Capitalism The 'Real Culprit Behind Climate Change' Faranaaz Parker
“The best thing about Copenhagen is its failure. What I most dread about Copenhagen is that the public relations apparatus will manage to patch together propoganda or some sort of token agreement,” says Joel Kovel, a proponent of eco-socialism.
For Kovel and others, including top climatologist James Hansen, who referred to Copenhagen as a “disaster track”, the negotiations – which stalled primarily over emission reduction targets and financing for developing countries -- are a forgone conclusion.
December 2009 Autonogram
Greetings Autonogram Subscribers,
Here we find ourselves in December, with winter approaching and the days growing shorter. But thankfully this does not just mean the end of the year, but also the start of another, and with that the release of the 2010 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints. Here’s to another year of radical media making, occupying and subverting from California to Copenhagen, and general trouble making and mischief! So without further ado, here’s some recent developments:
More Lennon than Lenin
Armin Medosch, The Next Layer
Reviewing Imaginal Machines: Autonomy and Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life
By Stevphen Shukaitis
It is not often that left-wing politics is associated with attributes such as humour and wit. Stevphen Shukaitis' book Imaginal Machines (2009) is not only abundant with it but shows that certain strands of imaginative revolutionary politics in the 20th century were also endowed with those precious qualities. This journey through the radical imagination of the left, written in a compelling and entertaining style, is definitely worth a read for everybody interested in radical and antagonistic politics.
Imaginal Machines: Autonomy and Self-Organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life by Stevphen Shukaitis is just out on Autonomedia (see event recommendation below). The book deals with the problems and difficulties of the radical imagination as a source for political transformation. Thereby, Stevphen Shukaitis walks a tightrope, avoiding the two-sided abyss of either outdated notions of revolution as "seizing state power" and the more recent 'tradition' which knows only cultural politics and has thereby absented itself from the larger question of the transformation of the political economy. The 'balance' that Stevphen Shukaitis finds is not so much in between those opposites but by intelligently weaving together a narration which shows different types of 'imaginal machines' in their historic specificity.
Protest Round-Up From Copenhagen
Danish police arrest 150 activists as world leaders arrive in Copenhagen More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/16/copenhagen-arrests weiter...
Police fire tear gas and arrest protesters who try to storm Copenhagen summit More: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6958680.ece
Up to 200 Arrested in Christiania Police Raidekstrabladet
Police have, according to ekstrabladet.dk, stormed Christiania/Freetown, which is happening right now, mass arrests are made inside the area.
150-200 persons have been held up for administrative detention, said the police press spokesman Johnny Lundberg to ekstrabladet.dk.
Canadian Government Deplores Spoof Releases, False Hopes
OTTAWA, Ont. -- December 14, 2009 -- One hour ago, a spoof press release targeted Canada in order to generate hurtful rumors and mislead the Conference of Parties on Canada's positions on climate change, and to damage Canada's standing with the international business community.
Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
Louis Proyect
About a year or so after Hitchens began writing defenses of the war in Iraq, I stopped reading him. Bombarded as I am from wall-to-wall stupidity on network and cable television, op ed articles by Thomas Friedman, and all the rest, I just found no reason to add Hitchens to the menu.
But when I learned that he had cancer, I began reading everything he had to say about his illness including the final riveting piece in Vanity Fair that made it clear that the end was near:
Design/History/Revolution Conferenmce
New School, NYC, April 27-28, 2012
CFP: Design/History/Revolution
Deadline: December 7, 2011
Conference: April 27 & 28, 2012, The New School, NYC
Keynote speaker: Barry Bergdoll, The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of
Architecture & Design, The Museum of Modern Art
Whether by providing agitprop for revolutionary movements, an
aesthetics of empire, or a language for numerous avant-gardes, design
has changed the world. But how? Why? And under what conditions? We
propose a consideration of design as an historical agent, a contested
category, and a mode of historical analysis.
This interdisciplinary conference aims to explore these questions and
to open up new possibilities for understanding the relationships among
design, history and revolution.
Egypt, since the fall of Mubarak in February, has been run by a military
junta, the SCAF, which has left untouched the basic structures of the
dictatorship. Protests and strikes have been met with extraordinary
violence, unions have faced draconian laws to make impossible any
action, torture has been widely practised, and there has been selective
repression against revolutionary militants in the social movements.
12,000 people have faced military courts during this
counter-revolutionary crackdown against the living forces and demands
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