Radical media, politics and culture.

Anonymous Comrade writes

"Nightmare Vision of North America"

John Chuckman

John Manley, prominent Liberal politician in Canada, has shown a stunning lack of judgment in chairing a private group proposing a new security-economic regime for Canada, Mexico, and the United States.


One hopes the proposal is not a feeler for something quietly supported by Paul Martin's government. We do know that Mr. Martin's goal of improving relations with George Bush has been a bit of a runaway train, gone off the tracks. The Prime Minister is almost certainly looking for ways to right the engine and fire up the boilers.


I could dwell on the difficulty of anyone's improving relations with a man of Mr. Bush's remarkably unpleasant character. After all, Canada has produced no more affable or charming politician than former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, and Mr. Chretien it seems could not entirely disguise a sense of repulsion. I am sure he did not greatly miss his cancelled invitation to share charred cow, root beer, and sermons from the Book of Revelations down in Crawford, Texas.

Kim Paice writes:

"Art, State, Sabotage"

Kim Paice

In recent years, government has tended to see an ever-narrowing line between art and threats to the state.

When, on February 8th, Austrian artist Robert Jelinek — founder of the artists collective Sabotage — flew from Vienna to Cincinnati via Amsterdam and Detroit, he was carrying art and literature for the exhibition "Incorporated: a recent (incomplete) history of infiltrations, actions and propositions utilizing contemporary art" at the Contemporary Arts Center.


Between Detroit and Cincinnati, Homeland Security confiscated 33 passport-works by artist Heimo Zobernig, educational leaflets, and personal items from Jelinek’s belongings. Officials left an incomplete receipt for items in one suitcase.

They later explained seizing the art because it was “produced by an anarchy group called Sabotage which does not believe in international borders.” After a period of what one participant called “civil” negotiation, authorities returned the passports and literature to the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati on March 2. They are on view in Incorporated until May 8th.


CNN and other media outlets quickly compared the seizure to controversy over Robert Mapplethorpe’s exhibition in Cincinnati. Yet, the recent incident has new markings. Seizure of a foreign national’s property amounts to an international incident and fosters cultural isolationism.

While hardly comparable to criminal actions in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, this event also occurs on the world stage. It tells us that 15 years since the Mapplethorpe scandal, federal authorities have yet to learn that crusades against pornological and political art generate an audience and demand for such art.

"Desperately Seeking Susan"

Terry Castle, London Review of Books

A few weeks ago I found myself scanning photographs of Susan Sontag into my screensaver file: a tiny head shot clipped from Newsweek; two that had appeared in the New York Times; another printed alongside Allan Gurganus’s obituary in the Advocate, a glossy American gay and lesbian mag usually devoted to pulchritudinous gym bunnies, gay sitcom stars and treatments for flesh-eating strep. It seemed the least I could do for the bedazzling, now-dead she-eminence.

"Iraq Elections and the Liberal Elites:

A Response to Noam Chomsky"

Ghali Hassan, Countercurrents

In a recent opinion piece, Noam Chomsky writes, "In Iraq, the January elections were successful and praiseworthy. However, the main success is being reported only marginally: The United States was compelled to allow them to take place. That is a real triumph, not of the bomb-throwers, but of non-violent resistance by the people, secular as well as Islamist, for whom Grand Ayatollah Al Sistani is a symbol" (Khaleej Times Online, 4 March 2005). Mr. Chomsky is either completely out of touch with reality in Iraq, or simply ignorant of the legitimate rights of the Iraqi people to self-determination.

"China in the Contemporary World Dynamic

of
Accumulation and Class Struggle:

A Challenge for the Radical Left"

Loren Goldner

Everyone recognizes the growing importance of China
both for world capitalist accumulation and for the
remaking of the international working class. But the
variety of approaches to the question in the broader
“left” are as diverse as the old gamut of viewpoints
on the “Russian question”, and ultimately flow from
the same theoretical frameworks. The old Maoists and
“Marxist-Leninists” argue for a return to the pre-1978
system of Mao.

Those who see China as
state-capitalist (as I do) or scattered “bureaucratic
collectivists”, or orthodox Trotskyists, all favor the
removal of the Stalinist bureaucracy by working-class
revolution (although for the Trotskyists such a
revolution would be merely “political”, not social).
These different takes on the dynamic of China today,
and how it got there, lead to different conceptions of
the practical tasks.


All of these debates are tied up with the potential
emergence of China as a future “hegemon” of the world
capitalist system. Such debates uncannily and eerily
echo the 1980’s debates about “Japan as No. 1”, and
may well find themselves in the same dustbin down the
road. The very formulation of the problem in this way
leads to a briar-patch of further questions. Foremost
is the 80-year old Marxist debate about the
“decadence” or “decay” of capitalism as a global
system, and how that analysis can explain and
interpret the undeniable major development of the
productive forces in East Asia in the past 35 years
(in South Korea, Taiwan, and China, as well as in the
“flying geese” such as Malaysia, Thailand, etc.) and
finally in the broader “emerging economies” (e..g.
Brazil, Russia, India) that are currently growing
rapidly. Most judgements about contemporary China
stand or fall depending on how one comes down on this
question of “decadence”.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Seven Theses on the Anti-War Movement and Student Resistance
Asad Haider

The old SDS dictum, ‘People have to be organized around the issues that really affect their lives,’ is really true… That is to say, that racism and imperialism really are issues that affect people’s lives. And it was these things that people moved on, not dorm rules, or democratizing university governance, or any of that bullshit.” — Mark Rudd, “Columbia — Notes on the Spring Rebellion”

THESIS ONE: The war on Iraq represents, among other things, a crisis in education. It has been proven beyond a doubt that the war was waged on false pretenses, that the consent for the ongoing imperial occupation has been based on the inability of the American public to access real and useful information. Often, when students are exposed to alternative information in progressive classes their reaction is one of frustration. They realize that our education has failed us: we have not been provided with the intellectual resources to understand political questions within the context of history, we have not been trained to practice the public debate and civic engagement that are the necessary precondition of democracy (as argued in Henry Giroux’s writings, http://www.henryagiroux.com). Instead, the academic-military-industrial complex has trained us in the logic of empire, leaving us prey to the invasion of our campuses by the empire’s vultures: military recruiters who promise to make up for the state’s unwillingness to fund our education.

Anonymous Comrade writes

"For Christ's Sake"

We have this big 'push' going on lately from so-called "Christian Conservatives." These are the same kind of yahoos that washed up on this land 400 yaers ago.They were 'christian' and conservative of their own interests, and sure of their god-given right to slaughter helpless Elders, women, and children to stake out their chunk of paradise and have the first 'Thanksgiving'.

Bernie Roddy writes:

"A History of Thought on the Death Penalty"

Bernie Roddy


Debates about the death penalty can address the fairness of its administration or the moral consequences of the likelihood that innocent people are executed, but the central issue from a theoretical point of view seems to be the sense in which death is an appropriate punishment for the guilty.

We know that what constitutes an appropriate response to the most serious crimes has changed dramatically over time, and that it has not always seemed wrong to make even the family of the guilty suffer the punishment he endures. But while a long torturous death at one time seemed to be the only manner in which certain debts could be paid, a simple termination of life as in active euthanasia now strike many as the minimum penalty for some offences.

We can also reasonably say that the penalty may not be one that is imposed by the victims or the family of the victims, but is imposed by society at large, there being a threat to the social order as much as a loss suffered by the individual. Thus, it would not necessarily be correct to consider the execution a form of restitution. Because the debt is not paid to those who suffered the loss, or not to them alone, the power to grant mercy for the accused, it may be argued, is justly denied the family of the victim.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"The Creature Walks Among Us"

John Chuckman

"I beheld the wretch — the miserable monster whom I had created." — Mary Shelley

Doctor Frankenstein's frightful creature was assembled from the limbs of corpses collected in the dead of night.


The Pentagon, with a steady supply of perfectly good severed limbs and heads from all its bombing runs, has decided the good Doctor's approach to the ideal soldier has certain public-relations liabilities. Jerky, stitched-together bodies in uniform with putrid blue-green skin would not make good photo-ops. So the Pentagon has taken the high-tech approach, informing us recently that they are not many years away from putting the finishing touches to a robot soldier.

The U.S. and Europe: Quasi-Allies
Immanuel Wallerstein


George W. Bush, having failed to intimidate Europe in his first term of
office, has decided to try another tactic. First, Condoleeza Rice, then
Donald Rumsfeld, then Bush himself traveled to Europe on a charm offensive.
They all said essentially the same three things. Let's forget our quarrels
over Iraq; the U.S. considers Europe its allies; and let's discuss what the
U.S. wants now and what we can do together. But they all added a fourth
thing: The U.S. will still do what it wants, if the Europeans won't go
along. In a press conference in Europe, Bush said about the debate with
Europeans concerning Iran: "The notion that the United States is getting
ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options
are on the table."

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