Trotskyism and Science Fiction
I’ve loved science fiction since my teens. And through my twenties I was a Trotskyist. You can the see the reason for my fondness for Ken MacLeod who I believe was in the British International Marxist Group in the 1970s, and later the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Still if MacLeod is a science fiction writer who draws on Trotskyism, could there be Trotskyists who draw on Science Fiction? The answer , of course, is yes.
The group led by the late Argentine Trotskyist Juan Posadist is, fairly or not, best known for two things: Its seeming advocacy of nuclear war as a step toward socialism, and its belief in UFOs. I admit to never having read a single word of Posadist material, but I did read this interview in Jacobin with A.M. Gittlitz who has just written a book on Juan Posadis called I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs, and Apocalypse Communism. And, I now I want to read the book.
For anyone interesting in picking up the book, it’s published by Pluto Press. (There’s a TOC and extract on the Pluto page)
Jacques Camatte
A few years ago, it seemed as if you couldn’t get through an article without the author slipping in a quotation or reference to the Situationist International or Guy Debord. While that seems to have abated, I’ve noticed Jacques Camatte’s name and ideas cropping up more and more frequently. I’m not suggesting that Camatte is “hip,” so that he can be dismissed, but rather that his work is worthy of further engagement. True, Camatte’s work has been claimed by “anti-civ” currents (not my cup of tea), but his ideas on the law of value, and on organization are of interest. I’m reading Endnotes’ piece “Onward Barbarians” (it’s very good), and they make favourable reference to his ideas. Here’s a couple of others:
Howard Slater on the Mute site writes “Capital Abandon: Some Words on and oft Inspired by Jacques Camatte.”
My old friend Pete Harrison wrote this, “The Gemeinwesen has always been here” which has been reprinted by Ill Will Editions.
Marxists.org has a small collection of his essays and Libcom has the book This World We Must Leave and Other Essays as a PDF. It’s difficult, but worth more than a quick look.
The Events of January 6
I said I wouldn’t be writing about Trump again until January 20th, but the events in Washington yesterday made that impossible.
For a while now, when asked I’ve described Trump as a lazy fascist; someone with the authoritarian, narcissistic personality of El Duce, but nevertheless too lazy to do anything on that scale. Sure sure, “Proud Boys stand back and stand by,” the declaration that the rally on January 6 was going to be “wild,” and his Nuremberg-esque rallies, but beyond that very little. Trump was content to use government, but not truely go to an extra-parliamentary force.
So yesterday, what you got was a lazy, barely competent proto-fascist attempt at a coup. The takeaway is not how it could have been worse, but what if it had been carried out by people who knew what they were doing?
Socialists at the Gates?
To hear the political rhetoric being thrown around in Washington these days you’d think we were on the verge of storming the Winter Palace or the Paris Commune was being rebuilt. The radical socialist Marxists will overthrow capitalist America if David Purdue and Kelly Loffeler aren’t elected and Donald Trump doesn’t get a second term? Hell, I’d vote for that if there were chance if would happen. .
Sadly, it ain’t true.
The Devil Went down to Georgia…
With apologies to the late Trump supporter Charlie Daniels
The devil went down to Georgia
He was lookin’ for a soul 11,780 votes to steal
He was in a bind
‘Cause he was way behind
And he was willin’ to make a deal
I can’t be the only person to think of this.. (I haven’t seen it anywhere else though)
2021: Resolutions and Aspirations
New Year resolutions are always a curious thing. After all, why wait until January 1st to begin a list of changes to your life you probably won’t maintain. You can fail at those things anytime. But…I do like lists, so consider this both a list of things I hope will happen, and things I’m going to try to make happen (you can decide which is which)
Just ten (in no particular order)
- Vaccine
You better believe I’m going to roll up my sleeve for the vaccine. I’m not concerned if Bill Gates injects nano-chips into my system, I already have twitter and instagram accounts; I am a little worried the new U2 album might be there though. (Not my joke, but worth retelling) - Live music
Last year I had tickets for Big Thief, Glen Matlock, the Murder Capital, and a few others. One by one, they cancelled. I honestly can’t wait to go out to see bands again. Sure, I’ve been live streaming some shows, but really, it’s just not the same. (On a related note, want to dig into Radiohead, Sun Ra, the National, and whichever band I fall in love with next week) - Fan Expo and The Toronto Comics Arts Festival
Two of my favourite Toronto events. Even just to wander around and pick up things, meet creators, discoer new work is worth the price of admission (TCAF is free) - Read The Critique of Everyday Life
I picked up the Verso three-in-one volume edition a while back, but have been waiting for the right moment. I know, I know, a pandemic when you can’t leave the house wasn’t the moment? Well, 2021, as life starts to get back to whatever version of normal follows, will be. - Summer reading: Anna Karina /Don Quixote / Ulysses
See point four. I’ve started all three of these books on various occasions, but never made it to the end of any of them. One of them will be the summer read this year. - Travel
I go to New York almost every year. In the last few years, I’ve also been to Iceland, France, and Newfoundland. (Not St. Barts though- joke for Ontario readers) Not so, last year. I can’t see myself travelling overseas or even to the States in the near future, but there’s plenty to do around here; I do fancy Prince Edward County. Went there a few years back, and would love to go again. If I had a dream realized though, it would be the Shetland Islands. Fell in love with the isles after watching the TV show Shetland, so now I really want to go. - Chill
I developed some health concerns last year, slightly before the Covid disaster began this year. Nothing life-threatening, but an inconvenience certainly exacerbated by stress. Gonna try to be chiller (Note to self – maybe get off Twitter then!) - Not working from Home
Hey, don’t get me wrong. Skipping the drive to work, not dealing with bad weather or drivers, and saving money on petrol, all have their plus points. But a significant part of my job is dealing with people, and I miss them. - This blog
I’ve mentioned several times that this blog came into being after I joined Internationalist Perspective and wound up Red & Black Notes. But…I still wanted to write things that didn’t necessarily fit in IP. The activity and readership of the blog have both enjoyed yo-yo like status, and last year I took a break for most of the fall, before returning in December. Will aim to post more regularly and more frequently. - A Better World
In a little less than a week. Two things will happen in the US. There will be senate election in Georgia which will determine whether or not Republicans get to keep control of the Senate. If they’re successful Mitch McConnell and his weasel friends to prevent any positive measures the Democrats will propose (and we all know there won’t be many to begin with). The following day Congress will formally accept the results of the November 2020 election and place the penultimate nail in Trump’s coffin. (Yes, yes, there are reports that delusional Republicans will attempt to flip this for Trump, but no one seriously believes that is a possible outcome) . It’s a combination of salting the earth and continuing the grift (Josh Hawley, who will object, is using this to fundraise)
Despite the tremendously satisfying defeat of Trump, many things marred the outcome. Trump increased his vote by 12 million. After children in cages, countless nods to racism and authoritarianism, the greed, the graft, the cronyism, 12 million more votes! And across the board, Republicans did better. It seems likely they will hold the Senate, and they made progress in the House and elsewhere. I certainly don’t think the Democrats are fundamentally any different in adherence to capitalism, but they just don’t seem as ready to fuck people over in such a brutal way as Republicans do every single day. However, the so-called progressive opposition to Trump fed into the Democratic Party and not into independent expressions of opposition. (Now, we do have to consider the effects of Covid, but few will deny that Trump lost because of it – and if he had chosen to approach the pandemic in a different way, it’s likely he could have triumphed; but then he wouldn’t have been Trump). Oh, and Biden will now be president.
So, for over forty years, I’ve consciously identified as a socialist. True, what that has meant to me has changed over time, but I’ve always believed a better world was possible. A world without poverty, imperialism, racism, sexism, homophobia and more (I can’t list everything, because it would be a much longer list – unfortunately.). In short, capitalism and all the filth it’s engendered. I doubt 2021 will be year, we create that new world, but each of us can do a little, leading to something much larger.
Goodbye 2020
Before I started this year’s list, I looked over last year’s. OK, Usual stuff, but no mention of Covid. In fact, the first thing I wrote about Covid was March 19 . Hah! Totally missed that one. Usually, this list is a catalogue of some of my favorite things of the year, but this year so many things are absent: Live music, Fan Expo and Toronto Comic Arts Festival, New York, movies in theatres, hugs…you know, normal stuff. Still, there were a few things that made life a bit easier to take (this year’s list is a bit shorter than past years though)
- Normal People
An Irish BBC drama about an on-again off-again couple who meet in high school and continue through university. Beautifully shot and told, poignant in the extreme; What’s extraordinary is how even silence can say so much. - Endnotes
An occasional UK communist journal that published its fifth issue this year. Heavy stuff, but among the most compelling, insightful writing around. - Bandcamp
Oh, I know we all use Spotify and feel guilty about its royalty rates, so if you do, why not try Bandcamp, where you can still buy music and support artists you like? And also discover artists you don’t know. - The Beguiling
I first shopped here in 1987 or so. It’s easily Toronto’s best comic book shop. I don’t live downtown anymore, but whenever I go, I stop there to pick up my pull file. Thanks to Peter and everyone who works there - Shetland
A crime drama set on the Shetland Islands. My wife and I stumbled across this show on Netflix and binged it. This is top of my places to travel to once things get back to normal. - Dog
My dog Lester makes the list most years, but this year he was even more special. Walking him is a chance to get out of the house, and this year, it’s more important than ever. I don’t think I’ll give up the atheism, but the joke I often make is that dogs are a good argument for intelligent design. (and sunsets…) - George Mann
I read five George Mann novels this year: Four from his supernatural steampunk series Newberry and Hobbes, and his spooky crime novel Wychwood. I can’t remember who it was said that reading is like dreaming with your eyes open, but Mann’s books were a very pleasant distraction from all of this, not to mention great stories. - David Graeber
Graeber’s passing this year was a blow, but his work will continue to inspire: Bullshit Jobs, Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, Debt- The First 5000 Years, The Utopia of Rules, and countless articles. I don’t always agree with Graeber, but his writing always forces me to think about what he writes. - People
Yeah, people. We are social animals., and the isolation this year was hard for many. I worked from home from March, and likely won’t be back in my old workplace until the fall of 2021. Being able to keep in touch with people, albeit through social media or video platforms, helped tremendously. From family to comrades to dear friends, the virtual hi’s, handshakes and hugs made it possible to go on (maybe in 2021, they won’t have to be virtual any more) - Hope
I always like to end this list on a positive note. So, this year after a year of darkness, much worse for some than for others, let’s end on a note of hope. Not just hope that the covid vaccine banishes the illness to the fringes, not just that things will return to whatever the new normal becomes, not just that I won’t have to think about Trump for too much longer (oh, he won’t go away, but he’ll just be a part of the background noise), but hope that there is a better world before us. I recently received a message from Haymarket Books which quoted Arundhati Roy:
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
A good note to end one year and begin another.
A Very Canadian Scandal
And it’s one that doesn’t involve Justin Trudeau…
On Christmas Eve, Ontario’s Finance Minister Rod Phillips tweeted a Christmas message. The video was of Phillips sitting by a roaring fire, sipping eggnog , and offering words about how hard this holiday season was given the sacrifices we had all made.
Turns out though, not all of us were making those same sacrifices. A few days after the Ontario legislature adjourned on December 8, Phillips and his wife flew to the exclusive island of St. Barts to enjoy a winter break (the second out of Canada vacation this year – Phillips travelled to Switzerland in August). The Christmas Eve video and several other tweets involving Phillips visiting and promoting local businesses and events were recorded before the trip and posted in an attempt to create the impression Phillips was still in Ontario.
When the story broke, Phillips offered a weak apology that he had made a “mistake,” but noting the trip was pre-planned (who flies to an exclusive beach location on a whim? Oh right…), he had paid for it himself (odd thing to mention), and he was still doing his job (Phillips participated in a government meeting via zoom wearing a sweater… gee, not as warm as usual in St. Bart or is there another reason?)
But it got better…
Ontario’s Covid numbers have been rising steadily. Toronto has been in a “lockdown” situation since November 23. The province since December 26. Non-essential travel has been discouraged for months. So, when it emerged that the second most powerful politician in the province had snuck out of the country for three weeks, the question arose who knew and when did they know?
On Monday, Premier Doug Ford’s press secretary, herself in Saskatoon for “family matters,” told media that Premier Ford had been unaware of Phillips’ trip. On Tuesday, he released a statement claiming “I have let the minister know that his decision to travel is completely unacceptable and that it will not be tolerated again — by him or any member of our cabinet and caucus. I have also told the minister I need him back in the country immediately,” implying Phillips’ trip was news to him. On Wednesday, Ford admitted he had known for two weeks Phillips had left, but had not, until, the story broke, told him to return. This too Ford said was a “mistake” he “regretted.”
Ford’s typical response is to accept the apology, claim the person had learnt their lesson and move on. Current Toronto Mayor John Tory chimed in that he stood by his friends even when they made mistakes and that the province was lucky to have Phillips (privilege much?) But there’s a sentiment growing. When opposition parties call for a minister’s resignation, that’s par for the course. When the right-wing media joins in, you might have a bit of a problem.
Sadly, this is not the real scandal. The Ontario Conservatives have sat on $12B of Covid relief measures. This morning’s Covid numbers in Ontario were a new record, 3,326. 888 in Toronto. 56 deaths. Still, sick days, small classes in schools, emergency child care for all, and an effective distribution of the Covid vaccine (the government actually scaled back distribution over the holidays so that on Boxing Day, the beer stores were open, but clinics were not). Such is the focus of those who rule over us.
And to give a sense of what government priorities might be, here’s a candidate to tweet of the year, a true gem. While it’s true, Caroline Mulroney is Ontario’s Minister of Transportation (previously Attorney General), but isn’t there something more urgent to be tweeting about?
“Going into 2021, let’s make seat belt safety a top priority. More than 50 people lost their lives this year in Ontario because they weren’t wearing a seat belt. Every time you get into a vehicle, make sure you and your fellows passengers buckle up. A quick click saves lives!”
Uh huh…
UPDATE: Rod Phillips resigned as Minister of Finance yesterday.
Resource Request…
Having to do some research on ancient civilizations, especially Egypt, for a side project. Wonder if anyone has recommended resources, web sites, books etc…
Ontario Fauxdown
Some thoughts on Covid in Ontario
March 12, 2020. I was sitting in a Boston Pizza with some colleagues from work, when the word came down schools would be closed after the following week’s March Break. The following day, the universities and colleges followed suit along with businesses. Work from home became the order of the day. When I went grocery shopping the next week, the change was evident. Masks were now required and line-ups were the order of the day. Roads were quiet. People were scared.
Even before the summer, that panic began to pass. Messages from government were mixed. Press conferences by Ontario’s chief medical officer David Williams sounded increasingly like government propaganda. Businesses began to reopen, though not the schools. The palpable tension had eased and people once again began to re-engage. Ontario’s Conservative government, led by Doug Ford, had won a grudging respect from many sectors for its response to the pandemic, but its continued self-congratulatory stance coupled with the emerging reality that they had no idea what to do with schools come September led many to realize it was all going to fall apart.
In the summer, private-school education Minister of Education Stephen Lecce gave school boards six weeks to come up with plans for September which his Ministry would review. (This was widely seen as an example of Lecce’s habit of getting others to do work for which he would try to take credit). In any event, a week before the deadline, Lecce announced that schools would all be offering in-class and on-line classes. The Toronto District School Board had its plan approved, then a week later rejected by the Ministry of Education. Chaos loomed as parents sought the best and safest solution for their children with little guidance from school boards hamstrung by the Ministry of (Mis)Education. In the fall, despite the growing numbers of Covid cases among staff and students in Ontario schools, Lecce, and Ford still denied the reality of school transmission, with Ford claiming recently that Covid was being brought into the country from elsewhere.
In November, the government announcing it was again flattening the curve on new Covid infections, even as the number continued to climb. On December 17, as Ontario’s positive Covid tests climbed into the thousands per day, Premier Ford held a press conference announcing stricter measures, and the promise of another press conference on December 21 with more details. Quickly, word began to circulate that a lockdown was coming on Christmas Eve. As one might imagine, malls swelled with people fearing that Christmas would be cancelled.
Unfortunately…it wasn’t.
The December 21 announcement was that there would be a “hard lockdown” starting …December 26. When pressed about an action that was reminiscent of the Captain of the Titanic telling people they should worry about that iceberg in a couple of days, Ford argued that he was a businessman and he would always be on the side of business (presumably not the people of Ontario of which he was elected to be the leader), and this would given stores a chance to clear inventory. (And also to spread Covid cases as people rushed to beat lockdown deadlines).
Ford’s defence of “the little guy” retailer might have sounded a little more convincing if in Covid hot zones like Toronto, he hadn’t already forced small businesses to close, but allowed big box stores like Walmart to remain open. In any event, it was widely suspected that Ford delayed the start of the lockdown in order that he would still be allowed to travel to his cottage for a big family celebration without breaking his own rules.
As of 12:01 AM this morning, Ontario is in a “hard lockdown.” In the southern part of the province, this will remain in force for a month; in the north, where there are much lower rates of transmission, it will be for two weeks. In Toronto, secondary schools will remain closed until January 23, and classes will switch to on-line; however, elementary schools will return on January 11. (Why? Unlike secondary students, elementary students are unable to be left at home alone, thus a parent would need to stay home, and you know how much a supporter of business Doug Ford is…)
So…
- Watch for more inconsistent and likely incoherent announcements about the “robust” Conservative plan
- Watch for denunciations for anyone who criticizes them
- Watch for blame-shifting
- Watch for “empathy-laden” press conferences with weird idioms from Ford
- Watch for a spike in infection around January 9
Happy New Year everyone, let’s hope that vaccine gets around sooner rather than later
