Radical media, politics and culture.

Analysis & Polemic

August 31, 2005 - 1:49pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Rants

Phil Rockstroh writes:


"Listen Up, You Christo-Fascist Bullies,
You Apostles Of Perpetual Psychosis,
It's High Time Somebody Called You Out"
Phil Rockstroh

"If he [Hugo Chávez] thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop." — Pat Robertson

"Muslims want to rule the world. They want to take over the whole world. That's their evil purpose... Most of them are very harsh. There's no tenderness or love...." [Where do you get your information about the war?] "The Bible and the 700 Club. I also listen to preachers who know what's going on. Pat Robertson." — Mary Fowler, 54, Oklahoma Housekeeper, excerpted from Rose Aguila's "Stories in America"

Listen up, Reverend Robertson, Mary Fowler — every last one of you Apostles of Perpetual Psychosis — it's time that you were called out.


The time is long past due the rest of us ceased our cowering and stood up to you Christo-fascists bullies.


The hour has come round that we look you straight in your bulging, true believer eyes, and told you that we've had it with your smugness, with your blood-drenched crusades, with your victim mentality — and with the madness begot by this cracked-brain belief system of yours, which all began (according to your sacred delusions) more than two thousand years ago, when, at the behest of a wicked cabal, a mob of mammon-worshipping, blood-lusting rabble went on a cosmic killing-spree and murdered your god.

August 31, 2005 - 11:53am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
The State

The Sunshine Grabber

Paul Cantor

Every year, around September 11, I feel the need to write something about Charlie. There are two reasons why.


First it is therapeutic. I find writing about him eases the pain. Second, I think it can help others better understand the significance of 9/11 to people in other countries.


Charlie, as you by now suspect, died in the aftermath of the September 11th attack. Actually, it would be more accurate to say he was one of the thousands who were killed. So what do I want to write about him this year?


Well, first of all he was my friend. Second, he was a New Yorker born and bred. Third, he was an only child. Fourth he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. Fifth he was a sensitive, caring, highly intelligent human being. Sixth he was a gifted writer who wrote a screenplay for an animated cartoon called the Sunshine Grabber.


The Sunshine Grabber destroys people for so much as thinking that they can make the world a warmer place in which to live. “He has fangs as long as Yak horns and yellow eyes. And if he hears anyone, anywhere in the world, talking about WARM PLACES, his ears wiggle and his nose twitches and he comes slinking and sliming around and GRABS them and so much for that person.”


Seventh, September 11th didn’t surprise Charlie. Rather, he saw it coming. Still, he didn’t think he might be one of its victims. Nor did I until I got the news that he was missing.


Then I had a nightmare. In the nightmare Charlie was being beaten and interrogated in a room with bare walls, a chair, and a metal bed frame. The questioning went on for a short time. After it was over Charlie was taken outside and shot. Later I learned that is the way things probably happened and that the person doing the questioning may well have been a US government operative.

August 31, 2005 - 12:52am -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
Theory

Anonymous Comrade writes
Reflections on the VI Declaration of the Lacandona Jungle

Cuban Libertarian Movement

* The Cuban Libertarian Movement (CLM; in Spanish: Movimiento Libertario Cubano - MLC) presents for collective debate its reflections on the declarations made by the EZLN (the Zapatista rebels) in July 2005 in the state of Chiapas, Mexico.

On January 1st, 1994 the Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico came into effect, and along with the new year, spoiling the party of the powerful, from deep within the forgotten Lacandona jungle also came on scene “the fire and the word” of the Zapatista rebels. Back then the whole world seemed to march without too much upheaval or energetic opposition towards “the end of History” and was doing so via “globalization” and neo-liberalism; that is – lest we forget and assume erroneously that those words explain everything – via the present hegemonic model adopted by the state’s system of control and transnational capitalism; that is, the currently prevalent models of large scale domination and exploitation. In such a hopeless context, the Zapatista outbreak meant a strong breeze of fresh air and a loud confirmation – anticipated, naturally, in many but less resounding gestures of resistance all over the world – that History continued its course and that nothing had put a stop to people’s struggles. Thus it was lauded from the beginning by leftist groups of diverse colors and thus it was also received by the Cuban Libertarian Movement who then gave its initial support to community projects in the Lacandona jungle such as the anti-authoritarian school May 1st or the direct solidarity camp Chicago Martyrs. For us, then as now, the emergence and development of the Zapatista National Liberation Army and its deeds make sense and demand a new look as part of the emergence and development of a new Latin American revolutionary left. The form, the profile and the orientations of that constellation of left groups and practices are one of our basic issues; therefore we must, within that frame of reference, take our position on the road the EZLN is on and its recent VI Declaration of the Lacandona jungle, as well as on its treatment and derivations. We will do so, with the solidarity and respect the Zapatista movement has earned on its merits whose proclamation is not necessary, but also without omitting – this would be an inconceivable demonstration of demagoguery and opportunism – the criticism we deem applicable regarding contributions to the slow and laborious process of consolidating the new Latin American revolutionary left.

August 29, 2005 - 9:44pm -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
Work

Anonymous Comrade writes
A death in the family...
but we carry on.

On August 7, 2005, Walmart LP (Loss Prevention) workers in suburban Houston killed Stacy Driver who left the store without paying for diapers.

This is not a shock. It is the logical result of a massive illogical conspiracy to profit from our needs (and desires). We only have to look back to the 1992 L.A. riots to see when the system, in an immense social crisis, was forced to reveal its brutal, property-first ideology as police shot dozens of unarmed looters on sight. In these quieter times, a dead shoplifter here and there can be passed off as an accident. We are hardly fooled.

August 25, 2005 - 11:26am -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
Work

hydrarchist writes....The SEIU split from the AFL-CIO to establish the Change To Win group during June raised surprisingly little discussion on left radical sites. Below you'll find an article written by a trade unionist in Oregon with a very polemical and ideological tone. I post the link to the full article on Anarkismo here because it attracted interesting comments (attached to the article) from libertarians active within trade unionism in the US, which are more nuanced and articulate the problematic in more practical terms. Given that there are important similar discussions taking place in Europe, Australia etc in relation to precarity/casualization and biopolitical organization, this piece is germane to both contexts.

The future of the USA Labor Movement

Patrick Star, Northwest Anarchist Federation

The proposal for restructuring the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organization

This decline in union membership across the USA is being felt through the decline of the standard of living. Wages have not kept up with the increased cost of living. There is a crisis in the labor movement and workers are going to have to devise strategies that will lay the foundations for the eventual upsurge in organizing at work.

August 24, 2005 - 5:44pm -- hydrarchist
Analysis & Polemic
War

s0metim3s writes "

From MetaMute

Armchair Spartans and The Spectre of Decadence, by John Barker

John Barker examines America's 'stern white men', the intellectual warriors of neoliberalism, and finds them struggling to reconcile their psycho-political economy of discipline and restraint with the defensive manoeuvring of capitalism in crisis. Far from producing an Anglo-saxon rerun of Sparta based on restraint, will power and competition, American neoliberal policies have spawned the nightmare of hyper-consumption, spiralling debt, over-work linked obesity and wars-by-proxy fought by 'green card soldiers'. [Read the rest of the article]

Make Representation History - G8 Report, by Hari Kunzru, ELAM and Mute

The Live8 concert may have been a spectacular recuperation of the anti-globalisation movement, but anti-capitalist protestors outside the G8 summit in Gleneagles were still trying to get the revolution televised on their own terms.

Mute's anti-representational guerilla media unit, complete with borrowed DV cam, reports back from the hills around Auchterader; East London Autonomous Media (ELAM) interview a protest facilitator about consensus decision making; and Hari Kunzru gives us a critical diary of the protests and examines the limits of specular protest. [Read the rest of the article]

"

August 22, 2005 - 8:11am -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
Mainstream Media

"Be Warned: Mr. Bubble's Worried Again"

David Leonhardt, New York Tiimes

Abby joseph Cohen, the Goldman Sachs strategist then making a name for
herself as Wall Street's optimist in chief, sat directly to Alan Greenspan's
right. One chair away was Robert J. Shiller, a largely unknown Yale
economist.


As they ate lunch in a stately dining room at the Federal Reserve that day
in December 1996, Mr. Shiller argued that the stock market had risen to
irrational levels. In a soft, Midwestern-tinged voice, he asked Mr.
Greenspan, the Fed chairman, when the last time was that somebody in his job
had warned the public that the stock market had become a bubble.

August 20, 2005 - 5:24pm -- jim
Analysis & Polemic
In the Streets

Red & Anarchist Action Network (Nachie ) writes:

"Bolivanarchism:
The Venezuela Question in Our Movement"

Nachie, Red & Anarchist Action Network (RAAN)[1]

"...We are trying to contribute a different vision from what the media is giving (even those that call themselves "alternative"). We are neither for Chavez, nor for Fedecamaras or CTV or Coordinadora Democratica... We are for fomenting autonomy and self-management.” — Rafa of the CRA (Commission of Anarchist Relationships) of Venezuela

In the past several months we have noticed a growing curiosity over developments in the South American country of Venezuela. Everywhere in our day-to-day projects, people are talking and asking about the populist government of Hugo Chavez and his self-proclaimed “Bolivarian Revolution”[2].


This is unsurprising due to the accelerating pace of events in the country and the an increasing amount of negative press about Chavez in the international media. Through observing and participating in these informal discussions, however, we became particularly concerned in noticing no corresponding increase in anarchist knowledge of the situation.

Although as historians we’ve dipped our toes into the issue before, for the most part there has been an outright reluctance to engage ourselves in it, this despite the fact that insomuch as Chavez’ reforms represent a national movement and policy, they concern the future of millions of people across the entire region. In view of this and with the goal of expanding the nascent dialogue within our wider movement, we have prepared the following statement on behalf of RAAN.

August 18, 2005 - 10:28pm -- stevphen
Analysis & Polemic
Culture

Aesthetic and Political Avant-Gardes

George Katsiaficas, Journal of Aesthetics & Protest

The term “avant-garde” as used in popular discourse as well as in the more specialized worlds of art and politics has a variety of meanings. Sometimes it is overlooked—treated as having no special importance. There is no entry for it in the 32 volume Macmillan Dictionary of Art (1996), the New Encyclopedia Britannica (1995), or even in Raymond Williams’s highly regarded Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Yet for most of the 20th century—and the 19th as well—the term avant-garde was widely used to define attempts to forge new dimensions to our aesthetic and political definitions of reality. At the intersection of art and politics is where the term originated, and it is there that its most explosive interpretations can be found. In its 1973 edition the now-defunct Great Soviet Encyclopedia stridently attacked “avant-gardism” as “saturated with capitalist and petty bourgeois individualism.” More recently, feminists and post-modernists have attacked the avant-garde as a concept that fosters elitism.

If we were to attempt to give a brief definition to “avant-garde” as it has evolved over the last two centuries, it would refer to people seeking to transform aesthetic and political developments in society. Sometimes entwined together in complementary relationships, and at other moments separate and even antagonistic strands, aesthetic innovation and political engagement are both embedded in the core of the meaning of avant-garde. In what follows, I will trace the development of avant-garde movements from their origin in 19th century France to the contemporary period. In my view, the tension between the political and the aesthetic in avant gardes is significant and valuable; political activists can learn a great deal from the impact of aesthetic movements.

August 15, 2005 - 8:14pm -- nolympics
Analysis & Polemic
Theory

Anonymous Comrade writes

Against Gravity
Bettina Funcke in conversation with Peter Sloterdijk

The German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk achieved much acclaim (and a wide readership) in the United States during the heyday of critical theory with the translation of his Critique of Cynical Reason (University of Minnesota Press, 1988), in which he introduced a multifaceted style of writing, freely engaging with philosophy, history, anthropology, fiction, poetry, literary theory, and colloquial language. This unique discursive repertoire was widely perceived as constituting an altogether new take on the role of philosophy, one that continues to mark his work. If Sloterdijk's subsequently translated Thinker on Stage: Nietzsche's Materialism (University of Minnesota Press, 1989) also captured his performative philosophy (itself a continuation of the Nietzschean project that provides the book with its subject), the title was perhaps not the follow-up to Critique of Cynical Reason that American readers had expected. Due to the vicissitudes of critical-theory reception in the United States, Sloterdijk's work came to be viewed as an '80s period piece.

In Germany, however, Sloterdijk is one of the most prominent public intellectuals and has distinguished himself by pushing the boundaries of the traditional forum of the philosopher–and thus its very definition–by turning not only to the traditional academic stage but also to that of the mass media. This was a risky move, for in doing so he courted marginality from both sectors. But his was an attempt, in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, to recover a greater relevance for critical thinking. In addition to professorships at academies in Vienna and Karlsruhe and his output of one or two books a year for the last two decades, Sloterdijk is a ubiquitous media presence in Germany. He reaches a wide audience through his talk show on German TV and maintains a public profile with philosophical provocations such as his widely publicized debate with Jürgen Habermas over the ethics of genetic engineering.

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