What in the hell …

Many on the left talk as if standing on their heads, when in fact we are laying on our chests. What I mean is, many of us are where we are and do what we do only in part for reasons and arguments. I think we as much or more act from reasons of affinity, impulse, relationships. From the gut and the heart more than the head, and the arguments are often rationalizations after the fact as much as they are truly prescriptive or part of a decision making process about moving foward. I think this is not really a problem, or at least it doesn’t have to be a problem. It does lead to disconnects though when people try to make prescriptive comments to each other, from their head to another’s heart. That rarely works, or works fully. It’s as likely to be a headbutt to the chest as it is a meeting of the minds.

I need an attitude adjustment, I’ve been feeling more dark cloud than silver lining lately. The remedy will have to have multiple parts but for now, one part - talking about my daughter. (more…)

Since I just posted a thing on Badiou I figure I’ll post this too. It’s an old post I never finished. I read a few old printouts of articles by Alain Badiou that I’d had for a long while. I can’t remember if I ever finished them, I know I didn’t finish taking notes on them, as the fragmentary post below demonstrates. (more…)

Note from some correspondence, pasted here for self-archiving purposes.

(more…)

note dump. (more…)

Huh.

In From Slavery to Freedom in Brazi, Bahia 1835-1900, Dale Torston Graden writes in an aside about changes in pro-slavery rhetoric “in the wake of the February 1848 publication of the Communist Manifesto in London. The book was viewed as an evil doctrine by many in Brazil. Communism was considered as a threat to the right to own private property and to entrepreneurship in a free market. Not surprisingly, conservative defenders of the status quo in Brazil used the word to besmirch antislavery proponents from the late 1860s on.” (117.)

Also, from his note on the historiography of the Haitian revolution -
Knight, “The Haitian Revolution”, AHR 105 no.1, 2000, 103-115

Fick, The Making of Haiti

Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery

Walvin, Slavery and British Society

Richardson, Abolition and its Aftermath

Geggus, The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World

Also -
Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States

Drescher, Econocide

Eltis, Economic Growth and the Ending of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Fogel, Without Consent or Contract

Drescher, Capitalism and Anti-Slavery

Solow and Engerman, British Capitalism and Caribbean Slavery

Thinking again about that “replace yourself” piece reminded me of some more old unfinished notes which I decided to try to take another step further. (more…)

Replace yourself.

Gathering Forces reposted a Workers Power column by my friend J. Pierce. He’s the one who suggested that the Workers Power column exist in the first place. I didn’t see the point at the time. I’m so glad it happened despite my incredulity.

This is also a reminder that I want to write about mentorship.