Hex writes:

"Multitude and Empire, Civil War Everywhere:
Towards a Communist Response"

Sphinx

"For months the leading weekly and daily papers of
the London press have been reiterating the same litany on the American Civil
War. While they insult the free states of the North, they anxiously defend
themselves against the suspicion of sympathising with the slave states of
the South. In fact, they continually write two articles: one article, in which
they attack the North, and another article, in which they excuse their attacks
on the North." — Karl Marx, "The North American Civil War"

Everyone seems to agree! The left, the neo-Nazis, the isolationists, bringing
war to Iraq was a farce and a scam, a power-mad dash for resources that’s
just a mask for the mass murder of Iraqis and the schemes of the Neo-Conservative
cabal. Amid the fire and brimstone of the invasion, the Iraqi people are getting
nowhere, and the occupiers are clearly the oppressors in the situation. While
few would actually claim affinity with the tyrannous Saddam Hussein, opposition
to the war and occupation are inherently legitimate because people
are dying. The Iraqi resistance is an imperfect but just response
to the Coalition’s rapacious greed for oil and never mind the former
Ba’ath parties and Islamic fascists behind the curtains, full speed
ahead! The Iraqi puppet state should be drowned in blood and the cosmopolitan
capitalism of the west should retreat from the desert; each and every glorious
beheading, the murders of collaborators and police, the assault on parasitic
contractors, each and every resistance to occupation becomes justice because
the people should rule Iraq, not the corporations.

stevphen shukaitis writes:

"The University and the Undercommons: Seven Theses"
Fred Moten and Stefano Harney

"Philosophy thus traditionally practices a critique of knowledge which is simultaneously a denegation of knowledge (i.e., of the class struggle). Its position can be described as an irony with regard to knowledge, which it puts into question without ever touching its foundations. The questioning of knowledge in philosophy always ends in its restoration: a movement great philosophers consistently expose in each other." — Jacques Ranciere, On the Shores of Politics

"I am a black man number one, because I am against what they have done and are still doing to us; and number two, I have something to say about the new society to be built because I have a tremendous part in that which they have sought to discredit." — C. L. R. James, C. L. R. James: His Life and Work

The Only Possible Relationship to the University Today Is a Criminal One

"To the university I'll steal, and there I'll steal," to borrow from Pistol at the end of Henry V, as he would surely borrow from us. This is the only possible relationship to the American university today. This may be true of universities everywhere. It may have to be true of the university in general. But certainly, this much is true in the United States: it cannot be denied that the university is a place of refuge, and it cannot be accepted that the university is a place of enlightenment. In the face of these conditions one can only sneak into the university and steal what one can. To abuse its hospitality, to spite its mission, to join its refugee colony, its gypsy encampment, to be in but not of — this is the path of the subversive intellectual in the modern university.

sgb writes:

"From Capital-Labour to Capital-Life"
Maurizio Lazzarato

Abstract

"The most important element for anyone who looks at my objects is my fundamental thesis: each human being is an artist. It is even my fundamental contribution to the history of art (…). Within each human being lies a virtual creative ability. This is not to say that everyone is a painter or a sculptor, but that there is some latent creativity within each domain of human work… each type of work has a connection to art; and art is no longer a type of activity or an isolated group, with people able to do art whilst the others have to do another type of work. …

Anonymous Comrade writes: FYI... Negri trashing par excellence...

"Antonio Negri: The Nostalgic Revolutionary"

Johan Hari, London Independent

Now his prison days are over, the notorious Italian 'philosopher-terrorist' Antonio Negri, accused of leading the Red Brigades, is taking on London. But when Johann Hari meets him, he proves to be a slippery customer. August 17, 2004

In the late 1980s, the Italian President Francesco Cossiga described Antonio Negri as "a psychopath" who "poisoned the minds of an entire generation of Italy's youth". Negri has been accused of murdering Italy's former Prime Minister, Aldo Moro, and of being il grande vecchio — the grand old man — behind the Red Brigades, one of the most notorious terror groups to attack post-war Europe until al-Qa'ida. In prison he co-wrote an anti-globalisation bible, Empire. Now he's out, and he's heading to London. I am waiting patiently at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in the shadow of Buckingham Palace, to have my mind poisoned.