist sovereignty. In his dialogue with Pagina/12, he insists that Latin America is further along than Europe with regard to its ability to think the relation between social movements and governments through the experimentation of a democratic radicalism.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words"

John Chuckman

The following quotes are from Bush's speech about the War on Terror, as given October 6, 2005, and largely repeated October 28. It was a speech especially dense with Bushspeak, a dialect which never means what it seems to say. Perspective and the occasional translation follow the quotes.


"All these separate images of destruction and suffering that we see on the news can seem like random and isolated acts of madness; innocent men and women and children have died simply because they boarded the wrong train, or worked in the wrong building, or checked into the wrong hotel. Yet while the killers choose their victims indiscriminately, their attacks serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. "


You might ask how is it possible to choose victims more indiscriminately than by
bombing cities? The Pentagon doesn't even attempt to count Iraq's dead, civilian or military. Two serious efforts have been made to count the civilian toll of the barbarism called "Shock and Awe." One, an effort to count bodies all over the country in morgues, hospitals, and other likely places, came up with more than 25,000 killed. Another scientific study of Iraq's national mortality tables, published in the British medical journal Lancet, came up with about a 100,000.

"American Fascism"

Lewis H. Lapham, Harper's

"But
I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to
move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to
better the lot of our citizens, then Fascism and Communism, aided,
unconsciously perhaps, by old-line Tory Republicanism, will grow in strength
in our land." — Franklin D. Roosevelt, November 4, 1938

In 1938 the word "fascism" hadn't yet been transferred into an abridged
metaphor for all the world's unspeakable evil and monstrous crime, and on
coming across President Roosevelt's prescient remark in one of Umberto Eco's
essays, I could read it as prose instead of poetry — a reference not to the
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse or the pit of Hell but to the political
theories that regard individual citizens as the property of the government,
happy villagers glad to wave the flags and wage the wars, grateful for the
good fortune that placed them in the care of a sublime leader. Or, more
emphatically, as Benito Mussolini liked to say, "Everything in the state.
Nothing outside the state. Nothing against the state."

Makhno writes:

Fetishizing Process

Mark Lance



If one were forced to explain consensus process in five minutes, one might begin with a

brief pitch about the kind of discussion that should precede the group taking a decision.


Such a pitch would be fairly vague, and would deal with such things as listening, including

all points of view, critical discussion and argument, and creativity in the formulation of

possible compromises and syntheses. But one would quickly switch from the topic of

discussion to the specific procedure that is used to take a formal decision. Here the

account is not at all vague, as precise as any sort of voting procedure. One would explain

how a position is proposed, how people have the choice of supporting, standing aside, or

blocking, how a position can only be adopted by the group if no one blocks, etc. (It is

likely, and relevant, that the majority of people who have been part of decision making

under the banner of "consensus process" have little more than such a five minute

understanding of what is involved.)

If one had much more than five minutes to explain consensus process, one would say little

more about the formal procedure for taking decisions. This part really can be defined in a

few minutes. One would, however, go into far more detail on the complex, less precise, more

deeply contextual business that precedes actually taking a decision. That is, one would

focus on the process of discussion, option formulation, argument, etc.

In what follows, let us call the complex process of discussion — a process about which much

can be said, but the proper functioning of which is unlikely to be definable via a set of

precise rules — "practice". The set of formal rules that define a method of taking a

decision will be referred to as "procedure". This distinction, in itself, is nothing

surprising or new, but I want to argue that it is of great import to the debate between

majority voting and consensus. Such debates are central to anarchist theory as they concern

the form and content of democratic inclusion. Indeed, if anything is essential to

anarchism, it is the idea that social decisions are to be taken by everyone affected, and

that this inclusion must involve substantive participation of each in deliberation and

decsion-making. Thus a dispute on the nature of such participation is a dispute about the

very essence of anarchism.

¡Viva San Precario!

In transit-Entránsito through MayDaySur

Colectivo Entránsito


1> Yes, we can! Determination and construction of a post-identitary common sense

It is no comfortable to inhabit a territory where the big truths are falling down to pieces, where impotency, conformism and fear are
tonalities that accompany contemporary life. In that very territory, we decided to grab strongly the proposal of MayDaySur without really knowing clearly how it would work. It was in fact a political experiment that arouse lots of doubts and some bad auguries. In the process of gestation of this creature we shared many moments of vertigo and indecision. However, some odd trust had installed among us. "Odd" because it didn´t provide us with a clearly defined plan, it was more a kind of instinctive gesture. and a "trust" due to the organizative capability of our
movements, to the intelligence, desire, creativity and strength that we are able to deploy when connecting and working together. We also did trust the "multitude", that experiences directly the "precarization" and still carries, in its ambivalence, the power of rebelliousness and disobedience. We think that the building process of this MayDaySur has proved us that the collective, excited about creating a new "common" and generous work, going beyond rigid identities is able to produce very powerful
connections. We celebrate the intuition and determination in the
beginnings of this process, as well as the generosity and enormous disposition to collective working demonstrated by the movements in Seville in particular, and by all those who composed this true event.

2> New political animals: flexgeneration

-"Not a single worker in here. We should have gone with the Unions. This is a 'botellón' (spanish term for young meetings to drink alcohol in the streets)!"- shouted indignant a union mate.

-"Behave yourself, fuck! This is no demonstration, this is a 'puterío' (disrespective Spanish term for sex work)!"- cried an overflowed policeman.

The composition and the way of being-in in a demonstration left many perplexed. All those fierce-looking people, that music, those
watchwords and, to make matters worse, demonstrating the 1st of May!, the traditional working day. These two personages share, everyone in his way, a feeling of strangeness towards the new and singular expression forms of the precariat. It gets difficult, both for the Order forces and for a certain leftist sector, to understand the codes and modalities of action of those bodies. What are we celebrating? The joy of taking back the streets and giving a contundent visibility to that precarity as conjugated in 1rst person. We demonstrate that we are blazing a trail to get things upside down. We feel that we are thousands who share similar situations and that together we can overcome them. For us the political practice, even at the hardest working time, is a joyful passion. In the words of Gilles Deleuze : "don´t you think that you ought to be sad to be militant, even if what you fight against is abominable. What does possess a
revolutionary force is the bond of desire with reality (and not its getaway under form of representation)". We talk about a new generation of workers and that means that those living today from their work cannot be reduced to an unique identity.

Today the soundsystem, the beats, the dj´s and the "speakers" are to the new generations what country orchestras, the bass drums, the noisy tracks and the megaphone were for the former ones. It would be a bit absurd to maintain that expressive forms, communicative codes, the "ways of feeling" and even the "class aesthetics" would remain the same throughout the history.

¡Viva San Precario!

In transit-Entránsito through MayDaySur

Colectivo Entránsito


1> Yes, we can! Determination and construction of a post-identitary common sense

It is no comfortable to inhabit a territory where the big truths are falling down to pieces, where impotency, conformism and fear are
tonalities that accompany contemporary life. In that very territory, we decided to grab strongly the proposal of MayDaySur without really knowing clearly how it would work. It was in fact a political experiment that arouse lots of doubts and some bad auguries. In the process of gestation of this creature we shared many moments of vertigo and indecision. However, some odd trust had installed among us. "Odd" because it didn´t provide us with a clearly defined plan, it was more a kind of instinctive gesture. and a "trust" due to the organizative capability of our
movements, to the intelligence, desire, creativity and strength that we are able to deploy when connecting and working together. We also did trust the "multitude", that experiences directly the "precarization" and still carries, in its ambivalence, the power of rebelliousness and disobedience. We think that the building process of this MayDaySur has proved us that the collective, excited about creating a new "common" and generous work, going beyond rigid identities is able to produce very powerful
connections. We celebrate the intuition and determination in the
beginnings of this process, as well as the generosity and enormous disposition to collective working demonstrated by the movements in Seville in particular, and by all those who composed this true event.

2> New political animals: flexgeneration

-"Not a single worker in here. We should have gone with the Unions. This is a 'botellón' (spanish term for young meetings to drink alcohol in the streets)!"- shouted indignant a union mate.

-"Behave yourself, fuck! This is no demonstration, this is a 'puterío' (disrespective Spanish term for sex work)!"- cried an overflowed policeman.

The composition and the way of being-in in a demonstration left many perplexed. All those fierce-looking people, that music, those
watchwords and, to make matters worse, demonstrating the 1st of May!, the traditional working day. These two personages share, everyone in his way, a feeling of strangeness towards the new and singular expression forms of the precariat. It gets difficult, both for the Order forces and for a certain leftist sector, to understand the codes and modalities of action of those bodies. What are we celebrating? The joy of taking back the streets and giving a contundent visibility to that precarity as conjugated in 1rst person. We demonstrate that we are blazing a trail to get things upside down. We feel that we are thousands who share similar situations and that together we can overcome them. For us the political practice, even at the hardest working time, is a joyful passion. In the words of Gilles Deleuze : "don´t you think that you ought to be sad to be militant, even if what you fight against is abominable. What does possess a
revolutionary force is the bond of desire with reality (and not its getaway under form of representation)". We talk about a new generation of workers and that means that those living today from their work cannot be reduced to an unique identity.

Today the soundsystem, the beats, the dj´s and the "speakers" are to the new generations what country orchestras, the bass drums, the noisy tracks and the megaphone were for the former ones. It would be a bit absurd to maintain that expressive forms, communicative codes, the "ways of feeling" and even the "class aesthetics" would remain the same throughout the history.

"Earth Headed for Global Warming Catastrophe"

Michael T. Neuman

A leading worldwide climate research institute in Hamburg,
Germany predicted last week that the Earth is heading for a climate
catastrophe in the next 100 years, with sea ice in the North Pole
region predicted to completely melt in summer and extreme weather
events increasing in both frequency and strength.


The study is being followed up this week by the release of a report
from the UK's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs,
to the presidency of the European Union, on the impact of climate
change on migratory species. The report details and predicts major
losses in many of the world's animal populations with continued
global warming.


The releases come on the heels of another release issued by National
Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), a part of the Cooperative Institute
for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado,
Boulder, which has reported that summer Arctic sea ice fell far below
average for the fourth year, with winter ice seeing sharp declines,
and spring melts beginning much earlier that even 10 years ago.


Meanwhile, the U.S. mainstream media and government continue to
abdicate their responsibility to appropriately inform and alert
Americans to the growing threat of global warming, as well as the
need for timely and responsive change to slow global warming through
massive reductions in fuel burning and other greenhouse gas releasing
sources.

"Biopolitics/Bioeconomics:
A Politics of Multiplicity"

Maurizio Lazzarato

We have never understood the word of liberalism as much as during the referendum campaign. However, have these passionate debates contributed to make the logic of liberalism intelligible? According to the two courses by Michel Foucault, recently published as “Security, Territory, Population” and “The Birth of Biopolitics”, this is dubious.

The Shock of Violence

By Steffen Boehm
from Sign of the Times

I took your paper to read at home just after the events last Friday in London. I was very shocked with the descriptions, made by eye witnesses, of the way the guy had been shot. So, I read your text with this thought always present. I read it with my body, feeling the discomfort of the 'truth' of your words and, at the same time, the fear of our weakness and the difficulties we have to face in order to exercise the violence of critique in these days. The next day I knew that the murdered guy was a Brazilian – someone 'innocent' in many senses, as well as nameless. Probably for this fact, I realized that part of the discomfort I was feeling had to do with memory. All the statements of the British authorities were related to the need of the new procedures, were the defence of the state of exception. This was the name given by the Brazilian dictators for the suppression of the state of rights, when citizens’ rights were suspended in the name of the need to protect the order and the public against the enemy. I’m clearly shocked because some of the elementary principles of liberal democracy are being eliminated. If liberal democracy is not enough, totalitarianism is always worst. - Maria Ceci Misoczky; edited excerpt of an email sent to Steffen Böhm on 25 July 2005

I’m quoting the above email with a purpose in mind. In my view, it clearly expresses the state of emergency – or the moment of danger, as Walter Benjamin calls it – we find ourselves at this very moment. Maria, a Brazilian educator from Porto Alegre, responded with her email to my paper ‘The Moment of Danger: Benjamin’s Critique of Violence’, which I had submitted to the editors of a book last week. I had written that book chapter in response to my experience of being in Scotland for the anti-G8 protests and the London bombings that took place on 7 July 2005. Since this book chapter will not be published until early 2006, and since it will probably be read by only a handful of people, I would like to take this opportunity to make some of the reflections offered in that chapter available to a wider audience.

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