Radical media, politics and culture.

Analysis & Polemic

January 17, 2006 - 4:56pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Theory

Interview with Paolo Virno

Branden W. Joseph

Responses Translated by Alessia Ricciardi

Branden W. Joseph: You are currently a university professor of communications.
Perhaps it would be worth outlining a little of your personal and
intellectual trajectory. How do you understand the relation between your
academic work and your work with Autonomia?


Paolo Virno: The decisive experience of my youth was the revolutionary
struggle in a developed capitalist country. I insist: developed. A country, that
is, in which physical survival was guaranteed, consumption relatively high,
with by that time widespread scholastic instruction. I did not participate in
an uprising against misery or dictatorship but in a radical conflict aiming at
abolishing that modern form of barbarism: wage labor. We were not “thirdworldist”
but “Americanist.” Fighting at Fiat of Turin, we were thinking of
Detroit, not Cuba or Algiers. Only where capitalist development has reached
its height is there a question of the anticapitalist revolution. This setup has
allowed us to read Marx without “Marxism”—to read Marx, putting him in
direct contact with the most radical social fights and on the other hand intertwining
the reading of him with the great authors of bourgeois modernity
(Weber, Keynes, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc.).

I participated in the group Potere
Operaio (among whose directors was also Toni Negri), contributing as much
as I could to organize fierce strikes at Fiat and the occupation of unrented
houses in Rome. In 1979 I was arrested in the trial of Autonomia Operaia—
three years of preventive jail, one of house arrest, finally (in 1987), full exoneration
in the appeals process.


I have always occupied myself with philosophy, and I have always written
about it. I was hard pressed to work on a nonreductionist, broadly conceived
materialism capable of explaining rationally all that a “linguistic animal”
(which is to say, a human being) does, thinks, desires.

The first book was published
in 1986 and is entitled Convenzione e materialismo [Convention and
Materialism]; the latest in 2003 is entitled Quando il verbo si fa carne. Linguaggio
e natura umana [When the Verb Becomes Flesh: Language and Human Nature].
At the end of the 1980s, I was engaged with others in tracing the fundamental
traits of “post-Fordism”: the intellectual labor of the masses, flexibility, and so
on. From 1990 to 1993, I contributed to the journal Luogo Comune, afterward
to the journal Derive Approdi.


When it comes to my job at the university . . . well, I have been doing it
only for six or seven years. And I am still a professor on a temporary contract.
Until the age of forty-five, though I was writing books of philosophy, I worked
at the most disparate sorts of jobs in the culture industry: cartoon scriptwriter,
journalist, editor for publishing houses, and so on. University has been a
casual choice, not a vocation or a destiny. It represented the possibility of
earning a better salary and having more time left for writing. Having published
different books, I could give it a try. I won a competition. My life has
not changed. And it goes well this way.

January 16, 2006 - 10:23am -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
The State

kolya writes:

"Long-Term Strategizing: Anticipating Uncertain Futures"
Kolya Abramsky

This text is intended as a contribution to the upcoming PGA chat-meeting aimed at continuing the process of relaunching the global PGA process on a new footing. However, rather than addressing organizational themes internal to PGA as an organizational process, it focuses on long term social, political and economic themes. As such, it is hoped that it will be relevant not just to those involved in PGA , but also to other emancipatory global networks in general.

The aim of this text is twofold:

— To pose some long term questions as to the type environment that PGA (and other global networks) may find itself fighting in the coming years. No answers are expected…;

— To propose that the topics in this text form the basis of a collectively produced bilingual publication (perhaps in the name of PGA?) in time for the next global conference as an analytical tool. This depends on levels of interest.

January 8, 2006 - 12:03pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

Strong Language

Harry Bingham, Financial Times, London

Back in the dark days of 1931, when the League of Nations was looking ever less effectual and the US was plunging deep into economic depression, the librarians of the world were bent on revolution.

Since the advent of the printing press, books have been translated at the initiative of individual publishers and booksellers, with no central record of such translations. To the orderly minds of the world's national librarians, the system seemed little better than anarchic.

It bothered the archivists that the free market could simply call new translations into being without any authoritative record of such things. And so the League of Nations was pressured into setting up the first systematic record of translations, the Index Translationum. In 1946, Unesco took over the chore. In 1979, the system was computerised and a true cumulative database began to take shape.

And though the original project might have been of interest mostly to librarians, the results of their labours are of much wider appeal. Since there is no systematic data on global book sales, the Index has come to be the best available proxy. If you want to ask the question "Who are the most popular authors in the world?" then the Index is the only way to get an answer.

January 3, 2006 - 2:05pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Work

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Even Without a Union, Florida Wal-Mart Workers Use Collective Action to Enforce Rights
Nick Robinson, Labor Notes

Workers at Wal-Mart and other big-box retail chains—like workers in any mostly nonunion industry with low pay and tense, dreary working conditions—are generally a disgruntled lot. In central Florida, Wal-Mart workers are fighting and sometimes winning campaigns using collective action to solve both shop floor and larger industry-wide problems.

January 2, 2006 - 1:44pm -- autonomedia
Analysis & Polemic
Rants

"Falling in Love Again"

Jamal Mecklai

Life’s a funny business. At any point in time, you have a group of family, friends, associates who define your life and really, to quote Garcia Marquez quoting Julius Caesar in The Ides of March, “In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are.”


And, if, at that same point, you gaze backwards, you see a (usually) different group – family, of course, but different friends and associates and so on. And you sometimes think, My God, look at so and so – I can’t believe we ever really shared so much.


And then, sometimes, if you are lucky, you realize that you were wrong and you recapture – in essence if not in practice – what it was that you felt, enjoyed, even loved.

December 30, 2005 - 3:24pm -- nolympics
Analysis & Polemic
Electoral Politics

Our Struggle is Against US Imperialism

I Believe Only in the Power of the People
Evo Morales
Counterpunch

This is the text of a speech given on December 24 at the "In Defense of Humanity" conference.

What happened these past days in Bolivia was a great revolt by those who have been oppressed for more than 500 years. The will of the people was imposed this September and October, and has begun to overcome the empire's cannons. We have lived for so many years through the confrontation of two cultures: the culture of life represented by the indigenous people, and the culture of death represented by West. When we the indigenous people--together with the workers and even the businessmen of our country--fight for life and justice, the State responds with its "democratic rule of law."

What does the "rule of law" mean for indigenous people? For the poor, the marginalized, the excluded, the "rule of law" means the targeted assassinations and collective massacres that we have endured. Not just this September and October, but for many years, in which they have tried to impose policies of hunger and poverty on the Bolivian people. Above all, the "rule of law" means the accusations that we, the Quechuas, Aymaras and Guaranties of Bolivia keep hearing from our governments: that we are narcos, that we are anarchists. This uprising of the Bolivian people has been not only about gas and hydrocarbons, but an intersection of many issues: discrimination, marginalization , and most importantly, the failure of neoliberalism.

December 27, 2005 - 12:09am -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
Theory

Anonymous Comrade writes:

First published in Mute Vol 2 #1 - Underneath the Knowledge Commons issue [http://www.metamute.org/en/knowledgecommons]

Reality check: Are We Living In An Immaterial World?

M30:: 14.12.05

by Steve Wright


Immaterial Labour is seen by (post) Marxists and capitalists alike as the motor of the new economy. Steve Wright recovers Marx's theory of value from critics such as Antonio Negri to ask whether it is as 'immeasurably' productive as is claimed?

A priest once came across a Zen master and, seeking
to embarrass him, challenged him as follows: ‘Using neither sound nor silence, can you show me what is reality?’
The Zen master punched him in the face.(1)

Continued assertions that, today, we live in a knowledge economy or society raise many questions for reflection. In the next few pages, I want to discuss some aspects of these assertions, especially as they relate to the notion of immaterial labour. This term has developed within the camp of thought that is commonly labelled ‘postworkerist’, of which the best known exponent is undoubtedly Antonio Negri. While its roots lie in that branch of postwar Italian Marxism known as operaismo (workerism), this milieu has rethought and reworked many of the precepts developed during the Italian New Left’s heyday of 1968-78. If anything, it was the very defeat of the social subjects with which operaismo had identified – first and foremost, the so-called ‘mass worker’ engaged in the production of consumer durables through repetitive, ‘semi-skilled labour’ – that led Negri and others to insist that we are embarked upon a new age beyond modernity.(2)

December 13, 2005 - 9:05am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Mainstream Media

"The Triumph of Anarchism"

Shelley Walia, The Hindu

Noam Chomsky deserves the recent vote that ranks him as the
most important intellectual today; a thinker who is an
effective counterweight and an independent critic of the
state. A comment.

"Each individual, according to Chomsky, has the
responsibility and the creative acumen to take control of
his/her society."

An essay supporting the anarchist philosophy at the age of
10; hours spent at the bookshops on Manhattan's 4th Avenue
engaged in anti-authoritarian polemics; and then a life time
spent in analysing what ails international relations in the
context of the widespread infringement of human rights and
the numerous wrongs which fester our society. Indeed,
Chomsky deserves the recent vote that ranks him above
Umberto Eco or Howard Zinn as the most important
intellectual today, an intellectual who is an effective
counterweight and an independent critic of the State. As he
writes in a famous essay "Objectivity and Liberal
Scholarship": ". . . access to power, shared ideology,
professionalisation may or may not be deplorable in
themselves, but there can be no doubt that they interact so
as to pose a serious threat to the integrity of scholarship
in fields that are struggling for intellectual content and
are thus particularly susceptible to the workings of a kind
of Gresham's law. What is more, the subversion of
scholarship poses a threat to society at large."

December 12, 2005 - 9:29pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Work

Workplace Position Paper

North East Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC)


INTRODUCTION

As anarchist-communists, we want a radical reorganization of
the workplace. We want workplaces that are run by directly democratic
federated workers' and community-based councils. We want the highest
decision-making body to be general assemblies of workers held on the shop
floor and in the communities where they live. We want to abolish the wage
system, end the alienation and division of labor, and usher in a new
society of libertarian communism.

December 10, 2005 - 10:10am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

Anonymous Comrade writes:


"Torture and White Phosphorus"

John Chuckman

"The captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice, which were designed for different needs. We have to adapt." — Condoleezza Rice

I've previously charged Condoleezza Rice with having an appalling ignorance of history. I don't mean the kind of knowledge — dates of battles, names and terms of treaties, etc. — that earns a good grade on an exam. We know Condoleezza got good grades in school. No, I mean a deeper understanding of the economic, social, and moral forces of history and of the irrepressible role of truth despite the countless attempts to silence it.


Guerilla warfare, terrorism, and fanatical causes are not new to the 21st century, they are as old as human society, and governments have had many ways of dealing with them. This goes so far as governments changing around those regarded as terrorists and heroes, according to the needs of the time, much the way victors in a war define who were the good guys and bad guys.


One thing history surely does tell us is that nothing is more dangerous than Condeleezza's tendency to speak in sweeping, virtually meaningless generalizations about the people she regards as foes. Every war of aggression, every wave of state terror, every deadly fanatical cause has used just such terms. People are described with de-humanized slogans, making them easy to hate and abuse. We should all go on a personal terror alert when powerful figures talk this way.

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