Il Berlusconi→

The Guardian:

Silvio Berlusconi, who won a general election earlier this month, welcomed the latest evidence of Italy’s leap to the right by declaring: “We are the new Falange.” Although he took care to wrap his remark in a classical context, his choice of words appeared to be a nod and a wink to his most extreme supporters.

… On Monday night, the area around Rome’s city hall rang to chants of “Duce! Duce!”, the term adopted by Italy’s dictator, Benito Mussolini, equivalent to the German “Führer”. Supporters of the new mayor gave the fascist Roman straight-arm salutes.

(Via Daily Kos.)

Bryan Klausmeyer

Barricades of May ’68 Still Divide the French→

This article in the Times makes an interesting point about the legacy of May 1968 forty years later:

Forty years ago, French students in neckties and bobby socks threw cobblestones at the police and demanded that the sclerotic postwar system must change. Today, French students, worried about finding jobs and losing state benefits, are marching through the streets demanding that nothing change at all.

I also thought this remark on Sarkozy was particularly insightful:

“Sarkozy is the first post-’68 president,” Mr. Glucksmann said. “To liquidate ’68 is to liquidate himself.”

It seems to me that, following Kojin Karatani’s advice in Transcritique, the goal of any emancipatory political struggle (starting with the currently benign status of student activism) should not be to admit defeat by relegating one’s activities solely to the pragmatic doldrums of disparate factionalism (environmental, sexual, humanitarian, etc.), nor to consolidate these groups under some “master signifier” group. Instead, the student Left must (re-)formulate the very foundation upon which a larger political goal is to be conceived. I find Karatani’s espousal of New Associationism to be quite compelling, especially in regards to his remark that consumer advocacy and the labor movement are fundamentally one in the same.

May ‘68’s legacy is both inspiring and tragic: it demonstrates the potential for society to mobilize around some regulative idea, yet at the same time it was ultimately a failure to the extent that what was lacking was “fidelity to the Event,” to use Badiou’s terms. However, the movement should not function as a source of nostalgia for the lost radical past, but perhaps as a “regulative idea” in and for itself that could guide us towards some authentic Act. Now the goal should be to provide an economic safety net in the temporal gap between such an Act and what precedes it. New Associationism serves this function and therefore seems worth pursuing.

Bryan Klausmeyer

Keith Richards Dislikes David Bowie→

This is sort of disappointing since I have a lot of respect for both of them.

The Stone, when asked what his favourite Bowie track is, said he is “not a huge fan” of the legendary and pioneering artist. He chooses track Hunky Dory track “Changes” as the only one he can ‘remember’. Richards also goes on to say “It’s all pose. It’s all fucking posing. It’s nothing to do with music. He knows it too. I can’t think of anything else he’s done that would make my hair stand up.”

But when you think about it, I have a hard time imagining Keith Richards enjoying say, Life on Mars or the Berlin trilogy. Still, not even one of the glam rock Ziggy albums? There are some great rock and roll tracks on those albums.

Eh, in the end it’s not really anyone’s business.

Mark Elliot Cullen 1 Comment

Working Life (High and Low)→

A great piece of journalism by Stephen Greenhouse in the New York Times on the ever-worse working conditions for many Americans. (Via A Tiny Revolution.)

Bryan Klausmeyer

The Phenomenal Slavoj Zizek→

Terry Eagleton has just written a quasi-humorous book review of Zizek’s In Defense of Lost Causes for the Times Literary Supplement. It accomplishes its task in making Zizek seem like a psychopath. This, I thought, was a great remark:

[Zizek] was, he tells us, tempted to suggest for the dust jacket of one of his books: “In his free time, Žižek likes to surf the internet for child pornography and teach his small son how to pull the legs off spiders”.

For a decent summary of Zizek’s overall project and a few good jokes, I suggest reading this in its entirety. (Via The Weblog.)

Bryan Klausmeyer

Bush Made Permanent→

Paul Krugman on John McCain’s proposed tax plan:

The McCain tax plan contains three main elements.

First, Mr. McCain proposes making almost all of the Bush tax cuts, which are currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2010, permanent. (He proposes reinstating the inheritance tax, albeit at a very low rate.)

Second, he wants to eliminate the alternative minimum tax, which was originally created to prevent the wealthy from exploiting tax loopholes, but has begun to hit the upper middle class.

Third, he wants to sharply reduce tax rates on corporate profits.

… But here’s the thing: the reason the Bush tax cuts are set to expire is that the Bush administration engaged in a game of deception. It put an expiration date on the tax cuts, which it never intended to honor, as a way to hide those tax cuts’ true cost.

… If truth be told, the McCain tax plan doesn’t seem to embody any coherent policy agenda. Instead, it looks like a giant exercise in pandering — an attempt to mollify the G.O.P.’s right wing, and never mind if it makes any sense.

Krugman has obviously forgotten that “a giant exercise in pandering” is a “coherent policy agenda.”

Bryan Klausmeyer

U.S. Weighing Readiness for Military Action Against Iran→

My opinion on the issue of a possible war with Iran has always been somewhat dismissive, mainly because, to me at least, it seems so absurd: the U.S. has failed to achieve any real objective in both Afghanistan and Iraq, unless that objective was to waste trillions of dollars on promoting terrorism in the Middle East through invasion and destruction. Consequently, my assumption has been that a lot of what has been/is coming out of the White House and the Pentagon is little more than empty posturing to secure some sort of “soft power” — this, I think, has been the basic strategy behind the issue of Iran’s nuclear “status.”

To my surprise, the WaPo article seems to suggest that the Bush administration is seriously considering an offensive against Tehran. I suppose this isn’t surprising when putting their entire eight-year legacy into full spectrum: close to a decade of what would otherwise be considered hilarious folly, if it wasn’t so tragically horrifying. An invasion of Iran, in this context, would be consistent with their past record of abysmal failure and stupefying idiocy. It would, like all of the others, also make a great parting gift for future generations, ensuring that money that could have otherwise been well-spent on utopian Communist objectives, like social welfare and education, will instead be funneled into a giant, atemporal black hole mired in the miasma of empty nationalist rhetoric (e.g., “support our troops,” “freedom isn’t free”).

So, my hope is that it’s more empty posturing, but that kind of optimism hasn’t exactly panned out in any fruitful way when it comes to expectations from the Bush administration.

Bryan Klausmeyer

Style→

Wise words from Dr. Sinthome over at Larval Subjects on the often impenetrable, but perhaps unnecessarily so, writing of various thinkers and theorists:

Among the post-structuralists, at least, style was a way of subverting the metaphysics of presence and identity by drawing attention to the differential, the play of the signifier, our inability to pin down meaning due to the inherent polysemy of language.

… The veil in writing either produces a violent reaction of rejection or a sort of hypnotic attachment in the reader like a moth drawn to a flame. On the other hand, if the effect of hypnotic attachment is successfully produced, if we become convinced that the text hides a secret, we become locked in a power relationship with text and authorship where the author is now a master containing the truth of a secret, and the reader is perpetually inadequate, always close to the elusive truth of the secret of late Heidegger, late Lacan, Deleuze, Derrida, etc., while also always falling short.

… Does this mean I cease to read such figures or reject them out of hand? No. I do believe they hide secrets. However, if Badiou has contributed one thing to Continental thought, if one thing lasts in the case of Badiou, I hope it is the rejection of stylistic virtuousity [sic]… We live, we work, we must integrate superhuman bodies of information. Perhaps a little consideration is in order.

Bryan Klausmeyer

Message Force Multipliers→

Jodi Dean writing in reference to the recent New York Times piece that details the Bush administration’s manipulation of public opinion on the Iraq War through former senior military officers:

Likewise, the Bush administration knows how to tie together seemingly stable meanings in ways that rely on these meanings, disrupt them, and generate affects from the tension surrounding the combustion of meaning and non-meaning. One of the most noticed early examples of this was the term “axis of evil.” John Stewart mentioned another term last night “non-Iraqi terrorists responsible for 9/11.” At any rate, the idea of multiplying message forces is useful because it fully acknowledges that the message is the carrier of a force, an affective force. The goal isn’t just ‘getting our message out there.’ That’s so old school, as if people read, think, consider, and understand. The goal is spreading and intensifying the message force. The generals were excellent vehicles for this spreading and distributing. Message force genbots.

Bryan Klausmeyer

Steve Fraser, The Two Gilded Ages→

Tomdispatch featuring an article by Steven Fraser:

“Shareholder democracy” and the “ownership society” are admittedly more public relations slogans than anything tangible. Nonetheless, you can’t ignore the fact that, during the second Gilded Age, half of all American families became investors in the stock market. Dentists and engineers, mid-level bureaucrats and college professors, storekeepers and medical technicians — people, that is, from the broad spectrum of middle class life who once would have viewed the New York Stock Exchange with a mixture of awe, trepidation, and genuine distaste, and warily kept their distance — now jumped head first into the marketplace carrying with them all their febrile hopes for social elevation.

(Via I cite.)

Bryan Klausmeyer

Florida’s Holy License Plate→

If I can get an “I Don’t Believe” license plate that funds secular charities, I’ll be fine with this.

Mark Elliot Cullen