“Events, like Occupy Wall Street, are crucial because, on the one hand, they demonstrate that the problem is capitalism as such. This was the big issue in the 20th century, but somehow disappeared in the last decades from the traditional left, where the focus became specific issues such as racism and sexism.”
“…we have a lot of “anti-capitalism,” indeed an overload of anti-capitalism, but it is an ethical anti-capitalism. In the media, everywhere one finds stories about how this company is exploiting people someplace and ruining the environment, or this bank is ruining hardworking people’s funds. All of these are moralistic critiques of distortions. This is not enough.
“The anti-capitalism of the popular media remains at the level of something to be resolved within the established structure: through investigative journalism, democratic reforms, and the like. But I see in all of this the vague instinct that something more is at stake. The battle now, as for the capitalists themselves, is over who will appropriate it.”
“… crucially, for the Left, we need to deal with our heritage. I don’t like the Left that has the attitude that, ‘Yes, Stalinism was bad. But look at the horrors of colonialism!’ Yes, I agree there are the problems of neo-colonialism, post-colonialism, etc. But the problem with the Stalinist 20th century, even now… is that we don’t have a good account of what really happened. What we get is quick generalizations.”
“What I like in Lenin is that he was totally unorthodox and was willing to rethink the situation. He didn’t stick to some dogma. At the same time, he wasn’t afraid to act. I claim that quite many leftists secretly enjoy their role of opposition and are afraid to intervene.”
“I know we must avoid Islamophobia. But I reject totally the idea of Islamic fundamentalism’s emancipatory potential”
On November 5, 2011, using questions formulated together with Chris Cutrone, Haseeb Ahmed interviewed Slavoj Žižek at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation. It first appeared on Platypus.
The Occupy movement, a renascent Left, and Marxism today:
An interview with Slavoj Žižek
Haseeb Ahmed: Are we currently—after Tahrir Square and the eruption of the Occupy movement—living through a renaissance of the Left? If so, what is the historical legacy that stands in need of reconsideration?
Slavoj Žižek: I would say my answer is very cautious. Conditionally: Yes.
Review: Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence
September 14, 2011
A sweeping discourse on the collision between the natural and the social world — the confluence of poverty, violence and climate change
reviewed by Chris Williams Socialist Worker, September 14, 2011
Who killed Ekaru Loruman?
Until his recent violent death, Ekaru was a pastoralist from northwestern Kenya, a member of the Turkana tribe. He died when a bullet ripped out the side of his head as he tried to defend his few head of cattle, his only form of wealth and livelihood.
One could respond that a member of the Pokot tribe, a traditional enemy of the Turkana, who live and farm in the surrounding hills and raid across the border from Uganda killed Ekaru. That would, after all, be a factually correct response, and any murder investigation by local police would, with the identification and arrest of the individual responsible, end there.
Christian Parenti, in his excellent, if flawed, new book Tropic of Chaos, finds this a deeply unsatisfying answer. And so should anyone seeking to better understand the world and the twin ecological and economic crises in order to take action to ameliorate the consequences of those crises.
Parenti’s book makes an important contribution to that effort–he has written a sweeping discourse on the collision set in motion between the natural and the social world–what he calls the “catastrophic convergence”: the confluence of poverty, violence and climate change.
[coming here soon: Kindle and Nook ebook versions.]
From the pamphlet introduction:
One of the most remarkable events on the Kasama site during the summer of 2011 has been the outpouring of discussion over the treatment of gay people in the previous communist movement.
Libri Devrim opened the door with her piece “My life in a red closet” – a heartfelt remembrance written with deliberate restraint.
There was a heartening outpouring of interest, experience and discussion. Kasama published several different, unsolicited new posts.
Recently a set of volcanic vents were explored at the bottom of the ocean floor near Antartica. In such places, sunlight never penetrates, and there is no way of basis any ecosystem on photosynthesis. As has been seen elsewhere, these vents were the center of unique and very unfamiliar systems that are based on the chemical exploitation of subterranean chemical by bacteria. In this case the ocean floor was literally caked in thousands of bone-white yeti crabs who exploited the bacteria, surrounded by diverse other previously unknown species (including an albino octopus, sea anemones and more).
Just realizing how diverse life is, how tenacious it is under extreme conditions, and how primitive our own understandings still are… it just makes you happy to be alive and to be awake.
“To put it crudely: I think some views of socialism are barely modified versions of capitalism — and are not very attractive, and will not solve the problems of humanity.
“I’m not against uniting with people who hold those other views. Far from it! But I do resist assuming (without much exploration) that we believe in the same thing.”
By Mike Ely
Sophielux made a simple and understandable request:
“Could you help bring me up to speed by defining several of the terms frequently used on this site?”
Part of our task is creating a common language and we are far away from that. Examining most of our terms doesn’t reveal settled verdicts but real differences and vexing problems.
I would like to take the familiar term “socialism”as one example:
One of my problem with adopting “socialism” or “anti-capitalism” as some unifying framework is that quite diverse forces mean quite different things by these terms.
And part of my argument for a consciously-descriptive consciously-jargon-free discussion of goals (visions) is precisely to circumvent that problem. I have tried in a number of places, including the recent seven or eight points, to give a sense of what that kind of public presentation could start from.
“It is not just the West’s material primacy that is at stake today but also the allure of its version of modernity.
“Unless liberal democracies can restore their political and economic solvency, the politics, as well as the geopolitics, of the twenty-first century may well be up for grabs.”
This revealing essay just appeared in the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs (Jan/Feb 2012).
The ruling classes can see and prepare for major escalating “threats.” And we can learn from their predictions. Consider this post “reconnaissance on the enemy.”
This “crisis of governability” is deeply rooted in the very structure of worldwide production — and it frames the official politics of this system. Think through this coming election in this framework. Think through stage two of the occupations. Think through our regroupment of serious revolutionaries. The momentary and superficial is illusion, these are the deep movements marking the future of the system and its choices (and in a certain real sense the future of the people and their choices).
We should be orienting ourselves to swim in the great waves and storms envisioned here.
Conservatism among revolutionaries often takes the form of only seeing what is now already manifest — and not seeing the underlying contradictions that will almost certainly erupt further in extreme-if-unpredicable ways.
The outcome of such crises may well be intensified and widening apartheid-like tiers in a far more repressive United States. But it may (for those very same reasons) lead to something else — something (finally! finally!) better and liberatory that breaks with the past and its promises. The failure of imperialism’s contracts can be the seed for new politics, and for the rising of those millions who were largely excluded from those contracts in the first place.
We need to discuss and resolve with some urgency: How do we prepare? Who do we prepare? How do we organize ourselves?
A crisis of governability has engulfed the world’s most advanced democracies. It is no accident that the United States, Europe, and Japan are simultaneously experiencing political breakdown; globalization is producing a widening gap between what electorates are asking of their governments and what those governments are able to deliver. The mismatch between the growing demand for good governance and its shrinking supply is one of the gravest challenges facing the Western world today.
Social Media in Protests: Study Finds ‘Recruiters’ and ‘Spreaders
ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2011) — A study has explored the dynamics behind social network sites in recruiting and spreading calls for action that contribute to mass mobilisations in riots, revolutions and protests.
Led by Oxford University and published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study finds that the most influential group consists of a small group of users close to the centre of a network. This group, described by the researchers as the ‘spreaders’, plays a critical role in triggering chains of messages reaching huge numbers of people. However, early participants in the protest and those starting the recruitment process, have no characteristic position within the network: they are the leaders of the movement and first movers in their local networks. They spark the initial online activity that recruits the spreaders, but they are scattered all over the network, suggests the study.
Lead researcher Dr Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at Oxford University, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Zaragoza, Spain, led by Dr Yamir Moreno, analysed Twitter activity data during mass protests in Spain in May 2011. These protests were sparked by the political response to the financial crisis, resulting in demands for new forms of democratic representation. The main target of the campaign was an organised protest on 15 May which brought tens of thousands of people to the streets of 59 cities all over the country. After the march, hundreds of participants camped in the city squares until 22 May, the date for local and regional elections, with crowded demonstrations taking place daily during that week.
On New Years Eve, John Lennon’s song “Imagine” was mutilated before a vast global television audience.
Just before the ball dropped in Times Square in New York City, singer Cee Lo Green replaced Lennon’s line “and no religion, too” with the backward absurdity “and all religion is true.”
Many were infuriated — and understandably so.
As an aside, it is amusing to note that Cee Lo (formerly of the Goodie Mob) is best known for his last hit “Fuck you.”
In other words, Cee Lo’s ridiculous decision to uphold “all religions” against Lennon’s biting secular sentiments is revealing about just what and who is considered controversial and intolerable in our culture.
We have posted Imagine here on Kasama before…. but let’s start 2012 by honoring this beloved communist anthem again, without revisions.
Hitchens was one of a long line of European intellectuals who started their careers on the soft left and ended up on the side of empire and invasion. And that arc from radical to neo-con understandably provokes anger precisely because it smells like betrayal.
Hitchens savaged his targets with a poison tipped pen… so, perhaps, there is room for a celebration of style in this denunciation of a creep. Norm also wrote a substantive earlier piece on Hitchens that is worth revisiting.
A Brief Comment on the Passing of Christopher Hitchens
by Norman Finkelstein
Even some of the critical commentary on Hitchens’s passing pays tribute to his robust atheism, which no doubt shocked readers ofVanity Fair.
But the ultimate irony seems to have gone over everyone’s head.
When I first learned that Hitchens was diagnosed with an excruciating and terminal cancer, it caused me to doubt my atheism.
Could it be merely chance?
The news came just as Hitchens was about to go on a book tour for his long-awaited memoir. It was as if he was setting out on his victory lap when the adulating crowds were supposed to fawn over him and—wham!—his legs were lopped off at the kneecaps.
This was originally in salon.com. Please note that this is a particularly long post but well worth the read.
Progressives would feel much better about themselves, their Party and their candidate if they only had to oppose, say, Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann. That’s because the standard GOP candidate agrees with Obama on many of these issues and is even worse on these others, so progressives can feel good about themselves for supporting Obama: his right-wing opponent is a warmonger, a servant to Wall Street, a neocon, a devotee of harsh and racist criminal justice policies, etc. etc.
It is the classic lesser-of-two-evils rationale, the key being that it explicitly recognizes that both sides are “evil”: meaning it is not a Good v. Evil contest but a More Evil v. Less Evil contest. But that is not the discussion that takes place because few progressives want to acknowledge that the candidate they are supporting — again — is someone who will continue to do these evil things with their blessing. Instead, we hear only a dishonest one-sided argument that emphasizes Paul’s evils while ignoring Obama’s (progressives frequently ask: how can any progressive consider an anti-choice candidate but don’t ask themselves: how can any progressive support a child-killing, secrecy-obsessed, whistleblower-persecuting Drug Warrior?).
Progressives and the Ron Paul fallacies
By Glenn Greenwald
Saturday, Dec. 31
(updated below)
As I’ve written about before, America’s election season degrades mainstream political discourse even beyond its usual lowly state. The worst attributes of our political culture — obsession with trivialities, the dominance of horserace “reporting,” and mindless partisan loyalties — become more pronounced than ever. Meanwhile, the actually consequential acts of the U.S. Government and the permanent power factions that control it — covert endless wars, consolidation of unchecked power, the rapid growth of the Surveillance State and the secrecy regime, massive inequalities in the legal system, continuous transfers of wealth from the disappearing middle class to large corporate conglomerates — drone on with even less attention paid than usual.
Because most of those policies are fully bipartisan in nature, the election season — in which only issues that bestow partisan advantage receive attention — places them even further outside the realm of mainstream debate and scrutiny. For that reason, America’s elections ironically serve to obsfuscate political reality even more than it usually is.
This would all be bad enough if “election season” were confined to a few months the way it is in most civilized countries. But in America, the fixation on presidential elections takes hold at least eighteen months before the actual election occurs, which means that more than 1/3 of a President’s term is conducted in the midst of (and is obscured by) the petty circus distractions of The Campaign. Thus, an unauthorized, potentially devastating covert war — both hot and cold — against Iran can be waged with virtually no debate, just as government control over the Internet can be inexorably advanced, because TV political shows are busy chattering away about Michele Bachmann’s latest gaffe and minute changes in Rick Perry’s polling numbers.
Global elites are confused, reactive, and sinking into the quagmire of their own making. It is noteworthy that those struggling around the world have been shown a strong sense of solidarity and are in communications across whole continents. Just as the Egyptian uprising inspired the US Occupy movement, the latter has been an inspiration for a new round of mass struggle in Egypt. What remains is to extend transnational coordination and move towards transnationally-coordinated programmes. On the other hand, the “empire of global capital” is definitely not a “paper tiger”.
Global rebellion: The coming chaos?
William I. Robinson
Santa Barbara, CA – As the crisis of global capitalism spirals out of control, the powers that be in the global system appear to be adrift and unable to propose viable solutions. From the slaughter of dozens of young protesters by the army in Egypt to the brutal repression of the Occupy movement in the United States, and the water cannons brandished by the militarised police in Chile against students and workers, states and ruling classes are unable to hold back the tide of worldwide popular rebellion and must resort to ever more generalised repression.
Simply put, the immense structural inequalities of the global political economy can no longer be contained through consensual mechanisms of social control. The ruling classes have lost legitimacy; we are witnessing a breakdown of ruling-class hegemony on a world scale.
To understand what is happening in this second decade of the new century we need to see the big picture in historic and structural context. Global elites had hoped and expected that the “Great Depression” that began with the mortgage crisis and the collapse of the global financial system in 2008 would be a cyclical downturn that could be resolved through state-sponsored bailouts and stimulus packages. But it has become clear that this is a structural crisis. Cyclical crises are on-going episodes in the capitalist system, occurring and about once a decade and usually last 18 months to two years. There were world recessions in the early 1980s, the early 1990s, and the early 21st century.
In the wake of the U.C. Davis incident, much has been made about the increased militarization of local police departments, raising questions about the effectiveness of these tactics and a concern about the far-reaching authority of police to use force. However, this is hardly a new phenomenon. The increased militarization of America’s police forces can trace its origins to the black community, and like so much that is currently plaguing the criminal-justice system, it is a different so-called war that can be blamed: the war on drugs.
From War on Drugs to War on Occupy
By: Mychal Denzel Smith
The photos and description of what took place at Occupy Chapel Hill, an Occupy Wall Street offshoot in North Carolina, resemble the second tenet of the so-called PowellDoctrine. As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Persian Gulf War in 1991, Colin Powell said that “force, when used, should be overwhelming and disproportionate to the force used by the enemy.”
On Nov. 13 a tactical team of 25 Chapel Hill police officers equipped with assault rifles, helmets and bulletproof vests forced 13 people to the ground in handcuffs, including a reporter covering the protest, and arrested eight nonviolent and unarmed demonstrators and charged them with breaking and entering for occupying a vacant car dealership.
Later that week, there was the controversial NYPD raid on the original Occupy encampment in lower Manhattan, and more recently, a video of peaceful student protesters being pepper-sprayed on the campus of the University of California, Davis, went viral and sparked national outrage. The shocking imagery is now ingrained in the public consciousness, representing the increasingly violent response of police to these nonviolent protests.
Overwhelming and disproportionate, indeed. But what Powell was describing in 1991 was a new way of waging war, one intended as a last resort and to minimize military involvement unless absolutely necessary. What police officers at the Occupy protests were engaging in was not war.
“What was inconceivable just a year ago, even to most Marxists, is now a spectre haunting the opinion pages of the business press: the imminent destruction of much of the institutional framework of globalization and undermining of the post-1989 international order. There is growing apprehension that the crisis of the Eurozone, followed by a synchronized world recession, might return us to a 1930ish world of semi-autarchic monetary and trade blocs, crazed by nationalist ressentiments…But this is not a debate in the great industrializing society that Das Kapital describes even more accurately than Victorian Britain or New Deal America. Two hundred million Chinese factory workers, miners and construction labourers are the most dangerous class on the planet. (Just ask the State Council in Beijing.) Their full awakening from the bubble may yet determine whether or not a socialist Earth is still possible.”
Spring Confronts Winter
by Mike Davis
In great upheavals, analogies fly like shrapnel. The electrifying protests of 2011—the on-going Arab spring, the ‘hot’ Iberian and Hellenic summers, the ‘occupied’ fall in the United States—inevitably have been compared to the anni mirabiles of 1848, 1905, 1968 and 1989. Certainly some fundamental things still apply and classic patterns repeat. Tyrants tremble, chains break and palaces are stormed. Streets become magical laboratories where citizens and comrades are created, and radical ideas acquire sudden telluric power. Iskra becomes Facebook. But will this new comet of protest persist in the winter sky or is it just a brief, dazzling meteor shower? As the fates of previous journées révolutionnaires warn us, spring is the shortest of seasons, especially when the communards fight in the name of a ‘different world’ for which they have no real blueprint or even idealized image.
But perhaps that will come later. For the moment, the survival of the new social movements—the occupiers, the indignados, the small European anti-capitalist parties and the Arab new left—demands that they sink deeper roots in mass resistance to the global economic catastrophe, which in turn presupposes—let’s be honest—that the current temper for ‘horizontality’ can eventually accommodate enough disciplined ‘verticality’ to debate and enact organizing strategies. It’s a frighteningly long road just to reach the starting points of earlier attempts to build a new world. But a new generation has at least bravely initiated the journey.
Kasama is post discussions from different viewpoints and hopes to raise, as a special focus, what role the Occupations can play in building new, united, impactful movements for a radically different society. The views presented in this series are not summations by Kasama itself. They are presented here to encourage discussions from which verdicts are emerging.
This piece ends with an argument for a Red Bloc (or a Socialist Caucus) as a way of influencing the direction of the Occupations. Would this be positive, or a disaster? An assumption behind that proposal is that “socialists” somehow have common politics (that exist, for example in opposition to anarchist politics)? that could be expressed better in common within such a movement. Is that true? And if so what are those “common politics”? Or do revolutionary communists have more in common with new-born radical forces and revolutionary anarchists than they do with the various strains of organized socialists? Who are the advanced who we should be seeking to consolidate and put forward? Do they included the organized socialist currents? And if so which parts of them?
From the conclusion of this essay the author puts forward one view:
“The most basic and fundamental task facing socialists is to merge with Occupy and lead it from within. Socialist groups that insist on “intervening” in the uprising will be viewed as outsiders with little to contribute in practice to solving Occupy’s actual problems because they will be focused on winning arguments and ideological points rather than actively listening to, joining hands with and fighting alongside the vanguard of the 99% in overcoming common practical and political.
“One difficulty the socialist left faces in accomplishing this basic and fundamental task is the divisions in our ranks that serve in practice to weaken the overall socialist influence within Occupy, thereby strengthening that of the anarchists. They have their Black Bloc, but where is our Red Bloc? Where are the socialist slogans to shape and guide the uprising’s political development?”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
By Pham Binh
December 14, 2011 — Occupy is a once in a lifetime opportunity to re-merge the socialist and working-class movements and create a viable broad-based party of radicals, two prospects that have not been on the cards in the United States since the late 1960s and early 1970s. The socialist left has not begun to think through these “big picture” implications of Occupy, nor has it fully adjusted to the new tasks that Occupy’s outbreak has created for socialists. In practice, the socialist left follows Occupy’s lead rather than Occupy follow the socialist left’s lead. As a result, we struggle to keep pace with Occupy’s rapid evolution.
“Demands are a complicated question. Some feel that, given Occupy’s distance from the State, no demands should be maintained. Others feel that there are too many problems Occupy needs to address to synthesize. Yet, are they mutually contradictory?
“Can we both have demands and NOT have demands? Yes.
“Do unions or NGOs have principal demands? No, they form contracts, agreements, and agitate daily for improved living conditions. In the same way, I think we should consider demands as ‘campaigns’. Occupy should have campaigns that are focused on tactically, but, should not adopt demands. If Occupy adopts demands for itself, then, it ceases its progression towards an organizational form and simply becomes a pressure group.”
This is a moment when we need summation of the Occupation movements — what they have accomplished, what they mean, where their forces will now congeal, what now can be changed or raised or developed about their politics and unity.
Kasama is post discussions from different viewpoints and hopes to raise, as a special focus, what role the Occupations can play in building new, united, impactful movements for a radically different society.
The views presented in this series are not summations by Kasama itself. They are presented here to encourage discussions from which verdicts are emerging.
The following is a presentation given by Evan Sarmiento, an active participant in Boston’s Occupation movement, and supporter of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO/OSCL).
This is based on the discussion at a Platypus pane held at Harvard University on December 15. This post is taken from Evan’s notes, not from a transcription of the talk itself.
One of the main criticisms against SOPA is that it’s de facto “censorship,” requiring ISPs at times to prevent access to infringing sites by making efforts under order to block web browser requests for flagged domain names. The prospect of domain name system (DNS) blocking and filtering has alarmed some who believe it would be intrusive and undercut the secure structure of the Internet.
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt also echoed that sentiment. The bill would “criminalize linking and the fundamental structure of the Internet itself,” he said yesterday.
New Version Of ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ As Controversial As Ever (Analysis)
by Eriq Gardner
On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee plans to mark up and vote on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), an important piece of legislation that’s been fostering fervent debate in recent weeks.
In advance of the markup, Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the committee, has made some tweaks in a so-called manager’s amendment, aimed at building support by attempting to clarify the bill’s main targets as foreign “rogue” websites, narrowing definitions of bad actors, limiting the private right of action that allow copyright and trademark owners to sue, and addressing concerns that anti-piracy measures could eventually denigrate the security and integrity of the Internet.
The changes are in direct reaction to criticism that has transcended political parties, and the modifications were welcomed by the entertainment industry lobby and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But the new version of SOPA still has not gone nearly far enough in narrowing its definitions and curtailing its service provider obligations to appease leading technology companies and other groups rallying against the bill.
Kasama will post discussions from a number of different viewpoints on the Occupations — what they have accomplished, what challenges their supporters face, what directions we should all consider. The views presented in this series do not represent any summation of Kasama itself — but are presented here to encourage the discussion from which verdicts are emerging.
Here is a presentation given by Kasama supporter Enaa at Harvard, in response to questions posed at a Platypus panel. This post is taken from his notes, not from a transcription of the talk itself.
by Doug Enaa
1. In light of the recent series of coordinated and spectacular evictions that have been taking place since November 15th, including violent action in campuses and elsewhere, is it fair to say that the Occupy movement has entered into a sort of “phase 2”? If so, what is the nature of this new phase of the movement’s development?
To expand: How has the occupation been forced to adapt to a changing set of conditions on the ground? What sorts of fresh difficulties do these new conditions pose for the occupiers? A moment of crisis can often be a moment of opportunity. What direction do you feel the movement should take in order to remain viable and relevant?
Let me preface my remarks by speaking to the concrete realities that Occupy Boston is facing at this moment. On Dec. 10, the Boston Police Department in a well-coordinated raid evicted the encampment. Before this occurred, the movement was attempting to figure out how we planned to survive the winter (using army tents, finding indoor spaces, etc.).
Now that dynamic has changed dramatically. One of the slogans that all tendencies of the movement have adopted is “You can’t evict an idea.”
“Events, like Occupy Wall Street, are crucial because, on the one hand, they demonstrate that the problem is capitalism as such. This was the big issue in the 20th century, but somehow disappeared in the last decades from the traditional left, where the focus became specific issues such as racism and sexism.”
