But For The Grace Of..
I've been doing some remodelling about a hundred and twenty miles from here at a lodge in the middle of nowhere. On Tuesday morning, heading over, I picked up a hitch-hiker who had started in Washington and was headed for the place of his birth, N Kentucky. This is Montana in the middle of winter and he had on tennis shoes and was avoiding the interstate because it is apparently illegal to hitch-hike. He was in rough shape; no money,fired from his short order cook job, alcoholic and out of options. We had occasion to chat so I tried to give him a class analysis of the current crisis but he was sure Jesus was going to help and I let him off in Wisdom Mt, snowbound and freezing, and hope he is safe somewhere out there on the American Highway. I did my time out on that Road, hitching across this country and beyond, and was myself dependent on the kindness of strangers, often listening gladly to their crazy theories and politics.
And while I was off in the snowy hinterlands things went awry for those goofy Democrats. Old Teddy must be squirming in his grave.( at least it's marked, unlike those in Haiti) All that Health Reform brouhaha is so much Glasnost/Perestroika and the Supreme Court just affirmed the self-evident Truth that Dollars are Speech in the Market Place of Ideas. It's about time they made it official and I for one applaud the boldness of their approach. Why fuck around? Next will be Roe vs Wade and then the Liberals will REALLY get upset and...and..and be UPSET! Obama threatens to regulate banks! Oooh,that could be popular! That could be the Change We Hope For! At least Bush had the good sense and grace to go to his ranch and cut brush when things got grim.
I followed the link Kultur provided to his article on the State.
http://EzineArticles.com/?id=3601520 I'm not sure what "verdict" history-according -to- Beak would pass down on this dominant, enduring institution but we can all agree it's excesses in times of stress can be horrific. My question to Kultur is: How much motive do we ascribe to Power/ Control as an individual pathology versus how much motive is Power/ Wealth, a very objective social relation consistent with capitalism? Maybe this is the Anarcho-libertarian vs socialism debate in a nutshell?
As for possible solutions: When Kultur posts "Can we have dialogues? Of course! Will we reach agreement on the way forward? Of course not!" I think he hits on a profound point, the inescapable nature of antagonism. Slavoj Zizek, in his intro to The Sublime Object of Ideology,follows Laclau and Mouffe ( Hegemony and Socialist Strategy) in "acknowledgement of an original 'trauma',...of the global radical deadlock, impossibility, the acknowledgement of a fundamental antagonism." Here lies a solution, temporary and provisional, but a democratic solution.More to follow.
posted by troutsky @ 6:19 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
I'm of the opinion the Supreme Court decision, is something the right may regret. If the labor movement ever breaks with the Democrats, it could mean a Labor Party in this country.
No administration in US history, is as friendly to finance capital, as Obama's. Not even Bush was as close. Capitalists have no particular party loyalty.
There is no Anarcho-libertarian vs socialism debate, if we can agree on the Paris Commune principles. You can't buy Lenin's State and Revolution in a Stalinist state like North Korea.
Here we go again
The people have rejected Obama's attempts at socialism. Even Gomer Kerry chafes at that term.
The American people have spoken. They want jobs and Obama is paying the price for placing to much credence to the Faculty lounge crowd and not enough to the thoughts of people in Sams Club parking lots.
The comments of Obama about the transportation Brown uses shows typical communist arrogance towards working families. The comments of Coakley calling Schilling a Yankee fan show how out of touch she was with the local culture.
Labor is a dual edged sword. It also rises up against your kind. The new Unions will be more savy and work place focused.
But, Ren: a Labor party would fly in the face of the Capitalist's essential raison d'etre. Although, I think the unions alone would be able to finance a winning campaign with bigbusiness $$
Ren - of course, I meant "without" big business $$
Ren, I think that "agreement" is exactly the kind of impossible antagonism we're talking about. The implied unity doesn't exist.
Beakerkin, I think you are right except that the "spoken" is gibberish, the kind you might hear from someone water-boarded for the hundredth time.
The schizophrenic narrative about how government can/ can't control the economy is the end of the "democratic capitalism" Kubuki Dance.
You are probably right about "new" unions as well, both of them will be savy.
What program could a Labor Party propose? Who wants to govern through the end of the collapse? The Jacobins would come for your ass!
Sneakers in January in Montana. Maybe God does work through people who'll give the poor bugger a lift.
Obama threatens to regulate banks! Oooh,that could be popular!
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Come on, troutsky, read the code. He also said "it's going to be a tough fight".
That means the bank CEOs are going to flip him off the way they did last month and he's going to tell use he tried.
Meanwhile, Larry Summers' cabana boy, L'il Timmy Geithner is on the tube telling everyone that the size of the banks won't be effected, just the level of risk they take. Yeah, they'll just tank the world economy a little next time.
After all, actually having a government that could at the very least regulate the financial system for the benefit of the people is moving too close to ... exactly what, a modest democracy?
Meanwhile the extra person in sneakers on the road in Montana in January will try to find a place for his faith and Pat Robertson will tell him it's his own fault for not sending in a big fat love offering.
Trout -
I would think that capital is the engine of power and control in today's world. Whether the State be communist China or liberty lovin, capitalist America ("that shining city upon a hill"); whether it be the theocracy of Iran or the presumed oligarchy of Russia. Capital is the engine of control, because it controls livelihood (economics, food, nourishment).
The thing you call a pathology is not individualistic; it is a species-specific pathology, induced by the contraints of civilizaed life. You called them the 'stresses'of the 'State'.
This disease is not restricted to capitalists, although perhaps them more fully than others. (We can discuss that later). Although I do think some ideologues are trying to get at the problem; they can never solve it, becuase of the warped perspective they are born into as a result of millenia of enculturation and genetic reprogramming.
I would think that capital is the engine of power and control in today's world. Whether the State be communist China or liberty lovin, capitalist America ("that shining city upon a hill"); whether it be the theocracy of Iran or the presumed oligarchy of Russia. Capital is the engine of control, because it controls livelihood (economics, food, nourishment).
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Yeah, preach that. We rarely draw the distinction between the political and economic systems.
What we seem to have some consensus here is that the economic system is the driver.
"This is Montana in the middle of winter and he had on tennis shoes and was avoiding the interstate because it is apparently illegal to hitch-hike."
Somebody needs to tell him the Washington hitchhiking laws aren't national. That state has some of the more stringent laws of any place in the country. I was going to hitch from Seattle back to Missoula in September, but a friend I was staying with let me know I'd be lucky if I made it to Ellensburg before getting arrested.
Once you hit the Idaho border, you're good to hitch the interstate all the way to the Great Lakes.
Troutsky: The new head of the AFLCIO Trumka, called the Massachusetts election "a working class uprising against the Democratic Party." In Massachusetts they have healthcare delivered by Romney, to the left of Obama. Obama is raising the rhetoric level as you know.
Who would want to govern? The US is the superpower of the world. With control of the commanding heights of the economy, the world can be transformed. Its not Russia 1917. The US is the kind of country Marx was talking about. He wasn't talking about Cuba, Haiti or Russia.
I think the transitional program, is a start. To advocate 30 for 40, may be too conservative.
Kultur: Several countries have labor parties as the Labor Party of the UK, NDP in Canada, PSUV in Venezuela, Socialist and Communist Party in France, Workers Party in Brazil etc. They are not revolutionary organizations in themselves, but they are the first place workers head, when politically aroused. Like in Pakistan, millions turned out to greet returning Benazir Bhutto, because of memories of her father's socialist program. The Pakistan People's Party is allied with US imperialism now. The masses remember their revolutionary days.
Ren - I was just making the point that 'capital/capitalists would not flock to the Labor Party; but that the Labor party could raise enough capital through unions on their own to get their own politicians elected.
Duncy
Pat Robertson and his kind are far more apt to aid the needy as a religious calling than commies. Commies pretend to talk for the downtrodden, but it is all about power.
Trotsky
What is spoken is gibberish only because you are bound by a religious faith to an idea that doesn't work. The reason commies hide their identities is that outside a university gulag you are reviled.
The Tea Party Crowd is the one movement you can't subvert. They want to eliminate all forms of Marx. As with most Americans you are considered a political criminal.
The movement will grow as unemployment worsens and Obama has
a tin ear. He spends too much time with the Bill Ayers crowd. His comments about the vehicle driven by Brown were rather typical rich Marxist arrogance. Communist terrorist is more Little Lord Fauntleroy than man of the people.
"It occurs to me that what many people desire is Citizenship in the expanded sense of autonomous self-determination in both the political AND economic spheres."
Citizenship ≠ autonomy of any kind! This is just now occurring to you? So much for a life studying politics. Anarchy is autonomy, so is symbiosis — so are indigenous people before civilization liberates them from it.
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