“America the Conservative”

So last night I tried really hard to write a post explaining how there needed to be two victories, one at the level of reality (being elected president) and one at the level of the symbolic. The latter ought to be understood in good-old Maoist terms as how we should “properly think” of this victory: what is its meaning? The forces of the Right, predicting a McCain defeat for some time, have already been mustering the resources to try and make it seem, as ridiculous as it sounds to those on the Left, that an Obama victory somehow “proves” the notion that America is a “conservative nation” at heart, whatever that means.

Anyhow, here is a great graphic David Sirota made over at Open Left, juxtaposing Newsweek’s most recent cover with the electoral map from last night:

Here’s a progressive take on the meaning of the victory.

(Via Matthew Yglesias.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

Pipe Wrench Fight

YouTube goes Situationist.

—Bryan Klausmeyer

This Fucking Election

One day! (Via Daring Fireball.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer 1 Comment

Fight the Future

Screw the Economist’s “bold choice” to strike out against the grain by “daringly” choosing to endorse Secret Muslim candidate Barry Hussein “Bomber” Obama less than a week before the election. Wonkette’s editor-in-chief, Ken Layne, has just endorsed John McCain for President. Great stuff. (Via Wonkette.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

Patti Smith in Paris

I’ve had this article sitting minimized in my dock for a day now, and I just got around to reading it. Turns out Paris has both Patti Smith and David Lynch. We need to get them back. If there was a better reason to try to restore America’s reputation on the world stage, I can’t think of it.

The lights are turned up and the empty bar suddenly becomes busy. ‘Let’s see where we can go,’ says Smith. She suggests her ‘small and messy’ hotel room and we head for the lift. From behind a pillar someone tries to get her attention. ‘Hey, Patti! It’s David!’ And there’s the American film director David Lynch, with a smart black suit and a magnificent silver quiff, beaming. ‘How you doing, Patti?’ She smiles. ‘I’ve got a hell of a headache. It’s nice to see you. You look terrific.’ He is excited about the series of concerts she will be giving, starting the following night at one of the oldest churches in Paris, Saint-Germain-des-Prés. ‘It’s cool. I’ll see you there, Patti. Rock on.’

—Mark Elliot Cullen 1 Comment

From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble

Probably one of the best New York Times pieces I’ve read in a long time. The story is about global capitalism and the financial crisis, but what makes it interesting is that they chose to look at how two incredibly discrete cases, five Wisconsin school boards and the New York City M.T.A., were mutually impacted by risky loans from the same Irish bank. As they write:

The trail through Wisconsin, New York and Europe illustrates how this financial crisis has moved around the world so fast, why it is so hard to tame, and why cities, schools and many other institutions will probably struggle for years.

It’s one of those things that’s hard to believe. Given the incredibly “virtual” nature of our present stage of late capitalism, it’s striking to see the various ways in which the chaotic movement of capital, its restlessness and self-destruction, can actually harm people’s lives in very concrete ways, particularly people and/or entities that did not intend to engage in the kind of risk that they found themselves in as a result of capital’s constant ebb-and-flow between wealth creation and wealth destruction.

I wonder if we can even imagine what it would be like if Bush’s social security reform had passed.

(Via A Tiny Revolution.)

—Bryan Klausmeyer

NY Times Book Review: “Revolution in Mind”

A new book on Freud that sounds interesting, although the review is somewhat mixed. The author is George Makari, whom I’ve never heard of before, but apparently he’s the director of Cornell University’s Institute for the History of Psychiatry, although I’ve never heard of that either. Anyhow this bit sounded interesting:

In “Revolution in Mind,” Makari argues that we’ve been blinded to the cultural reach of psychoanalysis by the magnitude of Freud’s stature and the magnetic pull or repulsion of his personality and theories. In Makari’s view, much contemporary discussion about the relevance of psychoanalysis is based on a false choice: “Freud as everlasting genius, or Freud as relic and fraud.” To Makari, the director of Cornell University’s Institute for the History of Psychiatry, this dichotomy is artificial. Instead, he argues, we should look to the rich, polyphonous context that gave birth to and was influenced by the analytic enterprise: “the culture of Kant; the assumptions of Geisteswissenschaft and a European classical education,” along with “evolutionary biology, positivism and Newtonian physics.”

Sounds similar to what I’m trying to do with my own thesis on Lacan.

—Bryan Klausmeyer

It’s a Springsteen Halloween

Bruce Springstreen has come out with a Halloween song and accompanying video. Featuring the tale of the fabled cryptid known as the Jersey Devil. Scarier still, you can even download it for free.

—Mark Elliot Cullen 3 Comments