"Respect Your Enemies —The First Rule of Peace:

An Essay Addressed to the U. S. Anti-war Movement"

By Midnight Notes

"The Passions that encline men to Peace, are Fear of Death; Desire of such things as are necessary for commodious living; and a Hope by their Industry to obtain them."
—Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

1. Introduction

There is now a fledgling anti-interventionist, anti-war movement in the US. It will have a lot of work to do in the near future, although the present threat of war on Iraq is the most pressing issue it faces. The question is: can the antiwar movement do its work effectively and successfully? At the moment it is not completely marginalized, if the votes in Congress are any indication. On October 9, between one-quarter to one-third of the congressional representatives voted against granting George W. Bush "war powers." But in order to show itself as expressing the majority perspective in this country, it needs new arguments, a new respect (as in "look again") for its opponents, a deeper understanding of the reasons for the actions of its opponents, and a realistic assessment of their weaknesses. For its old arguments do not seem convincing to the majority of US citizens, and its lack of curiosity about its opponents and their reasoning is dulling its strategic sense.

"Suburbia or Global Communities?

And the Next Mutiny on the Bounty"

By P.M.

[A longer article, presented in three parts.]

"I was more worried about myself then than I was at any other time of my life... You’ve fallen into something that’s so ugly and horrible. Instead of My Drugs Hell, it’s My Suburban Hell.That’s not being flippant. One thing I really fear is living that whole kind of home/garden/kids kind of suburban existence. DIY and all that. I’d much rather be selling my arse in King’s Cross than living that kind of life. It’s sick and sordid that people have set such limitations on themselves, thinking that’s all they’ll get.“ (Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting, about his life after his drug-addiction)

"Paradise has been found.“ Bruce Steinberg, of Merrill Lynch, about the US. (Tages-Anzeiger 1-26-2002)

Suburban Utopia

At this moment everyone on the planet is watching the people of the USA and wondering how they are reacting to the present global crisis. For the most "dangerous" working class on this planet is the US working class. When its compliance with capital ends, US capital will collapse and thereafter, like dominoes, all the secondary capitals. Some of those lesser proletariates seem ready for such an eventuality, are even prepairing for the "day after“, expecting the big holiday. The Germans and the French are rehearsing work-free lifestyles for five to six weeks every summer, the Japanese have only been pretending to be part of the game for 100 years and seem to be about to quit now. The Italians, Spanish, Russians are ready to let go. The Chinese, the Indians and Argentinians are desperately looking for a way out. Many others never really tried.

But the US working class is not only potentially dangerous to world capital. If it keeps supporting it actively or passively, there can’t be an end to the world’s turmoil, destruction and misery. The key historic question of our age is therefore: why is the US working class not letting go? Why are they still putting up with capital’s arrogance and constant demands? What have they got to lose?

Try this: The US proletariate is living in a kind of continental "Truman Show“, in a consumers‘ paradise. They’re already living in near-paradise, in a state of bliss, in a virtual utopia, beyond, in non-capitalism, in suburbia. And they seem to love it. They’re disgustingly happy – or : they think they are. (Which is even worse.) As long as suburbia can exist or as long as there is at least a believable pretense or realistic hope for it to come true, there can be no change on this planet, just the defence of the status quo with all means. Nobody wants to lose paradise, especially not to crazy terrorists who are willing to die in order to get there.

hydrarchist writes: "This article was originally published in the journal Historical Materialism."

"Going in the Wrong Direction,
or,

Mephistopheles: Not Saint Francis of Assisi"

by John Holloway

Toni Negri’s work is enormously attractive, not only for its own merits,
but because it responds to a desperate need. We are all looking for a way
forward. The old state-centred model of revolution has failed
catastrophically, reformism becomes more and more corrupt and barren, yet
revolutionary change is more urgent than ever. Negri refuses to give up
thinking and rethinking revolution: that is the great attraction of his
work.

The problem is that Negri leads us in the wrong theoretical direction.

hydrarchist writes: "This article provides a much needed analysis of the economic and social background to the social crisis and revolting that has emerged in Argentina in the last twelve months. It was published in the New Left Review 17, September-October 2002."

Meltdown and pauperization in what was once Latin America’s wealthiest economy. David Rock analyses the social and political longue durée of the largest sovereign default in history, and worst casualty of doctrinal neoliberalism to date.

Racking Argentina

By David Rock

Popular phrotest erupted on the streets of Argentina through the hot December nights of 2001. [1] Crowds from the shanty towns attacked stores and supermarkets; banging their pots and pans, huge demonstrations of mainly middle-class women— cacerolazos—marched on the city centre; the piqueteros, organized groups of the unemployed, threw up road-blocks on highways and bridges. Twenty-seven demonstrators died, including five shot down by the police beneath the grand baroque façades of Buenos Aires’ Plaza de Mayo. The trigger for the fury had been the IMF’s suspension of loans to Argentina, on the grounds that President Fernando De la Rúa’s government had failed to meet its conditions on public-spending cuts. There was a run on the banks, as depositors rushed to get their money out and their pesos converted into dollars. De la Rúa’s Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo slapped on a corralito, a ‘little fence’, to limit the amount of cash that could be withdrawn—leaving many people’s savings trapped in failing banks. On December 20, as the protests intensified, De la Rúa resigned, his helicopter roaring up over the Rosada palace and the clouds of tear gas below.