Radical media, politics and culture.

"The ESF Looks in the Mirror"

James Heartfield

Leftist Hilary Wainwright called the World Social Forum the 'people's UN'. But as the festival of the anti-capitalist movement developed it has fragmented along regional and now national lines, and lost its collegiate style and optimism. Gathering in London, the European Social Forum last weekend drew anti-globalization activists from many countries, but could not disguise the loss of momentum. A demonstration against the occupation of Iraq did follow, but the more lively actions were taken against the platform — when assorted 'Wombles' and anarchists sought to prevent first an Iraqi 'trade unionist' and then London Mayor Ken Livingstone from speaking. Across London, meetings were held with the title of 'Alternative Social Forum' or 'Beyond the Social Forum', before the London ESF had even begun.

"On Jacques Derrida"

Judith Butler

"How do you finally respond to your life and your
name?"


Derrida raised this question in his final interview
with Le Monde, published in August 18th of this year.
If he could apprehend his life, he remarks, he would
also be obliged to apprehend his death as singular and
absolute, without resurrection and without redemption.


At this revealing moment, it is interesting that
Derrida the
philosopher should find in Socrates his proper
precursor, that he should turn to Socrates to
understand that, at the age of 74, he still did not
quite know how best to live.



The Year Of Surrendering Quietly
Alexander Cockburn


Every four years, liberals unhitch the cart and put it in front of the horse, arguing that the only way to a better tomorrow is to vote for the Democratic nominee. But unless the nominee and Congress are pushed forward by social currents too strong for them to ignore or defy, nothing will alter the default path chosen by the country’s supreme commanders and their respective parties. In the American Empire of today, that path is never towards the good. Our task is not to dither in distraction over the lesser of two evil prospects, which will only turn out to be a detour along the same highway.

As now constituted, presidential contests, focused almost exclusively on the candidates of the two major parties, are worse than useless in furnishing any opportunity for national debate. Consider the number of issues on which there is tacit agreement between the Democratic and Republican parties, either as a matter of principle or with an expedient nod-and-wink that, beyond pro forma sloganeering, these are not matters suitable to be discussed in any public forum: the role of the Federal Reserve; trade policy; economic redistribution; the role and budget of the cia and other intelligence agencies (almost all military); nuclear disarmament; reduction of the military budget and the allocation of military procurement; roles and policies of the World Bank, imf, wto; crime, punishment and the prison explosion; the war on drugs; corporate welfare; energy policy; forest policy; the destruction of small farmers and ranchers; Israel; the corruption of the political system; the occupation of Iraq. The most significant outcome of the electoral process is usually imposed on prospective voters weeks or months ahead of polling day—namely, the consensus between the supposed adversaries as to what is off the agenda.

To be sure, there are the two parties who vituperate against each other in great style, but mostly this is only for show, for purposes of assuaging blocs of voters in the home district while honouring the mandate of those paying for the carousel. In the House, on issues like dumping the us Constitution in the trash can of the Patriot Act, there are perhaps thirty representatives from both sides of the aisle prepared to deviate from establishment policy. The low water mark came on September 14, 2002, when a joint resolution of Congress authorizing the president to ‘use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001’ drew only one No, from Barbara Lee, the Democratic congresswoman from Oakland. A stentorian July 2004 endorsement of Bush’s support for Sharon’s ‘peace plan’ by the House of Representatives elicited 407 ayes and 9 lonely noes. [1]

"The Year Of Surrendering Quietly"
Alexander Cockburn, New Left Review



Every four years, liberals unhitch the cart and put it in front of the horse, arguing that the only way to a better tomorrow is to vote for the Democratic nominee. But unless the nominee and Congress are pushed forward by social currents too strong for them to ignore or defy, nothing will alter the default path chosen by the country’s supreme commanders and their respective parties. In the American Empire of today, that path is never towards the good. Our task is not to dither in distraction over the lesser of two evil prospects, which will only turn out to be a detour along the same highway.

As now constituted, presidential contests, focused almost exclusively on the candidates of the two major parties, are worse than useless in furnishing any opportunity for national debate. Consider the number of issues on which there is tacit agreement between the Democratic and Republican parties, either as a matter of principle or with an expedient nod-and-wink that, beyond pro forma sloganeering, these are not matters suitable to be discussed in any public forum: the role of the Federal Reserve; trade policy; economic redistribution; the role and budget of the cia and other intelligence agencies (almost all military); nuclear disarmament; reduction of the military budget and the allocation of military procurement; roles and policies of the World Bank, imf, wto; crime, punishment and the prison explosion; the war on drugs; corporate welfare; energy policy; forest policy; the destruction of small farmers and ranchers; Israel; the corruption of the political system; the occupation of Iraq. The most significant outcome of the electoral process is usually imposed on prospective voters weeks or months ahead of polling day—namely, the consensus between the supposed adversaries as to what is off the agenda.

"The Labor of Fire:
On Time and Labor in the Grundrisse"

Bruno Gulli, Found Object

Labor is the living, form-giving fire; it is the transitoriness of things, their temporality, as their formation by living time. — Marx, Grundrisse

1. The Thisness of Time and Production

The Grundrisse is a work about time, and it is so in a fundamental sense. This means that time is the most fundamental category of the Grundrisse. Again, it means that time is the subject of Marx’s critique of political economy–subject in the double sense of subject-matter (or object) and of ground (or foundation). This becomes evident as soon as one opens the Grundrisse : "The object before us, to begin with, material production" (Marx 1973, 83). This is how Notebook M starts.

But material production is time, both as objectified and as subjective labor. The tense of this time, which is immediately labor, is alternatively the perfect or present tense: "The difference between previous, objectified labor and living, present labor here [i.e., in the accumulation of capital] appears as a merely formal difference between the different tenses of labor, at one time in the perfect and at another in the present" (465-466; brackets added). Material production is, then, time both as having been produced and as producing, as having become and as becoming. The difference between these two modalities is the difference between the substantial form of capital and living labor, between the capitalist and the worker. It is a difference, which presents itself immediately as antagonism and opposition. It is, in fact, the structural constitution of the class struggle.

"The Labor of Fire:
On Time and Labor in the Grundrisse"

Bruno Gulli, Found Object

Labor is the living, form-giving fire; it is the transitoriness of things, their temporality, as their formation by living time. — Marx, Grundrisse

1. The Thisness of Time and Production

The Grundrisse is a work about time, and it is so in a fundamental sense. This means that time is the most fundamental category of the Grundrisse. Again, it means that time is the subject of Marx’s critique of political economy–subject in the double sense of subject-matter (or object) and of ground (or foundation). This becomes evident as soon as one opens the Grundrisse : "The object before us, to begin with, material production" (Marx 1973, 83). This is how Notebook M starts.

But material production is time, both as objectified and as subjective labor. The tense of this time, which is immediately labor, is alternatively the perfect or present tense: "The difference between previous, objectified labor and living, present labor here [i.e., in the accumulation of capital] appears as a merely formal difference between the different tenses of labor, at one time in the perfect and at another in the present" (465-466; brackets added). Material production is, then, time both as having been produced and as producing, as having become and as becoming. The difference between these two modalities is the difference between the substantial form of capital and living labor, between the capitalist and the worker. It is a difference, which presents itself immediately as antagonism and opposition. It is, in fact, the structural constitution of the class struggle.

"The Italian Effect Conference: A Shambolic Review"

Tall Paul

The Italian Effect conference was an important event that brought together activists and academics from all over the world in early September. Leading up to the conference there was the usual debate amongst activist circles that the event would be mostly a talking shop amongst intellectual ‘gatekeepers’ intent on keeping the level of discussion at an abstract and inaccessible level to outsiders. This view stems from the belief that academics use social movements to further their careers, writing about participants in movement as objects without necessarily including them in the discourse as intellectual equals.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"The Government You Deserve"

John Chuckman

It has been said that people pretty much get the government they deserve. There is more than a little justice in the observation.


Pat Buchanan, long my choice as symbol for all that is wrong with America, has given a last-minute endorsement to George Bush's re-election. One is tempted to class his words, qualified as they are, with the grovelings of John McCain at Bush rallies.


After spending a couple of years successfully peddling columns attacking Bush for repeating the bloody stupidity of Vietnam, Pat has come to the conclusion that Bush isn't so bad after all. He says that while Bush is wrong on the war, he is right on just about everything else.

Beyond Voting
Howard Zinn, 1976
from The Zinn Reader
Seven Stories Press

Gossip is the opium of the American public. We lie back, close our eyes and happily inhale the stories about Roosevelt's and Kennedy's affairs, Lyndon Johnson's nude swims with unnamed partners and, now, Nixon's pathetic "final days" in office.

The latest fix is administered by reporters Woodward and Bernstein and the stuff is Nixon's sex life with Pat, Nixon drunk and weeping, Nixon cradled in the arms of Kissinger (who did it, we presume, for national security).

"Is It Cause I’m Cool?"

Global Project, Invisibili, Ya Basta

A Discussion After London for the Autonomous Movement Networks About the ESF and the N/Europa Challenge

What follows is a rethinking, a balance (also if we are more interested in desires than calculations), an open letter for the European movement networks on the contradictory days of London. It is a partial contribution, a taking up of words searching for discussion. Hopefully a single phrase in a wider compositional discussion, to share with all groups, singularities, and the collective "bodies" with whom we passed through the ESF last weekend.

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