Rogueish
I cite: On "Capitalism and Communism"→
01/29/13
If region X wants to irrigate its land and region Y wants to keep its part of the river full and flowing, or if region X wants to protect its rain forest and region Y needs some of the proceeds of the forest for survival or other people in region X don’t want to protect the rain forest but want to develop something else, then we have politics. We have disagreement, division, and decisions. No community is a seamless unity without division and conflict…. Dauve, though, thinks that the level of development of material production can get to a point where it makes harmony possible and necessary. Unity is produced at the level of production, so it’s not necessary to use external force. I am assuming he means a state or network of states, maybe even a system of laws. I disagree. States are the ways we make ourselves present to ourselves as a collective; the laws are the ways we make ourselves do what we should even if we don’t feel like it. States and laws are vehicles for producing the educational and cultural apparatus necessary for producing people willing and able to live and work together to attend to their collective needs not their immediate personal, local, or occupational ones.
This is a case where post-structuralist expansion of the term “politics” is unhelpful. Of course communism won’t abolish disagreement, but not all disagreement is politics. Politics involves the separation of disagreement (or, rather, certain types of disagreement) into their own more-or-less autonomous sphere. Dean tacitly accepts this more restricted definition here, I think, when she writes that “states are the ways we make ourselves present to ourselves as a collective.” Which is fine, but it’s also basically Hegel, that is to say, the philosophy of the modern bourgeois state. So I wonder what Dean’s response to Marx’s criticisms of this conception of politics (in Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State and On the Jewish Question especially) is?
10/31/12
Hi Tumblr, it’s me, a slightly older person…
I see a lot of you 20 somethings saying things about how you aren’t going to choose the lesser of two evils and that their policy on important matters are identical so what’s the point they’re both stooges for Wall Street and the Industrial War Complex.
You are right. Kind of.
I know y’all LOVE the 90’s. Me too. And I remember after after eight years of Clinton/Gore, I thought those motherfuckers were the devil. I was soooooooooooo upset with Bill Clinton waving his deregulation wand and his fucked foreign policy that I was all FUCK THE DEMOCRATS and I strongly advocated for Raplh Nader, even though he too didn’t really care about my “gonad politics.” Even when not choosing between the “lesser of two evils,” I was STILL having to compromise major issues.
Having been an adult person through 8 years of Clinton/Gore and 8 years through Bush/Cheney, I can tell you that without a shred of hesitation that I will line up like my ass is on fire to vote for the lesser of two evils because the greater of two evils almost had us all living outside and eating dog food.
And if you think that a Romney presidency won’t be worse than Bush/Cheney, you are out of your mind.
I am fucking begging all of you, please, go vote. Aside from the fact that far more dangerous things are happening on your local level, (like collective bargaining being taken away in Illinois) this shit does matter.
If you think voting for Obama is the lesser of two evils, you’re wrong, it’s the lesser of three because not voting IS voting for Romney. Not voting is voting for dickbag judges that sentence people to jail in counties that have privatized prisons for minor drug infractions. Not voting is voting to remove pensions and collective bargaining and the last shreds of union power from the people. Not voting this election is voting for Feudalism.
Go vote.
Now pardon me, there’s some damn kids on my lawn and they want candy.
As another older person (at least, old enough to have been politically active under governments of the left-ish and the right), I want to dissociate myself from the (rather patronizingly expressed) view that it is only a lack of experience which makes the two candidates seem so similar it’s not worth voting. On the contrary, my political experience is an experience of the ineffectiveness of voting for the supposed lesser evil. If you genuinely believe in Obama’s platform, then by all means go ahead and vote for him, of course. But don’t vote for the lesser evil, because every time you vote for the “lesser evil,” it’s less and less a vote for “lesser” and more and more a vote for “evil.” If you vote for the leftish politician because they are supposed to be the lesser evil, you’re making it so that all a politician has to do to win is be fractionally less evil than the alternative. That is, if you vote for Obama because he is the lesser evil, you’re voting for an Obama who will be more like Romney, who will resist the policies of Romney and his supporters less. “If you don’t vote, you’re voting for Romney” is the opposite of the truth. If all you demand of Obama is that he be a “lesser evil,” your vote for Obama is really a vote for Romney.
Preoccupying: McKenzie Wark | The Occupied Times→
08/03/12
Only intellectuals and leftists seem to actually believe politics exists. Nobody else seems to. Well, what if everyone else is right? God is dead, as Nietzsche says; politics is dead too. It’s a kind of fantasy that took the place of a benevolent father in the sky. The fantasy of the fraternity or brotherhood of property-owning men here on earth who could rule just as wisely as He could. Well, that is in essence still what politics is. That women can vote and even occasionally govern does not change things as much as one might expect. Politics is a fantasy.
03/20/12
Pleased to see that Coronation Street continues to be on the front lines of the class war in its struggle against the reactionary moralism of Jamie Oliver.
01/02/12
Two very similar essays on two leftish websites,
- 12/29: Why Ron Paul Challenges Liberals by Matt Stoller [Naked Capitalism]
- 12/31: Progressives and the Ron Paul Fallacies by Glenn Greenwald [Salon]
The problem with both of these articles is that they take libertarianism’s fantasy politics at face value. Ron Paul says he is against US military intervention, but doesn’t show any understanding of how the global role of the US is tied up with the country’s economic status. Because of this, it’s not at all obvious what the foreign policy of a Paul presidency would actually look like, and to figure that out you need to look at his ideology as a whole, rather than just cherry-picking a couple of policies which you happen to agree with. Stoller and Greenwald’s arguments are similar to taking Obama’s campaign rhetoric about leaving Iraq in 2008 to mean that he was an “anti-war” candidate, without taking into account the fact that Obama’s liberalism means that the “anti-war” position on Iraq had tbo be balanced with a much more belicose position on Afghanistan and the war on terror more generally. Greenwald was rightly dismissive of “anti-war” Obama voters, and he should apply the same skepticism to Ron Paul.
Philosophiae Naturalis: A Brief Update→
09/27/11
I engaged and debated for two hours. I’m sweaty and my voice is gone. To those of you who recognized me from this blog and offered their support, thank you! I learned a lot today and it seems that those who spoke with me did too. I’m just disappointed that this received as much national attention as it did, it was evident from the conversations that the BCR was completely on the defensive. I felt a little bad because most weren’t even aware of the literature or great minds that have made a career of discussing these issues. Ergo everyone that I spoke with left with book recommendations and was shown The LA Times racial diversity map as additional food for thought.
In addition, all of the people I spoke with mentioned Morgan Freeman’s statement about “forgetting race.” The BCR used this quote to validate their position which is fine but for every Morgan Freeman you have many more Cornel West’s or bell hooks or Wendy Brown’s or Manning Marable’s and yes even a Tim Wise. Morgan Freeman doesn’t speak for every one and he sure as hell doesn’t speak for me.
-a longer update will maybe show up later-
(Check thenoobyorker’s tumblr for more great coverage of this event)
Tea Party star Christine O'Donnell denies misusing campaign funds→
12/30/10
I support O’Donnell here, although only on condition that she actually did “misuse” campaign funds, because what she is accused of doing (paying her rent out of campaign donations) is perfectly fine, and should be legal. The ban on candidates using campaign funds for personal expenses is completely undemocratic: it means only the independently wealthy can treat running for office as a full-time job.
