A Proper Subject (Negri's Multitude a multitool).

Finding a proper subject that can incorporate all instances of social oppression and repression but would also properly respond to the very same attempts at social coercion by power and domination would be an absolute revolutionary body. If this body also has the able to analyze his/her position and relationship with power and domination and then act against it, then this body’s struggle would be for absolute freedom. Does this individual exist or is it rather that all subjects are affected by domination and power and therefore all subjects have their own monopoly on acting out? These subjects could then unite on their individual experience but also realize that one’s own goals cannot be reached without collective action. Is there a chance that such a social being does exist or is it simply an ill-fated attempt to include to many social factors and different kinds of social injustice upon one body? The validity of rounding down to the lowest common dominator regarding peoples who are most oppressed by a global system in an attempt to unite all bodies under oppression is also dangerous because it could potentially fracture and pacify movements. Similarly to Third-Worldism were both European and North American radicals in the late twentieth century exhausted all their efforts in hopes of uniting their struggle with post-colonial uprisings throughout the Third World, so too could making a movement based on a detached and abstract struggle for oppressed peoples of the World pacify social movements in the West. Mass movements turned into underground terrorist organization that acted out in solidarity with movements beyond the realm of the local because the lack of a coherent theory and praxis, as internal activities mystified their own relationship and reproduction of power and domination. This unity was not based on a mutual struggle for a common goal. Rather, European and North American radicals lost sight of their own struggle and carelessly attempted to see their own reality in relation to struggles in Africa, as in Algeria, Palestine, imprisoned political activists, or Chile to sight a few. These struggles are connected in a sense because it is the same bio-political power structure or economic interests that have constructed these uneven social structures, but to say that these struggles are the same or that subjects across the globe are the same is a grand oversimplification. Rather, these struggles are connected and they share similar qualities but their difference is in how domination and power affects their lives and inhibits their movement. The way that power and domination attempts to control different subjects is the same but the results and reactions are different. Can we see their similarities and potential for unity in a struggle against domination and power that interacts differently with subjects across the globe and is it potentially more effective to embrace their difference without losing unification?

If a certain subject is more able to struggle than another it is because this subject understands its position and relationship to power and domination and acts against, but also has a goal or vision beyond its current state and relationship to the world around itself. This struggle does not pertain to any certain nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or ideology. Rather, the subject that understands and builds itself up on comprehending its surroundings and effects on the person will have a better chance for change and motivation for creating change. If power and domination no longer is exercised solely upon subjects from above by a fixed sovereign power that could only threaten its subjects with death, then power has taken on a new form that also guarantees life, and what remains is a struggle for subjects to decide how to live this life. Also, with power and domination being present in a subject’s relationship to death and life the subject’s reproduction of life is then a confrontation. The subject’s own control over life and death and how this life is going to be lived, qualitatively, is what power and the subject are in conflict over. “Domination and power are clever: they reigned over life because they understood that it had to be divided up—into work, emotions, the public, the private—in order to be conquered. And the modern idea of the state has operated for centuries in the same way, through division and fear. From this point of view, the recomposition of life was fundamental: one of the slogans of the 1970s was “We want it all.” This is what is important: everything”. As domination and control have gained control over not only death by also life and the reproduction of life, the subject must fight for the quality of life because under bio-politics death and life are both guaranteed. The struggle is no longer for survival but the quality of life. Life being under the control of power and domination production has spilled over into all aspects of society and are no longer contained within the factory. “Immaterial goods” such as knowledge, communication, and relationships are bound to the economy and therefore take on an economic form. Also, the production process has taken on a social character and is integrated into the very bios. Life itself has become a product and simultaneously a part of the production process of material goods, immaterial goods, and social relationships. Michel Foucault’s “bio-power” and understanding power in a complex and non-centralized top-down relationship between institutions and subjects has become central to understanding not only social creation of subjects but also their power and knowledge of self in regards to power and domination. Subjects are in power but yet victims of power and domination. Bio-power is a source of power that integrates bodies and life into its own production process. “The latter would not have been possible without the controlled insertion of bodies into the machinery of production,” and thus a circular production and reproduction process is put into practice. Within the very bios, power and domination is injected and is internalized by subjects who now identify themselves as power and domination because they are no longer on the outside and but act accordingly to power and domination. Foucault discusses the entry of life into history and therefore understands the entirety of humankind’s life as an entry, “into the order of knowledge and power, into the sphere of political techniques”. Bio-political power is exercised over life and power no longer controls subjects by threatening them with death. It is with the power of life that power and domination control subjects and a subject’s quality of life. Foucault, like Negri, claim the classical notion of freedom and classical juridical-political institutions are incapable of realizing humankind’s needs and desires. The, “right to rediscover what one is and all that one can be, this “right”—which the classical judicial system was utterly incapable of comprehending—was the political response to all these new procedures of power which did not derive, either, from the traditional right of sovereignty”. The old sovereign power with a top-down power relationship did not take into consideration the needs and desires of its subjects but under bio-politics and “bio-history” a subject’s humanity was recognized and with it power and domination gained control through the subject’s own participation. Is there a subject that can properly interact and confront power and domination even though it is integrated within bio-politics?

Negri’s Multitude does not derive its meaning from the people nor does it derive its power solely from Marx’s class binary. In a postmodern world things are no longer as simple as they may appear, nor is it as simple as a binary that divides the world into two distinct class based on modern concepts. Rather, “the fracturing of modern identities, however, does not prevent the singularities from acting in common”. The Multitude is not the people therefore it is not restricted to the modern idea of democracy, freedom, or liberation. The Multitude embraces difference and difference’s ability to act in unison for social change. The Multitude in this respect, “is meant to re-propose Marx’s political project of class struggle. The Multitude from this perspective is based not so much on the current empirical existence of the class but rather on its conditions of possibility”. Negri asks use to see the Multitude as a new arena of possibilities in struggle rather than as a definition. The Multitude is a new vehicle for change rather than a new term or category to merely place a certain subject in struggle. “Working-class is fundamentally a restricted concept based on exclusions…The other exploited classes might also struggle against capital [and power and domination] but only subordinated to the leadership of the working-class. Whether or not this is was the case in the past, the concept of multitude rests on the fact that it is not true today. The concept rests, in other words, on the claim that there is no political priority among the forms of labor: all forms of labor are today socially productive, they produce in common, and share too a common potential to resist the domination of capital [power]”. And so, can Spivak’s Subaltern and Chow’s Native, speak and act within Negri’s Multitude? If the Multitude rests on the fact that it is not a category but a vehicle for action then it would seem that there is a strong possibility for the missing native and subaltern to act and then speak on their own accord without the permission of Europe.

Negri is not asking to hear the subject speak and he is not attempting to understand the native in her indigenous state of mind. Negri is most interested in their potential to act out against power and domination whether that power is oppressing the subject through Euro-centrism or a post-colonial decentralized power structure. “Alienation was always a poor concept for understanding the exploitation of factory workers, but here in a realm that many still do not want to consider labor—affective labor, as well as knowledge production and symbolic production—alienation does provide a useful conceptual key for understanding exploitation”. With bio-politics and bio-political production of domination within all aspects of life the struggle for freedom is permeated in all of life and all social spaces. Critical of Western scholarship and Western liberation ideology Spivak through Derrida deconstructs European identity which sets itself apart and defines itself on “the Other”. Spivak is not worried that such a deconstruction of identity will leave everything without an identity. Rather, it is not a general problem, “but a European one”. The European crisis of identity is based on the collapse of an old system which existed on the binary of inside and outside, the periphery and center, and first world vs. third world. Spivak points out that in a post-colonial world class-consciousness or “race-consciousness” in their historical meaning lose their validity as libratory concepts. In the post-colonial world the Western understanding of the native or subaltern will still be constructed on assumptions and will still, “cohere with the work of imperialist subject-constitution, mingling epistemic violence with the advancement of learning and civilization. And the subaltern woman will be as mute as ever”.

Negri as Spivak understands that classical Marxism is based on notions of backward and progressive that place Europe in one category and the Other within its own category, but with Negri’s Multitude maybe the subaltern has a chance to act and would later then be able to speak. No longer trapped within the binary of European and Other but in the Multitude vs. Empire the Subaltern is not, in an almost preordained fashion, ignored and automatically silenced through Western scholars’ inability in opening up space beyond imperialist subjects. Also, the subaltern as a category of “Other” within colonial and post-colonial categories remains speechless for this subject has been socially constructed to remain a mute. No matter if one claims to support the subaltern in her quest to speak from either the left or the right the sympathizer will fail because they still view her as a colonized body. The subaltern from its creation is meant to be speechless, a body that represents oppression for others to speak onto and for. Chow, similarly to Spivak, points out, “the problem of the native is also the problem of modernity and modernity’s relation to “endangered authenticities”. The question to ask is not whether we can return the native to her authentic origin, but what our fascination with the native means in terms of the irreversibility of modernity”. As for art much is similar to politics of social change, “artists with famous names incorporated into their “creativity” the culture and art work of the peoples of the non-West. But while Western artists continued to receive attention specifically categorized in time, place, and name, the treatment of the works of non-western peoples continues to partake of systemic patterns of exploitation and distortion”. And so, the category of Subaltern, but not the Subaltern being a constant victim of exploitation and totally subjugated by the West, it possible for the Subaltern to act beyond its category and be included as the Multitude. Then the Multitude will begin to act in common with other oppressed sectors of a newly defined class dynamic which includes non-traditional sectors of labor as described above.

The Multitude has the ability to incorporate more sectors of social life and include more subjects because Negri has redefined the working-class in relation to innovation within production, reproduction of labor, and with bio-political production. All of society has become integrated within the production process therefore more than just the classical working-class can radically and effectively resist power and domination. Now that all of society is integrated within the process of production the time between free-time and work has become blurred and so too has the category of who is a worker and who is not, “and in turn the struggles of each sector tend to become the struggle of all”. Negri describes that the “Other” has become obsolete within the newly created global anthropology. “Now the decline of the figure of the peasant as other and consequently of modern anthropology, as many contemporary anthropologists formulate it, is to abandon the traditional structure of otherness altogether and discover instead a concept of cultural difference based on a notion of singularity. In other words, the “others” of classical and modern anthropology, the primitive and the peasant, were conceived in their difference from the modern European self”. Negri suggests that anthropology or the understanding of global cultures can no longer be compared to the west and therefore each culture should be understood as a singularity. “Cultural difference must be conceived in itself, as singularity, without any such foundation in the other,” and by recognizing a cultures singularity it no longer is defined upon the binary of West and non-West. These singularities share common qualities and from these qualities subjects are able to act in common. “We share bodies…we share life on this Earth…we share capitalist regimes of production and exploitation; we share common dreams of a better future. Our communication, collaboration, and cooperation, furthermore, not only are based on the common that exists but also in turn produce the common. We make and remake the common we share every day”.

Chuh, like Negri, views subjects in a singular fashion and understands the potential for singular subjects united on a common ground to oppose domination and power because they share a common enemy that interacts with each singularity but differently. Though each subject is different they share qualities and share a common enemy. “In conceiving of multiple kinds of differences, we must of course recognize that they do not exist independently of each other. Rather, they converge and conflict and thus participate in shaping each other. And it is through those contacts, those meetings, that discursive and knowledge limitations can be recognized and interrogated. In the attempt to negotiate the confusion caused by the meeting of differently configured subjectivities and identity formations lays the catalyst for political mobilization”. And so, it is not a matter of feminist and feminism needing to embody all forms of oppression before it can act against domination and power nor is it Negri’s job to make Marx’s working-class to include all oppressed peoples. The Multitude is not a term that needs to incorporate every oppressed subject it is rather a term that understands that the difference is what makes the Multitude possible.
In Bill Readings, The Deconstruction of Politics, Readings, as Spivak, recognize the limits of deconstruction and the danger of deconstructing politics to a point where no subject has any political agency. “Deconstruction can produce no simple model for political action, as Spivak has recognized…Therefore, deconstruction cannot be translated into the literal, either as model or as strategy. As I shall argue, the force of deconstruction is the extent to which it forces a rethinking of the terms of the political”. It is precisely this that Negri has done with the Multitude in relation to bio-politics, division of labor, and the production and reproduction of capitalism (power and domination). Though Negri might not call himself a deconstructionist the redefining of capital’s negation to include new sectors of humankind into the working-class or the Multitude has allowed a “rethinking” of political categories. “It is not easy for any of us to stop measuring the world against the standard of Europe, but the concept of the Multitude requires it of us. Embrace it”.

It is not that Negri’s subject embodies all oppressed masses or their unique situation. Rather, the multitude is a flexible term that morphs to different singularities and different subjects in order to create a common goal. From different points the Multitude comes together in reaction to domination and power and is not something that is created or mechanically put together like Lenin’s vanguard, the Multitudes arise from unique situations. Lenin claimed that the highest stage of capitalism was imperialism and by doing so Marxist-Leninism remains within the binary of periphery and center, colonial and colonized subject, European and the other, Therefore Leninism looks for the power to change society within an outdated revolutionary body. It is therefore impossible for certain strands of Marxism to even recognize the Multitude as a more advanced subject that goes beyond the classical meaning of working-class to include more singularities in an attempt to attack domination and power from different social spaces.

Women subjects whether they are Subaltern, workers, peasants, first world, or post-colonial, the Multitude is a term that recognizes their singularity. Through a reconstruction of their meaning in relation to other subjects within the Multitude all these singular subjects are able to act in unison from different points against power and domination. Negri’s subject allows for Spivak’s subaltern to speak through action and is not interested in the subaltern’s relation to Europe nor is the Multitude interested in the native outside what the native itself wants. Also, the native may be a mystification and socially constructed term placed upon peoples who are viewed as outsiders or non-European, therefore they do not exist except in defining what Europeans are not. The native is a way for the European scholar to search for a true voice of the non-European but this division exists solely for Europeans to explain themselves. Negri’s Multitude is not interested in defining any subject in such a modern binary and so the Multitude too recognizes that the Native is an improper category that does not exist beyond the European and non-European binary. Inside and outside Europe there exist singular subjects that are bound together through bio-political social-production and on their own accord struggle against domination and power together.




Sources:

Chuh, K. Imagine Otherwise on Asian Americanist Critique. Durham, Duke University Press, 2003.

Foucault, M. The History of Sexuality. New York, Random House Inc., 1990.

Hardt, M. & Negri, A. Multitude, War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York, Penguin Press, 2004.

Negri, A. Negri on Negri. New York, Routledge, 2004.

Nelson, C. & Grossbery, L. ed. Spivak, Gayatri C. Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. University of Illinois, 1988.

Waters, L. ed. Readings, B. The Deconstruction of Politics. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

Bammer & Angeliak, ed. Chow, Rey. Where Have All the Natives Gone? Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1994.

CRITICAL MASS!

WHEN: Friday 25th @ 4:30pm

WHERE: Downtown Center City Park, Elm st. and Friendly Ave.



WHY: Greensboro city is not bike friendly enough, more bike lanes, the Spring Garden bike lane is not a turning lane, gas prices are to high, poor Mass Transit, better bus lines, help create an alternative means of transportation in Greensboro!

NOTICE: please wear bike helmets, be safe, take responsibility for yourself, respect fellow bikers, and make it fun!

MAKE GREENSBORO DREAMSBORO!

To Union or Not Union, that is the question.

Interview with Swedish communist group Kämpa tillsammans about "faceless resistance" and workplace organisation.


M: What is Kämpa tillsammans?
KT: We call ourselves a writing collective, where we have discussions together and a collective signature. What we are occupied with is class struggle theory.

M: What made you start the group?
Initially it was because we put together a pamphlet with texts from the autonomist movement in Western Europe. We called the pamphlet Kämpa tillsammans, but as a group we did not have a name. We weren't really a group, more like an editorial board. We were interviewed by the danish magazine Autonomi and they referred to us as Kämpa tillsammans. When we some time later felt the need to write something by and express ourselves, we used that name.

M: What questions and discussions where you interested in when you started writing as a group?
The first reason was to try to explain the crisis that occurred in Sweden in the beginning of the 90s. To understand it and then understand our place in the world, where there were possibilities and where there were no possibilities. When we wrote the pamphlet "Samma fiender, samma kamp" (Same enemies, same struggle) we suspected that struggles outside of the unions would increase, and it was in these struggles that we saw a future for radical worker struggle. However, we did not have sufficient experience of working life to conduct a deeper analysis. That came later.

M: Why was it that you focused on the struggle outside the unions?
It was connected more or less with where we were in life, that we were at the workplace. After being involved with struggles outside our immediate interests, like in single issue campaigns and such, I think that when we started jobs at workplaces where there where existing struggles we thought, "this is where it's happening". It was from there that the need for a lot of things came from.

It was this struggle that we recognized would be of use at our workplace from day to day. That we focused on the struggle outside of the unions rested on the fact that we saw very few opportunities with working with the unions, even if we viewed them quite pragmatically. But it was the non-union struggle that functioned today. Some of us even tried to work from within the unions, because of our leftist activist background, but realized quite quickly that the possibilities for struggle there were quite poor, it was not productive.

M: In one of your earlier texts you introduced the term "faceless resistance" to denote non-union struggle. Why did you choose this term and what do you mean by it?
We wanted an expression or a term that tied together the various informal and immediate class struggle practices that existed: go-slow, sabotage, work-to-rule and theft. We wanted a term that tied together these cases and then we started using "faceless resistance", because the struggle is to a large extent invisible, it is not out in the open. Later on, people have developed it to include masked protests, we had that in mind ourselves, but never sad anything about it. We saw that there were parallels with militant street struggles in the workplace, that there were points of connection.

M: In the text where you introduced faceless resistance you also started a form of workers investigation, where you describe daily life on your workplace and the informal struggles occurring. What was workers investigation all about?
The point with workers investigation is partly to show to others that the struggles are there and existing, and show how they occur. But also to go beyond your own situation and put these struggles in a larger perspective. The analysis, which we actually conducted in "Same enemies, same struggle", is that what is happening in the workplaces is class struggle. Struggle is the natural condition, and not, like it is so often described in Sweden, the exception.

The investigation is conducted while you are working, it is not something you just write about afterwards, to see possibilities and obstacles, see paths in the concrete struggle. A large part of the rational for the investigations is the break room discussions with our workmates.

M: What were the reactions to the articles about faceless resistance and how were the workers investigations received?
In the beginning it was very frustrating, something I've spotted when I look back at our contributions from that time, a whole lot of people did not understand what we meant. At the same time it was received relatively well by people that were also involved with an independent and direct workplace struggles, e.g.union militants inside both LO and SAC (the social democratic and anarcho-syndicalist unions), who directly saw the main arguments. Then it took awhile.

There was a small boom here in Malmö locally when a lot of activists wrote their own workplace report and interviewed each other. Job-talk was something you sat and chatted to each other about at the pub. Gradually the term faceless resistance, which could have had another name, it is perhaps not the best name, and investigations have gained more of a foothold. Partly through what we have written, talked and lectured about, but also a lot by itself.

We have heard that people have recognized themselves in the texts and had an "aha moment". It is quite similar, when we progressed in our internal discussions, to the aha moment we had about what class struggle entails and how it appears in the day to day struggle.

M: There were two types of critique leveled against the term faceless resistance. The first type was directed at the description of what was seemingly an individual struggle, that this is just something you do as an individual and that the collective dimension was missing.
That critique has by and large disappeared afterwards, as we have stressed that faceless resistance often is collective. And partly, it is the case that it is individual, and of course it can be just that. Extra visits to the toilet is perhaps a bit hard to be a collective action. But we have always stressed that you work slowly collectively. This has started to get through to people.

M: The other type of critique is that this is all just a struggle on a micro level, the small, rather than on a macro level, the larger level. Instead of discussing large open conflicts, strikes and wage negotiations, you have looked at the small struggles around the coffee breaks and to slow down the pace of work.
It is partly about, which perhaps was not made clear from the beginning, that this is a form of the politics of small steps. That workers together in the worker collective also create the worker collective. It is through the small struggles that you are certain to win that you get a shared experience of struggle in order to take on larger struggles. It is not just the experience gained, that collective struggles are formed out of nothing, without this has to be linked to that there already is a strong collective.

The Indian group Kammunist Kranti did have a few interesting lines of thought, which inspired us. They wrote and told about how it developed when they were taking part in very big struggles, with tens of thousands involved, without recourse to the large and open conflict such as going on strike, that one instead stayed at work and did a go-slow. Their example shows that it works when even a lot of people are involved. They were also a refutation of the critique that faceless resistance is only possible to do among privileged workers, which is completely mad, because privileged workers have other tactics/means to use.

M: In some of your later texts you have talked about how informal workplace collectives form and develop. But you have also looked at the other side, on the bosses discussions on various management theories. What can be learnt from such?
Our latest texts have gone into further detail on how faceless resistance is organized and formed at the work places. But also how it is countered. We felt that it was not sufficient anymore to just describe how workplace resistance looked like and happened, that was just repeating ourselves.

Workplace reports became after a while rather similar, the same thing was described over and over. So instead we tried to describe how it was that a worker collective was established and started. About the connection between that you are pushed together at work and just work together, it is the only reason you are together, and that it is there you learn to know each other, build trust and can take on larger struggles. It becomes very clear that it is a collective struggle. But it is not a spontaneous struggle, it is not about spontaneity. Faceless resistance is often very organized, and not at all especially spontaneous, I think.

M: In your texts focus has been on workplace struggles. Have you discussed the struggles taking place outside of the workplaces. What collectives, needs and desires they express?
No, we have a strong focus on the workplaces. We have ourselves been involved in other struggles in other ways. However, we have been hesitant to make conclusions and write about thing that we don´t feel we get a very good grip on.

M: You were involved in starting the Vår Makt (Our Power) conferences in Malmo. What is the rationale for them?
They are class struggle conferences where there have been quite diverse sometimes, class struggle and above and beyond else, workplace struggles. At the conferences everything from the implications of oil in the Middle East and urban architecture, to very concrete tracks and workshops with people working within the same trade/sector. I hope that the Vår Makt-meetings have set the mood and helped towards build what I see is the sensible focus now existing within parts of the left on workplace struggle.

M: What kind of changes have happened, from the 90s single issue oriented activist-movement to today's movement? What is it that is different with today's discussions?
Today it is more focused on people's needs, both in stuff like file sharing, fare-dodging and workplace related things like how get more leisure time, how you can get more out of work and how you can handle demands from the unemployment center better. The politics of today is more focused on our own needs. And it about you setting the agenda yourself, without just being upset over what happens all around the world.

M: What was worth bringing with you from the activist-movement to the class struggle in our day to day life?
The conflict perspective. When you come to a workplace, e.g., you assume from the beginning that the boss, management and the business is the enemy. Partly that and partly the anonymity. That you're not interested in any fair fight, you can draw parallels to people confronting nazis who never just fight one and one, without entering those fights that you can win and do the best to win them. Also a form of affinity group organizing, where you organize with your work mates. Where you see the need in a workplace to stick together fucking tight, solve problems internally and back each other up when conflicts arise to begin with. If the conflicts where chosen wisely can be discussed internally later.

M: Self-investigations have now spread, faceless resistance has become an accepted concept within the non-union and extra-parliamentary left, and Vår Makt-conferences have started to spread to other places. What is the next step, in your opinion, to progress with these concepts and practices?
I think making a few investigations now will show where the road ahead lies. Then there are a few problems with the building of a strong worker collective that we need to overcome.

The first is how they at all should be founded, since a lot of people have jobs where there are very few people or you are even all on your own, such as truckers, au pairs or the unemployed. With the internet or other spaces to meet you can build strong workers' collectives even though the employed do not meet, where the first step is not taken in the organization of work, that you have to be brought together at the workplace. How is it possible under conditions like this to build strong workplace struggles?

Secondly, when we have a workers' collective, how can we lead an offensive worker struggles even when we are not threatened (with closure for example). When there are militant struggles that a lot of people participate in, it is often workplaces are threatened in some way, threatened with closure or re-organization. And then it is often too late. That is one problem I see that we are facing.

I also think that another problem is to have a worker collective that can be differentiated sometimes, you don't have to have one demand and one struggle, without having diversity, that you can support other peoples' activities. Such a worker collective needs be inclusive, and not succumb to those divisions that society enforce on us.

The interview originally appeared on Motkraft.net, August 2006.

Translation by Khawaga and Kim Müller

Obama's War.

Jeremy Scahill: Despite Antiwar Rhetoric, Clinton-Obama Plans Would Keep US Mercenaries, Troops in Iraq for Years to Come

On Democracy Now: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/2/28/jeremy_scahill_despite_anti_war_rhetoric

Jeremy Scahill reports Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will not “rule out” using private military companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq. Obama also has no plans to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009. Despite their antiwar rhetoric, both Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton have adopted the congressional Democratic position that would leave open the option of keeping tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq for many years.



Guest:

Jeremy Scahill, Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill joins us now in our firehouse studio. Author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His latest article is “Obama’s Mercenary Position.” It appears in the upcoming issue of The Nation magazine.

JUAN GONZALEZ: “A senior foreign policy adviser to leading Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has told The Nation [magazine] that if elected Obama will not ‘rule out’ using private security companies like Blackwater Worldwide in Iraq.” That’s the lead sentence from a new article by independent journalist Jeremy Scahill. The adviser to Obama also said that the Illinois Senator does not plan to sign on to legislation that seeks to ban the use of these forces in US war zones by January 2009, when a new president will be sworn in.

AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill joins us now in the firehouse studio, is author of the bestselling book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His latest article in The Nation is called “Obama’s Mercenary Position.” It appears in this issue of The Nation.

Welcome to Democracy Now! So, what did you find out, Jeremy?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I started looking at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s Iraq plans, and one of the things that I discovered is that both of them intend to keep the Green Zone intact. Both of them intend to keep the current US embassy project, which is slated to be the largest embassy in the history of the world. I mean, I think it’s 500 CIA operatives alone, a thousand personnel. And they’re also going to keep open the Baghdad airport indefinitely. And what that means is that even though the rhetoric of withdrawal is everywhere in the Democratic campaign, we’re talking about a pretty substantial level of US forces and personnel remaining in Iraq indefinitely.

In the case of Barack Obama, I wanted to focus in on what his position is on private military contractors, particularly armed ones like those that work for Blackwater. And the reason I focus on Obama instead of Hillary on this is because Barack Obama has actually been at the forefront of addressing the mercenary issue in the Congress. In February of 2007—this was way before the Nisour Square massacre, where Blackwater forces killed seventeen Iraqis and wounded twenty others—in February of 2007, Barack Obama sponsored legislation in the Senate that sought to expand US law so that—

JUAN GONZALEZ: This is just after he got into the Senate, right?

JEREMY SCAHILL: This was in 2007. This was a year ago. And so, this was a major piece of legislation by Obama, and it was done in concert with Representative David Price from North Carolina in the House, a Democrat. And Obama’s legislation basically said we realize that there are loopholes in the law that allow Blackwater and other contractors to essentially get away with murder, and so what we need to do is make it so that US law applies to not only Defense Department contractors, but State Department contractors like Blackwater. If they murder someone in Iraq, we can prosecute them back in the United States.

Now, that legislation hasn’t passed at this point, and it may never pass. I mean, the fact is that the Bush administration actually issued a statement opposing that legislation, and I want to read to you what Bush said. He said that law would have, quote, “intolerable consequences for crucial and necessary national security activities and operations."

And so, I started to look at this reality. Obama is saying he wants to keep the embassy. Obama is saying he wants to keep the Green Zone. Obama is saying he wants to keep the Baghdad airport. Who’s guarding US diplomats right now at this largest embassy in the history of the world? Well, it’s Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp; it’s these private security companies.

And so, I started talking to some of the Obama campaign people. And it really took days for them to actually get back to me and provide someone to talk to me on the record. I started doing interviews with some of his people, and they said, “We can’t answer these questions.” And so, finally I talked to a senior foreign policy person, who said, yes, the reality is that we can’t rule out, we won’t rule out, using private security forces. And I said, well, Senator Obama has identified them as unaccountable, and the reality is, his law may not pass before he takes office, if he wins, and so Obama could potentially be using forces that he himself has identified as both unaccountable and above the law. Long pause. Right.

And so, the situation right now is that Obama seems to have painted himself into a corner on this issue, because the reality is, Obama’s people are saying, well, we’re going to increase funding to the State Department’s Diplomatic Security division. They say, ideally, the people we want to be guarding US diplomats in Iraq will be fully burdened US government employees who are accountable to US law. But the irony right now is that the war machine is so radically privatized that there are about 1,100 mercenaries doing diplomatic security in Iraq right now. There are only 1,400 diplomatic security agents in the entire world, and only thirty-six of them are in Iraq.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, let me ask you, in terms of this whole issue of mercenaries in general, I mean, are we facing the possibility that a Democratic president would in essence reduce the troops but increase the mercenaries?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, Juan, this is a great question, and it was one of the reasons why I started looking at this. I want to read you a quote here. Joseph Schmitz, who’s one of the leading executives in the Blackwater empire, recently said this: “There is a scenario where we could as a government, the United States, could pull back the military footprint, and there would then be more of a need for private contractors to go in.” So apparently these contractors see a silver lining in that scenario. You know, the reality is, right now, that these forces are one of the most significant threats to Iraqis in the country. I mean, we’ve seen scores of incidents where they’ve shot at them, etc.

But as you know, Juan, this is a bipartisan industry. I mean, Bill Clinton really gave rise to this phenomenon of the military contractors. We know that Dick Cheney was running Halliburton in the ’90s. Who was giving Dick Cheney all of those contracts? Well, it was Bill Clinton. And the Democrats have long been good for the war contracting industry. There’s a reason why Hillary Clinton is the number one recipient of campaign contributions from the defense industry. Number two is John McCain. Obama is number four. Chris Dodd is ahead of him. It’s very interesting. It’s a bipartisan phenomenon.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s talk beyond the mercenaries, beyond the military contractors, about their policies in Iraq. I wanted to turn to an excerpt of Tuesday night’s Democratic debate in Cleveland, Ohio. This is NBC News Washington bureau chief and moderator of Meet the Press, Tim Russert.

TIM RUSSERT: You both have pledged a withdrawal of troops from Iraq. You both have said you’d keep a residual force there to protect our embassy, to seek out al-Qaeda, to neutralize Iran. If the Iraqi government said, “President Clinton or President Obama, you’re pulling out your troops this quickly? You’re going to be gone in a year, but you’re going to leave a residual force behind? No. Get out. Get out now. If you don’t want to stay and protect us, we’re a sovereign nation. Go home now,” will you leave?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, if the Iraqi government says that we should not be there, then we cannot be there. This is a sovereign government, as George Bush continually reminds us.

Now, I think that we can be in a partnership with Iraq to ensure the stability and the safety of the region, to ensure the safety of Iraqis and to meet our national security interests. But in order to do that, we have to send a clear signal to the Iraqi government that we are not going to be there permanently, which is why I have said that as soon as I take office, I will call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we will initiate a phased withdrawal, we will be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. We will give ample time for them to stand up, to negotiate the kinds of agreements that will arrive at the political accommodations that are needed. We will provide them continued support.

But it is important for us not to be held hostage by the Iraqi government in a policy that has not made us more safe, that’s distracting us from Afghanistan, and is costing us dearly, not only and most importantly in the lost lives of our troops, but also the amount of money that we are spending that is unsustainable and will prevent us from engaging in the kinds of investments in America that will make us more competitive and more safe.

TIM RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, if the Iraqis said, “I’m sorry, we’re not happy with this arrangement; if you’re not going to stay in total and defend us, get out completely”—they are a sovereign nation—you would listen?

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: Absolutely. And I believe that there is no military solution that the Americans, who have been valiant in doing everything that they were asked to do, can really achieve in the absence of full cooperation from the Iraqi government. And—



TIM RUSSERT: Let me ask—let me ask you this, Senator. I want to ask you—

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: And they need to take responsibility for themselves. And—

TIM RUSSERT: I want to ask both of you this question, then. If we—if this scenario plays out and the Americans get out in totality and al-Qaeda resurges and Iraq goes to hell, do you hold the right, in your mind as American president, to re-invade, to go back into Iraq to stabilize it?

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: You know, Tim, you ask a lot of hypotheticals. And I believe that what’s—

TIM RUSSERT: But this is reality.

SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: No—well, it isn’t reality. You’re—you’re making lots of different hypothetical assessments.

I believe that it is in America’s interests and in the interest of the Iraqis for us to have an orderly withdrawal. I’ve been saying for many months that the administration has to do more to plan, and I’ve been pushing them to actually do it. I’ve also said that I would begin to withdraw within sixty days based on a plan that I asked begun to be put together as soon as I became president.


AMY GOODMAN: Senators Clinton and Obama debating in Cleveland on Tuesday. By the way, we invited both foreign policy advisers both from the Obama and from the Clinton camp to talk about their positions on private contractors as well as on Iraq, and they both declined. Jeremy, their positions?

JEREMY SCAHILL: First of all, Russert’s question is sort of a false question. He shouldn’t have asked that—if Iraqi government says you should leave. What Russert should have said to them is, over 80 percent of Iraqis, conservatively, say they want the United States out now; will you respect the will of the Iraqi people? Of course, that question is not going to be asked by Tim Russert or Brian Williams on one of these debates. But the reality is, listening to Obama and Clinton, they’re giving the impression that what they’re going to do is immediately begin a total withdrawal of US forces.

Now, I’ve looked very carefully at both of their Iraq plans, and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have lifted much of their Iraq plans from two sources. One is the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, and then the other is the 2007 Iraq supplemental, which was portrayed as the Democrats’ withdrawal plan. And both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have a three-pronged approach to what they see as a longer-term presence in Iraq. They say that US personnel are going to remain in the country to protect diplomats and other US officials in the country. And we’ve already talked a bit about that with Obama. Hillary Clinton appears to be taking the same approach on that. Number two is that they want to keep trainers in place that will train the Iraqi military. At present, there’s 10,000 to 20,000 US trainers, all of whom will require security, so that’s a substantial force. And then the third is that they’re saying that they want to keep a force in place to, quote, “strike at al-Qaeda,” in the words of Barack Obama’s Iraq plan.

When the Institute for Policy Studies did an analysis of what this would mean, they said it’s 20,000 to 60,000 troops, not including contractors. And right now we have a one-to-one ratio with contractors and troops in the country. 20,000 to 60,000 troops indefinitely in Iraq, this is something that over the course of ten years the Congressional Budget Office says could cost half-a-trillion dollars. This doesn’t include the fact that you have to have troops bringing supplies in and out of Iraq. It doesn’t include the troops that Obama and Clinton are going to keep in Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and elsewhere. I mean, this is actually a pretty sustained indefinite occupation that’s going to be on the table if either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama are in office and take power.

And I mean, you know, the reality is that now would be the time for people to raise these issues, and yet no one is talking about this. It’s “Oh, yeah, Barack Obama is going to withdraw troops from Iraq.” Well, not exactly. He’s actually looking at keeping a pretty sizeable deployment. The other thing about them is they’re both calling for an increase in the number of troops in the permanent US military. In the case of Obama—and Juan, you’ve brought this up recently on the show—in the case of Obama, he says 90,000 new troops. Well, that’s going to be a $15 billion increase in military funding just for those troops to be in the United States, not including their deployment.

The other thing is that Obama is saying he wants to increase the US occupation of Afghanistan by 7,000 troops. What’s interesting is that we see Hillary Clinton, in her Iraq rhetoric, trying to move to the left; Obama, I think, now feeling that he’s going to be facing John McCain, is moving to the right. I mean, his rhetoric talking about striking at al-Qaeda in Iraq, yes, he pointed out the irony of McCain criticizing him for that because there was no al-Qaeda in Iraq before Bush invaded, but Obama is sort of adopting their language now. And in his plan, the idea of striking at al-Qaeda in Iraq, I mean, who is al-Qaeda in Iraq? I mean, what—the Iraqi resistance is largely Iraqis who are attacking US troops. And so, Obama is—he’s sort of positioning himself for this debate to make himself seem tough against John McCain.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I wanted to ask you specifically about this whole question of the increase in troops, because when I asked Samantha Power, as his foreign policy adviser, about this issue, she talked about the US military being stretched and the need for even in peacekeeping to have what she called “boots on the ground” and that weren’t sufficient. But the reality is obviously that there are many American troops in other parts of the world, like South Korea, like Japan, like, to some degree, Europe, that are not being—not—doing nothing else except occupying those countries, and they could be redeployed if the Army needed more troops.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. I mean, what that indicates, I think, is that Obama is going to have an interventionist, expansionist foreign policy. I mean, that certainly was the policy of the Clinton administration. I mean, in fairness, though, Barack Obama, more than Hillary Clinton and certainly more than John McCain, who’s talking about having troops in Iraq for a hundred years, Obama is talking about trying to increase the UN presence in Iraq. He’s trying to bring in regional countries. I mean, he has a pretty serious diplomatic plan for Iraq. The problem is that it doesn’t cancel out his military plan.

On the case of the increase in troops, what Obama’s people told me is that we need these 90,000 troops desperately, because our troops need a rest. Some of them are serving three, four tours over in Iraq, and so we need to get them in there. But the reality is, you don’t get 90,000 troops and then be able to deploy them overnight. So, clearly, they’re thinking about this for years and years to come. I think the reality is that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton are actually going to be in the business of permanently ending the US occupation of Iraq. That’s a deadly serious issue, and it needs to be front and center on this campaign.

AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, thanks very much for joining us. Jeremy has written the book Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. It’s just been announced that he’s won a George Polk Award—his second—for this book. Congratulations. You’ll be on Bill Maher this week?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Next Friday.

AMY GOODMAN: Next Friday, talking about these issues

The Hive, Greensboro NC.

The Hive Glennwood Neighborhood, Greensboro NC. A community place for Collective organizing!

The HIVE: www.gsohive.org/

BACK TO BASICS!

FLEX YOUR RIGHTS VIDEO (its funny but loaded with info!)


KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!
1. The right to remain SILENT! the 5th Amend. to the US Constitution give every person the right to not answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent. only a judge can order you to answer a question, and still plead the 5th amend.

2. The right to be free from "Unreasonable Searches and Seizures." The 4th Amend is supposed to protect your privacy. Without a warrant, police or government agents may not search your home or office without your consent, and you have the right to refuse to let them in. They can enter and search without a warrant in an "emergency". New laws(like the PATRIOT ACT) have expanded the government's authority to conduct surveillance. It is possible that your email, phone, cell, and conversations in your home office, car, or meeting place are being recorded without your knowledge.

3. The right to advocate for change. The 1st amend to the US constitution protects the rights of groups and individuals who advocate changes in laws, government practices, and even the form of government. However, the INS can target non-citizens for deportation, for 1st Amend activities.

4. What if police stop me on the street? ASK IF YOU ARE FREE TO GO! If they say "yes" WALK AWAY! IF they say "no" you are being "detained." They do have the right to frisk you. DO NOT CONSENT TO ANY FURTHER SEARCH!

5. What if they do have a warrant? DEMAND TO SEE IT. The warrant must detail the places to be searched and people or things to be seized. If they take something, make sure its listed on the warrant. TAKE NOTES!

6. If I am under 18, what rights do I have? YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT! You do not have to talk to police, probation officers, or school officials. You have the RIGHT TO BE POLITICALLY ACTIVE at your school, as long as you do not disrupt class. Your locker and backpack can be searched without a warrant, if they suspect you are involved in criminal activity or have a weapon. DO NOT CONSENT! But if you physically resist, you can be charged with a crime.

7. What if I am treated badly? You have the right to demand the name of the officer. Remember his name and badge number. Write everything down as soon as you can. Take photos of injuries, and try to find witnesses.

compiled from www.nlg.org

COPWATCH 101:

1. MAKE YOUR PRESENCE KNOWN. Stand a reasonable distance from the incident, but close enough to see clearly. Remain calm and watch everything. If an officer approaches, simply say you are there to be a witness. They cannot make you leave unless they determine you are "interfering."

2. TAKE NOTES. write down, take pictures or video if possible. Some people may not want to be photographed and you should respect that but a police officer cannot refuse to be photographed! DO YOUR BEST TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING.

3. Follow through. exchange info with the victim if possible-at least their name. Follow up with them-you may have to track them down or go to the magistrate's office. Let them know that you are a witness and are willing to testify against the officer. GO PUBLIC! with the consent from the victim. publicize any photos or information you have about the officer and the incident.

SUPPORT:
OCT 22 Coalition, http://october22.org/index.html

Americans, Canada's Mexicans.

Great social theorists(Dave Chapelle, Negri, and Michael Moore) of our current times are calling on people to migrate, mobilize, and delete the borders, we will create a global community and reap the fucking benefits. We have found a whole through the wall and it is only a little bit more north than the first whole in the wall between the US and Mexico, its the great Canadian border to the north! Lets hop on this new underground railroad and make it high times for us all eh! When Dave Chapelle ran for president years ago he had a solution to what HMO's and the US government call health care, fake Canadian ID's. Michael Moore's solution take yourself down to sunny Cuba and get a check up and pay, literally, cents for prescription drugs that cost 100's in the US and free doctor visits.

1. Get one of these: whatever they charge has to be less than your insurance!

The Police to Protect and Serve(..or punch you in the face)?!

New Orleans is mighty strange these days..."he footage filmed by an AP cameraman showed Mr Davis being repeatedly punched and kicked by a group of police officers.
The police said the man was being arrested by two officers for public drunkenness, and then a number of others joined in.
He appeared to show little aggression towards the police, who pulled him to the ground, punched and kicked him in the face.
He was handcuffed and the film clearly shows a pool of blood on the pavement as a result of his injuries."

Watch closely and answer these questions. So at what point should a person who is being arrested stop having his/her hands behind their back, is it when the police start punching you in the head send your head cracking into the wall or when they slam you to the ground? When did it become standard procedure for the police to physically harass the press? It was probably the stress factor.





If you want to see impressive resistiing arrest


Articles:

US Police Dismissed over Beating

Infoshop

What is "anarcho" about "Anarcho-Primitivism"?

"Primitivism is a pipe dream - it offers no way forwards in the struggle for a free society. Often its adherents end up undermining that struggle by attacking the very things, like mass organisation, that are a requirement to win it. Those primitivists who are serious about changing the world need to re-examine what they are fighting for."

For a long time now I have been thinking about the actual meaning behind the "anarcho" in "Anarcho-primitivism". Also, I have asked myself why have I given an ideology that i do not subscribe to so much thought? It all comes down to the conclusion that primitivism and primitivists have nothing to do with anarchism, ideologically speaking.

It would seem that the movement/idea/current mainly housed within the US is an interesting intellectual question that wastes a lot of time trying to pass itself off as an anti-mass movement social movement, which recruits within the autonomous/anti-parliamentary left while claiming to not be left but still is left, somehow, and hopes to do all these things with out us or them realizing the contradictions looming overhead. As libcom's article will adress, I was sold on anti-civ ideology until I could not explain to myself what to do with some 5 billion human-beings and what that question and answer have to do with anarchism or the social liberation from work, can you?

With that being said, I would like to state being against primitivism does not make you an enemy of "nature". Primitivists do not have a monopoly on eco-defense.

Libcom.org on Primitivism:

Anarcho-Primitivism?

G8 Summit or Lord of the Rings?

So it seems that the Great-8 have changed tactics and no longer want to show off their awesomeness in the glory of their metropolitian city's filled skyscrappers, shopping districts, and streetlights decorated to welcome the G8, NOPE those days are gone! A new era has blessed us, Today we met them in the fields to duke it out like the old days! From the streets of Genoa to the fields of Scotland and Germany, Resistance is global!





G8 pics

Indymedia1

G8 pics

Indymedia2

BEWARE of Your Perspective.

All jobs I have ever had I have been told by management to NOT discuss my hourly worth with fellow workers to "avoid problems". Bullshit, they dont want YOU to discuss what you are making in comparision to they girl next to you on the sandwich line. Because,"It can cause ill will and feelings of inequity among employees."


"I might be an engineer and my salary could be different from yours for a variety of reasons," says T. Ray Bennett, vice president of human resources at the 2,600-employee American Bureau of Shipping in Houston. "They could include time with the company, industry time, performance, specialties, additional training -- there are a lot of reasons why guys in the same job could have different salaries," its called division of labor, and divided workers cant fight the boss.

Read the disturbing article yourself.


Beware of Sharing Salary Details

Black Panthers in the Triad.



Yes Weekly!(Jordan Green)

The Strange History of the Black Panthers in the Triad


Newspaper clips on traid Panther activity!

The Black Panther, Black Community News Service


It's About Time, The Black Panther Party:

The Black Panther Party (most comprehensive and official website by the Panthers)


Libcom.org:

Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

Marxists.org:

Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

Wiki source:

Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

FBI DE-CLASSIFIED:

Winston Salem(NC) BLack Panthers DE-CLASSIFIED

But I too want to live in the future.

I have often asked myself this question over and over, yet I lack a good enough answer. What do I want? Better said, what would I like my community to look like? The obvious answer always seems to be a question or a statement on how I do not want society to look and operate. Also, with this very important question comes one more, how the hell do we get there? Capitalism seems to be able to adapt itself to any thing we throw at it and that is both good and bad, the never ending duality. Our lives are almost at the mercy of an economy run mad, almost. Our reforms and campaigns under the last few hundred years has always, sadly, allowed a smooth return to business as usual, with percentages here or there. Have we not gained anything genuine under our struggles, riots, activism, organizing, and strikes? Sure we have! Do I think we want more? Yes! In fact, I know we want more because the system is still breathing.

Capitalism is as fascinating as it is horrible. I am always amazed at how it can recuperate after all blows we have given it. No matter how much we level the economic playing field, get more money or benefits, profit and reinvestment still goes on. It continues because we allow it to continue, our labor and creativity is the life blood and brain of capitalism. So no matter how good our hours, conditions, or pay we still produce a great amount of surplus-value for capital. The cycle continues. This tells us that no matter what we want to do or how he would like to live our lives there will always be a price as long as capitalism remains. The price, our work that benefits someone else and spending the little amount of money we have in comparison to the wealth collected off our labor.



Anyway, I am drifting for my original thought, what do I want and how do I want to get there (how can we get there)? I would like to see communities standing up and organizing movements, campaigns, etc… that concentrates on the economic aspect of our lives and begins to redistribute the wealth horded by capitalism. I am not very interested in trying to coordinate some social experiment or alternative within the economy because that just takes to much time and becomes to ritualistic. Rather, I would like to see a community tackle the economic needs of human beings according to needs and equity, not equality or rations. Face it we all want different things on a material basis. I am not very interested in Cuban ration cards, though food being a right is an interesting thought (I still want more than rice and beans). In Lenin’s, What is to be Done, he argues against the trade union mentality of only dealing with economic questions (pay and the miniscule “% wage increase”) and the trade unions not being political enough. But I am beginning to see the economic aspect of our lives as the very core of our own captivity.



Mr. Marx what would you say? “…It ought to have been said that with the abolition of class distinctions all social and political inequality arising from them would disappear of itself” (Critique of the Gotha Program, Part II. Marx, K). Yes, well how important is the economic aspect of our lives in comparison to the political? What was true for the Paris Commune is true for society today, “its true secret was this. It was essentially a working-class government, the produce of the struggle of the producing against the expropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of labor. Except on this last condition, the Communal Constitution would have been an impossibility and a delusion. The political rule of the producer cannot coexist with the perpetuation of his social slavery. The Commune was therefore to serve as a lever for uprooting the economical foundations upon which rests the existence of classes, and therefore class-rule. With labor emancipated, every man becomes a working man, and productive labor ceases to be a class attribute” (The Civil War in France, Part III. Marx, K).

So then, “What is to be Done”? As I said before, I would like to see a great deal of agitation on the issue of our material existence and how we spend our time. Why stop at a campaign for an increase in the cities minimum wage? Is it not also possible to demand more than our 1968 standard of living? How about taking up the Wobblies old struggle for the 4hr. work day (20 hour work week), is it not time that we got more “free-time”? The liberal/conservative twin joined at the hip seems very worried about putting people to work, well put your money where your mouth is! You want higher employment or even 100% employment, decapitate the 8 hour/1 person monster of drudgery, and let’s replace it with 4 hour /2 people monster drudgery. But don’t you dare try to counter with lower wages.

A citizens, though not the absolute correct term, wage or global citizens guaranteed income could produce a security net and workers who are more eager to be productive and creative not only for the community but for themselves. More free time and money can only spark people’s interest in new and better things! The Situationist inside me tells me this is not radical enough, this is not good enough. But hell we have to start somewhere. Do we really want the responsibility, no burden, of taking care of it all? This is the withering away, the transition from the old to the new. No seizure of state power. Rather, the impending destruction of an out-of-date economic system. Our freedom will rise from the corpse of the working day; let’s do the everyday to make the revolutionary possible!

Radicalizing the Everyday

In response to a comment posted on the minimum wage article/debate regarding GRAF’s stance on wage-labor, it seems prudent to write an official statement. Our stance and debate with Doug Clark of the News & Record concerning a minimum wage hike to $9.36, the economics in a “globalized” economy and ways of organizing workers stands on its own. It is not always necessary to constantly remind ourselves or our readers that we are anarchist-communists who are for a social revolution to rid human interaction of capitalism, wage-labor, private property, etc.... We are quite tired of constantly reading texts that are packed with radical rhetoric (abolish, smash, revolution, etc…) which just gives us another great pamphlet how the “extreme-left” dresses the part of awesome radicals. I want more, we want more, a social movement against capitalism, real action! A system that is highly organized and kept in place largely by a state monopoly on violence and liberal/conservative (twins joined at the hip) moral hegemony which quickly marginalizes any opponents with the feeling that, “there is no need to argue…” is our everyday life.

With that said, I now realize that we should have been more forthcoming or radical in our suggestion on what we as workers should be thinking about and how we should organize in for the minimum wage campaign. Organizing within the community and allowing ourselves to realize we have power in numbers should be the main method of organizing this campaign. Sure the minimum wage hike is reformist but our everyday lives are riddled with compromises. We must make sure the way we organize ourselves and communities is not reformist but takes on a social character. It is not about taking power or giving away power to city councilmen because that is not the issue. Nor is it a matter of getting a 3 dollar raise on our labor. Rather, the most important component during this campaign and the future is how we organize.

The problem with our movement or the “anarchist movement” is that we are against so much and almost pride ourselves on always pointing out the negative rather than doing something worth while with our time, ourselves included. We are not about hijacking movements or events. We should base ourselves in our communities as part of that community and no longer live up to the stereotype of wanting to be so different, allowing ourselves and our politics to become incoherent and abstract. When a campaign, event, or idea that will end up benefiting our communities pops up lets contribute with our politics, organizing methods, social outlook, and creativity. We know how to organize ourselves in for “anti-globalization” protests in relation to the state and other groups, now its time to do the same in our communities. We know we have something to offer so lets do it! It is about building networks and communities that will have the ability to leap into a new era free of capitalism.

GRAF draws inspiration from the old bearded men, the old school IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), left-wing communists, Black Panther Party for Self-Defense,1960’s-70’s strands of communism/Marxism which lead to contemporary autonomist-Marxism, the Zapatistas, ourselves, the dramatization of the Spanish Civil War in “Land and Freedom”, etc…but through all this history, theory, and practice we realize that we cannot resurrect ghosts. Inspiration is just that, inspiration and now we must move forward if we wish to remain relevant. As the theorists and activists of the 70’s in Italy leafleted their way to insurrection, GRAF would like to see communities come together for just that.

Abolishing wage-labor, of course! Seeing the dismantling of the state and ridding ourselves of capitalism, of course! And we see an important step in doing just that by changing our everyday lives on the way to a classless society. Being realistic no longer means compromise. Rather, realizing that we can struggle in the everyday for the future is realistic and militant. A campaign for a minimum wage hike is not won by voting or petitioning but by making it no longer profitable to NOT hike up minimum wage. Organizing and networking our communities to come together is our only strength.

Min.Wage $9.39 or $5.15?

Is Greensboro coming together to make minimum wage $9.36!?


From the Greensboro Minimun Wage Campaign,"We are working to increase the Greensboro minimum wage to $9.36/hour. This amount equals the purchasing power of the minimum wage in 1968. In the richest country in the world people who work should not live in poverty. Santa Fe, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and Albuquerque have already raised their citywide minimum wage. Register. Sign the petition. Vote. Volunteer."

PART I. The News & Record tries to get political?!

Doug your argument against a wage increase is about as relevent as the good old southern democrats argument against "free-labor", silly. first and last, your argument stinks of free-market fetishism and you assume that change can only happen when it is granted and sacrificed from above.

Hell, working for 6 dollars per hour as restuarant dish washers, car washes, chain stores, or package centers all around greensboro hardly making ends meet without skimming off the top or having to stir things up abit in the triad to gain a decent wage??? we will take our chances with the ladder. Doug your opinion is offensive and written from a place of privilege that continues to justify "free-market" vulgarity. the cost, of our dignity and everyday life is at stake and your business minded opinion is not appreciated.

Maybe the problem with the south is lack of labor laws, labor unions, the low wage, the right to work laws, and all other laws and repression of southern workers that continues to put profit over workers rights and high wages. Maybe the continuing problem with North Carolina and Greensboro/triad area is regional goverments favoring businesses while pretending to be all charitable like saying, "look we have brought you jobs after the textiles took off." ah, what a favor...low wage jobs and part-time jobs in place of industrial jobs...having two generations racing for the same job...

No, your arguements and the entire stack of these "well reasoned" arguments against a wage increase are anti-worker and yet another attempt to justify low wages and bad working conditions.

Doug stated,

"Higher restaurant prices might not drive many families out of town for a cheaper meal, but some might eat at home more often. With less business, restaurants likely would lay off staff."

You are automatically assuming that workers will have to pay up for that difference...why not make someone else take that hit....say shareholders and store owners....

After all this is class warfare and your arguments have been used since the 1800's to continue paying workers less than they deserve. Just like back in the day, your form of media has been used to spread misinformation and reactionary ideas throught nations and cities to scare people of change for the better. It is the business world, owners, and goverments fault that we have low wages, dont put that blame on us! Why dont you do something usefull with your time and blog and side with humanity.

"Ain't ten cents[$9.36] worth as much to us as it is to Pulitzer and Hearst[Food Lion, Harris Teeter, etc...] who are millionaires? Well, I guess it is. If they can't spare it, how can we?"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Newsboys_Strike)

PART II: What is capitalism and how does it work?

I call that bluff. Restaurants would not raise prices because that would cut into profit on top of the raised wages for workers (hypothetically). higher costs equals less business. Rather if a Restaurant wants to remain competative and in operation it will keep the old prices and take the $4.21 x A as an added cost in production. So ya, no worries Greensboro will not become a ghost town.

If a business is already taking a dip in the profit margin from the $4.21 x A("A" being the number of employees) wage increase and you claim that this is such a huge increase in price that a business would have to raise prices to make a profit, then I do not think that $4.21 wage increase is that businesses main concern. If a business has come to such a stand still economically that it can not afford to pay its workers I think the "free-market" shark will eat that establishment for lunch. Plain and simple they can afford it, it is just that "they" dont want to pay it, its called greed.

The age old arguments against wage increases and reduced work hours come from one perspective, the business perspective. First off, higher wages = more consumerism. The money isnt disappearing its being relocated into the pockets of workers who will then spend that money...a nice little economic reform that helps everyone because at the end of the day someone gets paid $9.36 a hour and the company this person works at is still producing products to be consumed, thus the system continues.

Higher wages will make thousands of people in greensboro very happy!

PART III: Enough is Eough...

Doug states, "Look at the auto industry if you want a model of unionism in the 21st century economy: Union automakers are laying off workers up north; non-union (Asian) automakers are hiring for new plants in the South. They're still paying good wages and benefits, just not noncompetitive wages and benefits.

I'm just not following your magical formula for how businesses can absorb higher wages (other than they should be less "greedy"). I'm sure business owners struggling to keep prices down and make payroll in a competitive market don't think of themselves as greedy."

Doug once again your argument is laced with standard run of the mill "neoliberal" ideas based on romatic notions of generous businessmen running around like chickens with there heads cut off to stay afloat in a the "free-market" gone mad!

I am going to save the both of us a whole lot of writing and just say that we are on two different sides of the arugement. You are for low consumer prices at the cost of a decent living for workers and you claim, through neo-liberal romanticism, that this somehow benefits the workers. No matter how i read or look at your article it states that workers should not attempt to gain higher wages because that will end in corporate bankrupcy.

In essence your arguments and article are anti-worker and pro-business. Not only that, your arguments say more about your perspective than your heartfelt sympathy.

My "magical formula for how businesses can absorb higher wages (other than they should be less "greedy")," is quite simple. If you look all over the globe and throughout history we can see how this "magical formula" was put into practice. Historical materialism shows the history of capitalism as in phases of conflict between workers wanting more and owners of capital wanting more...

Making things simple, currently we are in a period of economic and government reorganization or restructuring on a global scale and both sides are scambling to get a bigger "piece of the pie".

As for unionism, I have a better example of functioning unionism, look at South Korea's labor movement. As for historical unions with something positive to offer the future we have the IWW (industrial workers of the world, wobblies). Neo-liberal anti-unionism is a reactionary and very anti-worker perspective that attempts to get workers to see themselves as their job. We must never forget that people work out of the necessity of survival nothing more. we are not our jobs, we are not wal-mart, gas stations, or computer stores, etc...in a service economy addicted to low-wage labor across the borders and seas it is a race to the bottom and in order to survive campaigns such as these in coordination with campaigns and activism across the globe must happen to improve our lives. we are thinking globally and acting locally.

As for blaming auto-workers and auto-unions for factories closing down and moving out of state is just ridiculous. I understand the point about lower wages and people "willing" to work for less in mexico or asia but I dont buy it. Nor does this argument justify workers to do nothing. To do nothing is an impossibility anyways.

Business owners do not think of themselves as greedy just was kings did not think of themselves as despots. Either way we can never ignore what despotic rule or "competitive business owners" regardless of their justification force the rest of us to scrape by.

My arugment or "magical formula" still stands and i have history on my side. If you are still skeptical you can just ask these questions.

1.In all of human history, especially post-industrial revolution, workers have struggled to improve their lot(8 hour day from 12 hour day, payed holiday, benefits, less work same pay, more workers on the lot same pay, etc...) by various means of action(some peaceful, some not) and through all these changes and raising the cost of labor have businesses still not obtained their profits?

2.Also, during these events in history when workers won union contracts, better working conditions, or higher pay has there not always been present arguments of economic collapse or higher unemployment due to the coming changes to scare people of change?

TO BE CONTINUED???

Fight For Köpenhamn

So much can be said about the historical, current, pratical, and cultural importance regarding The Ungdomshuset (Youth House) in Copenhagen, Denmark for Norreboro, the youth, the left, and city culture but it all seems to be slipping away as if it is something from the past already in memory lane. After taking part in an 8,000 person strong demostration filled with all types of people young and old in defense of Ungdomshuset I can only say that I am sad for never giving myself the time to actually enjoy enough of what Copenhagen had to offer and sad because we are losing a place that allowed "us" to communicate and entertain in the open. The state is attempting to both marginalize, criminalize, and neutralize the Dannish autonomous-left by first demolizing the Blue House Squat, now evicting Ungdomshuset and selling the property off to some right-wing evangilical christians, and making it harder for people to openly and inclusively organize and congregrate. The state sees the autonomous-left as a threat and are hoping by destroying "our" places and kicking us to the curb we will fall apart and disappear. But if the last few days are anything to indicate what the Dannish state has brought upon itself, the UNGDOMSHUSET LIVES ON!

Ungdomshuset








Ungdomshuset FOR SALE: house including 500 stonethrowing autonomists from hell!



8,000 supporting Ungdomshuset. March 3rd. Copenhagen.

DING DONG THE BUSH IS DEAD

The Death of the President.

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

-George Orwell.

George Orwell once wrote…that, "It's not a matter of whether the war is not real or if it is. Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is only possible…on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past...and no different past can ever have existed. In principle, the war effort is always planned...to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects. And its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia...... but to keep the very structure of society intact. "

-George Orwell, Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11).

Gabriel Range's film, Death of a President which won the International Critics Prize at the Toronto 2006 Film Festival is a pseudo-documentary about the assassination of the 43rd President of the United States of America, George Walker Bush (Dubya). The White House did not even comment on the movie and oppositional party member Senator Hillary Clinton thought that Range’s film was, “despicable” and “absolutely outrageous” but Marx-Trek must say the film was compelling, ultra-realistic...to realistic…, and a very cleaver critique of the American psyche, paranoia, ultra-nationalism, despotism, and the complete disconnect between the state and America’s citizenry.

It was something of comedy to see such an accurate glimpse into a possible future out come. The film was set in 2008 where President Dubya is successfully assassinated and the following fake interviews from a jolly god-filled presidential speech writer who just seemed be one step away from seeing beyond our realm who reminds me of the ever so clueless mother in the Adam Sandler movie, Water Boy, a self-righteous lying scumbag police chief who refers to peaceful demonstrations with the crack of his baton, and finally a entire population held hostage and ignored by the state. A spectacle so gripping it cannot be ignored, no matter how fake it is.

The sad reality of this pseudo-documentary is that the US government did not have to wait until the assassination of a president to implement measures that track, spy, and kidnap human-beings. Nor did the US government have to wait for some terror attack such as 9/11 to occur before introducing Big Brother. No, the US government did not have to wait for such dramatic events because legally or “illegally” most of these outrageous practices are already in place. During the feature all I could think about is how such spectacles can either be down played or turned up in high gear so that Empire can achieve its objective. The film played on the all too familiar gut wrenching reality or possible reality, it does not really matter how fake or real, where I was left with a satisfied thought. President Bush does not need to be assassinated to achieve some political goal nor does he need to be killed so that people around him understand that he truly is a war-monger and demon for capitalism not a drunkard born-again saint. This film pretty much lets Bush and Co. know that there is an immense amount of hatred for them all and that plenty of people around world will actually get satisfaction from watching President Bush go down from a semi-automatic carbine sniper rifle from 300 yards away. For satisfied customers the bonus is that they can watch his assassination over, over, and over again.

Knowing that Death of a President is a fake documentary and that the people in the film are in no way connected or based on reality I still feel that the film itself could pass-off as reality. Point being, reality passes us all by with little or no thought and the horrors of reality themselves go unnoticed. Actually, it is not that the far off third world tragedies go unnoticed it is more accurate to say that our own horrors and alienation from our everyday lives keep us all in a constant state of disconnect. So the film itself is as much a real documentary as it is fake. In the early 1900’s it was anarchists, from the 50’s to the 70’s it was communists, the 80’s drugs, and the 2000’s terrorists of all sorts lurking around every corner ready to take your freedom. No matter what decade the threat remains, a faceless problem, a ghost, a spectre! Its not that the US is at war with terrorism or Iraq, they are at war with us all.

Churchill, Why Are You So Skeptical?

Churchill, Why Are You So Skeptical?

“It is clear that, up to now, the forces of production have never been developed to the point where enough could be developed for all, and that private property has become a fetter and a barrier in relation to the further development of the forces of production.”

~Karl Marx, “The Principals of Communism.

“At first glance good reason to rejoice; but no sooner does the slightest suspicion enter one’s mind that it becomes obvious that all these forces have simply redeployed, and are now waging the same war under different colors. Green, lest not forget, is also the color of the dollar bill. The new and improved consumerism may be democratic, it maybe ironic, but always presents its bill, and the bill must always be paid. A life governed by a sanctioned greed is by no means freed thereby from the old tyranny of having to forfeit one’s life simply to pay for it…”

~Raul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life.

I must say that I like Ward Churchill but this article is the most randomly pieced together interpretation of Marxism I have ever read. I believe there is a great many different kinds of Marx within Marx’s own writings and it is completely unfair and out of context to pretty much just mix it all together to make a good point in a very bad way. We can see Marx the historian of ideas, Marx the historian of the evolution of political-economy, Marx the communist, Marx the critic of capitalism, Marx the interpreter and translator of capitalism where we gain so much knowledge concerning capitals relation to both the Earth and Humanity (all humans even non-European hold outs, the few that are left). Churchill’s article did contain some positive critiques concerning Marx’s non-PC/insensitive/Eurocentric language but Churchill’s theoretical understanding of Marx and Marxism, Communism (anarchist-communism, libertarian-Marxism, etc..), a classless society (not Stalinism, Marxist-Leninism, China, Cuba, Soviet Union, etc…) seems to be confused or even slanted to fit his own agenda, which is fine. I totally respect and admire what AIM fights for! I just feel that Churchill is trying to debate an issue that is a non-issue.

Churchill states, “Marx was very straightforward in acknowledging that the sold cultural model upon which he was basing theses on history and value was his own, that is to say European (or, more accurately, northwestern European) context. He even committed a paper several provisos stipulating that it would be inappropriate and misleading to attempt to apply the principles deriving form his examination or the dominate matrix in Europe to other, non-Europe3an contexts, each of which he (correctly) pointed out would have to be understood in its own terms before it could be properly understood vis a vis Europe. With this said, however, Marx promptly violated his own posited methodology in this regard, offering a number of non-European examples - of which he admittedly know little or nothing - as illustration of various points he wished to make in his elaboration on the historical development of Europe. Chinese society, to name a prominent example of this, was cast (really miscast) as "Oriental feudalism," thus supposedly shedding a certain light on this stage of European history. "Red Indians," about whom Marx knew even less about than he did of the Chinese, became examples of "primitive society," illustrating what he wanted to say about Europe's Stone Age…Insofar as all cultures were made to conform with the material correspondences of one or another moment in European history, and given that only Europe exhibited a "capitalist mode of production" and social organization - which Marx held to be the "highest form of social advancement" as of the point he was writing - it follows that all non-European cultures could be seen as objectively lagging behind Europe.”

And,

“In plainest terms, Marxism holds as "an immutable law of history" that all non-European culture must be subsumed in what is now called "Europeanization." It is their inevitable destiny, a mater to be accomplished in the mane of progress and "for their own good." Again, we may detect echoes of the Jesuits within the "anti-spiritualist" Marxian construct.”

Concerning Marx’s choice of word I must say, yes his interpretation of the world is Eurocentric and I could see why people would be turned off or even offended reading words that refer to one’s own cultural and economic system as “primitive” in relation to Europe. Then again it is within the context of a historical analysis that sees capitalism as a more advanced economic system then feudalism, hunter-gatherer, and all the pre-capitalist economic systems and I agree. His meaning of “advanced” does not automatically mean superior. Rather, a more “advanced” economic system means, in comparison to other forms of production, that under capitalism workers have a better material existence than under feudalism, etc… With the development of capitalism came the people’s liberation from peasantry, serfdom, and extreme poverty but that liberation is not synonymous with utopia, peace, or Marxism. As capitalism was organized and workers began filling places of labor capitalism created its own time bomb, the negation of capitalism is the working class. Marx understands history and human existence as contradictions that are both exploited and destroyed which he refers to as dialectic materialism. A communist’s, a Marxist’s, and an anarchist’s main political goal is to understand and exploit these contradictions within capitalism and other economic conditions to better their condition. As in the autonomous zones of Chiapas where the Zapatistas try to remain outside of capitalism but find themselves in constant war with capitalism to defend the scraps they have.

Churchill’s main argument or most reasonable argument seems to be more about linguistics or semantics concerning revolutionary theory. I agree, there can be some tasteless language from the old 1800’s bearded men on both the anarchist and communist/Marxist camp. If you want to see some real “Eurocentrism” in action read some Proudon or Stirner. But the beauty of political theory is its evolution through time and the ability to go back to older texts and create a new political tradition that is relevant today. It is ridiculous to jumble together Lenin and Marx and then assume that it’s the same thing, as did Mr. Churchill, because that is a very linear way of looking at Marxism, anarchism, communism, etc… There exists many different political traditions that have their roots in Marx’s writings and to critique Marx through the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and all the horrible dictators throughout the world who once called themselves communists is not a critique of Marx. It is a cheap shot, a punch below the belt.

Most importantly, anarchist-communism is not something in the far off distant future to be attained. Rather anarchist-communism is a current through history that has been around as long as one class of humans exploited the labor of another class and this anarchist-communist current is what forces human societies to reorganize itself and restructure its production process (primitive-communism millions of years old and 21^st century leftism). An anarchist-communist’s mission is to use this social, political, and economic current in a revolutionary period and hopefully partake in an insurrection, but what happens usually is barbarism, capitalism regains control, fascism, etc… But to be more specific this current is more powerful or more relevant now than say in France during the French Revolution, the capitalist revolution against feudalism. So in response to Churchill’s point that Leftist are in some way religious because they believe in a better future is not accurate, communism is a social current.

As stated by Riff-Raff, “Communism is not an ideal that will be created. It is already in existence, not as a society but a current, a task to prepare one self for. Communism is a movement which is attempting to abolish the human-condition that is determined by wage-labor, communism will abolish it through revolution. The discussion of communism is not an academic one, it is not a debate about what is going to happen tomorrow, communism is an integrated aspect of an entire series of immediate and distant tasks, where discussion is only an aspect in reaching theoretical understanding. On the other hand, such a task could easily and more effectively be carried out if we could answer the question: where are we going?”

Churchill is right in saying that Marxism has Eurocentric qualities and that it flows from a history rooted in Western Judeo-Christian culture but no more than the !Kung are “!Kungucentric” and have their beliefs grounded in a !Kung culture. Are political theories worse or bad for the Earth and all of humanity simply because they come from Europe or is this another one of Churchill’s punches below the midsection? Just because Judeo-Christian culture and all that comes from it seems to be destructive we must recognize that left-wing radicalism grew naturally out of this material condition as a vicious and very real opposition. When left-wing politics refers to all of humanity it is simply responding to the simple yet horrifying material reality that capitalism has pretty much integrated the entire biosphere and all its inhabitants into its cogs and therefore all of humanity must struggle against capitalism, regardless if you are an “indigenist,” peasant, campesino, or “working-class” (all are working-class). Capitalism is not at your door step, the phone call is coming from inside the house! Look at all the benefits that Marxism, anti-capitalism, Lenin, anarchism, etc…has done for the EZLN. I think the anarcho-primitivists, libertarian-Marxists, anarchists, or “techno-anarchists”/anti-anti-civilizationists can find some common ground and solidarity within the Zapatista resistance. The autonomous zones of Chiapas are a great example of a social current but I am sure that the Zapatistas and campesinos say, we still have a long way to go.

If the indigenous populations around the world are not going to ally themselves with the left who have traditionally been very active in their right to “self determination” or freedom to remain “outside” capitalism’s cogs, then who are they going to ally themselves with? The way I see it, an anarchist-communist revolution that puts the power back into the hands of the working class is the indigenous population’s only hope. How long can a few thousand people spread across the world with different ways of living, different ways of sustaining themselves, and different traditions going to act out independently, unified, and win against a system that has engulfed the entire world and its population without allying itself with the left? The numbers do not add up. Churchill is right in saying that a Marxist’s interest and an “Indigenist’s” interest are not the same but that does not mean that they have nothing in common, quite the opposite. Left-wing radical politics does not want to integrate the indigenous lands into capitalism, capitalism wants that. Left-wing radicalism is not interested in the subsumption of indigenous lands or peoples into their “communist utopia”. To be blunt, they can do all the peasant farming or hunting and gathering they want more consumption for me and my fellow techno folk.

Value, what is value? Churchill seems to have a romantic, idealistic, and maybe even a mystic view of nature and places value on some kind of spiritual essence within nature as opposed to the supposed nature hating materialist’s view of nature. Then again Churchill’s critique of the left-wing materialists might be ignoring other forms of value besides raw material, maybe immaterial or abstract value?

Churchill states, “A mountain is worth nothing as a mountain; it only accrues value by being "developed" into its raw productive materials such as ores, or even gravel. It can hold a certain speculative value, and thus be bough and sold, but only wish such developmental ends in view. Similarly, a forest holds value only in the sense that it can be converted into a product known as lumber; otherwise, it is mere an obstacle to valuable, productive use of land through agriculture or stock-raising, etc. (an interesting commentary on the Marxian view of the land itself). Again, other species hold value only in terms their utility to productive processes (e.g.: meat, fur, leather, various body oils, eggs, milk, transportation in some instances, even fertilizer); otherwise they may, indeed must be preempted and supplanted by the more productive use of the habitat by humans.”

Though immaterial value might not be the exact right term, maybe immaterial surplus-value in the context of capitalism, it will have to do until I find a better suiting term to explain sightseeing, an emotional interaction with nature, or the need or feeling to preserve woodland, water systems, oceans, ancient cultures attached to the land, bio diversity etc… Just because left-wing politics and theory might not be centered on the welfare of nature does not mean that non primitivist radicals are not worried about the environmental state of our planet. Hell, in order for humanity to survive we must create sustainable societies even capitalism and capitalists are starting to understand that they cannot extract surplus-value and profit from both raw material and the working-class if either are around. If the Earth is to polluted to extract usable capital, harass ancient cultures that stand in the way of trade routes, exploit humanities emotional attachment to nature, and the working-class is to sick and poor to produce surplus-value and profit for capital then the entire free-trade system will collapse. Industrial collapse is something that seems to be glorified within the green-anarchist movements and if I may punch below the belt, is this not some future event when all becomes well again and humanity is finally reintegrated back into nature, harmony? So it seems that Eurocentric Judeo-Christian culture has even infiltrated the green-anarchist/primitivist movements. What will happen to the green-anarchist/primitivists when capitalism goes green to sustain itself?

Because,“…At first glance good reason to rejoice; but no sooner does the slightest suspicion enter one’s mind that it becomes obvious that all these forces have simply redeployed, and are now waging the same war under different colors. Green, lest not forget, is also the color of the dollar bill. The new and improved consumerism may be democratic, it maybe ironic, but always presents its bill, and the bill must always be paid. A life governed by a sanctioned greed is by no means freed thereby from the old tyranny of having to forfeit one’s life simply to pay for it…” (Raul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life, preface to the 1^st French paperback edition.)

Well back to the issue of value, value can be put on anything that can create surplus value within capitalism regardless if that products end result is material or immaterial. Churchill is wrong when he states,

“A mountain is worth nothing as a mountain; it only accrues value by being "developed" into its raw productive materials such as ores, or even gravel. It can hold a certain speculative value, and thus be bough and sold, but only wish such developmental ends in view. Similarly, a forest holds value only in the sense that it can be converted into a product known as lumber; otherwise, it is mere an obstacle to valuable, productive use of land through agriculture or stock-raising, etc. (an interesting commentary on the Marxian view of the land itself). Again, other species hold value only in terms their utility to productive processes (e.g.: meat, fur, leather, various body oils, eggs, milk, transportation in some instances, even fertilizer); otherwise they may, indeed must be preempted and supplanted by the more productive use of the habitat by humans.”

Though he is correct in stating that a mountain, a forest, an animal, and a human’s labor power can be reproduced as something valuable to capital, Churchill ignores the fact that a mountain, a forest, an animal, and a human can also embody an immaterial and abstract surplus-value/exchange-value and a use-value. The left glorifies the use-value, death to exchange-value. Also what Churchill seems to confuse is how a leftist views value and how capitalism views value. But Churchill is absolutely correct when he observes this interesting Marxian view on value itself but his observation is not all that interesting or profound. Just as a capitalist sees value in extracting ore, skinning animals for fur, or logging forests for consumption an anarchist-communist sees value in socially extracting raw material from nature for social use a “Native America” sees value in cutting down trees to make canoes, killing animals for meat and fur , and using nature to ease her life. All three have something in common yet vast differences.

Native Americans and other indigenous cultures around the world are little in size, their existence is ecologically sustainable, and they see the same kind of “western” value in nature, something to be used, as western capitalist and Marxists. Capitalists are in control of a society that is not ecologically sustainable but do not ever underestimate a capitalists drive to continue extracting surplus-value, if he has to create an ecologically sustainable free-market economy and reduce pollution levels to sustainable levels to insure his profit he will definitely do it. This is where a “Marxist-environmentalist” theory comes into play. Marxism does not view this on going transformation within capitalism to a more environmentally friendly capitalism as something that capital does out of its own good will. Rather, the working-class, indigenous peoples, and the natural fact that nature is collapsing are all active subjects forcing capitalism to restructure itself because we refuse to live this way! The only pisser is this, the social current for revolution seems to be too weak at this moment to abolish capitalism and of therefore our struggle and energy for change will be integrated into the cogs of capitalism. But the dialectic remains! So, the continued world grasp continues but at least it will soon be an environmentally sustainable capitalist grasp that we must struggle against to continue our fight to develop environmentally decentralized communist societies or we underestimate capitalist ignorance and arrogance and we do face industrial collapse and then I am afraid that barbarism and decentralized clan type fascism will come to the defense of the ruins of capitalism. At least in this Mad Max or Kevin Costner’s, “The Postman” future society power will be decentralized and the left can federate itself to create more autonomous zones but I would long for the day that we could fully feed, cloth, and entertain humanity. Either way, Marxism and anarchist-communism remains.

Notes:

-Churchill, W. http://www.cwis.org/fwj/22/falsep.htm

-Marx, K. The Principals of Communism.

-Vaneigem,R. The Revolution of Everyday Life.