Montana Matters

Both Hillary and Barack are here this weekend. My wife is at the Barack Show as I write, and while I may vote for him, I will not adore him. ( to be fair ,she is also there to gather signatures) I wonder what he thinks, looking out on that sea of white faces? I wonder if he can throw horse shoes any better than he bowls?

Somone should have thrown McCain off that balcony, has the puke no shame? I half expected him to say "I have a dream" in that nasaly high pitched whine. Running Mate Joe Lieberman? Could you imagine anything more loathsome?

Alain Badiou asks us (the left-left) to declare "there is only one world" in an essay in the NLR Jan-Feb. Instead of First World -Third World or North-South or the outdated East-West "we must affirm the existence of the single world right from the start ,as axiom and principle...a recognition that all belong to the same world as myself: the African worker I see in the restaurant kitchen, the Morrocan I see digging a hole in the road, the veiled woman looking after children in a park. That is where we reverse the dominant idea of the world united by objects and signs, to make a unity in terms of living, acting beings, here and now.These people ,different from me in terms of language ,clothes, religion ,food ,education, exist exactly as I do myself; since they exist like me,I can discuss with them-and ,as with anyone else, we can agree and disagree about things."

Badiou also has an interesting new book called Polemics (which I saw in the amazing City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco) where he argues for a renewed offensive of the ideological, a departure from and perhaps reply to Mouffe's Return of the Political. I will see what I can do to synthesize, soon as I can get my hands on it. Today my assignment is to read Punching Out by Martin Glaberman for a Wobbly Discussion Group we're putting together. (It's to cold to go fishing) He sounds like one of those Ernest Mandel-type- un-reformed Marxists. I admire their fortitude.