Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Back to Ecology as Politics
In his thoughtful comment to my last post, Jim from Words Matter mentioned both our “economy predominantly built on credit and paper” and Jim Kunstler’s book The Long Emergency, with its emphasis on the end of “cheap oil.” Subsequent to this, I skimmed a couple of reviews of The Long Emergency (since I have not read this book yet) and was reminded of some forecasts I’ve read about the possible decline of our civilization resulting from the advanced decay of capitalism (i.e., a system that long ago passed its productive and expansive peak and, therefore, its historical moment, which must be replaced by another system – socialism/communism, as predicted by Marx, Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, etc.). Jim’s note reminded me of this further when he mentioned our economy’s apparent ongoing regression back toward feudalism. (Although I should add that I don’t think those sources are as much an influence for Jim as they are for me; it’s just that his comments led me to thinking about them.)
The decline of oil resources and the impending consequences, as discussed by books such as The Long Emergency, is a good example of ecology meeting economics, or (to be more accurate – and more Marxist - about it) political economy. Our dependence on petroleum, which itself is very destructive to the Earth, is going to backfire in many ways because the oil resources, themselves, are being depleted now. Yet, The Long Emergency apparently focuses on oil as the major source of impending economic crisis (and possible drastic changes in the way of life as known by people in the U.S.) while I would say that it’s only one of many sources. This may be just one example of a number of major challenges that we face that involve the aforementioned meeting of ecology and economics – two categories that were always really part of the same thing.
Some people tend to talk as though “red” and “green” issues are separate matters and that you must focus on one or the other, and that this focus will lead to different solutions and different conclusions. Thus, either you’re concerned about the class-struggle-based revolution against capitalism or you’re concerned about the depletion of the Earth’s natural resources and the destruction this might cause (and maybe are waging some kind of revolution for that cause), but you can’t address both together. This opinion, I think, probably was close to universal sometime ago. However, I know that it has been far from universal in radical circles within my own lifetime, even if some socialist and anarchist dogmatists, along with capitalists (for different, more practical reasons), choose to put these struggles in opposing camps.
I was thinking about which works might show the combination of these two causes in the best way… Some people like to focus on the now near-legendary Earth First! activist Judi Bari, but I’d say she set a great example by activism but maybe wouldn’t be my first choice for theory. Usually, when I start thinking about this subject, my thoughts lead me back to Andre Gorz’s book Ecology as Politics, which was first published in the 1970s, but which I, myself, first read about seven years ago and have looked at many times since. In this book, Gorz gives some of the best and most readable (for me) explanations of Marxist crisis theory and ecological crisis and ties them together in the most convincing manner.
Right now, I’m looking for the best examples of how he does it, but, as is often the case, it would be hard to adequately convey the whole effect without transcribing pages and pages from the book. However, it is possible to provide a number of very illuminating snippets, which I’d like to take from the book's first chapter, Ecology and Freedom...
From Subchapter 3, Ecology and the Inversion of Tools:
Societal choices are continually being imposed upon us under the guise of technical choices. These technical choices are rarely the only ones possible, nor are they necessarily the most efficient ones. For capitalism develops only those technologies which correspond to its logic and which are compatible with its continued domination. It eliminates those technologies which do not strengthen prevailing social relations, even where they are more rational with respect to stated objectives. Capitalist relations of production and exchange are already inscribed in the technologies which capitalism bequeaths to us....
...The theoretical and practical definition of alternative technologies, and the struggle of communities and individuals to win, collectively and individually, control over their own destinies, must be the permanent focus of political action. If they are not, the seizure of state power by people calling themselves socialists will not change fundamentally either the system of domination or the relations of men and women to each other and to nature....
This is why ecological struggle is, in its present form, an indispensable dimension of the struggle against capitalism. It cannot be subordinated to the political objectives of socialism. Only where the left is committed to a fully decentralized and democratic socialism can it give political expression to ecological demands....
From Subchapter 4, Ecology and the Crisis of Capitalism:
All production is also destruction. This fact can be overlooked so long as production does not irreversibly deplete natural resources; resources may then appear inexhaustible. They regenerate themselves naturally – the grass grows back, along with the weeds. The effects of destruction appear wholly productive. More precisely, this destruction is the very condition of production. It has to be repeated again and again....
The fundamental issue raised by ecology is simply that of knowing:
- whether the exchanges, which human activity imposes upon or extorts from nature, preserve or carefully manage the stock of nonrenewable resources; and
- whether the destructive effects of production do not exceed the productive ones by depleting renewable resources more quickly than they can regenerate themselves.
On both counts, there is little doubt that ecological factors play a determining and aggravating role in the current economic crisis. This does not mean that these factors should be regarded as the primary causes of the crisis; we are dealing, rather, with a crisis of capitalist overaccumulation, intensified by an ecological crisis (and, as we shall see, by a social one)....
[Gorz then gives a great two-page summary of the Marxist idea of “overaccumulation” and the resulting decline in the rate of profit, but…that’s too much to reproduce here. Suffice to say, I highly recommend it, for people who want a clear and readable explanation of these concepts.]
...In summary, we are dealing with a classical crisis of overaccumulation, aggravated by a crisis of reproduction which is due, in the final analysis, to the increasing scarcity of natural resources. The solution to this crisis cannot be found in the recovery of economic growth, but only in an inversion of the logic of capitalism itself. This logic tends intrinsically towards maximization: creating the greatest possible number of needs and seeking to satisfy them with the largest possible amount of marketable goods and services in order to derive the greatest possible profit from the greatest possible flow of energy and resources. But the link between "more" and "better" has now been broken. "Better" may now mean "less": creating as few needs as possible, satisfying them with the smallest possible expenditure of materials, energy and work, and imposing the least possible burden on the environment.
This can be done without impoverishment or social injustice, without reducing the quality of life, providing we are prepared to attack the source of poverty. This source is not the lack of production as such but the nature of the goods produced, the pattern of consumption which capitalism promotes, and the inequality which drives it....
And from Subchapter 8, Seven Theses by Way of Conclusion (note, these items are less overtly ecological, but they tie in with all the things mentioned above, and I like them the best):
6. Once social labor is limited to that required for socially necessary production, the reduction of working hours can be accompanied by the expansion of self directed and freely chosen activities. Over and above the essentials guaranteed by social production, people will be able to use their free time to produce, individually or collectively, whatever else seems appropriate to them. The production of an unlimited variety of goods and services by neighborhood cooperatives and in neighborhood facilities will ensure the expansion of the realm of freedom and the decline of commodity relations – the expansion of civil society and the withering away of the state.
7. The uniformity of consumption patterns and of lifestyles which characterizes present society will disappear with the disappearance of social inequality. Individuals and communities will distinguish themselves and diversify their patterns of living beyond anything conceivable today. These differences will, however, be the result of the different uses to which they put their time and resources, and not of unequal access to power and social rewards. The development of autonomous activities during the free time available to everyone shall be the only source of distinction and of wealth.
Considering the circumstances of the present day, Gorz’s advice above, given in the mid-to-late '70s, is more relevant than it ever was. Unfortunately, people seem to be following these kinds of recommendations even less now, and that is why we are ultimately headed for some major crises in the economy, in the environment, and, especially, in the meeting of the two.
The decline of oil resources and the impending consequences, as discussed by books such as The Long Emergency, is a good example of ecology meeting economics, or (to be more accurate – and more Marxist - about it) political economy. Our dependence on petroleum, which itself is very destructive to the Earth, is going to backfire in many ways because the oil resources, themselves, are being depleted now. Yet, The Long Emergency apparently focuses on oil as the major source of impending economic crisis (and possible drastic changes in the way of life as known by people in the U.S.) while I would say that it’s only one of many sources. This may be just one example of a number of major challenges that we face that involve the aforementioned meeting of ecology and economics – two categories that were always really part of the same thing.
Some people tend to talk as though “red” and “green” issues are separate matters and that you must focus on one or the other, and that this focus will lead to different solutions and different conclusions. Thus, either you’re concerned about the class-struggle-based revolution against capitalism or you’re concerned about the depletion of the Earth’s natural resources and the destruction this might cause (and maybe are waging some kind of revolution for that cause), but you can’t address both together. This opinion, I think, probably was close to universal sometime ago. However, I know that it has been far from universal in radical circles within my own lifetime, even if some socialist and anarchist dogmatists, along with capitalists (for different, more practical reasons), choose to put these struggles in opposing camps.
I was thinking about which works might show the combination of these two causes in the best way… Some people like to focus on the now near-legendary Earth First! activist Judi Bari, but I’d say she set a great example by activism but maybe wouldn’t be my first choice for theory. Usually, when I start thinking about this subject, my thoughts lead me back to Andre Gorz’s book Ecology as Politics, which was first published in the 1970s, but which I, myself, first read about seven years ago and have looked at many times since. In this book, Gorz gives some of the best and most readable (for me) explanations of Marxist crisis theory and ecological crisis and ties them together in the most convincing manner.
Right now, I’m looking for the best examples of how he does it, but, as is often the case, it would be hard to adequately convey the whole effect without transcribing pages and pages from the book. However, it is possible to provide a number of very illuminating snippets, which I’d like to take from the book's first chapter, Ecology and Freedom...
From Subchapter 3, Ecology and the Inversion of Tools:
Societal choices are continually being imposed upon us under the guise of technical choices. These technical choices are rarely the only ones possible, nor are they necessarily the most efficient ones. For capitalism develops only those technologies which correspond to its logic and which are compatible with its continued domination. It eliminates those technologies which do not strengthen prevailing social relations, even where they are more rational with respect to stated objectives. Capitalist relations of production and exchange are already inscribed in the technologies which capitalism bequeaths to us....
...The theoretical and practical definition of alternative technologies, and the struggle of communities and individuals to win, collectively and individually, control over their own destinies, must be the permanent focus of political action. If they are not, the seizure of state power by people calling themselves socialists will not change fundamentally either the system of domination or the relations of men and women to each other and to nature....
This is why ecological struggle is, in its present form, an indispensable dimension of the struggle against capitalism. It cannot be subordinated to the political objectives of socialism. Only where the left is committed to a fully decentralized and democratic socialism can it give political expression to ecological demands....
From Subchapter 4, Ecology and the Crisis of Capitalism:
All production is also destruction. This fact can be overlooked so long as production does not irreversibly deplete natural resources; resources may then appear inexhaustible. They regenerate themselves naturally – the grass grows back, along with the weeds. The effects of destruction appear wholly productive. More precisely, this destruction is the very condition of production. It has to be repeated again and again....
The fundamental issue raised by ecology is simply that of knowing:
- whether the exchanges, which human activity imposes upon or extorts from nature, preserve or carefully manage the stock of nonrenewable resources; and
- whether the destructive effects of production do not exceed the productive ones by depleting renewable resources more quickly than they can regenerate themselves.
On both counts, there is little doubt that ecological factors play a determining and aggravating role in the current economic crisis. This does not mean that these factors should be regarded as the primary causes of the crisis; we are dealing, rather, with a crisis of capitalist overaccumulation, intensified by an ecological crisis (and, as we shall see, by a social one)....
[Gorz then gives a great two-page summary of the Marxist idea of “overaccumulation” and the resulting decline in the rate of profit, but…that’s too much to reproduce here. Suffice to say, I highly recommend it, for people who want a clear and readable explanation of these concepts.]
...In summary, we are dealing with a classical crisis of overaccumulation, aggravated by a crisis of reproduction which is due, in the final analysis, to the increasing scarcity of natural resources. The solution to this crisis cannot be found in the recovery of economic growth, but only in an inversion of the logic of capitalism itself. This logic tends intrinsically towards maximization: creating the greatest possible number of needs and seeking to satisfy them with the largest possible amount of marketable goods and services in order to derive the greatest possible profit from the greatest possible flow of energy and resources. But the link between "more" and "better" has now been broken. "Better" may now mean "less": creating as few needs as possible, satisfying them with the smallest possible expenditure of materials, energy and work, and imposing the least possible burden on the environment.
This can be done without impoverishment or social injustice, without reducing the quality of life, providing we are prepared to attack the source of poverty. This source is not the lack of production as such but the nature of the goods produced, the pattern of consumption which capitalism promotes, and the inequality which drives it....
And from Subchapter 8, Seven Theses by Way of Conclusion (note, these items are less overtly ecological, but they tie in with all the things mentioned above, and I like them the best):
6. Once social labor is limited to that required for socially necessary production, the reduction of working hours can be accompanied by the expansion of self directed and freely chosen activities. Over and above the essentials guaranteed by social production, people will be able to use their free time to produce, individually or collectively, whatever else seems appropriate to them. The production of an unlimited variety of goods and services by neighborhood cooperatives and in neighborhood facilities will ensure the expansion of the realm of freedom and the decline of commodity relations – the expansion of civil society and the withering away of the state.
7. The uniformity of consumption patterns and of lifestyles which characterizes present society will disappear with the disappearance of social inequality. Individuals and communities will distinguish themselves and diversify their patterns of living beyond anything conceivable today. These differences will, however, be the result of the different uses to which they put their time and resources, and not of unequal access to power and social rewards. The development of autonomous activities during the free time available to everyone shall be the only source of distinction and of wealth.
Considering the circumstances of the present day, Gorz’s advice above, given in the mid-to-late '70s, is more relevant than it ever was. Unfortunately, people seem to be following these kinds of recommendations even less now, and that is why we are ultimately headed for some major crises in the economy, in the environment, and, especially, in the meeting of the two.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
A Must-Read Series on the “Alarming Increases of Homelessness, Poverty, and Hunger in America”
I’d like to recommend an excellent series of articles by Jay Shaft on skyrocketing poverty, hunger, homelessness, and lack of healthcare, right here in the U.S.A.
Speaking from my own perspective...since I, myself, have been doing inconsistent and financially inadequate temp work (usually less than "half time") for well over four years now (after losing my last real long-term, full-time job in December of 2000), some of this information (from the latest installment - same page as above) strikes awfully close to home:
Over sixty percent of people who have been laid off or lost a job since 2000 have had to take a new job with at least a twenty five percent salary cut. Overall forty two percent of laid off workers have taken a new job that pays less than half of their old salary. Fifty three percent have taken a new position that offers little or no health care and insurance benefits. Sixty eight percent had to take a position that offers little or no retirement benefits or any type of profit sharing plans.
According to 2004 Labor Department figures and information from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the number of uninsured workers is growing alarmingly. In 2004 it was estimated that approximately forty nine million American workers did not have any type of insurance coverage. Another twenty three million reported that the level of insurance they carried was not significant enough to cover a major illness or injury.
And some descriptions provided in an earlier article look a little familiar too, reminding me that home, itself, is not so secure. Even though I do live in shared housing, it is not easy to pay the rent every month, it's a far from desirable situation or location, and the circumstances in general look increasingly precarious. With those kinds of problems, I have a lot of company - but I think a lot of people have it much worse:
The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that 65 million low-income workers are experiencing housing problems such as being behind on the bills, or having an eviction notice or utility shutoff notice. 56 million low-income workers are paying more than 30% of their income for housing costs. Fully one-third of the U.S. population, 95 million people, are now reporting some type of housing problem.
Many full time minimum wage and low-income workers cannot afford to pay for housing at all, and they are forced into other shelter options. Many part time, day labor, and temp workers don't always have steady work, or guaranteed hours, so they are not able to afford an apartment or house without sharing it with others.
And I guess I should be grateful that I don’t have a family to support (no dependents other than my cat). In this series, Jay Shaft is concerned, especially, about the families with children, particularly those with no stable housing in sight. As he relates in the opening article:
I have spoken to over 300 families that have lost permanent housing. They tell horrifying tales of not being able to find emergency shelter for weeks or months at a time. They tell of the long housing list waits of two years or more, and how in many circumstances they don’t even qualify by HUD's definition of homelessness.
It was really hard to hear them talk about the fear of reporting their true situation because they are afraid their children will be taken away. Many families are losing custody rights after a state agency removes their children when they tell the truth about being without shelter and access to food.
While poverty within the U.S. has increased drastically, the people who are not poor (yet) have been distracted from this matter with increasing success. With the horrific war being waged overseas, many well-meaning leftists and liberals have let all their attention become diverted from the "domestic" economic crisis that has been accelerated and exacerbated by the policies of our government and its corporate sponsors. (Of course, the two disasters are far from unrelated, but the bulk of the "left" here has yet to adequately make that point. Nor have most considered the point that the blame rests just as much with Democrats as Republicans, that it is not just a problem caused by Bush.)
Meanwhile, some well-meaning liberals without first-hand knowledge of what it is like not to be affluent believe that poverty is something that exists only in "Third World" countries, which can be abolished by minor adjustments in policy and gestures of charity on the part of the "rich nations." Hence, we have had very wealthy organizers (including big rock stars) who actually seem to believe that some minor adjustments in debt policies with regard to a few African nations (which adjustments really make no changes at all and might even make things worse - though the millionaire rock stars, etc., are too thick to see that)...will simply "make poverty history."
Poverty exists everywhere in the world, and the amount of poverty is increasing (at an alarming rate) right next door to extreme affluence in many places, including right here in the U.S. However, the poor far outnumber the wealthy, and that lopsided ratio is also increasing dramatically in lots of places, including right here in the U.S. Well-meaning "progressives" and liberals, especially, should not buy into the propaganda that we live in a uniformly "rich nation" where poverty is not as much of a concern as learning how to better manage one's wealth. A number of people who once lived relatively safe and sheltered lives, who didn’t realize the severity of these problems, are suddenly learning the truth the hard way, by experiencing it. But for those who remain safely removed (at the moment), Jay Shaft has some good advice:
The enormity of the new crisis of homelessness and poverty is often hard to comprehend unless you hear the stories of families and crisis agency workers across the country. A true picture of how widespread and deeply rooted these problems have become is only apparent when you talk to thousands of relief workers and the millions of families they are struggling to assist.
Every American who is not fully aware of the problem, or is trying to ignore it, should make it an obligation to go down to your local homeless shelter, drop in/day center, or soup kitchen. Every one should make it their duty to spend at least one day seeing how it is to have no house, and no way to get any help in finding one. Just take a day out of your life and see how so many people are in this very desperate and horrifying situation.
If people are willing to look for themselves, they will be shocked by what they find in their local area.
Speaking from my own perspective...since I, myself, have been doing inconsistent and financially inadequate temp work (usually less than "half time") for well over four years now (after losing my last real long-term, full-time job in December of 2000), some of this information (from the latest installment - same page as above) strikes awfully close to home:
Over sixty percent of people who have been laid off or lost a job since 2000 have had to take a new job with at least a twenty five percent salary cut. Overall forty two percent of laid off workers have taken a new job that pays less than half of their old salary. Fifty three percent have taken a new position that offers little or no health care and insurance benefits. Sixty eight percent had to take a position that offers little or no retirement benefits or any type of profit sharing plans.
According to 2004 Labor Department figures and information from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the number of uninsured workers is growing alarmingly. In 2004 it was estimated that approximately forty nine million American workers did not have any type of insurance coverage. Another twenty three million reported that the level of insurance they carried was not significant enough to cover a major illness or injury.
And some descriptions provided in an earlier article look a little familiar too, reminding me that home, itself, is not so secure. Even though I do live in shared housing, it is not easy to pay the rent every month, it's a far from desirable situation or location, and the circumstances in general look increasingly precarious. With those kinds of problems, I have a lot of company - but I think a lot of people have it much worse:
The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that 65 million low-income workers are experiencing housing problems such as being behind on the bills, or having an eviction notice or utility shutoff notice. 56 million low-income workers are paying more than 30% of their income for housing costs. Fully one-third of the U.S. population, 95 million people, are now reporting some type of housing problem.
Many full time minimum wage and low-income workers cannot afford to pay for housing at all, and they are forced into other shelter options. Many part time, day labor, and temp workers don't always have steady work, or guaranteed hours, so they are not able to afford an apartment or house without sharing it with others.
And I guess I should be grateful that I don’t have a family to support (no dependents other than my cat). In this series, Jay Shaft is concerned, especially, about the families with children, particularly those with no stable housing in sight. As he relates in the opening article:
I have spoken to over 300 families that have lost permanent housing. They tell horrifying tales of not being able to find emergency shelter for weeks or months at a time. They tell of the long housing list waits of two years or more, and how in many circumstances they don’t even qualify by HUD's definition of homelessness.
It was really hard to hear them talk about the fear of reporting their true situation because they are afraid their children will be taken away. Many families are losing custody rights after a state agency removes their children when they tell the truth about being without shelter and access to food.
While poverty within the U.S. has increased drastically, the people who are not poor (yet) have been distracted from this matter with increasing success. With the horrific war being waged overseas, many well-meaning leftists and liberals have let all their attention become diverted from the "domestic" economic crisis that has been accelerated and exacerbated by the policies of our government and its corporate sponsors. (Of course, the two disasters are far from unrelated, but the bulk of the "left" here has yet to adequately make that point. Nor have most considered the point that the blame rests just as much with Democrats as Republicans, that it is not just a problem caused by Bush.)
Meanwhile, some well-meaning liberals without first-hand knowledge of what it is like not to be affluent believe that poverty is something that exists only in "Third World" countries, which can be abolished by minor adjustments in policy and gestures of charity on the part of the "rich nations." Hence, we have had very wealthy organizers (including big rock stars) who actually seem to believe that some minor adjustments in debt policies with regard to a few African nations (which adjustments really make no changes at all and might even make things worse - though the millionaire rock stars, etc., are too thick to see that)...will simply "make poverty history."
Poverty exists everywhere in the world, and the amount of poverty is increasing (at an alarming rate) right next door to extreme affluence in many places, including right here in the U.S. However, the poor far outnumber the wealthy, and that lopsided ratio is also increasing dramatically in lots of places, including right here in the U.S. Well-meaning "progressives" and liberals, especially, should not buy into the propaganda that we live in a uniformly "rich nation" where poverty is not as much of a concern as learning how to better manage one's wealth. A number of people who once lived relatively safe and sheltered lives, who didn’t realize the severity of these problems, are suddenly learning the truth the hard way, by experiencing it. But for those who remain safely removed (at the moment), Jay Shaft has some good advice:
The enormity of the new crisis of homelessness and poverty is often hard to comprehend unless you hear the stories of families and crisis agency workers across the country. A true picture of how widespread and deeply rooted these problems have become is only apparent when you talk to thousands of relief workers and the millions of families they are struggling to assist.
Every American who is not fully aware of the problem, or is trying to ignore it, should make it an obligation to go down to your local homeless shelter, drop in/day center, or soup kitchen. Every one should make it their duty to spend at least one day seeing how it is to have no house, and no way to get any help in finding one. Just take a day out of your life and see how so many people are in this very desperate and horrifying situation.
If people are willing to look for themselves, they will be shocked by what they find in their local area.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Interesting Interviews: Mike Davis and Ian Mackaye (at Clamor)
The other day, when I was desperate for some reading material to get me through a commute and also through my Saturday night midnight shift (not just my only regular temp shift, but the only one where I have substantial amounts of "downtime"), I went to the newsstand to pick up anything that looked the least bit appealing…and ended up spending $4.50 on the special Five Years of Interviewing issue of Clamor. This turned out to be more interesting than I’d expected. I especially appreciated the interviews with Mike Davis (the great Marxist chronicler of urban decline whom I’ve already discussed a few times) and Ian Mackaye (someone whose music I’ve known about over the years, since about 1980, when my roommate raided the "new releases" batch at the WXPN punk show where we DJ’ed and brought home a scorching single from the Teen Idles).
First, from Mike Davis, a couple of good points...
Regarding the issue of property destruction at protests (which seems to have become a favorite issue of debate here during the past couple of days):
So, smashing McDonald's may be good fun (and in some circumstances, a good tactic), but it isn't the same as smashing the state or, for that matter, organizing a movement. On the other hand, such infantalism is far less of a problem than the tendency of some leaders and coalitions to accede to the constantly tighter circumscription of protest by police and the homeland security state. If the right to protest is to survive, it must be aggressively asserted in all circumstances.
And regarding a phenomenon that I personally never cared for, the unnecessary over-glamorization of the Weather Underground (who actually make the Symbionese Liberation Army look smart and sane by comparison), especially at a time when so many other significant agitators, organizers and activists from that era seem to have been forgotten:
Give me a break. Our internationalist duty in 1969 was to go into the plants and schools and help organize rebellion, not blow up non-coms and post offices. The Weather Underground were a narcissistic, authoritarian cult, with contempt for ordinary people and ordinary leftists, who hallucinated on comic-book politics and the usual American quest for celebrity. And it kills me today that young sincere radicals, who have never heard of real heroes like James Forman, Dave Dellinger, Nelson Peery, Carl Boggs, Fannie Lou Hamer or Hal Draper, believe that [Weatherman leaders] Mark Rudd or Bernadine Dorhn were somehow the very conscience of the Left in 1969.
Ian Mackay said some interesting things about his "art," music, that parallels my attitudes about writing. All my life, people told me that I should make more of an effort to make a living off my writing, and told me that I would feel more of a sense of satisfaction if I found jobs at which I could use my writing skills more extensively. But every time I attempted to go down that route, I recoiled. I realized that if I have to use my writing/English skills on a job, it’s best to use them at the very lowest level and save my creative energies and writing muscles for the stuff that I love to do, which usually has nothing to do with making a living. And I learned that the last thing I’d want to do is depend on writing for my living.
Ian says:
Don't make art for a living. Make art because you have to. Figure out other ways to make a living... Chuck Dukowsky at Black Flag did an interview in 1980 where he said he'd rather work a day job for the rest of his life than ever become solely dependent on his music to live. When I read that article I felt, "That is exactly the way I feel, too." And that's why I work. Straight up.
First, from Mike Davis, a couple of good points...
Regarding the issue of property destruction at protests (which seems to have become a favorite issue of debate here during the past couple of days):
So, smashing McDonald's may be good fun (and in some circumstances, a good tactic), but it isn't the same as smashing the state or, for that matter, organizing a movement. On the other hand, such infantalism is far less of a problem than the tendency of some leaders and coalitions to accede to the constantly tighter circumscription of protest by police and the homeland security state. If the right to protest is to survive, it must be aggressively asserted in all circumstances.
And regarding a phenomenon that I personally never cared for, the unnecessary over-glamorization of the Weather Underground (who actually make the Symbionese Liberation Army look smart and sane by comparison), especially at a time when so many other significant agitators, organizers and activists from that era seem to have been forgotten:
Give me a break. Our internationalist duty in 1969 was to go into the plants and schools and help organize rebellion, not blow up non-coms and post offices. The Weather Underground were a narcissistic, authoritarian cult, with contempt for ordinary people and ordinary leftists, who hallucinated on comic-book politics and the usual American quest for celebrity. And it kills me today that young sincere radicals, who have never heard of real heroes like James Forman, Dave Dellinger, Nelson Peery, Carl Boggs, Fannie Lou Hamer or Hal Draper, believe that [Weatherman leaders] Mark Rudd or Bernadine Dorhn were somehow the very conscience of the Left in 1969.
Ian Mackay said some interesting things about his "art," music, that parallels my attitudes about writing. All my life, people told me that I should make more of an effort to make a living off my writing, and told me that I would feel more of a sense of satisfaction if I found jobs at which I could use my writing skills more extensively. But every time I attempted to go down that route, I recoiled. I realized that if I have to use my writing/English skills on a job, it’s best to use them at the very lowest level and save my creative energies and writing muscles for the stuff that I love to do, which usually has nothing to do with making a living. And I learned that the last thing I’d want to do is depend on writing for my living.
Ian says:
Don't make art for a living. Make art because you have to. Figure out other ways to make a living... Chuck Dukowsky at Black Flag did an interview in 1980 where he said he'd rather work a day job for the rest of his life than ever become solely dependent on his music to live. When I read that article I felt, "That is exactly the way I feel, too." And that's why I work. Straight up.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
More Comments on Strategies for Opposing War and Capitalism
At what point must one decide that an "answer" in the comments section is simply too big for the comments section and requires a new post? Whatever point that is, my response to asfo_del for her prior comment here (and, to some extent, her recent post at Living on Less) certainly passed it...
Now... Aggressive stances aside, I wasn't saying that activists in the U.S. should follow a strategy of simple violence against the state; that wouldn't make much sense. (Although I am not opposed to wise measures of self-protection or self defense; I am not a pacifist. And I don't consider property destruction to be violence, either, though that's not the main thing that I wanted to talk about.) What I was suggesting is that we should consider that there could be effective strategies of disruption (street blockades, site occupations, etc.) and collective economic action (widespread labor strikes, for instance - hopefully, wildcat ones) that would be more aggressive, and include more active participation, than the old vigil formula.
Regarding that call for a massive refusal to "feed" the economic system, you raise some complicated issues that probably could/should be answered in a few blog posts, or maybe a 1,500-page book. (And the subject, at this point, is not just anti-war activism; we’re talking about the whole big picture now.) But to keep this as brief as possible(?)…
Does "not feeding" the economic system consist of simply not spending money, or are we talking about much more here? I think that this term involves much more than withholding consumer purchasing power, but when the emphasis is strictly on withholding/not spending money (without any other strategies or developments to go along with this), then I begin have some problems with it.
One problem that I have with such a strategy is that it implicitly tells people that their power is based on the money that they have - just like always in the capitalist system! (Some people might recall this complaint being made pretty eloquently in the Situationist-influenced call for Steal Something Day - although I don't think just telling people to go around and steal things is the best strategy, either.)
...Which leads to the second question on my mind, that is, when people are asked to withhold money, not buy things, in order to change the system is there any kind of empowerment that they get in return? (That is, in addition to the abstract idea that they will exercise power by not spending money - which tells them, implicitly, that they'd be able to exercise more power if they had more money not to spend?) Poverty by itself, no matter how you look at it, is very disempowering, especially when there's no way out of poverty because it's not "by choice." So, things get kind of complicated when we're telling have-nots that they can/should do with less. (Although it's different if we're just helping each other get by more easily by teaching one another how to avoid so many traps set by the capitalist-consumerist culture - as with the Anti- Capitalist Savings Tips.)
When I talk about people empowering themselves while they're opposing the system, I have to think about the classic Marxist example, the workers’ struggle, at the point of production. The beauty of this example is that the same thing which keeps people down, keeps them in servitude, also enables them to exercise collective power - it turns exploitation on its head. Exactly because the boss depends on the workers that s/he is exploiting, the workers can collectively exercise power in opposition to the boss. But their refusal doesn't have to result in total deprivation. In a revolutionary moment, the workers take over factories and run them themselves. And sometimes, this process includes the creation of very politically empowering bodies such as directly democratic workers' councils. (But, of course, it is fair to ask, how often does this happen, and how long does it usually last? And where might this happen today, outside of Latin America? Can the classic example be applied in "advanced" nations in the age of "post-Fordism"? There are new complexities here; maybe we should talk less about factories, more about call centers, offices, airports...and/or potential places for action completely outside of the traditionally recognized workplace (the "social factory," etc.). But, anyway, the classic model is good.)
By contrast, if the tactic is for people to just withhold money from the system, I think there has to be something else. I think it would be much better if they/we could create alternatives that would enable them/us not to suffer, or fear, total deprivation. For instance, set up centers where people can drop off and receive material things without any exchange of money ("free stores," I guess - which we know happens sometimes, but never enough, and never on a large enough scale). And, set up concrete systems of mutual aid, i.e., systems and places for the sharing of skills and services, which will somewhat reduce the need for the expenditure of money just to meet the demands of day-to-day life. (It also can enable people to work more directly for a community, rather than working to create wealth for a boss.) But, as we know, these kinds of things rarely get developed by "activists," at least in our area. (And then, as we well know, there is the problem of how such things might be organized and whether the benefits would end up fair and equal. I certainly wouldn't want my survival to depend too much on a current, typical, clique-controlled, infighting activist group.)
Meanwhile, we have to consider what the consequences would be once the capitalists are less and less able to sell goods. In actuality, capitalism hasn't been doing so well in recent decades; it hasn't been working the way it was supposed to. So, the capitalists have played a few tricks, increasing speculation and games of finance. And when those games seem to be failing, the first thing that the capitalists do is crack down on poor people and workers. (At least in "economic policy"; naturally, there are many other brutal things that happen, too, like primitive accumulation - war.)
If we're asking the first victims of such "downturns" (which may just include ourselves) to do with less in order to cause damages to the system in ways that may come back to them/us like a boomerang, we do need to be building some kind of positive incentive, like some possible, alternative method of (collective) self- empowerment, especially for those who are really struggling under the present system. It doesn’t have to be a promise that everyone can have the "good" (big material) things in life as David Grenier seemed to suggest once, but there should be something else, maybe something better, something more connected to the new society that we would like to build.
Now... Aggressive stances aside, I wasn't saying that activists in the U.S. should follow a strategy of simple violence against the state; that wouldn't make much sense. (Although I am not opposed to wise measures of self-protection or self defense; I am not a pacifist. And I don't consider property destruction to be violence, either, though that's not the main thing that I wanted to talk about.) What I was suggesting is that we should consider that there could be effective strategies of disruption (street blockades, site occupations, etc.) and collective economic action (widespread labor strikes, for instance - hopefully, wildcat ones) that would be more aggressive, and include more active participation, than the old vigil formula.
Regarding that call for a massive refusal to "feed" the economic system, you raise some complicated issues that probably could/should be answered in a few blog posts, or maybe a 1,500-page book. (And the subject, at this point, is not just anti-war activism; we’re talking about the whole big picture now.) But to keep this as brief as possible(?)…
Does "not feeding" the economic system consist of simply not spending money, or are we talking about much more here? I think that this term involves much more than withholding consumer purchasing power, but when the emphasis is strictly on withholding/not spending money (without any other strategies or developments to go along with this), then I begin have some problems with it.
One problem that I have with such a strategy is that it implicitly tells people that their power is based on the money that they have - just like always in the capitalist system! (Some people might recall this complaint being made pretty eloquently in the Situationist-influenced call for Steal Something Day - although I don't think just telling people to go around and steal things is the best strategy, either.)
...Which leads to the second question on my mind, that is, when people are asked to withhold money, not buy things, in order to change the system is there any kind of empowerment that they get in return? (That is, in addition to the abstract idea that they will exercise power by not spending money - which tells them, implicitly, that they'd be able to exercise more power if they had more money not to spend?) Poverty by itself, no matter how you look at it, is very disempowering, especially when there's no way out of poverty because it's not "by choice." So, things get kind of complicated when we're telling have-nots that they can/should do with less. (Although it's different if we're just helping each other get by more easily by teaching one another how to avoid so many traps set by the capitalist-consumerist culture - as with the Anti- Capitalist Savings Tips.)
When I talk about people empowering themselves while they're opposing the system, I have to think about the classic Marxist example, the workers’ struggle, at the point of production. The beauty of this example is that the same thing which keeps people down, keeps them in servitude, also enables them to exercise collective power - it turns exploitation on its head. Exactly because the boss depends on the workers that s/he is exploiting, the workers can collectively exercise power in opposition to the boss. But their refusal doesn't have to result in total deprivation. In a revolutionary moment, the workers take over factories and run them themselves. And sometimes, this process includes the creation of very politically empowering bodies such as directly democratic workers' councils. (But, of course, it is fair to ask, how often does this happen, and how long does it usually last? And where might this happen today, outside of Latin America? Can the classic example be applied in "advanced" nations in the age of "post-Fordism"? There are new complexities here; maybe we should talk less about factories, more about call centers, offices, airports...and/or potential places for action completely outside of the traditionally recognized workplace (the "social factory," etc.). But, anyway, the classic model is good.)
By contrast, if the tactic is for people to just withhold money from the system, I think there has to be something else. I think it would be much better if they/we could create alternatives that would enable them/us not to suffer, or fear, total deprivation. For instance, set up centers where people can drop off and receive material things without any exchange of money ("free stores," I guess - which we know happens sometimes, but never enough, and never on a large enough scale). And, set up concrete systems of mutual aid, i.e., systems and places for the sharing of skills and services, which will somewhat reduce the need for the expenditure of money just to meet the demands of day-to-day life. (It also can enable people to work more directly for a community, rather than working to create wealth for a boss.) But, as we know, these kinds of things rarely get developed by "activists," at least in our area. (And then, as we well know, there is the problem of how such things might be organized and whether the benefits would end up fair and equal. I certainly wouldn't want my survival to depend too much on a current, typical, clique-controlled, infighting activist group.)
Meanwhile, we have to consider what the consequences would be once the capitalists are less and less able to sell goods. In actuality, capitalism hasn't been doing so well in recent decades; it hasn't been working the way it was supposed to. So, the capitalists have played a few tricks, increasing speculation and games of finance. And when those games seem to be failing, the first thing that the capitalists do is crack down on poor people and workers. (At least in "economic policy"; naturally, there are many other brutal things that happen, too, like primitive accumulation - war.)
If we're asking the first victims of such "downturns" (which may just include ourselves) to do with less in order to cause damages to the system in ways that may come back to them/us like a boomerang, we do need to be building some kind of positive incentive, like some possible, alternative method of (collective) self- empowerment, especially for those who are really struggling under the present system. It doesn’t have to be a promise that everyone can have the "good" (big material) things in life as David Grenier seemed to suggest once, but there should be something else, maybe something better, something more connected to the new society that we would like to build.
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Memories of the Science Fiction Underground
So I was reading this morning about some efforts by some writers to build up what they are calling an "Underground Literary Alliance," saying that they are "activists of the aesthetic variety, who want to provoke cultural change," setting out to rebel against the present rotten state of literature...and, suddenly, a lot of memories came back to me...
Back in my late teens to early 30s (a dozen to two dozen years ago), I was also very involved in a fiction-based aesthetic rebellion, but this rebellion had little to do with reviving or redeeming "literature" as most people knew it. In fact, mainstream "literature" had always seemed to me like a dreary area to work in, and though most of my favorite writers were, or would be, marketed as "literary" writers (if/when they broke out of the tiny presses, though some of them never did), I was much more interested in working in a "popular" forum untainted by snooty academic writing programs or other competitions for prestige. Since I also was very familiar with science fiction (or what I preferred to call "speculative fiction," taking the term from the SF revolutionaries of the '60s "new wave"), this seemed like a natural place for me to go. And since I also was a punk rocker when I first started seriously submitting stories to magazines, it was easy to fall into comparisons between doing rebellious "cutting-edge" work in a "popular" genre of fiction and being a "punk" rebel in an offshoot of rock'n'roll.
Ultimately, I was not the only one who made such comparisons, as the science fiction genre ended up with its own full-blown "cyberpunk" offshoot just a few years after I started thinking about such a thing, and the horror genre had its own "splatterpunk" offshoot a couple of years later (though that was mostly misguided, I think). But the true similarities were actually pretty limited, because the science fiction genre's "punk" wave never really gave rise to a widespread DIY ethos the way punk rock did, nor did it create a strong enough rebellion against the mainstream. Most "cyberpunk" or "splatterpunk" writers were competing to get into the major magazines (if they hadn’t been in the majors for years already) and/or get commercial book deals. And, conversely, very few readers or fans of SF even considered that they might find more interesting reading materials in areas far outside of the SF mainstream, in the few zines here and there that people were publishing without corporate backing or significant connections to the officially recognized "professional" publishers and editors.
There was a very brief time, at the end of the 1980s, when there actually did seem to be a sort of science fiction underground (at least a small one) sprouting out of the cypberpunk movement. And in 1989, the cyberpunk writer John Shirley (who had also been a punk musician) wrote a very interesting article in the review zine Science Fiction Eye called "Beyond Cyberpunk: The New Science Fiction Underground." (So, you can see why the Underground Literary Alliance’s Web site brought back associative memories.) This was an article that discussed several of my favorite writers rarely found in the big magazines and, most interestingly, even included a couple of paragraphs about me (though he focused on a story that I would never show to anyone these days, even if they personally paid me to see it). However, from what I could tell, this interesting moment of "science fiction underground" didn’t really lead anywhere. It was already beginning to seem like a lost cause to me when I worked as the fiction editor for Air Fish, a small press, sort of underground, anthology of "speculative and surreal works." And that experience caused me, after reading the 1,000th or so submitted manuscript, to completely burn out on all of this stuff. But, as I’ve mentioned in my blogs before, by 1994, I started to get into activism of the political variety, and I began to get at least as much enjoyment from reading radical theory and history as I’d ever gotten from reading a piece of fiction.
These days, I am so far removed from my "science fiction underground" rebellion, that it seems like an episode from a prior life. When I think about some of the SF works that I enjoyed so much, I can almost re-experience the enthusiasm that I used to feel when I read this stuff, but if given the choice today, I’d probably rather put most of that "revolutionary" fiction down and just read about real revolutions. And life these days seems like so much more of a struggle to me, and the problems of the world seem so urgent, that I can’t imagine getting too caught up in "aesthetic" activism. Although I understand that art can contribute a lot to people’s perspective, and that getting good art and literature to the public can or should help to change the world, I simply would find it very hard to focus all that much energy or thought on that area, or, especially, that area’s internal politics.
Maybe one day, I’ll look around to see if there’s any good new "underground" science fiction out there, but if I decide to do that, I’m going to have to make an effort to set aside the time. And, unfortunately, there aren’t many people I can ask about this stuff, since most people think that "science fiction" just means really bad movies, like the latest sequel to the prequel to the sequel of the last series of Star Wars.
___________
P.S. These were some of my favorite contemporary science fiction/fantasy/horror writers during my time in the "science fiction underground": Ronald Anthony Cross (specifically, his short stories), Misha (also a good pen pal of mine for a while), Paul Di Filippo, Scott Bradfield (who later got a bigger rep with some "literary" novels), K.W. Jeter, Jessica Amanda Salmonson (specifically, her surreal short stories), Ursula Pflug (just saw a couple of her stories, but they impressed me), and Steve Rasnic Tem. And, probably the biggest influence for me (and many other "science fiction underground" writers) was J.G. Ballard.
Back in my late teens to early 30s (a dozen to two dozen years ago), I was also very involved in a fiction-based aesthetic rebellion, but this rebellion had little to do with reviving or redeeming "literature" as most people knew it. In fact, mainstream "literature" had always seemed to me like a dreary area to work in, and though most of my favorite writers were, or would be, marketed as "literary" writers (if/when they broke out of the tiny presses, though some of them never did), I was much more interested in working in a "popular" forum untainted by snooty academic writing programs or other competitions for prestige. Since I also was very familiar with science fiction (or what I preferred to call "speculative fiction," taking the term from the SF revolutionaries of the '60s "new wave"), this seemed like a natural place for me to go. And since I also was a punk rocker when I first started seriously submitting stories to magazines, it was easy to fall into comparisons between doing rebellious "cutting-edge" work in a "popular" genre of fiction and being a "punk" rebel in an offshoot of rock'n'roll.
Ultimately, I was not the only one who made such comparisons, as the science fiction genre ended up with its own full-blown "cyberpunk" offshoot just a few years after I started thinking about such a thing, and the horror genre had its own "splatterpunk" offshoot a couple of years later (though that was mostly misguided, I think). But the true similarities were actually pretty limited, because the science fiction genre's "punk" wave never really gave rise to a widespread DIY ethos the way punk rock did, nor did it create a strong enough rebellion against the mainstream. Most "cyberpunk" or "splatterpunk" writers were competing to get into the major magazines (if they hadn’t been in the majors for years already) and/or get commercial book deals. And, conversely, very few readers or fans of SF even considered that they might find more interesting reading materials in areas far outside of the SF mainstream, in the few zines here and there that people were publishing without corporate backing or significant connections to the officially recognized "professional" publishers and editors.
There was a very brief time, at the end of the 1980s, when there actually did seem to be a sort of science fiction underground (at least a small one) sprouting out of the cypberpunk movement. And in 1989, the cyberpunk writer John Shirley (who had also been a punk musician) wrote a very interesting article in the review zine Science Fiction Eye called "Beyond Cyberpunk: The New Science Fiction Underground." (So, you can see why the Underground Literary Alliance’s Web site brought back associative memories.) This was an article that discussed several of my favorite writers rarely found in the big magazines and, most interestingly, even included a couple of paragraphs about me (though he focused on a story that I would never show to anyone these days, even if they personally paid me to see it). However, from what I could tell, this interesting moment of "science fiction underground" didn’t really lead anywhere. It was already beginning to seem like a lost cause to me when I worked as the fiction editor for Air Fish, a small press, sort of underground, anthology of "speculative and surreal works." And that experience caused me, after reading the 1,000th or so submitted manuscript, to completely burn out on all of this stuff. But, as I’ve mentioned in my blogs before, by 1994, I started to get into activism of the political variety, and I began to get at least as much enjoyment from reading radical theory and history as I’d ever gotten from reading a piece of fiction.
These days, I am so far removed from my "science fiction underground" rebellion, that it seems like an episode from a prior life. When I think about some of the SF works that I enjoyed so much, I can almost re-experience the enthusiasm that I used to feel when I read this stuff, but if given the choice today, I’d probably rather put most of that "revolutionary" fiction down and just read about real revolutions. And life these days seems like so much more of a struggle to me, and the problems of the world seem so urgent, that I can’t imagine getting too caught up in "aesthetic" activism. Although I understand that art can contribute a lot to people’s perspective, and that getting good art and literature to the public can or should help to change the world, I simply would find it very hard to focus all that much energy or thought on that area, or, especially, that area’s internal politics.
Maybe one day, I’ll look around to see if there’s any good new "underground" science fiction out there, but if I decide to do that, I’m going to have to make an effort to set aside the time. And, unfortunately, there aren’t many people I can ask about this stuff, since most people think that "science fiction" just means really bad movies, like the latest sequel to the prequel to the sequel of the last series of Star Wars.
___________
P.S. These were some of my favorite contemporary science fiction/fantasy/horror writers during my time in the "science fiction underground": Ronald Anthony Cross (specifically, his short stories), Misha (also a good pen pal of mine for a while), Paul Di Filippo, Scott Bradfield (who later got a bigger rep with some "literary" novels), K.W. Jeter, Jessica Amanda Salmonson (specifically, her surreal short stories), Ursula Pflug (just saw a couple of her stories, but they impressed me), and Steve Rasnic Tem. And, probably the biggest influence for me (and many other "science fiction underground" writers) was J.G. Ballard.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Good Words on Anarchism, Religion, and Selfishly Fighting for a Better World, from The Common Man
I really like some lines that I read from The Common Man, which he posted in a debate with Jordan of Resistance USA, who calls himself an anarchist but links to an Islamist group in his blog, says he’s a Wiccan, and does a bunch of other stuff that TCM considers inconsistent with anarchism - but which actually is pretty common among people who self-identify as anarchists these days. In this debate, I do sympathize with TCM.
Personally, one of the reasons that I don’t self-identify as an anarchist much these days is that the word is used so broadly, it makes for all sorts of contradictions that kind of embarrass me. On the other hand, I don’t think it would be right for me to tell all these other anarchists in the world that I know what true anarchism is and they don’t. So, if I’ve got to have a label, I find some other labels to be a little more comfortable, because they more accurately describe what I, myself, believe. That’s one big reason I’ve been much more comfortable self-defining (especially if asked) as a libertarian Marxist, left communist, or libertarian socialist. (Also, there is the matter of which particular writers, revolutionaries, revolutionary theories, and historical movements have most inspired me. But I've talked about that enough elsewhere.) Nonetheless, I still will have a lot of feelings and beliefs in common with a lot of people who do call themselves anarchists - especially when those anarchists take a real principled stance against religion, irrationality, and hierarchy. I like it when The Common Man says:
This isn't an attack on Islam. The same arguments hold true for all religion. Religion is a denial of humanity and a shackle on true freedom. Just because it may have an 'anti-imperialist' element doesn't make it a revolutionary ideology. And I really don't give a fuck about how he may interpret his religion. At some point he'll want me to submit to its authority, just like every other ideology that would deny me my freedom in order to consolidate its own social power and control. If you're keen to support grassroots resistance to capitalist imperialism, then support Arab and Israeli anarchists, not religious fascists.
To carry the banner of the red and black is to take a position diametrically opposed to all that these fucks stand for. On that basis alone I think you need to reconsider who your friends really are.
And:
There is no place for religion of any kind in a free society. If you feel the need to have a faith in non-human entities and mystical powers, crystals, chakras and wood-nymphs then your mind is not truly free and you are not realising your potential as a human being. Despite what you may say, your freedom of thought is shackled by the constraints of others and what you do will not be based on free choice and personal ethics and morality. There may well be values that I agree with in a wide range of religious teachings, but I'm more than capable of holding those values without the mumbo-jumbo and hate that accompanies them within a religious context.
And, I really like it when The Common Man says:
I'm an anarchist because I happen to be a selfish motherfucker who believes that the best possible life for me would be one where every other motherfucker was free in both mind and body. We are at our best as free individuals co-operating for our own and, by extension, the common good. It's not brain surgery.
I’ve tried to tell a number of people a similar thing myself, that I became an anti-authoritarian socialist (originally an anarchist) completely out of self interest. For some reason, they don’t get it. They assume that being a revolutionary working for a free and equal society must involve having some idealistic, altruistic attitude about wanting to help one's fellow man (and, implicitly, unrealistically expecting everyone else to be that way). But nothing could be further from the truth. I’m in this for myself, because I want a better life; I want to live in a world that I would find much more tolerable than the present one. What could be more self-serving than that?
____________
P.S. To be fair, though, many of the links at Resistance USA are very good - it's definitely worthwhile checking out the list on the right side.
Personally, one of the reasons that I don’t self-identify as an anarchist much these days is that the word is used so broadly, it makes for all sorts of contradictions that kind of embarrass me. On the other hand, I don’t think it would be right for me to tell all these other anarchists in the world that I know what true anarchism is and they don’t. So, if I’ve got to have a label, I find some other labels to be a little more comfortable, because they more accurately describe what I, myself, believe. That’s one big reason I’ve been much more comfortable self-defining (especially if asked) as a libertarian Marxist, left communist, or libertarian socialist. (Also, there is the matter of which particular writers, revolutionaries, revolutionary theories, and historical movements have most inspired me. But I've talked about that enough elsewhere.) Nonetheless, I still will have a lot of feelings and beliefs in common with a lot of people who do call themselves anarchists - especially when those anarchists take a real principled stance against religion, irrationality, and hierarchy. I like it when The Common Man says:
This isn't an attack on Islam. The same arguments hold true for all religion. Religion is a denial of humanity and a shackle on true freedom. Just because it may have an 'anti-imperialist' element doesn't make it a revolutionary ideology. And I really don't give a fuck about how he may interpret his religion. At some point he'll want me to submit to its authority, just like every other ideology that would deny me my freedom in order to consolidate its own social power and control. If you're keen to support grassroots resistance to capitalist imperialism, then support Arab and Israeli anarchists, not religious fascists.
To carry the banner of the red and black is to take a position diametrically opposed to all that these fucks stand for. On that basis alone I think you need to reconsider who your friends really are.
And:
There is no place for religion of any kind in a free society. If you feel the need to have a faith in non-human entities and mystical powers, crystals, chakras and wood-nymphs then your mind is not truly free and you are not realising your potential as a human being. Despite what you may say, your freedom of thought is shackled by the constraints of others and what you do will not be based on free choice and personal ethics and morality. There may well be values that I agree with in a wide range of religious teachings, but I'm more than capable of holding those values without the mumbo-jumbo and hate that accompanies them within a religious context.
And, I really like it when The Common Man says:
I'm an anarchist because I happen to be a selfish motherfucker who believes that the best possible life for me would be one where every other motherfucker was free in both mind and body. We are at our best as free individuals co-operating for our own and, by extension, the common good. It's not brain surgery.
I’ve tried to tell a number of people a similar thing myself, that I became an anti-authoritarian socialist (originally an anarchist) completely out of self interest. For some reason, they don’t get it. They assume that being a revolutionary working for a free and equal society must involve having some idealistic, altruistic attitude about wanting to help one's fellow man (and, implicitly, unrealistically expecting everyone else to be that way). But nothing could be further from the truth. I’m in this for myself, because I want a better life; I want to live in a world that I would find much more tolerable than the present one. What could be more self-serving than that?
____________
P.S. To be fair, though, many of the links at Resistance USA are very good - it's definitely worthwhile checking out the list on the right side.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
A Couple of Brilliant Quotes from Lewis Mumford
Last weekend during a spell of temp job "downtime," I gave myself the pleasure of looking through another Lewis Mumford classic, The Myth of the Machine, Volume Two – The Pentagon of Power. This 1970 book, like many of Mumford’s prior voluminous volumes, is difficult to summarize briefly; nonetheless, I guess this paragraph makes for a fairly accurate description (from Associated Content):
The anti-hero here is the megamachine - a metaphorical contraption, a saccharinely alliterative complex, designed by the brainiacs of the 17th century and propagated by modern industry and government. The result is, yes, a Pentagon of Power where each side - political absolutism, property, productivity, profit, and publicity - reinforce each other and the final structure, of course, bears uncanny similarity to our Nation’s puissant military complex.
Yet, as part of his great macro-attack on the megamachine, Mumford also scathingly criticized a whole lot of smaller things that were quite immediate and contemporary at the time that he wrote this. And sometimes I think I appreciate these smaller criticisms even more.
I was delighted to discover two truly great passages posted right within the last set of picture inserts. The first quote deals with the construction of the World Trade Center. As I’ve always said, much as I deplore (and would never justify) the attacks of 9-11, I also would never romanticize the existence of these hideous buildings. And, much as I dislike the social consequences of this attack (in addition to being horrified by the loss of life), I have also felt that the destruction of these structures resulted in a tremendous improvement to the Manhattan skyline. Now, it seems to me that we've been confronted with a whole number of plans to rebuild on this site that pay all too much architectural tribute to the original monstrosities. (And, with our luck, Donald Trump will be able to follow through on his threats to take over the design, and we’ll end up with something even worse.) But frankly, I think that if people were not so encouraged to give into sentimentality and/or a misplaced sort of pride (with jingoism), there would be more of a push to replace the old WTC with something that is extremely different. That’s one reason I wish more people were able to see Mumford’s comments on this matter; the other reason is the historical illumination that he provided regarding the design of modern New York City and the nature of the Port Authority:
...The Port of New York Authority's World Trade Center, 110 stories high, is a characteristic example of the purposeless giantism and technological exhibitionism that are now eviscerating the living tissue of every great city. The Port Authority, a quasi-governmental corporation, was in origin a happy political invention, first installed in London; but unfortunately its social functions have been subordinated to pecuniary motivations: and its executives have conceived it their duty to funnel more motor traffic into the city, through new bridges and tunnels, than its streets and parking spaces can handle - while contributing to the lapse of a more adequate system of public transportation that included railroad, subway, and ferry. This policy has resulted in mounting traffic congestion, economic waste, and human deterioration - though with a constant rise in land values and speculative profits. These baneful results were anticipated and graphically depicted by Clarence S. Stein, then Chairman of the New York State Housing and Regional Planning Commission, in his article on "Dinosaur Cities" in the "Survey Graphic," May 1925. Stein there described the breakdowns - already quite visible - resulting from housing congestion, water shortage, sewage pollution, street clogging, traffic jams, and municipal bankruptcy. But Dinosaurs were handicapped by insufficient brains, and the World Trade Center is only another Dinosaur.
The second passage (with picture) that I love is Mumford’s assessment of that great overrated event known as Woodstock. Mumford was brilliant at pinpointing the contradictions inherent in the hippie "counterculture," describing, for example, how Woodstock simply provided a whole new form of support to the ruling corporate-capitalist, "megatechnic" society, even incorporating some of its destructive tendencies. Since I was only seven years old at the time of Woodstock, I don’t know if there were any other writers who made such a critique of the event nearly when it happened. But if any other, similar critique appeared, I doubt that it could have been this good.
By the way, I'd like to emphasize that this passage did not appear in a DIY-punk-oriented zine between 1977 and 2005 or in a 1990s issue of The Baffler. It was written by a man of somewhat advanced age in or before 1970. But, obviously, this man was brilliant:
Despite the well-founded disaffection of the younger generation with the kind of life offered by the bloated affluence of megatechnic society, their very mode of rebellion too often demonstrates that the power system still has them in its grip: they, too, mistake indolence for leisure and irresponsibility for liberation. The so-called Woodstock Festival was no spontaneous manifestation of joyous youth, but a strictly money-making enterprise, shrewdly calculated to exploit their rebellions, their adulations, and their illusions. The success of the festival was based on the tropismic attraction of "Big Name" singers and groups (the counter-culture's Personality Cult!), idols who command colossal financial rewards from personal appearances and the sales of their discs and films.
With its mass mobilization of private cars and buses, its congestion of traffic en route, and its large-scale pollution of the environment, the Woodstock Festival mirrored and even grossly magnified the worst features of the system that many young rebels profess to reject, if not to destroy. The one positive achievement of this mass mobilization, apparently, was the warm sense of instant fellowship produced by the close physical contact of a hundred thousand bodies floating in the haze and daze of pot. Our present mass-minded, over-regimented, depersonalized culture has nothing to fear from this kind of reaction - equally regimented, equally depersonalized, equally under external control. What is this but the Negative Power Complex, attached by invisible electrodes to the same pecuniary pleasure center?
The anti-hero here is the megamachine - a metaphorical contraption, a saccharinely alliterative complex, designed by the brainiacs of the 17th century and propagated by modern industry and government. The result is, yes, a Pentagon of Power where each side - political absolutism, property, productivity, profit, and publicity - reinforce each other and the final structure, of course, bears uncanny similarity to our Nation’s puissant military complex.
Yet, as part of his great macro-attack on the megamachine, Mumford also scathingly criticized a whole lot of smaller things that were quite immediate and contemporary at the time that he wrote this. And sometimes I think I appreciate these smaller criticisms even more.
I was delighted to discover two truly great passages posted right within the last set of picture inserts. The first quote deals with the construction of the World Trade Center. As I’ve always said, much as I deplore (and would never justify) the attacks of 9-11, I also would never romanticize the existence of these hideous buildings. And, much as I dislike the social consequences of this attack (in addition to being horrified by the loss of life), I have also felt that the destruction of these structures resulted in a tremendous improvement to the Manhattan skyline. Now, it seems to me that we've been confronted with a whole number of plans to rebuild on this site that pay all too much architectural tribute to the original monstrosities. (And, with our luck, Donald Trump will be able to follow through on his threats to take over the design, and we’ll end up with something even worse.) But frankly, I think that if people were not so encouraged to give into sentimentality and/or a misplaced sort of pride (with jingoism), there would be more of a push to replace the old WTC with something that is extremely different. That’s one reason I wish more people were able to see Mumford’s comments on this matter; the other reason is the historical illumination that he provided regarding the design of modern New York City and the nature of the Port Authority:
...The Port of New York Authority's World Trade Center, 110 stories high, is a characteristic example of the purposeless giantism and technological exhibitionism that are now eviscerating the living tissue of every great city. The Port Authority, a quasi-governmental corporation, was in origin a happy political invention, first installed in London; but unfortunately its social functions have been subordinated to pecuniary motivations: and its executives have conceived it their duty to funnel more motor traffic into the city, through new bridges and tunnels, than its streets and parking spaces can handle - while contributing to the lapse of a more adequate system of public transportation that included railroad, subway, and ferry. This policy has resulted in mounting traffic congestion, economic waste, and human deterioration - though with a constant rise in land values and speculative profits. These baneful results were anticipated and graphically depicted by Clarence S. Stein, then Chairman of the New York State Housing and Regional Planning Commission, in his article on "Dinosaur Cities" in the "Survey Graphic," May 1925. Stein there described the breakdowns - already quite visible - resulting from housing congestion, water shortage, sewage pollution, street clogging, traffic jams, and municipal bankruptcy. But Dinosaurs were handicapped by insufficient brains, and the World Trade Center is only another Dinosaur.
The second passage (with picture) that I love is Mumford’s assessment of that great overrated event known as Woodstock. Mumford was brilliant at pinpointing the contradictions inherent in the hippie "counterculture," describing, for example, how Woodstock simply provided a whole new form of support to the ruling corporate-capitalist, "megatechnic" society, even incorporating some of its destructive tendencies. Since I was only seven years old at the time of Woodstock, I don’t know if there were any other writers who made such a critique of the event nearly when it happened. But if any other, similar critique appeared, I doubt that it could have been this good.
By the way, I'd like to emphasize that this passage did not appear in a DIY-punk-oriented zine between 1977 and 2005 or in a 1990s issue of The Baffler. It was written by a man of somewhat advanced age in or before 1970. But, obviously, this man was brilliant:
Despite the well-founded disaffection of the younger generation with the kind of life offered by the bloated affluence of megatechnic society, their very mode of rebellion too often demonstrates that the power system still has them in its grip: they, too, mistake indolence for leisure and irresponsibility for liberation. The so-called Woodstock Festival was no spontaneous manifestation of joyous youth, but a strictly money-making enterprise, shrewdly calculated to exploit their rebellions, their adulations, and their illusions. The success of the festival was based on the tropismic attraction of "Big Name" singers and groups (the counter-culture's Personality Cult!), idols who command colossal financial rewards from personal appearances and the sales of their discs and films.
With its mass mobilization of private cars and buses, its congestion of traffic en route, and its large-scale pollution of the environment, the Woodstock Festival mirrored and even grossly magnified the worst features of the system that many young rebels profess to reject, if not to destroy. The one positive achievement of this mass mobilization, apparently, was the warm sense of instant fellowship produced by the close physical contact of a hundred thousand bodies floating in the haze and daze of pot. Our present mass-minded, over-regimented, depersonalized culture has nothing to fear from this kind of reaction - equally regimented, equally depersonalized, equally under external control. What is this but the Negative Power Complex, attached by invisible electrodes to the same pecuniary pleasure center?
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Depression? "Hey lady, take a pill!"
Asfo_del wrote a nice post about some experiences with mental health workers and their attempts to treat "depression." In asfo_del's case, much of what was (mis)diagnosed as the symptoms of "depression" might have been caused by fibromyalgia. But this post also touches on the general issue of depression, which is actually a subject that I'm no stranger to, myself. (I have a couple of sheets of Zoloft that a doctor threw at me once. It's been a couple of years, but I never could bring myself to go near that stuff.) Anyway, when asfo_del got to the subject of pills, and the way they could potentially backfire, I thought about this poem I found, by Red Rose, in the Spring 2005 issue of a California-based Left Communist journal called The New Internationalist. They haven't put this particular issue online (yet), but I'm assuming they won't mind my "reprinting" the poem here... It's called, Hey lady, take a pill!:
Surfing the channels one night
a cartoon commercial popped up
A harried woman dodged a barrage
of floating complaints:
Anxious
Always tired
Overwhelmed
Frustrated
Not enough oxygen
Too much to do
Can't sleep
Then came the solution:
TAKE A PILL.
Can't cope?
Take a pill.
Can't sleep?
Take a pill.
Mask the reality of your world
in a pink haze of euphoria.
Never mind digging to the root
and weeding out the cause.
No - conform, be compliant
and don't complain....
If you can't keep up, well
that's your problem.
So here's the answer
LADY... TAKE A PILL!
If you think it's the push
to work harder and faster,
the noise, the traffic, the pollution
or the worry of making ends meet
or taking care of your loved ones, let alone yourself,
and/or the lack of fulfillment or creativity in your life
that makes you anxious
well... Lady
TAKE 2, and forget calling in the morning!
And if you have any thoughts
about the nature of the economic system
you live under being the root cause of
your anxiety as it drives you to exhaustion
well...
TAKE 3 AND, LADY, GET LOST!
Surfing the channels one night
a cartoon commercial popped up
A harried woman dodged a barrage
of floating complaints:
Anxious
Always tired
Overwhelmed
Frustrated
Not enough oxygen
Too much to do
Can't sleep
Then came the solution:
TAKE A PILL.
Can't cope?
Take a pill.
Can't sleep?
Take a pill.
Mask the reality of your world
in a pink haze of euphoria.
Never mind digging to the root
and weeding out the cause.
No - conform, be compliant
and don't complain....
If you can't keep up, well
that's your problem.
So here's the answer
LADY... TAKE A PILL!
If you think it's the push
to work harder and faster,
the noise, the traffic, the pollution
or the worry of making ends meet
or taking care of your loved ones, let alone yourself,
and/or the lack of fulfillment or creativity in your life
that makes you anxious
well... Lady
TAKE 2, and forget calling in the morning!
And if you have any thoughts
about the nature of the economic system
you live under being the root cause of
your anxiety as it drives you to exhaustion
well...
TAKE 3 AND, LADY, GET LOST!
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
In New York City, the Poor Get Treated Like Criminals Even When They’re Dead
I got a message over e-mail that I found particularly...horrifying:
Dear friends of Picture the Homeless,
Be sure to tune in this Thursday, at 8:30 PM, on Manhattan cablevision channel 34 (RCN Channel 107 - those of us outside Manhattan can watch online at MNN.org) for the latest installment of our monthly series of short films by homeless New Yorkers on issues relevant to our campaigns for social justice for homeless people. This month:
JOURNEY TO DIGNITY
Is Potters Field a final resting place for the poor or a prison for the dead?
Conceptualized, shot, and edited by homeless leaders of our Potters Field Committee, "Journey to Dignity" details the way homeless and poor New Yorkers are buried in Potters Field.
· Did you know that poor people are buried in mass graves with no religious service whatsoever?
· Did you know that Rikers Island inmates are made to bury the indigent dead, and that the Potters Field Cemetery on Hart's Island is controlled by the NYC Department of Corrections?
· Did you know that although the NYPD routinely fingerprints homeless people when they're arrested, it has no policies for the fingerprinting of homeless people who pass away, so that thousands of people are buried as John or Jane Does who could easily have been identified, and their families are never notified? That was the case with one of the co-founders of Picture the Homeless, who was buried as a John Doe and only identified eight months later!
· Did you know that homeless people can't visit their deceased loved ones unless they can prove they’re related? Imagine if you couldn't visit your friends or even know that they received a dignified burial!
Even more importantly, our film also outlines the exciting work we're doing to force changes in this deeply problematic area of city policy.
Please take the time to listen/view/support homeless New Yorkers fighting to be given the dignity in death that we are so often denied in life.
Actually, I don’t think that this indignity committed against poor dead people causes as much pain as the hardships and indignities committed against those same people during their lives. I mean, I just don't believe it’s possible for people to feel hardship as we know it once they’re dead. (No, nobody’s really turning over in their graves, though it’s a nice thought sometimes.) On the other hand, it could be a hardship for survivors and families of the deceased who want to visit those graves (but can’t for various reasons as described above). And there is something just so gruesomely telling about having Potters Field Cemetery controlled by the NYC Department of Corrections. It's yet more proof that people who are poor are treated like criminals...simply for the crime of being poor. And there’s also something kind of jarring about the fact that if you’re poor, your grave might be dug by prison labor and there’s no way you can protest that or stop it. Obviously, the poor have less say in the way that everything is done...even when they're dead.
___________
P.S. I was thinking that all of the above might make for the beginnings of a good horror story... And it’s not the first time that I’ve thought that way, since I used to write some horror fiction back in the late '80s. Zombie revenge fantasies can be particularly fun to write. Rise up, people, rise up!
Dear friends of Picture the Homeless,
Be sure to tune in this Thursday, at 8:30 PM, on Manhattan cablevision channel 34 (RCN Channel 107 - those of us outside Manhattan can watch online at MNN.org) for the latest installment of our monthly series of short films by homeless New Yorkers on issues relevant to our campaigns for social justice for homeless people. This month:
JOURNEY TO DIGNITY
Is Potters Field a final resting place for the poor or a prison for the dead?
Conceptualized, shot, and edited by homeless leaders of our Potters Field Committee, "Journey to Dignity" details the way homeless and poor New Yorkers are buried in Potters Field.
· Did you know that poor people are buried in mass graves with no religious service whatsoever?
· Did you know that Rikers Island inmates are made to bury the indigent dead, and that the Potters Field Cemetery on Hart's Island is controlled by the NYC Department of Corrections?
· Did you know that although the NYPD routinely fingerprints homeless people when they're arrested, it has no policies for the fingerprinting of homeless people who pass away, so that thousands of people are buried as John or Jane Does who could easily have been identified, and their families are never notified? That was the case with one of the co-founders of Picture the Homeless, who was buried as a John Doe and only identified eight months later!
· Did you know that homeless people can't visit their deceased loved ones unless they can prove they’re related? Imagine if you couldn't visit your friends or even know that they received a dignified burial!
Even more importantly, our film also outlines the exciting work we're doing to force changes in this deeply problematic area of city policy.
Please take the time to listen/view/support homeless New Yorkers fighting to be given the dignity in death that we are so often denied in life.
Actually, I don’t think that this indignity committed against poor dead people causes as much pain as the hardships and indignities committed against those same people during their lives. I mean, I just don't believe it’s possible for people to feel hardship as we know it once they’re dead. (No, nobody’s really turning over in their graves, though it’s a nice thought sometimes.) On the other hand, it could be a hardship for survivors and families of the deceased who want to visit those graves (but can’t for various reasons as described above). And there is something just so gruesomely telling about having Potters Field Cemetery controlled by the NYC Department of Corrections. It's yet more proof that people who are poor are treated like criminals...simply for the crime of being poor. And there’s also something kind of jarring about the fact that if you’re poor, your grave might be dug by prison labor and there’s no way you can protest that or stop it. Obviously, the poor have less say in the way that everything is done...even when they're dead.
___________
P.S. I was thinking that all of the above might make for the beginnings of a good horror story... And it’s not the first time that I’ve thought that way, since I used to write some horror fiction back in the late '80s. Zombie revenge fantasies can be particularly fun to write. Rise up, people, rise up!
Monday, August 01, 2005
Replaying Marxman – and Very Much Appreciating Them
Earlier this month, I mentioned the mainly Irish, Marxist hip-hop group called Marxman. Then, a few days ago, I finally dug up their album, 33 Revolutions per Minute, which I had on a prerecorded tape. (And since I had it on tape instead of CD or vinyl, it was perfectly playable, even though it had been lying outside of the case, on the floor of my closet, for a year.) So, the past couple of days, after sometime without listening to them, I’ve been appreciating and enjoying Marxman again.
For those who don’t know anything about this band, I think this Marxman Biography describes them pretty well (in an introductory sort of way):
Irish/Marxist rap crew whose political stance, in the final analysis, won them more fans than their music did. Yet for a period in late 1992/early 1993, they mounted an effective bid as supercharged champions of ultra left hip-hop. Fronted by rappers MC Hollis and Phrase, plus musician Oisin, if Marxman's political motives weren't already guaranteed to stoke controversy, then the subject of their debut single, "Sad Affair," was. Discussing Northern Ireland, with the explicit statement that English troops should be withdrawn, it was naturally banned by the BBC (one DJ attempted to play it but had it edited from his show - objections were made to the fact that the lyrics contained the IRA slogan "tiocfaidh ar la" - "Our Time Will Come"). Both sides of the debut used traditional Irish instruments (three quarters of the band are Irish-born), and the follow-up, "Ship Ahoy," featured Sinead O'Connor. Other guest contributions have included the tin whistle of traditional Irish musician Davy Spillane. Contrastingly, both 45s emerged on Gilles Peterson's laid-back Talkin' Loud Records empire. A third, "All About Eve," actually made the UK Top 30, before "Ship Ahoy" was re-released. The sleeve of their debut LP confirmed their allegiances: "Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Bobby Sands...and all those who have devoted themselves to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie." Though they were allied to a major (PolyGram Records), Marxman still set their sights on the death of capitalism. In the final analysis, however, there was simply too much analysis.
In response to the above, however, I would say that Marxman’s greatest strength was, precisely, their high degree of analysis. Many rock critics don’t like to hear real revolutionary analysis in the lyrics of "popular" music, but I find it very refreshing and wish there were much more of it.
Although I wouldn’t say that I completely agreed with all of Marxman’s politics or found them entirely consistent. I could quibble with some of Marxman’s Irish nationalism; I never really cared for praises of the IRA (even if the point was, mainly, to emphasize opposition to British policy). And because of the particular kind of Marxist that I am (and the political path that I went down to get here), I probably would agree more often with, say, Crass or Chumbawamba. But, still, for a "rock" or "rap" band, I think Marxman did produce some outstanding commentaries.
I wish I could find more of Marxman’s lyrics on the Internet, but they are hard to come by. Nonetheless, I have found the lyrics to Ship Ahoy (along with an MP3, if anyone wants to download that). So, here are a couple of chunks out of that song – stuff that I also certainly do agree with:
Gone are the days now the ships cease to sail
I don't think so what does a wage entail
Nine of five slavery or a twenty four seven
Most slaves tricked by the promise of a heaven
Controlled by the sound of a whip that goes sack
Mind-forged manacles make sure there's no slack
Think you’re not a slave, cos no whip marks your back
Now a bureaucrat wields the nine tails of the cat
Ain't nothing changed but the weather, the song remains the same...
Ship ahoy, ship ahoy, now they call it perestroika
Mandela's free but still can't stop the slaughter
Now they call it free trade, free choice for all
But the real freedom is ten per cent small
Freedom is a song which the caged bird sings
They keep the key, all we see is the keyring
Fooled by the glisten, but the glisten is not gold
And I will not buy the beads that I'm sold
I stand here stand clear truth be my witness
How many Hitlers before you see the litmus
Test I won't rest, slave who won't behave
And no I want not the freedom of the slave...
For those who don’t know anything about this band, I think this Marxman Biography describes them pretty well (in an introductory sort of way):
Irish/Marxist rap crew whose political stance, in the final analysis, won them more fans than their music did. Yet for a period in late 1992/early 1993, they mounted an effective bid as supercharged champions of ultra left hip-hop. Fronted by rappers MC Hollis and Phrase, plus musician Oisin, if Marxman's political motives weren't already guaranteed to stoke controversy, then the subject of their debut single, "Sad Affair," was. Discussing Northern Ireland, with the explicit statement that English troops should be withdrawn, it was naturally banned by the BBC (one DJ attempted to play it but had it edited from his show - objections were made to the fact that the lyrics contained the IRA slogan "tiocfaidh ar la" - "Our Time Will Come"). Both sides of the debut used traditional Irish instruments (three quarters of the band are Irish-born), and the follow-up, "Ship Ahoy," featured Sinead O'Connor. Other guest contributions have included the tin whistle of traditional Irish musician Davy Spillane. Contrastingly, both 45s emerged on Gilles Peterson's laid-back Talkin' Loud Records empire. A third, "All About Eve," actually made the UK Top 30, before "Ship Ahoy" was re-released. The sleeve of their debut LP confirmed their allegiances: "Marx, Engels, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, Bobby Sands...and all those who have devoted themselves to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie." Though they were allied to a major (PolyGram Records), Marxman still set their sights on the death of capitalism. In the final analysis, however, there was simply too much analysis.
In response to the above, however, I would say that Marxman’s greatest strength was, precisely, their high degree of analysis. Many rock critics don’t like to hear real revolutionary analysis in the lyrics of "popular" music, but I find it very refreshing and wish there were much more of it.
Although I wouldn’t say that I completely agreed with all of Marxman’s politics or found them entirely consistent. I could quibble with some of Marxman’s Irish nationalism; I never really cared for praises of the IRA (even if the point was, mainly, to emphasize opposition to British policy). And because of the particular kind of Marxist that I am (and the political path that I went down to get here), I probably would agree more often with, say, Crass or Chumbawamba. But, still, for a "rock" or "rap" band, I think Marxman did produce some outstanding commentaries.
I wish I could find more of Marxman’s lyrics on the Internet, but they are hard to come by. Nonetheless, I have found the lyrics to Ship Ahoy (along with an MP3, if anyone wants to download that). So, here are a couple of chunks out of that song – stuff that I also certainly do agree with:
Gone are the days now the ships cease to sail
I don't think so what does a wage entail
Nine of five slavery or a twenty four seven
Most slaves tricked by the promise of a heaven
Controlled by the sound of a whip that goes sack
Mind-forged manacles make sure there's no slack
Think you’re not a slave, cos no whip marks your back
Now a bureaucrat wields the nine tails of the cat
Ain't nothing changed but the weather, the song remains the same...
Ship ahoy, ship ahoy, now they call it perestroika
Mandela's free but still can't stop the slaughter
Now they call it free trade, free choice for all
But the real freedom is ten per cent small
Freedom is a song which the caged bird sings
They keep the key, all we see is the keyring
Fooled by the glisten, but the glisten is not gold
And I will not buy the beads that I'm sold
I stand here stand clear truth be my witness
How many Hitlers before you see the litmus
Test I won't rest, slave who won't behave
And no I want not the freedom of the slave...
